Chapter Text
Today was a pretty quite day for JAKDF, considering that the past few weeks were back to back Honjus that were around 7.2 in magnitude which were more powerful than the average. Narumi Gen, the Captain of the First Division—spends this quiet day as any other quiet day he gets, playing video games. It's no secret that Narumi plays way more video games than the average person inside JAKDF, his Vice-Captain Hasegawa often scolds him about prioritizing it during meetings or any similar events like that. The average person, if not aware of his occupation, would automatically assume he’s a shut-in NEET. Maybe that was an overstatement, NEETs are fucked up.
Narumi plays a good variaty of video games. Although primarily FPS shooting games, he also plays RPGs, indie horror games, and rhythm games. Today, he chose to play rhythm games—opening osu! on his PC and setting up his tablet and wooting keyboard. Narumi’s been playing for around two years now, going on and off because of work and the 99+ other games he play. He’d consider himself a pretty good player, specializing in aim control maps due to his experience as an FPS player. He’s still practicing his tapping though, since he isn't really that great at determining tempos until he started playing. From all of that, he managed to become a three-digit player (around 900) on the international leaderboards. His current peak ranking is 914.
Narumi was warming up when suddenly he suddenly hears a singular knock on his door, loosing his combo. Visibly pissed, he stomped towards the door, opens it, then opens his mouth to shit on Hasegawa but suddenly cuts himself off when he opens his eyes to see Hoshina Soushirou, the Third Division’s Vice Captain grinning at him like a cat.
“Yo, Captain! Did I disturb ya? Hopefully I did.”
“What in the absolute ever loving FUCK are you doing infront of MY ROOM, in the FIRST DIVISION OFFICE, at 8AM in the GODDAMN MORNING?!”
“Whoa, didja wake up in the wrong side of the bed?”
No, in fact he actually got eight complete hours of sleep—sleeping at 8PM and waking up at 5AM because he was tasked to “sleep in normal hours” in Hasegawa’s words. Who sleeps at 8PM? The curfew was 9PM! Narumi thought. Though he was gonna get cut off from WiFi if he doesn't oblige so he's been sleeping normal hours for around a month now.
Narumi was planning to say all that to Hoshina, but snapping at him wasn't worth his energy. He's probably gonna hate grind later but now was not the time, because far more concerning matters is infront of him right now. So, he breathes. Inhale, exhale, and speaks.
“Goddamnit, ‘fuku-taichou’.” he says mockingly, then walks back inside his room.
“What can I do you for? I’m a busy man, y’know.”
Hoshina then follows him inside and closes the door. The 1st and 3rd division may be known as chaos doomed to ensue, but at this point why should Narumi care? He goes back to sitting on his gaming chair to restart the map.
“Busy? Ha! Ya literally skipped yer division’s weekly morning meetin’. I assume Hasegawa did yer reports for ya?" Now leaning on the side of Narumi’s gaming chair, Hoshina looks at the game on screen.
“Oh wait, you play osu? Wait, what the fuck you're a three digit???”
“Yes I play osu—wait.”
Narumi, out of bewilderment, turned his head around to face Hoshina like he’d seen a ghost and they stared at each other for a solid minute. Hoshina was the one who broke the silence, and speaks.
“Uh, I’ve tried mania on my laptop but I never bothered with standard because I don't have a mouse. Also, unlike you I’m pretty busy with training the new officers.”
“What the fuck do you mean you don't have a mouse?”
“I broke it? Never bothered t’ buy a new one. Plus, when I did borrow Ashiro’s mouse—I was immediately skill-capped when I started playing three star maps. I’m pretty decent at mania though.”
“No not that, like who the hell functions with a touchpad? Are you a boomer? What the fuck???”
“Can we not? Using a touchpad ain't a fucking crime ya know. It’s like, imagine walking on a sidewalk then ya get arrested for walking on a sidewalk.”
“God, you're probably a psychopath—or is it generational trauma? Honestly, probably both.”
“The hell does my generational trauma have t’do with the goddamn touchpad?!”
Hoshina sighs and proceeds to sit on the floor. Why is he so worked up over a touchpad? Hoshina thought. Well you see, Narumi has been quite traumatized due to his own experience of using the touchpad. During the time headquarters didn't have the current level of advanced technology yet, they have these go-to laptops that were adjusted and customized by leaders of each division in order to communicate and determine how strong the kaijus were so they can activate their battlesuits to the appropriate amount of power in order to save energy, and these pieces of pure shit didn't have a mouse. When Narumi joined JAKDF, these were already phased out—but were often used as mock punishment for officers that were ranked lower or misbehaved. You can imagine the rest of the story.
Narumi felt a shiver down his spine remembering this gruesome memory.
“Back to the main topic, do you still play osu?”
“Nah, mania on occasions where I remember but not as often as a normal player would. I’m pretty active in the community though, since tournaments are pretty fun to watch.”
“Oh.”
There were a few moment of silence once again, sinking in the awkwardness that comes with this situation. Neither of them really expected to have something in common outside JAKDF duties, and despite their line of work being unpredictable—they couldn't adapt with this as well as they usually should.
Then, their conversation was cut short by Hoshina’s phone ringing.
“Oh shit, got to go. Ashiro just finished presenting her report. See ya when I see ya, taichou!” Hoshina said, walking out the door.
“For fucks sake, atleast close the door on your way out.” Narumi said to himself and sighs. He goes back to grinding Jashin.
—
It was night time. Hoshina usually chats Narumi out of pure spite, to annoy him really. Though they do send eachother reels just for fun. Both actually make the effort to react to every single reel sent to them, for some reason. Tonight, Narumi was the one to break the silence on their chats.
shounshi_
nyarumin : dude
nyarumin : : which streamers do u watch
shounshi_ : zylice, ed, mrekk, forum, tuna, tekkito, enri, utami and decaten
shounshi_ : the ones i watch the most are zylice and decaten, ed when he streams once every blue moon
nyarumin : wait wtf
nyarumin : UTAMI’S BACK???
nyarumin : MY GOATT
shounshi_ : ya, for a few months now actually. he just recently came back. surprised ya didn't know considering how chronically online you are
nyarumin : can’t doomscroll anymore, they put a curfew on me.
shounshi_ : LOL
shounshi_ : surprised you're calling someone younger your goat
shounshi_ : wow actually you're full of surprises lately
nyarumin : expect the unexpected, rule one in the official jadkf manual
shounshi_ : smh
shounshi_ : don’t quote the manual on me u don't even follow half of the rules there
[nyarumin reacted ‘haha’ to shounshi_’s message.]
Narumi laughed upon receiving the message. The last thing he expected was for him and Hoshina to have something in common outside of JADKF. You learn new things everyday, he guesses. He closes his phone and goes to sleep.