Chapter 248: Just Stay Here
What did he have that he could actually point to?
The question wouldn't leave him. It stayed in the back of his head for several days.
"Hey. Hey!"
Bang!
A sharp pain in his midsection knocked the air out of him. Matsushita Yusuke folded forward with a pained sound and curled slightly over himself.
He looked up, eyes watering, to find Soifon standing over him with her right fist still clenched, left hand on her hip, staring at him with an expression of complete exasperation.
"I'm talking to you. What was that thousand-yard stare?"
Matsushita Yusuke rubbed his stomach and exhaled through his teeth.
"Sorry. Didn't sleep well last night. Got a little distracted."
"Can you still do your job?"
"Absolutely."
"Then repeat back what I just reported to you. Twenty words or less."
"..."
Soifon narrowed her eyes and stepped forward, fist rising.
"Alright, alright, don't, I've got it. To improve operational efficiency, we've started coordinating with Squad 10, joint patrol movements from now on. Right?"
She nodded.
Then hit him in the side anyway.
"Too many words."
Matsushita Yusuke gripped the edge of the desk, expression twisting.
"I'm begging you, not that side. If something goes wrong there, there goes everything I was planning for later."
"Excuse me?!"
Not worth engaging with.
Soifon set the folder down and turned to leave.
"I've already reviewed everything. Check it yourself if you want. The parts that need your signature are marked. Use your judgment."
"Right, thanks."
The Squad 10 coordination was the follow-through on Yamamoto's directive from before: better patrol coverage, improved safety margins. Putting the discussion into actual documented action. Leaving a paper trail. Under these conditions, getting this level of operational output wasn't nothing.
He said something vaguely appreciative on reflex, but his eyes had already drifted to Soifon's back.
"...?"
Something felt off.
He wasn't certain whether it was something in the past few days or something he had started noticing before, but Soifon had been noticeably short lately. Work itself was fine. What he was picking up was more like a general flatness, a kind of low-level disengagement with everything around her.
Worth checking on.
"Soifon. Hold on a second."
She stopped. Half-turned.
A silent question in her expression: what?
Matsushita Yusuke came around from behind the desk and came up beside her, lowering his voice.
"Something on your mind recently?"
"...No."
"Ha. Come on."
He raised his right hand and tapped a finger against his own brow.
"You've got a crease right here. You haven't been sleeping."
Soifon made a flustered sound, color rising fast in her face, and swung a kick at him.
"If you'd stop bothering me, I sleep fine every night!"
A squad member who had come up the corridor to give a report heard just enough, let out a low whistle, and turned around to head back the way they came.
"What was that about?"
"Don't get involved. Captain and vice-captain having their moment. Not your business."
The damage was done.
Soifon, realizing this, looked mortified enough to want to follow through on additional violence, but Matsushita Yusuke had caught both of her hands and was pulling her back into the office.
"Alright, let the temper settle for a minute. Based on your reaction I wasn't wrong, was I. What's going on? Something specifically giving you trouble?"
Soifon pressed her lips together and turned her head away.
The expression of someone not sure they want to say it.
"Something personal."
Matsushita Yusuke blinked and leaned back slightly.
"The kind of something you can't tell me?"
"...Not exactly."
Like giving up on resistance, Soifon exhaled and sat down on the long bench along the office wall. She looked down, both hands pressing flat against her knees, and said quietly:
"Apparently there's been news from the living world about Lady Yoruichi."
Right, the former Shihoin head's situation.
The understanding settled into Matsushita Yusuke's expression.
He didn't press the follow-up immediately. He turned and poured a cup of water, set it in front of Soifon.
"Squad 13 members passed the information along?"
They were the only ones with any sort of established long-term presence in the living world right now.
Soifon accepted the cup with a slight nod.
"Someone reportedly spotted signs of Lady Yoruichi's activity over there. Nothing verified. But I think it's worth following up on."
As though convincing herself as much as him, she kept going.
"The Shihoin household is unstable right now. If Lady Yoruichi came back, all of this would sort itself out."
A small sip of water. Her eyes sharpened slightly.
"Lord Yushiro isn't anywhere near ready to handle things on his own yet. And if the people within the family start making moves..."
The usual noble house complications, in other words.
It made sense that Soifon would feel this strongly. As she had mentioned before, her family was a direct subordinate house under the Shihoin clan, similar in structure to the Omaeda family's relationship with Squad 2. Both depended on the Shihoin name to maintain their standing. And in practical terms, what had kept that alignment coherent over the years was Yoruichi specifically. Having an easygoing, direct superior who was actually good to work under was a meaningful thing, and not something you took for granted.
Matsushita Yusuke scratched at the corner of his mouth.
"So you're thinking of going to the living world yourself to look into it?"
Honestly, that conclusion would have made complete sense. For Soifon, Yoruichi's existence was something she had organized a significant part of herself around. The pull was real.
"No. I'm not going to."
Her answer caught him slightly off guard. He looked down and met her gaze, which had lifted just enough to reach his.
There was something in it. Something resigned and something that wasn't quite sadness but was close to it.
"Without something confirmed, there's no point going yet."
She said it like something she had already decided, and then she shifted back, pressing herself into Matsushita Yusuke and leaning into him from behind.
"For now, this is fine. Just let me wait a little longer."
Matsushita Yusuke blinked once.
Then smiled quietly.
"I'm not going anywhere. Just stay here."
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