Atobe Keigo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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karurarpg2016-10-13 09:47 pm
worldofice) wrote in karurarpg2016-10-13 09:47 pm
Entry tags:
[LOG] The brothel admission
Who: Oshitari Yuushi and Atobe Keigo
What: Atobe tells Oshitari of his plans to visit a brothel with Yukimura
Where: Medical Bay
When: Shortly before Yukimura’s return to the Karura
Warnings/Notes: Zilch.
It was mid-afternoon when Atobe strode around the rim of the Karura. The Ice Bar would not open to its patrons until that evening, but the day time business of the ship was in full swing. Shopkeepers bowed at the doorways to their stores as the scion passed, but Atobe paid them no heed as he stepped through into the quieter hallways of the private quarters. Passing his own rooms and those leading to the ship garden, he approached the clinical glow of the Karura’s medical bay. The doors opened with a hiss.
“Yuushi, I am going to a brothel with the bounty hunter.”
Yuushi prided himself on his ability to maintain a perfect poker face in even the most dire of situations. He had diagnosed deathly illnesses and minor allergies, all without giving anything away to the patients. He was reviewing a patient’s data onto a tablet when Atobe arrived, and announcement had Yuushi accidentally hitting the box for ‘quarantine recommended’. He blinked at the screen, then set it away to deal with later.
Yuushi looked at Atobe. “What.” It was not a question.
“A brothel,” Atobe repeated, as he stepped properly into the infirmary. “Bordello. House of pleasure. Den of iniquity.” He leaned casually against the examination table, crossing his arms as he looked across at Oshitari. “Surely you are familiar with these terms, ahn?”
There were enough things wrong with the initial statement for Yuushi to require the clarification to move on to further ones. “I am,” he said after a moment. Then he asked, “Are you?”
Atobe uncrossed his arms to make a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Of course.” He paused to ensure Oshitari was providing his full attention. “What am I less … familiar… with is the full motivations of the bounty hunter. I find no evidence that I have a price on my head, but I hardly socialise with the appropriate crowd on a daily basis.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered the other man. Oshitari appeared less than fully engaged with the conversation material. “Are you listening?”
Yuushi leaned back in his chair, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It did nothing to change his vision, but he had somewhat hoped it would reveal this whole thing to be a hallucination of some kind.
“You are going to a brothel with Yukimura… to socialise?” There had to be a grain of sense somewhere.
Atobe closed his eyes in brief exasperation. “You are making this sound unnecessarily bizarre,” he replied. “I imagine a degree of socialisation will be inevitable.” He would not normally describe himself on socialisation terms with that level of society, but apparently agreeing to such crude approximations was required for the conversation to advance. “The establishment is allegedly exclusive and a favourite of the bounty hunter.”
Yuushi thought he might develop a migraine based on this conversation alone. “Keigo,” he said. “Why are you going to Yukimura’s favourite brothel?” Sometimes there was no dodging the most direct question.
As the chief medical officer, it was clear Oshitari was driven by inconsequential details. Perhaps it would have been more conducive to visit after his shift was complete. Slate coloured eyes viewed the other man critically over his iPad. “Because it is the only establishment apart from my own where he claims to be prepared to consume the merchandise. Naturally, I am curious.” Atobe looked back across the infirmary, his gaze unfocusing as he contemplated the facets of the situation. “I remain uncertain if that was in reference to the drinks.”
Things were slowly making sense. To a certain definition of sense. “I had no idea you intended to expand the Ice Bar’s list of specialties,” Yuushi said. What kind of curiosity would lead to his having to think of Atobe and brothels in the same moment. “I rather thought you needed some form of EAA sanction to start a house of pleasure on a spacecraft.”
The look Atobe gave Oshitari in that moment would have turned a blazing inferno into the frozen planet of Hoth. “I have no intention of turning the Ice Bar into a whore house,” he informed him. “Yukimura frequents my establishment well beyond an acceptable level already.” There was absolutely no need to encourage the man’s presence by providing him with an outlet for any of his other pastimes. “I was simply interested to see the only other location in the galaxy that he trusts sufficiently to go without his hip flask.”
Yuushi struck off another possibility from his mental list, albeit the least likely one. He pretended like Atobe’s glare wasn’t trying to turn him into a literal block of ice. “Are you curious about Yukimura’s taste in alcohol or his taste in lovers?” he mused, still trying to draw the connection that was failing to form.
Atobe exhaled in mild impatience. “Yuushi, if you discovered a patient was prepared to use only your hospital and one other, would you not be interested in your counterpart? If only to understand the connection.” He smiled thinly. “Although information on both the above would not be without its use.” If only for the possibility of arranging for Yukimura’s favourite toy boy to get a unrefusable position in a celibate religious monastery. Knowledge was always power. Doubly so for alcohol and sex. “My reasons for the visit are not why I am here telling you this.”
Yuushi considered. Atobe’s newfound interest in brothels was out of a desire to understand Yukimura, apparently. This was somewhat acceptable, though Yuushi could have pointed out several other means to this end. “I would not,” he said. He wasn’t prone to fits of curiosity unless there was something truly beneficial to be gained from them. He raised an eyebrow at Atobe’s other statement though. “Ah,” he continued, jerking a thumb towards the left. “You can find condoms in the dispenser… Although I’m sure the… establishment… in question would provide them.”
“Then you should charge more for your medical care,” Atobe told him dismissively. A businessman is always interested in the competition. His eyes moved towards the directed container before Oshitari’s words had sank in. “Incorrect,” he told him icily. “And I would hardly use the same latex you provide for the common masses of this spacecraft.” The word ‘dispenser’ even sounded common.
“Moreover, the focus of this location appears to be oral.” Based on Yukimura’s description of the service he enjoyed. Evidently, Oshitari required these details before dispensing anything useful himself in the way of advice. “The issue is one of safety.”
The condom dispenser in question had a ‘safety first!’ caption on it, and someone (he suspected one of the nurses) had doodled it into a speech bubble coming out of someone who looked eerily like Oishi. Yuushi had to admit he would never willingly approach the contraption either.
“Safety,” he repeated. And then, because this conversation bordered on the insane anyway, “Are you concerned they’ll bite it off?”
“It?!” repeated Atobe with marked distaste. “If you are referring to my…” His eyes met Oshitari’s and it became obvious that this direction of conversation needed to immediately desist. He paused for a beat and began again in a tone of cool calm. “My concern...” he stated. “... is that the bounty hunter may be viewing this less as a social excursion and more as … his job.” If Oshitari was not completely focussed on the foreplay of bought services, then the tensai would understand the situation. Atobe gave the chances of this a clean 50/50.
Yuushi enjoyed his moment of mirth and the play of expressions on Atobe’s face. The explanation, however, calmed his instinct to continue along the same line of teasing.
“Is there a…” He paused. Surely Yukimura wouldn’t… “Is there a known price on your head?” he asked. In which case Atobe was a madman for even thinking of going. He didn’t know Yukimura enough to have any degree of trust in the man, but he had Tezuka’s goodwill.
“There is not… that I know about,” Atobe responded. Evidently, the prospect of brothels had caused Oshitari to completely miss the start of their conversation. Whatever the condom dispenser might proclaim, sex came before safety in the senior medic’s priority list. With his friend finally engaged, Atobe pulled up the chair beside the examination table and sat, stretching out his legs as his fingers tapped his agitation out on the arm rest. “The therapist has also heard of nothing. Yet let us be clear…” his fingers stopped their tapping. “Yukimura Seiichi would.”
Yuushi got to his feet even as Atobe sat down, feeling a strange sort of restlessness as the sheer ridiculousness of the situation was replaced with another kind of urgency.
“Keigo,” he said, crossing his arms in an echo of his friend’s earlier pose. “Then why are you going at all?”
They appeared to be back to square one. The hand that was tapping now flicked the question aside. “As I said: curiosity. And I would be a poor businessman if I did not take risks. Calculated risks,” he added in clarification. “Which is why I require you to know I am going.”
Yuushi did not think this was a calculated risk worth taking, but that was why he wasn’t running a company, he supposed. His mind ran with the possibilities of what would have to be done if there was a bounty on Atobe’s head and he was just waltzing over with Yukimura to be delivered… Yuushi was, by nature, calm. But that did not mean he wasn’t concerned.
“Where exactly is this place?” he asked at last. “At least tell me it is a system with EAA presence.”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Atobe replied, coolly. “Nor when we will leave. Yukimura is away from the Karura at the moment. He mentioned a visit upon his return.”
He crossed one leg over the other, leaning back in his chair to regard Oshitari’s overly agitated features. It would appear working in the same facility as the ship’s physical therapist was bad for his friend’s nerves. “Come now, Yuushi. You have the initiative to handle this. You will be aware of when I leave and the location of the Karura. I would estimate the bounty hunter’s shuttle has a range of no more than twice that of a regular vessel. There are a finite number of brothels in that area. If I do not return swiftly, you will visit them all.”
There were many things, Yuushi supposed, he would wonder about when and if he grew to a ripe old age. How he managed to keep his sanity and stay friends with Atobe Keigo would be one of them. There was no guarantee of himself or his sanity surviving, he thought. Especially because Atobe had just instructed that he visit a few hundred brothels on a few hundred worlds, give or take a couple.
“No,” he said, and somehow the inanity of the suggestion calmed his thoughts sufficiently. “If the planet you’re visiting is in the range of any EAA facility, I can simply use a tracker to find you. Should need be.” Which, he hoped, it wouldn’t.
Atobe looked down his nose at Oshitari; a feat he achieved despite being the one seated. “I am not farm produce to be branded,” he stated. “and it's entirely likely we will not be near any EAA facility. Bounty hunters do not exactly concern themselves with being on the grid.”
Oshitari was making a ridiculous fuss. Surely few would object to being forced to frequent multiple pleasure houses on his bequest. “I can narrow down your options if your stamina is in question,” he told him. “The establishment requires a net worth in the eight figure range to allow entry.”
Yuushi tsked. “Keigo, if it did come to my having to search for you in every whorehouse in the known universe, I wouldn’t do it through sleeping my way through,” he pointed out. “The tracker is one for use when crew is sent into unknown territories, not cattle. It wouldn’t be visible at all, merely a trace in your blood.”
All it needed to work was anything that could transmit a signal nearby: a place that required something as ridiculous as an eight figure net worth wouldn’t be cut off from all communications. “I think it’s a more practical course of action,” he added. “Than me befriending a legion of prostitutes.”
Every whorehouse in the known universe. While blatantly unnecessary given the clear boundaries Atobe had laid down, at least Oshitari was now showing some commitment. Atobe’s smile was less thin as he pointed out, “I am sure you would enjoy such a task.” After the suggestion of possible oral castration, he deserved that jibe.
He contemplated the tracker. The concept was as common as the latex sheaves in the art graphited dispenser. Yet there was the issue of practicality. Should Yukimura decide to literally cash-in on Atobe's company and was successful, he would doubtless face more degrading situations. Starting with being tied up by his most disreputable patron who typically smelled of garden weeds and was liable to gloating.
“How long would such a tracker endure?” he inquired of Oshitari. “I will not be branded long term, not even by you.”
“Perhaps at a less dire moment, yes,” Yuushi conceded, allowing a smile to twist his lip. He crossed to his work desk and held up a vial of the tracking liquid in question, and another with it.
“It’ll be administered into your bloodstream,” he explained. “And this,” he said, indicating the second, “Will neutralise it once you’ve returned. You’ll require a visit here anyway, should you happen to pick up any... unfortunate diseases.” And so Yuushi could make sure he was back in one piece, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud.
Atobe offered him an elegant sneer. He indicated the corner dispenser. “Safety first,” repeated. With slow deliberation, he unfastened one cufflink and placed it on a nearby table. Then he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to present the skin to Oshitari. “If you scar me, I will be more than displeased,” he told the medic. “Plastic surgery is time consuming, even for blemishes.”
Yuushi fitted the tracker into a hypospray and crossed to Atobe, taking his hand and rubbing a thumb over the smooth skin of his exposed forearm. “I wouldn’t dare,” he chuckled, administering the tracker with the device. “Any side-effects you experience are entirely products of your imagination,” he said, in case Atobe continued to feel the urge to object to it.
“It will take a few hours to take effect, and I won’t monitor the signal until you… set out.” He still couldn’t believe it was coming to this, but it wasn’t as though he had much of a choice in the matter. “Unless Yukimura is secretly a vampire, this should prove effective.”
Atobe watched the vile of liquid enter into his skin. “I would hardly put that possibility past him,” he told Oshitari. “However, he is forever telling me he delivers his targets alive. Presumably that means they must have blood.”
He looked up at Oshitari, who was now standing very close and turned his wrist to grasp the other man’s arm. “I thank you, Yuushi,” he said without mockery. “No doubt I can give you the details upon my return.” Hopefully in Yukimura’s shuttle with the bounty hunter himself. But if it had to be with the force Oshitari had commandeered or bullied from the Karura, so be it.
Yuushi met his gaze and held it. “Just so long as you find that the trip was worth the risk,” he said finally. “I’ll look forward to all the sordid stories.” He sighed. They were in his med-bay and it would not do for their chief medical officer to indulge in overt displays of affection, but damn if he wasn’t worried. He reached his free hand to tangle in a lock of Atobe’s hair. “Don’t do anything stupid, Keigo.”
Given they had just installed a blood tracker because the sole heir to one of the largest interstellar corporations was planning to go to an undisclosed location with a known bounty hunter, ‘stupid’ had arguably been passed a while back. Still, Atobe was not one to dwell overly on labels.
His free hand came up to gather a handful of Yuushi’s shirt around his waist. “I will be back, my friend.”
He stood, still holding onto Oshitari as their eyes became level. Leaning in, he kissed him briefly on the mouth. “You’ll know I’ve left when I am not behind the bar,” he told him. “I could attempt to inform Kikumaru, but that is liable to be no quicker than deducing the information yourself.”
Yuushi chuckled at the thought of what convoluted way the bartender would see fit to relay the information. “Yes,” he said, in affirmation of both Atobe’s statements. “I’ll see you when you do.”
What: Atobe tells Oshitari of his plans to visit a brothel with Yukimura
Where: Medical Bay
When: Shortly before Yukimura’s return to the Karura
Warnings/Notes: Zilch.
It was mid-afternoon when Atobe strode around the rim of the Karura. The Ice Bar would not open to its patrons until that evening, but the day time business of the ship was in full swing. Shopkeepers bowed at the doorways to their stores as the scion passed, but Atobe paid them no heed as he stepped through into the quieter hallways of the private quarters. Passing his own rooms and those leading to the ship garden, he approached the clinical glow of the Karura’s medical bay. The doors opened with a hiss.
“Yuushi, I am going to a brothel with the bounty hunter.”
Yuushi prided himself on his ability to maintain a perfect poker face in even the most dire of situations. He had diagnosed deathly illnesses and minor allergies, all without giving anything away to the patients. He was reviewing a patient’s data onto a tablet when Atobe arrived, and announcement had Yuushi accidentally hitting the box for ‘quarantine recommended’. He blinked at the screen, then set it away to deal with later.
Yuushi looked at Atobe. “What.” It was not a question.
“A brothel,” Atobe repeated, as he stepped properly into the infirmary. “Bordello. House of pleasure. Den of iniquity.” He leaned casually against the examination table, crossing his arms as he looked across at Oshitari. “Surely you are familiar with these terms, ahn?”
There were enough things wrong with the initial statement for Yuushi to require the clarification to move on to further ones. “I am,” he said after a moment. Then he asked, “Are you?”
Atobe uncrossed his arms to make a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Of course.” He paused to ensure Oshitari was providing his full attention. “What am I less … familiar… with is the full motivations of the bounty hunter. I find no evidence that I have a price on my head, but I hardly socialise with the appropriate crowd on a daily basis.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered the other man. Oshitari appeared less than fully engaged with the conversation material. “Are you listening?”
Yuushi leaned back in his chair, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It did nothing to change his vision, but he had somewhat hoped it would reveal this whole thing to be a hallucination of some kind.
“You are going to a brothel with Yukimura… to socialise?” There had to be a grain of sense somewhere.
Atobe closed his eyes in brief exasperation. “You are making this sound unnecessarily bizarre,” he replied. “I imagine a degree of socialisation will be inevitable.” He would not normally describe himself on socialisation terms with that level of society, but apparently agreeing to such crude approximations was required for the conversation to advance. “The establishment is allegedly exclusive and a favourite of the bounty hunter.”
Yuushi thought he might develop a migraine based on this conversation alone. “Keigo,” he said. “Why are you going to Yukimura’s favourite brothel?” Sometimes there was no dodging the most direct question.
As the chief medical officer, it was clear Oshitari was driven by inconsequential details. Perhaps it would have been more conducive to visit after his shift was complete. Slate coloured eyes viewed the other man critically over his iPad. “Because it is the only establishment apart from my own where he claims to be prepared to consume the merchandise. Naturally, I am curious.” Atobe looked back across the infirmary, his gaze unfocusing as he contemplated the facets of the situation. “I remain uncertain if that was in reference to the drinks.”
Things were slowly making sense. To a certain definition of sense. “I had no idea you intended to expand the Ice Bar’s list of specialties,” Yuushi said. What kind of curiosity would lead to his having to think of Atobe and brothels in the same moment. “I rather thought you needed some form of EAA sanction to start a house of pleasure on a spacecraft.”
The look Atobe gave Oshitari in that moment would have turned a blazing inferno into the frozen planet of Hoth. “I have no intention of turning the Ice Bar into a whore house,” he informed him. “Yukimura frequents my establishment well beyond an acceptable level already.” There was absolutely no need to encourage the man’s presence by providing him with an outlet for any of his other pastimes. “I was simply interested to see the only other location in the galaxy that he trusts sufficiently to go without his hip flask.”
Yuushi struck off another possibility from his mental list, albeit the least likely one. He pretended like Atobe’s glare wasn’t trying to turn him into a literal block of ice. “Are you curious about Yukimura’s taste in alcohol or his taste in lovers?” he mused, still trying to draw the connection that was failing to form.
Atobe exhaled in mild impatience. “Yuushi, if you discovered a patient was prepared to use only your hospital and one other, would you not be interested in your counterpart? If only to understand the connection.” He smiled thinly. “Although information on both the above would not be without its use.” If only for the possibility of arranging for Yukimura’s favourite toy boy to get a unrefusable position in a celibate religious monastery. Knowledge was always power. Doubly so for alcohol and sex. “My reasons for the visit are not why I am here telling you this.”
Yuushi considered. Atobe’s newfound interest in brothels was out of a desire to understand Yukimura, apparently. This was somewhat acceptable, though Yuushi could have pointed out several other means to this end. “I would not,” he said. He wasn’t prone to fits of curiosity unless there was something truly beneficial to be gained from them. He raised an eyebrow at Atobe’s other statement though. “Ah,” he continued, jerking a thumb towards the left. “You can find condoms in the dispenser… Although I’m sure the… establishment… in question would provide them.”
“Then you should charge more for your medical care,” Atobe told him dismissively. A businessman is always interested in the competition. His eyes moved towards the directed container before Oshitari’s words had sank in. “Incorrect,” he told him icily. “And I would hardly use the same latex you provide for the common masses of this spacecraft.” The word ‘dispenser’ even sounded common.
“Moreover, the focus of this location appears to be oral.” Based on Yukimura’s description of the service he enjoyed. Evidently, Oshitari required these details before dispensing anything useful himself in the way of advice. “The issue is one of safety.”
The condom dispenser in question had a ‘safety first!’ caption on it, and someone (he suspected one of the nurses) had doodled it into a speech bubble coming out of someone who looked eerily like Oishi. Yuushi had to admit he would never willingly approach the contraption either.
“Safety,” he repeated. And then, because this conversation bordered on the insane anyway, “Are you concerned they’ll bite it off?”
“It?!” repeated Atobe with marked distaste. “If you are referring to my…” His eyes met Oshitari’s and it became obvious that this direction of conversation needed to immediately desist. He paused for a beat and began again in a tone of cool calm. “My concern...” he stated. “... is that the bounty hunter may be viewing this less as a social excursion and more as … his job.” If Oshitari was not completely focussed on the foreplay of bought services, then the tensai would understand the situation. Atobe gave the chances of this a clean 50/50.
Yuushi enjoyed his moment of mirth and the play of expressions on Atobe’s face. The explanation, however, calmed his instinct to continue along the same line of teasing.
“Is there a…” He paused. Surely Yukimura wouldn’t… “Is there a known price on your head?” he asked. In which case Atobe was a madman for even thinking of going. He didn’t know Yukimura enough to have any degree of trust in the man, but he had Tezuka’s goodwill.
“There is not… that I know about,” Atobe responded. Evidently, the prospect of brothels had caused Oshitari to completely miss the start of their conversation. Whatever the condom dispenser might proclaim, sex came before safety in the senior medic’s priority list. With his friend finally engaged, Atobe pulled up the chair beside the examination table and sat, stretching out his legs as his fingers tapped his agitation out on the arm rest. “The therapist has also heard of nothing. Yet let us be clear…” his fingers stopped their tapping. “Yukimura Seiichi would.”
Yuushi got to his feet even as Atobe sat down, feeling a strange sort of restlessness as the sheer ridiculousness of the situation was replaced with another kind of urgency.
“Keigo,” he said, crossing his arms in an echo of his friend’s earlier pose. “Then why are you going at all?”
They appeared to be back to square one. The hand that was tapping now flicked the question aside. “As I said: curiosity. And I would be a poor businessman if I did not take risks. Calculated risks,” he added in clarification. “Which is why I require you to know I am going.”
Yuushi did not think this was a calculated risk worth taking, but that was why he wasn’t running a company, he supposed. His mind ran with the possibilities of what would have to be done if there was a bounty on Atobe’s head and he was just waltzing over with Yukimura to be delivered… Yuushi was, by nature, calm. But that did not mean he wasn’t concerned.
“Where exactly is this place?” he asked at last. “At least tell me it is a system with EAA presence.”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Atobe replied, coolly. “Nor when we will leave. Yukimura is away from the Karura at the moment. He mentioned a visit upon his return.”
He crossed one leg over the other, leaning back in his chair to regard Oshitari’s overly agitated features. It would appear working in the same facility as the ship’s physical therapist was bad for his friend’s nerves. “Come now, Yuushi. You have the initiative to handle this. You will be aware of when I leave and the location of the Karura. I would estimate the bounty hunter’s shuttle has a range of no more than twice that of a regular vessel. There are a finite number of brothels in that area. If I do not return swiftly, you will visit them all.”
There were many things, Yuushi supposed, he would wonder about when and if he grew to a ripe old age. How he managed to keep his sanity and stay friends with Atobe Keigo would be one of them. There was no guarantee of himself or his sanity surviving, he thought. Especially because Atobe had just instructed that he visit a few hundred brothels on a few hundred worlds, give or take a couple.
“No,” he said, and somehow the inanity of the suggestion calmed his thoughts sufficiently. “If the planet you’re visiting is in the range of any EAA facility, I can simply use a tracker to find you. Should need be.” Which, he hoped, it wouldn’t.
Atobe looked down his nose at Oshitari; a feat he achieved despite being the one seated. “I am not farm produce to be branded,” he stated. “and it's entirely likely we will not be near any EAA facility. Bounty hunters do not exactly concern themselves with being on the grid.”
Oshitari was making a ridiculous fuss. Surely few would object to being forced to frequent multiple pleasure houses on his bequest. “I can narrow down your options if your stamina is in question,” he told him. “The establishment requires a net worth in the eight figure range to allow entry.”
Yuushi tsked. “Keigo, if it did come to my having to search for you in every whorehouse in the known universe, I wouldn’t do it through sleeping my way through,” he pointed out. “The tracker is one for use when crew is sent into unknown territories, not cattle. It wouldn’t be visible at all, merely a trace in your blood.”
All it needed to work was anything that could transmit a signal nearby: a place that required something as ridiculous as an eight figure net worth wouldn’t be cut off from all communications. “I think it’s a more practical course of action,” he added. “Than me befriending a legion of prostitutes.”
Every whorehouse in the known universe. While blatantly unnecessary given the clear boundaries Atobe had laid down, at least Oshitari was now showing some commitment. Atobe’s smile was less thin as he pointed out, “I am sure you would enjoy such a task.” After the suggestion of possible oral castration, he deserved that jibe.
He contemplated the tracker. The concept was as common as the latex sheaves in the art graphited dispenser. Yet there was the issue of practicality. Should Yukimura decide to literally cash-in on Atobe's company and was successful, he would doubtless face more degrading situations. Starting with being tied up by his most disreputable patron who typically smelled of garden weeds and was liable to gloating.
“How long would such a tracker endure?” he inquired of Oshitari. “I will not be branded long term, not even by you.”
“Perhaps at a less dire moment, yes,” Yuushi conceded, allowing a smile to twist his lip. He crossed to his work desk and held up a vial of the tracking liquid in question, and another with it.
“It’ll be administered into your bloodstream,” he explained. “And this,” he said, indicating the second, “Will neutralise it once you’ve returned. You’ll require a visit here anyway, should you happen to pick up any... unfortunate diseases.” And so Yuushi could make sure he was back in one piece, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud.
Atobe offered him an elegant sneer. He indicated the corner dispenser. “Safety first,” repeated. With slow deliberation, he unfastened one cufflink and placed it on a nearby table. Then he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to present the skin to Oshitari. “If you scar me, I will be more than displeased,” he told the medic. “Plastic surgery is time consuming, even for blemishes.”
Yuushi fitted the tracker into a hypospray and crossed to Atobe, taking his hand and rubbing a thumb over the smooth skin of his exposed forearm. “I wouldn’t dare,” he chuckled, administering the tracker with the device. “Any side-effects you experience are entirely products of your imagination,” he said, in case Atobe continued to feel the urge to object to it.
“It will take a few hours to take effect, and I won’t monitor the signal until you… set out.” He still couldn’t believe it was coming to this, but it wasn’t as though he had much of a choice in the matter. “Unless Yukimura is secretly a vampire, this should prove effective.”
Atobe watched the vile of liquid enter into his skin. “I would hardly put that possibility past him,” he told Oshitari. “However, he is forever telling me he delivers his targets alive. Presumably that means they must have blood.”
He looked up at Oshitari, who was now standing very close and turned his wrist to grasp the other man’s arm. “I thank you, Yuushi,” he said without mockery. “No doubt I can give you the details upon my return.” Hopefully in Yukimura’s shuttle with the bounty hunter himself. But if it had to be with the force Oshitari had commandeered or bullied from the Karura, so be it.
Yuushi met his gaze and held it. “Just so long as you find that the trip was worth the risk,” he said finally. “I’ll look forward to all the sordid stories.” He sighed. They were in his med-bay and it would not do for their chief medical officer to indulge in overt displays of affection, but damn if he wasn’t worried. He reached his free hand to tangle in a lock of Atobe’s hair. “Don’t do anything stupid, Keigo.”
Given they had just installed a blood tracker because the sole heir to one of the largest interstellar corporations was planning to go to an undisclosed location with a known bounty hunter, ‘stupid’ had arguably been passed a while back. Still, Atobe was not one to dwell overly on labels.
His free hand came up to gather a handful of Yuushi’s shirt around his waist. “I will be back, my friend.”
He stood, still holding onto Oshitari as their eyes became level. Leaning in, he kissed him briefly on the mouth. “You’ll know I’ve left when I am not behind the bar,” he told him. “I could attempt to inform Kikumaru, but that is liable to be no quicker than deducing the information yourself.”
Yuushi chuckled at the thought of what convoluted way the bartender would see fit to relay the information. “Yes,” he said, in affirmation of both Atobe’s statements. “I’ll see you when you do.”
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