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There’s something about Tenshouin Eichi.
Actually, to be honest, there are many things about Tenshouin Eichi. Ibara’s met more vapid rich boys than he can count – works with one, even – and Eichi is frustratingly, in a million different ways, not quite like any of them. He has the unique confidence of his upper-class breeding; but at the same time, there’s a straightforwardness to him, a paradoxical humility that makes him oddly difficult to pin down.
It’s difficult to tell when Ibara had first noticed as much, in hindsight. Probably during the back-and-forth they’d had about New Dimension, in the midst of Wonder Game and his usual CosPro business and solidifying Eden’s plans for after his seniors’ graduation and trying to work on one of the few assignments he’d been required to actually hand in. That agency is ground he’d always been prepared to cede, one way or another, but damn if it hadn’t been closer than he had planned. Eichi had snapped at his heels the whole way, turning what should’ve been a straightforward financial skirmish into a drawn-out affair. All in all, that had been… unexpected. Thoroughly so.
His curiosity over that had spurred him to go digging back through the records of Eichi’s life, which amounted to one long paper trail. More bureaucracy than man, and not even a particularly well-defended one. Back through his lengthy hospital records, redacted except for the dates of his thousand stays; through society pages about Tenshouin parties, replete with faded photographs, one of which shows a young Eichi with an even younger Himemiya Tori; even through his report cards, hacked out of the Yumenosaki system. The specifics of the little war he started in his second year, however, hadn’t shown up at all.
And that had gotten to him.
He knows Eichi’s capable of terrible things. Ibara was there, nearly two years ago, on the night of the former fine’s final live; he remembers the way Nagisa and Hiyori had stood outside the Yumenosaki gates, shoulders almost touching, the way their wariness of him had barely masked the exhaustion in their eyes. He’s seen the faraway look Aoba Tsumugi gets, sometimes, when he visits New Dimension on business, and makes a deliberately inopportune comment. And, of course, he knows about Itsuki Shu, even if they’ve never directly spoken about the Yumenosaki thing. (He needs Valkyrie to pull numbers more than he needs to know about the contours of one man’s trauma, as fascinating as it would be. It’s enough to know about the way Itsuki’s hands ball into themselves, trembling, when Ibara wanders towards the subject.)
He just wishes there was concrete proof of it. Because any evidence of the war, as clear as it is from the psychologies of everyone involved, is absent from every archive he goes hunting through. And it’s absent from Eichi; Eichi, and his unchangingly serene smile, that nearly always makes it to his eyes.
Oh, Eichi’s not afraid of being clever, when they meet for some purpose or another. He’s smart, and makes thoughtful suggestions, and knows the industry, and isn’t afraid to be firm on points where he can’t afford to yield. But Ibara doesn’t want to see him clever or firm, he wants to see him mean. To the point where, regardless of the fact that they need to maintain a working relationship, it’s starting to be a problem. Obsession is the enemy of any successful strategist; it clouds the mind, distracts from more important goals. Ibara knows all that, without even thinking about it, the way he knows how to breathe or write important emails. And he still finds himself obsessed with the idea anyway.
(He had made himself ask about it at Eden’s most recent practice, almost against his better judgment. Nagisa had been in the same unit as Eichi, and Hiyori had known him even longer; surely, Ibara had figured, the information he stood to gain would outweigh the embarrassment of having to show a fraction of his real thoughts.
Last week had been strangely warm, for early autumn, and while their practice room was air-conditioned, the sunlight streaming through the windows had nearly blinded him when he had turned to his seniors to broach the subject. And although Ibara had made sure to phrase it as delicately and blithely as possible, even forced to squint against the glare – it had made Hiyori look at Nagisa. And Nagisa had looked back at Hiyori, with one of those expressions Ibara hated, because he didn’t understand what they meant.
“Eichi,” Nagisa had begun, after a pause that felt like an eternity, “is…”
Hiyori’s mouth had twisted into something uncharacteristic. “Always the same as ever.”
“No… that isn’t right. He used to be more distant. Less… like a person.”
“Oh, sure, sure. But, you know. If he’s changed, it’s in ways that make him even more himself.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean.)
Still, Ibara’s spent more than long enough running himself in circles about this – and today is the day. The day he’s chosen to find out, once and for all, just what makes Tenshouin Eichi tick.
They’re supposed to be having one of their regular meetings, but quite unlike their regular, Ibara’s opted to come to Star Maker for once; the better to lull him into a false sense of security. Although they’d agreed on a time sometime in the afternoon, Ibara had insisted he was incredibly busy, and that he would have to let him know specifics on the day, once he had a better idea of how his schedule was running. And if he had just so happened to forget to call ahead and confirm… well, that was a rather unfortunate coincidence.
The Star Maker building is decorated in light colours, airy and open-plan, nothing at all like CosPro’s claustrophobic greys and blacks. The receptionist in the lobby barely even glances at Ibara as he sweeps through, already used to his frequent visits. He scans his card in the elevator, presses the button for the top floor, gives himself a once-over in the mirrored wall. Some unobtrusive piece of music plays in the background as he ascends; when he focuses, he can place it as an instrumental arrangement of one of Trickstar’s newest songs.
The top floor’s exterior is more window than wall, offering a view over the river and to the city below, but he doesn’t even spare it a glance. The sound of conversation leads him down the hallway ahead, Eichi’s voice trading off with a higher one.
Ibara pauses outside the door to take in the scene. Eichi has an office to himself, and his desk is positioned so that a view of the city unfolds behind him. It’d probably be impressive to anyone who hadn’t been here a million times, or to someone actually inclined to be impressed by things. And it doesn’t help that Eichi is, for once, sitting on his lounge suite instead of his office chair. He and Himemiya Tori are taking up a settee each, with a tea service on the low table between them. Yuzuru’s folded unobtrusively against a nearby wall, because of course he is, and his eyes catch on Ibara first. Someone who knows Yuzuru less well wouldn’t notice the way his face locks a little, or the way his stance changes. But Ibara knows Yuzuru inside out, still, even after all this time apart, and it’s as subtle as a spotlight slicing through the darkness.
Because of how they’re sitting, Himemiya notices him next. Surprise, then wariness, cross his face one after the other. And Himemiya’s easy, too. Even if Yuzuru hadn’t talked about him during their time together at the training camp – hesitantly, at first, and then incessantly, when Ibara had needled him about the subject – it’s obvious where his levers are. Really, Ibara’s main concern amongst the other members of fine is Hibiki Wataru, who he’s still never actually met. It doesn’t help that he suspects a surprising amount of the Eichi puzzle is bound up with him; Hibiki had been the last of the Oddballs to surrender, and yet he’d so eagerly taken his place at Eichi’s side, almost before the dust from the war had settled. What could Eichi possibly have offered his bitter enemy, to make him roll over after all that bad blood? Or had Hibiki, like Ibara, just been strangely incapable of resisting his gravity?
Well, that’s hardly worth contemplating at this particular moment. Ibara shakes off the thought and steps inside, all business, his usual smile ready to go. “Good afternoon. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Himemiya gives him a Look, more incredulous than actively displeased. Ibara wonders, idly, how much Yuzuru has bothered to tell his dear Young Master about him. “Oh. You’re that CosPro paper-pusher. What are you doing here?”
“Tori,” Eichi says gently. “I told you I had a meeting later –”
“My deepest apologies, but I’ve come here to push papers!”
Yuzuru’s expression is almost perfectly blank. Ibara snaps his most rigid salute, just to see if it’ll make his face tighten. It’s Eichi whose eyes crinkle at the gesture, though, in amusement or something else.
“Young Master,” Yuzuru says. To his credit, he hardly even sounds uncomfortable. “Perhaps we should leave them to their business.”
Himemiya sizes him up for a long moment. Ibara coolly adjusts his glasses under the weight of his assessment, and at last Himemiya seems to decide that even if he doesn’t look impressive, he’s probably here for something important. “Fine. But Eichi, our next teatime has to be twice as long to make up for it. It feels like I never see you anymore.”
“Of course. To be honest, I miss having you around as well.”
If memory serves, which it always does, Himemiya and Eichi are supposed to be old friends. They’re supposed to go years back; their families have always been on good terms, although they seem far closer than that. Like at some point, they stopped being thrown together by chance, and started seeking each other out because they wanted to. Across the room, Yuzuru’s gaze is fixed safely into the middle distance.
Himemiya stands, squares his shoulders, casts Ibara another imperious glare. The effect is thoroughly unintimidating. “All right, then, until next time. Come on, Yuzuru!”
Then he marches out of the office. Yuzuru picks up the tea tray and follows, eyes still boring straight ahead. Ibara, nearly a grown adult and in charge of half of Ensemble Square, spends a good ten seconds contemplating whether or not to surreptitiously trip him on the way out.
(In the end, he forces himself not to. If he were to show his hand here, even slightly, Eichi would be close enough to see it.)
“So,” Eichi says, and rises for a proper greeting. He’s in the same kind of business casual as usual; today’s shirt is sky-blue, patterned with white checks. “Ibara.”
The first-name basis is a ploy, too. Eichi had switched over once it became apparent they were going to be seriously working together, but if he had expected it to make Ibara shed the formality in turn, he would continue to be sorely mistaken. “Your Eminence.”
“You know I’ve told you to drop that ridiculous title. We’re coworkers now, aren’t we?”
“Coworkers or otherwise, I would never presume to position myself as an equal to a member of the former fine, Your Eminence.”
Eichi crosses the room to where his work area is, and Ibara follows. They sit, one after the other, facing across the pale wood of the desk. “That was a long time ago, though. And I’m sure Nagisa and Hiyori feel the same way.”
They do, in fact; they’d both nagged him about their titles for months, and he suspects they’ve only stopped arguing because it’s clear he has no intention to budge. But the last, last thing Ibara wants to do is to bring Nagisa into this conversation. “With all due respect, that’s Eden business. It doesn’t have a place in a meeting about Ensemble Square.”
“Well. In that case, shall we get to it?”
They do. They run through Ensemble Square’s finances, how their units have been tracking over the last fortnight, some future opportunities to look out for. It’s all straightforward, right up until Ibara unveils the opening move of today’s real strategy.
“Your Eminence,” he begins, aiming for somewhere between deferential and curious, “all business aside, I was wondering if I might be able to bother you with a few personal questions.”
“Anything I can answer, I will.”
“Well, we’ve been colleagues for months now, and surely we’ve become close enough for me to ask. I don’t intend to overstep, Your Eminence, but I’d be interested in hearing about your time in the former fine. Alongside His Excellency and His Highness.”
He watches carefully for the reaction. And Eichi… doesn’t frown, exactly, but he does go strangely still. “I suppose I don’t have the right to refuse that. Is there something in particular you want to know?”
Ibara leans in. “Naturally, there is! In particular, I want to know how you felt when you crushed your enemies. Did you rejoice, to see your strategies come to fruition? Were you happy when the Yumenosaki auditorium ran red with blood? I know you aren’t nearly as harmless as you seem, so I’d like you to stop playing friendly, and bare those fangs I know you’re hiding.”
That makes Eichi go very, very quiet. When he answers, his voice and face are perfectly level, and he’s still mostly smiling. “If that was really what you wanted to ask, I fear you don’t have the measure of me at all.”
“Then, please do correct me where I’ve erred!”
“Well – to begin with, I wasn’t happy about it. Not then, and certainly not now. I suppose I had thought, at the time, that enacting a plan in real life would have been exactly like moving pieces around on a chessboard. But I was wrong, Ibara. The stakes I was playing for weren’t anything like that. Because people aren’t pieces, no matter how much you conceptualise them as such, or move them around accordingly. And even if a player returns to the board later on, they won’t be the same as they once were.”
That sounds to Ibara like a failure of will on Eichi’s end, rather than a failure of philosophy, but it seems prudent to keep that to himself. “I see. Did my question contain any further errors?”
“Second of all, you assume my strategies were perfect, when in fact they were far from it. Certainly, I suppose I achieved the dream I thought I had been aiming for. But if my plans had been truly airtight, instead of just theoretically, I would have lost far less than I did. I suppose I can’t complain, though. I’ve managed to win a good deal of it back since, through a combination of luck, hard work, and undeserved kindness.”
“You were younger then, Your Eminence! Naturally, it follows that you hadn’t yet grown into your full potential as a strategist. Even the fact that you achieved your goal is admirable.”
“I wasn’t finished.” Eichi folds his hands, gaze unwavering. “The real error you’ve made in your reasoning is that you and I are the same. And maybe we used to be, but we aren’t now.”
Ibara’s mouth is suddenly a little dry. Here, perhaps, is a peek of fang from behind those smiling lips. “Oh, no! I don’t mean any disrespect, not in the slightest, but you have me all wrong. I would never presume to draw a parallel between a lowly creature like myself and a former member of fine, especially the one who now serves as my boss. Furthermore, I certainly have no bite to speak of –”
“Don’t play coy. Yuzuru’s told me all about you, you know.”
Slowly, he catches his breath, and then releases it again. “What is it that he’s said, exactly?”
“The military camp. His assessment of you as someone with potential, but potential limited by your personality and fundamental dislike of others.”
“Such a glowing review from my former commanding officer.”
“The specifics of what Yuzuru thinks don’t matter. I’m trying to tell you that, even if you don’t stop being so formal with me, it’s all right to be your real self here. We’re already business partners, after all.”
“What real self? What you see of me is all there is.”
“Ibara.”
“Fine. Fine! But doesn’t it disgust you, to know what I am? That I’m the lowest of the low, and yet I’ve made myself indispensable, slithering my way into the highest levels of your Ensemble Square project?” There’s a thoroughly loaded pause, and Ibara lets himself press the advantage. “I suppose not, if you’re willing to keep Yuzuru so close at hand. He and I are cut from the same cloth, of course, even if he pretends to be of much finer make.”
He expects that to get a harsh denial. A Yuzuru is nothing like you, or some staunch defense of his comrade’s character. A staunch defense that would be entirely wrong; Eichi certainly doesn’t know Yuzuru like Ibara does, and he certainly doesn’t know Ibara at all.
But Eichi is nothing if not unpredictable, and it’s a dangerous thing to be reminded of, because that’s exactly why Ibara can’t stop trying to unpick him. His mouth crinkles, and his eyebrows draw together as he thinks. “Honestly, I think I mostly feel sorry for you, actually. Nagisa told me once that he worries about you, and I understand why.”
It stings to hear that. He and Nagisa have talked about this, a little, and he isn’t oblivious to the concern that creeps into Nagisa’s eyes sometimes, but he can’t bear to hear it from someone else. “I don’t want your pity. Even the idea makes me sick to my stomach.”
“This isn’t pity. I don’t have the right to extend pity to anyone, or to receive it from others. It’s… hm. If I were to sum up my feelings, they’d still probably boil down to… not wanting you to make the same kind of mistakes I did.”
“Even though you’ve sliced it differently, you’re still talking about pity.”
“Not quite. If you’d been at Yumenosaki, you’d have been just another of my cute underclassmen. So, allow me to guide you properly, as a senior would: tread carefully, Ibara. Or you’ll look down, someday, and find you’d trampled over the things you should have tried to protect.”
“If I had been your underclassman,” Ibara says, “I would have dragged you to hell.”
Eichi laces his fingers, rests his chin atop his hands. Despite the twists and turns of their conversation, he still looks seemingly unruffled, except for perhaps the set of the lines around his eyes. “Would you.”
“Of course. I’m only holding off now because – because I need your noble money on my side. But you and I wouldn’t have been able to exist in the same place, not for long. You may claim to have changed, but we’re still too similar.”
“I don’t believe that’s true.”
“Then prove it.”
“Prove it?” he echoes. He thinks for a moment, but manages to gather himself fairly quickly. “In that case, let me pose a question to you in turn. Do you think that, if you had been my junior at Yumenosaki, you would have joined me in fine? Because I think I would have recognised you for what you are, and refused to have let you that close.”
“Absolutely not. I’d never have agreed to join, unless I was allowed to be in charge, and you’d never have ceded that. And I wouldn’t have been content following your orders. I don’t like carrying out the strategies of others, because I can’t trust them to be as perfect as mine.”
“Exactly. You’d have been dangerous to leave alone, dangerous to have on my side, and even more dangerous if I’d tried to make you an Oddball and crush you thoroughly.”
That genuinely makes him frown. It’s a possibility that, uncharacteristically, had never occurred to him before now. “You would have considered making me an Oddball? Impossible. I’m talented, but I’m not remotely odd enough.”
“If it had been necessary for my plans, I would have made something work.”
“Well, I’d never have been foolish enough to accept the title, even if you’d offered it. But why are we playing with ludicrous counterfactuals? I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”
“My point is – it’s lucky we never crossed paths in high school. I would’ve had to devise some plan to get rid of you. And, that way, we never would have been able to work together on Ensemble Square like we are now. Back then, I would only have seen you as needless competition. But, because I only met you last year, we’ve had the privilege of getting to work together, for a goal I think we might even share. I’m glad for that.” Eichi smiles. “Aren’t you glad too, Ibara?”
But he’s seen enough of Eichi’s smiles to know when one isn’t quite natural. To know when he isn’t happy, only making a show of it. Because maybe he really has changed, since back then, and become someone who takes no joy in outsmarting others. Maybe he really isn’t mean any more. Maybe he’s genuinely grown out of it; left his petty, childish self behind, and ascended to become the angel he styles himself to be.
But that’s a luxury. And it’s one that Ibara, up to his neck in strategies and schemes, venom coursing through every inch of him, will never be allowed to have.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Distantly, he becomes aware that Eichi is peering at him; that his knuckles are white where they’re pressed into fists. Ibara moves his hands to rest on his thighs, forces himself to flatten them out, but they’re clammy against the fabric. “Not at all, Your Eminence. I was merely lost in thought for a moment.”
“Back to the butler act.” Eichi huffs something that might be a sigh and might be a laugh. “In that case, maybe we should leave today’s meeting there. But I hope you’ll think about what I said.”
“Which part?” he asks, a little more sarcastically than he should.
“My advice to you as a favourite junior, of course. About looking before you leap, and thinking about what you might stand to lose, and charting your course accordingly.”
“I’ll certainly try and free up time in my busy schedule to do that.” He won’t. “And I hope in turn, Your Eminence, that you think hard about my offer to send you to hell.”
“Hmm. Do you know what it is they say about hell, Ibara?”
“That even there, money makes a difference, of course!”
“That’s one thing they say, true, but not the one I had in mind. To be specific, I was thinking about the idiom that hell is other people.” Eichi offers another smile. This one wavers dangerously between real and fake, but that isn’t enough to stop him barrelling onward. “I’m not sure if you know this, although you might, but that phrase often gets misused. It doesn’t mean that the people around us are inherently awful, even though they sometimes are. Rather, it suggests that hell lies in being seen by others, and that we suffer when they perceive us, form opinions based on that perception, and lock us into place.”
And Ibara doesn’t know quite what to make of that. Which of the fifty angles in that little speech Eichi intends to attack from; if he’s suggesting that Ibara hates being seen, or that he would hate to not be seen, or that he’s too hung up on the idea that people are inherently selfish to consider where they might be looking. Wholly unreadable. But, even if Ibara doesn’t know how to interpret that, he does know how to stand, and gather himself, and sweep out with a parting line:
“In that case, Eichi. I look forward to seeing you there.”