Commander Hanzo Hasashi does not take vacations. Nor does he ever usually accept invitations to casual gatherings because everyone knows he has better things to do. Everyone knows that he'd rather keep everyone at a certain distance, at the least an arm's length than actually be attached to someone. The Alpha squadron knows this.
But of course, word around the base spreads like wildfire. Miharu and some of her infirmary team have planned a day at the beach. It was actually to Ahri's, Daichi's and Kiyoko's combined persuasion that convinced her to finally relax on a day off that all four of them have managed to secure. The infirmary team, her team, is chaos combined, but they are the first to arrive at the beach.
The beach, because the summer heat knows no mercy and it is the most fitting activity to enjoy. Little to her knowledge, Daichi has managed to invite some of the Alpha, Delta and Foxtrot teams - an open invitation, Miharu later finds. The beach, because the she-fox finally realizes that she has not gone beachside since her transfer at the base, and that the water is too tempting for her to ignore the little voice in her head that misses the blue horizon, the salt-laden waves and the feeling of being pulled in the undertow and resurfacing with new knowledge, new lessons that the ocean teaches her.
Her team arrives first - parasols set up beside the main tent that the infirmary team has set up. The tent appears more like a booth, but it serves its function. And not long after, the infirmary team has efficiently not only set up the base camp tent, but also the volleyball net and a game has already begun.
Separate from the group, Miharu emerges in her swimsuit underneath a see-through maxi sundress that lets her appear a little bit more feminine- the dress loosely hangs on her frame like draped curtains of silk and linen. Her hair falls just up to her shoulders, face framing layers like waterfalls, before she has opted to tie it up into a messy bun, remove her dress to reveal the suit that hugs her curves and she runs towards the ocean like a child. From a distance, the infirmary team witnesses her command the ocean like she is Amphitrite.
Just a mile away, the Alpha team appears. Hanzo's members appear sun-kissed already, and Ahri waves at them with excitement. Behind, their leader walks, Commander Hasashi of the Alpha squadron, clad in something more casual - board shorts, no shirt, and an expression that appears too reluctant, instantly regretting but perhaps has justified his appearance under the guise of "team building exercise". No one in his squad has objected; and though they will not say it, there sure is bound to be talk later about how Commander Hasashi has finally showed up to the team's casual gatherings.
"You guys made it!" Ahri practically vibrates. She greets Eito first, then acknowledges the rest of the squad.
"The good doctor not with you?" Eito asks.
"Look there," Daichi responds, rolling his eyes. "Did you know she could do that?"
(modern or reincarnation works :D)
Random Inbox Shenanigans || @vulpuslunae || always accepting!
▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥|| The ocean does not ask permission before it claims what belongs to it.
Hanzo Hasashi understands this truth intimately as his gaze tracks the figure in the water - Miharu, moving through the waves as though she were born from their foam and salt, as though the sea itself had exhaled her into existence and now calls her home with the inevitability of the tide. The Commander stands at the periphery of casual joy, a monument of controlled power carved from sun-bronzed flesh and disciplined muscle, the swimming briefs clinging to his thighs like a second skin that conceals nothing of his form's deadly purpose.
He does not acknowledge the eyes that trace the topography of his body - the roadmap of scars that write his history in raised tissue and faded white lines, the coiled strength of shoulders that have carried the weight of command and consequence, the abdomen that ripples with each breath like disturbed water over stone. Such attention slides off him like rain off obsidian. His focus narrows to a singular point; the physician who has abandoned medicine for myth, who moves through the blue expanse with the fluid grace of something that remembers being wild, being free, being elemental.
She surfaces, and water cascades from her like liquid crystal, like molten silver, like the tears of some forgotten deity who wept beauty into the world. The sundress lies abandoned on shore, a ghost of modesty, and what remains is the truth of her - curves that the swimsuit clings to with reverent desperation, skin that glows in the unforgiving sunlight, hair that the ocean has claimed and tousled into chaos that somehow becomes order in the frame of her face.
Hanzo's jaw tightens imperceptibly, the only external sign of the furnace that ignites behind his sternum.
She commands the water. No - that is insufficient. She is the water, moving with it, through it, becoming indistinguishable from wave and current and the mysterious pull of things that live beneath the surface. This is not the composed physician who navigates the infirmary with clinical precision, who speaks in measured tones and gentle corrections. This is something older, something that his blood recognizes even if his mind cannot name it - the fox-spirit wearing human skin, the she-fox who has forgotten to pretend she is merely mortal.
His feet carry him forward without conscious command, drawn by the same gravity that pulls the moon to the earth, that drags the tide against the shore in eternal, futile resistance. The sand burns beneath his soles but he does not notice. The sun brands his shoulders but he does not care. There is only the water, and the woman who belongs to it, and the strange magnetic pull that defies every careful distance he has cultivated, every wall he has constructed from duty and loss and the terrible knowledge that attachment is the cruelest weapon.
He wades in.
The ocean accepts him with cold embrace, the shock of it traveling up his legs like electricity, like recognition, like challenge. Still he advances, water rising to his thighs, to his waist, the briefness of his swim briefs leaving nothing to imagination or mystery. Let them look. Let them whisper. Let them wonder why Commander Hasashi, who has never bent to anything resembling social pleasantry, now submerges himself in saltwater and summer heat and the dangerous proximity of the one person who has managed to slip beneath his guard without even trying.
She turns, sensing him perhaps, or perhaps the ocean warns her of the predator in its midst. Their eyes meet across the diminishing distance, and something passes between them that has no name in any language the living speak - recognition, challenge, inevitability.
He does not smile. Smiling would be dishonest. Instead, he offers her the truth of his presence; deliberate, undeniable, and entirely against his better judgment.
The waves rise between them like aquatic curtains, and he thinks perhaps the ocean knows something he has spent years refusing to acknowledge - that some things cannot be kept at arm's length forever, that some forces are too fundamental to resist, that some people are written into your fate with ink mixed from seawater and fire.
"Doctor," he says, when he is close enough that she might hear him over the sound of waves and distant laughter. His voice emerges low, roughened by the salt air and something deeper, something that tastes like surrender disguised as greeting.
The sun beats down mercilessly. The water laps against skin and scar tissue. And Hanzo Hasashi, who has never taken a vacation, who keeps everyone at careful distance, who has built a fortress from discipline and duty, stands chest-deep in the ocean and allows himself this one moment of magnificent, terrible weakness. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥||
