30_angsts, theme 22: Once upon a time ... ( 01; ffvii; tseng/rufus )
22. Once upon a time ...
It happened five years and some days ago. The day was routine, after six months of this particular assignment. Tseng left the elevator at floor sixty-nine and walked the eight long-legged paces to the Vice President’s apartment door. His keycard swiped through the reader and the light blinked from red to green. He let himself in with a cursory polite knock on the doorframe and stepped inside.
“Tseng-is that you?” Rufus called. “I’m in here.”
Something sounded amiss about his voice. Tseng was careful, among his kind: he knew not to get too close, but after half a year he had learned to tell a subtle shift in the sixteen-year-old heir’s often volatile moods. He walked into the bedroom and was greeted with the sight of boxes and suitcases scattered everywhere.
“Planning a vacation, Rufus-sama?” he asked with a wry expression.
Rufus looked up from a box he had been busily piling books into. “Not quite,” he replied and his voice was slightly bitter. “A period abroad, or so my father likes to call it.”
Tseng frowned. “Sir?”
Rufus laughed. There was no humor in it. “My old man is shipping me off to Junon to military academy! He finally came up with a perfectly legitimate way of getting me out of the way for a few years.”
Tseng was still and silent, digesting the news. “Will I be accompanying you, then?”
“Hardly,” Rufus sighed. “Gods forbid he spare one of his Turks for something as measly as guarding me for half a decade.” He snatched up an envelope and walked around to hand it to Tseng. “I believe these are a change of orders from Heidegger. Your duty to me is relieved.”
The Turk closed his hand around the thick white business envelope and lowered it back to his side without opening it. Looking at Rufus, he struggled between relief and disappointment. He knew not to get close, but it didn’t mean he’d been able to avoid it. Some part of him would miss the young man. He dismissed such feelings as needless attachment, and stepped away. He should be relieved that Rufus was leaving.
“I bid you a safe journey, sir.”
Rufus nodded slightly and for a moment it seemed as if he wished to say something. In the end, though, all he said was, “Dismissed, then.”
Tseng left and Rufus went back to his packing and they both spent the next five years and some days trying not to think about what they might have left unsaid.