“Geez, you guys are unbelievable…” sighed Miue, sat down in one of the train seats with his head in between in hands, elbows on his upper legs. “Didn’t we say to pay attention to where we were all going and not get lost?”

“Those ice creams looked really good,” said Tsugi in his own defence - a nearly exact mimic to his earlier excuse to scaring children by staring at them. His eyes, however, were now stuck on the outside scenery he could see through the glass windows on the train’s door.

“They might look good but that’s no reason to wander off on your own, especially right after Murayama-san’s warning to not do it,” pointed out Eki, one of his hands keeping a discreet hold on the back of Tsugi’s jacket. That had been the temporary solution the soldiers had come up with until the super soldier learned to walk in a group without suddenly disappearing on his own. “Besides, your first mission is clothes, not food. Please focus on finishing it before you get your reward. If you don’t, I’ll start deducting food out of you as if they were test points. Okay?”

“Yes…” groaned Tsugi, a childish pout shaping his facial expression.

“How are the others doing?” asked Miue to no one in particular, straightening his sitting position so he could crane his neck and take a peek to the seats next to him. Atsumu and Mitaru were quietly sat down next to one another, the former attentively reading a newspaper that had been left behind (when he was quiet and still, he could easily pass by as a foreign college student any time of the day - when he started speaking, it was reduced to raunchy host with bleached hair) and the latter staring to the window opposite to him with a bored expression. The earlier hyperactive mischief had completely faded away. Miue then shifted his gaze to the door that connected to the next carriage.

“Azuma, could you please stop staring at me?” sighed Mizusaki, uncomfortably looking back and forth at the super soldier sitting right next to him, awkwardly close to his body and perpetually gawking at him with nearly unblinking eyes. “Miue-san was just joking when he said to find out my supposed secrets. You won’t find anything about me by trying to bore a hole through my face…”

“How do I find out your secret then?” asked Azuma, adjusting his glasses at the same time he pushed his body slightly away from the soldier.

“There’s no secret to find out in the first place,” said Mizusaki, able to sit in a more relaxed way now that Azuma had unglued both body and eyes from him. “And it’s common courtesy to ask questions when you want to know about something. And that’s applied to both mundane things and more detailed subjects. So ask away~”

“How did you win against Iru?” asked Azuma right away, his words almost a bullet that had been craving to be released from the barrel for quite a while now.

“Strategical thinking,” shortly answered Mizusaki, putting his elbow on top of the armrest of his seat and leaning his chin on his hand.

“How did you come up with that ‘strategical thinking’?” asked Azuma right afterwards.

“With my brain,” said Mizusaki, sending a brief glance at the seats opposite to him, occupied by Murayama, Ikusaki, Iru and Rei, before he looked outside the train’s window.

“How did your brain do it?” continued Azuma with his questions, once again focusing his total attention on the human soldier and his half-hearted answers.

“I was born like this,” said Mizusaki with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Hmph!” Azuma turned his head to the other side, a sour look on his face as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You said I should ask if I want to know. You humans really are all liars.”

“You can ask all you want, I never promised you’d get a straight answer to every question~” pointed out Mizusaki, sticking his tongue out at Azuma in a playful way. “And it’s not that we’re all liars. We’re just inherently crafty and schemy. One has to be or we’ll be swallowed whole by big, bad wolves~”

“Wasn’t the Japanese wolf extinct?” inquired Azuma, sideways glancing at Mizusaki with a certain suspicion.

“You should know better than anyone that humans can be worse than beasts,” remarked Mizusaki, once again shrugging his shoulders. “Especially if they’re in a position with power.”

“Yes… That is true,” acknowledged Azuma, finally giving up on the interrogatory. He remained quietly sat down on the train seat, dismissingly peeking at the other train occupants now and then.

“What’s that?” asked Rei, pointing with his index finger at the structure the train was currently passing by.

“That’s a baseball field,” answered Ikusaki, taking a quick peek at the window before he sat back straight with a sigh. “There’s loads here in Japan.”

“Baseball is a sport played in teams, using bats, a special type of gloves and a ball,” elaborated Murayama, seeing as his subordinate was already too tired from constant questions and explanations. And another particular something that constantly invaded the otherwise normal conversation. “It’s very popular in Japan... or was very popular in Japan before the war started. Now it’s become more of a way for citizens to distract themselves from war news.”

“The metal variety of the bats dubs as a perfect weapon for bashing,” added Iru, sat down sideways on the seat so he could have a clear view of both the window and the other speakers. “One strike in the right location and the human skull will explode as if a watermelon.”

“...”

“Is that also a convenience store?” asked Rei next, this time pointing at a building whose windows and entrance featured several advertisement posts of the products being sold by the store in it.

“That’s more of a retail store,” explained Murayama after throwing another reproving glare at Iru. “That one sells a little bit of everything. Food, clothes, books, some small appliances, other goods for daily use. Things like that. It usually has daily sales and special promotions that change every week as a marketing strategy. I’m pretty sure the shopping centre has one or two in it, or nearby it, so we can go inside of one later if you want to.”

“Since it’s targetted to the population in general and has all sorts of mundane things in it, it’s the perfect source to obtain materials used to carry out secret missions without raising suspicion,” added Iru in a leisure way. “The chemicals in the cleaning section and the electrical components in the appliances are an example of products that can be adapted for further purposes other than catering to the masses.”

“Iru, just shut up…” groaned Ikusaki, slapping both hands on his face and massaging his brows with his fingers to alleviate an incoming headache. “You almost sound like a walking, talking manual on how to defile otherwise regular objects. Stop teaching Rei useless things! His innocence is refreshing and I want it to stay like that!”

“Yamase, didn’t you say that we should try to have fun during this trip, even if we don’t particularly want to mingle in your midst?” asked Iru to the other human soldier, as a strategy to make his point come across to the other one. “Shinobu told me about the human concept of ‘games’ and ‘punishment games’ the other day. It truly is a wonderful source of distraction and amusement. Every interaction you have with my Rei is becoming so worthwhile, hehe.”

Oh… So all of this is just his jealousy talking… literally…, inwardly cringed Murayama, only releasing a tired sigh outwardly.

“Murayama-san, I think it would be safer if Iru doesn’t buy anything…” suggested Ikusaki, visibly weirded out by the reason behind all of the previous morbid, disturbing facts. “We should also pay more attention to what we bring to their ‘nest’. Plus, Mizusaki should be freaking censored from now on!!”