“For Mass Murder Machines, you sure have a human sense of fashion,” remarked Murayama as he observed the other group arriving at the meeting point, more or less within the time limit.

“Huh? What’s with that?” grumbled Mitaru, one of his eyebrows starting to morph into a deep frown. “Were you expecting us to come out of the stores with a t-shirt stamped with ‘Mass Murder Machine 4ever’?”

“Oh shit… Mizusaki’s sense of humour is spreading faster than the freaking flu!” cussed Ikusaki, slightly taken aback by hearing Mitaru trying to crack a joke - even if done in a very annoyed and cranky way.

“It’s as they say~” started Mizusaki with a sing-song voice. “The closer you are with someone, the more similar you all become. Blame Miue-san for making me their investigation subject, hehehe.”

“Yeah? At least I had a super relaxing shopping trip, with no super soldier annoying the heck out of me,” pointed out Miue, indeed with a more relaxed expression on his face than usual. “You seemed to be having a lot of fun too, so I guess it wasn’t too bad for either you and Eki. And you, Murayama? How did your side of things go?”

“It could have been worse,” sighed Murayama, his gaze being redirected to the bench where the three super soldiers had settled at so they could continue talking about their purchases. He placed his hand on top of Miue’s shoulder, which erupted a questioning expression on his face. “Miue, I was mistaken all of these years. Your patience rivals with Rei’s only. Good job holding on there while looking after Atsumu.”

“Huh?” interjected Miue, confusion written all over his face.

“Apart from Atsumu, we only had a little ‘incident’ revolving around the other two…” groaned Murayama, still inwardly cringing just by remembering it all over again. “Never let the two of them escape from your gaze at the same time. It means they’re up to no good.”

“By your words and Shouichi’s reaction, I can already guess what happened,” chuckled Eki, taking a peek at Ikusaki’s pinkish cheekbones. “Did they turn the shopping trip into a date while you two were taking care of Atsumu?”

“You hit the nail in the head…” sighed Murayama, nodding his head a couple of times.

“Don’t humans sometimes use the dressing area for more private matters?” pointed out Iru out of the blue, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his eyes. “I was simply applying your instructions and behaving like one.”

“...”

“W-What? Why are you looking at me like that?” hesitantly asked Mizusaki, taking a step back as he fell victim of intense accusing stares from all members of his squad. He vigorously shook his head in denial, trying to clear the misunderstanding being formulated in their heads. Mizusaki did have a ‘criminal record’ of providing uncalled for information to the super soldiers so he couldn’t blame them for it, though. “Nope, I’m innocent this time! Apart from kisses and that sex ed class during dinner, I never told them anything else. Maybe Iru read it somewhere? Yeah, maybe someone hid their secret stash in the bookshelves being kept in the storage area and they were accidentally brought to their building during the moving process?”

Iru… and porn mags…, inwardly wondered the soldiers at the mention of that possibility.

“Mizusaki, just learn to keep your mouth quiet about some things,” said Miue after clearing his throat. “Eki, Ikusaki, purge the bookshelves once we get back, just to play safe. We can’t have more of them going crazy with lus-”

“Never mind that,” complained Tsugi, giving soft tugs at the back of Miue’s upper clothes. “We went shopping for clothes like you wanted. Now it’s time for food. New food!”

“Are you still up for that medium-rare steak, Miue-san?” asked Ikusaki in an attempt to make his second-in-command superior forget all about having him ‘purge’ that never-ending mountain of books. “I asked a store attendant while those guys were shopping and there is a restaurant here with a mean one!”

“Hell yeah, let’s get ‘em!” acknowledged Miue, licking his lips in expectation. Tsugi’s food wasn’t bad at all. Eki and Ikusaki were also expert cooks. But he really missed eating food made by people whose passion in life was feeding others. There was just no comparison with those that cooked as a hobby.

“Time to get the second mission of today started then,” announced Murayama, once again calling everyone closer for easier communication. As he was at it, he used the opportunity to remove an envelope from his jacket’s inner pocket and started distributing its contents through the super soldiers. “The second mission is eating lunch, obviously. Those 5,000 yen are your lunch allowance. You saw how we paid for your clothes, right? Now it’s your time to do the same thing. Each of you gets 5,000 yen and you can spend it to eat whatever you feel like. But spend wisely because you won’t get more than that for food.”

“Ohh~ It’s been a while since I touched human money!” cheerfully said Atsumu, closely observing the paper money from several angles.

“You don’t need a ‘lunch allowance’?” inquired Azuma, noticing that none of the human soldiers had received any spending money to pay for their food.

“The money you received is part of the budget being redirected to you by Nakatani-san, which means it’s a portion of the money our base receives from the Ministry of Defense,” explained Eki. “It’s not meant as an offence but since you’re not soldiers of the Japanese army, Nakatani-san can’t pay you a salary. So all of your expenses are being categorised as a budget to carry out our squad’s missions. Do you now understand why we can’t have Tsugi cooking all of that money away? One squad alone can’t have that much money expenses in a couple of weeks or the Ministry of Defense will notice something is amiss and will send someone to investigate the matter.”

“And you’re keeping our stay in the base a secret from your leaders so that could end up being a fucking problem,” interrupted Mitaru, a sour expression on his features as he understood what Eki was trying to say with all of that.

“Exactly,” acknowledged Eki with a small nod of his head. “As for us, official soldiers of the Japanese army, we receive a salary every month so we can afford our expenses during this trip. We don’t need to touch your budget.”

“But if that’s the case, Shuukyuu will have to later give proofs of why that budget has been created,” said Iru, joining in the conversation after having gathered both his and Rei’s ‘lunch allowance’. Might as well keep them together, for it would be used together. “I doubt they would believe it if he said it’s a budget to keep that area running. How will he solve that matter?”

“I’m not sure about it myself yet but I think he’s going to use those missions you mentioned yesterday as an excuse for that budget,” explained Murayama, folding the empty envelope and putting it back inside of his pocket. “But if he intends on doing that, it means you’ll have to drag us along with you while you take down The Union. Rather than babysitters, caretakers or guardians, we’ll be your cover-up.”

“What a pain in the ass…” grumbled Mitaru under his breath, clicking his tongue in annoyance afterwards.

“But that’s something we should discuss another time, like Nakatani-san said,” pointed out Murayama. “There’s no certainty about any of it yet and we also have other things we need to do first before we find out. It’s time to eat!”

And time to meet with Mitsu and En’s gang, added Murayama in the back of his head after having checked the time on his cell phone’s screen.