One Piece: Lust Haki

She was already in the room when I arrived.

Gion was never already in the room. She arrived after me. That was the pattern for four months because Vice Admirals don't wait for Chore Boys and because the walk from her quarters to the training room was shorter than the walk from Block C and because she timed it that way. She'd told me once, early on, that an officer should never be seen waiting for a subordinate. I'd said that sounded exhausting. She'd said I'd understand when I outranked someone.

But she was there. Standing in the center of the room with Konpira sheathed and her arms at her sides and the late-afternoon light through the high windows catching the gold in her earrings. Pink ruffled shirt tucked in. Heels on. Hair pulled back. Lipstick perfect.

"You're early," I said.

"You're late."

I wasn't. I was the same time I'd been every Thursday and every Tuesday for four months. She knew that because she'd set the schedule and I had never been late because being late to a Vice Admiral's private training session was the kind of decision that ended your career in a sentence.

I didn't say any of that. I put my water bottle on the floor by the wall and stood in the center of the room facing her.

"Armament combinations," she said. "Right hand. Three-step sequence. Maintain through all three."

She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at the wall behind me, the calligraphy scroll with the characters she'd never translated for me, and her chin was level and her posture was straight and she was addressing the scroll.

I hardened my right fist. The skin darkened, the density layering, and I stepped into the combination. Cross, hook, step. The hardening held for the cross. Slipped on the hook. Gone by the step.

"Again."

I did it again. Same result.

"Again."

The Armament wasn't the problem. We'd drilled this exact combination last week and I'd held for all three and she'd said the improvement was measurable. This drill wasn't about my Armament.

I did it again. Held through two. Lost it on the third.

"Again."

I stopped.

She was at the far edge of the room near the weapon rack, one hand on Konpira's hilt. Her mouth was a line and the crease between her eyebrows was deep and she'd been like this for days. Since before the rainstorm. Since the inspection.

"You're not teaching," I said. "You're standing there running a drill you already know I can do while you think about something else."

"Focus on the combination."

"No."

The training room was quiet. Amber light through the high windows going orange. The warm wood floor under my boots. The room smelled like the wax she used on Konpira's sheath and old sweat baked into the planks.

She turned to face me. Dark eyes, red lipstick, the mole below her mouth.

I'd seen this before. Early in the third month, she'd gone cold for half a week after an officers' meeting. Wouldn't explain why. The training had turned mechanical. I'd pushed on it and she'd punched the training post hard enough to crack the wood down the middle and splinters scattered across the floor and I'd stood there while she breathed through it and then I'd told her that whatever was going on, I wasn't a training post and she didn't get to work it out on my drills.

She'd stared at me. Then she'd laughed. And the lesson after that had been the best I'd gotten all month.

"The last time you went cold on me," I said, "you cracked a training post and I told you I'm not your punching bag. Whatever you're working through, just say it."

Her fingers tightened on Konpira's hilt. Her mouth opened. Closed. Her jaw shifted.

"That's not what's happening."

"Then what is."

"You're a recruit in a private training session asking questions above your rank."

"I'm a recruit who's been in private sessions with you for four months and can tell when you're here and when you're somewhere else. Today you're somewhere else."

She let go of Konpira.

Her arms dropped to her sides. The orange light was on her face and the curl along her jaw had come loose and she didn't push it back.

"Doll's comment," she said.

I waited.

"She noticed the gap in your development. Observation outpacing Armament. She called it suspicious." Gion's voice was level, but her fingers were rubbing together at her side, thumb against forefinger. "Doll doesn't file reports like Hina does. She doesn't catalogue. She observes, and if she doesn't like what she observes, she watches more carefully."

"She's watching me."

"She's watching the situation." Her jaw tightened. "A Vice Admiral giving private sessions to a recruit whose development doesn't add up."

The wood floor ticked as it cooled in the fading light. A fly circled one of the high windows, tapping the glass.

"I told her you were a late developer. She didn't believe me." She was looking at the scroll again. "I'm not a good liar. I never have been. I'm direct and that works in most rooms and it doesn't work when what's happening in the room is something I can't be direct about."

"Is that what this week has been," I said. "You deciding what to do about Doll."

"This week has been me deciding what to do about all of it."

She stepped toward me.

One step. The heels clicked on the wood. In heels she had the inch on me, maybe two, and she was looking down. Her chin lowered and her eyes found mine from above and she was close.

Closer than professional.

Another step. The texture of the lipstick on her lower lip, the slight crack where it had dried at the corner of her mouth. The thin scar on her left eyebrow she'd never explained.

I didn't step back.

Her hand came up. Her fingers touched my jaw. The pads of her fingertips against the bone under my ear, light. She tilted my face up. A correction. Except her thumb was on my cheekbone and her fingers were along my jawline and her mouth was soft and her eyes weren't correcting anything.

Her eyes dropped to my mouth.

Mine dropped to hers.

Waxy. Faintly floral. The lipstick close enough to smell and underneath it her skin and the wine she'd had with dinner and whatever she washed her hair with. The curl along her jaw was an inch from my forehead.

Her breathing was shallow. Mine was held. Her thumb moved on my cheekbone. A fraction. Her eyes on my mouth and her lips parted and the fly had stopped tapping the window.

She stopped.

Her hand still on my jaw. Her thumb on my cheekbone. An inch from my mouth, her breath warm on my lips. Not moving.

Her eyes came back to mine. Close and dark and the crease between her eyebrows was back and her jaw was working on nothing.

"Not here," she said.

The corridor had been her voice rough and her hands on my belt. This was quiet.

I nodded.

Her fingers left my jaw. The warmth stayed. Her hand dropped and she stepped back, turning toward the weapon rack. Posture straight. Shirt tucked. Konpira at her hip.

"Same time Thursday?" I said.

Her back was to me. Her hand went to Konpira's hilt. Her shoulders rose, fell.

"Same time Thursday."

I picked up the water bottle. The condensation was cold on my fingers. The training room was going dark as the light left the high windows and I walked to the door and went through.

The corridor was empty. Overhead lanterns lit, long spaces between them. My jaw was warm where her fingers had been. Four fingertips and a thumb.

I walked to the barracks. The stone was cool and I didn't touch my face.

Thursday.