Tokusatsu musebox

I know Emeric's right, that it's more professional for us to walk into the command room independent of each other. Even though we could probably enter hand-in-hand without raising a single glance, since everyone knows of us, if not knows us personally; since our circumstances are well known of. But he and I make an effort to be more professional than we're expected to be; it may be oversensitivity on our parts, but we've never felt that we can allow ourselves as many leniences as others allow themselves, if we want to be afforded the same level of respect.

If we were not such a unique case, perhaps it would feel more as though we labor under the pressure of a double standard of some sort. But we are, and so it is not. There is simply more expected of Emi and I than of normal...than of singular people. And that is fair, in its way, because we can achieve more than singular persons can.

All of this is what Emi and I know to our bones. But others do not, and as we have yet to prove the capacity and the competence which we believe is latent within us in battle, we walk singly where we might hold hands; we prove in every small motion that we have the potential and capacity for great ones.

So we enter the command center floor, standing at attention in front of Commander Kuroki's desk. I am on Emi's left, he on my right, and Hiromu stands on Emi's right, at the top of our line.

The others, sitting at the tables in the rear half of the room, stand and move to take their positions as well. Ryuu-san is at my left, Yoko-chan at his, on the end of our line. We all salute, though Hiromu is ever so fractionally slower to match our unified gesture. It makes me smile a little, fondly. He's still our newest, in little ways.