All I Wanted

As Takahiro enters his house, he realised something unusual. He slowly reached his pistol and kept walking along the corridor.

"It's me, Lieutenant."

Takahiro recognised the voice, he put his pistol back and reached the living room.

"It's been a long time, Shin."

Shin and Takahiro, they were in the same squad few years ago. Before the government established JGSA, their ways have been already seperated. Now he was sitting on his couch, looking towards to him.

"So what's the matter, Shin? I suppose it's not a visit made by an old friend, right?"

"I wish it was. We received an information. Nobody knows where it came from." As he spoke, he puts a black document folder on the table. "It's not much but it might be something serious, so government decided to deploy us for a secret mission."

"I left those jobs, you know this as well. I became Lieutenant of JGSA because they said they want me to train new recruits and promised me to that I'll be mostly working on the table. All they wanted from me was my experience and my name to inspire new recruits. Otherwise I wouldn't have took that position. I prefer enjoying my retirement rather than that." Takahiro took a short break to suppress his anger. "Didn't you leave with me that day? What's changed?"

"It's not a mission that we could get everyday."

"None of them was!"

"It's way serious, I know we don't have much information but-"

"So they're sending us to death?!"

"We don't know if the information is correct, we just gotta be sure-"

"Then what's the point of including me into this shit, have you forgetten why we quitted these jobs?"

"Takahiro just-"

"Do they want us to die just like the rest of our squad?!"

"TAKAHIRO!"

As Shin yells at Takahiro, neighbours dog started barking. Afterwards they heard an old woman, she seemed worried about what's going on.

"Everything is alright, Mr. Oikawa?"

"Yes, Mrs. Fujiwara. Sorry for all that noise, you don't have to be worried." answered Takahiro. As the woman calms her dog, Shin started talking again.

"It wasn't your fault, Takahiro, not at all. What happened that day couldn't be prevented. We had nothing to do but watch."

Takahiro remained his silence. He was emotionally struggling in that moment. Shin continued.

"The information we got is not only about our country, but the whole world. It says there's a terrorist organization that tries to ignite a war between many countries, third world war." explained Shin calmly. He waited a little for Takahiro to understand the whole situation.

"I know we don't have much information, we only roughly know where it came from, but still don't know who sent it. What makes this information suspicious is, how suddenly it showed up, out of nowhere."

"And government wants us to confirm if the information is correct or not, right?"

"Well, mostly. I know it's hard.. Takahiro and I can not guarentee anything, that what's about to be happen in the future." Shin have stopped speaking formally. Takahiro understood that he wasn't talking for the government anymore, he was talking as his concerned old friend.

"But there's nobody capable of taking this job other than you. You know that.. we're in kinda hard situation. There's not much experienced military experts left and JGSA just established by the government this year. We're not only lacking of information but personal and firepower."

JGSA, Japanese Global Security Agency, main target of this organization was the train experts against the increasing terrorist acts. Takahiro is an expert about overseas missions, not only off the field but also on the field. He've accomplished a lot of critical missions with his squad, until they faced with a huge impact on their last mission and got almost completely destroyed. Shin and Takahiro are the only ones, who survived.

"But still, it's not something we can just ignore. So you and me, and few new recruits from JGSA will be deployed to somewhere between Russia and China. Not sure exactly where, we're still investigating." At the end of his speech, Shin took a deep breath, just as if he forgot breathing while he was speaking.

"I will go alone." said Takahiro without even hesitating.

"You can not go alone, you need at least a small squad to succeed." answered Shin immediately. His heartbeats were getting faster.

"Just tell them I won't be taking this job with a squad. I don't want to see my brothers in arms dying again."

"But-"

"You do have a wedding in this summer, don't you?"

Shin stopped for a moment. After him and Takahiro retired from the army, they have seperated their ways because of Takahiro's bad mental health. Still, Shin wrote him letters to inform his only friend about his life. Shin never received a letter back from Takahiro, but he kept writing, until they met again today.

"I've told you everything I should." said Takahiro. "If we're only talking about possibilites and just tracking the information if it's correct or not, it shouldn't be a problem to deploy me alone there. And if I die out there, government will know the whole situation is more serious than it seems, so they will get a chance to prepare themselves for it."

Shin accepted his fate. "I will tell them, at least I can do that much. Just don't get yourself killed there, Takahiro. You still have a wedding to attend." smiled Shin and shaked hands with Takahiro. As he leaves Takahiro's house, Takahiro took the folder and started reading about the details of the mission.

"Oh man, all I wanted was a peaceful life..."