#trantkim

Alright, I like a challenge!

1. Trant has been crushin' on Kim from afar

Okay, so, Trant. This fuckin guy, right? He loves obscure facts and trivia. He wants to be seen as a loser. For some reason, he has a gun??? This guy's a fucking weirdo (I love him for it).

So, he hears about Kim "The Kimball" Kitsuragi - a man who trained for nine months to infiltrate a pinball ring. A man who got fucking good at what he did and took it seriously. Trant starts imagining what this loose canon officer must be like.

Clearly, he's a man who volunteered for this. Clearly, he leans into his pinball fame. He's worked with kids - Trant has a kid!!! Oh, wouldn't that be the most beautiful picture, he thinks to himself. Little Mikael learning to play pinball from the Kim Kitsuragi. Before he knows it, he's constructed this image of Kim in his mind...

... And then he meets him, and Kim is nothing like Trant's mental image. At least not outwardly. But that makes it better.

2. Kim is deeply, deeply oblivious to Trant's attempt at flirting.

Which, really, is not his fault. Because Trant's love language is fucking info dumping, and that's... not a flirting method that Kim has been exposed to previously. That being said, he likes talking to Trant.

He enjoys their time together, but more or less assumes Trant is straight and probably still married. They're just colleagues. Oh, well, they're seeing each other outside of work. They're friends, then. Friends that go to the movies, and dinners, and trade books and... Okay, so they're close friends.

Close friends who gently brush knuckles and share shy looks and.

Oh.

Oh.

And suddenly Kim is staring off into space, only jostled from his thoughts by a delighted HDB telling him "Don't sweat it, I think you'll be a great step-dad!"

2. Kim is awkward as hell with Mikael, but it kinda works out?

Kim is sick to death of children, but that doesn't mean he isn't good with them. He talks to Mikael like he's an adult, and that charms the kid so fucking much. Kim thinks he's smart! So this shy kid comes out of his shell when Kim's around - talking to him about school, and what he's interested in, and and and...

And Kim is patient and asks him pertinent questions. He's brisk, but not unkind. All the adults around can tell that he's not super jazzed by these interactions, but Mikael just sees someone who doesn't talk down to him.

So, Kim's desk goes from a largely empty to largely empty... with the exception of a single drawing Mikael did of the Kineema.