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The news anchor droned on and on about the heatwave. As if Tseng needed to be reminded of it, he'd been sweating all day beneath his suit. The only thing keeping him going was reminding himself of how much worse summer had been back when he still used binders.
At least he'd managed to get himself where the best AC was.
Officially, he was visiting Rufus in his confinement in order to discuss a couple things. Being placed on house arrest hadn't stopped him from scheming, and his scheming could at times align with Tseng's own interests. Which were, of course, the company's interests. Tseng's loyalty to Shinra was fierce and unwavering.
Tseng just happened to think that Rufus could handle the company's interests much better than certain other individuals.
Rufus's quarters also happened to have the best AC, because house arrest or not he was still the President's son. They'd long since stopped talking and Tseng was now trying to take advantage of the relative cool, replying to emails on his PHS. Rufus lounged on the couch, watching the news, his shirt sleeves rolled up and a few buttons undone. He wasn't commenting on Tseng's presence.
"I'm getting a drink," Rufus eventually declared, rising. Alcohol privileges were another little luxury he hadn't been revoked, despite current conditions. Quite the opposite. Tseng had seen what Rufus was drinking, and it wasn't poor quality either. "Can I offer you something? Whisky, maybe?"
"No, thank you, sir."
"Not to your tastes?"
Tseng wouldn't say he hated it, but he was more of a wine person. "I don't drink while I'm working."
"You know, Tseng, I've known you for years, and we've never had a drink together."
"That's because I'm always on duty when we meet."
Rufus sat back on the couch. "Are you telling me if we met while you were off duty you'd be willing to get drunk with me?"
"I dislike being drunk." Loss of control of any kind was something Tseng tried his best to avoid. Unpleasant, and potentially dangerous. He'd had to clean up far too many drunken messes in his career.
"Sounds about right," Rufus said, swirling his drink. "Do you ever relax? It seems to me you barely ever take a break."
"Not on duty, no."
"I'm not talking about drinking. I think I can count on my fingers the amount of times I've seen you express an emotion."
Tseng would hope so. "I will take that as a compliment, sir."
"A compliment," Rufus repeated. "Doesn't it get hard to keep all of yourself locked away all the time?"
Tseng raised an eyebrow at him. Rufus held his gaze, sipping from his glass.
The honest answer would be that yes, at times it was. Even after so many years, there were moments when his emotions threatened to claw their way out of his chest. Tseng had learnt to repress them, but he had never managed to make them leave entirely.
"Some people would say you are also quite good at keeping yourself in control, sir."
Rufus smirked at that. "Lately, maybe. Surely not a few years ago."
That was true. Rufus's teen years had been a true PR nightmare for Shinra. For a long time half of the world, Tseng included, had been convinced Rufus would never be much more than the family's scandal. He may still need some polishing, but he'd done a remarkably good job at getting his head back on his shoulders in the last few years.
"Most people have parts of their adolescence they're ashamed of."
"And you took a drastic approach and simply erased all of it?"
It seemed Rufus was getting bored. If he was asking personal questions, it meant he was not being entertained enough, and decided that whoever he was talking to was going to entertain him instead.
It was, in Tseng's opinion, a somewhat annoying habit. Multiple Turks had had the dubious pleasure of dealing with it since being assigned to Rufus. Tseng had been somewhat concerned about it in the beginning – leaking of personal information could be a potential risk for many operatives. In the end, however, Rufus's curiosity was proving itself mostly harmless, and at times even amusing. Tseng had personally witnessed him attempting to crack Rude, eventually dropping the subject with a huff after twenty minutes of monosyllabic answers.
He was also not the best at verifying the little information he was given. True, he currently had limited options to cross check what he was told, but in Tseng's opinion Rufus still had work to do if he wanted to turn into the mastermind he fancied himself being. He probably still believed that lie Reno had told him about his tattoos and the gang of chocobo riders.
"Erased it, sir? My early life was hardly public knowledge," Tseng said.
"I've looked through you files, Tseng. There is nothing there before your first missions as a Turk. You were recruited early."
"Many Turks are," Tseng replied. Orphans, runaways, teen criminals, plenty in the department had been picked up young. Younger even than SOLDIER candidates at times, and many people already considered the army's standards a travesty.
"And most of them aren't so good at hiding their backgrounds as you are."
Tseng smiled at Rufus. "Hiding one's traces is a useful skill to have, in my line of work."
"It is." Rufus took a sip from his drink. "Where in Wutai are you from, Tseng?"
Bold approach. Almost amusing. Tseng hoped Rufus didn't actually think Tseng would just answer him. "I don't quite remember, sir."
A lie. Tseng knew exactly which town he'd been born into. He just hadn't been back in many years. He'd heard the town had held a pocket of resistance back in the war, and Shinra had ended up sending the First Classes to eradicate it. If Tseng were to go back now, chances were most of what he remembered had been destroyed.
Not that he had much wish to. He wasn't that kind of sentimental. There was no one that he would want to see once again, and even if there was, they'd never connect the man Tseng was now to the child he'd been.
If Rufus wanted to know so badly, he'd have to try harder. It could be a challenge for him to sharpen those investigation skills of his. A good exercise, albeit a pointless one, there was no one in Shinra who was better than Tseng at hiding things.
Rufus hummed. "What about your name, then?"
"My name?"
"All your documents just list you as 'Tseng'. Only a first name. Weird, and not just because I've heard Tseng is a last name in Wutai."
Rufus had been thorough. Tseng was almost impressed, most people on this continent couldn't tell Wutai names from last names, nor did they care to learn. "If all documents list me as Tseng, then you can assume that is my name, sir."
"Is it written on your birth certificate as well?"
"Do you plan on looking for it, sir?" Tseng asked dryly. Tseng wasn't even sure that thing existed anymore. Shinra had been very thorough with his town.
"How? Going through documents for every single boy of Wutai descent born the same year as you were? Assuming the age you listed on your documents is real."
Tseng just gave him a sharp smile, and then looked back to his laptop.
Rufus's words made him feel pleasantly smug. Proof of a job well done always did, but there was a special kind of thrill when he was reminded of the way he'd successfully destroyed any evidence of his assigned gender.
It wasn't entirely his own work, to be fair – Veld had been kind enough to help Tseng change all his official documentation, back when he was still a recruit, but Tseng himself had double checked everything as his clearance had increased. It wasn't in the records that he took hormones, only a private matter between himself and a very discreet doctor. The leaves he had taken for surgery were marked as vacations. Tseng had viewed the whole process as a way to better learn how to wipe unwanted information from the records.
He was a man, and that's all the rest of the world needed to know. Not that he was ashamed of being trans, he just preferred to keep it to himself.
Just like everything else.
It was better to keep anything personal under wraps. Veld had told him once that when one held a position of power they had to pick an image to project to others, and stick to it. Tseng had chosen his image to be ice and steel. He couldn't let just anyone know about his personal life, or they might end up thinking he was human too.
Rufus huffed. "Never mind. Most of you Turks don't use your real names anyways."
"Is it Rude that gave you this idea?"
"If you had a son, would you name him that?"
Probably not.
No need in telling Rufus that as far as names went, Tseng considered his as real as it could possibly get.
"You're not going to give me any answers, are you?" Rufus asked.
"Afraid not, sir."
Rufus hummed. "Weren't really expecting you to. You probably won't have to deal with my questions for a while, anyways."
"What do you mean?"
Rufus sighed. "I heard my father wants to move me to Junon. He placed me in Turk custody to keep an eye on me, but I think he found out we get along a little better than he hoped."
That could be troublesome. Not only because it cut Tseng's access to Rufus and Rufus was good to have on his side. It also meant the President's faith in the Turks was still dangerously shaky.
"Sure you won't share a goodbye drink?" Rufus said.
Tseng raised an eyebrow. "Maybe at home I'll have one in your honor, sir."
"Really? Cheers, then," Rufus grinned, raising his glass at him. "And Tseng, do me a favor. Undo your tie, I'm sweating just looking at you."
"No can do, sir."
Rufus shook his head. "I'll get you to loosen up some day."
Maybe, but currently Rufus's clearance was still too low for that.