Chương 142: 53. Prerequisite 3

When I got back to the dorm, Jess was sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk, holding a bag of potato chips she'd dug up from somewhere, eating like she was watching a pay-per-view stream. The moment I walked in, she skipped the greeting, set the chips aside, and looked at me with eyes bright as a detective who'd finally caught a suspect returning to the scene.

"Alright, culprit. Confess." I tossed my notebook onto the desk, pausing halfway through taking off my jacket.

"You make it sound like I just hauled two boxes of embezzled funds out of the Student Council vault."

"Not exactly." Jess crunched a chip—crack—her schadenfreude practiced and pure.

"If you'd robbed a vault, you'd look happier. That face looks more like someone smiled while making you sign an indenture contract."... Dammit. Annoyingly accurate. Kushima was sitting at her desk, holding that fleet operations manual she'd been flipping through lately. She didn't turn around immediately, just naturally nudged the hot water thermos on the desk slightly to the side, like making room for someone who hadn't sat down yet. I saw it. And pretended I didn't.

"So?" Jess lifted her chin.

"Did the Kushima family trap you again?"

"If the Student Council President heard you say that, you'd probably get a demerit tomorrow just for stepping into the classroom with your left foot first."

"So that's a yes."

"... A little."

"Oooh—" Jess dragged the sound out, long and slow, like someone pulling the tab on a soda can right next to my ear and deliberately not letting all the gas out at once. Kushima finally turned around, expression as calm as if her sister wasn't her sister, but just the neighbor lady who grew herbs.

"What did my sister say?" I stared at her for two seconds. The question was ordinary. Completely ordinary. But coming from Maki Kushima—whose face normally looked like even her eyelash flutters were calculated—it felt like a high-level trap. If I answered, she'd immediately start assisting; if I didn't answer, she'd deduce eighty percent of it anyway. So I gave up struggling and sat on the edge of my bed.

"Final term practicals are mostly set." Jess was reaching for another chip; her fingers stopped in midair. Kushima didn't speak, but I saw her shoulders drop by less than a centimeter. It was the small tell she had when confirming something she'd already guessed. Very slight. Someone who didn't know her wouldn't notice. Unfortunately, I was no longer someone who didn't know her.

"Shipboard," I said.

"The Yukikaze. Destination is the Orion Alpha System front line." The dorm was quiet for half a beat. The next second, Jess put the potato chips down. For the first time, she didn't look like she was watching a show.

"... The Student Council President said that herself?"

"Yeah."

"Then it's probably not a scare tactic. It's a notification to start preparing your affairs—no, your coursework." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, swearing with deep sincerity.

"Fuck. These people really don't plan on letting us just be first-years." I let out a cold laugh.

"She made it sound very nice. Thanking me for looking after her sister on the fire planet, so she was giving me a little secret in advance." Jess slapped her leg.

"Classic Kushima rhetoric! Oh, this isn't calculation, it's an investment." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Kushima closed her book. Snap. Not loud, but very clear.

"She would say that."

"See? Even the sister admits it." Jess pointed at Kushima with a case closed expression.

"So what's the plan now? You've been notified to start studying second-year material early?"

"Worse." I fell backward, crashing into the mattress and staring at the ceiling.

"Once I know about the Yukikaze and Orion Alpha, I can't unhear it. If I don't go catch up on fleet management and ship operations now, I'm just waiting to get on that ship and have reality hit me in the head with a wrench." Jess was silent for two seconds, then delivered a highly earnest review.

"Aki Kushima is a piece of work."

"If my sister heard—""She's not here." Jess threw her hands up.

"Besides, I'm praising her technique. Setting a trap that smoothly—it'd be a waste if she didn't go into politics." Kushima didn't argue. She just stood up, walked over to my bed, and looked down at me. The backlight from the window cut her silhouette sharply—so sharply it was slightly annoying.

Because at times like this, she always looked too much like someone who had already organized the entire situation, while I looked like the unlucky bastard who'd just been fished out of the trap and hadn't figured out what I'd signed yet.

"I will help you," she said. Four simple words. No written guarantees, no long speeches, no overly sentimental please trust me buildup. She just said it calmly, naturally, almost as a matter of course—like discussing something already on the schedule. I wanted to say who asked for your help, but the words caught in my throat, eventually turning into a much less principled:"... You'd better actually be useful." Jess laughed out loud.

"Translation: You can help, but don't make me look too dependent on you."

"Jess."

"Okay, okay, I'm shutting up." She raised both hands, looking innocent.

"But let me state for the record: if you two are studying in the library later and the atmosphere starts getting weird, I am not responsible for saving the situation."

"That won't happen," Kushima and I answered simultaneously. We looked at each other.... Great. Now it seemed even more likely to happen. That night, the dorm stayed relatively quiet. Jess showered first, coming out rubbing her hair and tossing a casual, "The Yukikaze, huh. Do you want to draft a will now and leave the cherry cola to me?" I told her, "If you die first, I'll publish your will as a joke book," and she said that sounded fine too. Kushima sat quietly at her desk and started organizing a reading list.

Not a "suggested reading list." A terrifying document with the order, difficulty, prerequisites, and cross-references all perfectly arranged. I peeked at it. The top read: First-Year Reinforcement: Introduction to Fleet Management, Basics of Bridge Duties, Overview of CIC Information Flow. Underneath was a line of small text. Mark what you don't understand first. Do not force memorization. I stared at that line for two seconds, then quietly looked away....

This woman really knew how to target the exact spots you couldn't even bring yourself to complain about. By the end of classes the next morning, my soul was operating at roughly thirty percent capacity. Not because the classes were too hard, but because the human brain clearly isn't designed to sit quietly and listen to lectures on standardized management forms and equipment turnaround times when it knows it might be thrown onto a warship heading to the front line in three months.

I'd just finished packing my bag when the teaching assistant called out to me.

"Hoshino. Your new materials." She shoved a stack of books heavier than my mood yesterday into my arms. The covers were stark, the titles rigid, radiating that specific smell of textbooks designed to age you prematurely. I looked down— Foundations of Fleet Management Shipboard Duty Rotation and Coordination Introduction to Frontline Supply Logistics And a book whose title alone gave me a stomachache: Excerpts from the Federation Destroyer Standard Operating Framework.

Standing in the hallway holding that stack, I felt, for the first time, a slight understanding of how ancient people must have felt watching a landslide.

"Not going to lunch?" Someone asked from behind. I turned around and saw Kushima standing at the classroom door, her meal ticket already in hand. Her expression hadn't changed, but her eyes clearly swept over the stack of new materials in my arms, then up to my face. The meaning of that look was clear: You aren't planning to start reading those right now, are you. I was silent for a moment, then answered honestly.

"... I want to flip through a few pages first." Kushima looked at me for two seconds.

"You haven't eaten lunch."

"I'll eat later."

"You only drank half a glass of milk for breakfast."

"I had bread."

"That thing was dry enough to qualify as a fire brick. It doesn't count as eating." I wanted to snap back, but she was so objectively right that I couldn't find an angle to argue from. I just stood there holding my stack of textbooks, looking like someone who'd just received a death sentence and had to sign for their own copy. Kushima let out a quiet sigh. Not heavy. But I recognized the sound. That was her standard opening move before entering this person is impossible, fine, I'll handle it mode.

"Library first," she said.

"I was already going to the library."

"I mean go claim seats first." She tucked her meal ticket back into her pocket, voice level.

"Go to the east reading section on the second floor. I'll bring lunch over." I blinked.

"You're not eating?"

"I'll pick something up." She looked at me, eyes unreasonably clear.

"If you go to the cafeteria now, the crowd will irritate you, the line will irritate you more, and by the time you're done being irritated, you'll have lost the afternoon." I frowned at her.

"Do you analyze everyone like this?"

"No," Kushima said with complete honesty.

"Only people who need managing."

"Who needs you to manage—""You."

"..." She turned and walked away. Completely natural, like that borderline statement had been roughly equivalent to today's high is twenty-six degrees. Left me standing in the hallway holding my textbooks, suddenly very tempted to throw Foundations of Fleet Management at her back. I didn't. Not out of mercy. The book was thick, and if I damaged it, I'd probably have to pay for it myself.