Chương 203: 77. Brat Is Stressing Me Out 2

First Watch, First Tour The first round of shipboard observation began not long after the Yukikaze cleared the harbor — more precisely, right after the ship shook off the port, the full muster wrapped, and the rest of us miserable trainees had our duties handed down by Major Elena in a tone that said from this point on, nobody gets to play student. That was exactly when the middle-school swarm got re-sorted into batches, ready to be deployed through the ship like small, mobile disasters waiting to happen.

Maki and I had drawn the crown jewel of the assignment list. Identification and retrieval of high-risk individuals. I still think that if they printed that title on an armband, it would give off a completely unearned air of authority.

"Group Three, stay on the lead. No stragglers. Center-line personnel, push forward half a section and watch the junctions." Sergeant Major Takenaka stood at the head of the main passage, and his voice picked up a hard echo off the metal — less like it was being spoken and more like it was being nailed straight into the bulkheads.

"If you understand, move. Don't make me say it twice."

"Yes, sir—" The response from the middle schoolers came thin and scattered, buzzing with the particular restlessness of kids who'd just left port and whose brains were still bouncing between terror and excitement. Our side was cleaner. Everyone in Class 144 already knew that on this ship, anyone dragging their feet eventually got chewed up by the process itself. Maki and I held center-line, slightly forward, in Group Three. Point was Aida and Evelyn, and their styles couldn't have been more different.

Aida walked out front — short sentences, steady pace, rarely looking back. Her whole posture said: keep up, or deal with the consequences yourself. Evelyn hung half a step behind, smiling gently, voice never raised — and somehow, the girls who'd been practically vibrating with the urge to wander the moment they entered the corridor toned themselves down the second they got near her. Some people, apparently, were just built for crowd flow. Maki and I, clearly, were built for plugging leaks and putting out fires.

Group Three ran about twenty kids, boys and girls mixed. We hadn't been in the main passage more than a few minutes before I'd already flagged several prime candidates for disaster. First: Takuya Hayashi. The second-year boy who'd nearly stepped over the yellow line earlier and gotten hauled back by Sergeant Major Takenaka. Short hair, eyes a shade too bright to be safe, legs faster than his brain. His whole face said: I already know this is dangerous, and I still want to know what's one step further.

Second: the girl with the ponytail, Sayo Takase. The one who'd earlier asked, dead serious, whether Maki was my girlfriend. She wasn't the loudest of the group — she was the kind who read a room. While everyone else stared up at the bulkheads, she was watching the officers' faces. While the others gasped, she was already calculating who she could push and who she absolutely couldn't. Third: the unsettlingly quiet one, Mio Takanashi. Small, short-haired, hugging a thin notebook to her chest.

She hadn't said a word since we'd entered the passage — just kept looking up, down, sideways, then writing, her eyes moving across hatch numbers, deck markings, and junction signs faster than anyone had a right to. She wasn't the bolt-and-run kind of high-risk. She was the other, more inconvenient kind — the kind who actually remembered things. Fourth: Minato Hojo. Tall, thin, quiet-spoken. He looked a little scared, but not the kind of scared that curls someone inward.

The kind that keeps you listening, watching, like he was waiting to hear the ship make a sound it wasn't supposed to make. Easy to overlook — right up until something went wrong, at which point he'd probably be the first one to notice.... Great. First tour hadn't even properly started, and I already had four named future headaches on file. The Yukikaze's main passage felt even more like a living artery than it had the night before.

The lighting wasn't pure white — a cooled, clinical shade laid over dark grey anti-slip flooring and metal bulkheads, giving the whole corridor a cleanliness that bordered on punitive. Hatches lined up at strict intervals, each stamped with a section number, a compartment name, a bare-minimum purpose tag. Every so often, an inset maintenance panel, a rack of emergency respirators, fire gear, a manual override switch for emergency lighting.

The ceiling wasted no space on anything decorative — just orderly rows of recessed lights, ventilation grilles, signal conduits. Nothing here said welcome. The whole ship used its own geometry to say one thing, over and over: this space exists to function, not to be admired. The middle schoolers, needless to say, weren't buying it.

"Whoa, whoa, look at that door — that's exactly the kind of door that slams shut and cuts people in half in movies!"

"Shut up, don't say things like that!"

"Senpai, is there an armory down there?"

"Senpai, if that light turns red, does it mean we're going to war?"

"Senpai, why does the air in here smell expensive?" That last one was Sayo. I glanced back at her.

"What does 'expensive' even smell like?" She thought about it very seriously.

"It just... smells like 'if you break anything here, you can't afford to pay for it.'" I was left completely speechless. Beside me, Maki offered a dry follow-up:"Well, your intuition isn't off." Saya's eyes lit up instantly.

"Senpai, were you just complimenting me?"

"No."

"But you—""Keep up." Shut down with a single sentence, Saya didn't get mad at all. Instead, her smile grew even more intrigued. Watching from the side, I felt a subtle prickle at the back of my neck. I had a feeling this wasn't the type of kid who'd back off when barked at—she'd only cling closer, thinking, Ooh, this person is interesting.... Maki, looks like you might have to add another name to your list of victims. For our first lap, we toured the residential section.

This was probably the safest area, and the easiest way to make these kids realize that yes, people actually live on a warship. Turning off the main corridor, the lighting grew slightly warmer than in the tactical and engineering bays—granted, it was still that overly restrained warmth typical of the Yukikaze, but at least it didn't feel as sterile as the main thoroughfares.

Along the way, we passed public restrooms, wash areas, lounge corners, compact laundry bays, supply lockers, and the outer hallway leading to the mess hall where we had eaten last night—a meal so good our souls nearly ascended. The moment the kids caught sight of the mess hall sign, a commotion broke out.

"Is this the place?!"

"Did today's breakfast fish come from here?!"

"Hey Senpai, do you guys really get white rice every day?!"

"Does the miso soup actually have real tofu in it?!" That last question almost made me lose my composure.

"Are your priorities a little weird?" I couldn't help asking. Lin Takuya chimed in instantly.

"They aren't! Our school breakfast is just a nutrient pack and a compressed noodle bar!"

"That's not breakfast. That's transition food before you give up hope on the future," D's voice suddenly drifted over from behind us. I turned around and saw his group crossing the intersection from a side corridor. Jess stood right beside him, wearing an irritated expression that practically read: I barely managed to block them off here, and now I have to hear about food again?

"Stop bonding with the kids over nonsense," Jess said.

"It's not bonding. It's cross-generational confirmation of civilization," D said before jerking his chin toward me.

"Hoshino, how many in Group 3 are on the verge of exploding?"

"Four."

"Not bad efficiency."

"That didn't sound like a compliment."

"It is to me." Jess rolled her eyes and turned back to block two middle school boys who were practically sliding off down the wrong hallway, barking as she walked over:"That's not a shortcut, it's a dead end! What's wrong with you two? Do you just try to squeeze through every door you see?"

"Because there are so many doors!" one of the boys shot back defensively.

"There are also plenty of things on this ship that can kill you. Want to go touch every single one of those while you're at it?" Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.... Great. Jess really is built to be a containment net. We kept moving forward. Another section of the living quarters passed the crew cabins, which were off-limits to the students for now. The hatch doors were all closed, though a few bore brief signboards indicating the division between double and shared berths.

As we passed, Takanashi Mio lingered her gaze there for a noticeably long moment before ducking her head to scribble a line furiously into her notebook. I leaned sideways slightly and caught a glimpse of what she was writing:"Living Quarters Left Wing: four sets of double berths, two rows of shared berths, shortest distance between wash area and mess hall." Wait, what are you even doing? I stopped in my tracks.

"Takanashi-san." She looked up, her expression utterly composed.

"Yes?"

"What are you writing down?"

"Routes and layouts."

"Why?" She actually took a moment to ponder it.

"So if anyone asks later, I can answer right away." I stared at her for two solid seconds. Maki stopped as well, her eyes sweeping over the notebook following my line of sight.

"Memory type," Maki muttered softly.

"And the kind that categorizes everything herself, too," I replied in a hushed voice. Takanashi Mio looked between me and Maki, then added in a quiet voice, "I'm not going to use this for anything bad."

"That sentence usually sounds like the opening line before doing something bad," I said. She pressed her lips together, looking like she wanted to argue, but ultimately just hugged her notebook even tighter. I suddenly felt a surge of amusement. This kid wasn't the type to rush out and cause trouble. She was more like the type who, when everyone actually got lost, would silently guide everyone back—assuming she didn't get put on Security's watchlist first for memorizing things she shouldn't.

Further ahead, we began approaching the edge of the restricted section. The shift in atmosphere was immediate and unmistakable. The warm lighting from the residential quarters gradually faded out here, reverting to cooler tones. Yellow hazard stripes appeared on the wall markings, and the sliding doors from the living area gave way to thicker, heavier, tightly sealed blast doors. Prominent security clearance badges and "UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT" signs were visible on the adjacent walls.

The ambient, steady smell of the crew quarters began mixing with a lower, deeper mechanical vibration—as if the ship's internal organs were operating right nearby. Unsurprisingly, the kids got even more hyped up in an instant. Because to kids that age, something like a "Restricted Area" was practically synonymous with"Please Come Challenge Me." Lin Takuya was the first to get restless.

He was barely keeping himself in line, but the moment he caught sight of the heavy blast door ahead and the semi-transparent observation window beside it, he visibly drifted half a step to the left. The second I caught his movement out of the corner of my eye, I lengthened my stride by half a step to match.

"Lin Takuya." He froze on the spot and turned to look at me.

"I-I wasn't doing anything!"

"Before you even move a muscle, let me remind you: this isn't a place for you to satisfy your curiosity."

"I just wanted to take a look inside—""That exact phrase almost got you hauled back to the deck earlier." Lin Takuya's face flushed red instantly, though he still threw two begrudging glances toward the observation window. Maki stepped up beside me then. Without so much as looking at him, she spoke directly to the entire group:"Past this line, everything is something you cannot touch, cannot enter, and cannot test. Where you are standing right now is the closest you get today.

Taking one step further won't give you a better view—it'll just get you into trouble." Her words were remarkably effective when she delivered them like this. It wasn't because she sounded like a teacher scolding students; she sounded like she was reading out a hard fact that had already happened a hundred times before. Right at that moment, Hojo Minato suddenly looked up and asked me:"Senpai, what's that sound coming from inside?" I blinked, taken aback.

The sound was actually extremely faint—so quiet that most people would simply categorize it as "the ship running." Yet Hojo Minato had actually picked up on the subtle variation hidden within: atop the main low hum, there was a more rhythmic, pulsating thrum that only occurred when heavy pumps alternated in the distance. I glanced at him.

"You can hear that?"

"A little." He scratched his hair, looking a bit self-conscious.

"It's different from the living quarters earlier. This one feels... heavier." For the first time, Maki actually turned to give him a proper look.

"Good ears." Being looked at by Maki like that made Hojo Minato snap straight up instantly, like a student whose name had just been called in class.

"I-Is that so?" I almost burst out laughing. What was going on? Why were all these kids having such ridiculously obvious reactions to Maki? And right on cue, the trouble hit anyway. It wasn't Lin Takuya, and it wasn't Hojo Minato either. It was Saya. She had been walking in line quietly the whole time—so quietly I almost forgot she was the type to cause trouble from a completely different angle.

By the time I noticed something was off, she wasn't trying to rush forward; while everyone else was staring at the blast door, she had quietly drifted to the side, preparing to check out the semi-open maintenance notice board around the corner of the corridor. Though not fully inside the restricted section yet, it was the edge of the edge—the floor markings right next to it had already shifted to diagonal hazard stripes.

I only had time to curse in my mind, Not a single one of these kids is easy to deal with, before sprinting over.

"Takase Saya, get back here." She stopped in her tracks, turning around with a look of utter innocence.

"I was just looking at that board."

"I know. The problem is you shouldn't be looking at it from this close."

"But Senpai, weren't you standing over here just now too?"

"Because my job right now is to haul people like you back." She blinked, then actually smiled.

"Senpai, you're admitting I'm a high-risk individual."... This kid is seriously asking for it. Maki had already stepped up from behind.

"You're happy about that?" Saya looked at her and actually nodded.

"A little. It means I have a presence." Maki paused for two seconds. Then she said:"Having a presence isn't an excuse to go looking for a death wish." Saya was instantly choked on her words, but unlike Lin Takuya, who got scared, she wore a look that said, Ooh, I'm writing that line down. Standing to the side, I suddenly felt this scene was oddly subtle. Maki dealing with boys was like freezing them solid. Dealing with girls was like cutting them off cold.

And unless it was my imagination, her lethality seemed to increase by half a tier against girls who kept looking at her and trying to talk to her.... Wait, why am I analyzing this at a time like this? Has the Yukikaze broken something in my brain too? Just as the group was about to get back on track, a door alert chime suddenly rang out from ahead. Short, crisp, followed by the mechanical sound of a heavy blast door unlocking from the inside.

Every kid in the group turned their heads simultaneously, as if someone had pressed their collective curiosity button. I looked over as well. The door opened only halfway. A squad of duty personnel briskly pushed their way out from inside, carting sealed component boxes and several clearly labeled maintenance modules. The leader wore a duty uniform with engineering division patches on their sleeve, their face practically screaming, I am extremely busy right now, you better not stand in the middle of the hallway.

And through the inner side of the door, one could only catch a brief glimpse of a colder, deeper corridor within, accompanied by a more pronounced low-frequency hum. That was not a sight meant for kids to see. But it was already too late. Lin Takuya's eyes lit up. Hojo Minato's ears seemed to light up too. Saya even drew in a sharp breath. Even Takanashi Mio, who was usually the quietest, pinned her eyes dead onto the section number above the door frame in that instant.

Maki and I stepped forward almost at the exact same time.

"Entire group, freeze," Maki spoke first. I chimed in immediately: "Eyes can look, feet stay planted. Whoever crosses the line, the rest of today's tour gets canceled immediately." This line was far more effective than gentle persuasion. Because to kids this age, "canceling the tour" felt infinitely more real than "it's dangerous." The engineering petty officer leading the squad glanced our way.

Seeing that the group was fairly well controlled, he merely knitted his brows, gave us a brief nod, and muttered to his crew:"Clear the doorway, keep the passage open." His tone carried that old-school, rock-hard military command vibe. Short phrases, direct, zero room for negotiation. It felt like the entire ship of the Yukikaze breathed in that exact tone. Once the squad wheeled their gear away and the door sealed shut again, the corridor finally seemed to slowly exhale the breath it had been holding.

Then Takanashi Mio whispered quietly:"That section number just now... I memorized it." I turned to look at her.

"What are you memorizing that for?" She looked completely innocent.

"So if I see it again in the future, I'll know what area I'm approaching." For a moment, I didn't know whether to praise her for being useful or start getting a headache on behalf of the future Security Department. Maki gave a very faint scoff beside me.

"So you go on the high-risk list too." Takanashi Mio blinked, stunned, and instantly hugged her notebook even tighter.

"Me?"

"Just because you don't run as fast as the others doesn't mean you aren't dangerous," Maki said. Hearing that, I just wanted to applaud. Spot on. This group didn't just have the kind of trouble that charged straight out. They had the kind that memorized, thought, probed, and looked for pathways through the cracks of rules. Right now they just seemed annoying; in a few years, every single one of them might turn into a scheming genius.

And strangely enough, the moment that thought popped up, I didn't feel as annoyed anymore. Or rather, not as annoyed as I was at the beginning. Because during this short lap of the ship tour, I had already begun to notice things. Lin Takuya was fast, bold, and reckless like he had no brakes—yet when real trouble hit, a guy like him might be the first one capable of sprinting out to pass a message.

Saya was quick-tongued, sharp-eyed, good at reading faces, and adept at catching the subtle, unsaid tension between people. A kid like that was usually annoying, but in crucial moments, she might realize who was pushing through their limits earlier than an adult would. Takanashi Mio's mind was like a self-unfolding ship diagram—routes, numbers, corners, swallowed whole at a single glance.

Hojo Minato had ears uniquely sensitive to "sounds that felt wrong"—he wasn't particularly brave, but he wasn't the type to freeze up completely when scared.... Good. At least these kids weren't just noisy. If they were just noisy, I'd actually be hopeless. As we pulled the group back in line, Maki and I naturally fell to the rear to ensure no one stuck themselves to the edge of the restricted section again.

The students ahead were still whispering about what they saw inside that door—their voices kept low, but unable to hide their excitement. Watching their backs, I suddenly said softly to Maki:"I think I kind of understand what Captain Tobita meant this morning now." Maki turned her head to look at me.

"Which line?"

"When he said those kids didn't come here just to play, so we shouldn't leave them with nothing to do but play." Maki remained silent for a moment.

"You get it already?"

"I guess," I shrugged.

"They're still loud, annoying, and make you constantly want to kick them back into line... but it feels like none of them grew up for nothing." Maki looked at the kids ahead, her voice as flat as ever.

"Kids aren't empty to begin with. Adults are just often too lazy to look." I turned to look at her. Coming from her mouth, that line sounded a little uncharacteristic of the usual Maki. Not that it wasn't cold, but within that coldness was a touch of something I didn't usually encounter. Before I could reply, she added:"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I just said something profound."

"... But you actually sounded a little human just now." Maki stopped in her tracks and turned to glare at me.

"Hoshino."

"Okay, shutting up." She glared at me for a second, but ultimately said nothing more, continuing forward. Yet I was dead sure I saw a tiny, fleeting twitch at the corner of her mouth. Like she wanted to laugh, but forcefully held it back. And walking beside her, I suddenly felt— This first lap of the Yukikaze tour probably wasn't just meant for the middle schoolers. It was for us trainees who thought we were older, too.

Because walking this circuit—from the main corridor to the residential area, and down to the edge of the restricted zone—was the first time I truly felt what daily life on this ship was like: endless rules, rigid spaces, procedures that ran ahead of people. Yet somehow, it still held the white rice at breakfast, complaints in the eight-person cabins, the clamor of middle schoolers, and Maki's icy-cold demeanor that occasionally leaked a trace of human warmth. It really felt like a rigid system.

But it really was alive, too. And the moment this lap ended, Master Sergeant Takenaka's comms came through again.

"Group 3, return to the main corridor junction. Prepare for Round 2. Keep the high-risk list close, don't let anyone stray." Maki and I exchanged a glance. I sighed first.

"Do you get the feeling that when Major Elena gave us this job title, she had already seen through our entire day?" Maki remained serene.

"Yes."

"And do you get the feeling we're probably going to be playing catch-and-release like this until tonight?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you still so calm?" She glanced at me.

"Because you'll start screaming first."... Damn it. I really couldn't counter that. Resigned to my fate, I turned back toward the main corridor, gearing up to face the second wave of human-larva disaster on the Yukikaze. And just as I stepped out, Saya's voice drifted over from behind.

"Hoshino-senpai!" I looked back.

"What?" Standing in the formation, she blinked, smiling with pure mischief.

"Was Kujima-senpai sneaking a smile just now?" I paused for two seconds. Then I said flatly:"If you want to live to eat lunch today, pretend you saw nothing." Saya instantly made a motion zipping her mouth shut, but the "I knew it" gleam in her eyes was bright enough to give anyone a headache.... We're doomed. This kid is definitely going to be trouble down the road.