Chương 213: 81. True Feelings 1

By the third morning, I was dragged into official training rotations in a state that was roughly eighty percent awake and thirty percent soul. If the first two days had still carried some slack — the grace period of just getting your sea legs — by day three the Yukikaze had clearly finished pretending and folded us fully into its own rhythm. Breakfast had barely ended before the rotation roster landed on every terminal at once. The header was ice-cold; the content, brutally practical. Day Three Rotation Commences.

All personnel report to assigned sectors. One instance of tardiness: afternoon makeup duty. I stared at the screen and had exactly one thought. Good. The Yukikaze is finally done pretending. This wasn't "please enjoy your shipboard experience" anymore. This was closer to "congratulations, as of today, you are all low-cost, interchangeable labor." The eight-person room got split up completely. Aida and Evelyn were assigned to residential management and official escort duties for the girls' observation group.

Made perfect sense. Aida had the kind of presence that made people stand up straight without being told — ideal for keeping a process on rails. Evelyn was the type who could smile someone back into compliance, especially with the middle-school girls, where that approach held up far better than brute force. Roy and Lan got logistics and mid-corridor order. Also logical.

Roy just had to stand there and the kids would start questioning their life choices on their own; Lan's silence alone was the kind of cold that made people self-correct without her saying a word. Harvey and Akari went to equipment sorting and rear-section coverage. Harvey's mouth ran nonstop, but his instinct for process and spatial flow was sharp. Akari barely needed explaining — she was born to compress chaos into a checklist. D and Jess stayed exactly where they belonged: node interception and security support.

Translated into plain language: wherever people were most likely to detonate, bolt, get lost, run their mouths, or spontaneously evolve into a human incident — that's where those two went. I was still reading through everyone else's fate with some detachment. Then I scrolled down to my own name. Hoshino Shimo: Middle School Observation Group — shipboard tour-route support, residential section and engineering-perimeter briefing coverage.

Kushima Maki: Bridge document relay, CIC perimeter observation, night tactical procedure orientation prep. I stared at those two lines for three seconds. My first reaction wasn't oh, so that's where she's posted. It was —... Wait. We're not on the same detail today? The thought surfaced so fast I didn't even have time to pretend I hadn't thought it. Jess was standing beside me, checking her own terminal. She caught my expression and looked up instantly, sharp as a knife.

"What's that face?"

"What face?"

"That one." She mimicked the way I'd just been staring at the screen, mouth pulling down at the corners.

"The why aren't I assigned with a certain someone today face." I snapped the terminal against my chest.

"Don't make things up."

"I didn't even say a name."

"Then you should really stop before you do." D drifted past on the other side, caught the tail end of that, stopped, glanced at me, then at Maki.

"Got it. The roster has drama."

"There is no drama," I said.

"A reaction that size usually means at least half a season's worth," he said. Maki was a little further off, checking her own assignment. She looked up, perfectly calm.

"What are you two arguing about now?" Jess grinned, purely vicious.

"Discussing whether Hoshino's mental state is stable now that she's lost her partner for the day." Maki didn't even twitch an eyebrow.

"Relax. She's never stable to begin with." Unbelievable. She was getting far too comfortable landing those in front of an audience. Maybe I was imagining it, but right after she said that, her gaze dropped to my terminal for a fraction of a second. Fast — but I caught it. She'd seen it too. That we'd been split up today. She just didn't let it show on her face the way I did. Once rotations officially started, I was hauled back to the middle-school observation group.

By day three, the kids had evolved into something between "wild animal" and "creature that has started adapting to its enclosure." Day one's chaos had been pure excitement and total ignorance of the rules. Day two still carried some residual restraint from getting flattened by Sergeant Takenaka and the marines. By day three, they'd developed something more annoying and far more useful — they knew exactly which lines they couldn't cross, so they'd started applying their brains to everything else.

Which meant they were harder to manage. The standout kids were really starting to show their shapes. Takuya Hayashi was still the one who moved fastest. But after two days of getting knocked around, he'd learned to charge at problems instead of people.

"Senior Hoshino, why is the corridor near the engineering perimeter half-blocked today?"

"Senior, if it says temporary maintenance, does that mean something actually broke back there?"

"If it's the propulsion module, are we going to drift?"

"Your disaster-scenario speed is genuinely suited for apocalypse fiction," I said, steering him back into formation.

"A half-blocked corridor does not equal the ship dying. Learn that basic logic first."

"Oh." His mouth said oh. His eyes were still lit up. That kind of bright was dangerous. But I was starting to understand — put someone like him in a situation that actually needed a runner, a message relay, or someone to squeeze through tight spaces, and he'd probably be excellent. Sayo Takase was worse, in a different way. She'd stopped being satisfied with just watching the chaos. She'd started organizing it.

"Senior, is the bridge running a late shift change today?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Senior, why isn't Senior Kushima with us this time?"

"Senior, Senior Aida checked her terminal twice — are we rerouting?"

"Senior, did something happen on the bridge last night?" I stopped and turned to look at her.

"That last one. Who told you that?" Sayo blinked, the picture of innocence.

"Nobody. I guessed."

"Why would you guess that?"

"Because you look more sleep-deprived than usual today, Senior Kushima's been quieter, and the look Senior Jess gave you two at morning handover had way too much story in it." I stared at her for three full seconds, then delivered the only honest conclusion available.

"You'd be terrifyingly good at intelligence work." Her eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"No," I said, deadpan.

"That was a warning." Mio Takanashi was a different kind of terrifying. She'd started drawing her own maps of the ship. Not official diagrams — the kind of memory sketches where, having walked a route once, she could organize the spatial relationships into simple lines and boxes. I turned a corner once and caught her at it, notebook open, hand moving fast, marking out the relative positions of the residential deck, the mess hall, the medical bay, and the main corridor junction. My scalp prickled.

"Takanashi." She stopped her pen and looked up immediately.

"Yes."

"If Security sees that notebook, Sergeant Takenaka is going to find it very interesting." She thought about it, then asked, very quietly: "... The bad kind of interesting?"

"Extremely bad." She snapped the notebook shut and hugged it to her chest. But the gesture wasn't fear. It was more like: understood, I'll hide it better. This kid was going to be a genuine headache. And exactly for that reason, I was increasingly sure she'd turn out to be useful. Minato Hojo was the quietest one, and somehow the one I couldn't stop watching. Because he'd started telling the Yukikaze's different sections apart by sound.

Once, passing a corridor near the maintenance perimeter, he tugged my sleeve, quiet.

"Senior. There's an extra sound here today." I stopped.

"Which one?" He listened for two seconds, then said, very seriously: "Not the big low hum. There's something on top of it — faster, shorter, a clicking sound. Like something isn't seated properly." I couldn't verify it on the spot, but I logged it and flagged the nearest duty NCO. Twenty minutes later, a temporary inspection marker went up in that section — a mounting bracket on a ventilation baffle had come loose. I stood at the corridor entrance, looking at that strip of yellow tape, with exactly one thought....

These kids really aren't just here to make a mess. At least, not only that. While my nerves were getting steadily sanded down by this collection of human larvae, Maki had been folded into a completely different rhythm on the other side of the ship. I never saw her full route. I pieced it together from occasional glimpses near the bridge perimeter, overheard fragments, scattered images.

Around midday, handing a batch of middle schoolers back to their supervising teacher, I cut through the upper short corridor and caught her at a distance, coming out of the bridge section — databoard under her arm, moving fast, a duty NCO I didn't recognize keeping pace, the two of them cross-checking something. She didn't see me. But I saw her clearly enough. Tighter. Straighter. More like bridge-Maki than dorm-Maki. I'd only watched for a couple of seconds when Sayo's voice floated up beside me like a ghost.

"Senior, were you just looking for Senior Kushima?" I nearly slammed the roster board into her face.

"Sayo Takase. You are treading extremely dangerous ground today." She laughed and, very tactfully, took half a step back. Later, covering a gap in the mess hall, I overheard Aida say, almost in passing:"Kushima got run through two rounds of document handover by Lieutenant Commander Kirishima today and still came out standing that straight. Solid work." Evelyn, smiling, added right beside her:"Which is probably why Junior Hoshino keeps glancing toward the bridge without realizing it."

I nearly dropped my tray into the recycler.

"Senior, please don't phrase it like I'm—""Like you're what?" Evelyn's smile stayed light as air.

"... Nothing." Damn it. Why is everyone on this ship so good at pulling a person's thoughts straight out of their tone of voice? Day three ground forward like that — half training, half babysitting, half being read like an open book by everyone within six meters. And somewhere in there, I finally admitted something to myself. A day without Maki really was longer than I'd expected. I'd just handed off the last group of kids to their instructor and covered one more impromptu briefing in the residential section.

My whole body was hovering somewhere between still ambulatory and please just prop me against a wall. The main corridor was in the lull before shift change — thin foot traffic, lighting stepped down a notch. All I wanted was hot water and three quiet minutes somewhere no middle-schooler could materialize and call me senior. I turned into the narrow passage beside the water dispenser. Jess was already there. Arms crossed. Back against the bulkhead.

Wearing the exact expression of someone who'd been waiting for precisely this. My first instinct was to turn around. She spoke before I could move.

"Run, and starting tomorrow I announce ship-wide that you slept next to Maki." My feet stopped dead.

"... That's illegal."

"I can hold off on the illegal part," she said, straightening up — her tone, for once, not in full performance mode.

"As long as you talk to me right now." That shift made me drop my own joke reflex. Because when Jess is actually messing around, her voice gets brighter, meaner, always one beat from carving me up for entertainment. This wasn't that. She was still Jess — the edge was still there — but underneath it was a layer of seriousness that almost never surfaced. I looked at her for a couple of seconds, then sighed.

"What do you want to talk about?" She stared at me, direct to the point of rudeness.

"What exactly is your deal with Maki?" The passage went quiet. Somewhere down the main corridor, a cart wheel rolled over a deck seam. The ventilation hummed low overhead. The Yukikaze's structural vibration crept up slowly through the floor. But in that instant, it felt like her question had hollowed the whole corridor out. I opened my mouth.

"... That's a little direct."

"Because if I give you an inch of room, you'll play dumb clean through to next year."

"I wouldn't." She let out a short, cold laugh.

"You wouldn't? You talk circles around everyone else fine. The second it's actually about Maki, your whole brain ties itself in knots. Hoshino — have you seriously not noticed?" My grip tightened around the paper cup. The heat bleeding through the thin cardboard was the only thing keeping me from stepping back. Jess didn't leave much room to run.

"I'm not here to watch you squirm," she said. I looked up at her. Same face. Same person who could salt a wound with professional precision. But right now she was actually waiting for an answer, not waiting for me to trip.

"Then what are you here for?" A beat of silence. Then, unusually straight:"To make sure you're not playing around." That landed in my chest like a light, clean knock. Because I knew exactly what stood behind that sentence. Aki had said it once. Captain Tobita had half-joked about it. Even Maki's own unspoken wariness had been built entirely around it, in its own quiet way. But Jess laying it flat on the table left me nowhere to hide.

I leaned against the wall, staring down at the cup, and took several seconds before answering.

"I don't know how to say this properly."

"Say it however you'd normally say it."

"... It's going to sound bad."

"You've never had a problem saying bad things before." That caught me off guard enough that I laughed — short, a little bitter. Then I finally gave in.

"At first, I honestly just thought she was a pain to deal with." Jess raised an eyebrow.

"And now?"

"Now she's still a pain to deal with." She almost laughed at that, but held it back. I wrapped both hands around the cup, my voice dropping.

"She's sharp-tongued, short-tempered, half the time she looks at you like don't bother me. But whenever it actually matters, she's on her feet faster than anyone. On the bridge she's a completely different person. I used to think I knew what kind of person she was. Turns out I probably didn't have even half of it." Jess didn't interrupt. That alone was rare. So I kept going.

"And I... keep looking at her." The second I said it, I wanted to strangle myself. Too blunt. Too much like the opening line of a bad confession. But it was already out, so I pushed through.

"When she's not there, I look for her without meaning to. When she talks, I want to hear where she's going with it. If she's even a little decent to me, I hold onto it for a long time. Even when she says something rough, I can tell which lines are actually meant to cut and which aren't." Jess watched me, quiet. I took a breath, my ears heating up again.

"I don't know if that counts as liking someone that much," I said slowly.

"But I know I'm not playing around. I'm not treating her as something to try out for a while and drop if it doesn't work. And I'm not treating this like a joke." When I stopped, the corridor was quiet enough that I could hear my own heartbeat. Then Jess finally spoke.

"Good." I looked up.

"... That's it?"

"What else did you want?" She crossed her arms again, eyes just as sharp.

"If you'd handed me some line about I don't really know or it's just kind of fun, I'd have knocked some sense into you before you finished the sentence." I stared at her.

"You are unusually serious today."

"Obviously." She said it flat.

"Because Maki isn't someone you get to try out." I went quiet.

"I know." She held my gaze a few seconds longer, then something in her shoulders eased, fractionally, like she'd just confirmed whatever she'd come here to confirm.

"Then we're good."

"... Why do you care this much?" Jess's expression flickered for exactly one second. Brief enough that she snapped straight back into her usual punchable self.

"Because I don't want to watch you two turn the dorm into a war zone later. Practical enough for you?"

"That sounds completely made up."

"Then you can take it as real." She reached over and tapped my shoulder once. Not hard. Not the joking kind of tap either.

"Anyway, Hoshino."

"Yeah?"

"You'd better get clearer than what you just told me." She looked at me, uncharacteristically plain.

"Because someone like her isn't going to stand there waiting while you inch forward with no idea where you're going." That line hit with a lot more aftershock than I'd expected. She turned and walked off without waiting for a reply, then tossed one last line back at the corner:"And if you dare deny any of that later, I'm giving D my own director's cut." I nearly crushed the cup.

"Jess!" She waved, grinning, and was gone. I stood alone in that narrow corridor, the water already lukewarm, my chest nowhere near that calm. Because I knew everything I'd just said hadn't only been for her. It was the first time I'd said it all the way through to myself.