Chương 242: 95. Grouping 3

As it turned out, my instincts had never once let me down. That night — washed, sorted, lights out, both of us in our respective beds — the double room settled quickly into quiet. One of the advantages of second class is that its quiet is real quiet. Not the eight-person-berth kind, where everyone is trying to be quiet but someone always turns over, coughs, or kicks the locker.

The door closes, the light goes out, and the world genuinely contracts to something very small — just the low, steady breath of the air system, and the occasional blink of an indicator light on the wall. I lay there staring at the ceiling — not the top bunk, because we didn't have bunks, we had two actual beds, which I was apparently still capable of correcting myself on, which meant I had absolutely no intention of sleeping. Reasonable.

Every single thing that had happened today was individually enough to keep me rolling around under the covers for three hours. The formal EVA. Ninety-one. The changing-bay public execution. And— And Maki's "Same." I pulled the blanket up and attempted to smother myself into amnesia with it. Didn't work. In the dark, your ears seem to sharpen. I could hear the faint shift of fabric from her bed. Then the soft turn of a page — probably a repair manual, or field notes.

She was exactly the type to score high on an assessment and still spend the last ten minutes before sleep running through the procedure diagrams, as if her brain ran a permanent standby routine. Some amount of time passed. Could have been minutes. Right when I was starting to wonder if she was actually awake, a voice came out of the dark.

"Shimo." I nearly launched off the mattress. Fortunately only the interior version of that happened.

"... What." I kept my voice flat, casual, like someone who definitely had not just skipped a heartbeat at the sound of her name. A pause from her side. Then: "Why did you freeze like that in the classroom today?" I stared at the outline of the ceiling and briefly considered whether I'd misheard.

"... When?"

"When the scores came out." Flat delivery.

"After ninety-one. You were blank for two seconds." This woman clocks how long I space out for? How closely does she actually watch me on a normal day? My throat went a little dry. I held my ground anyway.

"Because it was surprising. Ninety-one. Anyone would freeze for a second."

"It wasn't the score."

"..." Not a question. A statement. And the most dangerous thing about Maki is that when she uses a statement, she's usually operating at eighty percent certainty minimum. I couldn't see her face in the dark. That was both slightly reassuring and significantly worse. Because when you can't see, your imagination fills in the gaps. I rolled over to face her side of the room. Nothing was clear — just the outline of the bed, a vague human shape.

"So what do you think it was?" Quiet for a moment. Long enough that I almost decided she wasn't going to answer. Then, slowly: "Because I said Same."... She knew. She actually knew. I lay there in the dark with my eyes open, experiencing for the first time what it truly felt like to want to sink directly into a mattress and not leave a breathing hole.

"You— that's a pretty underhanded move."

"How is it underhanded."

"You already knew and you asked anyway."

"I was confirming."

"Confirmed now? Satisfied?" I'd only meant to be difficult about it. I didn't expect her to actually answer.

"A little."... What has gotten into this woman tonight. I bit down and pressed my face slightly further into the pillow.

"You're being weird today."

"Mm?"

"You wouldn't normally say that kind of thing in front of everyone."

"What kind of thing."

"... That kind of thing."

"Same?" She actually repeated it back to me. My ears went hot in an instant.

"Don't say it out loud on purpose!" In the dark, Maki laughed. Barely audible — almost just breath. Which was exactly why it was so unfair.

"I wasn't being deliberate."

"You'd better not have been."

"I really wasn't." A pause. Then, in that flat voice of hers that somehow manages to put a small hole directly through your chest:"I just thought — if it's true, there's no reason to pretend it isn't." The air went quiet. Not the uncomfortable kind. The kind where nothing has moved, but something in the dark is slowly, steadily, getting closer. I opened my mouth. All the deflections I'd had ready — the pushback, the did something break in you today — none of it came out.

What I managed, finally, was one very undignified line:"... Saying things like that makes it very hard to sleep."

"Does it." Perfectly calm.

"Yes."

"Then blame me."

"I already am."

"Oh." That oh again. But this time there was something in it — just the smallest trace of something — that sounded almost like coaxing. I reached one hand out from under the blanket and found the cold metal bed rail, fingers resting on it, like the chill might help me think straight.

"Maki."

"Mm."

"Out there today. You let me do the first weld pass."

"Mm."

"Did you already know I could handle it?" She didn't answer right away. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Two seconds, then:"I knew you'd be nervous."

"... That's not an answer."

"I also knew that when you're nervous, you try to get everything right in one shot. And then you lock up."... Too accurate. Accurate enough to be annoying.

"So?"

"So," her voice came quiet through the dark, "I wanted you to go first. I wanted you to know — you don't need someone else to clear the way for you every time." My fingers tightened slightly on the rail. In that moment, I understood, finally, why that good out on the hull had hit me as hard as it did. It wasn't because I'd been praised. It wasn't because she'd been close. It was because she always seemed to see, before I'd even finished sorting myself out, exactly where I was stuck. That was frightening.

Frightening enough to want to run from. Also frightening enough to make running feel like the wrong direction. I made a quiet, frustrated sound in the dark.

"You're a lot of trouble, you know that."

"I know."

"And you say things that are very annoying to hear."

"Sorry." She said it without sounding remotely sorry. I laughed. Very short, very quiet. After that, the room settled into a silence that was actually comfortable for once. Then, after a while, she spoke again.

"Shimo."

"Now what."

"If there's another formal EVA."

"Mm."

"Do you still want to be my partner?" I went still. Earlier, in the changing bay, Jess had asked the same question. I'd answered fast — fast enough that I hadn't even had time to regret it. This was different. No noise. No laughter. No D and Harvey adding fuel. No Jess watching from across the room with narrowed eyes. Just dark. Just the two of us. So the weight of the question landing now was a lot heavier than it had been this afternoon. I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them. Then said, slowly:"Yeah."

This time it was Maki who went quiet for a beat. Then I heard her turn over — more clearly than before. Like she'd shifted to face my side of the room.

"Good." One word. But when it landed, my chest went more sideways than it had when I heard ninety-one. I couldn't handle the quiet, so I pushed back.

"Don't get smug about it."

"I'm not."

"You definitely are."

"Can you tell?"

"... I can feel it." In the dark, she laughed again. Clearer this time. I pulled half my face under the blanket and accepted that I was probably not sleeping tonight. Then, after a long pause, she said, very softly:"Goodnight, Shimo." Under normal circumstances, that sentence was completely ordinary. Right now — in this dark, after everything we'd just said — it wasn't ordinary at all. Ordinary enough that one more word would cross a line.

Not ordinary enough that just this, as it was, left the line anywhere visible. I was quiet for two seconds before I answered, low.

"... Goodnight, Maki." Neither of us said anything else. The air system kept running. The indicator light on the wall kept blinking on and off. The second-class cabin was quiet enough that the whole ship might have been just this one small piece of dark. And I lay in my own bed, completely still, feeling like something had quietly crossed whatever distance had been between us. No sound. No light. Which was exactly what made it so dangerous. The mood in the mess hall the next morning was looser than usual.

Not because everyone had finally gotten tired of being alive. Because today was the last round of practical training. After this, the Yukikaze would follow her scheduled route to rendezvous with the supply convoy. If things went smoothly — maybe the day after tomorrow — we'd be able to see that convoy through the viewport. Slow-moving, round-hulled, radiating please don't shoot us, we're just here to deliver things from every surface.

For a group of students who'd been run like training dogs for the past several days, that news alone counted as a form of psychological relief. I set my tray down and sat. Jess, unusually, wasn't immediately looking for something to use against me — she was chewing bread and staring at her terminal. D, across from me, was loading what looked like scrambled eggs and technically qualified as scrambled eggs into his mouth.

Harvey had his soup and his usual expression of if this were engine oil I would drink it with equal composure. Maki was beside me, quiet, as if nothing at all had happened last night.... This woman is genuinely very good at using other people's mental states as target practice.

Right as I was attempting to focus on breakfast rather than the person sitting next to me who had said if it's true, there's no reason to pretend it isn't in the dark last night and nearly cost me a full night's sleep — every terminal at the table buzzed. I looked down. Sender: Captain Tobita. The message was brief. —After breakfast, all personnel report to the bridge. I stared at that line for two seconds.

"... The bridge?" D had clearly seen it too, still chewing.

"Getting called to the bridge first thing in the morning doesn't sound like good news."

"Could be good news that looks terrible," Jess said.

"That's very Captain Tobita of you," Roy said from the side. Harvey pocketed his terminal, tone even.

"Procedurally, today should be the final integrated practical. Bridge assembly makes sense."

"Could you not make bridge assembly sound as relaxed as going to pick up our field trip lanyards," I said. Maki finished her drink and said, mildly:"If anyone were actually going to die, Tobita wouldn't message first. He'd let the alarm shake us out of our chairs." I looked at her sideways.... That was weirdly convincing. What exactly has this ship turned us into. After breakfast, we assembled on the bridge.

It wasn't my first time on the Yukikaze's bridge, but every time I walked in, there was still a faint sense of wrongness. Not because it didn't look like a bridge — it looked exactly like one. It looked exactly like Tobita's bridge. Functional, clean, nothing decorative, and yet in certain corners radiating a very specific energy of the person who runs this place is not a normal human being. Today, that energy was particularly concentrated.

Because Captain Tobita was standing in the center of the bridge, holding a large box. An actual large box. Not a data case. Not a sealed tactical container. Not anything with a military serial number printed on it. Just a box. The kind of box that makes you instinctively wonder if it contains raffle tickets, canned goods, or something else that has no business being on a warship.

"Oh, everyone's here?" Tobita spotted us and shook the box twice with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm. The contents made a soft, rustling sound. The second I heard it, something in my head started ringing. When this man was in a good mood, it usually meant someone else was about to have a very bad one.

"Two things today," Tobita said.

"First, books. Second, a draw." I knew it. He set the box aside and produced, from somewhere, a stack of books, which he began distributing one by one. I looked at the cover. Bridge Operations: Yukikaze Practical Guide. I went completely silent. You got be kidding me. They actually printed a book for this? A physical book. Physical.

In an era where students barely submit homework on paper, and even temporary shipboard operation manuals get projected directly onto your retinas, Tobita had somehow dug up a physical copy of Bridge Operations: Yukikaze Practical Guide from god-knows-what archaeological site and pressed it into my hands. I could actually feel the faint roughness along the page edges under my thumb. This wasn't teaching material anymore. This was a relic. D flipped the cover open, his expression even more baffled than mine.

"... Captain. Shouldn't this be in a museum? Not handed out to students?"

"You don't understand." Tobita said it like it was self-evident.

"A paper book has weight. It has ceremony. And it hurts more when you throw it at someone."

"That second part's the real reason, isn't it," Jess said. Tobita didn't deny it at all — if anything, he smiled like she'd just voiced his own private philosophy back to him.

"After the last three courses, I trust you've all built up a basic understanding of a Federal warship. Now, let's open our books—" He paused there, deliberately. Then smiled. The kind of smile that says I'm about to do something completely unreasonable, and you'd better brace yourselves.

"—is what I'd love to say. But honestly, there's no need." Dead silence. Tobita spread his hands, like he was holding a moment of silence for a curriculum that had never actually existed.

"The Yukikaze isn't complicated the way a battlecruiser or a capital ship is. We're not the kind of vessel that holds a dignified formation while the staff officers slowly convene a committee meeting." He raised one hand, index finger cutting forward through the air like a blade.

"The Yukikaze's more like a hot knife. You spot your window, you stab, and you run." D let out a quiet "Whoa." Brutally crude analogy. Also infuriatingly accurate. Tobita glanced at the books in our hands and nodded, satisfied.

"Good. Since you all get it now — books back. Those were props."

"..." For one genuine second, I considered slapping that antique directly into his face. Jess laughed first, handing hers back.

"I knew that was the whole point."

"Obviously you can't just lend a paper book out casually," Tobita said, collecting them with total sincerity.

"If the pages got creased, it would break my heart." Harvey murmured from the side:"First time I've ever seen bridge instruction run like a variety show." Maki answered, flat as ever.

"You're wrong. Variety shows at least have scripts."... Those two really do sync up in the strangest places. Once the books were safely back in the box, Tobita finally moved on to the actually malicious part of the morning. He hefted the big box again and held it out to us.

"One each. Don't open it yet." Inside were folded paper slips. Rustling softly. I pulled one out — thin, small, the corners folded with a precision that made me nervous. Anything that neat, in the same frame as Tobita, radiated an unmistakable someone is about to be publicly humiliated energy.

"Everyone got one?" Tobita looked around, nodded, pleased.

"Good. Wait for my count. One, two, three — open together." Staring at the slip in my hand, I had the distinct sensation that I wasn't standing on the Yukikaze's bridge at all, but had wandered onto the set of some low-budget late-night game show. D even raised his hand, playing right along.

"Captain, should we have background music for this?"

"I'll consider it next time," Tobita said. He actually considered it. I started mourning for next year's incoming class in advance. Tobita cleared his throat, like a host about to reveal the grand prize.

"Alright — one, two, three." We all unfolded our slips at once. I looked down. One word. Tac. I stared at it for two seconds.... Tac? Tactics? Technical support? Some kind of arcane ritual? What's next — are we splitting into character classes? Whoever drew Med becomes the healer, whoever drew Gun stands in the back row, and whoever drew Tac just starts chanting on the spot?

Before I could even voice the complaint, Tobita was already sweeping the room with the bright-eyed look of a man who'd been waiting for this exact moment.

"Who got Cap?" Ash Vander raised his hand, quietly. It was a genuinely funny image. The way he lifted it had zero drama to it — almost the energy of is it my turn to erase the whiteboard today — and yet he'd somehow drawn the single most inconvenient slip in the box. Tobita's eyes lit up.

"Okay. Then you're the Yukikaze's Captain." He reached to the side, grabbed a spare officer's cap, and dropped it cleanly onto Ash's head. The moment it landed, Ash looked like he'd just been hastily commissioned through an almost insultingly casual ceremony. D burst out laughing on the spot. Jess started clapping. Roy tried very hard to hold it in and lost, turning his head away. Tobita himself looked as pleased as if he'd just completed an extraordinarily successful personnel assignment.

"Good. Captain, filled." Then he scanned the rest of the room.

"Who's got Tac?" I raised my hand. Tobita nodded, completely unsurprised, and smiled — a little too happily. That particular smile gave me an immediate, deeply bad feeling. There was no way this position was a good one.

"Then you're the Tactical Officer," he said.

"Responsible for all weapons systems on board." The slip in my hand, with Tac written on it, suddenly felt a lot heavier. Tactical Officer. Weapons systems. I blinked, slowly. No — wait a second. One minute I'd been in the mess hall choking down something halfway between scrambled eggs and a chemistry sample, and the next I was on the bridge, drafted into Tactical Officer by lottery? Is this ship's personnel system maybe a little too freeform?

Beside me, Jess had already turned to look at me, wearing a smile I knew far too well. D, with zero restraint, clapped me straight on the shoulder.

"Congratulations, Hoshino," he said.

"You can now legally open fire on people."

"You'd better pray you're not the first thing I lock onto."

"Wow. Very Tactical Officer of you." Tobita ignored our little commotion entirely, just reached back into the box and rapped his knuckles against the rim. Rustle. Plenty of slips left. More than enough to turn the entire bridge upside down before the morning was through. He looked up at the rest of the room, the corner of his mouth curving slowly upward again.

"Well then—" Tobita said it in a tone that made it very clear exactly how much he was enjoying himself.

"Let's fill the rest of the seats."