Chương 136: 51. Hoshino's Day Off 2

Back at the dorm, I stood in the entrance staring at the floor for about ten seconds. Not from emotion. From how clean it was. So clean it didn't feel real. No ash. No burnt smell. No heat waves from a firestorm. Nothing sniffing around my doorway in the middle of the night. No Jäger (Hunter) up on high ground, waiting for me to misstep. Just silence. And after those two weeks, silence felt almost wrong.

I dropped my pack by the door, kicked my shoes off without aiming, tried and failed to get my uniform jacket to stay on the hook, and gave up. Straight into the shower. When the hot water hit, my first reaction wasn't comfort. It was the urge to swear. Because I actually felt my nose sting over a civilian-grade water heater. Pathetic. What exactly had the Federation turned us into? I stood under the water and scrubbed three times. First pass for the ash. Second for the medical stink.

Third for that ghost sensation that insisted I was still in the rainforest even though my body was home. I knew it was over the top. Didn't care. It had been too long since I'd showered in a place where you didn't have to worry about what was outside the door, race the clock, or keep your voice down. Too long since I could treat myself like an ordinary person who got to be clean. When I was finally done, hair still dripping and too tired to dry it, I fell face-first onto my bed. One thought. Bed. My bed.

So soft it was suspicious. Soft enough that for a second I genuinely wondered if this was the academy's final test: drown the survivors in overly accommodating mattresses. I didn't have the energy to investigate. The moment my head hit the pillow, I died. Not "fell asleep." Full system shutdown. No dreams. Dreams didn't even make the waitlist. Then somewhere around 0200, I snapped awake. Literally snapped—full-body jerk, heart hammering like someone was pounding an alarm inside my chest.

My hand went automatically to the side of the bed, reaching for a knife, a shock baton, anything—because there'd been a sound in the dark. I'd heard it. Click. Tiny. My whole body locked, brain sprinting through worst-case scenarios: Jäger (Hunter)? Window? Hallway? Thermal signature? Why didn't the trip-wire— Right. I don't have trip-wires at home— Second sound. Click.... The automatic vent on the air conditioner. I stared at the ceiling in silence for three seconds.

Then slowly brought a hand up and covered my face.

"... Fuck." Pathetic didn't even begin to cover it. Scared stupid by my own AC in my own goddamn room. But the more I laughed at myself, the more my eyes burned. Not because of the appliance. Not because of how ridiculous that moment had been. Because I had actually come back. Back to AC, and bed, and a quiet night, and a room where nobody needed me on rotation. And because I was back, everything I'd kept stuffed down finally had space to catch up.

I sat on the bed, knees pulled in, hair half-dry, sleep shirt wrinkled. I probably looked like a sample survivor someone had scraped off an accident site and mailed home. Not impressive. Not captain-like. Real. I thought about the "fourteen squads" from the announcement. About the make-up scheme. About Kushima saying it's a trap. About that first truly quiet night in the bunker. About the ugly, stubborn trench we dug. About crying in the shower. About Akari saying the walls were thin.

About D saying he'd booked the barbecue place. About Jess swearing at me while stuffing electrolyte packets at my face. About Harvey's mouth running even when he was half-dead. And suddenly I wanted to laugh. Because I realized how weirdly tangled my feelings about the word survivor had become. On one hand, facts are facts. Alive is alive. On the other, I hated the feeling of being stamped as one of the ones who made it through the sieve.

Like I hadn't just lived through two weeks, but been rubber-stamped by the system: usable for frontline placement. Annoying. So annoying it contaminated even the relief. I sat there for a long time before finally dropping my face onto my knees and crying. Not a big scene. No cinematic sobbing. Just that late-night, exhausted kind of crying that comes when your body finally believes: it's safe, no one here will downgrade you for this, and nobody else's life is riding on whether you hold it together.

When it was done, my nose was blocked, my head heavy, and I looked like shit. But I felt looser. Like that last taut strand in the rainforest had finally snapped. I looked around my room. Desk. Wardrobe. Curtains. Bedside lamp. Everything insultingly ordinary. So ordinary it almost set me off again. Instead I grabbed a tissue, blew my nose, and muttered into the empty air:"Total crap."

I wasn't even sure who I was insulting—the assessment, the make-up system, the survivor label, or the version of me who'd come back furious and still alive. Probably all of the above. Then I lay back down, this time remembering to glare at the AC first.

"You click at me again and I'll tear you down like a Jäger (Hunter)." The AC, obviously, did not care. But saying it made me feel a little better. Apparently I really was suited to being a sleep-deprived patient who yelled at household appliances. Right before I drifted off the second time, my last thought was: The barbecue thing... I'll deal with it after I've slept. I slept for three and a half days straight. Not exaggeration. Actual count. The waking cycle was pathetic: wake, eat, shower, collapse.

Occasionally scroll the school channels—commendation notices, make-up procedures, year stats imploding, and spirited debates about whether the instructors were batshit—and roll my eyes before face-planting again. By the fourth day of suspension, when I was finally standing in front of the barbecue place D had sent the address for, my mental state had clawed its way back from "survivor" to "barely functional fourteen-year-old girl." On the surface, at least.

The place was small, second floor of a back alley building in the commercial district. Simple wooden sign, warm yellow light through the glass. Fire that cooked food, not people. I stood outside and suddenly didn't want to open the door. Not from fear. From awkwardness. In the rainforest, we'd been covered in grime with one thought between us: don't die. Awkwardness gets flattened fast under those conditions.

Back in the city—with normal lighting, normal tables, normal menus, and normal society—something else hit me: Right. I'm about to sit down for dinner with the seven people who dug trenches with me, dodged Jäger (Hunter) units with me, gotten bandaged beside me. That felt stranger than any uphill charge. I took a breath, pushed the door open. And the first thing I saw was D.... Unfair. He'd already looked like a walking wall in the rainforest. Back in the city, in regular clothes, he still looked like a wall.

A well-built, probably expensive wall that had definitely seen the inside of a gym. He was by the window, already there, a beer on the table. Yes. Beer. Federation law: sixteen is adult. D is sixteen. He gets to drink legally. The rest of us—veterans of firestorms, stun rounds, trenches, and psychological warfare by bureaucracy—were stuck with soft drinks. Fair? No. But we'd already had the rainforest as a crash course in "the world is not fair." He spotted me and raised a hand.

"Here." I walked over and realized everyone was basically already there. Kushima on the inside, clean, hair tied back—looking even more than usual like the kind of unnervingly competent med student who could make you sit up straight with one sentence. Jess, for once, didn't have "I hate everything" written across her entire face, but the feral-cat pressure field was intact—upgraded to an urban version. Harvey hunched over the menu like he was deciphering enemy fortifications.

Roy had, unbelievably, brought his notebook, posture so correct I had to resist the urge to swap his drink for concentrated stimulant. Linde was quiet, as always. Akari sat in the corner, black top, glass of iced oolong at hand, looking like she might write a tactical assessment of the restaurant if given thirty seconds. And the weirdest part— Everyone was too clean. No ash. No visible bandages. No mud. No scorch smell. No one carrying a shield. No one constantly checking their HUD.

I sat down in the chair, looking at these seven faces, and suddenly felt something completely absurd. These people had been crammed into a hole we'd dug ourselves just last week, sharing water, rotating watch, discussing in whispers whether to take action against that plant with zero sense of fair play sniffing around our entrance. Now they were sitting in a place with lighting, air conditioning, and menus, looking like a group of ordinary students. So ordinary it left me bewildered.

"What are you doing standing by the door," Jess spoke first.

"Waiting for someone to bring you a menu on a silver platter?"

"I'm adjusting to civilization."

"How long have you been adjusting?"

"Still working on it." Harvey looked up, expression serious.

"I'm still working on it too. I just saw grilled meat skewers on the menu and my first thought was evaluating caloric efficiency for marching."

"That's normal," Roy said.

"Roy, that's not normal," I said.

"Oh." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Kushima pushed the menu toward me.

"Order first. Everything else can wait until after we eat." I looked down at the menu and my eyes stopped on "Grilled Beef Short Rib" for about three seconds. Then I realized I was about to get emotional over a grilled beef short rib. Those two weeks had genuinely broken me. Our ordering process perfectly illustrated this squad's collective personality. D ordered large quantities, few varieties, all meat. Jess ordered many varieties, but each carried the aura of "if this isn't good I'm returning it."

Harvey got halfway through ordering and started asking the server for recommendations, then confused the server so thoroughly they didn't know how to respond. Roy read the menu from top to bottom before ordering three items, reasoning "to avoid redundancy." Linde didn't waste words, pointed to three things and put the menu down. Kushima ordered things that made me think she was doing nutritional assessment even while ordering. Akari only ordered two items.

The server asked if she wanted to add anything, she said no. The server asked if she was sure, she said yes. The server asked again, she looked at him once, and the server stopped asking. And me. I ordered the grilled beef short rib. Plus grilled corn. Plus a serving of grilled sweet potato. Plus a very sweet drink, because the sweetest thing I'd had in the rainforest for two weeks was electrolyte powder packets, and I felt I had the right.

When the first charcoal grill was brought to the table and that aroma wafted up, I almost couldn't keep quiet in public. Not exaggeration. The kind of instinctive reaction where your body smells real grilled meat for the first time in two weeks and it bypasses your rational mind, shooting straight up from the base of your spine. Harvey took a deep breath, closed his eyes, expression like he was performing some sacred ritual.

"... I've decided to forgive the Federation."

"You're saying that too fast," Jess picked up the first piece of meat.

"Wait until you've actually eaten."

"I already have."

"Smelling counts as eating?"

"Yes. This is spiritual consumption."

"You're genuinely difficult." I ignored them and picked up a piece of grilled beef short rib, putting it in my mouth. Then I went quiet for about five seconds. Because it was genuinely delicious. Not some particularly fancy flavor, just very normal charcoal-grilled beef, slightly charred edges, just the right amount of fat, perfect saltiness. But precisely because it was so normal, it made me feel— Oh. I really am back.

Not back from the medical bay, not back from the transport, not back from that commendation list. Back from those two weeks. Really, completely, alive and back. I swallowed that piece of meat, looked down and picked up a second piece, not letting too much show on my face. But D must have noticed something, because he didn't say anything, just pushed that plate of grilled beef short rib a little toward me. I glanced at him. He just kept watching the fire. I didn't say thank you. He didn't say "I pushed it."

But the gesture itself was enough. As the meal went on, the atmosphere gradually changed. Not sentimental, not boisterous. That feeling where—you know everyone hasn't completely relaxed yet, but they're starting to be willing to let that taut layer drop just a little. Harvey was first to break the silence, holding up a slightly charred meat skewer with great solemnity:"I want to say a few words."

"Don't," Jess and I said simultaneously.

"Let him," D said. Harvey cleared his throat.

"... I just want to say, these two weeks we did a lot of really stupid things together, but I don't regret it. Even if we had to do it again, I'd probably be just as stupid, but I'd want to be stupid with you people again." Three seconds of silence. Then Roy raised his soft drink.

"I agree." Linde didn't raise her glass, but she looked up at Harvey once—acknowledgment enough. Jess snorted, but still lifted her glass. Kushima said nothing, just lightly touched her glass to the others. Akari looked at that meat skewer, paused for two seconds, then finally picked up her iced oolong. D raised his beer. I looked at this circle of people and thought this scene was both corny and real. Then I lifted my very sweet drink too.

"Fine," I said.

"Next time don't make me dig trenches."

"No guarantees," Harvey said.

"Then let's keep being stupid." The glasses clinked together, not loud, not in unison. But enough. Completely enough. That night, we stayed in that small barbecue place for a long time. Nobody gave speeches. Nobody debriefed the assessment. Nobody discussed the make-up system's dark side or the weight of survivor labels. Just eating, talking nonsense, occasionally sniping at each other, occasionally going quiet, occasionally laughing, then continuing to eat.

Like eight ordinary people, on an ordinary night, doing an ordinary thing. And that kind of ordinary, after those two weeks, was the most luxurious thing I'd ever seen. When it was finally time to leave, everyone gradually stood up—settling the bill, collecting bags, putting on jackets—all very routine, routine as if we'd never spent two weeks in the rainforest. I walked to the door and looked back once at that table. Still some residual warmth from the charcoal. A few unfinished glasses.

Roy's notebook, this time open to a page without resource tables, just a line of text I couldn't read from that distance. I didn't walk over to look. Some things don't need to be known. Outside the restaurant, the night breeze was just cool enough. Harvey took a deep breath outside, expression completely blissful.

"This is what living feels like."

"You said that when you were on your third skewer," Jess said.

"Because I need to reconfirm every few minutes."

"You're genuinely sick."

"Sick but alive." I stood behind them, didn't join in, just watched these people talk nonsense in the night and thought— Good. This is good enough. Nothing more needed. Eventually everyone scattered. Roy left first, saying he needed to organize his notes. Linde followed, giving no reason, but I guessed she just didn't want to linger. Kushima did a final check on everyone's condition, confirmed no one needed follow-up medical attention, then packed up and left.

Harvey and Jess argued about getting late-night snacks and disappeared around the corner together. Akari left quietly, like she'd arrived, no special goodbyes, just gone. That left me and D. He stood under the streetlight, zipping up his jacket, no immediate intention to leave. Neither did I. We just stood there for a while, neither of us speaking. Not awkward. Just no need to speak. Finally D broke the silence.

"Barbecue was good?"

"Very good," I said.

"Thanks for booking it." He nodded once.

"We'll come again." Looking at him say those four words, I suddenly felt they were more solid than anything else. Not "we'll always be together." Not "I'll always remember this time." Just very flat, very direct: We'll come again. Like saying: We'll have a next time.

"Good," I said. Then we went our separate ways. Walking back to the dorm, the night breeze was still cool, streetlights stretching our shadows long. Walking along, I suddenly remembered the words on that piece of cloth. Whoever makes it out alive, eat two portions for me. I ate three portions today. I think that's the best answer I can give right now. This was actually harder to get used to than the rainforest. I stood by the table for three seconds, and the first thing out of my mouth was:"...

You all look nothing like people who dig trenches." Harvey looked up immediately.

"Look who's talking. You look way more like a junior high girl having a meltdown over homework than a tyrant yelling at people from the edge of a trench."

"I am a junior high girl."

"Yeah, but you used to be the battlefield expansion pack." Jess propped her chin on her hand, smiling like trouble.

"Welcome back to civilized society, Hoshino Shimo." I sat down and went straight for the iced soda on the table. Cold. Sweet. Carbonated. I almost teared up on the spot.

"... How is this allowed to taste this good." D glanced at me.

"You caught up on sleep?"

"More or less." I put the glass down.

"If I'd slept another half day, I might've missed legal adulthood entirely."

"You're talking about sleep more and more like an old person," Jess said.

"Only people who understand sleep understand life."

"Didn't you write something like that on a scrap of cloth?"

"Shut up." When the server came to take drink orders, the awkwardness spiked a level. We'd rolled around on the edge of death together, and now we were hung up on the most mundane, brutally ordinary question imaginable: what drinks to order. D said it naturally: "Beer." When it was my turn, the server glanced at me.

"Underage, so soft drinks."... Factually correct, and still annoying to hear stated that bluntly.

"Coke," I said.

"Same," Jess followed.

"Oolong," from Kushima.

"Ginger ale!" Harvey announced like he was declaring revolution.

"Water's fine," Linde.

"Orange juice," Roy, careful and precise. Akari already had her iced oolong, so she just shook her head. D's was the only glass on the table that smelled faintly bitter and malty—the lone symbol of adulthood. Harvey stared at it for two seconds, voice full of feeling.

"So jealous." Jess shot him down immediately.

"Jealous of adulthood, or the beer?"

"Both."

"Learn to dig a straight trench first."

"Please don't tie my human rights to trench quality." I was unwrapping chopsticks and couldn't hold back a laugh. Good. The awkwardness was still there, but at least it was being diluted by familiar bickering. That felt more like us. Once the meat arrived, things got truly weird. The first plate hit the grill and the moment it went ssss, all eight of us froze for a beat. Really froze. The synchronicity was ridiculous. I stared at the steam rising off the meat, and my first thought wasn't smells good.

It was the heat wall at the front of the firestorm.... Infuriating. Just barbecue, and the assessment's aftershocks still had to butt in. The one who finally broke that strange silence was D. He picked up the tongs, flipped the meat, and said, very evenly:"This fire doesn't chase you." The whole table held for two seconds. Then Harvey was the first to crack, laughing so hard he almost sprayed soda.

"Shit—that's the most comforting line I've heard all week." Jess laughed too, dropping back against her chair.

"Alright. Best line of the night is yours, for now." I tried not to smile and kept my eyes on the grill.

"... I can work with that." Akari took a sip of iced oolong and added, completely calm:"And it's more worth eating when it's done." Even Kushima laughed at that. Not obviously, but I saw it. In that second, I realized the truly strange part of this wasn't that we were seeing each other in the city for the first time. It was that we were only now getting the chance to look at each other like normal people. D wasn't just a shield. Akari wasn't just those dead-cold eyes.

Kushima wasn't just the med kit plus weaponized sarcasm. Jess wasn't just bite and explosives. Harvey wasn't just his collection of noisy junk. Roy wasn't just the notebook. Linde wasn't just quiet and steady. And me—I probably wasn't just the captain who stood at the edge of a trench and yelled. Even if everyone was clearly happy to keep milking that image forever.

"Speaking of," Harvey said, dropping a slice of meat into his bowl with a dangerously nostalgic smile, "I can still hear a certain someone at the trench screaming: 'If old-school trenches keep you alive, then they're cutting-edge tech.'" The entire table went quiet for one beat. Then exploded.

"Shut up!" I flared on instinct. Jess laughed so hard she nearly spit out her Coke.

"No way, that line was legendary. Hoshino Shimo, fourteen, high priestess of the Trench Renaissance."

"Say one more word and I'm taking all the cooked meat."

"See? Weaponizing food as a leadership tool. Very on-brand." Roy actually nodded thoughtfully.

"From an outcome perspective, that speech was effective."

"Roy, do not turn this into a performance metric."

"I'm just stating facts..." Kushima took a sip of oolong and added, perfectly mild:"It was effective. There was a marked drop in complaints afterward."

"Because I yelled them into submission?"

"No." Akari set her cup down and looked at me.

"Because you were right." I stopped. So did everyone else. That's how she is. Says nothing most of the time, then drops one line straight down the center. Every comeback I'd prepped jammed in my throat. All I could do was clear it and look down, fiddling with the grill.

"... Eat first." Jess let out a very obnoxious little "oooh."

"Captain's embarrassed."

"You've been talking non-stop tonight."

"Because I'm on Coke, not survival water."

"That's a terrible reason."

"But it's freedom."... Fine. No comeback for that one.

Halfway through, the atmosphere finally loosened for real. Not into some big, healing group-hug vibe. We are absolutely allergic to that tone. More like we collectively slid into: alright, if we're alive and sitting here, we get to cash out our grievances and jokes from those two weeks mode. Harvey made a serious case that his three sets of trip-wires belonged in the official commendation appendix.

"At the very least they should add a line: 'Harvey's artisanal rigging played a critical role in multiple night operations.'" D didn't even look up.

"They can add: 'Visual profile: trash.'" Linde quietly twisted the knife: "But more effective than some issued equipment." Harvey's face was torn between pleased and offended.

"I can't tell if that's an insult or a compliment."

"Description," Linde said. Jess formally brought up the bite incident.

"I would like the record to show that when I bit the captain's arm during that midnight cramp, it counted as a medical accident, not an attack."

"Am I eligible for emotional damages?" I shot back.

"No," Kushima said.

"You didn't refuse."

"I didn't have time to refuse!" Akari slipped in another line.

"I still think you two are close."

"How?!" Jess and I barked in perfect unison. D took a sip of beer and finally, openly laughed. Good. Apparently, in sixteen-year-old legal adults, alcohol doesn't cause drunkenness—it just upgrades spectator enjoyment. The make-up system didn't stay off the table either. Mid-meal, Roy finally couldn't help himself.

"Do you really think... the ones who go to the written and simulation make-ups are locked into the lower track afterward?" We quieted down. D answered first.

"Mostly." Short, but solid. Kushima set her chopsticks down, voice steady.

"It's not about looking down on that path. Logistics, technical, support roles—they're all necessary. The problem is the school never said upfront it was a sorting mechanism. They packed it as remediation. That's the dirtiest part." I picked it up from there.

"And the worst part is, it'll make a lot of people think they were just unlucky. That they just need to score higher next time. When really, some doors, once you miss them the first time, it's not just 'take the test again.'" Harvey, for once, didn't crack a joke. He just stared at the grill.

"So when they call us 'qualified,' we're just getting a different label slapped on."

"Yes," Akari said. Jess snorted.

"Then let them. If they're slapping labels anyway, at least this one's something we actually earned instead of getting handed by someone's pen." I glanced over at her. Sometimes she really did sound better than she thought she did.

"Yeah," I said.

"I'm pissed, but this one isn't free." Harvey blinked, then slid neatly back into his usual persona.

"So inspirational all of a sudden. In that case, to commemorate our fancy label, I propose we order another plate of short rib."

"You just want more food," Kushima said.

"Yes, but I phrased it with high spiritual value." Roy nodded, deadly serious.

"I think that's a reasonable emotional outlet."

"Roy," I said, looking at him very sincerely, "you really need to learn that not everything needs to be rationalized."

"... Okay. I'll try." Then he added, one second later:"But another plate will help stabilize group morale." The whole table broke again. We stayed there much longer than I'd expected. Long enough for the sky outside to go fully dark. Long enough for the stack of empty plates to look like a small war trophy display. Long enough for a faintly ridiculous thought to settle in my head: We might actually end up doing this a second time.

Before we broke up, D finished the last sip of his beer, set the glass down, and looked at me.

"If we meet again next time," he said, "will you sleep first?" My mouth twitched.

"How long are you people planning to milk that line?" Jess answered without missing a beat.

"At least a semester." Harvey added, "Extension possible if you produce more quotes."

"That's excessive." Kushima said, perfectly calm:"Depends whether you keep turning yourself into a walking medical case."

"You're setting the bar to be unachievable on purpose." Akari took the last sip of her iced oolong and said, softly:"Then take your time." I looked at her, then around the table, and suddenly wanted to laugh. They were all insufferable. D, steady enough to casually ask about barbecue when you're at your worst. Kushima, sharp enough to salt-wound wherever it hurt. Jess, loud enough to make you suspect she runs on trash talk as a secondary life support.

Akari, cold enough that the rare decent line she drops hits twice as hard. But because it was these people—this dinner didn't feel like some standard-issue debriefing. It felt like we'd really dragged each other out of that rainforest. I got to my feet and swung my jacket over my shoulder.

"Alright," I said.

"If you set something up next time, I'll consider being on time." Harvey's hand shot up.

"Recording that." Jess grinned, full gremlin.

"No, the keyword is on time. That's a well-rested commitment."

"I can still have you two recycled back to the rainforest."

"See?" Harvey said to D.

"Captain's back to normal." D nodded.

"Yeah. She is." I glared at him. He actually smiled.... Fine. Being laughed at by a sixteen-year-old who can legally drink isn't the worst humiliation I've had this month. We stepped out of the restaurant together. The city night air was completely ordinary. No firestorm. No ash. No shimmering heat. Just wind moving past streetlights, signs, and pavement. I stood at the door and glanced back at the seven of them, and I knew very clearly—some things were different now. Those two weeks were a mess.

The system was filthy. The make-up scheme sounded like a joke. The survivor label was heavy and annoying. And even so, if you asked me whether it was worth getting through it with this group—... Probably yes. Not that I'd ever say that out loud. Too sentimental. And Jess would dine out on it until next year.