Chương 166: 62. Day-Three 3

The moment the doorbell rang, 22 Platinum Bridge Street went on pause. All of it, at once. Not an exaggeration. A second ago there had been the metallic sounds of Harvey packing tools in the basement, the tail end of Aida and Ash's low conversation about simulation flow in the living room, what sounded like Maki moving around upstairs. Then the doorbell rang and every sound was cut off simultaneously, leaving only a very bad quality of silence in the air. D was closest to the door.

He snapped to attention with a speed that suggested the person outside wasn't someone ringing a doorbell but a hundred armed hostiles in formation preparing to breach and drag him out for execution. That wasn't hyperbole—it was literal. Even the angle of his shoulders changed, shifting from just finished walking the floor plan to processing a threat. Ash was the second one on his feet—he'd been with D maintaining equipment. I was third. Actually—no. To be precise, I was fourth.

Because before I'd fully turned from the staircase, Jess had already appeared from the far side of the living room with half a piece of bread in her mouth, moving with the energy of a feral animal that had evolved specifically to detect the scent of trouble.

"Who is it?" she asked around the bread.

"Swallow first," I said.

"If there's an assassin out there, I can't go out on an empty stomach."

"Your philosophy of life really doesn't need to be documented." D ignored us. He exchanged a look with Ash—the kind of wordless, economical communication that took less than half a second—then reached over, turned the lock, and pulled the door open. The entryway light slanted in. A black-haired woman stood outside. Tall, posture straight, a kind of composed presence that bordered on oppressive.

In the doorway light, her face had an irritatingly familiar bone structure—especially that particular Kushima quality of seeming to evaluate you thoroughly while showing almost no expression. D froze for half a beat.

"... Maki Kushima?" I went still too. A second later, the bread nearly fell out of Jess's mouth.

"Holy shit, is this place haunted?!" She sounded so genuinely rattled that for a moment I almost believed there actually was something wrong with the building. The black-haired woman's eyebrow moved slightly. Before she could speak, a voice I knew far too well came from the staircase.

"What's going on?" Everyone turned. Maki was coming down from the second floor. She still had the folder she'd gone up to organize, hair neatly tied back, wearing that standard expression of what low-quality disturbance are you creating down here now. Halfway down the stairs, her gaze crossed the room to the person at the door. Her footsteps stopped. One full second of silence in the living room. D's expression changed completely.

"... Why are there two Kushimas?!" Ash stood beside him, not as dramatic but clearly working to process a scene that exceeded normal parameters. Jess abandoned any pretense of civility. She stepped back, pointing at the door and then at the stairs.

"What is this? Mass production? The Kushima family comes with backup units?!" I took a deep breath.

"Shut up."

"I really can't right now, Shimo." She looked genuinely spooked.

"This is terrible for cardiac health." By then, Maki had reached the bottom of the stairs. She moved to stand behind us, gaze settling on the woman outside. Her expression didn't shift much, but I was certain that whatever she was feeling wasn't pleasure.

"... Sister," she said. The moment that word dropped, everyone except me went rigid simultaneously. Right. Now they understood how we'd ended up with two Kushimas in the same building. The black-haired woman—the Student Council President—let her gaze rest on Maki for a moment before slowly scanning the entryway and living room.

"... Maki. You all seem to be having quite a lively time here." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. She said it calmly. But somehow, that word lively felt like it contained a small amount of private entertainment at our expense. Jess sucked in a sharp breath beside me.

"We're done. It's the senior version."

"Say one more word and I'm pushing you out there as our diplomat," I muttered back. The black-haired woman stepped forward and crossed the threshold.

"Good evening, everyone." Clean tone, precise words.

"I'm the Student Council President. My name is Kushima." She tilted her head, gave Maki a brief, neutral glance, and completed the sentence.

"Aki Kushima." Honestly, the introduction was unnecessary. Everyone present who hadn't just crawled out of a cryo-pod knew who she was. But knowing and seeing were different things, especially with her standing next to Maki. The family resemblance became suddenly, overwhelmingly real. Not identical—but you could tell at a glance: yes, these two come from the same place, and they've inherited the same method of being a headache. What made it worse was that Aki hadn't come alone. Two more figures followed her inside.

First was Linde Hoffmann, wearing that General Affairs expression that suggested she was calculating something just out of view. Behind her came Freya Nikaido, radiating presence, her gaze sweeping the room with built-in I'm here to inspect whether you're living properly energy. The moment Jess saw them, she made no effort to hide her disgust.

"Ugh." She wrinkled her nose.

"Freya Nikaido and Linde Hoffmann too." Freya naturally treated that as something that hadn't been said. She even stepped forward, her gaze moving righteously across the living room, table, stairs, and shoe cabinet, like she was conducting an unannounced discipline inspection.

"Of course we came," she said.

"As the academy's first off-campus residential demonstration, naturally we need to verify that no improper activities are taking place." I laughed immediately. Not politely. Directly, maliciously, and entirely on purpose.

"Wow," I said, not holding back.

"The pot calling the kettle black." The atmosphere in the entryway caught for a moment. Linde's expression barely shifted. Aki didn't even raise an eyebrow. But Freya clearly lacked that level of composure—she whipped around and glared at me.

"Hoshino Shimo!"

"What is it, senpai?" I leaned against the stair rail, looking back with complete sincerity.

"Don't rush to take it personally. I didn't name anyone."

"You—!" She looked ready to step forward, but before she could finish, Aki cut her off with a flat, even: "Enough." Not loud. Very effective. Freya closed her mouth immediately, though her face stayed sour. Aki looked like she had no interest in managing low-level bickering. She lifted her chin slightly.

"Linde, Freya. Hand these out." Linde moved immediately. She and Freya each carried a stack into the living room and began distributing items across the table. Not ordinary documents or dorm notices—rigid envelopes and slim data cases that clearly came from a formal institutional system. The covers bore the joint insignia of the Academy and Federal Military, along with each of our names. The absurdity that had filled the air moments ago—the two-Kushima situation—was quietly pressed down.

I looked at my envelope and felt that bad premonition return. Aki stood beside the long table, tone as level as ever.

"These are your formal practicum notifications." No preamble. Straight to the point.

"Inside you'll find assembly time, vessel designation, berth location, and the formal crew uniforms that will be issued upon boarding." At those words, several people around the table looked up simultaneously. Formal crew uniforms. Just those words, and the weight was entirely different. Two days ago we'd been in this house fighting over shower schedules, refrigerator shelves, and basement wiring like people operating at the edge of civilization.

Now someone had placed something that came directly from an actual ship onto our table. Not a simulation. Not a hypothetical. Not you might board the Snowwind eventually. A formal notification.

"However," Aki said, her gaze sweeping the room, adding with very little inflection: "Being issued a formal crew uniform doesn't mean it counts yet." She paused—a brief pause, but calibrated, letting that settle into everyone's ears.

"The captain has to approve you before you can actually wear it." That was a precise kind of blow. Very Student Council President. Because it didn't strike directly—it reminded you, with perfect courtesy: don't get ahead of yourself. We're giving you the item. We haven't given you the qualification. I reached over and pulled my envelope closer. When my fingertips touched the hard paper, something strange moved through me.

Like the daily life that had been growing inside twenty-two over these past few days had just been pressed down, for the first time, by weight coming from outside. Then Aki looked at me. Not a passing glance. She put her gaze on me with clear intention.

"Especially you, Hoshino." My hand stopped.

"... Huh?" It was a stupid response. But she'd singled me out with such matter-of-fact inevitability that I couldn't generate anything more sophisticated in time. Aki looked at me, expression unchanged.

"You'd better put away that get on board first and figure it out later thinking you're carrying around." Motherfucker. Could she read minds? I hadn't said a single word, and she'd stepped directly onto the most irritating corner of my head.

"The new recruits being integrated under your marine unit..." She paused. It was short, but exactly the right length—like she was choosing a less abrasive way to phrase something that didn't have a prettier version. In the end, she said it anyway.

"... A lot of them are conscripts." The living room went quiet. Not the stunned quiet from earlier when the two-Kushima situation had choked everyone with absurdity. This was different. It went deeper. I looked at her, and the first thought that surfaced in my head was entirely unfit for public consumption. Conscripts. They actually drafted people to fill the gaps. I didn't say it out loud, but just having the thought was enough to drop something in my stomach. Conscripts. Not career military.

Not people who'd completed full training and formation. Not people who'd grown up with military life as a predetermined path. People who'd been pulled in to plug holes. That sentence had weight—enough that even Jess didn't cut in immediately. D's expression darkened first. Some of Ash's easy composure pulled inward. Roy's hand stopped on the notification he'd been examining. Lan looked like she was instinctively recalculating something. Harvey said nothing. Evelyn's brow drew together.

Even Freya and Linde had lost the inspection-tour energy they'd walked in with. Something became very clear to me in that moment. However young we were, however much we still carried student habits—at least we were standing here by choice. The people crammed under the Snowwind might not be.

Aki looked around the table, confirming that the sentence had landed where it needed to, before adding, still in that level tone: "So my suggestion is: from this point forward, stop treating this as an off-campus residential program." Nobody in the living room responded immediately. I looked down at the formal notification in my hands and felt it sit heavier than it had a moment ago. A minute ago I'd thought this place was haunted.

Now it was clear: something considerably more troublesome than a ghost had just knocked on our door.