Chương 223: 86. Everyone Has Landmines 2

The kid on the floor, who'd been grinning like he owned the place a minute ago, was now nothing but blood, crying, and a face that was starting to lose its original shape. Half a tooth lay on the deck, white and obscene. Not one of the kids who'd been laughing, egging it on, treating the whole thing as entertainment could manage a smile now. Good. Someone had finally remembered that a mouth is also an organ that causes trouble. Maki still had my wrist. D still had my shoulder.

Maki's grip was rock-steady — not like someone restraining a classmate who'd nearly put another kid in the medical bay, but like someone anchoring a person who'd nearly gone over the edge of the deck. D, for once, had none of his usual lightness left; his lock on my leverage axis was absolute, clearly afraid that two more hits would take this from lost a tooth straight to please notify next of kin. The lead teacher covered the distance in three strides. The other instructor dropped straight to the kid on the floor.

"Medical! Get medical here, now!" he shouted back over his shoulder. The middle-school group dissolved. Some backed away. Some froze. Some started babbling it wasn't me, he said it first, I didn't know it'd go like this — useless noise, all of it. My chest was still heaving, the blood on my fists starting to cool. It was a strange feeling — like the fire had burned out first, leaving something uglier behind. My hands were shaking. My breathing was wrong.

My stomach felt like something had reached in and grabbed it, and in my ears the dull thud of my own punches hadn't faded yet. The teacher's head snapped toward me. The look wasn't just anger. It was shock, fury, and a thin thread of is this a warship or a pit-fighting ring running underneath.

"Get her out of here," he said through his teeth.

"Now."

"I've got her," Maki said immediately.

"I'm coming too," D added. The teacher probably understood that right now, the worst possible people to have near me were any of the middle-schoolers. The best option was the two who already had me anchored. So he didn't argue — just gave one hard, dark nod. Maki slowly loosened her grip on my wrist but didn't let go entirely — just shifted her hand to my forearm, as if afraid I might tear myself free again the next second. D moved to my other side, one hand still hovering, and said low:"Let's go. Don't look back."

I wasn't planning to. Not out of guilt. Because I knew that if I saw that face again, or heard even one person try to soften what he'd said, I might genuinely give today's class an incident report nobody would enjoy writing. The three of us walked out. The training bay behind us was quiet in a way that went past ordinary silence — the kind that settles once everyone finally understands exactly what edge they'd been standing on, and nobody dares move. Jess stayed where she was. She didn't follow.

But as I passed her, she said one line, very low, very cold:"He had it coming." Four words. No comfort. No softening. No calm down. But those four words did more than are you okay ever could have. At least for that one second, the mess coiling in my chest didn't climb any higher. Once we cleared the bay and the corridor's cold air hit me, I realized, belatedly, that my hand hurt. Not the sharp pain of something broken — the slow, deep ache that surfaces in the joints and knuckles after a fight is over.

My knuckles were covered in blood, some his, some mine, soaked into the cuff of my armor. The whole thing looked like the aftermath of some very small, very stupid, very personal battlefield. D steered us into an empty equipment prep room. The door slid shut, and the noise outside dropped one layer. Just one layer. But sometimes that's enough. Out there, you can hold it together. The door closes, and suddenly you can't. Maki pushed me down onto the bench against the wall. D went for the first-aid kit.

The lights were white — the unforgiving, clinical kind. I looked down at the blood on my hands and felt something sick roll from my stomach up to my throat. Not because I'd hit him. Because I knew exactly why I'd hit him like that. Maki crouched in front of me.

"Look at me," she said. I didn't want to. But her voice was too steady. Steady like a nail driven straight in. So I lifted my head.

"Breathe," she said.

"Slower." I tried. Didn't work. Second breath, still ragged. By the third, I suddenly wanted to laugh — not because anything was funny, but the ugly kind of laugh that surfaces right before a person stops holding together.

"Maki," I said, my voice actually shaking.

"Am I being stupid?" Maki watched me. Didn't answer right away. D had just found the antiseptic swabs. He paused.

"If you're asking whether hitting someone is going to cause problems," D said, "yes. If you're asking whether getting hit by something like that makes you stupid — no. That's called being a normal human being." I looked down and, for a moment, couldn't find any words. That was exactly it. Most days I can talk, hold my ground, act like nothing gets to me. But only I know some things don't stop hurting. I'm just very good at keeping the lid on, not letting them show a face.

And today a kid too stupid to have earned his current age had just stomped the lid clean off with his boot.

"I know what he said was garbage," I said, staring at the blood on my hands, my voice going dry.

"I know he just wanted to get a rise out of me. But I—I still—" The rest stuck. Saying it out loud would make it worse. But Maki, like she'd already known I couldn't finish, picked it up, flat:"Because it already mattered to you." I closed my eyes. There it was. That's the kind of line that kills you — the one that names exactly what you least want acknowledged, and lands without a trace of mockery. My throat locked.

"I hate this," I said, my voice smaller than I recognized.

"I know I shouldn't care. But I do. I know I shouldn't let someone like that get to me. But the second he said it, my head was just full of all that old shit. Like being ripped open." D went quiet. He set the swab down beside me and, for once, said nothing. Maki was still crouched there, one hand resting just above my knee — not too close, just anchoring something that looked like it was about to shake apart.

"This isn't your fault," she said. Just that. No lecture. No you need to be stronger. No ignore people like that. Just — not your fault. My nose burned. Something inside me got grabbed and squeezed, hard. A second later, I really did break. Not the loud kind — too ugly, not my style. More like a wire pulled too tight for too long, finally snapping. Tears came on their own, breathing went ragged like I'd just finished a long run, head down, shoulders shaking, hands still bloody. The whole picture was a wreck.

D, with rare tact, looked away and kept his hands busy tearing open fresh gauze.

"Alright. Officially, the one who most deserved to lose a tooth today was me," he said, "because I almost didn't catch that second punch." I was crying and he still nearly made me laugh, which produced a genuinely stupid hybrid state.

"Shut up..." I managed.

"I'm serious," D said.

"There was one second where I thought: Dwight, if you don't help Kushima hold her back right now, tomorrow you're writing apology essays with Hoshino until they discharge you both." Maki finally handed me the water bottle from beside her. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Drink," she said. I took it. My hand was still shaking a little. At times like this, for some reason, the calmer Maki gets, the harder it is for me to hold anything together. Pathetic. But there was nothing to be done about it. A while later, Aida, Evelyn, and Harvey were let in. Aida took one look at me and her expression softened, just slightly. Evelyn was more direct — she already had a clean, damp towel in hand, crouched beside me, and asked carefully:"Can I clean your hands?" I nodded.

She was gentle, the kind of gentle that treats something like it might break. Harvey stood off to the side, quiet for a few seconds, then said exactly one thing:"That kid had it coming." Very Harvey, as comfort. Blunt. But it worked. Aida, straightening the loose fasteners on my armor, said quietly:"Being angry wasn't the mistake. The last few hits were. Keep those two separate. Understand?" I nodded, eyes down. That mattered too. It didn't condemn all of me at once — it just honestly split the pieces apart.

Yes, I was allowed to be angry. Yes, getting hit where it hurt wasn't a crime. But yes, those last punches crossed the line. That did more than any hollow it's okay could have. It took a while before my breathing settled. By the time I could sit up straight, the storm outside had only just entered its next phase. By the time we were called into the Security Division's small conference room, the blood had been cleaned off my hands and the cuts dressed.

My knuckles were still swollen — every time I closed my fist, it hurt. Good. At least it reminded me this wasn't some exaggerated nightmare: I had actually knocked a tooth out of a middle-schooler in the Yukikaze's training bay. The room was small. Grey table. Grey walls. Even the air felt grey. Sergeant Takenaka sat at the front — not furious, exactly, but nowhere near the kind of calm that invites jokes.

The supervising teacher sat across, more composed than at the scene, but the heat between his brows hadn't faded. A Security Division records NCO sat nearby, alongside a brief medical report and the injured student's incident log. I sat at the side. Maki on my right, D on my left. Jess leaned against the back wall, arms crossed, standing — the exact posture of someone who'd already said everything she intended to say, which didn't mean her mood was any better for it. Takenaka spoke first.

"Results first," he said.

"One middle-school student: fractured incisor, split lip, facial contusions. No concussion, no life-threatening injury. Treatment complete. That's the good news." Translated: the bad news hadn't started yet. The teacher drew a breath, voice pulled tight.

"I need a full account. From the first provocation to the loss of control." I opened my mouth. D raised his hand first.

"I'll start," he said. Takenaka glanced at him and nodded. D sat up a little straighter. The moment he drops the act, he carries a kind of reliability that never shows up any other time.

"After the instructor left, the middle-school students made probing remarks, mainly about the sparring they'd just watched," D said.

"Initially within a manageable range. I engaged, and tried to redirect focus back to the equipment demo and room rules."

"And then?" the teacher asked. D paused.

"Then they started throwing things at people instead of the match," he said.

"First, mockery of the sparring itself. Then one student — the injured one — made a statement about Hoshino's physical characteristics, with clear intent to humiliate." The teacher's brow tightened.

"Specifically?" The room went still for half a beat. I'd been about to say it myself. D got there first, and he didn't soften a single word — repeated the line exactly. The teacher's face dropped. Takenaka tapped one finger against the table, saying nothing. D continued:"After that, Hoshino moved first. That's accurate — she initiated. Kushima and I both intervened immediately, but the escalation was very fast, and the other student made no move to retreat, so the first attempt at restraint didn't land in time."

He didn't hide that I'd thrown the first punch. But he didn't let it flatten into she snapped for no reason, either. The teacher turned to me.

"Anything to add?" I looked at the table. Two seconds passed.

"No," I said.

"I hit him first." His frown deepened.

"You understood what that could cause?"

"Yes."

"And you still swung?" That one bit. It was also fair. I was about to answer when D cut back in.

"Sir — with respect. Knowing the consequences doesn't mean everyone, once stepped on exactly there, is capable of the cleanest possible response." The teacher looked at him. D held the gaze.

"Hoshino lost control. We're not disputing that," he said.

"But this didn't start as an ordinary argument. It started as deliberate, targeted humiliation. That student wasn't careless about what he said. He knew, and he said it on purpose." Takenaka finally spoke.

"On that point," he said, "the other students' accounts are consistent." The teacher's expression darkened further. Fair enough — that line nailed it shut: not a misunderstanding, not a joke that went too far. The kid knew exactly what he was stepping on. Jess spoke up from the wall, voice cold.

"If you're going to pursue this," she said, "then pursue it properly." Every eye turned to her. She stayed where she was, tone level — almost too level.

"Provocation first. Then mockery. Then a targeted line about someone's body." She said.

"That wasn't a slip. That was a process." Ruthless. Ruthless precisely because it carried no emotion at all — she'd laid the whole sequence out like a lab report.

"You want to deal with Hoshino throwing punches, fine," Jess said.

"But don't dress up those first three steps as a teenager running his mouth carelessly. That was deliberate." The teacher looked at her for two seconds, then slowly exhaled. He probably understood, better than anyone, that kids get carried away wasn't going to cover this. Takenaka turned back to me.

"Hoshino."

"Sir."

"There's exactly one part of today you don't get to wash clean," Takenaka said.

"You stopped too late." I clenched my jaw and nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"But the line he crossed today wasn't a just a joke situation either," Takenaka said.

"So the consequences will be handled separately." I looked up. The teacher seemed briefly thrown too. Takenaka's tone stayed hard, with nothing left ambiguous.

"For the middle-school side: formal demerits and behavioral review for personal humiliation, escalating provocation, and disrupting classroom conduct," he said.

"For Hoshino: one course violation logged for initiating contact, excessive force, and failing to stand down after peer intervention — one week under Security Division observation, and a written incident report required." Lighter than I'd expected. No. Not lighter. Fair. Because it didn't clear me. And it didn't clear him. It just told everyone, calmly: both sides were wrong. Not the same way. D's shoulders eased, just a fraction. Ha. So all that composure had been holding its breath too.

The teacher sat quiet for a moment, then nodded.

"I accept this." Jess said nothing more — just kept her arms crossed, eyes cold on a corner of the table. The look of someone who'd already said what she thought was worth saying and wasn't going to waste another syllable on it. I finally understood what cold handling means. It's not that she didn't care. It's that she cared so much she couldn't be bothered to say more. The meeting ended with each of us assigned to file a report. When D stood, he tapped the back of my chair once, easy — see, still alive.

I gave him a flat look. He muttered back, low: "Don't look at me like that. I actually acted like a person today." Infuriatingly, that was true. After the meeting broke, all I wanted was somewhere empty enough to dig the whole day out of my skull and throw it out an airlock. The Yukikaze is an unhelpful ship. Big, but never quite big enough to actually disappear in. I ended up in a narrow passage near the aft maintenance shaft. Low traffic, dim light, the bulkheads still holding some of the day's residual warmth.

Somewhere far off, the hull's low vibration hummed — like some huge sleeping thing whose breathing hadn't quite settled. I leaned against the wall for a long time. Hand still hurt. Head still loud. Holding it together in that meeting didn't mean it was over — not once you're calm enough to start replaying the line, replaying the moment you moved, replaying the tooth on the floor, and then honestly admitting: you didn't hit him only out of anger.

You hit him because what he said found the exact place you least wanted touched. That admission is ugly. And exhausting. I was staring at the bandage on my hand when footsteps sounded from the far end of the corridor. I didn't need to look up. Very few people on this ship walk that steady, that quiet, and still take up that much space. Maki stopped in front of me.

"Knew you'd be here," she said.

"You put a tracker on me?"

"No." She glanced over.

"You always pick the same kind of place, every time you want to disappear." That wasn't great. Because what did that mean? It meant she'd noticed. More than once. I was about to snap something back. What came out instead was:"What are you doing here?" She didn't answer right away — just leaned against the wall beside me, half a shoulder's width between us. Not close. Close enough that if either of us shifted, we'd touch.

"Making sure you hadn't quietly suffocated in here," she said.

"Relax. I'm hard to kill."

"I can tell." Her gaze dropped to the bandage on my hand.

"Other people's teeth, less so." I should have laughed. It was exactly the kind of thing she'd say — cold, not quite comfort, not quite blame. But I was too tired. So I just looked down at my hand.

"Maki," I said.

"Did I look pathetic today?" She turned.

"Which kind of pathetic?"

"... All of it." She held my gaze two seconds, voice level as a readout.

"The way you hit him — that was pathetic," she said.

"The way what he said hurt you — that wasn't." I went still. That sentence was strange enough I didn't know whether to be angry or just breathe. She kept going.

"You lost it because he landed on something that already mattered to you. That's normal," she said.

"What I didn't like was how long it took you to stop. Not that you got angry." I leaned back against the wall, and my eyes burned again. She must have seen it, because she added immediately: "Don't cry here. It's too much trouble." I almost laughed out of sheer irritation.

"Do you actually know how to comfort people?"

"No," she said, without hesitating.

"But I can tell you the truth."

"Your truth needs better manners."

"You still listen to it."... Damn it. That was true too. The corridor went quiet. Somewhere far off, a faint metallic knock — some section doing night maintenance. The ship's low vibration climbed up through the deck, the whole passage breathing slow and deep. Then Maki said, out of nowhere:"I wanted to hit him too." I turned to stare at her.

"... What?"

"Exactly what it sounded like." She kept her eyes forward, voice as flat as ever.

"Before D moved, I'd already thought about whether I should just close that kid's mouth myself." I stared at her, speechless. It sounded too much like a joke. Coming from Maki, I knew it wasn't.

"That's wildly off-brand for you," I said.

"I don't have a brand."

"You do," I shot back.

"Cold, rational, insufferable, and convinced the world should run on your schedule." She didn't argue. She just said, mild: "That's only because, most of the time, running on my schedule means fewer accidents."... Right. Too her. I couldn't even argue. She finally turned to look at me.

"But what he said today isn't something you were supposed to swallow alone," she said. My throat tightened.

"You mean—?"

"I mean," she said, holding my eyes, every word placed, "next time some idiot hits that line, you don't have to carry it by yourself until you break." My breath caught. She said it perfectly flat. Which made it worse — if it had been soft or dramatic, it would've been easier to shrug off.

"You can call me first," she said. That line was worse than everything before it. Worse than this isn't your fault. Worse than the way you got hurt wasn't pathetic. Worse than I wanted to hit him too. Because it wasn't analysis. It wasn't a review. It wasn't watching from the sidelines. It was something very direct — a stance taken. Nothing more, nothing less. I looked at her and, for a moment, had no idea what to say back. In the end, all I managed was a stupid: "... You're not worried I'll abuse that?"

She looked at me.

"You already generate plenty of trouble on your own," she said.

"One more category won't change much." I choked for two seconds. Then I actually laughed — tired, a little pathetic, but nothing like the almost-breaking version from before. She watched me like she was confirming the wire had stopped fraying, then straightened.

"Let's go back," she said.

"Any longer and Jess is going to start wondering if I hid your body somewhere."

"She'd probably help you pick the dump site."

"All the more reason to hurry." I got up. Once I was steady, her gaze dropped to my bandaged hand again, pausing a beat. Then, very naturally, she reached over and smoothed down the edge of my armor sleeve where it had bunched up. Just once. Very brief. But the quiet of it landed harder than anything loud could have.

"Don't use that hand to hit anyone again," she said.

"Is that concern or a warning?"

"Both."

"... Maki."

"Mm?" I looked at her and finally said the thing that didn't sound like me at all.

"Today... thanks." She didn't offer anything especially warm. Didn't say anything pretty that would just tangle me up more. She just gave one small nod.

"I know," she said.... Damn it. That answer was so completely her. But for whatever reason, the weight sitting in my chest since this whole thing started eased, just slightly. Like the ship was still sailing. Like the vibration was still there. Like none of today's mess was going to vanish because someone said the right sentence. But at least — someone had stepped onto my side. And that someone, of all people, was Maki. Good. This was only going to get more complicated. And, even worse, it made me a little happy.