Chương 370: 161.Hoshino-Style Flirting Method

The moment I stepped out of Colonel Wiesland's office, I saw two things. First: a staff aide standing against the corridor wall, arms wrapped around two uniform boxes, looking like he was holding unexploded ordnance, not clothing. Second: Hedwig, standing in front of those boxes, as composed as a woman who might have been born without access to the concept of embarrassment. My first thought wasn't oh, the uniforms arrived. It was: the Federation really did love pushing people right to the brink, all in one go.

They'd barely finished slotting the princess into the Lower House before the uniforms showed up. If they applied this kind of administrative speed to things that actually mattered, the fact that this country had survived this long made a little more sense. Hedwig turned to look at me.

"Done?"

"More or less." I answered with no energy whatsoever.

"Short version: the Federation has decided I'm undergoing healthy development, and has attached a Prefect Badge and additional life complications as complimentary gifts." Her gaze dropped to the badge in my hand and paused for a second.

"Congratulations."

"That word sounds worse coming from you than a death notice." The aide's shoulders twitched. He was clearly working very hard not to laugh out loud. Good — even people at Command knew what I looked like right now. What did I look like? Like a patient being wheeled off an operating table, anesthetic not quite worn off, while the doctor reminded her to come back for a follow-up tomorrow.

A female staff officer stepped forward and began explaining the uniform contents to Hedwig in a low voice — winter dress tunic, inner shirt, trousers, long socks, school insignia, Lower House identification band, and a collection of fastening hardware complicated enough to pass for a compact assembly kit. The moment I heard fastening hardware, my head started to ache. Whoever designed the UIMA uniform had some serious questions to answer. It looked like something you'd wear to class.

It was structured like something you'd wear to disassemble an engine. Every time I saw those shoulder straps, waist clasps, and inner lining anchors, I became increasingly convinced the designer had simply never considered the possibility that a human being would need to put it on unassisted.

"The changing room is ready for you, Your Highness," the staff officer said, deferential. Hedwig gave a small nod, took the boxes, and turned toward the changing room. I was already planning my exit. Not heartlessness. Just self-preservation. I had reached my limit for today.

I'd just been informed that my physical anomaly was a universe-level healthy development, been involuntarily promoted into something resembling a senior student slash disaster magnet, and my brain currently had one goal: find a surface to sit on, curse Einstein, curse Wiesland, and figure out whether Jess could be quietly buried somewhere in Joint Operations Command's landscaping. I'd taken exactly two steps toward the exit when a voice came from behind me, entirely calm.

"Lieutenant Hoshino." I stopped. That title alone told me something was wrong. Hedwig using formal address in front of others usually meant either real business, or the kind of real business that would end my social existence. I turned back slowly. The changing room door wasn't fully shut — just a narrow gap. Hedwig stood behind it, expression as steady as a woman about to deliver ceasefire terms, not someone calling out to me from a doorway.

"... What." I already had a very bad feeling. Hedwig was quiet for a moment. Choosing her words. That was rare. Her usual style was either one clean sentence or a look that made you figure it out yourself. Then:"Would you come in for a moment?" My brain went quiet for about half a second. Then one sentence started looping. No. Absolutely not.

"No," I said. Fast. Nearly reflexive. The eyes through the gap watched me, unhurried. Beside me, the aide and the staff officer both produced expressions that were very professional, very controlled, and very obviously looking for the nearest exit. Good. Everyone understood this wasn't meant for their ears. I was the only one nailed to the spot.

"I'm not joking," Hedwig said.

"Neither am I."

"I need help." I hate those three words. Not because there's anything wrong with them. Because coming from Hedwig, they hit harder than they should. This was the same woman who'd just sat across from Wiesland and said I've already made my peace with it like she was taking an oath — covering the Lower House, the Empire, military school, and the fork-and-knife curriculum in one breath. And now, in the same level voice, she was saying I need help.

It was like watching a warship fire a full main battery salvo, and then the captain turning around to ask: sorry, I can't quite get this clasp undone. Absurd. And yet, somehow, completely consistent. I frowned.

"No attendants?" Hedwig's expression was flat, like acknowledging a weather fact.

"No."

"No ladies-in-waiting?"

"No."

"No Imperial specialist whose entire professional purpose is dressing a princess and quietly eliminating witnesses?"

"No."

"Imperial royalty is that elevated, and the moment you're separated from the support system, you get stuck in a changing room." She considered this.

"If you want the honest answer — yes." I almost laughed. I shouldn't have. It wasn't the right moment to laugh. But not laughing was genuinely difficult. Because this was too absurd. A Third Princess who'd just delivered the Imperial academy only taught me which fork to use without blinking was currently stranded in a changing room inside the Galactic Federation's Joint Operations Command because she couldn't finish getting dressed. The universe's sense of humor was refined, and I deeply resented it.

I looked at the two staff members beside me. Both of them immediately became very interested in the far wall, suddenly resembling decorative features of the corridor rather than people. Right. The exit was already prepared for them. Which meant today's cut was probably unavoidable.

"One condition," I said, dropping my voice as I walked over.

"If there's anything inside that would get me silenced, I leave immediately." Hedwig stepped back, making room.

"There isn't. I can get it on myself. I just can't get it to a presentable standard." That was unexpectedly Hedwig of her. Not soft. Not embarrassed. Not the performance of helplessness. Just a clean acknowledgment — I can do it, but not completely. I can manage, but not to standard. That was harder to work with than blushing and stumbling. Because she wasn't asking for sympathy. She was just laying the gap out in plain sight. I walked into the changing room and pulled the door shut behind me.

And then I understood why she'd called me in. The room wasn't large, but the lighting was unforgiving — bright enough that nothing could hide. The uniform boxes had been opened and set on the bench, packaging and identification bands scattered beside them. Hedwig had the inner shirt on. The Lower House regulation trousers were on.

But the outer winter tunic wasn't right — the shoulder line was off, the waist clasps on the side hadn't seated properly, and the back panel hadn't been pulled flat, leaving the whole garment technically worn but subtly wrong. Like a painting hung level, with the frame tilting just slightly underneath. And the worst part — Even like that, she still looked put together. Was there no justice left in this world.

"Seen enough?" Hedwig asked.

"I'm assessing whether the Federation is about to send a Third Princess into the Lower House in that condition and let the entire school spend day one discussing how the Imperial princess can't dress herself."

"And your conclusion?"

"The Federation cannot afford that embarrassment. Neither can I." I moved closer and checked the side waist clasps. Two of them had seated wrong, exactly as I'd expected. This hardware was always a problem — the angle had to be right or it simply wouldn't seat, and you had to feel for the position from the side and behind. If I ever met the person who designed this, I'm putting them in one of these jackets and making them dress themselves on a timer.

"Turn a little," I said. She did. Perfectly cooperative, no questions asked. The first thought that hit me when my fingers brushed the fabric wasn't embarrassment. It was: Her stance really is textbook. Not the kind of textbook meant to look pretty. The kind hammered in by years of conditioning. No sway in the shoulders, no slouch at the waist, even the angle of the turn carrying a faint ritual weight. Which only made this whole needs someone at her back, fixing her uniform scene more out of place.

Out of place enough that I felt like the universe deserved a round of applause.

"Federation uniforms," Hedwig said, calm as ever, "are more troublesome than the Empire's."

"Don't start," I snorted, re-seating the side buckles.

"Your ceremonial dress is the real disaster. This set is just over-engineered. Imperial formal wear turns people into display racks."

"Oh? Lieutenant Hoshino has studied Imperial dress uniforms?"

"No study. Just survivor's experience. I saw them once. Watching was exhausting enough." I finished the first buckle and moved to the second. We were close. Close enough that the faint smell of soap on her cut through the generic disinfectant and metal-cabinet tang of the shared changing room. Nothing strong. Not perfume. Just clean. Clean enough to be offensive. Because it meant that not only did I have to help the Third Princess dress, I had to do it from this range and stay rational.

The universe really did like to run comprehensive tests.

"Hold still." I crouched to check the inner tabs at the hem. Sure enough, one was flipped. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. If you wear this thing long enough, you learn to press those flat before you hang the jacket, or the outer layer carries a tiny, ugly ripple. Most people wouldn't see it. But if Hedwig walked into the Academy like this, half the school would be analyzing does the Imperial princess even know how a Federation uniform works before lunch.

"You really never had to finish this part yourself?" I asked.

"I could get it on," she said.

"The final straightening, strap placement, back smoothing, hem anchors — that wasn't mine."

"Must be nice."

"You could call it division of labor."

"I'd rather call it a system that makes people dependent." I flipped the tab back, stood, and moved behind her. That was when I met the real problem: the back cinch strap.... Of course. That was why she'd called me. If it had just been the front and sides, she might have fumbled through. The back strap, though, had to be centered, smoothed down, and run back through an internal ring. Technically doable alone. Also guaranteed to look sloppy. Pull it wrong and the whole rear line of the jacket collapses.

For a Third Princess, that's about as acceptable as walking onto a parade ground with your cap tilted. I looked at the strap for two seconds.

"The Lower House uniform design is genuinely deranged," I said.

"I agree," Hedwig replied without hesitation.

"Good. At least we have consensus on something." I pressed the fabric flat over her shoulder blades and brought the strap back to the middle. The first few motions were perfectly ordinary. They really were. It was just adjusting a jacket. Nothing else. The problem was the distance. I had to lean in, hands working in from either side of her shoulder blades, smoothing the cloth inward, then running down along her spine.

Close enough to track her breathing — even though it stayed annoyingly steady, like the person feeling awkward here was me, not her. Which wasn't remotely fair. She was the one stuck in the changing room. So why did it feel like I was the one under exam conditions.

"Lieutenant Hoshino," she said.

"What."

"Your hands are very steady." I nearly strangled her with the strap. Do not compliment people like that at a time like this. Especially not in that tone — entirely serious, nothing flirtatious about it, which somehow made it worse than flirtatious.

"Not a skill worth praising," I said, forcing my voice flat.

"There are plenty in the Lower House better than me. They're just not here right now. I'm the unlucky one."

"I see." She paused, then added:"Then I'm quite fortunate." My hands stopped for a second. This woman was genuinely dangerous. Not because she tries to be. Because she doesn't. She wasn't trying to tease me. She wasn't aiming for ambiguity. She was simply honest — honest enough that certain words bypassed every defense and hit nerve directly. I took a breath, yanked the strap through the inner ring, tightened it, smoothed it once more.

"Done." I stepped back. Hedwig turned and looked down at herself, then up at me. Her eyes were as quiet as ever — but from this distance, for some reason, the pressure felt worse. Like it wasn't her looking at me anymore — it was every detail I'd just adjusted looking on her behalf.

"Collar's still crooked," I said irritably, reaching up to correct the neckline and press the shoulder tabs back into place.

"Don't move." She didn't. So the picture became: Me, standing in front of her, fixing her collar and shoulders. Her, eyes lowered toward me, quiet in a way I refused to give a name. And somewhere in the back of my head, at least half my brain screaming: Why am I in a Joint Operations Command changing room, dressing the Galactic Empire's Third Princess in a Federation Lower House uniform? Which step did I take wrong for my life to turn into this?

If Wiesland walked through that door right now, I would charge straight out there and take him down with me.

"There. Now you're fit to be seen." I pulled my hands back and stepped half a pace away, deliberately hardening my tone. Hedwig looked at me. Then said, quietly:"Thank you."... Damn it. That was worse than I'm quite fortunate. Because there was no rank in it. None of the habitual graciousness of someone used to receiving things from a position above. Not well done and not noted. Just — thank you. That kind is the worst. You can't even deflect it properly. I looked away, pretending to check the boxes on the bench.

"Learn to do it yourself next time."

"I will."

"You'd better."

"If there are parts I still can't manage—""There won't be a next time," I cut in immediately. Hedwig looked at me, and gave a small, apparently understanding nod.

"Then I'll make sure to learn everything within the parameters of there being no next time." I held out for two seconds. Then I laughed — not loudly, not long, just the kind that gets pulled out of you when someone answers something absurd with total sincerity.

"You're genuinely exhausting."

"Thank you for the compliment."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I know." Too calm. It made me want to laugh again and also walk face-first into the nearest metal cabinet. A soft knock came at the door. The staff officer, carefully asking if we needed assistance. Hedwig glanced at me before answering.

"We're finished." I looked at her — the uniform now properly settled, everything straight, everything in place — and felt something strange move through me. Like something that had only existed in institutional documents and diplomatic files had just been pulled bodily into the physical world. Not the Imperial Third Princess will enroll in a Federation military academy as a sentence in a report. Something far more literal. She was really coming. Really entering the Lower House.

Really going to wear this uniform and walk into that stomach-ache of a campus. And I'd just been the one to straighten her collar. Thinking that, I realized whatever quiet, ordinary future I'd theoretically been holding onto had just been formally diagnosed as terminal. Hedwig clipped on her identification band, tone as composed as someone preparing for an ordinary class.

"Shall we go, Lieutenant Hoshino." I closed my eyes for a moment.

"One condition. When we get to the Academy — don't mention this in front of anyone."

"Which part?"

"The changing room."

"Understood." She paused, then delivered the final blow with perfect timing:"Then I'll treat this as a secret known only to myself and Lieutenant Hoshino." I stood there. Two seconds of silence. I was completely certain that whatever expression I was wearing in that moment was spectacular — spectacular enough that if Jess had been there, the entire dorm would have known by tonight exactly how I'd died once, inside a command building.

"... Shut up." Hedwig did not shut up. But she did, very rarely, smile. Not visibly — just the corner of her mouth shifting slightly, like a hairline crack opening in ice, letting through one thin line of light. Then she stepped out ahead of me. I stood there watching her back, and understood that my future problems hadn't simply increased. They had dressed themselves, straightened their own collars, and were now walking toward me of their own accord.... Fuck. The Federation. The Empire. Wiesland. Dr. Steiner.

Kushima. Jess. Healthy development. A Prefect Badge. And now, on top of everything else, a Third Princess who could back a person into a corner using nothing but a completely straight face. When we reached the ground-floor commissary, my first reaction wasn't oh, how convenient. It was: how does the Federation have the nerve to call this a service facility. The glass case on the left was stuffed with officially licensed Federation merchandise. Merchandise. That was the polite word. Garbage was more accurate.

Mugs printed with the military crest. Folders printed with warship silhouettes. Acrylic keychains printed with the Academy emblem. Even a miniature standee of some famous Federal admiral — his face printed so young I had to wonder whether this was still military PR or whether the finance ministry had simply started reselling history to close a budget gap. The right-hand side was the standard-issue counter. One look at that row and my stomach preemptively remembered things it would rather not. Regulation belts.

Regulation socks. Regulation undershirts. Regulation training gloves. Regulation stationery kits. Regulation terminal cases. All lined up like a row of state-certified budget traps, quietly waiting for the next intake of cadets to step in. Hedwig stood beside me, the Federation uniform she'd just finished putting on infuriatingly crisp. In Imperial dress, she'd looked like someone who decides, from a reviewing stand, who gets dragged off and shot tomorrow.

In this uniform, she looked like the kind of person who'd sit through a briefing, calmly identify every flaw in the entire institutional structure, and hand the report back for revision. Neither version was safe. The first made you afraid of dying. The second made you wish you could. I handed her the reading list I'd just picked up.

"This is your reading list. Get the books when you have time — buy them, or download them to your terminal." Hedwig glanced down at it. No visible reaction.

The page was crammed with course titles: Tactical Theory, Modern Sector History, Introduction to Federal Military Organization, Fundamentals of Combat Vessel Architecture, FTL Transit Safety Regulations — a neat manifesto in miniature of the Academy's priorities, perfectly consistent with the Federation's general approach: First drown you in paperwork and procedure. Whoever's still breathing may attend class. I leaned closer and dropped my voice.

"I'd recommend skipping the issue counter here." Hedwig looked up from the sheet.

"Why."

"Because the supplies here are second-rate," I said. My tone was flat, like discussing the weather. This wasn't a complaint. This was basic Lower House survival doctrine. Anyone who took everything here at face value and dragged it home as real kit would, within a week, get a practical education in the institution's purest form of malice. She sounded faintly surprised.

"Second-rate?"

"Yes. Official issue on paper. In practice, it's good enough that you won't die immediately." I added, still expressionless.

"If you're genuinely curious about issued gear, there's a street across from the Academy that handles the same distribution — quality's considerably better. At minimum, the socks don't develop opinions of their own after three washes, and the belt buckle's less likely to secede from the Federation mid-sprint." She looked at me for a moment, then said, mildly:"Oh? Lieutenant Hoshino is very well-informed."

"Not informed," I said.

"Just burned before." More precisely: burned enough times that I could now assess a batch's durability by checking the stitching, the material, and the smell of the packaging — whether a given lot was holds for a semester or you'll be kneeling outside a military surplus store in a week, crying, spending your own savings on replacements. The Federation never taught you anything useful. The equipment did. The man behind the counter had been sorting inventory, head down. At second-rate, his hand visibly stuttered.

Good. At least someone here had a functioning conscience. He glanced up, his gaze catching on Hedwig's face and uniform for half a second, then very wisely dropped back down, resuming his role as a breathing dispensary machine. That's the Federal civil service at its finest. You might not get good kit out of them, but you can reliably observe a very strong survival instinct. I checked the time. About right.

"How are you getting back?" I asked. She folded the list and put it away, her tone as neutral as someone confirming an arrangement that had nothing to do with her.

"Someone's coming to collect me." Something in my chest released with genuine relief. Good. Finally. At least one thing today was going to operate according to adult logic. Whatever else the Federation might be, surely it wouldn't leave the Galactic Empire's Third Princess standing outside Joint Operations Command in a brand-new uniform, hugging a bag of old clothes, flagging down a cab.

If that scene ever actually happened, I'd have to start seriously questioning how this civilization had managed to climb to its current tech level.

"Good," I said. She gave a small nod in return.

"Thank you for today, Lieutenant Hoshino."... I honestly don't know if she realizes what that formal tone does. Every time she thanks me like that, it feels less like I helped her with something minor and more like I was conscripted into some obscure diplomatic rite.

"It's fine," I said, looking away.

"Compared to what's coming for you, today barely registers." She looked at me, like she was about to say something more. In the end, all that came out was a soft "Mm." For no reason I could identify, that single syllable left me faintly irritated. Not angry. Just the specific, useless kind of irritation that comes from someone tossing out one neutral sound, and your brain still insisting on chewing on it half a second longer than it deserves. Annoying. I said goodbye and headed for the underground garage.

In theory, this was where it ended. The princess had a government-arranged residence, a ride coming, a uniform, a reading list, a future, and a whole field of trouble that wasn't mine. I, meanwhile, was supposed to get on my bike, ride home, hand today's entire impossible information load over to the evening wind, and pretend I still led something describable as a normal military-school life. In theory. The problem was, somewhere around the halfway point of the ride, something started feeling wrong.

Not disaster-wrong. More like a very fine fishbone lodged somewhere it couldn't hurt you, but also refused to go down. The handoff was done. She'd said someone was coming. The Federation, whatever else it was, might enjoy playing games with people's lives and nerves, but surely there was some floor —... Right. I know. That last premise never had any business being part of the argument. I braked at the exit of the underground lot and stared at the road ahead.

"... Fuck." I muttered it under my breath, then, with zero remaining dignity, turned the bike around and rode back to the main entrance of Joint Operations Command. Exactly as I'd expected. Or rather — if it had gone any other way, I'd have been more worried. Hedwig was still there. By the gray-white steps outside the main entrance, holding the plastic bag with her Imperial uniform, in her freshly issued Federation dress, standing perfectly straight. Too straight.

Straight enough that if you pulled the flagpole beside her and dropped an honor guard in its place, she'd have absorbed them without a seam. The most absurd part — she didn't look stood up. Not impatient. Not visibly displeased. Not even particularly focused on waiting. She was just standing there, as calm as a woman for whom the world running twenty minutes late was the world's own embarrassment, not hers.

I pulled the bike up beside her, killed the engine, pulled off my helmet, and said, in a tone oily enough that I wanted to hit myself:"Hey — you here alone? Want a ride?" The instant it left my mouth, I mentally slapped myself. Hoshino Shimo, how old are you. Did Command scramble your brain today? Are you seriously cosplaying a third-rate street pickup artist now? Fine. Here came the obvious script. Her Highness would look at me with those blue eyes, cold and unimpressed.

She'd produce an expression that said I thought better of you. Then she'd decline with appropriate dignity, and I'd have earned every bit of it. That would've been reasonable. Consistent with rank, decorum, and the social behavior of functional adults. Hedwig looked at me once. Then said:"I'd appreciate it." And in the next second, she stepped up and sat on the back seat, bag of old clothes and all. I went completely still.... Wait. That's not how the script goes.

Wasn't she supposed to be at least a little put out? A raised eyebrow? A cold beat, something to make me reflect on how low that line actually was? Why did she just get on? Now it looked like I'd actually successfully picked someone up at the curb. Which was somehow worse.

"... Put this on." I cleared my throat and pulled the spare helmet out of the front compartment. The moment my hand extended, something pricked under my ribs. Fuck. I'd bought this one for Maki. Not for any romantic reason. At least, that was what I'd told myself. Riding double is just more practical sometimes; it's good to have a spare up front; the roads around Platinum Bridge are garbage; getting caught carrying someone without a helmet is a hassle— Sure. All purely practical.

Practical enough that now, as I handed it to a different woman, I had to pretend I didn't want to yank it back and blow up the entire afternoon along with Joint Operations Command. Hedwig took it without comment. Cleanly. No raised brow. No oh, so you keep one of these ready look to finish me off. She just put it on. And looked, if anything, slightly more absurd than she had standing at the door. The Galactic Empire's Third Princess. New Federation cadet. Lower House Reservist. Wearing a Federation uniform.

Holding a bag containing an old Imperial dress uniform. Sitting on the back of my motorcycle. With a helmet on her head that had been bought for Maki Kushima. Great. If this isn't fate, then fate can go ahead and file for unemployment. I started the engine, held off a second, then asked:"Which hotel?"

"I'm not at a hotel," Hedwig said behind me.

"Your government arranged quarters for me."

"Oh?" I pulled up the nav.

"Address?" She gave it, calm as reading from a document.

"26 Platinum Bridge Street." I nearly put both of us into the flower beds outside Joint Operations Command.

"... What?" Wind moved past my ears, but I was fairly sure what I'd just heard wasn't wind. It was something snapping in half inside my brain. 26 Platinum Bridge Street. My hands tightened on the grips. I stared straight ahead for two seconds. Then I turned my head a fraction, like I needed to check I'd heard right.

"Say that again."

"26 Platinum Bridge Street," Hedwig repeated, obligingly, tone as neutral as an automated system.

"Is there a problem?" A problem. Oh, there was a problem. 26 Platinum Bridge Street. Not a hotel. Not some high-end diplomatic residence, either. That was — Directly across the street from our house. Fuck. I knew it. I knew this woman wasn't just going to be a brief detour through my life. I knew the Federation wasn't capable of an arrangement that gentle.

I knew that everything today — from Colonel Wiesland's office, to the reading list, to the bag of old Imperial cloth, to the spare helmet that had been Maki's — none of it was an ending. It was an overture. I took a long breath, and turned the bike toward Platinum Bridge Street. Behind me, Hedwig sat steady — steady the way someone sits when this isn't their first time on a motorcycle, but something they'd always somehow known they'd end up doing.

I stared at the road ahead and thought the sunset today carried a very specifically Federal-government brand of malice. —Wonderful. From now on, the other side of the street was compromised too.