Chương 469: 221.Privilege 2

After the meeting let out, the conference room door had barely opened before the class representatives who had been sitting so properly began pouring out in batches, like someone had pulled the pin on a mechanism called "the student council president is present." And then Asgard's most authentic face flowed out with them.

"Hey, so does 'public place' include the observation corridor or not?"

"Shut up!"

"You were blushing just now, weren't you?"

"I was not!"

"You were. I saw it. You started going red from the vice president's second sentence."

"That's because the conference room was stuffy!"

"Oh, so discipline education causes oxygen deprivation."

"Say that one more time and see what happens." Two girl representatives in the front walked on bickering with each other, bickering with plenty of best-friend intimacy and a healthy suspicion of silencing a witness. Elsewhere a boy representative had just walked past me looking utterly unbothered — until a classmate clapped him on the shoulder from behind and he bristled on the spot.

"You were sneaking a look at Nikaido's 'definition' just now, weren't you?"

"I was confirming the scope of the regulations!"

"Scope?"

"Yes. Research scope!"

"Research my foot. You were calculating where it's still safe, weren't you?" The guy went red on the spot as if grazed by the afterwash of a main gun, and turned to glare at his own classmate with real force. Unfortunately there was no killing intent in that glare — only the tragic heroism of "please stop talking, I want to live until tomorrow." The other end of the corridor wasn't much better.

Someone deliberately lowered their voice, low to the point of "I know perfectly well you can all hear me, but I still have to pretend to be discreet."

"The vice president's line just now was brutal…"

"I think the brutal one wasn't her. It was Nikaido."

"Right. The vice president starts the fire, and Nikaido writes the legislation."

"That description is terrifying."

"How is it terrifying? It's obviously precise." Precise my ass. Carrying the rest of the documents, I walked along behind, listening to the chatter rising and falling around me, and could only conclude that my line had officially shed the category of ordinary remark and been promoted to an emerging catchphrase aboard the Asgard. Good. A ship that had just barely escaped death beside an Imperial fortress, and the most contagious content aboard it right now was public discipline notices.

Civilization really is a disease that is very good at entertaining itself. What was even better: although everyone was laughing on the surface, the distances between people really had started to shift in subtle ways. Some who had been walking close together suddenly backed off half a step each, as if remembering something. Some who had been a stretch apart deliberately fell in shoulder to shoulder, wearing the rebellious look of "I was not thinking about any of that." And some were even more childish.

I personally watched two representatives from different classes pass each other, exchange a glance, then turn their faces away at the same instant. The rapport in that moment was so awkward it was like two people sharing a criminal preparatory list that shouldn't exist. When Lan came out of the crowd, she was still holding her tablet. She was clearly working hard to maintain the poise of a general affairs officer, but her shoulders were still shaking a little.

"You really do dare to say anything." She dropped that at me in a low voice as she passed.

"Thanks for the compliment." I didn't change expression. She looked at me once, and that look was very clear — I was not complimenting you. Roy, walking beside her, wore the expression of someone who had just safely survived an oversized financial audit, his tone full of the restraint of a man who wants to laugh but doesn't dare laugh too visibly.

"Congratulations, XO."

"Wait... for what?"

"You successfully made the second-year class representatives reconsider the social meaning of 'distance' before they went back to their rooms."

"That was a victory for discipline education."

"No. That was your malice." Good — even the chief navigator was learning to tell the truth. As for Jess — Jess hadn't even tried to hide it. She was leaning on the wall laughing so hard she could barely stand straight, and the moment she saw me she immediately raised a hand in surrender.

"Let me state up front: if I drink water again tonight, I will stay at least three meters away from you."

"Is this choking prevention?"

"This is Jess prevention." She wiped the tears out of the corners of her eyes and still got one more jab in.

"You really did come within an inch of turning the all-year representatives' meeting into an onboard late-night radio program."

"At least the ratings were high."

"High enough that Nikaido started writing clause annotations for you." At that, even I nearly laughed a second time. Because the picture was just too complete. The vice president handles throwing the bombs, and the head of the Disciplinary Committee handles writing the bombs into the management bylaws. If the Federation military academy's second year ever did collapse, it would probably collapse with exceptionally well-documented procedure.

I was about to fire one more line back at Jess when the crowd thinned and a figure appeared at the corner ahead. Maki. She didn't call me. She didn't crook a finger at me in front of everyone either — that would be far too unlike her. She simply stood there, let her gaze fall on me, and seemed to issue some kind of silent notice that only I could read. So I shoved the documents in my arms at Lan, who happened to be passing.

"Hold these for me." Lan looked down at the stack, then up at Maki ahead, her expression calm to the point of coldness.

"I see."

"See what?"

"Nothing." She walked off after that, with all the poise of a general affairs officer and all the malice of a bystander. I didn't bother chasing the question, and turned straight into the quieter side corridor. A single turn and the noise of the conference room faded out, leaving only the low flow of the ship's air conditioning and the occasional unstifled laugh from somewhere far off. The feeling was odd — like all that liveliness had been left on the other side of the corner, and here there was only me, and her.

Maki waited until I had come close before speaking.

"You nearly turned that meeting into a talk show." She was glaring at me. Formally glaring at me, at least. But one look was enough to tell me that this reprimand couldn't cut through even the corner of a sheet of paper. There was obvious exasperation in her eyes, and yet it was soft as a thin layer of ice just off its tension — cold on the surface, already beginning to melt underneath. Very sensibly, I didn't try to defend myself first. Because at times like this, defense is useless.

Changing the subject has better prospects.

"You didn't mention there was a hot spring aboard." As I said it, I casually draped an arm over her shoulder, so naturally it was as if this should have happened all along. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Maki immediately reached up and smacked it once. Not hard. More like a reminder that she still had at least a little student council president dignity to maintain. But she didn't push me away either. Which was very interesting.

"I already said it." Her tone had indeed softened a little compared to the meeting, like a blade slowly sliding from its back edge into her palm.

"The hot spring is a student council benefit." She paused, and turned her face toward me.

"At least for these few days, it's ours alone." I nearly laughed. See? That's how this woman is. In the conference room, she can solemnly decree what time the artificial beach opens, what time the bar — no, the Officers' Club — closes, and who drinks and who has duty. And the moment she steps out of the conference room, when it comes to the part her own people get to enjoy, she can say it with exactly the same self-righteousness.

"So is the student council president abusing her authority right now?"

"No." She answered fast.

"I am making reasonable use of an onboard hidden asset." I conceded on the spot. Fine. That answer was very much her style. She neither admits favoritism nor denies favoritism, and in the end simply packages favoritism as management terminology. If I didn't know her so well, I might actually have believed it was a formal right written into some student council bylaw.

"Also." Maki added one more line.

"What you need right now is not to go make more noise with that crowd." Her gaze rested on my face for half a second, as if checking how much spirit I actually had left to hold myself up with.

"You need hot water." … That line sounded more like an order than anything she'd said before. And more like concern. And of course she couldn't help herself — she still wouldn't soften the tone too much on the way out, as though leaking one drop more of emotion would make the student council president's authority evaporate on the spot, right there in the corridor. I suddenly found it a little funny.

Back when we were fighting for our lives under the Imperial fortress's main guns, I hadn't been this clearly aware of my own exhaustion. Now, the moment she pointed it out in that matter-of-fact tone, my shoulders really did start to feel heavy, and the force in my bones that had been holding everything up began slowly to loosen.

"You too." I said quietly.

"Don't act like you're made of iron." Maki didn't answer right away. She just looked at me, very briefly. In that one look there was some fatigue, some exasperation, and a very faint, very faint acknowledgment that I happened, unfortunately, to see clearly.

"So." I tightened my arm a little more and deliberately made my tone sound a bit punchable.

"Is the student council's secret benefit about to be opened up to the vice president?"

"You were already on the list."

"That generous?"

"Because I need someone to help me confirm whether the hot spring facility, with Imperial taste layered on top of it, is so badly built that it's beyond forgiveness." I laughed.

"That reasoning is a little too strictly business, isn't it."

"You don't like it?"

"I like it." I was honest.

"Especially the second half." She breathed out lightly, as if she had no way to deal with me, and reached up to pull my arm down from her shoulder a little, adjusting it to an angle that was less obnoxious but still tacitly permitted.

"Let's go." She said.

"While that crowd is still out there spreading your line around, we go first."

"Go soak in the hot spring first?"

"Go lock the door first." My step nearly stopped. And the next second I knew she had done it on purpose. Because the tiny, entirely uncontainable curve at the corner of her mouth had already thoroughly betrayed the culprit. This woman had learned bad habits. No — more accurately, she had always been bad. She just normally kept it covered with rules and folders. We walked up along the side corridor toward the upper decks.

Compared with the main passage, it was far quieter here, the lighting softer, as though the whole Asgard had deliberately left a seam for certain people who didn't want to be disturbed. From somewhere distant came the faint sound of other areas gradually heating up — people calling to each other, people already debating whether to hit the beach first or the recreation room.

The whole ship was slowly loosening out of the meeting's constraints, sliding into a night that felt less like a warship and more like a school trip. And I was being led in a different direction. Quieter than the artificial beach. Cleaner than the Officers' Club. A little more dangerous than the bathhouse and the sauna. After all, hot water is very good at loosening a person's resolve.

And besides, the one standing next to me was the very student council president who had pressed down three hundred people in a meeting with two sentences. I suddenly had a bad feeling. Not the kind of bad that kills people, explodes things, or gets you vaporized by a fortress's main gun. The more peaceful, and more lethal, kind.

"Maki."

"Mm?"

"Something just occurred to me."

"What?"

"If Nikaido finds out the student council is hiding a private hot spring, will she put us on a list too?" She was silent for a second. Then answered me very calmly.

"So be quiet later." I was about to answer her when footsteps suddenly came from another passage to the side. Very steady. Very straight. And with absolutely no interest in concealing their presence. Maki and I looked that way almost simultaneously. … Nikaido. I went, ah, silently, inside my head. You really know how to pick your timing, head of the Disciplinary Committee.

She turned in from another corridor, the meeting documents still tucked under her arm, her stride so even it was as if the floor itself didn't dare make an extra sound under her feet. That face was, as ever, covered in "regulations" and "please do not come to me with trouble" — and yet at this exact moment, trouble was draped over the student council president's waist in a very concrete form. My reflexes were fast. Really fast.

Fast enough that even I was impressed: under the drive of survival instinct, humans really do evolve new tactical maneuvers. I pulled my arm back at once, smoothly took the folder out of Maki's hands in the same motion, flipped a page forward, and spoke in a tone so calm it implied everything just now had been an illusion.

"Regarding the facility opening hours for each class, I think we could do one more round of stagger adjustments." Maki paused only half a beat before picking it up.

"Mm. I was thinking the same thing." This woman really is terrifying. One second she was a student council president with my arm around her; the next she could switch seamlessly back into an official mode so calm it could be submitted as an entry for outstanding officer representative. That conversion speed would make even a wormhole generator feel inadequate. Nikaido came closer, her eyes resting on the space between the two of us for an instant. Very short. But short in a way that carried a great deal of content.

I could almost swear she understood. Or at least, she understood half of it, and then out of a certain professional weariness — "I can't be bothered dealing with private matters at this level right now" — decided to pretend she hadn't seen it, for the time being. When she spoke, her tone was as crisp and clean as ever.

"Student council president, I'll produce a first draft of the Disciplinary Committee shift roster tonight and submit it for confirmation tomorrow morning."

"Thank you for the work." Maki nodded.

"Also." Nikaido glanced at me.

"The vice president's supplementary announcement was notably effective. Right now the entire second year seems to be re-understanding the boundaries of a 'public place.'" I nearly choked on my own saliva. Was this woman complimenting me, or writing the preamble to an incident report?

"That's wonderful to hear." I had no choice but to take it head-on. Nikaido answered me with a perfectly blank face.

"Not necessarily." Good. That answer was extremely Nikaido. She could probably already foresee how many people tonight would, through over-interpreting that line, suddenly start behaving unnaturally in all kinds of strange places. In a certain sense, I really had increased the Disciplinary Committee's workload. It was just that, for now, the workload remained at the psychological and observational level, and had not yet formally escalated into arrests and report-writing.

"One more thing." Nikaido looked at Maki again.

"The Officers' Club — I'll have people posted there early."

"Good."

"The artificial beach and the exterior rest area of the bathhouse will also be added to the patrol priorities." At this point I really did almost laugh out loud. She had actually taken it seriously. Maki probably knew I was fighting hard not to laugh, so she flicked a very subtle glance my way, the meaning of which was roughly — Vice President, please at least hold out until she's gone before you start gloating. Very cooperatively, I lowered my head and studied the folder cover.

Nikaido didn't seem to intend to linger either. Once she had finished assigning the work, she nodded at us and turned to leave. That back view was crisp as a blade properly returned to its sheath — cold, straight, and ready to be drawn again at any moment. Only when her footsteps had fully faded did I finally let out a breath.

"That was close." I said quietly.

"Your 'close' — does it mean almost caught, or almost laughing?" Maki asked mildly. I answered honestly.

"Both." She finally breathed out lightly, as if only now truly retrieving the bit of relaxation that had been interrupted. Then she reached over and plucked the document I had been pretending to read out of my hands, tucking it back into the crook of her arm.

"Let's go."

"Where to?" I asked, though I knew. Maki looked at me, and in that look there was finally a fatigue she didn't much bother to hide, and a fainter but truer relaxation.

"To the place you've been fixated on this whole time." We walked up along another, even quieter passage. Compared with the main corridor, this one was clearly less traveled, and the lighting gentler — not the standardized white light of the ship's public areas, but a warmer, lower tone. The wall material was different too: still metallic, but finished more finely, as though a small seam had been deliberately carved out of the warship's frame that was not meant to be shared with outsiders.

I realized quickly that this place had never been designed for "everyone." It wasn't a showy entertainment facility like the artificial beach, and it wasn't a place whose very name carried a class flavor like the Officers' Club. It was tucked far back, very quiet, very low-key — so low-key that Asgard seemed to be secretly keeping, somewhere inside the body it had built out of steel and instruments, a single mouthful of warmth reserved for only a few.

At the end of the passage was a sliding door narrower than an ordinary hatch. There was no exaggerated signage beside it. Only a small panel set into the wall, bearing student council access identification. Even here you had to swipe clearance — and for a moment I genuinely couldn't decide whether to call Maki scrupulously impartial, or the student council simply too skilled at reserving privileges for itself.

"Hidden deep." I said.

"If it weren't deep, Jess would have found it long ago." Maki answered very practically. That was far too convincing an argument. I had no room to rebut it. With Jess's radar-like instinct for entertainment, if this place hadn't been hidden deeply enough, then probably right after Asgard was first fully explored she would have named this hot spring, publicized it, and very nearly set up a membership card system for it. Maki raised a hand and swiped the recognition panel.

With a very soft unlock tone, the door slid open to both sides. The air came out first. Not the sound of water. And not any excessively gorgeous lighting. But a warm vapor, faintly damp, carrying a light scent of wood, drifting out ahead of everything through the gap in the door. It was completely unlike the cold air of the warship corridor outside, air that exists only to keep things functional. Outside, air is for working, walking, standing by, surviving.

The air inside was something else entirely — not orders, not discipline, but purely for letting your shoulders come down. I stood in the doorway and didn't go in at once. My eyes were caught first by the short vestibule before the entrance. The light was a little dimmer than outside, but not gloomy; rather, it had the quiet of something properly stored away. The floor was no longer standard warship anti-slip grid but a deeper-toned material, and most of the sound of footsteps was swallowed by it.

Along the wall stood simple lockers and folding benches, their lines clean and unornamented — and precisely because they were unornamented, the place felt even more like something kept for people who truly knew how to take a breath. A little further in, I could vaguely make out a faint, swaying glimmer of water deeper inside, reflected on the walls and ceiling, as if someone had hidden away the softness that the whole Asgard outside refused to waste.

And I suddenly understood why Maki wouldn't mention it in the meeting. This wasn't a simple entertainment facility. It was closer to a secret. Student council only — and not just because of the clearance. Rather, because only a few people knew that this ship — carrying orders, missions, weapons, and pressure all the way here — still kept a place like this: a single small mouthful of warmth hidden deep in the steel stomach, enough to make a person forget they had nearly died just now.

"What is it?" Maki asked, standing beside me. I came back to myself and smiled.

"I was just thinking."

"Thinking what?"

"Aren't the student council's benefits a little too high-grade?" She looked inside too, her tone very light.

"Why else do you think we're still holding up?" That line sounded like a joke. But I knew she was half serious. So I didn't tease her further. I just stood there, watching that quiet stretch of warm color and water light deep inside the entrance with her. Outside, the ship was still slowly getting livelier; the crowd from the meeting had probably already begun flowing toward the artificial beach, the recreation room, and the Officers' Club.

The whole Asgard was preparing to greet the indulgence it believed it deserved. And Maki and I stood in front of this hidden doorway, like two people just back from the gates of death who hadn't quite learned how to relax again — stopped gently in our tracks, first, by that one quiet mouthful of warmth.