Chương 185: 70. You Are Soldiers 1

The door clicked shut behind me with a sound that belonged in a disaster early-warning system. Not normal quiet—the kind where everyone's busy and you can hear the refrigerator humming. This was the silence that follows someone finishing the wiring on an explosive device and stepping back to wait for the spark. Too quiet. Wrong kind of quiet. Maki and I stepped into the entryway, our footsteps unnaturally loud on the floor.

I pulled off my helmet, palms still faintly numb from gripping the handlebars, but my lips felt the opposite of numb. The kiss on the ridge was over. My body had not received that memo. Worse than that—the second one had been my initiative. That fact sat in the center of my brain like a live round, pulsing every few seconds no matter how calm I tried to look: You just did something you can't walk back from. I held the helmet against my chest, trying to project normal person who went out and came back normally.

Unfortunately, normal people don't walk through doors with completely erratic breathing. Maki looked considerably more functional than I did. She hung her jacket with her usual efficiency, expression flat as if nothing had happened. The only problem: people to whom nothing has happened don't have lingering warmth at the tips of their ears. I saw it. Immediately looked away. Can't look at her right now.

One more second and I'd be replaying the exact moment she didn't push me away—her eyes widening when I held her, that suspension of breath before she leaned in— Shut your brain off, Hoshino.

"You're back." From the living room. Akari sat on the sofa, posture perfect as if attending a formal hearing. Her face was blank, but her gaze was razor-sharp—like surveillance equipment calibrated only for weaknesses. Aida lounged beside her, wearing a smile that had nothing to do with welcome. That was an I've been waiting for the live episode smile. They'd done prep work. We were walking into a fully assembled stage.

"Yeah," I said, keeping my voice level.

"We're back."

"So late." Aida's tone was sugar-coated poison.

"That supplementary visual reconnaissance route... sounds like very thorough verification." I nearly coughed up my soul.

"Just route confirmation," I managed.

"Oh?" Her smile sharpened.

"I thought it was more emotional confirmation." I genuinely wanted to put my helmet back on. Maki set her bag down, voice cool: "If you applied that imagination to actual work, you wouldn't spend every deadline dancing on the edge." Aida laughed, delighted rather than stung.

"My, how quickly you defend her."

"Not defending. Correcting." That makes it sound more like defending and you know it. And my heart jumped anyway. While I fought to compress my expression back to "calm," the real danger emerged from deeper in the room.

"Oh." One syllable containing enough material for a three-page incident report. Jess stood by the dining table, completely still. Her gaze swept from my face to Maki's and back, like someone who'd just discovered their most hated subject had been made mandatory. Two seconds of loaded silence.

"So you two finally remembered where you live," she said. Here we go.

"We just went out for a bit," I said carefully."'Went out for a bit?'" The dangerous upward pitch I knew by heart.

"Right, because going out 'for a bit' normally includes coming back with red faces, messy hair, and half-beat response times. Noted." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"The hair is from the helmet."

"And your face?"

"... Windburn."

"At night? On a mountain?" Even I knew that excuse was terrible. Akari nodded calmly from the side: "She was also wiping her right cheek at the door just now."

"Akari!" My voice nearly cracked.

"I'm reporting observations."

"And very thoroughly," Aida added with a smile.

"That kind of reaction usually isn't about dust. It's more consistent with—""Enough! No forensic analysis needed!" I cut her off, nearly pleading. Jess looked between us, expression sliding toward the more I watch this, the angrier I get. I had no capacity for composed defense. Every question bounced me back to the ridge—how close Maki had been, the wind in her hair, the moment her breath caught when I kissed her.

"Where did you actually go?" Jess demanded.

"Bike pickup, route confirmation, checked the view," Maki answered cleanly.

"That's it.""'That's it?'" Jess laughed coldly.

"You think I'm that easy?"

"You should ask yourself that question." Maki's tone was scalpel-precise.

"Do you want the itinerary, or are you looking for a fight? If it's the first, I've answered. If it's the second—you're not first in line tonight." Aida slapped the table.

"Spicy." Akari added: "The queue is quite long."

"Whose side are you even on?!" Jess exploded. Beautiful detonation. Not messy—the textbook blast of a glass cannon with emotion and pride jammed at the breaking point. High attack, zero defense, spectacular visuals.

"I knew something was off!" She pointed at me, words accelerating.

"You go look at a bike and come back like you've done something you can't report! You almost put your shoes on backwards—don't tell me that's nothing!" I looked down. I had, in fact, almost put them on backwards. I pulled my foot back, attempting dignity through silence. Dignity had taken the night off. Aida watched me like a rare specimen: "That's not guilt. That's guilt achieving physical form."

"I'm not—""You are," Akari said.

"Hoshino." Maki's voice, quiet.

"Fix your shoes first." That tone—perfectly calm, treating me like a temporarily confiscated problem item—was somehow worse than the kiss. I crouched to fix my laces, feeling my authority dissolve into the floor. This made Jess angrier.

"And you!" She swung toward Maki.

"Always so efficient, right? Out all evening, then running interference for her. What is this, full-service bike shopping with escort included?" Something tightened in my chest. I looked at Maki involuntarily. Her expression didn't change, but the corners of her eyes dropped slightly. Oh. I knew that look. She was entering I wasn't going to waste energy, but you're genuinely being loud mode.

"First," Maki said calmly, "I'm not her keeper. Her life skills are occasionally concerning, but she doesn't need me tying her shoes."

"Hey—""Second, speaking for her doesn't mean she did anything wrong. More likely, you're being unreasonable right now."

"I'm being unreasonable?!"

"Yes. Textbook case. You want to ask something but won't ask directly, so you attack whatever's nearby. When nobody reacts how you want, you start treating volume like victory." One second of silence. Then Aida dissolved into laughter. Jess's ears went visibly red.

"I don't want to ask anything! I don't even care!"

"Mm—" Aida drew it out.

"People who don't care don't stare from doorways like that."

"I was checking if she crashed the bike!"

"The bike is outside," Akari noted.

"Stop doing logic at me right now!!" Under normal circumstances, this would've wound down here. But Jess wasn't programmed for normal circumstances. She was the type who, upon sensing defeat, would drag the entire battlefield down with her. Self-destruct sequence: engaged. She took a breath, expression shifting to if I'm going down, we're all going down. Every internal alarm I had started screaming.

"Fine," she said, voice unnervingly clear.

"Since everyone's so smart—let's put it all on the table. Is anyone here actually innocent?" The air changed. We're done. She fired the first shot:"D was up at 0300 raiding the fridge. Ate the last pudding, left the container." D, who'd been quietly hydrating in the corner, looked up, remarkably calm: "It didn't have a name on it."

"It was the last one in the communal section!"

"Last in communal doesn't equal private property. Also, you drank my espresso concentrate last week and refilled it with water. You thought I couldn't tell?" Jess choked. Aida laughed appreciatively.

"Clean counter." The second shot was already airborne:"And Evelyn! She and Aida vanish for days—who knows where they actually go!" Evelyn, appearing from the hallway, stopped with practiced resignation: "I'm at the lab running tests. Last time was forty-eight straight hours. You messaged asking if I could test your caffeine tolerance while I was there." Evelyn adjusted her glasses with surgical precision: "I still have the log.

Your exact words at 0217: 'If I die from this report tomorrow, please check my blood caffeine percentage during the autopsy.'" Aida was shaking with laughter: "That's so you it's art. I want to frame it." The living room was devolving—not into chaos, but something worse. Everyone casually laying out observations and blackmail material, voices not even raised, every line drawing blood. More effective than table-slamming.

I stood there, recent survivor of a kissing incident, now conscripted into domestic intelligence warfare. And Maki—still steady. She even reached over, took my crooked helmet, and set it properly on the shelf. Her fingers grazed my hand. I nearly short-circuited again. Are you seriously still doing this to me right now? But Jess had taken several counter-hits and entered full glass cannon with nothing to lose mode, expression broadcasting if I'm dying, I'm taking the biggest target. I had a very bad feeling.

She swept her gaze across the room and locked onto two people who'd been admirably performing non-involvement: Roy Hartmann and Lan Weiss. Roy projected just here for water, leaving soon. Lan maintained impressive composure. My premonition maxed out. Please don't. Jess smiled coldly. We're done.

"Speaking of suspicious," she said, voice going crisp, "Roy and Lan. One keeps disappearing at fixed times, the other's always 'helping with paperwork.' Except last week someone spotted them in the back stairwell with their arms around each other. I nearly filed a report for accidentally entering a restricted emotional zone." Time stopped.