Chương 214: 81. True Feelings 2

By night three, the eight-person room genuinely felt lived-in. Not just gear, uniforms, and randomly assigned bunks crammed into a shared space — everyone had started settling into their own rhythm. Someone always cleaned their kit first thing back. Someone showered before eating. Someone couldn't sleep without resetting tomorrow's layout one more time. Someone had quietly built a small personal world in their storage grid. Tonight, my plan was to be a completely unremarkable model citizen.

After yesterday's shared-bunk incident and today's full-day barrage of commentary, I knew perfectly well that any stray movement in this room would just become long-term entertainment for Jess. So after dinner I came back and behaved with near-sickening restraint. Minimum talk. No eye contact. Zero material. The Yukikaze, as always, does not reward optimism. Because the second I slid my terminal into my locker, Maki appeared at the side of my bunk.

She didn't toss out one of her usual lines — put your things away, or you're in the way. She just said, flat and direct:"Hoshino. Come out for a minute." The room went half a beat quiet. Not total silence — everyone was still technically doing their own thing — but the specific kind of quiet where attention shifts all at once without anyone admitting it. The back of my neck prickled. Jess, on her bunk, lit up instantly. D leaned over his rail, face writing oh, wow.

Lan didn't even turn a page — just lifted her eyes. Akari's hands kept moving, but I'd bet my life her ears were locked on us. Roy and Harvey were less obvious about it, but they were both watching too.... Right. Anyone who says an eight-person dorm isn't a full-coverage surveillance system can fight me. I froze, then forced my voice into something casual.

"Now?"

"Now," Maki said.

"For what?" She looked at me. Half a second's pause.

"There's something I want to talk to you about. Alone." The blast radius on that sentence was enormous. Enormous enough that Jess produced a very deliberate, very loud gasp. I nearly stopped breathing.

"That phrasing is begging for a misunderstanding," I hissed, keeping my voice down. Maki's expression didn't move.

"That's their problem."... No. That's also, quite significantly, your problem. But I knew that arguing here would only hand the room another free episode. So under the full weight of a synchronized audience burning holes in my back, I followed her out. The door slid shut. I finally exhaled.

"You did that on purpose."

"Did what?"

"There's something I want to talk to you about. Alone. That." She walked ahead without looking back.

"That's exactly what I meant."

"Couldn't you have phrased it in a way that doesn't make the whole room write fanfiction?"

"No." Right. This is Maki Kushima. She'll push you off a cliff and genuinely not understand why you're calling it a push. We walked to a quiet corner near the aft end of the residential section. There was a small observation port there — not the bridge's full sweep of stars, just a rectangular panel of reinforced glass set into thick hull plating. Through it, two of the convoy's supply ships hung far off to the stern quarter, like two small, quiet white lights. A fixed bench nearby, a water dispenser.

Not much foot traffic even in daylight hours, and less at this one. Maki stopped and turned. I stopped too. For a moment, neither of us spoke. It wasn't like the daytime noise, and it wasn't like the stillness after watch in the bridge corner last night. It was more ordinary here. And maybe because it was ordinary, it made the fact clearer — there really was no one else around. In the end, I spoke first.

"So. What is it?" Maki didn't answer right away. She looked at me the way she did when deciding where to start. That kind of hesitation was rare enough on her that whatever guard I still had left came down the moment I saw it. When she finally spoke, her voice was lower than usual.

"Jess came to find you today." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. I blinked.

"... How did you know?"

"I saw her stop you."

"Were you listening in?"

"No." Clean, immediate.

"I have no interest in whatever you two talk about in corridors."

"That sounds completely made up." She gave me one look and let it go. Then I understood.

"So you're here to ask what she said to me?"

"No."

"Then what?" Maki was quiet for a beat.

"I'm here to ask what you told her." My heart did something thoroughly unprofessional. Not because she'd asked it harshly. The opposite — because she asked it so calmly, it was almost worse. She wasn't interrogating me. She wasn't fishing. She'd just set the question down in front of me, the way you push a problem onto someone's desk once you've decided they've stalled long enough. I licked my dry lips and realized I was more nervous now than when Jess had cornered me.

With Jess, I could give half an answer and keep the rest hidden. I could pretend I was only talking because I'd been backed into it. Not with Maki. If she'd come all the way here to ask, dodging now would just be pathetic. I took a breath and gave in.

"I told her... I'm not playing around." Maki didn't move. Her eyes didn't change. So I kept going.

"I also told her I know you're not someone I can just try out and drop if it doesn't work." I fought to keep my voice from shaking too badly.

"And that I... keep looking at you. That when you're not there, I look for you without meaning to. That if you're even a little kind to me, I hold onto it for a long time." By then I didn't quite dare look at her. So I shifted my eyes to the observation port, fixed on those two distant white lights, as if not looking at her gave me some better chance of surviving this.

"That's about it." I stopped, and everything went still. The corridor was quiet. The ventilation hummed low and steady. Somewhere on another deck, a cart rattled over a seam — a thin sound that carried up and faded fast. After a few seconds, Maki spoke.

"So you really do know how to say things like that." I turned to look at her.

"... That's a pretty hurtful thing to say back." The corner of her mouth moved, barely.

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" She didn't answer right away. I braced for her to leave me hanging the way she usually did. Instead, she took one step forward. Just one. But the distance between us shrank considerably.

"I mean," she said, looking at me, voice very low, "you don't usually look like someone who'd admit that much." My heart stumbled worse.

"That's because you don't usually stand here and ask me like this." She held my gaze for two seconds, then let it flick briefly to the side. A small movement. But I saw it. She gets uncomfortable too. Not just me. That realization gave me a sliver of courage.

"What about you?" I asked. Maki looked back.

"What about me?"

"You didn't come all the way out here just to collect a statement." She went quiet. Really quiet. Not the kind meant to shut me down — the kind where she was actually thinking, deciding exactly how far she was willing to go. I kept my hands still and made myself not step back. Finally, low:"I don't like people staring at me."

"... I know that."

"I don't like people getting close without a reason."

"I know that too."

"And I really don't like people talking about my business."

"Jess has already done about half of that today." Maki's brow tightened slightly.

"Which is exactly why I don't want to add one more person to that list." I went still.

"You mean—" She cut me off, fast.

"But you're different." I went completely still. I hadn't expected her to say it this plainly. I definitely hadn't expected that right after, the tips of her own ears would go red first. Barely — but at this distance, impossible to miss. She seemed to catch herself, because her tone snapped back up half a notch almost immediately.

"What I mean is, you're at least not the kind of person someone wants to get rid of on sight." I almost laughed.

"You're really going to dress it up like that, at a time like this?"

"What else would I say?" she shot back.

"I thought you'd at least pick something that actually sounded like a compliment."

"That would be fake."... Fair enough. Very Maki. But the warmth that had flooded my chest the moment she said you're different wasn't going anywhere. I looked at her, and suddenly I wasn't nearly as scared.

"So the reason you brought me out here tonight," I said slowly, "wasn't to warn me to keep my distance?" Maki looked at me.

"If I wanted to warn you off, I'd have done it yesterday." That single sentence connected a lot of things at once. The quiet in the corner of the bridge last night. Letting me climb into her bunk after watch. Seeing Jess pull me aside today, and then — instead of grilling me, instead of coming in swinging tonight — bringing me all the way out here and making me say it myself. Something in my chest went full. Full enough to ache, but not the bad kind of ache.

More like something had finally stepped forward out of the fog. I opened my mouth, but Maki got there first.

"There's one more thing."

"What?" She looked at me, her voice dropping lower than before.

"Yesterday morning. It wasn't only because you were about to drop that I told you to get in." My brain went blank for half a second.

"... Wait, what?" She seemed to register that she'd been too direct. She looked away fast, forcing her voice flat.

"Because... I didn't want to come back alone, either." In that instant, it genuinely felt like someone had landed one precise, weightless hit straight through my chest. It wasn't a confession. It wasn't a promise. It wasn't even ambiguous enough to make a real scandal out of. But it was exactly that — light, true, and the kind of thing she'd never just say out loud — that made it lethal. I stood there looking at her, with absolutely no idea which sentence to reach for first.

In the end, all I managed was a very stupid:"... Oh." Maki's brow pulled together instantly.

"That's your reaction?"

"No — wait." I pressed a hand to my forehead.

"You drop something like that on me, my brain needs a hard reboot." She stared at me, like she was trying to work out whether I was genuinely short-circuited or just playing dumb again. I must have looked wrecked enough, because she let out a quiet sigh.

"Forget it." She turned to go. I reached out on reflex and caught her wrist. The instant I did it, I froze. So did she. The Yukikaze's metal corridor was cold. The distant lights past the observation port were cold. But the warmth at her wrist was unmistakable. I didn't let go. She didn't pull away. We stayed like that for one second. Then I said, very low:"I'm not brushing you off." She didn't turn around. So I kept going.

"I was just too happy. I didn't know which part to say first." By the time that left my mouth, my ears were probably red again. The completely unsalvageable kind of red. Her back still to me, Maki's shoulders moved slightly, like she was holding something in. Two seconds later, she turned around slowly.

"You're a lot of trouble."

"I know."

"And you give people headaches."

"I know that too."

"But you're still holding onto me right now," she glanced down at my hand, "which makes it look like you're about to be an idiot again." That snapped me back. I let go at once.

"Sorry." She looked at me, her eyes far too quiet in the dim corridor light. Then, very softly, she said:"Next time, hold on." I froze completely.... Wait. Next time? Hadn't that line just cleared every safe boundary there was? She must have noticed I'd short-circuited, because the red at the tips of her ears — never quite gone — deepened a shade further. But she didn't take it back. She just stepped to the side, opening up the distance that had nearly closed between us.

"Let's go," she said. I was still standing there.

"... Oh." She glanced at me, the corner of her mouth ticking up, just barely.

"Hoshino."

"Yeah?"

"You look even stupider right now than you did sitting in the captain's chair yesterday." That finally snapped me back. I almost laughed out of pure exasperation.

"Do you have to land a hit even at a moment like this?"

"Otherwise you'd get too smug." I watched her back as she walked ahead of me, heart still a mess, my mouth already curving into a smile I couldn't quite stop. Then I followed. Not because she told me to. Not because the eight-person room was definitely still waiting for a show. Just because this time, I knew, very clearly — She hadn't pushed me away. She'd left room for me. And from that moment on, the third night really did become something different.