"...."
A shipgirl walked through the headquarters building with a solemn expression. As she walked, opening and closing her hands, a commander who looked like he’d forgotten where he left his coat waved at her in a hurry.
"Oh, Enterprise? Where are you going?"
"Ah, Commander? I was on my way to see you...."
"Oh, really? Saint Louis is inside right now. Could you wait with her for a bit? I’m just going to take these documents to Saratoga."
"Oh, uh, yes.... Of course."
Jinseong passed right by Enterprise and headed down the stairs. Enterprise watched him for a moment, then started walking again.
"So there was a reason he was moving so urgently as soon as training with us ended...."
Just a little while ago, Jinseong had gone out to sea with Enterprise and several other shipgirls and finished training. Enterprise stared at the door to the Commander’s office in the distance, lost in thought.
"Today, during training, the Commander transferred from his command ship onto my escort ship and carried on with me...."
The feeling she had sensed the moment Jinseong climbed aboard her. Enterprise finally understood what her sister Yorktown had meant all this time when she talked about sailing with the Commander.
"That feeling, like all the problems in the engines that had been clogged up with grime were washed clean in an instant and started moving like new again... that feeling like I could do anything with this person...."
At the same time as she wanted to feel that sensation again, worry crept in first. The naval forces of this world, and the shipgirls in particular, found him far too useful.
If she thought about what made him different from the other commanders so far, there honestly wasn’t that much. People were selected from various countries based only on whether they had Cube aptitude. They were so diverse that it was even harder to find anything in common. Because of that, the only special thing about Jinseong was the aptitude score marked at 98%.
"So this is what having high aptitude means.... Hm?"
When Enterprise reached the Commander’s office, she saw that the door was slightly open. Thinking Jinseong had left in a hurry and failed to close it properly, she reached for the handle.
"Nngh.... Haa...."
"...?"
A moan came from inside the office. Saint Louis was supposed to be in there. Enterprise had heard that she’d been in counseling with Jinseong for months, and lately she’d looked so much better that she was even visible in public again.
Worried that she might be silently enduring some pain Enterprise didn’t know about, or that something might be wrong with her, Enterprise carefully opened the door.
"Sss.... Sorry, Commander-kun...."
What Enterprise saw was not Saint Louis collapsed somewhere in pain or sweating from illness.
Saint Louis was standing beside the Commander’s chair, hugging Jinseong’s coat to her chest and gently pressing her nose against it.
"Uh...."
"...Hah, eh?!"
The two shipgirls locked eyes. And the silence that filled the Commander’s office stretched on and on.
"...."
"...."
Click.
The freeze was broken when Enterprise closed the door. Saint Louis, her face bright red and still unable to let go of Jinseong’s coat, was moving her lips helplessly. Enterprise’s own face had also turned red, but to smooth things over she acted as if nothing had happened and slowly walked over to the sofa and sat down.
"U-um! Enterprise, you’re here...?"
"Y-yeah. Saint Louis, you look fine."
Saint Louis started walking obediently toward the sofa where Enterprise was sitting, then realized she was still holding Jinseong’s coat in her arms and hurriedly set it on the chair before sitting down herself.
"Is your body feeling better now, Saint Louis?"
"Y-yes. As you can see.... Ahem! I’m fine. At this point, I’m well enough to have a private counseling session with the Commander.... Commander-kun."
"That’s good news."
A little conversation, then a brief silence. And the one who broke the second silence this time was Saint Louis.
"As I kept counseling with Commander-kun, I gradually realized it. Then after sailing together recently, I became certain. The scent coming from Commander-kun makes me feel at ease.... So I thought maybe I should take off my clothes a little.... Ah! I didn’t expect Enterprise to catch me."
"Heh. Don’t worry. Just hearing that you’re feeling better is a relief. I’ll keep this.... a secret from the Commander."
"Thank you~ Haa.... What should I do? The Commander’s counseling is definitely working, and once I get better, the counseling will be over. Hmm...."
Enterprise shot her a slightly pouty look at Saint Louis’s regretful tone.
"From what I can see, you look perfectly fine already. Honestly.... Are you thinking of faking illness or something?"
"Ufufu! Should I? But.... no. I can’t keep watching the Commander worry and struggle because of me anymore. I think it’s best to finish the counseling as planned."
With a smile that had somehow become relaxed, Saint Louis stood up from the sofa. Enterprise set down her hat and rose as well.
"You have something else to do with the Commander, right? If the Commander comes back, tell him my business is settled and I left first."
"Oh, ah. Right. I will."
After Saint Louis left the office, Enterprise watched her go and then looked at the Commander’s desk, thinking of Jinseong.
The thoughts she’d had on the way to the office were growing more and more certain. Once you left this base, there would be shipgirls you had to be careful around. As long as she could reach out, she had to protect him.
"Sailing and operating with the Commander. Judging by my sister, Bremerton, and Saint Louis’s reactions.... so we can be stimulated by touch or even scent?"
Enterprise slowly approached Jinseong’s coat, which had been placed on the chair. Her curiosity was definitely piqued, and her eyes flicked toward the bed in the Commander’s office for a moment, but there was no way she could just leap onto the bed to check Jinseong’s scent.
"...."
Slowly, Enterprise gathered Jinseong’s coat from the chair into her arms. Before she could feel ashamed of what she was doing, she shook her head hard and pushed the thought away.
"This is because I’m helping Saint Louis recover from emotional wounds! Curiosity.... It’s just curiosity...."
She stood in the exact same spot Saint Louis had been standing and carefully pressed her nose to Jinseong’s coat.
There wasn’t some overwhelming scent that hit her all at once, but the pleasant sense of comfort she had felt when she and Jinseong had boarded the escort ship together drifted back to her in a soft wave.
"I’m becoming more and more certain that I was right...."
"E-Enter.... prise...?"
"Hek?!"
Jinseong’s flustered voice came from the doorway. He had opened the door at some point and was standing there. Startled, Enterprise froze in place.
"My.... uh.... coat...."
"N-no, Commander! Th-that.... Saint Louis.... No, I’m not saying Saint Louis did it first! I mean, she did do it first, but! N-no, that’s not what I was trying to say....!"
Enterprise babbled incoherently, then finally ran out of words and lowered her head, too embarrassed to show her bright red face.
Jinseong was plenty flustered too, but since the always proper and meticulous Enterprise was showing a side he had never seen before, he couldn’t help but laugh a little. Still, laughing right in front of her would be rude, so he simply waited in silence for her to calm down.
"...Here."
Keeping her head down, Enterprise slowly stepped forward and held out Jinseong’s coat. Jinseong nodded slowly and took it back.
"I-I’ll come back later...."
"R-right, right...."
Watching the steam practically rise from Enterprise’s snow-white head, Jinseong sat down with the coat in hand. And a little later, when she came back to get her hat and peeked in from the doorway, Jinseong found her a little more approachable than before.
-------------
"The Commander’s already been at our base for half a year."
"Yeah, so it has."
A grand conference hall so huge and luxurious it couldn’t even be compared to the Eagle Union base’s meeting room. In the enormous space, where an echo would probably bounce if someone shouted, shipgirls and naval officers were mixed together.
"Saratoga, you’re ready, right?"
"Yep. We’ve got to protect our Commander."
At one of the tables, marked with a small flag bearing the Eagle Union emblem, Enterprise, Saratoga, and New Jersey were seated.
"It’s ridiculous to call this a peace conference when the biggest topic is what to do with our Commander.... and even more ridiculous that the most important person, the Commander himself, isn’t allowed to take part."
New Jersey grumbled irritably. Enterprise nodded and looked around. Then she spotted a shipgirl approaching them.
"Ah, um. Long time no see, Eagle Union."
"Ah.... You’re...."
With long silver hair and clothing like huge wings, Shokaku stood awkwardly in front of them. Enterprise stood up from her chair with a slightly guarded expression.
"Shokaku.... What does the Sakura Empire want with us?"
"Could you not be so wary? I didn’t come here to pick a fight. And I’m not here as a representative of the Sakura Empire either."
"Hmm.... I see."
When a brief silence followed, Saratoga shrugged and looked at Shokaku.
"So you came to see us on a personal matter? What is it?"
"By any chance, did Yoo Jinseong.... ah, no, did the Commander not come with you?"
Shokaku asked while glancing around a little nervously. At the end of her gaze, Sakura Empire shipgirls could be seen waiting behind her and watching this way.
"Unfortunately, he couldn’t come with us. What do you need with the Commander?"
"...I see. I came all this way after stubbornly insisting on it. No, thank you for telling me."
Though she looked dejected for someone who had seemed wary a moment ago, Shokaku still gave a proper farewell and turned away. She went back to the Sakura Empire shipgirls, said something to them, and they too headed back to their seats.
"Does the Sakura Empire have some connection to the Commander?"
"They’re the faction closest to the Commander’s homeland. And Shokaku was the shipgirl who measured the Commander’s aptitude face-to-face with Yorktown sister."
"Tch.... In that case, maybe it’s better that the Commander couldn’t attend the conference after all."
"True. With the rumors and all, there must’ve been a lot of shipgirls from other factions trying to get close to the Commander. No wonder there were so many eyes on us."
Enterprise sat back down. Soon after, the conference began as Dylan and several naval officers stood in the center of the hall with microphones.
-------------
Jinseong picked up the telephone receiver in the Commander’s office. With a slightly pounding heart, he answered the call that had come in.
"You’re calling, so the conference must be over?"
[Ah.... Yes. The conference is over. You’ve been waiting, Lieutenant.]
"Of course."
The voice on the other end, exhaling as if after a long breath, belonged to Dylan. It was the voice of a salaryman who wanted nothing more than to clock out immediately.
[Thanks to your achievements in the Eagle Union, your reputation has improved tremendously worldwide. No matter the faction, the shipgirls all want you.]
"...That doesn’t sound like good news."
[This is the first time I’ve seen the hardline faction that wanted to get a grip on you, a Commander in Azur Lane’s upper ranks, visibly back down like this.]
"That doesn’t sound.... great either. Was the meeting that long because of that?"
[Haa.... No, the meeting ran long because we were deciding what to do about your future course of action. I never expected all the shipgirls from every faction to be this aggressive.]
"What do you mean by that? I was supposed to be discharged now, just like we agreed...."
[....]
"Colonel? The promise was.... no, I want to go home!"
Knock, knock, knock.Bang!
"C-Commander! What in the world is going on...!"
For once, Yorktown hurriedly burst into the Commander’s office, looking frantic. When she met Jinseong’s eyes while he was holding the receiver, Yorktown’s face crumpled.
"Yorktown?"
"N-no, Commander...."
[You’ll probably be able to go home. It’s just....]
Yorktown trudged over and timidly clung to his arm with sad eyes. Dylan paused over the receiver. Jinseong needed an explanation.
[Lieutenant Yoo Jinseong, your discharge request has been denied. Prepare to head to the Sakura Empire.]
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