Chapter 18
The other guy who finished with us, however, was still ranked in the high three-thousands.
I wondered why I was so much higher, when I was the only one who took damage?
They weren’t very transparent on the grading system, but maybe that was the point.
They must have had some kind of video playback, I’d imagine, so maybe they saw how well I performed before I got blasted and graded me accordingly.
Serves him right.
If VR was the bulk of our evaluations, there was no reason I couldn’t keep moving up the ranks, now that I’d seen what it was like.
We performed near daily drills in the VR space now, and I was good at it.
Between tests, we mostly did solo missions, as the real Shinka pilots were off doing live drills, but I had zero struggle performing simple familiarization exercises.
The rank up was empowering and gave me renewed confidence, so long as I could continue to keep my identity a secret when I wasn’t in a machine.
This was where I was incredibly grateful for private showers.
Most of the guys showered in the shared locker room, but if I stuck to my dorm, I was able to enjoy peace and cleanliness after an impressive rank up.
It was a saving grace that my roommate decided to sleep outside somewhere to avoid me, since it gave me a few moments of solitude to gather my wits about me.
These showers were the only time I got to unwrap my breasts and take off my CHRONO units, new and old, and it felt nice to just be me again.
I hummed a happy tune, scrubbing away boob sweat, and washing my hair with the sad soap selection that was also used to wash said boob sweat.
I understood that men weren’t subjected to the same grooming socialization that befell women, but the one-body-wash-to-rule-them-all situation was legitimately traumatizing.
But it was fine. My scratchy, short hair would be filled with mud and sweat in twenty minutes anyway, so I’d worry about its unconditioned state after the war.
It wasn’t like I was brushing it or anything.
Life without hair long enough to tangle had its perks, even if I really didn’t have the face for a pixie cut.
Some women could rock this style just fine and still look feminine and fun and edgy, but I would never be confused as feminine or fun or edgy with this colorless puff ball on my head.
… No wonder Sebastian called me Snow.
Just as I turned off the shower, I heard the whirr of the main door sliding open.
I froze with my hand on the water activation panel, and I immediately turned the water back up to damn near scalding, hoping to ramp up the steam to something even denser than Saturn’s gas giant body.
Only one person could open that door, and he was the absolute last person who I could trust with secrets.
Hell, I couldn’t even trust him in a literal simulator of the war.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please don’t come in.
Vann’s old CHRONO was on the sink with my towel, and it was too far to reach without getting out of the shower entirely.
Stop panicking. Why would he even consider coming inside the bathroom when the shower is on. That’s just paranoid. You’re being silly.
“Oi, Mishka, how long are you going to take up my shower?” Elio complained upon opening the bathroom door without so much as a knock.
I squeaked in surprise—which admittedly didn’t help my case for Mishka meaning bear instead of mouse—and I tucked myself into the corner as deeply in my steam shield as possible. The space was small, but so was I.
Also not helping.
Whatever. That wasn’t the point.
The point was that I only had enough arms to cover my boobs or my vagina, but not both, and even if I did, my waist shape and my hips were not going to fool anyone.
Especially not since he was someone who has already seen my male form naked in a locker room.
This, of course, all set aside the fact that no man would ever bashfully cover his nipples instead of his dick, and to have him walk in on a hand between my legs and an arm across my chest would be more of a dead giveaway than my boobs themselves.
The only positive note I could take from this was that this was the first time ever in the history of womanhood that my B-cups were too big for a situation. It wasn’t an award I’d been seeking, but sometimes you had to look for the good in the ‘I’m so fucked.’
He continued ranting as I continued my panicked meltdown. “It’s bad enough that you refuse to get out of my room, but you wouldn’t even have a private shower to use if they hadn’t slotted you in with me. Most of us had to put up with sharing for years before we earned this.”
“I’m almost done.” I attempted, hoping that glass was real good and foggy.
I heard a chuckle, but I did not hear a door close. “Awww, did I hurt you badly enough to need bandages?” I peeked through the fogged glass, where I could see his obscured silhouette picking up my chest bindings.
Oh no.
I didn’t know if my face was red because of mortification or because the water was lava, but neither was helpful right now.
It’s not like I wrote boob tape on the gauze. He isn’t going to figure it out.
“You literally dislocated my arm, and I had to reset it myself,” I snapped back, deflecting all the way across the galaxy. “You’re lucky I have the medical training to know how to safely return a humeral head to the glenoid cavity without damaging a ligament.”
“Huh, I didn’t even think about that. Maybe your medic training is good for something.” He sounded so fucking smug and antagonistic, and he still wasn’t leaving. “Makes me want to test that knowledge to see what else you know how to fix… And what you don’t.”
“You’re hilarious.” That threat was anything but empty, and I was trying not to be rattled by it, amidst all of the other things I was rattled by at this exact moment.
“If you’re done posturing, you can go away, so I can finish and give you your precious shower.
Otherwise we’re both going to be late for Basics. ”
“Or, like a normal rookie, you could just share the shower and get it over with.”
Wait, what—
I didn’t have time to protest before the shower door slid open.
In absolute panic, I immediately splashed hot water into the face of a very bare chested Elio—possibly bare in other places, but I wasn’t looking down—who was absolutely not about to share a shower with me, because oh my stars, no.
No no no. I was not ready to be wet and naked in a box with any man, let alone that man.
“Ow, what the fuck—Are you trying to bathe or melt your own skin off?” He retreated, his inferior man-skin recoiling at the napalm grade water. I slammed the sliding door shut, while the steam was still in his eyes, hopefully blinding him forever if we were lucky.
Could we be lucky today? Please, Stars?
“It’s the only way to burn off your slime from manhandling me yesterday.”
“You’re such a fucking girl.” His words made my heart stop, but I restarted it by reminding myself that everyone here was a product of their sexist environment, and he didn’t mean that literally.
After all, what could be more insulting than being a girl?
At least he didn’t call me a post-nuclear apocalypse mutated frog.
What a gentleman.
He was seriously the worst human I’d ever met
“And you’re a fucking psychopath. You can have the shower and put it to whatever temperature suits your delicate skin when I’m done. Now go away.”
He laughed, because he didn’t even know how to take an insult properly, and at this point, I think I hated literally everything about him. I could have dealt with his prodding and teasing, but he was too physically strong and capable to take threats at face value.
“Fine, fine, you win,” he said next. Finally.
Is that you, Stars? Thank you. I’ll never be bad again.
I promise to always make my wishes on the first star I see, even if it’s not the brightest, and I’ll turn off my lights so you can shine.
“But hurry the fuck up,” he added just to get the last word.
After another tense moment, I heard the door close, and I exhaled all the relief in my bones.
That was way too close, and I couldn’t risk him coming back in before I was disguised again.
I was fairly certain he hadn’t noticed my extra CHRONO on the counter, probably thanks to the impressive wall of steam that filled every inch of this room so densely I couldn’t even see it myself, so I wasted no time slipping it back on my wrist and reactivating the Appearance Alteration Module.
I started wrapping my chest, only after the illusion was firmly in place, then I put my towel around my waist and exited the bathroom.
“All yours, your majesty.” I rolled my eyes as I walked over to my bunk, convincingly shirtless.
“Your majesty?” He raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll let you use that one, Mishka.”
I suddenly regretted not mocking him with a more offensive nickname. I absolutely would not start calling him ‘your majesty’ in anything other than sarcasm.
Which was why I didn’t dignify that statement with a response, and instead went straight to getting dressed for Basics.
I thought I was in the clear, and we could finally move on in peace when I felt his warm, rough hand suddenly brace my shoulder.
I jumped in his hold and whipped back around to face him.
“Why are you touching me?” I shot back immediately.
“It didn’t even leave a bruise.” He ignored my protest, gripping my shoulder again, and yanking me over for closer inspection. I winced at the pain of the still tender joint, and I very much resented the fact that I hadn’t put a shirt on yet.
I also was now cursing myself for having not accounted for allowing visible bruising on my A2’s skin coding. I’d have to fix that later. “You’re tougher than you look.”