Adding a fifth story to my repertoire probably isn't a good idea. But this idea has been sitting on my mind for quite some time, so I shall lay the context...

This semester I've been taking a cross-cultural class required by my university as a prerequisite to being able to study abroad (in my case, Japan for next semester at the time of this chapter's writing). This class has gotten me quite interested in the idea of what would happen if someone who grew up with American norms went over to Japan to command a fleet of ship girls. So here I am - though the end product probably won't be as simple as some American dude screwing around in a military base full of hot/cute/sexy girls who can stand on water and fire massive guns from their backs.

A few things to note: the format this story will be written in will be very strange - a first-person journal format. This is the same format with which I wrote one of my other stories, but I think it'll be interesting (plus, the reviews for that other story were overall pretty positive - most of them, anyway, so I guess I did something right). In addition, these entries are meant to be quick and short - partly because I don't know how frequently I'll end up actually updating this story with all the other stories I've got to write for.

Enjoy.

-Hieda no Akyuu

January 3rd, 2014.

Standing on the bridge in the dark and I'm seeing my breath,

Trying to make it home without freezing to death...

I should've brought a jacket,

blowin' in my hands like it's really gonna stop the chill...

The lyrics are still fresh on my mind. It certainly becomes even more vivid knowing that I was standing out in the cold watching my breath materialize in front of me as I was standing out in the pier...even still. I suppose listening to music the entire way from the San Jose Fuel Depot was a bad idea...

...but I've been sent away from home. Thousands of miles away from home, with no return ticket back dated for at least a couple years.

And the worst part is, it doesn't even feel like home.

Not that home really felt like "home" to begin with.

I know, surprising, isn't it. On the other side of the world, out of a society that I'm used to and dropped like a bad habit into another where I have no idea who to be, how to act, know what to do. You'd be surprised just how the worst part of everything's so blatantly obvious, yet you don't realize just how obvious it is until you get there. If that makes any sense.

Wouldn't Colonel Kevinson and Lieutenant Colonel Kevinson like to see this...or, should I say, Mom and Dad.

Oh, sorry, military protocol and regulations, right? Colonel. Fucking Colonel. If I were a higher rank, I'd decommission myself.

I spent most of today touring and organizing the new base. I didn't expect for there to be such a large naval base here in Okinawa...it didn't look that big on the map. Why the fuck would they give a base the size of a small college to just me a handful of other naval personnel? Fucking shit, dude. I don't get it. It's only me here for now...got dropped off by one of the Hueys that the Japanese have, and now for a full day I get to sit here twiddling my goddamn thumbs doing nothing all day except stare at the bare walls of my new office and write this fucking journal.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. I have a good idea of how this base's laid out now, and after unpacking my shit in my room and tidying up the office, I had to clean the place up. It's still somehow got that new building smell, kinda like the new car smell that you have in new cars, duh, but it's like...it's like they built it, and then they just left it empty for years. Fucking cobwebs, dust layers thicker than a fingernail, other disgusting shit. Like, seriously, you're expecting this to be a military base when clearly there've been absolutely no fucking maintenance done in this place for a long time. Least I can say is that I'm disappointed. Not angry that I had to clean this place up myself, I'm used to cleaning up after other people's shit, trust me, but just disappointed that no one else even gave this place any consideration at all or just neglected this place entirely.

Military command...it's as big of a joke as George McClellan during the American Civil War. Well-intentioned, but retarded and sticking their heads three feet up their own asses. Corrupt, too...but at least McClellan wasn't corrupt.

Right?

Well, not that it matters, he was a fuckhead anyway...someone like him shouldn't be in charge of a military force. Part of the job being a commissioned officer's to know that you're supposed to tell your men to go die. And no matter how people say it, you can't ever sugarcoat that. You just can't. That's what officers do. That part of war will never fucking change. ever.

I don't need to play Call of Duty to know that war never changes - only the people in power.

Where am I going with this.

I know it's January, but it's still fucking cold. I found myself constantly checking my fingers and feeling my toes to make sure I'm not getting frostbite, even though it's not physically possible, since it's Okinawa. But just as deserts can feel like the inside of a damn refrigerator, so can Okinawa in the first week of January. Worst of all, there's no freaking heater system, only an air conditioning system. So imagine me sitting at my office desk, typing a confirmation email to my parents telling them that I've moved into the base with (no) problem, sitting in a big brown swivel chair and wearing my military overcoat over my military uniform over my normal civvie clothes, and I've still shivering my ass off. Joy.

Personally, I like being too hot rather than too cold. Actually, that's not really accurate either, I should say prefer, not like. I've done ROTC in high school and boot camp in the military...being too hot's no problem. But fuck cold. Fuck it with all the nukes in the world.

Honestly, this base isn't that bad of a base. I've been to worse on some of my deployments - and arguably better than my dorms at Hargrave, if you could even call 'em dorms to begin with. All this place needs is just a bit of tidying up and some people to occupy it. Nothing worse than a base complete with dorms, a mess hall, giant storages, firing ranges, and the usual stuff you'd need to have a fully functioning base but no one to be in it. Reminds me of those ghost cities in China that I've read about, where companies build entire cities but no one actually ends up living there for whatever reason. Kinda funny how that ends up happening, eh.

You know, now that I think about it, I've always kind of lived by myself. Not exactly a loner, but I've always liked to be by myself, distance myself away from other people who I don't know. I don't even like the word "friend", because honestly, that word's used way too much and way too flimsily to do the word itself any justice - but the few friends I do have, even though I'm at the point where I don't even mind full-on living with them, know that I'm the kinda guy that likes to be alone and left to do his own thing. But even then, this's like...I don't even know. This's like putting it into the extreme - I'm literally in a base that's completely empty. There isn't even any furniture here, that's how empty it is. I mean, I guess you could go out on a limb and say this could be like my greatest fantasy come true, with an entire military complex all to myself for a day before other people arrive, but it sure as hell doesn't feel that way. While I did say I like being by myself, I didn't say I liked being alone and completely isolated from all other human contact. That's stretching it a bit much.

So going from there, you could say I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning, when I'll be scheduled to receive my first naval personnel. But at the same time, I'm not. It's not that I'm afraid of what's going to happen, I'm just straight up confused on what to expect. The documentation I received from Third Echelon stated that my new naval personnel as part of the Moebius Four agreement would be teenage to adolescent females capable of great naval military power, but it was really freakin' unclear about how or what exactly. No details, no nothing. They literally gave me a piece of paper that basically told me, "Alright kid, we've selected you to go over to Japan and command some girls with cannons. Good Luck, Commander."

What the hell am I supposed to imagine them as? Good God. I won't even bother having any expectations of them - I don't want to get myself all disappointed or worried or freaked out or anything, as what tends to happen when I hold expectations about some future event.

I can still hear loud fireworks going off in the distance. The residents of Okinawa appear to still be celebrating New Years', and for good reason. When the Japanese people heard of the news that America would remove troops from Okinawa and give the island back to Japanese hegemony, it was a huge fucking deal. I heard from my superiors and Japanese acquaintances that it was all the newspapers would ever talk about for a month straight ever since they announced it beginning of December. If I were to walk outside, back out to the freezing dockyards, I would still see the flashes of bright fireworks blotching the seawater.

Little do the public know, Japanese or anyone else, that it's actually a clandestine military agreement and venture on behalf of both nations...and that agreement happens to be named the Moebius Four Armament.

I'm still really fucking salty about this whole thing. Like, the only reason why I was selected for this assignment was because of my recent promotion, my family ties with the upper echelons of American military command, and my six or seven years of high school and collegiate Japanese under my belt. Well, okay, that's three reasons, but what I'm trying to say is that I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They needed someone to send over as a commanding naval officer for the Moebius Four project, and it just so happened that Colonel Kevinson suggested me first as a "volunteer".

Seriously, fuck you, Dad.

And you know what makes me want to resign my post as a Captain in the U.S. Navy? I shit you not, they came up to me and said, "Oh, we're sure you can do just fine living in Okinawa, son. You've been studying Japanese for six years, right? You ought to fit in just fine." Like, no, you fucking delusional military brass who know how to do nothing else but fill out papers and give bullshit orders, learning a language and going to live in the place that speaks the fucking language isn't the fucking same! I wanted to punch Dad when they told me that. I shit you not, I was fucking ready to give him the most satisfying pop in his face. I don't care if they court-martial me or demote me or kick me out of the navy. I'd imagine Mom and Dad both whining about something like keeping the family military honor intact, but seriously, fuck that. The only reason why I'm a goddamn captain of anything is because of my parents, because they happen to know the president and have a whole lotta fucking power in the American military. Ugh.

Which reminds me, all throughout my time at Hargrave, I remember all my instructors trying to suck my dick off because they thought if they gave me preferential treatment at school, they'd be in the warm graces of my parents. My classmates and schoolmates saw this - I mean, you'd have to be fucking dumb in the head to not notice or pick up on it - and most of them started being all sarcastic and derogatory towards me. I can count how many times some of my more trollish classmates paraded before me out in the hallways and as I was walking around campus getting from class to class or from my dorm to the drilling fields and gave me this flashy-ass, ceremonial greeting, like I were some eighteenth century European royalty or aristocrat. No matter what I said or what I did, they'd always do it. I fucking hated it. Maybe that's why they did it, because they knew I didn't like it and wanted to piss me off. The more decent classmates, the ones that were actually worthy of being called human beings, recognized that I was conscious of my whole thing with having parents as high command and understood that I didn't want any part of it, because it sickened me. In America, we've got this saying, being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, meaning that you're born into a fortunate position, that just because of your life circumstances, you're automatically much better off than most people around you and you didn't have to do jack shit to earn it. Like parents, for example. You'd think being born with a silver spoon in my mouth would be nice, but it's not. Maybe if I were a worse human being than I am now, my opinion on this would change. But as it stands, I fucking hate my parents. It's not to say I don't recognize them as family, like, I still hold affection for them as Mom and Dad, but man, it's really hard to think about my parents that way, and partly it's directly their fault, since they raised me like a goddamn soldier. Officer this, Officer that. Don't call me Mom. Don't call him Dad. Ten-hut. Three steps forward. Ready, aim, fire. They brought this on themselves - they have no one to blame but themselves when they find out that my last dying words in combat were "Mom, Dad, go to hell".

Ah shit, I'm writing like I'm all rambling now. I promised myself I wouldn't do that...I guess it's hard to drop bad habits. So why does it feel like for everyone else, it's easy for them to be able to drop bad habits? Fuck it. Rear Admiral Stukov was the one who advised that I keep a journal in order to record my thoughts and experiences during my service in Japan as part of the Moebius Four project. He said it'd help me get my thoughts in order and keep me focused on the job. I mean, it's not that I disagree, even though I didn't want to keep a fucking journal, I do agree that it would help keep me composed and handle whatever difficulties or other bumps in the road that I trip over in a manageable way. But it's an obligation. I never kept a journal before - I sat here spinning my pen around for nearly half an hour before I knew how to start. To me, keeping a goddamn journal's just another lousy task that I've gotta do before going to sleep. I mean, I don't know what'll happen three months into the job. Maybe I'll change my opinion. I'm pretty malleable when it comes to opinion - it's not like I'll hold a permanent, unwavering opinion on something if I can be convinced well enough to change it. But as it is now, this journal's just another one of those things that I really don't need in my life.

So in other words, this journal is my homework. For fuck's sake, I still have homework when I'm about to command a top-secret military platoon. What the fuck is wrong with this world.

I suppose I'll go boil up some water in the mess hall after this and eat some Shin ramen. For some reason, I found a box of freshly packaged Shin ramen in one of the cupboards in the kitchen. I don't know who put it there or how it even managed to get there in the first place, but I suppose if there's one thing I'm thankful for, it's that box of Shin ramen. As a huge fan of ramen, something like that's enough to make me shut up about everything that I'm pissed off about. Weird, isn't it, that something as simple as an unhealthy as shit bowl of instant, industrialized and chemically produced ramen can satisfy me. You know, that's actually not a good trait for me to have...thankfully it doesn't pop up very often.

And if it doesn't feel like home, you can do what I do,

Just pretend you don't feel so alone.

Heh...well, I mean, you could say that feeling alone isn't exactly the problem here.

The fireworks are gone, but now there's goddamn firecrackers going off all over the place. Guess I'll have to crash for tonight listening to the damn firecrackers...maybe I'll just keep my headphones over my ears and leave the music on.