A/N:

I'm writing way too many new stories. But there ain't no brakes on the story train.

This is an off-shoot of my One-Shot Collection, this time inspired by artist Yano Toshinori, who is working on an image series depicting ship girls in their twenties or thirties after retiring from navy service and living with their families in their married lives. It seemed that a lot of people really liked the image of 26-year-old Yuudachi with her twin daughters, so this story will focus on their shenanigans in everyday life and their interactions with other ship girls and their daughters, unlike the original image series, which focuses on a thirty-year-old Yuubari.

This will be a very different style from all of my other stories, which have traditionally been gritty, serious, and packed with dark humor (debatable) and violence. This story will be much different - it'll just be a fun read, more focused on comedy and slice of life. Hopefully.

Again, this'll be like One-Shot Fleet in which I don't expect to update this often, just as a fun write for every once in a while. And yes, the title is a blatant rip-off of Dog Days. Because...well...

Poi.

That's why.

Thanks for reading,

-Akyuu no Joshu

"Tou-saaaaaaaaaan! Wake uuuuuuuuuuuup, pooooooooooooooooi!"

I hear the voice before I open my eyes, and I know what's going to happen. But I don't do much to prevent it - past experiences have taught me that nothing can stop the Poi train. I roll over in my bed and try to sit up, but both of my daughters are already airborne, soaring across the bedroom.

It's their favorite thing to do in the morning.

"Geh!"

I get smothered by both of my twin daughters slamming down me like two patrol boats from the air, and their giggles and shrill yelps of delight rattle my ears.

"Mama said to come wake you up!" Yuudahachi, the older one, says with that beautiful smile of hers. "It's already nine!"

With Sandachi shaking my head back and forth, I glance over at the alarm clock next to my bed on the drawers. Sure enough, it's 9:10AM. Yuudachi probably woke up half an hour ago already.

"Aaah, crap..." I mutter, sitting up. Sandachi's still holding onto my neck as I do, and Yudahachi's sitting on my knee on the sheets. "Yeah...it's probably time to get up..."

But before I can get out of bed, Sandachi decides she's going to run the show. She tackles me back down onto bed and plants her butt on my chest, staring down at me with those bright red eyes of hers that're filled with excitement.

"Today's a Saturday, Tou-san! Can we go to the park today? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we - "

"If you can let me breathe, yes, we'll go..." I whisper. Sandachi's weight on my chest is crushing my windpipe, so she's choking me out without even knowing. Sandachi quickly gets off. "First, let me get dressed and we can eat..."

With the prospect of going to the park firmly in her eyes, Sandachi scrambles back out of the room, and Yuudahachi follows her out. I can hear Sandachi screaming "We're going to the park! Kaa-saaaaaaaan, the paaaaaaaaaaaaark!" and the consequent excited barking and shrieking of our two puppies, a Labrador retriever and a Shiba Inu. I throw on some jeans and one of my navy shirts that says "EVENING SHOWERS" in English letters on the front and the numbers 1906, 1936, 1958, and 1994 on the back with the traditional Japanese naval ensign design. It's one of my favorite shirts, and for good reason.

The smell of buttered toast, eggs, ham, and rice hits me full force when I walk into the small dining room that's connected to our kitchen. Sandachi and Yuudahachi carry the bowls of rice to the small dinner table, and I head inside the kitchen after they come out with the puppies nipping at their heels.

"Morning, Yuudachi," I smile at my wife.

Yuudachi turns around, grinning back at me with the big wooden rice cooker spoon in her hand. She's dressed casually in short jeans and tank top, and her long, gradient blonde-peach hair's tied up in a nice ponytail. She prefers cooking without an apron, saying that it gets in the way.

"Mornin', Colonel!" Yuudachi giggles brightly, snapping to salute, just like our younger days. I approach her, and she walks up and gives me a big ol' kiss on the cheek. Even years after we started dating, married, and had kids, her kiss will always feel special. In return, I reach up and rub those ear flaps of hers she got with her second remodel and give her a kiss of my own on her forehead, and Yuudachi giggles some more in appreciation. "Sandachi was yelling something about the park. Are we going there today?"

"Probably. We don't have any plans for today, and today's a Saturday. We might as well," I shrug. "We might meet some of the other there, too. Today looks like a nice day out."

Yuudachi nods. "Then after breakfast?"

"Sure."

Yuudachi smiles and puts my bowl of rice in my hands. "Then breakfast time!"

Our two daughters chant back, "Food, food time!"

And our Shiba Inu lets out another one of her horrifyingly cute screams.

I was just a leftenant, back then - doing some wetwork for the navy. And when I say "wetwork", I mean the black ops project for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. A black ops project that recruited girls - specifically, orphan girls - all over Japan and sometimes shipped in from out of the country who were deemed capable of becoming biologically augmented to fight the threat of Abyssal ships that arose back then. It was shady, it was morally controversial, and it involved everything bad that the Japanese public fears. But regardless, it was put into motion, and thus a war that the world, much less Japan, never ended up knowing about was waged and eventually won by such girls. Thus, a morally and ethically questionable black ops project was able to be dismantled at the end of the war and its members successfully integrated into Japanese society, and many of the ship girls, as its soldiers were called, were able to do so by marrying navy officers. Not only was it easy on the government, who needed to keep tabs over the ship girls to make sure they weren't going to expose any military secrets and could rely on us, the navy guys, to make sure nothing bad happened, but it just made sense: practically all the girls who married knew their husbands for a long time during the war before their marriages.

Thus, everyone involved wins: the ship girls didn't have to become decommissioned and scrapped once the war was done, the people involved in the black ops project (it never got a name, that's how secret it was) didn't have to be silenced by the government or anything shady have happened to them, me included, the enemy threat was resolved, and the public never has to know or worry about the fact that the Japanese government funded a program that took in orphan girls and turned them into fighting and killing machines. Nope, they don't need to worry about that, not at all.

I was selected randomly to participate in the black ops project that constructed and directed the ship girl fleet that was produced to combat the Abyssal fleet. Long story short, some terrorists from an international terrorist organization known as "A.A.H.W." stole genetic information from government research facilities around the world and compiled them together to create the blueprint of a sea-based weapon in the of a humanoid being, able to be produced cheaply and en masse. An American special ops force known only as Seal Team Six managed to steal the blueprints, as far as we were told, and they shared the blueprints with every major country in the world so that the Abyssal name vy could be easily overwhelmed, and thus, many nations have ship girl fleets, but all such fleets were universally retired once the Abyssal threat was resolved, though all the governments agreed that they could recall these fleets back to service if such a need arose in case of emergency. It's a lot more complicated than what I've summarized here, but it's as simple as it gets.

"Sandachi, don't give Ishii your toast, it's not good for them," I scold my younger twin daughter, who's trying to sneak a piece of buttered toast to Ishii, our Labrador puppy. Caught red-handed, Sandachi frowns at me.

"But Tou-saaaaaaann..."

"No means no, Sandachi. Ishii's got plenty of food in her own plate. We have treats for her too, so don't give her toast."

Sandachi pouts, the hair flaps that she inherited from her mother folding inwards angrily. "Fine, poi! You're so mean, Tou-san!"

I sigh while Yuudachi just giggles at our discourse.

Back to the point...

I met Yuudachi when I transferred to Yokosuka Naval District. In order to prevent any one commander from having control over the entire ship girl fleet, the Navy broke up control of it by assigning parts of the Japanese ship girl fleet to different naval bases located around the coast of country with roughly equivalently powerful squadrons. In addition, they assigned handlers to many of the ship girls - not all, but a lot of them - to help them train, to provide counseling, and make sure they weren't going to break under military routine and soldier life. After all, they are still soldiers. You can see why a lot of the ship girls ended up marrying after the war was over. In fact, I'd bet that it was part of the Navy's plan to reintegrate the girls back into Japanese society.

Me personally, I was just a nineteen year old scrub, a fresh greenie straight out of naval academy. I didn't really have any life direction set in stone for myself, so my parents told me that I ought to join the military to give my life some meaning, so reluctantly, I did. Imagine their surprise when I showed up at their door after the war was over, when I was twenty-two, and introduced them to my new fiance.

"Ah, honey, you've got some rice stuck on here..." Yuudachi picks a grain of rice off my lip like we're in a slice of life anime and eats it herself.

"You're supposed to feed it back to me," I chuckle. "You messed up! That calls for a punishment!" Saying so dramatically, I swoop my chopsticks down and swipe away a slice of ham.

"A-Ah! Hey! Don't - that's my ham! You've got your own, don't you, poi!?" Yuudachi whines. Even after all these years, Yuudachi still maintains the core elements of why I came to love her so. "Fine - I'll just take this, then!" Yuudachi yanks away my hard-boiled egg, which is one of my favorite breakfast foods.

"A'ight then, I'll be takin' this!" I spiral down into an immature chopstick-fest of stealing each other's food with my wife, and our daughters look on, very entertained.

"Mama and Papa are just like Ishii and Hasashi, ehehe!" Yudahachi giggles, and the puppies, hearing their names being called, hop up onto the side of Yudahachi's chair, cocking their heads as to why they've been called.

We've been together for a decade now, been married for seven, just about. I thought at the time when Yuudachi first started dating that I wouldn't know how to handle one Poi. Now, I've got to deal with three Pois, five if you include our puppies.

I'm surrounded by a family of Pois, but it's alright. The more Solomon Merry-Go-Rounds, the better.