January 4th, 2014.

Just as I'd been told, the naval personnel arrived. And just as I'd been told, they're all ship girls.

I mean, look, I understand the whole female thing about us addressing ships as ladies. All my older superiors and officers do it. And sometimes my classmates comrades, and the younger officers catch themselves doing it from time to time.

But this is too fucking literal. Way too literal.

Enough of my own sentiments for a moment. Today at 0730 hours, five naval personnel - ah fuck it, I'm just calling them fleet girls - were helied in from Yokosuka Naval Yard up in mainland Japan. Their names are Fubuki, Inazuma, Murakumo, Samidare, and Sazanami.

Sweet fucking Jesus, talk about bringing up a sensitive topic, this is a goddamn reincarnation of old war wounds, isn't it? They're the old Japanese World War Two destroyer ships, all of them! They freakin' moefied them and turned the ships themselves into goddamn teenagers! My brain hurts already. Anyway...

First Fubuki-Class Destroyer, Type 1, naval number DD-35, 吹雪, or Fubuki. I'm trying to practice my kanji as much as I can. Fubuki means "blizzard" in Japanese. What a badass name for a rather ordinary teenage Japanese girl...or so she comes off as. I mean, she's basically your typical, dare I even say, stereotypical Japanese teenage girl - quiet, talks only when spoken to whenever I'm around or when she's on duty, courteus, blah blah, you probably already know. Seems like she's going to be cooperative, at least...or so I hope. She doesn't seem like the kind to cause trouble at all, so I'm gonna be on my guard that if something goes wrong between me and her, it's probably my fault somehow.

Fourth Akatsuki-Class Destroyer, Fubuki-Class Type 3, 電, or Inazuma. Inazuma means "lightning". Again, a badass name for a super-shy girl. She doesn't even look like a teenager, more like a sixth grader, that's how short she is! Holy fuck, what were they thinking when they...is "constructed" even the word for it? When they "made" her? God, that sounds so wrong. I mean, I was told to command them like I do the crews for normal ships, which I've done, but man, it's way different giving orders to crews of dozens or even hundreds of men on a ship than it is telling girls who look like they should be in middle school what to do. If anyone doesn't want to believe me, they can take my place and see for it themselves. But for some reason, the other girls told me not to try to piss her off too badly, otherwise she'll turn particularly nasty. I have no idea what they mean by that...but I'm not stupid enough to try and find out.

Fifth Fubuki-Class Destroyer, Type 1, naval number DD-39, 叢雲, or Murakumo. Murakumo means "gathering clouds", which, I guess is a fitting name. If you glance at her quickly, her hair kind of looks like lofty clouds, but I don't know why there are those two head arrays just floating over her head. What kind of miraculous science allows that to be possible? Whatever, it gives her a bit of a unique look, and it'll help me remember her name, so it's fine. But she has this snarky sarcasm in her tone when she talked to me, like she's looking down on me for not having that great of Japanese. Maybe it's also because she's resentful of having an American commander like me, which, I mean, I guess I can understand, you know given Japan's and America's relationship during the war that they were in when they were ships. I mean, I myself am resentful of being here in the first place. But because of that, I'm really not looking forward to working with her. I can tell our gears are gonna grind from day one...

Sixth Shiratsuyu-Class Destroyer, 五月雨, or Samidare. Samidare apparently refers to the rainy season between spring and summer. She's easily the prettiest among the girls, my God. Like, I've seen girls back home who've dyed their hair blue, but they all turned out to look not so great. At least, in my opinion. But man, whatever they did to make her hair look like that worked out damn well. Plus, she's got the longest hair I've ever fucking seen. Like, that could be a world record, the ratio of the length of her hair to her height. She's super nice and understanding, every time I stumbled over my words while speaking my broken-as-fuck Japanese, she finishes my sentence for me. Like, Inazuma's like Fubuki but much more shy, but Samidare's on the other end of the spectrum, cheerful, polite, and unafraid to speak to me, unlike most of them. I could even get myself to like her...just maybe, maybe.

Ninth Ayanami-Class Destroyer, Fubuki-Class Type 2, naval number DD-53, 漣, or Sazanami. Sazanami means "ripples", as in ripples in the water, I guess. She's really friendly around the other girls, but she's like Fubuki around me. Plus, she's got pink hair and got a rabbit hanging around her on her shoulder. She's a bit of an oddball, all I'll say.

So now it's me, five ship girls, and a entire base to ourselves. Now I have no more excuse to say it's rather lonely here.

They didn't have much to move into their dorms. The dorms were already divided up into different ship classes and types - the destroyers dorm is fucking huge. It's bigger than all the other dorms combined...I guess I should expect a lot more destroyers later on. But the thing is, when I tried to help them move their stuff in, they stared at me like I was a damn freak. Even Samidare didn't want me to help them, I could tell. They tried to convince me that they could handle it on their own - like, when I said they didn't have much to move in, they still had stuff like their bedding, bedsheets, casual clothes, and other stuff that ordinary girls their age would happen to have into their dorms, so it was still going to take some time. It got to the point where I told them straight up, "This is an order; let me help you move in," and only then would they let me. It felt like a bad mistake the entire time - I mean, yeah, I guess I was intruding in their own dorms, which, as a guy, that would sound pretty suspect, but I was just helping them move in, that's all. Surely they knew that. I've had other superior officers help me move my shit around when I was serving in the Navy, even at Hargrave, too. But it was clear that because I was there, everyone was uncomfortable, and because of that, I became uncomfortable too. Who knew that just trying to help would screw everything up. Is it because they don't expect their own officers to help them with personal things like moving their stuff into their new dorms? I don't know, it could be because of any weird reason. I should've expected this; that there'd be so many things that're done differently here than what I'm used to back in America. I'm kicking myself over how I didn't take this into consideration. That's one of the jobs as a navy officer; you take everything into consideration, no matter what you're doing. So my failure to do that is irritating the shit out of me.

This whole thing happened again later on, earlier tonight. When it came to dinnertime at 1830 hours, I was already in the kitchen looking at the groceries they had helied in with the girls so we'd have something to cook and eat for at least a week or so, and Inazuma and Fubuki come in and immediately try to chase me out. Well, not exactly chase me out, just tell me that they could handle the cooking themselves. My first instinct was to tell them that I would make dinner just for tonight for courtesy's sake, you know, since they're girls and I just wanted to make myself at least somewhat likeable. It'd be bothersome to have to work with five Murakumos, after all. But I remembered the whole thing with helping them move their stuff in, and I let them make their own dinner - well, they made some for me, too, which, honestly, I was surprised about. I'm used to having to deal with sailors not bother to make me my dinner back in the Navy, for a variety of reasons, so the fact that they even bothered to remember mine was a pleasant surprise, needless to say. I thought I'da made it awkward enough already with the whole dorm thing that they wouldn't want to make me dinner, but I guess I was wrong about that. Even still...

You know what, I'll go talk to Samidare tomorrow. I won't go talk to them now, it's 2250 hours right now and their curfew is 2300 hours. I'm sure Samidare will be willing to explain what's going on.

I bet that the girls are nervous being here under my command, the command of a foreigner, the command of a twenty-year-old American commander. But I'm also willing to bet that the girls don't know that I'm just as nervous as they are. I don't wanna make myself look like an idiot or an uncultured American asshole, I've had to deal with plenty of people like that myself already in the military and in college. It's too bad that all I wanna do is do my job right, but I won't be able to because of all these obscure differences between me and the girls under my command that I don't yet understand or can even identify correctly.