Foreword:

And we are back to our usual programming. As with all entries in this anthology of sorts, I use my OC Commander (or rather Admiral, since I use a mix of Azur Lane and Kancolle in my fics) Hiroshi Nakajima. He had a bit of an introduction in the fic I did for Takao's birthday/launch day. I'll probably make a more formal introduction fic one of these days, but don't expect that too soon, since this is a really laid-back, SoL anthology so I don't see the rush for it.


The sun had barely peeked over the waves, and already the base was stirring to life. Seagulls were beginning to squawk, while the skeleton crew of the night shift lazily retired to their quarters as their daytime counterparts began to emerge for their morning exercises...

Inside the bedroom of the base commander's quarters, Hiroshi laid out a freshly ironed shirt and its matching skirt onto the bed. It was the least he could do to help Takao get ready for the day faster, especially since it was her turn to cook breakfast today.

He took a deep breath in. Takao's Western-style cooking lessons with the various American and European girls on the base must have been paying off, for that was without a doubt the smell of frying bacon.

However, there was little time for Hiroshi to dwell on this thought, for as soon as his nose registered the smell of bacon, his ear was pierced by a sudden yelp, also in the direction of the kitchen. Before he knew it, he had already dashed through the door between their bedroom and the main body of their quarters.

"What happened, Takao-chan?" He asked hurriedly as he made eye-contact with the woman in question, who was frozen in place in the corner between the stove and the sink, her usually floppy canine ears now partially erect.

She slowly raised her hand and began gesturing towards the kitchen floor.

"Cockroach," she whispered.

Hiroshi's heart stopped his mind processed what Takao had said. Of all the things, it just had to be a roach…

His eyes were glued to the floor as he approached the kitchen's entrance while continually repeating, 'How bad could it be?" in his head to steel his nerves.

As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he received his answer – a monstrous cockroach, perhaps 10 centimeters in length, sat dead center of the room, seemingly unaware of the woman staring at it in horror, and the man who had just laid eyes on it...

...Until Hiroshi himself yelped as well.

Alarmed by the sudden noise, the roach scurried towards its closest shelter – underneath the stove.

Seeing that the critter was dashing straight towards her, Takao screamed as she scrambled out of the way and towards Hiroshi. They mutually clung to each other, shivering, while they stared at the stove, wishing for the roach to somehow magically disappear.

"Let's go get your katana," Hiroshi suggested, coming to terms that they would have to deal with the accursed bug themselves.

Takao silently nodded in agreement.


Having retrieved Takao's sword, the two returned to the kitchen to begin their search.

However, they had already encountered a problem – someone had to go and look underneath the stove and see if the roach was still there...

For a moment, Takao and Hiroshi stood in silence, staring at each other to try and pressure the other to volunteer to take a glance into the abyss.

Hiroshi was confident that he could outlast Takao. That was, however, before she did her best impression of a begging puppy - her frown deepened and her pupils dilated as she tilted her head off to the side. How could he say no to that?

Hiroshi gulped as his poker face shattered, "Okay, you win Takao-chan…"

He heard Takao breathe a drawn-out sigh of relief as he pulled out his phone and got into a prone position in front of the stove. His heart rate was rising exponentially as each second passed - if the bug was there, then it would surely come running at him.

Then, he remembered that Takao was covering him – she had protected him from Sirens with her blade many times before, so surely a little roach would be a walk in the park for her, right? With a final deep breath, he activated the phone's flashlight…

…Which revealed nothing but the floor tiles and dust.


With their backs towards each other, Takao and Hiroshi crept through their living room, eyes peeled for any signs of their enemy.

Hiroshi whispered, "If we don't find this damn thing in the next 5 minutes, we should just-"

"Sshhh…" Takao interrupted as her ears began to twitch. After pinpointing the direction from which the sound had come from, she tapped Hiroshi's back to get his attention and pointed over to the wall behind their TV, "I heard something from over there."

And sure enough, when Hiroshi traced the line from Takao's index finger to the wall, an unmistakable dark oval figure emerged from behind the cover of the TV set – it was indeed the cockroach they were looking for.

"Well done, Takao-chan!" He congratulated with a soft applause.

"Thank you, Hiro," she whispered back, her set of canine ears happily twitching up and down.

She then offered her katana to Hiroshi, much to his confusion.

"Why are you giving this to me?" Hiroshi asked, taking a step back.

"What? I thought you were going to kill it?" Takao responded with her own question, equally confused.

Hiroshi's mouth dropped open slightly before he composed himself and repeated, "I thought you were going to kill it. What's the matter?"

"W-well, uh… Atago was the one who usually took care of bugs for us in our dorm, not me…" She looked towards the floor and explained, withdrawing her katana and clutching it towards her chest. "What do you usually do when you see cockroaches here?"

"It depends on who's nearby…" He awkwardly smiled before adding with a raised index finger, "As they say, a good leader should know how to relegate tasks!"

It was at this moment that the couple realized that neither one of them was not up to the task of killing a single cockroach, even if they wanted to. However, that cockroach still needed to be killed, but neither Hiroshi nor Takao wanted to accept the task and embarrass themselves by being unable to carry it out.

"Hiroshi, please!" Takao begged, clapping her hands together. She paused to rake her head for an excuse to give her an edge in her argument before continuing in a desperate tone, just barely below shouting-volume now, "You know, if you're scared of just a single roach, how do I know that you won't have a breakdown on our next sortie?"

"A roach and a Siren are two completely different things!" He snapped back,before immediately going on the offensive, "Just think of that roach as part of your daily training!"

She responded with a shiver, "There's no way I would ever add something like that to my routine! Killing bugs won't help improve my bladework!"

Knock!

Both Takao and Hiroshi flinched before turning their attention away from each other and towards their front door – they weren't expecting any visitors this early in the morning.

However, that was the least of their concerns, as Takao noticed an infernal buzzing sound heading her way. On instinct, she grabbed Hiroshi by the shoulders and hit the deck, dragging him down with her.

Hiroshi was just about to complain and question Takao about why she had done that when he heard the buzzing sound passing overhead. In sync with Takao, he turned his head upwards towards the sound, and found his worse fear to be true – the cockroach was flying, and it was headed towards their front door...

It was then that the door was flung open, and a concerned Atago rushed in. Immediately, she spotted the incoming bug and in the blink of an eye, she unsheathed her katana and sliced the air in front of her.

Two cockroach halves gracefully fell to the floor below as Atago inspected her blade – the cut was so quick and clean that there was not even a single spec of blood on it. Satisfied, she stylistically twirled the katana a few times before sheathing the blade.

"Ara, all of this commotion I heard was over a single roach? How cute~" Atago playfully teased as she moved to stand directly over Takao and Hiroshi, who were still on the floor.

As the shock and awe of seeing Atago cut down their enemy faded away, Hiroshi and Takao finally came to their senses and scrambled to their feet.

"A-Atago!" Takao stammered, her cheeks bright red.

Before Takao could say any more, Atago had moved in front of her and began straightening her hair, using it as an excuse to whisper into her ear, "Didn't you tell Onee-chan that you wouldn't be scared of bugs anymore when you moved out of our dorm?"

"Enough teasing, Atago," Hiroshi firmly ordered. He wasn't sure exactly what Atago had told her twin, but Takao's shudder just now meant that it was probably a tease. "Why are you here?"

"Yes, Admiral," Atago said in a far more conducted manner as she took a step back from Takao. "I came here on behalf of Ooyodo to find out what was taking you two so long to get ready. Today's planned training exercise has yet to begin due to your absence."

In sync, Hiroshi and Takao asked, "How late are we?"

Atago put forth her best, gentle smile, "Twenty minutes…"

The couple turned to look at each other as a sense of dread overcame them – only Hiroshi was dressed, while Takao wore only an apron on top of a plain shirt and shorts, never mind the fact that their breakfast still lay on the stove, half-cooked...

"Just leave the cooking to Onee-chan and go get dressed, Takao-chan" Atago hummed, unstrapping the apron from her twin and then putting it on herself. She turned to Hiroshi and pointed to the split cockroach corpse on the floor, "And you can dispose of that, right Hiroshi-kun?"

He winced and glanced at the roach halves, then back at Atago, who now had a scarily sadistic smile on her face as she asked again with the tilt of her head, "Right?"

"Sure..."

And with the clap of her hands, Atago returned to her normal, cheery self, "Thanks, Hiroshi-kun~ I knew that I can always count on you!"

As Atago skipped over to their kitchen, Hiroshi leaned over to Takao, "She sure is scary sometimes, isn't she?"

Takao nodded, putting her mouth to Hiroshi's ear and adding, "Indeed. I would rather deal with the cockroach over an angry Atago..."

"Hey!" Atago's ears twitched as she glared from over her shoulder, causing the two to flinch and look towards her, "I can hear you! Need I remind you two that you're 25 minutes late now? Hurry up so we can leave!"

"Yes, Atago!" The two said simultaneously as they scrambled to do the task Atago had bid them and finally get their day started.


A/N

"I'm going to finish this in a week."

- Me, last week.

A month ago, I encountered a huge cockroach in my house that I was too scared to approach. While I was trying to convince someone else in my family to kill it, it disappeared, and I thankfully never saw it again. Thinking about it later (and by that, I mean I was losing sleep that night over the thought of this huge roach somewhere in the house), I thought 'encountering and dealing with a cockroach' would be a nice writing prompt, so here we are.

Oh, and please don't be afraid to read something else I write just because I use Kancolle characters as well… They won't bite!

On Macross Horizon (if anyone reading this even reads that)... Actually, I haven't worked too much on it since last time I put out a chapter (approximately 2 months ago), but I'm feeling motivated on it, especially since it'll be 1 year since I posted it next week! Expect it within the next 1-2 weeks!

Cya next time.