Quest

Daisuke frowned at the sock on the floor outside the hotel room door and muttered to himself as he pulled out his key-card for the room he and Haruki had been assigned to while in Tokyo for this latest P.R. drive.

"Damnit Haruki, you're a grown man now. I should not have to be picking this shit up after you."

Swiping the card through the door, Daisuke simply opens the door and kicks the offending article of clothing in rather than bothering to reach down and pick it up.

"Yo Haru? I think you left a sock- ohgodthatwassupposedtobeonthedoorknobwasn'tit?"

Akagi screams and dives under the covers while a box of hastily thrown strawberries nails Daisuke in the face.

"WHAT THE HELL MAN! GET THE HELL OUT!"

Kaga sighs.

Or at least as best she can while being quiet.

All she wanted to do was just pick up her spare training arrows from the room she and Akagi shared to help with the AA practice. Except now she's been stuck in the closet for the last five minutes waiting for the other two to leave after they carelessly stumbled in playing sucky-face.

God, how long was it going to take before they'd finally come up for air and leave. Had Akagi been doing sub training lately or something?

Boredly she picks at the edge of a mothball as the minutes continue to crawl by.

Then she hears Akagi's giggle as the voice of her beau states his next intentions.

"And next comes off the bra~"

Yeah, she wasn't going to stick around for this.

Steeling herself and schooling her face into an expressionless mask while making sure not to look at anything other than her true goal, Kaga throws open the closet door. Immediately there is stunned silence, which she deftly ignores as she picks up her quiver of training arrows and then marches to the door, resolutely not looking in their direction.

Seeing as the silence continues after she closes the door and is finally back in the blessed freedom of the hallway, Kaga figures they must have been more stunned than she thought.

"Hey Haruki, you got any hot coffee? I can't figure out how make these new machines- OH CRAP I'M SORRY!"

"GET OUT!"

Akagi frowns through the driving rain as she finally notices what is around the fletching of Kaga's arrows and the string of her bow now that she removes it from the plastic and prepares to re-string it in preparation for the coming battle.

"Um... what is that?"

"An experiment."

Kaga dutifully ignores the fact that she looks like the victim of some prank and now removes a latex protected arrow from her quiver, discarding the offending article keeping the fletching dry.

"I have heard that soldiers would do something similar to keep weapons and keep sakes dry and clean in combat zones. I was thinking that since there was some sort of reflection of effect whenever our rigging takes damage we should as ships, was the reverse true and would trying to keep our equipment dry rather than just getting soaked have an effect?"

Akagi frowns.

"But where did you get that many condoms?"

Kaga shrugs.

"I found them in a packet on your desk. Don't worry, I will reimburse you for them."

The promise of payback isn't enough to quell Akagi's frustration.

"WE WERE GOING TO USE THOSE TONIGHT!"

The garden behind Hoshou's restaurant is beautiful. It helps that it's a perfect night.

Everything is perfect.

It's been a perfect evening, with a perfect dinner, with her perfect man, under the perfect stars, but now... now it's even better.

It's like something out of a movie. The perfect set up to-

"Did you two want to have any tea?"

Haruki with draws his hand as if he were burned and Akagi looks at Hoshou with mortification and horror.

"Mooooooom!"

"Remember to use protection!"

Oh god, somebody sink her now.

It's not exactly the most comfortable place she ever imagined getting it on, but with the others off wandering through the woods and nobody expecting them back for a while as they "clean up the picnic", Akagi just goes with the flow. It's lovely sunset anyway, almost picturesque, like a scene out of a movi-

The sound of something thumping solidly against the glass makes both of them scream and jump up in surprise, only to find Kongou pressed against the window of the car.

"Hey, is that tea you got in the-"

The battleship pauses as she finally sees through the window tint, then awkwardly unsticks herself from the glass.

"... oh... uh... sorry..."

A few seconds of silence pass with nobody quite sure what to say.

"Well, uh... Carry on then."

Then with about as much subtlety as she can, Kongou sheepishly disappears down the hiking trail once more.

"We need to do something about Daisuke and Kaga constantly turning up."

"Oh thank you! I, uhhh... I was actually just about to bring that up."

"Bring what up? I heard my n- ohshitI'msorry!"

"OUT!"

"God damnit Dai!"

The captain and the aircraft carrier look at one another, and then at their opposite numbers.

"Come on Haruki, you know I don't like to drink."

"It's just a few drinks bro! Let your hair down for once. Maybe it'll even do you some good."

On the other side of the table, Kaga stares down her own beverage resolutely.

"This seems rather... odd."

"It's supposed to be like that. Just drink it, you've had sake before. How should this be any different?"

"Sake doesn't look like a traffic light collided with a fruit salad."

Meanwhile Daisuke finally gives into his brother's requests.

"Fine, but this is peer-pressure I tell you! Peer-pressure! I'm stopping at four drinks though."

He doesn't stop at four drinks

Neither does Kaga.

"I didn't realise Kaga could sing like that!"

"I didn't realise Daisuke was so bad!"

The two of them laugh at the scores of digital blackmail they have now picked up on their phones from just this one night.

"Should we have left them at that Karaoke bar like that?"

Haruki just grins.

"Don't worry, Dai's a big boy. Even if he's plastered, he's responsible enough to look after the both of them. I'd swear it's hard wired into him."

The thought then makes him laugh.

"Knowing Dai, they might just end up spending the night at a hotel. He missed his stop once, and now hates taking the train whenever he's drunk beyond a certain point."

The feeling of a hand teasingly playing with one of the buttons of his shirt makes him look down and find Akagi now giving him a sultry look.

"Good, because with everyone else out, that means we have the ~entire~ dorm to ourselves. ~All night along~"

Though they do not know it at the time, there actually is one other person in the dorm.

Due to a mix up, it turned out Kongou was not actually needed on duty, and could easily have gone into town on leave with her friends. Turning into bed early out of annoyance, that was sadly not the end of her day of frustration.

At some point she had woken up because she thought someone was being murdered.

As it turns out, the walls were just really thin.

That was also three hours ago.

Correction, four hours according to her clock.

As the boundlessly energetic couple decide to go for whatever round this is because she long ago lost count, Kongou miserably rolls over and drags her pillow over her head.

She is definitely going to have to invest in ear-plugs or some sound proofing in the future because OH DEAR CHRIST SHE CAN STILL HEAR EVERYTHING.

Poor Kongo. Have some youtube music at her expense: EPqOx-Smqrc

Anyway: This story is a collaborative effort between myself, Mashadarof402, lt_agn02, and Lord K. This Chapter was written by Lord K.