Friday, February 14th, 2014.

The fact that Valentine's Day just completely flew over my head was rectified for me when I walked into the mess hall today to help Mamiya and Irako with this morning's breakfast and lunch cooking, and instead I found a mess hall filled with chocolate and ship girls. I haven't seen a scene of chaos that hectic in a long time. As soon as I entered, it became one of those awkward moments where you take a step into a place where you didn't know you couldn't enter, but as soon as you enter, you realize it, and everyone inside knows it, too, so there's that brief moment of awkwardness that ensues where you and the people inside just stare at each other before either of you realize that you're not supposed to be there.

I did see Yamato with her hair tied up in an apron, though. I didn't expect to see her there, to be honest.

So anyway, long story short, they all screamed bloody murder and nearly threw me out of the entire base into the water.

At the time, I remember being extremely baffled. I haven't "celebrated" Valentine's Day in years, ever since high school. I've never personally bothered giving anyone chocolate, much less received some myself, and why the fuck would an institution like the Army or the Navy have a reason to celebrate it in the middle of wartime. So I decided that I didn't have a choice but to go back to my office to begin the morning paperwork for the day, and as soon as I glanced at the calender, that's when I realized what today was.

As I sat down to begin my paperwork, I sincerely hoped that I wasn't about to get chocolates from every single girl at base. Luckily, as it turns out, I didn't have to go through that, but I still ended up with a small pile of homemade or store-bought wrapped chocos on my office desk, half of which I brought into my own room to snack on during nights like this. In fact, I'm eating some of Kiyoshimo's, and her homemades are pretty good. Then again, I'm no food critic, so anything that tastes anything remotely good and not obviously butchered is good food or chocolate to me. I'm afraid I can't say the same about Hiei's, though.

It's pretty funny, now that I think back on today, because I can remember the exact order in which the girls came into my office to hand me chocolates. And it's hilarious, too, 'cause it was so easy for me to tell what they thought of me. I know the whole Japanese tradition of Valentine's Day, the "obligation" chocolates and the "friends" chocolates and the "more than just friends" chocolates stuff. Today was basically a day where I got to see what the girls thought of me. If they gave me chocolates at all, that was a good sign. If it looked like the wrapping was fancy, that was also another good sign. If it was homemade, that was the best sign by far.

It was the submarines first - Imuya and Shioi (homemades), then Kiyoshimo (she said it was homemade, but judging the wrapping, she probably bought it from a store off-base somewhere, but I'll trust her), then Fubuki (homemades), then Ooi (store-bought, but I'm surprised she even bothered getting me any at all), then Ooyodo and Akashi (both homemades), then Suzuya (obviously homemade), then Murakumo (obviously store-bought), then the two battleship sisters Kirishima and Hiei (homemades, but what the fuck is wrong with Hiei's), then the carriers (Souryuu's was homemade, Akagi's was store-bought, why that is, don't ask), then the heavy cruiser sisters Atago and Takao (Atago's was homemade while Takao's was store-bought, Takao probably still wants her secretary ship position back), then Shouhou (surprisingly, homemades), then Houshou (same deal with Ooi, I'm surprised she even made me any at all, and homemades at that), then Yamato (hers was the most professional-looking by far), then Yahagi (homemade, she seems to have made it with Yamato since the wrappings are the same), then Sazanami (store-bought), then Samidare (homemades), then Hatsuharu (she struggled with making homemades but finally managed to pull it off just before dinnertime), then finally, Inazuma.

I had to cancel today's sortie so that the girls who weren't as talented as the others at making homemade chocolate could finish in time, and Inazuma was the last one to finish. Literally, it was well past dinnertime when she came to give me her chocolates. In fact, I was already in my room, getting ready to go to bed and write this entry.

Inazuma apologized for not being able to make me chocolates in time like everyone else. She said she had to try and try again just to get the flavor right, and she'd had accidents upon accidents just to make even one set of chocos. You could smell it on her, too, the effort she'd put in, because she just smelled of chocolate from a good distance away. I accepted them and told Inazuma to go take a bath in the docks.

But when I opened Inazuma's box of chocolates up to check them out, I found a small photo depicting Inazuma with three other girls, presumably ship girls since they were wearing similar uniforms. They're probably her ship sisters. So I tracked Inazuma down before she went into the docks to give the photo back, since I didn't know why the photo was in the box of chocos.

As soon as she saw that I had the photo in my hand, Inazuma snatched it away and bolted into the docks. That's the fastest I've ever seen her move.

I might know why or how that photo ended up the box of chocos Inazuma gave me, but she probably misses them, judging by her reaction

Then again, it never seemed that way. She gets along just fine with the other destroyers, and she's good friends with the submarines when lots of the other ship girls keep their distance.

So I made a quick detour to Shinsengumi to consult Houshou, where Atago and Takao were having a late-night drink together with Yahagi and Yamato. I thanked them all for their Valentine's Day chocolates before Houshou came to talk to me.

I asked her if she'd been keeping an eye on Inazuma lately, if she's been showing any signs of loneliness or anything like that. I explained to her what had happened just a bit earlier, that Inazuma had given me her chocolates but had left a photo of herself and her three other ship sisters inside, either intentionally or unintentionally (probably unintentionally). Houshou did say that whenever she saw Inazuma, she'd always have this air of quietness around her, like she wasn't really truly happy or content with herself, though she never confirmed it herself. Seeing that Fubuki and Inazuma are technically ship sisters, I asked why Inazuma didn't interact with her more often, because I don't necessarily recall them being on the friendliest of terms. Houshou pointed out that the Fubuki-Class, because they're mainly a destroyer class divided into three types, are more close towards their own ship sisters within their own Types. Fubuki is obviously Type I, but Inazuma and the girls in that photo (I'm guessing) are Type III.

I thanked Houshou for the info and also for the chocolates she gave me earlier in the day. I told her that after saying something that sensitive the other day, I didn't really expect to be given something from her today. In fact, I didn't expect to get any chocolates at all, because Valentine's Day wasn't even on my radar.

And then she told me,

"Life is certainly like a box of chocolates. You didn't know what you were going to get today, did you?"

When the hell did Houshou watch Forrest Gump?

I went back to my room to write this entry while eating some of Inazuma's chocolates. I can taste the goddamn effort she put into this, because this's by far the best fucking chocolate I've had in my life. Like I said, I'm no food critic, but I can have my own sense of what foods I like. And so far, Inazuma's chocolate is God-tier. From now on, I think I can't help but compare all future chocolates that I eat to Inazuma's, see if they hold a candle to the God-tier chocolate that is Inazuma's cooking. Hers might not be the most fancily wrapped or the most beautifully arranged, but for a simple guy like me who doesn't give a crap about superfluous shit and is only looking for taste, Inazuma's is by far the best chocolates I've gotten today, and in my whole life, for that matter.

Whoop, I smeared the bottom of the page. But that's okay, it can stay there.

Matter of fact, it should stay there.