I Would Become A Constellation (To Be Next To You), 3/6

[astrangestorm]

In the month he’d served aboard the Suzaku, Nino had not yet been to deck 4. Decks 4 and 5 were home to the officers, those who’d graduated from the JSA Academy or JSA Flight School. Aside from the Captain and XO, everyone with a rank, from the freshest academy graduates entering the fleet with the rank of Ensign up to Lieutenant Commander was quartered on these two decks.

Nino knew that Jun was somewhere around here on deck 4, though Nino had not yet been invited for a visit. He remembered being in Jun’s quarters on the Hakutaka before, though. It was much larger than Nino’s. Once you got past Lieutenant Junior Grade and into the Lieutenant rankings, you were somehow entitled to more room. On the Hakutaka, Jun had a sitting room and a separate bedroom as well as a full bathroom all to himself. No sharing.

Nino expected a similar set-up had been given to Sakurai Sho. In his day-to-day life, Nino didn’t really think too hard about things like officers’ quarters. Most of the people he worked with were enlisted crew. Most of the people on the ship were enlisted crew, whether they worked on the flight deck, in facilities management, in the cafeteria, in the cargo bay. The officers ran the show. The officers flew the shuttles and the Kitsunes.

Emerging from the lift, he wasn’t surprised to see the separation between doors. On deck 8 where Nino was stuck, his nearest neighbor was only a few feet away down the corridor. On deck 4, they could probably fit three or four enlisted crew quarters in the space they allotted for one officer’s quarters. And Nino suspected the view was much better too.

On deck 8, Nino had a small window just behind his bed in the bulkhead, thick glass that could probably take a few dozen rounds before shattering. The glass was tinted green, lending the vast darkness of space a rather sickly color. Nino usually left the window covered, only opening the cover when they were in orbit of some planet or asteroid, when the ship wasn’t screaming through space at sublight speed. In Jun’s old quarters the glass had been twice as large, no tint. The stars still streamed by but you didn’t feel like you were submerged underwater in a strange green ocean.

The deck was similar in construction to deck 8. Crew quarters along the exterior bulkheads, crew facilities in the center. While deck 8 housed bathing facilities for men and women along with a cafeteria, library, and the 8-Ball crew lounge, deck 4 didn’t have to waste space on baths.

The cafeteria was twice as large, and peering through the glass, Nino saw that they had a fancier set-up. Instead of long tables and benches there were booths, cushioned chairs. Instead of a library, deck 4 had a bigger lounge and Nino nearly gasped when he saw the full bar in the center of the room, a bartender crewman on duty mixing drinks even at this hour, most likely for the third shifters who’d just come off for the day. The 8-Ball just had a refrigerator stocked with cans of beer. The officers’ gym was also on deck 4, though you couldn’t see inside. Nino suspected the equipment in there was better too.

In his jumpsuit and ready for the day, Nino found Sho’s quarters on the starboard side, shaking off his jealousy. He pressed the buzzer, holding his parenting tablet in hand. According to the log, Shota had woken up five times during the night. Sho had checked in within a few minutes each time, though on the last one it had taken him twelve and a half minutes. Nino was not looking forward to his own watch that night.

Sho’s door slid open, though he didn’t look as tired as Nino had expected. He wasn’t in uniform yet, and Nino gulped at the sight of him. The standard gray sleeveless top over a non-standard pair of red boxer briefs. Sho had his toothbrush in his mouth, was still working it over his molars when the door opened. Nino’s eyes widened at the biceps he’d been hiding under his uniform jacket…

“Morning,” Sho said with minimal cheer, pulling his toothbrush out of his mouth, his lips covered in foamy white paste. “You’re early.”

“Thought you’d appreciate it,” Nino managed to squeak out, trying to look into Sho’s face, not at the way his underwear clung to his thighs. Not at his muscles, not at his collarbone poking out from the low collar of his shirt.

“Come on in,” Sho said, apparently not embarrassed to be half naked in front of him. He simply turned around, resuming his brushing and walking off.

And then Nino got to see the perfect, round curve of his ass in his underwear as he headed back to his bathroom. Now he knew that this was going to be a very difficult month indeed.

“Have a seat!” Sho called from his bathroom, and Nino heard the sound of his sink turn on.

He stood there in the sitting room, fumbling against the wall for the button to close Sho’s door. The sitting room alone was larger than Nino’s entire quarters. It had the same sparse furniture that Nino remembered from Jun’s quarters on the Hakutaka. A pair of blue armchairs and a matching loveseat, a low metal table in the middle. There was a bookcase built into the wall, and Sakurai’s was so full that he had books stacked on top of each other haphazardly. Whatever didn’t fit was apparently left on his table, the thing covered in books with others shoved underneath. Paper books. Very old-fashioned, Nino thought with a smile.

Where Jun’s old quarters had artwork of various Kitsune models over the centuries covering the walls, Sho’s walls were more like a travel guidebook. The sitting room walls were covered in framed photographs. Beaches from Earth. A domed city he recognized as one of the larger American colonies on Neptune’s moon, Triton. A photo of Sho with some other people gesturing out the window of some ship or space station, the five of them with silly expressions as they pointed to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

There were more photos on the walls of Sho’s bedroom, Nino passing through the archway. Even Sho’s bed was bigger, Nino thought grimly, envious of all the space that Sho had to himself here. Sho who was always out exercising or working or socializing. His bedroom was a mess, the sheets askew. His window was covered up, probably to block out starlight while he slept. Nino found Shota perched on the chair at Sho’s personal computer console. There was a framed photograph beside Sho’s computer screen, the same people from the Great Red Spot photo.

In this photograph they were somewhere Nino didn’t recognize. They were in some domed city, but there were twin suns off in the distance behind them. The surface of the planet or moon all around them glowed, almost as though it was a sheet of ice reflecting the sunslight.

“Shin-Benzaiten.”

Nino turned, seeing Sho in the doorway of his bathroom. At some point he’d slipped into his uniform trousers, was reaching for his jacket where it hung in the closet. He was going to hide those arms, Nino thought regretfully.

“Sorry for snooping,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of space.”

Sho didn’t seem to mind, pulling on his jacket. “That was taken on Shin-Benzaiten maybe…seven years ago? My dad was assigned way out there for a while.”

Nino took another look at the picture. A smiling older man who looked just like Sho, but with thinning hair and spectacles. Beside him, presumably, was Sho’s mother. The other two Nino guessed were siblings - a younger sister and brother. Shin-Benzaiten was about as far from Earth as you could get in JSA territory. Even with a ship that could jump reasonable distances, it would take months to get home.

“He’s JSA?”

“The diplomat side,” Sho explained, doing up his buttons. “Not the military side. He used to be the JSA Ambassador to NASA. When I was a kid, I visited a bunch of the American colonies. When I got to the academy, he got assigned to headquarters so he was home for a while. Then once I was in the fleet, they started bumping him all over the place. Shin-Benzaiten, I used up almost a year’s worth of shore leave getting there and back, and I could only stay for a week.”

Nino had never been outside of Japan’s territory, whether on Earth or elsewhere in the quadrant. Even his shore leave activities had brought him to Japan-owned resorts and colonies. “So you’ve traveled a lot?”

Sho nodded. “When I was growing up, it was mostly on school breaks though. My mom works for JSA too, she’s an instructor at the academy. Even with my dad’s job, she didn’t want us growing up all over the place. We stayed home in Tokyo with her when Dad was on assignment. I mostly saw him during the summer break.”

Nino frowned in sympathy. “My parents are chefs,” Nino explained, lifting Shota from the chair and sitting down. “Chefs in Tokyo, I mean. They’ve never even left Earth.”

“Chefs, huh?” Sho answered, looking impressed. “Do they do catering?”

Nino shrugged. He sent messages back and forth with his parents all the time, but they rarely talked about work. They didn’t understand much about Nino’s job, other than that he “fixed things” and the two of them mostly talked to Nino about weird parent things like what the neighbors were up to, taxes, the influx of “asteroid types” moving to Earth for a lower cost of living.

“Maybe. Why?”

Sho grinned. “My dad’s going to be 65 in a few months. Mom wants to throw him a big party. Just curious.”

“And what do I get for the referral?” Nino asked, spinning a little in Sho’s chair.

Sho pointed at him, looking pleased with himself. “My dad can get travel visas for just about anywhere. If your parents ever do want to get out of town or out of the solar system, I’ve got the hook-up. As far as leaving JSA territory goes.”

“They’re just about as lazy as me, Sho-san, but I’ll pass along your generous offer.”

Sho bustled around his messy bedroom, finding a comb under his nightstand and hurrying it through his hair. “So where will you keep Shota while you work? Flight deck’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Nino admitted. “But we’ve got some backpacks. Some of the crew prefer hauling their tools around that way instead of at their waist. I was thinking of carrying Shota around on my back.”

“That sounds cute,” Sho said, laughing gently.

Nino got to his feet, feeling a little too comfortable already sitting around Sho’s quarters. “Well, I know you’ve got a lot of work to do. So I’ll bring Shota to you after my shift, then I’ll expect you tonight?”

“That sounds perfect.”

Sho escorted him to the door, Nino taking in a few last glimpses of Sho’s quarters. The clutter, the photos, the stacks of books. The Lieutenant seemed like an even bigger nerd than he had at first glance. Then again, when they’d met, he’d been updating Nori star charts one by one…by choice. He should have known.

“Good luck,” Sho said, seeming glad to be rid of the bag of rice. “You’ll need it.”

-

Though they’d faced quite a personality clash at the start, the first few days of Project Papa-Mama went off without any serious catastrophes. Nino considered sleep to be an altogether precious time, and he was definitely not fond of waking in the dead of night to tap a glowing screen. But he got used to it.

Carrying Shota around on his back during his shift didn’t last very long. While he and Ohno inspected shuttles, Nino usually left the backpack on the ground, keeping his parenting tablet in his tool belt to make sure he could hear the obnoxious chime over the other flight deck noise.

Ohno had teased him relentlessly, but from his privileged position as someone who didn’t work the same shift as his partner. As Ohno had predicted, Koike-sensei was doing the majority of the work when it came to Project Papa-Mama. Ohno usually looked after “Infant” during the afternoon and overnight. Neither of them had wanted to give the sim-child a real name.

He and Ohno were just finishing up a Nori tune-up when the ship-wide alert klaxon went off, echoing throughout the flight deck.

“Action stations, action stations. Set Condition Three throughout the ship. This is not a drill. Repeat. Action stations, action stations. Set Condition Three throughout the ship. All hands prepare for a jump. The clock is now set at ten minutes. We are at Condition Three. All hands prepare for a jump.”

Nino nearly smacked his head against the Nori’s computer console in his surprise. He knew that voice. Well, it had been the same voice all along, but now he knew who it belonged to. Ship alerts were announced by the Suzaku’s Chief Tactical Officer. And that person was Lieutenant Aiba Masaki. Nino couldn’t help smiling, getting to his feet and quickly shutting down the lights and panels inside the Nori. So it was Lieutenant Aiba all this time. He’d sounded rather cool, a far cry from the time they’d met before.

He found Ohno waiting for him, performing his final check outside the Nori. “Ready?”

Nino smacked the hatch button, letting it shut behind him. “Yep, all set.”

The ships of the fleet operated on a set of five conditions. Condition Five was peacetime operation while in orbit or while docked. Condition Four, which was the most common, was while the ship was in peacetime transit. The ship went up to Condition Three in case of a jump, just to ensure that everyone was prepared. Condition Two meant they were under threat, and everyone had to report to battle stations. Condition One meant they were actually under attack…or about to start one. Nino could count on one hand the number of times he’d flown under a Condition One alert. He hadn’t much liked it.

During a jump, the flight deck had to be clear of personnel in the unlikely event that the ship had to maneuver quickly upon arrival. Not with Sho-san jumping the ship, Nino thought. But of course, nobody wanted a Norimono to tip over onto them. The two pilots on Kit patrol had already come back inside a few minutes earlier since everyone knew a jump was imminent. As he and Ohno left the deck, heading for the locker rooms, a few dozen yellow jumpsuits followed right along with them. Nino was not looking forward to a Condition Three once they had civilians aboard. Someone was going to disobey, and someone was going to get hurt.

As senior members of the deck crew during this shift, he and Ohno split up when they arrived at the locker rooms. There were the two ready rooms for Kit and Nori pilots on duty, and Upstart was responsible for them. Ohno stood at the entrance to one of the ladies’ locker rooms, Crewman Specialist Yoshitaka at the other. Nino was responsible for one of the men’s and Chief Okada the other.

As the clock counted down near the assignment board, Nino waited in the doorway as several crew members filed past him to wait inside for the jump. He saw Yamada coming along, walking slowly.

“Yama-chan, let’s go. I want to lock up!” Nino called out.

Yamada waved, hurrying a little. It was only then that Nino realized Yamada was coming back with a sim-child strapped to his back. Nino’s stomach dropped as Yamada passed him, turning the backpack around to cradle the fake baby in his arms.

They were three minutes from the jump now, and Nino had fucked up. Pulling his parenting tablet from his tool belt, he groaned aloud. “Son of a bitch,” he said, seeing that the thing was going off.

The backpack…the backpack with Shota inside…was resting comfortably inside Nori number 9. It was impossible for Nino to run there, open the shuttle, grab Shota, and make it back to the locker room before the jump.

It’s time to feed SHOTA!

Nino angrily checked the box with his finger, shoving the tablet back in his tool belt. Two more crew members raced into the locker room as they hit the two minute warning.

Lieutenant Aiba’s voice echoed throughout the deck once more. “Action stations, action stations. We are at Condition Three. The clock is now at two minutes. All hands prepare for a jump.”

“Ninomiya!”

Nino turned, seeing Okada waving at him. “Go on and lock up!”

“Yes, sir!” Nino shouted, watching the chief go into the locker room.

Nino took one last glance out at the massive flight deck. Shota would be fine inside the shuttle. At least Nino hadn’t left the backpack on the deck. According to the tablet, he’d just fed the baby so he was up to date there but…

Ugh, he was such an idiot.

He had a job to do, so he scanned the deck for any more crew. Finding none, he entered the locker room and closed the door, entering the code to lock it up tight. He did a quick headcount, moving from aisle to aisle. All the male crew he was responsible for were present, most of them sitting down on the locker room benches, joking around or chatting with one another.

Only Nino was in a spiral of panic. Twenty decks up, Sakurai Sho was getting ready for his big moment. The most stressful part of his job, turning that special key in his navigation console that told the FTL drive to work its engineering magic. In one second they’d be here in the Kuiper Belt, the next they’d be somewhere just outside of Jupiter’s orbit.

And while that was happening, their rice baby was all alone in a locked-down Norimono, zipped up in a backpack. If Nino couldn’t even keep track of a sack of rice, what was he good for? Then again, Nino thought, trying to come back down from the height of his panic, if it was a real child, it wouldn’t be here on the flight deck with him anyhow.

Aiba’s voice came over the speaker again, announcing that the clock was at one minute. Then again at thirty seconds.

Nino had a seat on the bench, rubbing his face with his hands, embarrassed over how guilty he felt. He tugged the parenting tablet back out of his belt, staring at it. Since he’d just taken care of Shota’s feeding, the normal status was showing on the tablet’s screen.

SHOTA: All parameters normal.

Aiba began the ten second countdown, and Nino couldn’t do anything but stare at the screen. All parameters normal. All parameters normal.

He felt the usual tickle in his throat, swallowing hard. Jumping gave some people nausea. Others had it even worse, getting a headache or vertigo. Nino had jumped enough that he didn’t get more than that tickle. He hoped Sickbay was ready for all the civilians who would probably be jumping for the very first time.

It was over in an instant, the only indication that they’d jumped clear across space being the clock on the locker room wall. It shut off and then came back on. Nino heard a few groans around him, most from the newbies, but otherwise he didn’t hear anything worse. Sho had done his job perfectly.

He checked the tablet again.

SHOTA: All parameters normal.

He got to his feet, shoving the tablet back into his tool belt. The other men got up, following him to the door. Nino unlocked it, holding it open and doing another count as everyone exited and headed back to work. He could barely stand still, holding the door and waiting for Okada to emerge. He held his thumb up, giving the all clear, and finally Okada acknowledged him.

Nino took off, not running since it wasn’t allowed on the flight deck, but hurrying as best he could back to Nori 9. He eventually heard Ohno behind him.

“Nino! Hey Nino, slow down!”

He made it all the way to berth 9 without slowing, gasping for breath when he reached it and activating the hatch. He rushed inside, finding that the backpack was just where he’d left it, sitting on the pilot’s seat. He hoisted Shota out of the bag, not finding any problems. Or more like the bag didn’t have a hole in it, and Shota wasn’t leaking rice all over the cockpit. Relieved, he buried his face in the silver fabric, letting out a cry of happiness.

He heard laughter behind him, turning to find Ohno leaning against the doorframe, smiling at him.

“I don’t know if this makes you a good father or a terrible one,” Ohno teased.

-

Sho found him sitting outside Lieutenant Commander Matsushima’s offices, his arms wrapped protectively around Shota.

Sho sat down in the chair next to him, his face offering no judgment. They sat quietly for a few moments side by side, even though Nino could tell that Sho wanted to say something.

Finally, Nino spoke up, waiting for a crew member to walk past them down the corridor.

“So they said there’s nothing wrong,” Nino admitted quietly, adjusting the bag of rice on his lap. “The jump didn’t do anything weird to the sensors or anything.”

“I see,” Sho replied. “Good.”

“I called you away from something,” Nino continued, so embarrassed he could barely speak.

“It’s okay. It was just dinner with Aiba-kun,” Sho said. “We pushed it back an hour.” Sho’s voice was not as teasing as Nino thought it could be. “I didn’t tell him, if you’re wondering. He can’t be trusted with a secret, that guy.”

Nino smiled weakly, glad that he wasn’t in hysterics. After his shift ended, Nino had gone straight from the flight deck to the Counseling Offices, asking one of the staff to examine Shota for damage. He’d fibbed a little, saying that he’d accidentally dropped the bag of rice during the jump. The staff member had given the all clear, examining Shota’s sensors and informing Nino that Shota was just fine.

But he’d told Sho the truth. He’d told Sho the truth in exhaustive detail. He’d used the parenting tablet’s private messaging function to send Sho a long message of apology, explaining the mishap on the flight deck, leaving Shota behind, jeopardizing the assignment, doing something so foolish. Sho had been busy holding the lives of hundreds of crew members in his hands, and Nino hadn’t even been able to keep his eye on a backpack.

Sho had only replied to say that he’d meet him right then and there, to wait outside the Counseling Offices for him. And now he was here without a single complaint.

“You did a good job today,” Nino said. “With the jump. We didn’t end up in the planet’s core or anything.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be stuck inside Jupiter.”

“You said it would be a difficult jump. Was it?”

Sho shrugged. “I’ve had harder assignments. Lucky for us, there were some freighters from ExoBrazil who canceled their flights. It was one of my backup jumps that I plotted last night, snagging the tail end of their flight path and jumping where they’d have been. We’re actually two hours ahead of schedule because I was able to stick us there.”

“Congratulations. I don’t know too much about how all that works, Sho-san, but it sounds rather impressive.”

They were quiet again for a few seconds, listening to the normal ship sounds around them. Finally, Sho spoke again.

“Are you alright?”

Nino sighed. “I couldn’t even go four days without screwing up.”

“You didn’t screw up.” He looked over, saw that there was genuine concern in Sho’s eyes. “Nino, you didn’t screw up.”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” he said, “but why do I care? That’s the strange part. It’s not a real baby. None of this is real, it’s just a stupid project designed to waste my time. So why did I care?”

Sho patted him on the shoulder gently. “Why don’t you go change? Come meet with me and Aiba-kun. Have dinner with us. Get your mind off of this.”

“You should be angrier than this, Sho-san.”

“If this were a real baby, then I’d have cause for concern about your parenting abilities. For now, let’s just call this a near miss and move on.”

Shota’s noisy chime went off, and Nino picked up the tablet from the chair beside him. Shota wanted to be fed.

“See?” Sho said, gesturing to the tablet with his finger. “Even Shota wants to come eat with me and Aiba-kun.”

Nino laughed quietly, tapping the screen. “I am usually a very calm and collected individual.”

“I think you are proving that Matsushima-sensei’s program does have its merits. Don’t worry. I won’t actually tell her that,” Sho promised.

Still a bit embarrassed, Nino let Sho take Shota with him, and Nino headed for his quarters. He met up with Sho and Lieutenant Aiba outside of deck 4’s fancy officers’ cafeteria. Though Nino presumed they were just taking food to go, seeing as how they’d brought an enlisted person with them, Aiba immediately wrapped an arm around Nino’s shoulders, rushing him through the door.

“You’re with us,” Aiba said, his voice loud and cheerful, nothing like the serious tones he’d used over the ship-wide comms earlier that day. “You’re with us, Ninomiya-san. They can’t turn you away.”

“You have to try the fried chicken here,” Sho said, towing Shota along. “It’s life-changing.”

“How come my cafeteria doesn’t have life-changing food?” Nino complained, following Sho and Aiba-kun to a booth in the rear corner. The pair of them earned salutes or hellos from most of the officers at the other tables and booths they passed. While Sho mostly offered a polite nod in reply, Aiba returned salutes and clapped people on the back.

Nino was rather astonished that these two were friends.

They had a seat, and Sho settled Shota down between him and Nino. Aiba proudly declared that he would not have parenting duties until later that evening when his partner Kazama, a man who worked in the cargo bay, dropped “Magic” off.

“Just a moment,” Nino interrupted, looking at Aiba in confusion. “You and this guy named your sim-child Magic? That’s a name you give to a pet.”

Aiba shook his head, disagreeing. “No, no, it’s named for Magic Johnson. He was a basketball player.”

“Yeah, a thousand years ago,” Sho teased, grinning.

“It’s not a thousand!” Aiba protested, “it’s more like…seven…seven hundred…it’s not a thousand!”

Instead of arguing the point further, Aiba announced that he was going to grab “one of everything” from the cafeteria line so that Nino could try the many wonderful items the officers’ cafeteria had to offer.

Aiba headed off, a spring in his step, while Sho simply shook his head. “And you work with that guy on a daily basis?” Nino asked.

Sho laughed. “He’s the best person on this ship, believe me. You will not find someone as fun to work with as Aiba-kun.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who is looking for fun in the workplace, Sho-san,” Nino teased.

“What? I’m fun!”

Nino raised a hand to interrupt him. “No, no, you know I’m right. You’re the kind of guy who would remind the teacher that he’d forgotten to assign homework to the class. That’s who you are.”

“I am not!” Sho vowed, hitting the table playfully with his fist. “I am not that guy! I hated homework!”

“You’re a nerd,” Nino shot back. “The nerdiest of nerds. King Nerd!”

“I will have you removed from this cafeteria. For insulting a superior officer,” Sho complained, although his face was just as kind and happy as it had been all evening.

As the minutes went by, teasing Sho, being teased in return, Nino was able to forget his stupid mistake from earlier in the day. Soon enough Aiba returned with an overflowing tray of food, way more than was necessary to feed three men. Fried chicken, three types of salad, a bowl of ramen, chocolate cake, and a pair of rice bowls topped with grilled eel.

“This is gross, Masaki,” Sho complained even as he snagged the plate of chocolate cake and set it down before him. He elbowed Nino. “You see this guy? He can eat just about anything, and nothing sticks to him. I eat one piece of chocolate cake and my face swells up like a balloon.”

“He gains all his weight in his face first,” Aiba informed Nino, pushing the plate of fried chicken to him. “And then I have to hear about it. About all the miles he has to run or all the weight he has to lift. You can go and get another salad, Sho-chan, if you’re so worried about your pretty face.”

Nino looked over, saw Sho’s affectionate scowl in return. Who were these two guys? Where was the guy who jumped the ship with ease? Where was the guy who called them to action stations with such authority? Nino had a bridge officer on either side, but they may as well have been two strange guys from his neighborhood back home, the guys who sat at the local ramen counter cracking jokes with the owner.

There was a lot Nino didn’t know about Sakurai Sho or Aiba Masaki, but as their meal went on, as Sho shoveled food into his mouth like it was the most important thing he’d do all day (jumping the ship, who cares?), as Aiba talked about Magic the bag of rice with odd affection, Nino realized how lucky he was to serve on the same ship. They weren’t just bridge officers with the fancy silver stars on their jackets. They were normal guys who held up under pressure, under the extraordinary things asked of them as senior officers.

Finally Sho dug into the cake, frosting smearing at the corners of his mouth. “Aiba-kun, would you tell Nino what happened to Magic yesterday?”

Aiba’s face flushed, and he set down his water glass. “Oi. Oi, don’t make me.”

“What?” Nino asked, looking between his two new strange friends. “What happened?”

“This guy,” Sho said, his tongue darting out quickly to lick at the corner of his mouth. It drew Nino’s attention in an instant, and he felt his heart race a little. Sho remained oblivious. “This guy brings Magic to the staff meeting yesterday. This was all senior officers, mind you. Bridge staff, chief of engineering, chief of medical…and of course, Matsushima-sensei was there…”

“Sho-chan, don’t tell him this!”

Nino’s curiosity was piqued. “What happened? Come on.”

Aiba sighed, sitting back in the booth. “Okay, okay. So I had Magic with me, right? Our main staff room is adjacent to the bridge. You don’t know the bridge, do you?”

“I know the basic schematics of the ship, I know where it is on the blueprints,” Nino offered.

“Okay, well the staff room is next door. It’s a long table, Captain Inohara sits at the head of it, we all sit around it, and I set Magic down on the floor at my feet. So the meeting starts, and I realize that the parent diary, the tablet that’s hooked up to Magic, I realize I’ve left it at my station on the bridge.”

Sho simply started laughing uncontrollably, barely able to hold his fork in his hand while he worked on the cake.

Aiba continued, not as embarrassed as Nino thought he could be. “So of course Magic starts screaming. Boop boop boop boop! Boop boop boop boop! And it’s right in the middle of Captain Inohara speaking. He’s a nice guy, Nino, he is, but like, I couldn’t shut it off. All I had was the stupid bag of rice. Boop boop boop boop! And you know it starts to get louder if you don’t shut it off right away.”

Nino nodded, shuddering at the reminder of his last two nights full of interrupted sleep thanks to Shota.

“By now, everyone at the officers’ table is looking at me like I’m a complete idiot because I…I’m you know, trying to muffle the sound…”

“By stepping on the bag with his boots, trying to find the sensor to muffle it!” Sho exclaimed, cackling.

“Oh my god, even Captain Inohara was losing his patience with me. Boop boop boop boop! And if I could do anything, I swear I’d have thrown Magic out the door, but you know Matsushima-sensei was right there. She was right across from me, looking at me with this face…she has this face, Nino…”

Sho had tears in his eyes, laughing so noisily that other tables were starting to look over, amused by their seniors.

“…she looked at me and I swear, all you could hear was the boop boop boop boop and Captain Inohara trying to think of some way to dismiss me. And then Matsushima-sensei says ‘Lieutenant Aiba, you’re being a very neglectful parent,’ in this tone of voice that makes me start laughing. Laughing in a senior staff meeting!”

Sho chimed in, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. “So finally Captain Inohara says to him, ‘Aiba, go turn the damn thing off’, so off he runs!”

“Oh, I’ve never run so fast in my life!” Aiba complained, his face red with the memory of it. “I nearly tripped over my chair and nearly tripped over Ensign Inoo who was manning my station while I was gone. Poor guy thought we were about to jump up to Condition One, I looked so crazy. I managed to shut it off, and then I walked back to the staff room calmly, this time with my tablet.”

“And of course,” Sho interrupted, his eyes wet with joy.

“Of course as soon as I sat down…” Aiba complained, burying his face in his hands.

“Boop boop boop boop!” Sho exclaimed. “Boop boop boop boop!”

“I’m a terrible father!” Aiba moaned, laughing. “The absolute worst there is!”

Nino looked over, saw Sho looking at him with a smile. A smile that would have been incredibly handsome if not for the smear of chocolate on his two big front teeth. Nino nearly choked in laughter, turning his attentions back to Aiba, laughing at his story. Sho had brought up the story on purpose. Sho wanted Nino to feel better about what had happened with Shota. Even though he’d left Shota on the shuttle, at least he hadn’t managed to embarrass himself so completely in front of the ship’s senior staff, although Aiba didn’t seem too upset about it now.

Nino felt grateful, surprisingly grateful, for Sho. For not being mad at him, for letting him into a cafeteria he wouldn’t have otherwise been allowed to visit, for including him in a meal with his best friend.

He walked back to Sho’s quarters with him after dinner, Sho holding Shota protectively in his arms. In a few days they’d be back to Earth, and Nino’s own duties would increase. The Norimonos would be going back and forth down to Japan to pick up passengers, and the flight deck would be on high alert. Safety checks were paramount, and passengers would be escorted from the deck by staff from the security team. It was Nino’s job to help ensure that pathways were clear, that the shuttles were perfect. He’d slipped up with Shota today, but the next several days would be the real test of balancing his work and his “family”.

Sho opened his door, turning to Nino with a careful smile. “You’ll be okay?”

“Thanks. For what you did today…to help me out…especially when you didn’t have to. Thank you, Sho-san.”

He knew he was blushing, and he didn’t much care. Sho was a good guy. Nino was fortunate to be partnered with him. But what was increasingly unfortunate was how much Nino was starting to like him. Brushing his teeth in a tank top and underwear, jumping the ship, scarfing down chocolate cake…he was seeing all sides to Sakurai Sho the last few days, and he was finding things to like about all of them.

Perhaps it was Project Papa-Mama. Perhaps it was the responsibility they shared, the bag of rice that was theirs to look after. Or perhaps it had been a long time since Nino had been with anyone, and Project Papa-Mama was an unfortunate reminder of his continued sex-free existence.

“You’re welcome in our cafeteria any time,” Sho said, his endearing smile tying Nino’s very full stomach in uncomfortable knots. “Although you have to be with one of us. I can’t change that rule, I’m afraid.”

“Our first family dinner,” Nino blurted out, wishing he’d sounded less serious about it. He saw a nervous little shift in Sho’s eyes, and he regretted saying anything at all. Sho had been really put off by Nino’s jokes about family and parenting before. He should have let it be.

But then Sho surprised him, hoisting Shota up until he had the bag resting on his shoulder. “You liked that, didn’t you, Shota? Dinner with that weird Uncle Masaki?”

The bag of rice remained silent, and Sho chuckled.

“I’ll drop him by you in the morning,” he said. “Good night, Nino. You did a good job today.”

“You jumped us to Jupiter today. I get to live to see tomorrow,” Nino teased, taking a step back before he said anything else strange. The last thing he needed to do was reveal his attraction and mess things up entirely.

“Happy to do my job and do it well,” Sho said, heading inside with Shota. “See you tomorrow.”

By the time Nino was back in his quarters, there was a private message from Sho blinking on his parenting tablet. He opened it to find a photograph of Shota, with Sho’s finger gesturing to a small brown spot on the silver bag.

“What a mess! Chocolate cake! Bad Papa!” Sho had written, and Nino let his fingers touch the screen, giggling like a fool at the sight of it.

-

The aft hatch on Norimono 43 opened, and Nino stood behind Ensign Koyama from the security team. He was a friendly guy, and this was Koyama’s third group of passengers for the day. Nino had been happy to let Koyama do all the talking.

Koyama headed up the ramp to begin his speech to the passengers aboard while Arimura up in the cockpit went through her usual post-flight checklist. Nino stood just outside the Nori, hoping he looked…welcoming. Chief Okada had given them all a heads up that it would be “nice” for the passengers to see friendly faces once they boarded the Suzaku. Ohno had asked to be switched to Kit duty because he “couldn’t make any promises” when it came to smiling while he worked.

It was the second day in Earth orbit, the second day of the brand new Suzaku with civilians aboard. Koyama had already shared a bit of gossip with Nino. One woman had thrown a tantrum because her Passenger Access card denied her entry to the bridge. She’d wanted to shake hands with the famous Captain Inohara. And then two teen boys had already tried to hack the computer in their quarters to try and access pornography feeds from the Net.

Nino was very glad he wasn’t a member of the security team.

Koyama went through the basic rules aboard ship. No running in the corridors. Please feel free to use any facilities open to them with their Passenger Access cards. If they needed anything from their luggage in the cargo bay, please summon security for an escort. Though anyone boarding had been told to pack essentials with them to carry on board the Norimonos, there were already reports of people having stashed daily medications or all their clothes in the luggage brought to the cargo bays.

Nino was also very glad he wasn’t a member of the cargo bay teams.

Another member of Koyama’s security team, Kato, approached. His stun pistol was holstered at his hip, and Nino had to envy his patience. Nino would have probably stunned half a dozen of the people who’d already come aboard that morning, the gawkers who wanted to put their hands all over the shuttles, the other flight deck equipment as they were escorted to the lifts.

“Got a batch here from Osaka,” Nino informed Kato while Koyama continued his laundry list of do’s and don’ts for the passengers about to board. “You’re from there, aren’t you, Kato-kun?”

Kato crinkled his nose. “Yep.”

Nino laughed. Kato was a quiet sort, a bit of a nerd. He’d probably joined JSA to find other…quiet sorts of people. “Best of luck,” Nino said as the boisterous group of passengers grabbed their luggage, slowly filing down the ramp behind Koyama.

“Welcome aboard,” Nino said, inclining his head politely to each of them. One middle-aged man had a video device, nearly smacking Nino in the face with it as he hurried to record the inside of the flight deck.

“Would you look at that?” the guy kept saying, waving his camera around. “Wow, would you look at that?”

Would you look where you’re going instead, Nino wanted to say, but held his tongue. He gave Kato a salute once the last passenger had departed 43, and Kato rolled his eyes, bringing up the rear. Nino watched the group head off, carry-on luggage in tow, Koyama shouting over the flight deck noise for everyone to stay together.

Finally free to step aboard, Nino headed inside, strolling up the aisle. From the various JSA shuttle launch sites in Japan it took about an hour to leave the planet and rendezvous with the Suzaku in orbit, then another few minutes to be cleared for entry onto the flight deck.

Nino shook his head, laughing at the mess they’d left behind. This flight up from the Osaka shuttle site had lasted maybe 70 minutes, but the Nori’s aisles were littered with empty drink containers, plastic wrap, empty snack bags that had been sold down on Earth. Nino tugged out and unrolled a garbage bag from inside his tool belt.

Arimura emerged from the cockpit, leaving the door ajar so Nino could go in and make his final checks. She’d be doing another run down to Earth in two hours for another batch of 20 passengers, provided the Nori was fully cleaned and cleared for departure.

“Bunch of slobs!” Arimura complained, bending down to pick up some trash and shoving it in Nino’s bag. “I can’t believe they’re making you do the clean up.”

Nino grinned. “I’d rather pick up their garbage than have to fly them up here.”

Arimura shook her head. “You know they installed those emergency buttons in each aisle?” Nino nodded. If someone wasn’t feeling well, Arimura was able to unlock a medical kit in the passenger area from her seat in the cockpit. The thing would pop open, offering nausea pills, barf bags, all that good stuff. “This one guy was pressing it every three minutes asking me if we could stop so he could take pictures!”

“Perhaps I could…temporarily disable that button for you, Lieutenant,” Nino teased, shoving more trash in his bag.

“I wish you could,” Arimura lamented.

The airlock alarm went off. Another shuttle was coming aboard. Nino would be picking up trash for the rest of his JSA career at this rate.

He got 43 all cleaned up and performed his usual safety inspection once he had 43 looking good as new, calling over the fueling team to fill her up for her next run. He thumped the hull with his fist as he finished up, timed perfectly as Arimura returned from the pilots’ ready room.

By the time Arimura was cleared to fly, the shuttle lifting straight up from her berth and heading down the center of the flight deck toward the first set of airlock doors, Nino’s shift was just about over. He entered his notes, cleared some tool carts out of the way, and headed for the locker room.

He emerged, finding a man in a familiar black flight suit emerging from the pilots’ ready room.

“Mr. Perfect!” he called out, seeing Jun turn around and wait for him to catch up.

“Mr. Mechanic,” Jun teased him, unzipping his jacket, running a hand through his dark hair. Nino decided not to comment on the usual mess Jun’s helmet had made of his hair while he was flying in his Kit. He could be a little vain about it.

“Just coming off?”

“And not a moment too soon,” Jun said as they headed for the lifts. “Lot of traffic out there.”

Nino wasn’t surprised. The Suzaku was in steady orbit of the Earth, its shuttles heading to and from the planet. And then like always, two Kits were on patrol. While they usually flew alongside the Suzaku or scouted ahead for trouble, in orbit they had to fly a bit closer simply because the Suzaku wasn’t the only ship in the neighborhood.

Ships from dozens of countries were heading to and from bases on the Moon, on Mars. To and from space stations in Earth’s orbit. And then there were the private contractors, the civilian-operated ships that had to find a way up and out as well. It was a real balancing act, Sho had been saying the other night when Nino had dropped Shota off. While Japanese ships were fairly good about communicating flight paths, about sticking to schedules, other countries weren’t. Near collisions were a constant possibility. Nino had faith in his Nori pilots, in people like Jun, but you couldn’t always trust anyone else.

“Big plans tonight?” Nino asked.

Jun looked at him oddly. “Since when do you care about my plans?”

Nino laughed. Since most of Jun’s off-duty plans revolved around exercise or tending to the bonsai he’d been caring for since one of his flight school instructors had given it to him, Nino had long since stopped asking. “I spent half my day cleaning trash out of shuttles, Jun-kun. Humor me.”

“Soccer practice,” he said, “then I’m picking up my daughter.”

Jun’s partner, a cook in one of the enlisted cafeterias, was always spilling stuff on their sim-child. Jun bitched about it at every opportunity. “Soy sauce! She managed to get a big streak of soy sauce right down Momo’s back!” “She handed her back covered in powdered sugar! What is happening in that kitchen?” Nino was surprised Jun hadn’t petitioned for a partner change yet.

“Soccer practice?” Nino asked.

“Deck 7,” Jun replied. “I’m on an officers’ team. We usually play on the bigger field on 12, but we know it’s gonna be swarming with civilians.”

Nino’s long-standing lack of curiosity about Jun’s private life had suddenly changed. “Is Sakurai-san on your team?”

“Sho-san? Yeah, why? You know him?”

Nino unzipped his jumpsuit when the lift doors finally opened, allowing them to board. “Yeah,” Nino said quietly, “yeah, I know him.”

Jun laughed. “He doesn’t seem like your type.”

Nino looked away, a little embarrassed. He forgot that someone like Jun, obsessed with tiny details, would see through him so quickly. “You don’t know anything about my type, Matsumoto.”

And now he’d regretted bringing it up entirely. At least he could trust that Jun wouldn’t say anything to Sho. Jun liked to consider himself “above” such trashy gossip.

“He’s just my partner,” Nino said. “Project Papa-Mama.”

“Of course. We’ll be starting in about an hour,” Jun said as the lift doors opened to deck 8. “I’ll be looking for you. I’m sure Sho-san will be too.”

Nino stuck out his tongue childishly and exited the lift, shaking his head. His secret was out.

Part Four