Commander, Event Recap?
Team 3 Leader of Firma's Research Department. Lead researcher Shuri sat alone in a tucked-away corner, quietly sipping champagne.
...Hmm.
The news of a day off was something she would have welcomed with both arms in the air — she was ground down daily by research and experiments, after all. But the festival that had earned them that rest left her, personally, distinctly unimpressed.
It wasn't some chosen-one complex, some excess of self-regard. If she'd had anything like that in her, she wouldn't have shown up in the first place. ...Her colleagues had half-forced her along, insisting it'd be a good show, but in the end the choice had been hers, so she didn't regret coming.
It was just... how to put it.
...This is kind of boring.
As someone who had never preferred a crowded, bustling atmosphere, she was always going to end up on the margins. It wasn't that anyone was freezing her out — she had simply declined to put herself forward. And the seat she'd chosen sat a long way from the center, where a fashion show was in full swing, which only made it worse. On top of that, she had thrown on a modest black dress to avoid inviting comparison — her striking height set in stark contrast against a chest that was, to put it kindly, unremarkable. All of which meant the free drink in her hand was the only thing about the gathering that actually agreed with her.
...Or so she had thought.
...Hm?
Around the time Shuri was cracking open her third bottle, she caught sight of the Commander — who had been holding down the same spectator's post she had — being suddenly hauled off by the Guard Captain and Calia.
What's that about. Wasn't she planning to sit this out like me? She's even wearing the same clothes as always. But where are they taking her all of a sudden.
"Ah, come on..."
Her mood, which had been hovering at a passable nowhere thanks to the people enjoying themselves around her and the quiet pleasure of watching them, slammed into the floor in an instant.
...If nothing else came up, I was going to ask her for a drink later. That's completely shot now. I don't know if the Commander would've said yes, but if she had, I could've closed the distance by a step. Of course. These girls with nothing but their chests going for them are completely useless. Now they're trying to wreck my love life too?
Shuri's thoroughly justified fury was aimed squarely at the two of them, but since it existed only inside her own head, it naturally never reached its targets. And so, sitting in the space they had vacated, she was mentally drafting a fifty-page dissertation on the injustice of genetics when the Commander came back.
"...Huh?"
Looking, to put it mildly, like a natural disaster.
Holy shit...
A black bikini of a design so daring it laid her figure completely bare. Color-matched animal ears and a tail, and over-the-knee socks cut in a distinctly feline shape. On top of all that, a face flushed to the roots — more than enough to steal the eyes of Shuri and every other operative in the room.
"Ah, h-hello...?"
The Commander offered a hesitant greeting, but Shuri couldn't answer. The champagne she hadn't quite swallowed yet was making a return trip from her mouth back into the glass.
...And it wasn't just Shuri. The operatives who had been laughing among themselves, showing off their own outfits, and the ones who had been hanging back at a distance the way Shuri had — every last one of them froze right where they stood.
...If this hurt the Commander's feelings, they honestly wouldn't have a defense. But from their side, Shuri wanted it on the record that they hadn't had a choice. I mean, come on. Even during that unprecedented heat wave, when everyone else had thrown off half their clothes, she had stubbornly stuck to a uniform that gave away almost no skin. And then she showed up on a night like this in an outfit that was risqué if you were being generous and vulgar if you weren't — a jackpot either way...
The shock was, well. A lot. Wasn't it?
Whoa. Whoa...
At that magnificent figure that could no longer be hidden — no. That had finally been revealed to the world — Shuri arrived at a realization.
I... I like big chests.
They were far too large to call small, and yet not so large as to be unappealing — breasts that sat at that precise, perfect line. They weren't a modest size by any stretch, so the straps of her top were being subjected to unprecedented abuse just looking at them, but... at that level of mastery, even that was a selling point.
And it wasn't as if the Commander was nothing but a chest. A stomach without an ounce of spare flesh, a sleek waistline, and a pair of hips you could scarcely believe belonged to the same body as that narrow waist. Given the nature of the company, most people kept themselves in shape for field work anyway, so good physiques were the rule rather than the exception... but the Commander, putting a body that could fairly be called perfect on full display, had an aura that simply crushed everyone in the room.
More than that — she'd been hiding something that insane? Is she in her right mind? If you had a chest and a body that beautiful, you had a moral obligation to share them with everyone. Reasons? Morale, for one. Plenty of reasons, okay? She should've shown us...!
Shuri was filing a ceaseless stream of internal complaints, feeling as though she had been robbed of half her life — but even that didn't last long.
By the time those words left the Commander's mouth, the part of Shuri's brain that still refused to accept reality had simply clocked out.
Was I drunk? I don't think so. Then the Commander really said that herself? That Commander? Ah, right. Amnesia. So that... could happen? It must be possible, right? It has to be possible, because this is how you drive a person insane. Then this blissful hallucination is actually real?
...Wait a second.
The Commander had always been locked inside a mold that, where she herself was concerned, had never once cracked. If that Commander had changed enough to wear clothes like that, to say words like that...
Someday, maybe, with the Commander, all sorts of things...?
"...Ah."
And around that moment, a single thought rose in the mind of everyone present.
Peace.
Peace like a river.
I've got peace like a river in my soul.
...I've got peace like a river in my...
Peace like a... river... like a...
"...AAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
Shame surged all the way to the roots of my hair. I hammered the pillow without mercy.
After fleeing from the hall to my room — no, after actually fleeing — I couldn't even bring myself to set foot outside. My life is over. How am I supposed to hold my head up after this.
...And more to the point, what do I actually do now. My... dignity as Commander... that's gone, isn't it...?
Ugh... damn it...
Where exactly did this start going wrong...?
...Even wondering about that is pointless now. It's already too late. Better to look for a way forward than to sit here regretting a bad decision. I know that. I do...
As if there's a way forward...!
...After I went and blurted that out for the whole hall to hear, what escape hatch is left? Which meant, in practice, I had exactly one option.
Play dumb. Play innocent. Play amnesiac, and act the way I always had. I was going to have to live with a sheet of iron over my face if I wanted my mental health to survive even a little.
Right. That's what I have to do.
Easy to say...
"...I can't just... not go to work, can I...?"
I was too young to accept social death. Should I just go ahead and take physical death instead? That might actually be happier.
Ah, shit...
What do I actually do...
Time is, by nature, fair to everyone — which is another way of saying it is merciless. Whether or not I had banked a spectacular humiliation the night before, tomorrow's sun, unfortunately, still rose.
"Commander."
"H-huh?"
"...Why so jumpy? The files are here. Check them."
"R-right. Thanks..."
And then... an ordinary day, same as always...?
Wait. Really? Actually really?
...What is this?
I had come in carrying a heart like a lead weight, and yet the way I was treated hadn't changed in the slightest. To be precise, everyone was acting as though last night had been wiped clean from their memories. No swallowed laughter. No flushed faces. Not even a hint of it.
...Did I make it out alive?
Had I found the one future in which a single new entry in my hall of shame wouldn't be replayed three hundred and sixty-five days a year? But I didn't even do anything. What is going on?
...Hmm.
...The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it might not have been that big a deal. The others were embarrassed too, so maybe one or two of them ran for it the same way I did. I was the only one overreacting, that's all. Yeah.
"Commander, what do you think of this?"
"Looks fine... but isn't this a little close?"
"It's us. We can't even do this much?"
"Well... suit yourself..."
...And why is Calia glued to me like this. It's hot.
...Something's off.
If I dug into it, this probably wasn't a big deal either, but the way I felt right now was... something. Something.
"Commander~."
"Commander."
"Comma~ander?"
"Commander..."
For one thing, the frequency with which our people came looking for me had gone up overwhelmingly. When they came to my office, it was usually for work. Today, most of them were dropping by for reasons that were purely personal. Let's eat lunch together. I made something. I just wanted to see you. Things like that.
...Not unlike a certain someone sitting right next to me.
"...Shien?"
"...Yeah. What...?"
"Isn't this... a little close...?"
And the ones who did come by had, in some hard-to-name way, closed the distance more than before. Hugs were the baseline. Grabbing my hand out of nowhere, linking arms, feeding me things... faintly inscrutable little gestures. Shien alone was proof enough — she had her tail coiled around my waist and was pressed against me without a gap. I'll leave the other comparable cases to the imagination.
I thought I'd gotten used to physical affection. I hadn't. I'd only gotten used to hugs...
"...You don't like it?"
"No... no. It's nothing."
...Not that it really matters, I guess?