Nadesico Fan Fiction ❯ A Day in the Life . . . ❯ Noon . . . ( Chapter 3 )

It's 12 PM, time for lunch! It's also time for Akito-chasing, as far as Yurika and Megumi are concerned . . . Luna is a casual observer of all the chaos, and of course she has her own opinion of it!
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3: Noon . . .

12 PM rolled around and I headed down to the galley for lunch. The place was considerably more crowded than it had been at breakfast, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I went over and looked at the selections, decided on the Mars Bowl and went to the counter to order it.

"One Chinese Mars Bowl, please!" I told the girl behind the counter.

"One Chinese Mars Bowl, coming up!" she replied. The girl, I think her name was Eri or something, poked her head into the kitchen and yelled, "Hey Akito, we need another Mars Bowl out here!"

"Coming right up!" I heard the object of every younger female's attention yell out to the girl. Akito should have kept his mouth shut, since his voice reminded Yurika and Megumi he was back there.

"Akito, when are you going to be done back there? You said you'd eat lunch with me, remember?" Yurika asked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Akito and the rest of the cook staff had to feed everyone on the ship before they could take a break.

"Not so fast, Captain, he said he'd eat lunch with me!" Megumi exclaimed. An argument started between the two girls and I groaned in exasperation and maybe a little misery. It happened nearly every day . . . while the girls' fights over Akito may have been interesting to some people on this boat, it usually got on my nerves. I mean, what was the point, really? Akito might be cute, and he might be a pilot, but why was nearly every woman on this ship trying to get with him? He certainly wasn't brave, and definitely not the sharpest tool in the box . . . I just didn't get it at all.

In the meantime, Akito had finished making my Mars Bowl, and the girl at the counter handed it to me. I went looking for a place to sit, hopefully as far away from Yurika and Megumi as possible, and almost equally far from anyone who was watching them with interest. I spotted Admiral Munetake near the back, occasionally throwing a glare in Megumi and Yurika's direction while he ate his lunch. Smirking a bit, I went over and sat down beside him.

"Oh, for a quiet lunch . . ." I muttered as I sat down.

"You can say that again!" Munetake replied. "Every day, the same thing . . . Akito this, Akito that! I swear, if Captain Misumaru paid more attention to fighting than she does to that little punk, we'd probably have won the war by now!"

I laughed at that remark and put my own two cents in. "Heh; well, I suppose that's one way to look at it! And Megumi isn't any better. Remember that time in the Bering Straits when you first showed up? Instead of being at her post, Megumi took Akito on a tour of the VR room! There's too much love and not enough responsibility going around on this ship if you ask me."

"That is so true! Sometimes I think Nergal purposely decided to hire the strangest people they could get their hands on--" Munetake stopped talking, as I had elbowed him in the ribs. "What was that for?!"

"Nergal hired me, didn't they?!" I growled.

Munetake blinked, as if just realizing what he'd said. "Um, er, when I said that, I wasn't referring to you, I was talking about other Nergal employees on the Nadesico! You're one of the most normal people on this ship, Ms. Akari."

I glared at him for a moment more, then shrugged it off. "Eh, I suppose I can forgive you. Anyone can say things they don't really mean." I looked over at the two still arguing girls and winced. It was getting decidedly ugly over there, and would only get worse once Akito came out of that kitchen. "Hrm, getting nasty over there. How about we finish our food and get the hell out of here before things get any worse, huh?"

Munetake looked over at the argument and winced as well. "Good idea."

We ate in silence after that, but we wouldn't have the luck of getting out of there before all hell broke loose . . .

"Akito is my boyfriend, not yours! You can't have him, Megumi!" Yurika shouted.

"I don't think you ever had him in the first place, Yurika!!" Megumi yelled back.

"What was that?! Why I oughta--" Yurika looked around and her eyes focused on a nearby bowl of food. She grabbed it and pitched it towards Megumi! The comm officer managed to duck in time, but the edible projectile wound up landing on someone else, namely Erina Kinjo Won.

"How dare you!?" Erina demanded. She reached for her tray and got ready to throw it. "Well, if it's a fight you want, that's what you'll get!" Erina pitched her tray at Yurika and nearly everyone else in the galley joined in on the action before you could yell 'Food Fight!!!'

"Gah!" I cried, ducking a thrown tray. "Forget the food, Admiral, let's just get outta here!" He didn't even bother to agree with me, he just joined me in running like hell for the door, dodging thrown food all the way. We nearly made it out unscathed, but we had to deal with a ketchup-bottle wielding Izumi near the door.

"Viva la Revolution!!" Izumi yelled, threatening to squirt ketchup in our direction. She started giggling insanely and I took the opportunity to grab a fallen tray to use as a shield. Izumi squeezed the ketchup bottle and the red stuff went flying at me, but I caught it on the tray. I pitched the tray back to the floor and ran out of the galley, Munetake close behind me.

We were both out of breath by the time we were out of harm's way, a short distance down a corridor from the galley. I looked myself over, then glanced at Munetake and said, "Well, looks like we both got out of there unscathed. One other good thing about it: it certainly wasn't the usual fight over Akito, that's for damn sure!"

Munetake laughed a bit at that remark. "You've got that right, Ms. Akari!" He took a glance at his watch and started heading down the corridor. "Well, it's nearly 1 o'clock, so I should be getting back to work!"

I was kind of surprised the time had gone that fast. "Already? I need get back to my job too; I'll see you around, Admiral!"

We went our seperate ways, him to his office and me to Engineering and the Aesti hangar. On the way to the hangar, I thought of what might happen next. There was already a food fight, what other crazy stuff could happen in a day on the Nadesico?