Shiranui was walking with Kagerou on the morning of the 12th of May, and she had everything in place in order to pull off her plan to retrieve her listening devices from the used blazers of Admiral Haru.
Kagerou was part of the laundry detail, and this meant that she was one of several dozen ship girls and sailors who had to deal with the used clothes of a little over a hundred ship girls in Yokosuka and the three hundred-plus workers maintaining the base.
And considering the amount of burnt and destroyed clothes after every sortie, it meant that close to fifty baskets' worth of clothes had to be processed by the washing machines which were placed in the laundry room.
Shiranui mentally ran through her plans in order to make sure that she knew the plan by heart and could improvise on the fly.
She had deliberately left her keys in her skirt when she threw them into the laundry basket to be brought into the laundry room yesterday, and she was to ask Kagerou to let her into the laundry room in order to let her find her keys.
While she was inside the laundry room, she was to search for her Admiral's blazers in order to retrieve the listening devices before any one of the ship girls on laundry duty found them when they started throwing the clothes into the washing machine, or found them when they detached from the blazer as the glue which was used was water soluble, allowing the glue to be washed away by the washing machine in order to erase the evidence.
Now, she knew that other ship girls would be in the room as they moved everyone's clothes around and prepared them to be thrown in the washing machines, and while it would make things a little harder for her as she would have to hide her activities from everyone, but it was not impossible as she was used to sneaking her actions past other people.
And while sneaking around in broad daylight was a novel idea for someone like her, who was used to utilizing the night and the shadows for cover, she wasn't going to leave things to chance simply because she couldn't learn to sneak around during the day.
Time to kick things off.
Patting her skirt pocket, Shiranui stopped as she pretended to look surprised at the lack of keys in her pocket, and she turned to face her sister in surprise as she feigned surprise concerning the absence of her keys in her pocket where she kept them in order to access her locker.
"Ah, Kagerou. I forgot that I left my keys in the dress I wore yesterday. It's now in the laundry basket and waiting to be thrown in the washing machine, and I need it in order to access my locker before our training session later."
Kagerou stopped as she turned back to face Shiranui, and she could see that Kagerou was interested in helping her find her lost keys.
Great.
"Oh, is that so?nI might be able to help you with that in order to half the time taken to find them.bBesides, I was headed there anyway to help the others, and you can accompany me there. Might have to hold off on the breakfast, though."
Shiranui gave her sister a smile which was not entirely insincere, since she never passed up a chance to shower her Kagerou-Class sisters with shows of affection, but this time, it was laced with a fair bit of deception in order to get her sister to go along with her plans.
It hurt, but she bit down and endured the twinge of discomfort in her heart as she replied with a thankful,
"That would be appreciated."
Turning the corner in order to head for the laundry room, Kagerou was discussing how even though she had to help the other ship girls in the laundry room before going for breakfast and their training session, she could provide a second pair of eyes by performing a cursory search within each basket.
The washed clothes required a large swath of land in order to dry some of them, since using the dry-cleaning machines to do the bulk of the work would be a waste of electricity, and Shiranui knew that the laundry room had another door at the end of the room which led outside to a cleared piece of land beside the barracks in order to facilitate easy movement in and out of the laundry room when they had to dry their clothes.
The washing machines weren't in use yet, because Shiranui had done some research to know that the others came in to start washing the clothes at around 11 a.m..
It was now only 8.34 a.m. and gave her some time to search through the baskets in order to find her Admiral's clothes and finish her mission before the girls on laundry detail were done with moving the baskets and headed out for breakfast.
She saw that Kikuzuki, Sazanami and Shirayuki were in the room, making her work a little harder and the odds of being caught higher.
She never expected her work to be easy, but was it too much for her to ask for a freebie and let her get through one mission without so much fuss?
Kikuzuki was a Mutsuki-Class destroyer, and she was dropping another basket of clothes onto the floor in the room as her long, snow-white hair temporarily covered her orange-beige pupils, her sharp eyes shifting to look at the two of the Kagerou-Class destroyers as they entered the room in order to acknowledge their presence, her all-black sailor uniform being a rather common color palette shared by her sister ships, and her long sleeves were rolled up to prevent them from getting in the way of her work.
On her dark-grey belt was a badge in the shape of a yellow crescent moon which was present on several of her sisters, and her skirt almost reached down to her knees as she had the body of a child, and what Shiranui assumed to be stockings were reaching up her skirt in order to provide her complete protection against the elements.
Shirayuki was part of the Fubuki-Class destroyers, and wore her white-blue short-sleeved uniform as she wore a blue dress and a white shirt with a blue sailor collar and cuffs at the ends of her short sleeves, being rather nondescript in design and appearance.
Her brown hair was in short twin-tails, and her appearance was meant to invoke "everyday beauty" as her ship class's beauty was a little rarer amongst the ship girls in that their looks weren't exactly striking thanks to their commonly-colored hair and eyes, and the one ship girl in the room who came anywhere close was Kagerou with her auburn brown hair with pale purple eyes.
Being the respectful ship girl that she was, Shiranui could see that she gave them a small bow and a kind smile, which Shiranui and Kagerou acknowledged and returned in kind.
Sazanami had pink hair much like Shiranui except being a tad duller in tone, and much like Shirayuki, her sailor uniform was one of the more common white-blue color schemes for destroyers, white short-sleeved shirt with blue sailor collar and neckerchief, her blue sleeve cuffs had a white ring running around them, and she had a blue pleated skirt partially covering her thighs.
Her short hair was tied up in short side-tails, and were held up by two reddish marbles on each side of her head which acted as hair bands, while a badge which was of a lighter shade of red was stuck to the right of where her bellybutton would be.
She was the only one to have a smile on her face, because Kikuzuki was solemn and moody while Shirayuki was polite and unassuming as she gave people a warm smile when they appeared, but kept her expression neutral whenever possible in order not to overexert her cheek muscles.
Shiranui could empathize with that feeling.
But Sazanami was cheery as she shot them a warm smile and lifted an eyebrow in their direction in order to greet them non-verbally, and Shiranui returned a small nod in her direction in order to be polite.
The washing machines which surrounded them were large in size and were positioned to the point where she was still confident that despite the entire room being lit, with enough discretion and taking up a decent speed in searching for her Admiral's clothes, she could still pull off her mission without alerting anyone.
Kagerou held the door open for her even though there was a door stopper placed there by the destroyers to prevent it from closing in the first place, and Kagerou interlocked her fingers in order to crack them as she pushed her arms out, speaking out loud in order to talk to Shiranui and everyone in the room to let them know of Shiranui's reason for being here.
"Well, let's start looking for those keys in your skirt, hmm?"
Sometimes, she understood how other people talked about how they wanted to throttle their own siblings over the most trivial of things, despite loving them with all their heart.
Right now, she understood that feeling better than anyone else as she mentally grumbled about how everyone would probably start helping her look for her skirt out of the genuine kindness of their hearts and would make her job a lot harder, since her skirts would be found sooner and she would have to end her search early.
Cue mental sigh.
But she nodded in understanding as she looked around at the dozens of baskets, all choke full of used clothes from the Yamato-Class battleships to the Yuugumo-Class destroyers, and she walked towards a basket in order to pretend to search for her clothes, while actually keeping track of the destroyers in the room and looking for the white fabric which made up Admiral Haru's blazer.
Sifting through various clothes, she was thankful for both wearing gloves to avoid direct contact with everyone's sweaty clothes and the fact that Kagerou motioned with her head to indicate to her that she would help everyone move baskets around while searching within them for her skirts.
At least it would mean that she had some privacy in her search, and wouldn't have Kagerou looking over her shoulder every so often.
Thank god for small mercies.
She knelt in a corner as she lifted the clothes of a sailor while she continued her search through the used clothes of the workers of the naval base, which would include Admiral Haru.
She knew that their clothes were categorized into their ship classes in order to try and make the sorting process easier when the ship girls responsible for their laundry could quickly sort their clothes out as one particular ship class per basket.
Thanks to being a destroyer and the sheer number of destroyer classes in the IJN, it was no wonder that many of the baskets present contained the used clothes of destroyers from the Shiratsuyu-Class all the way to the Asashio-Class.
She knew that even for the three other destroyers who were present in the room, it would take some time for them to find her clothes, and she thought ahead of time to throw all her unused spare clothing into the pile in order to buy her a few more seconds if needed.
And in this line of work, several extra seconds could change everything.
The downside was that she had a training session today, so if she sustained any damage to her body and clothing, she had to borrow clothes from one of her sisters, or walk around with shredded clothes until her laundry was returned to her, since the docks repaired their body but not their uniforms.
She found no trace of Admiral Haru's clothes, but she looked through the crisscrossed strips of plastic which made up the baskets in order to provide some ventilation for the used clothes to dry after being thrown inside them, knowing that while the three ship girls would have a hard time searching through the baskets of destroyer clothes, she had to contend with several hundred sets of clothing belonging to officers, sailors, cleaners, cooks, etc.
It wasn't hard for her to distinguish and eliminate the baskets which contained the clothes of the cleaners, miscellaneous staff and rank-and-file sailors, and she saw that the amount of clothes belonging to officers in the logistic and administrative line of work filled three entire baskets, stuffed to the brim with their white blazers, singlets and trousers.
Diving into one basket, she dug through the various uniforms of the workers in this base and dumped everyone's clothes onto the floor, and even though she didn't want to do this to everyone's belongings, a moment of hasty treatment of her superiors' clothes was a simple price to pay to avoid being caught and thrown into military prison to be interrogated.
Not in this basket.
Shit.
She spun around in order to grab everyone's clothes and hastily threw them back into the basket, stuffing them inside the basket and putting her weight on it in order to fit them all in the basket, and she immediately moved onto the next basket.
Lifting a sailor's uniform revealed that lady luck threw her a bone as she could see that Admiral Haru's sleeve was peeking through the pile, and she doubled her efforts to clear the basket in order to get to her Admiral's clothes, one for each day and three spares being kept in case of emergencies.
To her knowledge, those three extra sets of clothes weren't thrown into the pile if they weren't used at all, so that's another burden lifted off of her shoulders.
Dumping everyone's clothes on the floor, she found two of Admiral Haru's blazers entangled in a distorted hug with each other, and she separated them in order to flip their collars and locate the listening devices which were planted in three of the seven blazers.
One had a listening device while the other didn't, and Shiranui gently plucked the listening device from the fabric in order to make a clean break and leave nothing but the water-soluble glue behind, and dumped the two of them onto the floor in order to continue her search as she pocketed the dislodged listening device.
The clacking of baskets hitting the floor could be heard, and she knew that the others were probably searching for her clothes while moving the baskets into the room, and she knew that she had to hurry up with her mission lest they search through the Kagerou-Class's skirts (and thankfully several of her sister's' clothes were similar or identical to hers in design, thus buying her more time), find her keys and search for her in order to let her know of their successful find.
Throwing another sailor's uniform behind her, she found another blazer belonging to Admiral Haru, but she was disappointed to find that it didn't contain her listening devices, and she discarded it onto the floor beneath her as she found her Admiral's trousers.
She had to move faster.
Another two blazers found, and she found one more listening device as she started sweating from the exertion, despite the fact that the room was air-conditioned in order to make the drying of clothes in this room easier along with the dry-cleaning machines helping to accelerate the drying process.
One last listening device and she was home free.
She found another two blazers strewn atop each other, lifted their collars in order to peek underneath them and find her listening devices, dropping them in disappointment as she searched for the last two blazers, having found five out of seven blazers.
She could hear a pair of footsteps hitting the floor as they increased in volume, Shiranui starting to sweat as she found yet another blazer near the bottom of the clothes pile, hastily flipping up the sweater in a practiced motion as she saw the glue applied in order to hold the listening device in place.
And the damn contraption failed on her as the listening device fell to the floor just as Kagerou rounded the washing machine.
Shiranui instantly and instinctively dropped the blazer in her last-ditch attempt to cover up the fallen listening device, and her heart dropped along with it as she snapped her head up in order to look at Kagerou, praying that the listening device was covered up by the blazer in time.
She gulped as Kagerou notified her of their successful attempt to find her belongings,
"Yo, Nui-Nui. We found your skirts and your keys. It was quite the ordeal, with several sets of your clothing being thrown into the baskets, but we did it!"
Lifting a familiar pair of keys held together by a metal ring, her sister continuing in a confused tone as she looked at the Admiral's clothes which surrounded her.
"Why're you searching the Admiral's clothes for your keys, you know these baskets are filled with sailor and officer clothes, right?"
Shiranui nodded dumbly, trying to recall the lie which she was going to tell her sister when worst came to worst, and she had to lie through her teeth about her activities if someone began to suspect she was up to something.
But Kagerou leaned down in order to pat Shiranui on the shoulder, her expression becoming one of patience, understanding and kindness as she smiled, although there was the teasing look in her eyes which Shiranui had learnt to identify and watch out for as she heard her sister speak.
"Oh, don't worry about it, Nui-Nui.
I understand that this is a phase which a lot of ship girls go through, so don't worry.
You're not alone."
What?
Just… what?
Shiranui was confused about what her sister was talking about, and that made her wary of what her sister suspected she was up to as she leaned down in order to grab Admiral Haru's jacket.
Right as Kagerou knelt down in order to join her by grabbing the left sleeve of the strewn blazer, tugging it as she innocently asked Shiranui, seemingly ignorant of the devastating secret underneath.
"Would you like me to help you with that?"
Shiranui blinked, before shaking her head as she gently grabbed Kagerou's hand with her left hand while using her right hand to grab where the listening device was underneath the blazer, speaking in a patient tone in order not to arouse any suspicion.
"I… I made this mess, so don't worry, Kagerou. I know how to clean up after myself."
Kagerou's smile drooped, but reformed itself into an understanding one as she released her hold on Admiral Haru's blazer and conceded.
"Yes, I understand.bIf you say so."
Shiranui nodded, and Kagerou stood up and left her alone with the Admiral's clothes as she cleaned up behind her, taking deep breaths as she stabilized her breathing and kept her hands steady after almost being caught by her own sister.
That encounter was too close for comfort, and despite not truly believing in such things, she thanked whatever god watched over her and prevented her from getting caught by her sister, since it would be one embarrassing and humiliating spectacle if Kagerou, her favorite sister, was the one responsible for apprehending her.
She was wrong.
The embarrassing spectacle was to come later.
When the four of them went for breakfast after finishing the preparations for the laundry washing later in the day, they stepped into the canteen as Shiranui noted that Shigure was sitting with her fleet, the 1st fleet finishing their breakfast just as they came in.
And upon stepping into the large room which housed a significant portion of the ship girl population, Kagerou's face broke out into a shit-eating grin as she placed her fists on her hips and shouted while addressing the entire canteen.
"Hey everyone! Nui-Nui likes to sniff the Admiral's used clothes in the laundry room!"
Everyone was immediately silenced by this, turning to look at her with judging eyes as Shiranui froze up as everything clicked together in her mind.
Kagerou thought that she was sniffing her Admiral's clothes because she was going through some sort of phase, where she was romantically obsessed with the Admiral?
That explained the entire "I understand" thing, then.
Everyone's muttering was then silenced by Admiral Haru, who was looking down as her face became a luminescent red due to her blush reaching critical levels, and she had both her hands stuffed in between her clamped thighs as she fidgeted and stuttered awkwardly.
"W-Well, if you insist, Shiranui-chan…
I suppose I can send you some of my discarded clothes as 'material' to help you through your sleepless nights…"
Everyone gave her the "Bruh" look, as though appalled and even disbelieving of their Admiral's perversion as Shiranui inhaled exasperatedly, giving Kagerou the stink eye and was rewarded with Kagerou flashing her winning smile as she knew that it would defuse Shiranui's mood and allow her to be let off the hook for her teasing as Shiranui thought to herself.
God? Remember me thanking you for watching over me? Well, if you actually exist and are up there watching down on little ol' me, I would like to take my thanks back because I have reason to believe that you're looking down and laughing at my plight as though you're watching a damned sitcom.
She sighed as her cheeks colored, and she hunched her back while walking over to the breakfast queue, and the two things which prevented her day from going to complete shit so soon into the day was Kagerou's winning smile and the fact that she didn't have to worry about her listening devices being found anymore.