Life As A Commander

Chapter 52: Apology Accepted

"I-I'm back everyone..." I gave an awkward wave to everyone.

For a while, everyone was just looking at me dumbfounded. But then one person walked up to me with tears in her eyes.

"Y-Wh-Where have you been?" 

"Look, I was-" 

*Slap!*

A sharp stinging pain erupted from my cheek. 

"In my defence I had no choice in my disappearance." I sighed. "But, look on the bright side. I'm back."

"Do you have any idea on how much we were worried about you!?" Rose pushed me to the floor and laid right on top of me. "Just one day you disappear. Even they didn't know where you where." Rose began to punch my chest as tears began to fall upon my shirt.

"I know. It's a very long story. Okay." I gave her a pat on the head which caused her to stop her assault on my chest. 

"Will you tell me what happened?"

"That, I cannot. But all you need to know right now is that I'm safe and sound." I gave her one more comforting hug before forcing the both of us to get up. 

Lily then took her turn to walk up to me and quietly gave me a tight hug. "Good to have you back buddy." She muttered.

"You're not angry?"

This cause Lily to give me a giggle. "I saw the stream last night. You've been through enough." She then broke off from our embrace and gave me a push on the back. "Go on, they've been having it really bad."

"Hey you four." I awkwardly walked up to the starter squad. "Look I can explain. Let's just take it outside, okay."

"Good idea." Nimi said in a eerily calm tone. "Lily, tell our homeroom teacher that we will be a little late to class."

"Ah, okay..."

As Nimi and the other three lead me out of the classroom, down the halls and up a flight of stairs, leading to the roof. 

"So..." Nimi stopped to a halt. "Mind explaining some things?"

"Please stop. You know I couldn't do anything about it." I pleaded.

"Do you know what happens when you overwork yourself?"

"Yes I do. So please calm down." I tried to put my hand on Nimi's shoulder, only for her to slap it away.

"Then why do you do it?" Nimi replied with a sharp glare.

"That...It's a habit. Just look on the bright side. We have info on the siren' world."

"How about we don't focus on the bright side and focus on you." Nimi got closer to me and gave me a hard poke to the chest as she said this. "Why do you keep doing this?"

"I didn't get this job by choice. So of course I'd want to get it done and over with. But meeting so many new people that I genuinely want to spend time with...That makes me want to get the work done and over with even more. At this point, I don't even know if I'm doing so much work because I somehow got it into my mind that doing more work means that I have more time to mess around.

But when I finish one task, another comes along. Then another. And yet another. Soon enough, I'm in a constant cycle of work while I hope that there is an eventual end to it all so I can be with the people I care about."

"So that's how it is?" Nimi placed her hand under her chin. And after a couple second of thinking, she began to speak up again. "Though I...We all aren't happy about this." She gestures to the rest of the starter squad who were all silently watching this scene unfold. "We'll forgive you just this once."

"Thanks for that...But something tells me that this isn't the only time that I'm gonna hear that." I chuckled.

"Hey Acro..." Ayanami shyly walked up to me. "I'm sorry."

"Huh? For what?"

"For tiring you out on that day." She said as she gave me a hug.

"Oh about that? You don't have to worry about that. The same stuff would have happened even if we didn't play games that night." I gave her a smile as I patted her head.

"Right." She broke off from the hug.

"C'mon everyone. Lets go back. Seeing Laffey being sad rather than tired is starting to make me feel even worse about this situation." I gave a pat to the head of Javelin and Laffey as an attempt to make them feel better.

"Hey, that's no fair!" Nimi rushed to my side when she saw this happening.

"Heh, if you wanted a head pat; you could have just asked." I chuckled as I gave a head pat to Nimi.

"B-But they didn't ask." Nimi's voice trailed off as she looked away from me.

"Eh, details." I shrugged.

"Hey, why are you being like this?" She pouted.

"Acro, why'd you stop patting my head?" Laffey spoke up.

"Alright, alright I got ya." I removed my hand off of Javelin and placed it onto Laffey's head.

"Aww, why'd you stop it." Javelin Whined.

"Acro, give me more head pats." Ayanami walked in between Laffey and Javelin.

"I don't have five hands." I retracted both of my hands and placed them in my pockets. "Now come on, we gotta head back to class." I began to walk back to our homeroom.

"Boo. You leave us for a month and then don't apologize." Javelin pouted.

Hearing this, I stopped right in my tracks and turned around to the girls. "I'm sorry...For overworking myself. And for scaring everyone for disappearing. I'm sorry for everything." I gave them all a bow.

"Apology accepted." They all said.

I then heard them walking closer to me. Preparing for the worst, I closed my eyes and stayed in the bowing position. But nothing. No pain, no words. Just warmth. A warmth enveloped my back.

"Now lets really get back to class." Nimi chuckled.