Inception

Chapter 11: The New Nerd

The first time he'd seen Lena was when she took her place in the Defense Force Support Officer uniform to be sworn in. He'd been there purely out of ceremony. He'd always hated these stupid hoops they created, but he supposed signing away one's soul to monster hunting did settle on the tongue better if you dressed it up.

He'd noted, as one would the weather, that she'd been a pretty sort. Not too thin or too fat, with rare silver hair, well balanced features, and petite. Being on the short side himself, he liked smaller girls. But that was as far as it went. He didn't even spare her age a second glance, as his place in life had given him front seat to his fair share of prodigies.

Afterwards, he hadn't even had many reasons to spare her another thought. She sat in the back of the operation rooms during kaiju conflicts, she never spoke up, and when not there she was either in her lab with the rest of the nerd herd or in her dorm. She didn't even eat in the cafeteria all that often.

It was Okonogi who brought her up.

"I think Cromwell's low key adopted the new girl."

He'd had his face full of a rare black licorice treat and was taking a lunch break hanging upside down from the couch in her plant-filled office.

"New girl?" he asked.

"The little silver one. You know, Lena Ichigawa?" When he blinked slowly at her in confusion, she huffed and said, "The youngest scientist on base with two masters and three bachelors?"

"Aw, yeah, the kaiju genius." He dropped another roll of black licorice and gave a low moan.

"She's not a genius," said Okonogi as though he'd said something stupid. "She just works hard. Anyway, this morning Cromwell—"

"Whoa whoa, what do you mean 'she just works hard?' One doesn't just stuff twenty years of college into four and call it 'working hard.'"

"Technically it was nine. She graduated high school when she was fifteen."

"Oo, nine, yeah that's so different." He rolled his eyes so hard it hurt.

"Oh, stuff your sarcasm where the sun don't shine. Poor girl gave up a lot to do the impossible so give her some respect."

"I respect what can kill me. You have five more bites of licorice to vent your life while I still care."

"Asshole." She swiveled around on her office chair and glided to a table across the room, where a day old box of donuts waited. "Anyhoo, he came up to me this morning to ask if I could talk to the cafeteria workers about making extra snacks for her. Apparently she has a really gnarly case of hypoglycemia and she'd rather slunk away and have a sweaty, sugar-induced panic attack in closet than ask for help."

"Sounds like a liability."

"Yeah, and Cromwell would've fired her by now. He's lenient, but he's not stupid about how many lives depend on him doing his job. But instead he talked to her about it and found out she doesn't have the time to go off campus to get her own snacks because she's working on a project she wrote about in her thesis, the same one that got her into the Defense Force in the first place, that has to do with measuring an unknown energy source that bypass's the laws of nature—"

"Nerd down."

"Shut up, you totally got that."

"Didn't want to."

"POINT IS—"

"You say that an awful lot."

"—Lazy Cromwell decided to try and arrange the cafeteria to make and deliver her own set of snacks. He even offered to do it himself and even went on about how her parents and four siblings were crushed by a kaiju right in front of her and that she worked herself to death to get the education she needed to get into the top kaiju research division while taking care of her remaining brother when I tried pointing out that the cafeteria worked on a strict schedule."

"Wow, I don't think you breathed for that last one." Soshiro stopped. "Wait, she raised a little brother too?"

"Yep."

"...And she's not a genius?"

"Well, she's definitely smart. I can tell that much from her thesis. I read it when I reviewed her resume. She could've been a writer in another life. I told him I'd see what I could do but the cafeteria isn't in my jurisdiction. I was wondering if maybe you could look into that?"

"Maybe." He flipped right side up. "But my licorice is long gone and so is your time."

She gave him a look she reserved for him and idiots. Not that it meant he was an idiot.

"I should be paid for being your friend."

"Love you too, Okonogi! Bye-bye!"

Despite his flippant attitude, he did swing by the cafeteria after turning in his daily report. Apparently they had no issue putting a few snacks aside and were actually confused they hadn't been notified of Officer Ichikawa's needs. They fulfilled the dietary health needs of several others on the base, as was their job. Soshiro realized this was another case of Okonogi making it sound like she couldn't do something when really she was just too lazy. He should've been the last person to fall for it. As Operations Leader, she was the first person to know the guidelines of base operation inside and out.

...Maybe he did deserve the 'you're an idiot' look.