Lounge
Stiffed, Lulu employed the same cruel tactics she'd used on the Soyokaze in the previous battle not even an hour before hand. She put on her most pouty lips and her darkest, most hurt face. It was excruciating. Truth be told, the moment Jei showed the gumption to turn her down Lulu had been immediately turned off of him; her taste for submission to overpowering to compete with the handsome young Tactical Officer's fine sense of style and well-maintained body. But she'd decided that it was, because of this, now his sworn duty to make her at least feel a little good about herself. Around the same time, the gaze of the stiff XO that'd entered with her turned as predicted to focus on the two of them. He seemed poised to 'react' to the situation, narrowing his eyes on Lulu's look of abject despair.
"I don't know why you couldn't just come out and say it." Lulu pouted, turning away from him and tilting her own whiskey over ruby-red lips. With a forceful sigh to drive the fire of the alcohol from her throat, she specified, "So you just think I'm fat and old and ugly, and you Yamataians are so polite that you have to pretend to have a girlfriend to spare my feelings."
At this point, a low growl escaped from Honda's lips and he walked purposefully away from the video feed towards the two of them with fire in his eyes. Just as Lulu reached out with thin fingers to try and turn Jei at the shoulder so he could see just how miserable she looked, there was a certain slick metallic noise that'd been played on Saturday morning cartoons since Jei was a child. Honda had wrapped his hand around the hilt of one sword and shoved the guard with his thumb to extend the blade a few inches from it's sheath, just exposing a few inches of gleaming nerimium and monomolecular edge to stand between the two at the bar. The sound was sudden and grating, causing Lulu to wince.
"Is this woman bothering you, boy?" Honda asked with all the sternness of a school teacher and some of the veiled threat of back-alley mugger. Cold eyes fixed themselves first on Jei, then more harshly on Lulu. "Lulu-dono, it is my duty as your humble advisor to remind you that the Empire takes a dim view of sexual harassment, particularly from a superior to an inferior."
Not satisfied to only ruin one person's fun, Honda snapped his steely gaze back to Jei and added briskly, "And you should stand up for yourself, boy. We live in a society ruled by women. If we are to be treated as equals, we must act as equals." A false air of musing crossed the stony features of the XO. "Unless you took off your principles when you changed out of your uniform, that is."
-----
Nearby, oblivious to the show being put on by Lulu and Honda, Mite was blissfully and silently sipping away at a bamboo cup of tea she'd quietly asked for. She was perfectly happy to let whatever was happening happen on its own, because it kept either of the other officers from remembering that their awesome plan to crush the Soyokaze had failed primarily because of her. Not getting yelled at was third on the list of Mite's favorite things. So, when the rest of the ship's compliment of important people began to flood into the room, she distanced herself even further from Lulu and Honda so she could make her way to the twins and the arriving medical staff with a sense of carefree contentment. For now. With the anxiety simmering low in the furthest reaches of her brain, she managed to bow respectfully and only spill a little bit of her tea.
"Ohayo." She greeted softly, somehow taking on the air of both a shy child and a wizened sage, "I'm Chui Yamatago Mite, Captain of the Casper. It is a pleasure to meet you."
