[center][h2]Rozaliya “Rose” Tarasova[/h2][/center]

There was a thud followed by a sharper noise as Rose dropped into the seat at the end of the table gracelessly and brought her bowl down on its surface in one motion, as usual making no effort not to cause a disturbance with her actions. The pilot let out a yawn, mouth opening wide enough to show all her teeth, and stabbed a pair of chopsticks into her food like it had personally offended her.

Which it hadn’t, because the food here was [i]excellent[/i].

If there was one good thing she could say about becoming a pilot it was the food. The quality, the quantity and even the variety of food that had been made available to her and the other pilots since she had come to Japan was something of a shock to her. Maybe she just had a twisted perception of things because of how she had spent the last five years of her life, but Rose had been under the impression that humanity had been so far gone that they couldn’t make things like ramen or fried chicken or curry anymore; those were luxuries and luxuries were the first things to be sacrificed in the name of fuelling the engines of war that kept them all alive and fighting. Hell, with the way she had been eating since becoming a soldier, you would have thought the first places to be attacked with the Warped showed up were where we kept our spices.

She had asked, in her first few days here after the shock had worn off, if this was what it was like everywhere in Japan. Perhaps the island nation had just been spared some of the damage done to the rest of the world, but no, civilians and regular soldiers didn’t get to eat this kind of food anymore; unless they were lucky. This was just a privilege of being one of the chosen few.

It was recompense for what they had to do, being thrown into the worst parts of the fighting over and over as humanities last shot at survival, until the threat was eliminated or they…

But there was no telling how long this luxury would last or how long they’d get to enjoy it. So every day Rose made sure to pick something different, something she had never eaten before and might never get to eat again. It was all good anyway, so why not seek out new experiences?

What was it today? Katsu? Fried chicken was fried chicken wherever you went and she couldn’t tell at a glance what was different between this and kaarage other than the shape and size. With a shrug, Rose pulled out her chopsticks and attempted to pick up a piece of chicken, lacking the proper technique but bullying the utensils into working regardless.

It was only after that that she looked across and noticed the other people sitting at her table. Or rather, noticed [i]who[/i] the other people at her table were. A wide grin split her face as she finally greeted her fellow pilots.

“Ohayō!”