The tune of a tightly-embouchure player's bugle sounded around the camp. Yao quickly sat up, sending his pillow flying as he shouted: "aiya!" The other three sat up and listened. They couldn't see -- the sun was only on the horizon.

"Rise and shine, newborns!" shouted the Colonel from the middle of the base. "Breakfast is in thirty minutes!"

Eduard groaned and rolled over in his bed. Kiku, Toris, and Yao, however, started getting up. Kiku glanced to his new uniform issued to him by the boot camp. It wasn't a shade of grey, or black, or white. His eyes widened.

"Toris... What colour are our new uniforms?" he asked as he turned to his cabin mate, who was holding the jacket to his uniform.

"Green... Can you see it?!"

"Yes..."

"I'm so glad!" said Yao.

~~~

"You will all have breakfast here until 06:20," spat the Colonel. "Get your acts the-fuck together, alright? You're all going to be training afterwards. You'll soon have new directors here. In four days, Captain Jones, Private Beilschmidt and I will be heading out to a situation." Some people silently let breath out it happiness. "Please, don't be too upset," he said as he rolled his eyes. "So... you have four more days with us before your weeks of training." He then stepped from his post, and strolled to a table with a recruit who sat and looked at his plate.

"Do you eat this every morning?" asked the recruit, Yao, in his dashing new green uniform. The Colonel nodded. "Jeez... This isn't that great."

"Oh, do I know," he said as he chuckled. He sat across from the recruit and sighed. "Private Wang, I have a question for you..."

"Yes?"

"Did you see any colour since we've met?" he asked as he narrowed an eye quizzically. Yao choked on his coffee, and set the cup down.

"What?"

"O-Oh... I suppose you haven't--"

"I did. I didn't know if you saw anything," said Yao. The Colonel smiled and looked at him.

Kiku stepped over and sat near Yao. The Colonel, with a smile, turned and saw the new comer.

"Are you Yao's friend?" asked the Colonel.

"He's Kiku," answered Yao. Kiku nodded and lifted his cup of coffee.

"Is there a way to substitute tea in place of coffee?" Kiku asked as he looked to the Colonel, who shook his head.

"No... but just a second." The Colonel stood and left the table. Kiku watched, then looked to Yao who seemed to be wonderstruck. The room was full of tired people, but they were talking. The first day was ahead of them, and they didn't know what to expect. They'd heard rumors of what to expect from the few soldiers who were stationed there before they left.

The Colonel came back. "I just had to speak to someone quickly."

The Colonel and Yao quickly went back to talking about random things, and laughing at each other's words. Kiku noticed that Yao was calling the Colonel 'Ivan' rather than Colonel Braginsky. It made him wonder...

Until someone interrupted his thought by sitting in front of him. He looked up to see the happy Captain sitting and passing him a mug. Kiku's brow furrowed as he stared at the mug.

"It's tea," said Captain Jones. "Earl Grey. I had this friend, he was like an older brother, who always made sure I had tea bags with me. Always. No joke. But regardless, it's tea." Kiku nodded once.

"Thank you, Captain Jones," responded Kiku as he took the mug.

"Eh, no need to be so formal. Just call me Alfred," chuckled Alfred.

"I feel if I called you that, you wouldn't get the respect you deserve."

"It's fine, believe me. You're the least of my worries for respect. You clearly haven't been around Private Beilschmidt. That guy is crazy. This one time, we were given free time on the shores of some random country, and instead of going to get a souvenir to send back home or something like that, he drank until he was too drunk to walk back on his own. It took like three privates, one of them being me, and a doctor to walk him back," recounted Alfred.

"I'm sorry for disrespecting you yesterday--"

"Hey, everyone has their own opinion. It's fine."

"So... you mentioned you had a brother in the air force, correct?" asked Kiku. The Captain nodded.

"Ah, yeah. Fun kid. Too bad we don't talk much... We can't talk much. I don't know where he is stationed most of the time, and he doesn't know where I am... and the problem is, we have to keep all of it confidential. I can't even say 'hey, I'm training troops'. It kinda sucks, 'cause I grew up with him and all... but at least we are serving our country, huh?"

Kiku nodded and kept staring at the rank badge on the Captain's uniform.

"Hey I have a funny question for ya'," said Alfred. Kiku looked him in the eye, and saw the shocking new hue in the cheerful man's eyes. "Can you see colour?"

Kiku paused and thought for a moment. He wondered: should he lie, and pretend to be tough, or tell the truth, and seem soft? ...or stay halfway in between?

"I-I can see one," he answered with a nod.

"Which one?"

"The colour of our uniforms..."

"Huh... Just wondering. Small talk, ya' know?"

Kiku looked back down to his tray silently. He thought that, perhaps if he were lucky, the conversation about colour would go somewhere helpful. It wasn't that he thought that, it was more so that he'd hoped it. However, the time passed and he only had five minutes to go before training started.

He nodded once more, and continued to let the charming Captain talk on about random things.