The moon fills up the ship's window; Earth and her colonies all reduced in size next to the moon. The mobile suits look like toy soldiers, and in the sky without horizon, the distant satellites become stars.
Up here in the control room, gravity has less hold than it does on ground. When I was little, I had to be taught how to float in low gravity, just like I had to be taught how to swim and ride a bike. My sisters and I would play together, dozens of us rolling through the zero-gravity playrooms, while our father watched from below and bellowed out words of caution like insults.
Here there is just the two of us: Trowa and I, and we are our own pilots.
There is less oxygen in space, a feeling that the frozen air might spontaneously combust. If it did, the fire would roll on for centuries; a shooting star of sorts.
Trowa and I bump into each other as we fly, easy as accident. He steals the air from my chest; his mouth is a candle in the cold room. I feel him blush under my eyelashes, as the tops of my cheeks warm next to his; when I open my eyes a bit I can see the red capillary stain under his skin.
Not too long until the ship lands with a start and he separates from me; we go to our own stations. The altitude change makes me dizzy suddenly and I grip the ship's silver panel for comfort, thinking about the mission ahead of us and the gun I wear, cold and heavy, slung at my side. We won't be flying again for a number of weeks.
I miss it already.