Zack was back on his bed, considering whether it would be worth the extra bit of rage to steal the copy of LOVELESS Genesis always kept on his person or if the ones in his room and office would suffice, when someone knocked on his door.

Zack glanced in the general direction of the sound. Not that there was anything to see, even with his bedroom door open. Habit. A second knock came, and he turned his gaze back towards the ceiling.

No way was he getting that. He'd already come to terms with his impending demise, and he didn't need anyone - especially not Angeal - talking him out of it. It wasn't exactly the most honorable death, or the most heroic, but it would be his, and it would prevent him from ever having to tell Angeal about the magazine.

Or anything else.

"I know you're in there, Zack."

Zack sighed and rolled off the bed and onto his feet.

Opening the apartment door, he smiled at the other SOLDIER. "Hi, Kunsel."

"Hi yourself." Kunsel brushed past him and made his way towards Zack's sofa. "Any particular reason you're hiding in here instead of leading a cute blond around the Midgar shopping district?"

"Oh crap! I totally forgot!" Zack dug into his pocket and pulled out his PHS. Crap, crap, crap. Poor Cloud. Knowing how sensitive the other guy was, he'd probably take it personally. He'd have to make it up to him somehow. Which would delay his plan for death-by-Genesis. Damn. But he couldn't leave Cloud hanging like that.

And besides, he should probably impart some kind of farewell wisdom, shouldn't he? People did that in the movies all the time. Maybe he'd give him his sword. That'd be cool.

"It's fine. I explained that you haven't been feeling well."

"Thanks."

"He's worried about you. So am I."

Zack just knew there was a pointed look being directed at him from behind that helmet. He made a show of checking his messages on his PHS and didn't answer. Oh! Treasure Princess! Maybe he could insist that he had to go help her right this minute and creep out-

"Commander Hewley asked me to verify your location the other day." Kunsel didn't bother to hide the question in his tone. "And Rin swears he saw you run away from practice. Of course, knowing you, you were excited to go see your flower girl or something, so I'm not certain how much stock I can put into his account."

Zack sighed. He plopped down directly in front of Kunsel on the floor. Kunsel may have shifted into teasing, but that didn't mean he was off the hook. He'd pester him until he got his answers, and, failing that, he'd snoop around until he found them. The last thing Zack needed was Kunsel snooping.

It'd also, maybe, be kind of nice to actually talk to someone about this. Crossing his legs, he dropped his head into his hands and stared down at the carpet. Where would he even start?

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah." He took a deep breath and asked, "You ever see something that makes you think of something and once you think of that something it's like 'Why didn't I ever think of that before!' and now you can't un-think that something no matter how hard you try? And that's if you really even want to un-think it, which you're starting to wonder maybe you don't, except that the something you're thinking of can never happen, so you should probably forget it as quickly as possible, except you can't and it just messes everything up?"

Kunsel didn't say anything for a long moment. "…Maybe."

"Sorry. I'm not making any sense." He sounded downright ridiculous, actually.

"No, you are. I think. Considering what I've pieced together from you and the Commander-" and his many unseen sources "-the something involves Commander Hewley?"

Zack shifted to rest his cheek on his left hand as he looked up at the other SOLDIER. "Yeah."

"You saw something that makes you not want to train with him." Kunsel's voice had taken on a distant quality, as if he wasn't quite all there while he sifted through the information.

"That's not true!" There wasn't anything more that he could possibly want than to train with Angeal. Or just be around him. That was the problem, wasn't it?

"You ran out on him yesterday and then today you were seen training by yourself."

"He left me this morning," Zack muttered, not really wanting to get into that. It'd been so embarrassing!

"You're blushing."

Zack reached up to touch his cheek. Damn. He did feel warm.

It only made him blush even more. He didn't need to see the red to know that it'd no doubt traveled across the rest of his face and neck until he looked like one of those sunburnt tourists he'd seen all over Costa del Sol. Thank goodness mako protected him from actually getting a sunburn since those things sucked.

"Now I'm worried. I can't say there's many things I can think of that could make you blush like Cloud whenever he catches sight of the General."

Zack winced. Damn if that wasn't an accurate description. In fact, if given the choice, he'd have preferred to talk to Cloud about this whole thing instead. Kunsel was his friend, sure, but at least Cloud understood what it was like to crush on someone way out of your league. Another reason to regret missing their shopping "date."

"Promise you won't tell anyone?"

"Suuuuuper worried." Kunsel sounded like he was having way too much fun with this. Zack glared at him. It was half-hearted at best.

"I, sort of, got…hard…while sparring with Angeal."

"Well that's embarrassing."

"Tell me about it!" Zack whined. He chose to ignore the blatant amusement in the other's tone.

"That's why you ran away?"

"No, that was today." Zack could still feel the warmth raging across his skin. "Yesterday I kind of freaked out when he got too close. I've been thinking about him a lot lately." The last sentence came out as a whisper.

"After you saw something that made you think of him?"

"Yeah."

"Did you walk in on him in one of the supply closets?" Kunsel didn't completely sound like he was joking.

The supply closets were notorious around SOLDIER, and even a few Turks had been caught in one or two, for whatever reason they'd been on the SOLDIER floor. Rumors were that someone had even seen Sephiroth wander out of one, but knowing the General, he'd probably been the only one of the whole lot of them who'd actually needed supplies.

"Something like that."

"Wow, I wasn't actually expecting you to say yes."

"I said something like that. That's not what happened."

"I see." Kunsel paused but Zack didn't elaborate. Wouldn't elaborate. Not when it came to this.

"So," Kunsel continued after a minute, "you saw something that made you think of him in that way and now you can't stop? Hate to tell you this, but I don't think there's much you can do about it. You've seen how new Thirds act around Sephiroth. It's something you just have to get over."

"If only it were that easy," Zack muttered. "I wish it was Sephiroth. Or Genesis. At least then it'd be totally physical I don't really know them all that well. But Angeal's different, you know?"

"I see," Kunsel said again, and this time he made it sound like he really did see.

Zack tried not to fidget as the unspoken truth settled between them. It was a stupid magazine. A stupid porno magazine. It wasn't supposed to do this to him! To make him…realize things.

"Why don't you tell him?"

"Yeah, right. That's exactly what I want to do. Besides, I think it's pretty obvious already." And he still hadn't told Angeal about the magazine. That had to come first, even if he wanted to talk about other stuff. Which he didn't.

"Is it? The Commander might know you have a crush on him, but I doubt he knows the rest. And we both know he'll never bring it up. So if you want to try, you have to be the one to start."

"Try?" With Angeal? "He'd never go for it."

Kunsel shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

"I'll think about it," Zack said, just to shut the line of conversation down. This was all way too much, way too fast. He hadn't meant for any of this when he'd bought that stupid cursed magazine.

"Sure you will." Kunsel clearly didn't buy his BS. He stood and held out a hand, pulling Zack to his feet when he took it. "Well then, now that I know why you're wallowing here in the dark, I think I can safely leave you to wallow some more."

"Thanks." The word couldn't have come out drier if he'd tried.

He glanced around the room. It was a little dark in here, wasn't it? He hadn't even noticed. Mako eyes did that.

"Do me a favor and call our favorite blond ball of anxiousness, ok? See what he thinks."

Zack nodded, but the motion had no real meaning behind it. He was therefore surprised when he found himself dialing Cloud's number after Kunsel had left.

"Zack? Are you ok? Kunsel said you didn't feel well."

A smile pressed up the corners of his mouth. His little chocobo was so adorable when he worried. He should introduce him to Aerith. Then they could be adorable little worriers together.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's actually why I called. I need your opinion on something."