Steps Forward and a Leap Back

The light streaming in from the window was what woke me up in the morning. Unlike the previous day, it was a much more enjoyable, and modest, experience. Grimm was still dozing away in the chair next to me. As I started to move around on the bed, Kei made murmurs letting me know she was on the verge of waking up. Wait, Kei? Oh, right. Just two adults sharing a bed. That's it. I gently got out of bed and went to the bathroom to get changed into some gym clothes to use the facility on the lobby level downstairs. I was just about to leave the room when Kei sat bolt upright in bed. She looked at the spot I had been and searched the room somewhat franticly until she spotted me next to the door. Her face relaxed when she spotted me before turning a bright red that she hid behind a pillow. I laughed under my breath and headed out the door. She could act so weird sometimes.

There weren't too many people in the gym. The ones that were in there left almost as soon as I walked in like they didn't want to be judged by Mr. Muscle. I mean I wasn't ripped or anything but, I did work out. I began by running for a little while and then did some reps with the dumbbells that were on racks next to a mirror. For a hotel, it was a pretty nicely equipped gym. I pulled out one of the mats hanging off to the side of the weight racks and began to do some crunches when another person joined me in the gym.

She had on short running shorts and a sports bra and started on the treadmill. I tried to avoid looking at this woman and continue my work out but she acted like she wanted me to just ogle her. This is why I had never liked going to a gym before the military. I was about to cut my workout short and just leave when Kei walked in still in her sweats.

"Hey," I said as I transitioned to push ups, changing my mind about leaving... just for the moment.

"Hey," She said back. She looked at the woman on the treadmill and the jogger looked back at Kei. I don't know exactly what happened but the sudden tension in the room was palpable. Kei walked over to the remaining treadmill and got on. She immediately turned the treadmill to a speed much faster than that of the woman to her right was going at, and began running. In response, the woman seemed to bump up the speed on her tread mill as casually as she could, which wasn't casual at all. What was making Kei do this? I may have had a diminished sense of awareness when it came to women and their 'desires', but I knew the first woman jogger was trying to gain my interests. Why was Kei... competing with her? Maybe she knew I found the other woman annoying and was trying to force her out. I tried to ignore whatever was happening between them but it was starting to become entertaining. I put my mat back and sat on the lifting bench in front of the dumbbells and discretely watched the two women by using the mirror. The rate Kei was jogging at was causing her to work up a sweat and I wasn't sure how much longer she could go before she overheated in her warm clothing.

I was about to step in and stop her before someone got hurt but before I could, Kei pulled off her sweat shirt to strip down to her sports bra. I was a little surprised at first. The most I had seen of Kei was when she was in her white tank top that she always lounged around in on base. But as the surprise wore off, I was torn between staying for the entertainment and leaving for modesty. I opted for modesty and left the room soon after. I headed back to my room to find both Chopper and Grimm still out of it. I decided to go for a swim instead of a shower and grabbed my suit from my bag and quickly changed and was out the door again. While I was waiting for an elevator, Kei appeared on the one I was waiting for.

"Oh, hey," she said trying to act like nothing had happened in the workout room.

"Hey," I slowly drawled, raising my eyebrows to ask the unasked question.

"Where you going?" she asked, avoiding the attempt I made to discuss what had happened. I thought it was pretty obvious I was headed for the pool but...

"The pool to cool off. It got..." I cleared my throat a little before continuing, "...pretty hot in that little workout room." Kei's face began to burn a red color and she quickly stepped off the elevator to let me on.

"I'll get Chopper and Grimm and we'll come join you," she said not looking back at me.

"Sounds good," I called back. Before the elevator doors shut all the way, I saw her take a quick glance back at me. She could act so weird sometimes. Especially around me.

I got to the pool area and was about as impressed with it as the gym. It was one of the good ones that had an actual deep end that went to about eight feet and a shallow end that smoothly transitioned from three to five feet before dropping off. The sun was coming in and doing most of the lighting in the area through a whole wall that was just glass windows. I started off by just walking around in the shallow end of the pool, pulling my hands through the calm water. I then transitioned to the deep end as I held my breath at the bottom of the pool for long periods of time, enjoying the quiet thumping of my own blood in my head. This underwater world was a sanctuary, quiet and cool, making me feel weightless and free without a safety harness strapped across my chest. I had been down at the bottom for a particularly long period of time when all the sudden there was a huge splash somewhere above me. I rose to the surface to see Chopper just coming up from the water himself.

"Nothing to get your head back to reality like a nice swim, eh kid?"

"I didn't have nearly as much good-time-in-a-bottle as you Chopper. You probably need this more than me."

"Whatever man," he said waving his hand dismissively at me. "Still feels good."

"Good morning, Captain," Grimm said as he walked into the water. I had given up on getting him to be more causal with me. He must've felt more comfortable being formal with me than informal. What ever worked.

"Good morning Grimm. How do you feel?"

"Oh, I'm fine sir. I may look like a light weight, but with my metabolism, it makes up for my smaller size."

"Good to know," I said with a small smile. Grimm just closed his eyes and winced as he realized that I wasn't checking to see if he had a hangover. "So Chopper, you got any plans to be with your family while you're on the mainland?" Chopper looked thoughtfully into the air for a moment before speaking.

"You know, that sounds like a great idea," he said after some complementation. "I'll tell them to come over sometime soon while I'm still here. You've got to promise me you'll meet them though. My daughter has been dying to meet you, though it might be because she expects you to have bright, red hair."

"What?!" I asked loudly, Chopper shrinking back a little at the confused cry. "Why would she expect that?!"

"Well, she wanted to know why you were called 'Blaze,' so I said it was because you used to have fire for hair but now it has cooled down enough to become real hair and that it's still red." I gave him an amused look. "I like to tell stories to her! It's how I get her to laugh."

"Looking at your face doesn't do it?" I said sarcastically. Chopper just splashed me with some water. "Okay, I'm moving to the hot tub. You two kids enjoy yourselves and don't get into trouble." I went over to the control for the Jacuzzi and set the timer for twenty minutes. Chopper and Grimm began a diving competition and asked me to be the judge. They both started with some weak pencil dives but Grimm eventually pulled out the big guns and did an actual dive into the water.

"Seven," I called out when he came back up.

"What? That was at least an eight," Kei said from around a corner. I couldn't see her yet but Chopper's jaw dropped from where he was. Even Grimm was silent for a moment as he treaded the water. After a moment, the young airman spoke up again.

"Thank you, Ma'am," he said as he got to the edge of the pool where a ladder to get out was.

"I'm calling it at least nine," Chopper attempted to whisper to Grimm before getting hit in the head by a flip-flop. Grimm just turned a beat red before returning to his diving attempt.

I steeled myself for whatever Kei looked like. I vowed to have a better reaction than my other two wingmen had. It was the hardest vow to keep in my life. When she rounded the corner, every part of me screamed to stare at her but I forced my attention to remain on the two performing the now very sloppy dives. She had on a black bikini that had orange accents causing me to reflect momentarily. These last couple of days had been the most I had seen of Kei in a very literal way. I wasn't sure what to say to her, if anything. I wanted to say she looked nice, but it was so hard to know where the line between casual and professional was.

"Hey Kei, it's like these two aren't even trying," I tried sparring a glance at her face and seeing she had a smile on it.

"Well," she started as she lowered herself into the hot water. "Not everyone can be 'Caden quality' all the time."

"How did you sleep," I asked with a lowered voice so that Chopper or Grimm wouldn't hear. I was still avoiding looking directly at her in fear of my eyes becoming glued to her.

"Fine, until I woke up," she replied still looking at me.

"Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault. I was already waking up anyways. How did you sleep?"

"Well, I didn't get kicked in the night so I guess you could call that good," I said with a smile and a sideways glance. Her face brightened up when I looked at her but she still gave me a punch in the arm. We chatted casually after that and I was able to keep my eyes from wandering for most of our conversation, glancing back at the pool when the temptation became too great. Chopper and Grimm eventually came and joined us for ten minutes making the job of diverting my attention much easier. We continued to talk until the Jacuzzi timer ran out and the bubbles stopped coming.

"I'll get it," Grimm said getting up to restart the bubbles.

"That's okay," I said getting up faster. "I'm done anyways. I don't know what I'm going to do today, but it's not going to be sitting around in a warm tub, even if it is with all of you." As I reached the dial on the wall, I heard someone else get out of the pool.

"You two find something productive to do today as well. And clean up the Captain's room before the cleaning lady has to do it for you," Kei said to the other two squadron members. I picked up a towel and quickly dried off, taking the stairs to my room soon after, feeling lazy for not having walked the three flights to the third floor of the twelve story building before. When I got to the room, I took a shower and changed into my civilian clothes, some jeans and a dark red long sleeve shirt. I grabbed my wallet before putting on a brown leather jacket and heading out the door, nearly running into Kei.

"Hey," I said after I had caught myself. She had changed into some normal clothes as well, some boot cut blue jeans and a gray long sleeved shirt. She also had her short hair at the perfect mix between messy and done up.

"Hi, Caden," she said looking up at me. "So what did you have planned for today?"

"I don't know, it's kind of like I said. I've never really had to think about what to do when I've got free time as a civilian. It seems so... boring now." Kei laughed at my comment.

"I know what you mean. I remember my first leave being a complete let down. Of course, I didn't have anyone to hang out with then..." she said trailing off.

"Well, why don't we start off with walking around down-town," I replied. "I've never really explored Oured too much."

"We?" Kei asked hopefully before I nodded. After a short pause she spoke again with a smile plastered on her face. "Neither have I." We walked onto the elevator and descended to the lobby level to head out to the down-town area. We weren't too far from the 'official' start of the down-town district and it wasn't long before we began to walk down one of the large side-walks that served as both a path for pedestrians and an art gallery for abstract structures. I noticed Kei was starting to hug herself like she was cold. Oured may have been closer to the equator, but it didn't have the warm ocean currents Sand Island had to keep it warm.

"You want to get a jacket?" I asked as we stopped by a large statue of what looked to be a horse staring up into the sky. Of course, with this kind of art, you could never be sure.

"That noticeable?" Kei asked with a slight shiver and a smile. I nodded and we walked along the street to find a suitable store. When we found one that Kei said wasn't too 'ritzy,' we walked in. There wasn't much for me to do other than wander around the store with Kei as my guide. I kept getting stares from the other women in the store, and every time I turned to face them, they returned their gazes back to the clothes in front of them like they had never been looking at me.

"Why are they staring at me?" I asked Kei in a quiet whisper. I couldn't see the whole front of her face, but from the corner of the mouth I could see rise, I could tell she was smiling.

"They're checking you out," she said. I suddenly felt uncomfortable and exposed.

"Why?" I asked continuing the use of my quiet voice as she continued browse around.

"Because you're man enough to walk into a woman's clothing store. Now, do you like this one or this one?" she said pulling two coats off the rack in front of her.

"Doesn't matter what I think, you're the one who's going to be wearing it." She rolled her eyes and took glances at both the coats before I said something completely stupid. "Besides, you'd look great in anything that's in here." I froze for an instant before I immediately recovered and turned, feeling the color come to my face. I found new interest in the coats that were right behind us that I had previously though had been very uninteresting. After a while longer of me avoiding her gaze, she decided on a brown coat that came just past her fingers when she wore it. After we bought the coat, we began to walk down the art gallery like street again.

"It's like there isn't even a war going on," I thought out loud as we were walking trying to bring back a sense of normalcy. "It's just been over a month," I continued, "I bet it hasn't even really sunk in yet for these people."

"It's sunk in for me," Kei said softly. I nodded. We had been in this war since the very first battle, even before the war had 'officially' begun. We walked into a city green space and began to walk down a shaded path of trees that had yellowing leaves. We hadn't said much of anything to each other for a while and I was beginning to wonder how the rest of the day would play out. I glanced over at Kei and she was just looking at her feet, occasionally correcting herself to stay on course with me.

"You feeling okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied as she lifted her head up at me. "Just day-dreaming," she said looking at me before breaking her intense study of my face and instead taking interest in a fountain near the center of the park.

"About what?" I asked her as she scanned around the park, looking at anything besides me.

"How I'm going feel when the war is over. How it's going to be the same and how it's going to be different." I nodded as she continued to avoid my gaze. It was weird with Kei. She could be so specific and forthcoming about some things and so vague and shy about others. I decided it was just another one of the things about her that made her special. I glanced at my watch and saw it was 1317.

"You want to grab a bite before we head back?" I asked.

"That sounds great," she replied nodding her head. She took another glance at me, the higher collar on her jacket hiding the bottom most parts of her face making her look like some sort of fashionable detective. I smiled at the amusing thought of Kei as a super sleuth and was rewarded with smiling eyes that peaked above the jacket. As we walked out of the park, we passed a children's play area where young couples sat and watched their kids play in the sand and on the equipment. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt a burgeoning of emotion at the sight of the parents looking lovingly at their children. It just jumped out at me, clear as day. The biggest epiphany I had in all my short life.

This is what I would fight for. My cause. To have a future like that, a family. Something caused my vision to blur and I put my hand to get whatever it was out of my eye to find out it was only liquid that I had put there. Quickly realizing I was crying, I put both hands up to my face and began to try and remove any evidence of my sudden swell of emotion.

"Hey, what's wrong," Kei asked, genuine curiosity and worry coming across her voice.

"Something got in my eye," I said rather quickly. I knew my face was shading and Kei knew me well enough to know I was lying, but, instead of pushing like she usually did, she remained quiet. We ended up visiting an authentic diner for a late lunch. We both ordered some shakes and burgers.

"So," I began, starting a conversation as we waited for our meal. "Where would you live if you could live anywhere you wanted?" It was a question that was usually easily answered by any Osean citizen. They would always choose some part of the country within four seconds usually their own home towns. But I knew that asking someone who wasn't from the country itself might yield an original response for once.

"Not sure," Kei said with a smile touching her lips. "Somewhere I could see all the beauty this world has to offer," she replied after thinking it through for a couple of seconds.

"Sounds like you want to live on the Arkbird," I said with a grin. She laughed and turned her gaze away from me.

"How about you?" she asked looking back towards me.

"I'll be happy wherever Mrs. Irving's happy," I said, nearly quoting one of my dad's expressions he almost always repeated when my mom asked if he was happy in Osea. It had been her idea to move here after the war and she always seemed to question if it was the right decision. I brought my self-back to reality to see Kei had an expression I couldn't place my finger on.

"Mrs. Irving?" Kei asked with a confused face as she began to withdrawal.

"Yeah, my future wife. Call me weird-"

"You're weird," she interrupted with a goofy grin. I smiled and continued to speak.

"-for thinking that far ahead, but it's oddly soothing." Kei's face almost immediately changed to an expression of... relief?... before turning away to hide the deep crimson color spouting from her cheeks. "What? You didn't think I was married, did you?" I asked with a big smile and a slight chuckle behind my voice in order to conceal my own embarrassment.

"No, you just... confused me," she said, a look of gratification crossing her red face when our waiter brought us our milkshakes. She quickly hid her face by looking straight at the table while taking large sips of her beverage through the straw. When she finally looked back up, she seemed to have recovered to a normal state. "My turn," Kei said.

"What?" I asked, a little unsure of what she meant.

"To ask a question," she clarified. I nodded when I understood. "What gets on your nerves the worst," she said, clearly thinking of her answer already as she asked the question.

"I bet you already know," I said to her. She squinted her eyes in thought for a moment, probably trying to remember if I had said or done anything to give it away to her.

"Is it... is it when people," she paused thinking about how to phrase her words next. "When people praise you 'unnecessarily?' Like how when Chopper talked you up in front of those nuggets back at Heierlark, or when Azarola," she paused for a moment as anger came to ruin her beautiful smile. "When that pilot at McNealy took an interest in you purely because of your skill and her ability to ride on your coattails?"

"Bingo," I said trying to get the happy Kei back. "How about you? What drives you up walls?"

"You," she said jokingly. We sat for a split second in silence before we both busted out laughing. Once we calmed down she spoke again. "Okay, for real it's when people try and mitigate my efforts at something." I looked at her as she started giving an example of her pet peeve to me. She was so open to me in this moment. And it was different than when we were at McNealy. That had been in private. Here, in a public place, she was sharing openly with me about things we would never talk about if we were just co-workers in the military. Was this what it was like to go on a... date?

"Caden?" she asked looking at me. I had been starring at her.

"Gah... yeah. Yes. Yes?" I said snapping out of my trance.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bore you," she said looking back down at her shake.

"Oh, no. No, you weren't boring me, I was just thinking and listening," I said trying to fix what she thought of me.

"What were you thinking about," she asked.

"Well," I began. Should I tell her that I thought this was like a date? Would that make it weird? I couldn't tell her. She would think I was taking a pass at her. She didn't need that from me. "I was thinking about how that makes sense, your pet peeve about being belittled. I bet all those times you got passed over for OTS drove you nuts." She smiled and nodded at me. Good save.

"Yeah, but it all worked out in the end," she replied. "If I had gone earlier, who knows where I might've ended up? This way, it worked out that I got placed with you." She looked at me for a split second with something in her eyes before she shut them closed and shook her head as if there was something very sour in her mouth. "And... Chopper and Grimm," she quickly added returning to normal again. Despite my desperate efforts to conceal my surprise at her actions, I stared at her with a somewhat worried face. Catching my look, she placed her hands on the back of her head and brought her elbows to the table to conceal her face. "I'm such a weirdo, aren't I?"

I leaned in as if I was going to tell her a secret. She must've felt me get closer to her or something because she looked up from her hiding spot and gave me a questioning glance before something passed in her eyes. It was so brief, I didn't know what exactly kind of emotion she was trying to express.

"In case you haven't noticed," I whispered to her, glancing around as if someone was going to try and eavesdrop on us. "I don't really mind. It takes the attention off me," I finished with a smile directed towards her. She quickly dropped her mouth in fake astonishment at my comment as if she had taken offense. She wasted no time in quickly slugging me in the arm as our waiter brought us our burgers.

"You two are adorable," she said. She was old enough to be my grandmother and the way she had treated us so far this evening was doing nothing to refute that possibility. "How long have you been a couple?" she asked innocently. Kei and I immediately made eye contact before changing to the color of strawberries and finding something else of interest in the room to look at. "Ah," the older server said. "First date, huh?" she said looking at me with a knowing smile on her face. I quickly glanced at Kei to see her looking intently out a window.

"I guess you could say that," I said slowly, trying to get help from Kei but she was too absorbed in the scene outside. I brought my gaze back towards the mistaken women.

"Well," she said keeping her eyes on Kei as she leaned down towards me. "She's definitively a keeper," she said in a whisper that was just loud enough for Kei to hear. My head was pounding and my heart was racing as it filtered through the abundance of emotions which came flooding in. She gave me a nod and a pat on the back as she straightened back up to leave. Once she was out of ear shot, I cleared my throat as an attempt to signal Kei that the woman had left.

"'I guess you could say that?'" Kei said when she slowly looked back at me with a questioning face. Uh-oh.

"Um..." I started before she spoke up again.

"Is that what this is to you? A date?" she asked. For a moment I was at a loss. The way she had asked, it seemed like either way I would answerer would be both right and wrong.

"I wouldn't know," I answered truthfully. Her face became confused, maybe frustrated, before she brought it back to one she might use during an interrogation.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said.

"I've... never... really... been on one. So..." her face lost all of its neutrality and went straight to confusion before a realization came over her.

"Oh."

"Yeah," I said looking down at my burger.

"Sorry," she said, mirroring me.

"It's fine. Not your fault or problem. Let's just eat and get out of here," I said as I began to eat the meal in front of me. It looked like she was about to say something else but didn't and ate her burger. Despite the mood change between us, the burger still tasted great. When the waiter came back around for the bill, me and Kei tried to hide our new found discomfort of each other but part of me figured she saw through it and I knew she had when the bill came back as 'on the house.' I put half the cost of the meal on the table anyway and we left the restaurant in quiet silence. We didn't even speak one word during the painfully quiet walk back to the hotel and Kei went straight to her room on the floor above mine. I sat down in my room and just stared at the TV as it spoke at me nothing coming out of meaning anything. What a turn around. I suddenly heard a knock on the door. My heart rate became erratic as I began to think that Kei was there waiting to say something that would make it all better. I practically ran to the door but when I flung it open, it was my MP guard detail.

"Captain Irving, there's been an incident and you and your squadron are needed at Apito International Airport. You will be briefed en-route to the area. Please follow us."