Hayato Kobayashi walked into the house he now shared with Frau Bow. The
two teenagers were still too young to be married, so they settled for
living together with the Gang of Three as they continued high school.
Hayato came up behind Frau, who was making a large salad in the kitchen,
and kissed her.
"How was judo practice?" Frau asked.
"Same as usual. Olympic-bound." Hayato was swarmed by the kids and stopped to tussle with them. "What's on the menu for tonight?"
Every Friday was reunion night, when the White Base crew who could make it converged on Hayato's and Frau's for a barbecue. Mirai and Bright were on Earth now, but the rest of the friends had settled on Side 7 as their home.
"Try this." Frau popped some of the salad into Hayato's mouth.
"That's good!"
"I added some of those herbs I've been growing, so there's basil and cilantro and chives in it." She put the salad bowl in the refrigerator. "It's Amuro's turn to bring the main course."
"Which means we'll be going hungry. Kids! Want to go to the grocery store?"
"He'll remember," said Frau. "I trust Amuro to bring the food."
Hayato was silent for a moment, then picked up Katsu and held him upside- down. "C'mon kids, let's go to the grocery store!"
***** Kai Shiden winced as he discovered that the place in the hospital Sayla was working in was the morgue. Nonetheless, he pushed the door open and stepped into a cold, cement-floored room.
"Sayla!"
"Room six!"
Kai entered the indicated room and found Sayla, in surgical scrubs, calmly suturing the chest of a corpse. Kai turned his back. "Uh, hi, Sayla, having a nice day?"
"Can't complain."
"So, what're you up to these days?"
"The medical examiner does the autopsies, I stitch them back up," Sayla explained. "They pay me, but I don't really need the money. I do it for the experience."
"Doesn't that creep you out?" Kai felt gooseflesh on his own back.
"Nothing does that to me anymore. Besides, what's to be scared of in here? They're just people."
Kai turned. Sayla had finished her task and covered the corpse to the chin with a sheet. The body was that of a woman in her mid-20s with short brown hair. The eyes were slightly open and there was a hint of a smile on the face. Kai approached slowly and looked down.
"She's sort of a nice looking person. What happened to her?"
"Kidney disease."
Kai opened his backpack and removed a camera. He took a single shot of the face.
"That's a new camera." Sayla pulled off her latex gloves and started undoing her apron.
"I've been getting really into my photojournalism class."
"Well don't give up writing. I love what you write."
"So do my profs at the university. I've been handing in chapters of my journal of the One Year War and getting rave reviews."
"Sounds like you hit on a career path."
"Hope so. Weird to be back in school after spending the last year or so at war."
"I know what you mean. One minute I'm killing people, the next, I'm back to learning to heal them." She covered the body and rolled it into a refrigerated chamber. "Let me go change and get washed up. I have to stop at a store and pick up something for dinner."
As Hayato predicted, Amuro forgot to bring the raw hamburger and hot dogs. He'd brought several bottles of soda though, and since Hayato had picked up what Amuro hadn't, there was plenty of food.
"So what's going on with Bright and Mirai?" asked Frau.
"Mirai sends me e-mail every day," Sayla said. "She and Bright are settling in on Earth. They miss us a lot. She's been ordered to take piloting courses so she can fill in the gaps on how to pilot a spaceship, but she says it's working against the instincts she spent so long developing."
"She really is a natural talent when it comes to that," Frau agreed.
"They also had a pregnancy scare, but it turned out to be just nerves on her part. Bright's been working a lot, and he's not allowed to tell her what he's doing. It has him in a bad mood."
"Poor Mirai. Being alone with Bright when he's in a bad mood has got to stink."
"Especially when he doesn't have Amuro to knock around," said Kai, who was walking past with a hot dog in his hand.
"Hey!" yelped Amuro.
"So what are you up to, Amuro?" asked Hayato.
"Working for Earth Fed. We've got some Jion mobile suits that are almost intact and I'm studying them. I like that; it feels like I'm following in my father's footsteps.
"Living in the lab?" Hayato asked.
"How'd you guess?"
Hayato patted him on the shoulder. "I'll send Frau along with a food basket for you."
Sayla sat down with them. "Studying Jion suits? Does that mean you're building something out of them?"
"That I can't answer," Amuro said as Haro came bouncing off the table, with the kids running around the table in hot pursuit.
Sayla picked at her potato salad. Amuro working on a secret project, Mirai being further trained as a pilot and Bright being in a continuous bad mood was pointing in only one direction.
*****
Kai stopped the car back in front of Sayla's apartment building. "Same time next Friday?"
"I'm not going to be in the morgue next Friday. You can meet me here, or at Frau and Hayato's."
"Gotta admit, that'd be a little more normal. Here, I'll help you get your bike out of the back."
As he lifted the bicycle from the back seat, Sayla shyly asked, "Do you want to come inside?"
Kai was stunned, but tried to hide it. "Sure. Okay."
He carried the bike up the exterior staircase to Sayla's second floor apartment. She unlocked it and he followed her in, resting the bike against the wall where she indicated. The place was completely anonymous. Sayla had used her money on new furniture, but the comfortable-looking couch was a dull mushroom colour, the coffee table a functional beige thing. It was buried under papers and notes with a television remote on top. The small living room had a cut-out in one wall looking into a small kitchen. Across from the kitchen was the bathroom. The bedroom was at the end of the hall, he assumed. There were no posters on the wall and except for a photo of the White Base crew at Bright's and Mirai's wedding, no personal touches at all.
"Do you do anything but study, Sayla?"
"No." She was in the kitchen, and he could see the light from the open fridge. She came out carrying two beers. "That's why I invited you in."
"Thanks, but if I drink that, I won't be able to drive home."
Sayla untwisted the cap and handed it to him. "Would that be a problem?"
Kai raised an eyebrow. "Miss Mass, are you propositioning me?"
Sayla sat down on the couch, looking up at him calmly. "Yes, I am."
"Oh boy." Kai sat down beside her. "You know, if I had ever thought this would happen, I wouldn't have fantasized about it so much."
"If I didn't know you fantasized about it so much, I wouldn't have asked you."
"Everyone's expected you to end up with Amuro."
Sayla shook her head, blonde hair swishing. "I love Amuro dearly, but he's so...." she waved a hand in the air as she tried to think of a phrase "...high maintenance. You have to be after him to make him eat, you have to be after him to make him sleep, you have to force him to put down the robot parts and bathe. Unless you enjoy that, he isn't very interesting." She sipped at her beer thoughtfully. "I'm becoming dehumanized myself, Kai. I'm spending too much time with bodies and books about bodies. I've always been like that, but the war made me think twice about being so single-minded. I realize I'm so driven because I didn't want to think about Casval. Now I see that Casval has more of a life than I do, with a wife who is perfect for him and a baby on the way. That's given me pause."
"Why me, though? There's still Marker, Oscar, Job-John..."
"You make me laugh, and that's not easy."
"You are pretty grim most of the time. No offense."
"It's true! You drove me crazy at first, Kai, but when the chips are down, you come through. You've been very protective of me and my feelings since White Base was destroyed. You've had the best handle on the political situation. There's a lot to recommend you, whether you like it or not."
"Holy crap. I'm a catch." Kai grinned around the neck of the bottle.
"So would you like to stay here tonight?"
"Sayla, I've been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you."
Sayla put her arms around him cautiously and Kai inclined to kiss her. She clearly had no idea what she was doing, so Kai murmured some suggestions to relax, open her mouth, follow his lead. She learned quickly, and within a few minutes it was as if they'd been kissing for years.
"This is nice," Sayla whispered to him.
"It is." Kai raised a hand experimentally to one of her breasts, cupping it gently, feeling its weight. He looked to Sayla for approval, and she nodded. He kept stroking her gently over her shirt as he kissed her again.
Sayla pulled away and Kai was about to apologize when she said, "Maybe we should move to the bedroom?"
"Great idea."
*****
Her room was just as featureless as the living room; a pine dresser, a desk and computer surrounded by even more textbooks and papers with Sayla's twin bed in the middle. She lay spooned against Kai, who draped an arm protectively over her.
"You all right?" he asked her softly.
"I'm fine."
"Just thought I'd ask. Losing your virginity isn't something that happens every day to a person."
Sayla lay on her back and reached up to stroke Kai's face. "I'm a doctor, I knew what to do. I'm a little sore, but that's the worst of it."
"I'm not talking about what you're feeling here or here," Kai said, touching her head and the covers over her upper thighs. "I'm talking about what you're feeling here." He touched her chest over her heart.
"Oh." Sayla looked thoughtful. "I don't know. Isn't that awful? I feel..." She frowned as she tried to put it into words, "I feel I made a bold step into a new life. I've always hidden myself from people, never wanting them close. I didn't just open my body to you, Kai, I opened my emotions to you as well, and that was the scary part. But it's funny, I don't think I could have done it with someone who wasn't from White Base. Isn't that strange?"
"No. The same thing's happened to me. I've had dates since we got back to Side 7 and I've never been able to-you know. I think we've all been bound together through this war, and we have to get used to that."
"Good." Sayla pressed her head against his chest. Kai hugged her. They lay still for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Kai said, "That was way better than any fantasy I've ever had."
"It was good? I mean, I had the technical know-how, but the stylistic has yet to come to me."
"It was good. Better than that, it was great. You're so beautiful, and I've wanted you for a long time. It just changed though, over the course of the war. When I first met you, you were such a cold, arrogant bitch I wanted to fuck you to get you off your high horse, pardon my language. But as I got to know you better, I started wanting to be your lover instead, even just for fun. Then I started seeing that you weren't arrogant, you were scared, and I wanted to make love to you to see if you'd feel better. I'm a jerk; it took me almost the whole time we were on White Base to see how lonely you were."
"Oh Kai." Sayla's arms went around his neck and her lips covered his. They lay holding each other and kissing for a long time. "I'm glad it was better than your fantasies."
"Now, if only your sister-in-law were here with us."
Sayla grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and smacked Kai with it. She was laughing, though, and it wasn't long before they were busily making love again.
"How was judo practice?" Frau asked.
"Same as usual. Olympic-bound." Hayato was swarmed by the kids and stopped to tussle with them. "What's on the menu for tonight?"
Every Friday was reunion night, when the White Base crew who could make it converged on Hayato's and Frau's for a barbecue. Mirai and Bright were on Earth now, but the rest of the friends had settled on Side 7 as their home.
"Try this." Frau popped some of the salad into Hayato's mouth.
"That's good!"
"I added some of those herbs I've been growing, so there's basil and cilantro and chives in it." She put the salad bowl in the refrigerator. "It's Amuro's turn to bring the main course."
"Which means we'll be going hungry. Kids! Want to go to the grocery store?"
"He'll remember," said Frau. "I trust Amuro to bring the food."
Hayato was silent for a moment, then picked up Katsu and held him upside- down. "C'mon kids, let's go to the grocery store!"
***** Kai Shiden winced as he discovered that the place in the hospital Sayla was working in was the morgue. Nonetheless, he pushed the door open and stepped into a cold, cement-floored room.
"Sayla!"
"Room six!"
Kai entered the indicated room and found Sayla, in surgical scrubs, calmly suturing the chest of a corpse. Kai turned his back. "Uh, hi, Sayla, having a nice day?"
"Can't complain."
"So, what're you up to these days?"
"The medical examiner does the autopsies, I stitch them back up," Sayla explained. "They pay me, but I don't really need the money. I do it for the experience."
"Doesn't that creep you out?" Kai felt gooseflesh on his own back.
"Nothing does that to me anymore. Besides, what's to be scared of in here? They're just people."
Kai turned. Sayla had finished her task and covered the corpse to the chin with a sheet. The body was that of a woman in her mid-20s with short brown hair. The eyes were slightly open and there was a hint of a smile on the face. Kai approached slowly and looked down.
"She's sort of a nice looking person. What happened to her?"
"Kidney disease."
Kai opened his backpack and removed a camera. He took a single shot of the face.
"That's a new camera." Sayla pulled off her latex gloves and started undoing her apron.
"I've been getting really into my photojournalism class."
"Well don't give up writing. I love what you write."
"So do my profs at the university. I've been handing in chapters of my journal of the One Year War and getting rave reviews."
"Sounds like you hit on a career path."
"Hope so. Weird to be back in school after spending the last year or so at war."
"I know what you mean. One minute I'm killing people, the next, I'm back to learning to heal them." She covered the body and rolled it into a refrigerated chamber. "Let me go change and get washed up. I have to stop at a store and pick up something for dinner."
As Hayato predicted, Amuro forgot to bring the raw hamburger and hot dogs. He'd brought several bottles of soda though, and since Hayato had picked up what Amuro hadn't, there was plenty of food.
"So what's going on with Bright and Mirai?" asked Frau.
"Mirai sends me e-mail every day," Sayla said. "She and Bright are settling in on Earth. They miss us a lot. She's been ordered to take piloting courses so she can fill in the gaps on how to pilot a spaceship, but she says it's working against the instincts she spent so long developing."
"She really is a natural talent when it comes to that," Frau agreed.
"They also had a pregnancy scare, but it turned out to be just nerves on her part. Bright's been working a lot, and he's not allowed to tell her what he's doing. It has him in a bad mood."
"Poor Mirai. Being alone with Bright when he's in a bad mood has got to stink."
"Especially when he doesn't have Amuro to knock around," said Kai, who was walking past with a hot dog in his hand.
"Hey!" yelped Amuro.
"So what are you up to, Amuro?" asked Hayato.
"Working for Earth Fed. We've got some Jion mobile suits that are almost intact and I'm studying them. I like that; it feels like I'm following in my father's footsteps.
"Living in the lab?" Hayato asked.
"How'd you guess?"
Hayato patted him on the shoulder. "I'll send Frau along with a food basket for you."
Sayla sat down with them. "Studying Jion suits? Does that mean you're building something out of them?"
"That I can't answer," Amuro said as Haro came bouncing off the table, with the kids running around the table in hot pursuit.
Sayla picked at her potato salad. Amuro working on a secret project, Mirai being further trained as a pilot and Bright being in a continuous bad mood was pointing in only one direction.
*****
Kai stopped the car back in front of Sayla's apartment building. "Same time next Friday?"
"I'm not going to be in the morgue next Friday. You can meet me here, or at Frau and Hayato's."
"Gotta admit, that'd be a little more normal. Here, I'll help you get your bike out of the back."
As he lifted the bicycle from the back seat, Sayla shyly asked, "Do you want to come inside?"
Kai was stunned, but tried to hide it. "Sure. Okay."
He carried the bike up the exterior staircase to Sayla's second floor apartment. She unlocked it and he followed her in, resting the bike against the wall where she indicated. The place was completely anonymous. Sayla had used her money on new furniture, but the comfortable-looking couch was a dull mushroom colour, the coffee table a functional beige thing. It was buried under papers and notes with a television remote on top. The small living room had a cut-out in one wall looking into a small kitchen. Across from the kitchen was the bathroom. The bedroom was at the end of the hall, he assumed. There were no posters on the wall and except for a photo of the White Base crew at Bright's and Mirai's wedding, no personal touches at all.
"Do you do anything but study, Sayla?"
"No." She was in the kitchen, and he could see the light from the open fridge. She came out carrying two beers. "That's why I invited you in."
"Thanks, but if I drink that, I won't be able to drive home."
Sayla untwisted the cap and handed it to him. "Would that be a problem?"
Kai raised an eyebrow. "Miss Mass, are you propositioning me?"
Sayla sat down on the couch, looking up at him calmly. "Yes, I am."
"Oh boy." Kai sat down beside her. "You know, if I had ever thought this would happen, I wouldn't have fantasized about it so much."
"If I didn't know you fantasized about it so much, I wouldn't have asked you."
"Everyone's expected you to end up with Amuro."
Sayla shook her head, blonde hair swishing. "I love Amuro dearly, but he's so...." she waved a hand in the air as she tried to think of a phrase "...high maintenance. You have to be after him to make him eat, you have to be after him to make him sleep, you have to force him to put down the robot parts and bathe. Unless you enjoy that, he isn't very interesting." She sipped at her beer thoughtfully. "I'm becoming dehumanized myself, Kai. I'm spending too much time with bodies and books about bodies. I've always been like that, but the war made me think twice about being so single-minded. I realize I'm so driven because I didn't want to think about Casval. Now I see that Casval has more of a life than I do, with a wife who is perfect for him and a baby on the way. That's given me pause."
"Why me, though? There's still Marker, Oscar, Job-John..."
"You make me laugh, and that's not easy."
"You are pretty grim most of the time. No offense."
"It's true! You drove me crazy at first, Kai, but when the chips are down, you come through. You've been very protective of me and my feelings since White Base was destroyed. You've had the best handle on the political situation. There's a lot to recommend you, whether you like it or not."
"Holy crap. I'm a catch." Kai grinned around the neck of the bottle.
"So would you like to stay here tonight?"
"Sayla, I've been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you."
Sayla put her arms around him cautiously and Kai inclined to kiss her. She clearly had no idea what she was doing, so Kai murmured some suggestions to relax, open her mouth, follow his lead. She learned quickly, and within a few minutes it was as if they'd been kissing for years.
"This is nice," Sayla whispered to him.
"It is." Kai raised a hand experimentally to one of her breasts, cupping it gently, feeling its weight. He looked to Sayla for approval, and she nodded. He kept stroking her gently over her shirt as he kissed her again.
Sayla pulled away and Kai was about to apologize when she said, "Maybe we should move to the bedroom?"
"Great idea."
*****
Her room was just as featureless as the living room; a pine dresser, a desk and computer surrounded by even more textbooks and papers with Sayla's twin bed in the middle. She lay spooned against Kai, who draped an arm protectively over her.
"You all right?" he asked her softly.
"I'm fine."
"Just thought I'd ask. Losing your virginity isn't something that happens every day to a person."
Sayla lay on her back and reached up to stroke Kai's face. "I'm a doctor, I knew what to do. I'm a little sore, but that's the worst of it."
"I'm not talking about what you're feeling here or here," Kai said, touching her head and the covers over her upper thighs. "I'm talking about what you're feeling here." He touched her chest over her heart.
"Oh." Sayla looked thoughtful. "I don't know. Isn't that awful? I feel..." She frowned as she tried to put it into words, "I feel I made a bold step into a new life. I've always hidden myself from people, never wanting them close. I didn't just open my body to you, Kai, I opened my emotions to you as well, and that was the scary part. But it's funny, I don't think I could have done it with someone who wasn't from White Base. Isn't that strange?"
"No. The same thing's happened to me. I've had dates since we got back to Side 7 and I've never been able to-you know. I think we've all been bound together through this war, and we have to get used to that."
"Good." Sayla pressed her head against his chest. Kai hugged her. They lay still for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Kai said, "That was way better than any fantasy I've ever had."
"It was good? I mean, I had the technical know-how, but the stylistic has yet to come to me."
"It was good. Better than that, it was great. You're so beautiful, and I've wanted you for a long time. It just changed though, over the course of the war. When I first met you, you were such a cold, arrogant bitch I wanted to fuck you to get you off your high horse, pardon my language. But as I got to know you better, I started wanting to be your lover instead, even just for fun. Then I started seeing that you weren't arrogant, you were scared, and I wanted to make love to you to see if you'd feel better. I'm a jerk; it took me almost the whole time we were on White Base to see how lonely you were."
"Oh Kai." Sayla's arms went around his neck and her lips covered his. They lay holding each other and kissing for a long time. "I'm glad it was better than your fantasies."
"Now, if only your sister-in-law were here with us."
Sayla grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and smacked Kai with it. She was laughing, though, and it wasn't long before they were busily making love again.