All the teams are scheduled to transfer locations during the night. Check-in for recorders is two hours before then so they can hand in their reports, which means that it's up to me and Gippal and Nooj to make sure everything's ready to be pack-carried.
In reality, this means that it's up to Gippal and myself. Nooj escapes during these times. I think he claimed once that he was going for maintenance on his artificial limbs.
The blonde surprises me by already being awake when I return to the room. Thankfully he doesn't ask where Paine is, so I don't have to come up with a proper sentence to explain why she was not here right now, but instead is out logically attending roll-call. I am not ready right now to claim that I did see her, but that we didn't speak much. Night arrived. We both had business to attend to. End of discussion gone so horribly wrong that I still didn't know if I should be checking myself for missing limbs.
"So how was it?"
I don't expect this question. Not from Gippal of all people, with his puppy-dog enthusiasm and loose-hipped charm.
"What do you mean?"
"Only that you've been staring at her forever man, I was wondering when you'd be doing anything about it."
Forever is not three days. Not even three and a quarter and a sunset. In Gippal's world, eternity must be a concept too vast for comprehension.
"That's not funny, Gippal," I say, implying the jibe but meaning really that the Al Bhed had noticed something I didn't expect. This is because it is not true. Absolutely not, and then I pick up the empty water canteens that I accidentally dropped on the floor when he spoke. I had been surprised by such a wild claim; it had been an understandable fumble. "I'm not... are you saying I'm interested in her? Our recorder?" Remind him that she is performing a job despite the dexterity of her faint smiles and the line of her jaw when she sets it stubbornly, that even if her calves are poetry living in flesh, she is still Yevon's watchful gaze.
I think I can smell her on my clothes.
Fayth save me.
To better hide my eyes, I heft the mismatched bedrolls from the floor to the mattress so I can start to wind them up. Our team owes it to Gippal that we'd managed to collect a little over two sets. This wasn't to say that he'd begun to charge for his late-night instruction of machina; the official explanation was that the other trainees were dumping their extras on us. Nooj always told them it was because they took pity on him because Gippal kept trying to tinker with his arm, and the instructors believed that.
Gippal, meanwhile, is still grinning. The whole mishap is one big joke to him between friends. "If you're not, that's one hell of a 'not interested' you two were going at."
This is what I get for being friendly with him.
"Weren't you supposed to be sleeping instead of spying on us?"
"Nooj kicked me in the head when he rolled over. I swear it was on purpose. Why do I always get stuck on the floor with him? If we weren't leaving now, I'd be demanding to change shifts." Gippal's fingers are an exaggerated huff of motion as he clips our extra ammunition secure. "Okay, wherever we're going next, Baralai? You don't get to be the one holding the straws when we pull, got it?"
I do not say anything. Eventually Gippal realizes that I have returned to tying down the knots of our equipment, and he asks his next question with the hesitancy I have come to recognize as him trying to be considerate.
"Don't tell me she was your first?"
"No, she was not," I retort, suddenly sick of this interrogation in a way I cannot explain because I was not aware the feeling could exist before now. The ropes are looping themselves wrong in my fingers and now I am forced to redo them. Damned rebellious pieces of string.
"I had a sweetheart. Well," Gippal corrects himself, "Kinda one. Nothing serious, you know? She was sorta young. Didn't take too well me talking about joining up with the Crusaders," Gippal drawls, stretching his arms over his head and then letting the elbows dangle, forearms loplanked with his fingers spread behind his skull. "Said any Al Bhed would just get kicked around by Yevon bastards--no offense," he covers quickly. "But, uh..."
"None taken." However intricate the romantic circles of the Al Bhed are, I'm not certain I want to hear about them in detail.
Gippal continues anyway, blithe to my aggressive lack of reaction. "Turns out when I get here, I'm not even allowed to try out. Can you believe that? Just 'cause I'm an Al Bhed. Yeah, sure they spit on us, but then they use our machina. Badly, too!"
"They acquire machina from somewhere other than imports," I reply dryly, suddenly not even knowing if what I've recited back dutifully is true. It's the explanation of the priests and I've never had the interest to doubt even though I'm aware I should know better. For one thing, the phrase is nonsensical.
"Oh, sure they do," Gippal retorts, but without fight. It's true. He's seen this arguement enough times that he doesn't care to rejoin it. I don't either so it makes it fair between us. "Anyway, like I was saying. Couldn't just turn around and go home when I found that out or Rik'd laugh right at me for that one. And, uh... I think I can do it, you know?"
Somewhere in Gippal's exposition I have realized that the blonde is going on just for the purpose of being able to talk. It rushes out of him like water unbarred during a flood. I didn't think he could be nervous, but I should have realized he just shows it in different ways.
"So I found out this Crimson Squad thing, signed myself up. If they want to block me out of the Crusaders then they can, but I'm still gonna succeed no matter what."
He doesn't notice that I am silent.
"And then I find out I'm not the only Al Bhed who's gotten the idea, yeah? So I run into this redhead, didn't even expect him to be one either because he dyes his hair so no one suspects and gives him trouble. Can't hide his eyes, that's the problem, so he wears goggles most of the time. Kickass game of cards."
Paine must be out talking with Nooj. Neither of them have returned yet.
"Hey, are you listening? Baralai?"
I wonder if she is asking him about the reasons he still fights.
"Baralai, come in. Hello?"
I wonder if she is smiling.
I need to wash my hands before the scent drives me insane.
