Partially Awake
Chapter 3: Discord

Author's Notes: Again, thank you so much for the reviews. Here's another chapter, a bit longer than the other two but I hope you'll like it. Don't hesistate to let me know if you do, I'm really enjoying writing this fanfic and seeing people who like reading it makes me equally happy. :-)

Flipping the coin from his fingers, Dearka caught it quickly again as it fell down and pressed it against the palm of his hand.

Tails, again.

Shrugging without much thought, he turned the coin over and flipped it up in the air again.

These simple actions, repeated over and over again were starting to become so much more than a small irritation in Yzak's mind. He heard the sound of the coin flipping from Dearka's fingers, the dull sound of the coin landing in his hand again and remaining there only for a few brief moments before being flipped up in the air again. Without noticing it himself, Yzak tightened his hold on his pen and wrote with such force that the ink soaked through the paper and made marks on his desk. Yet Dearka just sat there on the other side of the desk, slouching in his chair and with his feet resting quite comfortable on another chair, and flipped the coin again. Over and over and over and over and over again...

"STOP THAT!"

Dearka nearly full out of the chair and felt as if his heart would just right out of his chest. Although he quickly regained his balance, the sense of fear did not exactly go away when he looked up to see Yzak looking at him as if he wanted to kill.

"If you do that one more time I'll have you demoted again and on cleaning duty twenty-four seven!" Yzak threatened loudly.

Deciding that demotion was clearly not worth the momentary feeling of entertainment he got when he flipped the coin, Dearka immediately placed it back in the safety of his pocket.

"Sorry, just bored that's all," he explained.

"Then get back to work," Yzak muttered, turning back to the report he was writing. "You've been hanging around here for the past hour doing nothing."

Dearka raised an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding me? The council sent us out on a scouting mission without any other orders. Now we're stuck here in the middle of nowhere and have to stay here for another thirty-six hours before we can start a several days long journey back to PLANT. I got all of my work done on my way here, the tech crew was practically begging me to let them take apart something and put it back again."

"Then let them," Yzak answered without looking up. "If people just concentrated on working more they wouldn't have the time to complain. Go find something to do, unlike some people I actually have work to do."

Sighing, Dearka got up from his chair and started to walk towards the door. Halfway there he stopped and turned around to face Yzak once again.

"Oh by the way... have you talked to Shiho yet?"

Yzak looked up.

"Shiho?"

"Yes?"

"No, I haven't," Yzak replied, his anger having faded away to be replaced with slight curiosity instead. "Why?"

Dearka shrugged again.

"No reason, just thought that she might not be that happy with you after the meeting," he told. "I haven't seen her around lately."

"So you automatically assume it's because of me?" Yzak retorted.

"Well... yes."

Seeing Yzak's eyes narrow in their usual manner, Dearka crossed the little distance that was left between him and the door. He pushed the open button and although the door slid open quickly, he felt as if he could not get out of the office soon enough.

"I'll leave you to your work," he said with a smile just as he walked through the door. "But just a friendly advice... if there's one thing that women do best it's holding grudges."

With that he left Yzak to soothing silence. At least it would have felt soothing if Yzak's head was fully occupied with thinking about what Dearka had just said. Nonsense, that was what Dearka's words were. For a guy who couldn't get his own relationships with women right he had a lot of nerve telling Yzak what to do. As far as Yzak knew there was nothing wrong between him and Shiho, just because they had not spoken ever since the meeting did not mean that something was wrong.

It didn't have to mean anything at all.

He had mostly confined himself to his own office and quarters to deal with all the paperwork that was piling up. She was probably busy with something else as well, Dearka was clearly overanalyzing things. It was Shiho after all, she was not that sensitive.

Yzak kept all of this in mind as he finally emerged from his office hours later, intending to stop by the bridge to see how things were going. Just as he entered the corridor he caught sight of red and brown and saw that Shiho was on the other side of the corridor. Her right hand was on the railing that ran along the wall, pushing it slightly to move forwards and towards Yzak. She did not look angry at all, in fact she looked pretty normal.

Perfect timing, Yzak thought, almost wishing that Dearka was there so that he could see for himself that everything was okay.

As Shiho came closer and closer towards him, Yzak struggled to find something to say to her. Asking her to give a brief report on her work seemed a little too random, especially since he really had no idea about what she had done since they had last seen each other. But other than work there weren't really any other topics he could think of, after all work was what they had in common. Finally Yzak decided to ask for her personal opinion on how some of the rookies were doing and if their simulation training had improved. She was closer now, only a few feet away and raised her hand in a salute. With the start of a greeting and a sentence on the tip of his tongue, Yzak opened his mouth...

...and watched Shiho go right past him.

Yzak grabbed on to the railing and stopped, blinking a few times as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen. Looking over his shoulder he saw that Shiho had dropped her salute and her eyes were looking straight forwards. A few seconds later she reached and pressed a button. The elevator door opened quickly and she disappeared behind it, leaving Yzak alone in the middle of the silent corridor. She had not even noticed that he had stopped and turned around to look at her.

Even though she was already gone Yzak stared wide eyed at the elevator door.

What the hell was that! he thought to himself, more shocked than anything else.

It was not as if the corridor was really spacious and she hadn't seen him. She had even saluted at him! Usually she was one of two people on the ship would spontaneously talk to him when they met in the corridor, whether the talk was regarding work or just a small battle of wits. The surprise Yzak felt slowly transformed into the brewing sort of anger and he trudged on, fuming over Shiho's behaviour.

What the hell is her problem! he asked himself. I haven't done anything! Women!

By the time he arrived at the bridge his previous good mood was completely gone, his head felt like it would explode and he had completely forgotten why he was heading towards the bridge in the first place. While the captain and the bridge crew stared at him silently, waiting for some sort of order or any word from him, Yzak just had his eyes on one person.

"DEARKA!" he shouted and literally dragged his friend away from a petite blonde by the communications center. Not until they were in the corridor outside the bridge did Yzak let go of Dearka, although the tone of his voice was still the same as ever. "TELL ME WHAT HER DAMN PROBLEM IS!"

"Geez, take it easy," Dearka said, making a face at Yzak's constant screaming. "Her problem? Well, her name is Maggie, she's a little sad because she broke up with her boyfriend, but I was this close to having her say yes to a date when we get back to PLANT..."

If Yzak got a penny for every time he wished that ZAFT commanders were allowed to whack their subordinates with a baseball bat he would have been able to build his own PLANT by now.

"I was talking about Shiho," Yzak said through gritted teeth, using every ounce of control to restrain himself. "What the hell is her problem!"

"Your tendency to attempt to damage everyone's hearing, perhaps?" Dearka sighed. "She might have gotten a little upset with the way you basically told her to get out of the meeting room last time."

Although Yzak had heard it before, hearing it again simply reinforced the anger he felt upon knowing that someone could actually get upset because of something as simple as that. With a not so discreet scowl, Yzak just turned around and walked away.

"If you would just tell her you're sorry..."

"SHUT UP!"

Dearka watched him go, then returned to the bridge and the communications center with a weary smile.

"Can I borrow this for a while?" he asked Maggie, who gave him her headset with a quiet nod. "Thanks."

Putting it on, Dearka quickly hit a few keys on the keyboard and started to type in the commands. Moment later a new window opened on the monitor before him, revealing Shiho working in the cockpit of her ZAKU.

"Hey, feel like joining me in the mess hall for dinner?" Dearka asked. "I heard that the food is actually edible today."

Shiho looked up and pushed her keyboard away.

"Sure thing, nothing to do around here anyway."

"Perfect," Dearka smiled. "I'll meet you down in the mess hall in a second."

With that, he closed the window and the communication link to Shiho. As he took off the headset and handed it back to Maggie, he did not fail to notice her less than pleased look as she snatched the headset back and put it on. Dearka watched her typing furiously at her keyboard, clearly pretending that he was no longer there.

"So, about next weekend..." he started.

"Are you going to go and meet Shiho Hahnenfuss in a few seconds?" she cut off, annoyed.

Her question only made Dearka's smile broaden.

"No."

His own reflection glaring back at him from the elevator doors, Yzak felt as if the elevator could not go fast enough. He needed to get back to the residential area and his quarters. Exactly why he didn't know, although that the fact that he was so upset that it was pretty much certain that he was going to strangle the first person he saw seemed like a good enough reason.

Just thinking about things made him feel as if he was going out of his mind. She wasn't talking to him just because he had told her to get out of the meeting room. Of all the reasons in the world why one would get upset, her reason seemed to hold a pretty low position on the list. He had not even told her to get out, if he remembered it correctly he had just told her to that she was allowed to leave. It wasn't like he had thrown her out of the room, she could have stayed just like Dearka.

Dearka.

The memory of Dearka and Shiho in the hangar flashed through his mind briefly and strangely enough he felt his face redden when thinking about it. He had walked in there to ask them to come to the meeting room with him and for some reason he felt something strange when he saw them. They were smiling, floating around together and although Dearka had let go later, they had held hands at one point. In a way the very thought of that memory disturbed him although it was difficult to explain in a logical way.

The elevator doors suddenly opened and Yzak, in deep thought, prepared to step forwards and leave the elevator. Just as he was about to get out he looked up and saw the familiar corridor leading to the hangar rather than the residential area. This wasn't the right deck. Someone brushed past the door in a hurry and it was not until that person stood inside the elevator that Yzak found himself standing right next to Shiho Hahnenfuss inside the elevator.

"Commander."

She saluted but her voice was cold and indifferent.

"At ease," Yzak muttered and looked away, the feeling of anger starting to brew inside him again.

Shiho said nothing in response as she dropped her salute. She looked away from him as well and Yzak noticed how she was attempting to stand as far away from him as possible without actually pressing herself against the wall. It fuelled his anger even more and he took extra special care to not stand too close to her either. They both stood there in tense silence, looking away from each other and acting as if they were completely invisible to each other.

The elevator door closed before them and started to move. The glowing numbers on the small monitor above the door told him that he was only three decks away from the residential area. He caught himself glancing at Shiho and saw that she had not pressed any buttons, meaning that she was going to the residential area as well or the mess hall seeing as they were on the same deck. Remembering that he was supposed to ignore her, Yzak quickly looked away.

Just three decks left.

Three.

Two.

One...

Suddenly the whole world seemed to turn upset down as everything turned pitch black, the screeching sound of metal against metal seemed to pierce through his ears and into his very skull. For what could have been both a moment and an eternity everything shook violently, making him lose his balance and drop to his knees. Then suddenly it was over and all the shaking and the sounds were replaced by dead silence.

Yzak opened his eyes, although in the darkness it made little different. He felt a slight ache in his foot after falling down awkwardly but quickly concluded that it was not serious and would go away in a while. From the other side of the elevator he heard a quiet moan followed by a curse, reminding him that he was not alone.

"Are you alright?" he asked, reaching his arm out to find out exactly where she was.

"I'm fine..." Shiho answered. "Just a little... what are you doing?"

His fingers touched and instinctively he grasped it. It was light and soft and it took him a moment to realize that he was holding a lock of Shiho's hair in his hand. Yzak let go immediately and fortunately did not have to answer her question. A small lamp in the ceiling of the cage suddenly filled it with dim light. Now that he could actually see Yzak stood up and walked over to the elevator's control panel. At first he pressed the emergency button, then the numerical code to the bridge.

There was a small monitor above the control panel and in Yzak's mind the communications link to the bridge couldn't be established soon enough. The image on the monitor flickered slightly but a few seconds later the words "Link established" appeared blinking over the entire monitor, before switching to showing the bridge. Yzak opened his mouth to address the captain, but only found his jaw dropping as he saw Dearka there instead.

"Where's the captain!" he demanded.

"The night shift has started, remember?" Dearka reminded casually. "The captain is off duty for another eight hours so I'm in charge until then. So, what's up?"

"Elevator three is malfunctioning," Yzak informed sternly. "Get someone to fix it and get us out of here now."

"Ah, I heard that there was something wrong with that one," Dearka answered and Yzak's eyes widened a little upon seeing him so casually lean back in the captain's chair. "I'll get someone down there in a minute."

"IN A MINUTE!" Yzak yelled, gripping the sides of the monitor so hard that his knuckles whitened.

After all the years he had known Dearka, he had learned that Dearka had a certain kind of smile when he was up to no good. The smile on Dearka's lips was starting to resemble it, no matter how dreadful the thought was to Yzak.

"Well, I was thinking about what you said earlier... the thing about if people worked more they wouldn't have the time to complain? So I've put everyone who's not off duty on some sort of assignment and you told me to let the tech crew do whatever they wanted to keep busy so they're up in their ears when it comes to work. I'm sure someone will be there soon though, so hang in there."

The monitor suddenly went blank but Yzak continued to stare at it, not knowing whether laughing, crying, screaming or kicking was the appropriate action for the moment. He lost track of how long he stood there just staring at the monitor but it was only when Shiho roughly shoved him aside that he stopped staring.

Furious was an understatement when it became to describing Shiho at that moment. She was pressing the bridge code like there was tomorrow and each time the words "Link denied" appeared she looked as if she was ready to punch in a few walls.

"I can't believe this!" she called out. "That bastard... he set us up!"

Yzak just stared at her, still in a daze over what was going on. He knew the look in Dearka's eyes and knew that they weren't getting out of the elevator until Dearka decided that it was time. This was out of line, this was clearly out of line. Someone was definitely getting hit with a baseball bat later whether commanders were allowed to do it or not. Almost burning with rage he pushed Shiho away from the control panel and resumed his attempts at making contact. The bridge was not responding, but even when he tried every code he could remember to every location on the ship the result was still the same.

Link denied.

After Dearka, this control panel was going to experience the full power of his wrath.

"DAMNIT!" he cursed, slamming his forehead against the wall as he punched in the code for the last time.

"Dearka is so dead," Shiho whispered from where she stood and stared at the elevator door as if she was thinking of trying to physically break through it.

"No kidding," Yzak muttered, backing into a corner and sitting down. "We'll see who's laughing when he gets assigned to scrubbing floors."

"Make it permanent," Shiho suggested with a dry laugh but Yzak did not smile.

He sat quietly in his corner, looking at nothing in particular. In the corner of his eye he saw Shiho sitting down in the corner across him, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. His eyes half hidden by his silver hair, Yzak carefully studied Shiho as she sat there. With her knees drawn up she bore little resemblance to the soldier Yzak was used to seeing, even though she was wearing her uniform. She looked smaller and softer in a way and he cursed quietly to himself when he couldn't find the right words to describe things.

Suddenly her piercing violet eyes met his.

"I'm supposed to be angry with you."

Yzak raised his head a little and looked at Shiho fully.

"What...?"

"You always snap at people," Shiho continued. "You snap at everyone, I get that and I'm used to it. The thing is that you never do it without a reason, no matter how weird it is. But in that meeting you didn't."

Not knowing what to say, Yzak just looked away and stayed quiet. They sat like that for a while, until finally he heard Shiho sigh.

"Fine, be that way."

She turned away from him, preferring to face the wall. Yzak stayed the way he was, silent and thinking about the words she had just said. He had snapped at her that day, perhaps it was because he had seen her and Dearka in the hangar. Perhaps it had been the weird feeling he had gotten when he saw them, perhaps it was because he did not want people to think that Dearka was hitting on the very person he was engaged to. Perhaps it was because of the orders he had received, perhaps it was the draft of the wedding invitation that his mother had sent to him. There were so many perhapses that he did not know which on it was and before he knew it he had a minor list of possible reasons why he had snapped at her that day.

The thing was... neither one them was actually because of her.

Everything was dead quiet in the elevator cage with none of them talking or even moving. There were no sounds coming from outside, confirming their belief that Dearka was in no hurry in getting someone to fix the elevator. Yzak opened his mouth slightly, intending to say something but his mouth remained opened as no words came out.

What was he supposed to say anyway? That he was sorry but he didn't know why because there were a couple of million possibilities as to why he had snapped at her? He didn't even know why it she had to take it so seriously, everyone lost their temper once in a while.

But you do it a lot more than once in a while, a voice in Yzak's head whispered.

The same voice in his head told him that the right thing to do would be to apologize.

If that suggestion had come from someone else, Yzak would have made that person number three on his list of people and objects to inflict physical damage on.

Almost forcing himself to not look at her and continue staring at the spot on the wall, Yzak decided that the best thing to do was to just stay quiet for the time being. She was looking at him, he could practically feel it in the back of his neck. More silent seconds passed, each one feeling like an unbearable eternity to him. He was not, definitely not, going to apologize for such trivial thing as snapping at her and he was definitely not going to turn around and look at her.

Still staring at the wall, he concluded that the spot had an unusual shape and color. It was likely that a member of the crew had accidentally caused it while the Voltaire was docking at Aprilius, seeing as the shape of the spot implied that it had been created in a place where there was gravity. He would have to find out who the irresponsible crew member was and think of a proper punishment.

"...imsorry."

The words came out before he had the chance to stop him, as if someone else inside him had actually spoken them. He immediately felt like slamming his head against the wall, especially after all the time he had spent telling himself that he was not going to apologize. From the other corner of the elevator he heard Shiho shift slightly and there was a few seconds of silence before she spoke.

"What did you say?"

Scowling, Yzak cursed quietly to himself.

"I said I'm sorry," he muttered in a low voice. "You happy now?"

He heard her shift again and seconds later she came within his sight, having crawled over to his side of the elevator. Yzak looked up and met her eyes. For a while they sat there in silence, he had no idea what she was thinking but the only thing that went through his mind was that the more he looked into her eyes the more he noticed their extraordinary color. She had striking violet eyes, eyes that watched rather than just saw things.

"We can't let petty things get between us," Shiho spoke suddenly. "Not if we're going to work together and get out of this engagement."

Upon hearing the word engagement Yzak suddenly remembered the deal he had struck with Shiho a few days ago. Strangely enough, despite all the talk of their engagement and his mother's arrangement, he had almost forgotten the talk he had had with her and their agreement. Breaking off all eye contact he shifted slightly so that he would not be looking directly at her every time he looked up.

"Mother has set the date for the wedding," Yzak told. "It's in two and a half weeks."

Shiho let out a frustrated sigh and leaned heavily against the wall behind her. She looked like she was three seconds away from wanting to kill herself.

"Great, great, wonderful!" she exclaimed. "What's next? Grandkids?"

When Yzak just gave her a look, Shiho's expression changed from frustrated to somewhere between disgust and pure fright.

"Don't answer that one."

"We need a plan," Yzak stated. "I'm not marrying you!"

"Hey, my life's ambition isn't exactly to become your wife either!" Shiho retorted. "I mean you're not exactly husband material..."

One hit. Yzak felt his eye twitch slightly.

"...marrying you would be like marrying a big kid who clearly needs anger management classes..."

Two hits. Yzak clenched his fist.

"And let's face it, with the way your mother controls your life..."

Three hit combo!

Feeling like he was about to explode from anger, Yzak stood up abruptly. Shiho looked at him curiously from the floor, as if she really had no idea why he was looking so angry. Her lack of understanding only made him see red and filled him with more fury than he thought was possible. His clenched fist, almost hidden behind his back, shook as he stood before her.

"You aren't PERFECT either!" he shouted. "Your handwriting is awful, I've seen your reports! You lose to Dearka in simulations, you get mad for stupid reasons! And you wear a male uniform, WHAT THE HELL is up with that! You're not woman enough to actually wear the female uniform! God knows that everyone else here thinks that you look more like a guy, even Nicol looked more than a girl than..."

Considering how fast Yzak was talking, it was a wonder that Shiho had the time to react, get up and raise her hand. In the brief moment that Yzak had the time to think and was still in the middle of his ranting, he actually thought that she would slap him.

She didn't.

In the blink of an eye she threw a forceful punch right at Yzak's face, sending him stumbling backwards and colliding rather painfully with the wall. His first thought, after the flash of white light had disappeared, when he fell to his knees moments later was that he really should have seen it coming. His second thought had more to do with stars and more white light but he quickly concluded that it was because of the punch.

Automatically pulling himself up on his feet, Yzak gently touched the area on his cheek where she had struck him. He felt a dull ache and a burning sensation as his fingertips made contact with his cheek. Looking up he saw Shiho glaring at him, fist clenched and giving him the distinct impression that there was more from where that punch came from.

"What's the penalty for husband assault these days?" he hissed.

"We're not married yet," Shiho snapped sharply, her eyes looking directly into his.

"So we're back at square one."

"I guess we are."

"Good."

"Good."

Still holding his hand to the sore spot on his cheek, Yzak refused to break off the angry staring contest they were having. Shiho stood on her side of the elevator, everything about her cold not to mention her eyes. Yzak, however, felt more like strangling her at the moment. How dare she punch him and not even look slightly remorseful? Issues regarding ranks and protocol between ZAFT commanders and their subordinates aside, Yzak's heart pounded on in anger as he thought about what she had done. Had it been anyone else he would have punched back. But this whole situation was ironic. He had gotten punched because he had gone on and on about how little of woman she was and now he couldn't punch back because she was a woman.

"Are we done playing games yet?" Shiho questioned. "This is getting tiresome."

"From just throwing one punch?" Yzak sneered. "And here I was thinking that you are a ZAFT elite soldier. It couldn't have been easy for someone like you to make it... perhaps you did use your female charms to get all the way here."

He watched how Shiho's expression changed to pure shock as she figured out what he was implying. Moments later her face was filled with rage and she raised her right fist again, only this time Yzak was prepared. As she lunged at him he swiftly stepped aside, grabbed her arm as it zoomed past his face and twisted it in an armlock. A muffled groan escaped her lips as he pushed her against the wall and used free arm and his own body to lock her position.

"Get this..." he hissed, his face close to the back of her neck. "The only reason why you're not being pounded to death is... God, I don't even know why. You're mad at me, I get it and I even APOLOGIZED! But do I get the slightest..."

Yzak's voice suddenly faded as he felt Shiho shake beneath him. He stared wide eyed at her, panic creeping up on him as he thought that he had actually hurt her. All kinds of thoughts rushed to his mind, thoughts of Shiho's wellbeing, regret, fear and anger towards himself. In all this he saw several scenarios before him, Shiho with a dislocated shoulder, or a broken wrist and her sinking to the floor crying. None of them sounded preferable above the other and Yzak stared at the back her neck with dread.

However, what he did not expect was to hear her laugh.

He blinked at first, unsure of what he was really hearing. Her body shook beneath his but not out of pain or anguish but out of laughter. Although he could not see her face that well he saw her half closed eyes and heard the laughter escape her smiling lips. It was a true laughter rather than a psychotic one, which would have been more fitting for the situation. Then again, Yzak knew a psychotic laughter when he heard one, being the son of Ezaria Jule and having served under Rau Le Creuset after all.

"W,what's so funny!" Yzak exclaimed once he had regained the ability to think properly.

Leaning forwards against the wall, Shiho struggled to speak properly, breathe and continue to laugh hysterically at the same time.

"Don't you... heh, just occurred to me..." More laughter. "...you don't suppose Dearka is sitting somewhere watching all of this?"

Automatically looking over his shoulder, Yzak suddenly saw it for the first time.

A surveillance camera rigged in the upper corner of the elevator cage, directed right towards the spot where Yzak stood.

Exactly where he stood. If Dearka, or anyone else for that matter was watching, they would have seen that for the past few minutes their captain had pinning his subordinate and now fiancé up against the wall. They would have certainly not missed the fact that he had been standing so close to her that he had felt her entire back against his body and that he had been close enough to feel the scent of shampoo in her hair.

Feeling as if someone had dropped a bucket of ice over him and cheeks burning hot at the same time, Yzak immediately let go of Shiho and practically jumped away from her.

"DEARKA, you pervert! It's not what it looks like!" he yelled towards the surveillance camera.

The camera continued to film him menacingly.

Yzak clenched a shaking fist.

"DEARKA! Get us out of here NOW!"

With that, all the gene manipulation and physical education lessons he had ever had paid off as Yzak made a surprisingly high jump and reached towards the surveillance camera. His fingers laced with a couple of cords and he pulled at them roughly as he landed back on the floor. A buzzing sound came from the surveillance camera and lasted for about two seconds before the whole thing shut off.

While Yzak looked at his work almost proudly, Shiho had just about managed to stand up straight and was still doing her best to suppress her laughter. Yzak felt his eye twitch in irritation.

"It's not funny!" he snapped.

"No, of course it's not," Shiho agreed but the broad smile on her lips betrayed her. "I absolutely agree."

"We're supposed to be out convincing people that we're bad for each other, I fail to see the humor in this," Yzak muttered, not knowing whether to blame himself or something else for feeling like slamming his head repeatedly against the elevator door.

Shiho's smile faded away surprisingly quickly and instead was replaced with a somewhat concerned frown. Faint memories from anger management classes coming to mind, Yzak took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down and sat down right across the elevator door.

"How do we do this?" he asked solemnly. "We'll be heading back to Aprilius tomorrow and will be there in a few days. By then we'll have two weeks to convince my mother and your parents to call the whole thing off. How the hell are we going to do that in just two weeks?"

Shiho walked over to him and slowly sat down beside him.

"We might have to involve strippers and a lot of whipped cream," she suggested casually and met Yzak's panicked eyes. "I'm kidding. But seriously, we'll do whatever it takes to get them to break it off, right? When I say whatever it takes, I really mean whatever it takes."

"I think we both know that already," Yzak responded. "The question is exactly how do we do this?"

"We'll figure it out when we get back. Just have to act in the worst possible way when we're in front our parents. It can't be that difficult, just do everything you know your mother would hate you doing."

Everything his mother would hate him doing? Just the sentence sounded like something from a foreign language to Yzak, who just stared at Shiho with a puzzled look on his face. In return Shiho met his gaze with equal confusion, although for a different reason, and her eyes were mixed with disbelief.

"Please don't tell me you never went through the teenage rebellion thing."

"Did you?"

"Well, let's just say that you can pretty much compare me with the last bit of toothpaste that never comes out of the tube."

Opening his mouth to ask what the hell she was talking about, Yzak barely had the time say the first syllable of the sentence before his eyes started to hurt as the elevator cage once again became illuminated with normal, strong light. Before he knew it he felt it shake slightly before making an abrupt fall downwards. Hardly able to do anything but to shut his eyes, he felt something warm gasp his arm. Perhaps seeking protection, he instinctively pulled whatever it was as close to him as possible.

Just as suddenly as the elevator had begun to move, it stopped and stood completely still.

Even before Yzak opened his eyes, it dawned on him that during that small, bumpy ride he had pulled Shiho close to him. He felt her half lying across his legs, with her upper body held firmly by his arms. When he had finally adjusted enough to the strong light he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw were her dazed eyes.

Both of them suddenly heard a swishing sound and when they both turned around they saw the elevator door opening before them.

Standing on the other side was none other than Dearka and right next to him three of the technicians on the ship. Four pair of eyes widened as they saw the compromising position of their commander and his fiancé but none actually said anything. Faint blushes rising to both Yzak's and Shiho's faces, they quickly let go of each other and stood up properly, making sure that they were standing at least three feet apart. Shiho was the first to exit the elevator and also the first one to approach Dearka, who had regained enough thought to resume his usual teasing.

"Well, I guess the two of you weren't that bad off in there after all," he smiled.

Mustering all the dignity that they could, Yzak and Shiho wordlessly began to walk away from the elevator.

However, neither missed the chance to kick Dearka in his shins as they passed him.