Zack was woken up with a start by the sound of his phone's persistent ringing. He picked it up without thinking too much about it. He was greeted by a friendly "Hellooooo!" from Aerith. He sighed and turned over, still wrapped in the blanket. "Hey, what's up?" – "Will you tell me what happened today?", she asked. Zack stared at the ceiling and thought for a moment. "One of my best friends was killed in action today", he replied flatly. "I'm so sorry, Zack", Aerith tried to console him. Zack rubbed his eyes.
"I killed him." Aerith was quiet. "He… he attacked me and…" – "Zack, it'll be alright. It's not your fault." – "No!", Zack yelled. "He's dead. He's not coming back." Aerith voice was shaking when she responded: "I'm sorry for being so insensitive. I had no idea. Do you know why he attacked you?" Zack closed his eyes. "What do angels dream of?", Angeal's voice echoed in his head. "He turned into a monster. It's all Shinra's fault", he pressed out. "A monster?", Aerith repeated. "Shinra experimented on him or something and he grew a wing." He did not care anymore that the information was technically confidential. Aerith could keep a secret. Or rather, who would believe it anyway?
Zack continued to cry about Angeal's demise to Aerith for half an hour and at some point, he re-entered his mind that he had been angry at her earlier. But he was over it, or so he thought. This quarrel seemed so meaningless in light of what happened today. In actuality, he was fed up with Shinra and their stupid secrets and human experiments and whatever. He had no idea what Shinra wanted from Aerith, but she was probably a victim herself. But this event made him realize that she had never truly opened up to him. She usually talked about superficialties or diverted to a different topic whenever the conversation went to her, and he began to wonder where their relationship was even supposed to go with her not truly letting him into his life.
After their conversation ended on a fairly neutral note, Zack checked his messages before putting it down. To his surprise, he had a message from Sephiroth. He had not thought about Sephiroth at all today because he had been so preoccupied with Angeal. Sephiroth had never even once sent him a message before. He usually called if he had any orders for Zack, which did not happen often. When Zack opened the message, he was even more confused to find it empty. Zack tried to scroll down, just in case it was some prank and the actual message was somewhere further down. But that was not the case either. It was simply empty.
He put down his phone, leaned back and rested his arm over his eyes. Again, he did not know what was even expected of him. He groaned, rubbing his eyes and picked up his phone again. He selected Sephiroth's number from his contact list and tried to call him. The phone signal tooted several times, but Sephiroth did not pick up. Zack hung up, feeling so unsettled it made him bite his lips. He pushed away the blanket and sat up in his bed, still naked as he had not put on any clothes after taking a shower.
His body felt sticky, so he wanted to take a shower again. He scratched his head and got up when he realized that not only was the blanket cover he had dropped on the floor earlier was gone, there was also a fresh stack of linens on the bedside table. And he was certain that he had turned off his phone before falling asleep, but it had obviously been turned on again while he was asleep, or it could not have woken him up.
It was not the time for the cleaning staff to come in and clean the room. Someone else having come into the room while he was asleep made him uncomfortable. He knew that the SOLDIER quarters were not technically private because certain people had access to the rooms, but the privacy of the SOLDIERs was usually respected. And him not waking up when someone walked in made him wonder just how often people simply walked into his room without asking for permission.
But then, someone turned on his phone, cleared away his laundry, and even got fresh linens for him, all without waking him. Among the people who had access to his room, he could imagine only one person would callously invade his privacy and do all these things. Zack leaned over the bed and reached for his phone. He typed a short message to Tseng into the phone that simply read "Thanks", and sent it off. It was an olive branch. He was still salty that everyone was so secretive about Aerith, and that even Aerith herself could not (or would not?) tell him anything, although he was supposed to be her boyfriend. In some ways it seemed as if Tseng was closer to her than Zack was, although Zack knew it was dumb to be jealous of the Turk. There was no way there could be anything romantic going on between the two of them. Aside from the fact that Tseng was much older than her, he simply could not believe that Aerith would be going out with two men at once.
Finally, he typed a message to Sephiroth that said: "Hey, what's up?" He pondered for a moment if that was really the right thing to say. Sephiroth and Angeal had been best friends for a very long time and there was no doubt that he must have heard the news by now. Did he know that Zack was the one that fought and eliminated Angeal? He deleted the message and re-typed: "I'm so sorry." He hesitated for another moment, but finally sent the message.
He closed his phone and put it down to put on some clothes at last, but his phone beeped immediately, alerting him to a new message. Expecting a message from Tseng, he was surprised to find one from Sephiroth instead: "its nt your fault". Why was he in such a rush to respond that he did not even bother checking his text for typos? "It's not your fault". Zack had lost count how many times he had heard or read these words today. How could anyone believe that he would be rid of his guilt just because someone told him that it was not his fault? But then, what else were they supposed to say?
He had no idea what to make of Sephiroth's message. He usually could not make much sense of anything Sephiroth said or did, although he thought Shinra's hero had finally started to open up to him. But despite that, he could not really relate to him. He wanted to talk to him more, but he never knew what to say, and right now, he had no idea what to write. He laid down on the bed again and stared at Sephiroth's message. He wondered what Sephiroth was doing and why he had contacted Zack in the first place. It was not surprising at all that Zack could not make sense of it, considering how little he knew Sephiroth. To the few who knew him well, it was not at all astonishing that his mind was not just with his deceased friend, but also with his living one.