You have been looking at the letter for two hours now. First you held it in your hands, twisting it, turning it, feeling the slight relief of the eagle that is printed on the envelope, as if to make sure it is real. Now it just lays on the table and you sit in front of it, staring.
You already know what's inside. Of cause you do, you are one of the smartest people in the world. Figuring this one out took approximately a Planck second.
Okay, maybe the call your former guardian gave you a week ago made things easier to guess.
At first it seemed like one of her normal, guilt fueled calls. But something in the way her voice sounded made you suspicious. So you told her to get to the point or leave you alone. Then she made a bomb explode in your head. You could hear her go on and on, as she tried to lay out all the options available to you and the complicated politics involved.
"At the end of the day it is your decision to make" she had explained.
But you did not listen. You had already decided the second she had mentioned that you can be a pilot again.
So it came to no real surprise as the letter arrived this morning. You should be overwhelmed by joy given the unexpected opportunity in front of you. But you are scared. There are several reasons for this, the most prominent being him.
You haven't told him yet. There have been plenty of opportunities to do so but, somehow, you used every single one of them to convince yourself that tomorrow will be a better time. So guess what: Tomorrow arrived and there is not much time left.
You practiced the conversation in your head, thousands of times now. You planned every word, memorized the tone of your voice and played out a million different scenarios, covering nearly every possible reaction of his. This is just how your mind works. You plan ahead, you prepare and you win. You are considered a tactical genius for a reason.
You can hear him opening the door to your comfortable, small apartment that you once, somewhat incidentally, called home. Suddenly your mind is blank, all the carefully crafted words gone.
Fuck.
"I'm home" he calls in anticipation.
Normally you would run up to him, maybe hug him or help him with the groceries.
He continues talking as he makes his way to the kitchen. You don't really pay attention to his words because you need all your mental capacity the ready yourself. Of all the battles you have fought so far, this could turn out to be one of the hardest.
"They didn't have almonds so i bought ... " He stops mid sentence, looking at you.
He immediately knows that something is off.
"Is everything okay ?" He asks with a hint of fear in his voice.
He's very good at picking up subtle things about you. It's just that he is terrible at interpreting them, but you like that about him. Sometimes it's even cute and it shows that he cares. This time he immediately gets it though. After all, you started to avoid him the moment you ended that phone call. He probably already saw the smoke on the horizon a week ago but was too afraid to bring it up himself. Typical.
"I'm leaving." There, you said it.
Whoever strikes first in a fight dictates the pace, so it is highly important to land the first blow if you want to win.
"Oh …okay...? I thought we were having dinner tonight" He looks confused.
"I'm going back to Germany," you continue, now directly looking at him to make sure he gets that this is not one of your jokes.
Before he can make another stupid remark you explain it to him, that they want you to come back to Germany and, more importantly, that they will give you the opportunity to pilot again. You also explain to him what a huge deal this is. Of cause he knows this already. After all you spent a good part of your relationship explaining how much piloting means to you.
Come to think of it, can you even call this a relationship ? A plethora of tangled and intertwined things exists between the two of you, forming something as complex as those Spacetime Metrics you used to study at University. What would you call something like this ? You are pretty sure the word "relationship" does not accurately describes this "something".
First he just stands there, listens. Then he comes over in an attempt to cover the distance between you.
"This is great news. I mean, you dreamed about this right ?"
You expected this. Of cause he would be supportive of the idea. He is supportive of everything that makes you happy. He's still oblivious to the real implications of your words.
"I'm leaving in three days."
You have to end the fight fast and clean. When you drag things out they tend to spin out of control. He thinks about your words for a second and seems to realize where you are going with this.
You hear him say some nonsensical things about how you two can make this work. He will call you, visit you whenever possible, etc. etc... from your perspective is sounds more like he is trying to convince himself.
You feel yourself getting angry. Why does he have to be so fucking dense all the time. You tell him that it will be a very demanding position and that there won't be much free time for private things.
Then you see something rare in his eyes. One of the things you normally love to see. It rarely happens but every so often he has this look in his eyes that says "I won't run away".
"You know what ?" He says in a strangely cheerful way. Strange, because he is not the cheerful type of person.
"I´m coming with you ! I don't mind leaving Japan. There is nothing that holds me here anyway." He smiles.
Please don´t smile …
"Actually this could be great. It could be a fresh start for us"
Like always you are way ahead of him. Of cause you already considered and it seemed like a good solution at first. But the math doesn't work.
"Us ?" What's this even supposed to mean, this "something" between the two of you. Never easy, destined to fail and just thought of as a temporary measure in the first place. There are billions of reasons you can come up with, why this is a stupid idea.
But these are all lies.
Truth is, that he is the only serious competitor you ever faced without him even trying. Truth is, that you want him to live up to his potential because it's the only way you can respect him. Truth ironically also is, that you can't let that happen because the moment he actually does, he will become your rival again. Normally you would just crush your rivals but with him it is different. You are not sure if you would be able to beat him. In fact, you still wonder if you could have survived the war without him.
There is this question that haunts you, it lurks in every corner of every room you enter, always present like a tinnitus that, in the best case, can be tolerated but never cured. You just have to know, because if you are not the best, then what else is there to love about you ?
So the last truth is that you hate him for tormenting you with this neat little paradox that you are unable to resolve.
Now you really start to get angry. Mainly at yourself but this is how things always played out between you two. It is time to warp this up. A part of yourself begs you to stop, to not go through with this but your anger has already taken control.
So this time you aim for the core.
"I just used you, you know..."
And then you pull the trigger
"I never loved you in the first place"
This was not exactly part of the plan but it does the trick. You see it in his eyes. You won, but keep on going. You tell him that you are sick of his constant self pity, that he is an emotional leech that keeps draining your greatness and basically everything else you can come up with to make sure that there are no bridges left.
Silence.
"Are you finished ?" he asks, calm but devoid of emotion.
You expected him to cry, or scream, to throw himself into self pity just like he always does. You were even prepared for a physical confrontation.
Instead you see something unexpected and it hits you harder than all of the above would have. In front of you isn't the gentle and friendly guy that is capable of showing so much affection. All you can see now is a younger version of his father.
God, you never noticed how similar they actually look.
"I'll get my stuff tomorrow" he explains, his eyes looking right through you.
As he stands up you want to apologize, to tell him that you never wanted it to end this way, that he deserves better and you still care, but he is already on his way out.
Before he vanishes out of your life he pauses and looks at you.
"It's not me who is running away this time," is the last thing you hear before he leaves, you sitting in the small comfortable apartment you so recklessly called home.
Your eyes start to burn and, for the first time since your Mama died, you are not able to control the total mess of emotions that is you.
The first year in Germany is tough. Sure you are a celebrity, a war hero, but they don't give you any special treatment. If anything, your fame makes things harder but you are not the type of person who likes free lunches anyway. The competition is strong and everybody wants to see if you are the real deal.
So you do what you always do. You crush the competition and make sure that everybody knows that you are, in fact, the best. Something feels off though. There is always a sense of emptiness present and it has a very familiar shape, no matter how many awards and decorations you earn.
You curse him. It's his fault. Of cause it's his fault, it's always his fault.
You think about calling him, just to check if he is alright of cause, but you never do. You are too much of a coward, and he hasn't tried to contact you ever since so why would you even care ?
At the end of your first year, one of your superiors suggest that you should think about following a more academic career path. Maybe continue working on that promising dissertation you started after the war was over. It does not seem probable that you will experience active combat in the foreseeable future because, let's face it, these are peaceful times and the bio-mechanical monster you pilot, once build to save humanity, is about to become an anachronism.
His advice is well meant. He is wrong, though. You are not a scientist, you are a soldier and soldiers will always be needed. At least in your mind, but since you are also one of the smartest human beings alive, you make it a side project. Mostly to keep your mind from thinking to much about him.
You continue to excel and even start to make progress on that damn dissertation.
Two years in, you get assigned to your first commanding position as Captain of a newly created squad. Assembled from only the most promising of all upcoming pilots. At least that's what you are told. You figure out fairly quick that they are all just a bunch of rookies. Worst of all, you subordinates don't respect you.
That's mainly because they think you are some kind of movie star and the fact that you are basically their age doesn't help either. You, on the other hand, hate their guts because they are lacking in both, skill and ambition. You especially hate the later part because it reminds you of him.
It is around that time that you see him again. Not him personally though. You are sitting at lunch with members of your squad, some random news channel running on a TV in the corner.
There had been tensions between Japan and the New States of America for a while now which culminated in some small skirmishes a few days ago. Ultimately the conflict was resolved when the newly formed European Union stepped in, urging both sides to find a peaceful solution. Nobody was willing to risk a world wide escalation. At least that's what it seemed like at the time. Naturally everybody in your squad is fixated on the news broadcast.
You are not, you have your own thoughts to worry about.
That is until the news-anchor mentions a familiar name. Your head spins around. At first you are not sure if it is really him because the person that is shown on TV has only some resemblance with the meek guy you used to tease about his shyness. He looks much more like his father now. But his physical appearance is not the thing that perplexes you. He is wearing a military uniform. He is a pilot again. The realization hits you like a sledgehammer and with it resurfaces an old friend, a voice that keeps asking the same question over and over again. A Question that you ignored for a while now but that never really went away.
One of the rookies interrupts your thoughts by making a lame remark. Something rather suggestive about you and the person currently shown on the TV-screen maybe being more than just old war buddies.
You break his nose and, while you are at it, make it perfectly clear to everybody in your squad, that you are not some kind of child celebrity has-been.
You are their commanding officer, you are here to be the best and crush everybody who stands in your way and you fucking expect everybody in your squad to show the same ambition.
This little incident has its disciplinary consequences but it earns you some respect. It´s a small investment that pays off. Things start to smooth out between you and your squad and the people you think of as subordinates start to become your comrades. Not friends though, never friends.
As time passes, you start to notice a tonal change in the news broadcasts. Typically a notion of peace and conflict avoidance underlies most of the political discourse in Germany. But now the mood shifts. It's subtle at first, something you only notice if you pay close attention. The old tensions between the New States of America and Japan, now part of the newly formed Eastern Alliance, were never really resolved, just postponed and traditionally Germany tends to take the side of their American "friends".
Then the accusations start and the political discourse becomes more and more unreasonable, devoid of logic. Accusations are replaced by insults, quickly followed by threads and before you know it, some asshole fires missiles. It is not quite clear who really started it but the New States of America are the first ones to declare war. The invasion of Japan starts the very same day.
It doesn't take long for the conflict to spread. Two days after Russia announces her support for the Eastern Alliance the European Union and, by proxy, Germany enters the war. You are thrilled, yet terrified. This is what you waited for. Your chance to proof your worth to everybody. This time you won't fight to protect the human race from godlike manifestations though. This time the exceptional power you wield will be used against other human beings for reasons that seem insignificant to you.
He always knew it would come to this one day, you talked about it a lot back then. It was one of the main reasons he resigned right after the war. At least that is what he told you. You always had a hard time understanding this aspect of him. With all the talent he was blessed with, how could he be so afraid of using it ? It drives you insane, even now, to think of how much of a fucking coward he was and how much you miss fighting with him about it.
But there is no time to dwell in the past. Your squad is about to get deployed. You know exactly what this could mean but you suppress the implications to the point of denial.
The day you meet him again starts very much to your liking.
You and your squad drop from high altitude directly into enemy territory. You mission objective is to attack and destroy an enemy outpost that turned out to be rather resilient against conventional bombardment. Nothing fancy, just a quick and hard strike, not much resistance expected.
You and two of your comrades make sure that the extraction point is cleared while the rest of your squad gets to have all the fun.
You realize that you are in trouble when one of the Scout-Drones picks up a single, rather strange looking, enemy Unit approaching your squad. You immediately head in their direction while screaming at your squad to fall back and, under no circumstances, engage the enemy. The two remaining Units right behind you.
Several seconds later the comm erupts in hectic chatter that quickly degenerates into word fragments being screamed in fear and terror.
It takes three minutes for you to get to your squads location. At the time you arrive the only thing you find are the scattered remains of a gruesome fight. You scream the names of your comrades into the comm but only the crackling of the CMB answers.
Then you see the familiar, demonic silhouette of his Unit, slightly hunched over, colossal in tons, much of its purple armor covered in shades of red. Its gaze darts through the thick layers of armor and tissue that surrounds you, enters the walls of your tube like cockpit and stares right at your soul.
You have seen this exact scene before. Back then it had merely scared you to think how, you too, were sitting in one of these things. Now you are paralyzed with fear.
Suddenly you understand something very important about him. It was not the act of piloting itself or the pain and suffering it brought that he feared. Nor were the moral implications of it all that made him so reluctant. The pilot of this thing in front of you isn't the boy you used to care so about much anymore. Maybe he died the day he left the small comfortable apartment that you once called home.
The fear slowly fades away and is replaced by an overwhelming feeling of sadness as a second realization forces its way into your consciousness. You won't win today. This day will see you lose something.
You open your comm and order the two remaining Units to run as fast and far as they can. They won't stand a chance and this is not their fight anyway.
As you arm your weapons a thought flashes through your mind that provides a quantum of comfort. At least you will get an answer to that always present question.
Author's Notes:
*Mama = German term for Mother, similar to mom
*CMB= Cosmic microwave background
... 16.05.2020
Fixed some errors and marked complete. Thanks to everybody who commented or wrote me. I really appreciate it. The story was just intended to be a small experiment and i'm not sure if i can make something bigger out of it but I will think about it. Maybe someone else wants to try ?
...
This started as a writing exercise where you were suppose to write a breakup scene from different perspectives while staying as vague as possible. In one draft i noticed some resemblance to the show so i basically made up my own exercise and tried to translate it to English and make this into a somewhat "Evangelion themed" story. The story itself is not very original but i had fun writing it so maybe some of you can enjoy it.
I´m not used to write in English so my grammar sucks and i´m still trying to get a feel for the language. Since this is an exercise, constructive criticism would be highly appreciated.
Thank you very much for reading.