Sorry about the super late update, I got caught up in finals. xD But now, finals are over, summer is here, and I get to write as much as I want! By the way… The Last Airbender comes out in two weeks. Just so you know, I'm super excited. I should really write a fic about that…
I just stare at the envelope in my hands that Cid handed to me. I glance up at them all. I'm pretty sure I know what's in it. After all, why else would about twenty well dressed Al Bhed, some mechanists, and Cid be standing in front of my apartment?
"Well? Aren't y' gonna open it, Gippal?" Cid asks. I take in a sharp breath and nod, attempting to rip open the sealed envelope. It doesn't happen very gracefully, and it's mangled by the time I get to the letter inside. Everyone chuckles politely when I hold the folded paper up in triumph. I unfold it and read the beginning lines.
'You've been awarded a position in…' I can't help but smile a bit.
I knew it.
I knew I was better than her.
I look up at everyone. They're waiting for my response. I can't think of one thing to say, though. I look at Cid. He's the only one not smiling. I know why. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek and pretend to read a few more lines of the letter. '… for your exceptional display of talent in machina…'
I can't accept it. What's the point? Sure, it may be the trip of a lifetime. They told me and Rikku about a week ago that they had decided they are going to Baaj Temple. Spira… if I could just get off this wasteland of an island…
But still… if I have to just get a run-of-the-mill job when I turn eighteen, would it be fair to take this and not be able to use it?
Not that I'm much in favor towards fairness with Rikku. She's never had a moment's hesitation in cheating me out of something that should have been mine. Like that most likely to succeed award in fifth grade…
But that has nothing to do with it.
The point is, if it were anyone else, I would feel bad if I kept it from them. So I can't keep it from Cid's girl.
"Thank you so much," I say quietly. I go through the crowd, shaking everybody's hand. They offer congratulations, and I take them with a smile and thank you. Someone produces a bottle of alcohol, which they all know that I can't take part in the celebratory drinking, but I don't mind much. Still, they pass me over a cup of something sweet and bubbly to substitute it, and I slip into small talk with them.
Most of them ask me about my accomplishments. The most generic one I tell them is the one where I figured out what that piece of junk machina did. They seem impressed enough with that. Which usually gets them on a topic of when they themselves uncovered some 'ancient' or 'very valuable' machina, and someone imperceptibly (to the speaker, at least) slips me into their conversation. I don't really mind being handled like that right about now. Every once in a while I look over the crowd and see Cid waiting patiently by my front door. I know what he's going to say. So that's when I actually start talking to everybody, hoping to avoid the confrontation for as long as I can. But, they all leave after about a half hour of conversation, and Cid stays behind. I stare at the floor as he walks over to me, bending the corners of the paper.
"So… you gonna keep it?" he asks. It's an uncomfortable question. Shouldn't I have the right to keep it if I earned it? I shrug my shoulders. The page is worn by now from me clenching it tightly while being passed from group to group in the crowd. The mechanists and businessmen didn't seem to get along, and I got caught in the middle of that. But the paper is somehow still retaining its crispness. It crackles every time I shift it between my fingers. I have an overwhelming urge to shove it in my pocket and slam the door on Cid's face. Of course, I'd come back outside and apologize afterwards.
"I would love to keep it," I say. I wonder if Rikku knows that she lost yet. I wonder if she would have cared so much if she hadn't known that I was up against her in the first place. Maybe she knew all along that I would beat her. Maybe that's all she cared about. She just wanted a challenge.
"I'm jus'… Lemme know by tomorrow. I won't tell Rikku yet." I look up at him with a pleading look. If I'm going to get anything out of giving it away, I would love for it to be that she gets put in her place as 'second best'. But Cid gets a hard look on his face. I bite the inside of my cheek and rip the edge of the paper a bit. "Now Gippal, she's still my little girl, and I ain't gonna… I can' see her that upset." I look down, shocked that I thought for even a second that Cid would let me scheme against his daughter. I smile sheepishly.
"Sorry," I mumble. Cid waves his hand in forgiveness. I retreat back into my apartment. Mom's taking a nap. I have no one to talk to. I must have sat there for about fifteen minutes, just thinking. Excavation… Machina… Rikku… Mom… job.
I hear a knock on the door about twenty times, and I know it's the mail. I get up and grab the mailbox key, begging for something to distract me. I pull the mail out of the small metal box and look at a postcard that came in it. It has a picture of people lined up with guns in their hands, and in the corner it says in big letters, 'Crimson Squad'.
"So, when are they announcing the excavation thing? Soon, right?" Buddy asks as we walk through the sand, skirting the walls of the tall business building of Home. Everything's quiet around this part of Home. It's nicely situated on the other side from the sand worm burrows, and only harmless little cactus are sprouting up nearby. No one plays music out the windows or stand out on the terraces or anything around these parts.
"Uh, yeah, should be any day now," I say, bending down and scooping some sand up in my hand.
"Who's it gonna be?" Buddy asks with a grin. I just smile. I then sigh. I push my nails into my palm. It has to stay a secret. It's been secret for about… three hours now… I can't help it though. I've been told before that I gossip as much as a girl.
"I got it," I say quickly. I feel relief replace the anxiety in my stomach as I finally say the words I'd been holding in for a long time. Three whole hours.
"Well, I guess confidence always comes in handy," Buddy says, kicking up the sand in front of him.
"No, I mean, they came to me earlier and gave me the letter saying that I got it," I say. Buddy gets a wide smile.
"That's awesome!" he says, holding his fist out. I punch it with mine, then sigh heavily with a groan.
"Yeah, but… I can't keep it," I say. Another thing I've finally said out loud, which just makes the relief disappear to be replaced by… well, depression, basically.
"Why not?" Buddy asks, sounding distraught.
"Um… I don't know, I just couldn't leave my mom for that long," I say. Buddy doesn't know. No one knows except me, Cid, and mom's boss.
"Sheesh, Gip, you're such a momma's boy," Buddy says with a bit of distaste in his tone.
"I love my mom!" I say proudly. Buddy just laughs. He knows he loves his mom too. But no one gets why I always have to get home early and stuff.
"So, you're gonna give it to Rikku?" Buddy asks with his nose wrinkled. Rikku being Brother's little sister, and Brother being… sort of Buddy's best(ish?) friend, Buddy was forced to act like he hated Rikku. Even though I think he kind of has a thing for her. You know, scrawny and… short and loud… maybe that's his type?
"Guess so," I say glumly.
"Well, you still get the pride of winning," Buddy says encouragingly. Just pour salt on the wound, thanks.
"Pride that I have to keep to myself. I can't even tell her that I got it before she did. Cid basically said he'd kick my ass if I did," I say. That may be exaggerating it a bit. But probably not. I don't know what Cid's capable of. Buddy kicks the sand again.
"Well, then, there's just nothing to get out of it," Buddy says.
"Yeah… but I'm thinking of joining this… this military group," I say softly, remembering back to the postcard I got. I'd given it a quick glance over before putting it in a drawer where Mom wouldn't find it and throw it away. She's not a big fan of the military.
"Not the Crusaders again? Because you know they sent you that letter about ten times tellin' you you can't be a Crusader," Buddy says. I tried to keep people from finding out about my desperate attempts to join the Crusaders, but it had gotten around anyway, and I still feel like people give me looks that say I'm ridiculous for trying eleven times to join the Crusaders.
"I know, it's not the Crusaders," I say bitterly.
"What else is there?" Buddy asks as we get to the shaded part of the building and sit down in the sand. It's true, before now, the only military that was around was the Crusaders. Not entirely fair for the Al Bhed, but hey, we are the most hated people in Spira. I pick a handful of sand up and let it smoothly fall back to the rest of the earth through my fingers.
"There's this thing called the 'Crimson Squad'," I say. "It says that if you become part of it, you'll be commanding bits of the Crusaders." Buddy laughs.
"That'll be a slap in the face when the person they turned down ten times is controlling their own forces." I smile at the thought. I'm not sure how seriously the Crusaders will take a sixteen year old Al Bhed, but I guess they'll just have show respect to their commanding officer. "But wait… won't you have to leave your mom for that too?" Buddy asks. I look up at him and cringe. It's all about money. Crimson Squad will pay me. The excavation won't.
"It's complicated," I say instead. Now that I think about it, at this point, I couldn't join the Crusaders anyway. They're all volunteer forces.
"You just want to have a few battle scars to tell the girls about," Buddy says.
"Maybe that too," I say with another grin.
"There you are!" I think of what annoying pet name to give her. Sugar? Honey? Babe? I can't decide on how to best tease her this time. But I also don't want to today. I know why she was looking for me, so maybe if I stay really quiet, she'll go away… "HellOOOOO?" she yells at me.
"Hey," I say, taking my straw and pushing the ice cubes in my glass of water down in the glass one by one. It's late in the afternoon, but the sun is still hot. It's always hot, until about an hour after it's set.
"Guess what?" she asks. She's hopping from one foot to another. I really don't want to hear it. I don't want to know that all my hard work amounted to nothing.
I could always tell her that out of the kindness of my heart I told them to give it to the runner up, which was obviously her. She wouldn't believe me though. Then she'd go ask Cid. Not sure if he'd tell her the truth, but that would be a black mark against me for whatever job he's going to help me get. Still… I don't want to hear her gloating about it.
"What?" I ask.
"No, seriously, guess," she says, her toes tapping against the metal floor in excitement. She knows I must know what she's going to tell me.
"I hate guessing games," I say. She scoffs in annoyance.
"I'm going on the excavation!" she says, bouncing like a firework ready to shoot into the sky.
"Yippee," I say monotonously.
"Oh, no need to ruin the moment."
"Then why did you come to tell me?" I ask. She should have known I wouldn't be happy for her. Why should I?
"Well… because…"
"Because none of your friends care?" I ask with a smirk on my face. She puts her fists on her hips, crinkling the letter in her hand.
"No. I just wanted to see your face when you found out," she says. I turn towards her.
"See my face?" I ask. I just stare up at her. Words cannot describe how much I want to snatch that paper from her tiny little hands and yell at her that I held almost the exact same thing in my hands not two days ago. "Anyways, I found something else to do," I say.
"What, drop out of school?" she asks.
"Actually, yeah," I say. She giggles a bit. "I'm joining the Crimson Squad," I inform her to let her know I'm not just ditching school.
"What's that?" she asks, not really caring. She walks over to the edge of the balcony and leans her forearms against it. I stand up and lean on it next to her, my body angled to face her.
"It's like the Crusaders. Only better," I say matter-of-factly to her.
"Are they actually letting Al Bhed into this one?" she asks. Of course she heard about that too.
"Mm hm," I say. "At least, there was no 'Al Bhed need not apply' footnote." She looked at me.
"Are you sure?" she asks. I shrug and nod. She turns back to the desert. "Why do you want to join the military so badly anyway?"
"So I can do something with my life," I say. It's a lie. But I'm not gonna tell her the truth. I think about that night on the balcony near our apartment though for a second, and squeeze my eyes shut. I mentally shake it off.
"Yeah, but lots of people do something with their lives here," she answers.
"What, you're not worried about me, are you?" I ask with a grin.
"Not one bit," she says. I pull my eyebrows down in confusion. Something tells me she is. "Do you ever wonder why… you know, we're covered in machina, but Sin never comes here?" she asks.
"Because we're not near the water?" I ask.
"Why does that make a difference?" I don't say anything for a minute.
"Someone told me one time that Sin looks like a giant whale," I say. She doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Then, she starts to giggle.
"Who told you that?" she laughs.
"Buddy did!" I say, making it sound like I have complete faith in whatever Buddy tells me. She laughed harder.
"Why would you… ever… trust what Buddy has to say?" she cackled. She has a… scary laugh. I've heard her giggle before, and that was kind of cute, but her real laugh is something of another kind. I hope I never make her laugh that hard again. "You know, Buddy used to be scared stiff of hovers," she says with a sort of fondness in her voice.
"I think he still is," I say. I remember once when we went out to the Oasis and he clung onto the hover bar like it was going to save him from a bomb. She giggles that tiny laugh that I'm used to, and I decide I actually like the cackle better. This laugh sounds fake compared to the laugh I just heard.
For the first time in my life, I take a good look at her. She's most definitely a tomboy if I've ever seen one. But one look and I knew what kind of girl she was. She's the kind of girl who knows she's got some things going for her. I mean, she's skinny and her hair's always clean. So now she's just wondering – why doesn't anyone else see it? Well, I see it now.
"What?" she snaps peevishly. I look out to the desert and shrug my shoulders. We're silent for a few minutes. She grips the bar on the balcony and leans back, dipping her neck back to take in the retreating sun. "Do you ever wonder… what that thing was?"
"What thing?" I ask. I know what she's talking about already, but I'm trying not to think about it.
"That big machina in the sphere that Mr. Lohor had…" she whispers. I shake my head.
"Nope."
"How can you not think about it?"
"Eh, I'm not worried," I answer. All you can hear for a minute is the wind blowing far beneath us. I guess it's a good thing most Al Bhed aren't scared of heights, because you can't really escape it around here. You're always high up. The sun hits the horizon, casting a new lighting over us.
"How can you not be worried?" she yelps.
"Well, whatever it is, it's probably somewhere under the sand," I say. "Any machina that big the Al Bhed's got, so why worry? Nothing's gonna happen to it."
"All right," Rikku says, easily assured. Another long, awkward silence. One of us should really just leave. Say something to annoy the other and stomp off. We shouldn't be standing here… hanging out… I finally say whatever pops into my head. It was meant to be something that would piss her off, like I planned. But instead…
"You know what I always wonder?" I ask.
"What?" she asks, leaning her forearms on the bar again and looking out at the setting sun.
"If we're in the middle of the desert… like, it's the desert, so, there's not a whole lot of water, right?" I say, rambling on. I follow her lead and stare out at the scenic dunes while I wait for her to answer.
"Right," she agrees absentmindedly, flicking an ant off the bar. She right away gets a pained face, and I almost laugh when I see she regrets sending the ant to its death.
"So… where does all our water come from? I mean, we can't get it all from the oasis, there's not enough there to keep this entire place running." She bites down on her bottom lip. I lean forward. "You know, don't you?" I ask. She turns her face away from me. "Tell me!" I say, a little whinier than I had meant it to sound. She looks back at me with a mischievous smile. It catches me by surprise, but I don't know why. I jolt back anyway.
"You really want to know?" she asks. I nod eagerly. This is something I've wondered about ever since I learned about evaporation in school. She leans towards me, and I lean closer in anticipation. "Well…" she starts. I'm almost jumping up and down, I'm so excited. "Can't tell!" My jaw drops.
"What?" I yell.
"It's a secret," she says, walking away.
"Hey, wait!" I say. I grab the top of her arm and turn her around. When I see her face, she has a look of confusion on it. I let go of her arm quickly and look at the ground, and we both shuffle around for a second and try to pretend it didn't just happen. It was just her arm, but still… it felt like something we shouldn't be doing. "You can't just leave me hanging like that," I eventually say. She puckers her lips like she's thinking about it.
"All right, all right. But only because you begged," she says. "There's these machina downstairs, right?" she says. "Well, what they do is they, um, take the water that we use, and put it through a filter, and then just… reuse it," she says with a shrug. I tilt my head.
"That's it?" I ask. She flaps her arms out and looks down, walking over to the edge of the balcony again.
"That's it," she says, dragging the words out. I then come to the realization.
"Wait, like… everything?"
"Everything," she answers.
"Like… toilet water?" I ask.
"Uh huh. And bath water, and…" She glances over at the glass of water that I was drinking before. "Hm, I wonder where yours was before," she says, looking over her shoulder at me and smiling. I definitely see it now. Even if everybody else doesn't.
I open the door and toss the keys on the table. The flowers are back near the door. I grin. Mom.
"I'm home," I call.
"I'm in here!" she yells back. "Come here quick, Gippy, this man's doing the funniest thing!" she says in a jumpy voice. She watches home video shows practically every waking hour. I go in and sit on the couch next to her.
"Mom… I, uh, have to tell you something," I say, rubbing my hands together.
"What?" she asks excitedly. "Do you have a girlfriend?" she squeals.
"No," I answer flatly. She must stop bringing that up sometime.
"Oh… what is it?" she asks, shifting towards me a bit. She must see how nervous I am.
"Um… you know how I always wanted to join the Crusaders?"
"Uh huh," she answered disapprovingly.
"Well, there's this other thing… and they accept Al Bhed. So, I'm gonna go," I tell her quickly and quietly. I hear her gasp a bit, and I look up to see her staring at me with her mouth open.
"Y…You're joining the military?" she asks. I swallow and nod, seeing the hurt in her eyes.
"They'll pay me! There's… Your company…" She narrows her eyes, not sure what I'm trying to say. "Cid… told me that when I turn eighteen and I can get a job and everything, your company isn't paying you anymore. And if I get through this thing, they'll be paying me, and I can send you money," I explain.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispers after a long time of silence.
"I just-." She doubles over and puts her face in her hands, crying. I duck my head down and shake it. How could I have kept it from her this long? I stand up to leave her alone, but she grips my hand.
"Don't go, Gippy, please," she begs.
"Mom…" I start. I mean to say, 'I have to go'. But it doesn't come out. After all, do I really have to go? I sit down on the couch again. "I have to get some kind of job. I know I can do this," I say. At least I know in the Crimson Squad I have some sort of future. I could end up shoveling sand out with my luck if I stay here.
"No, you can get a job here, where you're safe," she says. I shake my head.
"I've already applied, Mom," I say. She starts to cry harder. I lean closer to her. "I'm doing this to take care of you, Mom. There are dangerous things out there, and I just want to know that you're safe."
"I want you to be safe. Don't go," she says, taking on an authoritative voice. I still shake my head.
"I'm going," I answer.
So, you may have noticed that I changed my author name. Or… maybe you didn't. But before, I THOUGHT that Utsukushii na Hana meant 'Beautiful Flower'. But seeing as I can't even speak Japanese and I made that up myself, I decided to take a leaf out of a Japanese song, and changed it to Jounetsu no Hana. :D Which means 'Passion Flower'. So, there you have it! Still me, new, grammatically correct name! I hope no one gets confused!
By the way… REVIEW! :D Pretty please?