Yzak Joule, the youngest commander in the history of PLANTS, also became the youngest councilman in the history of PLANTS.
He did not enjoy politics. In fact, he hated those half-hearted smiles and sugar-coated lies with every fiber of the being. He valued honor more than anything else, and he could not even begin to respect many of the hypocrites who corrupted the system. It wasn't exactly a one-sided issue, either. Not everybody was pleased with his war crimes, or with the fact that his mother was Ezaria Joule, the most zealous supporter of Patrick Zala during the last war. But the Council desperately needed someone who knew the battlefield well. Someone who knew the stakes of war.
And that he knew better than anybody else.
Naturally, when the Temporary Council was dissolved 18 months later after thoroughly reforming the system, he was more than relieved to return to his old post in ZAFT.
He hadn't exactly been gone; he technically had remained a part of ZAFT through his term in the Temporary Council. Yet, when he stepped into his new "office" for the very first time, he was momentarily lost.
It was strange that he was no longer aboard the Voltaire, for one. After the ceasefire, paperwork had become the main job of the ZAFT soldier. There was something inherently wrong about dealing with reports in a brightly lit office room. Yzak had always preferred action over sitting at a desk, anyhow. It was strange to be on a 9-to-5 schedule rather than 12 hour shifts.
After a few weeks in the office, though, he realized that the biggest reason why things felt out of place was because Shiho wasn't there to whip his ass into shape.
And it showed in the team, too. As much as they loved and respected their occasionally difficult commander, they equally loved Shiho Hahnenfuss, their second-in-command. There was a gaping hole where she'd left, and he was glad that the Joule team had not been assigned any real tasks other than a mountain of paperwork. There was only so much damage that could be done by a badly written report.
It wasn't as though Shiho had disappeared into thin air. She, too, was still a part of ZAFT, and Yzak only had to place one short phone call to Personnel to find out her new department, e-mail, and phone number. He picked up his phone countless times, attempting to call her, but would always stop before dialing the last digit.
What would he say? Ask her about her new work, perhaps exchange few updates on their lives, then what? What was he to her, anyway?
And he would always put the phone down, fighting the urge to hurl the useless machine across the room.
He saw her once, purely on accident, about a year into his term in the council. He stopped by a bar after a particularly stressful day of work, where he found her drinking whiskey, on the rocks. He debated turning around and walking away for a split second before she turned around, and their eyes locked. There was no turning back then, and he sat down beside her and ordered himself some cheap gin and tonic.
Her lips curled into a smile. The music was playing too loudly for any real conversation, so she leaned in closer to him.
"I never thought you'd touch cheap liquor, Commander."
Her breath tickled his ear, and he scowled, trying to ignore his heartbeat pounding on his skull.
"Well, there's a lot that you don't know about me."
She straightened back up, and he immediately regretted making the statement. Her expression was unreadable.
After a few more drinks, they found themselves in the same exact heated mess as the night of his trial. Only this time, she did not spend the night.
"Why are we doing this, Shiho?"
He asked as she turned the knob of his front door. She did not look back.
"That's a very good question."
Her voice was steady, distant. Yzak punched the wall as the door closed behind her.
None of this should have hurt half as much as it did.
xoxox
Four months into his return to ZAFT, Yzak received a call.
When he first saw the unfamiliar number on his mobile display, he froze. He knew that somewhere, deep down, he was hoping it would be her. He just didn't want to admit it.
"Yzak? Yzak, hey, it's me."
He frowned at the voice on the other line. It wasn't her, but it was an equally familiar voice.
"Dearka Elsman, what the fuck are you doing back in the PLANTS?"
Dearka left to Orb as soon as his court-martial was over. It wasn't as if ZAFT still needed MS pilots, he reasoned with Yzak, and he had to figure things out with this one girl. Yzak laughed at the idea of Dearka Elsman, the womanizer, chasing after some Natural girl like a lost puppy. That had been over a year and a half ago; since then, they had not talked much except for a few, infrequent e-mails.
Dearka laughed dryly.
"Let's go out for a drink."
xoxox
In less than an hour, Yzak found himself sitting in the same bar he met Shiho ten months ago. He had forgotten that it had always been one of Dearka's favorites.
He almost didn't recognize his friend when he walked in. Dearka was always the happy one of the bunch, but the man who stood in front of him was broken. Watching the blonde sit down by the counter beside him, he marveled at the girl who managed to reduce him to this state.
"Long time no see."
Dearka smiled after he ordered his drink, but his eyes said otherwise. Yzak raised an eyebrow.
"What happened with the girl?"
Instantly, the blonde's face fell. He took a deep breath, and slumped back into his chair.
"She dumped me."
"I can see that."
Dearka glared at Yzak, who simply shrugged.
"…It worked for a year, Yzak. We both found jobs and moved in together. But Miri wasn't completely over her dead boyfriend, and her family wasn't too happy that she was living with a Coordinator. And I… well, you know me. I guess wasn't serious enough for her. I don't know."
"What did she expect? I wasn't even aware that you would ever want to settle with one girl."
Dearka's eyes flashed dangerously, and Yzak knew he had touched a nerve.
"Yzak, I love her."
"Okay, fine, go on."
"We started fighting a lot. Then she decided that she wanted to become a freelance photographer. Show the world the horrors of war, you know? I told her it was too dangerous, going into warzones and stuff. That was the last straw. She slapped me and told me to leave."
"She sounds like she has more balls than you."
"..I just didn't want to lose her."
Yzak felt a little pang in his heart. He remembered the days toward the end of the war, when the fear of losing Shiho seemingly inspired his every move.
Did he lose her, after all?
"Well, Yzak, what the hell happened to you?"
Yzak snapped back into reality, and realized that Dearka was looking at him. His eyes, his purple eyes, reminded him too much of her. He glared, and downed the same cheap gin he drank ten months ago. It was disgusting, absolutely disgusting, but at least it was beginning to fog up his brain.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
He snarled. But he did not expect Dearka to buy it, and the blonde didn't. They had known each other for their entire lives, after all.
"Come on, Yzak. You look like shit."
He closed his eyes. Dearka looked like the living dead, and if he was telling him he looked like shit, he probably did.
"I don't even fucking know, Dearka."
"You tried to jump out of the Archangel on a piece of scrap metal for her. Must have been a pretty darn hot chick."
"It wasn't like that."
Dearka looked at him incredulously.
"….You almost went on a suicide mission for this girl and it wasn't like that?"
Yzak didn't answer. He couldn't answer. He remembered the kisses aboard the Voltaire, the drinks and the empty sex. He remembered how she became his most trusted comrade, and yet had turned into a complete stranger after the war. There definitely had been compassion and trust between them, if only after the Joule team was founded. He knew that, at least, was not a figment of his imagination. But he still had no idea what to make out of everything else that happened.
It frustrated him to no end. Yzak had always liked clear cut lines and boundaries. He wanted answers. He wanted to figure out where he stood, what she was to him. If he was ever anything to her. It was unlike him to leave so many knots untied for so long, but every time he thought of confronting her, he was always held back.
What if he really lost her this time?
"Man, you are so fucking screwed."
He glared at the blonde before he downed another glass.
Pretty short, I know. Again, I apologize for the slow updates. College, man, college. I didn't even realize what I was getting myself into.
I had a poll up online for a while whether I should call Miriallia "Mir" or "Miri." Although I did onl have 4 people vote, Miri won by 50% so that's what it's going to be.
Thank you to all of my readers, and I would love, love, LOVE if you could take a couple of seconds out of your time to review.