“Want to know a secret?”

“Sure?”

“When I graduate, I want to enlist.”

“You WHAT?” The echo of Nayeon’s exclamation cut through the empty classroom.

“I want to be a pilot,” Yeri continued calmly.

“We live in space. We’re pretty much as high as it gets.”

“A mobile suit pilot, Nayeon.”

Nayeon’s dismissive smile slipped. “You don’t just get to fly around in one. They’ll make you fight.” Her voice was dark as she gripped the edges of Yeri’s desk trying to stare some sense into the girl.

Yeri smirked, undaunted in the face of Nayeon’s obvious displeasure. “The war’s over, remember? I just want to be in one,” Yeri said, her voice getting wistful.

Nayeon hoped that by the time Yeri graduated, a couple years after she herself would graduate, the peace between the Earth Federation and the Republic of Zeon wouldn’t flare up into another war as it had been doing off and on ever since she began high school.

“Want to know another secret?” Yeri asked, glancing around the still-empty classroom before continuing. “I think the Earth Federation has a base here.” At Nayeon’s severe expression, Yeri tsk’d. “Don’t look at me like that! I didn’t do anything dangerous!”

“Then how do you know? Are you sure?” Nayeon asked accusingly. Everything about this conversation was putting her on edge, from Yeri’s tone, to the placid look in her eyes. It was like Yeri was planning something, but not in the ways Nayeon had come to expect from the habitual troublemaker. There was no mischievous glint, no conspiratorial whispering or nervous energy. There was something about Yeri’s mein that Nayeon found even more worrisome: a quiet passion. Yeri really wanted to become a pilot.

“It’s kind of obvious if you think about it,” Yeri explained. “I went with Irene to the starport right?”

“Yeah,” Nayeon nodded vaguely. That had been months ago, before school started up again.

“Well I saw all these big trucks with these huge shipping containers on them, all driving in a row towards the big hangers at the edge of the colony.”

“Trucks? Where?” Nayeon was having trouble following. “Yeri, how do you even know about all of this?”

Yeri sighed, a little annoyed at having to pause her story. “I walk around. What else am I supposed to do up here in this stupid soap bubble of a space colony? The whole thing is only a dozen kilometers end to end. How do you not know this place frontwards and backwards by now?”

“Some of us are in school, you know. Like, doing our homework, and showing up to our club meetings?” Nayeon said pointedly.

“I’m passing!” Yeri said defensively. “Anyway, do you want to know what I saw or not? I took some pics.”

“Actually, I don’t want to know. I can’t believe you were so bored that you just decided to follow some trucks to a warehouse-”

“-a hanger,” Yeri corrected.

“Whatever! A hanger, then.”

“Why are you getting so mad?” Yeri asked suddenly.

“Because!” Nayeon shouted, then paused to take a breath. “Because. Yeri, please don’t enlist. They signed a peace treaty, but you’ve seen the news! All the holdouts still causing trouble. Down there,” Nayeon gestured vaguely up into the air, indicating the earth they orbited, “down there it’s still so messed up, and if you get sent back, I-”

“I can’t stay here forever, Nayeon. You wouldn't understand, you’re not from here!”

Nayeon looked like Yeri had slapped her, but she tried to push past it. “But the military?” she asked. “If you want to fly so bad, can’t you just-”

“Hey guys! Sorry that took so long,” Jiwoo apologized, bouncing into the classroom breathlessly. “I got held up after choir-” She paused, feeling a little suffocated by the tension between the two girls she had just walked in on.

Yeri and Nayeon continued to glare at each other for another moment before Yeri pushed up out of her seat and stormed out.

Nayeon let out an annoyed sigh. “Sorry, Chuu. Let’s go home.”

+++

Yeri slowed to a walk as she reached the gates of the school, surprised but grateful that the girls hadn’t come running out after her. Why was Nayeon being so negative, anyway? Yeri had finally found the courage to confess her dream to her friend, and Nayeon just blew up at her. Why couldn't she understand? Yeri hated this place. She hated being trapped here on this little disk, circling an earth she had only visited once in her life. Literally an entire world waited for her down there - a war-torn world that she wanted to help protect.

She couldn’t help smiling again as she thought about it: bursting through the front lines, a beam saber in one hand, a blaster in the other, cutting a path through the enemy as she towered over her allies! Yes, that’s her, Yeri, ace mobile suit pilot of the Earth Federation! Or of the Republic of Zeon. She wasn’t really particular, being from a neutral colony thousands of kilometers away from the sources of the conflict.

She shielded her eyes with her hand as she tried to catch a glimpse of that marbled blue sphere hanging there in the sky, but the artificial atmosphere was too bright; she could just barely make out the faint outlines of the earth like watching the moon rise in the middle of the day.

But a loud roar caught her attention as something large streaked low overhead, leaving a trail of black, billowing smoke in its wake. Yeri screamed in spite of herself and ducked, though her curiosity won out as she strained to watch its path as it disappeared over the tops of the trees at the edge of the grounds. It was still so near when it crashed, that Yeri could feel the vibrations and hear the dull, metallic sound of the impact.

And perhaps it was because she had the military on her mind, but she could have sworn it had been a mobile suit.

Yeri was running before she realized, following the smoke into the small forest beside her school, willing herself to move before it dissipated. Her nervous energy at the object possibly being a real mobile suit carried her breathlessly through the trees. She knew it! There was a base on the colony! Nayeon was going to flip when Yeri showed her pictures.

She nearly tumbled into a large trench as she came through the brush, and saw that the ditch had been created by the object as it had skidded to a stop at the base of a small hill. Yeri followed the path, stumbling over the broken tree limbs scattered from the impact, until she finally saw it.

A mobile suit.

Yeri instinctively ducked behind a tree, her heart hammering in her chest. She tried to reach for her phone, trembling enough to nearly drop it in the dirt as she pulled it from her pocket. Just one picture, and then she’d run all the way back. That’s it. Just one…

She counted to three and peeked around the trunk. It was really there, surrounded by ejecta, laying on its back, staring up at the sky. “Zeon,” Yeri whispered to herself, immediately recognizing the dark colors of the thwarted republic. Yeri carefully raised her phone for a picture but hesitated when she noticed something. The cockpit's hatch was open.

The suit’s chest gaped wide, revealing the pilot’s seat and all of its controls, but there was no body, no pilot to be seen. Yeri held her breath as she stared, her eyes so wide they began to water as she tried to absorb every detail. She crouched as she came out from behind the tree, knowing it was so stupid, so dangerous, but she had to get closer.

She carefully slid down into the ditch the giant mecha rested in and skirted around it’s outstretched hand, its robotic fingers longer than she was tall. In fact, the whole suit was too tall for her to see over the top of, even lying on its back like this. She was going to have to climb if she wanted to get a look inside…

… and so she pulled herself up, using the suit’s geometric metal plating for leverage until she was staring right into the empty cockpit: a seat crisscrossed with straps and belts, surrounded by panels of switches, dials and dark screens. On the seat itself was a discarded helmet, green with a black visor, the crest of Zeon emblazoned on the side.

It took two seconds for Yeri to decide to climb inside, knowing that if the authorities arrived, there was no way they’d mistake a young girl like her for a Zeon pilot. She was sure she could play out her fantasies for a few more moments. She held the helmet in her lap as she laid back in the pilot’s seat, looking up at the artificial sky. The seat was still warm and the whole cockpit smelled like the ionic fuel that powered these massive units. It was giving Yeri a rush like nothing she had ever experienced before. Gathering her courage, she delicately gripped one of the control sticks built into the armrest of the seat, wondering what it felt like to make this suit walk, fly, fight.

She took a long breath, suppressing a giggle as she carefully slipped the helmet over her head. This was a mistake, however, as the visor was much darker than she had anticipated. In fact, when shut, she couldn’t see a thing. How did a pilot fly while wearing this? Although she wondered if when the cockpit was closed, if the lights from all the panels and buttons were so bright, it helped the pilot see? Or maybe it was a vidscreen itself, and the mobile suit had to be on for it to work?

Either way, she couldn’t pass up this chance. Nayeon would never believe her, so she pulled out her phone again to take a selfie. But as she flipped open the visor, she froze, realizing that she was staring straight down the barrel of a gun.

“Get out.”

But Yeri couldn’t move with that gun pointing at her. It was obviously the pilot, a small woman dressed in a green and black jumpsuit, standing on the chest of the mobile suit staring down into the cockpit at her with a grimace.

The pilot repeated her command, with more force, causing Yeri to hastily doff the helmet and scramble out of the seat. She tried not to think about the pilot shooting her in the back as she paused at the edge of the cockpit, gathering herself for the jump down to the ground, but once she landed and glanced back up at the pilot, ready to run, she realized the woman wasn’t even looking at her anymore.

She could see the pilot hop into the cockpit herself, disappearing for a moment before climbing back out with a large box - a toolkit? Yeri watched the pilot crouch and open it on the suit’s chest, rummaging around. Without grabbing anything, the pilot shut the box in frustration and stood up.

She turned suddenly, and Yeri flinched, both of them realizing she was still standing there.

“Beat it, kid,” the pilot said, though her voice didn’t hold as much menace in it as before. “And uh… it’d be great if you didn’t tell anyone I was here.”

Yeri was surprised to realize this woman didn’t seem that much older than she was. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows you’re here,” Yeri stammered. How could anyone miss a massive mobile suit crash-landing in the middle of a residential neighborhood?

The pilot smirked. “Yeah, I suppose they probably do.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “And that’s why you should go. Colluding with the enemy and all.”

Yeri shrugged. “I thought this was a neutral colony.”

The pilot tossed the toolkit to the ground and hopped down after it. “Sector 6 says they’re neutral, but we’ve got a pretty good reason to believe the Earth Federation has a base here in Libot. That’s against the treaty.”

“I saw it,” Yeri agreed before clapping a hand on . Her eagerness to be talking to a real life pilot was outstripping her sense.

The pilot paused. “You’ve seen the base?” She seemed skeptical for some reason, and Yeri felt her cheeks grow hot.

“It’s here, and I have pictures!” she said, waving her phone.

The pilot snatched it right out of her grip. “Thank you.”

“Hey! You can’t just take my phone!”

“I can, and I did.”

The pilot began to turn away when they both paused.

Sirens. They were distant, but that familiar whine was still audible even in the middle of the forest.

The pilot cursed quietly.

Yeri’s heart thundered in her ears, feeling every bit the fugitive that this woman next to her was.

“Alright kid, playtime’s over. You go that way, and I’ll go this way!”

“Wait!” Yeri called out as the pilot sprinted a few steps. “I can hide you!” She wasn’t quite ready for this dream to end.

The pilot tossed her head in disbelief. “You can’t hide me! I’m a Zeon officer!” she said, pointing to a badge on her collar.

“Yes I can! Come on, we gotta run!” She reached out and grabbed the pilot’s hand and started pulling her away.

“Alright, alright, but don’t make me have to kill you. Take me somewhere safe,” the pilot warned.

+++

They ran. Yeri was worried that a trained military officer would have left her in the dust, but the pilot really did seem to want Yeri to hide her since she stayed by her side as they broke out from the cover of the forest and ducked through the backyards of the houses in the neighborhood that surrounded the school.

“Where are we going?” the pilot asked, waiting on the other side of a fence that Yeri was struggling to scale.

Yeri hadn’t wanted to tell her until they got there, but, “My house,” she mentioned with a grunt as she dropped down next to the pilot.

The woman didn’t follow as Yeri booked it across the yard towards the opposite fence. “You’re taking me to your house?” she asked, looking at Yeri like she was a complete idiot.

Yeri rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, my parents aren’t even home.” They never were.

The pilot squinted at her. “You’re going to invite a complete stranger… a Zeon pilot” she hissed walking over to Yeri quickly, “into your house when your parents aren’t even home?”

“Well, yeah,” Yeri said with a shrug. “Help me up,” she commanded, and the pilot automatically kneeled and laced her fingers into a stirrup for Yeri to step on as she climbed the fence.

The pilot watched her through the chainlink as Yeri dropped down onto the other side, panting. “But why? Why are you helping me?”

“Well first of all you took my phone, and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried going without your phone before, but it’s basically my whole life. I kind of need it back.”

The pilot rolled her eyes.

“But I also have a favor,” Yeri said with obvious hesitation.

“A favor?”

“Take me with you!” Yeri said in a breathless rush.

The pilot laughed, then shushed herself. “What do you mean take you with me? Where? To the base?”

“No, take me with you when you go… when you go back to Earth.”

The pilot’s smile faded. “Earth, huh?”

“Please!” Yeri begged. “I want to be a pilot, too! I’ve always dreamed of it! Listen, I even know what model your suit is,” she continued. “It’s a Zaku! I’m right, aren’t I?” She could tell by the impressed look on the pilot’s face that she hit the mark. “I can’t stand being cooped up here. I want to enlist and fight!”

The pilot looked at her in that way that Yeri couldn’t stand. It was the way all of the adults in her life looked at her, like she was just a kid. Like she had no idea what she was talking about. Why wouldn’t anyone take her feelings seriously?

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Yeri,” she answered glumly.

“Well Yeri,” the pilot said, hoisting herself up and over the fence in a smooth motion. “I’m Seulgi.” Seulgi reached out a hand and Yeri grasped it readily. “I’m no taxi, but if there’s a chance for me to come for you, I will. How about that?”

“Yes!”

“Quiet down! How much farther to your place, anyway?”

+++

Their long detour skirting of the edges of backyards, ducking through hedges and trying not to tread through too many flowerbeds finally brought them to Yeri’s house just as the sun was beginning to set. The faint sounds of sirens had followed them the whole trek, though as far as they could tell, there weren’t any emergency vehicles actually venturing into the neighborhood.

“Maybe they don’t know where you went?” Yeri panted as she unlocked her backdoor and pushed Seulgi inside.

“Or they never knew where I was to begin with,” Seulgi guessed.

“I find that really hard to believe. You literally crashed right next to my school.” Yeri flipped on all the lights and threw her filthy bookbag on the couch.

“You don’t think I’m here alone, do you?” Seulgi asked, and Yeri looked at her with a mute expression. Seulgi wandered into the living room and gestured for Yeri to turn on the television on the wall.

Yeri was suddenly afraid of what she’d see as the screen flicked on, the channel already switched over an emergency broadcast from the local news station.

“... been notified that all four pilots have indeed been captured, and are being taken to a detention facility at an undisclosed location. Reports confirm that they are Zeon soldiers, though the Republic of Zeon has neither claimed nor denounced the actions of this group. We’ll go live now to the Chief of Police who is giving a statement at City Hall.”

“There were five of you?” Yeri asked, but as she glanced at Seulgi she saw that the pilot was glaring at the TV, deep in thought.

It was no wonder they had been hearing sirens all afternoon if there had been a manhunt going on in the city. Yeri hesitatingly reached out and took Seulgi by the wrist. “Hey.”

Seulgi didn’t budge as she listened to the Chief of Police’s speech. “... will not rest until we get to the bottom of this investigation. Libot and Sector 6 will not be pulled into the conflict and will remain neutral-”

“Bull.”

“-no longer accept refugees at this time. We remain committed to the defense of our independence and the safety of our people. Thank you.”

It was only after Seulgi switched off the TV that she seemed to notice that Yeri had a hold of her wrist. She looked down Yeri’s grip questioningly.

Yeri had watched Seulgi’s clouded features throughout the broadcast. She wanted to ask so many questions: were they your friends? Will they be turned over to the Earth Federation? Will they be executed as war criminals? Do they really not know Seulgi’s still on the loose? But instead she settled on, “You should change. I have some extra clothes that may fit you…”

Seulgi mutely allowed herself to be pulled upstairs.

“My room is a mess,” Yeri warned.

“I’m not exactly a guest,” Seulgi replied, though after Yeri opened her bedroom door, Seulgi did give a low whistle.

“I told you.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it’d be this bad,” Seulgi marveled. It was even worse than her days in the barracks with the other Zeon recruits.

“Here,” Yeri said, going to her closet and pulling out a white button up shirt with thin black stripes.

Seulgi took it and held it up to herself, impressed that it looked like it’d actually fit. “A shower would be nice, too,” she hinted.

“It’s down the hall near the stairs,” Yeri said distractedly. She was comparing two pairs of jeans and eyeing Seulgi’s long legs. “Probably these ones,” she muttered as she shoved one of the pairs into Seulgi’s arms. “There should be a towel and stuff already in there for guests. Use whatever.”

Seulgi set the clothes on Yeri’s unmade bed and pulled at the zipper on her collar.

“What are you doing?!” Yeri yelped, covering her eyes.

Seulgi didn’t pause as she stripped out of her jumpsuit down to just a sportsbra and underwear. “Come on, we’re both girls.” Seulgi couldn’t even count the number of soldiers she’d seen change during her training. It wasn’t that she didn’t have any shame or sense of decency, she had simply gotten used to it.

“I know, but Jesus!” Yeri cursed, scooting out of the room to give Seulgi some privacy. Seulgi shrugged and finished getting undressed.

Yeri didn’t venture back upstairs again until she heard the bathroom door shut and the water start. She crept up to the door and hesitated before knocking. “Seulgi?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna run down the street real quick and pick up some snacks, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

Yeri waited a moment longer, the surreal feeling of having a complete stranger - a mobile suit pilot from the Republic of Zeon - using her shower beginning to sink in. There was still so much she was dying to know, but all those questions could wait until after they ate. After all, she had a lot to think over herself as she left the house and headed straight for the corner market.

+++

“Knock knock?” Irene asked as she slowly opened Yeri’s front door. “Yeri?” Irene glanced around the empty living room and sighed, letting herself in and shutting the door. “Where is she?”

She took out her phone and pulled up Yeri’s number, letting it ring on speaker as she shuffled through the living room to peek into the dark kitchen. “Yeri?” Instead of an answer, however, she heard a ringing coming from upstairs. She sighed in relief, knowing that meant Yeri was safe here at home and hadn’t been caught up in the attack today.

Irene mounted the steps, still curious as to why she hadn’t received an answer when she saw the bathroom door open, releasing a cloud of steam into the hall. “Yeri?” Irene asked, then nearly choked as someone who was definitely not Yeri came out of the bathroom buttoning up a shirt.

Her shirt.

Seulgi turned to Irene in a daze, a little lightheaded from her long, hot shower. “Oh, uh… Are you Yeri’s mom?”

Irene slapped a hand over her eyes as she practically shrieked, “I AM NOT YERI'S MOM! Button up for godssake!”

Seulgi glanced down and realized that not only was her shirt only half buttoned, but her fly was down as well. Yeri’s bathroom fan wasn’t the best, and Seulgi had been in a hurry to escape all the steam. “Oh.”

“Who are you? And what are you doing in Yeri’s house?” Irene barked, peeking through her fingers. “And why are you wearing my clothes?”

“Your clothes? I thought these were Yeri’s?” Seulgi asked, hastily doing up her fly and making herself presentable. “And anyway, who are you and why are you in Yeri’s house?”

Irene dropped her hand and stomped up to Seulgi. “I’m her babysitter! Well, I mean I was. Anyway, where is she? Don’t you move!” she ordered as she scooted past Seulgi to Yeri’s room, pointing a finger at Seulgi threateningly.

“W-wait!” Seulgi cried, and she lunged, just barely grabbing Irene’s hand away from the door handle.

It took less than a second for Seulgi to be kneeling on the floor of the hallway in pain as Irene twisted her hand in an unnatural way. “Don’t touch me you !”

“OW OW OW OW, OKAY OKAY LET GO ALREADY!!!” Seulgi cried as her whole body contorted to try and lessen the strain on her wrist.

“What in the world is going on?” Yeri asked as she peeked her head above the landing. “Irene?” Yeri sprinted up the rest of the stairs and down the hall, practically tackling Irene to the ground in a tight hug. “Irene! What are you doing here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Seulgi grumbled, massaging her wrist as she stood up.

“I got a break from school, so I thought I’d stop by,” Irene explained. “I still had a key so I let myself in - I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not!”

“You sure? I’m not uh, interrupting anything?” Irene asked, still eyeing Seulgi warily.

Yeri blinked for a moment, then followed Irene’s gaze to the grumpy pilot. “O-oh! No! Seulgi’s just uh… She’s just a-”

“-a friend,” Seulgi finished for her. “Also on a break from school.” She fixed her expression and held out a hand to Irene, hoping she would accept it and they could start over.

“A friend, huh?” Irene asked, eyeing Seulgi up and down. She was a little annoyed at how good Seulgi looked in her old clothes. “She’s too old for you, Yerm.”

“Too ol- IRENE!!!” Yeri gasped, going beat red.

Seulgi nodded with a grave expression. “I’m afraid she’s right.”

“Thank you,” Irene said primly.

Yeri looked at them both with disgust. “Please. If anything, she’s much closer to your age.”

“Is that so?” Irene asked, raising her eyebrow.

Seulgi coughed into her hand and tried to give her most winning smile. This Irene person seemed a little too shrewd for Seulgi’s liking, and she and Yeri still hadn’t come up with any kind of cover story. “Uh, Yeri? Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Irene smirked. “Sorry to cut your evening short, but even though I see you have a guest, I think I’ll stick around for a bit. I’ll be downstairs.” Before Irene disappeared, though, she turned and gave Seulgi one last look-over. “And Yeri, let me know if she needs anymore shirts; she almost looks better in them than I do. Almost.”

Yeri and Seulgi let out a collective sigh after Irene finally left, and Seulgi pulled Yeri into her room.

“I didn’t know she was back,” Yeri apologized, watching Seulgi hurriedly shove her jumpsuit under Yeri’s bed.

“This is just not my day,” Seulgi grumbled, looking around to make sure there wasn’t any other evidence of her current occupation lying around. “First I get shot out of the sky, my Zaku’s taken out of commission, my squad is captured, I have to bunk up with some high schooler, and now I have to deal with your hot babysitter?”

“She’s supposed to be away at school!" Yeri groaned. "Since when do universities take breaks in the middle of the fall?” As excited as she was to have Irene visiting, the timing couldn't be worse.

“Well I guess my ‘school’ also has a weird break schedule,” Seulgi said pensively, recalling her lie earlier. “By the way, how do we know each other?”

+++

“So you’re staying with Yeri?” Irene asked as she helped herself to the kitchen to make drinks while Yeri spread the snacks out on the table.

“Yeah,” Seulgi said, glancing over the labels before selecting a cup of noodles from the pile.

Irene waited a beat, but when it was obvious Seulgi wasn’t going to expand on her answer, she spoke up again. “For how long?”

Seulgi came into the kitchen and reached around her to get to the sink for water. “Just a few days, probably. Her parents feel better with me staying over while they’re gone,” she lied, trying to keep her tone as casual as possible. “How long are you here for?” she asked, turning the question around before Irene could dig any deeper.

“I’m not sure yet,” Irene replied, ducking a bit as Seulgi reached over her to use the microwave above the stove. Their strange dance in the cramped kitchen was making her smile. “I may uh, finish my degree online or something.”

Yeri had been listening to their conversation intently and brightened up at Irene’s comment. “You’re staying?”

“Maybe,” Irene said with a little laugh. “I’ll have to see what my professors say.”

“Do you have family here or something?” Seulgi asked, surprising herself. Why was she so curious? What did Irene’s reasons matter to her?

“Irene grew up next door,” Yeri offered, opening a pack of chips.

“But like everyone else’s parents around here,” Irene explained with a nod towards Yeri, “They’re always going back and forth between the labs here in the colony and down on Earth so it’s just me in that house right now.”

“You should stay here,” Yeri began, until Seulgi whipped around and stared at her.

Irene laughed and Seulgi felt herself smile a bit through her anxiety. She tried to loosen up a bit. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to spoil your night too much,” Irene said, glancing up at Seulgi.

“Irene!” Yeri groaned.

“I’m teasing!”

“What’s the matter, squirt? I'm not your type?” Seulgi asked as her noodles beeped.

“Don’t be gross,” Yeri complained, that disgusted look returning.

Seulgi sighed dramatically. “I get that from too many girls.”

Irene handed her a cup of tea on her way out of the kitchen. “I find that hard to believe,” she murmured.

Seulgi gingerly sat down at the table next to Yeri and pointed at herself questioningly. Yeri shrugged, but the rest of their silent conversation was cut short when Irene joined them. Irene and Yeri made small talk while Seulgi dug in, not having realized how famished she was until she started eating.

Now that she thought about it, her last real meal had been before her squad deployed to Libot, and she had been surviving off of packets of rations in her cockpit ever since. She ate pensively, staring into her broth as she chewed, wondering about the other Zeon pilots. Were they being interrogated? Tortured? Shipped off to Earth? She needed to find out where they were, and if she could do anything to rescue them before they were turned over to the Federation. She didn’t believe for a second that Libot was as neutral as the rest of Sector 6, not if they were hiding a top secret Federation research facility right in their midst. It wouldn’t surprise her if the colony completely skipped any formalities regarding the extradition process and just handed her squad right over to the MPs.

Yeri stepped on her foot under the table. “Ow, what- oh?” Seulgi looked up in surprise. Both of the other girls were staring at her. “Uh, did I get any on me?” she asked, immediately wiping with the back of her hand.

Irene tried not to smile as she repeated her question. “I asked if you wanted more tea.”

More tea? Seulgi glanced down at her empty mug. She hadn’t even realized she had finished it already, on full autopilot as she worried about her friends. She held out her mug with a sheepish smile. “Yes, please.”

“You’re kind of dumb, aren’t you,” Yeri whispered as Irene went into the kitchen.

“Hey!” Seulgi whispered back, offended. “Excuse me for having a lot on my mind at the moment.”

“Just play it cool until she leaves, alright?”

“I’m being cool! I’m cool.”

Irene didn’t leave for several hours, however, and Seulgi was surprised to discover that she didn’t mind. She even offered to walk her home.

“It’s just next door, Seulgi,” Irene laughed, though Seulgi was ninety percent certain she saw a blush on the smaller woman’s cheeks.

“I want to take a walk anyway before I turn in,” Seulgi said with a grin, ignoring the way Yeri was glaring at her warningly.

“Oh? Then if you wouldn’t mind,” Irene said as she delicately took Seulgi's arm.

Seulgi tried to stay relaxed and gave Yeri a little thumbs up as she escorted Irene out.

Yeri at least had the presence of mind to wait until the door clicked shut to groan and cover her face with her hands, but she was anxious to know whether or not Seulgi would come back. As she went around the living room picking up the trash and turning off lights, she decided she’d leave the back door unlocked, just in case.

+++

“She’s really growing up,” Irene mused as Seulgi slowly walked her down the stone steps and across Yeri’s front lawn.

“I think she has a little bit more growing to do,” Seulgi countered quietly, recalling Yeri’s romantic notions about the military.

“That’s true, too,” Irene admitted. “Have you known her for very long?”

Seulgi shook her head, and Irene realized she rather liked the way the streetlamps caught the highlights in her wavy hair.

“She’s a good kid,” Seulgi said after a moment. “And I’m glad she has someone like you to look out for her.”

“Me?” Irene hadn’t been ready for the sudden turn in the conversation.

“Yeah, you,” Seulgi said with a smile. "It's obvious you worry about her and take care of her." She took Irene’s hand off her bicep as they reached Irene’s gate. “Is this the place?”

Irene was a little embarrassed to have Seulgi, by all accounts a complete stranger, holding her hand on a dark street in front of her house. It somehow seemed a little bit like a date. “Yeah, this is it,” she said, surprised by her own shyness.

“It’s too bad you live so close,” Seulgi smirked, reaching over the gate to unlatch it.

“Well if you’re staying at Yeri’s for a few days, I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

"Hopefully."

Seulgi had to snap herself out of whatever it was she was thinking. She was literally in the middle of a mission, and the consequences for failure were severe. Lives hung in the balance, and here she was flirting with some colonist.

Irene could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as Seulgi stared at her mutely. She should head inside before one of them did something silly.

“Thanks for walking me home,” she said with a laugh. The whole situation was just ridiculous.

“You’re welcome. Goodnight, Irene.”

“Goodnight, Seulgi.” Irene slowly pulled away from Seulgi’s grip, making herself walk all the way up to her front door before venturing a peek back at the other girl.

Seulgi smiled at her from the gate and gave a little wave before shoving her hands in her pockets and continuing her walk down the street. Irene could feel a stupid grin spreading across her face and she quickly unlocked her door and let herself in.

Irene rolled her eyes at herself and shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She shouldn’t be crushing on a girl she just met, especially not in light of recent events.

The lights from the street, muted by the gauzy curtains on her living room’s picture window, barely illuminated her furniture, but she knew this house by heart, even if it had been years since she had lived here last. She scooped up her suitcase as she passed it, and headed upstairs to what was once her room, where another dark window failed to let enough light in allow her to see anything but the outlines of her bed and desk. This window didn’t look out into the street, however. It looked across her side yard right into Yeri’s bedroom.

She tossed her suitcase up onto the bed and flipped on a light so she could unpack. She carefully pulled out her white and red uniform, relieved to see that there weren’t any creases after her long flight up from the surface, and hung it up in her closet. She was going to have to get up early tomorrow; they would expect her to report in first thing in the morning.

Her sudden reassignment to the Earth Federation’s secret Research and Development facility had come without any warning, but she was still determined to make the best of it.