Secret Santa
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Remember x Fragmented x Pieces
By Kurayami (kotomine)
Written for Nicole (draconically)
He unpacks his belongings and begins to savor a beginning of a new life, and room. Alone. Although he might not look like it, Yzak Jule was used to bunking with someone else, even if it had to be Athrun Zala at times. The changes that occurred for the past few days had been so overwhelming that as soon as he wrapped everything up with the superior officers and accomplished all his paperwork, he immediately thought of hiding in his room until morning.
He senses someone in the doorway and turns to see his subordinate and best friend Dearka Elthman standing on attention. Dearka, he says his name blankly, and returns to his unpacking. The uniforms he used to wear were still with him and he keeps them in his bag, maybe but hopefully never again to be used in the future. He probably had outgrown them anyway. Personal items like photographs and memorabilia are placed on a desk provided along with his laptop and remaining paperwork. He is still deciding on whether or not he should keep his little tribute to Lacus Clyne exposed on his desk as it already had cost him a number of embarrassing incidences in the past. Most of those incidences involved teasing and him loosing his temper.
----
Dearka is not leaving him alone as he expected and he continues blocking the entrance, this time in a more relaxed stance than when he last looked at him. What do you want, he asks rather impatiently and busies himself with arranging his clothing on the drawers. Yzak's attention is called again and he yells something brazen like, 'Do I have to wring your neck before you tell me what you need from me?' which isn't exactly a very witty or mature thing to say. Dearka always has the intelligent and sarcastic comebacks, not him.
He forgot his mobile phone of all things, how careless of him.
----
Yzak notices his laid back stance from a distance as he converses amiably with a couple of female crew before he continues with the mandatory patrolling he was tasked to do once in a while. Dearka has a countenance that was relaxed yet tenacious, Yzak places his friend and subordinate under scrutiny, while his superiors often over-looked his potential, his colleagues and subordinates were comfortably professional around him. While his motives were quite well-meaning; his grin was cockish and ambiguous... quite the opposite of his own protected exterior.
Dearka laughs mockingly, and one of the female crew stutters an apology in sheer embarrassment. He sneaks a stolen shot of the scene from his mobile phone and walks away before anyone notices, almost too covert for his own good. It was reason enough to call his attention for "harassing subordinates", but it was just another half-baked excuse to get him in his office.
----
A droning melody from inside his uniform and he reads the very first email he's received on that phone. Dearka reminds him playfully to keep his phone number even if he already saved it the day before as if he was absentminded.
----
He is being provoked too embarrassingly at a cocktail party teeming with the most respected PLANT council members in the same room. Yzak hisses to keep his composure while the blond, the provocative culprit, fails at concealing his amusement. He isn't at all pleased, and succumbs to the dare.
They leave the party slightly earlier than planned. He remembers Athrun's reproachful look, and that doesn't make him feel the least bit calm. He swears never to take paparazzi shots of Lacus Clyne ever again as his mother reprimands him in the privacy of their car for behaving inappropriately in the midst of the Supreme Council. Ezalia Jule reminds him of proper adult decorum and that he must vigilantly mind his actions at all times. The 13-year-old Yzak Jule wordlessly listens to his mother's lecture, repressing so much humiliation and rage within nods and words of compliance.
He grips his mobile phone and stares at the screen momentarily. Lacus Clyne discovers his motives and, much to his surprise and amusement, forms a V with her fingers. She also asks someone to take a picture together with Ezalia Jule's son, a classmate of her fiancé in the Academy. He closes it and observes the vastness of space from his window. He will have to kick Dearka purposely on the shin out of eternal gratitude in school tomorrow.
-----
He's dead, he sullenly reminds himself but never takes his eyes off its slick, silver design waiting for a call or an email or anything… no matter how absurd it may seem.
-----
Of course he knew it was a mobile phone; he was injured, not retarded. He glowers at his blue haired comrade –slash- nemesis one more time after snapping at him before turning back to his other, more tolerable comrade, the one handing him a get-well present with a pink colored ribbon. He mutters his faint thanks and takes the present half-heartedly. He appreciates the gesture naturally, but what would he need a mobile phone for anyway? Especially one that was similar to Athrun's but with a different color. He glances back at the faces of his comrades around him as if anticipating his reaction. Nicol informs him that this was the latest in mobile phone technology plus it was such a hit amongst teenagers he decided that the entire team should have the same phones, he adds a little too enthusiastically. Yzak is completely unimpressed, but keeps the phone anyway. Just as long as it isn't the same color as Athrun's, he assures himself.
Dearka remarks humorously that the silver matches his hair and everyone but he finds it funny.
-----
They finally separate after a few minutes of indulgent gazes and small talk. The talk was privy but brief, but the silence said it all. Yzak, now alone, places his mobile phone on the desk. He might have to place that little tribute after all, and he reaches for it in his luggage and places it in between a photograph of his mother and one with the both of them during graduation ceremonies.
Dearka would be the only soul to lay eyes on it anyway.
