I was on an unfamiliar couch, listening to the unfamiliar sound of a movie playing while three girls flickered in the darkness with me. The one next to me was Alyssa, who sometimes glanced over and smiled apologetically at me, as though to make sure I was still awake, while the other two were her roommates, who had apparently accepted me into their lives on Alyssa's glowing commendation that I 'was cool'.

She said I'd probably want to watch an action flick, her roommates apparently had some romantic comedy they wanted instead. She'd appealed to me for an opinion, and I let her know that I really did not care. Democracy took its course as she was outvoted two to one.

It wasn't a bad movie but...well, relationship drama wasn't as funny when you had it at home, I realized. I also found my thoughts drifting. Not only to my latest obsession in just what kind of voltages the holo might be using to power a display as large as the girls' had, but also back to the big guy encounter at the end of class before lunch on Friday.

Diallo, his name was. Which was fitting, because it wasn't far off from 'dildo', and he wasn't far off from being a huge pain in my ass.

Saga had not been called in, as Rito was off in the middle of something else apparently, and by the time we'd gotten ahold of her, the entire situation seemed to be settled by scrawling a signature on his paper and fleeing. Saga suggested she walk over, seemingly unconcerned of the presence of the Rocky Mountains and a state line between us.

Regardless, things seemed stable for now, and there was the added benefit of Lia now holding her breath and staying only in my periphery, instead of chewing me out, even as I packed a bag of clothes and toiletries to spend the weekend with Alyssa. Or, more specifically, away from AEGIS.

The movie concluded with a rather predictable ending. The guy and girl who were recently estranged by a simple miscommunication threw aside the old lives they'd been clinging to in order to choose their budding love. Of course, the second they did, each of them spontaneously realized the 'if you love me enough to give things up, I love you enough not to let you,' and in one dramatic kiss, all of their relationship woes disappeared. Nobody had to change, nobody had to give up anything to make it work, everyone was perfect for each other, forever.

Kinda made me want to throw up. Even if problems got resolved, they didn't go away forever. Those two would always have lingering doubts about the other. Will he really accept my neurotic spending habits on cute dresses? Is she being honest with me, or is she just afraid because I've already threatened to leave once? Is she just settling with me because the hot guy at the party turned out to be gay? And what about the next hot guy she sees, has she changed, or are we doomed?

Man, when did I become such an expert at shitty relationships? At least nobody was molesting anyone there. Or trying to rope them into some new video game. Or cooking for them.

"Well that was pretty good," Alyssa said to me over the soaring of the credits music.

"I guess," I said. She frowned.

"I told ya guys we should have watched an action 'vid," she chided her roommates.

They laughed and bickered for a few minutes while I watched.

"Well now yer smilin'," Alyssa turned to me.

"All guys like catfights," one of the roommates joked, before catching Alyssa's pillow with her face.

"Yeah, sorry. I just miss normal interactions like this."

"Ya don't argue with yer roommates ever?"

"No, too much," I sighed.

Her arm shifted to squeeze my knee. Her fingers felt gentle. Suited for holding a pencil or pulling hangers off a rack, not clenching the yokes of an exosuit or the grip of a pistol. The other two girls grinned with what I thought was wicked intent, until they both rose and left the room in unison, leaving behind only the faint sound of giggling from behind the door.

"Sorry about them," Alyssa said.

"For the movie? I didn't hate it."

"For...uh…" she looked around. "For that."

"Leaving? Giggling?"

She looked at me sideways. "Uh, never mind. Are ya hungry Athan?"

"Probably should be. Did you have something planned? I'm cool to pay for whatever."

"Well, I thought, since ya had such issues with yer lady friend cookin', maybe we'd go out or the like. Don't want to force ya to eat my cookin' if yer runnin' away from some already, right?"

"Sounds fine to me," I said, standing and picking up my shoes. "Anywhere in particular?"

Before she answered, someone knocked at the door. Four distinct taps, like a metronome. It was a knock I recognized. But that'd be impossible.

"Uh. Should I get it?" I asked, since I was standing right there.

Alyssa nodded and I cracked open the door.

It was impossible. I felt my forehead crease as I opened the door further to reveal a girl in a cute pink-and-charcoal outfit, down to pink laces on her grey sneakers and pink fluff on the inside of her grey knit cap.

"I found you," Moon said, with all the excitement of spotting a bug on her wall.

I gave her another couple seconds of us just staring at each other before I closed the door.

"Welp. Maybe stay in," I said. Alyssa gave me another weird look before the door knocked at me again.

I threw it open. "What."

"It is considered rude to close the door in--"

I closed the door again.

"Um, who is that?" Alyssa asked. "Is that your girlfriend?"

I shook my head. "No, just an...old friend...kinda."

She knocked again and I sighed and opened it. "My apologies, but when were we considered friends?"

"Right, my mistake," I said, and closed the door again.

"Um...ya can invite her in if ya'd like. No need to play with the doors...my roommates will think yer crazy if ya keep it up."

"You'll probably regret this," I said, and opened the door. "You heard the lady. You're invited in."

"I thank you," Moon said with a deep bow to Alyssa that sent her hair tumbling over her shoulders in an onyx cascade. She rose and faced me. "I do not thank you."

"Yeah, no surprise."

I stepped back as she entered the room a couple feet and remained standing, changing effectively nothing about the situation but the intervention of the door. I could tell she was upset though, not the least of indicators being that she started talking again without any of her usual nonsense.

"I suspect you are wondering why I am here. I am here to demand you return to and reconcile with the others."

"The others? Not you?"

"I do not care either way."

"Yeah of course not. I forgot you don't believe in relationships."

She blinked at me slowly in a manner which might be attributable to irritation. "Do you believe relationships akin to faeries in that they vanish if we do not believe? They exist. Professional relationships are paramount to human success. Personal relationships, however, are superfluous. And can end only in pain, as you are demonstrating."

"Yet you want me to go back and rekindle with the guys? Pick up our personal relationship again?"

"Yes."

"And you don't see the hypocrisy in that?"

"No."

I waited and so did she. Alyssa looked back and forth between us, lost as anything. I didn't blame her, I only barely understood Moon-speak myself.

"Fine. Please explain how you do not find demanding that I reform personal relationships hypocritical, given your stance on them?"

"Because the damage is already done. You have formed these bonds already. They will end in inevitable loss. All that can be done is to delay that loss. I am here to delay."

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose in irritation. I wished I didn't understand her as well as I did, but her logic always made a weird sense to me, no matter how much I disagreed with it. She was like a robot from the sci-fi holovids that always found some twisted reasoning to exterminate humanity. Wrong on so many levels, but perfectly rational about it.

"Why are you here instead of them?"

"Because I came here."

I sighed. "Why did you come here instead of them?"

"Because they did not come here."

"Why did you choose to come here on their behalf, when they themselves did not -- implicit by them not coming -- care enough to have this chat with me, instead of you performing it by proxy?"

"Because they like and respect you too much. I do not suffer this handicap."

"You made me jump through how many hoops just so you could say that with a smug face?"

"I apologize. I did not intend my face to be smug at the time of delivering that line. Sometimes emotions slip out unintentionally. I am fallible, after all."

I sat down and Alyssa followed me while Moon remained standing there. "She didn't look smug to me," Alyssa said. "Am I missin' something?"

"No, Moon is," I answered. "Like, a heart, and several important parts of her brain, I think. She's got zero desire to have friends, feelings, or emotions, and thinks that's all totally fine."

"I have feelings and emotions. I make lively jokes."

"Yeah. Real lively. Moon, I made it clear when I...uh...when I rejoined. I put down conditions, our organization accepted them, and that's the way it's gonna be. I'm sorry I can't do more."

She almost-glared at me in almost-disgust. "Perhaps I would better understand your position if you explained it to me. I can be rather slow to pick up on such things."

"Maybe you should explain to me why you're doing all this in the first place? Why's it so important to you that you'd show up unannounced at...at not even my place, but a friend's house where I'm staying? I'd ask why you didn't just...y'know...call, but you're already like ten steps further on the crazy train than that."

"Apologies, but that is a large number of questions. Can you narrow it down to one?"

"Why are you here doing this?"

She stopped for a minute to think, staring at me the whole while. Alyssa several times seemed on the verge of speaking, but I think she saw me waiting and picked up to just wait herself. She was being pretty understanding of this whole train wreck, all things considered. I made a note to thank and apologize even more profusely when this was all over.

"As you are aware, Tower and I are often…" her eyes flickered imperceptibly towards Alyssa "...of one mind. I am aware of what pains him. After the last operation, that was you. I do not enjoy seeing him in distress, when something so simple as an explanation for your actions would go far in ameliorating the strain."

Again, not what I wanted to hear, and a very legitimate answer. Just not one I could do anything with. Before I could reply, she added, "I am certain Jack and Cosette feel similarly."

"I'm sorry Moon--"

"Kaori."

"--but there's nothing I can do. The conditions I put down, they were for a reason. There were some...changes...as I'm sure you've noticed, and...I can't go into them. I have my reasons, and I'm sorry."

She shocked me with a sudden sound as she slapped the table with a small hand. "I do not think that is good enough, Athan. I believe these men have fought and bled with you, and their hearts sear at your betrayal. I am disgusted and outraged."

She even looked it and sounded it a little.

"I know," I said softly. "But...I can't do anything else. I'm sorry."

Her hand on the table clenched into a fist before moving back to impassionately dangling at her side. "I find your actions contemptible. I am...they are justifiably upset, that you would so brutally turn your back on those you called friend." She turned to Alyssa. "Put no faith in this man. If he says you are his friend, consider those words without value."

Silently she moved to the door, and I caught a glimpse of Alyssa's completely stunned expression as I got up to see Moon out.

"I am not finished here. I will return for you again, until I am satisfied," she threatened.

"Great," I sighed. "More drama I didn't need."

"Then perhaps do not bring it on yourself, miscreant." She bowed deeply towards the stunned Alyssa again, thanked her for hospitality, and then vanished out the door.

When she'd come in, she'd eradicated any joy of normalcy that had lingered in this place, and when she left, she did the same of my self-worth, throwing all the selfish decisions I'd made in my face.

I hadn't wanted this. Hadn't wanted to hurt the guys. I just wanted to be a normal person for once, and had jumped at my chance. I knew that mine had been a life I couldn't leave behind...but I had expected it to be trouble, or my own sense of guilt or justice which would drag me back, not my friends.

Something took hold of my arm, and I looked down to see Alyssa half-wrapped around it, smiling up at me through a wavy curtain of her hair.

"We still on for dinner?" she asked.

"Uh, if you want. You still want?"

She nodded.

"You aren't like...weirded out by my friends dropping by and slapping your table and...arguing with me about betrayals and abandonments and her telling you I shouldn't be trusted?"

She shrugged. "Kinda, I am. But from the moment I met ya I never thought ya were an ordinary sorta person. Yer friend got me curious about who ya are though."

"Well," I said, struggling for a place to start explaining. "I mean...you know I transferred here--"

She smiled as she put a finger on my lips. "We can talk over dinner, right? I'm sure yer hungry like a hippo."

It was right then that I decided that Alyssa was a really good person. She might have some flaws, be a little rough around the edges and spend way more time messaging her friends than doing her homework, to say nothing of any number of traits that would have gotten her killed in a fight in a heartbeat. But...those weren't real criteria, were they? A good person, who'd judge her friends for herself and listen to people over a meal if they were hungry.

I was lucky to have her, I thought.

She, like most freshmen, lived on-campus but she insisted today was 'special' and we should go out so we'd have a more suitable backdrop for our conversation. I kind of agreed that the dining halls on campus weren't exactly a place for a personal conversation, and so, one rather awkward bus ride later found us in a dark corner of a little noodle bar, where faux-silk tapestries hung around us, and the uniforms were polos and slacks which were trying their best to look oriental.

"Nice place, huh?" she asked as though embarrassed. Her hands fidgeted with the flat plastic ladle in front of her.

"Yeah, good enough. Should I get talking now about Moon and stuff?"

"In a bit. No big rush. Did you like my roommates? One of them I met at orientation, the other is new...filled in for a girl none of us liked who got on probation first quarter and was gone the next. Just got drunk every night and would stand on the balcony yelling at campus security like a moron--"

She kept up her chatter as we decided on our orders, made them, and begun slurping at bowls of hot noodles. I contributed when I had something to add, but mostly just listened.

I'd never quite had someone like her in my life before. Not just how normal she was, or how she could seemingly pull conversation from thin air like it was effortless, but also how engaged she could be in such simple things, unironically. As the topic shifted around from classes to the food, to her home life, she was never cynical or snarky or mean-spirited.

Which was just strange. I lived in a world of sharp-tongued women. Lia might be sweet, but if she thought you were an idiot and you were her brother, you'd hear about it. AEGIS loved to talk, but always in a more elucidatory fashion, which often as not felt like it was for her own ego as it was for any listener to learn something. Saga, Karu, Cosette...friggin' Moon was the worst of them all...rarely had I just sat down with any of them and had a conversation which wasn't a fencing match.

Which I didn't mind, of course. Sarcasm was funny, and they were sharp. Rito was just kind of vapid and sorry, Whitney was...well...difficult lately. And Tem was Tem. I had no idea where she was, but nearby, presumably.

More than anyone, I guess it reminded me of AEGIS Prime, back when we were dating. She worked very hard to come up with topics of conversation though, and did so to keep the date flowing successfully, with excellent results. Another thing about her the current AEGIS just seemed to disregard as unimportant. And yet here I was, being captivated by it all over again.

The realization of which hung over me a little bit for a moment as the conversation temporarily slowed near the end of our meal. She gave me a small apologetic smile as she checked something on her mobile.

"Ah, yeah, ya said yer football tryout is Monday?" she asked, sliding her mobile back into her purse.

The silvery threads holding the realization frayed as they snapped under its increased weight.

"Um. Yeah. Say, what were you checking on your mobile?"

"Oh, that?" she said a little embarrassed. "I just...made a note so I wouldn't forget. Just a few things I wanted to remember to bring up so we could talk about 'em. Memory like a sieve, sometimes, y'know?"

The realization came crashing down on me, almost crushing me through the bench into the floor. Flooring me, you might say.

"Wait, Alyssa...are you...is this…" I looked around. Mood lighting. Soft plinking music. The two of us alone over a shared meal. I blinked as I looked at her more closely, making her wriggle slightly. Dark lines bordering her eyes. Thick full lashes. A kiss of color and shine on her lips. She was wearing makeup? Since when? And...a little top and a skirt...that wasn't what she wore to class. But she'd been wearing that all night around me.

The realization ground me into the depths of my own idiocy, and from somewhere not far away, Lia's words emerged like a foot and helped jam it further down into my thick skull.

I swallowed hard at the last refuge. "Are we on...a date?" I asked her.

The embarrassed look, the vague smile, they were familiar by now. But the small, knowing shrug and the blush that accompanied it, those were new.

The realization buried me like a tombstone. If it had an epitaph, it would read:

Here lies Athan Ashton. Oblivious, stubborn, idiot.