Mission (GenesisxReader)
Chapter 4: Leaving
Zack entered his bedroom and as soon as he saw you polishing your sword he jumped towards you on your bed, making it (and you with it) doing some bounces.
You, completely unfazed, kept polishing your weapon “hey Zack” you greeted.
“Ow come on (y/n) pull a smile for me!” he grinned, before pulling upwards the edges of your lips, to shape a smile.
You soon pushed his hands away and he looked offended for a bit, before taking your sword from your hands and tossing it away, the other two recruits in the room looked towards the two of you, startled by the clatter that your sword produced hitting the ground and kept their gaze on the scene to look what was going to happen, honestly you didn’t know either, because your raven haired friend had a serious expression and seemed true concerned about something, but as soon as he pulled a grin you knew exactly what was going to happen: you were going to punch him.
You raised slowly your hand, so slow that the other 2nd class was able to grab it and give a kiss to it “why so serious today?” he continued to smile at your frown.
“Nothing” you pouted, walking away from him to grab your sword from the floor and throwing it on the bed “let’s go out, so we can talk” you eyed the other two SOLDIERs for a moment, even though they returned to mind their own business.
“Sure babe” he winked, opening the door for you.
You were walking down the streets of Midgar with Zack, the both of you stayed silent and the boy tried really hard to keep quiet until you felt enough comfortable to speak, but he was just too curious, so he opened his mouth to say something, when you interrupted him.
“I was wondering how much could you resist without speaking” you chuckled, looking ahead “I see not enough”
“Sorry” he rubbed the back of his head “I’m just worried”
You smiled at him and intertwined one of your arms with one of his and sighed “thank you Zack, I’m really thankful, I really am” you started “but I’d appreciate if you could just give some ease to my pain”
“That’s why I’m here to listen”
You shook your head calmly and lead him to a bench, forcing him to sit down with you “there are many ways to make someone feel better, and it always depends by the case”
“What’s the case, then?”
“I’d like you to bring me around the city, I want to forget” you smiled at him.
“That can be done!” he exclaimed getting up with his usual over excitement.
You chuckled and watched him seat again and leaning his left forearm on the backrest of the bench, you pulled your legs to you and crossed them “I’m glad to have you” you said sweetly and you were so adorable and fragile in the boy’s eyes that he couldn’t help but to hug you with one arm and stroke your head with the other.
“Anytime dear” you could feel his breath through your locks and felt so relaxed that you closed your eyes and lifted your hands to lay them on his back.
It wasn’t uncommon an hug between you two, in fact, as long as you could remember, you’ve been close friends and Zack himself was a person you could always feel comfortable with, so an hug like that was a simple hug between friends, nothing more, nothing less. Of course there were people who would disagree, for them the concept of friendship between a male and a female that were so close to each other didn’t exist, for sure you two were in a relationship, but those rumors never meant nothing to you, you didn’t even bother to deny them.
You felt Zack pull away and take your hand to make you stand “come (n/n), I’ll take you some (favorite flavor) ice cream” he winked at you, before dragging you towards the closer ice cream shop.
The afternoon went on with your best friend taking you in every place that he knew would’ve make you feel happy, and so it was: you almost forgot about your problems for that time… almost.
The next morning you went to check your post, as asked in the letter Kunsel gave you and, indeed, found something: a letter. Your hands trembled when you started to open it, you took a deep breath and as soon as you finished reading the content, you couldn’t help but to slide your fingers through your hair, to keep at bay your nervousness. You closed the envelope again and decided it, maybe, was time to pay director Lazard a visit.
So you went and waited outside, since you saw the door closed, signaling that someone was already inside,, however waiting was painful, you felt the urge to enter, but you just couldn’t lose control and disrespect the formalities.
“No (y/n)” you murmured to yourself, your eyes starting to swell up with tears as you tried to hold them back “don’t do it” you squeezed your eyes shut, but you couldn’t wait no more.
“Ah fuck off!” you exclaimed under your breath and burst through the door.
“Director Lazard!” you started, your voice formal, but the fright transpired through them “I am sorry, but I really need to-“
“Calm down (l/n), I’m already busy now” he calmly stated, interrupting you.
You then moved your gaze to see what was keeping him busy and found a very concerned Genesis, whose heart was breaking at seeing you like this, in fact the tears had started to fall and your eyes were starting to become red.
“Please director, I really need to talk to you” you urged, trying to avoid the 1st class’ gaze, you didn’t want him to look at you with pity.
“And I really need to end this discussion” he said, this time his anger could be heard being held by his usual gesture of pushing his glasses to sit better on his nose.
“Director, if I am allowed… I think that what this recruit has to ask you is far more important than the report of my last mission” the red haired stated.
You gave him a grateful smile and he smiled back for a brief moment, before you looked away, remembering the actual conditions of your face.
Lazard sighed deeply and closed his eyes, before nodding as to accord to your requests “we’ll continue this later, then” he nodded to Genesis, he nodded back and went outside, flashing you a smile that you didn’t even notice as you were too focused on your talk with the ShinRa director.
“Please, I need you to accord me a permit” you said with trembling voice as soon as the red head was gone.
“A permit? What for?” the director frowned.
You sighed and prepared to talk.
“Hey puppy!” Genesis called out to Zack, seeing him outside the training room.
“Hey 1st class!” he frowned at the nickname, but eventually smiled “what’s up?”
“I know you’re really close to (y/n)”
“Yes, and?” he urged, his mind going to the shower that he, oh so badly, wanted to go under after all that sweating, when suddenly he widened his eyes “waaaait” he smirked “you want some advice about her?”
“What do you mean?” he raised one brow at him.
“Or maybe… are you jealous?” the 2nd class smirked, ignoring the question.
“What- why should I be?”
“Oh, because I’m so close to her” he winked “and maybe you think there’s something between us”
“Is there?” Genesis frowned
“Nah, we’re only friends, there’s nothing between us”
The red haired could feel his cheeks redden and his heart lightening a bit, before shaking his head and remembering why he was wasting his time with the puppy “in any case I don’t care about that, I came here to ask if you knew something about what is bothering (y/n)”
“You noticed it too?” Zack asked, his expression going immediately from playful to concerned.
“Well, actually she came in the director’s office and seemed to be troubled about something”
“Oh” the boy said softly, moving his eyes around, thinking “well yesterday she was a bit too peevish for her normal self and she said to me that something had indeed happened” Genesis perked his head up and tensed his shoulders, caught by what the 2nd class was about to say “but she didn’t want to talk about it” he slumped his shoulders in disappointment.
“Okay” Genesis sighed and turned to walk away.
“Yeah, no problem!” Zack rolled his eyes.
You were currently running towards your room, quickly you opened the door and started preparing your bag with the strictly necessary for a trip under the plate, you were trying to do it as fast as you could, fortunately no one was in the bedroom at the moment: no one had to notice that you were preparing to escape and now it was the perfect time, everyone was in the training room and you had to prepare everything before someone came back from there. As soon as everything was ready you hurried outside your bedroom and outside the building and towards the under plate.
You were striding towards the entrance, towards the stairs, towards the edge between the two worlds, when someone grabbed your arm, you shrieked and pulled away, turning around and looking in a pair of blue eyes, that pair belonging to the 1st class you became closer in the last month.
“What do you think you’re doing, (y/n)?” he frowned at your angered expression.
“I’m going away, forever!” you shouted, before preparing to run away.
“Why?” Genesis calmly asked, even if he was feeling betrayed.
“why… because ShinRa is not my home, not anymore” you whispered, looking at him past your shoulder.
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t understand”
“Then make me!” he exclaimed desperately “Or at least look at me” he murmured, lowering his gaze to look at his own feet.
You slowly turned around and sighed, before putting your palms on both his cheeks, he lifted his gaze to look at you, betrayal could be seen in his eyes “Sorry” you whispered “I really couldn’t stop to say goodbye or explain”
He grabbed your wrists softly and pulled them down to take your hands in his “now you can” he stated “please” he begged.
You sighed again and looked down for a moment, before looking into his eyes again “I asked Lazard if he could give me some days to visit my sister, she’s really ill and today arrived another letter from my mom that urged me to come back home because she is going to- she probably will-” you weren’t able to finish your sentence because tears started to pool in your eyes.
“Another letter you say? For how long did you know about your sister?” Genesis tried to keep calm in your place.
You shrugged and shook your head “I’ve known about it only since yesterday night, Kunsel gave me a letter a boy asked him to give to me, the letter talked vaguely about my sisters’ condition and it said that more information would have come today”
“So this was the thing Kunsel wanted to talk about” he whispered more to himself than to you, but you nodded anyway.
You sniffled and tried to tear your hands from Genesis’ grip to wipe the tears you could feel starting to fall down, but a squeeze to your hands brought you back to reality, so you cleared your throat and resumed your explanation with a voice that threaten every time to crack “death is near for her, I wanted to stay by her side for her last moments, you know…”
“And he didn’t agree?”
“No no, at first he agreed, but then he asked what was the cause of her illness” you stayed silent for a bit, wondering if it was really the case to tell him everything, you took a deep breath “she’s ill because of the damage the Mako reactors are doing”.
Genesis looked at you with one raised eyebrow and you released his hands abruptly with an exasperated sigh “don’t you see?!” you exclaimed “the land around us is deserted, lifeless! People are falling ill because the ShinRa is taking the life from our planet!” your chest was raising and falling in a quick pace, filled with anger “and you know what? Our beloved director had the guts to say it wasn’t true! ‘ShinRa is only doing good’ he said, ‘how could you even think that the company you’ve been serving for so many years is procuring suffer to the citizens?’ and ‘I absolutely refuse to give you days for a pathetic excuse as this one!’ and that’s why they couldn’t just send a letter about it, a boy had to give it anonymously to Kunsel or else the ShinRa would’ve censored it!” you finished your heated speech feeling a bit relieved from anger, which left a deep sadness in you and tears started to flow down your cheeks “now I really have to go” you sniffled, and took a step back.
“Wait!” the 1st class immediately stopped you with his words “will we meet each other again?”
“I highly doubt so” you chuckled bitterly
“Then I’m coming with you” he promptly answered
You widened your eyes and looked at him “you can’t” you shakily said
“Why not?” he took a step forward
“You don’t believe my words” you scoffed “you believe in ShinRa”
He stayed silent, opening his mouth two or three times, without emitting any sound to which you shook your head and started to walk away, this time there was nothing stopping you.