Two Men Contemplating the Moon (Caspar David Friedrich)
March 789 U.C., Heinessen
It was Attenborough who would have the dubious honor of bringing Yang to the airport on the day he was shipping out. Despite wishing that she could take the day off work, Jessica couldn’t stay at home to help Yang gather what belongings of his had ended up scattered through her house and see him off. She cried in the morning before she left for work, and embraced him with an improbable strength. He watched her from her bedroom window as she got into her car, and saw how she rubbed her eyes on her sleeve before she drove away.
It was bittersweet to leave Jessica. He had been operating in a daze for that last week of his leave. The outside world had vanished almost completely, and it had been the two of them. It was a week that felt like it should have lasted forever, but when Yang picked up his clothes from Jessica’s floor and the books he had been reading from her coffee table, to shove them all haphazardly in his suitcase, everything suddenly felt like a weird dream, one that hadn’t happened at all. He hesitated on his way out the door, and decided that Jessica wouldn’t mind if he took one other thing— he went into the kitchen and took the photo of him, and Lapp, and Jessica off the fridge.
As he stood on the street and waited for Attenborough to arrive, he looked at the photo. The three smiling faces in it— he couldn’t quite remember how things had been between them when they could smile so easily. Of course, he was projecting an imagined past onto the photo— he had been in love with Jessica for a long time, and it had always been a little painful to not feel able to do anything. Still, whatever the three in the photo had been feeling, it was completely different from the situation Yang found himself in now. That made the thoughts of the smiling trio of the past impenetrable to him, and he could imagine happinesses and sadnesses that had no connection to reality. It was easier to imagine this pseudo past than it was to think about the future. At least he didn’t expect any answers from the photo.
He believed Jessica when she said that all of this week had been with Lapp’s permission. She wouldn’t lie, and moreover, it felt true. That didn’t make it less confusing, or difficult to understand what to do with. Yang hadn’t written to Lapp since he had arrived at Jessica’s house, and now it was going to be necessary for him to do so. It wasn’t unlikely that their paths would cross, if only briefly. He needed to figure out what to say to Lapp, which seemed like an impossible task.
Yang stared down at the photograph, at Lapp’s handsome, exuberant face, tracing the edges of his square jaw with his eyes. Of course, the photo didn’t tell him anything new. Yang sighed and folded the picture, shoving it into his pocket.
Attenborough picked him up around noon, and they went for lunch at a little diner near the airport that neither of them had been to before. They sat on the old scratched red benches across the speckled table from each other. Yang looked out the window. Every few minutes, the air was laden with the sound of another airplane painstakingly hauling its way into the sky, and Yang watched them until they vanished into the thick layer of clouds above.
“So,” Attenborough said, getting Yang’s attention. “How was it with Jessica?”
Yang flushed to the tips of his ears and fiddled with his mug of tea. “Good,” he said.
“You figured it out?”
“No, but—”
“Well, you didn’t run away, at least,” Attenborough said. “I’ll say that’s enough of a victory for you.”
“Sorry we didn’t get much of a chance to hang out while I was here,” Yang said.
Attenborough waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m up to my ears in senior thesis work anyway. Maybe I’ll end up in the Eighth Fleet with you when I graduate.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Yang looked out the window again.
“Are you unhappy to be deployed?”
“I’m not happy to be deployed.”
“Sure. But that’s not the issue, is it?”
Yang scratched at the back of his head. “What the hell am I going to say to Lapp?”
“Well, that depends on what he knows, doesn’t it?”
“Everything, I think.”
“That makes your life easier.”
“Does it?”
“You don’t have to say anything to him, beyond making sure that he does know. ‘I visited Jessica when I was on leave— did she tell you that?’ —that kind of thing.”
Yang shrugged and looked out the window again. “And if he wants to talk about it?”
Attenborough narrowed his eyes. “Will he?”
“Maybe— I don’t know.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who has something to say.”
Yang pulled his photograph from his pocket and laid it flat on the table between them. It was easier to look at that than it was look at Attenborough. “Jessica specifically invited me there when he was gone. She didn’t want him being there to make me uncomfortable.”
“So?”
“Was that the right thing to do?”
Attenborough rolled his eyes and dumped more sugar into his own mug of coffee. “I distinctly remember that you ran away last time he was there.”
“Not because of him,” Yang said. “Just because I didn’t want to get in his way.”
“Sure.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
Attenborough shook his head. The waitress was coming over with their meals— spanakopita for Yang and a sandwich for Attenborough. They ate without really talking for a few minutes— Attenborough ravenously going through his sandwich and fries, and Yang figuring out what it was he wanted to say.
“Do you remember what you said to me, a couple months ago?” Yang asked finally.
“Mmm,” Attenborough said, his mouth full of potato. But he nodded to make it clear what he meant.
“You said you didn’t think you had half a chance. Is that because you think…?”
Attenborough finished his bite of french fries and held up one hand. “Sorry, Yang— we’re not doing this. I have my dignity, you know.” There was humor in his voice, but he also was serious.
“Not doing what?”
“It’s because you’re involved up in all of that,” Attenborough said. “Which I, being a sensible man, am not going to get involved in. If you sort your shit out with them, then , and only then, you can ask me to psychoanalyze you, to see what signals you’re giving off to them.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s not?” Attenborough laughed.
Yang looked away. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“I get it.” He smiled. “But if you do figure it out— it’s a standing offer.” Now, he was teasing.
Yang slid down in his seat in the booth, so that his head was barely above the table. Attenborough laughed and flicked one of his french fries at him.
As it turned out, Yang didn’t need to think of what to say to Lapp, or how to start the conversation, because Lapp wrote to him first.
The message arrived in Yang’s first week in his new position as a staff officer in the Eighth Fleet. It came in with the regular mail dump after dinner one day. Knowing that the mail was coming, though only expecting a letter from Jessica, and maybe Attenborough or Cazerne, made Yang dawdle at checking what had arrived in his inbox until he was back in his tiny little cabin. When he lay down on his bed, pulling the scratchy blanket up to his chin, he finally opened his computer to read what he had been sent. When he saw that a letter with Lapp’s name on it was at the top of the pile, his heart fluttered strangely. There was only one other letter, and it was from Cazerne, asking how he was getting settled into his post, so Yang didn’t have any excuse to not read Lapp’s message. With trepidation, he clicked it open, though he mentally chastized himself for being ridiculous as he did.
Lapp’s letter was chatty and long, the same kind of letter that Yang had gotten used to receiving from him since they both graduated— there often wasn’t much on ships for soldiers to do in their free time except to write letters back home. This one was the same as most others, a jaunty, conversational tone recounting Lapp’s days— gossiping about his CO, what Lapp thought of his shipmates, his role as a staff officer. It seemed designed to put Yang at ease. But towards the end, the letter turned more to Yang.
Since it’s been a minute since Cazerne got married, I bet you’re in space by now. Jessica mentioned it was the Eighth Fleet you were headed to? Not a bad one, as far as I know.
Leave is always too short. I heard you got down to Thernussen and stayed with Jessica for a while. That must have been fun. I can’t say I’m not a little jealous, but I won’t hold it against you :) Or her, for that matter.
I know soldiers like to complain about being in space, and missing all of the comforts of their own beds. You know, not having the company of whoever loves you back home. But I feel like we’re complaining for the sake of complaining— not that it isn’t bad, but when Jessica tells me how lonely she is when I’m gone, it seems like I’m getting the better end of the deal. Out here, everybody is in the same boat (hah). We can complain together, and we’re stuck together constantly. It’s not like I’m eating alone in the mess. But Jessica— she’s by herself in that apartment, that’s supposed to feel like home. And it’s not like the people in her grad program understand her.
I don’t know. I’m rambling! But what I’m trying to say is that I want her to be happy, and if there’s another person who understands her, that’s fine. You know? And I trust you. It would be different if I didn’t know you— I mean you’re my best friend.
Anyway, whatever. It doesn’t matter, since we’re both stuck in space for who knows how long. On the positive side, you probably like the break you’re getting from reporters. Attenborough told me what happened at Cazerne’s wedding. Can’t believe that guy.
I’ve heard a rumor that in a few months there’s going to be simulated readiness wargames with a bunch of the fleets, and it might be us and the Eighth on a team. If that’s the case, you and I can meet up in a bar. I’ll tell you if I hear more about it.
You let me know how you’re getting on, now that you’re on the front lines again. Hopefully, it’s no more exciting than whatever the hell happened to you to get you booted out of your easy camp job. You never did tell me that story in a way that I could follow. Don’t bother writing it down. When I see you, a beer will help me figure it out.
Your friend,
Jean-Robert
The letter should have calmed the anxieties in Yang’s heart significantly. And it did, in some ways. He was glad, of course, that Lapp had given his permission— blessing? — to Yang’s stay with Jessica. And it seemed very clear that Lapp understood exactly what happened, even if he didn’t want to write it directly in a letter that was sure to be read by the fleet censors.
But the fact that Lapp had gone out of his way to write such a letter, and, indeed, to phrase it as kindly and as gently as he had— that made Yang feel bad in a different way. Yang would not have been able to write a letter half this delicate, if Lapp hadn’t made the overtures. And it wasn’t only that, the sense that he was clumsy at putting it all into words: it was shame at his own behavior. The past two times that he and Lapp had met each other, Yang had, deliberately or not, ruined it.
He hadn’t wanted to think of Lapp as an obstacle in the path of his desires. But by pressing his desires down into a smaller and smaller space in his heart, trying to ignore them— that effort had consumed all his more rational thoughts. He couldn’t talk himself out of making every moment he spent with Lapp painful with jealousy— jealousy that he once accused Lapp of— and the more he tried, the worse it had become.
But there. It was over, it was done. Lapp had gone out of his way to make Yang happy. Maybe they could put all the rest of it behind them, because Lapp wanted to be easy friends once more. He had certainly never wanted to be anything but easy friends.
Yang felt like an ass. He pulled his blanket over his head, though there was no one in his little cabin to hide his self-made embarrassment from.
September 789 U.C., Enkidu Starzone
Lapp had been right that there would be wargames. It was the kind of outlay of resources that the Alliance government considered necessary during certain moments of quiet within the Iserlohn corridor. Four fleets total would be participating, simulating a battle in a mostly-uninhabited little starzone halfway between Heinessen and the entrance to the corridor. The simulation was one of an Imperial breakthrough into Alliance space, and no detail had been spared in making it comprehensive, if not completely realistic.
The Second, Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth fleets were participating. The Second and Eighth fleets were on their way back to port for a while, for refit and resupply after their duties in and near the Iserlohn corridor were finished, and the Fourth and Sixth fleets were on their way out to take their place. This made Yang’s team the attackers, and Lapp’s team the defenders. He had unfortunately been wrong in stating that they would be on the same side.
Since it was simulated wargames, and since Yang, being a relatively junior staff officer, had no real input into the course of the battle, there were no hard feelings about being enemies. Yang idly wondered how Lapp was doing, and what the atmosphere was like on the bridge of his ship.
Wargames tended to create perverse incentives for the players involved, which made the atmosphere on the bridge of Yang’s ship— the Eighth Fleet flagship— unpleasantly tense. There was no real danger— this was not a live fire exercise— and any ship that was “killed” in the battle was able to drop out and head off to the harbor from which the games were being coordinated and run (a little asteroid shipbuilding base, which nevertheless had enough amenities to briefly amuse soldiers from ships coming in to dock). Especially for the soldiers of the Second and Eighth Fleets, who had been out on patrol for long months, there was a feeling in the air that the wargame was standing in the way of them and a well deserved break. So, it was better to die quickly.
Being on the flagship, however, with a Vice Admiral who felt that his fleet’s performance in the wargames reflected on him personally, meant that there was not a chance of Yang escaping easily and going to have a beer with Lapp in the bar.
The wargame went on and on, for days and days. It moved slower than an actual battle, because the coordinators wanted to simulate several different things— stages of the Imperial fleet’s breakthrough into the Alliance— so the game paused and the fleets spent time reshuffling their positions to attack anew. Yang, in a moment of idle curiosity as their fleet was reorganizing and moving to a different place in the starzone, called up the list of “enemy” ships that had been knocked out of the game, and found Lapp’s ship written in plain text. Knowing that Lapp was relaxing on break only made the time drag more slowly for the last two days of the games.
Although the “invading” fleets ended up defeated, as everyone had known they would be, the Eighth Fleet flagship nevertheless carried solidly along to the end of the games, never being shot down. This meant that Yang would only have a short rest in port, part of which would inevitably have to be spent in various debrief meetings, and working up the post-game report that most officers had to write. It all seemed incredibly tedious, and Yang was very lucky that his CO saw sense that his crews and subordinates deserved a break before all of the mandatory processing work began, and gave everyone shore leave.
Grateful to be free of duty, Yang rushed off his ship as soon as it docked, half-fearing that somebody would stop him before he could snatch his relaxation. Nobody did, though, and he made it onto the base without issue.
Unfortunately, the closer Yang got to the various lounges and bars available on the base, the more crowded everything became. Although the asteroid technically had room for this many people, if all of them wanted to go to the bar at once (which they did), things were sure to get out of hand.
The bar that Yang stumbled across was shoulder-to shoulder packed, from door to wall, and Yang doubted that anyone who squeezed in there now could possibly get a drink. They bar could not possibly have an unlimited supply of beer.
He wandered further into the base, veering away from places where he heard the giddy rush of voices of soldiers relaxing. Maybe this place had a library— he was sure that no one from the visiting ships would be there . And once he found a quiet corner to tuck himself into, he could send a message to Lapp.
But Lapp messaged him first, and his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Lapp: did you manage to make it off your ship, or are you stuck doing paperwork? I see you got in to dock
Though he read the message while walking, to respond, Yang ducked into a little corner in the hallway, where a jumble of electrical panels and a closet door made a small enclave away from any passing traffic.
Yang: yeah, but there’s no way to get into a bar rn
Lapp: i knew that would happen. I’ve got a spot for us, and contraband that i’ve been keeping
Yang: and you don’t mind sharing?
Lapp: what kind of friend would i be if i wasn’t free with my booze. Can you get to room e322? East side of the base, level 3 obviously
Yang consulted the map of the base that his phone had automatically populated when he entered and connected to the intranet. He was already on the correct side of the base, but the third level was down ten or so stories from where he had come in. The base’s layout, since it was for constructing ships, tended towards the narrow and tall, cleaved in twain down the middle by the giant berths into which ships coming in for repair were docked. He told Lapp to give him ten minutes to find it, and he located a stairwell which he trooped down. By the empty, echoing silence in the stairway, filled only by the sound of his shoes clattering on the textured metal landings, he could tell that all the soldiers who had docked were staying mainly on the levels where they had been unloaded: the small “shore leave” area. Lapp had directed Yang down to the base’s operational areas, and Yang wondered if they were about to get in trouble for breaking and entering.
The room that Yang came to was nondescript, the same beige set of double doors as any other in this hallway, and since the little chicken-wire window on the front was dark— no light on inside— Yang wondered if Lapp hadn’t gotten the room number wrong. But still, he tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked.
He entered into a long lecture hall— the kind of meeting room that was used for briefing teams of construction workers. It had a strange familiarity to it, with its gently sloping floor and rows of seats with inbuilt desks— it was like being back at a classroom. In the front, there were dim floor-lights lit, enough to illuminate Lapp sitting in the front row. He turned and stood at the sound of the door opening, and though Yang couldn’t quite see his face in the dimness, he was sure that he was smiling.
“Yang!” he said, voice warm and exuberant. He held up a bottle— also indistinguishable in the darkness. “Look what I’ve got.”
“I can hardly see it, though it’s good to see you,” Yang said as he trotted down the aisle. When he came closer to Lapp, it was clear that he was smiling. Yang smiled, too. Months of distance, and keeping a regular correspondence (in which they both pretended like nothing had happened and that everything was back on its usual course) had made it easier.
“Heinessen’s finest,” Lapp said, though there was a degree of irony in his tone. He passed the bottle to Yang, who inspected it for a moment. It was only half full. “How’ve you been?”
“Well, I’ve spent the past few days jealous of you. I saw your ship got knocked out early in the game.”
“Yeah,” Lapp said. “Lucky me, I guess. Can’t say I’ve minded this vacation, even if it was at the cost of a little chewing out of the crew, for not being quick enough with our firing solutions.”
“That’s hardly the whole crew’s fault.”
“Well, if a ship goes down, it’s not just the weapons team that dies,” Lapp said. “Win together, get yelled at together— that’s how it goes. It’s alright, though.” He laughed. “A couple days sitting around without any responsibilities has cleared it entirely out of my mind. Here, take a seat.” He gestured to the front row of chairs.
Yang plopped himself down, and Lapp sat next to him. Unfortunately, the stiff nature of the chairs and the inbuilt desk made it impossible for Yang to contort himself in his usual ways. He would have almost preferred to sit on the floor. “How did you pick this place to meet?”
“To keep everybody occupied a few days ago, they were offering movie screenings in here. I noticed the door lock didn’t work, so I figured, if they aren’t holding events, it might be a nice place to have my own private theater.”
“You can access the projector?” Yang asked.
“Yeah, sure. They have to make it simple, so that whatever old guy is in charge is able to get his slide deck running without any difficulty.”
“Don’t they usually make a junior run the slides?”
“Out here? In the boonies? Don’t kid yourself.”
Yang laughed. He opened the bottle, then looked around. “You didn’t bring any cups,” he accused.
“Isn’t a canteen supposed to be a standard part of a soldier’s kit?” Lapp asked. “You should have brought one.”
“I thought I was going to a bar,” Yang protested.
Lapp took the open bottle from Yang’s hands and raised it in a silly toast. “Cheers,” he said, then tipped it back and drank directly from it. He grinned when he passed it back to Yang.
“This is a way to get dangerously drunk,” Yang pointed out. But that didn’t stop him from taking a drink from the bottle as well. It was sweet and lemony and high-proof and it burned when it went down. It would have been better mixed with juice or soda, but that didn’t seem to be available, so Yang would live.
Although it was easy enough for officers to bring their own stash of drinks onto a ship, Yang hadn’t bothered to do so when he left for active service, so aside from a few nights spent drinking with his fellow staff officers, it was rare for him to have anything stronger than the wine or beer that could be rationed out from the ship’s stock. It was strange to be reminded of the fact that he hadn’t been drinking as much as he had when he was on Heinessen. Everyone had been right: getting away from the pressures there had been good for him, though that couldn’t have been the only thing.
Yang handed the bottle back to Lapp, who rested it in between his legs. He tried to relax, and found it was easy enough to lean back and smile: he didn’t need to try.
“So,” Lapp said, “how has the Hero of El Facil been?”
Yang was finally able to laugh at that kind of teasing. “I think everybody’s gotten very used to me, and the shine has worn off all the way.”
“You don’t sound too put out about it.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“And what’s the truer reputation you’ve ended up with for yourself among your peers?” Lapp asked.
“Probably the same one I had at school,” he said.
“Oh, I doubt that,” Lapp replied. He sounded genuine, not like he was teasing, so Yang answered in kind.
“Why do you say that? I do promise that I haven’t changed much.”
“I think you’ve forgotten what your reputation was,” Lapp said. “I’m assuming you mean that everyone thinks you’re lazy, but alright.”
“Yeah. I don’t think anybody would describe me any differently, unless they were trying to put a nicer spin on me.”
Lapp’s smile was crooked. “That’s who you were back in school, but it wasn’t what your reputation was.”
“I don’t see how it couldn’t be.”
“I didn’t realize you had forgotten what it was like standing outside the gate, yelling and handing out leaflets. You had a reputation as an agitator. Between that and beating Wideborn in the simulations— almost a troublemaker, if there was something you could have actually gotten in trouble for.”
Yang made noises of protest. “The leaflets were more Jessica’s thing than mine.”
“Well, nobody else knew that. They saw we were out there. And, besides, there aren’t many people who’d do that. So there had to be convictions in there.” He nudged Yang with his elbow.
“You were out there, too. Would you say that you have convictions?” Yang was half accusatory— Lapp never wanted to talk about politics unless Jessica brought up the subject first.
“Sure,” Lapp said. “I like peace and prosperity for all of humanity as much as the next guy.”
That made Yang chuckle, and he reached for the bottle, which Lapp obligingly handed to him. When Yang finished another sip of the alcohol— he couldn’t decide if the taste was growing on him or getting worse with repeated exposure— he handed it back to Lapp.
“You’re headed back for leave, right?” Lapp asked. “That’s why we were defending and you were attacking, because our fleets are headed in opposite directions?”
“Yeah, just for two weeks, though. Long enough for the resupply and general crew change to get figured out.”
“It’s never long enough,” Lapp said.
“How long was your leave?”
“Well, a month, but that’s because it’s the only one I’m getting for the next nine, barring something unusual happening.”
“Yeah.” Yang sighed. “Did you have a nice time at least?”
“Nice enough that I miss it,” Lapp said. “I guess it’s good that I have this little break before we get out on patrol, to ease me back into the life. With you here, it’s almost like being back at home.” He let the melancholy tone drop out of his voice when he grinned at Yang.
“Well, if home was a lecture hall.”
“Home can be anywhere you set your mind to it.” Lapp stretched out his arms across the backs of the seats. “I guess that’s what makes me a good soldier. I’ll get used to my posting soon enough.”
“Yeah, I’ve gotten used to mine. It’ll be weird going back to Heinessen.”
“Are you—” Lapp hesitated for a second. “Do you have any plans for your leave?”
Yang shrugged. He knew what Lapp was asking. “No. I don’t have any plans.”
Lapp took another drink from the bottle, then passed it to Yang, who looked down into it rather than looking at him.
“Jessica asked you to stay with her, didn’t she?” Lapp asked.
“Yeah, she did,” Yang said, then drank. “I don’t know. I have my own house that I should make use of, since the government’s paying for it.”
“You should go see her.”
Yang was quiet for a second. Lapp obviously knew exactly what he was saying, and he reached over and took the bottle back out of Yang’s hand.
Uncomfortable now, Yang got up and walked up to the lectern, where he fiddled with the controls for the projector. It flickered to life. Though it threw a hard white light onto the screen behind him, it failed to illuminate much else in the room. Lapp drank and watched him do this.
“Do you not want to see her?” Lapp asked. “She wouldn’t invite you for no reason.”
Yang finally looked over at Lapp. “It’s that I want to see her too much,” Yang said. “I don’t want to get in your way.”
“You’re not.”
“Okay,” Yang said. He paced away from the lectern, his head bobbing into the light cast by the overhead projector, tossing his shadow out onto the screen. “I believe you,” he said. “I don’t know if I trust myself not to make everything more difficult than it needs to be.”
Lapp laughed, though it wasn’t an easy sound. “You already are.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make it complicated.”
“I’d like to.” Yang turned towards his own shadow, watched its hair wisp upwards when it was caught in the light, omnipresent breeze of the ventilation on space stations. When he took a few more steps out of the air’s path, it settled back down, and his shadow receded on the screen. He stepped backwards, so that his head fell out of the projector’s path entirely, leaving the screen pure, blank white. Lapp was silent, watching him do this nervous shuffle.
“Are you going to get engaged to Jessica?” Yang asked. It was an out of the blue question to ask, but it was what had come to mind first, to cut to the heart of the issue.
“Why do you ask?”
Lapp knew why he was asking, but Yang still had a different explanation to hand. “Most soldiers want to marry, so that someone can be their beneficiary.”
This made Lapp take another drink. “That’s exactly the reason I don’t want to propose to her. And I probably won’t.”
This was not the answer that Yang had been expecting. He turned around, and found Lapp staring up at the blank white screen. It illuminated the points of his face: his nose and square chin, the moon-touched blonde of his hair.
“Why not?”
Lapp shrugged. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for making a widow.” It was a glib answer, but it also might be true.
“Oh.”
“Do you think I should?”
“I don’t know,” Yang said, suddenly feeling itchy again. “It’s your choice. And hers, obviously.”
“She hasn’t ever talked about marrying me. I wouldn’t want to bring it up out of nowhere.”
“Then it might never get brought up.”
“Well, yeah,” Lapp said. “But it’s not like she doesn’t speak her mind.”
“Does she know you feel this way?”
“She’s told me that as soon as I can retire from the fleet, I should. That way I can put my life on firmer ground.”
“And will you?”
“She should tell you to do that.”
“It’s already my plan. She doesn’t need to.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t want to retire?”
“I don’t know,” Lapp said. “It’s stupid to look that far in the future. I hate trying to make plans like that. If you make a plan, it gets turned on its head. I’ve learned that lesson quickly enough here.” He laughed, but it was bitter this time. “I’m a little too good at being a soldier. Lots of other guys spend too much time dreaming.”
Yang finally gave up on his pacing and came to sit back down next to Lapp, who smiled and passed him the bottle. “Am I in that camp?” Yang asked.
“How could I answer that question for you?”
“It seems like you’ve always been pretty good at reading my mind.”
Lapp glanced at him, and Yang hastily drank as he waited for the answer. “You’ll hate that I say no,” Lapp said. “You’re also too suited to being a soldier for your own good.”
“How?” He was too curious to be offended.
“Every other officer at El Facil was thinking about getting themself home, weren’t they?” Lapp asked. “I don’t know what you were thinking, but if you had been thinking that, you would have done anything you could to get on the ships with the rest of them.”
“I was thinking about how to get through that day,” Yang said. “I think, anyway. I don’t remember what I was thinking back then. It’s all—” He waved his hand. If he hadn’t become famous for it, if El Facil had remained his memory instead of a story that other people told, he might have remembered it better.
“There you go.” Lapp took the bottle from Yang’s hands. “Anyway, no, I’m not planning to propose to her. If that makes you feel any better.”
“I don’t know,” Yang said, but he looked at Lapp as he did. “It doesn’t change much.”
“Maybe not.”
They were silent for a minute, passing the bottle back and forth and looking up at the projector screen. It was a new kind of comfortable silence. Their hands brushed when they exchanged the bottle— blind fumbling motions, so purely incidental— but Yang didn’t mind, and Lapp made no attempt to do anything else. Out of the corner of his eye, Yang studied Lapp’s face. If Lapp noticed the observation, he allowed Yang to keep doing it without any indication— he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the blank screen in front of them, as if he was watching a movie rather than hypnotizing himself with the white light.
Yang didn’t know what he wanted. But he knew there was something he needed to say to Lapp, so he broke the silence, an instinct more than a rational thought.
“Does—” Yang began, and his own voice sounded so wrong and loud in the air between them that he immediately stopped.
Lapp looked over at him. “Does what?”
“Does Jessica ever talk to you about me?” Yang asked.
“Sometimes,” Lapp said.
“I won’t ask what she says— I don’t—”
“I’d tell you.”
“No, it’s not that. I think she might have misunderstood me, and said something to you that isn’t true.”
Lapp cocked his head and waited.
Yang, who had the bottle in his hands, wrang it back and forth between his palms. “I didn’t leave that night because I didn’t want to be around you,” Yang said. “That wasn’t my reason.”
“I know,” Lapp said, but the cheer in his voice was too canny, and Yang noticed the way his posture shifted— a slight letting down of the shoulders, a smile that relieved the creases between his eyebrows rather than deepening them. “She told me she was sorry for cornering you into seeing me.”
“She was right to do it,” Yang said. “I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation if I had known you would be there.”
“You seem to be contradicting yourself.”
“It’s not you,” Yang said. “I was afraid of it being too much. If I had gone there without you, I still would have found an excuse to run away. That’s the kind of person I am.”
“Maybe so.” This time, when Lapp nudged Yang with his elbow, he left their arms resting together on the desk between them. Yang looked at the bottle and realized that it was empty. He had wanted to pass it back to Lapp, but now it was gone. He put it down on the empty chair next to him and looked back up into the white light of the projector. The vast emptiness of it, more than a story tall, seemed to take up enough space in his mind that it gave him room to breathe.
Carefully, Yang moved his arm, the one resting next to Lapp. Lapp shifted, maybe thinking Yang had grown uncomfortable, but before Lapp could withdraw his arm to spare him, Yang put his hand on his forearm. There was tension there, beneath the heavy weave of his uniform jacket. Lapp stopped moving.
“What I mean is,” Yang said, “next time we’re both on Heinessen—”
Yang was looking up at the screen, still, so he didn’t notice when Lapp’s other hand moved, until it covered his resting on Lapp’s arm. Lapp’s hand was warm and heavy, broader and more calloused than Yang’s. Lapp played guitar, Yang remembered— that’s why his fingers felt like that.
“Next time,” Lapp said. “Yeah.”
