Crisis Core: The Novel

Chapter 34 - Meditations

A month went by and Sephiroth was in and out. Zack caught a glimpse of him once heading up to Command, but he didn't see Zack, besides he looked like was about to desecrate a small army with the way he was stomping. Zack couldn't blame him for being frustrated with the sheer lack of anything resembling organization in their organization. Who was even running this show now anyway? Popping his head into the war room one day, Zack saw a bunch of Moogles jumping up and down on keyboards. He walked right back out.

Regardless of the checked-out Chain of Command, he really wanted to hang out with Sephiroth again. Maybe not to go drink again per say, because Zack was still a little fuzzy from their last adventure, but maybe they could get some coffee or something. Did Sephiroth even drink coffee? He seemed like a Black Sumatran kind of guy, while Zack could just have some gunpowder tea.

He resolved to go out on a limb and ask the guy. He did say to come find him, after all, and Zack knew where to look. He took the elevator up to the floor above SOLDIER barracks.

He got out in a long hallway that looked almost the same as barracks, save for one difference...no doors...? He followed the hall down and around the corner to find the only entryway in the wing, a simple slide-door with a key-code lock just like Zack's. Well, this was it...

He went to knock, his fist balled halfway in the air, then hesitated. Now Zack really did feel like he was asking him out on a date. What would he even say? He'd never been this wracked psyching up to go talk to a girl. This was just a co-worker, a team member. Yes, it was Sephiroth, but they were still SOLDIER's. One more try, balling his fist in the air, letting it fall back to his side. He couldn't do it, he felt beyond stupid. If Sephiroth had truly wanted to hang out with Zack again, he would have found him by now.

He gave up and turned away, only to stop dead in his tracks at finding Sephiroth standing right behind him.

"Coming in?" he asked Zack, who swallowed a lump in his throat with a nod. Sephiroth swiped his ID card and let them in.

Zack beheld an open hardwood loft space big enough to play basketball in, set against the backdrop of full floor-to-ceiling shatterproof windows that looked out onto a panoramic view of the Midgar City skyline in twilight. He caught the pungent waft of incense—dragon's blood—and a low ambient glow flowing from recessed papillon pendent lights.

"I hope you don't mind the low light," Sephiroth apologized. "My eyes are acutely sensitive after being Mako-infused for as long as I have."

"Whoa," Zack gasped, spinning in a slow circle to take it all in. A thought... "ECHO!"

And his voice bounced off the fifteen foot high ceilings! Zack gaped in awe, throwing his arms wide.

"This is amazing! Look at all this space!"

Sephiroth watched Zack's eyes bulge out of his sockets with a sort of beguiled amusement; like a boy in a puppy store.

"Hey, you know what you should do?" Zack said. "You should have a party!..."

Sephiroth shot Zack a blank look, but it flew right over his head as he continued.

"...Yeah, yeah, a company potluck! You can put up like one of those folding tables over here, and have like, a soda fountain over here. I can bring my projector and we can watch the crew video on your back wall! It would be so awesome!"

Sephiroth just smirked. "We'll see."

Zack's shoulders slumped a hint. He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere but the little kid in him was sad to go home. He continued his slow sweep of Sephiroth's living quarters.