Angeal was 39 years old, though he wouldn't tell Zack when his birthday was. As a result, Zack always teased about how he was probably 39 last year too, and the old man jokes were relentless. None of it ever seemed to ding Angeal's armor though, evoking a deep laughter every time Zack hit a good one.
He rented a flat off Loveless Avenue, a small studio apartment with walls lined in books to the ceiling. Zack said Angeal could run a bookstore out of his apartment, and Angeal had said he'd tried, but got shut down for operating a business without a license. He didn't even own a television, so Zack brought over his projector and game system and they played Tekken Tag-Tourney for hours on their days off. Angeal sucked at videogames, but Zack wouldn't let him quit.
"C'mon, this is the only fight I can beat you in!"
After being humiliated by Zack's female capoeira character in a miniskirt, Angeal would flip the kid's hair and watch him freak out.
"Whoa, whoa! Watch the hair! You know how long it takes me to look this good?"
Then he would get him in a headlock and rustle his hair into a mess.
Angeal was grateful for Zack's company, even letting him crash on the couch a couple nights. He drank his coffee once, and Angeal learned the hard way never to give Zack espresso. But when Zack asked Angeal what he did on his days off when Zack wasn't around, he didn't say much. Zack was too young to catch little details, but now everything seemed crystal, and if he could go back he would have seen in a heartbeat.
The man was falling into a depression.
Now Zack had fallen from the sky, and his world was nothing but a vortex, swirling around in cascading darkness.
A voice. A clear voice brought him back.
Hey. You okay?
Spec of white, and a light shone through. It blanketed him in soft luminescence, shining in milky wisps from a celestial plane.
"Hey. Hey! You okay?"
Zack came to in phases, and the world started to clarify. He saw streaking rays of floodlight sun shining through a hole in a roof, and engulfing his vision was the most beautiful creature he'd ever laid eyes upon.
"Heaven?" he asked. She ran her finger in horizontal lines before his eyes, trying to see if he'd track light. His pupils zoomed into focus, and he was certain he was dead. "An angel?"
She giggled, her little lips folding into a grin. "Not quite, but you're the one who fell from the sky."
"Wha…?" His mental clarity fluctuated, but then everything started to come back. "Aw man, really? I fell off the Plate!"
She giggled again, helping him sit up. He lay in a bed of marigold flowers that grew in a break in some floorboards, white petals wafting around him like little hands. She stood back then to let him get some air, and he got his first good look at her after he quit seeing double.
She was slight as a flower with eyes like irises, and arms like ivy vines snaking in delicate flowing lines. A mane of fiery auburn hair draped down around her hips like a stallion, falling lush across her slender shoulders and pale neckline, ringing a heart-shaped face with almond lids and fluttery brown lashes.
"Can you see alright?" she asked.
"What? Oh! Uh…"
Lying flat on his back, he kicked up to his feet to show off. Stuntin'. Then she got to see how tall he was, and seemed impressed.
Yesss, brownie points for Zack!
She came up to his chest, a fragile little thing, and something about that made his heart flutter. She sported a cut-off jean-skirt with gardening gloves clipped to her back beltloop, and a yellow v-neck t-shirt tied tightly at the small of her back. Zack caught the hint of a navel, and his mouth went dry.
"I'm Aerith, by the way," she motioned with her hand for his eyes to come back up.
"Oh, my name's uh…uhhhh…Zack! Sorry about your flowers…and your roof."
She chuckled like music. "It's alright. The flowers seem to like you. They have healing properties. If you would have fallen a foot to the left, you'd have been a gonner."
"Ugh, how embarrassing," he cringed, and she seemed to delight in his mannerisms.
"What was it you were doing to have fallen off the Plate?"
Zack sighed, the events coming back to him. "I was trying to help a friend."
"You must be a really good friend to take a fall like that for him."
He smiled, reminiscing. Then he looked up to find himself in an old church. The rafters sported cobweb and pigeon nests, yet still held that same enormity of the vast arching overhang. Stained glass windows were dusty but still intact for the most part, a majority of the pews were dry-rotted, and the altar had long ago been looted for marble. But behind the tabernacle was erected a statue of a woman engulfed in seven saintly wings.
"So where is this place?" Zack asked, transfixed on the statue.
"Church in the Sector 5 Slums."
"A church for what?"
"The woman who raised me said it used to be a sacred fane for the Goddess Ifah, but no one belongs to that religion anymore."
"Huh…" then he looked around and saw squash vines snaking their way up the far wall. Terracotta pots with tomato plants and various shoots were arranged in rank and file under greenhouse-papered handmade arches. "Whoa! What's all this?"
"Oh it's my gardening operation, c'mere let me show you."
And she showed him her tomatoes and pepper plants, eggplants and artichokes. She had onion and garlic shoots started, and cabbages planted in long watering troughs she'd found and filled with compost-soil. She'd built a 4x4 foot wooden box filled with dirt, and when Zack asked what it was she told him about how she could grow one hundred pounds of potatoes in four square feet. Her squash vines snaked far up the back wall, and she said she was trying to keep them from climbing any higher because she couldn't reach them.
"I was thinking about building some chicken coops, but I don't think that's a good idea. I'd end up just keeping them all as pets."
Zack laughed. "Oh you would have hated where I grew up." Then he spied a potted tree in a corner where light streamed down through a break in the stained glass. "What's this? Wait, don't tell me…ummmm…a grape tree!"
She lost it laughing. "No silly, it's a plum sapling." She patted the leaves of her little tree with artists' hands, dirt under her pink fingernails. Then she bounced over to a pew where she kept her knit-satchel.
"Nothing's ripe here yet. I just planted a fresh crop not too long ago. But here's some fruit from my apple tree back home, if you'd like."
She took out a red apple and offered it to him, its rosy flesh reflected in the flush of her cheeks. For a moment he just stared at her as if trying to figure her out, technicolor light rays filtering through the stained glass shone her in spectral wavelengths. He took the apple from her hand then, his fingertips brushing hers, and bit into it. The succulent sweetness ignited him, clear juice dribbling down his chin, he felt like he was going to die.
"Oh my—wow this is the greatest thing I've ever tasted!" He wiped his chin with his hand and finished the apple in a few bites, while she stood with her hands behind her back, blushing. "You're talented, you've got a heck of a green thumb. What do you grow all this stuff for?"
"I give the food to the poor people of this neighborhood. But the flowers, they were just kinda here. So I take care of them too."
They walked over to the flowerbed then. The artificial light streaming down from the roof gave them a silvery luster, sparkling like luminescent stars.
"Wow, you don't see many flowers in Midgar," Zack noted, "they're kind of a luxury item."
"Aren't they beautiful?" She was looking at the flowers, but Zack was looking at her.
"Yes, really beautiful." The flowers glittered off the sheen of her hair, and dazzled in the glint of her eyes. What the heck, thought Zack, the most beautiful girl in the world lives in the worst part of town.
And she did things, she had talents, she had ideas, a beautiful mind in that pretty head. For some reason, Zack thought of Angeal and his mock-bookselling business. "You know what you should do? You should start a business."
"Now way! I could never bring myself to sell the stuff I grow."
"Well maybe not the food anyway, but the flowers, you could sell them and use the money to help out the poor people."
She mulled it around for a minute, and then her eyes lit up. "You know, I never thought of it that way. What a great idea. Wow Zack, you're really smart."
"Well," he puffed his chest out, "I was only Valedictorian in school and graduated top of my class and all."
She giggled at that, knowing those were the same things. A part of her knew this rascal was going to be trouble, and it made her smile even more. At least he was a charmer.
Then, Zack got dizzy and fell into her. She caught him with a grunt. "Ooh careful! You took a pretty hard fall, you must have hit your head pretty good."
His head was spinning. "Oh, I thought it was just you who hit my heart pretty good." She laughed and he came back to his senses, talking through his teeth. "Oops, said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet."
"Here, sit down for a moment."
She helped him sit on a church pew as he leaned his head on his hand, then she went over to a thermos she had on a crate and poured him tea in a Styrofoam cup. She got herself some and sat down with him.
"Flower petal tea."
He drank it and it tasted like honey and safflower. He found himself getting his bearing, healing properties indeed.
Then they talked, about everything and nothing. She sat side-legged on the pew beside him with her feet up behind her, while he just sat there more enchanted by the minute. They talked about their lives and where they grew up, what kind of music they were into and who their favorite bands were. Her favorite movie was "Gone With The Wind," and his was "Transformers."
Then the artificial sun streaming through the hole in the roof went from solar lights to moonlights, and concern crossed her glistening features. "It's getting late, we'd better get going before the lights go out."
And they stood up, but Zack wasn't ready to let her go yet.
"Let me pay you back for helping me out."
"Oh don't worry about it," she shook off that suggestion.
"No, no, it's only fair. Can I walk you home?"
"You really don't have to, I walk home by myself all the time. It's a grungy neighborhood but it's not dangerous, everyone is very family-oriented around here."
"C'man," he pressed her with a wry smile, "I'll carry your bag for you, and everyone'll get to see you walking home with a SOLDIER."
She looked at him then, her debating smile. She knew she shouldn't, but the way he thought so highly of himself was utterly too cute to resist. He didn't need an answer, just took her bag and threw it over his shoulder. Then they left the church together, him in his SOLDIER waffle-stompers and her in her backless flip-flops, walking together through the Slums.
[Received Elixir]
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