The two sides of everyday life

Time flowed as steadily and ceaselessly as the tireless circulation systems inside the Heliopolis Space Colony. In the blink of an eye, most of the Cosmic Era 65 calendar had passed, and the days slipped quietly toward the end of Cosmic Era 67. For the Hawke Family and the Hanafis living in the Ring of Dawn residential district, those two-plus years were calm on the surface, with undercurrents stirring beneath. For Mei Hock, they were a tense stretch of "double life," lived under strict self-discipline and a carefully woven disguise. In public, he was an ordinary young Second-Class Coordinator whose conduct was beyond reproach. In the shadows beyond everyone's sight, however, he tempered himself with an intensity that defied common sense, quietly storing up every ounce of strength for the blood-soaked storm he remembered would inevitably come.

On the grounds of Heliopolis Second Middle School, Mei Hock was the model "good student" in the eyes of his teachers and most of his classmates. His grades were calculated with precision rivaling his ACCORD ability: in subjects requiring logic and spatial reasoning, such as mathematics and physics, he could easily score close to full marks. Yet he always left a few insignificant flaws in the subjective analysis of history essays or the reading comprehension sections of literature class, placing them "just right" to keep his overall ranking around the top ten in his class. It was a position that put him ahead of most Natural students and demonstrated the learning ability expected of a Coordinator, without making him too conspicuous among a group packed with Coordinator talent.

His performance in physical education was equally "calibrated." In endurance runs, he easily kept pace with the leading group, his breathing steady and his strides strong, but one or two classmates with particularly outstanding physiques always "happened" to overtake him in the final sprint, leaving him third or fourth by a narrow margin. In ball games, his passes were accurate and his positioning sensible, but he never attempted dazzling maneuvers or impossible saves that demanded extraordinary coordination and left people gaping. He devoted part of ACCORD Ability's computational capacity to working backward—not figuring out how to achieve the utmost, but how to keep every run, every jump, and every shooting exercise precisely within the reasonable limits expected of "a somewhat gifted adolescent Second-Class Coordinator."

During breaks, he gathered with a few classmates he got along with reasonably well to discuss the public data package for ZAFT's newly announced standard-issue mobile suit, the Ginn. He offered insightful observations grounded in basic physics and engineering, such as how its leg-joint dampers affected its adaptability to complex terrain, or how the 76mm Heavy Assault Machine Gun's energy consumption correlated with recoil under different firing modes. But his opinions always stayed within the bounds of public information and what someone his age could understand, never touching on advanced tactical concepts or sensitive technical details. To everyone else, he was a calm, steady, approachable boy with excellent grades and a modest talent for machinery. He was the dependable older brother of the Hawke Family, a companion Luna, Meirin, and Shiho could feel close to, trust, and even admire a little. That impeccable, perfectly measured "ordinariness" was the most effective camouflage he could construct for himself in such a sensitive place and time.

Yet only when the Space Colony's artificial sky switched to "night" mode, the residential lights went out one after another, and everything settled into a system-simulated silence did Akira's other side fully awaken. His biological clock was as precise as the finest atomic clock, always waking him from light sleep at exactly four in the morning. His bedroom curtains were drawn tightly shut, cutting off every trace of outside light. In that cramped space, he began his unshakable physical training routine.

He needed no expensive exercise equipment. His ACCORD ability allowed him to transcend the limits of his senses and exercise a precision of control that bordered on "internal vision." He regulated the sequence, intensity, and duration of each muscle group's exertion with exacting care, pushing his rapidly developing body to its limits with maximum efficiency. In static strength holds, such as planks and handstands, he sought maximum muscle-fiber recruitment with minimum energy expenditure. In dynamic explosive exercises, such as explosive push-ups and squat jumps, he focused on stimulating nerve conduction speed and coordinating core strength. Endurance circuits squeezed the potential from his heart and lungs through combinations of high-intensity interval movements, while extreme flexibility training kept every joint at its optimal range of motion, preparing him for any extreme maneuver he might need.

Sweat silently soaked through his thin training clothes and left dark patches on the floor. His breathing, however, maintained a distinctive, long, energy-conserving rhythm-a unique technique that combined an ancient breathing method with ACCORD optimization. Meanwhile, his mind was anything but idle. It ran multithreaded tactical simulations, modeling dangerous situations he might encounter in street fighting, jungles, ruins, or zero gravity, and preparing dozens of responses. This was not merely physical conditioning, but an extreme honing of willpower, concentration, and parallel-processing ability. When he needed it, he activated the SEED Factor at an exceptionally low, barely perceptible output. A faint warmth nourished his muscles and nerves, speeding recovery and improving resilience, but never crossed the threshold that would produce obvious physiological anomalies.

Late at night, after his father Thomas and mother Erica had fallen asleep, or during unnoticed moments at the library's public terminals on weekends, he used his personal datapad to slip silently into the Space Colony's vast, tangled deeper networks through anonymous nodes protected by layers of encryption and disguised routing. His thirst for knowledge was that of a parched traveler before a clear spring, focused and ravenous: mobile suit mechanical engineering and structural mechanics, the physics underlying energy weapons and the optimization of energy transmission efficiency, basic simulation models for interstellar tactics, analyses of ZAFT's and the Earth Alliance's military and political structures and their historical development, and even partially censored fringe discussions of the ethical controversies surrounding early Coordinator technology... He paid particular attention to Morgenroete's publicly released, non-core technical documents, where he could sometimes glimpse the United Republic of Orb's thinking on mobile suit development.

On the very rare nights when his father Thomas forgot to log out of his work account, he even borrowed the terminal with its higher access privileges, taking extreme care as he briefly explored the interfaces of non-core industrial design simulation software. In secret, he familiarized himself with basic mobile suit operating principles and simple control-programming logic. His brain was like a highly efficient sponge of infinite capacity, voraciously absorbing the era's most advanced technological and political knowledge. Far beyond the middle school curriculum, this knowledge formed the foundation for understanding-and ultimately intervening in-the tragic future already set in motion. He approached every such "unauthorized" visit with the caution of a seasoned intelligence operative, carefully erasing all unusual access logs and cached traces afterward to ensure he left no clue that might bring disaster down on him.

The half-abandoned industrial building on the edge of the third residential district, forgotten by most residents, was his true secret ground for practical combat training. Rusted mechanical wreckage, scrapped parts, and abandoned shipping containers filled the place. The air always carried the pungent mingled odors of oxidized metal, degraded coolant, and machine oil. Only in these silent corners left behind by the march of civilization could Akira test higher-level applications of his ACCORD ability in relative safety.

In the dim light provided only by emergency lamps and faint "starlight" filtering through gaps in the Space Colony's outer wall, he incorporated everything around him into his combat prediction system: cold, rust-covered steel frames, broken conveyor belts, sharp metal fragments, even the reflective properties of oil stains on the floor. He simulated attacks by one or several opponents, using ACCORD's danger foresight to practice evasions at high speed, blocks and cover amid complicated terrain, and counterattacks that incapacitated an enemy in a single strike. His fighting style bore no trace of any fixed school. Built purely for real combat, it fused the simplest, deadliest joint locks and grappling techniques with lethal methods that made full use of his surroundings. He paid particular attention to the speed of his instantaneous reactions, training his body to respond like a conditioned reflex the moment an ACCORD warning entered his mind, delivering the optimal response with the least energy expenditure. He deliberately blindfolded himself and relied solely on ACCORD's three-dimensional perception and his hearing to dodge thrown objects, such as small stones, honing his ability to survive with limited vision.

This highly disciplined, secretive double life inevitably exerted a subtle influence on his everyday interactions in the Hawke Family household, weaving itself tightly into the lives of the three girls.

The lively, outgoing Luna Maria was the first to notice something "unusual" about Akira. Early one weekend morning, she happened to wake ahead of time and found that her brother was not in his room. A faint, rhythmic sound came from the balcony. She stole a look and saw Akira wearing only an athletic tank top and shorts, performing a series of stretches she had never seen before. His movements were slow yet filled with a strange tension, as though he were resisting an invisible weight. Fine beads of sweat dotted his temples, and his gaze was focused and distant. In the morning light, the lines of his body looked unusually fluid and... powerful. He was not the gentle brother she knew, but a keen blade being painstakingly honed.

"Big brother! Were you secretly practicing some amazing martial arts this morning? Teach me! Next time we run into bad guys, I can help too!" At breakfast, Luna immediately latched onto him, curiosity and admiration sparkling in her green eyes as she shook Akira's arm vigorously.

Helpless, Akira could only set aside time on weekend afternoons to teach her the most basic self-defense moves and physical exercises in their small living room. It was more play and companionship than training. He concealed genuine combat techniques within seemingly simple drills for blocking, footwork, and generating force. Rather than working hard at her practice, Luna was enjoying this special time with her brother. She often "accidentally" lost her balance and fell onto the padded mat, waiting for Akira to come help her up with a resigned smile, then taking the opportunity to linger in his arms a little longer. Her abundant energy and undisguised affection burned as warmly as sunlight, allowing him to feel a little of his family's warmth amid his relentless training.

Quiet, introverted Meirin Hawke expressed her dependence in another, more delicate way. Unlike her active older sister, she preferred to stay quietly beside Akira. When he used the computer in the study to learn technological concepts and programming languages that looked utterly incomprehensible to her, Meirin would curl up in the beanbag chair beside his desk, holding a favorite picture book or a soft stuffed toy. She pretended to be absorbed in her reading, but her eyes frequently stole toward his intent profile and the code scrolling across his screen. Her large green eyes were full of peace and wholehearted admiration. Sometimes she pointed to a blinking element on the graphical interface and asked softly in her childish voice, "Big brother, what's that flashing blue arrow?" Akira would set aside his work and explain with the simplest analogy he could: "It's like a little lighthouse showing the way. It tells the data where to go." Meirin nodded with only a vague understanding, then went back to watching quietly, as though simply staying beside her brother and feeling his presence could give her boundless peace and security. Without realizing it, she also began to feel a vague affinity for those flashing symbols and complicated diagrams.

The perceptive, composed Shiho Hahnenfuss was perhaps the most observant of the three, and the one who understood most deeply. She did not question him directly as Luna did. Instead, she responded with subtler actions that kept pace with his own. She began working harder on her physical fitness. Each morning, when Akira exercised on his balcony, Shiho appeared on the balcony next door. Her movements might still have been awkward and stiff, but she performed every stretch and every squat meticulously, her concentration almost stubborn. She also quietly applied herself to her studies, particularly mathematics and physics, fields in which Akira seemed likely to excel. The books she read began to reach noticeably beyond the depth of their textbooks.

Sometimes, when the four of them walked home after school through a relatively quiet, tree-lined stretch of road, Shiho naturally fell into step beside Akira. In a low but clear voice, she discussed technical questions their teachers had only touched on in class despite their considerable depth, or shared, with apparent casualness, scraps of information she had overheard from her parents about developments in the Space Colony's administration or patrol fleet movements in the surrounding space. More importantly, she seemed to have keenly sensed his hidden need to train beneath the surface of everyday life. Before dawn one Saturday, Akira slipped out to head for the abandoned industrial district, only to discover Shiho already waiting at the intersection. She wore dark sportswear that allowed easy movement, and her eyes shone startlingly bright in the hazy dawn.

"I know you're going to... practice." Shiho's voice was quiet, but it held a resolve that would not accept refusal. "Let me keep watch for you. Or... teach me something genuinely useful." She did not ask what he was practicing, nor question why he had chosen such a time and place. She merely stated what she knew and what she had decided.

Akira looked at her. His ACCORD ability picked up the accelerated heartbeat and taut muscles beneath her calm exterior-a mixture of nervousness and immense determination. In her eyes, he saw a persistence and loyalty beyond her years. In the end, he did not refuse, tacitly accepting her decision to "follow" him. From then on, Shiho became the guardian of his secret training and a limited participant. When he undertook high-risk environmental adaptation exercises or simulated combat drills, she hid at a vantage point or near an entrance like the most vigilant sentry, using mirrors or her hearing to watch for the slightest disturbance around them. During breaks, she silently handed him clean water with the cap already unscrewed and a fresh towel. When she practiced the fighting techniques he taught her, she repeated every movement again and again, striving for perfection, her eyes carrying an almost stubborn determination to grow stronger and keep pace with him. An unspoken understanding formed between them. Their shared secret also allowed Shiho's feelings for Akira to settle gradually from her initial gratitude and admiration into a deeper, firmer bond. The generously portioned, nutritionally balanced boxed lunches she occasionally brought became another quiet expression of care they both understood without words.

Amid day after day of ordinary appearances, grueling training at his limits, and silent protection, time slipped quietly toward the end of Cosmic Era 67. Years of extreme training had made Akira's body more coordinated, resilient, and strong. His smooth muscle definition concealed explosive power, endurance, and reaction speeds far beyond those of Coordinators his age. Continual stimulation from ACCORD and minute doses of nourishment from the SEED Factor had sharpened his nerve conduction to an extraordinary degree. Meanwhile, everyday life in the Hawke Family apartment was filled with small moments of warmth and subtle ripples. Luna still found every excuse to cling to her brother, testing through her words and actions the long-forgotten boundary of blood kinship. Meirin's quiet, accompanying gaze grew increasingly dependent, as though Akira were the pillar of her peaceful world. Shiho, in her own way, stood firmly in the place closest to him, silently gathering strength. Akira could clearly sense their quietly changing feelings, but in their daily interactions, he always maintained an older brother's gentleness and an appropriate distance. He kept those more complicated emotions firmly buried in his heart, turning them into an even stronger resolve to protect them. He knew their peaceful days were nearing their end. The true storm had already revealed its ominous outline on the horizon.