Chapter Text
“You are such a baby! You’d think your military training would give you an appreciation for spicy food, but as per usual, you put yogurt sauce in your doner kebab,” Cagalli Yamato haughtily exclaimed while Athrun Zala, the boy sitting across the seat from her, sipped his coffee.
“Well at least I drink my coffee black, whereas you can’t even handle it with cream or sugar,” Athrun passive aggressively replied, pointing out the sodas favored by her and her twin brother, Kira Yamato (though Cagalli is quick to remind everyone within earshot that she’s a minute older), who was seated next to her.
“Um, I’m also drinking soda,” Kira piped in. “Shouldn’t that earn me some criticism as well?”
“It would, but you eat your kebab with both the yogurt and chili sauces, which gives you some points in our competition,” Athrun answered with a smile on his face before turning to Cagalli, who was busy eating her chili sauce-laden doner kebab. “Isn’t that right, Cagalli?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled with a silly smile on her face as she swallowed the mouthful of food and used her napkin to wipe the sauce and bits of meat from her mouth, which, along with the conversation that just happened, prompted chuckles from the three friends.
“This is nice,” Kira thought to himself as he, his sister, and their best friend continued eating. While the three of them had been friends for as long as he could remember, if not longer, they hadn’t been able to have lunch at Waltfeld’s Coffeehouse as much as they used to before they started high school. Kira and Cagalli attended Heliopolis High School, where they were about to start their junior year, whereas Athrun was enrolled as a cadet in the Sir Geoffrey Hornby Military Academy, a military preparatory high school, as he wished to follow in the footsteps of his father, Rear Admiral Patrick Zala of the Royal Canadian Navy.
“Oh, before I forget, Kira, there was something I meant to ask you,” Athrun suddenly said, interrupting Kira’s thoughts.
“Yeah, what is it?” Kira asked.
“Remember that toy you helped me make for my friend Lacus-”
“YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH LACUS CLYNE, THE SINGER!?” Cagalli loudly interrupted, no doubt drawing a few gazes from the staff and other diners.
“Yes, we’ve been friends since middle school,” Athrun politely replied with a slightly annoyed tone in his voice.
“And Kira helped me build a pet robot for her birthday a few years back.”
“I thought that was for Nicol,” Cagalli inquired.
“No, that was another toy, which was more of an action figure,” Kira interjected before turning to Athrun. “Speaking of which, does he still have the Blitzbot?”
“Yes, he does, and it’s still one of his prized possessions, but may we please get back on topic now?” Athrun said, getting impatient but still trying to maintain his civility.
“Right, sorry.”
“Thank you,” Athrun said before continuing. “Lacus told me she was having trouble with Mister Pink-” a small chuckle from Cagalli briefly interrupted Athrun, but he continued without paying her heed.
“Lacus told me she was having trouble with Mister Pink and asked me to take a look at him. I did, but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, so I thought that since you helped me build him, maybe you could repair him,” Athrun explained.
“Sure, I can do that,” Kira replied. “School doesn’t start for another week, so I could go over to her house tomorrow and take a look at the robot, if that works for her.”
“I’ll see if she’s okay with that,” Athrun said as he pulled out his phone and started typing a text message. A few minutes later, he got a reply notification that he quickly read through.
“Tomorrow works for her, and she asked me to give you directions to her house and her phone number in case you get lost,” Athrun told Kira.
“Ooooh, an Internet pop star just gave my little brother her number,” Cagalli teased with a smug grin on her face as she lightly elbowed Kira’s shoulder. The playful ribbing put a smile on Athrun’s face and a lump in Kira’s throat as he entered Lacus’s contact information into his phone. Twenty minutes later, the three friends finished their meals, wrapped up their conversations, split the check, and went home with promises to do this again soon.
The following day, Kira took his toolbox and rode his bike to Lacus Clyne’s house late in the morning, after having breakfast with Cagalli and their parents. During the ride, he mentally reviewed what he knew about Lacus beyond her friendship with Athrun. He knew that she was the daughter and only child of Siegel Clyne, a widower and the sole independent politician in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, along with the fact that not only she had attended the same middle school as him, Athrun, and Cagalli, but she was also an incoming junior at Heliopolis High School.
The most common, yet important fact about her was her reputedly lovely singing voice, which she used to record songs and post them on her YouTube channel, The Eternal Songstress, making her, as Cagalli had said yesterday, something of an Internet pop star. This minor celebrity status, combined with her good looks and unflappable demeanor, made her one of the most popular girls at school, even though she didn’t really seem to have many close friends, perhaps rivaled only by Flay Allster, whose status made her boyfriend, Sai Argyle, the target of envy from almost all of the single boys and even a few girls. Kira himself was amongst the former, though he still considered Sai a good friend.
Beyond all of this, Kira had never really interacted with Lacus or listened to her music, yet here he was, about to repair a toy his friend had given her as a birthday present, the thought of which made his limbs feel like jelly.
Kira let out a deep breath, trying to dismiss the lump in his throat as he finally arrived at the Clyne household, a fairly large building overlooking the Fraser River as it flowed into the Strait of Georgia. Dismounting his bike and walking towards the door, he heard what he thought was piano music coming from inside. Ringing the doorbell produced a stereotypical chime that briefly drowned out the piano music before it stopped altogether. Half a minute later, the door opened to reveal a teenage girl with rose-colored hair and a curious smile on her face.
“Good morning! Are you by chance Kira Yamato?” she asked him in an almost melodic voice.
If Kira had been made of ice, her smile and voice would’ve melted him into a puddle.
“Y-ye-yes, I am,” he stammered as he extended his hand for a handshake. “A-are you Lacus Clyne?”
“Yes,” she said, accepting the handshake. “Athrun told me about you. Thank you so much for agreeing to look at Mister Pink.”
Kira began to blush at the mention of Athrun and earnest expressions of gratitude and tried to say it was no big deal, but words had completely escaped him at the moment, so all he could muster was an embarrassed smile. Lacus noticed his smile, making her own even wider.
“I’ll open up the garage so you can store your bike there,” Lacus continued after a few awkward seconds of silence. “Once you’ve put it away, would you mind waiting in the living room while I wrap up a piano lesson?”
“Sure, no problem,” Kira answered, his composure finally returning to him.
With that, Lacus went to the kitchen to open the garage door, which Kira entered and set his bike along the wall, noticing the lack of a car, before being welcomed inside by the still smiling host. From there, she led him to the living room, where he took a seat on a black and white ottoman, but not before seeing a familiar face looking back at him from the piano bench across the room.
“Hello, Kira,” Nicol Zala, Athrun’s thirteen year-old younger brother, said in greeting. “What brings you to Lacus’s house?”
“Hey, Nicol. I’m here to fix Lacus’s pet robot,” Kira responded, feeling significantly less nervous now that he was talking with his friend’s brother. "Uh, what are you doing here?"
“Lacus gives me piano lessons every week,” he replied as she walked over and took a seat next to him.
“Okay Nicol, I’d like you to play the piece one more time for me before we call it a day,” Lacus said in a maternal voice.
Nicol nodded and began playing on the piano, the music of which Kira recognized as the same one as he heard when he had first arrived. Now that he could hear it unobstructed, he was completely taken in by Nicol’s talent. Once Nicol completed the piece, Kira gave him a small round of applause, which he took with mock magnanimity, while Lacus joined in the applause, smiling like a proud older sister.
The lesson completed, Lacus helped Nicol retrieve his own bicycle from the garage before giving him a hug goodbye and reminding him to review what they would be covering next week. As Nicol rode off, Lacus returned to Kira, who was still seated in the living room.
“Thank you for being so patient, Kira,” Lacus said, which made him feel nervous again.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’m sorry that I interrupted Nicol’s lesson.”
“It was no problem at all,” she chimed. “Now please, let me show you to my room so you can look at Mister Pink.”
“HER ROOM!?” Kira screamed in his head as he nodded, got up, and followed her upstairs to her bedroom.
For the third time in two days, Kira felt a massive lump in his throat as he entered Lacus’s bedroom, though it lowered in intensity as he looked around. In addition to the things you might find in a teenage girl’s room, he also noticed the recording equipment she probably used for The Eternal Songstress. What particularly caught his attention, however, was the bookshelf that reached up to his left elbow. While Lacus was looking for her robot, Kira decided to take a look at the shelf’s contents, expecting to find romance novels, young adult fiction and maybe some sheet music. Instead, he found books about history, law, philosophy, and political science, with names such as Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Nietzche, Niebuhr, and Fukuyama printed on the sides.
“Evidently, Lacus’s interests extend to more than just music,” he thought to himself as she walked up with a tiny pink sphere in the palms of her hands.
“Kira, I would like you to meet Mister-” Lacus began saying before she stopped, her smile fading from her face for the first time as she looked at him with piqued interest.
“Kira, is everything okay?”
“Hmmm… oh, yes, YES! I’m okay, sorry,” he stammered apologetically as he refocused his attention on her. “I just thought it was interesting that you had books on politics and philosophy.
“Why is that? Were you perhaps expecting something more… girly?” she asked, a coy smile returning to her lips.
“No, seriously. I think it’s really cool that you’re so well-read. I don’t even understand half the stuff those books are talking about, so…,” Kira tried to explain, his face turning as rosy as Lacus’s hair from embarrassment while she began giggling.
“Don’t worry, I get this a lot,” she said, her coy smile turning into one of accommodating warmth. People didn’t normally ask her about her academic interests, so she appreciated Kira’s curiosity. “Not many people know this, but my channel, The Eternal Songstress, is really just a hobby. My true passion is politics.”
“Really?” Kira asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” Lacus replied. “When I was in elementary school, I wanted to learn more about my father’s work as a politician, so I talked with him about it whenever I could. Eventually, he started buying me books to help me figure out the questions he himself couldn’t answer. From there, I developed an interest in political science, which I plan on further studying as a major in college.”
“Okay,” Kira said before a new question sprung into his head. “If you don’t mind my asking, do you agree with all these people?”
This question took Lacus by surprise, but it also made her happy, as she didn’t normally get the opportunity to talk about her political or philosophical beliefs.
“Well, I don’t completely agree with any of them, since they had wildly varying beliefs and lived decades, if not centuries apart from each other, but each of them have influenced my beliefs,” she began to explain, slowly slipping into an authoritative tone, as if she were a teacher and Kira her student. “You see, I believe in the potential, if not the responsibility, of the individual to transcend the collective, to not be constrained by flawed traditions or unnecessary radicalism. The unconstrained individual is not better than other people, however, and they should be compassionate, temperate, patient, wise, and willing to oppose evil and injustice, preferably through diplomacy and other nonviolent means, but if violence is the only solution, then so be it.”
“Why is that?” Kira asked, trying to take all this information in with some success, though what really caught his attention was the intense look on her face, which he found both scary yet somewhat impressive.
“This might sound strange, but I think trying to be pacifistic is counterproductive,” she bluntly replied, her current demeanor almost completely at odds with the sweetness and warmth she had previously displayed. “Pacifism is all well and good, and I do think it’s admirable that people try to avoid violence, but if the rejection of all violence means allowing bad people to do what they want and get away with it, then I think that’s a greater evil than using force to stop them.”
Kira was briefly taken aback by her answer, though as he thought about it, he couldn’t really think of a good rebuttal. Lacus noticed his reaction, and the intense look on her face softened to one of concerned embarrassment as she suddenly remembered why she didn’t normally talk about her political and philosophical beliefs.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! Did I get carried away?” she asked apologetically, hoping she hadn’t scared him.
“No, you’re fine, Lacus,” he honestly answered, surprised at her embarrassment. “I’m just not familiar with most of the topics you’re talking about, but it was really interesting, nonetheless.”
“Well thank you,” she replied genteelly, flattered by how receptive he seemed to her talking points, before remembering the inert pink spherical robot in her hands. “Oh, I completely forgot about Mister Pink!”
“Oh right, let me take a look at him,” Kira said as he knelt down and opened his toolkit, pulling out a few tools before gesturing for Lacus to hand him the robot, which she did.
Kira spent the next ten minutes partially disassembling Mister Pink to figure out why he wouldn’t turn on. He eventually discovered that one of the robot’s circuit wires had been damaged, so he extracted it and replaced it with one of the spares he kept in the kit before reassembling its chassis. Afterward, he thumbed the on switch to see what happened, and smiled as the robot sprung to life.
“Hello! Hello!” Mister Pink chirped as he bounced up and down before landing the hands of a delighted Lacus.
“Why hello there!” she happily exclaimed to Mister Pink, as if he were a child or a flesh-and-blood pet.
“I can’t believe Athrun didn’t notice this,” Kira said, holding up the frayed wire. “I’d actually say he’s as good as me, if not better, considering he built my Birdy for me as a present for my eleventh birthday.”
“I know what you mean, he actually modified my recording equipment so that it would work better,” Lacus replied, which got Kira to start thinking.
“So, how do you and Athrun know each other?” Kira asked.
“We’ve been friends since middle school,” she answered. “Though, and forgive me for sounding insensitive, I think what really brought us together was the death of his mother.”
Kira remembered how withdrawn Athrun became after his mother had died of leukemia five years ago. Lenore Zala had been a professor of agriculture at the Junius Institute and a friend of his and Cagalli’s parents, Uzumi and Caridad Yamato. Her death created a rift between Athrun and his father, who became even more emotionally distant than he used to be.
“I lost my mother when I was six, so I sympathized with him and managed to get him out of his shell,” she continued. “Soon, he started coming here to talk with me whenever he needed advice or just someone to vent to. I appreciated the company, because, as you probably noticed, my father’s political career frequently takes him away from home.”
“I see,” Kira said. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lacus.”
“Thank you, Kira,” Lacus replied in an appreciative tone that hid her lingering grief. “Anyway, Athrun and I even dated for a year before-”
“YOU DATED!?” Kira exclaimed out of surprise, causing Lacus’s smile to give way to a confused glare. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, it’s just that Athrun never mentioned that.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, a smile returning to her face. That wasn’t a lie, nor was she mad, though she did wish Athrun could’ve been more forthcoming about this to his friends. “You see, we realized that we still acted more like friends as opposed to boyfriend and girlfriend, so we decided to end our relationship and remain friends.”
“I understand,” he nervously stammered, this new information causing the lump in his throat to return and leading to a few awkward seconds of silence.
“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Lacus eventually broke the silence by asking, catching Kira even more off-guard.
“N-no, thank you, I had a late breakfast, so I’m not hungry,” he responded. “In any event, I should get going.”
“Alright,” Lacus said before extending Mister Pink to Kira. “Say goodbye to Kira, Mister Pink.”
“Goodbye! Goodbye!” the robot exclaimed, prompting giggles from Kira and Lacus, before she set him on her desk and escorted Kira downstairs to retrieve his bike.
“Will I see you again?” Lacus asked as Kira prepared to say his goodbyes, the curious smile she had first greeted him with now returned to her face, causing yet another cascade of confused emotions to explode in his head and heart before he finally swallowed his fears.
“Yes, you will,” Kira answered, a nervous smile on his face. “Would you like to get lunch later this week?”
“It’s a date, then!” Lacus answered in turn, her smile widening. She knew what she said and meant it as a joke, but at the same time, something about having lunch with Kira just felt so appealing to her. “It was great meeting you, Kira, and thank you for fixing Mister Pink.”
“Same to you, Lacus, and you’re welcome,” he said before riding off for home, a mixture of excitement and fear making him a bit slower than usual.