01: Air
"Stellar doesn't want to drown," she tells
Shinn as she tries to reach out to him when he steps into the deep
end of the pool, and Shinn shakes his head, smiling (and she's a
little surprised that she immediately knows what he means: I'm
here; trust me on this one), so there is nothing more for her to
do than to take a deep breath and make her way towards him.
-
02: Apples
They were staring at the fruit from opposite ends of
the table — it was very red and very shiny: Stellar had been
absently polishing it with the sleeve of her dress ("It's an odd
thing to forbid, isn't it?" asked Shinn, and although Lunamaria
had admitted that it did look rather tempting, Rey had
proclaimed that he would have preferred bananas instead) — before
Stellar decided that she didn't have to place the apple on anyone's
head for her to demonstrate her skill with her throwing knives.
-
03: Beginning
"Maybe you should try groping to get
introduced," Shinn had announced to the party at large when Kira
had asked him how he had met Stellar, and Athrun was left wondering
whether his young friend was either very, very drunk or very, very
nervous.
-
04: Bugs
"So they glow at night, like stars?" she
asked, smiling as a firefly alighted on her finger, and he watched
her, amazed at the little things she had learned to grow less fearful
of, and he murmurs, more to himself than to her, "Yes, just like
the stars."
-
05: Coffee
"Actually, Stellar never even tastes it when
she makes it — Stellar thinks it's bitter even with honey — so
Stellar just makes it for Shinn and Shinn always drinks it, and Shinn
never says anything except 'thank you' so Stellar always thought that
Shinn liked it . . . how was Stellar supposed to know that Shinn
never liked coffee either?"
-
06: Dark
"Stellar's not scared," she says, "because
Stellar can still see Shinn . . . so Stellar's not scared anymore."
-
07: Despair
Stellar hesitates, her small hands clasping his,
before she tells him, her voice very quiet and and her tone very
gentle, "Will Shinn let Stellar tell him something about
happiness instead?"
-
08: Doors
He doesn't need to open any more doors, he thinks;
perhaps there is a better universe behind the next one, but he is
content with this.
-
09: Drink
Shinn is looking at her sideways, his half-empty cup
of coffee sitting guiltily at the edge of the table, and he asks,
"You're not going to tell me now that you actually like carrot
juice, are you?" and Stellar brightens and nods, completely
enthusiastic, and Shinn — partly mystified but mostly amused —
wonders what other little secrets they are keeping from each other.
-
10: Duty
"I'll always protect you — isn't that what I
promised?"
-
11: Earth
Being able to live by the sea was a good enough
reason for Shinn to request a transfer (it had to be to Earth; he had refused anything else, no matter how blue the skies were in
Aprillius or how clear the sea was in Junius) because now he could
give Stellar what she had always wanted: an ocean where she could
play in, untroubled, and it would be just for her.
-
12: End
"Stellar really doesn't think it ends there,"
she tells him as she snuggles against him, and when he lowers the
book with some surprise to look down at her, she continues, "because
there's always tomorrow, right?"
-
13: Fall
"I'll catch you," he tells her, smiling, and
she closes her eyes and reaches out towards him.
-
14: Fire
Stellar was blinking in surprise at the sudden shower
in their kitchen, and Shinn felt very, very sheepish as he told her
that he had found out it was possible to overheat pizza . . .
especially when the microwave you had just fixed was tinkered with
the same amount of enthusiasm you used to have when servicing the
weapons unit of your mobile suits.
-
15: Flexible
It amazed Athrun, really — Shinn could be so
rigid, so unwilling to accept change most of the time, but when it
was about Stellar he seemed to adapt to almost anything thrown his
way; yet Athrun couldn't begrudge the girl, since he knew she'd do
anything for Shinn as well.
-
16: Flying
"But last time, you fell off a cliff!"
he protests to her suggestion that they go camp somewhere along the
rocky shore, but to his surprise, Stellar laughs and kisses him very
lightly on his cheek; she's not afraid now, not anymore, because
somewhere along the way, he realises that she may have learned how to
fly.
-
17: Food
"And you actually consider asparagus edible?"
he asks her, double-checking, feeling aghast when she nods.
-
18: Foot
It would be easier, an exasperated Shinn decides, to
pamper someone who was not ticklish, because giving a foot massage
was his last resort (a giggling Stellar insisted that she enjoyed it
very much) and it wasn't exactly a roaring success.
-
19: Grave
"Stellar thinks it's a nice place to rest,"
she says, her voice even softer than usual, "it has flowers and
it's close to the sea, and Shinn comes so often, so it can't be a
very sad place, can it?"
-
20: Green
"So you don't mind that they're green?" he
prods, and as she affirms that she actually likes vegetables, Shinn
couldn't help but regard her with both awe and horror.
-
21-22, 24: Head, Hollow, Hope
Sometimes he wonders if there was
something wrong with him — he tries to remember the people dear to
him he has lost (Mother and Father and Mayu and all the others . . .
oh, so many others that he thinks he can't tell them apart anymore)
and he feels nothing, yet sometimes when he stares at night sky he
feels like he's shattering into tiny little pieces. Sometimes he
feels as if he is not there, and there's only an empty space where he
is supposed to be, and he knows that this guilt is unreasonable yet
there are times when he thinks that the only thing that he can do is
disappear.
But then he remembers Stellar's laughter, and remembers Stellar laughing with him, and he thinks that if she can overcome her inner demons, then so can he.
-
23: Honour
"Please save her — take her to a warm and
happy place and make her forget this ever happened," he begs of
the masked man, but the man says nothing and Shinn couldn't afford to
believe in anything else, so he lets her go and hopes against hope.
-
25: Light
The lights in the sky have faded, and he's crying,
and Lunamaria is crying, and he thinks of Stellar and hope and
tomorrows and he tries to believe that it will all be all right.
-
26: Lost
"I knew you'd be able to find me."
-
27: Metal
The blood in his mouth leaves a coppery taste, and he
couldn't fight anymore, now that he knows who he's fighting against.
-
28: New
"This is for you," he said, fumbling to help
her unwrap the small box, and Stellar stared at the ring in it,
looking pretty much mystified by the whole thing.
-
29: Old
He placed Mayu's cellphone in the box as he switched on
his new one, Stellar looking on, and without looking at her, he
answered her unspoken question: "It's Mayu's, after all,"
he said, his voice threatening to break, "high time I had one of
my own, don't you think?"
-
30: Peace
He's not sure why is it now that he starts to cry,
because now he has Stellar with him and she has her arms enveloping
him and he is (finally) safe, and the bright, sudden flares have
(finally) faded into the nothingness of space, and they will finally
— finally — be able to search for their tomorrow.
-
31: Poison
Shinn wrinkles his nose at the glass of carrot juice
Stellar has made, taking a dubious whiff at it before asking her,
quite plaintively, "Are you sure it's safe to drink?"
-
32: Pretty
Stellar never asks him if he thought she was pretty
(Lunamaria sometimes did, especially during the days they were at the
academy together, and Mayu did too, but of course Shinn had to tell
Mayu she was monstrously ugly), and Shinn didn't know whether it was
because Stellar knew she was pretty or that she just didn't care.
-
33: Rain
Shinn doesn't really like the spring showers — they
are chilly and they make him think of his mother telling him and Mayu
that they were going to catch a cold playing in the rain — but
seeing Stellar laugh as she twirls, barefoot, is excuse enough for
anyone to get wet.
-
34: Regret
Of course she regrets, and she regrets a lot of
things, some of them only half-remembered in dreams but it is still
better than forgetting, especially when she knows that Shinn also
believes in the same.
-
35: Roses
Stellar, strangely enough, didn't seem to care much
about roses — she liked dandelions better and she delighted in
watching the morning glories bloom each day — and Shinn decided
that there really was no need to explain to her what a bouquet of red
roses meant.
-
36: Secret
"Maybe we just don't have any."
-
37: Snakes
"Of course I'm angry — wouldn't you be?"
Shinn grumbled, but Stellar only tilted her head questioningly and he
added, "I mean, there were snakes in a mobile suit . . .
wherever did they come from!"
-
38: Snow
"It's cold and damp and it clings to you and then
it melts — that's why I don't like it," Shinn grumbles, but
Stellar tells him it's pretty, so he lets her drag him outside so she
can stare at the snowflakes, wide-eyed and curious, and Shinn
decides, grudgingly, that maybe it isn't really that cold and damp
after all.
-
39: Solid
"This is real," he tells her, and she
frowns a bit, uncomprehending, but he doesn't mind because this is
enough.
-
40: Spring
"Stellar likes the flowers," she tells him
as she concentrates on making a daisy-chain, sitting cross-legged on
the grass, and Shinn just lies beside her, watching the clouds as she
hums to herself.
-
41: Stable
"Well, things are peaceful now," Athrun
said, watching as Stellar listened intently to one of the orphans
while the others crowded Lacus and Kira after being scared away by an
exasperated Shinn, and Athrun gave Shinn a sidelong glance before
adding, "time to move on and look towards the future, start a
family, maybe—" and he was cut short as Shinn choked on his
coffee.
-
42: Strange
"You sure you don't think it's peculiar
they're green?" Shinn insists, and Stellar starts to laugh, and
Shinn has to finally admit that he's being really childish about the
whole thing.
-
43: Summer
Shinn complains about sunburns and too hot
afternoons and hair crusted with salt and sand, but each time Stellar
runs along the water's edge, he's there with her, stopping every now
and then to pick a pink seashell (he has a bottle-full of them now,
and he shakes the bottle a little every now and then just to hear
them clink together, and he thinks that it's a miracle of sorts that
he has collected that many).
-
44: Taboo
They don't talk about Armoury One; Shinn isn't sure
what Stellar remembers, and Stellar doesn't want Shinn to dwell on
the past.
-
45: Ugly
"Maybe portrait painting isn't the hobby for me?"
Shinn said, almost sheepish, as they surveyed his latest attempt at
art, and Stellar nodded sagely.
-
46: War
"It's over now," she tells him, and he just
stares at her, not believing, wondering what he is supposed to do
with the rest of his life.
-
47: Water
There's a boat sailing all alone in the middle of the
ocean, a speck in the moonlight with nothing but water all around it,
and Stellar watches it from her balcony and she's glad she's not
lonely like that anymore.
-
48: Welcome
Stellar brushes off the confetti still on Shinn's
head, ruffling his hair in the process, and Shinn looks around the
now empty living room and says, almost to himself, "I'm home."
-
49: Winter
They walk down the beach during winter — the air
is chilly and the water is cold, and even if Stellar still insists on
getting as close as she could to the surf, she knows better than to
actually get wet — and Shinn thinks that everything is peaceful
now, and this time, he could almost believe that it will last.
-
50: Wood
The fire has stopped crackling and Shinn doesn't add
another log to it since it doesn't matter now that it's going out —
he has finished reading and Stellar is nodding off — but when Shinn
tells her to go to bed she asks, drowsily, "but how does the
story end?", and he considers it for a while before saying,
"with a happily ever after, like all stories should."
