Disclaimer: Sunrise

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Sitting alone in a chair near the window of a small coffee shop in the same shopping district where her workplace was—only one minute walk from there—Cagalli played with the silver pocket watch in her hands, tapping her foot impatiently. Once in a while, she turned her head toward the entrance near her, checking if the person she waited had come yet.

About a week after that 'happening' in the bookstore, Cagalli had decided to contact the number that was carved on the inside cover of the said pocket watch, to meet up with that person again to give back the watch. But besides that, Cagalli had another agenda herself; to find out more about the person she was currently living together with.

Cagalli was almost sure that the story Alex had told her that day, was not the real one. She thought that there was a high chance that Alex actually knew this person—Athrun Zala, and he didn't want Cagalli to make a connection between them, thus the cover story he made. His reaction at the bookstore was the one that made her come to that conclusion.

She knew she told herself that she wouldn't meddle, but she was allowed if it was just about this much, right? She wouldn't demand truth from either of them. Just checking what she could find from this guy. Of course there was also a chance that she was wrong, that both of them were really strangers to each other. And if they were, then that was that. She wouldn't pry even further.

Cagalli's musing was interrupted with a distinctly made-up throat-clearing.

Looking up, she saw the person that had been on her mind for the past week.

"Athrun… Zala…?" She stood immediately; hesitantly she uttered what might be his name.

"Hello," he greeted Cagalli with a humble smile. "It's a little bit weird that you know me all this time, but I don't even know your name," he said sheepishly.

"Ah, my name is Cagalli." She gestured to the seat across from her, "Have a seat, or maybe you want to get a drink first," she offered.

When he was back with his drink and took his seat in front of Cagalli, she handed the pocket watch to him. That was the main reason she met up with him today, asking him about Alex was an added bonus. "I know you said you are going to compensate me for any damage to my prosthesis, but it's okay. The damage wasn't something that I cannot fix. So you can stop worrying about it, really. Don't sweat it," Cagalli reassured him for the umpteenth time, after he profusely apologized on the phone when she had called him for the first time.

"If you say so," Athrun sighed, giving up while taking the pocket watch from her. "Thank you for giving this back to me. If you really don't need anything from me, you could have just thrown it away and forget about me, but you took the trouble and made time to meet me." Athrun pushed the crown to reveal the actual clock part. "This is actually a present from my late mother, that's why I added my phone number here, so if someone finds it they can return it to me," he explained the number and message engraved on the cover's inside. "It's a precious memento from her." He looked up and smiled at Cagalli.

Cagalli was flabbergasted, how could he hand her that precious watch so easily without the guarantee that she would hand it back to him? "Then what were you thinking? You shouldn't give something that important to a stranger," Cagalli reprimanded him. "What if I was someone who didn't care about that watch and just forgot about it without contacting you?"

"But you are here and returning to me, so I don't have to worry about that anymore. I promise I won't do such a thing again," he smiled in a reassuring manner.

Cagalli was dazed for a while, staring at the man in front of her.

She didn't know why, but this guy reminded her of Alex, even though they looked different. Alex had dark hair, and Athrun's was not as dark as Alex, more to the bluish shade of dark and just a little bit shorter, hanging freely on his nape, just above his shoulders. Idly, Cagalli recalled that she had never seen Alex let his hair down.

And their eyes were different too. But somehow, Cagalli felt that they were something similar with their eyes, the peculiar nuance of them. But she didn't know what it was.

Then there was another thing that reminded her of him, but she couldn't quite point her finger out of it.

Afraid that he would notice her staring, Cagalli looked around, not meeting his eyes and tried another topic, and there, she found the chance to ask him what she had been dying to know. "So, Athrun. Actually… There is something I want to ask you." Cagalli stammered, not really sure on how to put it out there. She was afraid; if what she thought was true, it would ruin the atmosphere. "Do you know… someone named Alex?"

"Alex?" Athrun cocked his head to the side. "Who's that?"

"Oh, you don't know him?" Cagalli bit her lower lip. She thought Alex was lying about not knowing Athrun. But now that she saw Athrun's genuine reaction about Alex, maybe that story was true after all.

"Sorry, I don't think I know who you're talking about. Why are you asking me about him?" he asked her again.

"Ah, no… Actually…" I wish you'd tell me about his past if you knew about him. Nope, she couldn't say that to him. "He said you look like someone he knew, so I thought…maybe…"

"I don't think I know anyone named Alex. Who is he, anyway? A friend of yours?"

"He's my—" Cagalli was about to say roommate, but she suddenly remembered that it would be better if people assumed that they were actually a couple. "Umm… he's my… boyfriend… actually," Cagalli finally said. She was still uncomfortable with fiance. But the ring hasn't arrived yet, so maybe it was safer to say boyfriend for now. It would be awkward if he got suspicious when she said that they were engaged but then no ring on her finger.

"Oh, you had a boyfriend?" Athrun's face showed a hint of surprise. "Is it okay for me to meet up with you here just the two of us like this? He won't mind?"

"Nah, he won't. Don't worry about it," Cagalli waved her hand in a dismissive manner. Alex wasn't her actual boyfriend, so Cagalli was sure he wouldn't even bat an eye if he heard about her meeting with Athrun.

"Huh, your boyfriend has a big heart, I see," Athrun grinned. "What's his name? Maybe I'll know something if I know his full name."

Was it just her, or his grin was a little bit off for a split second? "Alex Dino," she answered him anyway.

"Do you mind telling me where he works? I might know him somewhere related to work and just forget that I've met him. I deal with a lot of people, but I can't remember all of them."

Could it be that? But Alex's reaction wasn't something he would show to a work partner. But she could be wrong, so Cagalli decided to just answer his question. "It's… Shiranui corp, have you heard of it?"

Just a small part in the corner of her mind suddenly felt uneasy talking about Alex to this guy. What if Alex didn't approve of her telling personal details about him to a stranger? Cagalli inwardly pat her own heart, trying to calm herself down. Just his name and where he works shouldn't be a problem.

Athrun pondered to himself for a while, and then shook his head apologetically, "I'm sorry, I don't think I have."

Cagalli sighed. If he asked more about Alex, she decided that she wouldn't tell him as easily as before, she promised herself. But it looked like he wouldn't do that.

"Are you sure you don't need anything? I also have to thank you for giving me back my pocket watch," Athrun said, looking like he was feeling uneasy to leave things like that.

How persistent, Cagalli was mentally letting out a deep sigh at him. She didn't know what else she could tell him to make Athrun give up on the thought that he was responsible for the minor damage he caused.

"Listen to me Athrun…" When she paused to think about how she should tell him and make him understand, Athrun interjected again.

"Then at least please accept this," he pulled something out from the paper bag Cagalli didn't realize he had brought. "Girls usually like sweets, so I decided that this is better than coming here empty handed." From where she sat, Cagalli could see what he brought for her; a box of assorted sweets from Haro Sweets. "Take this one as my gratitude for handing this pocket watch back to me. Well, it's not much of a gift but…" He pushed the box on the table toward Cagalli.

"You go all the way to December City to get me this?" From what she remembered after watching the show about Haro Sweets, no one could get it unless they went to December City area. She was thinking that he was living around here, so going to December City and back would take a lot of time.

"Yeah. Umm, actually…"

Cagalli stared at him for a few seconds, remembering the theory she had thought after she revealed his name from the watch. "Umm… I'm sorry but I've been thinking about this for some time. If I'm wrong please forgive me for being rude. Are you perhaps related to the CEO of Haro Sweets?"

Athrun looked surprised, but then his face turned into an uncomfortable expression.

"I'm sorry! Me and my big mouth, sorry for making assumptions and making you uncomfortable," Cagalli apprehensively, feeling guilty inside.

Seeing her flustered stance, Athrun shook his head, the corner of his mouth was lifting a bit. "Nah, you didn't say anything wrong, don't worry about it." Athrun put his palms up toward Cagalli, telling her that it was alright. "It's true, Patrick Zala is my father," Athrun looked down again, he was smiling but it was a sad smile. "But we are currently not on speaking terms…"

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," Cagalli felt even worse for picking up bad things to talk about with him.

"Oh don't be, it's been going on for a while so… I'm kinda used to it." Athrun said, not meeting Cagalli's eyes.

With the way he talked about it, a lot of things were going on inside Cagalli's mind. One of them was how could the person in front of him be in that situation, and getting used to it.

As someone who lost her parents around her early adult life, she could still remember the pain of losing someone so precious to her. Cagalli was particularly close to her father, so for her, this stranger sounded like he was wasting his time ignoring his own father. Cagalli would sacrifice anything to be with him again, if she could.

But she knew she couldn't speak for him. She didn't know what had happened between them. It could be that his father was actually not a good father, or worse he could be a violent person and be abusing him, or anything that could happen in this world. She didn't know Athrun's back story, so she wouldn't meddle into his life.

She was literally only a stranger to him. And this was their first proper meeting.

"Cagalli, you won't ask me anything about it?" She suddenly pulled out from her own musing. She must have been silent for quite a while that Athrun needed to pull her attention back to him.

"Huh? But it's your private life, that's between you and you and your father. I have no right to be noisy about it."

To her surprise, Athrun let out a chuckle at her words. "It felt like it's been a while since someone considered my feelings. People tend to approach me to dig for information about my father, to use it as a means to make him look bad or to try to throw him from where he is now. If you want, you can sell that information to the media, and if it falls to a wicked reporter hungry for a scoop, they can tweak it a little bit then it will become a scandal, and the Haro Sweets can be no more."

"You think I'm that kind of a person?" Cagalli asked, unamused.

Now he looked alarmed. "Aaah, no! No, it's not like that, I'm—"

But then again, he said it himself that people tend to approach him with ulterior motives, so it probably was a regular occurrence to him. Instead, Cagalli was actually considering his feelings, according to his way of putting it.

"No no, I understand," she let out a small chuckle at the way he reacted. "With your status as a CEO's son, that kind of thing can happen, I guess; I don't really know about it though. And yeah, we are new to each other; I know nothing about you and vice versa. I won't blame you for thinking like that."

"Still, it's not a nice thing to say. Now I ruin the chance to be your friend." Athrun sighed, his head hung low, disappointed in himself.

"Why? I'd love to be your friend though," Cagalli told him. So far she didn't have a friend outside of her workplace in PLANTs; only Shinn who helped her once when her leg condition went downhill that she had to rest, and her girlfriend Stellar who was working in this café. It would be nice to know someone out of work. And he seemed like a nice guy, from the time he apologized to her for damaging her prosthesis.

"Really?" Athrun's face brightened a bit.

"I should be the one asking you. Do you not mind befriending me? With my… leg…" She had her fair share of being discriminated just because of her lost limb.

"It's not like you choose to be that way, right? Was it an accident?"

Cagalli nodded, a sad smile on her face, "It was." Mentioning about how she lost her leg always reminded her of Ahmed.

"Like you said, we are still new to each other, so I won't ask about the how. But when we know more of each other, hopefully you'll feel comfortable enough with me to talk about it. I know it must be a delicate thing to talk about. And you can't rule out that the prosthesis is damage free. It could have a delayed effect, you know, the damage. It might not be there now, but—"

"Stop it already, I know, I know! I'll let you know when I notice anything unusual with my prosthesis." There was no other way to stop him other than following his words, Cagalli actually sighed deeply now.

Satisfied with her answer, Athrun pulled something from his jacket pocket and handed it out to Cagalli.

A small keychain with a green Haro Sweet mascot.

"But you already gave me this sweets box," Cagalli took the keychain.

"This one is the new limited merchandise from Haro Sweets. The usual doesn't have its ears flipped open like this. It's not on the market yet, so you are the first one to have it." Athrun smiled as Cagalli let out a small yelp.

"Is it okay for me to have this?" She asked with a surprised face.

"Apparently most girls love this Haro mascot and the sweets, and since I can easily get my hands on them, so… yeah. I'm sorry if you don't fancy it like those girls, but it's the thought that counts right? So I hope you'll accept all these," Athrun shrugged. "I'll be happy if you use it everyday, as a token for our new friendship," Athrun gave his hand to Cagalli. "I'm Athrun Zala, and you are?"

"I'm Cagalli Yula. Nice to meet you," Cagalli took his hand on her, smiling at her new friend.

"Cagalli, where have you been?"

Cagalli stopped at her tracks when she passed the living room, startled. It was unusual for Alex to beat her home. She thought he would be late as usual. "You are unusually early," Cagalli inadvertently said. Did she spend that long of time talking with Athrun?

She had to admit that it was nice meeting new friends and talking about a lot of things. Athrun was surprisingly easy to talk with, meanwhile Alex didn't fancy small talk that much even though he was making that effort, forcedly. Plus he was almost always busy.

"Is there a rule at what hour I should be back?" Alex asked, unamused with her retort.

"Of course not, this is your house. What, you don't need to work overtime today?"

"Not today, it was a pretty slow day," Alex said as he leaned back to the sofa, his eyes were back to the news he had been watching while waiting for Cagalli. "So, where have you been? You hardly had any overtime, except when you helped us that time," he was reminded of the day they work together to cover for Lacus.

"Oh, I met up with a friend." Cagalli said, trying to tell as little as possible about Athrun to Alex. With him reacting badly at the bookstore—even though she still didn't know the cause—after she saw Athrun, Cagalli was sure he wouldn't be too happy if he knew that she was in touch with Athrun. So she would keep Athrun to herself for now. "He was… back from a trip and he gave me sweets as a souvenir," she told him the first excuse that her mind could come up with. "We can have it as dessert after dinner, if you want," Cagalli added.

She remembered Alex asked her about Haro Sweets back then, and the way he oddly became quiet watching about Haro Sweets. Cagalli wondered how he would react when she offered that sweets to him. Would he react badly?

"He?" Alex asked, his face skeptical.

"Yeah," Cagalli replied simply and was about to head to the stairs to put her things in her room, when Alex called her name to stop her.

"About that trip with Lacus next week," Alex started, "We are going on Saturday morning, and going back on Sunday."

Cagalli halted. "We'll stay one night?" She had thought it would be a one day trip only.

"Yeah. We'll be going to a beach house owned by Kira's family. He's Lacus' husband."

Cagalli was silent, like she was deeply contemplating about something, and after it went for a while, Alex couldn't help but ask, "What are you thinking?"

"Are you sure you want me to go with you?" Cagalli looked up to him again. "If it was a daytrip, I might be able to get away with sitting out on the side. But if we are going to be there for a whole day, it would be weird."

"You don't have to sit out on the side, you can join us—"

"Alex," Cagalli interrupted him before he finished his sentence, smiling, and then patted her prosthetic leg.

And since Alex sent her a look that clearly showed that he didn't understand why her prosthesis got anything to do with the trip, Cagalli proceeded to tell him all the hassle of bringing her to the beach, and staying there for the night.

"I can't use this leg to walk on the beach without guaranteeing that the beach sand won't get inside the prosthesis, and if it did, that would be a pain to clean up, and I don't think I can do it thoroughly. If I sit out for the whole trip—a two day one night long trip—it would hinder everyone's mood. And I'm sure it would leave a bad impression on them and give us the opposite effect of what we want; to be supportive of our relationship. There is an option to take the leg off, of course; but that would mean I'll have to hop whenever I'm in the sand, and while I can do that, I'm afraid I don't have enough stamina to hop everywhere all through the day. I can use my crutches, but that would be extra baggage to bring, plus I'm sure that would earn stares from people. Not to mention walking with crutches on sand is a little bit different from walking on a hard, stable surface. And speaking of, you noticed that I have a foldable chair near the bathroom right? I would have to bring that sucker too, or I wouldn't be able to go into the shower. Soo," Cagalli concluded her speech, dragging the syllable of the last word. "Are you sure you want to bring me along?"

Alex pondered if all of those could fit in his car trunk. Another couple would drive with him so he had to consider their baggage too. But then, Cagalli added another thing that made her worry.

"Are you sure you want us to be with them that long? I honestly am not sure if I can do that without making any mistake that could reveal our fake relationship. We can always cancel, though," Cagalli offered. But all the benefits Alex had said that they could get to make the immigration officer suspect nothing of their relationship was tempting. Cagalli sighed, she was the one who needed this. Alex wouldn't really mind if they go or not since Kira would be there so Cagalli was sure Alex would rather stay home than see Lacus with her new husband, prancing their wedded life.

"If you can't even fool my friends, how can you face the interview with the officers later? We are going as planned," Alex scolded her. "Like I said l, this is practice for your own future. Bring whatever you need. You'll be my fiance, so I'll prioritize you rather than my other friends who'll ride with us."

Cagalli sighed. She knew it might be useful for herself, and Alex was 'kind' enough to provide this opportunity to her. She needed to prepare herself too, she thought.

Cagalli was thinking about what else she should bring with her when Alex called out to her again.

"You said you met up with some guy, right? Where did you meet up with him?"

"What? I can't meet up with a guy friend now?" Cagalli retorted, irked by his question. But it might not be good if he knew about Athrun. Why would he care about that now?

"Cagalli, I'm just checking, but do you have… someone who you are currently close to?"

"What, like a boyfriend?" Cagalli asked timidly, and even though she thought it couldn't be the case, she got a nod from him. "I wont get close to other men like that when I'm going to be your…" Cagalli gulped, "fiance in a week. So... nothing like that. He's just a friend."

"Don't take this the wrong way," Alex put up both his hands, "We know we are not marrying for real and I'm not saying that you can't look for a real partner yourself. But if there is someone you are seeing, I suggest you don't see him too often. If there's none, I'd say that it would be best if you wait till we are divorced."

"Why?"

"To avoid the chance of anyone from my company seeing you with another guy. If they found out, all the things we fear—the marriage fraud, insurance fraud—will come out and if it reaches the immigration officers, in any bizarre way it could, all of this will end for nothing. I'm just asking you to be extra careful," Alex stared at her in all seriousness.

"Even if you don't tell me that, I won't do it. I'm not comfortable seeing another guy in that sense when I'm in a 'relationship' with you," Cagalli made a quoting gesture with her fingers at the word 'relationship', "Even if it's fake. And it's not like someone will find me interesting." Cagalli shook her head, thinking about the impossibility of the concept.

Looking back at him, she cocked her head to the side, pondering about the guy she was talking to. She saw him almost every day—which was to be expected since they share a house. But it felt like he was turning different from the day she first met him.

"How long has it been since we are living together?" Cagalli suddenly asked.

"Two months, not that I'm counting." Alex told her, and as if what he had said was dawning into him, he added. "Time does fly. It felt like it's just last week that I found you at my doorstep," Alex chuckled a bit.

Cagalli half-laughed at his words. The memory of their first meeting was still fresh in her own mind, so she knew exactly how he felt.

And the memory of that day brought another question to her.

"It might be just me, but why do I feel like you are suddenly more helpful to me about this marriage? Like you are now really cooperative to help me obtain my citizenship here." Cagalli was grateful, no complaints there. But Alex was against it at the start. So seeing the current supportive Alex was a little bit weird for her. What changed?

"I promised to help you, didn't I? I just don't want to break another promise."

"Another?"

"Yeah. Seems like I broke a lot of promises lately." Was it just her imagination or Alex looked guilty, even though he wasn't meeting her eyes.

She was the one who should feel guilty instead, and she did.

"I'm sorry for dragging you into my problem, Alex," Cagalli said apologetically.

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry."

Cagalli had never really seen Alex feel guilty for using their fake relationship for revenge to his unrequited love, instead he was intentionally bringing her to show off in front of Lacus, to hide his miserableness, hoping for Lacus' feelings.

That was why, the look of remorse that he showed her for a mere second just now left her puzzled, before he hid it again perfectly.

Hope I didn't mix up Alex and Athrun. Writing about them together is harder than I thought because the impression that Alex and Athrun is the same person in the original series, is still strong. Need to get used to it

They will be on vacation next chapter, while forgetting one particular arrangement.

See you next time,

Cheers~