Chapter One – First Encounters?
"Athrun? Athrun Zala?" asked a blonde teenager with bewilderment.
"Cagalli? Cagalli is that really you?" A male with bluish-black hair replied.
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Athrun Zala walked the lonely corridors of the High School with a leather briefcase in hand and his other hand tucked away into his jacket pocket. He was too met with another student, which needed tutoring with her math and many other subjects at the cafeteria. Athrun was top student, he always got top-marks in his classes and he never once failed in a test or class. Truth was that the teen didn't want to tutor, but if it was for extra credit he would be tutoring in a quarter of a second.
He didn't even know who this student was who needed help, all he was told that it was a blonde headed girl. As he entered the cafeteria he saw the backside of a blonde sitting at one of the tables with her backpack resting on the seat next to her. It was three-thirty, everyone in the school had left and it was only him and her. Athrun ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily, he was to tutor her until her grades improved. He strolled towards her casually and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Are you the one I'm supposed to meet in order to tutor you?" he asked calmly with a half-frown half-smile.
"Well, duh! Do you see anyone else in this cafeteria?" she said sarcastically while scribbling down some math equations on a piece of lined paper. Athrun scratched the back of his head and nodded slowly.
"I suppose your right…Well, let's start this session. What do you need help with?"
The girl spun around and was about to answer his question when her amber eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"You've got to be joking…Athrun? Athrun Zala?" she asked in bewilderment. Athrun as well held the same expression on her face. He bent forward to inspect her and whispered,
"Cagalli? Cagalli is that you?"
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Cagalli narrowed her eyebrows and gave him a hard stare. "So it is you! This is fantastic…just fantastic…No Athrun, I'm a monster from outer space." She muttered arrogantly. She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes before returning back to copying down the equations. Athrun laughed quietly to himself and set his briefcase on the table while sitting down in a seat across from her. It was still there, that sharp sarcastic tongue of hers. He missed it.
"I'd never thought that you needed help with subjects…" He said while leaning back in his chair. Cagalli looked up from her lined paper and hissed at him.
"And what is that supposed to mean? At least I'm not spending my entire day doing stupid assignments and sucking up to the teachers." She retorted back while continuing to scribble on her paper.
"You heard what I said Cagalli, and I don't suck up to teachers." He stated calmly while unlocking his briefcase with a silver key.
Cagalli grunted and twirled a strand of her blonde hair. "Are you going to tutor me or what? I really want to get this over with; since I'm probably ditching all of my free time at the mall where I can hangout with my friends. But, of course…You wouldn't know what it's like to have free time."
Athrun chuckled softly, shaking his head from side to side, and took out a mechanical pencil from his briefcase along with a few pieces of blank paper. "Okay, so I heard you need tons of help with math." Cagalli sighed heavily and stared down at the math textbook that lay in front of her.
"I don't understand most of it…I don't get Algebra or whatever it's called…actually I don't get anything." She muttered quietly, ashamed of herself at the moment. Athrun shrugged casually and grabbed her textbook in order to understand it all so he could explain it to her. "This is easy; look the rule to Order of Operation is that you follow the steps correctly." He stated while setting the textbook back in front of her.
Cagalli narrowed her eyebrows and looked at Athrun in a miserable mood. "But I don't even know the steps…" she grumbled while crossing her arms across her chest. Athrun just gave her a bewildered expression before he frowned. "This is going to take a while…" He said while running a hand through his navy hair.
"Look, I don't want to do this any more then you do." Cagalli replied. She pointed her index finger at him and jabbed it into his chest. "As I said before, the sooner my grades get better then sooner you don't need to help me and you can get on with your life." Athrun nodded hesitantly, she did have a point.
"I think…we should just take different paths. We'll end up meeting the same destination…so we both shouldn't worry. Athrun?" The blond princess whispered quietly while staring at the ground the entire time. She couldn't bear to stare up at his emerald orbs that were so transfixing. Those words were almost caught in her throat, she didn't want it to happen like this but—no. No second thoughts. She had a duty on her shoulders that she needed to attend to. He wouldn't want to just sit by her side and do nothing. No, that wasn't like Athrun at all.
Tears began to form in her eyes; she tried to prevent them from trickling down her cheeks. What would Athrun have to say about this? Heck, did he have anything to say about it? There was a moment of silence between the two. An awkward silence that not even Athrun could bear. First off, he had to digest that information inside him. Did he not say that to her a while back? Did he not come back to her later on? Was she that eager to get away from him? He didn't even match his gaze with her either, or else he would've had said something regretful.
"C-cagalli…I…" he stammered, trying to find his words. Cagalli finally looked at him with tearful eyes, but Athrun looked off to the side, but he quickly caught a glimpse of her before doing so. Her hair was so luminescent underneath the candlelight and those amber eyes just felt like the sun shining down on him. Gosh, it made him want to just hug her and comfort her. He knew those words weren't true. He just had a feeling that she just said that to protect him and her country, Orb. "Are…Are you sure?"
Cagalli's lower lip trembled shakily as she hesitantly nodded. "I…I'm sure Athrun." That's when she began to sob carelessly, the last thing she cared about was crying in a public restaurant in front of Athrun. Her shoulders trembled as Athrun spotted tears rolling off her chin and dripping onto her lap. She shut her eyes and tried to stop the river of tears, but they wouldn't stop. Athrun reached towards her hand, thinking of comforting her by squeezing her hand but quickly snapped it back.
"I understand Cagalli…Well…I'll be going then. Maybe we'll see each other later on; when the war's over…and everything's at peace." He muttered while getting out of his seat, leaving his untouched meat, and making his way to the doors. His heart felt like an arrow had pierced it. Was that a good decision? Just leaving her there to cry? "Bye Cagalli…" he whispered at a distance while giving her one last look before walking out the door.
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"Do you get it now?" Athrun asked, exhausted after explaining mathematics to Cagalli for two straight hours. Cagalli didn't want to be a pain in the butt so she nodded and replied faintly, "Uh…yeah I guess. But, what happens when there's an equation like this?" She then wrote a long equation that was quite easy for Athrun to solve. He rolled his eyes and began explaining what to do if there was a question like that. Cagalli nodded and closed her math text book, shoving all her work into her back pack. She arose out of her seat and smiled warmly. "Thanks for the tutoring, looking forward to tomorrow. See ya," she told Athrun while jogging out of the cafeteria and waving a hand in the air. She didn't actually look forward to the future tutoring, but if it was helping her grades improve she thought it didn't matter.
Athrun blinked a few times, then waved back to her as she jogged out and sighed heavily while standing up and stretching his arms. "That wasn't half bad Athrun…" he muttered quietly with a shrug. "I should get going as well…" He closed his leather briefcase and walked out of the High School with a pleasant smile on his face.