Well everyone, I have to confess, that I did end up separating this into two chapters. Technically by the time I finished writing it, I could have easily carved it into three chapters, but decided just to make it two. As a result, this is the longest chapter I have ever written for anything, so I hope you guys enjoy it.
Athrun sat in his seat, typing away on his laptop, finishing up some figures. He paused for a bit, saved his work, then dropped his head back, closing his eyes for a moment and sighing. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kira and Lacus to his right, holding hands while watching the in-flight movie. To his left, Cagalli was dozing peacefully in her seat.
Apparently the girl was not a morning person. When they tried to wake her up to go to the airport, Lacus had to literally drag her out of bed, then it took both Kira and Athrun to chuck her into the bathroom, in the process acquiring several bruises, and getting the all too familiar brush and lotion bottle thrown at him.
Hard to imagine the same temperamental woman was now sleeping peacefully beside him. He glanced at his watch... 30 minutes before landing. Returning his thoughts back to his work, he began typing again.
Kira grabbed Lacus' luggage, and was about to carry it when Athrun motioned for him to put it down. A man in a black suit approached them, and he and Athrun exchanged words. Suddenly another man walked over, grabbed their bags, and motioned towards a car.
The three of them still looked somewhat stunned. Athrun lifted his head in their direction and mumbled a few words softly, "Business means first class all the way." They blinked then nodded a bit.
The drive to the resort was short, and within 15 minutes they found themselves there. Stepping out of the limo, Cagalli burst out of the car and ran full speed towards the ocean, taking off her shoes at the same time. Lacus gasped at sight of the riveting blue sea at first, then quickly made her way towards where Cagalli was playfully splashing around, laughing along.
Kira was about to grab their luggage, when he remembered what Athrun had told him, and ran after Cagalli and Lacus instead. Finally, Athrun stepped out. He took a happy glance at his three friends, then turned towards the entrance of the resort, spotting a familiar figure.
"Mr. Zala, how wonderful to see you! My father can't be here right now, but I assure you that you will be dealing solely with him for the rest of the weekend." Jona spoke with eloquently, barely making his mild insult noticeable. Athrun suppressed the urge to retort, and stepped forward to shake hands instead.
"Pleasure. Thank you for you time." He nodded earnestly. "Will I be seeing the property today?"
"Probably tomorrow. Father's a bit busy today." Jona shrugged. He glanced in the direction of the shoreline. "I see you've brought some friends?"
"Yes, I hope you won't mind accommodating them. One of them is leaving the country soon, and I wanted to surprise them. If there is an issue, I'll gladly pay for the extra rooms." Athrun offered, not liking the way Jona's eyes seemed to focus on a certain blonde.
"Don't worry. There won't be a problem." Jona assured, not removing his gaze, then taking a deep breath and calling out. "Ms. Athha?"
Cagalli looked at the sound of her name. She had been writing her name in the sand, when someone can called her. Just a bit further down, Lacus was collecting shells, whiel Kira collected stones.
"Jona?..." She squinted to make out the figure that was waving at her. Standing up and brushing off her shorts, she called for Lacus and Kira to come back, and ran towards Athrun. "You called?"
Athrun's eyes looked a bit dark, and he averted his gaze. "No, he did." He muttered, emphasizing the 'he' with a sharp jerk with his head in Jona's direction.
"Ms. Athha, how are you? See, I did need to know your name." He grinned.
"I guess so, but just call me Cagalli." She replied cheerfully. Athrun's gaze dropped, his hands beginning to fiddle with his laptop. Jona shot a glance in Athrun's direction to check his reaction.
"Very well, Cagalli it is. Shall I show you your rooms?"
Lacus had just finished unpacking her stuff in her room when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door to find a casually dressed Kira, slightly waving.
"Want to go do something?"
"Sure." Lacus responded cheerfully, grabbing her camera which sat on the side table. "where's Cagalli?"
"Already outside. She loves the ocean, can't keep away from it." He answered, helping her put on a light jacket.
"And Athrun?"
"Umm... I think in his room. Looking over stuff. Then later he's going to look over the land." Kira replied. Lacus sighed.
"So I guess he's back to being the hard working hermit that we knew in college?"
"That locked himself in his room to study? Yep." Kira nodded. Lacus glared playfully at him.
"Don't joke about this."
"Who's joking? I'm totally serious." Kira laughed. Lacus whipped out her camera and threatened to take a picture of him, causing him to raise his hands in defense. Anyone who had ever tried taking a picture with Kira knew how much he hated pictures on himself. He bolted off, trying to run out of the camera's view, hands shielding his face like a movie star trying to flee from the press. Lacus laughed and ran after him, camera still raised.
Because they were going to enjoy these weekend to their heart's content.
Cagalli stood in the shower, letting the warn drops of liquid rinse away the sand that clung to her now tanned skin. Sighing a bit, she cupped her hand together, watching each drop gradually fill the make-shift bowl. After the water was up to her index finger, she splashed it on her face. Almost an entire day had gone by, and it really was gorgeous here. She had an incredible time hanging out with Kira and Lacus. Now the two of them had gone out for dinner. They'd asked her if she wanted to join, but Cagalli excused herself to give them some privacy.
So now she was stuck with nothing to do. And it was only 8:00pm!
Still... they hadn't seen nor heard from Athrun all day. They had no idea where the guy was. And tomorrow they knew for a fact that he'd be doing business all day.
"This can't be healthy..." She muttered. Turning off the shower, she stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself. Smoothing out a wrinkle on her shirt, she grabbed the room key and left.
Athrun stopped sifting through papers, and looked up at the sound of someone knocking at the door, then stood up and went to answer the door, still holding some documents in his right hand. Looking through the hole, he paused for a moment. It was Cagalli. He looked down at what he was wearing... dress pants and no top...
Looking back at the door, he sighed, then shouted a quick "Hold on a minute!" as another knock on the door was heard, dashing across the room to grab a dark grey shirt and hurriedly button it on.
"Yeah?" He asked as casually as possible, swinging open the door. She had taken a few steps back, either about to walk away, or try to kick the door open, though Athrun would guess the latter.
"Why did you take so long?" Cagalli complained, strolling into his room as he held the door open a tad wider. Athrun shut the door and followed her, sitting down at the desk again.
"Just doing some things." He shrugged. She suddenly turned and stared at him intently... then burst out laughing.
"Your shirt isn't buttoned correctly." She smirked. Athrun looked down to see that he had indeed, missed the top button, causing everything to be off by one. Blushing a bit, he quickly undid the buttons and began to fix them... when he began to feel very self-conscious of himself. He looked up to see Cagalli with her head turned, as if giving him a form of mock privacy. He continued to fix his shirt and then cleared his throat.
"Done. Now to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit?" He asked. Cagalli leaned back onto his bed and grabbed the TV remote, turning on the television and flipped through channels. She took a quick glance at him, then stood up, and hastily grabbed the papers that he was STILL holding, slamming them down onto the table.
"Geez man, don't you ever take a break? This is a first class resort, enjoy it! I bet you haven't even tried room service yet!" She teased, waving the brochure that listed hotel numbers. Athrun sighed.
"Cagalli, I'm not here just for kicks like you guys are. I'm here on business." He insisted.
"But then what was the point of us coming with you, if we're not even going to SEE you?" She frowned. "You drag us all this way, for what?"
"So you guys can have fun. You don't need me for that."
"Kira and Lacus have plenty of fun without either of us... I think they're out for dinner now. But still! With the two of them, I can't keep tagging along! I feel like the odd one out." She protested. Athrun was about to rebuttal, when suddenly Cagalli added something about being worried about him, in a slightly quieter voice. He had barely heard her, but upon realizing what she had said, strolled over beside her and also sat down onto the bed, picking up the brochure and flipping through it.
"All right then, tell me what I should do with this thing. According to the records that I've been sent, you seem to have no problem ABUSING the free room service." He smirked.
"Get whatever you want." She shrugged, perking up a bit. "That's the beauty of it being FREE, see? And in my defense, Kira and Lacus ordered those four sundaes, just so they could try all the flavors."
"And the other four?..." Athrun raised an eyebrow.
"I ordered those, because by the time I got there, they had finished the sundaes, and I never got to try any." She pouted slightly. Athrun chuckled and nodded.
"I should have guessed..."
"Hey Athrun?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I tag along with you tomorrow? I heard Jona say he was just going to be showing you that property that your company was going to buy." Cagalli dropped the topic casually, staring at the ceiling instead of the Spanish soap opera playing on TV.
"That's true." Athrun nodded, eyes darting back and forth as he skimmed the text of the brochure. "But that land is mostly undeveloped. There's not really anything on it. Originally the Sarans bought it, because they were going to expand the resort. But local residents complained about their proposals, and so they couldn't follow through. So all in all it's a pretty easy sale." He looked up to see that Cagalli had wandered over to his desk, and started reading some statistics. "Hey, hey, hey. Those are legal documents. You aren't authorized to see those." He teased. She looked up with a start.
"Oh sorry, I was just curious..." She trailed off. Athrun walked over and handed her a folder.
"Don't worry about it. It's always good to get to know legal documents, especially when you're studying to be a lawyer." He encouraged. Suddenly Cagalli's eyes seemed to droop a bit, as if some unknown sadness had suddenly gripped her. Before he could look further into it, she interrupted him.
"Is this the figure, for the total amount of land?"
"Huh? Oh yeah." He nodded, breaking out of his thoughts. "See? It's 90 undeveloped. Tomorrow I'll just be checking out whether or not the land has potential for anything."
"But I thought that you guys just did real estate..." Cagalli noted.
"That's true but after I buy it, I'll break it up into smaller sections and sell those. If the land has no potential, it'll be hard for me to sell it later." He explained. "You'll see later on. When you're a lawyer you'll known cases like this down pat."
Again her face fell a bit... Athrun paused and stared at her face for a moment, before continuing.
"So, yeah do you want to tag along tomorrow? It'll make surveying the land more interesting." He offered in an attempt to cheer her up.
Cagalli looked up and grinned. "Sure." Maybe it was just his imagination, but the grin looked somewhat forced to Athrun. Again, he continued, trying not to push the issue.
"So, want to watch some movies?"
Kira and Lacus walked hand in hand on the boardwalk. The night was clear, but it wasn't too late yet. They had just finished eating at a local restaurant and were about to head by to the resort.
"This is fun. We should do it more often." Lacus suggested.
"Absolutely." Kira nodded firmly. "As long as Athrun pays again."
Both of the laughed, when suddenly Lacus stopped to grab another shell. Kira smiled.
"You really like shells, don't you?" He noted. Lacus nodded, and grabbed another one.
"Not all shells though. Just the nice ones. When I was little, I always used to come to the beach with my family. I saw this hermit crab, with this gorgeous shell on its back once, and tried to take it. But my dad told me that the shell was his home, and I couldn't do that. But the rest of the shells on the beach were fine, and I could take as many of those as I wanted. So for the rest of the day I obsessively collected shells." She laughed. "It was fun. And it's kind of just a hobby now."
Kira laughed at the anecdote. "When we were little, Cagalli and I came to the beach one day She was collecting shells too, and said that I couldn't because she already was. Well, being the five year old that I was, I believed her, and started collecting rocks instead. And it just kind of stuck with me." He shrugged.
Lacus burst out laughing. "I like your story more."
"Because it makes me look like an idiot?" Kira pretended to be hurt in a mock tone. Lacus hugged him.
"No. Because it's such a... YOU thing to do."
Luckily the next day when Cagalli woke up, she was quite startled to find herself in her own room. Last thing she remembered she'd been watching old movies with Athrun in his room.
"Guess I must have fallen asleep..." She mumbled, rolling over to look at the clock.
"So then… how did I get back here? Unless Athrun carried me back…"
Suddenly the phone rang. Slamming her hand onto the receiver she picked it up and lazily brought it to her ear. "Yeah?"
"Hey, it's me. Athrun. You ready?"
"For?..." She raised an eyebrow, completely clueless as to what on bloody earth he was talking about.
"I thought you said you wanted to tour the land with me?" He asked in a tentative tone. Maybe he had heard wrong?...
"Oh yeah. Umm, gimme 10 minutes." She answered, already scrambling out of her sheets. Half an hour later, Cagalli found herself slouched against the window of a limo... finding it quite strange how Jona kept addressing her. Athrun on the other hand, was wedged in between them acting as a physical and verbal barrier. Every time Jona tried to direct a comment towards Cagalli, Athrun would make up a random question to deter the purple-haired flirt.
Not that he had a thing for Cagalli of course! But she was his sister's best friend! Surely that was the only reason why he was so protective of her.
Jona was just about to tell the driver to start heading back to the resort however, when suddenly Cagalli spoke up.
"Hey, what about that side? Why can't we see that?"
Jona was taken aback, at her first words of the day. "Because that land isn't developed. It's pretty much a really big forest." He replied smoothly. Then to the immense surprise of both men present, Cagalli suddenly opened the car door, grabbed her bag and hopped out. Athrun instinctively ran after her and Jona sat, stunned.
"Cagalli! What are you doing!" Athrun cried out. Cagalli turned to him and grinned widely.
"Forget the car. This is the fun part." She laughed, charging towards a meager path. Jona peered out from the car.
"So then, should we wait for her?"
Athrun thought for a moment. "No." He decided "Go back. I'll follow her and we'll return on our own."
Jona sat in the car and waited until they were out of view. Smiling a bit, he sighed.
"It's almost too easy..."
By the time Athrun caught up with Cagalli, she was in the middle of picking up a fallen tree branch and snapping off some branches. Upon noticing that he had joined her, she smiled and handed him the now made, wooden pole, and picked up another branch.
"Walking stick." She stated plainly, before he could even ask what she was doing. Her gaze flickered up for a moment and she frowned. "You brought the laptop?"
Athrun looked down to see that he had, indeed, carried his laptop with him. Making a feeble attempt to hide it behind his back, he sighed sheepishly. "Force of habit." he explained.
"Suit yourself." She shrugged, tossing his pole off to the side and picking hers up, continuing to walk down the path. "When I was little, I loved doing stuff like this. Hiking, climbing, fishing... I was a pretty outdoors kind of person." She admitted.
Athrun nodded and followed along. "I must confess, I'm not much of a nature person, but it can be pretty cool sometimes."
"I'm surprised that you've encountered nature at all." Cagalli scoffed. "It seems like all you do it lock yourself in buildings and type furiously on your laptop."
"Well, you know why I do that though..." He put his free hand in his jacket pocket and looked away. Cagalli bent down to poke at some brown mushrooms with her stick.
"Yeah. Work, you're busy, blah blah blah. We've all heard the sermon." She sighed. "Hey, I work hard too, but you have to know when to take it easy. You know?"
"But with me acquiring the company... I don't see how that's going to be possible anymore." He sighed. A thunderclap sounded somewhere in the distance and something cold hit his left cheek. Raising his hand to wipe it off, he stared at his wet hand for a minute, rubbing the water into his fingers then began to shake his head. "Just another rainy day…"
Athrun began to walk faster to get back to the resort before the rain got too hard. Meanwhile Cagalli had frozen in her tracks, staring intently at the ground, which was covered in natural litter like twigs and underbrush. Noticing how she had stopped moving, he turned to face her.
"It's starting to rain a bit... We should hurry." He noted, as if she didn't feel the fat raindrops hitting her head. Athrun had already wrapped his laptop in his jacket protectively.
Cagalli lowered her bag, then pulled out a small umbrella. Opening it, she plopped down onto a large rock to the side of the trail. "What did you say?"
"Pardon?" Athrun backtracked to her quickly and sat down under the umbrella, as the rain began to fall harder. Apparently she didn't want to walk, and he simply didn't have the strength to argue with her.
"What makes you say you won't have time?" She demanded. Athrun blinked, then looked down at the laptop, wrapped neatly in his jacket.
"Well, I don't have much experience. I'm not really qualified to OWN this company at all. So I'll really have to push myself now... otherwise, I just won't be able to do this." Athrun shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing on earth. "Sometimes I feel tired... but it's not like it's the end of the world." Cagalli shook her head in protest.
"Stop saying stuff like that. You were chosen, BECAUSE he thought you were the most qualified. You take so much responsibility... sometimes I think you forget your own age. Athrun, you're VERY accomplished for someone your age. There's no need to kill yourself over this."
His hands tightened around the laptop. "But I got here through hard work. I'll have to work harder to keep it, anyway you look at it."
"I think that... you need to work hard. I'm not telling you to slack off completely. But take a break sometimes. Hang out with us. Don't cut yourself off from the world. It's not like Kira, Lacus and I are just trying to drag you out to have fun." She turned to him and beamed. "Despite how boring you may find yourself, we have more fun when you're around too."
Athrun stared at her for a moment, while his words were absorbed into him, permanently marking his memory. In that moment, Athrun had never wanted to hug someone more in his life. Unfortunately, the weight of his laptop wouldn't permit him to throw his arms around her. That and the umbrella was relatively small, so one of them would end up half soaked. He swallowed the words caught in his throat. Then, taking the umbrella out of her hands, tucked his laptop under his arm and used his freed hand to help pull her up.
They walked together under her umbrella all the way down the trail, making small talk and light conversation. At one point they were so absorbed in their conversation, they had completely forgotten where they were heading… They were just wandering somewhere together. Then before they knew it, they had gotten back into town. Gradually, the tempo of the falling rain hitting the black umbrella began to slow. Stopping before a cross walk, Athrun fiddled with the handle of the umbrella, that he ha held up for them the entire time.
They stood there for a few minutes: Staring at her, he couldn't help but notice how majestic she looked. Her hair being tossed behind her by the strong wind, eyes considerate, yet determined. It was like staring at a statue, so much so that when she spoke up he was almost startled.
"Are you okay now?"
Athrun blinked. "Uh... Yes. Yes, I am thanks." He smiled lightly.
Cagalli stuck out her arm and open palm, flat towards the sky. "Hey look" She noted. "It stopped raining."
"It has?" Athrun's eyebrows raised. Cagalli nodded and placed her hand on his, pulling the umbrella down.
"Mm hmm. See?"
"Oh. So it has... I guess it must have just been a wet spell?" Athrun stared at the sky then looked at her.
"Must have been..." Cagalli nodded, taking the umbrella in her hands and shaking out the water, folding it back up. Finished, she turned towards him and smiled.
The stood at the edge of the crosswalk, staring at the area around them. Everything was soaked, drenched completely. Not a single inch of ground escaped the deluge. And underneath large trees, it looked like it was still raining as droplets of clear water collected onto the tips of leaves and fell in clusters.
But a funny thing... As the sun can out, and its warm rays peeked their way onto the earth, the fact that everything was wet made everything look cleaner. Even dirt shined with a refreshing brilliance, and the cool air felt so good that you couldn't help but take deeper breaths.
"Wet spells... never last long if the sun comes out." Athrun murmured, more to himself than anything.
"That's what the best part of having a sun is." Cagalli stated plainly staring at the light and waiting for the walk signal. Athrun looked at her with a puzzled expression. She turned to him and grinned. "Having it there to clear away the clouds, and brighten up the day."
Deep emerald eyes filled with warmth and he nodded in agreement. Turning back at the road...
Both of them were immediately drenched as a large van dipped into the puddle in front of them, scooping up water and splashing it onto them. Cagalli blinked. Athrun gaped.
And they burst out laughing.
The walk signal flashed.
"Let's go get dried." Cagalli suggested, her contagious laughter gradually subsiding. Athrun was still lapsing into spontaneous chuckling, but nodded nonetheless. Stretching out her hand, Cagalli grabbed hold of Athrun wrist and pulled him forward. The water made her hand slip, and Athrun caught it just as it fell into his.
Athrun blinked, and stared at their hands. As her grip on his hand tightened, his wet face began to heat up. Not noticing, Cagalli kept walking forward. Athrun looked up at her carefree face, smiled, and hurried to catch up.
"I think I've found my sun…"
Well Athrun's at peace, and Kira and Lacus couldn't be having a better time. But what could Cagalli be sad about, and what could Jona possibly be up to?
Because this chapter was cut in half, the NEXT chapter will be titled: Bubbling Doubts. The trip wraps up, but how will the power of verbal persuasion come into play?
Once more, I am immensely grateful toward my reviewers and their support. The encouragement from readers in really very touching, so much thanks to everyone who's been following this story.
JusT LooKing ArounD, Eternally Asuka, Athrun-n-Cagalli, Orange Noel, Cagalli Yula Athha Fangirl, Living Arrow, Freyris, clumsykelli, animeluver461, mehmehbaaaa, rain angst, jackie-88-ac, ANONYMOUS-gsd, IYGU, KiraFreedom, XxbuffyxX, XCrossMyHeartX, gseedlover, stuntsheep , cloudy mind, ANONYMOUS, koali alolao, Craze Izumi, astrocosmos, MXC - the show- rocks my socks, kura52, animemistress419, Maryam Khanoom, The Angels' Princess, ichigo kagura, Torri-Chiobie, FreedomElf, asga, purple1
And now, I leave you in suspense.
Until next week!