Title: Mosaic
Author: Teno Hikari
Fandom: Gundam Seed Destiny
Pairings: Athrun x Shinn, Gil x Kira, Rey x Cagalli, and more.
Disclaimer: I plead insanity, your honor.

Summary: AU - Athrun Zala has everything under control. He doesn't have a problem with his father being cold and distant. Or the fact that his best friend is dating a married man. He certainly is not attracted to his best friend's little brother, and denial is just a river in Egypt. (Athrun x Shinn , Gil x Kira and more cracktastic slash and het pairings to come.)

Warning: Un-betad.

----------------------------

Chapter Three

"Du... Dullindal-gichou?!"

Despite the fact that he always got top marks in every math class from elementary addition to university-level advanced algebra; Athrun couldn't compute the equation before him. His best friend. His Boss. In bed. Together. This just couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening! Maybe, Athrun hoped, just maybe if he closed his eyes tight enough this bad dream would go away.

"Athrun..."

Dammit! Why wasn't it going away?!

"Athrun open your eyes and shut the door," he heard Kira's voice over his own thoughts. When he didn't respond, there was a rustling noise of cloth and footsteps striding across the carpet. The sound of a door closing made his eye lids shoot upwards and he was now staring at the brunette standing in front of him.

Fortunately for him, Kira was now partially dressed. Wearing only a white buttoned-down silk shirt, that was a couple sizes two big over his boxers.

"How? What? When? Why?" Athrun found himself sputtering all at once.

"Athrun..."

The emerald-eyed young man quickly grabbed his friend's arm and pulled him close so that he could talk to Kira to keep the other occupant of the room from overhearing. The older man who happened to be his boss, and most important was - and still is - married to a woman. Surely Kira knew this! Did the Yamatos know that they had another 'guest' under their roof? Did Kira know that?

"What are you thinking?!" he hissed quietly, "Your family is just downstairs eating breakfast!"

"Really?" Kira blinked and looked thoughtful. "Are there anymore waffles left?"

Athrun felt his jaw begin to twitch when he heard Gilbert Dullindal chuckle from where he sat on the bed, watching the two of them. What the hell was with these two? Did they literally screw each other's brains out - now there was a mental picture he didn't need before breakfast - and unaware of the scandal their affair would cause?

Backing away, he dug a hand through the dark blue locks of his hair and began to pace.

"Zala-kun," Dullindal spoke quietly. The amusement that had been on his face, was replaced with a deadly serious expression that was rarely seen at their board meetings. "We would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this."

It took everything he had not to stare incredulously at the chairman, whom he had always respected since the day they met. Keep this discovery a secret? From Kira's family, his co-workers, even to Dullindal's wife whenever she came to visit her husband? Could he really do that? Helping his boss and best friend conceal such a relationship? Was it even a relationship at all?

"Athrun..."

He turned his eyed to meet pleading amethyst eyes and knew his answer.

----------------------------

Mayu managed to stifle a yawn as she entered the kitchen, dragged out of bed by the delicious aroma of breakfast. Of course, she was the last to wake and join her family. She was no 'early bird' like her teenage uncle, but at least wasn't a deep sleeper like her father. The only reason he was up because there was a football game starting in an hour, and his buddies would be coming over soon.

"So Rey, are you going to stick around and watch the game with us? The BaCUEs are playing against the ZAKUs."

The younger blonde didn't even make the effort to roll his eyes. It was obvious that Rey wasn't interested in sports. In fact he actually told his older brother this whenever invited to join their football or basketball games. Of course that didn't stop the Mwu from asking Rey to join him for some male-bonding in front of the television. There were times when the teenager would give in for the sake of bonding with his brother - or to get him to stop nagging - but this was not one of them.

"I'll pass," Rey responded casually over his tea. "I want to catch up on my reading."

"Reading?" Mwu wrinkled his nose as he watched his daughter drown her pancakes in syrup, "Who studies during winter break?"

"You're a writer, are you not? So you should know that people read out of interest, not obligation."

"Well it depends on what you're reading..." the older blonde leaned forward and grinned, "Anything by the proclaimed-best selling author of the year?"

Mayu rolled her eyes when Rey hadn't bothered to do so again. Really, her father should give it a rest. Sure she would admit his novels were immensely interesting and full of suspense that left a reader unable to the book down until it was read all the way through. However, Rey wasn't into stories like that. She knew for a fact that he liked non-fiction stuff, that would eventually bore her. It would most definitely bore Cagalli.

Slowly, Mayu chewed her breakfast as she began to think about her match-making plan. She knew from the start that this wasn't going to be easy. After all both blondes had two distinct and different personalities.

Rey was an introvert, if he could help it, spent more time alone than socializing with anyone. When he came to live with them, he didn't speak a word to either her or her mother. Rarely did he even speak to her father then, his own brother. At school it was worse. But that was then, and now he wasn't much of a social outcast. Sure he had his friends from school, and on occasion he hung out with Shinn; but she saw that their company often wear him out.

Whereas Rey were more likely to stand in the background, the other blonde was up front and center stage. Cagalli, as long as Mayu knew her cousin (which was pretty much her entire life), was a headstrong and outgoing extrovert. The older teen more than often turned her interests over to other people and events rather to her own thoughts and feelings.

Perhaps to anyone else, Rey and Cagalli were incompatible. Yet this ten year old girl saw differently. She was a firm believer in the old saying that opposites always attracted. There is truth to this, despite similar human behaviors, everyone is different, and everyone is unique. Yet, to Mayu's belief, each individual is lacking something important. A quality perhaps, or character trait they wished they had. This was why couples needed to be different, because each partner needs the other to complete themselves. It would be tricky, but Mayu was eager for the challenge.

"We're all going ice skating this afternoon," she announced and glanced over Rey who had already tuned out his brother's book recommendations. "You're coming with us right, Rey-ojisan?"

"I don't skate."

The boy didn't even look up, and Mayu frowned. Quickly she resorted to the pleading-puppy-eye expression and leaned forward in his direction. Sure it was overkill, but he would suspect something was up and get at her insistent begging.

"Aaaw but it'll be fun! You don't have to skate if you don't want to. Just come to hangout with us."

She could see that he wanted to refuse. However, he made the mistake by meeting her hopeful yet pitiful expression, and sighed.

"Who is 'us'?" Rey wanted to know before agreeing to anything. He was hooked, but the brunette didn't want to test her luck. She knew how much of an anti-social her uncle was around other people. If it wasn't for Shinn, she doubted he would go out of his way to hang out with the rest of their group of friends.

"Oh you know... just Shinn, Kira-niichan, Athrun-san," she saw the look of disinterest and quickly added, "me, and of course Cagalli-neechan"

There was no change on the teenager's face when he poured another cup of tea for himself.

"Fine, I'll go."

----------------------------

As the morning slowly rolled on, Athrun found himself unable to keep his mind off his best friend. His best friend's disastrous affair, that is. For someone who had been caught in a compromising position with an older - and married - man, he was acting pretty normal. Too normal. In fact he did seem to show any shame or a hint of embarrassment whenever they made eye contact. Unlike blushing Athrun who, ever since the day had started, was being tortured by that mental image.

Why is this getting to me? Athrun wondered. They're both adults and can do as they please. As long as they didn't plan to use him as a scapegoat or something, he didn't mind harboring their secret. Their shocking, disastrous secret.

Shoving his hands further into his coat pockets, Athrun trudged through the snow after Kira and his siblings as they headed to the parked mini-van. Before getting in, he found himself glancing back at the house and wondered where the Chairman was. Did he manage to sneak out of the house or was he planning on staying in Kira's bedroom the entire time? He seriously hoped it wasn't the latter.

"Oi!"

Tearing his eyes away from the house, Athrun blinked and glanced over to where Shinn was poking his head out of the van.

"What are you doing? Are you getting in or not?"

"Ah... uh...," stuttering awkwardly, Athrun climbed inside the car after Shinn and closed the door shut behind him.

Kira glanced around the front passenger seat curiously. "Did you forget to bring something, Athrun?"

'Yeah, my sanity.'

The green-eyed teen shook his head and say nothing.

After Cagalli turned on some music and bickered with Shinn for a little bit, they drove in awkward silence for awhile until reaching one of their destinations. Standing on the porch of a stunning two story post-modern house, was Mayu and Rey. Both sporting dissimilar looks of excitement and boredom.

The silence continued until they reached the outdoor ice rink where the gloomy face quickly brightened. Well with the exception of one. Cagalli instantly noted Rey's expression and lack of ice skates, and took it upon herself to rectify that problem.

"Rey, what's your size?"

"Pardon?"

The look of boredom was replaced with the rare expression of cluelessness, and Cagalli pointed to her own skates. "What's your shoe size?" she asked again, "You can't go ice skating without skates."

"I'm fine. I don't plan on skating at all."

"Do you even know how?"

When the older blonde began to scrutinize him, Rey shrunk back and found himself looking towards both his niece and best friend for support. Neither of them gave it. Mayu playfully nudged Shinn who held up the extra pair of skates she had asked him to bring.

"I brought another pair for him,"

The chilling look Rey gave him, made Shin shiver as he set the skates down and calmly backed away. As he watched his sister wait for Rey to put his skates on, and promptly dragged him to the rink; Shin had a feeling that when the Spring semester started, Rey wasn't going to lend him his study notes anymore.

----------------------------

After a few hours of skating and seeing how many tricks they could pull off to either awe or piss off each other, Kira and Athrun finally settled down on one of the benches. They immediately found their new source of entertainment and resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Especially when Cagalli's smoldering gold eyes snapped in their direction.

"Wow, I'm impressed," Kira remarked as he took off his skates to put his shoes on. "Rey is practically going second base on her and she has yet to slit his throat with the skate blades."

Athrun smiled, glad that the tension between them was gone for the moment. "It's probably because they're not sharp enough and too many witnesses around."

"Probably."

Glancing around the rink, Kira noticed the lack of relatives on it. Where did they go? His eyes widened as he heard a tiny, yet familiar, giggle from far behind and ducked.

"Heads up!"

POW!

Kira dared to look between gloved fingers and nearly broke down laughing at the stunned look on Athrun's face as remnants of a snowball clung to his head. Not evening needing a minute to collect himself, Athrun ducked another barrage. Dropping to his knees, he scooped up two clumps of snow off the ground, locked on his targets and fired.

Mayu squealed as a snow projectile hit her before she could launch the next one. Once down, and crawling to take cover behind another bench, Shinn stepped up to take him on, without knowing that Athrun had been the "snowball conqueror" on campus. Mayu attempted to help him but the two were clearly no match as Athrun got so many hits on them, they looked like snow men themselves.

"I surrender!" came the shrill voice of his cousin as she crawled around the bench and took refuge sitting with Kira.

Shinn had yet to admit defeat though, as he scrambled to grab more snow off the ground, while getting hit at the same time. Athrun had once believed that it was beneath him to attack an enemy while his back was turned. But considering he could still feel ice melting down his back, he would make an exception.

POW!

Shinn finally went down with a snowball in the face and the spectators who had been watching applauded while the boy waved one of his wet gloves up as a white flag. Athrun did his wave and cautiously approached the fallen boy, just in case he was faking a surrender. Once it was safe he helped Kira's brother wipe off the snow and smiled.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"One." Followed by his answer, Shinn promptly gave Athrun the middle finger salute. Shaking his head, and chuckling all the while, Athrun helped the younger boy stand.

"Close enough."

----------------------------

If there was anything that annoyed Mwu La Flagga, it was getting telephone calls during any sport game he and the guys had gotten together to watch. He would never leave the living room just to take a call (unless it was a matter of life and death, of course), because the last time he did so, years ago, he had missed many touch downs and last minute shots. So normally, Murrue would answer or the machine would pick up; however, the calls continued and it was starting to really bug him.

"Angel!" he called without taking his eyes off the television screen, "could you answer that?"

When the ringing didn't cease, or when Murrue hadn't shouted back "make the impossible, possible, and answer it yourself, you lazy couch potato!" - he finally got up. His buddies dutifully reminded him on the way to the kitchen that Murrue had gone shopping with one of her girlfriends and the answering machine was broken. There was also a note written on the machine from Murrue herself, stating in bold letters that her husband was in no way allowed to fix any household appliances again.

Murrue still flinches whenever she tries to use the toaster.

Snagging the phone off the cradle, Mwu frowned as placed it near his ear while using his hand to cover the other one.

"Hello?" In that tone of voice, Mwu had expressed his annoyance and might have very well said: "If you aren't Publisher's Clearing House calling to offer me..."

"You mean you don't have enough money as it is, Mwu?"

At the sound of his name, thoughts of a carefree afternoon watch a football game with friends was far from his mind. Mwu stiffened and clench the phone tighter with white knuckles. He turned away from living room and it's cheering occupants and headed into a dark hallway far from ear shot.

"Do I have your attention now?"

"Why are you calling here?" he hissed, jerking his head back to the kitchen just in case one of the guests got up to look for him.

"Just to talk, Mwu. I haven't called at a bad time, have I?"

He seethed, already imagining the mocking smile on the caller's face.

"Make it quick, Rau."

----------------------------

Freezing from head to toe, and inside and out; Cagalli suggested they warmed and dried themselves off at a local coffee house she often visited. It reminded Athrun of the one near his school, minus the crowds of students on caffeine highs trying to study for an exam that was scheduled the next day.

The walls were painted a nice cream color, but bordered in dark brown. There were many small tables to sit two set up around the room, yet occasionally another chair had been added. Yet Kira's sister lead them away from that area. Near the back of the shop was a comfy looking sofa near a crackling fire, it was more secluded that the front of the shop and shrouded in shadows.

As Cagalli flopped down on the couch, Mayu frowned as her uncle - whose face was red from the cold and mortification, took a seat on one of the chairs further away. Rey kept his eyes off them and instead began to gaze enviously around at the other occupants, who didn't make themselves to look like a total fool the entire afternoon.

When everyone got comfy in their seats a friendly waitress came to take their orders before heading off to make them. As they waited, small talk finally broke out as feeling returned to everyone's toes. The little matchmaker was pleased as punch, to hear Cagalli had comment on how impressed she was with Rey. For someone who never skated in his life, he had learned how to in a single day and showed improvement before they left the rink. All the while, the said other blond was blushing furiously, yet blaming it all on the weather as the others smirked to themselves. The memory of the ice skating lesson still fresh on their mind.

When the drinks arrived, silence resumed once more, as they took a moment to completely relax and be rejuvenated by the warm scent of the coffee house. Even Rey's mood had changed after a few sips and he was actually smiling when Mayu commented how amazed she was with him that day. He was good, but not great and needed much more practice, and since Cagalli was such a good instructor, maybe the two should get together more often. Kira didn't miss how his cousin was smiling from ear to ear as neither of her two test subjects objected her proposal.

In the middle of the group, and couch, Shinn found himself unexpectedly wedged between his brother on the left, and Athrun on right. Yet for some reason found himself leaning a little bit towards the right. Maybe - and most likely - it was the extra marshmallows in his hot chocolate (why he ordered hot chocolate at a coffee house was nobody's business as far as he was concerned!); but Shinn actually sounded perky when he started speaking.

"I can't believe you hit me in the face, that was so low!"

"That was low? You hit me first when I wasn't looking."

"I gave you a warning, and you didn't take it, did you? Also, remember when we were little, you taught me to always aim at the person's body, never their face!"

Laughing a bit, Athrun remembered those times as he nodded his head. "To be honest, I didn't think I could hit you."

"Oh, whatever!" Shinn through up his hands in exasperation, his cheeks flushed a darker shade of crimson.

Athrun, glanced down at the younger boy leaning against him, and smirked. When Shinn didn't pull away, but did indeed move close enough to rest his head on his shoulder; Athrun started to feel a little ill. It suddenly felt too warm inside the Coffee House as he began to sweat under his sweater and jacket. His throat tightened, and stomach began to flutter like the wings of a butterfly. Was it his drink? No, because Kira had also ordered the same beverage, and after glancing in his direction, he seemed perfectly fine. All of a sudden, Athrun felt like an outcast from everyone else who were comfortable and content.

As he watched Shinn close his eyes for a moment, something within him was fascinated by those pale lips as they opened to release a small inaudible sigh. He couldn't help but smile fondly, but felt it melt away quickly as the younger man shifted even closer. Athrun found himself trapped between the arm of the sofa and a drowsy teenager. Though it wasn't exactly uncomfortable, he couldn't prevent his muscles from tensing. There was also something about that boy's face that made him unable to look away. Something that caused his hands twitch, his palms to sweat; and he racked his brain to figure out what it was.

'Something... '

Athrun didn't know he could actually hate a word.

----------------------------

Author's Notes: Didn't think I would actually update this story after so long but after several death threats I decided to give it another shot.