Well aren't you guys lucky, I wasn't planning on updating this for a while yet, but after a sudden busrt of inspiration, I ended up writing the whole chapter. Anyways, enjoy!
Mayu hated physics. It was a boring, useless subject taught by an old fart of a teacher, Professor Kato, who thought he was cool because he had worked at Morgenroete in his youth. So what? Both her parents were mobile suit pilots, some of the elite, at that, and her aunt had served on both the Archangel and the Eternal. Playing around with machines for a big paycheck was nothing compared to what they had done.
Sighing, the young girl turned around to look at her seatmate, Lionel something Attha Serian. He actually liked the subject and the windbag teaching it too! Normally he was far too preoccupied with what was happening up front to pay attention to her, and she didn't really mind. Mayu preferred to goof off on her own. Today though, Lionel seemed much more interested in what was going on outside than what the professor had to say.
Something was wrong.
"Psst, Attha, are you ok?" she asked in a worried whisper. The blonde boy looked at her in wonder and then nodded slowly.
"Yeah, I guess," he whispered back. He didn't sound convinced.
"Are you and your mom still fighting?" Lionel didn't respond. Mayu groaned. "Attha!" she exclaimed quietly, "remember what I told you on Friday, about how you shouldn't keep your feelings all cooped up?" The blonde boy blushed for some reason the brunette girl couldn't figure out.
"Fine," he finally said with a defeated, he looked to his crush, "yeah, we're still fighting, I guess…" he trailed off. It was a bit too complicated for him to explain, at least right now.
Mayu fiddled around with her silky, mahogany hair, twirling it like a dance partner, trying her best to not look too interested in what Lionel was saying. Suddenly, her face lit up the way it always did when she remembered something.
"Is it…are you guys fighting because of your Dad?" she asked hesitantly.
"How did you find out about that?" demanded the boy next to her, not bothering to mind his tone of voice, and disturbing the whole class. Professor Kato glared at the both of them.
"Lionel! Mayu! I understand that physics is a difficult subject, but I'm almost certain that you would find much easier if you paid attention in class and saved your gossiping for the break!" He barked, making the other students giggle.
"We weren't gossiping!" Mayu barked back, earning impressed yet scandalized ohs from the rest of the class. She couldn't help it; it was in her nature to be defensive. Beside her, Lionel was staring at the floor in total and complete mortification, wishing that his crush would shut up before she said something stupid that would make him the pun of everyone's jokes for the next month.
The older man narrowed his eyes at the young brunette girl, secretly enjoying this challenge. Kids these days were just too polite.
"If you weren't gossiping, then tell me what matter is of such concern to you that you felt the need to disturb my class by discussing it here?" he questioned, sounding professional, stuffy and old and feeling quite the opposite.
Mayu glared at her teacher with intensity. You weren't supposed to that sort of thing, giving your elders dirty looks and whatnot, but it was the best she could come up with so she decided to ignore the rules.
"You wouldn't understand," she finally said. It seemed like she was giving in but she wasn't; she was just buying time. At the moment, the young girl loathed her physics professor and his guts. How dare he assume that she and Lionel were just casually gossiping? Couldn't he see that Attha hadn't been himself recently? "You're-
Just as Mayu was about to start insulting her teacher out of frustration, someone knocked on the door.
"Saved by the visitor it seems," said Kato, his tone a bit more human than it had been a minute ago, "I'll see you after class, Mayu," he added in a stricter tone, he went to open the door, "you too, Lionel."
As he opened the door, a woman came in. From the looks of it, she was about Mayu's mother's age, perhaps a bit older. She had short, perky brown hair and crystal-like blue eyes, she carried herself with a certain amount of dignity and wore a sincere smile on her face.
"Class, this is Miriallia Haww," said the professor, smiling at her like a fool in love, "she's an old student of mine, from when I was working at Morgenroete."
Mayu groaned. Not another Morgenroete flashback! The woman at the front of the class, now known as Miriallia, chuckled.
"Does he do this to you guys too?" she asked, "back when he was my teacher, he would never shut up about his days in the Orb military, it was so annoying…"
Mayu smiled, she liked Miriallia.
"I can understand that I can be annoying, but we're not here to discuss that," said Kato. The brunette girl guessed that discuss (and all words like it) was one of his favorite terms. The man turned to look at the class, "the reason I invited Miriallia here today is because unlike your history teacher, I believe that it is important that you know of the Bloody Valentine wars. You probably aren't going to learn anything about them from your other teachers, either, seeing as they won't dare touch anything that's not their subject." Mayu noticed that there was a certain amount of venom in her teacher's tone. He turned to his old student, "Miriallia here played a part in both wars, by default, aboard the notorious Archangel nonetheless. I thought it would do you kids some good to hear her story."
The woman up-front smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. "I can that a few of you are surprised," she began, "a woman like me on the all-powerful Archangel?" she asked sarcastically, pointing to herself. "I'll remind you all that is was a woman who captained that ship to victory after victory!" A nervous laugh filled the room.
Miriallia giggled.
"Feel free to ignore that outburst, it's just an old friend talking…"
Mayu raised an eyebrow; this woman was a little weird. She kind of reminded of her mom, or her aunt, or maybe it was just that all adults were weird.
"Anyways, I'd better get on with my story, you guys have recess after this, right? I wouldn't want to have you miss that," said the crystal-eyed lady. "So, my story starts one peaceful afternoon in Heleopolis," she narrated nostalgically, "my friends and I, and my boyfriend were all interns at the Morgenroete facilities there. We'd go there after school and work on whatever the Prof. here," she pointed to Kato, "told us too. Of course there was only one of us who could actually pull off any real work, and that was my friend Kira Yamato, a coordinator."
Lionel hadn't really been interested in what Miriallia had to say. Sure, her story was nice and all and she seemed to be a nice lady, but he had already heard it a million and one times thanks to his uncle and of course, his mother.
The blonde boy took the opportunity to doze off and think about what he was going to this afternoon. No doubt Cagalli would try to meet him at the end of classes and want to talk things over. The young Attha hated how fucking scared he was of that. He felt that somehow his fear of confronting his mother was…treacherous. Cagalli never wasted time letting her opinion be known, when she wanted to ask a question she never beat around the bush. And yet, Lionel, her only son wasn't even man enough to face his own mother about the most important man in both of their lives. The teen groaned; obviously, he had gotten this quality from his Zaftie father.
Annoyed with where his chain of thought was bringing him, Lionel decided to give it a rest and listen to what Miriallia was going on about instead.
"I don't think that anybody slept well that night," she was saying, "we were all so worried about her. I felt so cheated when I found out that Cagalli had spent her whole time flirting with, with some boy while she was on that island."
The older woman continued to talk, but her words no longer reached Lionel. Without realizing it, he raised his hand. It took Miriallia a minute or two to realize this, but eventually, she caught sight of his muscled arm floating around in the air.
"Uh, you, Lionel Attha, right?" she said, her clear blue eyes looking down upon him warmly.
"Yeah," replied the blonde boy hesitantly. It was not so much that he was hesitant, but that the lady up front had called him Lionel Attha and not Lionel Attha Serian, as the rest of the magazine reading middle-aged women did (not that 30-something is middle aged). A moment passed before he said anything else. "Y-you said that Cagalli –my mom, spent the night with some guy on that island…" he trailed off, not too sure where to go from there.
"Oh thanks a lot!" exclaimed Miriallia playfully, "you just gave away the catch for the next part of the story." She pouted, earning a few giggles from the class, all while avoiding answering Lionel. "As for your mom, well, I was so ticked off when I found out about her spending the whole night with a guy, I forget what I did, but it wasn't pretty."
"Was it my father?" he asked.
"Yuuna Roma Serian?" She questioned rhetorically, "no," she answered.
Lionel's eyes widened; Miriallia knew. She knew about his real father!
Suddenly, he noticed Mayu's hand fly up into the air. The lady pointed to her.
"What was that guys name?" she asked directly, "the guy who spent the night on the island with Cagalli…sama?" Lionel noticed that she was reluctant to add the last bit. He looked up to the woman in front of the class with desperately curious eyes. She seemed taken aback by the young girl's question.
"What's your name?" she asked instead of replying.
"Huh? What does that have to do with anything?" demanded the easily angered girl.
"You asked for a name, you might as well give me one first," stated the older woman. Mayu groaned.
"Mayu Asuka-Hawke," she muttered, making no effort to hide her displeasure.
"Though so," said Miriallia with a wry smile, "so, anyways, the guy's name was Athrun," she told the younger girl hesitantly. "Now, where was I…" She began again before the brunette girl had a chance to ask for Athrun's last name.
After telling them both off for disrupting the class, Professor Kato let the two of them off without so much as a warning. The minute he did, both children were out of his class: Lionel running off to nowhere and Mayu following him without success.
"I still can't believe Cagalli is actually letting you teach her kid," said Miriallia the minute they left. "I thought she had lost all faith in you."
"She has," replied the woman's old teacher, "why else do you think I'm no longer working at Morgenroete, let alone aloud near the grounds? I'm pretty sure that I'd be sued if she ever finds out that I tell my students about it," he told her with a laugh. "I still can't believe that you're friends with that princess!"
"We were," corrected the brunette quietly. She looked at her wristwatch. The numbers 10:11 flashed back at her in neon green. "Well, I'm going to see if I can get a few snapshots," she said, taking out her all access camera, "teens hanging out make for great material." She made her way to the door.
"Miriallia, before you go," stuttered Kato, sounding like he had a question to ask. The woman looked back at him. "Please don't tell Cagalli that I've been bragging about my days at Morgenroete," he finished, sounding defeated. Like what he said didn't come out the way he wanted it to.
Milly laughed a bit and said "don't worry, I wont."
Lionel was eating lunch with his friends, Bertrand and Hakura when his crush came to join them.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked, pointing to the spot next to Lionel. His two friends shrugged and said it was all right, but she only sat down once the blonde boy finally made some sign of agreement. She then took out her lunch and began to go through what she would eat and what she wouldn't. Bertrand and Hakura talked to her a bit before eventually drifting off to other places, but Lionel did everything in his power to ignore her. He had been avoiding her all day, in fact.
However Mayu Asuka-Hawke wasn't going to let that stop her.
"So, Attha, what did you do this weekend?"
Silence.
"Anything exciting?"
Quiet.
"What did you and you're uncle do Friday?"
No response.
"Me and Aunt Meyrin came home so late, Daddy was so mad!"
Still no response.
"You know, I think my aunt and your uncle like each other."
"Excuse me –WHAT?" demanded Lionel, finally snapping.
"Ha, I knew that would work!" exclaimed Mayu triumphantly. The blonde boy looked unhappy at the thought of being manipulated that easily, but the brunette girl didn't really care. "Don't worry too much about what I said, about Aunt Meyrin and your uncle, I just noticed that they seemed happy to see each other Friday."
Lionel turned away, trying to hide his blush and said, "I wasn't worried." There was no use for him to try ignoring his crush now that he had responded.
The young woman shrugged, "whatever," she said. She plopped something edible into her mouth. "So, why are you so upset about your dad Attha?"
"Why do you care?" the blonde boy snapped back, "how the hell do you know about my dad anyways?" Mayu's eyes widened. She had always known Lionel Attha Serian to be that reserved, passive, but cute boy who paid attention in physics. She had never though it possible for him to be so…explosive. The young girl had never imagined that he would act this way, especially towards her. She felt a few tears well up in her eyes. Perhaps it was foolish and weak to cry for so little, but she couldn't help herself; Mayu had always been a sensitive girl.
"Is it wrong for me to?" she asked meekly. Lionel looked at her sadly, and for a moment, they both thought that they were living in a soap opera.
"It's fine for you to care," he said, "but you're not supposed to know about my father." Mayu raised an eyebrow. "Heck, I'm not even supposed to know about him! I'm supposed to believe that Yuuna Roma Serian is my father! But how can I? I've always known that he wasn't, no matter how much I tried to believe it, I've always known that it's a lie!"
Mayu silently put her hand on his cheek.
"So that's what been eating you," she said, happy to have finally figured out why Lionel had been acting so strange, but sad because she felt sorry for him. On impulse, she hugged him, hoping it would help, and he hugged her back after a minute of uncertainty. After a minute or two they broke apart, but not completely. Mayu kept her hand on Lionel's shoulder, to keep him stable. "So, what about your real father?" she asked.
The blonde boy bit his lip; he had no clue how to explain it, though he did have the will power to.
"It's complicated," he began.
"Is he the guy your mom met on that island?" asked the teenage girl next to him. Lionel was taken aback. He tried to ask her how she knew this, but no words came out of his mouth. "The lady told us his name was Athrun, and Daddy told me that your real dad's name was Athrun Zala. I doubt your mom knows two Athruns." Lionel stared at her, not at all certain of what to say.
"How would your dad know?" he inquired five seconds later, "he hates my mom!"
The girl shrugged.
"You know, I'm not really sure how he found out either," she said. "But he does know your mom, Attha, and people who know each other tend to know everything about each other."
Suddenly, an idea struck Lionel.
"If your dad knows about mine, then a bunch of other people must too," he said confidently.
"What?" questioned Mayu. As far as she knew, the rest of the public knew nothing about Lionel's real…origins.
"What did you say my dad's name was, Athrun Zala? What if we looked him up on Internet, I mean, he was a ZAFT soldier, there has got to be something on him…"
Lionel typed the words slowly.
A T H R U N Z A L A
His father's name.
Hesitantly, he pressed the search button. He watched as the Internet homepage turned to a page full of links. He clicked on the first one He watched as it began to load.
Lionel held his breath.
On the loading page was his father.
Oh! A clifhanger! Not a big one, but it's a clifhanger nonetheless. I'm so proud of myself, I don't normally do clifhangers. Like you guys care. Anyways, I would care very much if you felt so kind as to drop me a review. Peace out!