[Fic] People Like Us 4/?? (Gundam SEED, Kira/Cagalli)
Title: People Like Us
Fandom: Gundam SEED
Part: 4/??
Pairing: Kira/Cagalli, others mentioned
Disclaimer: Owneth not, make no profit.
Contains: Eventual graphic twin m/f sibling incest.
Rating: This chapter - PG, will go up.
Summary: post-Destiny, Kira is in Orb helping with a global clean-up effort while Cagalli is still trying to settle into her role as leader. However, when a sibling moment is captured on film completely out of context, things quickly get complicated for both of them.
In this chapter, there is mini-golf, hand-holding and the moment when everything changes.
Chapter 1 \\ Chapter 2 \\ Chapter 3
«««
"I don't think Lacus ever has this many people following her around," Kira said as he flopped into the driver's seat of the late model car he'd borrowed from Mwu.
"You never kidnapped her from her own wedding," Cagalli replied as she slid in beside him. She sighed. "I really wish they hadn't had to call in the police, though. I wanted to do all of this without anyone else needing to be involved."
Kira reached for her hand, and she took it and squeezed.
"Do you want to go home?" he asked. "We can..."
"No," Cagalli replied firmly. "We're golfing and that's that. It's not like anyone's trying to be malicious. They're just... curious."
Kira let go of her and reached to start the car. "If there get to be too many people, though..."
"Yeah, I know." Cagalli leaned back in her seat. She was wearing shorts and sandals, perfect for the warm weather, and a lightly-patterned pullover top. Iolana had suggested a skirt. Her attendants had suggested far more formal things. Had they never played mini-golf? She was sure she'd need to wade into at least one little artificial running brook or chase a ball through animal-shaped shrubbery.
And Kira was thankfully out of uniform as well. Cagalli wasn't sure if his mother had kept some of his clothing for him or if he'd had to buy something new, but he looked good. Casual.
The miniature golf course wasn't terribly far from the restaurant, thankfully. Like many things, Cagalli knew it had been destroyed and then rebuilt. But she assumed that it was pretty much how she remembered - reminding herself that the hazards probably weren't as large as they were in her memory.
"Loser buys the winner's dessert?" Kira questioned when they arrived.
"For a week," Cagalli added.
"I'm not going to be here..." Kira started, only to be interrupted by Cagalli.
"Then you can just owe it to me."
"But I might win..."
"Not a chance," Cagalli said with a grin. She didn't even notice the lack of golfers until they were being given their clubs. By the owner.
"You two have a good time," he said with a wide smile. "You've got the entire course to yourselves tonight."
"Eh?" Cagalli frowned. "Can you afford that? I'd rather you didn't put yourself out for us..."
He nodded. "It's okay. Business will be through the roof for awhile after this."
"Thanks," Kira said. "We did have a little trouble at the restaurant. It's probably safer this way for your course, too..."
The owner chuckled. "The last thing I need is a herd of photographers trampling the flowers, along with curious golfers... I apparently could have charged a month's wage just to let people play the course with you two tonight, but... Ah... I shouldn't keep you kids with my rambling. Go have some fun."
Cagalli smiled at him. "Thank you." And she meant it, fully.
"You're welcome," he replied. He then looked straight at Kira. "And you, son, you make her happy."
Practically feeling the blush radiating off Kira, Cagalli grabbed his hand and led him out of the clubhouse.
"All of this for us?" Kira questioned a moment later, looking at the brightly-lit and sprawling course in front of them.
"Yeah..." Cagalli replied. She'd grabbed a scorecard while the owner had been talking and pencil and had jammed them in her pocket. And in the hand that wasn't still hanging on to Kira, she had a yellow-gold golfball and club. Kira had been given purple.
"Ladies first," Kira said, giving Cagalli's hand a little squeeze before letting go. She eyed him for a moment before marching over to the tee.
The hole was a simple one - various inclines and jutting rocks blocking the slightly-curving path. Shouldn't be that hard... She set her ball down, eyed everything once and then gave it a decent little whack with the club.
The ball shot forward, bounced off the first rock and up onto the little sidewalk that ran alongside the hole.
Cagalli blinked and glanced back at Kira. They both started laughing.
"Your turn," Cagalli said, stepping aside. She couldn't get too mad - it was exactly what she assumed would happen. But he'd better not do any better!
Kira grinned. "I'll get a hole in one," he said as he stepped up to set down his ball. And then he frowned.
"Okay," he said as he glanced at the rocks and the gentle curve. "This is really different with full gravity."
"I want to see you get a hole in one," Cagalli teased, watching him.
"Mmm, I think this'll just be a practice hole," Kira commented as he tapped at his ball. It rolled fairly straight before hitting the third rock and rolling back down to rest under the second rock, blocking him from making any sort of straight shot towards the hole.
"That wasn't bad," Cagalli admitted as she picked up her ball and set it back on the green. "No penalties for going out?"
Kira shook his head. "If you always hit the ball that hard, I'd win by default."
"Hey!" She managed to clear her ball over the rest of the rocks where it bounced off the sidewalk once and then landed a couple of feet from the cup. "It works when I hit it like that."
Kira chuckled. "Maybe this time... I don't think it'll work on every hole."
"So what are the courses like on the moon?" Cagalli asked as Kira gave his ball a little tap out into the center and then hit it carefully. This time it cleared a ways farther, but nowhere near as close to the cup as Cagalli's. Since he wasn't going to penalize her, she decided to ignore that little tap. The score was only for fun, and dessert, after all.
"Hoops, and moving things," Kira said as he stepped up onto the sidewalk beside her. "And air vents that'll randomly blow and move the ball..."
"There should still be a few moving obstacles around somewhere," Cagalli commented. She glanced around the course, but most of it was blocked by terrain changes and flowers and stone walls that were probably meant to keep balls from going too far from their destinations.
She didn't complain when Kira reached to guide her along with a hand on the small of her back. With one tap, her ball was in the cup and she smiled. "Three," she said firmly.
"Me too," Kira replied, knocking his own ball to the cup before she'd even grabbed hers. His looked to miss by a hair, so she just bumped it in with her hand.
Once she'd handed him his ball back, she marked their scores and smiled. "Pretty good so far..."
"Who did you come here with?" Kira asked as they walked down a short path to the next hole. It was lined with beautiful flowers, all in bloom.
"Some of the other officials's kids," Cagalli replied. "Sometimes there were just dozens of us and we ran all over the place..." She laughed. It was a good memory. But from a long time ago now, and everything had changed...
"Usually it was just me and Athrun. And his mother and sometimes mine," Kira commented. "Maybe I could bring her sometime. I don't know if it would be too sad..."
"It might be nice," Cagalli said. "You should ask her. I'm sure she just misses you in gene--"
"Cagalli?"
"That..." Cagalli pointed at the layout of the next hole. And then she started laughing. The obstacles weren't the model kit versions that she knew were available, the scale was wrong. Along the green path to the cup were a row of M1 Astrays and possessively guarding the hole was none other than Strike Rouge.
"Neat!" Kira exclaimed, rushing over to look at one. "I wasn't expecting anything like this..."
"I think they were something far less exciting when I was kid," Cagalli replied. "Not..."
"It adds a local flavor," Kira interjected. "I like them. Especially Strike Rouge..."
"Depends if I can get a ball past it," Cagalli said as she set down her ball at the tee. "Though poor Asagi, Mayura and Juri... they'd better not be stuck haunting here."
"I want to see if the rest of the course..." Kira started off towards the next hole.
Cagalli simply made her shot and this time it went clear through and around the mobile suits and instead bounced up the far edge of the course and into one of the rocky brooks that Cagalli knew she'd be dealing with again later as a full-fledged waterfall.
"This is rigged," she complained. She'd slipped off her sandals and was grabbing for her ball in the water when Kira came up behind her again.
"Looks like there are a few more themed holes," he told her. "Did you really hit it this far?"
"Yeah, and you missed it," Cagalli replied. "If you hadn't come back, I would have just marked myself down for a hole in one."
Kira laughed and Cagalli took the opportunity to splash him. He blinked once and grabbed for her, pulling her close. She stepped back into the water - that's why she'd taken her sandals off, after all. And then stood there, in his arms, clutching club and ball, staring up into his eyes.
"Kira..."
"Sorry I missed it," he said softly before blushing a bit and letting go. "I guess I should go take my turn. I won't wander off again. Promise."
"You'd better not," Cagalli said quickly. She set her ball near where it had gone astray before slipping on her shoes and watched Kira make his own shot. He too, had little trouble getting past the M1 Astrays. Instead, it was Strike Rouge that the ball hit, bouncing off the miniature machine's leg and rolling over to tap Cagalli's.
"Not bad," Cagalli said with a smile. "I gotcha..."
Kira chuckled. "You really didn't know this stuff was here?"
Cagalli shook her head. "It was dinosaurs and weird stuff back then. I guess when they rebuilt, they decided on this as a theme."
She stepped down onto the green and made her shot. Right into the cup. Kira followed suit.
"The next one is normal," Kira told her as the stepped onto the path again. There were bushes obscuring it, so Cagalli couldn't actually see anything, but since Kira had peeked ahead...
She was far more aware of Kira's arm around her waist, keeping her close. It wasn't bad. Not at all. Though this wasn't exactly the sort of behavior she'd expected. Unless...
Cagalli refused the thought. Kira was just playing along, even though she hadn't seen a flashbulb since they stepped onto the course.
By the time they got to the fourteenth hole, they'd avoided swinging PLANTs, battled aquatic mobile suits under the waterfall and even shot through a scale Archangel.
When Cagalli saw what had happened to the classic windmill, however, she couldn't help laughing.
"It's not that funny," Kira replied. Though a few seconds later, he was laughing as well.
While the basic framework for the windmill was still there, its facade had been enhanced with a large plywood cutout of Freedom. Instead of the windmill's blades, Freedom was spinning neon-painted beam sabers.
"Oh!" Kira dropped his ball at the tee and ran forward. "I didn't even see, but..."
While Freedom had the beam saber in the one hand, posed awkwardly so as to utilize the windmill's motor, the other hand had a rather undefined Cagalli.
"I'm going to pretend I'm not seeing this," Cagalli said. How utterly embarrassing. Especially considering everyone was going to be seeing this in the next weeks. This was going to turn into a total hotspot. Her entire nation was going to be seeing this minigolf hole.
"It's fun," Kira said as he walked back and then kicked his ball to the side. "Sorry, your turn..."
"I need to look at it..." The basics were still the same - hit the ball between the blades and it'd go into the windmill and through to the lower green. Miss and the ball would still keep going but it'd be routed differently and to a less preferable location. "Okay..."
She hit cleanly and the ball sailed right between the saber-blades and into the windmill.
Letting out a little victorious whoop, she ran forward to look for where the ball was going to come out. Kira ran after her, and they both watched as it sailed out a pipe down below the windmill and rolled straight into the cup. A perfect hole-in-one.
"Beat that!" Cagalli challenged him.
Kira smiled. "I can do that too..."
They both raced back to the tee and Kira made his shot, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The edge of a saber struck the ball and made it wobble just enough that it still rolled into the windmill. But... once they'd both ran down and waited, it didn't reappear.
"What now?" Kira questioned.
"Eh?" Cagalli replied. "I think there's a little door to go in and unstick your ball..."
Kira was right behind her as she walked back to the windmill and sure enough, there was a thin door with a cupboard handle on it. Inside the small space was a flickering bulb hanging from a bare fixture.
"Let's see..." Cagalli saw the trough that the ball should be in... while Kira's ball hadn't been knocked off course, it had slowed enough to get hung up at the curve of the main pipe. "I guess you can just tap it and I'll look the other way."
Kira chuckled and stepped over to it. "You can count it as a second shot. If it goes in, it won't really be a hole in one..."
"We'll see..." Cagalli stepped back and stayed quiet, listening to the windmill's motor creak and hum above their heads.
Giving the ball a little tap, it rolled forward and after a quick bounce, took the furthest right of the four possible tubes it could roll into.
"Not a hole in one," Kira said with a headshake.
"It's okay," Cagalli replied. "There are still four holes left."
"Yeah... Hey, you look really nice tonight, by the way."
"You're telling me that now?"
Kira nodded and before Cagalli had quite figured out what he was doing, he'd pulled her close again.
"Kira..."
"I'm sorry, Cagalli."
"For what?" She couldn't really see his eyes in the shadowy, dim light, but there was something in his voice that worried her.
"This."
Her eyes went wide when he kissed her, and then fluttered closed. She dropped her golf club between them and grabbed for his shirt to...
But she didn't want to push him away. Instead, she opened her mouth to the kiss and didn't hesitate to respond.
It took a particularly loud creak from the windmill's motor to separate them and then they jumped apart like the other had burned them.
"Kira..."
"I should see where my ball went," he replied quickly, rushing out of the windmill. Cagalli grabbed her club and followed him.
The ball had landed at an impossible angle to get into the cup. Cagalli wrote him down for a three anyway.
He didn't look at her properly until they got to the eighteenth hole - the ball return. Instead of the clown's mouth that Cagalli remembered, it was now a half-sized GINN head. Hitting the mono-eye won a free round.
Before taking her shot, Cagalli reached over and grabbed Kira's hand and squeezed it.
"Hey, this has been perfect," she said softly.
"All of it?" Kira asked. "I..."
"Yes," Cagalli replied firmly. "All of it."
She paused and tried to line up her shot.
"Maybe not having to get my ball out of the water three times, but the rest..."
Kira was quiet until her ball had missed the GINN's mono-eye completely and had rolled to land with the rest of the brightly colored balls that had been collected.
"Then you feel..."
Cagalli nodded.
Kira gave his own ball a hefty thwack and it hit the mono-eye dead on, which triggered a light and buzzer.
They'd obviously have to do it again.
Fandom: Gundam SEED
Part: 4/??
Pairing: Kira/Cagalli, others mentioned
Disclaimer: Owneth not, make no profit.
Contains: Eventual graphic twin m/f sibling incest.
Rating: This chapter - PG, will go up.
Summary: post-Destiny, Kira is in Orb helping with a global clean-up effort while Cagalli is still trying to settle into her role as leader. However, when a sibling moment is captured on film completely out of context, things quickly get complicated for both of them.
In this chapter, there is mini-golf, hand-holding and the moment when everything changes.
Chapter 1 \\ Chapter 2 \\ Chapter 3
«««
"I don't think Lacus ever has this many people following her around," Kira said as he flopped into the driver's seat of the late model car he'd borrowed from Mwu.
"You never kidnapped her from her own wedding," Cagalli replied as she slid in beside him. She sighed. "I really wish they hadn't had to call in the police, though. I wanted to do all of this without anyone else needing to be involved."
Kira reached for her hand, and she took it and squeezed.
"Do you want to go home?" he asked. "We can..."
"No," Cagalli replied firmly. "We're golfing and that's that. It's not like anyone's trying to be malicious. They're just... curious."
Kira let go of her and reached to start the car. "If there get to be too many people, though..."
"Yeah, I know." Cagalli leaned back in her seat. She was wearing shorts and sandals, perfect for the warm weather, and a lightly-patterned pullover top. Iolana had suggested a skirt. Her attendants had suggested far more formal things. Had they never played mini-golf? She was sure she'd need to wade into at least one little artificial running brook or chase a ball through animal-shaped shrubbery.
And Kira was thankfully out of uniform as well. Cagalli wasn't sure if his mother had kept some of his clothing for him or if he'd had to buy something new, but he looked good. Casual.
The miniature golf course wasn't terribly far from the restaurant, thankfully. Like many things, Cagalli knew it had been destroyed and then rebuilt. But she assumed that it was pretty much how she remembered - reminding herself that the hazards probably weren't as large as they were in her memory.
"Loser buys the winner's dessert?" Kira questioned when they arrived.
"For a week," Cagalli added.
"I'm not going to be here..." Kira started, only to be interrupted by Cagalli.
"Then you can just owe it to me."
"But I might win..."
"Not a chance," Cagalli said with a grin. She didn't even notice the lack of golfers until they were being given their clubs. By the owner.
"You two have a good time," he said with a wide smile. "You've got the entire course to yourselves tonight."
"Eh?" Cagalli frowned. "Can you afford that? I'd rather you didn't put yourself out for us..."
He nodded. "It's okay. Business will be through the roof for awhile after this."
"Thanks," Kira said. "We did have a little trouble at the restaurant. It's probably safer this way for your course, too..."
The owner chuckled. "The last thing I need is a herd of photographers trampling the flowers, along with curious golfers... I apparently could have charged a month's wage just to let people play the course with you two tonight, but... Ah... I shouldn't keep you kids with my rambling. Go have some fun."
Cagalli smiled at him. "Thank you." And she meant it, fully.
"You're welcome," he replied. He then looked straight at Kira. "And you, son, you make her happy."
Practically feeling the blush radiating off Kira, Cagalli grabbed his hand and led him out of the clubhouse.
"All of this for us?" Kira questioned a moment later, looking at the brightly-lit and sprawling course in front of them.
"Yeah..." Cagalli replied. She'd grabbed a scorecard while the owner had been talking and pencil and had jammed them in her pocket. And in the hand that wasn't still hanging on to Kira, she had a yellow-gold golfball and club. Kira had been given purple.
"Ladies first," Kira said, giving Cagalli's hand a little squeeze before letting go. She eyed him for a moment before marching over to the tee.
The hole was a simple one - various inclines and jutting rocks blocking the slightly-curving path. Shouldn't be that hard... She set her ball down, eyed everything once and then gave it a decent little whack with the club.
The ball shot forward, bounced off the first rock and up onto the little sidewalk that ran alongside the hole.
Cagalli blinked and glanced back at Kira. They both started laughing.
"Your turn," Cagalli said, stepping aside. She couldn't get too mad - it was exactly what she assumed would happen. But he'd better not do any better!
Kira grinned. "I'll get a hole in one," he said as he stepped up to set down his ball. And then he frowned.
"Okay," he said as he glanced at the rocks and the gentle curve. "This is really different with full gravity."
"I want to see you get a hole in one," Cagalli teased, watching him.
"Mmm, I think this'll just be a practice hole," Kira commented as he tapped at his ball. It rolled fairly straight before hitting the third rock and rolling back down to rest under the second rock, blocking him from making any sort of straight shot towards the hole.
"That wasn't bad," Cagalli admitted as she picked up her ball and set it back on the green. "No penalties for going out?"
Kira shook his head. "If you always hit the ball that hard, I'd win by default."
"Hey!" She managed to clear her ball over the rest of the rocks where it bounced off the sidewalk once and then landed a couple of feet from the cup. "It works when I hit it like that."
Kira chuckled. "Maybe this time... I don't think it'll work on every hole."
"So what are the courses like on the moon?" Cagalli asked as Kira gave his ball a little tap out into the center and then hit it carefully. This time it cleared a ways farther, but nowhere near as close to the cup as Cagalli's. Since he wasn't going to penalize her, she decided to ignore that little tap. The score was only for fun, and dessert, after all.
"Hoops, and moving things," Kira said as he stepped up onto the sidewalk beside her. "And air vents that'll randomly blow and move the ball..."
"There should still be a few moving obstacles around somewhere," Cagalli commented. She glanced around the course, but most of it was blocked by terrain changes and flowers and stone walls that were probably meant to keep balls from going too far from their destinations.
She didn't complain when Kira reached to guide her along with a hand on the small of her back. With one tap, her ball was in the cup and she smiled. "Three," she said firmly.
"Me too," Kira replied, knocking his own ball to the cup before she'd even grabbed hers. His looked to miss by a hair, so she just bumped it in with her hand.
Once she'd handed him his ball back, she marked their scores and smiled. "Pretty good so far..."
"Who did you come here with?" Kira asked as they walked down a short path to the next hole. It was lined with beautiful flowers, all in bloom.
"Some of the other officials's kids," Cagalli replied. "Sometimes there were just dozens of us and we ran all over the place..." She laughed. It was a good memory. But from a long time ago now, and everything had changed...
"Usually it was just me and Athrun. And his mother and sometimes mine," Kira commented. "Maybe I could bring her sometime. I don't know if it would be too sad..."
"It might be nice," Cagalli said. "You should ask her. I'm sure she just misses you in gene--"
"Cagalli?"
"That..." Cagalli pointed at the layout of the next hole. And then she started laughing. The obstacles weren't the model kit versions that she knew were available, the scale was wrong. Along the green path to the cup were a row of M1 Astrays and possessively guarding the hole was none other than Strike Rouge.
"Neat!" Kira exclaimed, rushing over to look at one. "I wasn't expecting anything like this..."
"I think they were something far less exciting when I was kid," Cagalli replied. "Not..."
"It adds a local flavor," Kira interjected. "I like them. Especially Strike Rouge..."
"Depends if I can get a ball past it," Cagalli said as she set down her ball at the tee. "Though poor Asagi, Mayura and Juri... they'd better not be stuck haunting here."
"I want to see if the rest of the course..." Kira started off towards the next hole.
Cagalli simply made her shot and this time it went clear through and around the mobile suits and instead bounced up the far edge of the course and into one of the rocky brooks that Cagalli knew she'd be dealing with again later as a full-fledged waterfall.
"This is rigged," she complained. She'd slipped off her sandals and was grabbing for her ball in the water when Kira came up behind her again.
"Looks like there are a few more themed holes," he told her. "Did you really hit it this far?"
"Yeah, and you missed it," Cagalli replied. "If you hadn't come back, I would have just marked myself down for a hole in one."
Kira laughed and Cagalli took the opportunity to splash him. He blinked once and grabbed for her, pulling her close. She stepped back into the water - that's why she'd taken her sandals off, after all. And then stood there, in his arms, clutching club and ball, staring up into his eyes.
"Kira..."
"Sorry I missed it," he said softly before blushing a bit and letting go. "I guess I should go take my turn. I won't wander off again. Promise."
"You'd better not," Cagalli said quickly. She set her ball near where it had gone astray before slipping on her shoes and watched Kira make his own shot. He too, had little trouble getting past the M1 Astrays. Instead, it was Strike Rouge that the ball hit, bouncing off the miniature machine's leg and rolling over to tap Cagalli's.
"Not bad," Cagalli said with a smile. "I gotcha..."
Kira chuckled. "You really didn't know this stuff was here?"
Cagalli shook her head. "It was dinosaurs and weird stuff back then. I guess when they rebuilt, they decided on this as a theme."
She stepped down onto the green and made her shot. Right into the cup. Kira followed suit.
"The next one is normal," Kira told her as the stepped onto the path again. There were bushes obscuring it, so Cagalli couldn't actually see anything, but since Kira had peeked ahead...
She was far more aware of Kira's arm around her waist, keeping her close. It wasn't bad. Not at all. Though this wasn't exactly the sort of behavior she'd expected. Unless...
Cagalli refused the thought. Kira was just playing along, even though she hadn't seen a flashbulb since they stepped onto the course.
By the time they got to the fourteenth hole, they'd avoided swinging PLANTs, battled aquatic mobile suits under the waterfall and even shot through a scale Archangel.
When Cagalli saw what had happened to the classic windmill, however, she couldn't help laughing.
"It's not that funny," Kira replied. Though a few seconds later, he was laughing as well.
While the basic framework for the windmill was still there, its facade had been enhanced with a large plywood cutout of Freedom. Instead of the windmill's blades, Freedom was spinning neon-painted beam sabers.
"Oh!" Kira dropped his ball at the tee and ran forward. "I didn't even see, but..."
While Freedom had the beam saber in the one hand, posed awkwardly so as to utilize the windmill's motor, the other hand had a rather undefined Cagalli.
"I'm going to pretend I'm not seeing this," Cagalli said. How utterly embarrassing. Especially considering everyone was going to be seeing this in the next weeks. This was going to turn into a total hotspot. Her entire nation was going to be seeing this minigolf hole.
"It's fun," Kira said as he walked back and then kicked his ball to the side. "Sorry, your turn..."
"I need to look at it..." The basics were still the same - hit the ball between the blades and it'd go into the windmill and through to the lower green. Miss and the ball would still keep going but it'd be routed differently and to a less preferable location. "Okay..."
She hit cleanly and the ball sailed right between the saber-blades and into the windmill.
Letting out a little victorious whoop, she ran forward to look for where the ball was going to come out. Kira ran after her, and they both watched as it sailed out a pipe down below the windmill and rolled straight into the cup. A perfect hole-in-one.
"Beat that!" Cagalli challenged him.
Kira smiled. "I can do that too..."
They both raced back to the tee and Kira made his shot, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The edge of a saber struck the ball and made it wobble just enough that it still rolled into the windmill. But... once they'd both ran down and waited, it didn't reappear.
"What now?" Kira questioned.
"Eh?" Cagalli replied. "I think there's a little door to go in and unstick your ball..."
Kira was right behind her as she walked back to the windmill and sure enough, there was a thin door with a cupboard handle on it. Inside the small space was a flickering bulb hanging from a bare fixture.
"Let's see..." Cagalli saw the trough that the ball should be in... while Kira's ball hadn't been knocked off course, it had slowed enough to get hung up at the curve of the main pipe. "I guess you can just tap it and I'll look the other way."
Kira chuckled and stepped over to it. "You can count it as a second shot. If it goes in, it won't really be a hole in one..."
"We'll see..." Cagalli stepped back and stayed quiet, listening to the windmill's motor creak and hum above their heads.
Giving the ball a little tap, it rolled forward and after a quick bounce, took the furthest right of the four possible tubes it could roll into.
"Not a hole in one," Kira said with a headshake.
"It's okay," Cagalli replied. "There are still four holes left."
"Yeah... Hey, you look really nice tonight, by the way."
"You're telling me that now?"
Kira nodded and before Cagalli had quite figured out what he was doing, he'd pulled her close again.
"Kira..."
"I'm sorry, Cagalli."
"For what?" She couldn't really see his eyes in the shadowy, dim light, but there was something in his voice that worried her.
"This."
Her eyes went wide when he kissed her, and then fluttered closed. She dropped her golf club between them and grabbed for his shirt to...
But she didn't want to push him away. Instead, she opened her mouth to the kiss and didn't hesitate to respond.
It took a particularly loud creak from the windmill's motor to separate them and then they jumped apart like the other had burned them.
"Kira..."
"I should see where my ball went," he replied quickly, rushing out of the windmill. Cagalli grabbed her club and followed him.
The ball had landed at an impossible angle to get into the cup. Cagalli wrote him down for a three anyway.
He didn't look at her properly until they got to the eighteenth hole - the ball return. Instead of the clown's mouth that Cagalli remembered, it was now a half-sized GINN head. Hitting the mono-eye won a free round.
Before taking her shot, Cagalli reached over and grabbed Kira's hand and squeezed it.
"Hey, this has been perfect," she said softly.
"All of it?" Kira asked. "I..."
"Yes," Cagalli replied firmly. "All of it."
She paused and tried to line up her shot.
"Maybe not having to get my ball out of the water three times, but the rest..."
Kira was quiet until her ball had missed the GINN's mono-eye completely and had rolled to land with the rest of the brightly colored balls that had been collected.
"Then you feel..."
Cagalli nodded.
Kira gave his own ball a hefty thwack and it hit the mono-eye dead on, which triggered a light and buzzer.
They'd obviously have to do it again.