Chapter 76: A Late Meeting
"Sign here if you agree." Loran pointed to the blank space at the bottom of the document, "I have managed the best terms for you, and this is the only thing I can do for him."
Lacus was dressed as a young woman in a black mourning dress. She held the pen for a while and hesitated, but couldn't help but ask, "Can't you really find him? Maybe Inle just fell into the atmosphere? If you look for it again, if you look for it again …"
Loran turned his head aside, "Officially, we will announce his MIA, but we have confirmed it via other reliable channels. Sorry, it may be cruel to say this, but he probably had been burned to ashes in the atmosphere."
"… I see." Lacus exhaled with a reluctant smile, "I'll do what I can, and that must be what he expects."
"I'm sorry." Even Loran himself didn't know why he was apologizing. He took Lacus's signed papers, "Welcome to join us, Miss Lacus, no, Mrs. Lingus."
"Loran Cehack, explain it!" The door to the room was pushed open hard and C.C. walked in with an angry look on her face, she glanced at the other woman in the room and just ignored her existence, "What's with the government appointment? What's up with the so-called Mrs. Lingus?"
Lacus surveyed the pretty woman with green hair and an aura of indifference, a very different type from herself. The two had never met before, but she immediately understood who this was.
"It's just a matter of maximizing the benefits, it's the best choice that can be made after losing him." Loran was unsurprised by the sudden intrusion, "C.C., you and he are impossible, you and I both know that very well, so I never approve of your relationship."
"It's possible!" C.C. ignored Lacus and walked straight across to Loran and continued, "Lilith said he's not Lilin, not Lilin! Do you understand?"
"Not Lilin?!" Loran stood up at once and stared at C.C. with his eyes wide open, "How, how is that possible? Isn't that…"
"Go back and ask your wife if you can't figure it out." C.C. took a deep breath to calm down, "Forget it, there's no point in discussing this now. He is dead."
Loran just stood there for a while, and after he came back to his senses, he took something out of the drawer and handed it to C.C. with a complicated look, "By the way, this is from Londo Bell, it has a record of his last call. There is no practical use, you can take it back as a souvenir."
C.C. took the small device and pressed the play button directly, and his familiar voice rang out in the room. The audio was edited so that no one else's voice appeared, "…Amuro, now you have the nerve to ask me what I'm doing here… I believe your sister … C.C. is my waifu she is so cute and lovely I will smash his dog head if anyone dares to object to it!"
The recording wasn't long and was quickly played out, followed by an eerie silence in the room. The scene should have been hilarious, but no one in the room laughed.
C.C. was silent for a while and looked over to Lacus and let out a sneer, "Mrs. Lingus, now his everything is yours. Are you happy now?"
Although Lacus could not understand what she was saying, the malice in her words could still be distinguished. She figured out the meaning of that sentence and stared at C.C. without flinching, "I'm doing my best to protect what he left behind, what you think is your freedom."
"From the secretary to Mrs. Lingus, and by the way, receiving his entire financial and political legacy, well, you just perked up quicker and had better luck." C.C. turned toward the door, "Ade really found a good strong woman for himself. Good luck and I wish you a promotion."
Loran seemed to want to say something to Lacus, but she shook her head to stop him, "Let's get back to business. Speaker Karn has fulfilled her promise, and the first thing we need to do is convince the outside world that Anaheim can function without him. The designs he left behind earlier are locked in the office computer, and I need to know Alice's birthday …"
In the late afternoon, Lacus returned home dragging her tired body - she had hardly slept for the past two days. Mineva sat restrainedly in a chair in the living room, saw Lacus return snapped and ran all the way to her, pointed to the closed bedroom door, and said nervously, "There's an aunt--"
"I know, she's not a bad person." Lacus stroked Mineva's little head, "Hungry? You can do your homework for a while, I'll make dinner."
Mineva dwelled for a while and went back to her room to do her homework while Lacus started to prepare dinner for three. After the meal was ready, Lacus knocked on the door of C.C.'s room, and C.C., who received the signal, came out and rightfully sat down at the table and began to eat.
"It tastes pretty good, it's been practiced with a lot of effort." C.C. took a taste of the food, "So one of the means is this, I see."
Lacus knew she would be targeted for anything she said, so she simply fell silent in response.
"Sister Lacus." Mineva couldn't stand the atmosphere and ask, "When exactly will Uncle Ade be back? The teacher said there will be a parent-teacher conference next month, and every student's parents have to attend."
"It may not be possible to make it next month." Lacus smiled gently, "If possible, I can go-"
"There's no coming back." C.C. interrupted her coldly, "Ade is dead and can't come back."
"C.C.!"
With a bang, Mineva's cutlery fell to the floor. Her eyes turned red in an instant, her mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, and she held back her tears for less than five seconds before they broke out in a flood. Mineva did not ask the words "is it true", she was already smart enough to get the answer from Lacus's reaction.
"The one who killed Ade was Char Aznable." C.C. simply ignored Lacus's reaction and chattered on to herself, "Aznable was arrested for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Crimes against humanity, can you understand? If you do not understand, go back to search it in the dictionary. He just escaped from prison yesterday, and now he is missing, and there is no way he will come back to you."
The little girl cried even harder.
Lacus hurriedly went to Mineva and squatted down to hug her, heartily stroking her cheek, "What good is it to you to do this? Even Ade -"
"Ade is very fond of her, I know." C.C.'s face was expressionless, "So you're going to make up a new reason for her every month? Don't tell me that's how he raises his kid. How can such a kid join the Pioneers?"
"How do you know?!" Lacus jerked her head up, "He said that once, and I don't even know what that means …"
"He would have said something like that if it was him, how could I not know?" C.C. put down her cutlery and sneered, "Mrs. Lingus who doesn't know anything, why don't you ask the magic conch?"
"Is there any point in you showing this off now?" Lacus looked at her sadly, "It will only make the person left behind suffer more, right? You're torturing me and torturing yourself at the same time, why bother?"
"So what? So I just sit here and shut up? This house is already yours, is the next step to kick me out?" C.C. looked at her provocatively, "You don't need his things anymore either, right? How about giving them to me? By the way, I'm the first in the line of succession for Anaheim shares, how embarrassing."
Lacus just held Mineva and shook her head repeatedly, refusing to answer.
Looking at Lacus who didn't retort at all, C.C. suddenly felt bored. She got up and walked back to her room, closing the door heavily.
Lacus looked in the direction of the bedroom for a while, and lowered her head to comfort Mineva in her arms. The little girl was just growing up, and it took her a lot of talking to get Mineva to finish her dinner. Then, Lacus began to clean up the table after the meal, and Mineva silently went back to her room and took out her workbook with her eyes red. C.C. only ate one bite of her meal, and Lacus had to pour away the food that had been wasted.
At night, Lacus lay on the familiar bed, holding Mineva and singing to her in a low voice. The little girl sobbed in her arms for a while longer, until she was tired of crying and finally fell into a deep sleep with the song. Lacus could see that the little girl was finally less hostile to her, but the price was a little too high.
She carefully let go of Mineva, afraid to wake her, and then gingerly went to the living room. The young girl threw her body onto the sofa casually, found a comfortable position, and stared at the darkened room in a daze.
She doesn't know how long it has been, maybe it was a few o'clock in the morning, but she heard the bedroom door open. Then a figure passed by her, went into the kitchen to make some noise, and came back to sit next to her.
"… Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?" Lacus asked after watching C.C. in silence for a long time.
"You are not boring enough to act sad here to gain my sympathy, right? This kind of tricks will only be able to fool him." C.C.'s expression could not be seen clearly in the darkness, "I am not going to change rooms with you, there is no way to sleep in that room."
"Don't you understand that very well?" Lacus muttered. "You know what, he's-"
"Mayu said it."
"… Oh."
C.C. was silent for a moment, then suddenly spoke, "Are you pregnant?"
"… No."
"Useless." C.C. paused for a moment, "Maybe it's reproductive isolation."
Lacus didn't ask or refute, and there was another embarrassing silence.
"It's all like that at first, just get used to it. Time is cruel, and anything can be forgotten." C.C. broke the silence again, "Change the environment, meet different people, and you'll naturally figure it out after that. Some may take a few months, some may take a few years, but it will always pass, that's the rule of thumb."
"I'm going to keep it here." Lacus's tone was firm, "I'm going to protect what he left behind and what he holds dear."
"… It seems he wasn't too blind." C.C. muttered to herself, "I… I can't stay in this place for another day. If possible, I will move house."
"Aren't you leaving?" Lacus immediately added, "It's not to drive you away, it's just-"
"I will leave, and I don't want to see you." C.C. got up and walked towards her room, "I will leave after teaching that little girl to be what he thinks she should be."
Lacus was alone in the living room a few hours longer until it was almost dawn when she tiptoed back to bed.
"Sister Lacus," Mineva suddenly hugged her, which startled her, "Didn't you sleep?"
"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
"No." Mineva shook her head in her arms, "Don't be sad."
Lacus tightened the little girl in her arms, not knowing what to say.
"You all said Uncle Ade died." Mineva looked up at her stubbornly, "I believe him, Uncle Ade promised me."
"Mineva …"
"If he can't come back the next month, there's the next next month, and the next next next month, and the next next next next month, and the next year." Mineva's tone was full of confidence, "Uncle Ade will come back, he promised me."
"Then you have to study hard." Lacus pressed Mineva's head back into her arms to keep her from seeing her expression, "Or Ade will be angry when he comes back."
"I got good grades, and my teacher praised me."
"That's great." Lacus bit her lip, "She's not right, not at all."
"…Sister Lacus?"
"My life is only so short, how can I forget him in such a short life?" She stroked the back of Mineva's hair compassionately, "Well, I will never forget."
