(Posting two chapters in a row, please vote! The votes really aren't coming in. Xiao Ran would soon pilot an MS and sortie again—what kind of machine would it be this time?)
Xiao Ran knew very well that Andrew Waltfeld had already learned his and Kira's identities, and had probably confirmed that Kira was the pilot of the Strike Gundam. Whether the three of them continued hiding their identities no longer mattered, since both sides already knew. They could play dumb or pretend to be clueless, but the crucial thing was that they absolutely could not openly state their identities. As long as they did not say who they were, Xiao Ran and Kira were merely civilians, friends who had helped Andrew, with no reason to be enemies.
But if the opposing identities of Earth Force and ZAFT were laid bare, there would be no more reason to play dumb. What would replace it would be the deadly conflict between factions—responsibility, duty, a fight to the death. Of the three present, Xiao Ran and Andrew both understood this perfectly well, while Kira did not quite grasp it.
So Xiao Ran could only ease the atmosphere again, temporarily steering away from any topic that might cause conflict. He tried to find common ground through conversation, and Lacus was the first possible point of commonality he brought up.
Smiling, Xiao Ran set his cup on the table and settled into a comfortable, relaxed posture. "Because of some rather special circumstances, Kira and I spent some time with Miss Lacus as well. We got along quite well."
"That must have been a very pleasant experience," Andrew said, nodding slowly as a faint smile returned to his face.
"Things before we met Lacus were hardly pleasant," Xiao Ran said with an easy shrug. "But