30 Things They Should Have Done But Didn't

30 UNkisses challenge, like 30 Kisses but not: 30 themes, 30 shots, any length, any pairing, of 30 times or places they could've should've might've kissed, but didn't. ZxN-centric. Drop me a note or a comment to suggest your own prompt!

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Gundam Wing © SOTSU AGENCY - SUNRISE - ANB
This is a work of derivative Fanfiction. No claims are made towards the ownership of intellectual rights pertaining to the metaseries.

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28 Dec, 196 (#001 Dress)

Lucrezia Noin has never learnt to be a woman. Her parents were stalwart Businessmen who viewed all their children as mere commodities, and she herself has never really known different. She was recruited into the illustrious Lake Victoria Academy by the Romefeller Foundation at age six and groomed as a soldier ant until graduating near the top of her class at age twelve, following six years of general education with an additional focus on mech piloting, all very typical of children in her social caste.

The next three years were spent in Basic and Combat Training. She would have completed it in two, had it been possible, but OZ had a strict "no skipping" rule when it came to their Specials-qualifying recruits, a policy which fourteen year-old Noin just couldn't get. By the time she was eighteen and training cadets of her own, that ruling made a whole lot more sense. Kids are temperamental morons between the ages of fourteen to sixteen. The soul-crushing routine of OZ's militant Training kept them well-occupied and well-out-of-trouble.

But, she was digressing. Where was she? Oh yes; Lucrezia Noin has never learnt to be a woman.

Which isn't to say she was a virgin at age twenty and a half, God no! That ship had sailed some years ago in the competent hands of a well-recommended Host Club gigolo. He was a great guy. Funny, patient, easy to be with. They still go for drinks sometimes, when she's in his area. What it means to say is, she has never, to the best of her knowledge, ever, bothered to pretty herself up.

She tried not to scowl now as Relena Darlian ploughed determinedly through a pile of voluminous dresses dumped unceremoniously on her bedroom floor, looking for something that would fit. A good part of the problem was how much broader in the shoulders and flater down the bodice Noin was compared to the little Vice Foreign Minister of the Earth Sphere United Nation.

"What's wrong with that one?" She asked with a sigh as Relena held it up against her for the third time before tossing into one of several other indistinguishable piles of dresses.

"Too bluey, I don't like how it looks against your eyes."

"And that one?"

"Too princessy, wouldn't work with your hips." Relena was a whole other world of bossy when it comes to things like these, she is finding out.

Noin rolled her eyes, though her hands slipped subconsciously to check the shape of her hips. They were firm and narrow, with just a little extra padding from the soft living she has endured recently accompanying Lady Une around on her political schmoozing circuit. The joints were loose and supple, the glutes were lean and strong. Good hips for dragging through the mud under enemy lines or diving across a field of flying bullets.

"Why can't I just wear this?" She waved dismissively along the length of her body, indicating what she was already wearing.

Relena glared. "You can't go to dinner at DuBois in jeans and a men's shirt!"

Darn, she was hoping Relena wouldn't notice the latter. It was a very nice shirt, other than the buttons being on the wrong side for her gender. Grey silk, loosely draped from the shoulders, fitted snug around the midriff and finishing in three-quarter length opera sleeves.

"These are nice jeans," she protested half-heartedly, "there's crystals and embroidery on the pockets and everything,"

"I'm sure my brother would prefer to see you in a dress," Relena reasoned, using the sweet Vice Foreign Minister Darlian tone she reserved for difficult old men.

"Come on, Lucrezia, don't pretend you're not enjoying this a little," Sally Po entered the room armed with a pair of hot ion irons and some kind of large, nasty-looking spiked thing that looked more like a medieval weapon than an ordinary women's hairbrush.

"I don't," the intended victim complained. "It's just dinner; it's just Zechs. I don't understand what all this fuss is about."

"Hah," Sally scoffed with a slightly off-colour smirk, "I've seen that Zechs. Men like him don't do 'just dinner'. You'll want to look your best."

"Tch. If Zechs wanted me in a dress, he would have sent one."

Three hours and only ten minutes late later, Zechs stood outside the prestigious DuBois restaurant and surveyed his sister and Sally Po's handiwork.

They'd done things to Noin's hair — unspeakable things that made it fall and crest in permanent windswept waves against her cheeks and neck. Her bare shoulders rose out of a daisy yellow silk-and-chiffon dress held up by two thin ribbons sewn to a v-shaped collar of the same material embellished with crystals set in a sunburst design. They'd painted her eyelids delicate hues of gold and purple and lacquered her lips in pink gloss until it resembled a frozen virgin rose.

The first thing she said to Zechs was "She's your sister. This should have been you."

She looked dead and miserable inside. He smiled, only partly sympathetic.

"I should have sent a dress."

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