Urban Hymns

Treize, Wufei. PG.
Wufei visits Treize after he’s been put under house arrest and acknowledges his role in their relationship.
2001 | 2340 words

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The soldier suspiciously examines my OZ identification badge, checking every possible letter in it and looking for any signs of falsification. He finds none. Of course he wouldn’t. Treize hasn’t become a General for being stupid enough to give me a fake ID. Nor have I become a Gundam pilot for being incompetent enough to not know how to pretend being what I’m not.

His suspicious eyes turn to me and inspect me from head to toes. I suppress the urge of ripping his eyes off his head with my fingers and simply stand there, a superior look in my own black eyes just to make him sure that I’m not any piece of crap like he is.

I am not.

I supposedly am an OZ Intelligence Special Private, under the codename Shadow. Shadow for the dark colour of my hair. Shadow for the dark colour of my eyes. Shadow for the dark colour of my uniform.

Shadow for the dark colours of my soul.

“And what is your name again, Special?” he asks.

The defiant tone of his words is irritating, he is trying once again to catch me in one lapse of attention. But I understand his actions. He is just a soldier who follows orders, and his orders are to keep the man who used to be his role model locked inside a room for today. He is just another confused soldier who doesn’t know who or what he’s fighting for anymore.

I understand him, but I will not lower myself to his level. I will win his game without a flicker, for that’s why he’s a mere soldier and I am an Intelligence agent.

Or at least that’s what the badge in his hands tells both of us.

“It is not of your position to ask me that,” I answer. “It is not of your position to question me in any sense, Private.”

He blinks twice before accepting that I am in fact smarter than him. Then he hands me the black badge and I shove it inside a pocket, as he dials a code on the electronic device that keeps his former General from the freedom he deserves like few else. I wonder who has he defied this time to get himself locked up.

Raisin my chin just enough to make this man realise what a waste his life has turned out to be and feel sorry for every little step he has ever taken -they will never bring him to be who I pretend to be right now, I walk inside a darkened room.

The door slides closed behind me, and I hear as the bars locks me inside. I stand in the dark, listening for any signs of a trap and forcing my pupils to adjust to the lack of light.

How ironic. I am a shadow standing in the dark.

My eyes slowly take in the shapes of furniture that I easily recognise. The large bed arranged with satin sheets, the wardrobe with one single medium-sized mirror, the desk and its stuffed chair. The computer turned off, the Chinese tapestry and the same beautiful paintings on the walls. The stuffed armchair and the side table, covered with a laced towel. A book, the eyeglasses, an ashtray and an empty brandy glass decorating the table. And, of course, the crystal jar full of roses. Red roses.

Everything in its place. His bedroom is perfectly reproduced, a measure to assure that the General is comfortable in his prison. The right kind of cell for an aristocratic criminal. Arrested for betraying the sordid ideals of traitors, nevertheless respected and admired by his confused men. Twisted, but it makes sense. No one knows anything anymore in this place.

At least I don’t.

Something inside me trembles. I feel good here, and I know why. I feel warm and home. Everything is so familiar and comfortable, every little thing around me has a touch of him, a sense of his presence. The room even smells like him… his natural scent of courage and honour, of strength and delicacy. Of a General and his roses.

I don’t need any light to know the colour of his flowers. Right now I could well use some light in this darkness to find out where he is, but I don’t really need it. My trained senses are enough for such a simple search.

I can hear his low and erratic breaths coming from the armchair in front of me. I’m little surprised by them, I already knew the insecurity inside him. I sensed it from all distance, lying in my bed and reading a book he gave me. I sensed across light-years the exact moment he arrived here and realised the painful irony of it all… I sensed the cold mask of his arrogant face, hiding the shattering of his passionate soul.

He’s facing a closed window that I failed to notice before. I sigh in relief at the realisation that he’s willingly in the dark. Until now I had thought that they were doing this to him. That they were forcing him to face the shadows, forcing him to face himself. Knowing that he’s doing that willingly doesn’t make things better, but at least I know it’s his choice, his own choice.

I can’t see him, but I know he’s there just as he knows I’m here, standing still in the same place I have been for the past minutes.

“Treize.”

He doesn’t answer at first, he doesn’t want me here. He knows I understand him.

“What brings you here?” he finally mutters.

I have to tell him, lying is pointless. “I thought you might need me.” It hurts me to know that he’s afraid of me. It hurts me to think that he’d rather be alone than with me by his side.

“What makes you think that I need you?”

He says it coldly, trying to push me away. But I am not leaving. “Things have turned out strangely… you’re not in control anymore, your plans have been-”

“Who says I am not in control? What do you think you know about my plans?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what goes through your mind.”

I never did, never will. I may feel his pain, I may sense his confusion, but I know nothing of his thoughts. Sometimes I think it’s better this way.

“I am in control. Paths change, but my plans are adaptable enough.”

I know the truth in this words. He’s capable of that. He’s capable of things I consider impossible. That’s why he is who he is, and I am who I am. But even being who I am, weak and unsure, confused and inferior, I do not have to accept what is happening to him.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” he reminds me.

“I know.”

He’s been betrayed. He’s been misunderstood and unacceptably condemned for mistakes he never made. He’s been turned back and discarded like a replaceable part of a frightening complicated engine. He’s been hurt, he’s aching, and yet he’ll have none of my help. And that makes me ache too.

“Why are you here?” he asks again.

I think to myself that maybe he doesn’t want me to ache. He doesn’t want me in this, being a part of what he’s being forced to become. He knows me too well for my own sake, but there is little I can do. He sees right through me, while I struggle to catch glimpses of logic in him.

I walk to the armchair and find him cross-legged, hands joined above his lap. Between long fingers, a single rose rests against his chest while his head is downturned, the brownish bangs covering his shadowed face. I suppress the urge of holding him against me and keeping him warm.

“You always hold me when I’m hurt,” I answer, “You always know when I need you. What if this is my time to hold you?”

“I do not need your pity, Wufei.”

His voice is still cold, his eyes still downcast. He’s deliberately hurting me and he knoes I’m aware of that. Perhaps there is no logic in him. Perhaps his logic is far too complicated for me.

Perhaps I was wrong when I stood from my bed and decided to see him. Perhaps he is not afraid of me but simply tired of the obstacle I represent. Perhaps I felt what wasn’t there, I read in him fear that has never been there. Perhaps he really doesn’t need me. He is much stronger than I will ever come to be. Perhaps the reason why he won’t face me is not what I thought it was. Perhaps he’s not avoiding me, he’s simply discarding me like he has been discarded. Perhaps I should leave now.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have come at all.

He still breathes lowly, quietly telling me to leave him alone with his roses. I still stand, there’s not a part of me that wants to do what he wants me to.

This can’t be, he is not like that. Maybe I can’t read him like he reads me, but I do know that he’s not well. He’s confused too, like any of us. I can sense it inside me, I can it feel it through every cell of my body. So why is acting like this? Is denying someone who knows more honourable than simply admitting your fear?

“Why are you here?” he asks for the third time. And it hits me.

Honour.

I take a deep breath, finally understanding. I should have seen it, I should have guessed. I was wrong all along. I was wrong when I assumed that he needed me, and I was wrong when I assumed that he didn’t need me.

Hmph. Honour.

If this is his what he wants, the only way he’ll play the game, then I must respect it even if it tears me inside. If he wants me to be the weak so he can play the strong, if he wants to follow the old path and heal wounds I don’t even have anymore so that through me he can cure himself… if the best I can do when he needs me is to need him even more, so be it. If this is the role that I am destinated to play, then let the game go on. But I am not leaving.

I’m not giving him up.

Lying is not honourable either, but who cares about that when Treize Khushrenada is asking you to lie about your own strength in order to save his sanity? I do not. I should not.

“I came because I missed you,” I answer, the lies coming out of my mouth bitter like bile, “It was childish of me to think you would miss me too.”

No answer. I wasn’t expecting any. I turn around and head to the door, playing well the part of something I am not, but stop dead on my track as I feel his strong grip on my wrist.

He stands up and the grip loosens until he’s just gently holding my hand. He slowly turns me around, and as he lifts my chin up, I see his perfect blue eyes for the first time in many weeks. More weeks than I can count, or want to remember.

And I realise I have been so absorbed and focused in finding him and reassuring that he is still the same upright man he used to be and that he shall go on with his ideal, whatever it is, that I hadn’t realised something else. Something I hadn’t thought of until the moment I saw his eyes staring into mine and understood that look: I did miss him.

And deep inside, I did wish that he missed me too.

I reach for him and caress his face, then let my hands rest in his hair before bringing his lips to mine. And I sigh in something akin desperation as he embraces my waist and brings me protectively closer, repeating the routine we’ve silently established. But my sigh is lost between our joined lips, and I resolutely accept my fate.

I’m not a traitor. I’m not fighting for my own reasons or anyone else’s. I don’t even know why I’m still fighting. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

I am a shadow being held in the dark.

I keep my eyes closed and lean against his familiar chest, seeking comfort in someone who can destroy me. I don’t trust my voice, so I can barely whisper.

“Will you ever let me be stronger than you?”

I feel his head shaking against my shadowy hair and his lips brushing against my forehead. “One day. When we both find out that it’s too late for me.”

I don’t answer. Instead, I accept what he is giving me. I take his friendship, his trust and his strength. His power, his love and his faith. His self and all the things he is not. If this is what makes him whole, there’s no more I could for.

I look into his eyes again, wanting to know but too afraid to ask. He nods in agreement, and my heart can feel the relief in his. I can still sense the pain, but pain is something innate on a warrior. You can never have enough of it and you can never get rid of it, so you just learn to live with it.

He’s still confused, but so am I.

He’s still not sure of what to do next, of how to be stronger than those who try to bring him down, and I’m still unsure about my place in this scenario. But he’ll surely figure out a way to his wild dreams of victory and justice, while I’ll eventually let myself be driven to believe in something worth killing or dying for.

That’s the difference between us. That’s why he is everything he is - and I am only what I am.

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