Kissing You

By Haze

Inspired by the song "Kissing You" by Desree, which can be found on the "Romeo and Juliet Soundtrack."

Our silence was not comfortable. Our company was not friendly, was not compassionate, was not secretly fascinating. Our time together was simply of circumstance and of unmemorable events.

Sinking slowly below the waves of dark blue that I had hoped would be fathomless, shame consumed me. Perhaps, thinking back, it wasn’t even shame so much as a bitter self loathing. It stung more than contempt because it was more like failure than anything else. I didn't want anyone to see my eyes at that moment as I suppressed the dreaded emotions I thought I had schooled out of me. My hands hung limp, their fingers boneless and full of skill and training that I didn't deserve.

I rejected my humanity that day and my heart beat its final rush of real blood. My only goal, my tunnel vision, was to avenge my defeat and delete Treize from existence. His callous hands threw lives away as if they were confetti; his private party of war. The fashionable ideals were his costume, his diplomatic airs the masquerade; one day I would crack that mask and quietly see myself redeemed. The world would never know Treize Khushrenada for what he truly was, his true identity lost in propaganda, diluted by the mouths of brainless followers.

Trowa had looked down at me from his Gundam, nothing in his gaze but thoughts of practicality and of what lay ahead for us all. I never thought he understood my reasons and intentions. HeavyArms stared at me, growing distant as I let myself fall from the surface. Nataku was silent, taunting me about my failure. Her arm had shot out, thrusting itself into the inner chamber of Treize's residence in a great brutal strength. I had raped his safety and darted down the arm, intent with a sword in my hand.

He had surveyed me with calm, steel blue eyes flickering with intrigue, as if he was surprised that I was expecting a duel. It was then that I knew Oz thought us crass terrorists bent on conquest, as if we were a child demanding his every with and desire.

I swallowed my heart and my anger, knowing before we even began that this would not end here. My arm tensed, all grace slipping away from me as violent, rash infuriation consumed me. It stripped away my patience, rubbing me raw until I let my eyes show my fury.

When his sword tip was poised at my throat, he could have killed me, but he never finished it. I had been spared, and with the gaining of my life my soul imploded.

I sat in the Gundam crushed, myself remaining only because my shattered pride has toppled in such a way that it still stood. I was propped as a bombed building holds up its skeletal remains by pure chance; broken, smoldering and hollow. I could comprehend neither up nor down, neither north, south, east nor west. I was directionless, I was nothing, I was sinking and breathing out of grudging habit. The cockpit sweltered, the air made warm and sickly as my lungs dirtied the oxygen and spit out carbon dioxide.

I awoke in a bed. Light pressed its weight against my eyes, and I swear, they painfully shrank with the pressure. I sat up jerkily and blinked, forgetting where I was for a moment.

As I regained awareness, I saw Trowa on the floor, a mound of slight body hidden by blankets. He stirred, looking up blearily at me, his eyes half hidden and still coming away from the clutches of sleep.

It was his bed. He had afforded me kindness, and I resented it. But I was part of his world for that moment, so I said nothing. He merely blinked, then rolled over to shut his eyes and let sleep reclaim him.

My first meal with him was a watery concoction of soup made by his circus companion Catherine, but she was merely a passing presence, a piece of Trowa's world. We ate in silence, staring into a fire that cracked quietly. For days we ate the same diluted sustenance and watched the same fires slowly fade away, descending into glowing cinders that tried desperately to retain their heat. Like me, they all grew cold.

There was never anything to say; we barely spoke. My training consumed me and he didn’t ask me why, he didn’t console me. We existed apart, knowing each other only as pilots with a common cause. I knew him as a background presence after that, doubting him and his validity, distrusting of his and Quatre's close friendship, suspicious of his motives after he saved Heero.

It was later, near the end of the war, that I could finally admit I suspected him because I didn’t understand him. That fact tied in me in knots. Duo I could see through, Heero's intensity was logical, Quatre's empathy and kindness expected. But Trowa never had any rhyme or reason; a clown, a soldier, a savior. His eyes were dead and yet he seemed to be in a constant paradoxical pain. But it was a pain that couldn't be noticed until you stepped back and took the time to look at him as a whole. Only did I realize that I had done just that, when one day on the Peacemillion, I was so lost in my thoughts that I had forgotten to concentrate on my revenge.

Trowa had invaded my thoughts.

I found myself in the meeting room of the Peacemillion, where Trowa and Duo were having a chess match. Before I knew what I was doing or the possible repercussions of my actions, I jumped in and claimed Duo's queen with one of Trowa's pawns. Duo squealed in astonishment, and my eyes met Trowa's for the briefest of moments before the gaze was broken. Surprise had flickered across his features lightening quick, his eyes lighting with expression so fast that as I blinked as they grew dull again.

No one else noticed us at that moment. Us, as if "we" were ever united in any way. No, we were not- not by friendship, not by understanding, not by commonality. Unification wasn't necessary because I was slowly coming to understand myself, understanding my fascination with Trowa's silence and his impassive demeanor.

I kept my promise; I defeated Treize. Yes, I cut him down out of space, but nothing surged inside of me. I remained cold and falsely docile. He was a tyrant, dishonorable and trite; his pretty words and pretty face dismissed us all. He had the blood of millions on his hands, and I administered justice. My hand was Nataku's hand, my heart was her heart and for a few moments I was whole, complete.

Then he told me how many had died for him, and he was the first person to look at me in understanding. His face was marred by the static of my cockpit's screen, his skin smeared with man’s sweat, but he could not have been clearer at that moment than any other, because at that moment, Treize Khushrenada was me.

I was staring at myself.

When his mech exploded, bursting into a million parts, it was silent as I experienced it from behind the protection of my window. I died with him and space was spared from hearing the tiny "no" that slipped out of my mouth. The syllable spun around the cockpit crazily, and I was numb, the screaming in my head dying and leaving nothing. I never thought so tiny a sound could change someone so greatly as that single word changed me. Then there was only silence, nothing but silence.

Back on Earth they celebrated and I slipped quietly away from their jubilation into the abandoned base. It echoed my footsteps, once filled with the purposeful stride of soldiers, laying temporarily abandoned now and I fit into its emptiness easily. Like a skeleton barely able to walk, I found myself going somewhere I hadn't planned or thought about.

My feet led me to the hangar and I stood in the doorway, staring up at Nataku. I hadn’t been thinking about anything, but just looking. My body collapsed onto the unfinished floor, exhausted and spent. The white of my clothing was dirty and a chill seeped into my bones.

Footsteps padded in softly behind me a few moments later and I sensed Trowa walking towards me. I was up on my feet in seconds, looking at him. That moment, right then, is how I will remember him for a long time, his expression of slight surprise etched into my memory because it was the first time that he had reacted so naturally. Everything about him had seemed rehearsed until now, and it was then that my own absurdity struck me. I’d never noticed... he was beautiful.

Don't misunderstand; I don't say that in a romantic's tongue or with sentimentality. It was just an obvious fact that hit me, blunt and simple. Racking my brain, I searched for something in my memory that was beautiful.

Meiran: she was not beautiful, but proud and strong. Everything I had ever known, everything I had ever considered, ended up having its importance stocked in how it was just or divinely natural.

But Trowa's beauty was simple, un-complex, and stark. There was no reason for it, there was no symbolism in it, there nothing divine about it. Looked at it in a certain light however, when I stopped trying to find reasons for everything, I realized that this was the one of the only truths that I had ever fully understood.

He stood in front of me, surprised at my presence, and I realized he was intent on paying HeavyArms a visit. His face held expression for the second time since I had know him, and I lunged forward.

I kissed him with tender lips, the touch of a scholar I had thought I smothered and killed long ago. He pulled away from me, his rejection almost violent, and his eyes flashed with shock. I looked at him for a moment, my eyes distant and uncaring. But he came to me, pressing his body to mine and I realized he was trembling. My hands, my scholar's hands, the hands of a boy once only stained by ink and not by blood, lightly clutched his shoulders.

Our faces were inches apart, and he closed his eyes against my gaze tightly until his face contorted. I followed suit, and we understood each other by touch, knowing both our eyes were too deadened to save this moment from disaster. I saw him with my hands and experienced his simple beauty with my fingertips. I touched him, my other four senses acting as my vision and his breath caught in his throat. I'll never know if his eyes were closed the entire time, but mine were as I blinded myself for both our sakes.

Now, as I stare up at the black star encrusted sky through a window, my Preventers uniform stiff around my body, I remember what beauty is. And at last I sleep, alone, the world silent once again; nothing but silence stretching on endlessly into the night.

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