01-Sep-2000
Title: "Title wa nan desu ka" (for now... HELP! I need a title!! Yes, GWMLers and DHMLers, that's a HINT!!! *nudge nudge* Tasukette!!) Part One
Author: Ryan Harbin
Disclaimer: Standard... You know it... >.<
Author's pre-rant... (Yes, mine are generally long...)
Yes, there is shounen ai... May progress to yaoi, even. I have a scene thought up... Muahahaaaaa!! Maybe I'll mail this to Dan, just because! Anyway... Yes, I'm planning on Relena-bashing. So, if you value the freak, this might not be the fic for you. if not, please read! I'd love it! For instance, if you're the webmaster of the 'My Lovely Relena' site. However, I'd love to talk to whoever wrote that Wu Fei/Relena Duo/Heero fic. It entertained me...
Oh, as for some of the names and places....
Random MLer: You turned to random places in your dictionary, didn't you?
Ryan: ^^;; Ano...
MLer: DIDN'T YOU??
Ryan: Ko- Kowaii!
MLer: -.- Answer the question.
Ryan: Well... Ano... Hai! *runs off crying*
I apologize if they're spelled differently sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if the eeeevil spell check got to them! ¬.¬ And I can be fairly inconsistent in things like spelling and capitalization anyway. ^^;;
Warnings: Alternate Universe, yaoi/shounen ai...
Anyway...
Sometimes I just watch them. The Crown Prince, I mean. And the Captain of his guard. The Prince's sixteenth birthday is approaching, a very important time simply given the name 'Juu roku.' Original, I know. My own is soon, as well, but, as my father sent me to be ambassador, he is probably judging marriage candidates on his own. Well, it wasn't only his decision. I kind of went when he didn't, in the end, need me to. I needed to get away... I'll probably return and be married to the ten year old princess of some adjacent province. It's amazing how, in so many thousands of years, our society maintains arranged marriages... Often.
The Crown Prince... He has a strange, sad story. Each member of the royal family in given a prophecy upon the day of their birth, in the only magic still allowed in the land. The king's, apparently, was that his first son would kill him by his fifteenth birthday. I hate to say it, but there's one word to describe the king: Despicable. The line has been a great one until him, and luckily the prince has not seemed to inherit any of the king's bad habits, his carelessness and selfishness, his greed. The prince will be a great king, if he lives that long. Plots against the king are not few, and, although no one has attacked the prince yet, it cannot be far in coming. However, I can say that his guard, at least the captain, is loyal to the death, and will do anything to protect the prince's life. The prince truly is a wonderful person. The hardships dealt him in life have done nothing but make him a better person. But, to continue... Needless to say, the king was considerably disturbed by this. Upon the birth of the prince, the king promptly abandoned him somewhere in the city, leaving it up to two men he didn't care about, and then, as rumor goes, killing them. The uproar among citizens and government alike was quelled swiftly by the information he had on several high military leaders, information they didn't want to get out.
However, once the prince's fifteenth birthday had passed, the king ordered that he be found. The queen had recently died, without leaving another heir, male or female. The king is soon to be remarried, but he was, at that point, insecure over a recent plot and decided his one hope was the prince, fifteen as of a few weeks ago. It took over a month with the whole army searching. The prince had been abandoned only a few days after his birth. No one knew what he looked like, anything that would help the search. However, he was eventually found, and the one who found him was made the Captain of his Guard, mainly because the Prince had apparently become attached to him. I don't know why... he's very cold, he exudes and aura of detached not caring. Basically, the very opposite of the prince. Well, I can hardly judge the prince... I suppose I'm guilty of rather the same thing.
The Prince has adapted marvelously. No one knows much about his past, except that it wasn't good. The people were outraged at what the king had done to his son, the exact image of his mother, right down to the big blue eyes and lovely hair. I admire him greatly. He could make the whole kingdom mourn his past, but he chooses not to, to keep it to himself. He hides it well. Much better than myself, and that's saying something, especially I don't actually have as much to hide. But still... That's saying something. I don't speak of my own past, mainly for one reason, much more selfish than that of the Prince: I don't think anyone would care. That's one thing the he has going for him... The one the Prince loves definitely returns his feelings, whether either know it or not. As for me, I'm not sure the one I love can love... Although I do hope. Rather dumb of me. However, I try not to be the one to wallow in self pity. Although I do pity the Prince... Maxwell-kotaishi is being forced to pick a bride, while the one he truly loves is standing not three feet away, yet is still out of his reach. Sometimes I hate our society.
Duo Maxwell surveyed the area around him. 'The destruction,' he thought somewhat bitterly. Of his own life. He looked to his right, where his father sat on a lightly raised throne. Trying not to show it outwardly, he inwardly seethed at the man he didn't want to believe he came from. it made him shudder just to think about. What that man had done to him... What he had done to his country... His mother! Oh yes, he knew the rumors. He himself might not be the person people would discuss it with, but Heero was, surprisingly, quite a big circuit in the chain of secrets. Heero hadn't wanted to tell him, but once Duo asked him, he'd told him. Supposedly, his mother didn't, in fact, die of whatever plague had been going around at the time. And, he realized, looking at the man to his right, he wouldn't put it beyond the king to kill her. He resisted the urge to jut withdraw, to curl his knees up to his chest and bury his face. He was thankful for that, at least. He didn't look like his father.
He was unaware of the world until he heard a thump from right behind him. he looked up, not even realizing he had dropped his head.
Slightly behind, to the left, stoic and silent as ever, stood the Captain of his guard. He hated having the guard. Couldn't walk five feet without six unwanted people following him, armed to the teeth. 'Well,' he corrected himself, 'five unwanted people.' Heero... Duo realized Heero must have kicked the back of the chair or something. he was looking at Duo, with what, to most people, would be his normal detached glare. But his eyes - 'Kami-sama, they're so beautiful...' - showed something more. Duo, who was getting pretty good at reading the minor variances in Heero's face - 'Mainly from staring at him so damned much...'- couldn't tell at all what it was. Basically, he was angry, tired, or happy... 'Nani kore...?'
He didn't realize that he and Heero had been simply staring at each other until he heard a gruff hack. He looked over to see his father staring at him pointedly. Anxiously he affixed a smile to his face, willing the flush out of his cheeks, and turned to greet the next 'probable,' as his father so disgustingly put. A blond girl of barely twelve, obviously extremely nervous. She looked like she was about to cry as she stepped forward.
"Ano... Maxwell-kotaishi... Ano...' she trailed off miserably, he face burning red as he was sure his had been few minutes ago.
"Ma, ma!" he said. "I don't bite!" She managed a small smile.
"A- atashi no namae wa Seria desu... Seria of Koubunsho." He smiled genuinely. "Well, Seria-san, have fun at the party" He leaned forward conspiratorially, whispering so that his father couldn't hear.
"Although personally, I'm not, cause I can't get to the chocolate cake. Do you like chocolate cake?"
"Hai!" She nodded happily, coaxing a quiet laugh from him.
"well, how about you go have some for me? It shouldn't go to waste with all these... Old people, ne?"
"Hai!" she giggled happily, and fairly bounced away after bowing, smiling the whole time. Duo waved to her before subsiding back into his plastered grin to greet the next girl. He could still see Heero's eyes, burning with a feeling he couldn't identify. he heard the same thump again, and grinned sincerely as he remembered why exactly he had chosen to come back here, to this polluted sea of backstabbing and deceit, where the only reason he was still alive was because of the stranglehold his father still had on many high officials. He hated it, detested it with all his being. Except for one thing. Or person, as it may have been.
Heero Yuy watched as Duo receded into the mask after the girl - Seria - pranced happily away. He smiled inwardly. Duo had that way with people. The happiness he exuded was infectious. Sometimes Heero wondered if, had he not known the truth, that same aura would have affected him. Maybe. Sometimes it did despite the fact that he knew how miserable Duo was here. He was trapped. He had none of the freedom he'd loved despite the environment it was in. Sometimes he hated himself for that, caging the bird, for forcing Duo to invent the mask, the cheerful lie he used so often now. It was his fault...
However, in a strange way, that mask was evidence of one of the best things about him: How he didn't want anyone to suffer because of him. Heero was one of the few - 'Still living...' - people who knew what had happened to Duo; Why he'd taken the name Maxwell and not Unshinau, the name of his father; Why he'd kept that name despite his father's displeasure. Duo kept his agony to himself... It spoke volumes of his character, but was also destroying that same character. Sometimes Heero felt like taking him by the shoulders and - No... That would be nothing but a quick way to being a crossing guard at the furthest away preschool. He didn't want that - At least here he was close to him. But still - Sometimes...
He didn't realize how long he had been absorbed in his thoughts until he heard Duo calling him. 'Kuso!' he berated himself. 'You're not paying attention! Someone could have walked up and - '
"Oi! Heero!" Duo was calling him again. He focused his eyes to see Duo's face inches from his. His eyes widened. 'Don't...' A strangely excited expression came over Duo's face.
"Yatta!" he cried. "I did it!"
"What?"
"Surprised the great Heero Yuy!" he skipped happily in a circle around Heero, then grabbed his arm a bit below the elbow, still skipping as he led him out. Heero was forced to quicken his pace to keep up. He almost smiled. Yes, Duo was definitely getting to him.
End Part One
Hmm... Shorter than I thought it would be. Geez, it was about ten pages handwritten. And I actually don't like it much outside of the Quatre rant at the beginning... Chikusho...
>.<
Anyway... What'd you think? C&C is good!
Post-rant:
Yes, I have been readin too many fantasy novels. And the sci-fi anime I'm watching (Brain Powerd, Outlaw Star, Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Berserk...) isn't counteraffecting a bit! Maybe it's all the Fushigi Yuugi... Going straight to my brain! So this is the result... A total alterniverse. And yes, only the very first bit is first person present. I generally don't write like that, but it felt right there.
BTW... I'd like to thank Misha-Chan (the mild-mannered ^^;; Patricia by day) for the 'great, another one' look when I presented the idea. FINE! From now on I'll ask MEGHAN! She's my twin, anyway! ^__^
Ryan Harbin
Please send comments to: rioroute_vilgyna@yahoo.com