Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 10 Seconds ❯ swallowed an anvil ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: For all of you wondering, yes, it is a real book, by the name of The Human Face by Brian Bates. Got it myself from Barnes and Nobles, if you'd like to know. Thank you to all the readers and reviewers, as well. Hope it remains as good as you hope ;).

Chapter 2 swallowed an anvil

We sit and eat in the cafeteria an hour later and I am still thinking about that book. I had put it immediately back after that passage. I had lost interest in reading, instead absorbed in my false memory of Duo it instilled in me. I look at him when he is not looking at me, cheerlessly digesting the cheap meal and twirling his fork in the freeze-dried mashed potatoes.

I am terrified, suddenly, to make eye contact with him, something I avoided even as I returned to the table, even as he woke to the bell and we left the library. I feel now that if I do, something terrible and unpredictable will happen, something that never happened before.

Whenever he looks at me, I look down at my plate. It’s full. I’m not hungry—I’m completely conscious of where his eyes rest and they rest on my face with unexplained heat. It prevents an ounce of productive work.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asks.

"Aa." I nod, so I don’t have to look him in the eye. "I’m just not hungry."

Duo gives me an appraising look, though his expression doesn’t change. "Are you sure? I mean, you’re gonna need your energy, and you’re not even really paying for this crappy food. You should eat up." He pauses and leans ever so slightly forward. I’m surprised that I can hear the slightest shift of his weight above my heart creeping into my mouth. "Yer not sick or anything, are you?"

I push a carrot with my fork. A sorry attempt to fool him. "No." I stab it and put it in my mouth and chew and swallow. But all the time I am thinking of him.

"You know, you do look kind of pale. You sure you’re really feeling okay, Heero? Need to rest up a while or something?"

"That’s alright," I tell him, hopefully hiding any anxiety behind a carefully measured monotone. I can tell his dislike for it, that automatic tone of voice, when his shoulders droop a little, the corner of his mouth drifting astray in discontent. "I don’t get sick. It’s just a trick of the light."

I tie up my mouth by taking a drink of milk—in hopes to avoid having to answer another question while my heart inexplicably drums against my ribcage—and get a glance of his face. My heart was already thumping uneasily, anyway. He’s hidden that disappointment in lack of response in his casual (contrived) smile. One corner slings back in a devil-may-care smirk.

But his concern has laid a hand around my neck, squeezing off the air, and I know it is still there even as I rest the empty glass and wasted distraction next to my full plate. What I cannot ascertain is why it has this peculiar affect on me and how another’s internal sentiment could be so physically palpable. I feel his eyes burn, suspicion rising, on my face.

With a sigh of resignation, he simply arches his eyebrows and mutters, "Well, as long as you don’t toss your cookies during the mission," and returns to begrudgingly eating his own tasteless lunch.

Duo and I are allies. We fight the same enemy. We come from the colonies, we share hardships of battle, neither of us have our childhood or youth to spend as we wish. I may have stolen from him, and he may have shot me, but we are not really enemies. I wouldn’t fight him given the choice. I can reasonably ascertain from his behavior that neither would he. So, logically, there must only be one other response if I were to look him in the eye for a prolonged time. If I look him in the eye for more than ten seconds, then he must fall in love with me.

It is my new objective, and I am determined to test it. I am determined to make him fall in love with me.

I wait cautiously until after classes have long been over, until we are withdrawn into our shared dormitory. My laptop remains untouched on the desk where I had set it upon enrolling and moving into this small space. Out of custom, I remain at the desk, while Duo lies on the bed on his stomach, bemoaning the useless nature of school. I turn my head to look at him. I’m eager to test my experiment, though I will not know what to do if it fails. To be honest I don’t know what I’ll do if I succeed, either.

I feel like I’ve swallowed an anvil—he’s not looking, but instead restlessly rising off the bed, eyes anywhere but where I want them. But he senses my movement and I sense his in response, turning his head to glance back at me, pinching his lips together, and scrunching his nose.

Compromised, I quickly bow my head to its previous position, hoping he has not noticed. The image of him is burned into my mind as I regroup and rethink my tactic. He watches me for a moment, still painted with that expression, then returns to his usual pattern of aimless chatter to fill the air. The first minor setback feels like burning failure.

I have suddenly been hijacked of my normal, confident and levelheaded manner and I am half myself, the desirable half receding into flushed fear of making a fool of myself. I do not realize then that I am already in the process. Should he glance back and see me, clumsily fighting for eye contact not normally afforded to me, I feel I might never forget the embarrassment, should he give me a strange look and ask offensively, either with his eyes or his mouth, just what I did I think was doing?

Nerves have arrived. I do not want to helplessly stumble in, I do not like feeling I have no control over the situation. So I decide to regroup before making any rash move—if only to soothe my wounded sense of confidence at this sudden affliction. This weakness that has come at me with no fair warning and taken the courage out of my very bones; this strange spell that I have fallen into at the slightest glance, solely because of the words of a book.

I sit silently there until he falls asleep.