Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ 10 Seconds ❯ eons in their own right ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4 eons in their own right

It becomes a chess game, I feel, this new obsession fallen upon me. But I am the only one aware of the players. I discover just how vigilant I am when I notice every hair-thin movement of every vaguely familiar color, figure, or hint of resemblance in the crowed room. I travel in such manner through the rest of the morning and my feet take me along while my mind is constantly away, picking through the faces around me like an ever-growing card deck, searching for one discarded joker.

It is somehow not a feeling I like, with each alien face a weight added to that growing sensation I can no longer call curiosity. Curiosity does not make something cold and heavy but hollow drop in to the pit of my stomach, dragging something jagged through my throat, every time I swear to catch a glimpse of Duo only to move on to the next, hoping this time to be right. But I never seem to be, and the moments between the bells have become eons in their own right, millenniums with kings and kingdoms of anxiety seeming to oppress and destroy. They pass in a fleeting eternity, only to be followed by another, and yet again another.

For as long as I can lucidly remember, I have been drilled and washed with physics and theorems, but I cannot even comprehend this strange warp in time as my feet take me through the halls, guiding me to my next class. And it is fully all Duo’s fault. I think I might have been angry with him, if it were not my only thought at the moment to discover where he had gone.

Duo is capable, beyond any other adjective. Capable of gentle, smiling deceit, and screaming, silent retribution. And capable of making anyone believe he is capable of any particular feat at any time.

The bell calls out over head. Pre-Colony History 101 awaits. I dread it now, in that same, inexplicable, unfailing way that also compels me to pause at the door to the auditorium where this massive class and stare out at the hallway. It is only one hour before lunch—students brim to the very walls, forming a talking, walking river seemingly impossible to cross at certain points.

I don’t doubt his ability to fend for himself—it is just the same as mine—but time erodes this confidence I have about him. The longer I go without hide nor hair of a message or glimpse of him about his normal haunts, the more the level-headed part of my mind recedes into some histrionic drive of worry. Yes, now I can surely assign a name to this feeling. Even though I don’t like it, that is what it must be.

I’m going to kill him for doing this to me, I swear.

And then, my heart is again abruptly crawling into my mouth, and for a moment I trace Duo’s path through the bustling crowd before me without registering it, dazed. My eyes follow him and my mind floats, distanced, simply absorbing the image. Strange, hot adrenaline shoots through to my fingertips, then I blink and my mind catches up. He’s weaving silently through the crowd, eyes fixated ahead of him as he moves purposefully between the civilians. Going somewhere. Somewhere, which happens to not be our current class.

"Duo—"

Some strangled sound comes out of my mouth, but not nearly loud enough for him to hear. It is some echo of my thoughts, where his name has been terrorizing me for some time this morning. A halfway sound.

He knows I am here. Duo is smarter than that, I know, but he doesn’t even acknowledge me, standing there, brushing the doorframe and watching him intently.

Why doesn’t he turn and look at me?

Not even for a message? The briefest of glances could tell me all I really needed to know—though at that moment, I feel a pang, realizing I would want more—but I am denied even that. It is entirely unfair, and completely selfish of him.

I deserve to know what he’s been doing and if he’s somehow jeopardized our covers. I deserve more than what I’ve received, standing here, motionless, and tracing his disappearance around the corner, with naught but my new, histrionic self to gape in his wake.

I dislike this completely.

But I follow.

I am suddenly more tired than I have ever known. It seeps into my very bones and mixes oily with the strange, taxing sensation already lying there, courtesy of my comrade himself, when I nudge open the dormitory door. Duo does not stir—he remains sitting on the bed, motionless, facing the opposing wall as if it were telling him some great secret. The slightest tilt of his head, and he glances at me over his shoulder. It pins my throbbing heart against the wall, that lifeless expression he gives me, tinted with the tiniest twinge of dissatisfaction. Lips cemented together unhappily, lids heavy and apathetic, old lines appearing in an old face—this is not the Duo I’ve seen before. This is not the kind of Duo I want to witness, either.

He turns and watches the wall after that.

I am abruptly lost as to what I should do next. The distant, cold violet of his eyes inexplicably wraps an equally cold hand around my throat, just squeezing off my heart, which has steadily climbed as far as it can safely go by now. My stomach marches and flips over and marches back again within my belly. I enjoy the feeling even less now. It’s all dread.

I feel almost stupid, standing there, hands at my side, just watching him, but nothing comes to me. I only turn to shut the door silently behind me, but after I accomplish that, I am just as perplexed as I was to begin with, but now I am trapped with that confusion, and Duo.

"Duo." I somehow can’t bring myself to ask him what he did. The key part of my cardiovascular functioning is currently pinned to the wall behind me, so perhaps I can’t be completely to blame.

He blinks at that sound but pays it no real mind. When I remain motionless in a fixated spot of terror and dread, he only rustles slightly on the edge of his bed. His arm moves, then comes the gentle metallic chink of a lighter catching flame and, bowing his head, takes a cigarette from the pack surreptitiously pinched between his thighs. The long braid of hair currently curled up on his shoulder lolls down over his back as he moves, and takes the first, long drag from his cigarette, flicks the lighter close, and remains silent.

I try again. I am nothing if not thorough. "Where were you?"

Not a response at all. Now I am becoming rather dissatisfied with this behavior of his. If only he would give me more than some precursory glance, laced with a small but growing contempt, something I have not earned nor truly deserve. But the silence lingers on. I have not hated the lack of Duo’s voice so much—not even as much as he has hated the silence on my part.

I squint at the glowing orange tip I can see past the curve of his jaw as the cigarette slowly dies and empties its ghost into his lungs. I really wish he wouldn’t do that, as the first whiff of nicotine drifts my way in the confining walls. I wish he wouldn’t harm himself so intentionally.

It’s not like you need something else to help and kill you.

Duo whips his head around, cigarette pinched hatefully between a pair of lips set crookedly in his head, marring his normally youthful, favoring expression. He stares at me, boring me open once again in that effortless way. I can’t breathe at all, and my heart has stopped beating, for it is still skewered on the wall. For a moment, the color of his eyes kills me—much brighter than before that damned book—and then it is contempt’s turn to do so, for he grimaces at me. And it kills me again.

But I couldn’t have said that out loud. Or did I?

And then, I notice the discoloring circling his left eye that serves to accent the violet in his gaze.

He stands up and an angry stream of blue-gray smoke plumes out the corner of that grimace. He tosses the pack of cigarettes to the bed with a highly displeased flick of the wrist, and shears his eyes away from me. "Don’t worry," he grumbles at me, stitching his brows together, stalking away from the bed, "I didn’t jeopardize the goddamned mission."

And that’s when he chooses to slam the bathroom door behind him, effectively landing another shot into the cavity in my chest for no apparent reason.