Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Different Circumstance (Arc) ❯ #12 - Epilogue: Upturned Earth ( Chapter 12 )

Duo hadn't wanted to come at all.

 

In the bright, hot sunlight, he stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, hearing but not listening as the funeral bearers lowered the coffin into the ground with punctuations of huffs and a smattering of hissed Mandarin and dialect. The perspiration dripped from his brow, and he reached up absently to rub it away.

 

Had it really been a year since Heero had left, since the day he'd first set eyes on Chang Wufei? Duo remembered everything with startling clarity; he didn't seem to be standing here, in the present, at all. He looked at a white marble headstone, and saw only the silhouette of a striking young Chinese man, backlit by the blinding yellow lights overhead of the bar counter. He'd only caught a glimpse then, one memorable image seared into his mind, as he'd gotten up hastily and darted after Heero.

 

Heero's eyes had been dead when Duo had finally caught up to him where he was sitting in the car, fingers clenching reflexively around the steering wheel. Heero hadn't said anything either, merely looked through Duo as if the other man hadn't been there, and then he'd driven off, leaving Duo alone and stunned in the carpark.

 

The next time they'd talked, it was as if the matter had never happened.

 

But Duo hadn't been able to get Chang Wufei out of his head.

 

It'd been ridiculous, he reflected, how he himself had become fascinated by the very thing he'd rejected in the first place, for Heero's sake. Duo had gone back to the bar the next weekend, and then the next, and he'd gone the next after that, too. He established a pattern quickly, knew Wufei always dropped by on Fridays, right before the start of the band's second set, and Wufei most usually always ordered whiskey shots. Duo was observant like that.

 

He'd told himself that he simply wanted to see what sort of man Heero had been taken in by. He'd told himself that it was only to make sure, in person, that it was a desperate, clingy degenerate of society, wanting to take advantage of Heero's position and money.

 

On an impulse, early on, Duo had tried to talk to him. Chang Wufei. The man had given him a once-over and then politely toasted him with the whiskey that Duo had ordered for him, before asking, in a low voice that made a warm shiver play up and down Duo's spine, if he was 'the Duo Maxwell of Umbra Corporation?' Duo had confirmed it, feeling relieved and finally vindicated at the proof that here was a trickster, a cheap whore, waiting to seduce all manner of rich men alike.

 

He'd been expecting advances, but Wufei had snorted and tossed back his drink lightly, muttering something that had sounded suspiciously like, “Always the celebrities. Story of my life.”

 

That had been it.

 

Duo had retreated, and from then on, watched Wufei from a corner of the bar every other late Friday night.

 

Obsession was too strong a word, and addiction had all the wrong connotations. But Duo hadn't been able to stop himself; there'd been no denying, even to himself, that he'd been captivated by a virtual stranger, a man who'd nearly destroyed his best friend's life.

 

Perhaps it was in the way Wufei would sit, fingers playing idly with a cigarette, gazing up at the dark ceiling as though he could see the stars in the sky. It might have been how Wufei always sipped the whiskey with his eyes closed, tongue tracing and savoring the heavy taste on his lips. It could even have been how Duo had caught Wufei singing, once, an old song under his breath, the words fading in the volume of the crooning from the singers on stage.

 

It might have been looking, as greasy hands pulled the lithe body to dance, and observing as the bartender's forehead wrinkled in obvious concern as she wiped the glasses and kept an eye out. It definitely had something to do with the clothes, all muted dark colors and softly form-fitting, hugging a slim strong breadth of shoulders, a sinuous curve of spine, sharp juts of hip, down to the swell of firm buttocks.

 

Duo had always felt unbearably dirty whenever he woke up with Wufei's name a moan on his lips, his fantasies sticky and wet on the sheets and on his hands.

 

No. It wasn't difficult at all, to see why Heero had fallen.

 

Then one day, Wufei had stopped coming to the bar.

 

He wondered briefly if he should have called Heero, let him know. But he'd swiftly decided against it. There would have been no point even if Heero had known, and it would probably also have been an unwelcome reminder at this stage when Heero was still trying to rebuild his personal life.

 

The final rites were performed, the last words said. The few mourners, the bartender, an elderly couple, a young boy, began to scatter. As Duo turned to go, he spied a tall shadow hovering just out of sight next to a slender tree.

 

He felt an inane jealousy as he stood there for a moment, watching the solitary figure.

 

Because even if Trowa Barton might not have loved Wufei the deepest, he'd at least had the chance to love Wufei the most. And it shouldn't have mattered to Duo.

 

But it did.