I don't know
what possessed me to use that name. Out
of all the vast entirety of human nomenclature that spanned a planet, five
colony clusters, a moon, and a space fortress, it was the only one I could
think of. I sat at my computer,
adjusting the files responsible for getting me enrolled and paid-up for
classes, and there was only one damn name chorusing through my skull like a
corrupted soundfile. Duo Maxwell. I could have been Tom Smith, Jon Li--hell, I
could have been Jesus if I wanted to, that would still be less questionable
than using my own name.
But the only
one I wanted to use was his.
I think I was a
bit fixated. Okay, who am I kidding, I was fixated. It wasn't entirely the way those intense deep eyes held me while
I tried to decipher the secrets I was sure were hidden in them, or the way his
hair fell so adorably into his face, or the little pout that twisted his lips
when he was hurt...though that was part of it.
So was the lingering memory of his fingertips brushing my face, and the
way he looked so small and fragile when he turned and walked away. He wasn't
fragile, he was probably the strongest person I'd ever met, and that was what
attracted me to him. He was beatiful,
unbelievably so, with a surreal beauty that wasn't quite masculine, wasn't
quite feminine--hell, I wasn't really sure it was quite human. But Duo...he was
human, exuberantly so. He embraced
everything I had been taught to condemn, reveled in his mortality, indulged an
almost psychotic addiction to feeling. Yet, while this should have made him the
grossest of liabilities, he was as capable a soldier as I was. In some ways, he was better. He could appear from the shadows and fade
back into them, no lock was safe from him, and the manic gleam in his violet
eyes when things exploded around him was enough to send a shiver down even my
spine.
I had no idea
what had happened to him when he left me.
I might have told him--and myself, for a while--that I didn't care, and
it was better we didn't keep track of each other anyway. Nobody can give away information they don't
have, right? But I wondered. I wondered every night, in that dazed stupor
between being awake and being asleep, if he was thinking about me. If he regretted what he'd said, or what I'd
done, or if he'd given up and moved on and forgotten all about me. It would serve me right--after all, he
couldn't possibly know. How could he? He had no way to tell that everything I'd
said still haunted me in the private moments I couldn't defend myself from,
mocking me like the trite recitations of ridiculous propaganda that they
were--how many times I'd thought I'd seen him, as I turned a corner,
disappearing into a crowd, or the way anything in that particular shade of
purple would make my stomach tighten with longing at the memory of his eyes.
It was so
easy. For a while, I would be him. Laughable, now--as if anyone else could ever
be Duo.
I tried,
too. I remembered how easily he'd fit
into our last school, how girls waved at him and boys clamoured to be seen with
him, how he had a smile for everyone and a wave as he passed. His smile was always brighter for me--he
made no secret of it. I thought it was
because of what we were, the only two souls in our shrinking world that
understood our mission. But it was more
than that; I think it was even more than what he claimed it was. He recognised that I more than anyone else
needed that smile, needed to feel accepted.
He wanted to make me feel like less of a monster, and that terrified me
more than his tentative kiss. And now
when the fading memory of both the smile and kiss still lingered in every
wayward thought I did my best to emulate him.
My greeting speech to my new class was a sermon of battle and peace, and
I could feel their eyes burning holes through my skin as I read it--I forced
myself through until the sensei stopped me.
She said it was inappropriate. I
wondered if she would have said the same, if it had been Duo? But he wouldn't have said it like I
did. He wouldn't have to. He didn't need to plan speeches, he just
opened his mouth and words came out, and sometimes they were ridiculous and
other times they were profound, but you knew damn well that it was what he
really believed right then.
I could imagine
it, if I closed my eyes--Duo, braid swinging, radiating sensuality without
realising it, prancing up to the front of the room with a smile that took over
his entire being.
No...there was
no way I could ever be Duo, not even for a day. I'd borrowed his name, but I could never hope to even understand
him. After last time, he probably
wouldn't even give me a chance to try.
...Would he?
~Owari~