When It All Comes Back To Haunt You…
By Flame Tigress
Quatre walked gently down the dark hallway, bare feet lightly tapping the smooth, wooden floor. He stopped at a cracked door, and peeped into the palely lit room. The large white room seemed barren and lonely except for a small, square window on the opposite wall, allowing natural lite to fill the white room.
It was the pilots' training room. It was originally set to be such, but only one solitary soul would actually use it while the others including Quatre, were off indulging in their own affairs.
Chang Wufei. He was the embodiment of the word justice. The one whom was possessed by the spirit in every waking moment; the one whom could rightfully capture it's movements if it indeed had taken a flesh form.
Quatre watched Wufei move across the room's smooth floors, setting it on fire with his spiritual dance. His skill; something so crafted and complex that it couldn't be seen, but only felt like heat from a thousand suns. The blonde felt like a child admiring his father's invincibility. He had wished to have his presence for his own; he had wished for his flame and grace more than one occasion; and he desired to read his thoughts and heal his internal ailments that he knew--he felt--were riddled with war scars and burning thoughts that often danced on a forked tongue. It was a wonder to what such intensity and such a battling spirit thought as he fought an invisible foe for hours at a time. It was one mind that Quatre knew the only way to know it's contents was to only ask the keeper.
Wufei suddenly stopped. He stood still allowing pale lite to trace and tumble over in blurry hazes over the contour of his tattooed back like an halo for an olive- skinned apparition.
It was the famous tattoo Duo had once described. The chestnut-haired pilot had once walked in on Wufei taking a shower, and profusely swore for almost a month he would knock before entering, every time he saw Wufei. Nonetheless, he was the first to ever see the permanent marks on his comrade's skin.
Quatre squinted his blue orbs in hopes to make it out for himself. His eyes focused on it instantly taking in the bright crimson red and burning sapphire scales of a guardian dragon fixated permanently in a protective stance, claws seeming to dig within the pilot's skin and wings dripping with cold pride. It was Wufei's spirit. His guardian.
Quatre then heard his hoarse voice, dry and cracked upon the cold, thin air like autumn's leaves. He whispered a word he couldn't make out. The blonde could've swore he said… Nataku?
Quatre swallowed hard. He opened the door, gently clearing his throat to let it be known he was there.
Wufei's head craned around with ebony eyes piercing through Quatre's sparkling blue orbs.
How foolish of me to desire power I could never handle… I'm made of calm waters, ever changing, he is made of onyx stone… I could never dream to hold a form for so long… to be solid.
Wufei turned his head back to the window, with a lifted chin pointing towards the blinding sunlite.
"Is there something you wanted to tell me, Quatre?" he asked in a dry, husky tone.
Quatre didn't notice that he had stood there watching him for a long moment, and quickly fumbled through his thoughts for a logical reason for why he was present.
You just didn't want to see him weak like that… a small voice mentioned awkwardly hushed within his mind.
It was true. He didn't want to see him weak. Not even for that brief moment. Not ever did he want to see a shell of faded glory; he didn't want to see his friend's spirit crack as it did before.
Quatre knew he couldn't tell him how he truly felt and how he wanted to help. Such aid to one who thought of himself helpless would only justify and add to the burden.
Wufei stood silently waiting for Quatre's answer.
The blonde pilot quirked his mouth to say something, but no words came to mind, but the truth.
"Well…um…I wanted to see you train, that's all," he said in a small, timid voice. He was hesitate to say anymore and couldn't if he tried. His stomach was churning nervously for fear that the dragon wouldn't forgive him for spying.
"Watch me train?" Wufei queried, turning towards Quatre, his voice unusually soft.
Quatre swallowed.
"Why yes… I came to watch you," Quatre said a bit stronger than before. "Why is there something wrong, Wufei?"
The Chinese pilot looked down on the floor, his face plastered in a morose expression with eyes glittering like polished onyx.
"No…it's quite alright, Quatre.."
Wufei slid his fingertips into the pocket of his white hakama pants, thumbing at the contents as if he were keeping a secret from escaping from through the thin cloth.
Quatre glanced at his hand, slowly moving his eye up his body until he saw his friend's eyes, cloudy and troubled.
"Wufei…I know something is bothering you, and by the looks of it, it looks as if you have no means to solve it. Maybe if you told me I could help…" The blonde spoke almost as a mother would with a child, in a kind, protective tone.
Ebony eyes flashed and burned as they looked at Quatre's transparent form, so small and unruly as it stood offering a funny, straw hand. A hand that was full of help, but was vulnerable to crushing blows…
//…Wufei held her cold, thin hand within his sweaty palm as hot tears streamed down his cheeks. He heard her breaths grow short and labored as he stared down at the pale green outlines of her veins, protruding around a piece of white jade enclosed around brittle finger…//
No, no, no!!
"You'll do nothing! Not you or anyone else can help me! Not even I can touch the past!!" Wufei yelled, clenching his fists at his sides.
Tears began to well up in his eyes and stung painfully with salt as he blinked them away. Pain spread like a fire, burning deep within his veins and throbbing at his temples.
"I'm a coward… I only fight things weaker than myself. I'm a dishonor to Nataku."
Quatre listened. All he could do was listen. This would probably be the only time he could hear Wufei express himself openly about what was in his head and what lie black in his heart. So he drank all of his words, and savored his feelings as if he were listening to God.
Then there was silence. It was loud and glaring, hurting both of their ears.
//…He slowly slipped the jade off of her finger, being careful not to cause her anymore pain. Her eyes glittered with moisten fear as she stared into Wufei's eyes as if it were the blackness of the universe that made stars fade from the sky. Her mouth was moving to speak, but her gasps grew even more labored and painful so that the pure wind of it carried her words away from any material plane. She glided her shaky fingertips into his raven hair and stroked a tear away from his red-flushed face with her thumb. She let her hand drop gracefully to his and squeezed her eyes shut to end the pain of her body and escape from it flesh cage and passed peacefully into sweet bliss mixed with a bright lite and Wufei's screams…//
Wufei's form became more relaxed as it began to slowly collapse onto the cold floor. His eyes were bewildered and blank, and his soul followed not too far behind. Quatre could only stare, frozen in time as moments whirled by his head.
Wufei tugged the content he was thumbing at out of his pocket and held it up to his face. It was a ring. White jade that twinkled in the pale, blue lite of the room like a piece of the moon.
Quatre kneeled beside him, examining the ring. So small and mesmerizing as it shone.
"It belonged to Nataku…"Wufei said calmly. "It was a gift to her."
"Her?" Quatre asked, surprised that Nataku wasn't a Chinese god or a hero's name Wufei had given his Gundam just as Heero took on his name.
"Yes. She was my partner, my lover, my--"
Quatre shook his head in confusion.
"So you were married, Wufei? She was your wife?"
Wufei turned to him and clutched the ring in his fist so that his knuckles turned snow white, as he thrushed it safely within his pocket, again.
"Yes…but she is gone, and it was all my fault," he whispered. "She died three years ago from a disease I knew I could've stopped, and because I could do nothing to help her, she suffered with each breath she drew into her weak body. It was pain she shouldn't have gone through and a death that was unnecessary, and I just can't forget it like I can't forget this war and the defeat I suffered from Treize like that defeat so long ago."
Quatre didn't know what to say. He had experienced lose, but they had all been in the midst of the wretched war, which allowed limited time to grieve. But it was as if he felt his friend's pain deep within his heart. He felt bruised inside , but didn't know what it was.
"But…it wasn't your fault , Wufei… it wasn't…" Quatre managed to whisper, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder. He could've swore he heard his thoughts. Buzzing aimlessly in the air and melting into a pool of black grief. He was drowning…drowning…drowning deeper and deeper. He looked like a scared child praying for answers, as his emotions bled through his skin and pooled into that same black grief.
Wufei's head swam anxiously in the silence. He heard his own, hollow voice taunting him as he knelt weak and full of questions. Why? Why?
Why?
And weak he fell. Thin and stretched like a slither of butter over too much bread. Wufei let the pool drown him as he screamed throughout it all… like the day she died…
"Why? Why, Quatre… I want her back so badly! She guided me from this dark reality; she was my purpose and I let Death take her beautiful soul for his own. Why couldn't he take me instead… why did she…" his word trailed as he bawled in his hands.
Quatre wanted to take it all away. The memories. The pain. The death. But he could only speak, and what good would it do if he was merely a whisper? What could he say to him? It was so frustrating not to be able to be the voice of reason & have the shadows sink, once again, behind the blinding lite of the truth. But now--now--the blinding lite was his damnation burning both of there skin, and for once in his life, he longed for the venomous dark.
Wufei plunged his head onto Quatre's chest. He sobbed to the rhythm of his heartbeat, and for once in his life, he allowed repressed emotions spin inside of his brain.
"Listen to me…" Quatre breathed sweetly into the air. "Please, Wufei, listen…"
The pilot gazed at Quatre's obscured form forlornly.
And it all comes down to such things in the end. Down to your weakness for not ending this, and his which keeps him from letting go.
The blonde drew in a sharp breath. Wufei could hear it whistling in his ears as he awaited, quietly, his judgment.
He realized how strong Quatre was. The form that was usually so small, towered above him like the sky; so clear and beautiful as he watched, and so willing to cover him in the wings of peace… like a dove.
Quatre's eyes were clouding as his brow furrowed in thought.
"Wufei, what are you so… afraid of?"
He could see the way his words had stung him, and turned away with a guilty wince, wondering what to say to him.
Pain was evident in the way he moved to sit.
"There is no one who doesn't bear scars on his heart. If there were such a person, they would be a shallow soul," the Chinese pilot whispered to himself, inaudible to Quatre's ears.
"I'm afraid of being helpless… it has usually may me strong, but…"
A sharp intake of air. A burst of pain. Wufei took a deep breath and released it slowly. He sagged wearily on the floor, heavy with a strange age about his soul. It was heavy as the creases of his soul was suddenly visible and tangible all at once.
"Do you understand?" he asked quietly, peering into Quatre's darkened face.
Closing his eyes and leaning back further, he felt like he'd been relieved of a great burden. Could he at least manage to finish this? The rawness of the memories, mingled with the self-loathing he felt, threatened to choke him.
"This feeling of failure, helplessness, just nothing less than hell, emotionally and otherwise… it's weak."
" Stop." Quatre cut him off. " You did not cause her death."
" I should have tried harder to save her." Wufei's eyes squeezed shut. His clenched hands trembled slightly. " If I could only have gotten her the proper help…"
" What happened wasn't your fault Wufei. You must trust me, please."
Wufei nodded silently, the old wounds seeming as fresh as though they had happened only yesterday.
Tears slid down the pilot's face and he cupped his hands over his face to hide his shame.
" I know that. So does she." Quatre gave him an empathic look. "In fact, I'd say the only one who doesn't know that is you." He kneeled down next to Wufei's face. "Is it the old memory bothering you? Or the fact that you never told Nataku how much you loved her?"
Wufei blinked at this new revelation, turning the question over in his mind and trying to fit it into his outlook on the whole situation.
Quatre put his hand on Wufei's shoulder and rose to his feet. He could feel his friend burn in the center of his own thoughts. He just needed another perspective; he needed another door to take out of that hell.
"You ok, Wufei?" Quatre asked after moments of silence passed. No response. "Wufei?" Quatre ventured. There was only the sound of his soft breathing.
The blonde decided to leave him. He needed to think things out for himself to make it work and to make the distorted scar heal on his soul. He paused at the door, grasping the wood of the frame between his fingers as if he expected Happiness to leak out of the crevices. But Silence and Grief walked around in agony like ghosts, padding across the wooden floors as loudly as they could.
"You lived for a reason …" he whispered and passed down the dark hallways in agony like an angel, fighting against dark fires.
The dragon steeled in silence. It was a monster much bigger than he. It was… just a dream.
//…Her mouth was moving to speak, but her gasps grew even more labored and painful… It's just a dream… She whispered that into the pain. Nataku glided her shaky fingertips into his raven hair and stroked a tear away from his red-flushed face with her thumb. She let her hand drop gracefully to his and squeezed her eyes shut to end the pain of her body and escape from it flesh cage and passed peacefully into sweet bliss mixed with a bright lite and Wufei's screams… Please wake up… Please wake up…it's just a dream…//
Death left him alone. Death made who he was. Death… and death took his love.
He looked up at the glowing, blue lite pouring through the small window, feeling his soul go beyond the atmosphere, space, and dance around the universe with Nataku.
Will you be all right? He heard Quatre whisper that in the back of his mind.
"Not right now," Wufei murmured softly, his eyes glowing. "But thanks to you, I will be."
End.
By Flame Tigress
Quatre walked gently down the dark hallway, bare feet lightly tapping the smooth, wooden floor. He stopped at a cracked door, and peeped into the palely lit room. The large white room seemed barren and lonely except for a small, square window on the opposite wall, allowing natural lite to fill the white room.
It was the pilots' training room. It was originally set to be such, but only one solitary soul would actually use it while the others including Quatre, were off indulging in their own affairs.
Chang Wufei. He was the embodiment of the word justice. The one whom was possessed by the spirit in every waking moment; the one whom could rightfully capture it's movements if it indeed had taken a flesh form.
Quatre watched Wufei move across the room's smooth floors, setting it on fire with his spiritual dance. His skill; something so crafted and complex that it couldn't be seen, but only felt like heat from a thousand suns. The blonde felt like a child admiring his father's invincibility. He had wished to have his presence for his own; he had wished for his flame and grace more than one occasion; and he desired to read his thoughts and heal his internal ailments that he knew--he felt--were riddled with war scars and burning thoughts that often danced on a forked tongue. It was a wonder to what such intensity and such a battling spirit thought as he fought an invisible foe for hours at a time. It was one mind that Quatre knew the only way to know it's contents was to only ask the keeper.
Wufei suddenly stopped. He stood still allowing pale lite to trace and tumble over in blurry hazes over the contour of his tattooed back like an halo for an olive- skinned apparition.
It was the famous tattoo Duo had once described. The chestnut-haired pilot had once walked in on Wufei taking a shower, and profusely swore for almost a month he would knock before entering, every time he saw Wufei. Nonetheless, he was the first to ever see the permanent marks on his comrade's skin.
Quatre squinted his blue orbs in hopes to make it out for himself. His eyes focused on it instantly taking in the bright crimson red and burning sapphire scales of a guardian dragon fixated permanently in a protective stance, claws seeming to dig within the pilot's skin and wings dripping with cold pride. It was Wufei's spirit. His guardian.
Quatre then heard his hoarse voice, dry and cracked upon the cold, thin air like autumn's leaves. He whispered a word he couldn't make out. The blonde could've swore he said… Nataku?
Quatre swallowed hard. He opened the door, gently clearing his throat to let it be known he was there.
Wufei's head craned around with ebony eyes piercing through Quatre's sparkling blue orbs.
How foolish of me to desire power I could never handle… I'm made of calm waters, ever changing, he is made of onyx stone… I could never dream to hold a form for so long… to be solid.
Wufei turned his head back to the window, with a lifted chin pointing towards the blinding sunlite.
"Is there something you wanted to tell me, Quatre?" he asked in a dry, husky tone.
Quatre didn't notice that he had stood there watching him for a long moment, and quickly fumbled through his thoughts for a logical reason for why he was present.
You just didn't want to see him weak like that… a small voice mentioned awkwardly hushed within his mind.
It was true. He didn't want to see him weak. Not even for that brief moment. Not ever did he want to see a shell of faded glory; he didn't want to see his friend's spirit crack as it did before.
Quatre knew he couldn't tell him how he truly felt and how he wanted to help. Such aid to one who thought of himself helpless would only justify and add to the burden.
Wufei stood silently waiting for Quatre's answer.
The blonde pilot quirked his mouth to say something, but no words came to mind, but the truth.
"Well…um…I wanted to see you train, that's all," he said in a small, timid voice. He was hesitate to say anymore and couldn't if he tried. His stomach was churning nervously for fear that the dragon wouldn't forgive him for spying.
"Watch me train?" Wufei queried, turning towards Quatre, his voice unusually soft.
Quatre swallowed.
"Why yes… I came to watch you," Quatre said a bit stronger than before. "Why is there something wrong, Wufei?"
The Chinese pilot looked down on the floor, his face plastered in a morose expression with eyes glittering like polished onyx.
"No…it's quite alright, Quatre.."
Wufei slid his fingertips into the pocket of his white hakama pants, thumbing at the contents as if he were keeping a secret from escaping from through the thin cloth.
Quatre glanced at his hand, slowly moving his eye up his body until he saw his friend's eyes, cloudy and troubled.
"Wufei…I know something is bothering you, and by the looks of it, it looks as if you have no means to solve it. Maybe if you told me I could help…" The blonde spoke almost as a mother would with a child, in a kind, protective tone.
Ebony eyes flashed and burned as they looked at Quatre's transparent form, so small and unruly as it stood offering a funny, straw hand. A hand that was full of help, but was vulnerable to crushing blows…
//…Wufei held her cold, thin hand within his sweaty palm as hot tears streamed down his cheeks. He heard her breaths grow short and labored as he stared down at the pale green outlines of her veins, protruding around a piece of white jade enclosed around brittle finger…//
No, no, no!!
"You'll do nothing! Not you or anyone else can help me! Not even I can touch the past!!" Wufei yelled, clenching his fists at his sides.
Tears began to well up in his eyes and stung painfully with salt as he blinked them away. Pain spread like a fire, burning deep within his veins and throbbing at his temples.
"I'm a coward… I only fight things weaker than myself. I'm a dishonor to Nataku."
Quatre listened. All he could do was listen. This would probably be the only time he could hear Wufei express himself openly about what was in his head and what lie black in his heart. So he drank all of his words, and savored his feelings as if he were listening to God.
Then there was silence. It was loud and glaring, hurting both of their ears.
//…He slowly slipped the jade off of her finger, being careful not to cause her anymore pain. Her eyes glittered with moisten fear as she stared into Wufei's eyes as if it were the blackness of the universe that made stars fade from the sky. Her mouth was moving to speak, but her gasps grew even more labored and painful so that the pure wind of it carried her words away from any material plane. She glided her shaky fingertips into his raven hair and stroked a tear away from his red-flushed face with her thumb. She let her hand drop gracefully to his and squeezed her eyes shut to end the pain of her body and escape from it flesh cage and passed peacefully into sweet bliss mixed with a bright lite and Wufei's screams…//
Wufei's form became more relaxed as it began to slowly collapse onto the cold floor. His eyes were bewildered and blank, and his soul followed not too far behind. Quatre could only stare, frozen in time as moments whirled by his head.
Wufei tugged the content he was thumbing at out of his pocket and held it up to his face. It was a ring. White jade that twinkled in the pale, blue lite of the room like a piece of the moon.
Quatre kneeled beside him, examining the ring. So small and mesmerizing as it shone.
"It belonged to Nataku…"Wufei said calmly. "It was a gift to her."
"Her?" Quatre asked, surprised that Nataku wasn't a Chinese god or a hero's name Wufei had given his Gundam just as Heero took on his name.
"Yes. She was my partner, my lover, my--"
Quatre shook his head in confusion.
"So you were married, Wufei? She was your wife?"
Wufei turned to him and clutched the ring in his fist so that his knuckles turned snow white, as he thrushed it safely within his pocket, again.
"Yes…but she is gone, and it was all my fault," he whispered. "She died three years ago from a disease I knew I could've stopped, and because I could do nothing to help her, she suffered with each breath she drew into her weak body. It was pain she shouldn't have gone through and a death that was unnecessary, and I just can't forget it like I can't forget this war and the defeat I suffered from Treize like that defeat so long ago."
Quatre didn't know what to say. He had experienced lose, but they had all been in the midst of the wretched war, which allowed limited time to grieve. But it was as if he felt his friend's pain deep within his heart. He felt bruised inside , but didn't know what it was.
"But…it wasn't your fault , Wufei… it wasn't…" Quatre managed to whisper, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder. He could've swore he heard his thoughts. Buzzing aimlessly in the air and melting into a pool of black grief. He was drowning…drowning…drowning deeper and deeper. He looked like a scared child praying for answers, as his emotions bled through his skin and pooled into that same black grief.
Wufei's head swam anxiously in the silence. He heard his own, hollow voice taunting him as he knelt weak and full of questions. Why? Why?
Why?
And weak he fell. Thin and stretched like a slither of butter over too much bread. Wufei let the pool drown him as he screamed throughout it all… like the day she died…
"Why? Why, Quatre… I want her back so badly! She guided me from this dark reality; she was my purpose and I let Death take her beautiful soul for his own. Why couldn't he take me instead… why did she…" his word trailed as he bawled in his hands.
Quatre wanted to take it all away. The memories. The pain. The death. But he could only speak, and what good would it do if he was merely a whisper? What could he say to him? It was so frustrating not to be able to be the voice of reason & have the shadows sink, once again, behind the blinding lite of the truth. But now--now--the blinding lite was his damnation burning both of there skin, and for once in his life, he longed for the venomous dark.
Wufei plunged his head onto Quatre's chest. He sobbed to the rhythm of his heartbeat, and for once in his life, he allowed repressed emotions spin inside of his brain.
"Listen to me…" Quatre breathed sweetly into the air. "Please, Wufei, listen…"
The pilot gazed at Quatre's obscured form forlornly.
And it all comes down to such things in the end. Down to your weakness for not ending this, and his which keeps him from letting go.
The blonde drew in a sharp breath. Wufei could hear it whistling in his ears as he awaited, quietly, his judgment.
He realized how strong Quatre was. The form that was usually so small, towered above him like the sky; so clear and beautiful as he watched, and so willing to cover him in the wings of peace… like a dove.
Quatre's eyes were clouding as his brow furrowed in thought.
"Wufei, what are you so… afraid of?"
He could see the way his words had stung him, and turned away with a guilty wince, wondering what to say to him.
Pain was evident in the way he moved to sit.
"There is no one who doesn't bear scars on his heart. If there were such a person, they would be a shallow soul," the Chinese pilot whispered to himself, inaudible to Quatre's ears.
"I'm afraid of being helpless… it has usually may me strong, but…"
A sharp intake of air. A burst of pain. Wufei took a deep breath and released it slowly. He sagged wearily on the floor, heavy with a strange age about his soul. It was heavy as the creases of his soul was suddenly visible and tangible all at once.
"Do you understand?" he asked quietly, peering into Quatre's darkened face.
Closing his eyes and leaning back further, he felt like he'd been relieved of a great burden. Could he at least manage to finish this? The rawness of the memories, mingled with the self-loathing he felt, threatened to choke him.
"This feeling of failure, helplessness, just nothing less than hell, emotionally and otherwise… it's weak."
" Stop." Quatre cut him off. " You did not cause her death."
" I should have tried harder to save her." Wufei's eyes squeezed shut. His clenched hands trembled slightly. " If I could only have gotten her the proper help…"
" What happened wasn't your fault Wufei. You must trust me, please."
Wufei nodded silently, the old wounds seeming as fresh as though they had happened only yesterday.
Tears slid down the pilot's face and he cupped his hands over his face to hide his shame.
" I know that. So does she." Quatre gave him an empathic look. "In fact, I'd say the only one who doesn't know that is you." He kneeled down next to Wufei's face. "Is it the old memory bothering you? Or the fact that you never told Nataku how much you loved her?"
Wufei blinked at this new revelation, turning the question over in his mind and trying to fit it into his outlook on the whole situation.
Quatre put his hand on Wufei's shoulder and rose to his feet. He could feel his friend burn in the center of his own thoughts. He just needed another perspective; he needed another door to take out of that hell.
"You ok, Wufei?" Quatre asked after moments of silence passed. No response. "Wufei?" Quatre ventured. There was only the sound of his soft breathing.
The blonde decided to leave him. He needed to think things out for himself to make it work and to make the distorted scar heal on his soul. He paused at the door, grasping the wood of the frame between his fingers as if he expected Happiness to leak out of the crevices. But Silence and Grief walked around in agony like ghosts, padding across the wooden floors as loudly as they could.
"You lived for a reason …" he whispered and passed down the dark hallways in agony like an angel, fighting against dark fires.
The dragon steeled in silence. It was a monster much bigger than he. It was… just a dream.
//…Her mouth was moving to speak, but her gasps grew even more labored and painful… It's just a dream… She whispered that into the pain. Nataku glided her shaky fingertips into his raven hair and stroked a tear away from his red-flushed face with her thumb. She let her hand drop gracefully to his and squeezed her eyes shut to end the pain of her body and escape from it flesh cage and passed peacefully into sweet bliss mixed with a bright lite and Wufei's screams… Please wake up… Please wake up…it's just a dream…//
Death left him alone. Death made who he was. Death… and death took his love.
He looked up at the glowing, blue lite pouring through the small window, feeling his soul go beyond the atmosphere, space, and dance around the universe with Nataku.
Will you be all right? He heard Quatre whisper that in the back of his mind.
"Not right now," Wufei murmured softly, his eyes glowing. "But thanks to you, I will be."
End.