Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass.

Author Notes: Well….. this isn't a serious story but rather just kind of musings that keep on repeating in my head. Sorry for not updating the other stories but things have been hectic lately. So this is my way of showing I am alive.

Proud, Kingly

When Suzaku first met Lelouch, both of them were very young. But Lelouch always seemed older despite being scrawnier and thinner than Suzaku. Suzaku reflected that there was a kind of wisdom (a kind of understanding, horror, sadness) in his eyes that were only present in the eyes of elders like his father or in the eyes of people who carried the weight of the world on their shoulders.

But Suzaku had been able to chase away that haunted look from Lelouch's eyes for a few moments. (he had gotten Lelouch to smile and laugh along with him)

Then things took the turn for the worse.

Neither of them laughed or smiled anymore.

(how could he help chase Lelouch's demons away when he was sure that he himself was the Devil?)

The last time he saw Lelouch was when he was sitting on the funeral pyre of his father (on the death he had caused) and Lelouch looked at him with the same sorrowful eyes lit with determination.

"I swear Suzaku, I will destroy Britannia."

Suzaku wanted to shake his head, say something, anything to stop Lelouch from being consumed by his anger but he kept quiet.

(who was he to talk when he killed his own father to save his friends?)

Lelouch is not as composed the next time he meets him. But there is still a touch of arrogance and pride in the way he stood.

Suzaku muses that despite Lelouch hating his father and Britannia he still couldn't deny that it was the same blood that flowed through him too.

Suzaku notices the way Lelouch acts at the Academy. Despite the various antics that Milly is always up to, Lelouch always seemed to maintain some semblance of cool and calmness.

(but his eyes still have the same sorrowful look Suzaku had first seen all those years ago)

(but he does notice that in the presence of their friends the shadows in the violets eyes recedes and nearly disappears)

(not completely but enough for him to be happy)

As Suzaku watches as Lelouch sits atop the throne with an arrogant smirk and cold, cold (yet still strangely sorrowful) eyes he cannot help but think that it was where Lelouch had always met to be.

It was what Lelouch had always meant to be.

A King.

Suzaku was sure that he was the only one even among their allies who could still see the defiant, determined and broken little boy he had befriended all those years ago behind the carefully constructed façade of the Demon Emperor.

(the boy that was tired of everything and just wanted it to end)

(the boy with sad and sorrowful eyes that had just lost his mother and nearly his sister)

Not the so-called Demon Emperor that didn't seem to care about all the death and destruction he caused or the amount of sons he had taken away from their mothers.

Suzaku was sure that it wasn't Lelouch vi Britannia the 99th Emperor he had forgiven but Lelouch his friend (with sorrowful violet eyes)

Maybe they were both one and the same.

But Suzaku knew that Lelouch never look more proud or kingly then the day he died.

(after all who else but a king could greet death with a smile just to save his people?)