Chapter 35
In an instance, the background light faded, replaced by colors and texture, coming all together to form one large picture screen like in the 1) omimax theatre. Wufei watched with fascination as his memory brought together the many differing colors, giving it shape and meaning, while the sounds gave the images life.
Then he saw himself.
He was standing in the same field of flowers, west of his house, before a tombstone he knew all too well. In one of his hands he held his wallet, in the other, a stem of wildflower. He watched as the silent figure gently laid the flower at the tombstone base, lightly brushing against the words, and when he finally straightened up, his posture was more rigid than before.
Then gentle fingers touched his shoulder. Looking up, he found himself looking into his wife sad eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking away as she did so. "I thought my death wouldn't be such a burden on you."
But then, he surprised her by smiling. "Why don't you wait for me to speak over there?" he answered, giving her a lazy, confident look through slit eyes.
Then the figure at the tombstone began to speak.
"I know this is stupid to put the flower here when you're obviously residing in Shenlong," he spoke, placing a hand on his hip. "But if I do that and do not clean away the flower properly once it has decayed, that means I have to dismantle the whole chest just to get at that one dirt. I hope you understand because this is all your fault that I am here." Once those words were said, he turned stiffly around and marched out of sight, leaving only the picture of a lonely tombstone among a field of wildflowers, all of them swaying gently in the breeze.
Meanwhile, Meiran had snatched her hand back from his shoulder, looking highly offended.
"You jump to conclusions too fast," Wufei smirked, keeping his eyes directed at the screen. "Why would your death affect me?"
But Meiran walked over to stand next to him instead, looking at the picture herself.
"Pian Zi (liar)," she whispered softly, tears filling her eyes, "All these scenes are the memories that weigh most on you. They make up the barriers keeping you here because you are too afraid to wake up and find reality as it is."
"Afraid? Who's afraid? I show you who's afraid!" Wufei shouted, taking a menacing step towards her. But he couldn't deny to himself that Meiran's words had struck a nail in his heart.
"Really?!" she shouted back, looking him bravely in the face, her face screwed up with determination. "Then what is with the need to visit my grave with that flower and that wallet with our photo together?"
That immediately stunned him. He hadn't been expecting that. Instead, he had been hoping to intimidate her into silence. Suddenly, his dead spouse seemed too near and he retreated a few steps back.
"Well?"
"I . . .I . . .," he stammered, his brain working full-time to think up an excuse, a reason, anything that didn't make his heart beat so hard and quickly as his wife accusations did. Seizing on the first rational excuse he could think of, he answered: "I was just doing my duty as a responsible husband."
"Duty my foot," she retorted, folding her arms in annoyance. "When I was alive, the only duty you would do is study. Anything else would have to be an interest to you or a bribe."
"Then what explanation do YOU have, my DEAR?" he asked, sarcastically emphasizing the last word of his sentence to convey his frustrations to his wife.
He watched as thoughtfulness replaced all emotions on her face as she contemplated the picture on the screen.
"That tombstone . . . It looks really lonely," she wistfully said, "like it is almost sad."
"It's purely your imagination."
"Like forgotten . . . Regret," she went on, ignoring him.
"Like I said: You're reading too much into it . . ."
"It seems like you feel wrong to leave it there. . ."
"Arrrh! Will you cut it out already??!!"
"I'm getting negative vibes. Wrong, not right . . ."
"Enough!"
"Should be done another way . . ."
"Meiran . . ." Wufei warned, his voice dripping dangerously low.
"Not now Wufei! Getting a word. Fa . . ."
"You are going too far now, Meiran!"
"Failure!" Meiran shouted triumphantly, and the screen around them shattered, revealing another layer, blood red this time. Wufei clutched his heart; her word had just delivered a sharp blow to his heart.
"Yes, failure," he admitted bitterly, practically spitting out the word he so detested to hear and acknowledge. "Failure as your husband and protector. I hope you're happy because I'm regretting it now."
"But Wufei," she admonished gently, her face taking on a tender look, something she had never shown him before except on her last dying moments. It both intrigued and frightened him. "I don't think you're a failure."
"Yeah right, what kind of husband sends his own wife to her death?" he angrily concluded, bitter tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Never had he been so ashamed of his lack of judgment. "What kind of husband doesn't at least listen to his wife once in a while?" Miserably, he stared at the ground.
All of a sudden, gentle hands reached out and cupped his face; the fingers lightly brushing the tears away. Looking up, he found himself staring into a very happy and relieved face. It seemed like eons ago, his wife looked sad, like the world was on her shoulders.
"A husband who cares and believes that what he is doing is right," she spoke, her eyes sparking with happiness and life. "And you have made me very proud," she admitted, nodding her head at Wufei's surprise reaction, "You are no longer a boy but a man. Someone who fights for justice and our planet's freedom. A Gundam Pilot!"
With that proclamation, the blood-red layer shattered into a millions pieces around them, letting in light from the outside. For the first time since Meiran's death, Wufei smiled with a carefree heart.
************************************************************************
"You want me to what??!!" the girl practically screamed, almost taking Heero's and Duo's eardrums out with it.
'Sheesh! Now I know how Wufei felt when he was screamed at,' Duo thought, wiggling a finger in his ear to lessen the ringing.
"What's wrong with following what his wife did?" Heero asked innocently. But his facial expression was far from innocent. Instead, it was back to its usual catatonic state. He didn't appreciate being yelled at and he could only pick up muffled sounds with his right ear, it being the closest to the girl.
"What's wrong?" she asked, disbelieve written all over her face. "You're asking me what's wrong? Heero Yuy, I believe there is a mark difference between common sense and pure suicide!"
"Him? Wufei? No . . . You're kidding. He's as harmless as a church mouse," Duo intervened, placing gentle hands on Jess's shoulders before turning her abruptly to face the bed; forcing her to look at the "sleeping beauty" lying there.
"Right . . ., and you go tell that to 300 tonnes of pure steel with weapons to wipe out a whole army in my world," Jess returned, sarcasm dripping heavily from her words.
"Name three reasons why you shouldn't caress his face," Quatre stated harshly. He was getting really tired of the girl delaying her end of the bargain. If she wanted him to pay for her things, she had better earn it first, whether she needed some things urgently or not.
"Better yet, I'll give you four," the girl replied confidently, holding out four fingers over the bed for them to see and closing them one by one as she ticked off her reasons.
"One: I am NOT Wufei's wife. Two: Wufei knows FATAL martial arts. Three: We all know he DOESN'T like girls." Then Jess paused in her narration, looking thoughtful while the last finger remained held out over the bed.
"Four?" Quatre prompted once he couldn't take the suspense anymore. But the girl remained silent, her finger now quivering with tension from the unspoken reason.
"You don't know, do you?" Heero asked when it seemed like the girl was going to stand there all night with her finger held out. He gave her a sidelong glare.
"No, I just simply forgot," the girl replied, nonchalantly flicking some imaginary hairs over her shoulders with the offending hand. All the boys belched at the answer she gave.
"If you don't know, just say you don't know," Quatre murmured under his breath as he tried to get a hold of himself.
"Duo, I apologize," Heero said, once he regained his composure.
"Huh? What for?"
"Your stupidity has always amazed me but this one takes the cake!"
"Oh, that's reeeeal comforting to hear Yuy," Duo retorted, folding his arms across his chest.
Meanwhile, Jess had finally gotten the grasp of the conversation.
"Hey! I'm not stupid!" she argued, staring hard into Heero's face.
"You're right. You're mentally challenged," the messy, brown-haired Jap boy cheekily agreed, flashing her a wide grin.
Jess blinked. Then blinked again.
"Hey! You smiled! Normally!" she exclaimed, clapping her two hands together in delight.
Heero threw to the boys a "see-what-I-mean" look. More grins appeared around the room to join his.
"So what do you propose to do?" Quatre asked after allowing the girl to bask in her delight for a few moments. He watched with interest as the smile faded off her face, replaced by uncertainty and hesitation.
Then she shrugged her shoulders. "You tell me."
"As much as I like to help you, I'm afraid I didn't have the LUXURY to see my parents interact with each other. My mother died when I was born."
"Oh, I see. . . I'm sorry," the girl replied, bowing her head a little in shame.
"Don't worry. She died before I remembered her. So no big loss," Quatre quickly said, feeling a little guilty over the harshness in his voice earlier.
Then Jess turned her eyes on Trowa.
Trowa kept quiet and stared back hard. Then he shrugged his own shoulders in reply.
"Don't look at me," Duo quickly said when Jess shifted her attention on him. "I was an orphan as long as I can remember. And I don't think the nuns and priest will qualify as interaction between mother and father."
"And I had only a father who adopted me to teach me about assassination." Heero added in his own worth before Jess could even look at him.
"So that leaves you," Quatre finished for the boys. "Are you an orphan or from single parent family?"
"No . . . Both my parents are alive. . ." Jess paused halfway in her answer. Somehow, the atmosphere in the room had suddenly turned . . . hungry.
"Good for you," Duo said, but there was a bit of bitterness in his own voice. "So tell us how do a good wife and husband communicate?"
"Oh, you don't want to know my family communication system," Jess hastily replied, taking a step back. Every single pair of eye had started to shine with a mysterious menacing light and these same eyes were focused on her.
"It's ok, we'll like some clue on a normal family life," Quatre gently but firmly said.
"I really think you don't want to know."
"No, reeeeally. Shoot," Duo emphasized, nodding his head to compliment his demand.
"Perhaps if we asked the Doctors, being old and all . . ."
"Talk!" the boys shouted in unison.
Jess was shocked by the anger and hunger behind their words.
'Ok, fine. Don't regret it,' she thought as she opened her mouth to accommodate their request.
"Mr Lee Bin Keng (2)! Get in here and kill that cockroach!"
Author's Proclamation: Omimax threatre (I hope I got the spelling right) is a globe-like theatre where you find in science center and watch a movie with 3D glasses, and feel like you're in it.
It is Jess's father name. Note that this name is purely fictional and not directed at anybody.
In an instance, the background light faded, replaced by colors and texture, coming all together to form one large picture screen like in the 1) omimax theatre. Wufei watched with fascination as his memory brought together the many differing colors, giving it shape and meaning, while the sounds gave the images life.
Then he saw himself.
He was standing in the same field of flowers, west of his house, before a tombstone he knew all too well. In one of his hands he held his wallet, in the other, a stem of wildflower. He watched as the silent figure gently laid the flower at the tombstone base, lightly brushing against the words, and when he finally straightened up, his posture was more rigid than before.
Then gentle fingers touched his shoulder. Looking up, he found himself looking into his wife sad eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking away as she did so. "I thought my death wouldn't be such a burden on you."
But then, he surprised her by smiling. "Why don't you wait for me to speak over there?" he answered, giving her a lazy, confident look through slit eyes.
Then the figure at the tombstone began to speak.
"I know this is stupid to put the flower here when you're obviously residing in Shenlong," he spoke, placing a hand on his hip. "But if I do that and do not clean away the flower properly once it has decayed, that means I have to dismantle the whole chest just to get at that one dirt. I hope you understand because this is all your fault that I am here." Once those words were said, he turned stiffly around and marched out of sight, leaving only the picture of a lonely tombstone among a field of wildflowers, all of them swaying gently in the breeze.
Meanwhile, Meiran had snatched her hand back from his shoulder, looking highly offended.
"You jump to conclusions too fast," Wufei smirked, keeping his eyes directed at the screen. "Why would your death affect me?"
But Meiran walked over to stand next to him instead, looking at the picture herself.
"Pian Zi (liar)," she whispered softly, tears filling her eyes, "All these scenes are the memories that weigh most on you. They make up the barriers keeping you here because you are too afraid to wake up and find reality as it is."
"Afraid? Who's afraid? I show you who's afraid!" Wufei shouted, taking a menacing step towards her. But he couldn't deny to himself that Meiran's words had struck a nail in his heart.
"Really?!" she shouted back, looking him bravely in the face, her face screwed up with determination. "Then what is with the need to visit my grave with that flower and that wallet with our photo together?"
That immediately stunned him. He hadn't been expecting that. Instead, he had been hoping to intimidate her into silence. Suddenly, his dead spouse seemed too near and he retreated a few steps back.
"Well?"
"I . . .I . . .," he stammered, his brain working full-time to think up an excuse, a reason, anything that didn't make his heart beat so hard and quickly as his wife accusations did. Seizing on the first rational excuse he could think of, he answered: "I was just doing my duty as a responsible husband."
"Duty my foot," she retorted, folding her arms in annoyance. "When I was alive, the only duty you would do is study. Anything else would have to be an interest to you or a bribe."
"Then what explanation do YOU have, my DEAR?" he asked, sarcastically emphasizing the last word of his sentence to convey his frustrations to his wife.
He watched as thoughtfulness replaced all emotions on her face as she contemplated the picture on the screen.
"That tombstone . . . It looks really lonely," she wistfully said, "like it is almost sad."
"It's purely your imagination."
"Like forgotten . . . Regret," she went on, ignoring him.
"Like I said: You're reading too much into it . . ."
"It seems like you feel wrong to leave it there. . ."
"Arrrh! Will you cut it out already??!!"
"I'm getting negative vibes. Wrong, not right . . ."
"Enough!"
"Should be done another way . . ."
"Meiran . . ." Wufei warned, his voice dripping dangerously low.
"Not now Wufei! Getting a word. Fa . . ."
"You are going too far now, Meiran!"
"Failure!" Meiran shouted triumphantly, and the screen around them shattered, revealing another layer, blood red this time. Wufei clutched his heart; her word had just delivered a sharp blow to his heart.
"Yes, failure," he admitted bitterly, practically spitting out the word he so detested to hear and acknowledge. "Failure as your husband and protector. I hope you're happy because I'm regretting it now."
"But Wufei," she admonished gently, her face taking on a tender look, something she had never shown him before except on her last dying moments. It both intrigued and frightened him. "I don't think you're a failure."
"Yeah right, what kind of husband sends his own wife to her death?" he angrily concluded, bitter tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Never had he been so ashamed of his lack of judgment. "What kind of husband doesn't at least listen to his wife once in a while?" Miserably, he stared at the ground.
All of a sudden, gentle hands reached out and cupped his face; the fingers lightly brushing the tears away. Looking up, he found himself staring into a very happy and relieved face. It seemed like eons ago, his wife looked sad, like the world was on her shoulders.
"A husband who cares and believes that what he is doing is right," she spoke, her eyes sparking with happiness and life. "And you have made me very proud," she admitted, nodding her head at Wufei's surprise reaction, "You are no longer a boy but a man. Someone who fights for justice and our planet's freedom. A Gundam Pilot!"
With that proclamation, the blood-red layer shattered into a millions pieces around them, letting in light from the outside. For the first time since Meiran's death, Wufei smiled with a carefree heart.
************************************************************************
"You want me to what??!!" the girl practically screamed, almost taking Heero's and Duo's eardrums out with it.
'Sheesh! Now I know how Wufei felt when he was screamed at,' Duo thought, wiggling a finger in his ear to lessen the ringing.
"What's wrong with following what his wife did?" Heero asked innocently. But his facial expression was far from innocent. Instead, it was back to its usual catatonic state. He didn't appreciate being yelled at and he could only pick up muffled sounds with his right ear, it being the closest to the girl.
"What's wrong?" she asked, disbelieve written all over her face. "You're asking me what's wrong? Heero Yuy, I believe there is a mark difference between common sense and pure suicide!"
"Him? Wufei? No . . . You're kidding. He's as harmless as a church mouse," Duo intervened, placing gentle hands on Jess's shoulders before turning her abruptly to face the bed; forcing her to look at the "sleeping beauty" lying there.
"Right . . ., and you go tell that to 300 tonnes of pure steel with weapons to wipe out a whole army in my world," Jess returned, sarcasm dripping heavily from her words.
"Name three reasons why you shouldn't caress his face," Quatre stated harshly. He was getting really tired of the girl delaying her end of the bargain. If she wanted him to pay for her things, she had better earn it first, whether she needed some things urgently or not.
"Better yet, I'll give you four," the girl replied confidently, holding out four fingers over the bed for them to see and closing them one by one as she ticked off her reasons.
"One: I am NOT Wufei's wife. Two: Wufei knows FATAL martial arts. Three: We all know he DOESN'T like girls." Then Jess paused in her narration, looking thoughtful while the last finger remained held out over the bed.
"Four?" Quatre prompted once he couldn't take the suspense anymore. But the girl remained silent, her finger now quivering with tension from the unspoken reason.
"You don't know, do you?" Heero asked when it seemed like the girl was going to stand there all night with her finger held out. He gave her a sidelong glare.
"No, I just simply forgot," the girl replied, nonchalantly flicking some imaginary hairs over her shoulders with the offending hand. All the boys belched at the answer she gave.
"If you don't know, just say you don't know," Quatre murmured under his breath as he tried to get a hold of himself.
"Duo, I apologize," Heero said, once he regained his composure.
"Huh? What for?"
"Your stupidity has always amazed me but this one takes the cake!"
"Oh, that's reeeeal comforting to hear Yuy," Duo retorted, folding his arms across his chest.
Meanwhile, Jess had finally gotten the grasp of the conversation.
"Hey! I'm not stupid!" she argued, staring hard into Heero's face.
"You're right. You're mentally challenged," the messy, brown-haired Jap boy cheekily agreed, flashing her a wide grin.
Jess blinked. Then blinked again.
"Hey! You smiled! Normally!" she exclaimed, clapping her two hands together in delight.
Heero threw to the boys a "see-what-I-mean" look. More grins appeared around the room to join his.
"So what do you propose to do?" Quatre asked after allowing the girl to bask in her delight for a few moments. He watched with interest as the smile faded off her face, replaced by uncertainty and hesitation.
Then she shrugged her shoulders. "You tell me."
"As much as I like to help you, I'm afraid I didn't have the LUXURY to see my parents interact with each other. My mother died when I was born."
"Oh, I see. . . I'm sorry," the girl replied, bowing her head a little in shame.
"Don't worry. She died before I remembered her. So no big loss," Quatre quickly said, feeling a little guilty over the harshness in his voice earlier.
Then Jess turned her eyes on Trowa.
Trowa kept quiet and stared back hard. Then he shrugged his own shoulders in reply.
"Don't look at me," Duo quickly said when Jess shifted her attention on him. "I was an orphan as long as I can remember. And I don't think the nuns and priest will qualify as interaction between mother and father."
"And I had only a father who adopted me to teach me about assassination." Heero added in his own worth before Jess could even look at him.
"So that leaves you," Quatre finished for the boys. "Are you an orphan or from single parent family?"
"No . . . Both my parents are alive. . ." Jess paused halfway in her answer. Somehow, the atmosphere in the room had suddenly turned . . . hungry.
"Good for you," Duo said, but there was a bit of bitterness in his own voice. "So tell us how do a good wife and husband communicate?"
"Oh, you don't want to know my family communication system," Jess hastily replied, taking a step back. Every single pair of eye had started to shine with a mysterious menacing light and these same eyes were focused on her.
"It's ok, we'll like some clue on a normal family life," Quatre gently but firmly said.
"I really think you don't want to know."
"No, reeeeally. Shoot," Duo emphasized, nodding his head to compliment his demand.
"Perhaps if we asked the Doctors, being old and all . . ."
"Talk!" the boys shouted in unison.
Jess was shocked by the anger and hunger behind their words.
'Ok, fine. Don't regret it,' she thought as she opened her mouth to accommodate their request.
"Mr Lee Bin Keng (2)! Get in here and kill that cockroach!"
Author's Proclamation: Omimax threatre (I hope I got the spelling right) is a globe-like theatre where you find in science center and watch a movie with 3D glasses, and feel like you're in it.
It is Jess's father name. Note that this name is purely fictional and not directed at anybody.