It is safe to say that by the time Wufei arrived home, he was less than well.
Stumbling up the steps to the small, beach-city house that was presently his hideout, he unlocked the door and threw himself into the room. It was only as he paused to reactivate the alarm that reality finally caught up with him.
He had... lost.
Closing his eyes and leaning heavily against the doorframe with a wearied expression, Wufei ran his hand over his face and tried to slow his breathing. He felt cold, weak, and nauseated; all were symptoms of delayed shock, but so much of his mind was dedicated to pinpointing where he had gone wrong that he failed to realize this. Going over every detail with the grim determination of a mortician, he pushed away from the wall and stumbled toward the bathroom.
Wufei had thrown everything he had into this damned venture; every emotion, every intent, every single slice of time he'd been able to free from Master O's schedule had been dedicated to the cause of eradicating Treize Kushrenada. And yet, he had failed. No matter what he had tried, Treize had been one step ahead of him; and from Wufei's point of view, this was proof that he was unworthy of his goal.
Of course, Wufei did not realize how close he'd actually come to success; Treize had the gift of making everything look easy, and Wufei would never know that there had been a brief, wonderful moment in which Treize had actually thought he might die. The moment had passed, of course; but still - such moments were rare for Treize Kushrenada, and had made the duel all the more fascinating to him. Perhaps that was why he'd smiled the whole way through, then smiled afterwards as they talked, and even smiled as as he'd sent Wufei away.
Wufei knew none of this; he only knew that he'd had a second chance, and failed - and that in spite of his obvious unworthiness, Treize had not treated him as he'd expected to be treated. At best, Wufei had expected execution; at worst, he'd expected imprisonment, torture, interrogation - in which case he'd have no choice but to take his own life, in spite of the dishonor that would bring.
But Treize had done none of those things. He had spoken calmly, calmingly, as if dealing with a wild animal that might bolt, and then proposed... what?
A bet?
Gods... Wufei wasn't sure what had happened. All he knew was that he'd been terribly wrong about Treize Kushrenada, and that meant that the premise under which he'd been training, under which he'd taken the Gundam and come to earth, under which he'd LIVED for well over a year... was wrong.
Wufei had assumed from the beginning that Treize was dishonorable; from his dubious behavior of hosting a war to the underhanded methods his men used to fight, Treize had never impressed Wufei as being worthy of respect in any way, shape, or form. He had seemed to be the type of man who would attack from behind, a lying charlatan - one whose wish was to rule the world and whose motives would adopt any necessary means. Only... he had not acted that way.
Treize had behaved like a gentleman. Wufei had not been neither harmed nor followed; he had been treated with respect, neither coddled nor interrogated, and now, he didn't know what to do. After securing the alarm system via the touchpad in his kitchen, he leaned against the wall in the living room, face in his hands and breath coming in controlled hitches. Treize's face seemed to float before him, mocking.
"....Why are you here?"
"I have come to kill you."
And then came the battle, and again, there was no way to defend. None. Suddenly his blade was... somewhere else, and Treize's was against his throat - and it was all over. Funny; he was not quite out of time yet. Another three minutes and the guards would have been alerted... but that wasn't enough time to escape anyway, so no matter what, he was done for.
And Treize... SMILED at him.
SMILED. Like one would at a favored pet dog.
Distractedly rubbing the back of his neck, Wufei pushed away from the wall and sat heavily on one of the sofas. How could this be? How? He had done everything right - he was sure he had, or he never would have made it into the compound. How could Treize have defeated him again? Treize was evil and evil should always eventually lose to good... right?
Right?
Not even tired he's not even BREATHING hard and I tried my best my best my VERY best...
"Wufei."
...that's right. He remembered my name.
"Now what, exactly, are we going to do with you?"
"Kill me." It's perfectly obvious. Weirdo.
"No."
..........NO?!?
And so had come the first of many twists. Treize was as much the master with words as he was with weapons, and he'd completely dominated the conversation. Wufei had ended up agreeing to something he didn't really want, accepting that he would NOT die at Treize's hand in the near future, taken Treize's reprimands as though he had earned them, and then docilely gone his way like a recalcitrant puppy.
What the HELL was wrong with him?
"I propose... a simple bet," Treize said, looking both interested and wary and obviously assuming Wufei would simply... go along with it.
Oh, sure, a little bet. Just a little bet that promised to strip every last bit of his remaining honor away from him... or did Treize understand that? Perhaps he did. Perhaps this was his true punishment.
A fate worse than death.
He who would be just must also be strong...
Wufei's own words to Sally Po echoed back to him, and he felt a twist in his chest, as though his heart were caving in. No; he was not strong. He had no right to be here, doing what he was doing. He had failed.
Not knowing what to do, not knowing what move he was supposed to make next, Wufei bowed his head, eyes tightly closed and lashes wet. "Nataku..." he said quietly, unable to think anymore, just wanting to sleep. Sleep. "Gods, Nataku... I'm so sorry." Lying down with his face pressed to the rough pillows of the sofa, he drifted off into sleep; and as he slept, he dreamed - and remembered.
Wufei had come from a very unique ancestry.
The Dragon Clan as a whole had been banished to space by its native China almost a hundred years ago, sent to a decrepit colony that was itself over a hundred years old and falling apart - the clan not, in truth, been meant to survive. The Dragon Clan had as its reputation that of the fiercest warriors and the sharpest minds in all of China, and had held this reputation for centuries because it was simply true. When China banished them, it thought to rid itself of a potential danger; as it happened, instead of destroying them, it isolated the members of the clan and cut off all cultural interference. The result was a tightened group discipline and people like Chang Wufei.
Of all his clan, Wufei was the most gifted child born to the Dragon Clan in well over half a century; this was no mean statement. Wufei had never had to train; his martial arts skills had been present almost as soon as he could walk, and his mind was such that he absorbed information at a startling rate - which was why Master Laoshi O had picked the boy to be his Gundam pilot almost as soon as he'd known he would be needing one.
There were, as perhaps to be expected with a child prodigy, some problems. Wufei had no difficulties piloting the Gundam prototypes; he had no trouble understanding Master O's instructions or adjusting to new situations in the simulator or memorizing procedural handbooks.
The problem was his attitude.
Wufei fancied himself quite the philosopher - indeed, he had read almost all the books that the entire clan had brought with them - and disagreed sharply with Master O's theories.
"There is no such thing as justice outside of individual circumstances; so why do we fight?" he would argue, barely eleven years old and already fully convinced of his own standing. "There is no justice in this world! You make these hunks of junk for what purpose? No one person can change the course of history!" On and on it went, Wufei all the while unaware how his own genius disproved his statements - and how much amusement Master O garnered from their tenacity; there was nothing quite like being lectured by a four-foot revolutionary as one attempted to build a super robot.
Now, it was true that Wufei was not a fighter in spirit; he had a hidden wealth of emotion that served to make him passionate in everything he did, but it also left him open to injury. Master O had observed that Wufei was easily hurt, and carried the wounds too deeply to ever really heal; a potential weakness in a battle situation. Nevertheless, Master O had never lost faith in him; anything Wufei touched turned to gold, and since Wufei himself had an ingrained respect for his elders that almost guaranteed eventual obedience, Master O believed that when the time was needed for Wufei to pilot, he would. As it turned out, he was right; unfortunately, that time came just a little too late.
In AC 194, one year before the famous Operation Meteor went into effect, Wufei was wed at the age of fourteen to the clan leader's daughter, Ron Meiran. Meiran had not been overly pleased with the fact that she was being forced to marry someone so unlike her. She was extremely opinionated, abrasive, combative, and had neither patience for nor interest in books. Wufei had found her irritating, and had never bothered to associate with her. He had not cared to do so even then; however, neither child had had any choice.
"You're... that scholar boy," she said, the roundness of her cheeks betraying her youth in spite of the elegance of her bridal costume.
"You're dissatisfied?" said Wufei, eyebrows raised.
"A person like you has no right to carry on the line of our proud clan," she said bluntly, with no concern for tact or propriety.
"Oh. Well, it certainly wasn't my idea!" Wufei replied, removing his ceremonial wedding robes and heading for the door. However, the choice did not belong to him; they'd been wed, consummated the marriage, as required by the elders, and from then on had absolutely as little to do with one another as possible.
Meiran believed in justice; she preached about strength, about the glory of fighting, and in honor of her lineage had even nicknamed herself Nataku - an ancient warrior goddess who supposedly protected the Dragon Clan. Everything to her was an issue worth fighting over - preferably physically, if possible, and this attitude above all grated on Wufei's nerves.
"Wufei, you call yourself a man?" she berated, standing in the field and obviously oblivious to how the flatness of her figure marked her as definitely less than a woman. "I thought that after becoming my partner, you'd change. I guess I was completely wrong!"
Wufei, who was engulfed in a good book, ignored her.
"Wufei!" she continued, refusing to be ignored. "Why don't you ever practice fighting techniques, like the others?"
Wufei was in a good mood; he
decided to try to reason with her. "Why... do you fight?" he asked,
hoping for at least a semi-intelligent answer.
"For justice!" Meiran declared, posing with both fists clenched in front of her.
Well, this was less than wondrous. "Justice?" he repeated, closing his book. "You really think there is such a thing?"
"Do you want me to show you?" she asked, immediately going into left-forward stance.
Good grief... "Go ahead," Wufei said, removing his glasses and standing to face her.
She attacked.
It didn't take long; almost symbolically, rain began to fall all around them as Wufei took this supposed "best warrior in her clan" down in a few simple moves. He was simply too gifted.
"H... how... could it be?" Meiran coughed, not seriously injured; she was, however both winded and muddy. "I am the strongest of our clan..."
"You think you're Nataku?" Wufei responded, putting his glasses back on, rain or no. "You have a lot of nerve calling yourself by that name. There is no justice - except in individual circumstances. A fight based on such a thing is meaningless." He looked down at her, not offering to help her up.
"I KNOW that!" Meiran shouted back, standing; her voice was suspiciously unsteady. "But even so, I have to fight! That is the way of our people!" And then, she ran away. Wufei shook his head in wonder that he could be tied to such a woman and moved on to the lab, which was considerably drier.
Later on that day, Master O brought up the fight as a topic in their conversation. He felt responsible for Wufei's raising, in a way, since both the boy's parents were dead; he simply could not allow this kind of exhibition to slide. Worse yet was the fact that Operation Meteor was practically around the corner; he could afford to cut the boy no slack whatsoever. Wufei had to be READY.
"So. You think you won?" Master O said, working on a Gundam that looked suspiciously like the Tallgeese.
"Think?" Wufei said indignantly as he sat on the steps leading into Master O's lab with more than a hint of petulance. "No, I DID win! There is no justice in this world!" he stated with surety.
"No," Master O corrected gently. "You were unable to change Meiran's thinking; all you did was force your own conclusions on her." A few sparks flew from the control panel he was resetting. "Besides," he continued. "You don't DO anything, you know. With your strength and abilities, Wufei... you could change the course of history."
Wufei knew that Master O did not say such things lightly; the very power of that statement shook him, and rather than carry such a burden on his 14-year-old heart, he dismissed it entirely. "That has nothing to do with me," he argued, standing to emphasize his point. "No one can change the course of history."
"Yes, yes, you're very smart," Master O said in a condescending tone, acknowledging what had already been acknowledged many times before. They had had versions of this conversation, on and off, for the past five years. "But are you going to just sit back, being smart, and watch while history plays with human beings, destroys their happiness, and kills them?"
Wufei snorted softly, glancing at the Gundams rather than the eyes of his mentor. "Is that why you made these pieces of junk?"
Master O smiled. "Hey, Wufei," he said lightly, tone back to being playful and amused. "These pieces of junk need names - can you think of anything?"
"Shenlon," Wufei answered immediately, looking over the more elaborate machine. "That Nataku is too weak to protect this clan."
Wufei curled up on the sofa, caught in this dream and tensed to the point of trembling. This was the prelude to the darkest time of his life; it was something he did not wish to revisit, but the failure of this evening seemed to have triggered the memory. Not waking up - perhaps in a sort of self-induced penance - Wufei grimaced and accepted the images, reliving what he had already lived, learning anew how very much he deserved to be alone. He had not told Sally any of this; only Trowa knew, and that was because he'd ended up telling Trowa almost everything. There was something about the quiet young man that inspired confidence, and Wufei had needed confidence at that time. It was almost a shame he was not here to speak with now.
Ironically enough, Wufei had no way of knowing that Sally Po was the one asked to eliminate all life on his colony; he would never know that she fought that order, and that the amorality of such a thing was what caused her to defect. Also, he did not know that the initial attack on his colony signified the first rift between OZ and the Alliance.
General Septem, following the order to "remove the dangerous element on A0206, in the L5 cluster," had ordered the use of biological warfare to ensure a quick resolution; Treize Kushrenada, however, had ordered a mobile suite attack. The two groups converged on the colony in a morbid kind of contest, both flying toward the same goal: complete massacre of the inhabitants of A0206 - the Dragon Clan.
The members of the Dragon Clan had been expecting such a raid for some time because they were harboring a man who built Gundams; hence, they were ready to react and hid themselves as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, however, they had nothing with which to fight back; their defense lay solely in the hands of Master Laoshi O.
Meiran, knowing this, ran to the laboratory.
Master O didn't notice her until she was actually climbing into the cockpit of the Gundam that most resembled Tallgeese. "No... Meiran, stop!" he cried. "You can't handle that thing! It's not something a woman can pilot!" Master O was not being misogynist; he was well aware that a grown man twice her weight would have had trouble piloting that suit, and that merely flying it could put her life at risk.
There was, after all, a reason he had abandoned that design to work on the Shenlon.
"Then I hereby give up being a woman!" Meiran cried, disregarding the danger as meaningless. "I am NATAKU!" With that, she took off.
There was confusion in the moments before Wufei realized what had happened; battling... mobile suits against the Tallgeese prototype, OZ soldiers losing to a 14-year-old girl in a robot that was simply too big for her because of the raw power that robot yielded. She was in great pain; the force of the Tallgeese was enough that she almost passed out every time she made a turn, but Meiran would not quit. In fact, she was alert enough to see that the natural resources around her were suffering for the massive conflict in which she was engaged.
"The flowers are dying," Meiran said to herself, looking at the field in which Wufei loved to spend hours alone with his books. "I must take this fight outside!" With that, she began to lead the enemy away from the fields and into space.
"Stop!" Wufei called as the mobile suits pulled away, running toward her as fast as he could, with no clear idea of what he would do if he acutually did catch up. He was panicked; he knew the amount of G-force being thrown around by that machine, Master O had taught him - and knew that his wife, no matter how spirited, could not take it. "You don't have the strength to pilot that! Come back!"
"Don't give me orders!" Meiran answered him over the loudspeaker. "This is a fight for justice!"
Oh gods, she's going to die, Wufei thought to himself; he had no choice. Turning on his heel, he ran instead for the hanger to fetch the other Gundam, racing for her life more than his own. "Stupid woman!" he thought as he ran. "How does she think she can uphold justice without any STRENGTH?"
By the time he got to the lab, she was already coughing up blood. By the time he'd climbed into Shenlon, she was constantly dizzy from the pressure of the G-forces and somewhat out of breath, but she stubbornly clung to consciousness. "I am justice!" she cried over and over again, and with the lives of her entire clan in her hands, continued to fight.
"Shenlon doesn't have any weapons yet," Master O warned, not bothering to try to stop Wufei in spite of this fact. A truer testing ground for a Gundam pilot had never been created: win or die.
"Fine," said Wufei, strapping himself in and thinking each moment that she was going to die if he didn't save her. "I'm not fighting for justice."
"Then why are you going?" said Master O - but he thought he already knew.
"Because I'm not such a coward that I will stand by while my wife is killed!" Wufei shouted, and flying out with Shenlon, entered the fray.
On his sofa, fourteen months later, Wufei curled into a ball and pressed his face against the rough-worn pillow. These memories were making his stomach churn; the helplessness that had overwhelmed him that day, in spite of his actions, had been a large marker in the his forming psyche. It was the reason why Wufei was determined never to fail again; it was why, even though he did not believe in what he was protecting, he would fight to the bitter end.
Wufei had tasted defeat, and found it very bitter indeed.
On the way to join Meiran, Wufei had come across an entirely different set of mobile suits; it seemed the Alliance's group had not been so far behind that of OZ. This in itself was not startling; their activity, however, delivered a cold, utter shock.
They were planting biological warfare canisters. In that moment, everything that had happened to Wufei became personal and very, very ugly.
"...the Alliance and Oz... would go this FAR?" he said, unable to believe his eyes; using biological warfare was the lowest, the most dishonorable of actions- and Wufei lost his temper. "KISAMA!" he screamed at them in Japanese, using a word that could only be translated as "bastard." At that point in time, it was barely familiar to him; he grew to use it much more often as his fight ensued.
Wiping out the Alliance men and their germ-laden canisters - and taking precious minutes from his duty to do it - Wufei sped on toward Meiran, fury and disgust ringing through his very skin.
Sally Po at this point had called off her men; reporting the colony as cleared - although it was not - she had pulled back and out, sending no more reinforcements and encouraging no more deaths. By doing so, she had preserved the existence of the entire Dragon Clan; when she finally arrived back on earth, she quit her position and immediately joined the JAP point Federation medical center. Sally Po would never again have anything to do with unjust death; instead, she would concentrate on preserving life and defeating the horrible organizations that would order such things.
Wufei was aware of none of this; he concentrated instead on the suits remaining.
By this time, Meiran was barely able to speak. She was telling herself over and over again that she WOULD NOT LOSE to such pathetic warriors as were against her, but the fact of the matter was, she was dying; the Tallgeese prototype she flew was slowly but surely crushing her alive.
And then Wufei arrived.
"Haaa!" he cried, forgoing words for the sake of concentration. Moving his Gundam with a surety that should have belonged to a man years older than he was, he disabled the first mobile suit he came across and took its weapon. Using this, he began to methodically mow down his enemies.
"...W...Wufei?" Meiran managed in shock, her breath coming in wet gasps.
"Hurry up and get out of here!" he shouted back at her through the com link. "A wife should listen to her husband!"
Meiran was surprised enough at his advent that she refused to argue. Blood on her face and eyes almost swollen shut, she obeyed. "Yes," she said, and began to retreat.
The battle that raged then was unimportant; the usual insults were exchanged, much gunfire was heard - and then came the statement that eventually brought Wufei to earth - and tonight, had emotionally brought him to his knees.
"I can't allow Treize's name to be soiled in such a place as this!" shouted the leader of the mobile suit squad in desperate tones, attacking Wufei with all he had.
"Treize? That's the name of the man in charge of this?" Wufei shouted back, committing the name to memory; whoever this "Treize" was, he had a lot to answer for. If this man had the kind of nature to organize such an underhanded strike as this...
Wufei, however, had not calculated the extent to which Treize's men were obsessed with him; he gasped as the one remaining captain angled his suit for Wufei's and set it to ramming speed, intending to suicide for the sake of his beloved commander.
Wufei tried to fire; his weapon was out of energy, and he didn't have enough time to move out of the way. He had a moment to reflect that the durability of Master O's precious gundanium was going to be tested as it never had, and then Meiran came out of nowhere. Taking the Tallgeese prototype to the highest speed she could possibly control, she rammed directly into the coming mobile suit.
Wufei said nothing as the collision happened. The moment the explosion took place, something in his mind simply... turned off.
My... my wife just...
There were no more enemies to fight. That captain had been the last - so, Wufei instead concentrated on the wreckage, trying to find Meiran. He knew, logically, that she would be dead; that it was a waste of power at the least to hover out here, searching through debris for a woman who could not possibly have survived such destruction. But he could not leave her out here; the numbness resulting from the state of shock he'd entered enabled him to search in spite of this reality, in spite of the fact that part of his mind was clamoring to go to earth and FIND this man named Treize to get his answers.
...and his revenge.
After some minutes of the silent, delicate challenge to discern his wife's small form from the many pieces of space junk that used to be mecha, he found her.
Alive.
"...Meiran..." he breathed.
"Wufei," she whispered through her comlink, her survival a tribute to the legendary heartiness of her clan.
"Hang on, Meiran," he said with determination, beginning to shake with the realization of what had happened - what she had done. For him. Who had not deserved....
"I... I'm Nataku," she replied, her tone dreamy but her words sure.
"All right, you're Nataku," Wufei hastily agreed, managing to catch her body in the hands of his Gundam and closing her in, behind and before, for the trip back to earth. He was fighting to keep from breathing too quickly.
"You... you could praise me a little, you know," Meiran said, her feistiness apparently not affected by her bloodloss. "I protected... that field of flowers."
"...idiot," Wufei said, concentrating on not hurting her, feeling himself blush and his heart twist for reasons he didn't entirely understand.
"Please take me to that field," she requested, and Wufei acquiesced - it was almost exactly where Shenlon was landing anyway.
In his arms, like a bride, he carried her. He walked into the field where he loved to read, where they had fought, and where she had suddenly made the decision that his needs came before hers. He completely failed to understand her.
Wufei set her down where she requested.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said quietly, wearing a gentle smile she'd never worn before and too weak to even wipe away the blood from her lips. "I've never appreciated flowers like this before." She paused. "Wufei?" she said as he sat beside her, still too numb to think of what he could possibly do other than what she'd told him.
"What, Meiran?"
"I was... strong, wasn't I? You weren't ashamed of me as your wife, were you?"
Wufei averted his gaze, his expression uncharacteristically one of humility. A tone crept into his voice as of final understanding. "No. I wasn't ashamed. You're strong - stronger than anyone."
"No," she said, beginning to fall to the side, leaning on him. "You are stronger."
"...hey," he said, confused at her apparent sudden public display of affection. "Get off me... hey..." It took him only a moment more to understand that she was dead. "Hey! Open your eyes. Open your eyes! I HAVEN'T SHOWN MYSELF WORTHY OF BEING YOUR HUSBAND!" He shook her, frantic - but it was no use; she was gone.
"NATAKU!!"
Wufei stood at her grave for a very long time. He stood there, in silence, until Master O and Elder Ron - Meiran's grandmother - came to see him.
"Wufei..." Master O said quietly, thinking that her fear had proven true, after all; the boy was not bearing this well, which coincided with what Master O had observed - Wufei bore each emotional wound deep within himself, not allowing it to heal, and this wound in particular was so deep that it threatened to destroy him.
It seemed that in his course to make a perfect warrior, Master O had failed to create a perfect soldier.
Wufei did not answer.
"No on will try to stand in your way anymore," said the elder Ron to her son-in-law; she had apparently reached a decision. "Go back to your studies."
"No." Wufei had never directly said "no" to any elder before; it was shocking enough that he felt the need to repeat it. "No. I will live for justice."
Master O blinked. She knew Wufei had no personal beliefs in justice - which meant he was merely adopting his dead wife's. That could be a very dangerous thing to do.... "You're saying you'll pilot Shenlon?" she asked, unsure.
"It's Nataku," corrected Wufei, still looking at the grave. "My wife protected this machine, so her spirit lives on in it. I...." Wufei looked up, clenching his fists in front of him as he'd seen her do many times before, and as she would never do again. "I... am going to change these insane times!" His voice cracked on the last word, but he said no more. With that, Wufei left the grave and never looked back.
He accepted Master O's indoctrination and training, never questioning, learning at a rate quick even for him - and right on time, was ready to go. In all this time he never spoke of Meiran, nor of Treize; he did not argue with his mentor, but rather focused on the task of becoming worthy of piloting Nataku - and avenging her.
He went to earth, loaded down with specific instructions and housed in a body that had been honed into a perfect killing machine - not to mention the efficacy of his Gundam. He had attacked Victoria base, taken out several important strong points, done what Master O intended. He preached about justice, about the glory of fighting, about a dozen other things he'd heard Meiran say and still didn't entirely believe himself - but always, his TRUE goal was the same.
To find and kill Treize Kushrenada.
For this, Wufei had striven; for this, he had suffered, never giving up until he finally had the opportunity to attack the man who had brought him so much grief.
And he had failed.
Wufei had become useless at that point, hiding away in the woods and wrestling with Sally Po's speeches. Then, he'd found a second opportunity; he'd found the sword, successfully infiltrated Treize's headquarters.... and again, he'd failed.
Twice. He'd failed twice, and he could not be sure of getting any further chances. But worse than this was the fact that this failure had brought to light things he had never seen before - such as the apparently honorable nature of one Treize Kushrenada.
If this were true, then Wufei did not have the right to kill him. If this were true, then everything that had kept Wufei going for the last year was nothing more than a child's foolishness. If this were true... then Wufei had nothing left to live for.
He would never be worthy of his wife; never be worthy of the time and effort that Master O had put into him. Never be worthy of touching his Gundam again. The weight on his heart had never been so heavy; not knowing what to do, he briefly considered the course of suicide - which pilot 01 had already taken and by doing so, proved his worth.
Fortunately, Wufei did not get the opportunity to finish this train of thought. Someone knocked on his door.
Immediately alert, Wufei moved slowly to the door, looking through the peephole to see who was bothering him. To his utter surprise, it was a young man he knew by sight as another one of the Gundam pilots.
Duo waved at the opened peephole. "Hi," he said, and then collapsed.
Sometimes, that's simply the way Fate worked.