The Taki and Wufei Story
Chapter 5: Debt and Friendship
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"Dude! This is fantastic, you guys," Duo crows.
Taki glances at Wufei who merely says, "It's nothing." She rolls her eyes. Built, handsome, and modest. A guy in a million, that one. Her gaze roves across the table in time to catch Duo picking out the carrots from his dinner.
Catching her attention on him, he grins apologetically. "Never really liked carrots."
With no small amount of apprehension, Taki pops one into her mouth, chews, and quickly reaches for her napkin in order to spit out the offending object. Although Wufei doesn't look up from his dinner, she spies Duo grinning at her from across the table. She agrees, "Yeah, me either."
An orange movement beside her has her instantly in motion. Her chopsticks collide with Wufei's, preventing the carrot from reaching his lips. "I wouldn't eat that if I were you."
He arcs a brow. "Why not?"
"I jinxed the carrots. They're disgusting."
A sigh signals Bisho's relief at not having to eat them just to be polite.
Wufei persists, "Will you at least let me find out how bad it is?"
She slowly lifts her chopsticks. "You've been warned."
All eyes watch as Wufei finishes his bite. His chewing slows. He blinks. He swallows. He glances at Taki again. "They're... hideous," he confirms.
Duo laughs.
Wufei reaches for his glass of water. "What, in the name of the ancestors, did you do to that carrot, Taki?"
She sighs but the effect is ruined by the smile curving her lips. "I have no cooking mojo."
Duo arcs a brow at her. "Then how the hell did you survive this long?"
Taki grins. "Ketchup. Ketchup makes anything edible."
Aside from the carrots, dinner passes without incident. Duo offers to help Wufei clean up the kitchen while Taki shows Bisho a few of the drawings in her new journal.
Lowering his voice so that he can't be overheard, Duo asks, "How's it going?"
Wufei shakes his head. "I still haven't told Commander Une I'm here. I need to get back to L1."
For a moment, Duo says nothing. "I meant with Taki."
Plate in hand, Wufei hesitates to rinse it off. "Better."
Duo sighs. "Is it really so important? Continuing the investigation?"
"It's all I can do." He frowns at the soapy water foaming in the sink. "I hate feeling this... guilt."
Resting a hand on his friend's shoulder, Duo tells him, "Life shits sometimes, Wu. That doesn't mean it's your fault or that you could have prevented it."
Wufei shakes his head. "It's more than just how this has affected Heero." He pauses, waiting for the words to come to him. "After Yokaze's remains were identified, Taki just... gave up." He meets Duo's gaze. "You said as much on the phone. And I could have prevented her best friend's death, could have saved her this pain. She deserves to have me make it up to her. I just can't seem to decide how I'm supposed to do that... where I'm supposed to be..."
"Making it up to Taki won't fix everything else, Wufei."
The two young men stare at each other for a long moment. Eyes hard, Wufei informs Duo, "I owe her."
Duo looks ready to rebuttal, but some instinct draws both his and Wufei's focus to the room behind them. Wufei feels his chest tighten around his heart as Taki stares at them with dark, wide eyes. He's not sure how much she'd heard, but obviously it had been enough. Foregoing her coat and journal, Taki rushes for the door and slams out of the apartment. Dripping soapy water on the floor, Wufei starts to follow her but Duo's hand in the center of his chest holds him back.
"I'll go," he says. And he does.
Wufei stands in the center of the kitchenette, wondering what he'd just done.
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"Taki!"
She ignores the sound of his voice and jogs a little faster down the street.
Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She thought she'd learned this lesson already from Yokaze: friendship is never simple. It's not just about caring, about favors; it's also about debts. Yokaze had given her that disk as a way of repaying Taki's friendship. And now... now Wufei is trying to ease his conscience by becoming her friend.
She'd almost believed that he really cared.
Liar.
Who is she trying to kid? She had believed him. Ever since yesterday's lunch in the field, she'd believed. Maybe even before that. And it had scared her. She hadn't wanted to believe—to hope—only to realize that she is wrong.
Ooops. Too late now.
She shakes her head, attempting to deny the pain, but it wraps its sharp talons around her nonetheless. Ruthlessly, the voice in her head—the one that assures her that yes, she'd deserved to be abandoned, to spend her life alone, on the streets—whispers. Wufei doesn't care about her. He cares about easing the guilt.
What the fuck does he have to feel guilty about?
Screw it. She's done. She quits. There's no way she can wrap her head around his messed up logic. It's not worth it. She's finished with 'friends.'
Taki ducks down an alley, abruptly changing her goal to outrunning the man pursuing her.
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Bisho regards her brother's friend and shakes her head at the clueless schmuck. "That was really stupid," she tells him. "Really, really stupid."
He lifts his gaze, pinning her with a dark look.
Bisho is amazed. "Oh, you're angry? With me? For stating the obvious?" She tilts her head to one side. "Do you have any idea how that sounded?"
"What?" he growls, curious despite himself.
She sighs. "That you 'owe' her. That you're being her friend just to make your own guilt go away."
Wufei scowls. How long had Taki and Bisho been standing there listening?
"She really liked you," she tells him. "Trusted you, too, maybe."
"How do you know?"
Bisho nods to the journal Taki had left behind. "I just know."
He wipes his hands on his slacks and takes a step in the direction of the journal. His hand hovers over it for a moment before he carefully picks it up. The book falls open in his hands and he finds himself staring at a field of flowers. Each meticulously detailed five-petaled masterpiece dances across the page, over swells of earth, shimmering in an invisible wind. This field of flowers is his field of flowers. The field Meiran had given her life to protect. The field she had died in. He stares at the page until his vision begins to blur. Taki had drawn this? From his few and meager sentences?
Heart aching, he turns the page and sees... himself. She'd captured him working at his computer, typing a report, the light playing over his hair... Had it really done that? Had he really looked like this? Against his better judgment, he caresses the next page aside. She'd only had the journal for two days but, already, a good number of pages are covered with doodles and line drawings. There are figure studies of him sitting in a field, him leaning back in his desk chair, eyes closed, him preparing dinner. But the last page... The last drawing is a quick sketch of him and Taki. He stands behind her, arms curving around hers, hands resting on her wrists. This is how they'd been standing only an hour ago when he'd been showing her how to slice vegetables. But the perspective... They'd been drawn in profile. He studies the look of dawning wonder on Taki's face. So, she'd felt it, too... With a fortifying breath, he shifts his gaze to his own face. But there is nothing there. No expression at all.
And for some reason, that hurts. A lot.
He closes the book and takes several careful breaths. "I... I don't understand," he says to no one in particular.
"What don't you understand?" Bisho asks, disrupting his reverie. "Why she left?"
He frowns, but not at Bisho. At himself. "Taki," he tells her. "I don't understand Taki."
Bisho weighs Wufei in the silence, her eyes steady. After a full minute, she offers him a softer expression. She goes to the door and yanks it open. "Come on, then," she says to him.
He doesn't move, just stares at her.
She sighs. "If you want to understand, I'll show you. It's a one-time offer. Good for exactly ten more seconds. Take it or leave it."
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Duo cannot believe what a complete and utter ass Wufei had just made of himself. Sure, the guy's got issues and all, but this whole 'guilt' business is getting ridiculous. It's perfectly clear to Duo that Wufei's simply hiding behind semi-legitimate excuses, unwilling to admit that he might actually care about someone like Taki. The problem, as Duo sees it, is that Wufei looks at Taki and sees a manipulator—someone too weak to make their own way, someone who chooses to use charm and cleverness to get what they want. Slowly, he runs a hand over his hair.
Wufei is an idiot sometimes.
He sighs in perfect silence as he stares down at Taki's huddled form. He'd nearly passed her by. For over an hour, she'd run and he'd followed. But now that she's given him the opportunity to catch up to her, he has no idea of what to say. Should he try to convince her that she hadn't heard Wufei's words correctly? That she misinterpreted them? Took them out of context? Duo refrains from shaking his head. He knows that won't work. Taki knows enough about Wufei to understand the meaning behind his words. Should he tell her Wufei didn't mean them? No. Wufei doesn't lie.
In truth, Duo can't really speak for Wufei. Even if the other man had confided in Duo, he'd have no right to share those insights with Taki. Slowly, Duo presses his back against the dingy wall and slides down to sit beside the woman.
In the end, Duo Maxwell doesn't say a thing. He just wraps an arm around her shoulders and stays, offering her a warm embrace and a good listener just in case she decides she could use one or the other... or both.
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~End of Chapter 5~
