Well, I finally continued Lovechild. I have to say sorry for neglecting this fic for such a looooong time but I just couldn't help it. There's real life to take care about aside from the ever-enticing fanfic world.
Okay, just get straight to the chapter.
… wait, I forgot something …
Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz and all of its charas belong to me not. They belong to the respective owners and I simply take them to cherish the imagination in me.
Warning: massive use of Swiss German and German… I write some translation down there… but since I don't have a beta for those, please do tell me if I wrote anything wrong.
Lovechild 2: Best Friend
I did not know how I could fall into that German. Maybe ever since I set my eyes on him, I had already felt that tinge of jealousy melted with awe. I remember the way he was introduced to us in our class, neatly cropped blond hair dropping softly around his thin face, covering two aqua blue eyes upon fair skin. He stood in front of the class, smiling widely, showing two rows of braced teeth with blue rubber to match his eyes, perhaps the only flaw in his appearance, but it made him more human.
The name was as beautiful as his look, Christian Gottfried Liebeskind, a ridiculous but a poetic name. Christian God-peace Lovechild. I wonder what kind of parents would name their child like that. Perhaps his father was a reverend or something. But the name matched his angelic face.
He was not called Chris, because he said in his previous school there were too many Christians. He preferred to go by Friede. Peace. A fine choice for a name. But he was actually far from the word peace itself.
The boy was seated next to me in the class, at the second row. My eyes weren't good enough to see from afar, but I didn't like to wear glasses. We soon had our small chat in whispers for Mrs. Rouge had already started her lessons.
I had to say that I didn't really like studying in this school, a school for boys – completed with a dormitory for all of its students – in the middle out of nowhere in Switzerland. If it were not from my parents' command, he would rather be back in Florida where I used to live before being confined in this so-called elite school. But being a person who was always the best from the beginning I would not want to show my grudges and became the best person in everyone's eyes. I became the student's representative; I was one of the very few straight-A students, a person everybody liked, from the teachers, the other students, and all people who knew me.
Friede also went to this school against his own will. His grandfather was the one who enrolled him in the middle of this semester. He said it was a part of the old man's program to civilize him. I didn't get what he meant, but I didn't ask. It was not my problem. I didn't like anyone to inquire myself too deeply, so I wouldn't do it to anyone else. Was du willst nicht das man dir tut, das fug auch keinem anderen zu (1). It was a golden rule I held ever since I learned German.
Friede ended up to be the fourth person in my room. There were two bunk beds in our room. My other roommates Woodsy, a Spanish whose actual name was Rachel Selva – with ch read as kh and a like u in up, and Pierre Mare – which was read like marey but his friends used to call him Mare like mair – a Bern native occupied the bed on the left hand side. Now I had to share mine with Friede. He had to be satisfied with anything was that was left, like his table was the furthest from the window or that he was forced to get the upper bed on which you wouldn't be able to sit on properly because the ceiling was so low, but he didn't complain. He said his life used to be in worse condition. None of his three roommates would trust him on that; he was a rich boy after all.
Oh, I hadn't told you my name. It was Heinrich Nathanael Guildford. It was usually written as Heinrich N Guildford, so not many people knew my middle name. Friede was one of them. He was as curious as a child on almost everything was. He even asked me how that people got to call me "Schuld". He said it's a strange thing that a person like me could have "guilt" as a nickname. It wasn't my fault that once someone miswrote my name as "guiltford" in front of the class, and I didn't know who started it, people began to call me Guilt and then it soon changed to Schuld, perhaps because German is more commonly used than English in this school is. This school was in German Swiss anyway.
Friede blurted out that one day a girl might come to me and said, "Du bist Schuld dass ich schwanger bin! (2)" which somehow stuck into his mind as funny. I didn't find it funny at all should that really happen someday. But then it was a bit amusing to think about. We hardly see girls anyway, and the idea of making someone pregnant, or rather the processes of making someone pregnant – the sex – was so interesting for fifteen years old like us.
Friede was a happy go lucky persona. He seemed to be free from any pressures. He joined me in the drama club, the only club that my parents actually disapprove from my long list of activities. He soon stole everybody's eyes. He was a good actor and he was especially perfect for women roles.
In some ways, I saw that Friede didn't actually strive for good grades. I hardly saw him behind books, even before quizzes, but he always got away with good grades, or perhaps I had to say he was suddenly short-listed as one of the school's best. I had to envy him for that, for I had to study hard and did exercises to maintain my place.
"Some people just born with it," he said lazily when I complained that I had to study for our geography quiz the next day while he was lying on his bed, reading a copy of Lolita. He continued again, "Maybe one day I would hit my head and it's gone. Wär weiss (3)?" he said his German layered with Bern dialect that he learned from Mare.
"Vilech (4)," I answered back, noting to myself not to be provoked by his words to actually knock his head to the wall.
He put down his book, jumped down the bed and walked toward me. He peeked through my shoulder and glanced at my notes. "Are you sure you have to learn about your own country?" he asked absentmindedly. Tomorrow's quiz would be about the continent of America.
"Surely America – the continent – does not contain only the States," I replied coldly. This boy could really get on your nerve sometimes.
He chuckled, "I geh' für ä Kaffee. Vilech seh' ich o e hübschi Frou." (5)
And then he went away leaving me with my study.
I didn't know much about Friede except that his father had died two years ago and then his mother followed a year later. He was born in Bamberg, but then moved out to Wuppertal until he reached nine, and then moved back to Bamberg. He moved to live with his grandfather in München right after his mother died at the age of twelve. How his parents died, he never told. He also never told what his grandfather's business was, but I knew that he was damned rich.
It didn't take long for me to learn about that. When we were to leave for our Christmas break, his grandfather came to pick him up, and I saw that many of the parents knew him, especially those from South Germany. Even Mr. and Mrs. Mare knew him. He was a very old man with humped back, but there was something that you cannot resist when you set your eyes upon him. I think Friede own the same trait.
My parents also came to pick me up, where my father learned to know Friede. It surprised me that for once in my life I saw two people who did not bend their sights to stand face to face with my father. The first one was Mr. Liebeskind, the other one was Friede. Even I sometimes could not stand to talk to my father without averting my eyes. My father liked Friede the first time that he began to talk to him. He couldn't stop talking about him ever since, he always liked strong persons, and he wanted me to be one.
I came back from Florida with a burden of abhorrence. I hated to be taken away from the sunlight, I hated to have to go back to that school, I hated to see Friede. My jealousy towards him had turned into some kind of hatred. I hated him for just being him. I hated him for being a person I could not. I hated him that he didn't notice my feeling of annoyance when he was talking to my parents again as they met him in our room. Only that time the grandfather was not present. Not long after I heard that the grandfather had died around New Year from a heart attack, and I hated him for not telling me.
He didn't show any signs of regret for the old man. He lightly said that he barely knew him. Even if my parents died, I might feel some loss no matter how I hated them. I couldn't understand him. But he said, a person who had never known him personally would never set any attachment, so either the person existed or not didn't really mean anything to him.
Test came and then followed by its results. I was surprised, even though I knew I shouldn't, that Friede beat me in the marks. He excelled in sport and music. Two things that actually were not so important for my achievement in my parents' eyes, but they seemed to mean so much for me. I didn't tell him that I was so upset that I didn't want to spend our semester holiday with Mare, Woodsy, and him – something that we had long planned. I simply decided not to make a fuss out of it and joined them to Tenerife where Woodsy's parents owned a villa.
But as soon as we came to the island things just evaporated and we enjoyed ourselves. We played on the strands and dig out some chicks. I could speak Tenerife dialects better than Mare and Friede because it was more or less similar to Mexican Spanish. Off course Woodsy spoke better than me, his mother was raised on the island, even though he was born and raised in Gijón.
We threw a party in the villa. There were a lot of people, mostly older than us; people we got to know in our two weeks stay, university students from anywhere in Europe, some local teenagers we got to hang out with at the beach, simply anyone who asked to come. We had some alcohols, those with legal age bought them for the party. We had also some hash. I didn't know who brought them, but I could smell it clearly in the air.
It was then that I found my way into Woodsy's father's office. He had one there and it was a place that we had never trod to in this house. Woodsy never cared to go there anyway. He didn't really like to know his father's business. I walked there because I wanted to get some piece for a while. I didn't really like to listen to club music for a long time. And it was worsened by the effect of alcohol that started to cloud my brain, beside; I would like to see Mr. Selva's book collection. I didn't know how the thought about books still came to my mind then. Maybe I really was drunk.
I was running through the titles of the books when my eyes rested on an antique box on the desk. Out of curiosity, I walked to the box and my hand walked its way to the key. The key felt cold on my fingers. Slowly I turned it and opened the lid. There was a gun and several bullets inside. My hand reached and took the gun from its box. It was a very beautiful gun and it was not automatic. It was silver in color and it was clean. I thought it was never used, but I might be wrong.
I took one bullet and load it into the gun. I clicked the safety and pretended I wanted to shoot something. It felt cool. And then I put it to my head. There was a strange sensation when the cold metal came into contact with my skin. So this is how it feels when you put a gun to you head, I told myself.
Suicide. That word never entered my mind until I lowered the gun again and looked at it cradled safely in my hand. Would dead be better than living? I heard from the priest in the church where I used to go as a child that people who took their own lives would never see the white tunnel when they die, but I wasn't much as a believer. I thought the idea of God was something ridiculous, although I couldn't find the idea of the world's creation from the science class enough to fill in my question of why people should ever existed.
Suddenly the door creaked open. I hurried to put the gun inside the box again. I was afraid that it was Woodsy, but it turned out to be Friede. His face was a bit red from alcohol.
"I know I would find you here," he said. From his voice, I could tell that he was a bit drunk. He came inside the room, closed the door and strode toward me. "Was hast du da?(6)" he asked, probably too lazy to use English with me. He took his breath close when he saw the gun.
"Funny that something so small could take people's life away," I said as I picked one bullet and showed it to him. I put it down again and then took the gun again. I noticed that I hadn't put the safety back on. "Ever thought about taking someone's life away?" I asked him as I handed him the gun and he took it without question.
"I did," he said bitterly as he eyed the gun closely.
"Who?"
"Mutti. (7)"
"You're kidding me!" I laughed, a loud alcohol induced laugh.
He shook his head.
"Did you hate her so much?" I asked, I suddenly felt that we were on the same side of hating our parents. "I hate my mother. She was always too busy with dad's political campaign."
"I didn't hate my mother," he said calmly though there was a bit of emotion when he said that, "In fact I loved her and I still do."
I snatch the gun back, "You don't wish someone died when you love them!"
I didn't know why I was shouting to him but I did. I weighed the gun in my hand, and wondered how light it felt to take it back to my head.
"As a matter a fact, I did," he said quietly.
I looked at him in disbelief. "You know," I said without caring to take some breath, "I hate you, you know? I hate you for being such a perfect person. I hate you for taking my rank, I hate you for taking my father's love away, I hate you for existing!"
My breath was a bit faster when I finished my sentence. I was surprised that it suddenly came out from my mouth, the thought that had been corrupting my mind for the past few months. I looked at him, ready be shouted back, but he just sighed.
"I know," he said in some concerned way, "But you never wanted me to know, yet."
I averted my sight from him to the gun in my hand. For that moment, all I wanted to do was to take the gun to him and erased him from existence. I took the gun up and pointed it at him.
"I really hate you," I said again. I hated him that he knew my deepest thought. I wanted to be perfect, and a perfect person did not hate anyone. He must be a cheerful and be liked by anyone. Hating someone was a failure. "I merely hate you for existing in my world."
He came closer and put his head on the mouth of the gun.
"Go on," he said, "If it makes you better."
"Don't fool me!" I screamed. If I pulled the trigger on him, I would go to jail, and my father's career would fall from the affair and he would hate me for that. I couldn't be an imperfect child in his eyes. I had to be perfect as long as I lived. I had to be perfect in front of everybody.
His hands came up to the gun and he slowly took it from my hand. I didn't refuse. I let him took the weapon. At first, I thought he was going to keep it back in the box, but instead he took the gun to my head. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't understand. It was a mix of concern and confusion.
"You were thinking of death," he said, "But you didn't dare to commit suicide because it would make your perfection flawed."
"How?" I gasped. How did he know all that?
"If you really wanted to die, I could make it for you, and you would always be perfect in their eyes. And you would be perfect in my eyes. Only the brave dares to choose his death. I'm not as perfect as you think I am."
Did it mean that he also wanted to die?
"Shoot me," I said after a few moments of thought.
"Do you really want to die?" he asked again.
Death. Escapism from all these ridiculous efforts to be such perfection. I nodded. It would be nice. I would die in his hand. I would not be thought as a fool to take my own life, and Friede would not be the perfect person again in the eyes of all people who knew me. That would be better. That would be a better choice to choose. And I would be a person who dared to choose for my own life for at least once in my life. That would be good. That would be a perfect ending.
He looked at me deeply before I heard a loud bang and my eyes got blurry. I felt both light and heavy at the same time and I felt him catching my limped body. Perhaps for once in my life I felt that someone accepted me for what I was, this defective being. I felt sorry for him for what I had done to him and I suddenly regretted that I died. Maybe Friede was the one who really wanted to die.
-end of chapter 2-
Translation hints:
(1) "Do onto others as you would have them do to you". It's not an exact translation, it's actually something like "Whatever you don't want others do to you, do it also to nobody", but I was not so sure how to translate fügen.
(2) "It's your fault that I'm pregnant" it's a sentence that was said over and over again by a friend of mine during my stay in Germany, it was the way she remembered the confusing German grammar on sentences with daß. It really worked. Me and my friends used to think that the correct form was, "Du bist Schuldig, daß ich schwanger bin." But then a friend of ours, a German native, said that it's supposed to be "Schuld" and not "Schuldig" …
(3) "Wär weiss wer weiss who knows?" a Bern dialect I took from reading Oasen für Herzogenbuchsee by Guy Krneta. I won't be able to understand the short story if it wasn't for the translation to Hochdeutsch.
(4) Vilech vielleicht maybe
(5) "I geh' für ä Kaffee. Vilech seh' ich o e hübschi Frou." "Ich gehe für einen Kafee. Vielleicht sehe ich auch eine hübsche Frau" "I'm going for a coffee. Maybe I'll see also a girl (maybe I'll date a girl/get to know a girl)." Also, a dialect I tried to make out.
(6) "What do you have there?"
(7) mother
Well, what do you think? I don't know if you're puzzled with all the names, especially if you have read My Family where I vaguely told about Lovechild/Liebeskind or in After Tomorrow where I mentioned the name Nathanael. Who is who? You will find it in the next chapters.
Oh, you don't have to read the other ficcies, there's nothing really realated to this there.
Okay, now the review button is just somewhere down there. I'd be soooo happy.
