OK Number 67 - Monachopsis

This phantom, now sober, took a recovery day, before surfacing again on the Tuesday. Considering where he had started, all the way at the back of the grid, to finish in second was not just a fantastic feeling, but it cemented Suzaku's decision to leave.

It was right. Rebellion had felt so much like home, something welcoming. Certainly it did not gel with what Kallen had reported of the team in her first season, though perhaps over her second she had had some impact on the culture of the team, at least until her unscheduled departure. Combined with Naoto's leadership in conjunction with his generally wholesome and accommodating personality, the entire facility had felt infectiously comfortable. It was somewhere Suzaku might go out of something other than a self-enforced obligation to put in the hours, lest his skills atrophy.

It felt like home, and a family, one he'd been searching for for years since Genbu had left. He thought he'd found it with Lelouch, however that did not transpire. However, he still needed to collect his personal affects.

He knew where the storage depot was, Lelouch hadn't moved it. The warehouse that served as a materials dump for the team, a stage between Japan and the on again/off again circuit at Yeongam, in South Korea. Given that Suzaku had stormed off out of Italy in too fierce a rage to function, and had been stewing in the Kōzuki apartment the rest of the week, he had not collected anything that he had had stored in the Schwarzenritter garage, only bringing to Japan the clothes he had been wearing. Most of it wasn't worth the time that was spent getting rides down that far south, however there were a few things he didn't want to leave behind.

He had at least been able to gather some more clothes in his home, but most of his day-to-day clothes and other affects were in that garage, and so he made the trek down to Nagasaki before he got a boat across the narrow sea to the Korean peninsula.

What he found there was surprising.

"Where is everyone?"

The warehouse was almost completely empty. Sure, there were neat piles of equipment and crates, presumably containing parts, laid out in loose clusters about the place, but the open floor plan and high ceiling emphasised how empty it felt. Under Lloyd, it would be a sprawling mess, but under Lelouch they were dense clusters, organised by part type, emphasising how big the space actually was as well as the change that had been brought to the team under Lelouch.

He ran to an extreme degree of rationalisation, with every single part, bolt, tool, and design documented and filed, alongside a running documentation of activities and tasks on a level Suzaku had never seen. Nothing happened without it being recorded and filed as the team was driven to pursue permutations of permutations of the design of subassemblies of minor components. The wonder was that all of this was accomplished without any mess or chaos. As was put on display by the neat stacks of boxes, which upon further inspection were not only grouped by type but ordered alphabetically, Lelouch had made no compromises on having everything in as efficient an order as possible, however the volume that was now freed up made Suzaku feel very small.

This sense of feeling small was not helped by the fact that the place was totally devoid of humans, with no one in here other than Suzaku.

"A break before Korea in two weeks for the operations and ground team. They're at home."

Well, almost no one.

Lelouch, working with an aide Suzaku recognised but could not name, emerged from behind a stack of crates and began to march, though unthreateningly, towards Suzaku, armed with a clipboard each.

Lelouch looked terrible. That was Suzaku's instinctive reaction, examining him. Bloodshot black eyes, visibly tired in an emotional sense, and, as Suzaku closed up, he hadn't shaved in some time, and there were the slight emergence of spots around the upper edge of his jaw. Unfortunately, Lelouch couldn't even grow facial hair gracefully, with it appearing more in tufts and patches than in consistent, uniform growths. He had definitely not been sleeping, which might explain his presence.

Suzaku, coyly, simply asked in reply "And you're here?"

"Someone has to pack up. There's no reason to delegate something I can do myself."

Suzaku leaned across. Lelouch would not be well suited to this sort of work, but he didn't doubt the Frenchman had pitched in as much as he ahd been allowed, if only to take his mind off of things. Conflicted, Suzaku simply moved on and asked "Do you know where you put my stuff?"

Lelouch grimly nodded, before turning and walking towards the south office to get it. Suzaku and clipboard man followed, as the pilot noted Lelouch's continued reluctance to delegate tasks. He had only one little beanpole to help organise all of this, but Suzaku doubted it would not somehow be done. Lelouch would be here until midnight just plugging away at what was essentially glorified filing, and not think twice about it.

Either way, Lelouch led them to a box, with a marker helpfully indicating 'Les affaires de Suzaku', containing all of his clothes and miscellaneous tat. The clothes had even been ironed and folded.

As Suzaku bent back up, satisfied that everything was here, he nodded, and said "So this is it. This is goodbye."

"Is there anything I can say to change your mind?"

"No." Suzaku replied, shaking his head. "No, I don't think so."

There was an awkward silence, as Lelouch, rebuked, withdrew into himself a bit, and Suzaku had got what he wanted. However, as Suzaku considered just walking out with the box, his opposite number cleared his throat.

"Well then." Lelouch finally replied, clearly somewhat emotional but successfully suppressing it into his chest, taking a moment to crush the regretful sigh just about to reach his lips. He shook his head, before shakily whispering "Goodbye my friend."

Suzaku curtly nodded, not sharing Lelouch's repressed emotion before he bent down to pick up the cardboard box. Without another word, Suzaku turned to begin to walk away.

But after about ten meters, he stopped. No, not like this. Lelouch couldn't have the last word. Suzaku wouldn't let him. He had to learn something from this.

Because Suzaku still cared. While Suzaku trusted very easily, it took quite a bit to get him to care deeply, but Lelouch had been one of the people who had stuck his hooks in, and Suzaku didn't want his friend of ten years to continue, stuck in his ways. He wanted Lelouch to change, to be better, and he would not allow the Frenchman to take the wrong lesson from this split.

And so, he bent over to place down the box, before, with his thumb and forefinger buried in his brow in frustration, turning back to the pair, and with a wavy left arm tried to meander his way into a coherent explanation of the situation.

"Listen… and not for nothing… but… this doesn't mean I'm… angry, or don't… we can still be mates. It's just that on the same team, we're a bit of a toxic stew."

Lelouch didn't quite pout, but he clearly was somewhat upset, as he replied "But you won't stay."

Suzaku was frustrated at Lelouch trying to shift the framework of any duty Suzaku owed Lelouch, however he had cooled off since Italy, and was quite impassive at the whole affair. He was genuinely not angry, at least not anymore, but this error had to be corrected.

"Don't… gaslight me Lelouch." Suzaku insisted. "I gave you a house, I gave you a base of operations for over five years. And let's make it straightforward, I never expected to be paid back, I never expected to be rewarded, I didn't expect anything back, it was just the right thing to do for a close friend who was going through a rough time. I wept over your bed in hospital. I've stood by you, and I'm still not… no matter what anyone says, I can't… stand here, and paint the person who was my friend for a decade and saved my job and the jobs of almost a thousand people as someone I can just flick a switch to start hating. Don't say that I haven't stayed by you, sacrificed for you. I have stayed. But I can't wait forever. I can't waste my career."

Lelouch had no response, seemingly just overwhelmed at it all, however it lacked the finality. Suzaku suspected Lelouch would not yet have learned and so, if not for Lelouch himself, then for the hapless sod he signed to drive alongside Rolo for next year, Suzaku doubled down on the point.

"Lelouch… you said something to me. After Belgium. You said, and… I don't… you said that you were depending on me. Those were your words. And you don't mince words, you don't say things carelessly, you choose your words very very carefully. And I get it, we grew up together. You needed to, if you weren't a proper lean bastard you would have been eaten up and chewed out. I was talking to… well, you know who I was talking to, and I get it. I haven't had to worry about half of the things in my life that you had to worry about in a day. You never knew who was paying your next race entry, if a cheque would bounce, if a sponsor would stiff you. You had to learn to be careful with your words, not make promises you couldn't keep, and not depend on anyone you didn't absolutely have to."

On the verge of somehow stoic tears, Lelouch shook his head and simply asked "Where are you going with this?"

"You said to me that you had been depending on me. You said you were depending on me. You don't lean on people easily, we lived together… lord knows how long. You hated having to rely on me for a house, you made no secret of it. And you weren't wrong to, people can flake. In hospital, I remember you wanted to be out of their care as soon as possible, you didn't trust them as far as you could throw them. You said that you were depending on me, in driving the car, that you were placing a unique reliance on me."

Suzaku paused to gather his breath. He was arriving at his point, possibly the most fraught.

Lelouch had tried to ruin his career, but in a way it almost seemed inevitable that he would do this, given the incentive structure he had in front of him. That was a settled question, and Suzaku had long lost his anger on this front. Lelouch had at no point said he would not try and favour Rolo, Suzaku had just not had enough sense to ask the question. But…

"You do not, for as long as I've known you, say something you have not thought about, in detail, scrutinised, pored over religiously. You don't say things at all lightly. And you… know me, you know how well I know you, you know that I know that, and you know what effect hearing… that, from you, would have on me. You knew how I would respond. You took advantage of me. You knew how I would react to you saying that, you said exactly what I would have needed to hear to believe you. Did… bloody… it's too early to start swearing, but knowing that, knowing, like you unquestionably did know, what effect it would have, and saying it anyway, saying, like that, that you were depending on me while you knew I knew the context, was that just more deception?"

Lelouch looked unprepared for this question, and stammered as he tried to think of some kind of answer, or to find some retroactive justification depending on your own interpretation of Lelouch's behaviour. However, as the Frenchman looked around, perhaps hoping for the answer to be inscribed into the sides of the crates surrounding him, Suzaku realised something.

"It doesn't matter." he sighed, shaking his head. "It doesn't make a difference whether you meant to deceive or not, or at least not a material one. What happened happened, intent is a bit irrelevant. It's not…"

"Yes." Lelouch exasperatedly hissed, finally able to breathlessly blurt it out. "Suzaku, yes I meant it. Suzaku, when we started up this team again, it was practically collapsing around its ears. Our car… Lloyds design had to be sold off as intellectual property, we were designing the car as we were building it, we are still trying to catch up with the people who had a six month head start. Suzaku, you have more technical knowledge than any driver I've ever met. You have steered the development, you have pointed out where we were weak, and more importantly how we could solve it. Without you, we would be backmarkers. You have done more work for this team than any person in this factory, including myself."

Lelouch leaned back, with the odd combination of furrowed brows and pleading eyes. However, Suzaku was unconvinced, replying "So it wasn't taking advantage of me to boost your brothers ego, it was exploiting me while I was useful to improve the car. A technical difference at best. Alright. Then what happened at Monza?"

Lelouch suddenly looked down, for the first time without even an attempt to get a word in. It was quite a pathetic sight, He had no explanation, not even a concept of where an explanation would come from, he was just caught out, without even a hint of deniability or a defence.

Suzaku shook his head, and piteously sighed.

"Look… Lelouch, I can't get angry at you. Not just this wasn't a horrible thing to do, or because we've been mates for years, but it's not… a flaw in who you are, if I can say that, for you to do this. It's not a bug. It's a feature. And it can be a benefit. But I can't… you've never not been this way, for as long as I've known you, the scheming, plotting sort. And that's not a bad thing. It's not a knock against you. You're not a bad… well, that's going too far. You are a bad person, but that doesn't mean you can't have good effects, or do good things, and you have done."

"Oh." Lelouch quietly replied, without an attempt at a comeback or witty reply, just a sarcastic, self-pitying "Well, thank you."

"I'm serious." Suzaku insisted. "You've brought the factory back in England back from the brink, you brought up two children on your own while you yourself were barely a teenager, trying to get at these goals aren't… ignoble. I can't get angry at you for doing… exactly what has gotten you all this way, what you have always done, and what I knew you would always do. It's worked for you. You saved the company, saved however many jobs, saved your siblings… but…"

Suzaku rubbed his brow, as he found it in himself to admonish the Frenchman.

"You're… neurotic, tight, impatient, ruthless. And that's not a crime. But I can't… it's not that we can't be mates, but I can't work with someone whose interests clash with mine. Or, probably more accurately, you can't work with someone whose interests don't perfectly dovetail with yours. I'm not going to get out of Rolo's way, so the best thing I can be in a team you're running is a development driver. That's not what I got into this sport to be, so I'm sorry. But when I get to Korea, I'll be driving the Rebellion car."

Lelouch, completely mystified, could only stutteringly reply "I don't understand-"

"No, now… now, you see, that's it, that's it exactly." Suzaku replied, holding his frustration back for a noble cause. "Right there. That's precisely the problem. You don't understand."

Lelouch stepped back just a bit, as Suzaku continued to explain.

"You don't get it. Not everything is transactional." he began, with a sigh. "You think that being… well, who you are, isn't just… well, who you are, you think it's an advantage. You think that there is only one way to succeed, to be a cold, calculating chess player. That's the only framework through which you can envision success at anything. You look at someone being kind as a sign of weakness. But it's not. It's not an either-or. You can be a decent human being and succeed at the same time. And I'm going to prove it to you."

With this, Suzaku bent back down to pick up the box, and stood to deliver his conclusion.

"So yes." he began. "To the best, and the worst person I have ever known, this is goodbye. You've taught me many lessons, and I thank you. I'll buy you a pint when I've won in 2020."

With this, Suzaku turned around, and began to walk out.

Lelouch had taken to being in charge quite smoothly, however, as Suzaku walked away, he realised the Frenchman had never been in this storage dump with other people across the way. Suzaku knew from experience that when empty out, this warehouse was big and spacy enough for a conversation on one side to be echoed across the entire building to the other.

So, as clipboard man spoke with Lelouch, neither one knew Suzaku heard everything they said. Clipboard man, sighing, began their conversation.

"Sir… he didn't mean all of that... he's not like that, he didn't mean to be saying those things."

Then a pause, then Lelouch refuted this with more than a little certainty, "No, he did. He definitely meant it."

Immediately, clipboard man let out a slight sighing sound, before he reasoned "Well… he gets antagonistic, when he's emotional."

Another pause, before Lelouch conceded with an audible sadness "No… he doesn't."

"Well he's wrong." came the reply, seeming to be an attempt at some last stand in Lelouch's defence. "He's got you all wrong sir."

But there was no response from Lelouch to this.

~G1ll3s