30 Ways to Conquer Mars
#011 くちなしの花
A.C. 180 February ~ A.C. 197, May 3, 21:14pm 「The Secret Lives of Gardenias」
Gundam Wing © SOTSU AGENCY - SUNRISE - ANB
This is a work of derivative Fanfiction. No claims are made towards the ownership of intellectual rights pertaining to the metaseries.
...
.I.
He sent her a single gardenia on her first official day with the Preventers, a message of good luck, left on her doorstep with sap still oozing from its cut stem. She'd stood it in a small shot-glass and kept it on her night-stand for days, amused and exasperated, wondering who at the dorms he could have bribed to deliver it and why he couldn't have put it in words and sent her a video-mail or something. Plants weren't very forthcoming with the news on how someone was doing.
He was always hiding behind literature and symbols, as if he didn't know how else to relate to anyone. From what she'd heard, back in the day, it worked pretty well on the other girls around the Specials' base camps. Pretty girls with long, flowing hair and fragile skin, who found it more natural to curtsey than to bow, and delighted in nosegays and poetry from mysterious, dashing, young pilots.
The only reason she even understood a fraction of what he'd meant in that little flowery gesture was growing up with two older sisters, one of whom was a notable romantic scholar, and the other, a veritable man-eater. She was neither.
.
.II.
They weren't going to have another reunion, not after what had happened last year with Anne breaking down in the midst of reading out The List of their dead and missing. "How can you stand listening to this, year after year? All we do here is watch each other die like some kind of spectator sport, and every year, more of us turn up maimed or crippled!"
She didn't see the humour in Werden's assertion that shooting himself in the foot was the surest way of getting his leave approved.
Zechs had not been there, though he didn't need to, not to guess how Noin would feel about it. She was already in their old homeroom when he arrived, sitting alone in the late afternoon sun with a can she had not bothered to detach from the six-pack.
"Drinking alone is for sentimental old men," he smirked, leaning casually into the doorway.
She pulled another six-pack from nowhere, set it down next to her, and smiled. "You'd better get a move-on then, because I'm already eight ahead."
He saw, as he moved closer, that she'd scribbled 'Zechs' in indelible black marker across each of the cans standing on the desk and 'Noin' across each of those she was working on. The cases she was perched on were similarly marked.
"How did you know I'd be here?" Snap-hiss. The beer was cold.
"I figured if you didn't, I could probably drink your half," she shrugged.
He chuckled. "Ah, spoken like a true alcoholic."
"I don't think I'm drunk enough to take lectures from a tin-can yet," she tapped the side of his new mask. Colonel Khushrenada had commissioned it as a personal gift to his prodigy, in commemoration of his eighteenth birthday several weeks ago. Zechs wore it as a token of their mutual pact. Noin was convinced Treize'd intended it as a joke. It would be the kind of thing that the twisted nobleman might find funny.
They drank in a comfortable silence, she finding solace in the warm, solid, shadow he cast in the dying light, and he in the ineffable air of calm she carried around with her.
Werner joined them at the eight o'clock study bell with a cast around his off-hand. "Dropped an Aries modulated joint on it," he grinned in explanation to Noin's raised eyebrow, and whistled an appreciative note at Zechs' new look.
Kiskner, Langley and Min walked in on the boys arguing with James and Utsuki, Sergeant-Major Utsuki now, about the superior symbolism of full-helms.
"Is this a private party?" Langley asked of Noin, who was wisely staying out of it.
"No," she embraced the stout Liaison Agent with a laugh, "but you've got to bring your own beer."
And that was how it was.
True, there were only thirteen of them that March evening, out of the ninety-two who had graduated with the Flight Class of A.C. 189 and the fifty-seven who were still listed on active duty, but, they had agreed, so long as there was one man or woman to raise a toast for them, one person out of their ninety-two left standing at the end of the day, willing to remember their names and even one stupid, unremarkable, thing they had done, it would be more than they could ever ask for. So that night, they read The List and drank and yelled and cheered, and celebrated the lives of their absent and departed.
Half the party had reported back to their posts before the rest were up, and whoever had stayed to help with the clean-up were too hung-over to remember which day it was, much less what'd belonged to whom. When every trace of the previous night's mayhem had been erased and she had seen the last of her classmates off, Noin returned to her quarters in the instructors' wing to make a start on the lost-and-found mailings. Thank god for if-lost-return-to tags.
Langley will need his keys back, as will James, when she realises she didn't take them with her when she'd exchanged pants with Min. Werner had run after Kiskner with his security pass, and they hadn't been sure whose patch the extra stripes they'd found had fallen off of, or whose stockings it was tucked under the lecturer's stand. All in all, Noin was surprised they'd managed to leave campus with the right heads on.
She could find nothing to identify the owner of the leather flight jacket she had accidentally dozed off on, except a blank piece of much-handled paper and a slightly slept-on gardenia bloom that flooded her sterile room with its scent, and whose bruised petals she'd gently kissed, wondering what it could mean.
.
.III.
The first time she was ever given flowers was the day she'd graduated from the Lake Victoria Specials' Training Academy.
Whoever it was had pinned the simple white corsage on her pillow with a plain card inscribed in an elegant hand:
"To the heart's Console,
In modest return for a gift received.
~M."
Console was the old translation for Svala, the swallow, and unique symbol of her family; and M. would only be one man, technically still a boy. She wasn't sure what the 'gift received' could be, but it was too late to ask him. As top student of the Flight Class of 189, he had been flown out to a special luncheon on the General's private jet right after receiving his first stripes. The rest of them had to be shipped off together, like peas in a pod.
She burnt the card with a match and stuck the flower on her book-strap, putting it out of mind until a neighbour on the transport raised comment. Flora was not a thing normally associated with her.
"It's a going away present from a friend," she'd smiled. "Gardenias mean 'good luck'."
"No they don't,"
"Yes, they do. I heard it from my sisters." Which is as good a citation as any on these matters when you're twelve, almost thirteen.
"Well, okay," the nerdy little boy leaning over the seat across from her conceded, "but they also mean 'secret love'. That's why my brother sends them to all his crushes."
Now, a sister was better authority on the language of flowers any day, but it wasn't every day that they got such a big drop on this particular little girl. So, even though they didn't really believe it, they did tease her all week with whispered refrains of "Noin has a bo~yfriend~"
.
.IV.
It was the first time in ten months she had gone on a real date, and not one of those sympathy dates Sally had invented for them poor ladies who can't seem to hold on to a man. The lifestyle was definitely a handicap.
She realised with soul-crushing embarrassment that she'd forgotten to call Brandon about standing him up on Christmas, and had continued, to this minute, to forget to call him. She wouldn't be surprised if he'd, like every other reasonable boyfriend whose dates had forgotten to call after coming home from a death-defying stunt, thought her dead.
They had started a list at the office, where you could put down the name and contact number of whoever you're currently seeing and someone will give them a ring when you forget to, and tell them whatever secret-agent-man break-up story you wanted them to believe. Again, Sally's idea.
Noin had never gotten around to signing anyone up. She never knew what to have them hear. 'Sorry, I almost died again yesterday and I realised as my life was flashing before my eyes that you weren't in it'?
Donn had worked one Fall semester in Lake Victoria, four years ago. He was a Romefeller Enterprises engineer sent to liaise with the Mechs Instructors on the latest developments in Mobile Suit maintenance and diagnostics. She had been invited to sit in as the Flight Instructor with the best grasp of the technologies behind keeping them in the air, and shown him a thing or two in the hangers. A few days later, he had shown her a thing or two in the Instructors' mess hall, and in the six weeks he was there, a thing or two in his guest hall bed. She'd always had a weakness for men who could cook.
They had a good time. People in her position couldn't expect any more than that. As a Specials' Officer, her life had belonged to OZ. She ate when they said and went where they point, that was the way it worked. As a Preventer, things had been more chaotic, often with 'by any means necessary' as her only instructions. And well, as the last remaining member of Sanq's defunct Order of the Thorn, her priorities will always be the Peacecrafts, Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian and her brother, Public Enemy Number One, Zechs Merquise.
She wasn't going to feel guilty about needing to find herself outside of all that, damn it. She was twenty years old, three months and eleven days away from starting her second decade in God's onyx universe and had known nothing in her life but war, mecha and conspiracy. She had been thinking a lot about something someone had said to her a long time ago, you need to fit something in there for yourself, too. In her attempts to figure out who it had been, she saw instead how pathetically empty her personal phonebook was.
So, she had thrown herself into the spirit of the moment and let Donn try to rekindle a torch she had not meant to carry. She had forgotten what a real kiss should feel like, with passion and tongue. She'd felt important around him for being nothing more than herself, those six weeks, even though 'herself' had been a lie. She'd enjoyed the freedom of not having to worry about impressing him or defending her position against him, or having to explain herself to him at some later, indeterminate date. She didn't even, for the life of her, remember his last name.
Oh, my god, she panicked in sudden realisation. I hope he doesn't ask me to marry him!
He broke away first, holding her fast against him with a mischievous brightness in his chocolaty eyes. "I hope you're not expecting me to propose, Lucy."
Her face must have been a picture, because he laughed and tapped her chin affectionately as he set her back down.
"It's been a while since you've been back in the game, huh," he grinned.
"Yea," she blushed with a nervous little laugh of her own, almost mistaking 'the game' for 'mercenary work'.
"Want to take a raincheck on the rest of this date?" She had forgotten how wonderfully kind he was.
"No," Noin said shyly, "no, I'm okay."
And that was when she plunged her hands into the sides of her jacket and found the papery, prickly, thing tucked away in a pocket.
She pulled out a desiccated plant. Most of its colours had faded to earthy browns and yellows, except a cuticle-width of white on the rose-like petals, around the floral axis. There was still hint of perfume in the gardenia jasminoides.
"What's that?" Donn reached out to get a better look.
"It's nothing, just a flower," she shrugged casually, stuffing it back in its pocket. "I must've picked it up from somewhere ages ago."
The last time she'd worn this jacket was in January, before Zechs'd tried to run away with it to Mars after his birthday. She hadn't gotten it back until they started packing for the Megmillion Mars Expedition the day before, and then she had to snatch it off his bed and basically wrestle him for it like brothers over a favourite toy.
Donn chuckled warmly, patting down each of his seven pockets for his keycard. "I hadn't pegged you for the flower-picking type."
"I'm not," she protested lightly. Looking down at her scuffling toes, all she could think about in that instant was the long, delicate fingers holding out her shoes, and the faintly lingering scent of gardenias. "Usually."
"That's alright," he smiled, swiping his card against the door, "nobody's one way or the other all the time."
It takes 2.5 seconds for a standard-width door to slide open…
"Uh, Donn?" Noin looked up. "I think I'll just be going... to go back to mine tonight…"
He looked at her, patiently understanding as always, like a puppy waiting to be kicked. "I understand, it's been a long day for everyone and you're tired. Knowing you, you haven't been to bed in at least forty hours."
Thirty-two hours and twenty-three minutes. "Busted," she grimaced.
He shuffled forward to envelope her in a great hug. "Don't you apologise for that, Lucy. You're always working too hard at trying to please. Try to remember sometimes that you're lovely, just as you are."
"Thanks Donn," she smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow, or something."
.
.V.
His first memory of gardenias took him back to his fourth birthday party, where an unusually early spring had prompted his mother to propose a garden party instead of his usual Treasure Hunt Adventure through the royal palace of Sanq.
It was the first time he'd met the gorgeous, tawny, girl of the cold, piercing, eyes he had been told he will marry some day. He'd made up his mind then, that she would be the most beautiful bride in the world. It had taken all his spider-hunting courage to invite her to dance.
"Maybe when you're as tall as I am, I will consider," she'd said, staring decisively down at him from her delicately chiselled nose. A major set-back, since she was six years his senior and ten seemed an eternity away, though it had not been enough to dampen his spirits.
There was ice-cream and cake, and presents, and everything was done up in his favourite colour, white. He had been allowed to write some of the invitations on his own, something he was still quite smug about, and eat alone with his friends at the Prince's Table. "All this," his parents had granted indulgently, "is because you are going to be a big brother soon. You have to learn to be a big boy, now." He bowed deeply for the Queen and shook the King by the hand solemnly, to seal his end of the bargain.
"Your Highness," a lanky young man started apologetically for interrupting his survey of the festivities. The princeling refrained from throwing himself around the older boy's legs and clasped his forearm in a gesture he had seen his father greet his closest companions with, instead.
"Luciano, I was afraid I'd missed you!" It was more difficult to keep the glee off his little face.
"Not using the royal 'we', Highness?"
"No," Milliardo replied thoughtfully, "I think, since we're such close friends, we can dispense with the ceremonies.
"Besides," he leaned in in a confidential whisper, "it's so confusing! What if I'd meant 'just me' and not 'both of us'? What should I do then?"
"I think that is a question for your Master of Etiquettes," Luciano laughed. "I'm afraid I can only be of service in interpreting the finer mysteries of chess." His eyes crinkle and almost disappear into his cheeks. It was an odd expression that the younger boy did as much as he could to provoke.
"I was wondering, your Highness, if you aren't too busy watching over us," the Prince's Chessmaster stepped gracefully aside with a low sweeping bow, "You'd requested I present to you my youngest sister, Alessandra Lucrezia Cosmino di Luculo."
If her brother had not brought his attention to the raven-crowned child, Milliardo would easily have missed her. She was not remarkable, save for the clear light of intelligence that lurked behind her eyes. The ice-blue frock she modelled was immaculate, although shocking in its lack of laces and bows. She did not seem to have the same aversion to ribbons, two pairs of which, icy blue and lilac, were tied into her matching ponytails. He knew her by reputation.
Luciano's sister, the one who'd built a mobile tower fortress from a rolling ladder and an unspecified number of books in the Marchese di Luculo's private study this past summer; who'd menaced the kitchen cats and chickens with a stick until her brothers' fencing instructor, feeling sorry for the animals, had allowed her to watch him teach last week. The girl whose best parlour trick was reciting the names of constellations in order of discovery: she was up to stars of the autumn sky, now. Little, darling, Alesso, who was in competition with him for Luciano's affections, and whose fondest wish in her four year-old heart was to have her very own steed, a spirited Arabian bay she could take into battle, not one of those sissy grey ponies they'd given her elder sisters. Her words.
The prince held out his right hand to be kissed, as was proper. The girl dropped an appropriate curtsey, stumbling her lips lightly over his glove, and mumbled something under the cover of her shoulder-length locks. Before he could ask her to repeat herself, she had run away into the forest of dresses near the Queen's Pergola.
Luciano watched her go, puzzled. "You have to forgive her, your Highness, she is not usually this shy with strangers."
Milliardo grinned, score one for the Royal Prince.
Other distractions from that day that will come back to haunt him in adulthood, like the old man who grimaced at all the children while speaking hostilely to his father about war and fighting from the corner of his thin, chapped, lips, and the radiant woman with a golden waterfall of curls, who sat holding his pregnant mother's hand, wearing an expression of pure love and worship.
But the character he will remember the most was a tall, stately woman who wore her midnight tresses in a simple French twist secured by a comb set with a row of diamond Christmas roses that shone like stars in her hair. He had heard several people address her as 'Marchessa', and Luciano once as 'Mamma'. When she glided up to the Prince's Table to request his audience, she spoke with a slight Austrian accent.
"Your Royal Highness," she had said, smiling under the watchful eye of a certain little girl. "I have come before you bearing a gift on behalf of my daughter. May it bring you joy in the days to come."
He received a perfect white blossom from this magnificent Pallas Athena and brushed its petals to his lips as a sign of acceptance, staring regally into her deep, purple, eyes.
"Madam," he bowed just deep enough to be correct, kicking himself for forgetting the right way to address a Marchessa. "It is my pleasure."
"Sorry I couldn't get you anything better," someone hiding amongst her skirts piped up derisively. "I didn't know it was your birthday."
"I'm afraid she stole it from her Majesty's bower," the Marchessa di Luculo chuckled, pushing the little girl fully in front of her with firmly adoring hands on both her tiny shoulders. "I hope you don't mind."
...
.
A/N:
Gardenias: before we move off the topic of gardenias, these are the five main hanakotoba (flower language) of Gardenias: Good luck, Secret love, Sweet love, 'You're lovely', and Joy. I've used each one as the inspiration for each of the five tales.
The Japanese name of gardenia is kushinashi no hana, which literally means 'the blossom of something unspoken'.
Also, I've created a horde of O/Cs to populate the empty spaces in their lives. Don't shoot me.