30 Ways to Conquer Mars
#030 キス
A.C. 197, June 9, 10:30:「And I」
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.
...
Zechs was glad that Noin had not killed him for kissing her… yet. He was also surprised to rediscover his sense of self-preservation in such a childish exaggeration.
For a moment, as his lips touched hers and he drowned in the taste of linden flowers on her skin, he had been afraid. Suppose it felt like kissing his sister, or worse, if she felt like she was his sister, then what? It was wholly possible, considering their long history together and her tendency to fluster whenever someone suggested a romantic connection between them.
It was every bit as soft and sweet as he'd imagined it to be— just the way he'd always known her to be beneath the exterior of the tough, cool, woman he has come to rely on— and they had stared at each other, flushed and breathless, and she had bolted like a spooked animal.
He waited for her to offer some kind of explanation. It would be unkind and boorish to press her for it, given the look on her face. He has been waiting nearly a week.
Things seemed normal between them, at least, as normal as they have been on Mars, which meant he saw little of her outside of work while he went out of his way to avoid bumping into her and Donn in his free time, and his interactions with her, though in reality fraught with angst and ambiguity, remained casual and intuitive.
He tried to see himself as others did and wondered if that was what she saw: a brilliant, stoic, man who guarded his privacy ferociously, and somehow despite that, a supremely charismatic leader by nature; no longer the insecure, unapologetic, boy so wound up in his pain and anger that he hadn't noticed he was loved until he'd destroyed it with his own hands. Perhaps that was still who he was in her mind, and although she forgives him for it, it was all she will ever see.
How much damage can one little kiss do? He sighed, the sound echoing through the empty hanger like the long wash of the tide.
This melancholy does not suit him. Who was 'he' anyway? With Sanq lost, Crown Prince Milliardo Peacecraft no longer existed and he, as the man who had allowed that golden Kingdom to fall a second time in his lifetime, had no more right to that name than a random stranger on the streets. As for Zechs Merquise, that was a fiction conjured by an eight year-old purely for the sake of avenging the two hundred and sixteen years of proud history so casually swept under the carpet by the United Earth Sphere Alliance and its mastermind, the Romefeller Foundation.
It wasn't even a particularly good moniker. The real Zechs Merquise was the outlaw hero of a romance novel popular in the Sanq Kingdom of the early 170s, a brazen young Marquis swindled out of his home and honour by an insidious, militant, rival, and eventually won the day with words of love and reason against the violence of Court intrigue. The authoress was plainly a Heero Yuy admirer.
He hadn't planned on any of what happened after the Eve War. He was supposed to be dead. Relena was to be the world's heroine, rising from the ashes of violence to lead the people to Universal Peace. That was why he took on the mantle of the Fenrir, why he led the White Fang and tried to crash Libra into Earth. Someone had to play the beast for the Princess to tame, and he did not trust Treize to stick to the script. Already, he had deviated from their plans by relieving her of her position as Queen of the World.
Zechs invented a new identity and tried to fade away. And then, Treize, again.
He knew better than to place himself back in Lady Une's crosshairs, but Relena's circumstances were dire and he did not have the leisure to go sneaking around stealing the Talgeese III from the Preventers. He should have disappeared immediately, but until he saw the look on Noin's face as she slipped out of the Taurus and ran up to him in the snow in the wake of Mariemaia's surrender, he hadn't realised just how much he'd missed her. Surely a few days… three days became six weeks.
"I should have said this a year ago. I will not walk away from you."
It was more than he deserved, and he dared not ask for anything more. That month and a half with her was nice, as if their year of silence never happened. He had not expected to be forgiven for sending her away, after she'd pulled him from the Libra's wreck. He was angry and confused, and had said things he did not mean. She would not let him apologise. She never lets him apologise.
Sometimes the memory resurfaces and it hurts him that he could have resented her for saving his life, or been petty enough to think the lack of offerings on his grave was her way of saying she has forgotten him. He tried to make himself useful around her. Joining the Preventers was never part of his plan. The whole idea was too much like being in OZ, living under Treize's shadow, though he thought nothing of helping out with Noin's work. When Lady Une put him on her payroll, he knew he had lingered too long.
"Where would we go?" Noin had asked, and he thought to himself that it would be selfish to let her come with him. She should be her own person and have her own happiness, regardless of what he wants, and he suspected that she will never let herself do that so long as he existed.
So he had left a note on her mirror, where she would see. Breathe, he wrote, picturing her frustration. It was kinder this way.
Don't be held captive.
Trusting she will understand.
Afterwards, he will be told that what he'd actually written translated more accurately as "need air. Not kidnapped", which had caused her to wreak her brains for days. Fortunately, he had never thought to impress her by attempting complete conversations in Italian.
Zechs distracted himself from his embarrassment by focusing on tightening a particularly stubborn bolt.
This time, they sent Noin. She always had a way of bringing him back down to earth.
He was certain that Treize had left instructions for Lady Une to keep him there, though to what end, he had not been able to guess before…
Before he'd kissed Lucrezia Noin.
If you don't have a dream in your heart that you can follow, why not follow mine? Zechs Merquise famously petitioned the Empress of his homeland in Caerulea Surgere's novel. One of Milliardo's most vivid memories of life amongst the Khushrenada clan was the debate he and Treize had gotten into as Anatolie Dauphina Khushrenada tried to educate her rowdy sibling and fiancé on the finer points of being a gentleman.
Milliardo thought it deceitful; Treize found it inspirational. This started another argument, their previous scuffle forgotten, and Anatolie had left the room in disgust, declaring them both incorrigible.
Zechs tried not to laugh when a stern-faced Une, sitting behind her desk as the Head of the Preventer Agency, told him that it was those words, uttered to her by Lord Treize on the eve of the OZ Revolution, that secured her fervour to The Vision. It would have been terribly impolite, not to mention that in the end, Treize had been right.
There were people in the world who were better served pursuing the dreams of others than finding one of their own, Treize had proven it amply through Lady Une and Dorothy Catalonia. But there were those who needed their own direction, too, like, ironically, his own daughter.
An incompetant father's wish for a world in which he could kiss his only child good night, Treize? Zechs wiped his hands and leaned his head against the cool metal of the Hopper Suit he was working on. Would it be presumptuous to think that he did understand, despite not being a father?
The freedom to love was a dream completely incongruous to the Men of War that they had let the world around them turn them into. Looking out at the stars and remembering the linden trees, what they all used to be and had wanted to be, he realised quietly, to himself, "You did it. It really is a new world out there, Treize."
Though it was not exactly what Zechs wanted for himself, he thanked his foster brother all the same.
Zechs' dreams for the world, in this moment, were simple: he wanted a bath, some real, honest, food, and to hear Noin say sincerely that everything was perfect. And then, he wanted to kiss her again.
...
.
A/N:
Tying up loose ends before launching into the final story arc…
Zechs' message on Noin's mirror – If you check back to story 2, Zechs scribbled "Aerare. Non rapito" on Noin's bathroom mirror (in her favourite lipstick no less) when he tried to sneak off to Mars the first time. This clears up what he'd intended with that rather nonsensical statement "Need air. Not kidnapped."
Translation gripe – Most English translations of EW give Noin's line in Brussels as "No, I said so a year ago, I won't leave you". This is not exactly true. As per the previous A/N, what she actually says is:
"No, I should have said this a year ago. 'I won't walk away from you'. (lit. 'not leave from near you'.)"
Maybe it's negligible, but to me, hasu makes all the difference. I should have said this. I won't walk away from you.