X was a relatively average man, like most of his schoolmates he came from an impoverished lifestyle and suffered the same starvation and prostitution everyone else had. He lived on the outskirts of Paris with his mother and sister; his father had died from a disease he had never comprehended, but he left with a bottle in his hand as he slumped forward in his old and battered chair, motionless. They said it was heartbreak that had ruined him, but X never knew what his father was upset about. They lived near a beaten down path, close to the pastures, and away from the frivolities of Parisian leisure. They had never known luxury, but fortunately their most prized possession was humility. At the cross roads of the Rue de Charenton and the Rue de Mongalet, these people lived with a certain awkward peace where all the soldiers would walk to for their weekly inspection and privacy.
"Don't ever become one of them;" his mother would advise him with a dry voice as he watched a figure of a lone man stumble away from her room. "They're not like us." She would cough relentlessly and shut the door after him. After his father's death his mother resorted into a more drastic occupation, but so did all of the other people scattered about who begged for food and lusted to live. It was common to see her look the way she did, and when she said those bitter words she had plucked some wine from a hidden stash and drunk it hastily with a sense of comfort.
He remembered nodding and agreeing with her, although he could not understand why she had held such contempt in her tone. The back of the soldier disappearing through daylight always returned to him, and he was mesmerized. At least, there was a man who lived in power, even if such power was only a fraction to that of the King's.
When he first attended school, the expectation he made for himself was beyond perfect. The man in uniform from his memory always echoed out to him – always told him that he could be someone else, and that encouraged him to make such a radical decision out of all his life in blissful ignorance. Maybe he could become someone's hope, and maybe he could actually climb his way up from the destitution he was born in? Like the man who had paid for his mother's services, he knew without him they would have starved, or the corpulent soldier who had demanded for an extra allowance so he could protect them from the threatening remnants of post-revolution fury without him they might have died. X had told himself he would be the best student any teacher could hope for just to gain that privilege, just to save those men and women.
But that excitement was soon hushed.
He knew that student was trouble the day they first met. The young boy strode in the classroom with an air of confidence about him; albeit they were only children everyone instinctively knew he was remarkably gifted just by this first impression. There was a certain radiance about him that kept people flocking to his side. He was charismatic, he was outspoken, and he was light and hope personified.
X was conflicted with his new school mate. He was everything X could have hoped to become – and he was still a child, a boy of thirteen, and that ruined him. This angelic face was not so poor as to understand the corruption that passed on every generation of his kind; however, he spoke like them, his tongue rough and sharp making it all the more impossible to ignore, and it was hard for X to register that it came from such pretty lips.
He could tell his schoolmates were entranced by this newcomer; this boy of middle class, this boy of privilege. He had friends of privilege too, from what most of the poor could tell. He became the object of their affection, their enlightenment, but not X's. X would have enjoyed his peer's presence more if the others had not turned into moths. He could feel himself grow even more aware of how small everyone in their class was. They were pathetic compared to the light, but the light showed all compassion, and that was enough for them to give their allegiance.
"Brother, let me walk with you." He asked X one day, and followed him as they strolled down a hill. Months had passed now, and it was just the two of them who had not created a close bond. X had tried with all his power to stay distant from him, but he always found himself stuck under the concerned gaze of his peer. The worst part was that their neighborhoods were close, his, a pastoral mansion, while theirs a shed in the loom of the slums.
"We share no blood, do not humiliate me." X felt uncomfortable under his careful watch, and slightly shrugged to see if the effect his classmate had on him could be easily ignored. It wasn't. The mere thought of being related to such a person ailed him for he despised his being with a jealousy he could not fathom into light words.
His classmate's eyes furrowed at the discomfort in his statement. Despite his youth, his face was hardened as if all the pain and agony that everyone and anyone had endured was beaten onto his stern expression. He was devoid of levity; he never laughed even for a boy of his age, nor had he ever cracked a smile. The only bit of human in him was in his eyes. His eyes were the only warmth. They shone with a certain grace and wonder, and they held light, and that frightened X to know such a stare could be produced.
"We were born under the same stars, in the same country, we are the children of our motherland- you are my brother." He reasoned as if it was the most natural response, and he took his hand firmly as if that would affirm their ties. His graceful and lithe movement had only garnered more envy from X; who was he to behave in such religious manner? Such frail movements belonged to the nobility, how dare he behave above his class? X pulled away from him, and found his intimacy foreign, rude, and embarrassing.
"What do you want from me?" He asked voice dashed with hurt as if speaking to him made him dirty.
"I want everything, your friendship, anything that will help us to improve our distant relationship." He was bold, and X did not look to meet the angry passion in the cool eyes of his kin. He felt his skin raise goose pimples, and he shuddered. His strong facade was easily stripped down just by his own imagination of what that expression could have been.
"Why is that so important?"
"…Because you are my brother."
He was serious for a thirteen year old boy, and X knew that that rarity found within him would be dangerous; the light was fire. Immediately, upon that realization he had left him without a response; he would not tie himself to the light like the others had. He would not become a moth; he would resist him as if he were the temptation God had forbid.
But they called him God-sent.
His classmates revered him, but how many voices could coax X to understand how precious this other boy was? How many people could convince him that this soul was the future, this peer was their savior, and this man was their liberator?
How many times does it take for a truth to sound like a lie?
It took a few years to convince himself that it was.
They went to university together, and his classmate went unchanged. Every teacher and every student in his proximity had either admonished the Angel or admired him during his infamous spouts of rebellion and progression. X was left to the side as he practiced his arithmetic and language. He had studied hard in careful silence, and he was notorious for being the pessimist who shrugged the light away with his grunt.
He was not a cynic, though, he had his own hope. He was not like that drunkard who slipped his way through stumbling, and searching for something tangible knowing it wasn't.
The soldier engulfed in light that he saw countless times as a little boy had given him his reason to go down his own path.
So he worked hard.
But, despite his little claims of self-fruition, the center of attention was promised a great future, and he was promised a bleak one.
"Friend," his nightmare would speak to him from out of the blue as he sat down underneath the shade supplied by the great Oak. He had been eating, and hiding himself away from the others. A book on Latin was propped onto his knees. "Why do you not join our cause?" He asked, his eyes looming on the spent pages with little interest, as if he had already learnt the language by heart.
"Audi, vide, tace, si tu vis vivere." X remarked snidely, hoping for once this language would be their barrier.
His classmate straightened up, and made a wry smile, but said nothing.
He thought he had won.
Several days later, the lanky blond stood in front of the classroom with a deadpan look stretched across his paled face. Someone had the audacity to question him and his beliefs the other day, and dashed with fury he had left. "Credula est spes improba!" The youth had ended his speech for redemption. "Those who are cowards, let them argue, but let them know they are the people who let Patria enslave itself. To here, listen, and to live in silence is not living." He called out with a softer tone in his edgy voice. He had retired early that day, and claimed he had more important things to do.
X retired as well with humiliation.
One day in an angry daze, X found himself shouting at the top of his lungs. All of his despair, his contempt, his envy had been gouged out of his mouth as the liquor slipped through his throat with ease. He had failed at a debate with the Golden One, and was ridiculed for his poor argument. By then everyone else was looking forward for a dangerous progression, and their hearts had long since been chained to the ideals of their leader. He blamed passion for making a difference.
"There will be blood!" He had informed them, and they sneered at mortality as if they too were Gods. The relationship they had with the golden child had transformed them into thinking petty hallucinations of grandeur. "You all may die." He emphasized with rising anger, and they ignored him; their hearts were unwavering. "What about your families?" He made a last desperate call for attention.
"That is enough," Was the reply from their instigator. "I do not harass you for your goals, do not discourage mine."He made himself clear as he closed his book loud enough to make it audible to all.
His stutters, his pleas, his demands to keep his classmates sane and safe had gone down the drain, by the simple instruction of that of the leader. He shook his head with remorse, someone must pay. You could not reason against the Divine. If God had something in store for them, then he would let God do his part.
As he drunk away his fears, his insecurities, his loathing, a shadow crept over him ever so subtly. Unfortunately, he was found by the subject of his aversion, but he could no longer care much about his presence and continued to consume and waste himself. At some point during the awkward silence, he dared himself to stare at those pair of steely, blue eyes he had avoided all this time. If he looked up, he knew he'd see condemnation.
For some reason, even though he loathed the man, he could not bear to disappoint him either.
He did not look up, and continued to stow his mind away with the brandy in his hand.
For another year X did his best to steer away from him. For another dreadful year, he had avoided any debate, any class, and any conversation that might have linked him back to the creature he despised. This required a lot of unnecessary work, but the humiliation that he had faced every day alongside this person was too unbearable that he would have done anything! He felt alienated in a classroom full of angry, unreasonable passion.
His professors were exceedingly difficult to explain to, as well. "You could learn better from him," a few would reply monotonously as if they had been brainwashed to agree with their star pupil. The others who were a little less tolerant with his classmates' dreams just couldn't find the time to teach him aside from their scheduled lessons. "You don't need to attend school you know," some offered lazily from their seats, not really bothered with having one less student to care for.
He had considered dropping out to find petty work much to his classmates' scorn and his teachers' unsupervised delight. The soldier in his daydreams weren't so tempting as before. The figure was fading fast just as his old ambition was flickering dangerously on and off like a dying flame. His importance to X was no longer needed. There was not much to care for, in X's opinion, when there was no dream to follow.
To still be alive in this time should be reason enough to be happy. He had tried to tell himself that, but his own quiet ardor, although, deeply discouraged, was still kept ablaze.
Somewhere at the pit of X's stomach all the longing to do good still prospered. Even if his dream did not coincide with that man's goal, his dream would be fulfilled to save the living; to save those in the present.
One day he received a blessing. He received his calling, and for three years he had not seen his classmates.
And he was relieved.
Despite all of the hardships and brutalities that came along within his rocky and mundane life he had managed to climb the social ladder with hard work, and soon achieved a respectable seat within the National Guard. He wore his badges with pride, and his uniform with glory. His mother had denied him from entering her home, but he was given power, at least, and this power would be used for justice.
Throughout his years in training, X had been enlightened by the ways of the King's men. How to diminish larceny, how to oppress arguments, how to imprison, how to shoot, how to stab, and how to keep calm were just a few instructions taught, and every bits of people he had punished had molded his secretive, silent nature into that of a sympathetic and weary man.
But what came with this sudden awareness came grace and nobility.
"You think you can look into the eyes of a man like that?!" His teacher would scrunch his nose with disdain as some of the trainees shuddered under his harsh glare and red face. "You scum think you know everything. Hell, you've probably come from the slums, but you know nothing." The years of experience were evident in his tone, and there was some sort of melancholy that dipped through each syllable; he would dismiss them every day in such a fashion.
X had taught himself to get used to disappointing and disappointment.
During his three years of relentless failing and surpassing, he had become a man of diminishing passion. To please his government and the people who did smile at the good fortune his hard work had brought for them was the only happiness he could derive from his career. And even so, that happiness hardly delved deep into his heart of yearning.
All he felt was an empty silence that rested in the core of his chest. It was, in fact, so empty, that he shook. It was so quiet that he raged with thought of losing something.
He was looking for something tangible, even though he knew it wasn't to begin with.
There was silence.
He fastened onto his carbine with a shudder. To see Enjolras in front of him was blinding and nerve-wracking. He could not tell whether or not it was the sun rising that had its effect on him, but his eyes began to water, and he would like to blame sunlight for blaring at him so harshly, but the fact that he could still look made him nauseous. For the first time in years, he has met the revolutionary's gaze, and his body aches all over as if in protest.
It was that stare that he had been avoiding. That stare that he had envisioned to be full of condemnation was enlightened into that of fervent passion.
Here is the god scent leader of the rebels; here was the youth, the intellect, and the passion of France's people standing ready for execution. It was all too haunting of a scene for X not to watch in quiet dismay.
The contempt he had for Enjolras had already been gone, it had disappeared long ago when the soldier in his dreams ebbed away from his ambition, only to be replaced by a new figure bathed in light.
Enjolras.
Those cool blue eyes he had always thought to be so powerful and condescending watched him with a brave and unwavering gaze. The light held in Enjolras' stare still held its passion, although, this time, it was diminishing, and blurred by a mixture of blood and fear.
Human fear…
The light is fire now, and it has become tangible. The moths have all died, and along with it will the fire be extinguished.
X's eyes glazed over, and his heart begun to sunk at a realization. The soldiers looked a little confused with how they should treat the young revolutionary leader, but in the end they could not compromise with Enjolras' stalwart loyalty.
His classmate raises his red flag in one arm, and a smile almost ghosts over him.
Out of desperation, out of anger, out of contempt, out of disappointment, fear, and misery he ordained, and the light consumed his vision.