July
Part 18
by kebzero
July eighteenth, AC 207
Side Notes
Despite Duo's best efforts to convince me, I still don't think I missed out on too much by not going with them to the beach last week. I'd have liked to have taken a swim in the sea, sure - and seeing Heero strip down without a second thought might have been good for a laugh, but that wouldn't suffice. Besides, I've seen Heero naked before, when we had to patch him up from his first self-destruction. He's got a body worth admiring, but it's not him that I love.
And that is what all the possible larks at the beach couldn't weigh up for.
Perhaps it would be easier if I were just in lust over someone like Heero - I doubt he'd serve the the sort of gentle smile that renders me all mushy inside. Quatre does that without even thinking; it's part of who he is - or at least, the front he puts up. I almost wish I could be there when he's overcome with grief, anger or frustration, just so I could support him; justify an embrace.
I keep trying to act nonchalant, but it's not easy. Infiltrating OZ was a cakewalk compared to living under the same roof as Quatre, without revealing my thoughts. I know he senses something is up, but he has refrained from cornering me on the subject, so far. For some reason, he appears more interested in picking Duo apart over something.
Define irony? That Quatre is gay, but in love with someone else. If that is true, I'm not sure I could stop myself from punching Duo's lights out, or worse. Jealousy is a nasty thing.
I don't think that's what it is, but the green monster chewing at my heart suggests otherwise.
I walked out on them on breakfast, wanting to roam the grounds alone for a while. As fate would have it, I ended up at the gazebo - the same one from more than two years ago. It looked worn down, in disuse, but the instrument cabinet was still there, as was the flute I once used. I gave it a go, tried to remember the notes, the mood from back then. It was difficult. It was the easiest thing in the world. The moment passed before it began. Disgruntled, I packed the flute away again, and walked off.
Quatre is the one with the musical gift, I know that - I knew it back then, too. I could play, but nowhere near his level. I could not match his play, only attempt to complement him.
Isn't it the same now? No real match, only there at his side to fill a vacancy?
It's hard not to turn angry at him, even though I'm the one at fault. I really don't want to get caught glaring at him, for that is not what I truly feel. Maybe I need some new tricks to stay out of his way.
At first, I wondered if Wufei might be helpful in that matter. For a while now, he's immersed himself in the library, and wherever we go as a group, he has a few books along. Duo gave him some jibes about his reading glasses, but when he was ignored in favor of the book, the matter dropped. Wufei reads fast, and often - but the rest of us can't really bring us to complain, because with this literary pursuit, Wufei has almost relented entirely from his recruitment drive.
This morning, I followed him down there. He'd told me there was a shelf of books that was Quatre's, and I found myself curious as to what he found worth reading. Most of the titles were too factual, or too unknown for me, but an old poetry collection caught my eye. No real structure in the editing job, just poems taken from nearly a millennium of aspiring minds, trying to depict something important to them, at their point in time, life, world.
Poetry is the way of saying so much with so little, and packing so minor meaning in so many words. Poems are read, not written; what the words convey is more often determined by the audience than the author. No wonder why poetry can pack a punch, when it can be interpreted even more varied than even religious scripture.
For that same reason, I don't think any of the poems could give me a deeper insight into Quatre's mind, but they can at least suggest where he finds inspiration.
Few of the names were known to me. Shakespeare, I've heard of, and a few others - but a short poem by someone called Whitman caught my eye:
'Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.'
Another note when I've worked up the guts for one again.
- T. B.
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