Army of One Arc Part 6
A Little Thing Called... What?
I always run, every day, whether I need it or not. My hair was still wet from the shower, and I shook it out as I warmed up, jogging slowly. I ran harder and faster, until my legs hurt. The pain always begins in the backs of my calves, then spreads up into my thighs. My shoulders ache, too. But I don't care. Whenever I'm not in battle, I feel numb, like nothing's real. Pain makes me feel alive. Right here. In the moment. I focus on the pain, on the blisters forming on the balls of my feet, because that way I don't have to think about Wing, tarped and hidden a mile from the school. Or the instructions on my green screen. Or Dr. J. Or Duo.
Sweat trickled down my face, stinging my eyes and making them blur. It trickled down the inside of my worn forest green tank top, the one that always smells like gunpowder, and I kept running anyway.
When I got so tired I couldn't run anymore, I slowed to a walk and went into the quad clearing of campus, flopping down in the grass and throwing an arm over my face to block the sun. Letting it bake into my skin.
I felt lonely again. I wanted, suddenly, to talk to Duo again. I wanted to see him so badly it was like an ache. Was it because he was the first person I felt I could really connect to? I didn't know. I wanted to tell him everything. Everything that had happened since I got picked up by Doctor J.
I wished I could feel his shoulders under my arm, like the day he helped me escape from the military hospital. I wished I could feel his cheek pressed against my chest again, like before. His hands were callused, just like mine.
I remembered how warm it had felt to be near him. How safe.
"Duo," I whispered.
"What?"
I jerked in surprise, raised my arm, and opened my eyes, blinking from the glare. A figure stood over me... one that looked strangely familiar.
"You!" I said, sitting up with a scowl.
He sat down next to me, laughing. "Who did you think it was? What are you doing?"
"Thinking. Is there a law against that?" I snarled. I didn't want to admit that he had surprised me. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Probably the same thing you're doing here." He lowered his voice a little. "We both attack the same targets, buddy." He laid out on the grass and stretched like a cat, bringing his arms over his head, baring an inch of pale skin at the midriff and a strip of skin down the middle of his chest, where he hadn't buttoned his dress shirt or his jacket yet.
I didn't look, thank you very much. I just... noticed.
Interesting, how he always seems to catch me noticing. I think he does it on purpose.
"So, you want to partner up?" he asked suddenly, his eyes laughing at the way my gaze jerks up from his navel to his face.
I looked at him, scowling again. "No."
"Why not?" He had closed his eyes again, and looked for all the world like he was going to fall asleep right there in the grass. Lazy and comfortable. He wasn't alert for danger in the least. Just like an American.
"Because I work better alone."
"Who's going to help if you need it?" he asked. "What if you get in trouble?"
"What about you?" I countered. I checked my watch. I should have been getting ready for school, but here I was. "You're alone too, remember?"
"All the more reason for us to partner up. Besides... I have plenty of experience dealing with people."
"What makes you think I haven't?"
He laughed.
"Get out of here," I growled.
All he does is laugh at me again. "Are you always such a bastard? I thought maybe it was because they had been pokin' and proddin' you over at the hospital."
"Keep your voice down," I hissed.
He laughed again and stood up. "Well... come on. Let's go."
"Go where?" I felt my face twisting into another scowl.
"To class. We have first period in an hour. You're not going in that, are you?"
"So go, then," I answered.
"You're going with me."
"Really," I said, not moving.
"Yeah, really," he said.
"Guess again."
"Just get up off your ass, Yuy. Jesus, you have the temperament of a rhino with hemorrhoids. It's not going to kill you to actually have a little fun here, is it?"
I sighed. "I'll meet you there. I have to take a shower."
"Great!" he chirps. "See you in history!"
I watched him walk away, the lithe way he moved in the school uniform suit, how his braid swung when he walked, how narrow his hips were, how strong his arms and shoulders looked, in a feline way.
As if he could read what I was thinking, he looked over his shoulder for a moment, smirking.
Bastard.
~*~
I went back to the dorms to take a hot shower before class. I was stiff already from running, but I felt good anyway. I began to sing, loving the way my voice sounded with an echo. I shampoo my hair, scrubbing all over, and I sing the whole time, every song I'd ever heard or could ever remember since coming down to Earth. I'm glad most of the dorm is already on their way to class, so no one can hear me.
I thought about quitting the War, quitting school, and trying for a singing career. I imagined myself walking out onto the stage in a silky black dress shirt and slacks, my hair falling into my eyes. A long-sleeved shirt, so no one could see the scars. I'd sing so well, no one would care, anyway.
When I got out and started drying off, pulling my school uniform off the rack. I talked to myself quietly as I pulled on my slacks and buttoned my shirt. "What we have here, Yuy," I said, "is pure physical attraction. It feels good to be near Duo. Just being near him makes me feel like my insides are flipping over, like doing an inverted dive and pulling five g's at the same time. So what? It doesn't mean anything." If it was nothing, why did I feel this way?
But I didn't want to. I didn't need any kind of emotional attachments, and it was hard with that American idiot following me around. At least he had a legitimate reason. He did have the same objectives I did, after all.
I walked to my our first class, mind racing, oblivious to the people around me. I wasn't worried about my latest set of objectives from the colonies...I hadn't had any kind of problem fulfilling them before, and I didn't suspect this time would be any different. I was thinking about Duo. Duo breaking into the military hospital; Duo standing on the deck of the carrier, hips swaying; Duo laughing; Duo so vibrant and alive and... so not me.
I didn't love him. I didn't believe in love.
Believe me, I'd seen enough of this world to know that love was a word with no meaning at all. It's just something pretty they put on greeting cards, a drug people use to delude themselves with to escape the harsh reality of life. Nobody likes to hear about how terrible things can get, how senseless hate and violence are, but that's the way things really work, and those are the things that really run our lives. I believed "love" was just the icing to a darker, more savage world that only soldiers like myself could witness.
I could not fall in love with Duo Maxwell. I had not, would not fall in love with him. But my feelings towards him were strong and mixed up, something more than lust or affection or camraderie. Strange. Something I wasn't prepared to deal with. If I wasn't falling in love, I was definitely getting myself into something I wasn't sure I could get myself out of. And my first instinct with any sketchy situation? Unerring caution.
For the first time in my life, I was overwhelmed by emotions that could not be satisfied through determination, courage, hard work or the application of my skills. I felt a longing for something more abstract, something I had never even considered before. I didn't just want praise or to achieve my goals. I wanted Duo. I wanted to be away from him, but I didn't want to let him out of my sight. I wanted to drive him away, but I wanted to be as close to him as one human being can get to another. Sometimes I wanted to beat the hell out of him. Sometimes I wanted to kiss him.
Dammit. If I had a real soldier for a partner instead of the Chippendale's reject, I might not have been so confused.
I didn't believe in love. But I already knew there was a part of me, a vulnerable, lonely, desperately searching part of me that wanted to believe in it.
Belief in anything but myself, however, just scares the hell out of me.
TBC...
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