Part 14

//The face.  The mask.  Covering the truth.  Reinforcing the lie.  It holds us back from discovering what a man truly is.  A poker face hides the deception, but a true mask will withhold all identity.//

“Wow, it’s amazing what a little soap and water can do.”  Jeremy chuckles at me as I comb out my shoulder length blond locks.  “You look like a whole new person.”

“I do feel that way.  Must have been something in your soap.”

“Whoa, it has a sense of humor…slight as it may be.”

“I’ll just have to work on that then.”  I state shrugging on a light jacket Jeremy is letting me borrow.  “How about dinner then?”

"Great, I’m starving!  I’d eat any slop in the caf the way I’m feeling.”  We make our way out of the dorms in relative silence broken only by the sounds of Jeremy’s apparently malnourished stomach.  When I frown at him he just smiles.  “I can’t help it.  I’m growing still, I gotta eat.”  I forgive him for his lame reply as we reach the main building and head down the stairs, the smell of food beckoning us into the shadowy depths.  The crypt-like structure loosely termed “the caf”, is about the size of the dining hall in the palace.  Wait, the size that the dining hall had been before the walls came crumbling down.  The cheap tables spread throughout the room are occupied by a handful of students, some with books open next to their plates.  I guess those are the students who have fallen behind in their studies.  I follow Jeremy to the food lines and mull over the selection.  To my withered stomach each morsel looks fantastic, but (not to my surprise though) my roommate makes faces at each dish.

“Man, they must think we’re livestock feeding us this stuff.”  He comments putting some turkey on a plate.  I, on the other hand, am rapidly filling my plate with everything.  “Careful Zechs, you never know what’s in this stuff.  There might be some rat poison or something in there as a secret ingredient.  It’d probably kill ya.”

“It didn’t kill me last time.” The comment slips out before I had the chance to think about it.  What would a well-bred boy think about his roommate eating something so…unsanitary?  I watch as his face screws inward as he thinks.  Suddenly his eyes become alight as realization dawns on him.

“Man, you almost had me there.  You really need to work on changing the pitch of your voice when you joke, I almost took you seriously!”  He resumes his finicky food choosing as I let out a sigh of relief.  Crisis…narrowly averted.

My food is already cold by the time we take a seat at one of the nearby tables, mainly because Jeremy took ten minutes picking out the perfect apple, then decided that he didn’t want one in the first place.

I try to eat my food as slowly as I can allow myself without looking like a half starved animal.  I fail miserably.  After living so long with people who will steal your food if you don’t eat fast enough, the old habit will die hard. 

“Damn Zechs, slow down.  You know that you can actually make your stomach explode doing that?”

“Oh really, where did you hear that?” I ask sarcastically, mad at having to take a time out from my ravenous eating.

“I’ll show you.”  He pulls something from his pocket about the size of a credit card except three times as thick.  It takes me a moment to realize that it’s a computer.  Not just any computer though, it is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  I must have been wearing a startled expression all over my face because Jeremy decided to clarify everything after he got his laughs in.  “It’s state of the art.  My dad ordered it right before he died, but it didn’t come in till a couple of weeks ago.  Couldn’t imagine what this sucker would have cost though.”

I peer over his shoulder at the miniscule machine, amazed more by the fact that it works then what it’s actually doing.  He works rapidly pulling up files.  It takes hem a few minutes before he finds what he’s looking for then jams the computer into my face, wearing a smug expression amongst the freckles.

As I read the information, I couldn’t decide how I feel about it.  It’s a mixture of anger and the incredible urge to make him realize how dumb he actually is.  “You actually believe something that is titled ‘The Madhatter’s Tipsy Topsy Turvey Now You Know Everything Book’?”

“You don’t have to say it that way.” He states retrieving the computer from me and holding it protectively against his chest.  “You’re one heartless prick, you know!”

“I didn’t mean to make you upset, I…”

His face turns bright red from attempting to hold back his laughter.  “Man, you really need to loosen up” he sputters out loosing his battle for composure.

“Don’t you boys think that you should quiet down a bit?” a man says approaching where we are sitting.  The man seems so familiar.  Where have a seen him before? 

It hits me like a ton of bricks.  He was the one outside the bookstore this afternoon, the one I thought looked really familiar.  I quickly divert my face to the floor, keeping my head down as low as I can to keep the man from recognizing me.  It has been six years, but I can recognize him as easily as if it was only six days ago.  Senator Kirkwood.  I had only seen him a few times around the palace, but there was no mistaking him.  The large S shaped scar over his right eyebrow is a dead give away.

“Sorry sir.  We just got a little over enthusiastic.  We will keep it down from now on.” Jeremy mocks some semblance of dignity in his voice.

“Just see that you do.”  He retorts before turning and walking away.

“Man, what’s his beef?”

“Who is he?”

“Oh, Ol’ Kirkwood?  I guess he’s been here for a while.  Said he was some bigwig in some country that was taken over.  After that, he ran away and ended up here.  He works as a political science teacher, but he’s not very good at it.  Why?”

I don’t know what to tell him.  What can I say, that if he recognizes me…I don’t even know what would happen.  Would I get kicked out of the school?  Most likely I would get shipped off to some distant relation and spend my life brooding about what could have been had I not been discovered.  “Nothing really.”

“You know, I don’t buy that for a second.”

“Can we just not talk about it?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Can we at least not talk about it here?”

“That I can do, but you are NOT going very long without telling me…especially when it has to do with old man Kirkwood.”

We finish up our dinner with hardly a word between us.  Jeremy just picks at his food and pushes everything around with his fork.  I finish every bite off my plate and feel the wonderful contentment that a full stomach brings.  We clear our places and head back to our room.

The posters once again cause me to blush upon entering our domain.  I immediately lay down on my bed and attempt to engross myself in one of Jeremy’s many magazines.  Seeing as the magazine is more full of scantly clad women than our walls, I quickly abandon this plan and try to find something else to occupy myself with before the boy could start asking me questions again. 

Once again, I am headed off at the pass.  I reach for a book on his desk and in doing so he grabs my arm and pushes me back onto my bed.  He quickly pulls up his desk chair and sits in it backwards. 

“Spill it.”

“There’s nothing to spill Jeremy.”

“Give me a break Zechs, there is no way that you’re gonna get out of this without telling me what the hell has got you so down.  Shit, you’re walking around here looking like one depressed son of a bitch and there is no way that I’m gonna let you continue it. So why don’t you stop pulling the macho shit and just spill it already.”

“First of all you know that I don’t want to talk about it.  Secondly there is no reason that you should pry into my life so why can’t you just drop it?”

“Because that, my friend, is not something I can do.  I’m just too damn nosey.”  He waits for a reply from me, but I can’t give him one.  I end up just hanging my head and watching my fingers intertwine with one another.  “Tell ya what.  Whenever I’m feeling down in the dumps I always go to the mobile suit hanger.  Sometimes I find Trieze there, he seems to be able to make me feel better.  When he’s not there it still makes me feel better.  So now we go.”

“Now?”

“I said now didn’t I?”

“Well yeah.”

“That means I mean now, dumbass.”  There is no way that I can respond to him, and there is no way that I could have prevented having myself being drug along to the mobile suit hanger.  We repeat the same trek through the suits as we had earlier this morning.  To Jeremy’s surprise we don’t find Trieze in the hanger as he predicted, but I feel a sense of tranquility wash over me once again.  We sit down on one of the giant feet and relax against the cold metal.  I sit with my legs pulled up with my arms crossed over them while Jeremy leans back with his hands placed behind his head.

“Feel better now?”

“Oddly, yes.”

“Are you gonna tell me why you were so afraid of Ol’ Kirkwood now?”

“I want my past to stay in the past.  Kirkwood is someone from that time and I want him to disappear.”

“That seems a bit harsh.  But I hate to break it to you but Kirkwood isn’t going anywhere.  There’s a rumor that he’s being promoted to dean next year.  There’s no way that he’s gonna quit now with that little pension under his nose.”

I let out an audible sigh as I lean back against the metal.  This is definitely not going according to plan.  I know that I would never have guessed that this possibility would arise.  It’s a big planet and yet I had to choose the one academy where someone who might recognize me is.  “Jeremy, have you ever wished that you could be someone else?”

“Hell yeah!  All the time, man.  After living with my parents for ten years, I would have rather been out on the streets then their kid.”

“I need to become someone else.”

“Damn, is your past that bad?”

“If I say yes, will you stop questioning me about it?”

“I’ll even go a step further.  I’ll help you trick good Ol’ Kirkwood.  Never did like that guy much anyways.”

“I know Kirkwood from a long time ago.  If he recognizes me, I’ll probably get sent somewhere I don’t want to be.”

“Hey, there is no way I’m letting them take you away.  It’s been months since I’ve had a roommate and dammit, I like you so I wanna keep you.”

“I need a way too keep him from recognizing me.”

“I have an idea!” he scurries off before I can question his plan.  I sit and wait for him as he clangs something about somewhere off in the darkened hanger.  “I think this will work.”  He hands me a hunk of metal in the shape of a head. “It’s one of the old helmets that they used to wear back when they first started using mobile suits since they were so hard on the body.  What do you think?”

“It would serve the purpose.  But it is a bit hard on the eyes.”

“Well yeah, but that’s what shop is for.  We could have this thing fixed up in a jiff and it’d look good too.”~~

The mask that I wore for all those years was the product of Jeremy’s quick thinking and his labor.  He was the first person who ever helped me so much in my life.  Soon after we made it into the shop classroom. I had become Zechs Merquise, and there was no turning back from that point.