SCHADENFREUDE by Ash Wednesday Lee The characters of Shin Kudoseki Gundam Wing belong to Sotsu Sunrise Agency. I am sure they are wonderful people who I don't want to mess with ^.^. Genre: Drama, Angst, Fluff Pair: 1xR mainly, though you might pick up some others here and there. Keywords: 1xR, non-yaoi, Sylvia Noventa, Quatre Winner Summary: A week after Relena resigns her post as Vice Foreign Minister, ESUN appoints a new one. "A man's past is not simply a dead history... it is still a quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavours and the tinglings of merited shame" - George Eliot CHAPTER 2: Frozen Sands <> The loud clicking of shoes beating in frantic rhythm against the smooth marble earned a few curious stares. The interest lasting no more than a second, quickly extinguished by identifying its source. Clad in staple black suit with the familiar briefcase tapping her leg in the beat set by her pace, Iria Winner breezed past through the muttered 'good mornings' on her way to the elevator. Favoring them no heed in her attempts to keep the wet blond locks from her face. 'Bitch.' 'Wench.' "Well, well, well. Look who lost a bobby pin this morning," one of the front desk receptionist remarked snidely. Two others huddled close to her, declaring themselves on break. Spiteful comments and malicious giggles soon ensued. This would usually go on for a good thirty minutes, an hour if clients come in a trickle. For the last six years, thus are the mornings in Winner Industries. Iria would like to think herself as a systematic person. A bitch, perhaps, but systematic first and foremost. Every morning, on her way to work, she calculates the time it will take her to get to the elevator, the length of her strides and how much time she would just stand there and enjoy the vindictive stares from employees and clients alike before pushing the close button. No matter how much attention she would like to lavish her 'admirers', her time and her system simply doesn't allow her to do so. And if there's anything else she hates other than such incapacity it would be breaking the system. Second to Trowa Barton of course. Ah, Trowa Barton. The enigmatic pilot who took her brother away from her. Literally. After the Eve Wars, with nothing more than a note scribbled at the back of a chinese takeout receipt, Quatre Winner strangely disappeared. Leaving a highly profitable and successful company in the unsuspecting, and unwilling, hands of her eldest sister. He purportedly chose to embark on a trip all over the colonies to fulfill the Winner Industries' renewed mission statement in even the humblest way possible in each of them. Thus was what has been fed to the eager and curious press. It took Iria three sleepless days to come up with that crap and six sleepless years to keep the company on its foot. Wobbling ever slightly but standing nonetheless. Iria could recount each day that passed since her brother's disappearance. Each has been etched in memory as though battle scars in a war she was never even trained for. There was a time when she would've been exalted by her brother's hasty decision. A time before her father made it clear, that she has no place in Winner Industries. Not wanting to be like the other twenty-seven of her sisters, she set out and put herself through medical school. A feat her father can't seem to appreciate as he still keeps an almost barbaric view of women's place in society: submissive, exercise machines for their husbands to breed upon. Crap that Iria refuses to put up with. As it was evident that it was her father's stubbornness that managed to dominate over her genes, she grappled her way through a degree and managed to even pull herself through medical school. All without the hands of Winner Industries, which somehow, she grew a certain dislike over the years. It, after all, stands for everything her father believes in. She has willed her life to be a series of schedules and save for the war, everything was going according to her plan. Two years into her practice, she would be getting herself married in time for her twenty-fifth birthday. An age she has learned to be the optimum for bearing a child. She would continue her practice and still find time to mother three or four children, given her chosen husband, Allah forbid, is of her race. Of course, Mr. Barton and her brother had other plans, it seems. It's not much the queer relationship her brother has with the man, it was more of how they managed to steer her life according to their whim that earned them her spite. Knowingly or otherwise, they have tied her hands and pushed her to do something she was forced to hate for sometime. It felt like a forbidden fruit that you've so longed to taste was being thrusted to you, but in your deprivation had learned to grow a dislike for it. Fate could never be as cruel as they were. Whereas she wonders each day for the last six years the could'ves and would'ves, the full-knowledge that her brother is alive and 'rediscovering his purpose' with his friend-lover-soulmate-whatever could only be described as salt on the wound. And yet, when she found him sitting on the desk that was formerly his one morning, she could only see the child that he's always been to her. She found just how incapacitated she was in hating her brother. The same brother who reasoned out with their father whenever she gets herself to trouble, who defended her from the school bullies. Who fought and survived a war for me, she thought fondly. At the moment, however, fond wouldn't be a good appropriation of her thoughts as she conjured images of just how their conversation would ensue in a matter of seconds. Her mind geared into the unavoidable banter even before it's begun. Without bothering a knock, she barged into the conference room, where she could feel raised eyebrows and disapproving remarks over her brash action. "A word with Mr. Winner, gentlemen," came the crisp retort. Silence. "Quatre?" she asked, pointedly staring at where he was seated at the opposite end of the room. "We're already wrapping things up, Iria," his voice resonated with control, "perhaps ten minutes wouldn't be too much to ask of you?" The reply was polite and had a certain chill in it. "There are matters needed to be discussed immediately, Quatre," Iria returned, unfazed by the knowing looks from around the table. How she would love to kick them in the balls and wipe their chauvinistic smiles off their faces. "I'm fairly certain that ten minutes still fall in the 'immediate' category," the words were enunciated in a smooth manner. A manner that was palpably present only after his return two months ago. Tension soon encroached the entire room, as if an unwelcome guest. It's heaviness earned several fidgeting and shift of gazes. "I shall be at your office," Iria mumbled. No sooner than she was left by his secretary who accompanied her to his office that she was reminded of her hatred to her brother's chosen friend. Not only did he take him away from her, he killed a part of him. Trowa Barton murdered her brother. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The porcelain tea set has been replaced by an empty space in its usual place beside Quatre's desk. Close to his reach so that he could immediately prepare a brew for himself and his guests alike. In two months, Quatre reassumed his position as the company's CEO together with Iria. Though she insisted that she has only charged herself as a caretaker and never assumed any particular position in the company's hierarchy, Quatre refused to give in to her wishes of going back to the university and teach. And though she must admit that a part of her had enjoyed the experience, she has no qualms of leaving the company to the able hands of her brother. Or who she thinks is her brother. Irked at how Quatre handled, or rather mishandled, the situation she gave him no regard when he stepped into the room. 'Ten minutes on the dot,' she smirked inwardly, 'if he thinks this will make me feel better...' "I don't expect you to be pleased at what just happened back there," he began grimly, correcting her thoughts, "but you should know better than to expect an apology from me." Unfamiliar pale blue eyes met hers when she finally decided to look at him. So pale they could have been white. "Quatre," she began, reassuring herself that yes, this is Quatre. He went through the motions of taking off his jacket and hanging it leisurely at the back of his seat and finally sitting down. Looking at her from across. "I do not like it when you make decisions without me knowing first," she spat, "if you want an idiot by your side to run the company, take your pick. Last I check four of our sisters are still unmarried." He was staring at her levelly. She could've been trapped in that gaze for eternity and still she will not be able to recognize this person as her brother. Seeing the dull, almost wooden, gaze shift away from her own, she almost wanted to shake out the answers from him. Like a poem that has worn itself out from the lips of failed lovers; an old record that has played out for one too many dances; the very marrow of his life looked as though it had been sucked dry. 'Oh god, Quatre what has he done to you?' Long fingers came to rest against each other in a light clasp just below his chin. "What was it you wanted to talk about, Iria?" his voice almost in a rasp. He evidently wished her to drop her childish animosity and assume a more mature stance. She pulled out the newspaper that greeted her earlier and slid it towards him. "I don't remember being told of this, Quatre," she said, her glare went unnoticed as he studied the fine print. "I don't remember it being necessary," he replied. Telling her he would be leaving again with Trowa would've sounded better than his tone of monotony articulating her insignificance to him. She was out and out prepared to retaliate with a scalding retort when her brother's murderer decided to join in. "Quatre didn't see how his running for public office will affect his duties in the company," came his soft voice. "And what of his duties to his family?" she challenged without giving Trowa the benefit of eye contact. "Will also not be sacrificed," he replied automatically. She snapped at that comment. How dare this man to assume he knows what is best for Quatre's family? Her family? "I hardly qualify the Office of the Colony Representative as something so trite that it doesn't deserve our minute's time," she returned coldly. He smiled thinly. She can't believe he could have the nerve to mock her. "I need to do this Iria," Quatre spoke slowly as though talking to a toddler. Her gaze shifted swiftly to the seated figure, "I can't let you harm yourself, Quatre," she averted back accusing eyes at the other occupant of the room, "no more than you have." The newly fixed smirk jolted into life in his face. "Harm? Iria, how can I possibly be harmed by winning the race?" he asked, in the innocence that has already been gone. She stared at his form, slightly slumped forward in the overstuffed chair. "Losing will actually bring you less harm than when you win it," she put in, still controlling the simultaneous emotions tugging her from all directions. "Losing is a far possibility," Trowa remarked, he has moved to the window behind Quatre since. It was now Iria's turn to smile, "Let's see. You're rich, handsome, single and has just recently returned from a six-year expedition with a strange man," she favored Trowa a spiteful glance, "I would hardly qualify that as a winnable background." She cleared her throat, "that's not even mentioning the hand you played during the war and your ties with ESUN." She saw him tense his jaw for a moment before he said, "and what is your point, Iria?" "I honestly would like to know what is yours first," she replied dryly. Heaving a sigh, Quatre leaned back and regarded her with inscrutable eyes. "I fought for this peace, Iria," he began, "I intend to keep it." Seeing he was waiting for an answer to his former prompt, she complied. "Apart from the question of where your loyalty lies, the public isn't exactly thrilled with your relationship with Mr. Barton," she paused to see Trowa lean back to the wall behind him. "The colony is still uncomfortable regarding such issues." "With which issues?" Quatre asked, daring her to speak it out in all its gruesome truth. Iria cleared her throat, obviously not comfortable with the course of their discussion. This was not how she planned things would be. "You've been gone for six years. With a man," no, she didn't like the situation she was in right now at all, "your return with him has lurched everybody's imagination into hyper mode." "Just as yours, Iria," he stated. She trained her eyes to meet his accusing gaze, "maybe it's time to confront some realities, Quatre." It may have been Trowa's movement to stand beside Quatre but Iria caught a glimpse of emotion in her brother's dead eyes before it was quickly extinguished. "Mr. Barton's relationship with me is nobody's business but ours," he looked at her pointedly, "we do not owe *anyone* any explanation." Iria felt herself plummet to lower levels of ignominy. Already, she's losing grasp on the concept that this man is actually her brother. An image of her father telling her his lack of support to her endeavor breezed past her. "As for your concerns regarding my decision, the issues you raised have already been addressed long before you identified them," it was her father telling her again just how trivial she was to his world. The following minutes was a flurry to her. She didn't remember getting up nor how she got to her office. She couldn't even remember when she started crying. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trowa watched the color-bespeckled ground twenty floors under him. He's been staring at it too hard that the yellows coalesce into greens; the greens blend into blues and the blues melt into black. "Maybe she deserves a better truth than the others, Quatre," he voiced out, cutting the pregnant silence between them. The slow flipping of a page from the document he was reading came before his reply, "maybe." "She is your sister," he pointed out before he could stop himself. He saw Quatre's shoulders tense, then relax, "that she is." It's almost been a year but Quatre's eyes tells of a story that happened yesterday. As though challenging the pain you thought to be unbearable. 'Can your pain ever be greater than mine?' he remembers the sadness in those words. Trowa has long accepted that everyone is heading towards total suffering. Pain melting to fear; fear becoming anger; anger leading to suffering. A vicious curse that comes along with being human. But Quatre has long plummeted to suffering, in a rate that pronounces him now as a corpse. A sad death that he chose. "You should talk to the people at Cinq Kingdom," Trowa said. Another flip of a page, "There's still time to wait, Trowa." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ack! that went longer than I intended --o. 1. "Pain leads to fear; fear leads to anger; anger leads to suffering." - this koan is of course from the much anticipated though highly disappointing "Episode 1: The Phantom Menace". Just had to point out that yes, I intentionally borrowed it. 2. I got myself in a LOT of loopholes back there c.c. Explanations will come in the succeeding chapters, so yes this is 1xR and yes this also non-yaoi ^^; 3. Much of what happened in the timeline outside that I've set (i.e. Quatre's disappearance or Relena in transition) will be supplemented by vignettes which will appear from time to time. Thanks for reading ^_^