A/N: Finally… though it's still eighth chapter T-T. Thanks for all the reviews, especially those who asked me to continue this fic, thank you so much…. I never meant to discontinue because all storyline and the endings had been in my head, but yeah … I need to hiatus … only I never thought it would be this long T-T. And for one of the reviewers, thank you so much for reminding me … I believe that Camus indeed can produce Absolute Zero (I really want to make a fic in which he casts one :D); the thing is he never faces any condition which forces him to, and because he really cares about his student.
Disclaimer: I don't own Degel and the Gold Saints.
Bonne Nuit
Eight
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Even though Kanon had tried to concentrate on his pen and paper, he still couldn't write even a single word. He gave up when he couldn't take in anymore, then fiercely tugged Saga's hand and brought him to the corner of the room.
"What are you doing, Kanon?" asked Saga in annoyance. "I've got one page."
"What's you're writing anyway …?"
"A story about a 14 years old boy who shouted at his brother from the jail he occupied."
Kanon blinked. Why was Saga's story so familiar …?
"Listen," Kanon whispered so the others wouldn't hear him. "Poseidon."
"What, he asked you to wash his shoes?"
"I've asked Poseidon to return Degel to eighteenth century."
Saga's urge to punch his brother's face was never this huge.
"You've asked Poseidon WHAT?"
"Miss Saori's order …"
"But why?"
When Kanon told him everything Saga's eyebrows were travelling further and further to his forehead.
"You know," Kanon nodded impressively. "I think Miss Saori is going insane."
"But maybe she suggests the right thing—she trusts Poseidon—"
"Stop defending her, d'you think what'll happen to Degel if Poseidon sent him to Jurassic Park instead of eighteenth century?" snarled Kanon quietly.
"Degel will be very happy," murmured Saga. "He will befriend the T-rex and doing a lot of research about them …"
"Saga …"
"I know, I know this is not good," sighed Saga. "But Miss Saori trusts Poseidon. And what is it with you, Kanon? You always say Poseidon is not a cruel master and you get much salary from your part time job as his chauffeur."
"You don't know him," said Kanon. "Lord Julian Solo detests all Gold Saints—eighteenth century or twentieth century—and he will be very glad to get the chance to play on them …"
"Poseidon—"
"Yes, you can write about Poseidon, Saga and Kanon, now please continue writing," Degel suddenly passed them as he wandered throughout the family room to check the Goldies's writings. The twins wondered whether he heard all things they spoke about, but judging from Degel's calm countenance they decided he didn't know.
"Come on," said Saga. He was about to return to his writing, but Kanon tugged him once more. "Don't we have another way?" he asked desperately.
"I'm afraid we don't," murmured Saga. His eyes were on Degel, then switched to his twin again. "We don't have time machine or power or light speed or anything, so if Miss Saori said this is the only way, then this is," his sentence implied the end of the conversation, and Kanon took a deep breath as Saga returned to his place and continued his work, seemed totally unworried about the possibility Degel would get lost in T-rex era. Mumbling incoherently, Kanon sat beside him and once again tried to fill in his empty paper.
"Why you're so calm about this?" asked Kanon quietly.
"What else should I do, screaming and yelling about how unfair this is? I trust Miss Saori and I don't think Poseidon will do Degel any harm," said Saga firmly. "If you really listened to Shion and Dohko's story about how his fellows died, you will understand."
Kanon was startled, looked at his brother for a while, then nodded slowly once he understood.
He didn't start any topic again about Poseidon and began to spill his ink on his paper.
The Gold Saints were exactly like students who did their teacher's command—those who couldn't write sometimes took a peak to those who had got two pages. DM many times tried to imitate Aphrodite's work, but he gave up when Aphro threatened to write Kido's mansion 129th rule: Deathmask is a cheater.
Milo sat on the chair near the window, looked thoughtful. Sometimes Camus watched his progress from afar and found that Milo has got three pages—Camus wondered what he was writing.
He couldn't help to smile when watching the others' various expression; Shura yawned; Shaka sometimes meditated in the middle of the work, as if he could produce 100 pages only by meditating; Aphro looked serious, so did Aiolos, Mu, and Aldebaran; Aiolia never stopped scratching his head; Saga and Kanon sometimes discussed things.
Then Camus took a look at Degel, who was now sitting near the other window and gazed outside almost solemnly.
But as the Goldies collected their works in his hand, his eyes shone behind his glasses, looking at the papers as if they were treasures.
"Well, now let's read it," said Degel, watching the Goldies who stood nervously in front of him.
"Will the winner get a present?" asked Mu, and everybody saw him with since-when-Mu-cares-about-prizes look.
"You're right," Degel put off his glasses and smiled as he showed it to his juniors. "The winner gets this glasses."
Their eyes widened and Shura cursed, "Crap … If I knew the prize would be such remarkable artifact I would write better thing …"
"Alright, let's read the first writing," said Degel. He picked the paper randomly and began to read.
"My name is Shura. My hobby is chopping beef."
"Hahahahaha," laughter followed. Shura desperately searched for a place to hide, though Kanon and Aiolia kept lightly hitting his head in amusement.
"Gender, male," Degel continued. "Born in Spain. Favorite quotation: practice makes perfect. That's it."
"Well, I think Shura has a talent to make autobiographical book," Kanon nodded in the middle of the laughters.
"I can't write," grumbled Shura.
When the laughter ceased, Degel picked another paper. "And the second one is …"
The others looked at him seriously just like a cinema spectators who waited for the most epic scene.
"I was lost in a dream," Degel read.
.
Trapped and imprisoned and cursed. With an arrow in my chest. With a pain in my throat.
Dying, was what I felt.
Die, was what I wanted.
.
I was lost in a dream.
Banished and exiled and shattered. With a useless bow. Without a deadly blow.
Dying, was what I felt.
Die, was what I wanted.
.
Then you came to me
Reminded me of the fragrance of lilac tree
You came to me
Caused my tears fell when you bestowed your love
Your embrace
Your trust
.
And you came to me
Reminded me of the fragrance of lilac tree
You came to me
Released me from the nightmare with your love
Your embrace
Your trust
.
I am free of the dream.
Saved and cherished and treasured. With a bliss in my heart. With an arrow of love.
Alive, is what I feel.
Live, is what I want.
.
"Written by Sagittarius Aiolos," Degel smiled in warmth and looked at Aiolos, who only gazed downwards with a slight smile.
Even after five minutes the Goldies were unable to talk.
"By Athena," Saga marched at Aiolos and shook his body in astonishment. "Why didn't you tell me you can write poetry?"
"Why didn't you teach me, bro?" Aiolia demanded. "If you told me since a long time ago I will ask your help everytime I send Marin a love letter …"
"I didn't know you'll like my work," said Aiolos shyly. "It's the thing appeared in my dream …"
"Very good," smiled Degel, re-read the poetry once again.
"Degel, was Sagittarius Sisyphus in love with Lady Sasha?" asked Aiolia, suddenly interested.
"For my mask's sake!" barked Deathmask. "What's the relation between that silly thing with anything?"
"Don't listen to him, Aio," said Aphrodite causally. "He is irritated because the only thing he loves is only his stinky temple."
While Aphro and Deathmask quarreled about which one was worse—Cancer stinky temple or Pisces sweet-smelling yet cursed temple—Degel gazed at the Leo and Sagittarius brother.
"How do you know?" asked Degel.
"So it is true?" Aiolis widened his eyes.
"Well … it could be," murmured Degel as he fixed his sitting position. "But human and goddess are not destined to be with each other."
"Just like you and—AARRRGH!" Kanon stopped when he felt a sudden pain on his feet. He was about to curse the one who stepped on him, but he barely completed his swearing when seeing it was Dohko and Shion.
"And they say they are they are the wisest amongst us …,"murmured Shura.
"Please continue, Degel," said Shion calmly as if nothing happened, beside him Kanon whined with massaging his feet.
If Degel saw the weirdness of his fellow's gesture he didn't show it. He randomly picked one of the papers again.
"Okay, this is Aldebaran's."
Aldebaran grinned and the others were excited, even Aphro and Deathmask stopped attempting killing each other.
Degel started. "Cinnamon Cake. A half pound of—" he was confused for seconds, but continued anyway. " … a half pound of sugar … four spoonful of cinnamon powder … a quarter pound of butter … a bowl of chocolate powder …"
"Hahahahahaha!" The room once again roared with laughter—even Aldebaran himself laughed with holding his stomach. Can't believe that he wrote a cake recipe!
"Oh … oh my goodness," Aiolia wiped his eyes, still giggling. "I'm dying …"
"That's my specialty," laughed Aldebaran. "Writing recipe."
The laughter gradually ceased, but emerged again as they saw Degel laughed, even without a sound.
"Ow, even Degel is laughing!"
"What a contagious laughter it was," murmured Milo, smiling.
Camus nodded, also with his rare smile.
"He looks so happy, doesn't he?" Milo asked without looking at Camus.
"I don't doubt it."
"Then never do anything which makes him punch your nose again."
A sarcastic tone that caused the atmosphere between both of them gloomier, even in the middle of those cheerful blokes.
Camus could sense that Milo was still upset at him, so he chose not to reply and gazed somewhere else instead.
"Alright," said Degel when all of them began to cool down, though he was still smiling and sometimes letting out small laughter. "The next … Aphrodite."
Looked like the Goldies were preparing stamina to laugh again. They were too confidence Aphro's work would be more laughable than Shura's or Aldebaran.
But they frowned when seeing Degel's serious expression. Behind his glasses his eyes continuously travelled from left to right, the way Camus usually did when reading very interesting literary works.
The Goldies were waiting (Aphrodite seemend not to care and preferred concentrating wearing body lotion).
And their eyes widened as Degel looked up, smiled, and said, "Very good, Aphrodite."
"What?" gasping and disbelieved, the Goldies approached Degel and immediately looked at Aphro's story.
It was a very short story about a little girl who had complicated feelings towards her garden: she loved it, yet loathed it at the same time. Almost no dialog in the writing, and there were lots of abbreviation and typos. But the way Aphrodite described the girl's feelings, the metaphors, the language, were enough to get his friends stunned.
"Why you never tell us?" asked Saga in wonder.
"It's the rewriting of my short short story collection," said Aphrodite, still busy with his body lotion.
"Why you never tell us you like writing?"
"You never ask."
Sweatdrops …
"I admit my writings maybe arent's as good as Camus's or Aiolos's," said Aphro. "But you see, it's not bad."
"May I borrow your short short story collection later on?" asked Degel.
The question wouldn't give big impact if it was asked by ordinary person, but it was the most intelligent saint who did, and for the first time in the last six months, Aphro smiled sincerely with beamed face. "Sure."
"Now I'm so depressed …," growled Shura, promised he would revise his work so he wouldn't be the worst.
There was no laughable things again afterwards, except Saga and Kanon's works which were exactly the same, even the typos and the commas and the full stop.
"I swear I didn't cheat," the twins barked.
"Yeah, right," the other laughed.
"Ok, maybe I cheated a bit," growled Kanon. "But I don't have a talent of writing, see … what do you expect?"
"Please disqualify him," Saga growled back. "He could only imitate my work."
Shion and Dhoko wrote very nice essays about eighteen centuries. Shaka wrote poetry which Degel read heartwarmingly.
A flower blooms, then withers …
A star shines and will one day disappear.
The Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way, and even this great universe ...
A day will come when they will die.
One man's life, when compared to this, is nothing more than the blink of an eye.
And during this instant, a man is born, laughs, sheds tears, fights, gets injured, feel happiness, sadness, hatred towards people, love towards others ...
All this only lasts an instant.
And in the end, he falls into this deep and eternal slumber called Death ...
"Shaka has wrote that poetry ten thousand times," smiled Mu. "But it always sounds calming."
"I don't feel calm," mumbled Deathmask.
"Because the thing that you think is calming and poetic is zombie laughter," replied Aphro.
The next was Milo's.
"A song?" asked Degel. The others took a peek on Milo's paper.
"You wrote music sheets?" they asked puzzlingly.
"For piano," chuckled Milo. "A very simple piece."
"The title is 'Heartwarming Snow'," said Shaka.
"It's for Degel," Milo said.
"Would you play it?" Degel asked.
Milo approached the piano in the family room and began to perform the piece. A good songwriter he was, but not a very good piano player, for there were often pauses in his playing. But his friends loved the calming tunes he produced. Heartwarming, just like the title.
"Thank you very much," said Degel.
Silence for a while—Degel looked lost in thoughts when picking another papers to read. Sometimes he glanced at the clock—an hour later. An hour later and he would leave all the young men who really had made his day. Particularly his reincarnation and the one who composed him a song.
"This is Mu's," said Degel afterwards. Mu wrote children story, a very cute one which focusing on a little boy (whom the Goldies thought was Kiki), his gradfather (whom they thought was Shion), and their cattles.
Aiolia wrote three poetries that amazed his fellows because they were haiku—very short poetry which consisted 17 syllables, each lines will consisted of 5,7, and 5 syllables—though not very technical.
The first one:
Young girl with red hair
Standing alone in the rain
Waiting for her love
The second one:
Snows, leaves, sun, flowers
The colours of four seasons
Blooming in my heart
The third one:
Best friends in the room
Brothers, teachers, disciples
Best things in the world
"Wooow," everybody suddenly hugged Aiolia and laughed with him. "You and your brother are just alike!"
"Like big brother like little brother!"
"Ah … it's not that good," murmured Aiolia, though he smiled happily.
"Very good, Aiolia," Aiolos clapped his shoulders.
"Indeed very good," smiled Degel.
The next was Deathmask's, and his work was exactly like Shura's: a short autobiography—the difference only DM's was far more narcissistic, as if he had surpassed Zeus.
The last one was the writing all of them been waiting most excitedly: Camus's.
Degel asked the Goldies to read it with him, "So I won't be too subjective," he said.
As expected, the Goldies were totally lost in Camus's story which seemed beyond all of theirs. Then they mentioned a lot of compliments such as 'brilliant', 'touching', 'cool', 'beautiful', until Degel coughed slightly and cut,
"You call this trash 'beautiful'?"
Silence, as if Degel had froze them all.
And Camus never felt this offended.
"What?"
"You can write better than this," Degel looked straight into his reincarnation's eyes, quite piercing.
"What do you mean I can write better than this?" asked Camus coldly. "This is my best writing so far."
"But it feels dead," replied Degel.
"But Degel," Saga interfered without offending, "Aphrodite's writing was full of abbreviation, and most of ours didn't follow punctuation rules or writing-technique as well. I think Camus's is the most perfect."
"Honestly I don't care about punctuation or abbreviation," said Degel calmly. "I don't care about technique either; as long as the writing can draw the reader's feelings, I'll give the best score."
"But Camus's writing makes me touched," said Aiolos, frowned.
"Really?" Degel raised his eyebrows. "Which one is more touching, your poetry or Camus's writing?"
All looked at each other.
When they reviewed the two works altogether, they realized Aiolos's poetry had more feelings in it, although Camus had much better technique.
"Technique is not that important," Degel turned around, his back on the Goldies, then he put all the papers on the table. "When you do anything—writing, playing musics, studying, even battling—your feelings will determine the result of your works. I heard from Hyoga that the bronze saints were able to surpass you in 20th century battle. Do you think why it happened? Because they fought with their hearts, not to show their brawns to everybody."
Silence again.
Camus looked at Degel's back, quite understand. But he disagreed with some lines.
"Do you think why you died, Aquarius Degel?" asked Camus.
…
"Because in the Holy War," said Camus after moments, "You used your feelings more than your technique."
Degel was silent, before smiling slightly with eyes gazing at the place the others couldn't reach.
"Then I won't regret it," he said quietly.
…
"Well," Aiolia clapped his hands, trying to cheer up the atmosphere. "I think Degel needs some private time to pick the winner of this contest. Meanwhile we can clean up this …," he stared at the family room which had been flooded by paper, "… paper factory," he finished.
Degel agreed, collecting the Goldies's papers, then left the family room without saying anything.
Camus looked at him coldly, but he blinked as he sensed a clap on his shoulders. Though at first he didn't know who did it, he understood when he caught a glimpse of violet-blue hair passing him.
Meanwhile, in the cleaning-up moment nobody noticed Kanon talking on the phone.
"But lord Julian—" he said, listening for a while. "He only got an hour—can't you just wait for—" he stopped, listening again.
His expression changed into panic. "No, you can't—hello? Hello? Lord Julian? Hello?"
Kanon took a breath again before putting the phone harshly on its place. "Damnit," he murmured.
"What happened?" Saga asked, prepared himself to hear any bad news.
"Poseidon wants us to take Degel to Sanctuary now," Kanon growled. "He didn't want to wait any longer. We must arrive in Sanctuary at exactly eight am tomorrow, otherwise Degel would stay in 20th century forever."
The twins exchanged identical stare.
…
"Damnit," now Saga was the one who cursed.
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To be continued
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A/N: Shaka's poetry is from Hades chapter Sanctuary (yes, that mournful scene … T-T). Thanks so much for reading :)