Chapter 11: Verbal Fire
"… Then, my brother will join the army next month. " Shinn was sitting on the sofa of Ade's house, and Mayu holds her brother's hand in a wheelchair.
"It's not easy for you," Mayu stated their situation to Ade. Is this a coincidence of the world, or a butterfly effect? If it is the latter, it is a very gratifying thing, "Is it for the household registration and salary to choose the military academy?"
"Don't pretend to be a good man here. What can a big man like you know?"
"Brother!" Mayu squeezed her brother's hand, trying to calm him down, "Don't do that. Mr. Lingus has no malice towards us. And I don't think that mom and dad's death is Mr. Lingus' fault. "
"If there were no such person, there would be no Gundam, neither would mom and dad die, nor would you --"
"Brother!"
"But…" Shinn looked at Mayu with a complicated face and didn't know what to say.
"Mr. Lingus, I don't know the reason, but thank you for your kindness." Mayu turned to Ade and said, "please forgive my brother. To bear my medical expenses and living expenses, my brother has been struggling for so many years. He is really a good person. He's just temporarily blinded by impulse. Please don't blame him."
Mayu's maturity is heartbreaking. She's only fourteen, isn't she? Losing her parents, losing her legs, she had to lay in bed all day and depended on her only brother. Although her brother works hard and is gentle, he is a little impulsive. In this case, she can only make herself mature.
Mayu has been apologizing instead of Shinn, but Ade sees a lot in her firm eyes. It's hard for him to have any bad feelings towards such Mayu, or even Shinn.
He remembers that "a long time ago", he hated "that Shinn" in the anime, who was retarded and impulsive, who went against the protagonist and looked like a righteous person. Later, he understood Shinn. For him who lost his parents, no one taught him how to think. He had nothing left but revenge. In the end, even the legitimacy of revenge and even the object of revenge were deprived. He didn't know what else to do except hysteria. In the "final ending", Kira smiles and shakes hands with him, which is too cruel to him.
And in this world, he has been forced out of breath by the pressure of life. He is just a child, but he has to raise his disabled sister and grow up alone. He even loses the right to be sad and angry. Without the guidance of their parents and just struggling for the sake of life, his spiritual growth may have stopped for a long time. Although he is 18 years old in appearance, he is still 14 years old in the heart. This deviation between physical age and spiritual age is the reason why he is hysterical in front of himself now. His inexplicable anger is just to find a vent object for his miserable and incomprehensible life.
"Mayu, I'm about the same age as your brother. Just call me by my name and don't use honorifics." Ade had a good feeling for Mayu.
"That …… Adrien-san." Mayu uneasily looked to C.C., and after seeing the other party's indifferent expression, she timidly shouted.
"That's fine." Ade smiled at Mayu and turned aside to the teenager, "Shinn, I can neither understand nor relate to your feelings of hatred. Do you really think it was me who killed your parents? Without me, there will still be someone else to create the white devil; without the white devil, Orb Union will still become a battlefield. You are free to hate me, but I'm afraid I'm not the right person to take revenge."
"Do you think you can take yourself clean off like that?" Shinn took his sister's hand in return, "Mayu, don't let his appearance fool you, he's an evil warmonger and that's never going to change."
"I'm self-conscious about the fact that I make weapons, and I won't deny that these weapons will bring a lot of death, but I've never felt like an evil warmonger." Ade was a little surprised that Shinn thought of the word "warmonger" on his own. The school was not likely to teach such things, "The moon has always remained neutral and Anaheim has never incited hatred or conflict. I don't deny that Anaheim has made a fortune off of war, but it's not us who started it. If you knew what those arms dealers on Earth have done to promote their products, you would be glad that as the largest arms dealer, Anaheim is so lucky to have Queen Diana as the leader."
"Are you trying to say it's all the fault of the Federation and ZAFT?"
"ZAFT invaded Orb Union in order to seize its arsenal and Mass Driver, and the Federation would send reinforcements to stop ZAFT's strategic objectives; both sides were just doing what was rightfully done in the war. Captain Amuro Ray, who piloted the White Devil - oh, he was just an ensign at the time - just obeyed the army's orders. If you had stayed on the moon, you might have had a chance to meet him."
"Then why start a war? Why can't everyone live in peace?" It seems that there are not many cultural lessons in the military school. Shinn's worldview is still stuck at the junior high school level.
"Race, religion, interests… I can give you as many reasons as you want. The struggle is a biological instinct. Human beings have fought from the stone age to the universe century. Even if one day, human beings have colonized the whole galaxy, believe me, there will still be wars. "
"In that case… in that case… doesn't it mean…" Shinn looked at Ade with an unacceptable expression, "doesn't it mean that mom and dad die because of bad luck? It's all because of our bad luck that this happened?"
"Brother…"
"This kind of thing… this kind of thing…" Shinn buried his face helplessly into Mayu's chest, "Mayu… I should… whom should I hate?…"
Mayu did not say anything, just tenderly hold Shinn's head, gently stroking his hair.
Ade just watched them quietly. After a while, Shinn looked up in embarrassment, "Thank you, Mr. Adrien, I understand. Humans are such incorrigible creatures. Society and the universe are inherently dark. I was too naive in the past to see this truth."
"You don't understand anything." Ade watched speechlessly at Shinn. He understands Shinn. Although Shinn was forced to bear the burden of other people's lives at a young age, his mental age was just that of a child, and it was perfectly normal for a child to think in the wrong way. "So what? The nature of human beings is greedy dirty and evil dark, and you despair of human beings? Do you want to take revenge on society and destroy all of humanity or assimilate yourself into a great demon king?"
"I…"
"You think you understand humans? Then tell me, how did this incorrigible, self-destructive vermin survive into the cosmic century? How come they didn't kill each other in the Middle Ages? Were all the people who sacrificed themselves for the well-being of their fellow human beings in history conspirators with ulterior motives? Or were they just fools who didn't see things as well as you do?"
"History is written by the victors. Love, courage, and hope are just literary works made up to paralyze the world. They don't exist." Shinn has given up the debate and entered the stage of "I don't want to hear that! I don't want to hear that!" Ade is very familiar with this. Not to mention the middle-aged children, many adults will also unconsciously enter this stage when they were defeated in the debate.
"Isn't the relationship between you and Mayu love? Don't you know the courage to fight alone with your sister's life? Isn't it hope that you have to work hard to make up for the sad past?" After the destruction of the wrong worldview, people need to rebuild a positive and upward one, "Is it fine to deny all the good qualities since the birth of human beings?"
"I, I don't know …" The effect seemed to be unexpectedly good. Shinn gradually calmed down, "Mr. Adrien, please tell me the answer. This question is too complicated for me to understand …"
"How can you possibly understand when you're only so young? I can't tell you the answer to that question, and no one is qualified to tell you. Not Queen Diana, not the PLANT Speaker, not the Federation President, not Confucius, not Kant, not Marx. If you don't understand, go study, study history, study philosophy, study politics. Even if you can't find the answer for the rest of your life, but it's good to understand a little more. At least today, you understand that you actually do not understand. This is also progress, right?"
Shinn was silent for a long time, then suddenly stood up and bowed solemnly, "Thank you, Mr. Adrien." Mayu looked at her brother with relief and followed with a slight bow.
Well, although from the results, his purpose is achieved, isn't this change a little too fast? He just made a random talk, is it really that useful?
"By the way, Shinn." Ade suddenly remembered, "The salary of the army is not high, it's quite difficult to support Mayu, right?"
"It's already much higher than before, there's always a way."
"Did you have a course related to MS operation in military school?"
"Yes, MS Theory and Practice. Speaking of which, Mr. Adrien appears in the textbook, too."
"What about your grades?"
"Well," Shinn scratched his head a little embarrassed, "My grades are usually perfect scores."
"Very well. Would you be interested in coming to Anaheim as an MS tester? The pay is good."
"But I've already signed an agreement with the Army …"
"Is there a problem with asking the army for an unenlisted recruit in my position?"
"But my ID card-"
"Anaheim is in charge of solving it. What else is the problem?"
…
After making a promise to report to Anaheim the next week, the Asuka siblings took their leave.
"Isn't your behavior a bit against your persona?" C.C. looked at the person in front of her for a long time and felt a pang of strangeness, "And I noticed that it's not the sister you're interested in, but the brother. Could it be that your like to Lacus is just a cover-up and you're actually a gay?"
"C.C., I don't get it, why did he suddenly figure it out?" Ade wasn't in the mood to joke right now.
"Don't you understand what you did?" C. C. takes it for granted, "A child has finally corrected his wrong worldview under the guidance of an adult. He and his beloved sister are walking towards the future with courage and hope. What's wrong?"
"Isn't he changing too fast?" Ade wanted to express more than that, but he could only say this to C.C., "If another villain comes out and fools around, will he change back again?"
"The odds are no." C.C. didn't understand what Ade was dwelling on at all, "He's figured out, hasn't he? He knows what's really important to him."
"No, I mean …" in an irritable mood, he couldn't explain it and was desperate for Alice to be around at the moment, "-- sorry. A little urgent, I need to go out for a while."
C.C. looked at Ade with a stunned expression as he left her to go out alone.
Every minute of the short thirty-minute journey was torture until he entered Inle's cockpit, where he sat down in the driver's seat with a sense of relief.
"Isn't Ade going to be with a guest today?"
"… I just want to talk to you all of a sudden. " There's a lot less irritability.
"Really, Ade?" the pitch was a little high and the volume a little loud, perhaps showing the emotion of surprise, "Anyway, let's play the music first."
You are really turning into a music player! He thought it and felt a little happier. The familiar environment was inexplicably relaxing. He selected a song list called Minority and the piano sound of "Lear Earth" rang out in the cockpit.
"Alice." He closed his eyes, as if he was intoxicated by the music, also as if he was talking to himself, "I took in a little brother with my persuasion today."
"Sorry, Ade, I don't quite understand…"
"But there's no sense of accomplishment at all, rather somehow mixed emotions." The sound of violin joined in.
"…"
"Is it a bad taste of teaching bad children? No, it's not quite right. Is it self-loathing for my past self? That's not quite right either."
"…"
"Nah, Alice. Don’t you think that a person who would be fooled by words like love, courage, or hope is childish and pathetic?" Asked Ade, listening to the prelude somehow suddenly became intense.
"I'm sorry, Ade. I understand the definition of these words, but I can't understand them…. "
"Is it? Why do I feel a little envious…"
シン·アスカ, Shinn Asuka, or Shin Asuka. Both "Shinn" and "Shin" are right. But I will use "Shinn" from now on.
