THIS FIC ISN'T MEANT TO OFFEND ANYBODY

Notes: This idea popped up from a long serious discussion I had with my dear friend Michalyn yesterday. The topic? Political Correctness. I live in a land where we don't even have a term for political correctness so the prospect of it is completely alien to me. My opinion is: the words can hurt you, but they don't determine who you are; once you realize that, they can't hurt you anymore. If that offends anybody, then I apologize.

The Chink

by KatiKat
 

When Treize heard the rattle of the key in the lock, he smiled, folding the newspaper and laying it aside. His husband was home. He stood up from his favorite armchair by the window, crossed the room and stepped into the corridor, leading to the main door.

"Welcome home, love," Treize called out. He was about to say more, maybe welcome Wufei with the kiss he longed for the whole day, but then he noticed something.

Wufei was still standing by the door he closed so carefully, leaning his back against it. His head was down, the shadows of the unlit corridor hiding his expression. His whole body was rigid, his shoulders tense. Something must have happened.

The smile vanished from Treize's lips and a concerned frown replaced it. "Wufei?" he said, his voice low and made a move to step closer. But his husband pushed away from the door, still silent and with his head down he tried to head to the stairs, leading up to the second floor where their bedroom was situated. But Treize would have none of that. He caught Wufei by the shoulders as he tried to pass by. "What's wrong?" he whispered, his voice soothing, as if afraid that a loud noise would make the smaller man bolt.

"Nothing," Wufei mumbled with his head still down.

Treize's frown deepened. Whatever happened must have affected Wufei pretty badly.

"Wufei?" he asked again, not sure what to do. How could he help or make it better when the other man refused to tell him what's wrong?

"Chink."

The voice was so low that for a moment Treize wasn't sure if his husband said anything at all. "What did you say?"

"Chink!" This time, the single voice exploded out of Wufei in a hateful burst. He raised his head and looked directly at his husband. His eyes were ablaze. "That's what he called me!"

Treize clenched his teeth for a moment. "Who? Who dared?"

Wufei looked away. "It doesn't matter," he answered, his voice hollow, the anger suddenly gone.

"It does. At least to me."

The smaller man's head whipped around. "Oh, yeah? And what do you want to do about it? Beat him up? Force him to apologize? It doesn't matter, Treize, don't you understand? I thought that we lived in a free country, that the people finally freed themselves of prejudice..." He barked out a harsh laugh. "Gods, was I naive." He tried to pull away but Treize held fast.

"Let me go!"

"No."

Wufei looked the taller man directly in the eyes. "Let. Me. Go." He bit out the words one by one.

But instead of releasing his husband and allowing him to disappear into their bedroom, to hide from the world or beat the punching bag to death, Treize spun Wufei around and pulled him towards a full body mirror hanging on the wall by the stairs. "What do you see?" he asked, his voice firm.

Wufei tried to squirm away, wanting to escape, but refusing to actually hurt his husband to do so. "This is stupid. Let me go!"

Refusing to obey, Treize shook the smaller man gently, then gripped the pointed chin firmly in his hand and forced Wufei to look in the mirror. When their eyes met, Treize's hard and unyielding, Wufei's full of bitterness and fire, he repeated. "What do you see?"

"A chink! A baby-muncher! A bamboo coon!" he spat out, his voice dripping with venom.

Treize's eyes softened a notch. "What do you see?" he repeated once more.

"A Chinese, an alien, a foreigner in this country! A foreigner who thought he found a home here!" The words flew out of him as if the tension that built up in him needed to vent or it would tear him to shreds.

The grip on the smaller man's chin turned almost to caress. "What do you see?" came the question again.

Tears welled up in Wufei's eyes as he screamed. "What do you want to hear?! What?!"

"That you respect yourself for who you are, not what you are," Treize whispered, kissing the smaller man's hair. "There will be always morons to whom you'll be a chink or a fag. There will always be someone who would like to hurt you, because of envy or because of idiocy or for other reasons. And they will find a way to do it. And words hurt more than fists."

Wufei swallowed. "It could never happen to you," he whispered.

Now it was Treize's time to laugh harshly. "Why? Because I'm white? Because I'm tall? Or because of my money?" He shook his head, caressing Wufei's cheek, drying his tear tracks. "I was a skinny kid whose parents came from a foreign land, who spoke with a godawful accent. And I was gay too. Do you think I had an easy life? No. But you are what you make of yourself. If you start to listen to what others are saying about you and try to fit their demands, there will be nothing left of you. You can't change your skin color or your sexuality but you can change the way you look at them. Now look at yourself again," Treize whispered, raising Wufei's chin high. "You know what I see? A man carrying the heritage of thousands of years of tradition in his blood. A man who managed to build his life from ruins. A man who draws his strength from the ones that had been taken from him, but never deserted him completely. A man who can beat every taller and stronger white man to a bloody pulp with one hand behind his back. A man who I love and who I would protect with my life. What do you think of this man? Do you deem him worthy?"

Wufei swallowed, his throat painfully constricted. Then he gave his husband a reluctant, shaky smile. "You are good at this, you know that?"

Treize smiled and ran his thumb over Wufei's lower lip. "I know. After all I'm the tall Caucasian in this household. I'm perfect." His voice had a teasing note to it, gentle and loving.

Wufei's smile broadened a bit and he elbowed his husband in the ribs. "Jerk!" But then the smile vanished from his lips and he held Treize's look fast. "I must have done a lot of good in my past life to deserve you."

"Same here," came the whispered answer as Treize closed his arms tightly around his husband from behind, rocking slightly from side to side. „Same here.“

They didn't change the world, but in their little piece of it, the sun seemed to shine again.


The End