Excerpt: Code Geass: Gakuen no Rolo

"Ah, oniisan, let me help," Rolo rushed in and took the box from Lelouch, forcing a bright, helpful smile as he did so.
Lelouch gave him a puzzled stare, but brushed it off. "All right, if you want to help, you most certainly can. Take that to those piles of boxes over there, but don't put it on top of any of the ones that say 'fragile', okay?"
"Right, I understand." He stood still a moment, glancing behind him as Lelouch walked past the bookcase. He tensed, then relaxed when Lelouch seemed to have not noticed the picture.
Rolo put the box down with the others, then hurried back into the room with the bookcase. "Actually, you can leave the rest of this to me. I got it, really."
"I got it" was a phrase from one of his books, and he had been looking for an opportunity to use it. The words felt strange and foreign, but he ignored it.
"Oh? But you wouldn't know where any of this goes." Lelouch smiled playfully. "This is too good to be true. What are you up to?"
Rolo's mind switched into overdrive again, going over the possibilities of Lelouch having discovered the truth. After a few seconds he came to the conclusion that Lelouch's remark had been innocent. "Nothing, really, I just want to help. That is," Rolo struggled to find the right words. Innocent and casual, but had to get Lelouch out of that room so that Rolo could retrieve the picture. "That is, I... you look a little wore out. Maybe you should take a break?"
"You really think so? I'm not that tired..." Lelouch put down the papers he was carrying on top of the table and walked past Rolo toward the door anyway, mumbling something about getting a soda.
Rolo sighed in relief. As soon as Lelouch had exited the room, Rolo shut the door carefully and locked it, just in case. He then set his eyes on the bookcase. It looked heavy, and honestly, Rolo knew he wasn't that strong. Still, he absolutely had to retrieve the picture. If it was what he thought it was, then...
He tried pushing the bookcase off of the picture, but only managed to push it a few inches. He tried carefully pulling the picture out from under the bookcase without moving the bookcase, but that didn't work either, and he had a feeling if he pulled any harder the corner would just rip off. He considered calling Lieutenant Col-- Viletta-sensei to help him, but decided against it, primarily for the reason that he really didn't like her. She was overbearing and annoying, and if it weren't for the fact that it could hurt the mission, he would have killed her by now.
Finally, he decided he would have to try pushing it again, much to his dismay. He pushed from the front, but that did nothing, so he turned around and leaned with his back against the side of the bookcase, and tried pushing it that way. It seemed to move, but the wrong way. Instead of merely moving over a few more inches, the side he was pushing on lifted above the floor, until finally the entire bookcase was on its side, the books in it spilling out onto the floor.
Rolo turned around and froze, unsure of what to do. He picked up the picture-- it was rather large, and it seemed to feature a younger version of Lelouch and of Nunally, his sister-- and stared at it for a second before shoving it into his jacket pocket. He then returned to staring at the mess of books on the floor in front of him, glancing back and forth between that and the overturned bookcase, a feeling of panic sweeping over him.
He remembered a scene from a story he read in English where a girl knocked over a vase, and tried to hide it before her mom came home so she wouldn't get in trouble. That would definitely not work; the bookcase was too large to hide. He could try and return the bookcase to its original position and put all the books back in it before Lelouch returned, but he didn't know the order in which he had had them arranged-- knowing Lelouch (which he was starting to), it was some strange, obscure system based on binary or something. In other words, Lelouch would know something was wrong. And so Rolo continued to panic. How would Lelouch react to such a mess?
Just then, the door opened.
"Rolo? I heard a crash..." Lelouch froze when he saw the bookcase. Rolo turned around slowly, wondering why the door wasn't locked, he thought he locked it--
"This..." Lelouch blinked. He set his can of soda down on the table by the stack of papers he had been carrying before. "This is..."
"I-- I'm sorry!" Rolo shouted, terrified. Although his previous knowledge of such manners had been vague, his books had at least helped in that aspect: 'I'm sorry', 'thank you', 'please', even 'hello' and 'goodbye.' He had memorized the different situations each one resolved. "I just wanted... to move the bookcase... and-- I'm so sorry!"
Suddenly, Lelouch started laughing. Rolo's fear turned into confusion. He hadn't known how Lelouch would react, but he had had an idea. Laughing was not it.
"...Eh?"
"Oh Rolo... why on earth would you..." He stopped, unable to continue because he was laughing so hard. Rolo bit his lip, completely unsure of what to make of the situation.
When Lelouch had finally stopped laughing, he wiped his eyes and smiled. "Rolo," he began, holding up his index finger as if he were a teacher giving a lesson, "a Lamperouge does not move bookcases. We tell other people to move bookcases for us. We're the smart ones, not the physical labor ones, okay?"
Rolo blinked. "Uh--"
"I don't think even you and I together could have moved that bookcase. Honestly." He chuckled a bit more, then knelt down to start picking up books. "Here, help me with these, all right? Don't worry," he said as he saw Rolo's expression, "I'm not mad. I don't even know why you would think I would be. As if I could ever get mad at you."
Rolo hesitated, but finally, he knelt down beside Lelouch and started picking up books as well. The two of them put the books into neat stacks, then picked up the empty bookcase together. When they were done putting all of the books back on the shelves, Lelouch patted Rolo's head and smiled. Rolo felt his cheeks grow warm, but he wasn't sure why. Perhaps a fever, or maybe it was too warm in the room-- should he take off his jacket?
Jacket... the picture! He had to destroy it, and fast. "I really am sorry about the bookcase," he stammered out, looking for a quick escape. "You're right, next time I'll ask for help."
"That's right. And why did you want to move the bookcase in the first place? I think it looks fine where it is, but do you think it would look better somewhere else?" Lelouch had an honestly inquisitive look on his face. After a few seconds of silent panic, Rolo decided it was best to mix lies with truth.
"I-- thought I saw some papers or something stuck under it, and I was going to-- help you clean the room by getting them." He glanced away, feeling strangely embarrassed.
Lelouch chuckled again. "All that fuss over a few stray papers... well thank you very much for trying to help, Rolo. I really appreciate it."
"I don't think I should help any more, though," Rolo replied, finding an escape route and taking it. "I would probably end up wrecking more than helping. Maybe I should just leave this to you?"
"Probably."
After Rolo had left the room, he ran as far as he could run, then walked as fast as his heart would let him, trying to get to his room as fast as he could. As soon as he got to his room, he shut the door and locked it-- triple-checking to make sure it was really locked-- and found a lighter. Shredding or merely throwing away the picture would result in the picture still being there, still existing, and he had to get rid of it completely.
So he would burn it.
He held the lighter up to the corner of the picture, and prepared to strike it.
But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do it. His thumb hovered over the small, plastic button for a few moments before finally he put the lighter down.
"...Why can't I do it?"

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