One of the ways I sincerely believe Code Geass could’ve been vastly improved is by having Kallen’s love interest be Suzaku instead of Lelouch. Here are my reasons:
Lelouch has too many characters canonically crushing on him and that makes each crush seem more irrelevant than the last. Lelouch only really needs Shirley and C.C as love interests(or love interest adjacent in the latter’s case), so Kallen could’ve easily been something else.
Giving Suzaku a second canonical love interest would even up the score between him and Lelouch. Suzaku has one love interest who died tragically while Lelouch has almost every important female character and their mother into him; it’s just not fair, man.
Kallen and Suzaku’s potential as the two Japanese ace pilots of either side would’ve made for an interesting enemies to lovers storyline. It would’ve also made great use of the part in R2 where Kallen is held as a prisoner of war, and made their final battle at the end of R2 more impactful; Suzaku giving Kallen the win she deserves and letting her be the one to “kill” him is pretty romantic, no?
Having Suzaku and Kallen being romantically involved would make Suzaku’s ending in the Re;surrection timeline more hopeful because he wouldn’t be alone. Even if Kallen kept the secret to protect his and Lelouch’s legacy, she could still insist upon being there for him behind the scenes and refusing to take “no” for an answer.
Of course, a lot would need to be changed in order to make this romance more believable, such as showing more of Kallen and Suzaku bonding during R1 at Ashford. And none of this is to say that Kallen needed to have a love interest, she stands just as well on her own, or that Kallen and Lelouch make for a bad ship.
I just think that there was potential here that the writers missed out on because they just had to make sure that the audience knew that Lelouch was the coolest guy around by giving him a bunch of hotties fawning over him.
TLDR; Suzaku needs more bitches, Lelouch has too many bitches, and Kallen needs a man who isn’t going to drop off the radar after she just got him back.
Suzaku remembered waking up, on the beach, the shores of an island of all places. He remembered experiencing disorientation concerning his surroundings and his arrival. How did he get here? And why? Why couldn’t he recall anything prior to being stranded?
“I won’t get any answers here…” Survival instincts from training had kicked in. First things first, he needed to locate a source of drinkable water.
He remembered this more vividly than anything else.
A figure. It appeared to be that of a woman. The back was facing him. At first, he grew alarmed, wary that this person, whoever she may be, might pose a threat to his wellbeing. And then she turned. And that head of red hair that stuck out like a sore thumb on any given day, grabbed his attention, practically slapping him in the face for not recognizing her sooner.
“Kallen? Kallen Stadtfeld?”
He remembered her active response. She wasted no time in both covering that which she could and charging at him with a concealed weapon of some kind.
“A Black Knight’s uniform? Don’t tell me you’re one of–!”
Yes, that dark jacket. The design. She couldn’t be one of them, could she? Not Kallen Stadt—
“Kouzuki is my name! I’m Japanese!”
He remembered meeting her for the first time. That spit fire Guren pilot, Kouzuki Kallen. If asked to describe his feelings as he straddled her naked body, working to subdue her wildly moving form, he’d have to say he was somewhere between utterly confused and bewildered. So much that he paid little mind to the very obvious fact that she lacked proper clothing for the better part of their encounter.
Well…no…that’s a lie. He is still a boy, after all. However, he’s a soldier too. And a knight of third princess! He couldn’t dishonor his master and himself by gawking at a woman in such a vulnerable state! Though, even he had to admit…Kallen was just not the kind of beauty you could ignore easily.
“So, you have no idea how you got here either.”
He remembered the awkward part of forcing her clothes on because her being naked and his ‘captive’ just did not sit right with him for previously mentioned reasons. He easily compared her behavior to that of a drenched cat. Wild. Violent. Merciless. The list just goes on.
“You’re a lot different than you are at school.” The most obvious observation he’d made all day. Not just her behavior. Her expressions. Her voice. Her entire demeanor. It was like a switch had been flipped on her. Could this girl before him really be Kallen?
“Yeah, and you’re the same as ever…” In all honesty, despite her involvement with the Black Knights, he had to admit this Kallen was much more…pleasant to be around. Or perhaps pleasant wasn’t the correct term. All in all, he enjoyed her presence much more in this setting than at school. He truly believed she was quite the boring individual.
Oh, how wrong he was.
“The name Genbu Kururugi, the last samurai, weeps!” Her feisty, reckless tirade triggered the ole recipe of bitterness and resentment that permanently swelled within his lump of a heart. Forever would he be compared to his radical of a father. It was something he’d learned to live with over the years. But now…the secret had come out.
“My father didn’t commit suicide. I killed him. With this hand.” Gone was the boy who trembled at the feet of a foe who somehow knew too much. Gone was the feeble teenager who preached and preached on justice all the while harboring the very sin that was a direct catalyst in the equation that led to the very much anticipated downfall of his people. For that moment, for that split second, Suzaku stopped caring.
He was a killer. Day after day he tried to convince himself that maybe, just maybe, if he worked hard enough, he could one day be free of this sin but no. Area 11 and its inhabitants were a perpetual reminder.
He remembered Kallen’s face. He was expecting mortification. Lelouch, his best friend, gazed upon him in shock. He anticipated much worse from her and yet…her eyes were sad? Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe the crackling fire between them played tricks on his eyes. For her expression lasted but an instance.
“Zero…what he’s doing is wrong…”
“Oh, and you’re suddenly Mr. Right? Who is it that gets decide what’s right and wrong? Who gets to stand in judgement? Certainly not you! You’re nothing but a—!” The words were on her lips, teetering on the tip of her tongue.
“Go on and say it! I know what I am, Kallen! A disgrace to the Kururugi name! A murder! A hypocrite! I’ve heard it all before! But those labels don’t change how I feel about the state of this land! What being Japanese means to me! What it’s meant since our independence was stripped away!”
“So now you’ve got pride? Hah! Your pride means nothing if you’re fighting on the wrong side! The very fact that you oppose someone who’s done more for Japan in the last month than you’ve done in your entire life shows me that your so-called pride is nothing but a farce! It’s not real! How dare you call yourself Japanese!”
Every word she spat at him was like lava. It made him hot, hotter than he’d ever felt. Steamed, even. The kind of hot that compels men to act violently. The kind of provoking hot that urged him to hit something. He felt so driven all of the sudden by aggression and frustration, he was ready to…to…!
He remembered her eyes, wide with fury and shock the moment he lunged forward, tackling her into the cold cold sand below them. He remembered suffering from a well-aimed knee to the abdomen, courtesy of the Guren pilot who flung more ignited slurs his way. He couldn’t explain why he attacked her like this. Well…he could but he didn’t care to. This action would bring him shame every time he thought of it.
He thought of her eyes, a blue starkly contrasting the fiery pits of vengeance currently scorching his being. He thought of her breath, labored huffs of air hitting his flushed face at uneven intervals. He thought of her hair in splayed spikes of crimson laying construed about her face. He thought of her lips, dry as they were, his eyes never strayed too far from the full pink pair, parted and giving him the allusion of something soft.
And suddenly all thoughts stopped at that point.
“S….Suzak–…!” Too little too late. Had she called his name even a second sooner, he would’ve stopped himself. But she didn’t. And he was now comparing the softness of her lips to something plump, sweet, warm. Kissing her was like biting into a ripe peach on a hot summer afternoon. An odd comparison but it seemed to fit as far as he was concerned.
“……”
He remembered moving away from her, back to the fire, back to real life, back to the sad sap of Kururugi he’d learned to accept.
And he remembered biting into that peach one more time before night became morning. Later on, he would wonder how in the world Kallen managed to get her hands free from those bindings.
It would be weeks, perhaps even an entire month had passed in between their next encounter. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very pleasant meeting. The events prior, discovering Kallen’s ties with the Black Knights, being stranded with her, and most notably that kiss, were still fairly fresh within the Lancelot pilot’s mind.
Or rather, his ever-feisty hothead of a rival was in his head and he couldn’t seem to get rid of her. No matter how much he cared for his princess, the light of his life, that spark within Kallen…it dulled her shine.
A bit.
He saw her at school upon his return at long last. He wasn’t surprised to see her tense up whenever he was around. He knew her secret. And he was willing to bet he was the only one at Ashford who did. Unbeknownst to her, he’d never breathe a word about it.
“Just what in the hell kind of game are you trying to pull here, huh?” She’d cornered him, unceremoniously shoved him in a vacant classroom while obviously, and painfully, poking his side with that blasted knife wallet. Really, where does one obtain such a cute yet deadly accessory?
“I don’t know what you mean, Kallen.” Part of him didn’t. Part of him was waiting for her to question him.
Part of him was dying for it. A chance to share the same space, breathe the same air. A chance to look into those constantly blazing, fluid pools of raging cerulean. A chance to memorize those lips, to experience the nostalgia of his first encounter with the forbidden fruit.
“Don’t fuck with me, Suzaku!”
“You kiss Zero with that mouth–ow! It was a joke, sheesh!” Yeah, he supposed he earned himself that small stab from her blade.
“What’s your angle? Are you planning to blackmail me? It won’t work! I don’t care about exposing myself!”
“Wait, that’s not what I’m after all! Please, don’t do that!” Time to come clean. And fast. That blade didn’t seem to be going anywhere. “While we’re at school…I’m Suzaku, your friend. I won’t do anything to jeopardize your being here, Kallen. If anything, I’d like to persuade you to change sides.”
“Oh, how noble of you.” He was expecting that sarcastic jab.
“But…when we meet on the battlefield, I’ll be your enemy. And I will make it my duty to defeat you and Zero.” Blazing cerulean met the steely pigmentation of raw sage. And Kallen looked taken aback by his bold declaration. Taken aback and mildly provoked. That smirk covering her lips told him everything he needed to know about her stance on his words.
“You say that as if you really can stop us. I’ll beat that knightmare of yours, just wait!” She was seconds, mere seconds, away from removing the knife when calloused digits closed around the thinness of her wrist. Several quick maneuvers later and the Guren pilot met the cold hard surface of a beaker cabinet, face first.
“You’re underestimating me. I am a trained soldier. You’ve just gotten lucky overtime...”
“This ‘luck’ nearly defeated your precious Viceroy and gives you hell every time our units clash! You’re the one underestimating me!” How dare he impose his strength upon her. Oh, how she yearned to level the playing field. And level his head while she was at it.
Frustrated with her defiance, the male effortlessly whipped her form around, forcing her back into the cabinet while keeping a steady grip on her arm.
“You don’t have to do this Kallen! You come from a good family. Your father’s a noble! With your background, you could easily work from within and–!”
“Save the self-righteous work with the system speech for someone with nothing to fight for! You really think a halfbreed like me will be well received?! Oh, your father’s a noble~. Screw him and screw y–!”
He couldn’t resist. How could he? The tension between them was too great. Her eyes, they’d captivated him from the moment she yanked him from the hall. Even her scent, tantalizingly potent, reeled him in. And the bait that compelled him?
Her raw anger.
It was different than what he was used out of women. Most girls were nice, sweet, kind, soft, gentle. But Kallen…she was a fire. A ticking time bomb. A raging storm and he was slowly coming to terms with being blissfully caught up in her torrents.
Which is why when she finally snapped and slapped him, he did nothing more than cup his stinging cheek. He didn’t follow after her when she stormed off. In fact, he all but avoided Kallen for a pretty good portion of the day and the rest of the semester.
She scared him, for lack of a better word. And not because she was tough or one of his more formidable foes on the battlefield. It was off the battlefield that her presence shrouded him in veils of fear. He’d awaken at night, in cold sweats though the dream was definitely the opposite temperature. He’d randomly find himself thinking fondly of Euphemia only for the image to shift to that of Kallen.
Worst of all, he’d recall and crave that first taste.
This fruit, his sweet downfall.
Euphemia was dead. Area Eleven had succumbed to the terror that would soon become known as nothing other than the Black Rebellion. Suzaku was traumatized, deeply wounded, and wracked with terror. His heart, normally swelling bitterly now had a new accessory weighing it down.
Revenge.
“Zero!”
“No, it’s Lelouch!” Why…why did she have to be here? Why did she have to come at this exact moment? Why…did she follow him? Follow Zero. Follow Lelouch…she would pay dearly for choosing the wrong side. He gave her a way out. Time and time again. If this is the path she walked, so be it.
“Suzaku, no!”
“Don’t get in my way, Kallen!” He’d merely intended to shy her away from coming any closer. But when his gun fired…when he heard her cries of pain…it was like seeing Euphie’s demise from eyes of the monster before him.
No, how could he…
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way…Lelouch. He was supposed to shoot Lelouch, not Kallen.
After that, he was on autopilot. Blur. Everything he remembered was a blur.
Detaining Lelouch. A blur.
Treating Kallen’s gunshot wound. A blur.
Contacting the Avalon to meet him at the island. A blur.
And he’ll never forget her last words.
“S-Suzaku…I will…n-never…forgive you…”
Her last words as Kouzuki Kallen.
A/N: This was a bit longer than originally intended but it’s just one of those things where you write and you write and you keep writing until the message you want to get across is conveyed. When I tell you I’ve had this on my brain for YEARS. I mean, it’s been a loooong time but I finally buckled down and pumped this out sometime in 2018. Tell me what you think. Shall I continue or leave it as is? Thanks!
