application.

[affectueux]

APPLICATION

 

NAME: Serge Battour
CANON: Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Song of the Wind and the Trees)
CANON POINT: After arriving at Bonnard’s, before leaving Gilbert in his care.
AGE: 16, approaching 17.
BACKGROUND:

A few things to note: Kaze to Ki no Uta has been around for 30+ years, but currently 13/17 volumes are fully translated. The scanlations up to volume 13 can be found online, and the raws are available as well. As I am apping Serge from a point that is not yet translated (but I can read it!), I’ll try to fill in the blanks and summarize as well as I can.

With that in mind, here we go!

GENERAL CW: UNDERAGE SEXUAL ASSAULT, INCEST, PEDOPHILIA

Serge was born in Tyrol, Austria, to his parents Aslan and Paiva Battour. Aslan was a young viscount, and Paiva was a Romani courtesan that he fell in love with. The first years of his childhood were relatively peaceful—although his memories of his parents are hazy, he does remember spending time listening to and learning piano from his father, and cozy meals shared with his mother.

Unfortunately, Aslan got tuberculosis when Serge was just a toddler, and Serge was present for his father’s slow death in a sanatorium. His mother soon succumbs to the same disease, but she sends Serge to live with Aslan’s parents in Paris before he has to watch her die. His loving grandparents, however, both soon pass away of old age, and he is left in the care of his aunts, Lizbeth and Margot—who resented his mother for damaging the Battour reputation, and resent Serge for inheriting her dark skin and visible heritage. From ages 4 to 13, Serge lives in Paris being raised as the successor to the Battour estate.

At 13 years old, Serge enrolls at Lacombrade Academy, an all-boys’ Catholic school (as well as the same school his father attended), and ends up with the notoriously lascivious Gilbert Cocteau as his roommate. This sets in motion the real events of the manga, and it’s probably best to bullet point it as there’s a lot of ground to cover.

• Serge becomes Gilbert’s roommate.

• Serge spends a lot of time and energy trying to understand Gilbert, who has a reputation for corrupting anything that he touches. Serge is expected to succumb to Gilbert’s wiles sooner or later.

• During this time, Serge meets Gilbert’s uncle, Auguste Beau. At this point, he doesn’t know much about Gilbert’s home or family, but he is made very aware by Gilbert himself that Auguste is the most important person in Gilbert’s life.

• Serge and Gilbert spend a lot of time alternately fighting and getting much too close for Serge’s comfort, but it is nonetheless a progression of their “friendship.” Serge is undeniably attracted to Gilbert after all the times he’s had to comfort and nurse Gilbert after particularly brutal encounters with Gilbert’s lover, Max Proulx.

• Meanwhile, he catches the attention of Liliath Florian, the second-most lascivious boy in school! He rejects Liliath’s advances and accidentally humiliates him in the process, and Liliath’s posse proceed to rough him up.

• Over winter break, Serge is invited to spend the vacation with another friend of his, Pascal Biquet. There he meets Pascal’s sister Patricia (“Pat” for short), who falls in love with him nearly instantaneously for the way he treats her as a girl, rather than the younger tomboy sibling of Pascal’s more popular sister, May. He bonds well with Pascal and Pat, during this time.

• CW: SEXUAL ASSAULT One day shortly after his return, Serge is tasked with delivering a message to the school’s “Beautiful Boy Love Club,” but the message was merely a ruse. In reality, his schoolmates sent him as an offering to the club; Serge is stripped and the club attempts to assault him, while Gilbert watches on. Liliath is involved in this as revenge for Serge’s earlier rejection, but the attack ultimately has no effect on Serge’s reputation. Serge chooses to keep it all a secret, and comes away from it with his pride undamaged. However, his arm is hurt quite badly.

• Soon after, Serge is given the opportunity to play piano for a famous acquaintance of Auguste in order to potentially advance his career and education for the instrument he loves so passionately. Unfortunately, due to the earlier attack by the club, he’s unable to play as well as he wishes and ultimately “loses” what he didn’t realize was a competition to a schoolmate, Henri. This profoundly affects him, but he doesn’t realize just how much until some years later.

• Around this time, Auguste announces his engagement to Serge’s cousin, Angeline. This sends Gilbert spiraling, and during this time, Serge and Gilbert are left in an unpleasant, complicated situation. However, as Serge learns more about Auguste through Gilbert’s attachment, he realizes that Auguste is a cruel, abusive man, and resolves himself to save Gilbert, not from himself, but from the clutches of his uncle. Gilbert is initially resistant, but Serge’s persistence soon allows Gilbert to reach out to others—and to Serge, in particular.

• CW: RAPE/PEDOPHILIA Auguste, sensing that Serge is yet again interfering with his perfect plan to isolate Gilbert, decides to invite both boys to his villa over the summer as a display of his power and control over Gilbert. At the estate, he forces Serge to witness sex between himself and Gilbert, and later drugs Serge to do the same to him. Serge is horrified by Auguste’s actions, but out of concern for Gilbert’s attachment to Auguste, he chooses—like with the Beautiful Boy Love Club—not to mention it to Gilbert. Gilbert, thus, suspects nothing about Auguste’s true motivations, and Serge diligently spends the rest of the summer becoming closer and closer to Gilbert, much to Auguste’s chagrin.

• It is during this summer that Serge honestly confesses his love to Gilbert, and they share a passionate kiss. He wants to save Gilbert from Auguste’s clutches, and he believes that being sincere with Gilbert is the best way to do it. Gilbert tells him, however, that he is going to stay with Auguste, and claims that he refuses to go back to Lacombrade.

• In true dramatic fashion, as Serge prepares to return to Lacombrade alone, Gilbert rushes to meet the carriage at the last minute and escapes Auguste’s home with Serge. This is the beginning of, at least somewhat, a happy relationship for them—bound together by their experience in Auguste’s villa, Serge and Gilbert begin to date. However, being at a Catholic school, their relationship must be kept a secret, and their unusual affection toward each other despite this draws much suspicion from Serge’s classmates and friends.

From about here is where the scanlations stop! The rest is untranslated, but raws are available online.

• CW: RAPE Soon, Auguste hires a (young?) man named Adam to menace Gilbert in order to manipulate him away from Serge once again. Without knowing about Adam’s involvement, rumors make their way back to Serge that Gilbert has returned to his old promiscuous ways, and Serge, hurt, ends their relationship. Gilbert, believing it would be better for Serge in the long run, does not correct him, but he continues to suffer under Adam’s hand to break him and bring him running back to Auguste. Serge also sees more of Pat during this time, and Gilbert believes that Serge is better suited to being with a woman anyway.

• Eventually, those who were once close to Auguste reveal the truth to Serge: Gilbert did not betray him at all, and Serge abandoned him in his time of need. They make up, but only temporarily, because!

• An absolutely absurd amount of shit happens. Auguste announces that he will not be marrying Angeline after all and tries to force Gilbert back into his arms. Gilbert struggles. The homophobia from Serge and Gilbert’s classmates is getting worse and more violent.

• Serge is eventually outed to the head priest of the school, through Auguste, for being in love with Gilbert. As he refuses to repent for his sins, he is expelled from school and given a week to pack his things and leave—a week being the same amount of time Auguste has given Gilbert to consider his offer to return to Marseilles.

• CW: SUICIDE ATTEMPT Gilbert, disallowed from seeing Serge, continues to struggle with his future. Eventually, he sneaks into Serge’s room and offers him a knife, for the two of them to kill themselves in the outskirts of Arles. Serge considers it, but he ultimately begs for someone to go find Gilbert and help him before he kills himself waiting for Serge to join him, as he isn’t allowed to leave his room. Gilbert is saved, but… 

• This is the impetus for Serge to decide that he must run away from Lacombrade, not merely return home, and bring Gilbert with him so that he can save the two of them and allow them, like his father before him, to live a life free of societal pressures. Serge, with help from his friends and the former student council president, escapes from school, to Arles, to Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, and eventually to Paris with Gilbert.

• Serge adopts a new name for his life in Paris, Serge Marais, in order to keep out of the ears of his family in the area.

• They live together in a hotel for about a month, before Gilbert gets fed up with their lifestyle and breaks up with Serge, threatening to move back in with Auguste. Serge takes this poorly and they fight, but they resolve it with a kiss. This inspires him to work harder than ever to find a job, and a young girl named Camille puts in a good word for him at a bistro.

• He and Gilbert move into a small, run-down apartment building with Serge’s newfound money, and for a few months, they are happy together. Serge alone works at the bistro to support them. Gilbert, however, has more and more trouble adjusting to the “poor life” after living so grandly with Auguste’s patronage, and his misery takes a toll on the both of them.

• Realizing that Gilbert is languishing, Serge forces him to get a job as a waiter at the same bistro, where they pretend to be relatives rather than lovers. It is also at this point, cleaning up after Gilbert’s messes, that he meets Henri who is living as a well-to-do noble in a Parisian conservatory, and Serge longs desperately to play the piano after months without it. He regrets, for a moment, the choices that brought him here. However, Gilbert speaks to the owner of the bistro, and informs him that Serge is an incredible pianist—earning Serge a job as a lounge player, at least for a little while.

• Although Gilbert struggles at work, his good looks allow him to keep the job for longer than it should seem, and he eventually attracts the attention of a man named Darnini—a high ranking boss of the Parisian underground.

• Serge manages, after a series of lucky coincidences and his handsome looks, to find work as a piano instructor instead. He becomes close with a student, Malleri, and his genial personality catches the attention of her father.

• In the background, hoping to force Serge and Gilbert into dire straits in order to take Gilbert for himself, Darnini pulls some strings. While Serge is away, he manages to lure Gilbert into a world of easy money, suggesting prostitution to the destitute young man. Gilbert comes home one night bruised, and Serge demands to know who did this to him. He’s worried for Gilbert, but Gilbert believes this is the best way he can help. Serge confronts the bistro owner, who explains Darnini’s reputation, but insists there’s nothing he can do about it.

• As for Serge, Darnini sends a letter to Malleri’s father to reveal his homosexuality. Malleri’s father, who had just moments before offered Malleri’s hand in marriage to Serge, wants to believe the best and tells Serge to break up with Gilbert for his own good—to which Serge says that he cannot, because breaking up with Gilbert is the same as killing him.

• Both now jobless, Serge and Gilbert can no longer afford their apartment, and winter is approaching. They take a train to the seaside, far from Paris, where Serge had promised he would take Gilbert. Homeless and hungry, they wander, until they’re picked up by an old acquaintance of Gilbert, Jean-Pierre Bonnard. Feeling sympathy for the boy who was once his muse, Bonnard allows them safe haven in his mansion.

• Gilbert seems genuinely happy, with Serge at his side and all the luxuries he grew up with once again available to him, but Serge is made increasingly aware of something he struggles to admit to himself—he cannot make Gilbert happy in the way he wants to. One point he returns to is that, while he couldn’t even afford a pair of shoes Gilbert wanted in the windows of upscale shops, Bonnard provides Gilbert with beautiful new clothes every day. He decides, one night when Gilbert is sleeping, that he will leave Gilbert in Bonnard’s care and return to the streets of Paris. This is the canon point I’m picking him up from, just before he actually, physically leaves the mansion.



PERSONALITY: Serge, on the outside, is as perfect as perfect gets. He’s generous, kind, honest, hard-working, and handsome to boot! When he first comes to Lacombrade, his earnest and straightforward personality immediately gets him admirers from both under and upperclassmen alike, and it is this personality of his that makes him the perfect match for the capricious and mean-spirited Gilbert Cocteau.

Serge’s personality is best seen in contrast to Gilbert, actually. Where Gilbert is selfish, Serge chooses selflessness. Gilbert ditches class and sleeps for his grades, but Serge is studious and encourages Gilbert to do the same, going so far as to invite him to study together even when Gilbert laughs in his face. Serge is pious, attending Mass every Sunday and adhering to the religion of the time and place, but Gilbert only comes when he feels like it. Had he not met Gilbert, all these features surely would have remained a part of him, but it is through his interactions with Gilbert that his finer points shine.

When he isn’t with Gilbert, he seems a bit more like a normal boy his age. He’s prone to pranks and roughhousing, and although he’s usually the first one to say when something goes too far, he sometimes fails to stop things from happening in the first place: he can be a little bit myopic, whether it’s for small things like getting a little too rowdy in the halls, or longer-term objectives like his friendship with Gilbert. He has trouble planning ahead, and follows his feelings even when they would clearly be to his detriment if he thought just a step ahead. It sometimes works out for him, but evidenced by the aftermath of his competition with Henri, these consequences can go far beyond what he ever expects. In this particular case, if he had mentioned to his teacher that his arm was unwell, he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself in front of a group of adults he respects, and he may have gotten another chance at attending the conservatory in Paris as his father had wished for him. He considers himself as being noble, when it comes to these things, but the truth is that he cannot rely on others for anything.

Because of the prejudice he faced growing up in his own home, Serge’s personality has manifested in two sides of the same coin. On the face of it, he truly is the noblest of nobles. He seems to hold everyone in equal esteem and believes in the inherent good of most people’s hearts. To anyone he sees as in need of help, he will gladly go above and beyond what people could ever expect of the average person. The dark side of this is that his kindness comes from a desperate need to control people’s impression of him. In his childhood, he was determined to do everything by himself, and went so far as to take on the work of the servants despite being the master of the house, because he couldn’t stand the thought that he would be judged as being lazy or entitled because of the color of his skin. Although he doesn’t always consciously realize it, he is motivated by a desire to “prove himself” to those that would judge him by appearances.

Furthermore, because his beloved mother was a Romani courtesan, hearing people judge others as “dirty,” whether that’s for their skin color or some perceived flaw (especially when it comes to sexual promiscuity), can almost immediately drive Serge to violence. He’s an extremely emotional person, and he usually processes things with anger first. While this is acceptable in the setting of a boys’ school, it becomes a problem as he gets older, and he struggles to contain it. When it comes to crying, his approach is complicated. Even from a very young age, after he witnessed his father die, he could only express grief through music. This is a habit that carries on into adulthood, and he becomes more difficult the longer he must spend away from a piano. The notable exception to this is Gilbert—often without fail, Serge’s feelings for Gilbert when he’s young make him cry when he’s alone.

His father is described by the author as being “not a good person, but a person who is seen by others as good,” and Serge is noted by a number of characters to be incredibly similar to his father. It is, however, Serge’s fundamental purity of heart that allows him to get close to Gilbert, and rather than not being a good person, he’s just human. He is naïve, hopeful, and loving, but he’s also deeply traumatized from things far out of his control. His need to try to control these things anyway is what hurts him the most in the long run.

POWERS/ABILITIES: He has no magical powers, but he is noted in canon to be an incredible piano player, good at fencing, and an excellent equestrian! He’s also generally fit, even after a few difficult months in Paris.