Quatre trudged towards the dining table like a zombie. He didn't even realize the gaping look on his fellow pilots' faces. Heero was the one who recovered first from the uh, shock. Seeing Duo looking like a dead goldfish with his mouth wide open, he proceeded to jab the braided boy very hard in the ribs.

"Hey! What did you do that for?" Duo asked indignantly, glaring at the Japanese.

"Your mouth was wide open," Heero stated in a tone that seemed to say that his explanation was all there was to say.

"So?"

"Flies might get into your mouth."

"That is SO damn freaking dumb!! Don't you have anything better to say??" Duo burst out. " Some people are trying to eat if you didn't notice that!!"

"Maybe Duo was pretending to be like some venus fly trap - to catch some flies for breakfast," Quatre said suddenly. Under normal circumstances, they would have accepted this as a joke - if it were The Three Stoics who said it but it didn't sound like joking when Quatre said it.

"Hey, Q. Don't tell me that you're still depressed from last night," Duo said with a concerned look on his face. His brows were furrowed together and creases were on his forehead. "It's a bright, new day! Forget about yesterday's troubles and start over anew and be happy!"

"Yeah, it's a bright, new day all right. But I'm afraid that I'm still feeling down and I can't change the way I'm feeling right now," Quatre replied with a wan smile. "It's just... one of those days, I think."

"Well, we could go have fun at the arcade and then pig out at the pizza parlour and have all the ice-cream in the world for dessert! How about that? Then we could go shop at the mall, catch a movie - I've been dying to watch the Final Fantasy movie ever since I heard about it two years ago, you know, and then we could go and bug Hilde and uh, maybe go visit the zoo and then toilet paper Relena's mansion?" Duo said all that in one breath and he said them so fast that the words all sort of ran all over each other so it was a bit hard to understand. That was Duo for you in a very good mood. He paused for a second and flashed his most winning grin to Quatre that was hard for anybody or anything to resist.

Quatre only managed an apologetic look. 'Sorry Duo.. I'm just not in the mood for anything um, fun today," he said with a sigh. "You know, I still feel tired. Maybe I should go back to bed and put in another few extra hours of sleep." The blonde wasn't sleepy even in the least bit but he faked a yawn to show the other three boys that he was so that they would leave him alone - even if it was for only a few hours. He wanted to be alone, needed to be alone so he could wallow in self pity. Quatre felt that that was lame. He couldn't possibly be depressed and stay depressed forever! He should just forget Trowa and get on with his life. There were after all like Duo would tell him, other fishes - even those that were even cuter than Trowa - in the sea. But for now, all he wanted was to be alone and wallow in self pity. Heck, now he was being redundant and he blamed it on his mind for being muddled up and straying away to less happy thoughts.

"Quatre, are you sure you're fine? You seem distracted as well," asked Wufei as he studied the blonde's face carefully.

Quatre was instantly awakened from his train of thoughts and he, as well as Duo and Heero practically gaped at Wufei's words. Wufei had called him 'Quatre' and not 'Winner'. Now when the Chinese starts to address people by their first name and not by their surname like he usually would and suddenly took an interest in their well-being, that proved that Chang Wufei was really concerned and was also capable of being concerned.

"I-I'm fine Wufei. Thanks for your concern even though there's nothing to be concerned about," Quatre mumbled as he looked downcast. "I ought to go back to sleep now. I feel so woozy." Then he retreated as fast as he could out of the kitchen. He didn't want his friends to feel worried for him and he wasn't ready for any 'interrogation' that may lie ahead later that day.

~*~*~*~*~*

"That Trowa can be such a heartless bastard!" Duo burst out once Quatre was away in his room. He paced or stalked around the kitchen and he had an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. "I don't know what happened between the both of them yesterday but I have a hunch that Quatre probably confessed his feelings to Trowa and the stupid idiot must have gone and rejected the poor boy. How could he do this to Quatre? I mean, Quatre's so kind and gentle and he's kinda cute if you ask me, and hell, anybody would be lucky and happy to have him but I bet that a preson like Trowa would only have feelings for those stupid lions at the circus."

"Duo. First, we don't know for sure if Quatre had confessed to Trowa and if Trowa had rejected Quatre so stop banging on him," Heero stated firmly. "Two, stop being so judgemental! Since when did you care about people falling in love with each other so they could live happily ever after? Didn't you say before that watching couples fighting were much more exciting than watching couples get mushy all over each other?"

"OK. I'll admit that I said that before but I want to see my best friends happy and not sad, understand?" Duo said grudgingly. "I don't want to see Quatre being sad especially since he's the most emotional one in the group. He'll just let his troubles eat away at him and that's not healthy." Duo paused for a moment and then he rasied an eyebrow at Heero sceptically. "Hey, did ya realize that you're talking quite a lot all of a sudden? Wow! What an amazing discovery - Heero Yuy can actually speak!"

"Hn. Baka! Of course I can speak but that doesn't mean that I have to go spouting off two thousand words per second like you do," Heero retorted with a death glare. "Even a blind person could tell that you aren't dumb even with your mouth closed!"

"Oooh, you hurt my feelings," Duo shot back. "I'll get you for that later - don't think that just because I'm not Japanese, I don't know what 'baka' means. Now, I wanna get my hands on that Trowa and beat him to a bloody pulp."

"Gross and disgusting and an absolute waste of time," Wufei said. "You're more sooner to turn into the bloody pulp than Barton himself."

"Oh yeah? Then I'll have a talk with the idiot, man to man," Duo decided. "Heero, you come with me and we'll find Tro and Wu-man, you stay here and keep Quatre company and take care of the chores while you're at it, OK?" The braided boy and Heero went to the small closet down the hall and took out their jackets to be worn outside. "I bet he's at the park cos that's the only place he likes to go to. Well, bye-bye Wu-man!!"

"Great. You're doing this on purpose cos you're the one who has cleaning up duty - " the front door banged close, " - today. Oh yeah. What a way to spend the morning."

~*~*~*~*~*

Because I'm your friend, Trowa. Friends are supposed to be there for their friends and take care of them, you know.

/Really? Are you really my friend? Do you really consider me as your friend?/

Then what if I were to say that I'm doing all this because I love you?

/I would never believe it. Even in a million years./

That, Trowa thought, would have to be the biggest joke of the century. How could a person like Quatre Raberba Winner ever fall in love with a person like him who was a nobody? How could Quatre ever fall for a person who didn't deserve to have anybody in the world? He wasn't a person like Duo: funny and likeable, or Heero: smart and strong or like Wufei: brave and courageous. He was just... Trowa Barton and that wasn't even his real name to begin with.

Even the sounds of the trees swaying in the wind, the birds chirping and the feel of the light breeze ruffling his bangs did nothing to help him place his mind onto other thoughts. He still felt guilty. Guilty for making Quatre sad and disappointed. Guilty for not being true to himself, for telling a lie to the person that mattered most to him. It did not help the fact that that one disturbing image of the shattered look on Quatre's face kept replaying in his mind over and over again.

/But it was all for his sake. He deserves somebody better. Somebody who isn't me./

The sounds of footsteps rushing on the pavement met his ears and all too soon, a hand was clasped onto his shoulder and he didn't even have to turn to tell who it was.

"Heero," he said, stiffening his body. "Did something important happen that you find it necessary to come all the way here to see me?"

"Yeah, obviously something important happened," Duo said sarcastically. "It's about Quatre."

"What about him?" Trowa said, trying to sound nonchalant. "He seemed fine the last time I saw him."

"Well, he's not now!" Duo retorted. "And it's all thanks to the all magnificent and all wonderful Trowa Barton."

"Look, I don't understand what's your problem but why don't you just butt out of everything?" Trowa said slowly and defiantly. "You just have to stick your nose into everybody's business to get the latest gossip and action, don't you? I'm sure Quatre would appreciate it if you would stop fussing over him like a mother hen - he's a grown boy. He can take care of himself."

"Hey! Take that - "

Before Duo could get on with his outburst, a hand shot out and connected to the side of Trowa's face. Duo and Trowa were blinking in surprise when they realized what had actually happened. It never occured to them that Heero Yuy would actually slap someone on the face. No, that was so not him. He would usually stay calm and have that stony look on his face as he stood about and did nothing.

"What's that for?" Trowa cried with a hard glare, rubbing at his sore cheek that was reddening from the sting of Heero's sharp slap.

"That. Is for being a total asshole."

~*~*~*~*~*

"Oh, hot damned shit! I can't believe that I'm doing Maxwell's bathroom cleaning duties... for FREE!!" grumbled a very irritated Chang Wufei as he got onto his hands and knees, got out the very disgusting bristly thing that was meant for scrubbing the bathroom floor and the bathroom disinfectant. He scrubbed at the floor with forced, angry strokes and wished that he was actually scrubbing Duo's face with that disgusting bristly thing instead of the bathroom floor with every swishing, scratching, and scrubbing sound he made. The Chinese boy let out an evil-sounding chuckle as he planned the things he would do to Duo for revenge.

"When that idiot comes back, the first thing I'm going to do is to stuff this brush in his mouth.. nah, I'll do that later. Like, after I've served him some special lemonade made with the water from the toilet bowl and some extra-special brownies made from dog poop. And then I'll dye his annoyingly long braid in a horrible pea-green colour. While I'm dyeing his hair green, I might as well dye all his black clothes a bright magenta. Hn. See how he likes it then."

"Wufei? How come you're talking to yourself and how come you're doing the bathroom cleaning today?" came a meek voice from the side of the bathroom door. "I thought Duo was supposed to do it today."

"Yeah, I thought it was his day to do this shit also," a dark scowl overcoming his features as Wufei spoke. "But apparently I ended up doing this for him somehow."

"I could help you with the cleaning - even though it's a very disgusting chore which I absolutely hate doing," offered the blonde as he stepped into the bathroom, grabbed another one of those bristly things and got onto his hands and knees as well. "It isn't fair for you to have to do Duo's chores when we all know that we all have our own stuff to take care of."

"Bless the heavens above. Thank Nataku that there is at least somebody who agrees with me for once!" Wufei cried as he threw his arms up into the air. "For once, I think there might actually be a God after all!"

Quatre laughed and the Chinese boy was relieved to hear his friend was no longer in a morose mood. "You're acting silly - I think that some of Duo's wackiness has rubbed off on you."

Wufei shuddered. "I hope not. I don't want to end up being crazy like him! I can't put up with that moron's craziness half the time and I think I'd just about die if I have to put up with myself having Duo's personality!"

"You know, I wish that I could be more like him sometimes," Quatre said suddenly and the Chinese boy paused in his scrubbing to gaze at him.

"What do you mean?" Wufei asked, his eyebrows raised so high that it nearly touched his hairline. "You can't be serious about this!"

Quatre thought about it for a moment. "OK, maybe not EXACTLY like him but I do wish that I was able to bounce back from all my troubles and disappointments and try to actually get on with my life. You know, to be able to have that happy-go-lucky attitude Duo has and not care so much about what everybody else thinks. I think that it takes big guts to be able to just be your own self in this hypocritical world," he said after a while. "Now all I could do is to go about moping like a loser just because of something really stupid that happened. Would you believe me if I told you that I'm too chicken to face and handle my own humiliation?"

"If anybody's a loser around here, it's Barton himself," Wufei interjected matter-of-factly.

"Shit. Now I have an even bigger reason to mope - I'm sure that probably everybody in this universe knows that I'm the most lamest person to have been rejected by the only person I ever cared for."

"Maybe you should just forget about him."

Quatre sighed again. This time a sigh that sounded of defeat.

"I wish I could, too. But that's easier said than done."