'Quatre better be getting the important info for the mission from Kevin soon,' Trowa thought to himself as he and Quatre parted ways. His posture were slumped and made him look not like the usual Trowa Barton - very smooth, very confident. He looked downhearted and felt downhearted and it was a rare feeling for him. He didn't like it one bit, being depressed. 'Why did he have to pose as Kevin's girlfriend anyway? Couldn't he have found some other way for us to get the information?'

Suddenly, he had lost his apetite and he didn't feel like going to the dining hall to see Quatre - his Quatre - sitting with Kevin. How he loathed that stupid jerk. He cursed Kevin Myers for existing in that school, he cursed Kevin's parents for marrying each other and having him, he cursed the Gods for creating Kevin in the first place. Most importantly, he cursed the fact that the damned principal who supposedly has connections with OZ was Kevin's uncle. If he wasn't the jerk's uncle, maybe things would have been easier.

'Chill, yeah, that's what Duo would say,' he thought, trying to calm himself down before he burnt a fuse and went ballistic. He might do something totally drastic. Like bombing the school or getting a machine gun to shoot everybody's brains out. 'OK, think: we only have a few more days left before we get out of this place and meet and Heero and the others. I'd better get to work on the hacking right away and I'd better check my e-mail for new stuff. There might be new orders or news from Heero.'

Upon arriving at his room, Trowa immediately switched on his laptop and logged onto the internet. Instead of checking for new e-mail or figuring out how to hack in to the school's computer system, he surfed pointlessly through various sites without even seeing what kind of sites they were. Trowa Barton was depressed. And he hated Kavin Meyers to death.

~*~*~*~*~*

In the dining hall, Quatre was having a hard time sitting beside Kevin at a table in the center where everyone could see them. Kevin's goons weren't there so that the 'couple' could be by themselves and have a bit of privacy and so that the whole school could see that now, Katrina Rudevic and Kevin Myers were an item.

Some of the boys dropped by their table to tell Kevin how jealous they were that he was able to snag such a total babe (jokingly, of course) and exchange stupid jokes like the ones guys who thought themselves so cool and macho like to make. All the while, Quatre would just stare onto his lap as if it were the most fascinating sight in the world and tried not to grimace too much as Kevin put an arm around his shoulder possesively and pulled his body closer to the other boy's to show everybody that they were a couple very much in love with each other and Quatre also felt that Kevin was doing that to tell the other boys, "Back off - Katrina's mine and will always be so don't think about it."

At one point, Quatre realized that somebody was standing before his table and that the person was staring at him so he raised his eyes from his lap and saw Adam giving him a weird look. He couldn't understand what Adam's look meant but Quatre thought that Adam's eyes looked cold and not friendly like they usually did. Quatre had a feeling that some of the coldness and unfriendliness in those eyes were directed at him.

"I didn't realize you were this kind of girl, Katrina," Adam said softly and without much expression. "I didn't realize that you were the type to break the heart of the person who is sincerely in love with you to gain popularity by being this, this slimeball's girlfriend. But now I see that I was wrong. I guess I was fooled by your kind looks and manners just like everybody else."

"No! It's all a misunderstanding, Adam. I-I..."

"Yes you have got everything wrong, Reeds," Kevin cut in with a smirk. "Katrina wasn't in love with that wimp called Barton in the first place like you and that wimp might have thought. She's in love with me, isn't that so? I don't get it how you losers could ever think that something like that would ever happen - the key word here is getting great chicks don't happen to you people in real life. Face it, those things only happen in your dreams. That is, if you ever got lucky even in your dreams."

Quatre just stared hard into his lap, feeling Adam's eyes on him, the intensity of Adam's gaze was piercing as well as unwavering as they focused on himself and that made him feel very uncomfortable.. They seemed to bore right into his very soul - as if he were transparent and all the horrible happenings that had taken place were visible to the other boy's eyes.

"Now get outta my face, Reeds... or you're not gonna like what I'll be doing to you."

"Yeah, I'll get out of your face - the sight of it makes me want to barf anyway," Adam said stiffly and he turned on his heels and went away.

"What a loser," Kevin muttered. "Think he's such a nice guy, huh?"

"But he is a nice guy," Quatre said softly.

~*~*~*~*~*

Later that afternoon, Quatre was spending the time with Kayla and the other girls in Amy's room.

"Oh my God!! It is so cool that you're a couple with Kevin Myers, Katrina!" squealed Amy in a high-pitched voice as she clapped her hands gleefully like a little child. "You're like, the most popular girl here on your first day and now you have the most cutest and the most popular boy hanging by your side. How does it feel to be Kevin's girlfriend? I'm sure you're feeling all starry-eyed, full of dreams and walking on pink, fluffy clouds."

Under normal and ordinary circumstances, Quatre would have burst out laughing at the blonde's way of talking and at the choice of extremely ridiculous words. Starry-eyed? Full of dreams? Walking on pink, fluffy clouds? That had to be the corniest thing he had ever heard. In fact, it reminded him of the equally ridiculous things his twenty-nine sisters had spoken amongst themselves whenever one of them were in love and all that sappy crap. But now, Quatre could only force only the tiniest of smiles onto his face and it felt very fake and his muscles ached like crazy.

"Well, aren't you feeling happy?" demanded Amy. "You don't look it. I would if I were you."

"Oh, it's just that I'm having some horrible stomache cramps," Quatre lied as he clutched at his stomache and grimaced to show how awful it was.

"Katrina's having her periods," Kayla added and Quatre smiled at her gratefully.

Instantly Amy was apologizing for not thinking before she opened her mouth and the next second, a debate on how it wasn't fair that only females got stuck with the stupid period pains and talks on the worst period pain and the worst PMS-ed day started and it was mostly Amy and Cherie who gabbed on and on and on about this and that while Quatre just sat quietly at his spot on the floor.

"Tell me the truth, Katrina - are you really happy being Kevin's girlfriend or not?" Kayla said softly to Quatre without being noticed by the other two girls.

"Of course I'm perfectly happy," Quatre lied with another forced smile. He tried to sound cheerful. "It's an honour to be Kevin Myers girlfriend especially since he's the most popular boy here."

"So you're just being his girlfriend because of his status?" Kayla asked, her eyes flashing.

"No! That's not what I mean, Kayla," Quatre said hurriedly. "It's just that he's the first boy to ever ask me to be his girlfriend and so I accepted. Besides, he is goodlooking and I think he's actually a nice person." Quatre hoped that his explanation would be accepted by the red-head even though it did seem lame to his own ears.

"You must be kidding! Practically all the boys in this school has been keeping their eyes firmly on you and you tell me that no boy has ever asked you to be his girlfriend?" Now Kayla had an incredulous look on her face and her eyebrow was raised so high, it nearly disappeared into her hairline. "OK, I guess I'll leave that matter alone because I am not a busybody like those two," she cocked her head into the direction of the two girls who were still gabbing animatedly, "But I will not leave the matter about you and Kevin alone. What happened to Trowa?"

"What about Trowa?" Quatre asked, pretending not to know what she meant.

Kayla fixed him a stern look that was enough to make him cringe but he went on pretending not to understand what her look was for. "You know perfectly well what I mean, Katrina Rudevic! I thought that you liked Trowa - and he likes you, too. So why Kevin?"

"Because I liked Kevin better?"

"Please. I can see right through you. You were still sneaking looks at Trowa during classes before lunch! And then it was during lunch that I found out that you and Kevin were a couple!" Kayla hissed. "Now do tell me the truth: do you really like Kevin or not? Or is it Trowa that you want?"

"I'm not going to answer that," Quatre said softly, looking at the floor.

"He forced you into this, didn't he?"

"No. He didn't force me into anything. I chose to be his girlfriend."

"I know you're lying, Katrina. And I honestly do not know what would it take to get you to open up to me," Kayla said and then she let out a deep sigh. "I'll leave the matter alone for now but I'll be keeping an eye on you - and especially on Kevin Myers. I really thought that it was Trowa you liked. I know you don't like Kevin and I'm certain that he forced you to be his girlfriend... somehow. But I can't help you get out of this fix unless you tell me the truth so hte only thing I can tell you is to be careful. Kevin can be very dangerous and he'll go to extremes to get what he wants."

"How do you know?" Quatre asked, seeing the sudden look of sadness on his - Katrina's friend's - friend's face.

"I can't tell you much - but you see, I used to be Kevin's girlfriend."

~*~*~*~*~*

"Hey man, what are you doing here moping around like a dog that's lost his bone? OK, I know that sounds dumb but what do I care? Hello? Anybody home?" Adam knocked Trowa's head playfully but all he got was a glassy stare from the tall brunette. Adam cocked his head to the side and assessed the sight before him with a worried look. "Oh God! Will you snap out of it?"

"Snap out of what?" Trowa droned monotonously.

"Snap out of this - whatever it is! You look like a zombie and you're scaring the hell out of me with that look on your face!"

"Oh, OK."

"Trowa! TROWA!! Quit moping around and forget all your troubles!" Adam scolded his friend which reminded Trowa of the way Duo would scold him whenever he wasn't in the mood for anything. "It's a bright and sunny day and we should be playing kickball in the field or something."

"I'm not in the mood for kickball," Trowa mumbled. "I'm not in the mood for anything. Call me out when I'm feeling normal - like, maybe three days later or maybe never?"

"Wait. You're acting like this because of Katrina, right?" Adam asked slowly, narrowing his eyes as he stared at Trowa's face closely. He saw Trowa flinch for a second and decided that his question had really hit its mark. "Look, you can't go around moping about her forever! I mean, it's just too bad that she'd rather be with ajerk like Myers instead of being with a nicer guy like you but you know, that's her loss. There's plenty of other fish in the sea anyhow. Some of them even prettier than Katrina perhaps."

"No, you don't understand - "

"Yes, I DO understand that you want Katrina and nobody else but you gotta face facts, Trowa. She's with Myers now and she'll probably never leave him if he gets his way so it would be better for you to just leave her alone and set your sights on somebody else, OK?" Adam cut in. "Just forget her - she'll never be yours with that jerk around."

'But she - Quatre is mine,' Trowa firmly told himself. 'Only that I don't want him to be with Kevin Myers even though I know it's only pretend. And because of this, I can't even be close to Quatre! Damn! Why does it have to be like this? We ought to have volunteered to go undercover as soldiers at the OZ army base or forced Duo to pretend to be the girl here instead of Quatre then none of this would have happened! Damn! Quatre better not be with that scum right now doing something stupid like... kissing." Trowa shuddered in disgust. If that ever happened... he'll never forgive the blonde for getting himself stuck as Kevin's 'girlfriend' and he'll make sure to kill Kevin ten times over if he dared to lay his dirty hands on Quatre!

"Trowa? Oi, Trowa!" Adam called loudly to his friend - even waved his hand and snapped his fingers in front of the banged boy's face - but it was no use. Trowa was in a world of his own, his eyes full of determination, thinking of all the wonderful things he would do to Kevin if he ever caught the slimeball doing anything to Quatre.

Gomen for the late arrival of Part 10.. ^^; Been stuck with the ol' writer's block again and been banging my head against the wall like an idiot but that has only resulted in getting me a big headache and making a big crack in the wall. Anywayz, like expected BV has yet again proved with this part that she is the suckiest writer in the world. I think I'll be recieving a lot of flames for this.. -Blue Violet.