As we set out for school, all cleaned up and Heero now smelled like
my citrus shampoo, I noticed that he was doing ‘it’
again! The whole ‘I will look at you weird until you ask me
why I am looking at you’ thing. Heh, pretty long description
for one look right?
Thankfully, as we walked down the steps, the cigarette
box was gone. Someone must have thrown it away when leaving for
work. Thank you thank you. I didn’t need to be paranoid so
early in this lovely morning! Why was it so lovely you ask? Why…
because Heero was walking with me to school! What could be better?
About halfway to the Lowe High school I gave up and
said, “Heero, your giving me weird looks again.” I guess
I caught him off guard with that statement. His eyes widened slightly
and he looked a little… embarrassed? I plastered a big grin
on my face. “You gonna tell me what’s on your mind?
You know you’re the only one who can read peoples thoughts,
so I am actually clueless as to what goes on in that head of yours.”
He smirked, breaking out of his embarrassed state
from my little joke. “It’s nothing.” He said coolly.
while picking up his walking pace. He was avoiding my question and
now trying to make a run for it!
“Like hell its nothing!… I thought we
got past the whole ‘secrets’ part of our friendship!”
Whoops, I said the friendship word. Stupid, Stupid. I looked down,
hiding my eyes under my messy bangs as he stopped in his tracks.
“Secrets? You’re the one who has secrets.”
I could feel his eyes burning into the top of my skull but I still
refused to look up. “While were on that subject, why don’t
you tell me why you have been stalking Trowa’s boyfriend.”
Ok, now I looked up.
Wide eyed I starred at Heero in disbelief. Oh yeah…
I forgot he had seen me. Though I still don’t know how…
I thought I was being rather sneaky in my little hunt for information.
Apparently not.
“I…” I couldn’t say it… I know I could
trust Heero, but…
“Then, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking
when you decide to tell me about Quatre.” He started to walk
ahead again, only looking back once to say, “But don’t
let Trowa catch you, he can get surprisingly jealous.”
I smiled at Heero’s back as it rounded the corner
to the school. I know Heero would never tell my secrets, and maybe
someday I would actually confess to him about my cute little brother…
but for now, I’ll just keep stalking Quatre while trying to
see how Heero managed to catch me. The whole ‘jumping in a
tree to get away from Quatre’ act the other day probably really
had Heero going crazy with curiosity. And I know what he does when
he’s curious, he damn well looked into my police file, at
a police station where he could have been caught and… damn,
he
was really crazy sometimes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You ever just want to shoot your teacher to get ‘em to shut
up? But of course we cant, we’d all go to jail and the nice
little government would pat themselves on the back saying ‘another
bad one put away, we are so good.‘ Heh… well, something
like that.
Here I was in History, listening to an old guy named
Howard go on about the wars. He always wore Hawaiian shirts, freaky,
a different color every day! It made me wonder how many trips that
guy took to Hawaii, if any. But that wasn’t really what was
on my mind, I just wanted him to stop talking or the bell to ring
and dismiss us from this hell hole. There was still twenty minutes
left of class and I ‘just’ realized that looking at
the clock for thirty minutes only made the hour slower.
Yeah, his lecture was probably important, something
about gundams and their help in changing history. But I already
knew everything I needed to know about our damn past wars. Its not
like
I was going to go out in the job field saying, ‘Hey, hire
me because I know who all the rulers of the world are!’
‘Sigh’… Usually I liked history,
and Howard always has good stories, but the damn people just ‘had’
to put me in this class right before lunch. Luckily, no one could
hear my stomach growling over the loud voice of the teacher. Food…
what I wouldn’t give for a slice of pizza right now. I bent
my head on my desk and dreamed of all the things I would love to
put in my stomach. I didn’t even realize the class had gone
quiet as I mumbled to myself. “Pizza, chocolate cake…
maybe they have taco’s today. Hilde’s fudge bar…
she always seems to have at lunch… could steal it from her,
no?”
Howard was now clearing his throat in front of my
desk trying to get my attention. For some reason I could hear him,
but my brain chose to ignore it and continued its little day dream
of food.
“Maybe Heero will give me his rice bowl and
I…”
“Mr. Maxwell!” Howards deep voice right
next to my ear, startled me from my thoughts. I looked up to see
the class snickering at my little show. The teach just stood there
with his hands crossed and foot tapping slowly on the ground. “I
would really appreciate it if you would pay attention!”
“Ah… I was paying attention?” I
tried, well it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t listening,
but I didn’t want to get in trouble and miss some of my lunch.
Gah, I really hoped he didn’t…
“Please see me after class.” NOOOOOOO!!!
There was only ten minutes left, and I couldn’t even last
that long without getting into trouble! How pathetic! I slouched
in my seat and looked away pouting. Fine, if he was going to make
me stay after then I would at least not be bothered with the gruesome
task of paying attention until then!
The bell rang, dismissing all but me! How very, very
sad. I walked slowly up to Howard’s desk with an annoyed expression
plastered on my face. He was sitting there, feet propped up on the
desk and a smirk set upon his lips while watching me make my way
forward.
“What were we discussing today in class?”
He asked, leaning his chair back and crossing his arms.
“About the revolutionary Gundam wars that happened…
oh I don’t know… three hundred years ago?” I said,
hoping that my answer was enough for him.
He grinned slightly, “Fine.” Opening his
desk, he pulled something out. Gya! In his hand he held one of the
chocolate fudge bars that they keep in the vending machines scattered
around the school. I snatched for it, but he pulled it away quickly.
“Tomorrow… you are going to eat a big
breakfast so we don’t have to repeat today’s incident,
right?”
“Yes, yes!” I said while successfully
grabbing the bar. I didn’t really want to tell him that the
reason for me being so hungry was because I had a big Heero breakfast.
My stomach must have stretched and made me hungrier then usual.
“Hey!… I didn’t say you could have
that!” He yelled to my retreating back.
I tore out of there making my way to the lunch room, the yummy fudge
bar already halfway gone. I was fully intent on pilling my plate
full of food today, and I didn’t care how much it would cost
me! Well, that thought left as our lunch table came into view. Everyone
was already there, eating there yummy looking lunches. With one
addition to the table. Across from Heero, right next to Trowa was
Quatre.
Of all the times for Quatre to be sitting with us,
it ‘had’ to be the one day I was starving! I wondered
if there was anywhere I could sit where they wouldn’t notice
me? But seeing as the food line was right next to their table, they
would probably see me anyway. Gah, why me?! My stomach growled as
I turned away from the cafeteria. I was almost out the door when
Heero looked in my direction.
Caught… Damn. At least it was only Heero seeing me leaving.
Not Hilde, she would have jumped and hollered at me for running
off again. Heero just raised an eyebrow then looked to Quatre and
back to me in question. He already knew that I was running away
from Quatre, and I bet he was just dying to find out why. Hah…
I’ll just let him hang in his curiosity.
I ignored Heero’s angry glare and walked outside
to go sit under a tree. Quatre couldn’t stay all lunch could
he? Maybe I could get something at least before the bell rang.
Laying down on the soft grass I looked to the sky,
squinting slightly at the brightness. The sun was hanging overhead
and the heat made me relaxed. The Sister always said that sunshine
made a person feel better. Probably had to do with the vitamins
its suppose to give off. I laid there, soaking in the vitamins when
all of a sudden a shadow fell over me. Opening my eyes, I stared
up at the person blocking out my sun.
Heero was standing over me, cold eyes bearing into
mine. “H-hey Heero, what’s up?”
“You ran away again.” He snorted while
moving to sit down beside me. I sat up slightly, leaning on my elbows
in order to see him better.
“Obviously.” I said, a little sarcastic.
He just glared while pulling out something from his backpack.
“Well, guess you wouldn’t be wanting this
then.” He opened up a bowl that had tin foil over it, inside
was some fried rice mixed in with little pieces of beef.
“Ah!” He pulled out a fork and started
to eat it right in front of me. “Wait!” He ignored my
little stutter and continued to eat. “F… Wa… Heeerrroooo!”
I put on my best puppy dog face while trying to stop his fork from
descending on the food.
“What? Did you want this?” I could tell
he was amused at seeing my ‘drooling pleading’ face.
Nodding my head up and down quickly I reached for the bowl. “Are
you sure you want that? I already ate out of it.” He asked,
letting me take the bowl from his hands.
“Food… good… yum.” I mumbled
between bites of the rice. It was really good! I wondered where
Heero had gotten it. He obviously didn’t get it from home,
since he spent the night at my place. “Where’d ya…
food?”
“I skipped fourth hour to go down to the Chinese
restaurant a block away.” He answered, eyes fixed amusedly
on me shoving the food quickly into my wide mouth. I guess he thought
my eating was pretty weird after always seeing his Aunt eat like
a damn picky queen.
“Don’t you get in trouble for skipping so much?”
I asked, looking up from my food for only a second.
“No.” He didn’t give me an explanation.
Jeez, he always wants to make me work, now doesn’t he?
I stopped the fork just long enough to ask, “Why
not?”
“I usually hack into the school system and change
it so they forget about it. They all run off of computers now, if
it isn’t in their little box then it never happened.”
Heero laid down on the grass like I had done earlier, eyes closed,
taking in the warm rays.
I snickered slightly at his answer. “One of
these days your going to get caught doing all that illegal stuff.”
He smirked, eyes still closed. “No I wont.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The school day went by pretty fast after lunch was
over. After all, I only had two classes. Heero’s whole hacking
thing got me thinking how I didn’t get called into the office
for skipping… he must have changed my record also. It made
me glad to have someone like him for a friend.
I stood outside after school, dreading going home
to my empty apartment and too afraid to ask Heero to come over.
After a couple minutes of arguing with myself, I decided to stay
after and maybe watch Wufei’s karate club thing. The only
problem was, I didn’t know where it was. Turning back into
the building I made my way through the maze of hallways.
So here I was a half hour later, walking around the
school lost in one of the buildings. The long hallways all looked
the same to me, and I could barely tell which ones held my classes!
No wonder I easily got lost. I thought it would be in the athletics
building, but Wufei had said something about it being in a second
gym by the freshman classes. Of course, I didn’t even know
where the freshman were suppose to be! Stupid Duo!
I was just turning around from a dead end I had ended
up in, when I heard voices coming from one of the classrooms. Maybe
it was the karate club! I decided to investigate the voices that
were getting louder as if yelling. Walking towards the door, I pressed
my ear against the cold metal. I could hear two voices, one was
really close to the door and the other was a little hard to hear
so the person was probably across the room.
“Why’d you do that?!” The one closest
to the door yelled. I couldn’t really hear the response from
the other person too well, it was a little low but it sounded like
a sarcastic ‘sorry’.
“You klutz! Do you always run people over like
that?” The first voice was getting louder which made me realize
that he was now right next to the door.
The low voice, which I could make out as a males now,
got a little louder. “You know I didn’t do it on purpose,
just chill out. I only tripped you, its not like it’s the
end of the world!”
“Your always tripping you freak! What is it?
Your shoes?”
“Knock it off Alex!”
“Why should I? You’re the one who tripped
me!”
“You know it was an accident, stop making it
sound like it’s a big deal! God, to think you actually got
pissed off over that. Did you get an ‘owie’ on your
knee?” The second voice asked tauntingly.
This was pretty amusing, I decided that I wanted to
help stop the argument. Yes, yes… I am now a peace maker!
I opened the door quickly, successfully hitting the kid ’Alex’
who was close to the door and he ended up falling sprawled out onto
the floor with a big yelp.
I smirked inside, but put on my best ’annoyed’
look. “What the hell are you doing standing in front of a
door like that?” I asked.
He just looked up at me with wide eyes. Oh yeah, I
must have been in the freshman section. Woohoo… I was on the
right track! Maybe they would know where Wufei was. The freshman
‘Alex’ apologized to me before quickly exiting the room.
I smiled and looked to the other kid, intending on asking him for
directions.
The words never left my mouth as I saw who the other
kid was.
How stupid could I get? How could I not recognize
Quatre’s voice? He stood there in front of me now, with a
raised eyebrow and his hands folded carelessly across his light
blue shirt. My mind told me to run, to get out of there before I’d
actually have to speak to him. But I just stood there frozen, eyes
never leaving the face that was looking at me curiously.
“Who are…”
I interrupted him, “Ah… I was just looking
for the karate room… do you know where it is?” I asked,
nervousness showing in my voice. Finally finding movement in my
limbs, I slowly started to back away.
“Mh… I could show you if you want.”
His eyes were squinted slightly as he looked me over. My heart was
pounding so quickly you’d think I’d been jogging a marathon.
I could barely think straight, all my thoughts were occupied trying
to control the screaming in my head.
“No… no its alright Quatre, I can find
it by myself.” As I felt the cold metal of the door behind
me I blindly searched for the handle, eyes still trapped in Quatre’s
light blue orbs.
A startled gaze fell over the blonds face, “How’d
you know my name?”
Shit, shit… couldn’t think straight and
already screwed up! The door was now open and I hesitated for just
a moment before leaving, finally able to pull my eyes away from
my little brother.
I could hear him calling as I moved down the hall,
it sounded like a soft plea for me to wait. I didn’t run,
more liked walked very, very quickly through the school and out
one of the doors. Amazingly enough, I ended up back in front of
the school.
My breath was rasp from my panting and I bent over,
hands clutching knees while I collected my thoughts. Quatre…
he didn’t recognize me… That thought made something
twist painfully inside of me and I just wanted to scream at something.
Of course he wouldn’t remember me! I was crazy to ever hope
for that. But why did I keep running away, like some coward afraid
of human contact! Now… I was afraid of two people, both family,
Hall and Quatre.
Sure, Quatre would not hurt me in a physical way like
Hall, I knew that. And I should not have been as afraid as I was.
I had no reason to run away…
Scared of rejection? That was it, that is why I ran.
He was happy here… I know that. With Trowa and
his rich family to look after him… why wouldn’t he be?
What if my presence only reminded him of the pain and suffering
he had forgotten. What if after seeing me… he changes and
becomes unhappy?
Once again, I felt like a total idiot.
Why did I ever come here?
I knew the answer… to find my brother…
but that doesn’t necessarily mean I had to show myself to
him, right? I made sure he was fine, I should be happy with just
that! All my worries had disappeared when I watched him, smiling
and laughing, from my place in the shadows. I was not going to be
so cruel as to reveal my presence at this school to him.
Plus, I still had that Hall incident. What would happen
if Hall found out Quatre was here? I would never forgive myself
if I managed to get him involved. I don’t want his life to
be ruined!
I stood there, outside of the steps, limbs shaking
against the cold wind. My breath had long since calmed down but
I still did not move from my position, eyes facing downward, not
really seeing anything. My heart was crying out in sadness, and
I clutched my knees tighter trying to will my tears away. They just
kept falling, softly down my cheek, moist rivers of my pain.
Warmth enveloped me and I turned towards it instinctively,
burying my head in something soft as I sobbed. Clinging to the soft
fabric of someone’s shirt, my hands began to tremble. I was
moving now, being directed from the door to a near by bench. It
all went by in a daze as we sat down and I was crying like a baby…
is that what I’ve become? So weak and emotionally unstable
that I couldn’t even make sense of what was going on around
me?
I think it was a while before I calmed down enough
to realize that I was still firmly held in a warm embrace. I dared
my eyes to look up, first seeing the black shirt… my shirt?
My gaze rose up and I stared into dark blue eyes, no longer cold
and now had a soft gleam of emotion swirling inside them. My heart
jumped slightly… Heero.
I was seated, leaning against him, his arms clasped
tightly around me as I calmed down. My tears stopped as I found
his comfort. He always seemed to catch me in my weakest moments,
it was almost freaky how he was always there to help me… just
like the other day when he stayed at my apartment to lessen my fright.
How could he be so amazingly strong?
“What’s wrong?” He asked, hand coming
up to wipe away some of my stray tears.
My eyes never left his, and my lip twitch slightly
before I gave a pathetic smile. “How can you be so strong?”
I was startled I had actually said that out loud, but Heero seemed
to be even more shocked then me. His eyes went wide in confusion
as the words left my mouth.
We sat there just staring at each other for a while
outside the school, before Heero finally turned his head away to
speak, face once again emotionless and not showing the feelings
he had been just moments ago. “Come on, lets get you home.”
Pulling me to my feet, he dropped the embrace and I swayed a little
before fully getting my balance.
Did I say something wrong? Heero seemed disturbed
for some reason as we walked down the street towards my place. He
didn’t even turn to look at me until we were upstairs and
he was done looking around my apartment. There was a note from Kemp
on the counter, but I ignored it. My full attention resting on the
Heero’s weird behavior.
“Heero…?” I hesitated slightly upon
seeing his cold eyes on me. “Is… did I…”
The words were choked up in my throat and I was a little afraid
that if I did get them voiced, I would not like the answer I received.
Heero stared at me a little more before sighing and
pulling his hand through his hair. “I am not strong.”
He said. I felt my eyes widen slightly at this statement. Was he
mad because I had said that?
“How could you not be? After all that has happened
to you?” I asked, looking at his bowed head.
We stood there, in the kitchen of my apartment, silent,
until Heero could find the words to say, “I’m weak…you’re
a lot stronger than me, you just don’t see it.”
I snorted at that, obviously he had forgotten my little
outburst back at the school. “Yeah, right.”
He continued, “Do you know how hard it is…
for me to… express how I feel?” Heero eyes showed some
sadness lurking in their depths that had me standing there, amazed.
“You make it seem so easy, you don’t care what people
think and just act like yourself… I see you… acting
so friendly, able to show yourself to everyone without worrying
about how they are going to see you… showing yourself freely…
not afraid of people… I cant…” He gave up his
little rant with a frustrated sigh, sitting down abruptly on a kitchen
chair, head down avoiding my startled gaze.
My mouth hung open as I processed what Heero had just
said. Does he really think so highly of me? How can he see that
as strength? “I don’t… that may be my strong point,
but… I’m a mess! You saw me today, when I came out of
the school like a total idiot, crying on your shoulder even!”
He stood up, walking slowly over to me while speaking,
“Being able to live knowing that someone wants you dead…
Moving to a new town and having to live by yourself… How are
you not seeing that? Are you blind to yourself? Do you only pick
out the flaws you have and not see all your strong points?! I don’t
know what other people would have turned out like if they lived
like you have… being an orphan, growing up without parents…
and yet you are still happy and so full of…” His voice
grew louder and he was now standing only a foot away from me. “Take
me for example… any normal person in a situation similar to
yours… would be like me! Weak!” His eyes, almost angry,
pinned me down where I stood.
“Do you still think you are weak now?”
Heero held out his arm, showing me the scar he had under his elbow.
“Look at this.” He then lifted up his shirt and I could
see a long scar on his stomach. “And this… these are
weak Duo. Do you know why?”
Was he trying to say that…he… “You
d-didn’t…” My voice was so low, almost like a
whisper compared to Heero’s.
“I did!” He was now yelling slightly,
looking at me with desperate eyes. “These are all self inflicted!
I did them to myself! I did them because I was weak and hated myself!”
He closed his eyes as if fighting off tears that did not fall. Hands
shaking, he walked past me, taking hold of the door knob. It seemed
to turn slowly, maybe he was waiting for me to say something to
him before he left. But all I could do was stand there, too in shock
at his outburst of emotion.
The door closed quietly. Heero was gone, and I was
still too stunned to even move my gaze from the closed door.