~After Colony 198-Japan~
It was a drizzly afternoon in an average prefecture of Japan's urban metropolis. In a small studio apartment that overlooked the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Bay, the only sound that could be heard was the typed clicks of keys. A young man who in his 18 years of life had seen more violence, destruction, and death than many people could see in three lifetimes, sat in front of a well worn, beat up laptop.
~Last time I talked to you, you were lonely and out of placeYou were looking down on me, lost out in space.~
Heero Yuy had not seen any of the other former pilots in person since after the Marimea incident almost two years ago. Contact was not all together lost though; weekly vid-calls with Quatre kept him up to date on the daily life and the financial and political goings on in Winner Enterprises, letters from Trowa appeared in his post office box with return addresses from all corners of the colonies retelling the life of a circus performer, and e-mails from Wufei reported on the events of Preventors' HQ. And then there was, or rather wasn't Duo. No one had heard from Duo in over a year; one day in June of AC 197 he left the scrap yard he and Hilde had been running on L2 and vanished into seemingly thin air. Not even Heero Yuy, the perfect soldier, could find him; though Heero himself would never admit he even tried.
Noin and Zechs were hard at work with Sally and Wufei on the newest, and most challenging to date, Preventors' project. They had offered Heero a position many times and each time he had turned them down. He had done his time, now he wanted to figure out what he wanted out of life. After the war it seemed the most likely thing would be to stay with Relena, but in the end he knew it wouldn't work. During one of her many speeches, he left and had not heard from her aside from the fancifully ornate wedding invitation that had come care of Quatre. He had opted out and heard all the juicy details from the magazines and Quatre in the days following the biggest wedding of the century. She had married a man she met shortly after Heero had left and they were engaged within a month. Heero was just glad it wasn't him next to her in that gaudy pink-laced dress.
A beep and flashing envelope on the bottom right of his screen alerted him to an incoming message. He saved his work and went into his e-mail inbox. There was no subject, just a jumble of letter that made up what appeared to be a return address. Heero's heart skipped a beat. He had a secure account and he knew everyone who had his e-mail address, and this address was not in his address book.
'Could it be?' his heart raced at the thought, 'How would he have got it though? Why now?' Millions of questions raced through his head as he opened the message.
Dear friends and family,
You are cordially invited to attend the 14th birthday party of Marimea Kush-Renada, on Saturday April 12 A.C. 199. It will be held in Santa Monica, California of the United States.
The letter went on but Heero had had enough. He would hear about it from Quatre anyway so why bother reading it? He checked the clock and was surprised to find it was 4:00 in the afternoon. He had a language arts class at 4:30 so he thought he had better get his things together and leave.
He shut down his laptop and collected his bag. After locking his apartment door, he descended the stairs to the main lobby and the streets of the city. The rain seemed to be blowing by and now the air was cold and biting. '65% saturation level, wind coming from the Southeast, clear skies tonight in the late evening,' he thought in his head as he walked down the street to his class.
All of the pilots had their personal troubles with fitting into a society they knew nothing of. But each of them had found a place they could call home during the war; these places of comfort were there for them when the war was over. For Heero, the home he had found wasn't a place, it was a job where he was needed. Relena requested his services as a bodyguard, but she expected more from him than was in his contract. Heero tried his best to let her know he had no feelings for her, but still she persisted. Either she was as dense as her blonde hair and pink Barbie mobile made her out to be, or she had a big enough ego to think that she could make anyone worship her.
So on that faithful day six months after the Marimea incident, Heero left Relena with his jacket on his shoulder and utter silence as an explanation. With his "home" left behind, Heero had to make it on his own in a world he knew nothing of. "Mission Accepted."
