Picking Locks

Sin: Are? First one-shot! Wahahaha! Hope you like it….

Duo: It has to be good ok? *huggles Heero*

Heero: Hn... She owns nothing...

Sin: Hey! And by the way, the characters may be OOC a bit. Pardon me...

Normal text- Duo's POV

Italized w/ underline- part of the letter

Italized- Normal POV

I am a master in picking locks. All locks after all are the same, there will always be a flaw somewhere and all that you have to do is find it and use it to maximum advantage that you'll have.

There are different kinds of locks- padlocks, door locks, electronic locks. Oh well, all's the same, I can pick 'em anyways so whatever. I was grinning like the Cheshire cat as I do my latest venture- Operation Open the Mysterious Box. Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds childish but can't blame me. After all, all of us pilots were trained at a very early age so I think it won't hurt if we play at times. So what is this mysterious box that I am mentioning? It's a certain box that was owned by my room mate and yep I think you know who that is- my secret-crush-slash sexiest Gundam Pilot in spandex a.k.a. Heero "the Perfect Soldier" Yuy. Yeah, I know I sound too much but yanno, that guy can turn any man suddenly gay if he wants to. Well, yeah, you get the basic idea or maybe you can ask Relena.

And why exactly am picking on his stuffs? It started the other day, when I suddenly barged on him. He was in a hurry to lock that particular box and carried it inside Zero. I mean what could be the contents of that box that he is too afraid that I might find out? Can't be the specs of Zero, I saw it already, he himself showed me. He even let me used his "precious" laptop the other day when I accidentally spilt coffee on mine rendering it useless and damaged beyond repair. So what's so special about this box? Mind you, it's just the size of a shoe box so what could possible fit in it that is so special? Tsk, he should know better than leaving me and a locked box in just one house and worst in the very same room. And mind you, if anybody knew Heero like I knew, he's not the type to have fancy jewelry that he would be scared to be stolen, Man, he's not Quat o' right keeping the precious diamond engagement ring of his mom. He is not that sentimental, I guess.

So that leads to the dilemma that I am having now. What is inside this freaking box? After a couple of minutes, I'll know. And truth be told, after less than a few minutes, Pandora's Box opened. There was nothing special about the box, I must admit just a simple steel plated box. But to my surprise of surprises, the contents were beyond belief.

It didn't contain anything of value I think, well maybe except for a small box that is made for jewelry but I'm not yet sure as of what it contains. I saw the pictures inside- all of me, even those candid pictures that were taken of me, stolen shots when we played on Wufei's (?!) new digicam- don't ask me what it is for, I don't know, maybe I can ask Wuffie later, pictures of me with Deathscythe, fake ID pictures from the schools that we entered as part of the missions- all of them inside of the box. Then there was a letter. The enveloped has a simple script written to it, my name. Neh, I think it's for me considering that it has my name on it, right so it doesn't matter if I read it now. Having my name gives me the right of ownership right? Okay, maybe I'm justifying the nosing around that I'm doing but who can blame me? I carefully opened the envelope, scared to read what is inside. And for goodness sake, it's written in English, I was half-expecting to see neat Japanese katakana1 characters instead of the alphabet. I can speak frustrated Japanese, but aside from that, that language will give me away to the Ozzies. It said:

To my beloved Duo, [Okay, that was weird… Me? Heero's beloved? I can die today! Awh, Maybe not today maybe tomorrow after I confirmed all these to Heero?]

I assumed that when you read this letter I already have explained everything to you. And having this letter in your possession means that you have accepted. My love, I know that I have waited so long to tell you how much I love you- considering the war and my reluctance knowing that my chance of being with someone as beautiful as you is as slim as me surviving the war. But if you read this it means both of us had survived and that we will continue a new chapter in our lives, without the war and all that whatnot. I believe in us, koi, I know that we can make it together.

With all my heart,

Heero

After reading the letter, my jaws are wide-open as if waiting for the bugs to get inside my mouth. Heero loved, scratch that, loves me? Me, the babbling idiot, Shinigami... Me that is his favorite person to pull hair? Me not anybody but Duo Maxwell, Pilot 02, the long-haired bastard, Shinigami street rat and all the other names those non-imaginative Ozzies and White Fang morons aliased me? Man, am I dreaming?

I was still in La-la land when I was about to open the box when suddenly the door suddenly open and came the man of the hour, Heero Yuy himself and in the flesh! The utter look of shock in his face is priceless! His face as pale as a ghost with his lips slightly open and slit-japanesque eyes bulging wide...

"K'so! What in the world?" Heero was snatched the jewel box away from my hands.

"Care to explain to me about this?" Duo quirked his eyebrows to the other pilot. He knew that even if they have a shouting match, no one would hear. The other pilots won't be returning till tomorrow and he was shocked to see Heero back from his mission this early.

"Hn." Heero took the whole box away from Duo.

"Don't 'hn' me moron! Tell me what is that?" Duo is biting his lips in frustration.

"It's a box, Maxwell." Heero stated as a matter-of fact tone.

"Hell, I know it's a box, I'm asking what do my pictures have to do with that and that fucking letter Yuy. I need your enlightenment regarding this." He said in a solemn voice as if he is losing his energy. "I need to know"

"You are not supposed to see this," Heero looked straight to purple eyes. "At least until the war has ended and we talked."

"But we are talking, please Heero I need to know… Is it true?" Duo looked pleadingly.

"Seriously that is." Heero sat in the bed where the chestnut-haired braided lad sits. "I haven't even popped the question yet." He ran his fingers over the long-haired teen.

"Then ask me now." Duo grinned at him.

"Someone was naughty; I think the kitten needs to be punished." Heero smiled.

Good Heavens, that smile I can bring to my grave! I'm ecstatic, beyond belief! The man that fantasized every waking and sleeping hours is right in front of me, teasing me!

"Oh, really now? And what punishment do you deem is necessary?" Duo smiled happily

"You can't say no to me". Heero looked straight into Duo's eyes, the look that makes Duo shiver to the bone.

"As if I would." He whispered into Heero's ear as he succumbed into his embrace.

1 I think it's the conversational Japanese. Their alphabet is kinda complicated, there's romanji, the ones with letters like the ones used in English but phonetics is in kanji, then there are other two, katakana that is composed of the letters that are used for everyday purposes and then hiragana that are used for poetry and literary works.