Pieces of Yesterday

Chapter 1: Hidden Pieces

"Is that person who fell in love so long ago
Even now, in this bright season
Still moved by the one they love?Oh, pieces of me, fly boldly
Don't turn back, cross the wide ocean
So that one day there will be much light
Because you're here, my life will continue through eternity"

~Pieces by L'Arc~en~Ciel~

After Colony 204
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Do I look okay?" asked my roommate, Sylvia Noventa, for the nth time as she twirled around in a dark blue halter dress.

Propping myself with an elbow from her queen-sized bed against the wall, I eyed my friend from head to toe, who had been trying out numerous dresses for the past two hours. Her long blond hair had been curled today, making her look classier. Her dress hugged her skinny figure perfectly, and her four-inched sandals definitely gave her an extra boost in the height department. Yep, my first friend in Newport City since I moved here, was totally ready to rock the night. "I like that dress better."

Sylvia faced the mirror of the vanity table adjacent to the bed. "Really?"

"Yeah. I like the color. And it's not too revealing like the black dress you put on earlier."

Sylvia grinned and sat on the vanity table's chair. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" she asked as she opened her makeup kit and opened the drawer.

"Nah," I answered, flipping through the pages of Vogue as I lie on her bed. "You haven't seen your friend for a long time. If I tag along I'd only end up as the miserable forever alone girl."

"No, you're not gonna be! Like I said, he's just a friend." Sylvia rolled her eyes, while she bit her lip to prevent smiling any further. She started dabbing concealer on her cheeks.

Yeah, friend. Right. Like she'd totally dress up like a doll if it were just any other friend. Still, I'm happy to see her like this. At least one of us was getting it on.

Sylvia and I were the same age. We both graduated from our respective universities in AC 202, and had met when we both checked out this apartment at the heart of Newport City, the capital of Sanc, to pursue our dreams – she with Theatre, and me with Journalism. Sylvia moved here from her L1 Colony Cluster home. As for me, since my parents were diplomats, we moved from place to place in the Earth Sphere so I didn't really have a place I could call home. If there could be one, it would be Sanc where we stayed the longest, and where I had the best years in highschool. So it was time to come back here.

We both wanted this very apartment unit the first time we laid eyes on it. It was at the heart of the city, very accessible, and had a great view of the city. The landlord practically had a part time dealing with us since we both didn't want to give it up. Eventually we decided to just share the unit together, which was better, for we have to split the rent.

We also actually hit it off right away, all thanks to the same taste in music. On the first day of moving in, I was hanging the poster of my favourite band on the wall above my headboard when she entered my room and said, "L'Arc~en~Ciel?"

I was surprised; I thought about my highschool and university days when I didn't meet anyone who knew this legendary band from Japan.

"Yeah," I answered, my face splitting with a huge grin. I loved this band to bits. So I automatically loved anyone who loved them, too. "You know them?"

Sylvia leaned on the door frame. "Hyde has the sexiest voice."

When she said that, I knew right then and there that I'd just found my best friend in the City.

We have lived for two years together now. She worked in a theatre group, while I worked as a beat reporter in the national newspaper. She'd always been popular and close with guys. Of course, she was pretty, sings pretty damn well, and had these very elegant and graceful movements when she's on stage. Whenever we go clubbing, she'd waste no time mingling and dancing with everyone with X and Y chromosomes.

But today she was really overdoing this, I've never seen her this giddy. Apparently it had something to do with the guy she'd met in her previous show about three months ago. I wasn't able to watch her play at that time due to covering a car accident that involved robbery and a police chase. She didn't come home that night, and texted me that she was staying with her college friend and its friend over the night. For the next three nights she didn't come either. On the fourth night, she came home with the biggest smile on her face and told me that she'd been shagging up with this so-called friend of her college friend, who had already gone back to the Colonies.

Ever since then they've been in touch. I can hear them video-calling on Skype in her room. I was used to her philandering so I really didn't pry. She wasn't pushing me to reveal much about my personal love life either. Not that I had one in years. Plus, she told me it'd be better if I just met him in person – which was to be the case since he'd be coming over in a few minutes.

So now she had never stopped singing and grinning for the past few weeks when the dude called her that he'd be watching her next play a few days from now. And guess what? He'd be staying in our place. In her bedroom. I didn't really mind a visitor, just as long as they'd tone it down during their nookie.

"You're really, really, really sure you don't want to join us for dinner?" my friend insisted, applying eyeshadow on her lids.

"We'll have lots of nights for that. For now, you two just catch up on each other. I gotta meet Hilde anyway."

"Alright." My friend conceded. "But you have to come with us next time, alright? How about a double date then? Go invite that cop who'd been crushing on you since forever. That Trowa guy? He's hot."

"Trowa? LOL, Sylv. Give it up."

Triton Bloom. Or just Trowa as he preferred to be called was the tall, lean – and did I mention sexy? – cop whom my roommate had been pulling for me. As a journalist it was one of my tasks to check out the blotter from the police department regularly. I'd been doing this for the past two years, so I'd become close with the cops there, and they'd often give me tips or any heads up whenever something's up, which can be newsworthy. After all,like what they say, bad news is good news for journalists. Trowa was one of the first people I met there. While he was very nice and helpful to me, not to mention being so gorgeous with those emerald green eyes, and that he'd pour all his attention to me whenever I went to the PD, there were no sparks whatsoever that can take our relationship higher than a platonic one. At least on my end. I've been convincing Sylvia that for the past couple of years, to no avail.

"Oh come on, girl. That guy's got the hots for you. You just have to give him a chance!" Sylvia moved on to her other eyelids. "I mean, since we started work here you've been turning down every guy who threw themselves at you. I'm still not over the fact that you just rejected super-cute businessman. Ugh."

"Oh you mean, Quatre Winner?" I snap the magazine shut.

Quatre Raberba Winner. Cute guy, platinum blond hair, carefree attitude, intelligent, young, and already so successful. Among the line of guys who flirted with me, he was probably the only one who I've been intimate with. Or close to that. I interviewed him almost half a year ago in place of my friend, Dorothy, and we kind of hit it off. The guy had great sense of humor. I stayed in his hotel in the city for a couple of days, just doing sexy making out, not taking things any further. When it was time for him to leave to return to his home Colony in L4, I said goodbye, meaning for it to really end. But he kept on sending flowers even after that, saying he wanted more. But I just said, "No." It won't happen. We won't happen. Sylvia didn't drop the subject ever since then.

"I don't know. There were a bit of sparks between us, but he's based in L4, Sylv. We won't work."

"But if he's really into you and vice versa then you'd be able to make it work, right? How would you know if you haven't even given him a chance?"

I snorted and lied down on the bed. I stared at the white ceiling for quite a while, not knowing what to answer to that. "No," I breathed, putting my balled fist on my chest. "I wouldn't know. I wouldn't ever know."

There was an awkward silence in the room that wasn't there a couple of seconds ago. So I tried to bring out the good vibes once more. "So does this friend of yours have a hot brother or something?"

Sylvia chuckled. "Sad to say he's an only child."

"Bummer. Hey if your man's disappointingly not hot like you raved him to be; he'd have to stay outside."

Sylvia narrowed her eyes teasingly. "You wouldn't dare, Darlian."

I raised my eyebrow in a challenge, "Oh I would."

Sylvia shrugged and continued applying eye shadow on her left eye. "It won't happen anyway since he is a sizzling piece of meat."

"Alright, then. I'll just have to see for myself."

"Hey, eyes on your own prize. Seriously, though, thanks for letting him stay here for a few days."

"Yeah, it's fine." I browsed through the magazine again. "Just make sure to keep it down if you're going to do something X-rated. If my sleep is going to be disturbed because of your nookie, I'm telling you, you're both out of that door."

Sylvia winked at me. "Deal."

And then there was a knock on the door.

"Oh my god, wait. He's here!" Sylvia squealed and looked at the wall clock that read 6:20 p.m. He said 7 p.m.! Oh damn it I'm not yet done."

I tucked the magazine back underneath the bed. "Someone's eager to see you. Calm down, girl."

"Can you please answer the door for me? Just let him settle in and tell him that I'll come out in a minute." Sylvia was applying lipstick in haste.

"Alright, alright." I stood and smoothed my black tank top and jeans. "It's about time for me to meet your friend, too. And I'm telling you, if he's not hot, you can greet him outside."

"Ha! Die of jealousy when you see how cute he is."

Another round of knocking at the door elicited a chuckle from me, much to Sylvia's anxiety. "Okay, I'll get it."

I stepped out of my friend's bedroom, which was just on the opposite side of mine, walked through the hallway, and made a beeline for the door.

"Hi," I said just when I opened the door and was greeted back with a pair of Prussian blue eyes staring back at me – eyes that I had only known to belong to someone in my lifetime.

A certain someone.

For a while I just stood there, looking at him, taking note of his features silently. Tall, brown hair that fell over his gorgeous eyes, white shirt, leather jacket, black jeans, broad shoulders, Doc Marten boots, tense and chiselled jawline, a black duffel bag on his feet that had the logo of the L1 Colony Cluster. He was a vision. And familiar. Way, way, way too damn familiar.

And just like that my brain was fried. I stood there, taking him in, letting my mind go back to the time when I also opened the door on Senior Prom Night six years ago.

~o~

After Colony 198
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I opened the door that night.

Looking so mighty fine in a three-piece suit, my date took my breath away as his eyes bore into mine.

"Hi," I managed to get out, arrested by the sight of him.

"Hi, yourself." My date checked me out from head to toe. "You look amazing, Relena."

Of course I was. But even with my venus-cut white dress, which accentuated my curves in all the right places, and golden hair that were deliberately curled for the night, I felt beautiful because he made me feel so. In anything I wear, in anywhere we go, in anything we do, he always appraised me in ways that I still couldn't fathom. And I loved him for that, deeply.

"I'm glad I did you justice," I smiled, stepping aside to let him in the house.

His arms wrapped around my waist and kissed the spot below my ear, which always left me breathless and ticklish. "Actually, you always look amazing. Especially without the dress."

I laughed, not missing what he just implied. "Shut up. Mom and dad are here."

As expected, my parents joined us from the dining area, complimented our attire, and took our photos before he offered his arm for me to take when we were about to exit.

"Now let me please do the honor of escorting the most beautiful girl in St. Gabriel," he declared.

And that was the last time Heero Yuy had set foot in my house.

Today a horrible wave of deja vu enveloped me as I stood there, wondering why a doppelganger of a certain someone from the distant past was standing outside my place. I gripped the doorknob tightly for balance. I breathed heavily. It just cannot be.

Can it?

He wasn't speaking either, and was immobile as he we did the staring game of the century. I clearly saw my cerulean blue ones mirrored on his.

"Heero!"

In an instant Sylvia came out of nowhere and moved past me to embrace the man outside the door. Caught off guard, it took the guy a couple of seconds to wrap his arms around her, as well.

"You're early!" My friend exclaimed when she had finally pulled away and steadied herself, placing her arms on the side.

The guy shrugged and gave a half-smirk. Another wave of deva ju and nostalgia just washed over me; I couldn't help it. "Got excited, I guess," he said. And then his eyes deviated towards me.

"I'm not complaining," Sylvia noticed his gaze and she stepped backwards so we were side to side. "Oh, yeah, introductions! Heero, meet my lovely roommate, Relena. She works for the Romefeller newspaper."

"Hn." The guy nodded in acknowledgement.

Sylvia then motioned her hand from me to him. "Roomie, this is Heero."

Holy mother of…. "Heero?" I didn't realize how accusing my tone sounded when I looked at Sylvia.

She had a sly smile creeping out of her face. "Heero Yuy of the L1 Colony Cluster Football Team."

The world closed in around me. Air escaped my lungs in a rush as I stood there dumbfounded, mouth agape, and turned to him – to the face that I had not seen in six long years; to the face that was locked up in the treasury of memories that was bound to be never opened again; to the face I thought I'd never see again; to the face of the man I only ever loved.

He was staring back at me with an unreadable expression on his face. Like the gravity of this encounter had not affected him. Like he didn't know me at all. Like he didn't recognize me in the tiniest bit. Or was he really just a different person altogether? After all, I was like the only one here who had been internally panicking.

"Isn't this the time when you two should be shaking hands?" Sylvia suggested, looking back at the two of us.

"A pleasure to meet you, Relena…" Heero lifted his hand for a handshake.

"Darlian," I answered, also lifting my hand to his proffered one. "Relena Darlian."

The touch of his skin against mine and the way he said my name made me flinch. As if electrocuted, I pulled away in a heartbeat and retreated back into the living room to pick up my coat.

"Sylv, I'll go ahead. I'll be back late. Enjoy your night." I kissed my friend on the cheek and squeezed her shoulder.

I turned to our guest. "Nice to meet you."

And then I was out the door. Out of his sight. Out of the building. And into the streets.

I put on the coat and looked at the starry sky, asking God and all the saints out there to help me live through the coming days.

~o~

Author's Note: So here's my new treat to everyone. Just like my other story, The Red String of Fate, this story's been knocking on my head for quite some time now, just begging to be written.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to continue writing in the first POV in the succeeding chapters, but I want to try since I've always been writing in the third POV.

Yeah, so. Let me know what you think, guys! :)

P.S.

Pieces English translation credits to .