Other Side Story Usual disclaimers apply. If I said that I owned all of Bandai and Sunrise's stuff, would you believe me? This little beauty came out of one looong night of studying for final exams. A couple cokes and a few boxes of pocky and I was all set. Unfortunately, I hate studying, so I popped in some music, and low and behold, West Side Story came blasting out of the speakers and as luck would have it, I happened to be glaring at my Gundam poster, hoping for some inspiration in memorizing the dates for William the Conquer. Suddenly, the year 1066 seemed meaningless to me; I had a fanfic to write! Why hadn't I seen it before? This would be perfect. I should've listened to that little voice called my mother that was saying "STUDY!" because I ended up thinking about nothing else but my potential fanfic and all the little petty king's and emperor's names turned into Duo, Heero, Wufei etc. It was sad, because I stayed up till three in the morning doing nothing. You can guess how well I did on that exam.

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I'm writing this to warn you all. To make you realize the truth; love sucks. Period, end of story. Love isn't the glorified thing that all writers make it out to be. It hits you so hard and then leaves you for dead. You don't know who you're going to love, and you can't help it. Sometimes you end up loving the girl who lives next door and who's been your best friend since the age of three and the irony almost kills you. But what's even worse than that is when you fall in love with your enemy. I know that it's worse, because I've been through both. So sit back and do all that other crap that the movie theaters tell you to before you listen to a story. I'll try to be as brief as possible, because, face it, I don't have very much time.

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Duo leaned back; flinching slightly as the cool cement of his stingy apartment wall hit the back of his neck, feeling like an ice cube. His violet eyes closed partway, and the sound of his sighs echoed through the almost bare room. Ever since he and his best friend had moved to America, things hadn't been so good. He longed for his home, but the closest thing to it he was able to get was hanging up posters on his wall. Sure, being part of a gang in the slums of New York wasn't too bad, actually it was a lot better than what he had at home, but it still was lacking. Even his girlfriend Hilde longed for their island home, but would never say anything out loud. A knock sounded on the door, startling Duo from his reverie. Quatre poked his head in from around the door jam, looking sheepish, "Sorry Duo, but Wufei wanted to talk to you." Duo only sighed, and dragged up his smile, kicking and screaming from where it was buried to be placed on his face, "Sure Q-man! Did he say what about?" As the blond shook his head, Duo sighed inwardly; this was another one of those spiritual talks wasn't it? Walking through the rest of the apartment building, Duo realized, as if for the first time, just how disgusting his surroundings were. Moss grew on some of the exposed pipes, and often rats could be heard clanging about in the middle of the night. The stairs were in danger of collapse, and puddles of water from the leaky roof littered the floor. Without bothering to knock, Duo barged into his best friend's room, knocking Wufei to the floor in the process, "Wufei!!!" Grimacing slightly, the Chinese man picked himself up gingerly off the floor. "Hello to you too. I would appreciate a warning next time before being hit by the living tornado." Looking up at Wufei, Duo couldn't help but grin maniacally at the sight of the huge scowl marring the Chinese man's features. "Quatre said that you wanted to talk to me. I'm not in trouble am I?" Rolling his eyes and brushing his black hair out of his face, Wufei braced himself for the worst topic that he could possibly bring up around Duo. "Duo. you seem. depressed." Wufei could almost see the barricades going up around Duo as he prepared his retort. "I AM NOT DEPRESSED!" "Don't give me that crap, you are and you know it. Come on. I thought that when you left the island you said that you would finally be honest. Not just for you, but for Hilde too. Come on Duo, you love her." Watching his friend's face fall, Wufei knew that he had hit a spot. Duo put his head in hands and sighed softly, "You're right. " He grimaced, "I guess." "But of course I'm right. And I also happen to have a solution. or a temporary one at least." Duo sighed again and muttered something about how many times he heard that and how few times it actually worked. Wufei ignored the mutterings and continued, "I believe that your surroundings are making you feel this way, so a change in scenery is needed. And soooo." Wufei grinned evilly, "We're going to your high school dance! And the rest of the gang is coming too!" "WHAT?!" "Clean your ears Maxwell, I said that-" "I heard what you said, but I thought you said that social occasions are a waste of time!" Wufei grimaced, "Yes, I did. but. I figure that any chance to torture you isn't a time waster." "How touching." "I try," Suddenly, Duo sat up straight, with a suspicious look in his eye, "Wait. this doesn't have anything to do with that challenge that the Wings gave us a while back, does it?" "Of course not. Those pathetic excuses for our rivals have nothing whatsoever to do with this. I'm dong this to stop Hilde from having to try and entertain you 24/7." Even through a little voice in the back of Duo's mind was telling him to further prod into Wufei's motives, but he knew that his friend's mind was already made up. "Hmm. alright then, we'll go. Should be exciting, ne? After all, school has been out of session for two months already, this dance was a bit out of the blue." "All the more reason to go. Pretty soon, our lives will be tied up with school stuff as well as dealing with the gangs. And you know that the scholar in me would love to escape from this place and bury my face in some good books." At this, Duo grimaced, "Ew. books. Come off it, it's still summer isn't it? Let's not bring up that evil word until school starts again." "Right, sorry about that. Okay, so we'll leave for the school at around six, so start getting ready!" "HAI!" And Duo sped out of the room to inform his girlfriend of his new and improved social life.

````` "Come on Relena, I'm not going." "Yes. You. Are. And that's FINAL!" Groaning slightly, the seventeen- year-old co-leader of the Wings buried his head in his hands, frustrated to the point of screaming at his annoying cousin. "Why must we always have these banters whenever these social events come up?" Relena tossed her hair out of her eyes as she faced her brother's best friend, "Because, as I have explained to you many times, you have no social life whatsoever! Go out there and meet some girls! Have some fun!" Heero fixed a cobalt blue eye on the sixteen-year-old; "You call swaying back and forth to a bunch of stupid pop music fun?" "Yes, and so would you. if you were normal. Come on." at this, Relena's voice took on a pleading tone, "even Zechs is going. please?" Heero chanced a glance at the blond, but immediately regretted it as he was hit full blast by Relena's puppy eyes. Standing up, Heero decided to give in while he still had a reasonable amount of his dignity left, "Fine! I'll go. You said that Zechs is going right? At least there'll be one sane person there." Relena squealed and hugged Heero enthusiastically, "THANK YOU!" "Yeah yeah, anything for my little sis." Heero smiled down on his "little sis", grinning inside at his nickname for Relena. As soon as the hyper blond left his room to prepare for the party, the brunette slumped down on his bed. Why on God's green earth had he said yes? Stupid puppy eyes. But still, Relena was one of his best friends, next to Zechs, and Heero was willing to do almost anything for her. Well, now there was nothing left to do but get ready for the party. Heero started rummaging through his dresser, looking for a nice clean shirt, when a breeze blown through his open window brought the sound of laughter into the room. Heero turned towards the window at the sound, frowning slightly. ". Something is going to happen." shaking the feeling of nervousness from him, Heero continued to prepare, unaware that his mortal enemies were doing the exact same thing at that moment. End part one