Mission One
Chapter 6: Match
.
Yokaze pushes open the gymnasium door at precisely four p.m. It's time for the self defense class. She notices with a glance that while attendance is high today, Wufei is conspicuously absent. Apparently, his hangover is still giving him hell. She looks over the heads of the students to Trowa. He offers her a single, curt nod in greeting before getting the students started with their warm-up stretches.
She watches him at the front of the class, carefully concealing a frown at his frigid manner. A few of the students whisper a greeting to her and she waves back as she picks her way to the front where Trowa doesn't spare her so much as a glance.
Trowa ignores her as best as he is able. The truth is that it is too painful to look at her, yet he is drawn to her as if her soul calls out to his. The muscles along his jaw clench as he feels her approach. He wants to tell her what he'd heard this morning. Wants her to deny any involvement with anyone else. Needs her to assure him that he is not a stand-in for the other men in her life. He needs it so terribly that he nearly shakes with the effort to keep himself from saying anything.
Breathing deeply, he tells himself that this need is precisely why he should say nothing. He knows the words would come out sounding like a plea. Please tell me it all wasn't a lie. Please tell me you want me, all of me. Please lie to me if you must, only don't confirm my worst fears. Please, Yokaze...
Somehow, Trowa manages through the lesson. He touches Yokaze only for demonstration purposes. Yet his gaze manages to find her as she wanders among the children correcting them and letting them practice their new defense move on her. He watches her and feels something in his chest throb painfully. Has she always been this beautiful? Or is it that he only notices now because she is beyond his grasp?
She can feel his gaze on her as she demonstrates the proper stance to a dark-haired girl. She suppresses a shiver. There is an arctic chill about him that she has never encountered before. Yokaze is tempted to turn and meet his gaze, but not here, not now. For now, her time and attention belong to the students.
The hour and a half class crawls past. And Yokaze waits to investigate Trowa's odd mood. At five-thirty, the students begin to trickle out. Some say good-bye to Trowa. He forces a smile onto his face and notices how stiff his skin feels. He remembers a time when a false smile would have been a simple matter. Yokaze had changed that, however.
She waves to the students and listens to the jabbering of two girls who linger in order to bask in her attention. Trowa turns away, untying the long, cloth belt at his waist. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him shrug out of his white jacket, revealing the white tank top underneath. After laying the belt and jacket on the mat, he takes a step toward the gym equipment not far away but pauses. Unable to stop himself, he takes one last side-long look at her over his shoulder. He can feel her attention on him and something hot, sharp, and painful passes between them. With fisted hands, he strides toward the rings.
The girls giggle a bit about one of the boys in the class before heading for the doors. Yokaze watches them go and waits until the door has closed before she turns and looks squarely at Trowa. She watches him as he leaps up and catches the suspended rings with his rosined hands. Tension actually radiates from him. She shakes her head. What is it with men today? First Heero and now Trowa. She removes her own belt and jacket, preparing to wander over to the rings and stare at him until he can't stand it anymore when the door cracks open. She turns and hides a grin as Taki peeks into the room.
"Are they all gone?" she manages in a hoarse whisper, referring to the children.
"You just missed them," Yokaze assures her.
Taki enters the room on a relieved sigh. "Ah. Thank God."
"How did your talk with Duo go?"
"Good. Pretty good. He's going to get back to me when he unburies the stuff I want from that junkyard behind the garage."
Yokaze nods. "So, what's up?"
Taki splays her hands in a gesture of innocence. "What? Can't I come by and say 'Hello' to a friend?"
With narrowed eyes, Yokaze replies, "No."
Taki looks offended. "I haven't always got ulterior motives, ya know."
Yokaze's brows arc in disbelief.
A motion in the gym draws Taki's gaze. Referring to Trowa's workout on the rings she says, "Nice routine."
Yokaze glances in the direction Taki indicates and catches Trowa posed in a perfect hold, his legs extended behind him parallel to the floor.
"I didn't know that was... humanly possible," Taki says with appreciation, a sharp eye on Yokaze's expression.
"Well, you learn something new every day," she intones, turning back around.
Not so much as a glimmer of interest had flickered to life in those cobalt eyes. Taki hides her frustration behind a grin. "Well, I don't know about me, but Wufei surely does. I've finally got him convinced about that male G-spot."
"And how much horizontal hokey-pokey did that take?"
Taki's grin is wide and suggestive. "More than you're getting these days. Are those NW boys still as hot as I remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Yokaze says, thinking of the screaming fans they encounter at every spaceport. "I'm working on a song called 'Sex Symbols' just for them."
"They'll love that. Especially that drummer of yours with the shag-ilicious blond hair... Whatsis name."
"Luke."
"Ah, yes. Finger-lickin' good Luke. Speaking of... Have you checked out Quatre? I mean, wow. When did that tall, broad shouldered thing happen?"
Yokaze's mouth twitches. "You should roll around on the floor with him before you say 'Wow.'"
Taki grins and tries to judge (inconspicuously, of course) any possible reaction Trowa might have to their conversation. "A good ride, was he?"
"I enjoyed it."
Taki laughs and notes Trowa's precise form wavers just a tad. "By the looks of it, so did he."
"Well, I haven't heard any complaints."
"You know, Quatre was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I should have dared you to get down with Trowa. That would have been fun to watch. There you'd be, sitting on Trowa's lap with your arms around his neck..." Trowa's body jerks subtly, just enough to make him work to recover his handstand. "Yeah, I should have picked Trowa for you."
Noting Taki's gaze straying, Yokaze glances over her shoulder and stifles a sigh. No ulterior motives, my ass. She studies Taki's conniving face and intones, "Well, there's always the next Bisho's-got-an-intership-and-Quatre's-on-vacation party."
Taki opens her mouth to assure Yokaze that they needn't wait longer than this evening for another party when the gym door opens.
Wufei stands on the threshold. "Taki, there you are. You've got a call from Duo."
"Ooh! Great!" After a quick glance at Trowa, she gives Yokaze a fat grin. "See ya."
Once more, the gym door closes leaving Yokaze and Trowa alone together. Slowly, she turns toward him just as he begins his dismount. She approaches as he twists through the air and lands squarely on both feet. Still ignoring her, he heads for the bin of rosin powder. Yokaze stops between him and the rings and watches him immerse his hands in the rosin and then dust off the excess. When he turns back to the rings, he discovers Yokaze's cobalt gaze. He also discovers he can't look away.
"Something on your mind?"
For a long moment, Trowa can't speak. Something on his mind? He feels pinned to place by her soul-piercing stare. Can't she read his mind with those eyes? He forces the emotion down, down into the place he once used often as a soldier to hide his doubts and fears. He arcs a brow at her and finally counters, "Is there?"
Yokaze watches his familiar figure stride around her toward the rings. No, she amends, that's not the man I know; that's the soldier. In his tension, she reads the erasure of the past seven years. She wonders where the man who kissed her awake this morning has gone.
He looks up to the rings but pauses at the sound of the gym door. He looks behind him just in time to see it settle back in its frame. He exhales. His shoulders slump. Had he expected her to stay and attempt to ferret out the truth from him? Had he expected her to linger and untangle his icy disposition? He looks back up to the rings. Yes. With a fortifying breath to distract from his disappointment, he crouches preparing to jump up and grasp the rings. But instead of beginning a second routine, he stumbles a step forward as something smacks him squarely in the back of the head.
He glances down as a pair of boxing gloves bounce next to him on the mat. Trowa looks behind him to see Yokaze standing with her hands on her hips. She arcs a brow at him and says dully, "You. Me. Here. Now."
Trowa blinks at her. She is challenging him. He leaps to the side as she lashes out with a roundhouse kick. He brings up his arms to guard himself. She is serious. Apparently, if he won't talk about what's on his mind, he's going to get it fought out of him. He ducks as her hand slices through the air aiming for his temple.
"Yokaze..." he begins.
She replies with a drop-kick aimed for his chin and a right hook to his kidney. He evades both and stares into her cobalt eyes, now as icy as his demeanor had been. He blocks a punch to the nose and grips her wrist. With a supple twist of his body, he pulls her over his back and onto the mat. She does not remain there, sprawled, however.
She kicks up and grasps the hand holding her left wrist with her right hand. As she hooks her foot around Trowa's neck, she pulls on his arm. He somersaults over and looks up to see her standing over him. He dodges just in time to avoid her fist and rolls to his feet. He blocks a quick succession of kicks with his forearms and retreats a step. She advances and Trowa sinks into a crouch, his foot sweeping out and knocking her off of her feet. She lands on her back but swiftly rolls backward and comes up on her knees.
Trowa is frankly amazed at her speed. Had she been training during the NW colony tour? He has barely enough time to wonder before he must put up his guard. She pulls her feet beneath her with a little jolt of her body and moves toward him. He studies her as she approaches. She leans into her side to kick but as Trowa anticipates, she changes her mind and lashes out with the opposite fist. He grasps her hand as it skims his jaw and twists her arm behind her back.
Yokaze leans forward as if to pull him over her back, then pushes off of the mat as hard as she can, slamming her weight into his chest and toppling him. The sound of their bone-jarring landing echoes in the cavernous room. Stunned, his grip on her arm slackens and she jerks free. Trowa rolls to his feet, breathless, and struggles to block the storm of punches she unleashes upon him.
Again he retreats.
Again she pursues.
This time, as she grows near, she allows her momentum to carry her into a lightning-quick roll and rises smoothly to her feet inside Trowa's guard. Nearly pressed against him, she grasps his wrists and hooks a foot behind his knee as she lets the momentum roll through her and against Trowa. He is unable to stop himself from falling backward. He attempts to spin to the side, to break her hold, but the leg entwined with his own holds firm and they crash once more onto the mat.
Winded and struggling to regain his composure, Trowa barely feels it as she extends his arms above his head. He can feel her hands gripping his forearms just above the elbow. There is also a weight over his upper thighs. He raises his head just enough to see that she's pinned his legs to the mat with her own. He relaxes back onto the mat and concentrates on getting enough air into his lungs.
Crouched above him, eyes inches from his, she waits. The cold fury she reserves only for the organization slowly begins to ebb back into the recess in her soul to join her secrets and heartbreaks. Yokaze watches the face of this man, her friend, her companion for a sign of the soldier's return.
Soft, green eyes look up at her through his disheveled hair. She can see his pain; it is an injury of the heart. He swallows back the emotion rising into his mouth. His gaze moves down to her mouth. What he wouldn't give to feel her kiss upon his lips, to know that this morning's overheard words had been nothing more than a bad dream. Without thinking, he whispers, "Why are you with me, Yokaze?"
Her head tilts to one side. "Because that is what I want."
He shakes his head. "Why me?"
Her cobalt eyes do not leave his. He feels utterly bare and defenseless beneath her, feels his pain rising to the surface for her to see. She tells him, "Because you are who I want, Triton."
Wordless, he stares at her. After a long moment, he replies on the thinnest of voices, "But why?"
She is silent for a long moment. Her gaze moves over his face, studying his familiar features. Finally, she says, "Because your soul calls to mine, sees mine, hears mine."
"Sometimes," he whispers, "I wonder if... after all I've done in the war, after all those I've killed... if I still have a soul."
"You do. And it is beautiful."
"What if you're wrong?"
"What if I'm not?"
He looks away, his throat working. Gently, her legs slide off of his so that she straddles him. Her hands smooth down his arms to his shoulders.
She asks, "What do you want, Triton?"
He looks at her, eyes shining. "I want you to kiss me," he tells her, "because you want to."
The pad of her thumb caresses his lower lip. She watches his lips part. "Nothing gives me greater pleasure."
She leans closer, settling her body against his. He can feel his eyes drifting closed.
"Eyes open," she whispers against his skin. "Watch me wanting to kiss you."
Slowly his eyes open. Just as slowly, her lips brush over his. His hands glide up her arms as she settles her mouth on his. His fingers brush through her hair and he presses his palm against the base of her skull, wordlessly asking for more. She complies with a kiss of pure giving. And all the while, neither of them close their eyes.
When, at last, she pulls away Yokaze wonders aloud, "What brought all this on today?"
He plays with her hair and breathes in her scent. "I overheard your conversation this morning."
She frowns, unable to see the relationship between her call to Luke and Trowa's withdraw.
"With 'lover-boy,'" he supplies.
"Ah." She smiles. "Our nicknames. He calls me 'sex-kitten' just to annoy the hell out of me and because I'm always having to remind him to think with the head on his shoulders."
Trowa cradles her jaw. "Would you rather be with him? With someone else?"
She sends Trowa a peeved look. "What do you feel when you and I are close? When we kiss? Do you think I don't feel that, too?" Still, doubt lingers in his expression. "Did you know that Heero has been trying to get me to move in with him for the past five years? And where am I?"
Trowa knows the answer: she is living with him, teaching his students with him, making dinner with him in the evenings, sleeping curled up next to him each night. He reaches out and brushes the back of his fingers across her lips and cheek. "I don't understand why."
She gives him a small, lopsided smile. "You don't have to. Just accept it because I'm not going anywhere."
His lips move but no sound emerges. She reads a single word: Promise?
She mouths back, "Promise."
He sits up and wraps his arms tightly around her waist. Her arms encircle his neck. For a long moment they simply embrace, experiencing the heavy emotions that leaden the air around them. Yokaze turns her face into his neck and smiles against his skin.
"What is it?" he asks in her ear.
"Look at us. Here I am sitting on your lap with my arms around you neck, just how Taki had described."
He chuckles silently. "Well, she was right."
Yokaze leans back to see his eyes. "Was she?"
He nods. "She should have chosen me over Quatre."
She smiles widely in agreement as he leans forward to touch his lips to hers again.
.
~End of Chapter 6~