Disclaimer: don't got the money, plain and simple.

AN: Well, I'm back from my break! I turned thirteen this Friday and I am sooo happy!! Now I'm officially old enough to sign up with some of the websites, and get into chats... and other stuff, but what does that matter? I'm happy, life is good, and I got a bunch of great marks on my assignments. My teacher even wanted to keep some of it. Now, on with the story!!

Black Hair and Gray Eyes

Chapter 11

"And this one is a favourite of mine. It's called Shake Your Tail feather." As the music began to play, Aki watched in amusement as her mother began to take a liking to the song and moved a bit to it. They were taking a break, and but the days had become too cold to go out riding, so Relena had requested to see some of Aki's music. At the moment, she was currently was really liking the rap songs, and some dance tunes.

"This is fun, I should do this more often." They laughed as Heero came in. "Hi!" he looked at her, surprised, as he took in the Vice Foreign Minister, dancing slightly In her seat. She looked like she was chewing gum, and her normally neat hair was rather messy. She and that she-devil girl of hers were still moving slightly.

"Come in, come in!" He glared at the little girl, not failing to pick up the mocking tones in her voice. She was so irritating.

"Relena?" The woman stopped abruptly and looked at him, then at herself, before blushing and letting her hands fall to her sides, then go to fix her hair. Aki, on the other hand, looked annoyed at this.

"Way to ruin a good time." She crossed her arms and pouted. Heero took this chance to compare her to the mischievous, quiet one, and nearly gaped at the difference. Come to think of it, the other side hadn't really shown up much the past few days, never mind do anything. Had she given up? Or maybe just planning?

"Oh, anyway Mom, when were you going to the Preventer's Headquarters?" Relena looked at her questioningly. In his head, he quietly will Relena not to tell her, nor let her go, because he would be going too. It was the routinely check up and Relena and him had to attend. They needed to give them both blood tests and everything to make sure everything was going right.

"Actually, I'm going next week." Damn her. Damn it all. "Why? Do you want to come?" Hell no…

"Do you mind? I'd love to." Heero cursed continuously in his head. She was definitely planning something; it wasn't hard to figure out.

"Sure, as long as you don't get in the way. I'll take you every time I go, if you want." Aki grinned and Heero groaned inwardly. This wasn't going to be good.

*~*~*~*~*

Sitting in her desk that day, Aki was jolted out of her thoughts when a piece of paper fell right in front of her. The part facing her had her name written across it, and curiously, Aki began to unravel it.

 'Aki,

You are invited to Dawn's Birthday Party!!'

Blinking, she looked over to the blonde girl a few seats behind her. Dawn saw her and smiled, then waved her hand. A little awkwardly, Aki lifted to fingers, her middle and index ones, and gave them a little wave towards the smiling girl behind her.

 'Why would she invite me?' Slumping back in her seat to pretend to listen to the teacher, Aki's thoughts wandered. 'I haven't exactly been the friendliest, and I've only been here a little while. This is a new turn of events.' Sure, Dawn was a nice girl, and helpful too. Aki had often seen Dawn laughing with some of her other friends, and knew she was part of the little 'cool posse' in this school. She was also part of a few clubs, volunteered, and one of the oldest in the class. Even now, she was fourteen, unlike the others whom were thirteen.

Shrugging, Aki stuffed the invitation into her pockets and decided to ask about it a little later. After class-later, that is.

Sitting, and waiting, the minute hand finally turned and clicked, before the bell rang. There were murmurs of sorts as everyone filled out, but Aki stayed by her desk to catch Dawn on her way out. She recognized the address as a restaurant, a very expensive restaurant. Surely, a girl wouldn't spend so much money on someone she had barely even met. But then again, this was a private school.

 "Hey Aki!" Before she had even caught a glimpse of the girl, Dawn was already trying to get to her. "Hey. I guess by the look you gave me, you got the note, right??"

 "Yeah." Aki showed her the paper, and the girl grinned.

 "Great, so can you come?" Aki stared blankly at the other girl. Was this some kind of trick? Or maybe it was because of her mother's position in the social ladder. Didn't take a genius to tell she was suspicious.

 "I'll have to ask my Mom. But, one question." Dawn waited patiently, smiling as she did. "Why'd you invite me? You don't even know me." She laughed and walked Aki out into the hall.

 "Well, I don't think you're all that bad, I mean, you get good grades, are great in gym, and have an amazing past, but I don't think you were trying all that hard to make some new friends around here, so I decided to invite you to see if you could make a few buds while you were there. Besides, we can talk about it when we're doing that project in science." Right, Aki had almost forgotten, Dawn and she were paired up for the science project on cells.

 "I guess so. Is there anything you want for your birthday? You know, so I can get something for you, since I don't know you too well." Dawn was skipping now, and she twirled, humming slightly.

 "I guess you can't ever go wrong with puzzles, books, board games, and all that stuff…" she counted the things off on her fingers as she went along, and Aki was vaguely reminded of the days when Arika and she would walk through the city.

 "I guess not. Well, thanks for the Invite. I guess I'll see you later." They stopped at Aki's locker and said their goodbyes. Aki sighed in relief that she would have two more days to plan, and get stuff for the party. Then it would be another three days until her meeting with the other pilots, if they were even there. The days Saturday and Wednesday was drilled into her head as she continued through two more of her classes to lunch, not noticing anything that went on around her as she thought.

That's how she met Lee.

She was just walking down the hallways to the lunchroom when her light-headedness caused her to not notice the boy running towards her. A few shouts of "Watch out!" and "Look in front you!!" were heard, making her shoot her head up before her body collided with another's, slightly larger than her and hard.

 "Oh, sorry, are you okay?" As her vision cleared, Aki began to make out the lines of a tall, handsome boy, presumably fifteen, with light, brown hair. He had green eyes and, against her will, Aki noted that the maroon uniforms did nothing to bring out his features.

 "Oh, no, I'm okay. You alright?" he looked up and smiled a bit sheepishly.

 "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that, I should've been watching where I was going." His eyes seemed to clear up and Aki figured her had just recovered from his own daze. They looked around to study the mess they had made. There were books everywhere, (probably from him) and a lunch bag had been flung to the other side of the hallway.

 "No, it was my fault. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, I should've seen you coming." She laughed, but to her dismay, it came out a bit nervously. "Here, I should help you here." Even worse, her voice had croaked and now sounding like she had a cold. She leaned to one side to reach for the closest book, but a rough, strong had grabbed hers. She flushed.

 "No, no, you don't need to do that. What you need to do is get that lunch of yours." He pushed her arm away and began to pick up his books.

 "I- uh- okay… umm, sorry about that." He smiled again and she flushed a bit more.

 "No problem. I'm Lee." He held out his hand to shake. Aki took it and exchanged slight smiles. "And your name is?"

 "Akira, but you can call me Aki for short." Biting down on her tongue, she wondered how she had managed to say all that without stumbling, before pushing those thought to the back of her head, but he flashed her another one of his smiles and Aki's mind went blank.

Dumbly, Aki nodded her head and walked off awkwardly. Still a bit red, Aki sat down at a table in the corner of the lunchroom, where she normally sat. Then was bombarded with a huge group of girls and questions.

 Apparently, Lee was the school hunk, and most of the girls admired him, mostly from afar. Aki learned about this one girl, though, who constantly flirted with him. She had long, silky red hair and nice legs, but always wore too much make up and tried too hard to catch his attention. Her name was Chloe, and she was a year older than her. Chloe always had this gang of snotty, jeweled up rich girls following her, and they did her every bidding.

Then they asked questions about anything and everything they could think of, but all Aki could do was try and ignore the unmistakable glances sent her way every now and then by none other than Lee while he talked to his friends. All she wanted to do right now was get back to her own home and clear her head with some exercise.

*~*~*~*~*

So… new chapter!! I hope you like it. I just got Microsoft Office again so I can finally italicize again. Yay! Well, I hope you weren't waiting too long during my little break. R&R please!