by zapenstap
Heero opened and closed his binder once again. He would actually have to keep papers in it this time, and take notes. Frowning, he shut it and shoved it into his bag. He wasn't looking forward to carrying something so large around all the time. And he didn't have a gun either.
"You've got money for lunch and all the basic materials," Mandred said. "It looks like you're set."
"Looks like it," Heero muttered.
"The first day of school is always a little strange, especially when it's not the first day for everybody else and you're a stranger."
"I've been to school before, Mandred."
"Yes, for a week or two at a time and always undercover. That won't happen this time because they will all already know who you are and you will stay there to get to know them."
Heero set down his bag heavily, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably. "And I really have to go." It was not a question.
"You really have to, unless you can give me a better excuse than you don't want to."
"Duo doesn't go to school. Neither does Relena or Quatre or anybody else I know."
"Duo's trying to run a business. Quatre manages his father's estates. Relena has a paid salary and busy political career. Both Quatre and Relena have tutors and advisers to teach them what they need to know. What are you going to do? Join a traveling circus like Trowa?"
"I could have been a Preventor."
"Yes, but you walked away, didn't you? The Preventors are team-oriented. Are you?"
"Wufei's more solitary than I and he's a Preventor."
"Wufei has Sally Po to help him in that. He listens to her. And I do not really think so. He fights alone because he believes he can do it by himself. That's his pride. He'll get over that. You fight alone because you don't know how to fight with others, or even interact with them, eh? You'll learn that at school. And you're going to be late."
So it was that Heero found himself prodded gently out the door and on the sidewalk. The school was within walking distance so he began to walk, thinking about what Mandred had said. He couldn't fight with others? Surely at some point he had... well no, he couldn't really think of any times. He had protected the Cinq kingdom with Noin and Quatre... well, sort of; he had fought by himself in the hills even after the battle was over, but that was partly the fault of the zero system. He had gone to join up with Noin in space, but Quatre led all the battles while he fought solo with Zechs. Maybe there really weren't any times. Quatre had begged him to lead and he had refused. That had been necessary. Someone had to fight Zechs in the Epyon and only Zero could do it. Besides, he wasn't really a leader and Quatre could handle it. It had nothing to do with shying away from team effort; it was just circumstance.
The school wasn't any different than he expected. It was somewhat of a tall building, four or five stories, two building connected by a courtyard and a stone plaza out in front. Hundreds of students were walking across the plaza to the doors, some in groups, some alone. They moved in a routine fashion, greeting the people they usually greeted, ignoring the people they usually ignored, avoiding the people they usually avoided. Heero didn't greet, ignore or avoid anybody. He didn't know anyone. Well, so far, everything was routine for him too.
He made his way to the administration office as the halls began to clear. There would be no hacking his name into the files this time. Mandred had officially enrolled him. All he had to do was sign in for his first day, pick up his schedule and go to class. He would probably be introduced and asked to give a greeting speech before a hundred strange faces. That hadn't gone well two out of the three times he had done it. As he stepped inside a small, plain little office, the bell rang.
Two women sat behind a pair of desks in the administration office, chatting over cups of black coffee. One male student sat in a chair next to the far wall, his shoulders slumped and his feet kicking the carpet. He looked bored. A girl student was leaning over the desk where the two older women sat, looking over a few sheets of paper. Heero made his way forward.
"Heero Yuy?" One of the women behind the desk said, setting down her coffee.
"Yeah," Heero said. He didn't like people he didn't know addressing him.
"Oh good," she said. Swivling in her chair, she called over her shoulder, "Melanie, you about done with that?"
"Hold on, Mrs. Jenkins, almost," the girl student said good-naturedly, tapping the end of a pencil against her cheek. She turned around, leaning against the heavy desk, flipping through several sheets of paper. "Heero," she said brightly, but half to herself, "You're in homeroom with Miss Terris and then you have Poli Sci with Rogers..." she stacked the papers together, "Eh, never mind; you'll figure it out when you get there. Don't worry about a thing, Mrs. Jenkins. I'll take care of him."
She grabbed Heero's arm and led him out of the administration office. He immediately pulled away and she let him go as if it were nothing. She tucked long blonde hair behind her ears and smiled at him in a way that reminded him of Duo. She looked a little bit like Relena, but without the seriousness of expression, the quiet confidence, and more trendy. "So you're the new kid," she drawle and glanced at him sidelong. "They say you were a gundam pilot." She laughed as his face darkened. "Sorry. Sorry," she said, waving her hand in a gesture of apology. "I'm impulsive, but I thought it better if I just threw it out there right from the start. Enough people know that it's not going to be a secret within a week."
"Who are you?" he demanded, wondering why she was there at all.
She flushed. "Oh, sorry!" She offered him her hand, "I'm Melanie Fanswidth. I'm on student council so I get asked to help new students on their first day sometimes." When he didn't take her hand she let it drop. "Okay, a little stand-offish. That's all right. I'll just over compensate, I guess. So, you're Heero Yuy, huh? That can't be your real name. God, it's so weird talking to you! I wasn't around when the real Heero Yuy was leader of the colonies but my mom always talks about him. 'He was such a good leader,' she's always saying. She goes on and on about it whenever we have elections to the legislature. But never mind about that. Let's talk about you. I don't really know much about you, I mean, no more than most people do. That's basically that you're a gundam pilot. God, but that's so cool!"
"Do you always talk this much?" he said when she paused. She was a pretty girl, very pretty, but she certainly did talk a lot, and about stuff she didn't seem to understand either. Why did everybody want to know about him? At this rate, everybody would know too much. She didn't seem the type to keep much to herself, and what reason did she have for asking all these questions anyway? They had never met before. Just like Relena.
"Yeah," she laughed. "Well, you're not helping and someone has to fill space." She flushed again and added a little sheepishly, "okay, yeah, I'm a talker."
No kidding, he thought. Oddly, he didn't really dislike her, not yet. Duo had driven him nuts within minutes. Strange. He must be changing.
"I guess I'm just curious," she mused, "You don't have to tell me anything, but believe me, everybody's going to ask, so you might as well. People have been talking about you for a good week now. You'll have to clear up some of the mysteries for us."
"Mysteries?" he said darkly. This was going to be worse than he thought. He didn't want attention. He wanted to be left alone.
"Oh yeah. We don't agree on anything about you. I mean, which gundam did you pilot and which pilot saved the earth from Libra and where are you originally from and do you really know Vice Minister Darilan personally? That kind of stuff. The news is all confised about it, and everybody's curious. I'm surprised there aren't reporters here."
"Reporters?" That was a terrifying thought. He'd seen enough of them.
"Yeah. The school said they were previously notified about your presence here and asked not to interfere or something. I don't really know the details. But I'm sure our school newspaper will want an interview. That's not a big deal, though. You practically write your own questions."
He began to grow more fearful the more she talked. He had never experienced such anxiety before.
"So?" she urged, leaning closer to him.
"So what?" He stepped away.
"What are the answers to the mysteries?"
He answered in distraction. "I'm gundam pilot 01, of the Wing Gundam. We all did our part to stop Libra. I'm from the L1 colonies as far back as I can remember, and I do know Relena."
"Wow! By first name too. That's cool. Everybody thinks it's weird that she's a leader at our age. I mean, how bizarre? But most everybody totally respects her. Do you like her?"
He started. "What?"
"Do you like her?"
He just stared. "What do you mean?"
"Is she cool, is she nice, is she sweet. Do you like her?"
How did she mean? "I... guess," he replied in a flustered tone. "I don't know."
She shrugged as if his answer didn't matter anyway. "Oh, we're here." She handed him the sheets of paper. "Your schedule, some waivers and a few standard forms that have to be signed by you and your parents or legal guardian," she said dismissively. "We get tons of those at the beginning of the year. You lucked out on missing some of the boring, early procedural stuff." She opened the door and walked in.
Still somewhat in a daze, he followed Melanie into the school room. It was small, smaller than had expected, consisting of maybe twenty five people or so. "Hey everybody!" Melanie called, waving. Heero followed uncertainly, surprised by her casualty. He almost perferred the more formalized approach of the private schools.
The teacher in the front of the room chuckled and leaned back against the teacher's desk as Melanie marched to the front of the class. The students had all begun to talk as soon as the door opened, and not whispers either. More than a few watched him particularly. He went to stand beside Melanie and glared back at them. A few blanched.
Melanie looked at the teacher expectantly. She nodded, waving her hand for Melanie to continue with a smile. "Okay, then," the blonde girl said brightly, and gestured to Heero with way too much emphasis. "Everybody, this is Heero Yuy. Heero, this is everybody, Miss Terris' homeroom class."
"Get to know us!" one boy shouted from the back corner. "We'll be here every morning all year long!"
"Shut up, Eric!" a girl in the front shouted at him. Someone coughed. A binder fell off a table. Laughter.
"Okay, thank you, Melanie," Miss Terris said. "I imagine the front office wants you back as soon as possible."
Melanie smiled and pulled Heero's coat sleeve. "A bunch of us are meeting for lunch out in the courtyard if you want to come," she whispered. Then she left the room.
"Please take a seat, Heero," the teacher said kindly. "What's your next class?"
No speech? "Poli Sci," he replied after a moment.
"Who has Poly Sci next?" Miss Terris called out. Several hands went up, most lazily. Miss Terris gestured to an open seat by a red-haired boy sitting a few rows back. "Take a seat by Michael, Heero," she said. "Feel free to ask him any questions for today."
So Heero sat by Michael, relieved to be out of the spotlight. Michael turned out to be the president of Honor's Society and either a friend or boyfriend of Melanie; Heero couldn't make out which. Heero didn't ask him any questions, though. He already felt completely removed from these people, but whether above, backward or sideways he wasn't sure. He just felt odd. It had been a similar situation with Relena so long ago. At St. Gabriel Institute, he had felt above them all, on a mission against OZ and with luck, his own death. They were ignorant civilians. He had completely ignored Relena's hospitality, her invitation into society, had threatened to destroy her because she and her society meant nothing to him and she had seen his face and seen him arrive on Earth. It was a little different this time. He didn't know what he felt or what he wanted, but he didn't feel above anybody. Maybe he shouldn't act so haughty this time.
"You're Michael?" he began tentatively. He remembered what Mandred said about his expressions being "scary" and tried to relax his features.
"Yeah. And you're Heero Yuy." Michael grinned. "It'll be interesting to see how you fit in here. We have all kinds of people, but never anybody famous like you."
"I'm just a soldier."
"Hell, don't remind me. I'm not even old enough to properly enlist and you're already renowned. A gundam pilot. Man, that's cool. Those gundams are huge! They're awesome! What's it like?"
He responded after a long pause. "There's a lot more to soldiering than operating machinery."
"You mean like killing people?" Michael said quietly, the good humor supressed. "Yeah. Both my brother and my father were in the military. My father says it's a job that you've just got to do, but it unhinged by brother some." He stopped, troubled. "Hey, let's talk about something else, okay?
"Okay."
So they talked about the class. Or rather Michael talked and Heero listened. At the end of class Michael walked with him to Poli Sci, where to his surprise and entertainment they watched a recording of a political conference held four months ago in the colony. Relena was at the conference and spoke frequently. Heero was completely enthralled watching it, somebody he knew on television. Afterwards, everybody asked questions about her, but by now, Heero expected it.
"What's she like in person?" a tiny-faced brunette asked.
Heero fumbled. "She's...nice," he said in some confusion, feeling a little annoyed. He wasn't sure how to describe her as a person really. He wasn't really sure how well he knew her and he was afraid anything he might say would hurt her reputation. "She's aggressive in getting what she wants, but she's sensitive too," he clarified.
That just brought more questions he couldn't answer. He felt that these people were prying into his life, so he just stopped trying to respond.
"All right, that's enough," the teacher said. "I'll see you all tomorrow. Don't forget to do your reading."
On the way out, he was accosted by more people introducing themselves and asking him questions. He thought he even remembered most of their names. He went from class to class in less and less confusion, starting to get the hang of it. On more than one occasion he was told he was "quiet" and once or twice "scary." It seemed Mandred was right again.
"If you weren't a gundam pilot, they probably wouldn't talk to you at all," Melanie laughed as lunch rolled around and he found her in the courtyard. Michael was there too, apparently one of several of her friends.
"Yeah they would. He's hot," a black-haired doll-faced girl laughed sultry. Heero flushed and grimaced. She caught sight of his face and grinned maliciously. "All the attached girls are cursing their boyfriends and all the single ones are thanking their lucky stars." Was she trying to make him uncomfortable? He didn't care.
"Oh, be quiet, Vivian," Melanie said. "Not everybody's a lecher like you." She turned to Heero. "Pay her no mind. She's just trying to get a reaction out of you. She always torments the new kids."
Vivian chuckled.
"She should be more careful," Heero said without any emotion. "I am a gundam pilot."
Vivian's expression went flat. Michael laughed at her. Heero smiled to himself, but Melanie grinned and somehow it became a shared thing.
They bought lunch at the snack bar in the cafeteria, which didn't seem very healthy, but it was good. Melanie's lunch consisted of chips, a donut, pop and a cookie. He wondered if her parents knew what she ate.
"You should watch what you eat, Mel," Michael said with a touch of warning in his voice. Heero nearly choked. Michael had chocolate milk, a pastry and french fries for lunch.
Melanie shrugged. "Don't worry about it."
"But Mel..."
"I said don't worry about it!" she said forcibly, anger in her eyes. Michael flushed and looked upset. She seemed sincerely frustrated. Heero frowned, calculating the reactions with what was said. Had Michael insulted her somehow? He wanted to ask, but he didn't think it would be polite to do so. Funny, he had never been inquisitive about the state of others before, or worried about being polite.
The rest of school went by in a blur. History, advanced biology and gym class. During gym class he was pulled out to see a guidance counselor, who gave him a stack of papers that laid out his credits thus far and what he needed to do if he planned on college, including a bunch of standardized tests. After school, he shouldered his bag with his papers and his books and headed back home to Mandred's house.
He opened the door and paused in the hallway. There was a sense of calm as he suddenly shut the door, of comfort. He was back. He made to shrug off his bag, but stopped. He oughtn't leave his stuff in Mandred's doorway. He walked up to his room, tossed his book bag on the bed, removed his shoes and walked back downstairs. Mandred wasn't yet home from work so he retrieved his science book and began reading up on the current lesson. Some of it was new and most of it boring, but he didn't think it would take him long to catch up. It was two or three hours before Mandred walked in the door.
"How was school?" he asked as he set a small black bag on the counter.
"Fine," Heero said from the couch, the biology book propped on his knee. "How was work?"
Mandred smiled at him. "Fine."
He grimaced. "What is it you do anyway?"
"I build and fortify structures."
"You're an architech?" Heero clarified.
"Sort of, but what I do is a little more technological. I work with inventors and achitechs. I make sure whatever they're making is made in the best possible way."
Heero frowned. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"That sounds so dull. Why are you doing it?"
Mandred sat across from him on the other couch. "I used to destroy things," he said. "I found that I like building them better, and I became very good at it. Why do you ask?"
What did he destroy? "The guidance counselor asked what I wanted to do."
"And what did you tell him?"
Heero paused. "That I don't know. I suppose I can't be a soldier forever."
"No. You either move up in the military or you move out of it. Do you want to stay in?"
Heero paused for a longer period. "No," he said at last.
"The military is an honorable profession, Heero."
"I know, and if there's a war, I will fight it. But I'm tired of it. I fought...too young, I think." He remembered whar Michael had said about his brother, and about himself being too young to even enlist. Had the war 'unhinged' him? "Besides, you said that I can be a great many things. I want to try something else."
"All right," Mandred said, nodding his head. "I agree. You should try your hand at something else, because soldiering isn't everything."
"I have homework," Heero said.
"Me too," Mandred said with a smile, and lifted his little black bag.
Heero thought he saw something inside it sparkling softly, but Mandred
didn't mention it. Heero turned back to his biology book as Mandred
went upstairs.