The Perfect Soldier
Chapter 13: Intrusions
.
The sweet, tender notes plucked competently from the gleaming electric bass had quieted The Red Eye's milling patrons as nothing else could. In unison, every gaze had followed the roving blue stage light until it came to rest upon a single performer. The immaculate tuxedo, the calloused hands moving across the quivering strings, the tousled brown hair that tumbled over midnight blue eyes, all was revealed in time with the revelation of the melody that was slowly being woven from air and electricity. The tension in the room increased exponentially as the light fully revealed the familiar façade: Yokaze.
And then a voice had reached out over the crowd: a man's voice. A second light roved to the microphone, revealing a tuxedo, an earring, and a bald scalp: George. He whispered the words with fluid confidence. And as the stanza came to a soft conclusion, there was a pause, a heartbeat, the lights faded. A beat came, went, disappeared into the past.
It was out of this palpable anticipation that the music began. As one, the lights flashed as the five members of Prometheus sent the melody spiraling through the small bar. Trowa let the music flow over him, but he knew he wouldn't remember it distinctly later. He was occupied with observing the expression on Yokaze's face as she played, as she sang the chorus with the others, as she let herself become lost in a duet.
The emotion in her hands, her face, her voice pulled an unnamed longing from deep inside of Trowa. It broke over him with enough force to make his voice catch.
But before he could turn his thoughts to it, the band's set was over.
However, the roar of the crowd pulled them back. They played one more song and retreated.
Once again, they were refused rest.
This time, however, only Yokaze, George, and the percussionist emerged onto the stage. The rapt audience gazed in astonishment as George moved to stand behind the keyboard and Yokaze took the microphone. There was a roaring whisper of approval; all of them had heard her sing before; all of them waited for her to begin, unwilling to shout encouragement for fear they would miss a single word, a single syllable, a single vibration of her voice.
A gentle rhythm trickled to life on the symbols. Deft chords emerged from beneath George's hands. And then she leaned into the microphone and closed her eyes. There were no words at first; she hummed the melody in the back of her throat, her voice husky and sure.
And when the words came at last, they were simple, like the rest of the song. It wasn't an original piece, like the others the band had performed. It was very old, but so beautiful Trowa couldn't believe that anyone had allowed it to have been forgotten.
"Your love is better than ice cream..." Her voice was low and rich, intimate. "Better than anything else that I've tried." The words wrapped around the room, seeped into the skin of the audience until every heartbeat pulsed with her voice. "Your love is better than ice cream, everyone here knows how to fight..." Her voice had nearly crumbled there, and the emotion carried him further, closer to the place only music could go. "It's a long way down..." A smile curved her lips and suddenly, the room, the people, everything fell away from him. "It's a long way down to the place where we started from."
She opened her eyes as George and the percussionist took over for a handful of measures. As her dark gaze unveiled, he felt an answering leap in his pulse, as if she had looked right to the shadowy wall where he stood. The music, as always, could affect Trowa as nothing in the world could, and he was helpless in the face of this sensual assault. She was the music.
He couldn't stop his heart from feeling heavy. He couldn't keep his blood from racing, from singing with her. In that moment, he had a glimpse of his weakness: the weakness for music.
And then her eyelids drifted lower. Her expression was dreamy, mysterious. "Your love is better than chocolate, better than anything else that I've tried..."
She'd given herself completely to the words and her voice grew husky as her emotion spilled out.
"All love is better than chocolate, everyone here knows how to cry... It's a long way down..."
And it was. Trowa felt the distance, as if he were still in his gundam, falling to Earth. Her voice changed the gravity, removed the solid ground from beneath his feet. But her voice guided the descent and the fall was gentle, lazy, like coming awake slowly late on a sunny, Saturday morning.
Reluctantly, Trowa's long lashes fluttered. It was morning. A Saturday. The colony "sun" light was streaming through the thin curtains and had warmed the air in the trailer; gold patterns of light and shadow spilled across Trowa's bare shoulder. For a minute, he was completely still, his bearings oddly absent.
He'd been asleep, or nearly.
He'd been remembering the concert last night.
The one he'd gone to see with Kathy.
He'd been reliving the music.
The one song Yokaze had sung.
There was a heaviness in Trowa's limbs, a contentment that made him want to burrow back into the warmth of sleep. And then he heard it.
The soft whisper of a song floated up through the window pane.
Green eyes snapped open as he tossed the sheet back and surged out of bed.
She was the first thing Trowa saw when he opened the door. She was half-buried in the engine of the semi used to transport the animals to the spaceport. Only her legs and posterior were visible, but even if she hadn't been murmuring an occasional line or two, he would have recognized her instantly; every time he'd seen her at the circus, she'd been buried up to her waist in some project; Trowa was slowly becoming acclimated to viewing her from this... unusual angle.
"Better than chocolate..."
Cautiously, Trowa approached, unaware that he was shirtless in the brisk morning air. He paused when she went completely still. Perhaps she could sense him. He opened his mouth to announce himself when she sighed.
"Damn." Her voice was flat again; the song had taken the life in her voice with it. "This song is making me hungry."
As if on cue, her stomach complained loudly.
Trowa was unaware that he was smiling. Her complaint was an impossible one; impossible for Heero Yuy, that is. He could see that Taki hadn't failed in her attempt to... unwind Yokaze's mind.
Suddenly, she leaned up and looked over her shoulder, and directly into Trowa's eyes. He was a bit startled; he knew that he hadn't made a sound. Her eyes sparkled underneath the artificial light. It was then that he noticed the grease smudge that ran in a single, black streak down her forehead and nose. War paint, he thought, his own humor stirring once more.
"Your timing is amazing," she informed him.
His right eyebrow lifted in unspoken inquiry.
"Come, Igor, hold this wrench." She turned back to the truck.
So she needed an assistant. And it seemed that he was it. Trowa approached the truck, feeling an odd force batter at his customary indifference. Deliberately, he shifted his attention to the situation before him.
Briefly, Trowa experienced a sense of déjà vu as he grasped the tool she'd indicated. He recalled that battle in the arctic that Heero had accepted. During that time, Trowa had followed the other youth's lead in adjusting Heavyarms. As Yokaze bent over the engine, he glimpsed the same focused expression in her cobalt eyes. In her voice, he heard the same monotone. Trowa could only pinpoint the single, defiant streak of motor oil as distinguishing the Yokaze now from the Heero of his memory.
But he wasn't in the arctic any longer. The colony was, thus far, promising that the next twelve hours would develop into a pleasant day. And he wasn't adjusting Heavyarms. He was holding a wrench to a truck engine. And the mechanic wasn't Heero. It was Yokaze, the night wind, the soldier prototype, the silent watchman of the gundam pilots, the OZ mecha-mechanic, the one who returns pasts to their rightful owners, and, most recently, the musician.
His gaze slid to her grease-smudged hands. Last night, her calloused hands had transformed when the bass guitar had filled them. Last night, her voice had been infused with the emotion she never allowed herself to show. The stage or the lighting or the audience or the music itself—something—had been the catalyst, transforming her into the sensual woman who had sung a single song—a song Trowa had difficulty forgetting. In fact, he couldn't honestly say that he wanted to forget it. Long ago, Nanashi had stopped believing in magic, but Trowa didn't have any other words to describe her music, her voice, her emotion.
He was drawn out of his thoughts as she leaned away from the truck and returned his gaze. With a small, internal start, he realized that he'd been staring at her—
The spark of humor in her eyes was stronger than before when she informed him, "If you're finished with that, I'll start her up."
—and holding the same wrench for the past five minutes. Long after Yokaze had moved on to adjust other things in the engine, he'd remained frozen, clutching the now useless tool. He stepped away from the truck, only then noticing that his feet and arms were bare; he'd rushed outside in only a pair of worn jeans.
He ignored the cool wind with ease and followed Yokaze with his gaze. She slid behind the wheel of the monstrous truck and turned the ignition. The vehicle purred to life—it did not growl or rumble or grumble to life, it purred.
What had she done to the thing?
"You look like you have a question, Mr. Barton."
She still called him that. Even though she, first before all others, had known his real name. He shrugged that thought—and whatever emotion was waiting inside of it to ambush him—aside.
Questions? He had dozens.
He told her, "During the war, did you ever..." He hesitated for a moment over the most accurate wording. "... approach us?"
She turned off the ignition as she turned her full attention to him. "No. Never," she replied, her gaze steady. "None of you ever saw me. Last February was the first." Her breath came out in an almost-sigh. "If I had been capable of accomplishing the mission myself, I never would have revealed my existence."
Trowa couldn't smoother his moderate surprise. His face and voice remained mellow, however. "You never would have told Heero?"
She gazed back at him, her usually flat expression showing hints of resignation. "It was too soon. It still is." She slid out of the truck and closed the door. It protested with a squeak as it rotated on its hinges. Silently, she slipped around to the other side of the truck to fetch a can of lubricant from her supplies.
"Good morning... Trowa."
He turned, recognizing Kathy's greeting instantly. She was still sleepy from the late night, but she wasn't too tired to rake him with her protective gaze. "Aren't you cold? Why don't you put a shirt on?" she suggested with concern.
"I'm fine."
Her gaze flicked to his hands. "You've been helping Yokaze?"
Trowa realized that he was still holding the damn wrench. The light must have caught it and drawn Kathy's gaze.
"The two of you are getting to be friends, then?" She didn't wait for his reply. "I'm glad," she informed him. She yawned. "Well, I'm going to get a cup of coffee, can I bring you one?"
Trowa shook his head and watched her stroll toward the mess hall. A moment later, Yokaze emerged with an unreadable expression on her face and a spray can in her hand.
Kathy's words echoed in Trowa's mind.
The two of you are becoming friends...
... becoming friends...
Trowa worried the phrase for a long moment. He could now smell coffee in the air; Kathy had entered the mess hall, allowing a cluster of breakfast odors to be caught in the breeze.
Could she bring him a cup of coffee?
Trowa mused in silence.
Suddenly, he was completely awake.
.
Bisho swore in a very unladylike fashion as her wrist tightened painfully in mid rotation. Nerveless fingers released their hold on the hairbrush. Violet eyes watched helplessly as it clattered to the vanity tabletop. For a long moment, she simply sat there, her hair a hopeless mass of tangles and snarls. Her eyes slowly lifted from the brush to the mirror. She was a mess. In fact, she looked like hell. The bruises had turned a sickly shade of green-gray and the small gash was a stark, dark red line of scabs. She looked like one of Dr. Frankenstein's projects.
She wanted to cry. The slight quiver of her lower lip caught her attention and she valiantly forced away the burning sensation behind her eyes. She would not cry. She never cried. Crying was for babies, who didn't know any better. But Bisho was old enough to realize that crying meant you had a weakness, and if you had a weakness someone would find it and use it. And then you would wish that you were dead.
When she looked at the mirror this time, she didn't see herself. She concentrated on one small part of the image at a time, never viewing the whole. Objectively, she noticed that, indeed, the hair was the only item that she could do anything with. The bruises would fade on their own. As would the cut. But the hair... that could only get worse.
With new determination, she picked up the brush once more. Bisho took a fortifying breath and, clutching a small section of her honey-brown hair, began to carefully brush. But as soon as she hit a snarl, her wrist screamed in agony.
The brush clattered to the floor.
"Shit!"
She gave up and buried her eyes in her good hand. She was trying so hard to regain her calm that she didn't hear the soft knock on the bedroom door.
God, she wished that she could just curl up and sleep forever. She'd been an idiot to promise Yokaze that she'd stay here for a few more days. A moron. She needed to get the hell out of this place and away from him. Last night Yokaze had arrived before Bisho could flee. And then, in spite of herself, she had grown curious about the possibility. And then Yokaze had extracted that damn promise. Obviously, Bisho hadn't been thinking very clearly.
"Bisho? You okay?"
She stiffened. She recognized that voice. She ordered, "Go away. I'm fine." But her voice didn't sound so tough, not even to her ears. She sounded like a wounded animal. Things just kept getting worse and worse.
"Uh huh," Duo mused from the doorway, his violet eyes critical.
She lifted her head and glared at his reflection in the mirror. "I'm fine," she repeated, her voice strong, as she'd originally intended. To prove her point, she bent and grasped the brush and began to work through her hair. The pain was incredible. But she kept her hand wrapped around the brush with a white-knuckle grip. Her vision had begun to blur so she didn't see his reflection move. Bisho started when he thrust his hand beneath her nose in a silent plea for the brush.
She hesitated but, reluctantly, handed it over. Her hair needed to be straightened and she was in no condition to do it. Even if he pulled most of her hair out, it was better than irritating her wrist.
But he was surprisingly gentle. It felt as if only his fingertips touched her hair, but slowly the section of soft, waving hair grew in size. Eventually, her eyes met his in the mirror.
"You're pretty good at that." She was surprised.
Duo smiled. "I've had a lot of practice."
Her eyes zeroed in on the tail of his braid as it swished behind him in time with the movements of his arms. "How long have you worn it like that?"
"All my life."
She studied his face; there had been a wealth of meaning in those three words. Even at her young age, she recognized and identified with the pain and determination in his voice.
"Why?"
Duo's hands paused for a moment at the question. No one, not even the other pilots had ever asked him that question; all of them had simply accepted the fact that it was a part of him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken of the rationale behind his long hair. His hands started moving again as if they'd never stopped. He told her, "It's a long story."
"Well I'm not going anywhere," she grumbled.
Again, a smile stretched his mouth. "Well, since you asked so nice..."
She sent him a glare, but there wasn't any heat in it.
"I grew up on the streets, an orphan. I stayed with a few others. Together we'd steal what we needed to survive. It wasn't hard to do. Mercenaries were always attacking nearby so we took advantage of the chaos. Everything was in chaos, then. Battles were sudden and there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to any of it. But none of us ever really believed we'd bite it. Then, one day, my best friend got sick. He didn't make it." Even now, Duo grieved when he thought of his mentor, Solo. The older boy's death had been so senseless, so stupid, so avoidable.
"So, after a while, I wound up at an orphanage of sorts. A Catholic church. But, weirdly enough, it became like a home. That was where I learned how to braid my hair. The people who looked after me were really nice."
"What happened to them?" Bisho asked, dreading the answer.
"A group of rebels forced themselves into the church. They refused to leave. So I made a deal with them. I'd steal a mobile suit from the military base for them and they'd go. When I got back, the Alliance had leveled the place. No one survived."
Shit. He winced at the pain in his chest. It'd been a long time since that day, but he still felt so… Duo gathered his calm and his breath once more. "So I thought to myself, 'There's only one thing in this world I can control.'"
The conclusion shimmered in the air between them.
Bisho examined the braid once more. After a long moment, she spoke. "I understand."
Duo replied, "I know." Carefully, he continued brushing. For a long minute, neither one spoke. And then he asked how she wanted her hair done.
She thought about that for a long moment, watching the sway of his braid as it flicked to and fro. Was it possible this man was her older brother as Yokaze had implied? Of course, almost anything was possible. But did Bisho believe it? She looked in his violet eyes, so like hers, and realized that it didn't really matter. She was familiar with the chaos of which he spoke. She knew what it was like: the exhaustion of just trying to survive, the helplessness in the face of death. Although they might not be siblings in the biological sense, they certainly were in spirit.
Bisho told him, "Like yours."
His gaze lifted to hers and the unspoken agreement passed between them. They would accept Yokaze's judgment and each other. The alternative was too frightening... and lonely.
Duo grinned, lightening the weight of the space between them. "One braid, comin' up."
Bisho smiled back as he started hum some old opera tune. And then she flat out laughed when he cleared his throat, pressed his fingertips to his chest and started to really belt it out. Her half-braided hair in one hand and a comb in the one pressed to his sternum, Duo felt something inside of him shift at the sound of her laughter. And he had to keep himself from laughing with her. In fact, if he had allowed himself to laugh, he never would have heard the soft click of the door slipping back into its frame.
.
The uncompromising gaze was turned inward as two strong, male hands went through the motions of rolling up a change of clothes. The act was automatic; he'd done it so often in his short lifetime. Once, he'd hoped that he'd never have to pack a thing again. He'd long since given up on that hope, but he remembered.
He remembered so many insignificant things. And he remembered so many nightmares. Behind the shield of his skin, he relived them every day. No one knew, of course. And no one ever guessed. That was for the best.
Just as what he did now was for the best.
There were questions that needed answers. Things that needed to be done before he could even consider facing the possibility that he had a family.
His thoughts lingered on the word: family.
It would be better for everyone if it weren't true. If she were just another stranger.
But what if she wasn't?
No, the response to that was simple. He could still leave. She would never find him. She would no longer exist for him. And he would continue to not exist.
But that wasn't what was really bothering him.
He wanted her to be his sister.
He had begun to hope that she was.
And he could not afford to give himself over to hope.
Not until he was free of his past. Not until Heero Yuy had been destroyed.
His hands paused as a soft tap on the door drove a wedge between his thoughts. Heero looked over his shoulder as Duo slipped into the room, uninvited. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other, neither moving, neither speaking. As the moment dragged on, Heero's gaze slipped down to Duo's hands.
Human intimacy. Why did it come so easily to Duo? How could he be so open with a girl he'd only known a handful of hours? How could he joke and smile and play hairdresser to a complete stranger? That scene that had twisted something inside of Heero's chest and made him ache as if his sternum were a thick sheet of ice on the verge of cracking under the warm, sunny weight of an early thaw. Even now, as he stared once more into the violet eyes, his own gaze schooled into cool disinterest, he felt the weight return, harsher and heavier than it had ever been.
Two days ago, when they had first arrived at Yokaze's apartment building, it had seemed so clear to Heero; in that single instant as they stood at the window, he had seen straight through Duo's smile and nonsense. It had shocked him, this uncanny similarity; just as Heero was compelled to lose himself in an impossible dream, Duo was compelled to offer reassurance. Even at the cost of himself. Heero had never guessed. Certainly, he had known that the smile, the jokes, were all part of the mask he wore, but to find compassion beneath it...
"What do you want?" Heero's voice was even harsher than usual. The abrasiveness made Duo blink once in surprise.
"I could ask you the same question," he countered.
Heero stared at him. What do I want? The question whiplashed back at him. As it pulsed slowly inside his skull, Heero could only stand helpless and numb. What do I want? His gaze locked with Duo's.
"You came by Bisho's room. What's up?" Duo flopped down with his characteristic nonchalance in the office chair behind Heero's laptop. He leaned back in the swivel chair until its frame creaked.
Heero frowned slightly. Why had he stopped by Yokaze's apartment? "It wasn't important."
"So?" Duo shrugged. "I'm here now, aren't I? So you might as well tell me."
Heero glanced away. Why had he stopped by Yokaze's apartment? As Heero's silence wore on, Duo began to spin slowly in the chair.
"I'm not leavin' 'til you tell me," he threatened in a merry sing-song.
On the verge of concocting something—anything—to satisfy Duo (although Heero wasn't sure why he didn't just order him to leave), Duo stopped the chair in front of the laptop and looked at it.
"Hey! This looks new. What's this button do?"
"Don't touch anything," Heero scolded absently.
Duo glanced over his shoulder, finger poised above the aforementioned button. "Did you program this thing to self-destruct or something?" His expression seemed to suggest that he'd been waiting for the day when Heero Yuy installed a self-destruct in his laptop.
Heero bit off a sigh. "I came to tell you I was leaving." It was the first thing—the only thing—he thought of to say.
Duo swiveled away from the laptop and looked startled. "You're actually telling me that you're taking off?"
There was a beat of silence.
"Okay. Who are you and what have you done with Heero? Am I talking to Yokaze this time? Dammit. Can't you two wear name tags or something? What are you doing in Heero's room, anyway?"
"Duo, shut up. I need you to keep an eye on Yokaze."
Duo's mouth clicked shut. "Oh. Well, why didn't you just say so? And how come you said that it wasn't important? Sounds pretty important to me."
With his second improvisation out of the way, Heero felt himself warming up for the next. "I realized that you've got a lot on your mind."
"What? You mean Bisho?"
Heero nodded once.
"Yeah," Duo agreed, running a hand through his unruly bangs. "That one floored me. Although, I talked to Yokaze this morning and she said that her timing was pretty much a fluke."
"A fluke?"
"It seems she only found Bisho about five days ago. Some timing, huh? First Trowa, then Taki and Wufei, now me." What Duo didn't say was that Yokaze had found Bisho sleeping in the colony cemetery, curled up on a fresh mound of dirt. The grave hadn't been the only thing that had only just begun its existence. The girl commemorated on the marker had only been seventeen years old. It was sobering that even after the war, people Duo's age and younger were still dying. Even more sobering was the cruel parallel between himself and Bisho, each having experience surviving on the streets, each having lost a mentor.
"You'd better be careful," Duo said, drawing himself back into the conversation he'd started and then abandoned. "You're probably next. Your surprise will probably be that Yokaze's really from Mars or something where there's a secret colony full of Heero Yuys. "
Heero stared at him. And Duo believed that Yokaze wasn't of sufficient sanity to pilot a gundam? Where did he come up with this stuff, anyway? Heero simply grunted and turned back to his task of packing.
"You, uh, want any help with packing?"
"No."
An awkward silence followed the abrupt reply. In truth, Heero hadn't meant to sound so gruff. It seemed that whenever Duo offered him anything, his reaction was always the same. Except for that one time just after their arrival. Heero wasn't sure what it had been about that moment, but he hadn't pushed Duo away then. In fact, he'd reached out himself. He must have been tired. Exhausted. Not thinking clearly.
Yes. That was it.
Duo stood. "Okay. I can take a hint." He hesitated for a moment. "You want someone to watch your back or something?"
He struggled not to bark his response. "No."
With his hand on the door knob, Duo observed, "I guess it doesn't really matter. Yokaze will probably be there, anyway. Whether you want her there, or not." Duo smiled at the fate of it all. Heero Yuy, the loner, the perfect soldier, had an inseparable shadow.
He watched Duo close the door behind him, his mind lingering on the possibility that Yokaze might follow him, watch out for him.
It made Heero's chest feel tight.
With a small start, he told himself to get moving.
Calloused fingers zipped the duffle shut with deft movements. It was time.
The young man who answered to the name Heero Yuy turned his back on the comfort of the room, and closed the door silently behind him. In minutes, he had completely disappeared into the night.
.
"So then Wufei says that I'm not Zhih Luei."
George looked up from the guitar he was quietly tuning. Taki was standing in front of the bay windows in his studio apartment, arms crossed and looking mad as hell. Although she stood facing the late afternoon "sun," in profile to him, he'd never seen such a thunderous expression on her face. Not even when Heero had abandoned her on Q3859 during a colony lockdown two years ago.
Sensing that she was waiting for a verbal cue to continue, George prompted, "Wh-what happened after that?"
She shrugged. "Oh, I told him that he was being unreasonable. After all, how hard is it to believe that I could be this long-lost heiress? The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor," she drawled, her voice a flood of sarcasm. "How many girls are there who have been orphans for as long as they can remember and have a nifty dragon tattoo on the back of their neck?"
George's eyebrows rose at her venom.
"I still want to know how the hell Heero knew about that, anyway. The bitch."
"Y-you blame He-heero?"
Taki sighed. "I should. I really should. I ought to lock her in a small room with ten undersexed men for a week. But, it's honestly not her fault that Wufei is such a jerk."
George's bushy, brown eyebrows hitched higher. "O-only a j-jerk, Taki?" He was surprised that she hadn't called him something more obscene. It was something that probably surprised her as well. Her scowl took a turn for the darker as she turned over his comment. George foresaw the eminent destruction of his apartment in the set of her jaw and took it upon himself to distract her. "Wh-what did he say about the t-tattoo?"
Taki threw back her head and barked out a sound that was supposed to be laughter. "A convincing replica," she mocked in summary. "An almost original piece of work. Surprising but not impossible to find on a gutter rat."
It took George a heartbeat to get over his shock. "H-he called you a g-gutter rat?"
Taki simply glared out the window and nodded.
"I'll rip h-his arms off," the musician promised.
Taki almost laughed at her friend's protective streak. "Oh, George." She said it on a half-laugh, half-sigh that rapidly funneled downward into depression. She lifted liquid, dark eyes to his dear, familiar face. "I just want to know where I come from. Where I belong. You know, the essentials. I don't care where, particularly, just as long as it's real." She dragged a deep breath in. It was a useless attempt to stop her tears. "And for two days, I was so close..."
George watched her distress, feeling helpless. Her dark eyes shimmered with the pain some pompous jerk's thoughtless remarks had caused. "Come here," he crooned, unable to simply watch her throat work as she tried to swallow the lump of rage and hurt that was too large to go down. He didn't wait for her to turn; he simply herded her into his beefy arms. She didn't wail or ball or sniffle, but he could feel her tears as they soaked through the cotton of his white T-shirt.
"H-he's an ass," George murmured. "Or maybe h-he's afraid of the p-possibility. Regardless, you shouldn't let it b-bother you."
And there was the root of the problem. Taki squeezed her eyes shut and ground her teeth together. Why was this bothering her? Why hadn't her faith in Heero's investigative abilities made her simply laugh in Wufei Chang's arrogant face? She trusted Heero more than some two-week-old acquaintance. So, his words should have bounced right off. Like bullets off of Superman. Or at least good, creative, innovative ideas off of an art critic. But that hadn't happened; his words shouldn't bother her, but they did. And that was the most upsetting thing about the entire experience.
Before she could so much as consider blowing her nose in George's cotton-clothed armpit, the apartment's doorbell chimed. Its merry announcement rang cheaply in the emotionally charged air. George swore. "I'm s-sorry. That's probably Hugh. If I don't get this, the band may not get offered another gig for a l-long time."
Taki leaned away and smiled. "I'm okay now. Don't worry 'bout me."
But he was worried. In fact, deep down, he was positively murderous. How dare that pip squeak hurt his Taki. Of course, she'd rip his earring out if she ever discovered that he always thought of her as "his Taki." Still, the situation was this: some asshole had hurt her. George wanted blood. The disassemblage of major organs and body parts. The permanent disruption of reproductive functions. He wiped a single, lingering tear away from her smooth skin with his knuckle while his other hand clenched into a fist at his side. What he wouldn't give to have Wufei on the other side of that door right now... What he wouldn't give to remember which of those five men had been named Wufei... He visualized opening the door and discovering Wufei—whoever he was—on the other side... But, of course, it was only Hugh.
Reluctantly, he left her and crossed the open living room to the area designated by a coat rack as the foyer. With a sigh, George opened the door.
And scowled. It was one of the young men who'd been looking for Heero a few days ago. "Yes?" he inquired, his mind working to place a name with the face.
"I'm looking for Taki."
Out of the corner of his eye, George saw her turn at the sound of the visitor's voice. The expression on her face was non-existent. In a monotone that would have done Heero proud, she quipped, "One gutter rat present."
The visitor blinked in what might have been a wince.
A beat of uncomfortable silence ensued before Taki finally demanded, "What do you want now, Chang? Come by to finish the job? Bring the tar and feathers with you?"
George's dark eyes narrowed on their visitor. In a sudden flash of insight, George finally placed him. "Wufei Chang," he growled.
Before Wufei could do more than turn at the sound of his name, George had sent his fist on a collision course with the unfortunate intruder.
.
~End of Chapter 13~
Author's Note: The song Yokaze sings is "Ice Cream" by Sarah McLachlan.