School's out, so that means I finally have time to work on Allegro! Hooray! The story is actually winding down, it'll probably be over in another three or four chapters but fear not! It is the first fic in a series, with all sorts of little sidefic tidbits and stuff like that. Just because the school year doesn't end at Homecoming.

Notes: This chapter is replete with random anime references (as well as one from The Exorcist.) They are (in no apparent order) Yu-Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Ranma ½ and Yami no Matsuei. I've been dying to see Yami no Matsuei, but it's only on DVD, and Lia is without DVD-playing capabilities. Damn.

Last Time: I think 'shirtless Trowa' sums up the whole chapter quite nicely, don't you?

++

            "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE HASN'T ASKED HIM OUT YET?!"

Lia winced, gnashing her teeth together as a chorus of very pissed off people screamed in her ears. "I know."

Duo groaned loudly, flopping back onto the floor of the theater. "He's such a fucking idiot, I'm gonna kill him!"

            "Then we should do something about it before it gets too late. Homecoming is two weeks from Friday," Dorothy stated, smoothing an eyebrow with her finger.

            "Yeah, like what?" Nicki asked. "We all know that whatever we do, Quatre's going to flip out."

            Quatre's group of very concerned and very pissed off friends were all seated in the squishy blue chairs in the Little Theatre after school Monday. Luckily for them, Quatre was in absentia, as was Trowa. Lia had just finished telling everyone about the 'thickheaded blonde dolt's' sleepover, and they were now about ready to form a mob of angry villagers, grab pitchforks and torches and chase Quatre down until he asked Trowa out. Which, at the rate he was going, wouldn't be happening for another two thousand years or so.

            "I say we just tell Trowa," Wufei declared. "Because Quatre obviously won't."

Relena's eyes widened. "We can't do that! He'll murder us for sure!"

Everyone seemed to ponder the situation heavily, frowning in deep thought and making other assorted looks of deep concentration.

            "That's it!" Sally yelled in frustration, jamming her hand into her sweatshirt pocket and throwing down a crumpled wad of cash. "Everybody empty your pockets, now!"

Heero blinked. "Why?"

            "Because I'm not about to sit on my ass and just wait for Quatre to get up the balls to ask Trowa out. We're gonna pool our money and come up with some way to get those two together before homecoming. So who's with me?"

Everybody rummaged around for whatever petty cash they could secure.

            "I'm broke," Lia stated, "but I'm willing to play chauffer."

Zechs raised an eyebrow. "In what? Your pickup?"

            "Nope, I just got a car…it's a '95 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, but it's fully functional and it's got really good gas mileage. And I look incredibly cute driving it, despite the fact that it's a freaking boat."

            "All right, free mode of transportation, kickass. Any ideas on what we're gonna do with this money?" Hilde asked, snapping her gum loudly.

The gang resumed their glazed looks of deep thought and concentration. Nothing feasible seemed to be registering, and time was certainly of the essence. Duo started whistling the Jeopardy theme song, just to be absolutely obnoxious.

            "Aw, come on, people!" Noin groaned. "How hard is it to come up with something for two gay teenage guys to do?"

Dorothy pointed a gold-polished finger. "Hey wait a minute! Heero, you're a gay teenage guy! Surely you've got something!"

Heero shook his head, his arms folded across his chest. "I'm gay, but I'm not Quatre gay. And I'm going to be late for cross-country practice, so I'll see you all later. Don't strain yourself thinking, Maxwell, we still have those plans for tonight."

            "Plans, Heero babe?" he asked innocently.

Hilde cracked him over the head. "Jeez, Duo! Disco bowling? Great, I'm your girlfriend and your calendar. What next, your Rolodex?"

Nicki cracked her knuckles and wiggled her fingers. "Actually, disco bowling doesn't sound half bad. It's not much more than ten bucks for the two of them to pay for shoes and a string or two, right? And dinner isn't going to cost much if they eat there…though why anyone would want to eat bowling alley nachos is beyond me."

            "But I was kind of hoping for something more…romantic," Relena sighed. "Like tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and dinner on the Charles."

Lia narrowed her eyes. "And cab fare, because this chauffer is not driving into Boston!"

            "I think the bowling alley idea is kinda cute," Sally said, curling the end of a pigtail around her finger. "Kinda cornball, but cute. Besides, the only other things going on this week are a Dropkick Murphys concert, a Celtics game, and…oh yeah, the Food Network thing at Bayside Expo. Though wouldn't it be cute to watch them get their Iron Chef on?"

            "NOT DRIVING TO BOSTON!" Lia hollered, trying very hard to reiterate what was already iterated.

Wufei, who hadn't said very much…mainly because he really didn't give a shit, got up and left as well. "I've had enough of this. Later."

            "What about Cirque du Soleil? Isn't that coming to town for one weekend only or something like that?" Noin asked.

Zechs shook his head. "Not until after homecoming. And besides, it's in Boston, and we all know Lia is…"

            "NOT DRIVING TO BOSTON!"

Duo yawned, lolling his tongue out like a wild animal. "I say just take them bowling. It'll be entertaining watching Quatre try to lift one of the bowling balls, if anything. I think the next one…after tonight's, that is…is Thursday."

            "All right, but we're not going," Sally informed him, tugging on his braid. "We'll just tell them that we'll all be there, and then when they get there with Lia, they'll be the only ones."

            "What am I supposed to do, then?"

            "Play Pac-Man the whole time, because you're just there to drive them," Dorothy suggested.

Zechs shook his head. "It won't work. Once they find out we're not there, they'll know something's up. We at least need one other couple to be there so it's a bit more convincing."

            "Great, thanks for volunteering, Zechs!" Sally cheered. "You and Noin will act as our decoys. Everybody else will have last minute babysitting jobs, family outings, and orthodontic appointments."

Nicki finished counting out the money, separating it into piles. "Okay, so we figure twenty, twenty-five bucks for the date, right? That leaves us with…um…roughly seventeen-fifty. What are we doing with the rest of this?"

            "Give it to me," Hilde demanded.

Relena narrowed her eyes. "What are you planning on doing with it, Hilde?"

            "Buying Quatre a shirt. The boy looks like the cover model for 'Better Homos and Gardens' for Crissakes!" she complained. "I saw a great one the other day that I thought would look pretty damn good on him."

            "Sounds like a plan," Duo declared. "Speaking of which…we shall now commence Operation…um…aw shit, somebody have a clever codename for this?"

Dorothy sighed. "Just forget the codename, Maxwell. But if anyone breathes a word of this to Quatre or Trowa, you're dead meat, understood?"

++

            Quatre walked into the locker room, rummaging through his backpack for the clean gym clothes he'd thrown in there somewhere. Heero already had his shirt off, exchanging it for a loose, comfortable green tank top and a pair of black running shorts.

            "Morning, Heero. Are we changing units today?" he asked, stretching.

Heero nodded. "Yeah, power walking. I'll bet the mosquitoes will be bad."

Wufei sauntered past, tightening his ponytail as he walked. "Jackass."

            "Son of a bitch," Heero replied, flipping him off as he tightened the laces on his yellow running shoes. They were ugly shoes, but his father had brought them from a department store in Tokyo, so they had sentimental value. Quatre shook his head, staring at Heero after Wufei had passed.

            "I don't know why you two hate each other so much," he remarked.

            "We don't hate each other," Heero corrected. "We just have a very healthy rivalry. That, and Wufei thinks that I'm a 'dishonorable queer.' He comes from a long line of tightwad homophobes."

He nodded, fixing the laces on his own shoes. "Still, I wish you two wouldn't fight so much. For two people who are supposed to be friends, you have a real funny way of showing it."

            Heero smiled, not much, but enough to show Quatre that his comments were appreciated. "Come on, can't keep Old Lady Maynard waiting."

            On the days that the gym units switched, class was shortened by about half an hour. This was due to the fact that the teachers had to exchange cards. You see, rather than keeping grade books, each student in a particular period had a little card, upon which grades could be recorded for a particular day and unit. When the units changed after five classes, the students' cards were given to the gym teacher in charge of said unit. In this case, Heero and Quatre's cards were taken from Coach Frye, who had been in charge of archery, and given to Ms. Maynard, the power-walking teacher. Then there were the fifteen obligatory minutes reserved for attendance taking and the usual warm-up stretches. After that, the classes separated and headed off to their designated areas. The power-walking group, comprised mainly of those who didn't give two shits about gym (and Heero, Quatre and Wufei because a walk in the woods far outranked playing basketball with a bunch of pimply freshman…though it was really because the other unit rosters had been filled), headed out onto the cross-country trails in the woods behind the school.

            The students were encouraged…more like ordered…to keep pace, otherwise, they would lose class credit. Heero and Wufei had no trouble maintaining a brisk walk as the spry woman in her polyester running suit took them over roots and across bogs. Quatre had to halfway sprint to keep up with them, fearing that they would bicker the whole way.

            "This part of the woods looks like that bamboo forest from Crouching Tiger. I feel like having a stylized wire-fight right about now," he observed.

Wufei shook his head. "That movie was ridiculous. It was a mockery of Chinese tradition and complete blasphemy in regards to fighting techniques."

            "I happened to like it," Heero replied. "It was one of the first movies all three of us agreed upon seeing. Duo and Hilde just don't appreciate the more highbrow films."

Quatre sighed. "Don't remind me, I still can't believe he made me sit through Zoolander with him. I didn't even think it was funny."

Wufei snorted and quickened his pace, hoping to outrun the Japanese boy. Of course, being the cross-country ace that he is, Heero was nearly impossible to lose. Quatre was flat out running to catch up, and the dark-haired young man in green slowed down so as not to leave him back with the pot smokers. They could both smell the putrid stench coming from down the trail as the black-clad druggies lit their joints.

            "How are things going with Trowa?"

            "Not well," Quatre replied sheepishly. "My craven cowardice is mucking things up again. I really like him, Heero, and I actually think that he might like me back, but…"

            "You don't want to take the initiative for fear of rejection. I've been there. When it came down to it, I wasn't going to ask Duo out. I didn't talk much freshman year."

            "You don't talk much now!" Wufei retorted.

            "Wasn't talking to you, Chang."

Quatre rolled his eyes. There they went again. He was seriously considering adding earplugs to the list of things to bring to gym next class, along with a bottle of bug repellent, the mosquitoes were in full force, as were the little tiny gnats, hovering in thick black clouds.

            At least Ms. Maynard was far enough ahead not to hear them. That, and her ears were being assaulted by the ongoing blithering of a particularly obnoxious special needs student. Quatre didn't want to be unkind to the girl, it wasn't her fault that she was mentally handicapped, but she was rather annoying. Heero and Wufei were striding at an equal pace now, trading insults in one of their native tongues. Since Quatre was able to pick out the word 'kuso' every now and then, he determined today's shouting match choice was Japanese.

            "Knock it off, you two," he said, sighing in annoyance. Instead, they continued, their verbal sparring turning into a small-scale martial arts battle. Quatre was getting more pissed off by the moment, wondering which would happen first: Maynard catching them and giving the two of them detentions, or one of them getting knocked to the ground by the other. In the sheer Rurouni Kenshin-ness of the moment, Quatre grabbed the nearest stick and came charging at them.

            "Hiten mitsurugi style!" he cried, thumping the both of them on the back of the head with his reverse-blade stick. The both of them stopped and stared at the slightly crazy blonde. Heero started laughing, Wufei merely shook his head and kept walking.

            "Come on, Quatre-chan the Battousai. I think I rue the day I ever got you watching that," the Japanese boy chuckled; ready to finish off their walk and head back to school.

Well, Quatre thought, you've always wanted to do that. Check one more thing off the list of really weird things that you've always wanted to do.

++

            "He's gay, Trowa. He's wicked gay," Duo said, popping another forkful of the school's macaroni and lumps into his mouth. Actually, the macaroni and cheese was supposed to be one of Silver Lake's better meals. Trowa shook his head.

            "No, no, he had a girlfriend named Maya. He dumped her when things started getting rough, but it's true," the Italian replied, poking at his salad.

            "Come on, Trowa. He reeks of roses and wears more pink than Quatre does. I'm telling you, he's gay. Why else do you think people mistake him for a girl?"

The green-eyed boy shrugged. "There have been others who get mistaken for girls and it does not affect their masculinity. I don't think he's gay, Duo. Maybe bisexual…"

            "All right, maybe bi…but definitely leaning more towards guys!"

Hilde and Lia slid into chairs at the table as well. "Who's leaning more towards guys?"

            "Kurama," Trowa explained.

            "Oh," Lia answered, unpacking her little blue lunchbox. "He's wicked gay."

Duo crowed triumphantly. "See? Told you so!"

Hilde unwrapped her Crispy Chicken sandwich, shaking stray sesame seeds off of the bun. "Great, so you're the almighty master of Yu-Yu Hakusho, whoopee. Oh, I got the shirt, you guys."

            "Yeah, what's it look like?" Lia asked, holding her bottle of water away from the table as she opened it. Occasionally the little pint bottles leaked when she unscrewed the white plastic cap.

Hilde chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Black…with a little girly Ranma doing a flying kick across the chest. Was gonna get him that P-Chan one that Ephraim had in that episode of Everwood, but they were out."

            "Ranma's fine," Duo remarked. "You know, girly Ranma kind of looks like Kurama…who's GAY!"

Lia shook her head. "Let it drop, Duo. I assume you've been pestering Trowa about this for most of lunch, am I right?"

            "All I said was that the Cartoon Network put the show on its primetime lineup, and he starts," Trowa commented. "To be honest, I'm pretty sure Kurama is gay as well, but I haven't argued with Duo yet, so I wanted to experience it for myself."

Hilde laughed, trying hard not to shoot Coke from her nose. "Trowa, you're awesome!"

The conversation hit a lull at that point, the three Americans heartily complaining about some rumor Duo had heard. The threat that Lia's one and only boyfriend, whom she dated back in the seventh grade and was dumped by after he suffered head trauma, was returning to public school after failing out of Boston College High had been batted around for several years now, but it had just resurfaced. Trowa really had no place in the discussion, which led to his drifting off into his own thoughts. Everything in his mind kept cycling back to the past weekend, how strange Quatre's family seemed to act around him, how strange Quatre acted around him. The game of Truth or Dare, the kiss goodnight, the kiss good morning, the shower incident…Trowa's thoughts came to a grinding halt at the shower incident.

"He's not getting the message," he muttered in Italian, nudging a garlic crouton around in the plastic salad container. "I'm starting to think he's not interested in me, but if he isn't, then why did he kiss me? Katore, if you don't say something, I might just have to."

"Hm? Did you say something, Trowa?" Hilde asked.

He blushed, shaking his head. "No, no. Just thinking to myself is all."

She nodded pertly, but noticed out of the corner of her eye that Duo was mouthing something to her. One word, two syllables. She smirked. 'Quatre.'

++

            Madiha and Amyra were home when Quatre got home Tuesday afternoon. The other girls had afternoon sessions at college. Iria was in her senior year, Clio and Kali in their junior and sophomore years, respectively. All five of them had gone to local schools, the youngest two at Bridgewater State, Iria at Tufts, the other two at UMass Boston. Quatre planned on going out of state, and as far away from his family as he could go without having to change time zones.

            "Hey Quatre," they said as he stumbled through the door, tangled in his bookbag again. "How was school?"

            "Fine, no homework. I think I'm going to take a walk, and then crash on the couch for a few hours, I'm tired. Gotta stop staying up so late reading Lia's stupid fanfics. If I'm not reading one of her eyeball-busters, it's another ridiculously long one that she's sent the link to," he sighed.

Madiha shook her head, dipping her finger into the bowl of cookie dough she and Amyra were supposed to be making into cookies. They'd consumed half the raw contents of the bowl already.

            "So wait, you're staying up late reading multi-part stories? Why don't you just save the rest for the next day?" she asked.

Quatre shrugged sheepishly. "They get really good, and I can't stop until I know how it ends…unless it's a cliffhanger. I hate cliffhangers."

Amyra whacked her sister's hand with a wooden spoon, trying to dole out even lumps of dough onto the cookie sheet.

            "How's the conquest coming? You capture any sizzling Italian hearts yet?"

The blonde boy froze, his aqua eyes going very wide, though his expression was one of raw, Incredible Hulk-like fury, not one of shock.

            "Why won't everybody just leave me alone?!" he exploded. "Trowa is nobody's business but mine! I wish everyone would piss off and stop bothering me about him!"

The metal teaspoons the girls had been rationing off cookie dough with clattered to the Pergo floor, jaws accompanying them. Any minute now Quatre's head would be doing a three-sixty spin and he'd be throwing up projectile pea soup.

            "Did something happen in school?" Madiha hazarded, slowly bending to pick up the dropped spoons and wondering if she should offer him the dough-covered eggbeaters as a peace offering.

            "No, but everybody keeps asking me if I'm going to ask Trowa out and I'm getting sick of it! I want people to just leave me alone. I don't even know if he's gay or not, or if he's got a boyfriend waiting for him back in Florence! Maybe I'm just some cute little American he can play with while waiting to get back between the sheets with Paulo!"

The two sisters exchanged looks, grimaces, and gulps. Amyra cleared her throat.

            "I'm sure you're just overreacting. You're tired, you haven't felt well lately. Why don't you skip the walk and go chill out? We'll bring you some cookies if they ever get done, just completely take your mind off everything. Go watch one of your silly Japan-o-shows or something…maybe that neat one with the whaddyacallits? Shimenegami?"

            "Shinigami," he corrected. "You mean Yami no Matsuei? I think I'd get more depressed watching it. They're hot, they're gay, and they've got far better love lives than I do, and I'm real. I'll probably go fall asleep trying not to watch Johnny Bravo again. See you later."

            The young women exchanged looks again as he trudged out of the room. There was no doubt in their minds that their baby brother was suffering from acute lovesickness and depression due to said lovesickness. They wondered if there was some sort of over-the-counter drug they could give him to perk him up, or if they'd have to get a prescription. Maybe put him on hormone therapy.

            "Maybe just get him a boyfriend," Madiha said out loud.

            "We'll have Kali call Duo when she gets home, get all the dirt out of him. Maybe he and the rest of Quatre's friends are going to do something about him. Poor guy's in such a rut."

The eldest Winner nodded. They'd always taken good care of their brother in the past, supported him, encouraged him, believed in the choices he made. But it seemed like this time there wasn't anything they could do to help him.

            "Damn, Madi, this sounds like straight from the pages of your average trashy Harlequin romance."

            "Yeah…hey, I heard Borders is doing a two-fer on Harlequins going on through Saturday. We better restock!"

++

            Wednesday morning, and the final stages in Operation…No Operation Codename Decided But It's Get Quatre To Ask Trowa Out Anyways Plan, as Duo dubbed it during a late night chatroom session, were being put into motion. It had been decided that Nicki should be part of 'Alpha Team,' the group to accompany the awkward couple to the bowling alley…mostly so Lia wouldn't be stuck by herself, since Zechs and Noin would probably be necking on the parquet rather than sitting with her and her greasy nachos waiting for the 'magic' to happen. Everybody else was part of 'Go Team,' waiting patiently next to the speakerphone at Heero's for Nicki to phone them with the news.

            "All right, so now we've just got to make sure Quatre and Trowa are free for tomorrow and we're in the clear," Sally declared.

Relena examined her fingernails. "Isn't this a little short notice? Shouldn't we have asked them about this, like, Tuesday morning?"

            "Oh well, can't go back and erase time," Hilde sighed.

The first bell rang, and a few people got up and gathered their books and backpacks, ready to make the ten-minute scramble across the building to class. Lia walked a little ways with Wufei, as they were both headed to the computer wing.

            "Is that Desktop Publishing even worth your effort?" he asked.

            "Nah, it's a complete waste of time. I end up finishing my assignments early and spending the rest of the period fooling around on the Internet. But it's fun, and there's some funny people in my class," she replied. "So, Wufei, what do you think about Sally's great date plan?"

            "She hasn't stopped talking about it. All I've heard for the past few days is how incredible it will be and how smart she is for coming up with such an ingenious scheme."

Lia giggled. "I just hope it works. I mean, wouldn't it be awful if we go through all of this trouble to come up with this plan, and then Trowa doesn't even…"

She stopped mid-sentence, immediately wishing to sink her teeth into her tongue and cut it in two. Wufei's mouth hung open like fresh tuna on display at a sushi bar.

            "Trowa doesn't what? And what plan?" a suspicious but friendly-sounding baritone asked, voice thick with an Italian accent. Lia stared up through her dark bangs at a pair of mildly amused, inquisitive green eyes and the cutest smirk she had ever seen as one Trowa Barton stepped out of the doorway he'd been lurking in, one of the art rooms. Two words came to mind for the Chinese boy and the girl of Irish, Armenian, and Canadian descent.

            "Oh shit."

++

Cliffhanger! Whoo! Looks like my big mouth has gotten me into trouble once again. I'm good like that. What are we gonna do now that Trowa's in on the plan…or at least informed that there is a plan?

Next Time: Trowa becomes part of the Rat Pack, and the big Disco Bowling date! Ladies and gentlemen, we may actually see somebody ask somebody else out here! (And I can guarantee it's not going to be Lia and Nicki.)