Coming Through the Rye

by Link Worshiper

A lonely and depressed Heero has found his way back to school, unsure of what point life has for him anymore now that Duo has vanished into thin air. But then an odd Preventers agent who knows way more than she should about Duo crashes into his life. 1x2

14. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Coming Through the Rye
By Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

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~ Part XIV ~
On Her Majesty's Secret Service

"Weisse?" Cawdor read, his finger skimming down the attendance list. A muffled sound of acknowledgement came from the back of the room. Cawdor's eyes flew up for a second to glance at the class before returning to the end of the attendance list. He read the final name. "And Yuy?"

There was no answer save a few mild sniggers that rose up from the room. News of that morning's incident in the Literature class had spread like wildfire through the school, and now there was barely a student who did not know about the new piece of deadly gossip. Sora and Hoshi had tried fruitlessly to stop the cruel whisperings, but found their efforts to be futile.

As for Heero, he had disappeared right after the class and on one knew where he was to be found. A herd of malicious cheerleaders and their dull boyfriends had banded together around lunchtime to go and crash his dorm to taunt him but found the loft dormitory suspiciously empty. And as Heero's room was already in a rather dilapidated state, there was nothing to trash or disorder. They had slumped back down to the cafeteria, hoping to perhaps run into him on the way so they could gang up on their new target, but even that had proved unsuccessful.

Hoshi knew that Heero had probably found a place to hide that no one would even begin to look, or worse yet, had already taken off for some other unnamed location, as he was keen to do when he had outgrown a place. The fact that a lot of his things were still in his dorm meant nothing; Heero could live out of a backpack if he had to and could disappear almost as well as Shinigami. Though she was severely worried that Heero might have done something drastic, she knew it was best to give him his space so he could think. She had learned the hard way that he did not like to be crowded and constantly bothered when he wanted to hide away. Even if she had known where he was, she would have still waited to go seek him out. Not that it mattered; she had a pretty good idea as to where he had gone.

"Yuy?" Cawdor asked again, glaring suspiciously at the class, his beady eyes finally locking upon Heero's empty desk. He let out an exasperated sigh. "Does anyone know what happened to Yuy?"

Someone tried to disguise a heartless guffaw as a sneeze as he said aloud, for the approval and pleasure of his fickle friends. "He's probably out screwing some poor boy in the back ally."

"And then," someone added, "I bet he'll slit his throat and throw him in the trash heap where they found old D.B.!"

The class roared with praise for the ill joke. Only Sora and Hoshi sat silent in the back of the room, glowering at everyone else distastefully. They were so ready to just get up and leave, ever so ready. Two stabs at two friends was cutting it close.

"So I take it Yuy will not be in class today," Cawdor finished, a disgusting smirk culturing itself on his face as if he knew exactly what was going on. The tittering rose to a crescendo and then fell in volume again at this. Cawdor's smirk became more evident as the laughter pervaded through the room. "Very well," he said, smacking his roll book closed with a fancy drum roll. "We begin class."

He strolled to the back of the room where he had set out a display of different animal organs across the sink counter. The class squirmed around in their seats to keep their eyes locked upon him, knowing Cawdor's anal tendency to flip out on a student for 'not paying attention' if he was not watching exactly what Cawdor wanted, be it him or a book, the blackboard or whatever. Sora and Hoshi managed to half turn their heads, very bored and disgusted looks blatantly stretched over their faces.

"As promised, we will begin our major lab work for this term today. I've got various animal organs ready for dissection back here, class. I want a complete formal lab report on this by the end of this week. I may give extra credit for drawings, research or photographs," Cawdor explained, gesturing to the grisly spread behind him. "You and your lab partner will come up to choose a tray as I call you." He was about to point to a nearby pair when he thought of something else and turned back to the class. "Oh, and who is Yuy's partner again?"

"It was D.B.," Hoshi grumbled, "but then something happened to him."

"D.B.?" Cawdor shrugged, as if the boy's death meant nothing to him. Obviously that was so as he had been the reason for his demise. "Oh well. Neither are accounted for, so we have no problem." He pointed to a random table and barked at the pair of students sitting there, "You two, up here to get your lab!"

When Cawdor got around to Sora and Hoshi, Sora popped up and grabbed a random tray, not even bothering to look down at the macabre sight resting upon it and brought it back to their lab table while Hoshi walked over to the other side of the room to retrieve them aprons and goggles for the lab. Hoshi was pulling on a pair of pastel green latex gloves as Sora set down the tray. She also outfitted herself in gloves, goggles and the rubbery black apron, looking to Hoshi to begin. This kind of work was not up Sora's ally at all; quite frankly it made her feel rather queasy to even look at the stomach lying in a chemical drenched mess upon the sterile tray. If she had not needed the credit for this class, she certainly would have passed it over. She preferred that Hoshi, who seemed to revel in this kind of project, take the helm of this endeavor.

"Hmm, lessee here…. Looks like there's some undigested food still in here," Hoshi was saying as she took up a deadly looking pair of scissors. She prodded at the stomach with her free hand, rubbing it with the pad of her thumb. She glanced briefly up at Sora, who was trying her hardest not to gag. "So how do you wanna go at it? Should we snip her right open or do some more of this boring external examination?"

"Whatever makes you happy," Sora managed with a weak smile before her face turned a sickly shade of green and she was forced to throw her hands over her mouth again.

"Great!" Hoshi exclaimed, tracing a line down the digestive organ with her finger before taking the scissors to the stomach's flesh. She sliced a neat opening that opened in two flaps of brownish tissue, the remains of the animal's last meal spilling out onto the tray in a mess of stomach fluid and half digested grub.

"That's just plain gross," Sora commented, tentatively poking at the orange-ish glop. "What do you suppose it is?"

"Food? I dunno," Hoshi answered, wrinkling her nose a bit. "I didn't think pigs ate like this. Looks almost like… like a cheeseburger or something. Heh, the only pig I ever met that ate cheeseburgers was D.B." She froze, turning the large chunks of food caught in the bile with a pair of tweezers. "Sora…."

"What?" She was trying her hardest not to look down.

"Sora, this is a cheeseburger," Hoshi hissed, curling her lip. She looked downright livid as she went digging through the disgusting mess of bile. "And here's a bunch of fries…. Hey Sora!"

Sora flipped around to face Hoshi, spilling out in one quick breath, "What's up?"

"Where did you and D.B. go to lunch that day the Princess of Pink came to speak?" she asked, a very disturbing theory formulating in her head. But unnerving as it was, it was just the kind of thing she needed to turn Cawdor over to Preventers. Had D.B. not been so close to her, she would have jumped for joy that this was the break she had been waiting around for.

"Some fast food joint just in town," Sora shrugged, not quite making the connection. "Why does it…" She trailed off, suddenly realizing what Hoshi was getting at. "They found D.B. totally cut and hacked up, didn't they?"

"Yeah," Hoshi murmured as she uncovered more traces of cheeseburger. "Just the parts that a certain someone didn't need."

"You aren't suggesting that Professor—" she realized the volume her voice was and hushed herself, whispering the rest of her sentence across the lab table to her partner "—that Professor Cawdor killed D.B., are you?" She glanced down at the stomach and bit her lip nervously. The colour was draining from her face at an inhuman rate. "Oh God, oh God, it's D.B.!"

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting and you damn well know it," Hoshi snarled, her voice sounding strangely harsh and deep, much like a growling tiger. "If you knew half the crimes that cranky old man has committed during the war alone, you'd retch even more than the sight of this grimy old stomach is apt to make you. This is my big break! No more half-assed rumours and theories to work off of. We have real hard evidence of his crimes now. Preventers can finally put the bastard where he's been begging to go for years! God, I wonder how many other body parts belong to D.B." She snapped up, staring at the rest of the class with narrow suspicious eyes, watching the rest of them go about their dissections as if nothing was wrong and totally ignoring the shocked look on Sora's face.

"Y-You're a Preventers agent, ain't'cha?" she stammered, her jaw totally slack.

"Hush, hush, keep it down, will you?" she said, waving a hand back at Sora. She turned around, a dark fire dancing in her eyes such that Sora had never seen before. The bouncy cheerful Hoshi she had grown so familiar to had been replaced with a hard-hearted alias she had never met before. "Yes, I'm with Preventers. I've been undercover here since I transferred into this damn ritzy school watching that son-of-a-bitch," she snarled, jamming a finger in Cawdor's direction. "And that son-of-a-bitch thought he could elude me. Ha, me! Well he's got another thing coming. Slipped up, didn't he…."

"Mmm, how's it going ladies?" a very frightening voice spoke up from behind, emphasizing that last word heavily as if to mock. Both Sora and Hoshi visibly jumped at the interruption and whipped around to see Cawdor standing there with that damn smug look on his face. It was not the same sort of smirk that often crossed Heero's face when he was morbidly amused by something (it did not even begin to look as sexy as that), but a rather frightening display of cruelty and anger.

"Oh just fine," Sora lied, an obviously fake smile plastered on her face as she spoke.

"And you Miss Hoshi?" he asked, his nasty grin focusing on the brown haired girl.

"Never better," she said through clenched teeth, though to what she was referring she left ambiguous. She was a bit more excited at the prospect of closing out this heinous mission than the dissection of her former friend's bowels.

"That's good to hear," he said, his phony good nature extra evident to the two girls. "And I'm sure that I'm hearing lots of discussion about our digestive system, yes?"

"Oh yes, loads," Hoshi replied snidely. "You know, it's interesting what weird things animals consume these days…."

Cawdor's eyes narrowed somewhat as he looked down at their tray. His eyes zoomed back to meet Hoshi's deathly glare. He seemed to be weighing up different thoughts and words in his mind by the look on his face. After a very tense silence, he spoke, his words sending Hoshi reeling into a nightmare world of impossibility. "Oh yes, and I'm sure Preventers would be more than ecstatic to have a full blown report on it, don't you think, my dear pretty agent? How many of you are hiding in rat holes, girl?"

The sun was setting on yet another mundane day in the life of Heero Yuy. He was cuddled up in his favourite hideout, the costume loft tucked away in the eaves of the school, watching it sink behind the horizon through the dusty dormitory windows that lined the whimsical attic. Even Heero himself was having trouble believing that he, he who had killed countless soldiers without a shred of remorse, had run scared from a bunch of homophobic teenagers. But in any case, there he was, hiding with nothing else to comfort him but the gauzy sun and his beaten copy of 'The Catcher in the Rye.'

Ever so often, his eyes would dance from the windows to the top of the stairs, almost as if he were expecting someone to come up and haunt him about the disastrous poetry reading of that morning. What the fuck was I thinking when I wrote that? was all he could bring himself to think about. Not even the distraction of his book could tear him from that same fiendish thought. He tried to lose himself in the book, but found all his thoughts returning to either Duo or D.B., and that did nothing to console his throbbing heart.

{The thing was, I couldn't think of a room or a house or anything to describe the way Stradlater said he had to have. I'm not too crazy about describing rooms and houses anyway. So what I did, I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. It was a very descriptive subject. It really was. My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. He was left-handed. The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that when he'd have something to read when he was in the field and no one was up at bat. He's dead now. He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on July 18, 1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was to have a boy like Allie in their class. And they just weren't shooting the crap. They really meant it. But he wasn't just the most intelligent member of the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair….}

Reading that passage made Heero ridiculously nostalgic. Whether it was because of the book or no, he had known Duo to keep a very similar artifact with him. The only difference was that the mitt Duo had was a right-handed first baseman's glove. Otherwise, the general concept remained the same, right down to the damn green ink. Heero remembered the day when Duo had produced the baseball mitt from nowhere along with a book of poetry and had weaseled him into spending the day together, choosing poems to put on the mitt. After pouring through the Romantics (Duo's favourite generation of poets), he had given Heero a sharpie and ordered him to get copying. Heero laughed inwardly as he remembered his reaction to Duo's pleading. Initially, he had refused and told him to do it himself, but when Duo had insisted that his own handwriting paled in comparison to Heero's neat script and had flashed him that longing 'Look-at-me-I'm-pathetic-and-oh-so-adorable' face (rivaled only by Quatre), Heero found himself unable to object. It was not every day that Duo Maxwell offered such a genuine compliment, even if it was just a whinny little maneuver to get his way. Heero had never understood how Duo had been able to do that so easily to him.

A creaking floorboard sent Heero's soldier mind into action. He snapped the book shut over his thumb and paused, listening intently. There was no sound for a few seconds until another creak resonated throughout the entire auditorium. He shook his head fretfully, telling himself that he was just being overly paranoid, as usual. "Dammit Yuy," he slated himself unkindly, "you're just freaking out over stupid things, as usual. It's probably just that cat. Huh, and what's a cat going to do to you? It doesn't care if you're gay or straight or a psychotic soldier with no feelings. It's just a cat…." He shuddered. Duo had loved all animals, but he seemed to have a special fondness cats. Heero remembered him saying something about having a lot of cats hanging around the old Maxwell Church.

"Always used to feed 'em sardines and tuna fish," he heard Duo's voice reverberating in his head. "The stupid things got really attached to me 'cause I was the only one who always had food for 'em. Sister Helen nearly blew a gasket when she walked into my room one night to fine me buried in feline fuzz. The damn things were obsessed with me, I swear!" Heero chuckled at the memory. Duo's stories had always been so amusing to him. But his joy was short lived. It was too soon that he realized that the story was only a memory. There was no Duo to tell him silly stories about his childhood when it had still been happy. At least Duo had one bright chapter to his life….

{God, he was a nice kid, though. He used to laugh so hard at something he thought of at the dinner table that he just about fell off his chair. I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage. I really don't blame them. I really don't. I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it. I even tried to break all the windows on the station wagon we had that summer, but my hand was already broken and everything by that time, and I couldn't do it. It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie. My hand still hurts once in a while, when it rains and all, and I can't make a real fist anymore—not a tight one, I mean—but outside of that I don't care much. I mean, I'm not going to be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything anyway.}

Another sound jarred him from his book yet again, but this disturbance was a far different sort than the creaking he had heard moments before. He could hear music wafting up the spiraling stairs from the stage below. Startled at the unexpected song, he dropped the book, not even noticing as it bounced off from sight behind a devil costume complete with translucent purple bat wings. Judging from the acoustics and the distance, he assumed whoever was there was onstage and had been digging around in the orchestra pit for any spare instruments. The voice that accompanied the soft guitar strumming sounded like a patchwork of so many different names and faces, and he was having trouble placing where he had heard it before. In one sense, the singer sounded quite girlish, hitting some rather impressive notes here and there, though the ragged throaty quality seemed distinctly masculine.

"When you're down and in trouble,
And you need a helping hand,
And nothing, oh nothing's going right.
Just close your eyes and think of me,
And soon I will I be there,
To brighten up even your darkest night."

Realizing he had lost his book, Heero became torn. He was infinitely curious as to who was down there, but the fact that his book seemed to have evaporated into nothingness was rather pressing as well. Deciding that the book would still be wherever it had decided to wander off to when he got back, he voted to spy on the singer downstairs, but just as he was preparing to climb down those iron spiral stairs, a faint mewing caught his attention. Slowly, he turned around to see Pocky, that silly cat that was supposed to be Duo's, sitting in the middle of the attic, staring at him with large green eyes.

"Where did you come from, neko-chan?" Heero wondered aloud. He was pretty sure he had not seen the cat come up the stairs, and the thing seemed to like purring for attention every time he saw it. That notion gave him the impression that it was not the type of creature to just hide out behind the skirts of one of those fancy dresses.

The cat simply stretched out in typical lazy-cat-fashion in response, walking around in a few tight circles before settling down on its fuzzy tummy as if it were going to take a nap. Heero turned around and stepped back into the loft, staring at the cat like he had never seen one before in his entire life.

"You are a strange creature, neko," Heero mused, stooping down so he could ruffle the animal's fur. "You really are Duo's cat, just slinking in and out of shadows without anyone noticing."

The cat purred contently as Heero rubbed its back tenderly and scratched between its tapered ears. But it seemed to grow tired of Heero's attentions after a while and managed to wriggle its way from beneath his fingers soon, scampering off to the spot where Heero had been sitting moments before, disappearing as soundlessly as it had appeared behind the devil costume.

"You just call out my name,
And you know wherever I am,
I'll come running,
To see you again.

"Winter, spring, summer and fall,
All you got to do is call,
And I'll be there, yeah, yeah,
Yes, I'll be there.
You've got a friend."

"Neko?" Heero called after the cat, scooting over in the direction it had gone. Straining his acute ears, he could hear the faint sound of the cat's soft meowing underscoring the singer on stage below. Putting his want to meet that person aside, Heero began prodding through all the costumes hanging on the wall, determined to find where that darn cat had vanished to.

"Damn, who'd have thought it?" he gasped with surprise as he pulled a final costume aside. Laying the sequined dragonfly leotard he had just removed from the wall atop the small pile of costumes that had cultivated itself beside him, he found himself staring at a small passageway that opened upon a narrow catwalk that spanned across the stage. The cat was sitting innocently about midway as if it had crossed the thin passageway everyday of its life. Feeling most Duo-like with all that brimming curiosity, Heero found himself sliding through the slender doorway and onto the catwalk, following the cat as it scurried past mounted floodlights. Despite his hurry to follow the cat, Heero could not help but to pause about where Pocky had been lingering moments before. Peering over the edge, he could see down to the stage below, his eagle-eye vantage-point giving him a prime spot for spying. The floodlights had been brought up partially, illuminating the stage in a soft pinkish yellow bath of light. Just below, he could see the guitarist still singing and playing as if there was not a single thing in the world that could have stopped him or her from continuing that song. It was driving Heero to yet another point of insanity how enchantingly familiar it all was.

"When the sky high above you,
Should grow dark and full of clouds,
And that old cold north wind should get to blowing,
Just keep your poor head together now,
And call my name out loud,
Baby, soon I'll be knocking on your door."

Forcing himself to turn away from the mystery below, he shuffled down the catwalk after Pocky, slipping through another doorway that led to an attic identical to the costume loft on the other side, save that this space was not a place used for storing the magic of the theatre. In fact, it seemed to be a place for storing very little, save an inch of dust, some old boards, a discarded screwdriver and a… laptop… that sat next to a stack of folders and notebooks. The two dormitory windows were even dirtier to the pair mirrored in the costume loft and the eaves above were crossed with drab support beams that looked gray and drab with age.

Drawn like a moth to the flame, Heero made his way to the quietly whirring laptop that was sitting in the middle of the floor, its screen illuminating the whole attic space in an eerie bluish silver light. On first glance, Heero could tell that it was a very new model, perhaps even more advanced than his own precious computer. His eyes traced all the wiring that ran from the computer hither thither; the power cable was patched into the electrical circuits that were routed through the ceiling. The net connection seemed to have been done in a similar fashion, jacked right into the phone lines that ran along with the electrical wires. Only a very innovative hacker or even a good… mechanic… would have been able to pull this off, Heero said to himself as he started to explore the computer's files. Though many were surprisingly well guarded with passwords and access codes, Heero was able to hack his way through most of those barriers, granting himself admission to nearly anything on the laptop's hard drive. Most interesting, his mental voice went on. A Preventers' log…. Video footage too? God, this is quite the setup!

Pocky mewed in agreement. Heero looked up over the top of the laptop to see the cat spread out over a ratty cushion that had been done up to be as comfortable as possible for the cat. A pile of discarded root beer cans lay off to the side. "Yes," Heero commented aloud to Pocky, a tiny smile playing coyly with his lips, "It looks like I found Shinigami's haven. Now just where the Devil himself is, now that's the real question."

He furrowed his brow, idly leafing through the dossiers beside the computer. Among all those disorganized papers and files, were Duo's resignation forms for Preventers. Seeing them seemed to add a new dimension to the prospect of being reunited for good with his lover. He found a few loose identification cards scattered between the pages here and there, including one for one Maxwell Smart, the photo portraying a very exaggerated looking Duo flashing the camera two peace signs.

He glanced up from the pile, feeling like something was not right. There's a pillow for the cat, he mused, going over everything he was seeing, trying to figure out just what it was that was missing. And a little temporary workstation for a very disorganized and stealthy agent, there's a bunch of old soda cans and….

That was it.

"Nothing else," he said aloud, another puzzle presenting itself to him. "There's nothing else."

"You just call out my name,
And you know wherever I am,
I'll come running,
To see you again.

"Winter, spring, summer and fall,
Baby, all you got to do is call on me now,
And I'll be there, yes, I'll be there.
Well, ain't it good to know you've got a friend?

"So if he's only got his computer and equipment here," Heero was speaking as quickly as he could, pieces starting to fall into creepy places where he had never bother to position them before. "He's got to have been hiding somewhere else. There's no way that even Duo could be living off root beer in here for almost a month…."

He scanned the attic again, noticing something new on this second sweep of the room. In the very corner, obscured by the funky shadows that played across the ill-lit room, was a dark shaft that dropped off into darkness. Making his way over to the corner, Heero peered down, his eyes travelling down the steel ladder that fell down to the wings below, almost too rusty to be safe. He gave it a rattle to determine how sturdy it was, and deciding that he was light-footed enough to make it down in one piece, fit one foot on the top rung and slid through the hole. "And Duo, the human cat, could probably shimmy up here on a pole if he had to," Heero was saying to himself as he climbed downwards, jumping off the ladder about six rungs from the floor and landing with a subtle thud. "I'm sure this crappy old ladder presented no challenge to him. And I'm sure that no one even knew that it was here. He'd be able to slink around like a bloody spectre."

"People can be so cold.
They'll hurt you,
Yeah, and desert you.
They'll take your soul if you let them.
Don't you let them!"

After standing in there in the sickly light for a few minutes, arms crossed over his chest and head bowed in thought, he looked up and turned his gaze slightly so he could observe the stage from the wings. He could just see the silhouette of the musician sitting on a wooden stool, illuminated by the stage floodlights. They were not on very bright, only enough to douse the stage in a dim orange glow and set the singer in a jumble of very exotic shadows. He shook his head, realizing just whom it was sitting on that wobbly old stool, fingers flying over the keys as she played. She looked a little tired and disheveled, her hair falling loose of that giant butterfly clip she often wore. The closer he got, the more he could tell she had been crying.

Heero stepped out of his darkened hiding spot and walked towards Hoshi. She was standing with her back downstage, totally oblivious as Heero crossed behind her from the stage left wings and crept behind her. With a devious smirk upon his lips that was wildly reminiscent of Duo's expression when he was about to pull one of his dirty pranks, Heero slide up so close behind her that he was able to practically breathe down her neck, beneath her collar. Even still, she seemed so absorbed in her music that she did not notice. She did not notice, that is, until Heero's arms fell around her shoulders, his chin falling upon the top of her head, seeking comfort in the one friend he had left.

"You just call out my name,
And you know wherever I am,
I'll come running (just as fast as I can),
To see you again.

"Winter, spring, summer and fall,
Baby, all you got to do is call,
And I'll be there, yes, I'll be there.
You've got a friend…."

Her fingers abruptly stopped dancing across the strings, hands sliding from the acoustic guitar's body and falling limp at her sides at the sudden interruption. "I figured you were hiding around here somewhere, Heero," she said softly, staring down at the folds of her light blue skirt falling in pleats over her lap. "I figured I'd let you come out of hiding on your own though… once you knew there was someone here to talk to."

"You knew that I liked another boy right from the start and you never cared," Heero said, pulling his arms from around Hoshi. He stepped around the stool, sinking down to the floor and resting against it. He could not see Hoshi's face anymore, his eyes only meeting her legs and hips when he peered around his shoulder. "Neither did Sora or D.B. or anyone. Why should it matter so much now?"

"Because those damn preps don't understand what it's like to really be in love," Hoshi sighed. He could hear her absently stroking the strings. "Most of them lived in big houses, safe and sound, during the OZ days. The war for them was as real as television could make it for them. They haven't seen what you and I have seen, nor have they felt what you and I have felt. Even my life pales in comparison to the burdens you've carried, Heero."

"I guess I've just never stuck around a place long enough to know what people like them are like," Heero commented. He let out a wistful sigh. "Sometimes I wish I could be like them. They have seen things I have never seen and felt things that I have never felt and probably never will. They're all so… so normal…."

"They're just afraid of what you are, Heero. They are afraid of what they don't understand, just the way people used to be afraid of the Gundams and Relena and her ideals." Hoshi cried as she set the guitar down and spun around on the stool, flinging herself from her perch. She marched around to where Heero sat and crouched down low. He found himself met with the sight of her knees and timidly looked up to find himself staring into a hauntingly familiar glare. "Don't you dare be afraid of being different, Heero Yuy," she said adamantly, her voice dropping an octave or two as she spoke. It made her almost sound boyish. "You were always different, and that's what makes you… you! Are you ashamed of the person you are?"

"I'm afraid of the person I am," Heero admitted, pulling his knees to his chest and nuzzling them tiredly. His eyelids slid closed as he let out another heavy breath. "I'm afraid of not being loved."

"But Heero," Hoshi spoke, reaching down to unwrap his arms from around his shins, laying his hands upon her knees. Pinning both hands there beneath one palm, she reached forward with the other and gently raised Heero's chin so she could look into those swirling cobalt-rimmed pupils, "you are loved."

He rearranged his position on the floor, hands still fastened beneath Hoshi's surprisingly iron-like grip as he tucked his legs beneath him and rose up on his knees. He managed to sneak his hands out from beneath Hoshi's fingers, bringing them to rest atop each her thighs as he spoke. "Do you love me, Hoshi?"

"Yes," she whispered, bringing a hand to rest atop his head, ruffling his dark brown locks almost affectionately.

"The way Duo loved me?"

"Yes." Her voice was fragile and delicate, murmured so softly that it seemed not even heaven could hear her words. "Exactly like that."

His lips parted into an angelic and beautiful smile, the most genuine and serene expression she had ever seen to grace his countenance. He leaned forward, cuddling against her abdomen as his hands began to slide up her legs, threatening to creep beneath the somewhat tattered hem of her uniform skirt. Feeling his fingers rising higher along her thighs, she tensed suddenly and almost frantically batted his hands away.

"Not yet," she whispered, lifting his chin with her slender fingers again. Heero could not help but notice her hands, somewhat large and yet still fragile and slender with those spidery fingers and elfish wrists. Her otherwise pretty fingernails were rimmed slightly with what seemed to be oil or charcoal or some other black smudgy substance and though her hands held a somewhat delicate form, he could still see the deterioration they had endured over the years, hewed into her skin with scars and scratches. He closed his eyes as he let those fingers dance along his jaw, his mind ferrying him away to a time when Duo would stroke his hair and speak kind words to him. He could almost hear his voice laced in hers when she opened her mouth in this blissful dreamy state. "I'm not quite ready for you to do that, kid. Maybe later."

"Sumimasen," Heero apologized, pulling his hands away and dropping back to the floor. He looked back up at her to see her see her sitting in that friendly posture of hers, ankles wide apart and knees pressed together, elbows now resting atop them as she watched him watching her. "It's just… I'm sort of used to having a relationship like… well… that's the way Duo and I had always been… even before I said…."

Her brows raised slightly as she waited for him to go on.

"Before I said," his voice almost vanished, his eyes glassing over and becoming unfocused as he continued, "Ai shiteru."

"Mmm," was the only reaction elicited from Hoshi. To his eyes, she looked thoughtful, as if she were trying to decide what to say or do next. "Love is a stranger, you know. You should never think of the chances you take when you fall in love, or that stranger is gone."

"I think I've learned that now," Heero whispered. "I think I've learned that in the hardest way possible. I just thought about it too hard, worried too much, and now look at me. I've ruined more than just one life."

"Heero," Another odd pause filled the air. She tottered around with what she would do to take his mind away from his troubles, when at last, she decided, cradling his head softly as she stroked his soft dark brown hair as she spoke. "A bunch of kids are having a party in the girls' common room. I was going to go but I wanted to make sure you were okay first."

"I'm fine," he answered shortly, untangling himself from Hoshi's arms. He fell backwards and looked at her almost sadly. "You go. I'm fine by myself."

She looked at him strangely, noticing the hurt expression in his eyes, an expression that seemed to become more and more permanent with every day. "No," she told him, shaking her head. "You're not okay alone, Heero. I want to make sure you're really okay. Now are you?"

He winced physically at this, averting his eyes from Hoshi's determined stare.

"Heero…."

He chanced a quick look back at her and knew immediately that there was no way he was going to get out of her interrogation. His stare hardened at he could feel his defense system automatically booting up. His mouth tightened into a dark frown and he whirled around, lashing out with bitter words. He was barely able to restrain himself from taking out his frustrations on her physically and doing something he would seriously regret later. "Alright, fine, I'm not okay! Does that make you happy? I'm not okay and quite frankly I'm ready to die. I hate the world, the people in it, everything and it's just things like this that go on to prove that point!" He was seeing patches of black, white and red, as he spoke, not even really sure of what he was saying anymore. "They condemn the one thing in the world that ever…." His voice trailed off, threatening to melt into a gentle sob.

"Heero," she consoled him, reaching out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. She could feel his body quivering slightly beneath her hand and it was in that moment she realized just what a frail innocent child Heero still was. She launched herself forward and enfolded him in a tight hug, unable to let him bear his suffering alone anymore. "This is what happens when you're forced to grow up too fast. There is nothing… harder… than having to be an adult before you can be a child."

"I became an adult when I was nine years old," Heero whispered into Hoshi's shirtsleeve, damp from his tears. "Even though I was already adept with a gun, that was the first time I had ever actually shot someone. It was a perfect mark. I nailed the guy squarely in the back of the head. Since then, I never stopped killing. I never stopped taking life away…."

She could think of nothing to say to him and simply continued to hold him as he let it all out. She knew that Heero's soul was nothing more than a fragmented mess of a broken childhood and shattered dreams, but somehow there still was this lonely innocence that nurturing itself inside his heart. There was only one person she knew of who could touch that heart, and there was no way he could come out right then.

"It will end soon," Heero whispered harshly against Hoshi's arm, closing his eyes tightly so he would not have to see the world around him. "I'll only have to take one more life and then it will be over. My existence began with murder; it will end the same way."

She wrenched him from her shoulder and held him out about arms distance, her hands gripping his elbows with a surprising steely power Heero had no idea she had. "If you even think of committing suicide, Heero Yuy, Shinigami will damn you to the last circle of hell for the rest of eternity with the pigs and the piddling heathens. Not even Trieze would be reduced to the ninth circle. Is that what you want? The worst of the worst damnation?" She shook him vehemently, trying to make sure that she had made her point to the dazed Heero. "Do you understand me Heero Yuy? No mercy!"

He said nothing and hung his head, refusing to look at her eyes. He knew she meant every word she said. But he wondered if Shinigami would really forsake him, considering just who the God of Death's earthly identity was.

"Am I making myself clear, Heero?" she asked again, her voice softer and less angry than before. Her grip had also relaxed and her fingers were now merely circling his arms, not applying that wicked pressure anymore.

"Crystal," he responded mechanically. He still refused to meet her eyes.

She grabbed his chin and forced his head around, her eyes boring through him like twin lasers. Yet again, she asked him; "Do you understand me, Heero?"

He nodded angrily, the faintest hues of annoyance beginning to shine through in his countenance. "Yes," he hissed, his voice filled with malevolence as his brows crinkled heatedly over his haunting blue eyes. "What do I have to do to get you to accept that I mean what I say?"

At this, a terribly wicked and sadistic smile crossed Hoshi's face. It made Heero pale to see that very trademark Maxwell-grin upon Hoshi's face. Her voice was just bordering a trickster-like maniacal laugh as well. "I think you could use that party about now, Heero."

Hoshi ushered him all the way from the theatre to the girls' dorms in record time, fawning and joking all the way. Heero was busy beating himself up mentally, reminding himself constantly to make sure he checked how he was going to phrase things before he actually said them. He always ended up getting trapped like this whenever he was not paying attention to his words. Down the hall to the chapel and then left down another corridor that took him away from the safety of his own dormitory. As they neared the three short steps at the end of the hall that led up into the girls' common room, the pounding music pouring out of the speakers of someone's boom box filled their ears. The guitar riffs and steady drumming seemed to rev Hoshi's energy up at least ten notches while the sound of the approaching party seemed to send Heero further into the doldrums.

[This is a public service announcement;
This is only a test,
Emergency evacuation protest.
May impare your ability to operate machinery!
Can't quite tell just what it means to me.
Keep out of reach of children;
Don't talk to strangers.
Get your philisophy from a bumper sticker.]

At the bottom of the steps, he came to a dead halt, his grounded feet dragging Hoshi to a standstill as well. He whipped around at last and spoke his mind, his voice almost fearful as he voiced his qualms with the whole situation. "I don't think this is such a brilliant idea, Hoshi. I was trying to keep away from everyone else here for a reason, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she shrugged, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him up towards the room again. His feet remained steady though, and she found herself stumbling backwards into him. She looked up with big pleading eyes. "Aw, come on, Heero. Don't be a wimp. It'll be fun."

"Maybe for you," he snapped, his temper getting the better of him as he wrested his arms from her hold. "But I don't know if you realized this or not, but they don't hate you. You're one of those people who can drink up attention like a sponge. Me, on the other hand, is a complete other story. I don't take well to social gatherings in the first place and I don't think that the fact that everyone likes to pick on the school faggot is going to help me much either."

"Oh Jesus, is that what you're all worked up on?" she asked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other before finding her center of balance and resting evenly on each foot. "Look, Heero," she said grabbing his hand again and pulling him up one step, "though it might not seem this way, you should know that not everyone in this school is an ignorant bigot. There is a good bunch of people who could care less, Sora and myself included. It's just that fast popular crowd who doesn't take well to people who are different than them. Unfortunately, those are the sort that run the school around here and kind of set the social rules."

"How can you guarantee that none of those sort will show up?" he asked suspiciously. He had this nagging feeling like something was going to happen very soon, though whether he should be excited or afraid was a mystery to him. "If they gang up on me, I can't guarantee that everyone will end up in one piece. You've only had a small taste of what happens when I snap."

[Warning: Live without warning.
Warning: Live without warning.]

She let out a deep melodious laugh. "Ha, do you think I would waste my time with a party that they would go to? Believe me, they'll think themselves too cool for something like this. All you'll get here is a bunch of hippies and beatniks."

"You are sure?" he tried to confirm. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her one of his classic death stares. He almost did not even have to say the companion phrase; it was already insinuated with the glare.

"Would I lie to you, kid?" she replied with another one of her laughs. She bounced around him almost like she were made of rubber or some other kind of elastic material and started to shove Heero forward. "Now enough of your whining. Let's go."

They ascended the stairs and turned into the common room. It was a fair sized place with a large hearth and many sofas. The walls were a soft yellow colour and hung with a vast array of antique swords and guns. A large shield bearing the school's crest hung over the fireplace. Most of the couches and chairs had been pushed from their usual places around the fireplace and shoved up against the wall to clear room for a makeshift dance floor. A boom box surrounded by endless towers of CDs and pizza boxes sat plugged in on a small coffee table beside the hearth as it played some rock song Heero had never heard before. Hoshi apparently had, for she was singing it excitedly, bouncing her head in time with the beat as they wandered deeper into the room.

[Better homes and safety sealed communities?
Did you remember to pay the utility?
Caution: Police Line: You better not cross!
Is it the cop or am I
The one that's really dangerous?
Sanitation, expiration date,
Question everything!
Or shut up and be a victim of authority.]

Hoshi seemed to have spotted someone she knew and skipped off to dance with her on the floor, though her eyes never seemed to leave Heero. Much to Heero's relief, no one seemed to turn a second eye when the entered the room and he was able to quietly sneak off to one of the empty couches along the walls to wait for Hoshi. He could see her on the dance floor, moving with the pounding beat. She looked much different dancing this way than she had when she was moving with careful grace across the stage. Her mash pit dancing looked almost exactly the way Duo's used to. He could almost feel that ripple of jealously he would feel whenever he would watch Duo dancing in the fray of some wild party, bouncing in time with the rest of the people crowded together on a tight dance floor. He had always hated to see others get so close to what he had deemed his. He managed to bum a smoke out of a guy who was just happening by with a pack and a lighter to pass the time. He took three of the nicotine filled rolls, shoved two in his back pocket and lit up the third, bringing it to his lips as he set up for the long haul.

[Warning: Live without warning.
Warning: Live without warning.}

After a while, Hoshi grew bored of being in the thick of things and pushed her way of the crowd to where Heero was sitting. She practically waltzed over to his sofa and pirouetted down beside him, slouching down low in the soft cushions. He sent her a sideways glance and then went back to his cigarette.

"Don't do that," she said, talking down to him like a disgruntled parent as she snatched the cigarette from between Heero's fingers with lightning speed. Heero almost had not seen her hands move and was caught completely by surprise. "It's bad for you," she amended, going to extinguish the thing on an empty plate that was discarded by her feet.

"I can fuck myself up if I so choose," Heero snapped back, making a grab for his one lifeline. Much to his furthered amazement, he was unable to meet Hoshi's flying hands. She was quicker than he could have ever guessed. It was almost like she could read his moves… that or she just had the skills of a gifted thief. "Give that back."

She jerked the cigarette away and dangled it up high over her head, finding it amusing how Heero was desperately reaching up for it like it without it, his heart would cease to pulse. It was funny to her that giving it back to him would be the reason his heart would stop, not withholding it. That got her laughing and Heero stopped reaching to stare at her strangely.

"What?" he asked, his voice laced with bitterness.

[Better homes and safety sealed communities?
Did you remember to pay the utility?
Caution: Police Line: You better not cross!
Is it the cop or am I
The one that's really dangerous?
Sanitation, expiration date,
Question everything!
Or shut up and be a victim of authority.]

"Forget it," she shrugged, bringing her arm down and bending over to snuff the cigarette out as she had originally intended. As she stooped over, Heero could have sworn he had seen the faint lines of a tattoo traced on her back shoulder beneath her flimsy cotton blouse. Ignoring it, Heero sneered at her and started digging around in his pocket for one of the other two cigarettes. But when he finally pulled it out, he found Hoshi's hands much too quick for him once again. In a blur of soft peach, her hand whipped across his and pilfered the cigarette right from his fingers. "I used to smoke myself. It took nearly clogging up my lungs to get me to quit it for good. Now I just don't see the point to it anymore."

"I guess," Heero answered despondently. "It's just… well… Duo used to smoke a lot when we were together. It was almost like a ritual to him. He would always smoke at least half a pack right after a mission. I think the fighting really depressed him. It took me a damn long time to figure out that it was almost like an escape for him. I got into the habit myself for the same reason. It's killing me slowly."

"I thought we decided you're not going to die," Hoshi said, her voice suddenly serious. Whenever she got that tone in her voice, it almost seemed like he was no longer talking to Hoshi, like it was a complete other person. The odd thing was that he was not afraid of this stranger in the least. "Now fork over any nicotine you still might have packed away on your person or else I'll have to search you myself. I don't think you'd take to well to that now, would you?"

[Warning: Live without warning.
Warning: Live without warning.
This was a public service announcement:
This was only a test.]

He said nothing, rolled his eyes, and begrudgingly handed over his last cigarette, vowing to himself that he would suffocate himself in a cloud of smoke when he got back up to his dorm room, away from all these people and their loud music. He moodily sulked on the armrest, staring out at the rest of the kids mingling and having a good time. He never really knew how to have fun like that, no matter how hard he tried. Even for Duo, he had always had trouble making the best of a crowd.

"What's wrong, Heero?" she asked, noticing his disgruntled behaviour. She leaned over, resting on arm on her knee as she tried to get a look at his face. "Are you still upset about today?"

"It's not really that…." Heero responded slowly, eyes still roving over the party around him.

"Then what is it?"

"Hoshi," he started off, pausing for a moment as he tried to figure out just how he was going to phrase his question. He could not understand how anyone could have thought him eloquent; he found his thought jumbled and awkward more often than not. "Hoshi, is what Duo and I shared wrong?"

"No," was the hushed reply. He was suddenly jerked around before he even realized what had happened and found himself being held in Hoshi's tight grip once more. She wrapped her arms around his waist, dragged him close and rested her head on his shoulder, her breaths coming hot and gentle upon his slender neck. He closed his eyes, slipping back into that dream reality where he was being held and whispered to by Duo. "That was nothing other than beautiful."

"Beautiful…." Heero suddenly felt like he was falling, falling from heaven past hell into a whole new dimension he had never touched before. It was almost like being reborn in a new life where everything had its definition and value, not just a smear of confusion and blind colour. He did not feel clouded and alone and it almost seemed like he could fly. Somehow, heaven no longer seemed so far away.

"Beautiful, just like you are beautiful, Hee-chan," she responded, her breath harsh and deep, almost like a dream from long ago. Her voice became too low for him to hear as she murmured to herself, still cradling Heero's head gingerly. "Beautiful like the sky."

"The… sky…." Heero closed his eyes and allowed himself to forget where he was. "Duo always used to say I was like the sky. He would hold me and call me by that same…." He trailed off, his eyes suddenly snapping open. He disentangled himself from Hoshi's embrace and scooted across the sofa so he could get a good look at the person sitting opposite him. A realization had just dawned upon him, and he could do nothing but smack himself for not seeing it before. "…By that same… name…."

Hoshi seemed to have realized what her blunder was and suddenly threw her hands up over her mouth as if to force any other words down her throat that threatened to betray any more. She glanced quickly around the room and then back at Heero, whose eyes were narrow and radiating a mysterious dark calm, the expression on his face totally unreadable. Without warning, she jumped to her feet and started to elbow her way through the crowd towards the door.

Heero was barely able to react and, by the time the fact that Hoshi had bolted had sunk in, he had already missed her. He too, shoved his way through the party and fell out into the empty white hallway in a huff. His eyes darted down both ways, looking for something, anything that would tell him which way she had gone. He had to find her. He had to know for sure.

Finally deciding on a direction to go, he started off in a mild jog, his pace slowly gaining speed as he hastened down the hall, only to run smack into Sora.

"Whoah, where's the fire?" she yelped, jumping at least a foot in the air with surprise. Taking a step back and giving him space, her heart still flipping in her chest, she said with a couple deep breaths, "Dude, Heero, watch where you're going! What's got you running off in such a fit?"

"Hoshi," was all he could manage, pausing to catch his wind again.

"What about her?" Sora raised a curious eyebrow, eyeing him suspiciously. "I thought she said she was going to drag you off to that party."

"Did you see her just now?" he said, cutting off anything else she had to say and completely ignoring her last couple sentences.

"No," she answered with a shrug. "Why?"

"I really need to talk to her," he said ambiguously.

Sora figured that there was no way she would be able to get him to say any more and just spoke the first helpful thoughts that popped into her head. "Have you checked her dormitory? She might have gone up there…."

"Where?" Heero found himself reverting back to the curt efficient one worded answers he used to revel in as a soldier.

"Come on," she said, waving her hand and turning around in the direction she had been coming from. She led him down the rest of the hall, past a few closed dormitory doors and to a narrow stairwell that climbed up to the other floors. Gripping the white-painted iron handrail, she turned around and said to Heero, who was right on her heels, "She's up on the third floor. I'll show you."

He followed her up the staircase to the indicated floor and walked after her down the golden wooded floor to a room way at the end of the hall. Sora raised her hand and rapped the number 36 painted on the white door. When she got no response, she lowered her hand and tried to jiggle the doorknob around a bit. She turned around and shrugged apologetically.

Heero walked over to the door and tried the handle himself and found the same results as Sora. He pressed his ear against the door and listened intently. He could hear the crackling sound of music playing on what seemed to be a record player just inside. He looked over at Sora quizzically and just got another shrug in response. He listened again.

[Fly me to the moon,
And let me play amongst the stars.
Let me feel what spring is like,
On Jupiter and Mars.
In other words,
Hold my hand.
In other words,
Baby, kiss me….]

He pulled away from the door and gave it an irritated kick. Though Heero did possess the strength to break down the door if he so chose to, he figured that probably would not be the most strategic method available. "The crazy demon might just be ignoring us," he said thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest and furrowing his brow.

"What'd you do to her this time?" Sora asked, trying to sound angry, though the glint in her eyes betrayed her true intent.

Heero opened his mouth to speak and found no words to even begin to explain what had just happened. He settled on just shaking his head and turning his gaze back at the stubborn white door. Sora stared at him, a somewhat perplexed look drawn upon her face. Then she started to pat her pockets, as if looking for something.

"What are you doing?" Heero asked, a confused look crossing his face.

"I know I just have it here somewhere," she said more to herself than anyone, her hands still exploring her pockets doggedly. "Aha!" she exclaimed at last, drawing out a small black pouch with the letters D.M. traced on the pouch in tiny silver lines. She flicked it open and drew out a pair of slender lock-picking tools and stooped at the door to set to work. "You know," she was saying, sliding the a curved rod of iron into the lock, digging in with the other slim tool to lift the cogs into alignment as Heero looked on, "it's sort of funny that I'm using the kit that Hoshi gave me to break into her dormitory."

"Hoshi gave you that?" Heero said, a subtle brooding expression crossing his eyes. His mind was mechanically shifting puzzle pieces here and there, and with each new combination, things began to make more and more sense. His thoughts were disrupted as Sora pulled the lock back and swung the door open.

Heero stepped past her into the room and found himself alone. The record player that D.B. and Hoshi had used that one time at breakfast sat on the floor beside the bed, wired up to a set of speakers and adapter, quietly playing the scratchy record that was spinning lazily on the turntable. Beside the record player was a stack of old records and a small transistor radio.

[Fill my heart with song,
And let me sing forever more.
You are all I long for,
All I worship and adore.
In other words,
Please be true….
In other words,
I love you!]

It was a single dorm room, which meant that it was smaller than Heero's and did not have its own bathroom. The place was littered with piles of folders and papers, organized in a disorganized fashion. The bed was made haphazardly, with lumps beneath the comforter and lopsided pillows. He stepped further into the room and sat down on the messy bed, looking down at the wooded nightstand beside the bed. There was a stack of photographs lying on top of a small journal bound with dark green leather. Heero reached out to examine them.

"She's kind of an oddball, but we love her," Sora remarked as she walked into the room as well. She let her eyes rove around the place. "A very eclectic oddball, I might add. God, she knows how to make herself at home."

Heero was far from paying attention though. He was too immersed in the stack of black and white pictures, obviously the product of the school's photography course. He was not sure if he should have been shocked or expecting the fact that many of them were of him. He was going to take a peek into the journal as well, but decided that even he would be pushing it too far to pry into something so personal. The journal pages in the sketchbook had been left for someone to find, but this was something that had been left locked away and secret. He placed it back on the table with the pictures and stood up. "I guess this isn't the spot."

"Guess so," Sora shrugged as she followed him out of the room, closing the door behind her. "So are you going to keep looking for her?"

"I don't know," Heero shrugged, staring off down the hall.

"I'll tell you what," Sora said, putting a hand on Heero's shoulder, "I'll hang out in her dorm just in case she comes back and you can head off to bed. You look beat, dude."

Heero smiled at her, his face radiating a quiet sort of thanks. "That would be fine," he said, giving her one of his curt nods as if to acknowledge her 'mission.' He took a couple steps before doubling back and saying softly, "You are a good friend, Sora." Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and hurried down the hall, leaving a very perplexed Sora standing in his wake. He had decided right then that he would never take anyone's companionship for granted ever again.

He found his way from the girls' dorms, past the common room where the party was still hanging strong, and back to the chapel. He was going to head right past it towards the boys' dormitories when something stopped him. He looked up and peered through the glass doors of the chapel at the placid statue of the Virgin that stood beside the small altar. Memories flooded his head at the sight of that statue. Shaking his head, and thinking to himself about how much had changed in just over a month he plugged on towards his dorm.

He climbed the lonely stairs up to the eaves where the familiarity of his own room. With a heavy sigh, he inserted the little iron key into the lock and gave it a twist, the sound of the bolt being drawn back echoing inside the door. He fumbled with the key as he shoved it back into his pocket with one hand, the other pushing the door open. He took a step in, toeing off his shoes the moment he walked over the threshold and closed the door after him. He whipped his key back out to secure the door behind him and then returned the little metal implement to its hiding spot in his pocket. As he looked down to pull off his socks, his eyes did a double take. There, lying haphazardly in the middle of the floor, was a pair of discarded girls' knee socks and two black shoes with big clunky heels. His eyes meandered across the floor, falling next upon a white cotton sailor's blouse and the dark blue scarf that went with it, followed by the much more interesting sight of a black corset and a padded bra.

And looking up, he was met with a sight that confirmed all his speculations since the party. At the end of the trail of clothes, standing just beyond the open door of his bathroom with large surprised violet eyes, a facecloth dripping in hand and wearing nothing more than a light blue uniform skirt, was the elusive kitten he had been chasing all evening.

"Duo…."

{A/N} Predictable, wasn't it? Well, I make it up for ending it right there, hehe. Am I evil or what? Yes, evil… In any case, review, keep up for the next chapter and please don't stop reading! That first song is by James Taylor, You've Got A Friend, which I think is just so cute for Heero and Duo in general (makes me melt every time!). One of the other songs is by Greenday. It's a pretty good one called Warning. I used to have my favourite Greenday song Hitchin' A Ride there but I think that this one has more appropriate lyrics. It was hard to replace.... :( The other is by Frank Sinatra. Everyone knows Fly Me to the Moon. And do review. Please make me feel loved!