Bus Line 576
Chapter Two: A Note At Night
Thanks to all my reviewers!!
And a glomp and hi to all the guild girls ^__^
~~~*~~~
The door closed behind the boy with a somewhat satisfying clang as he tossed his schoolbooks aside, leaving them for the next day. He still had plenty of time to do his homework, right? His hand rose idly to flick the light on in his kitchen, and he stared at the lack of what he supposed should be happiness which filled his solitary house. Not like he cared, he had more important things to worry about, like his grades, and paying rent. 'And that boy.' He shook his head at his sudden thought, pondering for a few moments as to who 'that boy' was until his mind reached a conclusion. "Duo." He said aloud. "Duo Maxwell."
He shuffled into the perfectly tiled kitchen, opened the fridge, and peered inside, cobalt eyes searching for the cup of water he shoved on to the metal bars earlier that morning while in a rush. Upon finding the single grey cup he was looking for, he removed it from the fridge and took a sip before replacing the cup to its perch in the middle of the first shelf in the fridge. He closed to door slowly, body in his house but mind somewhere else- on a certian amethyst-eyed, braided, peppy someone, to be exact.
Climbing the stairs which led to his room, he forgot to shut off the kitchen light, and when he remembered, he didn't care. His room was dark when he entered it; the darkness fit his personality. Empty...mysterious...dead. Somewhere deep, deep inside of him, he wanted to find a light, though currently he didn't know who or what that light could be. He would never admit to feeling how he did to anyone without killing them thereafter, but in order to tell anyone in the first place he had to convince himself he could handle his emotions. Sigh. Emotions were one of the only things which confused him.
The most inviting thing to Heero right now was simply to go to sleep, but something on his nightstand caught his eye. A folded piece of paper lay precariously amidst the rest of the objects he kept by his bed- an alarm clock, some pens, and other random things he never had time to catagorize. Curious, he extended one hand and grasped the note, realizing suddenly it hadn't been there this morning. Someone must have broken into his house, yet nothing was out of place; everything was how he left it that morning. Something, he decided, was not right. Nimble hands unfolded the note and he found writing, which read:
'Hey Heero! Nice meetin' ya today. Hope you don't mind this note being all in your house, but I couldn't resist. So, are you gonna be taking the same route home tomorrow? I sure hope so! Well, I'll see ya then, buddy!' The note was in unfamiliar handwriting, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out who the note was from.
Until he thought of him.
"DUO?!"
Heero clenched the note in his hands. Something was not right.
.
The same figure from the previous day stood at the same bus stop, standing still once again but this time with unfocused eyes, deep in thought. He didn't notice, this time, as the pale 576 pulled up to the stop, until the doors parted nearly right into his face. Removing the same tattered, worn wallet from his pocket, the Japanese boy showed the driver the pass and took his seat, this time further in the back of the bus, by a window. He looked out the window. A flash of brown passed by.
With an ageless groan, the bus started shoving off to its destination, paying no attention to the braided boy chasing after it. "HEY! WAIT UP! HEY!" called Duo, flailing his arms like a madman. "You can't just take off like that, buddy! Slow down!" Duo caught Heero's eye and waved while running, motioning for him to tell the driver to pull over. "Ya mind pullin' over?!"
Heero nodded at the running boy and spoke to the driver from the back of the bus. "A passenger wishes to board."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." grunted the driver in response, skidding the bus to a halt. "Kids today... Not an ounce of decency..." he pressed the hidden button to open the doors, which did as they were told, to reveal the not-so-happy and pouting face of Duo.
"Hey, you could'a at least slowed down." muttered the boy as he took a seat next to Heero. "Hey buddy!" He smiled the traditional Maxwell-grin and waved.
.
Heero nodded at the skinny boy sitting beside him. He decided it, there was definetly something not right about Duo, no matter how friendly and magnetic he seemed. "I need to speak to you."
Duo grinned and tilted his head sideways at Heero, violet eyes sparkling. "What's up?"
"I found a note in my house today."
"Oh? What was it for?"
Heero withdrew the crumpled paper from his pocket and unfolded it, handing the paper to Duo. "Read it."
"Okay!" Duo's smile faded as he read the note which... He shook his head. "Sounds kinda cooky to me; how'd it get there?" He peered at the familiar handwriting. Damn his carelessness.
"That's what I'm asking you. You're the only person I spoke to yesterday." Heero replied, sending the braided boy a mysterious glare.
"Well..." Duo said, "I dunno. I mean, I'm not able to like...float into your house or something, I'm just a kid, like you."
Heero raised an eyebrow. "Don't you go to school?"
"Um..." Duo panicked, he didn't expect interrogation. "I-I can't afford schooling." he was lying, blatantly, and hated doing so. Luckily Heero wasn't looking at him right now, or he would see the nervousness present on Duo's face. But he couldn't not lie.... Or could he? No, no... Not now, he decided, not now.
Heero set his books down and turned to face Duo completely. "Ah. Money issues?" Logically he couldn't think of another reason, outside of being homeschooled, for a kid like Duo not to attend a school of some kind. Unless, that is, his suspicions were correct. And that would make everything different.
"Yeah, real bad ones...can't really afford anything these days," Duo quickly put a smile on his face. "I mean, I kinda have a place to stay, but it does get boring, I must admit, when you gotta live by yourself."
Shrugging, Heeo replied, "I live by myself." his eyes hardened. "Back to the topic at hand," here Duo had to fight the urge to sigh. "Do you know how that note got into my house, into my room, and on my table?"
`Yeah, I do happen to know that,' Duo thought as he replied, "Nope. Like I said, I'm just a kid."
.
"Aye, a very old kid if yer askin' me." grunted the driver from the front of the bus.
"Hey, just 'cause I'm not a little kid doesn't mean I'm old!" Duo glared at the man controlling the steering wheel.
The driver smirked. "Yeah, yeah, yeah..." he removed one hand from the wheel and waved it carelessly with a smirk.
Another glare from Duo silenced the driver.
.
Heero listened to the conversation, intruiged and suspicious. Duo's arm brushed against his momentarily, and he shivered. Duo's skin was ice cold. "You're cold." said Heero. Why was Duo so cold when he emitted an aura of warmth?
"What? Sorry," Duo blinked, "I'm cold?"
"Freezing." Heero stated. "Listen, come to my place tonight. There's more I wish to speak with you about." he found himself saying. He turned to look at Duo, and saw his amethyst eyes were filled with happiness and almost appeared to be glittering.
"Really? But I mean, I just met you yesterday, I--"
Heero shook his head. "Oh, hush it." [1]
Duo blinked. "So...you're serious?" He almost couldn't believe someone like Heero would want anything to do with a-...basically homeless kid like himself. The mere thought of spending a night in a nice, warm home made him smile, and definetly improved his mood. After all... He had tons of reasons to be depressed, one reason inparticular which occured on a certian date he didn't want to remember.
A nod from Heero made a larger grin appear on Duo's face. The boy was now happier, and voiced his glee loudly to spite the driver, who was glaring at him in the rear-view mirror. Duo's eyes glazed over as an image ran through his mind. Hadn't something like this happened that day? Wait...no, that wasn't possible. Or was it...? His thoughts were brought back to reality as Heero jabbed his elbow. "Oh! Sorry, what'd ya say?"
"I said, this is my stop. You're coming with me tonight."
There was something in Heero's tone of voice Duo didn't exactly love, but didn't exactly hate either. "Mm'kay." Duo said.
.
Heero's house was really just a one-room apartment, not like it mattered any to Duo, however. It was well-kept, to say the least, and it became obvious to Duo how much of a perfectionist Heero really was when he saw the impeccably ordered everythings around the front room. He was almost afraid to sit down or touch anything, for fear he would ruin the beautiful perfection Heero had worked so hard to establish with his untidyness. But he found he had no choice as Heero instructed him to sit in one of the chairs- a command which Duo immediately obeyed.
Heero sunk into a chair opposite the braided boy and looked into amethyst depths, searching for answers he wasn't sure existed. Duo froze under Heero's penetrating gaze, already thinking up a million and one things he could have done to do something wrong. "Duo." Heero said monotonusly, tapping his fingers quite loudly on the silk-woven arm of a grey-green chair.
"What's up, Heero?" Duo asked quickly.
The boy in question remained silent for a few long moments. "What do you know about...the legends?"
"Well," Duo froze. "There's lotsa tales to it really, no one knows the real story about the.... Well, which legend do you mean? There's the one about the 576, one about the kid and driver whose bodies were never found, one about--" Geez, he felt so...pathetic. Talking about something which happened at least half a century ago. Luckily he was cut off by Heero.
"All of them, Duo. Tell me about all of them." Heero interrupted.
Duo sat back in his chair unconciously. "Um...okay. Well, see, fifty or so years ago there was this bus and driver, right? And so, the bus was going over a bridge one day, and the driver went, like...crazy. He started yelling all these insane things in another language, and drove the bus off the edge of the bridge. Everyone died when the bus hit the ground below, and even though some rescue crew people came they never found all the bodies. Supposedly there was the body of a kid around our age...and the driver. But no one ever found their bodies, because no one went inside the bus to look, and--"
"Hold up." Heero said sharply, "That's not what I heard from some girls." He peered at Duo suspiciously. "And how do you know all these things no one else does? Are you some kind of top-secrent agent or something?" asked the Japanese sarcastically.
"Nah," Duo shook his head. "I have my ways. Anyways, no one went to look inside the bus, so no one found the bodies of the boy and driver. Though, honestly, I don't think now anyone could find anything, with it being like, a half century ago that this happened."
Heero nodded. "Reasonably so, reasonably so..." He dug his hand into his pocket, and withdrew the note he found the previous night. It was now slightly bent from being held within the boy's pants for so long; it was showing faint signs of wear."You still haven't answered my question about this. Duo."
Duo sighed. "Like I said, Heero. Logically, there's no way anyone could just appear in your bedroom out of nowhere and deposit a note on your nightstand. I mean, they'd have to be a ghost or something. But I don't think someone like you would believe in ghosts, Heero." He peered at Heero through widen violet eyes.
"Duo," Heero said, "Just answer my question. Did you, or did you not, put the note on my desk?"
~~~*~~~
[1] Justina from school says this all the time...TABAAAANN!! (you won't understand "Tabaaaaaaaan" unless you're one of the 8th grade girls in my class ^__^*)
Ok, this like..sucked. I ran out of ideas for this particular chapter in the middle and the Fic-Ending-Scene Muse bit me, so I spent one helluva long time writing the ending for this fic, which I still haven't finished. I think undoubtedly this was the hardest chapter to write, without giving too much away. Aaanyways, I hope you liked it!
WAI...I got my hair straightened today. I now look like Trowa. One of my GREEN eyes is entirely covered by LIGHT BROWNISH hair. ^__^*
...
Forever Duo's Girl/TaraSaturn
email: glitzykiss67@aol.com
OR
IM: DuosHotandMine01
**Feel free to IM me anytime! I'm always on!**
Chapter Two: A Note At Night
Thanks to all my reviewers!!
And a glomp and hi to all the guild girls ^__^
~~~*~~~
The door closed behind the boy with a somewhat satisfying clang as he tossed his schoolbooks aside, leaving them for the next day. He still had plenty of time to do his homework, right? His hand rose idly to flick the light on in his kitchen, and he stared at the lack of what he supposed should be happiness which filled his solitary house. Not like he cared, he had more important things to worry about, like his grades, and paying rent. 'And that boy.' He shook his head at his sudden thought, pondering for a few moments as to who 'that boy' was until his mind reached a conclusion. "Duo." He said aloud. "Duo Maxwell."
He shuffled into the perfectly tiled kitchen, opened the fridge, and peered inside, cobalt eyes searching for the cup of water he shoved on to the metal bars earlier that morning while in a rush. Upon finding the single grey cup he was looking for, he removed it from the fridge and took a sip before replacing the cup to its perch in the middle of the first shelf in the fridge. He closed to door slowly, body in his house but mind somewhere else- on a certian amethyst-eyed, braided, peppy someone, to be exact.
Climbing the stairs which led to his room, he forgot to shut off the kitchen light, and when he remembered, he didn't care. His room was dark when he entered it; the darkness fit his personality. Empty...mysterious...dead. Somewhere deep, deep inside of him, he wanted to find a light, though currently he didn't know who or what that light could be. He would never admit to feeling how he did to anyone without killing them thereafter, but in order to tell anyone in the first place he had to convince himself he could handle his emotions. Sigh. Emotions were one of the only things which confused him.
The most inviting thing to Heero right now was simply to go to sleep, but something on his nightstand caught his eye. A folded piece of paper lay precariously amidst the rest of the objects he kept by his bed- an alarm clock, some pens, and other random things he never had time to catagorize. Curious, he extended one hand and grasped the note, realizing suddenly it hadn't been there this morning. Someone must have broken into his house, yet nothing was out of place; everything was how he left it that morning. Something, he decided, was not right. Nimble hands unfolded the note and he found writing, which read:
'Hey Heero! Nice meetin' ya today. Hope you don't mind this note being all in your house, but I couldn't resist. So, are you gonna be taking the same route home tomorrow? I sure hope so! Well, I'll see ya then, buddy!' The note was in unfamiliar handwriting, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out who the note was from.
Until he thought of him.
"DUO?!"
Heero clenched the note in his hands. Something was not right.
.
The same figure from the previous day stood at the same bus stop, standing still once again but this time with unfocused eyes, deep in thought. He didn't notice, this time, as the pale 576 pulled up to the stop, until the doors parted nearly right into his face. Removing the same tattered, worn wallet from his pocket, the Japanese boy showed the driver the pass and took his seat, this time further in the back of the bus, by a window. He looked out the window. A flash of brown passed by.
With an ageless groan, the bus started shoving off to its destination, paying no attention to the braided boy chasing after it. "HEY! WAIT UP! HEY!" called Duo, flailing his arms like a madman. "You can't just take off like that, buddy! Slow down!" Duo caught Heero's eye and waved while running, motioning for him to tell the driver to pull over. "Ya mind pullin' over?!"
Heero nodded at the running boy and spoke to the driver from the back of the bus. "A passenger wishes to board."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." grunted the driver in response, skidding the bus to a halt. "Kids today... Not an ounce of decency..." he pressed the hidden button to open the doors, which did as they were told, to reveal the not-so-happy and pouting face of Duo.
"Hey, you could'a at least slowed down." muttered the boy as he took a seat next to Heero. "Hey buddy!" He smiled the traditional Maxwell-grin and waved.
.
Heero nodded at the skinny boy sitting beside him. He decided it, there was definetly something not right about Duo, no matter how friendly and magnetic he seemed. "I need to speak to you."
Duo grinned and tilted his head sideways at Heero, violet eyes sparkling. "What's up?"
"I found a note in my house today."
"Oh? What was it for?"
Heero withdrew the crumpled paper from his pocket and unfolded it, handing the paper to Duo. "Read it."
"Okay!" Duo's smile faded as he read the note which... He shook his head. "Sounds kinda cooky to me; how'd it get there?" He peered at the familiar handwriting. Damn his carelessness.
"That's what I'm asking you. You're the only person I spoke to yesterday." Heero replied, sending the braided boy a mysterious glare.
"Well..." Duo said, "I dunno. I mean, I'm not able to like...float into your house or something, I'm just a kid, like you."
Heero raised an eyebrow. "Don't you go to school?"
"Um..." Duo panicked, he didn't expect interrogation. "I-I can't afford schooling." he was lying, blatantly, and hated doing so. Luckily Heero wasn't looking at him right now, or he would see the nervousness present on Duo's face. But he couldn't not lie.... Or could he? No, no... Not now, he decided, not now.
Heero set his books down and turned to face Duo completely. "Ah. Money issues?" Logically he couldn't think of another reason, outside of being homeschooled, for a kid like Duo not to attend a school of some kind. Unless, that is, his suspicions were correct. And that would make everything different.
"Yeah, real bad ones...can't really afford anything these days," Duo quickly put a smile on his face. "I mean, I kinda have a place to stay, but it does get boring, I must admit, when you gotta live by yourself."
Shrugging, Heeo replied, "I live by myself." his eyes hardened. "Back to the topic at hand," here Duo had to fight the urge to sigh. "Do you know how that note got into my house, into my room, and on my table?"
`Yeah, I do happen to know that,' Duo thought as he replied, "Nope. Like I said, I'm just a kid."
.
"Aye, a very old kid if yer askin' me." grunted the driver from the front of the bus.
"Hey, just 'cause I'm not a little kid doesn't mean I'm old!" Duo glared at the man controlling the steering wheel.
The driver smirked. "Yeah, yeah, yeah..." he removed one hand from the wheel and waved it carelessly with a smirk.
Another glare from Duo silenced the driver.
.
Heero listened to the conversation, intruiged and suspicious. Duo's arm brushed against his momentarily, and he shivered. Duo's skin was ice cold. "You're cold." said Heero. Why was Duo so cold when he emitted an aura of warmth?
"What? Sorry," Duo blinked, "I'm cold?"
"Freezing." Heero stated. "Listen, come to my place tonight. There's more I wish to speak with you about." he found himself saying. He turned to look at Duo, and saw his amethyst eyes were filled with happiness and almost appeared to be glittering.
"Really? But I mean, I just met you yesterday, I--"
Heero shook his head. "Oh, hush it." [1]
Duo blinked. "So...you're serious?" He almost couldn't believe someone like Heero would want anything to do with a-...basically homeless kid like himself. The mere thought of spending a night in a nice, warm home made him smile, and definetly improved his mood. After all... He had tons of reasons to be depressed, one reason inparticular which occured on a certian date he didn't want to remember.
A nod from Heero made a larger grin appear on Duo's face. The boy was now happier, and voiced his glee loudly to spite the driver, who was glaring at him in the rear-view mirror. Duo's eyes glazed over as an image ran through his mind. Hadn't something like this happened that day? Wait...no, that wasn't possible. Or was it...? His thoughts were brought back to reality as Heero jabbed his elbow. "Oh! Sorry, what'd ya say?"
"I said, this is my stop. You're coming with me tonight."
There was something in Heero's tone of voice Duo didn't exactly love, but didn't exactly hate either. "Mm'kay." Duo said.
.
Heero's house was really just a one-room apartment, not like it mattered any to Duo, however. It was well-kept, to say the least, and it became obvious to Duo how much of a perfectionist Heero really was when he saw the impeccably ordered everythings around the front room. He was almost afraid to sit down or touch anything, for fear he would ruin the beautiful perfection Heero had worked so hard to establish with his untidyness. But he found he had no choice as Heero instructed him to sit in one of the chairs- a command which Duo immediately obeyed.
Heero sunk into a chair opposite the braided boy and looked into amethyst depths, searching for answers he wasn't sure existed. Duo froze under Heero's penetrating gaze, already thinking up a million and one things he could have done to do something wrong. "Duo." Heero said monotonusly, tapping his fingers quite loudly on the silk-woven arm of a grey-green chair.
"What's up, Heero?" Duo asked quickly.
The boy in question remained silent for a few long moments. "What do you know about...the legends?"
"Well," Duo froze. "There's lotsa tales to it really, no one knows the real story about the.... Well, which legend do you mean? There's the one about the 576, one about the kid and driver whose bodies were never found, one about--" Geez, he felt so...pathetic. Talking about something which happened at least half a century ago. Luckily he was cut off by Heero.
"All of them, Duo. Tell me about all of them." Heero interrupted.
Duo sat back in his chair unconciously. "Um...okay. Well, see, fifty or so years ago there was this bus and driver, right? And so, the bus was going over a bridge one day, and the driver went, like...crazy. He started yelling all these insane things in another language, and drove the bus off the edge of the bridge. Everyone died when the bus hit the ground below, and even though some rescue crew people came they never found all the bodies. Supposedly there was the body of a kid around our age...and the driver. But no one ever found their bodies, because no one went inside the bus to look, and--"
"Hold up." Heero said sharply, "That's not what I heard from some girls." He peered at Duo suspiciously. "And how do you know all these things no one else does? Are you some kind of top-secrent agent or something?" asked the Japanese sarcastically.
"Nah," Duo shook his head. "I have my ways. Anyways, no one went to look inside the bus, so no one found the bodies of the boy and driver. Though, honestly, I don't think now anyone could find anything, with it being like, a half century ago that this happened."
Heero nodded. "Reasonably so, reasonably so..." He dug his hand into his pocket, and withdrew the note he found the previous night. It was now slightly bent from being held within the boy's pants for so long; it was showing faint signs of wear."You still haven't answered my question about this. Duo."
Duo sighed. "Like I said, Heero. Logically, there's no way anyone could just appear in your bedroom out of nowhere and deposit a note on your nightstand. I mean, they'd have to be a ghost or something. But I don't think someone like you would believe in ghosts, Heero." He peered at Heero through widen violet eyes.
"Duo," Heero said, "Just answer my question. Did you, or did you not, put the note on my desk?"
~~~*~~~
[1] Justina from school says this all the time...TABAAAANN!! (you won't understand "Tabaaaaaaaan" unless you're one of the 8th grade girls in my class ^__^*)
Ok, this like..sucked. I ran out of ideas for this particular chapter in the middle and the Fic-Ending-Scene Muse bit me, so I spent one helluva long time writing the ending for this fic, which I still haven't finished. I think undoubtedly this was the hardest chapter to write, without giving too much away. Aaanyways, I hope you liked it!
WAI...I got my hair straightened today. I now look like Trowa. One of my GREEN eyes is entirely covered by LIGHT BROWNISH hair. ^__^*
...
Forever Duo's Girl/TaraSaturn
email: glitzykiss67@aol.com
OR
IM: DuosHotandMine01
**Feel free to IM me anytime! I'm always on!**