Leave Me Breathless by Hikari-chan
Disclaimer: I make 7 bucks an hour. That doesn´t sound like the salary of the owner of either Gundam Wing or Sailormoon.
AN: I´m tempted to say nothing, because if I start the chapter without saying a word, then you can´t yell at me. Not yet, anyway. But I should probably provide a reason why I haven´t updated in 2 months. I got a summer job, a full-time one, so I´m even busier than when I´m in school. =\ When I get home, the second last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer. (And if anyone is interested in the very last thing I want to do, it´s photocopying.) Secondly, university is starting in less than a month. Wow, the summer is flying by. And I didn´t realize how much stuff I´m going to need to bring into res. I still have a huge shopping list. Despite all this, I realize than one chapter in two months is definitely not too much to ask on your part, so I sat down and wrote this. It would have been out earlier if I didn´t get stuck at one point in this first scene. I did end up figuring out why it didn´t flow as well as I wanted, and I think it´s better now. I had planned to edit the chapter a bit more, but I figured I´d put you out of your misery instead. ^^;;;
frosty: You got your wish. This chapter, and very likely, the next one as well, will focus on the main plot.
O Genki Kitsune: EH?! Naru´s Heero´s housekeeper. . . . O.o
Lost*Faith: They´re supposed to be boy/girlfriend, at least for now.
Damia – Queen of the Gypsi´s: 1. I got that covered in this chapter. ^^ 2. *hums innocently* 3. No, that´s too cliché. 4. What? I don´t get it. 5. With peas. 6. With corn. 7. Gah? Dolphins, I think. 8. Maybe. 9. Maybe. 10. Bwahahaha, that´s funny!. XD
RubiiTsuki: I completely applaud you. ^^ You´re the only reviewer who guessed Heero´s fiancée correctly. I thought about rewarding you by giving you the chapter a day ahead of time, but you didn´t leave your email, and everyone else would kill me.
SilverBladeSilencer: Good question. I don´t know why I added it. Maybe my subconscious will provide a reason later.
Serenity Silvermoon: Hahahaha, man, I wish I´d read your comment earlier. Maybe the chapter would have been different. XD
Cilla: Thanks. It´s nice to know I won´t be sent to hell till after the final chapter. Maybe that´ll give me incentive not to post the last chapter, ever. XD j/k
Minna-chan: I really wish I had read your comments carefully before running off to write this chapter, because it could have been better. It´s a little, uh, different, from my usual works. Then again, this whole story has been different for me. Thanks so much for your continuous support and reviews. This is probably really redundant for you by now, but you made this whole story happen. I hope you enjoy the chapter.
Warnings: OOC-ness galore, as usual. Relena-bashing, PG-13, and bad writing. Read at your own risk.
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Chapter 14 – Lose Myself
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The shock that went through her system did not hurt as much as the sudden stab of pain she felt in her chest. But why would she feel that way? She did not know, and did not want him to know what she felt. Instead, she attributed the feeling to the guilt she felt for asking such a personal, and obviously unpleasant, question, and looked away from him.
She found herself staring at the woman in the picture, and after a few moments of silence, finally concluded aloud, "She´s very beautiful."
"She is," Heero agreed, plucking the picture out of her hands, which were starting to clench around the silver frame. "The picture frame is not alive, chibi-chan. You can´t kill it," he added, a bit of his earlier amusement lacing through his voice.
Usagi blushed and dropped her hands, watching as he replaced the frame on his bookshelf. "When´s the wedding?" she asked softly.
Heero glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. "What wedding?"
"You said that´s your fiancé," Usagi spoke, feeling her own voice rising. Why was she so angry? "So when´s the wedding?"
Heero studied her sudden change of mood in silence, noting her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. "There won´t be a wedding," he answered. "I said she was my fiancée."
Usagi blinked, startled by her own misunderstanding. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "What happened?"
"Aren´t we a little nosy?" Heero replied. And though his tone of voice was a cross between mockery and amusement, Usagi could hear the underlying irritation, hidden beneath the words.
She shook her head and decided that it was best to change the subject. "Shall we eat instead? I´m hungry now that I smell the food," she turned to him, and could tell when he rewarded her with a slight smirk, that he was relaxed again.
"Are you sure you don´t need the painkillers?" he teased her.
"I thought you said I wouldn´t need them," Usagi responded good-naturedly, pushing down the uncomfortable feeling of knowing there was another woman in his life, even if it was in the past. "Are you telling me you lied to me?"
Heero put an arm around her shoulder and led her into the spacious kitchen. "I would lie to everyone except you," he answered, unexpectedly and suddenly kissing her temple softly, sending shivers down Usagi´s spine.
Dinner was set out on the fancy marble table that sat regally in the kitchen. Silverware that literally sparkled sat next to the porcelain dishes and cups. Usagi could smell the fettuccini Alfredo mixed in with the scent of champagne in the air. All of a sudden, she felt uncomfortable. The setup was just a little too romantic.
"All you´re missing," she joked once Heero had seated her and himself, "are candles and some roses."
Heero turned amused eyes to her, and mused, "Shall I call the electric company and ask them to cut off my electricity?"
"And how is that supposed to help?" Usagi replied, her eyes twinkling at him from across the table, momentarily forgetting about the mysterious ex-fiancée.
"Then I have an excuse to bring out the candles," Heero shrugged. "While I´m at it, I should probably ask the florist to make a 'wrong´ delivery to me."
Usagi started to laugh. "I´ll bet you receive more flowers in a year than some girls do in their lifetime," she teased him.
"I´m thoroughly offended, chibi-chan," Heero responded, watching the personification of joy in front of him. "I would think you have more confidence in me. I think I receive more flowers in a month than most girls do in their lifetime."
That only made Usagi laugh harder. "That´s horribly conceited, Heero!" she accused him.
Suddenly, she stopped, clapping a hand over her mouth. "I. . .I´m sorry, Mr. Yuy," she amended. "I didn´t-"
He cut her off. "I liked it much better the other way," he replied quietly.
"I couldn´t possibly call you by your first name," Usagi argued, flustered at the sudden intimacy. "It would be so. . .inappropriate."
"I don´t think I´ve ever been appropriate in this lifetime," Heero responded dryly.
Quite suddenly, she felt angry, because his nonchalant response reminded her that he had probably been this intimate with many others before her.
"Just because you´re not doesn´t mean I shouldn´t be either," Usagi almost snapped back. When he raised an eyebrow at her tone, she simply sampled her dinner, refusing to be provoked any further. The food was good, better than anything she could make, she grudgingly admitted to herself.
She stabbed at her dinner, making the silverware clank loudly. She didn´t understand her sudden feelings of contempt. It wasn´t as though she didn´t know he had other women out there, and it wasn´t as though he was hers, or she his for that matter. Was it really just because he had lots of women before, and may still do? Or was it just because this one woman had been close enough to him to get him to propose? Or because she couldn´t bear the thought of him teasing and smiling at another woman the way he did to her? But why should she care?
The questions flooding through her mind only made her attack her dinner more viciously, and never did she notice him trying to hide the laughter that danced in his usually indifferent eyes.
"I suppose you wouldn´t be needing the painkillers after all," Heero mused, watching her eat with an unexplainable joy. Never in his life had he found such contentment in something so simple. And seldom in his life had he met a woman who actually liked to eat. Of all the times he had ever gone out to dinner with a woman, he could count on one hand the number of them who had ordered something other than a salad, or fruits. It was annoying to watch women who he could probably snap in two worry about their nonexistent fat.
She didn´t reply, something which he found quite uncharacteristic, but he didn´t comment. He knew quite well what was bothering her, and he also knew how to fix it. Letting her have what she wanted, at least for now, they dined in silence, and he continued to watch her, the childish way she stabbed her food, as though she could take out her anger on inanimate objects, the way her hair swayed gently every time she moved, the way her eyes were flashing angrily.
Deciding he would rather see her smile than the expression she was wearing now, he began speaking quite suddenly. "Her name is Michiru Kaiou. She´s a famous violinist."
Usagi´s eyes snapped up to his, a cross between curiosity and anger. She did not need to hear how much he loved this perfect woman. She had heard of Michiru Kaiou. The woman was the epitome of feminine perfection: beautiful, graceful, artistic, gentle.
"You don´t have to tell me," she replied, her hands gripping her fork.
"No, I don´t," Heero agreed, his eyes focusing on the fork. "But you want to know."
"Says who?" Usagi snapped, glaring at him.
"Not who," Heero answered flatly. "What. And the answer is that fork in your hand that´s about to become either a deformed piece of silver, or a dart aimed at my head."
"I like choice number two," Usagi muttered.
"I thought you would," Heero responded. "So to prevent my death at the age of thirty-two, do you think you could put that down long enough to hear a bedtime story?"
"I preferred lullabies as a child," Usagi quipped, but laid the fork down and allowed him to start all the same.
Feeling uncharacteristically nostalgic, Heero sat back in the chair and began. "Michiru was from a family as rich as mine, and hence, our families were together a lot. She was a couple years younger than me, but nonetheless, she was my best friend as we were growing up. What made that friendship even more solid was the fact that we were both the black sheep in our families. She wanted to do something artistic for a living, see the world. Her family held the traditional belief that she should marry into a stable family, and act as mistress of the house. I wanted to be an airplane pilot, but my father wanted me to take over the company. They thought we were the perfect couple, and waited for us to get engaged."
"And you did," Usagi interrupted. "And they were right, you are the perfect couple. Just look at the picture. Anyone would think so."
"Then they must be blind," Heero replied in an icy voice, making Usagi stare at him. "I know you can see the misery in her eyes."
"I. . . ." her voice trailed off. She knew he was right. The couple in the picture had been standing so close together, yet they were so coldly apart. "I can see it," she admitted softly.
"Then why do you say we are perfect?" Heero persisted.
Usagi flushed. "Well, one of you must have agreed. You got engaged, didn´t you?" she argued.
Heero grunted. "My father engaged me to her when Aegis´s stocks plummeted with the economy some ten years ago. He thought it would ensure our financial security. And since her parents were tired of waiting, they agreed."
"They forced you to get engaged?" Usagi asked incredulously.
Heero raised an eyebrow at her choice of words. "I prefer the term 'arranged marriage´, but you could put it that way," he replied.
Usagi studied the stone-faced man sitting across from her, and suddenly dared to ask. "Did you love her?" she whispered.
"Love her?" Heero snorted. "How can you possibly love someone if love doesn´t exist?"
Usagi frowned. "What do you mean, love doesn´t exist?" she asked.
Heero shrugged and looked pointedly into her confused eyes. "I mean exactly that. Love is nothing but the opposite of hatred. There is no such thing as 'happily ever after´," he replied.
"That is very cynical of you," Usagi commented, shaking her head.
"Thank you," Heero smirked. "I would have been disappointed if you believed otherwise."
"I suppose that means you didn´t love Miss Kaiou," Usagi muttered, more to herself than to him. "What happened afterwards?" she prompted, suddenly compelled to know the end of the his story.
Heero shrugged. "My father died, her parents wanted her to get married, neither of us wanted that, so I helped her escape," he summed up.
"Helped her escape?" Usagi echoed. "You make it sound like a prison."
"It was close enough," Heero replied. "I gave her some money and she was on a plane to England before her parents even knew she had left. I haven´t seen her since."
"Is that why you don´t believe in 'happily ever after´?" Usagi suddenly wondered. "Because your own story ended on such a note?"
Heero fell silent, staring soundlessly at her from across the table. "No," he answered almost darkly. "I just don´t believe in happy endings, to any story."
"Someone´s really lacking in a childhood," Usagi teased, wanting to lighten the melancholy mood that Heero´s statement had just installed. "What about Cinderella? Snow White? Beauty and the Beast? The Little Mermaid?"
Heero gave her a small smile, and returned in the same tone that she had used, "Someone´s watched too many Disney movies. The Beast is supposed to die, and Ariel should have turned into sea foam for 500 years. As for Snow White and Cinderella, how do you know they weren´t miserable for the rest of their lives?"
Usagi sighed. "So you don´t believe in happy endings. Do you believe in love?" she asked, looking curiously at him. This was possibly the most civilized conversation she´s ever had with the man sitting across from her. And ironically, it had sprung from the discussion of his ex-fiancée. If she wasn´t so afraid of ruining the chance of getting to know the intriguing man who had made her feel all kinds of things since their first meeting, she would have commented on it.
"Do you?" Heero asked instead of answering, sitting back and watching her, something that was slowly becoming a hobby.
"I. . .think I do," Usagi answered softly. "My parents are in love with each other, and they´ve been together for close to thirty years."
"What is love?" Heero questioned philosophically, a slight smirk playing on his lips.
His chibi-chan pursed her lips in thoughtful silence, tapping her chin as she considered the best answer. "A feeling," she decided finally, looking back at him. "A feeling of wanting to be with a certain person all the time."
Her voice faded as their eyes held each other across the table. It was as though a silent understanding was passing between them, a mutual acceptance of each other. Heero noticed this, and stood up with his hands shoved in his pockets.
"Do you love me?" he asked, a slow smirk making its way onto his face.
Usagi almost choked on her own breath. "What?!" she exclaimed. "You are the most conceited man I have ever met in my life!"
Heero laughed at her remark. "I´m sorry to say, chibi-chan, that you´re not the most conceited woman I´ve met in mine," he replied, amused.
Usagi rolled her eyes. "How utterly disappointing," she answered with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
A short silence followed before Heero decided to pursue his earlier question. "Do you?" he prompted.
"Do I what?" Usagi asked back, looking up at him in feigned innocence.
"Suit yourself," Heero replied, shrugging. "I´m not afraid to repeat what I said."
"I. . ." Usagi paused, the words refusing to come out. Maybe it was because the way his eyes held hers captive at the moment. Maybe it was because of the past couple of hours. Or maybe because she just couldn´t lie to him, or to herself. She was beginning to understand just why she felt differently around him. It was comforting, but scary at the same time. She was well-aware that she had known this intriguing man for a week, and there were still many things she didn´t know about him. When all her friends were dating in high school, she couldn´t find a single boy that she liked to take her out for pizza, yet when she was completely sure she wanted nothing to do with men, she was literally falling into the arms of one. Did Cupid just have a twisted sense of humour? She was starting to think so.
Was it even possible to fall in love in the amount of time she had known Heero Yuy? Sitting in his elegant kitchen, with his Prussian blue eyes looking down at her with an almost tender spark, a lazy half-smile playing on his lips as he waited for her answer, she was willing to believe so. She was willing to lose herself in his comforting presence, if only for a little while.
"I. . .I love you," Usagi whispered, her words almost inaudible, even in the silence of the apartment. "I don´t know if I trust you."
Heero´s expression suddenly darkened. That wasn´t the answer he had expected. Was she naïve enough to believe in love? Yes, he knew she was. But people who believed in love always realize the reality of it too late. In the end, all that remained was the pain the fleeting moment of happiness caused. Love wasn´t happy and mushy and warm. He had witnessed the consequences of it, and he didn´t want his chibi-chan to be subjected to such pain.
"Maybe you shouldn´t do either," he said finally, his voice grave.
Usagi stared, shocked at his reply. She had just confessed her newfound feelings for him, and he was brushing them off casually, almost purposefully. She stood up as well, hurt. "Maybe I should be the one to decide that," she retorted, spinning on her heels with every intention to leave that very minute.
His arm reached out and grabbed hers, gently but firmly spinning her around. She opened her mouth to give him a scathing remark, but his lips suddenly found hers, taking her breath away. He was kissing her with a violent tenderness, his tongue caressing the interior of her mouth, and his arms held her tightly to him. Every curve in her body seemed to fit itself to his hard contours, and her head swam in gentle ecstasy at the feelings he was provoking in her.
He pulled slightly away from her, his breath mingling with hers. "Leave, chibi-chan," he murmured. "Now, before I refuse to let you go."
Despite his words, his arms remained tightly wound around her waist and back. She looked up at him with scared eyes, but she wasn´t scared of him. She was afraid of her overpowering feelings. A slow fire was building within her, and more than anything, she wanted to stay with him.
"I´m not drunk this time," she whispered, succumbing to the impulse of brushing his hair out of his eyes.
With a muffled groan, he gathered her more tightly into his embrace and buried his lips in hers again. Usagi melted into his arms, kissing him back in the same way he was kissing her, and had kissed her all those times before. Her fingers busied themselves with his hair, and she could feel the heat of his hands pressing on her back.
Heero pressed her body closer to his, and Usagi was suddenly aware of the evidence of his desire pressing intimately against her thigh. Shaken, she pulled away and stared wide-eyed at him. She flushed visibly under his darkened gaze. At the same time, she felt strangely powerful and triumphant that she could affect him so easily.
Heero stepped back from her, his hands clenching into fists around the top of the nearby kitchen chair. One week of celibacy was starting to fuel his growing need, and his chibi-chan was not helping the matter at all. He could feel his own control slipping away like sand in an hourglass. He knew for certain now that he cared for her. He cared for her because she didn´t see his status, just the man underneath the stony exterior. She had no qualm about talking back to him, and it was refreshing to meet someone who could look past what the headline news named him. He didn´t want to hurt her.
"This is your last chance, chibi-chan," he warned her, his voice hoarse with carefully hidden passion. "If you don´t leave in the next minute, you won´t be leaving until morning."
"What if I sleep past morning?" Usagi replied, a teasing smile on her lips. "Will you promise not to kick me out?"
Heero stared at her in incredulous silence. Did she even know what she was agreeing to? Then again, at this point, did he really want to sit her down and give her a lesson she should have learnt in high school? Besides, even if he had to teach her the lesson, he´d rather demonstrate than talk about it. "I promise," he whispered lowly. "Now, come here."
She slowly walked to him, a little apprehensive, but he could tell that she felt the same unbearable joy as he did when they had kissed so passionately only moments earlier. Once she was close enough, he let his hands run softly over her porcelain cheeks, tracing her jaw and down her neck. She let out a soft moan, and that was all the encouragement he needed.
~*~*~*~*~
Duo glanced up at Minako by peering over the top of the menu he was holding. Something wasn´t right with her. He knew that much. He had, as planned, shown up just when she was about to leave, and asked if she wanted to "grab a bite". She had seemed surprised, which confused Duo. It wasn´t as though they didn´t go out anywhere at all.
Nonetheless, he had chosen a quiet restaurant with a minimal amount of people. The last thing he wanted was lots of flashing cameras while he ate. Normally, he and Minako would be laughing and joking, but she had been quiet since they had gotten into his car, something that Duo found both unusual and disturbing.
"May I take your order?" a primly dressed waiter asked, taking out his notepad and pen.
"Yea," Duo replied, his attention focused on the woman across from him. Randomly, he pointed to a place in his menu. "I´ll have that."
"Certainly, sir," the waiter nodded. "And you, miss?"
Minako´s eyes scanned the menu, wondering what Usagi would order. Something weird, or that sounded weird, like. . . "Calamari," she decided.
"Excellent choice, miss," the waiter commented blandly before picking up their menus and leaving.
As soon as the waiter´s footsteps were out of earshot, an awkward silence settled over the table. Minutes passed as Duo waited for the Minako he knew so well to smile cheerily and ask him how his movie´s coming along, but nothing happened. Impatient with the lack of talking, he decided to speak up.
"So, Minako," he started, "how´s life?" Now, he wanted to smack himself. This was not the way he envisioned dinner.
Minako gave him one of her famous fake smiles. If he had been anyone else, he would think she was just fine, because Minako was the best there was at faking cheeriness. But he wasn´t anyone else. He had known Minako long enough to tell which of her smiles were genuine and which were not. "As exciting as an electron!" she replied.
Duo blinked. "An electron?" he repeated.
"Yea! Don´t you know? An electron has a ground state and an excited state," Minako recited, feeling like a big fool. She was blurting out everything she had read in that long article. She had no idea what she was saying, but it sounded like something Usagi would say, right? That means the wide-eyed look Duo was giving her meant that he was impressed, right?
Another few minutes passed with Minako reciting something that sounded like the text from an encyclopedia. If someone estimated that Duo understood thirty percent of what Minako said, then they were overestimating him. Whatever happened to fun and laughter and talk that he would comprehend?
Luckily, the food came then, allowing Minako to take a breath and Duo´s mind to take a rest. The same waiter that had taken their order placed a huge plate of squid in front of Minako, and a bucket in front of Duo before leaving.
Confused, Duo peered into the large, but strangely elegant bucket. He was met with the sight of ice cubes, lots of them. He glanced up at Minako, who was poking at her food and wrinkling her nose. She wondered what she had ordered.
As though reading the question right off her face, Duo answered, "That´s squid."
Instantly, Minako turned green. "Squid?" she almost choked out.
Thinking maybe there was something wrong with the order, Duo signaled the waiter over. "I think there might have been a mistake," he started. "Are you sure that´s what we ordered?"
"Very sure, sir," the waiter replied, looking down his nose at them. "The young lady ordered calamari, which is what this is."
"Calamari is squid?" Minako interrupted, feeling her stomach churn with the knowledge.
"Yes, Miss," the waiter answered.
"Okay," Duo muttered, "then what about me? How come I got a bucket?"
"Sir, you ordered a bucket of ice," the waiter responded.
Complete silence reigned for a full five minutes before Duo realized what had happened. Sighing mentally, he cursed the restaurant for putting that on the menu.
"Uh, could I get a club sandwich. . .in addition to this bucket of ice?" Duo asked.
"Of course, sir," the waiter returned, and left the table.
Duo turned to Minako and saw her poking at the food, a look of horror on her face. "You want to order something else, Minako?" he questioned. "You don´t look so good."
The blonde model stood up suddenly and grabbed her purse. "I, um, have to go to the bathroom. I´ll be back," she muttered under her breath, and almost ran from the table.
Duo looked between the now empty chair and the direction his friend had run off in. Was it something he said? Mentally, he ran over their conversation again, but he couldn´t find any particular place where he might have stuck his foot in his mouth, except maybe the part where he said she looked ill. He sighed. If there was one thing he knew about women, it´s the fact that they take forever in the bathroom.
His sandwich came, and quietly, he ate his food, wondering what could have been wrong with Minako. What happened to his friend?
~*~*~*~*~
Minako splashed some cool water on her face, then looked up into the mirror at herself. What was it that Duo had said attracted him to Usagi?
She seemed more approachable, that was it.
Minako stared at herself, wondering which part of her face screamed "don´t come near me" to the men. But no matter how hard she looked and thought, she couldn´t figure it out. Somehow, her conversation with Duo now died easily. She didn´t know why they could talk like they had known each other forever when they were just friends, and now that she decided she wanted more, they had nothing to say to each other, even though she was trying her best to be the girl of his dreams, so to speak. Was this what some people meant when they said that friends shouldn´t date each other? That they were afraid of ruining a friendship if they dated friends? And if that was the case, did she still want to try this?
Because this wasn´t what she had envisioned at all as a first date with Duo.
~*~*~*~*~
"What do you mean, she never came out of the Aegis building?!" the beautiful woman practically screamed into her cell phone.
Her chauffeur winced from the front seat, and in an attempt to give the woman a little more privacy as well as his ears a little relief, he hit the button that brought a sheet of glass sliding up behind his seat. Amazingly, he could still hear the woman talking, but at least it was muffled now.
"It´s past midnight! You must have missed her!" the woman continued to yell. A pause followed before she exploded, "I hope you remember who´s the boss! I´ll fire you on the spot if you ever talk back again! I don´t care if you´re a lawyer or the best investigator in Japan! If you can´t get your job done, then you´re useless to me! Now keep working!"
She hung up angrily, her normally composed elegance gone. She was flushed with anger, her eyes narrowed, and her phone was clenched so tightly in her hand that she could feel it digging into her skin.
"I´ll get you when you least expect it," she promised, watching the lights of nighttime Tokyo pass by as her chauffeur drove down the street. "You won´t be ahead forever, Miss Aino."
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End of Chapter 14.
Reference: Heero and Usagi´s conversation is actually a sniplet from a conversation between Buffy and Angel from season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The actual conversation went as follows:
Angel: Do you love me?
Buffy: What?
Angel: Do you?
Buffy: I love you. I don´t know if I trust you.
Angel: Maybe you shouldn´t do either.
Buffy: Maybe that should be for me to decide.
AN: I apologize if you thought that was a little fast, but the sexual tension´s been building for who knows how many chapters. Any questions you have, just ask. I will try my very hardest to provide a good explanation in the following chapters, and to justify Usagi´s decision here. If it makes anyone feel better, my estimate is that the story´s only about half done. My apologies also to the readers who wanted more subplot. I´m afraid the next chapter will focus on Heero and Usagi too. I´ll try my best to update once more before school starts. Any comments you have are welcome. ^^ Have a good rest of the summer, minna!