The Other Side
Disclaimer:Still not mine. If Papa Luciano's is real, its use in this fic is purely coincidental.
Notes: OOC, AU. :) Third installment in the short story collection, and since it's been a while since I uploaded anything here, just a short reminder: each chapter is a different story. See "Rumble the Ramble" aka Ch. 1 for more 411. And no, I'm not sure when I'm going to write a "slappy sappin' happy" fic because unrequited stuff just... gets to me.  Formatting's weird...  One minute I get "Body Text First" and then the body goes into "Normal, Arial, blah blah".  It's actually kind of cool looking, though.  Hope it's not something I changed when I was tweaking with defaults.  Death threats are creepy, but appreciated.  Boss, I am deeply indebted to you.  Will 5,038,499 thank you's do?  And the question is directed to the readers of course.  ^_^  Wait, please make that 5,038,500 thank you's.

'Cause I miss you / Body and soul so strong that it takes my breath away / And I breathe you / Into my heart and pray for the strength to stand today / 'Cause I love you... ~ If You're Not the One, Daniel Bedingfield

"Peek and see!"

Hilde graced her boyfriend a sideways glance. "Duo, I have no time to admire your random observations right now. Besides," she smiled like a cheshire cat and eyed the scrumptious sandwich in front of her, "mom's sandwich is practically begging me to eat it..." She took the item in her hands and dove. "Mmmm..."

Imagine her incredulity when Duo took the liberty to snatch the sandwich out of her grasp, but without the intention to eat it. He placed the sandwich back on the baggy, which left Hilde praying that the darn sea gulls would not make a feast out of it. Then she thought about what took place just mere moments ago and gasped. "Duo! You didn't want to eat the sandwich? That's mom's specialty! You remember the..."

"Chopped lamb meat, ranch dressing, lots of shredded lettuce, fresh tomatoes, etcetera. I know, I know," he told her, urgency evident in his voice. His hands were flailing to point at the hedge beside them. "But just take a peek and see."

At first, it didn't really concern Hilde. It didn't really take much to get Duo excited; add a pair of Playboy twins with what random thing he was excited about and he would have a nosebleed. She took her dear, sweet time to turn and look at the object of interest.

She sighed. "Duo... Baby... All I see are leaves and old gum idiots have stuck in the leaves." Her eyes narrowed. "Wait... Oh! I think I see it." Her pretty face scrunched up in a frown, followed by a wrinkling of her nose. "Eew... that's nasty."

He nodded empathically.

"How could anyone be careless enough to not properly dispose of a condom wrapper? It's disgusting! The trash can is right over there."

"No, not that," Duo whined. "It's either you get up on the table to see over this obstructive hedge or you can sit on my lap while I part the leaves for you." He grinned. "I'd say go for the latter."

"I'd say not," Hilde told him, nodding her head. "How about you part the leaves for me instead. I don't need to get up nor do I need to sit on some person's lap."

"Ouch." He placed a hand over his heart, where he pretended the words struck him like a piercing arrow. She stuck her tongue out at him and he grumpily parted the leaves for her, not really minding the dry stems that poked at his arms. "As if seeing what I saw wasn't bad enough."

When she saw the other side, Hilde gaped; her lunch was promptly forgotten.

The last person in their group of three finally came. Not that they were waiting for this person or anything; the couple was, after all, too distracted by what they found. "Hey guys, remember what happened to Peeping Tom?"

"Eep!" Duo and Hilde's respective sounds of surprise were uncannily on the same pitch. It was as if they were suddenly synchronized, from when they turned around and until giant red blotches appeared on their cheeks. "Hi, Relena," they greeted, still synchronized. They looked at each other and Hilde pulled on his braid hard. "Stop copying me!" she scolded, then became worried after Duo's expression of pain. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..."

Relena coughed at the scene that unfolded before her as Hilde doted unnecessarily on Duo, who was exploiting the tender concern his girlfriend was bestowing on him. "That was interesting," she commented, gracefully sitting in front of them. "So what was that?"

"What was what?" Hilde asked. She tried to control her fingers from shaking when she took her sandwich once more. Damn, even her jaw was shaking when she took a bite. "Didn't you see me pull on Duo's braid?"

The other girl nodded. "I know. I saw that. But what I meant was, what were you guys looking at?"

"The leaves?" Duo countered sheepishly. "You know... nature appreciation?"

Hilde nodded a tad too enthusiastically and Relena hummed under her breath. "Okay. Just wondering what that look on your faces is for." She nudged her head in their direction. "You know... the 'cat ate the canary' look."

"Umm..." Hilde turned to her boyfriend for some support, who just shrugged. She decided that payback was in order for failing to help her with this situation. "Well... Duo decided to be weird again. You know, his randomness? Is that a word?" She shook her head. "Anyway, whatever... You catch my drift, though. But yeah. His weirdness struck again and he decided to show me this condom wrapper under the hedge."

"Ah," Relena said softly, buying the alibi. The trio ate in silence, but she noticed the uncharacteristic loss of appetite her companions seemed to have. "Duo? Hilde? Aren't you guys going to eat?" The couple stammered excuses until all of their words became jumbled up on one another. She laughed gently. "You guys, calm down! Don't know why you don't want to eat your sandwich, Hilde, but the cafeteria's having a special today. Lasagna, I think."

"From Papa Luciano's?" Duo's expression turned wistful when he asked the question.

She nodded. Without warning, Duo stood up and pulled Hilde with him. They walked away from the table swiftly, and when they were sure that they were not in Relena's peripheral vision any longer, she pulled her arm from his grip. "This is for backing me up earlier," Hilde said sarcastically and punched him on his arm.

Laughing, Duo grabbed her and held her close. She was stubbornly resistant for a few moments until she finally gave in and held him too. "When you peeked and you saw, I wasn't seeing things, right?" he asked.

"No, you weren't," she replied, her voice muffled in his shirt. "I saw what you saw." Hilde slightly tilted her head up, her eyes rolling up to look at him. "I didn't want to believe it."

With her voice still muffled, it took a while for Duo to decipher what she said. He scratched his head when he understood her words. "Well... we both thought different, I guess. But we didn't see different." He kissed her forehead. "Did we?" he asked, echoing his question once more just to make sure, just to assure himself...

Hilde was reluctant to oblige. "Yes..." She gave him a short kiss on his lips and ducked down again to find comfort in his shirt. "We didn't see different."

If it weren't for the temptation that was Papa Luciano's lasagna and the lull of shared sympathy for their dear friend, Duo and Hilde would have realized by then that it was all part of Relena's quickly improvised plan: to get them out of the area so she can take a peek at what the hedge seemed to be protecting.

Protecting her or protecting whatever it was on the other side of it, she didn't know.

Only one way to find out. After her initial and instinctive hesitation, Relena parted the browns and the greens of the hedge. The twigs snapped and the stems dug in her smooth skin, but determination fueled her to get her arms through the plant and see what was on the other side. When she saw the sunlight peek through the small hole she was finally able to create, Relena grinned triumphantly and spread her arms wider.

Through the bigger hole her widespread arms created, she looked. Relena saw past the other students eating lunch, past the procrastinators finishing their homework for their next class, and the lone couple sitting together, just straight ahead, was what she focused her eyes on.

Heero. Sitting with Catherine Bloom, one of the few sincerely nice girls in the school and the writer of the popular "Dear Heart" column in the school paper.

As if to add insult to the injury, they were sitting in the direction facing her. And if they raised their heads and looked straight, they would easily see her. They weren't close enough to Relena for her to actually hear their conversation; in addition to that, the chattering and giggling of their fellow students would drown out their words anyway.

But they were close enough for Relena to read their lips. Her experience with reading lips started in junior high, when she met Hilde, a spunky German-American girl with whom she shared many of her interests; even though the girl was more extroverted than she was. They were elated when they found out that they were in all of each other's classes. However, they were always seated at the opposite ends of the room. Gossip that couldn't wait to be told during break or lunch were penned and passed to each other.

Good idea, at first. The people in their class didn't care to be used as a "communication network" for her and Hilde. Until they started getting caught.

That's when reading lips came in. Both girls were confident that they were at least on par with those who have hearing disabilities. The rest, as they said, was history.

All of Relena's senses were attuned to that couple. She smelled a whiff of someone's cup noodle. She heard the pounding of her heart above all other lunchtime noises. She could still taste a hint of her own lunch on her tongue. She felt the twigs and the branches of the hedge, clawing into her skin like gnarly fingernails. Her fingertips touched the warmth of the sun's rays on the other side of the hedge; the warmth she wanted to absorb to make the coldness in her heart go away. She couldn't avert her eyes nor could she move away, frozen on the spot...

And she was left with no other option but to watch.

"Please say you love me."

Catherine was looking right at Heero as she spoke.

Relena felt the twigs digging in her skin more acutely as she watched. She didn't hear her heart anymore; she thought it stopped beating the moment Catherine said 'please'. With surprisingly clear eyes, Relena swiveled them to look at the one who captured her heart since seeing him at their freshman orientation..

The one who then broke it a month and a half into their current school year.

Experiencing that pain made her realize that junior year was not going to be all that great as she expected. "It's me, it's still me, please say it's me," Relena whispered as she refamiliarized herself with his handsome features.

Was she really that dispensable?

Then her body was hers to command once more.  Silently and slowly, Relena pulled her arms back, touching the nicks and small cuts she received from the hedge. She didn't see Heero's response.  Their side of the lunch area was deserted; it was the privacy of the space that made them choose the area. The other group that shared the space with them wasn't there, which relieved her. The short trek to the nearest restroom was made quietly, but the pain made it go on forever.

Not long after, a group of giggling girls came in the restroom.  "Relena!" one of them exclaimed.  The rest gasped.  "What happened?"

She stood by the sink, calmly cleaning the wounds on one arm, and then the other.  "It's nothing," she said softly.  Her hands were extra gentle on a particularly long gash.  "It hurts.  I had no idea it would be this painful..."

They nodded sympathetically.  The poor girls thought that Relena was referring to the simultaneous stinging sensations on her arms.

++++++---------++++++

For every coin made in this planet, it has two sides.

For every given equilateral triangle, it has two equal sides.

For every hedge that acted as a separator, it separates exactly two sides.

For every story told, there are at least two sides.

"Please say you love me."

Heero frowned at Catherine. "That was really schmaltzy."

"Hey bub, you're talking to the writer with the most popular love advice column on campus, okay?" Catherine retorted.  "Well, the only advice column we have..."  she added as an afterthought.  She placed a finger on his shoulder and gave him a nice, hard shove. "And besides, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.  So stop complaining!  As a matter of fact, I should include you in my feature."

"What feature?"

"I'm doing a feature on jerks, boys and girls, this month.  At least 30 couples broke up over the summer, so it's the perfect time to write it up.  Of course, you'll remain anonymous, but you'll know when I'm talking about you," she replied, not the least bit intimidated at the glare he sent her way. Catherine puffed her cheeks and gave a long exhale. "Tell me why you broke up with Relena again?"

He looked away. "I thought that junior year would be a lot to deal with..."

"Oh, thanks for another contribution to the infamous 'Bullshit Answers' list. So stop right there before I hit you with my shoes. Forget that they're my favorite pair, too." Her hands rubbed her temples agitatedly. "Get it straight, okay? You didn't do her a favor, and you didn't do yourself a favor." She looked at Heero and, taking pity on his downcast demeanor, smiled. "Hey, that's why we're practicing, right? Because you're going to show her that you're worthy of this second chance and then when you give her your dark, dangerous, and macho look while saying that 'schmaltzy' line, she won't be able to resist you!" Her fingers started snapping and her head started bobbing to a rhythm in her head. "Reunited and it feeeels sooo gooooood..."

"Hey, stop that!" Heero whispered harshly, grasping her wrists and pulling them down. Catherine laughed at him. "I get the point. Just don't sing anymore, okay? I think you'll do better as a knife-thrower at the circus." He let her wrists go and looked off to the side as a fond memory resurfaced. He considered sharing it with her, but then decided against it.  And he wondered what she may be doing at that very moment, on the other side of that tall, tall hedge.

Catherine wondered at his sudden silence, but her intuition allayed her. "You miss her."

Complete understatement. I need her. She's the sole thing that wakes me up in the morning where every brand of coffee has failed. She's the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thought when I sleep. The first face in my dreams and the last face when dreaming ends...

That sole memory that surfaced triggered many others until his mind began to swim in them.

Heero didn't look at her.

Catherine sighed and smiled encouragingly. "Come on, Heero. Let's start from the beginning, okay? You don't have to pretend I'm Relena because when you're faced with the real thing, you'll forget everything that you want to say. I guess we should just work on coherence then... so when you're saying things, they don't come out the wrong way, you know?"