"What do you say to escaping this party?" Ryoko suggested… suggestively! (A/N: Ah, yes, I'm a second Shakespeare!)
"Whatever you want." Trowa complied, crossing his fingers and hoping for the best.
"It's such a good thing that you finally caught on." The pirate dragged him giddily to what seemed to be a plain section of the wall, but she passed right through, carrying him with her. "What was wrong with you before, anyway? To let such a catch get away from you?" She continued levitating down Tenchi's hallways, away from the sounds of the first annual Washu's ball.
"Oh… you know." Trowa chased after her. "Being dimensionally displaced as I am at the moment, it seems like a good idea to behave more sociably."
She smiled sharply, stopping in a secluded area of hallway. "That's a nice excuse. Anyway, now that we're away from the group…" She gazed around as though she couldn't think of what to do next. "Maybe we should just get straight to the point?"
"Sure." Trowa checked his watch, figuring he would have his assignment completed in the next five minutes or so. He did enjoy setting records.
Ryoko looked relieved. "That agreeable attitude suits you fine! And that suit suits you fine. My room's over here, but we oughtta make this quick so Tenchi doesn't suspect anything."
He shrugged and entered the domain of the Masaki family's resident space pirate. The décor wasn't much to look at, but one piece of furniture immediately caught his sleep-deprived eyes. The four-poster, sea-green bed looked comfortable enough to die in, let alone get a good night's rest. Trowa rubbed his eyes unconsciously.
"You just gonna stare?" Ryoko slammed the door shut, putting an end to the enchantment the bed had put on Trowa. "Help me with these clothes!"
Somewhat surprised at this sudden request, Trowa hesitated, feeling stupid.
Ryoko turned around impatiently and started fiddling with something in her overflowing closet, shifting heaps of outfits around in search of something.
The gundam pilot reminded himself that he had indeed learned to fly a mobile suit. It had been easy. He had mastered acrobatics. It had been simple. He had invented the world's most supernatural hair gel. It had been effortless. He told himself that after accomplishing all that he had, undoing a button in some random white dress should be no problem.
"Hey!" Ryoko swung around suspiciously at the feeling of one of her buttons being messed with. "What do you think you're doing!?"
"Uh…" Trowa decided that all his previous achievements had been easy because there wasn't a woman involved. "Helping you with your clothes?"
"These clothes!" She seethed, waving some dresses on hangars at him. "It's Tenchi's birthday tomorrow and I wanted a man's opinion on what would be the best thing to wear."
"Tenchi's birthday," Trowa repeated, blank eyes still resting on the challenging button.
Ryoko blinked at him shrewdly. "Yeah, birthday. As in the day he was born. I want to make it an especially…" Her eyes narrowed and glinted in the badly lit room. "special… birthday."
This news was immediately recognized as bad news. A special day for Tenchi Masaki was not what Trowa had in mind for his assignment. "Birthday…" He said again.
"Which dress?" She ignored his positively stupid response and shoved two garments in his face.
He held them both out at arms length tentatively. "These are dresses?" He tilted his head to get a better look at them, awed expression on his face. "They look more like… scarves or something… how exactly do they work?"
"Men!" Ryoko snatched the outfits back, appraising them herself. "They're dresses all right, and I think Tenchi will appreciate them more than you anyway."
"What's wrong with what you have on right now?"
The pirate floated in front of a full-length mirror and grimaced at her reflection. "You mean this nun outfit?" She snorted. "Nothing… if I were trying to enroll myself into a monastery, that is." She undid a few buttons at the neckline. "I'm going for a slightly different goal, though."
Trowa didn't suspect she was lying and realized that tomorrow's 'obsess over Tenchi day' could very well erase all his hard work up to this point if he didn't think of something quick. "Uh…" Okay, that isn't quick enough. In fact, a quick look at his watch showed that he had already gone over his five-minute goal.
Ryoko busied herself by playing with her hair in the mirror before a dark look fell across her face. "I just hope Ayeka doesn't wear that red dress tomorrow… who does she think she is, anyway?"
"So," Trowa said, grasping for any conversation at all. "What are you getting Tenchi for his birthday?"
She twirled away from the mirror. "Something really great!"
"Oh?"
"You bet," She used one hand to struggle with her collar again and the other to point to one of the 'scarf dresses.' "That's the wrapping paper."
"I thought you said it was a dress?"
"Exactly!"
"Huh?" Trowa goggled. "Oh… oh."
"Think he'll like it?" She remarked dryly, still scratching at her neck.
"Er… how about just buying him a tie or something?"
"Jealous, huh?" She kicked off her dress shoes and reclined against an overstuffed pillow on the bed. "Tough break."
At the word break, Trowa could almost swear he heard something snap in his head. And whilst thinking about his head, his brain immediately leapt to a comfortable rhyming word: bed. His vision blurred, as visions tend to do after three nights without sleep. He vaguely heard himself say 'what the heck,' and collapsed onto the bed.
"Hey!" Ryoko shrieked, looking around for something thick to club the intruder over the head with. "Hey, if I was boring you that much why didn't you just say so?!"
"Scoot over," Trowa responded plainly, falling soundly asleep about three seconds afterwards.
***
"Why?" Kiyone put a finger to her chin. "Why would Washu intentionally make your room so inhospitable? I thought you pilots were welcomed guests?"
Duo shrugged as though he had no idea why. "So did I. You see my problem, then?"
"No." Kiyone pressed against one of the hard beds experimentally. The mattress did not respond the way a mattress made out of softer materials would. "I think you should just let Washu know how uncomfortable you are. She'll put it right."
Duo recognized his folly. One of the requirements of the assignment was to keep the assignment completely secret from the girls. If Kiyone kept asking questions, she might find out, and then he'd never get home. "Well… I would hate to seem ungrateful to Washu." Yeah, that's it! Better to look like a sensitive guy.
She looked unsure. "What about the other pilots? Aren't they losing sleep over this, too? This has got to be fixed, Duo! My hyper-dimensional-room is very comfortable compared to this one."
"It is?" Duo responded wearily. "That's… nice."
"If you're too scared to bring it up, I'm going to tell Washu." Kiyone said determinedly. "Don't worry, Duo, this will be cleared up in no time."
"Huh? Wait, don't do that!"
"Why not?"
He couldn't let her do that. Washu would suspect that he was telling Kiyone everything. "Because…" What a mistake… he must be getting sleepy. "Because… Wufei would die!"
"What?" Kiyone responded, wide-eyed.
"Yeah! Wufei has this very rare disease, where if he sleeps on anything soft he stops breathing and dies! You've noticed how uptight he is." He added the last with a confident flourish.
"What are you talking about? What kind of disease is that?"
"An… anti-comfort-suffocation-thing disease. It's very rare. He keeps it a big secret, so don't tell anybody I told you."
"Well that's terrible." She folded her arms and looked thoughtful. "But why can't you just ask Washu for a different bed for you and the others?"
"Uhhh… because Wufei's disease also kills him if he sees other people sleeping comfortably."
"What? I've never heard of anything-"
Duo interrupted. "It's incredibly rare! That's why he's so incredibly uptight!"
"If that's the case, just get a room of your own…"
"But then Quatre would die!" Duo wailed dramatically.
Kiyone took a few steps back. "This is getting creepy. What's the matter with Quatre?"
"You know what? You don't even want to know. You can't tell anybody I told you, but it would be a death-sentence for Quatre if we were to go around changing this room or getting new ones."
Kiyone looked horrified. "This is terrible!"
"Yeah… poor guys."
"Not them!" She looked shrewdly at Duo. "I think it's terrible the way you're lying to me!"
"Huh?"
"What, you didn't expect me to believe that ridiculous story? I was a detective Duo; not born yesterday."
"But… but… but." Duo couldn't get out a fourth 'but' before the uncomfortable room's door was shutting in his face.
***
Washu grinned to herself. The first annual Washu's ball had generated some positive results for all her students. There to behold, was Heero dancing with Ayeka, despite the fact that Tenchi was loitering near the refreshments table, clearly partner-less. Heero had his unexplained dancing finesse to thank for that; Ayeka had to notice the difference between a graceful waltz and Tenchi's occasional klutziness.
The little scientist ripped out a sensor device and pointed it at Quatre deviously. It made a few whirring and clacking noises before printing out a result on the screen. "Good." Apparently, the blond pilot had been able to relax a bit as his heart rate was a lot lower now. Washu had a lot of questions she wanted to ask about what had been getting him down, but she figured it could wait until tomorrow morning. "Science never sleeps, but guinea pigs tend to sleep in when properly cared for." She cackled and stuffed the sensor device back where it came from.
***
"My feet hurt." Quatre complained as the pilots returned to the 'room of pain and wakefulness' after the ball was over.
"Yeah, dancing can really take it out of you." Duo sympathized.
"Not from the dancing," Quatre threw his pillow onto the floor and settled down there. "Mihoshi kept jumping on my toes."
Heero held back a rude snicker. "Forget your feet. We're all in for the ultimate torment now: sleep time."
"Except for Trowa." Wufei noticed blandly. "Wonder what happened to him?"
Quatre averted disaster by stuffing a moth-eaten blanket into Duo's mouth. "Don't say a word! We don't want to hear what you think!"
Duo spat the blanket out unhappily. "What? I was just going to say that Trowa's probably sleeping in a tree."
"A tree?" Quatre repeated. "I thought you were going to say something else. I'm sorry."
"Don't be, because I'm not finished!" Duo declared, holding up the moth-eaten blanket for impact. "I was going to also say: Trowa and Ryoko in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" He looked proud of himself.
"Argh!" The blond pilot fumed. "You are the worst! I don't want to talk to you anymore!"
"Oh…" Duo realized. "Actually, that's no good, because I need to ask you for a favor."
"What is it?"
"Well… Kiyone got pretty mad at me today, and I need you to smooth over a little lie I let slip."
Wufei snorted. "I should have known you were lying to her, Maxwell. I couldn't figure out why she kept hanging around with you, but this explains it. What'd you say? That you were rich, powerful, and not as stupid as you look?"
"I had to lie!" Duo insisted. "It was either that, or let her know about the assignment. And if she found out, all of your targets would have too. You know the way girls gossip…"
There was a silent moment of thought, and appreciation for the truth in that last statement.
"I see. You need Quatre to eliminate this threat?" Heero asked professionally. "Will you need a weapon, Quatre? I managed to bring my gun when we were dragged into this dimension."
"I don't want her eliminated!" Duo sat bolt upright at the suggestion. "I just want you to convince her that I wasn't lying."
"How am I supposed to manage that? You were lying!" Quatre shook his head against the hard floor.
"Well, I worked it all out." Duo said rather cheerfully. "Just memorize what I've written on this piece of paper and repeat it to Kiyone tomorrow. It should clear things right up."
Quatre took the paper reluctantly. "I don't know, Duo. I don't think I want to be involved with your lies."
"Puh-lease! I'll pay you back! I'll help you with your assignment!"
"How could you possibly help?"
"I could, like, tell Mihoshi what a great guy you are and stuff!"
"Great…" Quatre muttered. "More lying."
Duo grinned foolishly. "Not lying. Exaggeration! It's all good!"
"You do have to make yourself look good." Heero admitted, seeming disturbed by the uncomfortable floor. "In order to get the targets in an open-minded mode, you have to display your better qualities."
"So you're saying," Wufei said sarcastically. "That you're better at dancing than poetry?"
"Yeah, I'm saying that." Heero responded harshly.
"So what do you say, Quatre? I'll help you display your better qualities in exchange for you fixing this little setback with Kiyone?" Duo pleaded.
"I can't believe we're resorting to team-work to get this assignment done." Wufei sighed. "I thought romance was just supposed to be between two people?"
"You need to use whatever resources you have available." Heero said seriously. "Are you thinking about asking us for help, Wufei?"
"No. I think you're going about it all wrong, anyway." Wufei turned over to lie on his side.
Duo smiled widely. "We're going about it all wrong? Aren't you the one who hasn't made any progress whatsoever?"
"Maybe I haven't." Wufei's tone grew stern. "But I am the only one amongst us who's ever been married, so there."
Heero sat up, interested. "That's right. I'd forgotten about that."
"Hey, yeah!" Duo said. "What was that like, man?"
Wufei shuffled uncomfortably. "It was like being married. What do you expect?"
"Details!" Duo insisted matter-of-factly. "I expect details."
"If you don't mind." Quatre added, wide-eyed.
After a collection of his thoughts, Wufei answered shortly. "It was an arranged marriage."
"So you had to use team-work to get married?" Heero poked fun. "I thought you said romance was supposed to be between two people?"
"I didn't say that, I was quoting somebody else!" Wufei gave up on pretending to be comfortably sleeping and sat up like the rest. "What's the big deal anyway? What are you so curious about?"
"I don't know." Quatre admitted.
"I want to hear anything relevant to our current mission." Heero said.
"I don't know!" Wufei looked super irritated. "Being with a woman requires putting up with their nonsense all the time. You already know that."
"But you have practice!" Duo gasped. "You know how to do it! How do you put up with it?"
Wufei allowed a moment of suspense. "You don't. There is no secret. Women were created to drive men insane, and that's all there is to it. There is no justice in this world…"
"You're holding out on us." Duo accused.
Heero looked determined. "You must know some techniques for getting along with women. Tell us."
"You want advice?" Wufei was stunned.
The other three nodded.
"From me?"
Nods.
"Fine. Fine, fine. I've got advice for you. Go to sleep, and when you wake up, stop being a bunch of jerks."
"That's your advice?"
"What did you expect?"