She was too shocked to move at first, like an animal that plays dead to elude a predator.

And Trowa had to admit that on some level, like a predator, it was the thrill of the conquest that had driven him. He felt no warmth toward Juri. But it was exhilarating to feel her lips stiffen under his. To see it bother her. If only he could do the same to Quatre, he thought. Perhaps at lunch, or on the fencing strip, surrounded by dozens of onlookers so there was no chance of denying it later. Imagining it was Quatre's mouth beneath his, Quatre's arm tearing out of his grip, he pressed harder.

Juri pulled herself away, and the palm of her hand connected with Trowa's cheek with a loud slap that ricocheted off the surrounding buildings. The force of it nearly sent Trowa into the fountain. As he caught himself, he did not need to raise a hand to his cheek to feel the heat growing there. That would have been an admission of surprise, and he couldn't say he had expected impunity for his actions. After all, he had caught Diana at her bath, so to speak.

"How dare you," Juri growled. Her eyes burned with betrayal. Her lips worked like shutters as she fought to find the right words to express her shock and disgust; and when she could not, just repeated: "How dare you!" She leaped to her feet. "To think I defended you, y-you impudent, egomaniacal . . . What do you have to say for yourself?"

What was there to say? Trowa couldn't apologize for something he didn't regret doing, so he said nothing. A small smile crept onto his lips.

Seeing it, she let out a strangled cry. "You're both insane!" she said and strode quickly away.

But there were curses in her eyes left unmade, and he knew not to expect the same kindness she had professed just moments ago in the future.

If only either of them had seen the two girls passing through on their way home from the library, their only witnesses. Would it have made a difference?

Of course, what transpired that night made it around the tenth grade the next day with all the exaggeration and error of hearsay; and the two participants stubbornly pretended not to hear a word of it.

Quatre heard, however, heard all the ways it could be told. Heard all too clearly.

•

"I pray thee good Mercutio," Miki says as he tugs at his collar, sprawled over the steps of the memorial hall, "let's retire. The day is hot, the Capulets abroad; and if we meet we shall not 'scape a brawl, for now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."

Beside him, leaning against a stone pillar, Juri chortles. "Thou art like one of these fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table, and says—" And she waves her sword arm melodramatically. "—'God send me no need of thee'; and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."

Miki looks up. "Am I like such a fellow?"

She turns to him suddenly, a wicked gleam in her eyes and at the hollow of her throat exposed beneath her unbuttoned collar. "Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved."

"And what to?"

"Nay an there were two such we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou?" She smiles to herself and crosses her arms knowingly. "Why thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes; what eye, but such an eye, would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head has been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling."

She looks genuinely pleased with herself, so that Miki cannot help a sheepish grin and a toss of his azure head. "An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art," he says, "any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a half."

"The fee-simple? O simple!"

Coyly she nudges him, but he hardly notices. "By my head," says he, distracted, "here comes the Capulets."

And sure enough, moving toward them across the courtyard, a group of rakish young men in sky blue, led by that sad-faced duelist with olive green eyes.

At the sight of him, Juri turns her back. "By my heel, I care not."

"I must say, gentlemen, I do think I have that story rather well-rehearsed. Why just the other day I was heading into town when this fellow I know saw me in the distance and called out to me in jest—"

"Have you heard, have you heard? Word is that new student is nothing but trouble! Ladies, be careful, a green-eyed boy like that has something suspicious up his sleeves, you can be sure of it. Why, I heard he's a real Georgy Porgy!"

"A Georgy Porgy, now? You made that up."

"Scout's honor, I did not. —Eh, but there're branches in your hair! And why the cold manner? O-ho, now it makes sense! You were sneaking off with him after all, weren't you? Rolling in the bushes with the green-eyed monster, hm? Don't try to hide it from me. I want details. Details!"

"By Jove—"

"By who? By mauve? How odd to swear on a color. By Mab, surely."

"By whom! By Jupiter! You have a one-track mind, and that track is a gutter. I clipped these boughs from the North Garden, perfectly on purpose."

"Eh? Not the North Garden you say!"

"Yes, I say the North Garden."

"Not the garden at the north end of campus!"

"Yes, the very same."

"Not the garden of the old student council president's laurels, may he rest in peace!"

"He's not dead yet. And we're getting a touch repetitive, aren't we?"

". . ."

"Yes, I plucked them from the old student council president's North Garden laurels with a folding aluminum ladder and a meaty set of branch clippers, thanks so much for asking."

"You're most welcome. They have veritably taken over, if you ask me. If you don't cut them back every year in the autumntime, they'll shoot up all scraggly and choke out everything in the garden! What a world, what a world!"

"You have to give a little to get a little. That's life."

"But by Jupiter, by Julius, you do look like a despot in that greenery."

"And a despot does look the part to make a salad."

"Because revenge is a dish best served cold with a side of Caesar!"

"Follow me close, for I will speak to them," Trowa tells his companions. And when he reaches the bottom of the steps where the two stand: "Gentlemen, good den; a word with one of you."

"And but one word with one of us?" Juri faces him with an impudent grin. "Couple it with something, make it a word and a blow."

A subtle wildness in Trowa's own expression tells her he is tempted. "You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion."

"Could you not take some occasion without giving?"

"Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo."

She starts, feigning hurt with a hand to her heart. "Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my fiddlestick," she says, laying an itching hand on the hilt of her rapier; "here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!"

Click! goes the stopwatch.

Miki has intercepted her. "We talk here in the public haunt of men," he warns. "Either withdraw unto some private place, or reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us."

"Men's eyes were made to look," she breathes, the shade of bloodlust falling over her own, "and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I."

But Trowa's interest is suddenly moved elsewhere. "Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man."

Turning to see, Juri scoffs when she recognizes the newcomer. "But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery," says she to Trowa. "Marry go before to field, he'll be your follower; your worship in that sense may call him man."

"Romeo," says Trowa with ice-cold gravity, ignoring her, "the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this—thou art a villain."

But Quatre only smiles when he sees who addresses him. "Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a greeting—villain I am none. Therefore farewell," he says, turning his back, "I see thou knowest me not."

"Boy," Trowa calls after him, "this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw."

"I do protest I never injured thee," Quatre says, "but love thee better than thou canst devise, till thou shalt know the reason of my love. And so good Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as mine own, be satisfied."

All might have ended there, but Juri sneers and calls to their retreating backs: "O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away. Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"

"What wouldst thou have with me?" Trowa says, a grin tugging at one side of his mouth.

"Good King of Cats," she coos as his ready gaze fixes on her, "nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out!"

And with that last word of advice, she draws and charges.

"When making a potato salad, make sure you keep it refrigerated before serving. Otherwise you could get salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs in the mayonnaise. If someone breaks your heart, I say make him a potato salad!"

"Oh, right. I wanted to show you something. Tada! A genuine Chinese finger trap. Some boy gave it to me."

"Sounds suspicious. A gift like that, he's probably trying to make a fool out of you. Whatever you do, don't stick your fingers in it."

"Too late!"

". . . As long as you know how to get it off again."

"Sure, sure, easy as pie. . . . Heh, look at that. It's stuck."

"Well, pulling on it like that will only make it tighter. I hope you're proud of yourself. Face it: You've gotten yourself into a rather sticky situation!"

"It's not funny! I'm dying here and you make jokes! Can't you do anything?"

"Hm. . . . I suppose we'll just have to amputate. There's really no other way."

"Stop kidding around! This is serious! What if I never get out of this? If it keeps getting tighter, I'll have no fingers left! Just the thought makes me sick to my stomach—or maybe that was something I ate."

"Don't tell me it was that potato salad I left on the home-ec counter! It's been sitting out in the sunlight for four hours!"

"Don't worry. I knew you were saving it for someone else, so I finished off the collard greens instead."

". . . The eight-day-old collard greens?"

"They were eight days old? No wonder they didn't agree with me."

"Eight-day-old collard greens wouldn't agree with Superman!"

"This is it for me! The end—the Big One! Do not pass Go! Ack— A plague on both your houses!" Thump.

The curtains of Juri's lashes finally drop and her head goes limp to one side, copper ringlets falling around like a halo.

In the stunned silence, Miki stands. "O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead." His lament, hushed by fear, seems to echo off the buildings' façades with the gravity of the news. "That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds, which too untimely here did scorn the earth."

"This day's black fate on more days doth depend," says Quatre solemnly, "this but begins the woe others must end."

"Here comes the furious Tybalt back again."

They turn to watch the victor, whose rapier's still in hand, return.

"Again?" Quatre cries. "In triumph! And Mercutio slain." A sense of dread falls over his companion, but vengeful anger has clouded his heart and eyes. "Away to heaven respective lenity, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now—now Tybalt take the villain back again that late thou gavest me! for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company—"

Juri sneezes, and tries not to laugh when Miki gives her a warning nudge with the toe of his shoe.

"Either thou or I," resumes Quatre, "or both, must go with him."

"Thou wretched boy," says Trowa, his gaze brimming with accusation, "that didst consort him here, shalt with him hence."

Quatre draws his sword. "This shall determine that."

"Are you dead?"

"—Ah! It came off!"

"You see? All you had to do was relax. You should take my advice to heart more often."

"If I took your advice, I'd be out two fingers right now."

"But surely you must see the lesson in all this."

"No. What lesson?"

"You can't trust anyone but yourself—and, heck, you've proven you can't even trust yourself half the time!"

"Oh, your pessimism is corrosive! Those laurels have gone to your head, and not just literally. Let me have my youthful illusion. Let me have my teddy bear picnic and Brontosaurus, and don't tell me Love is a dirty old homeless man who pees on street corners."

"You feel ill—you said it yourself. This is nothing but the ranting of an invalid, you poor girl!"

"On the contrary. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

"By your reasoning, eating those eight-day-old collard greens was a good idea."

"It was an enriching life experience is what it was! And not only that—"

"You can't be serious."

"—so was the Chinese finger trap! Now that I know the secret, this time I'll get it for sure! Time me."

"All right, you've convinced me. You don't have to actually practice what you preach. After all, moderation in all things! . . . It's stuck again, isn't it?"

"I think I need to lie down."

Quatre trembles, his eyes wide in disbelief as the young men in blue drag the lifeless body away. It can't be real!

Catching his own breath, Miki grabs his arm and the blood-tipped sword falls from his motionless hand. "Romeo, away, be gone," Miki urges, shaking him. "The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. Stand not amazed, the Prince will doom thee death, if thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away."

But Quatre doesn't seem to hear him as he stares after the retreating young men. What he has done suddenly sinks in like a knife plunged into his heart and he howls: "O I am fortune's fool!" He staggers under the guilt, under the cruelty of an ironic Fate that has taken from him what he . . . what he most . . .

Miki grips his shoulders, turning Quatre to face him. "Why dost thou stay?"

And Quatre turns wet eyes to his, which burn with that same question, with wild desperation as he searches Miki's like a man who has found himself suddenly without memory.

•

Slap!

The thin book landed in the middle of the wooden desk, signaling the students to momentary, anticipatory silence.

"We'll stop there and pick up again next time," the professor said, cuing the after-class rabble—the sounds of books being shut and chairs being pushed away from desks. "Well done, you four, I commend you on such enthusiastic performances. And one last thing: I want to remind everyone the drama club is holding auditions for its next production, and I strongly encourage you to try out. There are few things in life more satisfying than being on the stage."

Quatre closed his book slowly. He heard someone compliment him on giving her chills with his reading, and looked up briefly when Miki smiled and patted him on the shoulder on his way past his desk. Collecting his things, he glanced over at Trowa, sitting two aisles away, ready to flash a sympathetic smile.

But it dropped as he saw that Trowa was immersed in his notes, as though nothing had happened between them. As though Quatre didn't exist.

"'I commend you on such enthusi-as-tic per-for-mances,'" came Dorothy's sarcastic voice at Quatre's ear, and he turned. "You make Relena's Juliet look like President Une. I tip my hat to you, sir." She bowed with flourish.

"Oh, that's cold," said Relena, coming up next to her, and Dorothy laughed. "My point exactly."

Relena let out a deep sigh. "Well, I guess I'll just have to try harder."

"Think of Heero next time: The love scene's coming up," Dorothy purred, causing Relena to blush furiously and elbow her.

"I think you make a fine Juliet," Quatre said. "Are you going to try out for the play?"

"I'd love to," Relena said with a shrug, "but who has time?"

"Who cares?" Dorothy threw an arm around her shoulders. "Are you guys hungry or what? Let's get some lunch."

Chapter notes: For this part, I thought it time to bring in the Shadow Girls. For those who may be unfamiliar with Utena, they are two girls, A-ko and B-ko in the series, who appear only as shadows on a wall during sunset and engage in rather random, obscure skits that usually have some hidden relevance to the theme of the episode. The look is somewhat like Javanese shadow theater. The first line of their dialog here is the first line of Plato's "Symposium," the collard greens schtick was inspired by an episode of Sanford and Son, but the rest is original.

The dialog for the four major characters is, of course, from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene One.