The hair was a bit much when I got to university. In high school, people knew me long enough to know it was my trademark. They'd watched it grow. Sure, I got teased about it, but it was one of the perks of being friends with Quatre, class president four years in a row. I was vice for our junior year but friendship and quasi-politics don't mix. So arriving at the dorms with a braid down to my waist got a few questions.
I had to explain that psychological studies suggest that young kids do not handle haircuts very well. It has to do with the fact that some kids take longer to comprehend that you're not losing something important. Apparently, kids with issues with potty-training suffer from the same thing - they don't like seeing something separate from their bodies and subsequently disappear. Obviously, I didn't point out the potty bit because I didn't want that to hang all over me for the rest of my time in university, or subsequent reunions.
And I guess people bought it, or at least they got the idea that I didn't like questions about my hair. I'm not the most built guy in the world, but I'd like to think it's pretty clear that I'm a guy. Plus, there's another guy who does his hair in mini afros all over his head, trying to look like a Fraggle or something. Sometimes we pass each other and make eye contact and there's a silent understanding: Don't ask. Don't tell. Let them wonder.
Not that dressing in all black all the time didn't make people wonder, too. For my graduation present, Quatre bought me a set of t-shirts: two white, one blue, one red, and one tie-dye, just for hell. My first days around, getting all the weird looks that I remembered from being a tadpole back in high school... I seriously considered injecting some colour into my wardrobe.
And it had had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Relena told me that I looked good in my red t-shirt for a change.
Meeting Two of our presentation get-togethers, it was raining out, so the guys all had to move to the indoor track and thus Relena and I had to move indoors, too. But because of some prank gone awry the year before, most of the bleachers were under reconstruction. The first few rows were okay, but the rest were covered in tarp. So I got a first-hand look at Heero and Trowa half grinning as they watched me suffer. I swear when Heero waved at Relena he was mimicking my pathetic nervous wave from the week before. But I just grit my teeth and bore it.
We'd never gotten a chance to decide on our topic because of Relena's previous lecture, so we were hashing through class notes and I made a couple suggestions. The assignment felt sort of high school - I mean, our tutorial assistant (T.A.) was a graduate student who smoked one too many in his undergrad. He was a smart guy and made sense most of the time, but he'd never taken the course before. It wasn't his field of expertise - he told us the first day he was doing his thesis on Early Shakespeare, which is hard to imagine his dissertation with his Keanu Reeves accent.
"Juliet was so totally bummed, yeah, about Romeo chugging the spice, right, so like she lay on his blade and it was so done." My impersonation earned another giggle from Relena and I couldn't help but hope that Heero didn't hear it.
Not that I was any threat or anything. But I didn't exactly want to be put on his shit list unnecessarily – or at all. He's on track, so he's really lean, but it's all muscle. I'd watched him sprint at least a dozen times by then, both him and Trowa. Nobody can get from Point A to Point B with that long a stride and not have some serious power behind it. And no doubt if I got on Heero's bad side, I would be on Trowa's automatically. That would be two enemies for the price of one giggle. I haven't been beaten to a pulp in a while, but generally, as I recall... it's hard to wear a smile with your ribs kicked in.
I had to admit, even with direct contact, I wasn't pulling in my weight in the overall investigation. All I learned from sitting with Relena, talking about Dickens, was that she would've made a great English student if she decided to switch disciplines. I'm in English because I'm a detail freak - every word choice is important - and she gets that. I guess it's because when you're speaking, you have to be so careful that you say exactly what you want to be heard.
In fiction, I can't believe there's a lot that's accidental. Everything is there for a reason and it's ordered in a certain way to communicate a message. And she's all about Communications, so the nit-picky analyses I would digress into were never lost on her. Sometimes she'd join in and add things, too. But two meetings, general hellos when I passed by, but I had gotten no closer to getting to know her.
I would go back to the dorms, go to Quatre's and sulk. He'd do his homework, I'd occupy his bed. Face down, usually, with my face in a pillow, playing dead. It was right next to his desk, so he'd tap away at his laptop doing his assignments or playing on the internet. Every so often he'd reach over with his foot and kick me to see if I was still alive. He said I was getting too big to carry. (Cheeky bastard.) Eventually he'd finish whatever he was doing, come over, sit on my back, tell me that we have to go do something because he was bored now, and that was that. Quatre had spoken, and as it was said, so shall it be done. (Cue Thunderclap)
And it worked every damn time. A corner hotdog and a soda later, I'd be laughing stupid all over again. It was in this brief window when Quatre permitted me to quote-unquote "gush" about Relena Peacecraft. I knew he couldn't stand hearing about the girl - probably heard it all from his sisters - but I could still smell her. I could be taking out the trash to the dumpsters and suddenly smell lavender. On any other occasion, if I mentioned this, Quatre dropped me back to earth with a smack upside my head. Had a way with him, that Quatre. Everybody thought he was an angel, especially the adults, but I knew. Oh, I knew.
I would tell him as much and he would hit me upside the head.
God love that cheeky bastard.