Tori: *singing along to Toshi Keiyooshi* You went and died on me/ Like the selfish person you are/ Now I'll never talk to you again/ Never send flowers, never send cards/ Just send you prays so sad/ You'll cry tears in heaven-
Kegawa: '(¬__¬)' *pushes the pause button on the cd player*
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Mentally counting the names Hilde had rattled off before, I decided that, aside from her, there were six others living in the house. Duo and Duet were the two I had met in the restaurant, Quatre drove the van and Trowa had those deep green eyes…but who were the other two?
Nervous, I fiddled with the collar of my dark red employee uniform shirt. I still had it on… I must've looked foolish because when we rounded the corner back into the living room, the three boys there froze and stared at me.
The tense moment was ruined by Duo, who sauntered out of the kitchen, a pot handle in one oven-mitted hand, and mussed Hilde's hair with his free hand. She laughed and the other boys relaxed a bit.
"Guys, this is Cassie!" Duo called out, introducing me to the two nearest the television.
"I know… You were on TV," the brown haired boy stretched out on the couch deadpanned.
"Cass, the remote control nazi over there is Heero, and the guy with the ponytail's Chang Wu Fei," Duo explained, pointing to each in turn with the soup ladle from the pot.
"It's a queue, moron. Get it right," Wu Fei snapped, then turned to me. "Nice to meet you, Cassie," he half-smiled and resumed his conversation with Trowa.
I could hardly focus on anything that had been said after Heero had mentioned the TV. With a rare burst of confidence, I waltzed right up to a near-stranger and touched him to get his attention.
"What do you mean I was on TV?" I asked him when he shifted into a sitting position and looked up at me.
"Fleeing from the scene of the crime. They think you're our hostage. Is that true?"
"I'm no one's hostage. I here of my own free will!"
He smiled congenially. "So you're our accomplice?"
"Damn straight!" I blushed as his smile widened. "I mean…I helped…but not much! I-"
"There's no need to explain yourself," he said, looking away as he shoved against the well-worn arm of the couch to stand. When he straightened up, he was a full six inches taller than me, only an inch or two taller than Duo. If it wasn't for the girls' relative shortness, I'd have felt dwarfed. Quatre was about me height. I was maybe a little shorter, but..
I shook my head, dismissing the analysis. I analyzed things too much. Irrelevant things. Like the spellings of complicated words or the random tangents of conversations. Just like I was doing right now…Strange tenses. And, you know what bothers me? When in your head you try to say the letter 's' and you lisp it. It sounds like 'esh'.
"Cassie?"
"Hm?"
Duo was holding out a chair for me at the table. I blushed and sat down quickly. Dinner among strangers. Wow. This was awkward.
I waited for Duo to sit down too, but he started back into the kitchen. Hilde parked herself on my right and I felt a little better. She was the type of person you could count on to start a conversation between two people and that's just what I needed. If I was going to live with these people, I sure as hell better get to know them. But…I still wanted Duo around. He said he'd protect me from anyone who didn't like me.
"Essen!" Hilde urged.
My eyes darted around the room. At first I thought I had misheard her, but after a few seconds I was sure she had told me to, in fact, "Essen".
"What…?"
"Mangé!" Duo yelled from the kitchen, the humor evident in his voice. I, on the other hand, did not see what was so funny.
I blinked a few times, trying to convey the idea that I had absolutely NO idea what they had just told me to do or how I was to go about doing it.
Trowa looked up at me from across the table and smirked. "Eat," he said.
"You can just ignore them if you want," Quatre, who was sitting between Trowa and Wu Fei, added as Duo and Hilde dissolved into a fit of giggles. I had a feeling you couldn't really ignore anyone in this house, but I nodded at him in good humor anyway. They were trying their hardest and I should too.
Dinner was simple, just a chunky stew, cold cuts, bread and condiments for sandwiches and iced tea.
The conversation, for the most part, followed a vein of humor, skipping from topic to topic. I made the mistake of asking where Duo was, since he wasn't eating at the table, and that turned the tide of the conversation to Duet and the mission for a short time before someone made another crack about Trowa's uniform, artfully steering back on course. Dinner was an escape from the day, not the time to reflect on it. Mental note.
It seemed…so very simple.
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Tori: Again, sorry for the broken languages… 'Mangé' is Italian and 'Essen' is German, as far as I know. ^__^*
Awa: I drew a BOAT! ^________________________^
Tori & Ke: O__o