"Happy Anniversary to me (even though I'm a week or so late)! Guess what! Can you believe that it has been a full year since I first posted this story! . And I only have 5 chapters? Wow... I'm so lame… In a years time I can only manage to type 5 chapters… no wonder I only got 19 reviews... I totally suck... (Ouch). Well anyways... I'm happy nonetheless because guess what! It's been a year! And I haven't dug myself in a hole yet! Go me! dances a little jig Go me! .. Ahem... (cough)

Oh and to answer some questions – Yes, the guys are probably most likely going to be bisexual except for Wufei who is totally straight and Quatre who only prefers guys.

Alrighties! On with the story…

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Chapter 4 – Just a Child

The most peaceful thing to wake up to is the sunlight on your covers gently warming them up, birds singing their tunes as though wishing you a good morning, and the sound of children laughing while playing a game downstairs. Quatre smiled softly without opening his eyes. He has had plenty of mornings that found him like this, laying in bed until late on a Saturday morning. He rolled over gently and lowered his head to Trowa's chest. His eyes snapped open in surprise when his head collided with soft sheets instead of hard muscle. He sat up quickly and frantically searched the room until the events of the day before played themselves over in his mind. Immediately, Quatre's mood darkened. How could he forget what happened yesterday? He came home from work to find his lover cheating on him and, then in a moment of rashness, asked Lady Une to transfer him to another place. Thinking about Lady Une, reminded him about his new roommate. Wondering if she was up, he decided that he should at least bid her good morning, since this was after all, her place. Getting out of bed, he stretched slowly before putting on his spare outfit. Looking at himself in the vanity mirror that was set up in the room, he was reminded of something else. He needed to get more clothes. He only had one spare outfit and since he was now wearing it he had one of two choices. He could either, do laundry and put off trying to go get the rest of his stuff or he could just go and get his stuff from the old house and worry about doing laundry when he actually had more than one outfit to wash. Deciding that wasting water on one outfit wasn't worth putting off the inevitable, he would go for option two. Besides he knew that sooner or later he would have to face Trowa and the others again; so he might as well be now before he had any more time to worry about it. Running a quick comb through his hair, Quatre walked out of his room in search of his newly acquainted roommate. His search ended in the kitchen. He rounded the corner in time to see her drink out of the orange juice box and then place it back. Cringing slightly in disgust he eyed the refrigerator door as it closed with a slight click.

"Good Morning! Well, actually its afternoon right now, but there's no difference. So how are you doing?" She asked happily, her eyes never leaving his face. Quatre smiled and nodded his head towards her as he answered. "Good Afternoon to you, too, and I am doing fine so far today." Her smile dimmed a little as he spoke, but it never disappeared. "So are you hungry? I not a very good cook, but I will try to whip you up something if you like? Oh! How about some toast?" Quatre glanced at the clock on the stove. It was a quarter till noon. No wonder she's so chipper. She's probably been up a couple of hours. Deciding to forgo a late breakfast he opened his mouth to decline her offer when a rather burnt piece of toast was shoved towards him on a plate. " See? That didn't take long at all! I only put some jam on it, it was strawberry, so I hope you like strawberries." Not wanting to be rude, he accepted her offer and thanked her quietly. Making his way over to the table, he heard her ask from behind him, "Would you like some Orange Juice?"

" No, Thank you. I'm not very thirsty" He lied. If he was one thing, it was thirsty, but seeing her drink from the juice earlier, told him that she probably did that to all of the beverages and Quatre had a thing about germs. Sitting at the table, he started to eat the toast given to him. She was right about one thing; She wasn't a very good cook. Toast was easy to make and it definitely took somebody who had no skills to burn it. Swallowing the crispy piece of bread, Quatre finally became aware of the two blue eyes that watched him. Mina sat catty-cornered to him, with her head resting in her hands. Quatre blinked in surprise and cleared his throat softly, "Can I help you?" he asked uncertainly.

"Are you always so formal?" The question appeared out of the blue and for the life of him couldn't come up with an answer. "I beg your pard…" he began

"See! Right there! Why not just say 'Excuse me?' or 'What are you talking about?' No body says, 'I beg your pardon?' anymore unless your, like, eighty years old." She interrupted him and even though he could have sworn she was berating him, her smile never wavered. He blinked at her again. "Well, I don't see…" he tried one more time to finish his statement but she seemed to have a knack for interrupting people. " Here, lets start over and you can skip the formalities." She straightened her back and cleared her throat. "Hi. My name is Minako Aino, but my friends call me Mina. I have been living here for awhile and also…" she stopped talked and looked at her hands as though trying to remember anything else. "…oh! And thank you for cleaning up the place. It looks really nice." She held out her hand and looked at him expectantly. "Umm… okay. My name is Quatre Winner. I just moved into this apartment, but I've lived in this city for a long time as well." He took her hand and shook it gently. She let go of his hand and lay back in her chair. "See, that wasn't so hard." Quatre spared her one more glance before returning to his toast. They sat in silence for a bit until her voice broke through it reaching him. "Do you have anything planned today?"

Quatre glanced at her and finally deducted that spontaneous, out of the blue, questions were her specialty. I would love to figure out how in the world her mind jumps from subject to subject. He swallowed an irritated sigh as she stood to take his plate to the sink. "Yes I do, actually. Why do you ask?" She seemed downcast for a moment before ignoring his question and asking another one. "Will it take long?" he turned from the sink and stared at her while knitting his brows together. "I am going to get my belongings and then I will be back." He crossed his arms casually and continued to watch her. Her brows came close together and a finger nail came up to meet her bottom lip. He almost jumped when she shot up and shouted a hearty "great!" before rushing over to him. "That will be perfect! My girlfriends wanted to meet you and I told them I would see when you're not busy, but since you are, its still okay because we can go with you to get your stuff and that way you have a lot of help and it won't take long at all!" She said this in one breath and as soon as it registeed to Quatre what she meant, he quickly backed away from her. "No! Please do not trouble yourself or your friends with my problems. I can take care of it." Out of all the things in the world, he knew that he definitely couldn't allow Trowa and the rest of the gang to see him with a girl, much less a talkative happy one like Mina.

"Oh! Come on!" She exclaimed grabbing his arm and stopping him from backing away. "Think of it this way. You're new and we just met, so what better way to get to know each other than for me to help you get your stuff from your old place? Plus as an added bonus you can get three more girls to help you out and one of them is super strong. Her name is Lita and she can really fight, because she has yet to lose a bet. Then there's Rei. She pretty strong too, but not as strong as Lita, but she…"

"I thank you for your offer but I won't need any help. I'm only going to grab some clothes and some other stuff and be out of there in ten minutes." Quatre interjected hoping to throw her off of the idea of 'helping' him. "Then we will just come with you and wait in the car, and then we can all go off for some cream sodas after you're done." She didn't even miss a beat, but Quatre was not going to let four girls go wandering around the mansion. "Miss Aino, I don't…" "Mina" she corrected quickly. Quatre sighed and tried again, "Mina, I don't think I'll be needing help from all of your friends. It is only clothes and a few personal items. There is nothing that will take four girls to help me with." Quatre looked at her with a slight smile even though his mind was begging her to let it go and not to keep pushing for her friends to come. Mina looked at him and then looked away dejectedly. She sighed a little and slowly let go of his arm, but didn't move from in front of him. "You're right." She said softly. Quatre fought for his smile to stay normal instead breaking into the huge grin that wanted to come out. He had won. He wouldn't be bothered by anyone as he picked up his belongings and he wouldn't have to worry about what the others would think.

"I'm sorry" she began, looking up at him, "that was rude to invite my friends." His relief crumpled as he watched her face changed from solemn to joyous in less than a second. "If you just wanted to spend time with me, you should have just said so."

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It took him another hour to try and change her mind but his resolved crumpled when she almost started crying. He knew she was faking, something in his gut told him so, but when she looked at him with tear-filled eyes, he knew that he was (as Duo would out it) 'had'. He had retired to his room after that, hoping that maybe she would think he fell asleep and leave him be, but a couple of minutes later, her voice broke through the silence. "So when are we leaving? We better go before it gets too late? Do you need boxes or anything?" He rolled his eyes and answered that they would leave in a minute. His new roommate always had a question to ask, even if she already knew the answer. She seemed to always be on the look out for new information that could give her a different aspect to view. Thinking about it she reminded him of a child. Children were full of curiosity, like she was, and they were good at manipulating people. She must have been a very lonely child… "It's been a minute, Quatre! Can we leave now?" … or a very spoiled brat. He chook his head and got off of his bed. Hoping and praying that she didn't act this way 24/7. Sure it was cute and also after a tough assignment, it could be refreshing, but right now it was very annoying and Quatre didn't get annoyed to quickly. Grabbing his keys, he walked out of his room and into the living room where she was waiting. She had changed clothes from her nightgown to a paid of blue jeans with an orange top. Her hair was pulled back in a braid and she had a yellow ball cap on. "You're going to wear dress clothes to pack your stuff up?" He pursed his lips and looked at her again. "Well, I don't have anything else to wear because we are right now going to get the rest of my stuff, so…" He dragged out the last word and looked at her with raised eyebrows. "She giggled while shaking her head. Sparing him only a glance, she headed towards the door. Quatre followed after turning off all the lights and locking the door.

Meeting her at the front door, he led her to where his car was and unlocked the door. Automatically he tried to open the door for her only to be push away slightly. "I can open my own doors; I'm a big girl." She offered getting into the passenger seat. Mildly surprised he shut her door and made his way to the driver's side. Just as he was about to open it, a click was heard, followed by a giggle. "Miss Aino…" "Just Mina" Quatre sighed loudly and continued "Could you please unlock the door?" She was bending over looking at him through his window. "Say, 'Please'." She taunted. "Miss Aino…" she slapped the middle console interrupting him, "It's just Mina. We're the same age, so don't address me like I'm an old women or something!" She said righteously. Quatre tabbed the keys against the glass, "Alright, then I'll just unlock the door." He out the key into the hole and turned. The little knob on the door came up but only for a millisecond before it was slapped back down. "Nope, you can't come in until you agree to just call me 'Mina'." "Miss Mina, could…" "No, no, no, no, NO!." Her smile grew even bigger to where it was almost touching her ears. "I said 'Mina', not 'Miss Mina' and not 'Miss Aino." He stared at her incredulously. "You have got to be kidding me. Please, could you just unlock the door?" She shook her head and another giggled escaped her lips. Quatre tabbed his foot lightly and crossed his arms with a 'huff'. "Mina. Could you please unlock the door so that I may get in?" Her eyes twinkled mischievously as he hand reached for the door. "Now was that hard?" He rolled his eyes and looked at her as the door popped open. Grabbing it before she could do anything else, Quatre got in and put his seatbelt on. He looked over at her and wasn't surprised to see her still smiling. "I have a question?" She seemed a little startled but indicated for him to go on and ask it. "Just how old are you?" He smiled when he asked it, mainly because he saw the look of surprise on her face and the unbelief that followed. She started laughing and could barely answer with the typical 'you never ask a girl that' before surrendering to a fit of giggles. Maybe it was her laugh, it could have been contagious, or maybe it was just the fact that he needed a reason to laugh since all he had been doing was cry, but whatever the reason, he soon found himself driving towards his old home laughing along with her.