Relena had the queasy feeling that everyone was talking about her as she entered the room. Walking into the cafeteria, Relena heard a steady murmur of voices until her feet crossed the threshold—right then, she swore that the entire room fell silent.

It seemed fairly impossible that a cafeteria full of students could become so hushed, but then St. Gabriel was a fairly small school.

Relena flushed all the way up to her hairline but kept walking until she reached her usual table. Her friends were already seated there, and she hoped she could rely on them for some sanity, and perhaps a little perspective.

But the chatty group of girls, too, stopped talking the second Relena sat down. At first, Relena pretended to be more interested in tucking into her salad. She finally looked up to see all three girls gaping at her, as if waiting for her to speak. She heaved a sigh.

"Ok, you guys. What?"

Dorothy gave an indelible smirk. "We heard you made quite an impression on a certain exchange student," she purred.

Now it was Relena's turn to gape. "Are you serious?" she groaned. "You guys, I literally just met him a few hours ago."

"Yeah! When's the wedding?" Hilde all but squealed.

"Relena, you would look so pretty with your hair pulled up for your wedding!" Catherine cried. "You could do one of your braids across the top—"

"Heidi braids!" Hilde chimed in.

"Guys, stop!" Relena cried, putting her hands up. "What are you all talking about? I don't even know this guy."

"Interesting." Dorothy quirked an eyebrow. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Relena rolled her eyes. "I don't believe that phrase applies when the 'lady' and guy in question literally just met."

"Love at first sight?" Dorothy mused. "Should I be quoting Romeo and Juliet instead?"

"Please don't," Relena moaned. "There's nothing going on here—I'm telling you. I just met this guy and spent maybe two minutes talking to him."

"Two minutes?" Hilde sighed. "Wow!"

"That's amazing," Catherine agreed, twirling a strand of her curly red hair. "I hear the most he's talked to anyone is in, like, one-word sentences. And I thought Trowa was quiet! Compared to Heero, he's a regular chatterbox!"

Relena sighed once more, her patience wearing thin. "I didn't mean literally two minutes. It could have been shorter, or longer. It's not like I timed it."

"I would have," Hilde whispered, blushing.

"What a shocking conversation to stumble into," a snarky male voice quipped from behind.

Relena whirled around to see Wufei Chang standing just behind her seat. Great, she thought with a grimace. She quickly recovered and greeted the upperclassman with her trademark smile.

"Hi Wufei," she all but sang. "Is there something we could help you with?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Wufei said, grabbing a chair and plopping down between Relena and Catherine, though he wasn't exactly invited.

"You could tell me what's going on with you and that exchange student, and whether or not this scandal will impair your ability to serve on student council." Wufei seemed to be enjoying this. He and Relena were the presidents of their respective classes and often squared off at meetings.

"Tell me, Wufei, do you always believe everything you hear?" Relena asked, dodging his initial question.

"That depends," Wufei smirked, "on whether the information comes from a reliable source. In this case, several witnesses confirmed that they saw the two of you necking in the library."

"Necking?" Hilde screeched. "Oh, my gosh!"

"Yeah, I heard Heero practically kissed you!" Catherine jumped in. "But I didn't hear anything more than that. Did he actually do something?"

Relena put her face in her hands. "Nobody kissed, or necked, or did any such thing. We had one little conversation, and now the whole school appears to be having a diatribe. What I don't understand is why everyone is so interested in..."

Just then, everyone at the table heard their cell phones ring, chime or buzz. They all whipped them out to check them at once.

Relena opened her flip phone with chagrin. All of the students subscribed to live updates from the school newspaper, "The Guardian," which really functioned as a gossip blog. How did Relena know that the latest item would be about her?

Someone had snapped a photo of Heero, looking quite annoyed, in a hallway. The caption underneath read, "Salve Relena!"

"Clever," Dorothy chuckled. "Not a bad photo, either. Downloading…"

"That doesn't even make any sense," Wufei muttered. "If by 'salve' they meant 'save,' then they went with the wrong Latin word."

"Nobody even speaks Latin anymore, so nobody cares." Catherine stuck her tongue out at Wufei.

"I get it! It's kind of funny," said Hilde. Then she glanced up at a perturbed Relena and quickly backtracked. "Just kidding! It's totally not."

Relena snapped her phone shut and shoved it back into her bag. As she did so, she felt as if a million pairs of eyes were boring into her. Surely enough, she looked up again to see dozens of faces staring right at her. As sophomore class president, the reigning "Prom Princess" and overall popular student, Relena was used to having a certain amount of attention bestowed upon her. This, however, was getting beyond ridiculous.

Wufei shocked her by clearing his throat.

"Everyone, please go back to whatever it was you were doing," he announced loudly enough for the entire room to hear. "If you would like to continue discussing the rumor in question, you may feel free to do so at the next student council meeting during the public commentary session."

Relena gasped. "Wufei!" she whispered, elbowing her fellow councilman. "This is not a matter for the student council! It's personal!"

"Ah," Wufei smirked at her again. "So you admit it."

Relena smacked her palm to her face.

"What's really crazy is to think that Trowa's the one updating this thing," Catherine was saying to Hilde and Dorothy, gesturing to her neon pink phone. "For a not-so-talkative guy, he sure knows how to get everyone else talking!"

"Yeah, it's unbelievable!" Hilde enthused. "Trowa's so quiet for years and years, then turns around and becomes a journalist! He's a really good writer!"

"He wrote two words," Relena pointed out. "He's not exactly prolific."

"Not-uh, he definitely updates this thing all day long," Hilde pointed to her phone. "That takes dedication."

"He has his helpers," Dorothy grinned. "There are eyes and ears all over the school."

"Dorothy," Relena warned, "if you give him any help on this one…"

"I've said nothing so far! I swear." Dorothy held her hands up defensively.

"And you'd better not, either." Relena leaned forward and leveled her gaze at Dorothy. "I need to know that there are at least a few people I can trust."

"Just be sure to bury any controversies before next year's election," Wufei warned. "Even buried skeletons have a way of getting dug up..."

"It's a good thing we've got plenty of dirt on you, then," Dorothy retorted. It was the first loyal statement Relena had heard her say all day.

"Hmmph. We'll see about that." Wufei pushed his chair away from the table and stood up to leave. "Well, ladies, it's been… interesting." He cast a steely gaze at Relena. "See you at the next council meeting."

As soon as he was gone, the girls turned back to Heero talk, simultaneously tossing questions at Relena.

"So, what's he really like?"

"Is he as good-looking up close?"

"Did he really try to kiss you?"

"What color are his eyes?"

"Did he ask you out or what?"

Relena took a deep breath and tried to answer the ping-ponged questions in the order they'd been asked of her.

"I don't know, yes, I don't think so, blue, and no, not exactly." She sat back and smiled, satisfied, as her friends attempted to process this.

"No way his eyes are blue," Catherine gasped, scrolling furiously through her phone to go back to Heero's picture.

"And what do you mean by not exactly?" Hilde wanted to know.

"He didn't ask me on a date," Relena shrugged. "That's all."

"But he did ask you to do something," Dorothy purred. She said it as a statement, not a question.

Relena was afraid she'd already given away too much. "He asked me if I wanted to study with him. That's all," she reiterated.

The girls let out a collective gasp so loud that several surrounding tables looked over. Just when Relena had thought they'd manage to divert everyone else's attention, too.

Once again, the girls were tittering all at once.

"That's definitely a date!"

"Yeah, it's guy code! It's a date!"

"Hmm… what are you going to wear?"

"What if this time, he really tries to kiss you?"

"Ohmigod, do you think you'll see the condoms?"

"You should wear something alluring, but still approachable…"

"I wonder if he uses tongue!"

"I wonder where he keeps his stash?"

"We should all come over and help you pick something out!"

Relena held her up her hand to stop the stream of chatter. This time, she didn't bother to address each individual question.

"Whatever it is you're scheming, the answer is absolutely not," she said flatly. "I'm not changing into anything special. I'm going straight from here, uniform and all, to Heero's dorm, where he is going to help me with math. That's it. Ok?"

Each one of Relena's friends gazed at her with eyes gleaming. Dorothy's had a particularly mischievous glint.

"Forget it," Relena sighed. "You guys can think whatever you want to. But that's all that's going on, and I'm afraid there's nothing scintillating to report."

"If you say so," Dorothy murmured, flipping her long flaxen hair. "But I expect a full update in the morning."

"Eeee! I won't be able to sleep!" Hilde squealed.

Relena reached over and placed a hand on her short-haired friend's shoulder. "Hilde, please," she said. "Find a hobby."

"If you need to talk to someone tonight, Relena, you can caaalll me," Catherine said in a sing-song voice. "And I promise—I won't tell Trowa!"

Relena decided then and there that Catherine would be the last one she'd call.

For now, she feigned gratitude toward her nosy friends.

"Thanks a lot, you guys," she beamed at them. "It's really nice that you care… so much. But I've got to go." She grabbed her practically untouched meal and her messenger bag, bolting before anyone could say otherwise.

Author's Note:

Hi, everyone! I'm so excited that you're reading this story! I was so surprised by the response this one got and never intended for this to be more than a one-shot. But reading your comments gave me a few ideas, and now I'm happy to report that this will be a fully fleshed-out story, with chapters and all! Cheers!

For those of you who skipped out on the summary (naughty, naughty!), you might be wondering why Heero is so gosh darn nice to Relena here. And it's not just because I'm a hopeless 1xR shipper (though yeah, ok, that's part of it!).

The idea for this story came about when I imagined Heero as a "normal" high school student. As in, there's no war going on, and no Gundams, and therefore no real reason for a guy like Heero to act the way he does. I thought, wouldn't it be funny if there was an intense, monosyllabic guy running around a Catholic school doing crazy stuff, acting overly conspicuous and heaping entirely too much attention upon himself? What would happen to him, exactly? What would everyone around him think?

The rest of this story is the result of that – truly bizarre – thought process. The first chapter was only a tiny taste of what's about to come. I promise to be relatively faithful to the events of the show, at least when it comes to Heero's time spent in school. I will be reimagining the series, nearly scene by scene:

Heero's horseback riding "lesson"

Fencing!

Relena's fateful party invitation

Relena's party itself

Heero playing with explosives

Relena trailing Heero to find out "what kind of person he is"

The infamous "party night" school dance (not to be confused with Relena's birthday)

Some goofy basketball playing in dorky gym uniforms

Relena showing up everywhere in her pink limo

A whole lot of Oz vs. Romefeller (all hashed out vis-à-vis the student council)

And more!

You may be wondering: Why Marseille? Two GW episodes were set in this city, and I thought it would make a good (and probable) location for St. Gabriel. I decided that Relena would be French, since in this story there's no Sanc Kingdom, and she needs some kind of European ancestry. Also, I live in Boston, a fairly old port city that many say resembles Paris and its architecture, so I thought I could reasonably write about Marseille (I could have written what I know and set the story in Beantown, I suppose, but thinking of the way the characters would talk seriously bothers me! I don't have a "Bah-stahn" accent, by the way; I'm a reporter and have perfected my non-regional diction!).

So, I promise some crazy adventures ahead… and more beloved Gundam Wing characters! Thanks for checking out "The New Guy"! Stay tuned!

P.S. I definitely owe some teenage-esque characterizations, story conventions, and social [networking] situations to the wonderful works of John Hughes, the movie Clueless, and, of course, Gossip Girl (if you're read the books or watched the show, the manga is so much better!).

P.P.S. For those of you who would like to have some input in the story, I'm considering a few different characters to comprise Heero's host family (remember, he's an exchange student from Japan). Feel free to vote for who you'd like to see him living with! I'm open to suggestions for his host parents and any kids they might have that he could be forced to room with. Be creative! If no one has any suggestions, don't worry; I do have a few things up my sleeve. But I thought it'd be fun to open it up and make this story more interactive. Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Hugs!

~AE