-- Thoughts --
Duo Maxwell tossed the megaphone back to his friend.
"That was not our only ball." His friend stated quietly.
Smile already fading, Duo gave him a slightly annoyed look. "It WAS my only ball, Barton." With that, Duo kicked the bat far away from him and started to run the bases. His team cheered as he made it back to the home base.
Trowa Barton did not cheer for Duo Maxwell. Instead, he simply looked at Duo thoughtfully.
* * *
Treize felt the anger surged through his body. He felt restless. He had to get his hands on something. He had to smash something. That cocky little arrogant low life. Watching Duo running his bases, Treize gritted his teeth. At the same time, Treize unknowingly dug his fingers into Heero's flesh.
Heero did not flinch and stood there like a rock.
"Let go of him Treize." Wufei's voice was calm but low and deadly. He had just finished talking with the teacher and came out of the school building. He was not greeted with a pretty scene. He saw Heero's blood on his lower lip and Quatre's vulnerable state. Adrenalin rushed through his body like electricity ran through wire.
Treize let go of Heero while the other football players scrambled to picked up their fallen teammate.
Wufei raised his eyebrow when he saw the bruise on Heero's shoulder. "Kisama, what have you done, Treize?"
Instead of giving his usual tease and haughty smile, Treize said nothing but Wufei could see that Treize's eyes were full of fury. Treize allowed himself few seconds to collect himself. When he finally felt that he had full controlled of his body, the football captain finally let out a familiar smile. He ran his hand over Heero's face quickly. "You tasted good, Heero." Treize licked his own lips, remembering the iron taste of Heero's blood. "Until next time." Treize turned and walked away. His teammates dragged the unconscious teammate following their leader.
"Kisama, you dishonorable bastard!" It took the innocent Wufei a few seconds to realize the situation. As he was going to catch up with Treize and fulfilled his promise of "smashing his nose into his face", Quatre stopped him.
"It was a tiring day, Wufei. We should get home." Quatre tried hard to give a comforting smile.
"God Damn you, Quatre. I put Yuy in your hand and this is what happened? How are we supposed to explain this to Odin?" Wufei released his anger on Quatre. "You are supposed to be a master of Jujitsu. Can't even take care of those lowly cowards?" Wufei took out his pocketknife and sliced the offending robes on Quatre's wrists with a quick motion.
Quatre rubbed his hands together, glad that the blood circulation was back. He then looked at the furious Wufei. Suddenly he felt real small.
Wufei sighed. "Never mind. The fault was Treize's, not yours." He turned around and inquired his other friend. "Yuy, you all right?"
Hearing Wufei, Heero stood up from where the man had fallen. "I am fine." Heero said flatly and swiftly turned around, heading toward Quatre's car. He walked just a bit faster than he normally did.
"He said he was fine." Oblivious to Heero's slightly abnormal action, Wufei said to Quatre sarcastically. "That damn Treize will pay."
Quatre nodded.
* * *
Duo and Trowa walked silently back to their orphanage after their baseball game. They had won, 4 to 6.
Trowa was confused. Usually Duo would be loud and excited about this kind of victory. The kid was practically on suger-high most of the time. However, at this point Duo was unusually quiet. Not that Trowa minded. He was just intrigued. Something about today was different.
First of all, Duo did not normally hit homeruns. That didn't mean that Duo could not hit a homeruns. He usually only hit one at the later part of the game when the score was dangerously close for his teammates could always count on Duo's performance to save the score at the last minute. He did not hit homeruns at that early of the game. Though Trowa only befriended with Duo for 5 years, Trowa knew that Duo enjoyed playing with risk. Feeling the breeze going through his hair as he ran through the bases....competing against the people who were throwing the ball trying to catch up with him..... THAT was Duo's ideal baseball game. To Duo, homerun was just too boring; it took away the fun of baseball. But today Duo hit a homerun at the very early stage of their game. It puzzled Trowa.
Second, that ball was never meant to be hit as a homerun. It was a weird spin ball thrown by a left-hander. Not fast enough to be hit as far as it should. Duo must have swung real hard for it to make it a 400 feet homerun. Why? They didn't need it. Duo didn't like it. Why worked that hard to make it happen?
Third, Duo lied. Duo never lied. He would run, he would hide, but he never lied. Trowa was still puzzled by Duo's odd behavior especially the moment when he pointed out that there were more than one balls. It was as if Duo was angry. Duo's usual happy face was suddenly laced with pure anger. At whom? Him for pointing out Duo's lie? Not likely.
It could only be those people at the parking lot. Like Duo, Trowa had perfect vision. He didn't pay too much attention to them until Duo hit the unexpected homerun. Trowa could only recall that there were some football players with two little skinny kids. Maybe Duo didn't like those big guys harassing those two people? That's more likely. Duo could never tolerate people abusing others. Trowa did not know much about Duo's past but he could only guess it was as hard as his childhood. Those past had made them more sympathetic yet indifferent at the same time.
Trowa threw a last glance at his friend. No longer confused, Trowa was amused. How amazing. It would be Duo's record for being solemn for two hours straight.
* * *
The room was dimly lighted by the screen light of a black laptop on the desk. A backpack lay lazily against the desk chair, half opened. Next to the desk was a simple bed with aqua blue comforter neatly folded on top of it. Across the bed was a four level wooden shelve that stood 4 feet tall. It was loaded heavily with books: mostly the classic literatures and some modern computer programming books. A three-tier wooden chest of drawers concealed in the darkness of the corner.
Heero Yuy was also concealed in the darkness of the other end of the corner.
With his back against the wall, Heero sat on the floor with his knees drawn to his chest. His slender arms encircled around his bare legs and his head rested on the top of his knees. His bottom lip no longer bled but a dry red stain remained in place. Heero had never bothered to wipe it off after the incident. When the man had kissed him and harassed his lips, Heero barely felt his presence. In fact, he barely noticed anything.
Except one thing.
Heero Yuy stared at the small dirty baseball sitting on the floor directly in front of him.
* * *
As he had promised, Quatre cooked Chinese food for dinner in their new kitchen. Though he was tossing the mixture of vegetables and chicken in the skillet, Quatre couldn't help but thought about Heero.
In three years and they had changed 5 schools after that murder incident. The media and the FBI were just seemed to be too resourceful. Quatre shook his head lightly. Not even with his father and Wufei's fathers' political influences could they prevent them from finding Heero. It was so annoying. Why couldn't they just leave Heero alone? What was done was done. Nothing else mattered anymore. If they had Heero, they would just put him through more danger. Why couldn't they understand that?
Quatre dumped the stir-fried sauce into the skillet. He blended the sauce in the mixture with two or three strokes and covered the skillet for it to shimmer. He then turned his attention to the pot, stirring the soup occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the pot.
While Heero was in the emergency room, Quatre and Wufei had already decided that they would stay by Heero's side no matter what. 14 years of friendship would not allow them to let Heero went through this trauma alone. As a result, whenever they transferred to a school, Quatre's father would often arrange an apartment for them to live together and Wufei's parents would fly in and drop by occasionally to check upon them. Quatre silently thanked their parents for their support and understanding.
Quatre washed the rice in another pot. He drained the rice and then added the correct amount of water. He put the pot into the rice cooker. After plugging in the power cord, Quatre flipped the switch on the rice cooker and then the rice cooker started to heat up.
But often as they began to settle down, the FBI would find them eventually, forcing them to undergo another round of transferring school and erasing their records so that they could escape their grasp. Quatre did not even want to know how much money, time and stress his father had to go through for it to pull it up every time .... Well, maybe except the last school, they didn't really have to erase the record for it was Wufei's fault for getting them kicked out of the school....
Quatre eyed at Wufei, who came into the kitchen, starting to take out plates and chopsticks.
Wufei returned Quatre a look. "Is everything ready?"
Quatre smiled. Wufei had calmed down a lot for the past hour. "Almost, another 10 minutes or so." Quatre turned down the fire a bit for the soup.
Wufei carried a stack of plates and started to walk out of the kitchen and into the dinning room. "Good. I will get Heero down after I am done with these."
Quatre nodded with a faint smile still lingering on his mouth. "That will be great."
The school they were attending situated in a quiet suburban neighborhood in New Jersey. With the exception of Treize, everything was quite nice.
Quatre uncovered the stir-fried.
The thought of Treize triggered another name in Quatre's mind.
He tasted a piece of broken broccoli to see if the food was ready.
Duo Maxwell. Did he hit that ball to save them or was it just a coincidence?
The broccoli tasted great. Quatre turned off the stove.
Quatre also remembered the amused expression he found on Heero's usual static face.
The indicator light on the rice cooker went off, telling Quatre that the rice was ready as well.
He might be a beneficial for Heero..... That Duo Maxwell. Quatre contemplated for a few seconds. Maybe he should talk it over with Wufei.
"Dinner is ready."
* * *