At the cue from one of the assistants, Relena opened the sliding door and stepped outside. With only a snow-white bath towel making sure no one watching at home could see her goods, she walked towards the hot springs pool. To her right was a fence, a wall made from planks of hardwood that ran from the door and through the pool's center.
She stepped over the rocks lining the pool and carefully sank into the hot water. Above the wall and the studio lights, she could almost hear Heero get into the pool on the other side.
As her hands started to move around her, she wondered if it was a bad idea that she agreed to come to this show, especially since it was Heero's best friend that hosted the ruddy thing.
Inside the bathhouse, some distance away from all the action, four figures, all dressed in blue happi coats, stared at the television set up on the long table they sat at.
The central figure, a young man with thick brown hair, adjusted his earpiece and grinned. "Why is that guy wearing his towel like that?" he commented, pointing to the participant currently on one half of the screen.
The young woman to his right looked at the two participants and shook her head. "What are you talking about, Duo? He has it around his waist just fine."
"I'm not talking about him." The comedian pointed to the right side of the screen, to the participant labeled 'Heero Yuy', then shifted his hand towards the participant to the left, 'Relena Dorlain'. "I mean the transvestite, Hilde."
"Duo!" Hilde cried out. "That's not a transvestite!"
Duo turned to the young man to his left. "Wufei?"
Wufei leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "That's a woman, Maxwell," he said with gruff authority.
Duo looked past Wufei to the older man sitting at the end of the table. "Uncle Howard?"
'Uncle' Howard peered at the young woman on the screen from over the rim of his dark sunglasses. "She's very pretty." He pushed his shades in. "For a transvestite."
"Uncle Howard!" Hilde cried out.
"Uncle Howard, my man!" Duo cheered as he and Howard hi-fived each other above Wufei's head.
"Completely shameless," Wufei shook his head in disgrace.
Her hands rested between her knees nonchalantly as she sat in the water, looking up over the top of the wooden wall. It was only 6 or 7 feet above the water, but from where she sat, it scraped heaven.
Heero's voice seemed so far away, like a winter chill in the heat of summer.
"Relena, I..."
"Yes, Heero?" She imagined her voice floating over the wall to where her hidden love waited on the other side.
"You know that I care for you, but... I don't think that I can go on like this."
Relena's hands clenched the hem of her towel, confused. "Care? You don't love me, Heero?"
"I never loved you, Relena."
The four spectators immediately pulled back in surprise. "Eh!" they cried out in chorus.
Heero stared at the wood planks in front of him, his blank face unwavering even as Relena gasped.
"What... what do you mean..." she sputtered out. "But we've been together for a year!"
"Wow," Wufei remarked. "One whole year. He must have loved her at one time."
"Are you being sarcastic?" Hilde said, pushing some of her hair out of her eyes.
"Who can truly love a transvestite, anyway?" Duo quipped, throwing his hands up in the air.
Howard chuckled into his chest as Hilde's sigh formed a familiar word.
"Duo..."
"I only cared for you, Relena." Heero's voice was sturdy, as cool as winter, as it floated down to her from over the top of the wall. The hot springs could not keep the chill away. "I wasn't with you because I love you."
Relena stared at the waters as it rippled with each little movement of her hands underneath the surface. "How can you say that?" she whispered to herself.
She wasn't sure Heero had heard her or not, because the next words from the other side of the wall were, "I love someone else."
"Wonder if it's another transvestite," Howard said idly, causing Wufei to groan and drop his head in his hands.
"Oh, I give up," Hilde said, her lips trying not to turn up in a grin.
Duo leaned forward, his eyes never leaving the screen. Although he was smiling at Howard's comment, the way his hands interlocked underneath his chin and the cool gleam in his eyes said something different altogether.
"Who do you love, then?" Relena's voice was thin, like the walls of the apartment they had shared this past year. He can only imagine the tears forming in her eyes now, falling into the water and making it salty.
Could he taste her tears if he really thought about it?
"Heero...?"
Heero's mouth opened slightly to let a sigh escape before turning his head to stare straight at the camera set to his side. His eyes blinked once, the only motion accompanying his lips.
"Duo Maxwell."
Hilde was the first to explode. "WHAT!" She jumped up to her feet and stared at Duo, mouth agape and hands outstretched towards him. "Duo, what is he talking about!"
Wufei reacted at the same time as he rose from his chair in one smooth, deadly motion. His face was set in a grim expression as he glared at the comedian. "What is the meaning of this, Maxwell?" he almost barked, his face growing just a bit red.
Off in his own little corner, Howard watched his three companions without bothering to move his head. His lips turned upwards in the faintest smirk.
Duo stayed where he was, with his fingers interlocked underneath his chin, but he wasn't smiling anymore. He was downright frowning, his eyes as cold as a winter in Antarctica.
"D-duo?" Relena sputtered, her eyes wide, uncertain. "Duo Maxwell? As in your friend, Duo Maxwell? As in the host of this show, Duo Maxwell?"
"Yes." Somehow, the faintest spring seeped into Heero's voice as it floated down to her from the blue sky. "Him. I love him with all my heart, and I know, one day, he'll be willing to love me back."
Duo pressed his palms on the table and rose from his seat, the table creaking in protest. "It's not your problem, Wufei," he stated icily, his voice as chilled as his eyes, his expression.
Hilde took a couple of steps back. Her hands almost, but not quite, flew up in a defensive stance. An angry Duo was such a rarity in public, and an angry, silent Duo was a dodo. She wasn't certain as to what she should do.
Wufei almost instinctively went on the defensive as well, biting back whatever harsh words he had wanted to say.
Duo faintly turned his head towards Howard. "Could you order them to turn off those cameras, please?"
Howard nodded as Duo started to stalk his way out of the room and towards the hot springs. "You heard 'im, boys," he said to the crew. "Ten minute break."
The little red light above the camera lens turned off, halting Heero's words of undying love in midstream. In unison, the crewmembers on his side of the wall laid down their equipment on the ground and sat down on the ground.
On the other side of the wall, he could barely make out Relena, pitifully sobbing to herself. He could smell the salt in the water now.
The door leading into the bathhouse slid open with a bit of a slam, but, of course, that was not the only warning.
"What the hell are you doing, Yuy?" Duo Said, his voice deadly and cold even as he stormed through the threshold, his face reddening.
Wufei, Howard, and Hilde scrambled in his wake, trying to see what will happen, even as their instincts told them to run.
Heero rose from the hot water with eerie grace as he gave Duo a pretty, sly smile. A cool wind made his wet body break out in goosebumps. He took one bare-footed step out of the pool and towards Duo. "Telling the truth, Duo. Following my emotions."
That flash of anger in Duo's eyes only flared at that. "So your emotions told you to humiliate your friend in front of his boss and his coworkers?" His voice rose slightly with those words.
"Not exactly," Heero replied, each slow, damp step taking him closer to Duo. "But..." He stopped until he was a foot or two away from Duo (just enough distance for Duo if he wanted to knock him out) before continuing.
"But that's not the only thing they told me I should do."
Heero's next move was a rather good impression of sex: rough, wet, sloppy, and burning through and through.
He grabbed the hem of Duo's happi coat and pressed their bodies and lips together with such force Duo didn't know how to react. Heero's mouth, urgent and desperate for a respond, worked against Duo's, his tongue stroking Duo's lower lip for some sort of answer.
Without thinking and with a bit of a whimper only Heero heard, Duo slowly returned the kiss, his mouth opening itself to sensation. He responded to that forceful wetness, even if he would deny it later.
Duo placed his hands on Heero's damp shoulders in an attempt to pull him away. By the time he got a firm grip on his idiotic friend, however, it was a useless motion.
As Duo parted his lips underneath Heero's hunger, Heero eagerly took him up on the offer. His tongue melted into that burning offered place and moaned as his body rubbed against Duo's with the same intent.
It lasted all of a very brief moment, 2, 3 seconds at the most, but the damage has been done. Duo's defenses had been penetrated, pun intended, by Heero's soaking wet, fervent self. It was already too late for him when Heero's body and impatient moan woke Duo up in more ways than one.
If Heero's attack was brief and very successful, Duo's counter was terribly less so.
Coming to some semblance of sense that could be achieved with an impatient, hardening Heero rubbing against him, Duo pushed Heero off and stared.
With his breath coming in and out in such cute little gasps and his cheeks bright red from one thing or another, Duo looked very adorable. There was no sound other than Heero's little gasps as he tried to get his heart to slow down. There was no color other than the red on Heero's cheeks and the blue of his eyes. There was no sensation but Heero...
His fist connected with Heero's face with a loud painful whack, sending Heero sprawling onto the stone-laden ground.
From the doorway, Relena started wailing again.
Heero stared down at the curry he was cooking. The apartment felt a lot darker since the last of Relena's boxes were taken away.
She took everything. Everything they have bought together, or that she had bought for herself, were in those boxes. While he was at work, she took the time to carefully trim herself out of every picture. She packed every last knick-knack and bobby pin. She most likely scrubbed her fingerprints off of every surface.
She made sure that the apartment had nothing of her presence before leaving, to make it seem as if she did not exist at all.
Heero had nothing to remember her by. He may not have loved her, but he did care for her. It would have been nice if they stayed friends.
The curry in the pot bubbled as he stirred it slowly.
In the background, 'London Hearts' was on. A 'The Bl@ck Mail' segment was scheduled for this week. The whole premise, of course, is to prove whether or not someone would be faithful by seeing if the target can be seduced by e-mail.
It's usually a girl that goes to the show to check on her boyfriend.
The boyfriend usually agreed to meet the mysterious e-mailer.
The guy usually proved himself unfaithful, and with the girlfriend watching with the help of hidden cameras, it's never a pretty sight.
Heero touched his black eye apprehensively as he watched Duo joke and poke the romantic flames. This was the only way he could see Duo. At least Duo hasn't been able to completely clean away all traces of himself from Heero's apartment.
He served the hot curry over rice and sat himself at the table. The victim had started to respond to the e-mails Duo has been sending and it looked as if the poor boy was already hooked in. One of his photo albums laid open, the photos inside undamaged by Relena's precise cleaning... because they were of Duo.
Heero smiled bitter sweetly as he watched Duo duck away from the young man's girlfriend, who seemed to want to hit someone.
Maybe he should have ducked, too.
Howard finally agreed to destroy all the film from that disaster. What was there to think out? However intriguing the segment would have been, it wasn't worth his career.
Duo frowned at himself for not pointing out what he had already paid.
It was Heero's fault, not his! He wasn't the only that decided to come out on national TV and possibly ruin his friend's career. He could have done it in private, all of it... for breaking up with Relena. She doesn't have a publicist that would have a heart attack if her best friend told her she loved her.
He should have even suggested the idea of breaking up with her on one of his television shows.
His frown deepened at the thought.
He was too busy being angry at himself and Heero to call and apologize. If Heero wanted to start it, and start it the man did, then let him finish it.
His hands weren't listening to that damning logic, however, as they flipped open his phone and began typing out a few sentences.
On the screen, Duo lifted the phone and swung it up and down as if it was a fishing rod as he sent the 'bl@ck mail' to the poor victim.
Suddenly, Heero's own phone started chiming. Someone had sent him a message...
~~~end
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