It was a perfect day. A crisp breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees gently, and a few scattered clouds drifted across a sky the same breathtaking blue as the eyes of the young man who gazed impassively out over the lake in the middle of the park. It was, however, for many reasons, one of the worst days of said young man's life.
It had all started first thing in the morning, when instead of the comforting drone of the alarm clock, he was awakened by his irritating roommate's voice.
"Naa, sleepy-head! Aren't you ever going to get up? It's a beautiful morning, and you really should get a look at the sunrise, and look, it's already started and you're missing it and-"
Heero cut off Duo's aggravating monologue with a pillow in the face, looked at the faint tinge of pink lighting the sky and tried to roll over and go back to sleep. That long-haired idiot never seemed to sleep. It wasn't enough that they hadn't gotten to sleep till well after 3 in the morning, oh, no. Duo wanted him to wake back up at 5 to see the sun come up - and on one of the rare days that he didn't have a mission to worry about, no less. It wasn't as if there was anything special about the sun rising. It had done so for centuries, without needing Heero Yuy as an audience.
"Aw, are you grumpy?" Duo said, digging his fingers into Heero's ribs, eliciting an annoyed growl. There was something sadistic in tickling a person who obviously wanted to be left alone.
"Get your hands off me, or you'll be pulling back a pair of stumps," Heero snarled.
"Huh? Whadja say? Speak up, man, I can't understand you when you're talking into your pillow!" Duo poked him a few more times, then danced out of harm's way to look at himself in the mirror as Heero sat up in a rush.
"Whoa, Heero, you look tired," Duo said, catching sight of Heero's reflection glaring at him with fatigue-reddened eyes. "Maybe you should go back to sleep." And he left the room with a flip of his braid, oblivious to Heero's fist-clenching fury. Heero huffed in exasperation, pounded his pillow mercilessly in an attempt to get it situated comfortably, and lay still for all of five minutes.
"Damn," he muttered, and went to take a shower. After being so rudely awakened, he just couldn't seem to force himself to relax enough to go back to sleep.
The rushing warm water soothed him, and he rolled his shoulders, enjoying the sensation of his tense muscles loosening... and then suddenly the hot water gave out on him, leaving him with nothing but a frigidly icy flood. He gasped at the shock and rinsed the soap out of his hair as quickly as possible, his teeth chattering all the while. Damn that Duo and his damned braid! He had used up all the hot water AGAIN!
A trip to the kitchen revealed a huge mess of unwashed plates and glasses, and Heero grimaced in irritation. The perfectionist in him couldn't stand to see all that mess, but there was no hot water to wash with. He ended up scrubbing the dishes with cold water and stacking them in the dishwasher to be washed again later when the water heater had recovered from Duo's shower.
After one glance in the refrigerator, Heero muttered a curse and stalked over to the closet to get his shoes. That long-haired fool hadn't left even ONE crumb of food in the house! Heero's right shoelace broke as he tried to tie it... and he didn't have anything he could use in its place. Sliding his foot into the too-loose shoe, he stalked a little awkwardly to the car he and Duo had hotwired the night before. He had to cling to the inside of the shoe with his toes to keep it from sliding off, but it wasn't too bad.
The car wouldn't start. Heero glared with venomous rage at the gas gauge, which indicated that a certain long-haired DEAD MAN, who would remain nameless but whose initials were D.M. (as in DEAD MAN), had gone out for a ride and left him with an empty tank. Fuming, Heero liberated a gas can from the trunk and stalked the two miles to the gas station, clinging to his shoe with his foot the entire way.
By the time he had made his way back, the hard handle of the full gas can was biting deep into his hand, and he had a series of blisters on his right foot and a cramp in his little toe from trying to keep the shoe in place. He grimly poured the gas into the car's tank, started it up and drove it to the grocery store.
He found a parking spot right near the front door, which would be terrific - the less he had to walk with this shoe, the better. He was just about to pull in when he realized that the spot was occupied by a motorcycle. Muttering under his breath, Heero drove to the other end of the parking lot and walked the long hike to the store.
They didn't have his favorite brand of jelly, and the Peter Pan chunky peanut butter only came in tiny jars. They had huge, economy-sized jars of creamy peanut butter, but not chunky! Scowling, Heero scooped up four of the little jars and a barely-acceptable substitute for the jelly. With the way Duo ate, that would probably last a whole day.
He didn't want to have to carry all those jars in his arms, so he hiked back across the store to snag a shopping cart. There was only one cart, but Heero got there just before a little old lady. Deciding that his luck must have finally turned, Heero dumped his jars into the basket and wheeled it away.
One of the front wheels stuck, while the other spun around and around in useless circles. The cart steered itself crazily into a huge display stack of tomato soup. A stock boy came running to clean up the scattered cans, and informed Heero that since he had dented ten of them, he would have to buy those. Heero angrily took the cans - he hated tomato soup - and forcibly steered the defective cart in a straight line, jerking it back in place after every limping half-step he took.
All the things he wanted were on the top shelves. Heero cursed as he jumped up and snagged the cereal he wanted, and he cursed as he jumped up to get the canned artichoke hearts he wanted, and he cursed as he jumped up to get the loaves of bread he wanted. He even cursed at the manager when the man came to ask him not to curse in front of the other customers. The manager threatened to call security, and Heero grudgingly limped over to the checkout line with his uncooperative cart, glowering and muttering death threats.
The girl at the checkout was both rude and unbelievably slow, and appeared to be invulnerable to the patented Yuy Glare of Death ™. While Heero was paying the exhorbitant price for his groceries, a bag boy came and packed them up for him. Heero declined the bag boy's help in carrying the bags to his car, and with one last glare for good measure, he left the blasted cart where it was.
He got halfway across the parking lot when the bottom of one of the bags gave out, spilling its contents everywhere. The carton of eggs had been packed beneath a layer of ten cans of tomato soup, which rolled around as Heero furiously tried to gather them. Cramming the egg-sticky soup cans into one of the other bags, Heero gave the eggs up as lost and resumed his journey to the car. Damn bag boy. Who ever heard of packing a carton of eggs UNDER a pile of heavy stuff? He probably ought to be killed.
Heero made it the rest of the way to the car without incident, and loaded his hard-earned groceries into the trunk. The space in front of him was empty but for a stray shopping cart. What was wrong with people, anyway? There was a clearly-marked corral for the carts, so that lazy people who didn't want to put the cart back inside where it REALLY belonged could leave their carts with ease... yet nobody was using the corrals! They stupidly left the carts sitting in the middle of the parking spaces, where they could roll into people's cars and damage them! Heero decided he should definitely kill the next person he caught leaving their cart out in the open.
Seething with silent fury, Heero got back out of the car, limped with the offending cart over to the corral, and began his walk back to the car. At least he'd be able to pull straight out now, instead of having to back his car out of the space.
He got in the car, and just as he was ready to move forward a car pulled into the space he had just cleared. He glared poisonously at the driver, a sweet-faced little old lady who was oblivious to his irritation. Heero hated having to back the car up. He successfully maneuvered the car out of the parking space, ignoring the honking horns of the people behind him who were waiting in line to get to the space. Shifting the car into drive, Heero discovered that Duo had failed to toally disable the car's alarm system. The alarm sounded, a steady beeping of the car horn accompanied by blinking lights.
Heero cursed again, got out of the car and kicked it, then reached in under the steering column and ripped out a handful of wires. The godawful noise stopped. Heero looked up to see a small crowd of people gathered around. He glared at them, and the people drew back, intimidated because the look on his face implied that he'd gladly do the same to any human who gave him grief.
"The owner's manual says this is acceptable discipline," Heero commented, then quickly got back in the car and drove off before anyone could call the police. As he pulled away, he cursed again under his breath. The car was a liability now. He pulled it off the road a good distance from the safe house, carefully wiped it clean of prints and retreived his groceries. Then he began the long walk home.
And that had led him to the park, where his second bag of groceries had torn apart, sending all the food rolling downhill into the scummy water for the ducks to fight over. The loaves of bread were a total loss, but he supposed he could wade in there after the canned food... As he pondered his options, he noticed that the harmless-looking log near his submerged food had eyes. He sighed, and hefted the last of his grocery bags, judging whether this one would actually hold together. It had all started with his jerk of a roommate and partner. Why did Duo have to be such an inconsiderate slob? And somehow that skinny moron had jinxed him for a whole wretched day.
The "log" snapped at a package of ground beef, and Heero pressed a hand to his suddenly-throbbing temple. Better just to go home and make do. And Duo had better not say a WORD to him, or he'd kill him for sure.
"Oi, Heeeero!" Duo called, cheerfully entering the safe house. His partner was seated at the kitchen table with a bag of ice on his head and his feet in a pan of cold water. "Oh, sorry, man, I didn't know you were sick... Heero? What are you eating?"
"Tomato soup," Heero snarled, spooning another mouthful. Duo glanced in some surprise at the collection of tomato soup cans sitting on the kitchen counter amid shreds of a grocery bag. The cans looked... slimy?
"I thought you hated tomato soup."
"I do."
"Oh..." a long pause followed. "Then why are you eating it?"
"Because the other bags fell apart, and this was all I had left." Heero scowled and readjusted the ice pack on his head.
"Oh," Duo said, clearly confused but well aware that he wasn't going to get a better answer. "Well, why didn't you want any of the other stuff? I got it for us to share, you know."
"What?" Heero asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
"You know... the rest of the food. I went out this morning and got some groceries so you could sleep in."
"You did?"
"Sure thing! Drove out there this morning with my motorcycle. It was a lucky thing, too, because I got the LAST big jar of peanut butter. I'll tell you what, man, I don't know what we'd have done without the peanut butter." Duo chattered on, oblivious to the angry flush steadily darkening Heero's cheeks, and the ominous scowl. Heero decided he'd just have to kill the long-haired boy, and that was that. It was the only way to free himself from the curse of Life with Duo. The only question was how to do it... there were so many ways to kill a person, and each new idea seemed better than the last.
"And hey, thanks for getting the dishes for me," Duo continued. "I was gonna do that first thing when I got back, but you'd already done them and left." Heero paused in his murderous premeditation, and absently took another mouthful of soup. So Duo hadn't left all those dirty dishes for him to do, after all...
"Listen," Duo said, his voice echoing the concern in his wide amethyst eyes. "Stop with the tomato soup, man, you're gonna make yourself sick. You want some Ramen? Maybe a sandwich? And after I'm done cooking, I can give you a backrub if you want."
"Yeah," Heero said, pushing the bowl away from him with relief as his wonderful, considerate partner fixed him supper. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all.
THE END
Yoiko
Author's Note: I own none of the characters or situations from Gundam Wing, neither is this fic meant in any way to be taken as a claim on these copyrights. Also, I mean no disrespect whatsover to the creators of these anime series.
Please send comments to: Yoiko