Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Extra Tuition ❯ Part One ( Chapter 1 )

Author: Ryuen Nakashima

Pairings: past 2x4, I'll leave you to find out about the others

Archived: Not yet. None of my fics have a real home yet *sniff*

Setting: Around eight months after Endless Waltz

Rating: R overall

Warnings: British spelling/phraseology, yaoi, angst… that's all for now.

Disclaimer: Nothing GW related is mine. This story is. Nuff said.

Extra Tuition - Part One

`My god, this place is packed…' Duo thought to himself as he nudged his rucksack back over his left shoulder again and made his way through the reception. There were hundreds of new students this year to L4's Schwarz Academy and it had amazed Duo that he'd even had his entry considered at a prestigious school like this.

He wasn't stupid, not by any means, but having a career as a Gundam pilot/colonial rebel behind him and having only learned to read and write six months ago meant he wasn't up to half the standard of the other students.

`I just have to make sure I work as hard as I can. I've got the capacity and the ability,' he told himself. `This is the first time I've ever been to school in my life. I'm surprised they haven't had me sent back to kindergarten. But I would've breezed through that entrance exam if it hadn't been for all that damn writing I had to do.'

As Duo looked around, he felt a pang of familiarity about the place. `Maybe I just feel at home in an academic setting… yeah right! Well, I guess I can make up for it in the athletic area of my education.'

His ears pricked up at a gentle laugh from across the room. "Ah…" he said to himself, smiling as he caught sight of the face attached to the laugh. `So *that* was the familiarity, was it? Maybe I'll just go say hi,' he added mentally, more than happy to see a fellow pilot not to mention his old flame. Well, not so much his old flame as his old one-night-stand. He knew perfectly well who Quatre's old flame was.

He started off happily but felt increasingly awkward as he made his way over. The other students milling around his ex weren't exactly Duo's cup of proverbial tea. All of them in perfectly pressed uniforms, looking like something from an old English private school. Ties, blazers, straight leg trousers the lot. And that was just the two boys; the girls seemed even more straight-laced with knee-length socks, calf-length skirts and hair scraped back into identical ponytails.

"Quatre!" Duo said, lifting a hand in the air and drawing attention from the crowd of five students. "Hey, Kat. It's me," he said happily, smiling as he stood beside him. "I can't believe it's you!"

The little blond smiled uneasily and gave him a shifty gaze. "Oh, uh, hello…" he mumbled in an extremely discomfited way.

"Who's *this*?" one of the girls asked in a smug, bitchy sort of way. Duo felt about three inches tall.

Quatre smiled that same uneasy smile as before. "Oh, this is just someone I knew during the war… Duo, was it?" he asked, obviously lying to the lot of them.

Duo's heart sank to his boots and he smiled back just as awkwardly. "Um, yeah… yeah that's me," he replied, deciding to be the bigger man and play along instead of getting angry and exposing Quatre for the liar that he was. "I guess it's been a while, huh? I take it you don't really keep in touch with any of the others then. You haven't heard from Trowa at all?" he added, deliberately mentioning the name he knew would tug at Quatre's heart-strings.

It certainly seemed to have the effect he'd been going for. He could see the pain in Quatre's eyes and, though he was loathed to admit it, he felt satisfied about it. "No," Quatre said quietly. "No I haven't." Duo suddenly felt a little nauseated, wondering if he'd gone a little too far with that last remark.

"You can hardly blame him," one of the boys spoke up. Apparently this one actually *was* from an old English private school. "You hardly ran in the same circles to begin with, did you?"

"Aubrey!" the other girl who hadn't spoken before interjected. "Don't be mean! You'll have to forgive my brother," she said, addressing Duo. "He's perhaps not as au fait with meeting a certain type of person as he might be. I'm sure you're a perfectly decent person, Dio."

The braided boy laughed weakly. "Right… well, I guess I should go." `They've all made it perfectly clear that I'm not exactly welcome here. But what in the world happened to Kat in eight months that turned him into this little bitch?' "Nice meeting you guys," he added, once again to be the bigger man - even if he did feel even smaller than his previous three inches.

He would have said `See you later' but he did *not* want to see those people later. He felt sick at the mere thought of having met them in the first place. Not to mention having met Quatre.

Duo pulled his dorm room key out of his pocket and checked the number on the tag, deciding to just hole up in his room for a while until his butterflies settled down. He knocked on the door to make sure his roommate wasn't in the middle of something and was greeted with a much friendlier face than before.

Duo held up his key and smiled. "New roommate," he said.

"Oh, come on in," the boy replied. `Oh my god,' Duo thought to himself. `This one's English as well… am I at the right school? I guess L4 is kinda an English colony but this feels sorta weird.'

The boy turned back to Duo after he'd closed the door. "I'm Jamieson, by the way," he said, offering his hand. "My friends just call me James," he added as Duo gladly took the offered hand. "Sorry if I'm staring… I'm just trying to figure out whether or not I know you. You didn't go to Fenwick Grammar school, did you?"

"Uh, no," Duo replied, becoming rapidly disappointed as it looked like this guy was going to be just the same as `Aubrey' and his sister's friends. "My name's Duo, Duo Maxwell."

"Oh…" James tone turned icy as he recognised the name. "The Gundam pilot. Right. Well make yourself at home here. This is your room too. I've got a couple of friends coming across in a moment, I hope you don't mind."

Duo shook his head. "O' course not. Hell, this place is more yours than mine," he said affably. He sat down on his new bed and took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves. Duo had met people like Jamieson before, people whose parents had brainwashed them into remembering everything bad surrounding the Gundam pilots.

He knew he wouldn't have half a chance to get close to his roommate purely for this reason. `Well… it's only a place to sleep and change,' Duo reasoned. Although he was starting to run out of places that he'd comfortably spend his time.

There was a tap at the door followed by what could only be described as a `dapper' "Knock, knock!" from the other side.

Duo cringed as he recognised the girl's voice, the smug bitchy one from before. `Oh wonderful,' he thought, trying to keep his head buried in his bag as the fivesome walked in to see their friend. He watched his fellow ex-pilot walk in with a smile on his face which immediately disappeared on sight of the braided boy.

"Oh hello, Dio," the English girl said. "You must be James's new roommate then. I hope you don't mind our little intrusion."

"Not at all," Duo said, getting to his feet and locking eyes with Quatre. "I was just on my way out anyway. I wanna check out the library," he added, making his way to the door.

The girl grinned. "Oh that's splendid!" she remarked in that horribly fake way she always did. "That's where we spend most of our time on campus. The facilities here are the best of the best."

"Great," Duo said quietly, grabbing his bag and rapidly exiting the room. `There's somewhere else I won't be hanging around. What the heck am I gonna do around this place anyway?'

He ambled down the corridor, taking in the scenery, though there wasn't much of it. Seeing how perfectly the colony was imitating a sunny day with bright light and almost blue skies, he sighed to himself and went outside.

The moment he was out of the door he pulled off his tie and shoved it into his backpack, promptly unfastening the two top buttons of his shirt and pulling off his blazer to carry it over his shoulder. He glared angrily at the offending navy blue garment and then smiled to himself as he realised just how much something like that reminded him of the other pilots.

`One other in particular,' he corrected himself as he sat down on the hill next to the players on the basketball court. It amazed him how much he missed Heero. The two had barely got along when they first met. `After that I guess I took him for granted,' he mused. `I didn't appreciate just how much he understood me. What I would give to have him here now… to have *any* of the Gundam pilots here now.'

But he did have Quatre. `Oh please, I'd rather not have him around at all. I'd rather have Wufei stand here telling me what an idiot I am. At least he'd still be himself. Then again, maybe Quatre *is* finally being himself. If they've all changed that much I guess I'm better off alone.'

He pulled his timetable out of his bag and set it down on the grass to figure out what his first lesson would be tomorrow morning. "Okay," he said to himself. "Monday, Monday… here," he said, marking it with his finger. English. "Oh no…"

English, a lesson in which he'd have to read and write - and do it all very quickly, he was sure of it. `I'm gonna be a laughing stock at this place aren't I?' He quickly whipped out a notebook and pen. `No, no way. Not if I just buckle down and study,' he decided, opening a textbook and copying out the first paragraph in his best writing.

He gulped and shook his head as the one paragraph took him ten minutes to write. `And that's not even in cursive. I'm in *way* over my head here… what in god's name am I gonna do?' he wondered desperately.

Duo spent the next two hours or so writing until his hand ached, switching intermittently between his left and his right to see which felt best. He settled on his right after the two hours at which point he decided to just close his eyes, lie back and rest.

He yawned widely and opened his eyes a while later, suddenly noticing that the basketball players had gone and that it was distinctly cooler than it had been a while ago. `No… I didn't fall asleep?' he jumped as he looked at his watch. It was already 7:15pm.

"Shit," he exclaimed softly, sitting up and putting away his things before heading off to the cafeteria for a late dinner. Fortunately it was a *very* late dinner which meant he had no chance of running into-

"Dio!" came a cry from across the room. "Dio, come along and sit with us!"

`Oh crap.' Duo forced *another* smile as he turned to see just the one girl with Quatre this time. "Hey," Duo said in a friendly manner. "Little late to be eating, isn't it?"

"I *know*!" the girl replied as Duo unwillingly sat down. "Chastity and the boys ate at something silly like two o'clock and left poor little me and Quatre all alone," she added, taking a demure bite out of what was left of her chicken sandwich. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin before smiling again. "It looks like somebody's been studying something dreadful today," she stated, motioning toward Duo's fingers which had gone slightly pink.

Duo shrugged. "Yeah I have…" he trailed off and glanced at Quatre, realising just how much damage he could do if he was brutally honest. `All the more reason to do it.' "I was just trying to make sure I get decent grades. This is the first school I've ever been to."

"*No*!" the girl said, throwing her hands to her mouth in an overly dramatic display of shock. "Oh, you poor, poor little boy. I don't know what I would have done if my parents hadn't sent me to school."

"Actually I didn't really have parents," Duo replied, feeling at ease only when he was completely honest. "I lived most of my life on L2 streets so-"

"Persephone," Quatre piped up from beside where Duo sat, breaking the awkward silence he'd been sat in thus far. "Didn't you say Chastity wanted to see you after you'd eaten? It's really getting quiet late."

`Persephone' sighed and looked at her wristwatch. "Oh dear, I suppose you're right. I should go," she said, getting to her feet. "Well, it was splendid talking to you, Dio. But I do believe your little story will leave me sad all day! I'll see you boys tomorrow!" she called, skipping along and out of sight.

The two remaining students sat in silence for a few moments until it became unbearable. "So, what's this about?" Duo said in an unusually frosty tone. "You're embarrassed?"

Quatre stared at the table and swallowed harshly. "That's not it…" he whispered.

"Well there's gotta be some reason for this bitchiness," Duo continued, a little more angrily this time. "I'm not expecting you to tell people that you slept with me but you could at least acknowledge the fact that I exist!"

"Duo…" Quatre said, sniffing and blinking. "You don't understand what's going on here," he replied. "Those people aren't exactly friends of mine. I just hang around with them for the sake of they're all in very powerful positions and I have to get along with them in my situation."

"Don't gimme that," the braided boy replied. "You used to be perfectly happy to know me, even when you went back to work for a while… geez, Kat. Have you got *any* idea how hard it- no, I'm not gonna do this," Duo decided, getting to his feet and looking down at his old acquaintance. "You can be as cold as you want but you're not gonna drag me down to your level."

Quatre cringed as he watched Duo walk away and gritted his teeth. "Duo…" he whispered. "Duo, I'm sorry."

` "Best night of my life" what a load of shit!' Duo thought irately as he walked back to his room, turning Quatre's words over in his mind. He stopped and took a deep breath again, putting on a calm front before opening the door.

Duo put the key back in his pocket and shuffled his backpack around again. "James, James it's me," he said as he walked in slowly. `That's weird…' he thought to himself as he looked about the room. The bed was neatly made and all of James's things had gone.

"Ah, Mr. Maxwell, you're back."

Duo turned around to see the dorm prefect standing behind him. `Oh good `cos this guy *really* looks like he likes me.' "Is something wrong?" Duo asked in the friendliest way he could. "Is James okay?"

"I have been asked to inform you that Jamieson has transferred to another room on the grounds that he objects to boarding with a convicted terrorist," the prefect replied hard-heartedly. "I can't say I blame him. You couldn't *pay* me to room here. I'm sure we'll be able to find somebody who'll share with you. It just might take a while."

With that, the prefect disappeared from sight and closed the door behind him, leaving Duo to sink down onto his bed feeling even more wretched than he did before.

"Terrorist?" he repeated to the stale air in the room, hugging his knees to his chest. He felt the tears threaten in his eyes as he lay back against the pillows, wondering just how much longer he could hold out.

`I don't wanna leave things this way,' he decided. `I just… can't cut it… Maybe I should just give it a week. One week and then I'll let myself go home. Home? Where's *that* exactly?'

--

"Okay then, you're all registered and set to go," the receptionist replied to the slightly late registering new student, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder. "Do you require dormitory accommodation? Since we've had an extension built, most of the new students are opting for it this year but there is still plenty of room."

"Hmm… yes, I suppose I'd be better off," the boy replied. "I took a look at your new student register-"

"Excuse me but those files are confidential," the woman said warily. "I don't understand how you could gain access and for what purpose. In any case, it can be overlooked this once but another breach of regulations of this magnitude will result in your expulsion."

"Forgive me, I wasn't aware of that. But on your register there was a Duo Maxwell. I was wondering if it would be possible to share a room with him."

"I'm amazed. You're the first person we've had who hasn't asked to specifically *not* be roomed with him. Yes, that's fine. We will be seeing you in a few days then?"

"I should be there on Wednesday evening unless something comes up. Thank you."

The boy ended the call and hung up, sitting back and putting away his school entry information. He smiled to himself and shook his head. `I finally tracked him down. Stealth may be your forte, Duo, but you're still not great at covering your tracks.'

TBC…