Saturday afternoon, 12.30pm

"Bye mum! I'm leaving now!" He turned back to look at his mother from the front door, putting on his sneakers. Helen was about to open her mouth to speak when Duo quickly added. "Don't worry mum, I'll be back for dinner!" He said with a smile and winked at his mother as he closed the door.

Duo got all his homework done the night before for he wanted enjoy himself today. After the almost entire week of bad luck, he just needed a break, badly. Especially after meeting up with the guy with the funny hairstyle in school. "He's a jinx!" Duo thought. NEVER would he want to see that guy ever again! He had gotten him into so much trouble with Ms Lucrezia and not to mention that Japanese boy. Lucky for him, the bell rang... otherwise he'll be minced meat by now.

"I think, I'll go have lunch first." He was beginning to feel hungry. He had woken up late this morning and had decided on skipping breakfast. He speeded up on his skateboard and made his way to the nearest Macs. "Let me see, it'll take me 5 minutes to reach there if I travel at this speed." Duo was familiar with the area and so he could roughly estimate how long the journey would take. Moving along Duo looked left and right at all the food stalls along the road. He was so engrossed in looking at food that he nearly knocked someone down. He braked just in time before coming into impact with the pedestrian.
Before Duo could say 'sorry', the other person apologized first.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't watching my way..." A blonde boy bent over and bowed repeatedly. Duo squatted down and stuck his face under the other boy's head. "Hi!" Duo greeted Quatre cheerfully.

"Ah! Duo!" Quatre exclaimed. "I didn't know it was you!"

Duo laughed, his smile stretched from ear to ear. "You haven't changed one bit Quatre! Still as thoughtful as ever!"

Quatre blushed. "You too, Duo, the chatterbox..."

"You barbie doll!" [ childhood nickname given to Quatre for he was an experimental specimen for his sisters ]

"Jabber mouth!" Quatre retaliated.

"Golden retriever!" Duo quickly snapped back.

"Ok... ok... enough with the nicknames already. Where are you going Duo?" Quatre finally gave in to the argument and laughed.

"Gonna grab a bite, you?"

"I just came from the library and was intending to go for lunch until..."

Duo cut off his words. "Good! Then, you can accompany me!" And he dragged Quatre along with him.
 

On the other side of the shelf, Trowa had his whole right hand through the shelf and was reluctant to let go of the bottle. He pulled his hand back. Wufei lost his balance and knocked into the shelf, his hand still grasping onto the last bottle. [ We repeat, LAST bottle.] He stood up properly and pulled back on his right hand. Now, Trowa wasn't going to give up that bottle, ya know? So he pulled it back. A miniature tug-of-war had begun.....
 

Duo and Quatre were walking along the streets when they came upon a particular store and stopped outside. Looking through the glass window, they saw two guys fighting over a bottle of hair gel.

"Trowa!" Quatre exclaimed. He immediately recognized the boy. "AHHH! JINX!!" Duo yelled out. Quatre walked to the entrance of the shop. "I have to go in there and apologize to Trowa. It was all because of me that he got caught by Lady Une." Quatre thought and recalled the incident. He felt awfully bad. Duo grabbed Quatre by the arm. "Are you crazy!? You wanna go into this shop?! That jinx's in there!!!" Duo was pointing into the shop, his hand shaking non-stop and shouting at the top of his lungs.

"I... I have to talk to someone in there... " Quatre answered, covering his ears. Duo was deafening.

"Do it another day!"

"But... but.. "

Duo dragged a reluctant Quatre away. "Someday you'll thank me for this Quatre."
 

The tug of war continued. Neither party wanted to give in. As the war prolonged, each person grew irritated and used more force. Their pulling resulted to yanking. It looked as if their arms were going to come off soon.

Wufei was fuming. He was so blinded by his anger that he let out a loud grunt and tugged hard, using all his might. Trowa felt a strong force pulling at his arm. He felt himself get thrown forward and lost his balance. His whole body slammed into the shelf. The shelf quaked. WuFei looked at his right hand, the bottle was there. "HA! I got it!" Wu announced, proud at his achievement. The shelf tumbled to one side and timbered on Wufei. [ Sorry, WuFei fans! ]

"AAAAAHHHH!!!!!" Wufei watched as the shelf came crashing down on him. It hit another shelf behind him and toppled it, causing it to hit the other shelves, bringing them down with it. Wufei ran out from under the fallen shelf and dashed out of the store. He didn't want to stay there any longer nor meet up with the shop owner. Intuition had him turn into the first alley he saw. The next sight shocked him greatly. His tug-of-war opponent was taking cover in the same alley as him. Trowa had decided not to stay there either after he saw the shelf collapsed.

Both stayed in the alley to catch their breaths back. From there, they could hear the shopkeeper's loud cursing and swearing outside. They turned to look at each other. Wufei couldn't help but smile at Trowa. Though Trowa was expressionless, he found the situation quite amusing too.

"You run pretty fast." WuFei remarked, catching his breath back. He paused to think for a while before speaking again. "I'm WuFei. What about you?"

Trowa thought for a while. "Names don't really matter to me.... but if you must know, then you can call me Trowa... Trowa Barton."

"Trowa? The school gymnast?? I've heard of you. I also heard that you're wanted by Lady Une for skipping classes."

Trowa shrugged. "Well, that's what you heard..." He walked out to the streets.
 

Duo raised the cup to his lips and drank a big mouthful of Coke. He was thirsty after the yelling and shouting a while ago. "Who was the jinx you were making a big fuss about, Duo?" Quatre asked and took a bite out of his burger, the ketchup oozed out and stained the edges of his lips a little.

"Pfffttt!!!" went Duo. The MacDonald's glass window had a patch of Coke smeared all over it.

"W-What's wrong?" Quatre asked, a red moustache was visible above the mouth.

"That jinx..." Duo stopped to wipe the Coke off his mouth, "...is the guy with the bad hair day in that store I just dragged you away from."

"You mean Trowa?"

"So that's the guy's name, huh? How did you meet him?" Duo took another sip out of his drink.

"I found him in a tree."

"Pfffttt!" went Duo again.

Quatre put down his burger and wiped the Coke off his face. "Yea... a tree. He was up in a tree when I found him." He picked up a fry and popped it in his mouth. "How about you?"

"I met him on the way to school, outside my class, in detention room and on the way here and all he brought me was BAD LUCK!!" Duo sat down and inhaled. He had gotten really agitated. Quatre stood up and apologized to the other people around who had stopped to look at Duo. "Gomen nasai. (Sorry) I'm sorry for disturbing all." Quatre bowed repeatedly, a look of dismay on his face. He sat down after everyone went back to their meal.

"Oh... so, erm.. how's school?" Quatre attempted to change the subject in case his friend wastes his Coke again.

"Pretty boring. Ms Lucrezia keeps picking on me. I ended up in detention at least a dozen times already." Duo started counting his fingers. "But, I met some new friends in school. There's this guy who absolutely hates girls and all he ever talks about is justice and righteousness and honour. He's good at martial arts though, I've seen him trash up some people during his practice. Oh wait, I think you met him yesterday, didn't you? That guy was WuFei." Quatre nodded. Duo continued rattling off his life story.

"Oh no.... he'll never finish at this rate." Quatre thought.

So, the two stayed at MacDonald's for the rest of the day until Duo decided that he had to run home for dinner. Fortunately for Quatre. ^_^

Quatre decided to walk home from the fast-food restaurant. With a handful of books in his hands, he stepped into the mansion and took off his shoes. "Tadaima! (I'm home!)" His voice rang out through the place.

"Okaeri! (Welcome back!)" A chorus of voices greeted him. Rashid came forward with a whole army of Maganacs behind him. "Quatre-sama! You should have called me to pick you up!"

"I...er, didn't want to bother you, Rashid. I thought you would be busy with work so I decided to come home alone." Quatre replied, his eyes never left the horde of people behind Rashid.

"Then, you could have called any one of us!" Abdul interrupted.

"It's not safe for you to be going around the streets alone!" Another added.

"What if something happened to you? We would never forgive ourselves if any misfortune befell upon you!"

"Quatre-sama!!" Everyone shouted out. [ sounds familiar? ]
 
"Ah... " Quatre didn't know what to say. Their outburst had startled him.

The Maganacs were this group of 40 men indebted to Father Winner. They had watched over Quatre when he was a toddler and had sworn to protect and serve Quatre until their death. It was only natural that they should feel worried for their little master.

"I'll, er... call for you all the next time I go out." He answered uneasily, shifting his gaze to a corner. "Then if you will all excuse me, I wish to go to my room now." Upon finishing his sentence, someone took the books out of his hands and another brought him a pair of slippers. "Arigato minna-san. (Thank you everybody)" Quatre said again, over and over. Though he had received this sort of treatment from the Maganacs since a kid, he still couldn't get used to it.

"Thank you all. I appreciate your efforts very much, Thank you." He said as he pushed the last member of the Maganacs out of his room. Feeling thirsty after talking so much, he decided to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. His hand reached out for the door and he turned the golden knob. The door opened and there stood the Maganacs smiling at him. Quatre slammed the door closed. Forget about the drink. The little master didn't feel thirsty anymore. He walked off to his table and picked up his sketch book. Flipping through it, he stopped at a page. On the white sheet of paper was a sketch of the mysterious boy he had gotten into trouble the day before. Quatre felt that Trowa in the trees along with the squirrels around made a good picture so he had stood under the tree and sketched him for a while before speaking to him. Staring at the picture for a while, Quatre decided that he was going to find and apologize to Trowa.
 

The Chang House, 6.00pm

Sally called for WuFei from outside the dojo. Inside, WuFei was practising his martial arts. He stopped when he heard his mother call for him. Before stepping out of the dojo, he bowed respectfully and then went off.

"WuFei!" Sally called again.

"I hear you already! Women..." WuFei walked into the dining area and sat down at the table. Sally brought out a few plates of food. WuFei took a deep breath. "Father, Mother, Grandfather, Grandmother, Aunties, Uncles, please eat." he respectfully said. [ It's Chinese tradition to invite your elders to eat before starting a meal ] He picked up the pair of chopsticks and tapped it on the table. With a bowl of rice in his right, I mean left hand [ I can't get used to it! I'm left-handed!! < DeathAngel ] [ Haha < Phoenix ] he lifted it to his mouth and started eating.

"Sally, your son is so well brought up! So polite!" WuFei's aunty started to comment on his good behaviour. "So big already! The last time I saw him, he was just this small lad! Sally, he's going to grow taller than you very soon!" She cooed. "So handsome!"
[ -_- *Both falls off chair* Handsome eh? I think that was a killer - P & D.A ] [ As Chinese, we experience this ALOT! < Phoenix ]

WuFei rolled his eyes. [ When we mean rolled his eyes, we didn't mean taking out his eyeballs and rolling it across the floor ]  "Not again... why do I have to go through this whenever we have a reunion dinner?" WuFei turned to his aunty and smiled.

"So sweet, your boy!" Aunty squealed. She leaned forward and pinched WuFei on the cheeks, shaking his head from left to right as she held on to his face.

WuFei clutched his chopsticks. [ Not again! ] He forced a smile and laughed a little. His cheeks hurt a great deal. "Let go of me, you stupid woman..." He thought in his mind. After what seemed like an eternity, Aunty finally released her firm grip. WuFei tucked in and ate as quickly as he could. After which he excused himself and made off outside to a playground near his place. He settled down on a swing and started rocking himself slowly. The hinges creaked a little as the swing moved. It was breezy and the wind whipped past his face. WuFei kicked at the sand under his feet.

"I knew you would be here!" A voice suddenly came from nowhere.

WuFei glanced up and his eyes fell on a long haired Chinese girl. "Oh, it's only you, Nataku."

This girl was Meiran. She was WuFei's neighbour and had grown up with him. Nataku was just a nickname she adopted and WuFei had been referring her by that name since they were little.

"At least look more enthusiastic to see me!"

"What do you want, woman?"

She sat down on the swing next to WuFei. "Nothing... I just felt like coming here."

"You're a nosy one, woman."

"Say all you want, man."

"Just shut up, will you, woman?"

"Why should I, man? It's my mouth after all, man. I'll say whatever I want, man." She stuck out her tongue at him.

"Humph! Women."

"Men."

The wind blew past with a few dried leaves floating by. They remained silent as the sun sank into the horizon. Streaks of red and orange coloured the sky. The clouds moved by slowly, their shades of light blue complementing the sky colour.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Meiran started again, staring in awe at the magnificent view of the sunset.

"Um."

Meiran turned to look at WuFei. With a smile on his face, he looked on at the far end of the sky. Meiran's lips curled. She turned back to the sun. The duo sat there on the swings, watching as the sun setted into the distance....

On to chapter 8...