He had said it got in his way during his last mission. So he cut it. All of it. All that’s left on his head is this close-to-his-scalp stubble. I mean, its thick, don’t get me wrong. He has naturally thick hair. But it was so nice. I loved running my fingers through it. It was so rich. He acted like he didn’t care either way if I put my fingers in his hair but I know he liked it. He used to get this really pissy face, like I was bothering him while he was trying to do something and then he’d try to turn away from me, but he always stayed close enough for me to keep massaging his head. Another thing that’s changed recently is his attire. I miss the pants, you know. Those were some unique little black butt-huggers and they were crazy sexy. He said he’d need to wear something less conspicuous because people were liable to notice such an unusual outfit. But that outfit was really him and he liked what he wore, I knew. Sometimes he looks at them in his bag and I think he sighs. I didn’t know change was that painful for him. It seems like it shouldn’t be. Maybe I’m imagining things. He probably doesn’t care. But he kept the shirt, which I think makes him feel better. And he’s taken to wearing a hat. I mean, he looks damn fine in it, it’s like a little round hat with an all-around brim and its sharp. Especially now that his hair is all short, I think he likes the hat. I mean, I like the hat, he’s saucy in it. But all these changes are weirding me out if you get my drift. Who needs change during a war? Everyday sends you somewhere new, nothing ever, ever stays the same. Its like, shouldn’t he want to hang onto the familiar things? But not my Heero, no. He’s enigmatic you see. He looks at my hair sometimes and I think he’s sort of disappointed. Heero Yuy doesn’t think about appearance though, so I don’t know. I told him he looked like a dancer, with a body like that and then so little hair. It was a compliment. He didn’t look too happy about it.

     Sometimes, when he’s working on Wing, he wears a bandana. Now that’s hot. You can’t even imagine how fast I hauled his ass to the ground to do him the second I saw that pouty expression coupled with that green bandana around his head. I think we set a record. The first time he wore it was a few days after he took the razor to his head. I swear he’s embarrassed and I don’t know why! It’s kicking the hell out of my patience. I want to know! But he says he’s fine and when I ask about his hair he says why would he care about hair? It’s a nuisance he says. I would have believed him if we weren’t together. Because every night he strokes my hair and holds it and he brushes it for me sometimes. Which is crazy. Why would Heero Yuy care about something as dumb as his hair? Well, I guess I’m not the one to make that argument, seeing as I would probably die without my hair. No, its not an overstatement, I don’t lie, or anything like that. My hair is my past. So what was Heero’s to him? It kept his head warm I bet. But he wears a hat now, so why would his head get cold? He is letting it grow back slowly though. Its begun to get a little longer, so he can spike it up just slightly with some gel if he felt like it. He never does though so I do it for him in the morning. He says its stupid vanity to do that, but he doesn’t fight me about it anymore. I told him to grow it just below his ears, until it kinda curls out underneath them and the rest falls straight. He said he wouldn’t entertain the thought because he’d never give his hair that much maintenance. What maintenance? I said. He shrugged and so now I think he’s gonna do it. Ha. Well I told him I wouldn’t be able to resist his pissy face with that hair and he’d be getting some a lot more often. He smiled. I like his smile. He asked if I would let him still be on top if he had girl hair like that. I got offended and shook my braid at him until he smiled again.

     Since he did that I said sure he could be on top still, I was the one who benefitted most from it. He said not to be so sure. Hey, if we’re both happy with our positions then what’s to change? Heero’s been dealing with a lot of change lately. I won’t scare him by telling him I suddenly wanna be top. He’d probably cry. Just jesting. No but, he’s dealing with lots of issues that surfaced because he’s got hardly any hair. I like being his protector at night when he pretends he’s not sad, but I know he is. Then I can hold him and he’ll put his head on my shoulder or chest and talk to me very quietly like I’m the only person in the world. He said I was the only person in his world worth spending any time with. That’s when I first saw Heero Yuy’s poetic side. You wouldn’t know but that boy really is a poet. He shows me his writings a lot and they’re very good. At one of the school’s we were at there was going to be a poetry contest. He wouldn’t enter because it’d be conspicuous he said, so I stole one of his best pieces and submitted it. Well he was pissed as a lion in a three inch-cage, which is pretty pissed for those of you who don’t know and he wouldn’t talk to me for like three weeks and I didn’t get any for like a month and a half, but he won the contest by a hundred miles and was even approached by this famous poet who was there to judge and said if Heero would ever like anything looked at for publishing he’d endorse him. I’m not an expert but I think that means he’s pretty good. He doesn’t care though. Maybe someday, when the war is over he’ll care, but right now he doesn’t give poetry much weight compared to the missions.

     He’s still a bad-ass, you know. He says he only writes it for me anyway. I didn’t know how to thank him for that. No ones ever said anything nicer to me. Perhaps you’re beginning to see why I love Heero. Maybe he doesn’t care about his missing head of hair. Maybe its something else that’s gotten to him. Anyway, I aim to ask him. He’s my soulmate. I never agreed with all that shit before, like, when you hurt baby, I hurt too. Well I was wrong. Can you imagine what it must feel like to know that something bothers Heero Yuy? It’s a crazy feeling. I don’t like it; he doesn’t like it. I try and come up with new and inventive ways of making him happy. He does the same for me. We’re a good team. We’ll always be a good team. He told me so and a promise from Heero Yuy is like the word of God. Well at least I think so. A promise from Heero Yuy is like a declaration of marriage. He did ask me once. We were sitting outside one of the commercial hangers with military people everywhere, not the opposers, we wouldn’t just sit around in enemy territory, but the friendly military (is that an oxymoron) and everyone was milling about and you could hardly hear. We were sitting on some spare parts for my mech. It was getting kinda dark. He looked at me for minute until I noticed him looking. Then he looked away. He took my hand and held it in his for a while. I like stuff like that; I’m a romantic under all this grease and murder and blood. Then he leaned his head on my shoulder, right in public, and whispered for me to lean down. I put my ear by his mouth and he said, ‘You want to marry me, Duo?’ I didn’t respond for a while. I thought he was out of his mind. Finally I said, ‘What?’ He lifted his head, which still had lots of hair then, and stared at me full in the face. “After the war,” he rejoined and he looked pretty scared. I was shocked at that. Can you see Heero’s face looking scared? Niether could I. Until just then; but he calmed down pretty quickly and then only looked like I’d be doing the most important thing in the history of the world if I would only said I would. “Marry me, Duo?” Maybe it was the most important thing in the history of his world. I said I’d think about it. He looked more than sad, undefinably so. I felt utterly wrecked about it, but I don’t believe in marriage and I couldn’t picture Heero being my husband, you know? It didn’t fit him and it didn’t fit me the way I saw myself. I guess he saw I us differently. We acted like he hadn’t asked me for a little while, but then he got mad and kept questioning me about if I would ever have a descisive answer for him, positive or negative, at least an answer.

     We were fighting for a few days, like yelling matches and everything and Quatre got really upset at us. One night Heero pinned me to the wall with his iron-chain grip and held me there for a while, staring at me calmly and serenly and then he kissed me, gently, and put his head on my chest with his fingers still holding me too the wall like a gundanium shackle. I just laughed for like, ten minutes. He knows me perfectly. If I let you go, will you give me an answer, just as answer, please, he begged. I smiled and said of course baby, anything you want. Well after that erotic moment you think I would say I wouldn’t give him one. Yeah, I suppose that wouldn’t turn on just anybody. Just me I guess. Heero knows what I go for. He’s my soulmate. I sauntered over to our bed and lay down. His eyes went to my stomach because my shirt was riding up. I motioned for him to follow so he did. He laid on top of me, he’s forward, just like I like him to be. After he broke our kiss I kneed him really gently in the balls and told him I’d marry him if he would fuck me really hard right then. He laughed-actually laughed-for almost a minute straight. He said that was probably the most uncommon marriage acceptance the world had ever known. I smirked and he can’t resist that so he carried out his promise and I said yes. I was starting to see the whole thing differently by that time anyway, just figured I’d get a good lay out of it. If he’s willing to throw off all other labels and be called ‘husband’ then I guess I can do the same. I’d be his, after all. So I guess I’m his fiancè now. Then he shaved his head and quit wearing spandex and started to write poetry more frequently but still not often. Connection? I don’t know. So we deal with our psycotic problems together and I hold him sometimes and other times he’ll hold me. Understand why I love Heero? I could go on for a long time, talking is my thing you see, but I won’t because Heero has this whole notebook full of new poetry he’s just recently completed and we’re going to spend all night reading it and talking about what it means and what we mean here in this war and in this world. Or in each other’s worlds. I can tell you right now that he means life in my little bit of it, and he will no matter how long his hair is or if he wears spandex or denim or whatever the hell he does with his appearance. He thinks romanticism is overrated, his belief doesn’t stop him from being romantic mind you, or maybe that’s my screwed up sense of romance, but I tell him I love him for his pouty self everyday. We’ll read his poetry tonight and I’ll tease him about his hair and we’ll probably make love to each other at least twice. Then we’ll hide under the covers and he’ll whisper stuff to me that no one else gets to hear and crawl into my arms, and the next night it’ll be my turn to sleep in his arms safe and protected from the entire outside world, in just our own. Then we’ll get up and be bad-asses all day and read poetry again at night. It’s Japanese poetry, he writes in Japanese.