Duo watched his friend with eyes as wide as the moon as he was coming into the dining room the next morning. Heero had such a deep frown on his face that Duo thought something terrible had happened to his laptop or somehow he had screwed up the mission already. He sat down and slowly put some butter on a golden toast while not even paying the slightest bit of attention to it. Lost in his thoughts he chewed on it, still scowling. He hadn't said one single word yet. Normally he would have growled at least the standard "Ohayo."

/What's wrong with him? Did he have a bad dream?/

Of course Duo didn't know how right he was about this fact. Heero still hadn't worked out why he had *enjoyed* making love with a *man* in his fantasy. He had only figured out that if it weren't Duo he would have castrated himself the instant he woke up. That fact even puzzled him more than the fact that he had been dreaming the whole thing, that it came out of the depths of his mind. Why wasn't it that bad when it was Duo? The usually braided baka that was equally annoying and cheering him up? Wasn't he in love with Relena? He liked girls, right? He was *not* gay, couldn't be. He had been in love with Relena since the first day he wasn't able to kill her.

[Yeah, just because that braided baka shot me before I could shoot her...]

There he was again. In his thoughts about Relena.

[Why is he chasing me? Why can't he just leave me alone? I want to be Relena's boyfriend, not his.]

He cursed himself for even considering to be the boyfriend of a boy. He was *not* gay. That fact was for sure. Or so he told himself.

Duo on the other hand was still looking at his friend in concern. Something was troubling Heero, he could feel it. And he knew he had to help him. With all efforts. So he laid his right hand reassuringly on the other's arm. Somehow this action made Heero tense and he looked down at Duo's hand in some kind of shock.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

Duo blinked several times and felt very uncomfortable. "I was just wondering what was wrong with you... Yuichi-kun."

Heero stared at him with an almost unreadable expression of disgust, surprise, uneasiness and... shame? "Nothing."

"Ah, come on, if it's nothing you would be *that* silent," Duo tried to tease him. "Did you have a nice dream, or what is it?"

The only answer he got was the infamous Death Glare. But he also saw something reddening Heero's cheeks. Very faint but the trained eye of an ex-Gundam Pilot was able to see the tiniest change in expressions.

/Whoah! I really must have hit the mark with that. Wonder what the dream was about.../

"You know that they say it becomes true what you dream the first night in another house, don't you?"

Heero's blush deepened so that it was visible now for untrained eyes as well.

/Oh my God! I *have* to know what this dream was about!/

Duo put on his best puppy-look that was able to melt the coldest ice and make him get *everything* he wanted. It worked on his 'uncle', had worked on sister Helen and sometimes it works on Heero, too. "Please tell me about it, ne?"

He supported his plea with a little squeeze on Heero's arm.

By that he provoked the deepest Death Glare he ever got. Hastily he pulled his hand away as if it was burned. "Geesh, Yu-kun! Don't look at me like that! I'm your friend, you forgot?"

The death-part from the glare subsided but Heero still did glare though Duo was also able to read some irritation in it. Finally Heero spoke. It came slowly as if he had to force himself to speak but it came.

"Yes, you are my friend."

Duo nearly glomped him. Heero didn't often say to him that he was his friend especially not when he was in *this* mood that made him rarely speak. So instead of pulling the stoic boy into a bear hug Duo just smiled.

Somehow that made it even worse.

A tiny nanosecond Heero looked as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing, like some holy entity had made its way before him and the next he pulled his gaze away to stare at his empty plate, flushing furiously.

Duo sighed loudly. He wasn't sure what he did wrong this time and he still haven't found out what Heero's dream had been about. Normally Heero would have told him at least a short summary of it so that Duo had to guess what made him so upset but saying *nothing* surely wasn't Heero's style of handling his sorrow. Two years ago he might have just walked into some OZ base blowing up the whole weaponry but nowadays he would have told Duo about it so they could find a solution for his dilemma together.

"So, what's bothering you? You know, you can tell me everything."

Heero looked at his friend for a long time before he answered, "Maybe another time."

Then he stood up to leave for school. Duo hastily finished his own breakfast before he ran very unladylike after the Japanese youth. After catching up with him he lead him to the limousine his `uncleŽ had insisted on to take his `nieceŽ to school.

~z~

Sitting in the back-row of the big car Duo tried to clear his mind to think of a way how to tell Heero why he wanted a *boy* as a back-up not noticing that Heero did the same thing just that he tried to forget the shaming dream he had while was staring out of the window. He was still too puzzled about his behavior last night that he almost missed when Duo began to speak.

[I'm still curious how this device in his mouth works... The voice is too lovely to be natural... Who made this?]

"You know, Yu-kun... there are many boys in my school..."

That elicited a surprised expression with wide eyes on Heero's face.

/At least he's looking at me again../

"And, well... I... had some... 'offers'...," Duo added, not able to hide the flush caused by the memories of these 'offers'. Males really *are* bastards...

/What the hell am I thinking? I'm a male, too!!!/

Glimpsing up to Heero he found himself encouraged to tell more.

"Erm... So... I wanted to ask you a favor... Wouldyoubemyboyfriend?"

Duo had never seen such a shocked and surprised expression on Heero's face. He looked as if all of a sudden green antennas had appeared on Duo's head. Then Duo noticed what he just had said and flushed as well.

"I-I... I mean... not my *real* boyfriend, of course!" he added, finally getting why Heero was so upset about his inquiry. "Just to avoid more unwanted offers. Those guys are really getting nasty sometimes..."

Heero thought about it. It would be bad for their mission if their cover was blown because one of the 'nasty guys', as Duo had put it, tried to jump Duo just because he was a beautiful girl.

[What the hell am I thinking? Duo *is* not a beautiful girl, he just looks like one. Do he has to avoid any closer contact with other people.]

He sighed and heard Duo talking about what those 'nasty guys' had been offering to him. After listening a while he sunk back into his Pro's and Con's about being Duo's... Diana's boyfriend. He finally came to the conclusion that he *had* to act as Diana's boyfriend to finish this mission. He was just about to tell Duo when he heard him blabbering how he avoided these 'unwanted offers' for a while.

"...so I told them I had a boyfriend on the colony where the orphanage is. But as that didn't help anymore I asked Noin to send one of you guys to play my boyfriend."

He surveyed the deep scowl on Heero's face.

"She didn't tell ya about it, did she?"

Not waiting for an answer he spat out, "Women! Can't they tell the whole truth once in a while?"

He put his hand on Heero's arm again. Heero stared down at it with a scowl but Duo chose to ignore it.

"Listen, you don't have to do this if you don't like it. But I want to say that I don't expect *anything* from you except that you *say* you are my boyfriend and make sure that *everyone* hears it!"

"Alright."

"It's not that I want to be your... 'alright'?!"

Duo looked incredulously at his friend. He'd expected him to ask him for at least a day of consideration but giving into his plea right away? That was a little bit too fast, even for Duo.

But he put his shock aside and smiled. "Thank you."

After opening his eyes again he discovered a slight shade of pink on Heero's cheeks who stared down onto the floor of the limousine, pretending to be very interested in its pattern.

/I should stop smiling at him. It seems to scare him... On the other hand... hehe.../

Heero told himself over and over again that being Duo's boyfriend was just a cover. Nothing more. Their relationship would *not* lead to the last scene of his dream. He'd make that fact for sure. He wouldn't touch Duo like touched his dream-girl and he would *not* allow Duo to touch *anything* else than his arm. If he could he would undermine that as well but it would be very impolite to refuse a reassuring gesture from a friend. It was only his fault that he felt bolts of electricity running through his body every time Duo had laid his hand on his arm this day. It was just the touch of a friend, nothing more. His own imagination and the damned dream last night saw more than that in it.

By looking out of the window again he saw that the car had arrived at a huge school yard.

"We're there! Come on, I'll get you to the headmaster's office," Duo smiled at him.

There it was again. The angelic face he'd seen twice hat day. Like the times before it made his heart-beat stop for a second before working with double speed.

[That *has* to stop! I cannot look at him like he's some kind of angel! He's just a *boy*, my best friend to be precise. Nothing else!]

He followed his friend over the yard to the huge building that was their school, stopping from time to time so that Duo could say hello to some of his friends. The figure with long chestnut hair stayed by his side to make sure they'd be seen together.

Duo took him to the headmaster's office as he had promised, said goodbye and left for his classroom. Heero looked at his back as he was running, carrying a waving mass of chestnut looks with him until he disappeared around a corner.

Heero let out an inaudible sigh and knocked.

He confirmed his name and his whereabouts at the office and then waited for the teacher to take him to his classroom. When she finally arrived he had made out a plan how to tell everybody he was Diana's boyfriend.

~z~

"Class, we have an exchange student from another colony. He will stay here for a few months to visit his friend Diana de l'Amour. Please come in," she gestured Heero who was standing outside the classroom but had heard every word. She had said exactly what he'd wanted her to say. This would make his plan perfect.

"Hino Yuichi. Please call me Yuichi," he said after he bowed slightly. Then he turned to his teacher. "And I'm not Diana's friend."

He felt the whole class gasp and almost heard Duo growling. The female teacher looked at him like he had eaten a bug in front of her. "But she said you'd be staying with her so I assumed you'd be..."

"I just said I'm not only her friend. I am her boyfriend."

When looked around he was contented to see every face in shock, especially Duo's.

[That was the plan.]

To be continued...
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