Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Scissored Kismets ❯ Bullet With Butterfly Wings ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 1: Bullet with Butterfly Wings

"Stolen kisses are the sweetest."- anonymous.

"So how are you doing now, Heero?”

The Japanese frowned when the fingers he raked through his hair came out moist because of sweat. He adored the Earth, but the longer he stayed there, the more he seemed to dislike its weather. While he preferred to wake up to natural sunlight than under the cool but bogus lights of the colonies, he certainly wouldn't like it to fry his skin whenever he goes out. There was something wrong about the rain, too, especially when it comes minutes after the oven temperature of the surroundings reaches its peak. He had a feeling that the odd weather change would repeat today.

But he wouldn't—couldn't—protest. This wouldn't be a bad day after all, he thought, secretly glancing at the girl sitting next to him.

“I'm studying,” he said dryly, settling his Physics book and organizer on his lap.

Relena stopped prodding the sushi with the chopsticks she grasped with both her fists. She raised a brow when he took one hand and positioned one chopstick properly. “Don't let it touch your forefinger.” He slipped the other between her thumb and forefinger.

“Studying,” she muttered, her brows gathering in the center as Heero lined the pieces of wood parallel to each other.

“Yes,” he muttered back, his eyes flitting to hers for a second. “I should finish my education now. I only used the school as a cover-up during the war and those are the times when education was the last thing on my mind.” He thumbed the back of her hand near her own thumb. “Keep this one stationary as you move the other towards it.”

Relena followed the instructions and grinned when he gave a nod at her movements. “It's a good thing to know that you chose to continue your studies. I'm happy you decided to live a normal life.”

“That's the sole road waiting ahead of me.” He detached his fingers from her. “Now try to pick the food using that technique.”

Relena beamed warmly as she trapped the soft thing between the sticks. “This is the first time I'm going to have sushi.”

“No, this is not.”

The sushi slipped off her shaky hold. She didn't take his eyes away from it. “What do you mean?”

“They're not real sushi.”

“Huh?”

Relena leaned forward to study the little things. They look real. She'd seen sushi and a lot of other Japanese dishes before so she could recognize a few by just looking at them. She hadn't tasted one, though; she doesn't care so much for Asian cuisine. She thought about making an exemption today.

A familiarly sweet scent made her nostrils flare when she leaned a bit nearer.

“Chocolate,” she gasped.

Relena's face brightened with a child's delight when Heero nodded in confirmation. She hummed happily as she set the chopsticks aside and fiddled a slightly deformed chocolate sushi with her fingers. She managed to scoop it up from the tray.

“Don't worry,” she said with a sideways glance, “I won't forget your chopsticks lesson. It's just I never eat confectioneries with wooden sticks.”

Heero smirked, content at watching her help herself with the sweets, her pink tongue darting out to sweep over her lower lip. He reached to get one for himself, but Relena playfully slapped his hand away.

“No,” she said with a squinting of the eyes, shifting the tray from her lap to the other side of the bench.

Heero prevented himself from rolling his eyes. “Hn.”

She held his eyes, attempting to mimic Heero's overly serious expression. She was victorious for a couple of minutes until her shoulders shook with hidden laugher. She spilled them out and reached up to muffle her giggles.

Heero merely raised a brow. “What's funny?”

She shook her head hard that some of her hair flapped against her cheeks. The brunette just stared vacantly and waited for her to stop laughing. When she did, she coyly tucked the stray strands to the back of her ears. She picked up one almost formless thing and raised it towards Heero. He reached forward to get it, but Relena shoved his hand away.

“No,” she protested, an unreadable glint shimmering in her eyes. When she inched it nearer, Heero got what she wanted to do. He lowered his head and opened his mouth to take a small bite.

Relena grinned complacently and popped the remaining part into her mouth. “Hmm. This is good.”

Heero ran his hand on the embossed title of his book as he swallowed. “The owner of the apartment where I'm staying seems to be fond of me. She gave me those before I went to school this morning. She owns a sweetshop just a few blocks away from here.”

She started. “A few blocks…You live here on Earth?”

“For the time being,” he answered stiffly. “Anytime after my graduation I'll be heading back to the colonies. Quatre promised to have a job for me there.”

“Quatre?”

“Yes.”

“I've just run away with him.”

The Japanese seemed to look startled for a moment. He wasn't given the chance to utter anything when Relena spoke again.

“I guess that no matter what we do, we're still teenagers. We needed a break.” Heero's gaze followed where Relena was pointing at. Just behind the bench where they were sitting, two small bicycles were laid recklessly on the grassy ground. He couldn't figure out whose was which, for both bikes were pink and girly.

“We sneaked out of our offices today,” she explained, her attention now back to the precious things in the tray. “There weren't so much anything to do today, really. Pagan showed me my schedule and I almost called for a toast when I saw that my night would be miraculously clear. Quatre was invited to a luncheon at Switzerland yesterday, and he decided to work from here before the month ends. He called me up last night. We were supposed to be having lunch together for some sort of catching up, outside our workplace, but we figure we couldn't get out into the public without being noticed or stalked by the press. Hence the disguise.”

Heero's lips twitched. He wasn't paying attention to what Relena was wearing when he found her. Now that he studied her soiled cleats and yellow-striped-white ankle socks, her bright pink jodhpurs, her high school P.E. shirt and a checkered newsboy cap, he couldn't help but let a wide smile take control of his aching jaw.

Relena chuckled at his reaction. “Well, we're not able to have lunch. He abandoned his bike here when he said he'd pass by a bookstore to buy something. He'll be back anytime soon and we can eat together.”

"Small reunion."

"It hasn't been that long," Relena said with a chuckle. "And by the way, Toffee says hi."

Heero threw her a questioning look. "Toffee?"

She cocked a nod. "Don't you remember him?"

"I'm afraid not."

"He'll be sad if he finds that out."

Silence.

"He said you should've given him to me in person on my sixteenth birthday than disguising yourself as a flight attendant and leaving him on my seat before we took off."

When he finally took in what she said, not letting his laugh escape his mouth was the hardest thing to do.

Of course he does remember.

“I've watched the interview on The Paragon this morning,” Forrest Madison, secretary and in charge of the public relations for the Romafeller Enterprises, popped into the vidscreen, sporting a smug grin on his face. “I'm getting positive feedbacks.”

Tossing a thick band of her blond locks away from her face, Dorothy Catalonia didn't even look up from the papers on her table. She tapped the blunt end of her ballpoint pen against the tip of the manila envelope where the papers were lying on, a frown marring her immaculate countenance.

“Good,” she responded tersely.

“The Business Aperture will have you on the cover on its next month's issue,” he added, one corner of his mouth curling up higher than the other. “The Lagrangian Athena and Women will have you on theirs' next week.”

“That's fine,” she answered with so little interest, but this time looking up to face him. “Are there new messages?”

“Yes, new events,” Madison replied with a sideways wobble of his head. He disappeared from the screen for a few seconds and showed up again, a planner spread on his hands.

“The Yellow Brick Road Children Organization wants you to be in their twenty-fourth anniversary as the guest of honor,” he read, perching spectacles on his nose. “That's on the fifteenth.”

“I don't think I can make it. Send them a check.”

Madison nodded, scribbling notes. “You're invited at a dinner party for a women's group next Tuesday.”

“No. Send them a check if they're asking for money.”

“The Local Government department will be having a luncheon on the thirtieth and they would like you to be their guest speaker.”

“No. Send my apologies. I think I'm going to visit our complex and proving grounds on that date.”

The secretary nodded. “Your meeting in Geneva has been arranged—“

“Cancel it.”

“The Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian will be hosting a masquerade party on Friday next week.”

Dorothy considered. “I'll try to come.”

Before Madison could add another word, Dorothy's cell phone rang. She looked up from the papers and snatched the phone she was currently using as a paperweight. Madison watched as his boss's eyes narrowed at the name on her phone's screen. Dorothy pushed the answer key and brought the thing to her ear, saying nothing. He tried to figure out who she was talking to by reading her expression, but he couldn't read anything there. Half a minute passed and the call was ended without her saying anything.

Dorothy smiled. “So, Madison. I've just been informed that you've been interviewed by The Sentinel.”

Madison returned the friendly gesture, but he couldn't help but shiver. When his boss was giving that smile to anyone, there was a disaster coming. “Yes, ma'am. The Editor of the paper said that they'll have it on the front page.”

“I've heard that too. Wouldn't that be nice?” Dorothy nonchalantly answered, tossing her hair back on her shoulder. Her smile widened when she saw him sigh in relief, then she continued. “The world will now know the problems we're having about our junk bonds.”

Madison's brow creased. “I informed them a little about our leveraging, but the whole article is mainly about the transition of the Romafeller Foundation from a military financial backer to an independent business entity in a very short span of time.”

“That's good.”

Madison felt a millisecond-long safety.

“You're fired.”

“What?”

“You heard me right, Madison. When I hired you as my secretary and appointed you as the public relations officer, you signed a contract about not informing anyone about what's truly going on inside our business, especially not about our problems.”

“That's—“

“I'm very sorry,” Dorothy said in a tone that says she truly wasn't. “I wish you could find a better job.”

“But miss Catalonia—“

With a push of a long finger, the connection was cut and Dorothy was left staring at her own reflection on the blank vidscreen.

It was a terribly good day, not an ideal time to fire someone, but she was more concerned for the well-being of the company than the welfare of already affluent people.

She couldn't afford to make a mistake.

A thought flashed across her head. She debated with herself, considered if it wouldn't do any harm or if it was a mistake before she dialed up her butler.

“Morley, please prepare my car.”

No, it wasn't—taking a break wasn't a mistake. Even the youngest woman in the world to preside over a budding business organization needed a break.

She was still a human, after all.

Quatre sheepishly pushed his head deeper into the hood of his jacket while pretending to examine the magazine rack. He'd seen a lot of commerce magazines that had him on the cover this month, and it made him blush when he noticed that the main buyers in the bookstore he entered looked as if anything connected to business was the last thing on their minds.

Girls. Giggly, scatty, flushed teenage schoolgirls.

He would have turned his music player on full blast just to drown what these flighty kids were gossiping about but for some reason, he decided to nose round. He might get something…..

…..or not.

“He's so cute,” gushed one, hugging a magazine to her chest. “I wonder why he didn't enter the show business... Or modeling? I bet he'll be doing well there. Em, what do you say?”

“Yes!” chimed the shorter girl called Em, holding another copy of the same mag. “Have you watched his interview yesterday at the Ryman Show? Boy, he's such a heartthrob. Actually, I wasn't able to take anything in as I was so busy watching him.”

“Yeah, I've seen that, and at least I was able to jot down something. I learned that he's the only male heir of that vast Winner Corporation. He's got twenty-nine sisters.”

“Twenty-nine!”

“Yes. That would be a bit scary, wouldn't it? I mean, can you handle twenty-nine sisters-in-law?”

Quatre stifled a sigh. He didn't know if he should laugh or get irritated.

“He's a good businessman, I heard,” called a taller girl from behind the two. “It's been observed that he's doing a fine job filling his late father's shoes just by himself. His sisters rarely come to help him.”

“Sheesh, Annie, I thought you don't care about this cutie.”

There was a huff. “I don't. If we're talking about how he looks like a movie star.”

“Oh, but he does! How could you ignore that?”

“I'm not ignoring that, I'm just focusing on the right things. And please don't crumple that, we haven't paid for it yet.”

“B-but he's just so cute! How could that be not one of…the right things you were talking about?”

“It's a commerce periodical, not a teen mag. I think that alone explains what I want to say.”

“Hmph.”

“I'm not completely enamored by his `power', though. There's another incredible teen that's able to catch my attention.” The taller girl snatched up a periodical from the rack and shoved it to the younger girls.

“That Catalonia?”

Quatre flinched at the mention of the name.

“Oh,” Em sighed. “Nice hair.”

He could feel the older girl called Annie rolling her eyes. “You're just kids, aren't you? You're looking at the wrong things.”

“Just what's so special about her? Well, aside from that hair and…Hey, what's happened to her eyebrows?”

“You're looking at the wrong things.”

“Just spit it out.”
“Yeah.”

“She's Quatre Winner's counterpart.”

“What?”
“Because they're both blondes? I love their hair.”

“I don't know what's wrong with you two. You're acting as if you're still in elementary!”

“Fine. Just tell us what you're thinking.”

Annie sighed, hesitated if she should explain further, then relented. “Quatre Winner is the Iron Phoenix, as his competitors called him. After his father died and the corporation almost lost its way because of the lack of a true leader, he came back and put his company back to where it once was…and probably to where it hasn't been in yet.

“Dorothy Catalonia. She's a Bullet with Butterfly Wings, a title given to her by the majority of the people whom she crossed paths with. She's definitely beautiful but fatal. They said she'll eat you alive; she can make her employees cry blood if she wanted to. I don't know if that's true, but hey, being the perfectionist that she is I think it's not impossible. But if I'd be asked, I'd say she's a true phoenix too. The Romafeller Foundation was once a financial backer of a military organization. You know what happened in the war. She's the last heiress to the foundation, and she didn't disappoint her late kin when she relived it, only now as an independent business unit.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey, Annie,” Em called, happily tugging at her elbow, “Is she and Quatre the same age?”

There was a pause. “Yeah. I think they're turning sixteen this year.”

“Is it possible that they're twins? He has so many sisters and…their hair...”

“Stupid. Leave their hair alone. They….”

Quatre didn't listen to the rest. Music flowed into his ears from the earphones, and oddly a chill formed in the pit of his belly and kept edging out, cooling him off inch by inch until he's trembling. He tried to ignore the sudden beating of a scar on his side and the almost painful hammering of his heart against his ribs. His eyes instinctively fell to a glossy magazine where the main cause of his abnormal body response was pictured.

He picked the magazine up, studying her calm face.

When he put it back to the rack, he couldn't understand why he was blushing again.

A golden Porsche skidded to a stop at the parking lot. Passersby and some of the customers entering the bookstore turned their heads to the unbelievably showy color of the car. It was a bit painful to look at especially that the bright afternoon light hit it, making it appear like it has an unearthly halo. When people would look away shaking their heads, they couldn't help but turn again when a golden creature emerged from it—brighter than the car, but very pleasant to the eye.

Dorothy Catalonia marched up the steps with a dignified aura, her hair swaying in time with her strides. She was aware that she was being watched, but she walked as if she was alone, as if anyone else was invisible or just unworthy of her attention.

She pushed the glass door open. It has been a long time since she bought a book for herself—the last time was probably even before she joined the war. She made it a point to read a new novel every week or at least twice a month, and because of her tight schedule she couldn't get herself anything but stupid books about the industry, journals about the current economic state of the colonies, and a lot of other materials discussing politics that come her way. She wouldn't say she was sick of these things as she knew she would be living with them for the longest part of her life, but she wanted something lighter, something that would take her away for a while from her tension-filled world. The first step in doing that was to get the book herself, not from the internet but from the real store. She would even like to have a secondhand one from the bargain pyramid just for the sake of feeling that she was reading the same pages of a book that an ordinary person once held.

The first thing that caught her attention was the sharp giggling at the counter. She wouldn't have looked at the girls for more than a second when she noticed a familiar face in the magazine being waved happily by one of them.

“Yes, yes, yes,” the girl excitedly chanted, placing a kiss on the cover. “I hope they include pin-ups.”

“As if they would,” spat a taller one. “For god's sake, it's a business mag, how many times should I tell you?”

Dorothy smirked as the banter went on, turning the other way towards the book shelves. She examined the tomes, checked out the latest volumes. She'd already run her eyes over a couple of paperback summaries but she wasn't able to understand any of them. There was something on her mind that wouldn't let anything else enter.

Quatre Raberba Winner.

Just saying his name mentally brings a coldness kicking back into her guts. Their last encounter took place couples of months ago, after the Libra incident, in that cold hospital room. He hadn't been awake but she knew he was well and alive. And the connection….

“Dorothy? Miss Dorothy, is that you?”

Her ears stung at the painfully familiar voice. She snapped her head towards where it came from and was greeted by the sight of a boy blocking the aisle. Donned in a blue hooded windbreaker, faded jeans, and worn-out Chucks, a dead ringer of the blonde she was thinking about half a second ago was regarding her with bright eyes.

Or was it really him?

The boy approached her with careful steps, his soles squeaking against the tiles. There was a weak force urging her to run away, but her legs suddenly felt very heavy. He came to a halt an arm span away from her, a lopsided grin tugging at his lips.

“Dorothy,” he breathed.

“Quatre,” she whispered.

No, it wasn't him. It's just…

A hallucination. Right. Never would anyone see the president of the Winner Corporation dressed up like he was an average punk frequenting the sidewalks. And why would anyone wear jacket on a hot, sunny afternoon?

She smirked evilly, then stepped forward to take a close, good look at the illusion. She knew the effects of too much stress.

And when a tingling, urging force puddled into her system, she didn't attempt to deny what it wanted to do. She relented to it by her own will, and then she was doing it.

Slowly, she lifted her hands and slid them inside his hood, on either side of his face. His eyes widened when her cold fingers touched his cheeks, but he didn't jerk them away. There was heat, something that made her wonder if she was overworking herself. She was indeed too tired to even deceive herself that such hallucinations would be perceptible.

Nevertheless, she still did it. She momentarily forgot where she was, or what the other people present in the bookstore would think. She leaned in, pulled him closer, and fused her lips to his.

The hood dropped to his shoulders. She lost herself in the kiss for the first few moments, and then she felt the intake of breath of the hallucination, the light rising and falling of his shoulders. A breathing imagination? Could it be possible? And was he just too warm, too soft, too Quatre to be just…… Oh.

Oh no.

As if he was suddenly caustic, she yanked her hands away from him and stepped back thrice, shock all over her face. His cheeks were glowing scarlet and there was surprise churning in the depths of his eyes.

They were held prisoner in each others eyes, until Dorothy broke out and spun on her heel, bolting towards the glass door and out of the store.

He stood stock-still, staring at the tiles where she was standing just a few moments ago, his hand mindlessly rising up to touch his lips.