by Melody
Part I: Welcome to Our World
Large, resentful blue eyes stared back at Melody when she greeted her new chibi at the front door. The little Japanese boy was obviously not as glad to be joining the family as the family was glad to add him to their already large number of chibis.
“So you are Heero,” Melody said. She tried to brush Heero’s shaggy dark brown bangs out of his eyes but he pulled away from her. His cold blue eyes conveyed this message quite clearly: “Don’t touch me,” so Melody tried again without touching him.
“We are happy that you are joining our family, Heero.” Still no response, so she turned to the adult who was accompanying her new little boy.
“Major Sally, please come in,” Melody invited.
“I’m sorry that he’s not friendlier,” Sally apologized. “He hardly said a word to me all the way here.”
“That’s okay,” Melody assured her. “He must still be in some sort of shock from being orphaned.”
“I’m NOT a orfang,” Heero said in a quiet monotone voice. “I jus’ don’t have nobody to take care of me ‘cause my aunt can’t do it ‘cause she’s too sick now after my parents died in the war. I gots SOME fam’ly so I can’t be a orfang.”
Melody decided not to respond to that; Heero was making no attempt to hide the fact that he was angry about getting a new family so she thought that she would just try her best to make him feel welcome.
“Won’t you sit down?” Melody offered when they got to the living room. Sally accepted, but Heero stood as still as stone. “Heero, you may sit down too, if you like.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Sally’s apology for his behavior was unspoken. “I wish I knew what to do to help him get settled.”
“Heero, why don’t we go and get your luggage so you can see where you will sleep in the Nursery with the other chibis that are your age,” Melody suggested.
“You mean I gotta share a room?”
“Well, yes. The Nursery is a very large room so I am sure you won’t feel crowded by the others sharing it with you.”
No response from the uncooperative new chibi.
“The others are playing outside and they are very anxious to meet you,” Melody said as pleasantly as she could.
“I’ll go get your suitcase,” Major Sally told Heero.
“I’ll get it. It’s mine,” Heero insisted abruptly.
Melody and Sally watched as Heero pulled his large, heavy black suitcase out of the back seat of the car.
“He told me that he reads a lot.” Sally gave what little information she could. “His aunt said that his reading skills are very advanced.”
“So you like to read, Heero?” Melody tried to engage him in conversation once again. “That’s wonderful.”
Her attempt failed.
“What kind of books do you like to read?” Melody persisted.
Heero had been looking at her, but now he turned away.
Despite Heero’s protesting that he wanted to do it by himself, Major Sally carried Heero’s belongings up to his new bedroom and set the black case on his bed.
“This is your bed, Heero,” Melody informed him. “We’ll be redecorating the Nursery sometime soon, so if you don’t like your comforter we will get a new one for you then.”
Heero looked all around the huge room in silence. He counted five beds besides his own, each with a different comforter. There was one with clowns all over it, a black and red reversible one, one with ninjas printed on it and one with friendly woodland creatures. It took him a moment to realize that the fact that there was one bed in the corner with a pink comforter covered with little cotton-tailed bunnies, with an eyelet dust ruffle and pillow case indicated that there was a GIRL sharing their room, too. Heero rolled his eyes; this was going to be worse than he'd thought it would be.
“Can you go ‘way an’ leave me ‘lone now?” Heero asked ungraciously. He was going to need time to mull over the fact that not only was he was expected to share a room with other boys, but a GIRL as well; and also to adjust to the puppies and kitties that smiled up at him from the comforter on his new bed. He shuddered involuntarily and decided that he wouldn’t be staying long.
Major Sally was appalled by his rudeness but Melody just motioned for her to follow her as she walked in the direction of the Nursery door. “We’ll let you familiarize yourself with your new surroundings, okay?”
The answer he gave was a slight nod and the staring of his cold blue eyes.
“The new chibi should be here soon,” Trowa remarked as he looked at his digital watch. “I wonder what he’s like.”
“We’ll just have to wait to find out ‘cause it’s ‘mpossible to guess ‘bout it,”
Tegan called to the chibis from the back porch. “Come in and meet your new friend,” she said. “He’s upstairs in the Nursery.”
The boys ran eagerly to meet their new Nursery-mate and fellow Chibi Board member, but Relena lagged behind, staring at the ground with her hands linked behind her back.
“What’s the matter, Relena?” Tegan asked.
“I don’t wanna meet him. WHY couldn’t he be a girl?” She looked up at Tegan with her sad crystal blue eyes. “I think we got plenty ‘nough boys ‘round here. I wanna have a ‘nuther girl to play with.”
Relena had reached the porch by this time; Tegan took hold of her hand in a comforting way and led her into the kitchen.
“Heero’s parents were killed in the war, so he is an orphan,” Tegan explained to Relena. “We are taking him to live with us because he needs a home, whether you think we have enough boys or not.”
Relena looked unconvinced; she tried another tactic. “Couldn’t somebody else’ve taken him?”
“No,” Tegan answered firmly. “And we expect all of you to be friendly to him. That was made perfectly clear at breakfast this morning, remember?”
Relena sighed as she nodded an assent to Tegan’s instructions. She looked at the floor and was obviously unhappy. “What’s he look like?” she asked, because she thought she might as well get used to the fact that the new boy wasn’t going to go away.
“I haven’t seen him yet,” Tegan answered, “But I do know that he is Japanese.”
“Tegan!” Melody called from the living room. “Come here. We have a bit of a problem.”
“You go upstairs and be friendly, okay?” Tegan gave Relena her last admonition and then went to join Melody and Major Sally as they discussed what to do about Heero.
The Nursery was basically chaotic when Relena reached the doorway. The boys surrounded Heero, blocking him from her view, as he sat on his bed and ignored them, his eyes closed and his arms folded. Quatre was chattering and bouncing with excitement and Duo was so active that he seemed to be everywhere at once; it also seemed as if he would never stop talking.
“…An’ you’ll be a member of the Chibi Board of Directors for our new website!” Duo enthused. “We're gonna have a really ‘portant job!”
Trowa said, “Duo, I think Heero wants to be left alone for awhile.”
“No,”
Duo and Wufei were instantly angry with him for his rudeness; after all, they were just trying to be friendly, as they had been told to be. Quatre was shocked but Trowa explained that Heero just needed some space, so that made Quatre feel better.
Relena stood in the doorway and watched the other chibis’ failed attempt at making friends with the chibi she resented because she thought he was the wrong gender. The boys dispersed, leaving Heero sitting alone on his bed, swinging his legs, which were bare from the hem of his black spandex biking shorts to his slouchy socks and dark gold tennis shoes. He was wearing an olive green tank top under his unbuttoned jeans jacket, which he deliberately hadn’t removed because he WASN’T going to be staying!
Relena was entranced by the unsociable new chibi, with his adorable uneven mop of dark brown hair. The thought, “What a cute boy!” rang through her head and echoed back to her. She clasped her hands to her heart—she was SURE that she had found her True Love.
“Hi,” Relena said quietly as she approached her newly proclaimed True Love; well, at least she had proclaimed it to herself. “My name’s Relena.”
“Get lost,” responded her True Love.
“How come?” Relena was genuinely hurt.
“I don’t like girls gettin’ in my way.” Heero opened his eyes to look at this new pest. When Relena saw his big blue eyes she KNEW FOR CERTAIN that he was her True Love.
Relena sat down next to him, uninvited, and put her hand consolingly on his shoulder. “I know you been through a lot ‘cause of bein’ orfinged an’ ev’rythin’, but you don’t hafta be mean to us,” she said with tones of great understanding; she was quite used to being a Mother Hen (though the other chibis preferred to think of her as being a Bossy Cow) and she thought of Heero as one more chick for her to take under her wing. “We just wanna be friends with you, hunny-bunny.”
Duo burst out laughing as Heero pulled away from her and gave her a murderous glare, and Wufei barely suppressed his amusement. Trowa and Quatre didn’t react at all because sometimes Melody called Relena hunny-bunny so they didn’t think it was one bit strange or inappropriate.
“Don’t you laugh!” Relena had jumped up, not noticing Heero’s annoyed expression; she was more interested in putting Duo in his place now. She stood with her feet far apart in their little brown ankle boots, her hands on the hips of her pink sweater dress. “You know we’re s’posed to be nice to him, so what’s so funny?” she demanded angrily.
Duo had fallen onto his bed because he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t remain upright. “Hey, hunny-bunny! You got a girlfriend now!” he hooted and laughed all the more. Relena looked at all of her Nursery-mates, her scowly True Love last of all, burst into tears and ran from the room.
“Uh oh,” Wufei said ominously, ever the practical chibi. “She’s gonna tell an’ then we’ll be in BIG trouble.”
Duo sobered up quickly at Wufei’s wise words; he hadn’t thought of that.
“Hey, Heero, I’m sorry ‘bout—“ Duo said as he stood up and turned toward Heero; he was more frightened than he had ever been in his short lifespan when he met the business end of a beam saber, which was too close for comfort, and saw that it was a real one, not a toy.
“She’s NOT my girlfriend. An' don’t you ever call me ‘hunny-bunny’ ‘gain in your WHOLE LIFE,” Heero declared in a threatening monotone; it was strange how he could emphasize his words without raising his voice. “Omae o korosu.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s Jap’nese. An’ if you don’t know I’m not gonna tell ya,” Heero said as he held his position to punctuate the seriousness of his threat. Even though Duo didn’t understand exactly what it was he had a pretty good idea.
Relena dashed into the room, followed by Major Sally, Melody and Tegan.
“Heero Yuy, hand it over right now,” Sally demanded with her arm outstretched as she took control of the situation; she was used to working under pressure and in strange circumstances.
Heero didn’t budge.
“I SAID NOW!” Major Sally barked the order as she would to any of her underlings in the Preventers.
While continuing to stare at the woman whom he irrationally held responsible for taking him away from his colony, Heero pushed the ON/OFF button and the beam saber became harmless once again. His cold gaze never left Sally’s face as he wordlessly challenged her to take it away from him. Sally took the challenge and relieved Heero of his destructive weapon, quickly opening the battery compartment and pocketing the batteries.
Melody finally found her voice. “What is going on here? And where did you get such a thing, Heero?” she asked incredulously.
The little rebel pointed at Duo, who was trembling as he sat on his bed, his big blue eyes seeming even larger than usual because the blood had drained from his face. “He laughed at me for that girl callin’ me ‘hunny-bunny’, an’ I don’t take that from NO ONE,” Heero explained. “An’ he called THAT GIRL my ‘girlfriend’.” He pointed at Relena.
“And where did that knife come from?”
Heero rolled his eyes at her silly mistake—ANYONE could see that it was a beam saber! “It’s not a knife, it’s a beam saber—ev’rybody knows THAT. An’ I got it from my aunt when she said good-bye to me ‘cause it b’longed to my dad from when he died in the war an’ she said to keep it always to ‘member him by,” Heero explained.
“Great!” thought Melody. “It’s a family heirloom. What am I going to do with it? I can’t let him keep it and I can’t throw it away because it has sentimental value. I guess I’ll just have to hide it from him until he’s older.”
Duo found his voice. “An’ he said some mean words too.”
“What words?”
“I dunno. It was in Jap’nese.”
“Then how do you know he was saying mean words?”
“It was in his voice that was bein’ mean,” Duo explained as a bit of color began to return to his pale face; he felt braver now that Heero had been disarmed.
“What did you say to Duo?” Melody questioned the unstable new chibi.
“Not tellin’.” Heero boldly defied her. “An’ you can’t make me.”
Tegan went to Trowa and Quatre and crouched down to chibi-eye level. “Do you remember what he said? Or kind of what he said?” she asked.
“It was sumpin’ like OH-ME-CORALS,” Quatre tried to help.
“No, it was more like, OH-MA-EECORS,” Trowa corrected him.
Tegan put the two together and said, “Did he say, ‘Omae o korosu?”
“Yeah, that’s it!” exclaimed Quatre. “It’s a good thing you are learnin’ to speak Jap’nese in school, Tegan.”
A bit of worry crept into Heero’s face and he looked for the nearest exit. Unfortunately for him, the place where Melody was standing blocked the straight shot between his bed and the doorway and all the windows were closed—and probably locked as well.
“What does that mean?” Melody asked Tegan.
“He said, 'I’ll kill you,'” Tegan informed her.
Sally was rummaging through Heero’s suitcase and she gasped when she saw its contents. “Look—he’s got a mini-arsenal in here!” Sally exclaimed. “TNT, matches, a mobile suit self-detonation switch, hand grenades,” Sally listed the contents that she found as she removed Heero’s small supply of olive green tank tops, black spandex bike shorts, jeans, underwear, some pajamas that looked like they were too small for him and several pairs of white slouchy socks. “Here are his books! ‘How to Make Easy and Inexpensive Explosives at Home’ and ‘So You Want to be an Assassin: A Training Manual for Counter-Terrorists.’” Sally couldn’t believe her eyes—neither could Melody and Tegan. At the very bottom of the suitcase she pulled out a heavy catalogue. “’Weapons R Us’, she read, “’A division of Mass Destruction, Incorporated. The Christmas Wish List Edition.’” She removed a paper clip from the cover and several phony credit cards floated to the floor.
Melody walked up to Heero and tipped his chin upward so that he had to look at her. “You must never threaten to hurt anybody ever again. Understood?” she said in a very serious voice. “That is against the rules in this family. You’ll get your mouth washed out with soap if you do.”
“I didn’t threaten to hurt him. I said I was gonna kill him—that’s more’n just hurtin’ him,” Heero explained seriously. “That would be more permanent-like.”
From that moment on, Melody could feel that she was beginning to love this stubborn, anti-social and dangerous little chibi.
~Standard disclaimer~ The author does not claim to own Gundam Wing nor any of its characters, including the adorable chibis. >_< Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Sotsu Agency and TV Asahi.
E-MAIL THE AUTHOR! webmommie@gmail.com
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