Doukeshi to the Rescue
I admit, I’m not as write-active as Quatre, but even I like to write about things sometimes. There are moments and incidents which just need to be recorded. And personally, I enjoyed Quatre’s little letters, however painful or even embarasssing some of them may have been. All these little happenings in our relationship are worth recording. So is every moment spent with Quatre. When he gave that bundle of letters to me, and I read them all, I felt I needed to give him something in return. So here I am, sitting in front of the screen, trying to catch all my kois sweetness in words.
Just like Quatre I’ll start my recording on the incident which lead to the actual story, and that is something our school calls ‘labour week’. To give a quick explanation: In labour week, every student up from nineth grade has to spend one week working somewhere, just to experience the feeling of working, instead of learning. The teachers encourage us to try and do something we want to do for life or something we are basically interested in. There the problems start. Duo’s description for something for life is “anything fun”, Wufei’s is “it’s fine as long as it is just” and Heero’s is “Hn”, as always. Quatre, of course, will run the Winner Company, so there is just no question. I used to wonder, whether he never thinks about doing something else. He would make a good impression in any job, as long as it takes place in public and with many people. He doesn’t seem to complain about his forecasted future, though. Maybe it’s just normal for him, maybe he just likes it, but I know it is not because of the money he is going to make. And me? Many teachers have made it clear to me, that I am not suited to stay in the circus, saying I am too smart. It anyway is not really the job I want to have a life long, although I like the family. I have not decided yet, and nobody asks me.
So Quatre would spend labour week with his father – ignoring the protest of the teachers we should eventually detach from our own families and learn to be on our own. On the other hand: His family is everywhere. Ilea’s in the hospital, Desiree at the lawyer’s, Delilah’s putting up economical presentations every and anywhere, Allena works for the newspaper,… you get the idea. We were discussing that subject during a meal at the Winners’ table.
“I haven’t heard much talking from all of you about it,” I stated.
“Oh, yeah, we are mainly discussing it in class.”
“So what are Duo and Heero up to?” I asked.
“Fey thaid fey ‘ewere noinh’---” Quatre started and received a major strike on the back of his head by Delilah, who was sitting on the other side of him.
“Quatre! Swallow before you speak!!!” His sisters certainly make up for him not having a mother. Quatre swallowed obediently.
“They said they were going to work at a garage together. Best thing for them to do, considering their mechanical skills. And you can bet they want to work somewhere together.”
Of course – considering how hard it was for them to get to seeing each other around the scientists who are so possessive of Heero. “Wufei?” I asked. “A lawyer’s?” That would have suited him most.
“Iie. That would have been my first guess, too, but he’s helping that Treize-person, the politician, you know?”
I raised an eye-brow at this, finding that ‘this Treize-person’ appeared very often in Wufei’s talking lately. And that, even though he spoke only a little more than I did, when I was not around Quatre. Quatre was too busy to shovel his rice-rolls into his mouth to really notice that tiny gesture of mine. I didn’t say anything.
“And you?” he asked me finally.
“I don’t know yet. I can’t stay at the circus, since I work there already and it isn’t considered a proper job.”
“I am sure the tea-shop would not mind,…”
“Nah, Quatre, that is sweet of you, but I’d probably scare the customers away. I’m not suited for the public.”
“Awwwww, Trowaaa-chaaan! You can’t scare anyone away,” he beamed at me with the most sugoi smile he can display while eating. He’s just too cute for this world.
“Trowa-sama,” Mr. Winner interfered Quatre’s swooning, “Why don’t you help the Winner Company a little? We could use a helping hand, and I’m sure you would be interested.”
“Thank you, Mr. Winner, but I’m not quite fond of crude oil…” I excused. Quatre, Delilah and Mr. Winner chuckled at the same time. I looked at them perplexedly.
“You are soooo sweet, kurohyou,” Quatre smirked. “You really need a tour through the enterprise some day, ne? It’s not all natural resources, acres of land and paperwork.”
“I thought you’d fit in the technological development part, Trowa. You like programming, and right now we are working on new machines and we are calculating whether they are worth building for the money they bring, whether we would risk our workers’ jobs, and see whether they would diminish the problem with the environment… There are some interesting calculations to be done. The scientists are smart people like you, I think you’d be comfortable around them.”
“It sounds good.”
So it was a deal. Even though Quatre would run around with his father most of the time, from one place to another, and I’d stay in the technolocal area, we’d work at the same place somehow. And it didn’t sound bad. I am not sure, whether Mr. Winner had any intentions beyond my occupation during labour week, whether he had future plans for me in his mind. I will find out later, I assume.
So labour week actually was fun. We hardly saw the other three guys during the time. Wufei was somewhere far away with that Treize, and Duo and Heero only came over thrice in the evenings to say hello and they looked quite spent – but happy. And we ourselves were exhausted, too. Mr. Winner let me work eight hours a day, which I actually didn’t mind, but I was late for my performance at the circus, until I was allowed to come into office earlier (by Wednesday) and was in time for my performance the next three days.
I saw Quatre every night of course when the performance was over, and he told me where he had been – his father was taking him around quite a lot; out onto the fields and to different parts of the cooperation. He also had to do a lot of paper work, but he said it was all very interesting. So was my part.
By Thursday, I was pretty surprised, when Quatre came jumping down the hallway of the devlopment-part of the building and right into my arms, so that I almost dropped the CDs I was carrying and which held important data. Mr. Winner followed a few steps behind and kind of plucked him away from my body. For quite long it hadn’t stroke me like that, how young my koi was, and that Mr. Winner was not his ‘father’ but still his ‘daddy’ somehow, if you get what I mean. Happily, Quatre explained he’d spend half of the day here with me to have an insight into the technology. Mr. Winner let me explain to my koi what we were doing here, since I had a good overview and did not have to go off on details, because I didn’t know any.
There was some time left for me and my koi while Mr. Winner chatted away with his scientists. Quatre sat down on my lap and I showed him the graphic visualisation of our program. He asked me some questions about it, whether this and that was considered as a factor in all this, and I was really surprised how much he actually knew about the business. Some questions I couldn’t even answer – that is quite unusual for me. I guess I should have suspected he was a little wizard in this business, since he had grown up with it, but it was anyway surprising. And something else struck me later on, when I was helping some scientist with a monetary calculation for which he had a table with the money that was floating around in the Winner Company: My koi was rich. I don’t mean rich in the sense of rich – he was incredibly rich. Richer than rich… Well, his father was, actually, but you can guess where that money ends up. I have never seen so many numbers in connection with money in my life. Quatre is a billionair. I mean, I knew he was rich, but he actually was rich rich, and we all know he doesn’t care in the least. That makes him even more attractive, excuse me. I also found out, that they were spending a lot of money on a medical foundation, which was trying to find cures for certain maladies – a fortune, to be honest. Maybe that was why the family’s doctor was so fond of them. Quatre told me later on, that this was because his mother Quaterine had died giving birth to him, and that the Winners wanted to keep such grief from any other family, if possible.
After that week, on Friday evening, Quatre and I were sitting on the lawn in front of my trailer and talking about the past events. I was only vaguely aware of him talking about oil and natural resources. I was more interested in hearing the angelic aoudn of his voice instead of really grasping the meaning behind his words. It was not quite nice of me not to listen, but I admit that it wasn’ that interesting.
Fortunately we were joined by Catherine, who sat down with us and Quatre was muted. He figured, Catherine was even less interested in natural resources than I was.
“So,” she said, “after you stole Trowa from us for a weak, it’s about time to steal you, Quatre.”
“How so? Shall I work at the circus?” he joked.
“That would be kind of fun,” I stated, caressing that soft back next to me.
“Yeah, I am so untalented, I’d make a nice, clumsy clown…”
“Don’t say that,” I protested, “You know how to juggle, I taught you. And you’d look sweet in a decent costume.” I kept myself from saying ‘tight costume’, since we weren’t alone, and Quatre actually looks good in anything (even my turtlenecks, in case you wonder).
I laid back, leaning agains the little hill in front of which we were sitting, half-laying, half-sitting. My koi slumped down next to me. He looked at the stars and dreamed away: “You said, a performance always needs a story. In my performance-story you are the clown who saves me… and who smiles for me. You protect me from the evil and I know I can trust you.”
Catherine jumped up after this.
“You know, boys, I have an idea…!” And gone she was.
Catherine’s idea turned out to be asking the director, whether Quatre could not participate in the show once. When she told us, he agreed, we almost fell off the steps of my trailer and Quatre’s face grew even more white, than it was usually. He was utterly opposed to this, but Cathy said there was no way he could back off now. And actually, I started to like the idea, especially, when Cathy explained her idea about our performance to us. It didn’t take me too long to coax my koi into accepting, and we had one week to practise. I was really looking forward to it, because it would mean we’d have to draw our complete concentration to each other every day after school. Not that we usually didn’t, but it was better than just sitting next to each other, studying or reading.
Working with Quatre was fun. We worked a little on his juggling skills and learned to act out the little show Cathy had in mind. Well, Quatre’s thespian talent doesn’t really need any work to it. It’s amazing: Tell him to break down crying and he just does, shedding real tears. He actually did that once – Cathy said, “why don’t you break down and cry at this point,” out of fun, and the next thing we saw was Quatre sitting on the floor, weeping, crying his eyes out. He had taken her seriously and it took me a moment to convince him that this was not going to be in the show. He looked so miserable, I actually started to comfort him, until he laughed in my face and told me it was all acting.
Is there really a need to say, that the 30 Winners and our three friends were invited for that particular Saturday evening? But that wasn’t all. Somehow people got wind of the fact, that Mr. Winner Jr. was going to perform in the circus. By Saturday morning there wasn’t even one magazine who didn’t have at least a tiny article about it. Quatre was annoyed by the fact that the press made it public, but he did not back away. I never told him that I had bought every single magazine and collected the pictures of him. Some articles, however, were really dumb and made me angry. Quatre stands above articles like “The poor motherless heir finds trust in the circus” and “Is Quatre running away from home yet again?”, but they make me mad. Not that any of the magazines would ask his opinion about it! The pictures were cute, though.
So by Saturday our tent was sold out – for the sake of Quatre, although his appearance was rather minor. We were waiting behind the curtain, looking out, and Quatre was hopping from one food to the other.
“How many of your family have come?” I asked him.
“Twenty-two sisters and my father, and I can see Wufei, Heero and Duo,” he answered quickly.
“Maybe you should put your costume on.”
“Oh right! I almost forgot.” His nervousness was just too sweet. His cheeks were flushed and he was trembling slightly. He was deadly nervous, and that made him even more dependant on me – usually I am more dependant on him. I helped him to slip out of his shirt (with pleasure), and get into his thin, white, fluttering suit-like costume. I was so glad, that the director had bought him a costume of his own – well, because of him we were making a lot of money that night, so I think it was only even. Quatre stood up so I could attach the wings to his back. Yes, you get the idea, Quatre played an angel. It’s most suited for him, and Cathy knew that. And as he was standing there, face gleaming, eyes blazing, an insecure smile on his lips and his blond hair shadowing his forehead, he just looked like a real angel. If I hadn’t been in love with him already, I’d fallen for him right then. So I was only glad, that I could kiss that angel before me and know he wasn’t opposed to it.
Fortunately Quatre is familiar with horses, he loves animals. I helped him onto Wind.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, damnit, stop asking.”
I laughed a little. Quatre usually doesn’t talk like that, so he must have been incredibly nervous. With a free hand I handed him an open bag which he put onto the horse – it held the golden balls he was supposed to juggle with.
“I need to get up onto the rope. I see you out there,” I said and patted his thigh gently. He swallowed and nodded. Now I rather pitied him for being so nervous, but I knew there wasn’t much to do about this. I left him and handed the horse to one of the ushers. Quatre was clenching the bag before him. It was the last thing I saw.
“And now our special guest – an angel in every way – Quatre Raberba Winner!”
The audience cheered and from my dark spot up above I could see the Winner family – Delilah looked almost as nervous as Quatre – and of course, Wufei, Duo and Heero were cheering the loudest. There also was a group of at least 30 or 40 Arabian men in the same outfit, who held up a sign saying ‘Best Luck, Quatre-sama’. I had never seen these guys before, but I had no time to wonder. Wind came storming into the area with Quatre-tenshi on his back. He looked so good, even though the angle I saw him from wasn’t very advantageous. Cameras were flashing all over the place.
Wind came to a halt and Quatre jumped down with his bag. He mimicked a bored angel, walking around, yawning fakely and finally plopping down on a cloud quite lazily. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have been sure, he wasn’t nervous in the least. The audience laughed at my lazy angel-koi. The cloud he was sitting on rose some. Quatre took out a golden ball, played with it and dropped it onto the floor. Amazedly he watched it role away into the sand, then shrugged. He lazily took out two other ones and juggled them, then he added more until he had reached a juggling total of six. The audience clapped for him.
The spots went on me, and there I was with my usual total of nine on the rope and received my cheers. When I had pocketed my colorful tools, I jumped down and found myself somewhere beneath Quatre’s cloud. Casually, I picked up the golden ball, and looked around where it might have come from. I saw the cloud and the boredly juggling angel on there. I waved him, but he didn’t see me. I ran around, jumped, anything to gain Quatre-tenshi’s attention, but I was ignored. Sadly, I sat down and contemplated that ball. Then, one of Quatre’s balls dropped from the cloud, and landed in front of my feet. I took it and juggled the two golden balls I had now. Another one came dropping down and I included that one too, until I finally had all the golden balls and Quatre was left without any toy to play with. But still, the doukeshi didn’t gain his attention. I did all kinds of tricks, but the angel was still unaware of me.
That was the moment when Catherine entered on Taquem, the black horse, wearing her newly purchased devil-costume. Still on the horse, she threw two knives at me but I caught them and juggled them along with the balls. Then, finally, Quatre noticed the devil interfering his peaceful boredness. He jumped down from his cloud, stopped the black horse and signed Catherine to leave this place immediately, since it was supposed to be heaven.
The cloud disappeared. Meanwhile, I had taken Taquem and rode him and Wind outside. Catherine smirked evilly as she grabbed Quatre and strapped him to the green, wooden wheel I am usually supposed to stand in front of. The angel was tied up and Catherine threateningly held out her knives. The Trowa-doukeshi ran towards her but with a swift move she cast a spell on him and he was left in the shadows. Catherine is quite inventive with her performance-stories, and I think she liked playing the devil.
When I looked at Quatre I found something most unexpected: As he was standing there, strapped to the wheel, facing Cathy with her knives, he looked scared. He was not playing scared, he really was scared. We hadn’t rehearsed that part, since Catherine has done this for years and the other things were more important to work on, but now, with Cahty standing a few feet away from him, holding up her knives, Quatre seemed really pale. And as far as the story goes, he wasn’t supposed to be frightened. It is mean of me, I know, but I thought it was funny. I have Quatre seen in so many emotions: Love, hate, anger, shock, sadness, recently nervous, and even in sexual pleasure, but never have I seen him so scared. I knew Catherine’s skills, there was no need to be frightened, but Quatre was. He was even trembling. Cathy hesitated for a moment, noticing it too, but the show had to continue.
Quatre’s eyes widened considerably as the first knife flew towards him, missing his ear by an inch. Little droplets of fear were sparkling on his forehead. I would have never thought he could be so afraid of Catherine, it was amazing. None of the knives hit him, of course. Cathy knew I would have killed her personally if she had hurt him even the slightest bit. Even as the wheel spun and she repeated the procedure, nothing bad happened. Quatre’s fright didn’t change. He didn’t get used at being thrown knives at.
When the wheel finally stopped again, Cathy held out a particularly large knive. If I had missed to act now, it would have cost Quatre his life. I had rehearsed that part with Cathy over years, just without thinking of having Quatre in it, but it still was a thrilling risk left to it. When she threw the next knive, I jumped in front of my koi and held out a wooden shield in front of the both of us. The knive hit the exact middle of it. Quatre yelped. Furiously, I ran towards the devil, picked and tied her up and brought her out of the tent. Quatre was still strapped. The music changed to something more slow, as I came back, hopped over the wooden wheel with a salto and unstrapped him from it. He gladly fell into my arms, and I could feel, he was still trembling some, which was not planned. I lead him to the center and did my little rose-trick, presenting the rose to the angel. He kissed me on the cheek. Then, he lead me to his re-appearing cloud, signed the audience to be completely silent by putting a finger over his cute lips, and let me sit on the white velvet.. He moved a hand over my face and I fell back limply, mimicking that I was asleep and conjured. We flew away with the cloud and the audienced clapped.
As soon as we were out of sight, I sat back up and kissed him.
“Beautiful.”
“Arigatou. Same to you.” He was much more settled now and not trembling anymore. Carefully, I showed him the way down from the upper part of the tent. I know, Cathy’s story had been very corny, but as long as it featured Quatre in an angel-costume, I didn’t care in the least.
After the curtain call, the whole group met on the lawn behind the tent. The director seemed quite pleased.
“Great performance, everyone. Great performance, Quatre-sama!”
Quatre blushed some and thanked everyone. He still was in his costume, and I was so proud of him. Cathy poked him from behind.
“Quatre, were you scared of me?”
“No,” he answered.
“Oh, I think you were,” I said.
“I was not.”
“Oh yes, you were scared out of your wits, Quatre!” Catherine laughed.
“No. I was nervous. I wasn’t scared!” he protested.
“Quatre. I saw you. You were very frightened,” I reminded him.
“No, I wasn’t frightened in the least.”
Cathy and I looked at each other and laughed. Quatre looked rather annoyed and kept insisting, that he had never been scared. On the other hand, he seemed very glad the performance was over. The director came up to us.
“Quatre-sama, you have to do this some time again.”
“No, thank you. I’m no artist.”
“That doesn’t matter, everyone likes you. If you ever feel bored…”
“Don’t bother trying,” I said, “he was scared…”
“Trowa!!! I was not scared! Fine, we’ll do it again next week-end. I wasn’t scared.”
“Yes, Quatre, you weren’t,” I said ironically and Quatre fumed with anger. The director went away, laughing. I dragged Quatre to the other side of the tent, were his family and the boys were waiting. They all cheered for him and he greeted them warmly.
“Hey, go, Quatre!” Duo yelled happily, “Yer really made a great impression for all tha’ reporters out there.”
“Are you sure?”`I asked, “As far as I see it Quatre was really-”
“I was not scared, Trowa!!!”
The Winners laughed, so did Duo, Wufei and Heero. Duo winked at me, signing, he had seen that, too. The thirty or fourty men, all dressed in the same clothing, waved from behind, calling him (“Quatre-sama”). Quatre’s face lit up, hearing the voices.
“Awww! The Maganuacs!!!” he yelled happily and hopped to be able to see them over the heads of his family.
All in all, Quatre took quite a while to talk to everyone, explain some things to the reporters that were bugging him and his family, until I finally had to drag him away – otherwise he would have stood with the reporters all night long.
We changed and went to bed really tiredly. Quatre was exhausted from the performance, since he isn’t used to these things, all the interviews and the lot of intense emotions which had run through him that day. When I had finished in the bathroom and crawled into my bed next to him, he yawned and stretched some, before he cuddled up to me.
“Trowa?” he said.
“Hm?”
“I was scared,” he admitted eventually, after he had been insisting all evening that he hadn’t been.
I laughed some and cuddled him to me tightly. “I would have done something,” I said, “but you once told me, I was too protective of you.”
Quatre slid his arm around my waist and looked up at me. “Trowa, protect me...”
And when Quatre says ‘Trowa, protect me,’ there is a certain meaning to it. But I am not such a hentai as Quatre, who records these things – although I can’t deny that I enjoyed every single description from his point of view. That night, I found out, that Quatre wasn’t so very exhausted after all.
Now I am sitting here on my laptop, it’s Sunday morning. While blushing I can admit, that when we had gone to sleep yesterday, he really was exhausted, and that he’s still asleep by now. His tea is cold, and he didn’t wake up yet, and I can’t help blaming myself for his tiredness. I can’t wait for next Saturday, when Quatre takes on his angel costume again – it would be great if his participation grew to be a habit. An hour ago, I went out to buy some magazines. Quatre looks gorgeous in each of them, especially with those white wings on his back. Not that they could touch the real Quatre… that angel. And when he’s sleeping, he looks even more innocent… which he, honestly, is not. I love him.
Sincerely, Doukeshi