Elitist Theory

Chapter Two

Enjoy.

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It wasn't very long at all before the five of them began eating lunch together; it was blaringly obvious that they all naturally gravitated towards one another. It was almost an instantaneously thing actually, they met and they lunched, there was barely any conversation at first. Yet they all agreed in a silent way that they would eat lunch together. It was nice to find solace within each others social oddities.

In the beginning they had a difficult time trying to figure out where to eat their lunch. In the beginning they had eaten on the balcony outside the lunchroom, but after a week the area had been taken over by a small group of environmentalist students who were growing flower boxes out there.

They all refused in some way to eating in the lunch room itself. Quatre was the main one to object to eating in the stuffy room. He had experienced certain slurs that almost made him regret being so blunt on the first day of class. However both Heero, and surprisingly Duo, also objected to the loud room, wanting to eat in a quieter place after the first half of the busy school day.

On the third day of their search they found the perfect place for all of them, a large birch tree in the courtyard. Most of the classroom hallways were closed off to students during the lunch hour; however one side corridor seemed to have escaped that small ban. And the only other people who bothered the quiet quad were two girls, both older than them, who simply read on the other side of the courtyard for the whole hour.

It was flawless how their parts fell into place. They each had a place where they primarily sat near the tree, a thing they primarily did each lunch. Trowa would always sit up on one of the lower branches with his sketchbook, and was most always directly above Heero who would sit, one leg out, back up against the tree, eating his lunch, which was usually an apple or another peace of fruit.

Wufei would sit half way around the tree from Heero with a small lunch of vegetables in his hands and his books set out around him. He would appear to be studying but in reality he was actually listening to the good-natured conversations between Quatre and Duo. Duo would sit at the base of the tree between Heero and Wufei, and Quatre sat on a branch opposite from Trowa.

The lunch quad is where much of the happenings between them occurred, as that was the point when many of the students had the freest time.

X-_X-_X

"Hey Heero man!" shouted Duo from down the corridor. Heero had been about to enter into the science labs, but he stepped back out upon hearing Duo's shout. He wasn't much bothered by the boy distracting him from class, in the beginning it had taken all his spare time to find the labs, but after nearly a month in the school it was simple.

"Have you seen Quat at all today?" he asked as he caught up to Heero. The hallways were busy with students hurrying from class to class, hall to hall, and they were jostled as students exited doors around them.

"No, both you and he were absent from the morning classes," said Heero in response. He noticed the buttons on Duo's blazer were done up wrong, and he had the urge to fix them. He had been noticeably worried when Duo turned up absent from classes that morning.

"Yeah," said Duo stepping up to enter the Science Labs and beckoning Heero to follow him. "He looked weird this morning and I went up to him to see what was wrong and he ran away."

"And you've been looking for him all morning? And during morning break?" asked Heero, he was curious as to Duo's dubious behavior. He himself had searched for Duo during their half hour mid morning break and had been fruitless.

They wandered all the way to the back of the Chemistry Lab and Heero unloaded his books as Duo dropped his bag to the floor. The set of gas equipment blocked them from the majority of the room.

"Well yeah," Duo said as they sat "The thing is I'm pretty sure he was crying, Heero."

Heero looked over at Duo but didn't say anything. Quatre was a normally upbeat person and he really only ever felt down when someone else was sad or depressed. The delicate boy was stronger than most thought; something being upsetting to him was equally upsetting to the rest of newly formed friends.

They didn't really talk the rest of Chemistry lab, but when it ended Heero questioned Duo again as they packed up their lab equipment. Another fifty minutes had passed, fifty minutes where they could have doing something about Quatre.

"Both Trowa and Wufei were in class so why would he have something to be upset about when we are all obviously fine?"

Duo seemed to be acting rather shaken and Heero could actually understand the sentiment. While he didn't usually display emotions, this wasn't really that small of a matter. And while the five of them had only been the close friends for a short while, one of them being upset over something they didn't want to tell one of the others about was something that Heero deemed getting concerned about.

"I don't know," Duo shook his head a bit, his braid swaying as he did so. "Do you think we should look for him at lunch or do you think he'll turn up?"

"Hm," Heero grunted vaguely.

"Got ya'," replied Duo, grinning slightly "We'll wait and see what happens."

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Quatre wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve for what seemed to be the millionth time that moment. He just couldn't make his eyes stop watering. He hadn't even bothered trying to make morning classes, after ditching Duo he knew that there'd be questions and he wasn't certain he wanted to try answering them yet.

Just to be safe he'd skip the afternoon classes as well and pay a visit to the infirmary that evening to make it appear as if he had been sick. However he didn't know what to do until then or where to go. He couldn't go back to his dorm room because his friends could find him there, and he couldn't go down into town because both times he had been into the town Duo had driven all of them.

However he figured he really couldn't sit on the same low rock wall for much longer, he had already been there for over an hour and he would more than likely attract a lot of unwanted attention in his baby blue tee and white polo pants. As the rest of the student population would be in their maroon and blue uniforms he would stick out like a sore thumb. He was now regretting rushing out of his room so quickly that morning.

The fact that he couldn't make his eyes stop watering didn't help matters. It just heightened the image of him being a weakling, something he strongly tried to disprove. He had never been more disappointed in himself.

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Duo and Heero approached the large birch tree with slight trepidation; they hoped they'd find Quatre sitting in his usual spot smiling good naturally; however they were afraid that Quatre wouldn't be there.

Their fears were correct, Quatre was not sitting anywhere remotely near the large tree. The day was cloudy, ironic in its relativity towards their emotions.

"So Q-man hasn't shown up yet," said Duo quietly as they reached the tree. Heero only nodded slightly, however he noticed Trowa's sharp look, as his cat like ears seemed to pick up their conversation. Trowa's face was darker than usual, more melancholy, something Heero took under deep observation.

There was also another oddity about that day; Trowa was perched at the base of the tree, his sketchbook on his knees, rather than on one of the limbs. Heero was certain that this reflected Trowa's nervousness; he must have known or at least acknowledged Quatre's disappearance.

"Have you guys seen Quatre at all?" Duo asked, dropping his nickname habit with the onset of worry. Heero sat down next to Trowa and took out his usual lunch, a red apple.

"No," said Wufei, looking up from his Interplanetary Geometry book "Why?"

However before Duo could tell Wufei what was going on Heero looked Trowa in the eyes and asked him that same question again "Have you seen Quatre, Trowa?"

Trowa looked him steadily in the eyes and replied back a simple "No."

In that moment they both knew that Trowa was lying. Heero kept looking at Trowa while Duo gabbed the tale to Wufei in the back ground, not only did the situation appear to be exactly like Heero thought but his theory was only confirmed when Trowa broke eye contact and looked away. Trowa never backed down.

Heero leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice "What happened, Trowa?"

"Nothing," replied Trowa, his voice was getting testy, which wasn't actually odd for him because he did have odd bouts of frustration every now and then, however he turned his head completely away from Heero.

They both remained silent after this; Heero knew that Trowa knew that he knew. And the fact that Heero knew this only made it that more concerning. If his theory was correct that he was going to have to deal with a friend's broken heart. Something he was definitely not trained to do.

Their silence was broken by an eruption in the background.

"Maxwell! Get your ass off my papers!" Wufei's voice was shrieking from the other side of the tree. "Those are my notes damn it!"

X-_X-_X

Quatre smiled good-naturedly at the nurse as he took the bag from her hands. He didn't have to fake the look of pain on his face, but of course the nurse thought it was from a stomach bug, and had thus given him a stomach pill that would allow him to feel better for the night.

He bid her his goodbyes and said thank you and she wished him well in the morning. And as he shut the wooden infirmary door she gave him stern instruction to come back in the morning if he wasn't feeling any better.

Quatre had decided earlier to escape to the schools botanical gardens which wouldn't be in use by other students that day, so he had found a barren corner and skulked in silence, with little to no disturbance.

He set off across campus at a slow pace, there was still a chance that the boys would look in Quatre's dorm room for him and he wanted to delay that as long as possible. He didn't think that if they had already been to his dorm room once they'd come back. His roommate was a taller guy from a couple years up who liked silence and who scared Duo, however he was perfectly civil to Quatre but Quatre didn't think that if his friends had disturbed him once they'd do it again.

All the same he took the long path back to his dorm, just to avoid any conflict and to maybe observe the setting sun as he walked.

He tossed away the pills the nurse gave him, he doubted that anything would help him feel better or sleep.

X-_X-_X

Heero and Wufei left their Shakespearean Literature lecture and hurried to find the others in the crowded corridors, they had decided in their previous class to try to get the others together and go look for him before curfew came.

Wufei had been more than a little disgruntled at having to do this as he'd rather sit with the other boys and study or do something productive. He also said that Quatre should be able to take care of himself and that if he was hiding he probably didn't want to be found.

Heero countered this by saying that it was an 'injustice' for him as a friend to leave Quatre out by himself, with turbulent emotions.

Hook, line, and sinker.

"Yo!" Duo's voice came from behind them. Both he and Trowa were there, so they no longer needed to go looking for them. "You guys want to go looking for Q-Man?"

"Yeah," said Heero.

"We were just coming to look for you," said Wufei. He tethered a glare towards Duo.

"Well, great minds think alike," said Duo grinning, "On a different note, where are we going to look?"

"Everywhere," replied Wufei, rolling his eyes. His voice belied his attitude though, Quatre was a friend, and he was concerned as well.

"Yeah, but I mean where exactly?" shot back Duo. "I know that the stick in your ass would probably leave a gaping wound that Quat could hide in, but I just don't think he's there.

"We'll have to split up," queued in Heero before Wufei could launch himself across the circle at Duo. "We'll look in the usual places and then we'll look in the logical ones."

"The logical ones?" asked Duo skeptically.

"He mean the places where Quatre would run to, not just the places he'd skulk in," Trowa said, joining in the conversation. The other two boys didn't notice as he shot Heero a semi-scathing look.

"Oh," said Duo "So who goes where?"

"I'll take the outer buildings, and class areas," said Wufei, walking off immediately, not to be argued with. He shot Duo a glare over his shoulder, to which Duo smiled and waved happily back at.

"So where do you want me to go?" asked Duo, looking away from Wufei's retreating form and over to Heero.

"Take the dorms, the bathrooms, showers, anywhere like that," Heero said back. His voice had previously been laced with a line of concern but it had dropped to a monotone, he was planning and leading now, nothing more.

"Aye, aye," said Duo, giving a mocking salute. But the next moment he grimaced "I checked his dorm room this morning and Frankenstein was pissed at me as it was for disturbing him."

Heero sighed internally, Quatre was able to get along with his roommate but no body else sure could. His name was Johann Mather and he was the embodiment of "Bite is worse than bark" sort of thing.

"I'll take those areas instead," said Trowa "That way you don't have to disturb Mather a second time."

Heero vetoed that idea "No," he said. "Its unlikely Quatre would be back in his dorm anyways. Duo, just check the lounge areas instead of the dorms."

He looked towards Trowa with a stern face, but it was with a monotonous voice that he spoke "I want you to take the botanical areas and the administrative buildings."

"Fine," muttered Trowa in a low voice, and then he slinked off.

"Hey Heero, what's up though?" Duo asked moving closer to him in order to talk more softly with him. "Normally you'd go along with Trowa's suggestion."

"He's going to find Quatre going that way," Heero said before turning briskly and beginning to walk in the same direction as Trowa.

"What do you mean?" asked Duo jogging briefly to catch up with him. His eye briefly ran up and down Heero's jogging form.

"Quatre wouldn't go any place we could find him, or any place where he could get in a conflict with another student," Heero was cooling his features again to become the usual stoic mask.

"Then if you know where he is why couldn't we all just go after him?" Duo asked. He surveyed the area in the dying light "Seems like it'd be easier."

"Because this is Trowa's fault and he needs to fix it himself," muttered Heero almost indistinctly.

"What?"

"Come on, we'll circle around the administrative building and keep up behind Trowa," Heero began lightly jogging now.

"What!"

"Hurry up, Duo!"

X-_X-_X

Trowa knew he'd find Quatre there, either on that path or just off it, it was really simple. All you had to know was what Quatre would do in a situation like this, and Quatre himself.

Quatre had stopped when he heard the footsteps behind him; he stopped because he knew them. A light step, barely touching the ground, barely stirring the dirt, he always walked quickly, even if he didn't get anywhere fast, it was still a quick walk.

Quatre had that particular pitter-patter of soft footsteps ingrained in his mind.

"Quatre," Trowa had spoken first, he knew probably better than anyone knew, exactly what Quatre was feeling in that exact moment, and he knew that he'd never make the first move, he'd run away first.

"Yes, Trowa?" Quatre asked, hugging his arms to himself. The sun was red on the horizon, and Quatre grimaced at the light.

"You didn't have to run away," Trowa said calmly walking up behind the shorter boy, barely inches from him. His voice was open.

"Yes I did," said Quatre softly. Trowa's heart cracked at that moment, he knew that if he were able to see Quatre's face in that instant it'd be the same face he'd had to see that morning. Tears ready to leak out of his cerulean blue eyes, face held in distraught panic, that face is the one thing that has ever been able to scare Trowa as bad as it did.

"No," Trowa contradicted in response "You didn't."

"I'm sorry," Quatre said voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't want to hear the rejection come out of your mouth, the same one that I saw in your eyes."

"You don't understand what you saw then," said Trowa, circling around to face Quatre head on. However he was still unable to look Quatre in the eye as he had his head bowed in embarrassment.

"It wasn't right for me to spring that on you," Quatre said, his voice had regained its normal volume now however it had urgency to it. "I shouldn't have simply kissed you the way I did, it's my fault, I'm so sorry I made you uncomfortable!"

"Quatre," began Trowa, leaning and resting his hands on Quatre's shoulders. "Quatre, take a look in my eyes again, tell me what you see there."

"No," protested Quatre weekly.

"Quatre!" said Trowa sharply. At Trowa's tone Quatre gasped and jerked his head up, catching Trowa's eyes.

He didn't dare to hope that he recognized what he saw there.

"I like you too, Quatre," said Trowa, his voice filled with tenderness. He leaned over just slightly, moving his arms down to envelope the smaller boy in a hug, and he kissed him.

The sun set beautifully in that instant, a symbol for the bond that it had just witness form.

X-_X-_X

"See?" said Heero grinning quite smugly at the flabbergasted look on Duo's face.

"How did you know?" asked Duo. He leaned down from tree he had been hiding behind to crouch with Heero behind the near bushes where Heero had been hiding. "Trowa and Quat? I mean…come on!"

"You didn't pay attention to anyone on the first day of class did you?" questioned back Heero. He peeked slowly over the line of bushes to see if Trowa and Quatre had wandered off yet.

They hadn't, they were still kissing.

"Nope," said Duo, he was grinning though he was obviously still shocked. "I was too busy bugging Wufei."

Heero snorted and said "Naturally."

"I don't think they're gonna' be stopping and time soon," quipped Duo. He fluttered his eyelashes at Heero suggestively.

"Probably not," agreed Heero a jovially look on his face for once. "Come on we better just go back around and sneak past the trail."

"Good idea," said Duo "Plus we're missing dinner."

"You and your damn stomach are a nuisance," muttered Heero as they began to crawl away.

"That's why you love me!" chimed Duo. They had crawled far enough away and Duo stood up to shake himself off.

"Yes," Heero agreed softly, as he too began brushing himself off and Duo jogged away a bit.

"What'd ya' say?" called Duo back, his voice still low for fear off still being heard by there two friends. The ally between the botanical gardens and the administrative building had the ability to echo every now and then.

"Nothing," said Heero, catching up to Duo. "Come on."

X-_X-_X

"Aw man," Duo whined as they broke through the line of trees. "Dinner's over with by now."

"Quite complaining," said Heero somewhat darkly (Duo had been complaining the whole time they had been walking) "You have a hoard of food back at the dorm."

"Oh yeah!" exclaimed Duo, grinning cheekily. He immediately began setting off in the direction of their dorms, apparently plotting a junk food consortium.

Heero snatched the back of his shirt and pulled him back a bit. "Before you can stuff your face we have to tell Wufei that Quatre's been found, he'll be pissed if we just leave him out here."

"Yeah," agreed Duo "But don't you think it'd be fun to just leave him out and see what he does?"

"No," said Heero "After all I wouldn't want you to lose your precious braid."

"Oh," Duo whimpered "Yeah."

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I hope this chapter was O.K. in length and I apologize for any OOCness that might have occurred.

I hope you read and review! The next chapter should be up soon!