The siren call of the braid in the middle row

Chapter 5

It had been most uncomfortable for Wufei to return to the scene of the crime for the next lecture.

And the next.

And the one after that.

But he kept his head down and hadn't so much as glanced at Adonis since that fateful day. If he kept it up, Adonis might forget about the whole thing...Yes, he was aware of how naive that was, but he also realized that he didn't have that much choice in the matter.

When the lecture was over he took his time to gather his things to really make sure that Adonis had left the room. It wouldn't do to run into him on the way out or just outside the door. So to be safe he packed and re-packed everything in his bag with great care. After wasting as much time as he could before the lecturer started to look at him strangely, he decided to leave. As he was making his way out the door a (compared to Wufei) tall brunet stepped in his way. He instantly recognized him as one of the 'middle row' people.

He smiled down at Wufei, showing off his perfect white teeth. “Hey, I was just wondering if you would like to join our study group?”

'What? Why? No.' Was Wufei first gut instinct. He did not want to interact with any of his classmates if he didn't have to. The effort it took to try to fit in was far too much, not to mention the anxiety he felt just by thinking about it. But before he could open his mouth to decline, he realized that there was a problem with that response. He could really need some help with the statistics they had been working on... especially since he had missed the entire introduction lecture when he instead of listening had been watching Adonis bite his pencil. A study group would therefore be most useful. But on the other hand, they probably only asked him to join them because they thought that he could explain it to them, and then when they found out that he couldn't help them...

“I'm not sure if I'll be of much help with this...” He said and shifted his weight awkwardly.

“Oh, that’s cool.” The brunet cut in. “None of us really understands all of it. But usually everyone picks up something that we can work with.”

Wufei admitted that the offer was tempting, it just went against every instinct he had. But he really did need some help, so before he could talk himself out of it, he agreed.

“Cool, we usually meet up at my place since I'm the only one with enough room for everyone to sit down. Do you know where Arklet Street is?”

Wufei nodded even though he didn't. He could find out on his own. He would probably never be able to remember or understand the guy's description anyway.

“Great, I'm Tom by the way.” The brunet said and held his hand out.

A startled Wufei managed to shake the offered hand. “Wufei.”

“Hey, cool name. The group is going meet tomorrow at about seven. Can you make it?”

“Yeah.”

Tom showed of his perfect teeth once again. “Cool, Well tomorrow then. Arklet Street 57A at seven.”

Wufei nodded in response.

“Cool. See ya. Wofei”

Wufei watched him go before whispering to himself. “Yeah, -cool- ...what the hell did I just get myself into.”

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

A few hours later, our hero had other problems.

”Please don't crash, please don't crash, please don't crash.” The mantra was the same every time that Wufei clicked the save button on his computer. But that wasn't all that strange considering that it was a really ancient one. It didn't have much more then a simple writing program.

Every essay was a gamble. Was this the time when his computer gave up? Wufei was the first to admit that he did not know all that much about computers and if something happened to it, there really wasn't much he could do more then to re-boot it or pull the cable. He really should get a newer one. The newspapers were full of people trying to sell their perfectly functional computers for almost nothing. He had even saved up the money for it. But he just kept pushing it forward thinking that he would do it later, but every time he found himself sitting there with his mantra.

'Please don't crash, Please don't crash, Please don't crash, Please don't cra- YES!' Wufei pumped his fist in triumph when the computer managed to do not only that, but also save the essay that he had been working on for the last four hours. The ugly cat gave him a strange look from where it was lying on top of the refrigerator. ’Stupid human’ it seamed to say, but Wufei, struck with a sudden glee, stuck his tongue out at it. He didn't even care that he was acting silly, because his computer had saved his essay! He decided to celebrate with hot chocolate, a couple of vanilla cookies from Mrs. Stevens and reruns of Mythbusters. Life was good.

Wufei sighed happily as he turned on the TV. There was no doubt about it, Adam was hot! Nothing beats a half mad scientist running around laughing like a loon while blowing shit up… Adonis being the only exception. Wufei frowned. He really did not want to think about him right now, it would only make him feel depressed. Instead he concentrated on his favorite show.

'Ooooh it's the climbing on glass walls episode.' He thought as he sank down on the couch with a plate of cookies in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. The ugly cat had jumped off the refrigerator and joined him. It sat down and looked at him with a clear message in it’s eyes.

Wufei shock his head. “Sorry, drinking hot beverage, can't lie down. You are going to have to find another place to sleep.” He took a sip and stared back at the ugly cat as it got to it's feet.

Wufei groaned when he realized just where the cat was intending to sleep. It was his second favorite place to sleep if it couldn't have his chest. With determination the cat climbed up his chest and up to his shoulder. Wufei simply sighed and leaned forward so that the cat could get in behind his head. It then proceeded to lie down with it's head and front legs on one side of his neck and the hind legs on the other. And that is how Wufei suddenly found himself with a ugly-cat-boa. The short tail whisked back and forth as the cat happily started to purr.

“Glad to be of service.” Wufei muttered as he avoided the soft gray tail to take a bite of one of his vanilla cookies. The ugly cat lazily licked his neck in response, making Wufei shiver at the roughness.

By the first commercial break the cat was sound asleep around his neck. It didn't even stir as he got up and refilled his mug. Sitting back down again he marveled at the wonder that was Adam Savage. Now there was someone who even though they weren't the typical beauty still had that something that made Wufei want to push him down on top of that big blue sketch paper and have his wicked way with him. Wufei loved the wall climbing episode. He must have seen it at least ten times, but who cares when you get to look at Adam in a harness. He smiled in appreciation as the cameraman filmed Adams backside as he was climbing up the glass wall. Yes, Wufei really liked the wall climbing episode.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

The next day on the other hand was not as relaxing. Wufei was in fact trying hard not to panic. He had talked himself in and out of going at least twenty times before he managed leave the apartment. A quick Internet search had given him a detailed description to Arklet street and with a printed copy in his hand he set out to find his new study group.

That itself proved to be the easiest part of the outing. It was in fact the doorbell that proved to be the biggest challenge. It was a small black button and Wufei was pretty sure that it was mocking him. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff that he was trying to jump off without knowing what would meet him at the bottom. He very soon came to the conclusion that it he didn't press that little black button he was not only going to be standing there for a while, but he was also going to be late. If there was anything Wufei hated, it was being late. With a deep breath and a creeping sense of doom, he pressed the doorbell. There was a clear sound of a shrieking bell and he could hear heavy steeps coming closer and closer. With dread he watched as the door handle was pressed down and the door opened to reveal a smiling Tom.

“Hey Wofei, glad you could make it.” He said and stepped aside to let him in.

Wufei managed to smile in return and mumbled a polite reply. Removing his heavy winter coat he found a free hanger among the other jackets hanging in the hallway. He did a quick count and came to the assumption that according to the amount of winter wear, there should be about six or seven people here. Six or seven people who probably knew each other from before. Six or seven people that he didn't know, that he would have to at least try to talk to and even get to know. A cold feeling of dread spread in his stomach.

“Do you want something to drink? We got coffee and Bree is about to make some hot chocolate.” Wufei who had almost forgotten all about the tall brunet in the middle his unease, blinked up the smiling face. He could feel himself starting to blush. For once he was grateful for his dark Asian skin that made his embarrassment less obvious. “Yeah sure, some coffee would be nice.”

“Coming right up. Come on, let me introduce you to the others.” With that he clamped a big hand down on Wufei’s shoulder and steered him further into the apartment.

Wufei's brain shut down the second he walked into the living room. He barely managed to stay on his feet. The reason was that Adonis was sitting on the couch. Adonis! In the living room! In the living room that Wufei was in. As in, they were in the same living room. A living room with both of them in it. Adonis! With him in the living room. Adonis!

It was nothing short of a miracle that he was able to take his cue to introduce himself and listen with half an ear as the rest of the group introduced themselves. But really, we all know that he was only interested in hearing one of those names. Then the beautiful man spoke and Wufei’s heart jumped.

One thing was for certain, that as soon as he heard that name he knew that two was his new favorite number. He also knew that the marginals in his pad was going to be covered in twos and pink hearts for a very long time. Or maybe twenty-five was going to be his new favorite number considering that 'Wu' meant five. Wufei had never loved his name so much in his life.

As he took his seat in one of the two couches that were standing in a 'L' shape around a low living room table, he took a look around the room. It was pretty nice and clean with a lot of well-kept plants, something that he had not expected to see in what obviously was a bachelors home. The only exception was the table that was covered in coffee mugs, half eaten sandwiches, books and papers. Tom handed him a mug of steaming coffee before sitting down in a big blue armchair.

Wufei glanced at Adonis- no Duo, who was sitting at the end of the other couch that unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it) was as far away from Wufei as it was possible with these seating arrangements. But it was still pretty close. 'God, I’m pathetic.’ He thought with a sigh before turning his attention to Tom who was filling him in on what they were working on.

It's quite difficult to try to interact with people when you have been unsocial for a longer period of time. And considering that Wufei had been unsocial pretty much his whole life, then you could understand that trying to start up a conversation with the most beautiful person you had ever seen was not all that easy.

But being terrified of talking to one of the people around the table made talking to the rest of them a lot less frightening. He was quite happy to find that there was a lot of nice people in the study group. There was Sarah with the ringing laughter, Tom who had a -cool- story about everything, John with his cute dimples and his perfectly organized papers, the red haired Bree who had her five year old daughter Kim with her, the bottle blond girl who's name he could never remember and of course there was Duo. Duo-Duo-Duo-Duo-Duo. Wufei quickly realized that he would have to guard his eyes carefully so they wouldn't linger for too long. Linger on those strong shoulders, the slim waist, the long jeans clad legs, the hands, the arms the- Wufei swallowed thickly, the hair. Realizing that he was once again staring at Duo's bent head, or more precisely the braid that had fallen over his shoulder and was lying like a big snake in his lap next to the heavy statistics book. The book that he should be reading instead of Duo watching.

Sarah who was sitting next to him was slowly searching through her own book. “What did the ’X3’ stand for again?” She asked.

Tom checked his notes. “ X3 is... the number of years with the company ”

“Right, so it’s ŷ6,061-0,008X1i 0,070X2i... and then it’s -0,603X3i.” She said and started to calculate the numbers.

“No.” Wufei cut in, surprising himself by speaking up. “It's annual pay. X2 is the number of years with the company. So it’s ŷ6,061-0,008X1i 0,603X2i-0,070X3i ei" He said confidently while he was shaking on the inside. ’I think that’s right, please let it be right. God’s what if I’m wrong. Then everyone is going to look at me and-’ Tom cut of his line of thought.

”Oh, yeah and the ei is an error variable. That makes sense.”

Wufei breathed out a sigh and relaxed. Maybe this wouldn't be all that bad after all.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

“Mooooooom. I want to go home.” A low voice begged. Five year old Kim was leaning heavily over her mothers legs, looking like she was dying of boredom. Wufei was quite impressed with her. They had been here for almost two hours and this was the first time that the little girl had complained. Wufei had been ready to act like a bored five year old after just ten minutes.

“We can't go home yet, sweetheart. Mommy has to finish her homework first.” The little girl sighed quietly and started to wander around the room. Making her way over to Wufei she leaned over the edge of the couch and looked down on his pad.

“Pretty.” She whispered quietly when she set her eyes on Wufei's pink notes.

“I have a pink crayon.” She informed him and pushed a piece of curly red hair away from her face.

Wufei lifted a eyebrow. “Really.”

She grined. “Yeah, I have lots. Want to see?”

“Okay.” He said with a smile and watched as she run off to collect a small colorful backpack.

“Look.” She held out a well used pink crayon for Wufei to inspect. He took the crayon and turned it over several times.

“This is a very nice crayon.” He said seriously and carefully handed the crayon back. Kim smiled happily

“I got more. I like this one the best.” She said and held out a small green crayon. Wufei once again inspected the crayon and nodded his head.

“Good choice. It's a really nice color.”

“Yeah, but it got broken because Aron broke it.”

“Really?”

The little girl nodded her head seriously. “And he didn't even say sorry.” It was clear that this was Aron's biggest sin.

Wufei frowned. “Well that was rude of him.”

She once again nodded her head. Wufei leaned down and picked his pencil case out of his bag.

“You can have this one if you want.” He said and held out one of his green pencils. The one he was holding was almost exactly the same shade as Kim's broken crayon.

“Really?” She said in awe as she took the pen.

Wufei nodded. “You have to have your favorite color.”

“Which one is your favorite?” She asked and walked around the edge of the couch to lean on his legs.

“This one.” He said and held out a wine-red pencil for inspection. Kim accepted the pencil carefully and looked at it with great concentration.

“It's nice.” She said and handed it back. “Can I sit with you?” She asked and Wufei shuffled a bit closer to Sarah to make room for the small redhead. She easily climbed up the couch and made herself comfortable against his side. “Why don't you use the one you like the best.” She asked as she looked at Wufei's pink handwriting that covered the page.

He smiled down at Kim. ”Well, I wasn’t in the mood for a red pen. It felt like a pink day today.”

“Oh. I think I have a blue day. I drew a blue dog even though there isn't any blue dogs.” She said and flipped her pad open to show him a blue blot with legs.

“Really, well you can never know. There might be a blue dog out there.” Wufei said and tapped his pen against his chin.

The girl giggled behind her hands. “Dogs can't be blue.”

“Maybe someone colored it. Like some people color their hair.”

The girl looked thoughtful. “You think?”

“Maybe. I saw a pink dog once.” Wufei said, waving his pink pen in front of her.

“Really?” She asked with big eyes.

Wufei nodded. “It was one of those small poodles.”

Kim wrinkled her nose. “I don't like dogs. Dogs are smelly.”

Wufei smiled happily. “I don't like dogs ether, but I take one walking almost every day.”

“Why?” She asked as she leaned on his arm.

“A friend of my grandmother owns it. Her legs aren't all that good so it's hard for her to take the dog on long walks.”

“My grandmother can't walk at all. She sits in a wheelchair. I tried to help push, but she's really heavy.” She frowned unhappily.

Wufei smiled and stroke her hair. “Well it was nice of you to try. I'm sure she appreciated it.”

“Mmhmm, she gave me candy. Do you like candy?”

“Kim, I don't think you should bother Wofei.” Bree cut in as she looked disapprovingly at her daughter.

“She's not.” He said at the same time as Kim exclaimed a offend 'I'm not.'

They looked at each other and giggled. Well, Wufei giggled as good as a man in his early twenty's could anyway. The Asian suddenly became very aware of the fact that the rest of the group was looking at them in amusement. Wufei couldn't believe that he had almost forgotten where they were. But that was probably a good thing or he would probably been looking at Duo the whole time. A quick flick of an eye told him that 'yes, Adonis is looking at you right now.' He could feel himself blushing. ”Sorry, we'll be more quiet.”

After a couple well meaning jokes about Kim finding a new best friend, everyone settled down. A few new questions came up that the group managed to solve together and Wufei breathed out a mental sigh of relief. Maybe he could pass this class after all. Sarah asked to borrow one of his books and Tom took a walk around the group to refill some coffee mugs. After that, silence settled over the room once again.

“I think Wofe is a strange name.” Kim whispered after a while. It was clear that this was something that she had given a lot of thought.

Wufei sank down further into the couch to get more in height with the little girl. ”Well, It kind of is. Even my grandmother thinks so because she always calls me Fei.”

“Fey is better. It's like you’re a fairy.”

Wufei snickered lightly at her words. 'You don't know how right you are.'

“Yeah, only that I don't have any wings.”

Bree smiled brightly. “I have wings. My mom made me them for Katharine's dress-up party. They got glitter on them. You can borrow them if you want.”

Wufei coughed to hide his laughter. “That's very generous of you but I think that I should be fine without them.”

“OK.” With that she pulled up her own pad and started to draw. They stayed like that for the rest of the session, trading pencils and crayons back and forth until the five year old fell asleep against his arm. It didn't take long after that before the rest of the group decided that it was time to go home.

Bree smiled a bit apologetically when she lifted her sleeping daughter off of him. “I'm sorry if she was bothering you.”

“She wasn't.” He said as he collected Kim's pad, crayons and her new green pencil down in to the small backpack.

“Thank you. It was nice of you to talk to her. She usually becomes quite bored while we are here.” She said and hugged the sleeping child closer.

Wufei shrugged. “It was nice. I always hated it when adults didn't talk to me or talked down to me when I was a kid. I wasn't about to do the same to her.”

Kim suddenly blinked and looked around with blurry eyes from her resting place on Bree's shoulder.

“We're leaving now sweetheart, say good bye to Wofei now.” Her mother said gently.

“Bye fairy.” She mumbled sleepily with a small wave making the rest of the group laugh.

Wufei just smiled happily and waved back “Bye Kim.”

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

And that was all for now, please tell me what you thought *puppy eyes* pleeeease?

Thanks to Sakuyas Little Bird and Aniratac who beta read this chapter.