The siren call of the braid in the middle row

Chapter 8

It was the first day of the winter holiday and the two lovers were making their way down the snow covered sidewalk. They hadn't seen each other that much lately with all the tests and assignments that had to be turned in before Christmas. But now it was finally time to spend some time together. Wufei had never longed and dreaded a holiday so much in his life. Longing to spend time with Duo and his grandmother but dreading to 'meet the parents' in just a few days. To make things worse he was not only going to meet the parents, he was going meet the whole Maxwell clan.

Wufei wasn't very good in a crowd. He wasn't any good among people at all. Especially not if there were many people that he didn't know that all knew each other. He knew himself well enough to know that he was most likely going to do his wallflower act all night. But then there was Duo. His beloved boyfriend who wanted him to get to know his family and be a part of the commotion that was a Maxwell Christmas. He had promised that he was going to try. ---Try- being the key word. He had done a mental count as Duo had been talking and had ended up on the terrifying number of thirty eight family members.

There was Solo, his wife and their three children. Tres, his wife and their two children, Quadraginta, their parents, two uncles and their wifes, three aunts and their husbands and together they had five children who in turn had eight children. Not to mention one grandmother, one grandfather and one great grandmother. Duo hadn't been sure if all of them were going to be there at Christmas, but it was likely. Wufei could feel cold sweat making its way down his back just thinking about it.

His own grandmother didn't really like celebrating Christmas so he was taking Duo to meet her tomorrow without the Christmas hysteria. He had little hope that she wouldn't try to embarrass him. Last time he spoke to her on the phone she was sorting out all the baby pictures she could find. The combination of his grandmother being an enthusiastic photographer and Wufei's infamous 'naked period', then things could get ugly pretty fast.

Speaking of ugly. Wufei did a mental note to buy a lot of cat food later since the ugly cat was going to stay with his grandmother while they were gone. The ugly cat was in fact not 'ugly cat' any more, it was 'Precious.' Wufei had almost laughed his ass off when his lover had told him that Precious was the perfect name for the ugly cat... until he realized that his lover was serious.

Duo had developed a strange fascination with the cat ever since the first night he had spent at Wufei's apartment. The cat had for some reason launched itself at Duo's braid and refused to let go. They had been late for the lecture that morning as it had taken them almost an hour to untangle the furious cat from the long hair. Duo thought that the cat was jealous of him. Wufei just thought the cat was insane. But how ever it was, his lover had decided to start a crusade to win over the ugl-.... ‘Precious' affection. So far it wasn't working all that well and Duo had been forced to stuff the braid inside his shirt every time he entered the apartment.

Wufei groaned silently as the wind blew snow from the ground up in his face. He really needed to finish that scarf. Not to mention and a new par of gloves since he had once again lost his old ones. He had a way of doing that on a regular basis. He would take them off and leave them at the oddest places. On top of mailboxes, next to the cash register, on the ground when he had been tying his shoes, on a shelf in the food store and pretty much any plain area that he could find. Needless to say, he had to buy and knit a lot of new gloves every winter. The Chinese man stuffed his hands deep into his coat pockets and turned to his lover who was walking next to him.

“Adonis, have you seen my gloves anywhere?”

Duo blinked. “What? Who?”

Wufei eyes went wide and he laughed slightly in embarrassment when he realized what he had said. “Ehm. Sorry, its nothing.”

But he really should have known better then to tell the most curious person he had ever meet that it was 'nothing.'

“Oh come on. I want to know. Tell me-tell me- tell me.” The braided man pleaded.

One look at those big blue eyes and Wufei knew that he didn't stand a chance. He just could not deny them anything.“... it's just. Well, I kind of had a bit of a crush on you ever since the first lecture. And since I didn't know your name I... kind of called you Adonis...”

“Really?”

“Em, yeah.”

“That is so sweet.” He leaned down and kissed his boyfriend on his cold cheek. “I just wish you would have talked to me.”

Wufei shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I'm not really good at talking to people I don't know.”

Duo laughed. “Yeah, well I'm not one to talk. I never would have been able to talk to you if I hadn't told Tom to invite you to the study group.”

Wufei stared at his boyfriend. “Wait, you told him to invite me?”

Duo blushed slightly and sank his chin further into his muffler as if he was trying to hide.
“Em, yeah. I was kind of to shy to do it myself.” He mumbled through the thick wool.

Wufei was silent for a few seconds while he tried to combine the words 'shy' and 'Duo' together in a comprehensible sentence… only to fail completely. He couldn't do it. There was just no way you could call someone who randomly blurred out 'Would you have sex with me?' shy. Not in his definition of the word anyway. So he gave up and focused on the question at hand. Because he really wanted to know -why the hell- Duo had invited him in the first place. “But why?”

Duo jumped over a big lump of snow lying in his path. “Why as in, 'Why was I too shy' or...”

“Why did you want me there.”

“Well what was I supposed to do? I couldn't just walk up to you and ask you out. You were always sitting in the back like you didn't want to be bothered. I tried to ambush you once but you just walked past me before I had time to open my mouth.” Wufei, who had no recognition of the incident made not comment. Duo continued. “If you were in our study group it would be like... more natural and I wouldn't have to make up a reason to talk to you.” he said and pulled his beanie down further over his ears.

“I still don't understand why. You didn't know anything about me. I was just another guy sitting in your class. What reason could you possibly have for wanting to ask me out?”

Duo rolled his eyes with a snort. “Oh come on. Yeah, ha-ha very funny, let's make fun of Duo. Like one look at you wasn't enough.” He laughed. “Not even you can pull of being that oblivious Wu. Stoop fishing for compliments.”

Wufei could only stare at him in confusion. Duo took one look at him and stooped short with his eyes wide.

“Oh. My. God. You are. Aren't you.”

“What?” Wufei said in bewilderment.

“You are that oblivious. How can you not know?” He asked in disbelief. Wufei had no idea what his boyfriend was talking about and said as much. “Ok, why would you want to date someone that you didn't know anything about?” Duo asked slowly like he was talking to a small child.

Wufei who didn't like to be patronized didn't answer. Duo seamed to sense this and changed tactic. “Ok, so why did you want to date me? You didn't know anything about me ether.”

Wufei frowned. “That's different.”

“How? How is that different?” He pressed.

“Well, you're beautiful.” He said, letting the 'and I'm not' hang in the air, unsaid. Wufei could feel himself blushing and looked down on the ground.

He hadn't wanted to point out the obvious, but Duo hadn't really given him any choice. Everyday he found himself amazed that the gorgeous man even wanted to be seen with him not to mention date him. Wufei hated the way he looked. He always had. He was too short and his skin was too dark. His face was strangely shaped and his eyes where too thin and so dark that it looked like he just had one big pupil. Like a bug or something. He had grown his hair out to have something to hide them behind after being told that they made him look creepy. But as the hair grow long enough he used it to hide his entire face.

But that wasn't the only way he had tried to hide himself. Everything from hair color (he did not make a very good blond) to clothes (which was hard considering that when he was in his teens, his size could mostly be found in the children's department) to makeup (he had been the most uncomfortable goth to ever walk the planet). He had taken up swimming and even gone so far as to go to the gym (something that he had hated above all else, because nothing got you down as much as guys twice your size who lifted twice your weight...on one arm) to get rid of the scrawny and fragile look of his body. It hadn't really worked. It had only made him more self-conscious.

But damn, how he hated being 'that Chinese kid.' The worst part had been the questions about his mom. 'No, I'm not adopted', 'yes, she is my real mom.' They were even worse then all the 'rise' and 'Yu stin ki Pu' jokes that had followed him through the years. The only part of his body that he liked was his nose. His grandmother always told him that he had his mother’s nose. But other then that he really wasn't much to look at. So yes, he knew very well that he couldn't hold a candle to most guys in the looks apartment and having to point this out to this godlike creature who he loved almost felt like shooting himself in the foot.

“Jesus, are you for real?” Duo said as he stared at him. “This is just too much. You are too much. Am I going to have to spell it out for you?” He snickered. “You know this reminds me about this joke me and my friends used to have about how our perfect guy would be like.”

Wufei really didn't like where this was going. He did not feel like listening to what Duo considered to be quality's for a perfect boyfriend. Because the chance that he could ever live up to any of them was pretty slim. He had no illusions about his own qualities or should he say lack of them.

“Duo, could we just find some place to eat, please?” He begged and shifted from one foot to the other in the ankle deep snow.

But Duo ignored him and kept talking. “Come on, just listen would you. Right, so we had this joke from some TV-show where a girl was describing her dream boyfriend. It went something like 'he was going to be smart, but not too smart, nice, but not too nice and he was going to be handsome -but without knowing it-” Duo looked at him like he had just delivered a punch line. Wufei just stared.

“Did you have a point with this little tale?”

Duo blinked. “...Yeah because the whole thing is so naive, with a nice, smart handsome guy who -didn't know- that he was handsome. It shouldn't be possible. You see?”

No. Wufei did not see. In fact all he could see was that this, what ever -this- was, was taking time. Time they could spend on finding some place to eat and not talk about how he could never be a perfect boyfriend because there was no perfect boyfriend.

“Yeah ok. There is no such thing as a perfect boyfriend. Can we eat now? I haven't eaten anything since this morning and I'm starving.” With that he started walking again. He could hear Duo's foot steeps catching up with him in the light snow.

Duo was quiet for a few seconds. “You’re pretty nice. You know.” He said in a soft voice.

Wufei blushed and mumbled a quick thanks.

“And smart.”

'Oh god, are we still on the same subject?' The Chinese man thought with a sigh. 'Why are we talking about this? Right, it was about why he asked me out in the first place... and why he is dating me at all I guess. Not that he seems to have a good reason to present.' Wufei suddenly came to a terrifying realization. 'Shit I'm getting dumped aren't I?' He looked over at his boyfriend who in turn was looking at anything but him. 'Yeah I am... So this is how it feels like to get the “It's me, not you. You're nice and everything but it's just not working for me” speech. It fucking hurts. ‘Damn. I thought everything was going well... but apparently not.' He looked back at Duo who seamed to be talking to him. Wufei hadn't heard a word over the loud roaring sound in his head. He wasn't so sure that he -wanted- to hear them. “Look.” He said, cutting off Duo in what ever it was he was saying to soften the blow. “If this is your version of a 'dear john' could you just get it over with?”

Duo gapped at him and cried out a loud “NO!” making several people around them stop and stare. Wufei breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, okay... sorry.”

Duo stepped a bit closer to him and lightly bumped his elbow into his arm. “You are such a guy. You really suck at picking up hints and reading between the lines you know.”

Wufei shrugged in embarrassment.

Duo breathed out in a large cloud of steam. “... I'm sorry. I should have just said it straight out, but... I really thought you were making fun of me.”

The Asian frowned. “What? Why?”

His boyfriend gave a short laugh. “It's just so ridiculous. How could you not know?”

Wufei was very quickly losing his patience. He was tired, he was hungry and this emotional roller coaster was giving him a headache. “Know what?!”

Duo sneaked his hand into Wufei's coat pocket and laced their fingers together. “That you're beautiful.” This time it was Wufei's turn to stop and gap. “W-what?”

“You. Are. Beautiful.” he said again with total sincerity in his voice. Wufei didn't know what to say. His first instinct was to frown and tell him that just because they were dating there was no reason to make up fake compliments. But Duo looked so sincere. Maybe... maybe he was beautiful in his eyes, love is blind and all that.

So he chose to believe him. “I'm glad you think so.” He said with soft smile and tightened his fingers around Duo's.

But for some reason this did not satisfy his boyfriend. “You can't seriously have this low self-esteem!” He groaned loudly.

“I don't have low self-esteem.” He said with a frown. Wufei really did not know what had gotten into his lover. He didn't have low self-esteem, he was just being realistic.

“Then why don't you believe me.” The braided man looked ready to stump his foot in annoyance.

“I believe that you believe it.” Duo groaned again at his answer and rubbed his forehead. Wufei decided that it was time to change the subject. “Could we just drop this and eat? Come on, there is an Italian restaurant over there. You like Italian, right?” Wufei knew that he did, so he did not wait for an answer before dragging his pained looking lover with him towards the restaurant.

Duo didn't say a word while they were taking off their coats. He was quiet while they sat down at an empty table and only nodded at the waiter that came with the menus. Instead he stared at Wufei who was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable.

“What?” He asked when he couldn't take it anymore.

“I hope you realize that I'm going to spend a long time making you believe me.”

Wufei rolled his eyes with a smile. “Please do.”

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

A/N

Well, that was it. The end...

Or actually, it isn't since there is a sequel where Duo takes Wufei along with him to meet his family... yes that would be the family with thirty eight members... poor Wufei.
But I recommend that if you want to read it, you should go to www . gundam-wing-universe . net or fanfiction . net since I keep forgetting to update my stories on this page.