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A New Future
Chapter
Three: Shopping part 1
The four boys decided to take the bus to the mall. They could've walked, it was
still early in the afternoon and it wasn't really that far away, but the rain
was coming down pretty hard outside and the bus stop was just across the street
from their orphanage. They didn't have to wait long for the bus to come; Wufei
knew at what time it would stop so they left just a few minutes earlier. Still
the rain had gone trough their thin rain clothing by the time the bus arrived
and now their clothes under that were wet as well.
After they had paid the bus started driving, causing the boys to hold onto the
chairs as they walked to find some empty seats. The bus wasn't empty but there
were still enough seats left.. In the front were two elder people, probably
husband and wife. The man was dressed in a long, grey raincoat and he wore a
grey hat. All that was needed was a pipe and he would look just like one of
those detectives you always see in cartoons, only a lot older and less handsome.
The woman had drawn something over her hair to protect it against the rain as
well., but Duo doubted that thing would do any good. It looked so thin. Her
raincoat on the other hand seemed thick. Duo guessed she had a normal jacket
under it as well to protect her from the cold where the raincoat alone would
fail.
The pair nodded politely as the four boys walked by.
Besides the elderly male and female there was also a couple with little kids,
doing their best to keep the bored little brats from destroying the bus. However,
when they literally ran into Heero and glanced up to meet his death glare they
gulped and quickly retreated to their parents' side, the youngest one quietly
sobbing and burying her face in her mother's chest.
Duo snickered earning a death glare from Heero as well and decided not to say
what he was about to say. Quatre, who was in the front, judged this little scene
and decided to find them seats as far away from this family as possible, for
everybody's sake.
Further on the bus were two girls younger than them chatting happily, one girl
who looked about their age, scowling out of the window to nothing in particular
while listening to music from her discman, oblivious to her surroundings, and a
mother with a slightly handicapped girl. The back seats were taken by some loud
boys who looked about nineteen or twenty. They paid absolutely no attention to
the four boys looking for seats as they were flipping trough some sex magazines.
Finally Quatre settled down where four seats were free. Without a word Heero
took the seat opposite of the blonde. Wufei looked at his wet clothes and
muttered some curse words under his breath while taking the seat next to Heero.
Last to sit was Duo, who took the empty seat next to Quatre, grinning at the
scowling Chinese youth who was still focussing on his wet white pants.
When the bus stopped because of a stop-light the Chinese boy finally looked up
straight into the grinning face of his friend. He sighed agitated before he
spoke up. "What is it now, Maxwell?"
"You're wearing white pants. . ." The grinning youth answered.
"Yeah, so?"
". . .And black underwear."
"What!" Wufei shot up but immediately that turned out to be a mistake
as the bus-driver chose that exact moment to pull up again, causing Wufei, who
had been sitting in a seat opposite of Maxwell, going backwards, to fall forward
on top of Duo who desperately tried to move out of the way but found out that he
wasn't fast enough.
"Please remain seated, young men!" The bus-driver called back
irritated while Wufei was doing his best to get up from his hugging position as
gracefully as possible, muttering even more curse-words.
Duo, who still seemed to find the whole scene very funny, decided the
humiliation wasn't over just yet. He patted the Chinese boy on his back in a
soothing way. "Yeah, I love you too."
"Shut up." The smaller one replied as he finally managed to get up and
back in his own seat.
Duo noticed that even Heero found this situation amusing as his lips gave the
slightest hints of a smirk. Suddenly the braided boy realized he had never seen
his roommate even smile. Sure, he'd smirked a few times, but that was not what
Duo meant. He couldn't help wondering what the elder boy would look like if he
really laughed. He couldn't imagine it but was sure it would look great.
Quatre was less amused by the whole situation a looked a bit worried. "Are
you okay?" The blonde asked. "You wanna turn back and change?"
"No." This answer came from Heero instead of Wufei. All three blinked
at him. "We're not turning back, he should've thought of that sooner."
His tone clearly left no place to argue.
Duo looked at him questioningly, wondering if this was Heero's idea of annoying
Wufei on purpose or if he was just agitated by the whole situation now, but his
roommate offered him no answer as he turned his head to look out of the window.
Duo sighed. When was he ever going to understand that boy?
The rest of the ride the four boys talked about nothing important. Or rather,
Duo and Quatre were having a conversation and Heero continued to stare out of
the window while Wufei muttered some curse words at random small 'events'.
Unlike the bus, the mall was very crowded. Lots of people had obviously decided
to do some last-minute shopping today for the upcoming festivities. Besides that,
Santa Claus was stationed in the middle of the mall today to greet the little
kids.
The old man in the red suit reminded Duo of when he was little. In the first
year he had met Solo the elder boy had taken him to the mall with Christmas and
told him to go talk to Santa Claus. When the old man asked him what he wanted
for Christmas he kept his mouth shut at first. But when Santa reassured him he
could tell him he whispered in his ear that he wanted a mommy or a daddy so he
could live in a house. Santa had taken the boy to a special room and told him to
wait there and so he did, until Solo entered the room looking for him. He had
told the elder boy what happened and when he'd told him what he had said to
Santa, Solo had grabbed his hand and as two cops were about to enter the room,
they rushed out of it, running away from the mall.
From that day on Duo tended to avoid all people dressed in red.
The four boys glanced around for a moment.
"Well, we're here. Now what do we do?" Duo asked, getting the others'
attention.
"It'd go faster if we split up in pairs." Wufei suggested. "That
way everything will remain a surprise for the others."
Heero and Quatre nodded while Duo just waited for them to decide.
"How about me and Heero go and Duo and Quatre?" Wufei then suggested.
Duo felt a sudden bolt in his stomach. Not a painful one, but it was there. Like
one of those things you get when you're disappointed or something. He wondered
what was going on. Why would he be disappointed? This was the perfect
opportunity for him to ask Quatre how things were supposed to go involving these
upcoming days without having the others around to think of him as weird. That
was an advantage, right?
The other boys nodded as well but before they parted Quatre drew their attention.
"Uhm. Shouldn't we switch sooner or later?" He started. "I mean,
that way Duo and I won't know what we bought for each other and neither will you."
Wufei nodded and glanced at his watch. "It's one o'clock now and
considering the crowd we'll need a while so how about we meet here back at
two-thirty to get a snack and switch?"
After they'd agreed on that Heero and Wufei walked off to one side and Quatre
and Duo to the other side. Suddenly Quatre stopped walking. Duo, who hadn't
expected this could stop just in time to avoid bumping into his friend, but the
woman behind him had no such luck. She bumped into the braided youth and glared
at him. She told him to watch where he was going and walked off muttering
something about the youth these days.
Duo ignored her and turned to Quatre. "What's up, Q?"
"Uhm... have you got a watch?"
Duo shook his head. "Nuh uh." He never wore any kind of jewellery used
to be too expensive and he hadn't gotten round to buying something now. He
didn't miss it so why bother spending money on it just so that you can get used
to it and missing it next time it got lost.
The blonde youth muttered something that sounded like a 'damn' but Duo wasn't
sure because he was too busy to listen as he realised why the boy had asked. He
turned around to see if he could still locate Heero or Wufei, but they were
already lost somewhere in the crowd.
He shrugged and spoke to Quatre in his cheerful tone. "Well, then there's
nothing else for them to do than wait until we arrive back here."
Quatre muttered something about an angry Wufei and surely an agitated Heero but
again, his true words were lost in the sounds of the crowd.
"So," Quatre said first, "where do you wanna go look first?"
Duo shrugged. "Dunno, this'll be my first Christmas off the streets."
Quatre blinked. . . And Quatre blinked again. . . And Quatre opened his mouth to
speak, but all he managed to do was blink again. . . "You. . ." he
mumbled when he had finally found his voice. "You. . . never had Christmas?"
Duo shrugged. "On the streets people aren't so lucky, y'know."
"But. . . that's not fair!" The blonde argued. "Christmas is
something. . . special! Everybody should be celebrating it! You didn't do
anything about it?"
"Well, we got ourselves desert."
"But no presents, no singing by the tree or anything like that?" The
braided one shook his head but the blond still couldn't believe it. They had now
reached the bookshop but instead of entering it Quatre halted in front of it,
stopping the flow of people around him from entering or exiting the shop.
Completely oblivious to his surroundings he faced the ground. "But. . .
That's not fair."
"Hey, watch it, slowpoke!"
The harsh voice caused Quatre to snap back to reality. He looked up to where the
voice had come from only to stare into a large, muscular face of a man in his
late-twenties. The man glared back at him.
"Move it, brat!" The man roughly pushed him aside as he walked past,
muttering curse words under his breath. Quatre fell down on his butt but did
nothing but just blink. The man was quickly followed by a girl with a book in
her hands. As the girl passed Quatre she shot him a grin, apparently approving
of her boyfriend's actions and then hugged the man's arm just before the two of
them disappeared into the crowd. All this time, Quatre was just lost for words
and he seemed as if he hadn't even realized what was going on yet.
Duo rushed to Quatre's side, offering him a hand to help him up. "Q-man,
you okay?" he asked worriedly.
Quatre, who looked as if he were confused as to how he ended up sitting on the
ground, took Duo's hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. He wiped
the dirt off his pants and scratched his head.
"Ok. . . Yeah, I'm fine. . . Rules involving Christmas. . . Right."
Duo frowned. The blonde looked quite off. He wondered what could've gotten the
youth so disturbed. Was it really just the fact that Duo had never had Christmas
before? "Are you sure you're all right? We can just sit down for a moment.
There's enough time for us anyway."
"Yes, no, I'm fine. Let's continue." The young blonde now entered the
bookshop. Hesitantly Duo followed.
"Rules are simple." The smaller boy began. "You know we've
already given Sally our wish list, she gets an amount of money per child for
slightly bigger Christmas presents each year which will be placed under the big
Christmas tree in the living room today."
Duo nodded. He understood that much when he was asked for his wish list.
"The rest is simple. To not discriminate those with few friends or little
money, you're allowed to buy each of your friends one small gift, no more, just
to show friendship. You can place them under the tree tonight and on Christmas
morning they will be unpacked along with the other gifts. And that's it really."
Duo thought it over. "One small gift each, huh? How much may it cost?"
Quatre shrugged. "There's not really a limit but it just shouldn't be too
expensive. If you want to buy a book it should be a cheaper one."
"And you're gonna buy a book?." Quatre nodded as he now turned his
attention to the books. Duo looked them over and saw they had reached the
cultural section. "Who are you gonna buy a book?"
"Hmm, Wufei. He likes to read."
"He does?" Duo wondered. He had spent his first few weeks with the
Chinese youth in one room but he had been too busy with self-pity back then that
he hadn't paid much attention to the other boy. Much less what he was doing.
"A book, hm?" Duo wandered off a little by himself. He had no idea
what to buy any of them, but a book for Wufei didn't seem like a bad idea. But
what about? What were the boy's interests really besides meditating? Then his
eyes fell on a book about martial arts. That could be something. He DID know the
Chinese one liked sword fighting.
It didn't take long for him to find what he was looking for. A book about
swordfighting. He didn't know how far Wufei was, though and buying him a book
below his level would surely be an insult to the boy's pride so he decided on a
book for advanced fighters. Looking at the contents of the book he decided t
would have to do. It wasn't just techniques anyway, it was also something about
the history of swordfighting and something on differnt swords.
He walked back to Quatre to see that he had also made his choice already. He had
chosed one on Asian culture. Together they headed for the long line to purchase
the books.
Quatre glanced at Duo's choice. "Sword fighting. Nice." He approved.
"Wufei's good at that martial arts stuff. Wish I could do any of it."
The shopping for Heero was a lot harder. Neither had an idea of what to buy the
Japanese boy. Quatre finally settle with a CD holder. Duo was set on buying
something to keep his roommate from the computer. But what else did he like?
Finally a little devil entered his mind telling him to buy a set of cards and
teach him how to play solitaire. That should keep the computer nerd off the
computer.
Then Duo remembered he should get something for Saria as well. He bought her a
cute little forever-friends bear holding a crayon in one hand and a piece of
paper in the other on which he seemingly had written the small text:
'Friendship never dies'
It wasn't a big present but he knew that for the girl it was enough. He knew it
would be. She would understand the meaning and she would like this more than
anything else he could buy.
As he watched the bear he suddenly remembered Solo and a pang shot trough his
heart as he remembered the goodbye the boy had said only two weeks ago. They
would never meet again. Duo had also given up all hopes of ever seeing the other
kids again. That was what hurt him the most, not knowing whether or not they
were alright. They were so young and fragile and needed someone they could
trust, someone to protect them. What were they going to do in a big, scary
orphanage with all those strange kids there? And what if they were separated?
Then they'd be all-alone.
For a moment Duo was completely lost in thoughts and memories of their 'clan'.
Quatre's voice was unable to bring him back and it wasn't until the blonde laid
his hand on the braided boy's shoulder that Duo remembered where he was again.
He quickly paid for the little bear and shoved it in his pocket out of his
eyesight.
~ T.B.C. ~