Abroad

I warned you that updates might be slow in coming, but I tried to make it up to all of you with a longer chapter.

I wanted to thank Kurenai Shahirizai for the review. You are too kind sweetie! I dedicate this chapter to you! See people, reviews really do motivate authors. I hope you all review more stories in the future!

Hope it was worth the wait. Thanks!
--------------------

“Duo,” someone called thought the haze of sleep. “Duo, do you want to go to breakfast,” someone asked.

Duo groaned like the weight of the world was on his back. It certainly felt like it was on his head. “Leave me alone,” he mumbled pulling the covers up further.

“Are you sure,” the familiar voice asked.

Suddenly he registeried the voice as Wufei’s and it wasn’t in English. It was weird how Duo was starting to register Japanese in his head as more of something that he could understand rather than something that wasn’t English.

Cracking an eye open he could only see from Wufei’s eyes and up, but clearly Wufei was amused with his antics. “Sorry Wufei. Give a minute and I will go to breakfast,” Duo responded in Japanese slowly pulling the covers down and sitting up.

“I understand,” Wufei said with a nod and left the room.

Rubbing at his eyes, Duo slumped in on himself. He rested there for a moment taking in the fact the he was awake. With a jaw-cracking yawn, he started to kick the blankets off himself. Without checking his appearance in the mirror he threw on a t-shirt and walked out of the room.

“Tro, Quat, let’s get breakfast,” he said while knocking on their door. “Come on, come on. You know you want some coffee or tea after last night,” he said still knocking. “Damnit you two, open--” he was saying when a very grumpy, tired Quatre opened the door.

“Damn Duo! With the pounding in my head and the pounding at the door, you’re killing me,” he said rubbing a hand over his hair making it more rumpled. By ruffeling his hair, he pushed some of it back out of his face to revel a bruise above his temple.

“Shit what is this,” Duo said indicating to the bruise. Taking a quick peek around Quatre, he looked into the room at Trowa. He didn’t suspect that Trowa would hurt Quatre, but he still wanted to gauge his reaction.

“What is it,” Quatre asked putting his hand up to his temple.

“You’re black and blue Bud. Looks like you lost the fight,” he said with a light chuckle.

“He fell into the ladder last night,” Trowa said indicating to the bunk bed ladder as he was climbing out of the bed.

Duo’s eyes were drawn to the ladder, but what he noticed was that Quatre’s top bunk bed was still made even thought Quatre had just gotten up. With a small smile starting to creep over his features he made eye contact with Quatre again but Quatre seemed to be oblivious to Duo’s inferences.

“Don’t remember that,” Quatre mumbled to himself as he went to check the bruise in the mirror that was fastened on the inside of the closet door.

“You going to breakfast in your boxers,” Trowa asked pointing to Duo’s attire.

Duo furrowed his eyebrows and looked down. “Oh, shit. No,” he said frustrated as he turned around and walked out of the room. He could hear his two friends laughing as he walked to his room.

Throwing on a pair of pajama bottoms, Duo walked back over to Trowa and Quatre’s room to find them a little more awake and ready to go. Climbing the stairs to the cafeteria, the boys were shocked to see Milliardo and Sally were already up. They were nursing a hot cup of tea or coffee and munching on some toast to help with the morning hangovers.

“Sleep well boys,” Sally asked blowing lightly on the top of her coffee.

“There is a difference between sleeping and passing out,” Quatre countered.

“Touché,” Sally said with a smile.

Grabbing their own breakfast, the boys sat down without much conversation. The fog of their light hangovers permeated their minds and the best most of them could manage was, “Pass the salt.”

The door to the cafeteria opened a few minutes later. Shuffling through the door, Hilde and Cathy also had seemingly just rolled out of bed and barely made it downstairs. Most likely they would have skipped breakfast all together this morning, but they had a moral obligation to come to every meal the lunch ladies cooked. It was the mentality that the Japanese had; if the lunch ladies made the food for you, you should show up. Walking past their table, Hilde reached out and rubbed her hand on the top of Milliardo’s head musing his hair. “Morning Zechs,” she said straight faced and walked on to get her breakfast.

Milliardo, who had been taking a sip of his coffee, made a snorting/choking noise into his coffee cup. The rest of the table out right laughed at the reminder of last night. Before anything else could be said, Howard Sensei came into the cafeteria.

“Good morning,” Howard Sensei called out as he shuffled in wearing the all too small guest slippers.

“Morning,” everyone called back excited to see their Sensei.

Walking past the window into the kitchen, Sensei waved a good morning to the lunch ladies and walked over and got a cup of coffee. “Can I sit,” he asked politely pointing to the chair next to Cathy. It was those little social niceties that Sensei observed that made him so loveable.

After a nod from Cathy, Sensei sat and took a sip of his coffee. “Ahh, nothing like that first cup in the morning.” The students chuckled in response. “So how was last night,” he said with a smirk. This time the students laughed out loud conjuring up memories or their drunken tirades. “That good, huh? I’ll have to join you next time. Tending to business is tedious, but a necessity,” he said taking another sip of his coffee. “So you all know that you don’t have class on Monday, right,” he asked.

“We know, but why don’t we have school? Is it a national holiday,” Quatre questioned.

“It’s something called Sports Day. They encourage everyone to go out and play sports outside,” he said.

“What,” Duo asked surprised. “They have a day off for that!?”

“You’ll soon see that there a lot of these little one day holidays spread out all through the year, but their bigger breaks are much smaller,” Sensei explained. He continued on with his previous train of thought. “Treize and I wanted to take some time today and take you all downtown and show you how to get around. Are you all up for that,” he asked his students.

Everyone readily agreed, excited to get out and have the chance to see the city. They all agreed that one o’clock would be a good time to meet Sensei in front of the dorm.

Finishing off his coffee, Sensei bid the students goodbye and went back to where he was staying on campus. With the time between the breakfast they just had, the students had another four hours before they had to meet Sensei. Duo decided that he still had time to catch a few more Z’s.

Reaching his room, Duo quickly decided against a nap. It would only make him feel groggy when he woke up. It would be better to take a shower and give the allotted four hours to a little homework while letting his hair air-dry.

After a long, luxuriously warm shower, Duo spent his time at his desk reviewing homework and relearning kanji. One leg was tucked up under his other leg and he absent-mindedly rubbed the water out of his hair with a towel.

The scene wasn’t much different when Quatre walked into his room a few hours later. The towel had been abandoned to dry over the back of Duo’s chair and Duo’s now dry hair still hung loose waiting to be put back into it’s customary braid. Instead of the intense scrutiny of the kanji and grammar, Duo was vacantly staring at his papers more preoccupied in the trappings of his mind that in reality. Quatre gave a quick, courteous knock on the open door. Duo let out a little puzzled noise at knock and looked over to see Quatre already dressed for the day.

“Shit! I’m not late again, am I,” Duo asked getting ready to stand up.

“No, not this time. You still have another 45 minutes,” Quatre said reassuringly. “I was just coming in to see what you are up to,” he said leaning up against one of the posts of the bunk bed.

“Studying,” Duo replied shuffling his papers.

“I can see how hard you were ‘studying’ when I came in,” Quatre said with a nod towards the papers. “Got stuff on the brain?”

“No,” Duo said standing up and opening his closet. “Well, yes, but, ya know, not important stuff,” he said pulling off his white pajama t-shirt. Shuffling around in his closet he tried to choose a shirt to wear. “Just thinking about all the things I am going to have to do with that Heero kid in his English lessons, ya know?”

“Because he’s a little harsh?”

“A little,” Duo said with a huff pulling on a green t-shirt. “This kid is going to take a hell of a long time to warm up.” Grabbing a white button up shirt, he buttoned up half the buttons and rolled the sleeves up to the elbows. Duo let out a sigh, like he was going to say something else, but instead just pulled on a pair of dark cargo shorts. “It's just nervousness about having committed to teaching this guy,” he said with finality tucking his wallet into his back pocket.

Quatre nodded listening patiently--fulfilling the duty of best friend. He was unnerved when Duo ended the conversation about Heero and began an intense scrutiny of Quatre. “What,” he asked puzzled.

“So,” Duo said lowering his voice, his mouth spreading into a large grin. “What happened with you and Tro last night,” he asked leaning into Quatre’s personal space.

“W-what?”

Duo didn’t say anything but kept the large grin on his face. Wufei chose that moment to come back to his room. The customary afternoon greetings were exchanged between Wufei and Quatre and Duo thanked him again for waking him up for breakfast.

When Wufei settled down at his desk getting into his own homework, Duo turned his attention back to Quatre with a raised eyebrow clearly indicating he still expected an answer from Quatre.

Sighing, Quatre pushed his hand through his hair. “Okay, it was really simple. I was drunk as hell last night and you saw the bruise, I couldn’t even walk. So I just kinda climbed into bed with Trowa so I didn’t break something trying to get up to my bed. Not like we did anything. I passed out the moment my body hit the bed.”

Duo looked slightly disappointed that something more devious hadn’t happened.

Quatre let his paranoia misinterpret the look. " You’re not upset are you? I was thinking about doing something about Trowa and I. That wouldn’t make you feel…" Quatre made a vague hand gesture. He knew he didn’t want Duo to feel like a third wheel if he and Trowa started dating, but he didn’t think their relationship would change the dynamic between the three friends by much.

Duo suddenly gave a shit-eating grin. "Well, any other time I would have said that it was about damn time you two started dating, but..." Quatre's mouth turned into a slight frown and he furrowed his eyebrows trying to work out what Duo could possibly be leading to. "...the other day when we were running, Trowa said my current roomie was 'cute' so I don't know if-"

Duo was cut off as Quatre shot straight up from his slouched position on the bunk bed post. "WHAT!?" It was remarkable how it almost sounded like two voices came out of Quatre's mouth. But Duo had heard two voices, and judging by the way that Quatre was now staring across the room, Duo was starting to guess that second voice was Wufei's.

Wufei had done an abrupt turn in his chair so he was facing the two Americans. His mouth was open in surprise and he was looking from Duo to Quatre waiting for more of an explanation.

"Wufei, are you okay," Duo asked in Japanese hoping to clarify the situation. Wufei quickly shut his gaping mouth, sat up straight and looked at both boys. "I assume that I should tell you both that I speak English," Wufei informed them.

"You can- engli- I, god damnit Wufei! I've been floundering this whole time with my Japanese looking like an idiot in front of you!" Duo threw his hands into the air, defeated.

"I was rather fond of your little hand gestures,” Wufei said in a good-humored tone, “but I didn't think it was important to let you know. You did not come here to speak English, and neither did I. However, I apologize for not telling you. I now see what an oversight that was."

"Well that's what you get, ya sneaky bastard," Duo said with a smile washing over his features. "The fright of your life for the fright of mine."

"Who ever said I was frightened by Trowa thinking I’m ‘cute’," Wufei said with a coy smile. Both Duo and Quatre's confused and almost horrified faces caused Wufei to burst out into a deep laugh. "I'll have you know that I am very much involved with one of the girls on the fourth floor," he kept laughing as he watched their faces return back to smiles.

Duo shook his head at his roommate’s antics. Duo didn’t know it yet, but finding someone like Wufei, who would rather go with the more challenging path of using Japanese rather than the convenience of English, was truly a precious commodity.

Quatre finally looked over at Duo concerned. "Please, don't let this go out of this room. I don’t know where Trowa and I stand yet. I want to work it on my own time."

"Quatre, you know there are three things in this world you can count on: death, taxes, and me," Duo said with a reassuring pat on Quatre's arm.

Quatre picked at the skin next to his thumbnail for a moment before he looked at Duo again. "Just so we're clear, you're not going to tell Trow-"

"No I'm not going to tell him," Duo said exasperated.

"Great! Thank you Duo," Quatre said with a huge smile.

“Go get your shit together so we can go into the city and I will meet you in the genkan in a few,” Duo said giving Quatre’s back a few hard pats.

With a nod and a smile Quatre left Duo’s room. Grabbing his passport and sliding it into his back pocket, Duo could only shake his head. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet and already this was shaping up to be one hell of a day.