My momentum was suddenly interrupted and I almost kissed the ground. It turned out that the end of my coat was caught in between the shutters of the gates. If I dashed the last stretch, I might still make it through the closing doors.

"Duo?"

That voice! I could never mistake the deep timbre of his voice, all his hesitation packed into one syllable. It had the ability to stop every train of thought churning through my head. I looked up slowly from my embarrassing state for fear that he might decide not to approach me.

It's Heero after all, and it's been three damn long years since I last saw him.

He looked over the mess I was in and suppressed his smile. I yanked the fabric from between the low gates and heard a protesting rip at the last second. I probably looked like a convict on the run, but I couldn't care less. I took a good, long look at him standing before me in his jeans and thin black shirt, dressed like it was still summer. Shaking my head, I approached him with outstretched arms.

He greeted me with a tight hug. I was so damn happy I thought I might split my face. Beyond his neck, the white doors of the shuttle slid closed and became indistinguishable from its sleek metallic body. I caught sight of a few curious faces in the rear windows, blurring as they accelerated away. Three years was just long enough to earn me his uncommonly affectionate hug, and thankfully, not long enough to cool the friendship between us.

He let go of me to survey the emptied platform and check the updated departure time on the transparent display panels.

"I see that I've made you miss your shuttle," he said with unapologetic humor in his eyes. As he still worked for the Preventers, he could technically ask to ID me for my misdemeanor, but what a waste of the citizens' tax money that would be, dispatching the best agent to squash a bug.

"So how do you plan to make it up to me?" I wished I could sound nastier, but I couldn't quite keep the happy drawl out of my voice.

"Can I make it up to you with a drink?"

He offered this so smoothly that I whistled. With an embarrassed smile on his lips, he cocked his head toward the nearest station exit and proceeded to lead the way through bustling alleys and streets. Sometimes he surprises me with the corniest lines and the smartest comebacks; it's a shame he took so long to loosen up.

If he treated me to a drink every time I missed a shuttle, I would be intentionally missing them for the rest of my life.

Heero took us to a bar named Heaven's Kitchen, but it was noisy as hell. Business was rolling and basketball fans were gathered around the projection screen to watch the live broadcast of the championship game. I had a feeling the underdogs would win. We ordered some good, greasy American food and caught up with the three years of blank between us.

"You know," he leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "I'm supposed to detain you if I see you and report to Une immediately." I might have been worried if I didn't know him better, but I saw that wicked twinkle in his eye. I knew better than anyone that the off-duty Heero was a rule-breaker.

"You did detain me," I admitted. Oh, but it was a tough chase, trying to catch someone with my agility and sense of balance, he pointed out. I couldn't get enough of his sarcastic humor.

"Yeah, just rub it in," I sighed. "So, aren't you gonna tell me what I'm wanted for?"

"I didn't say you were wanted. It's just that money has been wired out of corporate accounts and donated to charity, but so far the cops haven't been able to track the hacker."

"Sucks for you," I sympathized with him. It shouldn't have been a Preventers' case.

Heero passed me the bottle of ketchup from the next table over and watched me empty out half of its contents, knowing that my only reason for ordering French fries was to make my plate appear less like a murder-scene.

"Well?"

"Of course, not guilty."

"Of course." He even managed to sound like he believed me.

The waitress brought us our drinks. We discussed the current state of political unrest, I verbally bashed the politicians whose names I could actually remember, then finally we talked about the more personal stuff.

"How is Hilde?" He asked tentatively.

I watched the foam at the rim of my glass. Within the cylindrical aquarium that ran along the inner radius of the dining area, a few tropical fish floated by. I heard they sometimes have a girl employee dress up as a mermaid so that she could swim around wearing nothing but a bikini and shiny plastic wrapped around her legs. Damn lucky fish, no wonder they always look like they're chilling.

"I don't know," I paused before taking a gulp out of the glass, looking confused. "How is she?"

Awkard silence.

God, I loved torturing him. He probably thought he was the only one who's made this conversational faux-pas.

"G't with the program, Heero!" I practically hollered.

He apologized quickly, but I laughed and told him to relax, for I very much enjoyed flustering him.

"Hilde and I broke up over half a year ago. It was ugly."

I summed up in few words my epic struggles with the alien race known as women.

"If you had kept in touch with me," I said, still trying to give him a hard time, "I wouldn't need to recap for you."

I know, I know, I'm sorry, he offered me some of his onion rings in placation. I took a sip of his beer instead while waiting for the waitress to come around and refill mine.

"What about you?" I ventured to ask. I had to shout over the hollering and jeering of the basketball fanatics. The game was definitely heating up, but I wanted to hear his response.

He admitted that he'd been too occupied with work to have time for romance in his life.

"No romance? What about sex?"

That, too, I must have belted out over the commotion. The rowdy crowd fell silent. Heero choked on his drink.

This was too bizarre even for me.

The big guy made his free throw and the crowd was cheering again. Nobody paid us any attention. The crimson-faced Heero opted to spare my life, so I was at leisure to make a show of gawking at him while this good-looking monk ignored me. I could see him working late and being assigned the most dangerous tasks simply because he was the best. The thought pained me.

I was starting on my second beer when Heero finally asked what had brought me to Earth. I confessed that I had come on a one-day trip to attend the funeral of Howard's friend, a pleasant old engineer by the name of Richard. I couldn't let Howard face this alone.

Our lives seemed more fragile in times of peace.

My reason for being on Earth was the first serious thing out of my mouth the entire evening, and it must have been different from Heero's expectations. He looked at me so sadly, as if it was I who had lost a friend. I assured him I felt all right, but alcohol, ya know, in over-moderate amounts tended to make me over-elaborate.

After we discussed the possibility of me visiting Earth again, we wrapped up our long and indulgent dinner. He insisted on paying so I let him, on the condition that we would get together again next month. The game having ended, only a few patrons remained by the bar's lonely antique-yellow lights, their expressions sour from the disappointing loss. I guess my underdogs won. The hourly news droned on and nobody listened.

To our surprise, it was raining like crazy outside. I knew the weather here was fickle, but I hadn't been prepared to walk out of the bar into a freaking Jacuzzi.

We took a minute to watch the rain. The sounds washed out his question, "Why don't you stay for a few days?" His apartment was nearby, he said, pointing in a direction I couldn't see.

I told him I had to make an 8am meeting tomorrow, and that I intended to catch the last shuttle tonight.

He nodded, but insisted that his place was only a few blocks away and that he could drive me to the station through this downpour.

Are you crazy, I asked. We're both drunk, I laughed and he agreed.

We ended up running through several alleys and up the sloping streets back to the central station. With rainwater getting in my eyes, weighing down my clothes and squishing in my boots, the path felt ten times longer than it should have been. The beer in my system didn't help.

I stopped running when I reached the trash can outside of the station. I thought I would throw up when I bent over, my hands shaking as they supported my weight on my knees, my mouth trembling open. Instead, I cried like an idiot. It must've been the shock of seeing Howard break down this morning, still fresh in my mind. He was telling jokes in remembrance of Richard's nickname -- "Ol' Dick" -- when suddenly he had to remove his sunglasses and cover his eyes with his palms. I realized how he had aged.

In the same way, my drunken tears came like the sudden winter shower. I didn't feel much, but hot tears continued flowing down my cheeks like a faucet with its handle broken. Son of a bitch that I couldn't turn off.

Heero's warm palm was on my back, stroking down my spine through my soaked clothes in a soothing flow. I stood up from my hunched over position and took a moment to pull myself together. Eventually I was able to pass it off as a drunken moment. It still rained like God wanted to drown out the world.

"If I hadn't drank so much," I blamed the unlimited-refills policy of the bar on game nights. I wondered if the tears running out of my eyes had some alcoholic content to it. I couldn't blink them away. My fingers brushed down my face to slick away the rain and whatnot.

His hands were on my face, running through my wet bangs and brushing back the hair from my eyes. I was embarrassed at letting him see me this way, but I figured that in our youth, he's already seen all there was to see. Water caught in his eyelashes and weighed down his eyebrows, making him appear melancholy. I couldn't really focus, but I knew he nodded and agreed that I was just getting the alcohol out of my system.

I leaned on him as we made the short distance to the underground station entrance. Even before we took the stairs down, I knew that I had missed the last shuttle. Behold, I was right. The display panels switched to a goodnight announcement with tomorrow morning's schedule on the bottom corner.

"Stay for the night."

I hadn't considered it in earnest before, but I accepted it now. His apartment was indeed a short walk from the bar, on the livelier side of the neighborhood. Upon entering the door, I got a glimpse of the spacious living room and the beige and khaki tones of his furniture before I was forced into the shower. Outside, he tossed our heavy clothes into the dryer, and the machine started its soothing churn.

A clean towel and clothes he was letting me borrow for the night were folded neatly onto the chair outside the bathroom, easily within my reach. The hot shower put some warmth back into my limbs and refreshed my body, but the scent of his soap only made my senses drunker. I found him in the kitchen brewing coffee. The aroma of the black liquid, another sensory assault, tempted me to stand close to him, but I willed myself to walk the other way.

His apartment had a million-dollar view. From the living room, I could see the Preventer's Headquarters, Central Square and Parliament buildings. Our paths have parted and we now watch the landscape from different heights.

"Here." He was standing behind me and trying to see the view through my eyes. Did I like this place? I told him it was cozy, and accepted the steaming mug from him with much gratitude.

It's a great place but we both knew I couldn't stay for more than the night. We made light of the situation, but I'm sure the old farts have been pressuring the Preventers to investigate me. If I was found to be on Earth, I wouldn't want Heero to have to choose between arresting his friend and defying his superior. I was afraid that he might actually let me off the hook, because he was stubbornly loyal like that.

He saw my gaze fixed on the tall white buildings of the headquarters and continued our earlier conversation about our jobs. He was to work with Wufei for the next few assignments to crack down on some secret rebellion-inciting organization. He suggested, not too tactfully, that I could always come back to the team.

I wanted to tell him the truth: Heero, I am a hopeless case.

I guess he hasn't realized how much trouble I could get him in.

How was I to turn him down and tell him that I could never be his partner again?

"I like what I do now," I told him. Teaching little devils with attitude and breaking up the occasional fight between kids who can't hold a gun without shaking has been, at times, a painful job, but it has fulfilled me in a way that hunting down the bad guys never did.

I grinned.

"You know, what amazes me is that I run into you after so long, and things seem to pick up right where they left off."

He nodded, his eyes raised to regard me while he sipped his dark coffee.

"Even apart, we were always on the same frequency."

We sat quietly together. It was still raining outside, but I no longer felt cold. I put my hand on the window, tracing the cold glacier-like streaks on the other side of the glass and leaving behind an imprint of my temperature. He watched my moves. His next question took both him and me by surprise.

"Can I kiss you?" His voice was low. Shadows backlit the fine-boned features of his face as he waited for my response.

Morality has never concerned me before, so I couldn't understand why, right then, I had to confess that I had recently started dating someone.

Okay, he nodded.

And "okay" was all I said. I reached for his face, pulling myself towards his warmth. His mouth opened to meet mine and our breaths tangled invisibly in this dark space, bridging the gap. I could taste the bitterness of his coffee mixing with the cream and sugar added in mine. The taste of him has mellowed, but the change comes at a price.

"Duo. You're shaking."

He had crossed the boundary, and I wondered why the hell I was afraid.

It's because of you. A touch from anyone else wouldn't have this effect on me.

[[ I want more from you than I ever knew to ask. ]]

His hair smelled of the rain and his clothes of ground coffee beans, while I smelled of him after the shower. He asked for no more than that. We waited in silence, not knowing what we waited for, until the torrents started to diminish. He advised me to go to sleep if I wanted to catch the earliest shuttle tomorrow.

He set out the extra mattress for me by the side of his bed, just like in the days when we unwillingly shared a room at the boarding school, two opposites driving each other insane. Now, I find we're not so different after all. He showered in less than 10 minutes and came back to find that I was still awake. I had wanted to look over the binders by his bedside to see what he read before going to sleep each night, but found only endless piles of paperwork and reports.

Lightly, he chided me. He turned off the lights and said that he wanted to get me breakfast before driving me to the station first thing in the morning. Soon after, I could hear that he was asleep. This was his life, passing out as soon as he had set the alarm, his dreams burdened down by deadlines and piles of waiting paperwork.

I couldn't be here for him.

On the other hand, I was awake because he had kissed me. I stayed up listening to the drumbeats of the last raindrops falling outside the window, listening to his soft breathing. I was wearing his clothes and the same clean scent as him. I sat up and watched his fatigued form beneath the folds of his covers, no longer the boy I knew.

I used to wish for something more between us. I wish I could have broken less hearts searching, without realizing it then, for the shadow of a concerned frown, a tight hand on my shoulders when we parted. I never pursued my wishes, he never felt a need to draw the line between love and friendship, so the possibilities lingered in the shadows, whispering sweetly to me.

I let them sing. With the utmost trust I've been given, it seemed right not to net the precious dragonfly for gracing me with its proximity. The possibilities continued singing to me like the mermaids to the lost sailor, but eventually their whispered promises weaved into a sad, forgotten love song.

My friendship with Heero Yuy was my pride and my biggest regret.

I could see the first light of the day slipping in through the blinds. I didn't want to miss this moment. The springs creaked under my weight as I slipped into his bed, drawing as close as I could to his warmth under the covers without actually touching him. His breathing became lighter, his body aware of the changes in temperature and the light. Before I disappear, before I got out of his decent life for good, I really wanted to kiss him again.

Out of all the friends and acquaintances through wars or peaceful times, there is only one person who makes my heart ache when I'm right by his side, laughing with him over beer and idle chat, staring at his eyes over my mug of coffee. The love I've carried for him tears off my voice and leaves me no means to confession.

The blue and yellow hues of a new day fell across his eyelids, and the calm was broken. He stirred but I reached boldly for him anyway, my fingers brushing across his temples as I leaned across his body to watch him squint against the light. He took a moment, the lean muscles of his bare arms unwinding like a tensed spring.

"Good morn'. Sleep well?"

He sat up, his hand staying in contact with my shoulder. Somehow, I knew his response before he said it:

"You know," and he turned to regard me with amazement in his eyes.

"I haven't slept this well in a long time."

[[ I want more from you than I ever knew to ask. ]]