Heero could have gotten all her credits online. She could have hacked herself a degree or three, actually. She's here at school mostly for the taste of normal life, the apparently much-needed socialization.
"But isn't Heero a guy's name? I didn't know it was unisex."
"It isn't."
She doesn't want to bother tracking the lies she tells, and she's testing how accepted she'll be if she answers candidly.
"... Oh. Heh. So why'd your parents--"
"My parents didn't name me that."
"What did they name you?"
"I don't know."
"So who did name you?"
"That's classified."
They think she's joking and snicker, though it's more of a polite laugh than a truly amused one.
On her most frustrating days, where the culture gap is more of a chasm, she tells herself she's learning only in order to blend easier later on. Because she isn't blending now.
Apparently she's cute, though, which means the guys cut her a lot of slack. Until she started beating them at basketball. She has stopped playing now. Mostly she jogs and climbs; the university has a pretty good wall and the grounds sprawl far enough.
Today is a good day, though, because Relena is in town to see her, so when classmates invite her for drinks Relena comes with. They stare at her a bit, ask her if she knows how much she looks like... and she smiles and introduces herself as Dorothy Catalonia, and Heero smile to herself and thinks how long it's been since the last time she went by Duo or Trowa.
It's not as hard to relax with her so-called peers when there's someone here to translate for her, to grease the wheels so the interaction goes smooth, to show her how it's supposed to go, getting to know new people. But Relena has always been a good teacher that way.
(Though she never did manage to get Heero to pluck her brows.)
goddamn I didn't know which to choose!
"But isn't Heero a guy's name? I didn't know it was unisex."
"It isn't."
She doesn't want to bother tracking the lies she tells, and she's testing how accepted she'll be if she answers candidly.
"... Oh. Heh. So why'd your parents--"
"My parents didn't name me that."
"What did they name you?"
"I don't know."
"So who did name you?"
"That's classified."
They think she's joking and snicker, though it's more of a polite laugh than a truly amused one.
On her most frustrating days, where the culture gap is more of a chasm, she tells herself she's learning only in order to blend easier later on. Because she isn't blending now.
Apparently she's cute, though, which means the guys cut her a lot of slack. Until she started beating them at basketball. She has stopped playing now. Mostly she jogs and climbs; the university has a pretty good wall and the grounds sprawl far enough.
Today is a good day, though, because Relena is in town to see her, so when classmates invite her for drinks Relena comes with. They stare at her a bit, ask her if she knows how much she looks like... and she smiles and introduces herself as Dorothy Catalonia, and Heero smile to herself and thinks how long it's been since the last time she went by Duo or Trowa.
It's not as hard to relax with her so-called peers when there's someone here to translate for her, to grease the wheels so the interaction goes smooth, to show her how it's supposed to go, getting to know new people. But Relena has always been a good teacher that way.
(Though she never did manage to get Heero to pluck her brows.)