Chapter 2

Wufei carefully tied his hair back in a neat pony tail before giving himself a close look in the mirror. He looked like a geek. But since he was pretty proud of being one, he figured that there was no point in trying to change.

Since he doubted that Duo had gone to work in a suit he had dressed simply in a pair of nice blue jeans and a white shirt. That was going to have to do.

Checking that he had everything he needed with him, Wufei took a deep breath and left the apartment.

The first thing he saw as he when he pushed the door to his building open was the man looking right back at him. Duo was leaning back against the wall next to WonderWorld's doors, dressed in a long black coat, a black hat and black leather gloves. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, one foot placed casually up against the wall behind him.

Wufei froze, staring at the man on the other side of the street. 'Holy shit, I'm going on a date with Duo.' He thought in amazement, not quite able to understand just how it came to happen.

He had thanked Heero profoundly for his help, something that his friend had responded to with only one thing.

"I'm never doing it again." Heero had said with a unhappy shudder before muttering something about porn pop-up's and retreating into his room.

Wufei watched in silence as Duo started walking towards him, feeling like a mouse who was being stalked by a large cat.

Duo stepped over a low wall of snow and up on the side walk. "Hey."

"Hi." Wufei squeaked.

Duo tilted his head and gave him a strange look. "Are you okay?"

Wufei nodded, not trusting his voice to not make him sound just as nervous as he was.

Duo sighed. "If you changed your mind-"

"No!" Wufei shouted, startling not only Duo but the old woman and her puddle that were walking past them on the sidewalk. The dog started barking while the woman gave Wufei a nasty look and marched away.

Blushing almost to the point of setting himself on fire, Wufei glanced back at Duo. "Sorry, just… nervous."

Duo smiled reassuringly. "Yeah, me too."

Wufei smiled, feeling how he was slowly starting to relax. "So, were are we going?" He asked, awkwardly rubbing his hands together in the cold.

Duo shrugged and adjusted the collar of his coat. "I'm not really up for anything fancy. Mindy's?"

Wufei recognized the name of a small fast food restaurant down the street and nodded.

Together they started walking, eyes on the whirling snow blowing past their feet. All around them the shops was displaying fat men in red, plastic snow and blinking lights, leaving no doubt what season was around the corner.

Mindy's was no exception. Glitter was hanging from the ceiling together with bells, Christmas balls, stars, small Christmas trees and smiling elves. From a radio over by the register, someone was singing softly about falling snow and reindeers.

They got a table over by the one of the large window overlooking the street. Duo unbuttoned his coat and hung it over the back of his chair. He was wearing a tight, black t-shirt underneath that showed off more than it hid. Trying not to stare, Wufei busied himself with doing the same with his jacket.

A waiter strolled over to take their order. Wufei, who was far too nervous to give food much thought just ordered something, barely knowing what. Duo had obviously been there before and barely glancing at the menu before ordering.

Wufei studied the Christmas decorations in the window. Small star shaped lights was hanging down from the ceiling like a drapery and in the upper right corner a cheap angel was hanging crookedly.

On the bottom of the window, a plastic snowman stood smiling with a black top hat and a red and green scarf around his neck. Some jester had pushed a pair of straws into both sides of its head and one in the lower front, making it obvious what he or she had intended for it to be.

Wufei looked away from the snowman. He really didn't need any ideas from it, he had plenty of his own thank-you-very-much.

They sat silently for a few moments, glancing over at each other every now and then until the waiter showed up with their food.

Wufei poked his fried ribs, trying desperately to think of something to say.

"Okay, this is ridiculous." Duo said suddenly, putting his elbows up on the table. "We can talk just fine in the store, so why not now?"

Wufei shrugged. "Less pressure, you just want to sell toys and I just…" He trailed off with another shrug.

Duo snorted. "Oh come off it, do you think I spend as much time with some random costumer as I do with you?"

Wufei blinked. "You don't?"

"Fuck no." Duo laughed, leaning back in his chair with his elbow up on the backrest next to him. "The unofficial motto of WonderWorld is to sell it big and sell it fast. If we spent an hour with just one customer only to decide on a box of plastic pearls then the store wouldn't have the kind of service that it should have." He smiled crookedly, picking up his fork to stab a cucumber slice. "You wouldn't believe how much teasing your visits have resulted in. Hilde even started saying that she should have more personnel on the days you showed up since I let you monopolize my time so much."

That got Wufei thinking on a question that had been nagging him from the back of his mind. "I was just wondering something."

"Hm?"

"I kind of… got the impression that you were dating Hilde."

"Hilde?" Duo snorted. "No way, what gave you that idea?"

Wufei played with his fork, tapping it against the side of the meat. "Kind of overheard you talking on the phone where you said that you loved her."

"Man, we need to stop listening in on each other's phone calls." Duo thought for a second." Yeah, I remember now. She called to ask if I could fill in for her since her kid got sick."

"You give out love declarations over that?" Wufei asked skeptically.

Duo grinned. "Since she wasn't going to show up I was going to get the next day off and thereby move my schedule along so that I would get to work on Thursday when you would show up."

Wufei gave him a surprised look. "How did you know I was going to show up then?"

"If you showed up on a Friday it meant that the next day you showed up would be a Thursday."

Wufei blinked. "It did?"

"Yeah, you didn't do it on purpose?"

Wufei shrugged awkwardly. "Well, I was just trying to spread my visits out a bit but Thursdays and Fridays were the only days that I knew for sure that you worked."

Duo snorted. "We have a shifting schedule, I worked Thursdays and Fridays because I knew that those were the days that you would show up."

Wufei startled into laughter. "God! We really have been dating for a year."

"Yeah, I guess we have." Duo agreed with a smile. "So what are we going to do about the party?"

Wufei groaned. "I'm thinking about being the first person in history to turn down a invitation."

"Won't your parents be upset about that?" Duo asked as he nibbled a French fry.

"Undoubtedly." He snorted. "But I've been pissing them off so much the last two years it's a wonder that they are still speaking to me."

"Huh." Duo breathed quietly. "Well, I'm game if you are."

Wufei blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Sure, why not. It could be fun."

"Fun is not a word I would use but I would be very, very grateful if you wanted to come."

"Anything I should know when I play the nice boyfriend?"

Wufei thought for a second as he twirled the salt shaker around on top of the table. "Well my parents are a bit… old-fashioned. My great-great-grand father started importing products from China and got rich off it and the company has been in my family since then." He lifted the shaker to spread a soft rain of salt over his fries. "Both are pretty heavy on the traditions and basically thinks it's the solution to all the worlds problems."

Duo took a sip from his glass, looking at him over the edge. "So I'm guessing that they weren't happy about having a gay son."

Wufei sighed and scratch his chin. "It's a bit complicated. I don't think they really understand what being gay is all about. They seem to be more focused on making me 'get over it' then to disinherit me or anything like that. The only time that they really got angry was when I refused to marry the daughter of one of their business partners. It was a mess, people trying to talk sense into me, lawyers suing people back and forth, then my "fiancé" suddenly turned out to be pregnant and her family went nuts and threatened to break a billion yen contract if I didn't marry her. My father rushed in to defend my honor and my mother started crying over her wayward son. And while this is going on I'm standing in the middle of it all screaming "I'm gay! Gay! If it doesn't have a dick, I'm not touching it!" like some kind of crazy peace activist in the middle of a war."

Duo tipped his head back and laughed.

"Glad to be to you amusement." He remarked with an ironic smirk. "Then when my fiancé suddenly ran away with her lover and my family started suing her family, I packed my bags and moved in with my best friend Heero."

Duo just kept laughing with small helpless gasps for air thrown in every now and then.

"Then when the whole mess had started to quiet down my parents started looking for another wife for me. I didn't want to go through all that again and just told them that I had gotten myself a boyfriend."

Duo spent a couple of seconds trying to calm down before he wiped a tear away from his eye. "Suddenly I totally understand why you got yourself an imaginary boyfriend."

"Yeah, are you sure that you still want to come along?"

"You bet, I can't wait to meet your parents." Duo said, as a wide, evil looking smirk spread over his face.

The next day, Duo showed up at his apartment wearing a stylish black suit, black shirt and a bold white tie that made Wufei think of a priest. A very sexy priest.

Duo stroke a hand down his chest and Wufei followed the move with great interest. "I borrowed it from my brother, do I look okay?"

Wufei swallowed just to be sure that he wouldn't be drooling when he opened his mouth. "Yeah, more than okay you look really, really… nice." He finished weakly as all the descriptions he really had in mind felt a bit vulgar.

"Thanks, you don't look so bad yourself."

Wufei glanced down at his own suit that he had bought especially for this party. He knew that his mother would freak out if he showed up in last year's outfit since his parent's version of a "casual" party was actually far from casual.

Wufei imagined his family's reaction when he turned up with Duo on his arm. His sisters would think that it was funny as hell and would undoubtedly do everything they could to embarrass him in front of Duo while his parents would go all stiff and formal before they started the interrogation and the accusations. God, why was he bringing someone he actually wanted to keep dating in to that hell?

"This is a bit much for a second date." He said, fingering his tie. "Maybe we should just forget about it and go see a movie or something."

"Cinemas aren't really the place for suits." Duo pointed out with an amused smile.

"We don't have to go." He said as if trying to convince himself. Wufei really did not want to put Duo through his parent's capitalistic, racist and homophobic views of the world. He just knew that they were going to dislike everything about Duo and that they most likely wouldn't try very hard to hid that.

"This was a bad idea, I'll just call and tell them that we have the flu, or the stomach flu… or maybe that we died." He was not going to let his parents fuck this up for him. Chances like these didn't come very often, if at all, and he was not going to waste it on a business party.

Duo stopped him from reaching for the phone and turned him around to face him. "Why exactly don't you want to go? Because if it's me that you don't want there you can just say so, I'm a big boy and I can take it."

"No! Or yes, but NO!" Wufei squirmed unhappily. "My parents are kind of… assholes some times. I love them, sure, but I know what they are like when things are going against their wishes."

"And I'm about as far from those wishes as you can come, right?"

"Kind of." Wufei mumbled helplessly.

"Well in that case we are definitively going." Duo said brightly. "I think your parents and I have a thing or two to talk about."

Wufei gave him a look in disbelief but Duo looked so confident and determined that he couldn't protest. "Can you promise me one thing?"

Duo lifted an eyebrow. "And that would be?"

"Two things really. One, that you won't dump me just because of my family and two, that the second you start feeling uncomfortable, we're leaving."

"Sure." Duo tilted his head with a small smile. "You really are worried about this, aren't you?"

"Absolutely scared out of my mind." Wufei confessed as he started walking towards the door.

The whole way from the parking garage, the ride up in the elevator and the short walk over to the large hall where the party was held every year, Wufei wasn't sure if he wasn't in fact dreaming or not. He was actually pretty sure that he had had a nightmare pretty close to what he was experiencing right now.

Wufei accepted two glasses of champagne from a waiter as they reached the hall that was located on the top floor with a roof was just one big sky window. He really didn't envy the poor bastard who had shoveled the snow away from the dome shaped window.

"Ooh, fancy." Duo whispered as he took the glass and looked around the room and took in all the dressed up people there. He looked totally comfortable despite the fact that he stood out like a sore thumb among all the rich middle age Asians who were eyeing him curiously.

"Ah, Wufei." His father said politely as he suddenly appeared from thin air behind them, startling Wufei so badly that he almost dropped his glass. "Why won't you and your… friend step into my office for a second."

Wufei gave Duo a nervous look but the other man was happily following the older man with a smile on his face.

They left the hall and followed the curling corridors towards the other side of the building. Wufei noticed that his father was leading them through the long way to the office, probably to intimidate Duo by showing off. Duo didn't look affected and was curiously admiring the view and all the expensive art that Wufei's father made sure that they walked past.

They finally reached the large office where his mother was sitting strategically placed so that she was the first thing they saw when they stepped in. Wufei could feel the cold sweat running down his back. This was not good.

"I do believe that I forgot to introduce myself." Duo said suddenly as he turned towards the older man. "I'm Duo Maxwell." He said, holding his hand out to Wufei's father who simply gave the hand a dismissive look. Not taking the hint, Duo took a step forward and clapped the stiff man on the shoulder. "Nice to finally meet you."

His father's glare got even colder while Duo's smile got even brighter like it all was one big joke.

"So, Duo, was it." His mother said stiffly, giving the lean man a searching look.

"Yes. Mrs. Chang, I assume?"

"Yes." She said shortly. "And how exactly did you… get to know my son?"

Duo shrugged casually. "Oh, he kept coming into my store and we got talking, you know how it is."

The woman narrowed her eyes but Duo just kept on smiling. Wufei wished for a dark hole to hide in.

"We have heard very little about you Mr. Maxwell." Wufei's father cut in with a glare. "Why would that be?"

"Oh, I'm sure that there are several explanations to that." He said easily, meeting Wufei's father right on. To Wufei's horror a tense staring match started between the men that made the tension in the room sky rock.

"Wufei, why don't you go see if your friend Mr. Yuy has arrived with his family." His father said without breaking eye contact with Duo.

Oh hell no, he was not going to be dismissed from the room like a disobedient child. "I'm not leaving him here with you so that you can-"

"Hey, big boy here, remember?" Duo cut in and pushed his empty champagne glass into his hand. "Get me another one of those would you?"

Wufei opened his mouth to protest but then Duo was smiling cockily at him. "I'll be fine."

Wufei nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, sure. " He said and emptied his own glass. "Remember your promise." He whispered as he started walking.

The doors closed behind him as he soon as he left the room. "Fuck." Wufei whispered helplessly. He was just going to have to trust Duo to handle himself.

Not knowing what else to do except hovering outside the door, Wufei wandering back into the main hall to search for Heero, the only person who was more uncomfortable at these parties then he was.

He found him sitting in the corner of the ballroom where he was trying to become one with the wall.

He hadn't seen Heero since that morning when the other man's mother had stormed in and forced Heero to come with her to make sure that he would dress right. He was not surprised to see that the ring in Heero's ear was gone and that he had a new neat haircut.

"I see that she got to you this year too." He said as he leaned back against the wall next to his friend.

"Hn, less hazard to just let her have her way. The sooner she's happy the sooner I can go back home." Heero sighed heavily. "There is a big raid in half an hour and my troop is going to need my paladin."

Wufei patted him on the shoulder. "If it's any comfort, I just left Duo alone with my parents."

"Jesus, suddenly my life doesn't seem so bad anymore." Heero chuckled. "Do you have a death wish or do you just really want to stay single?"

"Probably both I'm guessing." He muttered meekly. "I don't know what to do. He's in my father's office with both my parents, nothing good can possibly come out of this."

"I don't think there is much you can do at the moment… except storm the room but I have a feeling that it would lead to even more problems."

Wufei nodded. They silently watched people pass by like they did every year until Wufei grow restless. "I'm going to check if they're done."

"You do that, I'm going to sit here for another two hours then I'm leaving. If you get home before I do then put my laptop on the table next to the door and- I don't know, hang a sock on the door handle or something."

"Huh?"

"The walls between our rooms are really thin and I'm not listening to you two have sex."

"God, I wish." Wufei snorted. "I am so going to go home alone after this."

Heero shrugged wordlessly and went back to his people watching while Wufei started walking towards his father's office.

Then suddenly, as he entered the last corridor, someone grabbed a hold of his arm and yanked him into an office. He barely had time to register the sound of a closing door before his back hit the wall and Duo pressed himself against him with a knee between his legs. "Wha-" Was all he could utter before his mouth was covered by Duo's, giving him a kiss that kind of made it really hard to think.

"I've been wanting to do that for a while now." Duo whispered when they broke for air.

Wufei responded by diving in for another kiss that Duo happily joined in on.

Much later, when Wufei had recovered from the attach enough to get back up on his feet, he finally got to ask the question he desperately wanted an answer to. "What happened?" He asked as he opened the door, taking a quick look around to make sure that no one was standing around in the corridor.

"Oh, they kind of hate my guts but they'll get over it." Duo said dismissively as he buttoned up his shirt and pushed it back into his pants. "Basically, they are not against the gay thing as much as they are worried out off their minds about you." Duo continued as they started walking down the empty hallway towards the elevator. "From what I can guess, they have gotten all their 'knowledge' about the gay lifestyle from drama series and crazy church people, meaning that they think you are going to end up with a lying, dominating, luxury seeking boyfriend who will cheat on you, give you AIDS and leave you to die."

Wufei's mouth dropped open as he stumbled to a stop, staring stupidly at the other man.

Duo just kept walking, forcing Wufei to catch up to him. "They also seem to think that I'm going to force you to stop seeing your family, and by the way, why didn't you show up on your mother's birthday?" He scolded him with a frown.

"I forgot!" Wufei defended himself. "I had a big project to turn in and a test that I had to study for, I mixed up the dates."

"You really should apologize for that, she was pretty hurt when you promised to show up, then didn't even call to tell them you wouldn't."

The situation was so surreal that Wufei could only nod.

"By the way, we're invited for dinner next Friday."

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, I think they need time to do a background check on me or something, at least that's what I overheard your father say into his phone just when I left." He snickered teasingly. "You and your father need to learn that you don't need to speak so loudly into the phone, people can hear you just fine anyway."

Wufei rubbed a hand over his eye, wondering if he had fallen in to some strange sort of dream world.

"I took advantage of the situation and told them that we were celebrating Christmas Eve at my parent's house just so you know it."

"Okay…" It seemed like he was going to have the pleasure of seeing Solo Maxwell a bit sooner than he had first thought.

"And you're cousin Xian invited us over to his house on New Year's Eve, your sister Sally wanted us over for dinner January the third and we are celebrating the Chinese New Year here with your whole family." Duo reached out and took a hold of his hands. "We better get started early tomorrow if we're going to be able to find Christmas present for all the kids." Wufei was too shocked by the turn of events that he just followed along, nodding stupidly. "Luckily, I not only have a key to the store but a pretty big discount."

They arrived at the elevator and Wufei absently pushed the button.

"Man, we are really taking the crash course option into this relationship." Duo said suddenly. "Do you think we're up for it?"

Wufei tightened his grip around Duo's hand with a smile. "Yeah, we'll be fine."

The End

A few minutes later.

"Duo, you wouldn't happen to have my underwear with you?"

"No."

"… Shit."

"They probably ended up behind the desk so someone is bound to find the pretty soon… Who's office was it by the way?"

"My mother's."

"…Whoops."

And that was it, The End. Now, if you would be a dear, click the little button and tell me what you thought. It would make me incredibly happy if you did. Please?

Kidishcaresh –Yay! She liked it! -does a little dance- It might not be as sweet as kid!Duo but an embarrassed dragon is always fun XD So when is part two of your story? -pokes- :)

Bethany Shiver – Cute would be exactly what I was trying to accomplish actually, thank you. I hope you were entertained and that my non grumpy-honor obsessed Wufei didn't annoy you too much.

Aurora Musis Amica –Dig har jag väl redan skickat ett svar till, eller hur? Av ren nyfikenhet, finns det någon historia bakom ditt pen name?

Princess Cythera – Aww, always happy to please you Princess. :)

Bfly-Ronaldita – Ah, that was really nice to hear, I'm happy you liked it and I hope you enjoyed the ending too.

Kira2Maxwell – Well, it didn't really blow up in his face. I thought about having Solo show up and be a pain in the ass, but I figured that I should give Wufei a little break. I think he needs one ;)

Hugglesbunny – Yay! A good kind of adorable, not the annoying kind that makes you want to throw up. Hurray! XD

Cinnamon Selki - I'm really happy to hear it. Glad to hear that you liked Heero's part in the whole thing. I have a hard time writing the guy and wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull it off.

Shadow-Way – Ah, yes I do love to embarrass these boys XD I'm glad you enjoyed it. Oh and by the way, I love you icon. What is he chewing on? A bird?

Hamiechi –LOL! I'm glad you enjoyed it, gay romance and all. And yes, boys have a habit of turning their living space into a trash pile. You think underwear in the living room is gross? Imagine finding a plate of what used to be food behind the couch. Then we're talking gross XD Then you add beer cans, cat hair and dust bunnies the size of actual bunnies and then we have stepped beyond gross. :P Yuck. I shiver just thinking about it.

Christalake – Still no Normal People but there will be. I promise!

Snowdragonct - Heero is a good friend indeed. Can you imagine how long it would take to find someone on a dating site without actual names? This is actually the biggest par Heero has ever had in one of my fictions. I'm impressed by myself XD Glad you liked him.