Chapter Three:
Three of a Kind
Rei bit her lip nervously. It was around six o'clock and Relena and Hilde said they'd try and be no later than six thirty. Relena had to do a little cleaning and wait for her mother to come home from work while Hilde said she too didn't get off work until six.
Yeah, she actually has a job. She earns the money she spends. Rei admired the blue haired girl. She was approvingly strong willed and fierce, a real force to be reckon with. Though Rei had seen her around campus, she had never spoken to her. Not that Rei thought she was better than her or anything, but Rei really kept to herself. Too many people at Langston High pissed her off.
And it was great to see Relena again. The two had been pretty close back in elementary school. It made her sick to her stomach when she had to move from Boston, but that's how things were. Rei's father's company had bought a new plant in New York and he thought it would be best if his daughter moved with him. He'd met Annalise Maxwell in Rei's eighth grade year. By then, she had already known of her son, Duo Maxwell, along with his friends, Heero and Trowa. They were really popular back in middle school too. When Annalise and her father married, nobody was too thrilled. Rei couldn't stand the thought of her father moving on. Her mother had died several years ago, but that didn't make it right for him to marry someone else. And that meant she'd have to live with Duo Maxwell, an arrogant jock with even jockier, snobbier friends.
But this was New York. Things were different here. Back in Boston, life seemed a lot more on the down low. People were a lot more courteous and helpful, some going out of their way just to please others. Relena had been genuine and kind, the type of person Rei had expected most people to be. But then she came to New York and Rei found herself liking anyone other than those of her status. They were shopaholic snobs; kids who thought they were at the top of the world but couldn't survive a day without their father's credit card.
That's why Rei found the thought of being friends with Relena and Hilde comforting. Relena had not changed. She was still sincere and headstrong, unafraid of the world and its cruelties. Hilde, well, she didn't know much about Hilde, but the girl seemed to be the one that would keep the two tacked down. She knew more about real life than either of the other two.
When the door bell rang, Rei rushed to get it. She practically slid across the polished marble floor, her white socks sending her to do so as she tried to stop herself from smashing into the door.
Breathing a tad bit heavily, Rei opened the door and was greeted by the sight of the two girls. Grinning, she moved to let them in. This was going to be a fun night, she decided. Hilde was staring around Rei's house, aghast, clutching her duffle bag in her hands.
"Come on, let's go to my room." Rei said, heading towards the stairs. Relena nodded and followed her, a nervous Hilde right beside her. Relena couldn't help but chuckle at her blue haired friend's reaction to Rei's home. Yes, it was really big-but these were how homes looked back in her hometown. But Hilde had never lived that sort of life.
"So...this is how the other half lives." Hilde commented, smirking. She had been inside Quatre's place, but that was about as close as she got to these sorts of homes. Hilde couldn't believe she was in the house of Rei Hino. The girl was just as popular as Dianna, but so much more bearable.
Rei chuckled as they strode down the long hall.
"Wow, this is the first time someone's called me 'the other half'." She shot Hilde a grin. "It's good to have you over, Hilde. I'm sorry we never met before." Hilde shook her head.
"Don't you worry about it, Rei. This place is absolutely gorgeous! I don't know if you people realize how lucky you are. I live in an apartment with my mom, dad and brother. I had to share a room with my older sister until she went to college. God, if only Marinda could see me now-she'd go haywire."
The three girls laughed. As they passed a slightly open door, it flung open and they were greeted by a braided haired baseball playing popular boy.
"Well, I see the slumber parties begun. It's nice to see you again, pretty Princess." Duo said, grinning at his step sister and winking at Relena. His eyebrow rose when his eyes landed on Hilde who was scowling a little bit.
"Who's this, Rei?" He asked, leaning against the frame of his door, his arms crossed and his thumb nudging at Hilde. Rei sneered at her step brother.
"She's not incapable of talking, Duo. You could always ask her. Or is that bellow you?" She retorted sternly. Duo wasn't half as bad as his friends, but he was still an egotistical macho guy. And poor Hilde must have been humiliated.
"Calm down, sis." Duo said with a grin. He shot his hand out in front of Hilde and gave her a genuine smile. "I'm Duo Maxwell. I don't believe we've met."
Hilde shook his hand curtly, her cold facade slowly dropping.
"Hilde Schbeiker." Duo smiled again. Rei watched her step brother's expressions curiously. He looked like Duo. He acted like Duo...well; a few seconds ago he did, anyways. Why was he looking at Hilde that way?
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hilde." He looked over his shoulder at his friends who were busily playing a video game and called them over. With a slight grunt Heero stood, following Trowa. The two boys, and Duo, were dressed in their sleeping clothes. They wore a pair of pajama bottoms and a matching shirt. This made Hilde snicker. She'd never known a guy who wore pajamas. She'd supposed guys fancied boxers or something like that to bed. But, perhaps, that's how things were in her world. It made her giggle to think that five minutes ago, she had been mopping up the floor to the local Pizza Hut, and now she was here-living amongst the very definition of lifestyles of the rich and the famous.
"Guys, this is Hilde Schebiker and Relena Dorlian." Duo said, pointing out the girls to his friends. Trowa nodded nonchalantly and stared at the girls blankly. Heero just huffed and leaned against Duo's door. Rei snorted. This was a waste of time.
"Hilde, Relena, you know who they are. Now, let's go do something worth our time." She said, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder. Hilde and Relena turned to their friend and giggled.
"Alright!" Relena said, raising her fist into the air. Hilde laughed and followed the other two girls as they marched down the hallway.
"Nice to meet you, Hilde." Duo called, waving his hand. Hilde smiled in return and then looked at her friends, her eyes wide in curiosity.
"What was up with that?" Hilde asked, as Rei led them into her room. Rei's room wasn't as large as one might have thought, but Rei was very quaint. She might have lived in a large house but a large room just felt lonely. Still, it was much fancier than anything the other girl had witnessed. It was a Hampton's inn compared to her little bedroom in the apartment building.
"Hey, Rei…I wanted to thank you for inviting me here today…it was really…uh…sweet of you." Hilde said, staring at the raven haired girl gratefully. Rei laughed and gave the shorter girl a one armed hug.
"No problem, Hilde. It's good to have you around. And I don't know about you but…I think my brother would agree." Rei said, a conniving grin crossing over her features. Relena and Hilde looked at her in confusion. The dark haired girl sighed exasperatedly and waved her arms in the air.
"And people tell me I'm clueless. Come on, Duo was so scoping you out in there!" Rei said, shooting her new found friend a grin. Hilde looked like she was about to vomit and she shot a disgusted look towards Rei's door.
"That pervert scopes out anything with hips and legs! It means nothing." She said irritably. Relena watched them, her eyes wide.
"You know what, I think you're right, Rei. Come on, Hilde, you have to admit…he's not ugly." Relena said, nudging Hilde's hip with her own.
Hilde stared at her friends in disbelief.
"What? Yeah, okay, so what? So he's a good looking guy…hate to break it to you but the whole school knows that!"
Rei giggled and gently shoved the short haired girl onto her bed. Hilde fell with an 'oof' and stayed lying down rolling her eyes.
"Come on…me and Duo Maxwell? I wouldn't date him for all of this!" She said, motioning to Rei's house. Rei laughed and jumped beside Hilde on the bed, poking her friend irritatingly. Rei always found match-making to be a fun project and when she could get her brother involved, she was willing to go to any measures to do it. Besides, Rei had seen how Duo had looked at every other girl before. That was not how he was looking at Hilde.
"Look, seriously guys, I have no intrest in that two timing, self-centered, arrogent womanizer jock. End of story. Zippity doo da zip zap nada. Nothing more."
Rei laughed and rolled onto her back.
"Well then, we wouldn't want Duo to hear that. He's never been rejected. He'd be crushed." Hilde got a contimplative smirk on her face which Rei and Relena noticed immiedietly.
"Aww, he might be an ass Hilde, but that doesn't mean you can go around crushing the poor kid's heart." Relena said, raising her eye brows. Hilde snorted.
"He doesn't like me. And I don't like him. What is you guy's problem?"
"We're rich kids. We're not used to hearing 'no'." Rei said with a snicker. Hilde found a pillow above her head and grabbed it, sitting up abruptly to hit Rei. Squealing, Rei grabbed another pillow and smacked Hilde back. Relena watched this in amusement until Rei and Hilde turned to come after her. The light brown haired girl grabbed a pillow for herself.
In a matter of minutes, the girls were chasing each other all over Rei's room, playfully hitting each other with their pillows. In the middle of their escapade there was a knock on Rei's door.
"Come in." Rei said out of breath. Hilde and Relena were snickering as the door opened and a young man stood straight. He was handsome with short military cut brown hair and hazel eyes.
"Miss Rei, dinner is served." He said chivalrously. Rei smiled and thanked him, telling him that she and her friends would be down in a second. He nodded, and shut the door. Hilde and Relena stared at the door, where the young man had been.
"Rei, I love you." Hilde said softly. Rei laughed.
"Wow. Now that guy was handsome." Relena added. Rei laughed and put an arm around each of her friends.
"I made sure he was my personal butler. William is only a few years older than us. He's cute, isn't he?" Hilde scoffed at her.
"That guy puts Heero and his friends to shame! I think your butler would be the new most popular guy at school."
Rei laughed and lead the three girls out of her room and down the stairs to the Hino's large dinning room.
They were talking excitedly when they reached the dinning room and found Duo and his friends already down, sitting at the table, emursed in their own conversation. Rei's mother was sitting at the table already but her father was missing. It wasn't a surprise. Her dad was having a busy week.
"Hello, you must be Rei's friends." Rei's mom said, standing up. Mrs. Hino was a beautiful woman. She had long brown hair that was tied into a neat bun on the back of her head.
Duo, Heero and Trowa stopped talking when they saw the girls walk in. Rei smiled at her step mother and the girls took their seats.
"Mother, this is Relena Dorlian and this is Hilde Schbiecker." Rei said, introducing her friends to her mother.
"Ahh…Schbiecker…that's an interesting name. Where are you from, Hilde?" Mrs. Hino asked politely.
"I'm part German. I was born here in New York, but my father is German." Hilde explained, feeling very foolish for telling her life story. Everyone looked rather interested though, with an exception of the boys. Heero and Trowa looked at Duo, who looked like he was about to fall out of his seat. Rei noticed her step brother share a smirk with his friends and scrowled. So much for setting Hilde up with Duo.
"Have you been to Germany?" Rei asked, turning to face her friend. Hilde smiled.
"Once. We visited my dad while he was stationed over there. It's really beautiful." She said.
"Stationed?" Mrs. Hino asked, raising a brow. Hilde sent the older woman a kind smile, her hands figeting in her lap.
"My dad's in the Navy."
Relena's face lit up.
"Really? My brother is a Marine." Rei giggled and leaned over to her left, where her step mother sat.
"I hear Marines are handsome." Her step mother laughed, and patted Rei on the shoulder.
"They are."
"Oi, can we not talk about men while we're at the table?" Duo's loud voice interupted the four girls from their girlish conversation.
Rei shot him an annoyed look.
"We might as well. With dad gone, it's just us girls."
Relena and Hilde snorted. Duo looked at Rei with a raised brow, as if daring her to continue. She smirked back at him. Their friends watched this curiously, some with smiles on their faces, others glaring menicingly.
Mrs. Hino watched the little scene, softly sipping the tea that had been placed in front of her. Teenagers these days…
Soon a woman was bringing them their food. Hilde watched this in awe. Their food was not only made by others, but it was served to them as well. This was insane. Here she was, a girl that usually resorted to making Ramen for herself for supper, being served some of the best food probably in New York. This was really surreal.
They said their grace, something Hilde politely excused herself from. Duo looked at her in confusion, when he noticed she didn't comply with the reqular courtesy that had been schooled into him ages ago.
"Relena, Rei told me you're new in town. Where are you from?" Mrs. Hino asked Relena, as she began to eat.
"Oh, I'm origonally from Boston. We just moved down here a few weeks ago." Relena said. Mrs. Hino nodded and went along eating her dinner. She was glad that Rei had some friends over. Since she'd met the raven haired girl, Rei had come across as a loner. It was good to see her having some fun with other girls her age.
Mrs. Hino glanced over at her own son and his friends. She'd known Heero and Trowa already for quite awhile. Trowa's father owned the Country Club that so many of the people in this town were part of. Heero Yuy's parents were big time lawers. Mr. Hino was also a lawyer, and one of the best in town. As for herself, Annalise Maxwell Hino, she was a doctor.
"Hilde, what do your parents do for a living?" Mrs. Hino asked curiously. The short haired girl's smile fell.
"Well, my dad, as I said, is in the service and my mom works at Sears." Hilde said. You could tell she herself was proud of her parents, but the thought of what everyone else's folks did at the table made her feel slightly put down.
She tried to ignore the look that the boys exchanged and scrowled at herself. Hilde had never cared what people thought of her. It was something drilled into her when she was very little. She'd been around rich people before, after all, they were all over the place, this was New York city after all. And the school she went to was a high standard public school. It wasn't like the lower schools around, which were always being shut down because of bomb, gang and other such threats. Langston High was a fancy version of those places. It was a popular school though, and had one of the largest campuses in the entire city.
Hilde always wondered why all the rich kids didn't bother going to private schools. Surely they had enough money to afford to go to one. But she supposed that since half the population of Langston was wealthy, everyone just decided that it would be amusing to send their upstanding children to a wealthy public school. Thankfully for people like Hilde, Langston was still an average public school. Though she was not poor, she was hardly what one would call wealthy.
"Does your mom sell stuff?" Rei asked, ripping Hilde out of her revere. The blue haired girl looked at the pretty Asian girl, and gave her a weak smile.
"Yeah. She sells clothes. The good thing is, I can usually get discounts on anything in the store and every now and than, something free. My mom works really hard to keep us going. I had to get a job too, just to help her out, but it's no big deal. My brother, Derrick, works too."
Rei smiled at her friend. For people of her own status, they had no idea what Hilde was going through. Rei could barely imagine having to work and use your money, not just for yourself, but to support your family. People who could do this made Rei feel that the world wasn't so bad after all. She only wished she could help Hilde's family out. It was horrible to think that someone as great a person as Hilde was suffering just because she didn't end up in the wealthy world, while people like Dianna and everyone else didn't seem to appreciate it enough.
"Cool. We should go shopping tomorrow." Rei said. Hilde smiled at her appreciatively.
"Sounds like a good idea. We can go Hilde's mom's mall." Relena said, giving her friend a wink. Hilde laughed and crossed her arms.
"Sounds like a winner."
Mrs. Hino smiled at the three girls and then turned to her son.
"Duo, honey, what are your plans for tomorrow?"
Duo looked up at his mom from his conversation with his friends and than looked back at them.
"I dunno, probably play some video games and than go to the batting cage." He said. Heero and Trowa nodded. Mrs. Hino wanted to roll her eyes. Didn't these boys do anything other than play video games and baseball?
"Why don't you go to the mall with Rei and her friends? I think it might be nice to spend a little time with your sister, Duo." She suggested. Rei stared at her step mom in disbelief, and a look of disgust crossed over Duo's face.
"Yeah, I don't think so." He said shortly. Mrs. Hino's eyes widened.
"Duo Maxwell, watch your mouth! And it wasn't a suggestion. I insist you go. Besides, I don't think it's safe for the young ladies to drive down there on their own, and I doubt Rei wants to take a driver." She said curtly. Duo and Rei's jaw dropped. They looked at each other instantly, silently trying to figure out a way to get out of this.
"Mother, it's quite alright. We're perfectly capable of getting down there on our own. It'll be a girl's thing, you know?" Rei stuttered quickly. Hilde nodded, feeling her friend's pain.
"I can take the city bus to get my car and stop back over here to pick Rei and Lena up." She said, giving Mrs. Hino a sincere smile.
"Oh, you children are so fickle. Why on earth don't you want to spend some time together? It's not like I'm asking you to go on a date together, it's just the mall. I'd feel better knowing Rei and her friends are safe with you boys, anyhow."
"Ugh, alright, mother." Duo said, rolling his eyes. Rei gaped at him. This was so unfair. Neither of them had any interest in going anywhere together. She just knew her friends felt her discomfort and she eyed her brother's friends timidly. They looked rather annoyed as well.
"Come on, really, children, how bad can it be? You go to the same school, don't you? It won't be any different." Mrs. Hino said, staring at the six kids exasperatedly. No one answered her.
"I'm done mom, can we please be excused?" Rei asked, jumping from her seat. Mrs. Hino nodded silently and the three girls left the room.
As they climbed the stairs back up to Rei's bedroom, the two girls could feel the heat radiating from Rei.
"Damn it, that just ruins everything." She snapped as they entered her room. Hilde and Relena exchanged nervous glances and then moved to try and calm their friend down.
"It sucks, I know, but they'll probably wander off on their own anyways. New York Square Mall is a pretty popular place…they're bound to run into some friends and teeter off. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Dianna and her friends are there. They won't get in our way." Hilde said, giving Rei a reasuring look. Relena nodded and Rei sat down on her bed.
"I don't care if I get stuck with them, this happens all the time. But you guys have no idea how bad they can be! Tomorrow will be torture!" Rei said over dramatically. Hilde laughed and slung an arm around her raven haired friend.
"Than we'll suffer for a bit and than go out for some ice-cream. Ice cream cheers everyone up." She said. Rei and Relena laughed.
"Okay."