------------------------
The Virtues of Education
 ~ A Moment of Haven ~
------------------------
	"School sucks."  The statement was dropped into the middle of 
dinner with all the weight of a terrible announcement.

	Duo eyed Ms. Suzuhara for guidance, but she continued to eat 
sedately.  She noticed his glance, however, and answered the unspoken 
question.  "Just ignore her.  She's been saying that all day."

	"But it does!" Ami protested.

	"It's just a phase," Suzuhara-san said, as if she had said it 
several times already that day.  "Didn't you go through periods like 
that?"

	"Well, no," Duo answered reluctantly.  "I was very careful never 
to say school sucked."

	"Heero?" Suzuhara-san asked next.

	He blinked innocently, not really wanting to get involved in a 
conversation he didn't think he could offer a valid opinion for.  "I was 
only legitimately enrolled in a real school for one semester."

	Suzuhara-san rolled her eyes at them.  "Well, you two are 
certainly no help!"

	Heero shrugged.  He had never claimed he would be.

	Duo tried to be helpful in apology.  "Well, it really depends on 
what you think sucks about school."

	"School!" Ami said, almost exasperatedly.

	"...Ooookay.  The kids at school?"

	"No, the kids are okay.  Well, most of them."

	Duo was under the impression that the kids that weren't okay 
were probably all of the little cootie-ridden boys.  "Is there some 
subject you hate in school?"

	"Math," she said with a scowl.  "But that's not the problem."

	"That's too bad.  I loved math.  But then what's the problem?"

	She made a frustrated sound.  "School is... it's boring!"

	"Oh," Duo said dismissively.  "Well, if that's all, don't worry 
about it."

	"Duo," Ms. Suzuhara said warningly, suddenly worried that Duo 
would begin counseling her daughter on how to spice up school life.  
Some explosives, perhaps.  Or stirring up some administrative scandals.

	He blinked wide eyes at her.  "What?  I was just going to say, 
after you get out of little school, things get more interesting.  I 
mean, little school these days is pretty much there to make you interact 
with people your age, right?  You don't actually learn very much, unless 
you're in a special program somewhere.  But when you get done with all 
that, then you get to start taking interesting things, things you might 
actually want to take, and then it isn't so boring anymore."

	"Is that true?" Ami demanded of him.

	"Of course, squirt," he answered, clutching his hands to his 
heart as if offended that she had doubted him.  "Have I ever lied to 
you?"

	"Was it like that for you?"

	"Uh...," he stammered, kicking himself for not having thought 
that far.  "Um, well, I'm sure it would have been."  He followed the 
statement up with a big, nervous smile.

	"So it wasn't!" she accused.

	"Well, hey, that's, um, that's, uh... anou... that's unfair!"  
He steadfastly ignored the silent snickering he just knew was going on 
inside Heero's head.  "I mean, I only had a year more real school than 
Heero did, after all.  And my school was really different than yours.  
So that's not a fair question.  Hmpf."  He directed the last part of 
that statement surreptitiously at Heero, who paid it no heed.

	"And what sort of school did you go to, Duo?" Suzuhara-san 
interjected smoothly, hoping to save him from Ami's relentless 
cross-examination.

	"It was a... I guess, if I wanted to be impressive, I'd call it 
a private Federation boys' academy, or something."

	"Well, doesn't that sound just lovely," Ms. Suzuhara said 
blandly.  "What were you doing in such a stuffy sounding institution?"

	"It was... government sponsored.  A Federation scholarship 
program."

	"Oh.  Well, you must have been one bright, lucky little boy, 
then."

	"Yeah.... lucky, I guess."

	Heero spoke up abruptly.  "Grace said today that she'd love to 
have a cutting from your hibiscus, Suzuhara-san, next time you do that."  
The change of subject was rather gracelessly done, but because he was 
Heero, and not particularly known for his stunning conversational 
skills, it passed unremarked upon.

	"Oh... umm, alright."  Suzuhara-san blinked at the sudden shift 
in topic.  "I'll be sure to remember that, next time."

	The conversation diverted itself to other botanical things after 
that.

                              ************

	"Something was bothering you."

	Duo blinked over at his partner, the sudden statement dropped 
into the cool night air between them as unexpectedly as Ami's earlier 
announcement.  He finished fishing the keys out of his pocket and 
proceeded to unlock their front door.  The fact that the Suzuharas lived 
just two doors down was very convenient, but even though they were so 
close, they always locked their door after themselves.  "What do you 
mean?"

	"About your time at school."  They went inside, locked the door, 
and started removing their shoes.

	"What about it?  It was school."  Duo shrugged negligently, 
tossing his footwear to the side and walking into the living room to 
flip on some lights.  While he was there, he plopped himself down on the 
sofa.

	Heero studied his housemate's body language with a critical eye 
as he neatly adjusted Duo's boots so they lined up against the wall.  
His shoes joined Duo's, and then Heero joined Duo on the other end of 
the old couch.  "It was just a publicity gimmick, wasn't it?"

	"...."  Duo considered avoiding the question, thinking it wasn't 
really his business, but then decided there wasn't much reason not to 
tell him about it.  Heero seemed to have guessed already, anyway.  He 
sighed.  "Yeah.  Publicity gimmick.  Let's show everyone how nice we are 
by giving the poor kids a shot at rising above their lots.  Then we'll 
let everyone know what a waste of effort it is to help the poor kids 
because none of them could handle it."  He stared morosely into the 
unlit fireplace in front of him.

	Heero cocked his head to one side, watching him again.  "You 
were the only kid they couldn't bully out," he guessed.

	Duo chuckled half-heartedly.  "Not that they didn't try.  Man, 
did they try.  They got everyone else out in a week."

	"You were too stubborn for them."

	"I would have opted for foolish, perhaps.  A glutton for 
punishment."

	"You have always favored the underdog."

	"Hell, yeah!  It may have been a contrived chance, but it was a 
chance!  Our only chance, even if we were set up to fail from the 
beginning.  Even if I had to sit there and spout Federation propaganda, 
and suffer through a fight every day, I had to stay.  I wasn't gonna let 
those Feds chase me out of there.  I had to stay.  For all of us.  I 
couldn't let them down.  Not any of them.  Especially not them."  There 
was a slight emphasis on the pronoun, marking it as that special 'them' 
from Duo's youth.  He shut his eyes and dropped his head back against 
the high cushions.

	"You were careful never to say school sucked.... because no 
matter what, you were still lucky you were going at all.  And you didn't 
want to let them down."

	"Lucky.... You know what was really lucky?  It was a Fed school, 
for all the Fed kids.  Which means they were trying to raise up some 
more good little Fed soldiers, so they taught all sorts of good little 
Fed soldier things.  That stuff actually came in handy later.  And when 
they saw that I wasn't going to get bullied out, they thought they could 
fail me out, so they bumped me up to the higher classes, claiming I was 
such a bright little student, weren't they so great to recognize 
brilliance off the streets, so benevolent and caring?  You know, I think 
I started to love learning just to spite them all."  Sometimes, it 
seemed a lot of the things he had done in his early life had been done 
out of spite or defiance.  Oh well, he rationalized.  As good a reason 
as any.

	Something clicked in Heero's head.  "Why do you like math, Duo?" 
he asked, already seeing a glimmering of an answer.

	"Because the teachers were in on it, too.  On things like 
reading and writing, where they could make arbitrary judgments, they 
always gave me poor marks.  But math...?  They took off all the nitpicky 
points they could, but still, the numbers couldn't lie.  The answers 
were right, or they weren't.  And I made damned sure they were right.  I 
liked math, alright.  The numbers never turned into something they 
weren't."

	Some more things clicked in Heero's head, and became not 
unsatisfactory conclusions.  "You managed to hang on."

	"Yeah.... Woulda been interesting to see how long I could have 
lasted, if... other things hadn't become more important."  Like mere 
survival.  "If things hadn't happened the way they did."

	"Things happened the way they did," Heero pointed out quietly, 
"and you hung on."

	"Somehow."  His eyes startled open when fingers reached out 
between the intervening space and set themselves lightly upon his knee, 
and he looked up into the earnest blue eyes of his partner.

	"Good for you."

	Somehow it didn't sound like Heero was patronizing him, or 
graciously granting him his approval.  Somehow it was just warm, and 
maybe understanding, and definitely Heero.

	Duo smiled.

------
wow.  i'm so pointless i amaze myself.

_________________________________________
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last modified : 12/19/2002 00:23:12 PST