NOTE: If you have not read my stories Build A Home and To Live in Forever, I recommend not reading this fic until you do. The storylines tie together in some places and it may be hard to understand if you haven't read those too.

A/N: I'm back! Wow, that was really only a week wasn't it? My sense of time must be really off...

Anyway, here's the beginning of the LukaxGakupo fic a promised you. I meant to write one more chapter before I posted the first one, but *sigh* I am so uninspired today. Hopefully I'll write more over the weekend so you can get an update! Reviews encourage me! *hint hint*

This story jumps a lot between the past and the present so in particularly confusing chapters I'll have a note in my Author's Note to clear things up.

Enjoy!

Prologue

"What type of stupidity are you up to?" the young girl questions as she leaned over her friend's shoulder. He is holding his struggling tabby cat down with one hand and clutching a roll of tape with the other. He smiles hugely, using the less occupied hand to push back strands of amethyst hair that had escaped his short ponytail.

"This, my good lass, is the foundation of a duo of gecko gloves!" She blinks once at him, pitying the poor cat, and sighs.

"English please," she scowls and crosses her arms. He looks at her quizzically, as if wondering what it was he said that hadn't made sense. He gestures towards a tangle of nylon straps and Luka tosses them to him, who proceeds to wrap them around the cat and tape them even tighter in place. Luka grimaces, dearly hoping that none of the sticky substance had touched the tabby's fur. If the feline's coat got mats, he would somehow rope her into being the one that got them out.

He pulls on a glove, black and fingerless, and triumphantly makes a fist towards the sky while absentmindedly holding the cat by the scruff of its neck. "I'm going to see everything!" he screams. His cat sags under his grasp, seeming to resign itself to its fate.

With a flash of silver tape, he attaches the glove to the mechanism around the cat and hefts it upward like some kind of furry gauntlet. Luka stares.

"Behold!" he proclaims, seeming quite proud of himself. She opens her mouth but he's already running off across his lawn to a large oak tree. Upon reaching it he lifts the cat-glove onto the bark and rubs it up and down. The cat makes annoyed grumbling noises, but other than that not much happens. Slowly walking over, Luka can hear curses of frustration spew from her friend's mouth as he seems to attempt to use the cat as some sort of climbing device.

With a hiss very similar to his pet's – he had undoubtedly heard it before – he pulls the glove off, cat and all, and the tabby slinks away, rubbing the tape and nylon harness off on the fence.

"Cats," he states vacantly and pouts upward at the tree. Taking a few steps back, he eyes a high branch, and suddenly darts forward, grabbing at the limb and hauling himself up. "Guess I'll have to do it the old fashioned way."

"Are you insane?" Luka growls, realizing as she says it what a stupid question it is. He merely gives her a thumbs up and reaches for another branch.

"I'm on a stairway to heaven!" comes his excuse. Now a good ten feet above her, eight year old singing wafts downward, "There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven!" Luka darts around the trunk, glancing back at the house for his mother.

"Gakupo, get back down here!" Her words are lost to the leaves. He isn't even in sight anymore. With a breath, she looks behind her again and hesitantly reaches upward, her hand wrapping around a thin limb. Her feet scramble on the bark and she hauls herself to the next and thicker branch with a moan. Resting for a moment, she raises her gaze and locks with a pair of powder blue eyes. They shine excitedly and instantly he jumps upwards once again towards the branch he had returned down from with the energy only an elementary aged boy can manage.

She struggles upward, much slower and less experienced than the boy who darts between the branches above her, coming down every once in a while to help her through the tough parts. The limbs slowly grow thinner, the leaves sparser; Luka doesn't dare look down. Instead her eyes stayed focused on the boy ahead of her as he scrambles out to the end of the highest branch and looks around. He turns back to her, his face alight with exhilaration, and extends a hand to pull her up.

The wind blows her rose colored hair back as she blinks at the brightness of the sun. The neighborhood sprawls around them, cars lining down the streets and buildings rising in the distance as it gets closer to the heart of the city. Clouds drift above, seeming close enough to touch, and the familiar roofs of the school, the market, their friends Kaito and Meiko's house, seem tiny and doll-like. She doesn't notice as she begins to lean over too far, her grips loosening. An arm wraps around her; Gakupo, hauling her close to him and pushing her against the branch. She pouts with disapproval, but he just shakes his head and says something about not wanting splattered Luka for dinner.

She lays her head on the wood and gazes out from a considerably safer position, her friend still posed confidently above her, both feet on the branch, balancing on nothing. He winks at her. "Bet I look pretty awesome right now huh?" She narrows her eyes.

"You look like a crazy kid who climbed a tree and dragged his friend up with him." He nods solemnly and closes his eyes, seeming to find this description appropriate. They open again with a subdued look to them and he lowers himself to the branch, sitting next to where she clutches the wood with all limbs. His feet hang over the side, kicking slowly back and forth.

"Someday I won't look crazy," he says and gazes off over the city. Luka turns her head farther towards him and pulls herself upright, mimicking his position. "I'll be up here again someday, but no one will laugh at me," his eyes are far away on the horizon, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lips. Luka feels something strain within her, the idea of him being at the top. He'd be so far away.

"Take me with you," she blurts out and grabs at his sleeve. His eyes drift over to her with an easy smile and he links his arm through hers.

"Yup," is all he says as his eyes close in glee and he look back across the metropolis, the wind tugging out his ponytail and setting his violet locks free.

Chapter 1: Summit

Luka flicks the toothpicks off her desk irritatedly and slumps into her chair, earning a knowing chuckle from her blue haired friend next to her. For the past fifty minutes of the class Luka and the other architecture students had been trying to complete the seemingly impossible assignment - create a bridge out of nothing but toothpicks – with no success. Slowly, one by one, they just gave up, not caring enough to try and problem solve.

She gazes around the room, noting the slowly ticking clock and reaches into her bag, searching for something to read, but her hand brushes against something cold and metallic. Pushing aside old papers, her MP3 player stares up at her persuasively. A thought jumps into her mind and she quickly checks her phone.

Yesterday, 10:30 PM, To: GK

Hey, how are you?

Yesterday, 10:46 PM, To: GK

Are you there?

Today, 7:04 AM, To: GK

I guess you were busy huh? Txt when you have the chance.

No new messages

She flips the cell shut with a sigh and drops it back into the bag, replacing it after a moment with the music device. Holding out an ear bud to Kaito, she scrolls through the songs and picks one at random, letting the beats pound noisily into her brain.

It's hopeless! The meeting was very important!

Her eyebrows shoot up as the MP3 shuffles to a familiar song. The voice is deep and throaty, almost gravelly, but appealing in its unusual huskiness. She glances down at the device, pressing a button to make the screen light up, and stares at the face on the album cover.

She remembers the way those eyes lit up at the school festival two years ago when a man came up to him, complimented his performance, and introduced himself. A week later he had been packing up, ready to leave for his new job after just one year in music college. His dream job.

He'd gotten to the top.

It's hopeless! Now I have to come up with an excuse!

It's hopeless! The door just slammed in my face!

It's hopeless! The next train is ten minutes late!

A faint smile traces across her face at the unusual lyrics; he manages to sing about anything and everything and still make it to the top of the charts. Whenever a new album came out, his fans were never sure whether it was going to be about the end of the world or a day that he spent at the grocery store. Or in this case, losing his wallet. However, Luka had found that one good thing about his unique lyric content is that if you listened closely enough, you could figure out what had happened to him; he literally put his life into his music.

She hopes that meeting wasn't too vital.

The bell ring and students stand, groaning and heading towards the lunchroom. Instantly Kaito is striding down the hall to the classroom he stops at every day. Luka follows and watches with restrained amusement as his eyes dart back and forth, searching for a certain girl.

"She's not here. Miku's not here," he says worriedly and dashes over to a friend of the girl. Luka leans against the wall and reflects, half nervously, half entertained, about the two. A while back her longtime friend had been partnered up with timid Miku Hatsune for a project. In just a few days Kaito's attention had shifted to the girl in a way unlike anything she had ever seen. He walked her to school, sat with her at lunch, he went wherever she did; Luka doesn't really mind. Miku seems to have some sort of anxiety problem, always seeming tense and jumpy, but the man's presence calmed her if only a little. And Kaito of course could just not leave her alone.

"She didn't come to school today," he relays back to her after getting info from a classmate. Luka shrugs, not too concerned. Miku tends to miss school a lot, it isn't a rare occurrence.

"Do you think she's sick?" The man shifts from foot to foot and looks towards the door. She shakes her head slightly, surer yet of the hunch she's been getting. "I'll tell everyone where you went." He nods and dashes to the lobby, throwing the door open and taking off across campus.

She bites her lip and looks around, noticing that the hallways have begun to empty of students headed towards lunch. Not really willing to endure the antics of Meiko and the twins today, she wanders over to a seating area and leans on one hand, looking out the window.

Without realizing it her hand floats to her phone again, flipping it open and gazingly lazily at the screen. Her eyes widen and she sits up, clicking 'open'.

Today, 11:47 AM, From: GK

Sorry, late conference. Lawyer was going over copyright terms.

The message is quick and impersonal, and it weighs on her in way that makes her wish he hadn't written anything at all. What had she been expecting though? A heartfelt hallmark card? A longwinded phone call? He's busy. Very busy. And getting busier every day.

She shuts the phone with a click that resounds around the room. He's being reasonable. He has work. He'll talk when he has time. Won't he?

Logical, reasonable, understandable; that doesn't stop Luka from feeling abandoned.