Sup, bros? Mental here with my new story, An Adult's Life! Summary -
Reiji is tethering over the edge. He was getting better, really. He was. His smiles were more genuine and less just a reflex to not rise suspicion. It's just that when the two worlds that he lives in collide in the horrific way possible, he is allowed a smoke or two. Too bad, Ai has other plans. And just about the rest of the world. OC's involved! ReijixAi
Pairings - Reiji x Ai, Ren x Masato, Syo x Natsuki/Satsuki, Tokiya x Otoya, Ranmaru x Nanami, Cecil x Camus. Is it weird that I love all these pairings to the core?
Warnings - Cussing, mentions of adult problems hence the name.
I do own Nana Kotobuki, Yoshi Akiyama, and Little Demons.
Enjoy!
Chapter One - See You Soon
"Have you guys noticed anything different about Rei-chan?" Otoya asks, sitting down at a long dining table that was mostly occupied by STARISH and Haruka. Almost everyone looks up at him confused, except Tokiya who nods, understanding.
"What do you mean?" Syo grumbles as he gnaws on a piece of maple-favored bacon.
"Like, he's been on his phone a lot." Otoya tries to explain, which really just consisted of awkward hand gestures.
"He must have a lover that he doesn't want us to know about." Ren smirks knowingly, "He is a man after all, it shouldn't be all that surprising. I'm sure he just wants to keep her away from us because he doesn't want her to fall in love with our charm, I would do the same thing if Little Lamb were mine." Nanami flushes furiously under Ren's flirtation, he winks at her playfully.
"Who are you talking about?" Ai walks in, laptop under his arm, with Ranmaru and Camus right behind him.
"Ah, good morning, Ai-senpai. We are just talking about Reiji-senpai." Natsuki exclaims before he shoves a forkful of scrambled egg into his mouth, grinning happily.
"What about Reiji?" Ranmaru asks roughly as he grabs several plates before going to the buffet and piling heaps of food on the poor china. Really, how is he not bursting out of his vest bottoms?
"He's been acting strange lately." Otoya announces once again. "Have you noticed it too?"
"Well, I did find him smoking on his car last night." Camus says nonchalant, sitting down with a cup of tea in his hands, being the mysterious strange bastard that he is.
"EEEEHHHHH? Reiji smokes!?" all the kouhais yell in unison, surprised by the fact that the usually happy-go-lucky prankster of a senpai was a smoker. It seemed so strange of an idea it had Tokiya furrows his eyebrows in disgust.
"We just found out last night. According to my data, Reiji has been smoking since he was 15." Ai informs in monotone as he takes a seat and opens his cyan blue and white laptop nonchantantly.
"I never thought that Reiji-senpai would do something like that." Tokiya mutters as a side thought, his hand cupping his chin in concentration.
"I would do something like what?" Reiji inquires as he pops out from behind Ranmaru causing the silver-haired man to choke on his food. A cigarette was hanging loosely from the brunette's lips and on his face cemented into a permament smile, it looked a little forced in the eyes of his colleagues though. "Are you guys talking about my smoking habit? I don't do it too often so don't worry. I'm not doing to die anytime soon. I haven't pulled enough pranks on Ran-ran yet!" He ruffles Ranmaru's hair playfully, before having it get swatted away. He takes the cigar out of his mouth and laughs, it comes out a bit throaty.
"Stop that," Ranmaru hisses, before shoving a bagel into his mouth.
"How come you never told us you smoked, Rei-chan?" Natsuki questions, eyeing the cigarette with curiosity.
"I have, plenty of times." Reiji answers back, a hint of sadness in his unusally dull eyes, his smile looking even more forced.
"You have?" Masato asks for everyone, looking shocked.
Reiji laughs lightly and scratches the back of his head sheepishly, trying to keep the atmosphere from getting too awkward, "You probably just didn't hear me."
"Why are you on your phone so much then?" Ai asks, changing the subject completely, everyone looks at him in disbelief. Ai have been one to shown very much concern about Reiji and everyone assumed that Reiji was a nuisance to the cyan-haired boy.
"Awww! Ai-ai's worried about me!" Reiji cheered happily, smoke coming out of his mouth as he talked. The scene suddenly felt so wrong, Reiji wasn't suppose to have a cigarette in between his index and middle fingers, he was making it seem like smoking was ok. Ai had already looked up all the side effects of smoking (all were bad) on his laptop last night and read articles about how to get a person to stop smoking.
First, was to find why they were smoking to begin with. Reiji started smoking more when he started using his phone excessively. He would always excuse himself for hours at a time to talk to someone. Maybe it was a lover that was causing him stress? Or was it some friend who was pressuring Reiji to do things? What if it's an enemy that has blackmail on him? 'I need to stop watching so many American movies.' Ai thinks to himself 'I should ask Professor, if he could do something about it."
"You haven't answered my question." Ai replies in his firm and clear, 'I almost give a shit' voice.
"Ok, I've meant to tell you this for a while now, but I have-" Ren gives everyone a knowing smirk "- some old friends that are asking me if I want to join their agency!" Everyone's faces fell.
"What agency?" Syo persists with a loud tone.
"It's called Maddening Dance and it's really big in Europe and America."
"Who are the friends?" Otoya continues.
"My little sister, Nana Kotobuki and my secret composer, Yoshi Akiyama. Yoshi changed his name to Victor Akiyama and Nana is better known by her stage name, Magician's Girl. We made this group called MIST in a fallen agency, Rolling Stars, and we played in a drama called Little Demons, where we acted as serial killers. They are actually the ones that bought me my car and th-"
"Reiji-senpai, I think you've told us enough." Masato interrupts bluntly, realizing how excited Reiji seemed when he talked about his old friends and how awkward it made the rest of the room feel.
"Sorry, I just haven't seen them in two years. Tomorrow is our biannual get-together and it's going to be here, I want you guys to meet each other and don't bite, ok? They'll be staying here for a week or so." Reiji announces as he scans STARISH, Haruka, and the rest of Quartet Night with his grey eyes.
"We promise, Rei-chan!" Otoya smiles brightly at his senpai, happy that his senpai doesn't look sad any more. The mischievous gleam was back in Reiji's eyes and the cigarette was being tossed in the trash. The smell of smoke didn't leave the room though and everyone at least coughed once or twice, including Reiji who apologized and opened some windows to let the fresh air in.
The atmosphere that passed afterwards was much more comfortable, Reiji, Syo and Otoya were talking excessively loud about some show on T.V, forcing Masato to shoo them at least once or twice. Haruka, Ren, and Cecil were giggling about the idea of Camus wearing a fancy mustache. Ranmaru was eating like the pig he was, Camus was sipping his tea, Ai was playing Pac-Man on his computer, but made it seem like it was research, and Tokiya was reading over his new script for a movie.
Suddenly, Reiji's phone started ringing 'Dekai Temptation' and he yanked it out of his pocket, flipped it open, pressing it against his ear. Becoming quiet, everyone tried to listen in on his conversation. Luckily or unluckily, he realized this and so everyone could hear what the person on the other line said.
"Nii-san! Good afternoon!"
"It's morning here, but good afternoon to you too, Nana."
"Whatever, Nii-san, I just called because Yo-chan wants to know if you got the champagne yet."
"Yeah, it came in last night."
"And he wants to know if you got the candy too."
"It came with the champagne."
"Did Shining say yes to having our get together at the Shining Agency?"
"Yeah, he agreed yesterday."
"Yay~ We are bordering the plane right now, so you can pick us up tomorrow morning!"
"That's awesome! I can't wait to see you."
So far, their conversation was normal, Reiji was old enough (by far) to drink and it was probably just to celebrate seeing each other again.
"One more thing, did you book the strippers too?"
Everyone's eyes widened considerably at the comment and Reiji laughed good-naturedly.
"Yes, Nana, I got the strippers." he teased, winking at Haruka, who was probably going to die from the lack of blood from everywhere, but her face.
"Especially the male ones?"
"Especially the male ones."
"Ok, ok, good. By the way... Yo-chan is going to kick your ass when we get there, ya know."
Reiji's face paled considerably. "I know, I just... am kind of hoping that I can talk him out of destroying the entire place."
"He's most likely gonna drag you of that place himself and beat you into a purple plup, then I'm going to have to recuse your sorry ass." Ai's eyebrows furrowed together. That sounded like a joke, but Reiji's heartbeat was beating faster and faster as she continued to describe what will happen in what appeared to be the near-future.
"You act like I don't already know this, Nana." Reiji agrued softly, before laughing nervously, eyeing his bandmates warily. Nobody seemed to think that they weren't joking, except Ai, who stared at him expectantly.
"You know what happened the last time we got into a band together! You shouldn't have agreed to this. You even retired, got kouhais and you haven't even sang any of Yo-chan's songs. He isn't even sad about that, he's just pissed off! It's been five years, Nii-san," Reiji's face twitches, his free hand suddenly clasping his arm chair tightly.
"I'm sorry, ok? I'm no longer retired and Otoya and Tokiya are going to be professionals themselves soon and I am going to sing his songs when you guys get here!"
"And are you going to quit Quartet Night?" his so-called sister insisted.
Everyone tenses and waits for his response. If he quits Quartet Night, it would hurt the other three deeply because he was the one that suggested (more like begged) that they continue to do more group work together. Camus has already rain-checked many meetings with the Queen to attend to their concerts; Ranmaru was just getting used to the idea of being a group again; and Aine has started to give Ai images of Aine's memories, of Reiji and their high school life.
"I haven't made up my mind completely, but I do really want to work at Maddening Dance with you." Reiji laughs weakly again, trying to appear happy and content even though he was just barely resisting the urge to lit up another cancer stick.
"Awesome! You know how much we want you to come with us to Europe! We could even start a band together like the olden days!"
A hand touches his shoulder, Reiji turns to find Otoya with the saddest puppy-eyes ever and Reiji's heart sort of just breaks into two. He smiles nervously at Otoya and pats the hand of his shoulder, causing Otoya to let go and look dejectedly at the ground. Reiji turns to see everyone else giving him blank (judging) stares or clearly pissed faces.
"Nana, can we talk about this tomorrow?" he quietly mumbles into the phone as he glances at Ai and Camus to find that they were glaring at him furiously as well and Ranmaru was trying his hardest to not yell at Reiji. Instead, Ranmaru's grip on his spoon was so strong that he bend it into a 90 degree angle.
"Umm... yeah, love you! Bye Nii-san."
"Love you, too, Nana."
The soft click becomes the loudest thing in the room while Reiji puts his phone back into his pocket. The rest of Quartet Night shot up from their chairs and STARISH stay stunned in shock.
"What the hell do you mean by maybe?" Ranmaru roared, breaking the spoon completely.
"You're the one that suggested that we should stay as Quartet Night!" Ai's voice cracks at the end as he almost breaks his laptop's keyboard. The robot suddenly flinches and stares at his hands, wondering why he reacted more than he should have.
"Do you know how many times I've canceled meetings with the Silk Queen to go to our pathetic concerts?" Camus shouts as he slams his hands against the table, making his tea spil everywhere. Masato, who was sitting beside Camus, cautiously moves his melon bread away from the spill that was festering on the table cloth.
Reiji sweatdrops and put his hands up in defense, "Ran-ran, Myu-chan, Ai-ai, it's ok. I was just telling my sister that, so she would get off my back about it. She'd probably cuss me out, if I told her it was a no-go."
"Cuss you out?" Haruka squeaks.
"Yeah, my sister and Yoshi get pretty violent verbally and physically when I do something that's against the rules." Reiji smiles at her and scratches the back of his head sheepishly, "-even though technically, I'm not doing anything wrong."
"Reiji-senpai, what did you mean by 'against the rules'? What are the rules?" Tokiya asks, him being the first to talk out of the kouhais.
"First Ai-ai, now Toki! I should be more mysterious from now on, if it means you worry about me!" Reiji almost has to force the joke out, wiggling his eyebrows playfully, "I feel like it's my birthday."
"Reiji-senpai, please answer the question." Masato insists urgently.
"I told you, Masa, call me Rei-chan!" Reiji actually has to weeze that one out, not-so-slyly avoiding the question.
"ANSWER THE QUESTION!" everyone instantly yells at him and Reiji flinched.
"Haha... I can't. It's... uh... kind of against the rules." he says and everyone groans.
"Who's rules?" Camus asks roughly as he starts to notice that he spilled his tea, roughly trying to wipe the stain out of the table cloth.
"... MIST's rules, we made them when we were... little or littler." Reiji replies, "You all sure are asking a lot of questions, why do you want to know so much about my life? I'm not going anywhere, so don't worry so much, I'm staying!"
'Am I?'
"Ne, Yo-chan, Nii-chan looks so happy when he is singing with Quartet Night."
"He looks like a pansy when he sings all happy and shit... Is that Aine?"
"Aine as in Nii-chan's lover? Aine died, Yo-chan, remember how Rei-chan had to go to rehab because he overdosed on alcohol and smoking?"
"Don't remember me, but then tell me who the blue haired boy is... or is a girl? Shit, I dunno."
"We're on a plane, stop cussing so much."
"It's a private plane, damn you, Nana."
"Oh yeah... anyway that's Ai Mikaze, maybe he's Aine's younger brother or something. He's 15 and Aine is suppose to be like 20 now."
"Maybe... what if he's keeping Reiji from going to the UK with us. Like Reiji is using him as a replacement for Aine, Aine was the one person that we actually trusted with that asshole."
"God, you sound like such an evil villian now. We don't need Nii-chan that much, Yo-chan. Besides what are you going to do? Kill him? We aren't in Little Demons anymore, so stop acting."
"Fuck you, it's just a thought."
"Is it?"
"You tell me."
"..."
"..."
"You're going to do something about Ai, aren't you?"
"... Maybe."
"YO-CHAN!"
"FUCK! Fine, I'll try not to throw a fucking lawn mover at him, but you have to call Shadow over to Japan."
"Why?"
"Reasons."
"What are those reasons?"
"YOU DON'T NEED TO FUCKING KNOW!"
"That's a dumbass plan-" she whispers sarcastically, "- but fine. I'll let you do that much, but I doubt that Rei-chan would become unfaithful to his own kouhais. Who knows, he might even have fallen in love with someone, maybe Mikaze Ai or Ranmaru. Ai is, whether you like it or not, good-looking. I would say cute, but he has sex appeal and I would say he's sexy, but he's adorable. Ranmaru is a sexy beast, too."
"You're such a cougar, Nana."
"Shut up, I'm only 23. Besides, you're older."
"Fuck you."
AND THAT IS THE END OF CHAPTER ONE! I hope you like Yoshi and Nana because I put a lot of thought into them! I tried to keep everyone in character, but there is a lot of people and I can't give everyone a lot of spotlight. I'll give you their appearances in the second chapter.
But for now here are some head canons on Quartet Night's relationship with Reiji, STARISH will come later.
Ai watches American action movies and Spanish soap operas, merely to try to figure out why everyone acts so aggressively. He will have marathons sometimes, and Reiji will sometimes sit down to watch them with him. (Mostly because Nana is going to be in it)
Ranmaru loves homemade cooking, especially Reiji's. He is easily bribed by it, but he just can't resist. If they are going somewhere and Reiji has packed lunches, Ran-ran will ask him to pack an extra one, because "one isn't enough to sate his hunger"
Camus's dog LOVES Reiji, so much that when Camus comes home, his dog, Alexander, tries to look behind him to see if Reiji is there. When he isn't, Alexander kind of mourns for a bit before Camus makes him better with food. Nobody really knows why he likes Reiji so much, Reiji didn't even say hello before Alexander tackled him and started licking his face.
Anyway that's all and please-
R&R
