Title: Wicked Game
Author: Ish
Notes: The pairing in this fic was inspired by an RP but the story itself was not. Rather, it gathered itself in my head and the bunnies chewed on my nerve endings until I finally caved and am now attempting my first ever multi-chaptered Gravitation fic. Many thanks to HawkClowd for lending her own skills as my beta reader!
Disclaimer: My possessions extend to seven goldfish, a large doujinshi collection, and a kotatsu. I do not own Gravitation nor any of the characters within, although if Maki Murakami would like to write a remix featuring Maa and Hiro, I would certainly buy it!

Chapter 1: You Look So Fine

The trio of schoolgirls squealing over by the convenience store's magazine rack was really beginning to grate on his nerves. A tired Ogiwara Matsuda – formally known by his fans as Maa-kun and still called that by his few friends – shoved bleached blond hair out of his face and scowled. The expression felt strange on his face after spending the entire night smiling and pouring drinks for women with way too much loose money and too few morals. The girls may have just recently woken up to head out to school, but the rockstar-turned-host had just gotten off work and was exhausted, not to mention down to his last cigarette.

He stalked over to the group of girls, using his height to reach over them and pluck the magazine out of their hands with an easy and utterly false smile. "Excuse me." He grinned and they scattered, whispering behind their hands and glancing back at him as they scampered away. He tossed a wink at one of them who had hung back a little – a cute number with her hair done up in pigtails – and she blushed and hurried to catch up with her friends.

Running his fingers through his hair again, Maa swore as he snagged a snarl. Slipping his fingers out, he glanced down to see what had in the hell had made the girls make such a fuss over. Staring back at him from the two-page spread was Bad Luck, their pink haired vocalist in his trademark Daisy Dukes. The keyboardist – about the same age as the schoolgirls who had just left in fact – was posed Mozart-style over the keys and the fucking guitarist… Well, didn't he look smart, animal print shirt hanging open, one arm slung over his guitar and that pretty boy face smirking from the glossy pages.

A growl ripped its way free of Maa's throat and, in an impressive show of fury, the magazine was torn apart and littered on the Lawson's floor. The blond stomped to the clerk and tossed the flustered man a thousand yen bill for the publication. He'd buy his cigarettes at another convenience store.

Later that day...

"So I told him he could shove the damn thing up his – Hey, Maa! Hello? Earth to Maa-kun? Anybody in there?"

Maa grunted, swatting Ken's hand out of his face and then slumping back down over his beer. "Would you just shut the hell up for once?"

The brunet sank back down into his seat in the small, swank Tokyo bar. "Geez, what the hell crawled up your ass and died?"

"Would you just shut the hell up for once please?" The blond tried again.

"Better, better… But no." Ken waved the bartender over and gestured for another draft, then thought better of it and ordered two. Maa's was getting pretty low and his former bandmate looked like he could use a few more pints. Although… "You sure you should be drinking on your day off?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not? Practice makes perfect and all that, right?" He straightened up, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear as he gulped down the last bit of beer, leaving a bit of head covering the bottom of the otherwise empty glass. "How's Taki anyways? You went to visit him today, right?"

Ken shook his head. "Yeah, and you're changing the subject." He let it slip for now though, paying the bartender and sliding the second beer down the counter to his friend. The music had changed to some popular American hip-hop songs and a couple of attractive women were sitting at a table to the side of them. Ken glanced towards them longingly but the blond obviously wasn't feeling up to his usual playboy self that night. "Taki's… Can you use 'good' to describe Taki, you think? He's doing well enough, anyways. Says in a few more weeks of therapy he'll be able to walk with just the cane."

"Heard that. It's his head I'd be more worried about. It seems to be screwed back on right, but that's what I thought before – well, you know. i Before. /i "

Ken's reply was lost as Maa tuned him back out again, scanning the bar randomly. Brown eyes flickered over the same girls Ken had studied just a minute before, then flickered away, uninterestedly. The other man had a point; what was wrong with him tonight? By rights he i should /i have been interested, should have been up and flirting and then walking away with one (or maybe both) of them on his arm. He'd sleep with her, she'd leave her number, he might call back once or twice before he lost it and forgot about her. It wasn't like his life had gone to hell since that night when Taki decided to fuck over Shindou-san and fuck their careers as a consequence. Somehow Seguchi-san must have gotten wind of the fact Maa and Ken hadn't been involved with the rape or the blackmail incident because they had been left alone.

They had lost their contracts, of course, which for a time hadn't left them much more to do than visit Taki in the hospital. Not that Maa had had far to go – thanks to the beating from Yuki Eiri, he'd been Taki's neighbor for a couple of days. After he had recovered though, he found his bank account was still there, a good amount of savings amassed from their previous sales. He'd had a brief and bland severance letter from N-G studios, stating there had been irreconcilable differences in artistic approach, which had led to a parting of ways for the studio and the musicians. However, it was clear enough that he wasn't going to be welcomed back, and the guitarist wasn't ready to go back to being just a back-up musician at another production studio.

Working as a host allowed him to maintain a lifestyle comparable to his one as a rockstar, and with his charm and good looks, the job came naturally to him. Ken wasn't doing too badly either. His dad had run a music shop specializing in keyboards, drums, and guitars since they were children. In fact, that had been a large contributor to fostering their fledging musical experiments and had helped ASK get off its feet. Now that the band was dead and the dirt settling on its grave, Ken's father welcomed his son's assistance in running the shop and the brunet was happy surrounded by instruments to tune up and sell off. So why did Maa still feel so discontent, like something was missing and he was just numbly muddling through his days, passing time with the occasional fling and pieces of lingering resentment.

A flash of dark red hair finally caught his eyes and when he went to check out the owner of the attractive shade, Maa almost choked on his beer. A coughing fit ensued, and Ken gave him a couple of smacks on his back in concern.

"Hey, you all right? You zone out on me again and then this?" The blond could only answer with a pointing gesture and Ken looked around, his eyes widening when he realized who his friend had seen. "Damn, that guy? Nakano, right? When's the last time we saw him?"

Getting his coughing under control, Maa nodded and wiped his eyes brusquely. "This morning actually."

"What?!"

Several of the club's patrons, including Nakano Hiroshi, turned to look at the noise-maker. Not recognizing the two at the bar at a glance, the redhead blinked but then dismissed them and turned back to his date. Right then, the only person he potentially had any business with was the wavy-haired woman across from him. Her breasts swelled gently under the soft-looking, light blue shirt she wore and her legs stretched long from under the black mini skirt. Unfortunately, Hiro's attention wasn't really on her either. Instead the nineteen year-old fiddled with his drink and re-played the previous night's phone conversation with Ayaka in his head again for the nine millionth time.

What had she meant, they weren't ready to be in love again? Or that she wasn't, at least. He had heard the regret in the Kyoto girl's voice as she spoke, but also the conviction. She had loved Eiri too much and too easily, she had said. Had dedicated herself to dreams of marrying him one day without a thought. And she was glad he could be happy with Shuichi and she liked Hiro, but she wanted to finally be seventeen.

Be seventeen. It was just her way of politely saying she didn't want to date him anymore, wasn't it? Or… no. Ayaka wasn't like that. Maybe she was right then. She'd never really been free, what with her heart and hand promised to Yuki. And while Hiro kind of liked the thought of maybe marrying her someday, she deserved to give her heart a chance to be free for sometime. If he was going to be brutally honest, even that thought of marriage had just been a daydream of "maybe someday." It certainly hadn't kept him from flirting with Yoshiki… or from enjoying it. Looking at it that way, he supposed Ayaka was right after all. But it didn't make him any happier over the situation.

The woman across from him coughed, her breasts bouncing slightly with the exhalation. Her name was… Miki, or something like that. Yeah. Miki. She was an actress his brother had met a couple of times at auditions and had helped hook Hiro up with when he discovered the younger Nakano still moping over the phone line at ten in the morning instead of going to work. Judging from the surly expression on her face now, that wasn't going to be happening.

"Hello. You look bored. Allow me to rescue you?" Hiro groaned allowed, looking up to see the ass who had decided to butt in and make the situation even worse. Fuck! He did know him.

When they were right in front of him, there was no mistaking those long blond locks or that wicked, arrogant smirk. Hiro had thought he'd seen the last of the other guitarist when N-G had cancelled ASK's contract, but here he was, pulling up an empty seat and straddling it. And his date looked relived! He wasn't sure how the night could get any worse, but he soon found out when the blond's partner-in-crime gracefully pulled his date's chair away from the table.

Maa's smirk had grown as he watched Ken smooth back his hair and approach the woman from behind. He had wandered over to the redhead's table on a whim, thinking of stirring up a little trouble: just enough to give him a hard time as benefiting their previous competition but nothing serious enough to get them kicked out. Ken-chan's smooth talking of the date was an unexpected bonus. Although… he wouldn't have minded being the one leading the well-endowed female away from them and to the bar. Instead, he grabbed Hiro's arm when the younger man showed signs of getting up to pursue him and pulled the teen back down into his seat, mouthing 'you owe me' over his shoulder to Ken. The brunet tossed him a wink and proceeded to turn his back on his friend in order to better chat up his new catch. Might as well see what he had caught as well then.

As could be expected, Hiroshi's blue eyes were sparking with fury as he yanked his arm out of the older man's grasp. "That's not funny," he hissed, spitting like a cat.

"It is from this side," Maa commented idly, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace and settling back in his own chair. "She was about to walk out on her own anyways."

Hiro struggled for an angry retort but the truth took the bite from his words. "…was it that obvious?" he said at last.

"Oooh yeah." Maa snerked and lit up a cigarette. The end caught and he breathed in, exhaling slowly before continuing. "But if it makes you feel any better, it was pretty clear you weren't having too good a time either."

"Heh." Unable to help himself, Hiro grinned. He tried to cover it up by taking a long swallow of his drink. "Didn't ask you to come rescue me, though. But since you did… mind sharing?"

"Aren't you too young to smoke?" Maa wondered aloud, but passed the redhead a cigarette anyways, holding his lighter up for him. His other hand moved to cup the one holding the lighter, ensuring it held steady while Hiro lit up. There was a moment of silence between them, broken only by the hiss of the paper catching flame. Maa absently watched the quiet concentration on the other man's face as he breathed in to encourage the heat to creep up the cigarette. It was only when Hiro shifted back and breathed out a small cloud of smoke that he lowered the lighter and spoke again. "That's two favors you owe me now."

"Two?"

"One for rescuing you from your craptastic date and one for the smoke."

Hiro grimaced. "From what little I know of you, I don't think you're the kind of man I'd like to owe any sort of favor to," he commented dryly. Happily, his cell phone chose that moment to beep him with a text message. He glanced down, seeing that it was from Shuichi. Something about K-san having caused a five-car pile-up while taking him home and now Yuki-san was blaming the pink-haired vocalist for it…

"I've got to go," he excused himself. He took one more draw on the cigarette then snuffed it out in the ashtray on the table and rose to leave, but Maa caught a hold of his sleeve again. He looked down at the man in annoyance.

"If you want to pay back that favor before I start charging interest, you could meet me at Benny's tomorrow night."

Hiro started to refuse but hesitated. "Why Benny's?"

Actually, he meant why period. It wasn't that he had anything against the blond any more. Well, other than the fact that he was an over-confident, overly smooth player who'd helped to stab the final fork into his way over-done date. In fact, if anything, there was a twinge of guilt that sprang up deep inside the redhead's stomach when he met Maa's gaze. He had been the one to tell Yuki-san about what Aizawa-san had done to Shuichi, and the novelist had taken it out on Maa and Ken. Neither he nor Yuki-san had known at the time that the two of them were innocent and had even tried to discourage Aizawa's rabid jealousy. It was only later, from Shuichi's babble mainly, that they found out the truth.

"Benny's has a small stage, complete with its own kit." That implied mike, amps, keyboards, drum set, and at least one guitar - most likely two: lead and bass. But that didn't help Hiro get at the blond's reasoning any better.

"Just come. You'll see then." Maa released the redhead's jacket. He stood as well, giving Hiro a pat on the shoulder as he walked by him. "Take care. Be seeing you."

Final Notes: Maa's last name is borrowed from his voice actor. Wicked Game is performed by Chris Issak while You look So Fine is performed by Garbage. Taki fans, please stand by for chapter two. Smut fans, also stand by. Thank you!