I've had this idea in my head for ages and finally the first chapter is up. I've been frustrated by the lack of Haruhiko in fic (Because Haruhiko is awesome and needs more love) and because I do love my non-canon I wanted to share this. Be warned; slight spoilers for volume eight.


Chapter one

- Be there -

XX

His clothes were already thrown into a small suitcase, the meagre essentials of all his worldly possession compactly pressed into that one case. Misaki gripped the handle with his gloved hand as he stood in the doorway of Akihiko's room, his heart pounding with trepidation.

His throat felt dry. Several times, he tried to speak, stuttered, and fell short. His hand tightened around the handle of his suitcase. It was dark outside.

"U – Um, Usagi - "

The sound of Akihiko's lighter snapping shut resounded in the silence, promptly cutting him off. Akihiko sat on the corner of his bed, his back turned to Misaki, who lingered by the door as if waiting for permission to leave.

It was dark outside. How had it become so dark so soon?

As the silence stretched through time and neither had moved from their stationary positions, Misaki finally found the strength to take a step back. His suitcase rolled across the floor, following at his heels.

How had it become so dark so soon? How had they come to this point? Why were they having this conversation, or lack thereof? How had it become so dark so soon?

"W – Well then," Misaki said softly, his voice fluttering to the ceiling to mingle with the smoke. "Like I said, dinner's in the fridge and I made food for the next day too. You've got everything you need, right? I'll be back soon...maybe."

Akihiko said nothing. Maybe he too was wondering just how it had become so dark so soon.

"I'm off," Misaki smiled gently, and with that turned around and made his way through the dark apartment, into the night's chill air.

As the wind hit his face, he cringed and pulled his scarf tighter, shrugging his aching shoulders. It looked like it would rain soon; or maybe even snow. Misaki remembered when it had snowed outside his house, underneath the streetlamp, which flickered on and off. He remembered when it had snowed and Akihiko had cried – and he had cried too – and the snow fell around them like soft balls of cotton wool, forever falling and freezing on the ground.

He remembered, with some embarrassment, moving in to the apartment and, with horror, the thousand-and-one perverted things he was subjected to each day. He remembered the aquarium and the Ferris wheel and how the words 'I love you' slipped and fell from his tongue.

'It's alright. I love you.'

What he did not remember was just how things had ended up with him walking as he was now, towards the sleek black car waiting for him.

Misaki slowed his pace as he tried to recall, to pin-point the exact moment; the one defining point in time when events had been set upon this course.

Ah, that was right. It had been then, hadn't it?

"Don't ask me about these things, Usagi-san! I don't know. Blue, I guess."

XX

"Blue?" Akihiko looked at the dress shirt and then smiled. "Well, if Misaki thinks so," he said, tossing the dark maroon one over the side of the couch.

Misaki struggled with his tie. Almost twenty years old and he still could not fix a tie properly. He frowned at it and tore it loose again, determined that, this time, he would conquer the art of the double knot.

"Here, let me," Akihiko, finishing with the buttons of his shirt, snaked his arms over Misaki's shoulder, catching him from behind. Taking advantage of Misaki's momentary shock, the gathered he ends in his hands, deftly making short work of the tie. His hands, however, finished with the knot and eased towards the half open shirt, sneaking his hands underneath the fabric.

"U – Usagi-san!" Misaki blushed and tried to look annoyed. "Jeez, it's already morning, Usagi-san!"

"In that case," his lips brushed against the shell of Misaki's ear, "are you saying I can do whatever I like in the evening?"

Misaki bristled. "Th – That's not what I'm saying at all! Don't go interpreting things the way you want to!" he struggled and broke free of Akihiko's grip.

"Then the afternoon."

"Listen to what people are saying!"

"Then morning."

"It's morning now!"

"So I can do whatever I want to you now?"

"That's not - " Misaki began, but the sound of the doorbell ringing cut his sentence short. "Ah, that's Aikawa-san!" He rushed to answer to door with relief.

Aikawa was dressed smarter than usual, in a tight red dress that had a slit almost all the way to the thigh. Her hair was gathered in curls and pinned into a French bun, though the odd lock or two of bright, copper-coloured hair fell behind her ears. She carried a book with her and, strangely, a Chinese fan hanging out of the side of her handbag.

"Ah, Misaki-kun! Sensei, are you ready yet?" she beamed, opening the fan with a flourish of her hand. "Ah, this heat wave is horrible!" she sighed. "My make up will melt if I stay in the sun too long."

"I don't see why I have to go," Akihiko, as adverse to social gatherings as always, grumbled while he shrugged on his jacket.

Aikawa looked at him with gentle chastisement. "Why not? This is part of your job too!"

"It's bothersome," he frowned.

"But Misaki-kun will be with you! Misaki-kun wants you to do your job properly, don't you?"

Misaki, who had been putting on his own jacket with a tinge of dread, suddenly started. "Eh? Err, well, yeah, I suppose," he lamely replied.

Akihiko looked at her as if to say; 'Using Misaki is low' but Aikawa fearlessly met his gaze with a triumphant smirk.

"Come on, Sensei! Work, work!" she ushered them both outside, into the searing heat of mid-July

It was quite possibly the worst heat-wave Misaki had ever experienced. Just stepping outside caused his tie to feel uncomfortably tight around his neck.

With more enthusiasm than usual, they hurried into Akihiko's car and turned the air-conditioning up to its highest setting. Aikawa leaned back against the cool leather with relish, lazily fanning herself and smiling with content. Misaki remembered how Akihiko looked at him in the rear-view mirror and asked him to roll down the windows at the back.

XX

White Jasmine Hotel was far larger and a thousand times more fanciful than anywhere Misaki had ever had the pleasure of staying at before. Every surface gleamed, and every door and lift came with a young man dressed in smart red suits to open them. Fountains and plants which seemed to belong in a tropical garden flourished; the reception area was a recreation of paradise.

"Whoa! This place is much bigger than that hotel we stayed in when you got your award!" Misaki cried, stupefied by the sheer dimensions of the halls. He rushed ahead like a bedazzled child, awed by the expensive paintings and furnishings decorating the wide hallway they walked down.

"Misaki, don't get lost," Akihiko called to him.

At his warning, Misaki turned around, pouting. "I'm not a kid, Usagi-san!" but this only caused Akihiko to smile and ruffle the hair he had spent the last hour impeccably trying to comb.

Upon entering the main hall, the loud blast of brass-band music hit them like a sack of bricks. It was loud and crowded; the kind of conditions Akihiko hated the most. Although he already had his 'business smile' plastered to his face, Misaki took note to watch him like a hawk for the slightest traces of annoyance that might slip past the facade.

He shared a glance with Aikawa, seemingly promising herself the same thing. They nodded at each other, sharing the mutual mission to keep their troublesome author out of any mess.

Yet despite the silent promise he had made to Aikawa, Misaki found himself being slowly separated from Akihiko by the lively tide of people passing this way and that. Once again, he found himself standing by the refreshments table, completely alone. These high class authors and poets and scriptwriters in their smart suits and beautiful dresses were all too unapproachable for him. It was as if they lived in a different world.

His eyes skimmed over the crowds as he gulped down fizzy grape juice with a passion. At one point, he almost thought he had seen Usami Haruhiko but that was impossible because -

A stream of purple spurted from his lips. Women in glittery dresses shot him horrified looks and hurried away.

Burning red, Misaki ducked around the other side of the table, his face conveniently hidden behind a five-tier cake of enormous proportions. There he poked his head around the side, just enough for him to get a good look at the back of Akihiko's brother.

What was he doing here? He wondered. As far as Misaki knew, he was not an author, poet or playwright, and he remembered Aikawa explicitly telling him that there would only be people from the literary field attending this party.

Never minding just what the man's business here was, Misaki leaned out a little further, trying to get a better look at the man.

He was currently talking to a woman. She was pretty. No, perhaps pretty was not quite the right word. Pretty was something little girls and young women were; this woman was no spring flower but she was beautiful in her own, mature way. There was an air of sophistication, of glamour, about her. She wore a white dress with fake blossom in her black hair. Although faint lines marked her eyes and around her mouth, she was lively enough to be a young girl and made avid gestures with her long, thin fingers as she talked.

"Misaki?"

"Ah! Usagi-san!"

The cake almost toppled when he jumped. Spinning around, his gaze met Akihiko's surprised face, though that expression quickly turned sour as Akihiko looked past him to his brother.

"Him!" he growled.

Misaki turned his attention to Haruhiko once more but, at some point, the woman had disappeared.

As though he could sense the venomous looks being showered upon him, Haruhiko happened to turn at the precise moment that Misaki stepped away from the cake. Their eyes met briefly and he began marching towards them.

Misaki's nerves spiked. He never knew what to say to Akihiko's brother or how to keep the peace between them but he was already coming their way and it was too late to run now.

"I thought you might be here," he spoke directly to Misaki, pointedly ignoring his brother, who smouldered with indignation.

Misaki felt Akihiko's hand grip his shoulder as if to claim ownership over him, though maybe it was simply protection. "What about you? Isn't this party for the debut of Mihara-sensei's new novel?" Akihiko's eyes narrowed, demanding to know just why he had to see his stupid brother when he had gone out of his way to attend this stupid party.

"Oh, you're here too," Haruhiko looked upon him with disdain.

"How have you been, Haruhiko-san?" Misaki asked, hoping that normal conversation could somehow induce the two brothers to be normal to each other. Or at least civil.

"You don't need to be polite to him," Akihiko said grudgingly.

"Fine," Haruhiko, ignoring his brother again, replied and the conversation screeched to a dead halt.

Five seconds of silence passed before Misaki had gathered himself enough to try again.

"Uh...so...that woman you were talking to was pretty. Like a mature beauty. I bet all women want to look like that when they get older," he spoke nervously, wondering whether he had chosen the right topic for conversation.

"That was Akihiko's mother."

He obviously had not.

"S – Seriously?!" he started, looking wildly at Akihiko for confirmation.

Haruhiko smiled faintly, though the light of his smile never reached his eyes. "Do you want to know what we talked about?"

"I'd rather not," Akihiko replied, and Misaki tried to ignore the waves of tension emitting from both sides.

They seemed, to Misaki's eyes, to be undergoing some strange form of non-verbal communication in which they conveyed their feelings of hatred and animosity towards each other by glaring into each other's eyes. Whoever the winner was, at length Akihiko gripped Misaki's hand, pulling him away from Haruhiko.

"U – Usagi-san? Wait, Usagi-san!" Misaki protested but he struggles were all futile. "Ah, it was nice meeting you again, Haruhiko-san!" he cried, glancing back at the silent man.

"Let's leave," Akihiko said as soon as they were far away from Haruhiko.

"What?"

"There's no point to this party. Let's leave."

Misaki frantically scanned the crowds for a sign of Aikawa. He could not abort the mission just like that! "Wait, you can't do that! Aikawa-san would be really mad, and besides you have to do things properly! You can't just go whenever you feel like it; people will be offended!" he cried.

"But I want to spend time with Misaki," Akihiko frowned, leading him into a relatively secluded corner of the room, partially hidden by the tall plants.

"You can spend time with me here!" he protested, slapping away the hand that went to grab his tie.

"Alone time with Misaki," he whispered.

"Usagi-san!" Misaki hissed as Akihiko intruded into his sphere of personal space. "Not here! People might see!"

Although, even he said those words, he was sure that they were too hidden and that everyone was too preoccupied by the party to really notice them. Even so, he was sure that Haruhiko was watching.

XX

Had Haruhiko been watching back then? He never really asked.

Misaki slipped into the backseat and shut the door, strapping himself in for the long ride. Isaka sat next to him, leaning back with a self-satisfied air, which made him feel slightly uncomfortable. Asahina, Isaka's secretary, was at the wheel, smiling faintly.

When he was asked if he had everything he needed, to which Misaki replied with a simple yes, the engine spluttered and they pulled out of the drive, making their way into the night streaked with blurring, burning lights.


And that's the end of chapter one. This is my first time trying this method. Basically, it's two timelines running at once; the current timeline and the one where Misaki recalls the past. However, I really like this style and I want to stick with it. So, good? No good?