Title: Oh, for the Love of…

By: Kibethan! W00t! Me!

Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned Gravitation, I would NOT be painting my house :twitches:

Summary: A guardian angel just short of losing his wings with nothing going for his favor. How, oh how is Yuki going to get himself out of this one? Especially when his colleagues and enemies have seemingly joined forces against him.

Warning: Oh, I'm going to go out on a limb here and warn you about some swearing that does happen.

Chapter 1

You have GOT to be kidding me

Some things just don't make any sense. For instance, buying something incredibly expensive, say, a leather jacket, and paying for it entirely with change. Why would anybody do that when it would make way more sense to just pay with bills, or better yet, a card?

How about another example? Putting sliced cheese –cheddar, of course- on top of toast that already had peanut butter riding on top of it. A few of you reading this I'm sure wrinkled your noses in disgust. Only pregnant women would want something like that. Exactly. It's something that just doesn't make sense.

For those of you who are slightly confused still, let me put it in another way that you just might understand a little bit better.

Yuki Eiri as a guardian angel.

It-it just doesn't make any sense. He was an absolutely horrible person when he was alive. He was always writing and he never cared about anybody except himself. Why –oh, why- would anybody appoint him a position that had some responsibility for somebody else? Especially when that responsibility involved the other person's safety?

Nobody, not even his fellow angels could understand what Yuki had done to deserve such a respected title. They had even taken it up with the head honcho, but for some reason –definitely unknown to them- he didn't listen to them, and didn't change Yuki's job.

It's not as though the other angels didn't have reasons for complaint, either. Yuki was an absolutely horrible guardian angel. Out of his last four charges, he had managed to ruin a marriage ("He really loved her! So what if she was already married?"), not stop a teenager from having sex, which, ultimately led to the teenage girl being pregnant ("Hey, I was taught it couldn't happen on the first time!"), not prevent an all too violent death ("Okay, so making sure that he didn't drive after he had drunken some alcohol probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do…"), and had completely neglected his last one, resulting in the person becoming too overwhelmed by life and committing suicide…with a bath towel. ("How the hell did he manage to do that anyway?")

To any other angel it would mean complete expulsion and immediate removal of wings. Yet, as was said before, Yuki was still there. It puzzled and confused them to no end. But, to Yuki's delight, they couldn't do anything about it.

Yuki knew that he was being a bad guardian angel. Hell, he even felt a little bit of remorse over their deaths; he did get a little attached to them, but he just could not put in any more effort.

It would cut into his writing time.

Meanwhile…

"We have to do something about him! If he neglects his duties any more, more people will die!" a guardian angel known as Sakano ranted to his fellow angels. "I've had it up to here," Sakano gestured one of his hands over his head, "with Yuki not doing anything! Why does he get the luxury of not being a perfect angel?"

"Sakano, you do realize that the people would die anyway, right?" another angel named K remarked. Sakano turned and glared at him.

"I would expect you to say something like that, K-san! I mean, how many of your people have had extremely bad things happen to them? Ten? Twenty?"

"Three. Not as many as Yuki's had done, by the way. Besides, most of it wasn't my fault anyway…"

Like Yuki, K had a problem keeping the people that he was watching over safe. One more big mistake and he would be losing his wings, which was definitely not something that he wanted to happen to him.

"Stop taking your anger out on K-san, Sakano-san!" an angel named Ryuichi remarked. "It isn't his fault that Yuki is a lazy old duffer!"

"ANYWAY!" the last angel present –Noriko, was her name- interrupted before the arguing continued any longer. "What are we going to do about it? We've tried talking to Hah, but he completely ignored us, remember?"

"What if we tackle Yuki down and forcibly remove his wings with a machete?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Are you absolutely sure you're supposed to be an angel, let alone a guardian angel, K-san?" Noriko asked incredulously. K nodded, his long blond hair –up in a ponytail- moving up and down.

"I have an idea," Sakano said, breaking his silence.

"Does it involve going to Hah like all of your other ideas?" Ryuichi asked him with an innocent grin on his face.

A vein throbbed on Sakano's forehead. "No, as a matter of fact it does not!" Sakano aimed his best withering glare at Ryuichi. "Yuki is getting a new charge soon, right?" The three other angels nodded. "Well, what if we make his job absolutely hell? We're angels; I think we can arrange a few bad things to happen to his newest charge."

"Are you crazy!" Noriko asked. "That's the fastest way to lose your wings!"

"But it's also the fastest way for Yuki to lose his. After a while, when Hah sees what's happening to the person that Yuki's supposed to be watching after, Hah will quickly demote him!"

"Um, what if Yuki actually tries to make sure that nothing bad happens to his newest?" one of the angels asked.

"Don't make me laugh. Yuki wouldn't practice responsibility even if his mother's life depended on it."

"Or even if he was about to lose his wings."

"Exactly, we won't have a single problem getting Yuki demeaned. Nope, we'll have not one single problem. Yuki just doesn't care enough!"

Somewhere, in a completely different place:

Yuki sat at his desk quietly typing on his laptop. His latest story was coming out fantastically well. Even as an angel Yuki could be found writing; he found that it was his greatest passion. He could produce heavenly stories that were only fit for the Gods.

Well, okay, so they couldn't actually be printed down on Earth and the Gods were the only people who could read them (besides the angels that is). But, as far as he was concerned, they were absolutely magnificent. All of the reviews that had been written for his last book had marked it as one of the greatest books of the century.

A knock sounded on his door as he finished typing a sentence. Slightly confused he stood up, ready to answer the door. Hardly anybody ever came to see him. In fact, the person who came to see him was-

Yuki opened the door.

-Hiro.

"Hello, Mr. Head Angel. What brings you all the way over to my neck of the woods?"

"I found you a new person to watch over." If Yuki had been holding anything he would have dropped it. Whatever he was holding would have fallen to the floor with a loud thump. In fact, if you listened hard enough you would've been able to hear Yuki's jaw as it dropped to the floor.

"Why? Who? Was somebody born?" he asked, questions spitting out of his mouth at a million miles an hour.

"Oh no," Hiro explained, "I relieved the guardian angel that was protecting this particular person from her duty after she asked –well, okay, begged- me to give him to somebody else."

"So it's a guy I'm going to be watching?"

"Yep, his name is Shuichi and he's always accidentally getting himself into some kind of trouble, according to his records. Poor Mitsuko. She had quite a hard time keeping up with him and all of the trouble that he keeps getting into. Bless her heart, she really did like him, but she showed up on my doorstep a couple of days ago, her hands presenting me with her harp. I refused it, but I did grant her wish of not watching after Shuichi anymore."

"Why would you give somebody who needs so much help to me? You know what happens to the people that get put with me."

"Exactly. That's why this is your chance –your last chance- to redeem yourself. If you don't get Shuichi threw his life without absolutely terrible things happening to him, then I will strip you of all your powers and kick you out of this posh establishment to which you have settled yourself in. I'm warning you, Yuki. You will be degraded, forced to watch from the sidelines for all eternity. I say again, this is your last chance. You start tomorrow." With an elegant flair that only a head angel wearing his or her long, flowing, white gown could possess, Hiro turned around and left Yuki standing at his door.

Yuki turned his head and glanced into the living room where his harp was being proudly displayed. To have that harp was to have some of the highest prestige that was offered in the heavens. For Mitsuko to have been trying to willingly give it up…exactly how bad was this Shuichi character?

Unable to continue writing because he was so worried, Yuki turned off his laptop. He wanted, no needed, to satisfy his curiosity about how troublesome Shuichi was going to be. He threw on a cleaner pair of pants, not bothering to throw on a shirt. It was always easier to fly without a shirt on because the wings are able to come out of his back unhindered.

That's the thing about wings is that they're not always showing. They can only come out when the angel wants them to, and generally the angel doesn't want them out unless he or she is going to be flying.

Yuki hadn't flown for a while –well, since his last person had committed suicide- but he was going to have to fly to get to Earth.

Locking his door, Yuki walked down the street, determined to find Shuichi.

'Come on out, wings,' Yuki thought. Two humongous shimmering white wings erupted out of Yuki's back, the feathers fluttering as a small breeze went through them. Yuki sighed; he'd forgotten how good it felt to have his wings out.

His wings beat twice, lifting him into the air. Flying in a couple of wide circles, Yuki finally decided to go and do what he was planning on doing: spying on Shuichi.

He reached Earth fairly simply; the only problem he had had was he ended up having to avoid a couple of birds that had gotten in his way. No problem though.

Angels are invisible to people unless they don't want to be and at the moment, Yuki most definitely wanted to be; it felt great to have his wings out. After flying for ten minutes he realized that he had quite a problem for trying to find Shuichi.

One, he didn't know where Shuichi lived. Two, he didn't know what Shuichi looked like. And three, well, he just didn't know Shuichi at all. He didn't know the kinds of things that Shuichi would be doing, or where he would be hanging out.

Yep, it was quite a problem to be sure.

Some loud shouting below him interrupted his thoughts. He turned his head down and saw a pink haired boy running towards a group of ne'er-do-wells.

"Please! Let me be your friend!" the boy shouted loudly, grabbing the attention of the leader of the group. The group leader took one look at the boy and laughed.

"Why would we want to be friend with you? You're just a freak with no friends." The leader taunted. The pink haired boy paid no attention.

"Please! I'll do anything! I want friends!" the boy sounded so pathetic, even to Yuki. He momentarily forgot that he was searching for Shuichi and continued on watching what the kids were going to do.

"Anything, eh? If you're really willing to do anything, follow me." And the boy did follow him, as did Yuki. It was like watching an exciting story unfold.

The group led the boy to a train trestle. "Just walk over that, and you can be our friend," the leader explained. The boy nodded diligently and ran over to the trestle. Checking both ways, he cautiously stepped onto the tracks. With every step he took he became more and more surefooted, eventually running.

Yuki watched as it all happened, not bothering to even try to help and protect him. After all, there was no way that this person was Shuichi and he would have his own guardian angel to protect him. Surely any second now he would see his guardian angel pop out of nowhere and make sure that nothing bad happened to the teen.

The boy started running faster and faster over the bridge. A loud rumbling noise started shaking the ground and Yuki watched as a train started towards the bridge. The boy heard the noise and looked over his shoulder. His eyes went wide when he saw the train come towards him. He started sprinting, but it didn't look like he would make it.

Any second now the kid's guardian angel would pop up.

Any second now…

Yep, it'll be here soon…

It became quite apparent that the teen's guardian angel was not going to show up. Yuki swooped down and grabbed the teen out of the way right as the train went blowing past. The boy's eyes went wider in surprise when he thought he felt something pull him out of the way, but he shook his head, quickly dislodging such thoughts. His breathing was ragged and quick as he tried to slow down his quickly beating heart.

The train went by, not aware at all of the accident that it almost had. As soon as the train had finished going by, the teen stood up, a bit shakily, and walked back over the trestle towards the gang.

"I did it! I walked over it! Now can I be your friend? I want friends so badly!"

"You didn't walk about it, you ran. You're still not our friend." The smile that had been on the pink haired boy's face dropped right off his face.

"Please? Let me try again! I can do it!"

The leader of the group shook his head.

"No, Shuichi, you're still as much as a loser as you were before." They turned and walked away.

Yuki stood there in shock. Was this…the person he was going to have to look after? Yuki watched as the boy –Shuichi apparently- started running after the group. He tripped over a branch and fell onto the ground. After a minute, he picked himself back up and tried running after them again. Yet, again, he tripped and fell down. Yuki briefly wondered where Shuichi's clumsiness was coming from. Was the surefooted Shuichi the real Shuichi? Or was this clumsy oaf the real one? He didn't even know if this was the Shuichi he was supposed to be watching after.

As before, Shuichi picked himself back up. He took two more steps before he fell down again.

Yuki's head ran back to the conversation that he'd had with Hah earlier and the person who was in front of his certainly fit the description.

Shuichi picked himself off the ground, yet again and walked four full steps before he tripped over yet another branch and fell towards the ground.

"Oh, for the love of…" Yuki muttered under his breath.

End Chapter 1

Anybody spot the glaringly obvious reference to Hide? And just so you know, Hah Head Angel Hiro. Oh yes! I'm not abandoning Blindsided! Just thought I'd work on something else for a change!

So, what did you think?

Like? No like? Leave me a review telling me whether or not I should continue this story. Remember, the more reviews the better!