Triumvirate

((K POV))

I guess I was never really that thrown, finding out about Shuichi and that writer guy. Whatsisname...Yuki something, yeah. I know how it is. Always nice, in such a mind-fuckingly stressful industry, to have a little something waiting for you at the end of the day. So, if he needs some mean tightassed writer to give him a good one every night, then fine, it's all cool with me, so long as it works. And does it ever. Bad Luck're doing well. I'm making sure of that myself. I take good care of my artists, see. And if I happen to notice a lonely one, well, my wife's a long way away, plus she knows how it works anyway. I think she's seeing Ark at the moment. Good for them, he's a decent guy.

She found out a few years ago now, when...I think it was Nittle Grasper's second tour of the US, cause by then Tohma and Noriko were either engaged or married, the group weren't so dependent on each other anymore. Or at least, those two weren't. I ended up spending quite a few long evenings consoling poor, sweet, confused Ryuichi. He didn't quite understand why his friends weren't around anymore. I don't think he's ever really got that, actually. But it wasn't too long a shot from there to decide that him and his delicious little ass needed some more serious consolation. And nobody seemed to notice. Even if they had, well..don't get me wrong at all, I'm very fond of Ryu, but he's totally cracked. I'd say he's lost it, but to be honest I, like everyone else who knows him personally, doubt strongly that he ever had it in the first place. Sweet guy, but he's wild in the head. And whatta crazy fun screw, I mean, once you can get his mind down to business - probably a good idea to make sure he had his pills first, trust me - damn, he'll try anything, anytime, anywhere. Made touring a lot more interesting for the both of us; I'd go find one of those shops while he was rehearsing wherever we were, and then sneak back later and try out whatever I bought. Whoah. Fun time. Norkio was way pissed at me when she found out; she actually punched me. Didn't bother me that much, but it sure upset Ryu, and I guess that was what saved me from Noriko actually blowing a fuse and having me arrested or castrating me or something. Nobody'd had time that day to give him any meds, and seeing me take a full-on smack to the face quite unexpectedly.. I remember that he stared for a moment, then screamed in surprise or possibly confusion, hard to tell, and just fell on the floor and started crying. Noriko tried to keep me away from him, but by the time he'd been yowling at her for upwards of an hour and still not making any kind of sense, she gave in. I saw her back off. Ryu sat sniffling on the floor, too exhausted to run off, and didn't make any kind of protest as I picked him up easily, letting him bury his face in my shoulder and sob hysterically till he fell asleep. Noriko was still there, glaring at me as I left the room to put him to bed in the tour bus, and he felt so fragile and small as I laid him in one of the bunks that I nearly felt bad. Nearly. It was Noriko and Tohma's own fault, though. They were the ones who'd left Ryu alone, who'd forgotten to give him his pills, and who'd been too busy to see it until he'd said something to her that gave the whole thing away. Ah well. It wasn't ever really a relationship, and after Grasper went on hiatus it just got more and more sporadic. At least until he went to the States again. We got back together - well, fucking at least - again, then. Between times I'd been busy with other jobs, and he'd been in and out of every "private rest home" in what seemed like the entire damn country, so we had a lot of catching up to do. And did we hell. First time I've ever railed someone doggy style in a maintainance closet fifteen minutes before the lights went on for showtime.

Still, when I brought him back to Tokyo, I got invited up to Tohma's office and asked politely (yeah, right, like the guy wouldn't have me conveniently dumped in a river in Siberia if I didn't do as he said) to break it off with Ryu. I shrugged and said we weren't really in any kind of relationship. Tohma just raised an eyebrow at me and said it straight up:

"Well then, it shouldn't be any trouble for you to keep yourself out of his pants from now on then, hmm, K?" I glared at Tohma. The damn little gnome was looking at me expectantly. A thought struck me.

"Why, is three a crowd, or something?" He froze for a moment, then shook his head. Not that it would've surprised me. After all, Ryu may be some very pretty dynamite, but he's not so good with the idea of a relationship. It's beyond him. Free love, or something.

"...Not like that. Just stop screwing Ryu. It's not good for him. You've been transferred over to another project, anyway, and I want your attention on that right now. Am I clear?" I just nodded. And turned to leave. And stopped. There were eyes on my ass and that created an option I hadn't given much thought to.

I turned around too quickly for Tohma to look away, and he knew he'd been caught looking. The ice bitch king of N-G records was blushing. I grinned, tossed my gun to one side, and grabbed him. I could tell he didn't mind when the buzzer for Security remained un-pressed, and I knew for sure he liked it when he broke off for a moment to tell the secretary - via intercom - to hold all calls for an hour. I wasn't too attracted to him, really, but he wasn't ugly and anyway, this was business, not pleasure. I fucked him bent over backwards on his own desk, and didn't even really notice that he kept calling me Eiri. He pulled on my hair, though, which I didn't like; Ryu never pulled my hair. Not when he was feeling sane, anyway. But it was afterwards that the real fucking got done with Tohma, I guess. We'd finished and were nearly out of time, and I made sure to kiss him hard once more before leaving - chicks like that, and he's close enough - but he just smiled at me and told me over the desk, straightening his papers and tucking in his shirt, that I was still going on to the new project and expected to leave Ryu alone. I could've killed Tohma just then, but I didn't. Somehow I managed to stalk out of the office and go home. I guess I was too tired for GBH; I'd learned that a business fuck has to be a convincing fuck, so I'd given him pretty much all I'd got. Still hadn't worked, though. Damndamndamn. What a conniving little shit Tohma is.

So then I got turfed to the Bad Luck project, and luckily Ryu was so distracted by having a new friend to sing with that he hardly noticed me keeping away from him. We managed a few quick passing clutches, a couple of lunch-break shags in maintainance closets, and nobody ever thought anything of me slapping him on the backside occasionally, cause I'd always done that. But gradually we toned things down and I got settled in with my new band, Bad Luck. And everything was fine.

That was, until Akaya dumped Hiroshi. See, I hadn't had to console anyone in my new band - which I was kinda disappointed about, cause even if they weren't Ryu, they were three hot little properties. But to begin with, they'd all been with someone. Shuichi of course had his angsty writer boyfriend; Hiroshi had some shy girl called Akaya who turned out to be a bitch; and Suguru...well, for looking such a studious type, he had a long string of boys and girls, though he only ever hooked up with the blondes more than once. I figured it ran in the family. And then one evening we were out on tour and I found Hiroshi skulking in the bus glaring at his cellphone. I asked what had happened. Turned out Akaya had dumped him. Over the phone. For no real reason. He was pretty devastated, and by that I mean both pretty and devastated. So I led him outside and we sat under a tree and drank and bitched in a sorta manly way. But by the time I'd got him good and drunk and the sun was down, he'd gotten miserable, so I leaned back on the tree, and patted my leg invitingly as he rolled over onto his belly. He blinked at me dumbly for a moment, then crawled into my lap and sat there snuffling. Hardly thinking about it, I reached down one hand and started petting his hair. He tensed up for about a split second and then leaned right into it, even nuzzling at my hand to carry on when something slammed against the other side of the tree and I looked up in surprise.

"Hey!" There'd been noises from behind the tree, which Hiroshi was too far gone to notice, but they stopped on hearing my voice. A dark head leaned around the tree, and I frowned; it looked like..Shuichi's guy, Yuki, but with dark hair and eyes. And monk robes. And, I saw as it emerged further from around the tree, it was carrying in its arms one very drunk person. One petite, familiar very drunk person whose enormous blue eyes stared at me from under sweat-mussed olive bangs. He laughed and waved, hanging on to the monk by one hand clutching his robe collar, and both legs wrapped around his waist.

"Heeeeeeeeeey K! Hehehe, this's...um...Tats-kun, na no da!" I smiled.

"Cool. And hey, you know Hiroshi, right, Ryu-chan?" He nodded so enthusiastically that "Tats-kun" had to be stronger and better balanced than he looked, because neither of them ended up on the floor. The monk looked at me irritably though.

"Hey, Ryu-chan, they took my favourite makeout spot.." As I expected, Ryu, ever-clueless, squeaked in surprise and turned to scrutinise me again.

"Oh! Are you making out with Hiro, na no da? Cooool! Though I think he's pretty drunk na no da." I shrugged, responding to the incessant, demanding nuzzle at my shoulder by starting to pet the guitarist's hair again.

"I think you're pretty drunk too, Ryu-chan," I told him. He giggled. The monk's hands seemed to be doing something that'd started off as a tickle and somehow morphed into a grope.

"...Hey, Ryu, is the bus free?"

"It's free," I assured him. Ryu didn't seem too able to answer at that point; apparently the monk had found that spot at the base of his neck which drives him crazy when you lick it. They didn't need any more telling, and vanished into the tour bus, the monk luckily having enough foresight to close the door behind them. I shook my head and turned back to Hiroshi, smiling; he was frowning at me faintly, confused.

"...Uh...K...who the hell w's that?" I shook my head.

"Doesn't matter." He seemed to agree, and as I started petting his hair again, he made a kind of purring noise and pressed up against me. So that was how things were? I grinned. I had to. I was there and happy, my kinda-ex in apparently good hands for the night, and a totally drunk, taut-bodied nineteen-year-old was giving every sign of wanting me in his pants. Always considering the needs of my band, like any good manager, I dropped my beer bottle and ran both hands down his sides to rest on the slim, bony hips his low-slung leather jeans just left exposed. His lovely long hair tickled my shoulders and neck as he leaned towards me more, making a little noise of surprise as I turned both of us over, leaving him between me and the tree. That didn't seem to put him off at all, though, and he made come-and-get-me eyes at me through his fringe. I obliged, and leaned down to kiss him forcefully, using the tip of my tongue to pry at his mouth for entrance. He parted his lips obediently. Alcohol smoothed things along and by the time we'd stopped for breath twice, I got my own thigh up between his and pushed his legs apart. I think at least one of his hands was on my ass. Taking the initiative, as usual, I paused for a breather, slipped both hands down his pants, and set to work. Apparently he liked it, and began wriggling his hips up against me, all the time meowing for more attention. I happily gave it to him. Experience really does pay off, see, and shafting sweet Ryu-chan minimum once a week for the last five or so years had got me all the practice I could ask for. The warm night worked into a damp sticky sweat, and I could feel Hiroshi's hot breath panting across my ear every time the kissing paused. God he was sexy, and unlike Tohma, we both knew how to get names right.

The next morning we'd somehow staggered back into the bus - even if it did have an odd mixture of the monk's robes and Ryu's leathers and jeans thrown everywhere, it had beds and that was better than sleeping outdoors - and woke up in a lower bunk. He had my shirt on, I had nothing except a small handgun-brace around my right ankle. Hiroshi was not awake, dozing on my chest with his arms curled around my neck. Cute. I sighed indulgently and looked around; Shuichi was sprawled out on the couch, his bubblegum-pink hair spread like a halo in his blonde boyfriend's lap; Yuki was managing to look pissed off even in his sleep. In the bunk opposite, I could see Suguru and Nameless Blonde no. 39, gender unknown, in the top; the lower bunk was occupied by a peacefully reclining "Tats-kun", wearing little if anything at all and holding a paper cup of coffee in his free hand, the other arm possessively clutching the smaller body curled around him, mostly hidden under the monk's robe, although I could see a very familiar mop of olive-green hair towards the top end. "Tats-kun" saluted me wearily with his coffee cup, grinning. I nodded to him and smirked, then turned back to Hiroshi as he began to stir, foxy eyes blinking up at me hazily.

"...Uh, K...? What the - oh..." He was catching on, slowly. I could see his mind go through the process, and to help it, I moved a little to make him more comfortable and tightened the arm around his waist reassuringly. He stopped tensing and sighed, smiling at me.

"Sleep well?" I asked. He tried to nod, but settled for burying his face in my chest instead when he found nodding impossible.

"Mm.."

"D'you mind this?" I lifted my arms a little and then dropped them again, to demonstrate what "this" was.

"No." He sounded comfortingly definite about that.

"Good." I hugged him, momentarily, to no protest whatsoever. "I thought you needed cheering up, after...Akaya-chan.." He made some sound that could've been a muffled laugh.

"She didn't know how to do things like you. That's the part I remember." I shifted, tangling our legs together; he wriggled slightly but didn't complain.

"Good." There was quiet for a few seconds. Then he moved to look up at me again.

"Hey...is this serious?" I lowered my eyebrows a bit.

"In what way?" He looked uncertain.

"Like..was that a mercy fuck, or can we take it somewhere?" I shrugged; I hadn't thought of that.

"Do you want to take it somewhere?" He nodded, making big eyes at me, all anxious. "Okay then. We'll see where it'll go." He nodded, smiling. Then everyone else started to wake up.

And that's how things have ended up, really. Hiro lives with me now, which was one of the places it went, it being our relationship. The only major argument we ever had was when I said something about it being third time lucky, not remembering he speaks English well enough to understand and get mad. So I had some explaining to do. But he didn't mind once I'd told him, so it's okay now. The band's working fine; Shuichi's still hanging on to his Yuki for dear life; Suguru's making it work with Nameless Blonde no. 42, for this month anyway; Tohma's still a catty little bitch, still married and still leering after Yuki at every turn; and when Bad Luck's out on tour, I often as not get to check up on Tatsuha, that damn lucky sonofabitch monk who finally won over the one and only Sleepless Beauty. Ryu's happy with him, so it's okay by me, though he's as crazy as ever and always wants to sing with Shuichi. And me, I have my new sexy lover to console. One of our favourite games is to pretend like Akaya just dumped him...again and again and again.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Yayness. feather-duster is a big fan of KxHiro. But feather-duster also loves Ryu-chan. And Tatsuha. Hence, they all sneaked in here, and somehow brought Tohma, Shuichi, Yuki and Suguru along too. Ah, well. All that matters is that the bishounen are hooking up with each other. Right guys?

...Right?

feather-duster is shoved in front of a car by Tohma. Yuki can be seen behind the wheel of said car, cackling manically as K shoots the deceased corpse with an AK-47 and the rest of the cast cheer.

Maybe not.