Title: Memoirs of an Ill Akira
Summary: Akira's sick. Hikaru isn't.
Warnings: Somewhat excessive use of flashbacks, and mild shonen-ai.
Beta-ed by: Her royal awesomeness, Tsuki no Kimi.
Notes: You don't need to read Three to understand this—but I highly suggest you do so anyway, because it's genius.
There's also a portion of the story taken from the original. I rewrote it, but the credit goes entirely to the lovely Ontogenesis.
"Touya, why am I here again?" Hikaru asked, annoyed.
"I'm sick," Akira replied.
"And what does that have to do with me?"
"I probably caught this horrible cold from you. Besides, you owe me."
"I owe you?" the other boy scoffed, "Don't forget who saved that invitational on Saturday!"
"You didn't save the invitational—Waya did; you saw how those girls were falling over themselves to sing onstage when he offered."
"But I'm the singer, aren't I? Clearly, it was my good looks and charm that appealed to them."
"Be quiet, Shindo. I won't have room to breathe if your ego gets any more inflated," Akira snapped, insult greatly hindered by his raspy voice.
"Here's your medicine," Hikaru said, ignoring him.
"The good stuff?" Akira asked, echoing the other's comment from last week.
The bleach-blond grinned. "The good stuff," he affirmed.
-x—X—x-
Ohh, Akira thought, my fever's going up again. The dreams he had in this state tended to focus on him and Hikaru — no, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter, would you?
In any case, the dream he was having now was from when the two first met—which really wasn't that long ago.
Exhausted after dealing with obsessed fans, Akira fumbled with the lock on his door and entered his apartment. Tossing his jacket onto a nearby stand, he turned on the lights in the living room.
Just as he was about to sit down with the book he'd been trying to finish for the past week, there came a crashing sound in the direction of the kitchen.
"Crap," he heard someone mutter.
Getting up and walking into the room in question, Akira couldn't help but be surprised to see a person—bangs bleached; clothed in black—hurriedly shoving the pots and pans he'd disturbed back into place.
"Oh," the intruder said, noticing the death glare and straightening up, "Well. This is awkward."
Akira sniffed, in no mood for pleasantries. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Umm… I…" as the other male struggled for an explanation, Akira noticed that he couldn't have been much older than he himself was. Too bad, he thought dismissively, I'm still calling the police.
Moments later, they'd arrived.
"You're Touya Akira?" one of the officers asked.
Nodding an affirmative, he gestured in the direction of the kitchen. "There's the intruder over there,"
"Kid, how old're you?"
"Seventeen."
"Hmph, a minor. You got parents, kid?"
"The name's Shindo, and no, I don't—walked out on 'em a long time ago," he replied nonchalantly.
"Very well." The officer signaled the others to detain him. "You'll be coming with us."
"Do I have a choice?"
"No."
They left, and the house was quiet again.
Akira turned in his bed. Hikaru looked up from his copy of Shonen Jump, wondering if he should wake him up.
Deciding against it, the reluctant nursemaid tossed his magazine onto the bedside table and headed towards the kitchen. Behind him, Akira sighed heavily, brow furrowing slightly.
His current dream was about how Hikaru had become a part of the band.
Striding confidently through the doors of the auditorium at Kaio High, Akira settled down in a cushioned seat and clicked his pen open.
He was holding auditions to find a singer for his band (the old one had left to pursue a solo career), and the response had been immense—being the son of a famous rockstar had its perks sometimes. The room he was in was also perfect for this kind of thing, he noted, as it had lovely high ceilings, making for good acoustics.
His current band consisted of five members: Yoshitaka Waya, guitarist, Shinichiro Isumi, bassist, Yuta Fukui, drummer, Kosuke Ochi, soundman, and himself. He was the keyboardist—and unofficial 'mom' of the group; the others had apparently come to think of him as such due to his choice of clothing. Akira resented this, though, as he thought his fashion sense impeccable.
His mind flashed back to when Waya had unsuccessfully tried to explain to him that his color combinations were far from being 'impeccable'.
"Don't you get it, Touya?" he cried.
"Not at all. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wearing lavender argyle every once in while."
Waya groaned in frustration. "That's the problem! It's NEVER okay to wear lavender OR argyle—especially together!"
Calling in the last audition of the day, he asked for their name.
"Shindo Hikaru," came the reply. Akira looked up in shock.
"YOU!" Akira shouted, standing up and upsetting a table near him in the process, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
Waya jumped. "God, Touya, could you be any louder?" he complained, warily eying the acid-washed-jeans-wearing newcomer that could make even the notoriously calm Akira lose his cool.
The blond-banged boy smiled sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. "…fancy seeing you here," he commented.
"I thought they sent you to jail," he said through gritted teeth.
Jail? Hikaru racked his brains, coming to a conclusion.
"Oh, right—you're the guy whose apartment I broke into. Dude, you need to get new locks on your windows."
Akira was absolutely fuming now. "Just do whatever it is you're doing, dammit."
Grabbing the microphone, he sent Akira a mischievous grin, and proceeded to sing.
Akira sat there dumbfounded. Damn it all, he scowled, The delinquent's actually good.
Sighing in defeat, he reluctantly informed Hikaru that he had made it into the group.
And then, suddenly, an unrelated scene—dark walls in a dark room, Hikaru on the floor—
Akira woke up suddenly, jolting out of bed and causing his head to spin.
"Shindo—Shindo, where are you?" he cried, panicked.
Hikaru came back into the room. "Calm down, Touya, I'm right here," he soothed, eyes widened in worry.
Gradually Akira returned to his normal, impassive state, letting go of a bewildered Hikaru, and berating himself for letting his dreams get to him. "Sorry, Shindo. Bit of a nightmare."
"Sure, Touya," he replied, still scanning the black-haired boy for any sign of being unwell. "You want anything?"
"Tea, please."
"'Kay."
-x—X—x-
"Touya?"
"Hmm?" he sipped his tea.
"Remember what got us into the invitational in the first place?"
Akira closed his eyes. "How could I forget, Shindo? Waya nearly punched you out for that."
"Hey!" Hikaru defended, "Kaga and Mitani referred to my singing as screeching."
"Well, you can't really fault them for that; you do a decent amount of shrieking."
"Look, Touya, they had it coming, those two cocky sons-of-bitches—"
"You're just lucky we won."
A brilliant smile, tinged with sadness. "Yeah, I suppose I am lucky, huh?"
Akira frowned. Hikaru'd been like this lately, ever since he got over his cold—ever since they sang that duet at his apartment.
The third score wasn't Hikaru's handwriting, though—far from the singer's chicken scratch. The handwriting on this score was clean and elegant; arrangement much simpler than Hikaru's typical full band set.
It called for two singers, optional acoustic accompaniment, and Akira could hear the music in his mind, beautifully layered.
"It's great, isn't it?" Hikaru had said.
"Who wrote it?" Akira had asked. The piece was more than great, though. It was amazing—brilliant, even. There was no name on the score, and Akira didn't recognize it or the style—it'd never been published, and it certainly didn't belong to any of the musicians he knew.
Hikaru sighed, and turned to face his couch.
"There was a time…" he stopped, "No. It won't be published."
Akira looked back down at the paper in his hands. It was clearly a private piece, so personal that Hikaru wouldn't—or couldn't—share it. Was it between a teacher and student? Friends? Lovers?
One thing was certain, though: this piece was connected to Shindo leaving his family, and quite possibly his need to keep singing.
Akira smiled, remembering what had happened after Hikaru dropped off to sleep. He'd leaned just close enough to brush his lips across the other boy's mouth, and left soon after that.
Akira felt himself blushing slightly at the thought, and shook himself mentally to get the thoughts out of his head.
I couldn't possibly be attracted to Shindo — could I?