Disclaimer: Don't own Gravitation or any of its crazy characters and I don't want to either. I'm just here to play.

A/N: I read a wonderful story by Sailor chibi called Shining Affections which I totally recommend. It inspired me to write this story. I just adore the Shuichi/Ryuichi pairing. I put their ages a little closer together, but not much. Ryu is still like 10 years older than Shu in the timeline.

Broken Promise

Chapter 1

Shuichi sat there, staring out the window at the endless blue water below him. He was so excited he thought he would jump out of his seat any moment. I can't believe I'm finally going to see him again. After two years. He looked at his watch and groaned. Another three hours. I should have taken the ambien Hachiro offered me and then I could have slept and suddenly woken up in San Diego. Oh well. It doesn't matter. As long as I get to him, it's worth the wait.

He closed his eyes and smiled, remembering his boss's shocked expression when he told him his new assignment a week ago.

"Are you serious! Yes! Oh yes!"

Shuichi wrapped his arms around his editor's neck and squeezed tight while jumping up and down. Anybody who knew him from his early days in music would recognize this as a return to old habits. But he'd dropped that behavior years ago so onlookers thought he'd gone insane.

"Shuichi. Shuichi! Let go damn it!"

The older man managed to extricate himself from his gleeful writer and safely secure himself behind his desk.

"I'm glad to see you're happy with the assignment. Hachiro will be accompanying you for the photos and you'll be there for three days so make the most of it."

Shuichi slumped down into a chair, his happy face starting to fade.

"Three days? Only three?"

"You shouldn't need more time than that and we have deadlines to meet."

"Well….can I stay longer? Maybe take that vacation you've been after me to take?"

His boss narrowed his eyes and sat back to study the man before him. Shuichi was his best writer and the young man worked his ass off, only taking two vacations since starting to work for the magazine four years ago. And yes, he had been on Shuichi to take a vacation only a week ago. It's one of the reasons he gave him this assignment. It would get him out and away from everything. Plus, he had a former relationship with Ryuichi Sakuma so he seemed the logical choice.

"How long would you be gone?"

Shuichi shrugged. "I don't know. Three for the assignment and another……seven for myself? Maybe eight depending on travel time."

"Hmmmm. You'll have to email the article to me."

"Done."

"And you'll have to pay for the extra days at the hotel."

"Of course."

"You you'll still have to check your email to approve the photos."

"Ok."

"And you'll have to promise to have a good time."

Shuichi smiled. "Guaranteed."

Guaranteed. Yes, he would definitely have a good time. How could you not with Ryu? And his boss was even happier to find out the company wouldn't have to put out for a hotel. When Shuichi called Ryuichi to give him the good news, the man had insisted that Shuichi and Hachiro stay with him.

"I can't wait. This is gonna be great."

"You've been saying that for the past week."

Shuichi looked over to see Hachiro reclined in his seat, eye mask on and magazine clutched to his chest. Out of all the photographers, Shuichi liked Hachiro the best. He was only two years older than Shuichi, easygoing and went along with any crazy ideas Shuichi had. He was creative and always managed to see beauty in things that other people would dismiss.

"That's because it's true."

"So what's with you and this guy? Is he the one you were in love with when you were a kid?"

"No. That was Eiri Yuki. Ryuichi has been my idol since I was thirteen. I wanted to be just like him and when I broke into music, we became rivals of sorts. But he left performing behind two years after I broke into music."

"So you guys became friends, huh?"

"Yeah. We were both a lot different back then. We were both crazy as hell."

Shuichi chuckled and shook his head, lost in memories of dressing in animal costumes and gorging on ice cream and wreaking havoc in general.

"But if you still keep in touch, why do you have such a hard on to see this guy?"

"I do not have a hard on for Ryuichi!"

"Sir? Could you lower your voice please?"

Shuichi's cheeks burned bright crimson at the smiling flight attendant. He glanced around the plane at the mix of frowns and sheepish grins aimed at him.

"Oh, huh, yeah, sorry about that."

Hachiro peeked out from under his eye mask, his trademark smirk in place.

"Boy, don't I feel embarrassed for making such an assumption."

"Asshole."

Hachiro put the mask back down and seemed to snuggle back further into his seat.

"I love first class." He sighed contentedly. "Ok. So answer my question. Why the excitement?"

"We mostly email back and forth because of our schedules. We usually try to talk around the holidays, but I haven't spent any real time with him since he moved to America four years ago. We saw each other at a benefit and he came home to visit for a week three years ago, but I only got to see him for half a day."

"I see. So who's the Eiri guy?"

"That's my ex. I met him when I was seventeen."

"So what happened between you two?"

"Why are you so nosy all of a sudden?"

"Because I know you need a distraction and if you can't find one you'll bug me so if you're going to bug me, I might as well talk about something I want to talk about. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough." Shuichi smiled at Hachiro, reminded once again why he liked the photographer so much. "Ok. So Yuki and I had a rocky relationship to put it mildly but I was young and stupid and in love and he was….well he was Yuki and we won't get into that right now. We were together, off and on for I'd say about three years."

"That's a lot of 'off and on' Shuichi."

"Like I said, 'young and stupid and in love'. Anyway, we finally broke up because I wanted to go to college and get a writing degree."

"What? Did he want to keep you 'stupid'?"

"No. He didn't believe in me. He told me to stick with looking pretty and singing because that's what I was good at and me going to school was a joke."

"Sounds like a prick to me."

Shuichi chuckled. "Yeah, that's usually the word used to describe Yuki. 'Heartless bastard' was always my favorite. Anyway….so I left Yuki and got my own place and enrolled in college part time to earn my writing degree."

"Which you never earned."

"Yes I did! I just never made a big deal about it. I went out to celebrate with my sister and Hiro, but I figured that since I was already employed as a writer, it wasn't that important."

Hachiro blindly reached out and smacked Shuichi in the face.

"Ow!"

"Of course it's important Shuichi. It's your education." Hachiro lifted up the corner of his eye mask again and watched Shuichi rub his cheek. "Congratulations by the way."

"Gee, thanks."

Hachiro saw the frown on his friend's face and he removed the eye mask and sat up, turning slightly to face Shuichi. He playfully bumped the writer's shoulder, but Shuichi just shied away.

"Hey, I know what will put a smile on your face." He saw violet eyes watching him suspiciously. He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "Ryuichi Sakuma."

Shuichi managed to fight off the smile that threatened to break free for a total of five seconds.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Shuichi, wait up!"

Hachiro grumbled as he made his way off the plane in the crowd of people, carrying his camera bags and the writer's laptop which he forgot in his haste to exit the plane. When he made it out of the tunnel and into the actual airport, he looked around for Shuichi but he was nowhere to be found. Just great. He ditched me.

Suddenly a scream could be heard from down the hall and Hachiro rushed to see what caused the commotion. He approached a small gathering of people and as they disbursed, he saw Shuichi straddling a man on the floor, arms raised in the air triumphantly.

"Shuichi! What are you doing!"

"Hachiro, this is Ryuichi. Ryu, this is Hachiro."

The smiling man under Shuichi lifted his hand and Hachiro accepted it, shaking hands.

"Nice to meet you Hachiro. Don't get mad at Shu. I did this to him all the time years ago. He's just getting me back."

"Damn right."

Shuichi stood up and offered Ryuichi a hand up, then grabbed his laptop from Hachiro.

"Thanks. Are we ready to go?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

To be continued…