Disclaimer: Not mine...obviously

A/N: Drama verse of course.

Chapter One

Twenty-three.

She looked at him, batting her eyelashes. Her tantalizing giggle told Soujiroh she was number twenty-three. His finger tips danced up her arm as his smile made a million promises he had no intention of keeping. His whispered words sent chills through her body. He leaned forward, his lips barely caressing her ear as he whispered.

"Ichi-go ichi-e."

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Rui and Makino walked behind them already deep in their own conversation, probably discussing who last heard from Tsukasa. Though, Akira often wondered if Rui had really given up on her. With Tsukasa gone out of the country for who knew how many years really, Akira was willing to bet the fight for her affections was not over, even with the ring on her finger.

The girl walking next to him was quiet, lost in her own world with a subtle smile on her delicate face. Akira knew where her mind was, where her heart was. It was always with him and Soujiroh was a fool to ignore it. Any idiot could see what this young woman would do for him. She was doing everything she could to turn herself into a woman befitting Nishikado Soujiroh. And Akira would watch his friend pacify her with smiles and false hope in one moment while running from her in the next moment as if she were some disease determined to bring him to his knees.

Yuki was Soujiroh's stopping point and he just wasn't ready to face that. Akira wondered if he ever would be.

Akira saw them first and cringed on the inside at what the vision would do to Yuki, but it wasn't the first time such a scene was thrust upon her.

The black car was parked, the driver waiting for its passenger. Soujiroh had the young woman pressed against the car. She giggled as Soujiroh's fingertips caressed her neck and his eyes danced with the mischievousness of what he had already done.

"Hey! Soujiroh!"

Akira called out to get his attention. When Soujiroh turned slightly to look at his friend, Akira's eyes shifted to Yuki as if telling Soujiroh he wasn't alone. Through the black hair that had fallen in his eyes, Soujiroh glanced at Yuki and then scowled at Akira. What did it matter if Yuki was there? She knew what he was like; she was even warned. It wasn't his fault she simply wouldn't give up. Soujiroh turned back to the young woman and kissed her fingertips gently as he opened the car door for her.

"He will drive you where you need to go," he said. "I'll call."

Akira's eyes shifted back to Yuki. It was too late. She was already stepping back slightly, as if to hide in the shadows of the friends around her. It wasn't the first time Akira had witnessed such a reaction. When faced with the many women Soujiroh was with, she often seemed to shrink away. She wasn't like the others.

She could never compare to those women and deep down she regretted that. Yuki blinked at the scene before her. She couldn't help but wonder if that would be the girl he'd put on his bike with him. She didn't want to be there. Being there, watching him with her was like forcing her to compare herself to that woman. Yuki looked away. She knew in comparison she was nothing more than a little girl with a crush. At least, that was how Soujiroh would see it.

The car pulled away, revealing Soujiroh's motorcycle parked behind it. He stepped from the curb, his eyes on Akira as if trying to communicate something.

"Hello, Nishikado-san!"

Yuki jumped forward, her bright smile trying to hide the stabbing she felt in her heart. She blinked, hoping no tears would fall. It was best when facing him to pretend nothing had just happened, to play ignorant. Soujiroh's lips quirked up slowly into a smile that sent her heart a flutter.

"Yuki-chan," he said with a slight bow of his head.

Her smile grew wider and her face lit up even brighter as if that one smile held all her hopes. She turned and grabbed Makino's arm, linking their arms together as they moved forward ahead of the guys. Rui and Akira stood there looking at each other and then at Soujiroh.

"What?" Soujiroh noticed the looks he was getting.

"What are you doing?"

Soujiroh's face turned sour at Akira's question. It was this again. He shook his head.

"I'm not getting into this with you again, Akira. She knows what I am. I have no claim on her and she has none on me. There is nothing between us and she knows it."

Rui shook his head and looked ahead at the girls as he began to follow them. Akira still stood there looking at Soujiroh as if seeing him in a different light.

"You keep giving her hope, Soujiroh. How is that fair? After everything she does to try to meet your standards…"

"Then," Soujiroh interrupted. "Perhaps I should just disappear from her sight."

"Perhaps you should," Akira said as he past Soujiroh to catch up with Rui.

Rui had stopped walking and was watching his two friends. It wasn't like Akira to get upset. He was always the peacemaker. Ahead of Rui, the girls had stopped and turned. The bright smile on Yuki's face was starting to fade as she looked between Soujiroh and Akira. Something was going on there, she just didn't know what. Whatever it was seemed to have passed as Akira caught up with Rui and Soujiroh soon followed.

They were only thirty minutes into the movie before Yuki's mind began to wander from the story line to the F4 member to her right. Before the movie was over, she would have his profile memorized. The changing light of the movie screen gave him a luminescent quality. The memory of his every line would be burned into her memory and heart.

Soujiroh suddenly shifted in his seat, gently moving a piece of hair back from his face. Yuki turned to see what the sudden movement was about. His eyes were not on the movie screen nor were they on her, but then they rarely were. On the other side of the row they sat in was a girl sitting with her friend giggling. It was Soujiroh's typical type, beautiful, thin; Yuki shook her head and looked away as Soujiroh winked at them. She couldn't watch, not again.

Yuki shifted slightly in her seat, trying to get the scene unfolding out of even her peripheral vision. It was nothing she had never witnessed before, but each time it seemed to hurt a little more. She was never the one. She was just the silly girl with a little crush. She bit down, clinching her jaw trying to keep the hurt from overcoming her. At least here no one was likely to see her cry. And then she heard him stand up and could not resist turning, just to be sure. The two girls had stood up as well and were waiting outside the row now. As Soujiroh approached, words Yuki could not hear were exchanged and she watched him walk out of the theatre with a girl on each arm.

She felt nauseated.

Her stomach did an odd flip before it felt as if her heart had just sunk to the bottom of it, to sit there like led.

"Yuki-chan, do you feel alright?"

Akira was leaning forward slightly to get a look at her face. She looked pale, ill. All she could do was shake her head in response, not trusting her voice to sound even or unaffected in the least.

"Would you like me to take you home?"

Makino and Rui noticed something was going on and was now leaning forward in their seats as well. Yuki put the best smile she could on her face, but Makino was not slow. Her eyes landed on the now empty seat next to Yuki and understanding dawned on her features.

"No, I'm fine." Yuki was insistent enough that Akira left it alone.

Makino was staying at Yuki's house that night.

Yuki lay on her bed in her room, the darkness surrounding her as she fought for sleep. Her mind wouldn't rest though. No matter what, when she closed her eyes she would see Soujiroh smiling at her and then she would see him leaving the theatre with those two women. Each replay tore a little more of her heart apart.

The moonlight trickled into her room and cast a glow on a table where her chawan sat, blue tranquil flowers decorating it in serenity. She could study for lifetime and would still never be Soujiroh's equivalent in tea ceremony. He was born into it. Her eyes landed on a slight chip on the edge from a fumbling disaster at the beginning. Next to that chipped chawan sat a newer one of the same pattern. Still, it was the chipped one that called for her attention.

She would never meet Soujiroh's standards.

Only a daughter of an equivalent family could offer such standards.

Yuki swallowed the lump in her throat and closed her eyes.

"Maybe it's time to stop."

Makino's voice was soft, being late and not wanting to wake Yuki's parents. Her voice floated up from the floor where she slept on a futon. Yuki was quiet for a moment, taken unawares that Makino was still awake.

"What do you mean?" She knew what Makino meant, but needed to hear it from someone other than her own mind.

"Soujiroh-san," Makino said. "Maybe it's time to give up. He's hurting you. If he's too stupid to realize what he has right in front of him, then it's his loss."

Makino's conviction in her tone made Yuki smile ever so slightly. Her eyes landed back on the chawan.

"Even if it takes a lifetime, Tsukushi. I will not give up. Just once, that's all I ask…for him to look at me just once and see me."

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Akira came close to begging. His plan had been simple. Tsukasa was one of them…an F4. So, naturally Makino was one of them even if it was only through her relationship, or theory of one, through Tsukasa. That meant Yuki was their friend as well. And currently one of their friends, Yuki, was suffering from a heartache that only another love could cure.

Rui sat across the table calmly sipping his tea and listening to Akira. Even as Akira rounded up his little speech and his plan, Rui simply looked calmly over the rim of his tea cup before sitting it down with his composed response.

"No."

Akira sighed in frustration.

"Come on, Rui. She's a friend. You can't do something for someone other than Makino?"

"Do what for whom?" Soujiroh stepped up to the table, helmet swinging in his hand, waving a server down for a cup of tea as he sat down.

The tea was quickly brought and Soujiroh brought it to his lips wrinkling his nose slightly at the taste as he looked between his friends. Rui took another sip of his own tea before setting the cup down and answering to Soujiroh's curiosity.

"Akira thought the best way to get Yuki-chan to stop chasing you was for her to find another love…me."

Soujiroh nearly dropped his tea cup. The tea splashed over the edge slightly as the cup clattered back onto its saucer sloppily. With a furrowed brow, Soujiroh wiped his hands off with a napkin and turned his scowl to Akira.

"NO," he said more firmly than he intended.

Rui looked to Soujiroh almost insulted, but Soujiroh was already standing up to leave, motorcycle helmet in hand. Akira and Rui quickly followed him out, paying for their tea along the way.

"Why not, Soujiroh?" Akira was curious. If he found Yuki so bothersome shouldn't he be thrilled to be rid of her attention?

Soujiroh threw one leg over his bike, putting his helmet on.

"It won't work," Soujiroh replied, calmer sounding than what he was moments ago.

"It won't work?" Akira was curious about this.

Soujiroh looked between his two friends. The thought of Yuki falling for Rui made him angry for some reason. He simply would not stand for it. How long before Rui fell for yet another girl? And wasn't he still head over heels for Makino? It would just hurt Yuki in the end.

"Do you know how many times I've tried to steer her in the direction of others? It never works. Just let her be."

He started his motorcycle, revving the engine some. Akira shook his head.

"You can't have it both ways, Soujiroh."

With a smile and a wink, Soujiroh sped off into traffic disappearing within seconds.

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She bowed, her formal greeting pouring from her lips in a quiet soft caress.

"Such a polite child, Akiko!"

Natsumi smiled upon Yuki, offering her own greeting in return. Natsumi and Akiko smiled at each other. It had been years since they last saw each other. If Natsumi remembered correctly, it was college, right before they both married and moved on with their lives. As life often went, they grew apart and lost contact. Childhood friends lost in the shuffle of life.

Natsumi was overjoyed when she ran across Akiko outside the old café they would frequent as college students. She had gone there for a bite and for the nostalgic feeling of her college years. She had been thinking of Akiko and possibly using the resources at her disposal to find her. She reminisced over their conversations about their dreams while studying, the men they hoped to marry, the children they wished to have. So it was quite a surprise when she stepped out of the café only to find Akiko walking by.

The comfort in their friendship was still there.

Natsumi smiled as their families sat down together in the restaurant. Their husbands were already in conversation telling each other about their businesses and establishing a connection they knew their wives would wish for. As Natsumi and Akiko talked, trying desperately to catch up a lifetime of events in the few hours they would have at dinner, her eyes continuously turned to watch Yuki.

She was such a lovely girl, so polite, never interrupted. Akiko did quite well in raising her and Natsumi could not help but feel slightly jealous that this was her friend's daughter. Akiko had said something about the girl taking classes in tea ceremony. She could offer help to the child. After all, being her best friend's daughter already made her feel like one of her own. Natsumi looked around the restaurant.

"I am terribly sorry for my son." She apologized for his lateness. There were times she just wanted to smack him senseless. She was not stupid to her son's behavior. It concerned her, always chasing women, well not chasing as they seemed to line up to be added to the ever growing list.

She tried to remember if any woman had ever sparked his interest beyond the obvious one. She recalled overhearing a piece of conversation between him and one of his friends about a girl. Her son seemed quite agitated and that alone sparked a hope within her that there was indeed someone out there her son had strong feelings for. Why had she not met her?

Yuki cleared her throat and bowed her head slightly, excusing herself before she stood up and left for the ladies room.

"You must be so proud of her," Natsumi said to Akiko as Yuki disappeared down the small hallway leading to the restrooms.

Akiko agreed she was and began speaking more about her daughter, everything from how she seems so taken with her tea ceremony classes to her job. The women were still talking when Natsumi's son walked up to the table, bowing and apologizing for his tardiness. Next to him his friend bowed and apologizing as well, explaining the tardiness was his doing.

Natsumi eyed the boys and then waved for the waiter to add another setting to the table.

"You will join us, Akira-san?"

He politely accepted the invitation and Soujiroh sighed in relief. When his mother told him they were having a dinner with a childhood friend of hers and her family, which included a daughter, Soujiroh could see the wheels turning in his mother's head. And true to what he thought she would do, she was very quick to instruct her son to take the seat next to her friend's daughter's empty seat. He eyed his mother suspiciously and then turned to give his friend a look that communicated an earlier conversation. Natsumi spent the time that Yuki was away in the ladies room to tell Soujiroh what a lovely young woman Akiko's daughter was, so polite, taking tea ceremony classes, and pretty too. Soujiroh felt the noose tightening.

"Oh, you're back! Perfect timing," Natsumi exclaimed upon seeing the young woman approach the table. She set a look upon her son that told him he was expected to be the gentlemen.

Soujiroh pushed his chair back, standing to his full height. His black hair fell forward slightly as he reached down to take the back of the young woman's chair and pull it out for her.

"Yuki-chan?"

Akira had looked and taken note of the fact that it was Yuki and that Soujiroh was not looking at the young woman to have noticed.

"Akira-san! Nishikado-san!"

Soujiroh's eyes slowly drifted from his hands on the back of the chair to the young woman standing there, her eyes filled with the light of hope. His grip on the chair tightened, his fingertips turning white.

"Yuki-chan, you already know my son and his friend?"