Disclaimer: If I owned this, would I be writing FANfiction? Obviously, I don't own it.

A/N: This fic is based almost entirely on my memory of the show which I watched about three years ago, so please forgive any inconsistencies or ooc. On another note, thanks to all my reviewers!

Yuki woke up feeling somewhat colder than usual. The apartment too, was very quiet, so much so that it was nearly unnatural. His bed seemed larger and colder than usual but his sleep-fogged mind waved it off. He probably needed to get laid again. It was the downside of his reclusive life. Every so often, he felt the need for some human contact, even if it was meaningless human contact.

He stumbled to the bathroom, making a subconscious note to visit the nearby pub tonight. It wouldn't take long to find a willing partner. Yuki knew he was a handsome man. The question wouldn't be whether he'd have a partner tonight, but rather, which woman he should pick.

With that in mind, Yuki started to go through his normal morning routine. He showered, brushed his teeth, shaved and then went to make breakfast. Yet, as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom and stared out at his apartment, he couldn't help but feel somewhat surprised.

Had this place always been this wide and empty?

He shook it off. The house was no different from what it usually was. He was being overly sensitive. Yuki snorted to himself at the thought. No one would ever think he was sensitive at all, especially not –

Wait, who was he thinking about again? Oh, well, it probably didn't really matter. His stomach's call for nourishment was much more important. His answering machine was flashing, indicating that he had a couple of messages. He pressed it as he went into the kitchen.

Yuki started making breakfast as he listened to the messages on his answering machine. The first one was from his editor, reminding him that he only had a week or so left to his deadline. Damn. Had time passed all that quickly already?

The second message was from Tohma. "Eiri-san, how have you been? Mika-san is starting to complain you don't keep in touch anymore. Is everything all right? How about coming over for dinner one of these days? Show the rest of us that you're still alive."

Yuki snorted to himself as the message ended. Join them for dinner. Yeah, when hell froze over, perhaps. Tohma would be nothing but suffocating, and Mika would be nagging at him for not keeping in touch. Not his idea of a peaceful dinner.

Looking down, the novelist realized he'd somehow subconsciously made enough for two. When had that happened? Yuki never cooked for anyone but himself, not even for his one-night lovers. He must've made a mistake somewhere, or he was too distracted. Yeah, that was right. This apartment was just too big, damn it. Too quiet, too.

Huh, he never really thought of it that way before. Usually, Yuki loved the quiet solitude of his apartment.

Damn, he really needed to get laid.

A couple of minutes later found Yuki at his desk as per usual, typing away. The leftovers from the morning's breakfast had been stored in the fridge, and Yuki had no plan to move from his current seat anytime within the next five hours or so, unless it was for a bathroom break. With a satisfied expression on his face, he reached for his usual pack of cigarettes – but found only a pack of gum and nicotine patches instead.

What the - ? When had those gotten there? Where were his cigarettes?

Vaguely, the novelist remembered someone telling him that cigarettes weren't good for him, and that the gum and patches would help to break the nasty habit. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember who it had been.

Meh, must've been Tohma. It was the kind of thing his brother-in-law would do.

It didn't occur to Yuki that Tohma had never said a word against his bad habit before, nor had the older man been to his apartment within the last couple of months.

Seeing as there were no cigarettes, and Yuki did not want to leave his house to go buy more, the blonde had no choice. With a heavy sigh, he stuck a patch on his arm and popped a piece of gum.

An hour later, he concluded that it just wasn't the same. Still, he supposed he could get used to it. Especially since he wasn't about to get up from his desk.

Two hours later, he was getting restless. Not because of the lack of a cigarette, but because it was too damned quiet.

This was ridiculous. He'd never complained about the silence before.

Still, to ease the oppressive stillness, he reached for the remote (conveniently located on his desk just the way he liked it) and turned on the TV. The sound of some overly cheerful pop music band came on and he turned it off almost at once. He wanted sound, yes, but not like that. Whatever happened to real, regular music like rock?

Come to think of it, when had he ever been interested in music, particularly rock?

Must've been Tohma's influence again – damned music producer just had to be a former member of Japan's biggest rock band ever.

With a disgruntled expression, Yuki tried to ignore the silence and get back to typing again. When it finally reached time for him to stop for the day, Yuki stared at the miserable progress he'd made that day. Barely a paragraph and it was a lousy one to boot.

Damn it, he just had no inspiration today! And this thrice-damned silence was getting on his nerves!

"I really need to get laid," Yuki muttered to himself, speaking his first words of the day in a voice that was almost raspy from disuse. He normally didn't buy into talking to himself. It was just one step away from schizophrenia or something like that, in his opinion. But by now, he'd do almost anything to keep the silence away.

Heh, maybe he really was becoming schizophrenic. Wouldn't that be something?

Since it was obvious he wasn't going to get anywhere with his book anytime soon, Yuki decided it would probably be for the best to hit the pub early. Nothing like a couple of beers and beautiful girls to flirt with to put all that crap-romance back in his head.

So here he was, in the pub.

The loud music beating so loud that he could feel it becoming his pulse, the press of bodies as they danced and mingled, and the sweat and heat that came off them…

Finally, Yuki felt like he was in familiar territory again. He didn't know why but his home hadn't felt at all like – well, home. But here, here he felt comfortable again. Even if it felt like he hadn't been here in a long time.

That couldn't be right. He did come out here every now and then. He probably just missed the nightlife, what with his deadline coming up and everything.

Yuki settled on a barstool, ordered some alcoholic drink and then proceeded to soak in the atmosphere. It'd really been too long since he'd last been in human company. It felt…nice, somehow. At the very least, it was as far away from that damned silence as was possible.

Before he realized it, he was knocking back drink after drink. The pulsing beat of the music made him feel strangely at home, and his eyes wandered over the people on the dance floor, looking for a likely mark. There were perhaps countless gorgeous women dancing and grinding, getting hot and sweaty; even a couple of handsome-looking men looked like possible bed companions for the night.

None of them really caught his eye though. Yuki felt as if he was looking for something. Something specific, but he had absolutely no idea what it was. A bright yellow and orange jacket made his head turn quickly, yet the kid who was wearing it didn't even come close to what Yuki had been expecting.

…What had he been expecting?

Never mind. In any case, the kid was in no way attractive to Yuki. Sure, he looked good, in that fresh, semi-innocent kind of way, but everything about him seemed wrong. Wrong face, wrong body, wrong eyes, wrong hair… He'd probably be better off dying it pink or something.

…Why pink? It was an atrocious color, and it'd clash horribly with the jacket. What the hell was he thinking?

Yuki concluded that he must be starting to get a little drunk if his thoughts were wandering off in such a random manner. I mean, really, pink?

His golden eyes met the gaze of a beautiful woman who had just come off the dance floor. Again, something was not quite right, but she was perfect in every way otherwise. Yuki supposed that she would do. She already seemed like the best this bar had to offer. It was evident in the number of eyes that followed her as she walked sultrily over to him.

"Hey, handsome," she said in a smoky velvet purr. "Buy me a drink?"

With a smirk, he nodded to her and then to the bartender, "Get the lady whatever she wants on me."

Some time later, they were both grinding drunkenly against the other in some dark corner of the bar. He was hot and so very aroused, yet there was a nagging in the back of his head that this was wrong, that he shouldn't be doing this. It got more insistent the more he touched her until he could no longer shut it out.

Breaking away from their heated kiss, Yuki pushed himself away from her, trying to shake the liquor from his system and out of his head, as well as that annoying feeling of utter wrongness. The woman, whose name he hadn't even bothered remembering, looked at him with dazed and confused eyes.

"What's the matter?" she whispered as she pressed herself up against him once more.

He took another step back. What the hell was wrong with him? He had a beautiful, willing woman right within reach and he was rejecting her? Yuki had never turned anyone down like that before. Yet he just couldn't get over the feeling that this was wrong. This was not the person he was supposed to be with – when had that ever mattered to him before?

"I'm sorry," he said shortly to her. "I'm just – not in the mood, after all."

The woman blinked. She couldn't have gotten rejected like that before, but she took it surprisingly well. Better than any of the other whiny chicks Yuki had picked up from time to time. She shrugged and straightened herself up.

"That's a real pity," she said as she blew him one last kiss. "I think this could've been a wonderful night. Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me." She started to walk away but then she stopped to look back at him with a sly smirk.

"That is, whenever you break up with your lover for good, that is."

And then she was gone, but Yuki was left a little confused. Lover? He had no lover. He never had any lovers, unless you could count his endless string of one-nighters that. What had she been implying? That he wasn't in the mood because he didn't really feel like cheating on this so-called nonexistent lover after all? That was stupid. There was no one of the sort.

Was there?

Vague impressions kept coming to him, too fleeting for him to grasp. Yuki shook them away. He'd remember if he ever took a lover, wouldn't he? The alcohol was messing with his mind again. He needed to take a walk to clear his head.

The novelist left the pub and walked home, taking the long route in order to clear his head properly. This was not working out the way he planned at all. He was supposed to be in his home right now, with that gorgeous babe, and fucking the brains out of her. So why didn't he?

Yuki honestly had no answers to that, and it annoyed him even more.

Looking around, the blonde found that his feet had somehow brought him to the park. He didn't think much of it. It was more or less on the way home, and he could probably pick up a couple of packs of cigarettes at the same time. The gum and nicotine patches were all right, but Yuki missed his cigarettes. Besides, there was no way he was breaking a habit just because Tohma suggested it.

As he walked down the dark, shadowed path, Yuki was overcome with a sense of nostalgia. It felt as if something important had happened around here, but he couldn't remember what it was. The wind picked up, and he couldn't help looking back the way the wind was blowing from, as if he were expecting something to come flying on the stiff breeze, or someone to be there.

But there wasn't anyone, and Yuki wondered why he felt disappointment welling in his gut.

Light laughter came ringing out of the darkness, and Yuki saw a couple in the distance, coming up the path towards him. Well, they seemed like a couple, at any rate. The girl had hooked elbows with a guy with long red hair, looking very intimate as they laughed at something.

Yuki stared at the redheaded man. Something about him was very familiar. Had he seen him somewhere before, perhaps?

"Hiro," the girl was whining in yet another tantalizing familiar way, "won't you please do it? For me?"

The man chuckled. "No can do, Maiko. I'm behind enough in my studies as it is. You know I've just started medical school, don't you? I have no idea what I've been doing, goofing off all this time, when I could have been studying hard for my future."

"But Hiro," the girl – Maiko? Why were these names so familiar, damn it?! – "you're an amazing guitarist! Just wait for me to graduate, and we can be a band together, just like we were in school."

"Yes, but that was school. This is the real world, and we can't survive on music alone."

Maiko sighed and slumped her shoulders. "I suppose you're right. But just this one last performance. Please?"

Hiro smiled. "I suppose I can do that."

"Really?" Maiko's face lit up. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She was excited enough to start jumping and kissing her boyfriend all over his face.

Yuki watched the scene with a little amusement and a load of déjà vu. This was happening too much today. He'd never seen either of this people in his life, yet the actions of that Maiko girl reminded him of someone else…someone important…

As he walked closer to them, Maiko's eyes met his, and recognition flashed in her eyes. Had he met her somewhere before after all? He hoped she wasn't one of his many one-nighters. If what he had just heard from the couple's conversation was correct, she had yet to graduate, making her completely illegal.

His fears appeared to be unfounded when her eyes gained a quality that he had learned to recognize over the years – starstruck and pure fan adoration.

"Um, excuse me," she said as they drew within speaking range. "Are you by any chance Yuki Eiri-san?"

He raised an eyebrow. Yup, she was one of his fans, all right. Normally, he didn't bother with fans, finding them to be a complete annoyance unless he could sleep with them, but for some reason, he felt compelled to indulge one of them this once.

"Yes, I am."

Her eyes grew bigger and rounder at once. "Oh my God, it's really you! This is such an honor, Yuki-sensei. I'm a huge fan of your books."

Yuki winced at the honorific. "Don't call me that," he said, a bit sharply. At her stunned expression, he quickly followed up with, "Just a normal Yuki-san would suffice." He didn't like being addressed as 'Sensei'. It brought back too many bad memories.

The girl flushed but she started digging through her bag for something – no doubt looking for something for him to autograph. Fan girls were so predictable.

"I'm sorry about her," the man, Hiro, said with a helpless sort of smile. "That's kind of the way she is."

"It's no bother," Yuki waved him off.

"Yuki-san, please, could you sign this for me?" she asked as she thrust out one of his books at him. Yuki noted it was one of his latest works – the nauseatingly sweet romance of a bitter man whose icy heart was thawed by a persistent and clumsy but eternally cheerful heroine. It was his best one yet, his editor had said.

Yuki smiled his patented 'charmer' smile as he took the book, and smirked when the girl nearly swooned. At least she didn't really pass out from a nosebleed, unlike certain people –

Who did he know who would pass out from a nosebleed? Wasn't that just a stereotype that happened in books like this one he was holding?

"What is your name?" he asked the girl politely.

"Maiko," she replied promptly. "Shindou Maiko."

Shindou. Again, something in his chest twinged at the name, but he paid it no mind. He had had enough of these déjà vu moments. Instead, he signed the book for her: 'To my new friend, Shindou Maiko. Thank you for taking the time to enjoy my book and good luck in your future love life.'

He handed it back to the girl, who read the message and her expression turned confused. "Um…sorry, Yuki-san, but my name is Maiko, not Shuichi."

Yuki blinked. Had he really written Shuichi? How had that happened? Maiko and Shuichi were nothing alike. Where had the name Shuichi come from anyway?

But there it was, on the front page: 'To my new friend, Shindou Shuichi. Thank you for taking the time to enjoy my book and good luck in your future love life.'

He stared at it. Shindou Shuichi. Those two words stirred up something deep inside him, something that was begging to be remembered but always being held out of his reach. Who was this Shindou Shuichi, his heart (he had one?) wanted to know.

Realizing that the couple was staring at his dazed expression, he quickly made up an excuse. "I'm sorry, Maiko-san. I've been out drinking, and my focus isn't very clear. Let me just correct that."

The necessary changes made, the girl thanked him profusely and showed it happily to her boyfriend, who looked rather used to her antics if that indulgent smile was anything to go by.

They went their separate ways, Yuki towards the nearest minimart, and the couple to wherever it was that couples went to do 'couple-y' things around here. He nearly started sniggering at the euphemism. It wasn't like him to put things so delicately, or use words like 'couple-y'. He must've been drunker than he'd thought. That Maiko girl was lucky he hadn't turned her name into something worse than just Shuichi. At least that was a normal name.

He bought his cigarettes at the minimart – about five packets, enough to last him all week even if he smoked more than usual – and stepped outside. He opened his first packet and drew out his first cigarette of the day. Yuki was looking forward to his regular nicotine fix, and taking his mind off the oddness of the day. He was just going to smoke and forget how the silence of his home bugged him, how wrong it felt to be sleeping around, how familiar the couple he had just met seemed, and all those other bits of fleeting nostalgia that had been bothering him all day.

As he raised his favorite lighter to light the cigarette, however, his eyes caught sight of a small photo pasted to the side of it – one of those print-club pictures that acted like stickers by the look of it. Where had that come from? Tohma, that pervert, had better not have been messing around with his personal belongings…

Yuki's breath seized in his throat as he looked at the tiny image, barely bigger than his thumbnail. It was a picture of him, looking a little disgruntled as he was pulled into the picture – and though that was amazing in itself since he never took pictures other than for his books – it wasn't his own image that caused his heart to seem to forget that it was supposed to be dead and race to life again.

It was the other person in the picture, the same person who was pulling on his photo-self's arm. A person with bright pink hair and large sparkling violet eyes, and a grin bright enough to rival the sun.

Yuki's knees felt weak as the alcohol seemed to disappear from his system and he remembered at last.

"Shuichi…"

I'm pretty sure Maiko isn't a singer or anything like that, but my aim in making her one was to make her take Shuichi's place, at least in Hiro's life, though obviously with different results to his life.