A/N: Hold onto your hats, readers! We're blasting off to the past for a few chapters before we get to Quartet Night! I'm gonna tell you now, this fic will be fairly Ai-centric.

Also note, I haven't played the games (sadface), so all info comes from the anime and wikia. I don't know if the professor that built Ai actually has a name in the series (wikia lists none), so I made up a name for him.

Now, I'm only going to do this once, so listen up, folks:

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN UTA NO PRINCE-SAMA OR ITS AFFILIATED CHARACTERS, PLOTS, ETC. THIS STORY IS FOR FUN AND NOT FOR PROFIT. -breathes deeply- Thank you, carry on.

Secret Guardian

PART ONE

-chapter one-

"Ai-nii! Wait up!"

The cyan-haired teenager laughed as I ran, stumbling, trying to catch up to his long strides. He had just started going to Saotome Gakuen a few months ago, so it had become rare for me to see him. Aine Kisaragi, the boy who was like the older brother I never had, was studying to be an idol. Of course my "brother" was at the top of his class, studying hard. He poured his heart and soul into his music, and in turn, his studies. Ai-nii was the coolest.

"Careful, there, short stuff! Don't trip over your big feet!" Ai-nii teased as I finally caught up to him, almost tripping in my effort. I grabbed onto his arm, and he grabbed my shoulder to steady me before ruffling my hair with a grin. I squeaked at the offense, trying to swat his hand away from my hair. I was so proud of my nice, neat hair that it infuriated me when he got it all messy like that; which, of course, was always, with Ai-nii. He could be annoying sometimes. He said it was his job as my older brother of sorts to bug me, though. I told him that was a steaming load of crap, and he acted all offended at "the foul mouth I have for being such a cute nine-year-old kid". (His words, not mine. I'm not that full of myself.)

"Aine! Shinako! Come have some biscuits," our professor uncle said. Well, I say "our", but technically I'm not related to him, either. I call him Uncle Jirou, though, because he's been like an uncle to me ever since I was just a baby. He and my dad have been best friends since they were in college. Now my dad is a local elementary school teacher, and Uncle Jirou is a professor at the nearby university. As such, they still see each other quite a lot, and dad would usually bring me with him when he went to visit Uncle Jirou on the weekends since mom, being a nurse, usually worked weekends and couldn't look after me while he went to visit his friend. That was how I initially met Ai-nii. It was when I was about four years old, and my dad and Uncle Jirou were meeting at his place to have coffee. Ai-nii had been sent to stay with Uncle Jirou for the weekend because both his parents had gone out of town, so the grown-ups had introduced us and told us to go play while they talked. Of course, Ai-nii being a bit of a bully, he pulled my pigtails. Instead of crying, though, I bit him. And Aine, instead of crying, laughed. (I could tell it actually hurt, but he didn't tell on me to the grown-ups, so I let him pretend.) Thus started a beautiful brother-sister relationship between us.

In other words, we bugged the hell out of each other, but we both knew that at the end of the day, we were one of each other's favorite people.

Smiling up at my "brother", I grabbed his hand in both of mine and began tugging him towards where Uncle Jirou had called us from. He yelped at the sudden tug, stumbling a bit before easily jogging after me, having to stoop over a little due to my height (or rather, lack thereof).

"Come on, Ai-nii! I claim one of the lemon biscuits!"

"Ah! No fair, I like those ones too!"

Yes, those were the days. The days when we were carefree, and I never expected anything wrong could ever happen in my life.

I could feel my hands shaking when my parents broke the news to me.

"Sweetheart... Aine's in a coma," dad said, his voice trembling. My calm, cool dad, who even in the most dire of situations reacted with a level head. The tremor in his voice scared me almost as much as the words he was saying did. "The doctors aren't sure if he'll ever wake up."

No, I wanted to say; no, scream. No, you're wrong. You're lying. Ai-nii wouldn't leave me.

I was only twelve years old, but I knew what it meant to be in a coma. My mom was a nurse, she told me all about those kinds of things. She liked to use them as cautionary tales to make sure I stayed out of trouble. There was no way that my Ai-nii could be just another cautionary tale mom would tell me while we were having tea together during one of her days off. Ai-nii was indestructible. Ai-nii was amazing.

I couldn't say any of that, though. I tried to speak, but it was like my throat closed around the words. It felt like I couldn't breathe. Were the walls closing in on me? It sure seemed like it. My sense of time seemed to distort as I collapsed to the floor. I vaguely heard my mom saying something about "panic attack" and "paper bag". The next thing I knew, my mom was rubbing soothing circles on my back as my dad held a paper bag to my face, my mom coaching me on how to breathe.

"Deep breath in, and exhale slowly...deep breath in, exhale slowly..."

"Everything's going to be alright, sweetheart. You're okay. We're all okay. Aine's just sleeping, I'm sure he'll wake up soon enough. He's got the best doctors looking after him right now..."

No, you're wrong.

You're lying.

It had been a week since Ai-nii had fallen into his coma. I refused to go to the hospital to see him. I couldn't bear to see him just yet. I was still waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. I kept a paper bag on my nightstand because they came so regularly. My mom had told me about why he was in a coma to begin with. My dad had tried to keep her from telling me, thinking it would be too much, but my mom, ever the blunt person she was, had told me anyways. She said that I deserved to know that he had tried to commit suicide. He had tried to drown himself in the ocean. I couldn't believe that the Ai-nii I had seen only a few months prior during winter break had tried to drown himself. Looking back, I noticed the small little things that should have told me that something wasn't entirely right about him, but as they say, hindsight is perfect. There was nothing I could do about it at that point, but that didn't stop the nightmares I had about Ai-nii drifting underwater as I tried to swim out to save him. I never could, and I always woke up in a panic, unable to breathe.

My father had put his foot down and said I should stay with Uncle Jirou for a few days just to get me out of the house. I hadn't even been going to school, I could barely bring myself to crawl out of bed long enough to eat something. I think my dad was scared that maybe I would do the same thing Ai-nii had and try to hurt myself because of how depressed and anxious I was all the time. I would never do that, but that didn't stop him from worrying. Thus, I ended up standing on Uncle Jirou's doorstep with a duffel bag in one hand and my guitar case in the other.

"Ah! Shinako!" Uncle Jirou said, poking his head out the door before I could set down my bag to knock. He seemed to be trying to be upbeat, but I could hear the strain in his voice and see the dark circles under his eyes. It looked like he hadn't slept since Ai-nii had gone into a coma. I gave him a tired smile, but it didn't last long before it disappeared. Uncle Jirou had been close to Ai-nii like I had. Unlike my parents, he was going through the exact same thing I was right now.

"Come in, come in," Uncle Jirou said, ushering me inside. "You can put your things in the guest room. I'll get us some biscuits..." he trailed off, and I knew he was thinking about Ai-nii, because I was, too. The silence stretched, suffocating and thick.

"Not the lemon ones," I said quietly.

Uncle Jirou nodded in understanding as a silent agreement passed between us.

We couldn't enjoy the things he had without him. It just wouldn't be right.

The hole in our hearts gaped open. How long would it take such a large wound to scab over? I wonder...