Notes: Here it is, part deux of my rock star fic. Not much else to say about this part other than that you get to meet two new guys in this part, one OC and one not. Have fun!

Indicates phone conversation

Warnings: Pretty much the same as part one. Rurouni Kenshin and Paradise City do not belong to me. Eventual yaoi, lots of naughty language. The lyrics for the songs Virgin Touch sings were written by a dear friend of mine.

Ragz to Richez

Part Two:

The rest of the day could not go by fast enough for Sanosuke. He was unable to focus in his classes, making himself look like even more a moron than usual. All he could think about was the audition Katsuhiro has secured for them. If they ever wanted to make it big they couldn't afford to screw this one up. It was the best chance to get their foot in the door they'd come across yet, and Sanosuke could not stop worrying about it.

It was like an obsession.

As soon as the bell rang signaling the end of classes Sanosuke was on his way to his locker. The sooner he and Katsuhiro got out of the school the sooner they could rehearse for their audition. Their very important audition.

About two minutes after the bell rang Sanosuke's nervousness had reached new levels. Katsuhiro hadn't shown up at their locker yet and Sanosuke could only hope he hadn't gotten into another fight with a teacher. He had a really bad habit of that, especially if the teacher was one that Katsuhiro had no respect for (which of course, happened to be the majority)

"What's with the look, Sano?"

Sanosuke blinked, coming out of his imaginary world populated by arrogant Katsuhiro's and angry teachers. He was shocked, and more than a little relieved, to see the very person he'd been obsessing over standing in front of him.

"Katsu! Where the fuck have you been?" Sanosuke demanded angrily of his friend, not appreciating Katsuhiro's laughter.

"Relax, Sano. You're gonna give yourself a heart attack or something. I had to go turn in a paper to Mr. Galloway, you spaz. Now will you move so I can put my shit in the locker?"

Sanosuke slid out of the way but didn't stop glaring at his friend. "Hurry the hell up, man. We gotta get over to Glenn's so we can practice."

Katsuhiro rolled his eyes as he shoved his stuff into the locker. "The audition isn't for a couple of hours, you nut job. Calm down! Like I've been trying to tell ya, we'll be fine."

Now it was Sanosuke's turn to roll his eyes. "That's easy for you to say, Katsu. Yer just the bassist. I've got to-"

Sanosuke's words died in his throat as he caught sight of Katsuhiro's murderous glare. His friend could be very touchy when it came to the amount of work that was put into playing an instrument-he hated when people assumed that he did less work than others merely because he played the bass.

"Shut up, Sanosuke. I really don't want to hear that bullshit. Got it?"

Sanosuke nodded nervously. "No more bullshit. Got it."

Katsuhiro slammed the locker shut. "Good. Now get your ass out to the truck so we can go get in a little practice." Katsuhiro was trying to be serious, but Sanosuke could see the faint beginnings of a smile.

He decided to make it a little bigger.

Trying not to smile himself, Sanosuke saluted his friend. "Yes, sir!" he called out before running away from any retaliatory action. Katsuhiro watched him go and decided it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Sanosuke was almost bouncing out of his seat by the time he and Katsuhiro arrived at Glenn's rundown house. The radio in the truck was turned up as loud as Katsuhiro would let it be, and the music, combined with Sanosuke's enthusiasm, had Katsuhiro feeling the pre-audition excitement too.

"So, what do you think we should do tonight?" Sanosuke asked, unable to keep silent any longer. Katsuhiro looked at the clock and smiled.

"Damn, now I owe Glenn ten bucks," he grumbled, both to himself and to Sanosuke.

His friend turned in his seat and gave Katsuhiro a weird look. "Ten bucks? What the hell are you talking about?"

The driver's smile got even bigger and he looked at Sanosuke out of the corner of his eye as he responded. "Glenn and I made a bet about how long you'd keep quiet on the way over to his place. I said you'd reach five minutes, he didn't think so." Katsuhiro shot another rueful glare at the clock. "He was right, too."

Sanosuke threw an old hamburger wrapper at his friend. "You fuckers. You guys are both jackasses, you know."

Katsuhiro smirked. "Yeah, we knew you'd say that."

Rolling his eyes, Sanosuke turned to look out the window. "I give up."

"Aww, don't pout, Sano. It doesn't make you look too sexy."

"Shut up," growled the musician in question.

Katsuhiro left it at that and the two drove in silence for a few minutes. Katsuhiro was content to let Sanosuke sit and pout, knowing it was better for him to get it all out now rather than to have him freak out just as they were going on stage. The brunette had a history of being slightly temperamental, but Katsuhiro had learned how to deal with it over the long years of their friendship.

Eventually, Sanosuke spoke. "We're only gonna get to do three songs, tonight, right? I was thinking we should do 'Just Livin',' 'Almost Broken,' and 'Passed Out Behind the Wheel.' What do you think? I mean, we've got those songs down pretty damn well and we've been wanting to do 'Almost Broken' in front of an audience for a while."

Katsuhiro nodded his approval. "Those sound good to me," he said as he idly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change. "It looks better for us if all the songs we do are our own, makes us look more professional and like we're ready for the big time."

Sanosuke flashed a wide and cocky grin at friend. "It damn well better look like that! We haven't been practicing as much as we have just so we can sound like some sucky garage band. We've got our own sound, which is more than a lot of bands around here can say."

"Mmm-hmm," agreed Katsuhiro, smiling to himself. Sanosuke hated being compared to many of the local bands and his friend had learned the hard way that it was better not to provoke him into a rant.

The conversation died again, the personal silence between them broken only by Sanosuke's soft singing with the radio. They rode in this manner for close to five minutes before Sanosuke broke it.

"Katsu?"

"Yeah?" the driver replied.

"You don't think we'll have any problems making it in, do you?"

The meekness in Sanosuke's voice made Katsuhiro turn towards his friend and what he saw puzzled him. Sanosuke actually looked worried. Sanosuke never looked worried before an audition. He was always cocky and full of arrogance. But for some reason the audition today had him worried.

"We'll be fine, Sano. Why the hell are you so worried?"

Sanosuke shrugged, noticing to himself that they were pulling into Glenn's driveway. "I dunno, guess it's because this is our big chance. If we manage to screw this up we'll pretty much be fucked forever."

The bassist rolled his eyes as he climbed out of the truck and headed towards his friend's house. "Sano, you're a goddamned moron. We haven't fucked up an audition yet, so don't worry about it. We're gonna kick ass."

"Maybe, but--"

Katsuhiro glared daggers at his band mate as they entered the house through the unlocked front door. Glenn never bothered to lock his door no matter how much Sanosuke and Katsuhiro urged him to. The blonde didn't exactly live in a nice neighborhood but he didn't seem to let that bother him. He was comfortable leaving his house unlocked and that was how it was going to stay.

"Sano, shut the hell up. Stop freaking yourself out and calm down. Now lets go get Glenn so we can run through the set a couple of times before we load our shit up and head over to the club." Without waiting for a verbal response Katsuhiro started to walk off through the house, not seeing the quizzical look Sanosuke gave him.

"How the hell are we supposed to find Glenn in this pigsty? Some of his shit piles are bigger than he is."

"Easy, just follow the sounds of the obnoxious singing," called Katsu over his shoulder with a smile. Sanosuke had to smile in return as he followed the longer-haired man towards the kitchen. Glenn liked to sing; he liked to sing a lot, in fact. Unfortunately for him, he was horrible at it. But damn was he loud.

Sanosuke stopped behind Katsuhiro in the doorway to the kitchen and tried not to laugh. No matter how many times he saw the scene in front of him it still cracked him up. The drummer for Virgin Touch was dancing around his kitchen, back to his band mates, singing into a plastic spoon.

Glenn Thorpe was a small, blonde Australian whose parents had moved to the US in 1992 when Glenn was just eight years old. He was generally pretty shy around people and when they met Sanosuke never would have pegged him for the bad-ass he turned into when he got behind a set of drums. Glenn was two years older than his band mates and they had met quite by accident. The three boys had attended the same high school and one day during his freshman year Sanosuke'd had enough, and decided to skip class. He'd been trying to sneak out through the door near the infrequently used music rooms when he'd heard the noise. Curious, he had crept up to the door of the room to see inside and what he saw was Glenn playing some of the best drums he had ever heard. Unable to stop himself, he'd stepped into the room and asked the Australian if he would be interested in being a member of the band Sanosuke was trying to put together. Glenn had quickly accepted and Virgin Touch had been formed.

Still dancing and singing, Glenn turned around and jumped a mile high when he saw Sanosuke and Katsuhiro lounging in the doorway.

Sanosuke burst into laughter at the expression on the blonde's face and Katsuhiro fought to keep his laughter in as well.

"Having fun?" Katsuhiro asked, still trying not to laugh.

Glenn scowled at his friends and put the spoon down on the counter. "You know, you assholes are gonna give me heart attack one of these days," he grumbled, accent still as strong as ever.

Now Katsuhiro couldn't contain his laughter either. "Yeah, yeah. Quit your complaining, pretty boy," he managed to get out between laughs. "If you're done prancing around embarrassing yourself lets get downstairs and rehearse before Sanosuke gives himself a heart attack."

Sanosuke's response was to flip his friend off before following Glenn and Katsuhiro into the basement.

Aoshi Shinomori sat in the darkened club and fought the urge to yawn. As the manager and co-owner of Shangri-La, he was stuck with the job of auditioning the various bands who were looking for the chance to play at the club's opening.

Unfortunately for him, they all sucked.

Aoshi had auditioned ten bands so far and had only managed to find two that played decent enough for him to invite them to play at the opening. And even they hadn't been that good. Aoshi had booked them more out of necessity than anything else.

The band that was currently on stage would not be asked to play under any circumstances, even if all of the other bands in the entire nation suddenly broke up and they were the only group left. They were atrocious, and Aoshi was just waiting for them to finish their song so he could ask them to leave.

He'd been waiting for ten minutes so far. Apparently this band liked long songs.

Finally the noise coming from the stage began to die down and Aoshi sensed his opportunity. He stood immediately and was speaking before the last cord had finished fading away.

"Thank you, gentlemen. That was..." he paused for a moment, searching for a word that wouldn't be an outright lie. "That was very unique. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite fit in with what the club is looking for." A stream of curses started pouring forth from the stage but Aoshi plowed ahead, choosing to ignore it. "Thank you for taking time out of your day to audition for me."

"Yeah, fuck you too," spat back the singer as he stormed off stage, band mates following quickly behind.

Aoshi stared at the stage and shook his head. It always amazed him that some people just didn't understand how bad they were.

Head starting to pound, Aoshi sat back down and waited for the next band. He glanced down at the schedule idly, wondering how many more bands were left. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there were only two left, a band by the name of Virgin Touch and another calling itself Tra-la-la.

He just hoped that at least one of them would be decent.

Sanosuke stood in the wings of the stage and fought to calm his breath. He wanted the audition to go perfectly and he couldn't stop stressing. Next to him, Katsuhiro was whispering about how they needed to get on stage since it was now quarter after five. There was no more time left for Sanosuke to freak out. So he took a deep breath, counted to ten, and stepped onto stage.
Aoshi looked up in interest as Virgin Touch stepped on stage. He was immediately impressed by two of the three group members. The drummer and bassist looked to be calm and collected but the singer/guitarist looked like a nervous wreck. Aoshi wanted to immediately stop them before they began but he knew better than to judge on appearances. So he sat back and let them play.

He was glad he had decided to let them play.

The nervous singer calmed down as the drummer started to begin and he began to concentrate on playing his own notes. Before they were five measures into the song he had completely calmed down and Aoshi could see that he was a performer. Now he just needed to know if the boy could sing as well as his band could play.

He could.

Once again, Aoshi only let them play one song before he stood up and interrupted them.

"Gentlemen, thank you."

The voice cut through Sanosuke's concentration and he looked down at the man on the dance floor with fear in his heart. They'd only played one song and Sanosuke had a feeling that they'd blown it somehow. He searched the face of the man he knew to be Aoshi Shinomori for a clue and found nothing. His icy blue eyes were cold and his face could have been carved from stone for all the expression it showed.

Sanosuke began to swear inwardly.

"That was very entertaining," said Aoshi, his voice as blank as his face. "I'm sorry to cut you off after only one song, but I've heard all I need to hear."

Sanosuke cringed and prepared himself for the bad news.

"You have a sound that is uniquely your own and it's a sound I happen to like. I'd like for you to come and play at the opening next Saturday."

It took a minute for Shinomori's words to register with Sanosuke, but when they did he couldn't stop smiling. It looked like Virgin Touch had finally stumbled onto the lucky break they'd been looking for.

Aoshi was standing at the side of the club next to the bar, fixing himself something to drink when his phone rang. Picking it up off the counter, he smiled at the number that was displayed.

"Hello, Kenshin," was his greeting.

Aoshi, hi. Aoshi's smile widened at the sound of his lover's voice, a voice that he hadn't heard in over a week. Kenshin had been in New York on business for almost two weeks and had been far too busy to call his equally busy lover. Not that Aoshi minded: he knew Kenshin would never cheat on him.

"Are you still in New York?"

Actually, no. My plane just got in. As soon as I get my bag I'm going to head home. I just wanted to know how the auditions are going. Did you find anyone good?

"Actually, yes." said Aoshi as he snuck a glance at the ecstatic band on stage who were currently packing up their equipment. "I did find some one. I think you'll like them."

But not nearly as much as I like you, was all Kenshin said before he hung up. Aoshi stared at the phone for a moment before he smiled and allowed himself a quiet laugh. Sometimes his lover could be so immature it was funny. He was looking forward to their reunion later that night.

End of part 2

By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but reviews do make the ficcage go faster. hinthintnudgenudge