Hey folks, welcome to my second chapter ... and I hope you enjoyed my first chapter :)

This chapter's been kindly revised by Mandi (Thanks a lot) :)
The story itself didn't change; we just corrected a little awkward wording and stuff :)

Shuichi lay in his bed, crying. Well, it wasn't his bed. It was the bed in his hotel room where he had spent the last fourteen days, sixteen hours, eleven minutes and thirty-six seconds sobbing his eyes out because Yuki didn't even try to call him, didn't attempt to find him or do anything. Was he really that … that … oblivious to the fact that he was hurt? Deeply hurt.

Shuichi asked himself how he could have ever been stupid enough to fall for an asshole like Eiri Yuki but came to no satisfying conclusion. The only thing that came to his mind was that love is neither predictable nor rational. Before Shuichi had met Yuki he would have laughed at anyone who told him that something like love at first sight existed, but now he had experienced it. It was obviously on-sided, although he had always fought that thought. Goodbye "Romeo and Juliet" love story. Yes, it never was something like this, but one could hope.

Someone knocked on the door. Shuichi didn't answer, the person knocked again. Okay, he thought, they knocked. Thus it's neither K nor Yuki …

"Shu, it's me, Hiro." Shuichi all but smiled. Yes Hiro, his best friend. At least there was one person on this planet who cared for him. Not the way he wanted Yuki to do, but at least there was someone who had missed him.

"Comin'", Shuichi murmured. Then he noticed that Hiro had no keys for the hotel room. Shiuchi lifted himself off the bed he was lying on and scuffled to the door, his gaze never focusing nor leaving the floor underneath him. He opened the door.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice barely audible.

"May I come in?" Hiro inquired politely. Shuichi nodded and took some steps backwards to let Hiro in before he again closed the door and went back to the bed and lay down again.

'Oh my god!' was Hiro's first thought when he caught a glimpse at his best friend. He had known it would be bad, but this bad? Shuichi looked like he hadn't seen water for about two weeks, neither had his face, nor his hair nor his clothes. Hiro was somewhat surprised that Shuichi was still alive. He looked like … well … he was as pale as death, with very dark shadows under his eyes. He looked horrible. Hiro cursed Yuki silently for doing this to Shuichi.

Hiro hoped that he would get Shuichi to at least clean himself up and get clean clothes. He laid a soothing hand on his best friend's back "Boy, you need a shower and you need it bad." he said with a slight smile in his voice to cheer Shuichi up a little. Shuichi just looked at him, no light in his eyes, tears glistering in the corners. "He - he didn't even bother to call, or to - to ask why, to do anything, Hiro …" Shuichi said in a hoarse voice. "He just- just watched me get my stuff and leave. Why didn't he ask? He really … couldn't care less about me, can he?" Shuichi's voice was weak, too weak; breaking a little with each passing second.

Despite the awful smell of his friend Hiro hugged him. "Hush, don't worry Shu-chan, everything will be fine."

"But he hates me, Hiro. He hates me." Shuichi whispered, tears in his voice, his body shaking.

"Well, I don't believe he hates you Shuichi, but I honestly doubt that he loves you, because he won't even speak to you – but nobody will if you do not take a shower Shu-chan." To Hiro's surprise, Shuichi nodded.

Two hours later, Shuichi was showered, had on new clothes, and was about to go to NG when Hiro's mobile rang. "Hai?" he just answered the phone. The person who had called spoke for some minutes, Hiro nodded. "Yes, yes, he's clean again … I'll bring him over to NG now. Fujisaki, please make sure K does not shoot him when he finally gets there. It would do us no good." Shuichi smiled the first time in fourteen days when he heard this. He thought he would be able to at least feign a smile to go on.

Fourteen days, twenty hours, thirty-seven minutes, and seventeen point sixteen seconds since he let him go. Fourteen days, twenty hours, thirty-seven minutes, and eighteen seconds since he had let him go. Tic … tock … tic … tock … tic … tock was the sound of the clock which was standing on the shelf nearby. Every second moving away so slowly it hurt. The sounds of the clock were loud in the empty apartment. Yuki faced a kind of loneliness he never thought would be possible. No laughing Shuichi. No singing Shuichi. No crying Shuichi. No Shuichi at all.

He was gone.

It seemed like he was gone forever. Yuki hadn't called his pink-haired obsession. He had made no effort to contact him, knowing deep inside that it was better this way. Shuichi wouldn't be suffering from him now. He knew he never treated Shiuchi the way he deserved, and he wouldn't. Never again. He loved that little ball of energy, but it wouldn't help him to tell Shuichi. Not now. Not after he had dropped him like- like, Yuki didn't even know how to express the way he had treated Shuichi. Oh how he wished he had shown his appreciation at least once, but he was Yuki Eiri, unfortunately. Yuki Eiri wouldn't show affection if his life depended on it. To his great dismay Yuki had discovered that Shuichi somehow was his life. He had had fourteen days, twenty hours, fifty-five minutes and fifty-odd seconds to rethink it all and his conclusion was: without Shuichi he was nothing. He had been nothing before he had met Shuichi, so the logical consequence was that he was nothing after Shuichi left.

At first Yuki was grateful for the silence. At least a little. Or at least he talked himself into believing that he had enjoyed the silence. If he had enjoyed Shuichi's absence, he had barely enjoyed it about seven minutes. After those six and a half minutes he had started to worry about Shuichi, had regretted kicking him out, wanted to turn back time and just keep quiet, or tell Shuichi that he was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him. Yuki believed that Shuichi always knew that he loved him, but this was what he had also always kept secret. Some people say "It's not what you are underneath. It's what you do that defines you." In this case Yuki wished it not to be true, but as it was, nobody could look into his heart to get to know that in fact he really cared for Shuichi. That he suffered now that Shuichi wasn't with him. Nobody besides him knew that there was a hole inside his heart. A hole nobody could fill besides his love.

If anyone would have told him fifteen days ago he would ever miss Shuichi, he would have laughed, out loud. Especially if someone had told him that he would no longer feel complete, that there would be a hole in his chest. That he felt as if someone had taken out his heart. The heart he had sealed behind ice so many years ago, after the incident with Kitazawa. When Kitazawa came to Yuki's mind, he collapsed. So carefully had he avoided every thought about this man. So carefully had he tried to lock his guilt inside his heart, and yet all it took him to break down was Shuichi leaving.
The cup of coffee Yuki had held in his hand clattered to the ground, his cigarette falling onto the carpet when he raised his hands to his head, sealing away his eyes. Thus he kneeled in the living room, hands over eyes, murmuring "please go away, please, please, please don't make me remember …" He was rocking back and forth when tears began to spill from his eyes, watering his hands, shirt and the carpet below him.

By mere coincidence the carpet didn't catch fire from the cigarette but only began to smolder. He wouldn't have noticed, not in his condition. All he heard was Kitazawa's voice echoing inside his head. The memories haunted him until he finally fell asleep, exhausted due to his weeping, but the memories wouldn't stop haunting him only because he was sleeping. He had a nightmare. He relived the murder he had committed so many years ago, but when he looked down at whom he had shot, it was no longer Kitazawa but Shuichi. Yuki awoke in shock, crying out loudly due to the pain the picture of the bleeding Shuichi caused his heart. His hands were now pressed against his chest to stop the aching, if just a little. It didn't help. Not in the slightest. It hurt even more. To think of one of them, but whereas Shuichi kept crying in his blurred visions, Kitazawa laughed at Yuki.

"Why won't you stop haunting me? Why do you keep following me Yuki? Please- please just leave me leave me be. Don't haunt my dreams any more …" He, again, buried his head in his hands and wept, wept until he fell asleep. This time he wasn't dreaming at all. He fell aside onto the shards of the coffee cup, some kind of a higher force kept him from being cut too badly.

While Yuki broke down and eventually fell asleep, Shuichi went to NG to meet K, Fujisaki and Sakano. After a short scene of Sakano going to pieces and K shooting everything that moved into his line of sight, they went on to less pleasurable things. For example the deadline for the newest Album Bad Luck was going to produce was very, very close.

"You have less than two weeks to record five songs of which three have to be composed still -"

"But I thought we would have a month!" Shuichi said, his voice breaking away when he realized that this would have been the case before … Shuichi took in a deep breath before he cleared his expression, stood straight and declared: "I am going to write lyrics for three songs tonight and tomorrow, I guess. I have enough in mind to do so - so let's go get the other two recorded." Hiro and Fujisaki exchanged a short puzzled look but followed Shuichi into the recording studio.

"I didn't think he would regain composure that fast after he cried his eyes out for about two weeks." Fujisaki whispered to Hiro when they had recorded the first song in no more than two tries.

"Shhh, don't remind him"

"Remind me of what?" asked a seemingly very happy Shuichi.

"Uh, nothing, Shu-chan, let's get ourselves something to eat before we go on recording. I bet K and Sakano are very pleased by our fast recording. Maybe K will even put his gun away for the rest of the day." Hiro said and got an incredulous look by Fujisaki.

"You think he would get on a whole day without his Magnum? I seriously doubt that."

"Yeah, you may be right. But maybe he'll at least put it away five minutes so we can fetch something to eat and maybe even eat it before we are threatened to death again." They laughed. All three of them.

Sakano came in and said "I have to applaud, you did a perfect take of 'Give It All' in there right now… what is that funny?"

"We were just imagining K without a gun for five minutes, Sakano"

"Ah, I see. Would you three be in for lunch? I happen to be in the mood for inviting you to some fast food."

If you have any suggestions as to how to go on with my little story, feel free to post them in a review or in a personal message. Of course, I'll be happy for every tiny bit of criticism concerning my first two chapters. Have a good night, see you soon :)
LG

Ina