A/N: Edited in 2015

It thundered that night. Just like Ryou had hoped for, but there was something missing: the mystery caller hadn't called yet. It was almost ten and he hadn't called even though he said that he would. After work. 'Can I call you after work?'

Yes he could so what was keeping him?

Ryou was in a strange state of mind. He had just finished the movie about the woman and the mystery caller, that had been nothing like his situation. First of, the caller in the movie didn't have as nice a voice as his caller had. Second, the woman was nothing like Ryou. She was too easily frightened, Ryou wasn't. How could he be after all the horror movies he had watched? The third reason had little to do with the movie; the woman in the movie, or anyone else in it for that matter, didn't have candy. Ryou did have candy, or he had candy. It was gone now.

"Where's the rest of my candy?" He was sure he had bought more, he just couldn't find it. If there was something Ryou loved as much as horror movies, it was eating. Combining the two was even better. It was a miracle that he was as thin as he was. After the darkness had fallen, Ryou had dug out his snacks, and candy, and started watching the movies he had rented.

Despite not being scared at all, the sudden ring of his cell made him jump up from the floor where he had been looking for his missing candy.

He picked up. "'ello. Have you seen my candy?"

A pause. "Yes, I'm eating it as we speak. Are you ok? You sound weird."

Ryou giggled and climbed back on the couch. "I'm fine, just too much bad horror, candy and thunder. It makes me feel all funny inside." He meant the thunder, though, the other things mentioned might have something to do with it, too. Ryou knew it was because of all the electricity in the air and the horror element of thunder that effected him.

"Hey, why didn't you call earlier?" Ryou asked, remembering that he had been looking forward to the call.

"Something came up and, believe it or not, I actually have a life outside of you." The words would have sounded rude and harsh if it wasn't for the light tone the caller used.

"Ah, ok," the boy replayed. "Guess what? The movie I just watched, it was about this evil phone stalker kind of guy. I just thought that it was sort of ironic since I found it when you were calling me. Not that I'm accusing you of anything, of course," he added.

"That's good, one could get offended by being called an evil phone stalker guy." The light tone was gone now. "Though, I believe that this situation is different from that in some movie."

At first, Ryou had nothing to say to that. Had he pissed the caller off? "I'm sorry... I didn't mean it to sound like that." When he finally had someone else than his father to talk to, he didn't want to chase them away. "Of course it's different and I wasn't comparing or anything... Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, I wasn't really offended," the caller didn't sound offended anymore. "Anyway..."

A silence followed that. A long silence when neither had anything to say. After a while Ryou sighed, heard how the caller sighed, too, and sighed again. There was a huff from the other end. The boy blew air out, knowing that the other heard it. The ridiculousness of it all made Ryou burst out laughing and almost fall off the couch again. He managed not to, and calmed down enough to hear the caller speak:

"You're the weirdest person..."

Stifling his laughter so that he could reply, Ryou turned to lie on his stomach. "I'm not weird, I'm just unique," he said, smiling.

"What's the difference?"

Ryou shrugged. "It's the same thing, really, but I think unique sounds better than weird. Weird is more insulting."

"Whatever, you are over-analyzing it."

"That's just a part of my unique uniqueness," Ryou joked, leaning his elbows on a pillow and waving his legs in the air. He heard the other laugh and smiled.

"What's the rest of it then?"

If he had a phone cord, he would have started to whirl it around his finger at this point. "Maybe you will have to find out."

"Hmm, maybe I will," the caller lowered his voice and took thd tone that sent a nice shiver through Ryou.

"Well, you would have to keep calling me," Ryou said.

"Never said I wouldn't."

"T-that would be nice, if you could." Asking that made Ryou nervous. This was a stranger who he had talked to a couple of times and now Ryou was asking him to start some kind of an over-the-phone relationship.

The caller didn't have any objections, "Good, I wouldn't want to bother you too much."

Ryou laughed out of relief and because the caller was funny in his own way. That made him more relaxed than he had been moments prior.

"Um. Could you tell me your name?" he asked. "Just first name or nickname is ok, but of course if you don't want to, that's alright, though I would like to have something to call you, other than 'the mysterious guy' or something like that."

There was a small moment of silence as the caller contemplated.

"...Mariku," came the answer and Ryou felt relieved that the caller had told him, even if it was made up.

"That's a nice name. I'm Ryou."

xxx

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but it sort of... slipped my mind." It was sunday afternoon and Ryou was with his father, sitting on the opposite sides of the kitchen table. Ryou was shocked to hear the news his father had.

A business trip to the other side of the Pacific Ocean. In a week.

"How can something like that slip your mind?" Ryou asked, voice not hiding his frustration. "You have known about it for the past month and haven't told me."

"Yes, yes, I know and I am sorry. This is really important and I hope you can understand. I trust that you can take care of yourself," the man said and smiled, hesitant.

Ryou drew a blank. His father trusted him now? Since when?!

"Though, I know that a son of my good friend wouldn't mind keeping you company while I'm gone."

Ryou's face fell; there goes the "trust". He knew that there was nothing he could do about it, since his father had decided to go, and had contacted this friend of his, too. "Alright. I hope you have a nice trip, dad." Ryou got up and went to his room.

This was so typical; his father made decitions that effected them both, without asking him, and left him to deal with the aftermath. It was nothing new but it still made Ryou feel that he didn't matter; made him feel like some hindrance to his father's career. Had this been how his mother had felt before she died?

Ryou needed to talk to someone other than his father. He hoped Mariku would call. That had to wait until evening, though, so there was still most of the day ahead of him before he could vent. He wondered if it was alright to want to tell Mariku something this personal when they didn't know each other well yet. Would Mariku be scared off, or worse, not interested. Mariku had been nice enough so far but all they knew about each other was superficial facts. They would need to get to know each other on a more personal basis to become friends. Ryou sure could use a friend.

He heard his father leave the house, without trying to talk to him. The chances were that Ryou wouldn't have listened to him but the effort would have been nice. Of course, his father hadn't tried to console him because he knew that Ryou wouldn't have listened.

It was a long time to wait until tonight, and to the time when he could watch the remaining horror. The gray clouds from yesterday had yet to leave the sky and it looked so boring outside that Ryou didn't feel like going out. There wasn't much he could do in the house, though.

Ryou grabbed his music player and headphones to distract him from the bad weather and left the house. Just in case it rained, he grabbed his umbrella. He hoped that it would; no use for the sky to look like that if it wasn't going to rain. Ryou liked the rain. Everything looked better afterwards and the sound of the raindrops hitting the ground was calming. Thunder was a different story. It was even better when it thundered and rained. The electric miracle of nature scared some but it made him feel more alive. Combined with the calming effect of rain, it was something to look forward to.

In times like this when he needed a place to go and have a walk in, he wished for a park near by. A place where he wouldn't run into people all the time. The most soothing place was the Domino harbor, so that's where he decided to go.

Xxx

Mariku was on a break. With two hours of work left, he needed his obligatory coffee. In all his nineteen years of life he had never been a people person, so it was a miracle that he had got a job in a local grocery store. It was bordering on too much customer service, even for a weekend job. Not a day went by without him wanting to kill one or two of the customers. The store was small, and since the owner was a kind elderly woman, the people who came to buy their daily groceries there had got used to getting good service. None of them were afraid to ask, or demand, it. Still, it helped him pay his bills. Though, he would have to make an effort to get a fulltime job after he got fired from the last place he had worked on week days.

All the money worries put aside, the sea looked calm today as he sipped his coffee, leaning on his black motorcycle. This was the only place where he could be relatively alone, aside from his apartment. It looked like it would start raining any minute so not many were out enjying the view.

When the wind blew past him, it brought a soft sound of humming with it. He could have sworn that it was some horror movie theme and turned to look at the person who was just on his way down to the harbor, closer to the sea.

As his eyes spied a figure clad in a dark colored hoodie, carrying a blue umbrella, he couldn't believe his dumb luck. It was Ryou out of all the people who could have come to the harbor while humming a horror movie theme. Ryou walked near the edge that separated the land from the sea and stopped to look out to the horizon.

It would have been so easy to just go and open a conversation with something stupid, like 'Hi, do you come here often?' but there was no way he was going to do that. First of all, Ryou would recognize his voice and second, he would just make an ass out of himself. That always happened if he for some reason talked to people; he ended up saying something rude, and getting angry at them. That was never good. Lack of practice and lack of will to practice.

So he watched as it began to rain. Ryou was about to open his umbrella before they both heard the sound of thunder. It wasn't wise to use an umbrella when it thundered, and Ryou knew that, too, as he lowered it and just let the rain fall on him. It didn't rain hard so neither got wet as they stood there, Ryou watching the sea and Mariku watching Ryou.

Then, like the boy had felt his watchers gaze, he turned halfway around and looked straight at Mariku. If Mariku had been more polite than he was, he would have looked away when their eyes met but, as he was who he was, he just looked past the rim of his coffee cup as Ryou's curious eyes looked him over (looked over because there was no way he was checking him out). A tint of pink adored Ryou's cheeks and he looked away after a shy, hesitant smile at his watchers way.

Mariku blinked, unable to understand what had just happened. A smirk took over, as he managed to take a drink of his coffee like he had been planning to. Ryou had just smiled at him and now he was feeling funny. Wasn't he pathetic.

The rain water had made his coffee cold. There was no point in finishing it, so he tossed it to the nearest trash can and decided that it was better that he left before he did something stupid. His break was over anyway.

Xxx

Ryou put his hoodie to dry in the bathroom and got himself a towel to dry his hair with. He had had to tear his eyes away from the sea to get home. It had looked so nice. That hadn't been the only nice looking thing he had seen in the harbor. He laughed at his own thoughts and went back down stairs to get something to eat. It must have been hours since he last ate. He was starving.

He sat down to munch on a sandwich and hoped that he wouldn't get sick. That was doubtful; he hadn't even got wet and his immune system was like an impenetrable armour. A brief concern for the guy at the harbour crossed his mind without him paying much attention to it. He had, after all, just been standing there in the rain. So had Ryou but he did it all the time so that was different. It was none of his business what some stranger did, even if that stranger was someone who had been watching him and was one of the most attractive people he had seen, in a freakish way.

A yawn escaped him and Ryou realized that he once again hadn't spent much of the night sleeping. He should go and take a nap. That way he could stay up longer and still be alert at school tomorrow.

Ryou curled up on the couch and hugged his favorite pillow. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

The ringing started out as silent, penetrating his sleepy mind and pulling him back to the waking world. Then it got louder as Ryou's mind began to register it more and woke up. Eyes opened and searched for the thing that had forced them to do that. A cellphone was the source of the annoying ringing and a hand went out to silence it and bring it to the ear.

"..what..?" he heard his mouth say.

"I wonder if 'what?' is an upgrade or a downgrade from 'hello?'"

Ryou felt a sleepy smile slip on his face and sat up. "It's a sleepgarde. You woke me from my nap, that's all." He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was close to six pm. He had slept an hour or two.

"Heh, sorry. Just hang up on me if you want to continue sleeping."

"No, no, I'm glad you called," Ryou hurried to assure. He would never just hang up on anyone. "I wanted someone to talk to," he hesitated, "though, I'm not sure if you want to listen since it's um, maybe a bit boring."

"Bore me then, I won't mind."

"Well..." He had to think about how to continue, relieved that Mariku hadn't shot him down. Yet. "You see, my dad is going on this trip all the way to America in a week, and he just told me about it today. So, you can probably imagine how I felt when he just expected me to go 'Ok dad, have fun' and he'll be gone for a whole month, too." Ryou paused so Mariku could interrupt him. When he only heard breathing from the other end, he continued, "Though he did say something about his friend's son keeping me company so I don't have to be all alone, but I think that's just an excuse to have someone to keep an eye on me. I don't think he trusts me to be able to take care of myself."

A short silence followed. Ryou wasn't sure if he was done yet but doubted that his problems were interesting. He didn't continue.

"It sounds to me that your father doesn't care what you think," Mariku said. "And wouldn't it be better if one of your own friends kept you company instead of someone your father picks? Even if it was just to keep an eye on you."

Ryou bit his lip. His friends, or lack there of, was a topic he had been trying to avoid. To him, it was embarrassing that he didn't have any and it wasn't something he wanted to bring up. But since it was already out there,"Um, actually, I sort of don't have any friends so..."

"Oh. How come? You don't seem all that bad to me."

"Ah well... It's difficult for me to be around people, especially if I have to talk to them. I guess I'm kind of shy," he admitted.

"I'm not that good with people either. It's not shyness or anything, I just don't like most people."

The words made Ryou feel so much better that he almost laughed out loud. He didn't feel half as alone anymore. "Really? That's great! Uh, I mean that um..." Mariku laughed when Ryou stammered with his words.

"I think I get what you mean. Though, I thought that you would have lots of friends since you're so nice. No vicious personality trates to scare people off or anything."

"Yeah well," Ryou stifled his own laughter. "I guess I'm too nice. Do you scare people off with your 'vicious' personality then?"

"Why, of course. Be very afraid of me now."