Disclaimer: Gravitation is all Maki Murakami's brainchild. I'm just playing in the sandbox with no profit to myself other than joy.

A/N: This belongs, technically, with the "Between the Lines" series, but it has long since gone beyond a oneshot. "Seven Days" is such an enigmatic song and I've always been suspicious of the details of the date in the Odaiba Amusement park. This is my take on that day...and as it has grown, the subsequent events as well.

Chapter six: Hiro (about time he showed up, eh?) gets a phone call from an abandoned Shuuichi.

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I Need a Ride
By Vindaloo
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Shuuichi returned to the upper deck, lattes in hand, but there was no Yuki. Anywhere.

"Yuki?" he called, puzzled, but there was no answer. Thinking perhaps Yuki had had to go to the bathroom—it had taken him a bit to find a vending machine with latte, but if latte was what Yuki wanted, latte was what Yuki would get—he curled into a chair as far out of the wind as he could get, and waited.

And waited.

He checked his voice mail, but there was nothing. He called Yuki's cell phone, but from the instant reversion to voice mail, Yuki's phone was still off. Shuuichi left a cheerful message, for all he wasn't feeling exactly cheerful, and went back to waiting. He was afraid to leave, afraid he wouldn't be here when Yuki came back and they'd spend all night chasing each other around the three decks, or worse, Yuki would get mad or disgusted with him and being tired, his mad wouldn't go away and it would spoil the whole day.

A uniformed person came by and he asked if anyone with Yuki's description had been reported taken ill—though surely Yuki would have sent someone to get him—but the uniformed man called his 'sick bay,' and no, no one of that description was or had been there.

"Maybe you should come inside, kid," the man said with a friendly smile. "Getting pretty cold out here."

But he shook his head, and the man, having work to do, shrugged and left him. He curled up in a tighter ball and continued to wait.

They were drawing into the dock before he finally admitted that wherever Yuki had gone, he wasn't coming back to the deck, decided he'd probably not heard Yuki telling him where to meet him, and resigned himself to Yuki being mad despite his efforts.

If Yuki had told him where to meet him, he'd never, ever come looking...or even call...or answer his cell phone.

As he pushed himself stiffly out of the chair, he felt something brush his hand. A piece of paper, a small, torn remnant of something larger stuck in the plastic webbing.

A bit of a photo.

A familiar golden eye smiled up at him.

"What the heck," he whispered, looking around for more pieces of Yuki's precious photograph, but there were none. What had happened? Why had Yuki torn up that picture?

More anxious than ever about his missing lover, he ran downstairs and wormed his way through the cars to Yuki's Mercedes.

Yuki wasn't there either. He waited. And waited. Fingering that tiny scrap of paper.

The cars cleared out, the attendants moved the Merc to let the cars behind it escape, and still no Yuki.

"Sorry, kid." The attendant came up, Yuki's car key in hand. "Gotta move it out."

"But Yuki—"

"I don't know what to tell you, kid. The boat's been checked and we're all clear. Your friend must have walked off. You two have a fight?"

Had they? Feeling rather lost, Shuuichi shook his head, for all he was far from certain.

"Well, we've got to get this car off."

"I—I can't drive."

The man began to lose patience. "Well, the car can't stay here."

Shuuichi swallowed hard and tucked that precious link to Yuki deep into his pocket, sealing the velcro tight.

"C–can you drive it off? Please? I–I'll call my friend. My other friend. He'll come—"

"Hey, kid!" The uniformed official who'd helped him call the sick bay came running up. "I've been asking around. One of the attendants saw a gorgeous (her words, not mine) blond man in a blue V-neck, black slacks and sports jacket leaving the boat right after we docked. Sound like your friend?"

Shuuichi nodded. Stunned.

"He called a cab."

Shit. What had he done this time? Yuki might well abandon him, but he'd never abandon his car.

Maybe Yuki was playing a game? Trying to scare him, or testing him again.

"Hop in, kid," the car attendant said from the driver's seat window, and Shuuichi slipped into the passenger seat. The attendant drove the car off the boat and parked it in the nearest parking lot, and, with an admonition to keep inside with the doors locked until his friend arrived to help, ran back to the boat before Shuuichi remembered to say thank you.

Dammit.

For a minute, he just sat, his mind numb. Finally, he pulled out his cell phone and called Hiro's number.

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The instant he was off the line with Shu, Hiro called K.

"I need your help."

"Anything for my band, you know that, Hiroshi."

"I need a ride."

"Now?"

"ASAP."

"Your bike broke?"

"K-san."

"Ah, shit, I just stripped for bed."

"TMI, K, TMI."

"Woose."

"Do I get the ride?"

"Of course, kid. Be there in ten."

"Thanks."

As he waited for the crazy American manager to arrive, Hiro slowly pulled on his own clothes.

He hadn't liked what he'd heard in Shu's voice, not one damned bit. This had been the Big Day, and now, Shuuichi called from a parking lot at the ferry docks. Abandoned.

And he'd been near tears, no question about it.

Dammit, what the fuck had that blond bastard done to his crazy, pint-sized best friend this time? The best friend, dammit, any man could have, if only Yuki Eiri would wake up and see past the sex. Shuuichi swore he had done just that, following Shu's rape, but Hiro would believe that fantasy when he saw Shu happy for more than a day at a time.

If you ever make him cry, for anything other than his own stupidity...He'd granted Yuki a lot of leeway, unable to imagine himself the difficulties of an otherwise reserved man living with the extreme extrovert, an extrovert who used that quality to hide some of his most significant insecurities. He'd beg Yuki to say he loved him, tease him unmercifully just to rouse an irritated cease and desist, when all he really wanted was a brief moment of reassurance. A hug, dammit, to remind him he wasn't alone in the sea of sensory input that was his world.

Once, Hiro's hugs had been enough.

His phone rang. It was K, announcing his imminent arrival outside the apartment. Hiro grabbed his jacket and ran down the stairs to meet their manager.

"Going to explain?" K asked, as they sped through the streets toward the harbor.

"Can't, really," Hiro answered quietly. "Just got a call from Shu asking me to come pick him up. He sounded pretty upset, and all I have is my bike. It's a pretty long drive and tired as I am, I thought—"

"You thought good, Hiroshi. Upset, huh? Yuki-san?"

"Why else would he need a ride?"

"So he didn't say?"

Hiro shook his head.

K's hands clenched on the steering wheel. "Dammit. And after all his work. I'm going to kill that blond-headed SOB."

"If he's really abandoned Shu for no reason, I have a previous claim on his hide."

"Nonsense. You do it, Seguchi-san will know in a heartbeat. I can do it anonymous—"

"K!"

"You thought I was kidding?"

"Hell, yes!"

"Shit. Then I suppose I was."

Hiro scrubbed his hands across his face and through his hair, trying to sort his brain enough to deal not just with an hysterical Shu, but a blood-thirsty K. "Look, K, I need you—"

One hand left the steering wheel to pat his knee, and in his calm, sane, everything is under control voice, K said, "Don't worry, Hiroshi. I get the picture. That kid isn't going to need any more stimulation by the time we get there. I'll behave."

"Thanks."

"And kill the bastard on my own time."

Hiro sighed and turned his head toward the blur of lights flashing past his window.

It wasn't just Shu waiting for a ride.

As they approached the address Shuuichi had given Hiro, they found an empty parking lot. Empty, except for a sleek, black car. Yuki's Mercedes SL-roadster.

K whistled through his teeth and met Hiro's eyes. "What the hell is going on?"

"Damned if I know."

"He didn't say anything about this?"

Hiro shook his head. Twisting to look back at the car as K headed for the distant entrance to the parking lot, unable to see inside because of the tinted windows, praying Shu was in it, as there was no sign of his friend anywhere else.

"Double good then you had me bring you. We can't leave that rig here. It won't last until morning...at least not in its current, integrated beauty."

The thought of K driving Yuki's car was not to be contemplated. The only thing that kept his driving sane on this trip was that he was using the car NG supplied him: a Toyota without the power to be 'interesting' to their power-junkie manager.

"No key." Hiro pointed out.

"I'll hotwire!"

Hiro sighed, whether with relief or frustration, not even he was certain, as they pulled up to the car and a small figure in a bright orange hoody appeared on the passenger side.

"Let's just find out what's going on."

TBC

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Next Chapter: Going Home