CHAPTER 7: VISITOR Hiro is increasingly worried about the changes in Shuichi, and that's before an unexpected visitor appears to complicate things even further…


When Hiro found him, Shuichi was still in his stage costume, hunched over that damn stupid laptop he was beginning to wish his friend had never bought.

"Aren't you even changed yet?"

Shuichi shrugged impatiently. "Never mind that, look at this! Do you think it's true?"

Hiro felt a rising wave of unease. "Don't tell me you're on that bloody Ask site again…?"

"It says here there are rumours they're looking for a new vocalist! Do you really think they're going to give old sourpuss the boot?"

"You should be more worried about the little matter of his broken teeth!" Hiro muttered, digging a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. "You might be pleased to know he's not going to press charges for that punch you gave him so long as NG pays for his dental work."

"Then I did him a favour," Shuichi replied tonelessly, not taking his eyes from the screen, "his teeth were crooked to begin with. No wonder he hardly ever smiles!"

"I doubt that was what really settled it," Hiro remarked with a smirk, "Fujisaki reckons he saw K-san talking to Aizawa outside Seguchi-san's office… and Aizawa looked like he was about to crap himself! Something tells me he won't be shooting off his mouth again anytime soon…"

"Hurray for K," Shuichi said with half-hearted cheer.

"So…" Hiro continued as he lit his cigarette, "are you going to apologise to him?"

Finally Shuichi turned to face him, his eyes wide with disbelief. "To Sourpuss?"

"No, stupid," Hiro snapped impatiently, "to Fujisaki! Shu, I know he can be irritating, but don't you think calling him a stupid, spoilt, no-talent little shit in front of the entire recording crew was going a bit far?"

Shuichi lowered his eyes. "…I was angry," he answered softly.

"You were nasty. I've never seen you act like that before."

Shuichi hesitated. He turned back to the computer, but mercifully he shut it down and loaded it into its case before turning back to Hiro with a rueful look. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have done that, there was no excuse for it. And you know what's worse?" He rose and began to shed his costume. "The kid was right. The song sucked."

"Come on, it wasn't that bad…"

"Hiro, it was shit. Could you honestly have imagined us debuting with that song instead of The Rage Beat? Yuki would have wet himself laughing at me!"

Hiro sighed and shook his head. "Listen… maybe Suguru-kun is right. Maybe you should just let someone else take over the song-writing for now…"

If he had expected Shuichi to react hotly, Hiro was to be disappointed. His friend simply finished pulling up the scruffy old pair of jeans he had taken to loafing around in, and nodded slowly. "Yeah. Maybe. Maybe I should let someone else take over the vocals, too…"

"Shuichi!" Hiro cried in sudden exasperation,"come on, man, this is serious!"

"I mean it, Hiro!" Shuichi retorted, showing real energy for the first time, "there's nothing inside anymore! There's no music, no lyrics, nothing! I don't even know if I care about it anymore!"

"Shu… you heard what K said this afternoon…"

"Oh yeah, I heard," Shuichi answered bitterly, "we're neck and neck with Ask in the album charts and the singles charts! Hurray for us! That's not what I wanted for us, Hiro! I wanted us to trample Ask underfoot! Never mind all the crap with Aizawa; Ask are okay but they're not great. I wanted us to be as good as Nittle Grasper! And we're not! We're not even close! And it's all my fault!"

Hiro rolled his eyes impatiently, but Shuichi was insistent.

"We've got everything we ever dreamed of, Hiro – we've got Sakuma-san's manager and Seguchi's-san's cousin! We've got Sakano-san working himself into an early grave for us! We've finally got the full backing of NG! It's me! I'm the one brining it all down! I heard what else K-san said… a nationwide tour! He said it will make or break Bad Luck – that it's now or never for us! At the rate I'm going, it'll be cancelled before we get as far as Hokkaido! And I don't know what to do about it!

"Sometimes…" he added in a quieter, wearier tone, "I wonder… if I could just see Yuki again… you know? Just once? Or speak to him on the phone? Or even write him a letter or something?"

"Shuichi…!" Hiro gave him a look of gentle reproach.

"Yeah, I know it's stupid, but… it's like I'm stuck in a dream, like nothing's real… and maybe seeing Yuki again would wake me up… I tried to be more like Sakuma-san, you know… tried to focus only on Bad Luck… but it isn't working!" With a soft moan, Shuichi buried his face in his hands.

Hiro moved over to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. But to his surprise, when Shuichi looked up at him again those twilight-blue eyes were quite dry. And it suddenly occurred to Hiro that he had not seen Shuichi cry once since they had gone back to Yuki's place and learned that the novelist had run away to Kyoto.

"You want to go and get a drink?" Hiro suggested. They'd been doing a bit too much of that lately, but if it cheered Shuichi up just a little it had to be worth it.

Shuichi shook his head. "I'll be okay, Hiro… and I promise I'll apologise to Fujisaki in the morning. He's not such a bad kid… maybe he and I can have a go at song-writing together… if we don't throttle each other in the process… Anyway," he added with rather lukewarm enthusiasm as he picked up his laptop and they headed out towards the lifts, "I said I'd meet that Hitomi later on…"

"Hitomi? You mean you've got another girl on the go? Man, you're getting more and more like Yuki-san everyday!"

The words were out before Hiro could stop them. But once they were out, he realised just how true they seemed. Shuichi had been changing, slowly but surely. What had happened to the eternal optimist who always bounced back? What had happened to the boy who took rejection after rejection and carried on suiting himself, no matter what anyone – be it his parents or his teachers or Seguchi Tohma – might say to bring him down?

He knew with a sudden clarity it was that never-say-die attitude that had attracted him to Shindou Shuichi in the first place. He was so much like Hiro's own brother Yuuji who flunked audition after audition and came back smiling as if he had won an Oscar. Even as he had worked hard at his studies and tried his hardest to be a dutiful son, Hiro had sometimes wished he was more like Yuuji… and Shuichi had shown him how he could be.

Yuuji was still flunking auditions and still smiling. But Shuichi… Shuichi wasn't smiling much anymore.

"It passes the nights…" Shuichi muttered dismally, hardly reacting to the jibe at all. "You can't talk, anyway. None of your dates have been more than one night stands in the last few months…"

Hiro was infuriated to feel his face growing warm. The look Shuichi had given him was remarkably penetrating. It wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss, even with his best friend. He wasn't even sure he understood it himself.

He had spent two evenings in her company, and not in the conjugal sense. Nowhere near it. They had talked and shared a meal and played on the karaoke machine. The first time they hadn't even been alone together; Yuuji had been there acting like some unofficial chaperone!

She had been in love with another man. And now she was married to him. The story was over. At least one of them seemed to have got a happy ending.

Assuming she really was happy…

Back away, Hiroshi, he warned himself, don't go there…

"Have a good evening, Shuichi-san!"

Hiro glanced over to the main reception desk, to where that pretty little new junior receptionist was waving brightly to his companion.

Shuichi grinned at her. "Yeah, you too Misako-chan!"

"Thank you for the CD," she called, "it's totally cool!"

Hiro scowled as they made their way out into the autumn air. "You banging her too, now?" he said unkindly, wondering if he was deliberately trying to provoke his friend and not sure why.

Shuichi merely smirked. "I'm more and more like Yuki, right? Love 'em and leave 'em. Or, to be more like Yuki, fuck 'em and leave 'em. Love doesn't have to come into it!"

"Cut it out!"

Shuichi blinked at him "What - ?"

"That sort of talk! The bad attitude! All of it! Cut it out, it doesn't suit you! You're not Yuki and you don't want to be!"

For a moment anger flashed in Shuichi's eyes, and Hiro tensed, ready for it. Ready for the explosion that had surely been brewing for months. But then Shuichi subsided into that same doleful lethargy. "Sorry, Hiro," he said, "you're right. I'll try. And no, I'm not sleeping with Misako. She's just a friend. Besides," he added with a quick grin, "her aunt is Seguchi-san's secretary! Any hanky-panky and I could be the next one getting married in a hurry!"

Hiro sighed. "Want me to drive you home?"

"Nah… I'll walk. I need time to think… 'night, Hiro…"

Hiro watched the other man walk away, head bent, hands buried in his pockets. There had to be a way out of this for them… there just had to be…

He started as his phone began to ring, half expecting it to be his parents or his brother or that girl he had been out with the night before and stupidly given his phone number to.

He stared at the caller ID in astonishment. Then he slowly raised the phone to his ear.

"…Ayaka-chan…?"


TBC: So what does Ayaka want? Well, we'll get to that later. For now, Aizawa is having even less fun surfing the net than Shuichi, and things go very wrong when Mika makes one of those valiant attempts of hers at reasoning with Eiri… you'd think she would have learned by now…