Annnnnd here's the next chapter! This one is quite a long one... I hope it doesn't bore any of you! Hope you enjoy and ALL reviews are welcome, as long as they are constructive. Thank you =D


Tasaki & Ousari

Brrrrrrrrrling. Brrrrrrrrrrrling. Brrrrrrrrrrrling. Brrrrrrrrrrling. Brrrrrrrrrli-

"Hello?"

"Tasaki, you bastard! How could you do something like-"

"Very simply, Ousari. Goodbye-"

"NO, not 'goodbye'. I haven't even started into you, yet."

"Unfortunately, my dear, I'm not into your brand of human, so-"

"Listen, you sadistic punk, I have more on you than you know and God knows you're not the only one with contacts in the press. Now, you can either plug your doorbell back in and then let me in, or I'm speed-dialling 'Tokyo Today' and telling them the little story of the little piggie who sold some very dangerous stuff at a market one day."

Tasaki sighed and held the phone between his ear and shoulder as he tied up his blue dressing gown.

"By all means come in, you beautiful woman."

He hung up and pressed the button that opened his front door. Going into his small, cramped kitchen, he heard the pattering high-heel footsteps of Ousari in the entrance hallway as she stormed into the apartment.

He was taking a sip of his tea as the second front door swung open.

Tasaki sucked the corner of his dry lower lip, staring at the oil painting of a field of daisies that hung at an angle above his copper sink. The whites of the petals looked yellower than they should have, since the light in the kitchen was so dank and muddy. A fly buzzed on top of the broken microwave that sat miserably on the blue tiled work surface.

"Where are you, you scum!" Ousari yelled. She kicked down a small coffee table and let her wet soles sully the front covers of the books and magazines that crumpled to the dusty floor.

"I'm just in the kitchen," he called pleasantly back. "Would you like some tea?"

"Only if it's in a bath I can drown you in," Ousari seethed as she came to the doorway to the kitchen. She leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms over her sky-blue, knee length raincoat. Her milk chocolate brown hair was scraped into an unattractive bun and her usually light green eyes were dark with rage.

Tasaki let his nebulous blue eyes run over her admittedly pretty face- though her cheekbones were a little too high for his taste- and then sighed.

"That's a no, then?"

"What was the point, Tasaki? Neither of them were doing you any harm!"

"You naïve cow. Anything Akihiko does causes me harm," he rasped, punching his index and middle fingers to his heart.

"Get. Over. It. He's over you… then again I doubt he was every under y-"

Tasaki leapt for her, but she jumped to the side and held out her mobile phone.

"One press of this little button and you're over, Tasaki."

Tasaki's unwashed, thin black hair flopped over his eyes as the front of his body leaned against the sliver of mulch-coloured wall next to the doorway. He held the rotting wood of the doorframe and began to hit his head languorously against the wall.

"What are you doing?" Ousari spat.

"If I hit my head enough, I might impair my hearing and then I wont be able to hear you."

"Stop acting like a child."

"Shame… I was going to get you to take the photographs for the interview I was going to get with Akihiko." Ousari stared, incredulously, at him. Her hand was still held up, with her thumb on the speed-dial button. "Oh, don't pretend… you're almost as in love with him as I am."

"If you were in love with him," Ousari replied, voice and lips trembling, "you wouldn't want to cause him so much pain."

"Oh?" Tasaki turned around and folded his bony arms over his boy-like chest, leaning against the side of the fridge. "Then what would I do if I were in love with him?"

"You'd retract your venomous allegations-"

"They're not allegations, they're true."

"Rare for you, but even so… if you don't retract them, both he and that kid Takahashi will be in more pain than they deserve."

Humouring her, Tasaki asked,

"What do I do after that?"

"You go and apologise to Akihiko… who knows, maybe I can manage to persuade him to let you interview him. I am his wife after all."

"Ah, yes… I almost forgot about that."

Ousari put her phone in the inside pocket of her raincoat.

"Are you coming or not?"

Tasaki gritted his teeth and looked an inch away from the smugly superior Ousari. He really did want an interview… and seeing Akihiko… well, that would make him the happiest man on Earth.

He sighed and pushed past Ousari.

"Well, let me just go and put my face on, then," he replied, playing overly gay.

Misaki

"Where are we going, again?" Misaki asked, itching under his eye. Akihiko slid into the driver's seat of the sports-car and slipped his reflective sunglasses from the pocket of his long black coat.

"We're going to have breakfast-"

"I was going to cook-"

"And then I have to do some… business."

"What sort of business?" Misaki asked. Akihiko turned the keys in the ignition and pressed the accelerator, hard.

"The sort of business that will make me look oh-so-important, which will inevitably turn you on." He let go of the steering wheel as they drove up the ramp and pushed his sunglasses on.

"Don't say stuff like that… and it's raining, Aki-ko, what's the effing point of sunglasses!"

"I have photophobia."

"You do not have photoph-"

"How do you know I don't have photophobia?"

"Because- RED LIGHT!"

Akihiko slammed on the break and smirked over at Misaki, who was evidently frustrated.

"Ahh… red light… just enough time for me to-"

"Don't-"

But Akihiko's hand moved so swiftly from Misaki's crotch to his cheek that Misaki had little time to be annoyed- who could be annoyed at being kissed by such silkiness?

The car behind them had only a moment to beep, because next second, Akihiko was pushing into third gear and streaming down the main road. Misaki sat with his arms crossed over his chest, cheeks red.

"You look stupid in those sunglasses," he mumbled.

"And you-" Akihiko countered as he turned a corner- "look like someone who has had some very athletic sex."

"Don't speak like that!"

"We're here!" Akihiko cheered, grinning at Misaki before getting out of the car. Misaki ground his teeth together before also getting out of the car.

A hood suddenly draped over Misaki's head, before a single droplet of rain could splash on him.

"You look like a mini superman," Akihiko smiled down at him. Pushing his arms into the sleeves of the raincoat, Misaki forgot to say thank you. Instead, he said,

"And where's your raincoat?"

"I like the rain."

Misaki started up at Akihiko for a moment, entranced by the way the rain glistened like molten iron on his silver hair.

Then, he blinked and looked forward to see a gaggle of girls huddled outside a bookshop ahead. They were standing with their hands on their hips and chests pushed out, lips pouting and eyes wide. He gritted his teeth.

"You should have something on your head. I don't want you to get wet," Misaki murmured. Akihiko had, thankfully, not yet noticed the girls.

"Why the tone of care all of a sudden?"

"Just… argh!" Standing on his tiptoes, Misaki wrenched up the hood that had been tucked inside the collar of Akihiko's coat. He tipped it over Akihiko's head and then strode forward. "Come on, what restaurant do you want to go to?"

"Umm…" Akihiko laughed. Misaki turned round, about a metre from the girls.

Oh damn, he looks even sexier with a hood.

Akihiko tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded towards a café next to the bookstore. Misaki groaned inwardly, not loud enough for anyone to hear and then nodded. He practically strutted past the girls, annoyed at himself for being proud at the fact Akihiko was at his heels and not theirs.

They hurried into the shadowy café and sat at a table far from the window. The walls were painted a scarlet red and the chairs and tables were made of a uniform light-brown wood.

Misaki shrugged off the raincoat and hung it on a coat hook near their table. Akihiko handed him his coat and Misaki did the same with it.

"Why did you put that hood on my head?"

I didn't want those girls to see you.

"I didn't want you to get wet- if you did, you would catch a cold and then I would have to look after you and then you'd take advantage of that and then I'd probably end up having a cold as well and then I wouldn't be able to do the tests I've been trying to revise for, only a stupidly seductive author hasn't allowed me to concentrate on anything but… him…" I just said 'stupidly seductive'… 'seductive'… where the hell did that come from?

Akihiko took off his sunglasses and smirked down at the knife and fork on his side of the round table.

"You'd look after me?" Akihiko asked, quietly. Misaki stared, wide-eyed and mouth open at Akihiko and then picked up the menu from his table and used it to cover his face.

"What are you having?"