[A/N]: Because of certain reasons I changed Ayame's name to Ayame (which means Ayame in Japanese, ha) and I am really, really sorry for any inconveniences this might cause (like people not reading the A/N's first and wondering "Who the fudge is Ayame?!"). For the time being, the focus of this story will shift a little from Haru to Ayame's relationship with Tatara, because of reasons you guys will get to read in this very chapter. And because Mikoto is too thick and Haru too much of a coward for any development in their relationship to be possible at the moment, lol *shakes head at the two*

Junkies for Fame
Get rich, get high, get drunk on your desire. Stand back, relax, now watch me start a fire.
I don't think they take me serious, normal life makes me delirious.

~ Three years later ~

It was just another normal day at HOMRA. The few boys that were in the bar were watching some program on TV, screaming the lungs out of their bodies while acting like monkeys. Anna, another Strain who had recently joined the clan after a huge fight with Scepter 4, was drinking something Izumo had fixed for her while she sat next to you and Mikoto as you all watched the boys be idiots. Ayame and Tatara were probably out doing lovey-dovey stuff, while you were sitting here, still being practically just friends with the redhead that you had slowly but surely fallen in love with. But despite being older and more mature now, you were still just as big a coward as you had been years ago and had never managed to motivate yourself enough to ask about what had happened that one night.

Speaking of Ayame, though, the story of how Anna had joined HOMRA was quite interesting. You didn't know all the details, only that her parents had died and she had been sent off to live with her aunt, but because of certain reasons that hadn't worked out quite as well as it should have and somehow the Gold King had gotten her into a facility that was posing as some kind of hospital where, in reality, Strains were kept and learned about their powers.

Anna, however, had been placed in a part of the facility that had been under the control of a different Gold Clansman, a certain Miduchi Koushi, who happened to be some crazy scientist who wanted more power and to that end, he had used powerful Strains to become the new Blue King - a King he could easily manipulate. Anna had been chosen by him to become linked with the Dresden Slate, but no matter how many times he had tried, it would not work and in the end he had chosen to use pain on her.

It was around that time that the suspicions that the other Usagi-members had managed to leave the facility and started roaming through the city. When Mikoto heard of this, he had called all of HOMRA to raid the place and free her. The huge fight Scepter 4 started because they were guarding the facility and when a few months later, by some sick kind of fate, Munakata Reisi was chosen as the next Blue King, Ayame had double the heart attack.

She had already seen the facility, seen what happened to Strains who weren't as lucky as she had been and then her brother became a King, restarted Scepter 4 and became one of HOMRA's greatest rivals. It was quite understandable to think that she didn't go home as much as she used to, especially seeing as how Tatara had left his house and was living at the bar too now.

It was really becoming quite lively, though. Masaomi and Yo had started sharing their rooms and Rikio had to share his with a newcomer: Fujishima Kousuke, a funny bloke who brought in stray animals all the time. Then there were Yata Misaki, a skateboarding hothead, and Fushimi Saruhiko, a rather mysterious boy, who shared their rooms. Bandou Saburatou was the lucky one who had gotten a room for himself. You shared your room with Anna, being the only free woman around here, seeing as how Tatara and Ayame had gotten inseparable these days. And of course, Mikoto and Izumo both had their own rooms as well.

Anna spent most of her time with Mikoto and though you were a little jealous of her, you granted her that 'privilege'. Not just because she could probably read your mind and tell Mikoto every single thought you had about him, but because of everything she had been through and the fact that she needed him more than you do. And anyway, she seemed to have gotten quite attached to you too. How was that not possible when most days of the week she slept in your bed, anyway?

A loud noise pulled you out of your train of thoughts and you looked up to find the members who had been out return all at the same time, but not in the state that they had left a few hours ago.

Tatara was helping a limping Misaki into the room while Rikio and Saruhiko were right behind them. Ayame tried her best to follow them while pressing her hands against the boys' bodies, attempting to make their wounds heal quickly.

"Give me that first aid kit, Kusanagi-san!" the Strain shouted over the sound of the other members yelling energetically as they tried to figure out what had happened.

Izumo swiftly handed you the box, because you were closest at the moment, and you jumped over to aid Ayame with the boys.

"What happened?" you asked as you helped Tatara set the skater down on the nearest couch so that Ayame could tend to the nasty-looking wound on his thigh that his hand was clutching at, pain written all over his face as he took in shallow breaths.

"We were just hanging out when Yata-san heard someone badmouth Mikoto-san and he practically exploded," Rikio explained in the poor boy's stead. Ayame ripped Misaki's shorts from the bottom up so she had better access and then gently pressed her hand on the bleeding cut, hoping this wasn't one of those wounds her powers wouldn't accept.

You could see how Misaki bit his lower lip in an attempt to not groan in pain, not wanting to seem 'weak' in front of the others. Especially not in front of Mikoto.

"But Misaki's one of our best fighters. How did he get wounded by someone who was just badmouthing Mikoto?" you asked no one in particular, waiting for Ayame to finish with his leg you could patch up the rest if that were necessary.

"One of them had a hidden knife that he used when Misaki wasn't looking," Saruhiko replied. He didn't miss the absence of a reaction from the skater at being called by his first name. Misaki never liked it, not even when it came from you, who used everybody's first name.

The very moment Ayame dropped her hands from Misaki's leg, you investigated the wound and felt your stomach drop when you saw that there was still quite a wound left, but not as bad as it had been and the bleeding had stopped for the most part. You mostly worried about how Ayame was feeling, seeing as how she once again had 'failed to heal' a clansman.

"Good job, Ayame. Go and check the other boys too, okay?" you said to try and encourage her. You almost sighed in relief when you saw her nod and move on to the next victim.

You disinfected the injury, just in case, and with your free hand you placed Misaki's hand on your shoulder so that he could grab on to something to hold in his pain. You didn't understand his need to not make a single sound but you weren't about to let him do something he felt so uncomfortable with either.

While ignoring the sting as you felt him dig his nails into your shoulder from disinfecting his leg, you rapidly wrapped a roll of bandages around the lesion and fixed it so that it couldn't shift easily. "There, all done."

Even though you were one of the worst fighters in the clan, together with Tatara, you had earned your place through patching the others up after their almost-daily scuffles. Ayame and you made the perfect healing-team that could possibly exist and within no time, all the wounded members frolicked around and got wounded all over again.

"You should rest," Ayame told Misaki, noticing the paleness of his face. The amount of blood that had dirtied his pants made it pretty obvious that he lost quite a bit of it. Not enough to be very dangerous, but he'd still have to take it easy the next few days.

Misaki frowned at her and wanted to say something in protest, when he saw the look you gave him, a look that told him that maybe he could have convinced Ayame, but not you. Everyone was always very soft and gentle with Ayame, the girlfriend of HOMRA's pacifist, but they knew she could become weak when using the puppy eyes. You, on the other hand, you were rather close with their King and especially Misaki, who treated Mikoto like some kind of god, looked up to you and wouldn't dare disobey most of your orders. That didn't mean he didn't dare to act cheeky against you, but it was obvious that in that moment he didn't really feel like being stubborn.

With a grumble, he reluctantly let Rikio and Saruhiko help him up the stairs to his room where he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.

Once the three boys had disappeared up the stairs, the usual bantering began again and while some of the remaining members went back to watching TV, others opted to talk about what had happened, mumbling about how hot headed Misaki could be and how there had been many people badmouthing their King lately.

You and Ayame followed Tatara to sit by said King, the bartender and Anna and the couple started to talk with Izumo about something you didn't quite catch as your mind began to wander about like it loved to do.

Watching Ayame and Tatara interact with each other, you couldn't stop yourself from feeling a little jealous as your eyes flickered in the direction of Mikoto who drank some alcoholic beverage, a cigarette captured between his index and middle finger. He was just old enough to drink and smoke and already loved it to bits, apparently.

You tried to keep your gaze hidden as you let your eyes inspect his face, realising that he looked rather tired. Or maybe that was the alcohol doing its job? You looked his hair over, seeing how it had grown in the past few years, still as unruly as ever though. You wondered how many times you had pulled your hands through the strands while kissing him passionately only to end up feeling confused and broken when you found you still couldn't bring yourself to ask him how he felt. There was never a change in his behaviour towards you, except for that hidden concern that now got buried underneath the responsibility of being a King.

But he had never asked you about it either and he didn't strike you as someone who couldn't sleep until the birds actually started chirping because they were too busy wondering and worrying about what the Hell was going on.

It was like the two of you had this fight going on, the fight of who could be the most stubborn one, without either one of you realising it. Not that you knew whether he even cared at all. Would he ever get to know how he had rocked your world?

A sentence that was spoken suddenly went into one of your ears and went out through the other, but something got stuck on its way back out.

…marry me…

Silence fell over everybody in the room, except for the TV in which somebody screamed in pain, the sound of blood splattering all over the place closely following it. Someone picked up the remote and turned it off quickly before going back to staring at what had just been said.

"What?" Ayame managed to squeak, her face becoming a tomato as she saw the full attention she got all of a sudden.

Tatara merely grinned widely, albeit nervously, and got up from his chair to stand in front of the flustered woman. Much to her dismay, though it wasn't as if they could have been receiving any more attention at this point anyway, he kneeled down in front of her and pulled something out of his pocket.

It was a ring, simple yet beautiful at the same time.

Just like their relationship, now that you thought about it. They never really had any fights and when they did they were over in the blink of an eye. Always together, there wasn't a day that you didn't get to see them press their lips together at least once. Whenever HOMRA went out, they held hands, just like they did in every other possible moment.

At times, you found it hard to keep the bitterness away from your heart whenever you saw them glued to each other, but in those moments you'd force yourself to think of the many times that they had tried to give you advice on your situation.

"Munakata Ayame," Tatara started once more and coughed once to build the suspension even more. Not like everyone didn't already know what was going to happen. "Will you marry me?"

Ayame started to fidget dangerously, a lot more than she should have been doing in such a situation. If one were asked if they wanted to marry the love of their life, wasn't one supposed to dance around and scream 'yes' happily? Instead, this woman played with her glasses and her shirt and her trousers and her glass standing on the counter, looking everywhere except at the man she loved with all her heart. She did love him with all her heart, right?

The sight of Tatara's smile faltering for a fraction almost broke your heart and you had to hold yourself back from screaming 'yes' in her stead.

"Ayame?"

She swallowed before finally redirecting her look towards the poor, hopeless boy who was kneeling in front her. "O-of course I want to m…marry you! But… I want my brother's approval first…"

The awkward silence turned into an uneasy one at the indirect mention of Munakata Reisi, the man who enjoyed thwarting HOMRA as much as he desired. It was easy to forget that they were family with the differences between the two. You were probably one of the few people who realised just how much they were alike. Acting like Mikoto's secretary most of the time and apparently being one of the few HOMRA-members he considered 'worthy of his presence', it was mostly you who relayed messages between the two clans when he didn't send one of his people over, so you had gotten to spend quite a lot of time with him in the past few months.

Tatara's smile returned with vigour and he nodded happily. "If that's what you want, then sure! When do you want to ask him?

Reply to Knyttet's (guest) review:
It makes me happy to hear that you like reading this story, I always try my very best to make it as good as possible so that others can enjoy it just as much as I do. And I'm sorry for immediately rating this story M, that might have caused some confusion for other readers too, but I'm not yet sure when something M-rated will appear, or if I will even manage to gather the courage to write anything like that at all! I'm a horrible writer aren't I; I'm 18, love reading lemons but afraid to write them myself, oh dear! If you, and also other readers, would like to see some smexy stuff later on, I would like to hear this (and also what kind of stuff everyone prefers) so I can mentally prepare myself for any writing I may have to do in the near future! xD