A/N: Don't own SIH. Please enjoy chapter eleven (sorry it's up a little late, I completely forgot to publish it earlier). Thank you again to my guest reviewer.

Chapter Eleven: Subtle Glances

The coming of the next week meant back to work with Chiaki again. Yuu woke up late that Monday, able to take his time rising because Chiaki's start times were later than Nakajima's. It was a good thing, too–although he'd gone to bed at a reasonable hour the previous night, he still had an unusually large amount of sleep-fuzz in his eyes and had to wash his face twice with the coldest water the sink could offer to rouse himself. He dressed, sucking back a customary cup of coffee, and gathered his things, ready to head to the train station.

I'll get something for breakfast at the convenience store next to the station, he thought.

Just as he was about to leave, though, his phone rang, and he picked up, seeing it was Nijiro calling.

"Good morning, rainbow princess," he greeted his friend good-humoredly.

"Morning," Nijiro replied, unfazed by the nickname. "Do you want a ride to work? I'm just about to leave the apartment, thought I might swing by after I get something to eat."

Yuu's brain quickly calculated how he might get some breakfast not bought from the convenience store, and he queried, "Yeah. Do you think you could stop by before you get something to eat, though? I haven't had breakfast yet."

"Oh, sure," Nijiro said. "I'm hanging up now, I'll be by soon."

Putting his phone away in his pocket, Yuu left his entryway, passed through his front gate and stopping to lean against it. The weather was pleasant that day: the sun was shining and a few white puffs of cloud were drifting lazily through the sky. A light breeze blew out of the east, ruffling his messy brown hair. The temperature, too, was mild–it was the perfect day to spend outside, instead of cooped up drawing manga. Hopefully at least Chiaki would have his windows open to keep the air from becoming stuffy.

There was a rumbling growl and Nijiro rode into view, stopping just before where Yuu stood. Turning the key, he killed the ignition, flipping up his visor as he did so. This morning he was dressed head-to-toe in black, with the exception of the electric blue scarf wrapped around his throat. He had twisted it so it loose ends ran down his back, leaving a brightly colored trail in their wake. They had been flying out behind him as he drove, but now they settled against his back. This morning, too, Nijiro wore the fingerless gloves typical of motorcycle riders; he must have dug them out of his things with the return of his bike.

Nijiro smiled, crooking a finger at Yuu.

"Hey," he hailed the maroon-eyed man, "Hop on."

Yuu obeyed, slinging his leg over the motorcycle to sit down behind Nijiro. He laced his arms around the black-eyed man's waist, and once Nijiro was satisfied he was holding on tightly enough, he flicked his visor down, turned the key in the ignition, and peeled away from the curb.

"Where are we going?" Yuu asked, bending closer to Nijiro to in an effort to make himself heard through the man's helmet and above the roar of the bike.

The muffled reply, when it came, sounded something like, "You'll see," so Yuu resigned himself to waiting patiently for their arrival. When they were stopped by traffic, though, Nijiro flipped up his visor and turned his head back, explaining, "Coffee shop."

Yuu wanted to inquire further, but the light ahead of them suddenly turned green, and Nijiro was forced to redirect his attention to the road before him.

A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a café, Nijiro sliding into a small space between two cars to park. The two unloaded themselves from the bike, Nijiro hanging his helmet on one handlebar, and stepped up onto the curb.

The sign atop the café read Café Français, it was small, distinguished by the green and white striped awning hanging down over the windows. Looking in through them, Yuu could see it was a pastry shop as well as a coffee shop. The croissants, muffins, and scones looked mouthwatering, and although he hadn't been that hungry before arriving, he resolved to sample several of the delicacies.

"Sugar-free pastries are kind of a rarity," Nijiro explained just as Yuu was starting to wonder how a diabetic could eat anything from a place like this. "The owner makes both sugar-free and sugary, and I've been told they taste practically identical."

The two entered the shop, the tiny bell hanging on the door dinging their arrival. There were a few other morning sugar-seekers in the shop, sitting at the tables and inspecting the fare behind the glass partition. The woman behind the counter was packaging up a dozen muffins for a customer to take to work, but when she saw Nijiro she tossed him a wave, recognizing him from previous breakfast expeditions. They ordered: coffee (one with artificial sweetener), a croissant, and two scones (one sugar-free), and Nijiro promised to come again soon, thanking the bakery worker by name. Quickly finishing their coffees and Yuu his croissant, they returned to the bike, Yuu stuffing their remaining pastries into Nijiro's bag, which he was now carrying.

They made their way to Chiaki's apartment, arriving just as their female co-workers did. Nijiro zoomed the bike up next to them as they strode down the sidewalk, angling to impress. As he had expected, they looked up in surprise and admiration.

"Morning, Ao, Yumiko, Megu," Nijiro greeted the three, flipping up his visor and killing the engine. Yuu released one arm from its tight grip clutching Nijiro's waist and waved to them, seconding the hello.

"Morning," Aoki returned, her tone nonchalant despite the appraising look in her eye as she looked the bike up and down. Yumiko and Megumi's reactions were less understated. Megumi's eyes were as wide as saucers, she had taken a rapid step back from the curb when she heard the growl of the motorcycle. It seemed she was one of those who is more frightened by a motorcycle than impressed by it, but that fit in with her overall timidity, Yuu reflected.

Yumiko, who had looked bored until she had seen the bike, was now grinning.

"Hey boys," she commented. "Nice ride."

Hey eyes scoped the bike, glossing over it sleek black exterior and coming to rest gazing at Nijiro's bag, resting against the small of Yuu's back. From there, they flicked to Yuu's arm, still laced familiarly around Nijiro's waist. She raised her left eyebrow slightly, her grin transforming to a smirk. Yuu caught the piercing look in her eyes, his brow quirking in puzzlement, and followed them to where they burned a hole in his arm. Noting her expression, he removed his arm gently, trying his best to keep the gesture casual and not seem embarrassed to have been caught holding onto his black-haired chauffeur after the bike had stopped.

"Thanks," Nijiro replied, wrenching off his helmet and shaking his hair to get rid of his helmet hair and missing the exchange between Yumiko and Yuu as a result. "My older sister brought it down this weekend–she'd been borrowing it."

"Lucky of Yuu to be able to get a ride," Yumiko remarked, still smirking.

Nijiro, completely unaware of her implication, replied, "Oh, if you want a ride sometime just let me know. Yuu's ridden three times already, so I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting someone else ride with me."

Yumiko's eyebrow progressed further up her forehead and her smirk stretched wider.

"I don't know," she said, "Yuu certainly seems to enjoy riding that thing, I wouldn't want to get between you two."

This time, Nijiro understood the innuendo, rolling his eyes and scoffing at Yumiko, his smile flattening. Yuu, meanwhile, turned away and made a pretense of checking the scones in the bag, feeling his ears smouldering.

"Come on, let's get going," the black-eyed man said, dismounting from the bike and reaching out to take his bag from Yuu. "We have actual work to do today."

Yumiko chuckled, but gave up teasing them, and the five assistants made their way into Chiaki's apartment building, the two men eating their scones as they walked.

The five sat down in a new configuration today; Nijiro and Yuu on one side of the table opposite Megumi and Aoki, Yumiko sitting at the head of the table. They had arranged themselves strategically–Yuu and Nijiro had taken positions on the far side of the table, facing Chiaki. Yumiko, meanwhile, had sat where she could watch all of them, although she was really only interested in seeing what the men would do.

As they drew, Yuu's eyes were drawn time and again to Chiaki. It was habit at this point, something he did without really noticing he was doing it. The man's brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin, delicate bone structure–all of them were inspirations for him, helping him draw just the right amount of emotional intensity in the sketches he did for the mangaka's work. He would glance up at Chiaki, feel his heart well with unrequited love, then push the feeling into his pen as it danced across the page, making the characters as beautiful in the eyes of each other as Chiaki was in his eyes. A prompt to keep the right emotion in mind.

This time, though, Chiaki wasn't the only one graced by his glances. Every so often, he'd look up, meaning to be staring once again at the man he'd loved since middle school, and find he was looking beside him instead of across the room. The same elegant bone structure, the same snow white skin, but with raven hair, slashed across the temple by streak of red and pale bleached hair, and abyss-deep midnight eyes. Nijiro. It wasn't unrequited love he felt when his eyes lit on Nijiro–he hadn't been in love with his new colleague since middle school, after all–but he wasn't sure what it was. There were some similarities: the admiration of their graceful features, but there was something different, something impossible to identify. A subtle tightness in his chest that made him feel like two cups of coffee that morning had been too much, even though he knew he would have been draped in a heavy layer of fatigue without them. It felt something like a mental itch he had no idea how to scratch. And there was something else. From time to time, Nijiro's eyes would flick up to look at Chiaki, no doubt for reasons similar to Yuu's own. He had admitted a desire to pursue the lovely man had Hatori not stood immovably in the way of any and all comers, so it was likely he was watching his crush just as Yuu was. Chiaki was well worth looking at, after all: the beautiful mangaka was a feast for the eyes. But for some reason, Nijiro's glances bothered Yuu. He couldn't say why, couldn't say anything to stop Nijiro from doing it without a valid reason as to why he shouldn't be. If he had been asked, he probably would have described it as distracting, but it would have been pointed out that he was doing the exact same thing and couldn't that be construed as distracting too. Besides, he was the one choosing to look at Nijiro, so he could easily end his distraction by simply looking away. Not that he had any desire to take that road, either. He found himself mentally chiding Nijiro, telling him he should focus on the task before him instead of looking elsewhere. He was the one who had said they had work today earlier, so he was the last person who should be slacking off. Never mind that Yuu was, by that argument, doubly slacking off in watching both Chiaki and Nijiro.

With that thought, his head snapped back down to the drawing in front of him. His pen had frozen in midair above the page, leaving the character he was supposed to be giving hair sadly bald. He narrowed his eyes, refocusing, and leaned a little closer to the page as he started giving the character locks to be proud of.

As he did, he missed the intense gaze coming from the end of the table. Yumiko had rapidly finished her page but was pretending she had a few things left to draw, more interested in the story unfolding in real life that on the page before her. She was watching the gazes exchanged between the three men, noting what none of those looking saw. Chiaki, as usual, was completely unaware of what was happening, focusing on getting out the next pages before his assistants could finish with the ones he had just sketched the last preliminary lines on. Nijiro was drawing diligently, looking up at Chiaki now and then to see if the mangaka had new pages for them yet. Furthest from her sat Yuu, but it was the looks he was shooting at the other two that were of the most interest. She had noticed him staring at Chiaki before–it was common knowledge to her and Aoki (she wasn't sure about Megumi, who had always been oblivious) that the maroon-eyed assistant had a long-standing crush on his author. Today, though, he was darting glances at Nijiro, too, these more subtle and yet more obvious than those he directed at Chiaki. By the way his brow furrowed as he looked at the black-haired man, it was clear he was interpreting Nijiro's glances as having the same meaning as his own, his angle making it impossible to see the lack of romantic intent in Nijiro's eyes as the black-eyed man looked up at Chiaki. It was evident that the glimpses irritated him, although he didn't seem to fully understand why. Interesting, she thought. Yuu had always been the kind of person who was aware of his own feelings, but here, it seemed, was an exception to the rule. She resolved to keep watching, keen to see how things turned out.