Moving On

"The meeting went well, didn't it?" Ryuichi said jubilantly when they came down to the lobby, all of them ready to go home and get some rest after a hard day's work.

Fujisaki and Hiro were rubbing their eyes, K was stretching his legs, Sakano looked totally pooped with his glasses askew and his hair on end, and Touma himself was stiff-limbed but Ryuichi seemed to be back to his merry, vibrant self.

It made Touma smile. A pleasant warmth flowed through his heart as he watched his friend take a few happy leaps and hug air. He had been so down ever since Shuichi died, Touma had been afraid that he would never recover. But now things were finally looking up again.

"Yes, the meeting was fine," he agreed generously.

Ryuichi surprised him by giving him a tight bear-hug. "Thank you for doing this, Touma," he murmured against the shacho's neck. "I love you for doing such a beautiful thing for Shuichi and his family. I just hope you can do something equally beautiful for Eiri-san." And a moment later he had let go of Touma and leapt towards the waiting area where Tatsuha was waiting for him.

Touma watched him, somewhat paralysed by shock. Once again Ryuichi had let his true, more serious self shine through for him for a brief moment. He guessed that meant that Ryu cared about him.

"Tatsuha!" the singer exclaimed happily, and laughed boyishly as he launched himself on his "playmate".

Tatsuha caught him with elegancy. "There you are, you little ragamuffin!" he said.

Ryuichi had begun to hang out with Uesugi-san again approximately a month after finding out the horrible news, and at first he had been rather mellow. But about a month ago he had brightened up a bit and slowly recovered from his broken heart. Spending time with Tatsuha, doing crazy things, seemed to do him good.

"Will you hang on a second?" Fujisaki asked Hiro when the guitarist was just about to leave, and took out his cell phone. "I just need to make a call first. I can't do it out there with all that traffic..."

Touma needed to place a call of his own. But he never got the phone up to his ear; something distracted him too much for him to remember what he had been about to do.

He could not tell when the atmosphere changed; it just did. Suddenly there was not anything friendly about Ryuichi's way of hugging Tatsuha, and shortly thereafter the singer raised himself slightly onto his toes and gently pressed his lips to Tatsuha's.

Touma dropped the phone. It hit the floor with a clink.

Tatsuha seemed as surprised as the shacho. He looked at Ryuichi with a quizzical look in his almost-black eyes, had most likely not expected that to happen.

Ryuichi just smiled and laughed at him. "Don't look so shocked, Tatsuha-kun!" he admonished in a friendly, warm way. "Isn't that what you've been waiting for all these years?"

"Um, yeeeaaahh... but I didn't think you..."

"Well, I do," the singer said and kissed him again. This time Tatsuha was prepared and eagerly opened his mouth to welcome him.

A red-faced Fujisaki swept past Touma as if his hiney was on fire and muttered something that sounded very much like "Fucking traitor, making out with that molestor!" Touma watched in amazement as Hiro rushed after him.

The kissing two were still tightly enwrapped in each other.

Either Ryuichi was completely over his cousin and had truly fallen for the charming Uesugi Tatsuha, or he was taking his ploy yet another step further in a last desperate attempt to make Fujisaki fall for him.

Either way, Touma would be happy as long as Ryuichi was happy.