Chapter two: Phone calls
Adel woke up when she heard two people talking a few rooms away from where she was. She sat up and sank into the soft leather couch she'd fallen asleep on and looked around. 'This isn't my apartment.' She thought to herself, as she looked around her eyes fuzzy. 'And I don't think I'd get a hotel room this nice.' She swung her feet over the edge of the couch and stood up, she stretched and noticed that she was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She walked slowly into the kitchen, towards the voices.
"Don't you have work?" The annoyed voice of Yuki Eiri floated out from the kitchen. He sat at the kitchen table with a thick manila folder in front of him as he drank his coffee.
Shuichi sat across from the seemingly cranky man. "No." He smiled happily. "We decided that we'd take a day off after that show yesterday."
Adel walked into the kitchen humbly with her head down. "Mr. Yuki, thank you very much for allowing me to crash here last night." She said in a small apologetic voice. "I hope it wasn't to much trouble for you."
The author narrowed his eyes at both her intrusion into the conversation and the reason for the intrusion. However it was the friendly smiling Shuichi that answered rather then the grumpy Yuki. "It was no trouble at all." He assured her.
Adel looked at him, surprised that he was there and was about to say good morning to him when a phone rang. One, two, three short bursts of sharp sound filled the room. She sighed as she pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and looked at the call display. She grimaced.
The blond man looked decidedly unhappy with the noise filling his home and the somewhat hyper man looked up at her with innocence. "Aren't you going to answer?"
The shorthaired woman looked at the phone in her hand and back at the pink haired idol. "Umm…" Yuki glared at her. Adel sighed and knew that if she didn't stop the shrill noises that second her chance at getting the prize winning novelist to sign a contract with Gamble Publishing was all but gone. She flipped the phone open.
"Speaking." She replied in English, her brother Henry was in no mood to be patient. "Tokyo."
"Yes," She got right to the point. "I'm at Mr. Yuki's home right now."
"It's not my fault your stupid enough to pay an escort service using your company credit card." Yuki looked amused as he watched the foreign woman wince away from the phone and come back at it with biting remarks. Shuichi looked confused as he tried to figure out what she was saying. He didn't understand her except for the words Tokyo and his lover's name; he could tell that it was not a pleasant conversation. 'I'll ask Yuki about it later.' Adel turned to Yuki and switched to Japanese. "He wants to talk to you." She said handing over the cell to the tall blond.
He took the phone with an air of disinterest. "Yes?" He said in a bored tone.
"Hello Mr. Yuki, this is Henry Gamble, from Gamble Publishing-"
The man on the other side of the world sounded like he wanted to say more but Yuki lost patients and cut him off. "Yes, I'm aware of whom I'm speaking to Mr. Gamble." He answered in a reserved voice. "I was under the impression that your company had sent Ms. Gamble to deal with the contract."
"Yes, well about my sister."
Yuki could almost hear the other man sweat over the phone. "Is there something I should know?" He walked out of the kitchen stopping only to get his coffee off the table.
"I hope she's not irritating you too much."
"Not at all." The cool tempered writer said after he made sure that no one was eavesdropping on him. "In fact she and a young friend of mine are getting along quite well." 'Which affectively gets both of them out of my way.'
"Umm, I see." The man's deep voice at the other end of the telephone sounded confused. "Would you like me to fly out and continue the contract negotiations anyway?"
Yuki thought for a second, about the man he had only a short while ago admitted to being intimate with to most of Japan. What would the pink haired bundle of energy and misconceptions do if Gamble came all the way from Canada to do contract negotiations despite his sister already being there? What would the hyper and all to easily depressed singer do if Yuki was seen in close relation with another man? He put his imagination to the test and could only come up with more and more annoying scenarios. 'I'd never get any work done that way.' The novelists voice was carefully neutral as gave his answer. "That won't be necessary."
"Alright," Henry Gamble seemed to sigh into the receiver. "I hope you will sign the contract and make your award winning books part of the Gamble Publishing line up Have a good-"
The man probably intended to say more but Yuki had already pulled the girl's phone from his ear and disconnected. He sighed, perhaps it was a good thing that the girl came instead, and at the very least I forgot how tiring it is to be forced to speak in English after all these years. He walked back into the kitchen to see Shuichi and Adel sitting side by side at the table.
"This is my older brother." The foreign girl said holding a picture for Shuichi to see. "He's only three years older then I am but he still treats me like a baby." She stuck out her tongue at the picture in a sudden act of childishness.
The singer looked over at the photo of Henry Gamble and had a sudden wave of cold worry expand in the pit of his stomach. The twenty two year old male in the picture was darkly handsome with short wavy hair and a white smile. Shuichi frowned; he definitely looked more mature the lead singer did. His worry intensified when he caught his Yuki glancing at the photo as he grumpily handed back the cell. "What did he say Yuki?" He tried his best not to sound worried or desperate.
Yuki found a pack of cigarettes on the counter and took one out, lighting it before he answered his boyfriend. "It doesn't matter what he said." He sucked on the nicotine and tobacco before saying anything else. "What matters is what I said." He took another drag on the cigarette, putting the rest of the pack away, Shuichi looked at him expectantly. "I said that there was no need to send another person."
Adel jumped up and down like a hyper child offered candy. "Yay, I get to stay and do the contract." Her phone rang again and this time she didn't hesitate to answer it. "Yes?"
She stopped jumping. Her face went from child like to angry businesswoman quickly as she listened to what was said on the other side of the line. "What?" The girl answered in a hallow voice after a long pause. "I understand. I realized that it's not actually your fault. I accept your apology. Yes, thank you good bye." She ended the call with the angry push of a button. She took a deep breath and turned her back on the bandleader and the writer and swore liberally in English.
When the young foreign Publishing house representative had taken another breath and turned to face the blond and the pink haired men again, Yuki was staring at her cool amusement barely visible in his eyes. "What was that about?" He took the cigarette out of his mouth to flick the ashes into the sink.
She took another deep breath and sank down into one of the kitchen chairs. "They lost my luggage." She said flatly. Adel looked down and saw the large tear going from the hem of her skirt almost an inch up and bit her tongue to keep from swearing again. "And now I have a rip in my only skirt." She put her head down on the table.
Shuichi frowned as he saw the shorthaired girl loose hope. He looked with big moist eyes at his lover, begging him to come up with a solution. Pleading silently with him to fix the problem. Yuki managed to hold out against the beseeching eyes for almost a full minute before sighing. "Do you have enough money to buy new clothes?" He asked aggravated by the fact that he hadn't gotten any work done yet and was forced to deal with them.
She nodded, her arms still folded around her head. "But what's the use, I don't have anything to wear and I look like a mess."
The soloist of Bad Luck looked at her and had a sudden burst of inspiration. "You're about my size." He told her, his eyes bright. "I'll just lend you some of my clothes."
Adel looked up at him, full of hope. "Really, you mean it?" She looked at her favorite singer in all of Japan and mentally compared his body size and hers. He was right they were about the same height and she could probably borrow something of his to just go shopping in. Shindou Shuichi nodded. Adel leapt up and wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you Shuichi! You're the best!" The dark haired Canadian girl released him quickly.
Yuki watched her and rolled his eyes. "Just be sure to take a shower first, you stink." He said coolly as he finished up his coffee and put out the cigarette. The author gathered up his manuscript and left the room to revel in the silence and peace of his study, where he felt he might just be able to get away from the pair of fools and do some actual work.
Please give me some feed back on how this chapter went. I'm trying not to let my made up character Adel take over but I'm not sure how it's going. I only want her in as a plot device, not a Mary Sue.