NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE: PENNAME SWITCH! Okay, now that I've got your attention: my new penname is going to be X-Reverie-X but I am not, I repeat, am NOT going to change it until at least chapter six so. Because I need to TELL people! Hehehe. So remember, X-Reverie-X!

You should all be very happy: the story is FINALLY going to get interesting.


Eiri scratched his head, trying to keep his golden flecked eyes on the road with the hyper singer next to him making cow noises. Shuichi had been ecstatic since they had gotten in the car, since finding out his very own hit cd was what Eiri listened to while he was tending to his affairs. Eiri protested. After all, he couldn't help the fact that he found the cd good! But Shuichi would hear none of this; The pink haired boy insisted on singing along to every song, and scoffing at Fujisaki's solos, claiming that the keyboardist thought too much of himself. After the entire twelve track cd played, Eiri switched it over to a Nittle Grasper cd, autographed by the Tohma Seguchi himself. Shuichi made no protests, and sang along to this as well, grating on Eiri's nerves with every word.

At last, when the novelist thought he could take it no more, the cd ended, and the vocalist switched the station to some techno, which was - thankfully - wordless. So Shuichi had begun to make farm animal noises. And Eiri, his hands gripped tightly on the wheel, mumbled curses under his breath, wondering how anyone could possibly be so damn immature.

"Yuuuuuuuki?" Shuichi drawled, mimicking an Osakan accent. Eiri tightened his hands on the wheel.

"Yes?"

"Are we there yet?"

"No." Eiri lied. In truth, they were twenty minutes away, but that wasn't information he wished to part with.

"Awwwwwww!" Whined Shuichi, twirling a bit of magenta hair between his fingers, which he had drawn finger puppets on to amuse himself. He was silent for a blissful moment. Then he piped up again. "Yuuuuuuki?"

"What?"

"I'm hungry..."

Eiri sighed. "There's peanuts in the glove compartment. Seguchi gave them to me. You'd think after knowing me for forever, the guy would realize I detest nuts."

Ignoring the double entendre, Shuichi popped open the department to find a container of salted cashews. The expiration date was three years previously, but Shuichi couldn't find the strength to care. He threw a few cashews into his mouth, cracking down on them with a vengeance.

"Eiri?"

"What?"

"Your nuts suck."


They pulled into the driveway of a small condo. Eiri looked up, surprised at how small Asuka Shindou's residence was. He unlocked the car door, and motioned for his lover to get out. The two men stood by the novelist's beige car, staring up at the house. Eiri felt a strange sense of foreboding, which was apparently shared by Shuichi, judging on how the giggles had died away from the singer's face.

"You gonna knock?" Eiri offered, glancing sideways at his lover. Shuichi nodded and stepped up to the door, ringing the small, dingy doorbell. The two heard a shriek from inside, and the door was flung open to reveal a petite woman, who looked not much older than thirty.

"Shu-chan!" The woman threw her arms around the pink haired boy, who blinked and then grinned widely.

"Hey mom!" He said, his smile growing larger with every passing second. "Yuki, meet my mother!"

"...hi." Eiri suddenly felt shy, in a way he hadn't since eighth grade, when he had been ridiculed for his hair color. It wasn't that he felt something for the woman (that was sick and wrong, in Eiri's mind). But she had a quality... something that he felt wasn't quite right.

"Hello! Welcome to my humble abode!" Asuka Shindou grinned and gestured to the tiny condo that lay behind her. A small living room, with a single couch, a small, splintered table, and a small tv was all that Eiri could see. He looked at the narrow flight of stairs, which lead to her bedroom and bathroom, or so he presumed. A dinging sound erupted from her kitchen, and she spun around with a yelp. "The food's done!" And with that, Asuka rushed off into the kitchen, tripping over her slippers as she went.

"She's a little..." Eiri started, not wanting to insult his lover.

"A little weird? Yeah, I know." Shuichi smiled. "But she's my mom!"

"I can see why you turned out like you did..." Eiri muttered under his breath. The two stepped into Asuka's house, closing the door tightly.

"Tonight, we're having ramen!" Asuka announced, the smile still on her face. "Shu-chan told me you were partial to miso ramen, Eiri-san?"

"I am." Eiri admitted, taking the steaming bowl from Shuichi's mother. He set it down on the small table, and then thoughtfully pulled out a chair for the cook herself. The three sat down, not awkwardly.

"So...? How's life been treating you boys?" Asuka asked, her eyes alight with the same light that Eiri so favored in his Shuichi.

"It's great! We might get to perform in Zepp Tokyo, with Nittle Grasper as our opening act! Wouldn't that be just awesome?"

"Of course!" Asuka sighed dreamily. "I still have that picture of you and Hiro when you two were just entering high school... you two had just decided to have a band. It's so sweet!"

"Oh, I wanna see!" Shuichi bounced up and down. "Can we go look for it?"

"Yeah, of course! Want a tour of the house, Eiri-san?" Asuka asked, smiling cheekily at Yuki, who nodded slowly. The three got up, returned their plates to the small kitchen (which contained a tiny refrigerator, decorated with newspaper clippings from the first time that Yuki and Shuichi's relationship had become public) and began to climb the narrow stairs, Eiri nearly smashing his head on the door frame. They ascended into a tiny room, which Eiri assumed was what Asuka used as an attic.

"Wow, mom... you're still such a pack rat..." Shuichi said affectionately. This was a true comment; boxes and drawers littered the whole room, filled with pictures, photo clipping, and other random memories. Eiri smiled softly. In a way, he'd wished his parents would have been like this: his father didn't take pictures ("It steals your soul!" His father often said.) But Eiri would have liked to have at least one picture of him, Mika and even the perverted Tatsuha. It might have been nice. Shaking his head violently, Eiri cleared the picture from his mind. He began to leaf through the boxes at Asuka's command.

"It's a small picture... you'll recognize it as soon as you see it. There's Hiro, holding a guitar, and Shuichi with a marker for a microphone!" She squealed. "It's just darling."

"Mom..." Shuichi admonished her, giggling. The three sifted through the piles of memories, stopping every so often to comment on them.

"I found it!" Asuka shrieked, brandishing a photo album in the air. "It's in here, I think..." She tossed the album to Eiri, who caught it. Shuichi scurried over to his lover, peering over his shoulder. The novelist paged through the album, finding himself almost laughing at some of the pictures. There was one of Shuichi, wearing a towel for a cape and holding a plunger. Another one showed the pink-haired youth giggling with a girl on his first date.

"Hey look, you liked girls then... what happened?" Eiri quipped. Shuichi grinned.

"Yeah, yeah, keep lookin'." The singer grew bored and began to look through the pictures himself.

"I'm sorry Asuka-san, I don't see the picture..." Eiri reached the end of the photo album and sighed. He was about to toss the album back to Miss Shindou, when he noticed the edge of a photograph sticking out of the cover. Curious, he turned his back to Shuichi and Asuka, and pulled the picture out.

It was at that moment, that everything Eiri had worked so hard for, was shattered.