Authoress here.

Ryuichi Sakuma is awesome. I just felt the need to clarify that. If anyone has noticed, he hasn't been mentioned at all in this story. Weird, huh?

Neither has Tohma, Tatsuha (Thanks for the help in remembering his name!), K, Suguru Fujisaki, Ayaka, or Sakano. I'm leaving out some of the best characters!

START CHAPTER

"Morning, Alira." Shuichi had awoken early the next morning and come downstairs when he smelled breakfast cooking. When he saw a mound of golden pancakes sitting on the table, his mouth began to water.

"You made us pancakes?"

Alira turned to him and smiled. She looked tired, but overall pleased with herself.

Shuichi returned the smile, even wider than hers, when he saw she was wearing a Bad Luck concert t-shirt. He chose to ignore her black pants with chains hanging from them, the type of pants teachers fear students for. "You went to that concert?"

She looked down and her shirt and flushed. "Yeah. It probably goes without saying, but I'm a big fan of yours."

"What smells down here?"

"Good morning to you too, Yuki." Alira turned her back to Yuki as he entered the room to get some orange juice from the fridge.

"I never said it smelled bad," he countered, taking a seat at the table.

Alira moved carefully around the kitchen in her stocking feet so she wouldn't slip on the glossy linoleum tiles when she went to put the carton of juice on the table. "There are eggs and sausages cooking too, if you'll wait a minute."

Yuki poured a glass of juice before taking a pancake from the stack. Examining the underside, he observed, "You burnt it."

Alira removed the pan of eggs from the stove and dropped some onto the two men's plates, not answering Yuki.

"You burnt the eggs too," he commented.

Alira snapped. "If you don't like it, don't eat it. My mom never got the chance to teach me how to cook."

Silence greeted her outburst, broken only by the sizzling of sausages. When they were done, Alira served Yuki and Shuichi. She then exited the kitchen.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Shuichi called after her.

"I'm not hungry," came the expressionless reply.

Alira headed to the front door to take a walk and blow off some steam, but a sudden knock caused her to jump.

"I'll get it," she called before tugging the door open.

Alira's mouth dropped open a few inches as she stood there, dumbfounded, at the sight of Bad Luck's guitar player, Hiroshi Nakano.

He blinked at her. "You must be Alira." His eyes flickered to her black eye. It was getting better, but it was still visible. He decided not to ask her about it just yet.

Alira nodded slowly as Shuichi entered their view, his chopsticks still in his hand. "Hiro? What's up?"

Hiroshi looked away from Alira, who was still gaping at him. Meeting one member of Bad Luck was one thing, but two in the same place at the same time was another. She was dumbstruck.

"I never gave you these lyrics from yesterday," Hiro explained, holding out a few sheets of lined paper. "I wanted to know what you thought about them."

Shuichi read them over as Alira edged out the front door past Hiroshi.

"Leaving?" he asked, causing her to jump.

"Uh...yeah, I'm just going to go take a walk," she said hurriedly as she rushed out to the street.

Five minutes later, she was sitting on a bench in the park, her head in her hands. She wasn't particularly concerned with being spotted by the police.

A bag from a local drug store was sitting next to her. Inside was a kit to strip the dye from her hair. The cops were looking for a girl with dyed black hair, not a redhead. She would be a bit safer if people were watching for her.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Alira jumped to her feet, grabbing the bag.

Hikaru Aki was standing in front of her, looking rather grim. "Your father is worried sick about you, Miss Montosuwa."

"Let him worry," she replied harshly. "He deserves it."

Hikaru sighed at the teenager before him. Although he was older than her by only five years, his uniform made him seem older. "He's asked us to find you, Miss Montosuwa, and bring you home."

"You know my name, Hikaru," Alira replied. "Call me by it."

"Miss Montosuwa," he said, ignoring her completely. "It's time for you to come back home."

Alira backed up slowly. "Over my dead body," she whispered. "This isn't any of your business, so fuck off."

Hikaru stepped forward. "Don't you dare speak to me that way."

Alira clutched the bag tighter. "I'll say whatever I want to you, Hikaru. This doesn't concern you in the least, so keep your nose out of my business."

"You know, you've been giving the police force more trouble than all the criminals combined. At least they know when to give up," Hikaru said coldly.

"You don't get it, do you? I'll never let my guard down like this again. You should've grabbed me when you had the chance. Good-bye, Hikaru. You won't be seeing me again if I can help it."

She turned then, and ran away from the officer before her.

He did not follow.

-Back at Yuki's house-

"So..." Hiroshi began. "Where did she come from?"

Shuichi glanced over. "Alira? She's...a runaway from off the streets. We don't even know her last name. She never told us."

"A runaway?" Hiro set down the cup of tea he had been given in a show of hospitality. "You and Yuki could go to jail just for letting her stay here, you know."

Shuichi looked into his cup of tea. "I know that."

"So why are you letting her stay here?"

"Did you see her black eye?"

"Yeah. What happened?"

"Her dad hit her. Yuki told me."

Hiro shrugged. "That could be one reason to run away from home."

The front door opened moments later, and Alira rushed inside, her breath coming in harsh gasps.

She walked into the living room, not realizing Hiroshi and Shuichi were in there until it would have been more awkward of a situation if she had left.

"Did you run here?"

Alira hesitated before nodding once. She sank down onto the couch.

"Alira...what's your last name again?" Hiroshi asked slyly.

"I didn't say," she replied carefully.

"That's why I asked." Alira cast him a slightly amused look. Aside from being attractive, he was witty.

Standing up again with the plastic bag still in her hands, she headed upstairs to strip the dye from her hair, choosing not to respond to Hiroshi.

She pulled opened a closet and tugged out two towels, one for her body and one for her hair. She turned around and immediately dropped the two towels that she had been holding in her arms.

Just a mirror, she thought, her heart beating fast as she stared at her reflection. Why am I so jumpy?

Scooping up her towels and the hair kit, Alira went into the bathroom. She made sure that she had locked the bathroom door before stepping into the shower to return her hair to the natural color.

When she exited the bathroom about a half an hour later, she had a towel wrapped around her hair even though it was dry.

"Umm...Yuki?" she called down the stairs. Carefully, she went down the steps and found Yuki standing in the hallway with a glass of something foul smelling in his hand.

"Hmm?"

"Umm..." Her face was pink and she was holding onto her towel firmly. "Can you drive me up to the store?"

"Why?" he asked, taking a swig of his drink, draining the glass.

"Umm..." she said again, shifting her weight to her other foot. "You know how you told me to dye my hair back? It...umm...didn't work too well."

"What do you mean by that?"

Alira hesitated, then removed the towel.

Her hair, now bright purple, tumbled down to her mid-back.

"I have to dye it back. Will you drive me to the store?"

"No," he replied calmly. "Why don't you walk there? I'm busy." He went to pour himself another drink.

"You look busy," she informed him sarcastically.

"Fair enough." He set the drink down, and walked into his living room, Alira tailing him. He grabbed Shuichi and tugged him off the couch. "Now I'm busy."

Alira stood rigid as Yuki and Shuichi went past her.

Hiroshi was trying not to laugh. She couldn't tell if it was because of her neon hair or the event that had frozen the teenage girl to the spot.

"I've got a motorcycle," he offered. "I can drive you."

She smiled at him. "Okay, but maybe I should tell you..." She bit her lip. "The police are kind of looking for me."

"I won't speed then," he replied, motioning for her to follow him.

An hour later, when her hair was reddish-brown again, Alira smiled warmly at Hiroshi. "Thanks for taking me there."

"No problem." He turned to leave since Shuichi was "busy" upstairs. "Hey, since you went to our concert, you'll be the first one to get a copy of our new CD when it comes out."

"Thanks! Bye, Hiroshi!"

She smiled as he drove off. He had mentioned a girl named Ayaka that he had said was cute, but she couldn't help thinking about how cute he was.

Alira glanced at her watch. It had gotten later than she realized, so she abandoned making dinner and headed upstairs to go to sleep. She opened the door to her bedroom, and jumped when she saw someone inside. When he turned, Alira saw a gun in his hand.

A piercing scream filled the night air, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

The man, a tall blonde American, stepped forward. "Oops. Wrong room."

END CHAPTER

Can I say something? Too bad!

The DVD subtitles to Gravitation are horrible. I watched part of the first one, and they got the names wrong. Yuki became Kwan, Shuichi Shindou was changed to Showe Shingtong, Tohma was Tung Ma, Hiroshi was "Ho" and "Hosze" and...

It was just annoying. I could barely understand anything since there were typos and grammar issues in the subtitles. "Son of the bitch!" Ah, the beauty of subs.

Still, I remain a faithful fan!

Authoress out.