Without Vocals

Chapter 2: Making A Deal Will Get You A Life

Summary: The band Bad Luck has no lead singer, and the responsibility of finding him was placed into the hands of Yuki and the others. After a much needed break at a café, there he meets Shindou Shuichi.

"Wha...?" This whole thing came to Shuichi as a shock. He pointed a finger at himself. "You want me to become the singer for Bad Luck?" Tohma nodded with his trademark smile. "Uhh…" Shuichi was left completely unsure. This was his once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a singer and he really needed the money on top of that. It was decided, he had to accept. "Okay, I'll become the singer for Bad Luck."

"Great! You're going to be just great! The best singer ever, Shu-chan!" Ryuichi cheered, slapping Shuichi on the back.

"Well…I don't know, I don't think anyone's as good as you Sakuma-san." Shuichi scratched the back of his head, blushing a bit; Ryuichi's compliment was too much for him.

"No way! Shu-chan is way better than me!" Ryuichi yelled. "Look, Kumagoro agrees, right?" Kumagoro's head was moved in a way that seemed close enough to a nod. "See?"

Too much noise was something that Yuki didn't like. "Will you all shut up? It's noisy enough as it is being in a café full of people!" he yelled, mainly at Ryuichi and Shuichi.

"This is great," Suguru was in high spirits. "We have finally found our singer—"

A woman with a tray stacked full of cakes and mugs came up to them. "Here you all go," she said interrupting Suguru, placing everything on the table. "Oh, I'm so sorry, did I interrupt what you were saying, young man?"

"No, no, it's fine, you didn't interrupt anything, really," Suguru gave the lady a slightly fake smile.

"Oh thank goodness. You're the first little boy I've seen with such nice manners," The woman giggled.

An anger mark just appeared on the back of Suguru's head. "Oh, really? Thank you for saying that," Suguru managed to say through gritted teeth that still managed to keep up an even more fake smile than before. He turned to the rest of the group, who he noticed were trying not to laugh. Suguru noted Tatsuha running straight to the men's room, the whole time with both his hands covering his mouth and holding back a huge fit of giggles. He sighed; he was sixteen and they still treated him like this.

Shuichi stared at Suguru with a cocked head and a very confused expression on his delicate face. "What's going on?" He asked, more to himself than anyone else.

"Let's just say Suguru doesn't like it when you call him a kid," Hiro whispered while grinning.

"How about a muffin for the cute little muffin?" the woman referred to Suguru, holding out a blueberry muffin. "It's on the house, but only for cute little boys such as yourself." The woman smiled while she held it out for him.

Tohma was trying to straighten himself up from all the things that this woman was saying to his younger cousin whom he knew disliked everything that this woman was saying. "Thank you, Miss, but that's all we need," Tohma said, finishing her off with his trademark smile.

The woman blushed. "Okay…I'd better get going, then."

To Suguru's relief, the woman finally left. "Why didn't you do that earlier?" he asked Tohma.

"Sorry, forgot," Tohma replied. "But it was funny, wasn't it?"

Stab.

"Hahahaha! You're still a kid, you know, Suguru! You'll grow!" K laughed loudly. "Just live until then!"

Stab.

"They'll stop doing that soon enough, don't worry," Hiro said. "But that was funny."

Stab.

"A kid, a kid!" Ryuichi yelled. He held up Kumagoro. "Look, a kid." He pointed to Suguru.

Stab.

"Sorry, but I had to go to go to the bathroom to laugh again…'cute little muffin'," Tatsuha teased.

Stab.

"You really are still a kid," Yuki began to smoke. "Much more maturing is needed before they'll notice since you are 16 after all."

Stab.

"Wait," Shuichi said as he stared at Suguru, "…You're not fourteen?"

The last one was too much for Suguru.

Suguru ran out of the café, extremely annoyed. "You're all blind!" he yelled to them before he shut the door. Everyone sat on their spot in silence.

A waiter came by their table. "Here is the bill, Sir."

"Let's go now," Tohma said, getting up. "We have to arrange a few things with Shindou-san. We should get going—oh, Eiri-san, could you please pay? I didn't bring my money."

I knew it…"I always end up paying…" he grumbled. This happened every single time they went out; they never failed to do that. To Yuki, Tohma and his younger cousin seemed to be the only ones who weren't doing it on purpose. "So, how much is it?" he sighed, taking out his wallet.

"It was nice having company for once…" Shuichi beamed. "I'll just pay for my things and I'll be on my way," he picked up the bill and checked to see the price of his soda and cookie. His smile vanished instantly after that and his amethyst eyes widened out of fear. "...But I could buy a TV set with that much money," was all he managed to say before he looked solemnly at the bill.

Yuki took the bill out of Shuichi's hands and looked at it for a while. His eyes just stared at Yuki curiously as he noticed the bill was no longer in his hands. Yuki sighed–this definitely was a fancy place, judging by the bill. After counting up the money in his wallet, he placed all of it on the table, next to the bill that was Shuichi's and the whole group's. Yuki got up. "Let's go," he mumbled, 'We're done here anyway."

"Wait!" Shuichi said as his hands were outstretched, and held Yuki's sleeve.

"What?" Yuki said in an irritated tone. "What do you want now?"

"Umm…" he looked down as if he couldn't make eye contact with him for some weird reason. "I'll pay you back later…"

"Whatever…" Yuki muttered. He turned to his younger brother. "Hey, Tatsuha, we have to look for that Fujisaki kid before we can go on." Tatsuha nodded, pretending that he had remembered to pick Suguru up. He thought Yuki didn't notice but he did. "Idiot…" he sighed. "Well, let's get going."

Soon enough, everyone was ready to leave. They found Suguru by the corner of the store, in a grumpy mood. But no one had time to worry about anything except for making a deal with Shuichi.

After getting to the building and entering Seguchi's office, they began. After an hour, a decision was finally made.

"So you agree to this contract, Shindou-san?" Tohma asked as he held up the piece of paper. Shuichi nodded. Well, the whole contract bit was coming to an end to Tohma's relief. He smiled at Shuichi. "Good, now that we have finally come to a decision, why don't you sign it?" Tohma put his hand in his inner jacket pocket. "…Now where is my pen? We can't get you to sign this without a pen, can we?" This time, he began to look through his desk drawers. Tohma sighed as he relaxed on his leather chair: everyone took pens out of his office without ever asking. "Sakano, could you please look through the drawer right next to you?"

"T-this one?" Sakano pointed at the said drawer; Tohma nodded. He dug through the drawer and found a nice blue pen. "Here you are, Shacho," Sakano said, placing the pen aside on Tohma's table.

"Now," turning to Shuichi, Tohma placed the pen right next to the spot where Shuichi was to sign. He gave him a smile. "Sign and everything else will be arranged."

Shuichi took the pen in his hand and signed it. Suguru cheered up a bit, Yuki was relieved that he didn't have to go on these expeditions anymore, Ryuichi was happy 24/7, Hiro was happy to have a singer and a friend, Tohma didn't have to worry about this anymore, K was happy to get another person in Bad Luck, Sakano didn't know who Shuichi but he was somewhat happy being the producer of Bad Luck with a new member, and Tatsuha was relieved of driving his car all around Tokyo and paying for the gas himself.

While everyone was cheerful, Shuichi looked worried. "Um, I have a problem..." Some turned to Shuichi with a confused expression on their faces–why wasn't he celebrating?

Yuki didn't understand; all of these stupid people would celebrate when something like this happened, so why didn't this kid even look cheerful? "What is it now?" Yuki asked in a tone that was a bit colder than he meant. The pink haired boy froze for a bit. Great, I probably sounded scray to this kid and frightened him, Yuki thought as he sighed. "So?" With no where else to look, Shuichi looked down at the floor. "Great, this again," Yuki sighed. "You're starting to irritate us all, so just spit it out."

"Tell us if there is a problem, Shindou-san," Tohma smiled from his desk.

"I don't have anywhere to stay," Shuichi finally said. He was embarrassed, but it was true. Going to that café that he had thought was a lot cheaper than it actually was, was a treat for him. He didn't even have a shelter, just a big TV box. Scrounging for food, begging sometimes, singing for money other times, doing odd jobs that paid poorly whenever the chance came, these were the things that he did.

He was poor.

There was a silence in which everyone turned to Yuki. "What?" he said coldly. He knew where this was going and he wasn't going to let them do it. They wanted to leave the stupid kid on him so they wouldn't have to deal with him. Sure, just dump the kid on him instead, it sounded just great. "You're not going to leave him to me. You all just want to bear this burden on me," mumbled Yuki as he pointed to Shuichi, and then he llit a cigarette. "Well, I'm not going to."

"Eiri-san," Tohma called as he came closer to Yuki. "It's not that, we don't have anywhere to put him for now. If you could just let him stay for a few days…" Yuki sighed. "I could try calling a hotel—"

"He can stay with us," Hiro and Suguru interrupted.

"Re-really?" Shuichi cried. People were actually willing to let him stay with them? "You two will really let me stay?" They both nodded. "Wow, an actual room!"

"Heh," Suguru turned his head to the left with his eyes closed. "If you can even call it a room. We've been so busy that both Nakano-san and I have been staying in a small room in this building." He paused. "We don't even get to stay in our own houses."

"That's for sure," Hiro sighed. He pulled out a nearby chair and seated himself on it as he talked. "It's so small…We would offer you our houses but we don't have anyone staying there—well, except for Fukisaki-san since…" Hiro turned to Suguru while trying not to laugh. "…the almighty Mature One still lives with his mom. He is still a kid after all."

"Nakano-san, I'm going to strangle you if you keep this up," Suguru growled as he glared at Hiro through the corner of his eyes. Telling some person they didn't even actually know about who he lives with and hinting his age ticked Suguru off. Soon after that, he just realized that he didn't know Shuichi's age. "Hey, how old are you, Shindou-san?" Suguru asked curiously.

"Nineteen."

"Oh, is that all? Ha ha ha ha…" Suguru laughed and everyone else, including Shuichi, joined him. A second later, Suguru just noticed something…did he just say nineteen? He stopped laughing. "Are—did you say that you were--?"

"Nineteen?" Shuichi finished for him. "Yes, I am, is there a problem?" Shuichi looked at himself. "Don't I look nineteen to you?"

"it's just that you look like a girl, so I assumed that you were still maturing…" Suguru replied and Hiro nodded though he was not as surprised as Suguru. He paused for a bit. "So, should he stay with us?" Suguru asked as he turned to his older cousin. "Hmm...Now that I think about it, we don't have much room here as I said, and we'll need at least a day or two before we can get things ready for him to come, though. What should be do, Seguchi-san?"

Before Tohma had the chance to respond to his younger cousin, Yuki sighed, "He'll stay with me." Thinking that they would dump the brat on him anyway, he might as well give in, if not, gracefully.

"Really, Eiri-san?" Tohma blinked. "Are you sure that you don't mind?" Yuki lean on a desk and puffed out smoke. "Well, okay then, Shindou-san will be staying with Eiri-san for now—oh, that is if you don't mind you two."

Suguru and Hiro held out their palms. "We don't mind, really, it's okay. Whatever he wants is fine by us and to tell you the truth, we don't have any room here right now."

Yuki grabbed his coat and opened the door. If he was going to set the rules of his house to his guest, he might as well get him to the house first and start soon after that. He turned to Shuichi. "Oi, we're going now, get ready."

The fact that Yuki was actually going to let him stay surprised him for a second but he still managed to scramble over to the closet to get his jacket. Shuichi grabbed the handle of the closet door, opened it and seized his jacket from the rack. He scrambled back to Yuki and waited as he just stared into his eyes. Yuki sighed at this.

After saying goodbye, he and Shuichi left the building and got inside his car. Yuki noticed how fascinated the boy was of his car; he stared at all the buttons and switches and felt how comfortable the seats were. Great, don't tell me that this is his first experience in a decent car, Yuki thought after what he just saw, he must be poorer than I thought he was. They soon arrived at his house after that.