Warnings: Swearing, way mild shounen-ai.
Notes: YAY for being short! Beware: poker-scene!
Disclaimers: 'Gravitation,' its characters, songs, scenes, etc., are NOT mine, I make NO physical profit from it/them (merely my own emotional happiness from writing!), and all rights/copyrights belong to Maki Murakami and whoever all she's licensed to... or, well, you know what I mean. Point is, NOT mine, DON'T sue!

The Tourbus Chronicles
Chapter Four

Suguru was staring at the cards he held in his hand.

Not good.

He looked across the table, watching Shuichi as the singer rearranged his own cards with a triumphant smirk on his face.

Damn.

His eyes slid over to watch Sakano. The man was sweating profusely. That was a good sign.

But, that could also be attributed to the producer's unwilling proximity to the band's manager, K.

Who also had a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

Double damn.

Yuki, sitting next to Shuichi. Unreadable.

And Hiro, sitting next to Suguru himself, could not be surreptitiously brought into view without making it obvious that the keyboardist was trying to 'read' his face.

Suguru looked back down at his cards.

Really not good. Hmmm...

"I fold."

"Ehh? You can't fold! We haven't even drawn yet!" Shuichi spluttered.

Suguru gave him a blank stare. He was tempted to flip the older teen off.

"He can fold if he wants to," Hiro spoke up. "There's no rule against it."

Suguru suppressed his urge to grin at Hiro, but still allowed a small twitch in his lips to express his gratitude for the guitarist's nerve to switch Shuichi's focus onto himself.

Said singer pouted. "Are you sure about th-"

"Shuichi." This time it was Yuki who spoke. While Suguru would have liked to think that the typically stormy novelist was also sticking up for him, he knew well enough the older man was only forestalling a wailing-spree about to be unleashed by his lover.

"It doesn't matter if he folds now or later. Let him. Besides," his narrow eyes lifted from his cards to glare at the "pot" in the center of the table.

"...We're only playing for pocky sticks."