Notes: I want to apologize in the delay of the story. Lot of personal shit going on, so it may be sporadic updates for a bit…Again, my apologies.

Special Text: Text in paragraphsflashbacks, text in sentencesthoughts, text in single words onlyemphasis

Warnings: Shounen ai…really, if you've gotten this far and hadn't noticed (sighs)

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Life's Little Surprises
By Rosethorn

Chapter 4: The Game is On

Between a rather long concert tour they had just wrapped up two week ago and the lack of sleep from a Jeopardy! board game marathon the night before, all Taiki had wanted was to sit down and enjoy a nice quiet cup of coffee in their new kitchen. Unfortunately his two roommates blocked his sojourn into the tranquil by nearly running him over in the kitchen. First it was Seiya, who had run through the living and dining room into the first door of the kitchen. He watched with a small amount of concern—and a great deal of amused exasperance—as the singer dashed through the second door, back into the living room. Wondering what had set off the pair now, he got up, only to have the door near-miss his nose once more.

"Seiya!! Get back here!!" And in stomped Yaten, blond hair bristled behind him. He looked at Taiki, wordlessly asking where his arch nemesis had run. Taiki motioned to the second door, somehow managing to keep a straight face; in his mind, it was laugh or cry at this point. Yaten nodded and dashed through the second door, yelling obscenities the whole way. The brunet watched him leave, shaking his head.

It was in the middle of this chaos that the phone rang. Taiki quickly walked over to it and picked it up.

"Yes, hello?" he ventured somewhat tentatively.

"Taiki!" came the overly enthusiastic voice of their agent, Kouji. Taiki winced. "How is my favorite bassist?" He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Seiya had just dashed into the kitchen only to scamper out through the second door once again.

Five, four, three, two, one…he mentally counted down. Sure enough, the poor first kitchen door burst open yet again, an irate—and slightly out of breath—Yaten standing in the doorway. He ran across the kitchen only to be grabbed by the collar by Taiki, who had finally lost his patience. Between the exhaustion, Taiki and Seiya, and now Kouji—enough was enough.

"What is it you want, Kouji?" he asked, ignoring the cursing that was being thrown his way by the struggling blond. Seiya, not hearing any more threats to his well-being, poked his head back into the kitchen. Taking notice of Taiki and Yaten's positions, he leaned against the doorjamb to watch the byplay.

"Why can't I just be checking up on the well-being of my favorite group of singers?" Taiki rolled his eyes. Yaten, noticing the singer, waved him over with a somewhat gleeful smile on his face, previous spat forgotten. "Kouji," he mouthed. Seiya got a matching grin on his face and made his way over.

"Because you only call when you want something, Kouji," the brunet replied, hand loosening enough that Yaten was able to escape.

"That hurts, Taiki. That really hurts. If I didn't love you guys so much, I'd seriously be offended. My heart is bleeding—"

"What heart?" Taiki interjected, cutting the dramatics short. He could almost feel Kouji glaring at him through the phone, and completely missed the identical grins by his two "brothers."

"Well, if I had one, it'd be seriously hurting right now. Jerk." When Taiki gave no response, the agent sighed. "Anyways, I thought you might want to know that you have a concert—"

"Did I, or did I not make it clear to you that we wanted a vacation until next month, Kouji?" the brunet stated rather than asked, voice turning to ice. At this point, Seiya and Yaten scribbled down bets on how soon the bassist would lose his formidable temper.

"Now don't be like that, Taiki. Besides, it's for a good cause!" Taiki glared at the phone.

"'Good cause?'" the bassist repeated, sarcasm almost dripping from his voice.

"Yes, a good cause!" the agent returned brightly, ignoring the disdain in Taiki's tone. "It's for the local hospital over by you guys. A charity concert if you will." Taiki sighed and massaged his temples. "Come on, Taiki…think of how happy you'll make those ill people…"

"Fine!" the brunet snapped. "When and where?" After receiving the information, he slammed the phone down, only to be greeted by the sight of two sets of eyes looking at him with obviously fake innocence. "What?!" he barked. He then noticed the paper on the table. His face began to turn red with fury. Grinning madly, Yaten and Seiya hi-fived themselves before dashing out of the kitchen. Taiki was in the kitchen. He was incredibly angry. There were knives in the kitchen. Not a good combination.

"Oi! Mamoru!" Mamoru turned to see one Seiya Kou running over to him as he exited the arcade along with Minako, Makoto, Motoki, Michiru, and Haruka. The last two had been in town for a small concert tour and, to celebrate, they had insisted on hauling all of the rest out for lunch.

"You know him, Mamoru?" Haruka asked, one eyebrow raised. She knew Seiya Kou and got along with him in small doses. However, if they were together more than two minutes, it sometimes tended to get ugly. Mamoru nodded noting the rather nonplussed expression on the blonde's face. He also noticed the restraining hand that Michiru placed on her arm.

Terrific, he thought, waving Seiya over. Haruka knows him and doesn't like him. Wonderful. He was quickly distracted from his thoughts by an armful of Seiya hugging him tightly. He tentatively returned the hug, a slow blush spreading across his face to the amusement of the girls and Motoki. Seiya finally released Mamoru from his hold, though he found himself already missing the warmth generated by the other man.

"So…" he said, looking up at Mamoru's very blue eyes. "Want to introduce me to your friends?" Minako, taking that as an opening, bounced over.

"Hi! I'm Aino Minako, though everyone calls me 'Mina' ever since I returned from England." Seiya nodded slowly and carefully shook her hand, her obvious enthusiasm scaring him slightly.

"Pleasure to meet you," he said after reclaiming his hand. "I'm—"

"Seiya Kou. Yes, I know," she said, winking at him. He wordlessly looked over to Mamoru for help only to find that his friend was trying not to laugh. Grumbling under his breath about ungrateful boyfriends, he turned back to Mina, who was hauling Makoto over bodily.

"Makoto," the brunette said, smiling warmly. "It is a pleasure to meet you…" she trailed off, unsure of what to call him.

"Seiya," he finished, winking. "All three of my 'brothers' and I have the same first name, so I go by my last." Makoto nodded, slightly red. Motoki chose that moment to step forward.

"Motoki…although I'm sure you remember meeting already," he said dryly, causing the raven-haired man to laugh.

"I do indeed," he replied, casting a sly look in Mamoru's direction, causing the other man to blush. Mamoru quickly decided to introduce Haruka and Michiru before Seiya could manage to make him blush any more.

"And these two are—" Seiya's eyes widen.

"Tenou-san? Kaiou-san?" he asked with disbelief. Haruka regarded him coolly.

"Seiya-san," she replied before turning her attention elsewhere, clearly dismissing him. He winced before turning his attention cautiously to Michiru. She smiled warmly at him.

"Call me 'Michiru,' Seiya," she told him. "Since you know Mamoru and we're already friends of his, we should be on first-name terms too, don't you think?" she asked, subtly elbowing Haruka in the side, much to the amusement of everyone else. The blonde sighed and grudgingly said "Haruka" before walking further ahead. Michiru gave him an apologetic look before going after her partner.

"Interesting crowd you hang with, Mamoru," Seiya said finally, the shock of seeing the two musicians wearing off. Mamoru nodded slowly.

"Apparently," he agreed. "Oh, Seiya? We're just heading off to lunch if you'd like to join us…" he offered, glancing at Motoki, who nodded slightly. Seiya looked up at him, eyes slightly wide.

"Really? I…I wouldn't be intruding at all? I mean, I don't want to cause any problems for anyone or anything so—" Mamoru put an arm around Seiya's shoulders, effectively cutting off the shorter man's babbling.

"You wouldn't be an imposition," he said softly. "I really would enjoy having lunch with you," he continued, unsure of what he was saying. He had no idea what was coming out of his mouth…only what he was feeling. It was as if the filter between his mouth and his brain was no longer functioning. Smiling softly, Seiya looked up and found himself lost in Mamoru's deep, blue eyes. Mamoru, for his part, was equally lost in Seiya's now-violet gaze.

"Oi! Are we going to have lunch, or are you two going to make googly-eyes at each other all afternoon?" Haruka yelled from the corner in front of them, effectively ruining the moment and earning a smack alongside the head from Michiru. Mamoru and Seiya jumped apart as if struck by a bolt of electricity. They both decided to ignore the disappointed sighs coming from Makoto and Minako as they continued their walk to the restaurant—though the sighs seemed to vanish for some reason. They discovered later (once they had reached the restaurant), that their hands had somehow become joined.

"Oi, Taiki!" Yaten said, running to where his friend was standing in the bookstore. He had returned after about an hour to see if Taiki had calmed down. To his surprise, Taiki had asked to go to the mall with him. Of course this was before Yaten knew that his friend wanted to go book shopping. It was rather boring waiting for Taiki to find 'the book', so he had gone out to the benches outside the bookstore to people-watch, and had noticed a familiar figure outside the doors of the mall. He had hurried over in time to see Seiya running over to Mamoru.

Taiki definitely needs to see this! He had run back to where the bookstore was, and found where Taiki was looking at a book. He deftly took the book from Taiki's hand and bodily hauled the stunned man out the door.

"But, Yaten!" the brunette protested, trying to free himself. "I was about to buy that!"

"This is more important," Yaten informed him before stopping abruptly, almost causing Taiki to crash into him. Yanking his hand free, the bassist scanned the crowd to see what it was that Yaten had found so interesting. He quickly spotted the reason, along with the reason's crush and some of the reason's crush's friends.

"Ah, Seiya-watching are we?" he teased, ruffling the shorter man's hair. Yaten batted Taiki's hands away with an indignant squawk.

"Oi! I just had that done, and I was not 'Seiya-watching', as you so charmingly put it!!" he retorted, trying to fix his now mussed hair. Taiki chuckled, causing the shorter man to glare up at him. Suddenly his eyes filled with a strange glint. He smiled slowly, before opening his mouth to tell Taiki of a plan he had.

"No, Yaten." Taiki stated firmly, knowing exactly what his friend was thinking. He grabbed the blonde man's arm and forcefully dragged him away from the direction that Seiya, Mamoru, and the rest had headed. Yaten pouted, lower lip jutting out slightly.

"But…but Taiki!!" he whined, causing Taiki to no longer need to clear out his ears of wax.

"No!" Yaten sighed and allowed himself to be dragged. He suddenly brightened and opened his mouth. "No," the brunette said, not even turning. Yaten closed his mouth again and glared at the bassist's head. Another idea occurred to him. "No," Taiki once again stated as Yaten opened his mouth. Again, Yaten closed his mouth and decided to resume pouting. His lower lip jutted out further. "Be sure not to trip over it," the brunette said (again, not turning), causing Yaten to throw up his free hand in the air and give up.

"Spoilsport," he muttered, allowing himself to be led away.

Chapter four revised!

Cheers!

Rosethorn

Thank you's:

Living a life of Sin: Thanks!! I'm glad you like it so far, and I hope to not disappoint you in future chapters! I'm a Seiya/Usagi person too, believe it or not, so this is a bit of a different slant on things…Motoki/Makoto!! Yes!! I (heart) that pairing!! And there isn't enough of them out there. That and Senshi/General romances. Not enough of them either…at least, not ones that aren't totally angst-ridden. I don't like angst…And the one pairing I like Chibi-Usa in (I mean like Chibi-Usa period), they don't write enough of (Chibi-Usa/Helios)!! (sigh) Ah well, the joys of being a fanfic writer means you can write fics in categories that don't have enough, ne?

KouHaruka: Thanks! Y'all are sweet, really! And I'm blushing again, dammit! (mutters about evil blood vessels in her face) I'm glad you like my Seiya/Mamoru fic!! Um…translate it? Wow! Kakkoi ne!! But yeah, I'll do my best to finish it ASAP, but I make no promises…As my notes at the top (points up) stated, I'm kinda going through some personal gunk right now, so it may be a bit.