Blue Paradise Cycle, a wolf's rain fanfic

Title: Blue Paradise Cycle
Author: Celeste
Universe: Wolf's Rain, Love Mode
Theme/Topic: Crossover request by Ann; up-to 200 word drabbles in sequence.
Rating: PG-15
Pairing/Character/s: lightly TsumexToboe, mentioned AoexNaoya
Warning/s: Vague spoilers for the end of Wolf's Rain and um… the first seven volumes of Love Mode (just to be safe?) Also, my first foray into BOTH of these fandoms, so there's probably lots and lots and lots of OOCness. O.o
Word Count: N/A
Time: Forever and a day, apparently. --;;
Summary: Another love story hosted by the halls of the Legendary Blue Boy Host club. Yes.
Dedication: Ann- I hope this fulfills your request… even a little?
A/N: Crossovers are hard. ;; This was originally a regular fic, but I kept running into walls and other boring things, so I chopped it up onto a cycle so I could skip the stuff that was getting me stuck. Yeah, I know. Easy way out. But it's still eight pages somehow, Ann, which is the same I had on the other version when I gave up. Yeah. Sorry! Also, witness how I suck at summaries and titles. o.o
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

He storms into the Blue Boy growling and bristles at anyone who looks at him too long.

Aoe sighs and feels a headache coming on. He wishes he'd left early like he'd wanted to, if only to avoid this whole fiasco.

On a regular basis, Tsume is a friend more insufferable than Takamiya can be at his worst.

Reiji sits back in his chair as Tsume blows into his office, grumbling sorely about having lost to Kiba in the popularity polls again.

"Shall I…"

"No," Tsume snaps, plopping down on Aoe's couch and looking as though he isn't going to move for a good long while.

Aoe's eye twitches. "Then…"

"Tch, like I want any of your under-aged, underfed, big-eyed, might-as-well-be-girls little boys, Reiji. Not after you let Izumi go."

Aoe lights a cigarette instead, and reaches for his intercom anyway. "Kashima, tea and brandy."

"Yes sir."

He pinches the bridge of his nose and listens with half an ear as the angry model nurses his injured pride by muttering all sorts of slanderous things against his rival.

Aoe thinks it's going to be another late night.

The boy who brings their tea in promptly drops it.

The sound alerts Tsume, who has always been sensitive to loud noises, and he sits up from the couch, looking the newcomer over inquisitively.

"I'm sorry!" the boy apologizes hastily. "I… Kashima-san said you had a very important guest and…"

"He's not important," Reiji assures the young man with a flicker of his eyes towards the model.

Tsume sneers. "This the best you can do after all the regulars up and left?" he questions in retaliation, making a show of eyeing the auburn-haired kid critically. "Talk about desperation."

The kid bristles. "I…"

"He's not. Yet."

Tsume snorts. "Well good," he allows. "By looks, no one would have him anyway."

"Hey! I…"

Reiji puts up a hand and the kid's jaw snaps shut. "Please go fetch more tea, Toboe."

Like a good dog, the boy deflates, though he still glares a little at Tsume anyway. "Yessir."

"Forget it," Tsume grunts. "I'm leaving."

Toboe frowns at him, bending to pick up what pieces of the broken china he can.

He feels Tsume's eyes glaring at him the entire time.

Shuddering, he scampers out of the room.

Aoe is immediately suspicious of something when Tsume returns to his office the next day.

The model tends to sulk, but he doesn't sulk that much. Certainly not enough to warrant two visits in the same week, let alone back to back business days.

When Tsume shows up the day after that too, Aoe's suspicions aren't suspicions anymore.

He knows something is going on.

"Tea," the model responds, when Reiji asks him if he'd like a drink.

An eyebrow darts upward. "Tea? Again?"

"Tea."

Aoe orders tea.

Toboe comes in and manages not to drop the tray this time—results of his few days' training perhaps—so Tsume finds a hundred other ways to hurt the kid's feelings.

Most of them have to do with his ridiculous hair color.

Aoe is torn between wondering if Tsume is doing it just to be an ass—entirely possible—or if there's something more to this story.

He decides to wait and find out.

He's been at the office every day for a week. It's gotten to the point where Aoe almost fears for the new kid's sanity, and calling Toboe to his office one evening, Reiji asks, "Do you want to be taken off of tea duty?"

Toboe deflates. "Am I bad at it, sir?"

"Well. No. Not so much anymore," Aoe responds. "But Tsume…"

"It's okay," Toboe assures him. "Granny always said that I would meet all sorts of different people when we moved to the city."

There's a sadness in his eyes when he talks about his deceased grandmother, but Aoe notes that he doesn't look as lost as he had when he came into the office begging for a job, any job, a few weeks ago.

He wonders if seven days of arguing with Tsume is responsible for getting the kid's mind off his grandmother.

"Tsume… he's an ass," Aoe starts, his final offer out.

"I think he's a nice person," Toboe replies, smiling. "Because Owner is nice, and if he's Owner's friend, then he must be a good person too."

Aoe doesn't quite know what to say to that.

So he says, "Get me some tea, Toboe."

"Yessir!"

"When does he start formal training?"

Tsume sounds casual about it, so Aoe takes it as a less than casual inquiry.

"When he's ready."

Tsume looks skeptical.

"He'll be ready next month," Aoe clarifies.

Tsume snorts. "He'll never be ready."

"Would you prefer it that way?"

"Do what you want."

Aoe sighs. Toboe has already been on tea duty for half a year when he should have stopped four months ago. "Kashima will see to it that he's taken good care of."

Tsume stands. "I'm leaving."

"But tea hasn't…"

"Night."

Reiji watches his friend storm out of the room.

When tea arrives, Toboe bustles into the room with a cheerful greeting for both of them.

Aoe notes the way his face falls when he realizes that it's just Owner tonight.

"Where's Tsume?"

Reiji thinks he's been owner of the Blue Boy far too long, because he knows exactly how this story is going to end.

"He'll be back," he assures the boy. "And forget the tea. I need something stronger tonight."

Toboe feels a little bit lost when Tsume doesn't return the next day or the next.

He wonders if he made the other man mad and thinks very hard of all the things he'd said to Tsume as of late so that he can apologize if it's his fault.

It turns out that Tsume really is a nice person—at least Toboe thinks so— once you learn how to ignore what he says and watch him.

Like, even when Tsume is calling Toboe all sorts of names, Toboe can tell that it's okay because his eyes aren't really angry and he still drinks the tea even though he says that the kid is horrible at making it.

And even though he teases Owner, he's always very careful towards Naoya, out of respect for Owner's feelings.

And it may be silly, but Toboe likes the way Tsume smells, because there's something warm and familiar about it even under the scent of cologne.

On the nights when Tsume visits, Toboe always falls asleep dreaming of pleasant things—of the moon and fields of white flowers that extend as far as the eye can see.

He hopes Tsume returns soon.

Kiba eyes his coworker as they go to break, and thinks that there's something more off about Tsume than normal.

That's not to say that the shoot is going poorly. It's going very well.

In fact, everything has been going very well lately, and that in itself is enough to cause him worry over his coworker.

Tsume doesn't like to cooperate. In fact, his reputation—and a lot of appeal—is staked on that rebel attitude.

But lately he's been showing up to work on time, enduring whatever the photographers or the designers want, listening to Hige's managerial advice, and taking every single job offered to him. The Tsume of old would have turned down 90 of them simply because he thought the people involved had boring names.

"What's wrong with you?" he asks, waiting for Tsume's characteristic snarled comeback.

"Nothing," the other man says instead, grabbing a hamburger from the buffet and going off to sit by himself.

Being obedient, non-confrontational, hard-working… everyone thinks it's a marked improvement on the other model's part. That he's becoming a real professional.

Kiba stares after Tsume and wonders what's wrong.

It's been nearly three weeks and he hasn't shown up once.

Aoe tells the kid that this is how Tsume normally is, showing up once in a while to indulge in either the club's entertainments or making his own by annoying Aoe before disappearing for an indeterminate amount of time until he's in bad enough a mood to show up again.

Toboe smiles a little at that, like he knows exactly what Aoe means. There's something about it that feels much older than Toboe himself.

Kiichi teases him about being soft on the puppy because the kid reminds him of the kitten Reiji picked up some several years earlier.

Aoe really thinks his brother is an idiot, but he has a point.

He's never put off a new hire's training as long as this before. The kid can make tea in his sleep now, as well as mix drinks and set a table to perfection.

Aoe is Blue Boy's owner, and keeping a kid around simply to make tea isn't utilizing his assets to their fullest potential.

He sighs. "Toboe."

"Yes, Owner?" the boy replies, smiling.

"The next step in your training begins next week."

"Ah… yessir."

Jinnai takes one look at the kid and Reiji knows right away, that the prognosis is bad.

"Are you joking me?"

Reiji sighs. "It's no good?"

"It's absolutely no good! Look at him!"

Aoe supposes he'd already known. "I know."

Jinnai snorts. "Page boy, if you're lucky. Keep him on tea for the rest of his life. It would be a waste of my time to start training him next week, next year…ever."

Toboe's trembling like the words are physically striking him. "I can…I can do it! Whatever Owner needs, I can do it!" he protests.

Jinnai turns and looks down at the kid, his first acknowledgement that Toboe is a person in the room and not just another piece of furniture. "No you can't. Trust me, I know."

"He knows," Aoe repeats, when it looks like Toboe is going to argue again.

Immediately cowed by his benefactor's assurance, Toboe obediently bites his tongue. "Knows what?" the boy asks instead, softly.

Aoe pours himself a cup of tea. "That your heart's already somewhere else."

10.

Tsume storms into the Blue Boy Monday morning, demanding to see Aoe. The secretary has already been instructed to let the model in the moment he arrives, and Tsume is quickly buzzed into the office.

Snarling, the irate model throws the envelope on his friend's desk. "Five hundred thousand."

Aoe, unaffected, glances at the envelope. "That's impressive. It only took you a month?"

"And every damn job this town had. But last I checked those were the rates for a year of exclusivity."

"So shall I page one of your favorites?"

"Cut the shit. It's for Toboe."

"Oh? But his training is supposed to begin today. He won't be ready for at least another six months."

Tsume looks away. "Not for that, asshole. This is so you don't do somethin' stupid like unleash Kuniaki on him."

Aoe allows a smirk. "That's uncharacteristically noble of you."

"Yeah, and you're a businessman through and through, aren't you? Well here's the damn money."

Aoe sighs. "It's a bit much for just a page boy, you know. But if you're offering the whole amount, I'll take it."

Tsume blinks. "Page boy?"

While his friend gapes, Aoe calmly reaches for the intercom. "Kashima. Send tea."

END