And I return! I don't own these characters. Away we go!

Yuki didn't get out of bed until noon. He'd only been sleeping for a few hours, lightly, and knew that the undisturbed sheets on the other side of the bed meant that he'd been alone the entire time.

He reached immediately for his cigarettes. Damn that stupid pink haired punk. Crushing the empty pack in his hands, he nearly ripped the door off the bedside cabinet to get to his last pack. He'd lock himself in his office and make it last all day. He'd write himself into exhaustion again and not bother to think about cooking dinner for Shuichi. And if he didn't come home again, even better. It was much quieter when he wasn't around, and he could smoke whenever the hell he felt like it without hearing that pitiful whining.

Except he normally complained about the smoke after sex, and he hadn't been there to have sex last night.

"He's not kidding when he tells them to send down the table scraps, is he?" Suguru eyed what looked like the crust of a piece of white bread on the floor distastefully, but he was hungry enough to wolf it down as soon as Shuichi started to reach for it.

"As long as we're eating at all." Hiro said around a mouthful of a slimy textured meat. He figured if he got food poisoning, he was going to get out of there sooner than he would waiting for them to finish the album. They'd only got two tracks in 12 hours, but K had been forced to get them food after Shuichi collapsed during takes for the seventh track.

He hadn't known at the time that it was just a ploy to get Sakano down the stairs so he could try to hold him hostage. As soon as he walked through the door with the food, Shuichi grabbed him. He dropped the tray, which is why they were eating the food off the floor.

As for Shuichi, he never stood a chance of getting out the door using Sakano as a shield. K didn't care who he had to go through to carry out his orders of keeping them there until all fourteen tracks were ready to be sold.

They had to bring down a stretcher to carry out Sakano, who passed out as soon as K started firing. The manager made sure Shuichi didn't get anywhere near the paramedics, and almost refused to allow him to eat, but gave in after he tearfully promised to never do it again and to volunteer the next time K wanted to practice shooting with a moving target.

So now they sat there, barely talking, stuffing as much food into their mouths as they could. It was starting to sink in that their careers and quite possibly their lives depended upon them getting out eight more tracks in the next 36 hours. If they ended up doing it, they'd have to change their band name to Dumb Luck.

If he thought prison life would agree with him, Yuki would have snapped the neck of the young male shop owner who was the fourth to tell him that they didn't carry his brand of cigarettes, then had the nerve to ask him for his autograph. And by his idiotic grinning, Yuki knew that wasn't all he wanted. Stupid punk kids.

He refrained from stomping him into a bloody pulp, but made sure he got the message that Yuki wasn't interested loud and clear. He left him in tears and felt a little better as he left the store and moved on down the street.

Not one damn tobacco shop within walking distance. The old man he usually bought cigarettes from had apparently went off and died or something, probably just to spite him, and his shop was closed. Well he never bought cigarettes anywhere else, so how the hell was he supposed to know where they sold what had to be hardest to get cigarettes in Japan?

Damn it all to hell. He needed a fucking smoke. Why did it have to be so complicated?

If he hadn't been in the middle of a serious nic fit, he'd have probably realized how out of character it was for him to be worried about it. He'd never considered himself addicted to smoking, it was just something he did to pass the time every once in a while. It was highly unusual for him to smoke even an entire pack in a day, but to go through a carton in half a week was serious.

But like I said, he was in the middle of a nic fit and not exactly thinking clear and calm.

Yuki threw open the doors of a drug store on the corner and made a bees line for the check out desk. Another young blond male came off his display to help him, and Yuki swore to himself that if he asked for an autograph, he was dead. But he seemed more terrified than conversational as Yuki asked for his cigarettes and ground his teeth while he went to check.

He turned around when he felt eyes boring holes into the back of his head. His glare was met with the uninterested expression of a stoic, but Yuki could tell he was extremely agitated by his presence. Or maybe it was because of who was helping him, which didn't occur to the novelist until the blond returned to tell him they did have the cigarettes in stock and his eyes narrowed dangerously without anything else about him changing. The blond noticed nothing.

Yuki blew off the stocker and asked for three more cartons, which he paid for and tore into at once. With a nervous look, the blond returned to setting up a cold medicine display by the door. The tall, dark stoic was suddenly directly beside Yuki.

"You can't smoke in here." He meant to be menacing, but Yuki didn't scare easily. And he was feeling a lot better with a cigarette between his lips.

"Well, Rikuo," He grinned, reading the male's nametag. "It's a good thing I was just leaving." And just to piss the boy off, he stopped by the blond on his way and read his name before addressing him. "Thanks for the help, Kazahaya. Be sure to keep these in stock. I'll be back to see you again." He waved at Rikuo and blew him a farewell smoke cloud. A couple of closet cases if he'd ever seen any.

The blond hadn't even been bad looking, but he was a bit young for Yuki's taste. Then again, so was Shuichi. And suddenly he was as unhappy and frustrated as he'd been before he got his cigarettes. He carelessly let the butt fall to the sidewalk. He didn't care if he got stopped and fined. Now he just wanted to get home. Maybe he wouldn't be returning to an empty house.

Surprise! Or maybe most of you didn't realize the Legal Drug cameo. It was a kind of spur of the moment thing that didn't really distract from the story but was fun (I don't own Rikuo or Kazahaya, either). If you don't know about LD (which happens to be a shonen-ai (boy love) series), I have several fics in that category and the manga is awesome as well. I have no idea what kind of cigarettes Yuki smokes, so I don't bother to mention a brand name, sorry. And that's it for now! Hopefully I get another chapter up soon, right? I'll try...