"I see…thank you, Hiro-san," Tohma Seguchi slipped the cell phone into his pocket. Eiri Yuki held his hand out, palm raised up, to the falling rain.

"Wow! Mr. Seguchi, is that Harley Johnston?" Shuichi asked. He'd never been in this part of the studio before.

"Yes. That's her. N-G is now an international label," Tohma explained modestly. Shuichi paused to watch the interactions of the American band. "Please attempt to be discreet about this, Shindo," Tohma demanded politely. "Until X-tacy agrees to tour Japan, no one outside of the company should know of their presence…"

"You better not let Harley out of the building then! She's really easy to recognize!" Shuichi said, and it was true. The American singer was over six feet tall and composed of little more than flesh and bone. Her infrared hair was as famous as her name. Her laughter, inaudible behind the glass of the sound booth, spilled forth from permanently chapped lips nearly as white as her skin. Her eyes were too large for her long face. For one second she caught his adoring gaze and winked one big blue eye at him. Then the moment was gone, as if it had never existed at all.

He was running, slipping gracelessly across the wet concrete as the rain poured down around him, as if it hadn't a care in the world. At last, he found a dark, wet corner to huddle in as he was overcome by dry, nerve-racking sobs.

"You're a sadistic bastard, you know that?"

"So are you," he shrugged.

"Yeah, well, you're way worse 'n I ever was," Yuki insisted as he wiped away the blood that was trickling down his chin. He just smiled that heartening fake smile, as if he truly believed he could fool Eiri Yuki.

"I'm sorry, Eiri. But I'm really saving you. You simply cannot see it yet." The man spoke the words genially as the muscled stranger at his side drove his fist once again into Yuki's stomach.

"I'm afraid Eiri has been overexerting himself again. He was never good at following instructions…" Tohma sighed. The doctor nodded along with Tohma's diagnosis. "I found him at home on the floor…he…he will wake up eventually, won't he doctor?"

"It's really impossible to tell at this point," the doctor said reluctantly. "Of course. We'll have to run some tests to be certain but…I'd say there's a fifty percent chance he'll recover from this."

"And a fifty percent chance that he won't…"

"W-what?" Shuichi stuttered, though there was no one around. Everything was gone. All the furniture, all of Yuki's clothes, the scent of his cigarette smoke had even faded into oblivion. There was a small puddle of red blood soaking into the pristine white carpet. There had been a note on the kitchen counter, now in Shuichi's loose grip, but he couldn't read the words through his welling tears. He didn't need to read it to know he would never see his lover again.

Shuichi,

I'm sorry. I never loved you as much as you loved me. I'm going back to New York. Please don't try to find me.

Eiri Yuki

The brown black stain on the floor contradicted those words.

"Hmm…" Hiro mused. "Are you sure it's blood Shuichi? It sounds to me like the guy just left."

"But why would he do that!" Shuichi demanded as tears spilled down his face. Hiro could think of a dozen answers to that question, but all of them too cruel to speak aloud. Shuichi meanwhile hadn't been able to staunch the flow of tears ensuing his discovery of Yuki's empty house. His eyes were puffy and red, every tear causing a small twinge of pain, but they continued to fall. And what wash e doing, sitting in Hiro's living room, crying his broken heart out, when Yuki could be alone and hurt somewhere?

"He wouldn't do that!" Shuichi spoke weakly through his tears, and buried his face in his best friend's sturdy shoulder.

"I know it's ridiculous Fujisaki, but we're going to do it anyway."

"But why? It's pouring down rain outside!"

"Because! That's just what friends do!"

He couldn't find his lover's mangled body anywhere. Not in the coroner's office, not in the morgue, not in the park where they'd first met…. Hiro called. He was giving up, and he urged Shuichi to do the same. Fujisaki reported stiffly that he was turning in for the night. It saddened Shuichi tremendously that Yuki was apparently alive and well. And nothing to remember him by but a typed farewell.

"Where's Shindo-kun?"

"I don't know."

"It's been a week! He's neglecting his work!"

"Just…shut up, Fujisaki!"

The door creaked slowly open, a ray of sunlight slicing through the dusty darkness of the former residence of Eiri Yuki, whose latest escapade did nothing to improve the young guitarist's low opinion of him. The door hadn't even been closed all the way. Hiro stepped into the musky darkness.

"Shuichi?" No reply broke through the stifling silence.

"Hiro! I found Shindo-kun!"