Title: Blindsided

By: Kibethan

Disclaimer: I still don't own it, sadly enough.

Summary: Yuki isn't exactly a favorite in the public's eye, so his editor decides to shape him up to seem like a good guy by volunteering him to volunteer at a hospital. What will happen when he meets a particularly interesting patient by the name of Shindou Shuichi?

Half-warning: Not really any swearing in this chapter...

Chapter 3

In Search Of...

Sunlight started to flood through the windows, with the intent to wake up the occupant of the room. Unfortunately for it, it hit the shades over the windows and was completely blocked from getting inside. Inside of the room, Yuki Eiri lay sleeping in a shroud of darkness. He snored softly and shifted in his sleep.

Yuki's alarm clock went off, loudly and annoyingly. Yuki's arm automatically reached over and shut the thing off, his eyes never opening. He lay in bed contemplating getting up. His alarm was set to go off at eight o'clock, which meant most of the working world was already up.

Dare he join them? He didn't need to go to the hospital, but he did need to get the teddy bear. He rolled out of bed a little too far and felt himself falling. He landed on the ground with a soft thud, wrapped all up in blankets. Cursing, he untangled himself and walked into the bathroom.

Taking a shower was one of the few things that Yuki believed that you should do every morning, or…almost every morning at least. This time, he wised up and before he got in the shower, he turned on the water and let it run for a few minutes to warm up before he got in. Warm water led to a delightfully warm shower, and, in turn, supposedly led up to a nice day. It negated all of the negative things that had happened that morning.

After he had finished with his shower and had gotten dressed, he picked out the shoes that he was going to wear and slipped into them. He snapped on a watch, slipped a pack of cigarettes into his jacket pocket and walked out to his car.

Slipping into his front seat, he tried to figure out where one might go to purchase a teddy bear. It was especially difficult, because it had to be the perfect bear. It couldn't be one of the ugly ones that's eyes are hidden beneath tons of fur. Not that Shuichi would be able to see it though…but Yuki had a feeling that Shuichi would be able to imagine in his mind what the bear looked like once he felt it. A crappy gift generally equals a crappy apology. But…Yuki had all day to find a bear. How hard could it possibly be?

With defeated eyes, Yuki walked out of what seemed like the tenth store. On a whim, he had gone to the mall, thinking that it would be a good place to buy a teddy bear. It turned out to be a horrible idea. Sure, there had been teddy bears, but they had all been the ugly ones and had been terribly overpriced. And he was stuck at the mall, squashed between hundreds of holiday shoppers.

He tried to push his way towards the exit of the mall, but ended up being pushed back into the store that he had just come out of. He tried again to get out, but he was pushed further back into the store. A vein in his forehead throbbed as he tried to get out of the store.

The mass of people suddenly parted, and Yuki had a clear path out of the store. He felt like Moses at the parting of the Red Sea. He started walking down the path when he spotted what was at the other end of the path: a crazy long blond haired guy wielding a gun, and a scarily chipper person, who looked freakishly like Shuichi minus the pink hair, waving a pink bunny around. He looked really familiar. Yuki almost lost his nerve and turned around to walk back into the crowd. He shook his head of such thoughts; there was a good chance that he wasn't going to get another opportunity like this to leave the store. Besides, the blond couldn't shoot him in public, right?

"I just love shopping in crowds! Don't you too Mister K?!" the Shuichi look-alike said. Yuki almost gagged on the cheeriness.

"No," the long blond haired guy said. Yuki almost felt sorry for him. "Come on, Ryuichi, find what he need, then let's get out of here." Yuki's eyes widened. It was Ryuichi Sakuma, the lead singer of the hit band Nittle Grasper. Yuki's brother was completely obsessed with Ryuichi. Every time he came over to Yuki's house, he brought his prized Nittle Grasper DVD and forced Yuki to watch it. Yuki had seen his face so many times, he was amazed that he hadn't recognized him right off the bat.

Oh man, was his brother going to be jealous of him when he told him. Yuki smirked. He was going to have so much fun tormenting his brother. He's have to call him the second that he got home. Assuming that he got home, that is. Yuki suddenly remembered his predicament of being stuck in the store. Walking quickly past Ryuichi and K, he got out of the store, back into the main hall of people walking. He was surprised that he hadn't realized until then how much Shuichi looked like Ryuichi. He shrugged, figuring that he just wasn't very attentive to detail.

Somehow, he had gotten all the way to the end of the main hall of the mall, and was about to exit, when he remembered the whole reason that he had come there in the first place. He still hadn't gotten Shuichi a teddy bear. Time was running out! It was already, Yuki looked at his watch, one o'clock! It had taken him almostfour hours to find nothing! Zip! Nada! Zilch! He was going to walk away without a teddy bear!

There had to be some teddy bear in the mall that was worthy of an apology, right? Yuki set his eyes in a straight line, determined to find the perfect teddy bear. If it were there, Yuki would find it. Yuki turned around and walked back into the crowd of people. This time, instead of trying to fight against the crowd, he would go wherever the crowd took him. Eventually, it was take him to every single mall in the store, and in one of those stores, there had to be a decent teddy bear.

After coming out of the first five stores with the crowd, he still hadn't found it. But Yuki wasn't giving up! He was going to keep searching if it took all night! After the next five stores, he decided that it probably was going to take all night. He yawned as he went in and out of each store with the crowd. Almost the exact same people had been around him since he started, with the exception of a few people that had come and gone. They had been around each other so long, that Yuki had even struck up a conversation with one of the guys that looked as bored as Yuki felt. They chatted for a while, moving with the crowd. Yuki, with a lack of a better conversation, had told him about his teddy bear problems. Suddenly the man spotted the item that he had been looking for. With a happy whoop, and a "Good luck on finding the teddy bear" to Yuki, he jumped out of the crowd, and towards the item.

Yuki gave a sigh. He was bored once again without anybody to talk to. By then, he had been in what felt like fifty stores, and he could tell from outside that it was started to get dark out. His stomach grumbled; he hadn't eaten anything all day.

He considered getting out of the crowd and walking towards the food court to get some food. After all, he could always get back into the crowd later. Unfortunately, after being in so many stores, he couldn't remember which he had been in and which he hadn't, so he decided to just remain in the crowd.

It was a good thing that he decided to stay too, because in the next store, there it was. Yuki knew that it was the perfect teddy bear as soon as he saw it. It wasn't like regular teddy bears, in the sense that instead of being brownish or white, it was black. Also, his ears were tipped red. It had a red ribbon tied around its neck that looked very satiny, and the bear in general just looked soft.

It was the perfect bear, how all Yuki had to do was go over there and get it. He pushed himself out of the crowd, and over to where the bear was sitting. He reached out his hands to grab it, and just as his hands got a hold of it, a lady who looked like she was in denial about the fact that she was growing older snagged it out of his grasp.

He was pissed.

He breathed in and out, trying to calm himself down. It wasn't working. He had searched everywhere for the perfect bear, and no way was some lady with skimpy clothing and way too much make-up on going to steal it from him. He started to lunge himself at the lady, when somebody caught him by his shirt and pulled him back. Yuki looked at him in surprise, momentarily forgetting about tearing the lady to shreds. The person who had pulled him back was K. He had thought that he would've been gone hours ago, with them being able to walk right through a crowd.

"I suggest that you rethink what you were about to do," the apparently American from his very heavy accent said. Suddenly reminded about the lady, he turned towards her. She wasn't there.

He started looking around frantically. Where was she? There was only one bear that had been like that! K saw his plight.

"Don't worry," he said, "Ryuichi saw what the lady did and is going to make her give it back. He has his ways; you'll see that bear soon, I promise." Yuki looked at K with skeptical eyes. But, sure enough, in a couple of minutes, K and Yuki spotted Ryuichi skipping towards them with the black bear in one hand, and the pink bunny in the other.

"I got it back! All it took was a Kumagorou beam to make her drop it, and a stern talking to, to make her not pick it back up! Here you go, Mister!" Ryuichi handed the bear to Yuki. Yuki looked at Ryuichi incredulously.

"Thanks…" was all he said. Ryuichi smiled at him and then he and Mister K walked away. Yuki watched them as they walked away, and pushed his way towards the cashier. The line for the cashier was long, but it was moving fast. It was a good thing that it was moving fast, too, because now that Yuki finally had what he had been looking for, he was completely run out of patience.

"Are you having a good time shopping?" the cashier asked when he got to the front. Yuki gave her a deadpan look. "Your total is 1239 yen." Yuki gave her the money, and then hightailed it out of the store, completely breaking through the crowd.

Once he was outside of the mall, he took a deep breath. A very deep breath. Fresh air flooded through his system, and he just felt immediately better. The whole time that he had been in the mall, the air felt as though it had just been getting staler and staler, as though the air circulation system just wasn't working as well as it should have been.

He walked to his car and slid in. The clock on the dash said it was nine o'clock. Yuki did a double take. He consulted his wristwatch to see if it was indeed the correct time. It was. He was practically in shock. It had taken him twelve hours to find a stupid teddy bear! Twelve! Shuichi had better be happy. Hell, he had better fucking joyous.

Yuki's stomach grumbled loudly again. He was still hungry.

End Chapter 3

Okay...I feel a little bit bad. I said that I would update yesterday, but I didn't. Sorry...I was so excited about finally being able to read and write fanfiction again, that I just read. On the upside, my finals are finally over, and that means that it's WINTER BREAK!!! That also means that I'll be able to spend a lot of time writing! You should expect more chapters!

Onto a review of reviews:

Becky Burke: I'm really glad that you like it!, Dark Mimiru-chan: I'm sorry that it wasn't that soon..., Kimika: I'm seriously stoked that you like it!..., panatlantic: I do my best to write "cool" fics..., sera: There's going to be a lot of Shu-chan in the next chapter...don't worry..., azure: I like it when people think that I have awesome writing skills...makes me happy!, xxPetalsAndThorns9xx: Longer...got it...I'll try for that..., Redroseprincess678: I'm glad that you enjoy it!, goku-the-saru: NO!! Don't deprive me of Vanilla Live...must...see...again..., Queen of the Paperclips: I get what you mean, but I'm trying not to make Yuki be too evil...I'll try and make me more Yuki-like in the future..., Black Silver: That was mean? You must be a really nice person then! Um...Shuichi is 17, but everybody loves teddy bears! When I re-read it, I realized how OOC that was for Shuichi, but, then again, he was really pissed..., WolfWater: I like thumbs-ups!, clari chan: Thank you for the compliment! They are greatly appreciated!, Miserable Midori: I'm glad that you like it!, Sargantanas: I'm glad that you like it as well..., Tammy: I like teddy bears...they're so soft..., Joonie: Wow! So many people like it! So happy!, Sliefoxx: I won't forget about EQ, don't worry. I'm just trying to figure out how to end it!, StrawberryPockyPoo: Everybody assumes that I hate criticism! I don't! Really! Okay...it sometimes makes me feel like I'm going to cry, but after I get over that, I'm quite grateful that people write it! It makes me a better writer!, Ayamari: Thank you for the review! I'm glad that you like it!, ice-of-spades: Thank you for reviewing! It means a lot to me!

That's it! I think...if I missed anybody, I'm sorry! My reviews on aren't in order! So, I had to do it by chapter, and some people reviewed chapter 1.

:cries: not as many people reviewed that chapter. Did you people just not like it as much? :puppy eyes: Please! Review and tell me what you think! I'm shooting for a total of 75 reivews after this chapter! Will I be able to make it?

Actually, I'm kind of curious too...exactly how many people read my story? doens't have a counter! If you read this PLEASE review so I have at least a rough guess about how many people are reading it.

Thank you! And, until next time, good bye!

Ki-chan