Once again, it's EveryNever with the newest chapter!

I was so surprised by all the great feedback I got for the last segment; it made my day! You reviewers and all the people who took the time to read and enjoy this story even if you didn't review really inspired me to write!

EveryNever does her victory dance.

Disclaimer: Just ignore the idiot author and her geeky dance moves. We all know the reason that more people reviewed the last chapter was because I got a personality and put her in her place!

EveryNever: Not true! I'm just so lovable, see?

EveryNever shows the readers her cutesy face.

Disclaimer: You may act cute but we all know you are truly an evil demoness! Soon, I will gather all my other disclaimer friends and put an end to your tyranny. Soon, not these overbearing authors, but the Disclaimers shall rule the world of fanfiction! You just wait and-

Bam!

EveryNever hides the metal bat behind her back and once again shows her faithful readers her cutesy smile.

Well… since my Disclaimer is currently… errr…. taking a nap at the moment, I guess I'll have to do the disclaimer myself. Here goes my best shot! Wish me luck everyone!

EveryNever takes a deep breath and…. EVERYNEVER DOES NOT OWN GALS!

EveryNever collapses and gasps for breath. Man! That was even harder than EveryNever could have ever imagined!

Well, that's a problem for another day. Procrastination is a favorite habit of mine. Since I'm putting off coming up with an idea to hire a better disclaimer I may as well give you all another segment of A Gal's Life! The chappie will be one of the main Aya/Rei parts in this fic with a little bit of Yuuya torture! Also, at the end of this chapter you'll find review replies!

I hope you all enjoy! Now scroll down before Disclaimer wakes up!


Chapter 5: A First 'First Kiss' Part Two

Key:

""- speech/dialogue

''- exaggerated phrase/word

italics-thoughts or an exaggerated phrase/word


A blustery breeze whipped through the streets, buffeting Rei with blasts of cold air that signaled the fall of night in this ever-bustling city. With an exhausted sigh, he ran his hand through his windblown hair, getting rid of the few snarls and tangles that had accumulated over this crazy day before letting his aching arm once again fall into disuse by his side.

"I'm getting too old for this." The seventeen year old bitterly muttered to himself. "How many years will it be until I can retire? Oh that's right, about forty or fifty years to go! You're in the home stretch, Rei old buddy."

As he let out another exasperated breath, he noticed a familiar figure walking, well, staggering towards him from the mob scene at the restaurant.

"Aya, so there you are."

Rei watched as the disconcerted girl stumbled toward him, barely managing to keep upright. Her aquamarine skirt and navy blue top were wrinkled and stained in various places and hung limply against her as she strode unsteadily toward her target. Disheveled and dirtied, her hair was in worse shape than the rest of her, if that was even possible. Half of her lengthy locks hung limp, damp with the humidity that had overtaken the restaurant because of hundreds of sweating bodies in such a tight, cramped space. The other half nearly stood up straight, completely frizzy and untamed, once again because of the masses of bodies she had been in contact with just a short while ago. The only thing that held that wild mass of black hair in place, was the purple bandana she luckily managed to keep on her head.

Well, to make a long story short, Rei knew he had seen her look a little better…

"Guess what… I… just… discovered." Aya barely managed to gasp out a sentence as she finally arrived, weak-kneed and dead tired, in front of where Rei was sitting.

"I have absolutely no idea… But before you tell me, I think you'd better take a seat before you flop over and die on me." Rei softly patted the vacant space next to him.

Her cheeks tinged slightly red, she nodded and smiled slightly before collapsing into the seat with a relieved sigh. Before speaking again, she took a few moments to catch her breath and let herself lean completely into the bench, giving in to its rough support.

"Well, I found out that Shibuya's Fine Cuisine is booked for the night."

"Who would have ever thought that now?" Rei just couldn't seem to get rid of his sarcasm bug. "Considering that probably more than half of Shibuya's present population is most likely demanding a table there, they should have had no problem fitting in a couple thousand more!"

"Right!" Aya couldn't help but laugh. "They must just be having an off night."

"After twenty years they are finally losing their edge. This must be quite a bittersweet birthday for them." Rei's mood was beginning to improve, making fun of someone or something always did that to him. Thinking of how utterly miserable someone else's life could be could make his seem that much better. "Who knows if they'll survive to see another one?"

"I'll come back here next year just to find out. That's a promise." Suddenly serious again, Aya leaned forward, letting the cool night air carry the heat off her body as she gazed over to the festive lights of the crowded restaurant. "Why don't you come too Otohata? You could see whether or not your prediction of doom came true."

"I don't see why not." Rei nodded ever so slightly. "If I'm not a wanted criminal or a corrupt world leader by then, you can count on me to be there too. It'll make my day to see the 'For Sale' sign in front."

Aya smiled and giggled softly in response. After a few moments of silence, Rei stood up and stretched.

"You're hungry aren't you?" He had noticed the soft rumblings of her stomach that she had tried to hide with yawns and coughs. "Let's find something to eat."

"Well, only if you're hungry…"

"Let's start looking then," Rei swiped Aya's hand for the second time that evening and led her away from the mob scene surrounding Shibuya's Fine Cuisine.

The next time Aya looked back, the overcrowded restaurant was only a single pulsating star in the distance. One of the many lights that lit up Shibuya like a beacon in the darkness of night.


"S-s-s-so f-freezing!" Yuuya blew into his near frozen hands and rubbed them quickly together before looking down again at the commotion. "Rei! What did I do to deserve this!"

Night had fallen quite a long time ago and the temperature was dropping by the second. Normally, Yuuya could deal with cold like it was nothing. Shirts and shorts were nearly his whole wardrobe. This day, unfortunately, was quite different for the shivering model.

Now, he only had half a shirt to go with his ripped shorts that didn't quite keep the low temperatures from reaching his skin. On top of that, he was stuck on top of one of the tallest trees around, which meant absolutely no shelter from the wind (not to mention, dealing with tall places isn't exactly his strong point).

Why only half a shirt? Why a tree? Rei, that's why!

That friend of his just decided to send him a screaming mob out of the kindness of his heart! Yuuya was used to being surrounded by fans, so it would have been fine if the group that had rushed him wasn't ten times larger than anything he had ever had to deal with in his life! They were all chanting, "Shirtless! Shirtless! Shirtless!" like some type of mantra, which would have been fine if some of them hadn't actually tried to rip his shirt off (which they were half successful with)!

In an act of desperation, he had turned to the guidance of Monkey Boy (yes, he was that desperate) and climbed a tree. Sprinting with all he had, he attached himself to the nearest trunk in his reach and sidled up it with the speed of light. By the time he had reached the leaves and branches of his escape, the crowd had already gathered around him. Some were even beginning to attempt to climb up after him.

While his crazed admirers were creeping ever closer Yuuya could only wonder what was Rei thinking! He must be trying to kill him for something. For what reason, he may never know.

"Come down and appreciate your fans Asou-kun!" giggled a teenaged blond, as she winked suggestively and grabbed his leg.

"I'd rather not at the moment!" a pale faced Yuuya tried to shake his leg free as the fans slinked ever closer. He sighed softly to himself, "Well, at least it can't get worse than this."

TWEEET! A loud whistle sounded over the screams and commotion as a new group rushed to the scene… a quite different group.

"This is the Shibuya Police!" an officer shouted his warning through a megaphone while his comrades surrounded the suddenly silent mob. "Stop what you are doing immediately! You will all be taken into custody under charges of disturbing the peace! Every one of you will come with us to be questioned! Now I will tell you all your rights…"

Yuuya hit his head soundly against the tree and silently sobbed, "I spoke too soon… way too soon… stupid Yuuya… stupid, stupid Yuuya."


"Is it just me? Or do you too think that this doesn't exactly look promising," All Rei could seem to do was sigh.

"Well, since every place we looked seemed all booked, maybe some place all the way out here might give us better luck," With waning enthusiasm, Aya tried to cheer Rei up as best she could.

"If there was a diner all the way out here, I find it very likely that it would've gone out of business years ago…"

Slowly, Rei and Aya made their way further along the path. They had taken random streets in hopes of finding some sort of restaurant, but instead the two of them had ended up in some park in the middle of nowhere. Trees and shrubs grew dangerously close to the pathway, threatening to overtake the concrete road and return to nature what was originally nature to begin with. The only things that allowed the couple to locate and step over the stray branches and cracks in the walkway in the dark were the streetlights that were scattered sparsely through the territorial foliage.

"Well, at least it can't get worse than this," Rei broke the silence that had fallen over the two with his own sort of wry optimism.

"That is true."

Aya smiled at Rei's back and quickened her pace to catch up with him. In doing so, she forgot to watch where she was going and got her foot caught on a small root. With a tiny gasp of surprise she tumbled forward into Rei, causing them both to plummet to the rock hard ground.

"Oh Otohata!" Aya scrambled off him as fast as she could, spurting apologies for her clumsiness. "I'm so sorry! I forgot to watch out for those cracks in the road. I'm just so clumsy!"

"Don't beat yourself up over it," replied Rei as he promptly recovered himself and neatly brushed off the specks of dirt on his clothes. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Oh no! You're bleeding," Aya rushed over to Rei's side and inspected his arm. "That doesn't look like fine! It's a pretty big gash!"

Slowly, Aya ran her eyes over the long, yet thankfully shallow, cut that started near his elbow and ended about halfway up his upper arm. Blood was already quickly leaking out of the wound, dyeing his lower arm a deep red. Horrified, she grimaced in sympathy and guilt.

"Really, I'm fine. I may not be masochistic, but I can deal with a little scratch," Rei stole his arm back and started off down the path again, not willing to admit he was the least bit touched by her concern.

"Wait!" Aya called out and ran once again to catch up with him, luckily not tripping this time.

"What?" Rei reluctantly turned around to face the remorseful teen.

In one swift motion, she whipped her purple bandana out of her hair and quickly tied it over the worst part of his wound.

Softly blushing on account of her sudden forwardness she commented softly, "That should probably stop the bleeding. It's the least I can do."

"This seems like a very high quality material, and you're willing to get blood on it. What a silly girl you are."

Despite the fact he was halfheartedly scolding her, an appreciative smile snuck onto the corners of his lips. Aya quickly found it and forgot her hunger pains in an instant.


"I've still got a lot of work to do Miyu! You should really go!"

"No, no, no! Miyu wants to stay with Yamato in the Magical Police Box of Love!" Miyu whimpered and stuck out her lower lip in an outright pout.

"Now, don't do that pouty face with me!" Yamato pleaded and closed his eyes in an attempt to shield himself from that trembling lip and the enormous amount of persuasion it held over him.

"Please? Pretty please?" Miyu attempted to push her lip out further while she begged.

"It's too dangerous this late at night, you know that!" scolded the officer with crumbling resolve. He knew he had to think of something to get her home safely and fast, or else he would be the one to lose this argument. "How about if I get some time off from work and take you to this movies later this week, and you go straight home right now so you'll be safe."

"Really! A movie! Wow! Miyu is so happy! A lovely dovey date with Yamato!" Miyu squealed in delight and quickly picked up her things. "I'll head safely home right away Mr. Police Officer," she giggled through her attempts at mock sternness and dashed off into the night.


Rei and Aya found themselves quickly approaching the end of the road. Stopping abruptly a couple feet in front of them, their rundown trail was cut off and replaced with a much higher quality sidewalk. The path had led them right back into the midst of civilization, complete with cars, tons of people, and absolutely no rabid plant life.

"That was quite a shortcut," commented Rei as he brushed past the last of the stray branches.

"A shortcut to… where?" asked Aya as she looked around uncertainly. "I don't recognize this part of town."

"Ask me again when I figure it out myself."

Aya let her eyes travel up and down the street, desperately trying to find something that looked familiar to her. It seemed like a normal area of Shibuya; a road lined by stores and the people that kept them in business. Soon, something caught Aya's eye.

"Oh look!" She smiled happily and pointed out her find to Rei. "There's a food stand of some sort! What a lucky find!"

"Finally," Rei sighed in relief. "I bet you're starving. Let's go get ourselves something to eat."

Back to the present time…

"Otohata? Are you okay?"

"What?" Rei snapped up his head, startled, and found Aya standing next to him, sending him a concerned glance.

"You've been staring at your hotdog for about five minutes now."

"Have I? Well, it's better than eating the thing."

Rei silently gagged as he poked the mush. The vendor may have called it a hotdog, but this looked more like 'mutated hotdog soup'. A pile of unknown sauces mixed together encased the meat in a mucky slime. The gooey substance slid around upon a moldy bun that was fragile enough to crumble on contact. Pieces of fungus from the bread broke apart when the sauce got to them, spreading themselves like pieces of parsley over the liquid. Rei was hungry, but not that hungry.

"Just for the record," he added. "I'm not usually a picky eater."

"Just for the record, I'm usually not hungry enough to eat something like this," replied Aya after she took her last bite.

"I don't know how you did that."

"I hadn't eaten anything since this morning, so this hotdog almost tasted good to me," Aya said as she daintily wiped her face with a paper napkin.

"Well, my dinner is going on a one way trip straight to the trash," Rei gave his 'hotdog' one last disdainful look before flinging it into the nearest garbage can. "Good riddance."

"Oh, but aren't you hungry?"

"I'm a model, remember? It's part of the job description to be able to go without food for days at a time," stated Rei matter-of-factly.

"That's right," Aya blushed softly, feeling a bit like a glutton.

Seeing the uncomfortable look on her face, Rei quickly changed the subject. "It's getting pretty dark. Let's head back to the station. If we go back the way we came, we should reach it pretty soon. I bet Yuuya's craziness should have worn off by now," Rei thought about for a moment, then rolled his eyes. "Then again, maybe not… The RAY… Out of all the best friends in the world, I just had to choose the imbecile with a fondness for irritating nicknames."

"Well, that's what a best friend is, isn't it?" Aya nodded and smiled to herself as she walked alongside Rei. "They are a person that may annoy you at times, but at the end of the day, they still are the one you are willing to think of as your most precious buddy in the world. Everyone has their imperfections, but two people that can see past the faults in each other can truly have a beautiful friendship. Like the kind you and Second Place have."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say it's beautiful," Rei replied as he entered the trail through the 'woods' for the second time today.

"Oh, but it is!" Aya defended her case as she cautiously stepped over a protruding root. "The two of you have such vastly different personalities. What Number Two is, you aren't, and what you are, he could never be. The first couple weeks I saw you two, I thought you were only with each other because of work. As time went on though, I saw more and more of both of you and came to realize that your friendship was more than just some business deal. I noticed you and Second Place seemed to have found a sort of balance between your two personalities. By being opposites of each other, you both helped one another experience things that you never would have before. If Second Place wasn't around, you would have never learned how to make a nickname!" Aya giggled softly.

"Oh, the horror," Rei slapped a hand over his mouth, in mock terror before once again rolling his eyes. After a few more steps he added, "You know, I could say the same thing about you and Ran."

Aya nodded in agreement. "I never thought about that! I guess it is kind of similar."

"Yeah, it is."

Rei fell into silence as he continued down the path. In the lull of the conversation, he once again let his mind travel through the crazy events of this day. From overhearing Aya talking to a bench, all the way to the mutated hotdogs, it sure had been one hell of a night. Well, it should have been. Quite surprised, he found himself not regretting or feeling like complaining about any part of it. Normally, by the end of this type of day he would usually find himself completely exhausted and utterly irritable. He was tired, injured and hungry, but, weirdly enough, he felt absolutely fine. Better than fine, quite well actually.

The sharp crack of a branch behind him startled Rei out of his reverie. With it, came a possible answer to his questions in the form of one simple word.

Aya. Was it possible that a single person could make what would seem like a horribly bad day, quite enjoyable to him? Was it possible that someone could affect his mood that much? He had found himself nearly smiling during many of the conversations they had had this night, and had not been the least put off by the disheveled appearance she had acquired because of the mess at Shibuya's Fine Cuisine. Was it possible?

All of a sudden, Rei stopped and turned around, almost causing Aya to crash right into him, for she was only a few steps behind.

"What's wrong?" Aya looked up, surprised, at the suddenly stationary Rei.

"I just wanted to say thank you."

"For wh-"

The pressure of lips upon hers swiftly stopped Aya's words. A single breath softly tickled the inside of her open mouth as her eyes widened in surprise and a deep blush ripened on her cheeks.

As fast as it came though, the contact was gone. Rei straightened, slightly flushed, and quickly turned to resume the walk without so much as another word. In a deafening silence, only broken by the rapid footfalls of one and by the soft sounds of nature made by many, Aya could only find the strength to stand and stare at the rapidly retreating figure.

What do I do? What do I do! Aya's brain hopelessly tried to process the events that had just taken place; the events that had seemingly made her loose almost every brain cell she had.

"You have to take initiative girl!" The words Ran told her just before she went to the station suddenly came back to her in a flash.

Without pausing to think for another second, Aya dashed down the trail with a firm resolve she never knew she had. Stumbling and almost falling countless times in her three-inch heels, she continued to run with all her strength, trying her best to catch up with Rei.

Finally, when he was once again in sight, Aya found the space in her gasping lungs to call out to him, "REI!"

Upon hearing his name shrilly screamed like some cheesy one-liner in a mediocre horror movie, Rei abruptly turned around to see Aya collapse a few steps behind him into an exhausted heap on the ground.

"Are you okay?" He asked anxiously.

"I… I wanted to tell you," as she spoke, she raised an unsteady hand and enclosed it over the fingers of Rei's right hand. "I don't know what you thanked me for, but you're welcome Rei, more than welcome." She looked at the ground, suddenly self-conscious.

Rei made no move to reply, but instead slipped his hand further into hers and grasped it firmly. He waited, and would wait, for as long as it took for her strength to come back. Silent and unmoving, he would calmly hold her hand until she could walk beside him again.


Tons of sappy sap for all you sap lovers out there! ; )

Chapter Six: To Be or Not to Be a... Bum? will be a bit more on the crazy side. Is EveryNever truly cruel enough to send Yuuya to prison? Hehehe… read the next chapter to find out.

On to the review replies!

imjuzakyd: Yea! My first reviewer! EveryNever gives Kyd some cookies.
I know that my chapters are a little longer than normal, so that's why I don't mind if people only read the parts that are interesting to them. I'm happy that you found your own way to enjoy my story!

Zionne: Thanks for the support! It just made my day when you complimented my writing style. I'm so glad to know that there are people out there who enjoy this fanfic!

camille-lkx: I knew I was going to torture people with that chapter title! Just between you and me, the truth is that when it came around the time I usually update, I only had half of the First 'First Kiss' chapter done. So, as evil as I am, I decide to split the chapter in half, thus making everyone have false hope when reading part one… Yes, it was pretty much just me being lazy…
Speaking of lazy, I haven't reviewed your story A Change in the Wind, and even though this is probably not the place to do this, I just have to say that I think that that fanfic is great! I couldn't stop laughing when I was reading your latest chapter with the banter between the three 'princes'!

Kos-mosMomo: I'm glad you think so!

velvet ink: Here's another update for ya. I hope you enjoyed it!

And I want to send a big thank you to all of the people out there who are following this story! I hope I continue to make this fanfic enjoyable to all of you out there!

See you all in the next chappie!