Three

The alarm clock rang throughout their tiny little room above the shop that morning. They shared one bed since that's literally all what would fit in that room and the rest was boxes downstairs in the backroom and the front which held their shop... Bunches and bunches of storage. Jiroh nestled into the covers some more and held Gakuto close.

"Jiroh get the hell off me!" screeched Gakuto slamming on the snooze button.

"Nnngh, Gakuto….five more minutes," murmured Jiroh cuddling into Gakuto, pillows, and covers a little bit more.

"Not happening! We need to get up NOW! The shop opens in less than twenty minutes you dork! Meaning we let the clock ring for about an hour max!" protested Gakuto trying to get out of his sunset haired friend's death grip.

"LESS THAN TWENTY!" howled Jiroh getting up from the bed hurriedly and sending Gakuto off into the floor.

"God damn, it would to be a little bit caring and not knock me off the bed!" screeched Gakuto.

Jiroh gave a quick peace sign before jumping over Gakuto and went into their very tiny hall where an equally tiny closet was. Gakuto slowly trudged in there as well as they both picked out some clothes to wear. Gakuto decided he was going to wear his 'L'Arc-En-Ciel' top that had the cover art for their album 'SMILE' on it along with some dark black jeans and Jiroh deciding on a deep red button up shirt with a black vest over it and some dress pants.

Jiroh and Gakuto in full looked like normal people who people might've thought to never get along until they both saw they had a lot in common and what their personalities were like.

"Ne, I'll clean up the front of the store as long as you clean up the storage room in the back," said Gakuto.

"No problem!" said Jiroh jumping down the flight of stairs but three steps a piece. The both quickly cleaned up the minor messes left from last night and then unlocked the doors. The first customers ended up being a group of teenaged girls; one with dark black hair braided in a complicated style, the other was a platinum blonde haired girl with the most beautiful green eyes. It was their usual customers that came by once a week who lived up in the cabins above them in the mountains.

"Hi Mukahi! Anything new?" asked the black haired girl.

"Morning. Not much really that you haven't already got sadly. We finally got Ayumi Hamasaki's new album in though along with a card set for Full Metal Alchemist. But you can look around and see for yourself Madi," answered Gakuto shrugging.

Jiroh grinned.

"He's not a big fan of romance novels Madi and Evan but, Yuushi Oshitari released his new one!" he exclaimed happily.

Both girls squealed in delight.

"Surely you saved us a copy!" Evan exclaimed moving her ponytail out of the way.

"But of course; you are regulars here after all. This one is in Japanese but surely you'll have no problem in reading it since you both are quite fluent, but if you see any help with some of it just ask me," said Jiroh handing over a rather thick novel over to them.

Evan and Madi's eyes glittered excitedly at they looked at the sapphire blue book in their hands.

"I can't wait! Oshitari-sensei is such a talented novelist! If anything he has an amazing girlfriend who's extremely lucky!"

Gakuto who was over by the cash register made rolled his eyes. What was up with the novelist and women? Geeze, who ever thought of a guy actually writing dripping with sap stories that probably were horribly written? Gakuto wondered what the guy was like…

'Feh probably a priss who's egotistical little bastard and is afraid to break a nail.' He thought with a smirk.

Both girls paid for their book and took their fangirling else where and Jiroh glomped Gakuto from behind.

"What's up with you and that guy? You've never even read his stuff!" he said.

"Normal guys aren't supposed to like that sort of stuff," said Gakuto.

Jiroh made a cute little pout and asked, "So I'm not normal?"

Gakuto gave a knowing little evil grin placing his hands behind his back as he walked.

"I dunno, maybe."

"Meanie!" exclaimed Jiroh.

--

"Moshi Moshi?"

"Hey Keigo, do you know where I can shop for some Japanese food? Snacks that sort of stuff because I heard that I'll have to go the Kroger and obviously I can't until my car gets shipped out here and that's not for a week."

Atobe laughed at the slightly irked tone in his friend's voice.

"And of course you need to live for a week," he said.

"Damn straight I need to live for a week," repeated Oshitari.

"I'm a bit busy right now, but I'll send my butler Kabaji up there to lead to one of the shops I own down there that sells a bunch of Asian imports. Be ready in about thirty minutes," Atobe ordered.

"Alright. Thanks," Oshitari replied.

"No problem. Ja ne!"

Click.

Oshitari was already ready to go out for the day so he waited until he heard a ring of his doorbell. He opened the door to find a huge man standing before him. He had a gorilla-like face that looked as well tired as it did brainless…

"Kabaji right?" asked Oshitari.

"Usu."

There was not a word down to the shop. It had been like a quiet little game of follow the leader through crowds of people going out for lunch or going out for more sight seeing. Oshitari spotted a lot of places he wanted to see that included the large glass like aquarium that was entitled "Ripley's Aquarium". There was actually quite a lot of "Ripley's" which included a 'Believe it or Not' museum. There were other shops that sold clothes, various trinkets and souvenirs, along with dimly lit arcades and delicious looking restaurants with a whole line of waiting people from the inside and outside.

They stopped down at the end of the street and Kabaji silently pointed to his left to an alley way that had only two doors going down to two different shops. Oshitari started to walk down the alleyway until he heard the deep baritone voice ask, "Will you be okay by yourself? Do you need me to wait?"

"I think I know my way back, you may return to Atobe now. I'll be okay, thank you for asking," said Oshitari.

"Usu."

Kabaji disappeared into the crowds of people and Oshitari walked into the small shop. It was dimly lit, a mini-lamp on the counter where the abandoned cash register was. There were shelves aligned with many books in Japanese titled and English. There were DVDs on the opposite shelf, and a rack of CDs and other trinkets. The only food source that Oshitari could find though was the small packages of Pocky on the counter that obviously looked like someone's snack or probably lunch.

A boy with deep orange hair came out of the backroom and noticed he had a customer. He had a boyish face that instantly lit up as he spotted Oshitari.

"Sorry for making you wait! Is there anything I can help you with?" asked the boy grinning goofily. He looked actually; no older than Oshitari maybe a little younger.

"Ah, my friend sent me here and I was trying to look for some food here but it seems like I can't find any," answered Oshitari.

"Oh all that is in the backroom, I'll let Gakuto help you with that! By the way you're not from here are you?" asked the clerk.

Oshitari chuckled at how the kid actually spotted that out so quickly.

"Looks like I'm caught. Yes I just moved here from Tokyo," he replied.

"Sugoi! Ore-wa, Jiroh, Akutagawa. O-namae-wa nan-desu ka?"

Oshitari smiled and quietly introduced himself, "Ore-wa namae-wa Oshitari-desu."

"SUGOI! Oi! Gakuto-kun, you have a customer! BE NICE HE'S IMPORTANT!" Jiroh called out happily.

Oshitari couldn't help but turn a little pink; he wasn't used to such attention even if he was a worldwide famous novelist. Oshitari was lead into the backroom by Jiroh and made his way out because some other customers came in. The novelist looked around the room. It was just a dull brick walled place with a couple of shelves, three fridges, and boxes stacked at odd angles in the room. In the center of the room was tiny looking male with burgundy red hair quickly scribbling some information on a clipboard.

"Eto…"

The boy's head shot up finding someone else in the room as well as him.

"You must the important person," he said.

"And you must be Gakuto-san," replied Oshitari.

"Mukahi-san," the boy corrected.

"Ah, I'm sorry," said Oshitari.

Gakuto rolled his dark blue eyes and placed down the clipboard and walked over to him.

"So Important person, what are you here for today?" he asked.

"Food. Do you mind if I look around?" questioned Oshitari.

"Go ahead, just don't steal anything," said Gakuto going back to what he was doing.

Oshitari looked around the place finding Kasugai gummies, soy sauce, green tea candy and ice cream, ramen, Pocky (he had a fetish for any type of chocolate), onigiri, and some bento that he could place in the fridge.

"Excuse me, but do you stock rice?" asked Oshitari. He knew there was no way that they could store any kind of meat in this store but rice shouldn't be too hard…

"No, there's a place down on the other side of town that sells the rice but everything else is here," replied Gakuto. He glanced up from his clipboard.

"You're…new here aren't you?"

"Yes; I'm from Tokyo," answered Oshitari quietly.

"Cool, you seem like you're from Kansai. Whenever you speak I can hear a little bit," pointed out Gakuto.

Oshitari smiled at the tiny redhead and was impressed that he could even hear it even with the English.

"I was born and raised in northern Japan. Osaka. I've been all over the place to be exact though, but I moved here from Tokyo," he explained.

"Kanto. I'm from Tokyo too but during Junior Highschool I moved to Chiba and then after highschool I moved here so tada, that's my story Important-san,"

Oshitari started laughing at the name.

"Oshitari, Yuushi-desu."

Gakuto's dark blue eyes went wide and he snapped out of if.

"I'm guessing you're friends with Atobe," he said darkly.

"Yes, we're friends."

"You've met the wrong people," said Jiroh from the doorway.

Gakuto went over to the other side of the room to avoid the whole situation.

"What do you mean by that?" Oshitari questioned.

Jiroh once bright look turned stony at the mention of Atobe in the conversation and Oshitari braced himself for the worst knowing that Atobe could be heartless sometimes.

"Let' s just say that he tried to rape one of our friends not long ago. Thankfully our friend was tough and doesn't take shit from anyone," Jiroh explained.

Oshitari paled and his heart stopped beating. Atobe tried to rape somebody? When did this happen? When did Atobe turn so cruel? He was so shocked that he had stopped the bag of Kasugai onto the floor.

"I-I didn't know that…"

"Well now you do. Atobe wanted to make him love him and our friend didn't have feelings for him," Jiroh snapped.

The dark haired male sighed and pushed up his fake gold rimmed glasses up the brim of his nose.

"Please, Atobe is a childhood friend of mine, and he has no right on what he did… He gets really big in the head where he thinks nobody should reject him. You don't know exactly… But despite that, he is a nice person; I'll see if I can stop it as an old friend of his," he said.

Jiroh silently nodded.

"Are you finished looking here?" asked Gakuto walking out of the small dimly lit room.

Oshitari followed and paid for his stuff. He walked out of the store stunned and shocked. Things were different now weren't they?

(Notes: Moshi Moshi: Hello on the telephone in Japanese short for "Moshiagemasu Moshiagemasu" which basically means "I am going to tell you".

Sugoi! Ore-wa Jiroh, Akutagawa. O-namae-wa nan-desu ka: Jiroh is basically introducing his self right here. "Awesome! My name is Jiroh, Akutagawa. What is your name?" Sugoi meaning "awesome" or "cool"

Ore-wa, namae-wa, Oshitari-desu: Basically meaning "I am Oshitari.")