Disclaimer: I do not own DN Angel, welcome to the wonderful world of Fan Fiction!

Author's Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter. I am working at a Summer Camp starting very soon. I should be able to get a few writing hours in a day, unless I don't have an outlet for my laptop. But I won't be able to post anything (most likely) until the end of summer. But the happy news I'll have like 100 chapters for you guys! ;D

So this is where my Japanese schooling knowledge ends, Daisuke's classes are based off of Fine Arts requirements at my own college. Sorry. So this chapter is like the "peak into a college freshman's life" chapter. Sort of the set-up, the basic norm between our two main characters.

Warning: This story will be a range of anywhere between two affectionate male friends to yaoi (Explicit sex between two males). So if you don't like male that cry and hug and enjoy cuddle than I suggest you do not read this fic. In this story the fate of Hikari and Niwa is a grand secret of mine. Although I believe if you are one to enjoy affectionate male friends or full blown out yaoi regardless I believe you will enjoy this story.

Happy Reading!

-Na

The Art of Our Blood

Chaputa-go

Daisuke unlocked his apartment, and opened the door to be greeted with the hazy dark of an empty apartment at post-dusk. Shifting his art folder to the other arm that held the take out dinner, Niwa dropped his keys in the basket by the door and flicked on the light, "Tadaima," he sighed. Toeing off his shoes, the redhead stepped off the genkan and into some slippers.

Resituating his bags, Daisuke moved into the kitchen dropping off the take-out, before moving towards the bedroom. Placing down his art folder in the corner of the room, he threw his backpack onto the bed and followed it shortly after. The college freshmen sighed and buried his head in the pillow under his head, it was Satoshi's. If you thought about it the way the two teenagers slept, all pillows belonged to the blunette.

Inhaling deeply, Daisuke took in the scent of pillow, of his best friend. A smell that was indescribable, but the commercial companies somehow labeled the individual soaps and deodorant with ludicrous names that made little sense. But the exact name of the scent didn't matter, for as he inhaled, the tightness in his shoulders lessened.

He was a freshman, the redhead groaned, fresh-meat—knew little of the college scene and was forced to take the junk courses. There was that course that all the first-year students needed to take, designed to ease you into college life, teach you to write papers properly. He didn't need it; he lived with boy-genius Hikari, Satoshi for crying out load. Then there was Intro to Three-Dimensional Design. His shading, and color usage with tints, tones and shades was superb, it was a useless course. If he saw one more empty soup can or Styrofoam apparatus he would scream! The phone rang.

Daisuke didn't move, just listened to the phone ring. The answering machine picked up the line, and then suddenly that calming, cool, 'there-is-nothing-wrong-with-me' voice floated over to the redhead, "Dai-kun, I'm finally finished with my shift at the police station and my classes for the day. But I have to write a paper," Satoshi sighed then, "I know another one. I'm going to be working at the Daigaku library. So please don't call me, no matter how late it gets, because I need to concentrate," there was a pause, "if your classes bother you that much ignore the professor and draw me a picture instead. Have a good night, and don't wait up for me."

The smile slowly flitted across Niwa's face and broke into a big grin. Stretching out along the bed, with the grin still plastered to his face, he knocked his backpack off the bed. He heard the books of various sizes slide and tumble as the bag hit the floor, Daisuke swore he could hear a couple pencils break. No book should be that heavy, his back should not be subjected to that kind of weight. Rolling onto his side, the redhead slowly sat up and stood from the bed.

Walking into the kitchen, the thief sat down at the small kitchen table and began to pull out the bowls of take-out from their bags. He leaned back slumped in his chair and relaxed, not something that he would usually do, especially if there was someone else around. But that day had been hectic, mostly stressful. Daisuke was a smart kid he used the time that he was still on campus between classes to finish homework for those classes that assigned it, used the computer labs to full advantage, and so forth. But today was just one of those days, where the teachers decided that a hundred pages of reading could be done simply in a day or two, or a whole two hundred-something page book. And this blasphemous anomaly occurred for two of his courses, on top of the usual copious amounts of English homework, he was pretty sure he had never seen the queen, although his teacher enjoyed making them practice a particular verb tense with the sentence, 'I have seen the queen.'

Satoshi, Daisuke thought always made his day seem so little and insignificant, perhaps that was not the right word. Either way Sato-kun, made the redhead feel better, not to mention strengthen his resolve to not go to graduate school. By the time it was early evening Daisuke was finished with classes, and his homework. But at the same time the blunette would be just finishing classes and work, and thus would be completing homework until he returned home around one in the morning. As mean as it sounded it made the college freshman very happy to know he had less work to do than his roommate. He would curl into the large bed by himself at night and fall into a fitful sleep without the comfort of another body, whether Satoshi or Wiz. And when the worry and loneliness startled him from his sleep, he would usually find Satoshi in the kitchen eating dinner's leftovers, and curl into the lap easily able from there to fall asleep, knowing that his best friend was home safe and sound.

Red eyes flicked over the soup that was his dinner, they ate too much take-out, it wasn't that they didn't know how to cook; it was more of an issue of time and physical exhaustion. Although on most mornings one of the flat mates was able to pull together a couple of bento boxes. Eating the soup slowly, for he was in no particular hurry, Daisuke stared off into space. He was thinking, about many things, his current life style, college, everything really at the same time really and yet he tried to think of nothing at all, to clear his mind.

Finishing his meal, Niwa cleaned up the empty take-out dishes. He quickly washed off the pair of hashi that he had used to remove the larger pieces from his soup, before he drank the broth. Storing Hikari's meal in the refrigerator on the second shelf; the designated 'leftovers for Satoshi' spot in the cooling box.

The redhead then moved into the cool blue and white bathroom to take a shower, and prepare for bed. It may still be early but he was going no where, and there would be no company. So that meant that he could walk around the apartment in his comfortable pajamas until he was tired. Very precariously he unbuttoned the white shirt, careful of his graphite smudged hands. The shirt smelt strongly of the underground, fast food, and if one could believe it graphite. There was graying stains along the edge of the shirt, and Daisuke knew that he would need to wear a different shirt the next day. Putting the shirt in the hamper, he peeled off his pants and folded them for another day's use. He deposited his undershirt, underwear, and socks in the hamper before turning on the shower to warm the water.

Stepping into the warm water was like a sort of steamy heaven. It relaxed him in a way that none other could; it removed the faint scents of the day, it relaxed his sore shoulder and back muscles in a way that made one's body almost forget that those muscles were knotted. Down the drain flowed the scent of the subway, and the art studios—which no amount of cleaning could purge it of the stench of oil paint, aerosol lacquer, and paint thinner, followed by the mild irritation towards the day, and the lonely feeling of being in an empty apartment—since the flow of water blocked out the sound of nothing.

Soaping his body up, with some sort of spicy smelling body wash, that smelled vaguely of cinnamon, and burnt his nerves to an extent. He knew, that he could use the bar of soap that Satoshi used, but it was the young law student who told him that the body wash suited him, that it was 'fiery' or some such.

Taking his time in the shower, like he did with his evening meal, it don't matter if he used all the hot water now, Hiwatari was not going to return for another six hours or so. So he took his time in the shower, until his wild red hair lay in wet tendrils to just about his chin, and his skin was a nice pinkish-tone and pruney fingers. Getting out of the shower, Daisuke dried off with the large fluffy blue towels that his roommate had bought them, before putting on a pair of boxers and flannel sleeping pants. The redhead then proceeded to brush his teeth, before hanging the towel up and moving towards the bedroom.

Daisuke went straight for the smaller bookshelf, which held his books and dwarfed by the bookshelf that belonged to Satoshi. Scanning over the titles, he bent down and chose the fifth book in his favorite manga series. He knew that night he would need the light reading that was familiar and easy to fall into.

Going over to the bed, book in hand, Niwa, Daisuke pulled back the covers and snuggled down into the bed's warm comfort. Fluffing the pillows, he opened the manga and settled into the story. The blunette had not read the series, he thought, but flipped through it and informed the enamored redhead that it was implied shounen-ai. At first Daisuke couldn't believe it, not that he had a problem with his favorite manga series being shounen-ai, he had just never thought of it before. Now that he thought about it, it did make sense there was only one female main character, which all five male main characters ignore her advances, and they did give these looks to each other. As the redhead read, the pictures began to blur, as his eyes drifted slowly shut, and he fell asleep.

Daisuke was startled from his sleep, his eyes darted around the still lighted, and empty room. He was not sure if it was the dream he had and could not remember that woke him up or the scraping of a chair on the kitchen floor. Rubbing his eyes, the thief slowly sat up, and placed the book on the nightstand while looking at the bedside clock, it was half past one in the morning. Tossing back the covers from over his lower body, slipping his feet into his house shoes he groggily moved towards the kitchen.

Satoshi was pale against the lowlight to the red eyes that approached the man disposing of his dinner cups and washing his hashi. Although he was always pale, now-a-days since they had both been busy with schooling he seemed to be even paler then before. Niwa bit his lip and worried it a little, at this point he could not tell if the blunette's slowly failing health was work related or related to Daisuke.

"You're home Sato-kun," whispered Daisuke.

Putting down the chopsticks blue eyes spun to meet red, "You didn't stay up waiting for me, did you? I noticed the bedroom light on."

The damp red head shook as the shorter stepped towards his sickly roommate, "Fell asleep reading."

The young police commander turned back towards the sink and the dish rack so that he could put away the two sets of hashi that had been used that day. Niwa stepped up behind his roommate, putting his hands on his shoulders, and giving them a firm massaging squeeze. Hikari paused with his hand in the drawer, and leaned against the redhead with a half moan.

"Your shoulders are stiff, the muscles are knotted, go take a shower and I'll give you a massage afterwards," whispered Daisuke, slowly stepping away from his friend.

Satoshi nodded, and half stumbled into the bathroom. The hot water felt good on his tired muscles, but the taller boy didn't linger in the shower like the redhead had. Partially for the time of day, and partially for the warm water lulling him to sleep. He turned off the water, and cursed to himself, he had forgotten to get his pajama pants and to put a towel within hands reach. With a sigh he pulled back the shower curtain and there on the toilet seat within reach was his towel and his pajamas, he could kiss Daisuke. Drying off, and stepping out of the tub, he quickly got dressed and moved to the bedroom.

Blue eyes fell onto the other figure, when he entered the room. Daisuke was sitting on the edge of the bed starring off into space his eyes half drooping, "We should just sleep."

Daisuke's head shot up a bit startled, "No, no, come lay down on your stomach," the redhead seemed to instantly wake up, as he stood and motioned to the bed.

Satoshi sighed and laid down as he was asked, he buried his head into the pillow and tried to relax and fall asleep, "Did you set the alarm clock?"

"While you were in the shower," replied Daisuke. He slowly climbed onto the bed and after a hesitant second, where he decided the best way to tackle the massage, he straddled his roommate and sat on his behind. Before Satoshi could raise his voice in protest, the redhead ran his hands up the pale back and over the shoulders exposed to him.

He began to slowly knead the shoulder muscles, taking note of where each knot was, so he could work them out later. Daisuke moved his hands up to cup around Hikari's neck, working his thumbs down the blunettes spine, slowly making his way to the pale shoulders. From the shoulders the thief worked out each knot in the muscles with a slow precision. Moving down along the spine of the man underneath him, Niwa pinched and rolled large amounts of flesh, pausing to work out any knot, or pay special attention and care to the sore spots directed by the sounds of the pale figure below him. When the redhead made it to the line of Satoshi's pants, he rubbed over the entire back to sooth all the muscles he just worked on. Ruffling the blue hair playfully and flitting fingers across the white feather, Daisuke rolled off of the ancestral artist. Flopping down on the bed on his stomach, he happily nuzzled his face into the pillow.

Red eyes closed, as he felt the bed shift, at first he didn't think anything of it but a weight soon settled above him. Daisuke opened his eyes and turned his head to look over his shoulder at his friend, "What are you doing, Sato-kun."

Satoshi shrugged his shoulders, "You must have tight muscles too Dai-kun." Then Satoshi's hands were on his back rubbing gently but quickly to warm the muscles under his fingers. The blunette then chose to work from the lower back up to the shoulders and neck. He rubbed small circles in the flesh, as well as going back over the area with kneading, rolling strokes. Hikari worked out all the knots he found with the heel of his palm, in a gentle pressure until the muscle unraveled itself underneath his ministrations. Slowly he moved up the back, changing his method, at the sounds coming from the redhead. When he had finished, Satoshi paused for a moment taking in the sleepy drunk look on Daisuke's face before leaning down and kissing the slighter male between the shoulder blades, where a black feather could have sat.

"Sato-kun?" the blunette froze fearing the worst, "Let's go to sleep."

Slightly dejected Hikari moved off of his love and moved to his side of the bed, turning off the bedside lamp, the only source of light in the room, left from when Daisuke was reading, "Yes, we should."

"I think I might be sick for my eight o'clock class tomorrow," murmured Daisuke invading the pale boy's personal space and curling up half on top of the graduate.

"Why?"

Daisuke snuggled closer, "Besides it being almost four in the morning? I'm too at peace to move in two hours."

Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait.

Japanese you might not know:

Tadaima: I'm home

Genkan: entryway to a house/apartment, where you leave your shoes.

Hashi: chopsticks

Regardless of your opinion please review. Thank You.

- Na