A/N: chapter 4 is finally here! there WOULD have been more, but i slept till noon today so... ^^; anyway, ON WITH THE SHOW!

Chapter 4

A ten year old Arthur skipped down the driveway, not a care in the world at all. He walked into the house and immediately started running up the stairs.

"Mom?" he called out in his tiny, ten year old voice.

He ran up the steps as fast as he could, eager to be by his mother's side. But as he passed his bedroom, he stopped. The door was closed, but he saw a shadow move under the doorway. He walked towards it, wondering if his mother was in the room. He gripped the handed that was just above his head with both hands and opened the door. The room was all white, blinding the small boy for a second.

He took a few blind steps into the room when a large horned monster appeared in front of him. Arthur screamed and fell back, staring into the red eyes of the shadowy monster. Then, the monster was at the window, still staring at the boy. Then it was gone.

Arthur bolted upright in bed, the nightmare leaving him hyperventilating. He took a few shaky breaths and calmed himself a little. That nightmare really shook him up, and he expected that monster to be in the room. But a quick look around assured the blond that he was alone. He looked towards the clock and sighed.

"Oh, shit…" the hissed, looking at the bright 2:00 that flashed for a minute on the clock.

Arthur took a deep breath and reached over to his nightstand, grabbing the bottle of pills on it. He looked at the bottle, reading the label a few times even though he knew what they were. His doctor had given him pills for insomnia, which seemed to be what he was having at the moment. He sighed and placed the pills back, figuring that while he was up, he could do something…

Arthur adjusted his grip on the rope, pulling himself up so that his head just grazed the open beams in the ceiling of his living room. He was already sweating, even though he had only been at it for 30 minutes. He pulled himself up again, not letting his feet touch the ground. His heart was pounding and his muscles were burning, but he continued his little regiment, ignoring everything around him and solely focusing on his task.

Arthur glared at the punching bag, hitting it again with another serious of intricate punches and kicks. He started on another kick when his foot slipped on the hard wood and he fell over. He caught himself just in time and lowered himself to the floor and lay on his back, his chest heaving from exhaustion.

"You know I can't sit still, Francis. Call me with the name," Arthur said before he hung up the phone.

Arthur put his phone down on the coffee table and laid down on his couch, pulling the blanket over him. He was trying to take a quick nap. But there were so many voices in his head. All of them from recent people, things that happened, even Jones were there, not letting Arthur have a small rest. His eyes stayed open, staring at his phone, wanting it to ring and expel all the voices in his head…

Arthur sat on a rock ledge near the sea, meditating. He felt the wind hitting his face and calmed. Listening to the sounds of nature, feeling the sun hitting his face and the wind blowing through his hair and his mind completely empty… it was the second best feeling in the world (can you guess what the first is?). He felt completely calm, like he was a rock that the water had smoothed over time.

Arthur felt his consciousness being pulled as he saw a vision behind his closed eyes. He saw the clouds move quickly, but not for long before he saw a man walking up to him. The man seemed to be about his age, with long dark colored hair in a pony tail and light eyes. He looked slightly childish in his face, but there was a look in his eyes that said he's seen things far beyond his years. He was wearing some sort of Chinese Mandarin shirt in a dark color and light colored Chinese pants. Arthur couldn't tell the colors of anything, since his visions appeared to him in black and white.

Arthur opened his eyes and looked off to his right and, sure enough, that man was coming towards him. Now that Arthur saw him properly, the man had dark brown hair and golden eyes. His Chinese shirt was a forest green color and his pants were yellow. What an odd combination, Arthur thought. This man also had the same yellow undertone in his skin that Kiku had, so he assumed they must be related somehow. And Arthur wouldn't put it out of his mind to think that they were father and son…

The man had been looking down on his walk, so when he picked his head up to look at Arthur, the blonde was no longer there.

"Looking for me?" Arthur asked the man, having appeared behind him. The man jumped nearly a foot in the air, turning to look at Arthur in shock.

"Hi, aru," the man said, looking back at the rock and then at Arthur. "Are you the new tenant, aru?" the man pointed back towards Arthur's house and said, "Eddie Ferris, the realtor, said that a young man had taken it for the month, aru."

"What do you want?" Arthur asked, looking at the man with an expressionless face, which scared the Asian. The man had opened his mouth to say something else, and then closed it.

"Sorry, this is kinda awkward but, uhh… have you seen a young boy, 16 years old, with really short black hair, aru?" the man asked with a sigh. "He's my brother, Kiku, aru. We had a bit of a fight…"

"I saw him late afternoon," Arthur said, cutting the man off from his rambling.

"Oh you did, aru?" the man asked, a small bit of hope in his voice.

"Yes, that git broke into my house," Arthur said with a twisted smirk, making the Asian cringe.

"Shit, really?" the man asked, his voice suggesting that this had happened before. Arthur just stared at him with a black face. "He knows the Wheelwrights who—" the man cut himself off with a sigh. "He didn't take anything did he, aru?"

"No," Arthur said, withholding the information that Kiku almost did.

"Good, good, aru," the man said, obviously relieved. "Look, if he broke anything, I'm happy to pay for it, aru. I'm Yao Wang, aru." He held out his hand for a handshake. "We're in the little cabin, two houses down."

There was a small and awkward silence as they two looked at each other. Arthur didn't move and didn't say anything, and Yao stood there like an idiot.

"Okay," Yao said, pulling his hand back. "Thank you, aru."

Yao gave Arthur a small bow before walking off, back to his cabin. Arthur just stood there for a minute, not really sure what just happened.

"Bonjour, you've reached Francis Bonnefoy. Just leave your name. Do not leave a message" Francis's machine said to Arthur through the phone.

"Francis," Arthur said, knowing that Francis would recognize his voice. "I'm sick of sitting here. We don't get a name soon, I'm walking."

Arthur hung up the phone, and stared into space for a while, thinking that meditating again would be a good idea. He got up from where he was sitting in the staircase and stretched quickly, hearing his back crack. He grabbed his red wool shall that Francis bought him and wrapped it around himself, feeling the immediate warmth he got from the item.

He walked out of his house and went down to the dock on his property. He tried in vain for twenty minutes to clear his mind, but there were so many things going on that he couldn't focus. He had gotten a bad vibe from Yao, and Kiku wasn't much better. He got the feeling that there was more to these two than meets the eye. And then not being able to know his target for this long was driving him insane. He needed to know soon…

"Hey."

Arthur calmly turned around to see Kiku standing there on dry land, his arms crossed and a defiant look on his face.

"How long have you been standing there?" Arthur asked calmly.

"Like a minute," Kiku said with a shrug. He sighed and started to walk over to Arthur, glaring at the back of the Brit's head. "What did you tell me brother? That I broke into your house?"

"Yeah, because you did break in," Arthur said, matching Kiku's defiant tone with one of his own.

"Yeah, well you didn't have to tell him," Kiku said, going to stand just in front of Arthur. "I thought you were cool."

"I'm not," Arthur said in a 'hate to break it to you' voice.

"Yeah, no kidding," Kiku said, putting his hands on his hips. "Now he's on my case. He's made me come ask you to spend Christmas dinner with us."

"Have what?" Arthur asked, a look of genuine confusion on his face as he turned slightly to face the teen.

"Christmas," Kiku said, shocked that Arthur didn't know or was just playing dumb. "Dinner. December 25th." There was a small silence as Kiku tried to comprehend what was going on. Did his Brit really not know… "Did you know that today's Christmas?"

"Thank you," Arthur said, finally speaking. "I can't. I have something to do."

"What?" Kiku asked, knowing that Arthur was spouting bullshit. "Everything's closed. You're on an island." Kiku could see that the defiant method wasn't working. He decided to switch tactics and went with the polite teenager. "Come on, please?" Arthur looked at him strangely. "It's just the two of us every night… and I'm bored out of my skull…"

Arthur watched Kiku for a second and saw that the teen was looking at something behind him. Arthur turned and saw the Asian looking at the house. He seemed focused on it, like he didn't even know what he was doing…

"What are you doing?" Arthur asked, breaking the boy out of his trance.

"Nothing, why?" Kiku asked, a little confused.

"Were you counting?" Arthur asked, a serious look on his face.

"No," Kiku said in a normal tone. Arthur just sighed. "So, will you come? Please? Because if you don't I'll just keep breaking into your house. Hmm?"

Arthur saw that he was stuck. He really didn't want this kid in his house, thinking that he'd find all his weapons sooner or later. He sighed and looked down at himself.

"I have to change my clothes," Arthur said simply. He turned and started his walk back to his house.

"Great!" Kiku said with a smile. "I'm Kiku." Arthur stopped and turned back to look at Kiku.

"Arthur," Arthur said simply and continued his walk.

"Arthur," Kiku said, almost as if seeing how the named felt coming from his mouth. He just shrugged happily. "Cool.

7 pages and it still doesn't look like much...

oh well.

i RLY hate writing Yao's line, i keep forgetting to put the ARU at the end!

anyway, love it? hate it? want to smother it with kisses? tell me what you think! R&R is a lovely thing to do! it keeps me writing!