Hiro sat up, staring blankly at the opposite wall. He touched his fingers to his lips; they were still warm. 'No, bad Hiro! You have Ayaka! But...what Ayaka doesn't know can't hurt her--'NO! STOP! BAD HIRO, VERY BAD HIRO!' He sighed and flopped back down onto the bed, putting his arms over his eyes. 'Very bad Hiro...'

There was an uncomfortable silence...Ryuichi rarely stayed quiet for long, but this time he did. After a full minute of tense silence he said one word: "Sorry." His face was still beet-red.

Hiro tilted his head back to look at Nittle Grasper's vocalist. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"Well, I know...but I couldn't think of anything else to say."

Hiro quirked an eyebrow. "You? Not have anything to say? Are you feeling all right?"

Ryuichi giggled a little. "No...actually, I kind of feel weird."

"Weird how?"

"I don't really know." The singer leaned back, hands behind his head. "Just...weird."

Hiro gulped. 'Weird, huh? Maybe it's contagious; I feel weird too...' He had an odd suspicion he knew what kind of 'sickness' this was. "Does it feel like a butterfly feeling and a little lightheadedness?"

"Yeah, actually. Why? Am I sick?" Suddenly he was sitting up straight in mild alarm.

Hiro shook his head. "No." He moved his arms away from his face to look at the singer again. "Come here." Confused, Ryuichi crawled to Hiro across the bed. Hiro took a deep breath and sat up, putting a hand behind the vocalist's head. "Close your eyes."

'I'm going to Hell for this,' was the final thought before Hiro leaned over and put his mouth to Ryuichi's. Said man sat there, struck motionless, then realized numbly that his eyes had snapped open, and that almost involuntarily, he was leaning into the shy kiss.

Hiroshi pulled away after a few moments of this, his face tomato-red and his heart threatening to fly out of his chest. "I, um...I guess I should be the one to apologize now. That probably wasn't the smartest thing to do." Hiro rubbed his temples and scooted off the bed. "I should probably go now."

"Wait!" cried Ryuichi, grabbing the guitarist by the hand yet again. "Don't leave," he begged. Without further ado the singer kissed Hiro again, and the redhead stiffened.

'What should I do? I know that I'm feeling something way beyond friendship here, but what about Ayaka? She's already been pushed out of a relationship because of a very similar situation, and I know I don't love her the way she wants me to...I don't want to hurt her in the same way Yuki did...but I want this so much...' A single tear slid down Hiro's face. 'I don't want to give him up.'

When the vocalist's hand reached up to touch Hiro's face, he felt the wetness there and pulled away. "Hiro? Ack! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have..." He sat back on the bed, looking down embarassedly. "I'm really sorry..."

"Don't be, really. You did nothing wrong." Hiroshi sat down next to Ryu. "I liked that, I really did. I just...have Ayaka and even though I don't love her in...that way...anymore, I don't want to break her heart." He began twiddling his thumbs nervously.

"I see..." He did see; he understood. He'd had his heart broken and broken hearts before and it never gets any easier. He smiled once more. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"I know. But I don't know what I want to do!" The redhead kept his eyes on his hands as he spoke. 'Maybe I could help Ayaka get a new boyfriend. There's no point in being with someone who doesn't love you back, anyways...that just isn't fair to either person.'

"That makes sense." How badly the singer wanted to lean on Hiro's shoulder to show his support, but that would probably just make things more difficult.

The guitarist took a deep, shuddering breath in to try and help clear his mind. He'd made his decision--he'd break off the relationship he had with Ayaka...but the question now was how to do it; the girl was on a two-week vacation and unfortunately had no cell phone. And how would she feel if as soon as she returned, her boyfriend broke up with her because he'd found someone else while she was away? Hiro knew that he would be heartbroken if someone did that to him--'someone', referring to Ryuichi. "My head hurts." He groaned and cradled his head in his hands; how could something so seemingly simple be so difficult? Oh right. Because love was a bitch.

Hesitantly, Ryuichi rubbed circles on the other's back, knowing how hard this was. "Promise me something, Ryu," Hiro said suddenly, lifting his head but still refusing to look at the singer.

"Hmm?" He was already busy making himself a promise--that he'd be supportive even if he didn't like the redhead's decision.

"If we try this, and it's not what we thought it'd be, we'll still be friends." Hiro's eyes looked like Yuki's at the current moment, staring at a Bad Luck poster and looking right through it. "I don't want to mess anything up."

"Of course we will!" There was no hesitation. "Losing friends is no fun."

Hiro cast a side glance at the singer and smiled; he seemed to be doing that a lot today. "Then there's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"First of all, the media. The media is going to have a field day once word gets out--after all, Bad Luck and Nittle Grasper are some of the best-known rival bands out there. And there's a bigger problem--Ayaka's on a two-week vacation." There was a silence.

"Those are some pretty big problems...especially Ayaka."

"Yeah, and I have no idea how to contact her."

"Doesn't she have a cell phone?"

"Nope." Hiro looked at his watch. "I really should be going; it's getting late. I'll call her father in the morning to find out where she's staying."

"But it's only eight o'clock," whined the singer.

"And work starts at five. And some people can't run for an entire day on five hours of sleep."

"They can't?"

"I can't, at least. I don't have the amount of energy you do."

"Oh...heh. Tohma's told me I have a lot of energy. Come to think of it, so have a lot of people."

Hiro laughed at that and stood up, cracking his neck. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Before he could think, Ryuichi grabbed Hiro's shoulders and stared up at him with pleading eyes. "Do you have to go?" This was the kind of face that dogs and babies make and people say "How can you say no to that face?" in that annoying baby-talk voice.

Hiro refrained from 'aww'-ing at the face his...boyfriend?...was making. He sighed and sat down on the bed again. "I'll stay until ten at the latest, okay?"

"Yay!" He began jumping on the bed in glee, before remembering that jumping on the bed causes one to bump his head. ((Yes. It's a rhyme. I did it on purpose.)) He fell back down. "Ow..." Tears filled his eyes and he clutched his head in pain.

Hiro crawled over to where Ryuichi was and put his hands over the singer's. "Let me see."

Whimpering, Ryu took his hands off his head. "I'm not bleeding, am I?"

"No." Hiro ran his hands gently through the singer's hair. "But you do seem to have a fairly large bump."

"It hurts." Though, it didn't hurt as much as it did; it was more distracting that his heart was racing at three million miles an hour and it was a little hard to breathe.

"That's to be expected. You hit it pretty damn hard."

"I need to get a bed lower to the ground. Or make the ceilings higher."

Hiro chuckled and kissed the top of Ryuichi's head where the bump was. "Do you want me to get you some ice?"

"Yes, please." It wasn't so much that he needed the ice; it was more like he felt like he was going to hyperventilate at any moment and it would be a little embarassing to do so around Hiro.

"Don't hurt yourself any more than you already have." That said, Hiro got off the bed and headed downstairs to the kitchen for ice.

The moment Hiro was out of earshot Ryuichi grabbed his biggest, fluffiest pillow and screamed into it, an almost fangirl-ish scream. The hyperventilation commenced, then as a conclusion he fell backwards on the bed with a self-satisfied sigh. 'I'm such a drama queen,' he thought.

Hiro re-entered the room and crawled onto the bed. He placed the ice, which was inside a plastic bag and wrapped in a tablecloth, on the singer's head.

"Thanks," Ryu said with a grateful smile. He didn't really know what else to say.

"Sure." An awkward silence fell over the room. Hiro didn't know what to say either--or what to do or how to act for that matter. The love he'd had for Shuichi and Ayaka felt like nothing compared to what he felt right now for Ryuichi Sakuma. Not that he didn't love them anymore, just not in that way.

For lack of anything better to say, Ryuichi said feebly, "Are we still going to play Soul Calibur?"

"If you want." Hiro smiled and ran his hand through Ryuichi's hair.

The vocalist bit his lip, refusing the urge to lean over and kiss the life out of the guitarist. However, he contained himself and crawled over to the controllers, tossing one to Hiro.

Hiro caught the controller and motioned for Ryuichi to un-pause the game. He was tired of looking at Talem's butt which was facing the screen as she prepared to jump-kick Voldo. Ryuichi had called him girly by choosing to play as Talem, Hiro simply shrugged and insisted that she was one of the best characters in the game. He was about to prove that statement, too, since the kick should take Ryu's life meter down to zero. Sure enough, the moment Ryuichi unpaused the game, the kick depleted his remaining life and he groaned, falling back on the bed once more. "Damnit," he muttered.

Hiro leaned back on his hand and stared at the screen. Somehow he knew he'd get a nosebleed or some other 'problem' if he looked back at Ryuichi while he was sprawled on the bed. "I told you she was good."

Ever immature, the vocalist stuck his tongue out. "I still say you're girly for choosing her."

Hiro shrugged his shoulders and fell back beside Ryuichi. "You still lost."

"That's 'cause Voldo sucks."

"Then why did you play as hiim?"

"'Cause I felt like it."

Out of nowhere, Hiro shot up and looked down at Ryuichi, a grin plastered to his face. "Are you ticklish?"

"Uh, um...no?" He was obviously lying.

HIro leaned over the singer, still grinning. "Really?" He ran a finger from Ryuichi's collarbone to his naval. "What if I do this?" He straddled the vocalist and began to tickle his stomach, occasionally running his hands over Ryu's chest.

Despite admirable self-restraint, Ryuichi began giggling madly. "Hiro!" he gasped, "No fair!" He squirmed and wriggled under the guitarist, trying to get free.

Said redhead laughed and continued to tickle the man. His hands moved from Ryuichi's arms to his stomach to his neck to his chest, lather, rinse, and repeat.

Almost a full minute of struggling--and lots of blushing on Ryuichi's part-- later found the singer squirming his way out of Hiro's grasp. He crawled backwards over the bed. "Are you ticklish, Nakano-kun?"

"Not really."

Predictably Ryu tried it anyway, only to find that Hiro had been telling the truth. Slightly disappointed, he grabbed a pillow instead and bopped him over the head with it.

"Hey!" Hiro attempted to fix his hair from the frizzy mess it had become from the tickle fight. He sighed when parts of it refused to stay in place and instead stuck out from his head. Ryuichi just giggled. "You look silly," he laughed.

"Be quiet." Hiro huffed and folded his arms across his chest.

Ryuichi, still laughing, crawled over to Hiro and began trying to smooth down his hair. "It's not working," he said, running his fingers through the long red hair because he didn't feel like getting up to get a brush. Meanwhile, Hiro was all but purring at the touch. Shivers ran up and down his spine and he leaned into the hands.

Even after Hiro's hair looked presentable, the singer continued to play with it. It felt soft under his fingers. "Your hair smells good." He leaned forward and inhaled.

"Thanks," chuckled the guitarist and turned to kiss Ryuichi's cheek. Instead of letting him kiss his cheek, however, the singer moved slightly so that their lips ended up meeting. There it was again--that butterfly feeling in his stomach. He decided he liked it. Hiro smiled against the vocalist's lips and put his left hand on Ryuichi's neck while the other remained on the bed beside the singer's left leg.

Then, very shyly, Ryuichi licked at Hiro's lips as if asking politely if it was okay. Hiro opened his mouth and moaned when their tongues met. He had most definitely not felt this strongly about anyone before, not even Ayaka or Shuichi. His brain felt like it was going to explode with the sudden rush of emotions and his heart had moved to his throat, threatening to beat its way out of his mouth. He put his other arm around the vocalist's waist and let the one that had been on his neck travel up and down his back.

Ryuichi shuddered slightly and toyed with Hiro's hair again--it was quickly becoming a habit. As one hand played with the locks of hair, the other stroked the redhead's face softly. Hiro pressed against the singer and moved his hand lower to Ryuichi's butt. He nipped once at his bottom lip and pulled away for some much-needed air.

Panting, Ryuichi pressed his forehead against Hiro's, not failing to notice the guitarist's hand on his butt. There was a faint blush on his face and he felt a bit sick, but in a good way. Love was so damn complicated.

"That was amazing," Hiro said. Cliche, but true. Hiro was also panting, but not as heavily as Ryuichi. 'What's Shuichi gonna think about all this...?' He shared this thought with Ryuichi, who giggled and replied that he didn't know. Hiro rested his head on his shoulder. "It's past ten."

The singer put his arms protectively around Hiro. "You're not leaving, are you?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

"Then you're staying," he said defiantly.

Hiro smiled and kissed the vocalist's neck lovingly. "Love you." He bit his lip--was it too early to voice that aloud?

Ryuichi's breath hitched in his throat. What was he supposed to do?! 'What are you supposed to do when someone tells you they love you? Oh. Right.' "I love you too." He buried his face in Hiro's hair. His heart was now racing and Hiro felt it. The guitarist relaxed and wrapped both arms around the singer's waist.