This I promise You

A/N: I have no idea what color eyes Hiro has. They looked black to me in the pictures, so that’s what I’m using. If anyone knows what color they are, please tell me. Thanks! I have such a potty mouth, so I use a lot of “bad language” in my stories. Be forewarned. I want to just thank everyone who continues to read my Grav Fic and those who review! I really appreciate it! I hope you guys like this next chapter. It was kinda long, so I had to chop it in half. It may seem as if nothing’s happening (and truthfully, I would have to agree), but trust me! It’ll all make sense in the end! Enjoy!

***

Chapter 6: Toki wo koetai- part 1 (I want to spend my life that way)

*earlier that same day*

Amber eyes fluttered open. Yawning, Eiri stretched, working the kinks out of his body. Flipping onto his back, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and turned towards the still form besides him. If anyone called the blond writer soft, they would soon find themselves six feet under, but that was exactly how Eiri appeared as he gazed dreamily at his sleeping baka.

A tender smile on his face, he tucked a stray wisp of hair off Shuichi’s forehead. Leaning over, he brushed his lips across his lithe singer’s soft lips, still slightly swollen from their earlier...excursion. In his sleep, Shuichi groaned and snuggled deeper under the covers, hugging the pillow tightly. Eiri snorted, with a shake of his head. He caught sight of the alarm clock on the night stand over Shuichi’s sleeping, nude form. It shouted in red, angry numbers that he had indeed made the singer late for work. Feeling pleased and ready to tease his lover unmercilessly, he opened his mouth to wake Shu but closed his mouth without saying anything, when he saw how peaceful the man seemed.

When was the last time Shuichi actually had some good, decent sleep? Every night he had a nightmare or a disturbing dream of some sort. Then at least two, even three times, a week he had a night terror similar to the one he had last night. Shu woke so often screaming like someone was attacking him that his bodyguard did not bother racing into the apartment, his gun drawn ready to fend off a psychotic fan or something anymore, which was what the men did the first several times it happened. The neighbors, thinking the same thing as- what was his name? Josh? Jeremy?- the night bodyguard, had actually called the police the first few times. Now, it was so common place that it had become like the boy who cried wolf. On top of the nightmares, Shuichi has been, once again, pushing himself past his own natural limits in order to finish his album, an album which was far from done. The singer was up every single day at the ass crack of dawn, worked non-stop all day long and came home totally exhausted and drained late in the evening. He would stagger into the house, without bothering to take off his shoes, and walk like he was the walking dead to the bedroom and drop onto the bed, instantly falling into a dead-like sleep. Then of course, the nightmares would wake him up, interrupting the sleep he so desperately needed. The double whammy was starting to catch up with not only Shuichi, but with Eiri as well. Him getting sick for the first time in...years was proof of that.

Suddenly, Eiri’s face scrunched up. He covered his mouth as a violent sneeze exploded out of his mouth. Shuichi shifted, but soon settled back down, not waking up. Eiri sniffed and quietly slipped out of bed. He pulled on a pair of black jogging sweats he found on the floor and left the bedroom, closing the door silently so he did not disturb the singer.

He was going to let Shuichi get as much rest as he could. The damned brat needed it.

Crossing the hallway to the bathroom, he searched the medicine cabinet for some cold medicine. Finding some, he swallowed the pills and blew his nose with some toilet paper. After washing his hands, he went into the kitchen, propping the door open with the door stand, and walked straight for the coffee maker, but another sneeze had him sidelining to the stove. Grabbing the tea kettle, he filled it with water from the tap and set it back on the stove, turning the burning on high. He would like coffee, but tea was better for you when you were sick. He got out a coffee mug from the cabinet and then searched in another one for the tea bags. Finding the squished box behind a box of sugar- which Shuichi called cereal- he took out the last tea bag and placed it in the mug, leaving himself a mental note to tell Shu that they needed tea. He set the mug on the counter besides the stove. Sniffing, he cleared his throat and walked over to phone. He punched in an all too familiar number, listening to it ring.

“Kon’nichiwa, NG Records! This is Naomi speaking. How may I help you,” came a loud, cheerful voice.

Eiri cringed. How he despised morning people. They should all be rounded up and slaughtered, put out of his misery. How can someone smile so brightly and be so happy at the ass crack of dawn? It was not natural. “Seguchi,” he snapped harshly, his answer to her morning bliss.

The girl blinked. “Excuse me, Sir?”

“Tohma Seguchi,” Eiri repeated slowly. “I would like to speak to him. Tell him it’s his brother-in-law,” he continued in that same slow tone, as if he were trying to explain the inner workings of a rocket to a two year old.

“Oh! Seguchi-sama! Yes, sir, Yuki-san!” There was a short pause. “I, uh, would love to connect you to the boss, but, uh...Seguchi-san has not arrived yet, Sir.”

Eiri raised an eyebrow, surprised. Other than Fujisaki, Seguchi was usually on of the first to arrive in the morning. “Oh?”

“Hai! You see, there was a terrible accident earlier and traffic’s...” Naomi blinked and stared down at the buzzing receiver in her hand. “You’re welcome,” she snorted. It was apparent the rumors about the blond romance novelist were true.

Back at the apartment, Eiri dialed another number. He could always call the brat’s producer, but he could picture that idiot’s reaction all too clearly and that was something he did not want to deal with at seven-thirty in the morning. Then there was Shu’s friend’s and fellow band mates Hiro and Fujisaki, but those two would have similar reactions as Sakano, maybe not as overly melodramatic but still annoying as all hell this earlier in the day. There was that Japanese-American guy Michael, but Eiri did not have the guys phone number. So, instead, he called the brat’s cousins.

The phone was answered after the first ring. “What,” came a snappish yell over the line.

Eiri blinked. In the background he could see the angry cacophony of honking horns. “What the hell crawled up your ass and died?” He assumed the Shiro twins were stuck in traffic, which Eiri could sympathize with but he was in no mood for this shit.

“Eiri,” Kei guessed. “What do you want,” he barked.

“Give me the phone,” came another voice. There was a shuffling and the traffic noise increased in volume shortly before another male voice came over the line. It was similar to Kei’s voice but not as deep. “Hey, Eiri,” Kai Shiro greeted over the phone. “Sorry. We’re stuck in traffic.”

Eiri thought back to what the receptionist was saying before he hung up. “The accident?”

Kai rolled his eyes. “You have no idea.” He sighed. “So, what’s up?”

“The brats’s not coming in today.”

“Shuichi?”

“Um.” He sniffed. Behind him, he heard the tea kettle start whistling. Not wanting to wake up Shuichi, Eiri marched to the stove and turned off the burner. Lifting the kettle, he poured the boiling water into his mug.

“Why? What’s wrong?” A surge of panic raced through him. “Is he sick?”

Eiri shook his head. “No, he’s not sick.” He set the kettle back down on the stove and swirled the tea bag around, watching hypnotically as the clear water slowly turned a dark brown color. He held the phone away from him as he sneezed. “Just exhausted.” He sniffed again. Damn cold medicine was not working. Though he had to admit, he felt a hell of a lot better than he did an hour ago. He wondered why?

Kai blinked. “You alright? You sound terrible.”

“Gee, thanks.” Eiri took a sip of the hot liquid.

“I’m serious! You have a cold or something?”

The writer shrugged. He carried the mug over to the two-seater dining table and sat down. “It’s Shu,” he confessed.

The bassist blinked in confusion. “What?”

Eiri sighed. “Shu had another nightmare last night,” he confessed. “He finally fell back to sleep an hour ago and he looked so peaceful, I hated to wake him.”

“Oh. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“Eiri...I really think that you should-“

“I know,” Eiri snapped. He knew exactly what the younger man was going to say. Truthfully, he hated the thought that maybe his sweet, naive Shu might be right. It was plainly obvious that the guy was not telling him something, something that was feeding these nightmares. Maybe it was time he started taking the little baka seriously. He would have to have a talk with Seguchi when he arrived at the studio.

***

The green haired manager, arranger and sometimes keyboardist for Bad Luck looked up as the door to the recording studio swung open. He sighed in disappointment as the tall, co-founder of the band walked in.

Hiroshi “Hiro” Nakano stopped just inside the doorway and swept his black eyes through the room. “Still not here?”

Suguru set his pen down on the table next to the open file that had the submissions for the cover of Bad Luck’s newest album. So far, there were only three that had any potential. The first one was submitted by a fan in Hong Kong. It was a black album cover with silhouettes of the band members faces. Then there was another one from one of the employees at NG that was a collage of the bands previous album covers. The third one was sent in by a local photographer named Shuri Shiozu (1). It was a never before released photo of the entire band- Shuichi, Hiro, Michael, Kai and Kei and even Fujisaki himself- taken by a month ago. They were all dressed in their stage outfits.

Kei had on a red leather vest, and no shirt. Kai and Michael were wearing tight stretch t-shirts, Kai in purple and Michael in black. Hiro had on a black stretch T-shirt with a purple vest. Fujisaki had been forced to wear a white stretch t-shirt and a long black leather trench coat. All of them had on tight black leather pants. Shuichi on the other hand was wearing a pair of black suit pants held up with a black belt. His shirt was a rich, dark blue buttoned up to his navel underneath a black suit coat with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He had on a sweat band on his right wrist. He, unlike the others, had gone barefoot in the photo. At the time this was taken, the lithe singer had had dark purple hair. Strangely enough, the color suited him.

Suguru leaned back on the couch and shook his head. “Nope.”

Hiro raked his fingers through his long reddish-brown hair, sighing. He glanced quickly at his watch before lacing his fingers behind his head.

They all agreed to report to NG an hour earlier so they could go over possible album covers for their next album, Forever Yours, but here it was eight o-clock and they still had not heard anything from their lead singer. Kai, Kei and Michael all called about an hour ago saying that they were caught in traffic and were not sure when they would be in. That was when they heard about that terrible accident. When nobody heard from Shuichi they all feared that he was part of that twisted metal mountain but a quick call by Tohma Seguchi to the right people had their fears dying. If the singer was not part of the accident then he was either stuck in traffic or had “overslept”. Everyone’s guess was the latter, otherwise he would have called.

Shu being late was not something new and it was not something they worried over. Oh, it got them all very angry, especially when they had a scheduled interview or something and they were going to be late. Because of everything that has happened to the singer over the years, some people at NG got extremely worried whenever Shuichi was late or a no show, especially now that he came in on time almost every day. It was weird but ever since K-san left, Shuichi has been actually arriving on time most of the time. Sometimes he was here early! That was unheard of! As worried as everybody else became, Hiro himself did not get as worked up after just five minutes. Shuichi had a cotillion of muscle bound baboons that could bench press a bus in their sleep guarding him. If anything ever did happen, they would be there to protect him. That was their job after all.

Besides, Shu was probably on his way to the studio right now and just forgot to charge his cell phone, or add more minutes- which is something he has done in the past. Hiro could picture his friend walking through that door any minute now with that stupidly innocent apologetic smile on his face, bowing like one of those idiotic birds that “sip” water.

He better be. Otherwise he was a dead man.

“He’ll be here,” Hiro said more to reassure himself then anything as pieces of past conversations floated through his memory. He, like Yuki-san, believed that Shuichi, was over reacting when it came to this neighbor dude of his but now that his best friend was an hour late and had not yet called informing them what the hold up was, he began to wonder...

“He better be,” Suguru snapped. “Our album comes out at the end of the month and we’re not even finished!”

“Settle down, Suguru,” Hiro told the young manager. “You know that Shuichi likes to make a dramatic entrance. Besides, he used to be late all the time! Sometimes he came in over five hours late without any phone call or anything! He’ll be here.”

Muttering angrily, Suguru stood up. Hiro thought he caught him saying, “If he’s not here within the hour, I’m personally going to kick his scrawny ass to Timbuktu!” as he marched to the door. He flung it open with such force he nearly ripped it off its hinges.

“Where’re you going?”

“I’m going to go see my cousin,” he yelled. “I have some things I need to discuss with him. At least one of us’ll get some work done.” With that, he left, slamming the door behind him, causing Hiro to jump. Moments later, the door opened again and in walked Bad Luck’s bassist.

“Holy Mary Mother of God,” Michael whistled. “What the hell’s his problem? He just barreled into me as if I wasn’t even there! Jeeze, he looked angry enough to pull the horns off a bull.”

Hiro sighed. “What isn’t?”

Michael looked at the man with a raised eyebrow. He slipped out of his light weight leather jacket and put it on a hook on the back wall. Michael Kagawa-Montgomery was a Japanese-American who had been an exchange student at Tokyo University (2) when he joined Bad Luck. A year later, he married his college sweetheart and now the couple had two little girls, six and three, with another one on the way. The guy had black eyes and blond hair just a tad lighter than Yuki-san that flowed in luscious waves down his back. He appeared as Japanese as the next guy except for his hair. It was the only indication that he was not 100 percent Japanese.

One quick look around the studio had him guessing, “Shu and the guys haven’t shown up, huh?”

“Kai and Kei are stuck in traffic and Shu...”

“Ah!” Michael nodded. He glanced at his watch. “It’s only eight. Why’s he so worked up over him being an hour late?”

Hiro shrugged. “I don’t know. Truthfully, I think something else’s on his mind. He’s been a little distracted ever since I arrived.”

“Why? Any idea?”

“None.”

Michael plopped down on the couch besides Hiro. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he put his feet up on the coffee table, crossing his ankles. He stared blankly at the ceiling, deep in thought.

“I can’t explain it. The guy gives me the creeps.” Shuichi huddled on the couch, his arms hugging his knees to his chest. “It’s like that feeling you get when you’re home alone and you can just sense that someone is behind you, ya know?” He shivered violently. “I know you guys probably think I’m crazy for saying this, but I think he’s out to get me.”

Michael hoped Shuichi was just going crazy.

***

The Shiro twins were only ten minutes away from the NG building, but it might as well have been ten hours away for all the good it did them.

There had been a crash at a major thoroughfare. One care wanted to turn left and another wanted to go straight. Both tried to make it through the light just as it changed. The result was a mountain of metal in the middle of the intersection, but the fun had not stopped there. Because the traffic light changed just as the two brainless idiots hit, cars from the other two directions slammed into them. It was a never ending chain reaction straight out of Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000 (3) where the cop cars just kept coming, the pile of cars getting higher and higher. Now, it looked like a scrap yard had been airlifted and dropped right in the heart of Tokyo.

“Dammit!” Kei slammed a hand against the steering wheel. “This is ridiculous!”

Kai rolled his eyes, shaking his head at his brother. He turned on the radio, flipping through the stations so fast, Kei was not sure how his brother could tell if there was anything good on. A familiar tune caught his ear. Hr turned up the volume to earsplitting levels.

Ore wa itsumo kimi to itai hokano ittatte taiyou noboranaisa (4)

kimi o dakishimetai yo kono mune no KLAXON tomarani
AH kimi o motomete
setsuna sa no SUPEEDO wa genkai sunzen hi o fukisousa
kabe o buchi yaburu jounetsu de I CAN’T STOP LOVIN’ YOU (5)

kimi ni aitai yukitai ikareteru BRAKE wa tomaranai
mou dare ga tometemo
jyoushiki no FENSU ni buchi ataru tabi ni tsuyokunaru kara
kabe o nori koetai kasoku suru I CAN’T STOP LOVIN’ YOU (6)

As the song faded, the radio station DJ hollowed. “That was Bad Luck with ‘Break Through’ for Koji and Mayumi stuck in that horrible traffic jam in downtown Tokyo this morning. Let me tell you this guys. If at all possible, avoid going anywhere near-“

Irritated, Kei flipped the radio off.

“Hey! I was listening to that,” Kai cried.

“And I care because...”

Kai glanced at his twin and turned the radio back on. He knew why Kei was so irritable. They have spent the past hour and a half in traffic behind an eighteen wheeler that was shooting exhaust fumes into their car.

“...bonus track on this Two for Tuesday. Here’s ‘Spicy Marmalade’!”

The opening cords of the all too familiar tune filled the car, followed by their cousin’s voice.

Spicy Marmalade jidai wa marade
ui himeta kao de madowseru (7)

nani furueteru kaiaku shugisha ga warau
sameta REERU no ue kizu kazu ni
shiku mareta mirai (8)

Kai leaned back in the passenger seat and closed his eyes, letting the song lull him. He ignored his brother’s grunts, growling and constant muttering and tried to block out the sound of his fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

Hearing Shuichi’s voice hit a cord in the younger Shiro twin. Frowning, Kai opened his eyes and stared blankly out the front windshield. He felt as if he were forgetting something. There was something he was supposed to do but for the life of him he could not remember what. “Hey, Kei,” Kai called slowly.

“What,” his brother snapped.

“Did we remember to lock the door?”

Kei blinked. “What? Of course we did! What kind of stupid question is that?”

Kai ignored his comments. “Turn off the stove?”

“Didn’t use it.”

“What about-“

“Dammit, Kai!” Kei slapped the steering wheel. “Yes! Jesus fucking Christ! Everything’s shut, locked and turned off! God, what the hell’s with the paranoid act?”

Kai continued to stare out the window. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s just...I feel like we forgot something.”

Kei rolled his eyes. He then fixed them on the unmoving, never-ending line of cars in front of them. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, he growled. “This is fucking ridiculous!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a reservoir in the middle of the desert. Turning the wheel, he tore out of line with a squeal and crossed over the center line, dodging and weaving around the cars that had somehow managed to make it past the monolithic accident up ahead and were heading straight towards them.

“What the bloody hell are you doing,” Kai screamed. “Kei!” He had a death grip on the passenger side door. His eyes were wide in fright, his face pale. “Kei!” He screamed as Kei narrowly missed a semi.

Horns and squealing breaks accompanied Kei’s reckless NASCAR jaunt across the street. With a hard yank on the steering wheel, that caused Kai to slam into the door, and some fancy footwork on the pedals, the car spun and slide sideways into an empty parking space along the opposite curb from where they were moments before.

Kei put the car in park and shut off the engine. “We can walk to NG from here,” he announced to his brother.

Pocketing the keys, he made sure his baseball cap was secure on his electric blue spiked hair and slipped on his sunglasses. “C’mon,” he told Kai as he got out of the car. He ignored the stares and whispering of the gathering crowd. He was too pleased with himself to care what anybody had to say.

Kai, pale faced, trembled violently. His hands still had their death grip on the door handle. He stared out the front windshield wide eyed. He could not believe what just happened! His brother could have killed them! He really, seriously could have-

“Kei,” he shouted angrily. Forgetting his cap and sunglasses, those things being the farthest things from his mind at the moment, the younger Shiro twin threw himself out of the car, his red and white blond streaked hair twirling around his face.

Kei gulped when he glanced at his brother. His smile slipped off his face. “Ah, shit,” was the only thing he could say.

“You fucking asshole! I’m gonna bloody kill you! You coulda killed us!”

Kei laughed nervously and made a show of checking his watch-less wrist. “Hey, ah, look at the time! Fujisaki’ll have our hides if we don’t hurry.” He tore off the down the street, bumping and running into one pedestrian after another. Angry shouts followed him down the street.

Kai, usually the calm and level headed one gave an angry cry and raced after his brother. “Come back here! You ingrate!” As the two boys ran towards NG, that “something” that had seemed so important just moments before was left at the curb right along with the car.

***

(1) Shuri Shiozu, in case you don’t know, is the author of Eerie Queerie (or Ghost in Japan)
(2) Don’t shoot me. I have no idea what any colleges in Japan are.
(3) Awesome movies! If you’re into Blues music or even like music in general or comedy or hell, want to see a ridiculous crash sequence, watch these movies!
(4) as for me, I always want to be with you, there’s no other place where the sun will rise for me
(5) I want to hold you, the claxon of my heart won’t be stopped
Ah, I’m searching for you
The speed of suffering is past the limit, like a burst of flame
I hit the wall and smash through in passion, I can’t stop lovin’ you
(6) I want to go falling in love with you, even a furious brake won’t stop this,
no matter who (tries to) stop me now
Since it gets stronger every time I hit
and am hit by the borders of common sense, I’ll climb over the wall and speed up, I can’t stop lovin’ you
(7)Spicy Marmalade these days, people really seem
to be lead astray, with faces hidden by sadness
(8)What’s making you tremble? Hedonists are the ones who smile.
Crying along these frozen rails is a future that’s been planned without telling us

A/N: I did not do the translations for the songs. I just copied them from animelyrics.com so if they’re a little off, I do apologize. (But then again anyone who’s taken a foreign language- and I’ve taken three- knows that translations are never exact).