Note: Michael is K and Judy Winchester's son. At the time of this story he's about 9 years old.

Vows

Chapter Three

The stage made Sakuma Ryuichi superhuman, he was sure of it. The spotlight was more than illumination; it was a halo. Supernatural strength flowed through his veins, his heart beating to the rhythm of the synthesizer. The melody circled around him and lifted him into the air. He offered himself to the audience wholesale and in return they gave him wings, and they flew with him. He could see it in their eyes. It didn't matter that they were Americans and didn't speak his language. They spoke the language of music, the dialect of dance. With these they communicated in a dizzy frenzy until the lights died, Ryuichi was led off stage, and the final encore was sung.

Ryuichi's gaze snapped back into focus. Backstage, it was all so different. He realized he was hungry. Also he was missing a certain companion. "Where's Kumagoro? I'm hungry! Can I have a snack?"

"What would you like to eat?" asked one of the many Japanese-speaking personal assistants sent to suck up to Nittle Grasper.

"Trifle! With lots of strawberries, ehehehe!"

"Don't let him have such sugary things before supper, he'll be wired and spoil his appetite," Noriko contradicted. In the corner of her vision, Tohma was threatening some poor stagehand in what he considered to be English.

"Find za bunny, or zere will be hell to pay. Find za bunny, or I fucking keel you."

"But, but, trifle!" Ryuichi whimpered, blue eyes filling with childish tears.

"Kumagoro BEAM!" Out of nowhere, the pink stuffed bunny collided with the tantrum-throwing vocalist. The source of plushie-born terror was soon discovered to be not only Shindou Shuichi, but also the rest of Bad Luck, as well as Usami Ayaka and even the elusive author known as Yuki Eiri.

"Shindou-kun!" Ryuichi squealed. "Did you like my singing? I got to sparkle! Sparkle, sparkle! You sparkled too!"

"You were so good, Sakuma-san!" The two vocalists were almost creating fireworks out of their own enthusiasm for the other's performance. "It's always so amazing to see you perform! You're my inspiration!"

"I think the Americans really like you, Shindou-kun! They can see you give it your all! I saw girls dressed up like Shuichi in the audience and got confused!"

"I knew setting up this Japanese music showcase was an excellent idea," K gloated.

"Just remember that we're still rivals, even if we performed on the same stage tonight!" Fujisaki pointed out with his typical competitive passion. Unfortunately, the young man's words were lost on a group of people who seemed much more intent on praising one another than any animosity.

"Noriko-san, you look amazing! I can't believe these brutes actually made you perform in your condition!" Ayaka gushed over the very pregnant Noriko.

"Are you kidding me? Tohma wanted to hire a session performer or even have Fujisaki-kun do it, but I wouldn't let him! This isn't some talk show performance after all! It's our last performance before we go on break!"

"How long is your break going to be? Long enough for you to have the baby, I hope!"

"Officially, we're going on break for three months, though if I feel like it I'll take four! I'm going back to Japan to have my baby and see my family, and Ryuichi's going to be in a musical here in New York. I'm not sure what Tohma is doing. I'm sure he'll keep busy, though. You know how he is."

"You mean he's not going back to Japan? I would have thought…" Ayaka scanned the crowd for Tohma's blond, smiling visage and found it was missing, along with another familiar figure with pale hair. "I wonder where Eiri-san and Tohma-san got off to…"

"What's wrong, Ayaka-chan?" Noriko asked, puzzled.

"Nothing," said Ayaka quickly, having more than enough social grace to not to blurt out anything scandalous.

"Yuki said he wanted to talk to Seguchi-san about something," blurted out Shuichi, and, lacking the social grace that Ayaka had been so gifted with, added, "It must be about his sister getting pregnant."

The crowd backstage went absolutely silent. Even the roadies didn't let out a cough.

"Can we get trifle now?" said Ryuichi. "Kumagoro demands trifle!"

---

At Eiri's behest, Tohma had ducked outside the venue into a narrow alley where the faded, brick face of the theater could be seen. The night was more than warm: the oppressive humidity of New York City summer bore down on the two pale-haired men. "Eiri-san, speaking to me alone? To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?" Even with his adoration and flattery, Tohma cut to the chase. He knew Eiri wouldn't have asked him out here just to catch up, as much as he wished the author would.

"Don't play stupid with me. You know what this is about." That was his Eiri, always so cheerful.

"I assure you I do not," said Tohma through his smile. "Care to enlighten me?"

"My sister. You changed your phone number and you didn't tell her."

"I didn't tell her? Oh my. It must have slipped my mind." Tohma stiffened almost imperceptibly, still smiling. "Silly me."

"It didn't slip your mind to give your number to me, so don't give me that bullshit. Look, I don't know what kind of adolescent quarrel you two are having, and I don't care, but I do know two things. One, it's below both of you. Two, Mika needs you right now. I don't know if anyone's told you, but you knocked her up and she's got the crazy idea that you don't want her carrying your baby. Noriko's going back to Japan to be with her spouse, and I suggest you do the same."

Tohma couldn't help but admire Eiri, how he lit a cigarette and leaned on the grimy bricks after eviscerating him. There was a man with some amazing walls. Still, there was some one whose walls he couldn't compete with.

"Eiri-san, do you remember the last time you were in the hospital?"

"Yeah," Eiri grunted, wondering where Tohma was going with this.

"I seem to recall you said that interfering in-laws is a leading cause of stomach ulcers. Now I wonder, does that go both ways?"

Eiri leaned back, rolling his eyes skywards. "That was different and you know it."

"How, precisely?"

"We're not talking about the state of my stomach lining, for one thing. We're talking about my sister, and possibly a nephew or niece on the way."

"And this makes it your business how…?"

A sigh of frustration escaped Eiri's lips in the visible form of a cloud of cigarette smoke. "I don't get you two. You've spent half of your lives taking care of me, and can't be assed to take care of one another."

"Eiri-san…"

"Don't 'Eiri-san' me," said Eiri sourly, his parody of Tohma's voice sharp and painfully accurate. "I've put up with you two acting like you think you're my mother, and believe me, neither of you are anything like my mother. Now it's my turn to stick my nose in your business. You go back to her, and you act like a husband, or I swear I will never speak to you again."

"And what would you know about being a husband, Eiri-san?"

If Eiri had an emotional response to that cutting remark, he didn't show it; then again, he never did. He flicked his cigarette, turning his back to Tohma. Like so many times before, Eiri just walked away.

---

Yuki liked to do other things when his boyfriend was talking. To Shuichi, every minute crumb of news he got from any friend or vague acquaintance was meaningless until shared with another. Considering Shuichi took upwards from 20 minutes to debrief him every time he returned from any social event, he found it best to find a second activity to make the time pass. Today, his chosen distraction was watching an American cooking show and taking notes. Yuki didn't like to copy the recipes directly, but he liked to watch professional chefs and draw inspiration for new experiments of his own.

"…And that's when Michael looked at me with those big blue eyes and said, 'When are you and Uncle Yuki going to get married, Uncle Shuichi?' It was the most adorable thing in the world! I wish you had stuck around for the after-show dinner, Michael is sooo cute and everybody misses you."

Yuki looked up from his yellow notepad, pen caught in mid-stroke. "I hope you told him that we can't get married, and that we don't plan to."

Shuichi squirmed on the couch, tucking one leg underneath him and hugging his ankle. "I said there are other ways to express love, not just getting married," he said quietly. "So then he said, 'Good! 'Cause weddings are boring!' Isn't that cute? He's going to be their ring-bearer. I'm so excited about the wedding. Ayaka just can't stop talking about it; it's going to be so pretty! She and Hiro are going to be so happy, I just know it! And I bet they'll have kids and we'll get to spoil them! And just imagine what the New Years is gonna be like! With their kid and Noriko's kids, and the Seguchi's--"

"They're not having it, so just get that ridiculous thought out of your head," Yuki interrupted.

"Noriko-san? Really? Isn't she too late in her pregnancy to--"

"No, stupid, Mika."

"Mika-san? Really? Is that what she told you?"

"I know my sister. I can tell she's not ready to have a kid."

Shuichi just stared at Yuki for a long moment. It was rare his lover spoke so candidly about anyone, especially two people as close to him as Mika.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" said Yuki.

"Well, I wonder what your father's going to do. We can't have babies and with your brother the way he is, I thought Mika-san would be the one to carry on the family line. I guess it would technically still be broken, but at least it wouldn't be gone. And poor Mika-san. Seguchi-san too. He's given me a lot of trouble in the past, but nobody should have to make this decision. I'm sure it's not something either of them is taking lightly. I wouldn't say it bothers me, though."

"I wasn't talking about that. It bothers you that Ayaka-chan goes on about the wedding, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"It's written all over your face. You're jealous because Hiro proposed to Ayaka even though they haven't been together as long as we have."

"I-- No, Yuki, I--"

"I know how you think about these things. You're wondering if I even love you as much as Hiro loves Ayaka-chan."

Shuichi jumped up, eyes filled with tears. "How could you even say that, Yuki? I know that you're not into marriage, so I dropped it! Maybe I'm a little jealous because everyone's paying so much attention to Ayaka-san and Hiro right now, but mostly I'm happy for them! Because it's what they want, and that's what's important!"

"They're just kids, how do they know what they want?"

"They're in love, isn't that all that matters?" This is how their fights always went: Shuichi found himself yelling while Yuki's voice just got softer, more sarcastic.

"They have no idea what they're getting into. In a couple of years, you're going to have to hear the same sob story I have to listen to now."

Shuichi forced himself to take a slow breath and calm down. "This isn't about Ayaka-san and Hiro is it? It's not even really about me. You're upset about your sister, and Seguchi-san."

Yuki didn't say anything. He set his notepad down on the table. He sat back on the couch, running a hand through his hair and staring at the ceiling.

"Hiro and Ayaka-san are different. They love each other."

"Mika loves Tohma," Yuki murmured.

"But Seguchi-san doesn't love your sister."

"Why would he marry her if he didn't love her?" Yuki was still covering his face. Shuichi was almost glad for that. He was sure the expression beneath that hand would be enough to break his heart. He knew Yuki hated being that vulnerable.

Shuichi frowned, furrowing his brow. "You didn't think they married for reasons other than the arrangement, did you Yuki? Not you. You're so cynical, you surely didn't believe…"

"That's right, I'm such an idiot, rub it in, but tell me this: Why else would he stay in our screwed up family if he didn't love Mika?"

"Oh, Yuki." Shuichi dropped to his knees, throwing his arms around Yuki's waist. "I thought all this time that you understood why he stayed in your family but you were just embarrassed to say it. How could you not know?"

"I… don't understand."

"He doesn't love Mika-san, not like that. I thought it was obvious."

"What do you know that I don't know, Shu-chan?" Very slowly, Yuki ran his fingers through Shuichi's hair.

"The truth," Shuichi whispered.

---

Tohma stepped into the elevator his apartment building in Tokyo, dragging his suitcase behind him on wheels. He nearly bumped into the elevator attendant, who was bunched up in the corner of the elevator, sobbing quietly into a tissue. Though he had lived there for years, he had to remind her of his floor number, more than once.

The door to the apartment he shared with Mika was unlocked. This was fairly unusual, and caused a raised eyebrow on Tohma's part. Though the building had the best security in the city, he always insisted they keep their apartment locked, and Mika always remembered.

"Mika-san? Are you home?" Tohma slipped off his shoes, and, neither hearing nor seeing any sign of his wife, left his suitcase in the entryway to look for her. He knocked on the toilet door, then the bath. No sign of her. Then again, both of them had a habit of keeping the place meticulously clean.

The last room he came to was her bedroom. The light from the hall cast his shadow across the darkened room. His eyes went wide as the shock hit him. "Mika-san?"

To Be Continued.

---

Special thanks to my beta-readers and long-time internet pals Kuri and Michael. Kuri, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to beta for me even though I'm pretty sure you've wanted to kill me at least 5 times since I asked you to beta the last chapter. Michael, thank you for being my Guild Wars girlfriend, and for late-night chats spent sending each other pictures of kittens and puppies while simultaneously discussing sexism in film and war movies, and for kicking the ass of idiots who are mean to me on livejournal.