Author's Note:

Hello, darlings! Kooples and Rhythm here, with a oneshot for your reading pleasure. For this, we took turns writing bits of it, so you'll get a taste of our writing style when used together.

Rhythm: Syo is written by Kooples, and I wrote Natsuki's parts. It's my first time writing an arranged story like this, so I hope it feeds someone's fluff addiction somewhere. :D

Spoilers: Uh... Not a whole lot.
Character(s): Shinomiya Natsuki, Kurusu Syo.
Rating: K+
Genre: Is fluff a genre? Because that's really all this is. An excuse for fluff! Yes. We love them.

Disclaimer: UtaPri isn't ours and we know it. Don't rub it in and sue us, thanks.

Syo stood outside the closed door to their dorm room, staring at it with a pinched expression.

He had run into Tokiya a few minutes ago, whom Natsuki had gotten back from the recording studio with a half hour ago. Tokiya had told him that last he knew, Natsuki was heading to their room... This was the source of his dilemma now.

He had left his phone in his room.

Being friends with Natsuki generally required that he take measures to keep track of him. As harmless as he is, you never know what kind of trouble his hobbies could get him into, or even worse, if something were to happen to his glasses...

Having six other people for Natsuki to latch onto both helped and hindered in that task. It gave him more time that Natsuki wasn't monopolizing, but it made it a whole lot harder to keep tabs on him... Well, at least he knew the others would keep him out of trouble.

Problem: Natsuki was in there now, and had been alone for half an hour... This meant he was probably bored and ready with some horrible new costume to force Syo into. ... And all of his hats had probably been rearranged onto stuffed animals. Again.

Solution: ...

It was kind of impossible to get out of Natsuki's clutches once he grabbed onto you.

Was his phone worth the effort?

Syo sighed and pushed the door open. Sure enough...

Natsuki was affectionately adjusting his favorite one of Syo's fedoras across his stuffed Elizabeth doll's ears when he heard the door to their dorm room click behind him. He turned excitedly, with an expectant look on his face, ready to pounce on his best friend.

Syo yelped and dove to the side, holding his hands up. "NO, whatever it is, NO. I will NOT DO IT."

Natsuki stalled and took a look at him, deciding to go easy on his worn-looking friend, and instead held up a pink phone in his palm. It was now decorated with Piyo-chan stickers and had a new wallpaper photo of Natsuki and the newly fedora-wearing Elizabeth clutched to his chest, while he made a peace sign with his fingers.

"Welcome back, Syo-chan. Looking for this?" He hopped off of his bed and gracefully landed about three inches from his adorable roomie's face, the much taller boy having to lean forward to be low enough to stare eye-to-eye with shorter one, and brandishing the phone. "Elizabeth and I had fun while we were waiting for you to get home."

"I can see that," Syo's eye twitched at the sudden close proximity, and then his fingers started in on the twitching when he saw what had been done to the phone being showed off to him. He snatched it up and jammed it into his pocket. There was no use trying to fix it while Natsuki was in the room; he'd just make a spiel about cuteness, steal it back heedless of Syo's protests, and proceed to do something even worse to it.

"What took so long, anyway? Was there trouble on the set?"

Syo scowled at the mention of his day at work, and huffed over to his bed. He kicked off his socks, leaving them where they fell, and then flopped down onto his back, folding his arms underneath his head. "Che, was there ever trouble on the set. It was just one of those days. Forgetting my phone this morning was just the start of it! Everything that possibly could have gone wrong did. And the director was more of a jerkwad than usual, even though nothing bad happened to him," Syo grumbled, lips pulled into a dark frown.

Natsuki had come to kneel next to Syo's bed as he listened intently to the rant, and he blinked. "Why? Did something bad happen to you?" He asked with a slightly worried look. In a small effort to calm Syo down, he plucked the hat from the stuffed dog he was holding and gently placed it over Syo's eyes, which had been glaring what Natsuki imagined to be giant holes into the ceiling.

He knew that whenever Syo was forced to work with one of the many unfair directors that there were out there that it could take a toll on the younger boy's mood. Natsuki knew this not only because of the many days that Syo came home in a raging fit, but because Syo had also once stood up for him when a director at one of his photo shoots was trying to push him around. Syo had learned to adopt a professional personality, but even so he just couldn't let it slide when someone talked like that to his friends. And that was just one of the things that made him such a good friend, Natsuki thought to himself with an inward smile.

The hat hid most of Syo's expression, including the tiny smile he let grow briefly at Natsuki's gesture. He breathed a long, loud sigh into the stiff fabric, before he lifted his head long enough to free one hand. He flicked the hat to sit farther up on his head, and his small smile turned wry.

"I don't even know where to start..." Syo let out a breathy, tired chuckle. "My prop gun had a long crack in the handle this morning, and it took forever to find the replacement, so we were held behind with that; my co-star ripped part of her costume and the spare turned out to be too small so we had to find a replacement for that; the guy who took the lunch orders was new and got at least one thing wrong for just about everybody; one of the chairs in a set actually broke while I was sitting on it... The director wasn't helping with all of his running about and yelling at people... And there I was without my phone, so I couldn't even text you to complain about any of it."

The director was brilliant at his job, but the man had a notoriously short temper and arrogant bearing. It grated on Syo, like no other employer he'd ever had the misfortune of working under, and half the time he was tempted to give Natsuki a call (Natsuki was always eager to come and see him work, after all) and see about accidentally knocking his glasses off when the director was nearby... If the man pissed him off with his attitude, he'd hate to be around when Satsuki met him.

Natsuki shook his head sympathetically. "Wow, Syo-chan, I can see why you're so exhausted. What a day!" He was still sitting on the floor with one arm in his lap, and the other with a finger idly playing with one of the flashy tassels connected to the belt of the equally-flashy outfit that Syo was wearing. Syo batted at his hands lazily, but didn't put any real effort into trying to stop him.

Natsuki let his chin rest on the edge of the bed, as the image of a chair collapsing under his chibi friend's weight came to his mind. He chuckled quietly and looked up at his roommate, imagining how cute his shocked face must have been and wishing he had been there to see it.

He raised his arms up and stretched before laying back onto the floor, parallel to the bed. "Well, at least now your phone is so cute there is no way you could possibly forget to bring it to work," He said cheerily, with a proud smile stretching across his lips.

Syo grimaced, pulling the hat back down over his face. "Right..." He muttered, just loud enough for Natsuki to hear.

No frickin' way was he keeping Piyo-chan stickers on his phone. Having a pink phone was one thing - pink was just a color, and one he liked, thank you very much - but Piyo-chan? A kid's cartoon character? That was going too far.

This was the first time in months his crazy friend had gotten his hands on Syo's phone, since he was using it most of the time... Oh well, it had been nice while it lasted. Now he just had to figure out how to change it again without getting something worse in retaliation. At least last time it had only been a frog-shaped case. He'd been able to placate Natsuki by using it for a few days before he declared he was tired of it. He was not going around with Piyo-chan on his phone for even one day.

Suddenly suspicious, Syo pulled the hat off of his face and rolled over to peer down at Natsuki on the floor, propping his head up on his fist. His eyebrows were creased into a sharp look that was close to, but not quite, a glare.

"You stole my phone on purpose, didn't you?" He asked tartly, flinging the hat ineffectually at Natsuki's broad chest. He wouldn't put it past Natsuki to have sneaked into his stuff before he woke up to 'improve' it as a surprise. Some surprise!

Natsuki looked up, startled, his bright green eyes wide, and then his look turned sheepish. "Well, I couldn't sleep last night... I was thinking about all the stress you've been under lately, and then I kind of got the idea to change your phone wallpaper so when you feel down during the day you could look at it and see Elizabeth and I cheering you on. Ah! And then I remembered that I had some Piyo-chan stickers that I had saved for a special occasion and thought they would be a perfect addition!" Natsuki's innocent grin made its grand reappearance as he lifted the projectile-hat from his chest and leaned up to plop it onto Syo's head.

Then Natsuki lifted a hand to scratch the back of his head apologetically. "But I guess I was a little more tired than I thought and fell asleep before I could put the phone back on your desk, so the plan kinda backfired..." Natsuki pouted slightly at his plans being foiled and reached over to entertain himself by pulling on the cute pink star charm dangling down on a long chain from Syo's neck.

This... This! This was why it was so hard to stay angry with Natsuki. He did crazy things, things that should make Syo blow up at him (that he would blow up at anyone else over)... Things that he tried to blow up at him over (like all the stupid outfits and poisonous food and dragging around to Piyo-chan related events and Satsuki...) and then when he revealed why he did the crazy things...

It turned out to be something like this and it made Syo want to... Well, not forgive him for everything, but it certainly made his chest feel awkward and warm and squirmy when he was trying to work himself up for a good old fashioned pissy fit.

Natsuki was insane, but he always, always had the best of intentions at heart and never purposefully hurt him despite their unusual brand of horsing around. Syo couldn't ever quite find the heart to tell him off about, well... Most things. The guy was just pure sunshine. Like a force of nature or something. How do you even begin to work against that?

Face reddening in frustration, Syo threw himself back onto his bed with a growl, ripping his necklace out of Natsuki's idly playing fingers. "I am not keeping the stickers," he warned curtly, jabbing a finger in the air high enough for Natsuki to see it. "... But I guess the picture can stay for a while," he muttered, dragging the brim of the hat down over his eyes. Maybe he could compromise a little. That tended to work with Natsuki... Sometimes.

Natsuki's pout slowly morphed into a look of sheer happiness. Partially because Syo hadn't managed to completely escape from his sight before his face reddened adorably; but mostly because he enjoyed times like this where he saw into the softer part of his friend's heart that usually only surfaced when the two practiced together in the music room - or, of course, by way of Natsuki's assorted antics, such as today's.

Natsuki felt like he had helped his friend, and some part of him felt a little bit less… Empty, because of it.

Unable to contain his exuberance at this, he got up and launched himself at the smaller boy, scooping him up and hugging him with a crushing power.

"NATS -" The rest of whatever Syo was about to shout was lost in the gasp of breath that Natsuki forced out of his lungs. Syo wriggled futilely, smacking his fists against the giant idiot's back without much effect.

"I love you, Syo-chan!" Natsuki exclaimed happily, as he was often accustomed to doing, but there was a little more seriousness underneath it than usual. Maybe Syo needed it, this time. "You're my best friend! I'm happy to be able to cheer you on when you're stressed." The mentally fragile boy's grip on the physically more fragile boy loosened (mercifully) and he sat back, positioning himself across from a very disgruntled Syo, and beaming at him.

Syo scuttled back, sucking in a breath and wrapping his arms gingerly around his affectionately abused ribs. For a moment, he could do nothing but give his roommate a surprised, blank stare. Natsuki said stuff like that all the time, but... This time, he had seemed different, somehow. Maybe because he hadn't blurted it out in the middle of a senseless rant about his 'cuteness'? The tentative beginnings of a smile curled the edges of his lips (which Natsuki didn't miss, and had to restrain himself from hugging Syo again because of), before his brain caught up with him.

He flushed a light red all the way down his neck and turned his head to scowl at the wall, arms rising to cross over his chest.

"You're such a ridiculous sap, Natsuki," he muttered, but the hint of softness in the eye that Natsuki could just see gave him away. "Okay, whatever. I'll keep the picture."

Who knows, maybe it would cheer him up after all.