Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations I put them in. Everything else belongs to somebody else so keep that in mind when you're reeling from the weird things that happen in my fics. Thanks to all my readers and please continue to read and review cause I love to hear from you!

A Little Favor

"What am I going to do." Kadoma muttered, his face in his hands as he sat dejectedly, his shoulders slumped in obvious defeat. He'd just got off the phone with his older brother Takashi and at the moment he couldn't see how his life could get much worse. Of all the stupid things he'd done... Groaning Kadoma wondered how he was going to get himself out of the mess he'd so stupidly gotten himself into. He knew better then to let that jerk get to him like that. How could he have been so stupid? Now things were going to be that much worse because there was no way in hell he was going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He couldn't lie worth a damn face to face. Everyone could read him like a book, much less his own brother, he thought miserably. Of all the stupid lies to tell...Takashi was going to know right away and then he'd never hear the end of it. Groaning again Kadoma started giving serious thought to moving to another country and living under an assumed identity. It would be easier then facing his brother and admitting he'd lied to him.

"Are you okay?"

Looking up at the sound of a concerned voice above him Kadoma's misery filled eyes met concerned ones. "Oh, hi, Ashiya." He said with a very weak attempt at a smile. "What's up?"

"You look awful!" Was his sempai's answer as the older boy took a seat beside him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong? Did something awful happen? Is there anything I can do to help?"

That was Mizuki for you, he really was a nice person, Kadoma thought, wishing that there really was something his friend could do. Unfortunately, there was nothing anyone could do. Well they could kill him, that would definitely solve all his problems. "Thanks, but no. I've dug myself into a hole that there's no way I'm getting out of. My brother's going to bury me in it."

"Why? What happened?"

It was really embarrassing to admit but he was in so much trouble he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. "I lied to my brother about something and when he comes to visit in a week he's going to find out. Then he's going to make my life a living hell. Then he's going to tell my other brothers and they'll make my life hell too. Then my cousins will join in and it'll just keep spiraling until every member of my family knows and starts teasing me about it." Just thinking about it made him ill. Oh God, how was he ever going to face another family reunion once this got around?

"Wow. What did you lie about?" Mizuki asked, her face plainly showing her utter shock. How could Kadoma have possibly lied about something so bad his whole family would turn on him? She knew the younger man really well and he was a real sweet heart. If he'd lied there had to have been a good reason.

"I told him I had a girlfriend."

"That's it?" Her jaw dropping in shock Mizuki could only stare at him in shock.

"You don't understand. My brothers are these huge, muscle bound jocks that girls buzz around like bees. They're like three Nanbas only really built and athletic. My dad is just like them too." Kadoma groaned, looking utterly pitiful as he turned his head to stare in front of him. "But I'm not like them. I've never liked the things they like and I've always been the pip squeak brother to torment and abuse whenever the chance presents itself. When I applied to go to this school they hassled me for months, saying I was a queer girlie boy to want to go to an all boys school. I've never really had a girlfriend so...so they're always saying...and it's just..I just get so sick of it. And to make matters worse they're rig..." Catching himself Kadoma's cheeks went bright red, realizing what he'd let him slip.

"You mean it hurts you to hear them make fun of you, joking around that you're gay. Especially when you actually are." Mizuki said gently, squeezing Kadoma's shoulder supportingly. "So you told them you had a girlfriend so they wouldn't know because you're afraid of what they'd say. That it would alienate you from them even worse."

"Yeah." It didn't really surprise him that Ashiya had figured out that he was gay. His friend was very observant and was gay too for that matter. It was pretty obvious to everyone that the pretty boy had a serious crush on his roommate Sano. Kadoma was pretty sure that Sano felt the same way which made him really happy for Mizuki's sake. Mizuki was one of his very best friends after all.

"How would your mom take the news?" Mizuki asked carefully, getting the fact that telling the male members of his family was going to be like walking to the gallows to be hung. She had no idea what her own parents would think if she'd turned out to be gay. But they'd still love and support her, no question though it would be sorta awkward. Her brother was homophobic after all. But still, she knew in her heart that Shizuki would still accept her because he loved her that much. Just as she'd do the same for him. Obviously, Kadoma couldn't say the same.

"My mom...she'd be okay with it..but she's a lot like me. Easily intimidated." Sighing Kadoma turned to smile at his friend, doing his best to look more together then he actually was. "But don't worry, I'll be okay."

"Well there has to be something I can do to help."

"Unless you can make me straight with a cute girlfriend I don't see how."

"That's it!" Snapping her fingers Mizuki beamed at a surprised Kadoma. "I can't make you straight but I can make it so that you'll have a girlfriend to show off next week! Then maybe you could just tell them that you're bi, that would be better then gay, wouldn't you think?"

Blinking slowly Kadoma very much doubted that his family would like the idea of him being bisexual anymore then the idea of him being gay. Not that he really had any intention of ever telling any of them that he was gay. As it was, there was only one man that appealed to him and that man didn't think of him as anything other then an honorary kid brother. "Where am I going to find a girl willing to pose as my girlfriend? Last time I checked I'm lousy around them and I don't have any close friends that are girls that live around here."

"That's the beauty of my plan! You don't have to ask a girl to pretend to be your girlfriend. I'll do it!"

"Huh?" Okay, he must have heard wrong. There was no way Ashiya had just suggested cross dressing and coming along to pretend to be his girlfriend so that his brother would get off his back. Uh oh, Kadoma thought with eyes going wider by the second as he looked into Mizuki's mischievous eyes. Maybe he was wrong about that.

"Oh come on, don't look like that." Slinging a arm across Kadoma's shoulder Mizuki eagerly explained her truly brilliant plan. "Think about it, Kadoma. There's no way it won't work! It's not like I've never posed as a girl before after all." I am a girl after all, Mizuki thought with a secret smile as she went about convincing him of the brilliance of her idea. "I can borrow some clothes from Rio and it's only for one day. We're friends too so there won't be any awkwardness to worry about and he'll never suspect that I'm a boy. Heck, I get mistaken for a girl all the time." Thankfully, otherwise who knew what state her ego would be in right now, knowing that she could be mistaken for a guy.

"You can't be serious."

"I'm totally serious. Give me one good reason why it won't work."

Opening his mouth Kadoma blinked when he realized he couldn't think of a single reason why it wouldn't work. The truth of the matter was that Mizuki really did look more like a girl than a guy, even when he was wearing regular guy clothes. Wearing girls clothes you couldn't tell that he wasn't a she. His brother wasn't the most observant guy either and who would ever suspect that he was so desperate that he'd actually ask one of his guy friends to dress up like a girl. And Mizuki was actually volunteering to do this, of his own free will. Staring at his friend Kadoma didn't know what to say. "You really want to do this?" He finally asked hesitantly.

"Well it's not like I enjoy dressing up as a girl but you're my friend and I want to help. If you're willing to give it a try then you've got my support, a hundred percent." Mizuki hastened to explain, not wanting Kadoma to get the wrong idea. Or the right idea, depending on how you looked at it.

"And you really think we could pull it off?"

"You betcha. We'll fool him or die trying."

"So where's the third musketeer?" Minami teased as he came up behind Sano and Nakatsu, the two members of his dorm whirling around to give him dark looks. Who'd have thought he'd run into them while he was out running errands. Thank God Nakao wasn't with them. "Where's Mizuki? You two never go anywhere without him."

"He had plans." Sano explained, slipping his hands into his pockets. What sort of plans he wasn't absolutely sure. She'd said she was going to work for Akiha today but he'd gotten the distinct impression she hadn't been telling him the whole truth. It was pretty obvious that she'd been up to something all week.

"What do you want?" Nakatsu demanded to know, still put out that Mizuki wasn't going to spend the day with him like he'd planned. Now he was stuck going to the movies with Sano instead. And he'd had all sorts of things planned too. He knew Mizuki loved horror movies but got scared easily. If they went to see one, it was only fair that he offer to hold Mizuki's hand during the scary parts to comfort him, right?

"I'm on my way to pick up some snacks." Smirking Minami was about to tease Nakatsu some more about Mizuki when he caught sight of something so strange he completely forgot about everything else as his eyes widened. "What the hell..." Staring ahead of them, about a half a block, Minami was pretty sure he was seeing his fellow dorm advisor Tennouji and Kujou hiding behind a wall. "What the hell are they doing?"

Following Minami's gaze Sano and Nakatsu stared as they watched the president and vice president of the karate club acting very strange, even for them. The three walking towards them they weren't at all surprised when Kujou sensed them coming and tapped Tennouji on the shoulder to point out who was coming.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Minami asked, smirking at them openly as Tennouji glared. Kujou on the other hand had gone back to watching something across the street and turning his head to see what that something was Minami raised an eyebrow as he recognized the very nervous looking young man pacing in front of the restaurant. "Isn't that that first year of yours, Kadoma? Why are you spying on him?"

"Shhh!" Tennouji glared as he put his finger to his lips. "He might hear you!"

"He's been acting very strange all week." Kujou explained, not taking his eyes off their target. "We heard him talking on his cell phone with someone, arranging to meet him or her here at this time. Kadoma seemed upset, so we came to see if we could find out what's wrong."

"Oh." Since Kadoma was such a good friend of Mizuki's Sano felt some concern, if for no other reason then if Kadoma was in trouble, Mizuki might try and get involved. That would likely not end well at all. Come to think of it... "Mizuki's been acting strange all week too."

"You don't think someone's been bothering both of them!" Flames leaping into his eyes Nakatsu looked ready to kick some serious ass. "If someone's been harassing Mizuki I'm going to tear him limb from limb and then I'm going to go to work on him, the bastard!"

"Hush." The fact that Ashiya had been acting strange was interesting though, Kujou thought, storing away that tiny bit of information. He knew that Kadoma considered Ashiya a good friend, perhaps he'd confined in him or vice versa. Though if Kadoma really was in trouble, why hadn't he just come to them first?

"Hey...isn't that...Oh my God." Tennouji gasped and everyone turned to see just who he was pointing out as they all gapped at the person running over towards the still pacing Kadoma.

"Sorry I'm late!" Mizuki called out as she ran over, teetering slightly since she was a little unsteady on the heels at the moment. They weren't exactly designed for running after all. But they'd been too cute to pass up and the sandals had looked awesome with the rest of her outfit. They weren't even that high, she thought, a little disgusted with herself. If she wasn't careful, she was going to completely forget how to be a girl.

"A..Ash...Ashiya!" Going as red as a tomato Kadoma could only gap at his friend. Or at least he was pretty sure it was Mizuki, he could be wrong. The person before him was definitely female or at least no one would ever think otherwise, even in their wildest dreams.

"Not bad huh?" Grinning in pleasure Mizuki did a quick spin to show off the whole outfit. It was so nice to wear cute clothes again!

"You can see your stomach!"

"Well you told your brother your girlfriend was really cute, remember? Besides, you can only see it a little." Okay, so she'd gone overboard. Wincing slightly Mizuki tried to look at her outfit through his eyes, getting a very bad feeling as she did. Oh yeah, she'd definitely gone too girlie, at least too girlie for someone who was doing their very best to hide their gender from the men in her life. "Uhm...I let Rio play dress up." Okay, so that was a lie but she could tell from the look on his face that it was a necessary one.

"Well there's definitely no way anyone will think you're a boy." Kadoma agreed weakly, staring at the ground rather then at his cross dressing classmate. He'd known that Mizuki could very easily look like a girl but this was just too much. The black shorts he was wearing were definitely short and were showing off more of Mizuki's legs then he'd ever seen. Mizuki was also obviously wearing the stuffed bra from the Christmas dance because he now had definite shape under the white, teddy bear print sleeveless blouse he wore, having tied the ends together so that a smooth band of skin was visible between the hem and the shorts. And if that wasn't bad enough, Mizuki had his hair up in pigtails and was wearing lip gloss! It was all too much for him to process.

"I know it looks weird..but I didn't want your brother to have any doubts, in case we slipped up somehow." Mizuki explained weakly, shuffling her feet slightly. This wasn't going to work if Kadoma couldn't even look at her without blushing. "If you want, there has to be a clothing store somewhere around here. I could go buy something else and then you could just say I was late getting here."

"No, it's okay. You look great." Here he was, making Mizuki feel bad when the poor guy had willingly dressed up as a girl to help him. God but he was a lousy friend. Putting his best foot forward Kadoma worked up a big smile. "This will definitely work. You did a great job disguising yourself."

Grinning a tad sheepishly Mizuki smiled as she draped an arm over his shoulder. "Yeah, we'll pull this off, no problem. Just remember to call me Mizuki, okay? I've been practicing calling you Shotaro in my head all day so that I wouldn't forget."

"I'll do my best."

"Right. Come to think of it...isn't your brother really late?" Looking at her watch Mizuki frowned as she read the time. She'd been nearly late herself after all and had nearly broken her ankle running to get here on time.

"He's always late." Was Kadoma's sighed answer. "Sometimes I think he just likes to annoy me by being late all the time. If I complain he gives me a noogie and starts one of his speeches on how little brothers should treat their much more mature and smarter brothers with respect. God but I hate those speeches. I've heard them so many times I can recite them by heart."

"Yeesh, that bites." Looking around Mizuki blinked, sure for a moment that she'd seen Nakatsu's head peeking at her from behind the hood of a parked car a couple meters away from them. Blinking she glanced again but didn't see anyone. She was just being paranoid.

"OH NO!"

"What is it?" Turning her head to see where Kadoma was pointing Mizuki got the just of it pretty quick. Kadoma had shown her pictures of his family so she recognized his older brother right away. The reason Kadoma looked so dismayed was the fact that there were three other people with his brother. "Who are they?"

"The guy is Machi, Takashi's best friend." Kadoma answered miserably, looking like he'd just heard his whole family had died in a terrible fire. "And the girls must be their latest girlfriends. There's never been any reason to keep track of their names because they're always gone by the time I learn them."

"HEY, SQUIRT! HAVE YOU GOTTEN SHORTER?"

"I knew I should have stayed home today."