Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.

Background music: -

[=]

Elsewhere

Today - "So I guess I'll be the first between us to say I have no idea who's holding this smashing party we're currently attending right now."

Ice stares politely ahead, focusing on the crowd of people scattered around the dimly lit, getting-stuffy room. Because there is nothing else to do, he has taken post on a rather lumpy couch next to the wall in the middle of a frantic celebration where his brother is probably in a corner somewhere making out with the Danish transfer student that he pretends not to have the hots for. In fact, he has been sitting by himself rather peacefully for a long fifteen minutes not (not counting the time someone pressed a plastic cup of beer into his hand, which he tactfully handed to an already intoxicated passerby) when an Asian he does not know sits down next to him.

Actually, he doesn't know many Asians.

Actually actually he doesn't know any at all.

He suspects at first that this Asian probably is as drunk as the weird boy with thick eyebrows stumbling around the place but he does not fidget as he sits. He does not drape himself on Ice like the pervert that smelled like roses a couple hours before (Sebastian did not see, thus not activating the big-brother instinct that would have made things ugly). He forms a completely coherent sentence in a flat monotone. Ice did not think Asians were morally allowed to partake in such stupid behavior anyway.

He would have said, "I don't either," but Ice is not one to play Captain Obvious. So he just glances sideways before nodding and continuing to watch but not really watch the infamous Spanish/Italian couple swap spit a couple yards away.

"You don't talk much," the Asian says bluntly, but Ice can tell this isn't meant in a malicious way. It's a provocation of sorts. He turns, shifting so his silver hair flashes in his eyes before he meets the Asian's dark ones.

"Really," he says.

"Really," the Asian agrees. They sit together in silence for a while, listening to the incessant steady beat of the music from a location neither of them can really pinpoint. The smell of alcohol lingers on their noses but they have both already gotten used to the smell. Pheromones are floating through the air, along with indistinguishable chatter. The Asian looks bored.

"Why are you here?" the Asian asks.

"My brother," Ice replies. The Asian nods understandably.

"My whole family is here," he says dully, and Ice looks around. It is true; now he notices many Asians in the room. He doesn't think the Asian is being completely honest; he can't really see them all being related. It's a stereotype he doesn't buy. The Asian next to him seems to understand this. "We should go," he ventures.

"Where?" Ice asks, although he doesn't actually want to leave. He doesn't feel comfortable going places with a stranger, and anyway, Sebastian is somewhere in the mass of bodies and he has been charged with waiting for his brother. The Asian leans on the couch's arm and strokes his chin like a sophisticated gentleman.

"My room," the Asian says, after a thought. Ice glances at him again; he has not met anyone who can joke with such a straight face. The Asian looks at him back, before wiggling his eyebrows, which are also on the thick side. Ice stares back before his face twitches in a laugh. "I have a music collection to be marveled at. What were you thinking about?"

"What sort of music do you have at hand?" Ice inquires, fixing his face back into its apathetic shape, although he can't help a slight incline of the sides of his mouth. The Asian observes this with unreadable amusement.

"Cabaret," he nods. "I love it."

"This doesn't seem to be your scene," Ice says, looking around. "Not much artistic dancing happening here."

"On the contrary, dear sir," the Asian interrupts. "Observe, if you will, the following examples. Look at exhibit A; that brunette looks to be doing nothing but chatting with that blonde fellow who is using too much hair gel – but in reality, there is a clever flirtatious carrot-and-sticking going on. And at exhibit B; my distance cousin who refuses to acknowledge our relations is supposedly talking with that curly haired guy, but let me make it clear that the conversation is laden with sexual innuendos. Clearly. And finally, exhibit C." The Asian pointed to a couple hanging on the doorway. "Those two have been at each other, introducing their tongues to each other for mostly the entire night. They started a little rocky but look at what happened."

"That is my brother," Ice replies, recognizes Sebastian's hair as the Danish student runs his fingers through it.

"I'm sorry for you, then," the Asian says. Ice turns to him. The defensive part of him wants to protest, but he really just wants to say thank you. Instead, they look at each other again, a long stare that is getting commonplace, and the Asian leans over and kisses him, gentle and fast like a mother patting her child on the head.

Maddox likes doing all sorts of weird things whenever he wants to. He's set off firecrackers in Yao's tub before. He's spiked Yong Soo's kimchi with mud. He's hung from the gutters over Kiku's bedroom window. He blames his lack of respect of personal space to his rather western upbringing. The silver-haired boy looks completely taken aback. Therefore, he reads the situation and backs away too.

"I guess I'll go," Maddox says, feeling a little stupid.

"I have to go get my brother anyway," the blue-eyed boy says quickly.

They both get up from the couch at the same time and move in completely opposite directions, merging quickly with the party around them and never seeing each other for the remainder of the night.

A day later – So obviously when the night has passed, they are thinking about the other but neither of them are willing to ask about it. Ice is too mortified to admit that he has been sexually assaulted at a party that Sebastian brought him to; both because Sebastian will hold a freak-out session and blame Asger for all his problems (resulting in a comfort make-out session; his brother had a one-track mind) and that he had let himself be kissed like that, by someone he doesn't even know…!

Maddox is never really one to kiss and tell anyway, and he does not feel he needs to justify himself to the other inhabitants of his dorm who will probably ask who (Yao), why (Kiku), how (Mei), and if it felt good (Yong Soo), and he doesn't know the answers to those questions anyway (except the last one, it felt pretty nice kissing that boy who he doesn't actually know).

So the two sit on it and pretend nothing happened.

A week later – which really doesn't help with when they actually decide the bite the bullet to find the Asian/silver-haired mystery boy.

"His hair was like so," Maddox says to Yong Soo, because Yao probably would lecture him about not being polite, indicating with his hand the length of the anonymous boy's hair. "It was silver. Like a natural silver. Not like he had dyed it or colored it with Sharpie."

Yong Soo squints at him and Maddox asks him if he needs glasses. "Where did you say you met this kid?"

"At the party a week ago."

"There was a party a week ago?" Hindsight on his part, really; Yong Soo probably wouldn't remember if the world collapsed upon itself yesterday. But asking around, no one seems to have remembered seeing such an individual and they, like him, had heard of the party from word of mouth and there have been several names circulating as to whose party it was. Maddox does not want to go find all these people and ask them all, as he is not that desperate, and the anonymous boy probably doesn't even want to find him anyway, having attacked him like that.

Although no one might suspect, Maddox is a firm believer of fate. If we were destined to meet, he reasons, I'll probably see him again. He hears later that not everyone at the party goes to the same college and he is disheartened for a moment. He doesn't dwell on it because Kiku has just invented a makeshift remote control car that can fire missiles at unsuspecting people. Maddox volunteers to take it on a test run.

Part of him wonders if he will see the boy, but he does not.

[=]

Ice tentatively approaches the subject with Sebastian. Sebastian is doing a term paper at the time. Ice hopes that perhaps he will be too distracted to really be paying attention to the questions he is asking.

"So you know at the party last week…"

"Hmm."

"I met someone but I didn't catch their name."

"Okay."

"Um…" Ice feels his face flare up and he is thankful Sebastian is too preoccupied with the screen to see him. To think, he was kissed…! "Did you happen to remember anyone there? Besides Asger, of course."

Sebastian hums, staring thoughtfully at his most recent sentence. "I knew a couple people," he says after a while. "Who are you talking about?"

"Um…there was this Asian."

Sebastian isn't really listening, Ice thinks, because he nods noncommittally. His brother is still for a moment before saying, "I don't really think I remember seeing any Asians."

"There were a lot of them," Ice says, a little snidely he knows. After all, he likes teasing his brother about this sort of thing. "But of course you didn't see them, since you spent all night looking into Asger's stupid face." At this, Sebastian spins around and his look is icy cold. Ice cringes in spite of himself.

"Get out," he says. It isn't that Sebastian doesn't like Asger (he likes him plenty), but it's common knowledge to everyone who knows the Dane that he's a bit of an idiot and Ice knows that Sebastian is only a little embarrassed for everyone to know he fell for such a person. Ice nods quickly and leaps up before Sebastian can take anything and throw it at him. It seems that anything regarding Asger usually ends in something being thrown.

When he closes the door behind him, Ice is a little troubled that he's gotten no further in finding out the identity of the mysterious Asian who kissed him. He's not sure who else he can ask (and he sure isn't going to ask Asger). Well, he comforts himself, the neighborhood isn't that big, and he's sure to run into him one of these days. Anyway, the more one looked for something, the more he would never find it, so perhaps if he did nothing, things would solve themselves.

One month later – Ironically, the two meet two different people at two different parties while the same song is playing in the background.

"Hi," Maddox says, studying the blonde in front of him as he glances over his shoulder. "Is that your sister over there? Bring her over here so I can dance with her for the hell of it." The girl in question, a rather unsuspecting girl with a short bob, notices the looks of her brother and Maddox and waves at them from across the room.

"I don't think so," the brother, Vash, says. He looks unfriendly and overbearing. Maddox feels the need to get on his nerves. He likes doing that. This boy is not the silver-haired boy he had met before, but he spurs the same sort of interest, and Maddox thinks it's okay for the time being.

[=]

"Kid, you must be pretty awesome since you've got hair like mine and I'm the most awesome guy I know."

Irritating, Ice thinks. He doesn't know where these people come from. The young man introduces himself as Gilbert-the-Awesome and asks if he wants to watch him play an awesome round of solitary beer-pong. Ice declines. Gilbert-the-Awesome hauls him over to the table anyway. The nonsensical chorus pounding a steady beat in the air heightens the tension as the albino German lands a tiny white ball into a cup, sending droplets of beer into the air.

Gilbert-the-Awesome hands Ice a slightly dripping ping pong ball while downing the cup he scored in. "Try it," he commands. Ice throws it in the air for no good reason and is surprised when he actually lands it.

This annoying boy is not curious or unusual like the Asian, Ice thinks as Gilbert forces the cup in his hands. He is loud and obnoxious. Ice sees Sebastian across the room, sitting on Asger's lap and looking slightly intoxicated. He had started to stop looking for the Asian at the parties he tags along to with his brother. Gilbert is looking at him expectantly, licking the foam from his lips. He hasn't been himself lately, so Ice tips the cup into his mouth.

Six months later – Going paintball gunning with Vash makes Maddox think back when he was wandering around the room and discovered an empty seat on a couch. When Vash raises his gun and shoots, he thinks about the silver-haired boy whom he still doesn't know the name of, and the flash of violet eyes. He wonders how things might have been different if he had not thrown away a kiss like that and if he had actually found out who he had been talking to. Vash is certainly interesting in his own way, and Maddox does not mind being in a relationship in him, but he always wonders.

Gilbert drives a fast car and it streaks down the road with no worries about being ticketed. Ice likes speed; he thinks he was made to watch his surroundings disappear around him. The loud metallic music pouring through the speakers resounds through Ice's head and disorients him the same way the Asian's kiss did. Gilbert has a much more straightforward and passionate kissing style, for sure. Sebastian finally has something on him in return for Asger. Ice doesn't think he is cheating on Gilbert at all when he thinks back to the party ages ago. It's not like he ever kissed the Asian again.

A year later – Sebastian celebrates his twenty-second birthday in a bar in town and everyone in their college years comes from around the world to celebrate. So it seems to Ice, who sits on a barstool and watches the ruckus unfold.

A whole year later and he's starting to think he can thankfully forget everything. Gilbert is a handful and he bites back a grin watching the stupid idiot pour two drinks into the Spanish idiot's mouth. Between Asger and Gilbert, he thinks he's got Sebastian won. Gilbert is surely stupidier of the two.

Someone sits down next to him and orders some exotic drink he's never heard of. Ice glances over and blinks. "You're…"

"Maddox," the Asian says fast, as if he won't be able to get a second chance. "I go to that university fifteen minutes away." They stare at each other for a moment. "And you're…"

"Taken," Ice murmurs, unsure of how that slipped out of his mouth. He glances at Gilbert from a distance away.

Maddox shrugs, bringing the drink to his mouth. "I'm dating someone else but you don't see me complaining."

"Ice."

Maddox nods, and looks away. Vash is looking positively damper in a booth with Elizavita and Roderick. Lilli is curiously playing with the paper umbrella in the (nonalcoholic) Bloody Mary Vash ordered for her. He glances over at Gilbert, who is now balancing a bowl of peanuts on his nose rather drunkenly.

"I suppose we could always set them both up," he says. Ice looks about to disagree but nods.

"I'll get mine," Maddox says slowly, "and you get yours. And we'll meet back here. Okay?"

"I'll come back," Ice agrees.

Ice's feet hit the ground as Maddox walks off, and they slip off into the party and remind themselves they'll surely turn around this time.

Owari

[=]

Note: If anyone of you can seriously tell me what I was doing writing this atrocity of awful stupidity, I will award you with thanks. I like these three pairings! I couldn't choose. Don't judge me, please. Thanks for reading.