(no subject)

[insaneidiot]

Title: All That Glitters
Fandom: X/TB
Pairings: ... so far, Fuuma/Kamui, Seishirou/Subaru, Sorata/Arashi, Yuuto/Karen, hints of other pairings.
Genre: MEGA AU. All the genres you can possibly think of! Okay, maybe not. But there is crack, and there is angst, and there is other stuff. Although in this part, mostly angst.
Word Count: 17,726 for the part; 87,435 total.
Notes: It's been too long, I actually almost typed Boyband!X as the title. *cough* Also, oh my GOD, I am so sorry for how delayed this is. Like, 10 months, what the hell, self? I've been working on it on and off for most of that time but I was just swamped by a tide of writers' block/laziness. You'd think living in Tokyo would HELP because I can totally go check out the places I'm writing about, but... apparently not? But now it's done! DONE! AND I STILL HAVE LIKE TWO PARTS AND AN EPILOGUE TO GO, BUT WHATEVER. *maniacal cackles*
Summary: It's saved on my harddrive as "Boyband!X". I think that's really all you need to know. *cough*


PART VII

~ Chapter 11 ~

"Now, despite being born and growing up in Japan, you debuted in America," the interviewer for the magazine commented, idly clicking her pen as she smiled at Kotori. "How long has it been since you've been back in Japan?"

"Um, about a year and a half," Kotori said, after a quick mental calculation. "My first single came out in America about eight months ago... before that I was working odd jobs and competing in amateur competitions."

"I see," the interviewer said warmly. "It must have been very tough. But you have an older brother who still lives in Japan, don't you?"

"That's right," Kotori answered cheerfully. "Nii-chan is only just over a year ahead of me, but he took care of us after we were orphaned."

"Us?" the interviewer prompted, and her eyes sharpened behind her glasses, but Kotori didn't recognise the danger signal.

"Yes, that's right! Me and Kamui-chan," Kotori explained. "Nii-chan and I share the same parents, of course, but Kamui-chan is like a second brother to me."

"Now, by Kamui you mean Shirou Kamui, frontman of Garden of Eden and rival to your brother's band, Angels of the Sepulchre?"

Kotori began to sense that she may have just accidentally walked into a trap. "Um, yes," she said warily. "That's right, but..."

"So the three of you grew up together, then?" the interviewer asked innocently, and Kotori wondered where the trick was, but she'd essentially already said that, and, well... surely there couldn't be too much harm to talking about it, could there? From what she'd heard from Kamui the media had drawn a connection between Kamui and Fuuma anyway, and it wasn't like it was a big dark secret or anything. (So long as you forgot about the months towards the end, at any rate, and Kotori had absolutely no intention of talking about that.)

"That's right," Kotori confirmed. "Kamui-chan grew up with his mother, but when she passed away he moved in with Nii-chan and I."

"And then you say, after your parents died, your older brother took care of both you and Shirou-san? How did that go? He doesn't exactly have a reputation for being the mothering type," the interviewer said in a conspiratorial kind of way, and Kotori giggled before she could help it.

"No, he was very good at it!" she protested. "He always made breakfast and made sure we all got to school on time and scolded Kamui-chan when he didn't do his maths homework."

"Really? So what was the relationship between Shirou-san and your brother like back then?" the interviewer asked, and her tone was perfectly pleasant and casual but there was something sharklike about her smile.

"Um, they were best friends, of course," Kotori said hesitantly, wariness revived. "Although Kamui-chan was in the same grade as me at school, so they didn't have classes together."

"Ah, I see," the interviewer said. "And the three of you have all ended up as vocalists. Is that a coincidence, or were you all interested in music growing up?"

Kotori floundered a little about how to answer, not knowing how much Kamui and Fuuma had each said about their influences and motivations in previous interviews and not wanting to lie before helplessly deciding on the truth.

"All three of us loved music growing up," she admitted. "Nii-chan and Kamui-chan used to write songs together. They've both always been very talented."

"So they used to write songs together, then? Why did the three of you all end up in different places?"

There it was, the question she'd been dreading.

"For myself, I decided I needed to learn how to live independently, so I moved to America," she said, deflecting as best she could with a sweet smile. "I guess Kamui-chan and Nii-chan made similar decisions."

"Ah, I see," the interviewer said agreeably, although Kotori could tell she didn't believe a word of it. "Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview with us, Kotori-san, and best of luck on your release here in Japan!"

"Thank you very much," Kotori said politely, bowing her head, and wondered how much trouble she'd just gotten Fuuma and Kamui into.

Oops.

~

"Past connection between Garden of Eden and Angels of the Sepulchre frontmen, fully revealed!", the headline announced, with quotes from the interview with Kotori below.

"Fuck," Fuuma said, not feeling quite so sanguine about this revelation of his past as Seishirou apparently had, and Kotori winced.

"Sorry, Nii-chan," she said meekly. "Should I have told them something else?"

Fuuma sighed. "No, fuck it. They asked you directly, you could hardly lie. Anyway, they were going to find out sooner or later. It wasn't exactly a state secret. Frankly I'm surprised it took this long- that's pretty shitty investigative journalism skills, considering."

Kotori didn't say anything, just fiddled with the hem of her skirt in a way that suggested she was feeling guilty and awkward.

"On the bright side," Fuuma added after a moment, staring thoughtfully down at the page where Kotori made the offhand comment about how he used to make Kamui do his maths homework, "Kamui is probably chucking a mega hissy fit right now."

"Nii-chan! That is not a bright side!" Kotori exclaimed, stomping her foot in exasperation. "You'll never work things out with Kamui-chan if you keep saying things like that!"

"I never said I wanted to," Fuuma told her, but he was uncomfortably aware of the sullen edge to his tone. "Besides, he makes it too easy. I can't help provoking him when it's always so funny when he overreacts."

"Nii-chaaaaan," Kotori wailed, burying her face in her hands so it muffled her voice. "You always used to be so nice to Kamui-chan, why do you have to bully him now?"

There was an awkward silence, Fuuma tensing before he could help it at the reminder of the contrast between now and then and how his relationship with Kamui had soured. Kotori didn't call him on it, though, and after a moment he pushed himself up from the couch and said, "I'm getting a soda, do you want anything?"

He heard Kotori sigh, and then she said, "Could you get me one too, please?"

Fuuma walked into the kitchenette without a word, grabbing two bottles of coke and tossing one to his sister when he returned to the living room. "I've got to go to the studio to practice soon," he told her, breaking the seal of the bottle cap in one clean twist. "Do you want to come and watch, or would you rather stay here?"

Kotori bit her lip, rolling her own bottle slowly between her hands with her eyes fixed on it as though she was staring through it. "I think I might go see Kamui-chan," she said eventually, and Fuuma twitched.

"Fine," he said shortly, "whatever, have fun, the spare key is on the table if you want to come back in," and he'd grabbed his jacket and was halfway out the door when she called out to him.

"Nii-chan, wait!"

It seemed Fuuma's brotherly instincts were more ingrained than he'd thought, because he immediately stopped, even though his hand was already on the doorknob and he would've just ignored anyone else, even Kamui. Especially Kamui.

"What?" he asked, not as impatiently as he'd intended, and Kotori stood up, taking a few hesitant steps towards him.

"You never actually told me," she said, and her tone is nervous but determined. "How you feel about Kamui-chan now."

Fuuma froze, hand tightening around the doorknob. It was stupid, but he'd kind of hoped she wouldn't push it, wouldn't ask so directly.

"You say you don't want to work it out," she continued, when he didn't answer her. "But do you really mean that? Do you really hate him after all?"

Fuuma took a deep breath and closed his eyes, still facing the door.

"He left," he said flatly. "He left me, not the other way around. There's nothing to work out about that."

What he didn't say was: Yes. Yes, I really do hate him. Almost as much as I love him.

What he didn't say was that he'd rather keep provoking Kamui until Kamui hated him just as much than to smooth things over and let Kamui forget about him.

Maybe Kotori could hear it between the lines, and maybe she couldn't; either way, her response was not what he'd expected.

"Oh, Nii-chan," she said, in a voice filled with regret and frustration, and he could sense her coming closer but was still taken by surprise when she hugged him from behind, cheek pressing against his back. "This is about the offer from KG?"

Fuuma didn't reply, but his fist was clenched tight around the doorknob and he was sure she could feel the tension in his back.

"I knew he should have told you," she mumbled, exhaling hard. "But you've got it all wrong, Nii-chan."

"Got what wrong?" he said sharply, jerking his head to look back over his shoulder at her. "You've just admitted there was an offer, and he didn't tell me about it. I'd say that's pretty clear."

"That's not what I meant, though. You said he left you, but he was never going to take the offer," she said softly. "Even after I told him he should, he didn't want to, not without you. He just... didn't know how to tell you that, so he didn't tell you anything at all."

Fuuma's eyes widened, his mind totally refusing to process what Kotori had said as anything but meaningless words strung together until he'd run through it again, twice over. "You shouldn't lie," he said blankly. "Not even to make someone feel better. Isn't that what you always used to say?"

"I'm not," she insisted, small hands bunching slightly in his t-shirt. "Nii-chan, I'm not lying, you know I wouldn't lie to you, especially not about something as important as this."

"I don't... I don't believe you," he forced himself to say. "You don't have proof, how can..."

"Kamui-chan didn't take the offer," she said when he trailed off, much more fiercely than her usual placid tone. "He never took the offer, even when he had heaps of opportunities. He never took any offer at all, not until-"

She broke off suddenly, and Fuuma frowned before he realised what she was avoiding saying. Not until after he'd pushed her down the stairs.

Not until after he'd done the one thing Kamui could never forgive him for, maybe.

She was right, Fuuma realised, with a growing feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. There had to be something to argue against that, some kind of contradiction he could point to in bitter, double-edged vindication, but as he ran through the timeline in his head, he couldn't find any other way it made sense. If Kamui had been intending to take the offer to escape Fuuma, then why didn't he just do it? Even if he was afraid of Fuuma's reaction, he could easily have accepted after he'd left home, but he never did, and Fuuma knew perfectly well from what Kanoe had said when she'd signed him that it wasn't because it had been retracted.

Kamui had probably been living on the streets or in a youth hostel or something, and he still hadn't thought to take the deal.

The enormity of that hit Fuuma like a ton of bricks; he was dizzy and confused and wondering where the hell that left him, when so much of who he was, who he'd become over the last year, was based on an assumption that may have been all in his mind the whole time.

But even if Kamui hadn't been intending to take the offer, another whispered thought reminded him, what about the way he pulled away from you? The way he wouldn't talk to you or even go near you, even while he was still so close to Kotori? Maybe he wasn't going to take the offer, but it didn't mean he wasn't going to leave you behind.

He didn't know how to put it all together or what it meant, what this new information revealed about Kamui's motivations or, most of all, what he was supposed to do with any of it.

The one thing he was sure of was that he couldn't deal with this right now.

"I have to go to the studio," he said finally, voice rasping a little from the dryness in his mouth, and Kotori released him after a moment, clearly reluctant.

"Bye," she said, subdued and resigned, and took a step backwards. "Have fun."

"Yeah, bye," Fuuma responded, and then hesitated, before he added: "Tell me later about how epic Kamui's histrionics were, okay? It'd be a great way of cheering myself up," and even managed a laugh at her outraged cry of "Nii-chan!" as he closed the door behind him.

But the fact remained, he thought, letting his head thud back against the door while the smirk slid off his face, that with a few simple words Kotori had turned his entire world upside-down, and he had no idea what he was doing anymore.

~

Kotori sighed to herself after her brother left, pressing her fingertips lightly against the closed door. On the one hand she thought maybe she'd gotten through to him a little, maybe they were making progress- from what Kamui had told her, it seemed her presence alone had improved the situation- but on the other hand, he was so suspicious and wary of anything to do with Kamui. She'd known how deeply hurt and angry and bitter he was over it, but it still made her sad to see him flinch and scowl like that whenever she said Kamui's name when once talking about Kamui had never failed to make his face light up with the smile that Kamui had admitted used to make him weak at the knees.

If she could find a way to make him smile like that again, light up for Kamui just like he used to do, then she'd be happy and could leave both of them alone.

Most people would consider that a highly challenging task, if not outright impossible, but Kotori had always been an optimistic kind of person and had absolute faith that it would happen. Of course, until it did, she was fully determined to interfere and badger as much as she had to.

Meanwhile, though, she really did have to go see Kamui, whose temper was probably even fouler than Fuuma's right now. She had to concede that unfortunately, Fuuma's prediction of high drama and despair was almost certainly one hundred percent accurate. There was no way Kamui was going to be taking the article well, not with how touchy he was about his relationship with Fuuma being brought up by the media. Trying to talk sense to him about Fuuma was fairly futile even at the best of times, because he was direly certain that everything Fuuma did was aimed to mess with him and nothing else (and it was hard to argue that, because Fuuma was going out of his way to mess with Kamui and he'd made that abundantly clear), but it was even more guaranteed to end in failure on a day like today. He wasn't going to want to be cheered up. Kamui could be pretty determined in his abject misery when he wanted to be.

Still, that didn't mean Kotori wasn't going to try.

She grabbed her coat and bag from the couch, and picked the spare key up from the bench on the way past, because while she had a hotel to go back to, it was more fun to stay with her brother. Kamui and his bandmates were living almost permanently in their hotel in Shibuya, which was actually only about twenty minutes walk from Fuuma's apartment. Much like she hadn't questioned Kamui's instinctive knowledge of the location of the KG headquarters, she hadn't asked Fuuma why he'd decided to rent a place so nearby. To be fair, it was convenient to reach his recording studios, too.

Just not quite as close as Kamui, which she was sure he'd claim was a total coincidence, because, as he'd said to her when she'd asked whether he knew Kamui's room number the other day, unlike Sakurazuka, he was not a total stalker.

(Except she'd been able to tell from his slightly guilty and defensive expression that he actually did know it, so she wasn't sure how that counted as proof against being a stalker, but anyway.)

When she got there, the first thing to greet her was Karen opening the door with a really exasperated and slightly frazzled expression.

"Please, come in," she said wryly. "He might actually listen to you."

"Oh dear," Kotori sighed, because it wasn't like she'd been expecting Kamui to be in a particularly malleable mood, but that really wasn't an auspicious beginning. "Is he in his room, or...?"

"WHY IS THIS MY LIFE?" she heard a voice demand from the shared living space, effectively answering her question before she could finish it, and Karen groaned and slid a hand over her eyes.

"He's been like this all morning," she explained, half-heartedly waving her other hand in the direction Kamui's voice had come from. "And if you can calm him down, I'm going to recommend you for sainthood."

"Oh dear," Kotori said again, shaking her head, and followed Karen's indication to the next room, where Kamui was tragic in repose on the couch and Sorata was trying, very ineffectually, to cheer him up.

"But hey, it's not actually that bad!" the older boy was saying with false bravado. "I mean, it's not like they didn't already know you guys knew each other as kids, right? Just because they've found out you used to live together and write songs together- and they sort of already know that last part from what Monou said on that chat show, didn't they? Seriously, this so isn't as bad as the underwear thing!"

"Oh my god, Sorata, shut up, you are not helping!" Kamui moaned into the cushion his face was buried in, and Sorata laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head.

"Uh," he said, then noticed Kotori standing near the door and visibly lit up with relief. "Kotori-chan! Hi! I'll just leave you guys to have fun while I... um... go out and have parfait with Yuzu-chan!"

"You are a vile traitor," Kamui muttered disconsolately. "A vile treacherous traitor who is abandoning me in my time of need for sugary goods."

Sorata patted Kamui on the back, apparently not too perturbed by this imprecation. "I'll make sure I order an extra big one and eat enough for your share too," he said soothingly, and jumped out of the way when Kamui flailed a hand backwards in an attempt to hit him. "Okay, bye guys! Back later!"

With that, Sorata made his hasty departure, leaving Kotori and Kamui alone. Kotori stood still for a moment, blinking his his wake, before finally she shrugged and crossed over to sit next to the lump of Kamui curled up on the couch.

"Did you have to tell them about the maths thing?" Kamui mumbled indistinctly, and made a noise kind of like a dying seal against the cushion.

"I'm sorry, Kamui-chan," Kotori apologised contritely, clasping her hands in her lap. "I didn't mean to. I wasn't expecting them to ask about you or Nii-chan, and I forgot..."

The Kamui-lump exhaled heavily before pushing itself up into a sitting position, back to being a recognisable human being. Kamui had red lines on his face from pillow creases and his hair was sticking out in all kinds of strange and unruly directions, but Kotori didn't really feel much like laughing right now.

"It's not your fault," he told her, head dropping back against the couch. "It's just... everything, you know? Dealing with Fuuma is hard enough, but having to put up with the media on top of it... seriously, is this bad karma? What horrifically awful thing did I do in a past life to deserve this?"

Kotori didn't answer when Kamui stopped speaking, the only sound between them Kamui's soft huff of indignation when he finished, but after a moment she turned her head to look at him, searching his expression for some kind of answer.

"Ne, Kamui-chan," she said gently, "can I ask you something?"

"Huh? Sure, but...?"

Kamui was looking at her with puzzlement in his pretty violet eyes, and part of her wanted to glance away but she held his gaze. "Why does it bother you so much when the media talk about you and Nii-chan? They haven't said anything too bad or inaccurate, and it's not hurting the band..."

Kamui squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard like he was in pain.

"They... make it something it's not," he said, stilted and awkward. "They hear that Fuuma and I used to live together and they jump to the conclusion that we were lovers, even though we weren't... we never... and it just, it hurts. However much I wanted it to be, it's not true, and for them to go around splashing it in the tabloids feels like rubbing it in. And even if it were, it's not... it doesn't belong to them. No matter how screwed up it is, it's ours. It's sacred, it's not something that should be sensationalised, it... they're taking away what I still have left of Fuuma and making it public and it's not fair."

Kotori stayed silent during Kamui's halting tirade, but reached over to hold his hand, heart twinging at the genuine frustration and hurt and exhaustion he was radiating. His voice had started to rise towards the end of his rant, and at the end there was something near explosive about his anger, his fingers clenching around Kotori's almost painfully.

Now that she'd asked, she felt she finally understood why Kamui was taking this so hard. She'd known how messed up her brother was over the whole thing- and if it was sometimes difficult to predict whether he'd take something like this positively or like he had this morning, it was because he himself didn't know how he felt half the time. With Kamui, though, they'd all just taken it for granted: of course he was upset about the media attention on his relationship with Fuuma, why wouldn't he be?

But when she'd thought about it logically, Kotori had realised that there was something missing there. There wasn't anything inherently damaging about the speculation over he and Fuuma, and unlike Subaru Kamui wasn't an intensely private person by nature, so why did he always take it so hard?

Kamui had handed her the missing pieces, though. When she'd put it together with everything she'd already known it had been like a revelation, and she'd realised exactly what the underlying problem was.

"You know, even though Nii-chan has changed, he's still the same person."

Kamui jerked his head to stare at her in disbelief. "What about him is the same?" he demanded. "He's completely different!"

"He's not," Kotori disagreed firmly. "He still cares about you. I know it doesn't seem like it most of the time, but he's just angry."

"Angry?" Kamui echoed, totally mystified and still looking at her as though she'd suddenly grown another head. "I don't mean to smack you down, Kotori-chan, but seriously, I don't think he's just angry. I'm pretty sure he totally hates me."

"He doesn't, Kamui-chan, he's just hurt and lashing out," she insisted, but he was shaking his head before she'd even finished and she she should have known from the start that he was never going to listen.

"I know you want to think that you can fix this, but you can't," he said obstinately. "Fuuma really doesn't care. He knows how I feel about him, and he's just mocking me. That's all there is to it."

And this was why Kotori had come to the conclusion that Fuuma was going to have to be the one to take the first step in fixing this, because Kamui was oblivious as well as stubborn and it was a fatal combination. Without some kind of concrete proof, he would never believe that Fuuma held anything for him but contempt.

"If you say so, Kamui-chan," she sighed.

While she may have given up on convincing him for now, however, internally her mind continued to tick over with theories and plans of how to make both Fuuma and Kamui stop and actually listen to each other.

Maybe Kamui thought that what they had was broken beyond fixing, but thanks to his mulish refusal to accept what she was saying, he only had one side of the story. Kotori had two, and she knew better.

She was going to fix this, and no dumb boys or their crazy emotional hang-ups were going to stop her.

~

Given how his morning had started, Fuuma was really not having the best day ever. He wasn't sure whether to be vindictively glad or even more annoyed over the fact it seemed his band were being just as useless as him, though.

He'd gone to practice like he'd told Kotori, but really, with the way it was going, he might as well have not bothered. Kakyou was half-comatose on the benches at the edge of the room (stoned? Tired? Who knew), Satsuki looked bored and distracted and was paying more attention to texting someone on her phone than to the rest of them, and Kusanagi had gotten fed up with being the only one doing any work and gone for a lunch break.

What was particularly depressing about this was that, despite these respective flaws, they currently made up the relatively normal and productive section of the team. Yuuto was obviously in a funk about something, frowning to himself and totally off in his own head. He hadn't greeted Fuuma when Fuuma had come in, and, more to the point, he hadn't even said a word about Kotori's article. Usually he'd be chewing Fuuma out big-time over this, but it was like he hadn't even noticed Fuuma's presence. Fuuma was kind of wondering if he'd noticed the article's presence yet, when it came to that, which was almost a kind of blasphemy- Yuuto was good at his job, he'd never miss something like that- but, well, he was acting pretty weird and distracted and it was kind of hard not to reach that conclusion.

Seishirou was... okay, sometimes it was fun to mock the man, especially since it was so unusual for him to get riled about anything that making him give even the slightest twitch of irritation was an accomplishment, but seriously, that was one ticking time bomb that Fuuma didn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. The older man had spent most of the day so far lurking around the walls chain-smoking with a broody frown and a really ominous aura; Fuuma got the distinct feeling that anyone who tried to mess with Seishirou today was just asking to get fucked up in some subtle but suitably horrific way, and he totally respected that.

Besides, he had his own problems to think about.

The article was enough by itself. Of course he wasn't happy about it; it was one thing to drop hints and start a frenzy over the possibility of some kind of illicit relationship between he and Kamui, and it was fun to see Kamui spazz out over it, but it was entirely different when they started circling around something real and concrete like this. Fuuma found it darkly amusing to toy with Kamui over the tension between them, but the fact remained he was still incredibly bitter and touchy about what had gone down in those months of degeneration and this hit far too close to the bone. The Fuuma who cooked breakfast and made Kamui get up in the morning should have nothing to do with the here and now.

Not to mention the fact that finding out he and Kamui used to live together only took those vultures one step closer to finding out about the Incident, and that really would be a PR disaster.

Even putting that aside, however, Fuuma was feeling moody and uneasy. Right now, while he was hanging around here sulking and wasting his time with his equally sullen and useless bandmates, Kotori was somewhere else in Shibuya hanging out with Kamui. He really did love his sister and things had been a lot better since she'd returned to Tokyo, but his instincts when it came to Kamui were so deeply ingrained that he honestly couldn't help the jealousy. While Fuuma could barely even go within five metres of Kamui, Kotori could spend time with him and talk with him as freely as she chose. It was hard for Fuuma not to resent that, especially when it was so unpleasantly reminiscent of another time Kamui would talk only to Kotori, never to him.

He was never going to take the offer, Kotori's voice whispered, an echo from earlier that morning, but Fuuma just shook his head with a mirthless grin. He couldn't say that it didn't change anything, because it did; it muddied all the water and confused everything and Fuuma no longer had even the slightest idea what was going on in Kamui's head.

What it didn't change was the fact that Kamui had told Kotori about the offer without breathing a single word of it to Fuuma.

He knew Kotori thought she could heal this rift and put everything back to how it used to be, but while he appreciated the sentiment, Fuuma thought her optimism was naïve. Whatever the tabloids would have people believe about the "sexual tension" between he and Kamui, he was personally fairly certain that any such tension was entirely one-sided. Kamui was confused and twisted up from Fuuma messing with him; that was all there was to it. Even if it wasn't, and even if Kamui didn't completely loathe Fuuma like Kotori insisted he didn't, he wasn't on the same emotional wavelength as Fuuma. Fuuma was smart enough to realise that he'd reached the point where just having Kamui's friendship back wasn't good enough: if he tried to force himself to accept "just friends", it was only going to lead them right back to the same place all over again. Kamui didn't want the same thing Fuuma did, and Kotori was better off giving up now instead of wasting her time.

However, right when Fuuma was in the middle of this train of thought- which, to be fair, he had been obsessing over for some time by this point-he suddenly felt something pulling on his wrist.

"Daddy?"

"... Huh?" he said, startled out of his gratuitous wallow in self-pity, and stared down at the small child. Usually by now someone would have kicked his arse to the kerb for being this out of it, but they were all just as bad as him right now and he really hadn't noticed the kid was there until she'd tugged on his sleeve.

"Are you my daddy?" the child asked him earnestly, and Fuuma stared at her, lost for words.

"Uh," he said intelligently, but could feel himself turning to goo despite himself. She was just so little and cute and god, Kamui would kill him for comparing him to what was probably a four or five-year-old girl, but her big, solemn eyes just reminded him of the other boy when he'd been that age. "No?"

The small child didn't seem bothered by this, though, just raised her arms and fixed him with a peremptory look. "Up," she demanded, and Fuuma couldn't help himself, found himself reaching down and swinging her up in his arms from some kind of terrible, irresistible instinct.

The moment she'd started ordering him around, it had just cemented the connection in his head: it was tiny Kamui. Resistence was futile.

"There's a child," Yuuto said, sounding incredibly confused, while Fuuma bounced her lightly on his hip and ignored the weird looks his bandmates were giving him. "Why is there a child? Where did it come from?"

"Kazuki!" a voice yelled from the hallway. "Kazuki, you little brat, if you disappear one more time I swear I'm going to tie you to a tree until granddad gets... back..."

The silver haired youth had stopped yelling as soon as he'd run into the studio and taken in the scene at hand. Fuuma thought he looked familiar; Kanoe's errand boy, maybe. Nataku, that was it.

"Nii-chan!" Kazuki said cheerfully, from her perch in Fuuma's arms. "Nii-chan, are you mad at Kazuki?"

"Oh my god," Nataku said hollowly, staring at Fuuma with wide, horrified eyes. "Oh my god, I am so sorry. I had to bring her into work because our grandfather is on a business trip, but I looked away for five seconds and..."

"Nah, it's okay," Fuuma said calmly, even feeling a twinge of regret when he handed the child- Kazuki- back to her brother. "I completely know how you're feeling. Kamui used to get lost all the time when we were kids."

"Thank you so much," Nataku said, pathetically grateful as he accepted Kazuki back. "Seriously, I'm so, so sorry about her interrupting your practice."

Fuuma waved him off. "We were taking a break anyway," he said breezily, which was a nice way of glossing over the fact they'd essentially been taking a break all morning and had yet to actually achieve anything. "Don't sweat it."

Fuuma watched Nataku tote Kazuki, now pestering him with a thousand and one why why why questions, out of the studio with an odd sense of lingering fondness until he felt the tingling itch of someone watching him and turned his head.

Yuuto was still staring at him.

"What?" Fuuma asked, slightly nonplussed, but Yuuto just shook his head, looking faintly perturbed.

"Nothing, it's just the first time I've seen you smile like that," he said, continuing to eye Fuuma like he expected him to suddenly explode or sprout flowers from his head or something, and Fuuma rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"Yeah, whatever," he scoffed, brushing Yuuto off, but he still felt strangely buoyant, grin hovering at the corners of his lips and mood lifted, lightened since that morning like he'd finally taken a breath of fresh air. "Come on, you slackers, this is still practice time, let's move it and see if we can actually get some work done today!"

"Hey," Satsuki said mildly when he confiscated her mobile. "I was in the middle of replying to an email from Nekoi."

"It can wait," Fuuma said cheerfully. "Practice!"

It seemed that perhaps crazy optimism was catching, because part of him was starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, Kotori was right after all and fixing this wasn't the completely impossible and hopeless task he'd believed.

Just maybe, though.

~

"I'm going out, do you need me to get anything for you?" Hokuto asked from the doorway of the guest room, but Subaru, sitting by the window staring blankly outside, just shook his head.

"No," he said vaguely, without moving his eyes from his reflection, and she kind of wondered if he'd even registered the question or if he was just responding on auto-pilot.

Hokuto sighed. "Okay, see you later," she said, and closed the door, feeling a little despondent herself.

Obviously she was perfectly happy to let her brother stay with her and fuss over him, but it took the fun out of it somewhat when Subaru was so miserable and unmotivated. He'd never exactly been a bundle of optimism and joy after what had happened five years ago, but he'd been a lot better since joining Garden of Eden- despite himself, perhaps, because he really wasn't a fan of the spotlight and the situation with Angels of the Sepulchre and Seishirou resurfacing had been playing havoc on his emotions, but he'd been a lot more alive, and Hokuto thought that Kamui and his other bandmates had been really good for him.

And, much as she didn't like to admit it, maybe the effect Seishirou's presence was having on Subaru wasn't unmitigatedly bad.

The disaster of what had occurred between them on the chat show, however, was, and Subaru had been moping unhappily around Hokuto's apartment the whole two weeks since. She was kind of at a loss for what to do; this was not a situation where bullying Subaru into going outside and cheering up was going to work. She'd reached the point where she'd had to accept that even though she was Subaru's twin, even though up until now she'd always been the one who knew best when it came to her brother, this time she was going to have to ask for reinforcements.

Namely, Kamui.

If Hokuto couldn't get Subaru to snap out of his funk, that left one other possibility (well... two, but no way in hell was she going to ask Seishirou for help- that would just be stupid), which was why she was intending to go to Garden of Eden's hotel now and confer with Kamui, who probably wanted an update on Subaru's current status in any case. (Answer: unchanged.)

Of course, right now wasn't exactly the best time she could have chosen, but being unaware of the article that had been published that morning, Hokuto really wasn't to know that.

It was a little more obvious once she'd arrived, but, well, she'd wasted time and money and general energy on the train trip and walk from the station by that point, so like hell she was turning back now.

"Seriously," she said pointedly, when faced by the DO NOT DISTURB if you like, value your mortal soul/mental health/will to live! :D :D :D sign currently hanging on the door between Kamui's hotel suite and the shared penthouse space that joined all the rooms (provided by the hotel, hung by Kamui, cheerfully defaced by Sorata). "Do I even want to know?"

Sorata, who was sitting near the door to Kamui's room reading a manga, looked up and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh, probably not? But, you know, I guess you'll find out sooner or later, so you may as well just go in."

"Oh, really," Hokuto muttered to herself, then shrugged and flung the door open without bothering to knock, announcing as she did, "Okay, whatever you're doing, stop it! I've had enough of that from Subaru, and I'm officially declaring this an angst-free zone!"

"Um," the girl sitting perched on the end of the bed said, and Hokuto blinked.

"Okay, aside from the fact I'm pretty sure random gender swaps are still impossible," she said cautiously, "you don't look anything like Kamui-chan, so... what?"

"Hi?" the girl answered her, still sounding more than a little confused. "Um... Kamui-chan is in the shower. I'm Monou Kotori."

"Oh," Hokuto said blankly, then, "oh," as she realised who that would make this girl. "You're Monou's little sister! The one who went to America!"

"Yes, that's me," Kotori confirmed, bobbing her head in greeting. "You're... Hokuto-chan, aren't you? Pleased to meet you! I've heard a lot about you and Subaru-san."

Hokuto blew her fringe out of her eyes with an exasperated huff and moved over to sit next to Kotori on the bed, shaking her head. "Likewise, but it could have been better timed," she said wryly. "What's up with Kamui-chan? I actually came to ask for some help with Subaru, but according to Sora-chan Kamui-chan is glooming up his own cloud of misery in here."

Kotori sighed. "Um. That's kind of my fault," she admitted forlornly. "I did an interview where they asked about Kamui-chan and Nii-chan and he doesn't like it when the media talk about them together. I think he'll get over it soon... but he's not in a very good mood today."

"Aaaaugh," Hokuto groaned, burying her face in her hands for a few moments of well-deserved self-pity before she forcibly shook it off and gave Kotori a rueful grin instead. "It's hard," she said sympathetically, "but you'll get used to it." She paused, and then honesty forced her to add, "Most of the time, anyway."

"I'd just kind of hoped that Nii-chan and Kamui-chan might have worked things out by now," Kotori said helplessly. "But they're just making things worse. I think Nii-chan might be starting to listen, at least a little, but Kamui-chan is way too stubborn for his own good and won't believe for a moment that Nii-chan still feels anything for him."

"Is that so?" Hokuto said, narrowing her eyes curiously. It wasn't too hard to see how Kamui felt about the whole thing; he wore his heart on his sleeve and he and her brother had that whole empathy thing going on, after all. But even though she worked with Fuuma too, she hadn't really had a clue what was honestly going through his mind when it came to Kamui. She wasn't someone he confided in, and so far she'd only seen the flip, sarcastic insincerity he showed to the rest of the world. "So he's serious about Kamui-chan, then?"

"Of course! He always has been," Kotori explained, hands fluttering in emphatic gesture. "But Kamui-chan never realised before all this happened, and now he refuses to accept it."

"Hm," Hokuto said, and sighed. On the one hand, she was mildly envious of the fact that Fuuma at least didn't seem to be a total jerk, unlike Seishirou. On the other hand, it wouldn't exactly be fun to referee this kind of rift without being able to pick sides.

Either way, though, it didn't really help her with the Subaru issue. She'd been rather counting on Kamui's assistance, but if he was going to insist on moping around over Fuuma...

She had just opened her mouth to complain about this to Kotori when she was interrupted by the sudden reappearance of Kamui himself.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he called out as he emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed but still towelling his hair dry, and stopped short when he noticed Hokuto. "Ah! Hokuto-san!"

"Hiii, just thought I'd drop by," Hokuto said cheerfully, wriggling her fingers in greeting. "Don't worry, Kotori-chan and I were just having a nice girly chat."

"Uh... great," Kamui said, eyeing the two of them in a way that suggested that was exactly what he was worried about, and, she admitted to herself, probably with good cause. "Ah... but anyway, how's Subaru?"

"Actually, that's what I came to talk to you about," Hokuto said with a slight frown, seriousness restored by the reminder of her brother's current predicament. "Absolutely no improvement, and moping around in my apartment avoiding the world isn't helping. I think what he really needs is to move back into the hotel with you guys and hang out with you instead of locking himself alone in his room all the time. At the very least sympathising with you over Monou distracts him a bit from the fact Sei-chan is a monumental asshole."

"I... okay," Kamui said, concerned but a bit dubious-sounding. "If you really think it'll help, of course I'd be happy to do whatever you want me to, but do you really think Subaru will be that willing to move?"

Hokuto shrugged. "Just try," she said bluntly. "If you ask him, you've got the best chance of success. You know what he's like; he's ten times more likely to do something for someone else than he is for himself, so if it's what you want..."

"True," Kamui sighed. "Anyway, I'll talk to him. I've missed him- we all have- so it's not a lie to say I want him to move back here, just so long as you think that's what's best for him."

"Great," Hokuto said, with steely determination, and grabbed the wrist of a very surprised-looking Kotori. "Now that that's settled, Kotori-chan and I are going shopping! Bye!"

"Huh?" Kamui said, utterly bewildered, but that was all he got the chance for before Hokuto had shut the door in his face.

They walked through the corridor in silence for a moment, then Kotori said, tentatively, "It seems like Subaru-san and Kamui-chan have a positive effect on each other?"

"Yeah, they're good for each other," Hokuto replied, spring back in her step. "But don't bring it up with Sei-chan or your brother- for some reason they seem to get a teeny bit tetchy about Subaru and Kamui-chan's friendship."

She really did have faith in Kamui's impact on Subaru, and as Kotori stifled a giggle beside her, Hokuto grinned sharply, reflecting about how good it felt to be able to laugh at Seishirou again. Things were by no means better yet, but she was going to allow herself to feel the tiniest bit optimistic that they were on the rise.

And, once she didn't need to focus her attention so much on worrying about Subaru, Seishirou was not going to know what hit him.

~

As unexpected as it was, Kotori had found herself really enjoying Hokuto's impromptu shopping excursion. She loved her brother and Kamui a lot, but it was a pleasant change to be able to spend time with another girl just doing fun girly things, especially a girl like Hokuto who took such genuine delight in fashion. Even though Hokuto was treating her a little like a Barbie doll, it was hard to object when she was so enthusiastic about it, and while it wasn't as though Kotori wasn't used to being called pretty by fans or the media by now, it felt more like glowing praise when a smart, witty, stylish woman like Hokuto was saying it.

Plus, Hokuto probably had a better idea than anyone of the position Kotori had found herself in between her bonehead brother and childhood friend. It had been nice to finally spill the whole story and talk about it properly with someone not directly involved in the whole mess.

"Sei-chan shot me in the chest," Hokuto had said after Kotori had told her about Fuuma accidentally pushing her down the stairs, utterly flippant like this was no big deal. "But if he'd wanted me dead, I would be, so I suppose that counts for something."

In a way, it helped to know there was someone in a situation even remotely analogous to her own, and she'd had a lot of fun, right up until the point where she'd called Fuuma to tell him that she was about to leave. She'd told him about her morning with Kamui, about Hokuto, about going back to the hotel to eat dinner together, about how Kamui was going to Hokuto's apartment tomorrow, but Fuuma had grown weirdly quiet and distant over the phone, barely responding to anything she said, and he'd hung up without more than a handful of words.

Such an abrupt reminder of how messed up everything was had felt like being doused with a bucket of ice-cold water, and after that, it had been hard to be quite so carefree, so she'd said goodbye to Hokuto and a still quite confused Kamui and gone home as quickly as possible, worried that something had happened at practice or something. She knew this wasn't about that morning; Fuuma had been shaken, and he'd obviously needed some time to process what she'd told him, but she had instincts enough as his sister to know this was something else.

There was something bothering him, and she had no idea what it was.

The apartment was completely dark and silent when she got home and toed her shoes off in the entrance to the point where she was beginning to wonder if Fuuma was even there at all when she almost tripped over him. He was sitting on the polished wood floor of the corridor in the eerie shadows, slouched against the wall so his chin was practically level with his knees, arms braced against his thighs. The only light in the room was the blue-ish reflection of the moon through the uncovered windows.

"I'm home," Kotori said uncertainly, and it felt almost obsolete when she was standing right in front of him, but from his complete lack of reaction he may as well have not noticed she was there. "Nii-chan? What's wrong?"

"It's ridiculous, the way Kamui can make my mood swing so easily without even being anywhere near me," Fuuma said bitterly, half-ignoring her question. "One minute I'm being a total idiot because some kid reminds me a little of him, and the next it's back to square one. I don't need drugs- I'm fucked up in the head enough already. Kamui fucks me up."

"Nii-chan," Kotori started, definitely worried by this point, but he cut her off before she could ask what he was talking about.

"I'm not," he said roughly, scrubbing his hand across his face as though he was restraining himself from lashing out with it, "I can't, I just... why does it always have to be you?"

Fuuma's voice sounded raw, vulnerable like he hated himself for letting the words spill over but couldn't stop himself. Kotori stared at him with wide eyes, confused and a little bit frightened. "Nii-chan?"

"I was there too, so why did it have to be you?" he asked her, without raising his head from his arms. "I'm the one who fucking needs him this badly, so why did he have to choose you?"

Something clicked behind Kotori's eyes with horrible clarity, the one final clue to the puzzle that she'd never seen before. Kamui had never noticed, so of course he couldn't tell her, and it was the one thing Fuuma would never let her see before, this fierce burning jealousy that Kamui might love her in the way that Fuuma wanted for himself.

"But he didn't," Kotori protested, crouching down to curl her arms around his neck and press close in a hug that was the best comfort she could offer. "It's not like that, you've misunderstood..."

Fuuma snorted without humour, but he didn't shove her away. Even if it was only because he was afraid of hurting her again after what happened the last time he lost his temper when they were fighting about Kamui, she still intended to take advantage of it, clinging to her brother like if she only held on tight enough it'd be enough to save him.

"Misunderstood what?" he spat. "Misunderstood the fact that Kamui shoved me away? That he couldn't even stand to be in the same room as me, when he'd still happily spend all his time with you and talk to you? Misunderstood the fact that he obviously cares about you far more than he's ever cared about-"

"It's not like that!" Kotori cried, raising her voice to be heard over the top of him, almost begging for him to just listen. "It was never like that, Nii-chan! Kamui-chan and I are just friends!"

"How can you prove that?" Fuuma snapped back, and she could feel the tension in his arms, knew he was clenching his fists so hard it had to be painful for him to hold himself back. The situation almost mirrored the argument they'd had that morning, only multipled a thousandfold in intensity. "Even if I can trust you when you say that, how can you know that Kamui feels the same way? How do you know he's not-"

"Because he's in love with you, Nii-chan!" Kotori yelled at the top of her lungs, drowning him out in her desperation to be heard and not have to listen to the cutting double-edged words that were hurting him as much as her, and squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her arms around his neck. "And he always has been!"

There was a deathly silence.

After a moment, when Fuuma still hadn't said anything, Kotori blinked her eyes open, hesitantly pulling back to look at him. He'd turned white with shock, like all the blood had drained away from his face, and was staring blankly back at her with wide eyes.

"Nii-chan?" she whispered, and even the soft hiss of her voice sounded loud in the complete stillness.

"I don't," Fuuma breathed, shaking his head, "you're wrong, that's... there's no way..."

"He told me," Kotori said gently, sliding her hands from his neck to rest on his shoulders and hoping the touch would help ground him. "Then and now. That's why he avoided you, Nii-chan. He was afraid."

Fuuma's brow furrowed, like he still couldn't grasp what she was telling him. "But why...?"

"For the same reason you were," she told him, plain and simple, because between the three of them they'd tried everything else and the truth was the only thing that worked. "He thought you'd leave him. He was afraid of losing you."

And then, she could see her brother thinking as the crushing guilt dawned in his eyes, Kamui had lost him anyway, because Fuuma had gone off the rails and driven him to it.

It was a supreme form of irony, but she didn't think any of them were in a position to appreciate it.

"Even if he loved me then," Fuuma said once he'd seemingly digested the ramifications of this, hollow and somehow defeated, "he hates me now. I'm serious, Kotori. I know you want things to work out, but it's not that easy. I don't know if he's even capable of forgiving me anymore."

Kotori shook her head, curls falling in her face with the movement. "Didn't you listen? He told me then, but he's told me now, too," she reminded him, fingers digging into his arms a little. "He's hurt and angry, just like you, but he still loves you."

Fuuma visibly chewed this over, still frowning slightly. "What about Sumeragi?" he said grudgingly, and Kotori blinked, totally derailed.

"I... what?"

"He's going to see him tomorrow, isn't he?" Fuuma said, but there was something sullen about the way he was hunching over that reminded her of the kind of bratty teenager that Fuuma had never actually been. "If Kamui still loves me, what about Sumeragi?"

"Now you're just being silly," she told him reproachfully. "You're the only one Kamui-chan has ever looked twice at, Nii-chan, so please try to understand that and stop stalling over stupid objections."

Fuuma eyed her suspiciously. "Kamui calls him by his first name," he muttered, leaving it obviously implied that that was an intimacy Kamui used to only ever extend to him. "They spend all their time together. I don't see what's so silly about that."

"Because Subaru-san understands him!" Kotori exclaimed, frustrated by this point. Obviously she should have paid more attention when Hokuto had warned her how irrational Fuuma (and Seishirou) could be about Subaru and Kamui's friendship. "Because they both know what it's like to be in love with people who jerk them around and mess with their feelings! Which is why you've got to show Kamui-chan you're not!"

That caught Fuuma's attention. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that he thinks you hate him, Nii-chan," she said, sighing with exasperation. "Remember? It doesn't matter how many times I tell him otherwise, he won't believe it unless it comes straight from you. It's up to you- if you really want to fix this, you have to take the first step and make him realise that you're still the same person inside, even if parts of you are different."

"It's up to me, huh?" he said thoughtfully, sounding like maybe he got it this time, maybe he'd finally understood. "I've just got to show him I'm still the same?"

"Yes, Nii-chan," Kotori said, letting her body go limp with relief against his. "That's all. Just let Kamui-chan know your feelings for him haven't changed."

"I think I can do that," Fuuma agreed, and Kotori smiled, feeling for the first time like she could relax and that her older brother would take care of things again, just like he used to.

She was admittedly a little worried about the speculative way he'd said that last bit, but, well, if he was up to something she could hardly stop him now, so it was best not to worry about it and just let things take their course. She was fairly certain that whatever he had planned couldn't be too bad, since she knew he wanted Kamui back just as much as Kamui wanted him. She had faith that whatever he did, it would all work out.

...In the end, anyway.

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