Hisashi has paced the wide expanse of the living room for the past hour. His continuous treads were muffled by the thick expensive carpeting but his mutters were clear to the fox-eyed young man who stood leaning against the side table by the window.
"Where is that kid?" grumbled Hisashi, his hard voice laced with worry.

"I'll call Hanamichi again to check," Kaede volunteered, pushing himself away from the table to walk towards the phone. Before he could reach it however, the door opened and in came Hanamichi with his jacket slung over his shoulder.

"Yo," the redhead greeted gruffly.

Not seeing the small frown on the teen's face Hisashi approached him quickly and asked, "Did you see Akira-"

"Yeah, I saw him," Hanamichi cut in, "And I talked to him, too. He said he's your real brother."

Hisashi stopped his advance to stare at the redhead in surprise. The frown on Hanamichi's face grew grim as he realised that Hisashi did not look as if he was up to making any objections. To the redhead's surprise, Kaede's expression mirrored Hisashi's which pointed out to the redhead that Kaede did indeed know about Akira's birth-right as well.

"You, too?" Hanamichi accused the younger Kanagawa angrily, "And you didn't tell Akira? I thought you cared for him."

"It's not my place to tell, aho," Kaede huffed, crossing his arms, "Remember that I'm not a real Kanagawa."

"Enough with that, Kaede," Hisashi said, "You're still my brother. And so is Akira."

Hanamichi looked back at Hisashi who turned towards him. The scarred-face man sighed and leaned against the back of a nearby couch for support.
"Outosan is a businessman. He married my mother, the daughter to a banker to secure his financial empire. Four years after I was born, he met a woman at a cafe and fell in love with her. He soon had a child with her and that child was Akira."

"So why didn't Anzai-san claim Akira as his own," Hanamichi asked, "I mean, he did allow Akira to become one of the Kanagawa by having your uncle take care of him. What's the difference?"

"Taking care and claiming ownership is a different matter," Hisashi told the redhead as he ran his fingers through his short hair, "My mother would not allow it. It would ruin her family name and our father's so outosan had our uncle take care of Akira where he could also watch over him at close hand."

"Knowing and making a claim is a different matter as well," the redhead pointed out, "Akira would not have said anything to anyone to hurt the name of your family."

"I know." Hisasi sighed. "We were also thinking about Akira's feelings. If he knew that he was actually Anzai Kanagawa's son, he would feel obliged to stay here. Being the son of the head of the Kanagawa clan comes responsibility and restrictions. He would not fit in and we don't want to change him into someone he's not. Whatever you think about us, we care for him very much."

The redhead snorted. "Then you should have thought about how he would feel when the truth came out. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"We knew that," Hisashi said, "We wanted to tell him but we... we didn't want to hurt his feelings. He's 18 and being the last one to find out who your real father is would piss him off."

"Well, he's already pissed off," Hanamichi remarked before walking around the couch that Hisashi was leaning against, and sat down.
"I'm staying here to wait for him," the redhead announced, leaning back on the couch as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"How do you know he's coming here?" Kaede asked.

"I just know," Hanamici said, glaring at the fox-eyed teen who gave him a stoic look in return.
Hisashi shook his head and walked out of the room. After a moment's hesitation, Kaede followed his brother out the door.

It was already late in the night and there was still no sign of Akira. For a minute, Hanamichi began to think that his hunch was wrong but he shook those doubts away to continue peering at the darkness through the window. When he heard the door open, Hanamichi refused to turn around to greet whoever it was who came in.

"I've brought you some warm milk," Kaede said walking up to the redhead.

Hanamichi made a non-commital sound, still not turning away from the window.

"He'll come home," Kaede said holding out the milk to Hanamichi. The redhead finally turned to face the brunette and grudgingly accepted the drink offerred to him. It was warm and sweet and it calmed his nerves as it warmed him at the same time.

"Kaede, about just now... I didn't mean to say that you and Hisashi-kun-"

"Shut up," Kaede said, not harshly, "Forget about it. We need to think about Akira now."

Hanamichi sighed. "Hai."
Not caring anymore, the redhead stepped forward and placed his arms around the brunette. Slowly, the redhead felt his embrace returned and he dwelled on the warmth with relish, the steady heart-beat of Kaede soothing his worries better than any warm glass of milk could.

Suddenly, a distant but sure sound of a car was heard and the two broke their embrace quickly to look outside the window. Sure enough, Akira's red porsche was just approaching the mansion's gate and before Kaede could move, Hanamichi was already running out of the room.

The redhead reached the front door just as Akira was stepping out of his car. As the tall brunette walked towards the mansion's front door, Hanamichi saw an expression of surprise on the young man's face at his presence.

"Okaeri," Hanamichi said, grinning as he leaned casually against the open door.

A smile blossomed on Akira's lips before he stepped towards the redhead to gaze down into the hazel brown eyes looking at him with warmth.

"Tadaima."


~~~~

Hanamichi sat at his desk, thinking of what happened at the Kanagawa mansion a few hours ago. Akira confronted Hisashi and Kaede the same night he arrived and he told them that he did not want to meet either of them for the time being, however, he assured them that he would continue his part in the drama as was stated in his contract.
Akira did not say anything about meeting or not meeting with Hanamichi himself, though with the actor's arm slung over the redhead's shoulder nearly every second, Hanamichi assumed that he was still in Akira's good graces.

"Sakuragi-kun!"

Hanamichi eeped when Haruko's face popped right in front of him. He would've stammered and get all dreamy-eyed in the past but the sweet girl has lost his appeal to him especially when he compared her to the two new young men in his life. Nevertheless, he did blush for Haruko was still as cute as ever.

"Ah! Haruko-san," the redhead said, sitting up with a sheepish smile on his face.

"Did something happen to you recently?" Haruko said, her sweet expression suddenly turned demanding to his surprise.

"A-Anoo...." the redhead stammered, shifting his eyes away from the girl, "Nothing big."

"Mou!" Haruko huffed, "You're lying."
And with that, she placed her deck of cards on the redhead's desk, fluidly taking out the first card from the top.
"See. The King of Clubs comes out first instead of the King of Spades unlike before. Something's going on between you and Sendoh-san."

Hanamichi stared at the card in her hand and suddenly his head dropped on his desk, his arms stretched forward in a show of surrender.
"WAH!! You're right!"

Haruko snickered, looking smug. "Hah. Never doubt my card-reading skills again."

Up on the rooftop, Hanamichi lay down on the warm concrete, gazing at the blue sky above. When he heard footsteps approaching him, he did not need to turn around to see that it was one of his bestfriends who came to him.

"Wanna talk about it?" Yohei asked, sitting down beside the redhead.

Hanamichi sighed. Throwing caution to the wind and replied gustily, "I don't get it. I can't stop thinking about him."

"About who?"

"Akira," Hanamichi replied, another sigh escaping his lips.

"Ah," Yohei replied, leaning back against his arms, "I don't know Sendoh-san and Kanagawa-san very well, but I do know you."

"Oh yeah?" Hanamichi said, "What do you think of me?"

"You're a softie."

"NANI?!"

Yohei chuckled at his friend's annoyed expression.
"In more words than one, you are a person with a soft heart," Yohei said before he turned his gaze back to the front to stare at nothing as he pondered on his next sentence.

"I remember your mother," Yohei continued, "She was like you. Your father was always getting into trouble and she pulls him out of it everytime. My mother talked to your mother once and I overheard your mother say that she married your father because she found out that he needed her. Other than wanting to be loved a person also wants to be needed. You are like her, I think. Do you remember the stray kitten you and I found when we were kids? You hid it in your room before your mother found out and sent it to the animal shelter. You bawled your eyes out before you made the people at the shelter promise you that it'll be safe with them."

Hanamichi blushed at that particular memory.
"It was a helpless animal. It needed to be taken care of," Hanamichi grumbled, defending himself.

"That's the point," Yohei told him, "You're a big softie. You can never say no to someone in need."

Hanamichi scrunched his eyebrows in thought. True to Yohei analysis, he realised that he began to have strong feelings for Kaede the first moment the fox-eyed teen showed his vulnerability. And he felt it the strongest after Kaede had that accident a few weeks before when he saw Kaede cry for the first time.
The same goes for Akira. As soon as he saw how much the spikey-haired brunette neeeded him last night, Hanamichi felt himself unable to let go.

Am I really like okaasan? Relying on a person's need to fall in love?
Hanamichi did not like being dependant upon a person like that, even if it meant that the person depended upon him at the same time. Thinking about Kaede, the fox-eyed teen was not one who quickly surrenders into helpelessness. The kitsune was one who would stand beside him, not behind him. It was not that Hanamichi wanted Kaede to be weak, he merely wanted the young man to be able to show that he can be weak and not hesitate to ask for help. The redhead has not seriously thought of the concept of an ideal relationship before but now, he realised that he not only wanted someone to love but to also take care of fully and completely.

Hanamichi came to this realisation as he was walking out of the school gate alone. It was a few hours past the end of school hours and area around him was nearly deserted.

Hasegawa was, as usual, waiting outside to pick him up and Hanamichi acknowledged the man's presence with a distracted nod.

"Hanamichi!"

The redhead turned around and saw Akira's form running towards him from the left side of the street. The brunette's smile was brilliant even in his exhaustion which was evident from the sweat running down his lean face.

"Akira?" Hanamichi stared at the brunette when the young actor stopped right in front of him, rested his hands on his knees and drew deep breaths of air.

"Man!" Akira breathlessly chuckled as he wiped his sweaty face with the sleeve of his jacket. "This is... really difficult. I left... to come here... straight after the shoot... this morning. I drove too fast... drove into a fence... and just about... wrecked my car. I had... to run here to catch up... with you..."

"Baka!" Hanamichi admonished the young man, "Why did you do that?"

Akira smiled, allowing himself to get his breath back before replying. "I wanted to see you."

Hanamichi blinked. Slowly, his amazed expression disappeared, replaced by one full of warmth and love. "Me, too."

Suddenly, the two young men were hugging each other as if they have not seen one another in years. Hasegawa looked scandalised.

"S-Sakuragi-san!"

Hanamichi ignored him and held Akira tighter.
"I missed you."


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