Princes of Rock
by Suke

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Because Witty Phantom sounded so sad about no Atozuka, Suke-san felt so bad that I have inserted some unplanned for Inukai! Witty Phantom! Inukai is especially for you!

Ooh, and because that previous statement makes it sound like Suke-san is a rabid planner, it's not true. In my 'schedule, this chapter has a 2 word description (oishi snaps) and the next chapter has 3 lines which I will now share with you to provide you -- ooh -- insider's info (The Concert!!! From Tezu's point of view. Oishi sings new song). Such is the intricacy of my planning >_<

This is actually my first Inukai attempt. They are a very cute couple but very hard to write properly so I'm not very good at it. Please be kind. Read and review. I need to know what you think!!!

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Chapter 8: Oishi Snaps

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'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Dec 24, 2003, Tuesday -- By Great Reporter Inui)

'Twas the day before the Concert, and all through the hall

Everyone was working overtime to get through rehearsal;

The director had hung himself in frustration somewhere,

Sure that his life would be better down there;

The rock stars sang on, deprived of their beds,

With visions of bashing themselves over the heads;

More creepy than anything, their slave driver he came,

The smiling Sir Banji, and called them by name;

"Now, Yuuta! Now, Atobe! Now, Wakato and agents!

On, Oishi! On Taka-san! On Echizen and assistants!

To the start of the concert! To the end of curtain call!

Now work away! Work away! Work away all!"

He looked them each in the eye and gave each a smile,

And to work they all flew at a minute a mile.

But they heard him exclaim, ere he walked out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

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"Please, we're all tired but can we try to cooperate?" The rock star raised his voice several notches to be heard above the chaos ensuing on the stage.

The rehearsal was not going well. It was supposed to be the final rehearsal too and there were only hours before the actual concert was to take place. The sound system was overloaded with the demands from the various rock stars.

The snow machine was also erratic at best, mostly spewing out wet sleet or chunks of ice. Earlier, Wakato had gotten hit in the head by a particularly large chunk and was out cold for a few minutes. Kajimoto had run around panicking until Wakato suddenly awoke and shot Mizuki a scathing remark.

And then, there were the terrible heat from angry spotlights, ripped outfits due to rushed costume changing and the inability of everybody to remember their cues after hours of dancing and singing.

Of course, the rock stars were also at each other's throats again. Atobe constantly wanted to make changes to his routines. Wakato was distracted deciding what he should say to the audience and when to get them to start their cheer. Yuuta was very grumpy. Oishi was very worried. Their entourages were submerged in heated discourse about whose employer was a bigger idiot. And Banji was smiling, which only made everyone more annoyed.

It didn't help that a reporter was present. It would be none other that the intrepid Inui Sadaharu who watched as they traded insults, screamed at each other and got into outright fistfights. There would be no becoming portraits in the newspapers tomorrow.

Well, except maybe for Oishi's. That sweet boy was still trying to get everyone to be friends. He tirelessly broke apart fights, sternly reprimanded misbehavers like they were schoolboys and offered encouragement to everyone who was looking frazzled.

"Oh, stop being such a goody-goody," Atobe scowled at the brown-eyed boy.

"What did you say?" Momoshiro immediately rushed the diva and found himself blocked by Choutarou and Kabaji.

"Momo, it's okay, don't make things worse," Oishi said.

"We know you can't be that perfect," Mizuki materialized by his side, twirling a curl prettily. "What are those rumours about you and Tezuka?"

"We're just friends, Mizuki-san," Oishi replied, smiling gently, one hand grabbing fast on his angry agent's sleeve. "Now, shall we get back to work?"

"He's an ice-cube, you know. He's probably a bad lover," Mizuki speculated.

"Oishi would need someone much hotter than that," Wakato agreed, sidling up. "Maybe your creepy bodyguard?" Wakato said, indicating the glaring Kaidoh.

"Tezuka is not an ice-cube and Kaidoh is not creepy," Oishi informed them, a little more tersely now.

"No, Oishi's lover has blue eyes and red hair like in the song," Atobe drawled from his corner. "Isn't that right, Oishi-gen?"

"That's just a pretend person, stupid," Wakato opined. "It's such an awful combination too! Blue eyes and red hair?" The tangerine-haired singer made a face.

"Oh, you think your orange hair and green eyes are any better?" Atobe laughed.

"I think blue eyes and red hair is nice," Oishi offered softly.

"What? So it is a real lover?" Atobe asked. "You really surround yourself with odd people."

"Yes, that mamushi over there for instance," Wakato added.

"And what about that spiky haired idiot you call an agent? He only knows how to get angry," Mizuki intoned. "He makes me ashamed to be an agent."

"The ice-cube Tezuka and your awful blue-eyed red-haired lover," Atobe smirked.

"BAMN! CRASH! DABAMN!"

Everyone stared at the speakers and the remains of a guitar lying on the ground beside the stage. And then, they turned slowly, almost hesitatingly, to the furious brown-eyed boy who had smashed them.

"Oh great, he's snapped. Now you've really done it," Momoshiro whispered loudly.

"What do you think you are doing?! How can you say such unfeeling things about people that you don't even know?" Oishi shouted, furious brown eyes passing over each flinching person as he spoke. "You are all terrible! You've gone too far with this! This is a concert for our fans! It's not a place to be selfish or mean! How can you call yourself human beings? You have no humanity!!!"

He swung around and swept a box of microphones off a table. And then picked up another guitar and swung it against a stage prop, splintering it into pieces. With that done, Oishi kicked at the drums, upsetting half of them and sending a cymbal crashing, and strode off the stage, down the hall and out of the door.

"Ahem," Mizuki cleared his throat in the silence that flooded the concert hall when the door banged shut.

"Woah," Wakato breathed. "I can't remember when I've ever been so impressed."

"So he is a rock star after all," Shishido swallowed. "Very scary."

They stood for a while in a widening silence, the concert less than twelve hours away and none of them feeling the least bit prepared. It was not going to be the best concert ever. It was not the best Christmas Eve they had ever had.

"Hmm," a tall, bespectacled boy said contemplatively as he stood up while scribbling a few last lines into a green notebook. "Yii data."

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There had been something akin to panic in a particular dressing room. Granted that there was little to be calm about throughout the concert hall, there was one specific dressing room where the panic factor was slightly higher.

Which was why he was here about to tap on the door to a room he very much didn't want to enter, to do something he had no pleasure in doing. He didn't even feel it was very right to do it but it was because he was the responsible one of the group that he had come. It was because he was the only one who could be depended on.

But mostly, it was because he had picked the shortest straw.

The boy took a breath and pulled the hem of his shirt to straighten it. He cleared his throat, brushed stray strands of hair away from his eyes and then, authoritatively rapped at the door.

"Come in, it's not locked," a low voice called out from within the room.

"Excuse me," he said in his most business-like tone, peering around the door as he opened it. "I am a representative from Oishi Shuichiroh's staff."

The man was seated on the edge of his bed and bent over at the waist momentarily to pick up something from the floor. He straightened up and looked at his guest, a thoughtful look crossing his face. He adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses so that they gleamed and then picked up a green notebook from beside him on the bed, the pen he had picked up in his other hand.

"How odd. I did not expect you," the tall man said, flipping through his book with long, thin fingers until he found the page he wanted. "Kaidoh Kaoru, elite bodyguard of rock star, Oishi Shuichiroh for more than two years. Graduated top in class and president of the Ikebana club."

Kaidoh blinked, taken aback and having lost his place for a moment. Why was he here? Right, of course, that baka Momo had made him come. Oishi had snapped in front of Inui Sadaharu, some reporter that Kaidoh hadn't even heard of but Momo thought was immensely important.

Kaidoh had only interest for more important matters, such as foreign affairs and crime rates, and he supposed that Inui was just one of those new-fangled modern reporters who wrote page after page of their personal opinions on unimportant matters for the main purpose of sounding smart.

Anyway, that idiot Momo had made him come up to the reporter's hotel room, so rudely uninvited and without warning, to somehow prevent Inui from publishing anything about Oishi's lapse. It was bad publicity, Momo had said, and, since Oishi wasn't really like that, would give fans a wrong idea of who the rock star really was.

They had told him to be nice and personable. And that he had to smile warmly. He didn't see why if they had wanted a smiling idiot, they didn't send Momo. Do whatever it takes, Momo had said.

Kaidoh tried to smile but because he was feeling so disgruntled about what he had been forced into, it came out rather as a half snarl. He never claimed to be friendly or sociable. He cleared his throat again.

"Oishi-san, er, was glad to see you," the bodyguard began hesitantly.

"Oh? He seemed quite upset to me," the other boy offered.

Kaidoh glared. He couldn't help it. It was a defence mechanism. Kaidoh was shy and, okay, also borderline anti-social. And somewhere along the way, he noticed that he was also really intimidating to people. On one hand, it was a great thing for him. It meant that no one would talk to him. But sometimes, he wished that people weren't always afraid of him. He couldn't help it but Kaidoh Kaoru was a very scary looking person.

Unfortunately, this tall black-haired reporter didn't seem to quite notice the fearsomeness of Kaidoh.

"But that's enough about Oishi-san. Let's talk about you," Inui said smoothly. "I was about to go out for dinner. Would you like to join me?"

The taller boy smiled and put a hand on Kaidoh's shoulder. The bodyguard blinked again at the bodily contact.

'You're a handsome enough boy,' Momo had said laughingly. 'I'm sure you'll find a way to convince him.' And then, the agent had laughed some more when Kaidoh had blushed.

Without waiting for an answer and seemingly oblivious to the other boy's inner struggle, Inui picked his jacket up from where it hung behind the door and headed out, clearly expecting the bodyguard to follow.

"Hsssssss," Kaidoh hissed.

He hated this. He didn't want to be nice to anyone, especially not this person. There was just something about the reporter that made him feel even more anti-social than usual. It was possibly this same thing that also made him blush more than usual.

But no matter how bad or confusing the situation was, no matter how lost it made him feel or how little he knew of how to deal with it, he was Kaidoh Kaoru and Kaidoh Kaoru was not someone who gave up so easily!

Thus bolstered by his mental pep-talk, Kaidoh followed the reporter out of the hotel and down the street, rehearsing possible conversations in his mind.

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"Inui-san," the bodyguard said and paused to think of a more polite way to voice his feelings. "What is this?"

This, in question, was the plate of stuff that the waiter had set before Kaidoh. They were currently seated in a small café just off the main road. Inui had declared it his very favourite café when they had entered, which made Kaidoh wonder why the establishment was so very, very empty.

Now he knew why. The food here was different; different, of course, being the operative word for inedible.

"Kurozu," Inui supplied readily. "Try it. It's good for your body."

Kaidoh found his natural self-defensive instinct struggle against his rigidly held beliefs again. He shouldn't eat the food. He might die. But then again, it would be rude not to eat the food and he did want to help Oishi. And then, there was also this overwhelming urge to just stand up and run out of the café. However, Kaidoh couldn't give up just like that!

To his credit, Kaidoh spent approximately fifteen minutes shifting his food around on the plate and trying to make decent small talk before he promptly passed out. This occurred immediately after he actually managed to put a spoonful of that stuff into his mouth.

When he came around, he was lying on a hard surface. His head hurt very badly and the vague thought came to him that if kurozu had really been food, it should be his stomach that hurt.

He sat up and forced his eyes open. He was in a kitchen, probably at the back of the café, and alone. Catching at a table to keep from falling when he tried to rise, he brushed his arm against something and it hit the floor. It was a green note book and it had fallen open.

It hurt to sit down again. It hurt to bend over. It hurt to focus his eyes to pick the book up. And he still hadn't managed to convince Inui to not write anything bad about Oishi. It was possibly one of the worst days of his life, and he did have bad days. But Kaidoh was not going to give up!

Clean even handwriting across lined pages:

"It turns out that there really is a rock star somewhere in Oishi-san. As the rehearsal progressed with great difficulties, everyone began to lose focus. Fortunately, Oishi-san was there to give them a rousing speech and remind them of their true goals. It was indeed inspiring and Oishi-san is truly admirable as a person."

It didn't really make Kaidoh all that much happier to realise that the idiot Momo had been more wrong than usual and Oishi hadn't left a bad impression with the famous reporter after all. And then, his eyes caught onto the next few lines.

"On another note, Oishi's bodyguard, Kaidoh Kaoru is also an interesting persona. He's hardworking and well-mannered, efficient and friendly and prone to blushing. He is also very cute. That he blushes so much only makes him cuter yet."

Kaidoh blushed and Inui entered the room.

"Gomen, the food here doesn't always agree with everyone," Inui apologised. "I'll be more careful next time."

He tried to reply. He couldn't give up. He was Kaidoh Kaoru and he never gave up. This was something he had based his life on since forever. But suddenly, he wasn't very sure what he was trying to hold on to and what he wasn't supposed to give up.

"Next time, we'll just go to Ajisen Ramen," Inui continued when the bodyguard didn't speak. "How about tomorrow night? I heard they have a new flavour of ramen that I want to try."

It might have been the effects of the kurozu. It might have been that he had had a long day or that he was disoriented. Kaidoh didn't know how he was feeling. Suddenly, he didn't know what he wanted.

"Hsssssss," he said.

"Great," Inui replied calmly. "I'll pick you up at six."

And surprisingly, Kaidoh didn't feel quite so confused anymore.

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No more clever puns. The Akazu has corroded through the floor tiles. The muses have run out of Hello Panda. Suke-san has been found dead in a pool of Ponta.

'Ikebana' is traditional Japanese flower arrangement. 'Kurozu' is black vinegar, another edition of akazu (red vinegar) and aoizu (blue vinegar).

Thank you for reviewing! I'm very grateful. I seem to be uploading later and later though. Gomen. Constantly behind time now.

Cheeseburger of Doom! Emily-chan! Nall-san! Yukuro-san! Regatto-san! Kusanagiluv! Deedlit elf! Rumiko-san! Arigato so much! You all are really almost all that's keeping me going!

Cheeseburger of Doom: Aw, don't say that. Your reviews are not lame! I love getting your reviews. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Emily-chan: Honto? Haha, then I would love to have your plots (Lazy Suke doesn't want to think anymore)! But really, hee, I would like to know what you think should happen ^_^ If not, feel free to use the setting and write fics! I really feel that I'm not managing to exploit the possibilities of this world to their full potential!

Regatto: Nya! No Eiji! Bad Suke-san! Gomen gomen!

Also, merry Christmas everyone! Next up is the concert chapter! Finally! As soon as I actually manage to write it ^_^ Going to sleep now! Can't wait to open presents!