Shishido had to fly from Greece to LA when the shoot was over to talk to his other agent, Kitty, and do two interviews with magazines that had been hounding both him and his publicist, Victoria. After letting Kitty and Victoria boss him around and get as many details over his newly rekindled relationship with Ohtori, Shishido went back to his apartment.

Victoria promised to set up his flight to Japan, and Kitty had sworn she'd keep everyone off his back for at least six weeks, if not two months. Shishido didn't know what he could do, but he knew he needed to do something to express his gratitude to the two women. The fact they were diehard romantics only made him hope the next time he saw them, he could give them a happy ending to this story. The gods knew he alone wanted a happy ending to this tale as well.

Maybe just dragging Ohtori to LA and introducing them all would make the two women happy. Hell, he'd even allow them to drag him to a nightclub and ply him with liquor to get all the sordid details out of him, like they had done once before.

Shishido stuck The Spirit Room by Michelle Branch in his CD player and hummed along to the music as he started throwing clothes into a sports bag. He reached into his closet and spotted an old box he hadn't opened since it had been moved from Japan. Frowning, Shishido wrestled it out of the top of his closet and set it down on the floor.

Choutarou.

Shishido sat on the floor and traced the kanji that made up Ohtori's name. With a small smile, Shishido ripped the tape off the top of the box and opened it, breathing in the scent of old paper and the smell of home. Amazing how homesick a scent could make him. Smiling to himself, he dug into the box and came up with an old photo album.

Frowning a bit, Shishido flipped it open and laughed at the first picture he saw there. His hair was a butchered mess and he was scowling at a blue hat in his hands…

~

"Shishido-san," Ohtori admonished lightly with a fond smile, putting the camera down and taking the hat out of Shishido's hands. "You wear the hat, not stare at it."

Shishido glared up at him. "I hate hats."

"I know," Ohtori said gently.

"I want my hair back," Shishido muttered petulantly.

"Grow it out, then," Ohtori grinned, fitting the hat over Shishido's hair and kissing the senior on the corner of his mouth. "Just remember your sacrifices."

Shishido looked up at Ohtori owlishly, eyes impossibly wide, fingers going to the spot when Ohtori had just kissed him.

Why did he feel so strange…?

~

Shishido snickered at the memory. The two of them had been flirting for a year before they actually went out, and it had all started because of that stupid hat, and that silly little kiss.

Reaching out, Shishido put the CD on loop and continued to look at the photos and scraps of memories that were in no order…

~

A photo strip taken at some booth on their first date…

Shishido violently protested from being stuffed into a photo booth with Ohtori. He dug his heels into the ground and pleaded desperately, but Ohtori was bigger and stronger and had simply threatened to pick Shishido up and carry him into the booth. Shishido had rapidly complied, and bitched the whole time.

"This is stupid!" Shishido said desperately. "These photos don't even count as real photos! They're for girls who want to remember things forever! You do these at carnivals when you're crazy on sugar! Not on—"

Ohtori kissed Shishido's forehead gently, causing the older boy to blush violently. "I want to remember this. After all, I want proof that my stoic, arrogant, beautiful, stubborn senpai agreed to go on a date with awkward and bumbling me."

"You're not—"

Ohtori kissed him on the lips the moment the flash went off for the first picture…

~

At Atobe's during the summer…

Shishido was so tired and it was so hot out! He plopped himself down in the shade of one of the many trees on the green yard near the tennis courts and picked at his shirt. He was surprised none of them had dropped dead from the force of the heat.

Ohtori sat down next to Shishido and offered him a water bottle, which Shishido took gratefully. They were at the point where they didn't need to speak to understand what the other was thinking or about to say.

They sat in the shade quietly, Shishido leaning against the tree and resting his head on Ohtori's shoulder. Silently, they watched Oshitari and Atobe battle on the courts, neither giving up a single point. Gakuto was cheering wildly for his lover while everyone else waited to see how the match would turn out.

The heat had sapped all of Shishido's strength, especially since he had just spent the last forty minutes running around the court, defending against Gakuto's attacks. Moaning a bit, Shishido stretched out and laid his head in Ohtori's lap and closed his eyes.

Somewhere between Ohtori stroking his hair, the buzzing of the bugs and a few crickets chirping, Shishido had fallen asleep, curled up on his side, his head on Ohtori's lap.

~

An old newspaper with the word search half done and the horoscopes…

"So, if the horoscope says you're going to be abducted by werewolves doing the can-can who will then turn you over to be a virgin sacrifice to zombies, would you believe it?"

Shishido laughed and let his chair fall back on all four legs. "No, because it's not possible."

Ohtori heaved a sigh of relief and opened his mouth to say something.

"Mainly because I'm not a virgin. Besides, zombies can't get it up enough to want a virgin sacrifice. Now, if it was to vampires…"

Ohtori let his head fall to the table with a thump.

Shishido laughed to himself on the inside and mentally filled in another one of the word search problems. Frustrating his boyfriend could be so incredibly fun. Not to mention easy. It was so easy that it should be declared illegal to frustrate and tease Ohtori.

Not that Shishido would ever stop. It was simply too much fun not to.

~

A picture of Shishido in a rumpled bed…

The sex had been amazing. Shishido ached in places he didn't know could ache, and he felt as if some part of him was missing now. He curled up tighter in the sheets, wincing a little at the pull of muscles.

He looked around sadly and sighed a bit.

Ohtori was gone.

He was slightly depressed about that. He had hoped that Ohtori would spend the whole night and wake him up in the morning. A small part of him also wanted Ohtori to have been there to wake him up with slow, sweet sex to start the morning off perfectly.

Instead, he got a cold bed and aches for memories.

Huffing petulantly, Shishido moved to pull the duvet back over him when he saw the door open and smelled the delicious, heavenly scent of coffee waft into the room.

"Hey," Ohtori said with a gentle smile, holding out one of the mugs. "I thought you'd sleep a bit longer."

"Nuh-unh," Shishido smiled, sitting up and accepting the mug. "I'm the stubborn one who barely sleeps, remember?"

Ohtori chuckled and sat down on the bed, close enough to Shishido to imply their relationship, but far enough away to give Shishido space should he need it. "Maybe I could help with you not sleeping? You seemed to fall asleep faster last night than you have other times."

"If you're offering to sleep with me every night to make sure I get a good night's sleep, feel free to martyr yourself to the cause," Shishido murmured, taking a sip of the coffee and nearly purring in satisfaction.

Ohtori always did make a mean cup of coffee.

~

A newspaper review about a concert Hyotei was putting on and about the head violinist…

"Stop pacing!" Shishido laughed, lounging on the bed as he watched Ohtori pace back and forth, untying and retying his tie. "You'll wear a hole in the floor."

"This is the first time I've been in the lead chair," Ohtori murmured nervously. "I can't lead! I'll mess up, I know I will! It'll all fall apart and be awful!"

Shishido sighed and got up, wrapping his arms around Ohtori's waist and nipping his neck lightly. "You'll be fine. You've been practicing forever, and you know the music by heart." He batted Ohtori's hands away and fixed the tie. "Now then. Stop with the self-doubt. You're incredibly talented, and you'll do fine."

"You really think so?" Ohtori asked, slightly lost.

Shishido grinned and kissed Ohtori sweetly. "Yes, I do. You'll wind up being praised in all the papers. Just see if I'm wrong!"

And, of course, he had been right…

~

A ticket stub and PlayBill for The Vagina Monologues…

"You're taking me to a play?" Shishido blinked, shocked.

"I…er…overheard you and Atobe-san talking about what plays were coming to town recently," Ohtori said, flushing a bit in embarrassment. "So, I asked Atobe-san which one you really wanted to see, and he told me it was the American one…"

Shishido smiled brightly and threw his arms around Ohtori and kissed his soundly on the lips. "You are so amazingly sweet!"

Ohtori grinned and hugged Shishido closer. "I'm not sure what the play is, but it should be interesting, right?"

Shishido laughed and mussed up Ohtori's hair. "Oh, very interesting. It might turn your face bright red, but that would be cute. So, in any case, it's a win-win situation for me."

"S-Shishido-san!" Ohtori flushed.

Shishido laughed softly and grabbed his tie before closing his locker and pulling Ohtori out of the locker room.

~

A business card for an upscale restaurant…

Ohtori's arms wrapped around Shishido's waist from behind. "What would you say to me taking you out to dinner?"

Shishido tilted his head back to rest on Ohtori's shoulder. "Out to dinner? Where?"

"There's this new Italian place that opened up a few weeks ago," Ohtori said slowly.

"That fancy place that costs an arm and a leg and you need to be on the wait list for-freaking-ever?" Shishido asked, struggling until Ohtori's arms loosened and he could turn to face his lover. "Why…?"

"We started as an us two years ago," Ohtori said softly.

Shishido thought back and frowned. "You asked me out a year ago."

"Yes, but we'd been flirting for a year before that," Ohtori said fondly. "Remember when you were assigned to tutor me in geography?"

Shishido laughed, "You're silly, Choutarou. You count those times?"

"Of course," Ohtori said defensively. "Without that, you might never have noticed me!"

"How could I not notice the other half of my soul?" Shishido asked softly with a gentle smile. He kissed Ohtori's nose and laughed happily as Ohtori hugged him tightly.

~

Shishido smiled fondly and flipped forward a few more pages. He had forgotten how they had been; so in love with each other, doing little things that made the other happy because of a special look in their eyes, or for that tiny little smile.

So much love had been buried by hate, envy, resentment, and jealousy. Shishido knew he bore a large brunt of the responsibility for having the relationship sour when he had turned to Atobe, but the relationship by that point had been a farce anyway. Their bitterness and resentment had built from the inside, and slowly destroyed the precious moments they had shared.

Newspaper clipping of their tennis matches, more PlayBills, articles and reviews on Ohtori's concerts, various things they did together all filled the pages. Slowly, as time went on, the concerts vanished and so did their attendance to the threatres. Movies – while Shishido adored them, Ohtori tended to stay away from them – had never been big with them, so those ticket stubs had vanished all together.

Sitting in his LA apartment, vanilla and lavender candles burning and Michelle Branch fading to Collective Soul, Shishido watched his and Ohtori's relationship fall apart before his eyes in the form of pictures and slips of paper.

Medical bills had begun to pop up in the book as well, and Shishido sighed as he remembered those incidents. He never really knew what had set off Ohtori's temper back then, and he had even less of an idea now. All he knew was that he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

Something had given him another chance at a happy life with Ohtori, and hell if he was about to give it up the same way he did before.

The End

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