Yuki Eiri leaned into his office, shirt unbuttoned, coffee in one hand and jacket in the other, trying to figure out just where the hell his damn manuscript was. Of all the mornings for Shuichi to have off without telling Yuki, it had to be the one where he'd been depending on the brat's alarm clock to wake him up. He'd been counting on having some time to kill while he drank some coffee and cleared his head, and instead here he was, late already, and scampering around the apartment like…well, like Shuichi usually did.

It was too early in the course of writing this novel for this sort of mayhem.

"Yuki?" Shuichi stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, wearing only a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His hair was standing up wildly in all directions. "What's going on?"

"I'm late for a meeting with my editor!" Yuki snapped. He spotted a stack of printed pages half under another stack of papers with relief. "Go back to bed. Don't expect me to nurse you when you get pneumonia wandering around naked like that!"

"Sure, Yuki," Shuichi yawned again and turned to go. He called over his shoulder, "Don't forget your manuscript! It's…"

"I know, I know!" Yuki jerked on his jacket and snatched up the stack of papers, then rushed for the door, barely pausing long enough to shove his feet into his shoes before slamming the door shut behind him.

He made up some of the lost time once in the car by speeding riotously through the city, blowing through stoplights and scattering pedestrians like pigeons. When he strolled into the café, he was close enough to his usual lateness that Miku merely rolled her eyes and held out her hand for the manuscript. Eiri dropped it onto the table in front of her and hailed the waiter to order the strongest coffee possible.

"My, this is a pretty good first effort for you," Miku commented, flipping quickly through the pages. "Usually I have to drag the first fifty pages out of you one at a time."

"Mmm," Yuki answered noncommittally. It was actually a terrible first chapter and would have to be entirely re-done, but by the time Miku set up their next meeting to tell him that, he would have figured out what the novel would really be about.

His coffee had barely arrived when his cell phone began to shrill some ridiculous pop song. The brat must have changed his ring tone again. Glancing down at it, Yuki gritted his teeth when he saw Shuichi's name on the screen.

That idiot knows I'm having a meeting, Yuki snarled mentally as he hit the 'ignore' button. On the other hand, Shuichi had the attention span of a retarded hamster, after all, and it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he had forgotten in a moment of excitement. Sometimes he took the hint of being shunted off to voice mail.

And other times, he called back right away.

"Miku," he sighed, setting down his coffee in defeat, "I'm going to have to take this."

"Hm?" Miku looked up from the manuscript for a moment. "Certainly, go right ahead."

Yuki hit 'answer' and growled into the phone as nastily as he could while still wearing a mostly pleasant expression.

"Dammit, brat, I told you I'm having a meeting!"

"Yuki!" Shuichi exclaimed. "I love your voice, you give me shivers even over the phone!"

"Why aren't you asleep?" Yuki brought a hand up to rub his temple.

"I can't sleep in the bed when I'm all alone! It's too big and cold and I miss you!"

"Fabulous. Entertain yourself, I have to go." The hand migrated from his temple to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"But Yuki…"

"Dammit, I'm trying to talk to Miku about my novel! She's reading the manuscript right now, so I cannot talk to you, do you understand?!"

"But Yuki!" Shuichi finally got a word in. "That's what I'm trying to tell you! You forgot your manuscript!"

"What?" Yuki flicked his glance over to his editor, who sure didn't seem to be a reading a figment of his imagination. "What are you talking about?"

"It's still sitting here on the table," Shuichi continued, and Yuki heard the sound of some pages rustling. "With a big pink sticky note that says 'Don't forget me and also Shuichi loves Yuki'."

"Shuichi, I have the manuscript here. Miku is reading it right now."

"Well, I don't know what she has, but it isn't your manuscript. And this is a terrible first chapter by the way, it starts out with half the characters dying!"

Yuki had a very, very bad feeling about this. He leaned a little further away from Miku and hissed into the phone.

"What was on my desk this morning then, all printed out?"

"On your desk?" Shuichi's voice was suddenly much quieter. "Oh…er…"

"Shu…" Yuki's voice went dangerously soft. "What is Miku reading?"

"You know how you wrote that story the other week? The one about," Shuichi coughed, "you know, the one that I liked?" Yuki was silent. "The one that I really liked? It must have got pushed under the couch when we were…really liking it…and I found it when I was cleaning up the living room and put it back on your…"

Yuki hung up on Shuichi and shoved the phone back in his pocket, frantically trying to come up with some way to explain this to his editor, who was still reading very, very intently. Yuki cleared his throat.

"Oh!" Miku looked up suddenly, cheeks flushed bright pink. "Oh, Eiri, this manuscript…"

"Yes, about that," Yuki began, but was immediately cut off.

"It's brilliant!" Miku picked up her glass of ice water and took a long sip. "If you write me two hundred more pages of this, we'll both be millionaires."

Yuki stared at her.

"I know it's a bit of a risk having a novel with two male romantic leads," Miku gushed on, and Yuki fought a wince, "but some young women find that very sexy, and with the popularity you have already, I think we could break a whole new market wide open!"

Nothing Yuki did could stop the tide of praise for the idea that Yuki had had absolutely no intention of having, and before he knew it, Miku had made him promise not to change a thing and to have another chapter done in a week.

Somehow, Yuki had gone from writing those kinds of novels, to writing those kinds of novels. He felt the headache of the century coming on.

"You know," Miku said as they were getting up to leave, "showing initiative like this isn't like you at all. Shindou must be having quite the effect on you, hmm?"

Then she actually winked at him. Yuki's hands twitched with the need to strangle something.

"I'll be having quite the effect on him when I get home," Yuki promised, smiling grimly.