The photoshoot was exactly the same as every other KAT-TUN photoshoot that Ueda had ever been to. Koki beat up on Junno, Kame glared at everybody, and Nakamaru cornered anybody he could trick into holding a script to practice his Shokura script.

Ueda just wasn't fast enough, it turned out. But, he reflected as Nakamaru told him his Fujigaya impression sucked and Koki looked up from abusing Junno to agree, he'd take a boring photoshoot any day.

It happened to be Jin's turn to watch Gackt-chan during the day, since NewS was lined up for a string of TV performances and Gackt-chan had an unnatural talent for tormenting camera men. She'd been playing quietly with her toy ponies ("Those things give me the chills," Kame had said) while Jin was in make-up and waiting his turn.

Last Ueda had seen, they were 'coloring' together, which really meant that she and Jin flipped through the newest issue of Duet and markered mustaches on all the juniors. The magazine virtually never belonged to Jin, but sometimes the markers were washable.

So he was a little surprised to feel someone tugging on his knee-length electric blue coat, but when he looked down, sure enough, there was Gackt-chan, her hair in pigtails and wearing a miniature version of Jin's costume.

Personally, Ueda thought Gackt-chan was pulling off the skirt more convincingly than Jin was.

"Uebo!" Gackt-chan hissed, apparently having learned to 'whisper' from her Pi-tousan. "I've got a big problem!"

"I know, sweetheart," Ueda said, kneeling down next to Gackt-chan and trying to rub the smudge of blue marker off the side of her nose. "But we all love your Okaasanishi just the way he is anyway."

"Noooo!" Gackt-chan batted away Ueda's hands and put her hands on her hips. "It's serious!"

Ueda let his hands drop and examined Gackt-chan's Very Serious expression. "All right, what's your problem?"

Gackt-chan reached into the pocket of her own knee-length electric blue coat and pulled something out, when she opened her hand to show Ueda, Ueda's eyes widened.

She was holding Jin's very trendy, very new, very expensive, very favorite sunglasses. They were also very broken.

"Oh god," Ueda reached over to pick up one arm, then glanced around quickly to make sure that Jin was occupied with his solo shots. "What did you DO? Stomp on them?"

"Only a little!" Gackt-chan's lower lip trembled. "Kame-chan told me to!"

"Yamashita-Akanishi Gackt-chan PINK!" Ueda scolded, carefully scooping the shards of plastic off Gackt-chan's palm so he wouldn't cut her. "You know better than to listen to Kame! And you know better than to play with Okaasanishi's things too! How would you feel if Okaasanishi broke your sunglasses?"

"But mine are pink!" Gackt-chan protested, as though the horror of such a thing were unimaginable.

"Jin's going to be furious," Ueda groaned, more to himself than to Gackt-chan. "He just bought these! He took a special trip out to Harajuku just to get these exact sunglasses…oh man, they must be in twenty pieces…"

A loud sniffle interrupted Ueda, and he looked back up to find tears spilling over Gackt-chan's cheeks.

"Gackt-chan, honey," Ueda immediately began to backpedal. "Don't…"

"I didn't MEAN TO!" Gackt-chan wailed, scrunching her face all up.

Ueda quickly dropped all the pieces into his jacket pocket and scooped up Gackt-chan, muffling her voice just as she began to cry in earnest. Gackt-chan wrapped arms around Ueda's neck and sobbed as he stood up, bouncing her gently.

"It's okay, it's okay," Ueda soothed. Across the set, Jin's head came up like a moussed prairie dog at the sound of Gackt-chan's sobs, but Ueda caught his eye and shook his head to tell Jin that he had things under control. "Don't cry, we'll fix it, okay?"

Gackt-chan took a shaky breath and asked, "Like Ryo-chan's hat?"

"I think it's going to take more than staples and glitter glue this time," Ueda sighed. He rubbed Gackt-chan's back soothingly until she was just hiccupping once in a while.

When she was calmed down, Ueda walked over to Kame, who was slouched in a director's chair, and dropped Gackt-chan heavily into his lap.

"So sorry!" Ueda smiled with lots of teeth showing when Kame yelped after taking a pink sneaker to the stomach. "Watch her for a minute, can't you? And get your wallet out, because you're completely paying to replace those sunglasses."

Ueda turned on his electric blue boot heel without waiting for Kame's response, and then sauntered over to Jin.

"Uebo!" Jin grinned when he caught sight of Ueda coming towards him, grinning and waving like he hadn't seen Ueda in six months rather than six minutes.

"So much for 'SEXY' and 'ENIGMA,'" the photographer grumbled, lowering his camera and calling for a two-minute break.

"So I was thinking," Ueda started when he was close enough to talk in an undertone with Jin, and Jin tilted his head like a confused cocker spaniel, "that you might want a little Okaasanishi-Pi-tousan alone time? Say, maybe, tonight?"

Jin stopped looking confused immediately and gave Ueda a sly grin. "Re~ally? Are you sure? Cause we've gotten pretty efficient, and we probably only need like fifteen minutes…"

"I'm sure," Ueda gave Jin a smile back, hoping it looked like a normal really-good-friend smile, nothing suspicious. "I know it's been hard to find time since our single release schedule got out of sync with NewS's. I'll take Gackt-chan out for a few hours, feed her dinner, and then bring her over to your apartment around eight, okay?"

"Uebo, you're my hero," Jin said fervently, throwing his arms around Ueda's neck and hugging him senseless. Jin was already on the phone, telling Yamapi the good news, before Ueda even managed to untangle himself from Jin's grip.

Just then the photographer called an end to the break, and Ueda laughed to himself as he ducked out of Jin's arms that Jin probably wouldn't have cared how suspicious he looked. As he walked back to Kame, he heard Jin on the phone behind him, informing Yamapi in a sultry voice, "Until eight~! That’s like almost ten fifteen minutes!"

"Perfect!" the photographer hollered over the sound of his camera snapping.

******

"Of course the train would have a breakdown," Ueda sighed, slumped on the plastic seat. He glanced down at Gackt-chan to find her swinging her feet happily and humming something that sounded like the Sesame Street version of Daite Senorita. "What're you so happy about?"

"The train's fun!" Gackt-chan informed him. Ueda had talked her out of most of her mini-costume, but she'd insisted on keeping the pigtails and the electric blue boots. "And Uebo never gets lost. Plus, there's the 'Look, It's Oniisan' game!"

"The…" Ueda sighed, wondering if he really wanted to know, but he did reach down to grab Gackt-chan's hand at the mention of being lost on the train. "The 'Look, It's Oniisan' game?"

"Mm-hmm!" Gackt-chan turned away from Ueda and tilted her head back to scan the advertisements hanging above them, then pointed with her free hand. "Look, it's oniisan!"

Ueda followed Gackt-chan's gaze, and sure enough, found an ad for Ninomiya and Matsumoto's newest drama.

"I get two points for that one," Gackt-chan informed Ueda.

By the time the train arrived at Harajuku, Gackt-chan had twenty-seven points and Ueda knew the entire winter drama schedule backwards and forwards. Ueda pulled a folded piece of notebook paper from his pocket and examined the little map sketched on it.

He turned the paper upside-down and examined it some more. Ryo's maps really sucked.

"Two streets up and one over," he murmured to himself, tightening his grip on Gackt-chan's collar when she pulled forward suddenly. "Hey, stay right next to me, you hear? You're still in trouble."

"But Ueboooo," Gackt-chan whined, tilting her head back to pout. "I know exactly where we're going!"

"Good." Ueda shoved the paper back in his pocket, then scooped up Gackt-chan and set her on his shoulders. "Then you can tell me."

Gackt-chan telling Ueda where the shop was actually entailed her relating every single stop she and Jin had made during the first trip, from the gatcha machine that sold Mister Donut charms, to the electronics store where apparently Jin had used his iPod to play KAT-TUN's latest PV on the life-size screen, to the crepe shop that kept its banana slices so cold that it made their teeth ache.

"There!" Gackt-chan finally exclaimed to Ueda's relief, yanking on his hair to turn his head in the right direction. The shop was denoted only by a tiny awning and a sign that read "TLENDY ITEMS FOR EVERY YOU!"

"I can see the appeal Jin found in it, anyway," Ueda commented, then ducked low so Gackt-chan wouldn't bang her head as they entered the shop.

He did, however, take a certain amount of pleasure in the way that the shop owner nearly burst into tears when Ueda poured the pile of sunglasses fragments out onto the counter.

*****

"I'M BACK!" Gackt-chan hollered as soon as Ueda got the door to Jin's apartment open. She wriggled until Ueda dropped her onto the hardwood in a clatter of electric blue boots, and then went clacking across the floor to find either of her parents.

Jin's jacket was thrown over the arm of the living room couch, and Ueda said a silent prayer of thanks for his lazy, messy friend as he slipped the new sunglasses into the pocket. In the next room, he heard Jin drawl, "Welcome home!"

Ueda straightened up and looked innocent just as Jin came back through the doorway, Gackt-chan in one arm and only wearing a worn pair of blue jeans. He gave Ueda a sleepy-eyed grin and nodded towards the refrigerator. "Hi, Uebo. Want a drink or anything?"

"Maybe some tea," Ueda stripped off his own jacket, then used it to shoo Jin out of the way. "I'll get it, I'm the one who put away all your groceries anyway."

"He~ey," Jin protested, affronted. "I put away things! I put away the dango!"

"If by 'put away' you mean 'ate immediately,'" Ueda snorted, making Gackt-chan laugh, and Jin gave them both a pout.

"Pi!" Jin yelled over his shoulder, back towards the bedroom. "They're being mean to me!"

"Oy, oy." Yamapi came around the corner and leaned on the doorway, looking even sleepier than Jin, hair mussed into his eyes. "What's all the shouting about? You, c'mere." Yamapi reached out to take Gackt-chan from Jin and hugged her tight enough to make her squeak happily. "Pi-tousan's making a combini run for coffee, want to come?"

"Fly with NewS!" Gackt-chan responded, waving her arms up over her head.

"That means yes," Jin leaned over to stage-whisper to Ueda, and Ueda rolled his eyes.

"I'm taking your coat," Yamapi informed Jin, setting Gackt-chan down long enough to scoop up Jin's jacket and stick his arms through the sleeves. He was patting the leather smooth against his chest when he wrinkled his brow suddenly, then reached into the pocket and pulled out the sunglasses.

Ueda held his breath while Yamapi peered at them for a moment, then held them out to Jin.

"Here's your sunglasses, you moron," he said. Jin pounced on them with a shriek of glee, and Ueda let out a breath. "Na, Ueda-kun, want to come along? Jin-chan can do a little house-cleaning while we're gone so that we can sit at a table and have coffee like normal people."

Ueda was opening his mouth to say no when Yamapi winked at him, fast enough that Ueda was barely even sure it had happened. "Sure," he said instead.

Outside on the sidewalk, Gackt-chan walking in between them and using one of Ueda's hands and one of Yamapi's to hop herself over cracks in the sidewalk, they had gone half a block in companionable silence before Yamapi said, "Thanks for the sunglasses."

Ueda started, coming to a halt for a second before Gackt-chan's momentum yanked him into motion again. "How did you know?"

"Jin sat on them yesterday morning," Yamapi shrugged. "You were had, my friend."

Ueda looked down at Gackt-chan, who flashed him a 'youngest junior ever!' smile, and Ueda snorted and shook his head. "I need better friends."

"SHOCK ME," Gackt-chan announced.