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When Omi got to Yohji's house, his old bandmate poured him some iced tea and walked him out to the pool. They stretched out on the deck chairs and talked.

Yohji looked good. Better than he had in years, really. He'd gained weight, but it was good weight, healthy weight. He'd gone from being ghost pale to tan, and his hair was thicker and pulled back in a ponytail. Everyone had wanted to fuck Yohji, back in the day, and almost everyone had...but he looked better now. Almost edible, with the sun burning on his neck and the medallion of his choker resting at the hollow of his throat.

The pool was Olympic-sized; Yohji hadn't put it in, but he'd cleaned the place up, and now the elaborately tiled pattern gleamed back up at them through the water.

"It's really nice here," Omi said.

"It's paradise," Yohji said. "Hey. You can keep a secret, right?"

Omi smiled. "You know I can."

"Don't tell the others yet. But...Asuka's pregnant."

"Yohji-kun!" Omi got up to hug him. Yohji's embrace was warm, and Omi realized that that was a lot of what he missed; just the companionship, the trust, having a warm, real human being near you who wasn't counting on you for their next paycheck. "Congratulations."

"You should come out here," Yohji said into the top of his head. "It's nice. You could be near Ken."

"I'm...I'm not ready to quit yet," Omi said. "I'm sorry."

"You gotta do your thing, kid," Yohji said. "You're still young. Maybe you can retire here, like me."

"Yeah," Omi said, and smiled against his chest.

"I'm better out of it, you know that," Yohji said, and stroked his hair. "God knows Ken's better out of it. You should go solo."

"Maybe," Omi said.

 

Ken took him for a walk. Arizona had been nice, but Southern California looked like a movie set, even out on a twenty-acre estate with tall, elegant fences. Maybe especially on a twenty-acre estate with tall, elegant fences.

Ken showed him the duck pond, and the spa, and the patio where he usually had tea in the afternoons. He grabbed a couple sticky buns and some tea, and they sat outside in the sun and talked. "They want me to become a peer counselor," Ken said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think I'll do it. I mean...I'm happier out of it, you know? And...too much temptation back there."

The rehab center was very nice. And Ken did seem happier.

Ken hugged him tight when he left, and Omi closed his eyes for a moment and tried to pretend it was still early days, when no one knew who they were, before the first teen magazine cover and the record sales and the groupies and the needles.

Ken wouldn't ask him to come into his world any more than he'd ask Ken to go back to his. Omi knew it.

It didn't make it hurt any less.

 

He was staring at the departure schedule when he heard the voice over his shoulder. "Fujimiya next, I assume?"

He started. He knew the voice, but it took him a moment to place it. "Naoe-san."

Nagi Naoe was wearing jeans and an American t-shirt that said something Omi couldn't quite translate. He looked older, sleeker, taller. Omi hated him for it, for a moment. The one thing they'd had in common was being the youngest ones, the awkward ones, and Naoe had left awkward long behind. Long bangs hung over his face, and he looked....

Damn.

"The gossip pages have been busy," Naoe said, his eyes scanning the flight schedules. "The Sun has Hidaka checking himself out of rehab."

"He's not checking himself out of anything," Omi said, setting his eyes on the nearest Starbucks and forcing his body to follow. "If you'll excuse me."

 

Nagi had fully expected Tsukiyono Omi to be on his way to New York, so it was something of a surprise to meet him in the first class compartment of his Hong Kong flight. He must've skipped the lounge altogether.

Deciding it was fate, he slipped his headphones on and listened to the mashup again.

It was a good mashup, a damn good one; the voices blended smoothly, evenly, like the piece had been written that way. It wasn't a bad idea, really. Probably. Maybe.

He opened up his email and found Crawford's address.

Where the hell did you get this from anyway?

He didn't have to explain what. Crawford would know.

To his surprise, the reply came immediately.

The mixer herself. Wants to be a producer when she grows up. Should I give you her email?

Nagi tapped his fingers against the edge of the laptop. Yes.

Tsukiyono Omi was three rows ahead, on the aisle, to Nagi's left. He wasn't dressed like an eight-year-old whore, which was disconcerting. He had been wearing a suit, and he appeared to have taken the jacket off. A white shirt, probably linen, no vest.

Nagi went back to his laptop.

It was going to be a long flight; he'd downloaded podcasts for all of it, but doubted they'd hold his attention. He hated flying. Too many things left to chance, and he could hardly ever sleep on long flights, sleeping pills or not.

He tapped his fingers against the keys; not typing, just...thinking. A flight attendant leaned down toward him, and he waved her away before she could bother him with questions.

 

Omi took a sleeping pill and washed it down with a scotch and soda. He slept well.

He woke up, and Nagi Naoe was straddling him. He smelled like expensive cologne, and his eyes were a darker blue than Omi remembered. He leaned into Omi's face and kissed him, hard--

Omi woke up. He cursed to himself. Where the hell had that come from?

There was a card on his tray table. The front side said, simply, Naoe Nagi. On the flip side was a handwritten email address.

Well, at least one thing was explained. Omi frowned in annoyance and woke his laptop up from sleep. He typed What? into the body. Outlook asked if he wanted to send a message without a subject. He rolled his eyes and clicked yes.

Nagi's reply didn't have a subject either. Listen to this. The only other thing in the message was a SendSpace link.

Omi hesitated. What is it?

It's a song, moron. Listen to it.

He clicked the link. There was a pop-up ad pushing the latest single from 'German sensation Tot,' which was one too many layers of irony thick for his tastes. The song was labeled 'NagOmi remix 2.0.'

He downloaded it. He listened.

 

He was listening to the last of his Slate podcasts when Tsukiyono Omi squatted in the aisle in front of him. "Where'd you get it?"

Nagi resisted the temptation to smirk. "Crawford forwarded it on. It's starting to pull some buzz."

Omi looked disgustingly well-rested; Nagi assumed a sleeping pill, as sedately as he'd slept when Nagi left him the card. Nagi envied him his trust, and resented it, a little. "It's good."

Nagi nodded.

"So why are you sending it to me?"

Nagi rolled his eyes. "Why do you think?"

"Okay," Omi said. "What's in it for you?"

Trusting he might have been, but Omi wasn't stupid. "The Japanese market," Nagi said. "Schwarz did well internationally but we never broke through there."

Omi's turn to smirk. "You want to do well back home."

Nagi shrugged. "I know it's stupid," he said. "But I don't want to go solo, either. And Farfarello retired..."

Omi bit his lip. "What about that album Crawford keeps says he's working on? The next Pet Sounds or whatever?"

"I think it's the next Chinese Democracy."

"Ouch." Omi glanced over; Nagi's seatmate was getting annoyed. "C'mon, you want some okayu? I put some in the rice cooker back in LA."

 

Nagi poked at his okayu. "I haven't had this in years."

Omi shrugged. "I like it when I travel." Mom had made it, when he was a kid. It was...comforting, maybe. "So you want to work together." He figured he'd better say it out loud, at least once.

"A single," Nagi said. "We could make an album if it picked up."

Omi took his iPod out. "Yeah. And if it didn't, it'd just be a single...."

"Probably a cover, they're hot right now. Save us time, too."

There was the song. Omi handed the iPod to Nagi. "What about this?"

"You have Pet Shop Boys on your iPod? You really are gay."

Omi ignored him and found the song. "Just listen," he said.

 

Nagi took the iPod back to his seat and listened. To his irritation, the song was perfect. He Googled the lyrics to try to find something wrong with them, and they were remarkably good for an English song.

"Okay," he said, back at Omi's seat. Both their seatmates were getting irritated, but Nagi certainly didn't care. "You're right. Are you the old lady or the rentboy?"

Omi suppressed a giggle. "I don't know."

The mp3 player moved over to the next song: Prince. Nagi looked at him suspiciously. "This doesn't suck. What's it doing on your player?"

Omi kicked his ankle. "Let's talk in Hong Kong."

 

They booked the private room at Cafe Deco.

Nagi looked at him like he was out of his mind. "How can you eat those?"

"They're oysters," Omi said. "What's wrong with you?" He scooped another one out with his finger.

"Gross." Nagi opened his laptop.

"Are you six?"

"Sixteen," Nagi said. He sounded slightly self-conscious about it. "I've got this song...."

"Yeah?" Omi licked his fingers off. Nagi looked like he was staring, so he stopped. "Would it work?"

"It might. I don't know. We'd have to get someone to arrange it. I was never--"

"I did most of the arrangements," Omi said, "for Weiss." He reached out and swung Nagi's laptop around. Finale was already open.

"It's not--"

Omi was already playing the music in his head. Not bad; solid melody, though the chorus could use some work. He bit his lower lip and reached for the keys. "You mind?" he asked, as he started typing.

"Knock yourself out," Nagi said faintly behind him.

 

Omi had taken his jacket off and loosened his tie. Nagi could see down the collar of his shirt.

It was...distracting.

More disconcertingly, Omi was taking the music seriously. Very seriously. Weiss had been a horribly twee band, but they had a definite sound, and their arrangements had been very good.

Crawford would hardly look at anything Nagi'd done. Omi was improving it.

"Why are you doing this?" Nagi blurted out. "Why are we--?"

Omi swung around in his chair, and the bright blue of his eyes was just as startling at half a meter as it'd been in the publicity photos. "I want to make music. Don't you?"

Not enough. "You can do that in your apartment."

Omi smiled. "No one's listening in my apartment."

"So what, you want to be heard?"

Omi shook his head. "Not that emo. I want everybody to hear. Don't you?"

"I don't know," Nagi said, considering it. "I liked the girls too."

"The girls were okay," Omi agreed. "C'mon, we'll book a hotel room. Forget about Tokyo. We'll record here. Start some rumors."

"Okay," Nagi said. "Yeah."

 

They booked a suite at the Mandarin under Takatori Mamoru. "I might start recording under that," Omi explained. "Now that I make more money than they do, the family's considering accepting my pursuit of a recording career."

It was rare for Nagi to meet someone more cynical than himself. He enjoyed it, especially knowing it was hidden behind Omi's angelic face. If he wasn't careful, he might have to admit to himself that he was enjoying Omi. He was...fun, sort of, and he talked to him less as a kid and more as an equal.

And yeah, he was pretty.

Omi shrugged off the porters and carried his luggage up himself. Nagi watched him and wondered how he got so normal. He'd heard a lot of rumors-- and of course, everybody knew about that thing where he dated his sister for a while-- but a lot of his past was still a mystery, even from the tabloids. He was stronger than he looked, too, at least if the way he handled the bags was any indication. But of course he probably had his own personal trainer, too.

It was nice to be free from all the people; the trainers, his manager, the press. Nagi wondered how long it would last.

The suite was nice; not on the top floor, as they'd decided it would attract too much attention, but close. It was modern and cool, and the television was satisfyingly large. Nagi walked over to the window and looked out at Hong Kong.

"There's a television in the bathroom, too," Omi said. "This place is ridiculous."

Nagi grinned. "Are you complaining?"

"No," Omi said, coming out. "You want coffee?"

"Yeah," Nagi said. "Thanks." There was a giant spotlight in the corner of the room; Nagi turned it on and aimed it at Omi as he started making coffee.

Omi looked over and squinted at him. "Knock it off," he said, but he was smiling. "At least close the shade."

"What, you don't want the paparazzi to eat?" Nagi shut the light off.

"Not tonight," Omi said, as the coffee started bubbling. "I'm tired."

"You slept."

"Sleeping pill," Omi said. "You didn't take one?"

"They make me paranoid."

"So does breathing, from what I heard."

Nagi threw a pillow at his head, and Omi ducked, laughing. "It must be true!" he said, so Nagi found the second pillow from the bed and threw that one, too. Omi grabbed it in the air and swung it like a weapon; Nagi dove for the free pillow, and the battle was on.

Omi had a surprisingly strong right arm, and he was disconcertingly good at ducking, but Nagi was faster and more flexible, and they were pretty well matched. Nagi had Omi pinned against the bed and was trying to make him eat his pillow when the knock came at the door.

Nagi looked down. Omi's thighs were solidly pressed against his. "Um," Omi said. "We should get that."

 

The bellhop had a bottle of complimentary champagne from the management.

"Aren't we underage?" Nagi asked, as Omi popped the cork.

"Not in Hong Kong. Didn't they tell you?"

Nagi looked slightly put out. "No," he said.

"You're safe here," he said, turning the glasses over. "No minimum at all in Hong Kong."

"I can't believe you got that open without spilling it all over the place."

"Practice." Omi didn't mention it was practice pouring drinks for Ken. That was over now, anyway. "Toast?"

"Yeah, sure. New beginnings, or some crap like that?"

Omi suspected Nagi's disrespect for formalities and anything resembling politeness could get grating. But it was pretty funny. "Yeah."

They clinked their glasses together, and Omi considered it a triumph when Nagi grinned at his first sip.