Hey! Thanks for the lovely reviews and for keeping with this despite my ridicliously long breaks between chapters.
I work as an artist and just signed up to a new gallery so have had a tonne of work on, I'm absolutely knackered so not much free time for writing. I've just got a bit of time off between commissions so thought I'd take the oppotunity to add a longer chapter, as the Churchill advert would say "ooooh yes!" (Apologies to non British who that will make no sense to whatsoever).
I'm taking this rare spot of time off to go to the dogs tonight, my lad should be racing but he got his card marked for messing about so he's having a nice early retirement eating sausages and refusing to run unless a cat is involved *rolls eyes*
Anyway you don't want to hear my life story, here's another chapter. Please R&R!

G x

Kazu let himself sink onto his bed, kicking off his shoes and letting his eyes close for a moment as he let out a long sigh. Leaning back he reached to the nightstand where his small CD player stood, switching it to the familiar radio station it was tuned into, turning up the volume despite the fact that the song currently playing was one he particularly didn't care for. He just wanted the noise to blare out the day and hopefully the oncoming headache that threatened. Stress headaches were always the worse.

He hadn't been particularly stressed shopping with Damien yet it was still shopping, something he could never quite understand peoples liking for - especially when it came to clothes. True, he'd often found himself online for hours at a time searching for new trainers or a hoody or hat he particularly wanted, but dealing with the hustle of the shops and how hot they got… it just didn't seem the kind of thing to get you excited. He wanted to go in, pick up what he wanted, and leave. Simple as.

Today it was new wheels for his AT's, his old ones were threatening to turn square if he rode on them any further, so push came to shove and he found himself trawling through a ridiculous amount of options trying to weed out the best for him. As each rider rode their own technique when it came to skating the market for different types had grown massively in the last year, ball bearings and different types of plastic and metal dominating the competition and creating an endless option. Even the cavemen who had invented the wheel would have been amazed. There were shops surfacing that sold nothing BUT wheels!

It wasn't really shopping he was annoyed with, hanging out with Damien kept his mind off the one thousand things he'd happily forget, it was not hanging out with Damien that brought them all crashing back into his mind to tackle head on.

Ayaka hadn't exactly been over the moon when he'd finally turned up home at nearly ten at night, a long conversation about responsibilities and what mom and dad would have said had been a pretty obvious event in the pipeline. Kazu knew he deserved it, Ayaka shouldn't have been effected by the blondes silly problems and he knew he was beginning to really stress her. She had enough on her plate to worry about her younger brother going AWOL.

It scared him how observant girls seemed to be sometimes, she knew his issues were majorly effected by the sudden lack of appearances by the crow, the blonde was usually over at his place ninety percent of the time or vice versa, the sudden halt was probably a lot more obvious than Kazu would care for.

Ayaka was worried about him, she stressed this more by the day, going out of her way to make him proper meals instead of leaving him to his own devices of grabbing whatever was in the cupboard. She was leaving him notes with smiley faces and kisses, asking him to ring mom and dad and questioning him about school and the team. Not to get him wrong, she was there for him whenever he needed her in the past but this level of commitment was something altogether new and if he was honest, quite welcomed.

Avoiding Ikki often meant avoiding his other friends, he wasn't as close to them as the crow so even if they weren't with the taller teen they'd usually be busy doing their own thing. Kazu wasn't someone who was going to trail after people just to feel like her belonged.

He sighed loudly and rubbed his eyes, lately his head seemed to be doing too much and he could never seem to switch off, even before the problems with Ikki he'd been finding it hard keeping up with school work and everything that seemed to be going on. The blonde wouldn't have minded a bank holiday or a snow day to pop up just to give himself time to catch up with everything.

Eyeing his desk which was currently overflowing with text books, paper and sticky notes he growled inwardly, he needed to be concentrating on work, not the crow and not ways of avoiding his issues altogether. Hanging with Damien was great for distracting himself from it all but it didn't make the pile of work or revision any smaller and it certainly didn't make the issues he had with Ikki go away.

He'd have to sort it, not just the work but Ikki and what the hell he was going to do. He was so angry with the crow and so frustrated that the teen hadn't really put any effort into making things better, but feeling like that wasn't going to make Kazu feel better. No, it made him feel like shit.

It was late and Ayaka probably wouldn't be too impressed but she didn't understand the whole situation like he did, she didn't understand the necessity to get this huge overhanging issue dealt with before it completely ruined everything else. She sure as hell wouldn't be impressed if it led to him failing all of his exams.

Without bothering with his AT's - they still needed the new wheel - Kazu grabbed his coat and shrugged it back on, pulling his beanie over his head and taking a deep breath.

Screw Ikki, this was going to get sorted whether he liked it or not.

Ikki lay sprawled on the sofa, TV blaring nonsense whilst his headphones blasted into his ears. Screw his carbon footprint, his eyes got bored if it was just music and his ears got bored with the TV ranting nonsense at him. Genius really.

He was humming along knowing full well he was currently driving the rest of the household mad, sympathising in turning the TV down one sound level before continuing his crusade against boredom. It might have been late but he was finding it hard to switch off so had put all of his attention into switching anything he could find ON.

Suddenly he felt his hair being yanked back and looked up to see Ringo hovering over him saying something, he spared one ear and frowned.

"Come again?"

She looked so pissed off, eyes glaring and probably on the verge of doing something a lot worse than just pulling the crow's hair.

"Kazu's been stood at the door knocking for the last ten minutes, care to explain how you didn't hear?"

He blanched, pulling the headphones off completely and grabbing the remote to turn off the TV. Jeez, how bad did he look? Probably looked like he was ignoring the kid!

Spinning round he saw the blonde stood in the doorway looking awkward and not meeting his eyes, he shuffled from foot to foot and pulled his coat further round himself despite the fact that the house was toasty warm.

"Erm…" Ikki sent a sympathy look to Ringo, eyes pleading for some help. "Music was on and TV was…"

"I know!" Ringo growled, eyes turning to slits and she swore under her breath. "I bloody know…" She turned and strode out the room leaving the two boys standing uncomfortably and looking thoroughly lost.

Kazu spoke quickly, eyes darting up and glaring at Ikki, the anger he'd held since the other day still just as apparent.

"We need to sort things out, I just need…" He took a deep breath and spoke quickly. "I need to know what the hell happened between us and I need to know what you've been thinking, cause I sure as hell can't figure it out and it's driving me insane seeing you act like nothing's fucking happened!"

Ikki glared, mouth trying to form words and failing miserably. Surprised at how up front the blonde was being and how he'd got that all out without backing down or running away. This wasn't the Kazu Ikki knew, it was almost scary how unfamiliar it was. In the last few weeks their friendship had taken a severe battering.

"You're really pissed, huh?" He didn't wait to see the look on the blonde's face, letting himself flop back onto the sofa and trying to slow his thoughts down to something that could make his words clear. "Jeez, I don't know what to fucking say Kaz… I don't know what the fucks going on and it scares me stupid." He glanced over the arm rest at Kazu, the smaller boy was still stood in the doorway looking white faced and nervous, eyes wide as he took in the crows words.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He muttered, taking a step forward before stopping himself. "Don't know what?"

Ikki hated conversations like this, not that there'd ever been one quite like this one but the awkwardness of explaining something that made you wish the ground would open up and swallow you was not a great feeling.

"I don't know what's going on in my head and I don't know how to tell you what's going on… cause I don't know!" Did that even make sense? Damn. At least there weren't onlookers, he'd been scared stupid wondering when the blonde would finally snap and preferred it to be somewhere he could try and keep his idiocy to a minimum. "After what happened… erm… with you and me."

His eyes locked with Kazu's to check he was following, the blonde offered a nod to continue.

"Well… I didn't expect it but it wasn't… bad… but then Suki and everything and… I don't fucking know what happened! I don't know how the fuck to make it right and everything that comes out of my mouth seems to make you hate me even more than you obviously already do!"

Deep breath, his heart was actually pounding in his chest now. A sickly feeling building in his throat as he dreaded how his best friend would react.

"I don't hate you."

Huh?

"Eh?"

The blonde took another step forward and looked down at Ikki from the end of the sofa. "I said I don't hate you. I do however hate what you're doing."

"How'd you mean?" Ikki sat up so that they were closer, Kazu's face had softened slightly.

"You and all of this Suki shit! Do you honestly like her? Other than the fact that she's probably the best looking girl in the school, you honestly like her?"

Ikki didn't need a moment to think, course he didn't, she drove him mad and the moment he finally got away from her she was stalking him via text. She was probably the most annoying person he'd ever met. Of course answer Kazu would require more tactile thinking… which Ikki didn't have access to.

"Erm… well…" He screwed up his face and sent a begging look to Kazu hoping to hell it didn't have the same effect as the one he'd sent Ringo. "Can we just say that it's not going to be going on much longer?" Breaking up with Suki, this could be his death warrant but it was that or put up with girly shopping trips and incessant whining. Kazu didn't reply, he just gave that long hard stare that was one familiarity in a sea of difference. "No. I don't like her."

Kazu sighed and finally let himself relax, sinking down onto the sofa and looking like a huge weight had been lifted from his chest, picking up the TV remote and flicking it back on as the crow stared at him in bewilderment.

Well the kid was strange, there was no doubt about that. Maybe it was why the had always been best friends.

"So…" Ikki grabbed the controls off the blonde and started flicking. "What's happening?"