Prompt: 038 ~ Challenge                                                                                                                                                        May 2011©
Fandom: The GazettE
Focus: Kai x Nana
Word Count: 1,446

            Nana was in her usual afternoon spot, a loveseat tucked away at one end of the spacious warehouse the GazettE had once used for a music video. They’d grown fond of the building and they’d bought it soon after the video had been released, transforming the dingy establishment into their own private hangout. Nana was staring at the crusty cross-beams of the warehouse’s ceiling, her legs thrown up over the back of her loveseat and her hair hanging down over the edge of the seat cushion to hover above the concrete floor.

            She had her notebook knocked against her chest, angled specifically so that only she could hope to read it. Her scribbles were frequent and intense; and from her cross expression, the GazettE family knew to stay well away as things in her little writerly head were not going smoothly.

            Kai was in the loft high above her, playing video games with Ruki and Meisa. He was not-so-subtlely looking over the railing every so often at Nana as she scratched things out in her notebook angrily. For her to be frustrated to the extent of defaming rather than erasing was unusual, and rather concerning. Certain bouts of writer’s block were to be expected, but usually Nana was able to weasel her way out of such predicaments in a few hours, a day at the most.

            This was the third day in a row that Nana had been bent on abusing her notebook and Kai was beginning to think that there was some outstanding issue bothering her, one that she wasn’t telling him about.

            Meisa had noticed his concerned glances before even he had. Kai had to look directly past her in order to cast a look towards Nana after all, and having someone look past you periodically is a rather hard thing to miss. For a while she didn’t do anything, but once he’d begun to stare at Nana more than at the screen of the game he was supposed to be concentrating on, she sighed. “You should just go make-out with Uruha, already,” she said, resigned to losing one of her gaming companions.

            “What?”

            Kai’s attention had been too intently focused on Nana to have heard her correctly, it had to have been. There was no way she’d just said what he thought she had.

            “Or maybe she’s on Aoi now, I can’t remember,” Meisa murmured. She looked over to her boyfriend, who had been working on a new song but had promptly become alert to the surrounding situation as Meisa’s ridiculous suggestion registered in his mind. “Anata,” she purred, “You wouldn’t mind helping Nana-chan out, right? Take Kai downstairs and do something creative with whipped cream.”

            The band members around her simply stared, slack-jawed, as she added, “Oh, you could threesome it with Uru-chan, that way it would work out perfectly no matter which prompt she’s working on!” To the men listening, it was as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head, one that only spoke Italian.

            Meisa didn’t seem to notice one bit as she added, “I think it’d be hilarious if Uru-chan topped.”

            The silence just then was so thick Kai quite reasonably began to fear that he would suffocate. Aoi saved him after a moment, demanding, “Meisa, what on earth are you talking about?”

            “Nana’s challenge.”

            “Challenge?” Kai was still a bit too dazed by Meisa’s suggestions to sound as affronted as Aoi. Of course, Aoi had more reason to be affronted as well, it was his girlfriend that was making these outrageous suggestions for his hypothetical sexual exploits after all.

            Meisa looked her friends over carefully. Ruki was bright-eyed with avid interest, the only one of the three Gaze members to apparently be in on joke. Meisa gave him a smile that made the others shiver as she said, “I can’t believe she hasn’t told you.”

            “Told us what?” Kai’s fear that something external was occurring to upset his normally chipper girlfriend had been inflamed in an instant.

            Meisa giggled, holding on to her secret for just a moment more. “She’s been challenged! She has to write 100 little stories in 5 days. Since today’s Thursday, she should be getting to the end of them,” Meisa explained adding, “She’s frustrated because she’s running out of ideas.”

            The first to make the connection as Kai sat confused, Aoi groaned. “What kind of stories?” he asked, not really needing to hear the answer to know it.

            “Fanfiction,” Meisa chirped. “Of you guys.”

            Ruki was grinning as Kai asked, “Really?”

            Meisa nodded and mentioned, “I know there was a string of prompts in the thirties that were giving her problems so she’s been putting them off. But with time running out, she’s having to go through them all at the end. It’s the more erotic sort, the kind with intense yaoi pairings that you guys don’t really give any good inspiration for, that’s the problem.”

            “Nana-chan writes slash fics, about us?” Kai was in a moderate state of disbelief. He’d known she wrote GazettE fanfiction, but the ones he’d read were all based off the happenings of their daily lives; happenings that involved het pairings and cute band antics, nothing really dramatic or scandalous.

            “She’s the best Gaze writer there is, the internet says so,” Meisa affirmed. “She gets your personalities perfectly, which is why she just has nothing to work with for some of these prompts!”

            Another moment passed in stifling silence as Meisa and Ruki exchanged devious grins. “I’m not kissing Kai,” Aoi stated bluntly out of the blue, just in case anyone was questioning it. He was all but glaring at the completely innocent leader.

            “Did Nana-chan include you girls in these stories?” Ruki asked.

            “Nah, not these ones.”

            “Shame, I like her het fics.”

            “She’s usually a het writer,” Meisa replied, agreeing. “My favorite was the one where she had Kitty and I trade places for the night and I managed to snap a picture of Reita’s whole face!”

            Ruki laughed, in perfectly inverse proportion to Aoi’s displeased grumble, saying, “That was a good one!” Aoi tried to pretend that the reason he got up and squeezed onto the couch in front of the television wasn’t simply so that he could pull Meisa on his lap to mumble at her in malcontent. Reita may have been downstairs with the others watching a movie, but he was still technically in the same building, and that was far too close for Aoi’s current comfort level.

            Meisa only laughed and kissed him on the cheek before dragging him into another round of video games. He stole Kai’s controller, leaving the disconcerted leader to wander downstairs in search of food. Uruha was in the kitchen when he arrived, waiting for a few servings of ramen to heat up.

            At first, Kai didn’t think anything of it, but when he leaned in to the refrigerator to hunt down something tasty, his eyes landed on the whipped cream Kitty always made sure they kept in stock. He reached for it unconsciously as Nana squealed in frustration and ripped a page out of her notebook and flung it as hard as she could at the ceiling.

            The cool cylinder was in the drummer’s hand as he closed the fridge, looking from his girlfriend to his bandmate. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of anything to do with the sweet fluff; oh no, he had plenty of ideas of what he could do with it. The issue was with finding a way to survive the fits of laughter that would inevitably ensue.

            Uruha sensed Kai’s strange aura, and though he had no idea what the drummer was thinking, he didn’t want to stick around to find out. He grabbed his ramen the moment the microwave dinged and rushed out of the kitchen. Kai was left alone with the can of whipped cream in his hand.

            He was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of Nana’s giggle. She was leaning over the counter on the kitchen’s island, grinning at him knowingly as she asked, “Have you been talking to Meisa?”

            “Maybe,” he replied sheepishly.

            “You shouldn’t believe a thing she says,” Nana announced. She came around the counter and took the whipped cream away from Kai. She put it back in its place after quickly shooting a swirl into her mouth. She laughed, saying, “Like I’d be working on anything with you and Uru-chan, ha!”

            “You’re not?”

            Kai was more confused than ever.

            “Of course not!” Nana chirped, leaning up to kiss Kai’s cheek before skipping back towards her chair. Looking back to Kai with a grin she winked. “I’m doing a string of AoiHa right now, I finished everything about you one day one.”

                                                                        ♡♥Finite♥♡