Author's Notes: And here it is! The first chapter of the 'One Week in Heaven' sequel! I'm so excited!

The first chapter of this isn't long at all. It's not really a prologue, but it's really similar to one. I don't want it to officially be a prologue, that is. It's just chapter one of a series that will be... I-don't-know-how-many chapters long. Any way, even if the series is three chapter or thirty (both of which I seriously doubt), I'll still have fun writing it. I have a basic plot going for the story, but now I just have to finish the minor details.

Anyway, I'll be writing this story during band camp and school starts in three weeks. So, needless to say, updates might take a while. I'm sorry, but I can't rearrange the school schedule. ;;

So, without further adieu, here you go! The first chapter of 'Differences in Like and Love'.

Differences in Like and Love
Chapter One:Five Years Later

It had been five years since I made the single biggest mistake of my lifetime. Well, more like five and a quarter, but whatever. Still, the fact remains that moving out of Japan was definitely the stupidest thing I had ever done, but there was no use moping over spilled milk, or so the saying goes.

Five years had not passed easily. At first, it was absolute hell finding a good apartment in New York City. The place is filled to the very brim with people and the like, but I finally was able to find a good and spacious apartment in the middle of Manhattan. The only catch? The rent was an arm and a leg. Seeing as I could theoretically only make two rent payments on my own, I decided to ask my parents to help with it.

Oh, what a low blow straight to my ego. As girly as I am, I guess, it still hurts to have to admit you’re not perfect and that you need financial help with your parents. They were happy to give said support, though. It wasn’t like they were poor anyway.

So, with a home found, I set out on figuring out what I was going to do for a job for the rest of my life. Honestly, prospects didn’t look too high.

Working at Ishinomori had provided me with quite a lot of money. The pay check was always high there, due to the school’s dealings with the children of society’s upper-crust. But, now that I didn’t ever want to return to a teaching job, I didn’t have much hope. A degree in teaching Arts and Humanities to high school students just wasn’t going to get me very far. After days of deliberation, I decided to return to school.

I had no problem getting into a great university. But, there was just one problem.

Why was I going to college again?

My life long dream before had been to teach an art class. So, I had went to college to get a degree in teaching. I hadn’t ever thought about doing anything else for a living. I never imagined that something would ever make me give it up. But, it had, and now I just didn’t ever want to step into a classroom again where I was the one instructing.

I looked around and did some research, finally deciding on working towards a career in graphic design. It was art-related and seemed like something that I would like to do. It sounded like they made quite a bit of money, too, which was an added bonus.

The four years of school I had to redo didn’t seem to take that long, either. This graphic design stuff was actually pretty fun and interesting to learn as well as do for a living. When I graduated, I was immediately offered jobs as I started to work freelance. It was better this way to not get too attached to people who hired me. Last time I got to attached to people in a job, I’d ended up here in a new country.

Though, it seemed like I didn’t have peace for too long. Something had happened that I honestly hadn’t expected. I had been sitting in my apartment, working on sketching out a project I had recently been hired to work on when someone rang the doorbell. When I answered the door, I was stunned beyond all belief.

It was Genji Kaoru.

Just like I would have been miserable if I had stayed in Japan, he was just as bad off without me there, or so he had explained to me. It was sweet. He had left everything behind for me even when he knew his chances of success were quite low. It was oddly endearing. I even accepted the date he asked me on. We’ve been together ever since. In fact, I moved in with him about a month after we started dating.

Life finally started to look up for me. Shinobu was a thing of the past and that huge mistake I had made didn’t bother me that much anymore. I wasn’t alone and I was with someone that really did care for me, not someone I had pretended to be. I had a job that I loved that paid well. I had everything.

At least, I thought I had everything.

--

The sunlight was filtering into the bedroom through the slits in the blinds, just barely muted by the soft white curtains covering the window. But, even with such precautionary objects in place to prevent such a thing from happening, the light was becoming too much to bare. Without a bit of enthusiasm, I finally opened my eyes and sighed.

I, Mazaki Kiyoshi, was not yet ready to greet the day, but was given no choice.

“Kaoru…” I mumbled, shifting on the bed so that I could scoot a bit closer to the other occupant of the bed, moving just enough to rest my chin on his shoulder and peer over at him drowsily, “Are you awake?”

“I am now,” He sighed, tilting his head over to look back at me with his eyes still half-closed. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to go back to sleep either, at least. I smiled a bit, leaning in to press a brief kiss to the sleepy man’s lips.

“It’s five,” I noted aloud as I rolled over and sat up, successfully taking the covers with me. There was no way he was going to go back to sleep when I had to wake up so early. I looked over my shoulder at Kaoru, “You’re going to be staying long enough for breakfast, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” He replied, finally sitting up as well.

Unlike me, Kaoru decided to keep teaching after he moved out of country. He had been hired at a private high school, much like Ishinomori Secondary. While it was a good job, it was quite a bit more demanding than working at Ishinomori was. Often, Kaoru was ready and left by six in the mornings. Sometimes, he would leave as early as five-thirty. There were tons of things for him to do before classes began at seven-fifteen and it was already at least a twenty minute commute between our apartment and Ridell Academy.

“Good! You’ve been leaving early a lot lately and I’ve rarely had enough time to say ‘Good morning’ to you before you’re out the door,” Teasing, perhaps, wasn’t one of the best ways to start off the morning with Kaoru. I sort of squeaked as he reached over and carefully dragged me into his lap.

“Don’t worry. This is the last week of school before the academy lets out for the summer. You’ll get sick of seeing me twenty-four-seven soon enough,” Kaoru grinned, placing another kiss on my cheek.

“I won’t. How could I get tired of being with you? It’s impossible,” I countered, turning around a bit more so that I was still, in his lap, but facing him. I initiated the third kiss of the morning, though it was definitely more… ‘involving’ than the previous two.

And then the phone rang.

At first, I wanted to ignore it, but after a three or four annoying rings, I disentangled myself from Kaoru and slid out of bed. This was frustrating. I had barely had any time with Kaoru in the past week or two thanks to his job and now, during the one moment we had together, someone just had to call.

I walked out of the bedroom and into the living room, picking up the cordless from the table it sat on. I pressed the ‘Talk’ button and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I answered, aware that I didn’t sound happy to be answering the phone so early in the morning. I didn’t care, though. Not only was to rude to call so early about a job—or, that’s what I assumed the call to be about—but they had ruined my one chance at a make-out session in what seemed to be forever.

“Kiyoshi-kun?”

“Seiji?” I asked in return, though I knew the answer. It shocked me that Miho’s husband was calling me so early in the morning. While we didn’t hold any animosity towards each other whatsoever, we just didn’t talk enough to merit as friends.

Hell, I hadn’t even known Miho was married until the whole ‘Arisa’ deal began.

“Miho asked me to call you and Kaoru,” The other stated, answering the question I hadn’t gotten around to asking yet, “She had the baby last night. It was a boy.”

Suddenly, my morning had seemed quite a bit better, though I was still a bit concerned.

“Isn’t it kind of early for her to have had the baby?” I asked, “It’s like, two and a half weeks before she was supposed to have it.”

“Yeah, but everything worked out fine,” He stated casually. Well, that was one less worry on my mind.

“How’s Miho doing?”

“She’s tired beyond all belief and still irritable, but I think she’ll live. On the other hand, I might not,” He laughed shortly and I half-chuckled myself as was customary. By that time, I had flopped down on the couch and leaned against the arm rest.

It was strange to even imagine Miho being a mother. It had always been a weird image with me, ever since the first night she called and told me that she was pregnant. I had sort of forgotten—more like just pushed it to the back of my mind—about it until I had gotten this phone call, but now it seemed even weirder since it had actually happened.

“Anyway,” Seiji continued, “She wanted to know if you and Kaoru could come back for a visit. We’ll be able to go back home in about a week and we’re going to her parents house so everyone else can come and stay for a while. Do you think you can come?”

“Of course!” I replied automatically, not even thinking about the request that much, “It’s perfect timing. I should have the project I’m working on done by Thursday and Kaoru’s last day is Friday. We can be there by Sunday, I think.”

“That’s great, thanks. I’ll see you then,” He ended the call as quickly as it had started and I, too, hung up and placed the phone back on the charger as Kaoru finally made his appearance into the living room.

“Who was that?” He asked.

“Seiji,” I stood up again, walking across the living room to the kitchen as the other followed me, “Miho had her baby last night and we’re supposed to go back to Japan on Sunday. I don’t know how long we’ll end up staying, though.”

“That’s great. But, are you sure you want to go back to Japan?”

I froze, the refrigerator still being held up in front of me. I hadn’t really thought about it when Seiji asked, but when Kaoru asked if I wanted to go back, it hit me. After a second of shocked silence, I laughed quietly and turned around to look at him, a smile on my face.

“Of course! I’m over all of that now!” I answered cheerfully, “Besides, it’s been a long time since I’ve visited Miho and everyone else. I’m overdue for a visit.”

“Whatever you want to do, then,” He returned the smile before I turned back to the fridge, pulling out the things I needed to make breakfast that morning.

So obviously, I hadn’t thought about this whole Japan visit thing again. To my credit, it was only five in the morning and I was still half asleep. But now, I had dug myself a nice hole. I was going to have to go back to Japan for a visit. Those were a lot of memories to deal with at once. Not to mention, a certain someone still lived in Tokyo.

While I did love Kaoru, it would have just been awkward and confusing, to say the least, to see Shinobu again after all the years. I knew we were just friends at the time I had left. I had settled to always just be friends with him and it didn’t bother me anymore that I wasn’t the one he loved. But still… It made me not want to go.

I didn’t want things to get any more complicated.

--

A week passed slowly. Ever since I had remembered why exactly I had left Japan in the first place, I dreaded going. I dreaded the possibilities of the situation and I knew that Kaoru was anxious about going, too. Both of us had a risk of losing something precious to us on this trip, but we had to take it anyway.

I’ll be damned, though, if I wasn’t going to try to make the best out of it.

On the morning of the flight—Saturday—I woke up early and finished up the packing, only having packed enough clothes and such for a three or four day trip. I really didn’t want to stay any longer than that, so it was my subtle way of telling Kaoru that I wanted to spend as little time as possible in Japan.

After Kaoru had woken up, breakfast had been served, and a short trip to the airport had been made, we waited a bit longer before we were actually on the plane and leaving. It wasn’t like the last time I was on a plane, though. I was nervous for an entirely different reason. This time, I was more nervous about what I was going into than what I was leaving behind.

“Are you alright?” Kaoru asked as he noticed me staring out of the window. I snapped back to reality and looked at him. I reached up to grab his hand and interlock my fingers with his.

“Yeah, I am. Like I said before, I’m fine now. Everything’s in the past now and I’m completely fine.”

… Since when had I sucked so bad at lying?

Betcha didn't expect Kiyoshi's new boyfriend to be Kaoru! It made me happy, though. Kaoru didn't get as much of a spotlight as I would've liked him to in OWiH like Seiji and Rie. But, this way, I'm happy! XD

Reviews? Please?:3