Fic: To End All Illusions (Ryo/Yamapil) [3/3]

[zukkokya]

Part One
Part Two

—

Scandals may happen, and friends may drift apart, but Duet, WinkUp, and Potato will get their interviews every month without fail. It’s a weird constant to take comfort from, but Yamapi can’t remember the last time he had a normal response to anything, so.

Duet is first, scheduled on a Monday morning, and nearly every staff member Yamapi encounters is either running on caffeinated energy or limping on despite natural exhaustion. His manager didn’t know if anyone else from NEWS would be there, so Yamapi keeps one eye on the door while he gathers grapes off a tangled vine on the buffet table near the conference room.

When he’s called in for his interview, he gives a careful account of what’s happening in his life right now. He doesn’t mention the pictures, not that anyone expects him to, but they’re printed behind his eyelids just the same and he can’t blink without seeing his own mouth on Ryo’s ear, his own hand on Ryo’s hip.

He forgets the content of his interview by the time he’s reached the door to leave. The lobby is otherwise empty, and he can’t hear any voices nearby, but he stands still in the center of the room in case some familiar voice reaches him. While he’s hesitating, a secretary hurries across the room, but she pauses when she sees him, a question in her eyes, so he just bobs his head at her and heads out in the direction of the elevator.

Once inside, Yamapi puts his back against the full-length mirror and takes out his phone to occupy his attention and distract from the disappointment of fulfilling a group obligation on his own. The car stops several times, but it’s only ever to collect more passengers, not let some go. He never looks up from his phone.

There’s a message from Tegoshi sitting at the top of his inbox.

Just got a massage from Arata-sensei. She says you should come in and see her. She has a bunch of free slots this afternoon if you’re free.

Yamapi rolls his shoulders to test the tension there. He can’t remember the last time he saw Arata-sensei, and from the ache in his neck, shoulders and lower back, his body can’t either. She’ll probably accuse him of betraying her for a younger masseuse until she feels the knots in his back. Then she’ll yell at him for not taking better care of his body.

He replies to Tegoshi as the elevator doors open on the ground floor. How soon is she free?

She says if you can get here in twenty minutes she can give you an hour. Enjoy!

Yamapi groans and jogs through the parking garage toward his car. She’s always making him run for his relaxation.

Nagase and Yamapi discovered Arata-sensei’s tiny spa years ago while they were filming Ikebukuro West Gate Park. They both agreed for no particular reason to keep Arata-sensei a secret between them, and even though most of the jimusho has been to see her at least once, her most loyal customers are the members of NEWS and TOKIO.

The reception area is empty when he arrives. “Hello,” he calls, dragging out the end. “Arata-sensei~.”

He pockets his sunglasses and breathes in the scent of sweet orange. Every time he visits it’s a new smell, and it usually makes him hungry.

He brought Ryo here for the first time when they were still juniors. The lobby still looks exactly the same as it did then—they sat on that bench in the corner, slumped against the wall, shoulders together, nearly asleep because it was late and dance practice had gone on for hours longer than anyone anticipated.

“Tomohisa.”

He leaps half a foot back, sunglasses jumping out of his pocket and clattering to the floor. Arata-sensei scowls at him from behind the counter she just materialized behind.

“Arata-sensei,” he whines. “My sunglasses.” He picks them up and wipes the lenses off on his sleeve. “They’re my disguise.”

“You haven’t been here since 2009,” she tells him. “Yuuya-kun visits twice a month. Every month.”

“I’m sorry, sensei!” he shouts, bowing deep. Then, because he’s an idiot, he adds, “But I have been really busy.”

She smacks him over the head with her folded fan.

“Ow! Didn’t you take a vow not to harm people?”

“Do I look like a doctor to you?” she snaps. “Get inside and take off your clothes.”

He rubs his head and walks past her into the massage room, hiding a grin. “Who’s paying whom?” He runs before she can get in another hit. It’s because of Arata-sensei that Yamapi’s developed a healthy fear of deceptively frail-looking middle-aged women.

While Arata-sensei closes up for “lunch” like she always does when “her kids” visit, Yamapi throws his clothes into the basket in the corner and flops face-down on the table. He lines his face up inside the headrest and exhales slowly until his body loosens up. The room’s dark amber lighting and soft music have him dozing before long, and he only stirs when Arata-sensei ruffles his hair, maybe to make up for her unnecessarily violent greeting.

“You boys work harder than some salarymen I’ve seen,” she tells him. It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last. “All right, you.” She pats his shoulders. “What’s your sister up to?”

She never asks them about their work unless they bring it up, and Yamapi usually doesn’t. This time, too, he talks about his family instead, and listens to her stories about her granddaughter Honoka, a quiet fifteen-year-old with a crush on Ryo and an interest in someday playing the guitar as well as he does. According to Arata-sensei, Ryo once sent Honoka one of his guitar picks along with signed sheet music to “code” and a card thanking her for her support and telling her to take care of the pick because it was one of his favorites.

Arata-sensei goes at a particularly vicious knot next to his shoulder blade, and it gives Yamapi an excuse to squeeze his eyes shut and make a sharp, pained noise.

There’s no way forward for them. Not until they see each other. Maybe not even then.

The knot in his shoulder pops. As it releases, he sighs and his muscles relax even more.

“Does Ryo-chan still come to see you?”

Shit. Too relaxed.

She doesn’t stop manipulating the knot, but there’s enough of a pause before her answer that Yamapi knows she’s caught up on industry gossip. “Not recently,” she says. “I’m sure he’s better about this kind of thing than you are, but I’d like to see him anyway. Tell him to stop by.”

He automatically says, “I will,” even though he’s thinking, Tegoshi can do it, and holds back a quiet sound that he has no physical reason to make.

He focuses on what he can see of her white slippers while her thumb presses down and around on the base of his neck. All at once, there’s a pop and a tiny knot releases. To his shock, though, that one, tiny knot was holding so much tension that his eyes water as the tension bleeds away.

Ryo-chan.

His nose is blocked, so he breathes in through his mouth.

“Ow,” he whispers.

Her hands stop moving. “Are you all right, Tomo-chan?” she asks.

“It’s—” He tries to swallow whatever’s making his voice so soft. “It’s fine. Just hurts.”

A drop of sweat collects on the tip of his nose.

No one is stopping us from seeing each other.

Living this way, staying away from each other—does it make things better? What’s been fixed? What’s been made easier?

What has he let go?

He drifts out and back in some amount time later when Arata-sensei pets his hair with a dry, oil-free hand and tells him she has a cup of tea for him.

“I let you rest for fifteen minutes,” she tells him. “Your body needed the break.”

He doesn’t want to sit up. His eyes ache and his nose is wet and his face feels stiff from dried sweat. But he sits up because he can’t hide forever and when he does, her smile is neither pitying nor mocking. Just motherly, the way her smiles have always been. “Thanks, sensei,” he says. His voice sounds scratchy.

She hands him a steaming cup and sits on a low stool opposite the table. “You’re smoking again,” she observes.

“Not every day,” he objects. She has the fan in her hand, though, so he clarifies, “I stopped for a while. I just…recently, I—”

She smacks his knee with the fan. He hisses and almost spills tea on himself.

“Stop it,” she says, simply. “You’re overworked and you don’t rest enough. Relieve your stress some other way. And tell Ryo-chan I want to see him in here soon.”

“O-okay.”

“Good.” She smacks him again—he doesn’t remember her being this abusive—and adds, “Keiichirou showed up while you were sleeping.”

“Eh?”

She grins and leaves him alone to change back into his clothes. When he opens the door to the lobby, Koyama waves at him from one of the benches, his smile small but genuine.

“It’s been a while,” he says.

Arata-sensei makes a derisive noise from the counter where she’s writing notes in her appointment book.

Yamapi suspects Tegoshi’s behind this. He smiles a little. “Sorry I haven’t—”

“No, it’s okay,” Koyama interrupts, waving his hand wildly. “I thought we could go out to eat. I just finished at NTV, so I’m kind of hungry.”

“Me too,” Yamapi says. The scent of oranges seems somehow stronger, even though he’s had the aroma surrounding him for the last hour and change. It’s making him feel starved.

“Keiichirou-kun,” Arata-sensei says. She shakes her fan out and waves a gust of air that pushes Koyama’s bangs back. He sits up and looks over at her with a far more deferential expression than Yamapi’s ever given her.

“Yes, sensei?”

”Take care of him.”

Koyama smiles and bows. “Yes, sensei.”

Yamapi pays her more than her listed price, as usual, and she protests, as usual, even to the point of trying to sneak the extra bills in his back pocket as he turns around to leave. She only subsides when he tells her, “You fixed my head, too.”

Koyama can’t know what he means by that, but when Yamapi looks at him, his smile is a shade fonder than it was before.

—

Ryo usually receives emails from the managers of NEWS and Kanjani, but ever since Johnny put NEWS on hiatus, Ryo’s address has been removed from both mailing lists. According to Yasu, Kanjani are still getting mass emails, even more than usual, but Ryo’s not included, and all of the members have noticed. According to Tegoshi, NEWS hasn’t gotten a mass email since the hiatus began.

Now Ryo’s only official connection to either group is his manager, and even though Yoshida dutifully calls Ryo every day, he never has updates on either NEWS or Kanjani, so his calls quickly become more hassle than helpful. Today, all he has to discuss with Ryo is a request from the editor of WinkUp that Ryo do a special question-based corner in the back of the magazine. Ryo listens to the details with half an ear.

He’s been keeping the photos on his desk, but now, as his manager speeds through something bland and insignificant, Ryo stacks them on the floor, unstacks them, makes a circle with them, a square, a triangle—

“And then I think the best thing for it is to go ahead with the shoot,” his manager says. “Do you know the studio he’s talking about?”

Ryo says, “Yeah,” and lifts his shoulder to hold his phone against his ear. With both hands free, he can fan out the photos like a hand of cards. Whenever he looks at them he always notices something new in at least one photo. Like how in the worst of them, the one where Ryo’s pulling Yamapi into the bathroom, Yamapi’s arm is bent like he’s about to reach for Ryo’s hand where it’s gripping his belt loop. Trying to stop him, maybe. Ryo rubs his forehead, turns the photos face-down, and shuffles them around with his foot.

“I’ll see what time slots they have available,” Yoshida says.

“Mm.”

“And I’ll also look into your next event with Kanjani.” He sounds abruptly tired, like he knows that that’s the main reason Ryo even answered the phone. It’s unprofessional, and Ryo knows it. Yoshida’s trying to do his best with a very limited amount of give on the tether, and Ryo’s attitude is probably only making his job even more unpleasant.

So Ryo says, “Thank you, Yoshida. Really.” He says it with his natural dialect the way he sometimes does because Yoshida considers it a sign of being humble or sincere or something. It’s never been clear to Ryo why such a weird gesture seems to make a difference, but it’s an easy one to make, and the least Yoshida deserves for all the cover work he’s had to do on Ryo’s behalf lately.

Yoshida says, “It’s fine,” and his tone is wry, more like the Yoshida who can drink the other managers under the table and still shoot darts without killing anyone. “There’s an upcoming commercial for curry rice and a promotional spot before that, so one of those could be your next appearance with them. What do you think?”

It sounds like what you told me two days ago when they had a shoot in Yokohama that I wasn’t called down for.

He keeps that to himself and says instead, “Sounds good.” And, because Tegoshi’s tired, lonely voice is in his head saying, I miss seeing you, Ryotan, Ryo asks, “What about NEWS?”

“Ah. NEWS. Um.”

Right.

“Thank you, Yoshida,” Ryo says again. “Keep me updated?”

“I will.”

Ryo hangs up and throws the phone behind its assigned couch cushion. Then he stacks the photos, tosses them on the table, and heads to the bedroom for a nap he doesn’t need.

—

Takki’s house is bright and thoughtfully decorated, which is about what Yamapi expected. He follows Takki in through the front door, murmurs, “Sorry for intruding,” and both of them sit down on the wooden step to unlace their shoes.

The front door, made of some honey-colored wood, doesn’t automatically swing shut like Yamapi expected, and a gust of wind carries it open even more. Sunlight and a thick green leaf scatter inside.

Takki pats him on the head. “You look tired,” he observes with a fond smile.

Yamapi makes a noncommittal noise. “I’m okay.”

He shifts his weight, intending to stand up, but Takki says, “You can relax there for a minute if you want. I have to go turn on the security alarm. Just close the door when I shout.”

Yamapi says, “Thanks,” and listens to him pad off in bare feet across the wooden floor.

There’s a Spanish-sounding jingle, then, and Yamapi hears Takki say, “Hi. Sorry. No, sorry, I didn’t see. I just got home. Oh. Why?”

The rest of it blends together as Takki gets farther away. Now with more time to himself, Yamapi leans back on his hands to let the fresh spring breeze run across his skin. After spending the last few weeks in various apartments and office spaces, it’s a profound comfort to have the enormity of a house around him again, even one that isn’t familiar.

Takki’s entryway is well-organized, all the shoes lined up into three rows that face the door. There’s a table next to Yamapi that holds an orange glass dish for keys, a red vase full of white pebbles, and a handwoven yellow mat beneath the two. Then there’s a sharp turn that leads into the hallway Takki disappeared down.

Something about the layout reminds him of Ryo’s first apartment in Tokyo. The lighting, maybe, because everything else is completely different. Ryo’s apartment didn’t have any kind of extraneous things near the door like a table or a dish for his keys. Whenever Yamapi’s watched Ryo come home, his keys seem to be the last thing on his mind. Door latched, shoes off, cell phone closed. His keys always end up absently stuffed back into whatever messenger bag he had with him for the day.

Yamapi grins. Ryo’s still a teenager in the way he thinks about some things. Why buy a dish for my keys when I can just leave them in my bag? he’d probably say. Probably with some amount of disdain in his voice.

“Alarm’s going on!” Takki shouts.

“Got it,” Yamapi calls back, and closes the door.

He heads down the long hallway as a series of beeps begins. When he reaches what appears to be the living room, he finds Takki muttering rapidly to himself and stabbing buttons. The beeping stops, and Takki sighs. Yamapi watches from the hallway, amused, as Takki studies the buttons more calmly, then pushes one.

“Armed,” a low female voice announces.

Takki sighs again, deeper. “I’m usually good with technology,” he complains.

“I thought this was supposed to be a really upscale neighborhood,” Yamapi says. “Why the alarm?”

Takki crosses the room, pulling the buttons on his cuffs free as he walks. “No, it is. My sister likes to bring my niece over to play sometimes while I’m on tour, so I got it installed in case they ever wanted to stay the night. Are you hungry yet?”

Yamapi nods, even though he’s not. “Sure.”

The kitchen is the brightest room yet thanks to a large set of windows over the sink and an even wider skylight above the island. All the light that pours in through the glass is soaked up by the dusky yellow walls that almost seem to glow. There’s something exotic about the whole room’s design, Yamapi notices, from the thick rust- and ocean blue-colored tiles surrounding the window to the leaf shape of the white blades on the ceiling fan.

Takki shovels rice into the cooker and Yamapi notices Takki’s jaw lowering for a few seconds even though his mouth is closed. Yamapi knows a suppressed yawn when he sees one.

“Ah, I…might have to leave soon, Takizawa,” he says. “I—”

A spoon smacks him in the forehead. Takki follows it up with an almost severe look.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I’m always tired. Go set the table.”

Yamapi rubs his forehead, grinning sheepishly, and does what his senpai asks.

He sets up two plates (dark red), two napkins (burnt orange), two glasses (one clear, one amber), and two sets of chopsticks (mahogany). There’s so much color in Takki’s house, but it’s all mainly in the warmer shades. Reds, oranges, yellows, browns. They offset the white—white furniture, white ceilings, white fixtures. It’s all so much more…sophisticated than Yamapi’s used to.

His own apartment is big but not very well organized. He usually cleans parts of it in fits and bursts whenever he notices oil stains on the stove or toothpaste foam on the bathroom mirror. Today, though, with nothing on his schedule, he put himself to work cleaning the whole thing, armed with a basket of cleaning products so old he had to clean the dust off of them. He put clothes into a bag for donation, threw out the pink octopus sponge he’s owned for almost a year, cleaned the dishes in the sink, washed the tub, then the sink—when Takki called and invited him over, he almost ran for the front door, craving a smell that wasn’t bleach or toilet water or dust.

Takki makes them a small meal—salad, miso soup, rice, and some kind of spicy chicken Yamapi’s never had before—and they eat together at the kitchen’s island.

They don’t talk about work, and Yamapi’s happy not to think about it. They talk about Tsubasa, mainly, and how he brings back whole bags of souvenirs from Spain in lieu of taking the actual country home with him. Takki’s in the middle of pointing out all the objects in the kitchen that Tsubasa’s brought back when Tsubasa himself says, “That one’s not from Spain—I got that in Hiroshima during our tour last year, remember?”

Yamapi stares at him, bewildered. He didn’t see Tsubasa walk in, didn’t hear the front door open or the alarm go off, which means Tsubasa probably knows the security code. Except that Tsubasa’s wearing loose sweatpants and a soft-looking V-neck that’s bunched up around his left armpit like he slept in it and didn’t bother to straighten it out when he got out of bed.

Yamapi watches Tsubasa lean comfortably against the fridge like it’s part of his own house and blurts, “You live here.”

Tsubasa gives Takki a look of feigned surprise. “He’s blunt, isn’t he?”

Yamapi winces. “Sorry.”

“He doesn’t,” Takki says. “Not all the time.”

“Neither do you,” Tsubasa says, folding his arms.

“True,” Takki concedes, smiling. “Not all the time.”

There’s a natural comfort between them right now, from Takki’s real smile to the way Tsubasa’s body is completely angled toward Takki, that’s different from how they act in front of other people.

They’re letting him see it. He just doesn’t know why they’re letting him see it.

For a long moment, Takki watches Yamapi, and Yamapi stares at Tsubasa, and Tsubasa grins at Takki. Then Takki says to Tsubasa, “There’s more on the stove,” and Tsubasa says, “I’m fine,” and sits next to Takki at the island. Immediately he pops a sliver of chicken from Takki’s plate into his mouth and smirks when Takki gives him an exasperated look.

“Oi,” Takki says. “Pi-chan’s going to get the wrong idea about the dynamic between us.”

Tsubasa looks Yamapi in the eye and says, “Whatever idea you have is probably closer to the truth than anything he’s been telling you.”

“I haven’t told him anything!”

“Then he’s well-informed,” Tsubasa says, nodding.

Takki tries to stab Tsubasa’s hand with his chopsticks, but Tsubasa captures his wrist and swiftly brushes his lips on Takki’s knuckles.

Right now they’re not much different from how they are in front of other people. All that’s changed is their timing. In public, Takki would pull his arm away and laugh off the whole exchange. Now, he still laughs it off, but he doesn’t move, and Tsubasa keeps smiling like he doesn’t even realize he’s still holding on.

Yamapi finds himself grinning without realizing when he started.

Tsubasa eats half of Takki’s dinner while they talk about the various countries they still want to visit. Takki eventually returns to the stove to dish out more onto his plate and while he’s there, he ignores the third, unused plate still sitting next to the pot. Yamapi watches, amused, as Tsubasa continues picking food off Takki’s plate with his fingers even though there’s a basket of chopsticks sitting next to his elbow. Yamapi suspects he’s doing it just to be obnoxious.

Then the alarm goes off, a shrill, rising note that repeats again and again, and Yamapi claps his hands over his ears. Takki almost topples backwards, but Tsubasa groans like this happens often.

“Damn it!” Takki yells. “I have no idea how to turn it off!” He’s also thrown his hands up over his ears and his eyes are squeezed shut.

Tsubasa gives Yamapi an exasperated look and runs out of the kitchen. Five seconds later, the noise stops and Takki drops his hands with a sigh. “I hate that thing.”

“Why did you turn it on in the first place?” Yamapi asks. “Didn’t you say you got it for your sister and niece?”

Tsubasa reappears in the doorway. “I didn’t see anyone,” he says. “Could have been an animal.”

Takki nods, looking suddenly solemn, and Tsubasa leans against the doorframe.

“Did you turn it back on?” Takki asks.

“No.” Tsubasa folds his arms as if he’s saying, That’s why I’m standing over here.

Takki gives Yamapi a half-smile that’s both harried and relieved. “Well, my sister does use it. I just turn it on whenever Tsubasa’s here.”

Yamapi frowns. “Why?”

Tsubasa answers, “Paparazzi. Partially.”

“And also, someone broke in last year while we were both here,” Takki says. “We were asleep and didn’t hear anything.”

“I didn’t know,” Yamapi says, suppressing a shiver. Bad enough to be photographed drunk in a club with a guy’s hand on your belt and your mouth on his ear, but at home? Asleep?

“After that, I got the alarm,” Takki says, “but I might have overreacted. At the time, we’d just moved in and hadn’t unpacked completely, so only a few electronics were taken, and nothing’s happened since then; the alarm goes off twice a week because of animals.”

“And he’s never figured out how to turn it off because the noise freaks him out,” Tsubasa adds.

Takki hums. “I wonder if we can change the sound.”

“Good idea,” Tsubasa says, nodding. “How about ‘Over the Rainbow’?”

Takki grins and throws a balled-up napkin at him.

Yamapi looks at the pair of them, at the distance between them now, and he sees the fine line they have to walk in order to keep this separate from work, and how hard must that be when one dynamic so closely resembles the other?

—

When Ryo’s phone rings these days, it’s usually not worth answering, but he always does, even when mostly-asleep like he is now.

“H’lo.”

“Ryo-chan!”

Not his manager. “Huh?”

“Dokkun! Why do they always do this to us? People are going to think we never talk to each other outside work.”

Ryo smiles into his pillow so widely that he laughs without meaning to. “Kimi-kun.” It’s Thursday, so it’s Recomen Day.

“Ryo-chan!” Hina shouts. “Didn’t you recognize the number? You and Subaru do this all the time!”

“Every time!” Yoko yells.

Ryo puts up with the shouting, his smile only growing wider and wider. “Sorry,” he says.

“Ryo-chan, you sound exhausted,” Yoko observes. He sounds concerned, his voice deeper and less staged.

Hina makes a noise of agreement. “Were you sleeping just now?” he asks.

“I want to go to sleep, too,” Yoko complains.

“We’re still working,” Hina chides. “Show some professionalism.”

“I can’t,” Yoko groans. “It’s broken.”

Ryo talks to them for a minute or so. They ask him what he’s been eating lately that seems to have improved his muscle tone and Ryo makes up some bullshit about protein powder. Then they say goodbye and hang up, but Hina calls him back five minutes later during the commercials.

“I’m coming over,” Hina tells him.

“Eh?”

“After Recomen,” Hina clarifies, “I’m coming over to your apartment. Ah, I have to go. Get some rest until then, all right?”

The line disconnects, so Ryo closes his phone and scrubs his face with his palms. If Eito has proven one thing to him over and over throughout the years, it’s that they’re more stubborn than he is, and they do not and will never think of him with the same awe and fear that the members of NEWS do. If any member of Eito thinks Ryo needs help, he will be there for Ryo whether he asks for it or not. They’re all obnoxious and pushy and…good…that way.

Ryo turns on his stereo to listen to the remainder of Recomen from his bed. They call Yoko’s younger brother and chat with him for a while, and then they hold the last round of a trivia quiz they’ve been playing all night. Hina wins, but Hina doesn’t like the candy prize, so he tries to give it to Yoko who refuses it on the grounds that it’ll taste bad now having been rejected by Hina. Ryo falls asleep to Yoko’s complaints, a sound so familiar it’s become a kind of demented lullaby.

He wakes up to the chime of the doorbell downstairs. He stumbles out of bed without a glance spared for the clock next to his bed and buzzes Hina in.

Ryo hasn’t been hiding from them, not really, but he hasn’t tried to seek them out, either. He doesn’t want to think about what he’ll say or feel if he sees them.

Still, Hina’s in the elevator on his way up now, so Ryo figures he might as well be a decent host. He leaves the front door unlocked and goes back to the kitchen to throw away the haphazardly-made curry he made earlier and never touched. He hasn’t eaten a full meal in so long that his stomach is cramping up. Or maybe it’s nerves. Or maybe he’s getting sick.

Hina walks into the kitchen in bare feet and drops his bag on one of the barstools. He doesn’t say anything, so Ryo nods at him and murmurs, “Hey.”

He’s not expecting Hina to hug him. He’s still got the curry-wet fork in his hand, and his mouth’s pressed at an awkward angle against Hina’s shoulder, but somehow, it’s exactly right. He throws the fork in the direction of the sink, hears a clank, and grips the back of Hina’s shirt.

Hina’s practically his older brother. Ryo’s felt that way for years, especially when he was smaller and scrawnier and people were calling him Ryo-chan even though he hated that stupid name. He hated it from everyone except people like Hina, because it was people like Hina who made it into the endearment it is now. Hina’s never said it with that tone of mockery so many other people used.

Hina’s family. Like all of Eito.

Like Yasu, who calls him sometimes when he sees Ryo looking tired on TV; and Ohkura, who uses the rare quiet moments backstage to pull Ryo’s head onto his shoulder so he can rest; Maru, who has made it his mission in life to regularly make Ryo laugh until he can’t breathe; Subaru, whose profound shyness will sometimes keep them apart, but whose devotion to Ryo and to Kanjani will always make Ryo want to be closer to him; Yoko, who always giggles, completely unintimidated, whenever Ryo shouts about anything; and Uchi, who will taunt him and laugh with him and never, ever leave him, because he’s Ryo’s, and Ryo’s his.

Ryo pushes his face against Hina’s shoulder, already putting together an apology for getting Hina’s shirt wet and gross.

“I’m sorry,” he says, muffled.

Hina says, “Don’t,” and places one hand on the back of Ryo’s head.

Ryo doesn’t cry, doesn’t really feel like he will, but his mouth creases like he’s going to, and Hina keeps saying, “It’s fine. It’ll be fine,” and it’s not fair that Ryo has this when Pi deserves it more.

“I’m so sorry, Shin-chan.”

“Shut up,” Hina says. “You were stupid, but it’ll be okay. You’re not getting taken from us, too.” His grip on Ryo tightens.

Ryo nods and closes his eyes against tears he didn’t think would come.

“Uh.”

Ryo sucks in a startled breath.

Yoko tilts his chin at Ryo from the kitchen door. “Sorry for, uh. Interrupting. This. Um.”

Hina sighs, “Kimi, for fuck’s sake,” into Ryo’s hair. “He was worried about you,” he tells Ryo, tapping one of his shoulder blades with a rounded knuckle.

“Justifiably,” Yoko adds, sounding petulant.

Ryo grins even though his eyes are burning hotter, and Hina doesn’t move or let up on his grip at all.

Yoko leans on the doorframe—apparently fine with being ignored—and smiles at them, somehow looking both shy and protective.

After a while, Hina says, “You’re okay, come on,” and finger-combs Ryo’s bangs back. To Hina’s credit, he doesn’t make a face or say a word when Ryo pulls away and a line of saliva spreads from his mouth to Hina’s shoulder. Ryo wipes his lips and mutters an apology in the general direction of the damp patch on Hina’s shirt.

Hina waves it off while Yoko pulls two cans of beer from Hina’s bag along with a cloth sack full of various trinkets that the other members asked them to give Ryo. Together, the three of them wander out into the living room so Ryo can open them. Some are funny, like the comic strip Subaru drew of a poorly-drawn chibi version of himself eating the photographs, and some are just kind, like the CDs and half-melted macaroons from Yasu and Ohkura respectively.

Yoko takes the box of macaroons off the living room table and says, “I’m eating one. You made my stress levels go up way too high lately, kid.”

Ryo frowns. “Don’t complain because you worried about me!” he snaps. “It’s natural that you’d worry, isn’t it?”

Yoko grins and ruffles Ryo’s hair. “Sorry, sorry,” he says easily. “I worried a lot, all right? I’m not complaining. It was a joke.”

“It sucked,” Ryo mutters.

Yoko gives him a look. “Now I’m gonna eat one of the good ones.” He bites into the chocolate one with an orgasmic moan.

Hina smacks him. “Stop that.”

“Can’t help it,” Yoko groans. “So good. Here.” He breaks off a generous piece for Hina. “Try some.”

Hina gives him an exasperated sigh, but he accepts the bit of macaroon and chews on it with an appreciative nod as he turns to Ryo. “Okay, Ryo-chan,” he says, after he’s swallowed and has managed a more serious expression. Yoko settles on the floor next to Hina, who’s sitting on the couch like he’s hosting Janiben. That the two of them are actually, physically in his apartment and focused only on him is a little too much, so Ryo slouches into his corner of the couch.

“We had a group meeting recently,” Hina tells him. “We couldn’t decide on much, since we hadn’t heard any updates from you.” (Ryo winces.) “But we’re going to support you as best we can, and there’s no way you’re getting removed from Kanjani. I mean, since you didn’t break any laws and you didn’t hurt anybody, I can’t see Johnny taking an action like that anyway, but just in case he tries, we won’t let it happen.”

It’s not entirely realistic for him to say, and all three of them know it, but Yoko nods once like he’s adding punctuation on Hina’s promise. Ryo says, “Thank you,” and cringes at the ache behind his eyes. He doesn’t resist when Yoko reaches out to rub his back in slow, almost hypnotic circles.

An instant before things get awkward, Hina gently adds, “You really were stupid, though.”

Ryo exhales in something that’s quieter than laughter. “I know,” he murmurs.

“What did you drink?” Yoko asks him.

Ryo tips his head to one side, trying to remember. “Uh….”

Some would consider it strange that the highlight of Ryo’s day is the moment after Hina slaps him upside the head, when Yoko is laughing and Ryo is smiling and Hina is grinning. Some would, but the rest of Kanjani would definitely understand.

—

On Tuesday, Yamapi’s only obligation is to film an energy drink commercial. He arrives early at ten fifteen and finishes by two thirty. It’s over so fast that there are no missed calls or unread messages waiting for him on his phone. Humming in disappointment, Yamapi sends Jin four phone mails spelling out “I’m starving~” in hiragana. When Jin doesn’t respond immediately, Yamapi adds a fifth message full of sorrowful-looking emoji and a skull.

He’s not really hungry. He just has nothing else to say. For the last few days, he’s had breakfasts and lunches consisting of coffee and sports drinks, and every night he’s eaten a small dinner or nothing at all.

He misses NEWS much more now than he did during the first hiatus. He’s spent enough time with them to feel protective of them even though he’s never been much of a leader to them. He’s falling especially short of the job now, but somehow they still reach out to him, trusting that he wants to be with them.

Jin writes back, So go eat, assbutt.

Yamapi snorts. His best friend is smart.

Then another one arrives on the heels of the first. I’m going out tonight with Ryo-chan. Come with us.

Yamapi hesitates. Closes his phone. Steps into his car. Closes the door. Locks the doors. Exhales.

It would be bringing things full circle. Go back out together, but with the ulterior motive of fixing the damage. Go to a club, find a girl, flirt with Ryo, make it a joke. Carry it on to a concert, let Ryo drag him around by his belt so the fans can see that they think the whole thing is ridiculous. Put on a show. It has to happen eventually, if he ever wants to be seen with Ryo again. And Ryo will do the same, because it’s the fastest way out of this.

But.

There are other ways. Not as fast, not as easy. But more the kind of solution they deserve.

He owes it to Ryo to find a better way, because the weird thing they were before was better than any good thing he’s ever had with anyone else.

And sometimes, for some people, can’t weird work?

He writes back to Jin, Can’t tonight. Sorry.

—

Ryo goes to a club with Jin because he can’t spend one more night in his apartment knowing that every night he doesn’t go out just attracts more speculation. He goes straight to the bar, drinks two shots of whatever Jin ordered, and spends the first hour talking to a stunning redhead from Canada. Her name has something to do with rocks. Or gems. She made a joke about it in half-coherent Japanese. She’d probably be easier to understand if she were sober, but she smiles a lot and calls Ryo cute in French and Jin’s friends keep throwing him encouraging grins.

Yamapi doesn’t show, and Jin never mentions him, so Ryo doesn’t even know if he’s going to.

Around three, they change locations to the VIP room of an upscale bar. They’ve accumulated a few new people by that time, including Rocky from Canada (he doesn’t call her that—he sticks to “cute” and “beautiful” and she might like those better than her name, judging by her smiles), and some tall brunette from California who has no idea who Jin is or why he’s hitting on her in English when her Japanese is flawless. She lets Ryo light her cigarette and asks Jin if he’s a host and smiles, bemused, when Ryo chokes on his vodka sour and can’t breathe for eleven seconds straight because he’s laughing too hard.

Rocky disappears at some point with someone who was paying closer attention to her and might even know her actual name, and the brunette loses interest in Jin when he keeps sulking about the host thing. Around five, Ryo sobers up enough to haul Jin into a taxi and back to Ryo’s apartment.

Hours later, when they’re both awake and Jin’s less bitchy (“Seriously,” Ryo finally snaps, “you’re in Johnny’s—for most people that’s a step down from host”), they sprawl on Ryo’s couch and turn on the TV.

Kamen Rider’s on, so they watch three minutes of poorly-costumed monsters lunging at the heroes with plastic weapons that fire CGI lasers. Then Jin says, “Know what I think?”

“I don’t want to,” Ryo says with only half the disdain such a question deserves. Then again, Jin doesn't usually volunteer advice, and Ryo doesn't usually do...anything he's done lately either, so Jin's probably allowed to have some personal growth, too.

“You should own it,” Jin tells him. “Seriously. Fuck everyone.” That part's in English. “I mean, it's not like you're actually gay, so just have fun with it.”

Ryo almost says, “I don't know what I am,” but he'll be damned if Jin's the first one he goes to for help with his existential bullshit. “Don’t we already—” Ryo realizes he’s thinking out loud, but doesn’t stop, “—have fun with it?”

Jin shrugs. It’s something he picked up in America, but Pi says he always lifts his shoulders too high and so it makes him look like a bird instead of nonchalant and cool. “That’s my point,” Jin says. “No one’s going to take it seriously unless you do.”

“I know,” Ryo says. I’m just sick of the game, he doesn’t say.

Jin's already moved on, anyway. "I'll pay you to make out with Tegoshi during a concert,” he says, smirking.

Ryo’s okay enough to laugh.

—

06:23

Today, I want all of you to take a risk.

I’ll start and say I’m sorry from the heart.

Sorry I haven’t updated this recently.

My phone got stuck behind a pillow.

—Nishikido Ryo Jweb


07:48

Good morning, everyone~.

Recently, Takki invited me over to his house and we ate chicken together.

Takizawa-kun, I envy your home.

Please invite me again soon!

—Yamashita Tomohisa Jweb


—

Ryo's email to Yamapi took three hours to write and edit.

When he finally sends it, it says, I don't know the best thing to do, and I don't think it's fair for me to decide alone, so we should meet to discuss what we do next.

He doesn't know when he last felt relaxed around Pi. If he's entirely honest--and why quibble when things have deteriorated as much as they have--he hasn't ever felt entirely relaxed around Pi. There's always been a second of uncertainty after a confession or a word altered before it's said, no matter how far back into his memory he reaches.

He's like that with everyone. It just feels wrong--especially wrong--that he's been that way with Yamapi.

His phone lights up with Yamapi's response: Are you free tomorrow morning?

He's not. He's meeting with a director to discuss a possible role in an upcoming drama. It’s the first real work he’s been offered in over two months.

But somehow his response reads, Yeah. Where do you want to meet?

He wants to send another message to take it back and cancel. Yamapi will understand how crucial this stretch of time is, how carefully they have to tread, and how nothing could be less important right now than setting up a meeting just so they can pretend they're a real couple. Or could be.

Or want to be.

He emails the director to apologize profusely and ask if they can reschedule for the afternoon.

—

Neither one of them remembers the moment things between them changed, because neither one of them noticed it when it happened.

They were juniors, both dripping sweat and bone-tired from hours of dance rehearsal, and they sat facing each other on the floor with their feet touching and their legs in a lopsided diamond. Instead of talking, Yamapi challenged Ryo to a thumb war. Ryo gave it his best shot, but he was less interested in winning than in pushing Yamapi’s thumb far enough back that he’d make this pained cat face that Ryo thought was hilarious. Yamapi never once let on that it didn’t hurt; he just liked making Ryo laugh.

Everything since that moment has been a gentle spiral toward the sky.

—

Ryo walks up the sidewalk to Yamapi’s apartment building. He’s an hour early, and the sun hasn’t risen yet, but Yamapi’s doorman is already at his post, newspaper spread open before him on his podium. He glances up as the automatic doors open and beams. “Aloha, Nishikido-kun.”

Ryo pulls up a smile that’s only half forced. “Aloha.” His voice sounds rough.

The lobby’s empty and silent, and he can hear the elevator as it descends from the tenth floor. His shoulders ache. His eyes hurt. He didn’t want to sleep, so he spent the night hunched over his guitar, playing mindlessly until his fingers were too stiff to cooperate.

Yamapi’s doorman waves at him one more time before the doors close, and Ryo’s struck by the urge to run out of the elevator and chat with him for an hour until the sun’s up.

The elevator ride is quiet. There’s a camera in the corner, and Ryo stares at it belligerently until the doors open on Yamapi’s floor with a thick clang. Because Ryo’s not a coward, he pushes off the wall he’s slouched against and leaves the car. He turns the corner, walks to the end of the hall, and stares at the button next to Pi’s door.

Pi.

Tomo.

And then Yamapi opens the door, eyes huge and afraid and all at once Ryo gets it, gets him, and Ryo shoves him inside, and the door shuts, and Pi’s socked feet cover Ryo’s sneakers, and Ryo opens his arms, and Pi’s cheek fits into the curve of his neck.

“Idiot,” one of them whispers.

Ryo swallows and closes his eyes and grips Pi tighter. It’s too much like getting exactly what he wants, and he doesn’t trust it, having Pi this close after spending so long apart from him. Ryo doesn’t know how to behave, how honestly to behave, and what—if anything—to say.

He wants to tell Pi he’s afraid.

Because there’s a limit to how long this can go on, isn’t there? One of them will have to pull away, and then the other one will have to do it, too, and Ryo doesn’t want Yamapi to pull away from him, but he doesn’t want to let go first, either.

Pi doesn’t seem to care how long they stand here, though, and Ryo decides he’ll just have to deal with being pulled away from, so he presses his temple against Yamapi’s and exhales and holds on tighter.

Pi responds by resting his chin on Ryo’s shoulder, and somehow he finds enough space between them to move in closer.

Ryo’s internal timer counts up the seconds for so long that he starts to suspect that Yamapi’s only holding on because Ryo is, and Ryo doesn’t want to seem needy or pathetic, but maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just panicking because the stupid timer is still going in his head, and maybe Pi just wants to be close to him for some reason, and why can’t Ryo just shut up inside his own mind?

“Is this okay?” Yamapi murmurs.

Ryo inhales, careful to do it slowly so Yamapi doesn’t notice that he’s been (unintentionally) taking shallow breaths ever since Pi opened the door. He nods once, jerky, and breathes out with a small noise he will never, ever own to. It’s okay. It’s okay.

Because these last two months have been sharp and cold and trembling on the edge of losing everything.

Because nothing has gotten through to him until now.

Because he’s not ready to let go, and as long as he doesn’t have to say anything, he won’t feel embarrassed to need this.

The world will expand eventually, but right now, it’s only them, and the timer can just keep running.

—

Yoko makes the first public joke about them, a gesture Ryo thinks of as similar to breaking a champagne bottle over the hull of a ship. During one of the filmed MCs of Kanjani’s next concert, Yoko says he saw an interesting photo recently and asks Ryo if his ears are an erogenous zone. Ryo denies it, so Yoko chases him around the stage trying to bite one of Ryo's ears while Ryo grins and bellows at him to stop. The familiarity of Yoko’s high-pitched giggle and the other members’ smirks eases Ryo’s nerves so quickly it gives him the same high as an adrenaline rush.

Uchi sends them both a box full of sixteen different types of condoms in neat stacks arranged by Uchi’s own personal preference. (“How do you know it’s by his preference?” Yamapi asks, and Ryo just scowls and silently hates himself and his weird best friend.)

In the first episode of NEWS’ first show as a unit, Ryo puts his hands in Shige’s front pockets to see what his reaction will be. Without missing a beat or even stammering, Shige shoves Ryo in Yamapi’s direction and says, “Control him.” The audience shrieks, and Koyama compliments Shige on his manly voice, which prompts Shige to turn bright red and stammer. Yamapi just puts his arm around Ryo’s waist and grins at him until Ryo raises his eyebrows and grins back.

Takki sends them plane tickets to Okinawa. The dates should clash with work, but when they check with their managers, they’re both somehow free for those three days in a row. (“Takki’s scary sometimes,” Ryo says, and Yamapi just grins and silently loves his weird senpai.)

Johnny probably doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t tell them to stop or deny it, either. He never mentions it at all, in fact, because they never give him reason to again. Occasionally, however, there will be a surge in the number of official shop photos Ryo and Yamapi appear in together, and his opinion of them will never be any clearer than that.

—

It’s a little shaky at first. They came together too jagged, too roughly, so it takes a while to make the edges fit.

But it’ll be more comfortable in the future, and they’ll tell the whole truth to each other little by little.

One day, Pi will wake up at four in the morning because Ryo’s cough sounds wet and ragged and much worse than it was when they went to sleep, and he’ll spend the rest of the night rubbing Ryo’s back and clearing the sweat from Ryo’s forehead with a damp facecloth, and Ryo will call him stupid over and over again and tell him to go outside to the couch and sleep, but Pi will pretend he can’t understand Japanese, call him an idiot back in English, then French and Korean and Chinese until Ryo shuts up and lets Pi lose sleep over him.

And one day, Ryo will jump on Yamapi’s back during a NEWS concert and then spend the whole MC there, just petting Pi’s hair and grinning at Shige, daring him to make the sad, sad joke he looks so tempted to attempt, but Shige will only grin and shake his head, and some of the fans will go crazy and others will think they’re just kidding around to feed the rumors, but it’ll actually be because Ryo just wants to see how long Pi is able to hold him, and Pi will impress him by keeping Ryo steady on his back until the very end of the MC, and as Koyama gives the intro for the next song, Ryo will lean forward and murmur, “Thanks for your hard work,” and Pi will give him a pleased smile over his shoulder and then carefully dump Ryo onto the stage.

And one day, Ryo will go too far. He’ll say something too cutting, too sharp, and Pi will know that Ryo doesn’t mean it, but he’ll be in the wrong mood to put up with it, and he’ll leave and go to Jin’s Tokyo apartment and spend the night there. When he goes back in the morning, Ryo will already have left for work, and Pi will know that they’ll hash it out later and things will be fine, but Ryo won’t come back that night, and Pi won’t want to sleep in their bed alone, so he’ll go back to Jin’s. Four days will pass with Pi going home every day and finding the apartment empty, and Ryo won’t call him back when he calls, and finally he’ll find Ryo at home next to an open suitcase and Pi will get the wrong impression and something in his expression will make Ryo cross the room and grab Pi in a crushing hug and explain quickly that he was in Shikoku to film a commercial. He’ll say that he didn’t tell Pi he was going because he was angry, and maybe that maybe that was kind of a vindictive move, but he’s sorry and then Pi will shove him away and not talk to him for a day and a half. He’ll come home the following night and see Ryo’s tentative expression, half anxious and half locked-up, and he’ll say, “You’re a dick,” in English and Ryo will laugh and say, “I know,” in Japanese and that’ll be the start to mending things.

And one day, Ryo will write a song that is not for Yamapi but is possibly about Yamapi and there’ll be enough of a distinction there that he’ll feel he can be justifiably indignant in shouting, “It’s not for him, okay?” whenever he sings it in the dressing room and someone in Kanjani makes some dokidoki crack.

And one day, he’ll sing that song at a Kanjani concert and Pi will hear it for the first time from the audience, and Ryo won’t notice him until two songs later, and he’ll be so embarrassed by Pi’s wide grin that he’ll actually turn his back and flub the choreography on purpose. Hina will make fun of him for it later during the MC, and Ryo will point at Yamapi and yell at him for distracting him, and Pi will respond by making a heart with his hands, and all of Kanjani and most of the audience will burst out laughing at Ryo’s bellowed objections.

And one day, Yamapi will whisper the lyrics against Ryo’s mouth and Ryo will turn dark red and groan, “C’mon, that’s enough, seriously,” and Pi will smooth the hair at the nape of Ryo’s neck and say, even quieter, “That was one of the best moments of my life, so just put up with it, all right?” and Ryo will stare at him, stunned, and nod. He’ll never complain about it again.

And one day, Pi will be lying on the couch with a script for some drama propped against the easel of his thighs and he’ll have his thumbnail between his teeth and his reading glasses will sit lost and forgotten in bedraggled black hair and as the breeze rushes in through the open window and goosebumps spread across Yamapi’s arms, Ryo will look at him from the front door for a stolen second, the one second it takes for Yamapi to change his focus from his script to Ryo, and in just that second, Ryo will be struck by some powerful, instinctive need to keep him safe.

And one day, very far into the future, one of Pi’s friends will marry his boyfriend in Okinawa and Pi will go to the wedding without Ryo and won’t really examine why until Ryo finds out months afterward and then pretends he doesn’t care. Pi will ask Ryo if he’s angry, and Ryo will just say, “No. We’re different,” and Pi will feel it like a slap in the face. He won’t say anything, but Ryo will know from Pi’s tense mouth that he said the wrong thing, so he’ll sneak his cold nose into the warm notch where Yamapi’s neck joins his shoulder and he’ll murmur something quiet that will end all illusions that what they’ve had—what they have—is anything new or different from the stuff of stage plays and stories.


End.


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