Nothing's Better than Strawberries + Silent Days [HSJUMP - YamaJima]
Title: Nothing's Better than Strawberries
Pairing/Characters: Sort of YamaJima, JUMP, Ryo!?
Word Count: 692
Rating: G
Notes: This seemed like a much better idea at the time...But then again, I had been amusing myself by extolling the virtues of strawberries through failed sonnets. lol major OOC-ness (Hi I don't know NEWS very well =P). Also, pretend this occurs in some alternate universe where YamaJima unfallibly exists 'kay?
One warm, sleepy, spring afternoon, Shintaro asked Tegoshi who in turn asked Ryo to get Ryutaro's DS for him because he was getting bored and nii-san probably was just hogging it and reading manga anyways and he wanted to prove that he was better than Uekusa at Mario Kart. Ryo wordlessly agreed, while a nameless junior passing by wondered if it was even legal to have Tegoshi and Shintaro within ten meters of each other, both asking for the same thing. And so, one warm, sleepy, spring afternoon, Ryo found himself in the doorway of Hey! Say! JUMP's rehearsal room, wondering if it was just him, or if something was seriously, really wrong - or if seriously, really wrong was simply the standard state of his kouhai.
"...like a fair rose blush, delicate and tempting. An aroma so sweet that it would still be sweet by any other name--"
Inoo noticed Ryo standing there first, and asked quietly, "is there something you need, Nishikido-san?"/p>
Ryo raised one eyebrow, and then the other. "Since when has poetry been the newest fad?" he asked, bypassing the question entirely.
Inoo turned and watched the scene with Ryo in silence for a moment. "Tender like the first rays of sun, a red that rivals even blood--" And then shook his head in resignation. "He's not usually like this," he whispered. "It's only when Yuto's involved--"
"Inoo, could you ask your mother not to pack strawberries as a snack next time?" The person who was supposedly involved slunk towards the pair, hair more than slightly disheveled and clothes in a suspicious state of disarray. Yuto grimaced, and pulled his shirt into place, before smiling sheepishly. Noticing Ryo, Yuto greeted him politely before turning back to Inoo, half-protesting in all seriousness. "I don't think I can take another--"
"Strawberries.” Ryo frowned, interrupting Yuto. “He's talking about...strawberries?"
"Yuto, Yuto, Yuto! Where are you going?" Now that Yamada had scrambled off the couch, the plate of ripe fruit he'd been surveying became clear immediately. He held up a half-eaten strawberry for approval, its juice dripping onto the floor. "Look! Isn't it beautiful? The lines that curve around it, the way its shade changes so gradually from such a deep colour to a pale one..." He trailed off as Yuto dragged his groupmate off with an apologetic look to his senpai.
Ryo resisted smacking his forehead in exasperation and resorted to raising his eyebrows. Again. And thanking the gods that there was no way any Kansai junior that age was that stupid, and wondering what had possessed the old man to let a group of idiotic kids debut ("idiot" couldn’t be helped because that seemed to go with Johnnies regardless of age). And then he remembered why he was being submitted to this idiotic torture in the first place. "Ryutaro," he said. "Is Ryutaro here?"
Ryutaro surfaced from behind the couch Yamada had been occupying, a magazine in one hand and the upper half of a strawberry between his lips. "Here," he said after he'd chewed and swallowed, wondering why the scary-faced person from NEWS who was scared of women was here. "Do you need something, Nishikido-san?" he asked.
"Your, uh, brother wants his DS," Ryo replied, eyeing the boy warily for signs of sudden Shakespearean - or idiot - inclinations.
Ryutaro sighed. "I wanted it though! I said I wanted it to play on the way home!" he protested to no one in particular, but produced the rectangular device from some fourth-dimensional pocket hidden behind the couch regardless. "Just say I want it back," he told Ryo, handing it over. "Okay?"
Ryo took it, and was heading out the door, when he noticed what was hidden behind the magazine. "Tape recorder?" he asked.
Inoo smiled. "Evidence," he said. Ryutaro nodded.
"Ah," Ryo replied.
Later that week, when strawberry season was finally winding down, a rather undignified shriek made its way down the halls. Ryo, passing by the JUMP room paused, and snorted. There were more than a few dumb ones in every group, but he grudgingly admitted that there might be a few smart ones too.
Title: Silent Days
Prompt: 5 Days Where They Refused To Speak To Each Other
Pairing/Characters: YamaJima, JUMP
Word Count: 1,897
Rating: idk...PG?
Notes: Holy crap I wrote this so long ago. Probably around episode two or three of Scrap Teacher...? IDEK. Bad characterisation, little pairing sense, outright falsehoods (oh well, it's fanfiction ^-^;;). I found this the other day, vaugely recalled writing it while working on another YamaJima fic, and was amazed because unlike everything else that moulders away in my "Fanfiction" folder under "Writing" it was actually finished. So, um, enjoy. And crit. Yah.
.Prologue.
Sometimes, the biggest things in our lives start with the tiniest things. Little ripples, the flutter of butterfly wings, the caress of a gentle breeze.
Sometimes, the biggest things in our lives turn out to be the tiniest things. Molehills turned mountains shrink into anthills, and earthquakes, in the long run, seem to be nothing more than tremors.
Sometimes…the little things are all it takes.
.Day 1.
Yuto hummed as he rounded the corner to the hallway that led to Hey!Say!JUMP’s practice room, bag slung over his shoulder. The building was quiet - they’d been asked to come in around eight thirty or nine, and it was barely eight. So he was surprised when he opened the door only to find someone already there.
“Morning, Yuto!” Chinen’s high voice piped up from the other side of the couch. “Why’re you here so early?”
Yuto rounded the couch and plopped down next to the younger boy, dropping his bag onto the floor. Chinen was bright eyed and bushy tailed, a smile stretching from one adorably flushed cheek to the other. “Just woke up early! Mom asked me to take Raiya to a lesson this morning, and I got here with time to spare. Eh, so what about you?”
Chinen’s smile grew a little, and his cheeks got a little redder. “Ah, that’s it!” Yuto cried, slamming his fist into his palm. “Arashi’s here too, aren’t they?” Chinen nodded. “I knew it!”
“Ohno-kun’s really the best, Yuto!”
Yuto laughed. When Chinen was in his “Ohno-kun” mood, the ‘cool’ feeling that had been slowly building up over the past half year or so instantly dissipated, and he reverted into a bundle of pure cute. Sometimes, he found himself missing the ‘cute’ Chinen. “Ne, Chinen,” he asked suddenly. “Why don’t you sit in people’s laps anymore?”
Chinen gave him a strange look for so brief a time that Yuto wondered if he had imagined it. “Mm…It’s because I’m almost fifteen, isn’t it? Yuto doesn’t sit in people’s laps either! Do you want me to sit in your lap?”
“Eh - no - it’s okay!” But Chinen had already clambered onto Yuto’s lap, leaning back against his chest. Yuto dissolved into a fit of giggles, and had to hang onto Chinen so that the kid wouldn’t fall off. “You…Chii…Go back to being adult-like!”
Chinen laughed and obediently slid off. “Yuto’s not very comfortable to sit on anyways. You’re too skinny,” he said, adding in a little whine.
“Good~ Morning~” Hikaru bounced in followed by a yawning Yabu. “Woah, was Chinen sitting on Yuto’s lap? Yay, cute widdle Chii is back!”
Yabu swung his bag forward to smack Hikaru. “Too early. Where’s Inoo?”
“Good morning Yabu, ’morning Hikaru!” Yuto and Chinen turned to greet the BEST members over the back of the couch. “Everyone’s here early today,” Yuto remarked.
Yabu groaned a little and sank into a chair. “This guy, he came this morning and said ‘let’s go to make sure that no one’s doing strange stuff’, and Inoo showed up on the way here,” he said by explanation. “If it’s you two…well…Please let me sleep a little!” Yabu dropped his head onto the table.
Hikaru, predictably, begin piling pillows on top of Yabu’s head, and started using the rest as target practice. Yuto and Chinen joined in. When Inoo walked in, he narrowly avoided being beaned by one of Yuto’s stray shots.
“Ah! Sorry Inoo!” Yuto apologised. “And good morning!”
Inoo waved. “It’s alright…Morning everyone.” Yuto thought that he sounded a little preoccupied. “I just passed Yamada going the other way. Know what’s up with him?”
Yuto bounced up from the couch. “I’ll go check!” he yelled, and dashed out the door.
He caught up to Yamada a few doors later, grabbing onto his shoulder. “Yamachan~ Didn’t you hear me call you?”
Yamada turned - and Yuto started at the look in his eyes. “Ah, sorry Yuto, I was just thinking…”
“Thinking what?” Yuto prompted.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!”
“Don’t worry about it-”
“So I should worry about it!”
“Why don’t you go worry about Chinen instead?”
As Yamada pivoted and stalked down the hallway, Yuto suddenly remembered what the look that had flashed in his eyes had been. Ryuu’s eyes.
He stood there and watched him go.
- - -
Afternoon
“Yama-”
“Hey Chinen, we’re doing the radio show again this week, right?”
-
“Oi, Ya-”
“Daichan, save me some too!”
“Hey, you’ll just eat them all!”
“Yuto was calling for you, Yamada.”
“Oh, sorry, didn’t hear.”
-
“After the photo shoot, do you-”
“Wah, Hikaru, do that again!”
-
“YAMADA RYOSUKE!”
“Ryutaro, are we up next?”
“I know you can hear me!”
“Yamachan, I think Yuto is-”
“Ah, they’re calling for us. Let’s go!”
Yuto watched Yamada pull the youngest 7 member to where the photo shoot was set up. A heavy, sinking feeling tugged at his gut, and something prickled at his eyes, his face, his throat. He turned and excused himself to the washroom.
JUMP watched them go in different directions. “Lover’s quarrel?” suggested Inoo. Yabu and Hikaru quietly agreed.
They also quietly agreed to let it be. It would be over soon, anyways.
.Day 2.
“It’s great that all of you get along so well, especially with Yabu-kun being almost six years older than Ryutaro, right?”
“I guess, nee-chan.”
“Chinen and Yuto - your December photo shoots - they’re so cute together!”
“…” Yamada put his pencil down. “Nee-chan, help me with this question?”
Yamada sat on the railing, hands bare against the cold metal. His breath made little white puffs in the air. Condensation, he said to himself. The warm water vapour can not be held in a gaseous state when transferred to a colder environment. It was cold.
Not just the temperature. They’re so cute together, his sister had said. It was just a photo shoot, he told himself. They were paired up randomly for these things, and the bonds between everyone in JUMP had grown stronger over the past year. Besides, it was Chinen.
But the slight chill that had entered had been enough to pull lingering doubts into a vaporous form.
A shadow fell onto his face from behind. Yuto.
The taller boy stood there; mouth half open, body lanky and awkward. And then he left.
Yamada didn’t stop him.
.Day 3.
“Hey…Yuto.” It was Keito. “Are you and Yamada fighting?”
Yuto grinned at the older boy. “’Course not! Oh yeah, wanna go karaoke after today?” Of course we’re not fighting! he wanted to scream. We haven’t spoken to each other all day, all yesterday. How can we be fighting? No, we’re just…
Keito smiled too, slow and uncertain. “Sure, I guess. What about inviting Chinen and Yamada too?”
His smile had never felt so fake. “Why not?” he cheerily agreed. He saw Yamada twitch where he was reading by the door.
We’re just breaking.
.Day 4.
“No, no, no!” For the seventh time that day, the staff stopped the filming. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you - and you - just aren’t getting it today.” Yuto and Yamada both bowed in apology.
“Sorry,” they murmured.
“Sorry.”
Exasperated, the director waved them to continue. “Takasugi may be cold, but he’s not that cold. Nakajima-kun, please try and be a friendlier Kusaka.”
- - -
“Thank you for today!” they called, and headed towards the dressing room. Daiki couldn’t help but feel as if Yamada was purposely hanging behind a little. Daiki slowed his pace. Chinen bounced ahead to talk to Yuto. Beside him, it was if the aura from Yamada had just gone from blue to black.
“You two…I don’t know what’s going on, but please don’t bring your arguments to the set, okay? It makes us look unprofessional.” He knew he was scolding, but he didn’t care. “It makes JUMP look bad too.”
Chinen poked him. “Daichan’s being all grown up. Cheer up Yamachan, Yuto!”
“I’m cheered up,” they responded at the same time, in similarly flat tones. Surprised, they caught each others’ eye, and quickly looked away.
Chinen sighed. “Now look what you’ve done, Daichan! You should go get us all hot chocolate in apology!”
“Hey, hey, why you too?”
- - -
It’s been four days, Yamada thought.
And he looks unhappy. Yuto stirred his hot chocolate.
But I can’t… The beverage burned Yamada’s tongue.
I can’t… Warmth from the cup seeped into Yuto’s hand and gathered until it became pain.
Say something, anything. Please!
Yamada swallowed a mouthful of steaming chocolate and choked, burning the roof of his mouth. “Hey, don’t do that!” Daiki said, and began patting him on the back. I’m so hot inside…but those feelings, the vapour clouds, they’re still there. Why can’t they go away?
.Day 5.
School. Normal, happy, almost boring. Class, to class, to class. Classmates, classmates, and more classmates. Friends, acquaintances, senpai and kohai. “Thanks!” he says when someone held open the door for him. “Good morning,” he greets the teachers. Simple.
Take notes, change textbooks, eat lunch. Smile, laugh, talk. More notes, P.E. class, a lab tomorrow in Chemistry.
Painlessly mindless.
“See you tomorrow,” he says to his friends, and heads out the school gates. He’s not certain where he’s going - this isn’t the way home.
And then he sees him - he must have the same expression on his face. He looks so lost, so wistful, and just a little angry.
They both look away, as if they hadn’t been heading towards each other. They both turn and walk away.
They try and peel their hearts away and bring them with them.
Tears flow from the open wounds.
.Day 6.
They don’t talk. They know it’s been five days. Everyone must know it’s been five days. Five days of alien, perverse, tortured silence.
They don’t talk.
“Hey.”
“Yo.”
They send one word text-messages.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
They send one word apologies.
“Karaoke?”
“Okay.”
They send one word offerings.
“Now?”
“Food.”
And they sing.
Epilogue
“And then, remember that time where Yuto and Yamada just ‘weren’t talking’?” Takaki laughed at the memory. “The two of you turned the place inside out!”
Yamada flushed. “Eh, we, well that’s…uh…we did? I don’t remember…” Yuto’s fingers twined against his. Yamada squeezed back.
Hikaru laughed as well. “And then the day after that…”
“We find you two making out in the bathroom!” Chinen finished.
Yabu hurried to cover Ryutaro’s ears. “Oi!” he warned them. “Still under fifteen!”
Ryutaro squirmed free from Yabu. “I’m not an innocent little kid anymore,” he said. And as if to prove his point, turned and gave Chinen a big hug around the waist, and tilted his face upwards to receive Chinen’s kiss. The others alternatively aww’d, laughed, or smacked Chinen for corrupting the baby. Daiki turned red and Takaki patted him comfortingly, reassuring him that the horoscope had said love futures for Aries were looking up.
Later that night, as they walked side by side in the cool night air, Yamada watched their breaths form little white clouds.
“It seems so silly now, doesn’t it?” Yuto asked.
Yamada nodded. “I thought you…Chii…”
“And I had no idea why you were ignoring me.”
“But in the end, it worked out, didn’t it?”
“Yup! Hey, stay over at my place tonight?”
Yamada playfully smacked Yuto on the shoulder. “Yeah right. I need my sleep!”
Pairing/Characters: Sort of YamaJima, JUMP, Ryo!?
Word Count: 692
Rating: G
Notes: This seemed like a much better idea at the time...But then again, I had been amusing myself by extolling the virtues of strawberries through failed sonnets. lol major OOC-ness (Hi I don't know NEWS very well =P). Also, pretend this occurs in some alternate universe where YamaJima unfallibly exists 'kay?
One warm, sleepy, spring afternoon, Shintaro asked Tegoshi who in turn asked Ryo to get Ryutaro's DS for him because he was getting bored and nii-san probably was just hogging it and reading manga anyways and he wanted to prove that he was better than Uekusa at Mario Kart. Ryo wordlessly agreed, while a nameless junior passing by wondered if it was even legal to have Tegoshi and Shintaro within ten meters of each other, both asking for the same thing. And so, one warm, sleepy, spring afternoon, Ryo found himself in the doorway of Hey! Say! JUMP's rehearsal room, wondering if it was just him, or if something was seriously, really wrong - or if seriously, really wrong was simply the standard state of his kouhai.
"...like a fair rose blush, delicate and tempting. An aroma so sweet that it would still be sweet by any other name--"
Inoo noticed Ryo standing there first, and asked quietly, "is there something you need, Nishikido-san?"/p>
Ryo raised one eyebrow, and then the other. "Since when has poetry been the newest fad?" he asked, bypassing the question entirely.
Inoo turned and watched the scene with Ryo in silence for a moment. "Tender like the first rays of sun, a red that rivals even blood--" And then shook his head in resignation. "He's not usually like this," he whispered. "It's only when Yuto's involved--"
"Inoo, could you ask your mother not to pack strawberries as a snack next time?" The person who was supposedly involved slunk towards the pair, hair more than slightly disheveled and clothes in a suspicious state of disarray. Yuto grimaced, and pulled his shirt into place, before smiling sheepishly. Noticing Ryo, Yuto greeted him politely before turning back to Inoo, half-protesting in all seriousness. "I don't think I can take another--"
"Strawberries.” Ryo frowned, interrupting Yuto. “He's talking about...strawberries?"
"Yuto, Yuto, Yuto! Where are you going?" Now that Yamada had scrambled off the couch, the plate of ripe fruit he'd been surveying became clear immediately. He held up a half-eaten strawberry for approval, its juice dripping onto the floor. "Look! Isn't it beautiful? The lines that curve around it, the way its shade changes so gradually from such a deep colour to a pale one..." He trailed off as Yuto dragged his groupmate off with an apologetic look to his senpai.
Ryo resisted smacking his forehead in exasperation and resorted to raising his eyebrows. Again. And thanking the gods that there was no way any Kansai junior that age was that stupid, and wondering what had possessed the old man to let a group of idiotic kids debut ("idiot" couldn’t be helped because that seemed to go with Johnnies regardless of age). And then he remembered why he was being submitted to this idiotic torture in the first place. "Ryutaro," he said. "Is Ryutaro here?"
Ryutaro surfaced from behind the couch Yamada had been occupying, a magazine in one hand and the upper half of a strawberry between his lips. "Here," he said after he'd chewed and swallowed, wondering why the scary-faced person from NEWS who was scared of women was here. "Do you need something, Nishikido-san?" he asked.
"Your, uh, brother wants his DS," Ryo replied, eyeing the boy warily for signs of sudden Shakespearean - or idiot - inclinations.
Ryutaro sighed. "I wanted it though! I said I wanted it to play on the way home!" he protested to no one in particular, but produced the rectangular device from some fourth-dimensional pocket hidden behind the couch regardless. "Just say I want it back," he told Ryo, handing it over. "Okay?"
Ryo took it, and was heading out the door, when he noticed what was hidden behind the magazine. "Tape recorder?" he asked.
Inoo smiled. "Evidence," he said. Ryutaro nodded.
"Ah," Ryo replied.
Later that week, when strawberry season was finally winding down, a rather undignified shriek made its way down the halls. Ryo, passing by the JUMP room paused, and snorted. There were more than a few dumb ones in every group, but he grudgingly admitted that there might be a few smart ones too.
Title: Silent Days
Prompt: 5 Days Where They Refused To Speak To Each Other
Pairing/Characters: YamaJima, JUMP
Word Count: 1,897
Rating: idk...PG?
Notes: Holy crap I wrote this so long ago. Probably around episode two or three of Scrap Teacher...? IDEK. Bad characterisation, little pairing sense, outright falsehoods (oh well, it's fanfiction ^-^;;). I found this the other day, vaugely recalled writing it while working on another YamaJima fic, and was amazed because unlike everything else that moulders away in my "Fanfiction" folder under "Writing" it was actually finished. So, um, enjoy. And crit. Yah.
.Prologue.
Sometimes, the biggest things in our lives start with the tiniest things. Little ripples, the flutter of butterfly wings, the caress of a gentle breeze.
Sometimes, the biggest things in our lives turn out to be the tiniest things. Molehills turned mountains shrink into anthills, and earthquakes, in the long run, seem to be nothing more than tremors.
Sometimes…the little things are all it takes.
.Day 1.
Yuto hummed as he rounded the corner to the hallway that led to Hey!Say!JUMP’s practice room, bag slung over his shoulder. The building was quiet - they’d been asked to come in around eight thirty or nine, and it was barely eight. So he was surprised when he opened the door only to find someone already there.
“Morning, Yuto!” Chinen’s high voice piped up from the other side of the couch. “Why’re you here so early?”
Yuto rounded the couch and plopped down next to the younger boy, dropping his bag onto the floor. Chinen was bright eyed and bushy tailed, a smile stretching from one adorably flushed cheek to the other. “Just woke up early! Mom asked me to take Raiya to a lesson this morning, and I got here with time to spare. Eh, so what about you?”
Chinen’s smile grew a little, and his cheeks got a little redder. “Ah, that’s it!” Yuto cried, slamming his fist into his palm. “Arashi’s here too, aren’t they?” Chinen nodded. “I knew it!”
“Ohno-kun’s really the best, Yuto!”
Yuto laughed. When Chinen was in his “Ohno-kun” mood, the ‘cool’ feeling that had been slowly building up over the past half year or so instantly dissipated, and he reverted into a bundle of pure cute. Sometimes, he found himself missing the ‘cute’ Chinen. “Ne, Chinen,” he asked suddenly. “Why don’t you sit in people’s laps anymore?”
Chinen gave him a strange look for so brief a time that Yuto wondered if he had imagined it. “Mm…It’s because I’m almost fifteen, isn’t it? Yuto doesn’t sit in people’s laps either! Do you want me to sit in your lap?”
“Eh - no - it’s okay!” But Chinen had already clambered onto Yuto’s lap, leaning back against his chest. Yuto dissolved into a fit of giggles, and had to hang onto Chinen so that the kid wouldn’t fall off. “You…Chii…Go back to being adult-like!”
Chinen laughed and obediently slid off. “Yuto’s not very comfortable to sit on anyways. You’re too skinny,” he said, adding in a little whine.
“Good~ Morning~” Hikaru bounced in followed by a yawning Yabu. “Woah, was Chinen sitting on Yuto’s lap? Yay, cute widdle Chii is back!”
Yabu swung his bag forward to smack Hikaru. “Too early. Where’s Inoo?”
“Good morning Yabu, ’morning Hikaru!” Yuto and Chinen turned to greet the BEST members over the back of the couch. “Everyone’s here early today,” Yuto remarked.
Yabu groaned a little and sank into a chair. “This guy, he came this morning and said ‘let’s go to make sure that no one’s doing strange stuff’, and Inoo showed up on the way here,” he said by explanation. “If it’s you two…well…Please let me sleep a little!” Yabu dropped his head onto the table.
Hikaru, predictably, begin piling pillows on top of Yabu’s head, and started using the rest as target practice. Yuto and Chinen joined in. When Inoo walked in, he narrowly avoided being beaned by one of Yuto’s stray shots.
“Ah! Sorry Inoo!” Yuto apologised. “And good morning!”
Inoo waved. “It’s alright…Morning everyone.” Yuto thought that he sounded a little preoccupied. “I just passed Yamada going the other way. Know what’s up with him?”
Yuto bounced up from the couch. “I’ll go check!” he yelled, and dashed out the door.
He caught up to Yamada a few doors later, grabbing onto his shoulder. “Yamachan~ Didn’t you hear me call you?”
Yamada turned - and Yuto started at the look in his eyes. “Ah, sorry Yuto, I was just thinking…”
“Thinking what?” Yuto prompted.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!”
“Don’t worry about it-”
“So I should worry about it!”
“Why don’t you go worry about Chinen instead?”
As Yamada pivoted and stalked down the hallway, Yuto suddenly remembered what the look that had flashed in his eyes had been. Ryuu’s eyes.
He stood there and watched him go.
- - -
Afternoon
“Yama-”
“Hey Chinen, we’re doing the radio show again this week, right?”
-
“Oi, Ya-”
“Daichan, save me some too!”
“Hey, you’ll just eat them all!”
“Yuto was calling for you, Yamada.”
“Oh, sorry, didn’t hear.”
-
“After the photo shoot, do you-”
“Wah, Hikaru, do that again!”
-
“YAMADA RYOSUKE!”
“Ryutaro, are we up next?”
“I know you can hear me!”
“Yamachan, I think Yuto is-”
“Ah, they’re calling for us. Let’s go!”
Yuto watched Yamada pull the youngest 7 member to where the photo shoot was set up. A heavy, sinking feeling tugged at his gut, and something prickled at his eyes, his face, his throat. He turned and excused himself to the washroom.
JUMP watched them go in different directions. “Lover’s quarrel?” suggested Inoo. Yabu and Hikaru quietly agreed.
They also quietly agreed to let it be. It would be over soon, anyways.
.Day 2.
“It’s great that all of you get along so well, especially with Yabu-kun being almost six years older than Ryutaro, right?”
“I guess, nee-chan.”
“Chinen and Yuto - your December photo shoots - they’re so cute together!”
“…” Yamada put his pencil down. “Nee-chan, help me with this question?”
Yamada sat on the railing, hands bare against the cold metal. His breath made little white puffs in the air. Condensation, he said to himself. The warm water vapour can not be held in a gaseous state when transferred to a colder environment. It was cold.
Not just the temperature. They’re so cute together, his sister had said. It was just a photo shoot, he told himself. They were paired up randomly for these things, and the bonds between everyone in JUMP had grown stronger over the past year. Besides, it was Chinen.
But the slight chill that had entered had been enough to pull lingering doubts into a vaporous form.
A shadow fell onto his face from behind. Yuto.
The taller boy stood there; mouth half open, body lanky and awkward. And then he left.
Yamada didn’t stop him.
.Day 3.
“Hey…Yuto.” It was Keito. “Are you and Yamada fighting?”
Yuto grinned at the older boy. “’Course not! Oh yeah, wanna go karaoke after today?” Of course we’re not fighting! he wanted to scream. We haven’t spoken to each other all day, all yesterday. How can we be fighting? No, we’re just…
Keito smiled too, slow and uncertain. “Sure, I guess. What about inviting Chinen and Yamada too?”
His smile had never felt so fake. “Why not?” he cheerily agreed. He saw Yamada twitch where he was reading by the door.
We’re just breaking.
.Day 4.
“No, no, no!” For the seventh time that day, the staff stopped the filming. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you - and you - just aren’t getting it today.” Yuto and Yamada both bowed in apology.
“Sorry,” they murmured.
“Sorry.”
Exasperated, the director waved them to continue. “Takasugi may be cold, but he’s not that cold. Nakajima-kun, please try and be a friendlier Kusaka.”
- - -
“Thank you for today!” they called, and headed towards the dressing room. Daiki couldn’t help but feel as if Yamada was purposely hanging behind a little. Daiki slowed his pace. Chinen bounced ahead to talk to Yuto. Beside him, it was if the aura from Yamada had just gone from blue to black.
“You two…I don’t know what’s going on, but please don’t bring your arguments to the set, okay? It makes us look unprofessional.” He knew he was scolding, but he didn’t care. “It makes JUMP look bad too.”
Chinen poked him. “Daichan’s being all grown up. Cheer up Yamachan, Yuto!”
“I’m cheered up,” they responded at the same time, in similarly flat tones. Surprised, they caught each others’ eye, and quickly looked away.
Chinen sighed. “Now look what you’ve done, Daichan! You should go get us all hot chocolate in apology!”
“Hey, hey, why you too?”
- - -
It’s been four days, Yamada thought.
And he looks unhappy. Yuto stirred his hot chocolate.
But I can’t… The beverage burned Yamada’s tongue.
I can’t… Warmth from the cup seeped into Yuto’s hand and gathered until it became pain.
Say something, anything. Please!
Yamada swallowed a mouthful of steaming chocolate and choked, burning the roof of his mouth. “Hey, don’t do that!” Daiki said, and began patting him on the back. I’m so hot inside…but those feelings, the vapour clouds, they’re still there. Why can’t they go away?
.Day 5.
School. Normal, happy, almost boring. Class, to class, to class. Classmates, classmates, and more classmates. Friends, acquaintances, senpai and kohai. “Thanks!” he says when someone held open the door for him. “Good morning,” he greets the teachers. Simple.
Take notes, change textbooks, eat lunch. Smile, laugh, talk. More notes, P.E. class, a lab tomorrow in Chemistry.
Painlessly mindless.
“See you tomorrow,” he says to his friends, and heads out the school gates. He’s not certain where he’s going - this isn’t the way home.
And then he sees him - he must have the same expression on his face. He looks so lost, so wistful, and just a little angry.
They both look away, as if they hadn’t been heading towards each other. They both turn and walk away.
They try and peel their hearts away and bring them with them.
Tears flow from the open wounds.
.Day 6.
They don’t talk. They know it’s been five days. Everyone must know it’s been five days. Five days of alien, perverse, tortured silence.
They don’t talk.
“Hey.”
“Yo.”
They send one word text-messages.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
They send one word apologies.
“Karaoke?”
“Okay.”
They send one word offerings.
“Now?”
“Food.”
And they sing.
Epilogue
“And then, remember that time where Yuto and Yamada just ‘weren’t talking’?” Takaki laughed at the memory. “The two of you turned the place inside out!”
Yamada flushed. “Eh, we, well that’s…uh…we did? I don’t remember…” Yuto’s fingers twined against his. Yamada squeezed back.
Hikaru laughed as well. “And then the day after that…”
“We find you two making out in the bathroom!” Chinen finished.
Yabu hurried to cover Ryutaro’s ears. “Oi!” he warned them. “Still under fifteen!”
Ryutaro squirmed free from Yabu. “I’m not an innocent little kid anymore,” he said. And as if to prove his point, turned and gave Chinen a big hug around the waist, and tilted his face upwards to receive Chinen’s kiss. The others alternatively aww’d, laughed, or smacked Chinen for corrupting the baby. Daiki turned red and Takaki patted him comfortingly, reassuring him that the horoscope had said love futures for Aries were looking up.
Later that night, as they walked side by side in the cool night air, Yamada watched their breaths form little white clouds.
“It seems so silly now, doesn’t it?” Yuto asked.
Yamada nodded. “I thought you…Chii…”
“And I had no idea why you were ignoring me.”
“But in the end, it worked out, didn’t it?”
“Yup! Hey, stay over at my place tonight?”
Yamada playfully smacked Yuto on the shoulder. “Yeah right. I need my sleep!”