[fanfiction] Talk Play Love series; Rewind
Title: Rewind
Group: Kanjani8, News
Pairing: Slight Ryouchi, but mostly none
Rating: PG
Warning: None
Summary: Ryo has some sort of epiphany and goes through some not so recent events of his life.
N/A: This seriously has no point or punchline. I worte this out of the blue and not really caring a lot about how it'd come out. I quite like it, so I decided to maybe work on one-shots of this kind in the future and call it the Talk Play Love series. Partly because this song kind of inspired me through this and also beause it's a cool name lol It won't be a multi-chaptered fic, just a bunch of one-shots following the same line of thought, I guess XD
The lights in his apartment are off and he maintains the darkness, stumbling around until his knees reach a couch. He promptly throws himself on it, half unbuttoning his shirt as to get somewhat more comfortable. It’s been two days now with almost no sleep, he thinks it’s beginning to show.
Ryo massages his face with an idle hand, looking to the darkness and the unlikely warmness of his own home. He shuffles and tries to sleep and sort of hates himself when his eyes refuses to remain closed for more than 2 minutes.
It’s not like he’s having a problem or feeling down. In fact, he’s pretty much fine. It’s just that he’s been thinking. He likes it, but doesn’t at the same time. When he gets too far in his own thoughts, it’ll most likely get him confused or scared or annoyed at absolutely nothing. But himself.
Where was he? When he was 16 and ambitious he traced down a life plan, things he wanted to reach by the age of 25. He was now 23, and tried to remember what wishes he had back then. Some of them were stupid and way too childish for his current care, but others… He wanted to remember.
He vaguely recalled turning to Yamapi when they were talking about future and stuff in one tiny practice room juniors rehearsed in. Yamapi had commented about wanting his hard work to pay off.
“Like, be famous?” Ryo asked, not giving much care.
Yamapi shrugged and looked thoughtful. Ryo furrowed his eyebrows, paying his friend more attention.
“No, like- I want to look back, one day, and feel like I’ve accomplished something. Even if I’m not even in this industry anymore, I want to be proud of both getting in and making my way out.”
Ryo looked at Pi’s face, his expression different. As if he was asking Pi what the hell was up. And, well, he was, indeed.
“Well. I hear a lot about people who get depressed and things just because they didn’t became very famous or lost the fame they’d conquered. I… I don’t want to be like that.”
Smiling a little, Ryo poked his friend’s arm. He knew Pi was thinking too much and told him to quit it. It was scary, wasn’t it? Thinking too much was way too scary.
He smiles, in the darkness, to his memory. Pi would ways think more than anyone else, and would find the most random way to express it when he just couldn’t handle it all by himself anymore. Ryo believes he can blame him for growing this habit with time.
When Ryo was 16, he thought, he wanted to be something like a rockstar. He used to party like one, which he now reflects as awkward drinking sessions that he wishes he’d never went through at all, but doesn’t completely regret. Hadn’t he been a brat, he wouldn’t have find his own way.
About a year after that conversation with Pi, he found himself in a hotel room with 2 friends and 2 girls his friends knew. He was impossibly drunk for his age, way too stupid, and making out on the floor, beside the bed, with the brown-haired one wearing red lacy shirt and black skinny jeans. She was really cute, and probably even drunker than he was.
He also remembers when Hina had entered his bedroom and kicked all of them from the room, which he actually had been sharing with Yasu. He remembers Hina yanking him to his feet and throwing him into freezing shower. Hina was yelling like mad, using all the Kansai vocabulary anyone’s ever heard of and probably making some up. He shouted about how Ryo could be one useless brat that had no respect for anyone else. Ryo remained silent, partly because he felt guilty, but mostly because the cold water in addition to his drunken state muted him.
Couple of hours after, Hina’s throat was aching, Yasu and Yoko sat on his bed, having just heard about what’d happened before and he was sprawled across his own mattress. His head was laying over Hina’s lap, who was running his fingers through the still moist hair. Yasu eyed him with worried affection and Yoko looked at anything but any of them.
Last thing he heard before drifting off to sleep was Yoko’s unusually silent voice.
“Let’s not tell anybody about this, even the members. I’m sure he won’t do it again, just give him some rest.”
He shuffles on his couch. His feet began feeling a little cold. He wonders further about his dreams. Like all the other guy who’s made part of Jimusho’s team, he’d whished fervently to perform on Tokyo Dome one day. He achieved that, for sure. With both his groups, he’d achieved it.
Ryo pauses and ponders about what could have happened to him if he hadn’t his fellow members beside him.
He doesn’t consider all of them his close friends, even because he doesn’t get to have all that contact with some of them. But they are members, and that is something like a friend.
Members, he thinks, are like brothers. You end up with them without having chosen and learn how to get along with. We build a bond with them, some sort of tie that is way stronger than it seems. It hurts, abnormally ferocious, when something breaks it.
There he is. When he thinks about work and the brothers it’s brought him, he will always touch it. It doesn’t hurt anymore, he can talk just fine about it anytime. But it feels awfully lonely to let his mind go around it all by himself, like he doesn’t have the support his brothers built for him.
The bitter taste of a crushed emotion lingered in his mouth for very long months after Uchi’s suspension. He didn’t think he’d cry when something like that happened, he didn’t think he’d care, but he did. He did and it felt awful. Uchi was someone who was always there. Being wherever he needed to be, 90% of those times included Uchi. They nagged together, took the shinkansen together, complained about work together, crushed over each other’s house once in a while for lack of better organization. He worked along with Uchi forcedly more than with anybody else.
That was how they got to know each other. Frankly, when they were juniors and were still without Tacchon, doing stage performances in Osaka without proper group name, Uchi didn’t look like one of his “guys”. While Ryo was the regularly quiet kid that looked cool by not calling attention at all and would do some stupid shit in his private life, Uchi was that cute boy who everyone found lovely and seemed to be a star already, even if his life outside Jimusho wa limited to stay at home and go out occasionally with friends. Ryo sort of envied him and hated it, envying someone that wasn’t as cool as he was.
As time went bye, their similar ages sort of forced them together, and they started acting more normal around each other. When came the news they’d both do some sort of flash debut in a group without the rest of his band mates, Ryo panicked. He didn’t know what to do, agency asked him to keep silent about it, so he did. Truth to be told, he was afraid of what the members would think of him if they knew. His sempai who he admired, they’d hate him and think he was stealing their spot lights, and the others would feel betrayed.
He got his hair cut for the photo shoot section for the one-shot single jackets. That day he turned to Uchi, not wanting, but needing to talk to someone, and he felt Uchi would be the only one who could understand what he felt. Uchi’s eyes went from surprise to comprehension the minute Ryo shut down completely and couldn’t say one word.
He placed a hand over his shoulder and said he got it.
“Yokoyama-kun will just hate us, won’t he?” he said, his voice filled with fear, but Ryo couldn’t help but snort a little. Uchi’s eyes sought his and apparently found something because he giggled back.
“I can see Murakami-kun stomping his feet and yelling at the floor already,” Ryo muttered and they both started laughing out loud. They went on about Subaru’s numb face, Maru and Tacchon’s confused ones and Yasu starting to cry and saying it’d be the end of Eito’s era. They laughed it off, couldn’t find their breaths, and relaxed.
Ryo then realized that he became much more ok with it all by finding its comical side than stressing or being on the verge of tears, as he’d been ever since he was informed about the whole “other group” thing. After that, they went out to have dinner together and stressed enough about it again.
That was how their friendship started, and lasted until today. Even with lots of unlucky events, it kept still somehow. Ryo decides not to try to find the answer for it, he’s better off being oblivious to it. He recalls supporting himself in both Pi and Kusano in NewS after Uchi’s scandal. And with them, came Jin. They four of them created some sort of league that nowadays looked more like a gang and was name after Jin. Ryo himself chose not to be too involved with it anymore, it only brings headaches and isn’t worth it at all. But back then, it was simple and comforting.
In his Tokyo work breaks, it was often Pi, Kusano and Jin he came to. His bonds with his other group mates became stronger through Kusano. He admitted sometimes he hid himself behind Uchi because he was just too scared of being around the guys, but now, he sort of forced himself closer.
Little time later, it was Kusano’s turn to be suspended and NewS went on hiatus because it was just way too much drama for one single group. During that time, he kind of broke down. It felt like all the bad things that could happen to someone were falling on his shoulders and he just couldn’t bare it any longer. He didn’t have the time to feel sorry for himself because, from then on, he’d work with Eito integrally again.
He felt relieved for it. The moment, the thing he needed the most were his brothers, who had always been there. Who understood him without him saying as much as one sentence. What amazed Ryo the most is that, even if they were willing to, they didn’t have to try that hard to make him feel better.
It was weird, not having NewS to go back to. He felt like he lacked work, as he sometimes had way too much free time, even with a fair share of work. Ryo furrows his eyebrows. Maybe that was when he decided to dedicate a little more to his guitar and to song writing. Yeah, that must’ve been around it. He felt more useful that way, it was probably then he turned into the workaholic he is today.
The year with Eito went weirdly ok, no collapsing, no plans being ruined. He began getting steady again and liked being in one group, it was something more… normal, he would say.
So when News was called in the end of the year to make their comeback, he didn’t quite know how to feel. He was thrilled, yes, after all, his group was coming back and he’d be with the members again; it was amazing. But at the same time, he couldn’t help thinking it was the second time he’d be somewhat leaving Eito aside and it bothered him so much. Also, the last of NewS he saw was a very unsteady group, with their status on a constant roller coaster. He had both his feet back about this comeback, sort of sensing that it would all get destroyed in minutes if they got over confident.
However, being onstage again with NewS again was like nothing else he’d experienced. It felt like they were reborn, and it was Ryo’s third group. He’d left a sad and devastated 8 member group to join one other with 5 group mates and it felt like the best trade of his entire life.
His mind drifted off to how things had went fairly well from there on. The same year NewS made its fresh re-debut, Eito went on a tour through all Japan’s prefectures and it was so much to his head that he simply didn’t process it all at the time.
Ryo thinks about what he’s achieved down the road. There was fame and success and fans and respect, but, more than anything, he was now looking back and thinking he felt satisfied with it all. He made mistakes and was stupid and amazingly spoiled, but the members had always been there and fixed it and made it right.
He had done awful things and great things and he thinks, he hopes, he has done the same for them. That, in some point, they’ll also take a dark night in their home to look back and remember him and feel he was something for them to be proud of.
Outside his living room, there were noises of footsteps and a key was stuck in the hole. Ryo looked at the bright rectangle the outside light formed around his door and covered his eyes when it opened and revealed a tall body.
“You’re home already? Wait, God, why is it so dark in here?”
Ryo adjusted his pupils to the new amount of light in the room and recognized Uchi Hiroki with a bag in his hand and a lot of paper in his hand. He looked somewhat troubled.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, sitting up, not hiding the smile the visitor popped onto his face.
“Crushing over. I need a place to sleep in and you just won’t refuse it to your good friend, will you, Ryo-chan?”
Ryo rolled his eyes and helped him with all the mess he was bringing into his apartment.
“What are these?” he took hold of the papers and glanced at them before placing them carelessly on the coffee table.
“Concert program,” Uchi said offhandedly. “Being solo is a pain, you know.”
After some talking and replacing and deciding who’d sleep on the bed, which was more like a fight between to elementary scholars until they both agreed to squeeze in bed together, Ryo was in the kitchen fixing them something to eat and Uchi came in to help him out. He began cutting the carrots beside him and steals side glances.
“What?” Ryo asks, not angry, just slightly disturbed by Uchi’s eyes on him.
“You’ve been thinking, haven’t you?”
Ryo laughs and splashed some water over Uchi’s hair. He shrieks in retaliation.
“That was rude, you idiot.”
Uchi giggles, “You know what I meant. What was it about?”
He felt the other’s worry by those simple words. He shrugged slightly and gave an honest smile.
“Just about how I made it as far as this and still feel good about the whole thing.”
“Oh.” He didn’t ask any further questions about what was Ryo talking about and left it at that. It’s probably Ryo’s imagination, but he thinks Uchi immediately understood what it was. People around him had this weird gift of almost reading his thoughts. Maybe he should be annoyed or worried about that, but he simply doesn’t care.
They both carry on with their doings and talk about something else, but he can see the smile on Uchi’s face and thinks that they do go through some sort of analysis at some point and, maybe, they do think of him back.