[Kinki Kids] mirror (g)
mirror
rating: g
pairings: hinted Tsuyoshi/Koichi
warnings a little melancholic
notes: for ikinari since she asked for non-fluff.
the music mirrors my feeling: a nonchronological timeline on the failed development of understanding.
When Koichi is offered the chance to put his own album together, he asks to think about it and comes back a little later with a question: "Is there a time limit?"
"No," they tell him because he's Domoto Koichi. "But please not too slow? We can put our best song writers and-"
"I want to do it myself," Koichi says and because he's Domoto Koichi and not Domoto Tsuyoshi, everyone reels back in surprise. "I'll work on it," he says, and that's the end of that.
*
The year passes, month after month after month. Concerts and stage plays and filmings, for Domoto Kyoudai, commercials, dramas, PVs. New songs and new singles released and he sleeps maybe five hours a night. When he gets home, he's so tired that all he can do it collapse on the couch and stare at the ceiling with the fragile thread of a melody running through his mind.
The Kinki Kids collaboration for the next album - composed by Koichi, lyrics by Tsuyoshi as usual - comes to him without conscious thought. Major key, shift to minor, a tinge of the melancholy that has defined them since their debut days.
"I wrote it for you," Koichi says with his prettiest stage smile when he gives Tsuyoshi the CD-R; luminous bright because he's Domoto Koichi with make-up an inch thick and hair styled to perfection. They're two minutes from being called onto the set of DomotoKyoudai and the cameras are already rolling. "I hope you like it."
Tsuyoshi frowns through the entire filming and Koichi glitters with desperate, frantic cheer in response.
*
It's a week before Tsuyoshi emails Koichi the finished lyrics. He doesn't get them until morning - the timestamp reads 4:27am and Koichi wonders if Tsuyoshi ever sleeps, if this was sent straight from the set of Asa Made. Work fills both their lives, leaving little time for anything else. They haven't talked about it for the whole week and even Koichi notices something strange and new simmering in the spaces between them.
Maybe Tsuyoshi, always so good with words because he's always known what lies beneath them, has understood where Koichi can't comprehend. Koichi composes in a code he doesn't know and Tsuyoshi's replies only leave him more lost and adrift than ever.
'for you,' the subject line reads; the body of the email is equally devoid of Tsuyoshi's regular emoji, hearts and stars and tiny little faces Koichi needs to squint and tilt his head at to figure out. He's never sure he's understood them properly anyway.
The lyrics make Koichi's heart hurt and he can't figure out why.
*
Koichi has seen Tsuyoshi pour his heart out to the world too many times to do the same, watched Tsuyoshi sing his lyrics, heartfelt, like every word was physical pain: a confession, an admission, some heart-rending truth.
"Tsuyoshi is too good with words," Koichi tells Nagase one quiet summer's night, replete with food and no little alcohol. Everything is soft and warm, unfocused at the edges. "He says something and means it but then it sounds like maybe he means something else and he looks at me and I don't get it."
Nagase has never been accused of being overly eloquent, so he grunts in agreement. "Tsuyo is kinda deep."
"He makes me feel like I'm drowning," and the truth in his meant-to-be-joking words makes Koichi turn stricken eyes at Nagase, pale and desperately unhappy.
*
They sing together on Music Station, old hands by now, and a half dozen other promotional programs when their schedules let them. Interviews, guest appearances; they're screened beforehand on what they can say, a carefully chosen handful of anecdotes that will be repeated over and over. Koichi thinks he could do it in his sleep and proves it on the odd occasion, trusting that Tsuyoshi will cover for him.
When the promotions end, their schedules resume their daily hectic pace and they see each other once, twice a week. Donnamonya, the odd filming, so on. Even their magazine shoots are separate after so long together.
"It feels sorta lonely," Takizawa says one day at a 'No Border' dinner, almost guiltily confessing. The rest of the group are a raucous distraction at the table but the bar is blissfully quiet. "We worked so hard to debut together and with all these solo activities..."
"There'll be time," Koichi says in his awkward version of comforting. He pats Takizawa on the back, a fleeting touch. "He'll always be there for you to return to." He thinks, maybe, that he's telling Takizawa a lie butTackey&Tsubasa have never been the Kinki Kids and never will be. "Just do the same for him."
"How can you stand it? Doesn't it feel strange?" Takizawa is wide-eyed and trusting; Koichi feels an age older than the three years and half a lifetime on stage that separates them.
"Tsuyoshi has always had his solo career," he says instead, stage smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Solo singles and albums - Koichi has carefully collected every one, read and watched every interview.Endlicheri is only half a stranger. "Maybe I should do more too."
Takizawa makes a sad, puzzled noise into his beer and Koichi, taking pity, elaborates. "He wouldn't have been happy just staying with me."
Three seconds later, a panicked Koichi calls for reinforcements when Takizawa, more than a little drunk, starts weeping into his glass. Nagase is patently unhelpful when he arrives and almost hysterical himself, Koichi sends him to do 'something useful' which Nagase takes as an instruction to keep the drinks flowing and everyone else distracted.
"What did you do to him?" is the first thing Tsuyoshi says to Koichi when he arrives, torn between dismayed and amused. Tsubasa is already at Takizawa's side, eyeing the puddle of weeping drunk with no little alarm.
'I may have accidentally implied you were faithless and that you were maybe teaching Tsubasa your ways,' Koichi very carefully does not say. He thinks it's sort of unfair that Tsuyoshi is so unflappable in the face of his quiet dinner with Tsubasa being interrupted with emergency calls to Tsubasa's (not Tsuyoshi. Never Tsuyoshi's) phone but then again, where one half ofTakiTsuba is, the other is sure to follow behind.
Something in Koichi coils tense and tight. He shrugs and gives Tsuyoshi a narrow-eyed look instead.
Behind them, Tsubasa is trying to pry Takizawa from the bar stool. Takizawa resists, sloppy and uncoordinated and he'd protested very loudly when Koichi had phoned Tsubasa because there are some things partners don't need to see. Koichi had rolled his eyes and explained patiently, "He's seen worse from you without running away screaming," which had just made Takizawa flail more.
But Takizawa has never been able to resist Tsubasa, not even when they were the smallest juniors and unable to ignore one another, one more duo forced together by the agency. Takizawa tries to pull away but ends up half collapsed against Tsubasa's jacket instead, handsfisted in the crisp material.
"Don't leave," Takizawa says plaintively, half into Tsubasa's chest - Koichi lip-reads more than hears and has to turn away at the delicate way Tsubasa's hand touches Takizawa's hair, the back of his neck.
"Home wrecker," Tsuyoshi says, fond and teasing. His eyes are soft and bright; he'd been watching Takizawa and Tsubasa too.
"They're good friends," Koichi says carefully, neutral. There's a fresh drink in front of him, left long enough that condensation beads on the glass and leaves wet rings on the cheap cardboard coaster.
They're only four seats down from where Tsubasa is making frantic eyes at them in an unspoken plea for help but the distance between them could be counted in years. Tsuyoshi picks up his own glass, not drinking from it, but carefully balances it on the edge of the base so the liquid touches the rim but doesn't quite spill. "Kinda rare, isn't it?"
"I have Nagase," Koichi says abruptly, watching Tsuyoshi's hands with fierce concentration. The glass wobbles slightly. Tsuyoshi doesn't move.
"I should go find him." Koichi doesn't bother to wait for a reply that he's fairly sure won't come and walks off, leaving his untouched drink and partner behind him.
*
Bit by bit, note by note, Koichi lets his album form as it will, discarding four songs for every one he gives the agency. It's not quite his anymore when he gets it back, another vision super-imposed onto his. He thinks it's sort of fitting like that.
A new project - "Voice acting," Julie tells him with a smug curl of satisfaction. Koichi makes a face behind her back but the challenge of something new sends a thrill down his spine - pushes his schedule up a step and he lets three fledgling melodies go to be arranged and changed, words given to him to sing.
"What were you thinking about?" the lyricist asks him when they're introduced and Koichi shrugs with his most charming smile.
"Guess," he invites her, all narrow eyes and soft mouth; he hides a smirk when she flushes red and squeaks that she'll do her best.
He's not surprised when the lyrics come back sensual and sultry-sweet; he's sung worse before and will sing worse yet, whispers and moans and pleas to a responsive audience, always the promising coquette but never following through.
Koichi has always let someone else put the words in his mouth, trusting them better than his own. He can make someone laugh easily enough - years on Domoto Kyoudai and Love Love Aishiteru have been ample training - but is happier working with the hordes of talented songwriters Johnny-san throws at him. He wonders what they're thinking sometimes, when he's given a sheet of paper with someone's heart bled onto it in neat black and white characters.
"A song you'll be able to sing always," they're told about Garasu no Shounen and Koichi had wondered at the bittersweet smile in the songwriter's eyes. At sixteen going on seventeen, seventeen to eighteen, heartbreak and betrayal had still been foreign, things from dramas and not life.
He thinks he understands better now but Koichi has never been able to match the emotion in Tsuyoshi's voice. He isn't sure he wants to.
*
"If you wrote a song for your partner to sing, what would it be like?" an interviewer asks them, Tsuyoshi in the morning and Koichi in the afternoon. Their schedules make it impossible to be together but carefully, carefully the disparate pieces will be stitched into one.
"I don't waste time thinking about things that will never happen," Koichi says shortly because it's true: Tsuyoshi is only satisfied singingKinki songs from duty, obligation, a lingering sense of owing for taking them to the top. He'd never sing something Koichi clumsily penned unless written with heart's blood and tears. They're not friends.
He forces a chuckle to make light of his words but looks down and away; not being good with words means he's never been able to lie. The interviewer, something between friend and acquaintance from years of long association, hums thoughtfully and moves on.
Koichi reads Tsuyoshi's answer weeks later, flipping through the discarded idol magazines floating around backstage. "A little rockish, with a soft chorus," Tsuyoshi had said and Koichi's mind tries to attach an expression to the dry words: joking or serious, straight faced either way.
*
His first solo tour, years after Tsuyoshi had completed his own, Koichi had met with his concert crew and said, "I want to perform one of Tsuyoshi's songs."
They’d blinked at him. It wasn't uncommon to perform group songs solo but to take someone else’s solo was a bit...
"I'll tell Tsuyoshi," Koichi says, narrow eyed and stubborn and they let him because Koichi has never given up on a fight that he's chosen, no matter how agreeable he is most times. Koichi doesn't often choose his fights wisely but he fights them well.
"I'm singing one of your songs," Koichi tells Tsuyoshi, half defiant, half charming. He raises an eyebrow in challenge and tries to make the most of the extra height his boots give him.
"Okay," Tsuyoshi says in return, calm and easy. "Which one?"
Koichi flounders at this because Tsuyoshi has albums worth, each song more obscure than the last. "A-any? One that... suits me?"
"I'll help," Tsuyoshi says firmly and that's how they spend hours pouring over lyrics and listening to mp3s. Tsuyoshi rejects a dozen songs out of hand and pushes a select three at Koichi instead, unfathomable glint in his eye.Dekiai Logic waits hidden at the bottom of the stack.
"This?" Koichi asks doubtfully, scanning through the lines of lyrics and guitar chords. Tsuyoshi presses a few buttons on his mp3 player and the heavy beat startles into the hushed room.
"It suits you," Tsuyoshi says simply and doesn't turn away from Koichi's sharp, searching gaze. Koichi frowns but settles back to listen, already familiar from watching Tsuyoshi's concerts. It's a good song - fast and frantic; Tsuyoshi's voice brings it to startling, powerful life.
"Sing it," Tsuyoshi says -demands - soft and simple. Koichi can't find a way to say no.
*
Koichi spends countless hours in the studio for each album recording, convinced that maybe the next take will be better than the last, re-recording until the sound techs, his manager, all the staff shoo him out of the booth and press a coldbento, a bottle of tea into his hands. They know better than to try chase him out of the studio by now and twenty minutes later, bento abandoned half finished to the despair of his manager, he's hanging over the shoulders of the sound techs.
Half an hour and he's in the booth again doing back-up vocals.
He never does them for Tsuyoshi's solo tracks - an unspoken agreement has Tsuyoshi doing his own because Tsuyoshi is Tsuyoshi isEndlicheri; Kinki Kids doesn't come into it.
*
He calls his first tour 1/2 and takes a handful of Kinki songs with him - Ai no Katamari with Tsuyoshi's words to his own beat, Hakka Candy. Concerts have always meant months of living in each other's back pockets, daily rehearsals and foreign hotel rooms - it's strange to do it on his own.
Musical Academy are probably Koichi's biggest fans, even if they're one of the groups that Koichi didn't produce - KAT-TUN had turned out disastrously on his part, J-Support wereKKKity were split up. He still thinks of them fondly and makes sure to press New Years money on them each year at Count Down though they've grown big and tall(er). It's MA that dance back-up for him and come with him on tour.
None of them bat an eye if he comes slinking into their rooms late at night, too wound up to sleep and they listen with amused tolerance when he rambles on about F1.Yara and he view the world from almost the same height - just right, making everyone around them feel like huge, bumbling giants in comparison.
Akiyama carries Koichi around the stage, like Nagase, Tsuyoshi. He's strong and solid and while not exactly familiar (ten years is a long time and Koichi, small and shy, had gotten so used to being pulled onto laps that he'd climb onto them himself), he's almost enough.
*
The second time around, rehearsals go smoother and everything comes together just that bit quicker. They've done all the flashy things already - mirrors and movable screens and circus tricks taken from SHOCK so all that's left for this concert tour is his own voice to fill up the stage.
He releases his album in September and holds his first concert the same week.
The tour's much longer this time, stretching weeks through the month and into the next, show after show in between the bustle of moving from venue to venue. All around the country, Koichi's more than a little tired only halfway through.
He comes off stage and his feet hurt from singing and dancing for three hours straight, staggering when he stands still. Akki lends a shoulder and the rest of MA gather around him laughing, offering ridiculous suggestions to make him smile. He's in their hotel rooms more often than his own.
Tsuyoshi doesn't come to watch, too busy with his own activities and his phone rings from Nagase, Inohara, various members from the jimusho offering their congratulations but never from his absent partner. It's natural: they haven't had each other's numbers in years though the days they spend together steadily decrease, solo projects and separate work taking all their time.
Each night, he falls asleep to an echo of voices shouting only his name and wakes up missing a half no longer needed to make up his whole.
*
His last concert ends in a cascade of streamers and applause, called out again and again for more encores. His dancers and band line up with him, hand in hand and they stretch to fill the entire stage, facing an audience large and loud enough that their screams fill his heart.
They go out to dinner, go drinking, take photos and at the end of the night, Koichi's manager pours him into a car and takes him home. They'll see each other again, eight hours or less; there's little time to waste in the world of show business.
Koichi stumbles into the Kinki shared dressing room, still hurting - in ten years, his body will be a weather vane of aches and pains. He can feel storms gather in his joints, in the dizzy pressure in his head.
Tsuyoshi is already there, familiar through his changes. His hair is different. It's no surprise.
Koichi stops at the door without conscious thought.
"Congratulations," Tsuyoshi says, eyes dark; the curve of his mouth is instantly recognisable though the emotion behind it is as oblique as ever. This, too, is expected. "Welcome back."
"I'm back," Koichi says and thinks how long, how long will they be together before Tsuyoshi decides that it's his turn to leave.
Tsuyoshi has always had itchy feet. He comes and goes, always returning through some sense of obligation or loyalty, some affection that binds him back. He leaves longer and longer every time.
Koichi wonders if next time, he'll come back.
notes:
+ the collaboration is, of course, Renrui.
+ one section is about 75% the same as appearing in a ficsnip somewhere. Sorry.
+ most of mirror was composed by Koichi, lyrics by someone else.
+ that interview does actually exist, asking about songs for their partners. It can be found on the Kinki Kids forum.
+ mostly canonical, a little bit not.
+ started five months ago with a four month hiatus in between. Haa.
+ thank you to diamondsjack who tirelessly beta'd and listened to me whine.
+ sorry it's pointless. there might be a tsuyoshi perspective later.
+ more detailed notes + analysis available soon.
+ dvd commentary
rating: g
pairings: hinted Tsuyoshi/Koichi
warnings a little melancholic
notes: for ikinari since she asked for non-fluff.
the music mirrors my feeling: a nonchronological timeline on the failed development of understanding.
When Koichi is offered the chance to put his own album together, he asks to think about it and comes back a little later with a question: "Is there a time limit?"
"No," they tell him because he's Domoto Koichi. "But please not too slow? We can put our best song writers and-"
"I want to do it myself," Koichi says and because he's Domoto Koichi and not Domoto Tsuyoshi, everyone reels back in surprise. "I'll work on it," he says, and that's the end of that.
*
The year passes, month after month after month. Concerts and stage plays and filmings, for Domoto Kyoudai, commercials, dramas, PVs. New songs and new singles released and he sleeps maybe five hours a night. When he gets home, he's so tired that all he can do it collapse on the couch and stare at the ceiling with the fragile thread of a melody running through his mind.
The Kinki Kids collaboration for the next album - composed by Koichi, lyrics by Tsuyoshi as usual - comes to him without conscious thought. Major key, shift to minor, a tinge of the melancholy that has defined them since their debut days.
"I wrote it for you," Koichi says with his prettiest stage smile when he gives Tsuyoshi the CD-R; luminous bright because he's Domoto Koichi with make-up an inch thick and hair styled to perfection. They're two minutes from being called onto the set of DomotoKyoudai and the cameras are already rolling. "I hope you like it."
Tsuyoshi frowns through the entire filming and Koichi glitters with desperate, frantic cheer in response.
*
It's a week before Tsuyoshi emails Koichi the finished lyrics. He doesn't get them until morning - the timestamp reads 4:27am and Koichi wonders if Tsuyoshi ever sleeps, if this was sent straight from the set of Asa Made. Work fills both their lives, leaving little time for anything else. They haven't talked about it for the whole week and even Koichi notices something strange and new simmering in the spaces between them.
Maybe Tsuyoshi, always so good with words because he's always known what lies beneath them, has understood where Koichi can't comprehend. Koichi composes in a code he doesn't know and Tsuyoshi's replies only leave him more lost and adrift than ever.
'for you,' the subject line reads; the body of the email is equally devoid of Tsuyoshi's regular emoji, hearts and stars and tiny little faces Koichi needs to squint and tilt his head at to figure out. He's never sure he's understood them properly anyway.
The lyrics make Koichi's heart hurt and he can't figure out why.
*
Koichi has seen Tsuyoshi pour his heart out to the world too many times to do the same, watched Tsuyoshi sing his lyrics, heartfelt, like every word was physical pain: a confession, an admission, some heart-rending truth.
"Tsuyoshi is too good with words," Koichi tells Nagase one quiet summer's night, replete with food and no little alcohol. Everything is soft and warm, unfocused at the edges. "He says something and means it but then it sounds like maybe he means something else and he looks at me and I don't get it."
Nagase has never been accused of being overly eloquent, so he grunts in agreement. "Tsuyo is kinda deep."
"He makes me feel like I'm drowning," and the truth in his meant-to-be-joking words makes Koichi turn stricken eyes at Nagase, pale and desperately unhappy.
*
They sing together on Music Station, old hands by now, and a half dozen other promotional programs when their schedules let them. Interviews, guest appearances; they're screened beforehand on what they can say, a carefully chosen handful of anecdotes that will be repeated over and over. Koichi thinks he could do it in his sleep and proves it on the odd occasion, trusting that Tsuyoshi will cover for him.
When the promotions end, their schedules resume their daily hectic pace and they see each other once, twice a week. Donnamonya, the odd filming, so on. Even their magazine shoots are separate after so long together.
"It feels sorta lonely," Takizawa says one day at a 'No Border' dinner, almost guiltily confessing. The rest of the group are a raucous distraction at the table but the bar is blissfully quiet. "We worked so hard to debut together and with all these solo activities..."
"There'll be time," Koichi says in his awkward version of comforting. He pats Takizawa on the back, a fleeting touch. "He'll always be there for you to return to." He thinks, maybe, that he's telling Takizawa a lie butTackey&Tsubasa have never been the Kinki Kids and never will be. "Just do the same for him."
"How can you stand it? Doesn't it feel strange?" Takizawa is wide-eyed and trusting; Koichi feels an age older than the three years and half a lifetime on stage that separates them.
"Tsuyoshi has always had his solo career," he says instead, stage smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Solo singles and albums - Koichi has carefully collected every one, read and watched every interview.Endlicheri is only half a stranger. "Maybe I should do more too."
Takizawa makes a sad, puzzled noise into his beer and Koichi, taking pity, elaborates. "He wouldn't have been happy just staying with me."
Three seconds later, a panicked Koichi calls for reinforcements when Takizawa, more than a little drunk, starts weeping into his glass. Nagase is patently unhelpful when he arrives and almost hysterical himself, Koichi sends him to do 'something useful' which Nagase takes as an instruction to keep the drinks flowing and everyone else distracted.
"What did you do to him?" is the first thing Tsuyoshi says to Koichi when he arrives, torn between dismayed and amused. Tsubasa is already at Takizawa's side, eyeing the puddle of weeping drunk with no little alarm.
'I may have accidentally implied you were faithless and that you were maybe teaching Tsubasa your ways,' Koichi very carefully does not say. He thinks it's sort of unfair that Tsuyoshi is so unflappable in the face of his quiet dinner with Tsubasa being interrupted with emergency calls to Tsubasa's (not Tsuyoshi. Never Tsuyoshi's) phone but then again, where one half ofTakiTsuba is, the other is sure to follow behind.
Something in Koichi coils tense and tight. He shrugs and gives Tsuyoshi a narrow-eyed look instead.
Behind them, Tsubasa is trying to pry Takizawa from the bar stool. Takizawa resists, sloppy and uncoordinated and he'd protested very loudly when Koichi had phoned Tsubasa because there are some things partners don't need to see. Koichi had rolled his eyes and explained patiently, "He's seen worse from you without running away screaming," which had just made Takizawa flail more.
But Takizawa has never been able to resist Tsubasa, not even when they were the smallest juniors and unable to ignore one another, one more duo forced together by the agency. Takizawa tries to pull away but ends up half collapsed against Tsubasa's jacket instead, handsfisted in the crisp material.
"Don't leave," Takizawa says plaintively, half into Tsubasa's chest - Koichi lip-reads more than hears and has to turn away at the delicate way Tsubasa's hand touches Takizawa's hair, the back of his neck.
"Home wrecker," Tsuyoshi says, fond and teasing. His eyes are soft and bright; he'd been watching Takizawa and Tsubasa too.
"They're good friends," Koichi says carefully, neutral. There's a fresh drink in front of him, left long enough that condensation beads on the glass and leaves wet rings on the cheap cardboard coaster.
They're only four seats down from where Tsubasa is making frantic eyes at them in an unspoken plea for help but the distance between them could be counted in years. Tsuyoshi picks up his own glass, not drinking from it, but carefully balances it on the edge of the base so the liquid touches the rim but doesn't quite spill. "Kinda rare, isn't it?"
"I have Nagase," Koichi says abruptly, watching Tsuyoshi's hands with fierce concentration. The glass wobbles slightly. Tsuyoshi doesn't move.
"I should go find him." Koichi doesn't bother to wait for a reply that he's fairly sure won't come and walks off, leaving his untouched drink and partner behind him.
*
Bit by bit, note by note, Koichi lets his album form as it will, discarding four songs for every one he gives the agency. It's not quite his anymore when he gets it back, another vision super-imposed onto his. He thinks it's sort of fitting like that.
A new project - "Voice acting," Julie tells him with a smug curl of satisfaction. Koichi makes a face behind her back but the challenge of something new sends a thrill down his spine - pushes his schedule up a step and he lets three fledgling melodies go to be arranged and changed, words given to him to sing.
"What were you thinking about?" the lyricist asks him when they're introduced and Koichi shrugs with his most charming smile.
"Guess," he invites her, all narrow eyes and soft mouth; he hides a smirk when she flushes red and squeaks that she'll do her best.
He's not surprised when the lyrics come back sensual and sultry-sweet; he's sung worse before and will sing worse yet, whispers and moans and pleas to a responsive audience, always the promising coquette but never following through.
Koichi has always let someone else put the words in his mouth, trusting them better than his own. He can make someone laugh easily enough - years on Domoto Kyoudai and Love Love Aishiteru have been ample training - but is happier working with the hordes of talented songwriters Johnny-san throws at him. He wonders what they're thinking sometimes, when he's given a sheet of paper with someone's heart bled onto it in neat black and white characters.
"A song you'll be able to sing always," they're told about Garasu no Shounen and Koichi had wondered at the bittersweet smile in the songwriter's eyes. At sixteen going on seventeen, seventeen to eighteen, heartbreak and betrayal had still been foreign, things from dramas and not life.
He thinks he understands better now but Koichi has never been able to match the emotion in Tsuyoshi's voice. He isn't sure he wants to.
*
"If you wrote a song for your partner to sing, what would it be like?" an interviewer asks them, Tsuyoshi in the morning and Koichi in the afternoon. Their schedules make it impossible to be together but carefully, carefully the disparate pieces will be stitched into one.
"I don't waste time thinking about things that will never happen," Koichi says shortly because it's true: Tsuyoshi is only satisfied singingKinki songs from duty, obligation, a lingering sense of owing for taking them to the top. He'd never sing something Koichi clumsily penned unless written with heart's blood and tears. They're not friends.
He forces a chuckle to make light of his words but looks down and away; not being good with words means he's never been able to lie. The interviewer, something between friend and acquaintance from years of long association, hums thoughtfully and moves on.
Koichi reads Tsuyoshi's answer weeks later, flipping through the discarded idol magazines floating around backstage. "A little rockish, with a soft chorus," Tsuyoshi had said and Koichi's mind tries to attach an expression to the dry words: joking or serious, straight faced either way.
*
His first solo tour, years after Tsuyoshi had completed his own, Koichi had met with his concert crew and said, "I want to perform one of Tsuyoshi's songs."
They’d blinked at him. It wasn't uncommon to perform group songs solo but to take someone else’s solo was a bit...
"I'll tell Tsuyoshi," Koichi says, narrow eyed and stubborn and they let him because Koichi has never given up on a fight that he's chosen, no matter how agreeable he is most times. Koichi doesn't often choose his fights wisely but he fights them well.
"I'm singing one of your songs," Koichi tells Tsuyoshi, half defiant, half charming. He raises an eyebrow in challenge and tries to make the most of the extra height his boots give him.
"Okay," Tsuyoshi says in return, calm and easy. "Which one?"
Koichi flounders at this because Tsuyoshi has albums worth, each song more obscure than the last. "A-any? One that... suits me?"
"I'll help," Tsuyoshi says firmly and that's how they spend hours pouring over lyrics and listening to mp3s. Tsuyoshi rejects a dozen songs out of hand and pushes a select three at Koichi instead, unfathomable glint in his eye.Dekiai Logic waits hidden at the bottom of the stack.
"This?" Koichi asks doubtfully, scanning through the lines of lyrics and guitar chords. Tsuyoshi presses a few buttons on his mp3 player and the heavy beat startles into the hushed room.
"It suits you," Tsuyoshi says simply and doesn't turn away from Koichi's sharp, searching gaze. Koichi frowns but settles back to listen, already familiar from watching Tsuyoshi's concerts. It's a good song - fast and frantic; Tsuyoshi's voice brings it to startling, powerful life.
"Sing it," Tsuyoshi says -demands - soft and simple. Koichi can't find a way to say no.
*
Koichi spends countless hours in the studio for each album recording, convinced that maybe the next take will be better than the last, re-recording until the sound techs, his manager, all the staff shoo him out of the booth and press a coldbento, a bottle of tea into his hands. They know better than to try chase him out of the studio by now and twenty minutes later, bento abandoned half finished to the despair of his manager, he's hanging over the shoulders of the sound techs.
Half an hour and he's in the booth again doing back-up vocals.
He never does them for Tsuyoshi's solo tracks - an unspoken agreement has Tsuyoshi doing his own because Tsuyoshi is Tsuyoshi isEndlicheri; Kinki Kids doesn't come into it.
*
He calls his first tour 1/2 and takes a handful of Kinki songs with him - Ai no Katamari with Tsuyoshi's words to his own beat, Hakka Candy. Concerts have always meant months of living in each other's back pockets, daily rehearsals and foreign hotel rooms - it's strange to do it on his own.
Musical Academy are probably Koichi's biggest fans, even if they're one of the groups that Koichi didn't produce - KAT-TUN had turned out disastrously on his part, J-Support wereKKKity were split up. He still thinks of them fondly and makes sure to press New Years money on them each year at Count Down though they've grown big and tall(er). It's MA that dance back-up for him and come with him on tour.
None of them bat an eye if he comes slinking into their rooms late at night, too wound up to sleep and they listen with amused tolerance when he rambles on about F1.Yara and he view the world from almost the same height - just right, making everyone around them feel like huge, bumbling giants in comparison.
Akiyama carries Koichi around the stage, like Nagase, Tsuyoshi. He's strong and solid and while not exactly familiar (ten years is a long time and Koichi, small and shy, had gotten so used to being pulled onto laps that he'd climb onto them himself), he's almost enough.
*
The second time around, rehearsals go smoother and everything comes together just that bit quicker. They've done all the flashy things already - mirrors and movable screens and circus tricks taken from SHOCK so all that's left for this concert tour is his own voice to fill up the stage.
He releases his album in September and holds his first concert the same week.
The tour's much longer this time, stretching weeks through the month and into the next, show after show in between the bustle of moving from venue to venue. All around the country, Koichi's more than a little tired only halfway through.
He comes off stage and his feet hurt from singing and dancing for three hours straight, staggering when he stands still. Akki lends a shoulder and the rest of MA gather around him laughing, offering ridiculous suggestions to make him smile. He's in their hotel rooms more often than his own.
Tsuyoshi doesn't come to watch, too busy with his own activities and his phone rings from Nagase, Inohara, various members from the jimusho offering their congratulations but never from his absent partner. It's natural: they haven't had each other's numbers in years though the days they spend together steadily decrease, solo projects and separate work taking all their time.
Each night, he falls asleep to an echo of voices shouting only his name and wakes up missing a half no longer needed to make up his whole.
*
His last concert ends in a cascade of streamers and applause, called out again and again for more encores. His dancers and band line up with him, hand in hand and they stretch to fill the entire stage, facing an audience large and loud enough that their screams fill his heart.
They go out to dinner, go drinking, take photos and at the end of the night, Koichi's manager pours him into a car and takes him home. They'll see each other again, eight hours or less; there's little time to waste in the world of show business.
Koichi stumbles into the Kinki shared dressing room, still hurting - in ten years, his body will be a weather vane of aches and pains. He can feel storms gather in his joints, in the dizzy pressure in his head.
Tsuyoshi is already there, familiar through his changes. His hair is different. It's no surprise.
Koichi stops at the door without conscious thought.
"Congratulations," Tsuyoshi says, eyes dark; the curve of his mouth is instantly recognisable though the emotion behind it is as oblique as ever. This, too, is expected. "Welcome back."
"I'm back," Koichi says and thinks how long, how long will they be together before Tsuyoshi decides that it's his turn to leave.
Tsuyoshi has always had itchy feet. He comes and goes, always returning through some sense of obligation or loyalty, some affection that binds him back. He leaves longer and longer every time.
Koichi wonders if next time, he'll come back.
notes:
+ the collaboration is, of course, Renrui.
+ one section is about 75% the same as appearing in a ficsnip somewhere. Sorry.
+ most of mirror was composed by Koichi, lyrics by someone else.
+ that interview does actually exist, asking about songs for their partners. It can be found on the Kinki Kids forum.
+ mostly canonical, a little bit not.
+ started five months ago with a four month hiatus in between. Haa.
+ thank you to diamondsjack who tirelessly beta'd and listened to me whine.
+ sorry it's pointless. there might be a tsuyoshi perspective later.
+ more detailed notes + analysis available soon.
+ dvd commentary