Gift fic for mousapelli
To: mousapelli
From: blahchiharu
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: A Brave Soul
Pairing/Group: No pairings. A.B.C, Kisumai, JUMP, and various JE juniors.
Rating: G
Warnings: N/A
Notes: Yamashita Reon fic.
Summary: Shintaro moves into kisumai’s territory by November while members of the resistance try to fight off his yakuza suppression. Retardation ensues. A story about stolen lunch monies, mistaken love letters, and what juniors are doing when Julie isn’t looking.
Reon dreams of empty chalkboards, costume racks, his mother’s bento, and the view from the window in the junior changing room. His most recent nightly adventure consists of him crawling through the air ducks after someone lets Ryutaro-kun’s hamster loose in the jimusho building.
“Interesting,” Nakayama hums softly when Reon shares this information with the other boy. His attention is stolen from Reon, however, when Shintaro waltz into the changing room and begins gesturing at people in a yakuza-boss like manner, making special efforts to give newer juniors the evil eye.
“Shintaro-kun wants me to inform you that you’re blocking his locker,” Taiga says upon walking up to them.
“This is my locker,” Nakayama corrects, nodding towards the space he normally occupies during Tokyo recordings.
“Not since Shintaro-kun won it in a betting war against TOP3,” Taiga hastily replies with an air of confidence Reon hasn’t seen before. “He says you have a day to empty out of this region and to find new cubicles before you’re blacklisted.”
“Give me a break,” Takada declares, emerging behind Taiga in time to shoo him away. He waves when Taiga reports to Shintaro at the other end of the room, patting Nakayama on the back while looping his other hand around Reon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he assures the two other boys. “I’m not afraid of his gang of toddlers.”
“His gang of toddlers,” Nakayama answers in his normally monotonous voice, “Just hauled your bag out of the room and is heading towards the bathrooms.”
Reon is walking down the hall way, happily sipping from his box of apple juice, when someone pulls him into an empty rehearsal room.
“Strategy meeting,” Sanada tells him when Reon blinks at the room full of juniors. Nozawa is busy napping on a table in the corner while Uemara and Yoshida play cards over his head. Saitou throws a baseball at Hei’s general direction while Hasshi ducks from his position in the middle of its trajectory. Kato is busy reading a book next to Camu and Kanda.
“Um,” Reon pauses. “Why am I here?”
“Listen,” Sanada waves a hand in Reon’s general direction, causing the younger boy to accidentally squeeze his juice box and spurt some apple juice on himself. He wonders if Shoon has a bleach pen in his bag.
“Yesterday Shintaro-kun took my lunch money!” Miyadate begins.
“Yeah,” Ookawa adds, “he slashed my new sneakers when I refused to give him my CD!”
“At least he only took your CD,” Abe frowns, “My entire wallet has gone missing!”
“At least you’re not forbidden from using any of the bathrooms on the second floor!” Hei declares. “What am I supposed to do when nature calls? I don’t have enough baseball cards to pay for his membership fee!”
“This is unfair!” A junior Reon doesn’t recall cries.
“It’s tyranny!” Someone else yells, throwing a fist into the air while multiple other juniors begin ranting at once, joining in on the complaints. The entire room explodes into a frenzy of voices as various people start adding their input.
“Something needs to be done about this,” Hasshi declares. He pulls out the dartboard of MatsuJun’s face he stole from KAT-TUN’s dressing room and slaps a shop photo of Shintaro on it instead. “We have to resist this suppression! Fight fire with fire!”
“Underground, yo.” Kanda cheers.
“We can be spies!” Hasshi adds, “Like James Bond, but more attractive and with better hair, of course.” He flips his bangs in demonstration. “No camouflage, please. That’s just ugly.”
“Can we have code names?” Abe wants to know. Another round of fighting begins as various juniors start calling dibs on secret spy names. Hasshi ends up threatening Ookawa with his hair curler because “no one else is allowed to use Akanishi-senpai’s name.”
Reon escapes the madness while he still can.
Reon finds a letter in his desk at school the following week. He pauses, glances around his seat, and quickly scans the paper for its contents. The junior blinks when his female classmates begin giggling around him. Girls are odd, he thinks.
He meets Haruna-chan near the bicycle racks during his lunch hour. The girl is busy shifting her weight on different legs while fiddling with the front of her school uniform, her eyes glued completely to the ground. From his position Reon can already spot a few classmates hiding behind the water fountain.
“Um,” Haruna begins, a look of determination painted across her face. “Yamashita-kun, I really like you, and… And,” She glances around, biting her lip. “Please accept this!” She solves a letter towards him before sprinting away. A pack of girls emerges out of nowhere and chases after her, giggling along the way.
Reon blinks, sinking deeper into his scarf. He wonders if he should inform the girl that she accidentally gave him her homework for history class in the envelope instead.
Shoon laughs when the younger boy recalls the story at breakfast the next day. “You must be popular at school,” he concludes, fixing the collar of Reon’s uniform. “Does that happen a lot?”
“No,” Reon frowns. “I would tell you if it did.”
“That’s nice,” Shoon comments vaguely, patting the younger boy on the head. “But it’s also good to be a bit mysterious.” He goes back to eating his porridge without a word, and Reon doesn’t pry.
“Yamashita-kun,” Anderson begins, leaning knowingly against the door frame when Reon is walking out of the changing room. “You haven’t been doing anything worthy of our attention, have you?”
“Huh?” Reon blinks, hands digging into the pockets of Shoon’s old jeans. It’s really a bit too big for Reon, but he had considered it a waste to let it sit at the back of Shoon’s closet. Plus, his brother had smiled knowingly when he walked in on Reon trying it on in the older boy’s room. Reon pauses for a moment before recollecting his thoughts, “What?”
“Good,” Anderson smirks. “Keep it that way.” He leaves before Reon can respond coherently.
Goseki-kun laughs when Reon blinks at the remaining occupants of the room in confusion. The A.B.C. member wraps one arm around Reon and grins, “I think that was a warning.”
Reon shrugs and goes back to looking for Shoon.
Hasshi begins distributing informational flyers to the members of his underground movement. At the same time, Shintaro starts cracking down on his POCKY tax policy. Reon attends the rebellion meetings because he has little to do while waiting for Shoon to finish with his rehearsals.
“I’m telling you,” Hei gestures in a nonsensical fashion. “It’s racism! He’s targeting me because I’m Caucasian!”
“More like he’s targeting anyone that’s taller than him,” Fukasawa deadpans, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. “Why didn’t you just give him what he what he wanted?”
“That’s not how you’re supposed to fight bullying, Fukka!” Hasshi retorts. “We need to strike back! We’re older and command more respect!”
He then decides on a self-acclaimed ingenious plan of hiding Shintaro’s costumes, but in the end their stylist had sighed when Taiga and Uekusa gave her the puppy eyes and issued to them a set of new outfits she had originally made for HEY! SAY! WEST instead.
“Congratulations,” Nakayama says while holding NEWS’ recycled costume in one hand. “You are officially a moron.”
Sometimes Reon searches through Shoon’s room for CDs and extra notebooks. Their mother is always mixing up the laundry and hanging the wrong clothes in their respective closets. After the first couple of times Reon gives up and opts to leave it on the older boy’s bed instead.
One day Reon finds a crumbled piece of paper on the bottom of Shoon’s table while searching for lead for his mechanical pencil. Upon instinct Reon throws the ball of paper into the trash can at the end of the room. A few seconds later, however, he ponders on the possible usefulness of the paper and decides to fish it out of the trash instead, smoothing the wrinkled edges and checking for its importance.
He blinks once, twice, and promptly drops it on the ground. Reon spends twenty minutes re-balling the paper up perfectly and leaving it in its original spot under the table in hopes that Shoon wouldn’t notice its change in displacement.
“I can’t believe it!” Hasshi cries, circling the dressing room floor while mumbling incoherent things under his breath.
“Shintaro changed the content of our Jr. Ni. Q cards,” Sanada explains wearily, “In the end his group got the most screen time because Koyama-senpai couldn’t use the gibberish on our cards.”
“Hasshimoto-kun wants pink nail polish from his parents?” Reon reads off the discarded pieces of paper on the table.
“I DIDN’T WRITE THAT!” Their fearless leader denied indignantly.
“If it makes you feel better, Nakamaru-kun is now convinced that I have a fascination with cockroaches,” Kato supplies. It doesn’t help, and Hasshi spends the next few minutes fuming after finding a bottle of nail polish in his locker.
“Oh, He’s devious alright.” Nozawa sighs and goes to find a mop when Hasshi ends up smashing the nail polish on the floor, causing paint to smear against the hardwood.
Mary gets mad when she finds out, and makes them to stay an extra hour to clean up the locker room.
“Can I sit here?” Haruna asks when Reon looks up from his magazine. The boy nods quietly as he scoots over on the bench. “Um,” Haruna begins. “Thank you for returning that assignment. Satou-sensei almost gave me clean up duties because I didn’t turn it in on time.”
“It’s fine,” Reon replies absently, flipping through another page. “Maybe you should put an actual love letter in the next time you confess to someone.”
Haruna flushes. “I’m so embarrassed,” she admits. “But I must say, Yamashita-kun is a lot different than I expected.” She leans back, legs kicking against the pavement on the sidewalk while she gazes up at the sky. “Completely different, in fact.”
“How so?” The boy blinks.
“Well,” She says. “You’re not as quiet and shy as I thought. But, I think I like this Yamashita-kun more. I’m glad I got the chance to talk to you.”
“You can still talk to me after this, you know.” Reon points out.
“Really?” Haruna brightens up instantly. She fists the skirt of her uniform and adds, “You’re not annoyed with me?”
Reon laughs. “I don’t have a lot of female friends, so I can’t really judge you based on any preset standards. That’s why I think we should be friends first before you decide for certain that you like me.”
“You’re a really nice person, Yamashita-kun.” The girl says after awhile. They spend the remaining hour of break reading the articles in Shoon’s magazine and drawing mustaches over Koki-kun’s face.
Reon kicks his sneakers against the concrete steps and wonders for the nth time why Shoon is late. He checks his cell phone one last time, but upon finding no new messages he goes back to wandering aimlessly at the entrance of the jimusho building.
“What are you doing?” Camu asks when a group of juniors file out of the elevator. Sanada is busy fixing Nozawa’s scarf while Nakaken pulls at the edge of his baseball cap. Hasshi stands in the back, reading something off of his cell phone while Kanda tugs at his sleeve so Hasshi doesn’t walk into a wall.
Reon nods slowly, eyeing the setting sun outside. “I’m waiting for my brother.”
“Didn’t he get called into rehearsal an hour ago?” Yoshida asks, checking the print out of junior schedules he always keeps in a notebook. “Have you been waiting for that long?”
Reon bites his lips in return. “Yeah.”
“Let’s go home together,” Kato offers, “we’re all going in the same direction, right?”
Reon opens his mouth, but closes it again before allowing himself to be dragged to the station. They spend the rest of the ride watching Hasshi fail in picking up college girls.
A few days later Shintaro pulled what most juniors agreed to be The Dirtiest Trick in Jyanniz History in an attempt to discard the leader of the enemy forces.
Reon walks onto the scene in time to find a dozen juniors crowded around a corner of the changing room with Hasshi hunched over in the corner. A bunch of newer juniors, no doubt under the command of Shintaro, whisper amongst themselves in the background.
The younger Yamashita takes one look at trail of splatters coming from the showers and frowns.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Sanada says, but Hasshi is busy burying his head under a stack of towels and hyperventilating. Sanada takes the tiny compact mirror out of Hasshi’s hands, “Stop looking at it!”
Hasshi shoots out of his spot instead, knocking a couple of juniors over as he runs into the nearest shower stall in a blur of pink, nearly bumping into Senga in the process.
“Wait,” Senga says, blinking at the sympathetic faces of twenty juniors. “Was his hair purple?”
“Someone mixed it into his shampoo,” Nozawa shakes his head. “The last time his hairstylist use the wrong shade of auburn he spent three weeks in mourning.”
“You have to come out!” Kato attempts to pull at the curtain of the stall, only to stop when Hasshi begins to throw various bottles and bars of soap at him.
“I GIVE UP ON LIFE!” Hasshi cries from inside, barricading himself in with towels and various other discarded objects.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Kanda yells. “It’ll wash out in a week or so!”
Hasshi responds with a cry resembling the sound of a dying wale.
Autumn comes with a feeling of unsettled haste as Reon returns to his daily routine of hurried sprints to the jimusho building after soccer practice. In early October he finds his name on the list of backup dancers for JUMP’s promotional performances. Reon vaguely remembers the commotion JUMP’s debut had caused this time last year, but he pushes the thought to the back of his mind and begins attending mandatory rehearsals.
He nearly misses the bus transporting them to the MUSIC STATION recording thanks to a broken duffle bag strap and Shintaro’s newfound hobby of hiding his belongings. After boarding the vehicle he realizes that the only seat left open was the one next to Yabu-kun at the front of the bus, where most of JUMP is situated.
“Hello,” the brunette blinks when Reon cautiously takes a seat. The younger boy is suddenly reminded of days in his childhood when he returned home to find Yabu in the living room with Shoon, laughing and grinning over some sort of inside joke while their mother served treats.
“Long time no see,” Reon manages to smile in return. “Sorry, I can’t find anywhere else to si-”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Yabu replies reflexively, removing his earphones. He spends a few seconds scanning the younger boy over before adding, “You’ve changed a lot.”
“So has Yabu-kun,” the junior responds, not quite sure of what else there is to say.
“Yeah,” Yabu grins, “but I remember when you were this tall and ran around with no pants on.”
“You didn’t know me then!” Reon laughs, although he does recall a similar situation with their roles reversed. They exchange cell phone numbers while Yabu makes fun of Reon’s choice of wallpaper. “The flowerbed is no longer there,” he tells Yabu, staring at the photo of poodle shaped floral arrangements. “Oka-san remodeled the front porch last year.”
“Was it that long ago?” Yabu ponders, leaning against his elbows. “When did I break your mother’s favorite plate, then?”
“Three years ago,” Reon counts his fingers as he recalls the incident. He had walked into Shoon’s room that day and found the two older boys piecing the china together with super glue. It seemed like forever ago.
“You know, I don’t think you ever liked me then,” the JUMP member comments with a chuckle, leaning back in his seat when Reon shoots around to stare at him. “I always thought it was cute,” he says in complete modesty, “that you were jealous of me for stealing Shoon’s attention.”
Reon sinks in his seat. “That’s-“
“It’s fine,” the older boy adds. “I was envious of you too.” Yabu pulls his legs up on the seat, designer jeans brushing against dark locks as he leans his head on his knees. “I guess we were both a little silly for silently fighting over something we had no control of.”
“You didn’t really think it was silly, did you?” Reon asks.
“I don’t think it makes a difference anymore.” Yabu suddenly takes an interest in the passing scenery outside of the window.
The junior frowns. They spend the rest of the bus ride in silence while Reon runs the Yabu’s words through his head. He remembers the fleeting days of happiness, the tenseness, the silence, and the nights Reon had to crawl into Shoon’s bed because he thought the older boy would cry himself to sleep otherwise.
It’s completely ridiculous, he decides while filing off the bus with his bag pulled tightly against his shoulder blades. Reon nearly knocks Ookawa over while squeezing his way through the crowd and scanning the loading ramp. He spots his target just as JUMP is walking into the studio building.
A few people turn around at his shout of “YABU-KUN!” from fifty feet away. The older boy waits calmly as Reon runs up to him. “Yabu-kun,” he begins with utmost determination when his voice comes back. “I know it’s hard to face things when we’ve been hurt, but sometimes we’re too proud to admit our own flaws too. But then time passes and you realize that being afraid of something was your biggest weakness after all. That’s why… Just because things have happened in the past, no one has the right to decide that you mustn’t be happy now!” He stops and suddenly blushes upon noticing that half of the juniors were busy staring at him.
“He’s right, you know.” Inoo says after awhile, patting Yabu on the back.
Hikaru grins and leans his elbow over Reon’s head. “Very inspirational,” he adds. “Someone write that down so we can put it in our next single.” He laughs when Daiki whacks him on the head.
“Why are you standing around?” Julie finally asks upon coming out of the double doors of the studio entrance. “Get moving,” she adds, eyeing them with interest. “Yamashita-kun, do you need something?”
“No,” Reon mumbles, and returns to find Kato and Nakaken.
Reon finds Hasshi at the vending machines one afternoon while heading towards their usual rehearsal room. “This is the only one they restock regularly,” the older boy explains, sipping into his can of poccari. Reon nods as they make their way to the meeting spot, only to be greeted with the sight of kisumai playing cards with B.I.Shadow upon opening the doors.
“Did A.B.C. steal your pants again?” Hasshi asks, making a face. “They’re not in here.”
“Actually,” Senga replies pleasantly, “Morimoto kicked us out of our dressing room.” He places a card on the table and watches as the other juniors sigh in exasperation. “I win, again. Off with your shirt, Nika.”
“Right,” Hasshi snorts. “He and what army?”
“With the invention of the camera phone, actually,” Fujigaya elaborates, leaning on his elbows. “He had some pretty convincing blackmail pictures on there.”
“I tried to throw the twerp out of the window,” Kitayama says, rolling up his sleeves. “But Julie walked in and got angry at us for bullying him.”
“We’re supposed to be reflecting on what we did.” Senga adds.
“Oh, I’m reflecting on how easy it is to kick him off the stage right now,” Miyata grins, but stops when Tamamori slaps him on the arm. Their attention is removed from the topic of Shintaro, however, when Senga wins another around and asks Nikaido to take off his boxers.
“What are you doing?” Sanada twitches slightly.
“Practicing,” Taiga chirps innocently as the choreographer takes a break at the other end of the room. “We were just assigned to a new song.” He twirls his baton cutely in demonstration, beaming when Anderson claps at the performance.
“It’s called NANI MAI HONEY.” Shintaro adds smugly. “Want to see us practice? I have a solo in English.”
“What are you doing in our rehearsal room?” Camu wants to know, but Shintaro is already reciting the engrish lyrics of NANI MAI HONEY to Taiga in the background.
“Julie-san let us use it,” Uekusa grins. “Since, you know, you haven’t been utilizing it properly. What’s wrong?” He tilts his head when Hasshi begins fisting dangerously at him. “Your face is scary looking, Hasshimoto-kun.”
It takes the combined efforts of Camu and Kato to restrain Hasshi, but not before Shintaro’s loud comment of “Hasshimoto made Uekusa-kun cry!” They escape the room before the choreographer looks up from fixing the boom box.
“Oh, they did this on purpose,” Hasshi declares, busy securitizing his face in a handheld mirror, as they head towards the end of the hallway. “We need to regroup and find a new meeting place. Let’s go to Reon’s house.”
“Let’s not,” Reon replies instantly.
“Is it because I have a scary face?” Hasshi cries in horror, grabbing Reon by the shoulders and shaking the younger boy in a comically violent fashion.
Reon quickly walks away when Kato distracts Hasshi with a complement to his hair.
Although not entirely unexpected, Reon catches the flu by November. He spends a whole day in bed, attempting to finish the required novel for literature class, only to fall asleep within the first twenty pages.
“Remember to take your medicine,” his father comments after returning from work. Reon shrugs; he remembers falling horribly ill sometimes during his last year of elementary school. He spent two weeks drifting in and out of conscious while Shoon periodically snuck into his room and guarded his bed with plush animals.
“Should I reheat this?” His father asks, eyeing the soup on the night stand Reon’s mother had set aside hours ago. Upon seeing the boy’s signature nod, he picks up the bowl and heads out of the room, only to be met with his older son at the door way.
“Feeling better now?” Shoon asks with a small smile, taking a seat by the side of Reon’s bed. He spends a few minutes fluffing the younger boy’s pillow.
“I don’t want to skip any more rehearsals,” Reon says instead, puffing his cheeks up like a goldfish. “I’m going to be in two medleys in the next shokura. I should text Kato-kun to check what I missed.”
Shoon grins. His comment of “Why don’t you ask him right now?” is cut off when their mother bursts into the room, demanding why Reon has not dressed since he has guests waiting downstairs. The younger brother paddles barefoot downstairs in his pajamas in time to find Hasshi charming his mother in the living room.
“You came here because Shintaro’s still using our meeting room,” Reon deduces.
“We came to visit you,” Sanada corrects, pulling out a pastry box from his side. “I hope you like chocolate, although it doesn’t matter since Kanda ate most of it.” He ignores Kanda’s protests and then precedes to hand Reon a bent plastic fork.
“Don’t look at me,” Nakaken says defensively, “Kato is the one that sat on it.”
Reon scratches his bed hair, “It’s okay. There are forks in the kitchen.” He finds a couple of utensils in the drawer by the sink and opens the refrigerator. “Do you guys want something to drink?”
“Water please!” Nozawa and Sanada chorus while Hasshi begins chanting “ORANJI SODA” in the background.
“Oh, Shut up,” Abe rolls his eyes. “You’re going be complaining about the calories in an hour.”
“I will not,” Hasshi snorts. Regardless, he settles with stealing Nozawa’s water bottle and eating the remaining bits of the cake. “It’s ridiculous,” he says between mouthfuls of icing. “Not only are we one rehearsal room short, but kisumai have been loitering around our space too! Yesterday I found someone’s undershirt on my hair curler!” He makes a face to convey his displeasure.
“It’s the only thing he cares about,” Kato comments on the sideline.
“To be fair,” Abe corrects, “He cares about that flat iron too.”
“Are you listening to me?” Hasshi wants to know, “No one respects my position as leader anymore.” He picks sadly at the strawberry on his plate with a fork and offers it to Reon after noticing the younger boy’s gaze.
“I just wanted a secret code name,” Kato admits, playing with the cap of his water bottle. “And we never even used them.”
“I don’t like codes,” Reon decides. “I’d either never remember them or get everyone’s code names mixed up.” He blinks when no one replies. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Sanada grins. “It’s just that this is the first time I’ve heard you openly reject something.”
“You’re always so passive,” Nozawa adds, amusement evident in his voice. “I can never tell what you like or dislike, you know?” He smiles. “Is there anything else you want to share now that we’re having such a nice Kodak moment?”
“Um,” Reon takes the time to think. “Hashimoto-kun should probably stop lying face down all over my tabletop because I sneezed all over it?” He laughs when the said boy shoots up and starts blaming Sanada for letting him off his guard.
“What are you doing this weekend, Yamashita-kun?” Haruna asks at school, playing with the pieces of her bento. Her notebook is spread over the table as they attempt to cram obscure equations into their heads before the math test.
“Rehearsal,” Reon recites off the top of his head, taking a bite of the sandwich he bought in the cafeteria. “Then I’m going to the movies with some friends, and maybe out to eat with my family.”
“You must have a lot of friends at the jimusho,” the girl concludes with a smile.
“They’re an odd bunch,” Reon says after awhile. “But I like them.”
One day in mid December Reon walked into the hallway after a brutal rehearsal for shokura to find the corridors completely crowded. Apparently Hasshi walked into the changing room and caught Shintaro red-handed while going through his bag. A battle ensued when the two began throwing bags and various other objects at each other.
“Where’s Julie?” Reon asked while squeezing through the mass of people in order to make his way to the battle grounds.
“In a meeting with NEWS, I think.” Fukka replied. They reached the door way in time to find Shintaro and Hasshi hiding behind rows of lockers on opposite sides of the room. Shintaro was busy tossing a wallet at Hasshi’s head. It missed and landed on the ground, along with an assortment of random possessions varying from Sanada’s hat to Abe’s keys to a familiar cell phone.
Reon frowned. A sudden wave of annoyance hit him as he walked head-first into the projectiles.
“No, Reon, it’s too dangerous in there!” Kato shouted after him, but he was also occupied with recording the battle with the video camera on his phone in the process.
“You’re a brave soul, Yamashita!” Someone yelled from the hallway.
Reon picked his cell phone off the ground and traced the scratches on the edge of the screen. The keitai strap was broken in three pieces.
“Get out of the way, Yamashita!” Shintaro shouts as he charges forward with Taiga’s baton. He trips over a pair of roller skates and goes face down on the ground a few feet away from Reon.
Reon helps Shintaro up, ignoring Hasshi’s complaint of “What are you doing, Reon? He’s the enemy! THE ENEMY! Look what he did to my hair gel!” The younger Morimoto replies with shouts of his own.
“Both of you,” Reon cuts in, rubbing his temples mechanically. “Shut up.” He turns to Shintaro, “Quite taking your Napoleonic complex out on us. You’re lucky people have been humoring you for so long. And you,” he stares at Hasshi. “Step up and be the mature one. You’re older than Shintaro-kun, but all I see you do is complain. When Julie-san sees this mess we’ll all get suspended and kiss debuting goodbye. Understand?” He turns around upon hearing claps.
“Very inspiring,” Totsu grins from the doorway. He loops an arm around Kawai. “I wonder where he learned to be this bossy, hm?”
“I have no idea. Really, no clue.” Kawai replies.
“Are those your sunglasses on the ground?” Shoon asks instead, already in the room as he helps Reon pick up bits and pieces off the floor. He hands the younger Yamashita the remaining parts of his cell phone strap. “Is your phone broken?”
Reon shakes his head.
They managed to clean up the room in under an hour with the help of a dozen or so juniors. At least five people tripped over a box of spilled juice while Goseki accidently wiped the floor with Kitayama pants. Nozawa found his scarf under someone’s stack of shoujo manga and Fujigaya’s skates ended up missing two wheels.
Julie returned in the middle of their cleaning efforts and said nothing. The next day she unlocked all the bathrooms and reassigned lockers. Just like that, the Junior War of 2008 ended with minimal causalities.
“Did you really like that strap?” Kato asks a week later as they’re changing out of sweaty clothes.
“Yeah,” Reon pauses. “My brother gave it to me.” He buttons his shirt and frowns, “It was the only thing I ever put on my phone.”
“I guess it can’t be helped, then.” Nakaken says, pulling out a small packet from his bag and handing it to Reon. “I was going to give this to you for Christmas, but then Hasshi started complaining about how he wanted one too, and I ended up buying one for everybody.”
Reon pulls out a small chain in time to find Nozawa, Sanada, Abe, Hasshi, and Kato taking out their phones as well.
“See,” Nakaken grins. “Now we all have matching ones!” The orb at the end of the chain shined under the light. “Mine’s the coolest, of course.”
They sit in a circle on the train ride home and compare the different colors on each other’s keitai straps. Hasshi once again attempts to flirt with an older girl. Everyone is shocked when he actually gets her number.
“I told you,” Hasshi beams. “I have skills.”
“I’m calling Kana and telling on you,” Sanada declares, punching numbers into his cell phone. Hasshi promptly forgets about his victory and spends ten minutes trying to calm his angry girlfriend down while occasionally making threatening gestures at them.
“Nii-San,” Reon starts to say after arriving home. He kicks his shoes off and dumps his bag on the floor. “Today I-“ He stops upon walking into the living room, blinking at the scene in front of him.
“Welcome home,” Yabu smiles in his seat across the table from Shoon. He fingers the side of his glass cup and gives the new comer a small wave.
As Reon slides into the chair opposite of Shoon, he thinks, over all, that this year wasn’t so bad after all. That night he dreams about Ferris wheels, dance steps, and the shiny surface of his new keitai strap.
From: blahchiharu
SEASON'S GREETINGS!
Title: A Brave Soul
Pairing/Group: No pairings. A.B.C, Kisumai, JUMP, and various JE juniors.
Rating: G
Warnings: N/A
Notes: Yamashita Reon fic.
Summary: Shintaro moves into kisumai’s territory by November while members of the resistance try to fight off his yakuza suppression. Retardation ensues. A story about stolen lunch monies, mistaken love letters, and what juniors are doing when Julie isn’t looking.
Reon dreams of empty chalkboards, costume racks, his mother’s bento, and the view from the window in the junior changing room. His most recent nightly adventure consists of him crawling through the air ducks after someone lets Ryutaro-kun’s hamster loose in the jimusho building.
“Interesting,” Nakayama hums softly when Reon shares this information with the other boy. His attention is stolen from Reon, however, when Shintaro waltz into the changing room and begins gesturing at people in a yakuza-boss like manner, making special efforts to give newer juniors the evil eye.
“Shintaro-kun wants me to inform you that you’re blocking his locker,” Taiga says upon walking up to them.
“This is my locker,” Nakayama corrects, nodding towards the space he normally occupies during Tokyo recordings.
“Not since Shintaro-kun won it in a betting war against TOP3,” Taiga hastily replies with an air of confidence Reon hasn’t seen before. “He says you have a day to empty out of this region and to find new cubicles before you’re blacklisted.”
“Give me a break,” Takada declares, emerging behind Taiga in time to shoo him away. He waves when Taiga reports to Shintaro at the other end of the room, patting Nakayama on the back while looping his other hand around Reon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he assures the two other boys. “I’m not afraid of his gang of toddlers.”
“His gang of toddlers,” Nakayama answers in his normally monotonous voice, “Just hauled your bag out of the room and is heading towards the bathrooms.”
Reon is walking down the hall way, happily sipping from his box of apple juice, when someone pulls him into an empty rehearsal room.
“Strategy meeting,” Sanada tells him when Reon blinks at the room full of juniors. Nozawa is busy napping on a table in the corner while Uemara and Yoshida play cards over his head. Saitou throws a baseball at Hei’s general direction while Hasshi ducks from his position in the middle of its trajectory. Kato is busy reading a book next to Camu and Kanda.
“Um,” Reon pauses. “Why am I here?”
“Listen,” Sanada waves a hand in Reon’s general direction, causing the younger boy to accidentally squeeze his juice box and spurt some apple juice on himself. He wonders if Shoon has a bleach pen in his bag.
“Yesterday Shintaro-kun took my lunch money!” Miyadate begins.
“Yeah,” Ookawa adds, “he slashed my new sneakers when I refused to give him my CD!”
“At least he only took your CD,” Abe frowns, “My entire wallet has gone missing!”
“At least you’re not forbidden from using any of the bathrooms on the second floor!” Hei declares. “What am I supposed to do when nature calls? I don’t have enough baseball cards to pay for his membership fee!”
“This is unfair!” A junior Reon doesn’t recall cries.
“It’s tyranny!” Someone else yells, throwing a fist into the air while multiple other juniors begin ranting at once, joining in on the complaints. The entire room explodes into a frenzy of voices as various people start adding their input.
“Something needs to be done about this,” Hasshi declares. He pulls out the dartboard of MatsuJun’s face he stole from KAT-TUN’s dressing room and slaps a shop photo of Shintaro on it instead. “We have to resist this suppression! Fight fire with fire!”
“Underground, yo.” Kanda cheers.
“We can be spies!” Hasshi adds, “Like James Bond, but more attractive and with better hair, of course.” He flips his bangs in demonstration. “No camouflage, please. That’s just ugly.”
“Can we have code names?” Abe wants to know. Another round of fighting begins as various juniors start calling dibs on secret spy names. Hasshi ends up threatening Ookawa with his hair curler because “no one else is allowed to use Akanishi-senpai’s name.”
Reon escapes the madness while he still can.
Reon finds a letter in his desk at school the following week. He pauses, glances around his seat, and quickly scans the paper for its contents. The junior blinks when his female classmates begin giggling around him. Girls are odd, he thinks.
He meets Haruna-chan near the bicycle racks during his lunch hour. The girl is busy shifting her weight on different legs while fiddling with the front of her school uniform, her eyes glued completely to the ground. From his position Reon can already spot a few classmates hiding behind the water fountain.
“Um,” Haruna begins, a look of determination painted across her face. “Yamashita-kun, I really like you, and… And,” She glances around, biting her lip. “Please accept this!” She solves a letter towards him before sprinting away. A pack of girls emerges out of nowhere and chases after her, giggling along the way.
Reon blinks, sinking deeper into his scarf. He wonders if he should inform the girl that she accidentally gave him her homework for history class in the envelope instead.
Shoon laughs when the younger boy recalls the story at breakfast the next day. “You must be popular at school,” he concludes, fixing the collar of Reon’s uniform. “Does that happen a lot?”
“No,” Reon frowns. “I would tell you if it did.”
“That’s nice,” Shoon comments vaguely, patting the younger boy on the head. “But it’s also good to be a bit mysterious.” He goes back to eating his porridge without a word, and Reon doesn’t pry.
“Yamashita-kun,” Anderson begins, leaning knowingly against the door frame when Reon is walking out of the changing room. “You haven’t been doing anything worthy of our attention, have you?”
“Huh?” Reon blinks, hands digging into the pockets of Shoon’s old jeans. It’s really a bit too big for Reon, but he had considered it a waste to let it sit at the back of Shoon’s closet. Plus, his brother had smiled knowingly when he walked in on Reon trying it on in the older boy’s room. Reon pauses for a moment before recollecting his thoughts, “What?”
“Good,” Anderson smirks. “Keep it that way.” He leaves before Reon can respond coherently.
Goseki-kun laughs when Reon blinks at the remaining occupants of the room in confusion. The A.B.C. member wraps one arm around Reon and grins, “I think that was a warning.”
Reon shrugs and goes back to looking for Shoon.
Hasshi begins distributing informational flyers to the members of his underground movement. At the same time, Shintaro starts cracking down on his POCKY tax policy. Reon attends the rebellion meetings because he has little to do while waiting for Shoon to finish with his rehearsals.
“I’m telling you,” Hei gestures in a nonsensical fashion. “It’s racism! He’s targeting me because I’m Caucasian!”
“More like he’s targeting anyone that’s taller than him,” Fukasawa deadpans, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. “Why didn’t you just give him what he what he wanted?”
“That’s not how you’re supposed to fight bullying, Fukka!” Hasshi retorts. “We need to strike back! We’re older and command more respect!”
He then decides on a self-acclaimed ingenious plan of hiding Shintaro’s costumes, but in the end their stylist had sighed when Taiga and Uekusa gave her the puppy eyes and issued to them a set of new outfits she had originally made for HEY! SAY! WEST instead.
“Congratulations,” Nakayama says while holding NEWS’ recycled costume in one hand. “You are officially a moron.”
Sometimes Reon searches through Shoon’s room for CDs and extra notebooks. Their mother is always mixing up the laundry and hanging the wrong clothes in their respective closets. After the first couple of times Reon gives up and opts to leave it on the older boy’s bed instead.
One day Reon finds a crumbled piece of paper on the bottom of Shoon’s table while searching for lead for his mechanical pencil. Upon instinct Reon throws the ball of paper into the trash can at the end of the room. A few seconds later, however, he ponders on the possible usefulness of the paper and decides to fish it out of the trash instead, smoothing the wrinkled edges and checking for its importance.
He blinks once, twice, and promptly drops it on the ground. Reon spends twenty minutes re-balling the paper up perfectly and leaving it in its original spot under the table in hopes that Shoon wouldn’t notice its change in displacement.
“I can’t believe it!” Hasshi cries, circling the dressing room floor while mumbling incoherent things under his breath.
“Shintaro changed the content of our Jr. Ni. Q cards,” Sanada explains wearily, “In the end his group got the most screen time because Koyama-senpai couldn’t use the gibberish on our cards.”
“Hasshimoto-kun wants pink nail polish from his parents?” Reon reads off the discarded pieces of paper on the table.
“I DIDN’T WRITE THAT!” Their fearless leader denied indignantly.
“If it makes you feel better, Nakamaru-kun is now convinced that I have a fascination with cockroaches,” Kato supplies. It doesn’t help, and Hasshi spends the next few minutes fuming after finding a bottle of nail polish in his locker.
“Oh, He’s devious alright.” Nozawa sighs and goes to find a mop when Hasshi ends up smashing the nail polish on the floor, causing paint to smear against the hardwood.
Mary gets mad when she finds out, and makes them to stay an extra hour to clean up the locker room.
“Can I sit here?” Haruna asks when Reon looks up from his magazine. The boy nods quietly as he scoots over on the bench. “Um,” Haruna begins. “Thank you for returning that assignment. Satou-sensei almost gave me clean up duties because I didn’t turn it in on time.”
“It’s fine,” Reon replies absently, flipping through another page. “Maybe you should put an actual love letter in the next time you confess to someone.”
Haruna flushes. “I’m so embarrassed,” she admits. “But I must say, Yamashita-kun is a lot different than I expected.” She leans back, legs kicking against the pavement on the sidewalk while she gazes up at the sky. “Completely different, in fact.”
“How so?” The boy blinks.
“Well,” She says. “You’re not as quiet and shy as I thought. But, I think I like this Yamashita-kun more. I’m glad I got the chance to talk to you.”
“You can still talk to me after this, you know.” Reon points out.
“Really?” Haruna brightens up instantly. She fists the skirt of her uniform and adds, “You’re not annoyed with me?”
Reon laughs. “I don’t have a lot of female friends, so I can’t really judge you based on any preset standards. That’s why I think we should be friends first before you decide for certain that you like me.”
“You’re a really nice person, Yamashita-kun.” The girl says after awhile. They spend the remaining hour of break reading the articles in Shoon’s magazine and drawing mustaches over Koki-kun’s face.
Reon kicks his sneakers against the concrete steps and wonders for the nth time why Shoon is late. He checks his cell phone one last time, but upon finding no new messages he goes back to wandering aimlessly at the entrance of the jimusho building.
“What are you doing?” Camu asks when a group of juniors file out of the elevator. Sanada is busy fixing Nozawa’s scarf while Nakaken pulls at the edge of his baseball cap. Hasshi stands in the back, reading something off of his cell phone while Kanda tugs at his sleeve so Hasshi doesn’t walk into a wall.
Reon nods slowly, eyeing the setting sun outside. “I’m waiting for my brother.”
“Didn’t he get called into rehearsal an hour ago?” Yoshida asks, checking the print out of junior schedules he always keeps in a notebook. “Have you been waiting for that long?”
Reon bites his lips in return. “Yeah.”
“Let’s go home together,” Kato offers, “we’re all going in the same direction, right?”
Reon opens his mouth, but closes it again before allowing himself to be dragged to the station. They spend the rest of the ride watching Hasshi fail in picking up college girls.
A few days later Shintaro pulled what most juniors agreed to be The Dirtiest Trick in Jyanniz History in an attempt to discard the leader of the enemy forces.
Reon walks onto the scene in time to find a dozen juniors crowded around a corner of the changing room with Hasshi hunched over in the corner. A bunch of newer juniors, no doubt under the command of Shintaro, whisper amongst themselves in the background.
The younger Yamashita takes one look at trail of splatters coming from the showers and frowns.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Sanada says, but Hasshi is busy burying his head under a stack of towels and hyperventilating. Sanada takes the tiny compact mirror out of Hasshi’s hands, “Stop looking at it!”
Hasshi shoots out of his spot instead, knocking a couple of juniors over as he runs into the nearest shower stall in a blur of pink, nearly bumping into Senga in the process.
“Wait,” Senga says, blinking at the sympathetic faces of twenty juniors. “Was his hair purple?”
“Someone mixed it into his shampoo,” Nozawa shakes his head. “The last time his hairstylist use the wrong shade of auburn he spent three weeks in mourning.”
“You have to come out!” Kato attempts to pull at the curtain of the stall, only to stop when Hasshi begins to throw various bottles and bars of soap at him.
“I GIVE UP ON LIFE!” Hasshi cries from inside, barricading himself in with towels and various other discarded objects.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Kanda yells. “It’ll wash out in a week or so!”
Hasshi responds with a cry resembling the sound of a dying wale.
Autumn comes with a feeling of unsettled haste as Reon returns to his daily routine of hurried sprints to the jimusho building after soccer practice. In early October he finds his name on the list of backup dancers for JUMP’s promotional performances. Reon vaguely remembers the commotion JUMP’s debut had caused this time last year, but he pushes the thought to the back of his mind and begins attending mandatory rehearsals.
He nearly misses the bus transporting them to the MUSIC STATION recording thanks to a broken duffle bag strap and Shintaro’s newfound hobby of hiding his belongings. After boarding the vehicle he realizes that the only seat left open was the one next to Yabu-kun at the front of the bus, where most of JUMP is situated.
“Hello,” the brunette blinks when Reon cautiously takes a seat. The younger boy is suddenly reminded of days in his childhood when he returned home to find Yabu in the living room with Shoon, laughing and grinning over some sort of inside joke while their mother served treats.
“Long time no see,” Reon manages to smile in return. “Sorry, I can’t find anywhere else to si-”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Yabu replies reflexively, removing his earphones. He spends a few seconds scanning the younger boy over before adding, “You’ve changed a lot.”
“So has Yabu-kun,” the junior responds, not quite sure of what else there is to say.
“Yeah,” Yabu grins, “but I remember when you were this tall and ran around with no pants on.”
“You didn’t know me then!” Reon laughs, although he does recall a similar situation with their roles reversed. They exchange cell phone numbers while Yabu makes fun of Reon’s choice of wallpaper. “The flowerbed is no longer there,” he tells Yabu, staring at the photo of poodle shaped floral arrangements. “Oka-san remodeled the front porch last year.”
“Was it that long ago?” Yabu ponders, leaning against his elbows. “When did I break your mother’s favorite plate, then?”
“Three years ago,” Reon counts his fingers as he recalls the incident. He had walked into Shoon’s room that day and found the two older boys piecing the china together with super glue. It seemed like forever ago.
“You know, I don’t think you ever liked me then,” the JUMP member comments with a chuckle, leaning back in his seat when Reon shoots around to stare at him. “I always thought it was cute,” he says in complete modesty, “that you were jealous of me for stealing Shoon’s attention.”
Reon sinks in his seat. “That’s-“
“It’s fine,” the older boy adds. “I was envious of you too.” Yabu pulls his legs up on the seat, designer jeans brushing against dark locks as he leans his head on his knees. “I guess we were both a little silly for silently fighting over something we had no control of.”
“You didn’t really think it was silly, did you?” Reon asks.
“I don’t think it makes a difference anymore.” Yabu suddenly takes an interest in the passing scenery outside of the window.
The junior frowns. They spend the rest of the bus ride in silence while Reon runs the Yabu’s words through his head. He remembers the fleeting days of happiness, the tenseness, the silence, and the nights Reon had to crawl into Shoon’s bed because he thought the older boy would cry himself to sleep otherwise.
It’s completely ridiculous, he decides while filing off the bus with his bag pulled tightly against his shoulder blades. Reon nearly knocks Ookawa over while squeezing his way through the crowd and scanning the loading ramp. He spots his target just as JUMP is walking into the studio building.
A few people turn around at his shout of “YABU-KUN!” from fifty feet away. The older boy waits calmly as Reon runs up to him. “Yabu-kun,” he begins with utmost determination when his voice comes back. “I know it’s hard to face things when we’ve been hurt, but sometimes we’re too proud to admit our own flaws too. But then time passes and you realize that being afraid of something was your biggest weakness after all. That’s why… Just because things have happened in the past, no one has the right to decide that you mustn’t be happy now!” He stops and suddenly blushes upon noticing that half of the juniors were busy staring at him.
“He’s right, you know.” Inoo says after awhile, patting Yabu on the back.
Hikaru grins and leans his elbow over Reon’s head. “Very inspirational,” he adds. “Someone write that down so we can put it in our next single.” He laughs when Daiki whacks him on the head.
“Why are you standing around?” Julie finally asks upon coming out of the double doors of the studio entrance. “Get moving,” she adds, eyeing them with interest. “Yamashita-kun, do you need something?”
“No,” Reon mumbles, and returns to find Kato and Nakaken.
Reon finds Hasshi at the vending machines one afternoon while heading towards their usual rehearsal room. “This is the only one they restock regularly,” the older boy explains, sipping into his can of poccari. Reon nods as they make their way to the meeting spot, only to be greeted with the sight of kisumai playing cards with B.I.Shadow upon opening the doors.
“Did A.B.C. steal your pants again?” Hasshi asks, making a face. “They’re not in here.”
“Actually,” Senga replies pleasantly, “Morimoto kicked us out of our dressing room.” He places a card on the table and watches as the other juniors sigh in exasperation. “I win, again. Off with your shirt, Nika.”
“Right,” Hasshi snorts. “He and what army?”
“With the invention of the camera phone, actually,” Fujigaya elaborates, leaning on his elbows. “He had some pretty convincing blackmail pictures on there.”
“I tried to throw the twerp out of the window,” Kitayama says, rolling up his sleeves. “But Julie walked in and got angry at us for bullying him.”
“We’re supposed to be reflecting on what we did.” Senga adds.
“Oh, I’m reflecting on how easy it is to kick him off the stage right now,” Miyata grins, but stops when Tamamori slaps him on the arm. Their attention is removed from the topic of Shintaro, however, when Senga wins another around and asks Nikaido to take off his boxers.
“What are you doing?” Sanada twitches slightly.
“Practicing,” Taiga chirps innocently as the choreographer takes a break at the other end of the room. “We were just assigned to a new song.” He twirls his baton cutely in demonstration, beaming when Anderson claps at the performance.
“It’s called NANI MAI HONEY.” Shintaro adds smugly. “Want to see us practice? I have a solo in English.”
“What are you doing in our rehearsal room?” Camu wants to know, but Shintaro is already reciting the engrish lyrics of NANI MAI HONEY to Taiga in the background.
“Julie-san let us use it,” Uekusa grins. “Since, you know, you haven’t been utilizing it properly. What’s wrong?” He tilts his head when Hasshi begins fisting dangerously at him. “Your face is scary looking, Hasshimoto-kun.”
It takes the combined efforts of Camu and Kato to restrain Hasshi, but not before Shintaro’s loud comment of “Hasshimoto made Uekusa-kun cry!” They escape the room before the choreographer looks up from fixing the boom box.
“Oh, they did this on purpose,” Hasshi declares, busy securitizing his face in a handheld mirror, as they head towards the end of the hallway. “We need to regroup and find a new meeting place. Let’s go to Reon’s house.”
“Let’s not,” Reon replies instantly.
“Is it because I have a scary face?” Hasshi cries in horror, grabbing Reon by the shoulders and shaking the younger boy in a comically violent fashion.
Reon quickly walks away when Kato distracts Hasshi with a complement to his hair.
Although not entirely unexpected, Reon catches the flu by November. He spends a whole day in bed, attempting to finish the required novel for literature class, only to fall asleep within the first twenty pages.
“Remember to take your medicine,” his father comments after returning from work. Reon shrugs; he remembers falling horribly ill sometimes during his last year of elementary school. He spent two weeks drifting in and out of conscious while Shoon periodically snuck into his room and guarded his bed with plush animals.
“Should I reheat this?” His father asks, eyeing the soup on the night stand Reon’s mother had set aside hours ago. Upon seeing the boy’s signature nod, he picks up the bowl and heads out of the room, only to be met with his older son at the door way.
“Feeling better now?” Shoon asks with a small smile, taking a seat by the side of Reon’s bed. He spends a few minutes fluffing the younger boy’s pillow.
“I don’t want to skip any more rehearsals,” Reon says instead, puffing his cheeks up like a goldfish. “I’m going to be in two medleys in the next shokura. I should text Kato-kun to check what I missed.”
Shoon grins. His comment of “Why don’t you ask him right now?” is cut off when their mother bursts into the room, demanding why Reon has not dressed since he has guests waiting downstairs. The younger brother paddles barefoot downstairs in his pajamas in time to find Hasshi charming his mother in the living room.
“You came here because Shintaro’s still using our meeting room,” Reon deduces.
“We came to visit you,” Sanada corrects, pulling out a pastry box from his side. “I hope you like chocolate, although it doesn’t matter since Kanda ate most of it.” He ignores Kanda’s protests and then precedes to hand Reon a bent plastic fork.
“Don’t look at me,” Nakaken says defensively, “Kato is the one that sat on it.”
Reon scratches his bed hair, “It’s okay. There are forks in the kitchen.” He finds a couple of utensils in the drawer by the sink and opens the refrigerator. “Do you guys want something to drink?”
“Water please!” Nozawa and Sanada chorus while Hasshi begins chanting “ORANJI SODA” in the background.
“Oh, Shut up,” Abe rolls his eyes. “You’re going be complaining about the calories in an hour.”
“I will not,” Hasshi snorts. Regardless, he settles with stealing Nozawa’s water bottle and eating the remaining bits of the cake. “It’s ridiculous,” he says between mouthfuls of icing. “Not only are we one rehearsal room short, but kisumai have been loitering around our space too! Yesterday I found someone’s undershirt on my hair curler!” He makes a face to convey his displeasure.
“It’s the only thing he cares about,” Kato comments on the sideline.
“To be fair,” Abe corrects, “He cares about that flat iron too.”
“Are you listening to me?” Hasshi wants to know, “No one respects my position as leader anymore.” He picks sadly at the strawberry on his plate with a fork and offers it to Reon after noticing the younger boy’s gaze.
“I just wanted a secret code name,” Kato admits, playing with the cap of his water bottle. “And we never even used them.”
“I don’t like codes,” Reon decides. “I’d either never remember them or get everyone’s code names mixed up.” He blinks when no one replies. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Sanada grins. “It’s just that this is the first time I’ve heard you openly reject something.”
“You’re always so passive,” Nozawa adds, amusement evident in his voice. “I can never tell what you like or dislike, you know?” He smiles. “Is there anything else you want to share now that we’re having such a nice Kodak moment?”
“Um,” Reon takes the time to think. “Hashimoto-kun should probably stop lying face down all over my tabletop because I sneezed all over it?” He laughs when the said boy shoots up and starts blaming Sanada for letting him off his guard.
“What are you doing this weekend, Yamashita-kun?” Haruna asks at school, playing with the pieces of her bento. Her notebook is spread over the table as they attempt to cram obscure equations into their heads before the math test.
“Rehearsal,” Reon recites off the top of his head, taking a bite of the sandwich he bought in the cafeteria. “Then I’m going to the movies with some friends, and maybe out to eat with my family.”
“You must have a lot of friends at the jimusho,” the girl concludes with a smile.
“They’re an odd bunch,” Reon says after awhile. “But I like them.”
One day in mid December Reon walked into the hallway after a brutal rehearsal for shokura to find the corridors completely crowded. Apparently Hasshi walked into the changing room and caught Shintaro red-handed while going through his bag. A battle ensued when the two began throwing bags and various other objects at each other.
“Where’s Julie?” Reon asked while squeezing through the mass of people in order to make his way to the battle grounds.
“In a meeting with NEWS, I think.” Fukka replied. They reached the door way in time to find Shintaro and Hasshi hiding behind rows of lockers on opposite sides of the room. Shintaro was busy tossing a wallet at Hasshi’s head. It missed and landed on the ground, along with an assortment of random possessions varying from Sanada’s hat to Abe’s keys to a familiar cell phone.
Reon frowned. A sudden wave of annoyance hit him as he walked head-first into the projectiles.
“No, Reon, it’s too dangerous in there!” Kato shouted after him, but he was also occupied with recording the battle with the video camera on his phone in the process.
“You’re a brave soul, Yamashita!” Someone yelled from the hallway.
Reon picked his cell phone off the ground and traced the scratches on the edge of the screen. The keitai strap was broken in three pieces.
“Get out of the way, Yamashita!” Shintaro shouts as he charges forward with Taiga’s baton. He trips over a pair of roller skates and goes face down on the ground a few feet away from Reon.
Reon helps Shintaro up, ignoring Hasshi’s complaint of “What are you doing, Reon? He’s the enemy! THE ENEMY! Look what he did to my hair gel!” The younger Morimoto replies with shouts of his own.
“Both of you,” Reon cuts in, rubbing his temples mechanically. “Shut up.” He turns to Shintaro, “Quite taking your Napoleonic complex out on us. You’re lucky people have been humoring you for so long. And you,” he stares at Hasshi. “Step up and be the mature one. You’re older than Shintaro-kun, but all I see you do is complain. When Julie-san sees this mess we’ll all get suspended and kiss debuting goodbye. Understand?” He turns around upon hearing claps.
“Very inspiring,” Totsu grins from the doorway. He loops an arm around Kawai. “I wonder where he learned to be this bossy, hm?”
“I have no idea. Really, no clue.” Kawai replies.
“Are those your sunglasses on the ground?” Shoon asks instead, already in the room as he helps Reon pick up bits and pieces off the floor. He hands the younger Yamashita the remaining parts of his cell phone strap. “Is your phone broken?”
Reon shakes his head.
They managed to clean up the room in under an hour with the help of a dozen or so juniors. At least five people tripped over a box of spilled juice while Goseki accidently wiped the floor with Kitayama pants. Nozawa found his scarf under someone’s stack of shoujo manga and Fujigaya’s skates ended up missing two wheels.
Julie returned in the middle of their cleaning efforts and said nothing. The next day she unlocked all the bathrooms and reassigned lockers. Just like that, the Junior War of 2008 ended with minimal causalities.
“Did you really like that strap?” Kato asks a week later as they’re changing out of sweaty clothes.
“Yeah,” Reon pauses. “My brother gave it to me.” He buttons his shirt and frowns, “It was the only thing I ever put on my phone.”
“I guess it can’t be helped, then.” Nakaken says, pulling out a small packet from his bag and handing it to Reon. “I was going to give this to you for Christmas, but then Hasshi started complaining about how he wanted one too, and I ended up buying one for everybody.”
Reon pulls out a small chain in time to find Nozawa, Sanada, Abe, Hasshi, and Kato taking out their phones as well.
“See,” Nakaken grins. “Now we all have matching ones!” The orb at the end of the chain shined under the light. “Mine’s the coolest, of course.”
They sit in a circle on the train ride home and compare the different colors on each other’s keitai straps. Hasshi once again attempts to flirt with an older girl. Everyone is shocked when he actually gets her number.
“I told you,” Hasshi beams. “I have skills.”
“I’m calling Kana and telling on you,” Sanada declares, punching numbers into his cell phone. Hasshi promptly forgets about his victory and spends ten minutes trying to calm his angry girlfriend down while occasionally making threatening gestures at them.
“Nii-San,” Reon starts to say after arriving home. He kicks his shoes off and dumps his bag on the floor. “Today I-“ He stops upon walking into the living room, blinking at the scene in front of him.
“Welcome home,” Yabu smiles in his seat across the table from Shoon. He fingers the side of his glass cup and gives the new comer a small wave.
As Reon slides into the chair opposite of Shoon, he thinks, over all, that this year wasn’t so bad after all. That night he dreams about Ferris wheels, dance steps, and the shiny surface of his new keitai strap.