A treat for encoded_panties
A treat for: encoded_panties
Cooked up by: A Friendly Chef
Title: Sparkles Started it All
Characters: Several members from Kanjani8, NEWS, and KAT-TUN
Genre: crack, fluff
Ratings: PG
Warning: It doesn't make sense!
A/N: omigod! I killed the it, I hope you still like it though
Nakamaru looked at his watch as he exited the karaoke bar. 11:53pm.
“Shit, it's this late already?” Well time does fly by when you're busy, as they say. Since classes let out that afternoon, Yuiichi had spent every minute in that place writing up his assignment, it was just now that he finished it. Tired, he made a rush towards the station as the last train would leave at exactly 12 midnight.
---
11:59pm
“Great, just in time,” he panted. Looking down at his watch, he began to countdown the seconds to midnight.
“8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1”
And just like that, the train made its stop at the platform. He made his way through the doors and on a bench. The car was empty so he thought he might as well take a short nap, after all, his stop was almost thirty minutes away. No harm done, right? Or so he thought.
---
The sudden break caused Yuichi to wake from his deep slumber and to fall off of his chair. He stood up while rubbing his eyes, he took in his surroundings and noticed how bright the train car was. There some sort of light streaming in from the windows, it wasn't eye-squintingly bright or anything, but definitely too bright for anywhere just pass mid-night, considering the train lights were out.
Curious, he approached the door. It was locked. Well, Nakamaru expected that much, he did read his share of mystery books. He tried prying the door open but it still didn't budge. The emergency button? No luck. Breaking the glass? Good luck with that, with the crime rate this days, the normal plexiglass was replaced with bullet proof ones.
Yuichi took a step back, surveying the car for any signs of an exit.
He's been at it for five minutes and was about to give up when a bright twinkle by the foot of one of the benches caught his eye. Crouching down, he extended his hand and touched the glittery pile.
---
Yuichi stepped out of the train and onto the platform, or what he thought was the platform. He found himself standing before a great door. When he pushed it open just a bit, it gave way immediately, revealing what he guessed was a throne room. That was, of course, his own judgement, but the empty gigantic chair on the far corner of the room and the elegantly decorated walls seem to agree with him. It was something like what you see in fairy tails, except, it had a dark twist to it. Even though the room was already a bit bright, fire lit torches still scattered the room, and dark velvet curtains were draped over one of the walls. Wait, does that mean I'm in a castle?
Where was he? He looked around and realized he wasn't alone, there were about ten of them in the room. The hushed tones of conversations suggested they all seemed to know each other too. Yuichi made his way to one of guys in the room, a tall guy (maybe a few centimetres taller than himself) with single eyelids. He figured, if he didn't know where they were, he's sure all these others knew. But before he could even reach the man, a deep booming voice came from the direction of the throne.
“First off, everyone, congratulations on getting here!”
All eyes were on the man sitting on the high chair. He had spiky blonde hair with dark roots, and a thin scar running across his right eye, he even had a cape on. “I see some new faces in the crowd,” he observed, “So for those who don't know, I am JOKER and I welcome you to my fourth annual scavenger hunt! I'm sorry you have to settle for the throne room though, but the arena where we usually meet is still under construction from last year's brawl.”
Everyone shifted their gaze a bit to the short tanned guy leaning against one of the room's support posts. “Ryo-chan, I'll be watching you this time,” JOKER warned but with a slight smile playing on his lips. The Ryo guy just smirked. “That aside, LET THE HUNT BEGIN!”
The room erupted with claps and cheers, everyone seemed to be excited about this whole thing. That is, everyone except Yuichi, who was still as confused as hell. JOKER? Scavenger hunt? Arena? Brawl? What the--?
“Okay, time to pick strengths,” he was practically beaming when he said this. “TAGUCHI!”
A tall young man appeared from the curtains holding a silk pillow with what looked like a carefully arranged fan of envelopes perching atop. The man went around the room offering the letters to the other guests, each of them in turn plucked one from the bunch and turned their attention back to Mr. JOKER, waiting for further instructions. When it was his turn to pick an envelope, there were only four left in the pillow. He grabbed one and turned his attention to to the man on the throne.
“Now that everyone has an envelope,--”
“Shuu-uu-ji-kun~!”
All heads tuned towards the door as a light haired guy bounced his way in and towards a man sitting on one of the couches.
“Hey, I didn't get lost!” the kid exclaimed happily, “You know how it took me almost three hours just to come back from the washroom last year? I got lost then, but now I didn't.”
“I highly doubt that you didn't get lost, Akira. You've been gone for forty-five minutes, and it doesn't take that long to go down the hall, pee, and come right back. Even Maruyama over there,” Shuji tilted his head towards a smiling man in orange overalls, “went to go use it and he was back in less than five minutes.”
“But I'm not late this time, I did get back in time for the opening, didn't I?”
“Yeah, sure you did,” JOKER said sweetly, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I'm still not here, the envelopes haven't gone out yet, and I wasn't in the middle of a sentence when you barged in. OF COURSE YOU ARE LATE! Now find yourself a seat and Taguchi will be with you with your letter. I'll need a word with you after this.”
Akira took the seat next to his friend and shut up, but not before muttering that forty-five minutes was a big step from last year's three hours.
“Good. Now that all twelve of you are here, back to the envelopes. You may open them,” he looked over his subjects with a grin on his face, one would have never guessed he was pissed off just seconds before.
“Remember, no seriously injuring other players, the powers you are given is not for that purpose, use it wisely. No cheating, I'll be watching. The time limit this time would be sunset, which means 18:00 hours exactly. The gates open in thirty minutes, the game starts then. Now, you are free to mingle and get used to your newly acquainted talents. You can pick up your list by the door when you leave.”
Yuichi broke the letter's seal and pulled out the black card inside. His name was written in silver script and when he flipped it open Matter Ingestion: ability to consume any matter, whatever the amount, without any ill affects on the user was written as well.
Everyone else were checking each others cards. He spotted the single lidded guy again, this time talking to one of the others, a man with a child-like face and an odd sense of fashion. He made his way over, the guys seemed nice enough people to direct his questions towards.
Mr. Single Eyelids paused in his conversation when he realized Nakamaru was going over. “Well hello there,” he greeted with a smile, “Did you want something?”
“Well, sort of. Um, what's all this?” he answered.
The man gave him a puzzled look, “What do you mean 'What's all this'?”
“Um, all this. Am I dreaming or something?”
“Huh? You didn't know? You've been chosen to attend this special annual scavenger hunt,” his friend with the odd clothes said.
“Yeah, I kinda got that, but that's basically all I know,” he replied.
Just then, another guy came up, he was around the same height as Nakamaru. “Seems that you don't know anything, do you?”
“Now, now, Shige. You don't have have to use that tone of voice.”
“Sorry, Kei-chan. It's just that I didn't like the power I got. I wanted something funner than electric shock,” Shige apologized, holding up his card; Electric Shock: ability execute electric blasts was written in gold script.
“That isn't so bad. It's pretty cool actually.”
“I know, it's just that I can only use it as an offence. I can't even play with it when I'm bored, I'll just get electrocuted otherwise,” he pouted.
“Aww, Shige. There, there.” Mr. Single-eyelids suddenly perked up,“Omigod, I'm sorry, where were my manners. I'm Koyama Keiichiro,” he extended his arm in Nakamaru's direction.
“Ah, I'm Nakamaru Yuiichi, nice to meet you,” he greeted, taking the other's hand.
“Kato Shigeaki,” Shige said.
“Masuda Takahisa,” the guy in colourful clothing chimed in.
Nakamaru bowed to them all in turned before speaking again, “Okay, can someone tell me what this is all about now?”
“Okay, first off, that guy over there,” Kato tilted his head in the direction of JOKER, who was scolding Akira for his tardiness, “His name is Tanaka Koki, though he prefers to be called JOKER, he is the official founder of this hunt. I don't know his reasons for creating this game, I assume it's for fun, but I'm glad he's holding it every year, it's a great way to relieve my boredom."
“but Koki~,” Akira whined.
“Oi! Didn't I tell you to call me JOKER!” Akira just pouted at that and took his scolding in silence.
“He sent out invitation to a handful of people, that's us, and asks those people to attend the hunt. It's just like a normal scavenger hunt, but with a supernatural touch,” Kato informed.
“Yeah, but I didn't get an invitation letter. I kind of just ended up here,” Yuichi said.
“That's impossible, you must have gotten one! You can't be allowed here if you didn't,” Masuda said. “Did you check your mail? It came in the form of a really colourful flyer.”
“Flyer? Okay, I guess there's a possibility that it might have arrived, but I don't read those. I just throw them out,” Yuichi admitted a bit embarrassed.
“Then how did you know that the way to get here was to take the train at exactly midnight if you didn't read the flyer?”
“I didn't, I guess it was a coincidence,” he shrugged.
“Coincidence or not, you're here. That's what's important. Now, back on topic,” Koyama said, “What power did you get?”
“Mine said 'Matter Ingestion; the ability to consume any matter, whatever the amount, without any ill affects on the user',” Nakamaru recalled, showing the others his card. “But does it really work?”
“Eh? You got that? I want something cool like that too. You don't have to worry about gaining weight when you eat, lucky,” Masuda commented, ignoring the other's question.
“Better luck next time, Massu,” Koyama said, patting his back. “As for your question, Nakamaru-kun, turn around.”
Nakamaru had his back towards the room the whole time and didn't see what the others have been up to. When he turned around he was met with the sight of his life. He saw the Maruyama guy from earlier suddenly leap from the couch and turned into a tiger in mid-air, one of the others was walking on the ceiling, one of them was skating with his sneakers on a frozen patch on the floor - that wasn't there earlier. Others were doing equally farfetched stuff too.
Normally, he would have been freaked with this all and wanted out the minute he stepped through those doors, but something made him think this was fun so he decided to go with the flow and just play along. “Okay, so I get that this is pretty real. But, what did you guys get?” Yuichi asked once he recovered from the initial shock. He turned back towards the group but was met with Kato and three Koyamas.
“I can duplicate myself,” all the Koyamas informed in unision.
“I can electrocute people,” Kato said in a flat tone, obviously still miffed.
“And I can manipulate my size,” came a high voice from the ground.
Nakamaru looked down to see a Masuda the size of his hand. He crouched down to take a better look, the guy still looked the same, clothes still weird, but the same. He plucked him gently by the shinny oversized jacket he wore and rested him on Koyama's outstretched palm (he's back to one person). “That's so cool,” he commented, Masuda's grin grew wider.
“It's his first year here and he's got a cooler power than mine, unfair,” Kato pouted.
“It's Masuda's first time here too?” Nakamaru asked.
The boy jumped off the other's palm and turned himself back to his original height before answering, “Yeah, it's the first time I got invited. But I've heard a lot about this though, it helped that I've been friends with these guys and the one skating over there to begin with.”
“Ah, I see,” then he turned his attention back to Kato, “You were here last year, right? Then do you know anything about what happened with the arena, the one under construction? It's been bothering me.”
“Ah, that was Ryo's fault,” he said with a small giggle before pointing in the direction of 'Ryo-chan', who was now Leah Dizon, “name's Nishikido Ryo. And apparently he gets to be a shape shifter this time.
“Well you see, last year his power was Fire, like shooting out flame balls through his finger tips, that kind of power. So when it was time to meet up again at the end of the hunt, Kusano Akira over there somehow managed to piss him and since his power at that time was Wind, it turned into this whole fire-tornado thing that wiped out the arena. Good thing one of the players, Sakurai I think was his name, made a force field, otherwise, we would have been burned down too,” Koyama nodded in agreement, “Akira had burns all over his body after that, while Ryo got off with just a broken arm and dishevelled hair. If it weren't for Taguchi, Akira would've been a goner.”
“Taguchi? You mean the attendant who always smiles?”
“Yeah, him. He has the power to heal. I don't know for sure, but they say he's been like that since forever.” Nakamaru took a side glance to the person in question, he just stood there watching the others with this huge grin on his face. “I see.”
“I know! Why don't we give you a quick run down of the other players before we introduce you,” Koyama announced with a clap. “You already know Ryo and Akira, so I guess we should inrtoduce you to Shuji. He's popular with everybody and is really fun to hang out with. Plus, he's the only one who can put up with Akira.”
“Leave it to Kei-chan if you want info on these guys. He's attended this event every year, so he knows them all,” Kato put in, helping Koyama find Shuji seeing as he's having trouble. “Where is that guy?”
Just as those words exited Kato's lips, someone materialized on Nakamaru's right, giving him a start. “'Sup?” asked the guy.
“Geez Shuji, you scared the hell out of me!” exclaimed Koyama. “Nakamaru-kun, this is Kiritani Shuji; Shuji, this is Nakamaru Yuichi, seems like we'll all be in the same team.” Both exchanged their greetings and Shuji walked back towards the middle of the room, towards where Akira had his really long arms tied up in a knot (seems like he managed to get off Koki's wrath too). “Looks like Shuji got Invisibility and Akira Elasticity.”
“Yeah,” Yuichi agreed, then the realization of the other's words hit him. “Wait, teams?”
“Oh, we forgot to tell you, sorry. Yes, teams. But not really. The winner is an individual, but we work in teams,” Koyama explained.
“Winner? What do you get if you win, then?” Yuichi asked.
“Aside from the prize money, you get to keep your powers,” Koyama answered, then he turned to Shige. “Do you have any idea of what Yokoyama-kun has been up to since he won last year's hunt?”
“If I remember correctly, he said something about forming a group that defeats all evil,” Shige remembered. “But if I were him, I'd do something better with my time. He's wasting his Omniscience.”
“We all have different opinions on things, Shige. Maybe it's his dream, let him follow through with it,” Koyama noted. “Okay, back on topic. Teams. We each get a different list of stuff to find, all you need to do is find whatever is in your list while sticking with the rest of us. Your card was written in silver script, right? That means you're in the silver team with me, Massu, Shuji, Yasuda-kun, and Ohkura-kun.
“Yasu's the one whose clothes look similar to Massu's, if I didn't know better, I could have sworn those two shared a closet.” Nakamaru searched the crowd for what he pictured this Yasuda to be. He found out that he was the guy on the ceiling earlier, now he was making his way down the wall. “Ohkura's the one sleeping on the couch with his leg up in the air, I still don't know what he got, I guess we'll know later.
“Now onto the opposite team, we have Akanishi Jin, Maruyama, Ryo, Akira, Tegoshi Yuya, and Shige. That guy with a lolipop is Akanishi-kun,” he pointed at the guy sitting on the couch opposite Ohkura, “and since he isn't doing anything, I'm guessing he got Telekinesis and got really bored so he's trying to teach Ohkura-kun some dance steps in his sleep, or he got some really boring power like the ability to grow hair or something and Ohkura just sleeps like that.” Nakamaru stifled a laugh at that.
“Maru-chan is that goat over there. This is he's first time here too, but I already know him (and Yasu) from university.”
He turned his head just in time to see the goat transform into a pretty peacock. “Great, seems like he got Animal Mimicry. All the newbies have awesome abilities. Well, I guess not all,” Kato commented, giving Yuichi a side glance.
Masuda, back from his trip to the dessert table (they wondered when did he find the time leave, cos they sure as hell didn't notice him gone) a big slice of cake in hand, caught that look, and shrieked, “Shige! Apologize to Nakamaru-kun! He's power is awesome too you know, it's to be envied!”
“Puh-leese! It's eating and not getting fat! Only you and Ohkura-kun find that enviable, other people would just lessened what they eat,” Kato scoffed.
“Nuh-ahh! He can eat other stuff too, like tables and such. Haven't you ever wished you knew what chairs tasted like?” Masuda was fuming, he really stayed true to his opinions, even his cake was left forgotten in Koyama's hands.
“Yes, because everybody wants to eat random matter,” Kato replied sarcastically.
“Okay, that's enough,” Koyama intervened, “I'm sorry Nakamaru-kun, I guess Shige's still a bit pissed.”
“No, it's okay. It's not like I chose it myself anyway.”
“Yeah, you're right. Come on, I'll introduce you to the boys,” Koyama said, handing Massu his cake back, which he gladly accepted and went on munching happily.
Nishikido was back to his normal form when they met-up with him, he greeted them with a nod.
“I'm Nakamaru Yuichi, nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand.
“I assume these guys already told you who I am, so I won't bother with introductions,” Ryo shrugged off the hand. “So, what can you do?”
“He eats tables,” Kato answered before anyone else. Masuda gave him a death glare, or what supposed to be a death glare, but with a mouthful of cake and icing covered lips, it just looked like a pout. Kato smirked, he won this round.
A normal person would have tried to at least hide their laughter, after all, they just met it would be rude if he did. However, Ryo just let it out, he wasn't what one would call 'polite', so why should he care. “I see, very useful,” he added, trying to catch his breath before cracking up again.
They left him still giggling and headed towards the direction of Ohkura, he was still on the couch, but this time, awake and snacking on cookies. He looked up and smiled when he sensed them coming. “Cookies?” he offered.
“Yes please,” Massu said, putting down his empty saucer on the table and reached for a cookie. “Don't mind if I do.”
The went through their introductions and greetings. Apparently, the guy got Intangibility, he has the ability to walk through walls and such. “That's cool, I got Matter Ingestion.”
With that, Ohkura put down his cookie and grasped one of Nakamaru's hands with both of his. “You are the luckiest person ever, Nakamaru-san. That talent of yours in enviable,” he said with a solemn look. “I wish I had that power of yours. I want to be able to eat anything too. I always wondered what bean bags tasted like.”
“And he doesn't get fat either,” Masuda put in, taking a break from his cookie.
“You are my god, Nakamaru-san!”
“Eh? Ah, o-okay,” Nakamaru just replied, giving Koyama a silent plea asking for help. Koyama sensed it almost immediately and was already on it. Massu gave Shige a look, the other just rolled his eyes. But once Masuda returned his attention back on his cookie, Kato shot the unsuspecting man a little zap on the leg, causing him to yelp. He was starting to like this power of his.
After a couple more minutes of fumbling to get Yuichi's hands free, the four headed towards Tegoshi, the skater.
When they reached the other, he was in the midst of turning his side of the room into a winter wonderland. “Te-go-shi~” Masuda sing-song ed.
The guy stopped what he was doing and saw them standing by the 'entrance'. “Ah, Massu, Kei-chan, Shige,” he began, then he saw Nakamaru, “and let me guess, this is the guy who eats furniture.”
Kato burst out laughing, Nakamaru remained indifferent (he didn't mind), and both Koyama and Massu looked scandalized. “Tegoshi!” they scolded in unison.
They heard a small chuckle from behind a bunch of the miniature ice mountains before they even saw the head of hair. “So, this is the infamous Nakanantoka-kun.”
“It's Nakamaru,” Yuichi corrected, nobody noticed however.
“Akanishi-kun? What are you doing here?” Kato asked, recovering from his laughing fit.
“Hmm? Ah, I'm here for the ice,” Akanishi answered, bending down to make a little snow ball. “Tegoshi promised that I can play here if I help him move around the heavy pieces.”
Kato noded.
“Wait, how'd you find out about Nakamaru-kun?”
“Ryo stopped by,” Tegoshi shrugged. Makes sense, they thought.
“Okay~,” said Koyama, “now that you guys have met, however boorish the encounter may be, how 'bout we go meet the rest? Let's go.”
“You guys go, I'll stay here and play. The stupidity of those two will eat your soul,” Shige said, tilting his head in the direction of Yasuda trying to walk up the side of elephant!maruyama.
“Then Akanishi-kun, do you want to come with?”
“No way in hell! I wouldn't dare go near Kusano while he's being all Monkey D. Luffy like. He might accidentally punch out my tooth or something,” then he pointed in the direction of an overstretched Akira on the opposite side of the room. “See, even Shuji resorted to being invisible just so he could escape that annoying brat.”
“He's not that bad. Come on Nakamaru-kun,” Koyama signalled for the two to follow him. Half-way there, a foot suddenly came whizzing their way. If Masuda didn't shrink himself in time, he would've been headless. “Okay, maybe we shouldn't approach Akira. You're okay with not meeting him, right Nakamaru-kun?”
Yuichi nodded, “Yeah, I already know who he is, he doesn't need to know who I am.” This way, I might just keep my body intact.
Looking down, they noticed that Masuda fainted. “Poor thing,” Koyama picked him up gently and brought him over to where Taguchi stood, still smiling, and asked him to look after Massu before walking towards the other two.
“Maru-chan! Yassan!” Koyama called out, waving.
Upon hearing their names, they stopped what they were doing (Yasuda got off the other's back; Maruyama reverted back to his human self) and looked up. When they realized it was Koyama, they smiled.
“Koyama-senpai!” they both greeted with a bow.
Koyama bowed back and introduced Nakamaru to them. “Nakamaru-kun, did you know that Maru-chan and Yasu here moonlight as a manzai duo?”
“Really? I'd love to see you guys do an act one ti--”
“PAAAAAAA~AAN!!!”
“Uwaaa! That scared me,” Yuichi admitted.
“Yeah, he kinda does that sometimes,” Koyama whispered.
“PAAAAAAAAAA~AAAN!!!”
---
“...pan*, Nakamaru-kun?”
“Huh?” Yuichi sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“I was asking if you wanted to have the last piece of bread,” asked a familiar voice.
“Uh, not really, you can have it,” he answered, trying to make out who it was that spoke. “What the hell, Ueda. You didn't have to ask, you could've just eaten it if you wanted it that bad.”
“I don't want it,” Ueda replied with a shrug, “I just wanted to know if you wanted it.”
“You woke me up for that?” Ueda just looked at him. “Never mind. Where are we anyway?”
“We're still in my place, you dork,” he chuckled. “Remember? We need to write up an essay on our choice of anything supernatural for Kokubun-sensei's literature class. You fell asleep when I was explaining to you what the sparkly fairy dust was made of.”
“Un,” he replied. So it was a dream after all? Nakamaru pushed back the thought when he realized he was hungry. He looked up at the counter full food; a half empty fruit basket, a few bottles of wine, sushi, several kinds of opened and unopened bags of chips, cans of beer, hors d'oeurves, and just as the other mentioned, one piece of cinnamon roll. Props of having a rich friend. He looked over the array again and didn't find anything particularly appealing, so he asked Ueda if he had anything else.
“I guess not, but we can order in or something. What would you like to have?” he stopped typing in his computer and turned to face Nakamaru, phone in hand.
“Okay, let's see,” Yuichi didn't think about it properly and just blurted out what he craved at the moment, “how about a nice piece of furniture.”
Ueda remained still, “Come again?”
*pan- in Japanese, it means bread