[NEWS Remix] "The Care and Cultivation of Cacti"
Title: The Care and Cultivation of Cacti
Writer: peroxidepest17
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing: [NEWS] Yamapi and Ryo focus (mentioned RyoxShige)
Warnings/Genre: Humor
Word Count: 1,600
Summary: Ryo works on his confessions.
Dedication: Written as remix of binmusic’s fic, “Love in Spiked Forms”. Special thanks to annnimeee for the beta help; I’m sorry I put you through so much crap editing this bb. ^_^
A/N: Because the image of these two practicing this sort of thing together would not leave my head after I read about it.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
“Hey, dumbass, do you know that I…”
“No,” Yamapi says, and cuts Ryo off with an abrupt chopping motion of his hand in the air between them. “Definitely don’t start anything romantic that way.”
Ryo looks lost. Frowns. “Yeah, well…what do you know?”
Yamapi sighs, patiently. “Didn’t you call me here to help you practice not-insulting Shige?”
Ryo is mortified. “…no.”
Yamapi does the chopping thing with his hand again, except more emphatically this time. “Be honest! That’s what everyone loves about Ryo-chan the most, right?”
Ryo’s shoulders slump. He scowls. “Fine.”
Pleased at his friend’s unexpectedly easy capitulation, Yamapi sits back on Ryo’s couch and motions for him to continue. “Try again, ne. For real this time! Tell him the true feelings of your heart.”
Ryo takes a deep breath. “Right.”
“Right!” Yamapi echoes, and gives his friend an encouraging thumbs up.
Ryo squares his shoulders and looks right at Yamapi again.
“I like you so much,” he begins reluctantly, and the expression on his face as he does makes Yamapi think that this is what someone might look like if they were getting a tooth ripped out with pliers for every word they said.
But it’s a start. Or something.
Ever optimistic like that, Yamapi moves to congratulate his friend for making it this far as early on in the game as he has, but before he can, Ryo suddenly feels a reflexive, automatic need to add, “…that sometimes it makes me want to hurl,” to the end of his sentence instead of leaving it as is.
Silence.
Yamapi sighs. “No,” he says, instead of “Good work!” like he wanted to. He feels that he is making a lot more chopping motions with his hand tonight than he’d planned on. “No, that’s not good either, Ryo-chan.”
“Right,” Ryo mutters, and slumps onto the couch next to Yamapi. “So I suck at something. At least it’s the only thing.”
Yamapi pats his shoulder and then goes to make them coffee.
He has a feeling that they’re going to be here for a while.
~~~~~
A few days later, Yamapi is at Ryo’s place again; this time he thinks that they are actually witnessing a little thing called negative progress.
Devolution, as it were.
“Why can’t I just jump him in the shower and leave it at that?” Ryo complains bitterly in the middle of their role play, when he makes it as far as, “I l-lo…st my lunch when I saw your face just now.”
Yamapi frowns. “You don’t need me to be here for that,” he points out, and gives Ryo a look that suggests something vague about how he is here during his precious little free time to help a friend who most definitely needs help and is not wasting his day off accomplishing nothing.
Ryo scowls. “Alright, but your Shige impression sucks. You can’t seriously expect me to work like this.”
“I’ll try harder if Ryo-chan tries harder too, ne,” Yamapi vows, in all seriousness.
Ryo twitches when his efforts to derail come up empty. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Yamapi grins. “We can do anything we put our minds to, ne! We just have to believe!”
Ryo’s response is not as enthusiastic; that night the two of them only get as far as “I love…pie.”
~~~~~
“Valentine’s Day is in ten days,” Yamapi points out the following night, as the two of them eat Chinese delivery out of small white cartons on Ryo’s living room floor.
Ryo promptly chokes on his fried rice when Yamapi brings it up. “Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with this!” he insists, in the sort of way that makes Yamapi think that it has everything to do with it after all. “We’re not girls, what does it matter to us when Valentine’s Day is?”
Yamapi smiles around a mouthful of shark’s fin and holds his spoon up in the air. “If you can’t say it in words, maybe you should do it with a Valentine’s Day gift, ne! Then you won’t have to talk at all.”
Ryo looks thoughtful, before realizing that he is actually entertaining this ridiculous notion. He scowls. “I am not a girl,” he says decisively, and that’s that.
Yamapi shrugs and in the meantime, manages to eat all of Ryo’s egg rolls while the older idol is too busy very clearly not thinking about buying Shige a gift for Valentine’s Day.
~~~~~
“Here,” Ryo mumbles dumbly a few days later, and tries not to sound too lame or desperate as he thrusts a gift-wrapped box of chocolates from the department store at Yamapi.
Yamapi looks unimpressed. “Here what?” he asks.
Ryo scowls. “He wouldn’t react like that.”
Yamapi blinks. “True,” he acquiesces eventually, and changes his unimpressed expression to one that is vaguely suspicious instead. “What is wrong with you?” he asks this time, with a deeply furrowed brow and a tone that sounds like he’s a little bit worried for Ryo’s sanity.
Ryo’s shoulders slump. “That’s more like it,” he concedes in defeat, and snatches the chocolates back grudgingly.
From there he turns his back to Yamapi, counts to fifty in prime numbers, and then puts on his resolved face before spinning around again. “This is for you,” he tries on the second attempt, and shoves the chocolates forward even though he’s not quite able to meet Yamapi’s eyes when he does it.
As such the box ends up hitting Yamapi in the stomach instead of making it into his hands; the corner gets crushed against Yamapi’s ribs and as a result, the ribbon slides off of the packaging and flutters weakly to the floor.
Silence.
Then Yamapi says, “Good one,” while using a slightly superior tone, in as close a facsimile as he can of how he thinks Shige would respond to Ryo failing so epically like that.
It is accurate enough a representation that Ryo automatically scowls and mutters, “Dick,” to the taller idol before he knows what’s happening.
A second later, Yamapi slips out of character and dutifully picks up the ribbon; he sticks it back on the package before wordlessly handing the gift to Ryo one more time.
Ryo turns around and tries again.
~~~~~
Ryo spends the next three days in Osaka for work and as such, Yamapi has to listen to his awkwardly crafted confessions over the phone in the middle of the night for the entire time he is there.
“Even though your face looks like a squid’s…”
“No,” Yamapi says, and even though he is very sleepy, only has to half listen to what Ryo’s saying to know that this is not going well.
On the other end of the line, Ryo sounds offended. “You didn’t even hear me out. This one wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as it started out.”
“No,” Yamapi repeats, and his hand is unconsciously chopping the air in front of him as he lies in bed, regardless of whether Ryo can see him or not. “No squid.”
“You’re making this impossible. Maybe I’m just trying to be creative.”
“Shige will leave you for a less creative actress with enormous boobs,” Yamapi warns him, around a yawn.
Ryo scoffs. “Like he’d even know what to do with them.” Pause. “Hey,” he starts again, sounding inspired, “what if I started with that?”
Yamapi sighs. “No.”
After another two days of phone conversations that include Ryo’s great ideas of calling Shige gayer than their stage costumes and/or possibly writing a nice confession in permanent marker on Shige’s back (or face) while he’s sleeping, Yamapi suggests that maybe Ryo ought to just buy Shige some roses and let them do the talking for him after all.
“What? Roses? That’s…lame,” Ryo tells him, in a way that makes Yamapi think that it’s not as lame as Ryo would like it to be. “Anyway, I’m heading back to Tokyo tomorrow, on the last afternoon shinkansen. Pick me up from the station at seven-thirty. And I’m not getting roses. I mean, who still does that? So lame. I don’t even think there’s time to go to a florist or anything anyway.”
Yamapi smiles sleepily and promises to pick Ryo up.
~~~~~
The following evening it is the day before Valentine’s Day and Ryo is awkwardly standing in front of the bathroom mirror in his apartment. True to his word, he does not have any roses in hand.
But eventually, he does finally manage to hold a small, potted cactus up to his own reflection and declare a slightly awkward, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” to it, while Yamapi cheers him on from behind.
“That works!” Yamapi exclaims brightly once they’ve made it through without any further insults to Shige’s face, hobbies, ancestry, or choice of hairstyling products. He claps Ryo on the back in enthusiastic congratulations on making it this far with the deadline so dangerously near.
Ryo only looks a little relieved as he studies their reflections in his mirror. “So…it’s not too simplistic?”
Yamapi laughs and plops onto the toilet seat cover tiredly. “I don’t think we can afford to be picky at this point, Ryo-chan.” He smiles reassuringly. “And the cactus is a good idea. It really feels like it’s from your heart. I’m sure Shige will understand, ne.”
Ryo blinks and tries not to look too hopeful. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Yamapi promises. “As long as you don’t say that his face is like a squid’s again, ne. That was the worst idea ever.”
Ryo response is to throw toilet paper at Yamapi’s head.
Yamapi knows he only does it to hide the fact that his face is red.
END
Writer: peroxidepest17
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing: [NEWS] Yamapi and Ryo focus (mentioned RyoxShige)
Warnings/Genre: Humor
Word Count: 1,600
Summary: Ryo works on his confessions.
Dedication: Written as remix of binmusic’s fic, “Love in Spiked Forms”. Special thanks to annnimeee for the beta help; I’m sorry I put you through so much crap editing this bb. ^_^
A/N: Because the image of these two practicing this sort of thing together would not leave my head after I read about it.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
“Hey, dumbass, do you know that I…”
“No,” Yamapi says, and cuts Ryo off with an abrupt chopping motion of his hand in the air between them. “Definitely don’t start anything romantic that way.”
Ryo looks lost. Frowns. “Yeah, well…what do you know?”
Yamapi sighs, patiently. “Didn’t you call me here to help you practice not-insulting Shige?”
Ryo is mortified. “…no.”
Yamapi does the chopping thing with his hand again, except more emphatically this time. “Be honest! That’s what everyone loves about Ryo-chan the most, right?”
Ryo’s shoulders slump. He scowls. “Fine.”
Pleased at his friend’s unexpectedly easy capitulation, Yamapi sits back on Ryo’s couch and motions for him to continue. “Try again, ne. For real this time! Tell him the true feelings of your heart.”
Ryo takes a deep breath. “Right.”
“Right!” Yamapi echoes, and gives his friend an encouraging thumbs up.
Ryo squares his shoulders and looks right at Yamapi again.
“I like you so much,” he begins reluctantly, and the expression on his face as he does makes Yamapi think that this is what someone might look like if they were getting a tooth ripped out with pliers for every word they said.
But it’s a start. Or something.
Ever optimistic like that, Yamapi moves to congratulate his friend for making it this far as early on in the game as he has, but before he can, Ryo suddenly feels a reflexive, automatic need to add, “…that sometimes it makes me want to hurl,” to the end of his sentence instead of leaving it as is.
Silence.
Yamapi sighs. “No,” he says, instead of “Good work!” like he wanted to. He feels that he is making a lot more chopping motions with his hand tonight than he’d planned on. “No, that’s not good either, Ryo-chan.”
“Right,” Ryo mutters, and slumps onto the couch next to Yamapi. “So I suck at something. At least it’s the only thing.”
Yamapi pats his shoulder and then goes to make them coffee.
He has a feeling that they’re going to be here for a while.
~~~~~
A few days later, Yamapi is at Ryo’s place again; this time he thinks that they are actually witnessing a little thing called negative progress.
Devolution, as it were.
“Why can’t I just jump him in the shower and leave it at that?” Ryo complains bitterly in the middle of their role play, when he makes it as far as, “I l-lo…st my lunch when I saw your face just now.”
Yamapi frowns. “You don’t need me to be here for that,” he points out, and gives Ryo a look that suggests something vague about how he is here during his precious little free time to help a friend who most definitely needs help and is not wasting his day off accomplishing nothing.
Ryo scowls. “Alright, but your Shige impression sucks. You can’t seriously expect me to work like this.”
“I’ll try harder if Ryo-chan tries harder too, ne,” Yamapi vows, in all seriousness.
Ryo twitches when his efforts to derail come up empty. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Yamapi grins. “We can do anything we put our minds to, ne! We just have to believe!”
Ryo’s response is not as enthusiastic; that night the two of them only get as far as “I love…pie.”
~~~~~
“Valentine’s Day is in ten days,” Yamapi points out the following night, as the two of them eat Chinese delivery out of small white cartons on Ryo’s living room floor.
Ryo promptly chokes on his fried rice when Yamapi brings it up. “Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with this!” he insists, in the sort of way that makes Yamapi think that it has everything to do with it after all. “We’re not girls, what does it matter to us when Valentine’s Day is?”
Yamapi smiles around a mouthful of shark’s fin and holds his spoon up in the air. “If you can’t say it in words, maybe you should do it with a Valentine’s Day gift, ne! Then you won’t have to talk at all.”
Ryo looks thoughtful, before realizing that he is actually entertaining this ridiculous notion. He scowls. “I am not a girl,” he says decisively, and that’s that.
Yamapi shrugs and in the meantime, manages to eat all of Ryo’s egg rolls while the older idol is too busy very clearly not thinking about buying Shige a gift for Valentine’s Day.
~~~~~
“Here,” Ryo mumbles dumbly a few days later, and tries not to sound too lame or desperate as he thrusts a gift-wrapped box of chocolates from the department store at Yamapi.
Yamapi looks unimpressed. “Here what?” he asks.
Ryo scowls. “He wouldn’t react like that.”
Yamapi blinks. “True,” he acquiesces eventually, and changes his unimpressed expression to one that is vaguely suspicious instead. “What is wrong with you?” he asks this time, with a deeply furrowed brow and a tone that sounds like he’s a little bit worried for Ryo’s sanity.
Ryo’s shoulders slump. “That’s more like it,” he concedes in defeat, and snatches the chocolates back grudgingly.
From there he turns his back to Yamapi, counts to fifty in prime numbers, and then puts on his resolved face before spinning around again. “This is for you,” he tries on the second attempt, and shoves the chocolates forward even though he’s not quite able to meet Yamapi’s eyes when he does it.
As such the box ends up hitting Yamapi in the stomach instead of making it into his hands; the corner gets crushed against Yamapi’s ribs and as a result, the ribbon slides off of the packaging and flutters weakly to the floor.
Silence.
Then Yamapi says, “Good one,” while using a slightly superior tone, in as close a facsimile as he can of how he thinks Shige would respond to Ryo failing so epically like that.
It is accurate enough a representation that Ryo automatically scowls and mutters, “Dick,” to the taller idol before he knows what’s happening.
A second later, Yamapi slips out of character and dutifully picks up the ribbon; he sticks it back on the package before wordlessly handing the gift to Ryo one more time.
Ryo turns around and tries again.
~~~~~
Ryo spends the next three days in Osaka for work and as such, Yamapi has to listen to his awkwardly crafted confessions over the phone in the middle of the night for the entire time he is there.
“Even though your face looks like a squid’s…”
“No,” Yamapi says, and even though he is very sleepy, only has to half listen to what Ryo’s saying to know that this is not going well.
On the other end of the line, Ryo sounds offended. “You didn’t even hear me out. This one wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as it started out.”
“No,” Yamapi repeats, and his hand is unconsciously chopping the air in front of him as he lies in bed, regardless of whether Ryo can see him or not. “No squid.”
“You’re making this impossible. Maybe I’m just trying to be creative.”
“Shige will leave you for a less creative actress with enormous boobs,” Yamapi warns him, around a yawn.
Ryo scoffs. “Like he’d even know what to do with them.” Pause. “Hey,” he starts again, sounding inspired, “what if I started with that?”
Yamapi sighs. “No.”
After another two days of phone conversations that include Ryo’s great ideas of calling Shige gayer than their stage costumes and/or possibly writing a nice confession in permanent marker on Shige’s back (or face) while he’s sleeping, Yamapi suggests that maybe Ryo ought to just buy Shige some roses and let them do the talking for him after all.
“What? Roses? That’s…lame,” Ryo tells him, in a way that makes Yamapi think that it’s not as lame as Ryo would like it to be. “Anyway, I’m heading back to Tokyo tomorrow, on the last afternoon shinkansen. Pick me up from the station at seven-thirty. And I’m not getting roses. I mean, who still does that? So lame. I don’t even think there’s time to go to a florist or anything anyway.”
Yamapi smiles sleepily and promises to pick Ryo up.
~~~~~
The following evening it is the day before Valentine’s Day and Ryo is awkwardly standing in front of the bathroom mirror in his apartment. True to his word, he does not have any roses in hand.
But eventually, he does finally manage to hold a small, potted cactus up to his own reflection and declare a slightly awkward, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” to it, while Yamapi cheers him on from behind.
“That works!” Yamapi exclaims brightly once they’ve made it through without any further insults to Shige’s face, hobbies, ancestry, or choice of hairstyling products. He claps Ryo on the back in enthusiastic congratulations on making it this far with the deadline so dangerously near.
Ryo only looks a little relieved as he studies their reflections in his mirror. “So…it’s not too simplistic?”
Yamapi laughs and plops onto the toilet seat cover tiredly. “I don’t think we can afford to be picky at this point, Ryo-chan.” He smiles reassuringly. “And the cactus is a good idea. It really feels like it’s from your heart. I’m sure Shige will understand, ne.”
Ryo blinks and tries not to look too hopeful. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Yamapi promises. “As long as you don’t say that his face is like a squid’s again, ne. That was the worst idea ever.”
Ryo response is to throw toilet paper at Yamapi’s head.
Yamapi knows he only does it to hide the fact that his face is red.
END