Remix for bananyphophany
Title: CrushCrushCrush (the ambivalent paramour remix)
Rating: PG-13
Group/Pairing: Koyama/Shige, one-sided Tegoshi/Koyama
Warnings: None
Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta. :D
Link to Original Story: Crush
Link to Original Writer:bananyphophany
Anyone with eyes can see that Tegoshi has a third grade crush on Koyama. Unless that person is Koyama. Not that I mind, of course - Koyama knowing would make things complicated for everyone, especially us. Sometimes it’s hard not to resent Tegoshi for the way he feels - no, not the way he feels but the way he puts himself out there - but then I think of being in his place and shudder. He’s in a one-sided love with no hopes of it ever being returned and he doesn’t even know it.
It’s not like we hide our relationship. We’re actually really obvious about it, feeling secure enough in the openness of our love to hide the truth behind our words and actions. We know they’re thinking, “It can’t be true or they wouldn’t be so obvious.” It’s roundabout but it works so well that not even our band mates suspect the truth. It’s not that we don’t trust them, we do. And if any one of them asked us seriously, we would tell them. But it’s easier for everyone this way - this way only we have to hide the truth. Consequently, Tegoshi thinks Koyama is free and acts accordingly. Too bad for Koyama, Tegoshi shows his affection like a third grade boy.
+++
We file into the sitting area where they’re serving lunch. It’s sushi today, an unexpected treat and I watch Koyama clap gleefully over his tuna sushi and I smile at the scene. Koyama leaves his lunch unattended to grab a drink from the cooler in the next room and I watch as Tegoshi nonchalantly lifts the tuna off the top of one of Koyama’s pieces of sushi and puts a glob of wasabi on it, covering it carefully again with the tuna. He sees me watching and grins at me, the action scrunching up his nose, and he places a finger conspiratorially over his lips.
When Koyama comes in, I ignore them both in favor of discussing minor chord progressions with Ryo. Suddenly, Koyama yelps loudly and Tegoshi does this weird giggle and I turn to see him struggling to keep a straight face. Koyama’s shocked/painful face is priceless and I can’t help laughing at him, nor can anyone else even when tears are welling up in Koyama’s eyes and he takes a huge swallow of water to try and wash away the sting.
“Tegoshi!” Koyama finally splutters, turning accusing eyes on our youngest member.
Tegoshi tries the wide-eyed innocent act, but Koyama isn’t a fool. “Yes, Kei-chan?” he asks, cocking his head and fluttering his eyelashes like a high school girl. I find myself laughing madly. They both ignore me.
“You know I like tuna sushi the most. Why would you do that to my favorite?” he asks with sad eyes.
Tegoshi can’t hold it in anymore and starts laughing, high pitched with little gasps that tell me he’s still trying not to. The rest of the group shake their heads and go back to eating, Yamapi surreptitiously checking his lunch. Not that I can blame him, I would too if I were sitting on the other side of Tegoshi.
Koyama’s exasperated, I can tell by the way his shoulders have tensed up a bit and the way his lips are pulled down a little extra at the edges, but finally he rolls his eyes, pushing Tegoshi’s shoulder gently before inspecting the rest of his lunch.
I’m the only one watching Tegoshi when he absently runs light fingers over the place Koyama had touched him. I slide a piece of my tuna sushi onto Koyama’s plate when he’s not looking, turning quickly to Massu and asking him if he’d found that CD he was looking for the other day. I hear Koyama exclaim happily but don’t turn around. But he always knows it’s me. I feel his eyes on me and when I turn to look at him he’s got on his dopey-lovey grin. He makes it up to me later.
+++
“Shige!” Tegoshi latches himself to my arm and smiles at me. “Let’s go snowboarding!”
I wrinkle my nose at him and shake him off. “I don’t have time for a snowboarding trip. Take someone else.”
“But I need time with Shige,” he pleads and I shake my head and laugh.
“Ok. But not snowboarding. We can go bowling, if you want. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
He looks mildly disappointed for a moment before pulling his planner out of his bag and I do the same. “Thursday night?” he asks.
“Hmmm… Yeah, okay. I can do that.”
Thursday night is fun. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. It’s been a while since it’s just been Tegoshi and me. Somehow, in the midst of things, I’d forgotten how well we get along. He wins all three rounds, of course, and happily declares that winner pays all, like I wouldn’t have had to pay anyway, and makes me treat him to yakiniku for dinner. He’s loud and boisterous, smiling and laughing and touching and perfect in his own particularly charming way, and I have a moment of crisis when I suddenly think to myself, why doesn’t Koyama notice? I suddenly go quiet, I guess, maybe in shock at myself, and Tegoshi nudges me.
“Remember something?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. Like how you’re shamelessly chasing my boyfriend and I can’t bring myself to feel anything but pity for the both of us - you for being in a hopeless love and me for being powerless to do anything about it. But Tegoshi is too good to be pitied, I think, and self-pity never gets anyone anywhere. I just wish he knew it was a lost cause, is all - I’m tired of being in the middle.
+++
When I hear Koyama squealing in the shower, my eyes slide to Tegoshi, his smile so wide it must hurt. I can’t keep myself from laughing when I go to find out what’s wrong and see Koyama’s hair covered with yellow flecks. He is horrified and looks at me helplessly and I go and wash out the scrambled egg for him, scrubbing gently at his scalp until he relaxes under my touch and stops huffing. After, Koyama chases Tegoshi around with a wet towel, shirtless with his sweats sitting dangerously low on his hips. Tegoshi lets him catch him (I know for a fact that he can outrun anyone if he really wants to, but he never runs away from Koyama for long) then squeals in delight when Koyama’s fingers dig into his sides. I call the takeout place near my apartment and order ahead, something with egg. The way Koyama glares at me when he opens his dinner is priceless.
“You’re worse than Tegoshi,” he pouts at me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say innocently and take a bite of my own dinner. I’d feel bad, but Koyama gives as good as he gets when it comes to me.
He stares sadly at his plate but takes a bite. Four bites and half a conversation in, he’s already forgotten, but I haven’t. I’m not one to question a good thing, but I sometimes wonder, why me? Koyama’s eating happily and talking about Nyanta’s latest escapade, relaxed and comfortable on the floor of my living room. I feel a surge of affection and end up feeding a giggling Koyama the rest of his dinner before taking him to bed.
+++
I think Tegoshi must be tired or preoccupied, because he doesn’t play any pranks on anyone for weeks. I should have known that he was just preparing himself. The day we enter the parking garage after work to find Koyama’s car covered in peanut butter, I go deaf from Koyama’s screeching. My eyes are drawn to the lopsided heart traced on the windshield. Koyama fumes as he drives to the car wash.
“I’m going to kill him,” he seethes.
“Now, now, Koyama. Where would we be without our vocal powerhouse?” I tap my fingers against the upholstery and watch someone drive past and laugh, fingers pointing in our direction.
His fingers flex automatically against the steering wheel. I think he heard. “…we still have Massu.”
I snort. “Just think of it as a treatment. There are chocolate wraps, your car is just getting a peanut butter wrap. I’m sure nothing about the peanut butter will damage your paint job.”
It’s hard not to laugh at the way Koyama’s face twitches.
“Tegoshi is so bad to me,” Koyama whines into my neck later. It had taken three washes to get all of the oil off Koyama’s car.
“He likes you.”
“I know,” he says mournfully, tracing distracting patterns on my chest.
You don’t, I want to tell him, or things would be much more awkward. But then Koyama’s clever fingers are slipping past the waistband of my sweats and Tegoshi’s grade-school crush is the last thing on my mind.
+++
It’s hard to watch calmly when Tegoshi hangs all over Koyama, pressing his nose up against Koyama’s cheek in the break room for no reason, or holding his hand as they walk across the stage, Tegoshi’s smile at a thousand watts, and my heart sort of breaks for him even while I want to pull him away. It’s times like that that I want to be more obvious with Koyama, mark him as mine somehow so Tegoshi would just get it and move on. But we’re all at a stalemate we can’t afford to break and Koyama’s still oblivious.
I know he doesn’t mean it, but it doesn’t keep me from seething inside when, during the tour, Tegoshi straddles Koyama onstage, Yamashita jumping on top and forcing them even closer together. After Yamashita climbs off, Tegoshi stays pressed against Koyama, threading his fingers through Koyama’s hair and touching his mic against Koyama’s lips in a pseudo-kiss. Once would have been enough but they repeated it several times in Hiroshima. Once, Koyama is on his hands and knees over Tegoshi, and Tegoshi places his hand possessively on Koyama’s waist and smolders up at him and it’s just too much.
That night, Koyama finishes his shower and comes out into the room wearing only a pair of sweats and towel-drying his hair. Normally, I’d be watching him - admiring the way his muscles tense and relax as he goes through the motions, or the way the wet bangs cover one eye, but tonight I’m tense, tight to the point of breaking. It’s stupid, and I know it, so when Koyama sits down next to me and tilts my face up, I try to relax.
“What’s wrong,” he asks?
“I’m just tired,” I reply, and tug on his arm to get him to lie down next to me. We lie curled up and facing each other, looking at one another silently for a few minutes.
“Shige, I know it’s more than that. You’ve been weird for a couple days.”
I sigh and roll over on my back. I know he’s not going to let it go. “Okay,” I say. “It’s stupid. But that thing you do with Tegoshi. I don’t like it.”
Koyama is silent and still for a moment before scooting closer and leaning over me to look at me seriously. “Then I won’t do it anymore.”
Just like that. He makes it so easy and so hard. He has no idea.
+++
“You love Tegoshi, hm?” I ask Koyama teasingly when I read the latest article in Myojo. “Not me?”
“I don’t have to tell you I love you for you to know,” he says haughtily and I lunge for him to run my fingers along his sides until he cries with laughter.
“Maybe I like to hear…” I say, when we’ve calmed down and I’m lying against his chest, our legs entwined.
I don’t have to look to know that Koyama is smiling gently at me before he says, “I love you,” and then shows me, too.
I wonder how Tegoshi will react; will he store the feeling inside and use it to power his endless battle for Koyama’s heart? Will he tease him? Will he use it as an opportunity to get treated to something? A combination of those and more? But I don’t have to wait long. In the morning when Tegoshi comes in, he rushes up to Koyama with stars in his eyes and says in a loud voice, “Kei-chan loves me!” I know Tegoshi knows it’s not a confession, he’s just being extra cute for Koyama’s sake.
“Of course I do,” Koyama agrees and ruffles his hair, not noticing Tegoshi’s face cloud over. “You’re the little brother I never had,” he says sweetly. And then Tegoshi really does frown.
“I thought Shige was the little brother you never had,” he says sullenly.
Koyama smiles and replies evasively, “Shige’s family,” and I have to duck my head behind my book to hide my grin.
I peek over the top when I hear Tegoshi say after a pause, “I don’t want to be your brother,” in possibly the most tense voice I’ve ever heard him use with Koyama and Koyama looks taken aback, his brows knitting in confusion.
“All right,” he says a bit uncomfortably and just like that Tegoshi is all smiles again and links his arm through Koyama’s, laying his head on his shoulder.
“Let’s go out tonight, Kei-chan. I want to go to karaoke.”
Koyama’s eyes slide to meet mine and I shrug and look back at my book. “Ok,” he says, indulgently. “But you’re not singing ‘Sen no Kaze ni Natte’ again,” he says in a cautionary tone. I think it’s kind of cute when Koyama tries to deny Tegoshi anything - it hardly ever works.
Tegoshi just giggles.
+++
Sadly, I suffer from Tegoshi’s affections too. Koyama is often all too happy to team up with Tegoshi to play a prank on me. Koyama’s doing it because he loves to torture me - the man’s got a sadistic streak a mile wide even if no one will believe me. Tegoshi’s doing it because he gets to brush shoulders with Koyama and lean his face close to whisper conspiratorially in Koyama’s ear. I always smile when I think about how breathy his voice probably is and how Koyama probably just thinks it tickles.
I hear them whispering behind me - they would make terrible spies - and I sniff and turn the page of my magazine. I don’t want to know what they’re conspiring about but I have a sinking feeling I’ll find out soon, regardless. My hairdresser has no idea and continues on obliviously. Suddenly they’re on either side of me, probably crowding the stylist (not that they care) and stuffing something up my nostrils. The two laugh raucously and the stylist looks disgusted. Two white chocolates. I sigh and turn another page while they giggle endlessly. I don’t have to look in the mirror to know that Tegoshi has draped himself across Koyama in his laughter.
+++
Over time, I see Tegoshi getting frustrated. He’s so easy to read if you know what you’re looking for. He’s blatantly obvious, he thinks, so why can’t Koyama tell that all of his pranks are just an excuse to get Koyama’s attention?
‘Look at me,’ he’s saying when he switches the function of the right and left touchpad buttons on Koyama’s laptop.
‘Look at me,’ he’s saying when he replaces all of Koyama’s chocolate flavored jelly beans with dog food flavored ones.
‘I like you,’ he’s saying when he sets Koyama’s alarm to go off with Slipknot’s “The Heretic Anthem” at 3 a.m. after a concert.
So why can’t Koyama see it? I know the answer to that, if he doesn’t. Some people say I’m a pessimist (I like to call myself a realist) but even I know a sure thing - Koyama’s too busy looking at me to look at Tegoshi for long. And, for him, it’s never long enough.
Rating: PG-13
Group/Pairing: Koyama/Shige, one-sided Tegoshi/Koyama
Warnings: None
Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta. :D
Link to Original Story: Crush
Link to Original Writer:bananyphophany
Anyone with eyes can see that Tegoshi has a third grade crush on Koyama. Unless that person is Koyama. Not that I mind, of course - Koyama knowing would make things complicated for everyone, especially us. Sometimes it’s hard not to resent Tegoshi for the way he feels - no, not the way he feels but the way he puts himself out there - but then I think of being in his place and shudder. He’s in a one-sided love with no hopes of it ever being returned and he doesn’t even know it.
It’s not like we hide our relationship. We’re actually really obvious about it, feeling secure enough in the openness of our love to hide the truth behind our words and actions. We know they’re thinking, “It can’t be true or they wouldn’t be so obvious.” It’s roundabout but it works so well that not even our band mates suspect the truth. It’s not that we don’t trust them, we do. And if any one of them asked us seriously, we would tell them. But it’s easier for everyone this way - this way only we have to hide the truth. Consequently, Tegoshi thinks Koyama is free and acts accordingly. Too bad for Koyama, Tegoshi shows his affection like a third grade boy.
+++
We file into the sitting area where they’re serving lunch. It’s sushi today, an unexpected treat and I watch Koyama clap gleefully over his tuna sushi and I smile at the scene. Koyama leaves his lunch unattended to grab a drink from the cooler in the next room and I watch as Tegoshi nonchalantly lifts the tuna off the top of one of Koyama’s pieces of sushi and puts a glob of wasabi on it, covering it carefully again with the tuna. He sees me watching and grins at me, the action scrunching up his nose, and he places a finger conspiratorially over his lips.
When Koyama comes in, I ignore them both in favor of discussing minor chord progressions with Ryo. Suddenly, Koyama yelps loudly and Tegoshi does this weird giggle and I turn to see him struggling to keep a straight face. Koyama’s shocked/painful face is priceless and I can’t help laughing at him, nor can anyone else even when tears are welling up in Koyama’s eyes and he takes a huge swallow of water to try and wash away the sting.
“Tegoshi!” Koyama finally splutters, turning accusing eyes on our youngest member.
Tegoshi tries the wide-eyed innocent act, but Koyama isn’t a fool. “Yes, Kei-chan?” he asks, cocking his head and fluttering his eyelashes like a high school girl. I find myself laughing madly. They both ignore me.
“You know I like tuna sushi the most. Why would you do that to my favorite?” he asks with sad eyes.
Tegoshi can’t hold it in anymore and starts laughing, high pitched with little gasps that tell me he’s still trying not to. The rest of the group shake their heads and go back to eating, Yamapi surreptitiously checking his lunch. Not that I can blame him, I would too if I were sitting on the other side of Tegoshi.
Koyama’s exasperated, I can tell by the way his shoulders have tensed up a bit and the way his lips are pulled down a little extra at the edges, but finally he rolls his eyes, pushing Tegoshi’s shoulder gently before inspecting the rest of his lunch.
I’m the only one watching Tegoshi when he absently runs light fingers over the place Koyama had touched him. I slide a piece of my tuna sushi onto Koyama’s plate when he’s not looking, turning quickly to Massu and asking him if he’d found that CD he was looking for the other day. I hear Koyama exclaim happily but don’t turn around. But he always knows it’s me. I feel his eyes on me and when I turn to look at him he’s got on his dopey-lovey grin. He makes it up to me later.
+++
“Shige!” Tegoshi latches himself to my arm and smiles at me. “Let’s go snowboarding!”
I wrinkle my nose at him and shake him off. “I don’t have time for a snowboarding trip. Take someone else.”
“But I need time with Shige,” he pleads and I shake my head and laugh.
“Ok. But not snowboarding. We can go bowling, if you want. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
He looks mildly disappointed for a moment before pulling his planner out of his bag and I do the same. “Thursday night?” he asks.
“Hmmm… Yeah, okay. I can do that.”
Thursday night is fun. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. It’s been a while since it’s just been Tegoshi and me. Somehow, in the midst of things, I’d forgotten how well we get along. He wins all three rounds, of course, and happily declares that winner pays all, like I wouldn’t have had to pay anyway, and makes me treat him to yakiniku for dinner. He’s loud and boisterous, smiling and laughing and touching and perfect in his own particularly charming way, and I have a moment of crisis when I suddenly think to myself, why doesn’t Koyama notice? I suddenly go quiet, I guess, maybe in shock at myself, and Tegoshi nudges me.
“Remember something?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. Like how you’re shamelessly chasing my boyfriend and I can’t bring myself to feel anything but pity for the both of us - you for being in a hopeless love and me for being powerless to do anything about it. But Tegoshi is too good to be pitied, I think, and self-pity never gets anyone anywhere. I just wish he knew it was a lost cause, is all - I’m tired of being in the middle.
+++
When I hear Koyama squealing in the shower, my eyes slide to Tegoshi, his smile so wide it must hurt. I can’t keep myself from laughing when I go to find out what’s wrong and see Koyama’s hair covered with yellow flecks. He is horrified and looks at me helplessly and I go and wash out the scrambled egg for him, scrubbing gently at his scalp until he relaxes under my touch and stops huffing. After, Koyama chases Tegoshi around with a wet towel, shirtless with his sweats sitting dangerously low on his hips. Tegoshi lets him catch him (I know for a fact that he can outrun anyone if he really wants to, but he never runs away from Koyama for long) then squeals in delight when Koyama’s fingers dig into his sides. I call the takeout place near my apartment and order ahead, something with egg. The way Koyama glares at me when he opens his dinner is priceless.
“You’re worse than Tegoshi,” he pouts at me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say innocently and take a bite of my own dinner. I’d feel bad, but Koyama gives as good as he gets when it comes to me.
He stares sadly at his plate but takes a bite. Four bites and half a conversation in, he’s already forgotten, but I haven’t. I’m not one to question a good thing, but I sometimes wonder, why me? Koyama’s eating happily and talking about Nyanta’s latest escapade, relaxed and comfortable on the floor of my living room. I feel a surge of affection and end up feeding a giggling Koyama the rest of his dinner before taking him to bed.
+++
I think Tegoshi must be tired or preoccupied, because he doesn’t play any pranks on anyone for weeks. I should have known that he was just preparing himself. The day we enter the parking garage after work to find Koyama’s car covered in peanut butter, I go deaf from Koyama’s screeching. My eyes are drawn to the lopsided heart traced on the windshield. Koyama fumes as he drives to the car wash.
“I’m going to kill him,” he seethes.
“Now, now, Koyama. Where would we be without our vocal powerhouse?” I tap my fingers against the upholstery and watch someone drive past and laugh, fingers pointing in our direction.
His fingers flex automatically against the steering wheel. I think he heard. “…we still have Massu.”
I snort. “Just think of it as a treatment. There are chocolate wraps, your car is just getting a peanut butter wrap. I’m sure nothing about the peanut butter will damage your paint job.”
It’s hard not to laugh at the way Koyama’s face twitches.
“Tegoshi is so bad to me,” Koyama whines into my neck later. It had taken three washes to get all of the oil off Koyama’s car.
“He likes you.”
“I know,” he says mournfully, tracing distracting patterns on my chest.
You don’t, I want to tell him, or things would be much more awkward. But then Koyama’s clever fingers are slipping past the waistband of my sweats and Tegoshi’s grade-school crush is the last thing on my mind.
+++
It’s hard to watch calmly when Tegoshi hangs all over Koyama, pressing his nose up against Koyama’s cheek in the break room for no reason, or holding his hand as they walk across the stage, Tegoshi’s smile at a thousand watts, and my heart sort of breaks for him even while I want to pull him away. It’s times like that that I want to be more obvious with Koyama, mark him as mine somehow so Tegoshi would just get it and move on. But we’re all at a stalemate we can’t afford to break and Koyama’s still oblivious.
I know he doesn’t mean it, but it doesn’t keep me from seething inside when, during the tour, Tegoshi straddles Koyama onstage, Yamashita jumping on top and forcing them even closer together. After Yamashita climbs off, Tegoshi stays pressed against Koyama, threading his fingers through Koyama’s hair and touching his mic against Koyama’s lips in a pseudo-kiss. Once would have been enough but they repeated it several times in Hiroshima. Once, Koyama is on his hands and knees over Tegoshi, and Tegoshi places his hand possessively on Koyama’s waist and smolders up at him and it’s just too much.
That night, Koyama finishes his shower and comes out into the room wearing only a pair of sweats and towel-drying his hair. Normally, I’d be watching him - admiring the way his muscles tense and relax as he goes through the motions, or the way the wet bangs cover one eye, but tonight I’m tense, tight to the point of breaking. It’s stupid, and I know it, so when Koyama sits down next to me and tilts my face up, I try to relax.
“What’s wrong,” he asks?
“I’m just tired,” I reply, and tug on his arm to get him to lie down next to me. We lie curled up and facing each other, looking at one another silently for a few minutes.
“Shige, I know it’s more than that. You’ve been weird for a couple days.”
I sigh and roll over on my back. I know he’s not going to let it go. “Okay,” I say. “It’s stupid. But that thing you do with Tegoshi. I don’t like it.”
Koyama is silent and still for a moment before scooting closer and leaning over me to look at me seriously. “Then I won’t do it anymore.”
Just like that. He makes it so easy and so hard. He has no idea.
+++
“You love Tegoshi, hm?” I ask Koyama teasingly when I read the latest article in Myojo. “Not me?”
“I don’t have to tell you I love you for you to know,” he says haughtily and I lunge for him to run my fingers along his sides until he cries with laughter.
“Maybe I like to hear…” I say, when we’ve calmed down and I’m lying against his chest, our legs entwined.
I don’t have to look to know that Koyama is smiling gently at me before he says, “I love you,” and then shows me, too.
I wonder how Tegoshi will react; will he store the feeling inside and use it to power his endless battle for Koyama’s heart? Will he tease him? Will he use it as an opportunity to get treated to something? A combination of those and more? But I don’t have to wait long. In the morning when Tegoshi comes in, he rushes up to Koyama with stars in his eyes and says in a loud voice, “Kei-chan loves me!” I know Tegoshi knows it’s not a confession, he’s just being extra cute for Koyama’s sake.
“Of course I do,” Koyama agrees and ruffles his hair, not noticing Tegoshi’s face cloud over. “You’re the little brother I never had,” he says sweetly. And then Tegoshi really does frown.
“I thought Shige was the little brother you never had,” he says sullenly.
Koyama smiles and replies evasively, “Shige’s family,” and I have to duck my head behind my book to hide my grin.
I peek over the top when I hear Tegoshi say after a pause, “I don’t want to be your brother,” in possibly the most tense voice I’ve ever heard him use with Koyama and Koyama looks taken aback, his brows knitting in confusion.
“All right,” he says a bit uncomfortably and just like that Tegoshi is all smiles again and links his arm through Koyama’s, laying his head on his shoulder.
“Let’s go out tonight, Kei-chan. I want to go to karaoke.”
Koyama’s eyes slide to meet mine and I shrug and look back at my book. “Ok,” he says, indulgently. “But you’re not singing ‘Sen no Kaze ni Natte’ again,” he says in a cautionary tone. I think it’s kind of cute when Koyama tries to deny Tegoshi anything - it hardly ever works.
Tegoshi just giggles.
+++
Sadly, I suffer from Tegoshi’s affections too. Koyama is often all too happy to team up with Tegoshi to play a prank on me. Koyama’s doing it because he loves to torture me - the man’s got a sadistic streak a mile wide even if no one will believe me. Tegoshi’s doing it because he gets to brush shoulders with Koyama and lean his face close to whisper conspiratorially in Koyama’s ear. I always smile when I think about how breathy his voice probably is and how Koyama probably just thinks it tickles.
I hear them whispering behind me - they would make terrible spies - and I sniff and turn the page of my magazine. I don’t want to know what they’re conspiring about but I have a sinking feeling I’ll find out soon, regardless. My hairdresser has no idea and continues on obliviously. Suddenly they’re on either side of me, probably crowding the stylist (not that they care) and stuffing something up my nostrils. The two laugh raucously and the stylist looks disgusted. Two white chocolates. I sigh and turn another page while they giggle endlessly. I don’t have to look in the mirror to know that Tegoshi has draped himself across Koyama in his laughter.
+++
Over time, I see Tegoshi getting frustrated. He’s so easy to read if you know what you’re looking for. He’s blatantly obvious, he thinks, so why can’t Koyama tell that all of his pranks are just an excuse to get Koyama’s attention?
‘Look at me,’ he’s saying when he switches the function of the right and left touchpad buttons on Koyama’s laptop.
‘Look at me,’ he’s saying when he replaces all of Koyama’s chocolate flavored jelly beans with dog food flavored ones.
‘I like you,’ he’s saying when he sets Koyama’s alarm to go off with Slipknot’s “The Heretic Anthem” at 3 a.m. after a concert.
So why can’t Koyama see it? I know the answer to that, if he doesn’t. Some people say I’m a pessimist (I like to call myself a realist) but even I know a sure thing - Koyama’s too busy looking at me to look at Tegoshi for long. And, for him, it’s never long enough.