5x30 - part 8
Title:5x30 - part 8
Pairing(s):None
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Arashi doesn't belong to me.
Word count: 2773
Summary: In 2029 few people know who the band, Arashi, were. Even the members have gone their separate ways but, when a familiar song is heard on radios throughout the city, memories begin to stir.
Author's Notes: I have to thank ant_power for her awesome beta-ing. If there are any mistakes, they are my fault not hers.
“By the third day, I thought I’d lost that sneaky tuna. I was nearly out of food and thought I should head back to shore…”
The air had been squeezed out of Nino’s lungs and they’d filled up with dust instead but Nino made no effort to come out of his hiding place. He couldn’t let Leader look into his eyes and ask him to do the concert. If he did that, Nino wasn’t sure he’d be able to say no. And, if he did the concert, he’d never be able to have peace and quiet again. Peace and quiet was an awfully underrated thing. With it, you could play your games and eat cup ramen and even sleep when you wanted.
But, the way Leader was talking, Nino thought he might die under these boxes with Leader not even noticing. Leader just handed him a corn pretzel now and then and kept going.
“So then I saw something on the starboard side. Starboard? Port? I can’t remember. I get those confused. The side over there- hey is that a Nintendo? I haven’t seen one of those for years?”
“Put that down. Put it down now. My game, I haven’t saved...arggghhh”
Leader turned around with the controller in his hands. Nino’s head had popped a little way out, like a shy turtle. “Sorry.”
“Why do you want to do this concert anyway? Aren’t you happy spending your days fishing without all the bother?”
Leader had thought that too when Aiba had first started bugging him but, since they’d started rehearsing, he thought it wasn’t that bad. Some days it was better to be with Aiba and Jun than sitting on a fishing boat alone. They could go out drinking together and sometimes Aiba gave him free mabo tofu pan. That was pretty damn awesome.
“Have you forgotten the good bits, Nino? When we were all together and the fans screamed our names and waved our uchiwa. When it felt like we could do anything. Then all going out to eat yakiniku afterwards. Yakiniku is awfully delicious but it’s no fun eating it without your members.”
Nino did remember that. He remembered other things too.
“But Aiba… he’s not well…”
Leader stared into space for a while. When this concert was over, he’d catch that giant tuna for sure.
“He’s fine apart from that stupid scar. You’d think if you told people you’d had some big, ground-breaking surgery, you’d at least have a big scar to show them.”
“What?”
“What?” Nino jumped up enough to kinda move the boxes on top of him. “What surgery?”
“Some doctor, he won that big prize. He did surgery on Aiba. It’s not like a pirate scar though or anything fun.”
“And he’s well now?”
“How could he be Mabo King if he was sick? He has these delicious Mabo tofu pan. You really need to get out from under those boxes sometime and try it. Also he’s rich now. He’s got a flying car. He just can’t drive it anywhere on account of there being no sky roads yet.”
Nino blew a dust ball off his nose.
“He really is fine? Cos you know he could be lying to you.”
“Maybe you need to come out and see for yourself, huh Nino. You’d be able to tell in seconds.”
Nino could see the sense in that. If Aiba was lying, they needed someone to sort him out. It wasn’t worth risking your life for a concert.
“And Jun, he’s -”
“-nuts.”
“Nuts.”
“He’s got caterpillars growing on his face.”
“They are his eyebrows!”
Leader scrunched his face. “Well they look like massive caterpillars! Still he’s organising all these things. Giant carp and spinning daisies and - well he wanted a lake with a huge ice sculpture but Aiba stopped him.”
Leader laughed.
Yeah I bet that was funny, Nino thought. Some old forgotten feeling tugged at him. He wanted to brush it away but he couldn’t move his arms. If people were going to stop Jun having frozen lakes and ice sculptures, it should be him not Aiba.
“What about Sho?”
“We can do it without him. Koki Tanaka offered to replace him. He knows all Sho’s raps although he kinda messes up the words sometimes. We tried to get Sho to do it. We really tried. We went to see him in his fancy office but he’s really mean now. He nearly made Aiba cry when we saw him. He said he’s not part of Arashi anymore.”
“Can you help get these boxes off me?” Nino asked. “I think I need to sort things out.”
Leader lifted a few of the boxes. He opened the first one. A dusty box of KAT-TUN merchandise with Akanishi Jin still in the photos. That had to be old.
“I was hoping they’d become collectors’ items but still totally worthless,” said Nino. “Poor Jin. Killed by his own love juice.”
Leader opened another box. A mass of green with flowers attached.
“I remember these costumes. You were a log. If you do the concert, you could be a log again.”
“I will NOT be a log.” Nino squirmed his way out of the space.
“So you are doing the concert?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’ll think about it.” Leader gave Nino a look that might have meant to be puppy eyes but had a bit too much dodgy old man thrown in for comfort.
“Even if I don’t do the concert, I need to sort you guys out.”
“You’ll come to the rehearsal tomorrow? Everyone will be happy to see you.”
Nino wasn’t so sure about that. People don’t forgive so easily. But he nodded.
“Hey, it was my talk about running into the sparkling tomorrow that did it, right.”
“You never said that. You just told me about trying to catch the giant tuna.”
“Giant tunas are good too.” Leader grinned.
Nino threw his arms around Leader. “It’s good to see you again.”
***
Nino sat on the ledge outside the rehearsal studio. He looked calm, playing his game, but he felt more emotions inside than he’d let himself feel in years. Once you’ve muddied the page, it can’t go back to being white. He’d learnt that long time ago.
He’d just got to the level where all he needed to do was shoot down the wall to get the boss when someone bowled him over with a violent hug.
“Yah! You are here. You are doing the concert!” Aiba grinned wide enough to almost split his face. If Nino had come to the rehearsal, he’d do the concert. Sure as sure. Nino might act all tough but he was a marshmallow.
Nino shrugged. “I came to have a look. I’m not promising anything.” Aiba looked happy but how did he really feel? Still as they walked inside, Aiba put his arm around Nino’s shoulder.
Leader and Jun came up behind him, laden with charts and bags and other stuff they’d lugged from the car. Leader had been right about the eyebrows. They really did look like massive caterpillars. Had no one organised a stylist and maybe a makeup artist?
Leader grinned at Nino. But Jun just looked at him blankly.
Nino had hoped Jun would be not himself this rehearsal. Things would go much smoother if he thought he was Vito or maybe Momo. Jun was angry. Nino knew Jun was angry. He had that fake smile that he wore when he was fuming mad underneath. That fake smile always meant bad stuff was going to happen.
“Good morning,” Nino said, thinking it was easier to greet him than to deal with his anger.
“Are you here to play the Nino part?”
“I AM Nino.”
“Excuse me. The real Nino was shorter and smelt different and WOULD NOT SHOW HIS FACE IN FRONT OF ME.”
The glare from Jun’s eyes cut through Nino.
“I am me, Jun. And I am showing my face in front of you. I’m sorry for what I did,” Nino wasn’t sure which of the things he’d done had made Jun angry. I figured it was better to be vague than make things even worse. “You have to believe I’m sorry.”
Aiba put his arms around them both. “Let’s just do the concert, right.”
Jun shook his arm off and stormed inside the rehearsal space.
Aiba and Leader exchanged glances then grabbed Nino and dragged him into the studio.
Jun unwrapped the charts he carried under his arms and pinned them on the wall.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Jun said. He turned on the music. “Leader, you are doing Sho’s part.”
Kirameku machi kagayaku yoru
As the music started, Nino felt his body respond. The moves came back to him like it was only yesterday. Well some of the moves anyway. That tricky turn, he’d never got that right. But there’d be juniors right. Well maybe not. The juniors would be long gone by now. Yeah he remembered that bit and then the bit where he flailed his arms.
Inazuma wo mita yo na NIGHT TONIGHT
…
“Leader! You’re doing Sho’s part. You are supposed to yell ‘TOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’”
“I can’t do that. I can’t yell like Sho.”
“Maybe we don’t need to yell TOYKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” suggested Aiba.
“We have to. The crowd expects it. It’s not Carnival Night without it.” Jun crossed his arms and gave them his Domyouji look.
“Well, who’s going to do it then?” asked Nino.
“Someone can do it. He’s not indispensable, you know.” Jun replied.
The others looked at each other. They suddenly realised there’d come a point where there’d be a NIGHT TONIGHT with nothing following but emptiness and a realisation that there was no Sho.
“I’ll call Koki Tanaka,” said Aiba.
“I think we’d better call a press conference and let people know,” said Nino.
“He said ‘WE’”, Leader whispered to Aiba.
“Is anyone actually coming to this concert anyway?” Nino asked.
“We sold out the Dome within hours,” Aiba said. “Even though it’s 3 times as big as it used to be.”
“You mean we are going to make money out this?” Nino grinned and rubbed his hands together. Who’d have thought?
***
The middle aged woman called her friend.
“They said Sho isn’t doing the concert.”
“I heard. I guess he is the Prime Minister. He has a lot on his plate.” But her voice sounded weary and disappointed.
“I’m sure being Prime Minister is all very important, but Arashi are FIVE people. I don’t know if I go much on a Prime Minister who’d let his members down.” She looked at the poster she’d pinned to the wall a few days ago. A poster of five people.
“That’s true. I’m not going to just sit here. If I wanted to hear Koki Tanaka rap, I’d go to a KAT-TUN concert.”
“What can you do though?”
“Tomorrow I’m going to protest. Outside the Prime Minister’s office.”
“I’m coming too. It wouldn’t do any good but who knows… we might get a glimpse of him! I’ll make onigiri. And put them in my Arashi bento box.”
***
The assistant hated being in the office after hours but he’d forgotten to put pie charts in the Prime Minister’s reports. The Prime Minister hated it when his reports didn’t have pie charts.
Still it was a bit creepy when hardly anyone was working. He’d seen a light from the PM’s office and popped his head in but the Prime Minister had headphones on. Probably listening to transcripts of the last parliament sitting or something equally important.
He’d nodded and left. Now he looked at the computer screen. This wasn’t really data that suited the pie chart format and thinking of pie charts made him hungry. He thought he’d got it when he realised he’d used the colour scheme the Prime Minister hated most. Red, green, yellow, purple and blue.
He could change it. Gradients of green would look nice. Once that was done, he was out of here. He could spend the rest of the time curled up with his new 4D smellivision watching movies.
As he pressed save on the report he jumped.
“TOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
The scream came from the Prime Minister’s office. A terrorist attack? But why scream “Tokyo”?
He opened the door but saw only the Prime Minister sitting on his own at his desk. Maybe it was a trick of the light but it looked like he had a tear glistening in his eyes.
***
Aiba sat at the kitchen table, reading through the quarter’s sales figures. He’d neglected the business of late but it hadn’t seemed to affect profits. That was a good thing. Since they’d been advertising the concerts, strange things had been happening.
They’d been offered appearances on TV shows and fans wanted more concerts. In Osaka and Sapporo and all around the country.
“It’s a good thing, right” he asked Sa-chan. “We will make people happy.”
“Well the kids are sure looking forward to it.”
Aiba smiled. “And Jun realises he’s Jun most of the time now. He’s hardly ever anyone else.”
“That’s true.”
The kids ran in. “Dad, are you ready to play?”
Aiba shook his head. “Give me five minutes.”
“Is Uncle Leader coming over? He said he’d take us fishing some time.” The youngest one looked around.
“Leader and Nino are happier too. Leader keeps saying he’s going to take Nino fishing too. Nino hates boats. And Jun is almost ready to talk to Nino again.” Aiba laughed. Then he stopped suddenly. “There’s only one thing missing.”
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen,” said Sa-chan. Next election she’d be voting differently. Prime Minister or not, no one should make her Ma-chan sad.
***
The blue haired girl sat on the train, oblivious to her surroundings. She had her earphones in and had folded out the display on her phone so she should watch the video.
The middle aged woman opposite nudged her friend and rolled her eyes. “These kids nowadays with their crazy hair colours and piercings.”
“Sho used to have a piercing. Remember. In his belly button.”
The woman sighed. “True. But blue hair. You only saw that on foreigners in my day. This isn’t the Japan it used to be. She’s probably listening to that trash you wouldn’t even call music.”
Her friend leant over to get a look at the screen. “I think she’s watching the Time concert! I can see floats and feathers and now Jun is talking about the power of words!”
The other woman waved, trying to get the girl’s attention.
As the girl removed her earphones, the woman asked, “What are you watching?”
The girl blushed slightly. “Do you know Arashi?” she asked.
“Of course we know Arashi!” they said in unison.
“Are you going to the protest?” one of the women asked.
“Protest?” The girl scrunched up her face. She knew nothing about a protest.
The woman pulled a sign out of her bag. “The SHO must go on!” it read.
“We’ve been going all week,” she said. “On Monday, it was just us and couple of others. Then a few more came. Some reporters did a story and now there’s a few thousand of us gathering there.”
The girl sat on the edge of her seat. “I didn’t know about it…”
“If you want, you can come with us.”
The other woman nodded.
“Did you ever see them in concert?” the girl asked. “What was it like? Who is your ichiban?”
***
“Mr Prime Minister. Bad news.”
The Prime Minister looked up.
“Your popularity is slipping in the polls. It’s not good.”
“It can’t be that bad surely. I’ve been at 100% for the last few years. Even if I’m down to 99% or 98%, it’s still okay.”
The assistant shook his head. “More like 82%.”
“82! How did that happen?”
“People are saying they don’t want a prime minister who’d dump his friends. This woman, she’s saying “I voted for the one I thought would be most loyal, now I’m doubting that’s true’. And this one ‘He forgets where he came from.’
“That’s pretty harsh,” the Prime Minister said, looking down at his desk.
“There’s more. ‘I had to drive 5 km out of my way because of the protesters outside the Prime Minister’s office. Just do the damn concert.’ And this one: ‘If he won’t rap, I think he’s crap.’”
“But they’ll get over it. It’ll be forgotten by the next election.”
The assistant walked over to the window. “Maybe. But these women won’t forget.”
He pulled open the blinds and looked at the ever-increasing mob outside.
Pairing(s):None
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Arashi doesn't belong to me.
Word count: 2773
Summary: In 2029 few people know who the band, Arashi, were. Even the members have gone their separate ways but, when a familiar song is heard on radios throughout the city, memories begin to stir.
Author's Notes: I have to thank ant_power for her awesome beta-ing. If there are any mistakes, they are my fault not hers.
“By the third day, I thought I’d lost that sneaky tuna. I was nearly out of food and thought I should head back to shore…”
The air had been squeezed out of Nino’s lungs and they’d filled up with dust instead but Nino made no effort to come out of his hiding place. He couldn’t let Leader look into his eyes and ask him to do the concert. If he did that, Nino wasn’t sure he’d be able to say no. And, if he did the concert, he’d never be able to have peace and quiet again. Peace and quiet was an awfully underrated thing. With it, you could play your games and eat cup ramen and even sleep when you wanted.
But, the way Leader was talking, Nino thought he might die under these boxes with Leader not even noticing. Leader just handed him a corn pretzel now and then and kept going.
“So then I saw something on the starboard side. Starboard? Port? I can’t remember. I get those confused. The side over there- hey is that a Nintendo? I haven’t seen one of those for years?”
“Put that down. Put it down now. My game, I haven’t saved...arggghhh”
Leader turned around with the controller in his hands. Nino’s head had popped a little way out, like a shy turtle. “Sorry.”
“Why do you want to do this concert anyway? Aren’t you happy spending your days fishing without all the bother?”
Leader had thought that too when Aiba had first started bugging him but, since they’d started rehearsing, he thought it wasn’t that bad. Some days it was better to be with Aiba and Jun than sitting on a fishing boat alone. They could go out drinking together and sometimes Aiba gave him free mabo tofu pan. That was pretty damn awesome.
“Have you forgotten the good bits, Nino? When we were all together and the fans screamed our names and waved our uchiwa. When it felt like we could do anything. Then all going out to eat yakiniku afterwards. Yakiniku is awfully delicious but it’s no fun eating it without your members.”
Nino did remember that. He remembered other things too.
“But Aiba… he’s not well…”
Leader stared into space for a while. When this concert was over, he’d catch that giant tuna for sure.
“He’s fine apart from that stupid scar. You’d think if you told people you’d had some big, ground-breaking surgery, you’d at least have a big scar to show them.”
“What?”
“What?” Nino jumped up enough to kinda move the boxes on top of him. “What surgery?”
“Some doctor, he won that big prize. He did surgery on Aiba. It’s not like a pirate scar though or anything fun.”
“And he’s well now?”
“How could he be Mabo King if he was sick? He has these delicious Mabo tofu pan. You really need to get out from under those boxes sometime and try it. Also he’s rich now. He’s got a flying car. He just can’t drive it anywhere on account of there being no sky roads yet.”
Nino blew a dust ball off his nose.
“He really is fine? Cos you know he could be lying to you.”
“Maybe you need to come out and see for yourself, huh Nino. You’d be able to tell in seconds.”
Nino could see the sense in that. If Aiba was lying, they needed someone to sort him out. It wasn’t worth risking your life for a concert.
“And Jun, he’s -”
“-nuts.”
“Nuts.”
“He’s got caterpillars growing on his face.”
“They are his eyebrows!”
Leader scrunched his face. “Well they look like massive caterpillars! Still he’s organising all these things. Giant carp and spinning daisies and - well he wanted a lake with a huge ice sculpture but Aiba stopped him.”
Leader laughed.
Yeah I bet that was funny, Nino thought. Some old forgotten feeling tugged at him. He wanted to brush it away but he couldn’t move his arms. If people were going to stop Jun having frozen lakes and ice sculptures, it should be him not Aiba.
“What about Sho?”
“We can do it without him. Koki Tanaka offered to replace him. He knows all Sho’s raps although he kinda messes up the words sometimes. We tried to get Sho to do it. We really tried. We went to see him in his fancy office but he’s really mean now. He nearly made Aiba cry when we saw him. He said he’s not part of Arashi anymore.”
“Can you help get these boxes off me?” Nino asked. “I think I need to sort things out.”
Leader lifted a few of the boxes. He opened the first one. A dusty box of KAT-TUN merchandise with Akanishi Jin still in the photos. That had to be old.
“I was hoping they’d become collectors’ items but still totally worthless,” said Nino. “Poor Jin. Killed by his own love juice.”
Leader opened another box. A mass of green with flowers attached.
“I remember these costumes. You were a log. If you do the concert, you could be a log again.”
“I will NOT be a log.” Nino squirmed his way out of the space.
“So you are doing the concert?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’ll think about it.” Leader gave Nino a look that might have meant to be puppy eyes but had a bit too much dodgy old man thrown in for comfort.
“Even if I don’t do the concert, I need to sort you guys out.”
“You’ll come to the rehearsal tomorrow? Everyone will be happy to see you.”
Nino wasn’t so sure about that. People don’t forgive so easily. But he nodded.
“Hey, it was my talk about running into the sparkling tomorrow that did it, right.”
“You never said that. You just told me about trying to catch the giant tuna.”
“Giant tunas are good too.” Leader grinned.
Nino threw his arms around Leader. “It’s good to see you again.”
***
Nino sat on the ledge outside the rehearsal studio. He looked calm, playing his game, but he felt more emotions inside than he’d let himself feel in years. Once you’ve muddied the page, it can’t go back to being white. He’d learnt that long time ago.
He’d just got to the level where all he needed to do was shoot down the wall to get the boss when someone bowled him over with a violent hug.
“Yah! You are here. You are doing the concert!” Aiba grinned wide enough to almost split his face. If Nino had come to the rehearsal, he’d do the concert. Sure as sure. Nino might act all tough but he was a marshmallow.
Nino shrugged. “I came to have a look. I’m not promising anything.” Aiba looked happy but how did he really feel? Still as they walked inside, Aiba put his arm around Nino’s shoulder.
Leader and Jun came up behind him, laden with charts and bags and other stuff they’d lugged from the car. Leader had been right about the eyebrows. They really did look like massive caterpillars. Had no one organised a stylist and maybe a makeup artist?
Leader grinned at Nino. But Jun just looked at him blankly.
Nino had hoped Jun would be not himself this rehearsal. Things would go much smoother if he thought he was Vito or maybe Momo. Jun was angry. Nino knew Jun was angry. He had that fake smile that he wore when he was fuming mad underneath. That fake smile always meant bad stuff was going to happen.
“Good morning,” Nino said, thinking it was easier to greet him than to deal with his anger.
“Are you here to play the Nino part?”
“I AM Nino.”
“Excuse me. The real Nino was shorter and smelt different and WOULD NOT SHOW HIS FACE IN FRONT OF ME.”
The glare from Jun’s eyes cut through Nino.
“I am me, Jun. And I am showing my face in front of you. I’m sorry for what I did,” Nino wasn’t sure which of the things he’d done had made Jun angry. I figured it was better to be vague than make things even worse. “You have to believe I’m sorry.”
Aiba put his arms around them both. “Let’s just do the concert, right.”
Jun shook his arm off and stormed inside the rehearsal space.
Aiba and Leader exchanged glances then grabbed Nino and dragged him into the studio.
Jun unwrapped the charts he carried under his arms and pinned them on the wall.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Jun said. He turned on the music. “Leader, you are doing Sho’s part.”
Kirameku machi kagayaku yoru
As the music started, Nino felt his body respond. The moves came back to him like it was only yesterday. Well some of the moves anyway. That tricky turn, he’d never got that right. But there’d be juniors right. Well maybe not. The juniors would be long gone by now. Yeah he remembered that bit and then the bit where he flailed his arms.
Inazuma wo mita yo na NIGHT TONIGHT
…
“Leader! You’re doing Sho’s part. You are supposed to yell ‘TOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’”
“I can’t do that. I can’t yell like Sho.”
“Maybe we don’t need to yell TOYKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” suggested Aiba.
“We have to. The crowd expects it. It’s not Carnival Night without it.” Jun crossed his arms and gave them his Domyouji look.
“Well, who’s going to do it then?” asked Nino.
“Someone can do it. He’s not indispensable, you know.” Jun replied.
The others looked at each other. They suddenly realised there’d come a point where there’d be a NIGHT TONIGHT with nothing following but emptiness and a realisation that there was no Sho.
“I’ll call Koki Tanaka,” said Aiba.
“I think we’d better call a press conference and let people know,” said Nino.
“He said ‘WE’”, Leader whispered to Aiba.
“Is anyone actually coming to this concert anyway?” Nino asked.
“We sold out the Dome within hours,” Aiba said. “Even though it’s 3 times as big as it used to be.”
“You mean we are going to make money out this?” Nino grinned and rubbed his hands together. Who’d have thought?
***
The middle aged woman called her friend.
“They said Sho isn’t doing the concert.”
“I heard. I guess he is the Prime Minister. He has a lot on his plate.” But her voice sounded weary and disappointed.
“I’m sure being Prime Minister is all very important, but Arashi are FIVE people. I don’t know if I go much on a Prime Minister who’d let his members down.” She looked at the poster she’d pinned to the wall a few days ago. A poster of five people.
“That’s true. I’m not going to just sit here. If I wanted to hear Koki Tanaka rap, I’d go to a KAT-TUN concert.”
“What can you do though?”
“Tomorrow I’m going to protest. Outside the Prime Minister’s office.”
“I’m coming too. It wouldn’t do any good but who knows… we might get a glimpse of him! I’ll make onigiri. And put them in my Arashi bento box.”
***
The assistant hated being in the office after hours but he’d forgotten to put pie charts in the Prime Minister’s reports. The Prime Minister hated it when his reports didn’t have pie charts.
Still it was a bit creepy when hardly anyone was working. He’d seen a light from the PM’s office and popped his head in but the Prime Minister had headphones on. Probably listening to transcripts of the last parliament sitting or something equally important.
He’d nodded and left. Now he looked at the computer screen. This wasn’t really data that suited the pie chart format and thinking of pie charts made him hungry. He thought he’d got it when he realised he’d used the colour scheme the Prime Minister hated most. Red, green, yellow, purple and blue.
He could change it. Gradients of green would look nice. Once that was done, he was out of here. He could spend the rest of the time curled up with his new 4D smellivision watching movies.
As he pressed save on the report he jumped.
“TOKYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
The scream came from the Prime Minister’s office. A terrorist attack? But why scream “Tokyo”?
He opened the door but saw only the Prime Minister sitting on his own at his desk. Maybe it was a trick of the light but it looked like he had a tear glistening in his eyes.
***
Aiba sat at the kitchen table, reading through the quarter’s sales figures. He’d neglected the business of late but it hadn’t seemed to affect profits. That was a good thing. Since they’d been advertising the concerts, strange things had been happening.
They’d been offered appearances on TV shows and fans wanted more concerts. In Osaka and Sapporo and all around the country.
“It’s a good thing, right” he asked Sa-chan. “We will make people happy.”
“Well the kids are sure looking forward to it.”
Aiba smiled. “And Jun realises he’s Jun most of the time now. He’s hardly ever anyone else.”
“That’s true.”
The kids ran in. “Dad, are you ready to play?”
Aiba shook his head. “Give me five minutes.”
“Is Uncle Leader coming over? He said he’d take us fishing some time.” The youngest one looked around.
“Leader and Nino are happier too. Leader keeps saying he’s going to take Nino fishing too. Nino hates boats. And Jun is almost ready to talk to Nino again.” Aiba laughed. Then he stopped suddenly. “There’s only one thing missing.”
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen,” said Sa-chan. Next election she’d be voting differently. Prime Minister or not, no one should make her Ma-chan sad.
***
The blue haired girl sat on the train, oblivious to her surroundings. She had her earphones in and had folded out the display on her phone so she should watch the video.
The middle aged woman opposite nudged her friend and rolled her eyes. “These kids nowadays with their crazy hair colours and piercings.”
“Sho used to have a piercing. Remember. In his belly button.”
The woman sighed. “True. But blue hair. You only saw that on foreigners in my day. This isn’t the Japan it used to be. She’s probably listening to that trash you wouldn’t even call music.”
Her friend leant over to get a look at the screen. “I think she’s watching the Time concert! I can see floats and feathers and now Jun is talking about the power of words!”
The other woman waved, trying to get the girl’s attention.
As the girl removed her earphones, the woman asked, “What are you watching?”
The girl blushed slightly. “Do you know Arashi?” she asked.
“Of course we know Arashi!” they said in unison.
“Are you going to the protest?” one of the women asked.
“Protest?” The girl scrunched up her face. She knew nothing about a protest.
The woman pulled a sign out of her bag. “The SHO must go on!” it read.
“We’ve been going all week,” she said. “On Monday, it was just us and couple of others. Then a few more came. Some reporters did a story and now there’s a few thousand of us gathering there.”
The girl sat on the edge of her seat. “I didn’t know about it…”
“If you want, you can come with us.”
The other woman nodded.
“Did you ever see them in concert?” the girl asked. “What was it like? Who is your ichiban?”
***
“Mr Prime Minister. Bad news.”
The Prime Minister looked up.
“Your popularity is slipping in the polls. It’s not good.”
“It can’t be that bad surely. I’ve been at 100% for the last few years. Even if I’m down to 99% or 98%, it’s still okay.”
The assistant shook his head. “More like 82%.”
“82! How did that happen?”
“People are saying they don’t want a prime minister who’d dump his friends. This woman, she’s saying “I voted for the one I thought would be most loyal, now I’m doubting that’s true’. And this one ‘He forgets where he came from.’
“That’s pretty harsh,” the Prime Minister said, looking down at his desk.
“There’s more. ‘I had to drive 5 km out of my way because of the protesters outside the Prime Minister’s office. Just do the damn concert.’ And this one: ‘If he won’t rap, I think he’s crap.’”
“But they’ll get over it. It’ll be forgotten by the next election.”
The assistant walked over to the window. “Maybe. But these women won’t forget.”
He pulled open the blinds and looked at the ever-increasing mob outside.