[One-shot] I'll Never Let You Fall
Title: I’ll Never Let You Fall (One-shot)
Pairings: Yabu/Hika (friendship)
Genre: Friendship/slight angst
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Yeah...well...I wish I owned them, but I don't.
Summary: Three important moments in the life of Yaotome Hikaru.
Quite honestly, Hikaru thought to himself. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared before in my life.
But he figured he was allowed to be a bit afraid. After all, it was his very first appearance with Ya-ya-yah, the group of juniors that were quickly becoming the most popular in the Jimusho. Anyone would be terrified. It was only natural.
Though, he mused. I’m not just anyone. I’m a noob. I figure that kind of makes me the shark bait around here.
Suddenly, a young boy came tearing down the hallway, followed closely by a scream that bounced off the walls. “Yamashita Shoon, get back here with my cookies!”
The boy laughed as he raced by Hikaru, a cookie halfway to his mouth. “Sorry, Ko-chan, it’s not my fault you don’t watch them more closely!”
Hikaru’s eyes widened. Cookies?
Suddenly, he found himself on the floor, an unfamiliar weight crushing his body. What the heck?
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The weight on his back suddenly vanished as a hand appeared before his eyes. “Let me help you!”
Hikaru looked up warily. A young boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, was kneeling down beside him. The boy grinned guiltily.
“I’m sorry I knocked you down,” the boy said. “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to chase down a rather idiotic moron and I didn’t see where I was going. Do you need help getting up?”
“No…” He whispered sadly. “I just kind of want a friend, you know?”
Hikaru wasn’t quite sure what made him say that. Sure, he didn’t have any friends yet in the Jimusho. He hadn’t been there very long and really, it wasn’t a friendly place for a newbie. Everyone was in a group or was between groups or knew everyone else and no one wanted to be seen with a new person, especially not someone who had only graduated to junior status so recently.
Maybe it was that loneliness that made him say it. Maybe it was that need to have someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, someone who would take his hand and not let go.
Or maybe it was that special warmth in that boy’s big brown eyes, that little sparkle that made Hikaru stop and think, wow…there’s something different about this one.
“Oh!” The boy blinked. Then a gentle smile graced his lips. “I’ll be your friend, if you want.”
Hikaru stared. “You will?”
“Of course.” The boy reached his hand out again. “Just take my hand. I won’t let you fall.”
Hikaru looked at the hand and then at the boy. Hand. Boy. Hand. Boy.
The other boy laughed. “Don’t worry, I don’t think I bite.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“What about those cookies of yours?”
“That’s definitely another story.” The hand waved in his face a little more. “Come on, take it.”
He took it. “Yaotome Hikaru.”
The boy pulled him up. “…that doesn’t sound like a flavor of cookie…”
“Silly, that’s not a cookie, it’s my name!”
“Oh!” The boy grinned sheepishly. “Yabu Kota.”
“Not a flavor of cookie?”
“Definitely not.”
“Ohhhh, Yabuuuuchiiii…” A voice floated down the hall. “Yabuchii, these cookies are sooooo goooddddddd….”
Immediately, Yabu’s expression changed. “Shooooooooooooonnn….”
He turned to Hikaru. “Do you want to go on a mission with me?”
“A mission?”
“A mission.”
“A cookie-related mission?”
“A cookie-related mission.”
Hikaru grinned. “Let’s go.”
Yabu laughed and took his hand. “Okay, Yaotome-kun, Operation: Snag the Bag commences in three, two, one…GO!”
The boys took off, hand-in-hand.
[~/-/~]
“Hey! Say! JUMP,” Julie murmurs, her eyes sparkling. “Johnny’s Ultra Music Power…jumping high into the Heisei era. It’ll be a hit for sure, a curveball no one will see coming.”
She was right in a way: no one had seen it coming.
Hikaru wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to do so many things at once because simply put, this wasn’t fair.
Not to him, not to Yabu, not to Yuto, Inoo, Daiki, Chinen, Yama-chan, Okamoto, Takaki. Not to the people who were getting forced into this.
And certainly not to the people who were getting left behind.
Taiyo…Shoon…
“Hikaru…” Someone was shaking his shoulder gently. “Hikaru-kun…”
“Here,” Another voice, a more familiar one, whispered. “Let me take care of him.”
Ko-chan,he wanted to say. Ko-chan, help me.
Yabu smiled softly. “Come on, Hachibee, take my hand. It’ll be alright.”
The impulse to sob was getting stronger. “I don’t want this, Ko-chan. I don’t want to leave Taiyo and Shoon. I don’t want Ya-ya-yah to end.”
I don’t want to see you cry anymore.
“It’ll be okay, Hachibee,” Yabu whispered. “Just take my hand. I won’t let you fall.”
Hikaru slipped his hand into his best friend’s. “I know you won’t, Kota.”
[~/-/~]
“It’s been one year already, huh,” Hikaru whispered.
“Yeah,” Yabu replied. “Can you believe it?”
“Not really,” he said, pulling Yabu up onto the roof beside him. “But I never thought we’d get this far.”
No one had. After all, one year ago, no one would have said that Hey!Say!JUMP, on average only 15 years old when formed, would have three #1 singles, a fourth single only a month away, and sell over 850,000 CDs and DVDs in the space of twelve months.
But it happened.
“Do you know what’s the funny thing?” Hikaru asked, stealing a glance at the boy next to him.
Yabu frowned. “No, what?”
“I don’t regret this,” Hikaru replied, turning back to watch the sunset. “This year, this group, Hi!Hey!Say!, nothing. I thought I would. I thought I’d be so frustrated with Ya-ya-yah’s disbanding and with what happened to Shoon and Taiyo. I thought I’d never get along with anyone in the group.”
“I thought so too,” Yabu whispered softly. “I didn’t think I would ever be able to survive last year. And I never thought that I’d be able to gain your forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?”
“For letting this happen. For not protecting Shoon and Taiyo.”
Oh, Ko-chan. Hikaru reached over and wrapped an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Idiot, there was never anything to forgive.”
“There wasn’t?”
“No,” Hikaru turned and looked at Yabu. “I could never hate you.”
“Why?”
“Because you held my hand the entire time. You never let me fall.”
“Hikaru! Yabu-kun!” Inoo’s voice pierced the air. “Come on, Chinen can’t wait any longer to start the Maou marathon!”
Yabu grinned and stood up. “Take my hand?”
Hikaru nodded. “Always.”
I’ll never let you fall, Ko-chan. I promise.
A/N : I didn’t have anyone beta this. Probably because I was just too excited to finally have inspiration again. I might come back and edit this. Because frankly, it sucks.
…
Hey, guys!
My first HSJ fic since “In Your Eyes, I find forever.” Wow. Hopefully, this didn’t suck.
I suddenly had an urge to write a YabuHika friendship fic after finally finding my very first Ya-ya-yah Live Stage AVI download. Now, that might not sound as exciting as you’d think. But for a girl who wasn’t into Ya-ya-yah until they disbanded, that’s practically Christmas right there.
Sitting there, watching Yabu and Hikaru perform Baby Babe with Shoon and Taiyo, it kind of hit me. There’s such a flow between those two. They know each other’s beat really well. I don’t know how to describe it.
I guess that’s what best friends are like.
The little HSJ formation angst thing was kind of urgh-ish because I’m trying to get away from what I was writing in the first fic. But the theme of the story was sort of milestones in Hikaru’s life. So I guess that had to be in there.
The final part was sort of my happy anniversary present. I had REALLY wanted to write an anniversary fic for these guys but I didn’t have any time or inspiration this week. So that’s my belated gift. Sorry it’s late!
It also sort of acts as a fulfillment of a request from lykwhoah for a YabuHika fluff fic. I hope it lived up to your expectations! If not, I’ll try again, ^_~.
Anyway, I hope you guys liked it. Comment and tell me what you think!