Emotion, Chapter 1: Thrill
Title: Emotion
Chapter: 1 of 5
Pairing: Masuda Takahisa x Tegoshi Yuya (in future chapters); featuring the other NEWS members, mainly Koyama
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tegoshi has just turned twenty; he celebrates by letting himself go.
Disclaimer: Same as always.
A/N: I wanted to depict Tegoshi differently than how fanfiction usually portrays him: as an adult. And as a guy. :P
"I wanna be free."
This is NOT a song fic; the music is just something supplementary that I feel fits.
Chapter 1: Thrill
The music became him. The rhythm tingled to the tips of his toes, the beat pulsed in his veins. And the words-though the club was so loud that they were nearly unintelligible-the words melded with his psyche.
The nature of the music was irrelevant. It was the usual techno/dance mixes, intermingled occasionally with an American hip-hop or Eurotrance song that had infiltrated into the sound waves of Japan.
Maybe it was the atmosphere: the mass of bodies on the dance floor, swaying and bumping against each other. It was chaos, but it was also somehow unified. And it had the ability to open almost anyone up so that they drank the music like nourishment, and lost themselves in perfect synchronicity with everyone else.
The experience was heady, and Tegoshi was naïve and easily intoxicated. The fact that it was a VIP-only club made it all the more potent. He was surrounded by the beautiful, rich, up-and-coming youth of Japan. Many of them were throwing themselves into the music in the same way that they handled their careers: taking everything at once, riding the wave with reckless abandon, not caring where, when, or if they crashed.
It was difficult to get to the fringes of the crowd, but somehow he managed. He was greeted by a beer bottle in front of his face. Looking at it, puzzled for a moment, he realized that the bottle was being offered by none other than Yamashita Tomohisa. Beside him stood Akanishi Jin and Nishikido Ryo. The three were watching him in the way a mother bird might watch her offspring after pushing them out of the nest to see if they could fly.
He accepted the drink.
"So?" Yamapi looked at him with a small smile. They had been the ones who had taken him there, "to experience his first taste of adulthood," they had said. In a way, it was a trial run to see if Tegoshi would-could-become a partygoer like them. They had seen the potential; it was definitely there. It only needed to be cultivated. And who would be better for the job than the three of them?
They meant well.
"This place is great." Tegoshi took a swig of the drink, coughing at the taste but choosing to ignore it. The others smiled and gave him heavy pats on the shoulder.
"Have any girls approached you yet?" Jin asked, sipping his own drink and slipping his free hand into the pocket of his black denim jeans.
"Oh, yeah, there were a few. I kind of recognized them... one of them was... a bikini model, I think." He took another drink. Maybe the gulp had been too much, because the lights on the dance floor seemed to become even more brilliant than before.
"Yeah, you’ll see a lot of those hanging around here." Ryo frowned a little. "Just be careful that you don’t leave the club publicly with them."
They were looking out for him. He smiled. "Okay. I understand." They gave him another pat on the shoulder-it made him sway a little-and went to rejoin the crowd.
* * *
A couple hours later and Tegoshi was absolutely smashed. It seemed to him that the lights from the ceiling were bending in impossible directions and it was beginning to give him a headache. He excused himself from the group of people that he had been dancing with and headed with some difficulty towards the exit.
Yamapi saw him and took out his phone.
* * *
Tegoshi stumbled out of the back door and nearly walked straight into the dumpster outside. In the very back of his mind, his remaining rational thought told him that he was going to pass out soon. Exiting the side alley, he knelt down next to a streetlight and pressed his forehead against its cold metal. It was early winter and the clubbing clothes that he was wearing were no buffer against the chill. He wrapped his arms around himself and squeezed his eyes shut, as if mentally willing himself to sober up. He hadn’t actually had that much to drink…only one more bottle after the one that Yamapi had given him-
He heard a car pull up in front of him. Its door slammed and he looked up abruptly, squinting against the harsh light from the lamp overhead, his vision slowly adjusting. Leaning against his van, his arms crossed, stood Koyama.
"You’re lucky that I’ve found you before anyone else," Koyama said, straightening up and coming to stand in front of him. He looked down at Tegoshi, who was huddled near his feet, and sighed. "Come on, I'm taking you home." He pulled Tegoshi up and heaved him into the passenger seat of his van, buckling him in before going around to the driver’s side.
"Kei-chan," Tegoshi whispered as they began to drive. He didn’t want to speak too loudly because he was afraid that his voice would sound horribly slurred and hoarse after all the shouting above the music inside the club. Soft music was playing from the radio; it was completely calm in the van compared to how it had been at the club. Somehow, Koyama’s appearance had made him feel ashamed for being drunk. "I’m sorry."
Koyama only sighed again and shook his head, looking over at him for a brief moment and giving him a gentle pat on the head. "Just go to sleep. I'm taking you to my place. We’ll talk about this later." He directed his attention back to the road.
Tegoshi nodded and laid his head against the car window, closing his eyes and immediately falling into an empty slumber.
* * *
The next morning greeted him with a splitting headache. He buried his face into a pillow and groaned loudly. "Kill me now."
"You should think positive thoughts in the morning," a familiar voice said. Tegoshi peeked one eye open, painfully looking out against the sunlit room. Massu was sitting on an armchair that had been pushed up next to the bed, and was looking at him with a serious expression. He leaned forward and picked up a glass of water from the bedside table, handing it to Tegoshi. "Here, drink some."
Tegoshi sat up against the pillow, taking a while to stop squinting from the light. He took the glass of water and swallowed some, only realizing after how dry his mouth had been. "I feel disgusting."
"Be glad that you just have a headache and that you’re not throwing up." Massu was watching him closely. Tegoshi sighed. Was it just him, or had he become an object of scrutiny lately?
"Where are we? This isn't your room, Massu." He took a brief glance around the room and was able to answer the question himself: it was quite clearly Koyama’s guest room. There was a picture of him and his cat from at least five years ago on a dresser across from the bed.
"Koyama’s. He had to go run some errands so he called me to come and take care of you in case you got sick... and to make sure that you didn’t panic waking up in a strange bed." He paused for a moment. "Yamapi was the one that called him last night to pick you up."
Tegoshi nodded and looked down at himself. Something was missing. "So... where is my shirt?"
Massu reached behind him held it out. He took it back and sniffed it, coughing a little at the distinct odor of alcohol that still clung to it. "It reeks of beer. I didn’t even drink that much of it... at least from what I remember."
Massu frowned at that end of Tegoshi’s sentence. “"From what you remember? I also noticed that your shirt has a really strong smell of some girl's perfume too. What were you doing last night?"
"I... I'm not quite sure." Tegoshi mumbled evasively. He rubbed his head with one hand, taking another sip of water. Everything that had happened the night before seemed extremely vague to him now. "Well, I was at the club with Yamashita-kun, Nishikido-kun, and Akanishi."
"I know that much already." Massu was troubled. He had actually called Yamapi and Ryo already to ask them if they knew what Tegoshi had been doing, but they just said that they had seen him walking off with a girl at some point. "Who was the girl?" He asked, pressing for more information.
"I don’t remember anything from last night!"
"Yes you do! Try a little harder," Massu urged.
Massu’s probing was just agitating Tegoshi’s headache more, and the accusing tone of his voice was not helping at all. He struggled to sort out the thoughts in his head. He sniffed the shirt again and the scent of the perfume triggered his memory so vividly that he was slightly taken aback by it.
"She was a model," he said slowly, not looking at Massu. "She was really cute. We danced for a while and then we went down to the hall that leads to the bathrooms and we..." He glanced at Massu, who was looking back at him with an strange expression. It was so uncharacteristic of Massu that Tegoshi couldn’t tell what exactly he was thinking. "And we made out for a while in that hallway," he finished. In his mind he could remember that it had been quite heated-hands buried in each other's hair, mouths against necks... but he decided to spare those details. He had been intoxicated; he wasn't himself. "That was all I did with her."
Massu could feel himself getting angry. He was about to say something when the door opened and Koyama walked in. "Oh, Tegoshi, you're awake now? I picked up some soup from the store if you want some." He turned to Massu. "Thanks for watching over him."
"Yeah, no problem," Massu mumbled sullenly, standing up abruptly. Tegoshi flinched at the sound of the chair legs scraping against the floor. "I have an early meeting with my manager today so I need to get going." He grabbed his bag from the floor and swung it over his shoulder. "See you guys later." He walked across the room and paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder and looking at Tegoshi in the bed. "Feel better soon." Then he turned and left.
Koyama watched him go before taking Massu’s vacated spot on the armchair. "So."
Tegoshi finished the water and set the glass back on the bedside table, falling back against the pillows, pushing his bangs from his face and pressing the sides of his head with his fingers. "So?"
"Massu seemed kind of angry just now. What happened?"
"I don’t know why he's mad. I had just told him what happened last night when you came." He closed his eyes, passing his hand over his eyelids.
"Well, let’s talk about that then. Tell me what happened, from the beginning." Koyama leaned back on the chair and propped his feet on the edge of the bed, looking expectant.
He remained silent for a while after Tegoshi had recounted everything that he could remember of the previous night.
Tegoshi looked at him, worried. "Don't tell me that you're mad at me too."
"No," Koyama shook his head, speaking thoughtfully. "No, I'm not... but will you do it again?"
"Will I go to a club again? Probably not." Tegoshi turned in the bed so that he was laying on his side, facing Koyama. "It was fun but a little too much for me. Will I get wasted again? No. I don't like waking up and feeling like my head is going to explode." He buried his face into the pillow, so that his next words came out muffled. "Will I make out with another random girl that I don't know again? No."
"Good." Satisfied, Koyama stood up and gave Tegoshi a pat through the blankets. "It doesn’t suit our little Tegoshi to do things like that, anyway."
Chapter: 1 of 5
Pairing: Masuda Takahisa x Tegoshi Yuya (in future chapters); featuring the other NEWS members, mainly Koyama
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tegoshi has just turned twenty; he celebrates by letting himself go.
Disclaimer: Same as always.
A/N: I wanted to depict Tegoshi differently than how fanfiction usually portrays him: as an adult. And as a guy. :P
"I wanna be free."
This is NOT a song fic; the music is just something supplementary that I feel fits.
Chapter 1: Thrill
The music became him. The rhythm tingled to the tips of his toes, the beat pulsed in his veins. And the words-though the club was so loud that they were nearly unintelligible-the words melded with his psyche.
The nature of the music was irrelevant. It was the usual techno/dance mixes, intermingled occasionally with an American hip-hop or Eurotrance song that had infiltrated into the sound waves of Japan.
Maybe it was the atmosphere: the mass of bodies on the dance floor, swaying and bumping against each other. It was chaos, but it was also somehow unified. And it had the ability to open almost anyone up so that they drank the music like nourishment, and lost themselves in perfect synchronicity with everyone else.
The experience was heady, and Tegoshi was naïve and easily intoxicated. The fact that it was a VIP-only club made it all the more potent. He was surrounded by the beautiful, rich, up-and-coming youth of Japan. Many of them were throwing themselves into the music in the same way that they handled their careers: taking everything at once, riding the wave with reckless abandon, not caring where, when, or if they crashed.
It was difficult to get to the fringes of the crowd, but somehow he managed. He was greeted by a beer bottle in front of his face. Looking at it, puzzled for a moment, he realized that the bottle was being offered by none other than Yamashita Tomohisa. Beside him stood Akanishi Jin and Nishikido Ryo. The three were watching him in the way a mother bird might watch her offspring after pushing them out of the nest to see if they could fly.
He accepted the drink.
"So?" Yamapi looked at him with a small smile. They had been the ones who had taken him there, "to experience his first taste of adulthood," they had said. In a way, it was a trial run to see if Tegoshi would-could-become a partygoer like them. They had seen the potential; it was definitely there. It only needed to be cultivated. And who would be better for the job than the three of them?
They meant well.
"This place is great." Tegoshi took a swig of the drink, coughing at the taste but choosing to ignore it. The others smiled and gave him heavy pats on the shoulder.
"Have any girls approached you yet?" Jin asked, sipping his own drink and slipping his free hand into the pocket of his black denim jeans.
"Oh, yeah, there were a few. I kind of recognized them... one of them was... a bikini model, I think." He took another drink. Maybe the gulp had been too much, because the lights on the dance floor seemed to become even more brilliant than before.
"Yeah, you’ll see a lot of those hanging around here." Ryo frowned a little. "Just be careful that you don’t leave the club publicly with them."
They were looking out for him. He smiled. "Okay. I understand." They gave him another pat on the shoulder-it made him sway a little-and went to rejoin the crowd.
* * *
A couple hours later and Tegoshi was absolutely smashed. It seemed to him that the lights from the ceiling were bending in impossible directions and it was beginning to give him a headache. He excused himself from the group of people that he had been dancing with and headed with some difficulty towards the exit.
Yamapi saw him and took out his phone.
* * *
Tegoshi stumbled out of the back door and nearly walked straight into the dumpster outside. In the very back of his mind, his remaining rational thought told him that he was going to pass out soon. Exiting the side alley, he knelt down next to a streetlight and pressed his forehead against its cold metal. It was early winter and the clubbing clothes that he was wearing were no buffer against the chill. He wrapped his arms around himself and squeezed his eyes shut, as if mentally willing himself to sober up. He hadn’t actually had that much to drink…only one more bottle after the one that Yamapi had given him-
He heard a car pull up in front of him. Its door slammed and he looked up abruptly, squinting against the harsh light from the lamp overhead, his vision slowly adjusting. Leaning against his van, his arms crossed, stood Koyama.
"You’re lucky that I’ve found you before anyone else," Koyama said, straightening up and coming to stand in front of him. He looked down at Tegoshi, who was huddled near his feet, and sighed. "Come on, I'm taking you home." He pulled Tegoshi up and heaved him into the passenger seat of his van, buckling him in before going around to the driver’s side.
"Kei-chan," Tegoshi whispered as they began to drive. He didn’t want to speak too loudly because he was afraid that his voice would sound horribly slurred and hoarse after all the shouting above the music inside the club. Soft music was playing from the radio; it was completely calm in the van compared to how it had been at the club. Somehow, Koyama’s appearance had made him feel ashamed for being drunk. "I’m sorry."
Koyama only sighed again and shook his head, looking over at him for a brief moment and giving him a gentle pat on the head. "Just go to sleep. I'm taking you to my place. We’ll talk about this later." He directed his attention back to the road.
Tegoshi nodded and laid his head against the car window, closing his eyes and immediately falling into an empty slumber.
* * *
The next morning greeted him with a splitting headache. He buried his face into a pillow and groaned loudly. "Kill me now."
"You should think positive thoughts in the morning," a familiar voice said. Tegoshi peeked one eye open, painfully looking out against the sunlit room. Massu was sitting on an armchair that had been pushed up next to the bed, and was looking at him with a serious expression. He leaned forward and picked up a glass of water from the bedside table, handing it to Tegoshi. "Here, drink some."
Tegoshi sat up against the pillow, taking a while to stop squinting from the light. He took the glass of water and swallowed some, only realizing after how dry his mouth had been. "I feel disgusting."
"Be glad that you just have a headache and that you’re not throwing up." Massu was watching him closely. Tegoshi sighed. Was it just him, or had he become an object of scrutiny lately?
"Where are we? This isn't your room, Massu." He took a brief glance around the room and was able to answer the question himself: it was quite clearly Koyama’s guest room. There was a picture of him and his cat from at least five years ago on a dresser across from the bed.
"Koyama’s. He had to go run some errands so he called me to come and take care of you in case you got sick... and to make sure that you didn’t panic waking up in a strange bed." He paused for a moment. "Yamapi was the one that called him last night to pick you up."
Tegoshi nodded and looked down at himself. Something was missing. "So... where is my shirt?"
Massu reached behind him held it out. He took it back and sniffed it, coughing a little at the distinct odor of alcohol that still clung to it. "It reeks of beer. I didn’t even drink that much of it... at least from what I remember."
Massu frowned at that end of Tegoshi’s sentence. “"From what you remember? I also noticed that your shirt has a really strong smell of some girl's perfume too. What were you doing last night?"
"I... I'm not quite sure." Tegoshi mumbled evasively. He rubbed his head with one hand, taking another sip of water. Everything that had happened the night before seemed extremely vague to him now. "Well, I was at the club with Yamashita-kun, Nishikido-kun, and Akanishi."
"I know that much already." Massu was troubled. He had actually called Yamapi and Ryo already to ask them if they knew what Tegoshi had been doing, but they just said that they had seen him walking off with a girl at some point. "Who was the girl?" He asked, pressing for more information.
"I don’t remember anything from last night!"
"Yes you do! Try a little harder," Massu urged.
Massu’s probing was just agitating Tegoshi’s headache more, and the accusing tone of his voice was not helping at all. He struggled to sort out the thoughts in his head. He sniffed the shirt again and the scent of the perfume triggered his memory so vividly that he was slightly taken aback by it.
"She was a model," he said slowly, not looking at Massu. "She was really cute. We danced for a while and then we went down to the hall that leads to the bathrooms and we..." He glanced at Massu, who was looking back at him with an strange expression. It was so uncharacteristic of Massu that Tegoshi couldn’t tell what exactly he was thinking. "And we made out for a while in that hallway," he finished. In his mind he could remember that it had been quite heated-hands buried in each other's hair, mouths against necks... but he decided to spare those details. He had been intoxicated; he wasn't himself. "That was all I did with her."
Massu could feel himself getting angry. He was about to say something when the door opened and Koyama walked in. "Oh, Tegoshi, you're awake now? I picked up some soup from the store if you want some." He turned to Massu. "Thanks for watching over him."
"Yeah, no problem," Massu mumbled sullenly, standing up abruptly. Tegoshi flinched at the sound of the chair legs scraping against the floor. "I have an early meeting with my manager today so I need to get going." He grabbed his bag from the floor and swung it over his shoulder. "See you guys later." He walked across the room and paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder and looking at Tegoshi in the bed. "Feel better soon." Then he turned and left.
Koyama watched him go before taking Massu’s vacated spot on the armchair. "So."
Tegoshi finished the water and set the glass back on the bedside table, falling back against the pillows, pushing his bangs from his face and pressing the sides of his head with his fingers. "So?"
"Massu seemed kind of angry just now. What happened?"
"I don’t know why he's mad. I had just told him what happened last night when you came." He closed his eyes, passing his hand over his eyelids.
"Well, let’s talk about that then. Tell me what happened, from the beginning." Koyama leaned back on the chair and propped his feet on the edge of the bed, looking expectant.
He remained silent for a while after Tegoshi had recounted everything that he could remember of the previous night.
Tegoshi looked at him, worried. "Don't tell me that you're mad at me too."
"No," Koyama shook his head, speaking thoughtfully. "No, I'm not... but will you do it again?"
"Will I go to a club again? Probably not." Tegoshi turned in the bed so that he was laying on his side, facing Koyama. "It was fun but a little too much for me. Will I get wasted again? No. I don't like waking up and feeling like my head is going to explode." He buried his face into the pillow, so that his next words came out muffled. "Will I make out with another random girl that I don't know again? No."
"Good." Satisfied, Koyama stood up and gave Tegoshi a pat through the blankets. "It doesn’t suit our little Tegoshi to do things like that, anyway."