TOKIO Eye For the Straight Guy
Fandom: TOKIO RPS
Title: TOKIO Eye For the Straight Guy
Category: AU, Humor (crack-ish), a touch of introspection as well
Pairing: Pretty much TOKIO/TOKIO, with some emphasis on Gussan/Nagase because it's me writing it. ;)
Rating: R for implication and a touch of language
Warnings: Enough asides to choke a horse (or some other less gruesome expression, maybe).
Summary: It was always supposed to look like a surprise when that week's fashion victim opened his door and saw the five of them standing on his doorstep.
A/N: It has been over a year and a half since I posted any fic, oi. I would have just told myself, fine, you've lost the fanfic impulse now and moved on with things, except that I kept thinking about it. Went over old story ideas, came up with new ones, started halfway writing before things fell apart again, etc etc. And my finally getting something done isn't really a sign that all is well and good, but I think we can at least count it as a sign that it's not as bad as it was. ;)
This was supposed to be out by someone's bday (and you know who you are ;), but meeting deadlines is not my thing right now for sure. It got its start, in all its weirdness, from a) my talking to someone (last year!) about stories that had 'everyone in the group/agency is gay' type of plots and whether they were lame or not (I obviously come down on the side of not *koff*), and b) having the passing thought that wouldn't it be funny if TOKIO had a show where they had to give fashion/grooming advice and they all sucked at it (answer: yes). Enjoy!
Read it below, or read it on AO3, your choice. :)
~*~
It was always supposed to look like a surprise when that week's fashion victim opened his door and saw the five of them standing on his doorstep. Tatsuya tended to roll his eyes at the pantomime, since how big a surprise could it be, what with having to get the poor guy's permission to film him in the first place. Add into that that they obviously had to know in advance what the show was actually going to be about: how else could Taichi set up the product placement necessary to pay for the salon he'd take the guy to in order to fix his ugly ass hairstyle. Or the furniture store Tatsuya was going to suck up to so that he could salvage the guy's ugly ass apartment (and, ye gods, don't get him started on that, or he'd never get to the end of his point). Then there was the boutique Leader would talk up to get free non-ugly ass clothes for the poor woobie, plus the whatever the hell weird hobby the guy had that Nagase would then have to find some business related to it, and then beg for a favor in order to improve the guy's ugly ass life. The only one of them who might truly be surprised would be Mabo, since he often skipped out on the preproduction meetings (5AM was hard on all them, and the office (or garage, depending on who you asked) always reeked of hangover cures to the point that at least one of them would have to run to the bathroom before it was all over), figuring it was just easier to buy the food and wine he'd be recommending rather than going through the whole sponsor song and dance.
This week was no different, and they all yawned their way through the interminable wait as the lighting people made sure that their 'surprise' at seeing their new project would be fully caught (from the camera already set up in the apartment, since of course everyone just happened to have one going when they opened their door to strangers). But they finally got the go-ahead to do the shot, lights shining, cameras rolling, surprise (and derision in Taichi's case… well, and really in Tatsuya's and Nagase's case, too, but they at least sometimes didn't show it) written largely on their faces, and… boom! Nagase's brain finally woke up enough to truly notice the guy in front of them, his fake surprise morphing to the real thing as he said, "Hey, I thought we were supposed to makeover straight guys on this show! What's with the twink?"
In the old days, when they'd still thought they were going to be rock stars and were doing whatever show they could to try to promote themselves, they would have heard a loud "Cut!" at that. But it had been years since even Leader had figured out that that the rock star thing wasn't ever going to happen, and it had been even longer since they'd been doing TOKIO Eye for the Straight Guy, and what the public hadn't wanted to see back when they'd been five supposedly straight young guys prancing around on a stage in outrageously gay outfits (and Tatsuya was pretty sure there was irony in Johnny's expecting their wannabe idols to dance around in those types of outfits, but then to get all huffy about it when the kids actually turned out to be outrageously gay), the public seemed to eat up ever since Sato-san gave them a show where they weren't supposed to be straight guys at all (though their outfits were much more conservative now, which Tatsuya supposed might also be irony). So when they just kept shooting, the only one with real surprise left on their face then was the poor twink, who was still trying to sputter denials as they started trashing all of his ugly ass stuff.
~*~
Technically they weren't all gay; just mostly. Tatsuya was the first to admit that his brief flirtation with dating women was mainly for cover, plus the thought that it might be nice to have kids one day. Nagase was pretty much the same way, and Leader had never really seemed to realize that women were a choice. But Taichi seemed to truly be bi and Mabo still (at least when he wasn't drunk and trying to suck one of their dicks) tried to claim he was straight to this day. The rest of them just took it in stride like they did Taichi's disturbingly large toy collection, Nagase's inability to remember how many years there were in a century, Tatsuya's obsession with surfing, and Leader's… well, everything.
Technically they'd never been fired from the Jimusho, either. The story went that Johnny-san had just never found the right sound for them and they'd consequently never debuted, all of them leaving the agency as the jobs dried up. Some people winked at the story, especially since there'd been noise about them debuting just months before they all (coincidentally, of course) left the agency at the same time, and that they'd all had jobs just days before their leaving, too. Some people also went on to nudging at the story when they then mentioned a theoretical strip poker game (where it wasn't just clothes that had been on the table, as it were), and the fact that one of them (Taichi) had forgotten to lock the door before they'd started, and the fact that another of them (Mabo) had blushed everywhere (which had been easy to tell since he'd been losing heavily) and then blurted out something about not being gay at all (even though Johnny-san, the one who'd theoretically walked in on them, hadn't said anything yet). There might also have been some nudging and winking going on when someone then finished the story with the theoretical fact that one of their mouth's (Nagase's) had been too busy to say anything and that one of them (Tatsuya) had been too happy because of that to say anything, and that another one of them (Leader, though it wasn't like the others hadn't been a little guilty, too) hadn't been exactly unhappy about the whole thing, either.
Technically Tatsuya and the others never talked about it at all, though all of them (even Mabo, still living the life of denial) sometimes nudged and winked about it, if in a roundabout way, when they were making the rounds on other people's shows.
But there were times, when they were feeling nostalgic, another anniversary of the day they should have debuted passing them by, when Taichi (drunk and wistful) would apologize about not locking the door, and Mabo (drunk and blushing (some things never changed)) would admit that maybe he was a little gay, and Nagase (mostly sober, but still horny as ever) would still have his mouth full, and Tatsuya (glad that Taichi hadn't locked the door, amused when Mabo finally relaxed enough to fully enjoy what they were, and still incredibly happy about Nagase's mouth even all these years later) smiled and nodded when Leader (not unhappily) asked, "How about another round of strip poker?"
~*~
The twink was an even worse housekeeper than Nagase had been back when they all used to room together. They'd eventually managed to train him to at least clean up the visible dirt (and to aim for the bowl), but the bathroom they were in now had even managed to make Nagase shudder. "Dude, leave off the tacos if they're going to affect you this way… or, you know, use those scrubbing bubbles at least when company's coming."
It wasn't the first time that one of their straight guys had managed to make Nagase shudder (the one who'd had the food porn (which Jiro, their main cameraman, had made sure to get a shot of, since, after all, they played on cable and could so get by with it) had actually made Nagase tear up: he tended to have a one track mind, and that one time Leader had gotten creative with the cream and fruit had traumatized him so badly (his two great loves (sex and food) each calling for his attention at once), that he still twitched a little whenever he saw a piece of strawberry shortcake.
It was, however, the first time they'd ever had Leader trash the guy's clothes and really mean it. Usually he just faked his disgust (or disgust-lite, really, since he was far too polite around strangers to be as catty as he was when he was talking to any of them), his own taste in clothing too lame to know when someone else's taste was atrocious (Sato-san had insisted Leader's contract state that he had to have his stylist choose any clothes that he wore out in public, a clause added right after he saw the pompadour and flares that Leader wore at their first meeting). But Leader was all earnestness and non-faked disgust when he saw the golf pants in neon red with a humongous, neon pink floral pattern for contrast and whispered, "The horror, the horror!"
When he found the matching polo shirt, he made the poor twink burn them on the (obviously never been cleaned) hibachi to exorcise the spawn of Satan that had obviously possessed him when he bought them.
~*~
The thing was, as that first meeting with Sato-san had so aptly shown, that none of them were actually all that good at being gay. Well, obviously they were good at the mechanics of being gay, since they all (even Mabo in his denial) had managed to have gay sex (and had even got caught at it and all), but it seemed like they couldn't be GAY! properly. Certainly none of them wore sparkly clothes and pranced around (not that they would admit to the others, anyway, though Tatsuya had found a feather boa in Taichi's apartment once, and Taichi had been a little too adamant that it had belonged to one of his girlfriends… and, really, Leader and his eclectic collection of underwear was definitely pushing it a little), and there wasn't a lisp in site when they talked. As much as Sato-san had been set on capitalizing on the uproar caused by their being outed like they had, he'd been afraid that they'd come off too GUY! to ever be seriously taken as gay (even with the gay sex and all), and in the end he'd added clauses to all of their contracts that they had to take lessons in GAY!.
Nagase and Taichi had both turned out to be so good at faking it that almost no one watching the show had any clue that Taichi's apartment had only one type of hair brush and not a single moisturizer in sight or that Nagase wouldn't have any more idea about what constituted a perfect social occasion than he did about particle physics. All they saw was a well-kempt guy with a sarcastic tongue that could flail guys alive who didn't use hair and face product properly and a scruffy dude who looked like his idea of a good date was Burger King, but who could always pull off some kind of fairy (of either one kind or the other) magic for whatever hapless bastard they were helping that week.
The thing was… even with the faking it bit, it wasn't really a big lie. Okay, Taichi and product were not the best buds people thought they were, but he'd at least learned the product names and had learned how to apply it, and while the sarcastic tongue was his from birth, he'd worked hard to make sure that he didn't have to always rely on the staff to tell him what was needed. And, sure, Nagase was no one's idea of Prince Charming and certainly not a scholar, but he'd always been oddly imaginative and could come up with some great ideas for dates and events and the like… once he had run it past the women on the staff so they could screen out things like 'motor rallies' and 'free sample night at the grocery store', anyway.
And maybe it was a little (or at least not a monumental) lie that Leader was qualified to be their fashion guy, but even as bad as he was at it, he always worked hard at the production meetings (poring over photos of their new straight guy with the stylist, making sure that whatever sponsor he was trying for would have something that suited, trying his best like always).
So maybe it was also a little lie that Tatsuya was a good decorator, because while he knew it wasn't false pride that he was great at the actual remodeling he did, it was only through Sato-san's lessons that he'd finally stopped trying to decorate everyone's place in Surf Bum Classic (with a touch of the Cheap Cinderblock Bookcase look thrown in for good measure). But he had subscriptions to ten different home fashion magazines and he always took the time to actually read them (and not just while he was on the toilet, either).
And though it was certainly a little lie that Mabo wasn't gay at all, since he hadn't needed lessons at all to be good at cooking and wine and smacking people on the head when they couldn't tell bluefin tuna from flounder (or, more germanely, in how to have sex with men)… and even though Mabo sometimes tried to argue about the folly of stereotypes at the production meetings… and even though most of them weren't exactly experts at what they were supposed to be experts at… and even though their teacher in GAY! had often sighed over the fact that not one of them could do a proper lisp… it wasn't a lie at all that they loved their show.
It was certainly the truth (not a whit of a lie in sight) that none of them (not even Leader with his reluctantly lost dream of being a rock star or Mabo in his half-open closet) regretted that, all these years later, they were still together.
~*~
Tatsuya diligently pulled down each of the very tacky mirrors glued to the ceiling, diligently ignored Nagase's suggestions about maybe delaying the process for just fifteen minutes, and diligently called out any place he could think of that might carry a small, cheap grill for Mabo (now that the hibachi was encrusted in melted polyester as well as years old food grime).
He had originally tried to diligently ignore Mabo along with Nagase's suggestions (as appealing as those suggestions might be), but a Mabo that had already shelled out a fuckton of cash on steaks and accoutrements for their twink's fancy dinner lesson (and Tatsuya was also diligently biting his tongue and not doing an I Told You So about the preproduction meetings/sponsor thing that saved the rest of them from just that kind of problem) and yet now had only a toasted hibachi or a toaster oven to cook with, was a Mabo who was far too diligently loud to be ignored.
Thankfully Mabo found a home center having a special just as Tatsuya took down the last mirror. Since Leader was still coordinating the new clothes with his sponsors, and since Taichi had their theoretical straight guy at the salon (getting rid of what he called The 70s Called And They Want Their Haircut Back hacked off), that meant Tatsuya only had Nagase and his attention-seeking standing in the way of being able to get his actual work done. Okay, it made for boring screen time and he was sure to get edited out a lot, but even the others fully admitted Tatsuya had the most actual work to do of any of them and tended to fill in the screen time for him so he could get it done.
Tatsuya amended that thought to most of the others let him get on with his work as Nagase started whistling innocently (something else he could fake when he wanted to) while twirling the pink fluffy handcuffs he'd found (when he'd been actually helping out by cleaning under the bed instead of just being a distraction). Tatsuya sighed, diligently thinking about what he had left to do and how little time he had to do it (and diligently willing down the reaction he'd had to thinking about Nagase in the handcuffs… or Nagase putting the handcuffs on him, for that matter), and then not so diligently sighed in relief when Jiro said he needed to change the tape, a code he used for I need a bathroom break now or I've been filming with you guys for years now and it's obvious that two or more of you are about five seconds away from fucking on the table so I'm going to go play on my handheld until you guys have finished and cleaned up all traces of what you've done. Well, there were occasions it actually meant I have to change the tape, but thankfully that wasn't one of those times.
Jiro set a new high score on Monster Hunter while Tatsuya and Nagase finished up the 'boring' part of the remodeling work (among other things), and then Nagase and Mabo helped Tatsuya fill in some film time with the more interesting bits of remodeling (among other things), and eventually Taichi and Leader showed up with their victim in tow.
Said victim stared in wonder, real surprise on his face as he took in the fact that he was now the owner of a newly much less lame looking apartment, haircut, wardrobe, and grill (and still happily unaware that he was no longer the owner one pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, among other things).
~*~
They'd all learned about RPS fanfic from the Jimusho back in the day. It had been awkward class to say the least, a room full of (theoretically straight) boys having to listen to some of the most lurid prose any of them had ever heard (or at least so they said, though Tatsuya had read some of Leader's fanfic, and teenage girls had nothing on him for lurid-ness (and far less facts about actual gay sex as well)). There'd been a lot of awkward joking and macho disgust afterward (some of it even unfeigned), and then there'd been a fair amount of unfeigned jerking off in the dorms later (and though Tatsuya only knew about two others for sure (and two more by hearsay (thanks again to Leader's fanfic)), it hadn't just been the five of them who'd taken to haunting various fanfic sites thereafter).
For all that, though, they hadn't expected to get RPS written about them after it came out they were actually gay. A lot of the kids who'd been writing about them when they were Johnny's had seemed really taken with the idea that they were 'only gay for each other' or stuff along that line, and most of those fans had deserted them pretty quickly when it turned out that, no, really, they were just gay (though the 'for each other' part came up (so to speak) fairly often all the same).
They were even more surprised that, now that their fans tended not to be girls (though still usually women, sadly enough from the 'no hot groupies' for gay men point of view), a lot of the lurid prose (and misconceptions about gay sex, happily enough from the 'excellent late night reading' point of view) had also disappeared, along with the 'only gay for each other' thing. Oh, sure, Nagase still grumbled about the story that had him paired up with Kudo-san (one of the few directors who would give him non-gay roles, but still odd even by their standards), saying that he had better sense than that. But Tatsuya was still much amused by the story he'd seen pairing him with Matsujun (to whom, according to the story, he'd taught both the ways of surfing and of excellent blowjobs), though not so much that they'd got the plot wrong, but rather that they'd got the wrong guy (KenKen had been such an apt pupil, too).
But, oddly, it was the fanfic that was just the five of them that tended to throw them off the most; again, not so much for what they got wrong, but for what they got right, instead. That they somehow had guessed that Nagase tended to be more monogamous than the others, mostly staying with Tatsuya when he was between partners (though when they fed him the right amount of beer (meaning almost none) and praised him for being a slut, the others could be in with a shot as well). That they seemed to guess how Taichi and Tatsuya tended to poke fun of Leader, but still made sure he was well taken care of when none of them were seeing anyone (and sometimes when they were, though that was usually due to being excessively drunk with judgment nowhere to be found). That Mabo found it easier to be gay when drunk, but how he was the gayest of them all when he was (and that he was the best top you could ask for, all kindness and consideration and (more importantly) technique). And that sometimes none of that mattered, because sometimes it just mattered about right then and this guy (whichever one (or ones) of them it happened to be) and having that moment of release, of clarity, of… well, friendship.
Taichi would sometimes check their dressing room just to make sure it wasn't bugged (and Leader would check his online fanfic accounts just to make sure he hadn't been outed (again)), but Tatsuya figured that Nagase had it right when he said, "We're easy to figure out 'cause we have nothing left to hide… and because we're all basically exhibitionists, too. It would probably help keep some of the mystery if we'd stop groping each other in public, at any rate."
Thankfully (both from a 'hot late night reading' point of view as well as a 'getting some' one), most of them never bothered to follow that last piece of advice.
~*~
It wasn't their best episode ever, considering that even though they'd done a good job at remodeling the twink, in the end they'd also awakened the guy's inner queen enough that it was only going to be through creative editing that the guy still fit in the straight man category (hardly the first time they'd won the 'toaster' for converting a theoretically straight guy, either).
The next day they filmed the wrap-up back at their garage (something that Sato-san had complained about mightily, imagining their 'headquarters' more as a yuppy-ish loft than a converted car shop, but they'd held firm and it had turned out to be a huge hit with the fans).
The five of them sat around the huge TV screen on their hipster (yet kitschy) sofa and chairs (Sato-san had won on the décor), drinking beer and soda (TOKIO 2, Sato-san 1), watching their little fashion victim go through the steps they'd taught him… well, actually they were watching the match against Argentina (TOKIO 3, Sato-san 1), but they'd already been briefed on how their guy had fared by the staff, who had also fed them some 'slightly sarcastic but mostly sweet and encouraging' comments to make (TOKIO 3, Sato-san 2 (he totally hadn't trusted Taichi to say anything positive at that point)), all of which would be edited together later to look like they'd watched properly at any rate.
The filming went quickly, their budding little queen having gone through his new routine like a trouper, which meant most of their comments were in the 'well done' and 'bless his heart' vein, something they were all well versed in after all those years doing it. What it meant for Tatsuya was that they were still mostly sober (or completely sober in Nagase's case) when the crew started to clean up and leave, but still relaxed enough that he didn't really want to get up and go. He was between boyfriends, so there was no one at his place to drink with and he didn't want to go to some noisy bar or club. He really just… didn't have anyplace else he'd rather be than on the surprisingly comfortable couch with the people he liked drinking with the best.
Nagase, tuned in to him like he often was, just got up and opened another Coke, dropping back down in his chair with a contented grunt and putting his feet up on the hipster (yet kitschy) little coffee table (now that any of the staff who might complain about it were gone). That was pretty much all it took to snare Leader, who pulled out his hidden stash of bourbon and made sad puppy eyes at Taichi until he sighed and sat back down as well, snagging Leader's glass to take a big drink.
Mabo had been halfway out the door at that point, but he slowed, then stopped, the two beers he'd had being nowhere near enough alcohol to have any impact on him (his closet door still mostly shut), but the pull of Family Fun Night was too big a draw for him to hold out long.
It didn't take long for Leader's (sadly depleted) bottle to set Mabo's closet door ajar, and Nagase pulling out the (now slightly worn down) cuffs pretty much knocked the door completely off its hinges. As things pretty much devolved from there, Tatsuya eventually lost track of who was sitting on his lap at any given time, who was nuzzling on his ear, whose mouth was sucking on his dick... okay, that was a total lie, he never lost track of that, but it was all good regardless of who it was (because of who it was).
It wasn't quite as good the next day, the hangover cure not making the inevitable early morning meeting any easier to take. They'd all had to blearily muddle through it (like normal, or mostly normal, since Mabo had taken the unspoken I Told You So to heart and actually slept over at the garage just so he could attend for once (though complaining all the way)). They wound up spending the next five (very long) hours planning their next fake surprise, but that was all good, too, in its own odd way, and not even Taichi's dash for the bathroom (or Tatsuya's own, for that matter) altered the fact that even with all the Morning Afters that came with their Night Befores, Taichi forgetting to lock that door all those years ago was still the best piece of luck he'd ever had.
/story
Title: TOKIO Eye For the Straight Guy
Category: AU, Humor (crack-ish), a touch of introspection as well
Pairing: Pretty much TOKIO/TOKIO, with some emphasis on Gussan/Nagase because it's me writing it. ;)
Rating: R for implication and a touch of language
Warnings: Enough asides to choke a horse (or some other less gruesome expression, maybe).
Summary: It was always supposed to look like a surprise when that week's fashion victim opened his door and saw the five of them standing on his doorstep.
A/N: It has been over a year and a half since I posted any fic, oi. I would have just told myself, fine, you've lost the fanfic impulse now and moved on with things, except that I kept thinking about it. Went over old story ideas, came up with new ones, started halfway writing before things fell apart again, etc etc. And my finally getting something done isn't really a sign that all is well and good, but I think we can at least count it as a sign that it's not as bad as it was. ;)
This was supposed to be out by someone's bday (and you know who you are ;), but meeting deadlines is not my thing right now for sure. It got its start, in all its weirdness, from a) my talking to someone (last year!) about stories that had 'everyone in the group/agency is gay' type of plots and whether they were lame or not (I obviously come down on the side of not *koff*), and b) having the passing thought that wouldn't it be funny if TOKIO had a show where they had to give fashion/grooming advice and they all sucked at it (answer: yes). Enjoy!
Read it below, or read it on AO3, your choice. :)
~*~
It was always supposed to look like a surprise when that week's fashion victim opened his door and saw the five of them standing on his doorstep. Tatsuya tended to roll his eyes at the pantomime, since how big a surprise could it be, what with having to get the poor guy's permission to film him in the first place. Add into that that they obviously had to know in advance what the show was actually going to be about: how else could Taichi set up the product placement necessary to pay for the salon he'd take the guy to in order to fix his ugly ass hairstyle. Or the furniture store Tatsuya was going to suck up to so that he could salvage the guy's ugly ass apartment (and, ye gods, don't get him started on that, or he'd never get to the end of his point). Then there was the boutique Leader would talk up to get free non-ugly ass clothes for the poor woobie, plus the whatever the hell weird hobby the guy had that Nagase would then have to find some business related to it, and then beg for a favor in order to improve the guy's ugly ass life. The only one of them who might truly be surprised would be Mabo, since he often skipped out on the preproduction meetings (5AM was hard on all them, and the office (or garage, depending on who you asked) always reeked of hangover cures to the point that at least one of them would have to run to the bathroom before it was all over), figuring it was just easier to buy the food and wine he'd be recommending rather than going through the whole sponsor song and dance.
This week was no different, and they all yawned their way through the interminable wait as the lighting people made sure that their 'surprise' at seeing their new project would be fully caught (from the camera already set up in the apartment, since of course everyone just happened to have one going when they opened their door to strangers). But they finally got the go-ahead to do the shot, lights shining, cameras rolling, surprise (and derision in Taichi's case… well, and really in Tatsuya's and Nagase's case, too, but they at least sometimes didn't show it) written largely on their faces, and… boom! Nagase's brain finally woke up enough to truly notice the guy in front of them, his fake surprise morphing to the real thing as he said, "Hey, I thought we were supposed to makeover straight guys on this show! What's with the twink?"
In the old days, when they'd still thought they were going to be rock stars and were doing whatever show they could to try to promote themselves, they would have heard a loud "Cut!" at that. But it had been years since even Leader had figured out that that the rock star thing wasn't ever going to happen, and it had been even longer since they'd been doing TOKIO Eye for the Straight Guy, and what the public hadn't wanted to see back when they'd been five supposedly straight young guys prancing around on a stage in outrageously gay outfits (and Tatsuya was pretty sure there was irony in Johnny's expecting their wannabe idols to dance around in those types of outfits, but then to get all huffy about it when the kids actually turned out to be outrageously gay), the public seemed to eat up ever since Sato-san gave them a show where they weren't supposed to be straight guys at all (though their outfits were much more conservative now, which Tatsuya supposed might also be irony). So when they just kept shooting, the only one with real surprise left on their face then was the poor twink, who was still trying to sputter denials as they started trashing all of his ugly ass stuff.
~*~
Technically they weren't all gay; just mostly. Tatsuya was the first to admit that his brief flirtation with dating women was mainly for cover, plus the thought that it might be nice to have kids one day. Nagase was pretty much the same way, and Leader had never really seemed to realize that women were a choice. But Taichi seemed to truly be bi and Mabo still (at least when he wasn't drunk and trying to suck one of their dicks) tried to claim he was straight to this day. The rest of them just took it in stride like they did Taichi's disturbingly large toy collection, Nagase's inability to remember how many years there were in a century, Tatsuya's obsession with surfing, and Leader's… well, everything.
Technically they'd never been fired from the Jimusho, either. The story went that Johnny-san had just never found the right sound for them and they'd consequently never debuted, all of them leaving the agency as the jobs dried up. Some people winked at the story, especially since there'd been noise about them debuting just months before they all (coincidentally, of course) left the agency at the same time, and that they'd all had jobs just days before their leaving, too. Some people also went on to nudging at the story when they then mentioned a theoretical strip poker game (where it wasn't just clothes that had been on the table, as it were), and the fact that one of them (Taichi) had forgotten to lock the door before they'd started, and the fact that another of them (Mabo) had blushed everywhere (which had been easy to tell since he'd been losing heavily) and then blurted out something about not being gay at all (even though Johnny-san, the one who'd theoretically walked in on them, hadn't said anything yet). There might also have been some nudging and winking going on when someone then finished the story with the theoretical fact that one of their mouth's (Nagase's) had been too busy to say anything and that one of them (Tatsuya) had been too happy because of that to say anything, and that another one of them (Leader, though it wasn't like the others hadn't been a little guilty, too) hadn't been exactly unhappy about the whole thing, either.
Technically Tatsuya and the others never talked about it at all, though all of them (even Mabo, still living the life of denial) sometimes nudged and winked about it, if in a roundabout way, when they were making the rounds on other people's shows.
But there were times, when they were feeling nostalgic, another anniversary of the day they should have debuted passing them by, when Taichi (drunk and wistful) would apologize about not locking the door, and Mabo (drunk and blushing (some things never changed)) would admit that maybe he was a little gay, and Nagase (mostly sober, but still horny as ever) would still have his mouth full, and Tatsuya (glad that Taichi hadn't locked the door, amused when Mabo finally relaxed enough to fully enjoy what they were, and still incredibly happy about Nagase's mouth even all these years later) smiled and nodded when Leader (not unhappily) asked, "How about another round of strip poker?"
~*~
The twink was an even worse housekeeper than Nagase had been back when they all used to room together. They'd eventually managed to train him to at least clean up the visible dirt (and to aim for the bowl), but the bathroom they were in now had even managed to make Nagase shudder. "Dude, leave off the tacos if they're going to affect you this way… or, you know, use those scrubbing bubbles at least when company's coming."
It wasn't the first time that one of their straight guys had managed to make Nagase shudder (the one who'd had the food porn (which Jiro, their main cameraman, had made sure to get a shot of, since, after all, they played on cable and could so get by with it) had actually made Nagase tear up: he tended to have a one track mind, and that one time Leader had gotten creative with the cream and fruit had traumatized him so badly (his two great loves (sex and food) each calling for his attention at once), that he still twitched a little whenever he saw a piece of strawberry shortcake.
It was, however, the first time they'd ever had Leader trash the guy's clothes and really mean it. Usually he just faked his disgust (or disgust-lite, really, since he was far too polite around strangers to be as catty as he was when he was talking to any of them), his own taste in clothing too lame to know when someone else's taste was atrocious (Sato-san had insisted Leader's contract state that he had to have his stylist choose any clothes that he wore out in public, a clause added right after he saw the pompadour and flares that Leader wore at their first meeting). But Leader was all earnestness and non-faked disgust when he saw the golf pants in neon red with a humongous, neon pink floral pattern for contrast and whispered, "The horror, the horror!"
When he found the matching polo shirt, he made the poor twink burn them on the (obviously never been cleaned) hibachi to exorcise the spawn of Satan that had obviously possessed him when he bought them.
~*~
The thing was, as that first meeting with Sato-san had so aptly shown, that none of them were actually all that good at being gay. Well, obviously they were good at the mechanics of being gay, since they all (even Mabo in his denial) had managed to have gay sex (and had even got caught at it and all), but it seemed like they couldn't be GAY! properly. Certainly none of them wore sparkly clothes and pranced around (not that they would admit to the others, anyway, though Tatsuya had found a feather boa in Taichi's apartment once, and Taichi had been a little too adamant that it had belonged to one of his girlfriends… and, really, Leader and his eclectic collection of underwear was definitely pushing it a little), and there wasn't a lisp in site when they talked. As much as Sato-san had been set on capitalizing on the uproar caused by their being outed like they had, he'd been afraid that they'd come off too GUY! to ever be seriously taken as gay (even with the gay sex and all), and in the end he'd added clauses to all of their contracts that they had to take lessons in GAY!.
Nagase and Taichi had both turned out to be so good at faking it that almost no one watching the show had any clue that Taichi's apartment had only one type of hair brush and not a single moisturizer in sight or that Nagase wouldn't have any more idea about what constituted a perfect social occasion than he did about particle physics. All they saw was a well-kempt guy with a sarcastic tongue that could flail guys alive who didn't use hair and face product properly and a scruffy dude who looked like his idea of a good date was Burger King, but who could always pull off some kind of fairy (of either one kind or the other) magic for whatever hapless bastard they were helping that week.
The thing was… even with the faking it bit, it wasn't really a big lie. Okay, Taichi and product were not the best buds people thought they were, but he'd at least learned the product names and had learned how to apply it, and while the sarcastic tongue was his from birth, he'd worked hard to make sure that he didn't have to always rely on the staff to tell him what was needed. And, sure, Nagase was no one's idea of Prince Charming and certainly not a scholar, but he'd always been oddly imaginative and could come up with some great ideas for dates and events and the like… once he had run it past the women on the staff so they could screen out things like 'motor rallies' and 'free sample night at the grocery store', anyway.
And maybe it was a little (or at least not a monumental) lie that Leader was qualified to be their fashion guy, but even as bad as he was at it, he always worked hard at the production meetings (poring over photos of their new straight guy with the stylist, making sure that whatever sponsor he was trying for would have something that suited, trying his best like always).
So maybe it was also a little lie that Tatsuya was a good decorator, because while he knew it wasn't false pride that he was great at the actual remodeling he did, it was only through Sato-san's lessons that he'd finally stopped trying to decorate everyone's place in Surf Bum Classic (with a touch of the Cheap Cinderblock Bookcase look thrown in for good measure). But he had subscriptions to ten different home fashion magazines and he always took the time to actually read them (and not just while he was on the toilet, either).
And though it was certainly a little lie that Mabo wasn't gay at all, since he hadn't needed lessons at all to be good at cooking and wine and smacking people on the head when they couldn't tell bluefin tuna from flounder (or, more germanely, in how to have sex with men)… and even though Mabo sometimes tried to argue about the folly of stereotypes at the production meetings… and even though most of them weren't exactly experts at what they were supposed to be experts at… and even though their teacher in GAY! had often sighed over the fact that not one of them could do a proper lisp… it wasn't a lie at all that they loved their show.
It was certainly the truth (not a whit of a lie in sight) that none of them (not even Leader with his reluctantly lost dream of being a rock star or Mabo in his half-open closet) regretted that, all these years later, they were still together.
~*~
Tatsuya diligently pulled down each of the very tacky mirrors glued to the ceiling, diligently ignored Nagase's suggestions about maybe delaying the process for just fifteen minutes, and diligently called out any place he could think of that might carry a small, cheap grill for Mabo (now that the hibachi was encrusted in melted polyester as well as years old food grime).
He had originally tried to diligently ignore Mabo along with Nagase's suggestions (as appealing as those suggestions might be), but a Mabo that had already shelled out a fuckton of cash on steaks and accoutrements for their twink's fancy dinner lesson (and Tatsuya was also diligently biting his tongue and not doing an I Told You So about the preproduction meetings/sponsor thing that saved the rest of them from just that kind of problem) and yet now had only a toasted hibachi or a toaster oven to cook with, was a Mabo who was far too diligently loud to be ignored.
Thankfully Mabo found a home center having a special just as Tatsuya took down the last mirror. Since Leader was still coordinating the new clothes with his sponsors, and since Taichi had their theoretical straight guy at the salon (getting rid of what he called The 70s Called And They Want Their Haircut Back hacked off), that meant Tatsuya only had Nagase and his attention-seeking standing in the way of being able to get his actual work done. Okay, it made for boring screen time and he was sure to get edited out a lot, but even the others fully admitted Tatsuya had the most actual work to do of any of them and tended to fill in the screen time for him so he could get it done.
Tatsuya amended that thought to most of the others let him get on with his work as Nagase started whistling innocently (something else he could fake when he wanted to) while twirling the pink fluffy handcuffs he'd found (when he'd been actually helping out by cleaning under the bed instead of just being a distraction). Tatsuya sighed, diligently thinking about what he had left to do and how little time he had to do it (and diligently willing down the reaction he'd had to thinking about Nagase in the handcuffs… or Nagase putting the handcuffs on him, for that matter), and then not so diligently sighed in relief when Jiro said he needed to change the tape, a code he used for I need a bathroom break now or I've been filming with you guys for years now and it's obvious that two or more of you are about five seconds away from fucking on the table so I'm going to go play on my handheld until you guys have finished and cleaned up all traces of what you've done. Well, there were occasions it actually meant I have to change the tape, but thankfully that wasn't one of those times.
Jiro set a new high score on Monster Hunter while Tatsuya and Nagase finished up the 'boring' part of the remodeling work (among other things), and then Nagase and Mabo helped Tatsuya fill in some film time with the more interesting bits of remodeling (among other things), and eventually Taichi and Leader showed up with their victim in tow.
Said victim stared in wonder, real surprise on his face as he took in the fact that he was now the owner of a newly much less lame looking apartment, haircut, wardrobe, and grill (and still happily unaware that he was no longer the owner one pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, among other things).
~*~
They'd all learned about RPS fanfic from the Jimusho back in the day. It had been awkward class to say the least, a room full of (theoretically straight) boys having to listen to some of the most lurid prose any of them had ever heard (or at least so they said, though Tatsuya had read some of Leader's fanfic, and teenage girls had nothing on him for lurid-ness (and far less facts about actual gay sex as well)). There'd been a lot of awkward joking and macho disgust afterward (some of it even unfeigned), and then there'd been a fair amount of unfeigned jerking off in the dorms later (and though Tatsuya only knew about two others for sure (and two more by hearsay (thanks again to Leader's fanfic)), it hadn't just been the five of them who'd taken to haunting various fanfic sites thereafter).
For all that, though, they hadn't expected to get RPS written about them after it came out they were actually gay. A lot of the kids who'd been writing about them when they were Johnny's had seemed really taken with the idea that they were 'only gay for each other' or stuff along that line, and most of those fans had deserted them pretty quickly when it turned out that, no, really, they were just gay (though the 'for each other' part came up (so to speak) fairly often all the same).
They were even more surprised that, now that their fans tended not to be girls (though still usually women, sadly enough from the 'no hot groupies' for gay men point of view), a lot of the lurid prose (and misconceptions about gay sex, happily enough from the 'excellent late night reading' point of view) had also disappeared, along with the 'only gay for each other' thing. Oh, sure, Nagase still grumbled about the story that had him paired up with Kudo-san (one of the few directors who would give him non-gay roles, but still odd even by their standards), saying that he had better sense than that. But Tatsuya was still much amused by the story he'd seen pairing him with Matsujun (to whom, according to the story, he'd taught both the ways of surfing and of excellent blowjobs), though not so much that they'd got the plot wrong, but rather that they'd got the wrong guy (KenKen had been such an apt pupil, too).
But, oddly, it was the fanfic that was just the five of them that tended to throw them off the most; again, not so much for what they got wrong, but for what they got right, instead. That they somehow had guessed that Nagase tended to be more monogamous than the others, mostly staying with Tatsuya when he was between partners (though when they fed him the right amount of beer (meaning almost none) and praised him for being a slut, the others could be in with a shot as well). That they seemed to guess how Taichi and Tatsuya tended to poke fun of Leader, but still made sure he was well taken care of when none of them were seeing anyone (and sometimes when they were, though that was usually due to being excessively drunk with judgment nowhere to be found). That Mabo found it easier to be gay when drunk, but how he was the gayest of them all when he was (and that he was the best top you could ask for, all kindness and consideration and (more importantly) technique). And that sometimes none of that mattered, because sometimes it just mattered about right then and this guy (whichever one (or ones) of them it happened to be) and having that moment of release, of clarity, of… well, friendship.
Taichi would sometimes check their dressing room just to make sure it wasn't bugged (and Leader would check his online fanfic accounts just to make sure he hadn't been outed (again)), but Tatsuya figured that Nagase had it right when he said, "We're easy to figure out 'cause we have nothing left to hide… and because we're all basically exhibitionists, too. It would probably help keep some of the mystery if we'd stop groping each other in public, at any rate."
Thankfully (both from a 'hot late night reading' point of view as well as a 'getting some' one), most of them never bothered to follow that last piece of advice.
~*~
It wasn't their best episode ever, considering that even though they'd done a good job at remodeling the twink, in the end they'd also awakened the guy's inner queen enough that it was only going to be through creative editing that the guy still fit in the straight man category (hardly the first time they'd won the 'toaster' for converting a theoretically straight guy, either).
The next day they filmed the wrap-up back at their garage (something that Sato-san had complained about mightily, imagining their 'headquarters' more as a yuppy-ish loft than a converted car shop, but they'd held firm and it had turned out to be a huge hit with the fans).
The five of them sat around the huge TV screen on their hipster (yet kitschy) sofa and chairs (Sato-san had won on the décor), drinking beer and soda (TOKIO 2, Sato-san 1), watching their little fashion victim go through the steps they'd taught him… well, actually they were watching the match against Argentina (TOKIO 3, Sato-san 1), but they'd already been briefed on how their guy had fared by the staff, who had also fed them some 'slightly sarcastic but mostly sweet and encouraging' comments to make (TOKIO 3, Sato-san 2 (he totally hadn't trusted Taichi to say anything positive at that point)), all of which would be edited together later to look like they'd watched properly at any rate.
The filming went quickly, their budding little queen having gone through his new routine like a trouper, which meant most of their comments were in the 'well done' and 'bless his heart' vein, something they were all well versed in after all those years doing it. What it meant for Tatsuya was that they were still mostly sober (or completely sober in Nagase's case) when the crew started to clean up and leave, but still relaxed enough that he didn't really want to get up and go. He was between boyfriends, so there was no one at his place to drink with and he didn't want to go to some noisy bar or club. He really just… didn't have anyplace else he'd rather be than on the surprisingly comfortable couch with the people he liked drinking with the best.
Nagase, tuned in to him like he often was, just got up and opened another Coke, dropping back down in his chair with a contented grunt and putting his feet up on the hipster (yet kitschy) little coffee table (now that any of the staff who might complain about it were gone). That was pretty much all it took to snare Leader, who pulled out his hidden stash of bourbon and made sad puppy eyes at Taichi until he sighed and sat back down as well, snagging Leader's glass to take a big drink.
Mabo had been halfway out the door at that point, but he slowed, then stopped, the two beers he'd had being nowhere near enough alcohol to have any impact on him (his closet door still mostly shut), but the pull of Family Fun Night was too big a draw for him to hold out long.
It didn't take long for Leader's (sadly depleted) bottle to set Mabo's closet door ajar, and Nagase pulling out the (now slightly worn down) cuffs pretty much knocked the door completely off its hinges. As things pretty much devolved from there, Tatsuya eventually lost track of who was sitting on his lap at any given time, who was nuzzling on his ear, whose mouth was sucking on his dick... okay, that was a total lie, he never lost track of that, but it was all good regardless of who it was (because of who it was).
It wasn't quite as good the next day, the hangover cure not making the inevitable early morning meeting any easier to take. They'd all had to blearily muddle through it (like normal, or mostly normal, since Mabo had taken the unspoken I Told You So to heart and actually slept over at the garage just so he could attend for once (though complaining all the way)). They wound up spending the next five (very long) hours planning their next fake surprise, but that was all good, too, in its own odd way, and not even Taichi's dash for the bathroom (or Tatsuya's own, for that matter) altered the fact that even with all the Morning Afters that came with their Night Befores, Taichi forgetting to lock that door all those years ago was still the best piece of luck he'd ever had.
/story