The Angel fic that broke
So yeah! Trying this because this story seriously needs to be put to rest.
Tegoshi remembers everything for the first time in the summer just before his fourteenth birthday; it’s prompted suddenly and without warning one day, when he inadvertently sees a certain familiar face on the television screen (in the very, very back) and thinks to himself that it’s a face he’s seen somewhere before. He thinks that maybe it’s a face he’s dreamed of.
He’s dreamed all his life about a lot of things really, but none of those things ever really makes any sense to him up until that moment, when he sees that particular face with that particular smile, a figure he’s known forever wheeling around a brightly lit stage on roller skates while wearing a ridiculous, sequin-covered costume.
“Ah, it’s Massu,” he says, when it all comes back to him, and that’s all.
He laughs at the absurdity of the whole situation after that and watches the television some more, letting the memories flood over him in a warm, familiar wave; he recalls the sight and smell and feel of heaven, the crystal droplets of rain and the golden rays of sun.
He recalls more specifically, the mischief that got the two of them sent down here in the first place; it was when they’d stumbled upon the rain maker one afternoon, and had used it to play a prank on the mortals instead of going to class to learn how to be good little angels like all of the other kids in the academy.
“You’ll have to be punished,” Kami-sama had said to them after they’d been caught, as they’d dripped sheepishly at his feet with the nozzles still tucked behind their backs like it would help if he couldn’t see them. “You can’t just play with human lives so easily, you know,” he’d sighed.
“It was just an innocent game,” Tegoshi had protested, out of place and out of turn again. He’d pouted too, and Kami-sama had frowned, had assumed (correctly) that the whole thing had been Tegoshi’s idea after all.
“You’re punishment,” he’d said first, looking at Massu gravely, “is to go to earth and learn how to live the lives of humans. Then maybe you’ll understand what it’s like down there, and why we can’t just play with them however we see fit.”
Massu had become troubled at the news, “But,” he’d stammered, maybe on the verge of tears, “if we go down there, how will we ever get home?”
Kami-sama had smiled a little at Massu’s teary eyes, looking gentle. “The way home is to bring another person happiness,” he’d explained kindly if cryptically, and patted Masuda’s head.
Then he’d turned back to Tegoshi, looking a little more severe at the bigger of the two troublemakers. “And since this was undoubtedly your idea,” he’d started (and Tegoshi did not move to deny it), “you’ll have an additional punishment. You’ll be the one who has to remember it all.”
Tegoshi had blinked, had meant to ask what Kami-sama was trying to say by making that an additional punishment, but before he’d been able to move there had been a brilliant, blinding flash of light and then… nothing.
Now, nearly fourteen years later, he remembers, just like Kami-sama had said he would. He sees Massu’s face on the TV, smiling brightly, making so many human beings happy just like Kami-sama had said he would. The path back home.
At first Tegoshi isn’t too keen on joining Massu up there on that stage despite the joy of their pseudo-reunion; the outfits are ridiculous and the lights are too artificially bright and it all seems like a lot of work. Tegoshi is sure that if he just stays here like he’s been his whole mortal life, his grandmother and his mother will continue to have fits of happiness whenever he does so much as walk through the door each day (and really, that’s enough for him). He’s certain it’ll be enough to get him home eventually.
But then, before he can really commit to the decision, there is an abrupt break in the music as the camera suddenly shifts to another stage and comes to rest on the face of another boy entirely. This boy is thin and tired-looking but commands a great deal of attention all the same; he steps forward as the audience roars and the lights flash dramatically, pursing his lips before starting to sing into the microphone.
It isn’t a good singing voice by any means; in fact, it’s probably even poorer than the very worst angelic voices that Tegoshi has ever heard in heaven (and that says a lot, considering that some of those bad heavenly singers are used to cause maelstroms on earth).
But despite all that, the boy’s performance is similar to the songs of the angels in the only way that really matters; when he sings Tegoshi can feel exactly what he feels, can read it like an open book. In this boy’s voice Tegoshi hears an infinite weariness coming from somewhere deep inside, a kind of restrained, helpless feeling that nearly breaks Tegoshi’s heart.
Tegoshi stares- silent- until the entire performance is over, until the audience erupts into admiring, oblivious screeches and the boy bows sheepishly before retreating backstage.
“Yuya,” his mother calls suddenly, sounding concerned when she comes into the room with tea and snacks for him, “Yuya, don’t sit so close to the TV. It’s not good for you.”
He turns to her and smiles; “Mom,” he says, sweetly, brightly, “I think there’s something I have to do.”
~~~~~
When he enters the jimusho a few months later all of the higher ups are immediately impressed with him; “Where did you learn to sing?” they ask, “Do you practice every day?”
Tegoshi smiles at them cutely and says, “I taught myself!” and “Yes!” and pretty soon there is a buzz around him that pushes him to the forefront of all of the other kids who had joined at the same time that he did. At this rate everyone says that he’ll get to hold a microphone before his peers and dance on stage before them and go on TV programs before them. He can tell that sometimes they resent him for it and sometimes they admire him for it, but mostly they ignore him, because even if he is talented and noticed he still has a long wait before he’s fit to be put in the one place that they’re all ultimately aiming to reach.
“He’s not that good,” they say amongst one another, and comfort themselves in those moments when Tegoshi’s voice wavers or cracks during rehearsals.
In the meantime, Tegoshi struggles to find a balance between his heavenly singing voice and the limitations that being human puts on it; sometimes he sounds good and sometimes he doesn’t and he thinks that it really is difficult to be a regular person down here on earth because you have to concentrate so hard on keeping your voice steady when in heaven, it’s something that comes naturally to all of the angels.
“So this is what I can and can’t do,” he surmises philosophically after some time, and tells himself he’ll just have to work that much harder to get his singing under control.
He thinks it’ll take a while to perfect, but tells himself he’ll work hard, because he wants to meet that boy called Yamapi one day, face to face.
He wants to know how his songs will sound when he smiles and really means it.
~~~~~
The first time he meets Massu as a mortal it’s for a filming they coincidentally have together that day; Tegoshi slips up and suddenly says, “Hey, Massu!” in greeting, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they’ve known each other forever.
Massu blinks at him when he hears the nickname and it looks like something is clicking inside his head suddenly; Tegoshi almost hopes that maybe Massu will remember too, and that way he’ll have someone to talk about this with, someone to remember heaven with and be friends with and try hard to make people happy with.
But then that moment is gone, and the look of confused recognition from Massu’s face is gone with it; he simply smiles back guilelessly and says, “O-okay. Tegoshi, let’s have a good filming today, ne?”
Tegoshi is disappointed to not be remembered but not enough to pout about it; he thinks it’s good that no matter where they are or what, Massu will still be his friend just like that.
So for now, he just smiles back and says, “Un!”
~~~~~
“I really admire Yamapi,” Tegoshi says to Johnny one day, when Johnny has taken Massu and him out to karaoke because his business instincts tell him that the two of them will sound good together somehow. Their voices, he thinks, are unique.
“Yamapi is a good person to admire. He’s very marketable,” Johnny agrees.
Tegoshi laughs, and thinks that even though Yamapi is very marketable, Yamapi isn’t always very proud about it.
“He’s a well-behaved idol,” Johnny explains, “No one ever has any problems with him. If all the boys aimed to be like that it would be ideal for the company,” he adds, with a significant look at Tegoshi.
Tegoshi nods and as the next Kinki Kids’ song queues up for he and Massu to sing together, he decides that he wants Yamapi to be his path back home no matter what.
~~~~~
The following September, Tegoshi debuts with Yamapi and Massu both.
Somehow, after constantly watching Yamapi from behind, the news that they are going to be in the same group makes Tegoshi more nervous than he thought he could ever be.
Tegoshi bumbles the first time they meet and looks up at Yamapi, wide-eyed and obvious enough to make Yamapi smile that stage-smile of his at Tegoshi reflexively, the one that’s more anxious than real.
“I really admire you,” Tegoshi blurts without thinking, but catches himself before he can add, “for being able to put up with everything the way you do.”
“Um, thanks,” Yamapi manages, before Ryo gives them both a weird look and Yamapi hastens to join him on the other side of the room.
“Is everything okay?” Massu asks a moment later, ambling over to Tegoshi’s side with a sweet bun in hand and with his brow slightly furrowed. He looks concerned, even though technically he doesn’t know Tegoshi that well yet; Tegoshi thinks he feels his heart swell a little when he realizes Massu is worried.
He smiles.
“Everything will be okay as long as we do our best to make people happy!” he assures the older boy.
Massu blinks and takes another bite of his sweet bun. “Right!”
~~~~~
The first few months in NewS are busy and strange to Tegoshi, but in the moments when he’s not worrying about how his costume works or if he’ll be able to sing the way he wants to on stage, he watches the others and thinks that they’re all a little bit like Yamapi too; maybe that’s what this kind of job does to you.
Ryo is tired and cranky from the all the extra traveling; he doesn’t like strangers and he’s shy by nature. Yet here he is, spending hours and hours every day with a bunch of strangers and having to pretend that it’s alright because there’s a camera right over there, watching him all the time.
Uchi gets homesick and clings to Ryo because Ryo is the closest thing he has to home out here; Kusano and Koyama and Shige do the same with each other but try to be friendly because it seems like the thing to do. Tegoshi thinks that maybe that’s one of the most tiring things of all, the whole doing things simply because you feel a duty too, because it’s expected of you. It seems even more difficult than dancing (which honestly, Tegoshi still can’t quite get the hang of yet, what with all this gravity weighing him down).
Yamapi is the busiest one out of all of them and sometimes he has trouble speaking to the group through his weariness and his need to be the polite, upstanding leader who always has to set an example for the others. Tegoshi wants very much to make him feel better somehow, but it’s hard when all he gets in response is that familiar pained smile and a mumbled thanks whenever he says anything kind to Yamapi or whenever he praises Yamapi with all his might.
At night Tegoshi pouts to himself and stares up at the ceiling of his room, wondering if Kami-sama is looking back down at him right now, laughing.
“Why is it so hard for everyone to be happy?” he asks, and waits a few minutes before he realizes that he isn’t going to get an answer.
He rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes with a huff; he thinks it’s odd that even though their job as idols is to bring joy to hundreds of thousands of other people, they don’t get to keep nearly enough of it for themselves. Sometimes it feels like out of everyone, they’re the ones who need it most.
He wonders what he can do to help fix it.
~~~~~
He figures it out one day a few weeks later, purely by accident.
It’s when he’s in the dressing room, very seriously practicing his singing for a concert as loudly as he can; he’s still learning after all, about his limitations on the mortal plane. He aims for a note that’s too high for a fifteen-year-old human boy and there is an awful crack in his voice when he loses the pitch completely. It annoys Uchi who is homesick and tired and not feeling well, and Uchi screams, “Would you stop that?!” while looking grumpy on the couch. “It sounds awful!”
For a second, Tegoshi is almost scared; Uchi’s tone is angry, the kind of angry that puts you beyond caring if you hurt someone else’s feelings in front of other people.
But when Tegoshi turns around to apologize to his groupmate he sees it unexpectedly, that thing he’s been looking for this whole time.
Under Uchi’s glare, under his irritation and his uncharitable thoughts and the impatience and homesickness and his bone-weariness, Tegoshi can see something that looks like a brief, blessed moment of reprieve.
Tegoshi thinks that it looks a little bit like freedom, if freedom had a face.
He stares.
Uchi blinks back, and after a minute, squirms uncomfortably. “What? I didn’t mean it that way,” he starts automatically, his years of training already putting him on damage control, “Just… you shouldn’t be so loud is all.”
But then Tegoshi beams at him. “Uchi, you’re the best!” he declares, and means every word of it as he wraps his arms around the older boy and hugs him tightly.
Uchi stares at the top of Tegoshi’s head. “Are you okay?”
“Un!” Tegoshi says, and just hugs tighter.
Uchi frowns. “Oi…just because you’re being cute don’t think I’ll fall for you or anything. Yeah.”
Tegoshi laughs.
And after a minute, Uchi sighs helplessly and pats Tegoshi’s head.
~~~~~
The next week, when they have activities together again, Tegoshi almost seems like a different person entirely. One who is less scared and much more annoying.
“Shige,” Tegoshi starts during a small break in the schedule as the two of them are studying at the table together, “Shige will you help me with my homework?”
Shige eyes him. “I have my own homework. What’s so hard about high school science anyway? You’re just not trying hard enough.”
Tegoshi pouts. “It’s easy for Shige because he’s smart, but I don’t get this at all.”
Shige sighs, looking annoyed. “Talk to me again when I’ve finished my own work,” he capitulates.
Tegoshi nods. “Okay!”
Five minutes later, Tegoshi decides to whine again. “Shige I really don’t get this!”
Shige ignores him.
“Shige, are you listening to me?”
Shige twitches.
“Shige? Shige? Shige!!!!”
Shige throws his book down. “What?!”
Tegoshi calmly hands him his science book and points. “That.”
Shige glances over it.
Sighs.
“All it’s saying,” he starts, sounding like his energy is suddenly gone for some reason, “is that when the earth’s plates rub up against each other as they pass one another it causes pressure to build up between them. When we experience little tremors here and there, that’s some of the pressure buildup being relieved. This is better for us than not feeling anything at all for a long time, because even though we can’t see or hear it, pressure is building under the surface constantly. The longer we go without feeling these little earthquakes, the more pressure is growing underneath the surface, and because of that, the result will be an earthquake of devastating magnitude once we hit a certain breaking point.”
“Eh,” Tegoshi marvels, looking impressed, “so even if the little earthquakes are bothersome, feeling them every once in a while means that some of the tension under the surface is easing.”
Shige nods, and seems pleased that his explanation went over so quickly. “Exactly.”
Tegoshi beams. “Shige is really good at this!”
Shige snorts and hands him his textbook back. “You know,” he starts after a beat, trying to sound nonchalant, “if you highlight the important parts now as you read them, it’ll make going back to review before exams easier. Especially with our schedules.”
“Thanks, Shige!” Tegoshi chirps, and settles his book back into his lap happily. “I guess science really is all about how the world works, ne.”
Shige gives him an odd look, but strangely enough, doesn’t say anything derisive to say about that in reply.
For now, anyway.
~~~~~
Fifteen minutes later, Shige screams again, because this time Tegoshi asks for clarification behind the whole concept of intense heat and pressure turning carbon into diamonds.
“Eh,” Tegoshi breathes after Shige explains it, “Then maybe we’ll be diamonds one day too.”
Shige rolls his eyes. “We’d be dead first,” he snorts.
“Shige’s too negative!”
Shige sputters. “Don’t say that to someone you keep pestering for help!”
Tegoshi just laughs.
“Is something wrong with Tegoshi today?” Koyama murmurs worriedly to Massu that as they watch the pair from the other side of the room. “He seems…different.”
Massu shrugs as he munches on a nikuman, “That’s just how Tegoshi is,” he says naturally, even though he’s not quite sure where it comes from given that he’s only known Tegoshi a little bit longer than the others.
“Oh,” Koyama answers, and seems to accept it anyway.
~~~~~
The following week at dance practice Tegoshi annoys Ryo with his bad timing to the point where he stops what he’s doing in the middle of the eight count and shouts; “Would you pay attention to where you’re going?!” at the top of his lungs, glaring hard and chest heaving.
It shocks the others into stillness, into silence while they wait to see what will happen next because all of them too scared to intervene. The group is too new, they think, too delicate to withstand this kind of fight yet.
But then Tegoshi cocks his head to the side and smiles apologetically. “Sorry, Nishikido-kun,” he says, “I didn’t know it was bothering you, ne.”
Ryo blinks. “Well…now you do.”
Tegoshi laughs back and nods. “Now I do!”
Ryo looks a little lost at the easy capitulation, but after a minute sighs like he’s too tired to try and figure it out. “Okay,” is all he says.
Yamapi clears his throat. “We should get back to work,” he starts dutifully, and looks at Ryo carefully.
But Ryo looks fine again, if a little boggled. In fact, he gets closer to Tegoshi as they start up again and corrects the step he’s doing wrong. “Shift your weight here when you spin, that way you can stop in time to not stumble towards me like you’re going to hit me. It throws off the whole formation.”
Tegoshi beams. “Okay! Thank you, Nishikido-kun!”
Ryo smiles back a little because he can’t help it, and Tegoshi thinks to himself that maybe this is what he can do for them, one small tremor at a time.
~~~~~
After that it’s easy enough to get Koyama to shout; it happens on an off day, when Tegoshi calls him five times in so many minutes to ask directions because he keeps getting lost. “How should I know where you’re going if I’m not even there?!” Koyama exclaims in a brief moment of exasperation.
Tegoshi turns thoughtful and says, “If that’s the case, do you want to hang out with me today?”
Koyama catches the next train out, and they spend an entire afternoon getting lost in Shibuya together. Koyama buys him a belt and they take ridiculous pictures at the station purikura shop before Koyama sends him home.
After that, Kusano is the next to get annoyed with Tegoshi when Tegoshi criticizes his singing. “You’re projecting your vibrato from the wrong place,” he says simply, and Kusano frowns and retaliates by telling him, “Well, you’re leading wrong on beat seven of the chorus in the Akaku choreography; you have to plant your feet before moving your shoulders or it looks stupid.”
Silence.
Then, laughter, from both of them.
“From the chest,” Tegoshi instructs around a smile.
“You have to start moving your left leg as early as beat five,” Kusano clarifies, before grinning and showing him how.
Yamapi and Koyama walk in just in time to see them finish together, sweating and grinning, and Koyama smiles because he can’t help it. “Maybe NEWS is getting closer,” he says, more to himself than to Yamapi.
Yamapi hears him anyway, watching the two youngest members carefully. “Maybe,” he says, because it seems like the thing to say.
~~~~~
“Sometimes I have dreams,” Massu says at random week later, when they’re all in the van and Tegoshi’s head is resting tiredly on his shoulder.
Tegoshi blinks up at him sleepily. “What kind of dreams?” he asks, but thinks he knows.
“I think they were full of marshmallows,” Massu tells him. “I was walking on marshmallows and I was really happy. Marshmallows are delicious, you know.”
Tegoshi laughs and settles back down, cheek against Massu’s arm. “It sounds nice.”
Massu smiles. “I think it was.”
In the backseat, Tegoshi hears it when Ryo snorts tiredly and calls them both morons. But not in a particularly bad way.
~~~~~
“Yamashita-kun,” Tegoshi starts after the next concert, “will you take me out to eat? And shop? Everyone else has but you, ne.” He sounds determined because he is; Leader is the only one who hasn’t let it all out yet, the only one left who still feels very far away.
Yamapi blinks. Sighs. “Sure,” he says, and smiles that reserved smile of his again. “I have a little bit of time on Friday.”
“Eh, maybe we can karaoke too!”
Yamapi’s smile never changes. “Sure, if there’s time.”
They get called up on stage for rehearsal after that, and Tegoshi frowns when Yamapi excuses himself to go finish changing.
“Leader never gets angry, ne,” he says a little bit later, and Koyama blinks when he hears.
The oldest member smiles. “Leader is always very calm, I guess,” is how he responds, before dutifully herding everyone else up the stairs so they don’t keep the staff waiting. “I wonder what Yamapi angry would even look like, ne.”
Tegoshi beams. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll show us one day, Kei-chan!” he says, and believes every word of it.
Koyama blinks; he isn’t really sure how to respond to that.
~~~~
And blah blah blah, I gave up somewhere around there because I looked back on it and clearly had no idea what I was doing. The end. <3
Tegoshi remembers everything for the first time in the summer just before his fourteenth birthday; it’s prompted suddenly and without warning one day, when he inadvertently sees a certain familiar face on the television screen (in the very, very back) and thinks to himself that it’s a face he’s seen somewhere before. He thinks that maybe it’s a face he’s dreamed of.
He’s dreamed all his life about a lot of things really, but none of those things ever really makes any sense to him up until that moment, when he sees that particular face with that particular smile, a figure he’s known forever wheeling around a brightly lit stage on roller skates while wearing a ridiculous, sequin-covered costume.
“Ah, it’s Massu,” he says, when it all comes back to him, and that’s all.
He laughs at the absurdity of the whole situation after that and watches the television some more, letting the memories flood over him in a warm, familiar wave; he recalls the sight and smell and feel of heaven, the crystal droplets of rain and the golden rays of sun.
He recalls more specifically, the mischief that got the two of them sent down here in the first place; it was when they’d stumbled upon the rain maker one afternoon, and had used it to play a prank on the mortals instead of going to class to learn how to be good little angels like all of the other kids in the academy.
“You’ll have to be punished,” Kami-sama had said to them after they’d been caught, as they’d dripped sheepishly at his feet with the nozzles still tucked behind their backs like it would help if he couldn’t see them. “You can’t just play with human lives so easily, you know,” he’d sighed.
“It was just an innocent game,” Tegoshi had protested, out of place and out of turn again. He’d pouted too, and Kami-sama had frowned, had assumed (correctly) that the whole thing had been Tegoshi’s idea after all.
“You’re punishment,” he’d said first, looking at Massu gravely, “is to go to earth and learn how to live the lives of humans. Then maybe you’ll understand what it’s like down there, and why we can’t just play with them however we see fit.”
Massu had become troubled at the news, “But,” he’d stammered, maybe on the verge of tears, “if we go down there, how will we ever get home?”
Kami-sama had smiled a little at Massu’s teary eyes, looking gentle. “The way home is to bring another person happiness,” he’d explained kindly if cryptically, and patted Masuda’s head.
Then he’d turned back to Tegoshi, looking a little more severe at the bigger of the two troublemakers. “And since this was undoubtedly your idea,” he’d started (and Tegoshi did not move to deny it), “you’ll have an additional punishment. You’ll be the one who has to remember it all.”
Tegoshi had blinked, had meant to ask what Kami-sama was trying to say by making that an additional punishment, but before he’d been able to move there had been a brilliant, blinding flash of light and then… nothing.
Now, nearly fourteen years later, he remembers, just like Kami-sama had said he would. He sees Massu’s face on the TV, smiling brightly, making so many human beings happy just like Kami-sama had said he would. The path back home.
At first Tegoshi isn’t too keen on joining Massu up there on that stage despite the joy of their pseudo-reunion; the outfits are ridiculous and the lights are too artificially bright and it all seems like a lot of work. Tegoshi is sure that if he just stays here like he’s been his whole mortal life, his grandmother and his mother will continue to have fits of happiness whenever he does so much as walk through the door each day (and really, that’s enough for him). He’s certain it’ll be enough to get him home eventually.
But then, before he can really commit to the decision, there is an abrupt break in the music as the camera suddenly shifts to another stage and comes to rest on the face of another boy entirely. This boy is thin and tired-looking but commands a great deal of attention all the same; he steps forward as the audience roars and the lights flash dramatically, pursing his lips before starting to sing into the microphone.
It isn’t a good singing voice by any means; in fact, it’s probably even poorer than the very worst angelic voices that Tegoshi has ever heard in heaven (and that says a lot, considering that some of those bad heavenly singers are used to cause maelstroms on earth).
But despite all that, the boy’s performance is similar to the songs of the angels in the only way that really matters; when he sings Tegoshi can feel exactly what he feels, can read it like an open book. In this boy’s voice Tegoshi hears an infinite weariness coming from somewhere deep inside, a kind of restrained, helpless feeling that nearly breaks Tegoshi’s heart.
Tegoshi stares- silent- until the entire performance is over, until the audience erupts into admiring, oblivious screeches and the boy bows sheepishly before retreating backstage.
“Yuya,” his mother calls suddenly, sounding concerned when she comes into the room with tea and snacks for him, “Yuya, don’t sit so close to the TV. It’s not good for you.”
He turns to her and smiles; “Mom,” he says, sweetly, brightly, “I think there’s something I have to do.”
~~~~~
When he enters the jimusho a few months later all of the higher ups are immediately impressed with him; “Where did you learn to sing?” they ask, “Do you practice every day?”
Tegoshi smiles at them cutely and says, “I taught myself!” and “Yes!” and pretty soon there is a buzz around him that pushes him to the forefront of all of the other kids who had joined at the same time that he did. At this rate everyone says that he’ll get to hold a microphone before his peers and dance on stage before them and go on TV programs before them. He can tell that sometimes they resent him for it and sometimes they admire him for it, but mostly they ignore him, because even if he is talented and noticed he still has a long wait before he’s fit to be put in the one place that they’re all ultimately aiming to reach.
“He’s not that good,” they say amongst one another, and comfort themselves in those moments when Tegoshi’s voice wavers or cracks during rehearsals.
In the meantime, Tegoshi struggles to find a balance between his heavenly singing voice and the limitations that being human puts on it; sometimes he sounds good and sometimes he doesn’t and he thinks that it really is difficult to be a regular person down here on earth because you have to concentrate so hard on keeping your voice steady when in heaven, it’s something that comes naturally to all of the angels.
“So this is what I can and can’t do,” he surmises philosophically after some time, and tells himself he’ll just have to work that much harder to get his singing under control.
He thinks it’ll take a while to perfect, but tells himself he’ll work hard, because he wants to meet that boy called Yamapi one day, face to face.
He wants to know how his songs will sound when he smiles and really means it.
~~~~~
The first time he meets Massu as a mortal it’s for a filming they coincidentally have together that day; Tegoshi slips up and suddenly says, “Hey, Massu!” in greeting, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like they’ve known each other forever.
Massu blinks at him when he hears the nickname and it looks like something is clicking inside his head suddenly; Tegoshi almost hopes that maybe Massu will remember too, and that way he’ll have someone to talk about this with, someone to remember heaven with and be friends with and try hard to make people happy with.
But then that moment is gone, and the look of confused recognition from Massu’s face is gone with it; he simply smiles back guilelessly and says, “O-okay. Tegoshi, let’s have a good filming today, ne?”
Tegoshi is disappointed to not be remembered but not enough to pout about it; he thinks it’s good that no matter where they are or what, Massu will still be his friend just like that.
So for now, he just smiles back and says, “Un!”
~~~~~
“I really admire Yamapi,” Tegoshi says to Johnny one day, when Johnny has taken Massu and him out to karaoke because his business instincts tell him that the two of them will sound good together somehow. Their voices, he thinks, are unique.
“Yamapi is a good person to admire. He’s very marketable,” Johnny agrees.
Tegoshi laughs, and thinks that even though Yamapi is very marketable, Yamapi isn’t always very proud about it.
“He’s a well-behaved idol,” Johnny explains, “No one ever has any problems with him. If all the boys aimed to be like that it would be ideal for the company,” he adds, with a significant look at Tegoshi.
Tegoshi nods and as the next Kinki Kids’ song queues up for he and Massu to sing together, he decides that he wants Yamapi to be his path back home no matter what.
~~~~~
The following September, Tegoshi debuts with Yamapi and Massu both.
Somehow, after constantly watching Yamapi from behind, the news that they are going to be in the same group makes Tegoshi more nervous than he thought he could ever be.
Tegoshi bumbles the first time they meet and looks up at Yamapi, wide-eyed and obvious enough to make Yamapi smile that stage-smile of his at Tegoshi reflexively, the one that’s more anxious than real.
“I really admire you,” Tegoshi blurts without thinking, but catches himself before he can add, “for being able to put up with everything the way you do.”
“Um, thanks,” Yamapi manages, before Ryo gives them both a weird look and Yamapi hastens to join him on the other side of the room.
“Is everything okay?” Massu asks a moment later, ambling over to Tegoshi’s side with a sweet bun in hand and with his brow slightly furrowed. He looks concerned, even though technically he doesn’t know Tegoshi that well yet; Tegoshi thinks he feels his heart swell a little when he realizes Massu is worried.
He smiles.
“Everything will be okay as long as we do our best to make people happy!” he assures the older boy.
Massu blinks and takes another bite of his sweet bun. “Right!”
~~~~~
The first few months in NewS are busy and strange to Tegoshi, but in the moments when he’s not worrying about how his costume works or if he’ll be able to sing the way he wants to on stage, he watches the others and thinks that they’re all a little bit like Yamapi too; maybe that’s what this kind of job does to you.
Ryo is tired and cranky from the all the extra traveling; he doesn’t like strangers and he’s shy by nature. Yet here he is, spending hours and hours every day with a bunch of strangers and having to pretend that it’s alright because there’s a camera right over there, watching him all the time.
Uchi gets homesick and clings to Ryo because Ryo is the closest thing he has to home out here; Kusano and Koyama and Shige do the same with each other but try to be friendly because it seems like the thing to do. Tegoshi thinks that maybe that’s one of the most tiring things of all, the whole doing things simply because you feel a duty too, because it’s expected of you. It seems even more difficult than dancing (which honestly, Tegoshi still can’t quite get the hang of yet, what with all this gravity weighing him down).
Yamapi is the busiest one out of all of them and sometimes he has trouble speaking to the group through his weariness and his need to be the polite, upstanding leader who always has to set an example for the others. Tegoshi wants very much to make him feel better somehow, but it’s hard when all he gets in response is that familiar pained smile and a mumbled thanks whenever he says anything kind to Yamapi or whenever he praises Yamapi with all his might.
At night Tegoshi pouts to himself and stares up at the ceiling of his room, wondering if Kami-sama is looking back down at him right now, laughing.
“Why is it so hard for everyone to be happy?” he asks, and waits a few minutes before he realizes that he isn’t going to get an answer.
He rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes with a huff; he thinks it’s odd that even though their job as idols is to bring joy to hundreds of thousands of other people, they don’t get to keep nearly enough of it for themselves. Sometimes it feels like out of everyone, they’re the ones who need it most.
He wonders what he can do to help fix it.
~~~~~
He figures it out one day a few weeks later, purely by accident.
It’s when he’s in the dressing room, very seriously practicing his singing for a concert as loudly as he can; he’s still learning after all, about his limitations on the mortal plane. He aims for a note that’s too high for a fifteen-year-old human boy and there is an awful crack in his voice when he loses the pitch completely. It annoys Uchi who is homesick and tired and not feeling well, and Uchi screams, “Would you stop that?!” while looking grumpy on the couch. “It sounds awful!”
For a second, Tegoshi is almost scared; Uchi’s tone is angry, the kind of angry that puts you beyond caring if you hurt someone else’s feelings in front of other people.
But when Tegoshi turns around to apologize to his groupmate he sees it unexpectedly, that thing he’s been looking for this whole time.
Under Uchi’s glare, under his irritation and his uncharitable thoughts and the impatience and homesickness and his bone-weariness, Tegoshi can see something that looks like a brief, blessed moment of reprieve.
Tegoshi thinks that it looks a little bit like freedom, if freedom had a face.
He stares.
Uchi blinks back, and after a minute, squirms uncomfortably. “What? I didn’t mean it that way,” he starts automatically, his years of training already putting him on damage control, “Just… you shouldn’t be so loud is all.”
But then Tegoshi beams at him. “Uchi, you’re the best!” he declares, and means every word of it as he wraps his arms around the older boy and hugs him tightly.
Uchi stares at the top of Tegoshi’s head. “Are you okay?”
“Un!” Tegoshi says, and just hugs tighter.
Uchi frowns. “Oi…just because you’re being cute don’t think I’ll fall for you or anything. Yeah.”
Tegoshi laughs.
And after a minute, Uchi sighs helplessly and pats Tegoshi’s head.
~~~~~
The next week, when they have activities together again, Tegoshi almost seems like a different person entirely. One who is less scared and much more annoying.
“Shige,” Tegoshi starts during a small break in the schedule as the two of them are studying at the table together, “Shige will you help me with my homework?”
Shige eyes him. “I have my own homework. What’s so hard about high school science anyway? You’re just not trying hard enough.”
Tegoshi pouts. “It’s easy for Shige because he’s smart, but I don’t get this at all.”
Shige sighs, looking annoyed. “Talk to me again when I’ve finished my own work,” he capitulates.
Tegoshi nods. “Okay!”
Five minutes later, Tegoshi decides to whine again. “Shige I really don’t get this!”
Shige ignores him.
“Shige, are you listening to me?”
Shige twitches.
“Shige? Shige? Shige!!!!”
Shige throws his book down. “What?!”
Tegoshi calmly hands him his science book and points. “That.”
Shige glances over it.
Sighs.
“All it’s saying,” he starts, sounding like his energy is suddenly gone for some reason, “is that when the earth’s plates rub up against each other as they pass one another it causes pressure to build up between them. When we experience little tremors here and there, that’s some of the pressure buildup being relieved. This is better for us than not feeling anything at all for a long time, because even though we can’t see or hear it, pressure is building under the surface constantly. The longer we go without feeling these little earthquakes, the more pressure is growing underneath the surface, and because of that, the result will be an earthquake of devastating magnitude once we hit a certain breaking point.”
“Eh,” Tegoshi marvels, looking impressed, “so even if the little earthquakes are bothersome, feeling them every once in a while means that some of the tension under the surface is easing.”
Shige nods, and seems pleased that his explanation went over so quickly. “Exactly.”
Tegoshi beams. “Shige is really good at this!”
Shige snorts and hands him his textbook back. “You know,” he starts after a beat, trying to sound nonchalant, “if you highlight the important parts now as you read them, it’ll make going back to review before exams easier. Especially with our schedules.”
“Thanks, Shige!” Tegoshi chirps, and settles his book back into his lap happily. “I guess science really is all about how the world works, ne.”
Shige gives him an odd look, but strangely enough, doesn’t say anything derisive to say about that in reply.
For now, anyway.
~~~~~
Fifteen minutes later, Shige screams again, because this time Tegoshi asks for clarification behind the whole concept of intense heat and pressure turning carbon into diamonds.
“Eh,” Tegoshi breathes after Shige explains it, “Then maybe we’ll be diamonds one day too.”
Shige rolls his eyes. “We’d be dead first,” he snorts.
“Shige’s too negative!”
Shige sputters. “Don’t say that to someone you keep pestering for help!”
Tegoshi just laughs.
“Is something wrong with Tegoshi today?” Koyama murmurs worriedly to Massu that as they watch the pair from the other side of the room. “He seems…different.”
Massu shrugs as he munches on a nikuman, “That’s just how Tegoshi is,” he says naturally, even though he’s not quite sure where it comes from given that he’s only known Tegoshi a little bit longer than the others.
“Oh,” Koyama answers, and seems to accept it anyway.
~~~~~
The following week at dance practice Tegoshi annoys Ryo with his bad timing to the point where he stops what he’s doing in the middle of the eight count and shouts; “Would you pay attention to where you’re going?!” at the top of his lungs, glaring hard and chest heaving.
It shocks the others into stillness, into silence while they wait to see what will happen next because all of them too scared to intervene. The group is too new, they think, too delicate to withstand this kind of fight yet.
But then Tegoshi cocks his head to the side and smiles apologetically. “Sorry, Nishikido-kun,” he says, “I didn’t know it was bothering you, ne.”
Ryo blinks. “Well…now you do.”
Tegoshi laughs back and nods. “Now I do!”
Ryo looks a little lost at the easy capitulation, but after a minute sighs like he’s too tired to try and figure it out. “Okay,” is all he says.
Yamapi clears his throat. “We should get back to work,” he starts dutifully, and looks at Ryo carefully.
But Ryo looks fine again, if a little boggled. In fact, he gets closer to Tegoshi as they start up again and corrects the step he’s doing wrong. “Shift your weight here when you spin, that way you can stop in time to not stumble towards me like you’re going to hit me. It throws off the whole formation.”
Tegoshi beams. “Okay! Thank you, Nishikido-kun!”
Ryo smiles back a little because he can’t help it, and Tegoshi thinks to himself that maybe this is what he can do for them, one small tremor at a time.
~~~~~
After that it’s easy enough to get Koyama to shout; it happens on an off day, when Tegoshi calls him five times in so many minutes to ask directions because he keeps getting lost. “How should I know where you’re going if I’m not even there?!” Koyama exclaims in a brief moment of exasperation.
Tegoshi turns thoughtful and says, “If that’s the case, do you want to hang out with me today?”
Koyama catches the next train out, and they spend an entire afternoon getting lost in Shibuya together. Koyama buys him a belt and they take ridiculous pictures at the station purikura shop before Koyama sends him home.
After that, Kusano is the next to get annoyed with Tegoshi when Tegoshi criticizes his singing. “You’re projecting your vibrato from the wrong place,” he says simply, and Kusano frowns and retaliates by telling him, “Well, you’re leading wrong on beat seven of the chorus in the Akaku choreography; you have to plant your feet before moving your shoulders or it looks stupid.”
Silence.
Then, laughter, from both of them.
“From the chest,” Tegoshi instructs around a smile.
“You have to start moving your left leg as early as beat five,” Kusano clarifies, before grinning and showing him how.
Yamapi and Koyama walk in just in time to see them finish together, sweating and grinning, and Koyama smiles because he can’t help it. “Maybe NEWS is getting closer,” he says, more to himself than to Yamapi.
Yamapi hears him anyway, watching the two youngest members carefully. “Maybe,” he says, because it seems like the thing to say.
~~~~~
“Sometimes I have dreams,” Massu says at random week later, when they’re all in the van and Tegoshi’s head is resting tiredly on his shoulder.
Tegoshi blinks up at him sleepily. “What kind of dreams?” he asks, but thinks he knows.
“I think they were full of marshmallows,” Massu tells him. “I was walking on marshmallows and I was really happy. Marshmallows are delicious, you know.”
Tegoshi laughs and settles back down, cheek against Massu’s arm. “It sounds nice.”
Massu smiles. “I think it was.”
In the backseat, Tegoshi hears it when Ryo snorts tiredly and calls them both morons. But not in a particularly bad way.
~~~~~
“Yamashita-kun,” Tegoshi starts after the next concert, “will you take me out to eat? And shop? Everyone else has but you, ne.” He sounds determined because he is; Leader is the only one who hasn’t let it all out yet, the only one left who still feels very far away.
Yamapi blinks. Sighs. “Sure,” he says, and smiles that reserved smile of his again. “I have a little bit of time on Friday.”
“Eh, maybe we can karaoke too!”
Yamapi’s smile never changes. “Sure, if there’s time.”
They get called up on stage for rehearsal after that, and Tegoshi frowns when Yamapi excuses himself to go finish changing.
“Leader never gets angry, ne,” he says a little bit later, and Koyama blinks when he hears.
The oldest member smiles. “Leader is always very calm, I guess,” is how he responds, before dutifully herding everyone else up the stairs so they don’t keep the staff waiting. “I wonder what Yamapi angry would even look like, ne.”
Tegoshi beams. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll show us one day, Kei-chan!” he says, and believes every word of it.
Koyama blinks; he isn’t really sure how to respond to that.
~~~~
And blah blah blah, I gave up somewhere around there because I looked back on it and clearly had no idea what I was doing. The end. <3