fic for peroxidepest17

[newsficcon_mods]

Gift fic for: peroxidepest17
From: newsficcon

Title: Twelve Heads Are Better Than Six
Rating: PG
Pairing: NEWS whole-group gen fic
Summary: NEWS accidentally time travel to 2013 to find their group falling apart and their future selves at each other’s throats.
Notes: This was meant to be crack, but it came out more serious than I’d intended. It’s not sad, but unfortunately I’m not sure it’s what you had in mind either, peroxidepest17. Please feel free to kick me. Thanks to S&M (my slave driverscheerleaders have the best initials in the world♥) for all their support.


They all agreed that over a year and a half without a concert was too long. Even Massu and Tegoshi, despite their TegoMass tour having only just ended, were excited about finally performing with their larger group.

Everyone was in high spirits, despite the gruelling practice schedule they’d just been through alongside promotional activities for the concerts and their new album, and now the day was almost upon them.

It felt good, standing on stage together, even in the empty, echoing space of Kyocera Dome. They’d all been doing this for long enough that they could picture how it would look tomorrow, could almost see and hear the mass of fans with their uchiwa and their penlights, filling up the currently vacant seats.

It felt good off stage too, fooling around together while the technicians and stagehands made adjustments, and just making general conversation. Tegoshi recruited Shige to play pranks on Koyama with him. Ryo amused Yamapi and Massu with anecdotes from his activities with Kanjani8. Massu snorted coffee milk out his nose. Tegoshi gave himself a stomach ache from laughing too hard. The rest of them pinned him down and wrestled him out of his clothes in revenge.

It was a nice feeling, and despite the adrenaline buzz from their approaching concerts, they were all filled with an innate sense of peace.

“I can’t believe it’s almost tomorrow already,” Koyama said around a mouthful of catered lunch. “I’m actually nervous.”

“Kei-chan is just out of practice,” Tegoshi said. It was probably meant to sound reassuring, but instead it just came out sounding superior. “By tomorrow, you’ll be back in the swing of things before you know it.”

Shige and Koyama shared a look, but didn’t say anything and Yamapi shoved noodles into his mouth to hide a smile. They were all thinking the same thing with varying degrees of fondness; Tegoshi would probably never change.

They exchanged casual, friendly banter as they ate, the twenty minute break passing in the blink of an eye, and before they knew it, they were being called up onto the stage again. They took their positions, and Yamapi looked around, a frown on his face.

“Where are Koyama and Shige?”

The four of them craned their necks, looking for their missing members, eventually spotting them back near their lunch area, speaking with a stagehand.

Ryo sighed, frustrated. He never had liked being held up.

“What are they doing? Someone go and get them.

Tegoshi solved the problem, raising the microphone to his lips and all but screeching into it, “Kei-chan, Shige! We’re starting!”

They both jumped, heads whipping around in tandem, much to the amusement of their bandmates.

The two of them looked a bit sheepish as they jogged over and joined the others.

“Sorry.” Koyama’s face was a little red. “I was asking that guy if he needed help moving his equipment and then he and Shige got into a little argument…”

“It wasn’t an argument,” Shige interrupted, flushing a bit as well. “It was a debate. I was just telling him, if he really had the ability to convert a broken piece of stage equipment into a functioning time machine, then he obviously wouldn’t be working as the lighting guy in Kyocera Dome.”

Shige’s flush darkened as he realised that everyone surrounding him save for Koyama was staring at him like he was off his nut. “Hey. Don’t look at me like I’m the crazy one. Someone needed to tell that guy to keep his day job.”

Massu shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, like he was embarrassed for Shige (and for Massu to be feeling embarrassment for him, it had to be pretty bad), and even Tegoshi didn’t seem to have anything to say.

Yamapi raised an eyebrow, but resisted the temptation to comment. “Okay. Well, now that we’re all here, let’s get back to work.”

Shige nodded enthusiastically, glad to be off the topic, and once rehearsal was back in full swing it was quickly forgotten.

Practice went quite late, and by the time they were almost ready to wind down, all of them felt pretty good about where they were at.

“We’ll do one more run-through of the overture tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll take the whole thing from the top,” one of the coordinators told them, and they were happy to agree if that meant they’d finally be done for the day.

At least, they were happy, until Koyama spotted a very familiar piece of stage equipment facing in their direction and about to be plugged in.

“Uh, Shige… is that meant to be there?” He asked, pointing at it.

Shige followed the direction of his finger with his eyes and frowned, then looked around for the quirky stagehand from before, but he was nowhere in sight.

“I don’t know” was all he managed to say before the equipment was connected to the power, and he was interrupted by a blinding flash of white.

Massu was the first to wake up, sprawled on his back and staring up at the roof of the dome. He groaned, rolling onto his side, and muttering about a splitting headache and malfunctioning equipment.

The complaints stopped very quickly when he realised that the entire dome was empty and dark, and the only other people still with him were the other five NEWS members, lying unconscious on the floor.

Massu was probably the worst possible person to have woken up first, because all he did was sit there, eyes wide and hyperventilating, until Shige moaned and woke up.

“Shit, what happened? Massu?” He sat up clutching his head, then looked around, finally noticing the other four, still out cold. “Are they okay?”

“I don’t… I didn’t check,” Massu said in a tiny voice, and Shige went white in the face and scrambled to his knees, crawling over to Koyama to check his pulse.

“He’s okay,” he said, his relief evident, then proceeded to check everyone else as well.

Ryo woke up while Shige was checking his breathing, and ended up shouting in surprise and head butting him, then scooted backwards with an accusatory glare on his face.

“God, sorry for making sure you were still alive,” Shige snapped, gingerly pressing a hand to his forehead.

Usually Ryo would’ve come out with some kind of retort but, before he could, he also noticed that something strange was going on, and the words died on his tongue.

“What happened?” he asked.

Massu sat by thinking he was going to be very tired of that sentence by the time they’d all woken up.

“I don’t know.” Shige finally risked standing up once his head had stopped throbbing, offering a hand to Massu who took it and pulled himself up. “Last thing I remember, Koyama was pointing at that stage equipment, and…” He trailed off, a look of realisation dawning on his face. “No way. There’s just no way.”

Massu and Ryo looked at him in bewilderment, but Shige was already too busy kneeling by Koyama, trying to wake him up, to take any notice of them.

“What are you doing?” Ryo sounded appalled. “If he’s injured, you’re not meant to move him.”

Koyama didn’t seem very injured though, especially not when he rolled over on his side and whined softly. “No…”

“Wake up,” Shige insisted, ignoring everything Ryo had just said. “You need to see this.”

Eventually, he did get Koyama sitting up with his eyes open (“What happened?”), while Massu and Ryo set about seeing if they could rouse Tegoshi and Yamapi.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Shige spoke to Koyama in a hushed voice, almost as though he didn’t want the others listening in.

Koyama’s brow puckered in thought. “We were on stage, and then there was a white light. Right after they plugged in the…” He trailed off, face going white as all the blood drained out of it. “The time machine!”

Four other heads snapped around to stare in their direction. Shige winced.

“Koyama, there’s no proof that it was a time machine, don’t be ridiculous,” he hurried to say, trying to divert the other members’ attention.

Unfortunately for him, it was far too late.

“Do you think we’re in the past or the future?” Tegoshi seemed alarmingly unperturbed. “The dome doesn’t look too different, so we can’t have gone too far either way.”

“We should go and find out what date it is,” Yamapi stepped in. “Once we know that, we should go from there.”

Shige looked like he wanted to argue - if time travel were even possible, in theory they’d need to have moved away from the earth at a high velocity and then return, and it seemed unlikely that that had happened - but Yamapi’s suggestion was logical. Technically, they had a concert tomorrow (or rather, they could only hope it was still tomorrow). It would be best if they could find out the date, time, and then preferably the reason why the six of them had been left alone and unconscious on the stage of Kyocera dome the day before a performance.

Besides the fact that they were utterly alone, the next thing that tipped them off that something was wrong was the disappearance of their costumes, spare clothes and belongings. Fortunately, it hadn’t been a dress rehearsal, because none of them wanted to go out into public wearing their sequined NEWS image colour costumes, but that couldn’t explain why their bags and all their other personal items, like cell phones, were now missing.

They tried to keep their exit stealthy, since they weren’t sure if they were authorised to be in the dome, now that it was devoid of staff. The only stop they made on the way out was when Ryo realised he wasn’t wearing his shirt, and Yamapi had to donate him his jacket.

It was even more surreal when they emerged outside into the daylight, because as far as they were concerned, it wasn’t supposed to be daylight anymore.

“Okay,” Ryo said slowly, letting the word roll off his tongue. “I was dubious before, but this is getting a little creepy.”

Even Shige had to admit that something was definitely off; even if they’d been unconscious all through the night, there was no way the staff would have just left them like that for so long, yet still have had time to dissemble all the equipment.

“Let’s just do what Yamapi said and try and find the date,” Koyama said, doing his best to keep them on track.

They put Ryo in charge of finding the nearest bookstore, since he was the one who spent the most time in Osaka and was meant to know his way around.

They looked quite a sight - six perplexed young men with unkempt hair, all in desperate need of a shower, walking down the road together.

They found a convenience store before they found a bookstore, but since the date would be the same no matter what newspaper or magazine they looked at, it didn’t matter. They did receive a rather worried stare from the clerk once they entered, probably convinced that they were a bunch of hoodlums here to steal things, but they ignored her and went about their own business.

The six of them headed right for the magazine rack, and Shige grabbed the nearest television mag, then promptly dropped it in shock.

“Oh my god…” he trailed off, eyes glazing over. Yamapi picked up another one, looking it over.

“It’s September 2013,” he confirmed. Ryo, Koyama and Massu’s jaws dropped in amazement.

“Three whole years?” Massu took it from him, needing to see for himself.

All the other magazines produced similar results, and unless they were on the receiving end of the most elaborate practical joke in history, they didn’t have any choice other than to admit that the lighting guy at Kyocera Dome had managed to invent a working time machine.

“Guys, look at this!” Tegoshi’s soft, awed tone cut through their shock. “TegoMass is on the cover of this one.”

That got their attention, and four other members of NEWS clamoured to get a look at the magazine he was holding. Shige was the only one who stayed back, and he was just about to stop and snap at Tegoshi for not taking the situation seriously, when something occurred to him.

“So we didn’t just mysteriously disappear for three years before popping up in the future?”

Tegoshi nodded, handing the magazine to Koyama to get a better look at.

“Tegoshi’s hair is straight again,” Massu said, and Shige directed his irritation at him instead.

“We have to take this seriously! We’re stranded in 2013, with no money, no belongings, only the really sweaty clothes on our backs. The last thing we need to be thinking about is Tegoshi’s hair.” He turned to Koyama, taking the magazine off him and putting it back on the rack. “Can you remember our conversation with the stagehand? What did he say about how his time machine worked with travel to the future?”

Koyama bit his lip. “It was mostly just you telling him why it couldn’t work, but...”

“Nice work, Einstein,” Ryo muttered, but Shige brushed the comment off.

“There was a lot of stuff in there about temporal paradoxes and how it could really throw off the space-time continuum. And… I think he said that, since the future hasn’t been made yet, to truly experience future events as they’re meant to happen, you need to do it in a reality where you never time travelled.”

Five pairs of horrified eyes regarded Koyama, and he finally processed the meaning of what he’d just repeated.

“Wait, so we’re not just in 2013, we’re in a different reality?” Koyama didn’t keep his voice down as he said it - it was closer to a shriek than a whisper - and they got more than a few concerned looks.

“Let’s talk about this outside,” Yamapi suggested, herding them all to the exit as the clerk watched them like a hawk to make sure they weren’t taking anything they shouldn’t.

Once they were out, they all simultaneously heaved a sigh.

“So, different reality or not, how do we… get back?” Massu asked the question on everyone else’s minds that they were all worried didn’t have an answer.

“I think…” Yamapi began, slowly and cautiously, “that we need to go and find that lighting guy. If his invention got us here, then it’ll be him who can get us back, right?”

It didn’t sound like the most foolproof plan, but it was the only one they had, and everyone ended up agreeing unanimously. The problem was where to start.

“I didn’t ask his name,” Shige admitted and Koyama agreed that unfortunately he didn’t know either.

“Okay, so how are we supposed to find him? He’s not going to still be working at the Dome, is he? Do you think they even keep track of their old employees?” Ryo looked tense. “I mean, even if it’s possible to get hold of records, who’re going to release anything to 6 guys with no identification?”

They were all silent until Tegoshi tentatively spoke up. “Why don’t we go and ask ourselves for help? Our future selves, I mean.”

His comment was met with more silence as they thought it over.

“Is that a good idea?” Shige seemed dubious. “I mean, we’re in Osaka. Nishikido-kun is the only one we can turn to. He either won’t believe us, or he’ll think we’re creepy lookalike stalkers and call the cops on us.”

Ryo’s nostrils flared slightly. “I wouldn’t go that far, and it’s not like we have any other choice if we don’t have money. You can walk to Tokyo if you like, but I’m going to take a chance with myself.”

Shige still looked a little uneasy, but he couldn’t argue with what Ryo was saying. He was the only chance they had.

After raiding their pockets, they found they had about 2,500 yen between them, which wasn’t good for much, but was fortunately just enough for a bus fare for each of them to Ryo’s house. They could only hope his family hadn’t moved, and that he wasn’t currently in Tokyo.

The best plan, they decided would be for Ryo and a few of the others to hide out of sight so the entirety of NEWS wouldn’t be invading his house with no warning.

They settled on Yamapi (because he was closest to Ryo) and Tegoshi (because Ryo had always been weak to him) making the surprise visit, while past Ryo hid around the corner with Koyama, Shige and Massu.

Yamapi rang the bell, and Tegoshi stood behind him, keeping his fingers crossed for luck.

It was Ryo’s mother who greeted them at the door, but at least she recognised them. Neither of them knew why they’d been so worried, since three years was barely anything once you hit your twenties, but they were still thankful when she smiled and welcomed them in as “Tomo-kun and Tegoshi-kun”.

“Ryo’s not back from work yet, but you’re welcome to wait here until he is.” Yamapi visibly sagged with relief at her wording; looked like Ryo was in town after all. “Let me make you something to eat.”

She disappeared as soon as she’d said it, and Yamapi frowned.

“She seems a little too happy to see us,” he murmured to Tegoshi. “I can’t quite put my finger on it…”

“That’s better than not being pleased to see us at all,” Tegoshi pointed out, and though Yamapi agreed, he did so with a bit of reluctance.

The two of them felt a little guilty about sitting inside on a comfortable sofa, eating snacks, while they left the others outside wondering where they were, but there would be no point in just leaving either. It was about an hour later, when afternoon was just beginning to shift into evening, that Ryo showed up, looking cheerful, but a bit worn out from a day at work.

At least, he did look cheerful until he saw who was waiting for him in his living room. Tegoshi and Yamapi had never seen anything quite like it. The instant transition from the normal smiling Ryo to a completely blank expression the moment he saw them made it seem like a wall had come up behind his eyes.

“Ryo-chan…” Yamapi began, and Ryo’s mother, who’d come in to welcome him home, was suddenly gone.

“Guys…” Ryo’s voice was weary, much wearier than either of them was used to hearing from him. “I wasn’t joking when I said I couldn’t come. I’m busy. And even if I did, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference.”

Tegoshi and Yamapi exchanged a look of confusion - not only did they have no idea what he was talking about, but they’d never heard him talk to them like this before. Not only did he sound defensive, but also annoyed, as though he really didn’t want them there.

“Ryo-kun. It’s not about that.” Tegoshi still had no idea what ‘that’ was, but figured it was pretty safe to say that what they’d come to talk about and what ‘that’ was, were completely different things. “There’s something important, and we really need your help.”

He put on his best imploring face, the one that always made Ryo soften up enough to bend to his whims, but this Ryo just looked frustrated.

“Can it wait?” he asked. “I’m tired, and there’s things I need to…”

“Ryo-chan,” Yamapi interrupted. He’d put on his ‘leader’ voice, one that he rarely used, but it had the desired effect. Ryo still seemed unhappy, but he also appeared a little resigned as well. “This is important. We’re serious.”

Ryo was finally starting to look worried now, but Tegoshi and Yamapi were both feeling the same way. This wasn’t the Ryo they knew. The Ryo they knew would’ve demanded to hear what was happening the moment Tegoshi told him that they needed his help. For him to try and brush it off, there had to be something wrong.

“Okay, what’s up?”

Yamapi’s eyes darted towards the door Ryo’s mother had gone through, as though weighing up how much he could say in a house with more than one set of ears that could be listening in on them.

“Can we discuss it outside?” he asked, and though Ryo’s mouth set into a tight line that said he very much didn’t want to go out again right after he’d gotten home, but he didn’t try to argue this time.

“Alright.”

Yamapi relayed their story to him out on the street, where no one could eavesdrop on them from a room nearby, and just as Shige had feared, Ryo’s reaction was less than desirable.

“If you’re playing some kind of prank on me, you could’ve gone one better than that,” he told them firmly. “I mean, time travel? Seriously.”

“It’s not a lie though.” Tegoshi’s face was earnest. “We have no money or I.D and we really need to find that guy to see if he can come up with a way to get us back. We have a concert tomorrow. Well, tomorrow three years ago, and we don’t want to miss it.”

“Tegoshi.” Ryo seemed like he was going to say more, but he stopped abruptly and wrinkled his nose, then shook his head. “Okay, look. I don’t know what kind of dumb game you’re playing, but…”

“Stubborn,” Yamapi sighed. “I guess we only have one shot at proving it to you. Come with us.”

Ryo started to argue, but Yamapi was still in leader mode, and it was surprisingly difficult to defy him once he was. He reluctantly followed behind Yamapi, with Tegoshi trailing behind him, around the corner where they’d left the rest of their group an hour and a half ago.

“Finally…” Shige started to say, but he quickly buttoned his lip when he saw who was with them.

Future Ryo and past Ryo’s eyes met, and the first thing out of future Ryo’s mouth was, “Did you actually go as far as to find me a creepy lookalike?”

“I told you,” Shige couldn’t help but say. The look on past Ryo’s face was priceless.

It took a lot of convincing, involving comparing photos and dressing past Ryo in future Ryo’s clothes and sending him back into his house to see if his mother could tell the difference, but eventually future Ryo gave in and grudgingly admitted that maybe they were telling the truth.

“There’s no way you could get us all in the same place outside of work these days. Time travel seems like the only valid explanation.”

That comment caught them off guard. Future Ryo didn’t miss the uneasy glances they exchanged, and he cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable, looking like he was weighing up whether or not he should say what was on his mind.

“What year did you say you were from again?”

“2010. We’re just starting our LIVE Dome concerts”

“Ah.” Ryo’s face softened for the first time that day. “Yeah. Those were good. Things were good back then.”

The implied meaning behind those words wasn’t lost on anyone.

“Ryo-chan, uh…” Koyama sounded timid, about to ask a question he wasn’t sure they wanted to hear the answer to. “Is NEWS… still together?”

There was a collective sigh of relief, which made future Ryo laugh somewhat wryly.

“I guess a lot can change in three years. The NEWS I know now would love to break up.”

That comment was met with six very shocked responses.

“Why would we want to break up?” Massu asked, in the same incredulous voice he would’ve used had Ryo suggested banning gyoza, or leaving his favourite bag on the floor.

Future Ryo shrugged. “I don’t know, you’ve got TegoMass, I’ve got Kanjani8. Yamapi’s solo singles have been doing better than ours for years now.”

“That sounds great for you guys,” Shige muttered, but Ryo didn’t miss it.

“Hey, the last time we all got together to do an album shoot, you stormed off the location saying you didn’t know why you bothered anymore and that you should quit and focus on art. You can’t talk.”

Shige looked horrified. “Oh my god. We’re worse than KAT-TUN.”

“What happened to us?” Koyama just looked lost, as though his whole world had been ripped out from underneath him. “We really pulled it together after we came off hiatus. Things are fine right now. How did it all fall apart?”

Future Ryo shrugged and moved awkwardly from foot to foot. “I don’t know; all of us were focusing on solo work, people moved on and stopped caring about us as a group. I guess somewhere along the line, we stopped caring too. Tegoshi’s the only one who doesn’t want to give up.”

“Okay.” Yamapi both looked and sounded doubtful. His expression clearly said that he could tell Ryo wasn’t giving them the whole story, but he wasn’t about to force it out of him. Instead, he turned back to the rest of his group and addressed them. “I think we should go and talk to Tegoshi.”

“We have no money for the train though,” Massu reminded him, and suddenly they were all looking back at future Ryo.

Future Ryo sighed.

Somehow, they all managed to use Ryo’s shower without having to explain to his mother why the entirety of NEWS had turned up in Osaka in order to clean themselves. He even donated a shirt to past Ryo so Yamapi could have his jacket back. Going to Tokyo with them had obviously been where he’d intended to draw the line, but after some careful wheedling from Tegoshi and watching Massu’s face slowly get sadder and sadder, he couldn’t help but give in.

The back of his neck flushed red when Tegoshi hugged him in thanks, and it looked to the rest of them like he missed this--being with the old NEWS, without any tension or negative feelings. It was enough to give them hope.

According to future Ryo, Tegoshi was still living in the same apartment as far as he knew, which was probably going to be a bit of a tight squeeze for eight people, but they’d just have to manage.

Future Tegoshi looked absolutely delighted to see all of NEWS standing outside his door when he came to let in whoever was knocking, and it took him a few moments to realise that there were a couple of extras tagging along.

He squinted, wrinkling up his nose, trying to make sense of the situation.

“What did they put in that iced tea?” he asked when there were still two of Ryo and a copy of himself in front of him, even after several eye rubs.

“Uh, can we come in?” Koyama motioned toward the interior of the apartment, and future Tegoshi finally remembered his manners.

“Oh, sure.”

Any one of them probably would’ve put money on Tegoshi being easier to convince of their story than Ryo, and they would’ve been right. He listened with wide-eyed interest as Koyama and Shige told him about the stagehand with his time machine that actually worked, and waking up three years later in a dark, empty Kyocera Dome.

“Actually, I think I remember what you’re talking about,” Tegoshi told them twenty minutes later, once their story had been told and he’d crawled into Koyama’s lap. “That was the day before the first concert, right? And Shige was talking about time machines, and then someone mistook that guy’s invention for some lightening equipment and plugged it in and it blew up.”

Shige’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “I don’t think ours blew up. There was a white light and then before we knew it, we were in the future.”

“Hmm.” Tegoshi looked contemplative. “No, I think I’d remember a trip to the future. It just blew up for us, and then they arrested the guy for tampering with the equipment.”

“He did say something about experiencing future events in a reality where you’d never time travelled,” Koyama reminded them, and Shige’s mouth shaped into a little ‘o’ of realisation.

“You know, if he was arrested, it’ll be much easier for you to find him than you thought.” Future Ryo brought them back to the more important topic at hand. “I bet someone at Johnny’s will be able to get us his information.”

“I think there was a news article on the explosion as well,” future Tegoshi added. “If you can dig that up, then he’s as good as found.”

They all nodded in agreement, but Koyama looked a little troubled.

“Actually, Tegoshi, I was just wondering. We were talking to Ryo-chan about the current… situation NEWS is in, and we can’t understand why…” Koyama trailed off, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.

“You can’t understand why it sucks so much?” Tegoshi said bluntly, and none of them missed the way future Ryo turned his head away, as though embarrassed.

“I… guess you could put it that way,” Koyama agreed uncertainly. “Ryo-chan told us about solo activities taking priority and not caring about the group anymore, but it seems so unreal.”

Tegoshi hummed, wiggling on Koyama’s knees. “I guess falling out of touch was part of it. It’s a long story. Things just started to break down a year or so ago, and by the time we realised there was a problem, it was too late.”

“It can’t be too late, can it? I mean…” Massu looked desperate, as though he wanted someone to tell him it wasn’t true.

Tegoshi looked at him with a look somewhere between fond and sad. “I don’t know. I’m trying. We’ve been trying, it’s just… right now, even. I was thinking how nice it is to be with you for more than ten minutes and not to hear you complaining about NEWS.”

Massu flushed bright pink and looked like he was trying to shrink into himself like a turtle. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. Kei-chan and Shige are mostly the ones to blame, really.” If there was one thing that hadn’t changed over the three years they’d just skipped, it was definitely Tegoshi’s alarming candour.

“Our fault?” Koyama’s voice rose to a squeak. “How are we to blame.”

“You got into a big fight,” future Ryo spoke up again. “You weren’t talking at all. Yamapi tried to talk to Shige about it one day, and he must’ve picked a bad time, because Shige just exploded. It was like a domino effect after that.”

Shige’s ears went red, while the other five just looked on with surprise. Shige was a drama queen at times, but he was a drama queen in more subtle, discreet ways.

“Yamashita-kun just withdrew after that. It felt like it did before the hiatus when he was just putting up with us instead of wanting to be there.” Tegoshi stared down at his feet with none of his usual cheer, and Koyama couldn’t help but give his back a comforting rub. “It was really awkward, especially since we had a concert coming up. It was such a disaster.”

“The MCs were so painful. Koyama was practically the only one talking, and Shige barely responded to him. Everyone could tell it was forced.” Future Ryo shrugged. “I don’t think I can really be blamed for withdrawing into Kanjani8. Massu did the same with TegoMass.”

“I did the same with TegoMass,” future Tegoshi admitted. “I mean, I still love NEWS, it’s just… it’s horrible. It’s exactly like when we started. Endless silence.”

No one really had anything to say to that, and the silence that fell over the room then felt like it would never end either.

But then Yamapi looked up, swallowed and said, “I think that before we go back… we need to take care of some things here first.”

For future Ryo and Tegoshi, it was the first time in a long time they’d seen their whole group agree on anything so whole heartedly.

It turned out that the thing future Ryo ‘hadn’t been joking about when he said he couldn’t come’ was a last ditch attempt that Tegoshi had bullied Yamapi into helping him arrange to try and patch their group dynamic back together. Needless to say, it hadn’t worked out; Ryo had refused to come down from Osaka, citing his work schedule, and future Shige apparently refused to be in the same room as Koyama for longer than five minutes unless it was for work.

This made it a little difficult for them to gather the whole group in one place on short notice, but with a bit of help from past Yamapi, future Tegoshi managed to con their manager into calling an emergency meeting early the next morning.

It was difficult to convince the manager that it was urgent enough for the group to need to gather almost immediately, but not so much of an emergency that he needed to be there too. Fortunately, future Ryo told Yamapi to slip in a comment about it being another one of ‘Tegoshi’s hair brained schemes’ and that was all it took for their manager to practically start begging not to be in the room with them.

It was the kind of thing past NEWS weren’t truly able to believe until they actually experienced it.

As planned, they stayed out of sight until everyone had arrived and Tegoshi and Ryo had explained what was happening. But they could still hear everything: Koyama’s forced hello when he arrived, Shige’s lack of a greeting, Massu’s complete disregard of everyone in the room but Tegoshi… it was all so otherworldly, like something out of a body snatcher movie. Whenever all of them were together, the room was usually so lively and cheery, but this silence - as Tegoshi had said - was so much like the one they thought they’d been rid of so many years ago. None of them were used to it anymore.

When future Tegoshi and Ryo repeated the same story they’d both been told the day before, they were met with various degrees of disbelief. Shige flat out denied it was possible, Massu seemed unconvinced and Yamapi and Koyama both remained completely silent.

When future Shige asked for proof, NEWS knew that was their cue, and they stepped into view.

Massu’s eyes bulged, and Koyama gasped. Yamapi said nothing, but he did look a little stunned. Shige stared for a moment before folding his arms and denying it all over again.

“Tegoshi, seriously. This is taking the joke too far. What are you trying to…”

“That’s what I said too,” future Ryo interrupted, “but they’re the real thing. But no one looks that much like or knows that much about another person unless they are them.”

Future Shige looked at him with disbelief, but future Tegoshi stepped in to agree.

“Really, it’s true. His freckles are in exactly the same place as mine. You can check if you like.”

Future Shige seemed unenthusiastic, but everyone was looking at him so he couldn’t say no. He approached past Tegoshi with suspicion, comparing the two of them.

It was true, the placement of their freckles was identical, but Shige was a sceptic.

“That kind of thing can be easily faked with makeup, you know,” he told them, and so saying, licked his thumb and rubbed at the freckles on Tegoshi’s top lip.

No one in the room had ever seen a more disgusted look on anyone’s face in their entire lives. It was rare that Tegoshi looked particularly scandalised, but his expression today really took the cake.

“Shige, that’s revolting. Don’t wipe your spit on me.”

Shige reeled back a little bit, his thought process was evident in his face: this guy certainly talked like Tegoshi.

Like with Ryo the day before, past NEWS endured a lot of poking, prodding, comparison, and a series of very personal and sometimes embarrassing questions from their future selves to ensure that they were, in fact, really them.

It took close to an hour for them all to be convinced, but there was really no way that six people would go to the trouble of having plastic surgery to look identical to them down to the last blemish, and then style themselves to look exactly the same as they did in 2010.

“So, you guys are trying to get back to 2010?” Future Koyama asked to clarify once the four remaining members of future NEWS were as convinced as they were going to get.

“Well, we were…” Past Koyama looked to the rest of his group, unsure whether or not they should explain yet why they’d wanted everyone to show up. After an uneasy moment of silence, he finally blurted out, “We heard about what’s been happening with the group, and we thought we should try and help. It’s not good if we’re all fighting.”

Much like past Yamapi and Tegoshi had witnessed with future Ryo back in Osaka, a totally blank, disengaged look came over the other member’s faces the moment the topic was brought up. Like future Ryo had warned them, they’d heard it too many times, had tried and failed before, were just past the point of caring by now.

“I guess you’ve already heard it once too often, but…” Past Massu shrugged, eyes darting around, looking for support, then finished lamely, “We loved working together.”

“It’s a bit different now, though,” future Massu said, and past Massu looked so shell shocked that he was being argued with by himself that he didn’t try to say another word.

“It’s just not going to work. You’ll understand when you go through it,” future Shige added.

“Hey. Just because you ruined your friendship with Koyama and brought the whole group down doesn’t mean we’re going to do the same thing,” past Shige snapped.

Future Shige slapped his hand down on his knee. “Don’t go spouting off about things you don’t understand yet. This is pointless. I’m getting out of here.”

The door slammed behind him as he left, and future Tegoshi laughed uncomfortably.

“He always gets worked up about that topic.”

“That just means that he still cares,” past Koyama said, voice soft.

Future Koyama looked a bit taken aback by his words, as though he couldn’t imagine still knowing Shige that well anymore.

“We should go and find him,” past Tegoshi said decisively, getting to his feet. “If that’s where the problem started, we should probably try to solve it from there.”

The rest of them seemed a little unsure, but eventually future Tegoshi got up to join him, dragging future Ryo with him.

“We should split up,” past Tegoshi suggested, tugging gently at past Massu’s t-shirt to urge him to come along. “It’ll be quicker.”

Massu seemed a little reluctant, but eventually he gave in, and future Tegoshi handed his cell phone to his past self.

“If you find him, send Ryo a mail. I’ve got his number programmed in. We’ll do the same if we get to him first.”

Past Tegoshi accepted the phone and he and past Massu went off in one direction, while future Tegoshi dragged both past and future Ryo with him in the other.

Somehow, with Tegoshi’s inappropriately buoyant personality gone, everything became a lot more awkward. Future Koyama couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and after a while he stood up stiffly, shoulders hunched.

“I need a cigarette,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Past Shige looked surprised. “I thought you quit.”

Koyama’s mouth quirked into a wry, grim almost-smile and he shrugged. “A lot happened in the last three years.”

Shige looked lost for a moment, but then as Koyama turned to go, he stood up too.

“I’ll go with you,” he said a little gruffly, and though Koyama looked a little surprised, he didn’t try to argue.

“Okay,” was the only thing he said, and Shige followed him out of the room.

Only future Massu, past Koyama and both of Yamapi were left in the room now. Future Yamapi’s expression was still blank. He didn’t look anyone in the eye when he finally said, “I’ve got somewhere to be in a few hours. I might leave now.”

He was careful to keep his eyes averted as he left, and so it wasn’t until he was halfway down the hall that he realised anyone was following him.

“I guess you’ve a few hours to spare then.”

Future Yamapi jumped at the sound of his own voice, and turned, finally looking himself in the eye.

“I can’t really lie to myself, can I? What do you want to talk about?”

Past Yamapi regarded himself carefully, then jerked his head towards an empty room. “Let’s sit down.”

He didn’t wait for agreement, just went and did as he’d suggested, knowing the other Yamapi would follow him.

It felt strange, gearing up to have a conversation with himself, but Yamapi figured that he knew himself better than anyone, he’d get the best results.

“It’s not like us to give up.”

Future Yamapi’s eyebrows rose, as though that wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. “Did we give up on something?” He didn’t receive a reply, merely a look that said ‘you know what I mean’, and he sighed. “I don’t know what else to do. If the others don’t care enough to fix it, then I…”

“Do you remember how happy we were when we re-debuted?” Neither of them could help the way their lips quirked at the corners at the memory, and past Yamapi continued, “It took a long time for us to accept NEWS. Accept all the members. It took a lot of work.”

Future Yamapi nodded. “I remember. It wasn’t until I thought we were going to lose all that, that I finally started to appreciate it.”

“But you don’t mind if you lose it now?”

The question looked like it had the effect past Yamapi had been looking for, because future Yamapi’s lips parted slightly, followed by a pause before he poked the tip of his tongue out to wet them nervously.

“I…” He paused, then frowned. “It’s different when they don’t want to fight for it either.”

“Hmm…” Past Yamapi rested his chin on his hand, mirroring his future self’s expression. “I might be wrong, but I think they do want to fight for it. Ryo-chan could’ve refused to come with us and help us, but he didn’t. If he really didn’t care, I don’t think he would’ve. They want to. They just don’t know how.”

Future Yamapi’s face changed, the wrinkles in his forehead smoothing, giving way to a curious expression. “What should I do, then?”

Past Yamapi smiled slightly. “Have we ever fixed our problems all alone? I trust in my group. You should too.”

He didn’t need to spell it out further.

Koyama lit up his cigarette, offering one to Shige, which he took against his better judgement.

“It’s been a while since we’ve hung out like this…” Koyama said after taking his first drag. “But I guess it doesn’t feel like that to you.”

“Yeah,” Shige admitted. “I find it hard to imagine, to be honest. I can’t think of anything that could come between us like that.”

Koyama chuckled weakly. “You’d think so.”

He exhaled, and Shige watched the trails of smoke float off and disintegrate in the air. He waited for some elaboration on what had happened, but Koyama didn’t offer him any, just stood there looking confused and lost.

“So, are you going to tell me what I did wrong? If it’s my fault our group is like this, I at least don’t want to make that same mistake if we finally get back.”

He watched as Koyama bit his lip. It already looked a bit worn, and Shige thought idly that he must have a lot on his mind.

“It… I think it might’ve been my fault, really. I should’ve agreed with you instead of trying to justify it, and then maybe…”

“Koyama,” Shige interrupted. “Seriously, spill. This is something I need to know.”

“You haven’t talked to me like this in a long time.” He smiled a little crookedly. “I miss it.”

Koyama took a deep breath, nibbling away at his lip again, then put his cigarette out and turned to look Shige in the face.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. It’s just… you know how we’re the kind of… odd ones out in the group. Yamapi has solo stuff, Ryo has Kanjani8, Tegoshi and Massu have TegoMass, but you and I…”

“We’ve just got NEWS,” Shige supplied.

“Right. But we’re special because of our friendship, aren’t we. We’re always ‘KoyaShige, who’re such close friends’ in the magazines.”

Shige nodded. “Yeah. So what happened to that?”

Koyama sighed, couldn’t quite meet his eyes anymore. He looked so small and unsure of himself.

“You… I guess you just got sick of it. Selling our relationship. It was almost a couple of years ago now, you came up to me and said that it was making it cheap and that we didn’t need the whole world to know about it every time we hung out.” He shrugged, trying to pass it off like it was no big deal, but Shige could see that the memory still hurt him. “I told you it didn’t hurt to share, and we got into a huge fight. You said I should be more like Massu and learn to keep our private moments private.”

Shige opened his mouth, but found he didn’t have anything to say.

“I should’ve just listened to you,” Koyama continued. “Now we don’t even have a relationship to sell anyway. We’ve barely got NEWS anymore.”

“Has anyone told me that I’m a complete idiot?”

Koyama laughed, and Shige thought his eyes looked a little wet. “Back in the room, when I said… when past me said that future you still cared, I felt really hopeful. I miss my best friend.”

The words made Shige ache a little, and it filled him with new determination to try and set things right.

“I think he misses you too.”

Back in the room where they’d all met up, now devoid of anyone but past Koyama and future Massu, Koyama listened to a similar story from Massu’s perspective.

“Don’t feel guilty, though,” Massu hastened to tell him. “You haven’t done anything yet.”

“I know,” Koyama bit his lip. “I just should’ve noticed if something like that was happening with Shige, and I should’ve fixed it and not let it go on so long…”

Massu looked uncomfortable, not used to addressing serious topics. “I guess. The atmosphere when we were all together got really strained. Koyama and Shige wouldn’t talk to each other, even though Tegoshi tried really hard to get them to relate. Then when Yamapi started getting all distant again, and Ryo was only interested in being with Kanjani8…”

“You and Tegoshi…”

“Yeah. And really, I think it’s better that way,” Massu shrugged. “We have more freedom in TegoMass, we don’t argue much. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the others are right. NEWS is better off disbanding.”

Koyama looked at Massu like he was from outer space. “You can’t really mean that, can you?”

Massu averted his eyes and his face coloured a little. “It’s really different now.”

“So…” Koyama gave Massu a sideways look. “Are you saying you want to spend the rest of your career with just Tegoshi?”

“Well, that’s not…”

“Remember that time he left your things lying on the floor,” Koyama went on, “and the time he spilled juice all over your jacket?”

Massu twitched visibly. “Tegoshi can be a little thoughtless. He still doesn’t clean up after himself in the showers. Water everywhere.”

Koyama smiled. “I guess he’ll never change. He’s not very organised.”

“No,” Massu agreed. “But that’s still better than the way NEWS is right now. I’m willing to put up with it if…”

“Don’t you miss Shige’s smile?” Koyama interrupted him. “You’re always saying that you like the way Shige smiles when you guys are hanging out in private. Have you done anything together recently?”

Massu stared at the ground. “We haven’t really been… hanging out. None of us have.”

Koyama put a hand on his shoulder. “You know, at the end of the day, whether NEWS stays together as a group isn’t that important. We wouldn’t last forever anyway, we all know that. But…” he trailed off, waiting until Massu looked at him again. “But we were friends, right? Maybe not best friends, but friends.”

It took a moment, but Massu eventually nodded, looking deflated, as though he hadn’t realised the gravity of the situation until now.

“Then you’re losing a lot more than your group right now,” Koyama told him.

Massu didn’t look like he knew what to say to that.

In the meantime, future Tegoshi and past and future Ryo were having no luck finding Shige.

“I’m sure Massu and other me are having more luck,” Tegoshi assured them after half an hour of fruitless searching. “Massu knows Shige really well, so he probably has a good idea of where to go.”

They sat down on a public bench, hardly motivated to keep looking now that their legs were tired and they had no idea where to go.

“It probably won’t do much good, even if they do find where he’s run off to,” future Ryo said, sounding a little sullen. He probably felt like all his time and effort had gone to waste, and was annoyed that he’d caught the train down to Tokyo for nothing. “Even if they find him, what are they going to do? He’s stubborn. We tried to tell him to apologise to Koyama for months, but he just told us to mind our own business, and now here we are.”

“He’s stubborn, but Tegoshi’s persistent,” past Ryo reminded himself, and Tegoshi smiled, leaning against Ryo’s shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter how persistent he is if it’s too late to change anything though,” future Ryo insisted, and past Ryo raised an eyebrow.

“We sure did turn into a negative bunch,” he said, and Tegoshi hid his face to muffle a snort.

“I’m serious, though.” Future Ryo slouched against the bench and tipped his head back. “We can’t stand being in the same room as each other. We don’t agree on anything anymore, except that it’d be better if we split up.”

“So are you saying you’d prefer to split up than work it out and stay together?” Past Ryo asked, and future Ryo’s posture became stiff and defensive.

“If we could work it out, yeah, but we’ve tried and it hasn’t worked.”

“It’s not going to work if we don’t all try together,” Tegoshi said, a hint of irritation and superiority in his voice. “It’s always just me and Yamapi or me and Kei-chan, or you and Yamapi.”

“Good luck getting us all working together,” future Ryo muttered, and past Ryo finally cracked.

“Hey. We didn’t spend years commuting between Osaka and Tokyo, not sleeping enough, promoting twice as many goods as the rest of our group and putting up with Shige’s ugly face to waste it all by giving up now.” Future Ryo actually looked taken aback, but past Ryo wasn’t finished yet. “Maybe we liked Kanjani8 better at first, but you can’t lie and say you never loved NEWS. Don’t quit now just because the other morons in our group can’t get their act together.”

Future Ryo just sat there silently, looking a little shell shocked, but if nothing else, at least Tegoshi was looking at past Ryo like he was a hero. He leant further into him, as though glad he finally had someone who was willing to fight for his cause along with him, and past Ryo put a comforting arm around his shoulders.

“Thank you, Ryo-kun,” he said, and it was unusual for Tegoshi to be so openly thankful for anything.

Future Ryo was silent for a moment, then frowned. “Give him back. You have your own.”

Tegoshi and past Ryo exchanged knowing glances, and then past Ryo rolled his eyes, nudging Tegoshi to the other side of the bench.

“So you do still care,” Tegoshi said, chirpy and cheerful again. Future Ryo flushed crimson.

“Shut up,” he snapped, but he leant over enough so that his and Tegoshi’s shoulders were both touching.

The moment was broken by future Ryo’s phone going off in his pocket, startling all three of them. He pulled it out, flipping it open and checking his mail, the slapped a hand to his forehead.

“The other Tegoshi and Massu found Shige. He just went back to his apartment. He’s been there the whole time.”

Tegoshi got up right away. “Then we should get going.”

“Where?” Both past and future Ryo looked confused, but Tegoshi didn’t elaborate, merely hurrying them to their feet.

“You’ll see.”

Shige hadn’t been willing to let them in at first, but as Ryo had said before, Tegoshi was persistent, and the embarrassment Shige felt from having two people making a fuss outside his door was more than enough to outweigh his stubbornness and get him to agree to let them in.

“If you’re here to talk about that, I don’t want to hear it,” he said as Tegoshi made himself comfortable on his sofa, and Massu stood awkwardly beside it, too unsettled to sit down. “I can help you guys find that stagehand if you need, but this problem isn’t yours to worry about.”

“If this is our future, it’s a bit worrying,” Massu said, voice soft as though he was afraid to speak. “I want to stay friends with Shige. With everyone.”

“Can you at least tell us what happened, Shige?” Tegoshi put on his best pleading face. “I don’t get how you could just stop wanting to be friends with us. It seems like some kind of joke.”

Shige looked like he was all set to refuse, but it was hard to say no to TegoMass when they were both looking at you with imploring, pitiful eyes. He sighed, body sagging as he gave in, and explained to them about his fight with Koyama, how it felt like their friendship was becoming more for their fans than for themselves. He’d been guilty of it too, he said, and he knew it, but sometimes there were special moments that he wanted to keep just for them, and Koyama didn’t seem to understand that.

“It wasn’t meant to end up this way, the fight just escalated and neither of us knew what to do about it. I don’t know when we went from being friends who were fighting to not being friends anymore, but it’s too late to go back now.”

“I don’t like that phrase.” Tegoshi frowned. “Everyone’s been saying it, over and over again. Too late.”

“You’ve been… future you has been trying to fix it for a long time, but nothing’s worked so far. I think that proves it’s too late,” Shige said, defensive.

“Well, obviously. There’s only so much one person can do on their own, even if it is me.” Tegoshi sounded frustrated now, as though he couldn’t understand why their future selves couldn’t grasp the point. “If you all put your minds to it and worked together, I bet you this would be over in a day.”

“Tegoshi might be exaggerating a bit,” Massu added. “But he’s right. We can do a lot when we’re all aiming for the same goal.”

Shige bit his lip. “But it doesn’t feel like it can get better. It feels like there’s been a gap here for too long, and… I don’t know if we can bridge it.”

“Remember the time you, me and Kei-chan went to Hawaii together for a holiday?” Tegoshi asked, out of the blue. “That was fun, right? Even though that year was really painful for all of us, we stuck together. It could’ve fallen apart, but I remember wanting to come back so badly, and we all worked hard towards it.”

Shige swallowed. He didn’t agree, but his eyes looked a little softer, and maybe even a little nostalgic.

“I can’t know for sure, but I bet I really miss your smile.” Massu’s tone was gentle, a tiny bit sad. “But I think Koyama misses it even more.”

“When we found out yesterday that you and Kei-chan weren’t friends anymore, our Kei-chan cried a little bit. Even if it’s different now, I think that feeling is still there,” Tegoshi continued. “Because Shige is so important to him, and he likes to talk about you because of that. I don’t know if he can imagine a life without it.”

Neither Tegoshi nor Massu had been expecting it, but suddenly Shige’s lip was trembling and his eyes looked wet.

“I didn’t…” He paused, swallowed, and his voice was hoarse, like he was trying to hold back tears. “I didn’t want this to happen. It feels like I ruined our group, and it’s all my fault.”

Tegoshi and Massu exchanged panicked looks, unsure of how to deal with a suddenly upset Shige.

“I don’t think it’s just your fault, Shige,” Massu offered, looking to Tegoshi for support but getting none. “It’s… I mean, we should’ve all ignored you instead of trying to avoid the problem and withdrawing from the group. We probably got mad at each other for running away, and just… yeah. Don’t blame yourself.”

And finally, Shige grinned; tiny and weak, but real. “I’d forgotten how awkward you are.”

Massu pouted, Tegoshi laughed and the atmosphere in the room suddenly felt a whole lot lighter.

Future Koyama was almost in tears the moment he saw future Shige with past Tegoshi and Massu trailing along behind him.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing he said, and future Shige couldn’t help his eyes from welling up again too.

The rest of NEWS - both past and present - watched them as they exchanged their first voluntary words in years, and future Yamapi looked on with a gentle expression, murmuring almost under his breath, “You know, I never really gave up on any of you.”

The words were spoken quietly, but the rest of the group heard, and it finally felt like things were falling back into place.

“I always thought it’d take our whole group working together to fix this problem,” future Tegoshi said as they navigated their way through an unfamiliar neighbourhood a couple of days later, “but I didn’t think it’d be our whole group from a different timeline.”

It’d taken a couple of days to track down the lighting guy from their concert using old newspaper articles and the jimusho’s connections, but they finally had their guy. The others had work, but future Tegoshi had agreed to see them off.

NEWS still had a long way to go in repairing their group dynamic, but it was already a hundred times better than it had been when they’d first arrived.

The apartment where their guy apparently lived now was fairly standard, nothing like somewhere they’d imagine a stagehand-turned-aspiring scientist would be living.

They said goodbye to future Tegoshi at the entrance of the complex, and then hit the doorbell, waiting nervously for someone to show up.

Koyama and Shige recognised his face immediately; his haircut was different, but there was no doubt in their minds as to who he was.

He seemed to recognise them too, because his eyes widened and he took a step back.

“What… what are you…”

“We don’t mean to intrude,” Koyama hastened to reassure him. “It’s… well, it’s a long story. Do you mind if we come in?”

The guy looked nervous, but when a famous boyband who you almost blew up three years ago turned up at your apartment, you’d need a pretty good excuse to turn them away.

After a lot of dithering, Shige slipped in a reference to time travel, and the guy - his name was Amano, it turned out - finally agreed to let them come in.

They tried to ignore the suspicious looks he kept shooting them as they all holed up in his apartment, not made for seven people.

“Okay, now… this might sound a little strange to you,” Shige began, “but we’re not NEWS from 2013. We’re NEWS from 2010. We ended up travelling here from our own time because of the invention you were working on back at Kyocera Dome, and…”

Shige was cut off there, because Amano did the most perfect 180 degree change in attitude that NEWS had ever seen. His eyes lit up and he started to babble about flux capacitors and temporal shifts and alternate time streams.

“So it blew up in my timeline, but it worked in yours. This is amazing!”

NEWS shared some bemused looks, but none of them had the heart to interrupt this man’s epiphany. Even if he was a mad-roadie-scientist, that still made him a mad scientist of sorts, and as far as they knew, you weren’t supposed to disrupt mad people.

As usual, it was Tegoshi who got impatient first, and butted in while Amano was in the middle of sentence.

“So… the reason we came to see you was because we were wondering. Do you have any time machines that’ll take us back to the past? We’re about to have our concerts, and they can’t start without us.”

“Well, technically your concerts have already happened…” Amano started to say, and Yamapi cleared his throat.

“Can you send us back to our own time?” he asked firmly, and the stagehand-turned scientist finally shut his mouth and nodded meekly.

“I have been working on something ever since the… explosion incident got sorted out, but I’ll have to run a few tests. You’re welcome to stay here while I do, though.”

And with that, he left NEWS sitting dumbfounded in his lounge, running off with bright eyes and rosy cheeks into what must have been his makeshift lab.

The loud bangs, zaps, and ‘well, that didn’t go as planned’s that followed during the next six hours weren’t very comforting, but Tegoshi maintained that if this guy had managed to transport them to the future, he could definitely send them back to the past.

By the time Amano emerged and invited NEWS to come into his work area, looking triumphant and a little bit singed, it was already evening.

“Okay. I think I’ve got it,” he told them, voice a few tones higher than normal with excitement, as they gathered around what had to be the time machine.

It looked less like a piece of stage equipment - possibly a precaution - and more like something out of a sci-fi film this time, which was rather comforting until Amano told them, “I haven’t tested it with human subjects yet, so it’ll either do what we want it to, or it’ll blow up.”

Everyone but Tegoshi, who continued standing there with a guileless smile on his face, took a step out of the room.

“I’m not sure that’s a risk I want to take,” Massu said, and Koyama agreed, nodding vehemently.

“We can’t just stay here, though,” Tegoshi said, and Yamapi hesitantly agreed.

“We’ll just have to give it a shot. There can’t be two of NEWS in one timeframe.”

The other members looked unconvinced, but eventually they had to give in.

“Just remember,” Yamapi reminded them as they all assembled in front of the machine, linking arms in support, “we’re all in this together.”

Shige nodded at Amano. “We’re ready.”

When he hit the power, NEWS were hit by the same blinding flash of light, and a strange sensation that reminded them of motion sickness. They shut their eyes against the brightness, and only when the feeling of spinning stopped did they feel safe enough to open them again.

When they did, they found they were on their feet, back in Kyocera Dome, surrounded by a bustle of stagehands and directors as though they’d never left.

“Guess he worked on the landing,” Ryo said under his breath, but he shared a smile with the rest of the members in quiet celebration.

That was until Massu, with a look of horror on their face, pointed to the original source of their trouble, once again about to be plugged into the power.

“Um, guys…” His voice came out in a high squeak, and Tegoshi grabbed his microphone.

“Nobody move!” He shouted, and time seemed to slow down as Koyama legged it over to the time machine, pushing past the guy who was about to plug it in.

Then, he proceeded to drop kick it off the stage.

Once their managers had finishing making sure that Koyama hadn’t suddenly become certifiably insane, they finally started their concert the next day after what felt like the longest wait in history.

Tegoshi got his lyrics wrong, Shige messed up the choreography, Massu was awkward, Ryo and Yamapi accidentally swapped places during a performance, Koyama took over the MC and talked at 100 miles an hour, and the fans laughed, loving every minute of it.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve all stood on the stage together like this,” Yamapi told them when he finally managed to get a word in edgeways, “but we’re finally back. I feel like I’ve grown even closer to the members during this time.”

He smiled, and the others mirrored his expression.

The MC went on, turning to trivial topics like food and shopping.

“Shige and I were out the other day,” Koyama began, chuckling as he remembered the story. “We went to eat, and…”

The audience waited as Koyama suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence, a contemplative look coming over his face.

Then he grinned. “Actually, who really wants to hear about Shige? Shige’s so boring.”

“Hey! Oi!” Shige protested, as Koyama went on to tell a story about another friend of his he’d met up with recently.

The concert went off without a hitch; Tegoshi jumped on Ryo’s back, Koyama hugged Massu who looked uncomfortable but smiled the whole time and Yamapi doubled over laughing when Shige dropped his microphone.

And it was perfect. And that night, when NEWS celebrated together in their hotel room, they knew they’d be together for a long time to come - if not as a group, then as friends.