一期一会 // Kis-My-Ft2
For crazy_otaku911.
一期一会 (Ichi-go Ichi-e)
Fujigaya/Iida
PG-13, 1152 words, AU
Fujigaya the rockstar + Iida the bookkeeper + one hand-touch in a moment in time.
He's 36 this year, but good lighting, camera angles and youthful genes make him look about 25. Magazine spreads are too obviously airbrushed to judge by, but even on the HD television channels, there's no doubt that he looks good. Lately all the show hosts are commenting on his youthful looks: "Fujigaya-san was born in the year of the rabbit? Well, you look a whole zodiac cycle younger." and "Do tell us your secret to eternal youth!" He replies that it's because he feels constantly blessed to be making music all the time, and those good feelings must get into his looks as well.
And it's true enough, certainly, that he's happy now. Perhaps he's not as bright-eyed and stage-struck as he was almost two decades ago, when he'd first debuted, but he's also a far cry from the burnout he'd been during those years in between, when his eyes had looked too bright and his laughter had sounded too sharp. His career had been wildly successful, though the rest of his life might as well have been speeding at 160mph into the sheer face of a cliff.
"I... had to swallow a lot of bitter medicine then," he says about that time now. "Colorful medicine," he hints, "though no good for me." He always refuses to say any more than that, though, and simply laughs with his new-found optimism. "Well, but I did make some of the most intimate albums of my career in that time though, so I guess it wasn't all a waste."
It's pleasant, now, to hear his throaty laugh (it's gotten deeper with age) and see his shoulders shake with genuine amusement. He's more than successful now - he's respected and admired - and the way the public looks at him is different from the doting adulation he'd gotten as a pop idol. And of course, what he says is true: his best, most raw albums came out of that dark period of drugs (and rock and roll, ha) and experimentation, and established him a reputation for song-writing. These days, his sound has mellowed out a bit, which might turn away a bit of the "angry teens" market, but earns him a more lasting following. His acting career, too, has blossomed into roles with more depth than Teenage Heartthrob, and you think what didn't kill him made him stronger.
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger," Fujigaya says from your TV, making you smile into your donburi.
You're 36 too, the same age as him, but the wrinkles - though you prefer to think of them as laugh lines - have already settled into the corners of your eyes years ago, and just this morning you found yet another gray hair lying hidden under your bangs. Of course, you don't have the fancy skin and hair products that Fujigaya uses, and living constantly buried under the dry dust of old books doesn't exactly help exfoliate your skin. You're happy, though, even with the wrinkles and gray hairs, because each of them tells a small story of some passing moment in your quiet life.
Being a bookkeeper and a writer, you're practically by definition a dreamer. You believe in things like love at first sight and the fabled red thread of destiny. Though sometimes, when you stop and think about it, it strikes you as strange. You're a man of creature comforts and a pragmatic lifestyle; talk of love and destiny is for supernovas like Fujigaya, who burn and crash and burn again, not your brand of weak-but-steady light. Yet he's refuted the idea of true love time and again, while you believe in it as uncompromisingly as black ink on white paper.
"Come to the fanmeeting with me," your sister whines at you like she's 15 again, even though she has a whole family of her own now to drag around instead of you. "I know you secretly like Fujigaya's music, and you have to get out of the bookshop sometime if you're going to meet anybody who's at all marriageable. And you should definitely be getting married. Soon." She's got a fantastic stink-side-eye, and you wince but hold your own and refuse to give in.
You once touched a star without getting incinerated (only a little burn that left a lasting impression); you're afraid that the second time, you won't be as lucky.
-
You were never supposed to be there, at that concert, at that place, at that moment in time. Your sister had been planning to go to his concert with her boyfriend, but they broke up just the day before, so you thought you'd play the good brother for once and take her instead. And then you'd gone through the wrong door at the venue, trying to find your way back to your seat from the bathroom, and ended up in the standing section, crushed in the crowd and jostled inexorably toward the stage. And of course, though all the ecstatic fans around you were doing it, you never would have reached up for his hand, if he hadn't come close, right in front of you, and reached down for yours. It had seemed only polite to shake hands. (In retrospect, you know now that he likely wasn't going for your hand at all - who could tell where he was looking, after all, behind those dark glasses?) Fate is what you chalk it all - the concert, the crowd, the hand-touch - up to, because it had all lined up too nicely to be mere coincidence.
Besides, you have no other way to explain the explosion you felt inside you when your hands touched, or the way time seemed to stop and all the lights and cameras and people got pushed to the periphery of your consciousness. It's a bit silly, like the romantic comedies your sister still loves to watch, but trying to put Love into words always sounds both exaggerated and understated at the same time. So you never speak of it aloud, but hold it close to your heart, always.
+
"I see the sparkle of a million flashlights, a wonderwall of stars
But the one that's shining out so bright is the one right where you are"
Fujigaya never releases the song himself, but gives it to a kouhai in the business, years after he writes it. "You remind me a lot of myself at that age," he says to the kid in a special one-on-one TV interview, "I hope you can cherish this song. It's quite special to me, and I've saved it to give to just the right person. My advice? I guess it would be... don't give up on the idea of love too quickly, like I did. Perhaps you will find that the red thread of destiny tied to your pinky leads you to an anonymous hand in the front row of your concert."
Notes:
1. I... don't know how this ended up in second person *cries*. Overall not a tone I usually write in.
2. See wikipedia for title breakdown.
3. Song lyrics credits: David Archuletta - Touch My Hand (via crazy_otaku911).
一期一会 (Ichi-go Ichi-e)
Fujigaya/Iida
PG-13, 1152 words, AU
Fujigaya the rockstar + Iida the bookkeeper + one hand-touch in a moment in time.
He's 36 this year, but good lighting, camera angles and youthful genes make him look about 25. Magazine spreads are too obviously airbrushed to judge by, but even on the HD television channels, there's no doubt that he looks good. Lately all the show hosts are commenting on his youthful looks: "Fujigaya-san was born in the year of the rabbit? Well, you look a whole zodiac cycle younger." and "Do tell us your secret to eternal youth!" He replies that it's because he feels constantly blessed to be making music all the time, and those good feelings must get into his looks as well.
And it's true enough, certainly, that he's happy now. Perhaps he's not as bright-eyed and stage-struck as he was almost two decades ago, when he'd first debuted, but he's also a far cry from the burnout he'd been during those years in between, when his eyes had looked too bright and his laughter had sounded too sharp. His career had been wildly successful, though the rest of his life might as well have been speeding at 160mph into the sheer face of a cliff.
"I... had to swallow a lot of bitter medicine then," he says about that time now. "Colorful medicine," he hints, "though no good for me." He always refuses to say any more than that, though, and simply laughs with his new-found optimism. "Well, but I did make some of the most intimate albums of my career in that time though, so I guess it wasn't all a waste."
It's pleasant, now, to hear his throaty laugh (it's gotten deeper with age) and see his shoulders shake with genuine amusement. He's more than successful now - he's respected and admired - and the way the public looks at him is different from the doting adulation he'd gotten as a pop idol. And of course, what he says is true: his best, most raw albums came out of that dark period of drugs (and rock and roll, ha) and experimentation, and established him a reputation for song-writing. These days, his sound has mellowed out a bit, which might turn away a bit of the "angry teens" market, but earns him a more lasting following. His acting career, too, has blossomed into roles with more depth than Teenage Heartthrob, and you think what didn't kill him made him stronger.
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger," Fujigaya says from your TV, making you smile into your donburi.
You're 36 too, the same age as him, but the wrinkles - though you prefer to think of them as laugh lines - have already settled into the corners of your eyes years ago, and just this morning you found yet another gray hair lying hidden under your bangs. Of course, you don't have the fancy skin and hair products that Fujigaya uses, and living constantly buried under the dry dust of old books doesn't exactly help exfoliate your skin. You're happy, though, even with the wrinkles and gray hairs, because each of them tells a small story of some passing moment in your quiet life.
Being a bookkeeper and a writer, you're practically by definition a dreamer. You believe in things like love at first sight and the fabled red thread of destiny. Though sometimes, when you stop and think about it, it strikes you as strange. You're a man of creature comforts and a pragmatic lifestyle; talk of love and destiny is for supernovas like Fujigaya, who burn and crash and burn again, not your brand of weak-but-steady light. Yet he's refuted the idea of true love time and again, while you believe in it as uncompromisingly as black ink on white paper.
"Come to the fanmeeting with me," your sister whines at you like she's 15 again, even though she has a whole family of her own now to drag around instead of you. "I know you secretly like Fujigaya's music, and you have to get out of the bookshop sometime if you're going to meet anybody who's at all marriageable. And you should definitely be getting married. Soon." She's got a fantastic stink-side-eye, and you wince but hold your own and refuse to give in.
You once touched a star without getting incinerated (only a little burn that left a lasting impression); you're afraid that the second time, you won't be as lucky.
-
You were never supposed to be there, at that concert, at that place, at that moment in time. Your sister had been planning to go to his concert with her boyfriend, but they broke up just the day before, so you thought you'd play the good brother for once and take her instead. And then you'd gone through the wrong door at the venue, trying to find your way back to your seat from the bathroom, and ended up in the standing section, crushed in the crowd and jostled inexorably toward the stage. And of course, though all the ecstatic fans around you were doing it, you never would have reached up for his hand, if he hadn't come close, right in front of you, and reached down for yours. It had seemed only polite to shake hands. (In retrospect, you know now that he likely wasn't going for your hand at all - who could tell where he was looking, after all, behind those dark glasses?) Fate is what you chalk it all - the concert, the crowd, the hand-touch - up to, because it had all lined up too nicely to be mere coincidence.
Besides, you have no other way to explain the explosion you felt inside you when your hands touched, or the way time seemed to stop and all the lights and cameras and people got pushed to the periphery of your consciousness. It's a bit silly, like the romantic comedies your sister still loves to watch, but trying to put Love into words always sounds both exaggerated and understated at the same time. So you never speak of it aloud, but hold it close to your heart, always.
+
"I see the sparkle of a million flashlights, a wonderwall of stars
But the one that's shining out so bright is the one right where you are"
Fujigaya never releases the song himself, but gives it to a kouhai in the business, years after he writes it. "You remind me a lot of myself at that age," he says to the kid in a special one-on-one TV interview, "I hope you can cherish this song. It's quite special to me, and I've saved it to give to just the right person. My advice? I guess it would be... don't give up on the idea of love too quickly, like I did. Perhaps you will find that the red thread of destiny tied to your pinky leads you to an anonymous hand in the front row of your concert."
Notes:
1. I... don't know how this ended up in second person *cries*. Overall not a tone I usually write in.
2. See wikipedia for title breakdown.
3. Song lyrics credits: David Archuletta - Touch My Hand (via crazy_otaku911).