[Fanfiction] SixTONES - NEW ERA
NEW ERA / or SixTONES and the curse
by me
Chapter 1
Taiga stirred the cauldron, sweat dripping down his face.
“Are you sure we did everything right?” he asked Juri.
Juri flipped the pages of the ancient book carefully, examining the long and complicated list of ingredients and the even more complicated instructions.
"I think so,” he replied without looking up from the book. “All’s left now is to add three more ingredients, and then let the potion simmer for two days, and it should be ready.”
In the meantime, Hokuto arranged and cleared the ingredients that they have already used from the desktop.
Shintaro was nervous. They have been working on this potion for several months now, since the day Taiga found that dubious book in the attic in his house. They found a spell for cursing/removing curses in it and decided to try and use it in order to debut. Of course, he understood his friends for being tired of the life as juniors and wanting to debut already, after all, he’s been a junior longer than most of them. But they have never made such a complicated potion, in which there were so many ingredients, most of them hard to find, and all ingredients have to be accurate to the last milligram. And besides, despite what he told his friends, he had never actually been in a Dark Magic ritual before.
There was a knock on the door and they all froze in their places.
"It's me,” said Kouchi's voice through the door and they calmed down.
The door opened and Kouchi entered the room, hiding a suspicious object under his coat.
"Did you find it?” Jesse asked enthusiastically. The others looked at Kouchi in anticipation.
"Yes indeed. Fresh boomslang skin, straight from Snape’s storage,” Kouchi answered and pulled the small package out of his coat and put it on the table solemnly.
"Snape’s?” asked Hokuto, raising an eyebrow.
"Fine, it’s from my grandma's storage. But I just had to,” Kouchi defended himself. Hokuto nodded understandingly.
Hokuto shredded the boomslang skin and added it to Taiga’s cauldron. The potion rose and bubbled in response to the new ingredient. Taiga waited a few seconds and then stirred the potion again.
They decided in advance that Juri should be the one to conduct the ritual, for two main reasons: One, he is the only one with some common sense, and Two, he is the only one who has experience with Dark Magic rituals. Taiga was in charge of stirring the potion, since the book belongs to him and also because if any of them has magical blood in their veins, it’s him. Hokuto was entrusted with cutting and measuring the ingredients, since he’s the only one who could be trusted to do it properly, and the other three were in charge of locating and bringing in all sort of odd ingredients. The most problematic ingredient was boomslang skin. They had no idea what a boomslang is, let alone where to find one. Fortunately to them, a few days earlier Kouchi has found out completely by accident that his grandmother has a collection of some very weird and suspicious objects, and has decided to “visit” her and see what she’s hiding there.
"You know we could’ve just asked Yara-senpai to give us some boomslang skin, right? He has tons of it, or so I heard.” said Hokuto.
"Yeah, sure, and what are we going to answer when he asks why we need it? No one should know what we are doing here,” claimed Juri.
"Well, then that's it, right? All that’s left now is to add pieces of the person we want to curse/remove the curse from, in other words - us.” said Jesse, smiling.
"Not yet,” Hokuto stopped him, browsing the crumbling book that was lying on the table in front of Juri. “There’s still one ingredient missing. We still need to get a hair.”
"A Hair?” asked Shintaro.
"Yeah, a hair,” Hokuto repeated .”A penguin hair.”
Everyone looked at Juri.
"I've already told you a million times! I. Don’t. Have. A penguin!” Juri defended himself.
"Juri…” The others said, giving him a come-on-we-don’t-have-time-for-this look.
"I don’t have a penguin…” Juri repeated weakly.
"Just give it to me,” Hokuto said, reaching a hand out to him. Juri put his hand slowly in his pocket, and then, shivering under his friends’ gaze, he took his hand out and put a black-whitish hair in Hokuto’s palm. Hokuto dropped the hair into the cauldron unceremoniously. The potion made some crackling noises and turned venomous blue. Juri cried out in protest.
"It hurt him when I took it and he bit me! Show a little more respect to my penguin's hair!” He complained and showed them a small scar on his finger.
"So you admit you have a penguin?” Shintaro asked.
"I never said that,” denied Juri.
"What now?" Kouchi asked apprehensively.
"Now we wait,” Taiga replied.
"And in two days - we drink,” Jesse concluded.
The others nodded, and they left the room one by one, the potion bubbling quietly in the background. Juri locked the door carefully and put the key in his pocket.
"See you here in two days.” He said, and they went their separate ways.
Chapter 2
Two days later, SixTONES gathered once again in the basement of the Tanaka family.
Their choice of the place was obvious. First of all, it was the perfect place to perform Dark Magic for the simple reason that it was the main use of the room by the family. The other reason was that there was no danger of anyone sticking their nose in or asking what they were doing. There was a clear policy in Juri's house of keep-your-nose-in-your-own-monkey-business-and-don’t-stick-it-into-other’s-monkey-business. So even if his family suspected they were doing something improper there, they just let them do whatever they pleased and didn’t ask questions. Plus, in case something went wrong they can always ask one of Juri's brothers for help. The fourth reason was that Juri's mother was making dinner for a battalion anyway, so she had no problem feeding five more guys and they could all stay for dinner.
So SixTONES members gathered again in the basement, surrounding the cauldron. Juri went through the list of ingredients one last time.
"... Lacewing flies - check; glitter powder - check; leeches - check; fluxweed picked at full moon night - check; powdered bicorn horn - check; ashes of an evil billionaire - check," he said while checking the list. "Shredded boomslang skin - check; penguin hair - check; blood of the heir of an aristocratic family - check." he summed up and closed the book.
Taiga sucked his finger in pain and went back to stirring the cauldron, the potion inside was now a bright, shimmering pink.
"The potion is ready," he informed the others. "Now we need to add pieces of the person we want to curse/remove a curse from, in this case - it's us, and start the ritual."
Jesse started to take off his shoes but Kouchi stopped him. "No way. I'm not drinking anything that has your toenails in it."
"We've already talked about it and decided to use hairs," Juri said. "No toenails. No-one's." he added as Shintaro also bent down to take off his shoe.
Jesse giggled frantically.
Taiga put out the fire under the cauldron and silence filled the room. Everyone became serious, even Jesse.
Juri swallowed. "I'll start." he said, tore one hair from his head and let it fall into the potion. The potion changed its color back to blue. Hokuto went after him, he dropped a hair into the cauldron and the potion turned black as tar. Next were Taiga, Kouchi and Jesse; They each put their hairs into the potion, which changed colors from pink to yellow and then to blood red.
"Are you sure about this?" Shintaro asked the others.
"It's too late to back out now," Kouchi said.
Shintaro nodded. He tore one hair and added it to the potion as well. The potion glowed in a green light for a moment and finally got the disgusting color you get when mixing all watercolor paints together.
Juri poured the steaming potion into six cups and handed them to his friends. He rolled up the carpet that covered the floor and exposed the pentagram painted on the floor in chalk. He took his own glass from the table and started giving the others instructions.
"Everyone, stand at a different end of the pentagram," he said.
"But there are only five," Jesse noted.
"I didn’t think about that..." murmured Juri, "We are five brothers, so it’s always enough..."
"We can draw a hexagram instead," Hokuto suggested.
"I like drawing!" Taiga said and pulled chalk out of his pocket.
"We've already seen your drawings, thank you very much," Juri stopped him, afraid of the possible effect Taiga's hideous drawings might have on the magic circle. "We'll leave it as is. I'll stand in the middle."
Everyone took their place around the magic circle and Juri stood in the middle.
"Maybe we should call your brother after all?" Shintaro asked.
"It's okay. I can do it myself. I've seen my brothers do it tons of times." Juri replied, though he himself didn’t seem particularly confident. "Each of us has to concentrate on what he wants to happen - in this case that SixTONES will debut, while he drinks the potion."
Juri took a deep breath. The glass trembled in his hand. He mumbled the magic spell he remembered Koki saying the first time he let him join a Dark Magic ritual, when he was 9, back in 2005. He opened his eyes and as if someone gave them a sign, they all drank the potion at the same time, each of them thinking about the idol they aspire to be.
Chapter 3
"That was DISGUSTING!" Kouchi complained. "I'm NEVER drinking this disgusting thing ever again!"
They were on a break and sat in a circle, away from the rest of the juniors in the rehearsal room, talking in whispers about their exploits from the previous day.
"I'm telling you; my brother did this exact spell and in less than a year KAT-TUN debuted."
"But it wasn’t without risks, was it?" Jesse added.
"There are... certain side effects to the spell, yes," Juri admitted. "It turns out the curse may come back eventually. But I asked Koki and he said that the addition of the ashes and blood should eliminate that effect."
"Hey guys, what's up?" Sakuma from Snow Man approached them.
They all froze in place, fearing he might have heard their conversation. But fortunately to them, Sakuma wasn’t particularly sharp and they were able to recover before he was able to notice something was wrong with them. Shintaro elbowed Taiga, urging him to say something.
"Hi, Sakuma, I heard your family comes for dinner next week," He said in an attempt to sound cheerful.
"Yeah, my mom said she wanted to borrow some book from your mother," Sakuma replied with a wide smile as usual.
"A book? What book?" Taiga asked in a squeaky voice.
"Something about magic? I have no idea," he shrugged. "Anyways, the break is almost over, so you better hurry!" And he walked away, returning to his own group’s members.
SixTONES exchanged horrified glances. Taiga made up his mind to return the dubious book back to the attic this week, before Sakuma’s family comes to visit.
The break ended and the choreographer called all juniors to order and they continued the rehearsal. They haven’t done more than a few steps into the dance when the door opened and Tackey entered the room. They all stopped dancing and bowed to him.
"I have an announcement to make," he declared, shaking Fukazawa off of him. "I talked with Johnny and decided to retire from the idol business at the end of this year."
All the juniors, from big to small, held their breath. Shintaro looked at his admired senpai with torn eyes.
"Instead, I will be in charge and chief producer of the juniors."
Everyone sighed in relief. So Tackey is not leaving them, at least not really.
Tackey gave Snow Man and SixTONES a meaningful look.
"Don’t disappoint me," he said.
"Yes sir!" All six members of Snow Man said in unison and saluted.
Chapter 4
"Did you hear what happened?”
Jesse barged into the room and spread the newspaper in front of the others. On the huge front page of the paper was a huge picture of Arashi and above it a huge headline that read “Arashi going on hiatus at the end of 2020”.
"It’s not true! Tell me it's not true!” cried Kouchi.
“It’s true,” Hokuto said, browsing the article in front of him. Kouchi buried his head in his hands.
"Haven’t you heard anything about it from Aiba?” Shintaro asked.
"He's not… we are not exactly ... when I said I was on good terms with Aiba I meant that…” Kouchi stammered.
The others didn’t blame him, they all bended a few truths here and there regarding their relationship with the senpai they admired.
"At least it's not like Arashi are really leaving,” Taiga said. "It's not like, you know, someone from TOKIO for instance…” he added apologetically.
Juri and Jesse looked down. Everyone knew they were quite close to Yamaguchi before he was kicked out in disgrace.
Kouchi cheered up a little.
"You are right,” he said. “I will go send Aiba a message, maybe he will even reply me one day.” He added hopefully.
Chapter 5
SixTONES sat together in the conference room. Recently, a gloomy atmosphere has filled the corridors of Johnny’s & Associates building. Johnny fell ill, and was hospitalized without any expectation of imminent release.
"Hey, Juri,” Shintaro approached him .
"Hmm?” Asked Juri and raised his gaze and from his note, where he tried to write new rap lyrics.
"Remember that spell we did?” Shintaro asked. The others also looked up and listened intently.
“Yes?” Juri answered carefully.
"Well, so you said that we will debut within a year, but there is still no debut and it’s almost been a year.”
"Hmm…” Juri hummed. He patted his chin with his pencil, trying to think.
"But it hasn’t been a year yet,” he concluded.
…
A few days later, SixTONES went to the hospital, to visit Johnny in his sickbed. They identified themselves at the entrance to the guarded hallway and were ushered into Johnny's wide and secure room. When they entered the room, Tackey and Miyake Ken were already there, with the nine members of Snow Man, who had arrived a few minutes ahead of them, surrounding the bed. Tackey visited Johnny so often, and since anyone who came there found Tackey there, no matter what time of the day it was, the other Johnny’s began to develop a theory among themselves that Tackey was actually living there.
After several minutes of chatting, staring and talking to the still Johnny, SixTONES and Snow Man decided it’s time for them to leave and got up.
"Wait a minute," Tackey stopped them as they almost reached the door. SixTONES approached him back.
"You too," Tackey added, and Snow Man joined the crowd around him as well.
Tackey put Johnny's hand down on the mattress gently and stood in front of his juniors.
"SixTONES. Snow Man. Your time has come. You will be debuting next year. You will be the bearers of a new era of Johnny’s." He announced.
Everyone exchanged excited looks. They were torn between joy at their destiny finally coming true and concern for the body lying in front of them behind Tackey's back. They thanked Tackey for his great generosity and slipped away in quick steps, whispering to each other in excitement.
"We did it!" Jesse exclaimed excitedly, "We're going to debut!"
Wide smiles spread on everyone's faces, and they all turned to look appreciatively at Juri, who had the widest smile of all.
Chapter 6
"Oh, yeah! That’s the good life!" Said Jesse, leaning back in his chair and putting his legs on the table.
They did it. They debuted, released a CD, they're currently in the midst of a tour all around the country and the future has never looked brighter.
"Not so sure about that, have you heard about that virus that’s been going around lately?" Said Hokuto.
"Yeah, but we’re Johnny’s. We're immune." Shintaro replied with a smug smile.
"Yeah, but there are rumors that they are going to cancel all concerts because of it, so our salary isn’t so immune." Added Juri.
"Our tour’s almost over anyways," Kouchi shrugged.
But Taiga had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. The last time he felt that was when they were about to start the Dark Magic ritual, and although at that moment he didn’t link these feelings to each other, he was about to find out that whatever was about to happen was a direct result of that forbidden spell.
…
After almost a month of not meeting each other except for a few zoom-meetings, SixTONES gathered once again to shoot a video for their YouTube channel. When Juri entered the room fashionably late as usual, he found the others huddled around the sobbing Taiga.
"What happened?" He hurried towards them.
"Haven’t you heard?" Shintaro asked. Taiga blew his nose noisily, tears continuing to trickle down his cheeks.
"No, what?" He asked anxiously.
"Tegoshi left Johnny’s," Jesse replied quietly.
"WAAAHHHHH!!!!!!" Taiga wailed loudly.
"Shh shh," Hokuto patted his back gently and tried to calm him down.
They didn’t know what to say to comfort Taiga, and what could they say? Nothing they say will bring Tegoshi back.
"But the fact that he left doesn’t mean you can’t meet him ever again, right? I'm sure you can continue taking vocal lessons from him," Kouchi said.
Taiga blew his nose again and sipped some water from the bottle Jesse handed him.
"I don’t know if Tackey will approve that..." He murmured, wiping his tears.
Hokuto took Taiga to wash his face and meanwhile the others organized the room for filming along with the staff.
"Did you hear the rumor going around," Shintaro turned to Juri when they both pushed a table together to the corner of the room to make some space. "That Nagase-kun is also planning to leave?"
"Yea," he replied, "But that's just an unfounded rumor, right?"
"Yeah, but I dunno, it kinda feels like the whole agency’s falling apart around us lately, doesn't it?" Said Shintaro.
Juri patted his shoulder. “Everything’s gonna be alright, don't worry."
Chapter 7
Juri's phone kept ringing and ringing.
"Come on, Juri, pick up the damn phone," Hokuto grumbled impatiently.
Everyone except Juri had already arrived and sat down around the table in the conference room. The others called him on the phone repeatedly but to no avail. Juri was usually late and after all, it had only been 5 minutes since the time they were scheduled to meet, but today was different. Today they wanted Juri to at least answer their calls so they could know that everything was fine with him.
There was a faint knock on the door and Juri entered the room with disheveled hair and puffy eyes. He looked as if he had just woken up and as if he had just cried at the same time. As far as they knew, there was a high possibility that both were true.
"Good morning," he murmured without looking straight at any of them and sat down heavily in the vacant chair next to Shintaro.
"Juri..." Taiga turned to him from the other side of the table. "I know how you feel."
Juri looked up at him. He knew it was true. Only a few months earlier Taiga’s admired senpai left as well.
"And at least you get a notice in advance," Taiga added with a soft smile. "You have time until March, when Nagase-senpai will really leave. Till that time, he's still one of us Johnny’s."
Juri nodded and rubbed his eyes. It really felt like the agency is falling apart around them.
Chapter 8
"NOOOOO!” Hokuto screamed.
It can’t be. It just can’t be. He felt as if his soul was being torn out of his body.
The others stood beside him, feeling helpless as much as him and shocked from the news - the departure of Yamapi from Johnny’s Entertainment.
"Who am I supposed to admire now?" Hokuto sobbed, "Shige?"
"Same goes to me,” Added Juri.
"And me,” Taiga reluctantly joined.
"Hey, do you realize that all of your admired senpais le-" Kouchi paused when he realized the murderous glares the others gave him, and then realized that his admired senpai was most probably not going to sing or dance much on stage pretty soon as well.
"Yeah, Kouchi and I should be grateful that our admired senpais at least stay in the agency, even if they don't really appear on stage anymore..." Shintaro sadly admitted.
Hokuto looked at Shintaro with torn eyes when it suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks right in the face.
"You get what's happening, right?" Hokuto said, torn inside. "We didn’t remove the curse, we just passed it on!"
Everyone turned to look at Juri.
"Don't look at me. The spell was supposed to fulfill what we thought of when we drank the potion. I know nothing more than that." He defended himself.
Hokuto realized in horror that when he drank the potion he wished to debut and become like Yamapi. A quick glance at the others confirmed him that they too had similar thoughts.
"So basically... what we did was taking the debut from our senpais?" He asked in a trembling voice.
"Does that mean we're supposed to, like, replace them?" Taiga asked anxiously.
"We can’t replace them! We are nothing compared to them!" Shintaro protested. The others nodded in agreement.
"Actually, I heard a rumor that Tsuyoshi is also planning to-” Kouchi said.
"Don’t say that. Just don’t." Jesse interrupted him, tears welling up in his eyes.
"It was a mistake," Juri said in defeat. "We shouldn’t have done that."
"You Tanakas and your Dark Magic!"
"Hey, Taiga’s the one who brought the book!"
"Hokuto’s the one who prepared the ingredients and put them in!"
"Kouchi brought the boomslang skin, and without it we could never have completed the potion!"
"Yeah, Kouchi, why did you bring boomslang skin?"
"How come I'm always the one to blame in the end?"
"Fine, let's stop arguing. We don’t want to be like, uhm other groups we know," Jesse interrupted him and gave Juri a quick apologetic look.
"So, what do we do now?" Shintaro asked apprehensively.
"Well, we can't undo the spell..." Juri began.
"Maybe a turn-back-time spell?" Taiga and Hokuto asked hopefully.
"Time spells are so complicated that even if I knew how to cast them, I would never mess with them," Juri replied. "Once my brother tried to cast a short and harmless Time Travel spell, and when he came back he found out he had a new tattoo on his b-"
"Okay, that's a little bit too much information," Jesse interrupted him.
"Right, yeah, back to the point,” Juri said. "We can’t undo the spell, so the only thing left for us to do is..."
"Is?" the others asked in unison.
"To enjoy it," Juri concluded with a smile.
"Juri is right," Shintaro said. "It’s our time now."
Kouchi and Jesse nodded. "Our senpais have already had their time to shine. Now it's our turn."
Taiga and Hokuto also nodded. After all, that's pretty much what Tackey told them when he announced that he was going to debut them. They will be the bearers of a new era in Johnny’s.
The end.
Note: 5 points to those who noticed all Harry Potter and Disney related references XD