In Time With You
Title: In Time With You
Rating: G
Group/pairing: Kanjani8/YokoHina
Notes: Written for jentfic_remix, originally posted here. It's a little bitter sweet in light of the changes to Recommen ^^;
I really liked the way moogle_tey measured time in her original fic and I wanted to put my own take on it. I think I might’ve went a little off-track with it, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless :)
As always, thanks to my wonderful speedy beta, and any mistakes left are totally me xD
Links to original story: Time
Links to original author: moogle_tey
---
Sometimes, Yoko preferred it when his life was simpler. Back when he could leisurely spend his days napping around the house, eating freshly cut watermelon with a bit of salt on his back porch with his grandma, and not caring about what day of the week it was. Nowadays, he felt like time sucked away at his life. And while that’s a normal part of the cycle of life, or whatever, he didn’t like counting the minutes. It wasn’t like he could feel each minute passing by or even thought about it when he was busy rehearsing, but it was more about the constant hassle of keeping time. What does that even mean? Nobody keeps time. Time, or whatever people have designated to be seconds, minutes, and hours were simply made to make life miserable, he thought. At least that’s how he felt right now, waiting for Hina to arrive to work in the morning.
He’s not so much late, as he’s not early. This was unlike Hina and the longer the seconds ticked by (why did they put a clock up on the wall when they have cellphones to tell the time?), the more Yoko worried.
A couple minutes passed (which felt like forever) and then he heard quick footsteps coming from down the hall. His heart beat picked up, anticipating his friend, and soon enough, there was his half-awake, apologetic smile that graced the photoshoot dressing room.
“What took you so long?” Yoko yelled across the room, his version of concern.
Hina sat next to him and prepared to do his own light make-up. “My alarm didn’t wake me.”
“Oh,” was all Yoko could muster as a retort. He had to do something to show Hina how much suffering he went through in waiting, so he picked up the morning newspaper and smacked him on the head with it.
“Hey!” Hina moved to retaliate, but Yoko had already run to the door, laughing.
“Don’t be late,” he taunted, and left for the photoshoot.
--
Yoko wondered when he first became obsessed with tracking time. He had been with this ‘job’ for a good 13 years without really thinking about it; his manager would handle his schedule and he would show up when he was told to.
“It must be a mid-life crisis kind of thing,” he muttered to himself.
“Huh?” Hina asked, sitting beside him on the floor. The cameraman was in between shots, adjusting the lighting.
“Nothing, it’s just time, it’s going by so quickly. Like, I’ve been noticing it more.”
“That just means you’re growing up, Yokocho,” Hina said, half as a statement, half mocking.
Yoko nudged him with his back, moving Hina slightly off his mark on the ground. He corrected himself, but moved even closer to Yoko’s side.
“Hey,” Yoko whispered, “the cameraman’s going to make you get up if you keep doing this.”
“But you’re warm and comfortable.” Hina promptly closed his eyes and laid into Yoko’s body.
Oh, Yoko was warm all right; his cheeks flushed, skin tingling, and for the first time in awhile, he didn’t know how to retaliate. How could he show Hina what he was doing to him?
“That’s perfect!” The cameraman shouted, breaking Yoko from his thoughts. He felt Hina scoff, the sound echoing into his own body. Yoko smiled for the camera, knowing that Hina was smirking right back. The fans were going to love this.
Click, click, click.
The shot was done, but Hina didn’t move. Yoko didn’t protest.
---
Oftentimes, Yoko wondered why they wasted so much time commuting and how they could use that time more effectively. Then he recalled the times they were filmed driving on Can!jani and changed his mind pretty quickly. They were fun, but exhausting.
Kanjani8 were all currently jammed into one van heading to a concert hall for rehearsal and all that time, Yoko was left to his thoughts, with Hina squished next to him.
He kept thinking back to what Hina said the other day, about growing up. Looking around at the other members, there was no way he could say that he was ‘growing up.’ He was the perpetual Peter Pan of the group, they all were. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny his age. Ultimately, age was racked up by years going by, and he definitely had lived through them, good and bad.
He recalled one of his first dance practices when he was 16, and being pushed to the back of the room because he was struggling. He remembered the then scrawny Hina coming up to him, offering him a drink, even though he was technically younger than him. When Johnny called Yoko into his office the first time, Hina was waiting for him afterwards to make sure everything was okay. They were also always scolded together by the voice coach for ‘not trying enough’ to reach certain notes. They would laugh about it afterwards, each taking turns mocking the teacher.
Even as the band concept of “Kanjani8” was just beginning to sprout, Yoko, Hina, Baru, and Ryo went through a period of time without much work, and they consoled each other by drinking the night away. As Yoko recalled it that was the year he turned 20, officially an adult by society’s standards. Even then, he didn’t feel like he was growing up.
So did it really matter to count how many minutes, hours, or days was spent (or not spent) on something and why did he have to start thinking about it now? He could honestly say that he spent his time happily struggling alongside the people who he was currently sitting with today, particularly with one unruly gorilla who was currently reading something on his phone.
A bump in the road jerked Yoko out of his reverie and he sighed. Forget about wasting time. I don’t care what we do instead, I just don’t want to spend any more time with my butt numb riding in a train or cramped van.
“Somebody needs to a build a teleportation device,” Hina said.
Yoko’s eyes lit up, this guy is reading my mind!
“Yea,” Yassu agreed. “So we can be in two places at once! Wouldn’t that be great?!”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Baru said with a slight chuckle. Hina shook his head and added, “That’s really not what I had in mind, but okay.”
“Yea, but we could jump back and forth and it would look like we were in two places at once,” Maru added and Yassu gave an enthusiastic nod.
“Noooo,” Ryo groaned from the back.
“About which part, Ryo?” Yoko asked, enjoying this conversation. At least it was better than hearing his own thoughts in the silence of the early morning ride.
“All of it. Plus, this is how I’ve been surviving, sleeping on commutes, you can’t take that away from me.” Ryo answered.
Ohkura, sleeping next to him, made a muffled noise that sounded like agreement.
The rest of the members laughed at that.
--
Later that evening, Hina and Yoko left the rest of the group who were still at the concert venue for Recomen recording.
Yoko gathered his notes and made sure everything was in order with his equipment.
“Hey, are you okay?” Hina asked before going on air.
“Yea,” Yoko answered, his brow furrowing, confused. “Why?”
“Nothing, you just seem really quiet today.”
“Well who can get a word in edgewise when you’re around,” Yoko retorted.
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“Touche, my friend,” Yoko smiled at that. “Don’t worry, just thinking.”
“That’s even worse! What trouble are you planning now?”
The radio producer gave them a 10-second warning and they quickly put on their headphones.
It’s a secret, Yoko mouthed across the table.
Hina chuckled, but proceeded to start their show.
“Konban-one two, this is Murakami Shingo.”
“Konban-one two, this is Yokoyama Yuu. So, it’s October, 8UPPERS should be coming out soon. We’re really excited about this, ne?”
“Yes, yes. It’s really something different for Kanjani8 as a band and being able to make this movie has been an awesome experience.”
“We had a lot of fun dressing up; we actually look cool.”
Hina busted out laughing, “As opposed to the crazy idiots we are in real life.”
“Can’t deny we are fools, but it’s a different concept for our group to explore, and I’d like to show that cool side of ourselves too.”
“I can’t argue with that, and we got to stretch our acting muscles a bit more.” Hina added. “So, we don’t have a guest today, but we’re doing a segment where we answer questions from callers and letters from fans. Before we begin, let’s play a song from our latest album. Look forward to seeing it in theaters soon!”
Animal Magic began playing in the background as Yoko and Hina chatted a little bit about which letters and questions they wanted to take.
The show continued as planned, though some questions took them on tangents. They were able to crack jokes and have fun as they usually did. They reached their last question with a little bit of time left in the recording, so they decided to pick one that could be easily expanded upon.
“This last question comes from Mei-chan from Chiba. Hi Mei-chan. She wrote, ‘please give us one word of advice that you would like for us to hear today, or something you have learned recently. Thank you.’”
“Thank you for your letter, Mei-chan,” Yoko added. He remembered reading that one and not having much planned as an answer. He looked over at Hina, hoping he had more to say on that topic.
Hina looked back at him, knowing Yoko had struggled with it. Having done this for several years now, he understood that they couldn’t let the silence go on too long, so he said the first thing that popped into his mind. That was usually not the greatest thing, but they had practice turning bad things into jokes, so he ran with it.
“I’m trying to think of something, and I’m coming up with a blank, but I am curious to hear from Yoko. He doesn’t look the type, but he does a lot of thinking while driving back and forth from concert rehearsals. I wonder if he’d like to share with the rest of us what he’s been thinking about lately.” Hina smirked.
Yoko looked up from his notes and laughed, “What a sly move. Everyone, I wouldn’t tell him what I was thinking earlier so now he’s forcing me to say it on air; that’s sneaky.”
Hina laughed and said, “Well, everyone’s waiting.”
Yoko hesitated. “I can’t promise this is very good advice or if it’s interesting at all, but lately I’ve been thinking about time. I really hate measuring it, or waiting for things to happen, and all our lives are consumed by it. I realized that it doesn’t really matter what time you’ve used wisely and what time you’ve wasted, it’s not about that. Those hours, days, and years should be about people. While it’s great that we accomplish things in time, it’s about who we did it for and who we did it with. Like Kanjani8 right now is able to do a lot of neat things -we really appreciate the support you’ve given us to get us there- but I feel like the time I spent with the members, and of course Murakami here, is more important than what actually came out of it. And I’m not saying don’t work towards a goal, but ya know, it’s about the people.”
Hina blinked, a bit taken aback by the straight-forward answer. “Waah, that was deep. I might get a little teary eyed.” Hina joked.
Yoko thanked him for not taking it too seriously in the studio, but made it fun for the listeners by pretend-hitting Hina on the arm.
“Ow, you hit like a girl.”
“Shut up.”
Hina laughed. “On that note, we’re gonna send you off with one of our favorite songs, Musekinin Hero. Thanks for listening; we hope you have a good night. Bye~”
“Bye, see ya next week.”
The producer signaled that they were off the air, and Hina quickly asked, “Wow, you really were thinking hard. Where did that come from?”
Yoko shrugged. “If you must know, this stemmed from you being late for the photoshoot the other day.”
“I wasn’t late,” Hina protested.
“Okay, whatever. It’s still your fault that I’m thinking about it,” Yoko said while hurriedly scooping up the piles of paper on his side of the table and heading for the door.
Hina smiled. “I’m glad I got to spend all this time with you too.”
Yoko paused mid-step and turned around. “You better be glad, and I’m not letting you off the hook for that trick you played back there.”
“Oh, I’m ready for it,” Hina smirked. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. We have plenty more years to go.”
Rating: G
Group/pairing: Kanjani8/YokoHina
Notes: Written for jentfic_remix, originally posted here. It's a little bitter sweet in light of the changes to Recommen ^^;
I really liked the way moogle_tey measured time in her original fic and I wanted to put my own take on it. I think I might’ve went a little off-track with it, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless :)
As always, thanks to my wonderful speedy beta, and any mistakes left are totally me xD
Links to original story: Time
Links to original author: moogle_tey
---
Sometimes, Yoko preferred it when his life was simpler. Back when he could leisurely spend his days napping around the house, eating freshly cut watermelon with a bit of salt on his back porch with his grandma, and not caring about what day of the week it was. Nowadays, he felt like time sucked away at his life. And while that’s a normal part of the cycle of life, or whatever, he didn’t like counting the minutes. It wasn’t like he could feel each minute passing by or even thought about it when he was busy rehearsing, but it was more about the constant hassle of keeping time. What does that even mean? Nobody keeps time. Time, or whatever people have designated to be seconds, minutes, and hours were simply made to make life miserable, he thought. At least that’s how he felt right now, waiting for Hina to arrive to work in the morning.
He’s not so much late, as he’s not early. This was unlike Hina and the longer the seconds ticked by (why did they put a clock up on the wall when they have cellphones to tell the time?), the more Yoko worried.
A couple minutes passed (which felt like forever) and then he heard quick footsteps coming from down the hall. His heart beat picked up, anticipating his friend, and soon enough, there was his half-awake, apologetic smile that graced the photoshoot dressing room.
“What took you so long?” Yoko yelled across the room, his version of concern.
Hina sat next to him and prepared to do his own light make-up. “My alarm didn’t wake me.”
“Oh,” was all Yoko could muster as a retort. He had to do something to show Hina how much suffering he went through in waiting, so he picked up the morning newspaper and smacked him on the head with it.
“Hey!” Hina moved to retaliate, but Yoko had already run to the door, laughing.
“Don’t be late,” he taunted, and left for the photoshoot.
--
Yoko wondered when he first became obsessed with tracking time. He had been with this ‘job’ for a good 13 years without really thinking about it; his manager would handle his schedule and he would show up when he was told to.
“It must be a mid-life crisis kind of thing,” he muttered to himself.
“Huh?” Hina asked, sitting beside him on the floor. The cameraman was in between shots, adjusting the lighting.
“Nothing, it’s just time, it’s going by so quickly. Like, I’ve been noticing it more.”
“That just means you’re growing up, Yokocho,” Hina said, half as a statement, half mocking.
Yoko nudged him with his back, moving Hina slightly off his mark on the ground. He corrected himself, but moved even closer to Yoko’s side.
“Hey,” Yoko whispered, “the cameraman’s going to make you get up if you keep doing this.”
“But you’re warm and comfortable.” Hina promptly closed his eyes and laid into Yoko’s body.
Oh, Yoko was warm all right; his cheeks flushed, skin tingling, and for the first time in awhile, he didn’t know how to retaliate. How could he show Hina what he was doing to him?
“That’s perfect!” The cameraman shouted, breaking Yoko from his thoughts. He felt Hina scoff, the sound echoing into his own body. Yoko smiled for the camera, knowing that Hina was smirking right back. The fans were going to love this.
Click, click, click.
The shot was done, but Hina didn’t move. Yoko didn’t protest.
---
Oftentimes, Yoko wondered why they wasted so much time commuting and how they could use that time more effectively. Then he recalled the times they were filmed driving on Can!jani and changed his mind pretty quickly. They were fun, but exhausting.
Kanjani8 were all currently jammed into one van heading to a concert hall for rehearsal and all that time, Yoko was left to his thoughts, with Hina squished next to him.
He kept thinking back to what Hina said the other day, about growing up. Looking around at the other members, there was no way he could say that he was ‘growing up.’ He was the perpetual Peter Pan of the group, they all were. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny his age. Ultimately, age was racked up by years going by, and he definitely had lived through them, good and bad.
He recalled one of his first dance practices when he was 16, and being pushed to the back of the room because he was struggling. He remembered the then scrawny Hina coming up to him, offering him a drink, even though he was technically younger than him. When Johnny called Yoko into his office the first time, Hina was waiting for him afterwards to make sure everything was okay. They were also always scolded together by the voice coach for ‘not trying enough’ to reach certain notes. They would laugh about it afterwards, each taking turns mocking the teacher.
Even as the band concept of “Kanjani8” was just beginning to sprout, Yoko, Hina, Baru, and Ryo went through a period of time without much work, and they consoled each other by drinking the night away. As Yoko recalled it that was the year he turned 20, officially an adult by society’s standards. Even then, he didn’t feel like he was growing up.
So did it really matter to count how many minutes, hours, or days was spent (or not spent) on something and why did he have to start thinking about it now? He could honestly say that he spent his time happily struggling alongside the people who he was currently sitting with today, particularly with one unruly gorilla who was currently reading something on his phone.
A bump in the road jerked Yoko out of his reverie and he sighed. Forget about wasting time. I don’t care what we do instead, I just don’t want to spend any more time with my butt numb riding in a train or cramped van.
“Somebody needs to a build a teleportation device,” Hina said.
Yoko’s eyes lit up, this guy is reading my mind!
“Yea,” Yassu agreed. “So we can be in two places at once! Wouldn’t that be great?!”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Baru said with a slight chuckle. Hina shook his head and added, “That’s really not what I had in mind, but okay.”
“Yea, but we could jump back and forth and it would look like we were in two places at once,” Maru added and Yassu gave an enthusiastic nod.
“Noooo,” Ryo groaned from the back.
“About which part, Ryo?” Yoko asked, enjoying this conversation. At least it was better than hearing his own thoughts in the silence of the early morning ride.
“All of it. Plus, this is how I’ve been surviving, sleeping on commutes, you can’t take that away from me.” Ryo answered.
Ohkura, sleeping next to him, made a muffled noise that sounded like agreement.
The rest of the members laughed at that.
--
Later that evening, Hina and Yoko left the rest of the group who were still at the concert venue for Recomen recording.
Yoko gathered his notes and made sure everything was in order with his equipment.
“Hey, are you okay?” Hina asked before going on air.
“Yea,” Yoko answered, his brow furrowing, confused. “Why?”
“Nothing, you just seem really quiet today.”
“Well who can get a word in edgewise when you’re around,” Yoko retorted.
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“Touche, my friend,” Yoko smiled at that. “Don’t worry, just thinking.”
“That’s even worse! What trouble are you planning now?”
The radio producer gave them a 10-second warning and they quickly put on their headphones.
It’s a secret, Yoko mouthed across the table.
Hina chuckled, but proceeded to start their show.
“Konban-one two, this is Murakami Shingo.”
“Konban-one two, this is Yokoyama Yuu. So, it’s October, 8UPPERS should be coming out soon. We’re really excited about this, ne?”
“Yes, yes. It’s really something different for Kanjani8 as a band and being able to make this movie has been an awesome experience.”
“We had a lot of fun dressing up; we actually look cool.”
Hina busted out laughing, “As opposed to the crazy idiots we are in real life.”
“Can’t deny we are fools, but it’s a different concept for our group to explore, and I’d like to show that cool side of ourselves too.”
“I can’t argue with that, and we got to stretch our acting muscles a bit more.” Hina added. “So, we don’t have a guest today, but we’re doing a segment where we answer questions from callers and letters from fans. Before we begin, let’s play a song from our latest album. Look forward to seeing it in theaters soon!”
Animal Magic began playing in the background as Yoko and Hina chatted a little bit about which letters and questions they wanted to take.
The show continued as planned, though some questions took them on tangents. They were able to crack jokes and have fun as they usually did. They reached their last question with a little bit of time left in the recording, so they decided to pick one that could be easily expanded upon.
“This last question comes from Mei-chan from Chiba. Hi Mei-chan. She wrote, ‘please give us one word of advice that you would like for us to hear today, or something you have learned recently. Thank you.’”
“Thank you for your letter, Mei-chan,” Yoko added. He remembered reading that one and not having much planned as an answer. He looked over at Hina, hoping he had more to say on that topic.
Hina looked back at him, knowing Yoko had struggled with it. Having done this for several years now, he understood that they couldn’t let the silence go on too long, so he said the first thing that popped into his mind. That was usually not the greatest thing, but they had practice turning bad things into jokes, so he ran with it.
“I’m trying to think of something, and I’m coming up with a blank, but I am curious to hear from Yoko. He doesn’t look the type, but he does a lot of thinking while driving back and forth from concert rehearsals. I wonder if he’d like to share with the rest of us what he’s been thinking about lately.” Hina smirked.
Yoko looked up from his notes and laughed, “What a sly move. Everyone, I wouldn’t tell him what I was thinking earlier so now he’s forcing me to say it on air; that’s sneaky.”
Hina laughed and said, “Well, everyone’s waiting.”
Yoko hesitated. “I can’t promise this is very good advice or if it’s interesting at all, but lately I’ve been thinking about time. I really hate measuring it, or waiting for things to happen, and all our lives are consumed by it. I realized that it doesn’t really matter what time you’ve used wisely and what time you’ve wasted, it’s not about that. Those hours, days, and years should be about people. While it’s great that we accomplish things in time, it’s about who we did it for and who we did it with. Like Kanjani8 right now is able to do a lot of neat things -we really appreciate the support you’ve given us to get us there- but I feel like the time I spent with the members, and of course Murakami here, is more important than what actually came out of it. And I’m not saying don’t work towards a goal, but ya know, it’s about the people.”
Hina blinked, a bit taken aback by the straight-forward answer. “Waah, that was deep. I might get a little teary eyed.” Hina joked.
Yoko thanked him for not taking it too seriously in the studio, but made it fun for the listeners by pretend-hitting Hina on the arm.
“Ow, you hit like a girl.”
“Shut up.”
Hina laughed. “On that note, we’re gonna send you off with one of our favorite songs, Musekinin Hero. Thanks for listening; we hope you have a good night. Bye~”
“Bye, see ya next week.”
The producer signaled that they were off the air, and Hina quickly asked, “Wow, you really were thinking hard. Where did that come from?”
Yoko shrugged. “If you must know, this stemmed from you being late for the photoshoot the other day.”
“I wasn’t late,” Hina protested.
“Okay, whatever. It’s still your fault that I’m thinking about it,” Yoko said while hurriedly scooping up the piles of paper on his side of the table and heading for the door.
Hina smiled. “I’m glad I got to spend all this time with you too.”
Yoko paused mid-step and turned around. “You better be glad, and I’m not letting you off the hook for that trick you played back there.”
“Oh, I’m ready for it,” Hina smirked. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. We have plenty more years to go.”