JE/NewS-"The One Where NewS Members Really Become Superheroes This Time"
Title: The One Where NewS Members Really Become Superheroes This Time (AKA That’s Super NewS!!!!! Season Two)
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS
Warnings/Spoilers: CRACK clearly. OOC, stupidity, pointlessness.
Word Count: 6,418
Summary: The even less-sensical follow up to “The One Where NewS Members Become Superheroes”- In the future, Massu introduces NewS to toxic waste.
Dedication: koneho! Because you always make me laugh about like, EVERYTHING, even when it’s just you taking a brief break in hiatus to say hi. GANBATTE, baby.
A/N: I don’t know, I figured if I was going to make them heroes I might as well stop being wishy-washy. Also, this is to stall for the two remixes I am working on as well as the stupid new government AU one I inexplicably started last night.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1.
They are in China for the last leg of their Around Asia Tour when Massu suddenly brings them all surprise gifts one afternoon; he smiles happily and hands them each a huge green onion pancake that he had bought from a street cart just outside the arena.
“Uwah, thanks, Massu!” Tegoshi chirps, and accepts the gift happily.
“What’s the occasion?” Shige asks, looking his over critically first.
Massu blinks around a mouthful of food and doesn’t bother swallowing before answering. “The baasan outside was selling these and I thought they smelled delicious so I bought one, ne. And then I tried it and I was right, it was delicious!! So I wanted everyone to try it, too. They’re really cheap.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Koyama asks nervously, and kind of has a love/hate relationship with Chinese food. 95% of the time it is delicious, but 99% of the time that it’s delicious it also ends up giving him an upset stomach afterwards.
Massu smiles guilelessly. “It’s safe, ne. The baasan was really nice; she gave us the extra big ones!”
“Oh. Well then it should be okay, right?” Koyama agrees readily, and takes a bite of his pancake before Shige can tell him that his train of thought really makes no logical sense in its jump from point A to point B.
But as usual Shige’s the only one to notice this kind of thing; everyone else hears Koyama give the go ahead and happily digs in as well, making Shige think to himself that he can’t just step all over Massu’s good intentions by being the only one who complains about health code violations and the possibility of food poisoning while they’re all eating together so peacefully like this. It will be especially impossible for Shige to speak up if Yamapi and Tegoshi are going to do their little “Umai!” and “Oichii” shtick all over again, which they will probably start any second now.
He’s right.
And so Shige just sighs helplessly as Tegoshi and Yamapi burble happily to each other; he studies the oily pancake he is holding for a few seconds before giving up and taking a tentative bite. His group members all laugh and marvel at how delicious it is, and as he chews and swallows, he supposes that yes, it is good, and hey, what’s the worst that can happen? There are street vendors all over Japan, too. How different can the Chinese ones be?
~~~~~
2.
When he wakes up again he isn’t in China anymore; a Japanese doctor peers down at him with an expression on his face that is a mixture of curiosity and practiced concern.
“Kato-kun, Kato-kun, are you awake?” the doctor asks gently, and Shige wonders how he got here all of a sudden; the last thing he remembers is eating with everyone in the dressing room in Shanghai.
“What happened?” he asks, blinking blearily up at the bright lights as he slowly regains consciousness. “Where am I?”
“Ah, Shige, you’re finally awake, ne!” a familiar voice chirps from somewhere nearby, and when Shige manages to sit up, he sees that Tegoshi is perched at the edge of his bed, looking carefree as he munches on an apple. “It took you a really long time compared to everyone else!”
Shige doesn’t know whether to be annoyed by Tegoshi’s superior tone or relieved to know that his bandmate is alive and presumably fine. He settles for being more confused than anything else. “Tegoshi,” he murmurs, “what’s going on?”
Tegoshi laughs, sweet and bright. “Shige!” he says, “Something amazing happened!”
~~~~~
“We what?!” Shige screams sometime later, when he is reunited with the rest of his similarly hospitalized groupmates.
“Ate radioactive Chinese food,” Yamapi supplies again, helpfully.
Shige wonders if this is a prank TV show; are there hidden cameras around? Will someone jump out and yell, “Haha, got you!!” at any second?
He waits for it. Hopes for it.
Yamapi just blinks back at him peacefully.
And no one jumps out from anywhere.
Shige slumps. “We ate radioactive Chinese food,” he repeats, sounding helpless.
“That must be why it was so cheap ne,” Massu replies.
Shige would yell at him for being the one who thought that buying food off the streets of China was a good idea, but he knows it’s pointless right now and Massu would probably do it again in a heartbeat as long as the food was just as delicious as it had been then.
“So,” he says instead, trying to sound calm when he feels anything but, “what’s wrong with us? Why won’t they let us change back into our clothes? Do we have cancer? Radiation poisoning? What are we dying of?”
Silence.
Then, Ryo snorts. “What is this, a Korean drama?”
Shige blinks. “So…we’re not dying?”
“Of course not! That would be sad ne,” Tegoshi replies. “Shige is so negative!”
Shige’s eye twitches instinctively. “Then what’s going on!?” he demands.
Yamapi flashes a peace sign. “We have superpowers!”
~~~~~
“We do not have superpowers. That’s impossible,” Shige says after a few minutes, when he can talk again.
Ryo grins and promptly proves him wrong by shooting lasers out of his eyes. It incinerates the hem of Shige’s hospital robe.
A beat.
Shige slaps a hand to his forehead. “You have got to be kidding me.”
~~~~~
“As far as the doctors can tell, ne… what’s happening is happening to us and none of the other people who ate the obaasan’s food because they’re used to this kind of thing over there.”
Shige can only nod dumbly as Koyama patiently runs him through their physician’s explanations regarding what is going on; the older boy cites biological idiosyncrasies and thousands of years of separate evolutionary paths somewhere in the midst of it all. Shige supposes that yes, it makes some sense. Not a lot, mind, but some.
“So in the end, it was a weird combination of radioactive street food and our own special biological make up that made us this way, ne. The scientists say that this is the reason why each of us developed our own unique attributes instead of just getting the same power six times over.”
Shige sighs. “That doesn’t make sense. What unique attributes could possibly contribute to Nishikido-kun having laser beam eyes?”
Koyama laughs a little. “Well, you know. It’s an evolution of what makes each of us special.”
That is hardly scientific.
“What Kei-chan means,” Tegoshi begins, picking up where the older member left off, “is that things we’re already good at, we got even better at! It’s like… a level up, ne!”
“I don’t see how laser beam eyes are a level up from any of Nishikido-kun’s other special skills.”
Ryo grins. “I also have X-ray vision.”
Something about that makes Shige more nervous than the laser beam eyes.
“It makes sense,” Tegoshi insists, ignoring Shige’s apprehension. “Saa, because when Ryo-tan looks at someone he can immediately see right through them, ne? And he’s very frank about it!”
Shige grits his teeth. “Being able to judge people accurately is not the equivalent of X-ray vision. Being honest with people should not equal laser beam eyes.”
Ryo just cackles. “Right now I can see your underwear.”
Shige quickly places an absently humming Yamapi between himself and Ryo.
“I promise it makes sense, Shige,” Tegoshi insists. “Like Massu has super strength, and Yamashita-kun is indestructible ne! Oh, and Kei-chan, ne! Kei-chan is an empath!”
A beat.
Shige sighs. “Okay, maybe it does make a little bit of sense.”
Koyama understands exactly how he feels; he reaches out and pats his defeated groupmate gently.
~~~~~
“Wait, what’s your power?” Shige asks Tegoshi a little while later. He is immediately suspicious that the youngest member didn’t talk about his newfound abilities first.
Tegoshi just laughs. “They don’t know yet, ne.”
Koyama leans towards Shige to whisper in his ear. “The doctors ran a lot of tests on all of us while you were still unconscious, but Tegoshi seems to be the only one who’s exactly the same as before.”
Shige realizes fairly quickly that that can only mean one of two things.
One: Tegoshi’s so called “inherent powers” are well-developed enough already that the introduction of radioactive Chinese food into his system meant nothing in terms of enhancing them.
Two: Tegoshi’s god-given powers are so strong that they actually defeated the radioactive Chinese food that crippled the rest of their immune systems, rendering it ineffective.
Shige does not know which of the two options is more terrifying to him.
~~~~~
“Before you worry about Tego-nyan, worry about yourself first,” Ryo scoffs at him, and doesn’t need to use his newfound superpowers to see right through Shige on this one.
Shige knows Ryo is right.
And so he resigns himself to spending the next few days consulting with his doctors as they run a lot of strange tests on him; they take samples of his blood and expose it to extreme heat, extreme cold, acids, bases, more acids, and a slew of deadly viruses.
The results are normal; he’s not like Yamapi at all.
Shige thinks he could have told them that without the tests.
Next they put Shige on a treadmill for as long as he can handle (about twenty minutes); after he’s done his heart rate and blood pressure are all average. They try to get him to lift massive weights next, and after he maxes out at one hundred pounds on the bench press they realize that he’s not like Massu either.
He’s kind of relieved about that, actually.
After that he talks with some random psychologists while holding Koyama’s hand a lot and eventually declares to them that he definitely, definitely doesn’t feel feelings like Koyama does either.
It’s probably for the best; if Shige did empathize with people as much as Koyama did, he thinks he would be a sobbing, hysterical mess all of the time too.
The doctors and scientists also eventually discover that nothing cool comes out of Shige’s eyes (except maybe for tears) when they poke him or prod him too hard, and after a while they give up on categorizing Shige with Ryo as well.
“Maybe you’re like Tegoshi ne,” Koyama suggests, sounding almost relieved. “Maybe you’re normal!”
“Or we just don’t know what’s wrong with you yet,” Ryo adds with a smirk. “You always were slower at developing talent than the rest of us.”
Shige isn’t sure which to hope for at this point.
~~~~~
“Well,” Tegoshi poses reasonably the next day, “Shige is smart ne. How come no one tested out his brain power for anything? Maybe he can read minds!”
Everyone looks skeptically at Tegoshi. “If he could read minds,” Koyama begins, gently, “Then he would have noticed by now, right?”
Tegoshi is undaunted. “Maybe he just doesn’t know how yet!”
~~~~~
Even if he can read minds and has to learn how there’s not enough time; the producers of “That’s Super NewS!!!!!!” are ecstatic when they hear about the radioactive Chinese food incident. “It’s like perfect timing!” they cry, “This way the premise of season two will be even more extreme than season one!!”
When Shige hears this, he decides that discovering what his superpowers are is the least of his worries.
The script for episode one of the new season calls for dropping a car on Yamapi.
~~~~~
3.
After a week of not sleeping well and worrying about all sorts of things (like radiation poisoning, cancer, and his groupmates), the filming for their TV show starts. Shige and Tegoshi are kind of carted off to the side and made to watch while the other members introduce the second season of the show and their newfound abilities. They are once again live from the Tokyo Police Department and under the care of crotchety old Yamazaki-san, who kind of looks like a part of his brain has exploded when he sees lasers come out of Ryo’s eyes.
“This doesn’t seem right,” Shige complains to Tegoshi, crossing his arms and watching as Massu hefts a police van full of officers over his head one-handed while eating onigiri with the other hand. “They should not make me want to have a weird power too. Why can’t this agency have normal standards?”
“Eh, but this way Shige doesn’t get put into danger anymore, right?” Tegoshi asks him, and waves cheerfully at the camera when he sees it pointed at the two of them. “Shige gets what he wants and now he doesn’t have to worry about the others because they’re powerful!”
Shige supposes that Tegoshi is right, but even still, he sulks a little about it and-while no one is looking- concentrates on trying to read Massu’s mind right now, just to see.
Nothing.
Five minutes later Yamapi is hit upside the head with a steel bar and everyone marvels at how manly it is when it contorts to the shape of his skull on impact and he doesn’t even flinch. When they start lifting an old Toyota sedan with a crane to drop on top of him, Shige decides that if he does have a superpower, it is the power to recognize that the world is a very stupid place.
He is probably the only one in all of Johnny’s to have this ability.
Sadly, it is also not an ability anyone in Johnny’s actually needs.
~~~~~
4.
In-between filming episodes of season two and recording albums and acting in movies, Shige and Tegoshi also have to return to the lab three times a week for blood tests and mind tests and physical examinations, just to make sure that any strange powers they might have aren’t manifesting at a slower rate (or that they aren’t dying of cancer).
“Ah, I wish we didn’t have to do this anymore,” Tegoshi pouts, after his arm has been pricked and two vials of blood have been drawn. “It’s troublesome, ne.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Shige tells him sensibly, “because if we don’t respond like the others do we might respond negatively instead. What if we get cancer?”
“We’ll be fine,” Tegoshi insists, and Shige has no idea why Tegoshi can say that so simply when neither of them really knows anything about the radioactive material they ingested.
Two days later Shige gets a call from the lab that says nothing has changed (yet again) and that he and Tegoshi don’t have to come in three times a week anymore so much as once every three months for routine check ups.
“Isn’t that great, Shige?” Tegoshi chirps to him while they are filming that week. “I was sick of all those needles, ne.”
“Great,” Shige agrees absently, and wonders if maybe he can move things with his mind if he isn’t telepathic. Telekinesis would be a cool power too.
Meanwhile, on camera, Yamapi runs into a burning building for the fifth time in a row; this time he comes out carrying an old man and three newborn kittens.
The fangirls on the scene go crazy.
~~~~~
5.
The week after that Massu and Ryo work together to stop a rural village from flooding by pushing over and/or laser-cutting trees and rocks into the river to form a natural, protective dam.
The episode after that, Koyama uses his abilities to find a little girl who had been lost for two days in the mountains; he emerges from the cave she’d fallen asleep in shivering and with a face wet with tears. No one knows if they’re his own reactions upon finding her or the result of the scared child’s feelings flooding his own system, but they all suppose that the results would have been the same either way.
Shige and Tegoshi get a short talk corner at the beginning and end of each episode, where Shige recaps what happened the week before and Tegoshi gets to give an exciting preview for next week.
Shige feels strangely bitter about it all, though he can’t really hold it against his groupmates without hating himself; they really are helping people now, even more than before.
He tries not to be depressed about it, because that would be petty of him.
~~~~~
In the dressing room before the next filming Tegoshi sidles up next to Shige and hugs him tightly. “Shige is depressed, ne.”
“I’m not depressed,” Shige sulks, and tries to wiggle out of the younger boy’s embrace.
“Shige’s depressed,” Tegoshi reiterates. “I can tell.”
Shige sighs. “Stop being annoying.”
“Would having a superpower really make you feel better? Even if it meant you’d have to go back to all that dangerous work?”
“No.” Pause. “Maybe.”
Tegoshi smiles and kisses his groupmate’s cheek. “Maybe you can read minds, ne,” he says, again. “You just need to learn how!”
Shige scoffs at how fixated Tegoshi can get on the strangest things. “We’ve already established that this isn’t the case. I can’t read minds.”
“Keep trying, Shige!” Tegoshi laughs and snaps his fingers. “Believe!”
Shige finally manages to push him away. “Worry about yourself before you worry about others, will you?” he says, sounding angry.
But even still, when Tegoshi isn’t looking, Shige concentrates really hard and tries to read his groupmate’s mind.
He gets nothing (as usual) and on top of that, feels stupid for trying afterwards.
He thinks that sometimes, Tegoshi is really annoying.
~~~~~
The next morning, Shige wakes up in his room to the sound of his mother’s voice.
“Ah, I wonder if making an extra cute bento for Shige this morning will cheer him up…he’s been so depressed lately!”
His mother who is downstairs.
Shige promptly screams.
~~~~~
6.
“I’m worried about Shige…”
“Ah, Tegoshi was right; mind power is Shige’s specialty, ne.”
“Eh, Shige’s bento smells extra good today…”
“Looks like the idiot finally got what he wanted.”
Shige groans and clutches his head. “All of you, stop that right now.”
“We aren’t doing anything…”
“Stop thinking!!”
Silence.
“I’m really worried about Shige.”
“Don’t think about anything, don’t think about anything, don’t think about anything…eh, is thinking about not thinking about something the same as thinking about something?”
“I’m hungry.”
“I wonder if he can really hear…”
Shige turns to Koyama. “Stop worrying.” To Pi. “YES.” To Massu. “Then go eat.” To Ryo. “I can.”
Everyone is bewildered.
“That is so disturbing,” Ryo says out loud, after a moment.
Tegoshi just preens. “Told you he could read minds,” he chirps, and perches on the edge of Shige’s bed triumphantly. “He just had to learn how first.”
Shige would reach out and kick Tegoshi for being so nonchalant about the whole thing, but right now he has a headache.
He is more than relieved when the doctor finally arrives.
~~~~~
“Now open up and say ‘aaaah’,” the doctor tells him, and shines a light into Shige’s mouth. Like it will help.
“I have no idea what to do about this…”
Shige sighs. “Aaaah,” he says, and is not so relieved anymore.
~~~~~
“So…you really think you can hear everyone’s thoughts?” the psychologist asks him, once the other doctors have been unable to find out anything wrong with him physically.
“Yes.”
“I see.”
She takes out a piece of paper and begins writing on it. “Tell me what I’m…”
“There is no such thing as telepathy,” Shige sighs, reciting what she has written on the paper.
She drops her pen. “Oh my.”
“Well, now what do I do?”
Shige doesn’t think he’s going to get any help here either.
~~~~~
On the up side, the directors tell him that for next week’s taping, he’s going to get an entire segment of the show dedicated to demonstrating his newfound power to the audience.
Which is great.
Until then, he just has to try very hard not to go insane.
~~~~~
7.
After three days of constantly hearing people’s thoughts and feeling like he can’t take it anymore, Shige decides to take things into his own hands because no one else will be able to understand what he is going through (except for maybe Koyama, who honestly, would be even less help to Shige than all the clueless doctors and psychologists he's met combined).
He spends his time trying to drown out the sound of other people’s thoughts, first by humming loudly to himself, and then by distracting himself with a book or a TV show. That kind of works, and he realizes that this means there is an off switch somewhere in his head, he just has to figure out how to trigger it.
After the drowning out method works he tries for something a little more proactive; he fights their thoughts with his own this time, and realizes that if he shouts loud enough in his own mind, he can block out what others are thinking. It’s like when they’re on tour and he turns up the volume on his CD player really loud at night so he won’t hear Koyama snoring nearby.
This discovery leads him to believe that he has some control of what he can let into his head and what he can’t, and from there, he begins to theorize that the two things he has discovered can both be used to his advantage, if only he can gain control of the on/off switch to his power and train his mind to emphasize his thoughts (or non-thoughts) when he wants to and others’ thoughts when he wants that instead.
After hours more of thinking intently on the subject Shige gets an idea from one of the manga he’d read a long time ago that involved telepathy and meets with some success. He realizes that with some effort, he can construct a weird sort of mental shield between himself and other people’s brains via a tightly controlled system of self-adjustment that emphasizes the use of the white noise in his mind to overpower the active thoughts of others. This blocking strategy manages to silence what he hears for a while but Shige soon finds that it’s ultimate weakness is that it’s difficult and tiring to keep in place. The slightest distraction, the slightest shift in his mood or increase in his emotional state changes the strength (or weakness) of his walls and he has to constantly adjust, adapt, and recreate them to live normally.
But it’s all he has.
And so, even if it’s a pain in the ass, he ends up deciding that he needs to train his brain to do this type of thing naturally. Determined, he locks himself in his room for an entire day and intently practices the art of instantly erecting and destroying a complicated series of mental shields of varying intensity levels.
When he emerges from his room he is sweaty and exhausted but manages a shaky smile of accomplishment; now that the noise has stopped, he has some hope that maybe he won’t have to live out the rest of his life in a padded room screaming about the voices coming to get him.
~~~~~
After he has successfully conditioned himself to naturally block out the flood of other people’s thoughts from his mind, Shige gets a little bolder and begins to experiment with the real extent of his abilities. With some practice he learns that besides just hearing other people’s thoughts he can project his own directly into the minds of others as well. This turns out to be the most versatile of his abilities thus far; he can tell Koyama to calm the hell down with his brain while they’re on camera without the audience knowing, or can sing-song, “I know what you’re thinking right now!” to Ryo even across massive concert arenas.
Sometimes he connects himself to one of his groupmates’ brains just for the feeling of calm and togetherness it provides; in moments when Koyama is thinking particularly warm thoughts about the rest of NewS or when Yamapi is relaxing, Shige tags along in their mental peripheries and lets Koyama’s kindness wash over him or Yamapi’s easy cool soothe him. He knows what Ryo is really thinking when he says all those mean things and he can latch onto Massu’s thoughts regarding delicious food while they’re eating together to enhance his own experience of the act, seasoning the meal with the joy of Massu’s wholehearted appreciation.
“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” he says to himself, and knows that even if his power doesn’t really help others like his groupmates’ powers can, at the very least he can use it to better understand the people who are important to him.
~~~~~
8.
The following week NewS is called to the site of a bomb threat.
“It’s somewhere in the telecommunications building and according to the person who called it in, we have fifteen minutes to find it,” Yamazaki-san tells them with a hopeless look on his face. “It’s impossible; we’re evacuating the entire block as quickly as we can.”
“Eh,” Tegoshi says, and sounds worried. “Is it really impossible?”
“It’s definitely impossible, now get out of here,” Yamazaki-san tells them. “Or at least help these people get out of here.”
“Right!” The directors say, and move to evacuate the group from the danger zone.
“Mmm, that doesn’t seem right, ne…” Tegoshi protests. “We shouldn’t just give up without even trying!”
“We’ll die,” Shige tells him, pragmatically. “Well, we’ll die except for Yamashita-kun. If it’s impossible, then it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible!” Tegoshi insists. “I believe we can do it, ne.”
“Easy for you to say,” Shige begins, and is just about to tell Tegoshi that under the circumstances, he wouldn’t be the one rushing in there. Everyone else would.
But before he can say anything, he is interrupted by Yamapi. “Tegoshi’s right, ne. We don’t know how dangerous this thing could be!”
“Ah, we have to at least try,” Koyama agrees, and tries not to be overwhelmed by the fear everyone around him is feeling.
Shige slaps a hand to his forehead. “How can we possibly do anything? We don’t know where the bomb is, who put it there, and how to diffuse it even if we do find it. We don’t know if it really exists for the matter. It could just be some sick prank.”
“But everyone has superpowers!” Tegoshi insists. “And since NewS has no weaknesses, if we work together, than anything can be accomplished, right?”
“No!” Shige says.
“Right!” the others agree, touched by Tegoshi’s determination even though he doesn’t have any superpowers beyond the normal Tegoshi powers he was born with.
“We wouldn’t even know where to start!” Shige complains.
Tegoshi looks thoughtful. “In my criminal psychology class ne…we learned that people who do these types of things often like to watch nearby because others’ fear excites them.” He pauses for a moment, then snaps his fingers. “Kei-chan! Kei-chan, can you feel someone like that right now?”
Koyama blinks. “Eh? That’s impossible, there are too many people here, ne. Everyone is so scared!” He shivers and hugs himself.
Shige thinks he gets what Tegoshi is going for and latches on to it before he can stop himself. “Koyama,” he insists, “Don’t concentrate on fear. Is anyone laughing? Excited?”
“You can do it, Kei-chan!” Tegoshi cheers.
Koyama nods nervously and closes his eyes. Tegoshi holds his hand on one side and Yamapi puts a hand on his shoulder, lending him strength.
“Aah!” Koyama blinks, yelping suddenly. “There… there’s someone like that over there, ne!” He points to a back alley on the opposite side of the street and looks a little shaken at having to touch the emotions of someone who would willingly hurt other people. Tegoshi hastens to comfort him while Yamapi and Massu dart towards the indicated direction.
Shige can’t believe it when it all starts to click like that one thing after another; he thinks that maybe they can really do this after all.
~~~~~
It takes Massu and Pi all of two seconds to detain the suspect; Shige reads his mind and confirms that yes, he’s the one who did it. He knows where the bomb is too-the basement of the building- but there’s no way to diffuse it without use of a certain key, which is hidden halfway across the city. No time.
“We can’t do it after all,” he sighs, looking defeated as the suspect is carted off by some of the remaining police officers.
“Don’t give up! Shige and leader will think of something!” Tegoshi chirps, cheering them on from the background.
Yamapi and Shige blink as everyone turns their attention to the two of them; Yamapi furrows his brow in thought while Shige wishes Tegoshi would keep his mouth shut every once in a while.
But then they both get an idea. Like magic.
“Perfect!!!” Shige tells Yamapi when he realizes they’re on the same page. The two of them promptly grab Ryo and Massu before dashing right into the telecommunications building.
Koyama nearly faints when Shige uses his telepathy to tell the older boy what their idea is, but sends them all the strength he can muster while Tegoshi cheers for them out loud at the top of his lungs.
~~~~~
The four NewS members reach the basement of the building in record time and with the help of Ryo’s X-ray vision, find the bomb exactly where the perpetrator’s thoughts had said it would be; it is locked in a steel safe and buried deep inside the basement’s brick walls.
“We’ve got thirty seconds,” Ryo tells them, and actually sounds scared when he does.
Massu quickly punches a hole through the brick and steel at Shige’s behest. “Thirty seconds should be plenty of time,” he tells everyone, and doesn’t know whether he’s lying or not when he says it.
He grabs the bomb the moment the debris clears and tosses it to Yamapi.
Who eats it.
~~~~~
Thirty seconds later there is no enormous explosion that brings down the entire telecommunications building like there was supposed to be.
Rather, the biggest explosion of the day comes in the form of some mildly bad gas from Yamapi.
~~~~~
“I knew you could do it!” Tegoshi chirps, ecstatic as his bandmates emerge from the building looking frazzled (and dusty from Massu’s wall-punching activities) but otherwise unharmed.
Shige thinks that that’s easy to say for someone who didn’t actually do anything, but supposes that it was due to Tegoshi’s encouragement that they even tried in the first place.
In the meantime, the EMTs see to a vaguely discomfited Yamapi just to make sure the internal explosion hadn’t caused any harm while Koyama and Tegoshi move to close up the show by explaining what happened to the audience at home.
As it turns out, Yamapi is fine; it’s just a minor case of heartburn.
~~~~~
9.
The following week during their latest Utaban taping Nakai can’t stop talking about the whole NewS Finds a Bomb episode; for once he doesn’t have anything sarcastic to say to Ryo or Koyama.
But he does smack Tegoshi, because even when he is impressed with his kouhai he can’t let it show too much. “You!” he says to the youngest member, “How can you be the only one without any powers; you throw the whole aesthetic off, don’t you?”
Shige wants to speak up and say that it’s fine; Tegoshi doesn’t have to have any powers to be a part of NewS, but he stops himself when he realizes how ridiculous that sounds considering who he is talking about.
And Tegoshi doesn’t mind being berated like that; he laughs his full body laugh and bows respectfully to his senpai. “I’m sorry about that!” he says, “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, ne.”
He smiles up at Nakai cutely.
Nakai sighs. “Well, you can at least get your groupmates water and dab the sweat from their faces then, I guess,” he allows, charitably. “Like the mascot.”
“Yeah, it’s good to have that kind of servant built into the group, isn’t it?” Ishibashi agrees. “There always has to be someone the others can bully, right? Otherwise it will build up inside of them and explode somewhere that isn’t very idol-like.”
Tegoshi laughs. “I’ll do my best!”
Koyama reaches out and pats the youngest member’s side under the table where the camera can’t see him as a gesture of comfort just in case Tegoshi’s heart actually is hurt a little by the teasing while Shige gently sends Tegoshi a thought-image that involves one of Nakai’s deepest darkest secrets to cheer him up.
Or he tries to, anyway.
Nothing happens.
He blinks; tries again.
More nothing.
He gives up on the thought-image altogether and tries to probe Tegoshi’s mind instead.
He runs into a defensive wall that is so powerful it almost physically rattles his teeth.
“Kato-kun,” Nakai inquires, clearing his throat as Shige gapes in Tegoshi’s general direction, “Is something the matter? You suddenly went pale. Is someone thinking something evil right now?”
Shige ignores him, because it is at that moment when he realizes that ever since this whole crazy thing started, he has never once heard Tegoshi’s voice in his head.
~~~~~
“Tegoshi,” Shige asks after the filming is done, “Tegoshi, are you sure you don’t have a power?”
Tegoshi blinks back at him guilelessly. “I feel the same as always, ne.”
Shige coughs. “I see. Um, are you sure you haven’t felt any weird changes? Like, with regards to any of your mental capacities?”
Tegoshi shakes his head. “Mmm, I don’t think so.”
Shige is about to ask another question, but Tegoshi looks at his watch and says, “Ah, I need to get home and sleep; tomorrow’s the season finale filming ne.”
Shige feels kind of stupid standing there asking questions that don’t make sense, so he just kind of nods, helplessly. “Uh, right. The finale is already here,” he echoes.
Tegoshi smiles and quickly finishes stuffing his things into his bag. “This season was fun, wasn’t it? I’m glad we were able to help so many more people.”
“I guess…”
“But to be honest, I think I’ll be relieved once it’s over, ne. Being superheroes is neat, but after all this, I feel that just being NewS is definitely the best. Good night, Shige!”
“Good night.”
Shige watches the younger boy as he bounces out of the room humming the melody to Sayaendo happily to himself; for some reason the whole conversation leaves Shige with a strange feeling deep inside his chest.
Somehow he knows in his heart that the magic is ending.
~~~~~
10.
For the special two-hour season finale of “That’s Super NewS!!!!!!” the six members are awarded honorary police badges by the Tokyo Police Department and named official heroes of the city by the mayor. It’s a beautiful ceremony about patriotism and selflessness and Koyama gives a moving speech that leaves most of the people-even the hardened officers-in tears. The six of them get medals as well, and their families sit in the audience looking proud while Yamazaki-san narrates a touching slideshow about his two television seasons with the group, and how they had, over time, truly proved themselves to be the type of young men who Japan could believe in.
Shige closes his eyes as Hoshi wo Mezashite plays over the PA system during the final images and tries to hold on for just a moment longer.
~~~~~
The next morning, when Yamapi wakes up, he ends up getting a paper cut when he grabs the script for his latest movie off of the nightstand.
He looks at the blood dripping from his thumb for a moment, before smiling and popping the wounded finger into his mouth.
He memorizes lines all day that day and writes about his upcoming movie in his nikki afterwards, just like he always does.
~~~~~
Koyama realizes his powers are gone the morning after Yamapi does, when his sister storms into the house glaring at him and hating men in general and he doesn’t feel like he hates himself too.
Even though having an ability like that had been cool while it lasted, he can’t help but think that he is a little bit relieved for it to be gone.
Because it means that from now on, he will never have to share the experience of his sister’s menstrual cycle ever again.
~~~~~
Ryo is sadder to see the X-ray vision go than the laser beam eyes, if only for the fact that the laser beams had been hell on his prescription contacts and the X-ray vision had been great for finding things under the numerous piles of clothes in his room without actually having to clean them up first.
He does wonder however, how long he will be able to continue freaking people out by staring at them intently over the next few weeks, before they realize that he can’t in fact see through their clothes anymore.
He grins and decides to test it out.
~~~~~
When Massu’s power leaves him the first person he tells is his mom; she laughs at him and makes him his favorite homemade gyoza because she knows it’s the only thing in this world he really needs to give him strength anyway.
She’s right; Massu is as happy as can be.
~~~~~
Shige’s abilities don’t all leave him right away, but rather, choose to disappear one by one. The first power he loses is the ability to send thoughts to others, followed by his ability to search their minds for specific information. After that his control of his mental shields collapses, and soon after the voices fade completely.
The very last thing to go is his ability to connect with the minds of the other members and share their thoughts and feelings, but even after that eventually fades as well, part of him knows that if he tries hard enough, he can still do it anyway. Just different.
~~~~~
“It was fun while it lasted!” Koyama declares some weeks later, ever-positive despite the fits of crying the producers of their TV show have upon hearing that NewS has lost its superpowers.
“It was definitely fun!” Yamapi agrees, and still looks as indestructible as ever somehow. “I’m really glad we got to experience it all together, ne.”
“It’s too bad though, Tego-nyan,” Ryo says, reaching out to ruffle the youngest member’s hair fondly, “that you didn’t get a power too.”
Everyone murmurs in agreement while Tegoshi just smiles and makes each of them tell him what they think his superpower would have been if he’d gotten one too.
Shige is the only one who knows that Tegoshi never once stopped being the most powerful one of them all.
END
EDITS PLZ.
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS
Warnings/Spoilers: CRACK clearly. OOC, stupidity, pointlessness.
Word Count: 6,418
Summary: The even less-sensical follow up to “The One Where NewS Members Become Superheroes”- In the future, Massu introduces NewS to toxic waste.
Dedication: koneho! Because you always make me laugh about like, EVERYTHING, even when it’s just you taking a brief break in hiatus to say hi. GANBATTE, baby.
A/N: I don’t know, I figured if I was going to make them heroes I might as well stop being wishy-washy. Also, this is to stall for the two remixes I am working on as well as the stupid new government AU one I inexplicably started last night.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1.
They are in China for the last leg of their Around Asia Tour when Massu suddenly brings them all surprise gifts one afternoon; he smiles happily and hands them each a huge green onion pancake that he had bought from a street cart just outside the arena.
“Uwah, thanks, Massu!” Tegoshi chirps, and accepts the gift happily.
“What’s the occasion?” Shige asks, looking his over critically first.
Massu blinks around a mouthful of food and doesn’t bother swallowing before answering. “The baasan outside was selling these and I thought they smelled delicious so I bought one, ne. And then I tried it and I was right, it was delicious!! So I wanted everyone to try it, too. They’re really cheap.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Koyama asks nervously, and kind of has a love/hate relationship with Chinese food. 95% of the time it is delicious, but 99% of the time that it’s delicious it also ends up giving him an upset stomach afterwards.
Massu smiles guilelessly. “It’s safe, ne. The baasan was really nice; she gave us the extra big ones!”
“Oh. Well then it should be okay, right?” Koyama agrees readily, and takes a bite of his pancake before Shige can tell him that his train of thought really makes no logical sense in its jump from point A to point B.
But as usual Shige’s the only one to notice this kind of thing; everyone else hears Koyama give the go ahead and happily digs in as well, making Shige think to himself that he can’t just step all over Massu’s good intentions by being the only one who complains about health code violations and the possibility of food poisoning while they’re all eating together so peacefully like this. It will be especially impossible for Shige to speak up if Yamapi and Tegoshi are going to do their little “Umai!” and “Oichii” shtick all over again, which they will probably start any second now.
He’s right.
And so Shige just sighs helplessly as Tegoshi and Yamapi burble happily to each other; he studies the oily pancake he is holding for a few seconds before giving up and taking a tentative bite. His group members all laugh and marvel at how delicious it is, and as he chews and swallows, he supposes that yes, it is good, and hey, what’s the worst that can happen? There are street vendors all over Japan, too. How different can the Chinese ones be?
~~~~~
2.
When he wakes up again he isn’t in China anymore; a Japanese doctor peers down at him with an expression on his face that is a mixture of curiosity and practiced concern.
“Kato-kun, Kato-kun, are you awake?” the doctor asks gently, and Shige wonders how he got here all of a sudden; the last thing he remembers is eating with everyone in the dressing room in Shanghai.
“What happened?” he asks, blinking blearily up at the bright lights as he slowly regains consciousness. “Where am I?”
“Ah, Shige, you’re finally awake, ne!” a familiar voice chirps from somewhere nearby, and when Shige manages to sit up, he sees that Tegoshi is perched at the edge of his bed, looking carefree as he munches on an apple. “It took you a really long time compared to everyone else!”
Shige doesn’t know whether to be annoyed by Tegoshi’s superior tone or relieved to know that his bandmate is alive and presumably fine. He settles for being more confused than anything else. “Tegoshi,” he murmurs, “what’s going on?”
Tegoshi laughs, sweet and bright. “Shige!” he says, “Something amazing happened!”
~~~~~
“We what?!” Shige screams sometime later, when he is reunited with the rest of his similarly hospitalized groupmates.
“Ate radioactive Chinese food,” Yamapi supplies again, helpfully.
Shige wonders if this is a prank TV show; are there hidden cameras around? Will someone jump out and yell, “Haha, got you!!” at any second?
He waits for it. Hopes for it.
Yamapi just blinks back at him peacefully.
And no one jumps out from anywhere.
Shige slumps. “We ate radioactive Chinese food,” he repeats, sounding helpless.
“That must be why it was so cheap ne,” Massu replies.
Shige would yell at him for being the one who thought that buying food off the streets of China was a good idea, but he knows it’s pointless right now and Massu would probably do it again in a heartbeat as long as the food was just as delicious as it had been then.
“So,” he says instead, trying to sound calm when he feels anything but, “what’s wrong with us? Why won’t they let us change back into our clothes? Do we have cancer? Radiation poisoning? What are we dying of?”
Silence.
Then, Ryo snorts. “What is this, a Korean drama?”
Shige blinks. “So…we’re not dying?”
“Of course not! That would be sad ne,” Tegoshi replies. “Shige is so negative!”
Shige’s eye twitches instinctively. “Then what’s going on!?” he demands.
Yamapi flashes a peace sign. “We have superpowers!”
~~~~~
“We do not have superpowers. That’s impossible,” Shige says after a few minutes, when he can talk again.
Ryo grins and promptly proves him wrong by shooting lasers out of his eyes. It incinerates the hem of Shige’s hospital robe.
A beat.
Shige slaps a hand to his forehead. “You have got to be kidding me.”
~~~~~
“As far as the doctors can tell, ne… what’s happening is happening to us and none of the other people who ate the obaasan’s food because they’re used to this kind of thing over there.”
Shige can only nod dumbly as Koyama patiently runs him through their physician’s explanations regarding what is going on; the older boy cites biological idiosyncrasies and thousands of years of separate evolutionary paths somewhere in the midst of it all. Shige supposes that yes, it makes some sense. Not a lot, mind, but some.
“So in the end, it was a weird combination of radioactive street food and our own special biological make up that made us this way, ne. The scientists say that this is the reason why each of us developed our own unique attributes instead of just getting the same power six times over.”
Shige sighs. “That doesn’t make sense. What unique attributes could possibly contribute to Nishikido-kun having laser beam eyes?”
Koyama laughs a little. “Well, you know. It’s an evolution of what makes each of us special.”
That is hardly scientific.
“What Kei-chan means,” Tegoshi begins, picking up where the older member left off, “is that things we’re already good at, we got even better at! It’s like… a level up, ne!”
“I don’t see how laser beam eyes are a level up from any of Nishikido-kun’s other special skills.”
Ryo grins. “I also have X-ray vision.”
Something about that makes Shige more nervous than the laser beam eyes.
“It makes sense,” Tegoshi insists, ignoring Shige’s apprehension. “Saa, because when Ryo-tan looks at someone he can immediately see right through them, ne? And he’s very frank about it!”
Shige grits his teeth. “Being able to judge people accurately is not the equivalent of X-ray vision. Being honest with people should not equal laser beam eyes.”
Ryo just cackles. “Right now I can see your underwear.”
Shige quickly places an absently humming Yamapi between himself and Ryo.
“I promise it makes sense, Shige,” Tegoshi insists. “Like Massu has super strength, and Yamashita-kun is indestructible ne! Oh, and Kei-chan, ne! Kei-chan is an empath!”
A beat.
Shige sighs. “Okay, maybe it does make a little bit of sense.”
Koyama understands exactly how he feels; he reaches out and pats his defeated groupmate gently.
~~~~~
“Wait, what’s your power?” Shige asks Tegoshi a little while later. He is immediately suspicious that the youngest member didn’t talk about his newfound abilities first.
Tegoshi just laughs. “They don’t know yet, ne.”
Koyama leans towards Shige to whisper in his ear. “The doctors ran a lot of tests on all of us while you were still unconscious, but Tegoshi seems to be the only one who’s exactly the same as before.”
Shige realizes fairly quickly that that can only mean one of two things.
One: Tegoshi’s so called “inherent powers” are well-developed enough already that the introduction of radioactive Chinese food into his system meant nothing in terms of enhancing them.
Two: Tegoshi’s god-given powers are so strong that they actually defeated the radioactive Chinese food that crippled the rest of their immune systems, rendering it ineffective.
Shige does not know which of the two options is more terrifying to him.
~~~~~
“Before you worry about Tego-nyan, worry about yourself first,” Ryo scoffs at him, and doesn’t need to use his newfound superpowers to see right through Shige on this one.
Shige knows Ryo is right.
And so he resigns himself to spending the next few days consulting with his doctors as they run a lot of strange tests on him; they take samples of his blood and expose it to extreme heat, extreme cold, acids, bases, more acids, and a slew of deadly viruses.
The results are normal; he’s not like Yamapi at all.
Shige thinks he could have told them that without the tests.
Next they put Shige on a treadmill for as long as he can handle (about twenty minutes); after he’s done his heart rate and blood pressure are all average. They try to get him to lift massive weights next, and after he maxes out at one hundred pounds on the bench press they realize that he’s not like Massu either.
He’s kind of relieved about that, actually.
After that he talks with some random psychologists while holding Koyama’s hand a lot and eventually declares to them that he definitely, definitely doesn’t feel feelings like Koyama does either.
It’s probably for the best; if Shige did empathize with people as much as Koyama did, he thinks he would be a sobbing, hysterical mess all of the time too.
The doctors and scientists also eventually discover that nothing cool comes out of Shige’s eyes (except maybe for tears) when they poke him or prod him too hard, and after a while they give up on categorizing Shige with Ryo as well.
“Maybe you’re like Tegoshi ne,” Koyama suggests, sounding almost relieved. “Maybe you’re normal!”
“Or we just don’t know what’s wrong with you yet,” Ryo adds with a smirk. “You always were slower at developing talent than the rest of us.”
Shige isn’t sure which to hope for at this point.
~~~~~
“Well,” Tegoshi poses reasonably the next day, “Shige is smart ne. How come no one tested out his brain power for anything? Maybe he can read minds!”
Everyone looks skeptically at Tegoshi. “If he could read minds,” Koyama begins, gently, “Then he would have noticed by now, right?”
Tegoshi is undaunted. “Maybe he just doesn’t know how yet!”
~~~~~
Even if he can read minds and has to learn how there’s not enough time; the producers of “That’s Super NewS!!!!!!” are ecstatic when they hear about the radioactive Chinese food incident. “It’s like perfect timing!” they cry, “This way the premise of season two will be even more extreme than season one!!”
When Shige hears this, he decides that discovering what his superpowers are is the least of his worries.
The script for episode one of the new season calls for dropping a car on Yamapi.
~~~~~
3.
After a week of not sleeping well and worrying about all sorts of things (like radiation poisoning, cancer, and his groupmates), the filming for their TV show starts. Shige and Tegoshi are kind of carted off to the side and made to watch while the other members introduce the second season of the show and their newfound abilities. They are once again live from the Tokyo Police Department and under the care of crotchety old Yamazaki-san, who kind of looks like a part of his brain has exploded when he sees lasers come out of Ryo’s eyes.
“This doesn’t seem right,” Shige complains to Tegoshi, crossing his arms and watching as Massu hefts a police van full of officers over his head one-handed while eating onigiri with the other hand. “They should not make me want to have a weird power too. Why can’t this agency have normal standards?”
“Eh, but this way Shige doesn’t get put into danger anymore, right?” Tegoshi asks him, and waves cheerfully at the camera when he sees it pointed at the two of them. “Shige gets what he wants and now he doesn’t have to worry about the others because they’re powerful!”
Shige supposes that Tegoshi is right, but even still, he sulks a little about it and-while no one is looking- concentrates on trying to read Massu’s mind right now, just to see.
Nothing.
Five minutes later Yamapi is hit upside the head with a steel bar and everyone marvels at how manly it is when it contorts to the shape of his skull on impact and he doesn’t even flinch. When they start lifting an old Toyota sedan with a crane to drop on top of him, Shige decides that if he does have a superpower, it is the power to recognize that the world is a very stupid place.
He is probably the only one in all of Johnny’s to have this ability.
Sadly, it is also not an ability anyone in Johnny’s actually needs.
~~~~~
4.
In-between filming episodes of season two and recording albums and acting in movies, Shige and Tegoshi also have to return to the lab three times a week for blood tests and mind tests and physical examinations, just to make sure that any strange powers they might have aren’t manifesting at a slower rate (or that they aren’t dying of cancer).
“Ah, I wish we didn’t have to do this anymore,” Tegoshi pouts, after his arm has been pricked and two vials of blood have been drawn. “It’s troublesome, ne.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Shige tells him sensibly, “because if we don’t respond like the others do we might respond negatively instead. What if we get cancer?”
“We’ll be fine,” Tegoshi insists, and Shige has no idea why Tegoshi can say that so simply when neither of them really knows anything about the radioactive material they ingested.
Two days later Shige gets a call from the lab that says nothing has changed (yet again) and that he and Tegoshi don’t have to come in three times a week anymore so much as once every three months for routine check ups.
“Isn’t that great, Shige?” Tegoshi chirps to him while they are filming that week. “I was sick of all those needles, ne.”
“Great,” Shige agrees absently, and wonders if maybe he can move things with his mind if he isn’t telepathic. Telekinesis would be a cool power too.
Meanwhile, on camera, Yamapi runs into a burning building for the fifth time in a row; this time he comes out carrying an old man and three newborn kittens.
The fangirls on the scene go crazy.
~~~~~
5.
The week after that Massu and Ryo work together to stop a rural village from flooding by pushing over and/or laser-cutting trees and rocks into the river to form a natural, protective dam.
The episode after that, Koyama uses his abilities to find a little girl who had been lost for two days in the mountains; he emerges from the cave she’d fallen asleep in shivering and with a face wet with tears. No one knows if they’re his own reactions upon finding her or the result of the scared child’s feelings flooding his own system, but they all suppose that the results would have been the same either way.
Shige and Tegoshi get a short talk corner at the beginning and end of each episode, where Shige recaps what happened the week before and Tegoshi gets to give an exciting preview for next week.
Shige feels strangely bitter about it all, though he can’t really hold it against his groupmates without hating himself; they really are helping people now, even more than before.
He tries not to be depressed about it, because that would be petty of him.
~~~~~
In the dressing room before the next filming Tegoshi sidles up next to Shige and hugs him tightly. “Shige is depressed, ne.”
“I’m not depressed,” Shige sulks, and tries to wiggle out of the younger boy’s embrace.
“Shige’s depressed,” Tegoshi reiterates. “I can tell.”
Shige sighs. “Stop being annoying.”
“Would having a superpower really make you feel better? Even if it meant you’d have to go back to all that dangerous work?”
“No.” Pause. “Maybe.”
Tegoshi smiles and kisses his groupmate’s cheek. “Maybe you can read minds, ne,” he says, again. “You just need to learn how!”
Shige scoffs at how fixated Tegoshi can get on the strangest things. “We’ve already established that this isn’t the case. I can’t read minds.”
“Keep trying, Shige!” Tegoshi laughs and snaps his fingers. “Believe!”
Shige finally manages to push him away. “Worry about yourself before you worry about others, will you?” he says, sounding angry.
But even still, when Tegoshi isn’t looking, Shige concentrates really hard and tries to read his groupmate’s mind.
He gets nothing (as usual) and on top of that, feels stupid for trying afterwards.
He thinks that sometimes, Tegoshi is really annoying.
~~~~~
The next morning, Shige wakes up in his room to the sound of his mother’s voice.
“Ah, I wonder if making an extra cute bento for Shige this morning will cheer him up…he’s been so depressed lately!”
His mother who is downstairs.
Shige promptly screams.
~~~~~
6.
“I’m worried about Shige…”
“Ah, Tegoshi was right; mind power is Shige’s specialty, ne.”
“Eh, Shige’s bento smells extra good today…”
“Looks like the idiot finally got what he wanted.”
Shige groans and clutches his head. “All of you, stop that right now.”
“We aren’t doing anything…”
“Stop thinking!!”
Silence.
“I’m really worried about Shige.”
“Don’t think about anything, don’t think about anything, don’t think about anything…eh, is thinking about not thinking about something the same as thinking about something?”
“I’m hungry.”
“I wonder if he can really hear…”
Shige turns to Koyama. “Stop worrying.” To Pi. “YES.” To Massu. “Then go eat.” To Ryo. “I can.”
Everyone is bewildered.
“That is so disturbing,” Ryo says out loud, after a moment.
Tegoshi just preens. “Told you he could read minds,” he chirps, and perches on the edge of Shige’s bed triumphantly. “He just had to learn how first.”
Shige would reach out and kick Tegoshi for being so nonchalant about the whole thing, but right now he has a headache.
He is more than relieved when the doctor finally arrives.
~~~~~
“Now open up and say ‘aaaah’,” the doctor tells him, and shines a light into Shige’s mouth. Like it will help.
“I have no idea what to do about this…”
Shige sighs. “Aaaah,” he says, and is not so relieved anymore.
~~~~~
“So…you really think you can hear everyone’s thoughts?” the psychologist asks him, once the other doctors have been unable to find out anything wrong with him physically.
“Yes.”
“I see.”
She takes out a piece of paper and begins writing on it. “Tell me what I’m…”
“There is no such thing as telepathy,” Shige sighs, reciting what she has written on the paper.
She drops her pen. “Oh my.”
“Well, now what do I do?”
Shige doesn’t think he’s going to get any help here either.
~~~~~
On the up side, the directors tell him that for next week’s taping, he’s going to get an entire segment of the show dedicated to demonstrating his newfound power to the audience.
Which is great.
Until then, he just has to try very hard not to go insane.
~~~~~
7.
After three days of constantly hearing people’s thoughts and feeling like he can’t take it anymore, Shige decides to take things into his own hands because no one else will be able to understand what he is going through (except for maybe Koyama, who honestly, would be even less help to Shige than all the clueless doctors and psychologists he's met combined).
He spends his time trying to drown out the sound of other people’s thoughts, first by humming loudly to himself, and then by distracting himself with a book or a TV show. That kind of works, and he realizes that this means there is an off switch somewhere in his head, he just has to figure out how to trigger it.
After the drowning out method works he tries for something a little more proactive; he fights their thoughts with his own this time, and realizes that if he shouts loud enough in his own mind, he can block out what others are thinking. It’s like when they’re on tour and he turns up the volume on his CD player really loud at night so he won’t hear Koyama snoring nearby.
This discovery leads him to believe that he has some control of what he can let into his head and what he can’t, and from there, he begins to theorize that the two things he has discovered can both be used to his advantage, if only he can gain control of the on/off switch to his power and train his mind to emphasize his thoughts (or non-thoughts) when he wants to and others’ thoughts when he wants that instead.
After hours more of thinking intently on the subject Shige gets an idea from one of the manga he’d read a long time ago that involved telepathy and meets with some success. He realizes that with some effort, he can construct a weird sort of mental shield between himself and other people’s brains via a tightly controlled system of self-adjustment that emphasizes the use of the white noise in his mind to overpower the active thoughts of others. This blocking strategy manages to silence what he hears for a while but Shige soon finds that it’s ultimate weakness is that it’s difficult and tiring to keep in place. The slightest distraction, the slightest shift in his mood or increase in his emotional state changes the strength (or weakness) of his walls and he has to constantly adjust, adapt, and recreate them to live normally.
But it’s all he has.
And so, even if it’s a pain in the ass, he ends up deciding that he needs to train his brain to do this type of thing naturally. Determined, he locks himself in his room for an entire day and intently practices the art of instantly erecting and destroying a complicated series of mental shields of varying intensity levels.
When he emerges from his room he is sweaty and exhausted but manages a shaky smile of accomplishment; now that the noise has stopped, he has some hope that maybe he won’t have to live out the rest of his life in a padded room screaming about the voices coming to get him.
~~~~~
After he has successfully conditioned himself to naturally block out the flood of other people’s thoughts from his mind, Shige gets a little bolder and begins to experiment with the real extent of his abilities. With some practice he learns that besides just hearing other people’s thoughts he can project his own directly into the minds of others as well. This turns out to be the most versatile of his abilities thus far; he can tell Koyama to calm the hell down with his brain while they’re on camera without the audience knowing, or can sing-song, “I know what you’re thinking right now!” to Ryo even across massive concert arenas.
Sometimes he connects himself to one of his groupmates’ brains just for the feeling of calm and togetherness it provides; in moments when Koyama is thinking particularly warm thoughts about the rest of NewS or when Yamapi is relaxing, Shige tags along in their mental peripheries and lets Koyama’s kindness wash over him or Yamapi’s easy cool soothe him. He knows what Ryo is really thinking when he says all those mean things and he can latch onto Massu’s thoughts regarding delicious food while they’re eating together to enhance his own experience of the act, seasoning the meal with the joy of Massu’s wholehearted appreciation.
“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” he says to himself, and knows that even if his power doesn’t really help others like his groupmates’ powers can, at the very least he can use it to better understand the people who are important to him.
~~~~~
8.
The following week NewS is called to the site of a bomb threat.
“It’s somewhere in the telecommunications building and according to the person who called it in, we have fifteen minutes to find it,” Yamazaki-san tells them with a hopeless look on his face. “It’s impossible; we’re evacuating the entire block as quickly as we can.”
“Eh,” Tegoshi says, and sounds worried. “Is it really impossible?”
“It’s definitely impossible, now get out of here,” Yamazaki-san tells them. “Or at least help these people get out of here.”
“Right!” The directors say, and move to evacuate the group from the danger zone.
“Mmm, that doesn’t seem right, ne…” Tegoshi protests. “We shouldn’t just give up without even trying!”
“We’ll die,” Shige tells him, pragmatically. “Well, we’ll die except for Yamashita-kun. If it’s impossible, then it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible!” Tegoshi insists. “I believe we can do it, ne.”
“Easy for you to say,” Shige begins, and is just about to tell Tegoshi that under the circumstances, he wouldn’t be the one rushing in there. Everyone else would.
But before he can say anything, he is interrupted by Yamapi. “Tegoshi’s right, ne. We don’t know how dangerous this thing could be!”
“Ah, we have to at least try,” Koyama agrees, and tries not to be overwhelmed by the fear everyone around him is feeling.
Shige slaps a hand to his forehead. “How can we possibly do anything? We don’t know where the bomb is, who put it there, and how to diffuse it even if we do find it. We don’t know if it really exists for the matter. It could just be some sick prank.”
“But everyone has superpowers!” Tegoshi insists. “And since NewS has no weaknesses, if we work together, than anything can be accomplished, right?”
“No!” Shige says.
“Right!” the others agree, touched by Tegoshi’s determination even though he doesn’t have any superpowers beyond the normal Tegoshi powers he was born with.
“We wouldn’t even know where to start!” Shige complains.
Tegoshi looks thoughtful. “In my criminal psychology class ne…we learned that people who do these types of things often like to watch nearby because others’ fear excites them.” He pauses for a moment, then snaps his fingers. “Kei-chan! Kei-chan, can you feel someone like that right now?”
Koyama blinks. “Eh? That’s impossible, there are too many people here, ne. Everyone is so scared!” He shivers and hugs himself.
Shige thinks he gets what Tegoshi is going for and latches on to it before he can stop himself. “Koyama,” he insists, “Don’t concentrate on fear. Is anyone laughing? Excited?”
“You can do it, Kei-chan!” Tegoshi cheers.
Koyama nods nervously and closes his eyes. Tegoshi holds his hand on one side and Yamapi puts a hand on his shoulder, lending him strength.
“Aah!” Koyama blinks, yelping suddenly. “There… there’s someone like that over there, ne!” He points to a back alley on the opposite side of the street and looks a little shaken at having to touch the emotions of someone who would willingly hurt other people. Tegoshi hastens to comfort him while Yamapi and Massu dart towards the indicated direction.
Shige can’t believe it when it all starts to click like that one thing after another; he thinks that maybe they can really do this after all.
~~~~~
It takes Massu and Pi all of two seconds to detain the suspect; Shige reads his mind and confirms that yes, he’s the one who did it. He knows where the bomb is too-the basement of the building- but there’s no way to diffuse it without use of a certain key, which is hidden halfway across the city. No time.
“We can’t do it after all,” he sighs, looking defeated as the suspect is carted off by some of the remaining police officers.
“Don’t give up! Shige and leader will think of something!” Tegoshi chirps, cheering them on from the background.
Yamapi and Shige blink as everyone turns their attention to the two of them; Yamapi furrows his brow in thought while Shige wishes Tegoshi would keep his mouth shut every once in a while.
But then they both get an idea. Like magic.
“Perfect!!!” Shige tells Yamapi when he realizes they’re on the same page. The two of them promptly grab Ryo and Massu before dashing right into the telecommunications building.
Koyama nearly faints when Shige uses his telepathy to tell the older boy what their idea is, but sends them all the strength he can muster while Tegoshi cheers for them out loud at the top of his lungs.
~~~~~
The four NewS members reach the basement of the building in record time and with the help of Ryo’s X-ray vision, find the bomb exactly where the perpetrator’s thoughts had said it would be; it is locked in a steel safe and buried deep inside the basement’s brick walls.
“We’ve got thirty seconds,” Ryo tells them, and actually sounds scared when he does.
Massu quickly punches a hole through the brick and steel at Shige’s behest. “Thirty seconds should be plenty of time,” he tells everyone, and doesn’t know whether he’s lying or not when he says it.
He grabs the bomb the moment the debris clears and tosses it to Yamapi.
Who eats it.
~~~~~
Thirty seconds later there is no enormous explosion that brings down the entire telecommunications building like there was supposed to be.
Rather, the biggest explosion of the day comes in the form of some mildly bad gas from Yamapi.
~~~~~
“I knew you could do it!” Tegoshi chirps, ecstatic as his bandmates emerge from the building looking frazzled (and dusty from Massu’s wall-punching activities) but otherwise unharmed.
Shige thinks that that’s easy to say for someone who didn’t actually do anything, but supposes that it was due to Tegoshi’s encouragement that they even tried in the first place.
In the meantime, the EMTs see to a vaguely discomfited Yamapi just to make sure the internal explosion hadn’t caused any harm while Koyama and Tegoshi move to close up the show by explaining what happened to the audience at home.
As it turns out, Yamapi is fine; it’s just a minor case of heartburn.
~~~~~
9.
The following week during their latest Utaban taping Nakai can’t stop talking about the whole NewS Finds a Bomb episode; for once he doesn’t have anything sarcastic to say to Ryo or Koyama.
But he does smack Tegoshi, because even when he is impressed with his kouhai he can’t let it show too much. “You!” he says to the youngest member, “How can you be the only one without any powers; you throw the whole aesthetic off, don’t you?”
Shige wants to speak up and say that it’s fine; Tegoshi doesn’t have to have any powers to be a part of NewS, but he stops himself when he realizes how ridiculous that sounds considering who he is talking about.
And Tegoshi doesn’t mind being berated like that; he laughs his full body laugh and bows respectfully to his senpai. “I’m sorry about that!” he says, “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, ne.”
He smiles up at Nakai cutely.
Nakai sighs. “Well, you can at least get your groupmates water and dab the sweat from their faces then, I guess,” he allows, charitably. “Like the mascot.”
“Yeah, it’s good to have that kind of servant built into the group, isn’t it?” Ishibashi agrees. “There always has to be someone the others can bully, right? Otherwise it will build up inside of them and explode somewhere that isn’t very idol-like.”
Tegoshi laughs. “I’ll do my best!”
Koyama reaches out and pats the youngest member’s side under the table where the camera can’t see him as a gesture of comfort just in case Tegoshi’s heart actually is hurt a little by the teasing while Shige gently sends Tegoshi a thought-image that involves one of Nakai’s deepest darkest secrets to cheer him up.
Or he tries to, anyway.
Nothing happens.
He blinks; tries again.
More nothing.
He gives up on the thought-image altogether and tries to probe Tegoshi’s mind instead.
He runs into a defensive wall that is so powerful it almost physically rattles his teeth.
“Kato-kun,” Nakai inquires, clearing his throat as Shige gapes in Tegoshi’s general direction, “Is something the matter? You suddenly went pale. Is someone thinking something evil right now?”
Shige ignores him, because it is at that moment when he realizes that ever since this whole crazy thing started, he has never once heard Tegoshi’s voice in his head.
~~~~~
“Tegoshi,” Shige asks after the filming is done, “Tegoshi, are you sure you don’t have a power?”
Tegoshi blinks back at him guilelessly. “I feel the same as always, ne.”
Shige coughs. “I see. Um, are you sure you haven’t felt any weird changes? Like, with regards to any of your mental capacities?”
Tegoshi shakes his head. “Mmm, I don’t think so.”
Shige is about to ask another question, but Tegoshi looks at his watch and says, “Ah, I need to get home and sleep; tomorrow’s the season finale filming ne.”
Shige feels kind of stupid standing there asking questions that don’t make sense, so he just kind of nods, helplessly. “Uh, right. The finale is already here,” he echoes.
Tegoshi smiles and quickly finishes stuffing his things into his bag. “This season was fun, wasn’t it? I’m glad we were able to help so many more people.”
“I guess…”
“But to be honest, I think I’ll be relieved once it’s over, ne. Being superheroes is neat, but after all this, I feel that just being NewS is definitely the best. Good night, Shige!”
“Good night.”
Shige watches the younger boy as he bounces out of the room humming the melody to Sayaendo happily to himself; for some reason the whole conversation leaves Shige with a strange feeling deep inside his chest.
Somehow he knows in his heart that the magic is ending.
~~~~~
10.
For the special two-hour season finale of “That’s Super NewS!!!!!!” the six members are awarded honorary police badges by the Tokyo Police Department and named official heroes of the city by the mayor. It’s a beautiful ceremony about patriotism and selflessness and Koyama gives a moving speech that leaves most of the people-even the hardened officers-in tears. The six of them get medals as well, and their families sit in the audience looking proud while Yamazaki-san narrates a touching slideshow about his two television seasons with the group, and how they had, over time, truly proved themselves to be the type of young men who Japan could believe in.
Shige closes his eyes as Hoshi wo Mezashite plays over the PA system during the final images and tries to hold on for just a moment longer.
~~~~~
The next morning, when Yamapi wakes up, he ends up getting a paper cut when he grabs the script for his latest movie off of the nightstand.
He looks at the blood dripping from his thumb for a moment, before smiling and popping the wounded finger into his mouth.
He memorizes lines all day that day and writes about his upcoming movie in his nikki afterwards, just like he always does.
~~~~~
Koyama realizes his powers are gone the morning after Yamapi does, when his sister storms into the house glaring at him and hating men in general and he doesn’t feel like he hates himself too.
Even though having an ability like that had been cool while it lasted, he can’t help but think that he is a little bit relieved for it to be gone.
Because it means that from now on, he will never have to share the experience of his sister’s menstrual cycle ever again.
~~~~~
Ryo is sadder to see the X-ray vision go than the laser beam eyes, if only for the fact that the laser beams had been hell on his prescription contacts and the X-ray vision had been great for finding things under the numerous piles of clothes in his room without actually having to clean them up first.
He does wonder however, how long he will be able to continue freaking people out by staring at them intently over the next few weeks, before they realize that he can’t in fact see through their clothes anymore.
He grins and decides to test it out.
~~~~~
When Massu’s power leaves him the first person he tells is his mom; she laughs at him and makes him his favorite homemade gyoza because she knows it’s the only thing in this world he really needs to give him strength anyway.
She’s right; Massu is as happy as can be.
~~~~~
Shige’s abilities don’t all leave him right away, but rather, choose to disappear one by one. The first power he loses is the ability to send thoughts to others, followed by his ability to search their minds for specific information. After that his control of his mental shields collapses, and soon after the voices fade completely.
The very last thing to go is his ability to connect with the minds of the other members and share their thoughts and feelings, but even after that eventually fades as well, part of him knows that if he tries hard enough, he can still do it anyway. Just different.
~~~~~
“It was fun while it lasted!” Koyama declares some weeks later, ever-positive despite the fits of crying the producers of their TV show have upon hearing that NewS has lost its superpowers.
“It was definitely fun!” Yamapi agrees, and still looks as indestructible as ever somehow. “I’m really glad we got to experience it all together, ne.”
“It’s too bad though, Tego-nyan,” Ryo says, reaching out to ruffle the youngest member’s hair fondly, “that you didn’t get a power too.”
Everyone murmurs in agreement while Tegoshi just smiles and makes each of them tell him what they think his superpower would have been if he’d gotten one too.
Shige is the only one who knows that Tegoshi never once stopped being the most powerful one of them all.
END
EDITS PLZ.