JE/NewS- "In Tiny Forward Motions"
Title: In Tiny Forward Motions
Universe: JE/NewS (Government Agent AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (guest appearances by and/or mentions of members of Arashi, KAT-TUN, V6, T&T, and TOKIO; i.e. everyone. LOL)
Warnings/Spoilers: AU, OOC, randomness. The usual.
Word Count: 6,566
Summary: In the universe related to “To Serve and Protect,” “Waiting to Come Home,” “Guardian Spirits,” “Strength, Weakness,” “This is Our Beginning”, and “Faith to Hold on To”- NEWS members grow up and move forward one moment at a time.
Dedication: Ann- Sorry for the long wait between fics dude. I am slowing down with age? :P
A/N: I started out wanting to do something funny for this series. And then failed. And then got writer’s block. And then forced myself to finish this anyway. See if you can guess which ones I kind of half-assed. Go on, guess. Hint: ALL OF THEM. LOL Also, I love how this was supposed to be a really short kind of exercise thing for my own practice and still managed to end up being longer than the entire KAT-TUN back story. WTF, self?
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1. Ryo
October, 2003
When Ryo signs the lease for the Tokyo apartment he feels like it’s some sort of betrayal-two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchenette and a living room in a city that isn’t home.
Uchi laughs at him for thinking too much about something stupid and says, “A Tokyo apartment! Aren’t we fashionable now?” before claiming the big room as his.
Ryo snarls “Like hell!” and the two of them end up wrestling for it right there on the bare hardwood floors.
Uchi’s reach is longer but Ryo fights dirty; five minutes later Uchi whines and gives. “Fine! Then I get the big room in Osaka,” he pouts, panting.
Ryo snorts and says that they can fight for that one when the time comes as well, but in his heart he supposes that he’s okay with letting Uchi have it; the lease in Osaka is under Uchi’s name and the lease in Tokyo is under his, so it’s only fair.
They decided a month and a half after NEWS was formed that it would be more convenient for each of them to pay the rent for one apartment instead of splitting evenly on two.
“Yamapi will be relieved now that we’ve got our own place,” Uchi sighs, once he catches his breath again. They look around the apartment that they will spend half of their professional lives in; it’s empty for now, foreign and strange.
“Are you kidding? He’ll miss us drooling all over his guest pillows,” Ryo scoffs. “He couldn’t hope for better company.”
“We should get some plants,” Uchi says, “To make it more homey. It’s kind of lonely now.”
“Good luck with that,” Ryo mutters, stretching wearily. “But don’t buy too much shit; it’ll be hard to move it all out again once we leave Tokyo for good.”
Uchi considers it. “Do you think NEWS will last very long?” he asks.
Ryo snorts. “Have you seen the rest of those morons?”
Uchi chuckles. “True.”
The two of them sleep on the floor that night listening to the sounds of an unfamiliar city outside their windows; Ryo closes his eyes and tells himself that even if this isn’t home, at least it’s a place to stay until they can go back to where they belong.
In the morning, Uchi wakes up and complains about his shoulders being stiff.
Ryo’s hurt too; he already can’t wait for the lease to be up.
~~~~~
December, 2007
Ryo yawns as the end credits to the movie fade out; he and Tegoshi are in that formerly empty, formerly new apartment, curled up on the couch with a half eaten bowl of popcorn between them. The younger agent is fast asleep, has been since the middle of act three even though he’d insisted to Ryo that he wasn’t tired, that he could stay up and watch the whole thing tonight no problem.
Ryo snorts to himself and thinks that if it isn’t one idiot it’s another, though Uchi usually gave up on trying altogether and fell asleep somewhere around the midpoint.
A different time, a different life.
Now the Tokyo apartment isn’t the Tokyo apartment anymore, but rather, the only apartment there is; the lease expired in Osaka without Uchi there to sign for it and all his stuff got moved back to his parents’ house. Ryo would have kept the place for himself except that it hadn’t seemed right somehow; it would have felt too extravagant to have two two-bedroom apartments when there is only one of him.
Or maybe just too lonely.
When he’s in Osaka he stays in his old room at his family home or at a hotel instead.
The Tokyo apartment is where all of his stuff is now; there are plants on the window ledge and there’s a bookshelf in the corner; he has a CD rack, a coat rack, a shoe rack, an armchair, a couch, and a TV. Ryo has cups and plates and silverware in a set of eight, a small dining table, lamps, a coffee table, a rug, a full sized fridge, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a fan, and a stupid doormat from Koyama that says “Home Sweet Home” on it.
Most of the stuff is stuff Uchi bought over the years and some are gifts. The newer things are the only things Ryo bought himself, because he’d needed them over time, or because he’d liked them, or because Koyama had recommended them and wouldn’t shut up about them until Ryo tried them for himself.
The door to Uchi’s room is on the other side of the hallway and closed tight; no one ever goes inside or uses the bathroom there, even on the nights when the rest of NEWS all pile into Ryo’s apartment for a sleepover because he’s the one who lives closest to the agency and they’re all too tired to go back to their own homes. Ryo had initially picked this place to make the commute to work more convenient, but at the time, he hadn’t calculated for how many unexpected guests it would get him on a constant basis. To be fair, when he’d signed the lease, he hadn’t been expecting any guests. Ever.
But here they are years later; Tegoshi is curled up sleeping peacefully on Ryo’s couch. Again.
Ryo sighs, turns off the movie, and eyes his teammate, who smiles gently in slumber and hugs one of the couch cushions against his chest like it’s a stuffed animal and he’s still a five-year-old kid.
Ryo sits in the dark for a moment and watches the younger agent; he knows from personal experience that it will get cold out here this time of year, even on the couch. He contemplates picking Tegoshi up and tossing him into Uchi’s bed, but scraps the idea almost instantly; the sheets are probably musty by now-Tegoshi will pout at him in the morning if they are- and besides that, he’s not sure he’s ready to go inside the other room just yet, even after all this time.
So he stands and picks Tegoshi up, trudging into his own bedroom instead.
Tegoshi murmurs something about algorithms in his sleep and shoves his nose up against the crook of Ryo’s neck; the tip is cold and Ryo hefts him up a little higher, makes it to the bed, and rolls Tegoshi onto it. He tucks the younger agent in quickly and pads into his bathroom to change and brush his teeth.
He falls asleep to the sounds of a city he’s gotten used to over time and the soft in and out of Tegoshi’s breathing. Ryo closes his eyes and wonders if tomorrow, he’ll finally find the courage to go inside the second bedroom, to wash the bed sheets, throw open the windows, and clean up two years worth of accumulated dust and haunting memories.
It’s so the next time this happens, he can toss Tegoshi into that bed instead of this one and actually sleep in peace. It’s so that when Uchi finally wakes up and comes home-and he will- everything will be ready and waiting for him. Clean and fresh, like a second chance.
Ryo wonders when he’ll be ready for that.
In the morning, Tegoshi wakes up complaining that Ryo’s feet are cold and kicks halfheartedly at him before rolling over to face the opposite wall.
Ryo snorts sleepily and reaches out; he shoves Tegoshi right off the edge of the mattress and onto the floor with a muffled yelp. “Ryo-tan!”
“Serves you right, brat. It’s six am.”
Tegoshi pouts and stands, grabbing the couch cushion he was hugging all night. He beats Ryo over the head with it a few times before shivering and crawling back under the covers. “I’m telling Kei-chan that you’re still using the shampoo he recommended to you last year. I saw it hidden in the back of your cabinet.”
“I’m not afraid of Koyama.”
“You are when it means hugs in public!”
“Why do I keep you around again?”
Tegoshi sticks out his tongue in retaliation, but still curls up close for warmth anyway. “Because you love me.”
Ryo rolls his eyes at the kid but doesn’t shove him away; when Tegoshi is fast asleep again Ryo decides that maybe it’s time for him to do some laundry around here after all.
So he can sleep in peace.
~~~~~
2. Koyama
June, 2006
During the suspension, Koyama spends the majority of his time studying.
In his heart, he promised his teammates that he would become better during the time they were apart, told himself that’d he’d grow stronger and more mature so that when they came back, they could be an even better NEWS.
Tegoshi and Ryo and Yamapi all have a lot of work for themselves individually while NEWS is on hiatus; in contrast, Koyama and Shige and Massu have less, so Koyama decides not to waste a single moment of his free time wallowing in uncertainty. He spends it reading books and doing training exercises and auditing every lecture he can on the latest chemistry and technology developments in his field.
He doesn’t want to be left behind; he doesn’t want to let his teammates down.
He trains with Inohara-san and Sakamoto-san from the Volatile Mechanics Unit (V6) on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and meets with Tegoshi (when he can) on Thursdays for tutorials on the use of computers and other devices that can detect and neutralize explosives remotely. On Tuesdays and Fridays he meets Massu out on the shooting range or in the gym and the two of them work on his aim or his judo form until they’re both too exhausted and/or sore to move anymore.
“You can join our team if you’d like, Koyama-kun,” Inohara-san says one Wednesday afternoon, after a successful disarmament exercise. “It would throw off the whole pun on our name but we like you and you’re good, so we don’t mind.”
Koyama always laughs when he gets those kinds of invitations from the older agents and bows respectfully, telling them, “I’m happy you’d ask me to be a part of your unit, but I already have a team ne. We’re waiting for each other.”
Sakamoto-san grins and ruffles his hair or punches him in the arm when he hears that. “Your team is always what comes first,” he agrees, and is glad Koyama knows that so early. It isn’t something the young agents always figure out right away, usually takes years of saving each other from the brink of death before it finally clicks.
“Hai!” Koyama agrees, “I’m working hard for the sake of NEWS.”
Koyama trains with the two of them every single week for eight straight months; they are the best explosives experts in the country and he always comes out of those sessions a little bit more confident in himself and his abilities.
“I kept up with them,” he breathes to Shige over the phone on the nights when he’s so proud he could burst from it. “They’re amazing-much more amazing than me- but I didn’t fail either.”
“As one of the people who you will be saving from those explosives in the future, I can tell you that I am genuinely ecstatic to hear that,” Shige drawls from the other side, and under that sarcasm Koyama can hear pride as well, can hear Shige’s subtle congratulations and encouragement even if he doesn’t say them out loud.
”Shige,” he says, laughing brightly, “Shige I definitely won’t let you down.”
Koyama knows that when NEWS returns, he’ll have become someone who his teammates can rely on no matter what.
~~~~~
January, 2007
On their first mission after NEWS’s return it is New Year’s Day and cold; Shige is the one who finds the bomb during his and Koyama’s sweep of the south side of the building.
“I’ve got ten minutes on the countdown; evacuate the area ASAP,” Shige radios to the others, as Koyama kneels beside the device and studies it carefully.
“Koyama,” Shige starts, sounding uncertain as he looks at the bomb; it isn’t like anything he’s ever seen before, looks so much more complicated than the explosives they’d run across on past missions. “Are you…”
“Go,” Koyama tells him, and pops the control latch to reveal a maze of chips and wires underneath.
Shige doesn’t move at first, reaches out and puts a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “I’ll stay.”
Koyama turns, actually smiles at Shige. “Everything will be fine,” he assures the younger agent. “So go. Help with the evac.”
A pause, wherein Shige studies the look on Koyama’s face, searching for the truth, for any sign of false confidence or Koyama being reckless.
Eventually he sighs and takes his hand away. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he says.
Koyama nods. “Un.”
Shige turns and disappears down the stairs.
Koyama takes one last, careful look over the layout of the explosive. Seven minutes left and counting down. Three booby trapped early release triggers, a motion sensor balance, one back up power source and a remote transmission receiver.
It’s a terrifying weapon that has the power to kill hundreds of people.
And he smiles when he realizes that even in light of that knowledge, his hands aren’t shaking. His breathing is still even.
He reaches into his utility belt and pulls out a grease pen, a pair of pliers, and a pair of tweezers; he disengages the remote transmission receiver chip first, disables the motion sensor balance next, and carefully marks all of the obviously booby trapped triggers.
Four minutes left.
He wipes sweat from his brow and pauses when he hears Yamapi’s voice over his headset.
“Koyama…progress?”
“Almost done,” Koyama replies, voice tense but firm. It doesn’t crack like it used to, doesn’t show any signs of panic at all.
“Koyama…” Yamapi starts, sounding uncertain. “The building is evacuated, ne. Four minutes and you can still make it out of the blast area safe.”
Koyama smiles, filled with warmth at the sound of his teammate’s concern. “I know,” he says, and takes the black wire between his fingers.
When he pulls, he also knows that everything will be alright.
Because he spent the last eight months working hard for NEWS.
He became stronger.
~~~~~
3. Shige
September 2003
Shige holds back.
Ryo calls him incompetent on a daily basis and Uchi doesn’t like his attitude. Yamapi barely says ten words to him a week but when he does, it’s usually just “Okay,” or “This is our next assignment” at most.
Shige holds back because they’re all his senpai in one way or another; sometimes his voice can be tight with them but he makes sure that everything he says is always respectful. At the very most he only thinks uncharitable things in his head and never verbally retaliates no matter how many times Ryo tells him his hair is disgusting or how many times Uchi snorts and says he needs to stop acting all high and mighty.
With Yamapi his answer is always a bow and a “Yes, sir,” before he turns and marches out of the room.
He doesn’t say what he really thinks because that’s not his place. He hasn’t earned the right to speak to them on that level yet.
So when Yamapi comes up with a plan that Shige would adjust here and here and there he doesn’t speak up, he only bows and says “Yes, sir,” before turning and marching out of the room. When Ryo tells him to do this or do that he grits his teeth and does it because it’s a part of his job, even though it would be more convenient if Tegoshi did it or faster if Koyama tried.
For the first month Shige swallows everything he really wants to say to his teammates and doesn’t let it out until much later, when he’s out with Kusano and Koyama in private and needs to yell about something, needs to scream into a pillow or rant for fifteen minutes straight about everything that’s going wrong and how there is nothing he can do about it.
“Maybe you should just say something,” Kusano murmurs one night, when Shige is railing against how inconceivable the timetable for their latest assignment is, how Yamapi doesn’t get the finer points of being undercover and that these things take time.
Koyama nods. “Leader ne,” he begins nervously, “Leader doesn’t know much about being undercover.”
“Well he should,” Shige argues, though he feels strangely lame and petty when he says it like that.
“You should tell him,” Kusano repeats, as he fidgets with his chopsticks and the salt shaker on the table. “Then he’ll know for next time.”
Simple.
Too simple.
Shige tries to imagine himself doing it, tries to picture himself standing up to someone as amazing as Yamapi and saying, “This idea isn’t good,” or holding his ground against Ryo and Uchi by telling Ryo to collate his own damned paperwork and letting Uchi know that his attitude is more high and mighty than anyone else’s here.
When he thinks about it like that, all he feels is that it’s definitely, definitely impossible for someone like him. He’s not strong enough to compare.
So Shige sighs and stops complaining about it altogether; he eats his food and thinks that maybe all of his frustration comes from the fact that he doesn’t believe that he’d come out of an encounter with any of those three unscathed.
He doesn’t have the confidence to challenge his senpai. Not yet, maybe not ever.
So he does what comes naturally instead.
He holds back.
~~~~~
August, 2004
Day in and day out Shige walks into the office only to hear Ryo shout, “Cut your hair! It’s disgusting!” or some variation thereof; today Shige is in a particularly sour mood because he has to work around another one of Yamapi’s flawed timetables. He grits his teeth and murmurs a subdued, “Good morning,” to everyone before heading straight for his desk. Kusano waves absently from the desk beside his.
“Yo.”
Shige ignores him.
“Uwah, so cold,” Uchi drawls from beside Ryo, loud enough to be heard from the other side of the room. “Kato-kun never wants to talk to us.”
“Anti-social and disgusting hair,” Ryo sneers. “Bad combination.”
Shige doesn’t want to deal with this, not first thing in the morning. “I don’t want to listen to that kind of thing from someone who thought being a blond sniper was a good idea,” he mutters under his breath, pulling case files out of his briefcase and slamming them unceremoniously on his desk. “It’s the same as painting a giant target on your head.”
Ryo hears Shige muttering bitterly to himself but can’t make out the words; he blinks. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Shige quickly replies, and wants to smack himself for being careless.
“No, it was something!” Uchi urges, eyes glinting. “What was it?”
“Nothing!” Shige insists.
“Oi, Kusano, what did Shige just say?”
Kusano looks up from the paperclips he’s fiddling with. “He said Nishikido-kun shouldn’t talk about bad hair after being a blond sniper,” he paraphrases absently, before turning back to the paperclips like nothing is wrong.
Silence.
Shige swallows, looking wide-eyed at the two sharpshooters and fearing for the worst. He’d reach out and throttle Kusano if he wasn’t too scared to make any sudden movements.
But then, something unexpected happens.
Uchi bursts out laughing.
At Ryo.
He even points.
“He’s right!” Uchi snickers, looking vaguely impressed. “Not a great hair decision on your part.”
Ryo sniffs, but doesn’t look nearly as angry as Shige would have expected him to be. “I’ll let him off the hook today since he clearly does have some of his Osaka heritage left in him,” he announces magnanimously-and even sounds a little impressed himself-before he sits down to work. “But his hair is still disgusting.”
“It’s not as bad as yours when it was blond,” Uchi pushes with a cackle. “Remember that? The blondness? And how it sucked for you?”
Ryo scowls. “You shut the fuck up.”
Uchi crows. “Not one of your better comebacks either.”
Shige watches in a fascinated kind of confusion as the two of them go from bickering like that to actually working without missing a beat; he thinks that he isn’t quite sure what just happened between the three of them, but whatever it was, it happened a lot smoother than he expected it to, all things considered.
For a moment he looks down at his latest case file and wonders if his luck will hold; if it does, maybe he’ll be able to muster up the courage to tell Yamapi that his idea is impossible.
He sighs.
Probably not.
Though the possibility does make him smile a little to himself, and he eyes Uchi and Ryo surreptitiously while they work, peacefully sniping at one another every few minutes just to break up the silence. For some reason, what just happened gives Shige a strange sense of hope, even if he still doesn’t feel quite strong enough to face Yamapi alone just yet.
Maybe one day.
In the meantime, he builds up his confidence by practicing on Ryo.
Consequently, Uchi loves it.
~~~~~
4. Tegoshi
March, 2004
Tegoshi yelps as he’s thrown forcibly onto the mat for the fifth time in twenty minutes; he groans and lies back against it, sweaty and panting.
Massu looks down at him, “Are you okay?”
“Un,” Tegoshi says quickly. He sits up again, looking embarrassed. “I’m fine.”
Massu seems uncertain, can see the dark spots that will be bruises in the morning starting to form all up and down Tegoshi’s thin arms. There are probably more under the tank top he’s wearing too, on his ribs and on his back. “Maybe we should stop for today,” the older agent suggests, feeling vaguely guilty.
Tegoshi scrambles to his feet. “No, it’s okay! Let’s keep going! I mean…we just started, right?”
“Are you…”
“I’m sure, Massu.”
Massu sighs. “Tesshi’s fighting is really weak, ne,” he says, without meaning any harm.
Tegoshi hangs his head a little.
Massu smiles. “But seeing you work hard like this makes me think that you’ll be even better at it than me soon.”
A small laugh. “In NEWS, Kusano-kun and Massu are the strongest,” Tegoshi tells him, looking at him with a very serious expression, “and I’m the weakest. Everyone knows it, ne. I have to change that.”
Massu blinks. “Tesshi is strong in other ways,” he assures his teammate gently.
But Tegoshi looks determined; “I don’t want to lose to anyone,” he says, “Even if I’m so many years behind you all, I don’t want to be NEWS’s burden. We’re just starting out and if someone on the team is weak, no one will believe in us. Everyone will worry.”
Massu looks at him for a while, face serious.
Then, he smiles. “Okay. From today on, I definitely won’t hold back anymore.”
Tegoshi nods and takes a defensive stance. “I’ll do my best too!”
He gets thrown to the mats twelve more times that day.
~~~~~
May, 2007
Agent Sakurai flips through Tegoshi's report one last time; he still can’t really believe all of the words written on it. “And so you’re telling me, Agent, that Target B cornered you and pinned you to the wall while Target A tried to…” he trails off, makes a circular gesture with one hand instead of finishing.
Tegoshi nods. “It was rough! I didn’t know going undercover was so much work.”
“Should have let me go,” Shige mutters, feeling guilty beside him.
“They needed the cute type,” Ryo snaps, and isn’t sure why Shige’s still harping about that. It’s not like Tego-nyan is trying to steal his job or anything; he can’t help it if he’s much cuter than Shige is. “Stop looking like someone kicked your puppy.”
Shige sighs.
Agent Sakurai coughs to get the meeting back on track. “After Target B pinned you…”
“We fought,” Tegoshi finishes, simply.
“You directly engaged Target B and Target A alone. And exactly forty one seconds later, when your backup arrived…”
“Target B dead on site,” Matsumoto finishes for his teammate, whistling in a vaguely impressed way as he reads it right off the report.
Tegoshi nods, cutely. “Exactly.”
Sho pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Sometimes he hates his job. “No one is going to look at you and believe that you snapped that man’s neck with your thighs, Agent.”
Tegoshi pouts. “But that’s what happened!”
Sho has a headache. “We know that’s what happened. But we have to convince the jury that’s what happened too.”
He tosses the picture of NEWS’s last target onto the table with a resigned sigh. The gaping, lifeless face of a former human trafficker stares back at them. 6’2, 110 kilos, head shaved bald, thirty tattoos. Big and scary.
As confirmed by Koyama, who quickly reaches out and turns the photograph on its back when he can’t stand seeing it anymore.
The two Arashi members share a telling look. Glance at Tegoshi. “This isn’t going to be easy,” they agree after a moment.
“Why not? I have all the audio recorded,” Tegoshi protests. “It’s all in evidence, ne.”
Yamapi nods. “You can clearly hear the struggle,” he affirms. “It should be obvious.”
“Even still,” Matsumoto drawls, eyeing Tegoshi over one more time and smirking, “You look as sweet as candy, baby face. Therein lies the problem.”
Silence.
Then Massu turns and smiles reassuringly at Tegoshi. “Tesshi,” he says brightly, “your fighting has gotten really strong ne!”
Sho slaps a hand to his forehead at the exact same time Shige does.
~~~~~
5. Kusano
January, 2006
Kusano falls into bed sweaty and exhausted, arms sore from pulling himself along with all the wrong muscles.
“You did well,” his physical therapist had told him right before they’d finished. “If you keep trying as hard as you have been, Kusano-kun, I can foresee you gaining back at least 50% of your mobility within the next few years.”
He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he thinks about that; doesn’t know what 50% means except that it means not 100% and because of that, it might as well be the equivalent of 0% for all the good it does him.
He lies in bed and feels sorry for himself for approximately thirty seconds.
When thirty seconds are up, he pushes himself into a sitting position again and realizes that if continuing to try as hard as he has been will only get him halfway there, then all he needs to do is double the effort to get to 100%. He needs to put in 200% from now on.
In his heart, it makes perfect sense.
So when no one is looking, Kusano works. He falls time and time again with no one there to catch him, claws himself back up, and goes again until he can’t move anymore. When there are tears in his eyes from the exertion and the pain and his muscles cramp and spasm every time he moves, he grits his teeth and tries one more time on principle.
He makes 200% normal.
~~~~~
January, 2007
When no one is looking, Kusano pushes himself to his feet and stands.
He does it for thirty seconds, counting each and every one of them through a tightly clenched jaw.
“…twenty-eight one thousand, twenty-nine one thousand, thirty.”
When thirty seconds are up he feels his muscles start to give out and he falls; he manages to catch himself by hitting the ground with both palms instead of landing on his face.
He pushes, pulls, and drags himself up again with a smile, whooping under his breath in satisfaction. Thirty whole seconds; it’s nearly double what he could do last month.
He let himself rest for one minute before going again.
And this time, he aims for thirty one.
~~~~~
6. Uchi
November, 2005
Somewhere in the dark corner of distant dreams Uchi thinks he can hear music; in blurs of shapes and colors he sees himself with everyone, smiling, posing, singing, and dancing to a series of foreign, driving rhythms. There is something that looks like a dead animal hanging off of his jacket and he feels like he’s on the biggest karaoke stage in the world.
They’re strange, crazy dreams and they pull him in until all he can hear is their lively, fantastical sounds, until he can’t tell what is real and what isn’t anymore.
He follows the beat of those unfamiliar rhythms and feels himself falling ever deeper into a heavy, brightly colored slumber.
~~~~~
January, 2008
Ryo’s shout cuts through the fog like a knife; it interrupts him somewhere in the middle of his ten thousandth song and dance routine, the ten thousandth dead animal on his shoulder.
“When you wake up, I’m going to kick your ass,” he hears Ryo say, soft and muddled and very far away. It’s like an echo from miles in the opposite direction, just a facsimile of the truth carried to him by the wind.
“Yeah right,” Uchi thinks in reply, faintly, sleepily, “When I wake up you’re going to make me breakfast.”
For a while, he manages to ignore the music. Instead, he dreams about Ryo serving him pancakes and cereal while wearing a cute, frilly apron.
~~~~~
No one is there to see it when, in his hospital bed, the corner of Uchi’s lip quirks up.
~~~~~
7. Massu
May, 2006
Massu saves them.
Not when it counts of course, but in his dreams; he saves them a million different times in a million different ways every night of the week.
In one version he sees the enemy shooter first in his periphery and jumps out before Uchi can take the first shot and reveal his location. Massu ends up pummeling the target’s bodyguards like he’s a hero straight out of a Hong Kong action movie, and when he finally does get shot by the opposing sniper seconds later, he’s only hit in the vest, right smack dab in the middle of his Kevlar. The worst that ever happens in any of his dreams is that he cracks one measly rib.
Or sometimes it’s not even that; in his favorite version of how he saves Uchi and Kusano he’s not on the floor waiting in ambush with Yamapi and Koyama while Shige and Kusano make the trade off, but rather, he’s up in that high balcony, doing a sweep to secure the premises. He runs into the enemy sniper there; sees him setting up, waiting for his shot. In that version of the events Massu gets the jump on the guy before he can even dream of hurting Uchi or Kusano; he wipes out the threat before it ever really becomes one and everyone goes home happy that night. They celebrate by going out to eat together-all eight of them-and Ryo offers to pay.
In his dreams, Massu saves them over and over again and makes it so that there’s always eight of them, that there is always a NEWS.
In his dreams, Massu does his job.
He protects his teammates no matter what.
~~~~~
November, 2006
“Are you sure you want to take him with you?” Takizawa asks, with slightly raised eyebrows.
From the other side of Tackey’s desk, Tegoshi beams and nods. “Un. It has to be Massu, ne. For me to feel safe.”
“He hasn’t been on a lot of active missions these past few months. It’s just as easy for me to send Yamaguchi-kun or Matsuoka-kun with you instead, Tegoshi. TOKIO is the best in the country for these types of things, you know.”
Tegoshi smiles, but doesn’t back down. “I want Massu, ne. Because we’re both NEWS, we understand each other best. I trust him.”
Tackey sighs and knows when he isn’t getting anywhere with something. “Alright, fine. You don’t have the face of someone who looks like he can be convinced otherwise, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is a big deal. You’re not just going on another life threatening mission this time, Tegoshi-kun. You’re also representing your country to the rest of the world in a fairly large matter of international peacekeeping.”
Tegoshi doesn’t look particularly impressed by the severity of the fact when Tackey relates it to him; his smile never changes, never falters. “Thank you, sir,” he says, and bows politely. “I’ll acknowledge your warning even if I don’t feel like abiding by it, ne. Please call Massu and let him know the details as soon as you can.”
Tackey isn’t used to being rendered helpless by the whims of one of his subordinates, but then again, there is something particular in Tegoshi’s eyes that makes this sense of helplessness feel not only natural to Tackey, but also completely inevitable somehow as well. “Are you…”
“Un. I’m sure!”
“Alright. I’ll call him.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Takizawa shakes his head as Tegoshi bounces out of the room, marveling to himself at how much someone can grow in such a short amount of time.
He pulls out his cell phone and reluctantly dials Masuda’s number.
~~~~~
When Massu gets the call from Tackey telling him that he and Tegoshi will be going to Sweden on a joint international investigation with the authorities there, he’s naturally surprised. He’s also scared, worried, and doubtful. A thousand things all at once and none of them particularly good.
He doesn’t think he has it in him to do this. Not after what happened before.
“Me?” he asks, and knows he hasn’t been on a big case since NEWS’s suspension, “Why me? Wouldn’t it be better if he took Nagase-san with him?”
“That’s what I told him.” Pause. “Well, sort of.” Tackey sighs.
Massu tries not to be hurt by the admission because it’s true and he knows it. “Then…”
“He asked for you personally,” Tackey explains. “Because you’re NEWS. Because he trusts you.”
“Eh? But…”
“He believes in you, Masuda-kun. And if he’s going to be that passionate about it, then I suppose that’s good enough a reason for me to approve you for this mission as well.”
Silence.
“Masuda-kun? Are you still there? Will you do it?”
Massu takes a deep, shaky breath. “Hai. I’ll do it.”
“Good. You leave on the twelfth. Pack light.”
“Hai. Th-thank you.”
When he hangs up, Massu closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten to calm the rapid beating of his heart. “Yosh,” he murmurs, when he can breathe again. “You can do this.”
Somehow, after hearing that Tegoshi’s faith in him is still so strong, Massu feels like he’s getting a second chance.
He promises himself that this time he’ll do everything right. This time, he’ll succeed when it counts and leave the dreams as dreams.
He’ll protect his teammate no matter what.
~~~~~
8. Yamapi
August, 2003
Yamapi is good at doing what he’s told.
“Stand here,” they say during his academy years, and he does. “Do this,” they say, and he does. “Train like this, go to class, wake up early, pass your tests,” they tell him one after another after another, and he does. He does all of those things exactly how and when they want him to. He is a model cadet.
He does what they tell him to do even when it’s hard. When Jin is panting and whining about quitting behind him while they’re on the obstacle course or when Koki is cursing and calling the drill sergeants names behind their backs during written exams, Yamapi grits his teeth and doesn’t say anything at all; he only does what he’s told. Nothing more, nothing less.
“I’m going to make you a leader,” Tackey tells him during his first year there, and says the same thing over and over again every time they see each other afterwards. “I’m going to make all of you into leaders when you come out of this place, so prepare to work harder than you’ve ever worked before.”
“Hai!” the four of them say, and even though Yamapi doesn’t know what a leader’s job in this world means exactly, he knows that if it’s what Tackey tells him to do, then all he can do is his best.
When the other three drop out from Tackey’s tutelage after two, three, and four years of struggle and turmoil, Yamapi is the only one left. He’s as tired as the others were, as overworked and thin, but he hangs on because Tackey tells him to work hard, to do this and do that and to learn this and read that and don’t give up, don’t ever give up.
Yamapi does as he’s told and when he graduates, he’s somehow become a leader.
He still doesn’t know what that means.
“I knew you could do it,” Tackey tells him proudly, and Yamapi smiles back tiredly, wondering what’s next. What happens after you become a leader?
As it turns out, they tell him exactly what’s next, because that’s how this job works.
“Next,” Tackey says, “next you’ll become the leader of NEWS.”
“I’ll do my best,” Yamapi replies automatically, even when part of him doesn’t feel right about NEWS when he hears it out loud for the first time, even when part of him screams that this is something he won’t be able to succeed at no matter what. He wants to tell Tackey that he’s not ready for this yet, that he can’t do it, that it’s too soon.
“You’ll do great,” Tackey declares, around a smile full of something suspiciously paternal.
And when faced with that, all Yamapi can say is, “I’ll do my best” again, like he always does.
Because he’s good at doing what he’s told, even when he doesn’t really understand what it means.
~~~~~
April, 2006
Yamapi finally finds out what it really means to be a leader when he is told that he can’t be NEWS’s anymore.
It is bitter and painful that way, but he learns his lesson well.
He realizes it when his team members all turn to look at him in their distress, when they stare at him with tears of grief and anger and frustration and hope in their eyes. He wants to cry too but he doesn’t; it is at that moment when he discovers that a leader-a real leader- is someone who has the strength to hold the crushing weight of a dream on his shoulders.
“We’ll come back,” he promises them, and makes himself believe it with every part of his heart, “We’ll all come back soon and we’ll all be NEWS again, so don’t worry. Work hard and do your best until that time.”
“Hai!” they all say, and even if they don’t know if that is what will happen, they trust him.
They all trust him.
He doesn’t let himself feel what they feel until he is in his office by himself and the lights are all turned off. Then and only then, does he let grief and anger and frustration and hope all pour out of him in deep, shuddering breaths.
Only when he’s by himself, where no one else can see.
Under the crushing weight of a beautiful dream, Yamapi finally learns what it means to take the lead.
He discovers that it is not something you can just be told to do.
END
EDITS PLZ. IT IS TWO THIRTY IN THE MORNING.
Universe: JE/NewS (Government Agent AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (guest appearances by and/or mentions of members of Arashi, KAT-TUN, V6, T&T, and TOKIO; i.e. everyone. LOL)
Warnings/Spoilers: AU, OOC, randomness. The usual.
Word Count: 6,566
Summary: In the universe related to “To Serve and Protect,” “Waiting to Come Home,” “Guardian Spirits,” “Strength, Weakness,” “This is Our Beginning”, and “Faith to Hold on To”- NEWS members grow up and move forward one moment at a time.
Dedication: Ann- Sorry for the long wait between fics dude. I am slowing down with age? :P
A/N: I started out wanting to do something funny for this series. And then failed. And then got writer’s block. And then forced myself to finish this anyway. See if you can guess which ones I kind of half-assed. Go on, guess. Hint: ALL OF THEM. LOL Also, I love how this was supposed to be a really short kind of exercise thing for my own practice and still managed to end up being longer than the entire KAT-TUN back story. WTF, self?
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1. Ryo
October, 2003
When Ryo signs the lease for the Tokyo apartment he feels like it’s some sort of betrayal-two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchenette and a living room in a city that isn’t home.
Uchi laughs at him for thinking too much about something stupid and says, “A Tokyo apartment! Aren’t we fashionable now?” before claiming the big room as his.
Ryo snarls “Like hell!” and the two of them end up wrestling for it right there on the bare hardwood floors.
Uchi’s reach is longer but Ryo fights dirty; five minutes later Uchi whines and gives. “Fine! Then I get the big room in Osaka,” he pouts, panting.
Ryo snorts and says that they can fight for that one when the time comes as well, but in his heart he supposes that he’s okay with letting Uchi have it; the lease in Osaka is under Uchi’s name and the lease in Tokyo is under his, so it’s only fair.
They decided a month and a half after NEWS was formed that it would be more convenient for each of them to pay the rent for one apartment instead of splitting evenly on two.
“Yamapi will be relieved now that we’ve got our own place,” Uchi sighs, once he catches his breath again. They look around the apartment that they will spend half of their professional lives in; it’s empty for now, foreign and strange.
“Are you kidding? He’ll miss us drooling all over his guest pillows,” Ryo scoffs. “He couldn’t hope for better company.”
“We should get some plants,” Uchi says, “To make it more homey. It’s kind of lonely now.”
“Good luck with that,” Ryo mutters, stretching wearily. “But don’t buy too much shit; it’ll be hard to move it all out again once we leave Tokyo for good.”
Uchi considers it. “Do you think NEWS will last very long?” he asks.
Ryo snorts. “Have you seen the rest of those morons?”
Uchi chuckles. “True.”
The two of them sleep on the floor that night listening to the sounds of an unfamiliar city outside their windows; Ryo closes his eyes and tells himself that even if this isn’t home, at least it’s a place to stay until they can go back to where they belong.
In the morning, Uchi wakes up and complains about his shoulders being stiff.
Ryo’s hurt too; he already can’t wait for the lease to be up.
~~~~~
December, 2007
Ryo yawns as the end credits to the movie fade out; he and Tegoshi are in that formerly empty, formerly new apartment, curled up on the couch with a half eaten bowl of popcorn between them. The younger agent is fast asleep, has been since the middle of act three even though he’d insisted to Ryo that he wasn’t tired, that he could stay up and watch the whole thing tonight no problem.
Ryo snorts to himself and thinks that if it isn’t one idiot it’s another, though Uchi usually gave up on trying altogether and fell asleep somewhere around the midpoint.
A different time, a different life.
Now the Tokyo apartment isn’t the Tokyo apartment anymore, but rather, the only apartment there is; the lease expired in Osaka without Uchi there to sign for it and all his stuff got moved back to his parents’ house. Ryo would have kept the place for himself except that it hadn’t seemed right somehow; it would have felt too extravagant to have two two-bedroom apartments when there is only one of him.
Or maybe just too lonely.
When he’s in Osaka he stays in his old room at his family home or at a hotel instead.
The Tokyo apartment is where all of his stuff is now; there are plants on the window ledge and there’s a bookshelf in the corner; he has a CD rack, a coat rack, a shoe rack, an armchair, a couch, and a TV. Ryo has cups and plates and silverware in a set of eight, a small dining table, lamps, a coffee table, a rug, a full sized fridge, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a fan, and a stupid doormat from Koyama that says “Home Sweet Home” on it.
Most of the stuff is stuff Uchi bought over the years and some are gifts. The newer things are the only things Ryo bought himself, because he’d needed them over time, or because he’d liked them, or because Koyama had recommended them and wouldn’t shut up about them until Ryo tried them for himself.
The door to Uchi’s room is on the other side of the hallway and closed tight; no one ever goes inside or uses the bathroom there, even on the nights when the rest of NEWS all pile into Ryo’s apartment for a sleepover because he’s the one who lives closest to the agency and they’re all too tired to go back to their own homes. Ryo had initially picked this place to make the commute to work more convenient, but at the time, he hadn’t calculated for how many unexpected guests it would get him on a constant basis. To be fair, when he’d signed the lease, he hadn’t been expecting any guests. Ever.
But here they are years later; Tegoshi is curled up sleeping peacefully on Ryo’s couch. Again.
Ryo sighs, turns off the movie, and eyes his teammate, who smiles gently in slumber and hugs one of the couch cushions against his chest like it’s a stuffed animal and he’s still a five-year-old kid.
Ryo sits in the dark for a moment and watches the younger agent; he knows from personal experience that it will get cold out here this time of year, even on the couch. He contemplates picking Tegoshi up and tossing him into Uchi’s bed, but scraps the idea almost instantly; the sheets are probably musty by now-Tegoshi will pout at him in the morning if they are- and besides that, he’s not sure he’s ready to go inside the other room just yet, even after all this time.
So he stands and picks Tegoshi up, trudging into his own bedroom instead.
Tegoshi murmurs something about algorithms in his sleep and shoves his nose up against the crook of Ryo’s neck; the tip is cold and Ryo hefts him up a little higher, makes it to the bed, and rolls Tegoshi onto it. He tucks the younger agent in quickly and pads into his bathroom to change and brush his teeth.
He falls asleep to the sounds of a city he’s gotten used to over time and the soft in and out of Tegoshi’s breathing. Ryo closes his eyes and wonders if tomorrow, he’ll finally find the courage to go inside the second bedroom, to wash the bed sheets, throw open the windows, and clean up two years worth of accumulated dust and haunting memories.
It’s so the next time this happens, he can toss Tegoshi into that bed instead of this one and actually sleep in peace. It’s so that when Uchi finally wakes up and comes home-and he will- everything will be ready and waiting for him. Clean and fresh, like a second chance.
Ryo wonders when he’ll be ready for that.
In the morning, Tegoshi wakes up complaining that Ryo’s feet are cold and kicks halfheartedly at him before rolling over to face the opposite wall.
Ryo snorts sleepily and reaches out; he shoves Tegoshi right off the edge of the mattress and onto the floor with a muffled yelp. “Ryo-tan!”
“Serves you right, brat. It’s six am.”
Tegoshi pouts and stands, grabbing the couch cushion he was hugging all night. He beats Ryo over the head with it a few times before shivering and crawling back under the covers. “I’m telling Kei-chan that you’re still using the shampoo he recommended to you last year. I saw it hidden in the back of your cabinet.”
“I’m not afraid of Koyama.”
“You are when it means hugs in public!”
“Why do I keep you around again?”
Tegoshi sticks out his tongue in retaliation, but still curls up close for warmth anyway. “Because you love me.”
Ryo rolls his eyes at the kid but doesn’t shove him away; when Tegoshi is fast asleep again Ryo decides that maybe it’s time for him to do some laundry around here after all.
So he can sleep in peace.
~~~~~
2. Koyama
June, 2006
During the suspension, Koyama spends the majority of his time studying.
In his heart, he promised his teammates that he would become better during the time they were apart, told himself that’d he’d grow stronger and more mature so that when they came back, they could be an even better NEWS.
Tegoshi and Ryo and Yamapi all have a lot of work for themselves individually while NEWS is on hiatus; in contrast, Koyama and Shige and Massu have less, so Koyama decides not to waste a single moment of his free time wallowing in uncertainty. He spends it reading books and doing training exercises and auditing every lecture he can on the latest chemistry and technology developments in his field.
He doesn’t want to be left behind; he doesn’t want to let his teammates down.
He trains with Inohara-san and Sakamoto-san from the Volatile Mechanics Unit (V6) on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and meets with Tegoshi (when he can) on Thursdays for tutorials on the use of computers and other devices that can detect and neutralize explosives remotely. On Tuesdays and Fridays he meets Massu out on the shooting range or in the gym and the two of them work on his aim or his judo form until they’re both too exhausted and/or sore to move anymore.
“You can join our team if you’d like, Koyama-kun,” Inohara-san says one Wednesday afternoon, after a successful disarmament exercise. “It would throw off the whole pun on our name but we like you and you’re good, so we don’t mind.”
Koyama always laughs when he gets those kinds of invitations from the older agents and bows respectfully, telling them, “I’m happy you’d ask me to be a part of your unit, but I already have a team ne. We’re waiting for each other.”
Sakamoto-san grins and ruffles his hair or punches him in the arm when he hears that. “Your team is always what comes first,” he agrees, and is glad Koyama knows that so early. It isn’t something the young agents always figure out right away, usually takes years of saving each other from the brink of death before it finally clicks.
“Hai!” Koyama agrees, “I’m working hard for the sake of NEWS.”
Koyama trains with the two of them every single week for eight straight months; they are the best explosives experts in the country and he always comes out of those sessions a little bit more confident in himself and his abilities.
“I kept up with them,” he breathes to Shige over the phone on the nights when he’s so proud he could burst from it. “They’re amazing-much more amazing than me- but I didn’t fail either.”
“As one of the people who you will be saving from those explosives in the future, I can tell you that I am genuinely ecstatic to hear that,” Shige drawls from the other side, and under that sarcasm Koyama can hear pride as well, can hear Shige’s subtle congratulations and encouragement even if he doesn’t say them out loud.
”Shige,” he says, laughing brightly, “Shige I definitely won’t let you down.”
Koyama knows that when NEWS returns, he’ll have become someone who his teammates can rely on no matter what.
~~~~~
January, 2007
On their first mission after NEWS’s return it is New Year’s Day and cold; Shige is the one who finds the bomb during his and Koyama’s sweep of the south side of the building.
“I’ve got ten minutes on the countdown; evacuate the area ASAP,” Shige radios to the others, as Koyama kneels beside the device and studies it carefully.
“Koyama,” Shige starts, sounding uncertain as he looks at the bomb; it isn’t like anything he’s ever seen before, looks so much more complicated than the explosives they’d run across on past missions. “Are you…”
“Go,” Koyama tells him, and pops the control latch to reveal a maze of chips and wires underneath.
Shige doesn’t move at first, reaches out and puts a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “I’ll stay.”
Koyama turns, actually smiles at Shige. “Everything will be fine,” he assures the younger agent. “So go. Help with the evac.”
A pause, wherein Shige studies the look on Koyama’s face, searching for the truth, for any sign of false confidence or Koyama being reckless.
Eventually he sighs and takes his hand away. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he says.
Koyama nods. “Un.”
Shige turns and disappears down the stairs.
Koyama takes one last, careful look over the layout of the explosive. Seven minutes left and counting down. Three booby trapped early release triggers, a motion sensor balance, one back up power source and a remote transmission receiver.
It’s a terrifying weapon that has the power to kill hundreds of people.
And he smiles when he realizes that even in light of that knowledge, his hands aren’t shaking. His breathing is still even.
He reaches into his utility belt and pulls out a grease pen, a pair of pliers, and a pair of tweezers; he disengages the remote transmission receiver chip first, disables the motion sensor balance next, and carefully marks all of the obviously booby trapped triggers.
Four minutes left.
He wipes sweat from his brow and pauses when he hears Yamapi’s voice over his headset.
“Koyama…progress?”
“Almost done,” Koyama replies, voice tense but firm. It doesn’t crack like it used to, doesn’t show any signs of panic at all.
“Koyama…” Yamapi starts, sounding uncertain. “The building is evacuated, ne. Four minutes and you can still make it out of the blast area safe.”
Koyama smiles, filled with warmth at the sound of his teammate’s concern. “I know,” he says, and takes the black wire between his fingers.
When he pulls, he also knows that everything will be alright.
Because he spent the last eight months working hard for NEWS.
He became stronger.
~~~~~
3. Shige
September 2003
Shige holds back.
Ryo calls him incompetent on a daily basis and Uchi doesn’t like his attitude. Yamapi barely says ten words to him a week but when he does, it’s usually just “Okay,” or “This is our next assignment” at most.
Shige holds back because they’re all his senpai in one way or another; sometimes his voice can be tight with them but he makes sure that everything he says is always respectful. At the very most he only thinks uncharitable things in his head and never verbally retaliates no matter how many times Ryo tells him his hair is disgusting or how many times Uchi snorts and says he needs to stop acting all high and mighty.
With Yamapi his answer is always a bow and a “Yes, sir,” before he turns and marches out of the room.
He doesn’t say what he really thinks because that’s not his place. He hasn’t earned the right to speak to them on that level yet.
So when Yamapi comes up with a plan that Shige would adjust here and here and there he doesn’t speak up, he only bows and says “Yes, sir,” before turning and marching out of the room. When Ryo tells him to do this or do that he grits his teeth and does it because it’s a part of his job, even though it would be more convenient if Tegoshi did it or faster if Koyama tried.
For the first month Shige swallows everything he really wants to say to his teammates and doesn’t let it out until much later, when he’s out with Kusano and Koyama in private and needs to yell about something, needs to scream into a pillow or rant for fifteen minutes straight about everything that’s going wrong and how there is nothing he can do about it.
“Maybe you should just say something,” Kusano murmurs one night, when Shige is railing against how inconceivable the timetable for their latest assignment is, how Yamapi doesn’t get the finer points of being undercover and that these things take time.
Koyama nods. “Leader ne,” he begins nervously, “Leader doesn’t know much about being undercover.”
“Well he should,” Shige argues, though he feels strangely lame and petty when he says it like that.
“You should tell him,” Kusano repeats, as he fidgets with his chopsticks and the salt shaker on the table. “Then he’ll know for next time.”
Simple.
Too simple.
Shige tries to imagine himself doing it, tries to picture himself standing up to someone as amazing as Yamapi and saying, “This idea isn’t good,” or holding his ground against Ryo and Uchi by telling Ryo to collate his own damned paperwork and letting Uchi know that his attitude is more high and mighty than anyone else’s here.
When he thinks about it like that, all he feels is that it’s definitely, definitely impossible for someone like him. He’s not strong enough to compare.
So Shige sighs and stops complaining about it altogether; he eats his food and thinks that maybe all of his frustration comes from the fact that he doesn’t believe that he’d come out of an encounter with any of those three unscathed.
He doesn’t have the confidence to challenge his senpai. Not yet, maybe not ever.
So he does what comes naturally instead.
He holds back.
~~~~~
August, 2004
Day in and day out Shige walks into the office only to hear Ryo shout, “Cut your hair! It’s disgusting!” or some variation thereof; today Shige is in a particularly sour mood because he has to work around another one of Yamapi’s flawed timetables. He grits his teeth and murmurs a subdued, “Good morning,” to everyone before heading straight for his desk. Kusano waves absently from the desk beside his.
“Yo.”
Shige ignores him.
“Uwah, so cold,” Uchi drawls from beside Ryo, loud enough to be heard from the other side of the room. “Kato-kun never wants to talk to us.”
“Anti-social and disgusting hair,” Ryo sneers. “Bad combination.”
Shige doesn’t want to deal with this, not first thing in the morning. “I don’t want to listen to that kind of thing from someone who thought being a blond sniper was a good idea,” he mutters under his breath, pulling case files out of his briefcase and slamming them unceremoniously on his desk. “It’s the same as painting a giant target on your head.”
Ryo hears Shige muttering bitterly to himself but can’t make out the words; he blinks. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Shige quickly replies, and wants to smack himself for being careless.
“No, it was something!” Uchi urges, eyes glinting. “What was it?”
“Nothing!” Shige insists.
“Oi, Kusano, what did Shige just say?”
Kusano looks up from the paperclips he’s fiddling with. “He said Nishikido-kun shouldn’t talk about bad hair after being a blond sniper,” he paraphrases absently, before turning back to the paperclips like nothing is wrong.
Silence.
Shige swallows, looking wide-eyed at the two sharpshooters and fearing for the worst. He’d reach out and throttle Kusano if he wasn’t too scared to make any sudden movements.
But then, something unexpected happens.
Uchi bursts out laughing.
At Ryo.
He even points.
“He’s right!” Uchi snickers, looking vaguely impressed. “Not a great hair decision on your part.”
Ryo sniffs, but doesn’t look nearly as angry as Shige would have expected him to be. “I’ll let him off the hook today since he clearly does have some of his Osaka heritage left in him,” he announces magnanimously-and even sounds a little impressed himself-before he sits down to work. “But his hair is still disgusting.”
“It’s not as bad as yours when it was blond,” Uchi pushes with a cackle. “Remember that? The blondness? And how it sucked for you?”
Ryo scowls. “You shut the fuck up.”
Uchi crows. “Not one of your better comebacks either.”
Shige watches in a fascinated kind of confusion as the two of them go from bickering like that to actually working without missing a beat; he thinks that he isn’t quite sure what just happened between the three of them, but whatever it was, it happened a lot smoother than he expected it to, all things considered.
For a moment he looks down at his latest case file and wonders if his luck will hold; if it does, maybe he’ll be able to muster up the courage to tell Yamapi that his idea is impossible.
He sighs.
Probably not.
Though the possibility does make him smile a little to himself, and he eyes Uchi and Ryo surreptitiously while they work, peacefully sniping at one another every few minutes just to break up the silence. For some reason, what just happened gives Shige a strange sense of hope, even if he still doesn’t feel quite strong enough to face Yamapi alone just yet.
Maybe one day.
In the meantime, he builds up his confidence by practicing on Ryo.
Consequently, Uchi loves it.
~~~~~
4. Tegoshi
March, 2004
Tegoshi yelps as he’s thrown forcibly onto the mat for the fifth time in twenty minutes; he groans and lies back against it, sweaty and panting.
Massu looks down at him, “Are you okay?”
“Un,” Tegoshi says quickly. He sits up again, looking embarrassed. “I’m fine.”
Massu seems uncertain, can see the dark spots that will be bruises in the morning starting to form all up and down Tegoshi’s thin arms. There are probably more under the tank top he’s wearing too, on his ribs and on his back. “Maybe we should stop for today,” the older agent suggests, feeling vaguely guilty.
Tegoshi scrambles to his feet. “No, it’s okay! Let’s keep going! I mean…we just started, right?”
“Are you…”
“I’m sure, Massu.”
Massu sighs. “Tesshi’s fighting is really weak, ne,” he says, without meaning any harm.
Tegoshi hangs his head a little.
Massu smiles. “But seeing you work hard like this makes me think that you’ll be even better at it than me soon.”
A small laugh. “In NEWS, Kusano-kun and Massu are the strongest,” Tegoshi tells him, looking at him with a very serious expression, “and I’m the weakest. Everyone knows it, ne. I have to change that.”
Massu blinks. “Tesshi is strong in other ways,” he assures his teammate gently.
But Tegoshi looks determined; “I don’t want to lose to anyone,” he says, “Even if I’m so many years behind you all, I don’t want to be NEWS’s burden. We’re just starting out and if someone on the team is weak, no one will believe in us. Everyone will worry.”
Massu looks at him for a while, face serious.
Then, he smiles. “Okay. From today on, I definitely won’t hold back anymore.”
Tegoshi nods and takes a defensive stance. “I’ll do my best too!”
He gets thrown to the mats twelve more times that day.
~~~~~
May, 2007
Agent Sakurai flips through Tegoshi's report one last time; he still can’t really believe all of the words written on it. “And so you’re telling me, Agent, that Target B cornered you and pinned you to the wall while Target A tried to…” he trails off, makes a circular gesture with one hand instead of finishing.
Tegoshi nods. “It was rough! I didn’t know going undercover was so much work.”
“Should have let me go,” Shige mutters, feeling guilty beside him.
“They needed the cute type,” Ryo snaps, and isn’t sure why Shige’s still harping about that. It’s not like Tego-nyan is trying to steal his job or anything; he can’t help it if he’s much cuter than Shige is. “Stop looking like someone kicked your puppy.”
Shige sighs.
Agent Sakurai coughs to get the meeting back on track. “After Target B pinned you…”
“We fought,” Tegoshi finishes, simply.
“You directly engaged Target B and Target A alone. And exactly forty one seconds later, when your backup arrived…”
“Target B dead on site,” Matsumoto finishes for his teammate, whistling in a vaguely impressed way as he reads it right off the report.
Tegoshi nods, cutely. “Exactly.”
Sho pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Sometimes he hates his job. “No one is going to look at you and believe that you snapped that man’s neck with your thighs, Agent.”
Tegoshi pouts. “But that’s what happened!”
Sho has a headache. “We know that’s what happened. But we have to convince the jury that’s what happened too.”
He tosses the picture of NEWS’s last target onto the table with a resigned sigh. The gaping, lifeless face of a former human trafficker stares back at them. 6’2, 110 kilos, head shaved bald, thirty tattoos. Big and scary.
As confirmed by Koyama, who quickly reaches out and turns the photograph on its back when he can’t stand seeing it anymore.
The two Arashi members share a telling look. Glance at Tegoshi. “This isn’t going to be easy,” they agree after a moment.
“Why not? I have all the audio recorded,” Tegoshi protests. “It’s all in evidence, ne.”
Yamapi nods. “You can clearly hear the struggle,” he affirms. “It should be obvious.”
“Even still,” Matsumoto drawls, eyeing Tegoshi over one more time and smirking, “You look as sweet as candy, baby face. Therein lies the problem.”
Silence.
Then Massu turns and smiles reassuringly at Tegoshi. “Tesshi,” he says brightly, “your fighting has gotten really strong ne!”
Sho slaps a hand to his forehead at the exact same time Shige does.
~~~~~
5. Kusano
January, 2006
Kusano falls into bed sweaty and exhausted, arms sore from pulling himself along with all the wrong muscles.
“You did well,” his physical therapist had told him right before they’d finished. “If you keep trying as hard as you have been, Kusano-kun, I can foresee you gaining back at least 50% of your mobility within the next few years.”
He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he thinks about that; doesn’t know what 50% means except that it means not 100% and because of that, it might as well be the equivalent of 0% for all the good it does him.
He lies in bed and feels sorry for himself for approximately thirty seconds.
When thirty seconds are up, he pushes himself into a sitting position again and realizes that if continuing to try as hard as he has been will only get him halfway there, then all he needs to do is double the effort to get to 100%. He needs to put in 200% from now on.
In his heart, it makes perfect sense.
So when no one is looking, Kusano works. He falls time and time again with no one there to catch him, claws himself back up, and goes again until he can’t move anymore. When there are tears in his eyes from the exertion and the pain and his muscles cramp and spasm every time he moves, he grits his teeth and tries one more time on principle.
He makes 200% normal.
~~~~~
January, 2007
When no one is looking, Kusano pushes himself to his feet and stands.
He does it for thirty seconds, counting each and every one of them through a tightly clenched jaw.
“…twenty-eight one thousand, twenty-nine one thousand, thirty.”
When thirty seconds are up he feels his muscles start to give out and he falls; he manages to catch himself by hitting the ground with both palms instead of landing on his face.
He pushes, pulls, and drags himself up again with a smile, whooping under his breath in satisfaction. Thirty whole seconds; it’s nearly double what he could do last month.
He let himself rest for one minute before going again.
And this time, he aims for thirty one.
~~~~~
6. Uchi
November, 2005
Somewhere in the dark corner of distant dreams Uchi thinks he can hear music; in blurs of shapes and colors he sees himself with everyone, smiling, posing, singing, and dancing to a series of foreign, driving rhythms. There is something that looks like a dead animal hanging off of his jacket and he feels like he’s on the biggest karaoke stage in the world.
They’re strange, crazy dreams and they pull him in until all he can hear is their lively, fantastical sounds, until he can’t tell what is real and what isn’t anymore.
He follows the beat of those unfamiliar rhythms and feels himself falling ever deeper into a heavy, brightly colored slumber.
~~~~~
January, 2008
Ryo’s shout cuts through the fog like a knife; it interrupts him somewhere in the middle of his ten thousandth song and dance routine, the ten thousandth dead animal on his shoulder.
“When you wake up, I’m going to kick your ass,” he hears Ryo say, soft and muddled and very far away. It’s like an echo from miles in the opposite direction, just a facsimile of the truth carried to him by the wind.
“Yeah right,” Uchi thinks in reply, faintly, sleepily, “When I wake up you’re going to make me breakfast.”
For a while, he manages to ignore the music. Instead, he dreams about Ryo serving him pancakes and cereal while wearing a cute, frilly apron.
~~~~~
No one is there to see it when, in his hospital bed, the corner of Uchi’s lip quirks up.
~~~~~
7. Massu
May, 2006
Massu saves them.
Not when it counts of course, but in his dreams; he saves them a million different times in a million different ways every night of the week.
In one version he sees the enemy shooter first in his periphery and jumps out before Uchi can take the first shot and reveal his location. Massu ends up pummeling the target’s bodyguards like he’s a hero straight out of a Hong Kong action movie, and when he finally does get shot by the opposing sniper seconds later, he’s only hit in the vest, right smack dab in the middle of his Kevlar. The worst that ever happens in any of his dreams is that he cracks one measly rib.
Or sometimes it’s not even that; in his favorite version of how he saves Uchi and Kusano he’s not on the floor waiting in ambush with Yamapi and Koyama while Shige and Kusano make the trade off, but rather, he’s up in that high balcony, doing a sweep to secure the premises. He runs into the enemy sniper there; sees him setting up, waiting for his shot. In that version of the events Massu gets the jump on the guy before he can even dream of hurting Uchi or Kusano; he wipes out the threat before it ever really becomes one and everyone goes home happy that night. They celebrate by going out to eat together-all eight of them-and Ryo offers to pay.
In his dreams, Massu saves them over and over again and makes it so that there’s always eight of them, that there is always a NEWS.
In his dreams, Massu does his job.
He protects his teammates no matter what.
~~~~~
November, 2006
“Are you sure you want to take him with you?” Takizawa asks, with slightly raised eyebrows.
From the other side of Tackey’s desk, Tegoshi beams and nods. “Un. It has to be Massu, ne. For me to feel safe.”
“He hasn’t been on a lot of active missions these past few months. It’s just as easy for me to send Yamaguchi-kun or Matsuoka-kun with you instead, Tegoshi. TOKIO is the best in the country for these types of things, you know.”
Tegoshi smiles, but doesn’t back down. “I want Massu, ne. Because we’re both NEWS, we understand each other best. I trust him.”
Tackey sighs and knows when he isn’t getting anywhere with something. “Alright, fine. You don’t have the face of someone who looks like he can be convinced otherwise, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is a big deal. You’re not just going on another life threatening mission this time, Tegoshi-kun. You’re also representing your country to the rest of the world in a fairly large matter of international peacekeeping.”
Tegoshi doesn’t look particularly impressed by the severity of the fact when Tackey relates it to him; his smile never changes, never falters. “Thank you, sir,” he says, and bows politely. “I’ll acknowledge your warning even if I don’t feel like abiding by it, ne. Please call Massu and let him know the details as soon as you can.”
Tackey isn’t used to being rendered helpless by the whims of one of his subordinates, but then again, there is something particular in Tegoshi’s eyes that makes this sense of helplessness feel not only natural to Tackey, but also completely inevitable somehow as well. “Are you…”
“Un. I’m sure!”
“Alright. I’ll call him.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Takizawa shakes his head as Tegoshi bounces out of the room, marveling to himself at how much someone can grow in such a short amount of time.
He pulls out his cell phone and reluctantly dials Masuda’s number.
~~~~~
When Massu gets the call from Tackey telling him that he and Tegoshi will be going to Sweden on a joint international investigation with the authorities there, he’s naturally surprised. He’s also scared, worried, and doubtful. A thousand things all at once and none of them particularly good.
He doesn’t think he has it in him to do this. Not after what happened before.
“Me?” he asks, and knows he hasn’t been on a big case since NEWS’s suspension, “Why me? Wouldn’t it be better if he took Nagase-san with him?”
“That’s what I told him.” Pause. “Well, sort of.” Tackey sighs.
Massu tries not to be hurt by the admission because it’s true and he knows it. “Then…”
“He asked for you personally,” Tackey explains. “Because you’re NEWS. Because he trusts you.”
“Eh? But…”
“He believes in you, Masuda-kun. And if he’s going to be that passionate about it, then I suppose that’s good enough a reason for me to approve you for this mission as well.”
Silence.
“Masuda-kun? Are you still there? Will you do it?”
Massu takes a deep, shaky breath. “Hai. I’ll do it.”
“Good. You leave on the twelfth. Pack light.”
“Hai. Th-thank you.”
When he hangs up, Massu closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten to calm the rapid beating of his heart. “Yosh,” he murmurs, when he can breathe again. “You can do this.”
Somehow, after hearing that Tegoshi’s faith in him is still so strong, Massu feels like he’s getting a second chance.
He promises himself that this time he’ll do everything right. This time, he’ll succeed when it counts and leave the dreams as dreams.
He’ll protect his teammate no matter what.
~~~~~
8. Yamapi
August, 2003
Yamapi is good at doing what he’s told.
“Stand here,” they say during his academy years, and he does. “Do this,” they say, and he does. “Train like this, go to class, wake up early, pass your tests,” they tell him one after another after another, and he does. He does all of those things exactly how and when they want him to. He is a model cadet.
He does what they tell him to do even when it’s hard. When Jin is panting and whining about quitting behind him while they’re on the obstacle course or when Koki is cursing and calling the drill sergeants names behind their backs during written exams, Yamapi grits his teeth and doesn’t say anything at all; he only does what he’s told. Nothing more, nothing less.
“I’m going to make you a leader,” Tackey tells him during his first year there, and says the same thing over and over again every time they see each other afterwards. “I’m going to make all of you into leaders when you come out of this place, so prepare to work harder than you’ve ever worked before.”
“Hai!” the four of them say, and even though Yamapi doesn’t know what a leader’s job in this world means exactly, he knows that if it’s what Tackey tells him to do, then all he can do is his best.
When the other three drop out from Tackey’s tutelage after two, three, and four years of struggle and turmoil, Yamapi is the only one left. He’s as tired as the others were, as overworked and thin, but he hangs on because Tackey tells him to work hard, to do this and do that and to learn this and read that and don’t give up, don’t ever give up.
Yamapi does as he’s told and when he graduates, he’s somehow become a leader.
He still doesn’t know what that means.
“I knew you could do it,” Tackey tells him proudly, and Yamapi smiles back tiredly, wondering what’s next. What happens after you become a leader?
As it turns out, they tell him exactly what’s next, because that’s how this job works.
“Next,” Tackey says, “next you’ll become the leader of NEWS.”
“I’ll do my best,” Yamapi replies automatically, even when part of him doesn’t feel right about NEWS when he hears it out loud for the first time, even when part of him screams that this is something he won’t be able to succeed at no matter what. He wants to tell Tackey that he’s not ready for this yet, that he can’t do it, that it’s too soon.
“You’ll do great,” Tackey declares, around a smile full of something suspiciously paternal.
And when faced with that, all Yamapi can say is, “I’ll do my best” again, like he always does.
Because he’s good at doing what he’s told, even when he doesn’t really understand what it means.
~~~~~
April, 2006
Yamapi finally finds out what it really means to be a leader when he is told that he can’t be NEWS’s anymore.
It is bitter and painful that way, but he learns his lesson well.
He realizes it when his team members all turn to look at him in their distress, when they stare at him with tears of grief and anger and frustration and hope in their eyes. He wants to cry too but he doesn’t; it is at that moment when he discovers that a leader-a real leader- is someone who has the strength to hold the crushing weight of a dream on his shoulders.
“We’ll come back,” he promises them, and makes himself believe it with every part of his heart, “We’ll all come back soon and we’ll all be NEWS again, so don’t worry. Work hard and do your best until that time.”
“Hai!” they all say, and even if they don’t know if that is what will happen, they trust him.
They all trust him.
He doesn’t let himself feel what they feel until he is in his office by himself and the lights are all turned off. Then and only then, does he let grief and anger and frustration and hope all pour out of him in deep, shuddering breaths.
Only when he’s by himself, where no one else can see.
Under the crushing weight of a beautiful dream, Yamapi finally learns what it means to take the lead.
He discovers that it is not something you can just be told to do.
END
EDITS PLZ. IT IS TWO THIRTY IN THE MORNING.