JE- "These are Mysteries"
Title: These Are Mysteries
Universe: JE ( Government AU B-Side)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS, KAT-TUN, TOKIO, ARASHI, V6, Kinki, T&T, Matchy, Toma, Senga, Kawai (i.e. everyone)
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack, OOC, randomness.
Word Count: 4,783
Summary: In response to “We are Legends”- the agency has some mysteries too.
Dedication: annnimeeee, pinkpapyrus and mousapelli, who were all instrumental in cheering me up while I was sick two weeks ago, and recently, because I’ve been having a bad month over all. Also, special love for Mousie and Ann for writing me gov-au ficcies to love, which you can find here and here respectively. ^_^
A/N: FREE FROM jthreesome! FINALLY FREE. So yeah. Have celebratory crack fic. And while I’m blabbering, I want to warn everyone that since I STILL DON’T KNOW ARASHI (or Kinki) I just made up my characterizations. Their fans don’t read this universe anyway so I think I should be safe? Mostly? Also, I know, I technically didn’t get everyone in here because I didn’t put HSJ in. Wait for the next one. No really, I’m not even joking. And yeah, SMAP currently has an acronym but I don’t really know their actual names. Maybe one day. Again, this is a B-side, so it does not have any important information in it and thus can be skipped. In fact, it is probably better if you skip it.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
Prologue
Even after the many years and the many missions and the many miracles that have occurred throughout the agency’s long and prestigious history, out of all of them, there are still only five stories that are considered true legends. Legends are difficult to create; legends don’t happen everyday because at their very nature, legends are about suffering and conquering and learning and growing and moving on. Legends are meant to inspire and to warn and to teach and that’s why there are so few of them in the agency, because while people can listen easily enough, people can’t always do.
That is why there are only five legendary stories in the agency.
There are ten mysteries.
There are more mysteries than legends for a simple reason; mysteries don’t always have answers because sometimes they just are. Sometimes there is no point to them and sometimes there aren’t always lessons or warnings or inspirational stories inherent in them. All there is for certain are questions really, and questions are a part of everyday life, a part of living in this world. Mysteries therefore, aren’t made of the same types of things that legends are made of; they’re made simply by being.
These are the ten most recent mysteries of the agency and its agents, but because questions are a part of every day life, the list changes all the time.
~~~~~
1. The Occupation Mystery
Massu stumbles upon this mystery at random one day, while he is in the cafeteria eating lunch with Nakamaru.
“And then Kamenashi said ‘Go,’ but he didn’t realize that Jin already went and it was all kind of a big disaster after that,” Nakamaru is in the middle of explaining to Massu hotly, and pauses to get his customary nod and look of sympathy from his friend. “It was horrible, you know.”
But Massu blinks back at him. “Eh, Yamapi does that a lot too,” he says.
Nakamaru stares, because that had not been the customary nod and look of sympathy that he’d been waiting for, not even in the slightest. “Come again?” he asks, and gives Massu a second chance because he is magnanimous like that.
“Says ‘Go’ and stuff,” Massu replies obliviously. “It’s interesting.”
“Not really.” Pause. “I mean, what do you mean? How is it interesting?”
Massu smiles. “Well, Tesshi is the computer and technology expert, so he hacks systems and traces files and plants bugs, ne. And Koyama is the explosives expert so he deals with diffusing bombs and making bombs and placing bombs and setting traps. And Shige is…”
“I know this,” Nakamaru interjects patiently. “These are all things I already know.”
Massu blinks. Gets to the point. “And Yamapi and Kamenashi-kun are both the leaders, right?”
Nakamaru nods, and wonders what the cafeteria ladies put in the food today; if it’s making Massu even more random than usual than it might be toxic to normal human beings and he should be careful. He’d thought that the Miso soup had tasted funny. “Massu, what are you getting at?” he asks, and puts down his chopsticks.
Massu cocks his head to the side, thoughtful. “Is that what the leader’s job is? To tell us to go?”
“Of course not. They do all sorts o…” Nakamaru starts, but trails off abruptly when he can’t actually think of anything special he’s seen Kamenashi do as leader while they’ve been on a mission (besides tell them to go).
He blinks. Rapidly. Then furrows his brow. “Huh.”
There has to be something.
Massu just nods again and continues eating. “Right?”
Nakamaru frowns. “Huh. What do they do?” he mutters, and cannot, for the life of him, figure it out.
He suspects that sometimes, the leaders themselves don’t really know either.
~~~~~
2. The Waiting Mystery
Nishikido Ryo is not a man who is widely known for his patience. He gets bored waiting for coffee to boil and leaves in the middle (he always ends up forgetting about it completely and usually, all the water in the pot evaporates and starts to smell like burning before Koyama eventually realizes what happened and quickly rushes into the break room to shut it off); Ryo also doesn’t appreciate it when his print jobs aren’t done by the time he stands and rounds the corner from his desk to reach the laser jet. As such, he often peer pressures Shige into waiting at the printer and picking up his reports for him (since he’s passing by anyway, even when he’s not). Once, he threatened to leave Agent Masuda behind in downtown LA in the middle of a mission for taking too long to get cleaned up after having a target bleed to death on top of him. Ryo had meant it, too, and walked away five minutes after the threat was issued. Luckily, Masuda hadn’t noticed; he’d been too busy washing blood off of his hands.
In a similar vein, Tanaka Koki is also a man who is not known for his patience. To be fair, most of his rumored impatience comes from dealing with the likes of Agent Taguchi, but even still, one can say that the constant drop-kicking, slapping, and once in a while head-butting is a clear sign of Koki’s inability to grin and bear much of anything when pushed.
In sum, the two best snipers in the agency are both a little twitchy and a little impulsive and everyone knows that the job description of a sniper actually involves a lot more waiting and watching than actual shooting; it’s a mystery then, as to how two such people can perform in such a situation so successfully given that their personalities make it seem almost impossible.
And yet, and yet, they have (thus far) managed to obey any and all orders that tell them to watch, but don’t shoot.
No one can quite figure out how that works.
~~~~~
“Alright asshole, then through the glass, through the drywall, and neatly into the left eye,” Ryo bites out, leveling his gun and peering through the scope to the fancy high-rise across from the rooftop that the two of them are currently perched on. Their potential target sits in a twenty-fifth level suite drinking champagne and flirting with hookers and completely unaware of how very, very close he is to biting the dust right now.
Koki just snorts and promptly fires back at Ryo, completely unimpressed with the older gunman’s challenge. “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, and out the occipital lobe.”
Ryo scowls. “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, out the occipital lobe and through that high-backed leather chair.”
Koki frowns. “There’s no way your gun can do that.”
Ryo smirks. “What, afraid you can’t beat it?”
“Fuck you!” Koki shouts back, “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, out the occipital lobe, through the leather chair and into the opposite wa…”
He’s cut off by the sudden buzzing of his ear piece. “Do I even want to know what the two of you have been doing over the past three hours?” Ueda asks, and sounds long suffering.
“Ryo-tan,” Tegoshi chirps over the com-link next, sweetly, “we got the confession on tape and the target is starting to choke that hooker; maybe you should shoot him now, ne.”
Koki and Ryo grin. “Finally.”
And then they do exactly what they said they would.
~~~~~
3. The Ritual Mystery
Before any big bust, sting operation, or long term survival mission, TOKIO has a tradition.
This tradition involves alcohol (but then again, everything involving TOKIO inevitably involves alcohol) and the use of a CD player that may or may not be older than some of the junior agents currently skittering around the agency’s hallways.
Taichi’s the one who puts the song on and as the heavy beats start to drum through the conference room everyone turns expectantly to Leader, at the front of the table.
He promptly starts to take off his clothes.
Before long everyone is clapping and Leader is naked, and Inoki-bom-ba-ye is playing loudly from the old boom box’s speakers as Leader stomps his foot emphatically on top of the conference table, pro-wrestling style.
The sight has scarred many a junior. And Koichi. It has kind of scarred Koichi too.
The other members of TOKIO clap and whoop until the song ends; once it’s over Taichi calmly turns off the music and packs up the boom box while Leader starts putting his clothes back on again, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.
To them, nothing really did.
In sum, TOKIO’s mystery isn’t really about what goes on in their conferences, mostly because everyone already knows what they do, given that that sort of visual is really difficult to miss.
Rather, TOKIO’s mystery is about why they do it, because to this day, not a single person in the agency can figure out what good it does anyone to have to see that.
The second thing they question, inevitably, is how TOKIO does it and manages to make it not look gay.
~~~~~
4. The Mystery of Life
Sometimes the junior agents just have to wonder about some things. Because life is full of questions like that, because being curious is a natural part of life.
Today they wonder a lot of things as they stand behind their two senpai, who are currently crouched between them and the bomb.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god. This one? Is it this one? Maybe it’s this one?” Koyama frets, and is holding a red, curly wire up with his tweezers gingerly. “Eh, but what if it’s not this one?”
Nakamaru, who has beads of sweat on his nose, blinks a few times and doesn’t say anything. His lips are pursed and he looks kind of like he is going to vomit any second now.
“No?” Koyama blabbers, also covered in sweat, “Am I wrong? Nakamaru, say something. What if it’s the black one?!”
Nakamaru continues to blink, forgets to breathe, and suddenly plops down onto his ass on the ground when the not-breathing makes him light-headeder. “Um,” he manages after a moment, just as the counter hits 1:02. “Hm.”
“Tegoshi said I definitely couldn’t die today!” Koyama blurts, like that helps. “He said he wouldn’t forgive me if I died today. I don’t want Tegoshi to be mad at me! Or dead! I don’t want that either.”
“Um,” Nakamaru says again, and swallows. He wipes sweat from his face with both hands. “Hm.”
“Think good thoughts, think good thoughts,” Koyama chants to himself, and moves his tweezers to another wire-the black one-as the counter hits 0:57.
The junior agents-who are supposed to be their backup today- all look at each other and can’t help but worry a little. A lot.
They try to stay cool; death is a part of this job they’ve been well prepared for since the beginning.
Sort of.
As the counter hits 0:48, Nakamaru stands, walks off a few feet-shakily- and promptly empties the contents of his stomach in a nearby trashcan. Then he walks back and sinks down again; he continues to stare at the bomb like he is quietly contemplating the last moments of his existence on this earth.
At 0:40 remaining on the clock, Koyama suddenly turns around and shrieks, “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!” to all of the younger agents.
Who promptly bolt like rabbits.
Approximately thirty-nine seconds later, when the running juniors feel like they’d waited too long after all and that they won’t make it out of the building alive, nothing happens.
There is no boom or death or screaming or fiery waves of wreckage blown anywhere. Or at all.
And so they do make it out of the building-disbelievingly-safe and sound.
They think that maybe the bomb was a hoax; it makes the most sense. “What a prank,” Senga breathes, looking at his teammates incredulously and failing to hide his immense relief.
Kawai plops onto the floor looking a lot like Nakamaru had just now; maybe it’s an impersonation. “I thought I was going to die!” he shouts, and throws his arm over his eyes.
The other junior agents look at each other. “That was seriously scary,” they agree.
Five minutes later, Koyama comes out of the building looking relieved; he’s carrying Nakamaru- who has very clearly passed out- over his shoulder.
“Got it!” he announces to the younger agents cheerfully, and holds up the snipped red wire end for his kouhai to see. “It was that one after all, ne.” He smiles, sheepish.
Then he deposits Nakamaru on the concrete gently before calling in to the other squads surrounding the premises. “Threat neutralized,” he reports calmly. “Nakamaru-kun is um, currently expressing his relief at a job well done.”
Koyama’s knees are still shaking a little when he speaks.
The juniors stare at the two bomb experts and can’t help but wonder how they are both still alive.
They think that maybe, it’s one of those mysteries that doesn’t actually have an answer.
Or at the very least, one that makes any sort of logical sense.
~~~~~
5. The Partnership Mystery
The rumors start very early in their careers, when Administrator Kondo steps into their office unannounced one day, only to see that Tsubasa has bent Tackey over his desk and is looking intently into his eyes.
“Um…” Matchy begins, and stares a little. “What are you two doing?”
“Something in his eye,” Tsubasa responds absently, and his fingertips cup Tackey’s chin in a manner that seems superfluous for someone simply trying to help someone get something out of their eye. After a moment he very gently tips Tackey’s face up; their lips are centimeters apart.
“Oi,” Tackey murmurs, and sounds strangely helpless when he does. “Idiot…don’t…”
“Shhh,” Tsubasa urges calmly, “let me see.” He leans closer still.
Matchy coughs and drops the documents he’d been delivering on Tackey’s desk; he quickly exits the room and can’t help but wonder how close, exactly, those two are.
~~~~~
Four years later it’s Yamapi who’s the one that sees something interesting this time; he makes a quick stop by Tackizawa’s apartment after hours to hand in some late paperwork that he and the rest of his team had stayed late in the office to do. But when he knocks it’s Administrator Imai who opens the door to Tackey’s place, wearing nothing but boxers and with his hair thoroughly mussed.
Yamapi stares.
Tsubasa yawns. “Hey, Yamapi,” he says, sounding tired. He scratches absently at his belly and cracks his neck a little. “Tackey’s in the shower.”
“Um,” Yamapi starts, and for some reason, thinks that this feels a lot like walking in on one’s parents, “are you here late discussing business?” he asks politely.
“My place is too far,” Tsubasa replies with a shrug, and Yamapi realizes that while it answers his question, it somehow doesn’t really answer anything at all either.
So he continues to stare a little, while Tsubasa doesn’t miss a beat. “Those the files?” the older agent asks, and points.
Yamapi looks down at the dossier in his hand like he’d forgotten it was there. “Yes,” he manages.
“Great.”
Tsubasa takes them before promptly closing the door on Yamapi’s face. “See you tomorrow.”
Yamapi blinks dumbly for a moment, and as he starts back down the stairs to his car, he can’t help but wonder about the two of them a little bit.
But at the same time, he thinks he also really, really doesn’t want to know either.
~~~~~
6. The Ingenious Mystery
Agent Okada is-quite frankly- a genius.
He’s good at everything that this job entails and always has been, ever since his very, very short stint in the academy many years ago.
He shoots like a first-class sniper.
He has the memorization capabilities and a natural intelligence that is comparable to the agency’s top under-cover specialists.
He has passed every one of the physical examinations required in the academy with near-or-record-breaking results.
He can figure out passwords and crack codes and hack systems in almost no time at all, because machines just seem to like him. They respond to him.
People suspect that if he wanted to- that if he tried real hard- he could walk on water too.
In short, Agent Okada is the kind of person who makes everything look much simpler than it is.
“So why V6?” everyone can’t help but ask eventually, after hearing all these amazing things about Agent Okada. “I mean… the bomb squad?” To them, it seems so inglorious, such a misuse of great potential.
“Maybe he wanted to get good at something he wasn’t already perfect at,” some of the other agents theorize, whenever the question comes up.
“Well I think it’s a waste of a phenomenal undercover talent. That type of ability is rare in the agency and we should properly utilize everyone we can who has it.”
“Yeah, but when you think about it, Okada-senpai isn’t really dickish enough to be an undercover agent. I think he lacks the ego that Akanishi-san and Kato-san have.”
Everyone stops to consider that. “That’s true,” they admit after a beat, “which is weird. If I were that good at so many things, my ego would be huge. I wonder how he stays so grounded.”
They’re so busy thinking about how strange that is that no one notices when, in the background, Director Sakamoto runs by in screaming hysterics. “I got them, I got them, I got them!!” he howls, and is holding a pair of pants, which he quickly hands off to Agent Nagano, who takes off down the hall with them while cackling in glee.
Five minutes later, Agent Okada stalks into the room too, wearing his shirt, his tie and… his boxers. “Leader,” he begs, “can I please have my pants back?”
Somehow, he looks tired.
~~~~~
7. The Mullet Mystery
Everyone is talking about it (or rather, whispering about it fearfully) as Tsuyoshi walks down the hallways one morning, looking as breezily nonchalant as ever.
Some of the younger agents think that maybe he can look so calm because he doesn’t actually know that his hair looks like it’s lost a particularly vicious fight with a lawn mower recently. They wonder who will be the first agent that’s brave enough to try and tell him.
Koichi arrives to their floor just in time to see his partner greet Agent Okada with a smile at the coffee maker.
“I thought I’d try something dramatic,” Tsuyoshi shrugs to Okada when Okada sees him; Okada ends up blinking a lot. “What do you think? Doesn’t it make a statement?” He poses so that Okada can get a better angle on it.
“Um,” Okada says, and blinks some more, looking at a loss as to how else to respond.
Luckily he’s saved from having to answer by Nagase, who comes barreling around the corner, shoulder hitting the left wall when he forgets to slow down enough to make the turn. “Tsu-chan!!” he shrieks, sounding half out of his mind, “Tsu-chan, your hair! Did they attack you with a chain saw? Did they try to get to your brains?”
He looks at his friend with big, worried eyes.
Okada continues to blink, and Koichi tries not to choke on his own spit as the scene unfolds.
“It’s the latest style, Tomoya-baby,” Tsuyoshi tsks after a beat, and looks at Nagase pityingly. “Don’t you know anything about rock’n roll?”
Nagase looks confused. “Rock’n roll?” he echoes, brow furrowed. “Eh?”
“All the cool guys are doing it,” Tsuyoshi assures him with a wink, and then resumes his casual walk down the hall to his office. “It’s Rock style, Tomoya-baby!”
Silence.
Then, “Did he really pay someone to do that to him?” Okada asks once Tsuyoshi is gone, voice small.
Koichi puts a hand on the shorter agent’s shoulder. “That’s rock’n roll, I guess,” he says with a laugh, and then follows after Tsuyoshi to their offices.
He very charitably decides that he’s okay being the only one who knows the truth about his partner’s last solo mission and the fact that-contrary to popular belief-Nagase Tomoya can be a very, very observant man without meaning to.
~~~~~
8. The Internal Mystery
The official purpose of the internal affairs department is to make sure that all of the agency’s greater operations are running smoothly and that everyone is obeying the rules.
No one is quite sure what pursuing such a broad purpose entails, exactly; they wonder if it means constantly having to spy on the other agents or testing them without their knowledge during moments that would otherwise be construed as innocent conversation between coworkers. Maybe it’s even more complicated than that, maybe it’s sitting in on other team’s meetings or hacking e-mails or performing surveillance on their homes and private lives or all or none of the above as well; no one in internal affairs can talk about what their job is (exactly) because that would be, quite simply, beside the point.
At the same time, people can understand that these are things they shouldn’t know any details about for the greater good; it’s really not a problem considering the fact that internal affairs’ mission statement is, essentially, to protect the agents’ lives by enforcing protocol.
People like being protected, after all.
In a nutshell, all anyone really knows about the nature of ARASHI’s job is that they have to find out what things go wrong (if they do) during a mission, and more importantly, why they go wrong. It’s something every member of every team can understand and appreciate in one way or another.
The mystery then, isn’t out of curiosity regarding how ARASHI solves problems; people just tend to wonder about what ARASHI’s job entails when-on the odd occasion- nothing is currently going wrong.
No one knows but them.
~~~~~
Agent Ninomiya sits in his swivel chair with his knees pressed up against his chest, chin resting peacefully on top of them as he spins. “And then when I tried to hack Tego-chan’s computer, something happened and my screen went black. When I restarted, all of the hard drives were erased,” he explains absently, and comes to a halt so that he can watch a gnat buzz around the office; he ends up paying it more mind than the destroyed computer. When the gnat lands on the desk in front of him his arm snaps out and he smashes it, right on top of Agent Sakurai’s previously pristine report cover.
He ends up smearing the guts on the paper when he tries to wipe it off of his palm; when he’s done he simply turns the report over like nothing happened and smiles. “Luckily I was using Jun’s computer.”
“I saw that,” Sho mutters, returning to the room with coffee and eyeing the upside down report.
“Saw what?” Nino replies, and starts spinning in his chair again.
“I wonder if you can use bug guts to write with,” Agent Aiba poses after a moment, and flips the report back over thoughtfully. He studies the smear like he is thinking very hard about experimenting with it.
“Only if you write small,” Ohno mentions, crouched under Sho’s desk while writing his next report out by hand.
“Why were you hacking Tego-chan’s computer?” Sho poses after a moment, blinking. “We’re not investigating NEWS anymore.”
Nino shrugs. “I heard he had all the emulator hacks for the Playstation 2 and I wanted them.” It makes perfect sense to him.
Sho sighs.
In the meantime, Director Ohno flips over his report to show his teammates once he’s finished; rather than written, it’s drawn out in manga form (complete with speech bubbles and sound effects and tone). Everything on it looks about accurate, except that instead of government agents, ARASHI are space cowboys. And Nino is a girl.
Sho stares. “Close enough,” he decides, after a moment.
Ohno beams.
Agent Matsumoto strolls into the office a few minutes later, late but looking chipper (and unapologetic) anyway. “You guys will never guess what I just did,” he crows smugly.
Nino smiles at him from the swivel chair. “Hey,” he says brightly instead, and ignores the clear cue to stop and ask what Matsumoto just did, “I lost all hundred and eighty gigs of your porn like, half an hour ago.”
When Agent Matsumoto makes a horrified face not unlike that of a landed and subsequently dying fish, the rest of his team considers it a fairly productive day.
~~~~~
9. The Refuse Mystery
There were originally four members hand-picked to be in Takizawa’s special leadership program some years ago in the academy; all four of those members-at the time- were considered the top students in their classes and well-suited to becoming very young, very successful team directors one day, in the future.
Everyone also knows that of the four, only Yamapi managed to make it through the program with satisfactory results.
“I wonder,” some of the academy cadets will say sometimes, thoughtfully, “what happened to the other three who were picked.”
No one knows.
~~~~~
Meanwhile, in a completely different world on a stage far, far away, Agent Ikuta learns how to sing (kind of), dance (maybe), and recite Shakespeare in the hopes of uncovering allegations of slave labor within a certain very famous talent agency that as of yet, cannot be named.
He thinks that in all likelihood, no one will know what has happened to him for a long, long time.
~~~~~
10. The Ownership Mystery
“It’s not mine,” Koki insists.
“Well it’s not mine because I was gone for six months, assholes.”
Ueda blinks at Jin. “For all we know that could have been in there for six months and no one noticed because it’s shoved in the back like that.”
“Oh god I think the bag is molding. Gross.”
“Well, it’s definitely molded to fit its surroundings, hasn’t it?”
The sound of a sharp smack, followed by Koki’s muttered, “Would you shut up.”
Junno just grins back.
Kame starts to get impatient. “Well someone has to clean it up.”
Everyone looks at Koki again.
“I said it’s not mine!”
They all stare at the ominous brown paper bag that has been sitting in the back of their break room fridge for an indeterminate (i.e. really, really, really long) amount of time; the bottom looks wet and kind of fuzzy and the brown part of the whole brown paper bag thing is actually a lot more green than brown now.
A beat.
Then, “We could always call in a bomb threat and have V6 get rid of it.”
“That would make us the laughing stock of the agency,” Kame replies flatly, and shuts that idea down before anyone can second it.
No one says anything else. Because no one has any other ideas.
In the meantime, the contents of the bag reaches its Bronze age.
Kame sighs. “Look, I’ll give whoever it really belongs to until the end of the week to clear it out, no questions asked. I won’t even reprimand them for inconveniencing everyone by destroying a communal space. So just get rid of it.”
Then he gives everyone a telling look before walking back to his office.
The remaining members eye each other.
“It fucking isn’t mine!” Koki screams, when they all turn to him again. He storms out hastily.
Three months later, the bag is still there.
And molding.
~~~~~
Epilogue
By nature, mysteries are far easier to make than legends because all anyone really needs to do to create a mystery is to create something curious (which, unsurprisingly, all of the agents seem to be very good at). Mysteries are all about questions after all, and questions are a part of life, a part of everyday living and being.
But at the same time, questions all ultimately have answers, and when answers are found the mystery is lost; there’s no longer anything curious about it.
Mysteries are easier to make than legends but they are also easier to destroy; one might think then, that there wouldn’t be so many more mysteries than legends if that is the case.
It’s true; if any of the agents would only stop to think about it rationally they would realize that many of their so-called mysteries are simple enough to explain if only someone would take the time to properly investigate and document them.
That doesn’t mean it will happen though.
Because sometimes mysteries are mysteries that will stay mysteries forever simply because the question they pose is one that no one actually wants an answer to.
Because sometimes you’re just better off not knowing.
END
EDITS PLZ. SO OUT OF PRACTICE WITH THIS AU.
Universe: JE ( Government AU B-Side)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS, KAT-TUN, TOKIO, ARASHI, V6, Kinki, T&T, Matchy, Toma, Senga, Kawai (i.e. everyone)
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack, OOC, randomness.
Word Count: 4,783
Summary: In response to “We are Legends”- the agency has some mysteries too.
Dedication: annnimeeee, pinkpapyrus and mousapelli, who were all instrumental in cheering me up while I was sick two weeks ago, and recently, because I’ve been having a bad month over all. Also, special love for Mousie and Ann for writing me gov-au ficcies to love, which you can find here and here respectively. ^_^
A/N: FREE FROM jthreesome! FINALLY FREE. So yeah. Have celebratory crack fic. And while I’m blabbering, I want to warn everyone that since I STILL DON’T KNOW ARASHI (or Kinki) I just made up my characterizations. Their fans don’t read this universe anyway so I think I should be safe? Mostly? Also, I know, I technically didn’t get everyone in here because I didn’t put HSJ in. Wait for the next one. No really, I’m not even joking. And yeah, SMAP currently has an acronym but I don’t really know their actual names. Maybe one day. Again, this is a B-side, so it does not have any important information in it and thus can be skipped. In fact, it is probably better if you skip it.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
Prologue
Even after the many years and the many missions and the many miracles that have occurred throughout the agency’s long and prestigious history, out of all of them, there are still only five stories that are considered true legends. Legends are difficult to create; legends don’t happen everyday because at their very nature, legends are about suffering and conquering and learning and growing and moving on. Legends are meant to inspire and to warn and to teach and that’s why there are so few of them in the agency, because while people can listen easily enough, people can’t always do.
That is why there are only five legendary stories in the agency.
There are ten mysteries.
There are more mysteries than legends for a simple reason; mysteries don’t always have answers because sometimes they just are. Sometimes there is no point to them and sometimes there aren’t always lessons or warnings or inspirational stories inherent in them. All there is for certain are questions really, and questions are a part of everyday life, a part of living in this world. Mysteries therefore, aren’t made of the same types of things that legends are made of; they’re made simply by being.
These are the ten most recent mysteries of the agency and its agents, but because questions are a part of every day life, the list changes all the time.
~~~~~
1. The Occupation Mystery
Massu stumbles upon this mystery at random one day, while he is in the cafeteria eating lunch with Nakamaru.
“And then Kamenashi said ‘Go,’ but he didn’t realize that Jin already went and it was all kind of a big disaster after that,” Nakamaru is in the middle of explaining to Massu hotly, and pauses to get his customary nod and look of sympathy from his friend. “It was horrible, you know.”
But Massu blinks back at him. “Eh, Yamapi does that a lot too,” he says.
Nakamaru stares, because that had not been the customary nod and look of sympathy that he’d been waiting for, not even in the slightest. “Come again?” he asks, and gives Massu a second chance because he is magnanimous like that.
“Says ‘Go’ and stuff,” Massu replies obliviously. “It’s interesting.”
“Not really.” Pause. “I mean, what do you mean? How is it interesting?”
Massu smiles. “Well, Tesshi is the computer and technology expert, so he hacks systems and traces files and plants bugs, ne. And Koyama is the explosives expert so he deals with diffusing bombs and making bombs and placing bombs and setting traps. And Shige is…”
“I know this,” Nakamaru interjects patiently. “These are all things I already know.”
Massu blinks. Gets to the point. “And Yamapi and Kamenashi-kun are both the leaders, right?”
Nakamaru nods, and wonders what the cafeteria ladies put in the food today; if it’s making Massu even more random than usual than it might be toxic to normal human beings and he should be careful. He’d thought that the Miso soup had tasted funny. “Massu, what are you getting at?” he asks, and puts down his chopsticks.
Massu cocks his head to the side, thoughtful. “Is that what the leader’s job is? To tell us to go?”
“Of course not. They do all sorts o…” Nakamaru starts, but trails off abruptly when he can’t actually think of anything special he’s seen Kamenashi do as leader while they’ve been on a mission (besides tell them to go).
He blinks. Rapidly. Then furrows his brow. “Huh.”
There has to be something.
Massu just nods again and continues eating. “Right?”
Nakamaru frowns. “Huh. What do they do?” he mutters, and cannot, for the life of him, figure it out.
He suspects that sometimes, the leaders themselves don’t really know either.
~~~~~
2. The Waiting Mystery
Nishikido Ryo is not a man who is widely known for his patience. He gets bored waiting for coffee to boil and leaves in the middle (he always ends up forgetting about it completely and usually, all the water in the pot evaporates and starts to smell like burning before Koyama eventually realizes what happened and quickly rushes into the break room to shut it off); Ryo also doesn’t appreciate it when his print jobs aren’t done by the time he stands and rounds the corner from his desk to reach the laser jet. As such, he often peer pressures Shige into waiting at the printer and picking up his reports for him (since he’s passing by anyway, even when he’s not). Once, he threatened to leave Agent Masuda behind in downtown LA in the middle of a mission for taking too long to get cleaned up after having a target bleed to death on top of him. Ryo had meant it, too, and walked away five minutes after the threat was issued. Luckily, Masuda hadn’t noticed; he’d been too busy washing blood off of his hands.
In a similar vein, Tanaka Koki is also a man who is not known for his patience. To be fair, most of his rumored impatience comes from dealing with the likes of Agent Taguchi, but even still, one can say that the constant drop-kicking, slapping, and once in a while head-butting is a clear sign of Koki’s inability to grin and bear much of anything when pushed.
In sum, the two best snipers in the agency are both a little twitchy and a little impulsive and everyone knows that the job description of a sniper actually involves a lot more waiting and watching than actual shooting; it’s a mystery then, as to how two such people can perform in such a situation so successfully given that their personalities make it seem almost impossible.
And yet, and yet, they have (thus far) managed to obey any and all orders that tell them to watch, but don’t shoot.
No one can quite figure out how that works.
~~~~~
“Alright asshole, then through the glass, through the drywall, and neatly into the left eye,” Ryo bites out, leveling his gun and peering through the scope to the fancy high-rise across from the rooftop that the two of them are currently perched on. Their potential target sits in a twenty-fifth level suite drinking champagne and flirting with hookers and completely unaware of how very, very close he is to biting the dust right now.
Koki just snorts and promptly fires back at Ryo, completely unimpressed with the older gunman’s challenge. “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, and out the occipital lobe.”
Ryo scowls. “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, out the occipital lobe and through that high-backed leather chair.”
Koki frowns. “There’s no way your gun can do that.”
Ryo smirks. “What, afraid you can’t beat it?”
“Fuck you!” Koki shouts back, “Through the glass, through the drywall, into the left eye, out the occipital lobe, through the leather chair and into the opposite wa…”
He’s cut off by the sudden buzzing of his ear piece. “Do I even want to know what the two of you have been doing over the past three hours?” Ueda asks, and sounds long suffering.
“Ryo-tan,” Tegoshi chirps over the com-link next, sweetly, “we got the confession on tape and the target is starting to choke that hooker; maybe you should shoot him now, ne.”
Koki and Ryo grin. “Finally.”
And then they do exactly what they said they would.
~~~~~
3. The Ritual Mystery
Before any big bust, sting operation, or long term survival mission, TOKIO has a tradition.
This tradition involves alcohol (but then again, everything involving TOKIO inevitably involves alcohol) and the use of a CD player that may or may not be older than some of the junior agents currently skittering around the agency’s hallways.
Taichi’s the one who puts the song on and as the heavy beats start to drum through the conference room everyone turns expectantly to Leader, at the front of the table.
He promptly starts to take off his clothes.
Before long everyone is clapping and Leader is naked, and Inoki-bom-ba-ye is playing loudly from the old boom box’s speakers as Leader stomps his foot emphatically on top of the conference table, pro-wrestling style.
The sight has scarred many a junior. And Koichi. It has kind of scarred Koichi too.
The other members of TOKIO clap and whoop until the song ends; once it’s over Taichi calmly turns off the music and packs up the boom box while Leader starts putting his clothes back on again, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.
To them, nothing really did.
In sum, TOKIO’s mystery isn’t really about what goes on in their conferences, mostly because everyone already knows what they do, given that that sort of visual is really difficult to miss.
Rather, TOKIO’s mystery is about why they do it, because to this day, not a single person in the agency can figure out what good it does anyone to have to see that.
The second thing they question, inevitably, is how TOKIO does it and manages to make it not look gay.
~~~~~
4. The Mystery of Life
Sometimes the junior agents just have to wonder about some things. Because life is full of questions like that, because being curious is a natural part of life.
Today they wonder a lot of things as they stand behind their two senpai, who are currently crouched between them and the bomb.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god. This one? Is it this one? Maybe it’s this one?” Koyama frets, and is holding a red, curly wire up with his tweezers gingerly. “Eh, but what if it’s not this one?”
Nakamaru, who has beads of sweat on his nose, blinks a few times and doesn’t say anything. His lips are pursed and he looks kind of like he is going to vomit any second now.
“No?” Koyama blabbers, also covered in sweat, “Am I wrong? Nakamaru, say something. What if it’s the black one?!”
Nakamaru continues to blink, forgets to breathe, and suddenly plops down onto his ass on the ground when the not-breathing makes him light-headeder. “Um,” he manages after a moment, just as the counter hits 1:02. “Hm.”
“Tegoshi said I definitely couldn’t die today!” Koyama blurts, like that helps. “He said he wouldn’t forgive me if I died today. I don’t want Tegoshi to be mad at me! Or dead! I don’t want that either.”
“Um,” Nakamaru says again, and swallows. He wipes sweat from his face with both hands. “Hm.”
“Think good thoughts, think good thoughts,” Koyama chants to himself, and moves his tweezers to another wire-the black one-as the counter hits 0:57.
The junior agents-who are supposed to be their backup today- all look at each other and can’t help but worry a little. A lot.
They try to stay cool; death is a part of this job they’ve been well prepared for since the beginning.
Sort of.
As the counter hits 0:48, Nakamaru stands, walks off a few feet-shakily- and promptly empties the contents of his stomach in a nearby trashcan. Then he walks back and sinks down again; he continues to stare at the bomb like he is quietly contemplating the last moments of his existence on this earth.
At 0:40 remaining on the clock, Koyama suddenly turns around and shrieks, “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!” to all of the younger agents.
Who promptly bolt like rabbits.
Approximately thirty-nine seconds later, when the running juniors feel like they’d waited too long after all and that they won’t make it out of the building alive, nothing happens.
There is no boom or death or screaming or fiery waves of wreckage blown anywhere. Or at all.
And so they do make it out of the building-disbelievingly-safe and sound.
They think that maybe the bomb was a hoax; it makes the most sense. “What a prank,” Senga breathes, looking at his teammates incredulously and failing to hide his immense relief.
Kawai plops onto the floor looking a lot like Nakamaru had just now; maybe it’s an impersonation. “I thought I was going to die!” he shouts, and throws his arm over his eyes.
The other junior agents look at each other. “That was seriously scary,” they agree.
Five minutes later, Koyama comes out of the building looking relieved; he’s carrying Nakamaru- who has very clearly passed out- over his shoulder.
“Got it!” he announces to the younger agents cheerfully, and holds up the snipped red wire end for his kouhai to see. “It was that one after all, ne.” He smiles, sheepish.
Then he deposits Nakamaru on the concrete gently before calling in to the other squads surrounding the premises. “Threat neutralized,” he reports calmly. “Nakamaru-kun is um, currently expressing his relief at a job well done.”
Koyama’s knees are still shaking a little when he speaks.
The juniors stare at the two bomb experts and can’t help but wonder how they are both still alive.
They think that maybe, it’s one of those mysteries that doesn’t actually have an answer.
Or at the very least, one that makes any sort of logical sense.
~~~~~
5. The Partnership Mystery
The rumors start very early in their careers, when Administrator Kondo steps into their office unannounced one day, only to see that Tsubasa has bent Tackey over his desk and is looking intently into his eyes.
“Um…” Matchy begins, and stares a little. “What are you two doing?”
“Something in his eye,” Tsubasa responds absently, and his fingertips cup Tackey’s chin in a manner that seems superfluous for someone simply trying to help someone get something out of their eye. After a moment he very gently tips Tackey’s face up; their lips are centimeters apart.
“Oi,” Tackey murmurs, and sounds strangely helpless when he does. “Idiot…don’t…”
“Shhh,” Tsubasa urges calmly, “let me see.” He leans closer still.
Matchy coughs and drops the documents he’d been delivering on Tackey’s desk; he quickly exits the room and can’t help but wonder how close, exactly, those two are.
~~~~~
Four years later it’s Yamapi who’s the one that sees something interesting this time; he makes a quick stop by Tackizawa’s apartment after hours to hand in some late paperwork that he and the rest of his team had stayed late in the office to do. But when he knocks it’s Administrator Imai who opens the door to Tackey’s place, wearing nothing but boxers and with his hair thoroughly mussed.
Yamapi stares.
Tsubasa yawns. “Hey, Yamapi,” he says, sounding tired. He scratches absently at his belly and cracks his neck a little. “Tackey’s in the shower.”
“Um,” Yamapi starts, and for some reason, thinks that this feels a lot like walking in on one’s parents, “are you here late discussing business?” he asks politely.
“My place is too far,” Tsubasa replies with a shrug, and Yamapi realizes that while it answers his question, it somehow doesn’t really answer anything at all either.
So he continues to stare a little, while Tsubasa doesn’t miss a beat. “Those the files?” the older agent asks, and points.
Yamapi looks down at the dossier in his hand like he’d forgotten it was there. “Yes,” he manages.
“Great.”
Tsubasa takes them before promptly closing the door on Yamapi’s face. “See you tomorrow.”
Yamapi blinks dumbly for a moment, and as he starts back down the stairs to his car, he can’t help but wonder about the two of them a little bit.
But at the same time, he thinks he also really, really doesn’t want to know either.
~~~~~
6. The Ingenious Mystery
Agent Okada is-quite frankly- a genius.
He’s good at everything that this job entails and always has been, ever since his very, very short stint in the academy many years ago.
He shoots like a first-class sniper.
He has the memorization capabilities and a natural intelligence that is comparable to the agency’s top under-cover specialists.
He has passed every one of the physical examinations required in the academy with near-or-record-breaking results.
He can figure out passwords and crack codes and hack systems in almost no time at all, because machines just seem to like him. They respond to him.
People suspect that if he wanted to- that if he tried real hard- he could walk on water too.
In short, Agent Okada is the kind of person who makes everything look much simpler than it is.
“So why V6?” everyone can’t help but ask eventually, after hearing all these amazing things about Agent Okada. “I mean… the bomb squad?” To them, it seems so inglorious, such a misuse of great potential.
“Maybe he wanted to get good at something he wasn’t already perfect at,” some of the other agents theorize, whenever the question comes up.
“Well I think it’s a waste of a phenomenal undercover talent. That type of ability is rare in the agency and we should properly utilize everyone we can who has it.”
“Yeah, but when you think about it, Okada-senpai isn’t really dickish enough to be an undercover agent. I think he lacks the ego that Akanishi-san and Kato-san have.”
Everyone stops to consider that. “That’s true,” they admit after a beat, “which is weird. If I were that good at so many things, my ego would be huge. I wonder how he stays so grounded.”
They’re so busy thinking about how strange that is that no one notices when, in the background, Director Sakamoto runs by in screaming hysterics. “I got them, I got them, I got them!!” he howls, and is holding a pair of pants, which he quickly hands off to Agent Nagano, who takes off down the hall with them while cackling in glee.
Five minutes later, Agent Okada stalks into the room too, wearing his shirt, his tie and… his boxers. “Leader,” he begs, “can I please have my pants back?”
Somehow, he looks tired.
~~~~~
7. The Mullet Mystery
Everyone is talking about it (or rather, whispering about it fearfully) as Tsuyoshi walks down the hallways one morning, looking as breezily nonchalant as ever.
Some of the younger agents think that maybe he can look so calm because he doesn’t actually know that his hair looks like it’s lost a particularly vicious fight with a lawn mower recently. They wonder who will be the first agent that’s brave enough to try and tell him.
Koichi arrives to their floor just in time to see his partner greet Agent Okada with a smile at the coffee maker.
“I thought I’d try something dramatic,” Tsuyoshi shrugs to Okada when Okada sees him; Okada ends up blinking a lot. “What do you think? Doesn’t it make a statement?” He poses so that Okada can get a better angle on it.
“Um,” Okada says, and blinks some more, looking at a loss as to how else to respond.
Luckily he’s saved from having to answer by Nagase, who comes barreling around the corner, shoulder hitting the left wall when he forgets to slow down enough to make the turn. “Tsu-chan!!” he shrieks, sounding half out of his mind, “Tsu-chan, your hair! Did they attack you with a chain saw? Did they try to get to your brains?”
He looks at his friend with big, worried eyes.
Okada continues to blink, and Koichi tries not to choke on his own spit as the scene unfolds.
“It’s the latest style, Tomoya-baby,” Tsuyoshi tsks after a beat, and looks at Nagase pityingly. “Don’t you know anything about rock’n roll?”
Nagase looks confused. “Rock’n roll?” he echoes, brow furrowed. “Eh?”
“All the cool guys are doing it,” Tsuyoshi assures him with a wink, and then resumes his casual walk down the hall to his office. “It’s Rock style, Tomoya-baby!”
Silence.
Then, “Did he really pay someone to do that to him?” Okada asks once Tsuyoshi is gone, voice small.
Koichi puts a hand on the shorter agent’s shoulder. “That’s rock’n roll, I guess,” he says with a laugh, and then follows after Tsuyoshi to their offices.
He very charitably decides that he’s okay being the only one who knows the truth about his partner’s last solo mission and the fact that-contrary to popular belief-Nagase Tomoya can be a very, very observant man without meaning to.
~~~~~
8. The Internal Mystery
The official purpose of the internal affairs department is to make sure that all of the agency’s greater operations are running smoothly and that everyone is obeying the rules.
No one is quite sure what pursuing such a broad purpose entails, exactly; they wonder if it means constantly having to spy on the other agents or testing them without their knowledge during moments that would otherwise be construed as innocent conversation between coworkers. Maybe it’s even more complicated than that, maybe it’s sitting in on other team’s meetings or hacking e-mails or performing surveillance on their homes and private lives or all or none of the above as well; no one in internal affairs can talk about what their job is (exactly) because that would be, quite simply, beside the point.
At the same time, people can understand that these are things they shouldn’t know any details about for the greater good; it’s really not a problem considering the fact that internal affairs’ mission statement is, essentially, to protect the agents’ lives by enforcing protocol.
People like being protected, after all.
In a nutshell, all anyone really knows about the nature of ARASHI’s job is that they have to find out what things go wrong (if they do) during a mission, and more importantly, why they go wrong. It’s something every member of every team can understand and appreciate in one way or another.
The mystery then, isn’t out of curiosity regarding how ARASHI solves problems; people just tend to wonder about what ARASHI’s job entails when-on the odd occasion- nothing is currently going wrong.
No one knows but them.
~~~~~
Agent Ninomiya sits in his swivel chair with his knees pressed up against his chest, chin resting peacefully on top of them as he spins. “And then when I tried to hack Tego-chan’s computer, something happened and my screen went black. When I restarted, all of the hard drives were erased,” he explains absently, and comes to a halt so that he can watch a gnat buzz around the office; he ends up paying it more mind than the destroyed computer. When the gnat lands on the desk in front of him his arm snaps out and he smashes it, right on top of Agent Sakurai’s previously pristine report cover.
He ends up smearing the guts on the paper when he tries to wipe it off of his palm; when he’s done he simply turns the report over like nothing happened and smiles. “Luckily I was using Jun’s computer.”
“I saw that,” Sho mutters, returning to the room with coffee and eyeing the upside down report.
“Saw what?” Nino replies, and starts spinning in his chair again.
“I wonder if you can use bug guts to write with,” Agent Aiba poses after a moment, and flips the report back over thoughtfully. He studies the smear like he is thinking very hard about experimenting with it.
“Only if you write small,” Ohno mentions, crouched under Sho’s desk while writing his next report out by hand.
“Why were you hacking Tego-chan’s computer?” Sho poses after a moment, blinking. “We’re not investigating NEWS anymore.”
Nino shrugs. “I heard he had all the emulator hacks for the Playstation 2 and I wanted them.” It makes perfect sense to him.
Sho sighs.
In the meantime, Director Ohno flips over his report to show his teammates once he’s finished; rather than written, it’s drawn out in manga form (complete with speech bubbles and sound effects and tone). Everything on it looks about accurate, except that instead of government agents, ARASHI are space cowboys. And Nino is a girl.
Sho stares. “Close enough,” he decides, after a moment.
Ohno beams.
Agent Matsumoto strolls into the office a few minutes later, late but looking chipper (and unapologetic) anyway. “You guys will never guess what I just did,” he crows smugly.
Nino smiles at him from the swivel chair. “Hey,” he says brightly instead, and ignores the clear cue to stop and ask what Matsumoto just did, “I lost all hundred and eighty gigs of your porn like, half an hour ago.”
When Agent Matsumoto makes a horrified face not unlike that of a landed and subsequently dying fish, the rest of his team considers it a fairly productive day.
~~~~~
9. The Refuse Mystery
There were originally four members hand-picked to be in Takizawa’s special leadership program some years ago in the academy; all four of those members-at the time- were considered the top students in their classes and well-suited to becoming very young, very successful team directors one day, in the future.
Everyone also knows that of the four, only Yamapi managed to make it through the program with satisfactory results.
“I wonder,” some of the academy cadets will say sometimes, thoughtfully, “what happened to the other three who were picked.”
No one knows.
~~~~~
Meanwhile, in a completely different world on a stage far, far away, Agent Ikuta learns how to sing (kind of), dance (maybe), and recite Shakespeare in the hopes of uncovering allegations of slave labor within a certain very famous talent agency that as of yet, cannot be named.
He thinks that in all likelihood, no one will know what has happened to him for a long, long time.
~~~~~
10. The Ownership Mystery
“It’s not mine,” Koki insists.
“Well it’s not mine because I was gone for six months, assholes.”
Ueda blinks at Jin. “For all we know that could have been in there for six months and no one noticed because it’s shoved in the back like that.”
“Oh god I think the bag is molding. Gross.”
“Well, it’s definitely molded to fit its surroundings, hasn’t it?”
The sound of a sharp smack, followed by Koki’s muttered, “Would you shut up.”
Junno just grins back.
Kame starts to get impatient. “Well someone has to clean it up.”
Everyone looks at Koki again.
“I said it’s not mine!”
They all stare at the ominous brown paper bag that has been sitting in the back of their break room fridge for an indeterminate (i.e. really, really, really long) amount of time; the bottom looks wet and kind of fuzzy and the brown part of the whole brown paper bag thing is actually a lot more green than brown now.
A beat.
Then, “We could always call in a bomb threat and have V6 get rid of it.”
“That would make us the laughing stock of the agency,” Kame replies flatly, and shuts that idea down before anyone can second it.
No one says anything else. Because no one has any other ideas.
In the meantime, the contents of the bag reaches its Bronze age.
Kame sighs. “Look, I’ll give whoever it really belongs to until the end of the week to clear it out, no questions asked. I won’t even reprimand them for inconveniencing everyone by destroying a communal space. So just get rid of it.”
Then he gives everyone a telling look before walking back to his office.
The remaining members eye each other.
“It fucking isn’t mine!” Koki screams, when they all turn to him again. He storms out hastily.
Three months later, the bag is still there.
And molding.
~~~~~
Epilogue
By nature, mysteries are far easier to make than legends because all anyone really needs to do to create a mystery is to create something curious (which, unsurprisingly, all of the agents seem to be very good at). Mysteries are all about questions after all, and questions are a part of life, a part of everyday living and being.
But at the same time, questions all ultimately have answers, and when answers are found the mystery is lost; there’s no longer anything curious about it.
Mysteries are easier to make than legends but they are also easier to destroy; one might think then, that there wouldn’t be so many more mysteries than legends if that is the case.
It’s true; if any of the agents would only stop to think about it rationally they would realize that many of their so-called mysteries are simple enough to explain if only someone would take the time to properly investigate and document them.
That doesn’t mean it will happen though.
Because sometimes mysteries are mysteries that will stay mysteries forever simply because the question they pose is one that no one actually wants an answer to.
Because sometimes you’re just better off not knowing.
END
EDITS PLZ. SO OUT OF PRACTICE WITH THIS AU.