JE/NEWS/KAT-TUN- "Yes, (Vir)Jin(ia), there is a Santa Claus"
Title: Yes, (Vir)Jin(ia), there is a Santa Claus
Universe: JE/NEWS/KAT-TUN
Theme/Topic: None of the above?
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (with appearances by KT)
Warnings/Spoilers: crack, ooc, weirdness.
Word Count: 5,025
Summary: Jin doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. NewS hates to lose.
Dedication: for shatteredinu! It started out as kind of Pin but then didn’t. Then there was a little TegoJin and ShigeJin hate thrown in, and maybe some weird mentions of KT’s unique brand of member-ai (or not). I TRIED, it came out as a random blob of your requests all melted together (except for Nobuta and KKM). I blame my psuedo-cold thing for the wacky. And my trying to keep myself from being miserable by being constantly distracted. That too.
A/N: I don’t even know.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
When Yamapi stomps into the dressing room one morning and very pointedly tries to lock Jin out of it as he does, the other NewS members are-naturally- very concerned.
When Jin manages to barrel through the doorway before it closes anyway-all while laughing a lot like how a braying donkey sounds-the rest of the members start to feel concerned for Jin instead, because it looks like Yamapi is going to sock him in the nose at any second now, and doesn’t he have a TV show to film later today?
“Just stop, Bakanishi!” Yamapi tells him impatiently, “Go to your own dressing room and laugh there! We’re working, ne.”
“But!” Jin breathes, trying to talk around his fit of giggles, “But I have to ask them if it’s true! You can’t just say something like that and expect me to forget it, Pi!”
All the commotion makes Nakamaru blink and look up from where he is seated at the table, studying with Shige and Tegoshi (because this is really the only quiet place he can study in the jimusho that doesn’t involve locking himself up in a janitorial closet or in a bathroom stall first). “You’re noisy,” he tells his groupmate, pointedly.
Jin pauses in his hysterics for a moment. Blinks at Nakamaru. “Why are you even here?”
“Because Koki throws wadded up paper towels at my head when he thinks I’m not paying attention to him. Or he does it just for fun, I can’t tell. Sometimes they’re used.”
“Oh,” Jin says, pausing to pretend to sound like he’d actually wanted such and in-depth and detailed answer when he clearly did not. Then, after the requisite two seconds are over, he turns back to Yamapi, takes a deep breath, and continues right where he left of with the laughing (braying like a donkey) and the pointing. “So ask them, ask them! I want to hear this with my own ears!” he demands around his grin.
Yamapi doesn’t comply; instead he starts to make a fist with his right hand.
Koyama sees and quickly intervenes. “Ask us what, Akanishi-kun?” he prompts, with a nervous smile and a look at Yamapi that says, “Leader, no!” (probably because he knows that Jin has a TV filming later today and going on camera with two black eyes will suggest domestic violence).
Yamapi sighs and un-makes his fist.
While Jin takes one look at the earnest look on Koyama’s face and for some reason, starts to laugh even harder.
Eventually, he manages to gather himself a little, wiping the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. “Pi says,” Jin begins, once he can breathe again, “Pi says that NewS still believes in Santa Claus.”
Silence.
Nakamaru turns to look at Tegoshi, a bit incredulously. “You do?”
Tegoshi smiles enigmatically. “I really respect him, ne. He works hard.”
Nakamaru blinks. “Fair enough.”
In the meantime, Jin is sent into a fresh bout of guffaws. “So it is true!”
Yamapi starts to make a fist again.
This time, Ryo steps in before Koyama can, sounding nonplussed. “Santa Claus being real isn’t any less plausible than you being a good singer,” he says, as he casually flips through his magazine on the couch.
Jin stops laughing. “Hey!”
“Ryo-tan, that’s not nice,” Tegoshi begins, and tsks at Ryo for being nasty.
It almost makes Jin think that maybe he should like the kid after all.
But then Tegoshi ruins it by adding, “Maybe Akanishi-kun has never seen Santa Claus, since he’s on the naughty list. And if you say mean things like that to his face, you’ll get added to the naughty list too, ne. Wouldn’t it be sad if you didn’t get a present from Santa this year like Akanishi-kun isn’t going to, Ryo-tan?”
Shige snorts.
“Hey!” Jin repeats, only madder now because while Ryo-chan talks to him like that all the time, Tegoshi most certainly cannot. “Maybe I haven’t seen him because he isn’t real!” he counters, and feels smart when he does.
Koyama gasps and quickly reaches out to cover the nearest member’s- Massu’s- ears with his hands. “Don’t say those kinds of things so suddenly!” the eldest NewS member hisses while Massu blinks benevolently around his afternoon snack. “It’s really sad!” Koyama continues under his breath. “Especially when it’s so close to Christmas, ne.”
Jin crosses his arms stubbornly. “SANTA CLAUS IS NOT REAL,” he repeats, only louder this time and with exaggerated emphasis.
As he does, he doesn’t notice everyone else brace themselves for impact when Yamapi pulls his fist back.
~~~~~
Later, when Jin is icing his shoulder (and thankfully not his face), he is still not satisfied at leaving it at that, despite the throbbing purple bruise and the public humiliation. “I don’t see how Santa Claus not being real gets me punched,” he sulks at Yamapi, as Koyama worriedly holds the ice pack to his arm for him.
Yamapi sighs, more tired now than angry anymore. “Because it’s cruel, isn’t it?” Yamapi replies, arms crossed in that way he crosses them whenever he’s about to impart another important life lesson on those who are clearly less experienced and knowledgeable than him. “What if I went around saying you weren’t real even though so many people believe in you too?”
“But I am real,” Jin points out. “People have seen me.”
“Well clearly people have seen Santa Claus too,” Yamapi reasons, “or we wouldn’t know how he looks, would we?”
A beat.
“Plus, more people in the world know about him than they know about you, so the odds of them being wrong are less,” Nakamaru adds reasonably, and hopes that talking about things involving statistics will confuse Jin enough to make him bored and leave the issue alone before he gets punched for real this time. They have a filming later today, after all.
But Jin doesn’t get the hint, he just looks betrayed. “People only see Santa on TV!” he argues.
From across the room, Shige scoffs and looks up from his law book. “Do we really need to point out how that’s a flawed argument for someone who is a Japanese idol?”
Jin suddenly remembers why he never liked Shige either.
“But!” Jin feels the need to argue, just because. “But I am way more real than Santa Claus is! That is the difference! I’m sitting right here! You can see me. For real.”
Shige sighs and is tired of the constant interruptions to his reading, especially because he is currently in the midst of winter semester finals. “Clearly we are getting nowhere with this argument,” he starts reasonably, “so we should just…”
“Prove it!” Yamapi interrupts, jumping on board with what he thinks is a shared moment of brilliance between he and Shige (even though Shige had just been about to say “agree to disagree” instead). “Shige’s right, ne,” their Leader adds enthusiastically after a moment, while Shige sputters in the background, “the only way to settle this argument is with undeniable proof.”
“No,” Shige starts, “No that’s not what I…”
“Waaah, how fun!” Tegoshi sparkles, excited by the prospect of a challenge. “Shige sure is smart, ne.”
“Alright!” Yamapi declares, finger pointed to the sky as he strikes a dramatic pose. “NewS will prove to KAT-TUN that there is a Santa Claus!”
“Great!” everyone but Shige says in response (though Ryo’s might be sarcastic).
From the back, Shige just looks at Jin and Nakamaru accusatorily until they both quietly leave the room.
~~~~~
“How,” Shige begins patiently, once Nakamaru and Jin are gone, “are we going to prove a matter of faith?”
Yamapi blinks back at him. “With proof,” he says simply. “Everyone has to work hard to find something, ne. We can’t let them win by giving up.”
“It’s not a matter of winning or losing!” Shige insists, but gets ignored when Tegoshi chants “Believe!” in Yamapi’s wake and makes everything just that much vaguer in the process when he does.
“Believe!” the others echo faithfully (though Ryo might just be doing it to see the funny vein on Shige’s forehead that pops out whenever he’s frustrated at the others’ over-competitive nature).
Shige does not disappoint him.
~~~~~
Ryo decides he has an idea and goes first, just so that when it inevitably fails, Yamapi can’t get on his case for not trying hard enough in comparison to someone else.
He’s all about setting precedents like that.
So he grabs a piece of paper and a black sharpie fifteen minutes before work is supposed to start the next morning and writes down everyone in KAT-TUN’s name on it. And also Yokoyama’s just for effect.
Then he writes “Santa’s Naughty List” on the top of it all, caps the marker, and takes the finished piece of paper to the elevator up to KAT-TUN’s floor.
He doesn’t bother knocking when he gets to their dressing room; he barges right in and elicits a yelp of surprised pain from whomever it was who had been standing too close to the door because he’s a moron (Ryo thinks it was probably Taguchi).
“Nishikido-kun, what are you…” Kame starts, but gets ignored when Ryo walks past him.
“Here,” Ryo says to Jin, when he finds his friend sleepily going through Nakamaru’s wallet in search of money for the coffee machine down the hall.
He thrusts the paper at him.
Jin blinks. Reads it. “What the hell is this?” he asks after a beat, when he gets too tired to try and make out the rest of the kanji beyond his own name.
Ryo sighs. “Exactly what it says, moron. You’re on the naughty list.”
Koki scoffs from the couch. “No one needs to see that to believe it.”
Jin throws Nakamaru’s wallet at Koki at response, but only after he has taken the requisite funds out of it. “Shut up.”
“Why do you have a list with all of our names written on it?” Kame feels the need to ask, only louder this time, so that he won’t be ignored again.
“To prove that Santa exists,” Ryo replies, and gives Kame a look that he must have learned from Shige, because it is the one that says, why are you so painfully stupid? no matter what angle he’s using it on you from.
Kame crosses his arms and may or may not arch an eyebrow; Ryo can’t tell because they’ve already been purposely shaped by the stylist to look inquisitive beforehand.
“How does that prove anything?” Kame asks after a beat, when all Ryo does in response to his significant look is blink at his eyebrows.
“If Santa didn’t exist,” Ryo says plainly, “how would he possibly know that none of you idiots deserve gifts?”
“Yokoyama’s name is on it,” Jin starts on second glance, and considers the possibility that maybe there is a Santa Claus out there somewhere, watching them and making sure they behave. Like Johnny only with magic. He shudders on instinct.
Kame rolls his eyes at Jin and looks the list over again. “Isn’t this your handwriting?” he asks Ryo, after a minute.
Ryo snorts. “How do you know what my handwriting looks like?”
“Because of all the times you wrote ‘how’s it going, plainface?’ on my script for Dreamboys on the days we had rehearsals together.”
Ryo blinks. “Oh. Well then, yes, I’ve been caught.”
“I KNEW IT!” Jin shrieks, while Junno just looks relieved that he hasn’t actually been naughty this year.
Kame smirks a little and hands the list back to Ryo. “So I got you.”
Ryo smiles back, nonplussed. “Yeah, but I’m not the loser who knows the handwriting of someone who doesn’t like me just by looking at it.”
Kame sighs.
Ryo pats him on the shoulder. “See you around, plainface,” he chirps cheerfully, and heads out of the room laughing to himself.
A beat.
Then, Nakamaru raises his hand. “So…we won that one, right?”
Koki throws his own wallet at him.
~~~~~
After Ryo’s stunning and unexpected failure (stunning and unexpected to Yamapi anyway), Koyama gets the next brilliant idea, and immediately goes wading through the juniors in search of an Exhibit A.
He finds Exhibit A after conducting thirty to forty detailed interviews; it comes in the form of an eight-year-old backup dancer named Shun-kun who swears by his whole eight years on this earth that last year during Christmas, he saw Santa Claus at his house, leaving presents for him and his younger sister.
Shun-kun is so irresistibly adorable as he’s telling the story that Koyama blubbers-touched to his very soul- and picks the kid up, carrying him all the way to KAT-TUN’s dressing room. Once there, he asks Shun-kun if he can please tell the story to Akanishi-kun again, because Akanishi-kun has suddenly lost his childishly innocent heart and has become hardened and adult-like without rhyme or reason (though Koyama secretly blames LA).
“Sure!” Shun-kun agrees cutely when Koyama asks, and earns himself another hug from the older idol, as well as the promise to be treated to a meal or taken shopping or given candy sometime in the near future.
Shun-kun hugs Koyama back and says Kei-chan is the best senpai ever.
It is under these circumstances that Koyama brings bright-eyed, cute-faced, big-smiling Shun-kun to KAT-TUN’s dressing room to help restore the innocence of Jin’s childlike belief; he is certain that it will work, because as far as he is concerned no one could look such a tiny, adorable junior in the eye and not believe every single word he says (let alone accuse him of lying).
“Wow, this is really KAT-TUN’s dressing room?” Shun-kun asks, eyes wide with awe once Koyama puts him down again. Jin stares back at the new arrivals from the couch, slightly hungover from last night’s festivities and wanting to nap more than anything else. Blearily, he looks Shun-kun over and wonders if Koyama is going to make some sort of argument about Santa Claus being real by using actual elves.
Koyama doesn’t notice the very confused look on Jin’s face because he is too busy beaming at how cute Shun-kun is. “Yup, it is KAT-TUN’s real room, ne!” he answers the little boy proudly, and gently nudges him forward a step or two. “And this is Akanishi-kun! Go ahead and tell him what you told me.”
Shun smiles again. “Okay!” he agrees, and then turns the full power of his cuteness on Jin, making the older idol blink and want to shield his eyes a little. “Last year at Christmas, ne. I asked for a toy truck, and my little sister asked for a tea set. We wrote it down in our letters to Santa and our mommy and daddy helped us address it, ne. Then, on Christmas, Yuna- that’s my sister- heard a noise and woke up. Then she got scared and woke me up too, and the two of us went downstairs and when we peeked into the living room, there was Santa Claus! Giving us presents!”
Jin looks at the kid. Rubs at his eye tiredly. “Wasn’t it just your dad in a Santa suit?” he asks.
Koyama gasps.
Shun blinks. “Eh, but my dad isn’t that fat, ne.”
Jin yawns. “Look, he probably stuffed a pillow under hi…”
Koyama affects a completely horrified expression before Jin can finish and his hands automatically clamp down firmly around Shun-kun’s small ears. “You!” he manages eventually, clearly at a loss for words over the awful thing Jin had just been about to do, “You are a bad man!”
Koyama picks a very confused Shun-kun up and whisks him away before Jin decides to go ahead and teach him swear words next.
~~~~~
“So,” Nakamaru asks that weekend, when he and Massu are hanging out at a new vintage clothing store that just opened up, “how is your argument coming along?”
Massu beams. “Great! I have it all thought out, ne.”
Nakamaru looks impressed. “What is it?”
“Well,” Massu says, holding out his right hand, “I’ve never seen a reindeer in real life, ne. But I saw one on the Discovery Channel last week, so that means they’re real.”
Nakamaru stares. “Yes, yes they are.”
Massu holds out his left hand next. “And yesterday, I saw an elf in Shibuya ne, a real one. He was at the shopping center.”
“Massu,” Nakamaru starts, “I think that was probably just a midget. Dressed as an elf.”
“But I asked him! He said he was definitely an elf, ne.”
Nakamaru realizes that arguing is probably not a good idea, on account of Massu believing that people don’t lie. It’s one of the things he finds endearing about his friend. “So,” he begins, pausing blinks a few times, “your argument is elves and reindeer?”
Massu nods, and puts his two hands together now. “So if reindeer exist, and elves exist, and both reindeer and elves work for Santa, then Santa must exist too, right? Or they’d have no one to work for.”
Nakamaru blinks down at Massu, who just looks peacefully back at him after he finishes his explanation, young eyes full of hope.
Nakamaru sighs. “It makes perfect sense,” he says helplessly, before too long.
When Massu beams back at him proudly, Nakamaru tells himself it’s all worth it, even if Jin will inevitably call him a traitor and throws things at his head come tomorrow, after Nakamaru asks Jin to please try to be nice when Massu comes to visit with his explanation.
As it is, it wouldn’t be the first time Jin has thrown things at him.
~~~~~
Yamapi brings a picture.
It’s from when he was five-years-old and sitting in Santa’s lap with his little sister as they pose to take the photograph.
“You’re cute,” Jin tells him after he looks at the picture, because it’s true. “But…”
Yamapi holds out a hand to silence him. “I,” Yamapi tells him proudly, “pulled on the beard.”
Jin blinks. “And?”
Yamapi lowers his voice to a whisper. “And he said ouch.”
“It was real.”
Yamapi looks intent. “It was real.”
Silence.
Then, Yamapi grins. “So… do you believe now?”
Jin shakes his head. “Nope.”
Yamapi frowns. “What? Why not?”
“Because I can see the GAP store sign behind you in this.”
Yamapi pauses to think about that. “So if I went to the North Pole…”
Jin snorts. “When would you find time to go to the North Pole?”
Yamapi looks thoughtful. “That’s true, I guess.”
Jin pats his shoulder.
But then, “Maybe,” Yamapi begins undauntedly, snapping his fingers, “Shige can go.”
He runs out of the room with his new brilliant idea.
~~~~~
Shige says no. A lot.
“I do not,” he snaps, “want to go to the North Pole!”
“But it’s where Santa lives,” Yamapi implores. “And you’ll have the time once your finals are over, right?”
Shige rubs his temples and can’t be insulted by the insinuation because it’s true. “Look,” he says instead, “I have a different idea, okay? A better one.”
“Really?”
Shige nods. “Really.”
Yamapi grins. “Sasuga, Shige,” he declares, all thoughts about the North Pole forgotten in light of his (smartest) member’s reassurance.
“ So…what’s your plan?” he asks.
Shige smiles (and tries not to look too smug).
Because Shige, having observed the failures of his groupmates to make an argument on faith alone, decides to go from a different approach, one in which he is fairly certain that he can at the very least, get a capitulation from Jin in terms of Santa Claus having existed at one point.
He writes a ten page essay that weekend, amidst studying for his finals, with proper citations and footnotes throughout so as to make his argument infallible.
And then he makes a presentation.
“The legend of Santa Claus,” he explains to a bored looking Jin very slowly that afternoon, “actually comes from the life of a real live person. He is based on a 4th century Greek bishop by the name of Saint Nicholas of Myra, who was famous for his generosity in giving gifts to the religious poor. From there, you can see the basis from which our modern day interpretation of Santa Claus might stem. As you can see in paragraph two, I’ve also researched the influences of Germanic paganism and folklore on the Santa Claus legend throughout the ages and how they served to alter the facts of his character and story. The Germanic tribes, before their Christianization, believed in a god named Odin, often depicted as an old man with a flowing white beard. Upon Christianization of these Germanic tribes, there are a lot of theories that suggest that certain elements of their indigenous religion were retained and incorporated into Christian beliefs. For instance, Odin was said to lead a great hunting party through the sky on the night of Yule, which might be where the image of Santa Claus’s flying sleigh originated from. You can see in the middle of page two, where I noted a few other such possible influences that give the originally very human Saint Nicholas of Myra a decidedly supernatural edge. For instance…”
Jin yawns.
“…legends state that Odin would fly through the sky riding an eight-legged horse by the name of Sleipnir, which, could very much have been changed to the eight reindeer that Santa Claus drives in his flying sleigh. Also, on the night of Yule, children would place their boots, filled with treats, near the chimney for Sleipnir to eat, and Odin would then repay the children’s kindness by replacing the treats with gifts. Thus…”
Jin yawns again, only louder this time.
Shige pauses. “Is something the matter?”
Jin makes a gesture with his hand. “So in summary…”
Shige sighs. “In summary, I’m saying that even if you don’t think the Santa Claus of legend is real, there is historical evidence that suggests a real person whom the story is based on at one time, existed, thus making him, technically, real.”
Jin blinks. “But dead.”
Shige pauses. “…yes,” he admits, reluctantly. “But dead.”
Jin blinks. “So… he doesn’t exist right now.”
A moment.
Shige takes his report and silently leaves the room.
~~~~~
When Shige returns and informs his groupmates that his attempt was an absolute failure despite his argument making the most logical sense out of anyone else’s (which just figures given his history in Johnny’s), their reaction is to simply pat him on the back and say that he did his best. Koyama continues to mourn Jin’s loss of innocence and cites that none of it is Shige’s fault since it’s LA’s.
“It was a good try, Shige,” Tegoshi adds sympathetically, all superior-like at that.
Shige snorts. “I don’t want to hear that from you,” he says. “You didn’t even try doing anything yourself yet.”
“I did!” Tegoshi assures him, looking affronted that Shige would even suggest such a thing. They should all know by now that out of everyone in NewS, Tegoshi is the one who hates losing the most, after all.
Shige scoffs. “What? I probably missed it while I was wasting my whole weekend writing that annotated essay.”
“I,” Tegoshi says definitively, “wrote a letter.”
Everyone blinks.
“To Santa?” Shige asks, just for clarification. For all they know, Tegoshi could have written a letter to Johnny or the Prime Minister or the Vatican or to God.
Tegoshi looks at Shige oddly. “Of course it was to Santa. Who else would it be at this time of the year?”
Shige’s head hurts. “What did it say?”
“Things I want for Christmas. I don’t remember if we’re not supposed to tell these things out loud to other people beforehand though, ne. If we do, does that mean they won’t come true, like if you tell someone what you wished for on your birthday when you blow out the candles?”
Yamapi understands his dilemma perfectly. “You better not say then, just in case.”
“How,” Shige feels the need to ask, “is that going to prove that Santa exists?”
Tegoshi beams at him. “Because when I get the things that I want, I can show them to Akanishi-kun, ne. And then that will be proof.”
Yamapi claps him on the back. “That’s a good plan too,” he admits, looking satisfied. “Yosh! Soon Jin won’t be able to argue with us anymore, ne.”
“Sure,” Shige agrees, because he thinks he’s done with the whole appealing to his groupmates with logic plan.
~~~~~
On Christmas day, Jin gets a letter in the mail.
When he opens it, he blinks and frowns and doesn’t get it. “Tegoshi’s Christmas Wish List?” he reads, and as he gets ready for work that morning, wonders what kind of retarded proof this is supposed to be that Santa exists. All it really does is cement his suspicions that Tegoshi is much stupider than people think he is, even though he goes to the same fancy college that Nakamaru does and gets good grades.
Jin heads out of his apartment on Christmas morning feeling both irritated at Tegoshi’s presumptuousness and kind of smug about getting to thwart it, because clearly this was even lamer than the argument Massu brought to him a few days ago about reindeer and elves being real.
In the meantime, he crumples up the list and tosses it over his shoulder- somewhere into the depths of his car’s back seat- and decides not to think anything more about it.
On Jin’s way to work that morning, he gets caught up in traffic because there is an incident involving an armored car’s doors mysteriously breaking open on the road and letting a storm of money fly out all over the freeway. He curses and blares his horn a few times and gets a dirty look from the police officers who are redirecting the cars to another route.
It makes him really late even though he is pretty sure he’d left on time to only be a little late for work; as such, he parks his car in front of the building and dashes in covering his head from all the stalker fangirls who hang out outside all day hoping to catch a glimpse. When he does, one of the girls-unbelievably-calls out, “I love you, Taguchi-kun! You’re the best member of KAT-TUN!” after him, and just makes the whole bad morning even worse because of it.
At lunch, when he is finally free of Kame’s nagging about punctuality he hightails it downstairs to NewS’s room in search of Pi because today sucks and clearly his best friend should treat him to lunch to make up for it, except that he gets sidetracked on the stairwell when he runs into Koichi-kun and Nagase-kun, who are taking a smoke break together on one of the landings. There’s awkwardness for a few minutes after that while Jin tries to remember what being a respectful kouhai is like, and afterwards, when he manages to escape because Nagase-kun has finished his cigarette, he makes it to NewS’s room only to find out that the six of them have already left for lunch together because Yamapi had some good luck this morning when a 500,000 yen note mysteriously flew right into his face during their outdoor photo shoot, just like magic.
“Who actually eats with their groupmates?!” Jin demands incredulously when he finds out, and sulks down to the ground floor on his own, intent on taking his car and driving to Yamapi’s favorite restaurant and eating there without him.
When he gets outside, he finds a parking ticket and a boot ready to go on his front left tire, alongside a police officer who looks strangely familiar. Jin spends the next twenty minutes complaining while the police officer just smiles ironically through Jin’s long list of reasons why this is unfair and finishes writing him his ticket.
One really irritating and crowded bus ride later, Jin sticks his hands in his pockets and finds a crumpled up piece of paper. He automatically assumes that it was Koki and his whole bad habit of throwing wadded up paper towels at people (sometimes used) when he is annoyed, and in a fit of disgust, Jin pulls it out of his pocket and gets ready to fling it at something himself.
Except that the writing on the paper he sees when he opens his hand looks strangely familiar. Like something he read this morning.
He blinks.
Stares.
“No way,” he breathes when something in his head finally clicks into place. He hastily smoothes out the sheet again.
Just like this morning, he is faced with:
Tegoshi’s Christmas Wishlist
1. For a good photoshoot on Christmas morning.
2. For all the members to go eat together today.
3. To be treated to a free lunch when the members all go to eat together today.
4. For underappreciated people to be spoken of kindly.
5. For Koichi-kun and Nagase-kun to stop smoking on the balcony outside because we can smell it from our window.
6. For people in the jimusho to be more environmentally conscious and take the bus instead of driving everywhere.
7. For snow on Christmas (but only after we’re done shooting outside please).
8. For Akanishi-kun to believe in Santa-san’s power again.
Jin stares.
“Holy shit,” he murmurs to himself disbelievingly after he’s done, and turns to look out the window just as the heavens open up and it begins to snow.
~~~~~
In the meantime, as Tegoshi eats hotpot with Yamapi and the other NewS members at a fancy restaurant nearby, Koyama notices the snow just starting to fall when he looks out the window.
“Eh, it’s snowing!” he exclaims happily. “It’s really pretty!”
Tegoshi beams. “Great!” he says, and stops in the middle of eating to check wishes number seven and eight off of his list.
“Christmastime sure is magical, isn’t it, Leader?” he asks Yamapi philosophically once he’s done, smile undefeatable.
Yamapi readily agrees. “Did Santa-san make all your wishes come true this year, Tegoshi?” he asks.
Tegoshi nods. “Yup! I think Akanishi-kun will definitely be convinced now that we have this kind of proof, Leader!”
Yamapi is-naturally- ecstatic.
Though it might only be because he hates to lose.
END
EDITS PLZ.
Universe: JE/NEWS/KAT-TUN
Theme/Topic: None of the above?
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (with appearances by KT)
Warnings/Spoilers: crack, ooc, weirdness.
Word Count: 5,025
Summary: Jin doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. NewS hates to lose.
Dedication: for shatteredinu! It started out as kind of Pin but then didn’t. Then there was a little TegoJin and ShigeJin hate thrown in, and maybe some weird mentions of KT’s unique brand of member-ai (or not). I TRIED, it came out as a random blob of your requests all melted together (except for Nobuta and KKM). I blame my psuedo-cold thing for the wacky. And my trying to keep myself from being miserable by being constantly distracted. That too.
A/N: I don’t even know.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
When Yamapi stomps into the dressing room one morning and very pointedly tries to lock Jin out of it as he does, the other NewS members are-naturally- very concerned.
When Jin manages to barrel through the doorway before it closes anyway-all while laughing a lot like how a braying donkey sounds-the rest of the members start to feel concerned for Jin instead, because it looks like Yamapi is going to sock him in the nose at any second now, and doesn’t he have a TV show to film later today?
“Just stop, Bakanishi!” Yamapi tells him impatiently, “Go to your own dressing room and laugh there! We’re working, ne.”
“But!” Jin breathes, trying to talk around his fit of giggles, “But I have to ask them if it’s true! You can’t just say something like that and expect me to forget it, Pi!”
All the commotion makes Nakamaru blink and look up from where he is seated at the table, studying with Shige and Tegoshi (because this is really the only quiet place he can study in the jimusho that doesn’t involve locking himself up in a janitorial closet or in a bathroom stall first). “You’re noisy,” he tells his groupmate, pointedly.
Jin pauses in his hysterics for a moment. Blinks at Nakamaru. “Why are you even here?”
“Because Koki throws wadded up paper towels at my head when he thinks I’m not paying attention to him. Or he does it just for fun, I can’t tell. Sometimes they’re used.”
“Oh,” Jin says, pausing to pretend to sound like he’d actually wanted such and in-depth and detailed answer when he clearly did not. Then, after the requisite two seconds are over, he turns back to Yamapi, takes a deep breath, and continues right where he left of with the laughing (braying like a donkey) and the pointing. “So ask them, ask them! I want to hear this with my own ears!” he demands around his grin.
Yamapi doesn’t comply; instead he starts to make a fist with his right hand.
Koyama sees and quickly intervenes. “Ask us what, Akanishi-kun?” he prompts, with a nervous smile and a look at Yamapi that says, “Leader, no!” (probably because he knows that Jin has a TV filming later today and going on camera with two black eyes will suggest domestic violence).
Yamapi sighs and un-makes his fist.
While Jin takes one look at the earnest look on Koyama’s face and for some reason, starts to laugh even harder.
Eventually, he manages to gather himself a little, wiping the tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. “Pi says,” Jin begins, once he can breathe again, “Pi says that NewS still believes in Santa Claus.”
Silence.
Nakamaru turns to look at Tegoshi, a bit incredulously. “You do?”
Tegoshi smiles enigmatically. “I really respect him, ne. He works hard.”
Nakamaru blinks. “Fair enough.”
In the meantime, Jin is sent into a fresh bout of guffaws. “So it is true!”
Yamapi starts to make a fist again.
This time, Ryo steps in before Koyama can, sounding nonplussed. “Santa Claus being real isn’t any less plausible than you being a good singer,” he says, as he casually flips through his magazine on the couch.
Jin stops laughing. “Hey!”
“Ryo-tan, that’s not nice,” Tegoshi begins, and tsks at Ryo for being nasty.
It almost makes Jin think that maybe he should like the kid after all.
But then Tegoshi ruins it by adding, “Maybe Akanishi-kun has never seen Santa Claus, since he’s on the naughty list. And if you say mean things like that to his face, you’ll get added to the naughty list too, ne. Wouldn’t it be sad if you didn’t get a present from Santa this year like Akanishi-kun isn’t going to, Ryo-tan?”
Shige snorts.
“Hey!” Jin repeats, only madder now because while Ryo-chan talks to him like that all the time, Tegoshi most certainly cannot. “Maybe I haven’t seen him because he isn’t real!” he counters, and feels smart when he does.
Koyama gasps and quickly reaches out to cover the nearest member’s- Massu’s- ears with his hands. “Don’t say those kinds of things so suddenly!” the eldest NewS member hisses while Massu blinks benevolently around his afternoon snack. “It’s really sad!” Koyama continues under his breath. “Especially when it’s so close to Christmas, ne.”
Jin crosses his arms stubbornly. “SANTA CLAUS IS NOT REAL,” he repeats, only louder this time and with exaggerated emphasis.
As he does, he doesn’t notice everyone else brace themselves for impact when Yamapi pulls his fist back.
~~~~~
Later, when Jin is icing his shoulder (and thankfully not his face), he is still not satisfied at leaving it at that, despite the throbbing purple bruise and the public humiliation. “I don’t see how Santa Claus not being real gets me punched,” he sulks at Yamapi, as Koyama worriedly holds the ice pack to his arm for him.
Yamapi sighs, more tired now than angry anymore. “Because it’s cruel, isn’t it?” Yamapi replies, arms crossed in that way he crosses them whenever he’s about to impart another important life lesson on those who are clearly less experienced and knowledgeable than him. “What if I went around saying you weren’t real even though so many people believe in you too?”
“But I am real,” Jin points out. “People have seen me.”
“Well clearly people have seen Santa Claus too,” Yamapi reasons, “or we wouldn’t know how he looks, would we?”
A beat.
“Plus, more people in the world know about him than they know about you, so the odds of them being wrong are less,” Nakamaru adds reasonably, and hopes that talking about things involving statistics will confuse Jin enough to make him bored and leave the issue alone before he gets punched for real this time. They have a filming later today, after all.
But Jin doesn’t get the hint, he just looks betrayed. “People only see Santa on TV!” he argues.
From across the room, Shige scoffs and looks up from his law book. “Do we really need to point out how that’s a flawed argument for someone who is a Japanese idol?”
Jin suddenly remembers why he never liked Shige either.
“But!” Jin feels the need to argue, just because. “But I am way more real than Santa Claus is! That is the difference! I’m sitting right here! You can see me. For real.”
Shige sighs and is tired of the constant interruptions to his reading, especially because he is currently in the midst of winter semester finals. “Clearly we are getting nowhere with this argument,” he starts reasonably, “so we should just…”
“Prove it!” Yamapi interrupts, jumping on board with what he thinks is a shared moment of brilliance between he and Shige (even though Shige had just been about to say “agree to disagree” instead). “Shige’s right, ne,” their Leader adds enthusiastically after a moment, while Shige sputters in the background, “the only way to settle this argument is with undeniable proof.”
“No,” Shige starts, “No that’s not what I…”
“Waaah, how fun!” Tegoshi sparkles, excited by the prospect of a challenge. “Shige sure is smart, ne.”
“Alright!” Yamapi declares, finger pointed to the sky as he strikes a dramatic pose. “NewS will prove to KAT-TUN that there is a Santa Claus!”
“Great!” everyone but Shige says in response (though Ryo’s might be sarcastic).
From the back, Shige just looks at Jin and Nakamaru accusatorily until they both quietly leave the room.
~~~~~
“How,” Shige begins patiently, once Nakamaru and Jin are gone, “are we going to prove a matter of faith?”
Yamapi blinks back at him. “With proof,” he says simply. “Everyone has to work hard to find something, ne. We can’t let them win by giving up.”
“It’s not a matter of winning or losing!” Shige insists, but gets ignored when Tegoshi chants “Believe!” in Yamapi’s wake and makes everything just that much vaguer in the process when he does.
“Believe!” the others echo faithfully (though Ryo might just be doing it to see the funny vein on Shige’s forehead that pops out whenever he’s frustrated at the others’ over-competitive nature).
Shige does not disappoint him.
~~~~~
Ryo decides he has an idea and goes first, just so that when it inevitably fails, Yamapi can’t get on his case for not trying hard enough in comparison to someone else.
He’s all about setting precedents like that.
So he grabs a piece of paper and a black sharpie fifteen minutes before work is supposed to start the next morning and writes down everyone in KAT-TUN’s name on it. And also Yokoyama’s just for effect.
Then he writes “Santa’s Naughty List” on the top of it all, caps the marker, and takes the finished piece of paper to the elevator up to KAT-TUN’s floor.
He doesn’t bother knocking when he gets to their dressing room; he barges right in and elicits a yelp of surprised pain from whomever it was who had been standing too close to the door because he’s a moron (Ryo thinks it was probably Taguchi).
“Nishikido-kun, what are you…” Kame starts, but gets ignored when Ryo walks past him.
“Here,” Ryo says to Jin, when he finds his friend sleepily going through Nakamaru’s wallet in search of money for the coffee machine down the hall.
He thrusts the paper at him.
Jin blinks. Reads it. “What the hell is this?” he asks after a beat, when he gets too tired to try and make out the rest of the kanji beyond his own name.
Ryo sighs. “Exactly what it says, moron. You’re on the naughty list.”
Koki scoffs from the couch. “No one needs to see that to believe it.”
Jin throws Nakamaru’s wallet at Koki at response, but only after he has taken the requisite funds out of it. “Shut up.”
“Why do you have a list with all of our names written on it?” Kame feels the need to ask, only louder this time, so that he won’t be ignored again.
“To prove that Santa exists,” Ryo replies, and gives Kame a look that he must have learned from Shige, because it is the one that says, why are you so painfully stupid? no matter what angle he’s using it on you from.
Kame crosses his arms and may or may not arch an eyebrow; Ryo can’t tell because they’ve already been purposely shaped by the stylist to look inquisitive beforehand.
“How does that prove anything?” Kame asks after a beat, when all Ryo does in response to his significant look is blink at his eyebrows.
“If Santa didn’t exist,” Ryo says plainly, “how would he possibly know that none of you idiots deserve gifts?”
“Yokoyama’s name is on it,” Jin starts on second glance, and considers the possibility that maybe there is a Santa Claus out there somewhere, watching them and making sure they behave. Like Johnny only with magic. He shudders on instinct.
Kame rolls his eyes at Jin and looks the list over again. “Isn’t this your handwriting?” he asks Ryo, after a minute.
Ryo snorts. “How do you know what my handwriting looks like?”
“Because of all the times you wrote ‘how’s it going, plainface?’ on my script for Dreamboys on the days we had rehearsals together.”
Ryo blinks. “Oh. Well then, yes, I’ve been caught.”
“I KNEW IT!” Jin shrieks, while Junno just looks relieved that he hasn’t actually been naughty this year.
Kame smirks a little and hands the list back to Ryo. “So I got you.”
Ryo smiles back, nonplussed. “Yeah, but I’m not the loser who knows the handwriting of someone who doesn’t like me just by looking at it.”
Kame sighs.
Ryo pats him on the shoulder. “See you around, plainface,” he chirps cheerfully, and heads out of the room laughing to himself.
A beat.
Then, Nakamaru raises his hand. “So…we won that one, right?”
Koki throws his own wallet at him.
~~~~~
After Ryo’s stunning and unexpected failure (stunning and unexpected to Yamapi anyway), Koyama gets the next brilliant idea, and immediately goes wading through the juniors in search of an Exhibit A.
He finds Exhibit A after conducting thirty to forty detailed interviews; it comes in the form of an eight-year-old backup dancer named Shun-kun who swears by his whole eight years on this earth that last year during Christmas, he saw Santa Claus at his house, leaving presents for him and his younger sister.
Shun-kun is so irresistibly adorable as he’s telling the story that Koyama blubbers-touched to his very soul- and picks the kid up, carrying him all the way to KAT-TUN’s dressing room. Once there, he asks Shun-kun if he can please tell the story to Akanishi-kun again, because Akanishi-kun has suddenly lost his childishly innocent heart and has become hardened and adult-like without rhyme or reason (though Koyama secretly blames LA).
“Sure!” Shun-kun agrees cutely when Koyama asks, and earns himself another hug from the older idol, as well as the promise to be treated to a meal or taken shopping or given candy sometime in the near future.
Shun-kun hugs Koyama back and says Kei-chan is the best senpai ever.
It is under these circumstances that Koyama brings bright-eyed, cute-faced, big-smiling Shun-kun to KAT-TUN’s dressing room to help restore the innocence of Jin’s childlike belief; he is certain that it will work, because as far as he is concerned no one could look such a tiny, adorable junior in the eye and not believe every single word he says (let alone accuse him of lying).
“Wow, this is really KAT-TUN’s dressing room?” Shun-kun asks, eyes wide with awe once Koyama puts him down again. Jin stares back at the new arrivals from the couch, slightly hungover from last night’s festivities and wanting to nap more than anything else. Blearily, he looks Shun-kun over and wonders if Koyama is going to make some sort of argument about Santa Claus being real by using actual elves.
Koyama doesn’t notice the very confused look on Jin’s face because he is too busy beaming at how cute Shun-kun is. “Yup, it is KAT-TUN’s real room, ne!” he answers the little boy proudly, and gently nudges him forward a step or two. “And this is Akanishi-kun! Go ahead and tell him what you told me.”
Shun smiles again. “Okay!” he agrees, and then turns the full power of his cuteness on Jin, making the older idol blink and want to shield his eyes a little. “Last year at Christmas, ne. I asked for a toy truck, and my little sister asked for a tea set. We wrote it down in our letters to Santa and our mommy and daddy helped us address it, ne. Then, on Christmas, Yuna- that’s my sister- heard a noise and woke up. Then she got scared and woke me up too, and the two of us went downstairs and when we peeked into the living room, there was Santa Claus! Giving us presents!”
Jin looks at the kid. Rubs at his eye tiredly. “Wasn’t it just your dad in a Santa suit?” he asks.
Koyama gasps.
Shun blinks. “Eh, but my dad isn’t that fat, ne.”
Jin yawns. “Look, he probably stuffed a pillow under hi…”
Koyama affects a completely horrified expression before Jin can finish and his hands automatically clamp down firmly around Shun-kun’s small ears. “You!” he manages eventually, clearly at a loss for words over the awful thing Jin had just been about to do, “You are a bad man!”
Koyama picks a very confused Shun-kun up and whisks him away before Jin decides to go ahead and teach him swear words next.
~~~~~
“So,” Nakamaru asks that weekend, when he and Massu are hanging out at a new vintage clothing store that just opened up, “how is your argument coming along?”
Massu beams. “Great! I have it all thought out, ne.”
Nakamaru looks impressed. “What is it?”
“Well,” Massu says, holding out his right hand, “I’ve never seen a reindeer in real life, ne. But I saw one on the Discovery Channel last week, so that means they’re real.”
Nakamaru stares. “Yes, yes they are.”
Massu holds out his left hand next. “And yesterday, I saw an elf in Shibuya ne, a real one. He was at the shopping center.”
“Massu,” Nakamaru starts, “I think that was probably just a midget. Dressed as an elf.”
“But I asked him! He said he was definitely an elf, ne.”
Nakamaru realizes that arguing is probably not a good idea, on account of Massu believing that people don’t lie. It’s one of the things he finds endearing about his friend. “So,” he begins, pausing blinks a few times, “your argument is elves and reindeer?”
Massu nods, and puts his two hands together now. “So if reindeer exist, and elves exist, and both reindeer and elves work for Santa, then Santa must exist too, right? Or they’d have no one to work for.”
Nakamaru blinks down at Massu, who just looks peacefully back at him after he finishes his explanation, young eyes full of hope.
Nakamaru sighs. “It makes perfect sense,” he says helplessly, before too long.
When Massu beams back at him proudly, Nakamaru tells himself it’s all worth it, even if Jin will inevitably call him a traitor and throws things at his head come tomorrow, after Nakamaru asks Jin to please try to be nice when Massu comes to visit with his explanation.
As it is, it wouldn’t be the first time Jin has thrown things at him.
~~~~~
Yamapi brings a picture.
It’s from when he was five-years-old and sitting in Santa’s lap with his little sister as they pose to take the photograph.
“You’re cute,” Jin tells him after he looks at the picture, because it’s true. “But…”
Yamapi holds out a hand to silence him. “I,” Yamapi tells him proudly, “pulled on the beard.”
Jin blinks. “And?”
Yamapi lowers his voice to a whisper. “And he said ouch.”
“It was real.”
Yamapi looks intent. “It was real.”
Silence.
Then, Yamapi grins. “So… do you believe now?”
Jin shakes his head. “Nope.”
Yamapi frowns. “What? Why not?”
“Because I can see the GAP store sign behind you in this.”
Yamapi pauses to think about that. “So if I went to the North Pole…”
Jin snorts. “When would you find time to go to the North Pole?”
Yamapi looks thoughtful. “That’s true, I guess.”
Jin pats his shoulder.
But then, “Maybe,” Yamapi begins undauntedly, snapping his fingers, “Shige can go.”
He runs out of the room with his new brilliant idea.
~~~~~
Shige says no. A lot.
“I do not,” he snaps, “want to go to the North Pole!”
“But it’s where Santa lives,” Yamapi implores. “And you’ll have the time once your finals are over, right?”
Shige rubs his temples and can’t be insulted by the insinuation because it’s true. “Look,” he says instead, “I have a different idea, okay? A better one.”
“Really?”
Shige nods. “Really.”
Yamapi grins. “Sasuga, Shige,” he declares, all thoughts about the North Pole forgotten in light of his (smartest) member’s reassurance.
“ So…what’s your plan?” he asks.
Shige smiles (and tries not to look too smug).
Because Shige, having observed the failures of his groupmates to make an argument on faith alone, decides to go from a different approach, one in which he is fairly certain that he can at the very least, get a capitulation from Jin in terms of Santa Claus having existed at one point.
He writes a ten page essay that weekend, amidst studying for his finals, with proper citations and footnotes throughout so as to make his argument infallible.
And then he makes a presentation.
“The legend of Santa Claus,” he explains to a bored looking Jin very slowly that afternoon, “actually comes from the life of a real live person. He is based on a 4th century Greek bishop by the name of Saint Nicholas of Myra, who was famous for his generosity in giving gifts to the religious poor. From there, you can see the basis from which our modern day interpretation of Santa Claus might stem. As you can see in paragraph two, I’ve also researched the influences of Germanic paganism and folklore on the Santa Claus legend throughout the ages and how they served to alter the facts of his character and story. The Germanic tribes, before their Christianization, believed in a god named Odin, often depicted as an old man with a flowing white beard. Upon Christianization of these Germanic tribes, there are a lot of theories that suggest that certain elements of their indigenous religion were retained and incorporated into Christian beliefs. For instance, Odin was said to lead a great hunting party through the sky on the night of Yule, which might be where the image of Santa Claus’s flying sleigh originated from. You can see in the middle of page two, where I noted a few other such possible influences that give the originally very human Saint Nicholas of Myra a decidedly supernatural edge. For instance…”
Jin yawns.
“…legends state that Odin would fly through the sky riding an eight-legged horse by the name of Sleipnir, which, could very much have been changed to the eight reindeer that Santa Claus drives in his flying sleigh. Also, on the night of Yule, children would place their boots, filled with treats, near the chimney for Sleipnir to eat, and Odin would then repay the children’s kindness by replacing the treats with gifts. Thus…”
Jin yawns again, only louder this time.
Shige pauses. “Is something the matter?”
Jin makes a gesture with his hand. “So in summary…”
Shige sighs. “In summary, I’m saying that even if you don’t think the Santa Claus of legend is real, there is historical evidence that suggests a real person whom the story is based on at one time, existed, thus making him, technically, real.”
Jin blinks. “But dead.”
Shige pauses. “…yes,” he admits, reluctantly. “But dead.”
Jin blinks. “So… he doesn’t exist right now.”
A moment.
Shige takes his report and silently leaves the room.
~~~~~
When Shige returns and informs his groupmates that his attempt was an absolute failure despite his argument making the most logical sense out of anyone else’s (which just figures given his history in Johnny’s), their reaction is to simply pat him on the back and say that he did his best. Koyama continues to mourn Jin’s loss of innocence and cites that none of it is Shige’s fault since it’s LA’s.
“It was a good try, Shige,” Tegoshi adds sympathetically, all superior-like at that.
Shige snorts. “I don’t want to hear that from you,” he says. “You didn’t even try doing anything yourself yet.”
“I did!” Tegoshi assures him, looking affronted that Shige would even suggest such a thing. They should all know by now that out of everyone in NewS, Tegoshi is the one who hates losing the most, after all.
Shige scoffs. “What? I probably missed it while I was wasting my whole weekend writing that annotated essay.”
“I,” Tegoshi says definitively, “wrote a letter.”
Everyone blinks.
“To Santa?” Shige asks, just for clarification. For all they know, Tegoshi could have written a letter to Johnny or the Prime Minister or the Vatican or to God.
Tegoshi looks at Shige oddly. “Of course it was to Santa. Who else would it be at this time of the year?”
Shige’s head hurts. “What did it say?”
“Things I want for Christmas. I don’t remember if we’re not supposed to tell these things out loud to other people beforehand though, ne. If we do, does that mean they won’t come true, like if you tell someone what you wished for on your birthday when you blow out the candles?”
Yamapi understands his dilemma perfectly. “You better not say then, just in case.”
“How,” Shige feels the need to ask, “is that going to prove that Santa exists?”
Tegoshi beams at him. “Because when I get the things that I want, I can show them to Akanishi-kun, ne. And then that will be proof.”
Yamapi claps him on the back. “That’s a good plan too,” he admits, looking satisfied. “Yosh! Soon Jin won’t be able to argue with us anymore, ne.”
“Sure,” Shige agrees, because he thinks he’s done with the whole appealing to his groupmates with logic plan.
~~~~~
On Christmas day, Jin gets a letter in the mail.
When he opens it, he blinks and frowns and doesn’t get it. “Tegoshi’s Christmas Wish List?” he reads, and as he gets ready for work that morning, wonders what kind of retarded proof this is supposed to be that Santa exists. All it really does is cement his suspicions that Tegoshi is much stupider than people think he is, even though he goes to the same fancy college that Nakamaru does and gets good grades.
Jin heads out of his apartment on Christmas morning feeling both irritated at Tegoshi’s presumptuousness and kind of smug about getting to thwart it, because clearly this was even lamer than the argument Massu brought to him a few days ago about reindeer and elves being real.
In the meantime, he crumples up the list and tosses it over his shoulder- somewhere into the depths of his car’s back seat- and decides not to think anything more about it.
On Jin’s way to work that morning, he gets caught up in traffic because there is an incident involving an armored car’s doors mysteriously breaking open on the road and letting a storm of money fly out all over the freeway. He curses and blares his horn a few times and gets a dirty look from the police officers who are redirecting the cars to another route.
It makes him really late even though he is pretty sure he’d left on time to only be a little late for work; as such, he parks his car in front of the building and dashes in covering his head from all the stalker fangirls who hang out outside all day hoping to catch a glimpse. When he does, one of the girls-unbelievably-calls out, “I love you, Taguchi-kun! You’re the best member of KAT-TUN!” after him, and just makes the whole bad morning even worse because of it.
At lunch, when he is finally free of Kame’s nagging about punctuality he hightails it downstairs to NewS’s room in search of Pi because today sucks and clearly his best friend should treat him to lunch to make up for it, except that he gets sidetracked on the stairwell when he runs into Koichi-kun and Nagase-kun, who are taking a smoke break together on one of the landings. There’s awkwardness for a few minutes after that while Jin tries to remember what being a respectful kouhai is like, and afterwards, when he manages to escape because Nagase-kun has finished his cigarette, he makes it to NewS’s room only to find out that the six of them have already left for lunch together because Yamapi had some good luck this morning when a 500,000 yen note mysteriously flew right into his face during their outdoor photo shoot, just like magic.
“Who actually eats with their groupmates?!” Jin demands incredulously when he finds out, and sulks down to the ground floor on his own, intent on taking his car and driving to Yamapi’s favorite restaurant and eating there without him.
When he gets outside, he finds a parking ticket and a boot ready to go on his front left tire, alongside a police officer who looks strangely familiar. Jin spends the next twenty minutes complaining while the police officer just smiles ironically through Jin’s long list of reasons why this is unfair and finishes writing him his ticket.
One really irritating and crowded bus ride later, Jin sticks his hands in his pockets and finds a crumpled up piece of paper. He automatically assumes that it was Koki and his whole bad habit of throwing wadded up paper towels at people (sometimes used) when he is annoyed, and in a fit of disgust, Jin pulls it out of his pocket and gets ready to fling it at something himself.
Except that the writing on the paper he sees when he opens his hand looks strangely familiar. Like something he read this morning.
He blinks.
Stares.
“No way,” he breathes when something in his head finally clicks into place. He hastily smoothes out the sheet again.
Just like this morning, he is faced with:
Tegoshi’s Christmas Wishlist
1. For a good photoshoot on Christmas morning.
2. For all the members to go eat together today.
3. To be treated to a free lunch when the members all go to eat together today.
4. For underappreciated people to be spoken of kindly.
5. For Koichi-kun and Nagase-kun to stop smoking on the balcony outside because we can smell it from our window.
6. For people in the jimusho to be more environmentally conscious and take the bus instead of driving everywhere.
7. For snow on Christmas (but only after we’re done shooting outside please).
8. For Akanishi-kun to believe in Santa-san’s power again.
Jin stares.
“Holy shit,” he murmurs to himself disbelievingly after he’s done, and turns to look out the window just as the heavens open up and it begins to snow.
~~~~~
In the meantime, as Tegoshi eats hotpot with Yamapi and the other NewS members at a fancy restaurant nearby, Koyama notices the snow just starting to fall when he looks out the window.
“Eh, it’s snowing!” he exclaims happily. “It’s really pretty!”
Tegoshi beams. “Great!” he says, and stops in the middle of eating to check wishes number seven and eight off of his list.
“Christmastime sure is magical, isn’t it, Leader?” he asks Yamapi philosophically once he’s done, smile undefeatable.
Yamapi readily agrees. “Did Santa-san make all your wishes come true this year, Tegoshi?” he asks.
Tegoshi nods. “Yup! I think Akanishi-kun will definitely be convinced now that we have this kind of proof, Leader!”
Yamapi is-naturally- ecstatic.
Though it might only be because he hates to lose.
END
EDITS PLZ.