JE/NEWS- "Our Pace"
Title: Our Pace
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: Koyapi
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: Koyapi focus (with NewS members along for the ride and Jin making his requisite appearance)
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness, schmoopy stuffs. Probably OOC.
Word Count: 2,625
Summary: Yamapi has always gone at his own speed; maybe part of growing up is learning how to adjust your pace.
Dedication: Ann- her request for her holiday fic (sort of), and some other stuff too. Merry Christmas, Ann.
A/N: This last month, I realized that I still have a long way to go too. Hopefully the people I need are still willing to wait for me to catch up.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement is meant by this!
It starts in such a way that Yamapi doesn’t notice it right off, in small almost invisible gestures with very little glory behind them. The mayonnaise cap gets put back on for him, his bag gets moved out of the middle of the floor, his half-empty water bottle is closed for him when he isn’t looking and his iPod headphones get wrapped up and put away like magic, after he unwittingly leaves them hanging off the side of the table before rehearsal starts.
He doesn’t notice because he’s too busy, or so that’s what everyone says; he thinks the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t notice it at first because he’s not trying to.
He finally notices when they bring it up during an interview though, sweet and well-meaning because they think it’s simply a part of his character, a part of his busy lifestyle. “My-pace, ne. That’s just now Leader is,” they say. “Kei-chan doesn’t mind picking up after him, though. That’s how Kei-chan is too.”
“Like with my electronic dictionary, when he borrowed it and finished using it, he just left it there, still on,” Shige tells the interviewers around a laugh, and it’s warm enough that Yamapi can’t be annoyed with him for saying it out loud to strangers like that; he can only curl up into the couch and look kind of small when made to go face-to-face with this part of himself . He realizes what it all means for how far he still has to grow.
The worst thing about it is that everything they’re talking about with the interviewrs today only includes small things like electronic dictionaries and iPod earbuds, the tip of an iceberg that doesn’t even touch on all of the bigger things that happen, like how Koyama fills in for Yamapi when he doesn’t know how to respond to an interview question by either answering instead, or expertly diverting the topic of conversation to something else that Yamapi is more comfortable with. And then there’s how Koyama goes out of his way to get everyone to speak on camera because Yamapi is concentrating too hard on what he’s saying at the time to notice when someone isn’t saying anything at all, or how the eldest member keeps up with the others in Yamapi’s stead, asking them what they’re doing recently and what they’re interested in; he blabbers about all of it to Yamapi when Yamapi has the time and Yamapi learns a thousand things about his groupmates by proxy that way, things he’d never know otherwise because he just doesn’t have the time to find them out on his own, one by one.
When Yamapi stops to think about it-when it’s brought up to him to his face so suddenly like this-he realizes that Koyama has always been there to save him. From all the little things and all the not so little things that Yamapi just doesn’t have the energy to notice himself.
“Or the mayonnaise cap,” another member adds in the background, and brings Yamapi’s attention back to the interview, the hot lights and the flashing cameras and the intent looks of the columnist behind the pad and paper. “Yamashita-kun is a wild man like that; when he’s done with something it completely leaves his world, ne.”
“I’m sorry,” Yamapi apologizes, still squished into the couch and mortified, “I’ll change, I’ll change!”
Koyama looks at him gentle-eyed and says they don’t mind, “It’s just how Leader is,” he says simply, and pours Yamapi a fresh cup of tea.
Yamapi thanks him-sheepishly-and after being saved by Koyama again, silently vows to himself that he’ll do better. This is how he is now, but that doesn’t mean it’s how he’ll always be.
~~~~~
His conscious efforts to change for the better last for about a week, before exhaustion and over-booking and over-dieting hit him hard. Before he knows it Koyama is there again, pouring tea, picking up empty packages of Weider-in jelly off the table (or the couch or the floor) and putting Yamapi’s Raku Veggie bottles in the recycling bins once he’s finished with them.
“Sorry,” Yamapi murmurs sleepily whenever he catches Koyama in the act, looking regretful and tired, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yamapi,” Koyama replies gently, “We still have some time for you to rest before the interview, ne.”
“Homework,” Yamapi suddenly remembers, and smacks himself in the head before scrambling for his bag and his books and his notes. “I have homework due at the end o the week.”
He doesn’t notice when he drops the empty paper cup of coffee he’d been drinking in all the rush.
When he remembers it sometime later, it’s already gone; he finds it at the bottom of the trashcan by the door.
Yamapi stares down at it and wonders how Koyama can have so much patience with him when he annoys himself just thinking about how careless he can be.
Unfortunately, he only has time to wonder about it for a moment, before homework needs to be done and his nikki needs to be written and the choreographer is poking her head into the door and telling them to line up because there have been some changes to the regular routine due to the peculiar arena design.
Yamapi obediently heads out the door, feeling like he still has a million miles to go.
~~~~~
“Does it bother you when I forget things?” Yamapi asks Ryo one night, when they’ve both got a little time to hang out together but no real energy to do anything productive with it.
Ryo blinks blearily at the movie that he’s not really paying attention to, and eventually smacks Yamapi in the face with his couch cushion. “Of course it bothers me. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Ryo chuckles a little, when a random thought hits him. “Hey, you remember that used tissue I threw at you that you got so mad about all those years ago?”
Yamapi frowns. “Yeah.”
Ryo smirks. “I threw it at you because it was yours, asshole. You left it on the table after lunch that afternoon.”
Yamapi groans. Buries his faces in his knees. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Ryo snorts. “Lucky for you,” he says after a moment, looking at Yamapi out of the corner of his eye while pretending to still be paying attention to the movie, “not everyone in the world is cool enough to be as smart as me.”
Yamapi furrows his brow and thinks about Koyama and mayonnaise and headphones and what must be a thousand empty bottles in the recycling bin by now. “I’m lucky,” he agrees, and makes Ryo roll his eyes at him.
“Just stop thinking about it, no one cares that much,” the older idol snaps, and gives up on the movie altogether.
Yamapi can’t help that he cares.
~~~~~
Yamapi wonders if Tegoshi thinks about these things too.
“When Koyama does things for you, do you feel bad?” Yamapi asks him out of the blue in the shower one evening, after rehearsals.
Tegoshi pauses in shampooing his hair; he looks confused. “Eh?”
“Never mind,” Yamapi replies hastily, and thinks that Tegoshi probably doesn’t notice either. Sometimes they’re really similar that way.
But then Tegoshi smiles a little and says, “When Kei-chan does things for me, it makes me happy,” before he goes right back to massaging his scalp under the hot spray of water. “That’s why he does them, right?”
Yamapi frowns. “But…”
“You mean, Leader doesn’t like it when Kei-chan does things for him?” Tegoshi asks suddenly, and looks worried.
Yamapi glances down at his feet and isn’t sure what Tegoshi is asking. “No,” he breathes after a moment, “I don’t want him to do things that I should already do myself.”
Tegoshi gives him an odd look, mouth scrunched into a frown. “Oh.” He seems sad when he hears it.
Yamapi wordlessly finishes his shower and shuts off the water; when he leaves the bathroom he thinks that part of him understands what Tegoshi is thinking, but a bigger part of him thinks that he needs to hurry up and become the kind of man who doesn’t forget the little things.
And who can take care of the big things on his own.
~~~~~
“Oh my god, stop whining to me and just tell him to straight up leave your shit alone,” Jin complains when Yamapi brings it up to him while they’re in the middle of an epic Dragonball Z battle. “Or booby-trap it or something, you guys are supposed to be the smart ones, aren’t you? Then maybe he’ll stop babying the rest of your group too, and they’ll learn to be less annoying. Ha! Eat it, twenty-seven hit combo finish, bitch!”
Yamapi watches his Ouzaru form Goku die on screen.
“I can’t just say something like that,” Yamapi says, eventually.
Jin snorts and pops open another bottle of beer with his belt buckle. “Oh my god, you suck at games and you’re a crybaby now. Do I need to check you for a sudden development of vaginaitis? Be a man, what the hell.”
He drinks his beer.
“Be a man,” Yamapi echoes absently, and even slightly drunk, Jin ends up beating him the next five rounds in a row regardless.
~~~~~
“Be a man,” Yamapi repeats two days later, when NewS is meeting again. He stands up straight and squares his shoulders, looking at his reflection in the restroom mirror. “Koyama,” he says to his own face, sounding stern and Leader-like, “stop cleaning up after me.”
His reflection blinks back at him. “Please,” he adds, lamely.
Yamapi turns around when he hears a noise.
Massu blinks back at him gently. “Yamashita-kun,” he says, looking slightly worried when Yamapi is pacing around and muttering to himself like this, “Kei-chan is over there, ne.”
He points to Koyama on the couch of the adjoining dressing room, the oldest member immersed in reading through his lines for his upcoming stage play, murmuring them under his breath over and over and over again.
Yamapi looks at Massu. Massu’s smile doesn’t change.
Eventually, Yamapi smiles back. “Yeah,” he realizes, “he is.”
“Okay,” Massu replies, and goes to get changed.
Yamapi looks back at the mirror one more time. “Grow up,” he tells himself, and pats his cheeks a few times, “Be a man.”
He takes a deep breath and walks into the dressing room; he taps Koyama on the shoulder.
~~~~~
Koyama screams.
Yamapi apologizes. “I don’t mean to bother you.”
Koyama apologizes back, hands on his chest and breathing hard. “Sorry, the world just faded away.” He indicates his script and looks sheepish. “It’s a lot of lines, so when I practice…well, you know,” he trails off with a lopsided grin.
Yamapi rubs the back of his neck. “Koyama is working hard, ne,” he starts, and doesn’t know why he says that first.
Koyama laughs. “Not as hard as Leader. But I’ll do my best.” Smile. “You’ll come see it, right? Once it’s done?”
Yamapi nods. “Of course.” Pause. Blink. “If I…”
“If you have time,” Koyama finishes for him with an understanding nod. “Leader is always working hardest of all, ne.”
Yamapi looks troubled when he hears that.
Koyama notices; Koyama always notices. “Eh…is something wrong, Leader?” he asks, when Yamapi’s brow furrows.
Yamapi hears Jin’s voice in his head, telling to grow up, to be a man. “Koyama,” Yamapi says, “Koyama, do you ever get tired of taking care of everyone?”
Koyama blinks. After a beat or two, when Yamapi is about to ask him to please forget about it completely, Koyama smiles lopsidedly and nods. “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes it’s a little tiring.’
Yamapi’s chest feels tight. “I just wanted to say, you don’t...”
Koyama holds up a hand. “But I think I’d get more tired if I didn’t do anything, and I sat around thinking and worrying about what I could have done all day instead, ne.”
Yamapi doesn’t really know how to respond to that. “I’m sorry,” he starts again automatically, and sounds kind of helpless because all he can do is apologize and try harder. “For always making you take care of me.”
Koyama looks at him for a moment.
And then he does something unexpected.
He laughs.
“Eh, is that what’s been troubling Leader lately?” he asks in relieved disbelief, and makes Yamapi blink. “I thought it was your drama stuff, ne. It’s why I didn’t ask or bother you.”
Yamapi coughs in embarassment. “No, not my drama stuff,” he confirms. “I just started thinking… I’m always going at my own pace ne, and I didn’t realize until recently that maybe I was causing trouble by being selfish. It’s like Koyama has to pay attention to my surroundings for me all the time.”
Koyama continues to giggle a little, high and sweet and somehow, not in a way that makes Yamapi feel bad at all. “Leader,” he insists, “I do it because I can, ne. Because Leader does so much for me, if I can help, then I’m glad. To be needed is important, isn’t it?”
Yamapi frowns. “But I don’t want to need you like that,” he tells the older idol plainly, and hastily moves to clarify when Koyama looks on the verge of being heartbroken at the news. “I just need Koyama to be there. That’s enough.”
“Oh.” Koyama looks embarrassed but pleased when he hears what Yamapi means, while Yamapi feels how Koyama looks. Neither of them can quite look each other in the eye for a minute in the aftermath, and it reminds Yamapi of his first confession, his first crush, the first time he gave his mom attitude, a bunch of mortifying firsts all rolled up into one. When he’s like this, he still feels incredibly young, somehow.
Then, Koyama coughs a little. “But I’m still going to try and take care of you, and everyone. I can’t help it.”
Yamapi nods. “I know. I guess all I can do is try to take care of Koyama better in return.”
Koyama laughs again, voice warm. “Leader is cute,” he decides eventually.
The edge of Yamapi’s lips quirk upwards. “I still have a long way to go, ne.”
Koyama eyes are gentle. “Me too. But we still have a lot of time, right? That’s the good part about being young.”
Yamapi smiles helplessly at his groupmate’s optimism. “I guess.”
Eventually, Koyama pours him a cup of tea and gently invites him to sit until rehearsals start again. “We have a few minutes yet, ne,” he says, pushing the tea towards Yamapi in offering.
Yamapi looks at it for a moment, thinking, before he nods and resolutely plops down next to the taller idol. He doesn’t take the proffered drink right away, instead determinedly grabbing the bottle for himself and pouring a second cup.
When it’s full, he puts the bottle down and slides the fresh cup to Koyama in counter offer. He figures that even if he has a long way to go it’s okay to start with little things like this, with small gestures that let his groupmate know that the things he does for them don’t go unnoticed, that they feel the same way about him as he feels about them.
Koyama laughs and accepts the tea with a nod, and the two of them bump the edges of their cups together in silent toast before drinking, sipping slowly the whole time because when it’s the two of them just like this, it feels like they have all the time in the world. At least for now.
Five minutes later, when Yamapi isn’t looking, Koyama smiles to himself and quietly puts the cap back on the tea.
END
EDITS?
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: Koyapi
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: Koyapi focus (with NewS members along for the ride and Jin making his requisite appearance)
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness, schmoopy stuffs. Probably OOC.
Word Count: 2,625
Summary: Yamapi has always gone at his own speed; maybe part of growing up is learning how to adjust your pace.
Dedication: Ann- her request for her holiday fic (sort of), and some other stuff too. Merry Christmas, Ann.
A/N: This last month, I realized that I still have a long way to go too. Hopefully the people I need are still willing to wait for me to catch up.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement is meant by this!
It starts in such a way that Yamapi doesn’t notice it right off, in small almost invisible gestures with very little glory behind them. The mayonnaise cap gets put back on for him, his bag gets moved out of the middle of the floor, his half-empty water bottle is closed for him when he isn’t looking and his iPod headphones get wrapped up and put away like magic, after he unwittingly leaves them hanging off the side of the table before rehearsal starts.
He doesn’t notice because he’s too busy, or so that’s what everyone says; he thinks the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t notice it at first because he’s not trying to.
He finally notices when they bring it up during an interview though, sweet and well-meaning because they think it’s simply a part of his character, a part of his busy lifestyle. “My-pace, ne. That’s just now Leader is,” they say. “Kei-chan doesn’t mind picking up after him, though. That’s how Kei-chan is too.”
“Like with my electronic dictionary, when he borrowed it and finished using it, he just left it there, still on,” Shige tells the interviewers around a laugh, and it’s warm enough that Yamapi can’t be annoyed with him for saying it out loud to strangers like that; he can only curl up into the couch and look kind of small when made to go face-to-face with this part of himself . He realizes what it all means for how far he still has to grow.
The worst thing about it is that everything they’re talking about with the interviewrs today only includes small things like electronic dictionaries and iPod earbuds, the tip of an iceberg that doesn’t even touch on all of the bigger things that happen, like how Koyama fills in for Yamapi when he doesn’t know how to respond to an interview question by either answering instead, or expertly diverting the topic of conversation to something else that Yamapi is more comfortable with. And then there’s how Koyama goes out of his way to get everyone to speak on camera because Yamapi is concentrating too hard on what he’s saying at the time to notice when someone isn’t saying anything at all, or how the eldest member keeps up with the others in Yamapi’s stead, asking them what they’re doing recently and what they’re interested in; he blabbers about all of it to Yamapi when Yamapi has the time and Yamapi learns a thousand things about his groupmates by proxy that way, things he’d never know otherwise because he just doesn’t have the time to find them out on his own, one by one.
When Yamapi stops to think about it-when it’s brought up to him to his face so suddenly like this-he realizes that Koyama has always been there to save him. From all the little things and all the not so little things that Yamapi just doesn’t have the energy to notice himself.
“Or the mayonnaise cap,” another member adds in the background, and brings Yamapi’s attention back to the interview, the hot lights and the flashing cameras and the intent looks of the columnist behind the pad and paper. “Yamashita-kun is a wild man like that; when he’s done with something it completely leaves his world, ne.”
“I’m sorry,” Yamapi apologizes, still squished into the couch and mortified, “I’ll change, I’ll change!”
Koyama looks at him gentle-eyed and says they don’t mind, “It’s just how Leader is,” he says simply, and pours Yamapi a fresh cup of tea.
Yamapi thanks him-sheepishly-and after being saved by Koyama again, silently vows to himself that he’ll do better. This is how he is now, but that doesn’t mean it’s how he’ll always be.
~~~~~
His conscious efforts to change for the better last for about a week, before exhaustion and over-booking and over-dieting hit him hard. Before he knows it Koyama is there again, pouring tea, picking up empty packages of Weider-in jelly off the table (or the couch or the floor) and putting Yamapi’s Raku Veggie bottles in the recycling bins once he’s finished with them.
“Sorry,” Yamapi murmurs sleepily whenever he catches Koyama in the act, looking regretful and tired, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yamapi,” Koyama replies gently, “We still have some time for you to rest before the interview, ne.”
“Homework,” Yamapi suddenly remembers, and smacks himself in the head before scrambling for his bag and his books and his notes. “I have homework due at the end o the week.”
He doesn’t notice when he drops the empty paper cup of coffee he’d been drinking in all the rush.
When he remembers it sometime later, it’s already gone; he finds it at the bottom of the trashcan by the door.
Yamapi stares down at it and wonders how Koyama can have so much patience with him when he annoys himself just thinking about how careless he can be.
Unfortunately, he only has time to wonder about it for a moment, before homework needs to be done and his nikki needs to be written and the choreographer is poking her head into the door and telling them to line up because there have been some changes to the regular routine due to the peculiar arena design.
Yamapi obediently heads out the door, feeling like he still has a million miles to go.
~~~~~
“Does it bother you when I forget things?” Yamapi asks Ryo one night, when they’ve both got a little time to hang out together but no real energy to do anything productive with it.
Ryo blinks blearily at the movie that he’s not really paying attention to, and eventually smacks Yamapi in the face with his couch cushion. “Of course it bothers me. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Ryo chuckles a little, when a random thought hits him. “Hey, you remember that used tissue I threw at you that you got so mad about all those years ago?”
Yamapi frowns. “Yeah.”
Ryo smirks. “I threw it at you because it was yours, asshole. You left it on the table after lunch that afternoon.”
Yamapi groans. Buries his faces in his knees. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Ryo snorts. “Lucky for you,” he says after a moment, looking at Yamapi out of the corner of his eye while pretending to still be paying attention to the movie, “not everyone in the world is cool enough to be as smart as me.”
Yamapi furrows his brow and thinks about Koyama and mayonnaise and headphones and what must be a thousand empty bottles in the recycling bin by now. “I’m lucky,” he agrees, and makes Ryo roll his eyes at him.
“Just stop thinking about it, no one cares that much,” the older idol snaps, and gives up on the movie altogether.
Yamapi can’t help that he cares.
~~~~~
Yamapi wonders if Tegoshi thinks about these things too.
“When Koyama does things for you, do you feel bad?” Yamapi asks him out of the blue in the shower one evening, after rehearsals.
Tegoshi pauses in shampooing his hair; he looks confused. “Eh?”
“Never mind,” Yamapi replies hastily, and thinks that Tegoshi probably doesn’t notice either. Sometimes they’re really similar that way.
But then Tegoshi smiles a little and says, “When Kei-chan does things for me, it makes me happy,” before he goes right back to massaging his scalp under the hot spray of water. “That’s why he does them, right?”
Yamapi frowns. “But…”
“You mean, Leader doesn’t like it when Kei-chan does things for him?” Tegoshi asks suddenly, and looks worried.
Yamapi glances down at his feet and isn’t sure what Tegoshi is asking. “No,” he breathes after a moment, “I don’t want him to do things that I should already do myself.”
Tegoshi gives him an odd look, mouth scrunched into a frown. “Oh.” He seems sad when he hears it.
Yamapi wordlessly finishes his shower and shuts off the water; when he leaves the bathroom he thinks that part of him understands what Tegoshi is thinking, but a bigger part of him thinks that he needs to hurry up and become the kind of man who doesn’t forget the little things.
And who can take care of the big things on his own.
~~~~~
“Oh my god, stop whining to me and just tell him to straight up leave your shit alone,” Jin complains when Yamapi brings it up to him while they’re in the middle of an epic Dragonball Z battle. “Or booby-trap it or something, you guys are supposed to be the smart ones, aren’t you? Then maybe he’ll stop babying the rest of your group too, and they’ll learn to be less annoying. Ha! Eat it, twenty-seven hit combo finish, bitch!”
Yamapi watches his Ouzaru form Goku die on screen.
“I can’t just say something like that,” Yamapi says, eventually.
Jin snorts and pops open another bottle of beer with his belt buckle. “Oh my god, you suck at games and you’re a crybaby now. Do I need to check you for a sudden development of vaginaitis? Be a man, what the hell.”
He drinks his beer.
“Be a man,” Yamapi echoes absently, and even slightly drunk, Jin ends up beating him the next five rounds in a row regardless.
~~~~~
“Be a man,” Yamapi repeats two days later, when NewS is meeting again. He stands up straight and squares his shoulders, looking at his reflection in the restroom mirror. “Koyama,” he says to his own face, sounding stern and Leader-like, “stop cleaning up after me.”
His reflection blinks back at him. “Please,” he adds, lamely.
Yamapi turns around when he hears a noise.
Massu blinks back at him gently. “Yamashita-kun,” he says, looking slightly worried when Yamapi is pacing around and muttering to himself like this, “Kei-chan is over there, ne.”
He points to Koyama on the couch of the adjoining dressing room, the oldest member immersed in reading through his lines for his upcoming stage play, murmuring them under his breath over and over and over again.
Yamapi looks at Massu. Massu’s smile doesn’t change.
Eventually, Yamapi smiles back. “Yeah,” he realizes, “he is.”
“Okay,” Massu replies, and goes to get changed.
Yamapi looks back at the mirror one more time. “Grow up,” he tells himself, and pats his cheeks a few times, “Be a man.”
He takes a deep breath and walks into the dressing room; he taps Koyama on the shoulder.
~~~~~
Koyama screams.
Yamapi apologizes. “I don’t mean to bother you.”
Koyama apologizes back, hands on his chest and breathing hard. “Sorry, the world just faded away.” He indicates his script and looks sheepish. “It’s a lot of lines, so when I practice…well, you know,” he trails off with a lopsided grin.
Yamapi rubs the back of his neck. “Koyama is working hard, ne,” he starts, and doesn’t know why he says that first.
Koyama laughs. “Not as hard as Leader. But I’ll do my best.” Smile. “You’ll come see it, right? Once it’s done?”
Yamapi nods. “Of course.” Pause. Blink. “If I…”
“If you have time,” Koyama finishes for him with an understanding nod. “Leader is always working hardest of all, ne.”
Yamapi looks troubled when he hears that.
Koyama notices; Koyama always notices. “Eh…is something wrong, Leader?” he asks, when Yamapi’s brow furrows.
Yamapi hears Jin’s voice in his head, telling to grow up, to be a man. “Koyama,” Yamapi says, “Koyama, do you ever get tired of taking care of everyone?”
Koyama blinks. After a beat or two, when Yamapi is about to ask him to please forget about it completely, Koyama smiles lopsidedly and nods. “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes it’s a little tiring.’
Yamapi’s chest feels tight. “I just wanted to say, you don’t...”
Koyama holds up a hand. “But I think I’d get more tired if I didn’t do anything, and I sat around thinking and worrying about what I could have done all day instead, ne.”
Yamapi doesn’t really know how to respond to that. “I’m sorry,” he starts again automatically, and sounds kind of helpless because all he can do is apologize and try harder. “For always making you take care of me.”
Koyama looks at him for a moment.
And then he does something unexpected.
He laughs.
“Eh, is that what’s been troubling Leader lately?” he asks in relieved disbelief, and makes Yamapi blink. “I thought it was your drama stuff, ne. It’s why I didn’t ask or bother you.”
Yamapi coughs in embarassment. “No, not my drama stuff,” he confirms. “I just started thinking… I’m always going at my own pace ne, and I didn’t realize until recently that maybe I was causing trouble by being selfish. It’s like Koyama has to pay attention to my surroundings for me all the time.”
Koyama continues to giggle a little, high and sweet and somehow, not in a way that makes Yamapi feel bad at all. “Leader,” he insists, “I do it because I can, ne. Because Leader does so much for me, if I can help, then I’m glad. To be needed is important, isn’t it?”
Yamapi frowns. “But I don’t want to need you like that,” he tells the older idol plainly, and hastily moves to clarify when Koyama looks on the verge of being heartbroken at the news. “I just need Koyama to be there. That’s enough.”
“Oh.” Koyama looks embarrassed but pleased when he hears what Yamapi means, while Yamapi feels how Koyama looks. Neither of them can quite look each other in the eye for a minute in the aftermath, and it reminds Yamapi of his first confession, his first crush, the first time he gave his mom attitude, a bunch of mortifying firsts all rolled up into one. When he’s like this, he still feels incredibly young, somehow.
Then, Koyama coughs a little. “But I’m still going to try and take care of you, and everyone. I can’t help it.”
Yamapi nods. “I know. I guess all I can do is try to take care of Koyama better in return.”
Koyama laughs again, voice warm. “Leader is cute,” he decides eventually.
The edge of Yamapi’s lips quirk upwards. “I still have a long way to go, ne.”
Koyama eyes are gentle. “Me too. But we still have a lot of time, right? That’s the good part about being young.”
Yamapi smiles helplessly at his groupmate’s optimism. “I guess.”
Eventually, Koyama pours him a cup of tea and gently invites him to sit until rehearsals start again. “We have a few minutes yet, ne,” he says, pushing the tea towards Yamapi in offering.
Yamapi looks at it for a moment, thinking, before he nods and resolutely plops down next to the taller idol. He doesn’t take the proffered drink right away, instead determinedly grabbing the bottle for himself and pouring a second cup.
When it’s full, he puts the bottle down and slides the fresh cup to Koyama in counter offer. He figures that even if he has a long way to go it’s okay to start with little things like this, with small gestures that let his groupmate know that the things he does for them don’t go unnoticed, that they feel the same way about him as he feels about them.
Koyama laughs and accepts the tea with a nod, and the two of them bump the edges of their cups together in silent toast before drinking, sipping slowly the whole time because when it’s the two of them just like this, it feels like they have all the time in the world. At least for now.
Five minutes later, when Yamapi isn’t looking, Koyama smiles to himself and quietly puts the cap back on the tea.
END
EDITS?