JE/NEWS- "Snapshots"
Title: Snapshots
Universe: JE
Theme/Topic: Voyager+NEWS
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness and bad cohesion.
Word Count: 6,215
Summary: Moments in time that we will never forget and moments in time yet to be.
Dedication: for je_ficgames 2008. Special thanks to my awesome betas Ann and omnipresentdmat for all the help and encouragement. ^_^
A/N: I know this was supposed to be like, purely future, but I wanted some context first, which is why there is also past. Consider it a really, really long introduction. Anyway, the prompt was V6's Voyager. Original post here.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
2003 is a year of deafening silence.
Its strongest memory for him comprises of nine-and then, suddenly eight- skinny boys standing clustered together in a small space all at once, most of them carefully avoiding eye-contact with one another and not speaking a word for lack of anything to say. To anyone just passing by they must have looked like nothing more than a group of strangers on the train except for the odd fact that they’re dressed similarly, matching in hair and makeup and youth but nothing else-nothing that matters anyway- at all.
He laughs out loud when he sees any of those old, horrible pictures again because Ryo’s smile is so fake in them-he couldn’t tell then but he can now- while Tegoshi’s expression is purely nervous; Shige’s lopsided grin is awkward and Uchi’s derisive somehow, Kusano’s idiotic in how hard he’s trying and Massu’s smile not nearly as brilliant as they all know it can be. Koyama’s own smile is anxious, like he’s doing it while holding his breath at the same time, and Yamapi’s is lifeless, completely devoid of anything and carefully constructed to be as such so that he won’t give away what it is that he’s really thinking at the moment.
Koyama knows this is because Yamapi felt only negative thoughts for NEWS back then, and as such, had to work to hide them; he’d decided early on that expressionless would be infinitely better than visibly unhappy. But even still, it seems like the others could sense their leader’s discomfort at the time anyway, because it shows in all of their eyes, in every one of the photos from that year.
For that year, Koyama can see the uncertainty and the reluctance and the quiet hope that it will all be over soon on each of their faces, from snapshot to snapshot.
Back then, none of them could really pretend that they believed good things were going to happen to NEWS, no matter how much make-believe the agency thought a group of boys their age could play with the proper amount of coercion.
Koyama remembers 2003 as the year of inauspicious beginnings.
~~~~~
2004 is the year of understanding.
It eventually comes to them after some effort on everyone’s parts, after they realize that they are the only ones concerned with making the off-camera parts of NEWS work. As far as the jimusho is concerned, it’s fine if they hate each other’s guts so long as it doesn’t show up on film.
In other words, they discover that group harmony is something they have to work out all on their own.
At first no one wants to put in the effort to do it because it’s dangerous and troublesome and they all know it could blow up in their faces at anytime. As such, the beginning of the year starts just like last year; they smile for their pictures just like they always have, with no one actually meaning it.
But even if management is okay with them not getting along Koyama soon finds out that he isn’t; he knows that he’s the oldest and after some time, he realizes that he needs to be the one who reaches out to the others first. Yamapi and Ryo are still too scary for someone like him to start off with but he thinks that maybe Tegoshi and Massu aren’t, since they seem more frightened than frightening. So he takes Tegoshi out to eat one evening after work-just the two of them- and they sit around big bowls of chashu ramen and talk about useless things until Tegoshi is a little bit less nervous and a little bit less quiet.
“If you ever need anything,” Koyama remembers saying nervously at the end of the night, “you can ask me, ne.”
Tegoshi smiles when he hears that- just a bit- and Koyama breathes a sigh of relief after he sees his younger groupmate home later that night. He thinks to himself that some of the tension feels like it’s already gone missing from between Tegoshi’s small shoulders, even after doing something as simple as eating together.
Afterwards he thinks that maybe he can do this, that maybe he can bond with the rest of his groupmates in a series of tiny steps and small gestures just like he did tonight. Oddly enough it’s a familiar enough thing to him already in that it feels a lot like luring a scared cat out of a tree. Koyama falls asleep smiling to himself that night, because he thinks that things might work out for them after all.
As it is, he’s always been a cat person.
He’s not wrong; the next day at work Tegoshi manages to look Koyama in the eye for the first time when he says “Good morning,” after Koyama arrives. “Thanks for dinner yesterday,” he adds, with a quick bow and a shy smile. “I…had a lot of fun, ne.”
The others stop what they’re doing when they hear that and suddenly turn to look at Koyama; for a moment, there is a beat of awkward silence as they all realize what Koyama is trying to do, that he’s actually hoping that this mess of a group will still work out somehow.
Someone has finally put forth that first effort.
Koyama remembers part of him wanting to curl up and hide in a corner under the weight of their collective gazes, but amazingly, miraculously, he manages to turn to Massu next instead, and asks, “Masuda-kun, what are you doing after work tonight?” like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
When Massu answers, very honestly, “I have some free time, but I have to call my mom to see if she cooked,” there is another beat of silence, this one slightly more disbelieving.
Then, a moment later, Koyama’s courage is unexpectedly rewarded by what he thinks is the first time that the whole group has ever laughed out loud about the same thing and actually meant it.
And even though Massu isn’t sure what’s so funny about it, he joins in anyway, because as far as he’s concerned, it’s a thousand times better than the stifling silence that had haunted their room for all those months before.
In that way, whenever Koyama thinks of 2004, he distinctly remembers hearing the unexpected sound of disbelieving laughter one spring afternoon, and the inescapable feeling of quiet relief that came with it.
2004 is the year they find the meaning in Kibou Yell.
~~~~~
2005 is the birth of member-ai.
Koyama learns that everyone in NEWS is the type of person who is willing to work hard in order to bring happiness to the others around them; in that way they work hard as a group to take the glimmer of hope that Koyama had managed to kindle in them last year and keep it alive in their hands, feeding it one tiny step at a time until it sparks to life as something else completely, something that can breathe warmth into a group that had very little of it before.
It happens in moments of the smallest kindness, from no one being angry at Massu for eating two bentos because food is his life, to taking Tegoshi shopping because his fashion sense sucks, to quietly closing the lid on the mayonnaise for Yamapi when he forgets to do it himself. It happens in Shige and Uchi’s constant whining to one another and the way Kusano bounces from person to person saying “good morning!” when he arrives each day, even though more often than not, all it earns him is a smack in the face from Ryo. It’s also in Koyama saying “Yamapi” for the first time instead of “Yamashita-kun,” and Ryo and Uchi’s blatant declarations of love for Tego-nyan, and Shige’s old-manish way of insisting that he is the same age as Tegoshi while everyone laughs at him for having to say it out loud.
It is in all of these little moments that Koyama finds his true heart; he suddenly believes that everything won’t just be all right after all, because now they can be great too.
He calls it member-ai for the first time in 2005, and promises himself-and the others-that step by step, they’ll make the love between them grow, one tiny, selfless moment at a time.
The others believe him when he says it too, and all that year, at least up until November, they strive to give each other as many small kindnesses as they know how and build the bonds of member-ai.
Then, just when it feels like everything is finally falling into place, the end of the year brings on a chain of events that could send everything to pieces.
Koyama remembers 2005 as both the happiest and saddest year of their career.
~~~~~
2005’s heartbreak turns 2006 into a year of devastation.
After months of waiting and worrying and hoping, they finally find out that Uchi isn’t coming back officially, that he won’t for a while, if ever.
Koyama remembers the phone call he’d gotten that night from Ryo-chan, the almost inaudible disbelief in his groupmate’s voice completely waking him up despite the hour. “He’s out,” is all Ryo can manage at the time, and there is a click on the other end before Koyama knows how to respond.
Koyama is- understandably- distraught when the full impact of what has happened finally hits him; he’s rendered useless by it, silent and disbelieving and feeling betrayed by the world somehow.
It’s a horrible moment.
But it’s also the moment that Yamapi finally steps up and takes the lead for real, perhaps for the first time.
Maybe he does it because no one else can for him this time, not with Ryo and Koyama sitting hopelessly lost on the couch, staring at nothing.
“It’s okay,” Yamapi tells everyone, resolutely breaking through the stunned silence of that morning, “it’s okay. We’ll keep working hard and one day he’ll come back and everything will be fine. But for now, we have to keep working hard so that there’s something to come back to.”
It makes sense, and early that year, NEWS is forced to go on as seven, just when it feels like they finally learned how to make it work as eight.
Months later, when it seems like they’re finally starting to get the hang of this new development too, when it seems like things are beginning to settle again, Kusano gets in trouble.
“I didn’t do it!” Kusano insists to everyone, and they believe him, because they know that he knows exactly how it felt to go through the exact same thing just a little while ago. They know he wouldn’t do it to them again.
But no one else believes him.
As much as he argues and reasons and pleads with them the management still doesn’t believe him, and just when the storm of events is starting to get really ugly Kusano stops for a moment and looks at his groupmates, looks at the headlines in the paper and the pictures in the gossip magazines and their faces on the morning news. When he sees all those things together, when he sees what it’s doing to the group’s name, he finally puts his hands up in surrender. “I give,” he says, weeks later, “I give.”
They know he volunteers to leave even though he didn’t do it because he knows it will hurt everyone else just a little bit less if he takes the full weight of what has happened onto himself.
When he comes into the office to pack up his things at the end of that week, he smiles-indomitable- and says, “I’m sorry guys. I did all I could.”
Koyama remembers watching him walk out of Johnny’s Entertainment with his head held high.
A little while later- despite Kusano’s sacrifices-NEWS is suspended anyway.
2006 is the year that Koyama’s broken heart finally shatters into a million pieces.
~~~~~
2007 is a year of triumph.
That’s all Koyama can feel when the stage lights hit him and the music rises, as he looks to his side and sees Yamapi and Ryo and Massu and Tegoshi and Shige all there, singing at the top of their lungs right beside him, under the sky of a brand new year.
Not everyone is there of course- not yet- but when Koyama sees his groupmates standing next to him performing like their lives depend on it he is suddenly reminded of Yamapi’s words from almost a year ago, as clear in his heart right now as if he’d only just heard them yesterday.
“We have to keep working hard so that there’s something to come back to.”
Koyama holds that belief in his heart and is thankful to have this chance again, to be here again, to be with these people again. For now, he knows he has to take this opportunity and run with it, so that one day- whenever it may come- there will be a place for the others to return to as well.
It feels a lot like death and rebirth- like reaching for the stars.
Koyama marks 2007 as a year of new beginnings.
~~~~~
2008 is about honesty.
It is the year Yamapi can tell interviewers that coming back to NEWS after working solo elsewhere feels just like coming home.
It is the year when Ryo complains that they don’t hang out enough.
It is the year that Shige is comfortable enough to make fun of Yamapi’s forgetfulness and the year that Yamapi has no qualms about smacking Tegoshi upside the head on screen for not acting like an idol.
It’s the year Yamapi gets his revenge on Shige making fun of his forgetfulness by making fun of Shige’s dancing and how old-manish he is return, and the year Koyama finally loses it one night and screams at Tegoshi to shut up because he’s tired.
In 2008 Ryo beats Masami up on TV and every time he gets angry at a groupmate thereafter there are shrieks of, “Ah, it’s Sousuke-san! Sousuke-san is here now!” followed by Ryo’s embarrassed growl and Tegoshi’s high-pitched laughter.
Shige is also able to admit he loves Tegoshi out loud without his brow furrowing too much in 2008, and Massu finally realizes that as gay as it might look, he wouldn’t mind going up to the top of a Ferris wheel with any one of his groupmates again one day.
To Koyama, 2008 is a year that they all grow up a little bit more, together.
~~~~~
2009 is the first TV show.
Koyama clearly remembers the day they’d been called in to the office unexpectedly; it’s early one Saturday morning at the end of January and all six of them show up mostly on time, though not a single one of them knows anything about why they’d gotten asked to come in so last minute and without warning. But by then they’re also used to being called in to work for important, life-altering announcements at random, so they sit patiently by and wait to hear the news, whatever it may be.
Tegoshi naps in the meantime, head on Yamapi’s shoulder.
Fifteen minutes later, their managers enter the room alongside an unfamiliar face; Yamapi gently nudges Tegoshi awake.
“This is your new producer, Sato-san,” their managers say right off the bat, looking excited. “This year, NEWS will finally have its first television show.”
“It’s going to be a show,” Sato-san intercepts breezily, before any of the members can react, “where NEWS members will be challenged to try new things. You will all have to show the world what you can do.”
A beat.
And then Shige raises a hand, calm and perceptive as always. “Doesn’t Kanjani 8 already have a show like that?” he asks, and sounds like he’s cross-examining Sato-san.
But Sato-san just laughs, looking at Shige like he’d known Shige would say that all along. “This is completely different. Something only NEWS can do,” he assures them, and no one is quite sure they like the look in his eye.
At the beginning of summer, when the Tegoshi/Shige team are facing off against this year’s Japanese International Chess Representative in a blindfolded game of verbal chess after having had only one hour to learn all of the official terms for descriptive chess notation, the rest of the group realizes that yes, their show will be very different from any show that might have come before theirs.
“Knight to Queen’s Bishop three,” Tegoshi chirps from under his cute blue blindfold, as he reaches out to stop the timer at their side. On the holographic board in front of them, the knight moves obediently into place. “Check.”
Their opponent looks oddly indignant.
The following week, when the Yamapi/Ryo team are given the challenge of memorizing all of Oberon and Puck’s lines for A Midsummer Night’s Dream in English-in two days- so as to be able to perform with Shakespeare’s Globe Theater while they are in Japan, Shige sighs and tells the group, “He was right. This probably is a TV show only we can do.” Pause. “Maybe. Hopefully. Are you and Massu really going to be okay as substitute cram school teachers next week?”
Koyama considers 2009 the year that NEWS is officially declared the “Smart Group” on the Johnny’s Entertainment homepage.
~~~~~
2010 is a year of change.
Shige and Tegoshi both graduate in the spring of that year and decisions have to be made following that.
“If the schedule is freer,” management theorizes in a meeting about what is going to happen next, “then that means NEWS can have a TV show that goes year round now, instead of just during the summer season.”
“Which means,” everyone else adds, as the whole thing starts to snowball with possibility, “more sales, which means more sponsorship, which means bigger concerts, which means more merchandising which means even more money.”
“This could be big,” they finish, in summary.
They all look inordinately pleased with themselves.
Tegoshi is the first one to raise his hand. “Actually,” he admits, looking unapologetic, “I got into med school yesterday.”
Silence.
Then, from the back of the room, Shige coughs and stands. “And I ought to know the results of my graduate school application in a week or so,” he adds.
More silence.
Management does not look pleased. “You could have so much more,” they begin, like they think they can convince the two of them to give up. “You could be even bigger.”
Tegoshi smiles enigmatically. “We know.”
Afterwards, when everyone is walking out of the meeting, Koyama’s manager stops him, looking concerned. “Are you really okay with this?” he asks. “This is such a huge opportunity. Maybe you can convince them not to go.”
Koyama smiles and remembers how happy Shige and Tegoshi had looked during their graduation ceremonies, when they had received their hard-earned diplomas with the rest of their peers. “We’re okay,” he tells his manager after a moment, and means it.
In fact, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have it any other way.
In 2010, NEWS grows up a little again.
They make an investment for the future.
~~~~~
2011 is a year of homecoming.
Uchi officially returns to activities with Kanjani 8 during the 2010-2011 countdown live broadcast that year, and when Koyama sees Uchi back on the stage and being asphyxiated by his overly enthusiastic groupmates, Koyama thinks he couldn’t be happier.
A few months later he realizes that he can in fact be happier somehow, and that he will get to be very soon.
More specifically, Koyama remembers the look of surprise on Kusano’s face when he steps off of the plane from New York that February and sees them all standing there, atop a hastily erected stage and waiting. A group of journalists are gathered around the stage as well- alongside photographers and cameramen and even a few lucky fans- all of them ready to go for what looks like a big press conference about something that no one told Kusano anything about beforehand.
Most of all, Koyama remembers the way Kusano’s surprise had turned to slow realization, and the way his former groupmate had suddenly lost all of his travel weariness and lit up before jumping up onto the platform next to them like he was always made to do.
In that moment, Koyama is so overjoyed he thinks he might burst.
“Welcome back!” they all shout to Kusano in unison, knowing that even though he’s been playing it cool in his postcards and phone calls and e-mails and visits during all this time, he’s been wanting this more than anything else for nearly five years now.
“Thanks guys,” he says quietly later, as the seven of them head out to the van once everything is done all official like. Kusano is draped over Yamapi’s back as Yamapi carries him through the airport, and Shige grudgingly pulls his luggage along for him in the meantime.
That is the image that graces all of the newspapers and magazines that week, along with the simple headline, “Home at Last.”
More than anything else that happens to them in the months following that night, Koyama remembers 2010 as the year that Kusano returns. It is also the year that a lot of their songs subsequently get revolutionized, because the very first thing Kusano does upon being reinstated to NEWS is take his groupmates aside and carefully explain-based on all the things he’s learned on his travels around the world- why they can no longer sing lyrics like, “You are lie” and “It’s just game of love” anymore.
To be honest, Koyama doesn’t really understand any of the grammar lessons very much at all, but as long as Kusano is there to guide him through it, he thinks that’s perfectly okay too.
~~~~~
2012 is a quiet year.
They don’t see as much of each other as in previous years because they’re getting to that stage where their kouhai are the ones that the jimusho are concentrating on selling more of; instead solo activities are the emphasis now.
Tegoshi has a solo con at the beginning of the year and when Koyama sees it he thinks that Tegoshi’s voice is really amazing; afterwards, when the two of them go out to eat hotpot together Koyama also thinks that it just means he still needs to work harder to keep up with everyone.
After that Kusano’s stage musical happens at the end of March and when Koyama goes to watch it he gets the same feeling he got watching Tegoshi’s concert; as he sits in the audience and sees the way Kusano can move, he thinks to himself that Kusano must love dancing as much as Tegoshi loves singing. Koyama walks out of it inspired to work harder again, in all the best ways.
Kusano just looks at him as they sit down to ramen after opening night; after a moment he reaches out and flicks Koyama in the forehead. “You were making a weird face,” he tells Koyama by way of explanation afterwards, while Koyama is rubbing his stinging head and looking embarrassed.
Ryo and Yamapi and Shige all have dramas in the spring of that year as well and Koyama watches them all religiously; he loves talking with Tegoshi about how exciting and dramatic it all is, with Ryo-chan as a single father of a two-year old girl and Yamapi as a dedicated ninja and Shige as a genius scientist who gets thrown back in time to the Heian period. He tapes each episode as it airs and watches them at least twice through. He also makes sure to rave about the three shows on his blog right after he watches them so that the other members know he’s enjoying them a lot and that he appreciates how hard they are working to make these great stories for everyone. Ryo-chan is always the one who calls him back first, telling him that he’s too old to use so many emoji in one post.
Ryo-chan also always sounds embarrassed at the same time though, so Koyama just laughs and says he’ll work on that, even though he still feels like a kid at heart.
They all see each other and Massu once a week, when they get together to film their TV show (this year the theme is a slightly self-parodying representation of what it is like to be in a boyband), and Koyama sometimes even gets to see Massu twice a week, because they film their radio shows on the same day now.
In the meantime, Koyama is still MCing for three other TV programs and doing his best to guide the juniors alongside Nakamaru at Shounen Club, even as the sea of faces in the audience don’t seem to remember who the two of them are anymore, beyond the fact that they’re senpai and kind of old-manish in the way that they dress and talk.
Koyama doesn’t mind because it’s true enough, because like those who came before them and those who will come after them, he knows that there is a time for you, when you’ll grow and flower, just like there is also a time when you’ll be pushed a side a little bit, to make room for new shoots to spring forward.
It’s the circle of life, he tells Nakamaru backstage, when Nakamaru looks distressed about being forgotten.
“You’re not helping. You really do talk like an old man!” Nakamaru replies, and Koyama just laughs as he tells his co-host that it’s fine, that they can keep doing this job as long as they’re still kids at heart.
Koyama can say things like that easily because he is reassured by the fact that all of NEWS are still very childish in their own way; he is particularly reminded of it that night, after Yamapi’s drama airs. He gets a text message from Tegoshi afterwards, as he’s brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. It says that they’ve all agreed to secretly test Leader’s ninja skills during the next taping for their show.
Apparently Koyama is in charge of finding at least ten plastic shuriken by Tuesday.
Koyama laughs and puts that on his to-do list before washing his face and going to bed.
2012 is quiet in that way, in that they can still toss plastic throwing stars at Yamapi backstage (which he somehow, miraculously dodges), in that they can see Ryo-chan be a father and Shige be a scientist and Yamapi be a ninja and watch young people grow up before their eyes and sing and dance their hearts out and embarrass each other online or on the radio or (more oftentimes) both.
It’s a quiet that Koyama finds infinitely peaceful; it makes 2012 the year he realizes that even when they don’t see each other that much, their lives always find a way of touching either way.
~~~~~
2013 is the ten year anniversary.
Ten years of his life have come and gone with these people as Koyama finds himself 29 years old and sitting in the chair that Taichi-kun has since vacated, situated in that familiar, warmly lit studio that Shige-the-lawyer thinks looks too much like the waiting room inside of a doctor’s office.
Today is Massu’s Shounen Club Premium interview and his groupmate is sitting across from him on the couch, perfectly at ease and smiling just the same as always.
“Massu,” Koyama begins happily, “Massu, it’s our ten year anniversary this year, ne. What are you most thankful for after all this time?”
Massu’s smile broadens somehow, and when he answers, it’s just as instinctive and sincere as that very first time he’d told them he was calling his mom to ask if she’d cooked.
“I’m most thankful that everyone in NEWS is a nice person,” Massu says without missing a beat.
Koyama sits back and readily agrees without pushing Massu to explain in more detail; even though people might hear that answer and think it’s overly simplistic for such a big occasion, Koyama and Massu both know that when it involves ten years of your life, being surrounded by nice people isn’t something small at all.
It’s monumental.
2013 is the year that Koyama counts his blessings all over again.
~~~~~
2014 brings the final piece of the puzzle.
“They asked me,” Uchi confesses as he stands in the doorway, trying to look nonchalant as he talks but only pulling off mortified instead. “Management said that you don’t need me anymore, but if I wanted to, if I felt up to the work, I could come back because I’ve been doing so well.” Pause. “So tough luck! Even if you don’t need me, I’m here.”
He crosses his arms and looks at them defiantly, despite the fact that the way he is crossing his arms looks more like he’s hugging himself.
Silence.
Then, Yamapi blinks. “Eh, I guess this means we’ll have to start over now.”
Uchi stares. “Huh?”
Yamapi indicates the cards in his hand, pointing to the ones everyone else is holding as they sit at the table together playing. “Cards,” he explains, and everyone subsequently folds.
Uchi keeps staring.
Ryo rolls his eyes. “Sit down and get dealt in, you moron,” he explains eloquently. “The loser has to take off his pants during the next concert.”
“NO CHEATING THIS TIME!” Shige emphasizes, glaring across the table at Koyama in particular.
Uchi still looks vaguely lost, but it’s okay; Koyama gets up and grabs an extra chair for him while Tegoshi offers to teach him how to play.
And just like that, with Ryo as the dealer, 2014 is all about being complete again.
~~~~~
2015 is miraculous.
Koyama marks it in his album with special hearts and stars and highlights because it is the very first year ever that Massu remembers every single one of the other members’ birthdays on time.
In light of something so unexpectedly wondrous, they all decide to call 2015 the year of the pig.
It confuses everyone else but them.
~~~~~
2016 is turbulent.
Yamapi meets a girl who he likes but who the jimusho doesn’t like; he goes out with her anyway and his acting offers suddenly, mysteriously get cut in half. He takes the work he does get offered anyway, and doesn’t hold anything against anyone because he knows everyone makes their own choices in life.
Tegoshi-sensei gets a lot of requests for collaborations with other artists and misses the entire first half of their show’s tapings for the spring season because he’s doing promotions for things other than NEWS. After a successful international collaboration with a popular K-Pop group rumors that he’s quitting the agency start to spread like wildfire, particularly after he manages to make a guest appearance on the Korean group’s TV program that season before he shows up on NEWS’s program even once. On the internet and in the gossip magazines the Japanese fans say they feel betrayed and that Tegoshi clearly thinks he’s too good for NEWS now.
But Tegoshi messages Koyama every week while he’s away, and always ends the communication by saying he’s working hard for the sake of NEWS.
Koyama wishes the gossip papers would get the whole side of a story one day, before putting even more stress and expectations on people who already have to deal with so much.
Massu’s sister has an adorable baby girl in the interim. He calls Koyama every other night at ridiculous hours, asking what he needs to do to be a good uncle. Koyama patiently listens to every single one of his worries and advises him accordingly, be it three am or eleven pm.
Kusano breaks his leg in three places while snowboarding right before the upcoming tour is supposed to start, and even though he assures everyone he can hobble his way through the pain, he gets cut out of the dance numbers anyway, and sulks on the sidelines when he realizes that this is another year where he’ll have to sit by and watch.
Ryo has a small scandal that involves alcohol and dancing with two girls with fake IDs who aren’t nearly as twenty as they say they are, which is followed shortly thereafter by an announcement regarding Uchi and Shige, who will actually be the ones working together on a high-budget drama that Jin and Kame were originally rumored to be in negotiations for.
Trashy magazines call it theft and disrespect while the juniors look at it as a harsh lesson in politics; all Uchi and Shige get told one day are that they’re doing it and that’s final.
In the meantime, Haruto gets bullied in school when he says he wants to be a Johnny just like his uncle, and Koyama’s mother starts asking questions more and more frequently about whether he’s getting the opportunity to meet any nice girls on the job. He thinks she might be slightly worried that the only people who he ever brings back home with him when he visits her are Shige and Tegoshi.
But despite all the trials that they face that year, or maybe partially because of them, NEWS’s concert tour that winter is one of the most successful in the group’s history.
Yamapi says it’s because NEWS is full of people who all hate to lose; when they’re challenged, all they do is try even harder.
For 2016, whenever Koyama remembers how each of them had to take turns wheeling a laughing Kusano around the stage for most of the concert performances, he considers it just another one of those years in which they managed to overcome the odds.
~~~~~
2017 is the present.
It is winter again and they are in the middle of their end-of-year concert tour after the release of another successful album. The fifteenth year is nearly upon them as well, and maybe that is why Koyama is so nostalgic now, sitting in the dressing room with his NEWS photo album full of pictures and headlines and keepsakes, going over all of the moments-good and bad-that he remembers, all of the events and experiences that have shaped him into the person he is now and these members into the group it has become.
“Kei-chan,” Tegoshi chirps as Koyama gets to the last page- this year’s page- “What are you doing?”
Koyama smiles and pops open the album’s binder rings, reaching for the package he’d left on the table before he’d gotten carried away with more than a decade’s worth of reminiscing.
“I’m adding more pages to my album, Tego-nyan,” he explains, and lets Tegoshi watch him as he does. “To hold our memories of next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.”
Tegoshi wrinkles his nose. “You’re only adding that many?” Pause. Frown. “Are you feeling depressed about anything, Kei-chan? Do you want me to write you a prescription or something?”
Koyama lines up the holes and slides his three brand new scrapbook pages into his album with a small, sideways smile. “It was originally a ten pack,” he admits, “but when I took them out of the wrapping, Leader and Kusano grabbed the other seven, ne.”
Tegoshi blinks. “What for?”
Koyama shrugs.
Ten minutes later, Shige storms into the room covered from head to toe in album pages, the sticky sides pasted to various parts of his body while the peeled back cellophane covers flap in dramatic flourish with every step he takes.
“Lunch!” he shouts aloud indignantly, “I was just minding my own business eating lunch!” Then he stops to glare at Koyama and Koyama’s album. “This is your fault.”
In the back of the room, Ryo promptly snaps a picture of Shige and chain e-mails it to everyone.
Later, back at his apartment, Koyama prints the picture out and makes it the very last photograph of 2017.
He tells himself he’ll buy a fresh pack (or two or three) of album pages on his way to work tomorrow, because there are still many years-and many moments-he has to prepare for in the future.
Also, he thinks Kusano and Yamapi will probably take some again, probably to try and target Ryo-chan or Uchi with next.
He thinks 2018 is going to be another good year.
~~~~~
2018 is the future.
All of the pages under this section of Koyama’s scrapbook are blank for now, a lot of empty space prepared to commemorate events and memories and announcements and achievements that don‘t yet exist. Naturally, he doesn’t know anything about the future beyond the fact that he will be there, and Yamapi will be there, and Ryo and Shige and Tegoshi and Massu and Kusano and Uchi will be there too, through whatever it is that they will have to face together in the imminent and distant futures. Whether what is in store for them will be joyful or sad or hysterical or tragic or touching or amazing or not particularly spectacular one way or another is yet to be determined.
Because the future is full of possibilities.
All Koyama knows for sure is that for NEWS, it still feels like the best is yet to come.
END
YAY all the 2008 fics now posted. ^_^y
Universe: JE
Theme/Topic: Voyager+NEWS
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness and bad cohesion.
Word Count: 6,215
Summary: Moments in time that we will never forget and moments in time yet to be.
Dedication: for je_ficgames 2008. Special thanks to my awesome betas Ann and omnipresentdmat for all the help and encouragement. ^_^
A/N: I know this was supposed to be like, purely future, but I wanted some context first, which is why there is also past. Consider it a really, really long introduction. Anyway, the prompt was V6's Voyager. Original post here.
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
2003 is a year of deafening silence.
Its strongest memory for him comprises of nine-and then, suddenly eight- skinny boys standing clustered together in a small space all at once, most of them carefully avoiding eye-contact with one another and not speaking a word for lack of anything to say. To anyone just passing by they must have looked like nothing more than a group of strangers on the train except for the odd fact that they’re dressed similarly, matching in hair and makeup and youth but nothing else-nothing that matters anyway- at all.
He laughs out loud when he sees any of those old, horrible pictures again because Ryo’s smile is so fake in them-he couldn’t tell then but he can now- while Tegoshi’s expression is purely nervous; Shige’s lopsided grin is awkward and Uchi’s derisive somehow, Kusano’s idiotic in how hard he’s trying and Massu’s smile not nearly as brilliant as they all know it can be. Koyama’s own smile is anxious, like he’s doing it while holding his breath at the same time, and Yamapi’s is lifeless, completely devoid of anything and carefully constructed to be as such so that he won’t give away what it is that he’s really thinking at the moment.
Koyama knows this is because Yamapi felt only negative thoughts for NEWS back then, and as such, had to work to hide them; he’d decided early on that expressionless would be infinitely better than visibly unhappy. But even still, it seems like the others could sense their leader’s discomfort at the time anyway, because it shows in all of their eyes, in every one of the photos from that year.
For that year, Koyama can see the uncertainty and the reluctance and the quiet hope that it will all be over soon on each of their faces, from snapshot to snapshot.
Back then, none of them could really pretend that they believed good things were going to happen to NEWS, no matter how much make-believe the agency thought a group of boys their age could play with the proper amount of coercion.
Koyama remembers 2003 as the year of inauspicious beginnings.
~~~~~
2004 is the year of understanding.
It eventually comes to them after some effort on everyone’s parts, after they realize that they are the only ones concerned with making the off-camera parts of NEWS work. As far as the jimusho is concerned, it’s fine if they hate each other’s guts so long as it doesn’t show up on film.
In other words, they discover that group harmony is something they have to work out all on their own.
At first no one wants to put in the effort to do it because it’s dangerous and troublesome and they all know it could blow up in their faces at anytime. As such, the beginning of the year starts just like last year; they smile for their pictures just like they always have, with no one actually meaning it.
But even if management is okay with them not getting along Koyama soon finds out that he isn’t; he knows that he’s the oldest and after some time, he realizes that he needs to be the one who reaches out to the others first. Yamapi and Ryo are still too scary for someone like him to start off with but he thinks that maybe Tegoshi and Massu aren’t, since they seem more frightened than frightening. So he takes Tegoshi out to eat one evening after work-just the two of them- and they sit around big bowls of chashu ramen and talk about useless things until Tegoshi is a little bit less nervous and a little bit less quiet.
“If you ever need anything,” Koyama remembers saying nervously at the end of the night, “you can ask me, ne.”
Tegoshi smiles when he hears that- just a bit- and Koyama breathes a sigh of relief after he sees his younger groupmate home later that night. He thinks to himself that some of the tension feels like it’s already gone missing from between Tegoshi’s small shoulders, even after doing something as simple as eating together.
Afterwards he thinks that maybe he can do this, that maybe he can bond with the rest of his groupmates in a series of tiny steps and small gestures just like he did tonight. Oddly enough it’s a familiar enough thing to him already in that it feels a lot like luring a scared cat out of a tree. Koyama falls asleep smiling to himself that night, because he thinks that things might work out for them after all.
As it is, he’s always been a cat person.
He’s not wrong; the next day at work Tegoshi manages to look Koyama in the eye for the first time when he says “Good morning,” after Koyama arrives. “Thanks for dinner yesterday,” he adds, with a quick bow and a shy smile. “I…had a lot of fun, ne.”
The others stop what they’re doing when they hear that and suddenly turn to look at Koyama; for a moment, there is a beat of awkward silence as they all realize what Koyama is trying to do, that he’s actually hoping that this mess of a group will still work out somehow.
Someone has finally put forth that first effort.
Koyama remembers part of him wanting to curl up and hide in a corner under the weight of their collective gazes, but amazingly, miraculously, he manages to turn to Massu next instead, and asks, “Masuda-kun, what are you doing after work tonight?” like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
When Massu answers, very honestly, “I have some free time, but I have to call my mom to see if she cooked,” there is another beat of silence, this one slightly more disbelieving.
Then, a moment later, Koyama’s courage is unexpectedly rewarded by what he thinks is the first time that the whole group has ever laughed out loud about the same thing and actually meant it.
And even though Massu isn’t sure what’s so funny about it, he joins in anyway, because as far as he’s concerned, it’s a thousand times better than the stifling silence that had haunted their room for all those months before.
In that way, whenever Koyama thinks of 2004, he distinctly remembers hearing the unexpected sound of disbelieving laughter one spring afternoon, and the inescapable feeling of quiet relief that came with it.
2004 is the year they find the meaning in Kibou Yell.
~~~~~
2005 is the birth of member-ai.
Koyama learns that everyone in NEWS is the type of person who is willing to work hard in order to bring happiness to the others around them; in that way they work hard as a group to take the glimmer of hope that Koyama had managed to kindle in them last year and keep it alive in their hands, feeding it one tiny step at a time until it sparks to life as something else completely, something that can breathe warmth into a group that had very little of it before.
It happens in moments of the smallest kindness, from no one being angry at Massu for eating two bentos because food is his life, to taking Tegoshi shopping because his fashion sense sucks, to quietly closing the lid on the mayonnaise for Yamapi when he forgets to do it himself. It happens in Shige and Uchi’s constant whining to one another and the way Kusano bounces from person to person saying “good morning!” when he arrives each day, even though more often than not, all it earns him is a smack in the face from Ryo. It’s also in Koyama saying “Yamapi” for the first time instead of “Yamashita-kun,” and Ryo and Uchi’s blatant declarations of love for Tego-nyan, and Shige’s old-manish way of insisting that he is the same age as Tegoshi while everyone laughs at him for having to say it out loud.
It is in all of these little moments that Koyama finds his true heart; he suddenly believes that everything won’t just be all right after all, because now they can be great too.
He calls it member-ai for the first time in 2005, and promises himself-and the others-that step by step, they’ll make the love between them grow, one tiny, selfless moment at a time.
The others believe him when he says it too, and all that year, at least up until November, they strive to give each other as many small kindnesses as they know how and build the bonds of member-ai.
Then, just when it feels like everything is finally falling into place, the end of the year brings on a chain of events that could send everything to pieces.
Koyama remembers 2005 as both the happiest and saddest year of their career.
~~~~~
2005’s heartbreak turns 2006 into a year of devastation.
After months of waiting and worrying and hoping, they finally find out that Uchi isn’t coming back officially, that he won’t for a while, if ever.
Koyama remembers the phone call he’d gotten that night from Ryo-chan, the almost inaudible disbelief in his groupmate’s voice completely waking him up despite the hour. “He’s out,” is all Ryo can manage at the time, and there is a click on the other end before Koyama knows how to respond.
Koyama is- understandably- distraught when the full impact of what has happened finally hits him; he’s rendered useless by it, silent and disbelieving and feeling betrayed by the world somehow.
It’s a horrible moment.
But it’s also the moment that Yamapi finally steps up and takes the lead for real, perhaps for the first time.
Maybe he does it because no one else can for him this time, not with Ryo and Koyama sitting hopelessly lost on the couch, staring at nothing.
“It’s okay,” Yamapi tells everyone, resolutely breaking through the stunned silence of that morning, “it’s okay. We’ll keep working hard and one day he’ll come back and everything will be fine. But for now, we have to keep working hard so that there’s something to come back to.”
It makes sense, and early that year, NEWS is forced to go on as seven, just when it feels like they finally learned how to make it work as eight.
Months later, when it seems like they’re finally starting to get the hang of this new development too, when it seems like things are beginning to settle again, Kusano gets in trouble.
“I didn’t do it!” Kusano insists to everyone, and they believe him, because they know that he knows exactly how it felt to go through the exact same thing just a little while ago. They know he wouldn’t do it to them again.
But no one else believes him.
As much as he argues and reasons and pleads with them the management still doesn’t believe him, and just when the storm of events is starting to get really ugly Kusano stops for a moment and looks at his groupmates, looks at the headlines in the paper and the pictures in the gossip magazines and their faces on the morning news. When he sees all those things together, when he sees what it’s doing to the group’s name, he finally puts his hands up in surrender. “I give,” he says, weeks later, “I give.”
They know he volunteers to leave even though he didn’t do it because he knows it will hurt everyone else just a little bit less if he takes the full weight of what has happened onto himself.
When he comes into the office to pack up his things at the end of that week, he smiles-indomitable- and says, “I’m sorry guys. I did all I could.”
Koyama remembers watching him walk out of Johnny’s Entertainment with his head held high.
A little while later- despite Kusano’s sacrifices-NEWS is suspended anyway.
2006 is the year that Koyama’s broken heart finally shatters into a million pieces.
~~~~~
2007 is a year of triumph.
That’s all Koyama can feel when the stage lights hit him and the music rises, as he looks to his side and sees Yamapi and Ryo and Massu and Tegoshi and Shige all there, singing at the top of their lungs right beside him, under the sky of a brand new year.
Not everyone is there of course- not yet- but when Koyama sees his groupmates standing next to him performing like their lives depend on it he is suddenly reminded of Yamapi’s words from almost a year ago, as clear in his heart right now as if he’d only just heard them yesterday.
“We have to keep working hard so that there’s something to come back to.”
Koyama holds that belief in his heart and is thankful to have this chance again, to be here again, to be with these people again. For now, he knows he has to take this opportunity and run with it, so that one day- whenever it may come- there will be a place for the others to return to as well.
It feels a lot like death and rebirth- like reaching for the stars.
Koyama marks 2007 as a year of new beginnings.
~~~~~
2008 is about honesty.
It is the year Yamapi can tell interviewers that coming back to NEWS after working solo elsewhere feels just like coming home.
It is the year when Ryo complains that they don’t hang out enough.
It is the year that Shige is comfortable enough to make fun of Yamapi’s forgetfulness and the year that Yamapi has no qualms about smacking Tegoshi upside the head on screen for not acting like an idol.
It’s the year Yamapi gets his revenge on Shige making fun of his forgetfulness by making fun of Shige’s dancing and how old-manish he is return, and the year Koyama finally loses it one night and screams at Tegoshi to shut up because he’s tired.
In 2008 Ryo beats Masami up on TV and every time he gets angry at a groupmate thereafter there are shrieks of, “Ah, it’s Sousuke-san! Sousuke-san is here now!” followed by Ryo’s embarrassed growl and Tegoshi’s high-pitched laughter.
Shige is also able to admit he loves Tegoshi out loud without his brow furrowing too much in 2008, and Massu finally realizes that as gay as it might look, he wouldn’t mind going up to the top of a Ferris wheel with any one of his groupmates again one day.
To Koyama, 2008 is a year that they all grow up a little bit more, together.
~~~~~
2009 is the first TV show.
Koyama clearly remembers the day they’d been called in to the office unexpectedly; it’s early one Saturday morning at the end of January and all six of them show up mostly on time, though not a single one of them knows anything about why they’d gotten asked to come in so last minute and without warning. But by then they’re also used to being called in to work for important, life-altering announcements at random, so they sit patiently by and wait to hear the news, whatever it may be.
Tegoshi naps in the meantime, head on Yamapi’s shoulder.
Fifteen minutes later, their managers enter the room alongside an unfamiliar face; Yamapi gently nudges Tegoshi awake.
“This is your new producer, Sato-san,” their managers say right off the bat, looking excited. “This year, NEWS will finally have its first television show.”
“It’s going to be a show,” Sato-san intercepts breezily, before any of the members can react, “where NEWS members will be challenged to try new things. You will all have to show the world what you can do.”
A beat.
And then Shige raises a hand, calm and perceptive as always. “Doesn’t Kanjani 8 already have a show like that?” he asks, and sounds like he’s cross-examining Sato-san.
But Sato-san just laughs, looking at Shige like he’d known Shige would say that all along. “This is completely different. Something only NEWS can do,” he assures them, and no one is quite sure they like the look in his eye.
At the beginning of summer, when the Tegoshi/Shige team are facing off against this year’s Japanese International Chess Representative in a blindfolded game of verbal chess after having had only one hour to learn all of the official terms for descriptive chess notation, the rest of the group realizes that yes, their show will be very different from any show that might have come before theirs.
“Knight to Queen’s Bishop three,” Tegoshi chirps from under his cute blue blindfold, as he reaches out to stop the timer at their side. On the holographic board in front of them, the knight moves obediently into place. “Check.”
Their opponent looks oddly indignant.
The following week, when the Yamapi/Ryo team are given the challenge of memorizing all of Oberon and Puck’s lines for A Midsummer Night’s Dream in English-in two days- so as to be able to perform with Shakespeare’s Globe Theater while they are in Japan, Shige sighs and tells the group, “He was right. This probably is a TV show only we can do.” Pause. “Maybe. Hopefully. Are you and Massu really going to be okay as substitute cram school teachers next week?”
Koyama considers 2009 the year that NEWS is officially declared the “Smart Group” on the Johnny’s Entertainment homepage.
~~~~~
2010 is a year of change.
Shige and Tegoshi both graduate in the spring of that year and decisions have to be made following that.
“If the schedule is freer,” management theorizes in a meeting about what is going to happen next, “then that means NEWS can have a TV show that goes year round now, instead of just during the summer season.”
“Which means,” everyone else adds, as the whole thing starts to snowball with possibility, “more sales, which means more sponsorship, which means bigger concerts, which means more merchandising which means even more money.”
“This could be big,” they finish, in summary.
They all look inordinately pleased with themselves.
Tegoshi is the first one to raise his hand. “Actually,” he admits, looking unapologetic, “I got into med school yesterday.”
Silence.
Then, from the back of the room, Shige coughs and stands. “And I ought to know the results of my graduate school application in a week or so,” he adds.
More silence.
Management does not look pleased. “You could have so much more,” they begin, like they think they can convince the two of them to give up. “You could be even bigger.”
Tegoshi smiles enigmatically. “We know.”
Afterwards, when everyone is walking out of the meeting, Koyama’s manager stops him, looking concerned. “Are you really okay with this?” he asks. “This is such a huge opportunity. Maybe you can convince them not to go.”
Koyama smiles and remembers how happy Shige and Tegoshi had looked during their graduation ceremonies, when they had received their hard-earned diplomas with the rest of their peers. “We’re okay,” he tells his manager after a moment, and means it.
In fact, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have it any other way.
In 2010, NEWS grows up a little again.
They make an investment for the future.
~~~~~
2011 is a year of homecoming.
Uchi officially returns to activities with Kanjani 8 during the 2010-2011 countdown live broadcast that year, and when Koyama sees Uchi back on the stage and being asphyxiated by his overly enthusiastic groupmates, Koyama thinks he couldn’t be happier.
A few months later he realizes that he can in fact be happier somehow, and that he will get to be very soon.
More specifically, Koyama remembers the look of surprise on Kusano’s face when he steps off of the plane from New York that February and sees them all standing there, atop a hastily erected stage and waiting. A group of journalists are gathered around the stage as well- alongside photographers and cameramen and even a few lucky fans- all of them ready to go for what looks like a big press conference about something that no one told Kusano anything about beforehand.
Most of all, Koyama remembers the way Kusano’s surprise had turned to slow realization, and the way his former groupmate had suddenly lost all of his travel weariness and lit up before jumping up onto the platform next to them like he was always made to do.
In that moment, Koyama is so overjoyed he thinks he might burst.
“Welcome back!” they all shout to Kusano in unison, knowing that even though he’s been playing it cool in his postcards and phone calls and e-mails and visits during all this time, he’s been wanting this more than anything else for nearly five years now.
“Thanks guys,” he says quietly later, as the seven of them head out to the van once everything is done all official like. Kusano is draped over Yamapi’s back as Yamapi carries him through the airport, and Shige grudgingly pulls his luggage along for him in the meantime.
That is the image that graces all of the newspapers and magazines that week, along with the simple headline, “Home at Last.”
More than anything else that happens to them in the months following that night, Koyama remembers 2010 as the year that Kusano returns. It is also the year that a lot of their songs subsequently get revolutionized, because the very first thing Kusano does upon being reinstated to NEWS is take his groupmates aside and carefully explain-based on all the things he’s learned on his travels around the world- why they can no longer sing lyrics like, “You are lie” and “It’s just game of love” anymore.
To be honest, Koyama doesn’t really understand any of the grammar lessons very much at all, but as long as Kusano is there to guide him through it, he thinks that’s perfectly okay too.
~~~~~
2012 is a quiet year.
They don’t see as much of each other as in previous years because they’re getting to that stage where their kouhai are the ones that the jimusho are concentrating on selling more of; instead solo activities are the emphasis now.
Tegoshi has a solo con at the beginning of the year and when Koyama sees it he thinks that Tegoshi’s voice is really amazing; afterwards, when the two of them go out to eat hotpot together Koyama also thinks that it just means he still needs to work harder to keep up with everyone.
After that Kusano’s stage musical happens at the end of March and when Koyama goes to watch it he gets the same feeling he got watching Tegoshi’s concert; as he sits in the audience and sees the way Kusano can move, he thinks to himself that Kusano must love dancing as much as Tegoshi loves singing. Koyama walks out of it inspired to work harder again, in all the best ways.
Kusano just looks at him as they sit down to ramen after opening night; after a moment he reaches out and flicks Koyama in the forehead. “You were making a weird face,” he tells Koyama by way of explanation afterwards, while Koyama is rubbing his stinging head and looking embarrassed.
Ryo and Yamapi and Shige all have dramas in the spring of that year as well and Koyama watches them all religiously; he loves talking with Tegoshi about how exciting and dramatic it all is, with Ryo-chan as a single father of a two-year old girl and Yamapi as a dedicated ninja and Shige as a genius scientist who gets thrown back in time to the Heian period. He tapes each episode as it airs and watches them at least twice through. He also makes sure to rave about the three shows on his blog right after he watches them so that the other members know he’s enjoying them a lot and that he appreciates how hard they are working to make these great stories for everyone. Ryo-chan is always the one who calls him back first, telling him that he’s too old to use so many emoji in one post.
Ryo-chan also always sounds embarrassed at the same time though, so Koyama just laughs and says he’ll work on that, even though he still feels like a kid at heart.
They all see each other and Massu once a week, when they get together to film their TV show (this year the theme is a slightly self-parodying representation of what it is like to be in a boyband), and Koyama sometimes even gets to see Massu twice a week, because they film their radio shows on the same day now.
In the meantime, Koyama is still MCing for three other TV programs and doing his best to guide the juniors alongside Nakamaru at Shounen Club, even as the sea of faces in the audience don’t seem to remember who the two of them are anymore, beyond the fact that they’re senpai and kind of old-manish in the way that they dress and talk.
Koyama doesn’t mind because it’s true enough, because like those who came before them and those who will come after them, he knows that there is a time for you, when you’ll grow and flower, just like there is also a time when you’ll be pushed a side a little bit, to make room for new shoots to spring forward.
It’s the circle of life, he tells Nakamaru backstage, when Nakamaru looks distressed about being forgotten.
“You’re not helping. You really do talk like an old man!” Nakamaru replies, and Koyama just laughs as he tells his co-host that it’s fine, that they can keep doing this job as long as they’re still kids at heart.
Koyama can say things like that easily because he is reassured by the fact that all of NEWS are still very childish in their own way; he is particularly reminded of it that night, after Yamapi’s drama airs. He gets a text message from Tegoshi afterwards, as he’s brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. It says that they’ve all agreed to secretly test Leader’s ninja skills during the next taping for their show.
Apparently Koyama is in charge of finding at least ten plastic shuriken by Tuesday.
Koyama laughs and puts that on his to-do list before washing his face and going to bed.
2012 is quiet in that way, in that they can still toss plastic throwing stars at Yamapi backstage (which he somehow, miraculously dodges), in that they can see Ryo-chan be a father and Shige be a scientist and Yamapi be a ninja and watch young people grow up before their eyes and sing and dance their hearts out and embarrass each other online or on the radio or (more oftentimes) both.
It’s a quiet that Koyama finds infinitely peaceful; it makes 2012 the year he realizes that even when they don’t see each other that much, their lives always find a way of touching either way.
~~~~~
2013 is the ten year anniversary.
Ten years of his life have come and gone with these people as Koyama finds himself 29 years old and sitting in the chair that Taichi-kun has since vacated, situated in that familiar, warmly lit studio that Shige-the-lawyer thinks looks too much like the waiting room inside of a doctor’s office.
Today is Massu’s Shounen Club Premium interview and his groupmate is sitting across from him on the couch, perfectly at ease and smiling just the same as always.
“Massu,” Koyama begins happily, “Massu, it’s our ten year anniversary this year, ne. What are you most thankful for after all this time?”
Massu’s smile broadens somehow, and when he answers, it’s just as instinctive and sincere as that very first time he’d told them he was calling his mom to ask if she’d cooked.
“I’m most thankful that everyone in NEWS is a nice person,” Massu says without missing a beat.
Koyama sits back and readily agrees without pushing Massu to explain in more detail; even though people might hear that answer and think it’s overly simplistic for such a big occasion, Koyama and Massu both know that when it involves ten years of your life, being surrounded by nice people isn’t something small at all.
It’s monumental.
2013 is the year that Koyama counts his blessings all over again.
~~~~~
2014 brings the final piece of the puzzle.
“They asked me,” Uchi confesses as he stands in the doorway, trying to look nonchalant as he talks but only pulling off mortified instead. “Management said that you don’t need me anymore, but if I wanted to, if I felt up to the work, I could come back because I’ve been doing so well.” Pause. “So tough luck! Even if you don’t need me, I’m here.”
He crosses his arms and looks at them defiantly, despite the fact that the way he is crossing his arms looks more like he’s hugging himself.
Silence.
Then, Yamapi blinks. “Eh, I guess this means we’ll have to start over now.”
Uchi stares. “Huh?”
Yamapi indicates the cards in his hand, pointing to the ones everyone else is holding as they sit at the table together playing. “Cards,” he explains, and everyone subsequently folds.
Uchi keeps staring.
Ryo rolls his eyes. “Sit down and get dealt in, you moron,” he explains eloquently. “The loser has to take off his pants during the next concert.”
“NO CHEATING THIS TIME!” Shige emphasizes, glaring across the table at Koyama in particular.
Uchi still looks vaguely lost, but it’s okay; Koyama gets up and grabs an extra chair for him while Tegoshi offers to teach him how to play.
And just like that, with Ryo as the dealer, 2014 is all about being complete again.
~~~~~
2015 is miraculous.
Koyama marks it in his album with special hearts and stars and highlights because it is the very first year ever that Massu remembers every single one of the other members’ birthdays on time.
In light of something so unexpectedly wondrous, they all decide to call 2015 the year of the pig.
It confuses everyone else but them.
~~~~~
2016 is turbulent.
Yamapi meets a girl who he likes but who the jimusho doesn’t like; he goes out with her anyway and his acting offers suddenly, mysteriously get cut in half. He takes the work he does get offered anyway, and doesn’t hold anything against anyone because he knows everyone makes their own choices in life.
Tegoshi-sensei gets a lot of requests for collaborations with other artists and misses the entire first half of their show’s tapings for the spring season because he’s doing promotions for things other than NEWS. After a successful international collaboration with a popular K-Pop group rumors that he’s quitting the agency start to spread like wildfire, particularly after he manages to make a guest appearance on the Korean group’s TV program that season before he shows up on NEWS’s program even once. On the internet and in the gossip magazines the Japanese fans say they feel betrayed and that Tegoshi clearly thinks he’s too good for NEWS now.
But Tegoshi messages Koyama every week while he’s away, and always ends the communication by saying he’s working hard for the sake of NEWS.
Koyama wishes the gossip papers would get the whole side of a story one day, before putting even more stress and expectations on people who already have to deal with so much.
Massu’s sister has an adorable baby girl in the interim. He calls Koyama every other night at ridiculous hours, asking what he needs to do to be a good uncle. Koyama patiently listens to every single one of his worries and advises him accordingly, be it three am or eleven pm.
Kusano breaks his leg in three places while snowboarding right before the upcoming tour is supposed to start, and even though he assures everyone he can hobble his way through the pain, he gets cut out of the dance numbers anyway, and sulks on the sidelines when he realizes that this is another year where he’ll have to sit by and watch.
Ryo has a small scandal that involves alcohol and dancing with two girls with fake IDs who aren’t nearly as twenty as they say they are, which is followed shortly thereafter by an announcement regarding Uchi and Shige, who will actually be the ones working together on a high-budget drama that Jin and Kame were originally rumored to be in negotiations for.
Trashy magazines call it theft and disrespect while the juniors look at it as a harsh lesson in politics; all Uchi and Shige get told one day are that they’re doing it and that’s final.
In the meantime, Haruto gets bullied in school when he says he wants to be a Johnny just like his uncle, and Koyama’s mother starts asking questions more and more frequently about whether he’s getting the opportunity to meet any nice girls on the job. He thinks she might be slightly worried that the only people who he ever brings back home with him when he visits her are Shige and Tegoshi.
But despite all the trials that they face that year, or maybe partially because of them, NEWS’s concert tour that winter is one of the most successful in the group’s history.
Yamapi says it’s because NEWS is full of people who all hate to lose; when they’re challenged, all they do is try even harder.
For 2016, whenever Koyama remembers how each of them had to take turns wheeling a laughing Kusano around the stage for most of the concert performances, he considers it just another one of those years in which they managed to overcome the odds.
~~~~~
2017 is the present.
It is winter again and they are in the middle of their end-of-year concert tour after the release of another successful album. The fifteenth year is nearly upon them as well, and maybe that is why Koyama is so nostalgic now, sitting in the dressing room with his NEWS photo album full of pictures and headlines and keepsakes, going over all of the moments-good and bad-that he remembers, all of the events and experiences that have shaped him into the person he is now and these members into the group it has become.
“Kei-chan,” Tegoshi chirps as Koyama gets to the last page- this year’s page- “What are you doing?”
Koyama smiles and pops open the album’s binder rings, reaching for the package he’d left on the table before he’d gotten carried away with more than a decade’s worth of reminiscing.
“I’m adding more pages to my album, Tego-nyan,” he explains, and lets Tegoshi watch him as he does. “To hold our memories of next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.”
Tegoshi wrinkles his nose. “You’re only adding that many?” Pause. Frown. “Are you feeling depressed about anything, Kei-chan? Do you want me to write you a prescription or something?”
Koyama lines up the holes and slides his three brand new scrapbook pages into his album with a small, sideways smile. “It was originally a ten pack,” he admits, “but when I took them out of the wrapping, Leader and Kusano grabbed the other seven, ne.”
Tegoshi blinks. “What for?”
Koyama shrugs.
Ten minutes later, Shige storms into the room covered from head to toe in album pages, the sticky sides pasted to various parts of his body while the peeled back cellophane covers flap in dramatic flourish with every step he takes.
“Lunch!” he shouts aloud indignantly, “I was just minding my own business eating lunch!” Then he stops to glare at Koyama and Koyama’s album. “This is your fault.”
In the back of the room, Ryo promptly snaps a picture of Shige and chain e-mails it to everyone.
Later, back at his apartment, Koyama prints the picture out and makes it the very last photograph of 2017.
He tells himself he’ll buy a fresh pack (or two or three) of album pages on his way to work tomorrow, because there are still many years-and many moments-he has to prepare for in the future.
Also, he thinks Kusano and Yamapi will probably take some again, probably to try and target Ryo-chan or Uchi with next.
He thinks 2018 is going to be another good year.
~~~~~
2018 is the future.
All of the pages under this section of Koyama’s scrapbook are blank for now, a lot of empty space prepared to commemorate events and memories and announcements and achievements that don‘t yet exist. Naturally, he doesn’t know anything about the future beyond the fact that he will be there, and Yamapi will be there, and Ryo and Shige and Tegoshi and Massu and Kusano and Uchi will be there too, through whatever it is that they will have to face together in the imminent and distant futures. Whether what is in store for them will be joyful or sad or hysterical or tragic or touching or amazing or not particularly spectacular one way or another is yet to be determined.
Because the future is full of possibilities.
All Koyama knows for sure is that for NEWS, it still feels like the best is yet to come.
END
YAY all the 2008 fics now posted. ^_^y