JE/NewS- "4 Times NewS Members Don’t Get a TV Show (And 1 Time The Reason Is Mostly Implausible)"
Title: Four Times NewS Members Don’t Get a TV Show (And One Time The Reason Is Mostly Implausible)
Universe: JE/NEWS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence and innuendo
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (insignificant mentions of other JE personalities here and there)
Warnings/Spoilers: crack, silliness, random.
Word Count: 2,400
Summary: NewS gets shafted but they keep trying hard anyway.
Dedication: to crystallekil, because with all this hate going around I want you to know that it’s okay if the world thinks you’re elite. That’s just what happens when you’re better than everyone else. XD
A/N: Something short and simple. Because I have no endurance lately.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
1.
“This year, we are getting our first show!” Shige declares resolutely one afternoon, seemingly at random. “And it is going to be about investigative reporting at its finest!”
His groupmates blink back at him.
He takes their reaction as shock and awe at his prowess.
“You see,” he explains, so that they can properly appreciate his efforts, “yesterday I submitted a proposal to Johnny-san about how we will make a show that uses our various abilities to investigate and study human behavior in the dark underbelly of society. It will be entertaining and informative and very dramatic and a surefire hit.”
Everyone applauds accordingly. “Shige is amazing, ne,” Koyama breathes, on instinct (even though he has no idea what Shige is talking about).
Shige preens and strikes a few elitist poses. “Right, so now that the proposal has been submitted, we just need to present a pilot of the concept to Johnny-san by Monday. Which I already have an idea for, by the way.”
Everyone continues to applaud accordingly, because they know if they stop, Shige will suddenly lose his confidence and look wounded.
Their continued applause gives Shige strength, and he puts a finger in the air. “To make a lasting impression during our presentation to Johnny-san next week, our first taping ever will involve using hidden cameras to catch perverts and molesters on trains!”
The applause stops. “How the hell are we going to do that?” Ryo demands.
Shige gets a glint in his eye that means he’s been waiting for someone to ask that all along.
Two days later, Ryo gets his answer; Yuuko-chan the schoolgirl is back in full force, standing on the train during the evening rush with her skirt hiked up sinfully high and the top two buttons of her white shirt undone.
“Isn’t Tego-nyan kind of asking for it when he’s dressed like that?” Ryo asks, as he holds up the Kato family camcorder (which is currently stuck in the hollowed out remains of an outdated phonebook). It does not look suspicious at all. At all.
From the seat next to him, Shige snorts and eyes the older member judgmentally. “It’s exactly that kind of thinking that allows predators to prey on the innocent in this day and age.”
Ryo’s response is to elbow him in the ribs.
Shige sputters on impact, but manages to keep himself from shouting out loud just in time, because a man in a business suit suddenly sidles up next to Tegoshi.
“There it is, there it is!” Shige insists, and looks at Ryo with an unholy light in his eyes. “Are you getting this properly?”
Ryo holds up the enormous, hollowed out phonebook a little higher. It is completely subtle. “Yeah,” he says.
The man in the business suit reaches out.
Shige looks ecstatic.
And then the man in the business suit touches Tegoshi’s… shoulder. Before asking him, “Do you know which stop to get off at for this address?” He holds out a shopping center map with a star for a restaurant advertising two-for-one dinner specials on it.
Tegoshi beams. “Yup! It’s the second stop after this one, ne. I go shopping at that place with Massu a lot.”
“Thank you,” the business man says, while looking relieved.
“No problem,” Tegoshi chirps. He goes back to absently listening to his music.
The businessman sidles off.
“The fiend,” Ryo feels the need to say, while Shige just looks disappointed.
“Dammit,” Shige mutters, and wonders if he should have stuffed Tegoshi’s bra with a few more phonebook pages after all.
After that Tegoshi gets asked out on a date by some high school boys going home from cram school and a good-looking college student with spiky hair who’s headed to his part time job as a 7-11 store clerk. A rocker in a leather jacket gives Tegoshi his phone number and winks on his way out the doors, telling the disguised idol to call him.
At the next stop two girls pause on their way in to ask Tegoshi what he does to get his skin so smooth and the closest thing they get to something perverted is when a four-year-old holding his mother’s hand boards the train and inadvertently looks up Tegoshi’s skirt instead of at his mother’s face when she asks him how daycare was today.
“Investigating the dark underbelly of society, huh,” Ryo says, and is tired of holding up the stupid phonebook. He drops it in Shige’s lap and leans back in his seat with a yawn. “Wake me when we get to my stop.”
Shige looks down at the phonebook and seems very slightly devastated.
“Maybe,” he begins a few minutes later, “if I film you from the right angle you can pretend to be a stranger and go up and grab Tegoshi’s…”
Ryo punches him in the ribs again.
Shige grumbles and thinks that maybe he should have gone with that lame invite-a-guest-and-ask-them-lots-of-random-questions-beforehand proposal instead after all.
2.
“The company has finally saved up enough budget in this craptastic economy to tape a test screening for a NewS TV show!” the members get told Friday evening, right before they are leaving work for the night. “There will be a meeting regarding this held tomorrow morning at eight. Don’t be late.”
“Yay!” all the members declare, and very excitedly chatter about it amongst themselves the entire way home.
On Saturday morning, when the group arrives bright and early in preparation for the meeting about their new show to start, one of Johnny-san’s overworked and underpaid assistants comes barging into the meeting room before it can begin. He eyes NewS, shakes his head, and then stands on his toes to whisper quickly in their manager’s ear.
Their manager sighs.
“Never mind,” he says once the assistant leaves, and looks defeated, “Apparently last night, Kamenashi-kun had an incident with a transvestite that involved alcohol, a game of Ouji-sama, and things going into places that should never involve a Johnny’s idol and a video camera. In light of this craptastic economy, our taping budget has officially become cover up money.”
“Oh,” NewS members say, and do their best not to look too disappointed in light of things.
An uncomfortable silence follows.
Eventually, Massu raises his hand. “I don’t get what you mean when you say it involved things going into places,” he says, looking genuinely confused.
Everyone laughs nervously and rushes him out of the room.
3.
“It’s a brand new, all-Johnny’s quiz show,” management writes on the e-mail that has been sent to all of the currently debuted members of the company. “It will be called Are You Smarter than a Johnny’s Idol and is modeled after that American game show with the redneck and the small children."
The reference earns a lot of blank looks.
“Each week a different group of Johnny’s idols will make a guest appearance on the show and pit their intelligence up against a set of grade schoolers, a set of middle schoolers, and then a set of high schoolers. The winning team from each round will get lots of fun prizes from our sponsors, while the losing team will be horribly, horribly humiliated on national television by a punishment game, also courtesy of our sponsors. We think that this program is going to be a huge ratings hit and make each group that appears on it even more popular than they already are. It will also be a one of a kind show in that it involves a fusion of the western win-to-earn-rewards-based game show system and the eastern win-to-avoid-punishment-based game show styles.”
“Prizes!” some of the Johnnies glee to themselves when they read this, and miss the point of the last sentence entirely because it is too long and has a lot of weird dashes.
“Please keep an eye out on your schedules for last minute pencil-in appearances on this program from week to week, as when each group will appear is going to be a surprise to everyone each time,” the E-mail says, and with that, finishes the main body of text.
But then, down at the bottom, there is also an addendum that says:
“Due to contractual negotiations with the studio, the following people are banned from ever appearing on the show, for fear of alienating viewers by having the unfair advantage of higher education.”
The list includes:
Kato Shigeaki
Tegoshi Yuya
Yamashita Tomohisa
Koyama Keichiro
Sakurai Sho
Nakamaru Yuichi
“Yay!” Most of the idols cheer once they’re done reading, still buoyed by the possibility of prizes.
“Whew,” Nakamaru and Sho both breathe, because yet another show to be on might cut into their precious little private time.
On the other hand, most of NewS can only think, “Dammit,” and delete the E-mail from their inboxes permanently.
“How is there such a thing a being too smart for a TV show?! This isn’t fair!” Shige demands hotly, while Tegoshi speculates on whether he can e-mail management and promise to act dumb for laughs again, like he did on Utaban that one time in 2007.
In the meantime Massu wonders if he can go on the program with just Ryo and have it still be called a guest appearance by NewS, while Ryo scowls to himself and can’t believe they’re giving him even more crap to do on his schedule, do they want him to die before he’s thirty?
4.
“I want to do a TV show with NewS this year no matter what!” Yamapi declares hotly to their manager one morning, after his fifth straight bottle of 5-hour energy and third straight day of getting less than two hours of sleep a night.
He believes he is so passionate about the issue that it is what is currently making the corners of his vision start to artistically blur into shiny moving rainbows; it looks a little bit like what happens when sunlight hits motor oil on water. He takes it as a metaphor to float to the top in the sunshine, or something. He’s not sure.
“I’ve definitely got the time and power, ne! Let’s make this dream come true!” he says.
And then he pumps his fist for emphasis, except that when he does, he forgets that he’s standing and starts to tip over.
Koyama yelps and dives out of his chair to catch him.
A beat.
Then, “Oh really,” their manager asks.
“Um, no,” the rest of NewS decides in that moment, for Yamapi. “Not really.”
The five of them all silently carry their leader to the nearest couch.
5.
“Target sighted,” Yamapi murmurs into his radio as he perches upside down in a tree while peering into the dusty windows of an abandoned storage unit near the docks. “Tegoshi, he’s headed in your direction, ne.”
“I’m ready for him, Leader!” the younger idol chirps.
“Woah, woah, he’s got backup,” Ryo reports in warning. “I’m going to intercept outside. Koyama, on my six.”
“Right!” Koyama agrees readily, and the two oldest members silently drop from their hiding spots on the roof to cut off the newcomers.
From there, the near silent thwip of their shuriken is followed by the quiet thuds of men’s bodies as they hit the floor.
Yamapi looks troubled. “Are we sure there are only two more? Shige, Massu, can you do another sweep from where you are?”
“Sure,” Massu agrees, and the others can hear his smile over the communication links.
“Um, one sec,” Shige replies after a beat, and his voice is followed by what can only be the angry chattering of a rodent. “There are some rats down here,” he explains sheepishly.
Ryo snorts. “I can see it now. Member of a famous idol group-and rumored ninja- killed by angry sewer vermin.”
“Shut up, you’re not the one who had to muck around down here for three hours!” Shige protests.
“Target sighted,” Tegoshi interrupts after a moment. “I’m moving in.”
“Alright,” Yamapi acquiesces. “Take your chance but don’t rush, ne. Massu and Shige are checking for more guys.”
“Right!” Tegoshi breathes, and starts to move. “I’ll be quick, promise!”
True to his word, barely another minute passes before Tegoshi drops down from the ceiling, where he had been holding himself up in the pipes of for the last three hours.
“Who the hell…” their target manages when Tegoshi hits the floor in front of him. It’s all he gets out though, before Tegoshi strikes out with his kunai and rips open the man’s throat.
The youngest NewS member dodges the splattering blood that accompanies his hit, silently flipping backwards and crawling up the wall before disappearing into the ventilation shafts like he’d never been there in the first place.
“Target eliminated,” he reports a little while later, as the man’s body spasms and drops lifelessly to the floor.
“Alright, pull out,” Yamapi instructs, once everything looks to be in order. “Just a reminder, we have a magazine shooting tomorrow morning at eight, ne. Wear bright colors and have your reports ready for shachou afterwards.”
“Roger,” the other five all agree, and silently disappear into the night as well.
On his way home that night, the screen on Yamapi’s built in GPS suddenly flickers and then goes black; when it rights itself there’s no longer a map guiding him home on it, but Johnny-san’s face instead.
“YOU-tachi,” the president says, and Yamapi can only assume this means he’s being simultaneously broadcast to the others as well, “good job on tonight’s mission. The police are on their way. Tomorrow, after the magazine shooting, we’ll have a debriefing, as well as another case that you’ll be working in joint-investigation with the Americans on. It might involve another trip to Hawaii sometime this week. Over and out.”
Yamapi sighs as the image flickers a little before going back to the normal GPS screen; he thinks that it’s tiring being the only group in the jimusho that does this, but as Johnny-san and their manager put it, it works because NewS is the only unit no one would ever suspect of being involved in this sort of thing in the first place.
Still, Yamapi kind of wishes that they could have a TV show instead, like the other groups do.
Because as cool as it sounds in movies and manga, being an adorable idol group by day and a secret gang of ninja assassins by night really isn’t all that fun.
END
EDITS? It is late and I am sleepy.
Universe: JE/NEWS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence and innuendo
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (insignificant mentions of other JE personalities here and there)
Warnings/Spoilers: crack, silliness, random.
Word Count: 2,400
Summary: NewS gets shafted but they keep trying hard anyway.
Dedication: to crystallekil, because with all this hate going around I want you to know that it’s okay if the world thinks you’re elite. That’s just what happens when you’re better than everyone else. XD
A/N: Something short and simple. Because I have no endurance lately.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
1.
“This year, we are getting our first show!” Shige declares resolutely one afternoon, seemingly at random. “And it is going to be about investigative reporting at its finest!”
His groupmates blink back at him.
He takes their reaction as shock and awe at his prowess.
“You see,” he explains, so that they can properly appreciate his efforts, “yesterday I submitted a proposal to Johnny-san about how we will make a show that uses our various abilities to investigate and study human behavior in the dark underbelly of society. It will be entertaining and informative and very dramatic and a surefire hit.”
Everyone applauds accordingly. “Shige is amazing, ne,” Koyama breathes, on instinct (even though he has no idea what Shige is talking about).
Shige preens and strikes a few elitist poses. “Right, so now that the proposal has been submitted, we just need to present a pilot of the concept to Johnny-san by Monday. Which I already have an idea for, by the way.”
Everyone continues to applaud accordingly, because they know if they stop, Shige will suddenly lose his confidence and look wounded.
Their continued applause gives Shige strength, and he puts a finger in the air. “To make a lasting impression during our presentation to Johnny-san next week, our first taping ever will involve using hidden cameras to catch perverts and molesters on trains!”
The applause stops. “How the hell are we going to do that?” Ryo demands.
Shige gets a glint in his eye that means he’s been waiting for someone to ask that all along.
Two days later, Ryo gets his answer; Yuuko-chan the schoolgirl is back in full force, standing on the train during the evening rush with her skirt hiked up sinfully high and the top two buttons of her white shirt undone.
“Isn’t Tego-nyan kind of asking for it when he’s dressed like that?” Ryo asks, as he holds up the Kato family camcorder (which is currently stuck in the hollowed out remains of an outdated phonebook). It does not look suspicious at all. At all.
From the seat next to him, Shige snorts and eyes the older member judgmentally. “It’s exactly that kind of thinking that allows predators to prey on the innocent in this day and age.”
Ryo’s response is to elbow him in the ribs.
Shige sputters on impact, but manages to keep himself from shouting out loud just in time, because a man in a business suit suddenly sidles up next to Tegoshi.
“There it is, there it is!” Shige insists, and looks at Ryo with an unholy light in his eyes. “Are you getting this properly?”
Ryo holds up the enormous, hollowed out phonebook a little higher. It is completely subtle. “Yeah,” he says.
The man in the business suit reaches out.
Shige looks ecstatic.
And then the man in the business suit touches Tegoshi’s… shoulder. Before asking him, “Do you know which stop to get off at for this address?” He holds out a shopping center map with a star for a restaurant advertising two-for-one dinner specials on it.
Tegoshi beams. “Yup! It’s the second stop after this one, ne. I go shopping at that place with Massu a lot.”
“Thank you,” the business man says, while looking relieved.
“No problem,” Tegoshi chirps. He goes back to absently listening to his music.
The businessman sidles off.
“The fiend,” Ryo feels the need to say, while Shige just looks disappointed.
“Dammit,” Shige mutters, and wonders if he should have stuffed Tegoshi’s bra with a few more phonebook pages after all.
After that Tegoshi gets asked out on a date by some high school boys going home from cram school and a good-looking college student with spiky hair who’s headed to his part time job as a 7-11 store clerk. A rocker in a leather jacket gives Tegoshi his phone number and winks on his way out the doors, telling the disguised idol to call him.
At the next stop two girls pause on their way in to ask Tegoshi what he does to get his skin so smooth and the closest thing they get to something perverted is when a four-year-old holding his mother’s hand boards the train and inadvertently looks up Tegoshi’s skirt instead of at his mother’s face when she asks him how daycare was today.
“Investigating the dark underbelly of society, huh,” Ryo says, and is tired of holding up the stupid phonebook. He drops it in Shige’s lap and leans back in his seat with a yawn. “Wake me when we get to my stop.”
Shige looks down at the phonebook and seems very slightly devastated.
“Maybe,” he begins a few minutes later, “if I film you from the right angle you can pretend to be a stranger and go up and grab Tegoshi’s…”
Ryo punches him in the ribs again.
Shige grumbles and thinks that maybe he should have gone with that lame invite-a-guest-and-ask-them-lots-of-random-questions-beforehand proposal instead after all.
2.
“The company has finally saved up enough budget in this craptastic economy to tape a test screening for a NewS TV show!” the members get told Friday evening, right before they are leaving work for the night. “There will be a meeting regarding this held tomorrow morning at eight. Don’t be late.”
“Yay!” all the members declare, and very excitedly chatter about it amongst themselves the entire way home.
On Saturday morning, when the group arrives bright and early in preparation for the meeting about their new show to start, one of Johnny-san’s overworked and underpaid assistants comes barging into the meeting room before it can begin. He eyes NewS, shakes his head, and then stands on his toes to whisper quickly in their manager’s ear.
Their manager sighs.
“Never mind,” he says once the assistant leaves, and looks defeated, “Apparently last night, Kamenashi-kun had an incident with a transvestite that involved alcohol, a game of Ouji-sama, and things going into places that should never involve a Johnny’s idol and a video camera. In light of this craptastic economy, our taping budget has officially become cover up money.”
“Oh,” NewS members say, and do their best not to look too disappointed in light of things.
An uncomfortable silence follows.
Eventually, Massu raises his hand. “I don’t get what you mean when you say it involved things going into places,” he says, looking genuinely confused.
Everyone laughs nervously and rushes him out of the room.
3.
“It’s a brand new, all-Johnny’s quiz show,” management writes on the e-mail that has been sent to all of the currently debuted members of the company. “It will be called Are You Smarter than a Johnny’s Idol and is modeled after that American game show with the redneck and the small children."
The reference earns a lot of blank looks.
“Each week a different group of Johnny’s idols will make a guest appearance on the show and pit their intelligence up against a set of grade schoolers, a set of middle schoolers, and then a set of high schoolers. The winning team from each round will get lots of fun prizes from our sponsors, while the losing team will be horribly, horribly humiliated on national television by a punishment game, also courtesy of our sponsors. We think that this program is going to be a huge ratings hit and make each group that appears on it even more popular than they already are. It will also be a one of a kind show in that it involves a fusion of the western win-to-earn-rewards-based game show system and the eastern win-to-avoid-punishment-based game show styles.”
“Prizes!” some of the Johnnies glee to themselves when they read this, and miss the point of the last sentence entirely because it is too long and has a lot of weird dashes.
“Please keep an eye out on your schedules for last minute pencil-in appearances on this program from week to week, as when each group will appear is going to be a surprise to everyone each time,” the E-mail says, and with that, finishes the main body of text.
But then, down at the bottom, there is also an addendum that says:
“Due to contractual negotiations with the studio, the following people are banned from ever appearing on the show, for fear of alienating viewers by having the unfair advantage of higher education.”
The list includes:
Kato Shigeaki
Tegoshi Yuya
Yamashita Tomohisa
Koyama Keichiro
Sakurai Sho
Nakamaru Yuichi
“Yay!” Most of the idols cheer once they’re done reading, still buoyed by the possibility of prizes.
“Whew,” Nakamaru and Sho both breathe, because yet another show to be on might cut into their precious little private time.
On the other hand, most of NewS can only think, “Dammit,” and delete the E-mail from their inboxes permanently.
“How is there such a thing a being too smart for a TV show?! This isn’t fair!” Shige demands hotly, while Tegoshi speculates on whether he can e-mail management and promise to act dumb for laughs again, like he did on Utaban that one time in 2007.
In the meantime Massu wonders if he can go on the program with just Ryo and have it still be called a guest appearance by NewS, while Ryo scowls to himself and can’t believe they’re giving him even more crap to do on his schedule, do they want him to die before he’s thirty?
4.
“I want to do a TV show with NewS this year no matter what!” Yamapi declares hotly to their manager one morning, after his fifth straight bottle of 5-hour energy and third straight day of getting less than two hours of sleep a night.
He believes he is so passionate about the issue that it is what is currently making the corners of his vision start to artistically blur into shiny moving rainbows; it looks a little bit like what happens when sunlight hits motor oil on water. He takes it as a metaphor to float to the top in the sunshine, or something. He’s not sure.
“I’ve definitely got the time and power, ne! Let’s make this dream come true!” he says.
And then he pumps his fist for emphasis, except that when he does, he forgets that he’s standing and starts to tip over.
Koyama yelps and dives out of his chair to catch him.
A beat.
Then, “Oh really,” their manager asks.
“Um, no,” the rest of NewS decides in that moment, for Yamapi. “Not really.”
The five of them all silently carry their leader to the nearest couch.
5.
“Target sighted,” Yamapi murmurs into his radio as he perches upside down in a tree while peering into the dusty windows of an abandoned storage unit near the docks. “Tegoshi, he’s headed in your direction, ne.”
“I’m ready for him, Leader!” the younger idol chirps.
“Woah, woah, he’s got backup,” Ryo reports in warning. “I’m going to intercept outside. Koyama, on my six.”
“Right!” Koyama agrees readily, and the two oldest members silently drop from their hiding spots on the roof to cut off the newcomers.
From there, the near silent thwip of their shuriken is followed by the quiet thuds of men’s bodies as they hit the floor.
Yamapi looks troubled. “Are we sure there are only two more? Shige, Massu, can you do another sweep from where you are?”
“Sure,” Massu agrees, and the others can hear his smile over the communication links.
“Um, one sec,” Shige replies after a beat, and his voice is followed by what can only be the angry chattering of a rodent. “There are some rats down here,” he explains sheepishly.
Ryo snorts. “I can see it now. Member of a famous idol group-and rumored ninja- killed by angry sewer vermin.”
“Shut up, you’re not the one who had to muck around down here for three hours!” Shige protests.
“Target sighted,” Tegoshi interrupts after a moment. “I’m moving in.”
“Alright,” Yamapi acquiesces. “Take your chance but don’t rush, ne. Massu and Shige are checking for more guys.”
“Right!” Tegoshi breathes, and starts to move. “I’ll be quick, promise!”
True to his word, barely another minute passes before Tegoshi drops down from the ceiling, where he had been holding himself up in the pipes of for the last three hours.
“Who the hell…” their target manages when Tegoshi hits the floor in front of him. It’s all he gets out though, before Tegoshi strikes out with his kunai and rips open the man’s throat.
The youngest NewS member dodges the splattering blood that accompanies his hit, silently flipping backwards and crawling up the wall before disappearing into the ventilation shafts like he’d never been there in the first place.
“Target eliminated,” he reports a little while later, as the man’s body spasms and drops lifelessly to the floor.
“Alright, pull out,” Yamapi instructs, once everything looks to be in order. “Just a reminder, we have a magazine shooting tomorrow morning at eight, ne. Wear bright colors and have your reports ready for shachou afterwards.”
“Roger,” the other five all agree, and silently disappear into the night as well.
On his way home that night, the screen on Yamapi’s built in GPS suddenly flickers and then goes black; when it rights itself there’s no longer a map guiding him home on it, but Johnny-san’s face instead.
“YOU-tachi,” the president says, and Yamapi can only assume this means he’s being simultaneously broadcast to the others as well, “good job on tonight’s mission. The police are on their way. Tomorrow, after the magazine shooting, we’ll have a debriefing, as well as another case that you’ll be working in joint-investigation with the Americans on. It might involve another trip to Hawaii sometime this week. Over and out.”
Yamapi sighs as the image flickers a little before going back to the normal GPS screen; he thinks that it’s tiring being the only group in the jimusho that does this, but as Johnny-san and their manager put it, it works because NewS is the only unit no one would ever suspect of being involved in this sort of thing in the first place.
Still, Yamapi kind of wishes that they could have a TV show instead, like the other groups do.
Because as cool as it sounds in movies and manga, being an adorable idol group by day and a secret gang of ninja assassins by night really isn’t all that fun.
END
EDITS? It is late and I am sleepy.