JE/NEWS- "The Great Brain Hunt"
Title: The Great Brain Hunt
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG for KT’s language
Character/Pairing/s: Uchi and Tego (with cameos by Ryo, Koyama, Shige, Yamapi, and KAT-TUN and mentions of Nagase and Massu)
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness, Yamanade references
Word Count: 3,500
Summary: Uchi is having problems sounding intelligent. Tegoshi makes suggestions
Dedication: bloodybrilliant’s LATE birthday fic! LOL You didn’t leave any specific requests so I had to guess. Hopefully I got something you liked...
A/N: Because the personality gulf between Takenaga and Uchi is like an ocean or two as I see it.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
All Ryo does is dissolve into a helpless fit of giggles when he hears the news. “You’re the smart one?!” he guffaws cutely from the couch, hands on his stomach and mouth wide open. “You?”
Uchi scowls and almost throws the script at his friend, except that he needs it, because he hasn’t memorized any of it yet and filming starts in a few days. “Shut up! When my manager told me I’d be in this, I thought I was going to be Ranmaru, dammit.”
Ryo’s laughter starts up all over again when he hears that, high pitched and wheezy because it’s difficult to breathe. “I can’t decide if you being a brain or you being popular with women is funnier!” he cackles.
Uchi ends up throwing his script at him after all.
But Ryo just catches it-unfazed-and begins to flip through the pages, still in hysterics. “You don’t even know how to say some of these words!”
Uchi pouts and makes a grab across the coffee table to get it back, except fails when Ryo holds it over the side of the couch, out of reach. Uchi sulks. “I can learn how to sound sophisticated! It’s just acting, anyway, right?” he demands.
Ryo snorts. “What, so you think it’s going to be easy to convince people you’re cool and smart?” He grins. “Clearly you didn’t talk to Yoko about what it was like being on Yukan Club.”
Uchi’s eyes go wide when he remembers his former groupmate’s awful pinched-face expressions and how he had just looked sleepy every time the director told him to look like he was thinking. “Oh shit.”
Ryo nods. “Exactly.” He tosses the script back to his younger friend with a smirk. “So, got any bright ideas about how you’re going to handle this?”
Uchi blinks a few times. “Uh…”
He could always run, he supposes. He hears Canada is nice. Or Tahiti. He could use a tan.
Ryo rolls his eyes when he sees Uchi’s eyes glaze over, before reaching forward to flick the younger idol’s nose. “Bet you’re thinking of running.”
“Fuck you,” Uchi replies, intelligently.
Ryo just bursts out laughing again.
~~~~~
Uchi is at the agency diligently studying his lines as he waits for his manager to pick him up later this afternoon, when his first scene of filming is scheduled to shoot on location at the mansion.
He’s supposed to carpool to the set with Tegoshi, who bounces in sometime after lunch with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder that means he just got in from playing a couple hours worth of soccer.
Uchi wonders if that means he’s already memorized everything.
“Eh, Uchi’s great,” Tegoshi says absently, while he’s putting his duffle away and sees Uchi bent over the script with a serious look on his face. “Studying lines so diligently even this close to the filming time means Uchi must be thinking a lot about his character. I guess I still have a long way to go, ne.”
Uchi smiles back at him awkwardly. “Uh, yeah…” He supposes that that’s a yes, Tegoshi’s good on his lines.
Tegoshi finishes putting his stuff away and perches over the back of the couch then, eyes extremely interested as looks at Uchi’s marked up script over the taller idol’s shoulder. “So,” he starts, voice in a low whisper, “how are you going to play Takenaga-kun? Do you have a special image in your head already?”
Uchi blinks and closes his script (because most of the notes on it are doodles and question marks). “Well uh…sure, I guess. I mean…I’m going to play him really smart.”
Tegoshi tilts his head sideways, waiting for elaboration.
Uchi squirms. “Like, really smart.”
Tegoshi’s brow furrows as he considers this. “What kind of really smart?”
Uchi looks disbelievingly at him. “The intelligent kind of smart!! You know what I mean. So smart it’s cool.”
Tegoshi still looks confused. “Like Shige smart, or Kei-chan smart? They’re both intelligent but different, ne. Or Yamashita-kun’s smart and Nakamaru-kun’s smart? They’re also real different from each other and Shige or Kei-chan. Plus, if you want a cool kind of smart, what kind of cool? Like, manly cool, or flashy cool? I think kindness is coolness too, ne, and sometimes Shige looks oddly cool when he’s smirking down at you because he knows something you don’t…”
Uchi’s head hurts. “I uh… I haven’t decided yet?” he says, and tries to hide his embarrassment.
Tegoshi blinks.
Uchi squirms some more.
And then, suddenly, a light goes off behind the younger idol’s eyes as he hits his fist of his left hand against the open palm of his right in realization. “Ah, so that’s what Ryo-kun’s text message from this morning meant, ne.”
Uchi sputters. “What?” He’ll kill Ryo later.
“Don’t worry, Uchi,” Tegoshi assures him, in that superior tone he’s never quite gotten over using even after all this time, “it won’t be difficult to pick a style once you find the right image to work with, ne.” He beams then, and grabs Uchi’s hand. “It’s time for a field study.”
Uchi is very confused, but before he can demand what Ryo’s message had said exactly, he gets dragged out of the room by his smaller costar’s surprisingly iron grasp around his wrist.
“How the hell is studying fields going to help anyone?!” he manages, as the door closes behind them.
~~~~~
“Subject one,” Tegoshi whispers to Uchi obligingly, as the two of them hide out behind a costume rack a few floors up, watching Yamapi in a private room as he lines to himself for his upcoming drama as well. “Leader is smart in a manly way.”
Uchi blinks. “Well then shouldn’t that be the automatic choice?” Smart and cool are Takenaga’s calling cards, after all.
Tegoshi just shushes him with a finger to his lips and points to Yamapi again, eyes saying watch.
In the foreground, Yamapi takes the top off of his Raku Veggie drink and takes a long sip, before standing up and pacing the room, script still in hand.
The top of the bottle is still clutched tightly in his hand.
“White blood cells,” Yamapi is murmuring to himself thoughtfully. “Is like white rice? So… the more you have the better.” Pause. “Or, is that the more you have the fatter you are? Is it both?”
Uchi blinks. Tegoshi watches the whole thing with an oddly tender look on his face. “Leader remembers all the things he has to do by comparing them to things he really loves,” he explains to Uchi. “That’s smart, right?”
“Sure,” Uchi says, and while he was never considered top of the class in any class he’s ever been in, still thinks that there is definitely something odd about this.
“Ah, but no matter how you look at it, rice is good for you,” Yamapi decides, and as he grabs his pen from where it is tucked behind his ear, absently drops the bottle cap without even noticing when it hits the floor in front of him with a clatter. He begins writing a note for himself in his shooting script. “Rice is like white blood cells,” he says out loud, as he finishes, nodding in satisfaction.
Then he tucks the pen back in its place behind his ear, flips a few pages ahead in his script, and at random, whirls and glares in the direction of the door dramatically, arm extended in an accusatory point.
Naturally, he knocks the Raku Veggie drink right off the table as he does, shouting, “We need to give him a blood transfusion…stat!”
The tomato-based vegetable drink splatters all over the floor.
Again, Yamapi doesn’t notice. Instead, he stops, blinks to himself, and then murmurs, “What does stat mean?” He puzzles over it for a little bit, before hitting his fist into his open palm, much like Tegoshi had done earlier. “I’ll ask Shige,” he says to himself, and heads to the door thoughtfully.
Two long strides later-still without noticing the juice on the floor-and Yamapi has left the room, presumably to go in search of his groupmate (or his groupmate’s electronic dictionary).
Uchi’s stares at the puddle on the ground Yamapi leaves behind and thinks his headache from earlier is starting to come back. He turns to look at Tegoshi questioningly.
Tegoshi just looks back with a smile and nod. “Yamashita-kun’s image of smart is also very manly at the same time, right? His concentration level is impenetrable.”
“Let’s move on,” Uchi allows, after a beat.
He decides he is not going to play Takenaga like that, because the staff at the location might hate him for it. Also, he is sure that the mansion has many very expensive rental rugs.
~~~~~
“Subjects two and three,” Tegoshi supplies twenty minutes later, as they sit in the cafeteria watching Koyama from a few feet off like perfect creepers, the oldest NEWS member in the middle of treating a pair of small juniors to lunch after he had found them engaged in a rather fierce quarrel with one another in the hallways a few minutes ago. “Smart and cool in a kind way,” Tegoshi adds, around a mouthful of the curry rice Uchi had just bought him.
Meanwhile, Shige sits beside Koyama at the table, looking bored out of his mind as he picks at the commissary’s slightly soggy ramen bowl (it got soggy in the time it took for him to explain what “stat” meant to Yamapi just now). Tegoshi beams warmly. “And Shige is smart and cool in a superior way. Lucky this is two in one scenario, ne.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Uchi answers, and while he can see how categorizing Yamashita-kun as cool might work he has never imagined Shige or Koyama in the same light, as much as he may enjoy their company. He starts to wonder if this little field trip says more about Tegoshi’s world view than it does about their subjects.
“Now,” Koyama begins two tables away, and with the perfect tone of a very disappointed-yet still very loving-mother. “Why were you two fighting?”
The first junior glares down at his lap despite the nice plate of omurice Koyama has purchased for him getting cold on the table. “Ryohei-kun made fun of my hair,” he sulks, kicking his feet cutely.
Shige rolls his eyes.
Koyama looks horrified and turns to the second junior. “Ryo-chan,” he begins, clucking again in that mother-hen way, “is that true?”
Ryohei, big-eyed and pouting, shakes his head. “I just told Kyouya that his hair looked funny today, is all.”
Shige snorts. “Same thing, isn’t it?”
Koyama gives him a look; Shige shrugs. “What? It’s true.”
Koyama shakes his head. “It’s not the same at all,” he assures his best friend patiently, before turning back to the kids, brow furrowed. He studies Ryohei for a bit, and then studies Kyouya, and after a beat, hits his fist into the open palm of one hand when he thinks he gets it. Uchi wonders if that’s a thing with NEWS, or something.
Koyama beams, full of gentle understanding as he somehow, manages to put the whole situation together in his head. “Kyo-chan is sensitive because he got his hair cut just yesterday, right?”
Kyouya nods. “Kei-chan noticed?”
Koyama beams and reaches out to ruffle said haircut. “Of course! It’s shorter on the side than it was when I saw Kyo-chan in the hallway yesterday morning. It suits you, ne.”
Kyouya blushes.
“And Ryo-chan noticed too, right?” Koyama adds then, making the juniors remember why they’re here again.
Ryohei nods, but can’t look either Koyama or Ryohei in the eye. “Yup.”
“But because Ryo-chan has always been really smart and good at seeing details,” Koyama begins, “Ryo-chan also noticed this part, right?”
Koyama reaches out to touch a tiny, stray cowlick at the very back of Kyouya’s new haircut. “This part.”
Ryohei nods. “It messes up the whole style if you just leave it like that!”
Kyouya blinks. “Eh….” He reaches around to the back of his head and finally notices the bit that’s sticking out; leftover bed head he hadn’t quite gotten to this morning. “I didn’t even notice…”
Koyama smiles warmly. “Ah, so when Ryo-chan said Kyo-chan’s hair looked weird he wasn’t making fun of it; he was just trying to warn you, right?”
Ryohei nods, sheepishly. “I was gonna tell him.”
“But Kyo-chan, who wasn’t confident in his new haircut yet, thought he was being made fun of, so he hit Ryo-chan, right?”
Kyouya nods too, ashamed.
“And so that’s why you two were fighting!” Koyama claps once he gets it. “It was just a misunderstanding amongst friends. That’s kind of cute.”
The two juniors look at each other shyly.
“Sorry,” they both blurt, and then turn bright pink in the cheeks.
Koyama can’t get over how cute that is either. “So we’ve all learned our lessons right?” he declares, and reaches out to ruffle the kids’ hair again, because he can’t help it. “Fighting recklessly like this isn’t good. You have to try and understand each other’s feelings before anything else.”
The kids nod, and Koyama beams and goes to buy everyone some ice cream as a reward.
A few chairs down, Tegoshi nudges Uchi again. “See? Kei-chan’s image is smart when it comes to understanding people’s feelings and getting other people to understand someone’s feelings.”
Uchi supposes that makes sense, but he’s pretty sure Takenaga isn’t going to be running around buying ice cream and declaring, “Cute!!” whenever he sees a misunderstanding between friends. “Too mom-like,” he determines, which makes Tegoshi shrug but agree anyway.
In the meantime, Shige is left alone at the table with the kids, who are now happily eating their omurice and chatting like nothing happened.
Feeling the need to impart some of his own wisdom on them after Koyama’s admittedly impressive display, Shige starts to sit up a little taller after a second and clears his throat. “You know,” he begins, and the two juniors look up at him with big, trusting eyes, “you also shouldn’t fight like that because engaging in violent acts in public can get you arrested and put in jail.”
The two juniors’ faces dissolve into wide-eyed horror.
Shige blinks. “What? It’s true.” Pause. “What I’m saying is, if you really do have to pick a fight with someone, you should do it in a civilized way. With litigation.”
Then, very calmly, Shige hands each of them a napkin and tells them not to eat so messily. He goes back to his own lunch.
Uchi is torn between being horrified and being slightly amused. “Stupid gorilla,” he mutters, while Tegoshi finishes his lunch and says, “Shige’s image has an intelligence that is cool and straightforward, even if sometimes it’s kind of harsh, ne.”
Uchi considers it for a little while. “Nah,” he decides eventually, “I think Takenaga is supposed to get a girlfriend later in the series. We probably have to keep that believable.”
Tegoshi considers this as well. “Fair enough.”
They move on.
~~~~~
“Subject four,” Tegoshi murmurs a little while later, as he and Uchi are squashed in the very back of the air vent above KAT-TUN’s dressing room. Nakamaru is there, sitting in a corner off to the side even though he’s the only one currently in the oversized room. He has on a gray and navy argyle sweater-vest and is bent very intently over a book that is about the effects of global warming on the polar icecaps. It has two very sad looking polar bears on the cover and makes him look incredibly intelligent every time he flips the page.
“How did you know how to get in here?!” Uchi feels the need to demand, because this is, admittedly, kind of weird. And also kind of cramped.
“Nagase-kun showed me,” Tegoshi explains breezily. “I think he was crawling around through the vents when he was working on his spy drama, ne. He says it’s also a good way to avoid angry manager-sans.”
“Creepy,” Uchi replies.
“Nagase-kun has his own unique kind of smartness too,” Tegoshi says, sweetly. Uchi begins to wonder if everyone is a little bit smart in Tegoshi’s book.
“Shhhh,” Tegoshi tells him, when he looks like he’s going to ask again. “They’re here.”
They being the rest of Nakamaru’s group; there is apparently some sort of argument about choreography blocking, or Kame stealing Koki’s NEWS member, or Ueda farting in the car, or all of the above.
“You were standing in front of me the entire time. Not that I mind, but it seems like it would be redundant for the viewers,” Kame says to Jin. “We should do a rotation at the bridge.”
Jin sees snacks in the back of the room and goes towards them; Kame finally notices that he still has his earbuds in.
“Seriously,” Koki says in the meantime, nudging Kame in the arm. “Tegoshi’s mine.” Pause. “Wasn’t yours Kusano?”
Kame blinks. “What are you talking about?”
Koki sulks. “You weren’t listening to me at all were you?”
“It really wasn’t me!” Taguchi feels the need to interject randomly at that point, looking at his groupmates with big sad eyes. “I swear it was Ueda.”
Ueda punches him in the arm.
“Like I said, I don’t care who farted, just give us a fuckin’ window warning next time!” Koki says, and punches Taguchi’s other arm.
“They’re out of the lotus cakes!!!” Jin shrieks from the back of the room suddenly, high pitched like a fire alarm. He’s finally deigned to remove his earbuds.
“First come, first serve, bitch,” Koki cackles, and probably ate them this morning.
“Just eat the sesame ones,” Kame sighs. “They all taste the same anyway.”
“YOU eat the sesame!” Jin shouts back. “I specifically requested the lotus.”
Ueda plops down in the armchair. “Just go down the hall and ask NEWS for theirs; half of them are scared of you so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Jin sulks. “If I do that Ryo-chan will call me fat again.”
Taguchi tries to be helpful. “Then maybe this is a good thing, because you shouldn’t be eating cakes in the first place.”
“Die in a fire,” Jin tells him. “And stop farting in the van.”
Taguchi sulks. “It wasn’t me!”
“About the dance,” Kame starts, when he notices Jin is listening to people again, “maybe we could…”
Jin pops his earbuds back in and sulkily grabs a handful of snack cakes with green wrappers. “Green tea is now mine,” he declares, and stretches out on the couch. “No one take them.”
Koki goes to the snack table and pockets the rest of the green tea flavored cakes while Jin isn’t looking.
Taguchi (or Ueda) farts.
“Would you stop that?!” Koki screams, and ends up throwing the green tea cakes at Taguchi’s head.
“HEY!” Jin protests when he sees them, “Those are mine!”
Koki throws some at him too.
In the corner, Nakamaru simply keeps reading.
None of his groupmates notice him.
“Yup, Nakamaru-kun’s image is smart and cool in an ordinary way,” Tegoshi diagnoses a beat later, while Uchi is busy recoiling in horror at whoever’s flatulence is making its way into the air vents.
Tegoshi smiles and pinches his nose too. “Massu always says Nakamaru-kun’s normalness is a calming presence.”
Uchi makes a face. “Well yeah. The only other option he has is to get involved with all of his groupmates’ stupi…” he trails off, suddenly.
And without knowing he’s doing it, hits the fist of his left hand into the open palm of his right. “I see.”
Tegoshi blinks, somehow still looking cheerful despite having to pinch his nose shut like he is. “You see?”
Uchi grins. “I see.” Pause. “So…can we please hurry up and get out of here now?”
Tegoshi happily agrees.
~~~~~
Later that month, as they film a scene where Kame and Tegoshi are squabbling on the couch and shrieking at each other in the foreground, Uchi sits quietly by himself in an armchair in the back, face blank and wearing a normal-looking black-and-white button-up cardigan as he reads a book about the devastating effects of large scale chemical fertilizer use on the food chain.
“He looks surprisingly convincing like that,” the producer says as he watches the scene on one of the monitors lined up at the edge of the set. “And the sweater was a nice touch. Admittedly, I was kind of worried when I heard the casting news. I thought it would be another Yukan Club.”
Uchi’s manager just looks proud. “He told me that he wanted to play Takenaga as cool but normal compared to everyone else in the house. I thought that might keep him from standing out, but somehow, in an atmosphere this ridiculous, it doesn’t.”
The producer blinks thoughtfully. “Hey, do you think that maybe Uchi-kun is secretly smart about stuff like that?”
A moment.
Then they both burst out laughing and go back to work.
END
EDITS?
Universe: JE/ NewS
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG for KT’s language
Character/Pairing/s: Uchi and Tego (with cameos by Ryo, Koyama, Shige, Yamapi, and KAT-TUN and mentions of Nagase and Massu)
Warnings/Spoilers: Randomness, Yamanade references
Word Count: 3,500
Summary: Uchi is having problems sounding intelligent. Tegoshi makes suggestions
Dedication: bloodybrilliant’s LATE birthday fic! LOL You didn’t leave any specific requests so I had to guess. Hopefully I got something you liked...
A/N: Because the personality gulf between Takenaga and Uchi is like an ocean or two as I see it.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
All Ryo does is dissolve into a helpless fit of giggles when he hears the news. “You’re the smart one?!” he guffaws cutely from the couch, hands on his stomach and mouth wide open. “You?”
Uchi scowls and almost throws the script at his friend, except that he needs it, because he hasn’t memorized any of it yet and filming starts in a few days. “Shut up! When my manager told me I’d be in this, I thought I was going to be Ranmaru, dammit.”
Ryo’s laughter starts up all over again when he hears that, high pitched and wheezy because it’s difficult to breathe. “I can’t decide if you being a brain or you being popular with women is funnier!” he cackles.
Uchi ends up throwing his script at him after all.
But Ryo just catches it-unfazed-and begins to flip through the pages, still in hysterics. “You don’t even know how to say some of these words!”
Uchi pouts and makes a grab across the coffee table to get it back, except fails when Ryo holds it over the side of the couch, out of reach. Uchi sulks. “I can learn how to sound sophisticated! It’s just acting, anyway, right?” he demands.
Ryo snorts. “What, so you think it’s going to be easy to convince people you’re cool and smart?” He grins. “Clearly you didn’t talk to Yoko about what it was like being on Yukan Club.”
Uchi’s eyes go wide when he remembers his former groupmate’s awful pinched-face expressions and how he had just looked sleepy every time the director told him to look like he was thinking. “Oh shit.”
Ryo nods. “Exactly.” He tosses the script back to his younger friend with a smirk. “So, got any bright ideas about how you’re going to handle this?”
Uchi blinks a few times. “Uh…”
He could always run, he supposes. He hears Canada is nice. Or Tahiti. He could use a tan.
Ryo rolls his eyes when he sees Uchi’s eyes glaze over, before reaching forward to flick the younger idol’s nose. “Bet you’re thinking of running.”
“Fuck you,” Uchi replies, intelligently.
Ryo just bursts out laughing again.
~~~~~
Uchi is at the agency diligently studying his lines as he waits for his manager to pick him up later this afternoon, when his first scene of filming is scheduled to shoot on location at the mansion.
He’s supposed to carpool to the set with Tegoshi, who bounces in sometime after lunch with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder that means he just got in from playing a couple hours worth of soccer.
Uchi wonders if that means he’s already memorized everything.
“Eh, Uchi’s great,” Tegoshi says absently, while he’s putting his duffle away and sees Uchi bent over the script with a serious look on his face. “Studying lines so diligently even this close to the filming time means Uchi must be thinking a lot about his character. I guess I still have a long way to go, ne.”
Uchi smiles back at him awkwardly. “Uh, yeah…” He supposes that that’s a yes, Tegoshi’s good on his lines.
Tegoshi finishes putting his stuff away and perches over the back of the couch then, eyes extremely interested as looks at Uchi’s marked up script over the taller idol’s shoulder. “So,” he starts, voice in a low whisper, “how are you going to play Takenaga-kun? Do you have a special image in your head already?”
Uchi blinks and closes his script (because most of the notes on it are doodles and question marks). “Well uh…sure, I guess. I mean…I’m going to play him really smart.”
Tegoshi tilts his head sideways, waiting for elaboration.
Uchi squirms. “Like, really smart.”
Tegoshi’s brow furrows as he considers this. “What kind of really smart?”
Uchi looks disbelievingly at him. “The intelligent kind of smart!! You know what I mean. So smart it’s cool.”
Tegoshi still looks confused. “Like Shige smart, or Kei-chan smart? They’re both intelligent but different, ne. Or Yamashita-kun’s smart and Nakamaru-kun’s smart? They’re also real different from each other and Shige or Kei-chan. Plus, if you want a cool kind of smart, what kind of cool? Like, manly cool, or flashy cool? I think kindness is coolness too, ne, and sometimes Shige looks oddly cool when he’s smirking down at you because he knows something you don’t…”
Uchi’s head hurts. “I uh… I haven’t decided yet?” he says, and tries to hide his embarrassment.
Tegoshi blinks.
Uchi squirms some more.
And then, suddenly, a light goes off behind the younger idol’s eyes as he hits his fist of his left hand against the open palm of his right in realization. “Ah, so that’s what Ryo-kun’s text message from this morning meant, ne.”
Uchi sputters. “What?” He’ll kill Ryo later.
“Don’t worry, Uchi,” Tegoshi assures him, in that superior tone he’s never quite gotten over using even after all this time, “it won’t be difficult to pick a style once you find the right image to work with, ne.” He beams then, and grabs Uchi’s hand. “It’s time for a field study.”
Uchi is very confused, but before he can demand what Ryo’s message had said exactly, he gets dragged out of the room by his smaller costar’s surprisingly iron grasp around his wrist.
“How the hell is studying fields going to help anyone?!” he manages, as the door closes behind them.
~~~~~
“Subject one,” Tegoshi whispers to Uchi obligingly, as the two of them hide out behind a costume rack a few floors up, watching Yamapi in a private room as he lines to himself for his upcoming drama as well. “Leader is smart in a manly way.”
Uchi blinks. “Well then shouldn’t that be the automatic choice?” Smart and cool are Takenaga’s calling cards, after all.
Tegoshi just shushes him with a finger to his lips and points to Yamapi again, eyes saying watch.
In the foreground, Yamapi takes the top off of his Raku Veggie drink and takes a long sip, before standing up and pacing the room, script still in hand.
The top of the bottle is still clutched tightly in his hand.
“White blood cells,” Yamapi is murmuring to himself thoughtfully. “Is like white rice? So… the more you have the better.” Pause. “Or, is that the more you have the fatter you are? Is it both?”
Uchi blinks. Tegoshi watches the whole thing with an oddly tender look on his face. “Leader remembers all the things he has to do by comparing them to things he really loves,” he explains to Uchi. “That’s smart, right?”
“Sure,” Uchi says, and while he was never considered top of the class in any class he’s ever been in, still thinks that there is definitely something odd about this.
“Ah, but no matter how you look at it, rice is good for you,” Yamapi decides, and as he grabs his pen from where it is tucked behind his ear, absently drops the bottle cap without even noticing when it hits the floor in front of him with a clatter. He begins writing a note for himself in his shooting script. “Rice is like white blood cells,” he says out loud, as he finishes, nodding in satisfaction.
Then he tucks the pen back in its place behind his ear, flips a few pages ahead in his script, and at random, whirls and glares in the direction of the door dramatically, arm extended in an accusatory point.
Naturally, he knocks the Raku Veggie drink right off the table as he does, shouting, “We need to give him a blood transfusion…stat!”
The tomato-based vegetable drink splatters all over the floor.
Again, Yamapi doesn’t notice. Instead, he stops, blinks to himself, and then murmurs, “What does stat mean?” He puzzles over it for a little bit, before hitting his fist into his open palm, much like Tegoshi had done earlier. “I’ll ask Shige,” he says to himself, and heads to the door thoughtfully.
Two long strides later-still without noticing the juice on the floor-and Yamapi has left the room, presumably to go in search of his groupmate (or his groupmate’s electronic dictionary).
Uchi’s stares at the puddle on the ground Yamapi leaves behind and thinks his headache from earlier is starting to come back. He turns to look at Tegoshi questioningly.
Tegoshi just looks back with a smile and nod. “Yamashita-kun’s image of smart is also very manly at the same time, right? His concentration level is impenetrable.”
“Let’s move on,” Uchi allows, after a beat.
He decides he is not going to play Takenaga like that, because the staff at the location might hate him for it. Also, he is sure that the mansion has many very expensive rental rugs.
~~~~~
“Subjects two and three,” Tegoshi supplies twenty minutes later, as they sit in the cafeteria watching Koyama from a few feet off like perfect creepers, the oldest NEWS member in the middle of treating a pair of small juniors to lunch after he had found them engaged in a rather fierce quarrel with one another in the hallways a few minutes ago. “Smart and cool in a kind way,” Tegoshi adds, around a mouthful of the curry rice Uchi had just bought him.
Meanwhile, Shige sits beside Koyama at the table, looking bored out of his mind as he picks at the commissary’s slightly soggy ramen bowl (it got soggy in the time it took for him to explain what “stat” meant to Yamapi just now). Tegoshi beams warmly. “And Shige is smart and cool in a superior way. Lucky this is two in one scenario, ne.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Uchi answers, and while he can see how categorizing Yamashita-kun as cool might work he has never imagined Shige or Koyama in the same light, as much as he may enjoy their company. He starts to wonder if this little field trip says more about Tegoshi’s world view than it does about their subjects.
“Now,” Koyama begins two tables away, and with the perfect tone of a very disappointed-yet still very loving-mother. “Why were you two fighting?”
The first junior glares down at his lap despite the nice plate of omurice Koyama has purchased for him getting cold on the table. “Ryohei-kun made fun of my hair,” he sulks, kicking his feet cutely.
Shige rolls his eyes.
Koyama looks horrified and turns to the second junior. “Ryo-chan,” he begins, clucking again in that mother-hen way, “is that true?”
Ryohei, big-eyed and pouting, shakes his head. “I just told Kyouya that his hair looked funny today, is all.”
Shige snorts. “Same thing, isn’t it?”
Koyama gives him a look; Shige shrugs. “What? It’s true.”
Koyama shakes his head. “It’s not the same at all,” he assures his best friend patiently, before turning back to the kids, brow furrowed. He studies Ryohei for a bit, and then studies Kyouya, and after a beat, hits his fist into the open palm of one hand when he thinks he gets it. Uchi wonders if that’s a thing with NEWS, or something.
Koyama beams, full of gentle understanding as he somehow, manages to put the whole situation together in his head. “Kyo-chan is sensitive because he got his hair cut just yesterday, right?”
Kyouya nods. “Kei-chan noticed?”
Koyama beams and reaches out to ruffle said haircut. “Of course! It’s shorter on the side than it was when I saw Kyo-chan in the hallway yesterday morning. It suits you, ne.”
Kyouya blushes.
“And Ryo-chan noticed too, right?” Koyama adds then, making the juniors remember why they’re here again.
Ryohei nods, but can’t look either Koyama or Ryohei in the eye. “Yup.”
“But because Ryo-chan has always been really smart and good at seeing details,” Koyama begins, “Ryo-chan also noticed this part, right?”
Koyama reaches out to touch a tiny, stray cowlick at the very back of Kyouya’s new haircut. “This part.”
Ryohei nods. “It messes up the whole style if you just leave it like that!”
Kyouya blinks. “Eh….” He reaches around to the back of his head and finally notices the bit that’s sticking out; leftover bed head he hadn’t quite gotten to this morning. “I didn’t even notice…”
Koyama smiles warmly. “Ah, so when Ryo-chan said Kyo-chan’s hair looked weird he wasn’t making fun of it; he was just trying to warn you, right?”
Ryohei nods, sheepishly. “I was gonna tell him.”
“But Kyo-chan, who wasn’t confident in his new haircut yet, thought he was being made fun of, so he hit Ryo-chan, right?”
Kyouya nods too, ashamed.
“And so that’s why you two were fighting!” Koyama claps once he gets it. “It was just a misunderstanding amongst friends. That’s kind of cute.”
The two juniors look at each other shyly.
“Sorry,” they both blurt, and then turn bright pink in the cheeks.
Koyama can’t get over how cute that is either. “So we’ve all learned our lessons right?” he declares, and reaches out to ruffle the kids’ hair again, because he can’t help it. “Fighting recklessly like this isn’t good. You have to try and understand each other’s feelings before anything else.”
The kids nod, and Koyama beams and goes to buy everyone some ice cream as a reward.
A few chairs down, Tegoshi nudges Uchi again. “See? Kei-chan’s image is smart when it comes to understanding people’s feelings and getting other people to understand someone’s feelings.”
Uchi supposes that makes sense, but he’s pretty sure Takenaga isn’t going to be running around buying ice cream and declaring, “Cute!!” whenever he sees a misunderstanding between friends. “Too mom-like,” he determines, which makes Tegoshi shrug but agree anyway.
In the meantime, Shige is left alone at the table with the kids, who are now happily eating their omurice and chatting like nothing happened.
Feeling the need to impart some of his own wisdom on them after Koyama’s admittedly impressive display, Shige starts to sit up a little taller after a second and clears his throat. “You know,” he begins, and the two juniors look up at him with big, trusting eyes, “you also shouldn’t fight like that because engaging in violent acts in public can get you arrested and put in jail.”
The two juniors’ faces dissolve into wide-eyed horror.
Shige blinks. “What? It’s true.” Pause. “What I’m saying is, if you really do have to pick a fight with someone, you should do it in a civilized way. With litigation.”
Then, very calmly, Shige hands each of them a napkin and tells them not to eat so messily. He goes back to his own lunch.
Uchi is torn between being horrified and being slightly amused. “Stupid gorilla,” he mutters, while Tegoshi finishes his lunch and says, “Shige’s image has an intelligence that is cool and straightforward, even if sometimes it’s kind of harsh, ne.”
Uchi considers it for a little while. “Nah,” he decides eventually, “I think Takenaga is supposed to get a girlfriend later in the series. We probably have to keep that believable.”
Tegoshi considers this as well. “Fair enough.”
They move on.
~~~~~
“Subject four,” Tegoshi murmurs a little while later, as he and Uchi are squashed in the very back of the air vent above KAT-TUN’s dressing room. Nakamaru is there, sitting in a corner off to the side even though he’s the only one currently in the oversized room. He has on a gray and navy argyle sweater-vest and is bent very intently over a book that is about the effects of global warming on the polar icecaps. It has two very sad looking polar bears on the cover and makes him look incredibly intelligent every time he flips the page.
“How did you know how to get in here?!” Uchi feels the need to demand, because this is, admittedly, kind of weird. And also kind of cramped.
“Nagase-kun showed me,” Tegoshi explains breezily. “I think he was crawling around through the vents when he was working on his spy drama, ne. He says it’s also a good way to avoid angry manager-sans.”
“Creepy,” Uchi replies.
“Nagase-kun has his own unique kind of smartness too,” Tegoshi says, sweetly. Uchi begins to wonder if everyone is a little bit smart in Tegoshi’s book.
“Shhhh,” Tegoshi tells him, when he looks like he’s going to ask again. “They’re here.”
They being the rest of Nakamaru’s group; there is apparently some sort of argument about choreography blocking, or Kame stealing Koki’s NEWS member, or Ueda farting in the car, or all of the above.
“You were standing in front of me the entire time. Not that I mind, but it seems like it would be redundant for the viewers,” Kame says to Jin. “We should do a rotation at the bridge.”
Jin sees snacks in the back of the room and goes towards them; Kame finally notices that he still has his earbuds in.
“Seriously,” Koki says in the meantime, nudging Kame in the arm. “Tegoshi’s mine.” Pause. “Wasn’t yours Kusano?”
Kame blinks. “What are you talking about?”
Koki sulks. “You weren’t listening to me at all were you?”
“It really wasn’t me!” Taguchi feels the need to interject randomly at that point, looking at his groupmates with big sad eyes. “I swear it was Ueda.”
Ueda punches him in the arm.
“Like I said, I don’t care who farted, just give us a fuckin’ window warning next time!” Koki says, and punches Taguchi’s other arm.
“They’re out of the lotus cakes!!!” Jin shrieks from the back of the room suddenly, high pitched like a fire alarm. He’s finally deigned to remove his earbuds.
“First come, first serve, bitch,” Koki cackles, and probably ate them this morning.
“Just eat the sesame ones,” Kame sighs. “They all taste the same anyway.”
“YOU eat the sesame!” Jin shouts back. “I specifically requested the lotus.”
Ueda plops down in the armchair. “Just go down the hall and ask NEWS for theirs; half of them are scared of you so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Jin sulks. “If I do that Ryo-chan will call me fat again.”
Taguchi tries to be helpful. “Then maybe this is a good thing, because you shouldn’t be eating cakes in the first place.”
“Die in a fire,” Jin tells him. “And stop farting in the van.”
Taguchi sulks. “It wasn’t me!”
“About the dance,” Kame starts, when he notices Jin is listening to people again, “maybe we could…”
Jin pops his earbuds back in and sulkily grabs a handful of snack cakes with green wrappers. “Green tea is now mine,” he declares, and stretches out on the couch. “No one take them.”
Koki goes to the snack table and pockets the rest of the green tea flavored cakes while Jin isn’t looking.
Taguchi (or Ueda) farts.
“Would you stop that?!” Koki screams, and ends up throwing the green tea cakes at Taguchi’s head.
“HEY!” Jin protests when he sees them, “Those are mine!”
Koki throws some at him too.
In the corner, Nakamaru simply keeps reading.
None of his groupmates notice him.
“Yup, Nakamaru-kun’s image is smart and cool in an ordinary way,” Tegoshi diagnoses a beat later, while Uchi is busy recoiling in horror at whoever’s flatulence is making its way into the air vents.
Tegoshi smiles and pinches his nose too. “Massu always says Nakamaru-kun’s normalness is a calming presence.”
Uchi makes a face. “Well yeah. The only other option he has is to get involved with all of his groupmates’ stupi…” he trails off, suddenly.
And without knowing he’s doing it, hits the fist of his left hand into the open palm of his right. “I see.”
Tegoshi blinks, somehow still looking cheerful despite having to pinch his nose shut like he is. “You see?”
Uchi grins. “I see.” Pause. “So…can we please hurry up and get out of here now?”
Tegoshi happily agrees.
~~~~~
Later that month, as they film a scene where Kame and Tegoshi are squabbling on the couch and shrieking at each other in the foreground, Uchi sits quietly by himself in an armchair in the back, face blank and wearing a normal-looking black-and-white button-up cardigan as he reads a book about the devastating effects of large scale chemical fertilizer use on the food chain.
“He looks surprisingly convincing like that,” the producer says as he watches the scene on one of the monitors lined up at the edge of the set. “And the sweater was a nice touch. Admittedly, I was kind of worried when I heard the casting news. I thought it would be another Yukan Club.”
Uchi’s manager just looks proud. “He told me that he wanted to play Takenaga as cool but normal compared to everyone else in the house. I thought that might keep him from standing out, but somehow, in an atmosphere this ridiculous, it doesn’t.”
The producer blinks thoughtfully. “Hey, do you think that maybe Uchi-kun is secretly smart about stuff like that?”
A moment.
Then they both burst out laughing and go back to work.
END
EDITS?