JE/NEWS- "One Thousand and One NEWS Nippon Nights" (6/8)
*****
“It’s a story about the most important thing in the world,” Massu explains solemnly, when Yamashita-kun asks him, and gets everyone’s attention with that very serious, very honest statement. Koyama thinks Massu’s story is going to be about friends and family. Yamapi thinks that maybe it will have to do with inner strength. Tegoshi thinks it might have to do with God, while Ryo wonders what the heck Massu can possibly know about leading drama roles.
Shige though, has a sneaking suspicion that this is not going to be about any of those things.
And then Massu begins his story.
*****
The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad (or How Massu Pisses off Arashi Vol. 2)
One day, after the first few hours of rehearsals for their backup dancing on Arashi’s nationwide tour, Massu and the other roller skating backup dancers he is working with happen upon a room where a lavish buffet is spread out, spanning from one wall of the room to the other. The room is unmarked, and given that it is their lunch break and the jimusho usually provides lunch for them (though not usually one this nice), Massu assumes that this is today’s catering, and that Arashi is one of those sempai groups that just get awesome things like this for their shows all the time.
Happy, he grabs a plate and digs in, while his coworkers hang back uncertainly at the sight of such a sumptuous feast. “Masuda-kun,” they ask, voices small, “isn’t that stuff a little too fancy compared to the mass supermarket bentos we got when we worked on any other shows?”
“They’re definitely being nicer to us the more we work, ne?” Massu answers obliviously, and has his plate piled high as he sits down and starts to eat. One dish in particular, which has some of the most amazing pork Massu has ever eaten, warrants seconds before his first entire plate is cleared, and he goes back to pile on the rest of it from the strange small plate it is saran-wrapped in off to the side of the buffet.
There is something incredibly soft and juicy about the pork, to the point that Massu thinks it might just be the pork of his dreams, if only it had been ground up and put into gyoza instead of simmered in this thick ginger sauce (though the sauce is delicious too).
It is while he is putting the last bite of the pork into his mouth when the other kids give a startled gasp and part like the red sea in front of the doorway, where they are watching Massu chow down with barely concealed horror.
One of the stage managers enters the room, takes one look at Massu and the empty plate of pork, and promptly drops his clipboard. “Oh shit,” he exclaims, forgetting that some of the people present are barely fifteen. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh, shit. What are you doing?!”
Massu blinks. “Eating.” He thinks that should be fairly obvious. He indicates his empty plate. “Or, I guess, not eating anymore,” he clarifies, when he realizes that he’s done.
The stage manager looks very, very pale. “Not the pork.”
Massu beams. “It was delicious.”
“Oh god,” stage manager mutters, and runs a hand through his hair. “You all need to get out of here now. The juniors’ bentos are in the dressing room down the hall.” Then he turns around and marches out of the room. He looks like he’s going to throw up.
The juniors in the doorway scatter, and Massu reluctantly leaves the shiny, shiny buffet to follow them.
They make it back to the proper dressing room with the proper food (delivered bentos from a caterer that seems to have trained in the kitchens of the corner convenience store). No one seems to be hungry anymore though, as Massu feels his peers staring at him with varying degrees of pity, anger, and disbelief. It makes Massu feel an animal sort of trepidation as he meets their eyes, like his survival instincts are starting to kick in and prepare him for something, though he isn’t sure what.
A few minutes later, he learns why.
Ninomiya-san and Matsumoto-san suddenly storm into their dressing room, both in high dungeon. “Who ate the pork?” Matsumoto-san demands loudly, crossing his arms and doing that sassy thing with his hips that means he is not amused (or posing for a frontal shot).
As one, all of the juniors turn to point at Massu.
“You,” Ninomiya-kun says, and snaps his fingers in Massu’s direction. “You’re coming with us to make up for your crimes. That was special order organic pork belly from Korea.”
Massu gulps. “I knew it was too delicious to be normal,” he finds himself saying meekly, but the revelation only darkens the look on either of the older idols’ faces. They spin on their heel and head out of the room. “Come with us!”
Massu looks to the other juniors for help, but they are all studiously avoiding eye contact.
He reluctantly follows his irate sempai.
*****
“You could have just eaten the chicken,” Aiba-san says a few minutes later, as the five members of Arashi walk down the street from the arena, in search of a suitable pork substitute for that which was lost.
On Massu’s back, Ninomiya-kun grunts noncommittally. “I don’t feel like chicken. We specially ordered that pork.”
“What if,” Ohno-san begins, thoughtfully, “we disguised the chicken as pork?”
No one answers him.
“Don’t you think that’s a little bit cruel?” Sho-san asks next, as he watches Massu start to sweat as he carries Ninomiya down the street.
“I’m the smallest,” Ninomiya answers, like that makes it okay.
Massu supposes that’s something.
They make it to the corner store before Sho-kun gets an idea. “Hey, I’ll buy you alcohol if you stop making him carry you,” he offers his groupmate. “Whatever you want.”
Nino’s ears perk at the offer. “Import stuff?”
Sho nods. “Import stuff too.”
“Don’t fall for it,” Jun tells him. “It’s a trap to make us show mercy.”
“I’ll buy you Crowne,” Sho says next.
Jun considers this. “Yeah okay, I didn’t want to ride him anyway.”
He and Nino share a perverted look before Nino hops off of Massu’s back. Massu breathes in relief as Sho, Jun, and Nino head into the store from there to get a six-pack and probably some cigarettes while they’re at it.
Aiba smiles at Massu. “That was nice.”
“I’m sorry for everything,” Massu says, in between pants. He wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
“You should have saved the sauce,” Ohno offers. “Then I could have put the chicken in it instead and no one would have been able to tell.”
Massu keeps that in mind for the future.
Meanwhile, a rapid motion in the window catches his attention, and when he looks up and squints a little through the tinted glass, can see Sho waving his arms at Aiba and Ohno in rapid, pointed motions.
Aiba grins and waves back.
Ohno squints and starts responding in a similar furious display of arms before Sho slaps a hand to his forehead and sneaks back outside, while inside, Nino and Jun debate the merits of German beer versus Irish beer.
“Go. Take him back now,” Sho grits out, while Aiba is still waving at him.
“Oh, right, “Aiba-kun murmurs, as if suddenly remembering something very important. He turns back to Massu. “We should go, before they remember about the pork.”
“Chicken,” Ohno corrects. “We’re going to replace it with chicken, remember?”
Massu is confused; Sho looks pained. “Right,” he says eventually, “Go do that. Quickly.”
Aiba motions to Massu to follow him, and as instructed, they make their way back to the arena in quick, slightly-ridiculous looking speed-walking strides.
When they get back to the arena a little while later, Aiba walks Massu back to the juniors’ area while Ohno sneaks off, ostensibly to see if Japanese chicken can be disguised as Korean pork.
“Thank you,” Massu says, and bows to Aiba as they reach the door.
Aiba bows back, for some inexplicable reason. “Thank you!” he answers brightly, before turning around to try and join Ohno in his experiment. He has a theory that first you have to convince the chicken that it’s a pig first, before you can turn it into pork.
Meanwhile, Massu ducks back into the juniors’ room, where he finds a candlelight vigil in progress, with one of his pictures taped to the wall.
The others freeze when they see him.
“You’re alive!” they cry in relief. “You made it! How are you not dead?”
“Booze,” Massu answers, still panting a little bit from all the walking and carrying and apparent near-death experiences Arashi had put him through just now.
The other juniors look at him like he’s a hero. “You’re indestructible!” they exclaim, and admire how strong he and fierce he looks right now. Little do they know that the face he’s making is because Massu is having a little bit of indigestion right now, from all the exercise he’d had to do after such a big lunch.
“If you can survive Arashi’s wrath, you can survive anything,” the other juniors realize, and the candlelight vigil abruptly changes to a candlelight celebration in Massu’s honor.
Meanwhile, back at the liquor store, Jun and Nino finally agree on Guinness, Sho shells out way too much money for the sake of a junior whose name he doesn’t even remember, and in the dining room, Aiba sweet talks some chicken into the remnants of the sweet pork ginger sauce while Ohno keeps lookout at the door.
END
*****
Everyone stares at Massu as he finishes his story, grinning proudly to himself. “The end,” he finishes with a flourish, and there is an awkward pause before Koyama starts to applaud automatically, because he isn’t really sure what to say and no one can complain about applause.
“Er… what lesson was that supposed to be, Massu?” Tegoshi asks, far less concerned about the things Koyama is complained about. “I don’t know if I got it, ne.”
Massu blinks. “Always ask who the food belongs to before you eat it.”
The rest of NEWS considers this. Shige frowns. “When we first debuted didn’t you always end up eating one more bento than was yours and someone else would have to go without?”
Massu looks thoughtful. “Did I?”
“Yes!” everyone else says, and Yamashita-kun can’t help it, he starts to laugh.
Massu lights up at the sound of it. “So the story was good?”
“Masuda-san is funny,” Yamashita-kun answers vaguely, and earns a few appreciative looks for his diplomacy from the other members.
“I guess,” Yamapi begins, ever the responsible leader, “that every lesson you learn is an important one, right? Massu hasn’t eaten anyone else’s food since we came back, right?”
“Er, right,” Koyama agrees, smiling optimistically. Then he changes the subject. “So uh, that just leaves Shige, right?”
“Shige and me,” Yamapi clarifies, sitting up a bit straighter. “I have another one I want to tell Yamashita-kun.” Pause. “Of course, only if he wants.”
“I’d like that very much,” Yamashita-kun says, because it’s hard to say no to someone as famous as Yamapi.
“But Shige should go first, to be fair,” Yamapi amends.
“No, it’s fine. I don’t really want to,” Shige says, with a wave.
The rest of NEWS looks at him in horror. “You really have nothing to say to your kouhai about becoming a successful idol?” Koyama asks, and gives Shige one of those telltale looks of his that remind Shige of the way his mother gives his father her telltale looks.
He sighs. “Okay fine, I’ll go tomorrow. If Yamashita-kun wants.”
Yamashita-kun smiles. “Everyone always says Shige is interesting, so I’d like to hear Shige tell a story too.”
Shige, slightly flattered, manages a smile. “Well, okay then. Same time tomorrow?”
“Same time tomorrow!” everyone agrees, and Koyama picks Yamashita-kun off of his lap and sets him on the floor with an encouraging ruffle of hair.
*****
Shige finishes Massu’s story with the promise of another one the following day and is, much like the Massu in his story, greeted with silence.
“Okay, what is it now?” he growls, waiting for some sort of harsh criticism.
“Is pork from Korea really that good?” Massu asks, looking thoughtful and a little bit hungry.
“I think Matsumoto likes Johnny Walker Blue Label more than Crowne,” Ryo adds. “I don’t know how he feels about Guinness.”
Yamapi raises his hand to ask the next question. “Does Arashi really get custom buffets? Did I miss a rumor about this?”
“And for the record, Matsumoto-kun is actually pretty kind to me, when he remembers to talk to me,” Massu adds after a moment.
“I already said that people are allowed to take a few liberties with a work of fiction!” Shige argues. “Stories without conflict aren’t stories, they’re boring. Conflict is what keeps people interested.”
“Maybe you should have used KAT-TUN instead then,” Ryo says.
Shige makes a distasteful expression. “Isn’t that kind of cliché by now? I was trying to have an original thought, okay.”
Ryo shrugs. “Original is good, but unbelievable kind of ruins the effect.”
Shige rubs his temples and waits for Koyama and Tegoshi to speak up next, because of course they’re going to. Of course.
He doesn’t have to wait long. “How come you kept changing the honorifics you used with Arashi in the narrative?” Tegoshi pipes up. “It was confusing when it was inconsistent like that. Did you do that on purpose or was it just something that happened as you went on and got more comfortable with the story?”
Koyama beams, all proud and lit-major like. “Tego-nyan was thinking the exact same thing I was!”
“College nerds,” Ryo grumbles at them, though not without some fondness.
Shige blinks. “Did I do that?” he asks, and tries to backtrack.
“Yes!” Tegoshi answers. “It was really jarring and made it hard to get invested in the story.”
Shige wants to tell Tegoshi to stuff it, but when he thinks about things he’s read with inconsistencies like that, he does realize that it’s kind of annoying. It’s just another one of those things he has to learn to do consistently as he continues to tell stories. “Okay, okay. I’ll do better about that next time, I just didn’t know I was doing it this time, okay? As for the rest of the questions, I have no freaking idea, it’s just fiction okay. Do those types of details even matter?”
Yamapi shrugs. “I guess I was just curious if you’d heard something I hadn’t, ne.”
“Clearly I am crossing some sort of weird fine line when it comes to telling stories about people who actually exist,” Shige murmurs to himself, and adds it to his list of mental notes about future stories.
The others, luckily, seem satisfied with that. Tegoshi is already moving on. “For the next one, tell us one about foreign adventures around the world!” he cheers. “I want to hear about exotic people and places, ne.”
Shige scowls. “Why don’t one of you tell a story instead of leaving me all your requests like I’m your writing slave? Write your own!” he complains.
“But Shige has been doing it since the start, so his technique has been improving. If we do it we might not be as good,” Koyama theorizes. “We already know Shige has the experience and skill to pull it off, which is why we look to you instead of doing it ourselves.”
“That’s the worst reasoning ever,” Shige gripes back, though he feels secretly flattered that someone would defer to his storytelling even if they had their own ideas. “You don’t know if you’ll be bad at it unless you try it first.”
“We want to hear your stories Shige,” they all say in sincere unison, and Shige thinks maybe this is the kind of thing that will make his ego swell and make him unintentionally act like a dick on TV again. He has to keep these things carefully in check after all.
“Okay fine, I’ll consider these requests,” Shige agrees eventually, as they get up and clear their plates and head out to the car. “But when I’m done with all of this I want everyone else to tell me a story for once. It’s not like I can be entertained by listening to my own stories; I already know how they go.”
“I could draw you a picture from one of your stories,” Tegoshi offers, brightly, and makes Shige snort in amusement before the van pulls up to the front of the hotel and they all pile into the car.
*****
That afternoon story time at lunch is postponed because the members are forced to take lunch in shifts as solos or duets are touched up with backup dancers. Tomorrow is opening night and everyone is concentrating very hard on the upcoming performance, but even still, Shige can feel the looks as he sits in the audience section with Koyama and eats his lunch, nothing of which is anything at all like the sumptuous buffet he had described in the story about Arashi (he’s not sure if Arashi does get sumptuous buffets but he wouldn’t be surprised if they did; NEWS just kind doesn’t get nice things because they never complain about it either way).
Massu would probably be incredibly fat if they had a buffet anyway.
So lunch is spent split apart, as Tegomassu sing together backstage to work on their harmonies and Yamapi prances around on stage in a light-up jacket with the backup dancers, marking formations.
Ryo is downstairs with the band in the music room probably jamming, while Koyama and Shige wait for their turn on the stage after Yamapi.
Well, Shige is waiting for the stage; Koyama is fidgeting at him and looking at him sideways, like there’s a secret between just the two of them that Shige is supposed to be giggly about too.
Eventually, Shige puts his tray down and looks at Koyama. “What?”
“I know what story you’re going to tell tonight!” Koyama croons. “I’m excited, that’s all.”
Shige gives him a strange look. “How do you know?”
Koyama gives him an, oh c’mon look. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? I mean, after last night…”
Shige actually smiles. “So you got it? Really?”
Koyama nods solemnly, and for a moment, Shige has some hope for his best friend after all. Koyama can be smart, he knows that, but it’s just that most of the time, he isn’t unless he has to be. Koyama showing voluntary nerdiness is hugely encouraging. “Well. Okay then.” Pause. “Are you sure?”
“Australia, right?” Koyama asks. “You’re going to tell them about what happened to you in Australia. Except, you know, altered.”
Shige feels a full blown smile on his face. “You do get it. Wow.”
Koyama feigns annoyance, but can’t hold back the giggling. “I do, Shige!”
They finish their lunch and Shige finds himself looking forward to tonight.
He supposes that it’s because it must be encouraging to have a confidante to talk to about the whole creative process.
*****
And so that night, after a trip to the hotel baths, NEWS gathers in Shige’s small hotel room at the end of the hallway and order room service that Yamapi charges to the room, while waiting for Shige’s story about adventures in foreign lands.
Shige, still in his bathrobe from the baths, on his bed while Tegoshi lies on the other side; Yamapi and Massu sit at the small table while Koyama perches on the corner of the side of the bed Tegoshi is on and Ryo sits right on the floor, leaning against the entertainment center.
“This better be good,” Ryo says, trying to sound chippy even as he looks up at Shige with an air of anticipation.
Shige rolls his eyes, pausing dramatically to wipe his mouth with a napkin and sets his plate on the nightstand.
“Quit that and start talking!” Ryo demands, and gives himself away.
The others start giggling about how cute Ryo is; Shige starts talking.
“So the next day, Yamashita-kun returns at the exact same time to the exact same place to listen to the sixth story from the journeys of NEWS, and finds that today the members have ordered out, and that Koyama-kun got him lunch as well. They sit down, the atmosphere pleasant, and as they eat, Shige starts to tell his story…”
*****
The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad (or Shige’s Life is Still Hard)
During one particular year Shige finds himself with a lot more free time than he would like, his other groupmates busy that summer with drama filming, TV shows, stage plays, and activities with their other groups.
Feeling a bit left out and forgotten, Shige decides he needs something to do other than study during his summer holiday, hungering for some action, some adventure, an experience he can call his own outside of being NEWS’s Kato Shigeaki.
So impulsively, he decides that he wants to travel somewhere, somewhere people won’t know him, or recognize him, or even understand him. He wants to go somewhere he’s never been before, all by himself.
He books himself a ticket to Australia that afternoon and prepares himself to get out into the fresh air for a grand voyage.
*****
Shige’s life has always been pretty good in the big picture, he knows that. He understands it, and appreciates it, because he’s seen countries on TV where kids don’t get to eat every day or could be killed by stray bullets from governments warring with rebel militia. He knows this.
But there is something about his life-the little things, he supposes-that always seem to make things harder for him than they should be for people under the same circumstances as him. They’re just tiny things, like someone holding open a door for the three people in front of Shige on the way in but deciding to take a break when Shige gets there, or a store running out of the one thing Shige needs to cook that exciting meal he’s been wanting to try for months now on the day he decides to try it, or slipping and falling during a commercial filming when he’s the only one on camera and everyone is supposed to be paying attention to him.
So while he’s pissed off, he isn’t surprised when, as he’s wandering aimlessly (and daringly) through one of the touristy-type marketplaces without a map or a plan or a translator, thinking about all the cute, kitschy treasures he’s going to bring back for friends and family as souvenirs, he gets pick-pocketed at a stall selling coin purses made out of Kangaroo testicles.
He’s about to buy a matching pair for Ryo and Yamapi, reaching for his wallet and all that he can find in his coat pocket is the tin of Japanese fruit candies he’d bought at the airport to keep his ears from popping during takeoff and landing.
He hems, haws, and is embarrassed in English to the vendor at the stall, digs around his bag and his other pockets and, for whatever reason, his shoe for his wallet and the only thing he discovers is that his cell phone is gone too.
He apologizes profusely to the vendor and bows a few times on top of everything, before backing out of the stall and looking frantically on the ground around him, in case he’d dropped his things just now and hadn’t noticed.
When he looks up from the intense-staring contest he’s having with the ground, he realizes two things. One, he’s lost. Two, he’s probably been robbed.
On the last day of his vacation, less than eight hours away from the flight that will take him back to safe, low-crime-rate Japan, Shige finds himself lost, penniless, and with no means of communication in a land where the only real words he knows how to say are comparable to that of a two-year-old toddler, except with questionable pronunciation. He finds himself sitting down right on the side of the curb he’s standing beside when he realizes this had all probably been a bad idea; he shouldn’t have come here all alone, especially without a basic command of English or an electronic translating dictionary.
He doesn’t remember the route the cab had taken to get here from his hotel, what time his flight is, and he hasn’t had to memorize a phone number since the day he received his first cell phone, which in Japan, had been about at age five and a half.
He wonders if he’ll miss his flight and go missing in this strange country and have to take a job washing dishes or scrubbing floors or construction, where he’ll have a mishap with a power tool (because that’s just what happens to him), and NEWS will have to lose another member except this time to freak accident instead of…other things.
The dark images start spiraling out of control from there, and before long he’s imagining his own funeral, which no one shows up to, and then the dingoes dig up his body and feast on his flesh hours after it’s put into the ground.
Tegoshi always tells him not to be so pessimistic. He thinks that if Tegoshi were here there would be less panicking and probably more strangers giving him candy and money and offering to give him rides to wherever he needs to go.
Shige, realizing that maybe he is being a little bit bitter here, tells himself to try and think positively. He stands then, brushes the dirt off of his butt, and looks around, hoping that there might be someone around here who looks like they might be able to help.
Except everyone kind of looks the same, so before long, he makes eye-contact with an elderly lady with friendly eyes and cautiously makes his way towards her, automatically bowing even as he says, “Hello,” in English, kind of awkwardly.
She smiles at him and bows back, before saying what Shige knows is Mandarin for hello. Her accent is also kind of bad.
He stares at her before shaking his head. “No China,” he manages, and waves his arms a little to emphasize. “Can you tell me to get to Occidental Hotel?”
Which seems pretty clear to him, all things considered, but she blinks at him in that absent, polite way that Tegoshi sometimes does when he’s not listening to a word anyone is saying during a TV interview.
“Hotel,” he says again. “Lost. Want to go home.”
“Oh, I see!” she exclaims suddenly, and claps her hands together like she’s on a game show and just won a new washer and dryer set or something.
Shige nods too, and before long, she’s pantomiming directions and he’s trying very hard to remember them all with his limited scope of English, and after about twenty minutes of gesture-talking like this, Shige thanks her profusely, shakes her hand in his in what is a very Western way, and darts off in the indicated direction before he forgets the laundry list of instructions she’d just given him.
When he gets to the end of that list-and he is fairly certain he has followed every word to the letter-he finds himself in what must be Sydney’s Chinatown area.
Which prompts him to throw his hands up and scream, “NOT CHINESE!” in Japanese, and in a very frustrated sort of way.
A bunch of other Asian people-not Japanese apparently- give him strange looks and hurry off to do their shopping. Shige shakes his fist at the sky a few more times before going around and asking random people if they can help him, because maybe some of these people like Japanese entertainment or something and have anime-vocabulary, which is better than nothing, even though most of the time that means they only know how to confess love in Japanese and/or challenge someone to a fight.
Sometime later, as the sun is going down and his plane is probably boarding, he collapses onto another curb to bury his head in his hands and mutter to himself about how he is going to die here, as a fat construction worker with no joy in life except for football games, porno, and Christmas holidays. He decides that he hates adventures, he hates them so much. He also hates foreign countries and foreign languages and from now on he’s going to stay in Japan unless it’s for work and the jimusho provides translators and guides and security that will beat off assholes that think robbing hapless tourists in the middle of the day is fun.
It is at that point when a middle-aged Chinese man comes up to him and pokes him in the arm, asking in broken, but decipherable Japanese, “What’s wrong with you, kid?”
Shige looks up as if he’s found the Holy Grail. “You can speak Japanese. Sort of.”
The man grins. “Lived there for few years, when I was small. I know a little,” he says, and Shige feels like maybe he’s saved. It must show on his face, because the man chuckles and helps Shige to a standing position. “Long time ago,” he says, waving. “Forgot most of it. You lost? Look lost. Hungry.”
“Yes,” Shige says, when he realizes that he is hungry. “Yes, to both.”
“Hunger, I can help,” he says, and leads Shige down the street to a small restaurant with a sign so aged Shige can’t even make out the kanji on it, which should be familiar, kind of.
But instead of going in through the front door the man leads him to the alley around back, and Shige starts to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t go, since this is how all those sold-into-slavery-by-Chinese-Triads movies start, isn’t?
Sensing his hesitation, the man laughs. “I cook,” he explains, in that broken Japanese of his. “Here is where I cook. I make you fried rice. You eat fried rice?”
Shige sighs in relief. “Yes,” he answers. “I like Chinese food.”
The man opens a door near the trashcans and goes in first; Shige follows the good-food smells, and twenty minutes later, he is, luckily, not unconscious from a club to the head or from having a chloroform cloth shoved to his face. Instead, he’s eating some truly delicious shrimp fried rice with a bowl of hot wonton soup and a side of roast duck. The man is sitting across from him smoking a cigarette and Shige knows his plane is long gone by now, that even if he’d left for the airport at the minute he’d met this man, there would have been no hope of getting there on time anyway. And now he’s not going to make that meeting with Johnny, and he’ll get fired and no one will come looking for him and he’ll have to learn English and Chinese, because apparently there are no Japanese people here, or if there are, they are very far away, probably across the desert or something.
“Don’t look so worried,” the man chuckles, because apparently Shige’s picked up Koyama’s habit of flashing his thoughts across his face like a scrolling text. “I know someone, works at Japanese travel agency. We get you back, we figure out stuff tomorrow. Agency closed now. Just down the street.”
Shige thanks him again, promises that once he’s back at the hotel and can get to his bag there, he should have some traveler’s checks he can pay them back with, for all the help, for dinner, for everything.
The man laughs some more and waves him off and says it’s tough being new in a foreign country; he knows.
The restaurant is empty except for the two of them, and before long, an ancient-looking man slowly makes his way down the stairs, supported by the hand-rail and a cane. The first man hurriedly stubs his cigarette out and goes to help the old man to a chair.
The old-man smiles toothily at Shige as he’s escorted to his seat and Shige automatically springs up to bow in silent greeting.
The two men have a conversation in Chinese then, and before long, the ancient one turns to Shige and says, in perfect Japanese, “My son says you’re lost.”
Shige looks sheepish. “I was robbed,” he explains, and takes the tin of Japanese fruit candy out of his pocket and shows it to the man. “This is all I have left.”
The reaction he gets is not entirely expected.
The old man sees it and starts to tear up at random, which is just a little bit bewildering. “I’m sorry,” Shige apologizes automatically, “does this bring back bad memories or something?” He knows that parts of China had been occupied by Japan during the war and all that; it probably brings back images of camps or shootings or dead family members or something.
He’s right about one of those things, as the old man shakes his head and reaches out to brush a frail fingertip against the tin. “My wife loved these,” he explains. “When we lived in Japan, before she died, my wife loved these.”
Shige feels something twist in his heart at the way the man says that, and the way his son blinks back a few tears, because all that means is that whoever this woman was, she’d died a long time ago, probably from something that sucked. Shige finds himself pushing the tin of candy into the old man’s hands. “Please have it,” he says, and bows again, more to avoid having to look at the old man’s sad eyes than to be polite.
“Thank you,” the man murmurs, and touches the tin against his chest, voice sounding a little bit far off. “Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Shige insists, and clears his throat after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “The food is good,” he says. “It tastes good; reminds me of the stuff I had when my group and I went to Taiwan.”
The man looks a little more cheerful at the change in subject. “Taiwanese food is no good,” he says, with a distasteful wave. “They try to make everything hip and cool; it tastes wrong.”
Shige looks sheepish. “I guess I’m just used to Japanese Chinese food,” he admits. “Which, you know, ramen. Gyoza.”
“Ah, ramen!” the men both say, and start laughing. “You do that wrong too.”
Shige grins. “Maybe you should make me some, so I can taste how it’s supposed to be.”
The son smirks. “You want? I make for you. Five minutes.”
Shige laughs and shakes his head, indicating the food still on the table. “I’m good, I’m good,” he insists. “Why don’t you…tell me a little about how it was for you the first time you came to Australia,” he says next, curious. “Were you as lost as me?”
The two men share a look, and a small smile. “Oh, it was interesting,” they say, and the elderly man launches into a fantastical tale about Australia in the seventies and how if Shige thinks it’s bad for him, he should have seen it then.
Shige listens and for a little while, over good food and some shared experiences, forgets about the shitty day he’s had, the fact that he’s missed his plane, and the knowledge that Johnny is probably going to be pissed at him for not showing up at work like he’s supposed to tomorrow.
They talk well into the night, and Shige ends up sleeping on their couch in the small apartment upstairs before a breakfast of hot rice porridge with preserved duck egg and a few more amusing stories.
Then it’s ten am and the travel agency is open and when they walk Shige there and get him set up with a new flight out to Tokyo, a hold on his stolen credit cards and phone, and a ride back to the hotel he’s staying at. Before Shige is ready to climb into the cab that will take him back, generously pre-paid for by the travel agency, the old man stops Shige with a hand on his arm, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a strange yellow bag filled with something that reminds Shige of drinking straws at first glance.
The old man pushes them into Shige’s hand. “Australian sweets, called musk sticks,” he explains gently. “The candy you gave me reminds me of many fond memories with my wife, when we lived in Japan. This, I hope, will provide you with some good memories of Australia, even if not all of them were good.” Then the man smiles, showing the gaps in his mouth where teeth are missing. “Also, perhaps you can share them with your boss, and he will be less angry with you.”
Shige, incredibly touched, suddenly takes back every bad thing he’d ever thought about Australia since yesterday afternoon. “Thank you,” he says, and bows once more before getting into the cab.
*****
When he gets back to Japan Johnny is a little bit annoyed with him, but when Shige hands him some of the musk sticks and explains the whole sordid story of his ordeal, Johnny, well pleased, just laughs and says, “That seems exactly like the sort of thing that would happen to Kato-kun.” And then, he looks thoughtful. “You know, even if you missed today’s work, I think there’s something else that I got today that you might be perfect for…”
He reaches into his desk and pulls out a script, which he slides across to Shige.
Shige reads the title page, which says nothing more but Troubleman across the front. Shige looks at Johnny questioningly.
Johnny grins. “It suits you best.”
After Shige reads it, he can’t help but agree.
END
*****
“And so I didn’t get fired, and I feel like I had a good experience in a foreign country in the end, despite everything,” Shige finishes, while absently handing Massu the remnants of his lunch, which his groupmate happily polishes off while Yamashita-kun looks thoughtful.
“So the lesson is…Johnny-san can be appeased with candy?”
The rest of NEWS chuckles.
Shige coughs. “No. Well, yes, maybe a little. But the lesson I was going for is that don’t be scared of new experiences. They help you grow as a person.”
Koyama nods sagely. “Which is why Yamashita-kun should go back and eat all the carrots I saw him pick out of his lunch today.”
Yamashita-kun wrinkles his nose. “Carrots aren’t trying something new; I already know I don’t like them.”
“He makes sense,” Ryo chimes in, unhelpfully.
Yamashita-kun, adorably proud of himself, thanks Koyama for treating him to lunch today, and asks, quite seriously, “You have one more story to tell me tomorrow, right?”
Yamapi grins. “Yup! And it will prove that Shige’s not the only one who has bad luck every once in a while,” he adds, dramatically.
“More than once in a while,” Shige counters.
But that just makes everyone laugh again.
He hadn’t actually meant for it to.
*****
“Eh, was that a true story, Shige?” Tegoshi asks, when Shige finishes the evening’s story.
Shige blinks. “You can’t be serious. Haven’t all the other stories been fictional before now? Why would I suddenly tell a true one all of a sudden?”
Tegoshi shrugs. “It just seems like something that’s so…Shige,” he explains vaguely, though Shige knows exactly what he means. “It felt really real.”
Shige reaches out to pinch him in the side, which makes him squirm, which makes him jostle the bed and accidentally send Koyama tumbling off the edge he’s perched on.
“So no one believes that Arashi can be merciful or that Tegoshi has bad luck sometimes, but everyone can believe I got robbed and lost in a foreign country all by myself and couldn’t speak English well enough to find help?”
“Yup!” everyone answers, and this time, Ryo is the one who snorts and tips over a little in laughter.
“Asses,” Shige says. “You’re all asses and should get out of here and go to sleep because we have a show tomorrow.”
He might be smiling a little bit too though; after all, he’s learned the hard way that every experience you have only helps you grow.
*****
On the day of the show Shige doesn’t have time for anymore breakfast time storytelling because everyone opts to sleep in that morning; a well-deserved respite in preparation for two shows today. But even still, somehow, NEWS finds a way to spend some time together backstage, while the cameras are away and they can eat and spread out on the couch and start chanting “Shige! Shige! Shige!” when they decide it’s story time.
The last story Shige plans to tell is the one he had actually come up with first, but he supposes some things just work that way, and he hopes that when he tells it, it isn’t too obvious that this is an older piece of work.
“So the next day it was Yamapi’s turn again, and he began talking about his trip to Korea…”
*****
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (or They’re Crazy in Korea)
While Yamapi was on a leisure trip to Korea one summer, the news of his arrival in Seoul leaked to the public somehow, so that his arrival at the airport coincided with a mob of crazy fangirls crowding every door and window waiting for him, while airport security did its level best to keep the masses at bay so other passengers would be able to get in and out of the airport. But given that his arrival was unofficial, no warning had been given to the police beforehand, and the security staff on hand ended up being no match for the crowd. Within moments of seeing Yamapi, the girls managed to burst through the security guards stationed around the doors, running straight for the unsuspecting idol and shouting his name in ferocious, high-pitched shrieks. Yamapi, knowing that there was no way to outrun a mob like that, tried instead, to be cordial and friendly, even as he got pulled at and his clothes were ripped and his pockets rummaged through. He determinedly kept pressing forward towards the exit with a smile on his face, and eventually, with the help of security, managed to slide into a taxi and take off from the airport as some of the girls attempted to give chase on foot and bikes.
Relieved at having made it out, Yamapi took out a piece of paper from his shoulder bag and gave it to the driver; it was a printout written in Korean that Yamapi had gotten from the Korean friend he was supposed to meet here before getting on the plane. The cab driver looked at the paper and told him, via gestures and very slow speaking, that his destination was quite a ways away and that it would be expensive to take a taxi the entire way there. Yamapi wanted to reassure the man that that was fine, and reached into his pockets to take out his credit card so he would be able to ask if the cab driver accepted the type he carried, since he hadn’t gotten a chance to change currencies at the airport and had no viable cash at the moment.
However, when he reached into his pocket he realized that his wallet and his phone were gone, and dismayed, he told the driver that he had no money after all. The driver didn’t understand at first, and through a series of strange pantomiming and a little bit of yelling, Yamapi was soon forced to stand a bit in the cab and display his empty pockets to the man through the rearview mirror. The driver seemed to understand that at least, and non-too-pleased with the thought of driving so far away and possibly not getting paid for it, he instantly pulled over to the curb and demanded that Yamapi get out. Yamapi, apologetic, bowed and did as he was told despite that being completely unfair; he knew it was because he’d already caused enough trouble in Korea after only forty minutes of being here.
Once out of the cab, the taxi drove off in search of a new fare, and Yamapi found himself in front of a small shaved-ice shop. He stepped inside without hesitation, hoping to get access to a phone and call his friend to tell him that their plans of meeting up at his apartment had since changed later tonight.
Inside the shop, Yamapi spied a middle-aged man with a portly belly and a friendly smile, and after making the universal gesture of needing a phone use with his hand, the man nodded and pointed to the counter along the back wall. Yamapi nodded back gratefully before striding over and giving his Korean friend a phone call. Unfortunately he got the voice mail (the day was starting to feel like it had come straight off of one of the pages from Shige’s biography). So Yamapi left a message instead, hoping to get called back soon, and sat down in one of the corner tables of the shop. The moment he did, the man turned and yelled something in Korean through the door behind him, and from there, an incredibly cute girl in a worn-out apron stepped out of the kitchen holding a menu.
Yamapi, not having any money, made stopping gestures with his hand, an X with his arm, and shook his head at her. She seemed confused, turned back to the man, and they held another conversation.
Eventually, she turned to him and asked, in very well-pronounced, if awkward, Japanese, “Are you lost?”
Yamapi answered, “Yes. I was robbed earlier, and now I’m waiting for my friend to call me back. I’m sorry, I have no money.”
Her brow furrowed in understanding, before she turned to relay this to the man, using the word for “father” in Korean that is one of the ten or so words of the language Yamapi actually knew.
The father listened before looking thoughtful and saying something back to her which made her smile. Then she handed Yamapi the menu anyway and told him, “Father says you should eat anyway, you look like you’ve been run over by a car. It’s on the house.”
Yamapi laughed a little and said he’d appreciate that very much, and that he’d definitely be able to pay them back once his friend came for him.
And so they spent the remainder of afternoon like that, and before long Yamapi noticed that the girl was smiling and blushing a little around him even though she didn’t seem to have any idea who he was. That was new and kind of nice, and so he let himself flirt a little back, but respectfully, because you know, her dad was there and Yamapi was not an asshole or anything.
About an hour later, at the time when Yamapi was supposed to be meeting his friend, the shop’s phone rings. The father picked up, and before long, handed the phone to Yamapi.
Yamapi’s friend was laughing at him from the other end of the line, saying he’d saw the mess on the news just now. He told Yamapi he being robbed wasn’t really a problem considering it had been a miracle he’d escaped with his life. “Just tell me where you are, I’ll come pick you up. Then we can go to this crazy party downtown that some friends of mine are having.”
“That sounds good,” Yamapi answered, and after he got the girl to tell his friend the shop’s address, prepared to part ways with the father and daughter pair. He thanked them profusely for their kindness and took out a business card to present to them, which he made sure to sign the back of before handing it over. Thrilled at his politeness, the father did the same with one of the shop’s cards, and twenty minutes later, Yamapi’s friend arrived in a fancy sports car and upon seeing him, the girl shrieked and froze and turned bright red, because Yamapi’s friend was an even bigger celebrity here in Korea than he was starting to become in Japan. The friend was happy to meet such a cute fan and signed many autographs and took many pictures with the girl, thanking her again for taking care of his friend while he’d been lost.
Very happy that the girl had received something in return for her family’s kindness, Yamapi and his friend left the shop, got into the fancy sports car, and headed downtown for dinner before the very exclusive party that was scheduled for later in the evening.
Everything went pretty well again after that; Yamapi managed to put a hold on his stolen credit cards and lock and switch off his phone from his friend’s computer. His friend was still in high spirits from the Korean media going nuts over Yamapi’s arrival, and so offered to pay Yamapi’s way the rest of the evening to make up for the near-rape experience upon setting foot on Korean soil. When they get to the party later, Yamapi discovers it is on a lavish rooftop patio club of a swanky skyscraper overlooking the rest of the downtown skyline. It was open to only the city’s most elite: people like company heirs and heiresses, pop stars, rock stars, actresses, real estate moguls and professional athletes.
They arrived fashionably late to the festivities and Yamapi’s friend introduced him to several people who twittered at his name and attempted to speak some Japanese to him but who seemed to be more interested in talking about him. His friend told him not to pay them any mind; like Japan, seeing foreigners was considered a rare and interesting thing, even if Yamapi looked similar to everyone else there (except, maybe, for the members of the National Basketball team present). Yamapi then met some incredibly dressed strangers in suits decked out with shiny black feathers. They were somehow more glamorous than JE costumes, but at the same time, inexplicably more grotesque as well.
Feeling a little weird, Yamapi wanted to stake out some territory towards the corner of the bar, but his friend had other plans, pushing a drink into Yamapi’s hand and pointing to the stage. “You know some Korean songs, right? I made you learn my songs, so you should go up and sing them. Once they see you try like that, they’ll be more open.”
Yamapi looked reluctant. “But every time I sing your songs you laugh at my pronunciation.”
His friend grinned. “You always laugh at me when I sing your songs.”
Yamapi downed his first drink and supposed that was true, but he was usually drunk when that happened, and as such, everything was funny. His friend, grinning, switched his full glass with Yamapi’s empty one and looked convincing. “C’mon, you’re a fearless Johnny’s idol, right? If KAT-TUN can perform here and you can’t, what will people say?”
Yamapi downed the second drink and supposed that made a lot of sense; he had always been adamant that NEWS wouldn’t settle for losing to anyone, and so, after twenty minutes of reviewing lyrics on his friend’s phone (and, admittedly, another shot), Yamapi went to put his song and his name in the queue for the stage.
He might have had a beer or two while he was waiting in line for his turn as well, and by the time it got there he was feeling pretty confident (the alcohol probably helped). He climbed onto the stage and the music started, and as he began to sing, he felt it when all the eyes at the party were on him. There were smiles too, and he couldn’t tell if they were mocking smiles or happy smiles, but at that point it didn’t matter; he broke into the chorus, threw his arms out, and belted out the words as loudly as he could.
Only to have his friend rush up on stage suddenly and yank the microphone out of his hands before turning to the audience and apologizing profusely in Korean. From there he hastily pulled a bewildered Yamapi from the stage, which was the exact moment when Yamapi noticed that the other guests’ smiles had turned somewhat awkward and wooden; some people looked outright offended.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked his friend in a tense whisper, head starting to clear up a little bit given the rush of adrenaline that apparently came with offending a room full of proud Korean celebrities.
“I told you to work on your pronunciation,” his friend muttered, while bowing his head and giving placating smiles to the rest of the guests. “You might have said something vaguely offensive. Which means we should leave.”
“Sorry,” Yamapi said, and bowed a few times to the other guests as well, on their way back to the elevator lobby.
“What did I say?” Yamapi asked a few minutes later, when they were back out on the street again.
His friend grinned. “You don’t want to know,” he answered breezily, and started steering Yamapi down the street; at the very least, they could get some beer and snacks at a slightly less crowded bar before going home for the night. They had paid a fantastical amount of money for the valet just now, after all.
Along the way, they met some more amazingly-dressed people walking in the direction Yamapi and his friend had been coming from, and as they approached, Yamapi’s friend suddenly gave a delighted shout of recognition, which was then answered by the man in the black-leather jumpsuit with feathers in his hair. Yamapi’s friend introduced them to Yamapi as some very up-and-coming musicians here in Korea who had just released their first single at number one on the charts. They seemed to recognize Yamapi too, and ecstatic, the four of them spent a good twenty minutes taking photos and exchanging cards right there on the sidewalk, before one of the musicians asked for Yamapi’s autograph, for his little sister. Obliging, Yamapi autographed one of his cards for the young man, who happily reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a full-head shot to sign for Yamapi in return.
Yamapi’s friend burst out laughing at what a bold move it was to carry around your own headshot, and the young man, sheepish, said that they have to keep marketing themselves because they’ve only had one single out.
Yamapi graciously accepted the gift and promised that he would help promote the group in any way he could as well, and before long, they parted ways so the musicians could go to the party, and Yamapi and his friend could get some beer.
Two blocks after that, they came upon another strange scene, though not as humorous or pleasant as the last one. There were two young men beating up on a third one, the third one curled up on the ground trying to protect his ribs while the two aggressors kicked and cursed at him. Yamapi stopped, but his friend tried to rush him along, stating that it was dangerous if they stood around and stared.
Yamapi, feeling perhaps, some of the previous courage from his alcohol and an innate sense of justice, shook his head and grabbed his friend’s phone from his pocket, before shouting. “Hey!” he began, in the kind of Japanese that only gets used in Gokusen dramas, “Cut that out!”
The words were foreign but the tone was not, and the two young men beating up on the third looked up and saw the phone with the camera on it poised to take photographic evidence of their crimes. They cursed and immediately ran away without another word, and before anyone could say anything, Yamapi was at the injured man’s side, rolling him onto his back and asking if he was okay in his bad Korean.
Yamapi’s friend soon joined him, and the man revealed that he worked as a janitor at the office building across the street, and that those two men had been beating up on him because as he’d rounded a corner carrying a bucket of dirty mop water, he’d run into one of them, dropping the dirty water all over his shoes and his designer snakeskin pants. They’d since dragged him outside and began to hit him when he’d said that he didn’t have enough money on him to buy replacements.
Yamapi, deeply incensed at the kind of incivility, helped the man to his feet and across the street to a different office building, where the security guard let them in while the police were called.
“We should probably go before the cops arrive though,” Yamapi’s friend warned, because if the police show up and realize who the two young men were, the media might be notified.
Yamapi agreed, and wished the injured man luck before he and his friend slipped away.
“Well, I admire you even more now,” his friend said a few moments later, as the two of them walked down the street, towards the bar they had been meaning to go to since leaving the party. “You got your ass handed to you by a bunch of people today but didn’t threaten or yell at a single one of them. But when it was someone else getting beat up, you stepped in without hesitation.”
Yamapi blushed as they reached the door to the bar and opened it. He was about to respond, but wasn’t allowed to, because the minute they stepped into the nearest bar there was the telltale shriek of either or both of them being recognized, and before either of them knew what was happening they were running for their lives through the streets. Yamapi lost his friend after the first twenty seconds or so, when they were forced to split up by groups of crazed women moving in a surprisingly concerted pincher movement.
Yamapi ran blindly for what felt like miles, until the screams and cries died down enough, and when he finally felt safe enough to stop and look around, realized that he had no idea where he was and that he still lacked a cell phone or any money at all.
Cursing, he attempted to retrace his steps to the club, but before long, realized that one, he remembered nothing about the road here and two, even if he did, it would probably lead him back into the jaws of danger.
He sighed and started walking aimlessly down the street, looking for an open shop or convenience store with no one else inside so that he could discretely use the phone.
That is when the cab pulled up to him, rowing down the window and asking, “Do you need a ride?” in Korean.
Yamapi did need a ride, but didn’t know what to say, and tried, in Japanese, to say, “Yes, but I don’t have any money.” He gestured with his arms a little bit too, and that was when he realized he was still holding the autographed picture from the musician; he had been clutching it against his chest like a treasure map or something. Somewhat embarrassed, he flapped his arms a few more times and wished he had his phone.
The cab driver laughed when he saw the picture and waved Yamapi over. “You lost, Japanese?” he asked, and Yamapi had never been gladder for wide-spread Japanese TV programs like Shounen Club and Nobuta wo Produce being broadcast all over Asia.
And so, with a strange mixture of broken Korean and Japanese, as well as lots of broad gesticulations, the two of them hashed out a deal, and before long, Yamapi was on the cab driver’s cell phone, calling his friend and arranging to meet him back in front of the valet station of the building they had parked his car in.
On the way, Yamapi happily gave the autographed photo to the man, and true to the promise he had made the musician later, tells the cab driver that this is a very popular up-and-coming group and that having a hand-signed autograph picture early in their careers will become a great treasure later.
The cab driver laughed and told Yamapi that his daughter was a fan, so that this would be a good treasure already.
Pleased, Yamapi was driven back to the building, which turned out to be a good three miles from where the cab driver had picked him up.
They parted ways after that, and Yamapi waited for his friend’s return, he thought to himself that Korea was indeed a strange and distant land.
He also got mauled at his hotel one more time after that, but by then, he had learned to expect it.
END
*****
When Yamapi finishes his story, everyone looks a little bit confused.
“So… the lesson is that as long as you believe in justice, you can endure anything?” Koyama asks, and makes everyone nod like it finally makes perfect sense.
“Nope,” Yamapi says, eyes twinkling.
“Er… you can only be safe in Korea if you go to restaurants that aren’t popular?” Massu says.
“Definitely not,” Yamapi says, though, on Massu’s slightly wounded look, “but that’s a good lesson too, I guess.”
“How about… the friends you make will take you on a lot of life-changing adventures?” Tegoshi poses.
“No, though that’s true,” Yamapi answers, and starts to look almost-smug. As smug as Yamapi can look, anyway.
“Koreans wear weird clothes,” Ryo offers. Pauses. “Clothes as weird as our sempai.”
Koyama giggle-snorts, and Yamapi’s lips curl upward at that, but resolute, NEWS’s leader again declares, “Nope.”
Shige looks thoughtful. “The lesson is… everyone should have at least a first-grade functional vocabulary in the language of whatever country they visit?”
Yamapi grins and shakes his head. “No, but that’s a very Shige-like answer,” he says.
Meanwhile, young Yamashita-kun has his lips pursed and his brow furrowed in thought. Eventually, he says, “Korea is crazy?”
The other NEWS members chuckle at that, but much to their surprise, Yamapi finally throws his hands up in victory. “Bingo!” he says, and then cracks up laughing at the look on everyone else’s face. “So no matter what happens, you should always be thankful that you’re in Japan and in Johnny’s,” he adds, still grinning broadly.
When he finally regains his faculties, he reaches forward and pats Yamashita-kun on the shoulder very solemnly. “You’ve learned everything we can teach you now, Yamashita-kun,” he says. “Now, now you must return to the world at large and live your own life.”
Yamashita-kun looks at the clock. “Actually, I have to go rehearse my dance steps.”
Everyone can’t help but laugh again, and wish Yamashita-kun all the luck in the world on all his future endeavors.
END
*****
Shige ends the story hoping to get a chuckle. Precocious children are like a guaranteed chuckle-getter.
Except this time, he gets Tegoshi, looking questioning. “Shige,” he begins, before Shige has even taken a breath, “how come that one was in the past tense when all the other ones were in present?”
Shige blinks. “Was it?”
“Yup,” Koyama confirms. “It was weird; it was like we were trying to follow something that already happened instead of being there while it happened, like all the other ones.”
“He’s moving backwards,” Ryo snorts.
Shige blushes. “I was trying something new? It’s my prerogative as an artist! It’s exploring my boundaries!”
“The way you said that felt like a lie,” Koyama chastises, grinning. “Shige’s lying to us.”
Massu and Yamapi vouch that they hadn’t noticed anything about tense at all, and that the story had been just as enjoyable as any of the others Shige had told.
“Tense doesn’t matter to me, as long as the story is entertaining,” Massu explains.
“And it’s not fun anymore when everyone is too critical, don’t you think?” Yamapi adds.
“Constructive,” Ryo explains, waving him off. “We’re being constructively critical; it’s to help Shige improve, not to be mean. It’s like that one interview you had earlier this year, when you said our dancing sucked and we needed to improve it by practicing more.”
Yamapi blushes a little at being called out for that. “Oh. Right.”
Shige crosses his arms. “Whatever. I’m done telling stories anyway, but I’ll keep that in mind for any future writing I do for work.”
Everyone goes silent.
“Shige, you’re done?” Tegoshi asks, looking at him with big, sad, eyes.
Shige sputters. “I’ve told you all like, a million stories! I deserve a break every once in a while don’t I?”
Tegoshi and Massu look like they’re going to protest to the abrupt end to their group story time while Koyama and Yamapi just looks disappointed, but Shige is determined to stay resolute; he thinks about explosions and rock music and historical conquests and Sun Tzu.
And then, to his surprise, Ryo comes to his rescue. “Yeah, give him a break. I mean, he doesn’t need to tell us more stories, right?” the group back-boss declares, voice authoritative. “Since I’ve caught on to your clever scheme.”
The other members, cowed, look down at the bedsheets, or the floor, or their toes. “Right,” they say, and then Koyama mans up, offers a smile, and says, “Thanks for all the stories, Shige!”
“Thanks!” the other echo on his cue, and before long, Koyama puts on the mommy hat and ushers everyone out of Shige’s room and to bed; there are more shows tomorrow, and it’s time for good little idols to go to bed.
On the way back to their respective floor via the elevator, Ryo says, “Good night,” to the others when they stop at his floor, and grins. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring, right?”
“Good night, Ryo-chan!” the others answer, and haven’t a clue what he means.
NEWS goes to sleep dreaming of epic stories in foreign lands and the smiling faces of the audiences they will see at their shows tomorrow.
Ryo may or may not do some plotting of his own, but of a decidedly less narrative kind.
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