Strive For Something Better Ch6
STRIVE FOR SOMETHING BETTER - CHAPTER SIX
Ueda had been more than certain that eating lunch with Nishikido Ryo would be the most nerve wracking and awkward thing he had ever made himself do, but he was so wrong he was actually shocked.
They had fun.
Well, as much fun as can be had in a small café up the street from the Jimusho. When he had tentatively suggested they eat out instead of attempting to fight their way into the cafeteria, which would surely resemble a tin of sardines by this time, Ryo had happily agreed and they had set off up the street to a café Ueda usually went to with Maru and Koki.
They had chosen a seat towards the back, away from the windows, ordered their food and sat back, sipping on their drinks in silence for the first few minutes. What really startled both of the at this point was the fact that silence was anything but uncomfortable. It was relaxed, an atmosphere Ueda had never before expected to achieve. And when Nishikido had finally broken the silence they had sunk into an easy conversation and before they knew it their food had arrived, they had eaten it and were sitting nursing their drinks as they chatted, sharing ridiculous antics and anecdotes.
“Wait, wait, wait, he what!?” Ueda sipped his drink as Ryo told him the story of Kusano visiting each of the members’ rooms in a Scream mask. Ryo laughed as he sat back.
“My god, the look on Uchi’s face when he opens his door and there’s just this white warped face in front of him! He totally froze up!” Ueda laughed.
“What about the others?” he asked, fiddling with his napkin. Ryo found his eyes drawn to the way Ueda twisted the napkin in his fingers, but quickly reverted his eyes back to Ueda’s face, once again wondering what he was doing here and why he was having so much fun with the person he’d insulted into the ground only a few years ago.
“Pi barely flinched, he wasn’t scared at all! What about KAT-TUN? You know, I’ve never heard of one of you lot waking everyone up at a stupid time in the morning,” Ueda looked thoughtful.
“You’re right, I don’t think we’ve ever done that, we tend to focus on making ofs when we film PVs instead, besides I think if we tried that I’d be worried about what we’d find when we woke up Kame and Jin,” Ryo made a face.
“Good point,”
“They woke up Ya-Ya-Yah and K.K.Kitty a few years ago though, I remember Kame telling me about it,”
“Ah! Shige told me a bit about that! What happened?” Ueda grinned and sipped his drink again before he spoke.
“Well, Ya-Ya-Yah were just sleepy and confused, but when they went to wake up the rest apparently, they thought no-one was in the room at first, then they saw that Kusano-kun was sleeping on a shelf,” Ryo burst out laughing, tipping his head back and clapping a hand over his eyes, and Ueda felt a slight glow in his chest, feeling ecstatic as he realised he had made Ryo laugh, was making him smile. He’d never thought a smile like that could be directed at him.
“A shelf! What the fuck was he doing on a shelf!?”
“Hell if I know, he fell off it when they woke him up, Kato-kun was sleeping on the floor, Jin said his pyjamas were on backwards,” Ryo shook his head.
“What about Kei-chan?”
“You remember those stupid shark hats he and Kame got? He was wearing his and listening to his mp3 player,” Ryo grinned and shook his head, draining his glass.
“Maybe you should try a wake-up call next time you’re on tour,” Ryo said with a smirk. Ueda raised one eyebrow and sat back in his seat.
“I really don’t fancy being woken up in the early hours of the morning by Koki and Maru, or any of band-mates for that matter, I’d probably end up hitting them by mistake,” Ryo smirked.
“Besides, have you ever seen one of our making ofs? We get enough craziness packed into them,” Ryo suddenly looked thoughtful.
“You know, I don’t think I have, what do you guys even do? The fans seem to love those things,” Ueda grinned and looked up at the ceiling biting his lip as he thought of something.
“Well, it’s never really anything specific, we’re just good at being stupid I guess,” Ryo burst out laughing again.
“Well with Tanaka and Bakanishi I can’t say I’m surprised, I hear Jin messes up a lot,” Ueda smirked.
“He and Kame tend to mess up the dance moves quite a lot, ah! The factory skit! That’s something we always do!” Ryo raised one eyebrow.
“Factory skit!?” Ueda grinned and put his drink down, looking up at the ceiling again as he remembered it.
“We’ve done it almost every time, it’s just a stupid ad lib thing, Yucchi owns a factory, Koki is always late for work, Kame is his dad for some reason,”
“What about you?” Ueda was thrown by the question.
“M-Me? Well, I’m never really involved…oh, except when we were shooting White Xmas, they pulled me into it, somehow the factory ended up being bulldozed, turned into a school then because it only had stupid students it was turned back into a factory, somehow spies and the CIA got involved too,” Ryo laughed.
“What is it about you guys people find so funny I wonder? I mean, if you don’t do it on purpose,” Ueda smiled fondly, remembering their time filming, how they would mess around with each other between shoots, crack jokes and make fun of each other.
“I guess we’re just like that, having stupid conversations, saying silly things, coming up with pointless skits, like the time Jin and Yucchi did a scene of two people in the rain during keep the Faith,” Ryo stared at him, and for a moment he could only look back, his deep brown eyes sucking him in so deep he almost jumped out of his seat when he spoke again.
“How the hell did that come about?” Ueda giggled at the memory.
“We were supposed to stand in the rain for part of it, and Nakamaru said we wouldn’t actually get wet, the rain would just fall around us but not directly on us,” Ueda paused, taking in Ryo’s face as he listened to him, not taking his eyes off his face as he waited to be told the rest.
“He had a bottle of water for us to use so we could make ourselves look wet, and they decided to do a scene in the rain and Jin kept squirting Yuichi with it, so he touched his collar bone to make him stop,” Ryo laughed sadistically.
“Of course, the Bakanishi’s greatest weakness,” he glanced at his watch suddenly.
“Ah, I have to get back, NEWS has a meeting in twenty minutes,” Ueda checked his own watch.
“Damn, KAT-TUN have a dance practice in ten minutes, better get going,”
Their easy flow of conversation kept up all the way back to the Jimusho until they reached NEWS’ floor and Ryo got out, turning back to raise a hand in a short wave.
“Later Ueda,”
“Later, Nishikido,” Ryo smiled at him before the elevator doors slid closed.
The second the lift started moving Ueda doubled over, leaning on his knees. It hadn’t been hard to talk to Ryo at all, it had been comfortable and fun and he had enjoyed it, but at the same time he was nervous as hell and every so often Ryo would meet his eyes or smile at him, or even just flick his bangs out of his eyes an Ueda’s heart crashed so hard against his ribs he was sure a few had cracked.
As he reached KAT-TUN’s floor he ran a hand through his hair and wandered back in, a glance at the clock told him he had about two minutes to get changed and get down to the dance studio. Once he was changed he crouched down briefly to lace up his sneakers, and once they were tied he rose to find Kame and Maru grinning predatorily at him and jumped in shock.
“Guys! I am not a piece of beef tongue or something! Stop staring at me like you’re gonna throw me on a grill!” he made to slip past them and head for the elevator but before he reached it they were suddenly hanging off his neck, well Kame was, Maru was practically skipping along beside him, still with that creepy grin.
“Seriously, I don’t remember you giving Kame and Jin that look when we found out about them!” Ueda muttered at his friend.
“Oh stop whining and tell us how your date went!” Kame said, his voice sounding something like it did when Shuji was trying to teach Nobuta how to be cute. It sent an unpleasant shiver down Ueda spine and he shrugged his younger band-mate roughly off his shoulders.
“That voice might work for Jin but to me it’s just weird having it projected in my direction,” Kame pouted for a second, before clinging to Ueda’s arm all over again.
“So your date when well?”
“Actually it - hey! It wasn’t a date! And how the hell did you…?” he trailed off, looking from one grin to the other, feeling suddenly uneasy about riding in the same elevator with them. He stabbed the call button with his thumb again and sighed.
“You know what, I don’t even want to know,” Maru rested his chin on Ueda’s shoulder, still grinning.
“So…how’d your not-a-date go then?” Ueda sighed again. He wanted to be irritated with their persistence and their teasing tones and their clinginess but thinking back to how lunch had gone and the easy conversation with Ryo, he couldn’t muster up any real annoyance, opting instead to stare thoughtfully at the counter above the lift as it got closer to their floor.
“Ah! So it did go well!” Kame said excitedly, pointing at the calm and faraway look that had slid over Ueda’s features. Ueda blinked and looked at him in surprise for a moment.
“It…yeah, it did,” he mumbled, lowering his head, his hair falling over his eyes. At that moment the elevator arrived and they all piled in. Maru hit the button for the right floor and wheeled back to face his friend, grinning at his still lowered head.
“So? What happened?” Ueda sighed and finally raised his head, levelling them both with a hard look.
“You know, you guys are like a pair of high school girls, would you just drop it? We ate, we talked a bit, that’s it,” Maru smiled and slung an arm around his band-mate’s shoulders.
“But you had fun right?” Ueda averted his eyes.
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
“Good! That was all I wanted to know, oh and…are you gonna have lunch with him again?” Ueda glanced at him, then sighed, running a hand through his hair. I’m getting really tired of sighing, he thought absently.
“I don’t know, I guess it’s up to him,” Kame tipped his head on one side, leaning against the wall beside him.
“But, you’re friends now, right? You can always ask again yourself,” Ueda raised one eyebrow at him.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, friends? I don’t think he’s ready to call me a friend yet, more like an acquaintance or something,”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What do you think you are?” Ueda glanced from Kame to Maru, then down at the floor.
“I wouldn’t say we’re close enough to be friends just yet, I mean, we can get along now, we can have a conversation without tearing each other to shreds, but our relationship before this was pretty much non-existent,” he bit his lip, wondering exactly what it would take for the two of them to be able to say they even had any kind of relationship.
He was jolted out of his reverie as Kame clapped his hand down on his shoulder.
“Ganbatte ne, Tat-chan,” he said, smiling. He found himself smiling back, and nodded.
~~~
“You’re so useless!” Shingo had never seen Tegoshi Yuya angry, he’d never even seen him annoyed, he’d seen him mildly put out, and that looked nothing like this. When he was mildly put out he looked like a disappointed child, pouting and refusing to look at you as though he were sulking. The picture was almost cute. This however, was quite disconcerting, his eyes were wide and glowing as he stared hard at him, his teeth gritted, his hands scrunched into fists. However, rather than be intimidated by this display of anger Shingo found himself fighting against his own tidal wave of anger.
“Me? I’m useless? He was in your band’s room!”
“I had a meeting to attend, I couldn’t just not go!”
“You could have asked him to wait for you!”
“Why should it all be down to me? You could have come up and checked on him! Everyone else had gone to do other things and he was totally by himself! That kind of opportunity might not come around again!”
Shingo sighed and leaned back against the wall. Tegoshi had dragged him into an empty dressing room on his way back to Kanjani8’s room after lunch, his eyes looking like they were on fire.
“Look, it’s inevitable that he’ll be out of our sight sometimes, he has other friends, other band-mates, and we have work to do, we can’t let our bets cloud that!” Tegoshi pressed a hand to his temple in exasperation.
“Have you forgotten the reason we even agreed to team up? Do you even know where he was at that time?” Shingo blinked.
“I figured he was with Yamapi, or Koyama-kun and Kato-kun,”
“No! I asked them the second Massu and I got back from our meeting! None of them had seen him, they left him in the dressing room but since then they haven’t seen him!” Shingo suddenly looked apprehensive.
“He wasn’t with us, all of us went down to lunch together, except Yuu, and he had a drama meeting,”
“You see! This is the problem; he might have been with someone who’ll pose a problem for us,”
“Aren’t we being a little too overdramatic on this? It’s just a bet; sure loosing would suck but…”
“I don’t care,” Shingo looked at the younger singer in front of him, feeling a sudden urge to hit him square in the middle of his face. He was far brattier than he had heard, far more than he had ever let on. Yet, suddenly something nagged at his brain and he narrowed his eyes.
“Are you sure this isn’t just about you liking Ryo-chan, rather than him being attracted to you?” Tegoshi sudden animalistic glare almost made him flinch.
“Don’t be stupid,” he snarled. Shingo sighed; trying to talk to this little brat would obviously be about as productive as trying to build a skyscraper out of marshmallows.
“Whatever, either way, you need to be calmer about this; you’re not the one with the time limit,” Tegoshi pouted and folded his arms, averting his eyes. And there’s the spoiled little kid we’re all love to hate, Shingo thought bitterly.
Wordlessly they left the room and stalked away in opposite directions.
~~~
Tegoshi slowed his walk as he reached his corridor, schooling his features back into the cute, loveable default he normally wore. Pushing open the door he instantly caught sight of Ryo and Yamapi lounging on one of the couches, lazily leaning back against opposite armrests, drinking from cans and chatting.
“So? Jin as stupid as ever today?” Ryo asked, his voice disinterested, but his eyes not leaving his friend’s face. Pi gave a short laugh and took a swig of his drink.
“Like you actually have to ask,” he said, tipping his head back and looking at the ceiling.
“So,” he said, directing his words somewhere above him “where did you disappear to today?” Ryo shot him a glance.
“Eh?” he asked lazily, swigging his drink again.
“You weren’t here when I got back, and you weren’t in the cafeteria either, where’d you run away to?” Ryo stared hard at his can for a minute before answering, tossing back the last of the drink before throwing the empty can at the bin as he answered.
“I went out to eat,”
“With?”
“Ueda,” Pi sat right up suddenly, his eyes wide.
“Hah!?” Ryo raised one eyebrow at him and leaned back on the armrest, throwing a hand over his eyes, laughing softly.
“I went out to eat with Ueda ‘cos you guys all fucked off and left me,” he mumbled against his sleeve. Pi was still staring at him.
“I thought you thought he was plotting against you or something,” Ryo smile wavered a bit as he seemed to think about it. Pi watched him do so for a moment before Ryo sat up and drew up his knees, leaning his arms on them.
“Not so sure about that anymore, I mean he hasn’t done anything else to me, just smiled, and talked,”
“Talked?”
“Yeah, we ended up talking for a while, he’s not nearly as weird as I thought, it was a totally normal conversation,” PI smirked suddenly.
“Ryo-chan, by any chance, could you have been having fun? With Ueda Tatsuya?” Ryo rolled his eyes and flopped back again.
“Don’t say it like that, it sounds like I broke some bizarre unwritten rule or something,” Pi raised one eyebrow, a full blown grin on his face now.
“You did, your own,” Without sitting up or looking at his best friend Ryo threw a cushion at him which he caught and stuck behind his head.
“Whatever, it was just lunch and a conversation, we’re hardly best buds or anything,”
“You know Ryo, getting on better with him might not be a bad idea, better relations in the Jimusho are a good thing to have, especially if you’re expected to work together, if you’d managed this four years ago Shounen Club would’ve gone a lot smoother,”
“Shut up, the fans loved it, they called it sexual tension,” Pi cracked up laughing at that, clutching his stomach and slamming his palm against the seat of the couch before he fell right off it, wiping a tear from one eye. Ryo shifted his arm off his eyes and looked down at him, an amused expression flooding his face as he watched him climb back up.
“Sexual tension, that’s priceless,”
“Isn’t it just?” Ryo muttered.
“But you’re right, if this is just a harmless attempt at a better relationship then why not?”
Tegoshi, still standing motionless at the door, was currently solving strange equations in his head. Ryo-tan and Ueda-kun? Impossible, right? But what if it wasn’t impossible? But it was, because they didn’t like each other, did they? No, Ryo-tan likes me, right? He did just say…didn’t he? Right, and Ueda-kun doesn’t like Ryo like that, does he? No, no, no, but what if…? Why the sudden…?
“Ah! Tego-chan!” Pi’s voice jolted him back to reality and he blinked for a moment before smiling brightly and walking over to the couch, sitting on the floor beside Ryo’s head and grinning sweetly at him, not noticing Pi’s sudden apprehensive look.
Here we go again…
“So that’s where you went! I wondered where Ryo-tan had gone to without us!”
Keeping up his bright smile and sparkling eyes Tegoshi made a mental note to mention this to Shingo. There was no way this kind of thing could get in their way, there was no way he would let it get in the way.
つづく
A/N Not much development there, but at least it was a slightly faster update than usual :P I’ll get to work on chapter 7 as soon as I’m done with the next chapter of WitD. Enjoy ^_^
.