It's a Love/Hate Sort of Thing...Chapter 12
Chapter 12
“So if you put ‘Chance to Change’ first it will really mess up the feeling of the show you see. I know you want to use the new single as a building block for the first half but I think it would be better suited for the end of the concert. Don’t you think?” In a quiet, cramped old meeting room five men and one extremely bored teenager sat discussing Hey! Say! JUMP’s up and coming concert, “Hikaru, are you even listening?”
All eyes in the room turned to the teenaged boy who sat with his head in his hands, sleeping peacefully. “I don’t think so…he seems to be asleep,” Said the man sitting next to him.
“I see that…” the speaker said with a twitching eyebrow, “Why are we even here if the producer can’t even pay close enough attention to actually get something accomplished? This is pointless!” The fed up man cried out in frustration, waking the slumbering Hikaru.
“What! Huh…that’s a great idea!” Hikaru shot up into a sitting position and darted his eyes around wildly. There was a collective annoyed sigh and more than one head hit the desk. Hikaru’s eyes dropped to his hands resting on the table in shame with a sigh, “I’m sorry, I fell asleep again…can we start over perhaps?”
Just then the Hey! Say! JUMP manager, who had been focusing on Hikaru and concert, piped up, “I’m sorry Hikaru-kun, but you’re scheduled to finish the choreography for ‘Bump Up’ in an hour, we don’t have time to run through this again.”
Hikaru couldn’t look up as his face screwed up in frustration and he crossed his arms, “Oh…I see…”
“This is pointless!” came the annoyed voice of the speaker once more, “Let’s just call it a day and pray that we can actually get something done tomorrow.” With that everyone started to pack up their things and head to the door.
The overworked teenager watched with sad eyes as the meeting he was supposed to be running fell apart because of him. “What else is there to do today?”
“Well,” His manager pulled out her PDA and pulled up his to do list, “after choreography you have to head straight over the Jimusho and teach what you just made up to the rest of the group at dance practice, then at three we have to go to the venue and decide exactly which lights we’re going to use. After that is you’re lunch break-“
“I have to wait that long until lunch?!” Hikaru cried out in anguish, “You didn’t even give me time to eat breakfast…” with a pitiful moan the poor boy let his head fall to the desk, “sorry…continue…”
The manager nodded with sympathy, “After lunch we have to head over to the sound booth for recording until…seven. Then you’re home free.” Hikaru gave a relieved sigh. “Wait…have you finished that project for your history class?”
“I had a project for history class? Since when?”
“Um…if I remember right, it was assigned a week ago…Oh! But you weren’t there that day because we had a meeting here.”
Hikaru let his arms hang until his knuckles hit the floor, “and how long do you think it’ll take?”
The manager racked her brains, “About two hours is my guess…but with your daily homework that’s another…two and half…”
“So I won’t even get to sleep until midnight? This is harsh…do I even want to know what time I have to wake up?” Hikaru really didn’t want to know…not just yet. Ignorance is bliss they always say.
Scrolling through her handheld once more, the manager replied, “Oh! You get to sleep in!”
Hikaru’s head shot up excitedly, “Really?! How late?”
“Four-thirty A.M.!” Hikaru didn’t reply as his head hit the desk once more.
>>>
Hikaru looked out the taxi window as he headed over to the concert venue after another grueling dance practice with the rest of JUMP. The pace he’d been running at was taxing him up to his breaking point. He was slightly relieved that he would only have to do this for another two weeks before the concert show’s actually started. He thought the worst part was everyone getting angry with him.
It was so hard to please everyone; falling asleep in meetings, not getting as much rehearsal time as the rest of JUMP, and not knowing enough about certain aspects of a concert that he’d never even considered before. With no one to vent with, he’d been practically alone this whole time, his frustrations were becoming too much to bear alone.
But what hurt the most was looking at Keito everyday during the two hour’s he could make it to dance practice. He could see that Keito was missing him just as much as he was longing for the younger boy. He had to rack his brains really hard just to remember the feeling of their last embrace. Truth be told, Hikaru had been really worried about him and his heath; he couldn’t tell who was in better shape anymore, him self or Keito?
Sending Yuto over had been the best thing he’d done in the last few weeks. Not only had Keito’s attitude changed completely, the rest of JUMP had seemed to have hopped onto the band wagon of extreme motivation as well. Seeing the smiling faces of his band members was really refreshing and made him feel like all the hard work he was doing actually meant something to someone.
Before he’d had time to think about it much longer his phone rang, “Hello? Yabu, what’s up?” It was rare that someone from JUMP called him these days; they all knew how busy he was.
“Hikaru?” Yabu’s voice didn’t sound as cheerful as it was supped to, “Something happened…” Hikaru could feel the reluctance in Yabu’s voice to actually tell him what he’d called to say.
Screwing up his eyebrows Hikaru pressed him, “Yabu? What’s wrong?”
“Its… its Keito…”
Worry took over his voice as he pried the information out of Yabu, “Come on Yabu what’s happened, I need to know!”
Sighing, the oldest BEST member finished, “I didn’t really want to worry you, but Keito’s in the hospital.”
Author’s Note: Sorry you guys, I left you another (or is it the same?) cliff hangar! But I couldn’t help it…it was just so tempting! You have to think about it from my point of view! I’m innocent really! *is in denial* Well…another chapter for you all! Remind me not to make jokes anymore…some people really thought I was going on a month long Hiatus… I did say I was joking…and to be honest…if I where to go on one, it would be because I’m too lazy to update or my fickle heart has found a new fandom and I left this one in the dust…but I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon…or ever…XD So, about this chapter, I read somewhere that Hikaru actually was the one that wrote “Bump Up”, I don’t know if he choreographed it…but twisting reality seems to be fun so… I really wanted to show how Hikaru was doing so people could sympathize with him as well as Keito.
Now…about the thing…from last time! I really want to know, what are your favorite moments from this fic? So that I can do the oneshot thing I was talking about! Maybe you all just need some examples. It could be a oneshot about the two months Hikaru spent in denial that he liked Keito…or one about Inoo’s “Plan C”…or a fic about Yabu and Inoo doing all the plotting for it or something…things like that! Please, let me know because this is something I really want to do to include the readers and everything! Doesn’t it sound like fun?!