[One-Shot] KAT-TUN's Countdown To 2011
Title: KAT-TUN’s Countdown To 2011
Pairings: None~ Well, readers’ discretion for pairings, just squint your eyes.
Rating: I’d say PG
Warnings: Reindeer!Maru. Murder of a dead bird. Urm, unbeta’d.
Summary: The boxer is bored and so he decides to pay the beat-boxer a visit. And so we have a New Year’s Eve party conducted at Nakamaru’s house; with obtrusive decorating and gut-clenching food awaiting them. Oh, and, not to forget getting high and drunk 8D
A/N: Let’s just pretend that Tokyo Dome burnt down just before New Year and Johnny’s didn’t hold a countdown concert but they had sleepovers instead. Yes, with popcorns, hot chocolates and make-up karaoke.
It was 26th December. And he was bored.
He had spent Christmas with his family, and as busy as he was afterwards, he wasn’t.
So he decided to barge in to one of his friends house; Nakamaru’s of course. Who else would he find even more amusing to bother and exasperate?
And he was sure that the others were still out somewhere, their holiday spirits still jolly and merry.
Ueda put on his coat, scarf, boots and all the other essential clothing that was obligatory in winter, and as cynical as he sounded, he really loved winter, even though his audacious talk about how he would wear open-toed sandals during that season was buried in the box of nonsensical jabbering.
He drove his car to Nakamaru’s apartment, and it turned out to be a very bad choice of transportation because it was Christmas and the road was packed, both with cars and 6 inches of snow, make that three things, there were hobos tramping the road too.
His phone chirped and he answered it distractedly, the car at the back was starting to horn at him and he stepped on the pedal, moving extremely slowly.
“Yeah, Ueda here.”
“Uepi…” the person at the other line whined.
“What is it this time Taguchi?” he sounded quite annoyed.
“Do you think I should be a tree or a reindeer?”
“What the- WILL YOU SHUT UP?!” Ueda poked his head out of the window and yelled at the car behind his.
“What was that again?”
“Um, which would suit me better, a tree or a reindeer?” Taguchi asked slowly, sounding very vacillated.
“Taguchi, it’s the day after Christmas, why would anyone still want to dress up?” The traffic was killing him. It was during times like these when Ueda wished he really was a butterfly or a fairy so he’d have the ability to fly.
“Well, there’s an after party that I have to attend and we’re required to dress up,” his voice was sulky and Ueda guessed that he was pouting even though the other wasn’t visible.
“Just go as a tree, I’m sure the ornaments would suit you.”
“Really?” he immediately cheered up.
“Yeah, don’t forget to bring batteries with you, the lights would make you look even more exuberant than you already are,” he quickly cut the line and focused on driving, dropping his phone to the passenger’s seat.
He groaned; it felt as if he had reached an impasse, the traffic wasn’t moving at all.
He rested his chin on the steering wheel and sighed.
Suddenly there was a knock on the window and he rolled his eyes.
“Go away, I don’t want you here.”
Kamenashi smiled, “Ah come on Ueda, let me in.”
Ueda narrowed his eyes and pressed the unlock button while shaking his head.
Kame slid in happily. “Thanks.”
“Whatever.”
“So where are we heading?”
“Nakamaru’s.”
“How was Christmas?”
“The usual. My parents ask me how’s work, my mom demands for a daughter-in-law, and my sister’s husband failed to start a proper conversation.”
“I could say mine was good.”
“Mm-hm.”
And they lapsed into silence.
“Don’t you wanna go around town once in a while? Just for fun?” Kamenashi suddenly asked.
“You mean just like when we were holding hands and stuff like two high school girls?” Ueda chortled while keeping his eyes on the road.
“Why not? It was fun.”
“It was embarrassing. I think I was drunk at that moment.”
“But you’re fun when you’re drunk and high,” Kamenashi responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.
“Tell that to Nakamaru, I’m sure he’ll groan a decade’s worth of groaning and eye-rolling.”
Kamenashi laughed and they conversed over random things all the way to their band-mate’s apartment.
***
“Oh great, the both of you’re here.”
“Aww don’t be like that Yuu-kun, we’re your two bestest buddies,” Ueda patted his cheeks and skimmed past him into the apartment, dropping his things and making himself comfortable like it was his own house.
Kamenashi pinched Nakamaru’s cheeks while laughing wryly when the older pouted petulantly and followed Ueda in.
Nakamaru closed the door with a loud sigh.
“Don’t you guys have anything to do?”
“You mean besides pestering you?”
The oldest man glared. “Get a life guys.”
“Says the person who’s watching Home Alone in his apartment while eating left-overs,” Ueda retorted when he saw the half-eaten turkey wing on the table, with the television paused to a scene from the movie.
“Hey, Home Alone’s fun,” Kamenashi hollered and Ueda ignored the remark.
They proceeded to some more childish squabbles before finally settling down to finish the movie, and after the credits rolled, Kame insisted on watching the whole series.
Then, there was a loud bang on the door. “Nakamaru!! Oii! Is anybody home?”
The three in the living room threw each other a knowing look; it was Koki’s distinctive voice.
Nakamaru got up from his seat and tramped disconsolately towards the door that was probably going to break down any moment longer while grumbling something like “It seems that my house has become a nest for KAT-TUN.”
He flung open the door, “What are trying to do? Break down my door?”
“Nakamaru!” and Koki peeped over his shoulder, “Is that Kame-chan and Uepyon I see?”
He brushed Nakamaru aside and skipped in, “It seems like Yucchi’s house has become a nest for KAT-TUN.”
Nakamaru scowled and shut the door, wondering why was he always the one to suffer, but we all know that he’s actually very happy to have his friends over during times like this.
He moved over to the kitchen and decided to make some hot chocolate for everyone, and maybe a little marshmallow would do them some good too.
He heard someone’s phone shrilling and Ueda’s voice wafted closer to where he was; turning around he found Ueda standing next to him by the stove. He was on his toes with one hand pulling out a bag of marshmallows from the cabinet and he proceeded to open the sealed package, fishing out a handful of the snack and stuffing them into his mouth.
He spoke with a full mouth and almost choked, while Nakamaru just watched him, chuckling a little.
“We’re all at Nakamaru’s.” “What? No, don’t.” “Damn it, make up your mind already.”
Then finally, “Okay, I’ll catch you later then.”
Nakamaru raised an eyebrow, “Who was that?”
Ueda grinned slyly, “No one special.”
They both brought the mugs of hot chocolate to where the other two were ransacking the CD case on the floor, trying to find something worth watching.
A click of the tongue was heard from Koki as he straightened up from his crouching position, “I can’t believe we’re spending our day off like this. We look like we’re having a sleep-over; it’s so unlike our image.”
“You should be grateful, Taguchi went to a party dressed up as a Christmas tree,” Ueda dead-panned.
Koki instantly stopped complaining.
“Seriously Nakamaru, what is that thing?” Ueda insinuated with a nudge of his chin, vaguely pointing to one corner of the room where a miniature silver Christmas tree was perched up against the wall.
“Isn’t it cute?” he replied defiantly.
“Cute? It can’t even be considered as a tree.”
Nakamaru followed Ueda’s gaze to the fake tree, its golden ornaments dangling almost precariously at the silver branches. “But I spend Christmas at my family’s, so I don’ think I need a real tree.”
An idea suddenly struck Ueda. “Hey…”
“Hm?”
“Why not we spend Christmas together?”
“What? It’s already over, what do you mean spend it together?” the older frowned.
“We’re always busy during the holidays, and during the real thing, we spend it individually. Why not we spend it in our way just this once?” Ueda crossed his arms and riveted his eyes onto Nakamaru.
Koki and Kame stopped throwing the CDs onto the floor to stare at the two, and then turned to Nakamaru, their eyes pleading.
The oldest looked around the room, his mouth opening and closing but now words managed to come out. Finally he sighed in defeat, “Okay. What’s your plan?”
Ueda smiled in victory while the other two rejoiced. “Let’s see…”
***
So Ueda had decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve together, and as troublesome as it was, Nakamaru went along with the plan without much complaint, incognizant of the problems awaiting.
A few days prior, the younger had whispered conspiratorially to Koki and Kamenashi, and they both ran off to somewhere giddily, and Nakamaru didn’t even want to ask why.
Now, on the early morning of the 31st, Nakamaru stood at the supermarket, accompanying Ueda to shop for a few things he declared as necessary for the gathering.
“I don’t see why we have to get up so early,” he muttered as they strolled past the dairy products section.
“I know you’re enjoying this; your complaints, brooding, groaning and deprecatory actions that exemplify your displeasure don’t actually concede your happiness,” Ueda winked before tugging his hand to finish their shopping.
***
“What the hell is that?” Nakamaru pointed out to the huge tree, a real pine tree, which was standing in his living room, and if he wasn’t too busy being shocked, he’d say that the tree was smirking at him, saying “In your idol beat-boxing face Nakamaru!”
Ueda followed in tow with his hands full of grocery bags and after he dropped them at the kitchen counter, he returned to the living room, nonchalantly shedding off his coat and with a proud look he announced, “You guys did a great job.”
Koki and Kamenashi beamed “Thanks. And you’re lucky we managed to find one.”
The owner of the house, still gaping, said “How did it even get in here? I mean, how did you guys even get into my house?” Now he was narrowing his eyes towards his band-mates who were giggling almost maliciously while unpacking boxes that were unregistered to Nakamaru’s familiarity.
“And what’re those? Ueda Tatsuya what have you made them do? My house! Now there’re needles everywhere!” he said frantically, waving his hands around him even though the needles were only on his floor.
Ueda responded calmly, “Relax and be a sport Yucchi. We’re celebrating New Years right? Why not include a KAT-TUN Christmas along the way? It’ll raise the atmosphere.”
Nakamaru’s frowning look dissolved a little seeing that his friends were in a very festive and jubilant mood. The things I do for these obnoxious kids…
He smiled, his flummoxed state forgotten, and joined Kamenashi and Koki to find out the contents of the boxes, his frown making its way back to his features. “What are these junks?”
“They are not junks, mind you Nakamaru-kun. They’re classic board games that are traditionally played during times like these for generations now,” Kamenashi spoke with conviction while Koki just laughed.
A knock on the door indicated a guess and Ueda went to answer it, and as everyone had expected in sonorous silence, it was Taguchi, dressed in his tree suit.
“Ireguchi, Deguchi, Taguchi desu!” he shouted in a sing-song voice to announce his arrival and the others gawked flatly at him, ruminating what the heck he was wearing.
“You should’ve gone for the reindeer suit,” was what Ueda commented and the others agreed with a wistful nod. Then they continued their activity while Taguchi hesitantly took off the pieces and ornaments that hugged and clung to his body, sad that nobody appreciated the outfit he tried so hard to put together.
He immediately cheered up though, as soon as he saw the myriad types of games sprawled on the floor. He jumped and landed beside Koki who was ripping the plastic bags that held tree ornaments, grumbling why was each and every piece of it in different casings darn it.
“This looks fun! It’s like we’re having a slumber party!”
The others became icebergs as a ripple of tension ran through the room, they took it as more of an insult rather than a exclamation to prove their extraordinary and violent member love; they were in fact, pirates and pirates weren’t supposed to have sleepovers with hot chocolate and marshmallows and flicking lights from a pine tree.
“Please don’t elicit a fray Taguchi-san. It’s already bad as it is,” Nakamaru stated in his indifferent tone of voice and demanour.
“What what? I don’t get it, isn’t this supposed to be fun?” He smiled even brighter, his eyes crinkled in crescent shapes, his lips stretched across his face displaying his set of white teeth, and Koki winced intermittently during the next few minutes, trying very hard to not send his friend to an early grave.
“Let’s just proceed to decorating this tree shall we?” Kamenashi interrupted, smiling as Taguchi maneuvered closer.
“Oi, let’s get some food cooking,” Ueda threw an apron to Nakamaru’s head, calling him over to the kitchen.
Nakamaru donned the flower printed apron. “Um…we don’t really know how to cook this thing so…”
“There’s the internet isn’t there? Don’t be so demoralizing,” a frozen turkey was thrown into the sink and Ueda smiled at Nakamaru; only, Nakamaru wasn’t sure if the smile was supposed to be a courage boost or a death threat, but he decided that it was the second one when the other bowed his head a little so that his bangs would cover his icy-cool eyes, mouth twisted in a sneery smile to cover his ulterior motive.
“Okay then I’ll just start making preps,” he stuttered and a feline grin lit Ueda’s face.
***
It was only a celebration for New Years Eve, but it seemed more like a formal dinner, only they weren’t in any formal attires. And Nakamaru couldn’t help but wonder why he had to prepare turkey for a party that’ll probably have them ending up in a complete mess and disaster unless he kept the liquor away of course.
While he was lugubriously cutting some vegetables with metaphoric dark clouds raining down on him, there was a sudden knock on the window near the dining table, and when nobody really bothered about it, he went to check whether there was some kid trying to break his window with a pebble or something.
He pulled it open and screamed back when a human emerged from the other side and said “Boo!” into his face.
Nakamaru landed on his bottom and stared in complete shock at the person that was now sitting on the sill, trying to get in while laughing his guts off.
“No need to be so surprised Nakamaru,” Jin was still laughing and he stood in front of his friend, extracting a hand in Nakamaru’s direction, offering help.
Nakamaru accepted the hand and stood up, “Of course I’m surprised you idiot, what, you forgot how to use the door all of a sudden?”
The others scrambled in from the living room to find out what the commotion was all about, “Akanishi!”
“Hey there. I thought I’d drop by since I’m not that busy,” he smiled.
“Perfect timing. Do you know how to cook a turkey?” Ueda prompted.
***
“Well, if you put lipstick on a pig, it’ll still be a pig right?” Jin looked down sympathetically at the overcooked bird that was sitting on a tray, shrivelled to a size of a pigeon and skin burnt to a crispy black charcoal colour, after sitting in the oven for who knew how long.
“But, this is a turkey,” Nakamaru and Ueda looked apprehensive.
“That’s it, we’re calling Pizza Hut,” Jin threw away his apron and grabbed his cell.
***
“Nakamaru, come! We’ve finished decorating the living room!” Koki called excitedly.
The three came to the living room and stood stunned.
“What-How-Why- This was my living room?!” Nakamaru was whipping his hands like he was trying to shrug something dead off his arm towards every corner and pore of his living room, freaking out yet surreptitiously impressed at how much work they’d finished in a short amount of time.
“Wow, it looks like the décor of Santa’s house,” Jin said from behind, his mouth in a quirked grin.
“It looks as if Santa threw up in here! I thought we were supposed to celebrate New Year!” Nakamaru was close to hyperventilating, frantically trying to digest how his living room now looked.
The blinking lights, the sparkly stars, the glittering ornaments, the frolicking reindeer, and there were even presents under the massive tree. They were probably just boxes of air and empty space.
“But no mistletoe?”
“Jin, if you want a kiss, go ask a girl to do it,” Kame rolled his eyes.
The door bell rang and Jin jumped for it, forgetting the remark. “Pizza’s here!” he announced mirthfully.
***
It was 9 o’clock and after 3 boxes of pizza and a dozen cans of soda (Nakamaru irrevocably disallowed any alcoholic drinks and had to face the consequences of the fear inducing and notorious glare-penalty from some of his friends) the six of them gathered around the kotatsu playing cards because there was nothing remotely interesting airing on TV.
“This is getting boring,” Koki whined, “How long are we gonna keep playing ‘Happy Family’?” He dumped his cards on the table, and face palmed himself while mumbling “We should’ve gone for survival games.”
“Wait, I haven’t had a chance to win yet,” Taguchi responded and Koki snapped his head towards the former to glare “I hate you.”
“Aww I love you too, Koki.”
Koki groaned a suffering and heavy groan, landing his head on the table, feeling aggravated.
“Koki’s right, this old man here didn’t even let us have a few drinks,” Jin pouted.
“If I do, my house will end up in disaster. It’ll look like Ueda’s.”
“Hey, at least I try to clean.”
“Then you should try harder.”
“Well you should come by more often and help me.”
“All right now, don’t fight,” Kamenashi chimed in.
“Nakamaru…” Jin tugged his sleeves, “Let’s do something fun~”. When Nakamaru didn’t respond and completely ignored the other, he proceeded to poke Nakamaru and the older retaliated by attacking his cheek bone.
After Jin’s high-pitched and ear drum killing squeal, they sat quietly for some time, procrastinating while pondering what they should do next.
“So…what now?”
***
Nakamaru sat, defeated and deflated, while his friends toasted their glasses for the nth time later that night. He glanced at the clock on the wall that was obtrusively decorated with a cable of angel lights; there was still 2 hours left before it stroke 12.
Kamenashi, already drunk, flopped down beside him. “What’s wrong Yucchi?” he nudged the older with an elbow.
Nakamaru chuckled mockingly, “What’s wrong is this,” he gestured to the scenario in front of him.
He himself couldn’t understand nor comprehend how he gave into Jin’s pleading and pestering, but now it was too late to change what he did, and he heard a voice whispering; he must put his behind in his past. “What the hell Akanishi! Get away from me!” he whipped Jin’s head and the latter yelped a little.
“I was just dampening your conscience with optimism and shooing the guilt away,” Jin giggled.
“What you said sounded so wrong! It’s supposed to be ‘put your past behind you’. I can’t believe how much of an imbecile you are.” Nakamaru shook in distastefulness.
“I think that’s why he’s called Bakanishi, correct?” Taguchi said while taking a sip of his wine glass.
“I thought it was because his mom couldn’t find anything that rhymes with idiot so we had to come up with a suitable sobriquet instead?” Koki added.
“What’re you guys blabbering about? My name is Jin!” They threw their heads back and exploded with laughter.
Ueda prowled in a stealth-like manner behind Nakamaru and placed something on his head. “There,” he said, “Now you look even much cuter!”
Nakamaru prodded his head and tried to trace the shape of the object that was crowning his head and decided to just pull it off, only to find it stuck firmly on his head. “Why won’t it come off?” he looked at Kamenashi and Ueda who were sniggering mischievously and his eyes widened in sheer horror “You turned me into a reindeer!!” He hopped to his feet and ran to the mirror.
He tried wrenching it off his head but it was of no use, he was doomed to live as a reindeer for the rest of his life, and he dropped to the floor, feeling the need to bang his head against anything hard and flinty so that it’d cause a haemorrhage to his brain.
“Don’t be like that Nakamaru, it’ll come off if you wash it with some make-up remover,” Ueda tried to comfort him from his agony.
“Just shoot me now,” Nakamaru crawled to the crouch and lay down in foetus position, feeling exceptionally exhausted.
When Jin started to sing ‘Top of The World’ and Taguchi cut him off by singing ‘GIRLS’ with Koki by his side clapping his hands in joy(we’re still wondering why he wasn’t rapping) and Kamenashi just went ‘Lalala’, Ueda parked near Nakamaru on the floor, his back resting against the couch with a bottle of liquor in his hand.
“You asleep or something?”
“I wish I was,” Nakamaru replied, his head still buried on a pillow, refusing to turn around to face his band-mate, sulking.
“It kinda went a little out of hand, but I enjoyed this,” Ueda continued.
“Yeah?” Nakamaru turned his head a little, hesitating, but said “Glad you did,” which sounded grudgingly forced, but at least he tried.
“I’m glad you’re glad?” Ueda cackled, a smile growing on his face.
“Nakamaru!! We need our beat-boxer!” Taguchi called Nakamaru to join his unit of singing maniacs. But he ended up being ultimately ignored. Like always.
“Well, because we got to spend the last moments of 2010 together like a cohesive group of idiots, I guess you could say I quite enjoyed it…” Nakamaru said, his voice a little above a whisper, finally turning to the other side, only to find a snoring Ueda. “Oi, don’t sleep!” He sat up and inexorably shoved the younger. Ueda instinctively threw a punch while being half asleep and Nakamaru, being eruditely prepared after years of practice and his experience of being a super ranger, avoided it swiftly before brusquely shaking Ueda awake.
“What? Is it already time for countdown?” Ueda asked groggily, rubbing his eyes, trying to cast off his drowsiness.
“Countdown!!” Jin suddenly shouted. “Let’s start the countdown!”
“There’s still an hour left you idiot,” Nakamaru retorted.
“Aww,” Kamenashi interrupted, “Then what’ll we do for the next sixty minutes?”
***
“Stop making prank calls! He’s our boss!” Nakamaru reprimanded after a few shots of rum. “If you do this it’ll give a bad impression to our kids and they’ll be shunned by the society and have to live in the shadows for the rest of their lives and blame us for leaving them destitute and ashamed and curse us and we’ll never die in peace.”
“Hey look, even Yucchi is getting all drunk!” Koki slung an arm around his friend, laughing while tweaking Nakamaru’s reindeer horns. Well, he was feeling sorta horny.
“Nakamaru, this is our way of greeting New Year to him,” Kamenashi drawled, “And we don’t have kids. Yet. Akanishi, just do it.”
“No, let me do it,” Ueda snatched the phone from Jin’s hand and they fought over the device for a while, trampling and swearing and attacking, before Taguchi switched on the TV and exclaimed “The countdown’s starting!”
“10, 9, 8,” they chanted together “-2, 1.”
“Happy New Year!!”
There was a loud noise coming from outside and they all jumped to the window, instantly enraptured by the display of firework in the night sky.
The black background was painted with erratic splashes and bursts of rainbow-coloured fireworks, tainting the night atmosphere with loud explosives torpedoing from the heart of the city and bright sparks lighting every crevice and area of the land, shouting for attention from the residents.
A year had finally ended and January had came by again, so many things had happened, so many people had changed, so many developments and deteriorations had been caused, so many memories had been made and treasured.
“Tamaya~!” Kamenashi shouted at the top of his voice and a few pedestrians below looked up and started squealing and flailing for an apparent facet of reason we all know very well of.
They promptly settled back in the living room, either sprawled on the floor or jammed on the couch, cheeks blotched with patches of scarlet, hiccupping once or twice, but smiles bloomed on each and every single one of their faces, accentuating the gratifying atmosphere in that room even if no one spoke a single word.
And as they fell asleep on the floor, unconsciously cuddling closer to each other, legs on others’ stomach, hair in each others’ face, hands on each others’ body parts that are unnecessary to say, they dreamt of what tomorrow, next week, the following month, decades even, would bring them.
Well, the first battle they’d have to face the following day would be a major hangover and muscle cramp with a touch of sore throat for some of them.
**********************************************************************************************************************
What the heck was that? Answer: It started as a drabble that I wrote when I had insomnia about a week ago. But look how big it turned out to be, I raised it well.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!