Prompt 6: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size - Team Future
Title: Filling Shoes
Rating: PG
Pairing None
Summary: Nishikido loses a brother and gains a whole new kind of life. Set about 15 years in the future.
Prompt: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size.
Warnings: Nothing much to warn for - slightly sad.
Notes: I honestly don't know which of Ryo's siblings have kids and how many they each have. For the purpose of this fic one of his brothers has only one child; Nishikido Mei.
Jii-chan = Uncle, 20000yen = roughly $200.
Ryo wandered through his brother's house. He never thought this could be a possibility. One drunken driver and that's it; his brother and sister-in-law were just gone. The world beyond this house seemed to disappear into a blur.
He'd been given time off work with the bare minimum of explanation to the media. They kept the entire issue under wraps as best as they could. The last thing his family needed was a media storm at the funeral. It helped that Ryo was living a quieter life now. There would have been no way of keeping this private back in his glory days. But thoughts of work slipped from his mind as Ryo ran his fingers along the kitchen bench.
He'd been here countless times over the years; sharing beer with brother at the table, enjoying Rii-chan's cooking and watching his niece grow up. But he wasn't a guest here anymore. How could they expect him to simply take something of his brothers and just make it his own? This wasn't his house. It wasn't his kitchen. The material hanging from the oven handle wasn't his tea towel.
Ryo looked across to the desolate twelve year old sitting at the table. She wasn't his daughter. But she was his niece and he was all she had. This was her house, her kitchen, her mother's tea towel and he had no right to ask her to leave any of it behind. He would do as his brother's will requested and move in. He would take over the responsibilities of this house and this child so that she could move past the loss of her parents without losing anything else.
It was awkward at first. That was sort of a given. Of course it was never going to feel right. He couldn't bring himself to sleep in his brother's bed; instead he spread out a futon in the living area and slept there. Mei-Chan didn't say a word but he could tell that she appreciated it. Two days later he found her curled up in her parent's bed; face buried in their pillows and sobs filling the air.
Time made things easier and eventually Ryo did move into that room; he couldn't sleep in the living area for the next eight years. But Ryo made sure that it didn't happen until the first gash of grief had started to fade from her eyes.
He signed the papers for guardianship, met with her teachers to explain the situation, and convinced her to go back to school. Eventually she started to stay out late with friends on a Fridays. He even caught her giggling on the phone at one point.
Ryo looked back on his life. He had been an idol. Technically he still was, though he was well past the spring of his youth. The fans had eventually been told; he'd lost a brother and gained a daughter. There had been huge outpourings of support from women who had once been screaming fangirls and were now just married women who bought his albums and DVDs. So far none of them seemed to have noticed what it really meant.
He was a single parent now. He had a young girl to care for. There was no way that he could continue to work in Tokyo, no chance of concert tours. At this point he wasn't even sure if drama schedules would be an option. Sure he could hire a nanny, but that just didn't seem right. He couldn't do that to Mei-Chan, couldn't just palm her off to a stranger like she didn't matter.
"Jii-chan? I was wondering when do you have to go back to work?" He had been doing the laundry when she asked. He put down the basket and tried to think of the right answer.
"I'm not sure MeiMei, I have plenty of savings, and I don't need to go back yet."
"But what about your bands? Can they keep working without you?"
Ryo shrugged, "Both my bands are used to me being in other cities. They'll survive."
"But it's been three months."
"I know," Ryo gestured for her to sit down and hoped that she was old enough to stay objective, "but I can't just disappear off to Tokyo every now and then, I can't leave you behind when my bands go on concert tours, and I can't expect you to make dinner for yourself every night if I have filming. That's why I never had a family of my own; I didn't have a schedule that could support it."
"So, you're saying that I have to move to Tokyo?"
"No! No, this is your home; we're not going anywhere. But I might need to find a new job. That's all."
"You can't quit! I-I could stay at grandma's while you're away or something."
Ryo thought about that, about his elderly parents and their afternoon naps. He considered his sister but a single thought about her three rowdy kids shook his head. His other brother lived down in Kyushu these days. Besides, it just didn't feel right to leave her behind.
"Look I'll talk to the office. I can probably stay with Kanjani. We don't tour so much these days, so long as you don't mind spending the occasional school holiday on tour with me, then it should be okay. And maybe you could go to Granma's after school if I have filming, but I think you should come home to sleep. News will understand; they've survived losing members before and it's not like we're as popular as we used to be."
She had cried so hard after that. Nothing Ryo said made her feel any less guilty. It took a full week before she could look him in the eye again.
Months passed by easily after that. Her birthday passed with a small cake and a few tears. She didn't want a party but she had accepted the family dinner. Time continued on and their lives settled into a rhythm, Ryo took on a few smaller acting roles, ones that let him get home by six, picking Mei up on the way back. Kanjani took the news easily and even had work meetings over dinner at his house, 'so Mei wouldn't be alone'. It turned out that News was more than willing to work with him via Skype for the most part, so he still got to be a part of the latest album. He hadn't really given up all that much at all.
While what he had given up might be minor, what he had gained was huge. Never before had Ryo known this kind of responsibility. He'd lived with people before, learnt to be conscientious of what time he got home and how neat he kept his belongings, but he'd never really had to make any big concessions in his life for another person. Yet here he was, compromising his entire career to cater to another person.
Sometimes he wonders if he's going overboard with it. There are times when she seems to be adapting to him instead. There were the increasing incidents of walking into a room in the jimusho to find her jamming with Subaru on the old beat up acoustic guitar that had belonged to her dad. The very same guitar that his twelve year old self had envied his big brother for owning. Or the times he'd catch her hanging around his work doing nothing other than staring at the juniors in practise rooms, trying to learn their routines from her hiding spot out in the hallway.
One Thursday, he managed to be home before Mei got back from school, only to witness her storm upstairs and throw herself onto her bed. Ryo tried to ask what the problem was only to have a pillow thrown at his head.
"You aren't my mother!"
Ryo picked up the pillow and handed it back.
"I know that but I am here to help. If you don't want to talk to me about it, I could ring your aunt?"
"Hell No!"
"MeiMei ...," He perched himself on the edge of her bed and rubbed her back, "You don't have to tell me. Just, you know... if you need a hug or something?"
"Can I have money?" she mumbled into her pillow.
"Money? Sure, how much do you need?" Could this have something to do with a date?? Was she old enough for that yet?
"Maybe, like twenty thousand yen?"
"Twenty thousand yen! What the hell for?! Are you in debt? Are you being bullied? Please tell me you're not doing drugs"
"I'm not doing drugs! I just, I need it. For something."
"I love you, but there is no way I'm giving you that much money without an explanation."
"I can't say it. I'm not going to talk to my uncle about this stuff."
"Look, why don't I go with you to get whatever it is you need and then I can just pay for it without worrying. Nothing said, no questions asked." Maybe she wanted a new hairstyle to impress the guy or something. There were certainly more than a few stylists that charged far more than they were worth.
"You can't go with me. It's embarrassing." Colour flushed her face and neck. Ryo nodded inwardly. This had to be about a boy.
"I'm your guardian; I'm supposed to embarrass you. There is no way I'm giving a thirteen year old that much cash."
"Fine!!"
She pulled him out of the house, face red with anger and probably embarrassment. By the time they arrived at the mall Ryo's stomach was a mass of twisted knots. Mei was a good kid. He trusted her and she was obviously embarrassed about this whole situation. Why couldn't he just give her the cash and be done with it?
He knew he should have just trusted her with the cash when she pulled him into a lingerie store and dragged him over to the corner.
"You had to come with me didn't you? So, now you get to witness the humiliation." She announced and pushed him down into an ugly pink chair that seemed to be designed to accommodate the uncomfortable boyfriends that were dragged into the store.
Ryo sat dumbfounded as his thirteen year old started sorting through the store. It was kind of obvious that she had no idea what she was looking for. Ryo had always been squeamish about these kinds of stores. They were the least male friendly places on Earth. Still, he was the guardian and Mei-Chan needed his help. She was too shy to flag down the sales assistant and she wasn't going to be able to figure this out for herself.
He pulled himself out of the chair and walked up beside her.
"Do you know what size you're looking for?"
"Jii-Chan! Go away." Mei's face was flooded with colour yet again, but Ryo figured his face probably matched this time.
"Can I help you?" A sales lady moved in, putting herself bodily between Ryo and his niece. Apparently she was worried that he was a creepy pervert. Ryo sighed.
"My niece needs help figuring out her size. Would you mind?"
"Don't you think this would be something that her mother should help her with?"
"My brother and his wife have passed away. I'm her guardian and I'm not good at this sort of thing. Could you please just help her figure out what she needs?"
The lady's face went from shock to embarrassment before she apologised and shuffled Mei into the dressing rooms. Ryo spent the next half hour sitting on the chair in the corner and getting a world of dodgy looks from every woman that walked in.
Least male friendly place on Earth!
Eventually the lady came out with two handfuls of little hangers covered in things he didn't want to look at and gestured him over to the register. She held up the hangers in right hand and explained that he plain ones were for a week's worth of practical ones for school and then held up the other more colourful hand and explained that they were for weekends and special occasions. Ryo nodded absently and pulled out his credit card. How a handful of underwear ended up costing him thirty thousand yen was completely beyond him. It wasn't like they were designer brands or anything. He was questioning the lady about it when Mei finally rejoined him. Maybe now wasn't the time to be questioning anything. He just paid and finally escaped the damnable shop.
He only got a few steps away before a dainty hand curled around his own. "Thanks Jii-chan." He looked down at his pink faced niece and couldn't help but smile.
"Ah, yeah. Is ... this your first one?"
She nodded silently and fixed her eyes on the ground.
"Well, I guess that means you get ice cream too." Ryo indicated the ice-cream stand and stared to head over.
"Why?"
"I don't know, I just remember that my sister got ice-cream when she got her first ... one. Your grandma wanted to celebrate or something. Anyway, it's ice-cream. You should never question ice-cream."
Mei laughed at that and ran over to order something decadent.
Maybe this parenthood thing wasn't so horrible after all. He could do this. One day, he might even be good at it. He always assumed that the saying 'The things we do for love,' was just something to say when your girlfriend dragged you to a boring movie, but now Ryo suspected that he was learning the real meaning of it.
A week later there was a small side article in a newspaper with picture of Ryo and Mei leaving the lingerie store hand in hand and another one of them eating ice-cream on the way back to the car. The article was praising him for his parenting milestone but it didn't make it any less mortifying for Mei-Chan to deal with the next day at school.
A phone call from his sister later and he had decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to set up a credit card for Mei-chan. He could check the statement to make sure she didn't waste the money and he wouldn't have to go with her to buy anything that might embarrass either of them if it turned up in the media.
Ryo couldn't say that guardianship was an easy job in the slightest but he was starting to understand why his brother had chosen him. All of his siblings were parents and it might have been easier for them to have taken Mei in but Ryo was suddenly very grateful for the opportunity to be her family. It awakened a fierce protective pride within him to know that this girl relied on him, even for things that she would normally never discuss with others. And he finally realised what it was to have something or someone in his life that was more important than work.
Poll Team Future
Rating: PG
Pairing None
Summary: Nishikido loses a brother and gains a whole new kind of life. Set about 15 years in the future.
Prompt: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size.
Warnings: Nothing much to warn for - slightly sad.
Notes: I honestly don't know which of Ryo's siblings have kids and how many they each have. For the purpose of this fic one of his brothers has only one child; Nishikido Mei.
Jii-chan = Uncle, 20000yen = roughly $200.
Ryo wandered through his brother's house. He never thought this could be a possibility. One drunken driver and that's it; his brother and sister-in-law were just gone. The world beyond this house seemed to disappear into a blur.
He'd been given time off work with the bare minimum of explanation to the media. They kept the entire issue under wraps as best as they could. The last thing his family needed was a media storm at the funeral. It helped that Ryo was living a quieter life now. There would have been no way of keeping this private back in his glory days. But thoughts of work slipped from his mind as Ryo ran his fingers along the kitchen bench.
He'd been here countless times over the years; sharing beer with brother at the table, enjoying Rii-chan's cooking and watching his niece grow up. But he wasn't a guest here anymore. How could they expect him to simply take something of his brothers and just make it his own? This wasn't his house. It wasn't his kitchen. The material hanging from the oven handle wasn't his tea towel.
Ryo looked across to the desolate twelve year old sitting at the table. She wasn't his daughter. But she was his niece and he was all she had. This was her house, her kitchen, her mother's tea towel and he had no right to ask her to leave any of it behind. He would do as his brother's will requested and move in. He would take over the responsibilities of this house and this child so that she could move past the loss of her parents without losing anything else.
It was awkward at first. That was sort of a given. Of course it was never going to feel right. He couldn't bring himself to sleep in his brother's bed; instead he spread out a futon in the living area and slept there. Mei-Chan didn't say a word but he could tell that she appreciated it. Two days later he found her curled up in her parent's bed; face buried in their pillows and sobs filling the air.
Time made things easier and eventually Ryo did move into that room; he couldn't sleep in the living area for the next eight years. But Ryo made sure that it didn't happen until the first gash of grief had started to fade from her eyes.
He signed the papers for guardianship, met with her teachers to explain the situation, and convinced her to go back to school. Eventually she started to stay out late with friends on a Fridays. He even caught her giggling on the phone at one point.
Ryo looked back on his life. He had been an idol. Technically he still was, though he was well past the spring of his youth. The fans had eventually been told; he'd lost a brother and gained a daughter. There had been huge outpourings of support from women who had once been screaming fangirls and were now just married women who bought his albums and DVDs. So far none of them seemed to have noticed what it really meant.
He was a single parent now. He had a young girl to care for. There was no way that he could continue to work in Tokyo, no chance of concert tours. At this point he wasn't even sure if drama schedules would be an option. Sure he could hire a nanny, but that just didn't seem right. He couldn't do that to Mei-Chan, couldn't just palm her off to a stranger like she didn't matter.
"Jii-chan? I was wondering when do you have to go back to work?" He had been doing the laundry when she asked. He put down the basket and tried to think of the right answer.
"I'm not sure MeiMei, I have plenty of savings, and I don't need to go back yet."
"But what about your bands? Can they keep working without you?"
Ryo shrugged, "Both my bands are used to me being in other cities. They'll survive."
"But it's been three months."
"I know," Ryo gestured for her to sit down and hoped that she was old enough to stay objective, "but I can't just disappear off to Tokyo every now and then, I can't leave you behind when my bands go on concert tours, and I can't expect you to make dinner for yourself every night if I have filming. That's why I never had a family of my own; I didn't have a schedule that could support it."
"So, you're saying that I have to move to Tokyo?"
"No! No, this is your home; we're not going anywhere. But I might need to find a new job. That's all."
"You can't quit! I-I could stay at grandma's while you're away or something."
Ryo thought about that, about his elderly parents and their afternoon naps. He considered his sister but a single thought about her three rowdy kids shook his head. His other brother lived down in Kyushu these days. Besides, it just didn't feel right to leave her behind.
"Look I'll talk to the office. I can probably stay with Kanjani. We don't tour so much these days, so long as you don't mind spending the occasional school holiday on tour with me, then it should be okay. And maybe you could go to Granma's after school if I have filming, but I think you should come home to sleep. News will understand; they've survived losing members before and it's not like we're as popular as we used to be."
She had cried so hard after that. Nothing Ryo said made her feel any less guilty. It took a full week before she could look him in the eye again.
Months passed by easily after that. Her birthday passed with a small cake and a few tears. She didn't want a party but she had accepted the family dinner. Time continued on and their lives settled into a rhythm, Ryo took on a few smaller acting roles, ones that let him get home by six, picking Mei up on the way back. Kanjani took the news easily and even had work meetings over dinner at his house, 'so Mei wouldn't be alone'. It turned out that News was more than willing to work with him via Skype for the most part, so he still got to be a part of the latest album. He hadn't really given up all that much at all.
While what he had given up might be minor, what he had gained was huge. Never before had Ryo known this kind of responsibility. He'd lived with people before, learnt to be conscientious of what time he got home and how neat he kept his belongings, but he'd never really had to make any big concessions in his life for another person. Yet here he was, compromising his entire career to cater to another person.
Sometimes he wonders if he's going overboard with it. There are times when she seems to be adapting to him instead. There were the increasing incidents of walking into a room in the jimusho to find her jamming with Subaru on the old beat up acoustic guitar that had belonged to her dad. The very same guitar that his twelve year old self had envied his big brother for owning. Or the times he'd catch her hanging around his work doing nothing other than staring at the juniors in practise rooms, trying to learn their routines from her hiding spot out in the hallway.
One Thursday, he managed to be home before Mei got back from school, only to witness her storm upstairs and throw herself onto her bed. Ryo tried to ask what the problem was only to have a pillow thrown at his head.
"You aren't my mother!"
Ryo picked up the pillow and handed it back.
"I know that but I am here to help. If you don't want to talk to me about it, I could ring your aunt?"
"Hell No!"
"MeiMei ...," He perched himself on the edge of her bed and rubbed her back, "You don't have to tell me. Just, you know... if you need a hug or something?"
"Can I have money?" she mumbled into her pillow.
"Money? Sure, how much do you need?" Could this have something to do with a date?? Was she old enough for that yet?
"Maybe, like twenty thousand yen?"
"Twenty thousand yen! What the hell for?! Are you in debt? Are you being bullied? Please tell me you're not doing drugs"
"I'm not doing drugs! I just, I need it. For something."
"I love you, but there is no way I'm giving you that much money without an explanation."
"I can't say it. I'm not going to talk to my uncle about this stuff."
"Look, why don't I go with you to get whatever it is you need and then I can just pay for it without worrying. Nothing said, no questions asked." Maybe she wanted a new hairstyle to impress the guy or something. There were certainly more than a few stylists that charged far more than they were worth.
"You can't go with me. It's embarrassing." Colour flushed her face and neck. Ryo nodded inwardly. This had to be about a boy.
"I'm your guardian; I'm supposed to embarrass you. There is no way I'm giving a thirteen year old that much cash."
"Fine!!"
She pulled him out of the house, face red with anger and probably embarrassment. By the time they arrived at the mall Ryo's stomach was a mass of twisted knots. Mei was a good kid. He trusted her and she was obviously embarrassed about this whole situation. Why couldn't he just give her the cash and be done with it?
He knew he should have just trusted her with the cash when she pulled him into a lingerie store and dragged him over to the corner.
"You had to come with me didn't you? So, now you get to witness the humiliation." She announced and pushed him down into an ugly pink chair that seemed to be designed to accommodate the uncomfortable boyfriends that were dragged into the store.
Ryo sat dumbfounded as his thirteen year old started sorting through the store. It was kind of obvious that she had no idea what she was looking for. Ryo had always been squeamish about these kinds of stores. They were the least male friendly places on Earth. Still, he was the guardian and Mei-Chan needed his help. She was too shy to flag down the sales assistant and she wasn't going to be able to figure this out for herself.
He pulled himself out of the chair and walked up beside her.
"Do you know what size you're looking for?"
"Jii-Chan! Go away." Mei's face was flooded with colour yet again, but Ryo figured his face probably matched this time.
"Can I help you?" A sales lady moved in, putting herself bodily between Ryo and his niece. Apparently she was worried that he was a creepy pervert. Ryo sighed.
"My niece needs help figuring out her size. Would you mind?"
"Don't you think this would be something that her mother should help her with?"
"My brother and his wife have passed away. I'm her guardian and I'm not good at this sort of thing. Could you please just help her figure out what she needs?"
The lady's face went from shock to embarrassment before she apologised and shuffled Mei into the dressing rooms. Ryo spent the next half hour sitting on the chair in the corner and getting a world of dodgy looks from every woman that walked in.
Least male friendly place on Earth!
Eventually the lady came out with two handfuls of little hangers covered in things he didn't want to look at and gestured him over to the register. She held up the hangers in right hand and explained that he plain ones were for a week's worth of practical ones for school and then held up the other more colourful hand and explained that they were for weekends and special occasions. Ryo nodded absently and pulled out his credit card. How a handful of underwear ended up costing him thirty thousand yen was completely beyond him. It wasn't like they were designer brands or anything. He was questioning the lady about it when Mei finally rejoined him. Maybe now wasn't the time to be questioning anything. He just paid and finally escaped the damnable shop.
He only got a few steps away before a dainty hand curled around his own. "Thanks Jii-chan." He looked down at his pink faced niece and couldn't help but smile.
"Ah, yeah. Is ... this your first one?"
She nodded silently and fixed her eyes on the ground.
"Well, I guess that means you get ice cream too." Ryo indicated the ice-cream stand and stared to head over.
"Why?"
"I don't know, I just remember that my sister got ice-cream when she got her first ... one. Your grandma wanted to celebrate or something. Anyway, it's ice-cream. You should never question ice-cream."
Mei laughed at that and ran over to order something decadent.
Maybe this parenthood thing wasn't so horrible after all. He could do this. One day, he might even be good at it. He always assumed that the saying 'The things we do for love,' was just something to say when your girlfriend dragged you to a boring movie, but now Ryo suspected that he was learning the real meaning of it.
A week later there was a small side article in a newspaper with picture of Ryo and Mei leaving the lingerie store hand in hand and another one of them eating ice-cream on the way back to the car. The article was praising him for his parenting milestone but it didn't make it any less mortifying for Mei-Chan to deal with the next day at school.
A phone call from his sister later and he had decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to set up a credit card for Mei-chan. He could check the statement to make sure she didn't waste the money and he wouldn't have to go with her to buy anything that might embarrass either of them if it turned up in the media.
Ryo couldn't say that guardianship was an easy job in the slightest but he was starting to understand why his brother had chosen him. All of his siblings were parents and it might have been easier for them to have taken Mei in but Ryo was suddenly very grateful for the opportunity to be her family. It awakened a fierce protective pride within him to know that this girl relied on him, even for things that she would normally never discuss with others. And he finally realised what it was to have something or someone in his life that was more important than work.
Poll Team Future