Gift Fic for littlealex
Gift Fic for littlealex
by xplodey_di
Title: shaka lacka boom boom
(alternative title: the one in which Arashi are evil robots programmed to take over the world)
Pairing/Groups: Kanjani8, Arashi, KAT-TUN, NewS; (Aiba/Toma, Nino/Kame, Koki/Shige, MatsuJun/Koyama, and if you squint, some Pin)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Yoko and Hina are mad scientists. One drunken night, they decide to build robots to take over the world, and then promptly lose them. Good job, guys.
Warnings: Pretty much the longest and most retarded thing I've ever written. (Maybe.)
Notes: For littlealex. I hope you like this! I ended up doing selfish things like putting in the groups that I like (that you possibly don't even know? D:) but I hope you enjoy it regardless. I wanted to make it really fun, and I hope it is!
"Ryo-chan won't go out to drink with me anymore," Hina whines loudly. Pretty much everyone in the bar hears, but they determinedly ignore it. "He says that I'm annoying!" His lower lip wobbles.
"This is because you really are kind of a little bitch sometimes," Yoko says seriously, and tries very hard not to giggle when Hina adopts an exaggeratedly indignant expression, his mouth gaping and his eyes wide, and his eyes scrunching up endearingly in the corners. Overall, it's a very cute expression. He pinches Hina's cheeks gleefully, and Hina scrunches up his nose too.
"Nooooooooooo," Hina wails dramatically and bats at Yoko's hands until he lets go.
Yoko notes amusedly that Hina is really noisy when drunk and promptly downs another shot.
Hina pouts into his shot glass. "No one appreciates me," he says grumpily, and Yoko pats him on the back comfortingly.
"Here, have another drink," he says consolingly, and wonders how many Hina's already had. He briefly considers taking the shot back, but Hina's already downed it. Oh well.
"No one appreciates me," Hina mumbles again. Then he perks up. "Hey, if I take over the world, people have to listen to me, right?"
Yoko considers this question. "Probably," he says.
"You could be my left-hand man!" Hina says brightly.
Yoko's brow crinkles. There's something not quite right about that statement... "Hey, why not your right hand man?" he asks, feeling hurt.
"No, Ohkura-kun would be my right hand man," Hina says cheerfully.
"What about meeeeeeeeeee?" Yoko whines shamelessly.
"Because he's crafty," Hina says. "Duh."
"I can be crafty!" Yoko protests.
"Really?" Hina asks, looking honestly surprised.
Yoko pouts. "Fine," he grumbles, and then says, "Oh, what about the rest of the team?"
"What team?" Hina says perplexed.
"I'm going to smack you," Yoko says, all seriousness.
Hina blinks once. "Oh, you mean Kanjani?"
"I'm going to smack you," Yoko says again, and really means to, except Hina's head misses his hand and they both fall off their bar stools.
The floor is surprisingly comfortable, so Yoko decides not to get up. Evidently, Hina feels the same way, because he doesn't get up either.
"Yasu would be the most awesome secretary ever," Hina says into the cool tile floor.
"If you say so," Yoko mumbles, and then, "Do people who take over the world have secretaries?"
"I don't know," Hina says, "but it seems like it'd be a good idea, don't you think? Evil overlords should have secretaries. Or at least one secretaries. Secretary. Hee hee. I would make him wear a pink bow in his hair."
Hina is weird when he is drunk, Yoko reflects. "What about Subaru?"
"IDK," Hina says, and Yoko giggles because the English letters sound funny coming out of his mouth. "Entertainment? Jester? Royal songbird? I like hearing him singgggggg~ Oooh, maybe concubine, they have to listen to their masters, right?"
"You are creepy sometimes," Yoko informs him.
"Thank you," Hina replies pleasantly. "Ryo would be... a foot thing."
"Huh?" Yoko frowns. "Like a foot stool?"
"No!" Hina shouts, looking incensed. "Human foot thing!"
"Human foot thing?" Yoko repeats, bewildered. He is too drunk for this - or conversely, maybe he is not drunk enough for this. He seriously considers getting up for another drink, and then decides it's too much effort. "Foot soldier?"
"Uhh," Hina says, "I don't think so."
"Footman?"
"Yes!" Hina says triumphantly.
Yoko nearly dies of laughter. As it is, he rolls around a lot and can't breathe right, which is close enough. "You would make Ryo-chan a servant," he manages to gasp out, "Ryo-chan would kill you in your sleep."
"If he could get past my awesome bodyguard," Hina says gleefully.
Yoko giggles. "Let me guess - Marumaru?"
"Oh yeah," Hina says, nodding. His eyes cross a little, and he stops very quickly. Then he says, "How would one go about taking over the planet?"
"..." Yoko says.
"..." Hina replies.
"...evil robots," Yoko says finally.
"Perfect!" Hina says immediately. Clearly he hadn't thought of anything better. Or possibly anything at all. "We need a lair."
"We can't afford a lair," Yoko says.
"I have the keys to Subaru's basement?" Hina suggests.
Why? Yoko thinks about asking, and thinks better of it. It's Hina. "That works!"
"Can we cackle evilly now?" Hina asks.
"Probably," Yoko says.
"Should we cackle evilly now?" Hina asks.
"Definitely," Yoko says.
The other patrons at the bar studiously continue to ignore the crazies cackling on the floor. There are just some things that you are better off not dealing with.
-
That night, a machine of pure evil comes to being. It opens its eyes - eyes that are deceivingly blank as if it is thinking nothing, but is really hiding a genius of unspeakable proportions - eyes that were created to aid in the despicable plan of enslaving the world and subjecting it to the will of mad scientists.
Its consciousness seems to come slowly - although its eyes are opened, it doesn't seem aware of anything. In fact, Yoko is beginning to doubt his own genius, when it blinks. Once.
He and Hina are immediately glued to the computer screen to see their creation's first thoughts.
As its mind slowly comes to, they wait in anticipation as its devious intent begins to develop as planned. Its intent...
...to fish.
And take over the world.
But mostly fish.
("Huh," Hina said, "I wonder how that happened?"
"Maybe it was the beer we spilled into its mainframe?" Yoko suggested.
"Well, he can't fish here," Hina said practically.
"Then what do we have him do?" Yoko asked.
"I don't know!" Hina exclaimed. "Why are you asking me?"
"This whole thing was your idea!" Yoko looked like he was on the brink of slapping Hina upside the head again.
"Okay, okay," Hina said quickly, "I have a boombox. Maybe we can get him to dance to occupy his time for now."
Surprisingly, he was really quite good at dancing and, upon further investigation, singing as well. For this sort of terrible justification which was really just a cover to avoid saying that it happened to be convenient, Yoko and Hina inflicted their creation upon Subaru while they developed a new model. For about three hours, they mostly just sat there staring at each other until Subaru decided to find out if he could eat regular food and discovered that feeding him almost anything would make him say, "It's good!"
Subaru also gave him a name - "Ohno Satoshi."
Ohno seemed to like his name, but he was busy shoveling food in his mouth, so Subaru couldn't be sure.)
-
Somewhere else, someone's life is about to get very difficult.
"I think Toma needs to get laid," Yamapi says seriously to Jin.
"I'm right here," Toma says loudly.
"I agree," Jin replies solemnly, and Yamapi nods heavily. Jin then perks up. "Hey, you know, I think Kame hasn't gotten laid in a while-"
"I'm going to kill you both," Toma says calmly, and Jin and Yamapi scamper when he gets up, looking scarily like he means it.
"No, but really," Yamapi whispers to Jin in their hiding spot, aka the janitor's closet. "I think he does."
"Definitely," Jin whispers back, nodding fervently.
Outside, Toma rolls his eyes and locks the closet from the outside.
They never learn.
-
Yoko and Hina's newest model is much sharper. When they start his systems, his eyes fly open, and he's smart, really smart, like Keio graduate smart. He's charming, handsome, a good talker, motivated and goal oriented and he immediately sits up and gets up like he's planning to do something great.
They are very encouraged by this, until he takes a step and falls flat on his face.
He just lies there for a moment, and then he lifts his face up and looks at them blankly for a second, before he panics. "Oh, Jesus!" he shouts, in English, which completely baffles them. He then launches into a string of apologies and then starts talking about the current state of affairs of America's economy as it ties into Japan's.
Hina facepalms.
("I think he would make a good Sho," Subaru said to Ohno.
Ohno nodded. "Sure," he agreed vaguely, like he wasn't really sure but was willing to go along with it. Right then, 'Sho' was devouring mabo tofu like it was water. Ohno had been eating it, but had graciously let Sho have the rest of it. Subaru suspected it had something to do with how Ohno had already eaten for six hours straight, though he also suspected that it wouldn't have turned out that way if Subaru hadn't kept feeding him food to see what food he wouldn't eat.
"Should we give him a last name?" Subaru mused.
"He's quite cute," Ohno said suddenly, seemingly out of the blue.
"Okay," Subaru said.
"Sakurai seems like a good last name," Ohno said.
Subaru was beginning to get a hang of Ohno's non sequiturs and easily responded, "Sounds good.")
-
"Jin!"
"You're noisy and I hate you!" Jin responds immediately, and then looks up from his cell phone, and blinks at Kame. "What?"
Kame gives him an exasperated look. "Can you please concentrate for a little while? We need to get this done in time for the concert, and it didn't help that you were late!"
"It's not my fault!" Jin complains, "I got locked in a closet! It's Toma's fault! We were just worried about him!"
"Yeah!" Yamapi agrees, nodding vigorously in support.
Ueda and Nakamaru collectively shudder at the thought of the usual disaster that occurs as a result of Jin and Yamapi's "worry." Junno just sort of grins.
"And you!" Kame snaps, turning to Yamapi with a glare. Yamapi blinks, and then pulls in on himself a little when he realizes that it looks like Kame's mad at him now. "You're distracting him!" he accuses Yamapi.
"I don't mean to!" Yamapi protests. "I'm just a distratible person!"
"That's not really a word," Nakamaru tries to point out, and is ignored, making him pout a little.
"Even if it were, it's not even used correctly," Ueda says, patting Nakamaru on the back. "You just can't reason with the crazies." Nakamaru sighs.
"And Koki hasn't even shown up yet!" Kame exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. Seriously, does no one care that the entire concert might fall to pieces and the fans will be devastated and then they'll all lose their jobs and then what is he going to do, he didn't finish high school, he doesn't really have any other skills - his throat is getting tight, is he having a panic attack? Because, seriously, he can not have a panic attack, this is not a good time for a panic attack -
Junno falls off the couch with a crash, and everyone turns to look at him curiously. He grins sheepishly. "Sorry," he says, embarrassedly, when everyone else has turned away, he catches Kame's eyes and gives a wry half smile that says, "You need to calm down."
Kame takes a slow, deep breath. "I just want this concert to be great," he says to Jin.
"It'll be fine," Jin says dismissively, and turns back to his cell phone.
Nakamaru pats Kame on the back, and smiles sympathetically at Kame's frustrated expression. "At least this means he has faith in us?" he suggests optimistically.
Kame huffs, and stomps away to check on their costumes.
-
The third version does not wake up no matter how hard Yoko and Hina try, no matter what programs they try to use to override its system. They inspect it seriously and carefully, and then Yoko says, "He sleeps like a freaking log."
And for some reason, the machine's eyes fly open, and they have to stop to gape for a moment, because they hadn't realized it, but he's... kind of beautiful.
Then he opens his mouth and says, cheerfully, "Hello."
Hina perks up. "Hello," he replies.
"I have a question," version three says seriously.
Yoko is pleased. The extra bit of intelligence and curiosity they tried to work into this one is coming out. "Yes?"
"If you're wearing binoculars, can you move around normally and stuff?" he asks.
"..." Yoko and Hina stare at him.
( "How did you get injured like that?" Subaru asked, looking completely perplexed. He poked the rapidly purpling bruise on Hina's shin, making Hina scream like a little girl and Yoko giggled.
"We were doing an experiment," Hina grumbled, and refused to elaborate.
"I like these chips," Ohno informed them, pointing at a bag of stale chips Subaru had been trying to pawn off on other people for days.
"Oooh, try putting mabo tofu on it," version three said excitedly, or Aiba Masaki as he had been duly dubbed. Sho was writing it out carefully on a sheet of paper.
"Souba?" Yoko asked, reading it.
"Aiba," Hina said sternly, and slapped Yoko upside the head.
"Hey!" Yoko complained.
Meanwhile, some other people had better things to worry about. "Have I gotten fat?" Aiba asked Sho seriously.
"I don't think so," Sho answered just as seriously, his brow furrowed thoughtfully.
Ohno crunched contentedly on his chips.)
-
"I feel a disturbance in the force," Tsuyoshi says seriously, but no one around him pays attention. A little put out, he wanders off in search of Koichi's office and pops his head in. "I feel a disturbance in the force," he repeats, and Koichi's eyes light up.
"Really?" he squeaks excitedly, something that does not befit the president of a reputable company that sells car parts.
"You're both weird," Nagase announces, but he's grinning like a madman.
"We're in a meeting here," poor Joushima says in vain (everyone calls him Leader for some reason, but it works well somehow).
"Tsuyoshi, what do you even do in this company?" Taichi asks. "Other than disrupt everything?"
"I feed the hungry and take care of the foolish," Tsuyoshi says, and is referring entirely to Koichi.
"Oh, oh!" Koichi exclaims suddenly. "Can you get those really delicious bite sized squid things that I really liked last time?"
"He means takoyaki," Nagase whispers loudly to a befuddled looking Leader.
"Sure," Tsuyoshi says, not looking surprised or confused at all.
"Marry me," Koichi says passionately.
"Not legal in this country," Tsuyoshi says blandly.
Masa-chan and Tatsuya giggle, but both immediately pull straight faces when everyone turns to look at them.
"What?" they ask.
Somehow, the wide-eyed "I don't know what's going on here" expression doesn't work as well as Tsuyoshi's. Tsuyoshi notes this with a certain amount of satisfaction, and then wanders off to find some takoyaki.
-
"I think this one is it," Hina says proudly, putting his fists triumphantly on his hips and looking smug. "He's smart, he's tricky, he knows how to maneuver any situation to his advantage - I think he's perfect."
Yoko sighs, and puts his face in his hands. Hina hasn't even noticed that version four has tied his shoelaces together.
(Version four was practically sitting in Ohno's lap, and Ohno either didn't care or didn't notice. Ohno seemed very interested by his hands. "Cute," Ohno said. Version four grinned.
"What should we call him?" Subaru mused out loud.
"Ninomiya Kazunari," version four said clearly and decidedly.
They blinked at him.
"Well, that works," Subaru said.)
-
Shige likes ice cream. Ice cream is delicious and wonderful and it never drives him mad because they're (it’s) being noisy or forgetful or easily confused. He sighs quietly in contentment as he takes a bite.
"You're weird."
Shige blinks, and looks up. "Huh?" he asks blankly, and slightly offended. The person who staring back at him looks rough around the edges; his is hair dyed and the roots are showing, he clearly hasn't shaved for at least a day so his facial hair looks prickly and unkempt, his clothing is loose and baggy, and he has piercings. Somehow, his very existence scandalizes Shige on principle. To Shige, this dude looks like the kind of guy who goes out and gets hookers to warm him bed at night. Shige begins to feel really irritated. Who is this guy to judge him? "Excuse me?" Shige says, his voice getting heated.
"You're weird," the other man repeats with a sort of directness that deflates Shige's self righteous balloon.
"Uh," Shige says, and when he sees that Shige's not about to attack, the other man just plops into the seat across from him.
"Tanaka Koki," he says. "Koki's fine."
"Kato," Shige says stiffly, and doesn't offer his given name.
Tanaka (Shige is not going to refer to this man by his first name; he doesn't want to get closer to him than he has to, not even in his brain) raises an eyebrow and says, "That's it?"
Shige doesn't say anything at first, then reluctantly says, "Kato Shigeaki."
Tanaka nods, and Shige is relieved when he quiets down and simply concentrates on his own ice cream. Shige digs into his, and when he finishes, he releases a soft sigh of contentment.
When he looks up, Tanaka is staring at him again.
"What?" he asks, irritated.
Tanaka shrugs. "I've never seen anyone enjoy ice cream like that."
Shige feels uncomfortable, and he shrugs awkwardly. "It's sort of a guilty pleasure."
"Stress at work?" Tanaka asks.
Shige's lips twist wryly. "Yeah. My friends and I started a newspaper recently, and it's been tough getting everything together."
Their newspaper is named NewS, because after they'd appointed Yamapi leader since they weren't sure if he would be able to do anything constructive, they'd deliberated on what they should call their newspaper, and Yamapi had said, "What about NewS? I don't think anyone's done that before! It would be really original!"
And Koyama had kindly said, "That's a very good idea, Yamapi," in response, and the name had stuck.
Shige's life is hard.
"Woah," Tanaka says, "Cool. What do you do?"
"I'm the photographer," Shige says, "and the accountant. And sometimes the editor. And sometimes one of the journalists." And sometimes the janitor and the secretary... oddly, whenever there's something that's not being covered, Shige ends up having to do it. It's not that his friends aren't holding up their ends of the deal, but... Yamapi is too absent minded, Tegoshi is harmlessly selfish, Massu keeps getting distracted by things, especially food, and Koyama is too busy running around taking care of everyone. The only one who's pretty courteous is Ryo, and he's either always gone because he's so busy or he's being a total bitch about it.
Tanaka blinks, and then mulls this over. "Lame," he says. "Hey, you want to go to a concert?"
Shige stares. "What?!"
-
"Okay, what do you think?" Yoko asks.
"Uh," Hina says, and blinks rapidly.
"I think he's pretty good right?" Yoko continues on smugly. "Smart, determined, strong personality, good in nearly any situation, plus he's tall, dark, handsome, and polite; no one will ever suspect him of trying to take over the world."
"Uh huh," Hina says, and slowly shrinks away from version five's glare and hides behind Yoko. "I think he's going to kill me!" he hisses to Yoko.
"I told you not to mess with his hair," Yoko says.
(Version five didn't like any of the names they tried to give him, so it ended with Subaru, Ohno, and Sho staring blankly at him as he pored over the name books that he made Subaru buy for him. Aiba was incredibly interested by the books and kept throwing out "helpful advice" and Nino was "helping" too, but mostly to see what kind of faces the new addition to their group would make if he suggested things like, "Bob."
"Ooooh, I think I have a good one!" Aiba shouted after a while, and everyone groaned.
Version five wrinkled his nose slightly, but said, "Yes?"
"Matsumoto," Aiba said gleefully, and everyone pauses for a second to revel in surprise as to just how well it fits.
"Then what about Jun?" Nino suggested, and for the first time, the gleam in his eye is not one of mischief.
"Matsumoto Jun?" Sho said out loud thoughtfully.
"I think that's a good name," Ohno said, and Jun nodded.
"Hee, I'm awesome," Aiba said smugly to Nino, and got smacked upside the head.)
-
"You should come over," Subaru says to Toma.
"Huh?" Toma answers him. That wasn't what he expected when he saw the caller ID flash the name "Subaru" at him and decided to pick up.
"No, seriously," Subaru says, "Yoko and Hina made robots to take over the world."
"Uh," Toma says, "Okay, I'll bring some pie."
"Okay, I think they prefer apple," Subaru says with all seriousness and hangs up.
Toma blinks and then shrugs.
Whatever, he's had weirder days.
-
"Okay," Yoko says, "Now we have evil robots to help us take over the world."
"Indeed we do," Hina says, nodding, and then suddenly becomes very animated, swinging his arms dramatically. "We will use them to cause a storm throughout the world!"
Yoko stares at him.
"What?" Hina asks, putting his arms down. "I thought that statement required some flair."
Yoko opens his mouth to say something, then changes his mind. "Anyway, what's the plan now?"
"..." Hina thinks, and then says, "Uh..."
Suddenly the door to the basement creaks open, and light pours in. Subaru pokes his head in through the door, and blinks at them.
They blink back.
"Oops," Subaru says finally. "They're not in here, huh?"
Yoko and Hina stare at him. "What?!"
-
This is just not his day, Toma decides as he turns the corner and is basically barreled over by a tall, lean body and long limbs.
"Sorry, sorry!" someone is babbling into his ear. "I was trying to catch up to Oh-chan, but sometimes for such a small guy, he's pretty fast, you know? Sho-kun too, but he tripped at some point, and now I can't find Oh-chan, and maybe Oh-chan went back for him, but then I got distracted because Nino was going past me and I think MatsuJun wandered off on his own, something about not wanting to be associated with heathens - oh! Hello, my name is Aiba, sorry again, do you know where I can buy karaage?"
Toma blinks at the information overload, which doesn't help because he's still trying to figure out just what the hell is going on. At some point he'd been set back on his feet, and he reaches a hand up to feel where his head should have connected painfully with the ground, and doesn't even feel a bump. Somehow, this guy must've caught him and righted him before Toma'd even noticed - but how? It's kind of an awkward angle, and that guy was moving pretty fast...
Aiba waves a hand in front of Toma's face to get his attention, and Toma blinks again, his eyes refocusing on Aiba's face, and Aiba beams.
"Karaage?" Aiba asks cheerfully, then as a sort of afterthought, "Please?"
There's something to be said about a guy that nearly bowls you over and then begs for food, but for some reason, Toma can't feel any sort of resentment towards this man and his wide brown eyes.
"Uh, okay," Toma says, and feels something in him crack a little bit when a brilliant smile appears on Aiba's face. It's a shockingly beautiful expression, his eyes crinkling in the corners and his nose wrinkling, and for a second, it takes Toma's breath away.
"Yay!" Aiba cheers, and loops their arms together. "Lead the way!" he crows happily, his other arm waving energetically, and it makes Toma grin in amusement.
"Let's do it," he says agreeably, and heads towards a restaurant that he knows sells some amazing karaage. It's a little out of the way, but Subaru had just texted him that it was probably better if he didn't come after all, and so he has some free time.
Besides, Toma isn't afraid to admit silently to himself that he feels like a little extra walking is worth the effort to see that smile again.
-
"I told you that we should have put a GPS locator in all of them!" Yoko complains, jabbing a finger in the air for emphasis and shaking it at Hina.
Hina slaps at his finger, and makes an irritated face when Yoko jerks his hand out of the way so his attack fails. "You're noisy!" he grumbles, and reaches out and slaps Yoko upside the head.
"Ow!" Yoko whines.
-
Kame is actually dealing with things really well. Koki has finally shown up, with some vaguely harried looking man who looks like he thinks the world has gone fucking nuts (Kame can relate), and he's cheerful and bouncy and as usual, his noisy attitude and flamboyant style bringing the mood of the room way up.
There's still about an hour until the concert starts, and Kame doesn't have anything else to do now, nothing to check on, nothing to make sure will run perfectly when it's time for the show, but he feels restless, adrenaline already beginning to hum in his veins, so he walks along the hallways, waiting for the time they go onstage.
He's approaching Junno's room now, and he can hear the familiar sounds of a video game and Junno's voice muttering curses already.
Kame pauses for a second. He'd hoped to thank Junno for earlier, but he's not sure he wants to interrupt him while he's gaming. He deliberates for a bit, and then decides he might as well do it now.
He knocks a couple times, making sure to rap his knuckles against the wood of the door loudly; otherwise, Junno won't notice, too wrapped up in his game.
"Yes?" Junno calls through the door, sounding distracted.
"It's me, can I come in?" Kame calls back, and waits as Junno curses a couple more times.
"Sure," Junno calls back.
Kame lets himself in, and is about to start to express his gratitude, but something distracts him.
Well, someone.
Kame gapes at the boy sitting next to Junno, stoically annihilating Kame's groupmate at... whatever game they're playing, his dark eyes intent on the TV screen. "Who is that? Where'd he come from?" Kame exclaims in surprise, completely forgetting all social grace.
"Nino," the boy answers simply, and Junno nods, his eyes trained on the television as well.
"Nino," Junno repeats.
"Did you not know that until just now?" Kame asks, disbelievingly.
"Hm," Junno grunts noncommittally as his character dies onscreen, and the boy crows in delighted victory. Junno wrinkles his nose and puts the controller down, and then frowns. "I'm not really sure where he came from, but he keeps kicking my ass at this game."
Nino turns slightly and suddenly Kame can see more of the boy. Wait, not a boy, Kame discovers. Upon closer observation, he can't be much younger than Kame himself. Maybe he's even older - they're just something in his eyes as he finally turns to look at Kame that makes Kame think that he's lived far longer than it seems.
Then he cocks his head a certain way and purses his lips in a way that makes him look about seventeen and says, quite clearly and frankly, "Who are you?"
"Kamenashi Kazuya," Kame says numbly, automatically. "And you are...?"
"Nino," the not-a-boy repeats. "I said that already."
"Right," Kame says a little faintly. There's something intriguing about Nino; something about the gleam in his eye or the way his smile tilts one side of his mouth up a little higher than the other or the way his hair is a little rumpled or something about his being that makes Kame want to look a little closer, and Nino smirks.
It makes Kame feel irritated. "Well," he says, ignoring his feeling and turning to Junno with the best smile he can muster. "Thanks for helping me out earlier. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't done that," Kame admits embarrassedly.
Junno smiles easily, his eyes crinkling up at the corners, and it's calming in a way that his too-wide smiles aren't. "It was nothing," Junno says, and shrugs.
Kame feels Nino's razor sharp eyes burning a hole through him, and he ignores the gaze, just tilts his head in acknowledgement and says, "I'll see you out there, Junno."
Junno nods, and Kame slips out of the room.
"I think I like him," he hears Nino say as he walks away, and it sends a chill up his spine. He doesn't know if it's a good or a bad feeling, so all he does in the end is walk a little faster away from Junno's room.
He feels like he's on the brink of something dangerous.
-
"They're probably out there causing all sorts of trouble!" Hina frets as he and Yoko run down one a nearby road.
"That's what we made them for!" Yoko points out.
"But our sort of trouble!" Hina wails. "Not whatever their extremely intelligent robotic minds come up with!"
They fall silent for a second as they consider this.
"In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have made them so smart, huh?" Hina says thoughtfully.
"Next time, we'll should recruit weak minded people to be our minions," Yoko says.
Hina's brow wrinkles in concern. "Isn't that like, morally unethical?"
"..." Yoko thinks about it. "I guess."
Subaru shakes his head and decides to search a different route. It's pretty incredible that two people who created fully functional robots to help them take over the world are debating what is and isn't ethical, and don't see what's ironic about it.
What's really ironic though is if they'd bothered to check the park they had just run past, they would've discovered Ohno taking a nap in the shade of one of the trees as Sho gleefully played in the sandbox with some kids.
-
"You're late," Ryo says, getting into Yamapi's face as he's walking through the door. "Seriously, all you do when you have no work is hang out with Jin, and that's it. At the very least you can make it on time."
"Shige isn't here yet either," Massu points out.
"Shige called in today!" Ryo snaps back, startling everyone. Ryo isn't exactly the paragon of patience, but he doesn't usually snap without good reason. Yamapi is about to say something about it when Koyama distracts him with a cup of steaming tea.
"Oooh, jasmine," Yamapi says, and takes a sip.
"Yamapi!" Ryo snaps.
"Sorry!" Yamapi yelps, and tries to refocus.
"You think Shige's okay?" Koyama asks worriedly, and Ryo throws his hands up in the air.
"I don't know!" he says irritably, "I'm not psychic! All I know is that he called in to say he wouldn't be here, and that means you useless monkeys are going to have to pick up the slack in his place."
"Aw," Tegoshi says with a smile, "Ryo-chan is worried about Shige-kun."
"I am not!" Ryo huffs.
"Hmm, if you say so, Ryo-chan," Massu says pleasantly as he steals food from Tegoshi's Chinese take out box.
"I'm not!" Ryo insists. "Anyway, he's an adult. He can take care of himself." He nods, as if saying "and that's that" with a single physical movement, but the effect is completely ruined when someone opens the front door of their office building and slams it shut.
"Ugh," they hear, and then, "What kind of incompetent newspaper is run like this? How messy."
"What the fuck?" Ryo says, and stomps out of their conference room and into the main office, where there are still tons of boxes they haven't unpacked and organized yet. He quickly makes his way over to the tall man whose back is to them, one foot lifted to use the toe of his shoe to delicately poke at a slightly run down bookcase that they hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet. "Who the fuck are you?" Ryo demands.
The man turns around, and looks down to lift a condescending eyebrow at Ryo, making Ryo flush red with anger. "Matsumoto Jun," the man says.
"Well, I'm Nishikido Ryo," Ryo snarls, "and I am the editor in chief and co-founder of this 'incompetent newspaper' and I think you should get that goddamn stick out of your ass."
"Oooh," Tegoshi whispers to Massu, "Ryo-chan is feeling confrontational today."
"No, Ryo-chan is just very protective of what he thinks is his," Massu says. "Remember how hard it was to get him to join us even though he's a brilliant editor? He thought we were trying to steal him from Kanjani. They don't even run a newspaper."
"What do they do?" Koyama asks softly. Massu shrugs.
"Oh yeah," Tegoshi says, and smiles. "Ryo-chan is so cute."
Yamapi watches this all thoughtfully and worriedly, and then walks up behind Ryo and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Ryo-chan," he says softly, "I'm sure he didn't mean to offend us."
"No fucking way he didn't," Ryo mutters, but backs off. The man, Matsumoto, watches quietly.
"Excuse me," Yamapi says, stepping forward in Ryo's stead and then adds, as politely as he can, "Please get the hell out of this building."
The man blinks, and then to Yamapi's surprise, he bows his head politely in response and says, "I apologize for my previous rudeness. The fact that I did not mean to offend anyone does not make my actions excusable, and I would like to make it up to you any way I can."
Yamapi stares. And then turns to face the rest of the staff of NewS. "Uh, guys?"
Massu shrugs. "Sure. He apologized." Tegoshi gives them a thumbs up, and Koyama looks a little wary, but he nods.
"Why don't you clean and organize everything for starters then?" Ryo asks, sounding viciously triumphant. "Do it however you like. If I don't like it, I'll just make you redo everything again."
Matsumoto purses his lips, but nods. "Understood."
Ryo humphs, and then stalks back into the conference room, and the rest of them trail after him.
"Okay, now we got to hurry up," Ryo grumps. "That wasted time, and Jin's stupid concert starts in less than two hours."
Yamapi gapes for a second, and then beams. "I thought you weren't going to let me go!"
"I still might not!" Ryo threatens, the gleam in his eye dangerous, but Yamapi grins.
Ryo-chan is so kind.
-
"An hour until it starts!" someone, probably an AD, hollers from directly to Shige's left, startling him. Suddenly the frantic movement of everyone around him becomes even more frantic, and Shige finds himself crowded into a corner while trying to stay out of everyone's way.
He nearly has a heart attack when someone grabs his elbow and drags him into a room empty except for some furniture.
"What what what - let go," Shige shrieks as they finally stop moving and he regains his bearings.
"Sorry about that!" and oh, it's Tanaka, looking sheepish and embarrassed. "I'd come late, so I've been a little too busy to treat you properly - if you just wait here a little bit, there's a staff worker that's been nice enough to agree to lead you out to a seat in the audience."
Shige peers at him suspiciously. "I don't want to!" he says irritably.
Tanaka startles. "What? You're here though..."
"I don't want to!" Shige says again, and then adds, "And you're not getting into my pants!"
Tanaka's jaw drops.
Then he begins to giggle.
"What?" Shige asks, feeling suddenly embarrassed and very very silly. "I'm serious!"
"I believe you," Tanaka wheezes, and then breaks out into another round of chortles.
"I feel like I'm being made a fool of," Shige complains, and the chortles turn into full blown laughter. "Tanaka!"
"Koki," is the quick response, and the other man takes a few deep breaths, wipes his eyes, and then makes a good attempt to look Shige in the face before collapsing in hilarity again.
"Fine, Koki," Shige snaps.
"Thank you," Koki giggles from the ground, and Shige scowls. "Sorry, sorry," Koki says quickly, and stands up, and tries really hard to keep a straight face. It mostly works, except when Shige meets his eyes, and a huge, amused grin splits his face. "I'll make it up to you!" he exclaims when Shige makes as if he's going to leave. "The concert will be really fun, I promise! And I'll take you out to dinner afterwards. My treat! A really good restaurant. Okay?"
Shige wrinkles his nose. "I don't know," he says reluctantly.
"Please?" Koki begs.
"...Fine," Shige allows, and Koki whoops.
An AD pokes her head in the door and says, "Kato-san, if you would please follow me..."
"Yes, yes," Shige mutters, and when he leaves the room, Koki is still cheering happily, and despite himself, it makes him grin slightly.
Maybe Koki isn't all that bad, Shige concedes.
He's still annoying though.
-
"You still feel it?" Koichi whispers loudly, which completely defeats the purpose of the attempt to whisper, but Tsuyoshi shrugs and decides not to comment on it.
"Yes," Tsuyoshi says normally. "It's coming from several different areas though; I think there are more than one, and they must have split up."
Koichi's eyes gleam in excitement. "Perfect," he whispers. "How many?"
Tsuyoshi frowns. "Four? Five? Four? Four? Five?"
Rolling his eyes, Koichi slaps Tsuyoshi upside the head. Lightly though. "Which is it?"
Tsuyoshi wrinkles his nose. "I don't know. It's a little confusing."
"...well, we'll find out then, won't we?" Koichi asks excitedly, and then pumps a fist into the air. "To the Koichimobile!"
"I think it's amazing you can say that with no sense of irony at all," Tsuyoshi confides to Koichi, who completely does not notice because he's humming his own made up theme song.
Tsuyoshi shrugs. It's all good.
-
The day is rapidly going uphill, Toma discovers.
Things like seeing a full grown man (even though, oddly, Aiba claims he's less than two days old) run screaming like a girl through a haunted house tend to have that effect on people, he supposes, and snickers when Aiba pouts at him. Seriously, the idea to come to the amusement park is the best idea he's had all day.
It helps that Aiba's cute, he thinks, and then is immediately horrified at himself.
Where did that thought come from?
-
"Wow," Koyama says when he walks out of the conference room. "You managed all this within a couple hours?"
Matsumoto shrugs modestly. "It was nothing."
"It's not nothing!" Koyama says, startled. It really isn't - all the boxes have been unpacked and they are nowhere in sight; the furniture is rearranged in a stylish and effective way; everything is clean in a way that Koyama hasn't seen since they bought the place for an insanely cheap price; and everything is organized in a way that is sensible, which Koyama discovers when he pulls open the right hand drawer to one of the desks and sees several pens, pencils, post its, notepads and such arranged neatly inside. Somehow, everything even smells good. "How did you do all of this?" Koyama asks, dumbfounded.
"I just did," Matsumoto says, and Koyama stares at him.
"...do you want some tea?" he asks finally, and earns himself a strange look.
"Tea sounds good," Matsumoto says politely, and Koyama automatically wanders off to prepare some.
While he's in the makeshift break room, he hears a loud exclamation of surprise and he rushes back to the main office room.
"Woaaaaaaaaaaaah," Massu says, awed. "This is awesome."
"What the hell!" Ryo blurts out. "Are you human?"
The question visibly startles Matsumoto, and for the first time since Koyama's laid eyes on him, he looks perplexed and unsure.
Koyama quickly jumps in. "Of course he is!" he insists, and feels ridiculous for defending a man that he barely knows. "Ryo-chan, you should be more careful with your words," he says disapprovingly.
Ryo looks a little chagrined, then says gruffly, "Good job."
Yamapi looks completely thrilled with this. "This is amazing!" he enthuses. "I want to hire you! I don't know what you can do, but if you can manage something like this, I want you on our team! We can't pay you well yet, but lunch on me for a year?"
Matsumoto shakes his head politely. "I kind of already have a job," he says seriously. Then he glances to the side and seems to consider Koyama for a second, startling Koyama. "Maybe part time," he concedes. "Just weekends."
"Sold!" Tegoshi, Massu, and Yamapi crow at once.
"Okay, I've got to go to Jin's concert now," Yamapi says, and throws on his jacket. "I'll see you later."
"Yamapi, you have an extra ticket, right?" Ryo asks suddenly.
Yamapi blinks. "Yes?"
Carefully not looking at anyone, Ryo mumbles something unintelligible.
"Huh?" Yamapi says.
"I said to take Matsumoto with you," Ryo says loudly, the tips of his ears flushing a deep red. "It'll be fun, and he did a good job today." He grimaces, like it is painful to say.
"Ryo-chan likes you!" Tegoshi says, pleased.
Matsumoto looks vaguely amused and vaguely unsure about everything. Koyama elbows him lightly in the side, and when he glances over at Koyama, his dark eyes intent on only Koyama, Koyama has to fight a blush and shrugs self consciously. "It'll be fun, Matsumoto-san," he repeats Ryo.
A small smile plays at the corners of Matsumoto's lips, and wow, he's handsome, Koyama realizes. "I will gladly go," Matsumoto says, and then he says, "Jun is fine." A quick glance over directs his comment mainly to Koyama, making Koyama really blush, but everyone immediately jumps on this information.
"Have fun, Jun-kun!" Tegoshi says excitedly.
"See you later, Jun-kun," Massu says, waving.
"Bye, Jun-san," Koyama says, incredibly embarrassed, and Ryo snickers.
Yamapi leads Matsumoto out and then everyone descends upon Koyama. "He's hot," Tegoshi says.
"I think he's nice! If he likes Koyama, he must be nice," Massu says, his words almost overlapping over Tegoshi's.
Ryo just sniggers madly, poking Koyama in the side, saying, "Oh, someone got caught in your irresistible charm~"
"Leave me alone," Koyama says miserably.
"Do you even like him?" Massu asks.
Koyama turns crimson, and ducks his head, and then belatedly realizes that he'd forgotten to give Matsumoto the tea after all.
Tegoshi giggles, and produces a thermos out of nowhere. "Just take it to him then."
"Okay," Koyama says gratefully.
Ryo rolls his eyes. "What would you do without us?"
Koyama grins embarrassedly, and quickly goes to transfer the tea to a thermos.
-
"Fifteen minutes!" Kame hollers and there's a little extra bustle, to his satisfaction, and when he turns around, he is abruptly yanked into a closet. He yelps, and then suddenly the door is jerked shut, cutting off all the light and plunging him into darkness, and there's someone breathing softly against the skin of his neck, making the fine hairs there rise in trepidation.
"Hello," Nino hums, his lips just barely brushing Kame's jaw, and the light vibrations send a shudder down Kame's spine.
"I have to go out in a few minutes," Kame says, his throat tight. I want this, he realizes. Still - "My costume can't be messed up," he warns.
He swears he feels Nino smirk, and fingers just barely brush against the fabric separating Kame's skin from Nino's hands, and Kame wants to scream in frustration.
"Okay," Nino breathes against Kame's exposed collarbone. "I can wait." Fingers pinch Kame's nipple through his costume, a fleeting touch that makes Kame gasp, and then suddenly Kame is stumbling back into the light, blinking hard.
Koki raises an eyebrow as he passes by. "Oh, Kame, playing nookie in the closet before the concert?" he teases.
"No," Kame says, and is surprised by how disappointed he is about it.
Damn it.
-
Tsuyoshi frowns. "I think they're coming together," he reports.
"Huh," Koichi says.
-
Sho is instinctively following Ohno around because his spidey senses tell him that Ohno is most likely to get into some sort of mysterious trouble. The others will just make trouble, he thinks. So far it's all been innocuous; they went to the park, and Ohno had fallen asleep and after the kids he'd been playing with left, Sho had somehow fallen asleep too and discovered Ohno calmly waiting for him to wake up. After that, they'd decided to try to locate the others, and it's all been fine until... well...
...where is he now? He'd just seen Ohno, who was following some mysterious instinct to find Nino. It had led them to this concert hall that they'd somehow managed to get in without any trouble, and now... he couldn't find Ohno.
"Satoshi-kun?" Sho whispers. "Where are you?"
He pushes a door open and peeks inside, but it's all dark. He reaches around for a light switch, and then falls in when someone brushes past him a little to brusquely.
Click, Sho hears, and then the lights flutter on.
"Uh..." Sho says. That click hadn't sounded like the flip of a light switch.
He tries to open the door.
And it doesn't open.
"...man," Sho whines. "This sucks!"
-
Ohno blinks. "Sho-kun?" he calls tentatively.
Oops? Where'd Sho go?
"I guess I'd better look for him," Ohno mumbles to himself.
-
"Wait!" Koyama calls when he finally catches sight of the two familiar figures. "Yamapi! Jun-san! Wait up!"
The two of them pause and turn back to him, looking puzzled. Koyama slows down and stops in front of them, panting. It's been a while since he's had to run.
"Here's your tea," Koyama manages to say finally, and hands Jun the thermos.
"None for me?" Yamapi asks, and then Koyama starts and flushes. Yamapi grins. "It's okay, I'll steal Jin's water," he says.
"Thank you," Jun says, and then looks unsure of himself for a second before suddenly reaching out and pulling Koyama forward and brushing his lips against Koyama's cheek in almost a kiss.
Koyama feels all the blood in his body rush to his cheeks, and he feels too warm. He presses his hands against his cheeks and gapes.
And for the first time, Jun looks really embarrassed, and his cheeks are a little pink too, and he can't quite look Koyama in the eye. "Um, see you later," he says quickly, and turns around and heads away at a brisk walk.
"Aww," Yamapi says, "You guys are cute." He giggles and then waves at helplessly frozen Koyama. "I'll see you later then, Kei-chan."
"Bye," Koyama says faintly.
-
Toma takes Aiba out for yakiniku after the amusement park because Aiba had said something about being hungry, and when Toma mentioned meat, his eyes lit up. Aiba insists on sitting by the window, and he looks out the window at the people passing by with an odd sort of inquisitiveness and occasionally asks questions like, "Hey, Toma-kun, why is that guy trying to eat that girl's face?" that make Toma feel awkward.
"How old are you again?" he asks dubiously, because he's actually sort of beginning to believe Aiba when he says that he's less than two days old. Aiba doesn't seem to hear though, too engrossed in watching what is happening outside.
"Oh, look, why are there so many people over there?" Aiba asks suddenly, pointing a little ways down the street at the concert hall where Jin's group is having their concert.
"It's because a concert's going on," Toma explains patiently. "It's fun, and people like to go to them."
Aiba squints and presses his nose harder against the glass to get a better look. "Only girls?" he asks.
"Not always," Toma says.
"Huh," Aiba says, and then, "I want to go to a concert!" His eyes light up again, and he turns to Toma excitedly, making Toma smile against his will.
"I'll take you some time," Toma says generously, and feels a thrill of happiness when Aiba beams at him.
"Really?" Aiba asks. "Can I go to that one?" He points in the direction of the concert.
Toma laughs, and says, "Well, it's probably starting soon, and I think the concert's sold out, but I'm friends with one of the performers, so you can meet them after the concert if you want?"
"I want, I want!" Aiba says quickly, nodding vigorously.
"It won't be over for a while though-" Toma begins to say, and then a really cool car goes by, far above the speed limit, and it's heading straight at the concert hall. Toma gapes after it, and then scrambles out of his seat and bursts out of the restaurant without any thought as to exactly what he's planning on doing. Adrenaline pumping, he can feel the wind rushing past him and stinging at his cheeks, his muscles burning - and then Aiba passes him.
He gapes after Aiba, because, really, Toma is far from slow and Aiba has just passed him with the ease of a bullet train passing by a snail. He nearly trips over his feet, and then he just stops, and watches in shock as Aiba reaches the car in under a second, grabs one of the door handles, and then yanks the entire car to the side so it avoids all the fans in front of the concert hall - although, it crashes into the building.
"Oh my God!" a lot of shrill voices shriek, and some girls even burst into tears.
"What the fuck was that?" Toma blurts out, and then Aiba beams at him.
"I caught it!" he says excitedly. "That was fun!"
Toma stares. "Are you human?"
Aiba blinks at him, and then beams. "I'm a robot!"
"Huh," Toma says faintly. He tries very hard to process this, and finally comes up with, "...you know, actually, that kind of explains a lot."
Aiba grins.
-
Inside the car, Koichi's jaw is dropped. "Did you just...?"
Tsuyoshi nods solemnly. "I did," he says.
"Oh shit," Koichi says. "We're doomed."
There a moment of silence as Tsuyoshi observes the robot outside thoughtfully and says, "Actually, we might not be."
-
The concert goes off without a hitch. It's amazing, and the fans love it. Apparently, there's some sort of commotion outside, but nothing disastrous has happened yet, so Kame thinks it's probably fine.
"Told you, told you," Jin crows gleefully as he flounces past Kame towards his dressing room to go change and shower. Kame would retort, except he's too high off the feeling of the concert, of accomplishment, oh wow, that was just amazing -
Nino's leaning against a wall, watching Kame thoughtfully. His gaze burns through Kame's costume and sends a series of shivers through Kame's body.
"Nice job," Nino says, and smirks when Kame just instinctively moves towards him, and Nino moves forward to meet him, pushing insistently until Kame's back is to something solid and something is pressing against his back - "You got to move, you're blocking the doorknob," Nino says into Kame's mouth, and Kame scrambles to get out of the way and then they're tumbling in, and the costume is suddenly so restricting in a way it wasn't while he was onstage, and he pants as Nino's mouth moves down bare skin-
"Um," someone says, and coughs.
They look up, and then Nino growls, "Sho."
"Um," Sho says again, but his tone significantly higher. "Thanks for letting me out!" And then he's out the door.
Nino turns back to Kame, his lips curling dangerously. "Now, where were we?"
And Kame pulls his head down, and doesn't think again for a good while.
-
Koki is sweaty. And gross.
He's also kind of naked, or at least, he's in the process of stripping his pants off after the concert when Shige walks in, stops, and then promptly turns around and walks back out.
"That was not my fault, you know!" Koki calls after him.
"Shut up!" Shige hollers back, and Koki grins slightly. Shige's kind of hilarious in an adorable way.
Koki frowns as he starts to get ready to go take a shower.
"Maybe I like him a little too much?" he wonders out loud, and then shrugs and goes to take his shower.
-
Ohno finds Sho sitting despondently in a corner.
He sits next to him and wraps an arm around Sho's shoulders, and waits.
"Ohno-kun," Sho says finally, his voice hollow. "I think Nino is going to kill me."
"Really?" Ohno asks, vaguely surprised. "Why?"
Sho opens his mouth, and then closes it wordlessly.
"Huh," Ohno says. "That bad, huh?" Then, "Hi, Subaru."
"Hi, Subaru," Sho echoes without much enthusiasm.
Subaru gives them an unimpressed look. "You realize I've been looking all over for you, right?"
"Sorry," Ohno says seriously, but does not actually appear to all that sorry at all.
Subaru shakes his head at them.
"Oh-chan! Sho-kun!" they hear suddenly, and they all turn to see Aiba bound over and throw himself at the pair sitting on the ground.
"Oh, hey Toma," Subaru says, surprised and pleased to see the man with Aiba.
"Hey," Toma says, feeling oddly embarrassed.
"Toma!" two more people shout happily, and then Jin and Yamapi are throwing themselves at Toma, partly in sort of an attack as revenge for being locked in a closet and partly in a complicated bear hug.
"This is like a party," Ohno says to Sho, who is too busy wallowing to respond, but Aiba perks up immediately.
"Party?" Aiba asks, and jumps up to tug at Toma's sleeve. "Let's have a party, Toma-kun!"
"Ooooh," Jin and Yamapi immediately chorus childishly together.
"Who is this?" Yamapi demands. "Your new boyfriend?"
"No," Toma says, embarrassed.
"I'm not?" Aiba says, clearly confused.
"Oooooooooh," Jin crows.
"Shut up, you two!" Toma complains.
"MatsuJun!" Aiba cries suddenly, and Jun makes a face at him before sighing and giving a slight shrug. "Ooh, where'd you get that?" Aiba asks interestedly, leaning closer to get a look at the thermos in Jun's hand.
Jun automatically pulls it away, and hugs it almost protectively. "None of your business," he says.
"Hey there," Nino says, popping up between Jun and Toma, and Sho squeaks.
"Nino, you can't kill Sho-kun," Ohno says seriously.
"..." Nino doesn't react at first, only his expression turning flat for a second, then he shrugs and arranges Ohno's legs a little so that he can sit on his lap. "Fine," Nino says. He looks smug and satiated, and no one really wants to know why.
"Let's have a party!" Aiba announces.
"Party?" Nino asks curiously.
"Yes, party!" Aiba says, enthused.
"Sounds like fun," Nino says.
"Like, a party on a boat?" Ohno asks, looking interested.
"No," Nino and Jun say at the same time.
"Oh, how about at a restaurant?" Sho suggests.
"We just ate though," Toma begins, but Aiba says, "Okay!" his eyes gleaming with excitement, and Toma gives up. Aiba grins and gives Toma a hug, making Toma blush, and Jin and Yamapi hoot.
"I saw an Indian restaurant on the way here," Sho says.
"Indian?" Jun asks. "Why Indian?"
Sho shrugs self consciously. "It seemed interesting."
"I'm hungry," Ohno puts in.
"Indian it is," Nino says, and then suddenly he's getting up and pulling Ohno along with him. Ohno grabs onto Sho's hand, pulling him up too, and Aiba bounces after them, dragging along Toma, and Jun walks behind them at a more sedate pace. Yamapi and Jin follow them, squabbling with each other jokingly.
Subaru smiles as they leave, and then he pulls out his phone and calls Yoko and Hina.
"Hey, I found the robots you created for your diabolical plan of world domination," Subaru says blandly. "I'll get them back, but they're going out for Indian right now."
"Oh, thanks," Yoko says.
"You guys got distracted, didn't you?" Subaru asks wryly.
"It's really good ramen!" Hina said defensively.
"Well, anyway, it'll be fine," Subaru says. "See you later."
"...WHAT THE FUCK," Ryo shouts into the phone.
"Oops," Subaru says, and then hangs up.
"Coward!" Hina cries.
"Hey, Ryo, seriously, this is some really good ramen, why don't you come over?" Yoko says.
-
Shige frowns thoughtfully at his pasta. "You know," Shige says, "I feel like this day was a little weird somehow."
Koki blinks at him, his mouth full of lasagna. "Really?" he asks, his mouth still full, but at least he covers his mouth. He chews a few times and then swallows. "I thought it was pretty normal."
"If you say so," Shige says dubiously. He eats some more of his pasta, and then says, "Hey, this is pretty good."
"Really?" Koki asks, visibly perking up. "We should come here again sometime then!"
Shige stares at him. "...again?"
-
The first thing that happens when Ryo shows up at the ramen shop is he opens his mouth and Yoko and Hina automatically brace themselves. "What the hell, you made robots to take over the world and then accidentally inflicted it upon the planet at large and didn't give (enough of) a shit to tell me?" Ryo blurts out, and then looks a little chagrined at his language.
Yoko smiles sheepishly. "Yes?"
Ryo looks somewhere between ready to murder them all, absolutely bewildered, and vaguely hurt.
It makes them feel bad. "Aww," Hina says, "Does Ryo-chan need a hug?" He puts his arms out, and when Ryo just stares at him and opens and closes his mouth wordlessly, Hina simply wraps his arms around him. "We didn't forget you, we were just busy," he reassures Ryo.
"I hate you all," Ryo mumbles into Hina's shoulder, and Yoko and Hina grin at each other.
"We love you too, Ryo-chan," they chorus gleefully.
"You better pay for my ramen," he mutters irritably, and pretends that he doesn't feel inexplicably happier.
-
"You seem more relaxed than I've seen you in a while," Ueda comments to Kame as they leave the concert hall with Nakamaru. It's usually just Ueda and Nakamaru leaving last, but today Kame had been a little later than usual getting ready to leave.
"Hm, really?" Kame asks, surprised.
"I concur," Nakamaru agrees, nodding, earning him weird looks. "I agree," he amends.
"Huh," Kame says. "It must be because the concerts are finally over for now."
Ueda raises an eyebrow and shrugs. "If you say so."
Kame smiles.
("I'll be back," Nino had said, his eyes frank and honest, and for some reason Kame really thinks he will be.)
-
"So," Subaru says.
"Hm?" Junno responds distractedly, still glued to his PSP.
Subaru considers Junno thoughtfully, and then says, "Want to go out for dinner with me?"
Sounds of Junno's character dying fill the sudden silence, and then GAME OVER flashes on the screen. Junno looks up in surprise. "What?"
"Want to go out for dinner with me?" Subaru says again.
Junno blinks, and then shrugs, turning off his game console. "Okay," he says agreeably.
-
"The sea is beautiful, isn't it?" Tsuyoshi comments to the man sitting next to him.
"Hmm," Ohno says, enthralled.
"So no taking over the world?" Tsuyoshi prompts.
"Mmk," Ohno says distracted.
"No," Tsuyoshi corrects. "You mean, 'No, Tsuyoshi, in return for teaching me the art of fishing, I will not take over the world.' So, do you still plan to take over the world?"
"No, Tsuyoshi," Ohno says obediently, "In return for teaching me the art of fishing, I will not take over the world."
"Good evil robot," Tsuyoshi says, and pats Ohno on the head. He casts out his line and settles back in his seat, satisfied with another job well done.
Saving the world is a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
THE END
by xplodey_di
Title: shaka lacka boom boom
(alternative title: the one in which Arashi are evil robots programmed to take over the world)
Pairing/Groups: Kanjani8, Arashi, KAT-TUN, NewS; (Aiba/Toma, Nino/Kame, Koki/Shige, MatsuJun/Koyama, and if you squint, some Pin)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Yoko and Hina are mad scientists. One drunken night, they decide to build robots to take over the world, and then promptly lose them. Good job, guys.
Warnings: Pretty much the longest and most retarded thing I've ever written. (Maybe.)
Notes: For littlealex. I hope you like this! I ended up doing selfish things like putting in the groups that I like (that you possibly don't even know? D:) but I hope you enjoy it regardless. I wanted to make it really fun, and I hope it is!
"Ryo-chan won't go out to drink with me anymore," Hina whines loudly. Pretty much everyone in the bar hears, but they determinedly ignore it. "He says that I'm annoying!" His lower lip wobbles.
"This is because you really are kind of a little bitch sometimes," Yoko says seriously, and tries very hard not to giggle when Hina adopts an exaggeratedly indignant expression, his mouth gaping and his eyes wide, and his eyes scrunching up endearingly in the corners. Overall, it's a very cute expression. He pinches Hina's cheeks gleefully, and Hina scrunches up his nose too.
"Nooooooooooo," Hina wails dramatically and bats at Yoko's hands until he lets go.
Yoko notes amusedly that Hina is really noisy when drunk and promptly downs another shot.
Hina pouts into his shot glass. "No one appreciates me," he says grumpily, and Yoko pats him on the back comfortingly.
"Here, have another drink," he says consolingly, and wonders how many Hina's already had. He briefly considers taking the shot back, but Hina's already downed it. Oh well.
"No one appreciates me," Hina mumbles again. Then he perks up. "Hey, if I take over the world, people have to listen to me, right?"
Yoko considers this question. "Probably," he says.
"You could be my left-hand man!" Hina says brightly.
Yoko's brow crinkles. There's something not quite right about that statement... "Hey, why not your right hand man?" he asks, feeling hurt.
"No, Ohkura-kun would be my right hand man," Hina says cheerfully.
"What about meeeeeeeeeee?" Yoko whines shamelessly.
"Because he's crafty," Hina says. "Duh."
"I can be crafty!" Yoko protests.
"Really?" Hina asks, looking honestly surprised.
Yoko pouts. "Fine," he grumbles, and then says, "Oh, what about the rest of the team?"
"What team?" Hina says perplexed.
"I'm going to smack you," Yoko says, all seriousness.
Hina blinks once. "Oh, you mean Kanjani?"
"I'm going to smack you," Yoko says again, and really means to, except Hina's head misses his hand and they both fall off their bar stools.
The floor is surprisingly comfortable, so Yoko decides not to get up. Evidently, Hina feels the same way, because he doesn't get up either.
"Yasu would be the most awesome secretary ever," Hina says into the cool tile floor.
"If you say so," Yoko mumbles, and then, "Do people who take over the world have secretaries?"
"I don't know," Hina says, "but it seems like it'd be a good idea, don't you think? Evil overlords should have secretaries. Or at least one secretaries. Secretary. Hee hee. I would make him wear a pink bow in his hair."
Hina is weird when he is drunk, Yoko reflects. "What about Subaru?"
"IDK," Hina says, and Yoko giggles because the English letters sound funny coming out of his mouth. "Entertainment? Jester? Royal songbird? I like hearing him singgggggg~ Oooh, maybe concubine, they have to listen to their masters, right?"
"You are creepy sometimes," Yoko informs him.
"Thank you," Hina replies pleasantly. "Ryo would be... a foot thing."
"Huh?" Yoko frowns. "Like a foot stool?"
"No!" Hina shouts, looking incensed. "Human foot thing!"
"Human foot thing?" Yoko repeats, bewildered. He is too drunk for this - or conversely, maybe he is not drunk enough for this. He seriously considers getting up for another drink, and then decides it's too much effort. "Foot soldier?"
"Uhh," Hina says, "I don't think so."
"Footman?"
"Yes!" Hina says triumphantly.
Yoko nearly dies of laughter. As it is, he rolls around a lot and can't breathe right, which is close enough. "You would make Ryo-chan a servant," he manages to gasp out, "Ryo-chan would kill you in your sleep."
"If he could get past my awesome bodyguard," Hina says gleefully.
Yoko giggles. "Let me guess - Marumaru?"
"Oh yeah," Hina says, nodding. His eyes cross a little, and he stops very quickly. Then he says, "How would one go about taking over the planet?"
"..." Yoko says.
"..." Hina replies.
"...evil robots," Yoko says finally.
"Perfect!" Hina says immediately. Clearly he hadn't thought of anything better. Or possibly anything at all. "We need a lair."
"We can't afford a lair," Yoko says.
"I have the keys to Subaru's basement?" Hina suggests.
Why? Yoko thinks about asking, and thinks better of it. It's Hina. "That works!"
"Can we cackle evilly now?" Hina asks.
"Probably," Yoko says.
"Should we cackle evilly now?" Hina asks.
"Definitely," Yoko says.
The other patrons at the bar studiously continue to ignore the crazies cackling on the floor. There are just some things that you are better off not dealing with.
-
That night, a machine of pure evil comes to being. It opens its eyes - eyes that are deceivingly blank as if it is thinking nothing, but is really hiding a genius of unspeakable proportions - eyes that were created to aid in the despicable plan of enslaving the world and subjecting it to the will of mad scientists.
Its consciousness seems to come slowly - although its eyes are opened, it doesn't seem aware of anything. In fact, Yoko is beginning to doubt his own genius, when it blinks. Once.
He and Hina are immediately glued to the computer screen to see their creation's first thoughts.
As its mind slowly comes to, they wait in anticipation as its devious intent begins to develop as planned. Its intent...
...to fish.
And take over the world.
But mostly fish.
("Huh," Hina said, "I wonder how that happened?"
"Maybe it was the beer we spilled into its mainframe?" Yoko suggested.
"Well, he can't fish here," Hina said practically.
"Then what do we have him do?" Yoko asked.
"I don't know!" Hina exclaimed. "Why are you asking me?"
"This whole thing was your idea!" Yoko looked like he was on the brink of slapping Hina upside the head again.
"Okay, okay," Hina said quickly, "I have a boombox. Maybe we can get him to dance to occupy his time for now."
Surprisingly, he was really quite good at dancing and, upon further investigation, singing as well. For this sort of terrible justification which was really just a cover to avoid saying that it happened to be convenient, Yoko and Hina inflicted their creation upon Subaru while they developed a new model. For about three hours, they mostly just sat there staring at each other until Subaru decided to find out if he could eat regular food and discovered that feeding him almost anything would make him say, "It's good!"
Subaru also gave him a name - "Ohno Satoshi."
Ohno seemed to like his name, but he was busy shoveling food in his mouth, so Subaru couldn't be sure.)
-
Somewhere else, someone's life is about to get very difficult.
"I think Toma needs to get laid," Yamapi says seriously to Jin.
"I'm right here," Toma says loudly.
"I agree," Jin replies solemnly, and Yamapi nods heavily. Jin then perks up. "Hey, you know, I think Kame hasn't gotten laid in a while-"
"I'm going to kill you both," Toma says calmly, and Jin and Yamapi scamper when he gets up, looking scarily like he means it.
"No, but really," Yamapi whispers to Jin in their hiding spot, aka the janitor's closet. "I think he does."
"Definitely," Jin whispers back, nodding fervently.
Outside, Toma rolls his eyes and locks the closet from the outside.
They never learn.
-
Yoko and Hina's newest model is much sharper. When they start his systems, his eyes fly open, and he's smart, really smart, like Keio graduate smart. He's charming, handsome, a good talker, motivated and goal oriented and he immediately sits up and gets up like he's planning to do something great.
They are very encouraged by this, until he takes a step and falls flat on his face.
He just lies there for a moment, and then he lifts his face up and looks at them blankly for a second, before he panics. "Oh, Jesus!" he shouts, in English, which completely baffles them. He then launches into a string of apologies and then starts talking about the current state of affairs of America's economy as it ties into Japan's.
Hina facepalms.
("I think he would make a good Sho," Subaru said to Ohno.
Ohno nodded. "Sure," he agreed vaguely, like he wasn't really sure but was willing to go along with it. Right then, 'Sho' was devouring mabo tofu like it was water. Ohno had been eating it, but had graciously let Sho have the rest of it. Subaru suspected it had something to do with how Ohno had already eaten for six hours straight, though he also suspected that it wouldn't have turned out that way if Subaru hadn't kept feeding him food to see what food he wouldn't eat.
"Should we give him a last name?" Subaru mused.
"He's quite cute," Ohno said suddenly, seemingly out of the blue.
"Okay," Subaru said.
"Sakurai seems like a good last name," Ohno said.
Subaru was beginning to get a hang of Ohno's non sequiturs and easily responded, "Sounds good.")
-
"Jin!"
"You're noisy and I hate you!" Jin responds immediately, and then looks up from his cell phone, and blinks at Kame. "What?"
Kame gives him an exasperated look. "Can you please concentrate for a little while? We need to get this done in time for the concert, and it didn't help that you were late!"
"It's not my fault!" Jin complains, "I got locked in a closet! It's Toma's fault! We were just worried about him!"
"Yeah!" Yamapi agrees, nodding vigorously in support.
Ueda and Nakamaru collectively shudder at the thought of the usual disaster that occurs as a result of Jin and Yamapi's "worry." Junno just sort of grins.
"And you!" Kame snaps, turning to Yamapi with a glare. Yamapi blinks, and then pulls in on himself a little when he realizes that it looks like Kame's mad at him now. "You're distracting him!" he accuses Yamapi.
"I don't mean to!" Yamapi protests. "I'm just a distratible person!"
"That's not really a word," Nakamaru tries to point out, and is ignored, making him pout a little.
"Even if it were, it's not even used correctly," Ueda says, patting Nakamaru on the back. "You just can't reason with the crazies." Nakamaru sighs.
"And Koki hasn't even shown up yet!" Kame exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. Seriously, does no one care that the entire concert might fall to pieces and the fans will be devastated and then they'll all lose their jobs and then what is he going to do, he didn't finish high school, he doesn't really have any other skills - his throat is getting tight, is he having a panic attack? Because, seriously, he can not have a panic attack, this is not a good time for a panic attack -
Junno falls off the couch with a crash, and everyone turns to look at him curiously. He grins sheepishly. "Sorry," he says, embarrassedly, when everyone else has turned away, he catches Kame's eyes and gives a wry half smile that says, "You need to calm down."
Kame takes a slow, deep breath. "I just want this concert to be great," he says to Jin.
"It'll be fine," Jin says dismissively, and turns back to his cell phone.
Nakamaru pats Kame on the back, and smiles sympathetically at Kame's frustrated expression. "At least this means he has faith in us?" he suggests optimistically.
Kame huffs, and stomps away to check on their costumes.
-
The third version does not wake up no matter how hard Yoko and Hina try, no matter what programs they try to use to override its system. They inspect it seriously and carefully, and then Yoko says, "He sleeps like a freaking log."
And for some reason, the machine's eyes fly open, and they have to stop to gape for a moment, because they hadn't realized it, but he's... kind of beautiful.
Then he opens his mouth and says, cheerfully, "Hello."
Hina perks up. "Hello," he replies.
"I have a question," version three says seriously.
Yoko is pleased. The extra bit of intelligence and curiosity they tried to work into this one is coming out. "Yes?"
"If you're wearing binoculars, can you move around normally and stuff?" he asks.
"..." Yoko and Hina stare at him.
( "How did you get injured like that?" Subaru asked, looking completely perplexed. He poked the rapidly purpling bruise on Hina's shin, making Hina scream like a little girl and Yoko giggled.
"We were doing an experiment," Hina grumbled, and refused to elaborate.
"I like these chips," Ohno informed them, pointing at a bag of stale chips Subaru had been trying to pawn off on other people for days.
"Oooh, try putting mabo tofu on it," version three said excitedly, or Aiba Masaki as he had been duly dubbed. Sho was writing it out carefully on a sheet of paper.
"Souba?" Yoko asked, reading it.
"Aiba," Hina said sternly, and slapped Yoko upside the head.
"Hey!" Yoko complained.
Meanwhile, some other people had better things to worry about. "Have I gotten fat?" Aiba asked Sho seriously.
"I don't think so," Sho answered just as seriously, his brow furrowed thoughtfully.
Ohno crunched contentedly on his chips.)
-
"I feel a disturbance in the force," Tsuyoshi says seriously, but no one around him pays attention. A little put out, he wanders off in search of Koichi's office and pops his head in. "I feel a disturbance in the force," he repeats, and Koichi's eyes light up.
"Really?" he squeaks excitedly, something that does not befit the president of a reputable company that sells car parts.
"You're both weird," Nagase announces, but he's grinning like a madman.
"We're in a meeting here," poor Joushima says in vain (everyone calls him Leader for some reason, but it works well somehow).
"Tsuyoshi, what do you even do in this company?" Taichi asks. "Other than disrupt everything?"
"I feed the hungry and take care of the foolish," Tsuyoshi says, and is referring entirely to Koichi.
"Oh, oh!" Koichi exclaims suddenly. "Can you get those really delicious bite sized squid things that I really liked last time?"
"He means takoyaki," Nagase whispers loudly to a befuddled looking Leader.
"Sure," Tsuyoshi says, not looking surprised or confused at all.
"Marry me," Koichi says passionately.
"Not legal in this country," Tsuyoshi says blandly.
Masa-chan and Tatsuya giggle, but both immediately pull straight faces when everyone turns to look at them.
"What?" they ask.
Somehow, the wide-eyed "I don't know what's going on here" expression doesn't work as well as Tsuyoshi's. Tsuyoshi notes this with a certain amount of satisfaction, and then wanders off to find some takoyaki.
-
"I think this one is it," Hina says proudly, putting his fists triumphantly on his hips and looking smug. "He's smart, he's tricky, he knows how to maneuver any situation to his advantage - I think he's perfect."
Yoko sighs, and puts his face in his hands. Hina hasn't even noticed that version four has tied his shoelaces together.
(Version four was practically sitting in Ohno's lap, and Ohno either didn't care or didn't notice. Ohno seemed very interested by his hands. "Cute," Ohno said. Version four grinned.
"What should we call him?" Subaru mused out loud.
"Ninomiya Kazunari," version four said clearly and decidedly.
They blinked at him.
"Well, that works," Subaru said.)
-
Shige likes ice cream. Ice cream is delicious and wonderful and it never drives him mad because they're (it’s) being noisy or forgetful or easily confused. He sighs quietly in contentment as he takes a bite.
"You're weird."
Shige blinks, and looks up. "Huh?" he asks blankly, and slightly offended. The person who staring back at him looks rough around the edges; his is hair dyed and the roots are showing, he clearly hasn't shaved for at least a day so his facial hair looks prickly and unkempt, his clothing is loose and baggy, and he has piercings. Somehow, his very existence scandalizes Shige on principle. To Shige, this dude looks like the kind of guy who goes out and gets hookers to warm him bed at night. Shige begins to feel really irritated. Who is this guy to judge him? "Excuse me?" Shige says, his voice getting heated.
"You're weird," the other man repeats with a sort of directness that deflates Shige's self righteous balloon.
"Uh," Shige says, and when he sees that Shige's not about to attack, the other man just plops into the seat across from him.
"Tanaka Koki," he says. "Koki's fine."
"Kato," Shige says stiffly, and doesn't offer his given name.
Tanaka (Shige is not going to refer to this man by his first name; he doesn't want to get closer to him than he has to, not even in his brain) raises an eyebrow and says, "That's it?"
Shige doesn't say anything at first, then reluctantly says, "Kato Shigeaki."
Tanaka nods, and Shige is relieved when he quiets down and simply concentrates on his own ice cream. Shige digs into his, and when he finishes, he releases a soft sigh of contentment.
When he looks up, Tanaka is staring at him again.
"What?" he asks, irritated.
Tanaka shrugs. "I've never seen anyone enjoy ice cream like that."
Shige feels uncomfortable, and he shrugs awkwardly. "It's sort of a guilty pleasure."
"Stress at work?" Tanaka asks.
Shige's lips twist wryly. "Yeah. My friends and I started a newspaper recently, and it's been tough getting everything together."
Their newspaper is named NewS, because after they'd appointed Yamapi leader since they weren't sure if he would be able to do anything constructive, they'd deliberated on what they should call their newspaper, and Yamapi had said, "What about NewS? I don't think anyone's done that before! It would be really original!"
And Koyama had kindly said, "That's a very good idea, Yamapi," in response, and the name had stuck.
Shige's life is hard.
"Woah," Tanaka says, "Cool. What do you do?"
"I'm the photographer," Shige says, "and the accountant. And sometimes the editor. And sometimes one of the journalists." And sometimes the janitor and the secretary... oddly, whenever there's something that's not being covered, Shige ends up having to do it. It's not that his friends aren't holding up their ends of the deal, but... Yamapi is too absent minded, Tegoshi is harmlessly selfish, Massu keeps getting distracted by things, especially food, and Koyama is too busy running around taking care of everyone. The only one who's pretty courteous is Ryo, and he's either always gone because he's so busy or he's being a total bitch about it.
Tanaka blinks, and then mulls this over. "Lame," he says. "Hey, you want to go to a concert?"
Shige stares. "What?!"
-
"Okay, what do you think?" Yoko asks.
"Uh," Hina says, and blinks rapidly.
"I think he's pretty good right?" Yoko continues on smugly. "Smart, determined, strong personality, good in nearly any situation, plus he's tall, dark, handsome, and polite; no one will ever suspect him of trying to take over the world."
"Uh huh," Hina says, and slowly shrinks away from version five's glare and hides behind Yoko. "I think he's going to kill me!" he hisses to Yoko.
"I told you not to mess with his hair," Yoko says.
(Version five didn't like any of the names they tried to give him, so it ended with Subaru, Ohno, and Sho staring blankly at him as he pored over the name books that he made Subaru buy for him. Aiba was incredibly interested by the books and kept throwing out "helpful advice" and Nino was "helping" too, but mostly to see what kind of faces the new addition to their group would make if he suggested things like, "Bob."
"Ooooh, I think I have a good one!" Aiba shouted after a while, and everyone groaned.
Version five wrinkled his nose slightly, but said, "Yes?"
"Matsumoto," Aiba said gleefully, and everyone pauses for a second to revel in surprise as to just how well it fits.
"Then what about Jun?" Nino suggested, and for the first time, the gleam in his eye is not one of mischief.
"Matsumoto Jun?" Sho said out loud thoughtfully.
"I think that's a good name," Ohno said, and Jun nodded.
"Hee, I'm awesome," Aiba said smugly to Nino, and got smacked upside the head.)
-
"You should come over," Subaru says to Toma.
"Huh?" Toma answers him. That wasn't what he expected when he saw the caller ID flash the name "Subaru" at him and decided to pick up.
"No, seriously," Subaru says, "Yoko and Hina made robots to take over the world."
"Uh," Toma says, "Okay, I'll bring some pie."
"Okay, I think they prefer apple," Subaru says with all seriousness and hangs up.
Toma blinks and then shrugs.
Whatever, he's had weirder days.
-
"Okay," Yoko says, "Now we have evil robots to help us take over the world."
"Indeed we do," Hina says, nodding, and then suddenly becomes very animated, swinging his arms dramatically. "We will use them to cause a storm throughout the world!"
Yoko stares at him.
"What?" Hina asks, putting his arms down. "I thought that statement required some flair."
Yoko opens his mouth to say something, then changes his mind. "Anyway, what's the plan now?"
"..." Hina thinks, and then says, "Uh..."
Suddenly the door to the basement creaks open, and light pours in. Subaru pokes his head in through the door, and blinks at them.
They blink back.
"Oops," Subaru says finally. "They're not in here, huh?"
Yoko and Hina stare at him. "What?!"
-
This is just not his day, Toma decides as he turns the corner and is basically barreled over by a tall, lean body and long limbs.
"Sorry, sorry!" someone is babbling into his ear. "I was trying to catch up to Oh-chan, but sometimes for such a small guy, he's pretty fast, you know? Sho-kun too, but he tripped at some point, and now I can't find Oh-chan, and maybe Oh-chan went back for him, but then I got distracted because Nino was going past me and I think MatsuJun wandered off on his own, something about not wanting to be associated with heathens - oh! Hello, my name is Aiba, sorry again, do you know where I can buy karaage?"
Toma blinks at the information overload, which doesn't help because he's still trying to figure out just what the hell is going on. At some point he'd been set back on his feet, and he reaches a hand up to feel where his head should have connected painfully with the ground, and doesn't even feel a bump. Somehow, this guy must've caught him and righted him before Toma'd even noticed - but how? It's kind of an awkward angle, and that guy was moving pretty fast...
Aiba waves a hand in front of Toma's face to get his attention, and Toma blinks again, his eyes refocusing on Aiba's face, and Aiba beams.
"Karaage?" Aiba asks cheerfully, then as a sort of afterthought, "Please?"
There's something to be said about a guy that nearly bowls you over and then begs for food, but for some reason, Toma can't feel any sort of resentment towards this man and his wide brown eyes.
"Uh, okay," Toma says, and feels something in him crack a little bit when a brilliant smile appears on Aiba's face. It's a shockingly beautiful expression, his eyes crinkling in the corners and his nose wrinkling, and for a second, it takes Toma's breath away.
"Yay!" Aiba cheers, and loops their arms together. "Lead the way!" he crows happily, his other arm waving energetically, and it makes Toma grin in amusement.
"Let's do it," he says agreeably, and heads towards a restaurant that he knows sells some amazing karaage. It's a little out of the way, but Subaru had just texted him that it was probably better if he didn't come after all, and so he has some free time.
Besides, Toma isn't afraid to admit silently to himself that he feels like a little extra walking is worth the effort to see that smile again.
-
"I told you that we should have put a GPS locator in all of them!" Yoko complains, jabbing a finger in the air for emphasis and shaking it at Hina.
Hina slaps at his finger, and makes an irritated face when Yoko jerks his hand out of the way so his attack fails. "You're noisy!" he grumbles, and reaches out and slaps Yoko upside the head.
"Ow!" Yoko whines.
-
Kame is actually dealing with things really well. Koki has finally shown up, with some vaguely harried looking man who looks like he thinks the world has gone fucking nuts (Kame can relate), and he's cheerful and bouncy and as usual, his noisy attitude and flamboyant style bringing the mood of the room way up.
There's still about an hour until the concert starts, and Kame doesn't have anything else to do now, nothing to check on, nothing to make sure will run perfectly when it's time for the show, but he feels restless, adrenaline already beginning to hum in his veins, so he walks along the hallways, waiting for the time they go onstage.
He's approaching Junno's room now, and he can hear the familiar sounds of a video game and Junno's voice muttering curses already.
Kame pauses for a second. He'd hoped to thank Junno for earlier, but he's not sure he wants to interrupt him while he's gaming. He deliberates for a bit, and then decides he might as well do it now.
He knocks a couple times, making sure to rap his knuckles against the wood of the door loudly; otherwise, Junno won't notice, too wrapped up in his game.
"Yes?" Junno calls through the door, sounding distracted.
"It's me, can I come in?" Kame calls back, and waits as Junno curses a couple more times.
"Sure," Junno calls back.
Kame lets himself in, and is about to start to express his gratitude, but something distracts him.
Well, someone.
Kame gapes at the boy sitting next to Junno, stoically annihilating Kame's groupmate at... whatever game they're playing, his dark eyes intent on the TV screen. "Who is that? Where'd he come from?" Kame exclaims in surprise, completely forgetting all social grace.
"Nino," the boy answers simply, and Junno nods, his eyes trained on the television as well.
"Nino," Junno repeats.
"Did you not know that until just now?" Kame asks, disbelievingly.
"Hm," Junno grunts noncommittally as his character dies onscreen, and the boy crows in delighted victory. Junno wrinkles his nose and puts the controller down, and then frowns. "I'm not really sure where he came from, but he keeps kicking my ass at this game."
Nino turns slightly and suddenly Kame can see more of the boy. Wait, not a boy, Kame discovers. Upon closer observation, he can't be much younger than Kame himself. Maybe he's even older - they're just something in his eyes as he finally turns to look at Kame that makes Kame think that he's lived far longer than it seems.
Then he cocks his head a certain way and purses his lips in a way that makes him look about seventeen and says, quite clearly and frankly, "Who are you?"
"Kamenashi Kazuya," Kame says numbly, automatically. "And you are...?"
"Nino," the not-a-boy repeats. "I said that already."
"Right," Kame says a little faintly. There's something intriguing about Nino; something about the gleam in his eye or the way his smile tilts one side of his mouth up a little higher than the other or the way his hair is a little rumpled or something about his being that makes Kame want to look a little closer, and Nino smirks.
It makes Kame feel irritated. "Well," he says, ignoring his feeling and turning to Junno with the best smile he can muster. "Thanks for helping me out earlier. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't done that," Kame admits embarrassedly.
Junno smiles easily, his eyes crinkling up at the corners, and it's calming in a way that his too-wide smiles aren't. "It was nothing," Junno says, and shrugs.
Kame feels Nino's razor sharp eyes burning a hole through him, and he ignores the gaze, just tilts his head in acknowledgement and says, "I'll see you out there, Junno."
Junno nods, and Kame slips out of the room.
"I think I like him," he hears Nino say as he walks away, and it sends a chill up his spine. He doesn't know if it's a good or a bad feeling, so all he does in the end is walk a little faster away from Junno's room.
He feels like he's on the brink of something dangerous.
-
"They're probably out there causing all sorts of trouble!" Hina frets as he and Yoko run down one a nearby road.
"That's what we made them for!" Yoko points out.
"But our sort of trouble!" Hina wails. "Not whatever their extremely intelligent robotic minds come up with!"
They fall silent for a second as they consider this.
"In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have made them so smart, huh?" Hina says thoughtfully.
"Next time, we'll should recruit weak minded people to be our minions," Yoko says.
Hina's brow wrinkles in concern. "Isn't that like, morally unethical?"
"..." Yoko thinks about it. "I guess."
Subaru shakes his head and decides to search a different route. It's pretty incredible that two people who created fully functional robots to help them take over the world are debating what is and isn't ethical, and don't see what's ironic about it.
What's really ironic though is if they'd bothered to check the park they had just run past, they would've discovered Ohno taking a nap in the shade of one of the trees as Sho gleefully played in the sandbox with some kids.
-
"You're late," Ryo says, getting into Yamapi's face as he's walking through the door. "Seriously, all you do when you have no work is hang out with Jin, and that's it. At the very least you can make it on time."
"Shige isn't here yet either," Massu points out.
"Shige called in today!" Ryo snaps back, startling everyone. Ryo isn't exactly the paragon of patience, but he doesn't usually snap without good reason. Yamapi is about to say something about it when Koyama distracts him with a cup of steaming tea.
"Oooh, jasmine," Yamapi says, and takes a sip.
"Yamapi!" Ryo snaps.
"Sorry!" Yamapi yelps, and tries to refocus.
"You think Shige's okay?" Koyama asks worriedly, and Ryo throws his hands up in the air.
"I don't know!" he says irritably, "I'm not psychic! All I know is that he called in to say he wouldn't be here, and that means you useless monkeys are going to have to pick up the slack in his place."
"Aw," Tegoshi says with a smile, "Ryo-chan is worried about Shige-kun."
"I am not!" Ryo huffs.
"Hmm, if you say so, Ryo-chan," Massu says pleasantly as he steals food from Tegoshi's Chinese take out box.
"I'm not!" Ryo insists. "Anyway, he's an adult. He can take care of himself." He nods, as if saying "and that's that" with a single physical movement, but the effect is completely ruined when someone opens the front door of their office building and slams it shut.
"Ugh," they hear, and then, "What kind of incompetent newspaper is run like this? How messy."
"What the fuck?" Ryo says, and stomps out of their conference room and into the main office, where there are still tons of boxes they haven't unpacked and organized yet. He quickly makes his way over to the tall man whose back is to them, one foot lifted to use the toe of his shoe to delicately poke at a slightly run down bookcase that they hadn't gotten around to throwing out yet. "Who the fuck are you?" Ryo demands.
The man turns around, and looks down to lift a condescending eyebrow at Ryo, making Ryo flush red with anger. "Matsumoto Jun," the man says.
"Well, I'm Nishikido Ryo," Ryo snarls, "and I am the editor in chief and co-founder of this 'incompetent newspaper' and I think you should get that goddamn stick out of your ass."
"Oooh," Tegoshi whispers to Massu, "Ryo-chan is feeling confrontational today."
"No, Ryo-chan is just very protective of what he thinks is his," Massu says. "Remember how hard it was to get him to join us even though he's a brilliant editor? He thought we were trying to steal him from Kanjani. They don't even run a newspaper."
"What do they do?" Koyama asks softly. Massu shrugs.
"Oh yeah," Tegoshi says, and smiles. "Ryo-chan is so cute."
Yamapi watches this all thoughtfully and worriedly, and then walks up behind Ryo and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Ryo-chan," he says softly, "I'm sure he didn't mean to offend us."
"No fucking way he didn't," Ryo mutters, but backs off. The man, Matsumoto, watches quietly.
"Excuse me," Yamapi says, stepping forward in Ryo's stead and then adds, as politely as he can, "Please get the hell out of this building."
The man blinks, and then to Yamapi's surprise, he bows his head politely in response and says, "I apologize for my previous rudeness. The fact that I did not mean to offend anyone does not make my actions excusable, and I would like to make it up to you any way I can."
Yamapi stares. And then turns to face the rest of the staff of NewS. "Uh, guys?"
Massu shrugs. "Sure. He apologized." Tegoshi gives them a thumbs up, and Koyama looks a little wary, but he nods.
"Why don't you clean and organize everything for starters then?" Ryo asks, sounding viciously triumphant. "Do it however you like. If I don't like it, I'll just make you redo everything again."
Matsumoto purses his lips, but nods. "Understood."
Ryo humphs, and then stalks back into the conference room, and the rest of them trail after him.
"Okay, now we got to hurry up," Ryo grumps. "That wasted time, and Jin's stupid concert starts in less than two hours."
Yamapi gapes for a second, and then beams. "I thought you weren't going to let me go!"
"I still might not!" Ryo threatens, the gleam in his eye dangerous, but Yamapi grins.
Ryo-chan is so kind.
-
"An hour until it starts!" someone, probably an AD, hollers from directly to Shige's left, startling him. Suddenly the frantic movement of everyone around him becomes even more frantic, and Shige finds himself crowded into a corner while trying to stay out of everyone's way.
He nearly has a heart attack when someone grabs his elbow and drags him into a room empty except for some furniture.
"What what what - let go," Shige shrieks as they finally stop moving and he regains his bearings.
"Sorry about that!" and oh, it's Tanaka, looking sheepish and embarrassed. "I'd come late, so I've been a little too busy to treat you properly - if you just wait here a little bit, there's a staff worker that's been nice enough to agree to lead you out to a seat in the audience."
Shige peers at him suspiciously. "I don't want to!" he says irritably.
Tanaka startles. "What? You're here though..."
"I don't want to!" Shige says again, and then adds, "And you're not getting into my pants!"
Tanaka's jaw drops.
Then he begins to giggle.
"What?" Shige asks, feeling suddenly embarrassed and very very silly. "I'm serious!"
"I believe you," Tanaka wheezes, and then breaks out into another round of chortles.
"I feel like I'm being made a fool of," Shige complains, and the chortles turn into full blown laughter. "Tanaka!"
"Koki," is the quick response, and the other man takes a few deep breaths, wipes his eyes, and then makes a good attempt to look Shige in the face before collapsing in hilarity again.
"Fine, Koki," Shige snaps.
"Thank you," Koki giggles from the ground, and Shige scowls. "Sorry, sorry," Koki says quickly, and stands up, and tries really hard to keep a straight face. It mostly works, except when Shige meets his eyes, and a huge, amused grin splits his face. "I'll make it up to you!" he exclaims when Shige makes as if he's going to leave. "The concert will be really fun, I promise! And I'll take you out to dinner afterwards. My treat! A really good restaurant. Okay?"
Shige wrinkles his nose. "I don't know," he says reluctantly.
"Please?" Koki begs.
"...Fine," Shige allows, and Koki whoops.
An AD pokes her head in the door and says, "Kato-san, if you would please follow me..."
"Yes, yes," Shige mutters, and when he leaves the room, Koki is still cheering happily, and despite himself, it makes him grin slightly.
Maybe Koki isn't all that bad, Shige concedes.
He's still annoying though.
-
"You still feel it?" Koichi whispers loudly, which completely defeats the purpose of the attempt to whisper, but Tsuyoshi shrugs and decides not to comment on it.
"Yes," Tsuyoshi says normally. "It's coming from several different areas though; I think there are more than one, and they must have split up."
Koichi's eyes gleam in excitement. "Perfect," he whispers. "How many?"
Tsuyoshi frowns. "Four? Five? Four? Four? Five?"
Rolling his eyes, Koichi slaps Tsuyoshi upside the head. Lightly though. "Which is it?"
Tsuyoshi wrinkles his nose. "I don't know. It's a little confusing."
"...well, we'll find out then, won't we?" Koichi asks excitedly, and then pumps a fist into the air. "To the Koichimobile!"
"I think it's amazing you can say that with no sense of irony at all," Tsuyoshi confides to Koichi, who completely does not notice because he's humming his own made up theme song.
Tsuyoshi shrugs. It's all good.
-
The day is rapidly going uphill, Toma discovers.
Things like seeing a full grown man (even though, oddly, Aiba claims he's less than two days old) run screaming like a girl through a haunted house tend to have that effect on people, he supposes, and snickers when Aiba pouts at him. Seriously, the idea to come to the amusement park is the best idea he's had all day.
It helps that Aiba's cute, he thinks, and then is immediately horrified at himself.
Where did that thought come from?
-
"Wow," Koyama says when he walks out of the conference room. "You managed all this within a couple hours?"
Matsumoto shrugs modestly. "It was nothing."
"It's not nothing!" Koyama says, startled. It really isn't - all the boxes have been unpacked and they are nowhere in sight; the furniture is rearranged in a stylish and effective way; everything is clean in a way that Koyama hasn't seen since they bought the place for an insanely cheap price; and everything is organized in a way that is sensible, which Koyama discovers when he pulls open the right hand drawer to one of the desks and sees several pens, pencils, post its, notepads and such arranged neatly inside. Somehow, everything even smells good. "How did you do all of this?" Koyama asks, dumbfounded.
"I just did," Matsumoto says, and Koyama stares at him.
"...do you want some tea?" he asks finally, and earns himself a strange look.
"Tea sounds good," Matsumoto says politely, and Koyama automatically wanders off to prepare some.
While he's in the makeshift break room, he hears a loud exclamation of surprise and he rushes back to the main office room.
"Woaaaaaaaaaaaah," Massu says, awed. "This is awesome."
"What the hell!" Ryo blurts out. "Are you human?"
The question visibly startles Matsumoto, and for the first time since Koyama's laid eyes on him, he looks perplexed and unsure.
Koyama quickly jumps in. "Of course he is!" he insists, and feels ridiculous for defending a man that he barely knows. "Ryo-chan, you should be more careful with your words," he says disapprovingly.
Ryo looks a little chagrined, then says gruffly, "Good job."
Yamapi looks completely thrilled with this. "This is amazing!" he enthuses. "I want to hire you! I don't know what you can do, but if you can manage something like this, I want you on our team! We can't pay you well yet, but lunch on me for a year?"
Matsumoto shakes his head politely. "I kind of already have a job," he says seriously. Then he glances to the side and seems to consider Koyama for a second, startling Koyama. "Maybe part time," he concedes. "Just weekends."
"Sold!" Tegoshi, Massu, and Yamapi crow at once.
"Okay, I've got to go to Jin's concert now," Yamapi says, and throws on his jacket. "I'll see you later."
"Yamapi, you have an extra ticket, right?" Ryo asks suddenly.
Yamapi blinks. "Yes?"
Carefully not looking at anyone, Ryo mumbles something unintelligible.
"Huh?" Yamapi says.
"I said to take Matsumoto with you," Ryo says loudly, the tips of his ears flushing a deep red. "It'll be fun, and he did a good job today." He grimaces, like it is painful to say.
"Ryo-chan likes you!" Tegoshi says, pleased.
Matsumoto looks vaguely amused and vaguely unsure about everything. Koyama elbows him lightly in the side, and when he glances over at Koyama, his dark eyes intent on only Koyama, Koyama has to fight a blush and shrugs self consciously. "It'll be fun, Matsumoto-san," he repeats Ryo.
A small smile plays at the corners of Matsumoto's lips, and wow, he's handsome, Koyama realizes. "I will gladly go," Matsumoto says, and then he says, "Jun is fine." A quick glance over directs his comment mainly to Koyama, making Koyama really blush, but everyone immediately jumps on this information.
"Have fun, Jun-kun!" Tegoshi says excitedly.
"See you later, Jun-kun," Massu says, waving.
"Bye, Jun-san," Koyama says, incredibly embarrassed, and Ryo snickers.
Yamapi leads Matsumoto out and then everyone descends upon Koyama. "He's hot," Tegoshi says.
"I think he's nice! If he likes Koyama, he must be nice," Massu says, his words almost overlapping over Tegoshi's.
Ryo just sniggers madly, poking Koyama in the side, saying, "Oh, someone got caught in your irresistible charm~"
"Leave me alone," Koyama says miserably.
"Do you even like him?" Massu asks.
Koyama turns crimson, and ducks his head, and then belatedly realizes that he'd forgotten to give Matsumoto the tea after all.
Tegoshi giggles, and produces a thermos out of nowhere. "Just take it to him then."
"Okay," Koyama says gratefully.
Ryo rolls his eyes. "What would you do without us?"
Koyama grins embarrassedly, and quickly goes to transfer the tea to a thermos.
-
"Fifteen minutes!" Kame hollers and there's a little extra bustle, to his satisfaction, and when he turns around, he is abruptly yanked into a closet. He yelps, and then suddenly the door is jerked shut, cutting off all the light and plunging him into darkness, and there's someone breathing softly against the skin of his neck, making the fine hairs there rise in trepidation.
"Hello," Nino hums, his lips just barely brushing Kame's jaw, and the light vibrations send a shudder down Kame's spine.
"I have to go out in a few minutes," Kame says, his throat tight. I want this, he realizes. Still - "My costume can't be messed up," he warns.
He swears he feels Nino smirk, and fingers just barely brush against the fabric separating Kame's skin from Nino's hands, and Kame wants to scream in frustration.
"Okay," Nino breathes against Kame's exposed collarbone. "I can wait." Fingers pinch Kame's nipple through his costume, a fleeting touch that makes Kame gasp, and then suddenly Kame is stumbling back into the light, blinking hard.
Koki raises an eyebrow as he passes by. "Oh, Kame, playing nookie in the closet before the concert?" he teases.
"No," Kame says, and is surprised by how disappointed he is about it.
Damn it.
-
Tsuyoshi frowns. "I think they're coming together," he reports.
"Huh," Koichi says.
-
Sho is instinctively following Ohno around because his spidey senses tell him that Ohno is most likely to get into some sort of mysterious trouble. The others will just make trouble, he thinks. So far it's all been innocuous; they went to the park, and Ohno had fallen asleep and after the kids he'd been playing with left, Sho had somehow fallen asleep too and discovered Ohno calmly waiting for him to wake up. After that, they'd decided to try to locate the others, and it's all been fine until... well...
...where is he now? He'd just seen Ohno, who was following some mysterious instinct to find Nino. It had led them to this concert hall that they'd somehow managed to get in without any trouble, and now... he couldn't find Ohno.
"Satoshi-kun?" Sho whispers. "Where are you?"
He pushes a door open and peeks inside, but it's all dark. He reaches around for a light switch, and then falls in when someone brushes past him a little to brusquely.
Click, Sho hears, and then the lights flutter on.
"Uh..." Sho says. That click hadn't sounded like the flip of a light switch.
He tries to open the door.
And it doesn't open.
"...man," Sho whines. "This sucks!"
-
Ohno blinks. "Sho-kun?" he calls tentatively.
Oops? Where'd Sho go?
"I guess I'd better look for him," Ohno mumbles to himself.
-
"Wait!" Koyama calls when he finally catches sight of the two familiar figures. "Yamapi! Jun-san! Wait up!"
The two of them pause and turn back to him, looking puzzled. Koyama slows down and stops in front of them, panting. It's been a while since he's had to run.
"Here's your tea," Koyama manages to say finally, and hands Jun the thermos.
"None for me?" Yamapi asks, and then Koyama starts and flushes. Yamapi grins. "It's okay, I'll steal Jin's water," he says.
"Thank you," Jun says, and then looks unsure of himself for a second before suddenly reaching out and pulling Koyama forward and brushing his lips against Koyama's cheek in almost a kiss.
Koyama feels all the blood in his body rush to his cheeks, and he feels too warm. He presses his hands against his cheeks and gapes.
And for the first time, Jun looks really embarrassed, and his cheeks are a little pink too, and he can't quite look Koyama in the eye. "Um, see you later," he says quickly, and turns around and heads away at a brisk walk.
"Aww," Yamapi says, "You guys are cute." He giggles and then waves at helplessly frozen Koyama. "I'll see you later then, Kei-chan."
"Bye," Koyama says faintly.
-
Toma takes Aiba out for yakiniku after the amusement park because Aiba had said something about being hungry, and when Toma mentioned meat, his eyes lit up. Aiba insists on sitting by the window, and he looks out the window at the people passing by with an odd sort of inquisitiveness and occasionally asks questions like, "Hey, Toma-kun, why is that guy trying to eat that girl's face?" that make Toma feel awkward.
"How old are you again?" he asks dubiously, because he's actually sort of beginning to believe Aiba when he says that he's less than two days old. Aiba doesn't seem to hear though, too engrossed in watching what is happening outside.
"Oh, look, why are there so many people over there?" Aiba asks suddenly, pointing a little ways down the street at the concert hall where Jin's group is having their concert.
"It's because a concert's going on," Toma explains patiently. "It's fun, and people like to go to them."
Aiba squints and presses his nose harder against the glass to get a better look. "Only girls?" he asks.
"Not always," Toma says.
"Huh," Aiba says, and then, "I want to go to a concert!" His eyes light up again, and he turns to Toma excitedly, making Toma smile against his will.
"I'll take you some time," Toma says generously, and feels a thrill of happiness when Aiba beams at him.
"Really?" Aiba asks. "Can I go to that one?" He points in the direction of the concert.
Toma laughs, and says, "Well, it's probably starting soon, and I think the concert's sold out, but I'm friends with one of the performers, so you can meet them after the concert if you want?"
"I want, I want!" Aiba says quickly, nodding vigorously.
"It won't be over for a while though-" Toma begins to say, and then a really cool car goes by, far above the speed limit, and it's heading straight at the concert hall. Toma gapes after it, and then scrambles out of his seat and bursts out of the restaurant without any thought as to exactly what he's planning on doing. Adrenaline pumping, he can feel the wind rushing past him and stinging at his cheeks, his muscles burning - and then Aiba passes him.
He gapes after Aiba, because, really, Toma is far from slow and Aiba has just passed him with the ease of a bullet train passing by a snail. He nearly trips over his feet, and then he just stops, and watches in shock as Aiba reaches the car in under a second, grabs one of the door handles, and then yanks the entire car to the side so it avoids all the fans in front of the concert hall - although, it crashes into the building.
"Oh my God!" a lot of shrill voices shriek, and some girls even burst into tears.
"What the fuck was that?" Toma blurts out, and then Aiba beams at him.
"I caught it!" he says excitedly. "That was fun!"
Toma stares. "Are you human?"
Aiba blinks at him, and then beams. "I'm a robot!"
"Huh," Toma says faintly. He tries very hard to process this, and finally comes up with, "...you know, actually, that kind of explains a lot."
Aiba grins.
-
Inside the car, Koichi's jaw is dropped. "Did you just...?"
Tsuyoshi nods solemnly. "I did," he says.
"Oh shit," Koichi says. "We're doomed."
There a moment of silence as Tsuyoshi observes the robot outside thoughtfully and says, "Actually, we might not be."
-
The concert goes off without a hitch. It's amazing, and the fans love it. Apparently, there's some sort of commotion outside, but nothing disastrous has happened yet, so Kame thinks it's probably fine.
"Told you, told you," Jin crows gleefully as he flounces past Kame towards his dressing room to go change and shower. Kame would retort, except he's too high off the feeling of the concert, of accomplishment, oh wow, that was just amazing -
Nino's leaning against a wall, watching Kame thoughtfully. His gaze burns through Kame's costume and sends a series of shivers through Kame's body.
"Nice job," Nino says, and smirks when Kame just instinctively moves towards him, and Nino moves forward to meet him, pushing insistently until Kame's back is to something solid and something is pressing against his back - "You got to move, you're blocking the doorknob," Nino says into Kame's mouth, and Kame scrambles to get out of the way and then they're tumbling in, and the costume is suddenly so restricting in a way it wasn't while he was onstage, and he pants as Nino's mouth moves down bare skin-
"Um," someone says, and coughs.
They look up, and then Nino growls, "Sho."
"Um," Sho says again, but his tone significantly higher. "Thanks for letting me out!" And then he's out the door.
Nino turns back to Kame, his lips curling dangerously. "Now, where were we?"
And Kame pulls his head down, and doesn't think again for a good while.
-
Koki is sweaty. And gross.
He's also kind of naked, or at least, he's in the process of stripping his pants off after the concert when Shige walks in, stops, and then promptly turns around and walks back out.
"That was not my fault, you know!" Koki calls after him.
"Shut up!" Shige hollers back, and Koki grins slightly. Shige's kind of hilarious in an adorable way.
Koki frowns as he starts to get ready to go take a shower.
"Maybe I like him a little too much?" he wonders out loud, and then shrugs and goes to take his shower.
-
Ohno finds Sho sitting despondently in a corner.
He sits next to him and wraps an arm around Sho's shoulders, and waits.
"Ohno-kun," Sho says finally, his voice hollow. "I think Nino is going to kill me."
"Really?" Ohno asks, vaguely surprised. "Why?"
Sho opens his mouth, and then closes it wordlessly.
"Huh," Ohno says. "That bad, huh?" Then, "Hi, Subaru."
"Hi, Subaru," Sho echoes without much enthusiasm.
Subaru gives them an unimpressed look. "You realize I've been looking all over for you, right?"
"Sorry," Ohno says seriously, but does not actually appear to all that sorry at all.
Subaru shakes his head at them.
"Oh-chan! Sho-kun!" they hear suddenly, and they all turn to see Aiba bound over and throw himself at the pair sitting on the ground.
"Oh, hey Toma," Subaru says, surprised and pleased to see the man with Aiba.
"Hey," Toma says, feeling oddly embarrassed.
"Toma!" two more people shout happily, and then Jin and Yamapi are throwing themselves at Toma, partly in sort of an attack as revenge for being locked in a closet and partly in a complicated bear hug.
"This is like a party," Ohno says to Sho, who is too busy wallowing to respond, but Aiba perks up immediately.
"Party?" Aiba asks, and jumps up to tug at Toma's sleeve. "Let's have a party, Toma-kun!"
"Ooooh," Jin and Yamapi immediately chorus childishly together.
"Who is this?" Yamapi demands. "Your new boyfriend?"
"No," Toma says, embarrassed.
"I'm not?" Aiba says, clearly confused.
"Oooooooooh," Jin crows.
"Shut up, you two!" Toma complains.
"MatsuJun!" Aiba cries suddenly, and Jun makes a face at him before sighing and giving a slight shrug. "Ooh, where'd you get that?" Aiba asks interestedly, leaning closer to get a look at the thermos in Jun's hand.
Jun automatically pulls it away, and hugs it almost protectively. "None of your business," he says.
"Hey there," Nino says, popping up between Jun and Toma, and Sho squeaks.
"Nino, you can't kill Sho-kun," Ohno says seriously.
"..." Nino doesn't react at first, only his expression turning flat for a second, then he shrugs and arranges Ohno's legs a little so that he can sit on his lap. "Fine," Nino says. He looks smug and satiated, and no one really wants to know why.
"Let's have a party!" Aiba announces.
"Party?" Nino asks curiously.
"Yes, party!" Aiba says, enthused.
"Sounds like fun," Nino says.
"Like, a party on a boat?" Ohno asks, looking interested.
"No," Nino and Jun say at the same time.
"Oh, how about at a restaurant?" Sho suggests.
"We just ate though," Toma begins, but Aiba says, "Okay!" his eyes gleaming with excitement, and Toma gives up. Aiba grins and gives Toma a hug, making Toma blush, and Jin and Yamapi hoot.
"I saw an Indian restaurant on the way here," Sho says.
"Indian?" Jun asks. "Why Indian?"
Sho shrugs self consciously. "It seemed interesting."
"I'm hungry," Ohno puts in.
"Indian it is," Nino says, and then suddenly he's getting up and pulling Ohno along with him. Ohno grabs onto Sho's hand, pulling him up too, and Aiba bounces after them, dragging along Toma, and Jun walks behind them at a more sedate pace. Yamapi and Jin follow them, squabbling with each other jokingly.
Subaru smiles as they leave, and then he pulls out his phone and calls Yoko and Hina.
"Hey, I found the robots you created for your diabolical plan of world domination," Subaru says blandly. "I'll get them back, but they're going out for Indian right now."
"Oh, thanks," Yoko says.
"You guys got distracted, didn't you?" Subaru asks wryly.
"It's really good ramen!" Hina said defensively.
"Well, anyway, it'll be fine," Subaru says. "See you later."
"...WHAT THE FUCK," Ryo shouts into the phone.
"Oops," Subaru says, and then hangs up.
"Coward!" Hina cries.
"Hey, Ryo, seriously, this is some really good ramen, why don't you come over?" Yoko says.
-
Shige frowns thoughtfully at his pasta. "You know," Shige says, "I feel like this day was a little weird somehow."
Koki blinks at him, his mouth full of lasagna. "Really?" he asks, his mouth still full, but at least he covers his mouth. He chews a few times and then swallows. "I thought it was pretty normal."
"If you say so," Shige says dubiously. He eats some more of his pasta, and then says, "Hey, this is pretty good."
"Really?" Koki asks, visibly perking up. "We should come here again sometime then!"
Shige stares at him. "...again?"
-
The first thing that happens when Ryo shows up at the ramen shop is he opens his mouth and Yoko and Hina automatically brace themselves. "What the hell, you made robots to take over the world and then accidentally inflicted it upon the planet at large and didn't give (enough of) a shit to tell me?" Ryo blurts out, and then looks a little chagrined at his language.
Yoko smiles sheepishly. "Yes?"
Ryo looks somewhere between ready to murder them all, absolutely bewildered, and vaguely hurt.
It makes them feel bad. "Aww," Hina says, "Does Ryo-chan need a hug?" He puts his arms out, and when Ryo just stares at him and opens and closes his mouth wordlessly, Hina simply wraps his arms around him. "We didn't forget you, we were just busy," he reassures Ryo.
"I hate you all," Ryo mumbles into Hina's shoulder, and Yoko and Hina grin at each other.
"We love you too, Ryo-chan," they chorus gleefully.
"You better pay for my ramen," he mutters irritably, and pretends that he doesn't feel inexplicably happier.
-
"You seem more relaxed than I've seen you in a while," Ueda comments to Kame as they leave the concert hall with Nakamaru. It's usually just Ueda and Nakamaru leaving last, but today Kame had been a little later than usual getting ready to leave.
"Hm, really?" Kame asks, surprised.
"I concur," Nakamaru agrees, nodding, earning him weird looks. "I agree," he amends.
"Huh," Kame says. "It must be because the concerts are finally over for now."
Ueda raises an eyebrow and shrugs. "If you say so."
Kame smiles.
("I'll be back," Nino had said, his eyes frank and honest, and for some reason Kame really thinks he will be.)
-
"So," Subaru says.
"Hm?" Junno responds distractedly, still glued to his PSP.
Subaru considers Junno thoughtfully, and then says, "Want to go out for dinner with me?"
Sounds of Junno's character dying fill the sudden silence, and then GAME OVER flashes on the screen. Junno looks up in surprise. "What?"
"Want to go out for dinner with me?" Subaru says again.
Junno blinks, and then shrugs, turning off his game console. "Okay," he says agreeably.
-
"The sea is beautiful, isn't it?" Tsuyoshi comments to the man sitting next to him.
"Hmm," Ohno says, enthralled.
"So no taking over the world?" Tsuyoshi prompts.
"Mmk," Ohno says distracted.
"No," Tsuyoshi corrects. "You mean, 'No, Tsuyoshi, in return for teaching me the art of fishing, I will not take over the world.' So, do you still plan to take over the world?"
"No, Tsuyoshi," Ohno says obediently, "In return for teaching me the art of fishing, I will not take over the world."
"Good evil robot," Tsuyoshi says, and pats Ohno on the head. He casts out his line and settles back in his seat, satisfied with another job well done.
Saving the world is a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
THE END