Requested drabbles batch #1-6
I'm going to keep adding to this entry rather than make new ones - at least until LJ tells me I've exceeded the maximum character limit! - so if you're watching for your request, you might want to keep an eye on this entry for a bit. Am posting in the order I wrote them, not the order in which they were requested, based on requests in this post. Some are close to actual drabble length, but some...uh...ran away with me.
Bulk disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Rating: Anywhere up to PG-13 unless explicitly stated otherwise.
#1 - Prompt from valmora: Gokusen 2, either Ryuu/Hayato/Ryuu or Take/Tsucchi/Take. Dinner and a movie - and you don't have to take this one the obvious way! (UST is loved just as much as un/stable relationship, of course)
#1: Strictly an Observation
"It's a date," Take insists, glaring up at Tsucchi with the face that says he will not be swayed on any account. "I know it is."
Tsucchi sets down the binoculars he "borrowed" from Yamada in 3-B so he can look at his diminutive friend without feeling dizzy. "Two guys can't go out for a meal together without it being a date? Hayato and Ryuu eat out together all the time. We all do."
"Yeah, like ramen, or takoyaki, or something we can actually afford." Take points through the gap in the bushes towards the bright lights and white tablecloths. "Not fancy Italian restaurants! Hayato's still paying off that broken window so I know he's got no money right now, which means Ryuu's getting the bill." He gives Tsucchi a self-satisfied smile. "Dee-to."
"Early Christmas present," Tsucchi scoffs. "I still say no date."
"Then why did you bring binoculars when I said I wanted to check up on them?"
"Borrowed them 'cause a new girl moved in across the street and I wanted to check her out, and figured I'd go return 'em when we were done here. I just wanted to make sure she was nothing like Yankumi."
Take's not buying it. "You expect me to fall for that?"
Tsucchi grins. "Yep. You want to try these or not?" He dangles the binoculars just out of reach; Take stretches up on his toes once, then settles for elbowing Tsucchi in the side to level the playing field.
The binoculars, when Take tries them out, prove most helpful. The table he wants is conveniently close to the window, occupied by two of his closest friends, neither of whom seems very happy. Hayato's wearing the smartest thing he owns - his school uniform - but the jacket buttons are done up for once and he keeps fidgeting with them, clearly ill at ease in such fancy surroundings.
Ryuu's different. He's in black pants and a white sweater, simple but expensive, casually elegant, like he's at another one of his parents' dinner parties where he's expected to be on his best behaviour and not scowl at too many of the guests. Though other diners sneak peeks at him over their wine glasses he ignores them all, never taking his eyes from Hayato even when he speaks to the waitress. The girl's gorgeous, blushing prettily when she approaches the table. Ryuu never even looks her way.
"Hayato's out of his depth," Take mutters. "Are they gonna make it through the meal?"
Tsucchi tugs on the cord, trying to steal the binoculars back. "Does Ryuu still look like he's about to order someone's execution?"
Take shivers. "You think he knows we're watching?" They both crouch a little lower behind the bushes and hope they don't get spotted by a passing policeman.
"Nope," Tsucchi says eventually, when it's clear Ryuu isn't about to come rushing out to yell at them. "He's probably just hungry. It doesn't look like the kind of place where you get decent portions. Probably pay a fortune for something that wouldn't keep a supermodel alive."
"What would you know about supermodels?"
"A lot more than you."
"I wish we could hear what's going on in there," Take says. "They look like they're arguing now."
Tsucchi succeeds in pulling the binoculars across to his own eyes for a peep. That this has the effect of pulling Take right up against him is not a problem - it's a cold night, and friends share warmth, right?
The argument appears to be about Hayato's food, into which he's viciously jabbing a fork. He's leaning across the table, eyes wide, free hand clenched into a fist. Ryuu rolls his eyes, takes his plate in one hand and Hayato's in the other and switches them around, fork and all, then carries on eating as if nothing has happened. Hayato sits back down, is forced to steal Ryuu's fork in exchange. He looks much happier with his new meal.
"Indirect kiss!" Tsucchi gasps.
"Let me see!"
"Get your own!"
After a short tussle in which one of Take's hairslides disappears down a drain and is never seen again, he regains control of the binoculars. By this point the food is mostly gone - Ryuu and Hayato are both fast eaters who believe in consuming what they can before someone can come along and take it away from them. Hayato's starting to relax now. He's unfastened the top couple of buttons on his jacket and stretched his legs out under the table. Ryuu's doing the same. It's not a big table; their legs are side by side underneath, nudging each other from time to time. Hayato says something that makes them both laugh, transforming them from sullen teenagers into beautiful, joyful children with light hearts and brilliant, matching smiles.
"Shame Hyuuga's busy tonight," Take laments, letting the binoculars fall around his neck. "His phone's got the best camera. We could've taken pictures."
"We don't need pictures. They're just having a meal, that's all."
"You're the one who said there was an indirect kiss," Take points out. "You think it's a date too."
"I just said- uh oh."
Take follows Tsucchi's gaze to the restaurant window, where Ryuu's unimpressed face is against the glass, watching them with about as much warmth as an ice cube. Hayato's standing behind him, giving them a bunny-eared "ja ne".
"I think," Take frantically untangles himself from the binoculars and jams them in Tsucchi's jacket pocket, "this would be a good time to leave."
"And not mention it again," Tsucchi agrees. He's not ready to go home yet, though. Take's playing at being scared, with a little quirk in his smile that says he's not really worried about being caught but Tsucchi's good to hide behind if they are. Their friends are enjoying themselves, so why shouldn't they? "We should go somewhere they can't find us for a while, just in case."
Take nods. "Not the game centre, fine. Got any ideas?"
There's a cinema across the street, bright lights and the scent of popcorn beckoning them in. Fancy Italian meals are out of Tsucchi's budget but he thinks he could probably manage this. "Feel like seeing a movie?"
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#2 - Prompt from aya_3003: I need something with snow! How about Kame x Nakamaru?
#2: Cold Comfort
As outdoor photo shoots go, this one isn't going very well. Ueda's already slipped in the snow, Junno's had a handful of it stuffed down his collar by Koki after a particularly atrocious pun, and Jin keeps stealing all the hot drinks for himself in an effort to avoid yet another cold. Kame, on the other hand, is having a great time, grinning madly as he poses on the snowboard, keen to take it out for a test run.
Nakamaru is not nearly so enthusiastic, especially when Jin sneaks up behind him while he's posing on skis and threatens to push him down the gentle slope. He slinks off to sulk after Nakamaru whacks him with a ski pole.
"Winter sports shoot in sub-zero temperatures," Nakamaru sighs. "Somebody up there hates me."
"Could be worse." Kame drops down beside him on the bench and hands over the one hot coffee they've managed to keep safe from Jin. "I'm thinking ski jumps from high places."
"That's probably what we're doing tomorrow."
Kame cocks his head to one side and purses his lips, considering this. "Actually, I think tomorrow we're supposed to be deep sea diving..." At Nakamaru's look of horror he grins and drops the pretence. "Just kidding. I don't think they're allowed to torture us that much."
"Don't count on it," Nakamaru says darkly. Somehow whenever there's an opportunity to make the members of KAT-TUN suffer, he's always the one who comes off worst - at least as far as he's concerned.
"You survived the bungee jump in front of everyone at the Tokyo Dome. After that, anything else should be easy, right?"
Nakamaru sips the coffee and watches Koki and Jin have a snowball fight, ignoring the desperate cries of the stylist about how many hours it's taken to get Jin's hair so artfully mussed. "Easy for you, maybe."
Kame wraps a well-padded arm around his shoulders for a reassuring squeeze. "You wouldn't be asked to do things like that if we didn't honestly believe you could do them...eventually. We know you'll come through when it counts."
Kame's smile and words of encouragement do more to warm Nakamaru than the coffee ever could.
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#3 - Prompt from lilmatchgirl007: AKAME (ofc), sth about Kame wondering how to be a believeable Kyouhei and yes. :D
#3: Parting Advice
"Arrogant, hot-tempered, stubborn, blunt, kind-hearted but has a funny way of showing it, insanely popular but doesn't care, can't keep a job because all his employers harass him, gets stalked by entire towns because of his good looks."
"You're not writing your résumé, are you?" Jin asked.
Kame waved a paper at him. "Character description of Takano Kyouhei. I'm still trying to get a handle on him."
"You made me watch the anime with you last week and I know you've got a stack of the manga piled up next to your bed." Jin drew his legs along the couch to make room for Kame to sit at the other end. "You can't tell me you don't know the character by now."
"I don't exactly have much experience in getting kidnapped and being auctioned off in host clubs." Kame sat down, rubbing a hand over his eyes, not caring when Jin's fuzzy Mickey Mouse socks wound up in his lap.
"Who does?"
Kame gave him a speculative look. "You've got all those crazy fans who steal your phone bills. That's close enough. How does that make you feel, Mr. Insane Popularity?" He held out an imaginary microphone.
Jin snorted and waved it away. "Angry. Scared that some stranger's gotten that close to me without my ever knowing about it; worried that next time they won't just be stealing my bills. If they like me so much why don't they do me a favour and steal my junk mail?"
"I don't think they're so concerned with what you want." Kame rested his hands on Jin's ankles, skimming his thumbs under the jeans to find the skin beneath. "I have to figure out how to play a guy who's wanted by almost everyone, even his own teachers."
"Isn't that everyone else's problem? They have to make like they want you; you're not interested in any of them."
"True. I just have to be kind of loud, brash, tactless-"
"You're already tactless."
"-And run like hell when I see crowds of screaming girls."
"You'd be smart to do that anyway." Jin sat up and scooted forward, pushing his legs over the edge till he was sitting sideways on Kame's lap. "Run towards me instead. I promise not to auction you off in host clubs."
"We'd get more money for you anyway. A couple of hip rolls would drive the price right up."
"Not interested," Jin said firmly. "Not unless you're the only one bidding."
Kame leaned in till they were nose to nose. "Don't worry, I wouldn't want you to fall into anyone else's hands." He moved his own for emphasis; Jin's delighted smile was appreciation enough. "Any final words of advice before we find better things to do with our mouths than talk?"
Jin's smile faded. "Pretend to be an idol who doesn't want to be an idol."
"Be you, you mean?" Kame hated hearing that bittersweet tinge, the one that said Jin could've been a million other things by now if he hadn't chosen this path.
"Oh, I like it when I can do the things I enjoy. I like it when I get to go places I've never been, or do things that would be impossible in a normal job. I like it when I meet people who wouldn't look at me twice, otherwise."
"You don't need to be famous for people to want to look at you," Kame teased. "Kyouhei's not a singer, or actor, or anything like that, and everyone's desperate to look at him."
"And where does that get him? Stalked, chased, kidnapped, beaten up - sounds like a dream role. Have fun."
"Like Gokusen with more girls. You should come to the set."
"One of the girls is a skeleton. I think I'll pass."
Kame giggled. "I don't know if we're actually going to have Josephine in the drama; no one's told me yet."
"At least that would be one person in the cast I wouldn't have to worry about. If Tegoshi starts flirting with you again-"
"I'll get Uchi to take him drinking," Kame interrupted before Jin could finish the threat. "That ought to distract him. For weeks, possibly."
"Just so long as it doesn't distract yo- hey!" Jin squawked as Kame tipped him backwards onto the cushions and stood up. "Where are you going?"
"Kitchen. I'm starved."
Jin followed to watch Kame transfer the entire contents of his fridge onto plates, moving with surprising speed and dedication. "That's what I call getting into character!"
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#4 - Prompt from rkold: Date, Sanada and snow
#4: Winter Warriors
It wasn't a battle to be taken lightly. Many good men had already fallen, felled by the enemy's troops; the survivors were determined their sacrifice should not be in vain. At their head, Sanada Genjirou Yukimura longed to rush into the fight, not content with hiding behind the protective walls of the fortress as if he were a child. His spirit burned with the desire to do battle in his lord's name, to assert the honour, strength and courage of the Tiger of Kai.
Across the snow-covered field, the One-Eyed Dragon would no doubt be feeling the same way, Yukimura thought. Date Masamune hadn't been seen since the battle had begun, though many mysterious shouts of encouragement involving parties and getting one's guns on had been heard from behind the scenes. It wasn't like him to sit back and let his devoted retainers do all the work - Katakura must've had quite a time persuading him to remain out of the fray.
But there came a point where no general worthy of the title could skulk in the shadows while his men took the hits that should've been his. The field was already littered with bodies; there were few warriors left to send. It was time for Yukimura to make his move.
Without giving himself time to think he scooped up his weapon and leapt over the fort's walls, running full tilt across the field with a cry of "Date Masamune!"
An answering yell of "Sanada Yukimura!" came from his rival, who was approaching at top speed from the opposite side of the field. With eyes burning and souls afire, the two men met in the middle...and proceeded to smash giant snowballs in each other's faces.
Behind the rapidly-disappearing walls of the Takeda snow fort, Sasuke sighed. "Their blazing passion is melting all the snow..."
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#5 - Prompt from lip_stick_love: Kame, Jin, candy canes, snow, & cooking Christmas dinner!
#5: If You Can't Stand the Heat, Don't Put Chilli Oil on Your Chicken
Jin's new apartment didn't have much going for it other than that the fans hadn't found it yet, which was why he had no intention of spending Christmas there. Kame's place was much warmer. For once, neither of them was working on Christmas Day and, armed with a box of candy canes sent from a friend in the States and a couple of bags of groceries, Jin planned to make the most of it.
He just forgot to tell Kame.
"You can't turn up on my doorstep with a turkey and a bag of vegetables and expect me to make a meal out of it!"
Jin deposited the ingredients on Kame's kitchen counter. "I did ask you if you were free today?" he offered.
"And I said I was. I didn't say that meant I had the time to be your kitchen slave." Kame cast a dubious eye over the turkey. "Isn't that a little on the small side?"
"It's a chicken," Jin mumbled. "I couldn't get a turkey on short notice. As it was, I had to fight a couple of old ladies for this one."
"Akanishi Jin: Scourge of the Supermarket." Kame examined the bags of vegetables and box of gravy mix. It appeared Jin wanted a completely Western Christmas - at least in terms of food. "That still doesn't tell me what you're doing here."
"I haven't unpacked anything from my kitchen yet except some glasses and my microwave, which won't get me very far cooking anything, and I wanted a Christmas dinner at home."
"You're not at home!"
"Close enough. Anyway, you're a better cook than I am."
"Granted, but-"
"I really liked it when I had it in America," Jin said quietly.
Kame sighed and resigned himself to spending the day in the kitchen. "Fine, but you're helping."
"Okay!" Jin beamed at him and retrieved the bag he'd left by the front door. "I've already taken care of dessert." He removed a large white box and stashed it in Kame's fridge, squashing everything else into the corners to make room. "Where do we start?"
It was obviously going to be a very long day. "With alcohol," Kame decided, going for an unopened bottle of red wine. "You'd better open the fridge again - the beer's right at the back."
Thus liquored up, they set to work. It was a miracle neither of them lost a finger. They had a good system going - while Kame prepped the chicken, mostly by throwing random spices over it until it looked interesting enough to satisfy him, Jin busied himself peeling vegetables. Not chopping them, because that was Kame's arena, but he had fun trying to peel potatoes so the skin came off in a spiral. So much fun, in fact, that he ended up peeling more than he'd meant to.
"We're not trying to feed a family of six," Kame said when he saw the pile of freshly peeled and scrubbed potatoes. "How about moving on to other vegetables now?"
While Kame started chopping and parboiling things, Jin had a moment of panic trying to fit the chicken in the oven till he realised the lower shelf could be removed. The roasting pan took up a lot of space, but it was big enough that they could throw most things in with the chicken and cook them in the bird's juices. "Next year we're doing fried chicken," he said.
"Next year you can pay someone else to do your Christmas dinner," Kame grumbled good-naturedly.
"Don't pretend you're not getting something out of this. I paid for the ingredients, and dessert, and I'm helping too. Plus, you get the pleasure of my company." Kame raised his eyebrows; Jin smirked and fished out the box of candy canes. "And I brought these!"
Kame looked pointedly at the box, which had been placed perilously close to his chopping board. "I'm up to my elbows in sliced carrots and you want me to eat sweets?"
"Well, maybe not right now..." Jin moved the box to a safer location and took one out for himself. "But since you're using the chopping board and I can't do anything until the chicken's been in a little longer, I'm going to have one, okay?"
"Just keep it away from the food."
Easy enough. Jin leaned against the door, enjoying the mix of cooking smells rising from various pots and pans - not to mention the sight of Kame in a pale blue apron, hair tied back in a messy ponytail and eyes burning with such intensity you'd have thought he was performing surgery, not chopping sweet potatoes. It was going to be wonderful, Jin knew. Not perfect, because KAT-TUN in general weren't great with perfection, but wonderful.
He removed the cellophane from the candy cane and twirled it under his nose. Mmm, cinnamon. According to the label, the box contained a mix of flavours, including strawberry; Jin intended to save that one for Kame. He gave it a tentative lick, sampling the sweet red-and-white goodness. Dinner was a long way off, he wouldn't spoil his appetite if he had a little snack. He ran the stick along his lips, reaching the end with an audible smack, and realised Kame had stopped chopping vegetables to watch him.
"Hungry?" he teased.
Kame gave him a challenging look. "How does it taste?"
"Want to find out for yourself?"
"Come here."
But Kame didn't go for the candy cane, as Jin had expected - he went for Jin's lips instead, licking at the cinnamon sweetness before stealing a kiss that left them both grinning like Cheshire cats and wishing they weren't in the middle of cooking. Jin broke off a piece of the curved end - the part that hadn't been in his mouth - and gave it to Kame to suck on while he finished with the knife. He wouldn't accept the rest, no matter how much attention Jin paid to it with his tongue, though he did warn him once that it wasn't wise to distract a man holding a blade in his hands.
Jin had to turn the chicken over and poke it several times with a fork after it had been in half an hour; Kame carefully arranged vegetable mountains beside it. The whole lot went back in the oven for a good roasting. Kame finished up the remaining trimmings while Jin started washing up some of the mess and packing things away.
He didn't expect to find a jar of chilli oil in the mix. "I didn't bring this. Did you put it on the chicken?"
"I bought some in case you turned up out of the blue, demanding weird snack food in the middle of the night." Jin couldn't argue with Kame's explanation, not when he'd done it several times before - while slightly intoxicated, admittedly. "And yeah, I threw a bit of everything on the chicken. Should be interesting."
Jin noted the red pepper flakes and other assorted jars lined up along the edge of the table. This chicken was going to be hot. "It'll be the manliest Christmas dinner ever."
"I hope your dessert will cool us down. What is it, anyway?"
"A surprise. You don't get to see until we're ready for it."
With so much food to eat, it didn't seem likely they'd be ready for it until the New Year, but both of them took great pleasure in food and it felt extremely satisfying, eating something they'd worked on together - even if the chicken burned their mouths a bit, and the carrots were weird shapes where Jin had peeled at angles. They snacked on leftover chicken while watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean', which was hardly a Christmas movie but had Johnny Depp so it was one both of them could agree on.
By the time the end credits rolled it was definitely time for dessert. Jin insisted on preparing it himself; Kame was left to watch the news ("Arashi to be first idol group to perform on the moon") while Jin removed it from the box, arranged it neatly on a plate, and brought it through to set down on the coffee table.
"You didn't bake that, did you?" Kame asked.
"Not even if I trained for a thousand years. You like it?"
"I love it."
Dessert was a delicate sponge cake, iced in white and topped with miniature marzipan fir trees arranged in a ring. In the centre of the clearing stood Santa in his sleigh, with a single reindeer to pull it and a pile of presents in the back. It looked too perfect to spoil by cutting.
"There's more." Jin pulled out a small packet of white chocolate flakes, tore off one corner and handed the rest to Kame. "Sprinkle some snow."
Kame scattered most of them across the cake's surface before Jin stuck out his tongue and demanded his own personal snowflakes. "You're still a little kid at heart."
"A little kid who's just had everything he wants for Christmas," Jin pointed out. "How about you?"
"Oh, there's one more thing I want but haven't had yet..." Kame flashed him a wink. "At least, haven't had today."
Jin nudged the coffee table carefully out of harm's way - the cake, work of art that it was, could wait for later. "I'm sure I could do something about that..."
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#6 - Prompt from kriszeth: hayaryu - growing up together and apart and back together again and again.
#6: A Friendship Worth Fighting For
Kids fight about stupid things. When Hayato and Ryuu were seven, they fell out for a whole two days because Ryuu said Hayato ran like a girl. The entire forty-eight hours, they refused to play with each other, and only made up when Ryuu agreed that actually Take, with his pretty little hairband that his mother liked him to wear, was more of a girl than either of them.
When they were twelve, Take was still wearing headbands and Hayato still ran like a girl, but he didn't do much running anymore - people tended to run from him instead, though Ryuu never did. Hayato started his growth spurt before most of their class; without the weight to match he was a lanky pre-teen standing head and shoulders above his best friend. It wasn't so bad except when their class had to play basketball and the teacher decided the two of them should captain opposing teams. Both were fit, both were competitive, and both were determined to make as many baskets as possible. Hayato took full advantage of his height and his team won the game by a good margin. If only he hadn't been such a bad winner, Ryuu might not have ignored him for a week, which was as long as it took him to figure out what he'd done wrong and volunteer to practise shooting hoops with Ryuu as a peace offering.
When they were fifteen, Hayato discovered girls. Girls were exotic creatures. They didn't have any in his school, but he saw them out and about, with their pretty faces and short skirts, and wondered what it would be like to touch them. He didn't know how to approach them so he tried to talk to Ryuu about it, because he figured Ryuu would be thinking along the same lines and might have some ideas, but somehow Ryuu hadn't gotten around to discovering girls yet. When Ryuu told him he was getting annoying, talking about girls all the time, Hayato teasingly asked him if he preferred boys. Hayato's school uniform took a lot of damage, but not as much as their friendship, which didn't get repaired until Ryuu phoned, late one night, and said it was a stupid fight and he never wanted to discuss the matter again.
By the time they were seventeen, Hayato knew better than to expect Ryuu to share the enthusiasm he and their friends had for girls. He'd go along on group dates, if strong-armed into it, but he'd never volunteer himself or make more than the minimum effort required. Hayato didn't understand why until one afternoon on the school roof, both of them cutting class, having a heated argument about a fight they were due to have with Jounan Tech. The struggle turned physical. Fingers clenched tight in the folds of uniform jackets; tempers flared as the gap closed between them. Ryuu pressed down, then, and kissed his best friend roughly on the lips. He pulled away before either of them really registered what had just happened, and it was Hayato's turn not to want to talk about it. They never did.
Even in their final year of high school, it was still a secret they'd buried between them, with Ryuu offering half a reluctant apology and Hayato shrugging it off like it had been a joke, a one-time thing, a stupid, rash act in the heat of the moment and there was nothing more to be said.
But the biggest fight they had that year wasn't stupid at all. Hayato couldn't understand why Ryuu would betray his friends by bowing down to Ara High - especially couldn't understand why Ryuu would betray him. Hadn't they always done everything together? Couldn't they accomplish anything, if only they were side by side? Ryuu wouldn't even tell him why, and after his father made a deal with the superintendent and he stopped coming to school, it was easy for them to avoid each other.
It would've been easier if Ryuu had died. At least then, Hayato could've grieved and moved on in time. But this way the hurt lingered beneath the surface, gnawing at him whenever someone mentioned the missing member of 3-D. It took a crazy new teacher and another battle with Ara High to bring them back together, a reunion that involved the whole class but ultimately came down to a new understanding between the two of them - one that said sacrificing your pride for your friends was something you could actually be proud of. Ryuu regained his honour in the eyes of his peers and Hayato regained a friendship he'd thought lost forever. Slowly, on the path to graduation, they gained something they'd never had before.
They're not kids anymore but they still have stupid fights every now and then. Hayato complains when Ryuu comes back from work too knocked out from teaching delinquent kids to remember he'd promised to pick up milk on the way home. Ryuu gets annoyed when Hayato forgets it's his turn to cook and they end up eating instant ramen again. Hayato argues that they don't have enough space; Ryuu retorts that if they're going to get a bigger apartment, it would help if Hayato could contribute more to the rent. It's true that they don't really have enough space and visitors usually ask, with a sly grin, which one of them gets stuck on the couch every night.
Hayato says they flip a coin for it. Ryuu smiles to himself and says nothing at all. They do flip a coin, but only when they fight. The rest of the time, they don't need one.
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Continued in Post 2
Bulk disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Rating: Anywhere up to PG-13 unless explicitly stated otherwise.
#1 - Prompt from valmora: Gokusen 2, either Ryuu/Hayato/Ryuu or Take/Tsucchi/Take. Dinner and a movie - and you don't have to take this one the obvious way! (UST is loved just as much as un/stable relationship, of course)
#1: Strictly an Observation
"It's a date," Take insists, glaring up at Tsucchi with the face that says he will not be swayed on any account. "I know it is."
Tsucchi sets down the binoculars he "borrowed" from Yamada in 3-B so he can look at his diminutive friend without feeling dizzy. "Two guys can't go out for a meal together without it being a date? Hayato and Ryuu eat out together all the time. We all do."
"Yeah, like ramen, or takoyaki, or something we can actually afford." Take points through the gap in the bushes towards the bright lights and white tablecloths. "Not fancy Italian restaurants! Hayato's still paying off that broken window so I know he's got no money right now, which means Ryuu's getting the bill." He gives Tsucchi a self-satisfied smile. "Dee-to."
"Early Christmas present," Tsucchi scoffs. "I still say no date."
"Then why did you bring binoculars when I said I wanted to check up on them?"
"Borrowed them 'cause a new girl moved in across the street and I wanted to check her out, and figured I'd go return 'em when we were done here. I just wanted to make sure she was nothing like Yankumi."
Take's not buying it. "You expect me to fall for that?"
Tsucchi grins. "Yep. You want to try these or not?" He dangles the binoculars just out of reach; Take stretches up on his toes once, then settles for elbowing Tsucchi in the side to level the playing field.
The binoculars, when Take tries them out, prove most helpful. The table he wants is conveniently close to the window, occupied by two of his closest friends, neither of whom seems very happy. Hayato's wearing the smartest thing he owns - his school uniform - but the jacket buttons are done up for once and he keeps fidgeting with them, clearly ill at ease in such fancy surroundings.
Ryuu's different. He's in black pants and a white sweater, simple but expensive, casually elegant, like he's at another one of his parents' dinner parties where he's expected to be on his best behaviour and not scowl at too many of the guests. Though other diners sneak peeks at him over their wine glasses he ignores them all, never taking his eyes from Hayato even when he speaks to the waitress. The girl's gorgeous, blushing prettily when she approaches the table. Ryuu never even looks her way.
"Hayato's out of his depth," Take mutters. "Are they gonna make it through the meal?"
Tsucchi tugs on the cord, trying to steal the binoculars back. "Does Ryuu still look like he's about to order someone's execution?"
Take shivers. "You think he knows we're watching?" They both crouch a little lower behind the bushes and hope they don't get spotted by a passing policeman.
"Nope," Tsucchi says eventually, when it's clear Ryuu isn't about to come rushing out to yell at them. "He's probably just hungry. It doesn't look like the kind of place where you get decent portions. Probably pay a fortune for something that wouldn't keep a supermodel alive."
"What would you know about supermodels?"
"A lot more than you."
"I wish we could hear what's going on in there," Take says. "They look like they're arguing now."
Tsucchi succeeds in pulling the binoculars across to his own eyes for a peep. That this has the effect of pulling Take right up against him is not a problem - it's a cold night, and friends share warmth, right?
The argument appears to be about Hayato's food, into which he's viciously jabbing a fork. He's leaning across the table, eyes wide, free hand clenched into a fist. Ryuu rolls his eyes, takes his plate in one hand and Hayato's in the other and switches them around, fork and all, then carries on eating as if nothing has happened. Hayato sits back down, is forced to steal Ryuu's fork in exchange. He looks much happier with his new meal.
"Indirect kiss!" Tsucchi gasps.
"Let me see!"
"Get your own!"
After a short tussle in which one of Take's hairslides disappears down a drain and is never seen again, he regains control of the binoculars. By this point the food is mostly gone - Ryuu and Hayato are both fast eaters who believe in consuming what they can before someone can come along and take it away from them. Hayato's starting to relax now. He's unfastened the top couple of buttons on his jacket and stretched his legs out under the table. Ryuu's doing the same. It's not a big table; their legs are side by side underneath, nudging each other from time to time. Hayato says something that makes them both laugh, transforming them from sullen teenagers into beautiful, joyful children with light hearts and brilliant, matching smiles.
"Shame Hyuuga's busy tonight," Take laments, letting the binoculars fall around his neck. "His phone's got the best camera. We could've taken pictures."
"We don't need pictures. They're just having a meal, that's all."
"You're the one who said there was an indirect kiss," Take points out. "You think it's a date too."
"I just said- uh oh."
Take follows Tsucchi's gaze to the restaurant window, where Ryuu's unimpressed face is against the glass, watching them with about as much warmth as an ice cube. Hayato's standing behind him, giving them a bunny-eared "ja ne".
"I think," Take frantically untangles himself from the binoculars and jams them in Tsucchi's jacket pocket, "this would be a good time to leave."
"And not mention it again," Tsucchi agrees. He's not ready to go home yet, though. Take's playing at being scared, with a little quirk in his smile that says he's not really worried about being caught but Tsucchi's good to hide behind if they are. Their friends are enjoying themselves, so why shouldn't they? "We should go somewhere they can't find us for a while, just in case."
Take nods. "Not the game centre, fine. Got any ideas?"
There's a cinema across the street, bright lights and the scent of popcorn beckoning them in. Fancy Italian meals are out of Tsucchi's budget but he thinks he could probably manage this. "Feel like seeing a movie?"
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#2 - Prompt from aya_3003: I need something with snow! How about Kame x Nakamaru?
#2: Cold Comfort
As outdoor photo shoots go, this one isn't going very well. Ueda's already slipped in the snow, Junno's had a handful of it stuffed down his collar by Koki after a particularly atrocious pun, and Jin keeps stealing all the hot drinks for himself in an effort to avoid yet another cold. Kame, on the other hand, is having a great time, grinning madly as he poses on the snowboard, keen to take it out for a test run.
Nakamaru is not nearly so enthusiastic, especially when Jin sneaks up behind him while he's posing on skis and threatens to push him down the gentle slope. He slinks off to sulk after Nakamaru whacks him with a ski pole.
"Winter sports shoot in sub-zero temperatures," Nakamaru sighs. "Somebody up there hates me."
"Could be worse." Kame drops down beside him on the bench and hands over the one hot coffee they've managed to keep safe from Jin. "I'm thinking ski jumps from high places."
"That's probably what we're doing tomorrow."
Kame cocks his head to one side and purses his lips, considering this. "Actually, I think tomorrow we're supposed to be deep sea diving..." At Nakamaru's look of horror he grins and drops the pretence. "Just kidding. I don't think they're allowed to torture us that much."
"Don't count on it," Nakamaru says darkly. Somehow whenever there's an opportunity to make the members of KAT-TUN suffer, he's always the one who comes off worst - at least as far as he's concerned.
"You survived the bungee jump in front of everyone at the Tokyo Dome. After that, anything else should be easy, right?"
Nakamaru sips the coffee and watches Koki and Jin have a snowball fight, ignoring the desperate cries of the stylist about how many hours it's taken to get Jin's hair so artfully mussed. "Easy for you, maybe."
Kame wraps a well-padded arm around his shoulders for a reassuring squeeze. "You wouldn't be asked to do things like that if we didn't honestly believe you could do them...eventually. We know you'll come through when it counts."
Kame's smile and words of encouragement do more to warm Nakamaru than the coffee ever could.
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#3 - Prompt from lilmatchgirl007: AKAME (ofc), sth about Kame wondering how to be a believeable Kyouhei and yes. :D
#3: Parting Advice
"Arrogant, hot-tempered, stubborn, blunt, kind-hearted but has a funny way of showing it, insanely popular but doesn't care, can't keep a job because all his employers harass him, gets stalked by entire towns because of his good looks."
"You're not writing your résumé, are you?" Jin asked.
Kame waved a paper at him. "Character description of Takano Kyouhei. I'm still trying to get a handle on him."
"You made me watch the anime with you last week and I know you've got a stack of the manga piled up next to your bed." Jin drew his legs along the couch to make room for Kame to sit at the other end. "You can't tell me you don't know the character by now."
"I don't exactly have much experience in getting kidnapped and being auctioned off in host clubs." Kame sat down, rubbing a hand over his eyes, not caring when Jin's fuzzy Mickey Mouse socks wound up in his lap.
"Who does?"
Kame gave him a speculative look. "You've got all those crazy fans who steal your phone bills. That's close enough. How does that make you feel, Mr. Insane Popularity?" He held out an imaginary microphone.
Jin snorted and waved it away. "Angry. Scared that some stranger's gotten that close to me without my ever knowing about it; worried that next time they won't just be stealing my bills. If they like me so much why don't they do me a favour and steal my junk mail?"
"I don't think they're so concerned with what you want." Kame rested his hands on Jin's ankles, skimming his thumbs under the jeans to find the skin beneath. "I have to figure out how to play a guy who's wanted by almost everyone, even his own teachers."
"Isn't that everyone else's problem? They have to make like they want you; you're not interested in any of them."
"True. I just have to be kind of loud, brash, tactless-"
"You're already tactless."
"-And run like hell when I see crowds of screaming girls."
"You'd be smart to do that anyway." Jin sat up and scooted forward, pushing his legs over the edge till he was sitting sideways on Kame's lap. "Run towards me instead. I promise not to auction you off in host clubs."
"We'd get more money for you anyway. A couple of hip rolls would drive the price right up."
"Not interested," Jin said firmly. "Not unless you're the only one bidding."
Kame leaned in till they were nose to nose. "Don't worry, I wouldn't want you to fall into anyone else's hands." He moved his own for emphasis; Jin's delighted smile was appreciation enough. "Any final words of advice before we find better things to do with our mouths than talk?"
Jin's smile faded. "Pretend to be an idol who doesn't want to be an idol."
"Be you, you mean?" Kame hated hearing that bittersweet tinge, the one that said Jin could've been a million other things by now if he hadn't chosen this path.
"Oh, I like it when I can do the things I enjoy. I like it when I get to go places I've never been, or do things that would be impossible in a normal job. I like it when I meet people who wouldn't look at me twice, otherwise."
"You don't need to be famous for people to want to look at you," Kame teased. "Kyouhei's not a singer, or actor, or anything like that, and everyone's desperate to look at him."
"And where does that get him? Stalked, chased, kidnapped, beaten up - sounds like a dream role. Have fun."
"Like Gokusen with more girls. You should come to the set."
"One of the girls is a skeleton. I think I'll pass."
Kame giggled. "I don't know if we're actually going to have Josephine in the drama; no one's told me yet."
"At least that would be one person in the cast I wouldn't have to worry about. If Tegoshi starts flirting with you again-"
"I'll get Uchi to take him drinking," Kame interrupted before Jin could finish the threat. "That ought to distract him. For weeks, possibly."
"Just so long as it doesn't distract yo- hey!" Jin squawked as Kame tipped him backwards onto the cushions and stood up. "Where are you going?"
"Kitchen. I'm starved."
Jin followed to watch Kame transfer the entire contents of his fridge onto plates, moving with surprising speed and dedication. "That's what I call getting into character!"
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#4 - Prompt from rkold: Date, Sanada and snow
#4: Winter Warriors
It wasn't a battle to be taken lightly. Many good men had already fallen, felled by the enemy's troops; the survivors were determined their sacrifice should not be in vain. At their head, Sanada Genjirou Yukimura longed to rush into the fight, not content with hiding behind the protective walls of the fortress as if he were a child. His spirit burned with the desire to do battle in his lord's name, to assert the honour, strength and courage of the Tiger of Kai.
Across the snow-covered field, the One-Eyed Dragon would no doubt be feeling the same way, Yukimura thought. Date Masamune hadn't been seen since the battle had begun, though many mysterious shouts of encouragement involving parties and getting one's guns on had been heard from behind the scenes. It wasn't like him to sit back and let his devoted retainers do all the work - Katakura must've had quite a time persuading him to remain out of the fray.
But there came a point where no general worthy of the title could skulk in the shadows while his men took the hits that should've been his. The field was already littered with bodies; there were few warriors left to send. It was time for Yukimura to make his move.
Without giving himself time to think he scooped up his weapon and leapt over the fort's walls, running full tilt across the field with a cry of "Date Masamune!"
An answering yell of "Sanada Yukimura!" came from his rival, who was approaching at top speed from the opposite side of the field. With eyes burning and souls afire, the two men met in the middle...and proceeded to smash giant snowballs in each other's faces.
Behind the rapidly-disappearing walls of the Takeda snow fort, Sasuke sighed. "Their blazing passion is melting all the snow..."
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#5 - Prompt from lip_stick_love: Kame, Jin, candy canes, snow, & cooking Christmas dinner!
#5: If You Can't Stand the Heat, Don't Put Chilli Oil on Your Chicken
Jin's new apartment didn't have much going for it other than that the fans hadn't found it yet, which was why he had no intention of spending Christmas there. Kame's place was much warmer. For once, neither of them was working on Christmas Day and, armed with a box of candy canes sent from a friend in the States and a couple of bags of groceries, Jin planned to make the most of it.
He just forgot to tell Kame.
"You can't turn up on my doorstep with a turkey and a bag of vegetables and expect me to make a meal out of it!"
Jin deposited the ingredients on Kame's kitchen counter. "I did ask you if you were free today?" he offered.
"And I said I was. I didn't say that meant I had the time to be your kitchen slave." Kame cast a dubious eye over the turkey. "Isn't that a little on the small side?"
"It's a chicken," Jin mumbled. "I couldn't get a turkey on short notice. As it was, I had to fight a couple of old ladies for this one."
"Akanishi Jin: Scourge of the Supermarket." Kame examined the bags of vegetables and box of gravy mix. It appeared Jin wanted a completely Western Christmas - at least in terms of food. "That still doesn't tell me what you're doing here."
"I haven't unpacked anything from my kitchen yet except some glasses and my microwave, which won't get me very far cooking anything, and I wanted a Christmas dinner at home."
"You're not at home!"
"Close enough. Anyway, you're a better cook than I am."
"Granted, but-"
"I really liked it when I had it in America," Jin said quietly.
Kame sighed and resigned himself to spending the day in the kitchen. "Fine, but you're helping."
"Okay!" Jin beamed at him and retrieved the bag he'd left by the front door. "I've already taken care of dessert." He removed a large white box and stashed it in Kame's fridge, squashing everything else into the corners to make room. "Where do we start?"
It was obviously going to be a very long day. "With alcohol," Kame decided, going for an unopened bottle of red wine. "You'd better open the fridge again - the beer's right at the back."
Thus liquored up, they set to work. It was a miracle neither of them lost a finger. They had a good system going - while Kame prepped the chicken, mostly by throwing random spices over it until it looked interesting enough to satisfy him, Jin busied himself peeling vegetables. Not chopping them, because that was Kame's arena, but he had fun trying to peel potatoes so the skin came off in a spiral. So much fun, in fact, that he ended up peeling more than he'd meant to.
"We're not trying to feed a family of six," Kame said when he saw the pile of freshly peeled and scrubbed potatoes. "How about moving on to other vegetables now?"
While Kame started chopping and parboiling things, Jin had a moment of panic trying to fit the chicken in the oven till he realised the lower shelf could be removed. The roasting pan took up a lot of space, but it was big enough that they could throw most things in with the chicken and cook them in the bird's juices. "Next year we're doing fried chicken," he said.
"Next year you can pay someone else to do your Christmas dinner," Kame grumbled good-naturedly.
"Don't pretend you're not getting something out of this. I paid for the ingredients, and dessert, and I'm helping too. Plus, you get the pleasure of my company." Kame raised his eyebrows; Jin smirked and fished out the box of candy canes. "And I brought these!"
Kame looked pointedly at the box, which had been placed perilously close to his chopping board. "I'm up to my elbows in sliced carrots and you want me to eat sweets?"
"Well, maybe not right now..." Jin moved the box to a safer location and took one out for himself. "But since you're using the chopping board and I can't do anything until the chicken's been in a little longer, I'm going to have one, okay?"
"Just keep it away from the food."
Easy enough. Jin leaned against the door, enjoying the mix of cooking smells rising from various pots and pans - not to mention the sight of Kame in a pale blue apron, hair tied back in a messy ponytail and eyes burning with such intensity you'd have thought he was performing surgery, not chopping sweet potatoes. It was going to be wonderful, Jin knew. Not perfect, because KAT-TUN in general weren't great with perfection, but wonderful.
He removed the cellophane from the candy cane and twirled it under his nose. Mmm, cinnamon. According to the label, the box contained a mix of flavours, including strawberry; Jin intended to save that one for Kame. He gave it a tentative lick, sampling the sweet red-and-white goodness. Dinner was a long way off, he wouldn't spoil his appetite if he had a little snack. He ran the stick along his lips, reaching the end with an audible smack, and realised Kame had stopped chopping vegetables to watch him.
"Hungry?" he teased.
Kame gave him a challenging look. "How does it taste?"
"Want to find out for yourself?"
"Come here."
But Kame didn't go for the candy cane, as Jin had expected - he went for Jin's lips instead, licking at the cinnamon sweetness before stealing a kiss that left them both grinning like Cheshire cats and wishing they weren't in the middle of cooking. Jin broke off a piece of the curved end - the part that hadn't been in his mouth - and gave it to Kame to suck on while he finished with the knife. He wouldn't accept the rest, no matter how much attention Jin paid to it with his tongue, though he did warn him once that it wasn't wise to distract a man holding a blade in his hands.
Jin had to turn the chicken over and poke it several times with a fork after it had been in half an hour; Kame carefully arranged vegetable mountains beside it. The whole lot went back in the oven for a good roasting. Kame finished up the remaining trimmings while Jin started washing up some of the mess and packing things away.
He didn't expect to find a jar of chilli oil in the mix. "I didn't bring this. Did you put it on the chicken?"
"I bought some in case you turned up out of the blue, demanding weird snack food in the middle of the night." Jin couldn't argue with Kame's explanation, not when he'd done it several times before - while slightly intoxicated, admittedly. "And yeah, I threw a bit of everything on the chicken. Should be interesting."
Jin noted the red pepper flakes and other assorted jars lined up along the edge of the table. This chicken was going to be hot. "It'll be the manliest Christmas dinner ever."
"I hope your dessert will cool us down. What is it, anyway?"
"A surprise. You don't get to see until we're ready for it."
With so much food to eat, it didn't seem likely they'd be ready for it until the New Year, but both of them took great pleasure in food and it felt extremely satisfying, eating something they'd worked on together - even if the chicken burned their mouths a bit, and the carrots were weird shapes where Jin had peeled at angles. They snacked on leftover chicken while watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean', which was hardly a Christmas movie but had Johnny Depp so it was one both of them could agree on.
By the time the end credits rolled it was definitely time for dessert. Jin insisted on preparing it himself; Kame was left to watch the news ("Arashi to be first idol group to perform on the moon") while Jin removed it from the box, arranged it neatly on a plate, and brought it through to set down on the coffee table.
"You didn't bake that, did you?" Kame asked.
"Not even if I trained for a thousand years. You like it?"
"I love it."
Dessert was a delicate sponge cake, iced in white and topped with miniature marzipan fir trees arranged in a ring. In the centre of the clearing stood Santa in his sleigh, with a single reindeer to pull it and a pile of presents in the back. It looked too perfect to spoil by cutting.
"There's more." Jin pulled out a small packet of white chocolate flakes, tore off one corner and handed the rest to Kame. "Sprinkle some snow."
Kame scattered most of them across the cake's surface before Jin stuck out his tongue and demanded his own personal snowflakes. "You're still a little kid at heart."
"A little kid who's just had everything he wants for Christmas," Jin pointed out. "How about you?"
"Oh, there's one more thing I want but haven't had yet..." Kame flashed him a wink. "At least, haven't had today."
Jin nudged the coffee table carefully out of harm's way - the cake, work of art that it was, could wait for later. "I'm sure I could do something about that..."
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#6 - Prompt from kriszeth: hayaryu - growing up together and apart and back together again and again.
#6: A Friendship Worth Fighting For
Kids fight about stupid things. When Hayato and Ryuu were seven, they fell out for a whole two days because Ryuu said Hayato ran like a girl. The entire forty-eight hours, they refused to play with each other, and only made up when Ryuu agreed that actually Take, with his pretty little hairband that his mother liked him to wear, was more of a girl than either of them.
When they were twelve, Take was still wearing headbands and Hayato still ran like a girl, but he didn't do much running anymore - people tended to run from him instead, though Ryuu never did. Hayato started his growth spurt before most of their class; without the weight to match he was a lanky pre-teen standing head and shoulders above his best friend. It wasn't so bad except when their class had to play basketball and the teacher decided the two of them should captain opposing teams. Both were fit, both were competitive, and both were determined to make as many baskets as possible. Hayato took full advantage of his height and his team won the game by a good margin. If only he hadn't been such a bad winner, Ryuu might not have ignored him for a week, which was as long as it took him to figure out what he'd done wrong and volunteer to practise shooting hoops with Ryuu as a peace offering.
When they were fifteen, Hayato discovered girls. Girls were exotic creatures. They didn't have any in his school, but he saw them out and about, with their pretty faces and short skirts, and wondered what it would be like to touch them. He didn't know how to approach them so he tried to talk to Ryuu about it, because he figured Ryuu would be thinking along the same lines and might have some ideas, but somehow Ryuu hadn't gotten around to discovering girls yet. When Ryuu told him he was getting annoying, talking about girls all the time, Hayato teasingly asked him if he preferred boys. Hayato's school uniform took a lot of damage, but not as much as their friendship, which didn't get repaired until Ryuu phoned, late one night, and said it was a stupid fight and he never wanted to discuss the matter again.
By the time they were seventeen, Hayato knew better than to expect Ryuu to share the enthusiasm he and their friends had for girls. He'd go along on group dates, if strong-armed into it, but he'd never volunteer himself or make more than the minimum effort required. Hayato didn't understand why until one afternoon on the school roof, both of them cutting class, having a heated argument about a fight they were due to have with Jounan Tech. The struggle turned physical. Fingers clenched tight in the folds of uniform jackets; tempers flared as the gap closed between them. Ryuu pressed down, then, and kissed his best friend roughly on the lips. He pulled away before either of them really registered what had just happened, and it was Hayato's turn not to want to talk about it. They never did.
Even in their final year of high school, it was still a secret they'd buried between them, with Ryuu offering half a reluctant apology and Hayato shrugging it off like it had been a joke, a one-time thing, a stupid, rash act in the heat of the moment and there was nothing more to be said.
But the biggest fight they had that year wasn't stupid at all. Hayato couldn't understand why Ryuu would betray his friends by bowing down to Ara High - especially couldn't understand why Ryuu would betray him. Hadn't they always done everything together? Couldn't they accomplish anything, if only they were side by side? Ryuu wouldn't even tell him why, and after his father made a deal with the superintendent and he stopped coming to school, it was easy for them to avoid each other.
It would've been easier if Ryuu had died. At least then, Hayato could've grieved and moved on in time. But this way the hurt lingered beneath the surface, gnawing at him whenever someone mentioned the missing member of 3-D. It took a crazy new teacher and another battle with Ara High to bring them back together, a reunion that involved the whole class but ultimately came down to a new understanding between the two of them - one that said sacrificing your pride for your friends was something you could actually be proud of. Ryuu regained his honour in the eyes of his peers and Hayato regained a friendship he'd thought lost forever. Slowly, on the path to graduation, they gained something they'd never had before.
They're not kids anymore but they still have stupid fights every now and then. Hayato complains when Ryuu comes back from work too knocked out from teaching delinquent kids to remember he'd promised to pick up milk on the way home. Ryuu gets annoyed when Hayato forgets it's his turn to cook and they end up eating instant ramen again. Hayato argues that they don't have enough space; Ryuu retorts that if they're going to get a bigger apartment, it would help if Hayato could contribute more to the rent. It's true that they don't really have enough space and visitors usually ask, with a sly grin, which one of them gets stuck on the couch every night.
Hayato says they flip a coin for it. Ryuu smiles to himself and says nothing at all. They do flip a coin, but only when they fight. The rest of the time, they don't need one.
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Continued in Post 2