JE/NewS- [REMIX] "The Ryo Filter"
Oh god am I doing this right? Do I really just throw it up like this? I'M SORRY.
Title: The Ryo Filter
Universe: JE/NewS
Theme/Topic: REMIX!
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (and being lightly, uncertainly RyoxTego and RyoxUchi)
Warnings/Spoilers: UM. I don’t know Uchi that well, but I figured that no one expects me to write him in character anyway, all things considered.
Word Count: 5,122
Summary: Remix of one_if_by_land’s fic “The Tegoshi Factor”-Everyone loves Tegoshi. Even when they don’t really want to.
Dedication: I AM SORRY BING. I AM SO SORRY.
A/N: As this is a remix fic, it REALLY MAKES NO SENSE unless you read the original; though after reading the original I suggest NOT reading this as the original is always the best anyway. Also, like I said, I don’t know Uchi that well, but in the clips I did manage to see it seems like Ryo and Uchi are totally lovey-dovey antagonistic and just THAT MUCH MEANER to everyone else around them. I could be wrong times a billion, but when I look at it this way it’s an amusing dynamic to ME. In the meantime, I raped Bing’s story good, didn’t I? I AM A BARBARIAN. But I would just like to say that in my defense, I have never worked SO LONG on a fic as I have this. At least in recent memory. >>
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
When they hear that they’re going to be thrown into a completely new group with a bunch of random people from various other units for the purpose of recording a CD, Ryo immediately finds the downside to debuting in this manner even though everyone else says he ought to stop being so negative and start getting excited about being allowed to debut at all. But beyond the hearts, stars, and sparkles involved with debuting, Ryo knows that at its core, this new assignment simply means double the workload for he and Uchi both. In addition, there is the fact that 98% of the people in the jimusho who he likes are in his current group already, so this “big opportunity” also means having to work with a bunch of people who he’ll probably dislike as well.
In short, it sucks to be him right now.
It doesn’t help that Ryo’s fears are only confirmed a few days later, when the management releases the list of member names for the monster group they’ve decided to call NewS. From what he can see, besides he and Uchi, NewS will contain a bunch of untalented morons, Yamapi (who is admittedly, a bearable untalented moron), and after that, some random kanji for three names that he can’t even be bothered to figure out how to read correctly in the first place.
Uchi looks like he wants to be pissed at the sudden announcement too, but the bastard is too amused by Ryo’s rolling irritation to do anything but be annoying and provoke Ryo into getting even more pissed for him.
“But aren’t you excited to get to work with Yamapi?” Uchi crows gleefully, and makes Ryo want to smack him.
Except he never does- he doesn’t quite know why that is.
So instead, he glares and says, “Hey, some of these kids are barely out of diapers, wouldn’t it be funny if one of them ends up being cuter than you?”
Uchi blinks when he hears that, like he had never even considered the possibility of no longer being the cutest one in their group/s.
When Ryo sees the younger boy’s face he smirks and leaves the spoiled brat standing there looking troubled; if they’re going to suffer he figures that they might as well do it together.
Doesn’t that sort of thing make bonds of friendship stronger or something?
Whatever.
~~~~~
During the first week of NewS’s existence Ryo only deigns to talk to Yamapi and Uchi, though every now and again he does manage to throw the chubby kid a withering look for no particular reason other than to see if the idiot will stick his hand into his pocket and grab his chocolate bar security blanket like that will really save him from being an absolute moron. Other than that Ryo just ignores the other members and concentrates on doing what management wants him to do so that they can all leave that much faster at the end of the day. As it is, even Yamapi is having trouble getting comfortable around this mishmash of randomized (used) boyband parts, and if that’s the case, Ryo figures it’s not worth it for him to even try and make eye contact with the rest of the group since he’s so much meaner (cooler) than Yamapi is.
Though after three or four days he notices that the fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-a-four-year-old might be watching him; he saw the brat try to talk up Uchi the other day while Uchi was in drama queen mode and having hair issues.
The kid’s failure was miserable and thus very enjoyable to watch, but after that incident it only feels like he’s decided to study Ryo and Uchi even more intently than before.
Ryo is on the edge of being annoyed by the fact that the kid isn’t even trying to hide his interest in them, but before long he realizes that it simply can’t be helped-he’s a sexy Osaka man and as such, these things are bound to happen.
At least the kid’s got taste. And from who he’s choosing to watch in the group, he’s clearly got some brains too, which thus far, the entirety of KKKity seems to be grossly lacking (as proven by events from yesterday, when Kusano-or-Kato-or-either-one-it-doesn’t-really-matter-since-they-look-exactly-the-same-anyway spent three hours trying to lick his elbow on Koyama’s declaration that it was physically impossible).
But even if fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old’s careful study of Ryo and Uchi sort of makes him a little more interesting than the rest of the group (in an irritating kind of way), it still doesn’t mean that Ryo’s going to go ahead and try to make friends with the brat any time soon or anything like that.
At least, that’s what Ryo tells himself.
~~~~~
A few months later- when Yamapi is still calling Kusano “Kato-kun” but is at least trying- fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old suddenly bounces up to Ryo and shyly asks him for his phone number.
To be honest, the brat’s courage is kind of admirable, considering that it had barely been a week since one of the juniors had called ‘Nishikido-senpai’ ‘Ryo-senpai’ on accident and earned himself the kind of glare that makes the weak-hearted quit Johnny’s altogether and use the angst of their unfulfilled expectations to try to become indie rock stars instead.
Ryo studies fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old for a moment after the inquiry is made; he suddenly remembers this one time back in middle school when this really cute underclassman had stammered, “Nishikido-senpai, I like you, will you go out with me?” to him under the eaves of the gymnasium while they’d been between classes.
He’d snorted and said no to her of course, and she’d cried the entire run back into the school building. The whole thing had been pretty adorable to see, even if Ryo’s angle had been kind of shitty from the back.
He thinks that this situation has the potential to be the similarly entertaining, except the only difference between then and now is the fact that this is Johnny’s, so the kid looking up at him is ten times cuter than some random middle school girl in pigtails. As such, the kid’s reaction will probably be proportionately cuter than hers as well.
Ryo decides to test that theory.
“No,” he answers, coolly, and then stands up and casually heads back over to Uchi and Yamapi on the other side of the room. He just barely manages to hold back his smirk long enough so that the kid won’t be able to see it.
He only bursts out laughing about it sometime later, when he asks Yamapi how the brat’s reaction was to his snub. Yamapi very carefully calls it a “wibble” and frowns at Ryo. “Maybe you shouldn’t be mean to him,” he starts perfunctorily, like any good leader ought to.
The suggestion only makes Ryo laugh harder.
~~~~~
Uchi however, is not as amused as Ryo is by this whole turn of events.
“You’re bullying him,” Uchi says that night, on their way back to Ryo’s.
Ryo snorts. “So what? If I don’t feel bad about it you shouldn’t either.”
The younger boy snorts right back. “That’s not it.”
“Then stop being such a woman, god. Or if you’re going to be a girl, go and make me a sandwich or some pie or something.”
Uchi just crosses his arms and arches an eyebrow-sometimes he really does act like Ryo’s wife. “So if you’re bullying him it clearly means that you no longer nothing him, idiot.”
Ryo blinks.
Then, “The hell? I just didn’t want to give him my goddamned phone number!” he shouts, in the middle of the street. It’s loud enough to draw the attention of several passersby; they stop and stare at Ryo until he glares at them and makes them start walking faster in the other direction to get away.
Uchi in the meantime, only cackles at how annoyed Ryo suddenly is-that usually manages to get his spirits up for some reason.
In fact, it puts him in such a good mood that he even goes to make Ryo a sandwich when they get back to his apartment later, just like the older boy had asked for.
Of course, he only does it out of spite.
~~~~~
After that Ryo makes it a special point to return to his conscious nothing-ing of Tegoshi just as soon as possible so he can prove Uchi wrong (and consequently point and laugh right in his face for being a moron).
But then Tegoshi almost shows up late to evening dance rehearsal one night, all flushed and out of breath and looking excited to get to spend more time with everyone. His eyes might even be shining a little bit.
Call it an inborn instinct in Ryo or something, but when he sees Tegoshi’s cute little face looking so happy like that, he automatically wants to crush the smaller boy’s innocent excitement just as much as he can.
Later, Ryo tells himself that the ghost story he’d used to scare Tegoshi with that night had simply been because he’d been feeling spiteful at the time, since having a bunch of shitty dancers in the group means unjust night practices for everyone (even if they’re mad sexy dancers like himself, apparently). So it’s only fair that those shitty dancers pay for the trouble they’re causing everyone else a little bit, right?
Naturally it’s up to Ryo-as the coolest senpai present- to make sure that those responsible suffer accordingly.
Or that’s what he tries to tell himself, but after a second or two of gleefully thinking: “Tegoshi sucks at dancing and deserves all the crap he gets,” Ryo suddenly stops dead in his tracks. He groans and turns to slam his head into a nearby wall a couple of times.
Because he realizes that now, he actually remembers the stupid brat’s stupid name.
~~~~~
With time, Ryo begins to notice that everyone loves Tegoshi for some reason.
Domoto Tsuyoshi has an unnatural fascination with the kid-he gives him that retarded self-introduction during the group’s first Domoto Kyoudai appearance and everyone twitters adoringly at how cute it-and Tegoshi- is whenever the kid even looks like he’s about to raise his hand an inch.
Nagase loves Tegoshi too-the big idiot buys him candy and gives him advice and the two of them have great fun laughing like slack-jawed horses together at every stupid joke they hear.
That’s fine; Tsuyoshi and Nagase are both morons anyway.
What really irritates Ryo is that his own damned groupmates have turned traitor.
“What?” Yokoyama says blandly, when Ryo glares at him.
The older boy’s arms are around Tegoshi and if one happened to see this from the wrong angle, one might think that the two of them were cuddling. But then Yokoyama grins and pinches Tegoshi’s cheeks, and Tegoshi squeaks accordingly. “Ah, that was my dream, you know!” Yokoyama says, and ruffles Tegoshi’s hair.
Tegoshi pouts.
“So cute!” The rest of Kanjani crows, happily.
Ryo rolls his eyes and leaves the room.
This is officially ridiculous.
~~~~~
“Are you jealous because everyone else gets to play with him openly but you can only say mean things since you officially labeled yourself the hated egocentric character on national television?” Uchi asks casually that night from the couch, as he applies another layer of the revitalizing face-mask cream his mother bought for him last week.
Ryo snarls and locks himself in the bathroom.
~~~~~
“You look troubled,” Uchi sing-songs to Ryo one day a few months later, during dance rehearsals for the Akaku Moyuru Taiyo PV.
Ryo decides to ignore him instead of maiming him because he is magnanimous like that. Besides, they are in the middle of rehearsal and Ryo is nothing but a strict professional.
Tegoshi, as usual, sucks so badly at every movement that might be construed as choreography that even Shige-or-Kusano takes him aside to try and give him some advice on how to improve.
Uchi just watches as Ryo follows the two younger members’ motions with his eyes. Ryo in the meantime, looks accordingly disdainful at what a fuck up of a teacher Shige-or-Kusano is-what the hell is he trying to show the kid, how to imitate Arashi?
Then, “Do you want to talk about it?” Uchi asks Ryo, oh so helpfully. “It’s not healthy to keep these things bottled up, you know.”
“You shut the hell up,” Ryo snaps back, on instinct.
But rather than cower in fear and wet his pants like most people have learned to do whenever Ryo snarls at them like that, the younger boy only throws his head back and laughs. “You’re pathetic.”
Then he happily goes off to get a snack.
And Ryo can’t help it; he really wishes the bastard wouldn’t use that don’t-maul-your-best-friend card of his so frequently.
~~~~~
When he can’t take the torture anymore (i.e. about an hour later), Ryo finally gives up on the whole holding it in thing and grabs Tegoshi so he can pull the moron aside for some real one-on-one instruction.
"Your dancing sucks and your clothes are hideous,” he says, with absolutely no delicacy at all. Though for some reason, his hand tightens around the kid’s arm a little as he speaks, all on its own.
Tegoshi just stares back at him kind of dazedly-his face gets flushed and his eyes glaze over. It makes Ryo wonder if Masuda ate his dinner for him again tonight, aren’t those all symptoms of low blood sugar?
Whatever, he’ll buy the idiot a snack later if only he gets the stupid dance right. Ryo is so sick of watching him try and try and try so hard only to suck ass as a result. It’s like watching a puppy repeatedly run into a wall.
"You need to actually move your feet when dancing, it gives better hip movement," he starts gruffly, but admittedly with more gentleness than before.
Tegoshi just continues to blink back at him stupidly, and after a moment Ryo gives up with the talking. He puts his hands firmly on the smaller boy’s hips.
Tegoshi squeaks and turns even redder somehow; Ryo thinks he can see Uchi glaring at the two of them from the corner.
But for the time being he ignores Uchi in favor of growling orders at Tegoshi to move while smacking him just as often as possible for moving wrong.
"Relax the knees! RELAX THE KNEES!" he barks, and draws the attention of all the other members in the process.
Koyama of course, can only see Ryo’s screaming and hitting Tegoshi as a positive thing. Ryo supposes that a group called KKKity would have to have a stupid leader; their stupid name has a goddamned typo in it.
"Shige's also had problems with that move, you can teach him too!" Koyama suggests after a moment of watching and being moved by Ryo’s efforts to bring the group closer together. But Shige only looks horrified at the prospect of getting his knees bashed in; Ryo decides that Shige is probably the smart one out of KKKity since clearly he is the one lacking the most talent.
"I don't waste my time on lost causes," Ryo tells Koyama with no pretense whatsoever. Shige almost looks relieved.
Then, Ryo turns back to Tegoshi, who is still kind of following his instructions like a zombie. “We're going shopping this Sunday. I'm embarrassed just standing next to you in public.”
Apparently that’s enough to snap the kid out of whatever low-blood-sugar stupor he’s in, because he immediately brightens and chirrups, “That's perfect! I mean, not perfect that I embarrass you, but perfect that you can tell me what to buy!"
"You need to stop wearing color; it washes out your face," Ryo says automatically. Then he pauses to study the twerp a little more closely- he’s not bad looking, if only he’d stop being so stupidly earnest all the time. It makes him seem goofy. "You need more black," he decides, as well.
Koyama seems like he’s on the verge of applauding Ryo’s quick assessments while Tegoshi just looks awed and ridiculously happy despite the fact that everything about him and his way of life is being insulted right now. After a second, he even looks up through his lashes at Ryo and says, shyly, “You can be my fashion guru.”
Ryo almost smiles at that-looks like he was right about this kid having some brains after all.
But then again, Ryo isn’t very often wrong.
In the meantime, Uchi snorts and exclaims, "Fashion guru? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
~~~~~
“Jealous?” Ryo crows to Uchi later, and loves this whole karma thing.
Uchi just frowns back at him. “So you actually do like him now?” he asks, and looks wary. “It’s only funny when you’re pissed about it.”
Ryo laughs and reaches out to ruffle Uchi’s hair for the sole purpose of messing it up. “Oh c’mon, you kinda like him too,” he says.
Uchi doesn’t say anything, which means-as usual-that Ryo is right.
But since he’s such a great guy, he doesn’t rub Uchi’s face in it; instead he buys him ice cream and even helps him fix his hair and stuff.
Afterwards, they end up talking about which stores Ryo should take Tegoshi to on Sunday; Ryo even promises to dress the kid up in some sort of women’s clothing and take pictures for Uchi to post anonymously online.
~~~~~
As it turns out, Tegoshi is pretty non-reactive when it comes to Ryo finding him skirts to put on; the younger boy even knows how to twirl so that the hems brush right up against the tops of his knees in the way that gets school girls molested on trains.
Under any other circumstances Ryo would be horribly disturbed, but for some reason, Tegoshi pulls it off okay.
“That is so fucking weird,” he murmurs to himself as he snaps another cell phone picture and obediently forwards it to Uchi’s number.
Tegoshi, currently in something slinky and white, just blinks back at him innocently. “What’s weird?”
~~~~~
“These pictures are ridiculous,” Uchi exclaims later, and flips through the entire album of approximately thirty shots currently stored on his phone’s memory. He does this repeatedly.
“I know,” Ryo agrees, and watches the images from over Uchi’s shoulder with a sick sort of fascination.
“What the hell,” Uchi adds, just because he feels the need.
“I know,” Ryo echoes.
After that, it is really hard to be mean to Tegoshi, even jokingly.
~~~~~
When Uchi gets drunk and gets caught, Ryo has to fight the urge to stop everything he is doing and storm over to the moron’s house so he can bash his head into the nearest wall.
He thinks that the only thing holding him back from actually going through with it right now is the fact that if he does go ahead and try it, then Uchi will probably see him cry in the process, and Ryo isn’t ready for that yet. So instead, Ryo spends a week sulking to himself and withdrawing from the world in general, trying to think of things to say or do that will somehow make this whole stupid nightmare stop.
He vaguely recalls Tegoshi trying to come up to him one day after rehearsals; he knows that the kid had awkwardly attempted to comfort him, but it’s all kind of a blur when he tries to conjure up the exact details. The only thing Ryo really remembers about the whole thing is that he’d snapped angrily at the younger boy and told him to leave now.
In the days following that incident Yamapi and Koyama both try to insinuate (gently) that Ryo shouldn’t take his anger out on innocent bystanders because that doesn’t help anyone.
But eventually, they stop making their (gentle) suggestions because Ryo only ends up taking his anger out on them instead; they learn that talking to him when he is in this sort of mood only paints a big fat bull’s-eye on their chests, complete with the words “shoot me next!” written in big, flashing neon lights.
In short, everyone learns very quickly to leave Ryo alone; he doesn’t want to talk about it.
~~~~~
But then, some weeks later, Ryo gets a text message from Uchi. It simply says “Behave” and nothing else.
It’s enough to make Ryo spend the rest of the night in his room with his face shoved into his pillow. He may or may not scream a few times.
But come morning, when his alarm goes off promptly at six am, Ryo sits up, steels his jaw, and tells himself to get up and get to work.
~~~~~
That morning, Tegoshi does his best to smile and greet Ryo the same as always, though Ryo can see the hint of uncertainty lingering just behind the younger boy’s eyes all the same. Looking at him like that, it feels like Ryo broke up with the kid in a particularly cruel way or something.
But the uncertainty is there and gone again in less than a second, and after he chirrups his customary, “Ohayo, Nishikido-kun!” to the older boy, Tegoshi turns around and bounces to the other side of the room without another word.
The kid is smart- like Ryo had always known he was- and in the following weeks he stays away from Ryo in order to give the older boy whatever space he still needs.
Instead, Tegoshi only plays in safe territory, laughing and pulling pranks with Massu and Kusano or letting Koyama and Shige spoil him while Yamapi looks benevolently on.
Ryo watches Tegoshi like this and convinces himself that it is all for the best, because right now he doesn’t really have the strength to deal with anyone, let alone someone so retardedly cheerful.
There are limits to these kinds of things, you know.
~~~~~
But then Uchi tells him, “You sound lonely,” a few days later over the phone.
“Whose fault is that?” Ryo throws back, without thinking.
There’s a moment of silence after that in which they can only hear the faint white noise of their cell phones. Ryo almost apologizes, but then Uchi just scoffs in a soft, but very familiar way. He says, “It’s your own fault you’re lonely, you idiot. Don’t blame it on anyone else.”
Ryo actually laughs when he hears this, half in relief and half in misery. “I guess.”
Uchi is the one who hangs up first, but before he does, he tells Ryo to get over himself.
~~~~~
“Tego-nyan,” Ryo begins unexpectedly a few days later, when Tegoshi is nestled comfortably in Koyama’s lap and refuses to get up even though Koyama says his legs are getting numb, “come sit in my lap instead.”
Tegoshi blinks back at him in surprise when he hears this, and to Ryo’s annoyance, even Koyama is staring at him now (and with his mouth wide open no less; clearly he is the least subtle person in the world).
“E-eh?” Tegoshi murmurs, looking uncertain. “R-really?”
Ryo shifts impatiently. “I already said so, didn’t I?”
A moment.
Then Tegoshi allows a small, almost timid smile. “H-hai!”
And when Ryo sees the younger boy looking at him like that again, he thinks to himself that he’d almost forgotten how stupid cute this kid can be sometimes.
Though when Tegoshi shyly climbs into his lap a few seconds later, he admittedly remembers everything.
~~~~~
Kusano’s voluntary suspension some months later puts NewS on hiatus, but that doesn’t actually give Ryo any time to relax like everyone suspects. He has lots of things to do in the meantime, with Eito or solo performances or acting and the like; he’s so busy that he doesn’t even have time to breathe let alone miss anyone.
Koyama constantly sends him text messages to update him about the other members because he thinks that Ryo cares; Ryo is annoyed with himself when he starts to realize that maybe he actually does.
He catches TegoMasu on TV one time too, and thinks that their first single-in any language- is retarded and as such, perfectly suits them both. He also notices that Tegoshi got cuter again; the old tension that once lined every one of the younger boy’s movements seems to be gone and he’s maturing a lot as a vocalist. His dancing still needs a shitton of work though.
On the precious few days he does get off Ryo usually ends up spending them with Yamapi or sometimes Yamapi and Jin together. Ryo discovers that despite the fact that Yamapi hadn’t wanted to be in NewS in the beginning, he is finally starting to realize how weird it is not to get to see his groupmates or sing with them anymore. Yamapi tells Ryo he looks forward to the time in the future when they can all join their voices together again.
“You’re an idiot,” Ryo tells Yamapi, by rote.
Yamapi only laughs about it.
“Soon!” he tells Ryo, and it sounds like a prayer. “Soon!”
~~~~~
Soon turns out to be the beginning of 2007.
Everyone gathers together again for the first time in a long time around about January; they all feel optimistic, maybe even hopeful. A lot of things have changed since the last time they’d all met like this, and as Ryo looks around at the others’ faces, he realizes that he’d been right all along (again).
Suffering makes you stronger.
Tegoshi smiles at him fearlessly now, though there’s still that same hint of awe in his eyes that he’s always had whenever he looks at Ryo and Yamapi. It’s a weird mix of the him who sees-and who will forever see- the two of them as his dai-senpai and the him who considers them peers of equal standing.
Shige is more confident now as well; Koyama is less nervous. Massu talks more than he used to and Yamapi’s laughter has grown more frequent.
They work together better as a group than they used to.
Because if suffering makes you stronger, then suffering together makes your bonds with one another stronger as well.
Ryo is glad to get to see this, though if he’s honest with himself, it makes him feel strangely melancholic as well.
But then Yamapi smiles at him-knowingly or obliviously, one can never tell with Yamapi-and pokes him in the cheek.
“Soon,” he says to Ryo, and looks completely sure of himself. “Soon!”
Ryo nods without really understanding completely. “Yeah,” he agrees, quietly.
Then he swats Yamapi’s hand away from his face and says, “Don’t touch me.”
Yamapi only laughs in response and the two of them spend the next fifteen minutes chasing each other around the table.
~~~~~
Ryo has less time to call Uchi after NewS is reinstated because he’s back to juggling a double workload again, but even still, the two of them try to talk with one another whenever they can, even if it’s only for five minutes at a time.
“You sound happy,” Uchi observes one night, long distance from Osaka.
“Do I?” Pause. “I wonder what I’ve been doing different lately.”
Uchi scoffs when he hears this. “You’re only responsible for your own loneliness, dumbass. Someone else is supposed to make you happy.” Beat. “As usual, you’re giving yourself too much credit.”
Ryo laughs. “That’s retarded and makes no sense at all. Are you reading your mom’s girly magazines again?”
“You’re retarded.”
Ryo snorts. “What are you, five?”
“Whatever. Go to sleep. You have a Shounen Club taping tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
When he hangs up, Ryo suddenly realizes that despite being dead tired, he actually looks forward to seeing everyone again tomorrow.
He sleeps smiling for the first time in a long time.
~~~~~
As it turns out, Ryo is more annoyed than he ought to be when they finish filming the NewS Abake segment on SC the next day, and after they wrap, he immediately goes to confront Tegoshi about what he’d said on air just now.
“If you have a problem with me, you can just tell me," Ryo says gruffly, and grabs Tegoshi’s wrist when he does. His voice is much colder than he’d meant for it to be.
Tegoshi’s eyes get as big as plates when he hears Ryo’s accusations-they go from only taking up fifty percent of his face to occupying around seventy percent instead. "What? No!" the younger boy panics, and looks genuinely stricken at Ryo’s tone. "I thought you liked being intimidating!"
"Yeah, to people I don't like," Ryo snarls at him without thinking, and ends up stopping short when he finally says it out loud. He’s so surprised with himself that he even forgets that his hand is wrapped around Tegoshi’s wrist, maybe more tightly than is appropriate.
He blinks a few times.
Waitaminute.
Does this mean…
“S-so you like me?" Tegoshi stammers first, and trust the kid to zero in on the exact thing that Ryo wants him to not focus on right now. They are supposed to be having a very serious conversation about the public airing of inner-group grievances. This isn’t about whether they like each other or not, dammit.
But then Tegoshi is looking up at him with this ridiculously hopeful expression on his face as he waits for Ryo’s answer, and when he sees it, all Ryo can do is sigh and rub sorely at the back of his neck because it’s not like he can deny Tegoshi the answer that he’s waiting for right now.
Not with a face like that.
And all of a sudden, Ryo feels like he has been completely and utterly defeated by this kid.
"What kind of gay question is that?" Ryo scoffs awkwardly, after a moment. Right now he feels like a high school boy receiving his first real love letter or something; it’s absolutely ridiculous. "We're not KAT-TUN here.”
Tegoshi just smiles back at him.
~~~~~
The next time Ryo calls Uchi, he clears his throat and declares, “I told Tegoshi I liked him today.”
A beat.
Then, laughter- clear and bright. “Yeah, well. I like Tegoshi too.”
Ryo smiles; he can’t help it. “Fine, but I bet he likes me more than he likes you. It’s only natural.”
Uchi snorts from the other end. “What are you, five?” he drawls, and despite the miles they're apart, Ryo knows the exact way he's smiling as he says that.
After that there is a long pause and neither of them says anything; the only sounds are their breaths into the phone.
But it’s not an uncomfortable silence; it never has been.
“I’ll see you again at the end of the summer,” Uchi says after a while, with conviction.
Ryo nods. “Soon.”
“Soon.”
END
EDITS PLZ.
Title: The Ryo Filter
Universe: JE/NewS
Theme/Topic: REMIX!
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: NewS (and being lightly, uncertainly RyoxTego and RyoxUchi)
Warnings/Spoilers: UM. I don’t know Uchi that well, but I figured that no one expects me to write him in character anyway, all things considered.
Word Count: 5,122
Summary: Remix of one_if_by_land’s fic “The Tegoshi Factor”-Everyone loves Tegoshi. Even when they don’t really want to.
Dedication: I AM SORRY BING. I AM SO SORRY.
A/N: As this is a remix fic, it REALLY MAKES NO SENSE unless you read the original; though after reading the original I suggest NOT reading this as the original is always the best anyway. Also, like I said, I don’t know Uchi that well, but in the clips I did manage to see it seems like Ryo and Uchi are totally lovey-dovey antagonistic and just THAT MUCH MEANER to everyone else around them. I could be wrong times a billion, but when I look at it this way it’s an amusing dynamic to ME. In the meantime, I raped Bing’s story good, didn’t I? I AM A BARBARIAN. But I would just like to say that in my defense, I have never worked SO LONG on a fic as I have this. At least in recent memory. >>
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
When they hear that they’re going to be thrown into a completely new group with a bunch of random people from various other units for the purpose of recording a CD, Ryo immediately finds the downside to debuting in this manner even though everyone else says he ought to stop being so negative and start getting excited about being allowed to debut at all. But beyond the hearts, stars, and sparkles involved with debuting, Ryo knows that at its core, this new assignment simply means double the workload for he and Uchi both. In addition, there is the fact that 98% of the people in the jimusho who he likes are in his current group already, so this “big opportunity” also means having to work with a bunch of people who he’ll probably dislike as well.
In short, it sucks to be him right now.
It doesn’t help that Ryo’s fears are only confirmed a few days later, when the management releases the list of member names for the monster group they’ve decided to call NewS. From what he can see, besides he and Uchi, NewS will contain a bunch of untalented morons, Yamapi (who is admittedly, a bearable untalented moron), and after that, some random kanji for three names that he can’t even be bothered to figure out how to read correctly in the first place.
Uchi looks like he wants to be pissed at the sudden announcement too, but the bastard is too amused by Ryo’s rolling irritation to do anything but be annoying and provoke Ryo into getting even more pissed for him.
“But aren’t you excited to get to work with Yamapi?” Uchi crows gleefully, and makes Ryo want to smack him.
Except he never does- he doesn’t quite know why that is.
So instead, he glares and says, “Hey, some of these kids are barely out of diapers, wouldn’t it be funny if one of them ends up being cuter than you?”
Uchi blinks when he hears that, like he had never even considered the possibility of no longer being the cutest one in their group/s.
When Ryo sees the younger boy’s face he smirks and leaves the spoiled brat standing there looking troubled; if they’re going to suffer he figures that they might as well do it together.
Doesn’t that sort of thing make bonds of friendship stronger or something?
Whatever.
~~~~~
During the first week of NewS’s existence Ryo only deigns to talk to Yamapi and Uchi, though every now and again he does manage to throw the chubby kid a withering look for no particular reason other than to see if the idiot will stick his hand into his pocket and grab his chocolate bar security blanket like that will really save him from being an absolute moron. Other than that Ryo just ignores the other members and concentrates on doing what management wants him to do so that they can all leave that much faster at the end of the day. As it is, even Yamapi is having trouble getting comfortable around this mishmash of randomized (used) boyband parts, and if that’s the case, Ryo figures it’s not worth it for him to even try and make eye contact with the rest of the group since he’s so much meaner (cooler) than Yamapi is.
Though after three or four days he notices that the fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-a-four-year-old might be watching him; he saw the brat try to talk up Uchi the other day while Uchi was in drama queen mode and having hair issues.
The kid’s failure was miserable and thus very enjoyable to watch, but after that incident it only feels like he’s decided to study Ryo and Uchi even more intently than before.
Ryo is on the edge of being annoyed by the fact that the kid isn’t even trying to hide his interest in them, but before long he realizes that it simply can’t be helped-he’s a sexy Osaka man and as such, these things are bound to happen.
At least the kid’s got taste. And from who he’s choosing to watch in the group, he’s clearly got some brains too, which thus far, the entirety of KKKity seems to be grossly lacking (as proven by events from yesterday, when Kusano-or-Kato-or-either-one-it-doesn’t-really-matter-since-they-look-exactly-the-same-anyway spent three hours trying to lick his elbow on Koyama’s declaration that it was physically impossible).
But even if fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old’s careful study of Ryo and Uchi sort of makes him a little more interesting than the rest of the group (in an irritating kind of way), it still doesn’t mean that Ryo’s going to go ahead and try to make friends with the brat any time soon or anything like that.
At least, that’s what Ryo tells himself.
~~~~~
A few months later- when Yamapi is still calling Kusano “Kato-kun” but is at least trying- fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old suddenly bounces up to Ryo and shyly asks him for his phone number.
To be honest, the brat’s courage is kind of admirable, considering that it had barely been a week since one of the juniors had called ‘Nishikido-senpai’ ‘Ryo-senpai’ on accident and earned himself the kind of glare that makes the weak-hearted quit Johnny’s altogether and use the angst of their unfulfilled expectations to try to become indie rock stars instead.
Ryo studies fifteen-year-old-who-looks-like-four-year-old for a moment after the inquiry is made; he suddenly remembers this one time back in middle school when this really cute underclassman had stammered, “Nishikido-senpai, I like you, will you go out with me?” to him under the eaves of the gymnasium while they’d been between classes.
He’d snorted and said no to her of course, and she’d cried the entire run back into the school building. The whole thing had been pretty adorable to see, even if Ryo’s angle had been kind of shitty from the back.
He thinks that this situation has the potential to be the similarly entertaining, except the only difference between then and now is the fact that this is Johnny’s, so the kid looking up at him is ten times cuter than some random middle school girl in pigtails. As such, the kid’s reaction will probably be proportionately cuter than hers as well.
Ryo decides to test that theory.
“No,” he answers, coolly, and then stands up and casually heads back over to Uchi and Yamapi on the other side of the room. He just barely manages to hold back his smirk long enough so that the kid won’t be able to see it.
He only bursts out laughing about it sometime later, when he asks Yamapi how the brat’s reaction was to his snub. Yamapi very carefully calls it a “wibble” and frowns at Ryo. “Maybe you shouldn’t be mean to him,” he starts perfunctorily, like any good leader ought to.
The suggestion only makes Ryo laugh harder.
~~~~~
Uchi however, is not as amused as Ryo is by this whole turn of events.
“You’re bullying him,” Uchi says that night, on their way back to Ryo’s.
Ryo snorts. “So what? If I don’t feel bad about it you shouldn’t either.”
The younger boy snorts right back. “That’s not it.”
“Then stop being such a woman, god. Or if you’re going to be a girl, go and make me a sandwich or some pie or something.”
Uchi just crosses his arms and arches an eyebrow-sometimes he really does act like Ryo’s wife. “So if you’re bullying him it clearly means that you no longer nothing him, idiot.”
Ryo blinks.
Then, “The hell? I just didn’t want to give him my goddamned phone number!” he shouts, in the middle of the street. It’s loud enough to draw the attention of several passersby; they stop and stare at Ryo until he glares at them and makes them start walking faster in the other direction to get away.
Uchi in the meantime, only cackles at how annoyed Ryo suddenly is-that usually manages to get his spirits up for some reason.
In fact, it puts him in such a good mood that he even goes to make Ryo a sandwich when they get back to his apartment later, just like the older boy had asked for.
Of course, he only does it out of spite.
~~~~~
After that Ryo makes it a special point to return to his conscious nothing-ing of Tegoshi just as soon as possible so he can prove Uchi wrong (and consequently point and laugh right in his face for being a moron).
But then Tegoshi almost shows up late to evening dance rehearsal one night, all flushed and out of breath and looking excited to get to spend more time with everyone. His eyes might even be shining a little bit.
Call it an inborn instinct in Ryo or something, but when he sees Tegoshi’s cute little face looking so happy like that, he automatically wants to crush the smaller boy’s innocent excitement just as much as he can.
Later, Ryo tells himself that the ghost story he’d used to scare Tegoshi with that night had simply been because he’d been feeling spiteful at the time, since having a bunch of shitty dancers in the group means unjust night practices for everyone (even if they’re mad sexy dancers like himself, apparently). So it’s only fair that those shitty dancers pay for the trouble they’re causing everyone else a little bit, right?
Naturally it’s up to Ryo-as the coolest senpai present- to make sure that those responsible suffer accordingly.
Or that’s what he tries to tell himself, but after a second or two of gleefully thinking: “Tegoshi sucks at dancing and deserves all the crap he gets,” Ryo suddenly stops dead in his tracks. He groans and turns to slam his head into a nearby wall a couple of times.
Because he realizes that now, he actually remembers the stupid brat’s stupid name.
~~~~~
With time, Ryo begins to notice that everyone loves Tegoshi for some reason.
Domoto Tsuyoshi has an unnatural fascination with the kid-he gives him that retarded self-introduction during the group’s first Domoto Kyoudai appearance and everyone twitters adoringly at how cute it-and Tegoshi- is whenever the kid even looks like he’s about to raise his hand an inch.
Nagase loves Tegoshi too-the big idiot buys him candy and gives him advice and the two of them have great fun laughing like slack-jawed horses together at every stupid joke they hear.
That’s fine; Tsuyoshi and Nagase are both morons anyway.
What really irritates Ryo is that his own damned groupmates have turned traitor.
“What?” Yokoyama says blandly, when Ryo glares at him.
The older boy’s arms are around Tegoshi and if one happened to see this from the wrong angle, one might think that the two of them were cuddling. But then Yokoyama grins and pinches Tegoshi’s cheeks, and Tegoshi squeaks accordingly. “Ah, that was my dream, you know!” Yokoyama says, and ruffles Tegoshi’s hair.
Tegoshi pouts.
“So cute!” The rest of Kanjani crows, happily.
Ryo rolls his eyes and leaves the room.
This is officially ridiculous.
~~~~~
“Are you jealous because everyone else gets to play with him openly but you can only say mean things since you officially labeled yourself the hated egocentric character on national television?” Uchi asks casually that night from the couch, as he applies another layer of the revitalizing face-mask cream his mother bought for him last week.
Ryo snarls and locks himself in the bathroom.
~~~~~
“You look troubled,” Uchi sing-songs to Ryo one day a few months later, during dance rehearsals for the Akaku Moyuru Taiyo PV.
Ryo decides to ignore him instead of maiming him because he is magnanimous like that. Besides, they are in the middle of rehearsal and Ryo is nothing but a strict professional.
Tegoshi, as usual, sucks so badly at every movement that might be construed as choreography that even Shige-or-Kusano takes him aside to try and give him some advice on how to improve.
Uchi just watches as Ryo follows the two younger members’ motions with his eyes. Ryo in the meantime, looks accordingly disdainful at what a fuck up of a teacher Shige-or-Kusano is-what the hell is he trying to show the kid, how to imitate Arashi?
Then, “Do you want to talk about it?” Uchi asks Ryo, oh so helpfully. “It’s not healthy to keep these things bottled up, you know.”
“You shut the hell up,” Ryo snaps back, on instinct.
But rather than cower in fear and wet his pants like most people have learned to do whenever Ryo snarls at them like that, the younger boy only throws his head back and laughs. “You’re pathetic.”
Then he happily goes off to get a snack.
And Ryo can’t help it; he really wishes the bastard wouldn’t use that don’t-maul-your-best-friend card of his so frequently.
~~~~~
When he can’t take the torture anymore (i.e. about an hour later), Ryo finally gives up on the whole holding it in thing and grabs Tegoshi so he can pull the moron aside for some real one-on-one instruction.
"Your dancing sucks and your clothes are hideous,” he says, with absolutely no delicacy at all. Though for some reason, his hand tightens around the kid’s arm a little as he speaks, all on its own.
Tegoshi just stares back at him kind of dazedly-his face gets flushed and his eyes glaze over. It makes Ryo wonder if Masuda ate his dinner for him again tonight, aren’t those all symptoms of low blood sugar?
Whatever, he’ll buy the idiot a snack later if only he gets the stupid dance right. Ryo is so sick of watching him try and try and try so hard only to suck ass as a result. It’s like watching a puppy repeatedly run into a wall.
"You need to actually move your feet when dancing, it gives better hip movement," he starts gruffly, but admittedly with more gentleness than before.
Tegoshi just continues to blink back at him stupidly, and after a moment Ryo gives up with the talking. He puts his hands firmly on the smaller boy’s hips.
Tegoshi squeaks and turns even redder somehow; Ryo thinks he can see Uchi glaring at the two of them from the corner.
But for the time being he ignores Uchi in favor of growling orders at Tegoshi to move while smacking him just as often as possible for moving wrong.
"Relax the knees! RELAX THE KNEES!" he barks, and draws the attention of all the other members in the process.
Koyama of course, can only see Ryo’s screaming and hitting Tegoshi as a positive thing. Ryo supposes that a group called KKKity would have to have a stupid leader; their stupid name has a goddamned typo in it.
"Shige's also had problems with that move, you can teach him too!" Koyama suggests after a moment of watching and being moved by Ryo’s efforts to bring the group closer together. But Shige only looks horrified at the prospect of getting his knees bashed in; Ryo decides that Shige is probably the smart one out of KKKity since clearly he is the one lacking the most talent.
"I don't waste my time on lost causes," Ryo tells Koyama with no pretense whatsoever. Shige almost looks relieved.
Then, Ryo turns back to Tegoshi, who is still kind of following his instructions like a zombie. “We're going shopping this Sunday. I'm embarrassed just standing next to you in public.”
Apparently that’s enough to snap the kid out of whatever low-blood-sugar stupor he’s in, because he immediately brightens and chirrups, “That's perfect! I mean, not perfect that I embarrass you, but perfect that you can tell me what to buy!"
"You need to stop wearing color; it washes out your face," Ryo says automatically. Then he pauses to study the twerp a little more closely- he’s not bad looking, if only he’d stop being so stupidly earnest all the time. It makes him seem goofy. "You need more black," he decides, as well.
Koyama seems like he’s on the verge of applauding Ryo’s quick assessments while Tegoshi just looks awed and ridiculously happy despite the fact that everything about him and his way of life is being insulted right now. After a second, he even looks up through his lashes at Ryo and says, shyly, “You can be my fashion guru.”
Ryo almost smiles at that-looks like he was right about this kid having some brains after all.
But then again, Ryo isn’t very often wrong.
In the meantime, Uchi snorts and exclaims, "Fashion guru? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
~~~~~
“Jealous?” Ryo crows to Uchi later, and loves this whole karma thing.
Uchi just frowns back at him. “So you actually do like him now?” he asks, and looks wary. “It’s only funny when you’re pissed about it.”
Ryo laughs and reaches out to ruffle Uchi’s hair for the sole purpose of messing it up. “Oh c’mon, you kinda like him too,” he says.
Uchi doesn’t say anything, which means-as usual-that Ryo is right.
But since he’s such a great guy, he doesn’t rub Uchi’s face in it; instead he buys him ice cream and even helps him fix his hair and stuff.
Afterwards, they end up talking about which stores Ryo should take Tegoshi to on Sunday; Ryo even promises to dress the kid up in some sort of women’s clothing and take pictures for Uchi to post anonymously online.
~~~~~
As it turns out, Tegoshi is pretty non-reactive when it comes to Ryo finding him skirts to put on; the younger boy even knows how to twirl so that the hems brush right up against the tops of his knees in the way that gets school girls molested on trains.
Under any other circumstances Ryo would be horribly disturbed, but for some reason, Tegoshi pulls it off okay.
“That is so fucking weird,” he murmurs to himself as he snaps another cell phone picture and obediently forwards it to Uchi’s number.
Tegoshi, currently in something slinky and white, just blinks back at him innocently. “What’s weird?”
~~~~~
“These pictures are ridiculous,” Uchi exclaims later, and flips through the entire album of approximately thirty shots currently stored on his phone’s memory. He does this repeatedly.
“I know,” Ryo agrees, and watches the images from over Uchi’s shoulder with a sick sort of fascination.
“What the hell,” Uchi adds, just because he feels the need.
“I know,” Ryo echoes.
After that, it is really hard to be mean to Tegoshi, even jokingly.
~~~~~
When Uchi gets drunk and gets caught, Ryo has to fight the urge to stop everything he is doing and storm over to the moron’s house so he can bash his head into the nearest wall.
He thinks that the only thing holding him back from actually going through with it right now is the fact that if he does go ahead and try it, then Uchi will probably see him cry in the process, and Ryo isn’t ready for that yet. So instead, Ryo spends a week sulking to himself and withdrawing from the world in general, trying to think of things to say or do that will somehow make this whole stupid nightmare stop.
He vaguely recalls Tegoshi trying to come up to him one day after rehearsals; he knows that the kid had awkwardly attempted to comfort him, but it’s all kind of a blur when he tries to conjure up the exact details. The only thing Ryo really remembers about the whole thing is that he’d snapped angrily at the younger boy and told him to leave now.
In the days following that incident Yamapi and Koyama both try to insinuate (gently) that Ryo shouldn’t take his anger out on innocent bystanders because that doesn’t help anyone.
But eventually, they stop making their (gentle) suggestions because Ryo only ends up taking his anger out on them instead; they learn that talking to him when he is in this sort of mood only paints a big fat bull’s-eye on their chests, complete with the words “shoot me next!” written in big, flashing neon lights.
In short, everyone learns very quickly to leave Ryo alone; he doesn’t want to talk about it.
~~~~~
But then, some weeks later, Ryo gets a text message from Uchi. It simply says “Behave” and nothing else.
It’s enough to make Ryo spend the rest of the night in his room with his face shoved into his pillow. He may or may not scream a few times.
But come morning, when his alarm goes off promptly at six am, Ryo sits up, steels his jaw, and tells himself to get up and get to work.
~~~~~
That morning, Tegoshi does his best to smile and greet Ryo the same as always, though Ryo can see the hint of uncertainty lingering just behind the younger boy’s eyes all the same. Looking at him like that, it feels like Ryo broke up with the kid in a particularly cruel way or something.
But the uncertainty is there and gone again in less than a second, and after he chirrups his customary, “Ohayo, Nishikido-kun!” to the older boy, Tegoshi turns around and bounces to the other side of the room without another word.
The kid is smart- like Ryo had always known he was- and in the following weeks he stays away from Ryo in order to give the older boy whatever space he still needs.
Instead, Tegoshi only plays in safe territory, laughing and pulling pranks with Massu and Kusano or letting Koyama and Shige spoil him while Yamapi looks benevolently on.
Ryo watches Tegoshi like this and convinces himself that it is all for the best, because right now he doesn’t really have the strength to deal with anyone, let alone someone so retardedly cheerful.
There are limits to these kinds of things, you know.
~~~~~
But then Uchi tells him, “You sound lonely,” a few days later over the phone.
“Whose fault is that?” Ryo throws back, without thinking.
There’s a moment of silence after that in which they can only hear the faint white noise of their cell phones. Ryo almost apologizes, but then Uchi just scoffs in a soft, but very familiar way. He says, “It’s your own fault you’re lonely, you idiot. Don’t blame it on anyone else.”
Ryo actually laughs when he hears this, half in relief and half in misery. “I guess.”
Uchi is the one who hangs up first, but before he does, he tells Ryo to get over himself.
~~~~~
“Tego-nyan,” Ryo begins unexpectedly a few days later, when Tegoshi is nestled comfortably in Koyama’s lap and refuses to get up even though Koyama says his legs are getting numb, “come sit in my lap instead.”
Tegoshi blinks back at him in surprise when he hears this, and to Ryo’s annoyance, even Koyama is staring at him now (and with his mouth wide open no less; clearly he is the least subtle person in the world).
“E-eh?” Tegoshi murmurs, looking uncertain. “R-really?”
Ryo shifts impatiently. “I already said so, didn’t I?”
A moment.
Then Tegoshi allows a small, almost timid smile. “H-hai!”
And when Ryo sees the younger boy looking at him like that again, he thinks to himself that he’d almost forgotten how stupid cute this kid can be sometimes.
Though when Tegoshi shyly climbs into his lap a few seconds later, he admittedly remembers everything.
~~~~~
Kusano’s voluntary suspension some months later puts NewS on hiatus, but that doesn’t actually give Ryo any time to relax like everyone suspects. He has lots of things to do in the meantime, with Eito or solo performances or acting and the like; he’s so busy that he doesn’t even have time to breathe let alone miss anyone.
Koyama constantly sends him text messages to update him about the other members because he thinks that Ryo cares; Ryo is annoyed with himself when he starts to realize that maybe he actually does.
He catches TegoMasu on TV one time too, and thinks that their first single-in any language- is retarded and as such, perfectly suits them both. He also notices that Tegoshi got cuter again; the old tension that once lined every one of the younger boy’s movements seems to be gone and he’s maturing a lot as a vocalist. His dancing still needs a shitton of work though.
On the precious few days he does get off Ryo usually ends up spending them with Yamapi or sometimes Yamapi and Jin together. Ryo discovers that despite the fact that Yamapi hadn’t wanted to be in NewS in the beginning, he is finally starting to realize how weird it is not to get to see his groupmates or sing with them anymore. Yamapi tells Ryo he looks forward to the time in the future when they can all join their voices together again.
“You’re an idiot,” Ryo tells Yamapi, by rote.
Yamapi only laughs about it.
“Soon!” he tells Ryo, and it sounds like a prayer. “Soon!”
~~~~~
Soon turns out to be the beginning of 2007.
Everyone gathers together again for the first time in a long time around about January; they all feel optimistic, maybe even hopeful. A lot of things have changed since the last time they’d all met like this, and as Ryo looks around at the others’ faces, he realizes that he’d been right all along (again).
Suffering makes you stronger.
Tegoshi smiles at him fearlessly now, though there’s still that same hint of awe in his eyes that he’s always had whenever he looks at Ryo and Yamapi. It’s a weird mix of the him who sees-and who will forever see- the two of them as his dai-senpai and the him who considers them peers of equal standing.
Shige is more confident now as well; Koyama is less nervous. Massu talks more than he used to and Yamapi’s laughter has grown more frequent.
They work together better as a group than they used to.
Because if suffering makes you stronger, then suffering together makes your bonds with one another stronger as well.
Ryo is glad to get to see this, though if he’s honest with himself, it makes him feel strangely melancholic as well.
But then Yamapi smiles at him-knowingly or obliviously, one can never tell with Yamapi-and pokes him in the cheek.
“Soon,” he says to Ryo, and looks completely sure of himself. “Soon!”
Ryo nods without really understanding completely. “Yeah,” he agrees, quietly.
Then he swats Yamapi’s hand away from his face and says, “Don’t touch me.”
Yamapi only laughs in response and the two of them spend the next fifteen minutes chasing each other around the table.
~~~~~
Ryo has less time to call Uchi after NewS is reinstated because he’s back to juggling a double workload again, but even still, the two of them try to talk with one another whenever they can, even if it’s only for five minutes at a time.
“You sound happy,” Uchi observes one night, long distance from Osaka.
“Do I?” Pause. “I wonder what I’ve been doing different lately.”
Uchi scoffs when he hears this. “You’re only responsible for your own loneliness, dumbass. Someone else is supposed to make you happy.” Beat. “As usual, you’re giving yourself too much credit.”
Ryo laughs. “That’s retarded and makes no sense at all. Are you reading your mom’s girly magazines again?”
“You’re retarded.”
Ryo snorts. “What are you, five?”
“Whatever. Go to sleep. You have a Shounen Club taping tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
When he hangs up, Ryo suddenly realizes that despite being dead tired, he actually looks forward to seeing everyone again tomorrow.
He sleeps smiling for the first time in a long time.
~~~~~
As it turns out, Ryo is more annoyed than he ought to be when they finish filming the NewS Abake segment on SC the next day, and after they wrap, he immediately goes to confront Tegoshi about what he’d said on air just now.
“If you have a problem with me, you can just tell me," Ryo says gruffly, and grabs Tegoshi’s wrist when he does. His voice is much colder than he’d meant for it to be.
Tegoshi’s eyes get as big as plates when he hears Ryo’s accusations-they go from only taking up fifty percent of his face to occupying around seventy percent instead. "What? No!" the younger boy panics, and looks genuinely stricken at Ryo’s tone. "I thought you liked being intimidating!"
"Yeah, to people I don't like," Ryo snarls at him without thinking, and ends up stopping short when he finally says it out loud. He’s so surprised with himself that he even forgets that his hand is wrapped around Tegoshi’s wrist, maybe more tightly than is appropriate.
He blinks a few times.
Waitaminute.
Does this mean…
“S-so you like me?" Tegoshi stammers first, and trust the kid to zero in on the exact thing that Ryo wants him to not focus on right now. They are supposed to be having a very serious conversation about the public airing of inner-group grievances. This isn’t about whether they like each other or not, dammit.
But then Tegoshi is looking up at him with this ridiculously hopeful expression on his face as he waits for Ryo’s answer, and when he sees it, all Ryo can do is sigh and rub sorely at the back of his neck because it’s not like he can deny Tegoshi the answer that he’s waiting for right now.
Not with a face like that.
And all of a sudden, Ryo feels like he has been completely and utterly defeated by this kid.
"What kind of gay question is that?" Ryo scoffs awkwardly, after a moment. Right now he feels like a high school boy receiving his first real love letter or something; it’s absolutely ridiculous. "We're not KAT-TUN here.”
Tegoshi just smiles back at him.
~~~~~
The next time Ryo calls Uchi, he clears his throat and declares, “I told Tegoshi I liked him today.”
A beat.
Then, laughter- clear and bright. “Yeah, well. I like Tegoshi too.”
Ryo smiles; he can’t help it. “Fine, but I bet he likes me more than he likes you. It’s only natural.”
Uchi snorts from the other end. “What are you, five?” he drawls, and despite the miles they're apart, Ryo knows the exact way he's smiling as he says that.
After that there is a long pause and neither of them says anything; the only sounds are their breaths into the phone.
But it’s not an uncomfortable silence; it never has been.
“I’ll see you again at the end of the summer,” Uchi says after a while, with conviction.
Ryo nods. “Soon.”
“Soon.”
END
EDITS PLZ.