[fic] The X Factor, chapter two
Title: The X Factor. Chapter Two: This Is How He Met Ryo
Pairing: Koyama/Ryo/Shige
Author: me. ezyls_girl .
Rating: PG ~ PG-13.
Warnings: Swearing. And I chickened-out on the sex because I'm young and innocent. And barely old enough to get an account on FF.Net. XD. Un-beta'd. This chapter is an angst!fic in disguise as something that probably runs along the lines of pointless fluff/humor.
Summary: When Shige's alter-ego activates, they're all in for it. There are lace panties involved.
Notes: For rea_irixyu , because she requested charrie development and because she's terrifically skilled in the art of corruption. Wrote purely on-the-whim, as I did not even plan this scene. At all. So shoot me. And I hope this is okay for you, Rea. If only a little. -shot-
Some days, he really doesn’t like Shige.
He would raise his hand in class to answer a question, but if Shige were to raise his hand, too, his efforts would become pointless and sensei would move forward to call on Shige without so much as glancing back at his waving arm. He told his friend what was happening, so they devised a system, later, where Shige could only answer after waiting one full minute to see if anyone else could figure it out-but even so, the glaring gap between the teacher’s adoration for Shige and his own abysmal test scores is at least a few miles steep, and not about to cave-in anytime soon.
They would step into a movie theater, and the ticket vendor would immediately start cooing over Shige and his handsome face, Shige with the brilliant smile and polite conversation, completely ignoring the living and breathing object next to Shige because she’s probably just some girl who shouldn’t even be asked-out because she’s taller than her date.
It isn’t the first time he’s been mistaken for a female. It’s also taken place at the grocer’s, the park, the swimming pool (“What happened to your breasts?”), and even the public toilet during the first day of high school.
At the end of every office visit, Shige would get handed some extra treat-a colored-mint or something-like he had been the doted grandchild. He’s come out of every meeting with the superintendent gathering sweat in his palms and about to burst into tears.
Why?
The answer’s all there, in the evidence.
Because, let’s face it, Shige’s better at him in everything. Shige’s got the better looks, the better grades, the wider range of adaptability, the healthier physique for sports. Shige could pass off for artificial intelligence if they were to install a battery terminal and antennae on his head. He even tried searching for it, once, sticking his hand in Shige’s hair and pulling out anything remotely resembling a wire until Shige yelled at him; Kei-chan was going to make him go bald.
It worsens as time passes.
When he’s fourteen-and-a-half, he tries a smoke, in attempts of catching Ryo’s attentions, but the thick, foul-smelling cloud that crunched down his mouth made him hack until he felt his throat disappear entirely. Shige, however, grew quite fond of sneaking out of class for a box of cigarettes on the rooftop. The teachers don’t even seem to register his empty desk as they scanned the classroom for the troublemakers.
He decides, later on, that Shige must be the next Jesus. Perfection can only go so far. But it’s only after he tells Shige about it, does a wilder side begin to show. After a while, the composed and controlled mask of Shige slips, begins to wear thin and fray, the rock edges of a cliff against the waterfall softened from continuous water pressure.
And so, there are the days when Shige’s split personality breaks through the surface of his usually iron-plated self-control. It scares him half to death, because there is no weather vane to channel Shige’s mood here; it’s hit and miss and he always manages to miss it right before the switch flips. Shige is naturally predictable, he concludes, until he switches to his alter-ego. Then the optimistic honors-student is subsequently ousted by a moody old grouch who lives in a cardboard box with a haughty temper to match.
Thus, he’s reminded of how much he still likes Shige. The grouch is like the unexpected-yet-miraculous appearance of a superhero. In math terms, the parallel line to those alternate interior angles-and when Euclid’s parallel line postulate connects those two lines, a new Shige is unearthed.
The first time this happens is when he is rescued by Shige from the evil clutches of a shop manager who insisted he was fifty yen short on a music record. He had been stuck there for an hour, begging the red-faced grizzly-bear-of-a-man to let him go, because the price tag had been printed clearly 2,000 yen, and he had counted out the paper bills in his pocket precisely. Shige had held on for seventy-eight minutes, checking out the new releases and waiting for their argument to conclude, until he couldn’t stand it anymore and burst out, “For God’s sake, old man, just let him have the fucking CD!”
Never mind that it was the first time he had heard Shige cuss. They were both staring at him like he’d been dropped from an airplane headfirst.
“Never. Make. Me. Do. That. Again.” Shige’s words were heavy as they raced away from the shop as fast as they could, after he had went on a yelling spree with the manager-from-hell, “That man looks exactly like Freddy Krueger.”
“Who’s Freddy Krueger?”
“You remember that film we saw a few years ago, and you couldn’t sleep for days after watching it because you were afraid of the scary man in your dreams? You wet your bed, too, and I had to carry it back to my house to dry because you were afraid that your parents were going to find out.”
“Oh, him,” he said, shivering and involuntarily grabbing Shige’s arm, and then they both snorted with laughter at the thought of Freddy Krueger opening a record shop.
(He woke up screaming that night, but luckily his boxers gave no sign of undesirable moisture.)
Last week, he was asked by a girl in their grade to go lingerie shopping. He doesn’t know why Sachika-chan wanted to hitch a boy along to surf through racks of bras and panties, but it certainly couldn’t be that she wanted him to cross-dress in the fitting rooms, so he figured that it’d be safe. But as a precaution, he made Shige waste his afternoon tailing after them, anyway.
Sachika thumbed through the shelves, humming to herself, and then told him that she would be trying on a few lace things and that he was welcome to assist her in the changing rooms. It was then that the light bulb finally shimmered on in his head and he understood what he was getting pulled-along for.
Shige! Help! He squeaked in his mind, and hoped that Shige was telepathically tuned to Koyama-radio with his antenna.
“Uh…maybe later,” he said, shooing the girl into the door and, upon hearing the click, running away as fast as he could.
Unfortunately, the recent expansion of department stores in the Ginza shopping district made it extremely difficult to navigate and escape. He was confronted with mountains of frilly bow-things and ostentatiously-colored cone-shaped objects.
Then-
BOOM. He had slammed into something flesh-like, falling backwards from the impact and landing in a pile of scratchy fabrics.
He looked up…
“What the hell are you doing here?!”
Nishikido Ryo, in the designer-underwear column of a sophisticated department store. Nowhere else would he ever be able to find another situation with equal awkwardness to replace this one.
“N-Nishikido-kun,” he mumbled, feeling a quiet blush forming over his cheeks.
It was then that Shige chose to rush in, gasping for breath, “I’m sorry! I was at the library. If I’d known sooner what Sachika-san had been planning…God, Koyama, you could’ve at least told me what you were going to do today!”
He stared at Shige, who looked terribly bruised and scratched from running through the store, panting like a dog and face pulled into a panicky look.
“Why would he want to tell you about anything?”
He stiffened when he saw Nishikido. Shige did not approve of Ryo, “You…why are you here?”
“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Ryo sneered, crossing his arms, “nerd.”
The offensive word smarted. He could tell from the creases on Shige’s forehead. “Who are you calling a nerd?”
“Who do you honestly think I’m calling a nerd? Jeezus, you’re stupid.”
“Technically, that’s redundant,” Shige pointed out.
“You’re redundant.”
“That’s not even a proper insult!”
“Shut up!”
He smiled apologetically at both of them, “Since I’m the only one here who could probably pass off as a girl, I think both of you should listen to me before we’re discovered by a real female,” he raised his voice into the best falsetto he could muster, “is that a 34C? For only three thousand yen? Oh, my God!”
Shige sighs, alter-ego deactivates, and he’s dragged out of the underwear section by the scruff of his sweater before he could make a bigger fool of himself.
He hopes that Ryo will be able to access a mindwash machine after this particular ordeal. Or maybe a Spartan torture chamber. Oh, the bad imagery that a scene like this could conjure…
Afterwards, he didn’t know whether or not to contribute his feelings towards astonishment or expectation.
Because, in the very next month, Ryo asked him out.
It turned out to be a very straightforward equation, this X factor.
Extra-things-to-consider-while-you're-at-it:
A. If you're bored with the idea of the X Factor already, do not continue past this point.
B. Reviews/comments are always appreciated.
Pairing: Koyama/Ryo/Shige
Author: me. ezyls_girl .
Rating: PG ~ PG-13.
Warnings: Swearing. And I chickened-out on the sex because I'm young and innocent. And barely old enough to get an account on FF.Net. XD. Un-beta'd. This chapter is an angst!fic in disguise as something that probably runs along the lines of pointless fluff/humor.
Summary: When Shige's alter-ego activates, they're all in for it. There are lace panties involved.
Notes: For rea_irixyu , because she requested charrie development and because she's terrifically skilled in the art of corruption. Wrote purely on-the-whim, as I did not even plan this scene. At all. So shoot me. And I hope this is okay for you, Rea. If only a little. -shot-
Some days, he really doesn’t like Shige.
He would raise his hand in class to answer a question, but if Shige were to raise his hand, too, his efforts would become pointless and sensei would move forward to call on Shige without so much as glancing back at his waving arm. He told his friend what was happening, so they devised a system, later, where Shige could only answer after waiting one full minute to see if anyone else could figure it out-but even so, the glaring gap between the teacher’s adoration for Shige and his own abysmal test scores is at least a few miles steep, and not about to cave-in anytime soon.
They would step into a movie theater, and the ticket vendor would immediately start cooing over Shige and his handsome face, Shige with the brilliant smile and polite conversation, completely ignoring the living and breathing object next to Shige because she’s probably just some girl who shouldn’t even be asked-out because she’s taller than her date.
It isn’t the first time he’s been mistaken for a female. It’s also taken place at the grocer’s, the park, the swimming pool (“What happened to your breasts?”), and even the public toilet during the first day of high school.
At the end of every office visit, Shige would get handed some extra treat-a colored-mint or something-like he had been the doted grandchild. He’s come out of every meeting with the superintendent gathering sweat in his palms and about to burst into tears.
Why?
The answer’s all there, in the evidence.
Because, let’s face it, Shige’s better at him in everything. Shige’s got the better looks, the better grades, the wider range of adaptability, the healthier physique for sports. Shige could pass off for artificial intelligence if they were to install a battery terminal and antennae on his head. He even tried searching for it, once, sticking his hand in Shige’s hair and pulling out anything remotely resembling a wire until Shige yelled at him; Kei-chan was going to make him go bald.
It worsens as time passes.
When he’s fourteen-and-a-half, he tries a smoke, in attempts of catching Ryo’s attentions, but the thick, foul-smelling cloud that crunched down his mouth made him hack until he felt his throat disappear entirely. Shige, however, grew quite fond of sneaking out of class for a box of cigarettes on the rooftop. The teachers don’t even seem to register his empty desk as they scanned the classroom for the troublemakers.
He decides, later on, that Shige must be the next Jesus. Perfection can only go so far. But it’s only after he tells Shige about it, does a wilder side begin to show. After a while, the composed and controlled mask of Shige slips, begins to wear thin and fray, the rock edges of a cliff against the waterfall softened from continuous water pressure.
And so, there are the days when Shige’s split personality breaks through the surface of his usually iron-plated self-control. It scares him half to death, because there is no weather vane to channel Shige’s mood here; it’s hit and miss and he always manages to miss it right before the switch flips. Shige is naturally predictable, he concludes, until he switches to his alter-ego. Then the optimistic honors-student is subsequently ousted by a moody old grouch who lives in a cardboard box with a haughty temper to match.
Thus, he’s reminded of how much he still likes Shige. The grouch is like the unexpected-yet-miraculous appearance of a superhero. In math terms, the parallel line to those alternate interior angles-and when Euclid’s parallel line postulate connects those two lines, a new Shige is unearthed.
The first time this happens is when he is rescued by Shige from the evil clutches of a shop manager who insisted he was fifty yen short on a music record. He had been stuck there for an hour, begging the red-faced grizzly-bear-of-a-man to let him go, because the price tag had been printed clearly 2,000 yen, and he had counted out the paper bills in his pocket precisely. Shige had held on for seventy-eight minutes, checking out the new releases and waiting for their argument to conclude, until he couldn’t stand it anymore and burst out, “For God’s sake, old man, just let him have the fucking CD!”
Never mind that it was the first time he had heard Shige cuss. They were both staring at him like he’d been dropped from an airplane headfirst.
“Never. Make. Me. Do. That. Again.” Shige’s words were heavy as they raced away from the shop as fast as they could, after he had went on a yelling spree with the manager-from-hell, “That man looks exactly like Freddy Krueger.”
“Who’s Freddy Krueger?”
“You remember that film we saw a few years ago, and you couldn’t sleep for days after watching it because you were afraid of the scary man in your dreams? You wet your bed, too, and I had to carry it back to my house to dry because you were afraid that your parents were going to find out.”
“Oh, him,” he said, shivering and involuntarily grabbing Shige’s arm, and then they both snorted with laughter at the thought of Freddy Krueger opening a record shop.
(He woke up screaming that night, but luckily his boxers gave no sign of undesirable moisture.)
Last week, he was asked by a girl in their grade to go lingerie shopping. He doesn’t know why Sachika-chan wanted to hitch a boy along to surf through racks of bras and panties, but it certainly couldn’t be that she wanted him to cross-dress in the fitting rooms, so he figured that it’d be safe. But as a precaution, he made Shige waste his afternoon tailing after them, anyway.
Sachika thumbed through the shelves, humming to herself, and then told him that she would be trying on a few lace things and that he was welcome to assist her in the changing rooms. It was then that the light bulb finally shimmered on in his head and he understood what he was getting pulled-along for.
Shige! Help! He squeaked in his mind, and hoped that Shige was telepathically tuned to Koyama-radio with his antenna.
“Uh…maybe later,” he said, shooing the girl into the door and, upon hearing the click, running away as fast as he could.
Unfortunately, the recent expansion of department stores in the Ginza shopping district made it extremely difficult to navigate and escape. He was confronted with mountains of frilly bow-things and ostentatiously-colored cone-shaped objects.
Then-
BOOM. He had slammed into something flesh-like, falling backwards from the impact and landing in a pile of scratchy fabrics.
He looked up…
“What the hell are you doing here?!”
Nishikido Ryo, in the designer-underwear column of a sophisticated department store. Nowhere else would he ever be able to find another situation with equal awkwardness to replace this one.
“N-Nishikido-kun,” he mumbled, feeling a quiet blush forming over his cheeks.
It was then that Shige chose to rush in, gasping for breath, “I’m sorry! I was at the library. If I’d known sooner what Sachika-san had been planning…God, Koyama, you could’ve at least told me what you were going to do today!”
He stared at Shige, who looked terribly bruised and scratched from running through the store, panting like a dog and face pulled into a panicky look.
“Why would he want to tell you about anything?”
He stiffened when he saw Nishikido. Shige did not approve of Ryo, “You…why are you here?”
“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Ryo sneered, crossing his arms, “nerd.”
The offensive word smarted. He could tell from the creases on Shige’s forehead. “Who are you calling a nerd?”
“Who do you honestly think I’m calling a nerd? Jeezus, you’re stupid.”
“Technically, that’s redundant,” Shige pointed out.
“You’re redundant.”
“That’s not even a proper insult!”
“Shut up!”
He smiled apologetically at both of them, “Since I’m the only one here who could probably pass off as a girl, I think both of you should listen to me before we’re discovered by a real female,” he raised his voice into the best falsetto he could muster, “is that a 34C? For only three thousand yen? Oh, my God!”
Shige sighs, alter-ego deactivates, and he’s dragged out of the underwear section by the scruff of his sweater before he could make a bigger fool of himself.
He hopes that Ryo will be able to access a mindwash machine after this particular ordeal. Or maybe a Spartan torture chamber. Oh, the bad imagery that a scene like this could conjure…
Afterwards, he didn’t know whether or not to contribute his feelings towards astonishment or expectation.
Because, in the very next month, Ryo asked him out.
It turned out to be a very straightforward equation, this X factor.
Extra-things-to-consider-while-you're-at-it:
A. If you're bored with the idea of the X Factor already, do not continue past this point.
B. Reviews/comments are always appreciated.