fic - Johnny's & Associates - Music of the Spheres - Twinkle Twinkle (1/2)
Title: Twinkle Twinkle
Author: virdant
Length: 14,690 words; one-shot; part of Music of the Spheres
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, AU-(ish?), crack,
Pairing: Mentions of Yamapi x OC, Strongly implied Taguchi x OC
Summary: “You shouldn’t give out your number to strangers when you’re actually an idol, Taguchi-kun. It’s like Schrodinger's cat. You don’t know if bad stuff or good stuff will happen until it happens.”
Warning: OC, chemistry, mentions of death/violence by chemicals
Content Critique Level: No Holds Barred
Notes: For reiicharu. I take no credit for this 'verse. I place all blame on Rei and her insanity. Twinkle Twinkle is meant to be read after BrightSTAR by reiicharu
Twinkle Twinkle
Part I | Part II
Today is shopping day, which really means that it’s time for Taguchi to get off his ass and stop kicking other people’s asses at Starcraft2 and LoL and go buy some instant ramen.
What Taguchi doesn't expect is that there's a sale for instant ramen at the conbini, and there's only one box left, and said box of instant ramen (in his favorite flavor too) is in the hands of a short girl with short hair who isn't giving it up.
"I'll pay you double!" he offers, because if he doesn't get the instant ramen now, he'll have to go to the conbini at the other street, and that's at least 20 minutes taken from his precious gaming time. Kame would be worried about being mobbed, but Taguchi's never been particularly good at the whole being popular thing, so he's never really had to worry about it.
“No," the girl says, clutching the instant ramen tighter. "I like instant ramen. I can crack eggs into it and pretend that I'm eating a healthy balanced meal."
Taguchi blinks.
"And it's on sale," the girl adds. "So if you give me double, I wouldn't make as money as I would have if it wasn't on sale."
"I'll give you triple?" he offers.
The girl blinks. "I'll split it in half if you pay triple full price."
"That's extortion!" Taguchi protests.
"Yup. But I got it first."
“Can I pay double full price for half?"
The girl shrugs. "Sure."
Taguchi blinks again, trying to work his brain around the fact that she hadn't bargained any more.
"You aren't going to negotiate with me?" he begins.
She shrugs, moving towards the check-out counter. "You offered to pay double first. If you asked to split, I might have. But I'm not going to turn down free money and ramen."
Taguchi shrugs, paying for the ramen with his card. "I'm Taguchi, by the way," he says, because she hasn't recognized him yet, so she probably doesn't know him.
"You can call me Ri," she says. "You wouldn't be able to say my real name."
*
They go to Ri's tiny apartment to divide the ramen. On the way, Taguchi checks out the games on Ri's phone-they're pretty boring, but he supposes that she doesn't really play them.
"Sometimes," she says. "When I'm waiting for my NMR to finish running."
"What's an NMR, and why does it run?" Taguchi asks. He offered to carry the ramen, but she had just given him an odd look before hefting the crate more firmly, as if she didn't trust him to run away with it.
“It’s called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance,” she says. She smiles a little at him over the box of ramen. “It’s giant magnets, okay. So each molecule has magnetic fields, right?”
Taguchi blinks. “Uh.”
Ri frowns a bit. “Right. Maybe that’s too complicated. So basically it happens like this, you want to see what’s in a molecule right? Like, you don’t know what it is but...” she trails off, studying his face. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asks resignedly.
“Sorry,” Taguchi offers, feeling a bit bad, because she looked so happy. “Maybe if you made a pun?”
She laughs. “Okay, here, I have an easier way, you know an MRI? That thing in the hospital where they shove you into a weird thing to look at your brain?”
Taguchi does know, from his brief hospital stints. He nods.
“It’s like that, except we’re looking at stuff way tinier than your brain.” She smiles again as Taguchi nods in understanding, looking utterly delighted. “So anyways, you done with my phone so I can divide the ramen?”
Taguchi blinks, and then realizes they’re standing in front of a tiny apartment. The ramen’s on the floor while Ri digs through her bag for her keys, letting him in. “I’ll just put half in the kitchen,” she mutters absentmindedly. “And then you can have the rest in the box.”
Taguchi smiles. “Alright,” he calls, before he thinks for a bit. “Want to exchange numbers?”
She sticks her head out of the tiny kitchen area. “What?”
“Let’s hang out again,” he says, smiling.
“I’m a really busy person,” she says with a frown. “Like, really busy.”
Taguchi shrugs, because KAT-TUN is filled with busy people, but that hasn’t stopped him from hanging out with them. “That’s alright.” He programs his number in her phone. “Here.” He holds it to her. “You can just call me or mail me whenever.”
Ri blinks, and then takes the phone. “Okay.” She looks a little lost. “Uh. Are you going to be offended if I don’t give you mine?”
Taguchi grins. “It’s okay,” he says, even though most girls he knows would be ecstatic to have his number-even if only for the purposes of getting closer to KAT-TUN so they could get Kame-chan’s autograph-he doesn’t mind this girl being uncomfortable about it. It makes him feel even better about giving his number to her, she won’t abuse it. “Just... when you’re free, alright?”
She smiles a little, a small quirk of the lips. “Sure,” she agrees, but her eyes don’t say the same thing.
Taguchi leaves with his half of the ramen and a wave.
*
Two days later, Taguchi gets a message on his phone.
“You shouldn’t give out your number to strangers when you’re actually an idol, Taguchi-kun. It’s like Schrodinger's cat. You don’t know if bad stuff or good stuff will happen until it happens.”
Taguchi smiles and saves Ri’s number to his phonebook. Then he sends a message back. “Are you free?”
“Yes. I messed up, and there’s no point in re-starting a reaction that will take forever when it’s already 16:00.”
Taguchi winces. Mistakes are never fun. He sends a message back. “Where are you? Let’s go shopping or something.” Girls like shopping, he thinks. He remembers Rena saying something like that. Maybe that’ll take her mind off of her mistake.
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” is her reply.
Taguchi frowns a bit. He’s not sure what to make out of a girl who doesn’t use many emoticons. He’s trying to think of what to say back, when his phone vibrates again.
“Just... want ramen? Not the instant kind. Sen-chan’s working, and everybody in lab has their own stuff and I wouldn’t mind company.”
*
They have ramen at a small place. Ri orders pork after studying the prices for a long time. Taguchi offers to pay, and Ri gives him a strange look before she mutters something about being able to pay for herself because she has a stipend for this.
“So what do you do?” Taguchi asks while they wait.
“I do organic synthesis.” She shrugs. “It’s a lot of complicated stuff. It’s a gap year between my undergrad and PhD, I applied to this program, you see. It was going to be if I didn’t get into a PhD program. But then they accepted me and I got a stipend and so I just... I talked to the school and everything, and I got permission to go because well, I wasn’t costing them any money, and taking me a year later meant that they could take another undergrad.”
Taguchi grins. “I didn’t get that at all,” he says cheerfully as they get their ramen.
Ri blinks and then laughs a little. “Sometimes,” she says wistfully, “I forget that people don’t speak science. Okay, it’s like... an internship.”
Taguchi knows about those.
“And I just do research in it instead of carrying coffee around.” She smiles, and her eyes crinkle a little at the corners. “It’s fun.” she says, and nibbles on a fish cake.
“So what do you do?” Taguchi presses.
“Research?” She shrugs. “It’s research.”
“But what do you do?”
Something odd in her face clamps down. “I don’t think I should tell you,” she says.
Taguchi blinks, halfway through slurping his noodles. “Why?”
“Because you’re not supposed to.” She looks uncomfortable. “It’s... I mean, would you tell people your work secrets?”
Taguchi studies her carefully. “Alright,” he says, because he gets it. They aren’t allowed to talk about their songs before they’re released, after all. “But can you tell me big ideas? Like, what’s organic synthesis?”
She laughs, a weird snorting sound as she covers her face. “It’s... it’s organic chemistry. Making molecules with organic chemistry.” She puts down her chopsticks. “So,” she begins, gesturing in the air. “The world’s filled with chemistry. Like, your clothes. You’ve got polyester clothing, don’t you? I mean, that’s organic chemistry right there. Polyester is a material made of an organic compound known as an ester, it’s a functional group that keeps repeating itself. This table,” She raps on the table. “This table’s also made of organic substances. So what I do work on, is people give us molecules that have never been made before. We find them in plants or animals, and we try to make a way to make them.”
Taguchi smiles. “Why?”
She blinks. “Why? Just... I mean, sometimes it’s because they have useful properties.... a lot of anti-cancer drugs are stuff that’s made through synthesis... I mean.”
He slurps his noodles. “Okay,” he says agreeably. “So it’s chemistry, right?”
She nods.
He smiles a little, it’s not the best he can do, but it’s the best he can come up with on such short notice. “And you have chemistry with chemistry?”
Ri bursts out into a series of giggle-snorts. “Taguchi-kun,” she says finally. “I don’t know what to think of you.”
*
Taguchi goes and searches up chemistry puns later.
He also mails Nakamaru to see if he can read some of his old books.
Both plans are a success.
*
In three days, Taguchi sends Ri a mail. A picture of a cute fluffy white kitten, because kittens are cute and he thinks that Ri can appreciate cute things, and a rather funny line he found online: “You’re hotter than a bunsen burner.” He adds a few emoticons for good measure.
Ri’s response is brief.
“I don’t use bunsen burners, Taguchi-kun. I do organic chemistry :).”
Taguchi hurriedly flips around in the organic chemistry for dummies (used, because that’s how you can get all the funny puns) book.
“I can be the nucleophile to your nucleophilic center.”
This time he gets a heart emoticon back. “Good job, Taguchi-kun. <3”
*
It becomes like a game. Every day, he tries to come up with a new chemistry pun. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Some of them are nothing more than glorified pick-up lines.
“Taguchi-kun, asking me to titrate your solution not only brings up bad memories of analytical chemistry labs, but also is slightly wrong when you have a girlfriend.” But then Ri sends another message in twenty minutes. “It wasn’t a bad attempt though. :)”
What takes Taguchi by surprise is the one day Ri messages him first. “Taguchi-kun, today an arrogant jerk asked if I do it on a table periodically. I have to ask if you’ve been associating with people who have ugly hoodies.”
Taguchi hesitantly messages back, ignoring the fact that Rena messaged him 15 minutes ago and he still doesn’t have a reply for her. “I can’t think of anybody,” he offers, even though Nakamaru had a pretty bad sweater-vest the other day.
“Sen-chan says his name is Akanishi Jin.”
Taguchi winces. “I’m sorry for Jin-kun,” he types as quickly as he can. “But I haven’t been associating with him.” The next words are a bit hard to type. “He left KAT-TUN.”
*
When Taguchi wakes the next morning, there’s a message in his phone. He opens it, only to see it’s from Ri, and it’s a picture of a rather messy place filled with metal bars in the back and glassware everywhere.
“I wanted you to see,” are the only words in the message. He doesn’t need to ask to know that it’s her work.
Later that day, Taguchi takes a picture of KAT-TUN’s dressing room that day and mails it to her. He includes a short message of, “It’s not the sea, but perhaps you can see.”
She sends a picture of a bowl of instant ramen with an egg cracked in it. “Lunch,” is her message.
Taguchi’s in the middle of a meeting with KAT-TUN when he gets the message. In a few minutes, he gets another message.
“Kojima-kun’s lunch.” It’s a picture of onigiri. There’s a smiling boy in the background, flashing a peace sign.
He frowns a little, and the phone vibrates again as he gets another message from her.
“Kojima-kun trying to eat my lunch.”
And another.
“Mizuno-san telling Kojima-kun to stop eating my lunch.”
And another.
“Mizuno-senpai’s lunch. Mizuno-senpai’s wife is a good cook, don’t you think?” There’s a man about his age holding out a bento with a heart in furikake on the rice, an embarrassed smile on his face.
Taguchi looks at the rest of KAT-TUN, and types a reply. “Are you enjoying your lunch break?”
Ri replies with a simple message. “Are you feeling better, Taguchi-kun?”
*
He tries to explain that Akanishi leaving is old news, that it doesn’t bother him anymore, but Ri just sends him a picture of flowers.
“It’s outside the building,” she says, and the picture is grainy and pixelated from the zoom. “Isn’t it pretty.”
“Yes. Like you,” he replies, before he realizes it.
“Taguchi-kun should stop flattering me.”
Rena finds his phone a week later.
*
The news is in the tabloids, but Ri-chan doesn’t read the tabloids. She reads scientific journals and talks about how they’re making such great advancements in medicinal chemistry, it’s amazing, and then she laughs and says, “But you don’t care about that, do you, Taguchi-kun,” and they talk about ramen and udon and soba.
“Rena broke up with me,” Taguchi says when Ri-chan picks up the phone. He called her earlier, but she hadn’t picked up, he guessed she was working. He called again in an hour.
There’s a quiet pause. “Oh,” Ri says quietly. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“It’s all right,” he says.
“Where are you? I just finished Lit Meeting. I’ll go over and we’ll get coffee or something.”
“It’s late,” Taguchi begins.
“I know. Lit Meeting finished ungodly late today. It’s okay. Sorry I missed your call. Which stop should I get off at?”
Taguchi hesitates before he gives her his stop.
“Okay. I’ll be there in a bit. Want me to stay on the line?”
“You shouldn’t talk in subways, Ri-chan.”
“Then I’ll stay on until I get into the train. Are you alright? I’m sorry, Taguchi-kun. I really am.”
“So am I.”
*
He meets her at the train station, and they get coffee from a vending machine before sitting on subway benches and sipping their drinks in silence.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I know you two were together for a long time.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she offers awkwardly. “I mean, you don’t have to, but-”
“She read my mail.”
Ri freezes, her hands shaking. “Oh,” she murmurs.
“I told her... that you were a friend, but she didn’t believe me.”
“I’m really really sorry,” Ri whispers. “I should go, or something, or... I don’t know.”
“It’s alright,” he says quietly. “We were drifting apart anyways.”
“I...”
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, Ri-chan,” he says, smiling at her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She shakes her head. “But it was, you know? It was... it was the cat. Schrodinger's Cat. When you opened the box, you thought it was alive, but it’s not. It’s actually dead.”
“Ri-chan,” he says quietly. “It’s not your fault.”
She shakes her head.
Taguchi puts the coffee down and holds her gently for a second, feeling her tremors. “It’s not your fault, Ri-chan.”
“But it is, Taguchi-kun.” She shakes her head. “I made you and Rena-san break up.”
“We were going to anyways.” He shakes his head. “You’re a very good friend, Ri-chan.”
Ri says quietly, “My name is Rebecca.”
*
They sit quietly until their coffee goes cold. Ri’s quiet, and Taguchi enjoys the quiet. Nobody shouting at him and asking if he’s alright, just the quiet companionship of people who are friends.
“Remember,” he begins, before he fishes out his phone. “Remember when I said that Akanishi leaving wasn’t a big deal?”
Ri nods. “Mm.”
“Remember what you said?”
Ri frowns in thought.
Taguchi opens up the mail. “Well, I guess... maybe if you’re a proton and the other party is an electron, it’s better to be apart,” Taguchi reads. “It’s like that for me and Rena-san too.”
Ri shakes her head. “Taguchi-kun,” she says quietly. “I messaged you first.”
Taguchi takes a deep breath. “So. It’s like you were the catalyst. But Rena and I were unstable already. I just... eliminated the leaving group.” The words are awkward on his tongue, but he knows this is right. He’s talked to Ri enough to know that it’s right.
She smiles a little. “Taguchi-kun has learned a lot of chemistry recently.”
He smiles a bit back.
Ri slips out a small mp3 player from her pocket. He’s seen it before. It’s also a voice recorder, and sometimes she records chemistry notes on it, she’s won’t let him listen to it because of that. She hands it to him.
“I thought that you couldn’t let people listen to this,” he says.
“I recorded a message for you,” she says awkwardly. “It’s not much, and I mean, you probably wouldn’t like it anyways, but I mean, I hope you like it.”
It’s Ri’s quiet voice. It’s pitchy, but it’s effort that he can hear. It’s his debut song. It’s Real Face.
She looks away uncomfortably. “I didn’t know that you broke up with Rena because of me. I mean. I just wanted you to feel better. I mean. I just. I locked myself in a restroom to record it, sorry it’s bad, I mean, you don’t have to listen to it. And I had to look up the lyrics and I’m probably singing it wrong but I just...”
He laughs.
“Thank you, Ri-chan,” he says at last, smiling at her without thinking about the fact that Rena and him broke up just a while ago. “You’re a very good friend.”
*
“Taguchi-kun,” Kamenashi says dangerously the next morning.
“Kame-chan,” Junno says back.
“What....” he waves Bubka in the air. “What is this, Taguchi?”
Taguchi takes the magazine from Kamenashi, opens it and looks at the picture of him and Ri at the subway. He can’t see her face, but he remembers her saying, “Did you know that the stars in the sky are suns that are so far away that we can’t see them at all, and when they die, we won’t know until thousands of years later, because the light that we see is light that’s thousands of years old?”
Taguchi shrugs. “It’s Ri-chan. We had coffee at the subway station.”
“Who the fuck is Ri-chan,” Kamenashi demands. He looks lost for a second. “Are you... is she the reason you broke up with Rena?”
Taguchi thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he says. “Ri-chan is my friend. We send each other picture-mails and eat ramen together.”
“I told you that ramen’s bad for you,” Kamenashi begins.
Taguchi nods, knowing Kamenashi’s tirades easily. “We talk. I should probably mail her about this though. She doesn’t read tabloids, so she wouldn’t know unless I told her.”
“Doesn’t... read... tabloids?” Kamenashi’s voice rises a few octaves. “Taguchi Junnosuke, who is this girl?”
Taguchi wonders if it’s alright to say her name, Ri’s name that he only learned yesterday. “Ri-chan is Ri-chan,” he says quietly. “She’s my friend. We have bonds.” He can’t help but smile a bit. Ri would be amused at the pun.
Kamenashi scowls. “You can’t have a girlfriend now. Not after you just dumped Rena.”
“Rena dumped me,” Taguchi says mildly. “And Ri-chan’s my friend, not my girlfriend.”
“You can’t just be friends with a girl!”
Taguchi smiles at Kamenashi, because Kame-chan means well. “I can with Ri,” he says with placid simplicity.
*
Ri mails him first.
“I’m sorry to cause you so much trouble, Taguchi-kun.”
Taguchi sends her a picture of the tabloid with a message: “Even bad publicity is publicity, Ri-chan. Thanks for keeping me company last night. You’re very pretty in the picture, don’t you think?”
Ri replies several hours later. “Do you want ramen? I’ll mail you my address.”
Taguchi agrees.
*
Ri makes the ramen by hand, mixing water and flour together and kneading it. “When you make pasta,” she explains as she rolls out the dough. “You crack an egg into this.”
Taguchi sits next to her and watches her work. “Why aren’t you in lab?” he asks.
Ri shrugs. “Sen messaged me about the article. I didn’t have much left to do that couldn’t wait until tomorrow, so I just finished it and left early. Matsushita-senpai didn’t mind.”
“He’s your... grad student?” Taguchi asks. Ri mentions the people in her lab sometimes, taking pictures of their lunches. She once sent him a picture of her and who he thinks is Matsushita with a note of, “My grad student, Matsushita-senpai.”
“Yeah. I work under him right now.”
Taguchi watches her as she kneads. She pushes her whole weight into the dough, as if she’s trying to push her frustration in. Kamenashi does that sometimes, when he’s stressed out.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Taguchi thinks. He’s used to being in magazines, not as used to it as Kamenashi is, but used to it all the same. What is it like for Ri, who’s not in their world at all, to be in a tabloid. He props his chin on his hands and says, “I’m sorry that you were in the tabloids.”
She laughs a little. “It’s not a big deal, is it? You must be in tabloids all the time.”
“Not really,” Taguchi says. “And it’s... you, Ri-chan.” He watches as she pulls the dough, folding it over and over until it snaps with a sharp pop, and she goes back to kneading. “I’m sorry that I got you in the tabloids.”
Ri stops kneading. “It’s okay,” she mutters. “It’s not like anybody knows it’s me. They probably think it’s another idol.” She laughs a bit.
“Do you want people to know it’s you?” Taguchi asks.
She laughs for real, tilting her head back and rocking on her knees. “No,” she says. “Damn, what a thought. No, I don’t.” she waves a floury hand. “Sorry, it’s just. Thinking about if people in lab knew I was in a tabloid. They’d give me such flack for dating an idol.”
Taguchi laughed. “Then it’s a good thing you aren’t, isn’t it?”
*
She serves the ramen in worn bowls. Taguchi offers to help her cook, and she sets him to straining and washing the noodles while she stirs the broth.
They finish eating before Sen comes home. When Sen does stumble home from JANJI with gyoza she turns to Ri and lets her know that she gave her number out.
“You did what?” Ri demands as she reaches over with her fingers for gyoza. “And Sen-chan, next time you buy dinner back, you should leave a message saying that you’re buying dinner back. There’s noodles and broth in the fridge if you want to re-heat them. I left you a message on your phone.”
“Oh,” Sen says. She looks at Taguchi. “Why are you here?” she demands.
“Be nice, Sen-chan,” Ri says absently as she juggles gyoza on her fingertips. “Did you buy this at the vendor a street down? They’re not that good, and expensive too. You shouldn’t buy from them.”
Taguchi eats the gyoza and watches in amusement as Sen tries to eat it daintily for a while, and then gives up and just stuffs an entire piece into her mouth. After a few pieces, Sen stands up and declares that she’s going to soak her feet in water, and Ri absently waves at her while munching on another piece of gyoza despite the fact that she declared herself full about thirty minutes ago.
“I can always eat,” she says cheerfully. She wanders over to the kitchen area, still munching on gyoza, setting out a portion of noodles and broth. “Sen-chan would probably try to eat straight out of the pot, otherwise,” she explains to Taguchi. “She’s absentminded like that.”
Taguchi smiles, watching as Ri wanders around. “You like doing things, don’t you?”
“Not really. I like being lazy. But I didn’t do that much work today, so I feel like doing work now. I’m not actually tired right now. It’s pretty nice. Sorry that it’s so boring here.” She sits down again at the coffee table with a small black laptop, tucking her feet under her. Taguchi blinks as she looks completely comfortable.
“What?” Ri asks, opening her laptop. “Oh, sorry. It’s rude to go on a computer with a guest, isn’t it.” She looks a bit sheepish. “Uh. Do you want to play foldit?”
“Fold what?” Taguchi leans forward.
Ri tilts the screen towards him obligingly. “It’s a game. We played it in lab back at home.” There’s a wistful note in her voice. “Well, we didn’t play it that much. It’s more computational biochemistry than o-chem.”
“So how do you play?” Taguchi asks, feeling both out of his element and comfortable. It’s comfortable to be facing a screen to play, but he doesn’t think that this game is like Tales of Vesperia or Legend of Zelda.
Ri shows him, explaining how to pull the atoms around to make the protein fold right. “It’s a computational thing,” she says awkwardly. “It’s like, trying to use computers to explain chemistry. It’s not used in organic synthesis a lot. Not artistic enough.” She laughs a little again.
“So how do you know about it?”
“I had a six week internship in computational biochemistry research in high school.” She blinks, and then shrugs again, as if she didn’t realize what she was saying before she said it. “And my friend in physical biochemistry research showed me this game. If everybody plays, we can reduce the power it takes to compute protein folding.” Her eyes light up, and she beams. “It’d be wonderful. Think of all the research that could be done, just by the world working together a bit.”
It’s not a hard game. Taguchi’s good at games, and even if he prefers RPGs to puzzle games, he still enjoys them. This isn’t much more than trial and error with a lot of mouse-clicking too. It’s not hard, and it’s not really special, but it’s relaxing, and Ri watches as he folds his way through the first few simple puzzles.
That’s when her phone rings.
*
“Hello?” Ri says. “Uh, hello?” She settles back on her feet, and Taguchi pauses in folding a protein to watch her curiously.
“Who is it?” he asks.
“Hello?” Ri says again, starting to look annoyed. She shrugs at him, her face twisted into confusion and annoyance. There’s a mess of sound from the phone, and then Ri’s eyes narrow before she says, “Excuse me?”
Taguchi leans back to watch her.
“Yamashita-san, can I help you?” Ri asks, the look of confusion between her brows clearing.
He doesn’t remember Ri talking about a Yamashita before, but it’s a fairly common name, Taguchi thinks as he settles down to look at this protein. He’s never heard Ri talk about a Yamashita before, so he’s probably not a lab mate. A friend outside of lab? That doesn’t seem likely, considering that Ri spends as much time in lab as he does gaming.
“Free tickets?” Ri says, and this time she sounds more interested than polite. A pause, and then she says, “No train stations. Please.” She covers her phone and whispers to Taguchi, “Are you busy tonight?”
Taguchi shakes his head no.
“I can do midnight. Now.”
Taguchi blinks.
“Well, I have another round of reactions to run tomorrow,” Ri says thoughtfully. “So...” There’s a flurry of activity on the other side of the phone, and politely muttered goodbyes, and then she hangs up and turns to Taguchi. “I hope you don’t mind that I invited you to a movie.” She stands up and wanders over to the bathroom, rapping on the door. “Sen-chan, do you want to watch a movie tonight?”
“I don’t want to move my feet, let alone my legs,” Sen grumbles from the bathroom.
Ri shrugs easily, going to get her coat. Taguchi can see her running her fingers through her short hair from where he’s sitting. Her phone beeps then, with a new message.
“Ri-chan,” Taguchi sings, picking up the phone and handing it to her. “You have a message.”
Ri takes the phone from him with a smile. “Bring a hot friend?” she reads with confusion. “Yamashita-san has strange friends.” There’s a beep as another message comes in. “Please.” Her mouth twists as her phone beeps again. “It’s a good thing I have a good data plan,” she mutters as she opens the last message. She messages back quickly before dropping her phone in a coat pocket. She smiles at him, a bright grin that flashes all of her teeth at him. “Ready to go?”
*
It’s Yamashita and Nishikido.
It’s Yamapi and Ryo.
They take the train to the movie theatre, Ri’s hair curling around her cheeks as she studies the ads running along the train thoughtfully. They don’t talk much. Taguchi makes a few puns, and points out a few people he recognizes from JE, and Ri stiffles her laughter in the palm of her hand.
When they get off, Ri leads the way, straight towards Yamashita and Nishikido in awkward tacky disguises.
“This is your chemist?” Nishikido demands, glaring at Ri. “Wait, you brought him along because he’s your definition of hot?” He jerks his chin towards Taguchi.
Ri blinks mildly at Nishikido, a vague look of offense spreading across her face.
“Hello Nishikido-kun, Yamashita-kun.” Taguchi waves happily before Ri can say something that’ll set off Nishikido’s famed tongue.
“Good evening,” Yamashita replies, snatching the tickets out of Nishikido’s hands. “Taguchi-kun, I didn’t know that you and Rebecca-san... well I didn’t know that we both talked to the same chemist.”
I didn’t either, Taguchi thinks, glancing towards Ri, not entirely sure how she managed to get herself involved in the industry without even trying. “Ah, we share a chemist, yes Yamashita-kun?” Some girls spend years trying and failing, and Ri doesn’t even try. He smiles a bit. “Just like how two hydrogens share one oxygen!”
“Taguchi-kun,” Ri murmurs, glancing at him quickly with a disapproving glance. “That’s rather inappropriate.”
He smiles.
“But perhaps accurate,” she admits.
“You’re the girl from the rumor?” Nishikido shakes his head furiously.
Ri steps back a little, towards Taguchi. “Oh. That? Oh.” She hunches in a little uncomfortably, fiddling with the sleeves of her coat, and Taguchi nudges her back gently. “We aren’t...”
Taguchi studies Nishikido and Yamashita, both looking bowled over. He wants to wrap an arm around Ri’s shoulders for comfort, but she’d probably just give him a strange look.
Ri lifts her chin firmly. “Let’s go see the movie, shall we?”
Yamashita offers her the tickets, but Nishikido snatches them out of his hands and shove his finger towards Taguchi. “You. What are you doing here?”
Taguchi blinks and murmurs a quiet, “Oh,” and then beams. Ri settles down a bit, now that she isn’t the center of attention. She studies Nishikido a bit, and then glances at Yamashita, as if cataloging their reactions. “Ri-chan invited me. Sen-chan’s says that she doesn’t want to move out of the tub, let along the building. I had no idea that Nishikido-kun and Yamashita-kun liked to do group dates.”
“This,” Ryo snaps, “is not a date.”
“But for this movie, we’re definitely going to be late,” Taguchi comments, and Ri smiles a little.
The movie’s good, Taguchi thinks. Ri laughs at the right points, and she doesn’t notice when Yamashita and Nishikido scramble out of the seats. She does notice when they don’t return after the credits have finished running, and Taguchi just steers her out of the theatre, assuring her that Yamashita and Nishikido can take care of themselves, and gossip magazines aren’t that interested in two JE boys hanging out.
“Thanks for coming with me, Taguchi-kun,” Ri says quietly as they take the train back to her apartment. “You didn’t have to.” She’s smiling though, looking lighter, as if she needed the day off.
He smiles back. “You can call me Junnosuke, Ri-chan.”
She tries out his name on her tongue, thoughtfully. “It’s too long,” she decides finally. “Can I call you Jun-kun?”
It reminds him a bit of Matsumoto-senpai, but he smiles all the same. “Of course, Ri-chan. You can be Ri-chan, and I can be Jun-kun. We match!”
Ri laughs, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle her giggles. The train is quiet, with only them and a few other sleepy people in it. “You’re so silly, Jun-kun,” she says finally.
*
“Taguchi,” Kame practically screams when he shows up at work the next morning. “Taguchi, what are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, Kame-chan,” Taguchi says simply as he drops his bag down and settles on a couch with his DS. “Ri-chan won’t hurt me. She isn’t hurting Yamashita-kun, is she?”
It’s petty, but he slides headphones into his ears. He can still hear Kame spluttering through the tinny sounds of game music.
It feels pleasant.
*
Ri’s cheerful as she makes rice and stir-fry, humming a song under her breath.
“What are you humming?” Taguchi asks, handing her the salt when she reaches for it. He listens to all sorts of music, but he doesn’t think he’s heard this.
“Chinese stuff, I guess,” Ri says absently. She sings a few words, and then nods decisively. “Chinese. For sure. I’m going to go with rock.”
“I didn’t know you listen to Chinese music.”
She shrugs. “I grew up in Taiwan,” she says as if that explains everything. “I haven’t been listening to much music lately, I’m trying to improve my Japanese.”
“It’s very good already.”
“Not really,” she says, frowning as she tries the food and then nods, satisfied. “It’s different to talk to people in real life instead of in a classroom.”
“But you’re really good at talking in real life.” He blinks. “And in messages,” he adds.
She laughs, and puts the stir-fry on the table before fishing out her phone and tossing it to him. “Call Sen and ask her if she’s coming back for dinner.”
“What if she doesn’t pick up?” he asks, dialing.
“Then we’ll put aside a portion for her, the same way we would have if she did pick up.”
Sen does pick up. She’s upset when she hears Taguchi’s voice and demands: “Give Ri-chan back her phone,” and Ri rolls her eyes in amusement before asking if Sen wants rice and stir-fry now or in several hours.
When Ri hangs up, she says, “Sen-chan’s coming back now.” She laughs a bit. “We can wait, do you mind?”
Taguchi doesn’t.
“Was it a good day, today?” he asks.
“Mm, yeah. Stuff worked. You?”
Taguchi thinks of KAT-TUN and their squabbles. “About the same as always,” he says. “Kame-chan shouted and I played games.”
“Games?”
He offers her his DS, and she navigates the menu with comparative ease. “I thought you didn’t play games,” he says as she starts the game inside.
“I did. I gave it up in college. Too many other things to do. My roommate gamed though. We used to have gaming and potluck night once a week.”
She fiddles with the game he has inside-a puzzle game, not any of his RPGs-furrowing her brow in thought as she solves the puzzles.
That’s when Sen walks in, pulling of her heels. “Tadaima, Ri-chan!” Sen declares. “I missed you.” She decidedly ignores Taguchi.
“I saw you this morning when you were hogging the bathroom,” Ri replies, not looking up from the DS. “And I bought the miso even though you were supposed to yesterday. You owe me grocery money.”
Sen sits down and pouts.
Ri hands the DS back to Taguchi. “Are you ready to eat?” she looks at Sen. “Don’t forget to wash your hands. And don’t use hand sanitizer,” she adds sharply. “I’d rather not have super-bacteria breeding on your hands.”
Sen sulks, but goes to wash her hands.
They eat quietly. Ri eats quickly and without talking, and her responses to Sen’s statements are immured mm’s and mmhm’s. Sen’s ignoring Taguchi, and Taguchi takes the opportunity to savor Ri’s cooking, which is delicious.
“It’s too bad you’re always so busy,” Taguchi comments as he picks up the dishes to clear. “You’re good at cooking.”
Ri laughs. “Of course.” She nudges Sen with her feet. “Sen-chan. Don’t make our guest do the dishes.”
“Taguchi-kun isn’t my guest,” Sen says loftily.
“Sen.”
Sen stands and carries her bowl into the kitchen.
“Thank you, Sen-chan,” Ri says tiredly. She shakes her head at Taguchi in amusement.
“I want to play your DS,” Sen declares when she comes out.
Taguchi blinks. “My DS?” he repeats.
“Sen,” Ri says. “Be polite.”
“You let Ri-chan play it. Let me play too.”
“Sen-chan,” Ri says firmly. “You’re an adult. Act your age.”
Taguchi blinks, not certain what to say to Sen.
Sen frowns, and then glares at Taguchi. Taguchi blinks. “I don't like you,” Sen declares.
“Sen!”
“Ri-chan deserves better,” she says, nose in the air. Taguchi's never seen her this upset before-he's not even sure why she's upset; it can't because she wants to play his DS. He's almost about to let her have it-it's a puzzle game, not an RPG, and she can't really mess it up.
“Sen!” Ri steps between them, grabbing Sen by the shoulders. “Stop that. You aren’t three.”
Sen crosses her arms and glares.
Ri bows to Taguchi. “I’m really sorry for her,” she says. “She means well, she really does.” She smiles wryly.
“It’s alright, Ri-chan.” He smiles. “I should go, shouldn’t I? Deguchi, Taguchi!”
Ri laughs. “You don’t have to,” she says. “Sen-chan’s being childish.”
Sen glares from behind Ri.
Taguchi smiles at her. “Sen-chan,” he calls to the taller girl in the back. “Smile. Ri-chan likes to see people happy.”
He smiles at Ri before he leaves.
*
“You should try bubble spinner. It’s all about angles.”
“Is this what you do when you don’t work?” Taguchi replies. “Play online games?”
“No. Sometimes I play minesweeper. I had a great minesweeper record, and then I had to wipe my computer. I’ve never quite managed to make that time again.”
Taguchi stifles a laugh, and ignores Kamenashi hissing at him to pay attention in favor of opening the picture that Ri sent with her mail. It’s a picture of her computer screen, with two browsers open. One of them has a game that he assumes is bubble spinner. The other is a document full of words he doesn’t understand.
He takes a picture of Kamenashi’s enraged face and sends it back.
“Who is he, Jun-kun?” Ri sends a picture of glassware filled with dark liquid.
“My bandmate. What’s that?”
“Iodine. And other stuff, but iodine is what gives it it’s color.”
“Taguchi Junnosuke,” Kamenashi snarls. “I’m going to fucking kill you if you’re mailing that chemist girl of Yamashita’s. I don’t need to hear Ryo whine about Yamashita anymore.”
“Kame-chan says that he’s going to kill me. Why iodine?”
“What color roses would you like on your grave? Are roses customary in Japan? And you shouldn’t be mailing me if you’re at work, Jun-kun.”
“Aren’t you working?”
“Of course. I just finished my separation. It was horrible. I’m taking a break at the vending machine, trying to decide if I want soda.”
“Did you not sleep well?”
“We got back to my place late, remember? I’ll call you later. Work hard.”
Taguchi’s about to type a reply when Kamenashi jerks his phone out of his hands. “Taguchi,” Kame hisses. He stares at the message, and when his voice comes out, it’s smaller, but no less vehement. “Stop talking to this tramp, now.”
Taguchi stands up, ignoring the rest of KAT-TUN preparing to break them apart. “Ri-chan,” he says as calmly as he can as he takes his phone back. “Ri-chan is a chemist.”
*
His mother leaves him a message that he finds as he heads to lunch. “I cut out that picture of you and your new girlfriend in Bubka to keep in your rumors file. Why don’t you bring her back for New Years?”
*
Part II
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
More Music of the Spheres fanfiction here at the MotS tag
Author: virdant
Length: 14,690 words; one-shot; part of Music of the Spheres
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen, AU-(ish?), crack,
Pairing: Mentions of Yamapi x OC, Strongly implied Taguchi x OC
Summary: “You shouldn’t give out your number to strangers when you’re actually an idol, Taguchi-kun. It’s like Schrodinger's cat. You don’t know if bad stuff or good stuff will happen until it happens.”
Warning: OC, chemistry, mentions of death/violence by chemicals
Content Critique Level: No Holds Barred
Notes: For reiicharu. I take no credit for this 'verse. I place all blame on Rei and her insanity. Twinkle Twinkle is meant to be read after BrightSTAR by reiicharu
Twinkle Twinkle
Part I | Part II
Today is shopping day, which really means that it’s time for Taguchi to get off his ass and stop kicking other people’s asses at Starcraft2 and LoL and go buy some instant ramen.
What Taguchi doesn't expect is that there's a sale for instant ramen at the conbini, and there's only one box left, and said box of instant ramen (in his favorite flavor too) is in the hands of a short girl with short hair who isn't giving it up.
"I'll pay you double!" he offers, because if he doesn't get the instant ramen now, he'll have to go to the conbini at the other street, and that's at least 20 minutes taken from his precious gaming time. Kame would be worried about being mobbed, but Taguchi's never been particularly good at the whole being popular thing, so he's never really had to worry about it.
“No," the girl says, clutching the instant ramen tighter. "I like instant ramen. I can crack eggs into it and pretend that I'm eating a healthy balanced meal."
Taguchi blinks.
"And it's on sale," the girl adds. "So if you give me double, I wouldn't make as money as I would have if it wasn't on sale."
"I'll give you triple?" he offers.
The girl blinks. "I'll split it in half if you pay triple full price."
"That's extortion!" Taguchi protests.
"Yup. But I got it first."
“Can I pay double full price for half?"
The girl shrugs. "Sure."
Taguchi blinks again, trying to work his brain around the fact that she hadn't bargained any more.
"You aren't going to negotiate with me?" he begins.
She shrugs, moving towards the check-out counter. "You offered to pay double first. If you asked to split, I might have. But I'm not going to turn down free money and ramen."
Taguchi shrugs, paying for the ramen with his card. "I'm Taguchi, by the way," he says, because she hasn't recognized him yet, so she probably doesn't know him.
"You can call me Ri," she says. "You wouldn't be able to say my real name."
*
They go to Ri's tiny apartment to divide the ramen. On the way, Taguchi checks out the games on Ri's phone-they're pretty boring, but he supposes that she doesn't really play them.
"Sometimes," she says. "When I'm waiting for my NMR to finish running."
"What's an NMR, and why does it run?" Taguchi asks. He offered to carry the ramen, but she had just given him an odd look before hefting the crate more firmly, as if she didn't trust him to run away with it.
“It’s called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance,” she says. She smiles a little at him over the box of ramen. “It’s giant magnets, okay. So each molecule has magnetic fields, right?”
Taguchi blinks. “Uh.”
Ri frowns a bit. “Right. Maybe that’s too complicated. So basically it happens like this, you want to see what’s in a molecule right? Like, you don’t know what it is but...” she trails off, studying his face. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asks resignedly.
“Sorry,” Taguchi offers, feeling a bit bad, because she looked so happy. “Maybe if you made a pun?”
She laughs. “Okay, here, I have an easier way, you know an MRI? That thing in the hospital where they shove you into a weird thing to look at your brain?”
Taguchi does know, from his brief hospital stints. He nods.
“It’s like that, except we’re looking at stuff way tinier than your brain.” She smiles again as Taguchi nods in understanding, looking utterly delighted. “So anyways, you done with my phone so I can divide the ramen?”
Taguchi blinks, and then realizes they’re standing in front of a tiny apartment. The ramen’s on the floor while Ri digs through her bag for her keys, letting him in. “I’ll just put half in the kitchen,” she mutters absentmindedly. “And then you can have the rest in the box.”
Taguchi smiles. “Alright,” he calls, before he thinks for a bit. “Want to exchange numbers?”
She sticks her head out of the tiny kitchen area. “What?”
“Let’s hang out again,” he says, smiling.
“I’m a really busy person,” she says with a frown. “Like, really busy.”
Taguchi shrugs, because KAT-TUN is filled with busy people, but that hasn’t stopped him from hanging out with them. “That’s alright.” He programs his number in her phone. “Here.” He holds it to her. “You can just call me or mail me whenever.”
Ri blinks, and then takes the phone. “Okay.” She looks a little lost. “Uh. Are you going to be offended if I don’t give you mine?”
Taguchi grins. “It’s okay,” he says, even though most girls he knows would be ecstatic to have his number-even if only for the purposes of getting closer to KAT-TUN so they could get Kame-chan’s autograph-he doesn’t mind this girl being uncomfortable about it. It makes him feel even better about giving his number to her, she won’t abuse it. “Just... when you’re free, alright?”
She smiles a little, a small quirk of the lips. “Sure,” she agrees, but her eyes don’t say the same thing.
Taguchi leaves with his half of the ramen and a wave.
*
Two days later, Taguchi gets a message on his phone.
“You shouldn’t give out your number to strangers when you’re actually an idol, Taguchi-kun. It’s like Schrodinger's cat. You don’t know if bad stuff or good stuff will happen until it happens.”
Taguchi smiles and saves Ri’s number to his phonebook. Then he sends a message back. “Are you free?”
“Yes. I messed up, and there’s no point in re-starting a reaction that will take forever when it’s already 16:00.”
Taguchi winces. Mistakes are never fun. He sends a message back. “Where are you? Let’s go shopping or something.” Girls like shopping, he thinks. He remembers Rena saying something like that. Maybe that’ll take her mind off of her mistake.
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” is her reply.
Taguchi frowns a bit. He’s not sure what to make out of a girl who doesn’t use many emoticons. He’s trying to think of what to say back, when his phone vibrates again.
“Just... want ramen? Not the instant kind. Sen-chan’s working, and everybody in lab has their own stuff and I wouldn’t mind company.”
*
They have ramen at a small place. Ri orders pork after studying the prices for a long time. Taguchi offers to pay, and Ri gives him a strange look before she mutters something about being able to pay for herself because she has a stipend for this.
“So what do you do?” Taguchi asks while they wait.
“I do organic synthesis.” She shrugs. “It’s a lot of complicated stuff. It’s a gap year between my undergrad and PhD, I applied to this program, you see. It was going to be if I didn’t get into a PhD program. But then they accepted me and I got a stipend and so I just... I talked to the school and everything, and I got permission to go because well, I wasn’t costing them any money, and taking me a year later meant that they could take another undergrad.”
Taguchi grins. “I didn’t get that at all,” he says cheerfully as they get their ramen.
Ri blinks and then laughs a little. “Sometimes,” she says wistfully, “I forget that people don’t speak science. Okay, it’s like... an internship.”
Taguchi knows about those.
“And I just do research in it instead of carrying coffee around.” She smiles, and her eyes crinkle a little at the corners. “It’s fun.” she says, and nibbles on a fish cake.
“So what do you do?” Taguchi presses.
“Research?” She shrugs. “It’s research.”
“But what do you do?”
Something odd in her face clamps down. “I don’t think I should tell you,” she says.
Taguchi blinks, halfway through slurping his noodles. “Why?”
“Because you’re not supposed to.” She looks uncomfortable. “It’s... I mean, would you tell people your work secrets?”
Taguchi studies her carefully. “Alright,” he says, because he gets it. They aren’t allowed to talk about their songs before they’re released, after all. “But can you tell me big ideas? Like, what’s organic synthesis?”
She laughs, a weird snorting sound as she covers her face. “It’s... it’s organic chemistry. Making molecules with organic chemistry.” She puts down her chopsticks. “So,” she begins, gesturing in the air. “The world’s filled with chemistry. Like, your clothes. You’ve got polyester clothing, don’t you? I mean, that’s organic chemistry right there. Polyester is a material made of an organic compound known as an ester, it’s a functional group that keeps repeating itself. This table,” She raps on the table. “This table’s also made of organic substances. So what I do work on, is people give us molecules that have never been made before. We find them in plants or animals, and we try to make a way to make them.”
Taguchi smiles. “Why?”
She blinks. “Why? Just... I mean, sometimes it’s because they have useful properties.... a lot of anti-cancer drugs are stuff that’s made through synthesis... I mean.”
He slurps his noodles. “Okay,” he says agreeably. “So it’s chemistry, right?”
She nods.
He smiles a little, it’s not the best he can do, but it’s the best he can come up with on such short notice. “And you have chemistry with chemistry?”
Ri bursts out into a series of giggle-snorts. “Taguchi-kun,” she says finally. “I don’t know what to think of you.”
*
Taguchi goes and searches up chemistry puns later.
He also mails Nakamaru to see if he can read some of his old books.
Both plans are a success.
*
In three days, Taguchi sends Ri a mail. A picture of a cute fluffy white kitten, because kittens are cute and he thinks that Ri can appreciate cute things, and a rather funny line he found online: “You’re hotter than a bunsen burner.” He adds a few emoticons for good measure.
Ri’s response is brief.
“I don’t use bunsen burners, Taguchi-kun. I do organic chemistry :).”
Taguchi hurriedly flips around in the organic chemistry for dummies (used, because that’s how you can get all the funny puns) book.
“I can be the nucleophile to your nucleophilic center.”
This time he gets a heart emoticon back. “Good job, Taguchi-kun. <3”
*
It becomes like a game. Every day, he tries to come up with a new chemistry pun. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Some of them are nothing more than glorified pick-up lines.
“Taguchi-kun, asking me to titrate your solution not only brings up bad memories of analytical chemistry labs, but also is slightly wrong when you have a girlfriend.” But then Ri sends another message in twenty minutes. “It wasn’t a bad attempt though. :)”
What takes Taguchi by surprise is the one day Ri messages him first. “Taguchi-kun, today an arrogant jerk asked if I do it on a table periodically. I have to ask if you’ve been associating with people who have ugly hoodies.”
Taguchi hesitantly messages back, ignoring the fact that Rena messaged him 15 minutes ago and he still doesn’t have a reply for her. “I can’t think of anybody,” he offers, even though Nakamaru had a pretty bad sweater-vest the other day.
“Sen-chan says his name is Akanishi Jin.”
Taguchi winces. “I’m sorry for Jin-kun,” he types as quickly as he can. “But I haven’t been associating with him.” The next words are a bit hard to type. “He left KAT-TUN.”
*
When Taguchi wakes the next morning, there’s a message in his phone. He opens it, only to see it’s from Ri, and it’s a picture of a rather messy place filled with metal bars in the back and glassware everywhere.
“I wanted you to see,” are the only words in the message. He doesn’t need to ask to know that it’s her work.
Later that day, Taguchi takes a picture of KAT-TUN’s dressing room that day and mails it to her. He includes a short message of, “It’s not the sea, but perhaps you can see.”
She sends a picture of a bowl of instant ramen with an egg cracked in it. “Lunch,” is her message.
Taguchi’s in the middle of a meeting with KAT-TUN when he gets the message. In a few minutes, he gets another message.
“Kojima-kun’s lunch.” It’s a picture of onigiri. There’s a smiling boy in the background, flashing a peace sign.
He frowns a little, and the phone vibrates again as he gets another message from her.
“Kojima-kun trying to eat my lunch.”
And another.
“Mizuno-san telling Kojima-kun to stop eating my lunch.”
And another.
“Mizuno-senpai’s lunch. Mizuno-senpai’s wife is a good cook, don’t you think?” There’s a man about his age holding out a bento with a heart in furikake on the rice, an embarrassed smile on his face.
Taguchi looks at the rest of KAT-TUN, and types a reply. “Are you enjoying your lunch break?”
Ri replies with a simple message. “Are you feeling better, Taguchi-kun?”
*
He tries to explain that Akanishi leaving is old news, that it doesn’t bother him anymore, but Ri just sends him a picture of flowers.
“It’s outside the building,” she says, and the picture is grainy and pixelated from the zoom. “Isn’t it pretty.”
“Yes. Like you,” he replies, before he realizes it.
“Taguchi-kun should stop flattering me.”
Rena finds his phone a week later.
*
The news is in the tabloids, but Ri-chan doesn’t read the tabloids. She reads scientific journals and talks about how they’re making such great advancements in medicinal chemistry, it’s amazing, and then she laughs and says, “But you don’t care about that, do you, Taguchi-kun,” and they talk about ramen and udon and soba.
“Rena broke up with me,” Taguchi says when Ri-chan picks up the phone. He called her earlier, but she hadn’t picked up, he guessed she was working. He called again in an hour.
There’s a quiet pause. “Oh,” Ri says quietly. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“It’s all right,” he says.
“Where are you? I just finished Lit Meeting. I’ll go over and we’ll get coffee or something.”
“It’s late,” Taguchi begins.
“I know. Lit Meeting finished ungodly late today. It’s okay. Sorry I missed your call. Which stop should I get off at?”
Taguchi hesitates before he gives her his stop.
“Okay. I’ll be there in a bit. Want me to stay on the line?”
“You shouldn’t talk in subways, Ri-chan.”
“Then I’ll stay on until I get into the train. Are you alright? I’m sorry, Taguchi-kun. I really am.”
“So am I.”
*
He meets her at the train station, and they get coffee from a vending machine before sitting on subway benches and sipping their drinks in silence.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I know you two were together for a long time.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she offers awkwardly. “I mean, you don’t have to, but-”
“She read my mail.”
Ri freezes, her hands shaking. “Oh,” she murmurs.
“I told her... that you were a friend, but she didn’t believe me.”
“I’m really really sorry,” Ri whispers. “I should go, or something, or... I don’t know.”
“It’s alright,” he says quietly. “We were drifting apart anyways.”
“I...”
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, Ri-chan,” he says, smiling at her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She shakes her head. “But it was, you know? It was... it was the cat. Schrodinger's Cat. When you opened the box, you thought it was alive, but it’s not. It’s actually dead.”
“Ri-chan,” he says quietly. “It’s not your fault.”
She shakes her head.
Taguchi puts the coffee down and holds her gently for a second, feeling her tremors. “It’s not your fault, Ri-chan.”
“But it is, Taguchi-kun.” She shakes her head. “I made you and Rena-san break up.”
“We were going to anyways.” He shakes his head. “You’re a very good friend, Ri-chan.”
Ri says quietly, “My name is Rebecca.”
*
They sit quietly until their coffee goes cold. Ri’s quiet, and Taguchi enjoys the quiet. Nobody shouting at him and asking if he’s alright, just the quiet companionship of people who are friends.
“Remember,” he begins, before he fishes out his phone. “Remember when I said that Akanishi leaving wasn’t a big deal?”
Ri nods. “Mm.”
“Remember what you said?”
Ri frowns in thought.
Taguchi opens up the mail. “Well, I guess... maybe if you’re a proton and the other party is an electron, it’s better to be apart,” Taguchi reads. “It’s like that for me and Rena-san too.”
Ri shakes her head. “Taguchi-kun,” she says quietly. “I messaged you first.”
Taguchi takes a deep breath. “So. It’s like you were the catalyst. But Rena and I were unstable already. I just... eliminated the leaving group.” The words are awkward on his tongue, but he knows this is right. He’s talked to Ri enough to know that it’s right.
She smiles a little. “Taguchi-kun has learned a lot of chemistry recently.”
He smiles a bit back.
Ri slips out a small mp3 player from her pocket. He’s seen it before. It’s also a voice recorder, and sometimes she records chemistry notes on it, she’s won’t let him listen to it because of that. She hands it to him.
“I thought that you couldn’t let people listen to this,” he says.
“I recorded a message for you,” she says awkwardly. “It’s not much, and I mean, you probably wouldn’t like it anyways, but I mean, I hope you like it.”
It’s Ri’s quiet voice. It’s pitchy, but it’s effort that he can hear. It’s his debut song. It’s Real Face.
She looks away uncomfortably. “I didn’t know that you broke up with Rena because of me. I mean. I just wanted you to feel better. I mean. I just. I locked myself in a restroom to record it, sorry it’s bad, I mean, you don’t have to listen to it. And I had to look up the lyrics and I’m probably singing it wrong but I just...”
He laughs.
“Thank you, Ri-chan,” he says at last, smiling at her without thinking about the fact that Rena and him broke up just a while ago. “You’re a very good friend.”
*
“Taguchi-kun,” Kamenashi says dangerously the next morning.
“Kame-chan,” Junno says back.
“What....” he waves Bubka in the air. “What is this, Taguchi?”
Taguchi takes the magazine from Kamenashi, opens it and looks at the picture of him and Ri at the subway. He can’t see her face, but he remembers her saying, “Did you know that the stars in the sky are suns that are so far away that we can’t see them at all, and when they die, we won’t know until thousands of years later, because the light that we see is light that’s thousands of years old?”
Taguchi shrugs. “It’s Ri-chan. We had coffee at the subway station.”
“Who the fuck is Ri-chan,” Kamenashi demands. He looks lost for a second. “Are you... is she the reason you broke up with Rena?”
Taguchi thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he says. “Ri-chan is my friend. We send each other picture-mails and eat ramen together.”
“I told you that ramen’s bad for you,” Kamenashi begins.
Taguchi nods, knowing Kamenashi’s tirades easily. “We talk. I should probably mail her about this though. She doesn’t read tabloids, so she wouldn’t know unless I told her.”
“Doesn’t... read... tabloids?” Kamenashi’s voice rises a few octaves. “Taguchi Junnosuke, who is this girl?”
Taguchi wonders if it’s alright to say her name, Ri’s name that he only learned yesterday. “Ri-chan is Ri-chan,” he says quietly. “She’s my friend. We have bonds.” He can’t help but smile a bit. Ri would be amused at the pun.
Kamenashi scowls. “You can’t have a girlfriend now. Not after you just dumped Rena.”
“Rena dumped me,” Taguchi says mildly. “And Ri-chan’s my friend, not my girlfriend.”
“You can’t just be friends with a girl!”
Taguchi smiles at Kamenashi, because Kame-chan means well. “I can with Ri,” he says with placid simplicity.
*
Ri mails him first.
“I’m sorry to cause you so much trouble, Taguchi-kun.”
Taguchi sends her a picture of the tabloid with a message: “Even bad publicity is publicity, Ri-chan. Thanks for keeping me company last night. You’re very pretty in the picture, don’t you think?”
Ri replies several hours later. “Do you want ramen? I’ll mail you my address.”
Taguchi agrees.
*
Ri makes the ramen by hand, mixing water and flour together and kneading it. “When you make pasta,” she explains as she rolls out the dough. “You crack an egg into this.”
Taguchi sits next to her and watches her work. “Why aren’t you in lab?” he asks.
Ri shrugs. “Sen messaged me about the article. I didn’t have much left to do that couldn’t wait until tomorrow, so I just finished it and left early. Matsushita-senpai didn’t mind.”
“He’s your... grad student?” Taguchi asks. Ri mentions the people in her lab sometimes, taking pictures of their lunches. She once sent him a picture of her and who he thinks is Matsushita with a note of, “My grad student, Matsushita-senpai.”
“Yeah. I work under him right now.”
Taguchi watches her as she kneads. She pushes her whole weight into the dough, as if she’s trying to push her frustration in. Kamenashi does that sometimes, when he’s stressed out.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Taguchi thinks. He’s used to being in magazines, not as used to it as Kamenashi is, but used to it all the same. What is it like for Ri, who’s not in their world at all, to be in a tabloid. He props his chin on his hands and says, “I’m sorry that you were in the tabloids.”
She laughs a little. “It’s not a big deal, is it? You must be in tabloids all the time.”
“Not really,” Taguchi says. “And it’s... you, Ri-chan.” He watches as she pulls the dough, folding it over and over until it snaps with a sharp pop, and she goes back to kneading. “I’m sorry that I got you in the tabloids.”
Ri stops kneading. “It’s okay,” she mutters. “It’s not like anybody knows it’s me. They probably think it’s another idol.” She laughs a bit.
“Do you want people to know it’s you?” Taguchi asks.
She laughs for real, tilting her head back and rocking on her knees. “No,” she says. “Damn, what a thought. No, I don’t.” she waves a floury hand. “Sorry, it’s just. Thinking about if people in lab knew I was in a tabloid. They’d give me such flack for dating an idol.”
Taguchi laughed. “Then it’s a good thing you aren’t, isn’t it?”
*
She serves the ramen in worn bowls. Taguchi offers to help her cook, and she sets him to straining and washing the noodles while she stirs the broth.
They finish eating before Sen comes home. When Sen does stumble home from JANJI with gyoza she turns to Ri and lets her know that she gave her number out.
“You did what?” Ri demands as she reaches over with her fingers for gyoza. “And Sen-chan, next time you buy dinner back, you should leave a message saying that you’re buying dinner back. There’s noodles and broth in the fridge if you want to re-heat them. I left you a message on your phone.”
“Oh,” Sen says. She looks at Taguchi. “Why are you here?” she demands.
“Be nice, Sen-chan,” Ri says absently as she juggles gyoza on her fingertips. “Did you buy this at the vendor a street down? They’re not that good, and expensive too. You shouldn’t buy from them.”
Taguchi eats the gyoza and watches in amusement as Sen tries to eat it daintily for a while, and then gives up and just stuffs an entire piece into her mouth. After a few pieces, Sen stands up and declares that she’s going to soak her feet in water, and Ri absently waves at her while munching on another piece of gyoza despite the fact that she declared herself full about thirty minutes ago.
“I can always eat,” she says cheerfully. She wanders over to the kitchen area, still munching on gyoza, setting out a portion of noodles and broth. “Sen-chan would probably try to eat straight out of the pot, otherwise,” she explains to Taguchi. “She’s absentminded like that.”
Taguchi smiles, watching as Ri wanders around. “You like doing things, don’t you?”
“Not really. I like being lazy. But I didn’t do that much work today, so I feel like doing work now. I’m not actually tired right now. It’s pretty nice. Sorry that it’s so boring here.” She sits down again at the coffee table with a small black laptop, tucking her feet under her. Taguchi blinks as she looks completely comfortable.
“What?” Ri asks, opening her laptop. “Oh, sorry. It’s rude to go on a computer with a guest, isn’t it.” She looks a bit sheepish. “Uh. Do you want to play foldit?”
“Fold what?” Taguchi leans forward.
Ri tilts the screen towards him obligingly. “It’s a game. We played it in lab back at home.” There’s a wistful note in her voice. “Well, we didn’t play it that much. It’s more computational biochemistry than o-chem.”
“So how do you play?” Taguchi asks, feeling both out of his element and comfortable. It’s comfortable to be facing a screen to play, but he doesn’t think that this game is like Tales of Vesperia or Legend of Zelda.
Ri shows him, explaining how to pull the atoms around to make the protein fold right. “It’s a computational thing,” she says awkwardly. “It’s like, trying to use computers to explain chemistry. It’s not used in organic synthesis a lot. Not artistic enough.” She laughs a little again.
“So how do you know about it?”
“I had a six week internship in computational biochemistry research in high school.” She blinks, and then shrugs again, as if she didn’t realize what she was saying before she said it. “And my friend in physical biochemistry research showed me this game. If everybody plays, we can reduce the power it takes to compute protein folding.” Her eyes light up, and she beams. “It’d be wonderful. Think of all the research that could be done, just by the world working together a bit.”
It’s not a hard game. Taguchi’s good at games, and even if he prefers RPGs to puzzle games, he still enjoys them. This isn’t much more than trial and error with a lot of mouse-clicking too. It’s not hard, and it’s not really special, but it’s relaxing, and Ri watches as he folds his way through the first few simple puzzles.
That’s when her phone rings.
*
“Hello?” Ri says. “Uh, hello?” She settles back on her feet, and Taguchi pauses in folding a protein to watch her curiously.
“Who is it?” he asks.
“Hello?” Ri says again, starting to look annoyed. She shrugs at him, her face twisted into confusion and annoyance. There’s a mess of sound from the phone, and then Ri’s eyes narrow before she says, “Excuse me?”
Taguchi leans back to watch her.
“Yamashita-san, can I help you?” Ri asks, the look of confusion between her brows clearing.
He doesn’t remember Ri talking about a Yamashita before, but it’s a fairly common name, Taguchi thinks as he settles down to look at this protein. He’s never heard Ri talk about a Yamashita before, so he’s probably not a lab mate. A friend outside of lab? That doesn’t seem likely, considering that Ri spends as much time in lab as he does gaming.
“Free tickets?” Ri says, and this time she sounds more interested than polite. A pause, and then she says, “No train stations. Please.” She covers her phone and whispers to Taguchi, “Are you busy tonight?”
Taguchi shakes his head no.
“I can do midnight. Now.”
Taguchi blinks.
“Well, I have another round of reactions to run tomorrow,” Ri says thoughtfully. “So...” There’s a flurry of activity on the other side of the phone, and politely muttered goodbyes, and then she hangs up and turns to Taguchi. “I hope you don’t mind that I invited you to a movie.” She stands up and wanders over to the bathroom, rapping on the door. “Sen-chan, do you want to watch a movie tonight?”
“I don’t want to move my feet, let alone my legs,” Sen grumbles from the bathroom.
Ri shrugs easily, going to get her coat. Taguchi can see her running her fingers through her short hair from where he’s sitting. Her phone beeps then, with a new message.
“Ri-chan,” Taguchi sings, picking up the phone and handing it to her. “You have a message.”
Ri takes the phone from him with a smile. “Bring a hot friend?” she reads with confusion. “Yamashita-san has strange friends.” There’s a beep as another message comes in. “Please.” Her mouth twists as her phone beeps again. “It’s a good thing I have a good data plan,” she mutters as she opens the last message. She messages back quickly before dropping her phone in a coat pocket. She smiles at him, a bright grin that flashes all of her teeth at him. “Ready to go?”
*
It’s Yamashita and Nishikido.
It’s Yamapi and Ryo.
They take the train to the movie theatre, Ri’s hair curling around her cheeks as she studies the ads running along the train thoughtfully. They don’t talk much. Taguchi makes a few puns, and points out a few people he recognizes from JE, and Ri stiffles her laughter in the palm of her hand.
When they get off, Ri leads the way, straight towards Yamashita and Nishikido in awkward tacky disguises.
“This is your chemist?” Nishikido demands, glaring at Ri. “Wait, you brought him along because he’s your definition of hot?” He jerks his chin towards Taguchi.
Ri blinks mildly at Nishikido, a vague look of offense spreading across her face.
“Hello Nishikido-kun, Yamashita-kun.” Taguchi waves happily before Ri can say something that’ll set off Nishikido’s famed tongue.
“Good evening,” Yamashita replies, snatching the tickets out of Nishikido’s hands. “Taguchi-kun, I didn’t know that you and Rebecca-san... well I didn’t know that we both talked to the same chemist.”
I didn’t either, Taguchi thinks, glancing towards Ri, not entirely sure how she managed to get herself involved in the industry without even trying. “Ah, we share a chemist, yes Yamashita-kun?” Some girls spend years trying and failing, and Ri doesn’t even try. He smiles a bit. “Just like how two hydrogens share one oxygen!”
“Taguchi-kun,” Ri murmurs, glancing at him quickly with a disapproving glance. “That’s rather inappropriate.”
He smiles.
“But perhaps accurate,” she admits.
“You’re the girl from the rumor?” Nishikido shakes his head furiously.
Ri steps back a little, towards Taguchi. “Oh. That? Oh.” She hunches in a little uncomfortably, fiddling with the sleeves of her coat, and Taguchi nudges her back gently. “We aren’t...”
Taguchi studies Nishikido and Yamashita, both looking bowled over. He wants to wrap an arm around Ri’s shoulders for comfort, but she’d probably just give him a strange look.
Ri lifts her chin firmly. “Let’s go see the movie, shall we?”
Yamashita offers her the tickets, but Nishikido snatches them out of his hands and shove his finger towards Taguchi. “You. What are you doing here?”
Taguchi blinks and murmurs a quiet, “Oh,” and then beams. Ri settles down a bit, now that she isn’t the center of attention. She studies Nishikido a bit, and then glances at Yamashita, as if cataloging their reactions. “Ri-chan invited me. Sen-chan’s says that she doesn’t want to move out of the tub, let along the building. I had no idea that Nishikido-kun and Yamashita-kun liked to do group dates.”
“This,” Ryo snaps, “is not a date.”
“But for this movie, we’re definitely going to be late,” Taguchi comments, and Ri smiles a little.
The movie’s good, Taguchi thinks. Ri laughs at the right points, and she doesn’t notice when Yamashita and Nishikido scramble out of the seats. She does notice when they don’t return after the credits have finished running, and Taguchi just steers her out of the theatre, assuring her that Yamashita and Nishikido can take care of themselves, and gossip magazines aren’t that interested in two JE boys hanging out.
“Thanks for coming with me, Taguchi-kun,” Ri says quietly as they take the train back to her apartment. “You didn’t have to.” She’s smiling though, looking lighter, as if she needed the day off.
He smiles back. “You can call me Junnosuke, Ri-chan.”
She tries out his name on her tongue, thoughtfully. “It’s too long,” she decides finally. “Can I call you Jun-kun?”
It reminds him a bit of Matsumoto-senpai, but he smiles all the same. “Of course, Ri-chan. You can be Ri-chan, and I can be Jun-kun. We match!”
Ri laughs, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle her giggles. The train is quiet, with only them and a few other sleepy people in it. “You’re so silly, Jun-kun,” she says finally.
*
“Taguchi,” Kame practically screams when he shows up at work the next morning. “Taguchi, what are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, Kame-chan,” Taguchi says simply as he drops his bag down and settles on a couch with his DS. “Ri-chan won’t hurt me. She isn’t hurting Yamashita-kun, is she?”
It’s petty, but he slides headphones into his ears. He can still hear Kame spluttering through the tinny sounds of game music.
It feels pleasant.
*
Ri’s cheerful as she makes rice and stir-fry, humming a song under her breath.
“What are you humming?” Taguchi asks, handing her the salt when she reaches for it. He listens to all sorts of music, but he doesn’t think he’s heard this.
“Chinese stuff, I guess,” Ri says absently. She sings a few words, and then nods decisively. “Chinese. For sure. I’m going to go with rock.”
“I didn’t know you listen to Chinese music.”
She shrugs. “I grew up in Taiwan,” she says as if that explains everything. “I haven’t been listening to much music lately, I’m trying to improve my Japanese.”
“It’s very good already.”
“Not really,” she says, frowning as she tries the food and then nods, satisfied. “It’s different to talk to people in real life instead of in a classroom.”
“But you’re really good at talking in real life.” He blinks. “And in messages,” he adds.
She laughs, and puts the stir-fry on the table before fishing out her phone and tossing it to him. “Call Sen and ask her if she’s coming back for dinner.”
“What if she doesn’t pick up?” he asks, dialing.
“Then we’ll put aside a portion for her, the same way we would have if she did pick up.”
Sen does pick up. She’s upset when she hears Taguchi’s voice and demands: “Give Ri-chan back her phone,” and Ri rolls her eyes in amusement before asking if Sen wants rice and stir-fry now or in several hours.
When Ri hangs up, she says, “Sen-chan’s coming back now.” She laughs a bit. “We can wait, do you mind?”
Taguchi doesn’t.
“Was it a good day, today?” he asks.
“Mm, yeah. Stuff worked. You?”
Taguchi thinks of KAT-TUN and their squabbles. “About the same as always,” he says. “Kame-chan shouted and I played games.”
“Games?”
He offers her his DS, and she navigates the menu with comparative ease. “I thought you didn’t play games,” he says as she starts the game inside.
“I did. I gave it up in college. Too many other things to do. My roommate gamed though. We used to have gaming and potluck night once a week.”
She fiddles with the game he has inside-a puzzle game, not any of his RPGs-furrowing her brow in thought as she solves the puzzles.
That’s when Sen walks in, pulling of her heels. “Tadaima, Ri-chan!” Sen declares. “I missed you.” She decidedly ignores Taguchi.
“I saw you this morning when you were hogging the bathroom,” Ri replies, not looking up from the DS. “And I bought the miso even though you were supposed to yesterday. You owe me grocery money.”
Sen sits down and pouts.
Ri hands the DS back to Taguchi. “Are you ready to eat?” she looks at Sen. “Don’t forget to wash your hands. And don’t use hand sanitizer,” she adds sharply. “I’d rather not have super-bacteria breeding on your hands.”
Sen sulks, but goes to wash her hands.
They eat quietly. Ri eats quickly and without talking, and her responses to Sen’s statements are immured mm’s and mmhm’s. Sen’s ignoring Taguchi, and Taguchi takes the opportunity to savor Ri’s cooking, which is delicious.
“It’s too bad you’re always so busy,” Taguchi comments as he picks up the dishes to clear. “You’re good at cooking.”
Ri laughs. “Of course.” She nudges Sen with her feet. “Sen-chan. Don’t make our guest do the dishes.”
“Taguchi-kun isn’t my guest,” Sen says loftily.
“Sen.”
Sen stands and carries her bowl into the kitchen.
“Thank you, Sen-chan,” Ri says tiredly. She shakes her head at Taguchi in amusement.
“I want to play your DS,” Sen declares when she comes out.
Taguchi blinks. “My DS?” he repeats.
“Sen,” Ri says. “Be polite.”
“You let Ri-chan play it. Let me play too.”
“Sen-chan,” Ri says firmly. “You’re an adult. Act your age.”
Taguchi blinks, not certain what to say to Sen.
Sen frowns, and then glares at Taguchi. Taguchi blinks. “I don't like you,” Sen declares.
“Sen!”
“Ri-chan deserves better,” she says, nose in the air. Taguchi's never seen her this upset before-he's not even sure why she's upset; it can't because she wants to play his DS. He's almost about to let her have it-it's a puzzle game, not an RPG, and she can't really mess it up.
“Sen!” Ri steps between them, grabbing Sen by the shoulders. “Stop that. You aren’t three.”
Sen crosses her arms and glares.
Ri bows to Taguchi. “I’m really sorry for her,” she says. “She means well, she really does.” She smiles wryly.
“It’s alright, Ri-chan.” He smiles. “I should go, shouldn’t I? Deguchi, Taguchi!”
Ri laughs. “You don’t have to,” she says. “Sen-chan’s being childish.”
Sen glares from behind Ri.
Taguchi smiles at her. “Sen-chan,” he calls to the taller girl in the back. “Smile. Ri-chan likes to see people happy.”
He smiles at Ri before he leaves.
*
“You should try bubble spinner. It’s all about angles.”
“Is this what you do when you don’t work?” Taguchi replies. “Play online games?”
“No. Sometimes I play minesweeper. I had a great minesweeper record, and then I had to wipe my computer. I’ve never quite managed to make that time again.”
Taguchi stifles a laugh, and ignores Kamenashi hissing at him to pay attention in favor of opening the picture that Ri sent with her mail. It’s a picture of her computer screen, with two browsers open. One of them has a game that he assumes is bubble spinner. The other is a document full of words he doesn’t understand.
He takes a picture of Kamenashi’s enraged face and sends it back.
“Who is he, Jun-kun?” Ri sends a picture of glassware filled with dark liquid.
“My bandmate. What’s that?”
“Iodine. And other stuff, but iodine is what gives it it’s color.”
“Taguchi Junnosuke,” Kamenashi snarls. “I’m going to fucking kill you if you’re mailing that chemist girl of Yamashita’s. I don’t need to hear Ryo whine about Yamashita anymore.”
“Kame-chan says that he’s going to kill me. Why iodine?”
“What color roses would you like on your grave? Are roses customary in Japan? And you shouldn’t be mailing me if you’re at work, Jun-kun.”
“Aren’t you working?”
“Of course. I just finished my separation. It was horrible. I’m taking a break at the vending machine, trying to decide if I want soda.”
“Did you not sleep well?”
“We got back to my place late, remember? I’ll call you later. Work hard.”
Taguchi’s about to type a reply when Kamenashi jerks his phone out of his hands. “Taguchi,” Kame hisses. He stares at the message, and when his voice comes out, it’s smaller, but no less vehement. “Stop talking to this tramp, now.”
Taguchi stands up, ignoring the rest of KAT-TUN preparing to break them apart. “Ri-chan,” he says as calmly as he can as he takes his phone back. “Ri-chan is a chemist.”
*
His mother leaves him a message that he finds as he heads to lunch. “I cut out that picture of you and your new girlfriend in Bubka to keep in your rumors file. Why don’t you bring her back for New Years?”
*
Part II
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
More Music of the Spheres fanfiction here at the MotS tag