Under the Same Sky
TITLE: Under the Same Sky
GROUP: NEWS
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 2,534
SUMMARY: After Tegoshi and Masuda go missing (One Man’s Hell is Another Man’s Heaven), the rest of NEWS has to suffer through the waiting.
A/N: Happy birthday, Koyama ♥ ♥
The news is hard to take.
Koyama is pretty obviously in shock. Sitting in the hotel chair near the window, eyes wide, face pale. Ryo's hands are tight, fisted, posture tense, and any one could see that he's fighting the urge to freak out, start yelling, demand answers and a search team. Yamapi looks the same, perhaps more so, since he's the Leader and tends to feel that it's his duty to look out for the other members. Shige's sitting on the edge of the bed, head pounding, trying to take deep, calm breaths, and is failing. Miserably.
"Koyama," Pi says, clearing his throat. "Koyama. Come here."
He gets up, still in a daze and walks over to the double bed where Shige and Pi are, knocking into the table, but not whining about it. Ryo doesn't have to be told; he climbs onto the bed from where he'd been leaning against the wall. Pi reaches out to both sides, taking Ryo's left, and Shige's right hands into his and squeezing before he speaks.
"What do we do?"
-
No one had seen Tegoshi and Masuda off from the half-circle turn around in front of the hotel. At the time, it hadn't seemed like there was much point. They'd be seeing each other in a matter of hours; "goodbyes" were irrelevant. Pi and Ryo had already left on a bus heading for the best beach on the island for their day of surfing. Shige and Koyama were asking the hotel staff - in broken English - what kind of interesting, little-known sites were around.
Half-way through the day, Pi and Ryo decide to leave the beach early. The waves are high and strong - a surfer's dream - but some how don't look safe. The locals stand at the water's edge, looking out at the sea, and then start packing up their things. Grey clouds rolled in, and the pair figure it's was best to follow the wordless advise of those who know the area best.
When the breeze gets cold, Shige and Koyama go back to the hotel, taking their final pictures at the pineapple farm. At the hotel, they take long showers and order room service. As they eat, they watch American sitcoms and make up lines for the characters, since their English is too fast to understand.
At 7:30pm, Yamapi comes to visit Koyama and Shige in their room. He lounges across Shige's bed, just to annoy him and mess up the blankets, and tells them about the white sand and all the little birds and the girls in tiny bikinis. Ryo comes over eventually too, but he says it's only because Pi kept calling him.
By 8:30pm, Koyama is worried. He's tried calling both Tegoshi and Masuda's phones, but to no avail.
"They should be back by now!" Koyama freets, but Pi just pats him on the back.
"I bet their phones got wet and are broken. And Masuda was probably hungry, so they went straight to dinner. It's fine, don't worry."
But at 9pm, Pi's manager knocks on the door, face grey, and asks if all of them are in the room. They can all tell something is wrong by his face and demeanor, but he gives no hints. Just tells them all to sit down, take a deep breath and believe him when he says everything is being done.
"The boat that Tegoshi-kun and Masuda-kun went out on-" He stops, puts his face in his hands, and after a whole minute of silence says, "The Coast Guard can't find it."
-
None of them sleep that night. They try though. Brush their teeth, put on pajamas, lie under the covers in the dark for hours in silence. After two hours, there's a knock on the door, and Pi is noticeably not surprised when he opens it, finding Koyama, clutching a pillow to his chest and Shige, hanging back like he's embarrassed. No one says anything; Pi just moves out of the way and turns on the lamp by the door for some light.
"Do you think they're okay?" Koyama whispers, his voice hoarse, and Pi thinks it's pretty obvious that he's been crying.
-
Some time in the late morning, the manager comes up to the rooms, and tells them that part of the boat was found. Every one is desperate for good news, or a sign that Tegoshi and Masuda are okay, but the manager doesn't have anything else to report.
"I know this is a hard time for you all, so I'll arrange for you to go back to Japan."
"We're not leaving," Pi says. "We arrived as a group and that's how we'll leave."
The manager sighs. "Yamashita-kun, that's-"
"No," he says again, and the manager realizes he's fighting a loosing battle.
-
On that second day, Johnny calls them.
"A lot of questions are being asked and we can only hold them off for so long. You all might be needing to do a press conference."
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because by 5pm in the conference hall of the hotel, reporters and cameramen are lined up, curious, having heard about the boat sinking but not having any sense on the subject or the missing passengers. The story is all the more interesting because of Tegoshi and Masuda's positions as idols.
The translator is an older Asian man who speaks Japanese with a cliche American accent and the four of them go into a daze whenever he speaks, regardless of which language he's speaking in. For the most part, they're more than happy to let the managers do the talking, but when the pushiest of the reporters demands a statement from the idols themselves, it can't be helped.
The mic is handed automatically to Pi, and he nearly drops it once it's in his hand. He knows he looks awful, his clothes are wrinkled and he hasn't shaved for two days, but he doesn't especially care. When he looks out at the reporters and cameramen, all he sees is a group of vultures, uncaring to the crisis that he's in. That NEWS is in. That Tegoshi and Masuda's families are in. They just want something dramatic to report about. He turns to the others. Koyama is paler than normal and wringing his hands, Ryo looks grim and Shige looks like he's about to pass-out. He imagines Tegoshi and Masuda out at sea, having their fun day and then-
And then he doesn't know. Because no one knows what happened. The boat sank. He's desperate to hear good news on the two of them, and he won't even let himself think the worst. Because it's Tegoshi and Masuda. They were together, he thinks, When they're together, they can do anything.
Distantly, he hears his name being called and it's only when he brings a hand up to his face, does Yamashita Tomohisa realize that he's crying.
-
On the third day, an officer with the US Coast Guard comes to talk with them. He says the search is still going on, but that things aren't looking good. He recommends that they prepare themselves to hear the worst.
Koyama starts crying once he leaves the room, and within minutes, they all are.
-
They're restless all night - like every night - feeling useless, like all they are able to do is sit around and wait, be passive in the search, when they want to help. Early in the morning, Shige goes out and buys a map, sick of the established status quo when it comes to the search. As he's walking through the lobby, he grabs one of the day cruise pamphlets that's still out with the others for tourist attractions. He spreads the map - it's of Hawaii, marking even the smallest and most unimportant islands - across his bed and spends hours sifting through the information on the pamphlet, until there's a new long, black line cutting through the islands, tracing the advertised path of the boat.
Ryo sounds angry when he asks Shige what good it'll do, but the hope in his voice is evident.
In the afternoon, when a Coast Guard representative comes to keep them up to speed, he looks depressed, guilty. Before he leaves, Shige gives him the map.
"Yes, we know the path of the boat," he says through the translator.
"What if the captain changed it?"
"We're taking that into account."
"How much into account? What about the ecological preservation islands?"
The representative sighs, refolds the map and gives it back to Shige. "We're doing everything we can," he says, and then leaves.
The four of them curl up on one of the beds after that, in silence.
"What good did that do?" Koyama whispers after a while.
Shige opens the map and points to a small series of islands, two miles away from the nearest point on the boat's path. "These are protected islands. People can't go there."
"So?"
"What if the boat went there? What if the Coast Guard isn't looking there because they're figuring the boat would know not to go there?"
"What are you getting at?" Ryo asks.
"I want to hire a plane. And go look myself."
Yamapi pulls the map closer to himself and pours over it for a long time, and then stands. "C'mon."
"Where to?"
"The ATM."
And in silent candor, the four of them tromp down to the hotel lobby and gather around the ATM in the corner, withdrawing as much cash as possible and handing it all over to Shige. On the shelf of tourist pamphlets, they find several aerial sightseeing planes for-hire, and Koyama's hands start shaking.
-
Shige has to call five pilots, all in broken, stressed-out English before he finds one that's even willing to take him out as far as the protected islands. The pilot's booked full until Thursday, and he tells Shige that he'll have to wait until then to go out. Shige swears in Japanese, but he has no choice.
The next two days are a blur. The four of them going through the motions of eating, sleeping, living, but it's all a farce. With each day, the Coast Guard representative looks increasingly hopeless, telling them there's no new information, and then leaving as quickly as possible, unable to deal with the look in the four sets of eyes. Both nights until the flight, Koyama breaks down crying, the hope over-whelming him. On one occasion, Shige cries too. And on the other, Pi and Ryo do too.
Thursday morning, Ryo, Pi and Koyama stand on the curb, seeing Shige off into the cab.
"Why aren't any of you coming?"
"I can't- I can't-" And Koyama buries his face in his hands again.
Pi rubs his back, and it's obvious why he's staying.
"Just go yourself," Ryo says. "So that when you find them, you can brag about being a genius later."
The airstrip is a grassy field, flags set-up at specific intervals to mark the distance. There's plane out, door open, and there's a man leaning against the side, smoking a cigarette.
"Kato?" He says, and Shige nods. "I'm Kapio, the pilot."
Shige gives him the map. "The eco-ecolog-"
"The ecological preserve islands?"
"Yes. There please."
Kapio stares at Shige for a long time, like he's studying him, and it's like the whole thing clicks for the pilot, why this Japanese man wants to go out to some tiny, meaningless islands, near where the Coast Guard is searching. He doesn't waste any time after that, ushering Shige into the plane and taking off.
It's a small chain of four islands that they're heading for, and it's takes half-an-hour to reach the first one. As they circle it, the pilot takes the plane lower, and Shige presses his face against the window, but after 15 minutes and three trips around it, all they've seen are some birds and dolphins in the shallows. The second and third islands go the same, but take longer since they're larger. As they reach the fourth island, the pilot steers the plane a little awkwardly and says something about clouds, but he's muttering, and Shige can't understand. But as they get closer, there's a black plume rising up from the far side of the island that disapates quickly once it's hit with oceanly winds and Shige dares to hope. As they go past the plume and turn around it, Shige is looking desperately, for Tegoshi and Masuda on the beach, an obnoxious orange life-preserver, anything. But it's just the plume.
The pilot picks up his radio, and calls something in, turning away from the island, back towards Oahu. Shige just rests his forehead against the window and cries.
It seems like hours, days, years even, before he returns to the hotel, running through the lobby, frantically pressing the elevator button and crashing into the room where they've all been staying. Koyama jolts up from the bed, Ryo and Pi turn from the table in the corner.
They all stare, waiting for an answer, but Shige just stands in the doorway, gasping for breath. His eyes say everything though. There's life back in them, a sparkle, and within seconds, the other three are mirroring that look.
-
Three hours later the Coast Guard representative comes to visit them, a wide smile on his face.
"We found them. They're on their way in."
The representative tells his collegues later that he was a little surprised at their lack of response. Certainly, there were smiles and "Thank you for your hard work"'s, but much less celebration than other similar cases.
"Well, they're Japanese, right? Maybe that has something to do with it," he's told.
But it had nothing to do with that. For the three hours before the representative had arrived, the four of them knew that Tegoshi and Masuda were alive and that by the end of the night, they'd all be re-united. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise. It was a delivery of the news they already had.
That doesn't stop the adrenaline though, as they watch the Coast Guard boat pull up, and the plank reach out to the pier. Together, the four of them step forward, only to be outdone by reports and cameraman, desperate for that first picture or question. At the top, just outside of the boat, Tegoshi is standing there, holding Masuda hand, looking tired, red and like he's just spent the better part of a week on a deserted island.
Ryo takes the first action, grabbing the nearest cameraman and pushing him out of the way, knocking him into a reporter. They both swear, yell at Ryo, but he doesn't care. Just keeps doing it, shoving people out of his way, smashing through the crowd, Yamapi, Shige and Koyama following directly behind him. When they're finally through the final circle, Tegoshi and Masuda are right there, at the bottom of the plank, like all their movements were perfectly choreographed to meet at the same moment.
They huddle together on the pier, eyes wet and crying like babies, the sun setting behind, and don't even notice the flash of cameras or the yelling of reporters.
GROUP: NEWS
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 2,534
SUMMARY: After Tegoshi and Masuda go missing (One Man’s Hell is Another Man’s Heaven), the rest of NEWS has to suffer through the waiting.
A/N: Happy birthday, Koyama ♥ ♥
The news is hard to take.
Koyama is pretty obviously in shock. Sitting in the hotel chair near the window, eyes wide, face pale. Ryo's hands are tight, fisted, posture tense, and any one could see that he's fighting the urge to freak out, start yelling, demand answers and a search team. Yamapi looks the same, perhaps more so, since he's the Leader and tends to feel that it's his duty to look out for the other members. Shige's sitting on the edge of the bed, head pounding, trying to take deep, calm breaths, and is failing. Miserably.
"Koyama," Pi says, clearing his throat. "Koyama. Come here."
He gets up, still in a daze and walks over to the double bed where Shige and Pi are, knocking into the table, but not whining about it. Ryo doesn't have to be told; he climbs onto the bed from where he'd been leaning against the wall. Pi reaches out to both sides, taking Ryo's left, and Shige's right hands into his and squeezing before he speaks.
"What do we do?"
-
No one had seen Tegoshi and Masuda off from the half-circle turn around in front of the hotel. At the time, it hadn't seemed like there was much point. They'd be seeing each other in a matter of hours; "goodbyes" were irrelevant. Pi and Ryo had already left on a bus heading for the best beach on the island for their day of surfing. Shige and Koyama were asking the hotel staff - in broken English - what kind of interesting, little-known sites were around.
Half-way through the day, Pi and Ryo decide to leave the beach early. The waves are high and strong - a surfer's dream - but some how don't look safe. The locals stand at the water's edge, looking out at the sea, and then start packing up their things. Grey clouds rolled in, and the pair figure it's was best to follow the wordless advise of those who know the area best.
When the breeze gets cold, Shige and Koyama go back to the hotel, taking their final pictures at the pineapple farm. At the hotel, they take long showers and order room service. As they eat, they watch American sitcoms and make up lines for the characters, since their English is too fast to understand.
At 7:30pm, Yamapi comes to visit Koyama and Shige in their room. He lounges across Shige's bed, just to annoy him and mess up the blankets, and tells them about the white sand and all the little birds and the girls in tiny bikinis. Ryo comes over eventually too, but he says it's only because Pi kept calling him.
By 8:30pm, Koyama is worried. He's tried calling both Tegoshi and Masuda's phones, but to no avail.
"They should be back by now!" Koyama freets, but Pi just pats him on the back.
"I bet their phones got wet and are broken. And Masuda was probably hungry, so they went straight to dinner. It's fine, don't worry."
But at 9pm, Pi's manager knocks on the door, face grey, and asks if all of them are in the room. They can all tell something is wrong by his face and demeanor, but he gives no hints. Just tells them all to sit down, take a deep breath and believe him when he says everything is being done.
"The boat that Tegoshi-kun and Masuda-kun went out on-" He stops, puts his face in his hands, and after a whole minute of silence says, "The Coast Guard can't find it."
-
None of them sleep that night. They try though. Brush their teeth, put on pajamas, lie under the covers in the dark for hours in silence. After two hours, there's a knock on the door, and Pi is noticeably not surprised when he opens it, finding Koyama, clutching a pillow to his chest and Shige, hanging back like he's embarrassed. No one says anything; Pi just moves out of the way and turns on the lamp by the door for some light.
"Do you think they're okay?" Koyama whispers, his voice hoarse, and Pi thinks it's pretty obvious that he's been crying.
-
Some time in the late morning, the manager comes up to the rooms, and tells them that part of the boat was found. Every one is desperate for good news, or a sign that Tegoshi and Masuda are okay, but the manager doesn't have anything else to report.
"I know this is a hard time for you all, so I'll arrange for you to go back to Japan."
"We're not leaving," Pi says. "We arrived as a group and that's how we'll leave."
The manager sighs. "Yamashita-kun, that's-"
"No," he says again, and the manager realizes he's fighting a loosing battle.
-
On that second day, Johnny calls them.
"A lot of questions are being asked and we can only hold them off for so long. You all might be needing to do a press conference."
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because by 5pm in the conference hall of the hotel, reporters and cameramen are lined up, curious, having heard about the boat sinking but not having any sense on the subject or the missing passengers. The story is all the more interesting because of Tegoshi and Masuda's positions as idols.
The translator is an older Asian man who speaks Japanese with a cliche American accent and the four of them go into a daze whenever he speaks, regardless of which language he's speaking in. For the most part, they're more than happy to let the managers do the talking, but when the pushiest of the reporters demands a statement from the idols themselves, it can't be helped.
The mic is handed automatically to Pi, and he nearly drops it once it's in his hand. He knows he looks awful, his clothes are wrinkled and he hasn't shaved for two days, but he doesn't especially care. When he looks out at the reporters and cameramen, all he sees is a group of vultures, uncaring to the crisis that he's in. That NEWS is in. That Tegoshi and Masuda's families are in. They just want something dramatic to report about. He turns to the others. Koyama is paler than normal and wringing his hands, Ryo looks grim and Shige looks like he's about to pass-out. He imagines Tegoshi and Masuda out at sea, having their fun day and then-
And then he doesn't know. Because no one knows what happened. The boat sank. He's desperate to hear good news on the two of them, and he won't even let himself think the worst. Because it's Tegoshi and Masuda. They were together, he thinks, When they're together, they can do anything.
Distantly, he hears his name being called and it's only when he brings a hand up to his face, does Yamashita Tomohisa realize that he's crying.
-
On the third day, an officer with the US Coast Guard comes to talk with them. He says the search is still going on, but that things aren't looking good. He recommends that they prepare themselves to hear the worst.
Koyama starts crying once he leaves the room, and within minutes, they all are.
-
They're restless all night - like every night - feeling useless, like all they are able to do is sit around and wait, be passive in the search, when they want to help. Early in the morning, Shige goes out and buys a map, sick of the established status quo when it comes to the search. As he's walking through the lobby, he grabs one of the day cruise pamphlets that's still out with the others for tourist attractions. He spreads the map - it's of Hawaii, marking even the smallest and most unimportant islands - across his bed and spends hours sifting through the information on the pamphlet, until there's a new long, black line cutting through the islands, tracing the advertised path of the boat.
Ryo sounds angry when he asks Shige what good it'll do, but the hope in his voice is evident.
In the afternoon, when a Coast Guard representative comes to keep them up to speed, he looks depressed, guilty. Before he leaves, Shige gives him the map.
"Yes, we know the path of the boat," he says through the translator.
"What if the captain changed it?"
"We're taking that into account."
"How much into account? What about the ecological preservation islands?"
The representative sighs, refolds the map and gives it back to Shige. "We're doing everything we can," he says, and then leaves.
The four of them curl up on one of the beds after that, in silence.
"What good did that do?" Koyama whispers after a while.
Shige opens the map and points to a small series of islands, two miles away from the nearest point on the boat's path. "These are protected islands. People can't go there."
"So?"
"What if the boat went there? What if the Coast Guard isn't looking there because they're figuring the boat would know not to go there?"
"What are you getting at?" Ryo asks.
"I want to hire a plane. And go look myself."
Yamapi pulls the map closer to himself and pours over it for a long time, and then stands. "C'mon."
"Where to?"
"The ATM."
And in silent candor, the four of them tromp down to the hotel lobby and gather around the ATM in the corner, withdrawing as much cash as possible and handing it all over to Shige. On the shelf of tourist pamphlets, they find several aerial sightseeing planes for-hire, and Koyama's hands start shaking.
-
Shige has to call five pilots, all in broken, stressed-out English before he finds one that's even willing to take him out as far as the protected islands. The pilot's booked full until Thursday, and he tells Shige that he'll have to wait until then to go out. Shige swears in Japanese, but he has no choice.
The next two days are a blur. The four of them going through the motions of eating, sleeping, living, but it's all a farce. With each day, the Coast Guard representative looks increasingly hopeless, telling them there's no new information, and then leaving as quickly as possible, unable to deal with the look in the four sets of eyes. Both nights until the flight, Koyama breaks down crying, the hope over-whelming him. On one occasion, Shige cries too. And on the other, Pi and Ryo do too.
Thursday morning, Ryo, Pi and Koyama stand on the curb, seeing Shige off into the cab.
"Why aren't any of you coming?"
"I can't- I can't-" And Koyama buries his face in his hands again.
Pi rubs his back, and it's obvious why he's staying.
"Just go yourself," Ryo says. "So that when you find them, you can brag about being a genius later."
The airstrip is a grassy field, flags set-up at specific intervals to mark the distance. There's plane out, door open, and there's a man leaning against the side, smoking a cigarette.
"Kato?" He says, and Shige nods. "I'm Kapio, the pilot."
Shige gives him the map. "The eco-ecolog-"
"The ecological preserve islands?"
"Yes. There please."
Kapio stares at Shige for a long time, like he's studying him, and it's like the whole thing clicks for the pilot, why this Japanese man wants to go out to some tiny, meaningless islands, near where the Coast Guard is searching. He doesn't waste any time after that, ushering Shige into the plane and taking off.
It's a small chain of four islands that they're heading for, and it's takes half-an-hour to reach the first one. As they circle it, the pilot takes the plane lower, and Shige presses his face against the window, but after 15 minutes and three trips around it, all they've seen are some birds and dolphins in the shallows. The second and third islands go the same, but take longer since they're larger. As they reach the fourth island, the pilot steers the plane a little awkwardly and says something about clouds, but he's muttering, and Shige can't understand. But as they get closer, there's a black plume rising up from the far side of the island that disapates quickly once it's hit with oceanly winds and Shige dares to hope. As they go past the plume and turn around it, Shige is looking desperately, for Tegoshi and Masuda on the beach, an obnoxious orange life-preserver, anything. But it's just the plume.
The pilot picks up his radio, and calls something in, turning away from the island, back towards Oahu. Shige just rests his forehead against the window and cries.
It seems like hours, days, years even, before he returns to the hotel, running through the lobby, frantically pressing the elevator button and crashing into the room where they've all been staying. Koyama jolts up from the bed, Ryo and Pi turn from the table in the corner.
They all stare, waiting for an answer, but Shige just stands in the doorway, gasping for breath. His eyes say everything though. There's life back in them, a sparkle, and within seconds, the other three are mirroring that look.
-
Three hours later the Coast Guard representative comes to visit them, a wide smile on his face.
"We found them. They're on their way in."
The representative tells his collegues later that he was a little surprised at their lack of response. Certainly, there were smiles and "Thank you for your hard work"'s, but much less celebration than other similar cases.
"Well, they're Japanese, right? Maybe that has something to do with it," he's told.
But it had nothing to do with that. For the three hours before the representative had arrived, the four of them knew that Tegoshi and Masuda were alive and that by the end of the night, they'd all be re-united. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise. It was a delivery of the news they already had.
That doesn't stop the adrenaline though, as they watch the Coast Guard boat pull up, and the plank reach out to the pier. Together, the four of them step forward, only to be outdone by reports and cameraman, desperate for that first picture or question. At the top, just outside of the boat, Tegoshi is standing there, holding Masuda hand, looking tired, red and like he's just spent the better part of a week on a deserted island.
Ryo takes the first action, grabbing the nearest cameraman and pushing him out of the way, knocking him into a reporter. They both swear, yell at Ryo, but he doesn't care. Just keeps doing it, shoving people out of his way, smashing through the crowd, Yamapi, Shige and Koyama following directly behind him. When they're finally through the final circle, Tegoshi and Masuda are right there, at the bottom of the plank, like all their movements were perfectly choreographed to meet at the same moment.
They huddle together on the pier, eyes wet and crying like babies, the sun setting behind, and don't even notice the flash of cameras or the yelling of reporters.