The Man in the Blue Box
Title: The Man in the Blue Box
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun; Ninomiya Kazunari; The Eleventh Doctor (Doctor Who)
Summary: Nino was big on magic, but it didn't extend much beyond sleight of hand. His bandmate had definitely not developed the ability to make giant blue boxes appear in the Tokyo Dome hallway.
Notes/Warnings: For this year's je_justfriends exchange! It helps if you know Doctor Who going in :)
Even after so many years performing there, Matsumoto Jun still thought it was amazing to wander the corridors of the Tokyo Dome. How many people in Japan, Dome staff excluded, had the privilege to walk around the empty structure, checking out the views from the very last row of seats to ensure that the performance those guests could see would be just as rewarding as the one those closer could see?
Maybe he was weird. Okay, Jun decided, he definitely was weird - it was almost time for the very first Arashi Waku Waku School presentation here at the Dome, and the view from the last row of seats was probably not going to be as rewarding this time around. He frowned, staring all the way down to the stage set-up. Unlike one of their concerts, they were striving to save energy - dimming the lights, not using all the power necessary to send them around on moving platforms, and definitely no flashy costumes. Jun just hoped it would still be special for the guests.
It was still three hours before show time, and he watched the staff get things ready. It was time to stop sitting in the nosebleed seats and get downstairs to prepare for the show. He took the balcony stairs two at a time, heading out the nearest exit only to immediately collide with one of the other members.
"Ow!" Nino cried, nearly falling to the ground and bracing himself against the wall. "There you are."
Jun rolled his eyes. "Be more careful where you're walking. Getting injured now would be incredibly stupid."
"Says the guy who just ran into me," Nino grumbled before tugging Jun forward by the wrist and dragging him down the cavernous hallway. "Didn't take your cell phone up to the balcony with you. We've got a million and a half staff running around looking for you, and why am I the one who ends up finding you?"
He grinned. "I guess you just have a special Matsumoto detection instinct."
"Either way, Professor, your bento is ready. Ugh, I feel like your manager."
Jun was ready to tease Nino in return, but they froze in their tracks as they heard the noise. It was a loud howling wheeze, and he felt Nino's fingernails dig into his forearm in fright. Was it a siren? An alarm? Was something wrong at the Dome? He'd never heard a sound like that in his life.
And just as he was about to suggest that he and Nino hurry down to the Arashi dressing room, the noisy siren grew louder and something started to materialize in the corridor right before their eyes. "I swear," Nino was crying over the noise, "I swear this isn't Ni no Arashi!"
They stood there dumbfounded as a large blue box appeared out of nowhere. Jun's brain was working overtime. Yeah, this was obviously not a Ni no Arashi prank - Nino was big on magic, but it didn't extend much beyond sleight of hand. His bandmate had definitely not developed the ability to make giant blue boxes appear in the Tokyo Dome hallway.
"What is that?" Nino asked, still terrified. For all that Nino tried to act tough, he didn't like the unpredictable. And Jun definitely hated the unpredictable.
"Do you have your phone? We should call security," he said as they edged back and away from the strange box.
"I'm about to pee my pants. Getting my cell phone out of my pocket is not the type of multitasking I can accomplish right now, Jun-kun."
They froze again as the door to the strange blue box opened and an even stranger looking person emerged. He wasn't Japanese and had a floppy mess of light hair. He was wearing a tweed jacket, bow tie, and a button down shirt.
"Hello!" the man said in perfect Japanese. "Hello, hello. Where am I? Is this where I'm supposed to be?"
Nino and Jun didn't move.
The man pulled the door of the blue box closed behind him, moving around as though men appeared out of nowhere with blue boxes all the time. He looked down the Tokyo Dome corridor. "Hmm, thought I would have landed outside." He patted the box almost affectionately. "Acting a bit cheeky today, aren't we?"
"Say something," Nino hissed, shoving Jun forward.
Jun's tongue was tied. Why did he have to talk to the strange man? Why couldn't they just run the opposite way? It wasn't lacking in manliness to run away from crazy people. "You..."
The man looked back and smiled. "Oh, brilliant. You do talk. I was worried you were both mute for a second." He hurried forward. "Nice to meet you. Oh, and have you seen any Melliflorians running around the Dome here? This is the Tokyo Dome, right?"
"Melli-what?" Jun sputtered.
The man cocked his head a bit to stare at Nino. "Hello!"
"H-hello," Nino squeaked.
"Yeah, I'm going to need the both of you to speak a bit louder and with a bit more confidence because we're running out of time here. Oh wait, today's the 24th of June, yes?"
They nodded.
"And this is the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, the 24th of June, 2011?"
They nodded again.
"Great! Brilliant! I love Japan. Been ages since I've popped over. Had a nasty run-in the last time I was in Kyoto, but that was a few me's back." He threw his arms around them. "But not a lot of time for idle chatter. Introductions. Me, I'm the Doctor, that's my TARDIS, and I need you two to help me find a few nasty aliens."
"But...but aliens don't exist," Jun muttered. Had nobody else in the entire Dome heard the commotion? Where was security? Where was anyone to help him and Nino before the crazy man ripped off his bow tie and strangled them with it?
Nino was turning green. "By any chance, you haven't just escaped from a mental hospital, have you?"
The Doctor (the Doctor of what? Doctor who?) ignored Nino's question. "Okay, okay, I guess I'm being rude. Me, still the Doctor. And you?"
"Matsumoto Jun."
"Ninomiya Kazunari."
The Doctor started dragging them down the hall in the opposite direction of his strange box. "Shorten those for me a bit because we are running low on minutes, and Japan needs you today."
If he cried out for help, would anyone save them from this insane person?
"I'm Nino," Nino said weakly. "You can just call him J."
"J? The letter J?" the Doctor inquired.
"Do not call me J," Jun protested. "Matsujun, Matsumoto-san, Jun even..."
"J then. Much better," the Doctor replied. "That's as easy to say as Raxacoricofallapatorius."
"J, maybe we should just do as The Doctor says," Nino muttered.
"Listen, Doctor," Jun grumbled, wrenching himself from the crazy man's grasp. "Since you are not my personal physician, I don't have to follow your orders. I don't know how you got here, and I hope you find what you're looking for, but you picked a bad time to come to the Tokyo Dome. Nino and I are in a music group, and we're going to perform in a few hours. So before we have you arrested..."
There was an animalistic growl just around the corner of the corridor, and Jun soon found the Doctor's hand over his mouth as the three of them flattened themselves against the wall in fright. First the blue box and now something else?
"Ssh, J," The Doctor insisted. "I told you. I need you two. Japan needs you two. That growl you just heard, that growl is the sound of a creature who is frightened, and far more frightened than you are right now. On June 24, 2011, three Melliflorians from the Chi Draconis system end up at the Tokyo Dome and kill thousands of innocent people."
"What are you talking about?" Nino moaned. Was there a terrorist threat? Was someone going to bomb the Tokyo Dome during the Waku Waku School event?
"They ended up here by mistake, took a wrong turn at the Kuiper Belt, as one so often does. And they are hungry. So if we do nothing, people are going to die. But the only thing that can destroy them is a storm. And as fantastic as I am," the Doctor explained, "one Time Lord in the Tokyo Dome may not be enough to stop them."
"Wait," Jun said, "what's that about a storm?"
The Doctor flailed his hands a bit. "I don't know, I don't know, it was a translation of a translation of a translation, and we are running out of time. I need a storm, but I suppose the sprinkler system would work. Where can I find the main controls for that without having to set a fire in here?"
Nino and Jun's eyes met. "Well," Jun said. "Technically, we're a storm."
The Doctor pulled a strange item out from inside his jacket. It lit-up in blue and made a slight buzzing noise as the Doctor...scanned him with it.
"What are you doing to him?" Nino asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no, unless you're smuggling a cumulonimbus cloud somewhere..."
Jun rolled his eyes. "No, would you listen to me? We're a storm, me and Nino. Well, two-fifths of one. It's our group. We're Arashi. Your Japanese is perfect, and you don't understand that?"
The Doctor turned off his strange little scanner. "My Japanese is courtesy of the TARDIS, so forgive me if I have no idea what you mean. But if you really are a storm, then I was right about needing your help. And urgently."
Whatever creature had managed to get into the Tokyo Dome roared again. And now there were more of them and approaching quickly. Where the hell was security at a time like this?
"We should get Aiba-chan," Nino said. "He'd be good at capturing wild animals."
"These aren't animals," the Doctor insisted. "They're aliens. Nasty ones. But they're just lost and scared. So here's the plan. I've got it all set up so their bodies will freeze up as soon as they get inside, and we'll just bring them home. Nino, you're going to stand by the TARDIS and hold the door open..."
"I don't know what a TARDIS is!" Nino hissed.
The Doctor yanked Nino back to the blue box. "The TARDIS. My ship."
"Your box is a ship?" Nino asked.
"More on that later." The Doctor opened the door to the blue box. "Now hold this open so your friend J and I can chase them inside."
But Nino and Jun had obviously stopped listening as soon as they'd seen inside the TARDIS from the open doorway. It was impossible, Jun thought. There was no way this strange blue box - a blue box that had already appeared out of thin air - was a spaceship. And even as Jun looked around the outside, seeing the box's dimensions, it simply did not match up inside.
He and Nino peered through the open door, seeing a huge open control room the size of a planetarium dome within. "It's bigger on the inside," Nino murmured.
Maybe Jun had fallen asleep in the stands of the Dome. Maybe this was all some silly dream, but even then this crazy Doctor was hauling him back down the hallway. "Here, you lure them with my Sonic Screwdriver. Melliflorians like the bright lights, so just hold it overhead and run like the devil into the TARDIS."
"Wait," Jun said. "They're going to chase me?" Alien or animal, Jun wasn't sure he could outrun something that sounded as nasty as these things did.
"I'll bring up the rear, make sure you get all three. Oh, and don't let them nibble on any of your limbs because their spittle is poisonous. Here we go!" the Doctor said, bringing Jun around the corner and shoving the little scanner with the blue light into his hand.
Jun's jaw dropped as he came face to snout with three large...things. They were neon yellow with large scales and enormous jaws, their bodies maybe three times the size of a human. "Doctor?" Jun whispered. Yep, he was going to die.
The Doctor patted him on the back. "Blue light, off to the TARDIS. Get moving!"
One of the creatures growled in his face, its nasty breath enough to convince Jun that this wasn't just some prank from the staff. These definitely weren't animals from Earth. He was pretty sure Aiba would confirm that for him if he was here. But aliens? Real honest to goodness aliens? Here, in the Tokyo Dome? Jun knew that the fans were all queued up outside, and he'd never forgive himself if any of them got hurt.
Maybe the "storm" the Doctor had mentioned really was Arashi. Maybe he and Nino were the only ones who could help.
He pressed down on the device's button. What had the Doctor called it? A sonic something or other? It made the same buzzing sound and the end glowed blue, just as it had before. The creatures only growled louder, crouching down almost like cats preparing to pounce.
And Jun was off, running frantically with the sonic thing held over his head. He wouldn't admit to it later, but he was screaming a bit like a young girl as he lured the nasty beasts back to the TARDIS. He could hear the Doctor behind him clapping his hands, urging the creatures forward almost like a farmer trying to get some pigs back in their pen.
"Nino, hold the door. Nino, hold the door. Nino, hold the door!" he shrieked as he rounded the corner and saw his bandmate once more. Nino's grip on the door was precarious, and both he and the door were shaking in terror.
Jun could sense the things at his heels, making that same roaring noise, and it only urged him on faster. He knew they'd be running and pedaling bikes during Waku Waku School and exhausted was the last condition he needed to be in, but he was putting far more effort into not getting killed.
He ran through the TARDIS entryway and past a horrified Nino, hurrying up a short metal staircase and around the strange console full of knobs and levers in the center of the TARDIS. It was impossible, this whole place was impossible given the size of the blue box, but he didn't care because he heard the roars suddenly stop.
He heard the squeak of the TARDIS door and turned around slowly to see the three aliens frozen solid: one having chased him to the stairs, the other two in the entryway. The Doctor had an arm around Nino's shoulder as they inched around the creatures.
"Marvelous work! Simply extraordinary, like a hurricane gale, J. Definitely the storm I needed. Splendid!" the Doctor praised him, prying Jun's fingers off of his Sonic Screwdriver to take it back.
Nino had his arms crossed and was staring up at one of the aliens. "They're in costumes, right?" he asked quietly. "There's a senpai we've managed to piss off, and this is just their revenge. Right, Jun-kun? It's all just a prank?"
The Doctor flipped a few levers, and the ground jolted under Jun. It wasn't an earthquake - it was almost as if the TARDIS was going to move.
"Wait, what are you doing?" he asked the Doctor, still not wanting to take a closer look at the hideous beasts standing still, mid-chase. The central column of the console started to glow and pulse with the same whooshing whirr they'd heard before the Doctor had first arrived.
The Doctor was wandering from control panel to control panel. "I'd say hold onto something, J, because we need to get them back home."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nino said. "We helped you with your dangerous zookeeping, Doctor Nutjob, and now it's time to let me and Jun-kun go back to being normal people with exceptionally abnormal careers."
Jun would argue that the Doctor had given him the far more dangerous task, but that was neither here nor there. "You can't take us anywhere. That's kidnapping! And they'll know that we're gone!"
"I still need your help." The Doctor looked at him oddly. "I'll bring you back in no time."
"But that's exactly what we have," Nino argued, "No time. We should have been eating, and the staff and the other members will worry, and the fans will cry, and...I sound completely like Sho-chan right now, but let us out of this box!"
"No, I mean I'll bring you back in no time. When I bring you back, no time will have actually elapsed. That's the magic of the TARDIS, you see," the Doctor said. And with one more pushed lever, the TARDIS shook violently, and Jun clung to the metal railing. Nino was left with no choice but to hold on to one of the frozen aliens.
"This isn't real," Nino was murmuring. "You know, I was fine with that weird UFO guy back when we filmed G no Arashi, but this...this I don't have the mental stamina to handle."
"For goodness sake, you two are a pair of whiners," the Doctor chided them. "Are the rest of your Arashi people this stubborn?"
Jun thought about it. Nino thought about it. "Be glad you didn't ask Sakurai-san for help," they somehow managed to say in unison.
When the TARDIS made the same screechy noise a few moments later, the Doctor turned back to them with a smile. "Very good! Very good time to Chi Draconis. Now the forcefield the TARDIS has surrounding our three friends here will vanish in about...a minute, so we need to chase them back out onto their own home soil..."
Nino immediately detached himself from the frozen alien he'd had to hold on to. "You're crazy. We haven't really gone anywhere." He moved to open the door, only to stumble back.
Instead of the long corridor of concrete of the Tokyo Dome where they'd just been, they were greeted with the sight of wide open fields of bright red grass. On the horizon, they could see moons orbiting, and hundreds of other bright yellow aliens running around in herds like buffalo.
Nino slammed the door, turning around with wide eyes. "We are not on another planet. There's a green screen, right?"
Already, the frozen aliens were starting to quiver, their long claws starting to move once more. "Nino," Jun said.
"No, no, no. I refuse," Nino complained. "All I wanted to do was eat my lunch and smile for the fans and then go home to relax afterward. I didn't want to be a zookeeper. I didn't want to meet aliens. I certainly did not want to visit another planet!"
"Nino," Jun warned him again, seeing the creature on the platform's scaled arm start to wiggle. The Doctor was busy shutting down the engines or whatever the TARDIS seemed to require. "Nino, you need to open that door again."
"Heads up!" the Doctor called, tossing his Sonic Screwdriver across the room for Nino to catch. "Might want to get ready to move now."
Nino seemed paralyzed in fear as the aliens started to growl again. Jun hurried to the door himself, holding it open. "Nino, run. Come on, exercise is good for you if it means avoiding certain death!"
The Doctor came hurrying over and grabbed Nino's hand. "Let's go!"
Nino yelped in surprise as the Doctor yanked him out the door just as the three aliens unfroze for good. Jun held the door wide as he watched his bandmate and the strange Doctor start zigzagging across the bright red fields, blue glow of the sonic device luring the three aliens back out of the TARDIS.
They ran around for several minutes, the Doctor smiling and laughing while Jun was pretty convinced that Nino was sobbing in a combination of extreme fright, extreme rage, and extreme disbelief. It would be hilarious and enjoyable to watch if they weren't on another planet at the time. Finally, the three beasts seemed to lose interest in the chase, running off instead to join one of the roaming herds of their own kind.
The Doctor half pulled, half carried an exhausted-looking Nino back to the TARDIS, looking proud. "And to think, you two are in a music group and not sheep herders. Excellent work."
Nino collapsed against Jun, clinging desperately to him. "I hate you," Nino gasped. "I hate you for taking me away from my bento!"
"Come on, both of you inside," the Doctor said, closing the door behind them.
"We're done with your errands?" Jun asked, dragging Nino to the console steps and dropping him there with little kindness.
The Doctor waved him over to a view screen at the console. "Look at this, will you?" Jun saw the three aliens join up with another wave of their bright yellow comrades. "Now you can't possibly know this, J, but taking those aliens away from Earth has saved their lives and saved humanity's own future."
"I don't care!" Nino howled from the floor.
"He doesn't like traveling much," Jun apologized for him. "But how can you know that we saved the Earth?"
The Doctor smiled his goofy smile. "Well, the Melliflorians would have killed all your fans, and I know that would have been terrible for business as usual. So pat yourself on the back for that one. And let's jump forward a bit. These three aliens have been on a remarkable and scary journey, but they're now home with positive stories to tell about how people from Earth didn't kill them, but instead brought them home. So in 1400 years when a delegation from Earth crash lands here, the Melliflorians will not kill them. And all because you helped today. Isn't that glorious?"
"No!" Nino shouted from the floor once more.
"I guess I'll forgive you both for being preoccupied with other things. But let me reward you. For being so kind as to help me, I'd be happy to take you anywhere. Name the time, name the place. I'll let you walk around."
An hour ago, Jun would have thought it insane, but being in the Tokyo Dome one minute and another planet the next had been enough to change his mind. But anywhere in time and space? Planets that had yet to be discovered. He could go back in time and see the formation of the Earth. He could go back and become a back dancer for Michael Jackson's Thriller video. There were so many possibilities.
"Tokyo, Japan. June 24, 2011," Nino insisted. "And the sooner the better."
Jun looked over, and he could tell Nino meant business. And they really did have to give their special show that day. "Maybe some other time, Doctor?"
"It would be a pleasure."
The TARDIS took off, floated off, however it worked once more, and the next time the door opened, they were in the same corridor they'd been in before.
"Matsumoto Jun," the Doctor said. "And Ninomiya Kazunari."
Oh, so now there was time for their names? Nino was wrapped around Jun like a cat on a ball of yarn, so happy was he to not be on board the TARDIS any longer.
"The two of you were brilliant, and I've definitely reassessed my feelings on manufactured pop music."
"What do you mean?" Jun asked.
The Doctor smiled. "Boy bands are cool!"
And with that he slammed the TARDIS door after him, and the mysterious blue box vanished once again, leaving him and Nino alone.
Nino pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "If I get charged for off-planet roaming for this, do you think I'd be able to forward my bill on to Doctor Weirdo?" Nino paused. "Wait, according to this we've only been gone two minutes."
"Well, we should get back before anyone worries," Jun decided.
They walked ahead slowly, inching forward to make sure there were no horrifying aliens around the corner. Instead they found Leader.
"Oh!" Ohno said, and Jun and Nino jumped. "There you are. Good, you found Jun-kun. Everybody's been looking for you."
"You didn't...see anything strange, did you, Leader?" Nino asked in a quiet voice.
"Like what?" Ohno asked, looking thoroughly puzzled.
"Anything at all suspicious?" Jun asked. "Any strange...people up here?"
Ohno looked between the two of them with the same confused face he usually saved for when Sho tried to explain stock tables out of the newspaper to him. "...no?"
Jun and Nino exchanged sighs of relief.
--
Their first Arashi Waku Waku School session was almost over, and Jun was feeling rather isolated as Leader encouraged the other members to think of a way to thank Jun for being part of their lives. Sho was speaking earnestly about Jun having bought him a warm pair of gloves during drama filming one year, and Jun did his best to absorb Sho's kind feelings.
But it was difficult when Nino was staring off into a corner of the Tokyo Dome, looking suddenly shocked. Jun tilted his head, pretending to scratch the back of his neck, but his eyes followed Nino's line of sight. Where he expected to see happy fans smiling back from the stands, he instead saw the man in the tweed jacket and bow tie waving two uchiwas (one with Nino's face, one with Jun's) eagerly and mouthing something like "boy bands are cool."
Jun looked back just in time for Leader to ask Nino to thank Jun for something. He and Nino's eyes met from across the stage. Don't you dare say anything about aliens, Jun sternly warned him with his eyes. No aliens, no blue boxes, no space travel.
"Woo! Arashi!" came the distinct voice of the Doctor from the crowd, and Nino burst into laughter.
"Don't laugh!" Ohno complained. "Take this seriously!"
They both looked away from their newest fan, and Nino smiled. "Jun-kun. We've been on a long journey together, and you've always taken care of me. Even when it seems like we're in another world, I can always count on Jun-kun. Please continue to look after me from now on. Thank you."
--
After the performance, he and Nino were left in Arashi's waiting room alone. "So," Jun said as he packed up his duffel bag. "Interesting day."
"You're telling me," Nino retorted.
"He wasn't really a..."
"...time traveling psychopath, was he?" Nino finished for him.
They both shared a laugh before heading for the door to get into the van to be driven home. Just as Jun had his hand on the doorknob, the whirring noise returned, signaling the arrival of the Doctor and his TARDIS.
He and Nino turned around slowly as the blue box rematerialized before them, and the door opened. "Hello again," the Doctor said with a weak smile. "Come to think of it, I've got a bit of time on my hands. A few friends of mine got married recently, and I don't want to force them to travel with me when it's their...you know, their personal time so..."
"We have more shows this weekend," Nino pointed out. "You may think boy bands are cool, but boy bands are also something else. They're busy, Doctor."
The Doctor held open the TARDIS door, shaking an issue of Wink Up. "I've been doing some reading on you two. My stormiest of stormy companions. It says, Nino, that you're fond of video games."
Jun could see Nino's mood immediately change, but he was still outwardly cautious. "Go on," Nino said.
"Well, you see, the year is 1990, and some old enemies of mine, the Cybermen, seem to think that it's imperative that they prevent the launch of some video game console. The...the what's it called again?"
Nino's eyes widened. "They're trying to prevent the release of the Super Famicom?"
"Yes, yes, the Super Famicom, yes. I mean, I could go alone, risk life and limb and bow tie, but where's the fun in that?" the Doctor asked them.
Nino was already through the TARDIS door, and Jun smiled, lugging his duffel bag along for the ride. "You'll get us back here in time for tomorrow's show?" he asked the Doctor. "Do you promise?"
He was suddenly tugged forward by an eager Nino. "If you don't get in this crazy spaceship right now, Jun-kun, little Nino is going to be a very depressed little boy without his Super Famicom, let's go!"
He turned to look back at the room: definitely part of 2011, definitely part of Tokyo.
"Is that a yes then, J?" the Doctor asked.
Jun hoped he wouldn't regret this new journey. "I guess we can create a storm throughout the galaxy."
"That's the spirit!" the Doctor cheered, closing the TARDIS door behind him.
Jun set down his duffel bag, looking around the spaceship's interior as Nino eagerly helped the Doctor prepare the TARDIS for departure. Next stop: adventure.
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun; Ninomiya Kazunari; The Eleventh Doctor (Doctor Who)
Summary: Nino was big on magic, but it didn't extend much beyond sleight of hand. His bandmate had definitely not developed the ability to make giant blue boxes appear in the Tokyo Dome hallway.
Notes/Warnings: For this year's je_justfriends exchange! It helps if you know Doctor Who going in :)
Even after so many years performing there, Matsumoto Jun still thought it was amazing to wander the corridors of the Tokyo Dome. How many people in Japan, Dome staff excluded, had the privilege to walk around the empty structure, checking out the views from the very last row of seats to ensure that the performance those guests could see would be just as rewarding as the one those closer could see?
Maybe he was weird. Okay, Jun decided, he definitely was weird - it was almost time for the very first Arashi Waku Waku School presentation here at the Dome, and the view from the last row of seats was probably not going to be as rewarding this time around. He frowned, staring all the way down to the stage set-up. Unlike one of their concerts, they were striving to save energy - dimming the lights, not using all the power necessary to send them around on moving platforms, and definitely no flashy costumes. Jun just hoped it would still be special for the guests.
It was still three hours before show time, and he watched the staff get things ready. It was time to stop sitting in the nosebleed seats and get downstairs to prepare for the show. He took the balcony stairs two at a time, heading out the nearest exit only to immediately collide with one of the other members.
"Ow!" Nino cried, nearly falling to the ground and bracing himself against the wall. "There you are."
Jun rolled his eyes. "Be more careful where you're walking. Getting injured now would be incredibly stupid."
"Says the guy who just ran into me," Nino grumbled before tugging Jun forward by the wrist and dragging him down the cavernous hallway. "Didn't take your cell phone up to the balcony with you. We've got a million and a half staff running around looking for you, and why am I the one who ends up finding you?"
He grinned. "I guess you just have a special Matsumoto detection instinct."
"Either way, Professor, your bento is ready. Ugh, I feel like your manager."
Jun was ready to tease Nino in return, but they froze in their tracks as they heard the noise. It was a loud howling wheeze, and he felt Nino's fingernails dig into his forearm in fright. Was it a siren? An alarm? Was something wrong at the Dome? He'd never heard a sound like that in his life.
And just as he was about to suggest that he and Nino hurry down to the Arashi dressing room, the noisy siren grew louder and something started to materialize in the corridor right before their eyes. "I swear," Nino was crying over the noise, "I swear this isn't Ni no Arashi!"
They stood there dumbfounded as a large blue box appeared out of nowhere. Jun's brain was working overtime. Yeah, this was obviously not a Ni no Arashi prank - Nino was big on magic, but it didn't extend much beyond sleight of hand. His bandmate had definitely not developed the ability to make giant blue boxes appear in the Tokyo Dome hallway.
"What is that?" Nino asked, still terrified. For all that Nino tried to act tough, he didn't like the unpredictable. And Jun definitely hated the unpredictable.
"Do you have your phone? We should call security," he said as they edged back and away from the strange box.
"I'm about to pee my pants. Getting my cell phone out of my pocket is not the type of multitasking I can accomplish right now, Jun-kun."
They froze again as the door to the strange blue box opened and an even stranger looking person emerged. He wasn't Japanese and had a floppy mess of light hair. He was wearing a tweed jacket, bow tie, and a button down shirt.
"Hello!" the man said in perfect Japanese. "Hello, hello. Where am I? Is this where I'm supposed to be?"
Nino and Jun didn't move.
The man pulled the door of the blue box closed behind him, moving around as though men appeared out of nowhere with blue boxes all the time. He looked down the Tokyo Dome corridor. "Hmm, thought I would have landed outside." He patted the box almost affectionately. "Acting a bit cheeky today, aren't we?"
"Say something," Nino hissed, shoving Jun forward.
Jun's tongue was tied. Why did he have to talk to the strange man? Why couldn't they just run the opposite way? It wasn't lacking in manliness to run away from crazy people. "You..."
The man looked back and smiled. "Oh, brilliant. You do talk. I was worried you were both mute for a second." He hurried forward. "Nice to meet you. Oh, and have you seen any Melliflorians running around the Dome here? This is the Tokyo Dome, right?"
"Melli-what?" Jun sputtered.
The man cocked his head a bit to stare at Nino. "Hello!"
"H-hello," Nino squeaked.
"Yeah, I'm going to need the both of you to speak a bit louder and with a bit more confidence because we're running out of time here. Oh wait, today's the 24th of June, yes?"
They nodded.
"And this is the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, the 24th of June, 2011?"
They nodded again.
"Great! Brilliant! I love Japan. Been ages since I've popped over. Had a nasty run-in the last time I was in Kyoto, but that was a few me's back." He threw his arms around them. "But not a lot of time for idle chatter. Introductions. Me, I'm the Doctor, that's my TARDIS, and I need you two to help me find a few nasty aliens."
"But...but aliens don't exist," Jun muttered. Had nobody else in the entire Dome heard the commotion? Where was security? Where was anyone to help him and Nino before the crazy man ripped off his bow tie and strangled them with it?
Nino was turning green. "By any chance, you haven't just escaped from a mental hospital, have you?"
The Doctor (the Doctor of what? Doctor who?) ignored Nino's question. "Okay, okay, I guess I'm being rude. Me, still the Doctor. And you?"
"Matsumoto Jun."
"Ninomiya Kazunari."
The Doctor started dragging them down the hall in the opposite direction of his strange box. "Shorten those for me a bit because we are running low on minutes, and Japan needs you today."
If he cried out for help, would anyone save them from this insane person?
"I'm Nino," Nino said weakly. "You can just call him J."
"J? The letter J?" the Doctor inquired.
"Do not call me J," Jun protested. "Matsujun, Matsumoto-san, Jun even..."
"J then. Much better," the Doctor replied. "That's as easy to say as Raxacoricofallapatorius."
"J, maybe we should just do as The Doctor says," Nino muttered.
"Listen, Doctor," Jun grumbled, wrenching himself from the crazy man's grasp. "Since you are not my personal physician, I don't have to follow your orders. I don't know how you got here, and I hope you find what you're looking for, but you picked a bad time to come to the Tokyo Dome. Nino and I are in a music group, and we're going to perform in a few hours. So before we have you arrested..."
There was an animalistic growl just around the corner of the corridor, and Jun soon found the Doctor's hand over his mouth as the three of them flattened themselves against the wall in fright. First the blue box and now something else?
"Ssh, J," The Doctor insisted. "I told you. I need you two. Japan needs you two. That growl you just heard, that growl is the sound of a creature who is frightened, and far more frightened than you are right now. On June 24, 2011, three Melliflorians from the Chi Draconis system end up at the Tokyo Dome and kill thousands of innocent people."
"What are you talking about?" Nino moaned. Was there a terrorist threat? Was someone going to bomb the Tokyo Dome during the Waku Waku School event?
"They ended up here by mistake, took a wrong turn at the Kuiper Belt, as one so often does. And they are hungry. So if we do nothing, people are going to die. But the only thing that can destroy them is a storm. And as fantastic as I am," the Doctor explained, "one Time Lord in the Tokyo Dome may not be enough to stop them."
"Wait," Jun said, "what's that about a storm?"
The Doctor flailed his hands a bit. "I don't know, I don't know, it was a translation of a translation of a translation, and we are running out of time. I need a storm, but I suppose the sprinkler system would work. Where can I find the main controls for that without having to set a fire in here?"
Nino and Jun's eyes met. "Well," Jun said. "Technically, we're a storm."
The Doctor pulled a strange item out from inside his jacket. It lit-up in blue and made a slight buzzing noise as the Doctor...scanned him with it.
"What are you doing to him?" Nino asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no, unless you're smuggling a cumulonimbus cloud somewhere..."
Jun rolled his eyes. "No, would you listen to me? We're a storm, me and Nino. Well, two-fifths of one. It's our group. We're Arashi. Your Japanese is perfect, and you don't understand that?"
The Doctor turned off his strange little scanner. "My Japanese is courtesy of the TARDIS, so forgive me if I have no idea what you mean. But if you really are a storm, then I was right about needing your help. And urgently."
Whatever creature had managed to get into the Tokyo Dome roared again. And now there were more of them and approaching quickly. Where the hell was security at a time like this?
"We should get Aiba-chan," Nino said. "He'd be good at capturing wild animals."
"These aren't animals," the Doctor insisted. "They're aliens. Nasty ones. But they're just lost and scared. So here's the plan. I've got it all set up so their bodies will freeze up as soon as they get inside, and we'll just bring them home. Nino, you're going to stand by the TARDIS and hold the door open..."
"I don't know what a TARDIS is!" Nino hissed.
The Doctor yanked Nino back to the blue box. "The TARDIS. My ship."
"Your box is a ship?" Nino asked.
"More on that later." The Doctor opened the door to the blue box. "Now hold this open so your friend J and I can chase them inside."
But Nino and Jun had obviously stopped listening as soon as they'd seen inside the TARDIS from the open doorway. It was impossible, Jun thought. There was no way this strange blue box - a blue box that had already appeared out of thin air - was a spaceship. And even as Jun looked around the outside, seeing the box's dimensions, it simply did not match up inside.
He and Nino peered through the open door, seeing a huge open control room the size of a planetarium dome within. "It's bigger on the inside," Nino murmured.
Maybe Jun had fallen asleep in the stands of the Dome. Maybe this was all some silly dream, but even then this crazy Doctor was hauling him back down the hallway. "Here, you lure them with my Sonic Screwdriver. Melliflorians like the bright lights, so just hold it overhead and run like the devil into the TARDIS."
"Wait," Jun said. "They're going to chase me?" Alien or animal, Jun wasn't sure he could outrun something that sounded as nasty as these things did.
"I'll bring up the rear, make sure you get all three. Oh, and don't let them nibble on any of your limbs because their spittle is poisonous. Here we go!" the Doctor said, bringing Jun around the corner and shoving the little scanner with the blue light into his hand.
Jun's jaw dropped as he came face to snout with three large...things. They were neon yellow with large scales and enormous jaws, their bodies maybe three times the size of a human. "Doctor?" Jun whispered. Yep, he was going to die.
The Doctor patted him on the back. "Blue light, off to the TARDIS. Get moving!"
One of the creatures growled in his face, its nasty breath enough to convince Jun that this wasn't just some prank from the staff. These definitely weren't animals from Earth. He was pretty sure Aiba would confirm that for him if he was here. But aliens? Real honest to goodness aliens? Here, in the Tokyo Dome? Jun knew that the fans were all queued up outside, and he'd never forgive himself if any of them got hurt.
Maybe the "storm" the Doctor had mentioned really was Arashi. Maybe he and Nino were the only ones who could help.
He pressed down on the device's button. What had the Doctor called it? A sonic something or other? It made the same buzzing sound and the end glowed blue, just as it had before. The creatures only growled louder, crouching down almost like cats preparing to pounce.
And Jun was off, running frantically with the sonic thing held over his head. He wouldn't admit to it later, but he was screaming a bit like a young girl as he lured the nasty beasts back to the TARDIS. He could hear the Doctor behind him clapping his hands, urging the creatures forward almost like a farmer trying to get some pigs back in their pen.
"Nino, hold the door. Nino, hold the door. Nino, hold the door!" he shrieked as he rounded the corner and saw his bandmate once more. Nino's grip on the door was precarious, and both he and the door were shaking in terror.
Jun could sense the things at his heels, making that same roaring noise, and it only urged him on faster. He knew they'd be running and pedaling bikes during Waku Waku School and exhausted was the last condition he needed to be in, but he was putting far more effort into not getting killed.
He ran through the TARDIS entryway and past a horrified Nino, hurrying up a short metal staircase and around the strange console full of knobs and levers in the center of the TARDIS. It was impossible, this whole place was impossible given the size of the blue box, but he didn't care because he heard the roars suddenly stop.
He heard the squeak of the TARDIS door and turned around slowly to see the three aliens frozen solid: one having chased him to the stairs, the other two in the entryway. The Doctor had an arm around Nino's shoulder as they inched around the creatures.
"Marvelous work! Simply extraordinary, like a hurricane gale, J. Definitely the storm I needed. Splendid!" the Doctor praised him, prying Jun's fingers off of his Sonic Screwdriver to take it back.
Nino had his arms crossed and was staring up at one of the aliens. "They're in costumes, right?" he asked quietly. "There's a senpai we've managed to piss off, and this is just their revenge. Right, Jun-kun? It's all just a prank?"
The Doctor flipped a few levers, and the ground jolted under Jun. It wasn't an earthquake - it was almost as if the TARDIS was going to move.
"Wait, what are you doing?" he asked the Doctor, still not wanting to take a closer look at the hideous beasts standing still, mid-chase. The central column of the console started to glow and pulse with the same whooshing whirr they'd heard before the Doctor had first arrived.
The Doctor was wandering from control panel to control panel. "I'd say hold onto something, J, because we need to get them back home."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nino said. "We helped you with your dangerous zookeeping, Doctor Nutjob, and now it's time to let me and Jun-kun go back to being normal people with exceptionally abnormal careers."
Jun would argue that the Doctor had given him the far more dangerous task, but that was neither here nor there. "You can't take us anywhere. That's kidnapping! And they'll know that we're gone!"
"I still need your help." The Doctor looked at him oddly. "I'll bring you back in no time."
"But that's exactly what we have," Nino argued, "No time. We should have been eating, and the staff and the other members will worry, and the fans will cry, and...I sound completely like Sho-chan right now, but let us out of this box!"
"No, I mean I'll bring you back in no time. When I bring you back, no time will have actually elapsed. That's the magic of the TARDIS, you see," the Doctor said. And with one more pushed lever, the TARDIS shook violently, and Jun clung to the metal railing. Nino was left with no choice but to hold on to one of the frozen aliens.
"This isn't real," Nino was murmuring. "You know, I was fine with that weird UFO guy back when we filmed G no Arashi, but this...this I don't have the mental stamina to handle."
"For goodness sake, you two are a pair of whiners," the Doctor chided them. "Are the rest of your Arashi people this stubborn?"
Jun thought about it. Nino thought about it. "Be glad you didn't ask Sakurai-san for help," they somehow managed to say in unison.
When the TARDIS made the same screechy noise a few moments later, the Doctor turned back to them with a smile. "Very good! Very good time to Chi Draconis. Now the forcefield the TARDIS has surrounding our three friends here will vanish in about...a minute, so we need to chase them back out onto their own home soil..."
Nino immediately detached himself from the frozen alien he'd had to hold on to. "You're crazy. We haven't really gone anywhere." He moved to open the door, only to stumble back.
Instead of the long corridor of concrete of the Tokyo Dome where they'd just been, they were greeted with the sight of wide open fields of bright red grass. On the horizon, they could see moons orbiting, and hundreds of other bright yellow aliens running around in herds like buffalo.
Nino slammed the door, turning around with wide eyes. "We are not on another planet. There's a green screen, right?"
Already, the frozen aliens were starting to quiver, their long claws starting to move once more. "Nino," Jun said.
"No, no, no. I refuse," Nino complained. "All I wanted to do was eat my lunch and smile for the fans and then go home to relax afterward. I didn't want to be a zookeeper. I didn't want to meet aliens. I certainly did not want to visit another planet!"
"Nino," Jun warned him again, seeing the creature on the platform's scaled arm start to wiggle. The Doctor was busy shutting down the engines or whatever the TARDIS seemed to require. "Nino, you need to open that door again."
"Heads up!" the Doctor called, tossing his Sonic Screwdriver across the room for Nino to catch. "Might want to get ready to move now."
Nino seemed paralyzed in fear as the aliens started to growl again. Jun hurried to the door himself, holding it open. "Nino, run. Come on, exercise is good for you if it means avoiding certain death!"
The Doctor came hurrying over and grabbed Nino's hand. "Let's go!"
Nino yelped in surprise as the Doctor yanked him out the door just as the three aliens unfroze for good. Jun held the door wide as he watched his bandmate and the strange Doctor start zigzagging across the bright red fields, blue glow of the sonic device luring the three aliens back out of the TARDIS.
They ran around for several minutes, the Doctor smiling and laughing while Jun was pretty convinced that Nino was sobbing in a combination of extreme fright, extreme rage, and extreme disbelief. It would be hilarious and enjoyable to watch if they weren't on another planet at the time. Finally, the three beasts seemed to lose interest in the chase, running off instead to join one of the roaming herds of their own kind.
The Doctor half pulled, half carried an exhausted-looking Nino back to the TARDIS, looking proud. "And to think, you two are in a music group and not sheep herders. Excellent work."
Nino collapsed against Jun, clinging desperately to him. "I hate you," Nino gasped. "I hate you for taking me away from my bento!"
"Come on, both of you inside," the Doctor said, closing the door behind them.
"We're done with your errands?" Jun asked, dragging Nino to the console steps and dropping him there with little kindness.
The Doctor waved him over to a view screen at the console. "Look at this, will you?" Jun saw the three aliens join up with another wave of their bright yellow comrades. "Now you can't possibly know this, J, but taking those aliens away from Earth has saved their lives and saved humanity's own future."
"I don't care!" Nino howled from the floor.
"He doesn't like traveling much," Jun apologized for him. "But how can you know that we saved the Earth?"
The Doctor smiled his goofy smile. "Well, the Melliflorians would have killed all your fans, and I know that would have been terrible for business as usual. So pat yourself on the back for that one. And let's jump forward a bit. These three aliens have been on a remarkable and scary journey, but they're now home with positive stories to tell about how people from Earth didn't kill them, but instead brought them home. So in 1400 years when a delegation from Earth crash lands here, the Melliflorians will not kill them. And all because you helped today. Isn't that glorious?"
"No!" Nino shouted from the floor once more.
"I guess I'll forgive you both for being preoccupied with other things. But let me reward you. For being so kind as to help me, I'd be happy to take you anywhere. Name the time, name the place. I'll let you walk around."
An hour ago, Jun would have thought it insane, but being in the Tokyo Dome one minute and another planet the next had been enough to change his mind. But anywhere in time and space? Planets that had yet to be discovered. He could go back in time and see the formation of the Earth. He could go back and become a back dancer for Michael Jackson's Thriller video. There were so many possibilities.
"Tokyo, Japan. June 24, 2011," Nino insisted. "And the sooner the better."
Jun looked over, and he could tell Nino meant business. And they really did have to give their special show that day. "Maybe some other time, Doctor?"
"It would be a pleasure."
The TARDIS took off, floated off, however it worked once more, and the next time the door opened, they were in the same corridor they'd been in before.
"Matsumoto Jun," the Doctor said. "And Ninomiya Kazunari."
Oh, so now there was time for their names? Nino was wrapped around Jun like a cat on a ball of yarn, so happy was he to not be on board the TARDIS any longer.
"The two of you were brilliant, and I've definitely reassessed my feelings on manufactured pop music."
"What do you mean?" Jun asked.
The Doctor smiled. "Boy bands are cool!"
And with that he slammed the TARDIS door after him, and the mysterious blue box vanished once again, leaving him and Nino alone.
Nino pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "If I get charged for off-planet roaming for this, do you think I'd be able to forward my bill on to Doctor Weirdo?" Nino paused. "Wait, according to this we've only been gone two minutes."
"Well, we should get back before anyone worries," Jun decided.
They walked ahead slowly, inching forward to make sure there were no horrifying aliens around the corner. Instead they found Leader.
"Oh!" Ohno said, and Jun and Nino jumped. "There you are. Good, you found Jun-kun. Everybody's been looking for you."
"You didn't...see anything strange, did you, Leader?" Nino asked in a quiet voice.
"Like what?" Ohno asked, looking thoroughly puzzled.
"Anything at all suspicious?" Jun asked. "Any strange...people up here?"
Ohno looked between the two of them with the same confused face he usually saved for when Sho tried to explain stock tables out of the newspaper to him. "...no?"
Jun and Nino exchanged sighs of relief.
--
Their first Arashi Waku Waku School session was almost over, and Jun was feeling rather isolated as Leader encouraged the other members to think of a way to thank Jun for being part of their lives. Sho was speaking earnestly about Jun having bought him a warm pair of gloves during drama filming one year, and Jun did his best to absorb Sho's kind feelings.
But it was difficult when Nino was staring off into a corner of the Tokyo Dome, looking suddenly shocked. Jun tilted his head, pretending to scratch the back of his neck, but his eyes followed Nino's line of sight. Where he expected to see happy fans smiling back from the stands, he instead saw the man in the tweed jacket and bow tie waving two uchiwas (one with Nino's face, one with Jun's) eagerly and mouthing something like "boy bands are cool."
Jun looked back just in time for Leader to ask Nino to thank Jun for something. He and Nino's eyes met from across the stage. Don't you dare say anything about aliens, Jun sternly warned him with his eyes. No aliens, no blue boxes, no space travel.
"Woo! Arashi!" came the distinct voice of the Doctor from the crowd, and Nino burst into laughter.
"Don't laugh!" Ohno complained. "Take this seriously!"
They both looked away from their newest fan, and Nino smiled. "Jun-kun. We've been on a long journey together, and you've always taken care of me. Even when it seems like we're in another world, I can always count on Jun-kun. Please continue to look after me from now on. Thank you."
--
After the performance, he and Nino were left in Arashi's waiting room alone. "So," Jun said as he packed up his duffel bag. "Interesting day."
"You're telling me," Nino retorted.
"He wasn't really a..."
"...time traveling psychopath, was he?" Nino finished for him.
They both shared a laugh before heading for the door to get into the van to be driven home. Just as Jun had his hand on the doorknob, the whirring noise returned, signaling the arrival of the Doctor and his TARDIS.
He and Nino turned around slowly as the blue box rematerialized before them, and the door opened. "Hello again," the Doctor said with a weak smile. "Come to think of it, I've got a bit of time on my hands. A few friends of mine got married recently, and I don't want to force them to travel with me when it's their...you know, their personal time so..."
"We have more shows this weekend," Nino pointed out. "You may think boy bands are cool, but boy bands are also something else. They're busy, Doctor."
The Doctor held open the TARDIS door, shaking an issue of Wink Up. "I've been doing some reading on you two. My stormiest of stormy companions. It says, Nino, that you're fond of video games."
Jun could see Nino's mood immediately change, but he was still outwardly cautious. "Go on," Nino said.
"Well, you see, the year is 1990, and some old enemies of mine, the Cybermen, seem to think that it's imperative that they prevent the launch of some video game console. The...the what's it called again?"
Nino's eyes widened. "They're trying to prevent the release of the Super Famicom?"
"Yes, yes, the Super Famicom, yes. I mean, I could go alone, risk life and limb and bow tie, but where's the fun in that?" the Doctor asked them.
Nino was already through the TARDIS door, and Jun smiled, lugging his duffel bag along for the ride. "You'll get us back here in time for tomorrow's show?" he asked the Doctor. "Do you promise?"
He was suddenly tugged forward by an eager Nino. "If you don't get in this crazy spaceship right now, Jun-kun, little Nino is going to be a very depressed little boy without his Super Famicom, let's go!"
He turned to look back at the room: definitely part of 2011, definitely part of Tokyo.
"Is that a yes then, J?" the Doctor asked.
Jun hoped he wouldn't regret this new journey. "I guess we can create a storm throughout the galaxy."
"That's the spirit!" the Doctor cheered, closing the TARDIS door behind him.
Jun set down his duffel bag, looking around the spaceship's interior as Nino eagerly helped the Doctor prepare the TARDIS for departure. Next stop: adventure.