A Duke of My Own, 1/2
Title: A Duke Of My Own
Rating NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Sakurai Sho/Kitagawa Keiko
Summary: How was Dream Sho so calm and suave, making the moves on Keiko when in the real world he was tongue-tied and scared to death of her? Based on this prompt for je_fqfest: # 39. Victorian era romance novel, only one member of the group is aware that they are suddenly in an AU.
Notes/Warnings: Well I only vaguely followed the romance novel prompt, oops. It's mostly just in the background because my brain decided to write something completely different. These things happen. Anyhow, this story starts in August 2012 and moves forward into 2013. Inspiration for "Governess Keiko" comes from Doctor Who's Clara.
He washed his hands, frowning at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked horrible. Sho was fairly certain he had never actually recovered from the jet lag on the flight over, and now he was just about to be crammed into a seat for twelve hours going back. If only teleportation would hurry up and become real, his life would be much easier.
Of course, plenty of people had it harder than Sakurai Sho, Japanese idol, but he'd always been a grumpy flyer and a grumpy jet lag-haver, and he felt entitled to his current miserable feelings.
He dried his hands, emerging from the bathroom and back into the terminal. His manager, somehow gifted with the ability to sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat, was snoozing peacefully with their carry-on bags at the gate. Sho frowned, envious to the point of tears. He wondered if it was just one of those things they asked you on a job interview for Hard Ass Manager of Grumpy Idol. "Can you sleep anywhere? Can you put up with your idol's occasional bouts of assholery?"
Sho sat down beside him, rudely nudging the man awake. They'd be boarding in about half an hour. "I'm back, you can go," Sho said.
Sugita-san's face woke before his eyes even opened, his lips twisting into a sneer. "I don't need to go."
Sho unzipped his backpack, digging through his collection of shirts and trinkets for his fellow Arashi members. "You can go," he repeated. "You're stuck in the middle seat, you know, it's not easy to get out."
"Piss off," Sugita grumbled, trying to turn back to the comfort of his suit jacket slash pillow.
It was then that Sho realized what he'd done. "Damn it..."
"What?" his manager asked, finally stirring enough to wipe some drool from his jacket pillow.
He dug and dug through his bag, but no luck. "I must have left my book on the bedside table of the hotel. I have nothing to read on the plane."
"The airline magazine," his manager replied, unsympathetic as usual. "Or watch a movie. Watch four movies. Read a newspaper."
Sho frowned, trying for his "I'm a helpless idol, woe is me" pouting face.
Sugita sighed. "Fine. What do you want?"
"A book," Sho said. "Fiction. Get me fiction."
"The books are in English," Sugita reminded him. "I have no fucking idea what they say."
Sho turned his pouting face up a notch until Sugita got to his feet, making whiny manager noises.
"I am not your slave," Sugita reminded him. "And I am not your bank." He held out his hand.
Sho dug in his pocket for his wallet, pulling out a few pound notes he had left. "Buy yourself something too. And don't be an asshole and forget to wash your hands before you go to the book kiosk."
"Like you'd even know," Sugita said, wiggling his fingers before heading down the terminal for the restroom.
Sho sat back, so tired he knew he wasn't going to sleep for hours. Between the plane food and whatever Sugita managed to bring back from the bookseller, Sho was bound for a shitty flight. But his work here was done, though he hadn't had much time to wander around London and enjoy blessed anonymity. It had been Olympics non-stop from the moment he'd stepped off the plane, between interviews and memorizing the lives of several key athletes from their birth to the pop of the starting gun.
He was fortunate, getting to come here all expenses paid and then some, but it was still a lot of work on top of his existing metric ton of work. "Sleep on the plane," they always told him. It had been only a month since he'd gotten back from Singapore, another long flight, hot weather (especially filming in a tux), and the unfortunate feeling of rejection. He hadn't slept much then either.
It had been a dumb move, one of his dumbest in fact. And yet he'd tried it. They'd been on the same floor of the hotel, and Sugita had outdone himself in coercing Keiko's manager into a drink at the bar. It had been his moment, his one perfect moment to go "hey, you know what...I think I like you...maybe we should..."
He'd made it through the original drama filming without pestering her, mostly because Kitagawa Keiko fucking terrified him. Sho had worked with his share of actresses and as a personal rule he usually didn't sleep with them in the event that they might work with one of the other members someday (or worse, a kohai). The last thing he needed was a cheeky kohai calling up to say "So-and-so-san says you were a complete dick to her."
But she was different. She was kind to the staff, made fast friends with the crew and the directors. She was utterly and completely professional, something that in normal circumstances turned him on. Sho was inevitably, hopelessly attracted to hard workers, to people who dialed it up on set, never lost their cool, and made up for his own shortcomings. Keiko was all of those things, but she was also scary.
That fall had been full of looks from the corner of her eye, the brush of a hand to his sleeve after a difficult take. And then of course the wrap party when Sugita said she'd checked him out like he was on the auction block and she was ready to spend. Sho had always been intimidated by women who knew exactly what they wanted from him. Women who cut to the chase and didn't have time to deal with his shyness. By the end of filming, Sho knew that Kitagawa Keiko was dangerous and that she wouldn't tolerate a courtship that didn't meet her standards. She was fine without him, fine without anyone. If he wanted her, someone like her who didn't really need him, he had to prove he was worth the effort.
So he'd let that ship sail. Well, for a few days. Then they'd learned about filming for a special episode to be broadcast that spring. Just when he thought he'd been freed from the little touches and teases that drove him insane with lustful thoughts and the fear of not quite being able to meet expectations in reality, she was back. This time with back and forths to Okinawa.
With scripted hand-holds and a lovey-dovey story with her character's doppelganger and even a peck on the cheek, he'd nearly lost it. He had to play Tough and Manly and Masculine and she was there with her "thanks for your hard work" cheerfulness and her "I'm going to ride you like the shinkansen" eyes. Sho still wasn't sure how he'd gotten through it without coming in his pants like a junior high school kid seeing his first porno.
But this summer had been different. He'd had a few months out of her orbit before the offer and contracts had come round in order to capitalize on what the network saw as a winning combination, to make a movie version of the drama. This time he'd decided to man up and not be afraid of her. Her confident desire didn't have to be so frightening. He was Sakurai Sho, and he could still give as good as he got. What had happened to that firebrand of a teenager, using his name at uni parties to go home with someone? Where was the prick who'd broken so many hearts? When had he gotten so soft? When had he become the type of loser that would let a clearly interested Kitagawa Keiko get away because he was too afraid to ask her out?
So he'd gotten it set up, had Sugita lure the manager, had knocked on her hotel room door with gusto. All he'd been missing was that shitty ass cologne he'd worn in university when he was on the prowl and trying to beat Nino's monthly tally. She'd answered the door, makeup-free and squeaky clean, glasses on her nose.
"Keiko-chan..."
Her face had fallen at the sight of him. "Sho-san," she'd said right upfront, the "Sho-kun" she preferred hidden away. "Bad timing."
"Huh?" he'd asked, seeing as how she'd already skipped way ahead straight to rejecting him.
She'd actually looked quite sad, which didn't help at the time as "no" was "no" no matter what. "Bad timing," she repeated. "I'd love to, but I've got a drama lead lined up for the fall. We're in talks now. I need to focus."
"So...you're busy," he'd replied, even though he himself was one of the busiest people in Japan and for him, timing wasn't an issue. Couldn't they just start and stop as time allowed?
"I'm really and truly busy," she'd said, but not without looking him up and down freely. "I'm so sorry."
And because he was kind of an idiot and his grand gesture had been so thoroughly rejected without him even being able to ask the question, he'd simply nodded and said "of course, maybe some other time" and had slunk down the hall for the most depressing masturbatory episode of his life.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Japan Airlines flight 402 to Tokyo Narita will now begin preliminary boarding."
He was dazed from his thoughts at the sudden, noisy bit of English over the public address system. And what great thoughts they were, too. Kitagawa Keiko in her t-shirt and some shorts, opening her hotel room door only to close it again within two minutes. Maybe three if he tried to remember her staring at him longer than she actually had.
When he got back from London, he had 24 Hour TV prep work and no time. The window of opportunity, his and Keiko's window of opportunity, was shut. They'd promote the movie next year, but she'd already judged his poor sense of timing. She'd probably find someone else or maybe she'd find nobody at all. She was so work-driven that it made Sho look like a slacker. It was always going to be a case of two ships passing in the night or some other cliche for "we didn't get to fuck."
A thick paperback smacked him in the chest, and Sugita returned carrying what was quite possibly the world's largest cup of iced coffee. At some point it stopped being a cup and started being a jug.
"No change," Sugita said, which meant that he'd pocketed Sho's money as a gratuity for his years of servitude.
"You drink that and you'll have to piss before we even take off," Sho warned him, hearing the ice slosh around in the cup as Sugita sipped it proudly.
"Read your fucking book."
Sho picked it up, frowning at the cover. It was English alright, and to his mother's utter dismay, his English reading skills had deteriorated gravely over the years. He'd be lucky to get a word per sentence. But that wasn't actually what annoyed him the most about the book, which was titled A Duke of My Own.
It was the cover. A man and woman embracing. The man had a chest the size of a football stadium, and the woman's massive breasts were about to tumble from the top of her emerald green dress. She had long blonde curls tumbling down her back, and he was clutching her to him as though they were about to go at it like a pair of rabbits while the reader watched.
"Store full of books and you bring me this," Sho complained.
"There was a line for the men's room," Sugita said. "And a longer line at Starbucks. May I remind you that Skyward, the in-flight magazine, is featuring an article on the charms of kabuki? And numerous other surprises for the patient reader?"
Sho shoved the book in his bag with a huff. Sugita's revenge for being Sho's errand boy, going above and beyond every day of his life so long as Arashi was selling and selling well. He pulled his boarding pass from his pocket, getting to his feet.
The plane sat at the gate for twenty minutes before finally heading to the runway and taking to the skies. Before too long Sugita had to piss, moving from his middle seat past Sho's aisle seat and doing his best to hold it as he queued up behind the other people who'd gotten up as soon as the fasten seat belts sign had turned off. Sho got up, opening the overhead compartment and pulling the book from his bag. The "charms of kabuki" had been bad, the movie selection was worse. It was apparently time to stumble through A Duke of My Own. At the very least, it would be good practice, so long as he didn't let the gray-haired woman sitting across the aisle from him see the cover.
Sugita smiled in victory when he returned, bladder emptied. In minutes he was asleep again, the asshole, just as Sho was getting started. He wasn't understanding much, but at least it was passing the time. From the first few chapters, he'd been introduced to Griffin, a duke who had met with some mishap with a horse. With Sho's limited English, the horse had either kicked Griffin, unseated him, or fucked his mother. Either way he was left with amnesia and a surly attitude. His love interest was Adele, a governess or nanny or something like that. She was in the house to care for Griffin's niece. Sho didn't know why the kid was living with the duke, but he assumed it had been explained already and he didn't feel like turning back the pages.
Either way, it became an issue of class differences. And an obvious issue of love overcoming all obstacles, and there were more than 200 pages of those obstacles to still get through. As the minutes passed, Sho grew tired. The already unfamiliar words on the pages started to blur, the hum of the jet engines lulled him out of any otherwise coherent thoughts, and the flight attendants shut off the cabin lights, leaving Sho in the dark with only the buttery glow of his overhead light to continue following along with Adele and Griffin's riveting story.
So of course, he gave up on reading and gave in to sleep.
--
Sho stirred at the sound of a sharp knock on the door. Confusion set in when he realized he was in a prone position, on his back with a heavy mound of blankets covering him. He popped his head up from beneath them. "Come in," he called out, loud and clear, even if his thoughts certainly didn't match the confidence of his words. Almost as though his mouth was moving without him telling it to.
Wasn't he still on the plane from London?
No, apparently he was not. He was in a very large bedroom, snugly tucked into a four-poster bed with hideous gauzy curtains. Before he could sneer at them, the door opened and Matsujun walked in, dressed head to foot in something that might have served as a Kageyama backup costume on the Nazodi set. But something wasn't right. Why was Jun here? And what had happened to the plane? How did he get here?
"Have I overslept?" Sho's voice asked instead, once more without his knowledge. It was as though Sho, the real Sho, was trapped inside his own body and someone else was working the controls. Because it was his body. His hands, his arms, though they were stuffed inside a pair of itchy pajamas that he didn't recognize either.
"You have indeed, my lord," came Jun's reply, and now Sho figured it out. A dream. He was dreaming. Because there wasn't a planet in the galaxy that existed where Matsumoto Jun would ever address him as "my lord."
Jun approached the bed, not a hair out of place. Even in Sho's dreams, even when Sho's subconscious tossed him into a butler's outfit, he was still neat and fashionable. Sho in his awful pajamas envied him that. "Have I missed any engagements?"
At that, Jun shook his head. "Not at all, my lord. Your health is of utmost importance, and you have no engagements today or any day until you have fully recovered."
"And what am I recovering from exactly?"
Jun looked a little embarrassed. "Your memory lapses, sir."
That fucking book. Fucking Sugita. Sho tossed the blankets off, giving Jun a bit of a shock. It would have been better if the dream had left him on the beach with a drink. It would have been better if he was dreaming of playing for Japan's World Cup soccer team. Even a flying dream would be better despite his issues with heights. Instead his subconscious had stuck him in A Duke of My Own.
He moved to the window, pulled the curtains to find a foggy morning, rolling green lawns. An expansive and certainly most English estate. He'd tumbled into Jane Austen's backyard, although he and Jun were most definitely not English, nor were they speaking it.
He turned back, finding Jun waiting patiently for him. "And who might you be in this place?"
"Matsumoto, sir. Your valet."
"My..."
"Valet," Jun continued. At the very least, this Jun didn't look at him the way the real Jun did when he said something senseless. "Your manservant."
He wanted to laugh. He really wanted to. But it was a dream and he was stuck in this weird persona in this weird house and couldn't even take control long enough to laugh at Jun for claiming to be his manservant. Perhaps this was actually a nightmare instead.
Things were also progressing very slowly, to Sho's dismay. In most dreams he had, time was a rather fluid thing. He'd flit from place to place or things would blend together, but it seemed like minutes were ticking by as he lamented winding up in this ridiculous world. "Very well, Matsumoto. I should like to take my breakfast."
"Very good, my lord," Jun said, heading for the wardrobe.
He then stood there awkwardly, unable to even express his discomfort as Jun helped to dress him for the day. He was fitted into another itchy starched shirt and a waistcoat, cringing internally as Jun helped him into a nearly knee-length coat and pinstriped trousers. He was complete with socks and shoes and felt damn overdressed for breakfast, which Sho usually ate in a t-shirt and shorts.
Jun finished everything off with a brush, running it over his jacket to clean away lint or dandruff or whatever the hell he was looking for, so long did he spend pushing the stupid brush down the sharp angle of his shoulders. Even his dream self, the lord of the manor, couldn't help the slope.
"I'll have Cook prepare everything. Very good to see you up and about, sir," Jun said before excusing himself. That left Sho to scowl at himself in the mirror for a moment before he followed Jun out.
The vast estate was accompanied by an equally obnoxious house. He found himself on a plush carpeted hallway floor adorned with portraits and landscape art of places and people he didn't know. Eventually he made it to a grand staircase that led down to an even grander entry hall. Servants were scurrying about cleaning windows and dusting. Each maid who passed gave him a quick curtsy.
He found the breakfast room and was about to sit down when a curly brown-haired rat plowed into him.
"Philippa!"
Sho, despite his lack of dream control, jolted at the sound of her voice. He didn't even look down at the child who'd run into him, turning around to find Kitagawa Keiko hurrying over with an apologetic look in her eyes. And it was her, there was no mistake. Of course, she wasn't in her Hosho Reiko fine clothes or her Kitagawa the actress casual chic. Her hair was tied back in a strict bun and she wore a blue dress with black trim, a high neckline, and a ruffled skirt. Sho was almost grateful to be in the middle of an out of body experience, if only because he was now discovering a previously unknown English nanny fetish.
The child slipped away from Sho, running to hide behind Keiko's skirts. Keiko bobbed her head, none of the usual "I want you to taste every part of me" confidence in her eyes.
Instead she turned to scold the child. "Philippa, that is not how you greet your lord uncle, now is it?"
The little girl, with her frizzy hair and crooked teeth, had fallen right out of a BBC drama but was kind enough to speak in Japanese for his dream benefit. She peeked around Keiko's middle, inclining her head. "Forgive me, Uncle. Good morning to you."
He played along. "No running in the corridors, please."
The little girl frowned at him. "That is what Nino always says."
Great, was Nino here too? Was there a cast of thousands? How long before this dream ended already?
"I'm still...working on getting back into the swing of things here," he said, leaning a hand against the back of the chair at the head of the table. Keiko's face revealed nothing, no judgment, no sympathy. Sho wondered how many petticoats and other women things were underneath that dress of hers.
She took the cue to introduce herself. "Miss Kitagawa. I'm Philippa's governess."
Of course you are, he thought. The amnesiac Griffin needed his Adele. Fucking Sugita!
"Miss Kitagawa," he said, tapping the chair. "Would you join me for breakfast?"
"Sho-kun..."
--
"Sho-kun."
"No," he murmured, desperate to get back to that blue dress and the hair that was tied up out of his reach. "No, I didn't have breakfast."
Sugita's elbow was a jabbing pain in his left side. "Sho-kun, we're landing in twenty minutes."
He registered the sounds of the plane again, the jostling of people in other seats. The distinct lack of a "Miss Kitagawa" in a nanny dress disciplining that child in such a firm, sexy voice. He opened his eyes, finding A Duke of My Own sitting on his lap. Reality had sadly returned. He hadn't even gotten past introductions with dream Keiko and here he was, back in a world where she had been all but open for business for him for months and he'd never taken advantage. His cock blocked at every turn.
Sugita shoved a cup of water at him. "I snagged this for you. Don't need to look dehydrated for the paparazzi when we land."
"Your concern is heartfelt as always," Sho grumbled, sipping the water.
He pulled a baseball cap from his carry-on, pulling it down over his hair, and then scowled his way through passport control and the Narita terminal. He knew he was never going to win Friendliest Airport Celebrity of the Year, but he suppressed a grin as Sugita did his usual Paparazzi Blocker choreography through Narita. A hand up to block a camera here, a hand on Sho's back to guide him onto an escalator there. The guy might have been one of Johnny's better dancers if he was twenty years younger.
The "Dragon Lady" was waiting in the car for him while Sugita sat up front with the company driver to head back to Tokyo. She was new to Johnny's and had been recently poached from Avex. With the growing number of Arashi and individual activities, Eriko-san was the new "Arashi floater" manager. A manager for their managers, someone who stepped in when there was so much going on even the managers were going nuts trying to keep track of everything. Sho thought she was wonderful. Sugita (who was responsible for coining the "Dragon Lady" moniker) wanted her head on a pike.
Unlike Sugita who relied on a Blackberry and iPhone combo to make sure Sho didn't self-destruct, Eriko-san was a fan of clipboards and a paper trail. As soon as Sho was buckled in and the car pulled away from the curb, a clipboard was presented with a summation of everything that had happened in Japan during his absence. The daily weather he'd missed, a list of the shows she had recorded for him (with accompanying DVD jewel cases), top news stories drilled down into digestible bullet points, and a minute-by-minute up-to-date schedule for 24 Hour TV that now had a built in "Number 2 Break" sometime around 11:30 PM as Sho had requested.
Sho liked schedules. Thus Sho liked Eriko-san.
But today he didn't really have time to listen to her squawk at him about Shiyagare filming. He was still stuck in that stupid book and in his stupid dream from the plane. Stuck thinking about Kitagawa Keiko. Hopefully she'd forgive his sullen expression and half-hearted thank yous, letting jet lag take the blame.
He was dropped off at his place, hearing Sugita and Eriko-san break into a noisy argument just before he shut the car door. Finally free of his babysitters, he took the elevator up, enjoying the whoosh of cold air as he turned his A/C on within seconds of opening his door. He did a half-assed unpacking job, only setting aside the gifts he'd purchased for the members before stripping down and collapsing on his bed with a mumbled complaint to nobody about having to wake at 5:00 the following morning for a CM shoot. He almost envied the Sho of his dreams with his large estate and zero responsibilities.
He rolled onto his back, sighing, wondering if he should forego sleep entirely to get his body clock
--
"...listening to a word I've been saying?"
Sho blinked, finding himself being thoroughly lectured by Nino. His clothes were different, but he was somehow back at the estate. He was dressed in a long coat, top hat, and gray trousers this time, and he was outdoors looking out over the rolling green hills.
Nino was there, fuming for some reason, arms crossed.
"Sorry, what was that? My mind wandered..."
Nino, who was wearing a bowler hat that made the rest of him look even more childlike than usual, gestured out at the hills. "Then you shouldn't be out here trying to do business if you're still not up to snuff. Now as I was relating to you, the yields from Bennet farm are next to nothing, and you'd do well to sell it to anyone who'll take that money-draining homestead off your hands. You'd think they salted the earth with the paltry profit they bring to you."
Sho only nodded. "Sure, dump Bennet farm," said the Sho who spoke for him, the body he was inhabiting.
Nino continued on, money this and money that. Sho mostly went along with whatever suggestions Nino thought were best, discovering over the course of the lengthy conversation that in this strange universe Jun was his valet and Nino was his estate manager, responsible for the grounds and the land he owned, which apparently consisted of numerous small farms.
They headed back to a two-horse carriage that had been parked at the roadside, climbing inside. Nino thumped the roof of the carriage with his walking stick and the driver got them moving. He was the same Nino in voice and appearance, which was probably why he didn't act like Sho was a nobleman worthy of preferential treatment. There were no "sir" or "my lord" pronouncements from Nino, who simply called him "Sho" and grumbled as the carriage jostled them back to the manor.
Upon arrival, Sho felt his heart race (or at least the Dream Sho's heart race) as the front door of the house opened, and "Miss" Kitagawa and the child, Philippa, came out to greet them upon their arrival. Nino busied himself immediately by teasing the little girl and asking her to do sums in her head to calculate the monthly salary that Sho paid him.
This conveniently left Sho and Miss Kitagawa standing awkwardly on the gravel drive as the driver, horses, and carriage headed off for the stables. Even though Sho had been propelled through time from his breakfast in the last dream to whatever time and place this was, he somehow knew that things between him and Miss Kitagawa had slightly improved.
"Your first morning afield, my lord," Miss Kitagawa said, looking at him shyly in a way that would probably have seemed odd coming from the real Keiko. "It must have been lovely to be off the estate and taking in the fresh air."
"With homecomings like these, perhaps I'll require Ninomiya to force me out again soon."
At that, Miss Kitagawa's cheeks turned pink and she looked down. "My lord..."
What, Sho thought. What?! Somehow in this universe he was the one saying the right things, the one getting good reactions from Keiko? In the real world he had been the one hiding erections behind couches on set, blushing like a teen girl every time Keiko described him as "cool" (not that she did it often...but when she did...).
"Perhaps you could join me for some of that fresh air sometime, Miss Kitagawa." He leaned over, lowering his voice. "Just the two of us."
What the hell, he was screaming internally. How was Dream Sho so calm and suave, making the moves on Keiko when in the real world he was tongue-tied and scared to death of her? Maybe in the real world all he had to do was fall off a horse and have his personality rewired.
"My duty is to Philippa," she reminded him softly.
"Not to your employer?"
She reddened again, and he sobbed internally as her tongue slipped briefly from her mouth to wet her lips. Not even ten feet away Nino was engaged in some jokes with the little frizzy-haired brat, oblivious.
He found himself leaning closer, and Miss Kitagawa's posture grew all the more rigid. "Perhaps we could discuss the terms of my employment at a later date if you wish to...reconsider your expectations of my duties, my lord," she said.
It was times like these in A Duke of My Own that the hero started internally salivating over the heroine, describing in all-too-lurid detail about wanting to part her creamy thighs and ram himself into her like a jackhammer. Well, the Victorian England equivalent of a jackhammer, Sho supposed. He suddenly realized that he was equally afflicted now with these "jackhammer thoughts."
The thought of Miss Kitagawa under his hands, unlacing laces and unhooking hooks. Pulling the pins from her hair and letting it tumble down and splay out against his pillowcase. To hear her scream "my lord!" in ecstasy.
Yeah, he was no better than the perverted hero of the story, feeling himself grow warmer and warmer despite it being a dream. Watching Miss Kitagawa lick her lips again made even Dream Sho stiffen up and release a quiet little puff of breath to keep from groaning.
Which only meant one thing.
--
He woke angrily to the horrible feeling of having come in his sleep. His boxers were stuck to him, one of his better pairs now in desperate need of a wash...or simply a toss in the trash. He sat up uncomfortably, feeling like a complete tool. Wet dreams? Wet dreams, really? At thirty years old?
A quick glance at the clock revealed 2:47 AM Tokyo time. He complained out loud to himself as he got out of bed and headed for the shower. At least he hadn't slept naked and sprayed all over his sheets and blankets like a horny teenager who didn't realize the power of his own dick. The human body was remarkable, he thought bitterly, turning on the water.
Being up early gave him time to page through all of the Dragon Lady clipboard, to catch up on the work he'd neglected in favor of other work. Time he definitely didn't want to spend wondering why he'd had the exact same dream.
Well, it wasn't the exact same dream he'd had on the plane. It was the same setting though, the same characters. Like a continuing story. A story where his pants had tented solely because a buttoned-up, sexually repressed Governess Keiko had licked her lips and blushed.
He went to work, was fussed with by managers and photographers and directors and producers, came home again. There was A Duke of My Own still in his carry-on, taunting him. Fucking Sugita.
The next few weeks passed in much the same way, and his dreams as well. 24 Hour TV came and went and still he found himself in the English countryside over and over by night.
Because they were recurring now. He'd never had dreams like them before. Sure he'd had dreams where the same things happened. Dreams of running through his grandmother's house in Gunma. Dreams of being on stage naked with the other members, not even a plastic A-RA-SHI costume to save them from utter humiliation. Dreams of being back in school with a test he hadn't studied for.
This was entirely different. It was progressing. There was a plot. There were side plots even! In a less-than-sexy dream he'd had one night after a News ZERO taping, Satoshi-kun (the manor's cook) and Aiba-chan (the comic relief footman of the novel) had related some stupid story about the niece character, little Philippa, and how Philippa's mother hadn't really died in some carriage accident. So now there was apparently a crazed mother on the loose who'd probably come to snatch the child away, and everyone was on Sho's ass about protecting the kid.
Needless to say the little girl was not Sho's favorite character in the story. Sho liked kids. Most of his friends had them now so he was used to them, and he enjoyed playing with babies and toddlers since his own schedule wouldn't allow him to have any yet. But every time little Philippa appeared in one of his stupid recurring dreams she was there to tug Miss Kitagawa away for some French lessons or a geography lesson when His Lordship was doing his utter best to try and slip inside the governess' pantaloons. Did she wear pantaloons? What were pantaloons? Sho supposed he could Google it and find out the whole underwear situation.
As the summer heat started to fade and autumn arrived, Sho's usual politeness and tolerance of his busy lifestyle grew a bit shaky. He was having the dreams almost every night now, and still he'd gotten no further with "Miss" Kitagawa, who had only just started flirting back. And then there was always Philippa to interrupt or a combination of his alarm clock and Sugita banging on his apartment door in the morning like a bitter ex-girlfriend. He'd even tossed A Duke of My Own into paper recycling in September, and still the story stuck with him.
His obsession with Dream Keiko was starting to give way to an obsession with Reality Keiko. The Keiko who now had a weekly drama on Saturday nights at 9:00 PM this fall season and was, conveniently enough, playing a school teacher. Of course she wasn't in governess gear, and she wasn't shyly accepting Dream Sho's compliments. But he recorded the episodes, drinking beer and watching them at 2:00 AM like a fucking creep.
He'd watch Reality Keiko on TV until he fell asleep, would dream of Miss Kitagawa reading and flirting with him in the manor library, would wake with an erection, would shamefully masturbate with the combined images of her wanting to dominate him in real life and be dominated by him in the dream world. And this was all on top of variety show filming, News ZERO, performing at Kokuritsu, and gearing up for the domes.
By December and Kouhaku rehearsals, everyone had finally had enough of his shit.
--
They'd been at NHK for the better part of the day, and Sho's only entertainment had been watching Satoshi-kun's eyes glaze over in unabashed glee while the AKB girls shook their asses in an energetic rehearsal.
These months had been hard on Sho, who would never in a million years let on how stressed he was to management. Especially when half of said stress was because he was completely fucking incompetent at starting a normal relationship, or even asking a woman out. The other members, however, could tell. They could always fucking tell. It was part of that Arashi "magic" that magazines were endlessly trying to get them to talk about when really the Arashi "magic" was just that the others knew when one of their own hadn't gotten laid in a while and desperately needed something besides his hand or a stranger to keep him company. Arashi "magic" meant to steer clear and let that person refocus until they "got the girl" they wanted or moved on. Their pornography sharing ring quieted down, dirty magazines vanished from Aiba's bag in the green room.
They didn't normally talk relationships or girlfriends because that was personal business. It had become an unspoken rule in the group after an eighteen year old Matsujun had bragged to anyone who would listen for a month after he'd lost his virginity. "I got laid!" he'd squealed. "It was awesome!" Somehow the rule had just kicked in once that month was up and the girl had cheated on him with some Kansai junior who apparently "lasted longer than 46 seconds." The agony poor Matsujun endured was a lesson they all learned. And that lesson was simply "don't talk about your sex life."
But this time Sho's jittery nerves and lack of a stable home life were so severe that an extremely rare group intervention was staged. The Dragon Lady probably saw through their bullshit, but Aiba needled her into booking them a private room post-Kouhaku rehearsal ostensibly so Aiba could spend the night complaining about how ridiculously difficult it was to memorize the dialogue for his new medical drama.
Their managers clucked around them like hens in the farmyard for the first hour of said evening until finally Nino opened Ohno's wallet and paid them to go drink at the restaurant bar. Once the private room was actually private and Matsujun was grilling all sorts of things that everyone knew Sho liked, Aiba wrapped an arm around him.
"Sho-chan, seriously, what is wrong with you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me," he protested into a glass of oolong tea, even though he'd always been the worst liar of all of them.
"You've been acting strange since the summer," Nino said, slipping their Leader's wallet back into his pants pocket. "Not work strange. You always eat your way through those kinds of problems."
Jun flipped a piece of beef with the tongs, snorting in laughter.
Aiba rubbed his shoulder. "Well, if it's not work it must be lady trouble. Awww, how long has it been?"
"None of your business," Sho grumbled, shoving his plate roughly until it clanged against the grill rack. Jun dutifully tossed a piece of meat onto it without even cutting it up for the others to share.
Ohno looked at him sadly. "Did you get dumped?"
"No."
Aiba kept rubbing his shoulder. He'd probably seen it on some intervention reality show on late-night satellite TV. "Do you like guys? Are you gay now?"
"No!"
"It's okay if you like guys," Nino said, swirling the ice cubes in his glass. "We're open minded."
"Fuck off," Sho complained, reaching for his chopsticks to pick up the grilled meat. "I don't like guys."
Jun was moving on to some beef tongue, letting it sizzle on the grill rack. "Ki-ta-ga-wa," Jun said, a smile quirking at the corner of his lips.
"Johnny-san?" Ohno asked in confusion.
Nino nearly spat his drink. "What?"
Ohno scratched his head. "Wait, no...Julie-san?"
Aiba finally stopped touching him. "You have an old people fetish?"
Sho stared at Jun in horror. How the hell did he know? Jun turned the tongue over with the tongs. "Sugita talked to my manager about your night at the Raffles Hotel this summer," he explained.
Sho narrowed his eyes. Sugita, the fucking traitor. "And what exactly did Sugita say?"
"What Raffles Hotel?" Aiba asked, dumbfounded.
"Oh," Nino said, wickedness in his eyes. "Kitagawa Keiko-chan. You didn't!"
"Sugita only said that he detained Keiko-chan's manager at the Raffles Hotel bar one night so you could meet privately," Jun replied. "That is the only information I have been provided."
Nino took over from there. "Okay, okay. So based on the forlorn sack of grouchiness we've been working with for the past few months, I'm guessing she turned you down? And you're still not over it?"
Sho crunched down on an ice cube, making Ohno and Aiba wince a bit in fright. "Do we have to talk about this?"
"It'll feel better if you do," Nino said. "And besides, the makeup woman at Fuji TV told me your eye bags are worse than her grandpa's, so whatever it is about your Oujo-sama that's keeping you up at night is starting to get noticed. And since we love you and value your happiness..."
Jun snorted again, passing a plate of meat to Ohno.
"Piss off," Nino said, "I wouldn't wear a fucking popcorn head with four other people picked at random, you know." He turned back to Sho. "Since we love you and value your happiness, as well as our stellar reputation with the staff in this cutthroat industry, you need to just let it out so you can start the healing process. This night is for you."
Aiba chuckled in his usual merry way. "Sho-chan, don't you always win those 'I want him to be my boyfriend' polls? Did she really turn someone of your caliber down?"
"I don't have a caliber," he grumbled, chewing on a mouthful of meat. "I'm just a man, okay."
"There's something more," Satoshi-kun said, looking at him shrewdly. "Isn't there?"
It took four more plates of meat and Nino attempting to give him some model's phone number before Sho finally let it all out. He took it back to 2011 and the original drama filming and all of Keiko's flirting and smiling, then on to the special and on to movie filming. Then once he got going, he really got going. He choked out the embarrassing night in Singapore, the trip back from London, and the stupid book and the dreams.
He told them all in the vaguest terms possible about the recurring dreams, about Lady Killer Dream Sho and Miss Kitagawa and the stupid top hats and how he hadn't seen Keiko in person for months but he was considering reading her blog to try and determine if she had a boyfriend or not, and finally Nino stopped him.
Sho realized with a quick glance at his phone and the piles of empty plates around the table that he'd been pouring his pathetic, horny heart out to his bandmates for thirty-seven minutes straight without a break. They were staring at him like he had just suggested they let him come up with the choreography for their next single himself, so stunned were the four faces around the table.
"Sho-chan, you've been having the same dream for four months?" Aiba asked.
"I'm a cook?" Ohno chimed in. "What do I make?"
Jun waved them both off, shaking his head in dismay. "Do you need a Solanax or something? I can get you a Solanax."
"I don't need a Solanax," he mumbled. "Thank you, Matsumoto Pharmacy."
"Why don't you try again?" Aiba suggested. "Her drama is ending, a new year is starting. Year of the snake, you know..."
"Pervert. You sound like you're fourteen," Nino complained. "Year of the snake..."
"No, Aiba-chan's right," Ohno said. "If you're having all these dreams, it's...well, it's weird, obviously, and maybe you should see a doctor, but um, maybe the dreams are trying to tell you something?"
"They're telling him that the only way he's ever going to get with Kitagawa Keiko is if she's suddenly in a Charles Dickens remake," Nino said.
"Jane Austen," Sho said quietly. "If I had to say, it's closer to Jane Austen..."
"Well, either way, your subconscious is a mess, Sho-kun," Jun said. "You need to at least see her in person and get a grip before you start parsing her blog for secret messages. She was obviously interested at one time, at least from what you told us, and it just came down to bad timing."
"At least sleep with the dream version of her," Nino said encouragingly. "That should give you some expectations of what you're missing, might clear your head. Or give you the push you need to man up and ask her out again."
"Year of the snake," Aiba started chanting. "Year of the snake!"
"Year of the snake!" Ohno joined in, and soon the both of them were clapping their hands and repeating it over and over. "Year of the snake!"
"Can we please stop talking about this?" he moaned. "Please?"
Nino came around the table, wrapping his arms around Sho and hugging him. "Grandpa eyebags, Sho-chan. Seriously."
"Alright, alright, I'll try," he said, realizing he'd just agreed to try having sex in his dreams with a former colleague. Never a dull moment.
Part Two
Rating NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Sakurai Sho/Kitagawa Keiko
Summary: How was Dream Sho so calm and suave, making the moves on Keiko when in the real world he was tongue-tied and scared to death of her? Based on this prompt for je_fqfest: # 39. Victorian era romance novel, only one member of the group is aware that they are suddenly in an AU.
Notes/Warnings: Well I only vaguely followed the romance novel prompt, oops. It's mostly just in the background because my brain decided to write something completely different. These things happen. Anyhow, this story starts in August 2012 and moves forward into 2013. Inspiration for "Governess Keiko" comes from Doctor Who's Clara.
He washed his hands, frowning at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked horrible. Sho was fairly certain he had never actually recovered from the jet lag on the flight over, and now he was just about to be crammed into a seat for twelve hours going back. If only teleportation would hurry up and become real, his life would be much easier.
Of course, plenty of people had it harder than Sakurai Sho, Japanese idol, but he'd always been a grumpy flyer and a grumpy jet lag-haver, and he felt entitled to his current miserable feelings.
He dried his hands, emerging from the bathroom and back into the terminal. His manager, somehow gifted with the ability to sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat, was snoozing peacefully with their carry-on bags at the gate. Sho frowned, envious to the point of tears. He wondered if it was just one of those things they asked you on a job interview for Hard Ass Manager of Grumpy Idol. "Can you sleep anywhere? Can you put up with your idol's occasional bouts of assholery?"
Sho sat down beside him, rudely nudging the man awake. They'd be boarding in about half an hour. "I'm back, you can go," Sho said.
Sugita-san's face woke before his eyes even opened, his lips twisting into a sneer. "I don't need to go."
Sho unzipped his backpack, digging through his collection of shirts and trinkets for his fellow Arashi members. "You can go," he repeated. "You're stuck in the middle seat, you know, it's not easy to get out."
"Piss off," Sugita grumbled, trying to turn back to the comfort of his suit jacket slash pillow.
It was then that Sho realized what he'd done. "Damn it..."
"What?" his manager asked, finally stirring enough to wipe some drool from his jacket pillow.
He dug and dug through his bag, but no luck. "I must have left my book on the bedside table of the hotel. I have nothing to read on the plane."
"The airline magazine," his manager replied, unsympathetic as usual. "Or watch a movie. Watch four movies. Read a newspaper."
Sho frowned, trying for his "I'm a helpless idol, woe is me" pouting face.
Sugita sighed. "Fine. What do you want?"
"A book," Sho said. "Fiction. Get me fiction."
"The books are in English," Sugita reminded him. "I have no fucking idea what they say."
Sho turned his pouting face up a notch until Sugita got to his feet, making whiny manager noises.
"I am not your slave," Sugita reminded him. "And I am not your bank." He held out his hand.
Sho dug in his pocket for his wallet, pulling out a few pound notes he had left. "Buy yourself something too. And don't be an asshole and forget to wash your hands before you go to the book kiosk."
"Like you'd even know," Sugita said, wiggling his fingers before heading down the terminal for the restroom.
Sho sat back, so tired he knew he wasn't going to sleep for hours. Between the plane food and whatever Sugita managed to bring back from the bookseller, Sho was bound for a shitty flight. But his work here was done, though he hadn't had much time to wander around London and enjoy blessed anonymity. It had been Olympics non-stop from the moment he'd stepped off the plane, between interviews and memorizing the lives of several key athletes from their birth to the pop of the starting gun.
He was fortunate, getting to come here all expenses paid and then some, but it was still a lot of work on top of his existing metric ton of work. "Sleep on the plane," they always told him. It had been only a month since he'd gotten back from Singapore, another long flight, hot weather (especially filming in a tux), and the unfortunate feeling of rejection. He hadn't slept much then either.
It had been a dumb move, one of his dumbest in fact. And yet he'd tried it. They'd been on the same floor of the hotel, and Sugita had outdone himself in coercing Keiko's manager into a drink at the bar. It had been his moment, his one perfect moment to go "hey, you know what...I think I like you...maybe we should..."
He'd made it through the original drama filming without pestering her, mostly because Kitagawa Keiko fucking terrified him. Sho had worked with his share of actresses and as a personal rule he usually didn't sleep with them in the event that they might work with one of the other members someday (or worse, a kohai). The last thing he needed was a cheeky kohai calling up to say "So-and-so-san says you were a complete dick to her."
But she was different. She was kind to the staff, made fast friends with the crew and the directors. She was utterly and completely professional, something that in normal circumstances turned him on. Sho was inevitably, hopelessly attracted to hard workers, to people who dialed it up on set, never lost their cool, and made up for his own shortcomings. Keiko was all of those things, but she was also scary.
That fall had been full of looks from the corner of her eye, the brush of a hand to his sleeve after a difficult take. And then of course the wrap party when Sugita said she'd checked him out like he was on the auction block and she was ready to spend. Sho had always been intimidated by women who knew exactly what they wanted from him. Women who cut to the chase and didn't have time to deal with his shyness. By the end of filming, Sho knew that Kitagawa Keiko was dangerous and that she wouldn't tolerate a courtship that didn't meet her standards. She was fine without him, fine without anyone. If he wanted her, someone like her who didn't really need him, he had to prove he was worth the effort.
So he'd let that ship sail. Well, for a few days. Then they'd learned about filming for a special episode to be broadcast that spring. Just when he thought he'd been freed from the little touches and teases that drove him insane with lustful thoughts and the fear of not quite being able to meet expectations in reality, she was back. This time with back and forths to Okinawa.
With scripted hand-holds and a lovey-dovey story with her character's doppelganger and even a peck on the cheek, he'd nearly lost it. He had to play Tough and Manly and Masculine and she was there with her "thanks for your hard work" cheerfulness and her "I'm going to ride you like the shinkansen" eyes. Sho still wasn't sure how he'd gotten through it without coming in his pants like a junior high school kid seeing his first porno.
But this summer had been different. He'd had a few months out of her orbit before the offer and contracts had come round in order to capitalize on what the network saw as a winning combination, to make a movie version of the drama. This time he'd decided to man up and not be afraid of her. Her confident desire didn't have to be so frightening. He was Sakurai Sho, and he could still give as good as he got. What had happened to that firebrand of a teenager, using his name at uni parties to go home with someone? Where was the prick who'd broken so many hearts? When had he gotten so soft? When had he become the type of loser that would let a clearly interested Kitagawa Keiko get away because he was too afraid to ask her out?
So he'd gotten it set up, had Sugita lure the manager, had knocked on her hotel room door with gusto. All he'd been missing was that shitty ass cologne he'd worn in university when he was on the prowl and trying to beat Nino's monthly tally. She'd answered the door, makeup-free and squeaky clean, glasses on her nose.
"Keiko-chan..."
Her face had fallen at the sight of him. "Sho-san," she'd said right upfront, the "Sho-kun" she preferred hidden away. "Bad timing."
"Huh?" he'd asked, seeing as how she'd already skipped way ahead straight to rejecting him.
She'd actually looked quite sad, which didn't help at the time as "no" was "no" no matter what. "Bad timing," she repeated. "I'd love to, but I've got a drama lead lined up for the fall. We're in talks now. I need to focus."
"So...you're busy," he'd replied, even though he himself was one of the busiest people in Japan and for him, timing wasn't an issue. Couldn't they just start and stop as time allowed?
"I'm really and truly busy," she'd said, but not without looking him up and down freely. "I'm so sorry."
And because he was kind of an idiot and his grand gesture had been so thoroughly rejected without him even being able to ask the question, he'd simply nodded and said "of course, maybe some other time" and had slunk down the hall for the most depressing masturbatory episode of his life.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Japan Airlines flight 402 to Tokyo Narita will now begin preliminary boarding."
He was dazed from his thoughts at the sudden, noisy bit of English over the public address system. And what great thoughts they were, too. Kitagawa Keiko in her t-shirt and some shorts, opening her hotel room door only to close it again within two minutes. Maybe three if he tried to remember her staring at him longer than she actually had.
When he got back from London, he had 24 Hour TV prep work and no time. The window of opportunity, his and Keiko's window of opportunity, was shut. They'd promote the movie next year, but she'd already judged his poor sense of timing. She'd probably find someone else or maybe she'd find nobody at all. She was so work-driven that it made Sho look like a slacker. It was always going to be a case of two ships passing in the night or some other cliche for "we didn't get to fuck."
A thick paperback smacked him in the chest, and Sugita returned carrying what was quite possibly the world's largest cup of iced coffee. At some point it stopped being a cup and started being a jug.
"No change," Sugita said, which meant that he'd pocketed Sho's money as a gratuity for his years of servitude.
"You drink that and you'll have to piss before we even take off," Sho warned him, hearing the ice slosh around in the cup as Sugita sipped it proudly.
"Read your fucking book."
Sho picked it up, frowning at the cover. It was English alright, and to his mother's utter dismay, his English reading skills had deteriorated gravely over the years. He'd be lucky to get a word per sentence. But that wasn't actually what annoyed him the most about the book, which was titled A Duke of My Own.
It was the cover. A man and woman embracing. The man had a chest the size of a football stadium, and the woman's massive breasts were about to tumble from the top of her emerald green dress. She had long blonde curls tumbling down her back, and he was clutching her to him as though they were about to go at it like a pair of rabbits while the reader watched.
"Store full of books and you bring me this," Sho complained.
"There was a line for the men's room," Sugita said. "And a longer line at Starbucks. May I remind you that Skyward, the in-flight magazine, is featuring an article on the charms of kabuki? And numerous other surprises for the patient reader?"
Sho shoved the book in his bag with a huff. Sugita's revenge for being Sho's errand boy, going above and beyond every day of his life so long as Arashi was selling and selling well. He pulled his boarding pass from his pocket, getting to his feet.
The plane sat at the gate for twenty minutes before finally heading to the runway and taking to the skies. Before too long Sugita had to piss, moving from his middle seat past Sho's aisle seat and doing his best to hold it as he queued up behind the other people who'd gotten up as soon as the fasten seat belts sign had turned off. Sho got up, opening the overhead compartment and pulling the book from his bag. The "charms of kabuki" had been bad, the movie selection was worse. It was apparently time to stumble through A Duke of My Own. At the very least, it would be good practice, so long as he didn't let the gray-haired woman sitting across the aisle from him see the cover.
Sugita smiled in victory when he returned, bladder emptied. In minutes he was asleep again, the asshole, just as Sho was getting started. He wasn't understanding much, but at least it was passing the time. From the first few chapters, he'd been introduced to Griffin, a duke who had met with some mishap with a horse. With Sho's limited English, the horse had either kicked Griffin, unseated him, or fucked his mother. Either way he was left with amnesia and a surly attitude. His love interest was Adele, a governess or nanny or something like that. She was in the house to care for Griffin's niece. Sho didn't know why the kid was living with the duke, but he assumed it had been explained already and he didn't feel like turning back the pages.
Either way, it became an issue of class differences. And an obvious issue of love overcoming all obstacles, and there were more than 200 pages of those obstacles to still get through. As the minutes passed, Sho grew tired. The already unfamiliar words on the pages started to blur, the hum of the jet engines lulled him out of any otherwise coherent thoughts, and the flight attendants shut off the cabin lights, leaving Sho in the dark with only the buttery glow of his overhead light to continue following along with Adele and Griffin's riveting story.
So of course, he gave up on reading and gave in to sleep.
--
Sho stirred at the sound of a sharp knock on the door. Confusion set in when he realized he was in a prone position, on his back with a heavy mound of blankets covering him. He popped his head up from beneath them. "Come in," he called out, loud and clear, even if his thoughts certainly didn't match the confidence of his words. Almost as though his mouth was moving without him telling it to.
Wasn't he still on the plane from London?
No, apparently he was not. He was in a very large bedroom, snugly tucked into a four-poster bed with hideous gauzy curtains. Before he could sneer at them, the door opened and Matsujun walked in, dressed head to foot in something that might have served as a Kageyama backup costume on the Nazodi set. But something wasn't right. Why was Jun here? And what had happened to the plane? How did he get here?
"Have I overslept?" Sho's voice asked instead, once more without his knowledge. It was as though Sho, the real Sho, was trapped inside his own body and someone else was working the controls. Because it was his body. His hands, his arms, though they were stuffed inside a pair of itchy pajamas that he didn't recognize either.
"You have indeed, my lord," came Jun's reply, and now Sho figured it out. A dream. He was dreaming. Because there wasn't a planet in the galaxy that existed where Matsumoto Jun would ever address him as "my lord."
Jun approached the bed, not a hair out of place. Even in Sho's dreams, even when Sho's subconscious tossed him into a butler's outfit, he was still neat and fashionable. Sho in his awful pajamas envied him that. "Have I missed any engagements?"
At that, Jun shook his head. "Not at all, my lord. Your health is of utmost importance, and you have no engagements today or any day until you have fully recovered."
"And what am I recovering from exactly?"
Jun looked a little embarrassed. "Your memory lapses, sir."
That fucking book. Fucking Sugita. Sho tossed the blankets off, giving Jun a bit of a shock. It would have been better if the dream had left him on the beach with a drink. It would have been better if he was dreaming of playing for Japan's World Cup soccer team. Even a flying dream would be better despite his issues with heights. Instead his subconscious had stuck him in A Duke of My Own.
He moved to the window, pulled the curtains to find a foggy morning, rolling green lawns. An expansive and certainly most English estate. He'd tumbled into Jane Austen's backyard, although he and Jun were most definitely not English, nor were they speaking it.
He turned back, finding Jun waiting patiently for him. "And who might you be in this place?"
"Matsumoto, sir. Your valet."
"My..."
"Valet," Jun continued. At the very least, this Jun didn't look at him the way the real Jun did when he said something senseless. "Your manservant."
He wanted to laugh. He really wanted to. But it was a dream and he was stuck in this weird persona in this weird house and couldn't even take control long enough to laugh at Jun for claiming to be his manservant. Perhaps this was actually a nightmare instead.
Things were also progressing very slowly, to Sho's dismay. In most dreams he had, time was a rather fluid thing. He'd flit from place to place or things would blend together, but it seemed like minutes were ticking by as he lamented winding up in this ridiculous world. "Very well, Matsumoto. I should like to take my breakfast."
"Very good, my lord," Jun said, heading for the wardrobe.
He then stood there awkwardly, unable to even express his discomfort as Jun helped to dress him for the day. He was fitted into another itchy starched shirt and a waistcoat, cringing internally as Jun helped him into a nearly knee-length coat and pinstriped trousers. He was complete with socks and shoes and felt damn overdressed for breakfast, which Sho usually ate in a t-shirt and shorts.
Jun finished everything off with a brush, running it over his jacket to clean away lint or dandruff or whatever the hell he was looking for, so long did he spend pushing the stupid brush down the sharp angle of his shoulders. Even his dream self, the lord of the manor, couldn't help the slope.
"I'll have Cook prepare everything. Very good to see you up and about, sir," Jun said before excusing himself. That left Sho to scowl at himself in the mirror for a moment before he followed Jun out.
The vast estate was accompanied by an equally obnoxious house. He found himself on a plush carpeted hallway floor adorned with portraits and landscape art of places and people he didn't know. Eventually he made it to a grand staircase that led down to an even grander entry hall. Servants were scurrying about cleaning windows and dusting. Each maid who passed gave him a quick curtsy.
He found the breakfast room and was about to sit down when a curly brown-haired rat plowed into him.
"Philippa!"
Sho, despite his lack of dream control, jolted at the sound of her voice. He didn't even look down at the child who'd run into him, turning around to find Kitagawa Keiko hurrying over with an apologetic look in her eyes. And it was her, there was no mistake. Of course, she wasn't in her Hosho Reiko fine clothes or her Kitagawa the actress casual chic. Her hair was tied back in a strict bun and she wore a blue dress with black trim, a high neckline, and a ruffled skirt. Sho was almost grateful to be in the middle of an out of body experience, if only because he was now discovering a previously unknown English nanny fetish.
The child slipped away from Sho, running to hide behind Keiko's skirts. Keiko bobbed her head, none of the usual "I want you to taste every part of me" confidence in her eyes.
Instead she turned to scold the child. "Philippa, that is not how you greet your lord uncle, now is it?"
The little girl, with her frizzy hair and crooked teeth, had fallen right out of a BBC drama but was kind enough to speak in Japanese for his dream benefit. She peeked around Keiko's middle, inclining her head. "Forgive me, Uncle. Good morning to you."
He played along. "No running in the corridors, please."
The little girl frowned at him. "That is what Nino always says."
Great, was Nino here too? Was there a cast of thousands? How long before this dream ended already?
"I'm still...working on getting back into the swing of things here," he said, leaning a hand against the back of the chair at the head of the table. Keiko's face revealed nothing, no judgment, no sympathy. Sho wondered how many petticoats and other women things were underneath that dress of hers.
She took the cue to introduce herself. "Miss Kitagawa. I'm Philippa's governess."
Of course you are, he thought. The amnesiac Griffin needed his Adele. Fucking Sugita!
"Miss Kitagawa," he said, tapping the chair. "Would you join me for breakfast?"
"Sho-kun..."
--
"Sho-kun."
"No," he murmured, desperate to get back to that blue dress and the hair that was tied up out of his reach. "No, I didn't have breakfast."
Sugita's elbow was a jabbing pain in his left side. "Sho-kun, we're landing in twenty minutes."
He registered the sounds of the plane again, the jostling of people in other seats. The distinct lack of a "Miss Kitagawa" in a nanny dress disciplining that child in such a firm, sexy voice. He opened his eyes, finding A Duke of My Own sitting on his lap. Reality had sadly returned. He hadn't even gotten past introductions with dream Keiko and here he was, back in a world where she had been all but open for business for him for months and he'd never taken advantage. His cock blocked at every turn.
Sugita shoved a cup of water at him. "I snagged this for you. Don't need to look dehydrated for the paparazzi when we land."
"Your concern is heartfelt as always," Sho grumbled, sipping the water.
He pulled a baseball cap from his carry-on, pulling it down over his hair, and then scowled his way through passport control and the Narita terminal. He knew he was never going to win Friendliest Airport Celebrity of the Year, but he suppressed a grin as Sugita did his usual Paparazzi Blocker choreography through Narita. A hand up to block a camera here, a hand on Sho's back to guide him onto an escalator there. The guy might have been one of Johnny's better dancers if he was twenty years younger.
The "Dragon Lady" was waiting in the car for him while Sugita sat up front with the company driver to head back to Tokyo. She was new to Johnny's and had been recently poached from Avex. With the growing number of Arashi and individual activities, Eriko-san was the new "Arashi floater" manager. A manager for their managers, someone who stepped in when there was so much going on even the managers were going nuts trying to keep track of everything. Sho thought she was wonderful. Sugita (who was responsible for coining the "Dragon Lady" moniker) wanted her head on a pike.
Unlike Sugita who relied on a Blackberry and iPhone combo to make sure Sho didn't self-destruct, Eriko-san was a fan of clipboards and a paper trail. As soon as Sho was buckled in and the car pulled away from the curb, a clipboard was presented with a summation of everything that had happened in Japan during his absence. The daily weather he'd missed, a list of the shows she had recorded for him (with accompanying DVD jewel cases), top news stories drilled down into digestible bullet points, and a minute-by-minute up-to-date schedule for 24 Hour TV that now had a built in "Number 2 Break" sometime around 11:30 PM as Sho had requested.
Sho liked schedules. Thus Sho liked Eriko-san.
But today he didn't really have time to listen to her squawk at him about Shiyagare filming. He was still stuck in that stupid book and in his stupid dream from the plane. Stuck thinking about Kitagawa Keiko. Hopefully she'd forgive his sullen expression and half-hearted thank yous, letting jet lag take the blame.
He was dropped off at his place, hearing Sugita and Eriko-san break into a noisy argument just before he shut the car door. Finally free of his babysitters, he took the elevator up, enjoying the whoosh of cold air as he turned his A/C on within seconds of opening his door. He did a half-assed unpacking job, only setting aside the gifts he'd purchased for the members before stripping down and collapsing on his bed with a mumbled complaint to nobody about having to wake at 5:00 the following morning for a CM shoot. He almost envied the Sho of his dreams with his large estate and zero responsibilities.
He rolled onto his back, sighing, wondering if he should forego sleep entirely to get his body clock
--
"...listening to a word I've been saying?"
Sho blinked, finding himself being thoroughly lectured by Nino. His clothes were different, but he was somehow back at the estate. He was dressed in a long coat, top hat, and gray trousers this time, and he was outdoors looking out over the rolling green hills.
Nino was there, fuming for some reason, arms crossed.
"Sorry, what was that? My mind wandered..."
Nino, who was wearing a bowler hat that made the rest of him look even more childlike than usual, gestured out at the hills. "Then you shouldn't be out here trying to do business if you're still not up to snuff. Now as I was relating to you, the yields from Bennet farm are next to nothing, and you'd do well to sell it to anyone who'll take that money-draining homestead off your hands. You'd think they salted the earth with the paltry profit they bring to you."
Sho only nodded. "Sure, dump Bennet farm," said the Sho who spoke for him, the body he was inhabiting.
Nino continued on, money this and money that. Sho mostly went along with whatever suggestions Nino thought were best, discovering over the course of the lengthy conversation that in this strange universe Jun was his valet and Nino was his estate manager, responsible for the grounds and the land he owned, which apparently consisted of numerous small farms.
They headed back to a two-horse carriage that had been parked at the roadside, climbing inside. Nino thumped the roof of the carriage with his walking stick and the driver got them moving. He was the same Nino in voice and appearance, which was probably why he didn't act like Sho was a nobleman worthy of preferential treatment. There were no "sir" or "my lord" pronouncements from Nino, who simply called him "Sho" and grumbled as the carriage jostled them back to the manor.
Upon arrival, Sho felt his heart race (or at least the Dream Sho's heart race) as the front door of the house opened, and "Miss" Kitagawa and the child, Philippa, came out to greet them upon their arrival. Nino busied himself immediately by teasing the little girl and asking her to do sums in her head to calculate the monthly salary that Sho paid him.
This conveniently left Sho and Miss Kitagawa standing awkwardly on the gravel drive as the driver, horses, and carriage headed off for the stables. Even though Sho had been propelled through time from his breakfast in the last dream to whatever time and place this was, he somehow knew that things between him and Miss Kitagawa had slightly improved.
"Your first morning afield, my lord," Miss Kitagawa said, looking at him shyly in a way that would probably have seemed odd coming from the real Keiko. "It must have been lovely to be off the estate and taking in the fresh air."
"With homecomings like these, perhaps I'll require Ninomiya to force me out again soon."
At that, Miss Kitagawa's cheeks turned pink and she looked down. "My lord..."
What, Sho thought. What?! Somehow in this universe he was the one saying the right things, the one getting good reactions from Keiko? In the real world he had been the one hiding erections behind couches on set, blushing like a teen girl every time Keiko described him as "cool" (not that she did it often...but when she did...).
"Perhaps you could join me for some of that fresh air sometime, Miss Kitagawa." He leaned over, lowering his voice. "Just the two of us."
What the hell, he was screaming internally. How was Dream Sho so calm and suave, making the moves on Keiko when in the real world he was tongue-tied and scared to death of her? Maybe in the real world all he had to do was fall off a horse and have his personality rewired.
"My duty is to Philippa," she reminded him softly.
"Not to your employer?"
She reddened again, and he sobbed internally as her tongue slipped briefly from her mouth to wet her lips. Not even ten feet away Nino was engaged in some jokes with the little frizzy-haired brat, oblivious.
He found himself leaning closer, and Miss Kitagawa's posture grew all the more rigid. "Perhaps we could discuss the terms of my employment at a later date if you wish to...reconsider your expectations of my duties, my lord," she said.
It was times like these in A Duke of My Own that the hero started internally salivating over the heroine, describing in all-too-lurid detail about wanting to part her creamy thighs and ram himself into her like a jackhammer. Well, the Victorian England equivalent of a jackhammer, Sho supposed. He suddenly realized that he was equally afflicted now with these "jackhammer thoughts."
The thought of Miss Kitagawa under his hands, unlacing laces and unhooking hooks. Pulling the pins from her hair and letting it tumble down and splay out against his pillowcase. To hear her scream "my lord!" in ecstasy.
Yeah, he was no better than the perverted hero of the story, feeling himself grow warmer and warmer despite it being a dream. Watching Miss Kitagawa lick her lips again made even Dream Sho stiffen up and release a quiet little puff of breath to keep from groaning.
Which only meant one thing.
--
He woke angrily to the horrible feeling of having come in his sleep. His boxers were stuck to him, one of his better pairs now in desperate need of a wash...or simply a toss in the trash. He sat up uncomfortably, feeling like a complete tool. Wet dreams? Wet dreams, really? At thirty years old?
A quick glance at the clock revealed 2:47 AM Tokyo time. He complained out loud to himself as he got out of bed and headed for the shower. At least he hadn't slept naked and sprayed all over his sheets and blankets like a horny teenager who didn't realize the power of his own dick. The human body was remarkable, he thought bitterly, turning on the water.
Being up early gave him time to page through all of the Dragon Lady clipboard, to catch up on the work he'd neglected in favor of other work. Time he definitely didn't want to spend wondering why he'd had the exact same dream.
Well, it wasn't the exact same dream he'd had on the plane. It was the same setting though, the same characters. Like a continuing story. A story where his pants had tented solely because a buttoned-up, sexually repressed Governess Keiko had licked her lips and blushed.
He went to work, was fussed with by managers and photographers and directors and producers, came home again. There was A Duke of My Own still in his carry-on, taunting him. Fucking Sugita.
The next few weeks passed in much the same way, and his dreams as well. 24 Hour TV came and went and still he found himself in the English countryside over and over by night.
Because they were recurring now. He'd never had dreams like them before. Sure he'd had dreams where the same things happened. Dreams of running through his grandmother's house in Gunma. Dreams of being on stage naked with the other members, not even a plastic A-RA-SHI costume to save them from utter humiliation. Dreams of being back in school with a test he hadn't studied for.
This was entirely different. It was progressing. There was a plot. There were side plots even! In a less-than-sexy dream he'd had one night after a News ZERO taping, Satoshi-kun (the manor's cook) and Aiba-chan (the comic relief footman of the novel) had related some stupid story about the niece character, little Philippa, and how Philippa's mother hadn't really died in some carriage accident. So now there was apparently a crazed mother on the loose who'd probably come to snatch the child away, and everyone was on Sho's ass about protecting the kid.
Needless to say the little girl was not Sho's favorite character in the story. Sho liked kids. Most of his friends had them now so he was used to them, and he enjoyed playing with babies and toddlers since his own schedule wouldn't allow him to have any yet. But every time little Philippa appeared in one of his stupid recurring dreams she was there to tug Miss Kitagawa away for some French lessons or a geography lesson when His Lordship was doing his utter best to try and slip inside the governess' pantaloons. Did she wear pantaloons? What were pantaloons? Sho supposed he could Google it and find out the whole underwear situation.
As the summer heat started to fade and autumn arrived, Sho's usual politeness and tolerance of his busy lifestyle grew a bit shaky. He was having the dreams almost every night now, and still he'd gotten no further with "Miss" Kitagawa, who had only just started flirting back. And then there was always Philippa to interrupt or a combination of his alarm clock and Sugita banging on his apartment door in the morning like a bitter ex-girlfriend. He'd even tossed A Duke of My Own into paper recycling in September, and still the story stuck with him.
His obsession with Dream Keiko was starting to give way to an obsession with Reality Keiko. The Keiko who now had a weekly drama on Saturday nights at 9:00 PM this fall season and was, conveniently enough, playing a school teacher. Of course she wasn't in governess gear, and she wasn't shyly accepting Dream Sho's compliments. But he recorded the episodes, drinking beer and watching them at 2:00 AM like a fucking creep.
He'd watch Reality Keiko on TV until he fell asleep, would dream of Miss Kitagawa reading and flirting with him in the manor library, would wake with an erection, would shamefully masturbate with the combined images of her wanting to dominate him in real life and be dominated by him in the dream world. And this was all on top of variety show filming, News ZERO, performing at Kokuritsu, and gearing up for the domes.
By December and Kouhaku rehearsals, everyone had finally had enough of his shit.
--
They'd been at NHK for the better part of the day, and Sho's only entertainment had been watching Satoshi-kun's eyes glaze over in unabashed glee while the AKB girls shook their asses in an energetic rehearsal.
These months had been hard on Sho, who would never in a million years let on how stressed he was to management. Especially when half of said stress was because he was completely fucking incompetent at starting a normal relationship, or even asking a woman out. The other members, however, could tell. They could always fucking tell. It was part of that Arashi "magic" that magazines were endlessly trying to get them to talk about when really the Arashi "magic" was just that the others knew when one of their own hadn't gotten laid in a while and desperately needed something besides his hand or a stranger to keep him company. Arashi "magic" meant to steer clear and let that person refocus until they "got the girl" they wanted or moved on. Their pornography sharing ring quieted down, dirty magazines vanished from Aiba's bag in the green room.
They didn't normally talk relationships or girlfriends because that was personal business. It had become an unspoken rule in the group after an eighteen year old Matsujun had bragged to anyone who would listen for a month after he'd lost his virginity. "I got laid!" he'd squealed. "It was awesome!" Somehow the rule had just kicked in once that month was up and the girl had cheated on him with some Kansai junior who apparently "lasted longer than 46 seconds." The agony poor Matsujun endured was a lesson they all learned. And that lesson was simply "don't talk about your sex life."
But this time Sho's jittery nerves and lack of a stable home life were so severe that an extremely rare group intervention was staged. The Dragon Lady probably saw through their bullshit, but Aiba needled her into booking them a private room post-Kouhaku rehearsal ostensibly so Aiba could spend the night complaining about how ridiculously difficult it was to memorize the dialogue for his new medical drama.
Their managers clucked around them like hens in the farmyard for the first hour of said evening until finally Nino opened Ohno's wallet and paid them to go drink at the restaurant bar. Once the private room was actually private and Matsujun was grilling all sorts of things that everyone knew Sho liked, Aiba wrapped an arm around him.
"Sho-chan, seriously, what is wrong with you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me," he protested into a glass of oolong tea, even though he'd always been the worst liar of all of them.
"You've been acting strange since the summer," Nino said, slipping their Leader's wallet back into his pants pocket. "Not work strange. You always eat your way through those kinds of problems."
Jun flipped a piece of beef with the tongs, snorting in laughter.
Aiba rubbed his shoulder. "Well, if it's not work it must be lady trouble. Awww, how long has it been?"
"None of your business," Sho grumbled, shoving his plate roughly until it clanged against the grill rack. Jun dutifully tossed a piece of meat onto it without even cutting it up for the others to share.
Ohno looked at him sadly. "Did you get dumped?"
"No."
Aiba kept rubbing his shoulder. He'd probably seen it on some intervention reality show on late-night satellite TV. "Do you like guys? Are you gay now?"
"No!"
"It's okay if you like guys," Nino said, swirling the ice cubes in his glass. "We're open minded."
"Fuck off," Sho complained, reaching for his chopsticks to pick up the grilled meat. "I don't like guys."
Jun was moving on to some beef tongue, letting it sizzle on the grill rack. "Ki-ta-ga-wa," Jun said, a smile quirking at the corner of his lips.
"Johnny-san?" Ohno asked in confusion.
Nino nearly spat his drink. "What?"
Ohno scratched his head. "Wait, no...Julie-san?"
Aiba finally stopped touching him. "You have an old people fetish?"
Sho stared at Jun in horror. How the hell did he know? Jun turned the tongue over with the tongs. "Sugita talked to my manager about your night at the Raffles Hotel this summer," he explained.
Sho narrowed his eyes. Sugita, the fucking traitor. "And what exactly did Sugita say?"
"What Raffles Hotel?" Aiba asked, dumbfounded.
"Oh," Nino said, wickedness in his eyes. "Kitagawa Keiko-chan. You didn't!"
"Sugita only said that he detained Keiko-chan's manager at the Raffles Hotel bar one night so you could meet privately," Jun replied. "That is the only information I have been provided."
Nino took over from there. "Okay, okay. So based on the forlorn sack of grouchiness we've been working with for the past few months, I'm guessing she turned you down? And you're still not over it?"
Sho crunched down on an ice cube, making Ohno and Aiba wince a bit in fright. "Do we have to talk about this?"
"It'll feel better if you do," Nino said. "And besides, the makeup woman at Fuji TV told me your eye bags are worse than her grandpa's, so whatever it is about your Oujo-sama that's keeping you up at night is starting to get noticed. And since we love you and value your happiness..."
Jun snorted again, passing a plate of meat to Ohno.
"Piss off," Nino said, "I wouldn't wear a fucking popcorn head with four other people picked at random, you know." He turned back to Sho. "Since we love you and value your happiness, as well as our stellar reputation with the staff in this cutthroat industry, you need to just let it out so you can start the healing process. This night is for you."
Aiba chuckled in his usual merry way. "Sho-chan, don't you always win those 'I want him to be my boyfriend' polls? Did she really turn someone of your caliber down?"
"I don't have a caliber," he grumbled, chewing on a mouthful of meat. "I'm just a man, okay."
"There's something more," Satoshi-kun said, looking at him shrewdly. "Isn't there?"
It took four more plates of meat and Nino attempting to give him some model's phone number before Sho finally let it all out. He took it back to 2011 and the original drama filming and all of Keiko's flirting and smiling, then on to the special and on to movie filming. Then once he got going, he really got going. He choked out the embarrassing night in Singapore, the trip back from London, and the stupid book and the dreams.
He told them all in the vaguest terms possible about the recurring dreams, about Lady Killer Dream Sho and Miss Kitagawa and the stupid top hats and how he hadn't seen Keiko in person for months but he was considering reading her blog to try and determine if she had a boyfriend or not, and finally Nino stopped him.
Sho realized with a quick glance at his phone and the piles of empty plates around the table that he'd been pouring his pathetic, horny heart out to his bandmates for thirty-seven minutes straight without a break. They were staring at him like he had just suggested they let him come up with the choreography for their next single himself, so stunned were the four faces around the table.
"Sho-chan, you've been having the same dream for four months?" Aiba asked.
"I'm a cook?" Ohno chimed in. "What do I make?"
Jun waved them both off, shaking his head in dismay. "Do you need a Solanax or something? I can get you a Solanax."
"I don't need a Solanax," he mumbled. "Thank you, Matsumoto Pharmacy."
"Why don't you try again?" Aiba suggested. "Her drama is ending, a new year is starting. Year of the snake, you know..."
"Pervert. You sound like you're fourteen," Nino complained. "Year of the snake..."
"No, Aiba-chan's right," Ohno said. "If you're having all these dreams, it's...well, it's weird, obviously, and maybe you should see a doctor, but um, maybe the dreams are trying to tell you something?"
"They're telling him that the only way he's ever going to get with Kitagawa Keiko is if she's suddenly in a Charles Dickens remake," Nino said.
"Jane Austen," Sho said quietly. "If I had to say, it's closer to Jane Austen..."
"Well, either way, your subconscious is a mess, Sho-kun," Jun said. "You need to at least see her in person and get a grip before you start parsing her blog for secret messages. She was obviously interested at one time, at least from what you told us, and it just came down to bad timing."
"At least sleep with the dream version of her," Nino said encouragingly. "That should give you some expectations of what you're missing, might clear your head. Or give you the push you need to man up and ask her out again."
"Year of the snake," Aiba started chanting. "Year of the snake!"
"Year of the snake!" Ohno joined in, and soon the both of them were clapping their hands and repeating it over and over. "Year of the snake!"
"Can we please stop talking about this?" he moaned. "Please?"
Nino came around the table, wrapping his arms around Sho and hugging him. "Grandpa eyebags, Sho-chan. Seriously."
"Alright, alright, I'll try," he said, realizing he'd just agreed to try having sex in his dreams with a former colleague. Never a dull moment.
Part Two