Day 2: Ryo
Nishikido Ryo is a workaholic. Everyone knows that. Work seemed to like him a lot. From one PV shoot to another, from filming a movie to a drama - it never stops.
And when reporters ask (they always ask), ‘How do you cope with the workload?’ he would always answer, ‘It’s for the fans.’ Such an idol-esque answer but it was the truth. It’s just not the main reason that’s all.
Because Nishikido Ryo had a secret.
During every break he was given, he would walk over to his bag, take out his wallet and extract a photograph out of it. He would look at it for a good five minutes and a warm smile would fill his face. Sometimes he would even chuckle to himself. And when he resumes his work a few minutes later, he would be fully re-energized.
People who noticed his odd habit would talk among themselves. They would try to guess what the photograph hold exactly that made the scary Nishikido Ryo smile like that. But all they could do was to speculate. They didn’t want to incur his wrath after all.
But it all came to a point when the people - his manager and some of the staff- grew really, really, really curious that they decided to take a risk. They decided to fish the photograph out of Nishikido Ryo’s wallet just to take a teeny tiny peek at it in order to satisfy their curiosity. The manager, a big man who loomed over everybody else, was the most obvious choice since… well, because of his big size.
And so with clammy hands and sweat trickling down the back of his neck, manager-san stealthily made his way over to Nishikido Ryo’s bag while filming was going on. He tried to steady his trembling hands as he took out the brown leather wallet from the bag. He let out his pent-up breath as he slowly searched the wallet for the photograph and after searching it thoroughly; he only found one photograph that was slightly faded on its side. He flipped it to the correct side, his heartbeat going faster by the moment - because he is going to uncover a huge secret after all.
He stared at it for a few seconds, digesting the information before carefully slipping the photograph back in the wallet and the wallet in the bag and leaving the scene.
He wasn’t really surprised by the outcome. A bit disappointed maybe, but certainly not surprised.
After all, the photograph contained the pictures of Nishikido Ryo and his friends, all huddled together in front of the stage - the stage where they had their first performance if manager-san remembered correctly. All of them were wearing silly grins as they posed for the camera. Yokoyama, Shibutani and Murakami were sprawled over each other on the floor as they tried to block each other’s faces out with peace signs and in Yokoyama’s case, his palm. Yasuda and Maruyama had their arms around each other and were standing behind the three Ossans. Both of them were grinning from ear to ear. Okura was sitting on the ledge of the stage beside Yasuda. He looked a bit awkward but still he was smiling. And as for the owner of the photograph, he was squeezed in between Okura and Uchi; who had his right hand around Nishikido and a peace sign on his left. Nishikido wasn’t even looking at the camera. He had a huge silly grin on his face as he looked in Uchi’s direction. The eight of them looked so young and carefree that it was impossible not to smile at it.
So that day, manager-san finally understood how Nishikido Ryo managed to cope with the workload. And when the staff question him on the content of the photograph, he would just smile vaguely and say, ‘It’s just a simple picture of his friends, that’s all.’
Because whenever Nishikido Ryo felt that his work is too much, all he had to do is to look at Eito’s picture taken eight years ago and he would smile.