(no subject)
Title: Shige Is In A Bad Mood
Fandom: NEWS/Perfume crossover omg I have no idea
Rating: PG (there's some language)
Summary: It all starts when Koyama wishes NEWS could be a little bit more in sync. Like Perfume.
A/N: bathrumsnberlin made me. Also, plotless fic is plotless. I'm still not sure how this turned out so long. Title is a play off the song Jenny wa Gokigen Naname.
When Shige wakes up several hours later than he was planning, the sun shining brightly through suddenly pink curtains, he really doesn't think much of it. His alarm didn't go off, his mother or Koyama suddenly changed his curtains, he might have been a bit tipsy the night before. Strange things like this happen to him all the time unfortunately, so it's nothing much to really get worked up about.
That is, until he sits up, doesn't recognise anything in the room, and catches sight of a really pretty girl with bad bedhead in the mirror hanging over the vanity.
He stops himself from screaming, but only just, and it's when the girl lifts her hands to cover her mouth at the exact moment he does that he realises things are a bit off. As in, he's the pretty girl in the mirror.
This time, he doesn't stop himself from screaming, even when the woman he assumes is the girl's mother barges in.
"Nightmare?" he says, and his voice is a lot higher pitched than he was expecting.
The woman chuckles and tells Omoto-chan to go back to sleep and enjoy her day off, lord knows she doesn't get them enough. He nods and decides it has to be a bad dream, and if he goes back to sleep, he'll probably wake up himself when it's time for rehearsal.
Thirty minutes later, the girl's cellphone rings and he reaches out to pick it up by instinct. "Hello?"
"Hello! Who is this?"
Shige blinks. "Um." Because he has no idea who he is at the moment, and wow, that's a bit like an extensional breakdown. "Omoto-chan?"
"You're a member of NEWS, though, right? Because YamaPi and I woke up as members of Perfume, it only makes sense that you're one of us, too."
"Oh god, what kind of joke are you bastards playing?"
"Hey! That's no kind of language for sweet girls like Nocchi-chan to be using!"
Oh god, Shige thinks as he starts to panic again.
*
In contrast, Nocchi's day begins much earlier than she had been expecting when she's suddenly shaken awake when it's still dark outside. "Shige! We're going to be late for practice! Why didn't the alarm go off!"
She knows she's dreaming, because she never has naked men waking her up, and besides, she's never been called Shige before, so she stretches out and pretends she's not surprised when she finds out she's suddenly turned into a boy.
"Oh," she says.
"Ryo-chan is going to kill us," the naked man says again, and that's when Nocchi recognises him, that annoying one from NEWS that never shuts up. She wonders why she's dreaming about NEWS because A-chan and Kashiyuka are the fangirls, not her.
It's when she stubs her toe while getting dressed that it dawns on her that this isn't really a dream and she really is suddenly a member of NEWS. The only problem is, she has no idea which one.
She sets her jaw and goes about trying to fit in.
*
It's right after lunch that YamaPi decides that if they're Perfume, then it stands to reason that Perfume is currently NEWS. Or, at least part of NEWS. So when he and Tegoshi force Shige out of his haven of blankets and into public so they can all meet up, he deems it a good idea to call them.
A-chan's phone is small and pink and perfect in his hands as he dials out his own number. He's kind of thrilled when he hears his own voice answer.
"A-chan-san, right?" he says, and his voice is breathless.
"Yamashita-san!" and then there is a rush of sound as A-chan runs for privacy.
"Oh good!" YamaPi decides. "We're all each other then! Direct change!"
"All of us?"
"Ah, Tegoshi, Shige, and I all changed into Perfume!"
"Then it's not just me!" and she goes about planning the best way to let her members know they're not all alone.
*
"How are we going to change back?" Shige asks. He's scowling and it makes Nocchi look mean.
"No idea!" Tegoshi sings as he eats his second sundae.
"Kashiyuka-san probably won't appreciate all the sweets you're eating."
Tegoshi shrugs and smiles brightly. "Not my thighs it's going to!" Shige hates that Tegoshi's cute gimmick works just as well in a girl's body, because Kashiyuka probably isn't going to mind her extra five pounds at all.
*
"Ne, Tegoshi, I think there's something wrong with Shige."
Kashiyuka giggles nervously. "Why do you say that?" and she tilts her head because A-chan is across the room, pointing viciously at her neck to remind her that Tegoshi does the adorable head tilt when he's questioning.
"Did you see him earlier? When we were going over the dances?"
"He looked alright to me." Which is kind of surprising, because Nocchi is the only one that doesn't obsessively watch all the NEWS PVs and try the dances out in their hotel room. Then again, Nocchi picks up at their dances really quickly, so it's expected she'd learn just by watching NEWS a few times. "Barely messed up at all."
"Exactly!" Massu says it so loudly that everyone in the room turns to look at them. Massu grabs Kashiyuka's neck and pulls her down. "Shige can't dance! He must have really been studying the dance moves! What about his exam next Tuesday? Shouldn't he be studying!"
Kashiyuka blinks at him.
Massu looks worried for a few more moments until A-chan brings over some curry bread she found in the bottom of YamaPi's bag to distract him.
*
The main problem with them all meeting face-to-face to discuss this is that (well, besides all of them being easily recognisable idols with crazy paparazzi after their blood) NEWS is on tour. In Sapporo. Which is not Hiroshima, where Tegoshi, Yamapi, and Shige all woke up. Which means they're almost eight hundred miles apart.
Shige sits at the ice cream parlor table they've taken over and watches as Tegoshi goes through Kashiyuka's contact list and squeals over who she knows and he doesn't.
"No, really, guys. We have to have some kind of plan."
YamaPi just plays with A-chan's curls.
*
"Ryo-chan's scary," Kashiyuka whispers to A-chan. The two of them are sitting closely on the couch, watching as Ryo chews out Nocchi for something she's not even sure she did. Nocchi sits there and takes it because Kashiyuka and A-chan have assured her that's just how NEWS works and she looks so bored that it makes Ryo even angrier.
"Whatever," she finally says, and turns away from him before coolly flipping open Shige's phone. She plays around and pretends she doesn't notice Ryo hovering over her.
Ryo glares and says in his if-you-really-want-to-fuck-with-me-I'll-end-you voice, "Shige, look at me."
Nocchi sniffs and acts like she doesn't hear him. Kashiyuka knows this look very well, because Nocchi pretends to ignore A-chan all the time and all it does is piss A-chan off. Like it seems to be doing to Ryo.
"Shige."
"My name is not Shige," Nocchi snaps.
Ryo blinks at her. "Yes, it is. I don't know what..."
"My name is Kato to obnoxious people like you. I'd appreciate it if you'd call me that when you're going to be a dick."
Everyone in the room looks kind of shocked, A-chan and Kashiyuka because they had no idea that Nocchi even knew Shige's last name, the NEWS members because Shige just usually takes whatever Ryo gives.
Before anyone can really say anything about it though, Nocchi stands up, makes a face at Ryo, and flounces out of the room, just like she does when Kashiyuka messes up too many dance moves and she has to leave before she says something not so nice.
Kashiyuka suddenly really hopes that they don't break up NEWS before all this is over when Ryo storms out after Nocchi.
*
"Nocchi-san needs a hiding place!" Shige announces when Nocchi sends him an emergency text.
"From what?" YamaPi asks, taking a moment away from A-chan's curls.
Shige shrugs. "One of our insane band mates, most likely. Oh god, Koyama's probably groping her."
"The juniors will hide her!"
Shige rolls his eyes. "The juniors can't hide anything from Koyama."
Tegoshi jumps up. "We'll save her!"
YamaPi rolls his eyes. "It would take us all day to get there. Why bother?"
Tegoshi cocks his head. Then sits down.
Shige sighs and texts her that the juniors' costume racks are a sort of safe place to hide from crazy band mates for a few hours. If the juniors don't scare her away first.
*
"I'm done with this," Nocchi says a few hours later when Massu and Koyama find her sandwiched between Kis-My-Ft2's costumes and the wall with a face full of feathers.
"You missed rehearsal. Ryo-chan's sorry he was mean."
Nocchi rolls her eyes and pulls one of the costumes tighter around her. "I think I should leave."
"What! You can't leave!"
"We can't have a show without you!"
"Yes, you can. And you will. Have fun." She stands up and crawls out of the red mess of sequins and is on her way out the door and that's when she spots Ryo. She rolls her eyes again and plans to just walk straight past him, but he grabs her arm. "I don't care what you have to say. I'm done."
"You'll make Tegoshi cry," Ryo says calmly.
Kashiyuka and A-chan are standing in the hallway, and sure enough Kashiyuka is wearing Tegoshi's wounded puppy face.
Nocchi sighs and hates that she can never say no to her band mates, no matter what they're trying to get her to do.
*
"Our concert should be starting soon!" Tegoshi chirps after his fifth sundae of the day. He's been texting someone for the past fifteen minutes, but Shige's lost all inclination to yell at him for running up other people's phone bills.
At this point, most of A-chan's curls have been finger-combed straight, so YamaPi starts paying attention. "Ah! You're right! I hope they do alright! The solos are hard."
Shige puts his head down on the table. "The entire concert is going to be hard. They have no idea what they're doing."
"Have faith, Shige! They might pull it off!"
Or, they're all going to get fired for slacking. It's a toss up, really.
*
"You have to go to Tokyo tonight or tomorrow morning," A-chan says when she calls a few minutes later. "I just remembered. We have a photo shoot in the afternoon."
"Oh, we're good at photo shoots!"
"Make sure you're all on time! Perfume is never late!"
"Got it!" YamaPi says. When he hangs up, he promptly forgets what A-chan told him because he finds a chunk of still-curly hair.
*
NEWS's concerts aren't anything like Perfume's, Nocchi decides within the first fifteen minutes of being on stage. There's a lot more downtime between songs, more costume changes, less intense dance moves, and she has to be careful not to run over any of the thousand little people running around behind her. Oh, and the audience seems to look forward to her messing up.
Vocally, it's about the same, and she just has to move her mouth and hope the cameras don't catch her pretending. At first, it seems like Kashiyuka has it worse, because her part isn't pre-recorded, but it seems to go okay, because while Kashiyuka isn't a singer, she at least knows all the words and Tegoshi's vocal cords seem pre-programmed to be excellent.
A-chan doesn't even bother pretending to sing. She just runs around the stage like a mad man, feeling everyone up, juniors included.
*
"Why are we going to Tokyo?" Shige asks for the third time. He has a small suitcase crammed full of tiny, useless clothes because he has no idea how to pack for a girl, and he hopes the text he sent to Nocchi's mother before sneaking out of their house is enough of a goodbye.
YamaPi's too busy pouting about his flat hair and Tegoshi's still playing with all the applications on Kashiyuka's phone, so neither of them answer, but honestly, Shige doesn't really think either of them know.
He groans and slumps in his seat and pretends he doesn't notice the salary men leering at them.
*
"Something's off about Tegoshi," Massu confides to A-chan during Tegoshi's solo.
"What? No. He seems fine," A-chan says, and tries to keep the breathlessness out of her voice.
"His singing is kind of weird though," Massu insists.
"He sounds amazing!" Koyama says, sliding up next to them.
"Amazing, but off. He's not really trying. Or he's trying too much. It's just weird. I've never heard him like this before. It's kind of like he has no idea what he's doing."
Ryo thunks Massu on the head as he walks by, pulling his shirt off. "He sounds normal, retard."
Massu pouts.
*
When the train pulls up in Tokyo, they have no idea where to go, because they all live with their parents and they have no clue if Perfume has an apartment they hole up in when they're in town or if they just check into a hotel.
Instead of calling mid-performance to find out, as leader, YamaPi decides they should just crash Jin's apartment.
Shige tries to put his foot down, think of the girls' reputation if we get caught!, they can't go to a renowned playboy's home as three teen-aged girls, but it's not like YamaPi and Tegoshi listen to him on a good day.
*
"Ugh, hi fangirls," Jin mutters when he answers the door. "How'd you find me?"
YamaPi giggles cutely and pushes in past him. "Yamashita-san said we could stay here."
"He did?"
YamaPi bats A-chan's long eyelashes at him. "Yup!"
Jin considers before he opens the door wider for Shige and Tegoshi to follow them in.
*
"I suddenly have a bad feeling," Nocchi announces on the bus ride back to the hotel when Shige doesn't respond to any of her texts.
Kashiyuka is tucked up against her and pretending to stay awake; she just grunts against Nocchi's shoulder.
A-chan is in the next row of seats and leans back to hear. "Why? What's wrong?"
"None of them are answering."
"None of who?" Massu asks from Kashiyuka's other side. He has his headphones on but apparently there's not any music playing. He peers up at A-chan like he has no idea what she's doing.
"Some people we know, Massu."
"In Sapporo?"
Nocchi just blinks at him until he turns his iPod on.
"What do you think is wrong?" A-chan asks after glancing around to make sure that Koyama and Ryo are distracted.
"I don't know, but I don't like it. There's no telling what they're up to."
"They're probably on the train. You know reception wavers."
Nocchi frowns even more. "They'll call when they're in Tokyo, right? I mean, we've got to tell them where to stay. They won't create any scandals for us, will they?"
"Of course not! Yamashita-san's too noble for scandals!"
*
YamaPi may be too noble for scandals, but Jin is definitely not. Which is made apparent when he suggests they all go to dinner at a very popular restaurant and then puts his hand on Shige's thigh and whispers that they can lose the other two afterwards, if she wants.
Shige giggles awkwardly and pulls YamaPi between them and starts thinking it might have been better to just explain to his parents that he's a girl now.
*
"Don't you think there's something odd about YamaPi?" Nocchi asks Massu during dinner. Just to see if they're all really bad at impersonating male idols, or it it's just her and Kashiyuka.
Massu looks over at YamaPi's hands wrapped around Koyama's wrists, and then looks at Nocchi like she's lost her mind.
*
"Don't worry about Jin," YamaPi says as the three of them are stretching out in Jin's spare bed after a quick meal of instant ramen. "It's not like he's going to sneak in here in the middle of the night or anything. He has some manners."
Shige isn't sure if he believes everything YamaPi says anymore, but he feels a little safer when they decide Shige should sleep in the middle.
"We'll protect you from the big, bad idol!" Tegoshi sings.
Shige decides he kind of wants to disappear.
*
When Nocchi wakes up, it's to frantic whispering. "There's a girl in Shige's bed."
Nocchi freezes and mentally assesses her body and tries her best not to squeal.
"How am I supposed to know? It's not like I can wake Shige up to ask him because he's. Not. Here."
Though, the more that Nocchi thinks about it, returning to her body could be very tricky if they're still stuck with NEWS, which apparently they are.
"Could you just wake up YamaPi? Maybe he'll know what to do."
The entire floor wakes up to Ryo and A-chan's screams.
*
"Oh my god," Jin says when he wakes up, curled up between Shige and YamaPi. "Transvestites."
YamaPi punches Jin in the back of the head.
"Oh good, not transvestites! NEWS!" and he wiggles his arm back around Shige.
Shige still wishes he could disappear.
*
"They're cute! Can we keep them?" Massu asks when they all gather in Ryo and A-chan's room. A-chan is wrapped up in the quilt and refuses to meet anyone's eye. Probably because she just saw Ryo naked and it's ruined her sensibilities.
"They're Perfume!" Koyama suddenly exclaims when he finally recognises them without glossy hair and mascaraed eyes.
Nocchi rolls her eyes. "Yes, we are, and now we're going home."
"I'm sorry, Perfume-san, but we have to turn you back into our members. Somehow. You can't go!"
"If we've turned back into ourselves, that means they've turned back into themselves. They're in Tokyo. We'll send them to you when we get there," Nocchi says.
"Wait. Turned back into yourselves. That was you, yesterday?"
Nocchi ignores Massu and flips Shige's phone open to call hers.
*
They meet at the train station in Sendai, in a rush to catch trains back to their normal lives.
"Sorry for eating so much ice cream," Tegoshi tells Kashiyuka.
"Sorry for painting your nails purple," she apologizes back before they wander off to switch luggage and change back into normal clothes before their trains leave.
"I'm sorry my band is so retarded," Shige says to Nocchi as he's digging through the pockets of the over-sized jeans Jin let him borrow for her cellphone. "They didn't grope you, did they? They're bad about that."
Nocchi just shakes her head. "It was fun! Just tell Koyama-san and Ryo-chan-san to stop sleeping naked. It's kind of traumatizing. A-chan's forgotten how to speak at all."
Shige's too busy blushing to notice when she flips open his phone one last time to program her number in. "Let's keep in touch! Who knows if we'll switch again."
*
They're both on their trains headed out of the station in opposite directions when they realize they left YamaPi and A-chan playing with each other's hair on the platform.
Fandom: NEWS/Perfume crossover omg I have no idea
Rating: PG (there's some language)
Summary: It all starts when Koyama wishes NEWS could be a little bit more in sync. Like Perfume.
A/N: bathrumsnberlin made me. Also, plotless fic is plotless. I'm still not sure how this turned out so long. Title is a play off the song Jenny wa Gokigen Naname.
When Shige wakes up several hours later than he was planning, the sun shining brightly through suddenly pink curtains, he really doesn't think much of it. His alarm didn't go off, his mother or Koyama suddenly changed his curtains, he might have been a bit tipsy the night before. Strange things like this happen to him all the time unfortunately, so it's nothing much to really get worked up about.
That is, until he sits up, doesn't recognise anything in the room, and catches sight of a really pretty girl with bad bedhead in the mirror hanging over the vanity.
He stops himself from screaming, but only just, and it's when the girl lifts her hands to cover her mouth at the exact moment he does that he realises things are a bit off. As in, he's the pretty girl in the mirror.
This time, he doesn't stop himself from screaming, even when the woman he assumes is the girl's mother barges in.
"Nightmare?" he says, and his voice is a lot higher pitched than he was expecting.
The woman chuckles and tells Omoto-chan to go back to sleep and enjoy her day off, lord knows she doesn't get them enough. He nods and decides it has to be a bad dream, and if he goes back to sleep, he'll probably wake up himself when it's time for rehearsal.
Thirty minutes later, the girl's cellphone rings and he reaches out to pick it up by instinct. "Hello?"
"Hello! Who is this?"
Shige blinks. "Um." Because he has no idea who he is at the moment, and wow, that's a bit like an extensional breakdown. "Omoto-chan?"
"You're a member of NEWS, though, right? Because YamaPi and I woke up as members of Perfume, it only makes sense that you're one of us, too."
"Oh god, what kind of joke are you bastards playing?"
"Hey! That's no kind of language for sweet girls like Nocchi-chan to be using!"
Oh god, Shige thinks as he starts to panic again.
*
In contrast, Nocchi's day begins much earlier than she had been expecting when she's suddenly shaken awake when it's still dark outside. "Shige! We're going to be late for practice! Why didn't the alarm go off!"
She knows she's dreaming, because she never has naked men waking her up, and besides, she's never been called Shige before, so she stretches out and pretends she's not surprised when she finds out she's suddenly turned into a boy.
"Oh," she says.
"Ryo-chan is going to kill us," the naked man says again, and that's when Nocchi recognises him, that annoying one from NEWS that never shuts up. She wonders why she's dreaming about NEWS because A-chan and Kashiyuka are the fangirls, not her.
It's when she stubs her toe while getting dressed that it dawns on her that this isn't really a dream and she really is suddenly a member of NEWS. The only problem is, she has no idea which one.
She sets her jaw and goes about trying to fit in.
*
It's right after lunch that YamaPi decides that if they're Perfume, then it stands to reason that Perfume is currently NEWS. Or, at least part of NEWS. So when he and Tegoshi force Shige out of his haven of blankets and into public so they can all meet up, he deems it a good idea to call them.
A-chan's phone is small and pink and perfect in his hands as he dials out his own number. He's kind of thrilled when he hears his own voice answer.
"A-chan-san, right?" he says, and his voice is breathless.
"Yamashita-san!" and then there is a rush of sound as A-chan runs for privacy.
"Oh good!" YamaPi decides. "We're all each other then! Direct change!"
"All of us?"
"Ah, Tegoshi, Shige, and I all changed into Perfume!"
"Then it's not just me!" and she goes about planning the best way to let her members know they're not all alone.
*
"How are we going to change back?" Shige asks. He's scowling and it makes Nocchi look mean.
"No idea!" Tegoshi sings as he eats his second sundae.
"Kashiyuka-san probably won't appreciate all the sweets you're eating."
Tegoshi shrugs and smiles brightly. "Not my thighs it's going to!" Shige hates that Tegoshi's cute gimmick works just as well in a girl's body, because Kashiyuka probably isn't going to mind her extra five pounds at all.
*
"Ne, Tegoshi, I think there's something wrong with Shige."
Kashiyuka giggles nervously. "Why do you say that?" and she tilts her head because A-chan is across the room, pointing viciously at her neck to remind her that Tegoshi does the adorable head tilt when he's questioning.
"Did you see him earlier? When we were going over the dances?"
"He looked alright to me." Which is kind of surprising, because Nocchi is the only one that doesn't obsessively watch all the NEWS PVs and try the dances out in their hotel room. Then again, Nocchi picks up at their dances really quickly, so it's expected she'd learn just by watching NEWS a few times. "Barely messed up at all."
"Exactly!" Massu says it so loudly that everyone in the room turns to look at them. Massu grabs Kashiyuka's neck and pulls her down. "Shige can't dance! He must have really been studying the dance moves! What about his exam next Tuesday? Shouldn't he be studying!"
Kashiyuka blinks at him.
Massu looks worried for a few more moments until A-chan brings over some curry bread she found in the bottom of YamaPi's bag to distract him.
*
The main problem with them all meeting face-to-face to discuss this is that (well, besides all of them being easily recognisable idols with crazy paparazzi after their blood) NEWS is on tour. In Sapporo. Which is not Hiroshima, where Tegoshi, Yamapi, and Shige all woke up. Which means they're almost eight hundred miles apart.
Shige sits at the ice cream parlor table they've taken over and watches as Tegoshi goes through Kashiyuka's contact list and squeals over who she knows and he doesn't.
"No, really, guys. We have to have some kind of plan."
YamaPi just plays with A-chan's curls.
*
"Ryo-chan's scary," Kashiyuka whispers to A-chan. The two of them are sitting closely on the couch, watching as Ryo chews out Nocchi for something she's not even sure she did. Nocchi sits there and takes it because Kashiyuka and A-chan have assured her that's just how NEWS works and she looks so bored that it makes Ryo even angrier.
"Whatever," she finally says, and turns away from him before coolly flipping open Shige's phone. She plays around and pretends she doesn't notice Ryo hovering over her.
Ryo glares and says in his if-you-really-want-to-fuck-with-me-I'll-end-you voice, "Shige, look at me."
Nocchi sniffs and acts like she doesn't hear him. Kashiyuka knows this look very well, because Nocchi pretends to ignore A-chan all the time and all it does is piss A-chan off. Like it seems to be doing to Ryo.
"Shige."
"My name is not Shige," Nocchi snaps.
Ryo blinks at her. "Yes, it is. I don't know what..."
"My name is Kato to obnoxious people like you. I'd appreciate it if you'd call me that when you're going to be a dick."
Everyone in the room looks kind of shocked, A-chan and Kashiyuka because they had no idea that Nocchi even knew Shige's last name, the NEWS members because Shige just usually takes whatever Ryo gives.
Before anyone can really say anything about it though, Nocchi stands up, makes a face at Ryo, and flounces out of the room, just like she does when Kashiyuka messes up too many dance moves and she has to leave before she says something not so nice.
Kashiyuka suddenly really hopes that they don't break up NEWS before all this is over when Ryo storms out after Nocchi.
*
"Nocchi-san needs a hiding place!" Shige announces when Nocchi sends him an emergency text.
"From what?" YamaPi asks, taking a moment away from A-chan's curls.
Shige shrugs. "One of our insane band mates, most likely. Oh god, Koyama's probably groping her."
"The juniors will hide her!"
Shige rolls his eyes. "The juniors can't hide anything from Koyama."
Tegoshi jumps up. "We'll save her!"
YamaPi rolls his eyes. "It would take us all day to get there. Why bother?"
Tegoshi cocks his head. Then sits down.
Shige sighs and texts her that the juniors' costume racks are a sort of safe place to hide from crazy band mates for a few hours. If the juniors don't scare her away first.
*
"I'm done with this," Nocchi says a few hours later when Massu and Koyama find her sandwiched between Kis-My-Ft2's costumes and the wall with a face full of feathers.
"You missed rehearsal. Ryo-chan's sorry he was mean."
Nocchi rolls her eyes and pulls one of the costumes tighter around her. "I think I should leave."
"What! You can't leave!"
"We can't have a show without you!"
"Yes, you can. And you will. Have fun." She stands up and crawls out of the red mess of sequins and is on her way out the door and that's when she spots Ryo. She rolls her eyes again and plans to just walk straight past him, but he grabs her arm. "I don't care what you have to say. I'm done."
"You'll make Tegoshi cry," Ryo says calmly.
Kashiyuka and A-chan are standing in the hallway, and sure enough Kashiyuka is wearing Tegoshi's wounded puppy face.
Nocchi sighs and hates that she can never say no to her band mates, no matter what they're trying to get her to do.
*
"Our concert should be starting soon!" Tegoshi chirps after his fifth sundae of the day. He's been texting someone for the past fifteen minutes, but Shige's lost all inclination to yell at him for running up other people's phone bills.
At this point, most of A-chan's curls have been finger-combed straight, so YamaPi starts paying attention. "Ah! You're right! I hope they do alright! The solos are hard."
Shige puts his head down on the table. "The entire concert is going to be hard. They have no idea what they're doing."
"Have faith, Shige! They might pull it off!"
Or, they're all going to get fired for slacking. It's a toss up, really.
*
"You have to go to Tokyo tonight or tomorrow morning," A-chan says when she calls a few minutes later. "I just remembered. We have a photo shoot in the afternoon."
"Oh, we're good at photo shoots!"
"Make sure you're all on time! Perfume is never late!"
"Got it!" YamaPi says. When he hangs up, he promptly forgets what A-chan told him because he finds a chunk of still-curly hair.
*
NEWS's concerts aren't anything like Perfume's, Nocchi decides within the first fifteen minutes of being on stage. There's a lot more downtime between songs, more costume changes, less intense dance moves, and she has to be careful not to run over any of the thousand little people running around behind her. Oh, and the audience seems to look forward to her messing up.
Vocally, it's about the same, and she just has to move her mouth and hope the cameras don't catch her pretending. At first, it seems like Kashiyuka has it worse, because her part isn't pre-recorded, but it seems to go okay, because while Kashiyuka isn't a singer, she at least knows all the words and Tegoshi's vocal cords seem pre-programmed to be excellent.
A-chan doesn't even bother pretending to sing. She just runs around the stage like a mad man, feeling everyone up, juniors included.
*
"Why are we going to Tokyo?" Shige asks for the third time. He has a small suitcase crammed full of tiny, useless clothes because he has no idea how to pack for a girl, and he hopes the text he sent to Nocchi's mother before sneaking out of their house is enough of a goodbye.
YamaPi's too busy pouting about his flat hair and Tegoshi's still playing with all the applications on Kashiyuka's phone, so neither of them answer, but honestly, Shige doesn't really think either of them know.
He groans and slumps in his seat and pretends he doesn't notice the salary men leering at them.
*
"Something's off about Tegoshi," Massu confides to A-chan during Tegoshi's solo.
"What? No. He seems fine," A-chan says, and tries to keep the breathlessness out of her voice.
"His singing is kind of weird though," Massu insists.
"He sounds amazing!" Koyama says, sliding up next to them.
"Amazing, but off. He's not really trying. Or he's trying too much. It's just weird. I've never heard him like this before. It's kind of like he has no idea what he's doing."
Ryo thunks Massu on the head as he walks by, pulling his shirt off. "He sounds normal, retard."
Massu pouts.
*
When the train pulls up in Tokyo, they have no idea where to go, because they all live with their parents and they have no clue if Perfume has an apartment they hole up in when they're in town or if they just check into a hotel.
Instead of calling mid-performance to find out, as leader, YamaPi decides they should just crash Jin's apartment.
Shige tries to put his foot down, think of the girls' reputation if we get caught!, they can't go to a renowned playboy's home as three teen-aged girls, but it's not like YamaPi and Tegoshi listen to him on a good day.
*
"Ugh, hi fangirls," Jin mutters when he answers the door. "How'd you find me?"
YamaPi giggles cutely and pushes in past him. "Yamashita-san said we could stay here."
"He did?"
YamaPi bats A-chan's long eyelashes at him. "Yup!"
Jin considers before he opens the door wider for Shige and Tegoshi to follow them in.
*
"I suddenly have a bad feeling," Nocchi announces on the bus ride back to the hotel when Shige doesn't respond to any of her texts.
Kashiyuka is tucked up against her and pretending to stay awake; she just grunts against Nocchi's shoulder.
A-chan is in the next row of seats and leans back to hear. "Why? What's wrong?"
"None of them are answering."
"None of who?" Massu asks from Kashiyuka's other side. He has his headphones on but apparently there's not any music playing. He peers up at A-chan like he has no idea what she's doing.
"Some people we know, Massu."
"In Sapporo?"
Nocchi just blinks at him until he turns his iPod on.
"What do you think is wrong?" A-chan asks after glancing around to make sure that Koyama and Ryo are distracted.
"I don't know, but I don't like it. There's no telling what they're up to."
"They're probably on the train. You know reception wavers."
Nocchi frowns even more. "They'll call when they're in Tokyo, right? I mean, we've got to tell them where to stay. They won't create any scandals for us, will they?"
"Of course not! Yamashita-san's too noble for scandals!"
*
YamaPi may be too noble for scandals, but Jin is definitely not. Which is made apparent when he suggests they all go to dinner at a very popular restaurant and then puts his hand on Shige's thigh and whispers that they can lose the other two afterwards, if she wants.
Shige giggles awkwardly and pulls YamaPi between them and starts thinking it might have been better to just explain to his parents that he's a girl now.
*
"Don't you think there's something odd about YamaPi?" Nocchi asks Massu during dinner. Just to see if they're all really bad at impersonating male idols, or it it's just her and Kashiyuka.
Massu looks over at YamaPi's hands wrapped around Koyama's wrists, and then looks at Nocchi like she's lost her mind.
*
"Don't worry about Jin," YamaPi says as the three of them are stretching out in Jin's spare bed after a quick meal of instant ramen. "It's not like he's going to sneak in here in the middle of the night or anything. He has some manners."
Shige isn't sure if he believes everything YamaPi says anymore, but he feels a little safer when they decide Shige should sleep in the middle.
"We'll protect you from the big, bad idol!" Tegoshi sings.
Shige decides he kind of wants to disappear.
*
When Nocchi wakes up, it's to frantic whispering. "There's a girl in Shige's bed."
Nocchi freezes and mentally assesses her body and tries her best not to squeal.
"How am I supposed to know? It's not like I can wake Shige up to ask him because he's. Not. Here."
Though, the more that Nocchi thinks about it, returning to her body could be very tricky if they're still stuck with NEWS, which apparently they are.
"Could you just wake up YamaPi? Maybe he'll know what to do."
The entire floor wakes up to Ryo and A-chan's screams.
*
"Oh my god," Jin says when he wakes up, curled up between Shige and YamaPi. "Transvestites."
YamaPi punches Jin in the back of the head.
"Oh good, not transvestites! NEWS!" and he wiggles his arm back around Shige.
Shige still wishes he could disappear.
*
"They're cute! Can we keep them?" Massu asks when they all gather in Ryo and A-chan's room. A-chan is wrapped up in the quilt and refuses to meet anyone's eye. Probably because she just saw Ryo naked and it's ruined her sensibilities.
"They're Perfume!" Koyama suddenly exclaims when he finally recognises them without glossy hair and mascaraed eyes.
Nocchi rolls her eyes. "Yes, we are, and now we're going home."
"I'm sorry, Perfume-san, but we have to turn you back into our members. Somehow. You can't go!"
"If we've turned back into ourselves, that means they've turned back into themselves. They're in Tokyo. We'll send them to you when we get there," Nocchi says.
"Wait. Turned back into yourselves. That was you, yesterday?"
Nocchi ignores Massu and flips Shige's phone open to call hers.
*
They meet at the train station in Sendai, in a rush to catch trains back to their normal lives.
"Sorry for eating so much ice cream," Tegoshi tells Kashiyuka.
"Sorry for painting your nails purple," she apologizes back before they wander off to switch luggage and change back into normal clothes before their trains leave.
"I'm sorry my band is so retarded," Shige says to Nocchi as he's digging through the pockets of the over-sized jeans Jin let him borrow for her cellphone. "They didn't grope you, did they? They're bad about that."
Nocchi just shakes her head. "It was fun! Just tell Koyama-san and Ryo-chan-san to stop sleeping naked. It's kind of traumatizing. A-chan's forgotten how to speak at all."
Shige's too busy blushing to notice when she flips open his phone one last time to program her number in. "Let's keep in touch! Who knows if we'll switch again."
*
They're both on their trains headed out of the station in opposite directions when they realize they left YamaPi and A-chan playing with each other's hair on the platform.