Prompt 3: We're all about cliques, yo! - Team What If
Title: Of Pawns and Their Antics
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Toma/Yamapi (Sho/Jun and Ohmiya if you squint against the sun through a fence.)
Summary: What if Ikuta Toma had debuted as a member of Arashi, and what if that left Yamapi in great need of a friend? Never fear - Nino has it covered.
Prompt: We’re all about cliques, yo.
Warnings: Implied sexual situations, language.
Notes: Toma is awesome. And so is my beta. That is all.
-
_prelude
Toma’s career in the jimusho has always seemed like it was destined to be. From the moment he was standing with sweaty palms and his heart thumping in his ears, waiting for the announcement of who had made the cut, it had never been any doubt where he belonged.
Aiba was his first friend in the company. They had been all bright eyes and uncoordinated limbs at the time, learning to walk on their hands and dancing in sync, squeaky sneakers and sweat-streaked t-shirts. When Toma fell and skinned his knee while doing a cartwheel, it was Aiba who snook into the changing rooms after him and dug out a manhandled gummy snake and handed it to Toma who was rubbing furiously at his watering eyes.
“I heard Takizawa fell on his face last week. Cried like a baby.” Aiba commented lightly, sitting on a bench swinging his legs. “His nose was enormous though. His mum had to come get him. He looked like this,” He puffed his cheeks out like a hamster and crossed his eyes.
“Did not,” Toma said, “He looked like this.” He pushed his cheeks toward his nose with his fingers and made a miserably gaping expression.
They had still been making faces at each other when the other boys went to change, and Toma had never cried over a skinned knee again.
It was a game being around Aiba, who always had something new he wanted to try out, whether it be to see who could chew bubblegum the longest while standing on their head, or what would happen if they poured salt into the choreographer’s vitamin water. It was still a game when they were grouped up with Jun and Nino to form M.A.I.N., although the schemes became decidedly more devious, and there was a lot of ‘don’t touch my hair’ going around. And when after three years of dancing, singing and swinging in ropes, and countless muscle cramps, hairstyle changes and sprained ankles it was announced that M.A.I.N. were to debut with Sho and Ohno as Arashi, Toma couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
-
_spring 2006
It starts - as a lot of things tend to - with Nino. It’s during lunchtime on a gloomy Tuesday that he pulls Yamapi through the door to Arashi’s dressingroom, scans the room quickly to find Toma, and deposits a rather bewildered Yamapi in his lap.
“I’m designating you to be his friend,” he says, finger pointed at Toma, “and you stay,” he adds with a stern stare at Yamapi who immediately stops trying to climb out of Toma’s lap.
“Is he always this forceful?” Yamapi asks with his eyes still on Nino.
“Yeah,” Jun replies from across the room as he flips a page in his magazine, “Don’t use his styling products - he bites.”
Nino tilts his head. “Jun, you always use my hair wax.”
“That’s okay,” Jun smirks, “I bite too.”
“He does,” Aiba agrees, voice muffled through a melon bun, snatching the magazine out of Jun’s hands. “Wow, did Becky have a poodle strapped to her head?”
Jun tugs it back, “Actually, I think it’s a bichon frise.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Toma waves a hand at Nino from beneath Yamapi’s warm weight, “What were you on about? Why have I been designated to be someone’s friend?”
Nino splays himself in a chair and gives Toma a look that makes redundant any comment about how it should have been completely obvious. “Because he is always moping around looking miserable in the corridor, and you’re-” he pauses for a second, “You’re you.”
“Fair enough.” Toma shrugs, then grinningly wraps his arms around Yamapi’s waist. “Hello buddy.”
Yamapi half-snorts, shaking his head, but a smile sneaks onto his face and he looks at Toma through his fringe. “Hi.”
-
“Open up.”
Yamapi’s gaze shifts from his textbook to the red and green gummy snake dangling in front of his face.
“Come on. Aaaaa-” Toma says, wiggling the snake.
Yamapi tilts his face up to look at Toma. “I. Thanks but, I’m good.”
“Alright, suit yourself.” Toma pops the head of the snake in his mouth as he sits down next to Yamapi, back against the wall and legs folded in front of him. He tugs on the snake and bites down. “How’s life?”
Yamapi smiles humourlessly. “What life?”
Toma nods. “Funny. I kind of meant what are you doing sitting alone in a corridor instead of being with your group.”
Yamapi lowers the book to his knees. “Which one to pick? I think I’ve been put together with half of the jimusho by now.”
“So that’s your problem; you’re too popular, eh?”
“Busy, maybe.”
“In this building, that means the same thing,” Toma says, nudging Yamapi with his elbow.
A moment’s silence, then Yamapi closes his book with a soft thud. “Just because Nino said-” He fingers a corner of the book where the plastic of the cover is frayed. “You don’t have to do this.”
Toma takes another bite of his snake before he replies. “I know. I’m really on a quest to fatten you up and take over the world through hip-thrusts.”
“How is that going for you?”
“Pretty good. I figure once I convince Jun to join my forces it should be in the bag. And here,” He digs a hand into the pocket of his tight jeans and pulls out another gummy snake, placing it on Yamapi’s book and covering the title Marketing: an Introduction in green and orange curls. “It’s a bit squashed. But you know,” He gazes at his own bit of gummy snake pensively, “These always make me feel better.”
Yamapi purses his mouth before he picks it up, twirls it in his fingers so it shines in the flourescent light before he puts it between his teeth and tears the head off.
“They’re also, um,” Toma continues, visibly startled, “Quite good for releasing tension if you’re... passive-aggressive. Obviously.”
Yamapi grins, eyes scrunched and mouth full of gummy candy. “They’re great.”
-
Yamapi’s hair is sleep-ruffled when he opens the door.
“Morning,” Toma chirps, “I bought doughnuts, but” he sheepishly waves an empty paper bag, “I kind of ate them all and there wasn’t another mister Donut on the way over.”
“That’s okay,” Yamapi yawns, gesturing for Toma to come in, “I’m way too macho for doughnuts.”
Toma kicks off his shoes. “Especially in those bunny pyjamas.”
“I’ll have you know they’re lethal murderous bunnies,” Yamapi pulls out the hem of his pyjama top to look at the pattern, “...With pink flowers and happy ladybugs.”
“Well, I for one think it’s sweet,” Toma assures, slipping his phone out of his pocket, “The kitchen in there?”
-
Jun’s phone buzzes, and Nino digs it out from underneath the sofa cushions.
you won’t believe what he is wearing. -toma
seeing is believing, I want pictures.
nino, give jun his phone back. photo coming up.
“Spoilsport,” Nino grumbles and tosses the phone to Jun. “How did he figure out it was me?”
Jun catches it in one hand, “Hey, where’d you find this?”
“Couch,” Nino shrugs.
“Hah.” Jun is flipping through the texts when the phone receives another message. “Oh, bunny-patterns galore,” he mumbles as he sees the photo.
classic. spring collection. ;)
-
“I have those in blue,” Aiba nods approvingly, while Ohno’s comment is “Nice arse.” Sho shakes his head and asks why Toma couldn’t have taken a normal picture - with the face, Toma.
“I had to wait for him to get into a position where he wouldn’t catch me taking the photo,” Toma explains.
Sho looks sceptical. “Bent over?”
“And gagging for it,” Jun teases, leaning against Sho’s shoulder. “Really Sho, you need to learn how to do these things if you want to excel in your career.”
“Surely I don’t need to master the art of how to photograph people’s bums without their knowledge.”
Nino smiles encouragingly. “Well, you are a Johnny.”
-
“Okay, wow,” Toma says as Yamapi pulls off his sweaty t-shirt. “Is that a D cup?”
Yamapi flushes slightly, puts a towel around his neck to wipe off the sweat. “They’re for a drama character.” He steps up on a treadmill and starts it up.
“So, um,” Toma says slowly, leaning against the mirrored wall of the gym and fiddling with the cap to his water bottle, “For this character. Will you be wearing a dress?”
“No!” Yamapi stumbles and has to grab the handlebars to keep from falling off. “It’s Kurosagi, why would-” he pauses, slides of the treadmill, and sends Toma a look that is half alarmed epiphany, half despair. “I don’t know. Would they do that?” He looks ridiculous - stunned expression, topless, with half of his hair clinging wetly to his temples and the other half standing out in mad tufts.
“Don’t you mind,” Toma pats his arm reassuringly and gets on the treadmill next to Yamapi, “Im sure you’ll look pretty. All the girls will swoon.”
Yamapi gets back up. “Tegoshi seems to like them.”
The corners of Toma’s mouth quiver in a suppressed smile. “I see.”
“He just likes squishing them!”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not, like, strange or anything,” Yamapi mutters defensively.
“I believe you.”
“You’re going to tell everyone, aren’t you.” Dull resignation.
Toma grins, meets Yamapi’s gaze in the mirror and nods. “Yup.”
Yamapi pouts. “What kind of a friend are you?”
“A very special one,” Toma winks.
-
“What are you doing?” Yamapi asks, leaning over Toma and Shige’s shoulders.
“Shh, it’s an experiment,” Toma whispers, eyes not moving away from Tegoshi and Massu who are putting together 3D-cube puzzles, Massu scratching his head with a complex expression on his face, Tegoshi bright-eyed with his tongue in the corner of his mouth.
“It’s science,” Shige adds, as though he and Toma are in a club of two where Yamapi isn’t invited.
Yamapi huffs, crosses his arms and rests his hip against the back of the couch, looking away pointedly for a second, then as he figures nobody is looking at him anyway returns to skimming his gaze between Tegoshi and Massu on the floor, and Shige and Toma on the couch. “Where’s Koyama?”
“Locked in the loo,” Massu looks up with the air of someone who has decided that defeat isn’t such a bad thing after all.
“And Ryo?”
“Holding the door closed.”
Shige leans in to say something to Toma, too quietly for Yamapi to hear anything but their sniggering afterward. Shige casts a sly glance at Yamapi, which seems to seal the deal.
“Okay,” Yamapi says, “Shige, why are you hogging my friend?”
Instead of replying Shige looks down at his watch and exclaims, “6 minutes and 22 seconds! You owe me ¥2000.”
Toma grimaces. “Really couldn’t you have held out for ten minutes?” he asks Yamapi while getting up, fishing out a couple bills from his pocket and handing them to Shige. “This hurts me more than you know.”
“You bet on me.” Yamapi comments blandly.
“You’re far to possessive,” Shige smirks.
Toma hooks his arm in Yamapi’s and starts dragging him out of the room. “So I’m your friend, am I?” he teases.
“Oh shut up,” Yamapi grumbles.
-
News go on tour and Toma doesn’t find Yamapi sitting on his own in the corridors for a couple of weeks. They send a few mails, but it’s not intense conversation, and the one time Yamapi calls Toma is when he has obviously had a few drinks and says very importantly to someone else, He picked up, he is my friend. It’s late one night when Toma gets the text. He reaches vaguely for the phone where it buzzes on the table, and grumbles when he has to sit up to reach it. It’s from Yamapi.
news hiatus. no band no more.
where are you?
home. roof
I’ll come over.
It takes him fifteen minutes to just leave the flat, so by the time he gets to Yamapi’s, Pi has already swallowed down an unknown amount of vodka and is sprawled in a foldable wooden chair with his bare feet dangling over the wall of the roof.
“Toma!” Yamapi grins, splaying his arms wide in a welcoming gesture, “Say ‘hi’ to bottle-chan.” He wiggles the half-empty bottle.
“Hey,” Toma replies, pulling up a chair and mirroring Yamapi’s position. “No more News, huh?”
“Nope,” Yamapi confirms, then makes a face. “Well. It’s an indefinite hiatus so far. But with my track record the only thing that seems to be permanent is being shuffled around.”
“Pessimist there,” Toma steals the bottle from Yamapi and takes a swig.
Yamapi makes a contemplative noise, looks up at the dark sky overhead. “It’s true though. I’m always being put into new pairs, new groups. New people all the time, and they,” he pulls in a breath that skids over his teeth, “They have their place, what they’re good at, who they should be with, what they’re supposed to do. Everyone else knows where they belong. And I don’t.”
“So what you’re saying is,” Toma says slowly, teasingly, “You’re too special and good at everything to be kept in one corner.” He takes another drink of vodka and relishes how smoothly it burns as it goes down.
“No,” Yamapi intones intently, clearly not sober enough to understand it as teasing, “We are all about bands, and groups, and teams. We are all about cliques.”
Yamapi’s eyes are dark from the lack of light. Toma prompts, “And?”
He shrugs, his whole body moving with it. “And I don’t have one.”
Toma bites his lip, then silently offers the bottle back to Yamapi.
“It’s not for certain,” he says eventually, when Yamapi dries vodka off his lips with the back of his hand.
“Huh?” Yamapi replies eloquently.
“I mean, it’s just a hiatus.”
“Yeah,” Yamapi agrees in a bleak, unconvinced tone, flopping his feet over Toma’s, “It’s just a hiatus.”
-
tomato purée
thyme
stock cube
bay leaves
cream
onion
Toma peers at the crinkled bit of paper over Sho’s shoulder.
“Jun, what in the world are you making?”
Jun’s head pops out from behind the fridge door, “Sausage stroganoff.” He pushes the door closed with his foot and walks over to the kitchen counter.
Toma blinks. “I have no idea what that even means.”
“It’s a kind of Scandinavian thing.” He bings a long U-chaped sausage onto the counter and pulls out a chopping board.
Sho scrunches his nose. “Where’d you get that?”
“I have a dealer.” Jun picks up a knife.
“A dealer for sausage.” Toma smirks, reaching for the bit of notebook paper in Sho’s hand when Jun swivels around with the knife in his hand and a petulant expression on his face.
“If I were you I wouldn’t be so snarky since I’m the one holding a knife, but yeah. I make my sister buy these in the food section at IKEA.”
Toma grins, “Oh baby, you do know just what to say to make a man swoon.”
Jun puffs up his cheeks and narrows his eyes. “Toma. Get out of my kitchen.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll go save Yamapi.”
“You’d better,” Sho says, his expression studiously neutral, “He’s out there alone with Aiba, Nino and Ohno.”
Toma’s eyes widen, “Oh crap,” he hisses and scurries out of the kitchen.
-
“So,” Aiba waves his glass in Yamapi’s direction, “You never answered before, because Toma came in screaming bloody murder and stealing people’s dignity, but what do you think would happen if you were locked in a freezer with a chicken?”
Yamapi blinks and Toma has the urge to bang his head against the table. “Would that be a live chicken?” Yamapi says eventually.
Aiba stares at him for a moment, then he swishes his head around to Nino. “Nino is the chicken alive?”
Nino nods from where he is scrunched against Ohno’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“And the hedgehog?”
“What hedgehog?” Nino frowns.
“Oh,” Aiba says eagerly, “I want a hedgehog!”
“No, it won’t work!” Nino’s pout could kill a whale, “It’s off! Plan’s off!”
Aiba makes a pout that could kill a dinosaur and Jun sighs. “God, I need more wine.”
Nino turns the pout towards Ohno. “It was such a good plan.”
Ohno smiles comfortingly, “I know. You’ll have a better one going tomorrow.”
Nino puts his right index finger in front of his mouth in a hushing sound, then starts whispering. “The best one,” he says “The best one is already in process.”
“The only plan I am going to listen to is how you plan to get home. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough.” Jun fills up his glass, wine bottle clinking against the rim.
“They’re here a lot?” Yamapi asks conversationally, holding out his glass and smiling pleasantly, which makes Jun fill his glass too, half-grudgingly.
“They’re like permanent fixtures. Half the time I don’t even know if they know where they live anymore.”
“Oh, I know!” Ohno comments loftily, then grimaces pensively. “Well, Sho knows.”
Sho shakes his head, but smiles. “Come on, up you go.” He gets up and starts helping Aiba up too.
“Hey, why does Yamapi get to stay?” Aiba whinges, clinging to Sho’s arm.
“Shhhh!” Nino looks like he could growl, “That’s the plan.”
“Definitely, definitely more wine,” Jun breathes into his glass as Sho bundles away the others.
-
_summer 2006
“Toma!” Yamapi bursts into the Arashi dressing room, wild-haired and out of breath.
“Pi?” Toma looks up from reading a script, slight surprise colouring his features.
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. Where were you?”
“I was just doing some stuff for Ni-” Toma pauses, turns to look at Nino. “Nino,” he says in a grave tone that requires no further explanation.
Nino holds up a stop-watch. “Three hours. That is a personal best of misdirection during a work day. It only counts if they’re both in the building.”
Yamapi gulps in a breath of air. “You are evil,” he says decidedly and flops down next to Toma on the couch. “Completely. Even your hair.”
“Precisely,” Jun chimes in, “Get a haircut Nino, that plastered muppet thing is most unbecoming.”
Toma shakes his head. “Anyway, what was so important that you’ve been running around looking for me?”
“Can’t remember,” Yamapi shrugs, “But I only have ten minutes left of my break.” He slumps down and ends up with his head in Toma’s lap. “Tired now,” he yawns.
Nino mimes hair-petting movements at Toma, who rolls his eyes but starts sliding his fingers through Yamapi’s tangled hair. There is a tranquil atmosphere in the room when Aiba flings the door open and announces, “WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!” in no dulcet tones, but with a wide grin on his face. Clearly has nothing to do with a horrible death by fire.
There is a moment’s silence, and then Jun dully asks, “What?”
“Well, not really,” Aiba admits, “I just like to make an entrance.”
Yamapi meets Toma’s gaze sleepily, smiles. “You guys are totally bonkers,” he says, getting to his feet slowly. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”
Toma nods. “Yakiniku?”
“Absolutely.” Yamapi grins, gives Toma a wave as he heads for the door.
“My plans,” Nino proclaims when Yamapi has left the room, “Are amazing. And flawless. You may call me Nino-sama.”
-
Toma really likes Yamapi’s sofa; it’s squishy and the cusions have frills which are fun to fiddle with, and Yamapi has spent several nights snuffling into Toma’s blanket-covered one. Fridges get stocked with food for two. The telly remote keeps getting hidden to stop the other from swapping the channel. Socks and shoes and coats are being left and borrowed and forgot.
Arashi has a tour after the rainy season, and Toma is somewhat startled by how uncommon life as a group has become. He slides back into it perfectly, knows all the edges and curves, where they all fit and how they work together. It makes sense. It’s comfortable. But it is a familiarity that has become sidelined the last few months, what with Toma’s time being spent with another.
“Why is Toma moping over that magazine?” Sho murmurs to the others one day when Ohno is rehearsing his solo for the evening concert, Aiba has just gone off to the loo, and Toma is staring wistfully at an article about Yamapi.
“Because I am fantastic,” Nino replies without a trace of sarcasm, preening proudly in his seat.
“Gee, thanks for making me miserable,” Toma comments in a neutral tone, rolling his eyes.
“I have nothing to do with the miserable bit. That is all you. But I am the one who thought you’d be good for each other. And I was right.”
Toma lowers the magazine to his lap. “And how does this make you obsolete of responsibility for causing my misery?”
Nino smirks devilishly. “I didn’t make you fall in love with him.”
Toma’s mind slows down to a complete halt, and he stares blankly at Nino. “What?”
Sho tilts his head. “In all fairness you did push them together.”
“In a friendly way,” Nino says defensively.
“You made them sit in each other’s laps!” Sho makes a flaily hand movement.
Nino shrugs. “Well nobody’s perfect.”
Toma’s mouth and brain reconnect and he butts in, “I am not in love with Pi.”
Jun finally looks up from buffing his nails. “But you are.”
“What? No! No, I’m not.” Toma says emphatically, trying to figure out if they are taking the piss or if they’re serious - it’s hard to tell sometimes.
Jun gives him a look, then goes back to buffing his nails nonchalantly. “You are though.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Alright.”
Toma is hyperventilating a little, Sho is looking at him with concern, Nino is smirking, and Jun doesn’t seem to be very bothered when Aiba comes back from the toilet.
“What did I miss?” Aiba slumps into his chair.
“Toma is in love with Yamapi.” Nino grins.
Aiba’s face falls. “I can’t believe this. I’ve been waiting for this for weeks. I’m away for five minutes and... I am never going to the loo again.” He crosses his arms petulantly, but the next second he smiles, “Toma, I’m so happy for you.”
“He’s in denial.” Jun comments.
“But we’re supportive,” Sho adds, to which Nino frowns a “No, we’re not.”
“Guys, I am not in denial. There is nothing to deny!”
“You just keep telling yourself that,” Jun says idly, pursing his lips consideringly at his nails.
Toma slumps against the back of his chair, trying to avoid Aiba’s cheeky grin, Sho’s encouraging smile and Nino’s smug smirking.
-
I hear you’re teaming up with two Thai lookers.
they call me a gorilla. would it be breaking professional etiquette to throw the promotional volleyball in their heads?”
yes. go for the onigiri instead.
...they countered with gravy.
The days blur, a mesh of heat and melon soda, sweaty practices and stage performances, green tea flavoured ice-cream, blinking lights and laughter, sunglasses and tempura. Text upon text upon text signed P. Cars and buses and transparent pvc umbrellas, buildings flashing past vehicle windows, teasing and folklore and peaches. A slow ache in the pit of Toma’s stomach, the giddy jolt each time the phone rings.
The hottest part of summer passes, and with it the tour does too. When Toma steps out from the cool of the air conditioned car just outside the jimusho, there is a bustle at the door and Yamapi comes rushing out without shoes on, pausing on the step as Toma pulls up his aviators into his hair. A wide grin splits Yamapi’s face and a second later Toma is enveloped in a bone-cracking hug. “Wow, you’ve been working out,” is the first thing he manages to press out.
“I missed you,” Yamapi murmurs, loosening his grip but not letting go.
“Wuss,” Toma says, ignoring the rest of Arashi who are making faces at him over Yamapi’s shoulder.
Yamapi snickers. “Yup.”
Toma swallows. Yamapi’s heat tingles more against his skin than the sun. “Me too.”
-
_autumn 2006
They slip back into their previous pattern, but Toma can’t help but be extremely aware of Yamapi and self-conscious about how he acts, everything he says. Every touch is debated and analysed, and there is a nervous tickling that seems to be constantly imbedded in Toma’s flesh.
During a Saturday of Mario Kart and beer, as he is overtaking Toma in a curve, Yamapi asks, “Are you okay? You’ve seemed out of it lately.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Toma replies absently, hissing through his teeth as he crashes into another kart and slides off the track. He childishly flips off the wheel, binging it on the couch. “Wanna go out?”
“Sure,” Yamapi nods with a smile as he slides neatly over the finish line as the winner.
-
It’s hot in the club, the scent of warm perfumed bodies and alcohol clogging the air. It’s dark too, the strobe lights making all movements jerky and robotic as they dance, too flushed and full of tequila to even turn too fast. The heavy beat of 4AM remix thumps in Toma’s veins, and as the crowd thickens and he is pressed against Yamapi, it becomes harder to breathe, the heat feels thick in his lungs. The music changes, the lights become lazer instead and hands shoot into the air, mesmerized staring as the light grazes skin in a soft not-there touch. Yamapi’s hand is up there too, his eyes glossy and an easy, happy expression on his face.
It’s not that Toma doesn’t want the rest of Arashi to be right, it’s just that he is afraid what might happen if they are. But their words seem far away in the stuffy air, and his thoughts are too clouded by tequila to make much sense. There are just actions left, the way his body moves almost before thought, the big unnameable want surging through him.
He reaches up, touches his fingertips lightly against Yamapi’s, then slides his hand down along with the lazer, like a projected touch of light made real. Yamapi turns to him, eyes dark, mouth slightly open. The strobe lights flick on again, and all Toma can see are stuttering movements, but what he feels is smooth and flowing as he is pulled close into Yamapi’s heat. His fingers curl as he is kissed.
-
Toma is woken by the jostle of someone pulling away from him. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, but his hangover is not as easily dispelled, and his head spins as he sits up to see Yamapi halfway across the room, pulling on his clothes with his back turned. Toma’s mouth goes dry. He looks down at the rumpled bedclothes, feels the strange soft ache in his muscles and that he is naked under the sheet.
“Pi.” His voice is rough.
Yamapi’s shoulders stiffen. “I have to go.”
Toma licks his lips. “Pi, come on. Look at me.”
Yamapi visibly takes a breath before turning around. His shirt is still unbuttoned and his hair is adorably ruffled. He is gorgeous even red-eyed and hungover, but the expression on his face is stiff and Toma’s heart swells with worry. “I thought we were friends,” Yamapi says softly, meeting Toma’s eyes.
“We are,” Toma says miserably, pulling up his sheet-covered legs to his chest.
“I’m not so sure anymore Toma.” Yamapi looks away, swallows. “Look, let’s not. Let’s not talk for a while, okay?”
He stays long enough for Toma to force out a tiny, shaking and forlorn “Okay,” and then he leaves.
Toma stays home the whole day, nursing his hangover and watching reruns of bad whodunnit dramas. His mum calls in the afternoon, talking about relatives and the neighbour’s cat and coming home for family dinner sometime. He changes the sheets before he goes to bed, but the pillow somehow still smells of Yamapi’s cologne. He closes his stinging eyes and pretends it’s okay.
-
Ohno notices first. When Toma enters the dressing room on Monday, feelings tucked away and face carefully arranged into a pleasant smile, Ohno gives him one deliberate look and then walks across the room and puts his arms around him.
“What happened?”
“How can you even tell,” Toma mumbles into Ohno’s shoulder.
“I know you,” Ohno replies simply, giving him a comforting smile.
“What did he do?” Nino comes over, something dark in his eyes.
Toma grimces. “Pi didn’t do anything.”
“Aha!” Nino’s voice has a tinge of triumph, “So it was Yamapi!”
“No, Nino,” Toma rolls his eyes, “It was me. I did a stupid thing - a really stupid thing.”
Nino’s eyes narrow. “How stupid?”
“Incredibly, fantastically, epically stupid.”
“As stupid as a drunken cosplay convention in Akihabara?” Jun chimes in from where he is fixing his hair, his stance revealing nothing, but with a strangely soft edge to his teasing expression. Toma meets Jun’s gaze in the mirror, grateful for how Jun is trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Worse,” Toma says emphatically, smiling slightly, “And I should know.”
“So what was it that you did?” Ohno asks, nudging him over to the couch where they slump down next to Sho, and Nino joins them to make a pile.
Toma puffs up his cheeks. “I spraypainted him when he was asleep and invited people over to see The Golden Boy.”
“Now, we both know that isn’t true,” Nino chides, poking his side. “Mainly because I wasn’t invited. Come on, what’s wrong.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Nino looks as though he is about to protest, but at that moment Sho clamps a hand over Nino’s mouth and Aiba flounces happily through the door, coming to a complete stop in one second flat. He looks at the four on the couch and makes a pout that could undo a walrus. “Kimura never has to put up with this crap; SMAP have a room right next to the loos. I hate you all. ”
-
“That plan was the best plan ever, why did they have to go and mess it up for?” Nino complains, kicking a leg of the airport lounge chair with his heel. In less than an hour they will be on their way to Taiwan.
Sho scrunches his nose pensively. “We still don’t know what Yamapi did.”
Jun fingers his necktie. “I say we kill him anyway.”
“I think people might notice,” Sho says with flat sarcasm.
“We’ll put up a kurosagi promo cutout,” Jun shrugs, “The personality will be the same.”
“Right, and how much time were you thinking this would buy us?” Sho shakes his head in amusement.
“At least a week. And then we can say he went on a vacation to sleep with the fishes.” Jun smiles wickedly, drumming his fingertips together.
Aiba blinks and perks up. “We’re taking him to the aquarium?”
When Ohno and Toma come back with their coffees, Aiba is nattering on about cave fish that don’t have any eyes.
-
It’s going well for Arashi; they’re successfully stepping out on the international scene, with all the hard work it means to be doing so. They are rushed from autograph signings to interviews to photoshoots to rehearsals, which by the time they’re left to their own devices late in the evenings causes them to be so exhausted that they crash into bed wihout a thought of anything else. It’s a relief for Toma, not having time to think about Yamapi (and what never should have been) because reality is too brilliant for there to be space for it when the rest of Arashi are around. It’s not running away. It is acceptance, and making a life without Yamapi in it, just as he made a life with space for him before.
Toma knows he was trying to give Yamapi a place to belong, consciously or not, fitting him in and smoothing out the edges. But maybe it was a bit like hammering together two mismatching pieces of puzzle. They look right, and you think they should be right, but they’re not, and they never will be no matter how much you try to push it.
It is still hard though, having given so much of yourself to find it all rejected, and sometimes he thinks he sees Nino casting guilty glances his way, but he doesn’t blame Nino for it. I really was a good plan. And it was Toma who fucked it up. It’s easier on stage, in the spotlight, performing. For a while the rest of the world stops existing -- they’re Arashi, they belong together like this, sexy dorks in sequined suits, living on that stage.
Time flies, and soon enough they are back in Japan, getting back into the every-day routine. The other members of Arashi come over a lot (as always), but there are more nights to be spent on one’s own, so Toma takes up studying Italian by himself. It doesn’t go very well, but for the most part it is quite nice to drift off in thoughts of ordering impossibly named coffee at a tiny café as dawn breaks on cobbled streets still wet from rain.
It’s a few weeks since they’ve been back when the doorbell rings, and Toma goes to open it thinking it must be Jun back for the scarf he’d not been able to live without earlier that day when they’d walked past the Burberry shop, and yet had left lying on Toma’s coffee table. However, when he swings the door open it is Yamapi standing there, and Toma’s mind goes blank for a moment, just staring at Yamapi, dark and beautiful and standing on his doorstep. “Can I come in?”
“Sorry, of course.” Toma steps aside to let him in and close the door. “I’ll get you something to drink.” He turns and flees to the kitchen, popping the kettle on with shaking hands. Nervousness settles in his stomach like acidic burning. He takes out two cups from a cupboard as Yamapi comes to lean against the doorframe to the kitchen, his sock-clad feet inaudible against the floor.
“So, um,” Toma clears his throat, “I heard that News is going to make a comeback.”
Yamapi nods. “We are. At the countdown.”
Toma braves a smile. “Told you it was just a hiatus. You’ll have your very own clique again.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but.” Yamapi smiles back, “Yeah, I suppose I will.”
“We’re all about the cliques, yo,” Toma says mock-seriously, and Yamapi bites his lip on a grin.
There is the silence of heating water, and then Yamapi suddenly says, “I feel stupid.”
He must be regretting having come at all. Toma swallows, doesn’t look up from the cups, doesn’t dare to. “Can we still be friends?”
Yamapi sighs. “But that’s the thing, Toma. I don’t want to be your friend.”
Toma scoffs, looks up at Yamapi with incredulty and a sliver of anger creeps into his voice as he says, “Then. Then why are you here?”
Yamapi looks away, shifts his feet. The kettle clicks off. “Because I want to be more than that.”
“Oh.” Toma says, tone flat, then it catches up with him and his eyes widen. “Oh.”
The rest comes tumbling out quickly as Yamapi flushes, “I know that I was a complete idiot who left you like that, but I thought that we had just ruined everything. I was angry with myself. And then. After a while I wasn’t angry anymore. I was more upset that I didn’t remember.”
In the silence that follows it is as though all the empty space fills up, the hurt and disappointment dissipate and are replaced with something that spreads through Toma’s veins like electricity. Yamapi looks up at him once more, taking a shaking breath, then turns to walk away with a thick “I’m sorry.”
Toma is quicker: walking across the kitchen, grabbing Yamapi and pushing him up against the opposite wall all in one forward motion.
“You are a complete asshole,” Toma says, and Yamapi closes his eyes in resignation.
“I’m sorry,” he says, barely a breath, his lashes clogged with tears.
“And I hate you for breaking my heart,” Toma continues, pressing Yamapi’s wrists up against the wall, “So you’d better make up for it.” He shifts, lets go of one of Pi’s wrists to slide his fingers up Yamapi’s clavicle as he leans in to kiss him.
It’s soft and kind of wet, Yamapi sniffling slightly and tears smudging out on his cheeks.
Toma pulls away, drying Yamapi’s cheeks with his thumbs. “Come on,” he says, backing towards the bedroom and pulling Yamapi with him, “You have weeks to make up for. And quite a few miserable phone conversations with my mum,” he adds teasingly.
Yamapi grins, sniffles, and nods; allows himself to be pulled.
The two cups of tea stay unmade all night, waiting for dawn.
-
_coda
Yamapi’s phone beebs as they’re sitting with mugs in their hands in front of the telly. “I got a text from Aiba,” Pi blinks, “He says I should come along to the aquarium.”
-
the end.
Poll Team What If
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Toma/Yamapi (Sho/Jun and Ohmiya if you squint against the sun through a fence.)
Summary: What if Ikuta Toma had debuted as a member of Arashi, and what if that left Yamapi in great need of a friend? Never fear - Nino has it covered.
Prompt: We’re all about cliques, yo.
Warnings: Implied sexual situations, language.
Notes: Toma is awesome. And so is my beta. That is all.
-
_prelude
Toma’s career in the jimusho has always seemed like it was destined to be. From the moment he was standing with sweaty palms and his heart thumping in his ears, waiting for the announcement of who had made the cut, it had never been any doubt where he belonged.
Aiba was his first friend in the company. They had been all bright eyes and uncoordinated limbs at the time, learning to walk on their hands and dancing in sync, squeaky sneakers and sweat-streaked t-shirts. When Toma fell and skinned his knee while doing a cartwheel, it was Aiba who snook into the changing rooms after him and dug out a manhandled gummy snake and handed it to Toma who was rubbing furiously at his watering eyes.
“I heard Takizawa fell on his face last week. Cried like a baby.” Aiba commented lightly, sitting on a bench swinging his legs. “His nose was enormous though. His mum had to come get him. He looked like this,” He puffed his cheeks out like a hamster and crossed his eyes.
“Did not,” Toma said, “He looked like this.” He pushed his cheeks toward his nose with his fingers and made a miserably gaping expression.
They had still been making faces at each other when the other boys went to change, and Toma had never cried over a skinned knee again.
It was a game being around Aiba, who always had something new he wanted to try out, whether it be to see who could chew bubblegum the longest while standing on their head, or what would happen if they poured salt into the choreographer’s vitamin water. It was still a game when they were grouped up with Jun and Nino to form M.A.I.N., although the schemes became decidedly more devious, and there was a lot of ‘don’t touch my hair’ going around. And when after three years of dancing, singing and swinging in ropes, and countless muscle cramps, hairstyle changes and sprained ankles it was announced that M.A.I.N. were to debut with Sho and Ohno as Arashi, Toma couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
-
_spring 2006
It starts - as a lot of things tend to - with Nino. It’s during lunchtime on a gloomy Tuesday that he pulls Yamapi through the door to Arashi’s dressingroom, scans the room quickly to find Toma, and deposits a rather bewildered Yamapi in his lap.
“I’m designating you to be his friend,” he says, finger pointed at Toma, “and you stay,” he adds with a stern stare at Yamapi who immediately stops trying to climb out of Toma’s lap.
“Is he always this forceful?” Yamapi asks with his eyes still on Nino.
“Yeah,” Jun replies from across the room as he flips a page in his magazine, “Don’t use his styling products - he bites.”
Nino tilts his head. “Jun, you always use my hair wax.”
“That’s okay,” Jun smirks, “I bite too.”
“He does,” Aiba agrees, voice muffled through a melon bun, snatching the magazine out of Jun’s hands. “Wow, did Becky have a poodle strapped to her head?”
Jun tugs it back, “Actually, I think it’s a bichon frise.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Toma waves a hand at Nino from beneath Yamapi’s warm weight, “What were you on about? Why have I been designated to be someone’s friend?”
Nino splays himself in a chair and gives Toma a look that makes redundant any comment about how it should have been completely obvious. “Because he is always moping around looking miserable in the corridor, and you’re-” he pauses for a second, “You’re you.”
“Fair enough.” Toma shrugs, then grinningly wraps his arms around Yamapi’s waist. “Hello buddy.”
Yamapi half-snorts, shaking his head, but a smile sneaks onto his face and he looks at Toma through his fringe. “Hi.”
-
“Open up.”
Yamapi’s gaze shifts from his textbook to the red and green gummy snake dangling in front of his face.
“Come on. Aaaaa-” Toma says, wiggling the snake.
Yamapi tilts his face up to look at Toma. “I. Thanks but, I’m good.”
“Alright, suit yourself.” Toma pops the head of the snake in his mouth as he sits down next to Yamapi, back against the wall and legs folded in front of him. He tugs on the snake and bites down. “How’s life?”
Yamapi smiles humourlessly. “What life?”
Toma nods. “Funny. I kind of meant what are you doing sitting alone in a corridor instead of being with your group.”
Yamapi lowers the book to his knees. “Which one to pick? I think I’ve been put together with half of the jimusho by now.”
“So that’s your problem; you’re too popular, eh?”
“Busy, maybe.”
“In this building, that means the same thing,” Toma says, nudging Yamapi with his elbow.
A moment’s silence, then Yamapi closes his book with a soft thud. “Just because Nino said-” He fingers a corner of the book where the plastic of the cover is frayed. “You don’t have to do this.”
Toma takes another bite of his snake before he replies. “I know. I’m really on a quest to fatten you up and take over the world through hip-thrusts.”
“How is that going for you?”
“Pretty good. I figure once I convince Jun to join my forces it should be in the bag. And here,” He digs a hand into the pocket of his tight jeans and pulls out another gummy snake, placing it on Yamapi’s book and covering the title Marketing: an Introduction in green and orange curls. “It’s a bit squashed. But you know,” He gazes at his own bit of gummy snake pensively, “These always make me feel better.”
Yamapi purses his mouth before he picks it up, twirls it in his fingers so it shines in the flourescent light before he puts it between his teeth and tears the head off.
“They’re also, um,” Toma continues, visibly startled, “Quite good for releasing tension if you’re... passive-aggressive. Obviously.”
Yamapi grins, eyes scrunched and mouth full of gummy candy. “They’re great.”
-
Yamapi’s hair is sleep-ruffled when he opens the door.
“Morning,” Toma chirps, “I bought doughnuts, but” he sheepishly waves an empty paper bag, “I kind of ate them all and there wasn’t another mister Donut on the way over.”
“That’s okay,” Yamapi yawns, gesturing for Toma to come in, “I’m way too macho for doughnuts.”
Toma kicks off his shoes. “Especially in those bunny pyjamas.”
“I’ll have you know they’re lethal murderous bunnies,” Yamapi pulls out the hem of his pyjama top to look at the pattern, “...With pink flowers and happy ladybugs.”
“Well, I for one think it’s sweet,” Toma assures, slipping his phone out of his pocket, “The kitchen in there?”
-
Jun’s phone buzzes, and Nino digs it out from underneath the sofa cushions.
you won’t believe what he is wearing. -toma
seeing is believing, I want pictures.
nino, give jun his phone back. photo coming up.
“Spoilsport,” Nino grumbles and tosses the phone to Jun. “How did he figure out it was me?”
Jun catches it in one hand, “Hey, where’d you find this?”
“Couch,” Nino shrugs.
“Hah.” Jun is flipping through the texts when the phone receives another message. “Oh, bunny-patterns galore,” he mumbles as he sees the photo.
classic. spring collection. ;)
-
“I have those in blue,” Aiba nods approvingly, while Ohno’s comment is “Nice arse.” Sho shakes his head and asks why Toma couldn’t have taken a normal picture - with the face, Toma.
“I had to wait for him to get into a position where he wouldn’t catch me taking the photo,” Toma explains.
Sho looks sceptical. “Bent over?”
“And gagging for it,” Jun teases, leaning against Sho’s shoulder. “Really Sho, you need to learn how to do these things if you want to excel in your career.”
“Surely I don’t need to master the art of how to photograph people’s bums without their knowledge.”
Nino smiles encouragingly. “Well, you are a Johnny.”
-
“Okay, wow,” Toma says as Yamapi pulls off his sweaty t-shirt. “Is that a D cup?”
Yamapi flushes slightly, puts a towel around his neck to wipe off the sweat. “They’re for a drama character.” He steps up on a treadmill and starts it up.
“So, um,” Toma says slowly, leaning against the mirrored wall of the gym and fiddling with the cap to his water bottle, “For this character. Will you be wearing a dress?”
“No!” Yamapi stumbles and has to grab the handlebars to keep from falling off. “It’s Kurosagi, why would-” he pauses, slides of the treadmill, and sends Toma a look that is half alarmed epiphany, half despair. “I don’t know. Would they do that?” He looks ridiculous - stunned expression, topless, with half of his hair clinging wetly to his temples and the other half standing out in mad tufts.
“Don’t you mind,” Toma pats his arm reassuringly and gets on the treadmill next to Yamapi, “Im sure you’ll look pretty. All the girls will swoon.”
Yamapi gets back up. “Tegoshi seems to like them.”
The corners of Toma’s mouth quiver in a suppressed smile. “I see.”
“He just likes squishing them!”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not, like, strange or anything,” Yamapi mutters defensively.
“I believe you.”
“You’re going to tell everyone, aren’t you.” Dull resignation.
Toma grins, meets Yamapi’s gaze in the mirror and nods. “Yup.”
Yamapi pouts. “What kind of a friend are you?”
“A very special one,” Toma winks.
-
“What are you doing?” Yamapi asks, leaning over Toma and Shige’s shoulders.
“Shh, it’s an experiment,” Toma whispers, eyes not moving away from Tegoshi and Massu who are putting together 3D-cube puzzles, Massu scratching his head with a complex expression on his face, Tegoshi bright-eyed with his tongue in the corner of his mouth.
“It’s science,” Shige adds, as though he and Toma are in a club of two where Yamapi isn’t invited.
Yamapi huffs, crosses his arms and rests his hip against the back of the couch, looking away pointedly for a second, then as he figures nobody is looking at him anyway returns to skimming his gaze between Tegoshi and Massu on the floor, and Shige and Toma on the couch. “Where’s Koyama?”
“Locked in the loo,” Massu looks up with the air of someone who has decided that defeat isn’t such a bad thing after all.
“And Ryo?”
“Holding the door closed.”
Shige leans in to say something to Toma, too quietly for Yamapi to hear anything but their sniggering afterward. Shige casts a sly glance at Yamapi, which seems to seal the deal.
“Okay,” Yamapi says, “Shige, why are you hogging my friend?”
Instead of replying Shige looks down at his watch and exclaims, “6 minutes and 22 seconds! You owe me ¥2000.”
Toma grimaces. “Really couldn’t you have held out for ten minutes?” he asks Yamapi while getting up, fishing out a couple bills from his pocket and handing them to Shige. “This hurts me more than you know.”
“You bet on me.” Yamapi comments blandly.
“You’re far to possessive,” Shige smirks.
Toma hooks his arm in Yamapi’s and starts dragging him out of the room. “So I’m your friend, am I?” he teases.
“Oh shut up,” Yamapi grumbles.
-
News go on tour and Toma doesn’t find Yamapi sitting on his own in the corridors for a couple of weeks. They send a few mails, but it’s not intense conversation, and the one time Yamapi calls Toma is when he has obviously had a few drinks and says very importantly to someone else, He picked up, he is my friend. It’s late one night when Toma gets the text. He reaches vaguely for the phone where it buzzes on the table, and grumbles when he has to sit up to reach it. It’s from Yamapi.
news hiatus. no band no more.
where are you?
home. roof
I’ll come over.
It takes him fifteen minutes to just leave the flat, so by the time he gets to Yamapi’s, Pi has already swallowed down an unknown amount of vodka and is sprawled in a foldable wooden chair with his bare feet dangling over the wall of the roof.
“Toma!” Yamapi grins, splaying his arms wide in a welcoming gesture, “Say ‘hi’ to bottle-chan.” He wiggles the half-empty bottle.
“Hey,” Toma replies, pulling up a chair and mirroring Yamapi’s position. “No more News, huh?”
“Nope,” Yamapi confirms, then makes a face. “Well. It’s an indefinite hiatus so far. But with my track record the only thing that seems to be permanent is being shuffled around.”
“Pessimist there,” Toma steals the bottle from Yamapi and takes a swig.
Yamapi makes a contemplative noise, looks up at the dark sky overhead. “It’s true though. I’m always being put into new pairs, new groups. New people all the time, and they,” he pulls in a breath that skids over his teeth, “They have their place, what they’re good at, who they should be with, what they’re supposed to do. Everyone else knows where they belong. And I don’t.”
“So what you’re saying is,” Toma says slowly, teasingly, “You’re too special and good at everything to be kept in one corner.” He takes another drink of vodka and relishes how smoothly it burns as it goes down.
“No,” Yamapi intones intently, clearly not sober enough to understand it as teasing, “We are all about bands, and groups, and teams. We are all about cliques.”
Yamapi’s eyes are dark from the lack of light. Toma prompts, “And?”
He shrugs, his whole body moving with it. “And I don’t have one.”
Toma bites his lip, then silently offers the bottle back to Yamapi.
“It’s not for certain,” he says eventually, when Yamapi dries vodka off his lips with the back of his hand.
“Huh?” Yamapi replies eloquently.
“I mean, it’s just a hiatus.”
“Yeah,” Yamapi agrees in a bleak, unconvinced tone, flopping his feet over Toma’s, “It’s just a hiatus.”
-
tomato purée
thyme
stock cube
bay leaves
cream
onion
Toma peers at the crinkled bit of paper over Sho’s shoulder.
“Jun, what in the world are you making?”
Jun’s head pops out from behind the fridge door, “Sausage stroganoff.” He pushes the door closed with his foot and walks over to the kitchen counter.
Toma blinks. “I have no idea what that even means.”
“It’s a kind of Scandinavian thing.” He bings a long U-chaped sausage onto the counter and pulls out a chopping board.
Sho scrunches his nose. “Where’d you get that?”
“I have a dealer.” Jun picks up a knife.
“A dealer for sausage.” Toma smirks, reaching for the bit of notebook paper in Sho’s hand when Jun swivels around with the knife in his hand and a petulant expression on his face.
“If I were you I wouldn’t be so snarky since I’m the one holding a knife, but yeah. I make my sister buy these in the food section at IKEA.”
Toma grins, “Oh baby, you do know just what to say to make a man swoon.”
Jun puffs up his cheeks and narrows his eyes. “Toma. Get out of my kitchen.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll go save Yamapi.”
“You’d better,” Sho says, his expression studiously neutral, “He’s out there alone with Aiba, Nino and Ohno.”
Toma’s eyes widen, “Oh crap,” he hisses and scurries out of the kitchen.
-
“So,” Aiba waves his glass in Yamapi’s direction, “You never answered before, because Toma came in screaming bloody murder and stealing people’s dignity, but what do you think would happen if you were locked in a freezer with a chicken?”
Yamapi blinks and Toma has the urge to bang his head against the table. “Would that be a live chicken?” Yamapi says eventually.
Aiba stares at him for a moment, then he swishes his head around to Nino. “Nino is the chicken alive?”
Nino nods from where he is scrunched against Ohno’s shoulder. “Yes.”
“And the hedgehog?”
“What hedgehog?” Nino frowns.
“Oh,” Aiba says eagerly, “I want a hedgehog!”
“No, it won’t work!” Nino’s pout could kill a whale, “It’s off! Plan’s off!”
Aiba makes a pout that could kill a dinosaur and Jun sighs. “God, I need more wine.”
Nino turns the pout towards Ohno. “It was such a good plan.”
Ohno smiles comfortingly, “I know. You’ll have a better one going tomorrow.”
Nino puts his right index finger in front of his mouth in a hushing sound, then starts whispering. “The best one,” he says “The best one is already in process.”
“The only plan I am going to listen to is how you plan to get home. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough.” Jun fills up his glass, wine bottle clinking against the rim.
“They’re here a lot?” Yamapi asks conversationally, holding out his glass and smiling pleasantly, which makes Jun fill his glass too, half-grudgingly.
“They’re like permanent fixtures. Half the time I don’t even know if they know where they live anymore.”
“Oh, I know!” Ohno comments loftily, then grimaces pensively. “Well, Sho knows.”
Sho shakes his head, but smiles. “Come on, up you go.” He gets up and starts helping Aiba up too.
“Hey, why does Yamapi get to stay?” Aiba whinges, clinging to Sho’s arm.
“Shhhh!” Nino looks like he could growl, “That’s the plan.”
“Definitely, definitely more wine,” Jun breathes into his glass as Sho bundles away the others.
-
_summer 2006
“Toma!” Yamapi bursts into the Arashi dressing room, wild-haired and out of breath.
“Pi?” Toma looks up from reading a script, slight surprise colouring his features.
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. Where were you?”
“I was just doing some stuff for Ni-” Toma pauses, turns to look at Nino. “Nino,” he says in a grave tone that requires no further explanation.
Nino holds up a stop-watch. “Three hours. That is a personal best of misdirection during a work day. It only counts if they’re both in the building.”
Yamapi gulps in a breath of air. “You are evil,” he says decidedly and flops down next to Toma on the couch. “Completely. Even your hair.”
“Precisely,” Jun chimes in, “Get a haircut Nino, that plastered muppet thing is most unbecoming.”
Toma shakes his head. “Anyway, what was so important that you’ve been running around looking for me?”
“Can’t remember,” Yamapi shrugs, “But I only have ten minutes left of my break.” He slumps down and ends up with his head in Toma’s lap. “Tired now,” he yawns.
Nino mimes hair-petting movements at Toma, who rolls his eyes but starts sliding his fingers through Yamapi’s tangled hair. There is a tranquil atmosphere in the room when Aiba flings the door open and announces, “WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!” in no dulcet tones, but with a wide grin on his face. Clearly has nothing to do with a horrible death by fire.
There is a moment’s silence, and then Jun dully asks, “What?”
“Well, not really,” Aiba admits, “I just like to make an entrance.”
Yamapi meets Toma’s gaze sleepily, smiles. “You guys are totally bonkers,” he says, getting to his feet slowly. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”
Toma nods. “Yakiniku?”
“Absolutely.” Yamapi grins, gives Toma a wave as he heads for the door.
“My plans,” Nino proclaims when Yamapi has left the room, “Are amazing. And flawless. You may call me Nino-sama.”
-
Toma really likes Yamapi’s sofa; it’s squishy and the cusions have frills which are fun to fiddle with, and Yamapi has spent several nights snuffling into Toma’s blanket-covered one. Fridges get stocked with food for two. The telly remote keeps getting hidden to stop the other from swapping the channel. Socks and shoes and coats are being left and borrowed and forgot.
Arashi has a tour after the rainy season, and Toma is somewhat startled by how uncommon life as a group has become. He slides back into it perfectly, knows all the edges and curves, where they all fit and how they work together. It makes sense. It’s comfortable. But it is a familiarity that has become sidelined the last few months, what with Toma’s time being spent with another.
“Why is Toma moping over that magazine?” Sho murmurs to the others one day when Ohno is rehearsing his solo for the evening concert, Aiba has just gone off to the loo, and Toma is staring wistfully at an article about Yamapi.
“Because I am fantastic,” Nino replies without a trace of sarcasm, preening proudly in his seat.
“Gee, thanks for making me miserable,” Toma comments in a neutral tone, rolling his eyes.
“I have nothing to do with the miserable bit. That is all you. But I am the one who thought you’d be good for each other. And I was right.”
Toma lowers the magazine to his lap. “And how does this make you obsolete of responsibility for causing my misery?”
Nino smirks devilishly. “I didn’t make you fall in love with him.”
Toma’s mind slows down to a complete halt, and he stares blankly at Nino. “What?”
Sho tilts his head. “In all fairness you did push them together.”
“In a friendly way,” Nino says defensively.
“You made them sit in each other’s laps!” Sho makes a flaily hand movement.
Nino shrugs. “Well nobody’s perfect.”
Toma’s mouth and brain reconnect and he butts in, “I am not in love with Pi.”
Jun finally looks up from buffing his nails. “But you are.”
“What? No! No, I’m not.” Toma says emphatically, trying to figure out if they are taking the piss or if they’re serious - it’s hard to tell sometimes.
Jun gives him a look, then goes back to buffing his nails nonchalantly. “You are though.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Alright.”
Toma is hyperventilating a little, Sho is looking at him with concern, Nino is smirking, and Jun doesn’t seem to be very bothered when Aiba comes back from the toilet.
“What did I miss?” Aiba slumps into his chair.
“Toma is in love with Yamapi.” Nino grins.
Aiba’s face falls. “I can’t believe this. I’ve been waiting for this for weeks. I’m away for five minutes and... I am never going to the loo again.” He crosses his arms petulantly, but the next second he smiles, “Toma, I’m so happy for you.”
“He’s in denial.” Jun comments.
“But we’re supportive,” Sho adds, to which Nino frowns a “No, we’re not.”
“Guys, I am not in denial. There is nothing to deny!”
“You just keep telling yourself that,” Jun says idly, pursing his lips consideringly at his nails.
Toma slumps against the back of his chair, trying to avoid Aiba’s cheeky grin, Sho’s encouraging smile and Nino’s smug smirking.
-
I hear you’re teaming up with two Thai lookers.
they call me a gorilla. would it be breaking professional etiquette to throw the promotional volleyball in their heads?”
yes. go for the onigiri instead.
...they countered with gravy.
The days blur, a mesh of heat and melon soda, sweaty practices and stage performances, green tea flavoured ice-cream, blinking lights and laughter, sunglasses and tempura. Text upon text upon text signed P. Cars and buses and transparent pvc umbrellas, buildings flashing past vehicle windows, teasing and folklore and peaches. A slow ache in the pit of Toma’s stomach, the giddy jolt each time the phone rings.
The hottest part of summer passes, and with it the tour does too. When Toma steps out from the cool of the air conditioned car just outside the jimusho, there is a bustle at the door and Yamapi comes rushing out without shoes on, pausing on the step as Toma pulls up his aviators into his hair. A wide grin splits Yamapi’s face and a second later Toma is enveloped in a bone-cracking hug. “Wow, you’ve been working out,” is the first thing he manages to press out.
“I missed you,” Yamapi murmurs, loosening his grip but not letting go.
“Wuss,” Toma says, ignoring the rest of Arashi who are making faces at him over Yamapi’s shoulder.
Yamapi snickers. “Yup.”
Toma swallows. Yamapi’s heat tingles more against his skin than the sun. “Me too.”
-
_autumn 2006
They slip back into their previous pattern, but Toma can’t help but be extremely aware of Yamapi and self-conscious about how he acts, everything he says. Every touch is debated and analysed, and there is a nervous tickling that seems to be constantly imbedded in Toma’s flesh.
During a Saturday of Mario Kart and beer, as he is overtaking Toma in a curve, Yamapi asks, “Are you okay? You’ve seemed out of it lately.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Toma replies absently, hissing through his teeth as he crashes into another kart and slides off the track. He childishly flips off the wheel, binging it on the couch. “Wanna go out?”
“Sure,” Yamapi nods with a smile as he slides neatly over the finish line as the winner.
-
It’s hot in the club, the scent of warm perfumed bodies and alcohol clogging the air. It’s dark too, the strobe lights making all movements jerky and robotic as they dance, too flushed and full of tequila to even turn too fast. The heavy beat of 4AM remix thumps in Toma’s veins, and as the crowd thickens and he is pressed against Yamapi, it becomes harder to breathe, the heat feels thick in his lungs. The music changes, the lights become lazer instead and hands shoot into the air, mesmerized staring as the light grazes skin in a soft not-there touch. Yamapi’s hand is up there too, his eyes glossy and an easy, happy expression on his face.
It’s not that Toma doesn’t want the rest of Arashi to be right, it’s just that he is afraid what might happen if they are. But their words seem far away in the stuffy air, and his thoughts are too clouded by tequila to make much sense. There are just actions left, the way his body moves almost before thought, the big unnameable want surging through him.
He reaches up, touches his fingertips lightly against Yamapi’s, then slides his hand down along with the lazer, like a projected touch of light made real. Yamapi turns to him, eyes dark, mouth slightly open. The strobe lights flick on again, and all Toma can see are stuttering movements, but what he feels is smooth and flowing as he is pulled close into Yamapi’s heat. His fingers curl as he is kissed.
-
Toma is woken by the jostle of someone pulling away from him. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, but his hangover is not as easily dispelled, and his head spins as he sits up to see Yamapi halfway across the room, pulling on his clothes with his back turned. Toma’s mouth goes dry. He looks down at the rumpled bedclothes, feels the strange soft ache in his muscles and that he is naked under the sheet.
“Pi.” His voice is rough.
Yamapi’s shoulders stiffen. “I have to go.”
Toma licks his lips. “Pi, come on. Look at me.”
Yamapi visibly takes a breath before turning around. His shirt is still unbuttoned and his hair is adorably ruffled. He is gorgeous even red-eyed and hungover, but the expression on his face is stiff and Toma’s heart swells with worry. “I thought we were friends,” Yamapi says softly, meeting Toma’s eyes.
“We are,” Toma says miserably, pulling up his sheet-covered legs to his chest.
“I’m not so sure anymore Toma.” Yamapi looks away, swallows. “Look, let’s not. Let’s not talk for a while, okay?”
He stays long enough for Toma to force out a tiny, shaking and forlorn “Okay,” and then he leaves.
Toma stays home the whole day, nursing his hangover and watching reruns of bad whodunnit dramas. His mum calls in the afternoon, talking about relatives and the neighbour’s cat and coming home for family dinner sometime. He changes the sheets before he goes to bed, but the pillow somehow still smells of Yamapi’s cologne. He closes his stinging eyes and pretends it’s okay.
-
Ohno notices first. When Toma enters the dressing room on Monday, feelings tucked away and face carefully arranged into a pleasant smile, Ohno gives him one deliberate look and then walks across the room and puts his arms around him.
“What happened?”
“How can you even tell,” Toma mumbles into Ohno’s shoulder.
“I know you,” Ohno replies simply, giving him a comforting smile.
“What did he do?” Nino comes over, something dark in his eyes.
Toma grimces. “Pi didn’t do anything.”
“Aha!” Nino’s voice has a tinge of triumph, “So it was Yamapi!”
“No, Nino,” Toma rolls his eyes, “It was me. I did a stupid thing - a really stupid thing.”
Nino’s eyes narrow. “How stupid?”
“Incredibly, fantastically, epically stupid.”
“As stupid as a drunken cosplay convention in Akihabara?” Jun chimes in from where he is fixing his hair, his stance revealing nothing, but with a strangely soft edge to his teasing expression. Toma meets Jun’s gaze in the mirror, grateful for how Jun is trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Worse,” Toma says emphatically, smiling slightly, “And I should know.”
“So what was it that you did?” Ohno asks, nudging him over to the couch where they slump down next to Sho, and Nino joins them to make a pile.
Toma puffs up his cheeks. “I spraypainted him when he was asleep and invited people over to see The Golden Boy.”
“Now, we both know that isn’t true,” Nino chides, poking his side. “Mainly because I wasn’t invited. Come on, what’s wrong.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Nino looks as though he is about to protest, but at that moment Sho clamps a hand over Nino’s mouth and Aiba flounces happily through the door, coming to a complete stop in one second flat. He looks at the four on the couch and makes a pout that could undo a walrus. “Kimura never has to put up with this crap; SMAP have a room right next to the loos. I hate you all. ”
-
“That plan was the best plan ever, why did they have to go and mess it up for?” Nino complains, kicking a leg of the airport lounge chair with his heel. In less than an hour they will be on their way to Taiwan.
Sho scrunches his nose pensively. “We still don’t know what Yamapi did.”
Jun fingers his necktie. “I say we kill him anyway.”
“I think people might notice,” Sho says with flat sarcasm.
“We’ll put up a kurosagi promo cutout,” Jun shrugs, “The personality will be the same.”
“Right, and how much time were you thinking this would buy us?” Sho shakes his head in amusement.
“At least a week. And then we can say he went on a vacation to sleep with the fishes.” Jun smiles wickedly, drumming his fingertips together.
Aiba blinks and perks up. “We’re taking him to the aquarium?”
When Ohno and Toma come back with their coffees, Aiba is nattering on about cave fish that don’t have any eyes.
-
It’s going well for Arashi; they’re successfully stepping out on the international scene, with all the hard work it means to be doing so. They are rushed from autograph signings to interviews to photoshoots to rehearsals, which by the time they’re left to their own devices late in the evenings causes them to be so exhausted that they crash into bed wihout a thought of anything else. It’s a relief for Toma, not having time to think about Yamapi (and what never should have been) because reality is too brilliant for there to be space for it when the rest of Arashi are around. It’s not running away. It is acceptance, and making a life without Yamapi in it, just as he made a life with space for him before.
Toma knows he was trying to give Yamapi a place to belong, consciously or not, fitting him in and smoothing out the edges. But maybe it was a bit like hammering together two mismatching pieces of puzzle. They look right, and you think they should be right, but they’re not, and they never will be no matter how much you try to push it.
It is still hard though, having given so much of yourself to find it all rejected, and sometimes he thinks he sees Nino casting guilty glances his way, but he doesn’t blame Nino for it. I really was a good plan. And it was Toma who fucked it up. It’s easier on stage, in the spotlight, performing. For a while the rest of the world stops existing -- they’re Arashi, they belong together like this, sexy dorks in sequined suits, living on that stage.
Time flies, and soon enough they are back in Japan, getting back into the every-day routine. The other members of Arashi come over a lot (as always), but there are more nights to be spent on one’s own, so Toma takes up studying Italian by himself. It doesn’t go very well, but for the most part it is quite nice to drift off in thoughts of ordering impossibly named coffee at a tiny café as dawn breaks on cobbled streets still wet from rain.
It’s a few weeks since they’ve been back when the doorbell rings, and Toma goes to open it thinking it must be Jun back for the scarf he’d not been able to live without earlier that day when they’d walked past the Burberry shop, and yet had left lying on Toma’s coffee table. However, when he swings the door open it is Yamapi standing there, and Toma’s mind goes blank for a moment, just staring at Yamapi, dark and beautiful and standing on his doorstep. “Can I come in?”
“Sorry, of course.” Toma steps aside to let him in and close the door. “I’ll get you something to drink.” He turns and flees to the kitchen, popping the kettle on with shaking hands. Nervousness settles in his stomach like acidic burning. He takes out two cups from a cupboard as Yamapi comes to lean against the doorframe to the kitchen, his sock-clad feet inaudible against the floor.
“So, um,” Toma clears his throat, “I heard that News is going to make a comeback.”
Yamapi nods. “We are. At the countdown.”
Toma braves a smile. “Told you it was just a hiatus. You’ll have your very own clique again.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but.” Yamapi smiles back, “Yeah, I suppose I will.”
“We’re all about the cliques, yo,” Toma says mock-seriously, and Yamapi bites his lip on a grin.
There is the silence of heating water, and then Yamapi suddenly says, “I feel stupid.”
He must be regretting having come at all. Toma swallows, doesn’t look up from the cups, doesn’t dare to. “Can we still be friends?”
Yamapi sighs. “But that’s the thing, Toma. I don’t want to be your friend.”
Toma scoffs, looks up at Yamapi with incredulty and a sliver of anger creeps into his voice as he says, “Then. Then why are you here?”
Yamapi looks away, shifts his feet. The kettle clicks off. “Because I want to be more than that.”
“Oh.” Toma says, tone flat, then it catches up with him and his eyes widen. “Oh.”
The rest comes tumbling out quickly as Yamapi flushes, “I know that I was a complete idiot who left you like that, but I thought that we had just ruined everything. I was angry with myself. And then. After a while I wasn’t angry anymore. I was more upset that I didn’t remember.”
In the silence that follows it is as though all the empty space fills up, the hurt and disappointment dissipate and are replaced with something that spreads through Toma’s veins like electricity. Yamapi looks up at him once more, taking a shaking breath, then turns to walk away with a thick “I’m sorry.”
Toma is quicker: walking across the kitchen, grabbing Yamapi and pushing him up against the opposite wall all in one forward motion.
“You are a complete asshole,” Toma says, and Yamapi closes his eyes in resignation.
“I’m sorry,” he says, barely a breath, his lashes clogged with tears.
“And I hate you for breaking my heart,” Toma continues, pressing Yamapi’s wrists up against the wall, “So you’d better make up for it.” He shifts, lets go of one of Pi’s wrists to slide his fingers up Yamapi’s clavicle as he leans in to kiss him.
It’s soft and kind of wet, Yamapi sniffling slightly and tears smudging out on his cheeks.
Toma pulls away, drying Yamapi’s cheeks with his thumbs. “Come on,” he says, backing towards the bedroom and pulling Yamapi with him, “You have weeks to make up for. And quite a few miserable phone conversations with my mum,” he adds teasingly.
Yamapi grins, sniffles, and nods; allows himself to be pulled.
The two cups of tea stay unmade all night, waiting for dawn.
-
_coda
Yamapi’s phone beebs as they’re sitting with mugs in their hands in front of the telly. “I got a text from Aiba,” Pi blinks, “He says I should come along to the aquarium.”
-
the end.
Poll Team What If