Prompt 4: One day you’re in and the next you’re out - Team Future
Title: Grounds of challenge
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Shige-centric, Ryo/Shige
Summary: Boy bands with “boys” in their thirties are difficult to market these days. The analysis says NEWS will be better off as individuals at this point in their carriers. Shige finds himself in a dubious situation.
Prompt: "One day you're in and the next you're out"
Warnings: -
Notes: From what I learned, in Japan a person has to have an undergraduate degree (in anything) AND a degree from specialist law graduate school to become an attorney. Only then is a person allowed to take a bar exam (with quite a low success rate). The score on the exam determines what type of job one does afterwards. The highest scorers get appointed as judges, the next ones prosecutors, and the lowest passing ones regular attorneys.
Thanks to everyone who helped.
Shige’s first reaction is to wonder if the new management is trying to prove it can do things just as crazy, just as risky, as the old one when Johnny was still alive. They have been shooting a regular magazine shoot, all together, just before the meeting. Apparently, boy bands with “boys” in their thirties are difficult to market these days. The analysis says NEWS will be better off as individuals at this point in their carriers.
Then their manager is done talking. There is silence. Of course there is. NEWS was just told they are to done as a group. Then Shige speaks. Because clearly part of him has been still listening even if it felt like he had gone out after the first sentence.
“And me?”
The manager coughs. Koyama’s eyes get wide, stopping the tears that have been threatening to form for a while now.
“No way,” Tegoshi says. It is quite rare to see Tegoshi surprised.
“Well fuck,” Ryo joins. Shige doubts that was a reaction to his question though.
Koyama is firmly set in the newscaster circles, in the television business. He will continue doing what he has gotten so good at since the initial stumblings in News Every. Yamapi will continue being the money machine that he is, movies, solo singles, TV series, whatever he decides to, the public will eat it up. Tegoshi and Massu are in the middle of their most successful tour yet. This way they can add more dates. Ryo, Ryo will finally get to go home just like the rest of Kanjani8. His manager for NEWS stays to manage his solo activities and his self-promotion. The Kanjani8 managers will have one less scheduling worry.
“What about me,” Shige asks only a little more eloquently thirty minutes later, in the main office where he was sent.
“Well, you have no engagements right now. You can stay if you wish to, but frankly Kato-san, we did not count on you wanting to. You have always showed strong common sense and foresight, and you have a law degree. We do not really have any plans for you in the near future.”
Shige wants to fight and prove himself at first. So what if he has no drama or stage play right now? He is as good as any of them. He has been composing his music for some time now, his dancing improved, and he has been the major part in creating NEWS’ clean image. He can do well for himself. He can exist in this world all alone. He will not be reduced to a former NEWS member who disappeared from the entertainment world when NEWS disbanded. When the NEWS article comes out, he will not be 'Kato Shigeaki (30), currently unemployed, who expressed his regret over NEWS’ existence coming to end.'
In the end, he leaves with his head held high, at least in his opinion. He sees there is no real possibility to stay with all of the stern, cold looks he is given in the office that day. He will not beg.
He tells everyone he does not need Johnny’s, does not want to be stuck here all his life. One day he will come back to the spotlight for his own achievements. Yamapi pats him on the shoulder, telling him he will be looking out for him. Tegoshi grins, telling him even he had not guessed their education might come handy one day. Massu offers lunch or dinner in the near future. Ryo snorts.
“You should have made them find work for you. They should be cleaning up the mess they created,” he says. Shige will not crawl and plead. Of course, he does not tell Ryo that.
“It was my decision.”
The end, the announcement, the arrangements, the reactions, the process is not half as climatic as one would imagine. It all ends rather abruptly for Shige. The next day after they are told, he has nothing to do already. The rest of things concern only the staying members. No one really counted on him fighting the decision.
§
Shige watches movies to his heart’s content. He sleeps till he wakes up on his own-no manager calling or alarm clock ringing to do it. He does sweet nothing. But all this is okay only when one has something to look forward to, plans, things to do sometimes soon. However, right now, there is nothing waiting for Shige. No concert to be excited about. No new role to challenge. No routine with photo shoots and interviews to fall back to. Of course, the last decade or so has been stressful enough to justify lying around for some time. But Shige does not want to stay still. He does not want to get stuck in this strange vacuum, somewhere between too special and too ordinary.
He had been smart enough to buy an apartment instead of continuing to rent it some time ago. He has had enough brains to save, invest even, money for when he would retreat. He just did not expect it to happen for the next decade or so. He can laze around for some time. He can take some time off for soul searching. Really, Shige knows who he is and where his soul lies. He refuses to wait around for a miracle. Or for his mind to finally come to terms with what went down. He needs to move on, prove them all he is just fine. He wants to just dive into something to chase all the doubts away.
It makes Shige laugh, remembering the managers mention his law degree. He really meant it when he said he had decided to study law after high school only because it sounded cool. After he had said so on TV, Shige was told to tone it down, to promote higher education. Apparently studying only to be cool is not cool, so he shut up about it then.
At the end of the week, Shige finds himself checking the applications for specialist law grad schools anyway. Being a small attorney, a master of his own time, with luxury of choosing his own clientele- well if he plays it right and keeps his spending on bay-sounds like the best option. A little too boring at thirty, but it is going to take several years to get there. Shige goes for it.
He had been an Aoyama student; he can take the heat of an entrance exam. Shige silences the part of his brain that tells him starting to study again at thirty is not easy, and pulls out his old text books, downloads all the info about the entrance exams online and applies. He has only something over a month until the first exam. He has been learning scripts for ages. It is not like he has not been straining his brain cells. He will manage.
Or not.
Shige has not admitted the possibility of failure at all for the past six weeks or so. Most of his public failures have been staged anyway. Not even after he comes out of the examination rooms, knowing how much he has been lost at times during the tests or interviews, he lets his mind wander in that direction. The tests are hard; they all probably struggled just as much as he did. Now, the content of the envelope in his hand says otherwise. The contents of all three of them. As does the overall ranking.
§
It is only his plan number two. Travelling the world is. Shige does not admit it when Koyama asks though. He says he is taking his sweet time, doing everything he never had time for. He lives the other NEWS members’ dreams more than his. Goes places the others have been dying to go and had no time to for ages. He throws in some random countries in between.
Shige does have a purpose, though. Not that he admits that either. He just smiles at Koyama, tells him he is having time of his life and sends him postcards from every pretty place he visits. Nice, bright, flashy, with loads of stamps. He wants Koyama to be jealous. It is nonsensical, but the thought that the other would like to be there with him, just like back then in New York, makes him feel better. Koyama just wrinkles his eyebrow and hopes Shige is really looking around, not only for those postcards.
All these flights, bus rides, train rides, even boat trips, they are not pointless wanderings of a lost soul. Shige had pulled out the first photography handbook and bought three more. He took several cameras with him. He is taking pictures of everything pretty, some ugly, some mediocre, planning to expose the world how Kato Shigeaki sees it. In perfect, well structured, carefully taken, poised photography.
“Nice execution, no soul,” several publishing agents and curators tell him when he returns to Tokyo and tries to publish or hold an exhibition. Something.
He comes home one of those days, bitter, almost thirty-one, jobless, aimless, completely put off and tired. Alone. All of his friends-those he kept talking about when he was an idol, the normal students who helped him when he still studied and with whom he kept in touch later on-work. They are settled, with long term girlfriends, wives, even kids, family life and little time to spare for Shige who has all the time in his life. He has so much of that freedom he had always wished for and nothing to do with it. He opens one of the albums he was trying to prove is good enough for a photo book and looks for the flaws all those “experts” see.
What Shige sees are pictures of places that he . . . does not remember. He cannot recall the wide planes, nor the small boy in the corner of the street in some Spanish village that he would love to see more of, nor the color of sunset in the light of which he took that way too boring picture of a tree somewhere in Africa. He has no clue what was so interesting about that bicycle in Amsterdam. He wonders if all of them were this perfectly chrome-like. He does not remember how the door of the house window of which he is looking at looked like in that narrow street.
Shige pushes one picture away after another, realizing that without the label that said where the photo was taken, and the fact the films to these are in his shelves, he would not believe he had been there, seen it, lived it. He focused so much on taking that perfect picture, on picking the right moment, on pleasing someone, anyone, that he forgot to see for himself. The past few months suddenly feel much more wasted than they felt just after this afternoon’s rejection.
Massu calls him up and takes him out for lunch. Shige knows it is probably because Koyama asked him to. Koyama has been concerned because even in his thirties, Shige still cannot hide his emotions from him, and Koyama cannot keep his distance.
Both Shige and Massu smile politely, but their worries are now worlds apart. Their joys . . . Shige has to think hard of some joys in his life.
“I just do whatever, as much as I want to do it, and no one bosses me around,” he says in the end, smiles.
“It’s good to see Shige didn’t forget how to fake a smile,” Massu replies and gives him the last piece of meat.
Shige’s fist clenches around his fork. Massu winks at him.
“It’s nice; it just means you can still come back. Or go wherever you want to. Shige doesn’t give up,” Massu adds as an afterthought. Shige pays. He is not a charity case.
§
Shige looks around in frustration. He has thought it through this time. He weighted his options and looked at them through the bitterness of the past year. With every bit of determination he has left. Shige pulls a book out of the pile sitting on his table. Glaring and sighing is not going to help. Having high aims and really meaning it this time around will. He sits on his couch and in the next moment jumps up and stares at his door in bewilderment. The doorbell keeps on ringing with certain ferocity. Shige is not expecting any guests.
“Took you long enough,” says Nishikido Ryo when Shige opens the door and stands there, dumbfounded. He has not seen Ryo for about a year.
“Are you bored?” Shige asks after watching Ryo take his shoes off, get to his sofa and turn the TV on, frowning almost right away.
“Actually I am.” Ryo looks up and then raises an eyebrow. “What is this Shige? Are you poor now or something? There is only the basic package of the TV programs on this TV. I came here because I knew you always had all those movie channels I could watch.”
“Really? And I thought Koyama was getting desperate,” Shige murmurs.
Ryo gives him a questioning look. “I haven’t spoken to Koyama for ages. How is he?”
“Ryo, what are you doing here?” Shige asks, two beers in hand already, having made a trip into the kitchen and coming back to watch the man sitting on his couch in amazement.
Ryo scratches his head, takes the beer from Shige and only after taking a huge gulp out of the can does he look back at him.
“So I was cast in a drama, right. First leading role of my career,” he says bitterly. “Finally,” he squeaks in what Shige recognizes as an imitation of Ryo’s manager. He giggles a little.
“Only then,” Ryo continues, “after I have spent over two weeks going over the script and meeting people, the management decides to promote someone younger, who needs the exposure more. It’s for the greater good. I come to the studio for a read through today and learn I have nothing to do for the next three months.”
Shige just stands there, fidgets. Does Ryo think they are somehow the same?
“Well, you know what they say,” Ryo says lightly, finishing his beer and snatching Shige’s. “One day you are in and the next . . .” He trails off, looks around the apartment. “So what have you been up to?” he asks.
“Not much,” Shige replies, takes his half-drunk beer back. He watches how Ryo fidgets nervously, as if suddenly realizing all the awkwardness of crushing on Shige’s sofa after all this time. He does not ask anything else though, does not press Shige. Shige decides it is okay to start studying tomorrow and goes to his DVD rack.
“What do you have in mind?” he asks, tilting his chin to the television, and Ryo relaxes, grins.
“Something bloody,” he replies and goes off to the kitchen to get more beer. Ten minutes later, he is cheering on some crazy man on a motorcycle, legs up on Shige’s coffee table, his arms spread on the sofa back rest, his sleeve brushing against Shige’s neck. The apartment has not felt this lively for ages.
Shige has cancelled all his TV channels subscriptions. Pushing the buttons, going through the channels again and again was depressing. He did not need it, and he can save some money this way. Watching TV tonight seems like fun yet again. He can start being serious tomorrow. Today, Shige allows himself to relax against Ryo’s side and have a movie night.
§
“So how come I haven’t seen you around? I’ve thought you’d become a manager, or I’d find you taking pictures of me just for the heck of it one day,” Ryo says a week later, cooking dinner on Shige’s stove.
“Don’t tell me what I should be doing. I can figure it out by myself,” Shige snaps and closes his book loudly.
“Whoa,” Ryo raises one hand, not even turning around to face Shige. He just keeps on stirring that stupid stew he is so set on making. “I know that. I just thought I had you all figured out.” He laughs.
Shige relaxes back into the sofa. “I don’t want to be involved with Johnny’s anymore,” he says after a while. Ryo turns around this time, looks like he wants to say something, then sets the pot on the table and announces the dinner is ready.
“How about you tell me when you’ll finally start doing something and leave me alone?” Shige asks as he sits down on his chair.
“Hear, hear, Shige preach. You have been doing nothing but reading for days.”
“I’m not just reading! I’m . . .” Shige stops himself. “Besides, I can do . . .”
“I know I know; you can do whatever you want. Me too.” Ryo grins and digs in. “Delicious,” he nods to himself.
“Play something with me,” Ryo says after dinner is eaten, dishes cleaned. He is holding one of two guitars Shige has not touched since he left JE.
“No.”
“Yes. You know you want to. I saw you watching me yesterday.”
“I wasn’t--” Ryo shuts him up, his hand pressing against Shige’s mouth. Warm, lightly sweaty.
“Don’t be stupid.”
Shige takes the guitar from Ryo and runs his fingers across the strings. Ryo smiles and does the same. Shige has to shake his head to stop himself from staring at Ryo’s grin.
Ryo leaves way past midnight, refusing to stay the night. Shige offered. Just as he has done every day for the past week. Every day that Ryo has shown up on his doorstep, claiming he wants to hang out because he has nothing to do. He knows Ryo still has some work, regular shooting, shows, interviews. But Shige also knows his schedule was mostly cleaned to accommodate three months of crazy drama shooting and promotions. Ryo is just bored. And for some reason he has chosen Shige to kill his time with.
The worst timing possible. Though admittedly, most of the time, Ryo is just there, lets Shige do what he wants, lazing around himself, sleeping half of the time he is over. Shige is determined to not be distracted by Ryo, trying to ignore it when Ryo roams around his apartment, picks up his guitars to tune and play them, goes through his novels, reading part of one or another before deeming them boring and trying to get Shige to talk to him. Shige will not be swayed.
§
“You should just drop that stupid book and go out with us,” Ryo says, hands on his hips, voice raising with anger and impatience.
“I am not going to party with you and Yamashita-kun!” Shige retorts, goes back to the book.
“You should,” Ryo repeats. “You need to get out more.”
“And you need to get out of my apartment. Now,” Shige adds. Ryo kicks the armchair.
“Fine. But tell me one thing, when was the last time you got laid?”
“Ryo, normal people in their thirties do not just get laid,” Shige says warily, eyeing Ryo. He pretends like he is not counting in his head.
“And what do they do then? These normal people.” Ryo sounds offended.
“They have relationships, settle down, have families.” Shige bites his lip. “They don’t go to clubs, they don’t party with people too young and too drunk for them.”
“Oh, I get it now.” Ryo frowns. “So where is this girlfriend of yours?” he asks.
Shige wants to lie, say she is just not coming over because Ryo is always here these days. They both know Shige does not have a girlfriend. Ryo is probably one of those who had figured out that Shige does not really care to have a girlfriend.
“What the hell are you doing?” Shige asks instead. He sounds too panicked for his own comfort. Ryo is taking his shirt off.
“Taking a shower.”
“Here?” Shige gapes. Ryo takes off his jeans.
“Yes. I was planning to drag you out, and I refuse to go back to my place. I’m borrowing a towel.”
Shige mumbles something as Ryo disappears behind his bathroom door. Tanned, well toned, perfectly shaped, as always. Shige has forgotten. Long gone were the days of common use of onsens. He cannot concentrate on his book that night. All he sees are firm shoulders, wiry back, lean waist and the low cut of Ryo’s hips.
§
Ryo has not shown up for two weeks. Shige has gone through several heavy books. He also took tons of mock tests. Koyama called every day. Shige did not pick up half of them. Koyama makes him anxious. He asks questions. Worries. Is there for Shige. Lives in some happy bubble that Shige does not get anymore.
When a doorbell rings the next time, Shige runs to it a bit too quickly; if he says so himself. Ryo thinks he was too slow. Still.
“Bored again?” Shige asks. He sighs when Ryo wiggles an eyebrow and lifts his hand in front of Shige’s face, a six pack dangling in the air.
“Missed me?”
“I thought you had finally gotten the message and left me alone.”
“I was on a trip.” Indifferent. Cool as always.
“Oh.” Shige eyes Ryo. Indeed his skin is darker, a bit too dark. His teeth when he grins at Shige stupidly from the sofa are only that much whiter. “I saw that photo collection you have there and felt like going places.”
Shige stiffens. “You’ve been digging through my stuff.” He does not know what to do. There is nothing much on television, the papers he has been going through are now all over the place-Ryo just sat into middle of them, and he does not feel like drinking beer. Ryo is looking him straight into his eyes.
“So what have you been doing while I was not here to keep you company.”
“I don’t need you to keep me company.”
“Let me guess.” Ryo stays unfazed. He does not seem to be bothered by the fact the last time they saw each other they argued either. He does not know Shige then jerked off to the image of Ryo in his shower though. That might be the reason why Shige is, once again, the awkward one.
“You have been reading.” Ryo cuts through his thoughts.
“I’m not just reading!” Shige raises his voice way too soon.
“Then what are you doing.”
“Studying.” It is out before Shige can stop himself.
Ryo grins, victory gleaming in his eyes, and makes himself more comfortable.
“Tell me,” he says. Shige suddenly realizes that he really wants to. Tell someone about it all. Someone who is not Koyama. Who will not pity him. Ryo might laugh at him, but he will not give him sad eyes. He will not fuzz or try to help. Ryo will tell him to man up. And Shige could use that. He needs motivation that has been slowly slipping away.
“I’m studying for entrance exams. I’m going back to school.” He admits and drops to the armchair, opposite of Ryo.
“What for? You already have a degree.” Ryo sits up more properly. He looks slightly unsure like that.
“For law.”
“Again?”
Shige sighs. Explains how it really is not that easy to be an attorney. How he needs to be in school for three more years and then study some more to pass the bar.
“I’ve tried last year. I didn’t get into any of the schools I applied to.” Shige feels a huge stone dropping of his chest. Not even his parents know and the press was not interested in the story of a failed idol either. Luckily.
“You what?” Ryo fidgets.
“Then I went and traveled. I supposed I tried to forget. I took pictures. Those you saw.” It is hard to admit more, and Shige finds himself breathing hard.
Ryo jumps up, pulls out the album, shakes it in Shige’s direction. “You should try and publish it. Do an exhibition. How much more do you have? These are good enough, Shige. They are so clean. So flawless.”
“Too sterile.” Shige grimaces. Even Ryo noticed. Even if he has no clue what it means. “Too clean-cut to be interesting,” he adds. “I tried.”
Ryo sinks back onto the couch. Shige does not want to look at him. He does not want to see how mistaken about Ryo’s reaction he has been.
“They have no idols in them,” Ryo says bitterly. Shige is surprised. He did think of that too. Wondered if that was what all those editors willing to meet him wanted to see.
“That too,” Shige laughs. The laughter feels hollow.
“Well, you’ll just have to show them you are better than that,” Ryo says plainly, throws the album into the corner. “You do not plan to fail this time. Right?”
Shige’s shoulders get straighter. “Of course not.”
“Good. Now go study. Why are you just sitting around here?” Ryo asks.
Shige wants to get mad at him. He really does. He picks up the papers and huddles in his arm chair instead, feeling lighter and more ready to face Todai then ever.
Two hours later, Ryo is asleep on Shige’s sofa and Shige is making himself another cup of coffee. Ryo snores. It makes Shige laugh. It sounds good, his own laughter bouncing of the walls of his apartment. He covers Ryo with a blanket, brushes hair off his eyes. He cannot help but trace the wrinkle on his forehead with his fingers. He only watches those that are now always present around his eyes.
In the morning, Shige finds himself with a stiff neck and legs dead under his body. There is a blanket thrown over him rather carelessly. The one that Ryo has been using. Shige smells coffee and hears a guitar playing.
“About time you get up,” Ryo says when Shige stumbles through the living room. He bumps into Ryo who is sitting in the corner. He is playing Shige’s guitar. Again.
§
“I can’t seem to find the right tune,” Ryo huffs, looks up at Shige from underneath his fringe. Shige wants to ruffle it, push it to the side to see all of Ryo’s face. He licks his lips, seeing how Ryo’s neck is straining to look at him. He hands him a cup of coffee. Their fingers brush. It is pathetic, really, how it makes Shige feel. How his stomach trembles. How his breath comes short. How at night he feels those fingers brushing against his own skin, tracing the places Ryo has never really touched. Never will.
“I’m not helping you. And you should go. You do not actually live here.” Shige says, tries to kick Ryo out. Out of his mind.
“I know I don’t. I don’t even have a key,” Ryo pouts.
“There is no reason for you to have it.” Shige crosses his arms. They stare at each other.
“Go study. You failure of an elite,” Ryo says. That is so old.
An hour later, Ryo gets up, makes them a new mug of coffee and dinner. He leaves quietly while Shige is in the middle of a mock test.
§
“Get up, you lazy bum and go study. Take a walk sometimes during the day. The air is nice today,” Ryo is rattling away into Shige’s ear, through his phone. Shige does not remember giving him his phone number.
“I’m hanging up,” he grumbles. But Shige gets up anyway. He still has lots to do. The first written exam is in about a month, and from then on, it will be three more written ones. If he gets through them, there are the oral interviews and the written essays. More stress. He needs time, and he is running out of it. Ryo seems to know.
§
“Still no progress with the lyrics?” Shige peers over Ryo’s shoulders.
Ryo mumbles something and crumples a piece of paper he’s been writing on.
“May I help?” Shige asks.
“Do not look for excuses. You’re taking too many breaks.” Ryo furrows his eyebrow.
“Ryo, I’m done for tonight. It’s almost midnight.”
“Oh, is it?” Ryo looks confused. He sees an empty plate next to his knees. Shige has made dinner tonight.
“I want to help,” Shige says and drops to his knees next to Ryo. “Play the song for me.”
Ryo does. Shige feels guilty because, more than helping, he wants to get this close to Ryo. When Ryo shares his music with him, Shige feels like he is entering his world. He is being let in.
“You don’t need to do this,” Ryo mumbles as Shige starts to write.
“I need to thank you somehow,” Shige blurts out.
“For what?” Ryo asks, leans closer to Shige to see what he is writing. Shige does not answer. If Ryo wants him to ignore how he has been feeding him, waking him, or keeping him awake, and refilling his coffee supplies, Shige will stay silent.
Ryo’s breath is hot against his neck. His cologne is so subtle, yet Shige feels it is all around him. When Ryo touches his hand, tells him what to change in an excited voice, Shige is on the verge of losing control. He has been controlling so much. Almost every part of Shige’s life is somehow restrained. All he wants to concentrate on are his exams. He is determined to get into at least one of those schools. No, he wants to get into all of them. He wants to have the choice for once.
§
“Shige?”
“Hmmm . . .” Shige does not notice how much Ryo fidgets.
“I . . . You. Are you okay?” Ryo is almost whispering.
“What? What do you mean okay? I’m just fine.” Shige does not even stop reading.
“I mean. Good. No, not good. You haven’t been working for over a year and . . .”
Shige jumps up. “What the hell, Nishikido.”
“I just mean. Is there anything I could . . . like a loan or something.”
“Ryo,” Shige breathes out, tries to calm his nerves. “I have savings. I would not be living here if things would be rough. I could always sell some of my cameras. Sell this place and move into something smaller that would cost less on energies. I would get nice money out of this place. Or I could get a loan like normal people.”
Ryo fidgets. “You are going back to school. And tuition.”
“Ryo, cut it out. I’m fine. I’ll find a job eventually. Just like any other law student. I’ll try to be a paralegal in some legal office. Or I will make coffee in one if needed. I will manage.”
“It’s three years.”
“I don’t want to hear about this anymore.” Shige gets up and walks to the door of his room. Ryo just watches him leave.
§
“We should go out for a dinner,” Ryo suggests. “I finished the song. I want to celebrate,” he adds.
“You should totally credit me,” Shige laughs but shakes his head in reply to dinner offer. “That would be a comeback. A former idol becomes a lyricist,” Shige teases.
“I will,” Ryo says decidedly.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I can do what I want,” Ryo parrots. “No dinner then?” he asks one more time.
“I need to finish this,” Shige waves a book at Ryo. Ryo looks around the apartment then. He picks up few of his things that have been lying around the place for days now. He makes another mug of coffee and makes a quick soup.
“Don’t forget to eat,” Ryo tells Shige as he puts on his shoes.
“Not staying tonight?” Shige asks.
“No, I am in mood for some yakiniku and you have just fish in your freezer.”
Shige laughs. Ryo gives him a slightly weird look and waves him good bye.
§
When Shige comes home from his first written exam, he finally gets it. There was an ad for the new Kanjnani8 single playing on one of the huge screens he passed on his way home. Ryo has not been in his place for over two weeks. Ever since the day he asked him for dinner and Shige refused. So easily. Thinking he could always say yes the next time. And now Ryo is out of his life again, back to being an idol full time. Just like that. With no time for Shige and his boring, mundane life spent studying and worrying about normal things. Shige throws a blanket over himself. He realizes he has not used it ever since Ryo had slept over the last time. It just stayed there by the sofa. Now it smells like Ryo. Shige needs sleep. Very badly. He never makes it to bed that night.
The Todai entrance exam is the last one in the row of four written ones. Shige is a bundle of nerves. He has probably blown the two orals he had in the past week because of it. But this is it. This is the huge, almost unreachable goal he has set for himself. This is what helped him to push through everything else. What got him to start studying, what kept him going after Ryo had disappeared. What was always in the back of his mind when he tried to push everything else out of it. Only six more days. The first round will be over.
Shige turns the TV on just to watch news. He needs to know what is going on in the world, needs to be as well rounded as possible for these interviews. He catches some program with Kanjani8 on. Their new single had alternate versions. Two solos as B side for each. Ryo’s was co-written by his former bandmate, Kato Shigeaki. Shige freezes, watches the caster’s mouth move, Ryo’s eyes glint when she asks too much. Shige is fuming. That bastard did credit him.
Without saying a word, Ryo disappears. He never calls. Nor does Shige. But Shige was not leeching off Ryo’s hospitability for about three months. He understands Ryo has work now, but literally throwing Shige away is too much. And then despite Shige saying no, he puts his name down for the song credits. Shige fumes. He is dialing the number before he knows it.
“Shige,” Ryo says, audibly surprised.
“Why are you still an insufferable idiot who does everything only like he wants? Why do you never listen?”
“Shige,” Ryo repeats.
“I told you not to credit me. I don’t want anything to do with that company again. Now I’m being talked about again. What have you done?”
Ryo hangs up. He also turns off his phone. That bastard. An hour later, Shige’s doorbell rings and Shige does not want to open. He wants to scream at Ryo through the shut door. He has no idea what he would do to him if he opened it. Or maybe he knows way too well. What he would be tempted to do, anyway. Ryo kicks his door and threatens to make a scene. The door is opened. Of course.
Instead of a brawl, instead of big words and anger, they both just stare. Ryo has jeans and a simple black shirt on. He smells the same way Shige’s blanket used to and looks much more tired that he did three weeks ago. Shige still feels warmth creeping up his body. He wants to rub his thumb across the wrinkles around Ryo’s eyes. Ryo’s lips form a thin line, and his fists are clenched.
“You wrote most of the lyrics. I do not steal lyrics.”
Shige raises his hand. His fingers brush Ryo’s cheek on the way to the corner of his eye. Ryo almost leans into that touch.
“It is not stealing if I agreed to give them to you,” Shige mutters. Ryo catches his elbow, and his hand moves up to Shige’s shoulder.
There is a hand in someone’s hair and another at the back of someone’s neck, and their lips are pressed together. Ryo’s tongue is in Shige’s mouth, Shige sucking at it and moaning when Ryo digs nails of his other hand into his hip.
Shige is not even surprised when only moments later he is naked and pushing Ryo towards the sofa in his living room. The only thing Ryo has on is his undershirt, a wife beater the strap of which Shige is pulling off with his teeth. Ryo grunts and lets go of Shige to take it off. Shige grabs Ryo’s hips for support, pushes them together.
They hit the hand rest of the coach and try to keep their balance. Ryo moans, spreads his legs to let Shige fall in between them, clings to his shoulders and sucks at his collarbone. Shige lets one of his hands travel around Ryo’s body, counting his ribs and then his vertebrae when he reaches around him. His other hand stays and nails dig into Ryo’s hip for support. When Ryo pulls Shige’s hair to bring him down and then kisses him, desperation on his tongue is just as strong as in Shige’s vein. Shige pulls away.
“I . . . we need.” Ryo nods and Shige almost runs to the small shelf next to his DVDs, pulls out a small tube and is back in two strides. He watches Ryo all that time, leaning against the sofa, chest heaving, head dropped, back hunched as if wanting to back up. But once Shige is back, Ryo only grips his side, one hand going back into his hair. He grinds against Shige who is caressing Ryo’s thighs, playing with his balls and gives a slow stroke to his cock when Ryo whines.
“I want to fuck you,” Shige admits, and Ryo groans, pulls at his hair so that Shige has to tilt his head back, letting Ryo bite his way across his jaw, run his tongue in between his parted lips. When Ryo pushes against Shige next time, it is all the permission Shige needs. He takes Ryo by his hips, turns him around roughly, and Ryo just moans, leans forward, catches himself on his elbows. Shige is already tracing his rim. He plays with his balls and runs his hand across Ryo’s ass.
Only when Ryo moves to meet Shige’s touch, such a tiny gesture one could almost miss it, does Shige push a finger in. Ryo grunts, and Shige pushes deeper, pulls back, caresses Ryo’s hip as he twist his wrist and adds another finger soon enough. Shige hooks his fingers after adding the third one, and Ryo whines, rocks his hips, trying to show Shige where to touch, but Shige is impatient.
“Shige,” Ryo hisses when Shige pulls his hands away from him.
Shige just leans down, covers Ryo’s body with his, nips at his ear, mumbling something incoherent as he does. When he pushes his own cock into Ryo, the man underneath him tenses a bit. Shige pulls them closer together, holds Ryo, goes slowly until he is all the way in and then waits until Ryo relaxes against him.
“So good,” Shige mutters into Ryo’s ear this time, kisses his hairline and pulls back just as slowly.
Ryo groans. “Just . . . do it,” he pants out, and Shige thrusts his hips forward. He cannot stop afterwards, strong thrusts of his hips meet with Ryo pushing himself back. One of Shige’s hands moves into Ryo’s hair, and he lifts his body up, speeds up when he hears Ryo gasping his name out.
“Harder,” Ryo suddenly says, straightening up a little, and looks back as much as he can. Shige sees his eyes, black, shining with want, his forehead sweaty, hair sticking to it, his cheeks flushed, and he pulls at Ryo’s hair more. He leans down, kisses Ryo, shuts him up because he knows. He too wants more, faster, harder, and deeper, to feel Ryo all around him, beneath him. He does not need to be told.
When Ryo cries out and then bites Shige’s lip, Shige moans loudly as well. Ryo tightens around him, and Shige struggles to maintain that angle, letting go of Ryo’s hair, going back to gripping his hips and pressing hard and fast against the place that makes Ryo shiver and whimper in pleasure.
“Touch me,” Ryo sputters. Shige complies, reaches down and around him, hopes Ryo is holding on because he is probably holding up both of them. It does not take more than few stokes and Shige’s thumb pressed into the slit of Ryo’s cock for Ryo to cry out one more time and for his orgasm to hit them. Hard. So hard and fast that Shige manages only three more thrusts into the tightness Ryo’s muscles created before he follows. They both pant and Ryo whimpers, his arms shaking until Shige lifts up, runs his hands up and down Ryo’s back and then the muscles of his arms, and pulls him back up as well.
“Bed,” Ryo murmurs. Shige crushes their mouths together, wanting the kiss too much, pulls and pushes them towards it. He cleans them with the tissues he has on his nightstand and collapses next to Ryo who seems already asleep by then. Shige wakes up to sheets on the floor and the bed empty and cold. Ryo is gone. The mess they created in the living room is as well. No trace is left behind.
§
Shige has no time to analyze the happenings of that night over the next few days. He needs to cram. The only thoughts he allows are connected with his exams. His body is more relaxed somehow. A small part of him whispers that he should just be grateful that Ryo let him release all that pent up frustration. That part of him he lets talk to his brain. Not the one that feels empty, cheated and slightly dazed from the sudden ambush with no explanations. With no morning after. He does sleep well now, even if he knows that his dreams still revolve around sweaty skin, urgent kisses and lingering touches. When he is awake, knowledge of about everything is what he seeks.
After the last written exams all he has to do is wait. Even the results from those two schools that had orals earlier are not due any time soon. All of them are scheduled to arrive at about the same time, no matter when the interviews were held. Shige laughs at the idea of being a student again at almost thirty-two every time his minds wanders that way, every time he realizes how differently it felt after leaving the exams this time around. He does not want to be that optimistic. Then he gets invitations to more interviews. Todai included.
Shige is an idol. Well, was. He is well versed and knows how to speak in public. He will not sputter. Not even when Nishikido Ryo smiles at him from every other poster in town, promotion for his new drama so heavy one might wonder if the management responsible has ever heard of the word “overexposure.” In those pictures, Ryo’s eyes are narrowed almost the same way they were when he looked at Shige right before coming. Shige narrows his own in response. Narrows his mind and straightens his back. Three hours later, the last interview is over. He feels like an old man, having waited in a room with another four applicants all seven or more years younger than him. What has he been playing at?
The apartment is so empty all of a sudden. There is nothing to do. Koyama comes over and makes him a cup of tea. Shige does almost nothing but sleep for the next three days. When he wakes up, he finds Massu in his living room, eating homemade food his mother sent with.
“You do not still live with them, do you?” Shige asks, flops down next to Massu, who cringes and sends him to wash his teeth.
“So Koyama let you in,” Shige tries once he comes back.
“He lent me his spare key. He said you might be hungry, and that is my domain.” Massu grins. “And I do not live with my parents. I do, however, still eat there time to time. I am spoiled.”
Shige laughs and lets Massu’s mother spoil him too. Her food is delicious. Even Ryo’s is not this good. Shige stops that trail of thought. Shige does not know how he will squish down those lapses in thought from now on. Now that he does not have to study, that all he has to do is wait.
“Shige?” Massu nudges him in between ribs.
“Hmm . . .”
“Do you still take pictures?” Massu asks, very seriously.
“I guess.” Shige nods, his fingers suddenly itching to press the trigger again.
“Good, so you will not mind taking pictures at my wedding then,” Massu says and smiles at Shige.
Shige gapes. He manages to nod dumbly and listens, dazed, how and when Massu is going to get married and how Shige better puts out. Summer wedding, still ages to go. Massu pats him on the shoulder two hours later, beams from his doorway and leaves. Shige folds his limbs underneath himself and goes back to sleep. Maybe waking up will be less shocking the next time.
§
Days drag slowly. Shige eventually recovers from the exam haze. He starts to eat properly, goes for a run every morning and picks up his camera in the afternoons. He wanders around and takes pictures only for his own pleasure. He thinks it is okay to do that. But if Massu’s wedding goes well, he might try to take up a few more. Somehow. Taking happy pictures during weddings or celebrations, Shige can do that. If it will pay for a text book here and there, than that is a nice bonus. He does not want to think whose idea Massu’s wedding pictures were, but he figures it is okay to let his famous friends still poke into his life time to time. Somehow it is not so annoying to listen to their idol worries anymore.
Shige is coming back from one of his strolls that day. His mailbox is stuffed with envelopes, and there is a brown plastic bag set on his doormat. Perfect timing, Shige thinks as he pulls out one envelope after another. All four schools he applied to. At once.
The plastic bag is a mystery though. Until he is shutting his front door and a hand grabs it, pulls it open again.
“Finally home. You used to never leave,” Ryo says and picks up the paper bag.
“Bored again?” Shige finds himself saying. He then looks at Ryo, at his eyes casting him sideway glances. As if not sure if Shige is really there talking to him. Shige suddenly wonders how many times has Ryo stood in front of his door in those months he kept coming back, waiting for Shige while the other was in the library or just out to get some food. He never asked how many times Ryo has rang his doorbell without getting an answer.
“I brought food,” Ryo says as he toes his shoes off.
“Damn, and I thought you’ll just mess up my kitchen trying to cook again,” Shige snorts. Ryo’s eyes look away from him again. Shige will not say sorry.
“So, your results come out today,” Ryo says rather loudly, setting up the take out boxes on the table.
“How do you know?” Shige is holding a stack of envelopes. Ryo must have seen them. Of course he knows.
“I’ve asked around,” Ryo shrugs his shoulders.
“Did your drama get cancelled again? Do you have nothing better to do with your life than waltz into mine?”
“No it did not. And I’m not letting go of it. Not this time.” Ryo’s fist closes. “I asked for it; it’s mine.”
“You asked for it?” Shige still remembers how JE works. You get your work, not ask for it. Yes, you go to additions, but to those JE sends you to. You do not have the right of initiative.
“I was thinking.” Ryo pauses, takes a breath. “After you left, after you were just told to leave and then seeing you . . .”
“Seeing me what? Being pathetic?” Shige looks up sharply from his takeout box. Since when does Ryo know what takeout food he likes anyway?
“No. Trying. Having to work hard to get a job. To be able to work, to do something. I just thought I’d try too. I do not want to wait on my foot and toe for them to decide what is next. I had almost no work for three months like that. I wanted the role so badly. This time I went to get it.”
“And it worked?”
“Well, I am that awesome,” Ryo says smugly.
Shige snorts. Ryo grins at him. Shige blinks. And then they are both laughing. The envelopes are still not open.
“How long are you going to wait until you open them? I am dying here.” Ryo waves the envelopes in front of Shige’s face. Shige rolls his eyes and slowly dries his hands. He has just finished cleaning up the dishes. Ryo drags him into the living room and halts suddenly, eyeing the sofa.
“You threw the old one out?” he asks, poking the sofa with his toe.
“No, just had the upholstery changed.”
“Oh.” Ryo rocks on the balls of his feet while Shige sits down.
“I have beer in the fridge,” Shige notes, and Ryo practically runs away to get it. Shige manages to open all of the envelopes in the meantime. He does not manage to read the letters though.
“Pussy,” Ryo says when he returns.
Shige is staring at four ripped pieces of his future. He looks up. “I so am not,” he says, and Ryo coughs.
“Do it or I will.”
Shige takes the first one into his hands.
Todai.
Not accepted. “Of course,” he says out loud. Ryo takes the letter away and curses reading it.
“Do the rest,” he orders. Shige works on autopilot. His big aim is staying unfulfilled again. The two small colleges have accepted him. When he is opening the letter from Aoyama, his hands are shaking. How stupid. He is in. Ryo finally sits next to him.
“You are just an Aoyama boy,” he laughs, sounding dead tired.
“I’m far away from a boy, Ryo.”
“I know,” Ryo sighs and leans back. Shige soon follows.
“Shige?”
“What is it?”
“Congratulations.”
Shige laughs bitterly.
“Oh, come on, it wouldn’t be fun if you got into your first choice. You like the challenge. You just need make them sorry for not taking you. How many people do you think try? Especially when they are old and senile as you.”
“Jeez, thank you.” Shige wants to sound annoyed.
“Ryo?”
“What is it?”
“I’ll be going to school for another three years. And then I might fail a few more times before getting into the bar.”
“So?”
“So, I can’t . . . I mean you can’t . . . I’m not your toy to play with when bored.”
“I am not bored. My shooting starts tomorrow at six in the morning. And I totally ditched a read through today when I got a call.”
“What call?”
Ryo fidgets. Shige drops his head to his shoulder. “What call?”
“I bribed your porter. To call me when the post from the schools come.”
“No way,” Shige chuckles. Ryo’s hand pushes his head away, but when Shige start to lift up, Ryo’s fingers are suddenly buried in Shige’s hair, pulling him back down.
“Don’t giggle at me, you old man. You are not eighteen anymore,” Ryo pouts.
“Look, who is talking.” Shige nudges Ryo in the ribs Ryo just reaches for the remote control and turns the TV on.
“Your choice of channels still sucks,” he grumbles. His fingers play with Shige’s hair.
§
Being a thirty year old uncle that people mistake for a school employee is funny.
Until they learn you are their classmate and competition. Suddenly everyone is suspicious.
Kato Shigeaki’s first day at school was full of fail. This time none of it was scripted.
They say you are as young as your soul feels, and today Kato Shigeaki felt twenty all over again. Maybe this way he can keep up with his crazy idol friends who never age.
Shige can write his online diary any time he wants now. He promotes only himself. He adds a picture of an empty classroom. He knows he has exactly five readers. Even Yamashita-kun has subscribed.
“Of course he did,” Ryo says and whacks Shige over head. “I told him to and linked him,” he adds. “Did you think he would otherwise?” he asks when Shige gives him an angry look.
“Ryo? What are you doing here?”
Ryo shuffles his feet. “Your guitar needs tuning. And I need to sleep over. I have a location shoot tomorrow just around the corner. I haven’t slept for more than four hours in ages.”
“Oh, the poor life of an idol,” Shige mocks. “I am going to start charging you. You are making a pit hole in my sofa.” Shige pokes him and closes his laptop.
“Well you could always let me sleep in your huge bed.”
“I’m still charging you,” Shige breaths out. Ryo smirks.
“I’ll make sure the payment is worth you services.”
Poll Team Future
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Shige-centric, Ryo/Shige
Summary: Boy bands with “boys” in their thirties are difficult to market these days. The analysis says NEWS will be better off as individuals at this point in their carriers. Shige finds himself in a dubious situation.
Prompt: "One day you're in and the next you're out"
Warnings: -
Notes: From what I learned, in Japan a person has to have an undergraduate degree (in anything) AND a degree from specialist law graduate school to become an attorney. Only then is a person allowed to take a bar exam (with quite a low success rate). The score on the exam determines what type of job one does afterwards. The highest scorers get appointed as judges, the next ones prosecutors, and the lowest passing ones regular attorneys.
Thanks to everyone who helped.
Shige’s first reaction is to wonder if the new management is trying to prove it can do things just as crazy, just as risky, as the old one when Johnny was still alive. They have been shooting a regular magazine shoot, all together, just before the meeting. Apparently, boy bands with “boys” in their thirties are difficult to market these days. The analysis says NEWS will be better off as individuals at this point in their carriers.
Then their manager is done talking. There is silence. Of course there is. NEWS was just told they are to done as a group. Then Shige speaks. Because clearly part of him has been still listening even if it felt like he had gone out after the first sentence.
“And me?”
The manager coughs. Koyama’s eyes get wide, stopping the tears that have been threatening to form for a while now.
“No way,” Tegoshi says. It is quite rare to see Tegoshi surprised.
“Well fuck,” Ryo joins. Shige doubts that was a reaction to his question though.
Koyama is firmly set in the newscaster circles, in the television business. He will continue doing what he has gotten so good at since the initial stumblings in News Every. Yamapi will continue being the money machine that he is, movies, solo singles, TV series, whatever he decides to, the public will eat it up. Tegoshi and Massu are in the middle of their most successful tour yet. This way they can add more dates. Ryo, Ryo will finally get to go home just like the rest of Kanjani8. His manager for NEWS stays to manage his solo activities and his self-promotion. The Kanjani8 managers will have one less scheduling worry.
“What about me,” Shige asks only a little more eloquently thirty minutes later, in the main office where he was sent.
“Well, you have no engagements right now. You can stay if you wish to, but frankly Kato-san, we did not count on you wanting to. You have always showed strong common sense and foresight, and you have a law degree. We do not really have any plans for you in the near future.”
Shige wants to fight and prove himself at first. So what if he has no drama or stage play right now? He is as good as any of them. He has been composing his music for some time now, his dancing improved, and he has been the major part in creating NEWS’ clean image. He can do well for himself. He can exist in this world all alone. He will not be reduced to a former NEWS member who disappeared from the entertainment world when NEWS disbanded. When the NEWS article comes out, he will not be 'Kato Shigeaki (30), currently unemployed, who expressed his regret over NEWS’ existence coming to end.'
In the end, he leaves with his head held high, at least in his opinion. He sees there is no real possibility to stay with all of the stern, cold looks he is given in the office that day. He will not beg.
He tells everyone he does not need Johnny’s, does not want to be stuck here all his life. One day he will come back to the spotlight for his own achievements. Yamapi pats him on the shoulder, telling him he will be looking out for him. Tegoshi grins, telling him even he had not guessed their education might come handy one day. Massu offers lunch or dinner in the near future. Ryo snorts.
“You should have made them find work for you. They should be cleaning up the mess they created,” he says. Shige will not crawl and plead. Of course, he does not tell Ryo that.
“It was my decision.”
The end, the announcement, the arrangements, the reactions, the process is not half as climatic as one would imagine. It all ends rather abruptly for Shige. The next day after they are told, he has nothing to do already. The rest of things concern only the staying members. No one really counted on him fighting the decision.
§
Shige watches movies to his heart’s content. He sleeps till he wakes up on his own-no manager calling or alarm clock ringing to do it. He does sweet nothing. But all this is okay only when one has something to look forward to, plans, things to do sometimes soon. However, right now, there is nothing waiting for Shige. No concert to be excited about. No new role to challenge. No routine with photo shoots and interviews to fall back to. Of course, the last decade or so has been stressful enough to justify lying around for some time. But Shige does not want to stay still. He does not want to get stuck in this strange vacuum, somewhere between too special and too ordinary.
He had been smart enough to buy an apartment instead of continuing to rent it some time ago. He has had enough brains to save, invest even, money for when he would retreat. He just did not expect it to happen for the next decade or so. He can laze around for some time. He can take some time off for soul searching. Really, Shige knows who he is and where his soul lies. He refuses to wait around for a miracle. Or for his mind to finally come to terms with what went down. He needs to move on, prove them all he is just fine. He wants to just dive into something to chase all the doubts away.
It makes Shige laugh, remembering the managers mention his law degree. He really meant it when he said he had decided to study law after high school only because it sounded cool. After he had said so on TV, Shige was told to tone it down, to promote higher education. Apparently studying only to be cool is not cool, so he shut up about it then.
At the end of the week, Shige finds himself checking the applications for specialist law grad schools anyway. Being a small attorney, a master of his own time, with luxury of choosing his own clientele- well if he plays it right and keeps his spending on bay-sounds like the best option. A little too boring at thirty, but it is going to take several years to get there. Shige goes for it.
He had been an Aoyama student; he can take the heat of an entrance exam. Shige silences the part of his brain that tells him starting to study again at thirty is not easy, and pulls out his old text books, downloads all the info about the entrance exams online and applies. He has only something over a month until the first exam. He has been learning scripts for ages. It is not like he has not been straining his brain cells. He will manage.
Or not.
Shige has not admitted the possibility of failure at all for the past six weeks or so. Most of his public failures have been staged anyway. Not even after he comes out of the examination rooms, knowing how much he has been lost at times during the tests or interviews, he lets his mind wander in that direction. The tests are hard; they all probably struggled just as much as he did. Now, the content of the envelope in his hand says otherwise. The contents of all three of them. As does the overall ranking.
§
It is only his plan number two. Travelling the world is. Shige does not admit it when Koyama asks though. He says he is taking his sweet time, doing everything he never had time for. He lives the other NEWS members’ dreams more than his. Goes places the others have been dying to go and had no time to for ages. He throws in some random countries in between.
Shige does have a purpose, though. Not that he admits that either. He just smiles at Koyama, tells him he is having time of his life and sends him postcards from every pretty place he visits. Nice, bright, flashy, with loads of stamps. He wants Koyama to be jealous. It is nonsensical, but the thought that the other would like to be there with him, just like back then in New York, makes him feel better. Koyama just wrinkles his eyebrow and hopes Shige is really looking around, not only for those postcards.
All these flights, bus rides, train rides, even boat trips, they are not pointless wanderings of a lost soul. Shige had pulled out the first photography handbook and bought three more. He took several cameras with him. He is taking pictures of everything pretty, some ugly, some mediocre, planning to expose the world how Kato Shigeaki sees it. In perfect, well structured, carefully taken, poised photography.
“Nice execution, no soul,” several publishing agents and curators tell him when he returns to Tokyo and tries to publish or hold an exhibition. Something.
He comes home one of those days, bitter, almost thirty-one, jobless, aimless, completely put off and tired. Alone. All of his friends-those he kept talking about when he was an idol, the normal students who helped him when he still studied and with whom he kept in touch later on-work. They are settled, with long term girlfriends, wives, even kids, family life and little time to spare for Shige who has all the time in his life. He has so much of that freedom he had always wished for and nothing to do with it. He opens one of the albums he was trying to prove is good enough for a photo book and looks for the flaws all those “experts” see.
What Shige sees are pictures of places that he . . . does not remember. He cannot recall the wide planes, nor the small boy in the corner of the street in some Spanish village that he would love to see more of, nor the color of sunset in the light of which he took that way too boring picture of a tree somewhere in Africa. He has no clue what was so interesting about that bicycle in Amsterdam. He wonders if all of them were this perfectly chrome-like. He does not remember how the door of the house window of which he is looking at looked like in that narrow street.
Shige pushes one picture away after another, realizing that without the label that said where the photo was taken, and the fact the films to these are in his shelves, he would not believe he had been there, seen it, lived it. He focused so much on taking that perfect picture, on picking the right moment, on pleasing someone, anyone, that he forgot to see for himself. The past few months suddenly feel much more wasted than they felt just after this afternoon’s rejection.
Massu calls him up and takes him out for lunch. Shige knows it is probably because Koyama asked him to. Koyama has been concerned because even in his thirties, Shige still cannot hide his emotions from him, and Koyama cannot keep his distance.
Both Shige and Massu smile politely, but their worries are now worlds apart. Their joys . . . Shige has to think hard of some joys in his life.
“I just do whatever, as much as I want to do it, and no one bosses me around,” he says in the end, smiles.
“It’s good to see Shige didn’t forget how to fake a smile,” Massu replies and gives him the last piece of meat.
Shige’s fist clenches around his fork. Massu winks at him.
“It’s nice; it just means you can still come back. Or go wherever you want to. Shige doesn’t give up,” Massu adds as an afterthought. Shige pays. He is not a charity case.
§
Shige looks around in frustration. He has thought it through this time. He weighted his options and looked at them through the bitterness of the past year. With every bit of determination he has left. Shige pulls a book out of the pile sitting on his table. Glaring and sighing is not going to help. Having high aims and really meaning it this time around will. He sits on his couch and in the next moment jumps up and stares at his door in bewilderment. The doorbell keeps on ringing with certain ferocity. Shige is not expecting any guests.
“Took you long enough,” says Nishikido Ryo when Shige opens the door and stands there, dumbfounded. He has not seen Ryo for about a year.
“Are you bored?” Shige asks after watching Ryo take his shoes off, get to his sofa and turn the TV on, frowning almost right away.
“Actually I am.” Ryo looks up and then raises an eyebrow. “What is this Shige? Are you poor now or something? There is only the basic package of the TV programs on this TV. I came here because I knew you always had all those movie channels I could watch.”
“Really? And I thought Koyama was getting desperate,” Shige murmurs.
Ryo gives him a questioning look. “I haven’t spoken to Koyama for ages. How is he?”
“Ryo, what are you doing here?” Shige asks, two beers in hand already, having made a trip into the kitchen and coming back to watch the man sitting on his couch in amazement.
Ryo scratches his head, takes the beer from Shige and only after taking a huge gulp out of the can does he look back at him.
“So I was cast in a drama, right. First leading role of my career,” he says bitterly. “Finally,” he squeaks in what Shige recognizes as an imitation of Ryo’s manager. He giggles a little.
“Only then,” Ryo continues, “after I have spent over two weeks going over the script and meeting people, the management decides to promote someone younger, who needs the exposure more. It’s for the greater good. I come to the studio for a read through today and learn I have nothing to do for the next three months.”
Shige just stands there, fidgets. Does Ryo think they are somehow the same?
“Well, you know what they say,” Ryo says lightly, finishing his beer and snatching Shige’s. “One day you are in and the next . . .” He trails off, looks around the apartment. “So what have you been up to?” he asks.
“Not much,” Shige replies, takes his half-drunk beer back. He watches how Ryo fidgets nervously, as if suddenly realizing all the awkwardness of crushing on Shige’s sofa after all this time. He does not ask anything else though, does not press Shige. Shige decides it is okay to start studying tomorrow and goes to his DVD rack.
“What do you have in mind?” he asks, tilting his chin to the television, and Ryo relaxes, grins.
“Something bloody,” he replies and goes off to the kitchen to get more beer. Ten minutes later, he is cheering on some crazy man on a motorcycle, legs up on Shige’s coffee table, his arms spread on the sofa back rest, his sleeve brushing against Shige’s neck. The apartment has not felt this lively for ages.
Shige has cancelled all his TV channels subscriptions. Pushing the buttons, going through the channels again and again was depressing. He did not need it, and he can save some money this way. Watching TV tonight seems like fun yet again. He can start being serious tomorrow. Today, Shige allows himself to relax against Ryo’s side and have a movie night.
§
“So how come I haven’t seen you around? I’ve thought you’d become a manager, or I’d find you taking pictures of me just for the heck of it one day,” Ryo says a week later, cooking dinner on Shige’s stove.
“Don’t tell me what I should be doing. I can figure it out by myself,” Shige snaps and closes his book loudly.
“Whoa,” Ryo raises one hand, not even turning around to face Shige. He just keeps on stirring that stupid stew he is so set on making. “I know that. I just thought I had you all figured out.” He laughs.
Shige relaxes back into the sofa. “I don’t want to be involved with Johnny’s anymore,” he says after a while. Ryo turns around this time, looks like he wants to say something, then sets the pot on the table and announces the dinner is ready.
“How about you tell me when you’ll finally start doing something and leave me alone?” Shige asks as he sits down on his chair.
“Hear, hear, Shige preach. You have been doing nothing but reading for days.”
“I’m not just reading! I’m . . .” Shige stops himself. “Besides, I can do . . .”
“I know I know; you can do whatever you want. Me too.” Ryo grins and digs in. “Delicious,” he nods to himself.
“Play something with me,” Ryo says after dinner is eaten, dishes cleaned. He is holding one of two guitars Shige has not touched since he left JE.
“No.”
“Yes. You know you want to. I saw you watching me yesterday.”
“I wasn’t--” Ryo shuts him up, his hand pressing against Shige’s mouth. Warm, lightly sweaty.
“Don’t be stupid.”
Shige takes the guitar from Ryo and runs his fingers across the strings. Ryo smiles and does the same. Shige has to shake his head to stop himself from staring at Ryo’s grin.
Ryo leaves way past midnight, refusing to stay the night. Shige offered. Just as he has done every day for the past week. Every day that Ryo has shown up on his doorstep, claiming he wants to hang out because he has nothing to do. He knows Ryo still has some work, regular shooting, shows, interviews. But Shige also knows his schedule was mostly cleaned to accommodate three months of crazy drama shooting and promotions. Ryo is just bored. And for some reason he has chosen Shige to kill his time with.
The worst timing possible. Though admittedly, most of the time, Ryo is just there, lets Shige do what he wants, lazing around himself, sleeping half of the time he is over. Shige is determined to not be distracted by Ryo, trying to ignore it when Ryo roams around his apartment, picks up his guitars to tune and play them, goes through his novels, reading part of one or another before deeming them boring and trying to get Shige to talk to him. Shige will not be swayed.
§
“You should just drop that stupid book and go out with us,” Ryo says, hands on his hips, voice raising with anger and impatience.
“I am not going to party with you and Yamashita-kun!” Shige retorts, goes back to the book.
“You should,” Ryo repeats. “You need to get out more.”
“And you need to get out of my apartment. Now,” Shige adds. Ryo kicks the armchair.
“Fine. But tell me one thing, when was the last time you got laid?”
“Ryo, normal people in their thirties do not just get laid,” Shige says warily, eyeing Ryo. He pretends like he is not counting in his head.
“And what do they do then? These normal people.” Ryo sounds offended.
“They have relationships, settle down, have families.” Shige bites his lip. “They don’t go to clubs, they don’t party with people too young and too drunk for them.”
“Oh, I get it now.” Ryo frowns. “So where is this girlfriend of yours?” he asks.
Shige wants to lie, say she is just not coming over because Ryo is always here these days. They both know Shige does not have a girlfriend. Ryo is probably one of those who had figured out that Shige does not really care to have a girlfriend.
“What the hell are you doing?” Shige asks instead. He sounds too panicked for his own comfort. Ryo is taking his shirt off.
“Taking a shower.”
“Here?” Shige gapes. Ryo takes off his jeans.
“Yes. I was planning to drag you out, and I refuse to go back to my place. I’m borrowing a towel.”
Shige mumbles something as Ryo disappears behind his bathroom door. Tanned, well toned, perfectly shaped, as always. Shige has forgotten. Long gone were the days of common use of onsens. He cannot concentrate on his book that night. All he sees are firm shoulders, wiry back, lean waist and the low cut of Ryo’s hips.
§
Ryo has not shown up for two weeks. Shige has gone through several heavy books. He also took tons of mock tests. Koyama called every day. Shige did not pick up half of them. Koyama makes him anxious. He asks questions. Worries. Is there for Shige. Lives in some happy bubble that Shige does not get anymore.
When a doorbell rings the next time, Shige runs to it a bit too quickly; if he says so himself. Ryo thinks he was too slow. Still.
“Bored again?” Shige asks. He sighs when Ryo wiggles an eyebrow and lifts his hand in front of Shige’s face, a six pack dangling in the air.
“Missed me?”
“I thought you had finally gotten the message and left me alone.”
“I was on a trip.” Indifferent. Cool as always.
“Oh.” Shige eyes Ryo. Indeed his skin is darker, a bit too dark. His teeth when he grins at Shige stupidly from the sofa are only that much whiter. “I saw that photo collection you have there and felt like going places.”
Shige stiffens. “You’ve been digging through my stuff.” He does not know what to do. There is nothing much on television, the papers he has been going through are now all over the place-Ryo just sat into middle of them, and he does not feel like drinking beer. Ryo is looking him straight into his eyes.
“So what have you been doing while I was not here to keep you company.”
“I don’t need you to keep me company.”
“Let me guess.” Ryo stays unfazed. He does not seem to be bothered by the fact the last time they saw each other they argued either. He does not know Shige then jerked off to the image of Ryo in his shower though. That might be the reason why Shige is, once again, the awkward one.
“You have been reading.” Ryo cuts through his thoughts.
“I’m not just reading!” Shige raises his voice way too soon.
“Then what are you doing.”
“Studying.” It is out before Shige can stop himself.
Ryo grins, victory gleaming in his eyes, and makes himself more comfortable.
“Tell me,” he says. Shige suddenly realizes that he really wants to. Tell someone about it all. Someone who is not Koyama. Who will not pity him. Ryo might laugh at him, but he will not give him sad eyes. He will not fuzz or try to help. Ryo will tell him to man up. And Shige could use that. He needs motivation that has been slowly slipping away.
“I’m studying for entrance exams. I’m going back to school.” He admits and drops to the armchair, opposite of Ryo.
“What for? You already have a degree.” Ryo sits up more properly. He looks slightly unsure like that.
“For law.”
“Again?”
Shige sighs. Explains how it really is not that easy to be an attorney. How he needs to be in school for three more years and then study some more to pass the bar.
“I’ve tried last year. I didn’t get into any of the schools I applied to.” Shige feels a huge stone dropping of his chest. Not even his parents know and the press was not interested in the story of a failed idol either. Luckily.
“You what?” Ryo fidgets.
“Then I went and traveled. I supposed I tried to forget. I took pictures. Those you saw.” It is hard to admit more, and Shige finds himself breathing hard.
Ryo jumps up, pulls out the album, shakes it in Shige’s direction. “You should try and publish it. Do an exhibition. How much more do you have? These are good enough, Shige. They are so clean. So flawless.”
“Too sterile.” Shige grimaces. Even Ryo noticed. Even if he has no clue what it means. “Too clean-cut to be interesting,” he adds. “I tried.”
Ryo sinks back onto the couch. Shige does not want to look at him. He does not want to see how mistaken about Ryo’s reaction he has been.
“They have no idols in them,” Ryo says bitterly. Shige is surprised. He did think of that too. Wondered if that was what all those editors willing to meet him wanted to see.
“That too,” Shige laughs. The laughter feels hollow.
“Well, you’ll just have to show them you are better than that,” Ryo says plainly, throws the album into the corner. “You do not plan to fail this time. Right?”
Shige’s shoulders get straighter. “Of course not.”
“Good. Now go study. Why are you just sitting around here?” Ryo asks.
Shige wants to get mad at him. He really does. He picks up the papers and huddles in his arm chair instead, feeling lighter and more ready to face Todai then ever.
Two hours later, Ryo is asleep on Shige’s sofa and Shige is making himself another cup of coffee. Ryo snores. It makes Shige laugh. It sounds good, his own laughter bouncing of the walls of his apartment. He covers Ryo with a blanket, brushes hair off his eyes. He cannot help but trace the wrinkle on his forehead with his fingers. He only watches those that are now always present around his eyes.
In the morning, Shige finds himself with a stiff neck and legs dead under his body. There is a blanket thrown over him rather carelessly. The one that Ryo has been using. Shige smells coffee and hears a guitar playing.
“About time you get up,” Ryo says when Shige stumbles through the living room. He bumps into Ryo who is sitting in the corner. He is playing Shige’s guitar. Again.
§
“I can’t seem to find the right tune,” Ryo huffs, looks up at Shige from underneath his fringe. Shige wants to ruffle it, push it to the side to see all of Ryo’s face. He licks his lips, seeing how Ryo’s neck is straining to look at him. He hands him a cup of coffee. Their fingers brush. It is pathetic, really, how it makes Shige feel. How his stomach trembles. How his breath comes short. How at night he feels those fingers brushing against his own skin, tracing the places Ryo has never really touched. Never will.
“I’m not helping you. And you should go. You do not actually live here.” Shige says, tries to kick Ryo out. Out of his mind.
“I know I don’t. I don’t even have a key,” Ryo pouts.
“There is no reason for you to have it.” Shige crosses his arms. They stare at each other.
“Go study. You failure of an elite,” Ryo says. That is so old.
An hour later, Ryo gets up, makes them a new mug of coffee and dinner. He leaves quietly while Shige is in the middle of a mock test.
§
“Get up, you lazy bum and go study. Take a walk sometimes during the day. The air is nice today,” Ryo is rattling away into Shige’s ear, through his phone. Shige does not remember giving him his phone number.
“I’m hanging up,” he grumbles. But Shige gets up anyway. He still has lots to do. The first written exam is in about a month, and from then on, it will be three more written ones. If he gets through them, there are the oral interviews and the written essays. More stress. He needs time, and he is running out of it. Ryo seems to know.
§
“Still no progress with the lyrics?” Shige peers over Ryo’s shoulders.
Ryo mumbles something and crumples a piece of paper he’s been writing on.
“May I help?” Shige asks.
“Do not look for excuses. You’re taking too many breaks.” Ryo furrows his eyebrow.
“Ryo, I’m done for tonight. It’s almost midnight.”
“Oh, is it?” Ryo looks confused. He sees an empty plate next to his knees. Shige has made dinner tonight.
“I want to help,” Shige says and drops to his knees next to Ryo. “Play the song for me.”
Ryo does. Shige feels guilty because, more than helping, he wants to get this close to Ryo. When Ryo shares his music with him, Shige feels like he is entering his world. He is being let in.
“You don’t need to do this,” Ryo mumbles as Shige starts to write.
“I need to thank you somehow,” Shige blurts out.
“For what?” Ryo asks, leans closer to Shige to see what he is writing. Shige does not answer. If Ryo wants him to ignore how he has been feeding him, waking him, or keeping him awake, and refilling his coffee supplies, Shige will stay silent.
Ryo’s breath is hot against his neck. His cologne is so subtle, yet Shige feels it is all around him. When Ryo touches his hand, tells him what to change in an excited voice, Shige is on the verge of losing control. He has been controlling so much. Almost every part of Shige’s life is somehow restrained. All he wants to concentrate on are his exams. He is determined to get into at least one of those schools. No, he wants to get into all of them. He wants to have the choice for once.
§
“Shige?”
“Hmmm . . .” Shige does not notice how much Ryo fidgets.
“I . . . You. Are you okay?” Ryo is almost whispering.
“What? What do you mean okay? I’m just fine.” Shige does not even stop reading.
“I mean. Good. No, not good. You haven’t been working for over a year and . . .”
Shige jumps up. “What the hell, Nishikido.”
“I just mean. Is there anything I could . . . like a loan or something.”
“Ryo,” Shige breathes out, tries to calm his nerves. “I have savings. I would not be living here if things would be rough. I could always sell some of my cameras. Sell this place and move into something smaller that would cost less on energies. I would get nice money out of this place. Or I could get a loan like normal people.”
Ryo fidgets. “You are going back to school. And tuition.”
“Ryo, cut it out. I’m fine. I’ll find a job eventually. Just like any other law student. I’ll try to be a paralegal in some legal office. Or I will make coffee in one if needed. I will manage.”
“It’s three years.”
“I don’t want to hear about this anymore.” Shige gets up and walks to the door of his room. Ryo just watches him leave.
§
“We should go out for a dinner,” Ryo suggests. “I finished the song. I want to celebrate,” he adds.
“You should totally credit me,” Shige laughs but shakes his head in reply to dinner offer. “That would be a comeback. A former idol becomes a lyricist,” Shige teases.
“I will,” Ryo says decidedly.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I can do what I want,” Ryo parrots. “No dinner then?” he asks one more time.
“I need to finish this,” Shige waves a book at Ryo. Ryo looks around the apartment then. He picks up few of his things that have been lying around the place for days now. He makes another mug of coffee and makes a quick soup.
“Don’t forget to eat,” Ryo tells Shige as he puts on his shoes.
“Not staying tonight?” Shige asks.
“No, I am in mood for some yakiniku and you have just fish in your freezer.”
Shige laughs. Ryo gives him a slightly weird look and waves him good bye.
§
When Shige comes home from his first written exam, he finally gets it. There was an ad for the new Kanjnani8 single playing on one of the huge screens he passed on his way home. Ryo has not been in his place for over two weeks. Ever since the day he asked him for dinner and Shige refused. So easily. Thinking he could always say yes the next time. And now Ryo is out of his life again, back to being an idol full time. Just like that. With no time for Shige and his boring, mundane life spent studying and worrying about normal things. Shige throws a blanket over himself. He realizes he has not used it ever since Ryo had slept over the last time. It just stayed there by the sofa. Now it smells like Ryo. Shige needs sleep. Very badly. He never makes it to bed that night.
The Todai entrance exam is the last one in the row of four written ones. Shige is a bundle of nerves. He has probably blown the two orals he had in the past week because of it. But this is it. This is the huge, almost unreachable goal he has set for himself. This is what helped him to push through everything else. What got him to start studying, what kept him going after Ryo had disappeared. What was always in the back of his mind when he tried to push everything else out of it. Only six more days. The first round will be over.
Shige turns the TV on just to watch news. He needs to know what is going on in the world, needs to be as well rounded as possible for these interviews. He catches some program with Kanjani8 on. Their new single had alternate versions. Two solos as B side for each. Ryo’s was co-written by his former bandmate, Kato Shigeaki. Shige freezes, watches the caster’s mouth move, Ryo’s eyes glint when she asks too much. Shige is fuming. That bastard did credit him.
Without saying a word, Ryo disappears. He never calls. Nor does Shige. But Shige was not leeching off Ryo’s hospitability for about three months. He understands Ryo has work now, but literally throwing Shige away is too much. And then despite Shige saying no, he puts his name down for the song credits. Shige fumes. He is dialing the number before he knows it.
“Shige,” Ryo says, audibly surprised.
“Why are you still an insufferable idiot who does everything only like he wants? Why do you never listen?”
“Shige,” Ryo repeats.
“I told you not to credit me. I don’t want anything to do with that company again. Now I’m being talked about again. What have you done?”
Ryo hangs up. He also turns off his phone. That bastard. An hour later, Shige’s doorbell rings and Shige does not want to open. He wants to scream at Ryo through the shut door. He has no idea what he would do to him if he opened it. Or maybe he knows way too well. What he would be tempted to do, anyway. Ryo kicks his door and threatens to make a scene. The door is opened. Of course.
Instead of a brawl, instead of big words and anger, they both just stare. Ryo has jeans and a simple black shirt on. He smells the same way Shige’s blanket used to and looks much more tired that he did three weeks ago. Shige still feels warmth creeping up his body. He wants to rub his thumb across the wrinkles around Ryo’s eyes. Ryo’s lips form a thin line, and his fists are clenched.
“You wrote most of the lyrics. I do not steal lyrics.”
Shige raises his hand. His fingers brush Ryo’s cheek on the way to the corner of his eye. Ryo almost leans into that touch.
“It is not stealing if I agreed to give them to you,” Shige mutters. Ryo catches his elbow, and his hand moves up to Shige’s shoulder.
There is a hand in someone’s hair and another at the back of someone’s neck, and their lips are pressed together. Ryo’s tongue is in Shige’s mouth, Shige sucking at it and moaning when Ryo digs nails of his other hand into his hip.
Shige is not even surprised when only moments later he is naked and pushing Ryo towards the sofa in his living room. The only thing Ryo has on is his undershirt, a wife beater the strap of which Shige is pulling off with his teeth. Ryo grunts and lets go of Shige to take it off. Shige grabs Ryo’s hips for support, pushes them together.
They hit the hand rest of the coach and try to keep their balance. Ryo moans, spreads his legs to let Shige fall in between them, clings to his shoulders and sucks at his collarbone. Shige lets one of his hands travel around Ryo’s body, counting his ribs and then his vertebrae when he reaches around him. His other hand stays and nails dig into Ryo’s hip for support. When Ryo pulls Shige’s hair to bring him down and then kisses him, desperation on his tongue is just as strong as in Shige’s vein. Shige pulls away.
“I . . . we need.” Ryo nods and Shige almost runs to the small shelf next to his DVDs, pulls out a small tube and is back in two strides. He watches Ryo all that time, leaning against the sofa, chest heaving, head dropped, back hunched as if wanting to back up. But once Shige is back, Ryo only grips his side, one hand going back into his hair. He grinds against Shige who is caressing Ryo’s thighs, playing with his balls and gives a slow stroke to his cock when Ryo whines.
“I want to fuck you,” Shige admits, and Ryo groans, pulls at his hair so that Shige has to tilt his head back, letting Ryo bite his way across his jaw, run his tongue in between his parted lips. When Ryo pushes against Shige next time, it is all the permission Shige needs. He takes Ryo by his hips, turns him around roughly, and Ryo just moans, leans forward, catches himself on his elbows. Shige is already tracing his rim. He plays with his balls and runs his hand across Ryo’s ass.
Only when Ryo moves to meet Shige’s touch, such a tiny gesture one could almost miss it, does Shige push a finger in. Ryo grunts, and Shige pushes deeper, pulls back, caresses Ryo’s hip as he twist his wrist and adds another finger soon enough. Shige hooks his fingers after adding the third one, and Ryo whines, rocks his hips, trying to show Shige where to touch, but Shige is impatient.
“Shige,” Ryo hisses when Shige pulls his hands away from him.
Shige just leans down, covers Ryo’s body with his, nips at his ear, mumbling something incoherent as he does. When he pushes his own cock into Ryo, the man underneath him tenses a bit. Shige pulls them closer together, holds Ryo, goes slowly until he is all the way in and then waits until Ryo relaxes against him.
“So good,” Shige mutters into Ryo’s ear this time, kisses his hairline and pulls back just as slowly.
Ryo groans. “Just . . . do it,” he pants out, and Shige thrusts his hips forward. He cannot stop afterwards, strong thrusts of his hips meet with Ryo pushing himself back. One of Shige’s hands moves into Ryo’s hair, and he lifts his body up, speeds up when he hears Ryo gasping his name out.
“Harder,” Ryo suddenly says, straightening up a little, and looks back as much as he can. Shige sees his eyes, black, shining with want, his forehead sweaty, hair sticking to it, his cheeks flushed, and he pulls at Ryo’s hair more. He leans down, kisses Ryo, shuts him up because he knows. He too wants more, faster, harder, and deeper, to feel Ryo all around him, beneath him. He does not need to be told.
When Ryo cries out and then bites Shige’s lip, Shige moans loudly as well. Ryo tightens around him, and Shige struggles to maintain that angle, letting go of Ryo’s hair, going back to gripping his hips and pressing hard and fast against the place that makes Ryo shiver and whimper in pleasure.
“Touch me,” Ryo sputters. Shige complies, reaches down and around him, hopes Ryo is holding on because he is probably holding up both of them. It does not take more than few stokes and Shige’s thumb pressed into the slit of Ryo’s cock for Ryo to cry out one more time and for his orgasm to hit them. Hard. So hard and fast that Shige manages only three more thrusts into the tightness Ryo’s muscles created before he follows. They both pant and Ryo whimpers, his arms shaking until Shige lifts up, runs his hands up and down Ryo’s back and then the muscles of his arms, and pulls him back up as well.
“Bed,” Ryo murmurs. Shige crushes their mouths together, wanting the kiss too much, pulls and pushes them towards it. He cleans them with the tissues he has on his nightstand and collapses next to Ryo who seems already asleep by then. Shige wakes up to sheets on the floor and the bed empty and cold. Ryo is gone. The mess they created in the living room is as well. No trace is left behind.
§
Shige has no time to analyze the happenings of that night over the next few days. He needs to cram. The only thoughts he allows are connected with his exams. His body is more relaxed somehow. A small part of him whispers that he should just be grateful that Ryo let him release all that pent up frustration. That part of him he lets talk to his brain. Not the one that feels empty, cheated and slightly dazed from the sudden ambush with no explanations. With no morning after. He does sleep well now, even if he knows that his dreams still revolve around sweaty skin, urgent kisses and lingering touches. When he is awake, knowledge of about everything is what he seeks.
After the last written exams all he has to do is wait. Even the results from those two schools that had orals earlier are not due any time soon. All of them are scheduled to arrive at about the same time, no matter when the interviews were held. Shige laughs at the idea of being a student again at almost thirty-two every time his minds wanders that way, every time he realizes how differently it felt after leaving the exams this time around. He does not want to be that optimistic. Then he gets invitations to more interviews. Todai included.
Shige is an idol. Well, was. He is well versed and knows how to speak in public. He will not sputter. Not even when Nishikido Ryo smiles at him from every other poster in town, promotion for his new drama so heavy one might wonder if the management responsible has ever heard of the word “overexposure.” In those pictures, Ryo’s eyes are narrowed almost the same way they were when he looked at Shige right before coming. Shige narrows his own in response. Narrows his mind and straightens his back. Three hours later, the last interview is over. He feels like an old man, having waited in a room with another four applicants all seven or more years younger than him. What has he been playing at?
The apartment is so empty all of a sudden. There is nothing to do. Koyama comes over and makes him a cup of tea. Shige does almost nothing but sleep for the next three days. When he wakes up, he finds Massu in his living room, eating homemade food his mother sent with.
“You do not still live with them, do you?” Shige asks, flops down next to Massu, who cringes and sends him to wash his teeth.
“So Koyama let you in,” Shige tries once he comes back.
“He lent me his spare key. He said you might be hungry, and that is my domain.” Massu grins. “And I do not live with my parents. I do, however, still eat there time to time. I am spoiled.”
Shige laughs and lets Massu’s mother spoil him too. Her food is delicious. Even Ryo’s is not this good. Shige stops that trail of thought. Shige does not know how he will squish down those lapses in thought from now on. Now that he does not have to study, that all he has to do is wait.
“Shige?” Massu nudges him in between ribs.
“Hmm . . .”
“Do you still take pictures?” Massu asks, very seriously.
“I guess.” Shige nods, his fingers suddenly itching to press the trigger again.
“Good, so you will not mind taking pictures at my wedding then,” Massu says and smiles at Shige.
Shige gapes. He manages to nod dumbly and listens, dazed, how and when Massu is going to get married and how Shige better puts out. Summer wedding, still ages to go. Massu pats him on the shoulder two hours later, beams from his doorway and leaves. Shige folds his limbs underneath himself and goes back to sleep. Maybe waking up will be less shocking the next time.
§
Days drag slowly. Shige eventually recovers from the exam haze. He starts to eat properly, goes for a run every morning and picks up his camera in the afternoons. He wanders around and takes pictures only for his own pleasure. He thinks it is okay to do that. But if Massu’s wedding goes well, he might try to take up a few more. Somehow. Taking happy pictures during weddings or celebrations, Shige can do that. If it will pay for a text book here and there, than that is a nice bonus. He does not want to think whose idea Massu’s wedding pictures were, but he figures it is okay to let his famous friends still poke into his life time to time. Somehow it is not so annoying to listen to their idol worries anymore.
Shige is coming back from one of his strolls that day. His mailbox is stuffed with envelopes, and there is a brown plastic bag set on his doormat. Perfect timing, Shige thinks as he pulls out one envelope after another. All four schools he applied to. At once.
The plastic bag is a mystery though. Until he is shutting his front door and a hand grabs it, pulls it open again.
“Finally home. You used to never leave,” Ryo says and picks up the paper bag.
“Bored again?” Shige finds himself saying. He then looks at Ryo, at his eyes casting him sideway glances. As if not sure if Shige is really there talking to him. Shige suddenly wonders how many times has Ryo stood in front of his door in those months he kept coming back, waiting for Shige while the other was in the library or just out to get some food. He never asked how many times Ryo has rang his doorbell without getting an answer.
“I brought food,” Ryo says as he toes his shoes off.
“Damn, and I thought you’ll just mess up my kitchen trying to cook again,” Shige snorts. Ryo’s eyes look away from him again. Shige will not say sorry.
“So, your results come out today,” Ryo says rather loudly, setting up the take out boxes on the table.
“How do you know?” Shige is holding a stack of envelopes. Ryo must have seen them. Of course he knows.
“I’ve asked around,” Ryo shrugs his shoulders.
“Did your drama get cancelled again? Do you have nothing better to do with your life than waltz into mine?”
“No it did not. And I’m not letting go of it. Not this time.” Ryo’s fist closes. “I asked for it; it’s mine.”
“You asked for it?” Shige still remembers how JE works. You get your work, not ask for it. Yes, you go to additions, but to those JE sends you to. You do not have the right of initiative.
“I was thinking.” Ryo pauses, takes a breath. “After you left, after you were just told to leave and then seeing you . . .”
“Seeing me what? Being pathetic?” Shige looks up sharply from his takeout box. Since when does Ryo know what takeout food he likes anyway?
“No. Trying. Having to work hard to get a job. To be able to work, to do something. I just thought I’d try too. I do not want to wait on my foot and toe for them to decide what is next. I had almost no work for three months like that. I wanted the role so badly. This time I went to get it.”
“And it worked?”
“Well, I am that awesome,” Ryo says smugly.
Shige snorts. Ryo grins at him. Shige blinks. And then they are both laughing. The envelopes are still not open.
“How long are you going to wait until you open them? I am dying here.” Ryo waves the envelopes in front of Shige’s face. Shige rolls his eyes and slowly dries his hands. He has just finished cleaning up the dishes. Ryo drags him into the living room and halts suddenly, eyeing the sofa.
“You threw the old one out?” he asks, poking the sofa with his toe.
“No, just had the upholstery changed.”
“Oh.” Ryo rocks on the balls of his feet while Shige sits down.
“I have beer in the fridge,” Shige notes, and Ryo practically runs away to get it. Shige manages to open all of the envelopes in the meantime. He does not manage to read the letters though.
“Pussy,” Ryo says when he returns.
Shige is staring at four ripped pieces of his future. He looks up. “I so am not,” he says, and Ryo coughs.
“Do it or I will.”
Shige takes the first one into his hands.
Todai.
Not accepted. “Of course,” he says out loud. Ryo takes the letter away and curses reading it.
“Do the rest,” he orders. Shige works on autopilot. His big aim is staying unfulfilled again. The two small colleges have accepted him. When he is opening the letter from Aoyama, his hands are shaking. How stupid. He is in. Ryo finally sits next to him.
“You are just an Aoyama boy,” he laughs, sounding dead tired.
“I’m far away from a boy, Ryo.”
“I know,” Ryo sighs and leans back. Shige soon follows.
“Shige?”
“What is it?”
“Congratulations.”
Shige laughs bitterly.
“Oh, come on, it wouldn’t be fun if you got into your first choice. You like the challenge. You just need make them sorry for not taking you. How many people do you think try? Especially when they are old and senile as you.”
“Jeez, thank you.” Shige wants to sound annoyed.
“Ryo?”
“What is it?”
“I’ll be going to school for another three years. And then I might fail a few more times before getting into the bar.”
“So?”
“So, I can’t . . . I mean you can’t . . . I’m not your toy to play with when bored.”
“I am not bored. My shooting starts tomorrow at six in the morning. And I totally ditched a read through today when I got a call.”
“What call?”
Ryo fidgets. Shige drops his head to his shoulder. “What call?”
“I bribed your porter. To call me when the post from the schools come.”
“No way,” Shige chuckles. Ryo’s hand pushes his head away, but when Shige start to lift up, Ryo’s fingers are suddenly buried in Shige’s hair, pulling him back down.
“Don’t giggle at me, you old man. You are not eighteen anymore,” Ryo pouts.
“Look, who is talking.” Shige nudges Ryo in the ribs Ryo just reaches for the remote control and turns the TV on.
“Your choice of channels still sucks,” he grumbles. His fingers play with Shige’s hair.
§
Being a thirty year old uncle that people mistake for a school employee is funny.
Until they learn you are their classmate and competition. Suddenly everyone is suspicious.
Kato Shigeaki’s first day at school was full of fail. This time none of it was scripted.
They say you are as young as your soul feels, and today Kato Shigeaki felt twenty all over again. Maybe this way he can keep up with his crazy idol friends who never age.
Shige can write his online diary any time he wants now. He promotes only himself. He adds a picture of an empty classroom. He knows he has exactly five readers. Even Yamashita-kun has subscribed.
“Of course he did,” Ryo says and whacks Shige over head. “I told him to and linked him,” he adds. “Did you think he would otherwise?” he asks when Shige gives him an angry look.
“Ryo? What are you doing here?”
Ryo shuffles his feet. “Your guitar needs tuning. And I need to sleep over. I have a location shoot tomorrow just around the corner. I haven’t slept for more than four hours in ages.”
“Oh, the poor life of an idol,” Shige mocks. “I am going to start charging you. You are making a pit hole in my sofa.” Shige pokes him and closes his laptop.
“Well you could always let me sleep in your huge bed.”
“I’m still charging you,” Shige breaths out. Ryo smirks.
“I’ll make sure the payment is worth you services.”
Poll Team Future