Series Title: In his eyes, I find forever (11/13)
Title: In his eyes, I find forever (11/13)
Warnings: A little too angsty at times?
Genre: Romance/Angst
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Yeah...well...I wish I owned them, but I don't.
Summary: The storyline starts from when the original Hey!Say!7 guest-starred on Shounen Club and moves on from there. It’s a Takaki-centric fic that follows him from the previously mentioned point on as he experiences the pros and cons of being one of the oldest members of the then-newly-formed Hey!Say!JUMP and his interactions with his new bandmates, particularly one Yabu Kota.
Previous chapters:
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight , Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten,
He had never been more shocked in his life.
Sure, seeing one of KAT-TUN’s two front men, a member of the biggest boy band Japan had seen since NSYNC* suddenly pop up out of nowhere in the midst of the biggest mess Music Station had ever seen was a bit of a shocker. Looking at his idol stand there, smirking at him as though he wasn’t sure what exactly Takaki was gaping at was a little out of the ordinary.
But watching Akanishi Jin sweep down on their set….and somehow make everything work out?
That was just….whoa.
But that’s just what Takaki saw him do. In the space of twenty minutes, Jin managed to find a new, non-chili-stained suit for Keito, glare the juniors who had been responsible into submission while keeping the rest of them from running away screaming (Are you absolutely SURE Akanishi-sempai isn’t related to Nishikido-sempai? They both have the same glare!), convince Yuto and Yamada to finally hand over the phone (Jin-sempai, you won’t forget your promise, will you? You’re going to take us to go get ice cream on Friday with Kamenashi-kun, right? Promise? Promise, promise, prrrrommmiiissseee?), grab a new earpiece for Hikaru (slipping in a short high five in the process), give Ryutaro a lesson on microphone repair and a slight hair ruffle and find Chinen a costume and a small princess hug.
Not bad.
Of course, it helped that he had wrestled Ryo away from practice with Kanjani8 to help with this. And of course, Ryo excelled particularly at persuading some of the more ardent Keito haters to take a break of sorts. Takaki grinned. Oh, what a sight that was.
But there was something about Jin himself, something that Ryo, that Yamapi, that Matsujun, Chinen’s beloved Ohno-kun, Sho, Kame, Tackey, Tsubasa, everyone of the sempai had. Something that Yuto, that Hikaru, that Yabu were starting to display. Something that Takaki desperately wished he could have.
The mark, the aura of a leader.
The aura of a debuted Johnny.
[~/-/~]
“Yu-chan, come on!” Daiki called, waving at him as he caught up to him. “We can’t keep them waiting any longer, dinner’s at six!”
“You go ahead, Dai-chan,” Takaki replied, mussing up his hair as he passed. “I want to go find Yabu, he stayed back to clear things up.”
Daiki’s eyes shifted slightly. “You and Yabu-kun are really close these days, aren’t you?”
He paused. “What?”
His J.J. Expr-Hey!Say!BEST bandmate smiled sadly. “You’re pretty dense these days, aren’t you, Yu-chan?”
“Daiki?”
“Never mind,” Daiki shook his head, grinning. “Go find him. We can’t go celebrate a great performance without our illustrious leader. You’d better hurry. Nishikido-sempai’s been telling stories to Ryutaro again. We don’t want to have the kid permanently scarred for life before bedtime, now do we?”
Takaki laughed. “No, no, we don’t. I’ll be back in a bit, Dai-chan.”
“Hurry, Yu-chan!” Daiki replied, turning and running over to meet Yuto.
He turned and ducked away, shaking his head slowly.
“You and Yabu-kun are really close these days, aren’t you?”
“You’re pretty dense these days, aren’t you, Yu-chan?”
Takaki blinked. What was that supposed to mean?
“I’ve seen the way you look at him. Like you’re trying to see him, inside and out. Like you’re trying to be the person he needs. Like you’re trying to be the person Yabu Kota can lean on for support.”
“You need him.”
He shook his head.
“Daiki and Hikaru are weird,” Takaki decided, slipping past the door leading to the stage. “I don’t know what they’re-”
A hand reached out and pulled him aside. “Wha-”
“Shhh!” His eyes narrowed. Takaki whipped around.
“Hikaru?” The Ya-ya-yah member glared at him.
“You were a kid once, Takaki,” Hikaru whispered angrily. “Don’t you get the meaning of ‘shhh’?”
“What the hell-” He lowered his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Eavesdropping. Or is that another thing you never learned as a child?”
Takaki frowned. “Hikaru-”
“You can’t avoid me forever, Kota!” He whipped his head around. Jin?
Takaki ducked behind the curtain with Hikaru, peeking out slightly. Yabu was practically sprinting across the studio, followed closely by a determined-looking Jin.
“Some people would call this stalking, Akanishi-kun!” Yabu yelled over his shoulder.
“Well, I would stop if you-gotcha! If you would actually return my calls for once. Or maybe stop hiding behind Hikaru whenever I come to visit your practices. Or maybe even say hi to me once in a while,” Jin replied, holding Yabu’s arm firmly in his grasp. “Now, what’s this? ‘Akanishi-kun?’ You never used to call me that.”
Yabu glared coldly. “Well, things change.”
“Yeah,” Jin nodded. “I’ll say. You didn’t tell me about Taiyo or Shoon or Ya-ya-yah disbanding or even the debut. I had to find out about all that from Kame. Kame! A week after the Yokohama concerts! Kame NEVER knows anything, Yabu, you know that! And he knew about the debut before I did?”
Yabu shrugged. “You could have watched the concert on TV, you know. Or maybe even gone to it. Nishikido-sempai and Koyama-sempai did that.”
“Koyama and Ryo don’t have a new drama and a new single at the same time!”
“They also didn’t disappear from the country when things got hard!”
Jin’s eyes hardened. “You’re not being fair, Yabu.”
Takaki stole a glance at Hikaru. “What is he talking about?”
“Akanishi-kun and Ko-chan used to be really close,” Hikaru whispered softly. “To the point that they’d hang out outside of Johnny’s. Akanishi-kun even had Ko-chan over his house a couple times. Called him ‘the little brother he never had or wanted.’ The rest of us knew he just plain adored Ko-chan.”
Takaki nodded. He had seen this himself a couple years ago, when Jin and KAT-TUN had still been juniors. Everyone had. Everyone knew that KAT-TUN had a special bond with Ya-ya-yah and that Kame showered Hikaru with affection and that Jin and Yabu were closer than friends. Closer than brothers even.
But that doesn’t explain this.
“Debuting happened, Takaki,” Hikaru replied, reading his thoughts almost as well as Yabu could. “America happened. And suddenly, Akanishi-kun and Kamenashi-kun didn’t belong to us anymore. They was apart of something bigger than us, bigger than themselves. And when he couldn’t handle that, Akanishi-kun ran off to America. He probably didn’t have time to tell Ko-chan himself and Ko-chan only found out after the plane had already taken off.”
Hikaru glanced at him sadly. “Ko-chan never got over that, never got over losing his older brother to another audience, another country. And what with the buzz over Akanishi-kun coming back and KAT-TUN’s concerts and Yorokobi no Uta and Cartoon KAT-TUN and Yukan Club and Keep the Faith and every crazy thing that makes up KAT-TUN, Akanishi-kun probably hasn’t had the time to see us. And with Hey!Say!JUMP and BEST and 7 and Jr. Leadership and being a member of the newest debuted group and everything that’s suddenly taken over Ko-chan’s life, he hasn’t had the time to talk to Akanishi-kun. Somehow, I think that’s what he’s wanted all along. And now Akanishi-kun coming back and finally being able to corner him…this isn’t what Yabu wants.”
“Then why don’t you stop him?”
“Don’t you think I want to?” hissed Hikaru. “Don’t you think I want to protect him? That I want what he wants, that I want Akanishi-kun to back off? Don’t you think I want to make sure no one hurts him anymore? He’s my best friend, Takaki. He’s my brother.”
Hikaru sighed.
“But I can’t watch out for him every moment. I can’t be there unless he wants me to be. I can only step in if someone takes his options away. I can only step in if Kota’s about to break.”
Realization hit him. “You haven’t been fighting me because you’re afraid he’ll be taken away from you.
You’ve been fighting me because you believe he’s going to break.”
Hikaru smiled softly. “I’ve never hated you, Takaki. I just wanted you to understand.”
Takaki’s throat tightened. Hikaru hadn’t been doing this because he wanted to take Yabu away. He’d been doing this because he was afraid his best friend was going to get hurt.
God, Hika, I’m so sorry.
“You’re hurting, Kota,” His eyes flickered back to Jin. “Why aren’t you letting anyone help you?”
“Who am I supposed to turn to, Jin?” Yabu hissed, finally pulling his arm out of Jin’s grasp. “7? They’re kids. They don’t deserve to be dragged into my problems. Hikaru? I can’t ask him to keep protecting me. Shoon? He hates me. Taiyo? Gone. Yuya? He’s falling apart. He doesn’t need me to break him. You? You’re not even here anymore. You don’t have to care about me anymore.”
“That’s not true, Kota-”
“No, it’s not! Why should anyone care? I was the Juniors Leader, Ya-ya-yah’s leader! I’m apparently Hey!Say!JUMP’s leader! I’m supposed to be the next Tackey or Yamapi or something. I’m not supposed to fall. I’m not supposed to care this much. I’m just supposed to be that dumb idol, the hot shot, the guy who drops his friends and stomps on them on his way out the door-”
“Don’t do this to yourself-”
“Jin, you don’t get it! Shoon’s right, he should hate me. I failed him, I failed my best friend! Taiyo should be mad, I let him fall! The juniors, every single one of them, I’m leaving them behind! And Hikaru, I can’t even find the time to go grab a cup of coffee with the guy I call my brother! He should go back to Inoo, he’ll be happier there. JUMP should want to kill me, I’m trying to lead them and I can’t even get them through one Music Station performance! And Takaki, god, Takaki, I don’t deserve someone as wonderful as him. I don’t deserve anything, Jin, don’t you get it? Not you, not Takaki, not Hikaru, Shoon, Taiyo, JUMP, the juniors, no one-”
“Kota!” Jin pulled him into his arms. And Yabu promptly burst into tears.
Takaki had never seen anyone break before. He had seen people get sad. He had seen people cry, maybe over a cut or a bruise or over Yamada filming a new drama and spending less time around the Jimusho. But never had he seen anyone break before.
“Why didn’t you take me with you, Jin?” Yabu whispered, his face buried in Jin’s chest. “Why didn’t you take me away from all of this?”
Watching Yabu right now, cocooned in Jin’s arms as the older boy whispered soothing nothings in his ear, and Hikaru standing by him, a tear slowly trickling down his face, Takaki realized something.
He never wanted to see Yabu break again.
A/N: I actually have a football game to get ready for, a journalism assignment to type up, a pair of SAT II Math diagnostic tests to take, millions of college app essays to write, teachers to hunt down (for recommendation letters), a forty page history chapter to outline, scholarship application deadlines to meet, class officer work, AFS officer work, a backpack to organize, a bedroom to clean, and millions of other things to do in a very short amount of time. As well as try to sleep. So my notes will be a little rushed.
So I would like to warn people that I believe this story is finally heading to a close. It's not there yet but be warned. Yabu finally broke and Takaki is beginning to have revelations about the nature of his relationship with Yabu.
Also, Hikaru and Takaki's storyline was resolved, perhaps a bit sooner than I would have liked. I may go back someday and rewrite this and space things out a bit further.
I think I love this chapter the most out of all of them. For the first time, it really, really flowed without me having to try hard, ESPECIALLY the Jin and Yabu interaction. You guys have NO IDEA how fun it is to write Jin and Yabu just because they do have a pretty nifty relationship.
In other news, I saw Obama yesterday. He was only twenty feet away. Yup, probably the best day of my life. I thought you should know.
See yah!