Fic: Hiccups [oneshot]
Title: Hiccups
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment
Characters/Pairings: NEWS, KAT-TUN, Pin-ish
Word Count: 2800+
Rating: PG13 (for minor swearing - I probably rate my fics higher than I should, but better safe than sorry.)
Summary: Friends often unhelpfully help each other. In which Yamapi has hiccups and everyone wants to help
Notes: I suck with titles I just realized. So... how many unnamed pairings can you spot? Apologies for their characterizations. Written for
the_suit_case (see? I don't always abuse you) because I'm nice like that. Also, I was promised a continent.
It was a day like any other day when Yamashita Tomohisa arrived at the Johnny’s Entertainment headquarters for work. There was not much to the day, voice practice, new dance practice, interview with the rest of NEWS in the afternoon, same old, same old. That is until something out of the ordinary occurred.
“Hic.”
Five pairs of eyes rounded on Yamashita, even the subject of stares narrowed his eyes to the end of his nose. After a full minute of silence which was rather unusual in itself within the group, everyone returned to their own activities, trying to occupy themselves until their manager picked them up to go to the afternoon interview.
“Hic.”
Yamashita’s eyes grew slightly wider as he slapped his hands over his mouth in attempt to muffle the sound. But of course, it was too late. Once was a fluke, twice, not so much.
“Hi-“ and Yamashita’s body jerked as he tried to stop the sound.
The other five members of NEWS glanced at each other, matching grins of mischief on each of their faces and Yamashita knew that he was in for hell.
“Need help?” Masuda Takahisa asked giving what most would call a friendly grin. However, Yamashita swore he saw a glint in Masuda’s eyes as he settled his water bottle on the table.
Yamashita backed further into the couch, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the other members while he shook his head furiously.
“N-hic-no! I’m good! Perfectly heal -hic- thy!”
“Well, you can’t go to the interview like this,” Kato Shigeaki told him, slowly closing his composition notebook as he looked at Yamashita in something that was supposed to be reassurance. The older boy however, knew better.
“Because you’ll look like an ass,” Nishikido Ryo explained, not even bothering to conceal the glee that he felt upon this golden opportunity. “Do you want the hosts and the thousands of fans who watch the show to see you look like an idiot?”
“It’ll go away -hic- by then!”
“But what if it doesn’t?” Tegoshi Yuya asked, looking concerned. Only Yamashita knew that wasn’t what Tegoshi was thinking at all.
“Let’s help Yamapi get rid of his hiccups!” Koyama Keiichiro suggested when he pressed the send button on his mobile phone and pocketed the device with a devilish grin on his lips.
“Yeah,” the four members cheered. There might have been an exaggerated scream of “No” in the midst of NEWS’s determination to help, but that was drowned by the sudden barrage of suggestions on what Yamashita should do.
And then there was pandemonium.
-:-:-
“I’m bored!”
“Then do something productive; like exercising.”
Akanishi Jin pouted, fully aware of what fellow KAT-TUN member Tanaka Koki was implying. Akanishi childishly stuck his tongue out in defiance at Tanaka who ignored the man as he returned to punching letters in his hand phone.
Once again, Akanishi was being ignored and being ignored meant no one to play with him. This lead to another whine, this time to Ueda Tatsuya.
“Tat-chan,” Akanishi nearly shrilled, “Pay attention to me!”
Ueda merely gave him a look of stoicism before turning his head to the side and pretending he didn’t hear. This reaction only caused Akanishi to become more persistent, tugging at Ueda’s sleeve.
“Tat-chan! Tat-chan! Tat-chan!”
Ueda fixed a stare on Akanishi as he jerked his arm away from the man.
“Jin, stop.”
Akanishi ceased moving.
“Sit.”
Akanishi sat down on the floor, still pouting.
“Stay.”
Akanishi didn’t move to stand or crawl away.
“Good, Jin.” Ueda smiled, patting the man on the head.
Akanishi beamed before his face contorted to one of annoyance, “I’m not a dog!”
Ueda shrugged.
“I’m still bored!”
“Hey, Jin,” Nakamaru Yuichi waved his cell phone at Akanishi, grinning meaningfully at him. “Kei just emailed me saying that NEWS is in their room.”
Akanishi lit up as he scrambled out the door. Ueda and Tanaka glanced at Nakamaru who also rose and was on his way out the door.
“Why’d you tell him that?” Tanaka asked, getting up to follow the impending chaos. “You know he’s not coming back if he goes over there and we still have work later.”
Nakamaru grinned knowingly, “Yamapi’s got hiccups.”
“I have to see this,” Ueda said, getting up to follow the others to the NEWS room.
-:-:-
“You know, Massu, I don’t think chocolate was the best idea,” Kato said watching Yamashita choke on several large pieces of chocolate that Nishikido had shoved down his throat not a moment ago.
“Well, it always works for me,” Masuda defended, pouting slightly with his arms crossed. “Maybe Yamapi’s just weird. Then again, I usually only have one piece of chocolate.”
“Hey, don’t you think Ryo-tan’s having too much fun with this?” Tegoshi asked, just a little worried by the color of Yamashita’s face and the flailing.
“Hey, Boss-chan,” Koyama interrupted Nishikido’s almost manic attempts to shove as much chocolate as possible into Yamashita’s mouth. The self proclaimed big brother of the group wondered whether he should be concerned-also, whether Nishikido was in serious need of psychiatric help. “Leader is beginning to turn blue.”
“Pi!”
All eyes in the NEWS room turned to the door to see Akanishi’s look of pure delight before he launched himself at Yamashita. Nishikido only rolled off the couch just in time to avoid a massive attack of half-melted chocolate pieces. Everyone immediately recoiled in disgust, stepping back to avoid the pieces on the coffee table and floor.
“Ew,” Tegoshi groaned, summing all their thoughts in one word.
“What’d we miss?”
Koyama waved at Nakamaru who was followed by Ueda and Tanaka.
“Did Yamapi die yet?” Tanaka asked, glancing at person under Akanishi’s mass.
“Well,” Koyama began his explanation, “Yamapi has the hiccups. We tried a few things, and then Massu suggested eating chocolate to get them to stop. Ryo-chan got a little too,” Koyama glanced at the bits on the floor and then to Nishikido and back before settling on a word. “Excited, and then Jin came in and well… you can guess the rest. We have an interview to get to at three though if they’re not gone soon...”
“Did it work?” Koyama stared at Ueda blankly. Ueda gestured at the scene before him, “Did his hiccups stop?”
“Er…”
“Hic!”
“Try holding your breath,” Tegoshi suggested.
“I think he just did,” Kato pointed out. “I mean, you can’t really breathe when you’re choking.”
“And I almost -hic- died,” Yamashita shouted angrily, pointing at Nishikido. But at least his face was regaining color. The down side seemed to be that his hiccups were trying to make up for the lost time with the choking. “You’re a -hic- fucking asshole! You -hic- deserve -hic- a slow -hic- and painful -hic- death!”
As if he just realized that he had chocolate stains all over, Akanishi shrieked at an unbelievable volume. Looking over his clothes, he began to wail causing everyone in the room to cover their ears from the pitch alone.
“Pi, you ruined my clothes!”
“Shut -hic- up! Hic! Get off me!” A livid Yamashita shoved Akanishi off and stood to escape but there were too many people in the way.
“Hold your breath and drink water,” Nakamaru suggested.
Yamashita glared at him.
“He tried that already. It was the first thing he did actually,” Masuda said, shaking his head at the mess.
“What’s going on here?” Kamenashi Kazuya stood at the door; hand on his hip as he looked into the NEWS dressing room. He was frowning, clearly unhappy with something, before he asked, “Why is everyone here? I heard Jin wailing earlier.”
“That’s because Jin’s a girl,” Nishikido helpfully supplied, quickly dodging Jin’s swipe.
“Yamapi’s got hiccups,” Kato explained.
“Is that what it is?” Akanishi asked, laughing as he pointed at Yamashita. “Loser!”
Just as Yamashita was about to tackle Akanishi, something that looked like a cross between a gorilla and a flamingo leapt on top of him... or was it a gorilla wearing a pink feathered boa?
“RAWR!”
“Hic.”
There was a moment of silence, and then everyone cracked up.
“Tegoshi, I said find something scary!” Tanaka hit the gorilla head, causing the person inside to yelp. “How is this scary?”
“Hic.”
“This was the only thing I could find!” Tegoshi defended himself, taking off the head pouting. “Why didn’t you go find a costume then? Huh, Koki?”
No one really expected for Tegoshi to retort back. That itself was more surprising than the bizarre costume. Koyama caught Kato’s eyes. Then, in unison, they said, “Tegoshi-san, you’re so cool!”
Nakamaru, Ueda, and Masuda began snickering only to receive a glare from Tanaka.
Clearing his throat, Ueda mumbled but clearly still smirking, “Right; back to the original problem.”
“Plug your ears up and hop on one leg while singing the national anthem,” Kamenashi told Yamashita who looked incredulous at the mere idea of doing something as idiotic as that. “Trust me, it works.”
“Hic.”
Yamashita looked reluctant, but Nishikido had magically managed to produce a set of rope and a smirk.
“We can tie him up and toss him into the closest ocean,” Nishikido said.
Suddenly, Kamenashi’s idea seemed much more appealing. Sticking his fingers to plug his ears, Yamashita started hopping on one leg, trying to remember the words to the national anthem. There was silence when Yamashita stopped two minutes later. He hadn’t hiccupped in the last two minutes and Yamashita was about to cheer when…
“Hic.”
“Kame, that was a really lame idea,” Akanishi informed him.
“It works for me. Yamapi’s probably just really weird,” Kamenashi shrugged.
“I hate you all,” Yamashita said, glaring at them between hiccups, but gave an especially vehement scowl to Nishikido. “Especially -hic- you!”
“You can try kissing someone.”
Everyone stared at Ueda, giving him a slightly repulsed look.
“I’m not -hic- kissing anyone! I’m a -hic- guy!”
“Who’d want to kiss Yamapi?” Nishikido sneered, making sure there was a lot of distance between him and Ueda (the man who suggested such a horrid idea), throwing him a slightly contemptuous look.
“Who’d want to kiss Ryo-chan? -hic-” Yamashita hissed, throwing a cushion at Nishikido’s head. He was secretly hoping that the zipper scratched his face. “He’s a midget.”
“Retarded bastard-“
“-hic-!”
“Stop it, you two,” Koyama sighed, exasperated. This was why grown-ups were not supposed to play playground games; it messes with the group dynamic, the member love. Also, both members degenerated into the mindset of eight year olds with slightly larger vocabularies.
“That’s sick, Tat-chan,” Tanaka smartly informed his band mate, eyeing him queerly.
“I was just saying,” Ueda shrugged, not the slightest bit concerned. “That’s what people told me growing up. It always worked. Of course, you can just go on with whatever you’re doing with hiccups. You’ll be mocked forever though.”
Ueda was exaggerating, he knew that. At least the part about being mocked forever was slightly exaggerated. But there were a few people who didn’t think this sort of joke was funny.
“Forever is a very long time,” Akanishi said, glancing meaningfully at Yamashita.
“I’m not kissing a guy,” Yamashita said determinedly, crossing his arms in defiance. He would have looked slightly menacing were it not for the fact that his hiccups betrayed him. “Hic.”
Everyone stared at each other until Kato said, “Well… some of the people in this room can look like girls. I mean, we’re in Johnny’s; everyone has been in a dress at one point or another.”
The man had a point. The question was which one of them was willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, or rather Yamashita’s well being.
“I say we go with Tegoshi,” Nakamaru said, pushing the boy who was still wearing the bizarre animal costume forward. “He can pull off the cute look.”
“Eh?”
Before the boy in question could utter another sound, Masuda had tugged Tegoshi’s arm and pulled him behind his muscular frame, shielding the boy from Nakamaru.
Raising an eyebrow, Nakamaru opened his mouth to ask, but Koyama, guessing the unvoiced question, supplied, “No one touches Tego. That’s the general consensus in our group.”
“-hic-“
“Who then?” Nakamaru asked, looking around.
“What about Ueda?” Nishikido suggested, “He suggested this stupid idea. And he looks like a girl anyway. A dress is like second nature to him, right Princess?”
Ueda scowled at Nishikido, willing him to die before flicking him off. “Go rot in hell, Nishikido.”
“Shige?” Tanaka suggested only to have the other boy recoil in horror. “Okay, never mind then.”
“Kame,” Tegoshi said.
They all turned to look at the man who raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “No.”
“I’m not kissing Kame,” Yamashita said, making a face, “Just… no.”
“Come on, you two were all over each other during Shuuji to Akira,” Tegoshi argued. “You two obviously had
huge man-crushes on each other.”
“That was acting,” Kamenashi retorted, eyes narrowing at the boy. Tegoshi looked unconvinced, as did Masuda, Nakamaru, Kato, Koyama, Tanaka, Nishikido, and Ueda. “I’m not making out with him.”
“Excuse me! Don’t I get a say in this?” Yamashita asked, waving a raised hand to get their attention. “Look, it’s one interview in front of thousands of viewers; it’s not really going to matter much in the grand scheme of things. The hiccups are going to go away on their own. It won’t be the end of my life. And I’m not kissing anyone.”
There was silence where they all stared at Yamashita as if they saw him for the first time.
“Your hiccups are gone,” Masuda said, grinning at the NEWS leader. “Congratulations.”
“Hey,” Tanaka said suddenly, looking around, “Where’d Jin go?”
The disappearance of Akanishi caused everyone to stop for a moment, also looking around as if the man was hiding somewhere in the room. And then, standing at the opened door was a woman looking anxiously at them. Upon closer inspection, Yamashita realized that it was Akanishi in a wig and dress.
“Jin? What’re you doing?”
Akanishi walked up to Yamashita and pushed him down onto the couch so that he was on top of him, biting his lips almost cutely as he avoided looking at his best friend. “I’m doing this for you; because you’re my best friend, and forever is a long time, and you have an interview in an hour.”
“Wait a se-“ But Yamashita was cut off as Akanishi kissed him to the astonishment of everyone in the room.
“Did it work?” Akanishi asked, quickly pulling away from Yamashita, his face flushed.
“Ba-Bakanishi!” Yamashita squeaked, his face in the same shade of scarlet as Akanishi. Burying his face in his hand so no one could gage his embarrassment, Yamashita groaned loudly, “I can’t believe you just did that! What is wrong with you?”
“W-what? I was only trying to help! I’m not gay or anything! I like girls,” Akanishi defended shrilly, voice shaking nervously as he hid his embarrassed face with the long wavy hair of the wig. “Did it work?”
Yamashita could not bring himself to answer. At that moment, he just wanted to die; or disappear; or both. Preferably the last one as it would be least messy.
“Yeah, Jin, that worked,” Nishikido sighed, twitching slightly as he eyed the two boys on the couch warily. Sarcasm laced his voice as he continued to patronize Akanishi, “Look at that, you just saved Pi from death by hiccups.”
Akanishi beamed.
“Moron,” Nishikido muttered, just loud enough so that Jin didn’t hear but all those near him did.
“Now that’s not fair, we didn’t get to try my remedy yet,” Nakamaru complained.
“I had five more methods we could have tried,” Kato added, dejected by the turn of events.
“At least the kissing thing sort of worked,” Ueda shrugged, not quite sure whether it was because of the threat of having to kiss someone of the same gender or not. He was pretty sure that was it. Then again, Akanishi shocked just about everyone so that could have been the cure.
“So this is where everyone went.”
All heads turned to the source of the comment and found the newly arrived Taguchi Junnosuke who had been conveniently missing throughout the entire fiasco.
“Where were you?” Ueda asked.
“Oh, I was having coffee with someone,” Taguchi answered, smiling happily. “There’s this really yummy café down the street that makes the best crème brulè. We should go sometime -hic-.”
Taguchi blinked, as did everyone else. At the predatory look everyone was giving him, Taguchi cowed uncomfortably. “Er…”
Kamenashi rolled his eyes and stepped forward, pulling Taguchi out the door with him, sighing almost exasperated. “Let’s go.”
“-hic- but, where’re we going?”
“Getting rid of your hiccups,” the rest heard Kamenashi echo from the halls.
The reminder of KAT-TUN and the entirety of NEWS stared after the empty doorway. And then there was an explosion of voices as the group madly scrambled for the exit.
“That’s not fair, Kame!”
“You can’t just take him away like that!”
“Get back here!”
“You’re being selfish, Jerk!”
“He’s our group member too!”
Yamashita was left wondering whether the rest of NEWS remembered they had to leave for an interview. Still red-faced, he looked up at Akanishi.
“Jin?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you get off me now?”
“Er… sorry.”
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment
Characters/Pairings: NEWS, KAT-TUN, Pin-ish
Word Count: 2800+
Rating: PG13 (for minor swearing - I probably rate my fics higher than I should, but better safe than sorry.)
Summary: Friends often unhelpfully help each other. In which Yamapi has hiccups and everyone wants to help
Notes: I suck with titles I just realized. So... how many unnamed pairings can you spot? Apologies for their characterizations. Written for
the_suit_case (see? I don't always abuse you) because I'm nice like that. Also, I was promised a continent.
It was a day like any other day when Yamashita Tomohisa arrived at the Johnny’s Entertainment headquarters for work. There was not much to the day, voice practice, new dance practice, interview with the rest of NEWS in the afternoon, same old, same old. That is until something out of the ordinary occurred.
“Hic.”
Five pairs of eyes rounded on Yamashita, even the subject of stares narrowed his eyes to the end of his nose. After a full minute of silence which was rather unusual in itself within the group, everyone returned to their own activities, trying to occupy themselves until their manager picked them up to go to the afternoon interview.
“Hic.”
Yamashita’s eyes grew slightly wider as he slapped his hands over his mouth in attempt to muffle the sound. But of course, it was too late. Once was a fluke, twice, not so much.
“Hi-“ and Yamashita’s body jerked as he tried to stop the sound.
The other five members of NEWS glanced at each other, matching grins of mischief on each of their faces and Yamashita knew that he was in for hell.
“Need help?” Masuda Takahisa asked giving what most would call a friendly grin. However, Yamashita swore he saw a glint in Masuda’s eyes as he settled his water bottle on the table.
Yamashita backed further into the couch, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the other members while he shook his head furiously.
“N-hic-no! I’m good! Perfectly heal -hic- thy!”
“Well, you can’t go to the interview like this,” Kato Shigeaki told him, slowly closing his composition notebook as he looked at Yamashita in something that was supposed to be reassurance. The older boy however, knew better.
“Because you’ll look like an ass,” Nishikido Ryo explained, not even bothering to conceal the glee that he felt upon this golden opportunity. “Do you want the hosts and the thousands of fans who watch the show to see you look like an idiot?”
“It’ll go away -hic- by then!”
“But what if it doesn’t?” Tegoshi Yuya asked, looking concerned. Only Yamashita knew that wasn’t what Tegoshi was thinking at all.
“Let’s help Yamapi get rid of his hiccups!” Koyama Keiichiro suggested when he pressed the send button on his mobile phone and pocketed the device with a devilish grin on his lips.
“Yeah,” the four members cheered. There might have been an exaggerated scream of “No” in the midst of NEWS’s determination to help, but that was drowned by the sudden barrage of suggestions on what Yamashita should do.
And then there was pandemonium.
-:-:-
“I’m bored!”
“Then do something productive; like exercising.”
Akanishi Jin pouted, fully aware of what fellow KAT-TUN member Tanaka Koki was implying. Akanishi childishly stuck his tongue out in defiance at Tanaka who ignored the man as he returned to punching letters in his hand phone.
Once again, Akanishi was being ignored and being ignored meant no one to play with him. This lead to another whine, this time to Ueda Tatsuya.
“Tat-chan,” Akanishi nearly shrilled, “Pay attention to me!”
Ueda merely gave him a look of stoicism before turning his head to the side and pretending he didn’t hear. This reaction only caused Akanishi to become more persistent, tugging at Ueda’s sleeve.
“Tat-chan! Tat-chan! Tat-chan!”
Ueda fixed a stare on Akanishi as he jerked his arm away from the man.
“Jin, stop.”
Akanishi ceased moving.
“Sit.”
Akanishi sat down on the floor, still pouting.
“Stay.”
Akanishi didn’t move to stand or crawl away.
“Good, Jin.” Ueda smiled, patting the man on the head.
Akanishi beamed before his face contorted to one of annoyance, “I’m not a dog!”
Ueda shrugged.
“I’m still bored!”
“Hey, Jin,” Nakamaru Yuichi waved his cell phone at Akanishi, grinning meaningfully at him. “Kei just emailed me saying that NEWS is in their room.”
Akanishi lit up as he scrambled out the door. Ueda and Tanaka glanced at Nakamaru who also rose and was on his way out the door.
“Why’d you tell him that?” Tanaka asked, getting up to follow the impending chaos. “You know he’s not coming back if he goes over there and we still have work later.”
Nakamaru grinned knowingly, “Yamapi’s got hiccups.”
“I have to see this,” Ueda said, getting up to follow the others to the NEWS room.
-:-:-
“You know, Massu, I don’t think chocolate was the best idea,” Kato said watching Yamashita choke on several large pieces of chocolate that Nishikido had shoved down his throat not a moment ago.
“Well, it always works for me,” Masuda defended, pouting slightly with his arms crossed. “Maybe Yamapi’s just weird. Then again, I usually only have one piece of chocolate.”
“Hey, don’t you think Ryo-tan’s having too much fun with this?” Tegoshi asked, just a little worried by the color of Yamashita’s face and the flailing.
“Hey, Boss-chan,” Koyama interrupted Nishikido’s almost manic attempts to shove as much chocolate as possible into Yamashita’s mouth. The self proclaimed big brother of the group wondered whether he should be concerned-also, whether Nishikido was in serious need of psychiatric help. “Leader is beginning to turn blue.”
“Pi!”
All eyes in the NEWS room turned to the door to see Akanishi’s look of pure delight before he launched himself at Yamashita. Nishikido only rolled off the couch just in time to avoid a massive attack of half-melted chocolate pieces. Everyone immediately recoiled in disgust, stepping back to avoid the pieces on the coffee table and floor.
“Ew,” Tegoshi groaned, summing all their thoughts in one word.
“What’d we miss?”
Koyama waved at Nakamaru who was followed by Ueda and Tanaka.
“Did Yamapi die yet?” Tanaka asked, glancing at person under Akanishi’s mass.
“Well,” Koyama began his explanation, “Yamapi has the hiccups. We tried a few things, and then Massu suggested eating chocolate to get them to stop. Ryo-chan got a little too,” Koyama glanced at the bits on the floor and then to Nishikido and back before settling on a word. “Excited, and then Jin came in and well… you can guess the rest. We have an interview to get to at three though if they’re not gone soon...”
“Did it work?” Koyama stared at Ueda blankly. Ueda gestured at the scene before him, “Did his hiccups stop?”
“Er…”
“Hic!”
“Try holding your breath,” Tegoshi suggested.
“I think he just did,” Kato pointed out. “I mean, you can’t really breathe when you’re choking.”
“And I almost -hic- died,” Yamashita shouted angrily, pointing at Nishikido. But at least his face was regaining color. The down side seemed to be that his hiccups were trying to make up for the lost time with the choking. “You’re a -hic- fucking asshole! You -hic- deserve -hic- a slow -hic- and painful -hic- death!”
As if he just realized that he had chocolate stains all over, Akanishi shrieked at an unbelievable volume. Looking over his clothes, he began to wail causing everyone in the room to cover their ears from the pitch alone.
“Pi, you ruined my clothes!”
“Shut -hic- up! Hic! Get off me!” A livid Yamashita shoved Akanishi off and stood to escape but there were too many people in the way.
“Hold your breath and drink water,” Nakamaru suggested.
Yamashita glared at him.
“He tried that already. It was the first thing he did actually,” Masuda said, shaking his head at the mess.
“What’s going on here?” Kamenashi Kazuya stood at the door; hand on his hip as he looked into the NEWS dressing room. He was frowning, clearly unhappy with something, before he asked, “Why is everyone here? I heard Jin wailing earlier.”
“That’s because Jin’s a girl,” Nishikido helpfully supplied, quickly dodging Jin’s swipe.
“Yamapi’s got hiccups,” Kato explained.
“Is that what it is?” Akanishi asked, laughing as he pointed at Yamashita. “Loser!”
Just as Yamashita was about to tackle Akanishi, something that looked like a cross between a gorilla and a flamingo leapt on top of him... or was it a gorilla wearing a pink feathered boa?
“RAWR!”
“Hic.”
There was a moment of silence, and then everyone cracked up.
“Tegoshi, I said find something scary!” Tanaka hit the gorilla head, causing the person inside to yelp. “How is this scary?”
“Hic.”
“This was the only thing I could find!” Tegoshi defended himself, taking off the head pouting. “Why didn’t you go find a costume then? Huh, Koki?”
No one really expected for Tegoshi to retort back. That itself was more surprising than the bizarre costume. Koyama caught Kato’s eyes. Then, in unison, they said, “Tegoshi-san, you’re so cool!”
Nakamaru, Ueda, and Masuda began snickering only to receive a glare from Tanaka.
Clearing his throat, Ueda mumbled but clearly still smirking, “Right; back to the original problem.”
“Plug your ears up and hop on one leg while singing the national anthem,” Kamenashi told Yamashita who looked incredulous at the mere idea of doing something as idiotic as that. “Trust me, it works.”
“Hic.”
Yamashita looked reluctant, but Nishikido had magically managed to produce a set of rope and a smirk.
“We can tie him up and toss him into the closest ocean,” Nishikido said.
Suddenly, Kamenashi’s idea seemed much more appealing. Sticking his fingers to plug his ears, Yamashita started hopping on one leg, trying to remember the words to the national anthem. There was silence when Yamashita stopped two minutes later. He hadn’t hiccupped in the last two minutes and Yamashita was about to cheer when…
“Hic.”
“Kame, that was a really lame idea,” Akanishi informed him.
“It works for me. Yamapi’s probably just really weird,” Kamenashi shrugged.
“I hate you all,” Yamashita said, glaring at them between hiccups, but gave an especially vehement scowl to Nishikido. “Especially -hic- you!”
“You can try kissing someone.”
Everyone stared at Ueda, giving him a slightly repulsed look.
“I’m not -hic- kissing anyone! I’m a -hic- guy!”
“Who’d want to kiss Yamapi?” Nishikido sneered, making sure there was a lot of distance between him and Ueda (the man who suggested such a horrid idea), throwing him a slightly contemptuous look.
“Who’d want to kiss Ryo-chan? -hic-” Yamashita hissed, throwing a cushion at Nishikido’s head. He was secretly hoping that the zipper scratched his face. “He’s a midget.”
“Retarded bastard-“
“-hic-!”
“Stop it, you two,” Koyama sighed, exasperated. This was why grown-ups were not supposed to play playground games; it messes with the group dynamic, the member love. Also, both members degenerated into the mindset of eight year olds with slightly larger vocabularies.
“That’s sick, Tat-chan,” Tanaka smartly informed his band mate, eyeing him queerly.
“I was just saying,” Ueda shrugged, not the slightest bit concerned. “That’s what people told me growing up. It always worked. Of course, you can just go on with whatever you’re doing with hiccups. You’ll be mocked forever though.”
Ueda was exaggerating, he knew that. At least the part about being mocked forever was slightly exaggerated. But there were a few people who didn’t think this sort of joke was funny.
“Forever is a very long time,” Akanishi said, glancing meaningfully at Yamashita.
“I’m not kissing a guy,” Yamashita said determinedly, crossing his arms in defiance. He would have looked slightly menacing were it not for the fact that his hiccups betrayed him. “Hic.”
Everyone stared at each other until Kato said, “Well… some of the people in this room can look like girls. I mean, we’re in Johnny’s; everyone has been in a dress at one point or another.”
The man had a point. The question was which one of them was willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, or rather Yamashita’s well being.
“I say we go with Tegoshi,” Nakamaru said, pushing the boy who was still wearing the bizarre animal costume forward. “He can pull off the cute look.”
“Eh?”
Before the boy in question could utter another sound, Masuda had tugged Tegoshi’s arm and pulled him behind his muscular frame, shielding the boy from Nakamaru.
Raising an eyebrow, Nakamaru opened his mouth to ask, but Koyama, guessing the unvoiced question, supplied, “No one touches Tego. That’s the general consensus in our group.”
“-hic-“
“Who then?” Nakamaru asked, looking around.
“What about Ueda?” Nishikido suggested, “He suggested this stupid idea. And he looks like a girl anyway. A dress is like second nature to him, right Princess?”
Ueda scowled at Nishikido, willing him to die before flicking him off. “Go rot in hell, Nishikido.”
“Shige?” Tanaka suggested only to have the other boy recoil in horror. “Okay, never mind then.”
“Kame,” Tegoshi said.
They all turned to look at the man who raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “No.”
“I’m not kissing Kame,” Yamashita said, making a face, “Just… no.”
“Come on, you two were all over each other during Shuuji to Akira,” Tegoshi argued. “You two obviously had
huge man-crushes on each other.”
“That was acting,” Kamenashi retorted, eyes narrowing at the boy. Tegoshi looked unconvinced, as did Masuda, Nakamaru, Kato, Koyama, Tanaka, Nishikido, and Ueda. “I’m not making out with him.”
“Excuse me! Don’t I get a say in this?” Yamashita asked, waving a raised hand to get their attention. “Look, it’s one interview in front of thousands of viewers; it’s not really going to matter much in the grand scheme of things. The hiccups are going to go away on their own. It won’t be the end of my life. And I’m not kissing anyone.”
There was silence where they all stared at Yamashita as if they saw him for the first time.
“Your hiccups are gone,” Masuda said, grinning at the NEWS leader. “Congratulations.”
“Hey,” Tanaka said suddenly, looking around, “Where’d Jin go?”
The disappearance of Akanishi caused everyone to stop for a moment, also looking around as if the man was hiding somewhere in the room. And then, standing at the opened door was a woman looking anxiously at them. Upon closer inspection, Yamashita realized that it was Akanishi in a wig and dress.
“Jin? What’re you doing?”
Akanishi walked up to Yamashita and pushed him down onto the couch so that he was on top of him, biting his lips almost cutely as he avoided looking at his best friend. “I’m doing this for you; because you’re my best friend, and forever is a long time, and you have an interview in an hour.”
“Wait a se-“ But Yamashita was cut off as Akanishi kissed him to the astonishment of everyone in the room.
“Did it work?” Akanishi asked, quickly pulling away from Yamashita, his face flushed.
“Ba-Bakanishi!” Yamashita squeaked, his face in the same shade of scarlet as Akanishi. Burying his face in his hand so no one could gage his embarrassment, Yamashita groaned loudly, “I can’t believe you just did that! What is wrong with you?”
“W-what? I was only trying to help! I’m not gay or anything! I like girls,” Akanishi defended shrilly, voice shaking nervously as he hid his embarrassed face with the long wavy hair of the wig. “Did it work?”
Yamashita could not bring himself to answer. At that moment, he just wanted to die; or disappear; or both. Preferably the last one as it would be least messy.
“Yeah, Jin, that worked,” Nishikido sighed, twitching slightly as he eyed the two boys on the couch warily. Sarcasm laced his voice as he continued to patronize Akanishi, “Look at that, you just saved Pi from death by hiccups.”
Akanishi beamed.
“Moron,” Nishikido muttered, just loud enough so that Jin didn’t hear but all those near him did.
“Now that’s not fair, we didn’t get to try my remedy yet,” Nakamaru complained.
“I had five more methods we could have tried,” Kato added, dejected by the turn of events.
“At least the kissing thing sort of worked,” Ueda shrugged, not quite sure whether it was because of the threat of having to kiss someone of the same gender or not. He was pretty sure that was it. Then again, Akanishi shocked just about everyone so that could have been the cure.
“So this is where everyone went.”
All heads turned to the source of the comment and found the newly arrived Taguchi Junnosuke who had been conveniently missing throughout the entire fiasco.
“Where were you?” Ueda asked.
“Oh, I was having coffee with someone,” Taguchi answered, smiling happily. “There’s this really yummy café down the street that makes the best crème brulè. We should go sometime -hic-.”
Taguchi blinked, as did everyone else. At the predatory look everyone was giving him, Taguchi cowed uncomfortably. “Er…”
Kamenashi rolled his eyes and stepped forward, pulling Taguchi out the door with him, sighing almost exasperated. “Let’s go.”
“-hic- but, where’re we going?”
“Getting rid of your hiccups,” the rest heard Kamenashi echo from the halls.
The reminder of KAT-TUN and the entirety of NEWS stared after the empty doorway. And then there was an explosion of voices as the group madly scrambled for the exit.
“That’s not fair, Kame!”
“You can’t just take him away like that!”
“Get back here!”
“You’re being selfish, Jerk!”
“He’s our group member too!”
Yamashita was left wondering whether the rest of NEWS remembered they had to leave for an interview. Still red-faced, he looked up at Akanishi.
“Jin?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you get off me now?”
“Er… sorry.”