[JE] Camp Fire Tales
Title: Camp Fire Tales
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, fluff
Word count: 5,261
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: Kame and Jin are forced to get creative when they're left in charge of Junior Storytime.
A/N: More fairytales! This time 'Rapunzel' and 'Hansel and Gretel' are given the Akame twist. Crossposted to ficwars.
Camp Fire Tales
Kame had worked some tough crowds before, but this one took the cake. Greedy, demanding, impossible to satisfy - this wasn't one of those occasions when he could pacify them by removing his shirt, or winking seductively from under his fedora, or making out with the nearest KAT-TUN member. No, this time he was really going to have to work for their approval.
"Don't look so horrified," Jin said. "How hard can it be? Don't you ever tell your niece bedtime stories?"
"Don't talk to me." Kame surveyed the room, which was filling up at alarming rate. There must've been thirty Juniors in there, all curled up on the floor in their pyjamas, hugging pillows and eating sweets when they thought no one was watching. "It's your fault we're stuck here doing Junior Storytime when everyone else has gone out. Next time you lose a bet with Koyama, don't take me down with you."
It was one of the agency's most ambitious programmes yet, calculated to appeal to the changing tastes of the modern audience. A televised talent training camp, featuring all the Juniors who could be spared, and as many of the debuted groups as they could round up to help with the lessons. The camp was to last a week, and even on Day 1, things weren't going well.
Oh, there was nothing major, once the staff had worked out that TOKIO were the ones smuggling in alcohol and had banned them from the premises. Just little things like Kanjani8 raiding the food supplies, Tegoshi conning the security guards into letting him out because he had a date, and the whole of KAT-TUN being thrown out of the dance classes for encouraging the Juniors to develop their own styles.
While everyone else was out on the town tonight learning how not to "go club, get drunk" as an example to the Juniors for how to behave in public when there was a risk of paparazzi, all the younger Juniors were left back at the camp to hear tales of Shige's imaginary cat, as Koyama had volunteered them both for babysitting duty.
Unfortunately for Kame, Jin and Koyama had taken bets on how long Yamapi would last teaching the acting class - five minutes, as it turned out - and Jin had lost, though only, as he pointed out, because he was thinking positively of his friend's talents. He'd bet twenty minutes. Koyama, having actually been in one of Yamapi's dramas, had bet five. Jin got babysitting duty, and when Kame asked if he'd even watched one of Yamapi's dramas lately, well, that was it, Kame was stuck being the other half of the double act.
It wasn't that Kame didn't like spending time with the Juniors - far from it - but somewhere out there was a barstool with his name on it, and TOKIO had taken all the alcohol with them when they'd been kicked out. At least there were no cameras. All the crew were out filming on location, so if Kame and Jin's Junior Storytime went badly, their humiliation would not be broadcast for all of Japan to see.
Once the final Junior was settled on the floor, Kame closed the door, careful not to step on anyone's favourite blanket, and took a seat at the front of the room. There were more colours than an Arashi PV, with kids dressed in anything from hot pink to lime green, and one enterprising soul wore leopard-print pyjamas. As cute as they looked, Kame knew they could turn vicious in an instant, especially if they'd had too much sugar.
"Do you want to start?" Jin asked. "If we bore them enough, they might fall asleep and we can sneak out."
Kame smacked him lightly round the back of the head. "We can't leave them alone. Just imagine what they could get up to! Crazed, sugar-high preteens in make-up and sparkles run riot through the streets, petting puppies and attracting stalkers as they go. You got us into this mess, so at least take it seriously."
He hadn't missed the insult, either. Fine. If Jin thought his stories were boring, Kame would make sure he had nothing to complain about this time.
"Everyone comfortable?" There was a half-hearted chorus of consent from the floor, so Kame continued. "I know you were expecting tales of Wagahai, but Shige's gone out to...uh...fail on the dancefloor, so you've got us instead."
The Juniors perked up at this and began shouting out story suggestions.
"Tell us what it's like dating a woman twice your age!"
"What's it like doing an AnAn photoshoot?"
"Can Akanishi-senpai tell us what he was thinking about when he wrote LOVEJUICE?"
Jin fought to keep a straight face. He didn't want to receive angry phone calls from thirty sets of parents. "Ask me again in ten years."
"In ten years they probably won't need to ask." Kame took a sip from his bottle of tea and wondered if he could get away with telling them stories about what really went on in KAT-TUN's dressing room when they were on tour. Probably not. He opted to go with the age-old tradition of children's stories the world over. "Once upon a time..."
There was a mass groan from the floor, and Kame could hear Jin snickering beside him. Undaunted, he continued with his tale. "In a faraway land there lived an evil sorcerer. One flash of his sadistic smile made giants quake in their boots, and there wasn't a man alive who wanted to get in a fistfight with him."
A tiny Junior in the front row interrupted with, "If he was a sorcerer, why would he use his fists? Wouldn't he zap them with evil spells instead?"
Kame smiled and patted the tiny one on the head. "Because the evil sorcerer was also obsessed with boxing and was in better shape than anyone else in the kingdom because he had a high tower built with thousands of stairs for him to run up and down."
"Was it higher than the Sunshine 60 building?" another Junior asked.
"Much higher than that," Jin said. "You have no idea how far this evil sorcerer runs every day."
"He wanted a good body," Kame said, giving Jin a look of thanks and getting inspiration at the same time, "because he was trying to get a beautiful prince to fall in love with him."
"Prince?" one of the Juniors repeated, sounding puzzled. "Isn't it usually a princess?"
Kame was running out of indulgent smiles. "Sometimes evil sorcerers like princesses. Sometimes they like princes. Sometimes they like both, and sometimes they don't like anyone at all. This one likes princes, okay?"
The Junior hid behind his pillow.
"This prince was one of the fairest creatures ever to grace a magazine cover. He had hair like chocolate curlicues, a smile that could melt an iceberg, and ankles so pretty they were practically a work of art. Whenever he went to a nightclub, the commoners would swoon at his feet and he always got free drinks."
"Hold it." Jin held up a hand. "What kind of fairytale has the prince going clubbing?"
"A modern one." In preparation for that trip he kept meaning to take to London, Kame kept up with the news from the UK. There always seemed to be royals going clubbing. "One night when the prince had drunk more than was good for him, he staggered outside to get some fresh air and that was when the evil sorcerer struck, whisking the prince away in a long black limousine.
"The sorcerer took the prince to the tower and locked him up on the top floor. There wasn't a lift, and since the prince was too drunk to manage all the stairs, the sorcerer had to use magic to take him up there. He'd been trying to court the prince for years, but the prince kept changing his cell phone and all of the sorcerer's mails were returned."
Jin gave him a suspicious look. "Would this prince happen to have a name?"
"Of course he had a name." Kame grinned wickedly. "His parents called him 'Jin', after his mother's favourite drink, only neither of them were very good at spelling."
This met with applause from the audience. Sure, they were young, but they knew revenge when they heard it.
"When Prince Jin sobered up, Ueda, for that was the evil sorcerer's name, tried in vain to make Jin fall in love with him. Good food, stylish accessories, Johnny Depp movies...nothing worked. Jin liked his freedom, and no matter how many nice presents Ueda gave him, he just couldn't be happy cooped up in a tower. He always dreamed that one day, a handsome prince would come to his rescue."
"Wait a minute," Jin protested. "Why can't the prince save himself? Why does he need to wait for another prince to come along and do it?"
"Because it's my story and I say so. How would Prince Jin escape, anyway? The door's locked, and if he goes out the window he won't be alive when he reaches the ground."
"Maybe he could overpower the evil sorcerer when he brings in the nice presents?"
Kame shook his head. "They get sent in by magic. Ueda's a smart evil sorcerer; he's not taking any chances."
"No wonder the prince doesn't want to go out with him," Jin sulked. "He doesn't seem like much of a people person."
A restless Junior in the back threw a piece of popcorn at him, which Jin caught and ate. Kame tried looking sullen to see if this would get him snacks too, but it didn't work.
"News of Prince Jin's kidnapping had spread throughout the kingdom. He was very popular with the people and everyone thought he should be rescued. Lots of brave knights tried to save him, but none of them could gain access to the tower. Even the best disguises were no match for Ueda's magic. Poor Prince Jin became very lonely, being stuck at the top of the tower by himself for such a long time, and the unhappier he felt, the faster his hair grew."
"I'm not seeing a connection," Jin said. "You're always saying your hair grows fast because you're perverted, not because you're unhappy."
Kame frowned at him. "Story for kids, remember? But fine, have it your way. The lonelier the prince felt, the more desperate he became to get laid, and the faster his hair grew. Better?"
The giggles from the floor said this was the version the Juniors preferred.
"The prince's hair grew so much it started to take over the room," Kame continued. "Ueda wouldn't let him have any sharp objects, so he didn't have any way to cut it. It was impossible to keep tidy, and Prince Jin grew resigned to wearing shirts with buttons for the rest of his life since he couldn't pull anything over his head without taking hours over it.
"Eventually, he managed to persuade Ueda to help him braid it, if only so he didn't accidentally suffocate himself while he slept. Even with sorcery it took them the better part of a day; when they were finished, Prince Jin had a long rope of hair that he left coiled in a corner - no matter how much he walked around his room, the bulk of his hair remained still."
"Didn't it get dirty?" one of the Juniors wanted to know.
"Magic," Kame said. "The evil sorcerer wanted the prince to remain clean and pretty forever, and he really didn't enjoy housework, so he enchanted the entire tower to keep everything spotless. Dishes cleaned themselves as soon as he was done eating, he never had to do laundry, and you never saw a single cobweb."
The back row, who all had chocolate-smeared faces and sticky fingers, sighed enviously.
"One day when Ueda was out conquering a neighbouring kingdom, Prince Jin had a visitor. All the local knights had already tried, but this fellow was a foreign prince who'd heard about the sorcerer's captive and decided it would make everyone think he was cool if he saved him. He'd also heard Jin was a bit of a looker, which helped, and there was a reward for anyone who freed him from the tower. And this heroic prince's name was-"
"Kamenashi-senpai!" yelled out one Junior.
"Kame-chan!" yelled another.
"Yamapi!" yelled a third, but he was quickly sat on by his peers.
Kame grinned and tried to look noble. "This prince's name was 'Kame', because the turtle was the symbol of his house, and he was almost entirely fearless. He wasn't keen on heights and he didn't like rollercoasters, but he was very good at throwing himself wholeheartedly into whatever he did. Having decided to rescue Prince Jin, he packed a bag, jumped in his car and set off immediately for the tower.
"He was a polite young man, so he started off by ringing the doorbell. When no one answered he circled the tower to search for another way in. The only other entrance he could find was a window at the very top, almost too far away for him to see."
"There were no other windows in the tower?" Jin asked. "That sounds like a major design flaw."
"Stop poking holes in my architecture!"
"I'm just saying-"
Kame increased the volume of his story. "Prince Kame took a megaphone from his bag and shouted up to the top of the tower. Prince Jin didn't have a megaphone, but he did have a voice so strong it could be heard even from the very last row at the Tokyo Dome, and that was sufficient for Kame to make out his words. Jin told him Ueda was away, so the only way in or out of the tower was through that single window.
"Prince Kame was an excellent athlete but even he couldn't climb the tower, so he yelled up to ask Jin if there was a rope or anything available."
Jin wasn't amused by the way Kame kept talking over him, and leapt in the moment Kame paused to take a breath. "Prince Jin said he needed to borrow a pair of scissors and some very strong hair ties. Kame was puzzled, but he understood when Jin's braid appeared through the window. His hair was now so long that it reached almost to the ground, but he couldn't climb down his own hair and it would hurt if Kame climbed up, so the only way to do it was to cut the whole thing off, tie it to the bed, and climb down to freedom." He turned to Kame. "That was what you were going to say, right?"
"Close enough," Kame said. "I was going to have a sword, though. It sounded more fairytale-like." He took over the tale again. "Jin tied off both ends of the braid and used the scissors to shear his hair to its usual shoulder-length. Then he tied the improvised rope to the bed, dragged it across to the window, and began the long climb down."
"Prince Jin was very strong and he didn't slip even once," Jin chimed in. "When he reached the ground, he gave Kame a manly handshake and thanked him for helping out with the rescue."
"Helping out?" Kame sensed he was losing control of this story. "There wouldn't even have been a rescue if he hadn't shown up! Prince Kame returned the handshake and escorted Prince Jin to the car, where he lent him a cell phone and let him call home to tell his family he was free. While Jin was on the phone, Kame drove away quickly in case the evil sorcerer returned and demanded Jin be handed over."
"Not a piece of property," Jin grumbled.
"Was Prince Jin still desperate to get laid?" asked one of the Juniors in the middle. "When do we get to that part of the story?"
Kame wondered exactly what Tackey had been teaching these kids. "Uh...that happens later, after they're well away from Ueda's tower. And Prince Kame's car didn't have much of a backseat, so they thought they'd better wait until they got back to Prince Jin's home."
"And they took the scenic route," Jin said. "There were lots of beautiful forests between the tower and Prince Jin's home palace, and when the two princes stopped for a comfort break, they decided to take a stroll through the trees to stretch their legs."
"Where are you going with this?" Kame whispered. Jin's imagination was liable to wander off in all sorts of directions; there was no telling where they'd end up.
Jin flashed him a knowing smile. "You'll see. The princes walked through the forest, admiring the beautiful autumn leaves and talking about important things like how to change their respective nations to put an end to discrimination. They were having such a lovely time that they stopped keeping track of their steps, and by the time night started to fall, they were well and truly lost.
"Worse still, they hadn't eaten for hours, and both of them were starving."
"Prince Jin complains he's starving when he hasn't eaten for minutes," Kame sniped.
"And Prince Kame keeps forgetting to eat for days at a time," Jin said. "But at this point in the story, both men were ravenous, and wishing they'd miraculously find an Italian restaurant in the middle of the forest."
One particularly timid-looking Junior wearing squirrel pyjamas spoke up. "Couldn't they eat berries?"
Jin looked at Kame. Kame shrugged and said, "Being royalty, they didn't have much experience living off the land. No one had ever told them which berries were safe to eat, and they didn't want to risk getting sick - especially not when Prince Jin got sick so easily."
"Ah." The squirrel Junior nodded. "The princes were smart."
"If they were that smart, they'd use Prince Kame's phone to find their way out," the kid sitting next to him said.
Kame gave him a look that would've done Medusa proud. "He left the phone in the car to charge. No phone, no maps, no food - got it?"
While the front row quaked in their blankets, Jin gulped down a mouthful of soda. Storytelling was thirsty work.
It fell to Kame to pick up the slack. "The forest was dark and dangerous at night - the princes didn't dare stop for fear of being set upon by wolves. All they could do was keep walking, getting hungrier and hungrier, and hoping they'd find their way out of the forest soon."
Jin gave him a nod of approval. "Just when they thought they were going to collapse from hunger, guess what they found in the middle of a clearing?"
"A bento!" shouted a Junior in fuzzy slippers.
"A takoyaki stand!" yelled another from beneath his blanket.
"A pair of dead costume designers?" suggested a third, who clearly had an axe to grind.
"No," Jin said firmly. "No dead costume designers. They found a house made entirely of sweets!" He paused to enjoy the gasp that ran around the room. "The walls were thick, golden brown gingerbread, the roof was made from tiles of chocolate, the window frames were candy canes and the doorbell was a marshmallow. The house was even surrounded by a low fence made from slabs of fudge, decorated with streaks of chocolate. To the two hungry princes, it was the most wonderful thing they'd ever seen."
Kame hoped he knew where Jin was going with this. "They thought it couldn't hurt to have just a little nibble, could it? Maybe a few bites of a fence panel, or a chunk of the wall. Who'd miss it? No one could really live in an edible house, could they?"
"But someone did," Jin said solemnly. "Just as the princes were stuffing themselves with pieces of fudge fence, the owner of the house emerged." There was another gasp from the spellbound audience. "He was a short man with spiked blond hair, wearing a leopard-print robe, thick glasses, and more jewellery than Prince Kame had in his family treasury. The tattoos across his knuckles spelt 'JOKER', and he didn't look at all happy to see two strangers eating his fence."
"Until he got close enough to take a good look at Prince Kame," Kame said. "Then he became much friendlier and invited both princes in for a feast. His name was Koki and he said he didn't get much company, living out in the middle of a forest the way he did. Of course, it might have had something to do with the rap music blaring from his speakers..."
Jin smothered a giggle. "But Prince Jin liked the music, so he was happy to go in and sit inside the house, where all the furniture was normal and wouldn't melt when he sat on it, and wait for the feast to be ready. Koki had offered to let them spend the night, and said he'd show them how to get out of the forest in the morning.
"It sounded too good to be true...so of course, it was. When Prince Kame left the lounge to visit the bathroom, Koki overpowered Prince Jin by tickling his collarbone mercilessly with a feather and forced him into a cage in the corner of the kitchen. By the time the prince recovered, the door was locked, and the key dangled from one of Koki's many chains."
"Prince Jin is very unlucky, isn't he?" said one of the Juniors at the back. "First he got locked up in a tower, now he's locked up in a cage...does this mean his hair will grow really fast again?"
"It only worked in the tower because of Ueda's magic," Kame said. He didn't want to have to work a couple of miles of hair into the plot. "Besides, Prince Jin was feeling more angry than frustrated, and anger doesn't make your hair grow."
Jin was quite happy to leave the ridiculous explanations to Kame. "When Prince Kame returned from the bathroom, he found to his horror that instead of a grand feast, Koki had a maid's costume waiting for him, complete with a frilly little cap."
Kame's mouth dropped open. So did those of the Juniors, but for a different reason.
"What?" Jin muttered. "It's called revenge." He watched Kame turn all sorts of interesting shades as he continued with the tale. "Kame objected to the costume, but when he saw Prince Jin locked in the cage, he realised he had no choice but to wear it if they were going to get out of there. Koki had the only key, and Kame had to do what he said if he was to stand any chance of obtaining it.
"Kame changed into the costume, but he hated having to put up with Koki's obsessive, lustful stare, which burned with the heat of a thousand suns-"
It was Kame's turn to hold up a hand. "I don't think you've got any right to talk about anyone else's creepy staring, thanks." He'd been on the receiving end of Jin's stares for years, and while part of him was flattered, the rest of him wondered if his bandmate had secret stalker tendencies. "Prince Kame changed into the costume without any fuss, because that's the kind of guy he was, and when Koki told him to start cooking, he did so without complaint."
A Junior wearing tropical fish pyjamas was sceptical. "The prince knows how to cook?"
"He was a very practical prince," Jin explained. "He knew his way around a kitchen. Although he made dish after dish of delicious food, he wasn't allowed to eat any of it. Koki insisted it was all fed to Prince Jin to fatten him up."
"Because he had a fetish?" The question came from the same Junior who was so keen to see the story's rating jump up a few notches.
Jin gave him a withering look. "No, because he wanted to roast him in a giant oven until he was nice and crispy, cover him in sauce, and then eat him up. Princes are tasty, you know."
Kame wished the story didn't involve quite so many mentions of food - dinner had been hours ago, and the Juniors didn't look like they were willing to share their stash of forbidden sweets. "Prince Jin grew to like Prince Kame's cooking very much, but he was worried about putting on too much weight. Fortunately for them both, Koki's eyesight was very bad - he'd been partially blinded by the light reflecting off his own bling - and whenever Prince Kame passed Jin meals through the bars of the cage, he was able to keep some of the food back for himself, tucking it inside his apron for later. In this way, both princes managed to stay a reasonable size and shape."
"Prince Jin kept something back too," Jin added. "A bone from one of his meals. Every day, Koki made him hold out his finger to test if he'd grown fat enough to cook yet, and every day, the prince held out the bone. Because his eyesight was so bad, Koki never knew the difference, and it seemed to him that even Kame's delicious food wasn't helping.
"Eventually, Koki decided he was fed up of waiting. At this rate, Prince Jin would become old and tough, and Koki wanted to eat him while he was still young and tender. He told Kame to open the giant oven and clean it out in preparation for its latest victim, but Kame felt sure Koki intended to push him in and bake him as an appetizer."
Just to let the tension build to unbearable levels, Jin deliberately took small sips of his soda. Kame lost patience with him after the tenth of these and took over as storyteller himself. The sooner they finished the tale, the sooner he could go find food.
"Prince Kame had no intention of being eaten. He had no intention of letting Jin be eaten either, because if he returned Jin to his family, they were going to give him lots of nice rewards as a thank you, including Jin's hand in marriage." At Jin's warning look, he hastily amended this to, "Including the right to ask Jin for his hand in marriage. If he was interested, I mean.
"There was only one way Prince Kame could think of to save them both, and that was to pretend he wasn't strong enough to open the door of the giant oven. He wrung his hands, batted his eyelashes, moaned about how impossibly heavy the door was. No matter how much Koki berated him, he wouldn't open it so much as an inch. Enraged, Koki seized the handle, flung open the oven door-"
"-And screamed in anguish as Kame snatched the cage's key, jabbed him in the gut, and shut him in the oven while he was still trying to recover his breath," Jin finished. "Kame piled up as much furniture as he could in front of the door so Koki couldn't possibly escape, then unlocked the cage to set Prince Jin free."
"Prince Kame stopped him from actually switching the oven on," Kame said, just in case. "They still didn't know how to escape the forest, but after searching the house, they managed to find a map that led them out to where they remembered leaving the car."
"Was it still there?" the squirrel-loving Junior asked.
"Of course it was still there," Jin said. "It's a fairytale! There are no car thieves in fairytales. There aren't usually cars either, but still..."
The Juniors clamoured for more. "When do we get to the good bit?" the restless one with the popcorn asked. "Like in the comics my sister buys in Mandarake?"
Kame liked being in a family that was almost exclusively male. It meant that when he went home to visit, he didn't run the risk of tripping over pictures of himself doing things with Jin, things that were nobody's business but theirs, and certainly not up for discussion with thirty Juniors. The fanservice class wasn't supposed to be until Day 5 of the camp, anyway, and Kame had already been banned from teaching in case he caused nosebleeds. Telling the kids what happened when fanservice crossed over into real life was not what he'd had in mind when he'd started the story.
"I think that's the sort of thing best left to the kind of lyrical genius who can write songs like LOVEJUICE, don't you?" Kame knew he was reaching, but was desperate enough not to care. If he could hold them off for long enough, maybe one of the others would come back - possibly even sober enough to continue the story - and he could leave the task to someone else.
"Uh..." Jin tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace. He liked kids, he really did. Just not these kids, not when they were looking at him like he had the answers to all the questions their parents didn't think they were old enough to ask yet. That he probably had the answers was beside the point. "Um...when the princes reached the car..."
The Juniors all leaned forwards, eager to be enlightened.
"They...um...unlocked the doors..."
Thirty miniature sharks, some of them still bearing traces of glitter, hung on his every word.
"And...uh...turned on the radio..." Jin floundered until he noticed the door open and a familiar figure slip through the gap, bottle of beer in his hand and lovestruck gaze fixed firmly on Kame. "And Make U Wet was playing!"
Kame almost fell off his chair, he was laughing so hard. "That must've killed the mood!"
Poor Koki, completely unprepared, wandered to the front of the room to find out what was going on. "Killed what mood?"
"You're just in time." Jin clapped him on the shoulder. "We've reached a critical point in the story and Kame and I are out of ideas. We need fresh blood."
"We also need the bathroom," Kame said. "Both of us. Urgently. So how about you hold the fort for a few minutes? The Juniors can fill you in."
"But I just came back because you weren't answering your phone, and Tsubasa said someone had to check you were still here and hadn't skipped out," Koki protested. "Or killed each other."
Rising to his feet, Kame clapped Koki on the other shoulder. "Still here, still alive, not skipping out. We'll be back in a minute, but we really have to go." He turned to the Juniors. "Guys, you'll tell Koki where we're up to, won't you? Maybe he'll have some interesting ideas for how to continue the story. He's very, very creative."
"Well..." Koki grinned and took the seat Kame had vacated. "I guess I could help out for a little bit. You'd better take this away from the kids," he handed over the beer bottle, "and when you come back, I'll have injected some new life into your story."
Kame happily accepted the bottle, resisting the temptation to down the remainder in one gulp, and ushered Jin towards the door, breaking into a run the moment he'd slammed it behind them. He estimated they had maybe half a minute to get clear of the premises before Koki came after them.
"Look on the bright side," Jin panted as they reached the fence. "We'll never be allowed to do Junior Storytime again!"
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, fluff
Word count: 5,261
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: Kame and Jin are forced to get creative when they're left in charge of Junior Storytime.
A/N: More fairytales! This time 'Rapunzel' and 'Hansel and Gretel' are given the Akame twist. Crossposted to ficwars.
Camp Fire Tales
Kame had worked some tough crowds before, but this one took the cake. Greedy, demanding, impossible to satisfy - this wasn't one of those occasions when he could pacify them by removing his shirt, or winking seductively from under his fedora, or making out with the nearest KAT-TUN member. No, this time he was really going to have to work for their approval.
"Don't look so horrified," Jin said. "How hard can it be? Don't you ever tell your niece bedtime stories?"
"Don't talk to me." Kame surveyed the room, which was filling up at alarming rate. There must've been thirty Juniors in there, all curled up on the floor in their pyjamas, hugging pillows and eating sweets when they thought no one was watching. "It's your fault we're stuck here doing Junior Storytime when everyone else has gone out. Next time you lose a bet with Koyama, don't take me down with you."
It was one of the agency's most ambitious programmes yet, calculated to appeal to the changing tastes of the modern audience. A televised talent training camp, featuring all the Juniors who could be spared, and as many of the debuted groups as they could round up to help with the lessons. The camp was to last a week, and even on Day 1, things weren't going well.
Oh, there was nothing major, once the staff had worked out that TOKIO were the ones smuggling in alcohol and had banned them from the premises. Just little things like Kanjani8 raiding the food supplies, Tegoshi conning the security guards into letting him out because he had a date, and the whole of KAT-TUN being thrown out of the dance classes for encouraging the Juniors to develop their own styles.
While everyone else was out on the town tonight learning how not to "go club, get drunk" as an example to the Juniors for how to behave in public when there was a risk of paparazzi, all the younger Juniors were left back at the camp to hear tales of Shige's imaginary cat, as Koyama had volunteered them both for babysitting duty.
Unfortunately for Kame, Jin and Koyama had taken bets on how long Yamapi would last teaching the acting class - five minutes, as it turned out - and Jin had lost, though only, as he pointed out, because he was thinking positively of his friend's talents. He'd bet twenty minutes. Koyama, having actually been in one of Yamapi's dramas, had bet five. Jin got babysitting duty, and when Kame asked if he'd even watched one of Yamapi's dramas lately, well, that was it, Kame was stuck being the other half of the double act.
It wasn't that Kame didn't like spending time with the Juniors - far from it - but somewhere out there was a barstool with his name on it, and TOKIO had taken all the alcohol with them when they'd been kicked out. At least there were no cameras. All the crew were out filming on location, so if Kame and Jin's Junior Storytime went badly, their humiliation would not be broadcast for all of Japan to see.
Once the final Junior was settled on the floor, Kame closed the door, careful not to step on anyone's favourite blanket, and took a seat at the front of the room. There were more colours than an Arashi PV, with kids dressed in anything from hot pink to lime green, and one enterprising soul wore leopard-print pyjamas. As cute as they looked, Kame knew they could turn vicious in an instant, especially if they'd had too much sugar.
"Do you want to start?" Jin asked. "If we bore them enough, they might fall asleep and we can sneak out."
Kame smacked him lightly round the back of the head. "We can't leave them alone. Just imagine what they could get up to! Crazed, sugar-high preteens in make-up and sparkles run riot through the streets, petting puppies and attracting stalkers as they go. You got us into this mess, so at least take it seriously."
He hadn't missed the insult, either. Fine. If Jin thought his stories were boring, Kame would make sure he had nothing to complain about this time.
"Everyone comfortable?" There was a half-hearted chorus of consent from the floor, so Kame continued. "I know you were expecting tales of Wagahai, but Shige's gone out to...uh...fail on the dancefloor, so you've got us instead."
The Juniors perked up at this and began shouting out story suggestions.
"Tell us what it's like dating a woman twice your age!"
"What's it like doing an AnAn photoshoot?"
"Can Akanishi-senpai tell us what he was thinking about when he wrote LOVEJUICE?"
Jin fought to keep a straight face. He didn't want to receive angry phone calls from thirty sets of parents. "Ask me again in ten years."
"In ten years they probably won't need to ask." Kame took a sip from his bottle of tea and wondered if he could get away with telling them stories about what really went on in KAT-TUN's dressing room when they were on tour. Probably not. He opted to go with the age-old tradition of children's stories the world over. "Once upon a time..."
There was a mass groan from the floor, and Kame could hear Jin snickering beside him. Undaunted, he continued with his tale. "In a faraway land there lived an evil sorcerer. One flash of his sadistic smile made giants quake in their boots, and there wasn't a man alive who wanted to get in a fistfight with him."
A tiny Junior in the front row interrupted with, "If he was a sorcerer, why would he use his fists? Wouldn't he zap them with evil spells instead?"
Kame smiled and patted the tiny one on the head. "Because the evil sorcerer was also obsessed with boxing and was in better shape than anyone else in the kingdom because he had a high tower built with thousands of stairs for him to run up and down."
"Was it higher than the Sunshine 60 building?" another Junior asked.
"Much higher than that," Jin said. "You have no idea how far this evil sorcerer runs every day."
"He wanted a good body," Kame said, giving Jin a look of thanks and getting inspiration at the same time, "because he was trying to get a beautiful prince to fall in love with him."
"Prince?" one of the Juniors repeated, sounding puzzled. "Isn't it usually a princess?"
Kame was running out of indulgent smiles. "Sometimes evil sorcerers like princesses. Sometimes they like princes. Sometimes they like both, and sometimes they don't like anyone at all. This one likes princes, okay?"
The Junior hid behind his pillow.
"This prince was one of the fairest creatures ever to grace a magazine cover. He had hair like chocolate curlicues, a smile that could melt an iceberg, and ankles so pretty they were practically a work of art. Whenever he went to a nightclub, the commoners would swoon at his feet and he always got free drinks."
"Hold it." Jin held up a hand. "What kind of fairytale has the prince going clubbing?"
"A modern one." In preparation for that trip he kept meaning to take to London, Kame kept up with the news from the UK. There always seemed to be royals going clubbing. "One night when the prince had drunk more than was good for him, he staggered outside to get some fresh air and that was when the evil sorcerer struck, whisking the prince away in a long black limousine.
"The sorcerer took the prince to the tower and locked him up on the top floor. There wasn't a lift, and since the prince was too drunk to manage all the stairs, the sorcerer had to use magic to take him up there. He'd been trying to court the prince for years, but the prince kept changing his cell phone and all of the sorcerer's mails were returned."
Jin gave him a suspicious look. "Would this prince happen to have a name?"
"Of course he had a name." Kame grinned wickedly. "His parents called him 'Jin', after his mother's favourite drink, only neither of them were very good at spelling."
This met with applause from the audience. Sure, they were young, but they knew revenge when they heard it.
"When Prince Jin sobered up, Ueda, for that was the evil sorcerer's name, tried in vain to make Jin fall in love with him. Good food, stylish accessories, Johnny Depp movies...nothing worked. Jin liked his freedom, and no matter how many nice presents Ueda gave him, he just couldn't be happy cooped up in a tower. He always dreamed that one day, a handsome prince would come to his rescue."
"Wait a minute," Jin protested. "Why can't the prince save himself? Why does he need to wait for another prince to come along and do it?"
"Because it's my story and I say so. How would Prince Jin escape, anyway? The door's locked, and if he goes out the window he won't be alive when he reaches the ground."
"Maybe he could overpower the evil sorcerer when he brings in the nice presents?"
Kame shook his head. "They get sent in by magic. Ueda's a smart evil sorcerer; he's not taking any chances."
"No wonder the prince doesn't want to go out with him," Jin sulked. "He doesn't seem like much of a people person."
A restless Junior in the back threw a piece of popcorn at him, which Jin caught and ate. Kame tried looking sullen to see if this would get him snacks too, but it didn't work.
"News of Prince Jin's kidnapping had spread throughout the kingdom. He was very popular with the people and everyone thought he should be rescued. Lots of brave knights tried to save him, but none of them could gain access to the tower. Even the best disguises were no match for Ueda's magic. Poor Prince Jin became very lonely, being stuck at the top of the tower by himself for such a long time, and the unhappier he felt, the faster his hair grew."
"I'm not seeing a connection," Jin said. "You're always saying your hair grows fast because you're perverted, not because you're unhappy."
Kame frowned at him. "Story for kids, remember? But fine, have it your way. The lonelier the prince felt, the more desperate he became to get laid, and the faster his hair grew. Better?"
The giggles from the floor said this was the version the Juniors preferred.
"The prince's hair grew so much it started to take over the room," Kame continued. "Ueda wouldn't let him have any sharp objects, so he didn't have any way to cut it. It was impossible to keep tidy, and Prince Jin grew resigned to wearing shirts with buttons for the rest of his life since he couldn't pull anything over his head without taking hours over it.
"Eventually, he managed to persuade Ueda to help him braid it, if only so he didn't accidentally suffocate himself while he slept. Even with sorcery it took them the better part of a day; when they were finished, Prince Jin had a long rope of hair that he left coiled in a corner - no matter how much he walked around his room, the bulk of his hair remained still."
"Didn't it get dirty?" one of the Juniors wanted to know.
"Magic," Kame said. "The evil sorcerer wanted the prince to remain clean and pretty forever, and he really didn't enjoy housework, so he enchanted the entire tower to keep everything spotless. Dishes cleaned themselves as soon as he was done eating, he never had to do laundry, and you never saw a single cobweb."
The back row, who all had chocolate-smeared faces and sticky fingers, sighed enviously.
"One day when Ueda was out conquering a neighbouring kingdom, Prince Jin had a visitor. All the local knights had already tried, but this fellow was a foreign prince who'd heard about the sorcerer's captive and decided it would make everyone think he was cool if he saved him. He'd also heard Jin was a bit of a looker, which helped, and there was a reward for anyone who freed him from the tower. And this heroic prince's name was-"
"Kamenashi-senpai!" yelled out one Junior.
"Kame-chan!" yelled another.
"Yamapi!" yelled a third, but he was quickly sat on by his peers.
Kame grinned and tried to look noble. "This prince's name was 'Kame', because the turtle was the symbol of his house, and he was almost entirely fearless. He wasn't keen on heights and he didn't like rollercoasters, but he was very good at throwing himself wholeheartedly into whatever he did. Having decided to rescue Prince Jin, he packed a bag, jumped in his car and set off immediately for the tower.
"He was a polite young man, so he started off by ringing the doorbell. When no one answered he circled the tower to search for another way in. The only other entrance he could find was a window at the very top, almost too far away for him to see."
"There were no other windows in the tower?" Jin asked. "That sounds like a major design flaw."
"Stop poking holes in my architecture!"
"I'm just saying-"
Kame increased the volume of his story. "Prince Kame took a megaphone from his bag and shouted up to the top of the tower. Prince Jin didn't have a megaphone, but he did have a voice so strong it could be heard even from the very last row at the Tokyo Dome, and that was sufficient for Kame to make out his words. Jin told him Ueda was away, so the only way in or out of the tower was through that single window.
"Prince Kame was an excellent athlete but even he couldn't climb the tower, so he yelled up to ask Jin if there was a rope or anything available."
Jin wasn't amused by the way Kame kept talking over him, and leapt in the moment Kame paused to take a breath. "Prince Jin said he needed to borrow a pair of scissors and some very strong hair ties. Kame was puzzled, but he understood when Jin's braid appeared through the window. His hair was now so long that it reached almost to the ground, but he couldn't climb down his own hair and it would hurt if Kame climbed up, so the only way to do it was to cut the whole thing off, tie it to the bed, and climb down to freedom." He turned to Kame. "That was what you were going to say, right?"
"Close enough," Kame said. "I was going to have a sword, though. It sounded more fairytale-like." He took over the tale again. "Jin tied off both ends of the braid and used the scissors to shear his hair to its usual shoulder-length. Then he tied the improvised rope to the bed, dragged it across to the window, and began the long climb down."
"Prince Jin was very strong and he didn't slip even once," Jin chimed in. "When he reached the ground, he gave Kame a manly handshake and thanked him for helping out with the rescue."
"Helping out?" Kame sensed he was losing control of this story. "There wouldn't even have been a rescue if he hadn't shown up! Prince Kame returned the handshake and escorted Prince Jin to the car, where he lent him a cell phone and let him call home to tell his family he was free. While Jin was on the phone, Kame drove away quickly in case the evil sorcerer returned and demanded Jin be handed over."
"Not a piece of property," Jin grumbled.
"Was Prince Jin still desperate to get laid?" asked one of the Juniors in the middle. "When do we get to that part of the story?"
Kame wondered exactly what Tackey had been teaching these kids. "Uh...that happens later, after they're well away from Ueda's tower. And Prince Kame's car didn't have much of a backseat, so they thought they'd better wait until they got back to Prince Jin's home."
"And they took the scenic route," Jin said. "There were lots of beautiful forests between the tower and Prince Jin's home palace, and when the two princes stopped for a comfort break, they decided to take a stroll through the trees to stretch their legs."
"Where are you going with this?" Kame whispered. Jin's imagination was liable to wander off in all sorts of directions; there was no telling where they'd end up.
Jin flashed him a knowing smile. "You'll see. The princes walked through the forest, admiring the beautiful autumn leaves and talking about important things like how to change their respective nations to put an end to discrimination. They were having such a lovely time that they stopped keeping track of their steps, and by the time night started to fall, they were well and truly lost.
"Worse still, they hadn't eaten for hours, and both of them were starving."
"Prince Jin complains he's starving when he hasn't eaten for minutes," Kame sniped.
"And Prince Kame keeps forgetting to eat for days at a time," Jin said. "But at this point in the story, both men were ravenous, and wishing they'd miraculously find an Italian restaurant in the middle of the forest."
One particularly timid-looking Junior wearing squirrel pyjamas spoke up. "Couldn't they eat berries?"
Jin looked at Kame. Kame shrugged and said, "Being royalty, they didn't have much experience living off the land. No one had ever told them which berries were safe to eat, and they didn't want to risk getting sick - especially not when Prince Jin got sick so easily."
"Ah." The squirrel Junior nodded. "The princes were smart."
"If they were that smart, they'd use Prince Kame's phone to find their way out," the kid sitting next to him said.
Kame gave him a look that would've done Medusa proud. "He left the phone in the car to charge. No phone, no maps, no food - got it?"
While the front row quaked in their blankets, Jin gulped down a mouthful of soda. Storytelling was thirsty work.
It fell to Kame to pick up the slack. "The forest was dark and dangerous at night - the princes didn't dare stop for fear of being set upon by wolves. All they could do was keep walking, getting hungrier and hungrier, and hoping they'd find their way out of the forest soon."
Jin gave him a nod of approval. "Just when they thought they were going to collapse from hunger, guess what they found in the middle of a clearing?"
"A bento!" shouted a Junior in fuzzy slippers.
"A takoyaki stand!" yelled another from beneath his blanket.
"A pair of dead costume designers?" suggested a third, who clearly had an axe to grind.
"No," Jin said firmly. "No dead costume designers. They found a house made entirely of sweets!" He paused to enjoy the gasp that ran around the room. "The walls were thick, golden brown gingerbread, the roof was made from tiles of chocolate, the window frames were candy canes and the doorbell was a marshmallow. The house was even surrounded by a low fence made from slabs of fudge, decorated with streaks of chocolate. To the two hungry princes, it was the most wonderful thing they'd ever seen."
Kame hoped he knew where Jin was going with this. "They thought it couldn't hurt to have just a little nibble, could it? Maybe a few bites of a fence panel, or a chunk of the wall. Who'd miss it? No one could really live in an edible house, could they?"
"But someone did," Jin said solemnly. "Just as the princes were stuffing themselves with pieces of fudge fence, the owner of the house emerged." There was another gasp from the spellbound audience. "He was a short man with spiked blond hair, wearing a leopard-print robe, thick glasses, and more jewellery than Prince Kame had in his family treasury. The tattoos across his knuckles spelt 'JOKER', and he didn't look at all happy to see two strangers eating his fence."
"Until he got close enough to take a good look at Prince Kame," Kame said. "Then he became much friendlier and invited both princes in for a feast. His name was Koki and he said he didn't get much company, living out in the middle of a forest the way he did. Of course, it might have had something to do with the rap music blaring from his speakers..."
Jin smothered a giggle. "But Prince Jin liked the music, so he was happy to go in and sit inside the house, where all the furniture was normal and wouldn't melt when he sat on it, and wait for the feast to be ready. Koki had offered to let them spend the night, and said he'd show them how to get out of the forest in the morning.
"It sounded too good to be true...so of course, it was. When Prince Kame left the lounge to visit the bathroom, Koki overpowered Prince Jin by tickling his collarbone mercilessly with a feather and forced him into a cage in the corner of the kitchen. By the time the prince recovered, the door was locked, and the key dangled from one of Koki's many chains."
"Prince Jin is very unlucky, isn't he?" said one of the Juniors at the back. "First he got locked up in a tower, now he's locked up in a cage...does this mean his hair will grow really fast again?"
"It only worked in the tower because of Ueda's magic," Kame said. He didn't want to have to work a couple of miles of hair into the plot. "Besides, Prince Jin was feeling more angry than frustrated, and anger doesn't make your hair grow."
Jin was quite happy to leave the ridiculous explanations to Kame. "When Prince Kame returned from the bathroom, he found to his horror that instead of a grand feast, Koki had a maid's costume waiting for him, complete with a frilly little cap."
Kame's mouth dropped open. So did those of the Juniors, but for a different reason.
"What?" Jin muttered. "It's called revenge." He watched Kame turn all sorts of interesting shades as he continued with the tale. "Kame objected to the costume, but when he saw Prince Jin locked in the cage, he realised he had no choice but to wear it if they were going to get out of there. Koki had the only key, and Kame had to do what he said if he was to stand any chance of obtaining it.
"Kame changed into the costume, but he hated having to put up with Koki's obsessive, lustful stare, which burned with the heat of a thousand suns-"
It was Kame's turn to hold up a hand. "I don't think you've got any right to talk about anyone else's creepy staring, thanks." He'd been on the receiving end of Jin's stares for years, and while part of him was flattered, the rest of him wondered if his bandmate had secret stalker tendencies. "Prince Kame changed into the costume without any fuss, because that's the kind of guy he was, and when Koki told him to start cooking, he did so without complaint."
A Junior wearing tropical fish pyjamas was sceptical. "The prince knows how to cook?"
"He was a very practical prince," Jin explained. "He knew his way around a kitchen. Although he made dish after dish of delicious food, he wasn't allowed to eat any of it. Koki insisted it was all fed to Prince Jin to fatten him up."
"Because he had a fetish?" The question came from the same Junior who was so keen to see the story's rating jump up a few notches.
Jin gave him a withering look. "No, because he wanted to roast him in a giant oven until he was nice and crispy, cover him in sauce, and then eat him up. Princes are tasty, you know."
Kame wished the story didn't involve quite so many mentions of food - dinner had been hours ago, and the Juniors didn't look like they were willing to share their stash of forbidden sweets. "Prince Jin grew to like Prince Kame's cooking very much, but he was worried about putting on too much weight. Fortunately for them both, Koki's eyesight was very bad - he'd been partially blinded by the light reflecting off his own bling - and whenever Prince Kame passed Jin meals through the bars of the cage, he was able to keep some of the food back for himself, tucking it inside his apron for later. In this way, both princes managed to stay a reasonable size and shape."
"Prince Jin kept something back too," Jin added. "A bone from one of his meals. Every day, Koki made him hold out his finger to test if he'd grown fat enough to cook yet, and every day, the prince held out the bone. Because his eyesight was so bad, Koki never knew the difference, and it seemed to him that even Kame's delicious food wasn't helping.
"Eventually, Koki decided he was fed up of waiting. At this rate, Prince Jin would become old and tough, and Koki wanted to eat him while he was still young and tender. He told Kame to open the giant oven and clean it out in preparation for its latest victim, but Kame felt sure Koki intended to push him in and bake him as an appetizer."
Just to let the tension build to unbearable levels, Jin deliberately took small sips of his soda. Kame lost patience with him after the tenth of these and took over as storyteller himself. The sooner they finished the tale, the sooner he could go find food.
"Prince Kame had no intention of being eaten. He had no intention of letting Jin be eaten either, because if he returned Jin to his family, they were going to give him lots of nice rewards as a thank you, including Jin's hand in marriage." At Jin's warning look, he hastily amended this to, "Including the right to ask Jin for his hand in marriage. If he was interested, I mean.
"There was only one way Prince Kame could think of to save them both, and that was to pretend he wasn't strong enough to open the door of the giant oven. He wrung his hands, batted his eyelashes, moaned about how impossibly heavy the door was. No matter how much Koki berated him, he wouldn't open it so much as an inch. Enraged, Koki seized the handle, flung open the oven door-"
"-And screamed in anguish as Kame snatched the cage's key, jabbed him in the gut, and shut him in the oven while he was still trying to recover his breath," Jin finished. "Kame piled up as much furniture as he could in front of the door so Koki couldn't possibly escape, then unlocked the cage to set Prince Jin free."
"Prince Kame stopped him from actually switching the oven on," Kame said, just in case. "They still didn't know how to escape the forest, but after searching the house, they managed to find a map that led them out to where they remembered leaving the car."
"Was it still there?" the squirrel-loving Junior asked.
"Of course it was still there," Jin said. "It's a fairytale! There are no car thieves in fairytales. There aren't usually cars either, but still..."
The Juniors clamoured for more. "When do we get to the good bit?" the restless one with the popcorn asked. "Like in the comics my sister buys in Mandarake?"
Kame liked being in a family that was almost exclusively male. It meant that when he went home to visit, he didn't run the risk of tripping over pictures of himself doing things with Jin, things that were nobody's business but theirs, and certainly not up for discussion with thirty Juniors. The fanservice class wasn't supposed to be until Day 5 of the camp, anyway, and Kame had already been banned from teaching in case he caused nosebleeds. Telling the kids what happened when fanservice crossed over into real life was not what he'd had in mind when he'd started the story.
"I think that's the sort of thing best left to the kind of lyrical genius who can write songs like LOVEJUICE, don't you?" Kame knew he was reaching, but was desperate enough not to care. If he could hold them off for long enough, maybe one of the others would come back - possibly even sober enough to continue the story - and he could leave the task to someone else.
"Uh..." Jin tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace. He liked kids, he really did. Just not these kids, not when they were looking at him like he had the answers to all the questions their parents didn't think they were old enough to ask yet. That he probably had the answers was beside the point. "Um...when the princes reached the car..."
The Juniors all leaned forwards, eager to be enlightened.
"They...um...unlocked the doors..."
Thirty miniature sharks, some of them still bearing traces of glitter, hung on his every word.
"And...uh...turned on the radio..." Jin floundered until he noticed the door open and a familiar figure slip through the gap, bottle of beer in his hand and lovestruck gaze fixed firmly on Kame. "And Make U Wet was playing!"
Kame almost fell off his chair, he was laughing so hard. "That must've killed the mood!"
Poor Koki, completely unprepared, wandered to the front of the room to find out what was going on. "Killed what mood?"
"You're just in time." Jin clapped him on the shoulder. "We've reached a critical point in the story and Kame and I are out of ideas. We need fresh blood."
"We also need the bathroom," Kame said. "Both of us. Urgently. So how about you hold the fort for a few minutes? The Juniors can fill you in."
"But I just came back because you weren't answering your phone, and Tsubasa said someone had to check you were still here and hadn't skipped out," Koki protested. "Or killed each other."
Rising to his feet, Kame clapped Koki on the other shoulder. "Still here, still alive, not skipping out. We'll be back in a minute, but we really have to go." He turned to the Juniors. "Guys, you'll tell Koki where we're up to, won't you? Maybe he'll have some interesting ideas for how to continue the story. He's very, very creative."
"Well..." Koki grinned and took the seat Kame had vacated. "I guess I could help out for a little bit. You'd better take this away from the kids," he handed over the beer bottle, "and when you come back, I'll have injected some new life into your story."
Kame happily accepted the bottle, resisting the temptation to down the remainder in one gulp, and ushered Jin towards the door, breaking into a run the moment he'd slammed it behind them. He estimated they had maybe half a minute to get clear of the premises before Koki came after them.
"Look on the bright side," Jin panted as they reached the fence. "We'll never be allowed to do Junior Storytime again!"