Strive For Something Better Ch4

[ryunuka]

Finally this chapter is done, I expected to have it finished quicker than this, nevermind though, it somehow all got finished in one go today, I wanted to finish the next chapter of WitD as well but I think I'll try to do that tomorrow, then I'll get SaNH done on Friday.
Anways, douzo: 

STRIVE FOR SOMETHING BETTER - CHAPTER 4

Ueda bit his lip as he glanced across the rehearsal room at Kanjani8, or in particular, the member of Kanjani8 also sometimes known as the yellow ranger.

He seemed constantly cheerful when he was with Kanjani8, like their silly, ever joyful attitude was contagious, a virus he caught whenever he was near them. He had an almost constant smile, wide and bright and half the time he spent laughing.

He couldn’t hold back a soft smile as Yassu came up behind Ryo and practically jumped on his back with a sing-song shout of ‘Ryo-chan~’. Ryo stumbled and his smile faltered in his surprise but by the time Subaru had plucked his friend off his back and was smacking him over the head Ryo was smiling again and when Ohkura wandered over to wrap his arms around Yassu’s waist, lifting him clean off the floor and swinging him in circles he started laughing again.

Ueda watched for another moment as Maruyama and Subaru started play acting some skit they had seen somewhere, thinking about the undeniable member ai that group held. It wasn’t a term he was fond of ‘member ai’. If only because it felt like yet another thing that was expected of them all, like part of a job description, plus the fact that it’s main purpose was for image only.

He couldn’t deny that the groups with the most member ai had to be Arashi and Kanjani8. They had all always been friends and got along all the time. He looked back around at his band-mates and felt a fond smile creeping across his features as he watched Jin talk with Koki, gesturing enthusiastically, but as he came to the end of his rant Koki made a comment to which Jin responded by simultaneously laughing and smacking him over the head.

KAT-TUN had started off with so little member ai they could have coined the term ‘member kirai’, fighting all the time, refusing to get along, attempting to rebel against the decision to stay together, but it took barely a year for friendships to develop. Of course, Kame and Jin had already been close, so perhaps that had paved the way for the rest of them. Koki and Maru had struck up a kind of friendship-team and being the last remaining two of the six he and Junno had found themselves talking and hanging out and getting along surprisingly well. Kame and Koki got along brilliantly too and he and Maru had been getting closer and closer all the time, and before they knew it KAT-TUN had developed a member ai that could rival Kanjani8’s, even if they did still argue all the time.

It had been a shock to hear the previous year that NEWS had wanted to be friends just like KAT-TUN were, a pleasant shock to discover that the members of NEWS envied them their level of closeness, and even now that they were all much closer they still compared themselves to an essentially younger band.

“Oi, Uepi!” Ueda was tugged from his reverie as Junno called over to him. When he looked up he found himself gulping involuntarily as he saw that Junno, Kame and Maru were sat in a sort of half circle around Kame’s dressing table.

Having offered for Kanjani8 to use the practice space first KAT-TUN had opted to spend their time waiting for their first turn sitting around on the chairs surrounding the dressing tables off to one side of the room. Jin and Koki had been talking animatedly about Christ-knows-what for at least a quarter of an hour now, leaving the rest of the group to converse or flick through magazines or in Ueda’s case, stretch in preparation for their turn, as for some reason he felt he wouldn’t be able to keep still if he just sat and read. The thing was that ten minutes into his stretch he had sat up and noticed the antics of the band across the room and had ended up drawing up his leg, hugging his knee to his chest instead of stretching it and he had been sitting that way for a good five minutes, his stretching forgotten until Junno had called him over.

He made a show of pretending to tighten the laces of the red sneakers he wore to practice in and slowly stood up, dusting of his grey sweat pants, advancing slowly, warily towards his three eerily smiling friends.

“Guys…why are you looking at me like you’re going to throw me in a frying pan with liberal amounts of soy sauce?” he asked, glancing at each of their faces and their creepy smiles in turn, rubbing one arm with the opposite hand uneasily. Junno caught the edge of his t-shirt and tugged him slowly closer.

“Don’t look at us like that Tat-chan, we’re not going to eat you,” Kame said but his tone and his expression were still highly unsettling. Allowing himself to be pulled closer Ueda dropped hesitantly into a vacant chair, facing the three grins. After a moment, in which it took great personal restraint to prevent himself from rising and either fleeing from the room or adopting a fighting stance, Nakamaru finally spoke up.

“What are you planning to do Tat-chan?” the question caught him slightly off guard.

“Eh?”

“About Nishikido,” Kame supplied, his grin widening.

“Eh!?” was all Ueda could say.

“What are you thinking of doing about it Uepi?” Junno asked eagerly, leaning closer. Ueda leant back without thinking, gripping his seat.

“Guys! Seriously, could you drop the grins, you’re creeping me out!” Kame just laughed and leaned one elbow on his dressing table.

“Tat-chan, you’re not getting anywhere by sitting on the floor and staring at him!” Ueda’s eyes narrowed in annoyance as he felt his cheekbones heat up.

“I was stretching,” he muttered, knowing full well how unconvincing he sounded. Nakamaru’s raised eyebrows confirmed that for him anyway.

“Sure, to begin with,” he muttered. Ueda glared at him for a moment before sighing and leaning forward on his knees.

“You know, if you two knew already, you could have told me, like before I made this plan to become closer to him,” Kame raised one eyebrow.

“Like you’d have believed us if we’d tried!” He’s got an annoyingly good point there.

“Look, Tat-chan, don’t you think your idea of becoming closer and more civil with Nishikido-kun may have come from what you were feeling without realising it?” Ueda looked up at him quizzically.

“If you were already falling in love with him but didn’t realise it, maybe that’s where your idea came from,” Ueda sighed and dropped his head again.

“Maybe, but if I’d known I probably wouldn’t have come up with that plan, or at least not in the same way,” he sighed and glanced over at Ryo and his band-mates again. They were going over the opening moves of the dance they’d perform with their song, and just as Ueda looked over, Maruyama missed a step, tripped over his own feet and went sprawling into Yokoyama who in turn fell into Ohkura who grabbed Ryo’s arm as he fell. Ueda blinked at the scene, all four of them sitting on the floor, laughing hysterically, Murakami, Subaru and Yassu standing over them giggling madly. Ohkura tried to stand up and failed as he was laughing too hard. Ryo lay back on the floor, shaking with laughter before Maruyama helped him to his feet, apologising between fits of laughter.

Ueda smiled for a moment before he watched Murakami come up behind Ryo and pull him the rest of the way to his feet, looping an arm around his shoulders and smiling down at him, brushing invisible dust off his shoulder. He felt his smile twitch, though he wasn’t quite sure why. That’s not jealousy is it? He wondered.

Turning back to his band-mates he saw they were all looking at him with knowing grins. Rolling his eyes he reached out, and as Junno was closest, whacked his head.

“What did I say about looking at me like that?” he said flatly.

Junno was about to respond when a figure at the door suddenly caught their attention.

“Ryo-tan~!”

~~~

Ryo grinned at Shingo as he pretended to brush dust off his clothes and squirmed from his grip, swatting playfully at his hands. This rehearsal was turning out to be a hell of a lot more fun than he had anticipated, and so far Ueda had stayed across the room with his group. He had smiled and waved briefly when they had arrived, but since then he hadn’t even looked at him which was a relief. Though Ryo still couldn’t figure out what his game was, where this sudden friendly attitude had come from.

As he was, without thinking, glancing across at the man in question, who was currently sitting with Taguchi, Nakamaru and Kamenashi, leaning forward on his knees and looking like he was only half listening to whatever it was Kamenashi was saying, the door somewhere behind him swung open and his name suddenly snatched him from his own thoughts.

“Ryo-tan~!”

Ryo spun in shock just in time to see Tegoshi run towards him and launch himself into Ryo’s arms. Nearly falling over again at the sudden armful of a small blond bundle of smiles, Ryo steadied himself, holding onto Tegoshi as well before pushing the smaller man away to look at him in confusion.

“Tego-nyan? What are you doing here?” Tegoshi’s smile was blinding as he answered.

“NEWS aren’t doing anything until later on so I decided to come see you practice, Yamapi said it was okay, it is isn’t it?” the curious, enquiring look on his face as he said this last part was so cute that Ryo also choked on thin air. He sighed and smiled, stroking his hair a little.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he said. The second the words were out of his mouth Tegoshi’s smile widened and brightened all over again and the rest of Kanjani8 grinned. Suddenly Shingo slung an arm around Ryo’s neck, holding his chin between his thumb and forefinger and turning his face towards him.

“Come on Ryo-chan, we know he’s cute but you can’t stare at him all day, we have practice remember,” he punctuated the word ‘remember’ by gently tapping the end of Ryo’s nose with his forefinger. Ryo grinned and shoved him off, lightly tapping his nose in reply before turning back to Tegoshi and steering him over to some chairs close by.

“You can watch from here, we’ll go on a break soon so KAT-TUN can practice too,” Tegoshi shot him another winning smile and an obedient nod, and Ryo beamed back at him before turned and rejoining his group, completely missing the glare Tegoshi shot at Shingo, along with the smug smirk Shingo sent back.

Ueda however, looking up in their direction again, didn’t miss them.

~~~

Having turned away from the people across the room in favour of stretching again, Ueda was half listening to Kame again and half musing on the tangled state his life seemed to have fallen into.

“Honestly Tat-chan, I don’t see why you’re hesitating,” Kame was saying. Ueda sighed.

“Because I’m not masochist?” he said flatly, not looking at his band-mate as he leaned forward to stretch his right leg. He could almost feel Kame’s eye roll. Suddenly Maru was sitting on the floor next to him, leaning back on his hands.

“You just wanted to aim at friends right?” Ueda glanced at him through his hair, wondering where this was going and nodded apprehensively.

“Then stay with that plan, don’t worry about what may or may not come after that,” Ueda gave a short, humourless laugh.

“There wouldn’t be an ‘after that’ Yuu, I’d have to be senile to even begin to entertain the idea that Nishikido could ever possibly love me back,” he lowered his head to hide the look of surprised pain that crossed his face at his own words. That was the first time he or anyone else had said it like that and the bare reality presented to him by his own hand was eerily akin to being punched in the chest…and he knew exactly what that felt like. Somehow this seemed to hurt more.

Nakamaru sighed.

“I still think you should try and be friends with him, even if you didn’t feel the way you do I have to admit it’s an admirable idea, trying to be civil with the person you used to fight with constantly,” Ueda sighed.

“Won’t it hurt more?” he asked quietly.

“Won’t it hurt more in the end to get so much closer and suddenly hit a wall I can never climb?” Nakamaru leaned forward and rested his hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe, maybe not,” was all he said and Ueda sighed again, switching legs and continuing to stretch for a moment before he looked up at his friends again, who was still smiling at him.

“Alright,” he said quietly, “I came up with this plan for a reason in the first place right? I guess I can add another reason to this list now,” Nakamaru grinned and turned to look up at Kame and Junno who were also grinning.

As he turned back to continue stretching he happened to glance across the room again. He watched for a second as Ryo lead Tegoshi to a chair and then turned to return to his band-mates. Ueda was about to do the same when he caught the look on Tegoshi’s face. It was a scary look, the scariest he had ever seen the boy wear, a glare to rival Ryo’s.

And what’s more, he noticed, the glare was directed at Murakami, and Murakami was giving him back a look just as evil if not more so.

What the hell is wrong with them?

~~~

Ryo flopped into his chair, dropping his towel over his face. Dancing and fooling with K8 for a half an hour had been surprisingly tiring, and he was glad to give KAT-TUN the chance to practice for a while. He dragged his towel from his face and glanced over at them.

They seemed to be doing better than Kanjani8 had; they were getting further in memorising their steps and were managing not to get completely sidetracked. Though on closer inspection he could tell they were still managing to have fun.

He smiled as he watched Jin deliberately mess up a move which had him crashing head on into Kamenashi who looked surprised as hell when he was met, not with open air and instead with Jin’s chest. Jin wrapped his arms around him as he stumbled.

“Oops! Sorry Kazu-chan!” Jin said, mock apologetic. Kame just rolled his eyes and smiled.

“Jin, quit distracting me!” he said, mock annoyed. Koki and Maru laughed and imitated their actions, wrapping their arms around each other, over dramatic expressions on their faces while Taguchi and Ueda stood and watched, laughing, until Kamenashi finally managed to disentangle himself from Jin’s arms.

“Alright, alright, come on let’s get this right,” he said, still grinning.

They carried on dancing, and as a mock punishment for Kamenashi’s reprimanding him Jin started up the old game they had once played during the making of their SIGNAL PV. Ryo grinned over his shoulder.

“Kame!” Jin said, causing Kamenashi to glance over at him warily. Koki caught on instantly.

“Kame!” at this Kame just rolled his eyes, fighting off a smile. The dance lead him in twirl past both Maru and Junno who called after him in unison.

“Kame!” spinning back to face them, though still keeping up with the dance Kame glared through his smile.

“Hana, hage, ago!”* once again Koki, Junno and Ueda almost collapsed laughing, though how they managed to carry on dancing despite their hysterics was beyond Ryo’s understanding. He himself almost fell off his chair with silent laughter when all five of them glanced at each other and in unison:

“KAME!” this time they had to stop dancing again as their laughter was too much when they caught the look on Kame’s face, but soon he too was laughing with them.

“Come on guys, seriously, we’ve almost got these steps down,” Ueda recovered first and nudged Junno and Maru back into their starting positions, reaching over to smack Koki over the head, leaving Jin for Kame to deal with.

Ryo turned from their antics to find that Tegoshi was no longer sitting next to him. He brushed it off, assuming he had gone to the bathroom or something and glanced up at his mirror, his eyes landing on Ueda.

He was concentrating on getting the dance right, and was actually doing a good job, despite the things he used to say about his dancing ability and when they stopped to go back to the beginning and start again he tossed his bangs out of his eyes and looked up at Nakamaru, smiling and nodding at something he said before responding.

He looked incredibly…innocent. All he was doing was practicing a dance with his group, breaking his concentration only to smile and laugh with his band-mates. Since he’d been concentrating so hard on his practice he hadn’t looked over Ryo and all of a sudden Ryo felt confused.

Is he really plotting against me? He wondered, watching KAT-TUN’s practice for a moment longer before turning to lean on his dressing table, glancing over a couple of schedule sheets without really seeing them. Besides smiling at him and talking to him in a friendly way, all Ueda had done was help him when he hurt himself, not to mention showing genuine concern for him the next day. That wasn’t a bad thing; on the contrary it was a fantastic thing, that he cared so much when Ryo had once been so unkind to him. To put it mildly.

He glanced back up at Ueda’s reflection in his mirror, at his look of absolute concentration, then looked back down at his table again.

He knew Ueda wasn’t ugly like he had once told him, he hadn’t really meant those insults that much, he had once thought his dancing talent was almost non-existent, and a few years ago his singing was untrained and unrefined in all honesty, but it was also constantly improving, and he heard Ueda’s solo from the DON’T U EVER STOP single. Even though he didn’t think he’d ever admit it to him, he thought Ueda’s voice on that track, not to mention the lyrics and the music he had composed, was beautiful.

Even if he had taken things too far during their those days, and had said some unnecessary things, he hadn’t really wanted to hurt Ueda with his words, and now he couldn’t help but feel a little stupid for it. But he really thought that because of what had happened between them when they were juniors, despite the letters of reconciliation they had read out to each other on Shounen Club, Ueda truly disliked him, maybe even hated him, but his actions over the past few days had him utterly confused. If Ueda hated him he wouldn’t act like this unless, he was planning something, like payback for humiliating him when they were younger. But hadn’t Pi said…

Ueda-kun isn’t the type to plan something so childish, or hold petty grudges…

Ueda really seemed to have moved on from his junior days, he had moved from the long blonde style that hardly suited him, to a pretty black style with a reddish highlight, to the style he had now, soft brown that curled slightly at the back and fell over his eyes. This suited him and he had stuck to it. More than that he had his own style in everything from clothing to his music and he looked like he was happy most of the time now.

Still…

Why? Why the sudden attitude change? They had been steadily ignoring each other for almost four years hadn’t they? They had kept their distance and barely spoken to avoid arguments. So why this sudden change of heart now?

Why?

~~~

“Ugh! I’m exhausted, what’s with all the arm movements in that routine?” Nakamaru wailed. Ueda raised one eyebrow and smirked, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his towel.

“Aren’t you always moving your arms around when you beatbox anyway? What’s the problem with the dance? I didn’t think it was so hard,” Nakamaru opened one eye and glared at him with it.

“You’re a boxer, nothing tires you out any more!” Ueda grinned and shrugged. Junno suddenly flopped into the seat beside them.

“Uepi I’m tired, how much more practice are we going to do? I thought we all got the steps already!” Ueda rolled his eyes and nodded his head at Kame and Jin. The latter had his head in the former’s lap, nuzzling into Kame’s touch as he stroked his hair.

“You’re such a baby sometimes Jin,” Kame muttered reaching for his water bottle. Ueda grinned.

“Jin keeps forgetting the steps to the part where Yuu beatboxes, Kanjani8 are gonna have the floor for a while then we’ll go over it a couple more times, then we’re done,” he grinned as Koki groaned and buried his face in his arms.

“Akanishi you’re hopeless!”he moaned. Jin sat up indignantly.

“Oi! I am not, that part is really hard, it has all these precise little moves and stuff!” Ueda and Kame giggled behind their hands.

“Besides Koki, Jin and Yuu are carrying the vocals on this one so give him a break,” Ueda said, falling into the role of mothering them all again. He sighed and got to his feet.

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” Koki looked sulky for a moment before he turned to Ueda with a mock puppy-dog expression that made Ueda twitch slightly.

“Those eyes don’t suit you at all; don’t look at me like that!”

“Uepopu, I’m thirsty too!” Junno suddenly sat up.

“Me too Uepi!” Ueda glanced from one to the other looking incredulous.

“What am I, your slave? Get it yourself!” Kame and Jin suddenly looked up too.

“You’re the only one who’s not tired!”

“Oi! Kame’s not tired either!” Kame pouted and Ueda almost flinched back from the sight. Kawaii.

“I am tired!” Jin leaned forward imploringly.

“U-chan, please!” U-chan?

“Uebo!”

“Uepopu!”

“Uepi!”

“What’s with the onslaught of nicknames, alright, alright, I’ll get you a drink, geez you’re all such children sometimes!” he threw up his hands and wandered from the room.

Standing in front of the vending machines he stared at the drinks for a moment before pulling himself together and slotting in the change, selecting the drinks and carrying them, three in each hand, back to the room.

As he entered he slowed slightly as he glanced over at Kanjani8’s practice. They were actually managing to get somewhere with their dance and seemed to have almost completely memorised it. At least that was what he thought until Ryo suddenly miss stepped, stumbled, and in an effort not to crash into Yokoyama who was dancing next to him ended up turning and falling forwards, seemingly over his own feet…

…straight into Ueda’s arms.

Without thinking he had dropped all six cans in favour of catching Ryo, looping his arms around his back and stumbling slightly as he fought to keep them both upright, Ryo’s arms landing on his, his hands gripping his shoulders.

Kanjani8, at the sound of the fallen cans all turned to see Ryo being held up by Ueda, who looked shocked and confused. KAT-TUN also had looked up and were staring at the strange sight. Nobody moved for a moment, and then Ueda managed to dislodge his tongue, forcing it to remember how to work.

“A-Are…Are you okay?” he asked, slightly hoarsely. Ryo struggled to stand on his own, staring at Ueda, completely dumbfounded for a moment before realising Ueda was still holding him and his hands were still grasping Ueda’s shoulders. He let go abruptly, a strawberry blush creeping over his cheekbones and burning his ears.

“Y-Yeah, uh, s-sorry about that…” he stuttered. They both bent, suddenly, at the same time to retrieve the fallen drinks cans from the ground. Ryo put the three he had picked up into Ueda’s arms, balancing them carefully. Ueda found himself smiling back at him brightly.

“Thanks,” Ryo shook his head, still shaken and somewhat embarrassed.

“No, uh, thank you, not sure what happened there, sorry,” Ueda shook his head, still smiling, despite the fact that his heart was now beating so hard and so fast he thought he might faint, and he was sure his violent heartbeat must be moving his t-shirt up and down at an incredible rate.

“That’s okay, be careful though, maybe…maybe your leg still needs to heal a little,” Ryo blinked.

“Y-Yeah, uh, maybe,” he said quietly. Ueda smiled at him again and turned away to return to his band-mates. He wordlessly handed them their drinks before sitting back at his dressing table, staring wide-eyed at his mirror. Nakamaru and Kame exchanged glances. Koki and Jin looked at each other as if to say ‘what just happened?’ Nakamaru leaned across towards Ueda, gingerly touching his arm.

“Uh, Tat-chan, are you okay,” Ueda glanced across the room, then back at Nakamaru, nodding slowly.

“What happened?”

“He…tripped,” he muttered. Slowly he raised one hand and pressed it to his chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of his heart against his palm through the material of his t-shirt.

“And…you caught him?” Ueda nodded, Maru grinned and glanced at kame who also grinned.

“That’s so romantic!”

“Eh!?”

“He fell, you caught him, and you were holding him, that’s so sweet Tat-chan!” Ueda glared at him.

“It wasn’t on purpose, I did it without thinking!” he said. But his heart was still beating as though he had taken a whole pack of caffeine pills. He really hadn’t thought before he caught him, but Ryo’s arms on his shoulders, his body pressed against his and his face looking at him in wide-eyed surprise from such a short distance…

He swallowed and glanced back over at Ryo, who had returned to his practice with a slightly perplexed expression on his face. In his effort to calm both his thoughts and his heart rate he failed to notice the look of calculating venom on Tegoshi’s face from the doorway, and the look of determined malice on Murakami’s as he stood beside him.

つづく

A/N Finally that chapter is done. It took a surprisingly long time. I wanted to have the next instalment of WitD up today but it’s not quite done and I have to study T^T. I promise I am working on my other mutli-chaps, and for those who wanted to see a sequel to What Are We Doing? I’m working on that right now as well, hope it’s all going to be up to scratch. I’ll update as quickly as I can. Anyway, hope you enjoy, comments are always appreciated ^_^

*Oh yeah, if you haven’t seen the making of video for the SIGNAL PV, one, you really should it’s hilarious, and two, what Kame says up there basically means ‘bald, nose, chin’. Because he’s trying to get back at Koki, Maru and Jin respectively for teasing him, he said the same thing in the making of. Althought Koki doesn't shave his head anymore :P
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