You're Beautiful: Chapter 2
The Argument!
“He didn’t show up?”
“I guess it shows how arrogant he is...”
“Oh be quiet, he’s just 18. How arrogant can he be?”
“Well maybe he’s proud....”
“Or maybe he’s just not punctual...”
“Or forgetful?”
“And that’s not bad?”
“Ooii, ooi, Suzuki san you promised ne...Where is he? Do you know how much money is on the line?”
Yabu opened his eyes blearily.
“Will they ever shut up?” Yamada asked lying on the couch with his eyes under a big pink cushion. Hikaru shrugged as he and Inoo continued to draw a marker mustache on a snoozing Takaki as Chinen watched with interest. Yuto was p eeking into the meeting room through a glass window covered in shades.
The wall that separated the lounge and the meeting room was quite soundproof, but the door hadn’t shut properly, hence the commotion inside the room could be heard by anyone who bothered to listen in the lounge.
“It’s been such a long day, where do they get the energy to argue so much?...” Yuto sighed.
“And what’s this person they are talking about? What money?” Daiki looked up drying his wet hair.
“Some management stuff I’m assuming...I’m beat...” Hikaru groaned, settling himself next to Yabu looking mischievously satisfied.
Takaki was now awake, but still extremely drowsy. His confused expressions at Chinen’s chuckling made his moustached face look even funnier.
The door burst open revealing five people, including their Manager, Kitagawa Reiko san, then two women who very obviously looked like their publicists and another two people they had seen on and off on sets. One of these two, the man, who was their Assistant Manager, Suzuki Kousaku kept bowing to the others in apology, and the lady next to him was the groups own beautician, Nina. She cast a slight smile at the exhausted boys, which they replied, than continued looking grumpy at the group.
“We’ll discuss this later, but Suzuki...” Reiko pointed at the man who kept bowing.
“Hai...” Suzuki said looking as if he had been electrocuted.
“You better have everything settled within this week, our company is not ready to lose that kind of cash” she said sternly at which Suzuki bowed again and quickly walked out of the room, closely followed by Nina.
“Okay as for the rest of you, keep your eyes peeled for any more letters or emails from those companies. Any funny business, don’t hesitate, just report to me immediately.”
The other three nodded and moved out of the room, and by the sound of it, had broken into an argument once again in the hallway.
Reiko turned to look at the boys, who were looking as if they were forcing themselves to stay awake just to hear what had happened. Although some of them, mainly Yamada and Keito, had already dozed off into deep sleep.
“Is everything...okay?” Yuto asked.
Everyone else stared at Reiko uneasily. She sighed.
“Okay, I’m afraid there is something you boys have to deal with for a while...but I don’t know how to tell you this...”
“Nani? Nani?” Hikaru asked anxiously, Yuto quickly pushed both Keito and Yamada forcing them to wake up.
“Well...” she sighed again and placed her arms around her waist, looking troubled.
“You’ve gotta tell us sometime, these arguments haven’t been going unnoticed you know...” Yabu said gently and Inoo nodded.
Reiko forced a smile. “I know I know....okay, here it goes.... Some companies you were, well we signed a contract with them. You know to do some advertisements, and one company was going to do the music video decor, and well...quite a few others including public appearances on certain game shows...we, well we can’t do them now, so they....they want to sue us, big time....”
“Ehhhh?” Yamada stared snapping out of his sleepy trance.
All of them stared in each other worriedly, until Chinen voiced out the same question that was on everyone else’s mind.
‘Why..? Why can’t we do these activities?”
“Yeah, if it’s about time, we’ll squeeze...I mean I can hold off of sleep for a while...” Yamada said looking concerned as the others nodded.
“Yeah, who needs sleep?...” Takaki muttered sarcastically staring enviously at Keito who had refused to wake up.
“We’ll manage som...” Daiki started but Reiko stopped him.
“It’s not like that...” she said smiling at the boys who stared back even more confused.
“Then what?” Yuto asked.
“Well, the contract was signed for 10 members of Jump. So basically, we can’t go on without our tenth member...we go against their terms...”
The boys became silent. That was something they couldn’t fix...their missing tenth member.
“But, how important is it to be ten. Can’t they work with nine?” Inoo asked breaking the silence.
“They said the prepared for that number, and it cost them money. I mean of course we thought it wouldn't matter much so we never looked into it, but apparently it does. So now we are being sued if we call quits. We would ignore it if it was one thing, but these are like 8 companies suing us at the same time. That’s... too much money...I mean even if we did an emergency concert, we wouldn’t be able to pay back within the time limit....”
“Which companies are these?” Yamada stood up grumpily only to be held back by Yuto.
“Down boy....” he muttered at which Chinen and Daiki sniggered. Yamada stared at Yuto with a blank face. “Very funny....but I’m not working for them”
The boys looked around the circle hoping one of them would come up with a brilliant solution, but no one made any noise, except for Keito who was snoring. It really did seem like a hopeless situation.
Yabu looked up at Reiko seriously. “So, what happens now?”
Reiko bit her lip. “...We are bringing someone in....”