Ghosts
I'm back! And as I said, I have another fanfiction! Please comment, feedback is love! This story is called 'Ghosts' and no, it has NOTHING to do with the supernatural.
This is an excerpt from Popolo’s {Arashi crosstalk}Arashi has suffered a tragic accident, will you continue on as idols?
All: …No
Sakurai ShoFlash
“Can you comment on your current feelings?”
“No comment.”
Flash
“In Popolo, Arashi wrote that they will disband, is this certain?”
“No comment.”
Flash
“It is said you were in the car when he died, is this true?”
I turned around and snapped angrily, “Just leave me alone!” The recorder the man was holding was snatched out of his hand and thrown on the floor with such force that a cracking sound accompanied it.
The numerous reporters stopped taking pictures and holding their recorders to eagerly jot down the fact that ‘Sakurai Sho had just lashed out’. I pushed past uncaringly. I never was much of a patient person and now that this…incident…had happened, I neither cared nor worried what others thought. As I entered the green room, the others looked at me sadly. I knew they had probably seen it; the window gave a perfect view after all. I shrugged half heartedly and plopped down on the couch beside me. Riida laid a hand on my thigh and gave me a concerned look in which I didn’t respond to. I tiredly ran a hand through my hair and rummaged through my bag to find my script for this week’s Zero. It wasn’t that I needed to remember my lines, I had read it so many times already, but at least it looked like I’m doing something. That’s when Julie stormed in.
“You!” she growled, “You better get off your pitiful ass and start acting like an idol!” The other members turned around as to be sure they would not have to take part.
She continued, “Those reporters will have a field day now, all because you could not control your temper!”
“So let them!” I growled back, “Let them, we’re not going to be idols soon anyway!”
“Just because Aiba is dead doesn’t mean you can start acting like a child in the entertainment world!” Julie snapped, but then she looked up in horror at what she had said.
She had mentioned information that was like a silent taboo…
Aiba is dead.
A chair was flown across the room as Matsujun stood up and strode towards the door and slammed it. I took no notice.
Aiba…
Is…
Dead…
Tears pricked at my eyes as I saw Julie look at me and then the door helplessly.
It was my fault…
My fault…
All mine…
A scream could be heard, probably in my mind. Flashing lights?
Ah, the accident…
I fainted.
Again.
Ninomiya KazunariMy eyes snapped open.
I tried to breathe in deeply, trying to stop my hyperventilation and racing heart.
Today was worse than before.
Since the incident, I had been suffering from insomnia. It was hard to sleep and when I did I would wake up in the middle of the night from another nightmare.
Or, rather, the same nightmare repeated. Sho may blame himself, but the truth was I was in the car too. I too saw the whole damn thing. Every night, I was plagued by dreams of that night. It was quite surprising really. During 24 hour TV when everyone was crying, I just smiled fondly. I’m not an emotional person. Except even after everyone had taken it hard, only I suffered from insomnia. Not that I was suffering the most. We all had problems with ourselves at the moment and for a second I cursed Aiba. Why did he have to give us so much pain? I immediately took it back because the reason was that Aiba was the sun, and without him we would never have been that happy. If he wasn’t so special, we wouldn’t be like this now. I grunted and tossed around to try and go back to the limited time of sleep I had left. My mind unsurprisingly went back to that night.
“Sho-chan~, Nino~, Matsujun~, Riida~,” Aiba called happily, his eyes shining, “Let’s go for a drive!”
J groaned, “Again?”
Aiba nodded, “It’s all stuffy in here, we have some free time and we NEVER do anything together anymore!”
Sho smiled gently, “Sure I’ll go.”
I smirked, “Like I have anything better to do. What about J and Oh-chan?”
“Sorry,” J said apologetically, “I need to run over my script, maybe next time?”
“I need my sleep,” was all Oh-chan said.
Sho laughed, “Alright, alright, next time then.”
Aiba cheered, “Alright! I’ll drive.” He took his keys from his pocket and raced towards his fancy sports car. He always did love flashy cars. As the engine began to purr, he started to grin and I could not help but smile back. Sho too, I noticed. As the car began to move, we began to laugh as Aiba excitedly opened up the roof. I stuck my hands out casually, loving the feel of the wind on my fingers. Aiba turned up the radio just as ‘Endless Game’ was playing.
“Arienai koto bakari sa
Mukai shika nai no sa
Seihirei ni miete
Kono omoi wa hanpirei
Wakaranai koto bakari sa
Demo mitai mono ga aru
Owarinaki sekai
Kurikaesu crazy game”
We all laughed as the song came to an end.
“Who knew you could play such an evil character, Sho-chan!” piped up Aiba.
Sho laughed, “I always love testing myself.”
“You’re too much of a work-a-holic, you should join my world,” I added. Everyone, including me, began to think about what would happen if Sho started my lifestyle where 80 percent of my life was playing video games. We all laughed at how ridiculous that sounded.
“No, I think I’m good,” sniggered Sho before his eyes widened, “Watch out!” An animal had just run right in front of the car. Aiba swerved to the right, crashing into the side. I felt my body jolt forwards and an airbag fly into my face. The radio crackled with static. I could hear someone screaming and blood. A lot of it. Just pooling…and pooling…
Behind me, another car had pulled up and yelling something with ‘police’ in it and ‘ambulance’ and ‘oh my god, I know them!” I looked up, feeling dizzy, just in time to notice flashing lights coming towards me. Then it all went dark.
I woke up, my clothes clinging to my body and hair stuck to my face from sweat.
I cursed.
Matsumoto JunIt was raining as I walked home, my umbrella still scrunched up in my bag. My hair was dripping water on the floor as I walked in, but I paid no notice. I shook off my clothes to put new ones on almost mechanically. I then poured myself a glass of wine and turned the TV on, but when I noticed that it was a rerun of an old Arashi episode (when we were a five), I turned it off. I shuffled around to grab a book and pulled a random one off the shelf. It was Pink to Gray which was given to me by Kato-san himself. I read the first few pages and sighed, closing the book. My thoughts were elsewhere today, back to the days when we were all happy. Everyone had taken it hard, they had lost a best friend, but I had lost a lover. It was a secret, we were going to tell the members soon, but now there was no point. I don’t even really remember how it started. He had come up to my house, drenched, talking about how his secret relationship with Becky was over. He had cried over a two year relationship that was now gone and then one thing lead to another and he stayed the night. When we woke, his ‘sorry’s’ was all that I heard. When I shook my head and told him it was fine, I got the response I wanted. In a matter of seconds, a smile spread his face and then slowly mine. We would meet every so often, many times just to talk. All the time he would come full of sunshine, and I welcomed it. Soon enough we became official and we were so happy. We had this routine even. I would wake up beside him, kiss him on the forehead, and make him breakfast. We would then go to work and see the other members. When it was time to go home, as to not make the paparazzi suspicious, I would leave before him, and he would take another path to my house. We would then spend the rest of the time enjoying each other’s company. Later, it got tiring trying to hide from the paparazzi and so we decided to move in together, as friends. I thought back to all the memories I had of him and smiled at one particular memory.
“Jun, I’m ho~me!” Masaki said happily. I grinned as Masaki followed his nose to find his dinner of pasta. With a sloppy kiss on my cheek, an ‘itadakimasu~’, he ate his food hungrily.
“Mmmm,” he sighed joyfully, “It tastes sooo good~”
“Glad you liked it,” I said delightfully. I took his plate when he had finished so I could wash it. A pair of arms encircled me. Masaki’s face had rummaged into my hair.
“I wish I could be as useful as Jun-chan~” he mumbled, “Ne, ne, Jun, what would you like?”
I sighed, “I don’t need anything, Masaki.”
“But you always give me things, I need to give you something in return!” he protested. I laughed at his cuteness. As I dried the last of the dishes, I turned to face him.
“I’m serious,” I told him, “All I want is you.”
Masaki laughed and pulled me into a tighter hug, kissing me sweetly, “Your wish shall be granted!” after a thoughtful pause, he then added, “Promise~” I blushed and avoided eye contact, rubbing the top of his head affectionately.
“Ow~ Jun!”
I snickered.
“All I want is you,” I repeated softly, absentmindedly brushing away the tears that had run down my face, “Only you.” I swirled my wine glass around, watching the red liquid as it turned into blood and began to feel sick. I raced towards the bathroom, chucking up my salad into the sink. I slid down the wall, scrunching myself into a ball, the side of my mouth had a piece of broken up lettuce, but I didn’t care.
“Masaki,” I whispered, “Why did you lie? It was such a simple promise…but you’re gone.”
Ohno SatoshiI’m Riida, my job is to lead. To take care of the group, but right now I could do nothing but watch helplessly. I watched as Sho fainted over and over, as Nino would wake up in cold sweat, as Jun would throw up all the food he ate. Sho now constantly needed a bodyguard beside him to catch him and we had to tread carefully, because one mention of that name and he would be out like a light. Nino now would look tired and mess up his lines or something like that. Jun just looked thinner and his eyes constantly red and face blotched to the point where he had a personal make up artist who would follow him everywhere. I was not much better. I suffered from hallucinations and when I was quiet and calm before, I was now very much loud. I felt like I had disappointed my group. Even I could not be strong when they needed support. I even needed them to support me, calming me down when I saw another ‘vision’ of Aiba in front of me stone dead just like in the hospital. I hated myself so much. I still tried to support them, constantly giving them words of encouragement, but they were all halfhearted and they too knew it. Aiba’s death had really hit us hard. I sat in the green room and even though we had free time, we did not chat, just stared at nothing absentmindedly. It was funny really. Aiba had died just a little under a month now, but we still acted like he had died just yesterday. This really showed how much we had gone through together. I remember Aiba crying to me. He kept telling me that maybe he should quit Arashi. He had the least fans (not by much) and he wasn’t as great as the others.
“Matsujun has this coolness, Sho-chan has this gentle Ivy League feel, Nino has this sweet brattiness and heartfelt music, you have the dance and voice,” he had told me, “What do I have?”
“Happiness,” I had replied, “You are the most cheery person I have ever met, not to mention the cutest.”
If Aiba had gone, we would have lost that. Now I know how hard it is without him. A beep on my phone told me I had a message and, sighing, I checked it.
Subject: Cheer up!
From: Ikuta Toma
Hi!
I no u aren’t the happiest at the moment but let’s meet up at the restaurant u wanted 2 go 2 @ 6 2day.
C u~
IT
I replied with a ‘sure’ and with a nod to Arashi, I shuffled out the door. I got in the car with trembling hands (cars make me nervous now) and drove. In around half an hour, I was there and I got out to meet a smiley Toma. We greeted each other and talked about how we were and all that. I can’t really remember what we said, it was not that memorable, only after we got our food was it worth remembering.
“So,” Toma said nervously, “How is everyone after…that?”
I sighed, “Devastated to be honest.”
“Is it true you are really disbanding?”
We had talked about that over and over, deciding what the best option was, but as much as we loved this life, the ghost of Aiba was too much, “Yeah.”
Toma stared at me hard and piercingly, “Would Aiba-chan want that?”
I stopped chewing that piece of fish on my chopsticks. I had never thought about that. All this time, I had just spent my days wallowing in self pity; I never thought about what Aiba would want for us. Tears ran down my cheeks silently and Toma quickly apologised.
“No…” I whispered, “He would never have wanted this. He loves Arashi too much.” Toma smiled like I finally understood what the world had been telling me.
And I did.
“Hey Riida,” Aiba whispered, “No matter what, even if Nino quits, if Sho-chan died, if I disappeared…we would always be Arashi right?”
“…Always. Because Arashi is Arashi. But don’t think those things, okay?”
This is an excerpt from Wink Up’s interview with ArashiThe fans are crying, but they would still like to know one thing. What is the date of your retirement from the entertainment world?
Jun: Actually we have an announcement…
Nino: We hope the fans will continue to support us and to keep smiling!
Sho: We have decided to go on as a group of four
Ohno: Aiba would have liked that
This is an excerpt from Popolo’s {Arashi crosstalk}Arashi has suffered a tragic accident, will you continue on as idols?
All: …No
Sakurai ShoFlash
“Can you comment on your current feelings?”
“No comment.”
Flash
“In Popolo, Arashi wrote that they will disband, is this certain?”
“No comment.”
Flash
“It is said you were in the car when he died, is this true?”
I turned around and snapped angrily, “Just leave me alone!” The recorder the man was holding was snatched out of his hand and thrown on the floor with such force that a cracking sound accompanied it.
The numerous reporters stopped taking pictures and holding their recorders to eagerly jot down the fact that ‘Sakurai Sho had just lashed out’. I pushed past uncaringly. I never was much of a patient person and now that this…incident…had happened, I neither cared nor worried what others thought. As I entered the green room, the others looked at me sadly. I knew they had probably seen it; the window gave a perfect view after all. I shrugged half heartedly and plopped down on the couch beside me. Riida laid a hand on my thigh and gave me a concerned look in which I didn’t respond to. I tiredly ran a hand through my hair and rummaged through my bag to find my script for this week’s Zero. It wasn’t that I needed to remember my lines, I had read it so many times already, but at least it looked like I’m doing something. That’s when Julie stormed in.
“You!” she growled, “You better get off your pitiful ass and start acting like an idol!” The other members turned around as to be sure they would not have to take part.
She continued, “Those reporters will have a field day now, all because you could not control your temper!”
“So let them!” I growled back, “Let them, we’re not going to be idols soon anyway!”
“Just because Aiba is dead doesn’t mean you can start acting like a child in the entertainment world!” Julie snapped, but then she looked up in horror at what she had said.
She had mentioned information that was like a silent taboo…
Aiba is dead.
A chair was flown across the room as Matsujun stood up and strode towards the door and slammed it. I took no notice.
Aiba…
Is…
Dead…
Tears pricked at my eyes as I saw Julie look at me and then the door helplessly.
It was my fault…
My fault…
All mine…
A scream could be heard, probably in my mind. Flashing lights?
Ah, the accident…
I fainted.
Again.
Ninomiya KazunariMy eyes snapped open.
I tried to breathe in deeply, trying to stop my hyperventilation and racing heart.
Today was worse than before.
Since the incident, I had been suffering from insomnia. It was hard to sleep and when I did I would wake up in the middle of the night from another nightmare.
Or, rather, the same nightmare repeated. Sho may blame himself, but the truth was I was in the car too. I too saw the whole damn thing. Every night, I was plagued by dreams of that night. It was quite surprising really. During 24 hour TV when everyone was crying, I just smiled fondly. I’m not an emotional person. Except even after everyone had taken it hard, only I suffered from insomnia. Not that I was suffering the most. We all had problems with ourselves at the moment and for a second I cursed Aiba. Why did he have to give us so much pain? I immediately took it back because the reason was that Aiba was the sun, and without him we would never have been that happy. If he wasn’t so special, we wouldn’t be like this now. I grunted and tossed around to try and go back to the limited time of sleep I had left. My mind unsurprisingly went back to that night.
“Sho-chan~, Nino~, Matsujun~, Riida~,” Aiba called happily, his eyes shining, “Let’s go for a drive!”
J groaned, “Again?”
Aiba nodded, “It’s all stuffy in here, we have some free time and we NEVER do anything together anymore!”
Sho smiled gently, “Sure I’ll go.”
I smirked, “Like I have anything better to do. What about J and Oh-chan?”
“Sorry,” J said apologetically, “I need to run over my script, maybe next time?”
“I need my sleep,” was all Oh-chan said.
Sho laughed, “Alright, alright, next time then.”
Aiba cheered, “Alright! I’ll drive.” He took his keys from his pocket and raced towards his fancy sports car. He always did love flashy cars. As the engine began to purr, he started to grin and I could not help but smile back. Sho too, I noticed. As the car began to move, we began to laugh as Aiba excitedly opened up the roof. I stuck my hands out casually, loving the feel of the wind on my fingers. Aiba turned up the radio just as ‘Endless Game’ was playing.
“Arienai koto bakari sa
Mukai shika nai no sa
Seihirei ni miete
Kono omoi wa hanpirei
Wakaranai koto bakari sa
Demo mitai mono ga aru
Owarinaki sekai
Kurikaesu crazy game”
We all laughed as the song came to an end.
“Who knew you could play such an evil character, Sho-chan!” piped up Aiba.
Sho laughed, “I always love testing myself.”
“You’re too much of a work-a-holic, you should join my world,” I added. Everyone, including me, began to think about what would happen if Sho started my lifestyle where 80 percent of my life was playing video games. We all laughed at how ridiculous that sounded.
“No, I think I’m good,” sniggered Sho before his eyes widened, “Watch out!” An animal had just run right in front of the car. Aiba swerved to the right, crashing into the side. I felt my body jolt forwards and an airbag fly into my face. The radio crackled with static. I could hear someone screaming and blood. A lot of it. Just pooling…and pooling…
Behind me, another car had pulled up and yelling something with ‘police’ in it and ‘ambulance’ and ‘oh my god, I know them!” I looked up, feeling dizzy, just in time to notice flashing lights coming towards me. Then it all went dark.
I woke up, my clothes clinging to my body and hair stuck to my face from sweat.
I cursed.
Matsumoto JunIt was raining as I walked home, my umbrella still scrunched up in my bag. My hair was dripping water on the floor as I walked in, but I paid no notice. I shook off my clothes to put new ones on almost mechanically. I then poured myself a glass of wine and turned the TV on, but when I noticed that it was a rerun of an old Arashi episode (when we were a five), I turned it off. I shuffled around to grab a book and pulled a random one off the shelf. It was Pink to Gray which was given to me by Kato-san himself. I read the first few pages and sighed, closing the book. My thoughts were elsewhere today, back to the days when we were all happy. Everyone had taken it hard, they had lost a best friend, but I had lost a lover. It was a secret, we were going to tell the members soon, but now there was no point. I don’t even really remember how it started. He had come up to my house, drenched, talking about how his secret relationship with Becky was over. He had cried over a two year relationship that was now gone and then one thing lead to another and he stayed the night. When we woke, his ‘sorry’s’ was all that I heard. When I shook my head and told him it was fine, I got the response I wanted. In a matter of seconds, a smile spread his face and then slowly mine. We would meet every so often, many times just to talk. All the time he would come full of sunshine, and I welcomed it. Soon enough we became official and we were so happy. We had this routine even. I would wake up beside him, kiss him on the forehead, and make him breakfast. We would then go to work and see the other members. When it was time to go home, as to not make the paparazzi suspicious, I would leave before him, and he would take another path to my house. We would then spend the rest of the time enjoying each other’s company. Later, it got tiring trying to hide from the paparazzi and so we decided to move in together, as friends. I thought back to all the memories I had of him and smiled at one particular memory.
“Jun, I’m ho~me!” Masaki said happily. I grinned as Masaki followed his nose to find his dinner of pasta. With a sloppy kiss on my cheek, an ‘itadakimasu~’, he ate his food hungrily.
“Mmmm,” he sighed joyfully, “It tastes sooo good~”
“Glad you liked it,” I said delightfully. I took his plate when he had finished so I could wash it. A pair of arms encircled me. Masaki’s face had rummaged into my hair.
“I wish I could be as useful as Jun-chan~” he mumbled, “Ne, ne, Jun, what would you like?”
I sighed, “I don’t need anything, Masaki.”
“But you always give me things, I need to give you something in return!” he protested. I laughed at his cuteness. As I dried the last of the dishes, I turned to face him.
“I’m serious,” I told him, “All I want is you.”
Masaki laughed and pulled me into a tighter hug, kissing me sweetly, “Your wish shall be granted!” after a thoughtful pause, he then added, “Promise~” I blushed and avoided eye contact, rubbing the top of his head affectionately.
“Ow~ Jun!”
I snickered.
“All I want is you,” I repeated softly, absentmindedly brushing away the tears that had run down my face, “Only you.” I swirled my wine glass around, watching the red liquid as it turned into blood and began to feel sick. I raced towards the bathroom, chucking up my salad into the sink. I slid down the wall, scrunching myself into a ball, the side of my mouth had a piece of broken up lettuce, but I didn’t care.
“Masaki,” I whispered, “Why did you lie? It was such a simple promise…but you’re gone.”
Ohno SatoshiI’m Riida, my job is to lead. To take care of the group, but right now I could do nothing but watch helplessly. I watched as Sho fainted over and over, as Nino would wake up in cold sweat, as Jun would throw up all the food he ate. Sho now constantly needed a bodyguard beside him to catch him and we had to tread carefully, because one mention of that name and he would be out like a light. Nino now would look tired and mess up his lines or something like that. Jun just looked thinner and his eyes constantly red and face blotched to the point where he had a personal make up artist who would follow him everywhere. I was not much better. I suffered from hallucinations and when I was quiet and calm before, I was now very much loud. I felt like I had disappointed my group. Even I could not be strong when they needed support. I even needed them to support me, calming me down when I saw another ‘vision’ of Aiba in front of me stone dead just like in the hospital. I hated myself so much. I still tried to support them, constantly giving them words of encouragement, but they were all halfhearted and they too knew it. Aiba’s death had really hit us hard. I sat in the green room and even though we had free time, we did not chat, just stared at nothing absentmindedly. It was funny really. Aiba had died just a little under a month now, but we still acted like he had died just yesterday. This really showed how much we had gone through together. I remember Aiba crying to me. He kept telling me that maybe he should quit Arashi. He had the least fans (not by much) and he wasn’t as great as the others.
“Matsujun has this coolness, Sho-chan has this gentle Ivy League feel, Nino has this sweet brattiness and heartfelt music, you have the dance and voice,” he had told me, “What do I have?”
“Happiness,” I had replied, “You are the most cheery person I have ever met, not to mention the cutest.”
If Aiba had gone, we would have lost that. Now I know how hard it is without him. A beep on my phone told me I had a message and, sighing, I checked it.
Subject: Cheer up!
From: Ikuta Toma
Hi!
I no u aren’t the happiest at the moment but let’s meet up at the restaurant u wanted 2 go 2 @ 6 2day.
C u~
IT
I replied with a ‘sure’ and with a nod to Arashi, I shuffled out the door. I got in the car with trembling hands (cars make me nervous now) and drove. In around half an hour, I was there and I got out to meet a smiley Toma. We greeted each other and talked about how we were and all that. I can’t really remember what we said, it was not that memorable, only after we got our food was it worth remembering.
“So,” Toma said nervously, “How is everyone after…that?”
I sighed, “Devastated to be honest.”
“Is it true you are really disbanding?”
We had talked about that over and over, deciding what the best option was, but as much as we loved this life, the ghost of Aiba was too much, “Yeah.”
Toma stared at me hard and piercingly, “Would Aiba-chan want that?”
I stopped chewing that piece of fish on my chopsticks. I had never thought about that. All this time, I had just spent my days wallowing in self pity; I never thought about what Aiba would want for us. Tears ran down my cheeks silently and Toma quickly apologised.
“No…” I whispered, “He would never have wanted this. He loves Arashi too much.” Toma smiled like I finally understood what the world had been telling me.
And I did.
“Hey Riida,” Aiba whispered, “No matter what, even if Nino quits, if Sho-chan died, if I disappeared…we would always be Arashi right?”
“…Always. Because Arashi is Arashi. But don’t think those things, okay?”
This is an excerpt from Wink Up’s interview with ArashiThe fans are crying, but they would still like to know one thing. What is the date of your retirement from the entertainment world?
Jun: Actually we have an announcement…
Nino: We hope the fans will continue to support us and to keep smiling!
Sho: We have decided to go on as a group of four
Ohno: Aiba would have liked that