A few Arashi ficlets
Nov. 12th, 2010 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciirceeThanks to the Random Word Generator I have written a few short fics.
That are probably massively depressing? I don't know. I'm over my issues and so I decided that--instead of celebrating my joy--I would take the emo path of Arashi hurting! Yay, me!
But if I may take a moment to be trite? It doesn't matter that Arashi will never know I'm out here being their fan, buying their stuff and making people listen to their music, and ~~supporting them~~. You know why it doesn't matter? Because it's the least I can do for the men who have given me the amazing gift of YOU. All of you who love me, like me, and just plain don't care who I am but I write things you want to read.
We'll ignore the fact that the other way I repay these guys is by writing pervy stories about them and the things they get up to. Sometimes with tape. You know. You can't tell me that Ohmiya don't approve of fanfic! They write their own!
Breakdown
They are a storm, moving fast and hard across Japan. The world. They're being run ragged trying to keep up with it. Aiba knows he's mixing metaphors but he doesn't care. He's tired and he has to keep a smile on his face. Normally smiling helps but now…now he's just so fucking tired. He takes a moment and stops in an empty hallway in the studio. It's late and dark outside and quiet inside. He braces his hands on the wall and let's his head hang, pushing and pushing and pushing.
"Masaki-kun."
It's Shimura Ken and so Aiba pushes away and stands up and smiles. "Encho," he salutes brightly.
Shimura shakes his head. "Come here," he says.
Aiba follows him into his greenroom and is surprised to find a whiskey pressed into his hand. "Eh?" he tries. At Shimura's look he shrugs sheepishly and drinks. It burns and he's not a fan of whiskey but somehow it's just what he needs. "Thanks," he says setting the glass on the low table in front of the couch. He needs to go and change and get to the venue for rehearsal. His manager is probably at the car already so Aiba knows he's probably late and if he's late then everybody is going to have to wait on him. "AH!" he can't help the shriek of surprise (and, oh god he sounds like Sho) as something catches on his overalls and sends him crashing butt-first to the couch.
"You're really going to treat a senpai like that?" Shimura laughs at him. "You can't even take five minutes for a drink?" He slaps his own shoulder. "Come here," he repeats.
Aiba isn't drunk but he goes anyhow, resting his head where Shimura has indicated. The hand in his hair is fatherly and uncle-ish and Leader-like and comforting.
His manager shakes him awake from where he's laying on Shimura Ken's greenroom couch. He's smiling softly. "Let's go," he says. "You should be able to change quickly." He can see his own clothes folded on the coffee table and when he looks at his watch he can see it's only been five minutes.
Five minutes and time enough to rebuild.
"Yeah!" he tells his manager. "Let's go!" He's ready for the storm to pick him up again.
Eternity
Ohno is thirty.
His girlfriend is twenty-eight.
They've been dating for six years.
"When?" she asks him. He knows she doesn't mean it. They're fighting and this is her low-blow. "It's always 'Arashi needs to build momentum' and 'Arashi is too popular right now' and even 'Julie-san says not now'. Well what about what I say?" she demands.
Ohno sighs internally. "I have to go to work," he says softly. He cups her elbow, holds when she tries to pull away. "You know I love you," he says. "Six years of this?" he gives her arm a small shake. "Why would anybody put up with it if it wasn't for love?"
Her face crumples. "You always say that," she sniffles.
"It's just a little while longer," he tells her. "Can't you bear with it for just a little bit more?" Who knows how long it will be. Nakai is thirty-eight and still not married. Hell, Nakai is thirty-eight and only recently admitted to dating. "Soon," he soothes her, letting go of her arm to run his hands over her hair. "I promise—for both of us—I promise it'll be soon."
He can't count the number of times he's lied to her this way.
"You always say that," she whispers. "You always do."
It's all he has to offer her. A heart full of love and a mouthful of promises he can never keep.
Conscience
"Anything you want to say, Kazunari?" his mother asks. She smoking at their kitchen table.
Nino has been his mother's son for twenty-four years. He knows when he's caught. "About what?" he tries anyhow.
His mother snorts in amusement. "Nice try, child of mine," she praises him. He matches her smile with his own and she slaps him sharply across the back of the head with a thick fold of papers. "Now explain this."
Rubbing the back of his head, Nino takes the papers. Bank statements, just like he thought. "It's a savings account?" he says, like he's guessing. His mother's eyes narrow. "It's just a savings account!" he protests. "There's not even a lot in there!" Except there IS a lot. It's a lot compared to what they've had before. Nino gets a little giddy and dizzy looking at the numbers on the page. He feels powerful and unstoppable. This is what he has done.
Stubbing out her cigarette his mother gives him an ominous stare. "And why is it my name on that account?"
Nino reigns in his glory and truly looks at his mother.
She is beautiful and she is older than her years. She is infinitely tired and worn and she is soft with it. She is his mother. He watched her scrimp and save and stretch and scrape and stand tall despite it all. He's seen her suffer and he's seen her in silence. He has watched her keep herself from crumbling and endure and succeed. He's seen her smile and he's heard her cry. He has felt her push and shove and slap at him to make him live up to himself. He's seen her give him everything she had or could get. She is his mother and the lack of words to convey his love chokes him.
"You know me," he says to her. "I'm a kid. I'm irresponsible. What's going to happen if I actually get my hands on that money?" He moves restlessly. "Use it to pay bills or something. Something worthwhile. I'd just blow it on games."
"Kazunari," his mother sighs and shakes her head at him. The papers get folded and set aside. "The first thing is buying you new underpants. You can't buy your own yet? Full of holes. It's like you're a hobo."
"Christ, Ma."
Triangle
Idol-Jun, Personal-Jun, Secret-Jun-that-nobody-knows. Personal-Jun, Idol-Jun, Secret-Jun-that-nobody-knows. Secret-kun, Idol-kun, Jun-kun. Three points of him and time has finally worn down the edges and Jun is finally comfortable. He sort of laughs at his teenage-self and his heart full of glass. Cheer up, emo-kid, he toasts his former self with a snicker.
"Jun is drunk," Shun croons at him.
He is. He's sprawled all drunkenly on Shun's obscene leather couch giggling into his umpteenth glass of wine. "I'm gay," he says, laughing into his cup as he drains it. Oh. Shit, he thinks when he finishes. He said that out loud. To another person. He tilts his head to find Shun, sprawled out beside him. Or down, rather, sprawled out with his head in Jun's own lap. Hello, he thinks. "Yeah, gay," he says.
Shun smiles up at him, beams that angelic smile at him. "You sure are," he says affectionately. He gives Jun's knee a kiss that Jun can feel warm through his slacks. It's so cozy. "Gay as a…I don't know. Just gay. Really gay. So into dudes."
He can't help giggling again. "No, I mean it," he tells Shun, petting his hair. "I'm really—I do like men. I've never told—not even Arashi—not anybody but—"
"You don't have to tell anybody." Shun struggles to sit up and Jun endures a smack to the chest, an elbow to the groin-area, and a head knocking painfully into his chin as Shun rights himself. "Jun. Anybody who loves you knows you're…you." He frowns, like he can't think. He probably can't. They are SO drunk. "You're just Jun and you like to look at dudes. And ass. You're such an ass man. It doesn't matter if it's guys or chicks or Mao who's going to punch you in the face if you keep looking." He pats him clumsily on the cheek. "S'okay. What the hell. Dudes for everybody!"
Jun is dizzy. It's not all the wine. "Shun?" He's so lovely. "You're an idiot."
Shun kisses him on the mouth, possibly having been aiming for his cheek. "Still love you, though," he says as though that makes sense.
"I love you, too," Jun says and passes out on Shun's couch.
Idol-Jun and Jun and nobody else.
Satellite
Disconnected, apart. Sometimes Sho forgets that he's got a mother and a father and a little sister and a baby brother. He's missed so much for Arashi. He's had to force time for them. There are photos he's not in at events he should have attended. And he's so happy in the ones he is in. Sometimes he looks exhausted but he's always beaming. What kind of big brother beams about picking his baby brother up from swim lessons? He should be grumbling and grumpy and not happy to have any time at all.
He stares at the picture on his phone. His family in India. He sends his sister an e-mail. "I didn't know you were going!" it says "Are you having fun?"
A minute later he gets an e-mail, this time from his brother. "Great time! Wish you were here!" it says.
Sho waits a minute before writing his reply. "Boarding the plane to Vancouver," he writes. "Having my own adventure!"
He turns his phone off as he boards the plane. He has visions of his family meeting him at the airport there. Or showing up at his hotel room door a day or so after he's got himself settled. He daydreams of showing them the Olympics behind the scenes. But he knows it won't happen. He'll be too busy and his family is on holiday in India anyhow—and it's beautiful there, they should enjoy it. He loved it. Above the clouds and the ocean, he turns his phone back on and snaps a picture of himself at his window. He writes a message, "On my way to join you," it says.
He doesn't send it.
Ogura meets him at the baggage claim in Canada. "Sho-kun!" he greets him with a hug and Sho puts aside his longing for a place he cannot be.
That are probably massively depressing? I don't know. I'm over my issues and so I decided that--instead of celebrating my joy--I would take the emo path of Arashi hurting! Yay, me!
But if I may take a moment to be trite? It doesn't matter that Arashi will never know I'm out here being their fan, buying their stuff and making people listen to their music, and ~~supporting them~~. You know why it doesn't matter? Because it's the least I can do for the men who have given me the amazing gift of YOU. All of you who love me, like me, and just plain don't care who I am but I write things you want to read.
We'll ignore the fact that the other way I repay these guys is by writing pervy stories about them and the things they get up to. Sometimes with tape. You know. You can't tell me that Ohmiya don't approve of fanfic! They write their own!
Breakdown
They are a storm, moving fast and hard across Japan. The world. They're being run ragged trying to keep up with it. Aiba knows he's mixing metaphors but he doesn't care. He's tired and he has to keep a smile on his face. Normally smiling helps but now…now he's just so fucking tired. He takes a moment and stops in an empty hallway in the studio. It's late and dark outside and quiet inside. He braces his hands on the wall and let's his head hang, pushing and pushing and pushing.
"Masaki-kun."
It's Shimura Ken and so Aiba pushes away and stands up and smiles. "Encho," he salutes brightly.
Shimura shakes his head. "Come here," he says.
Aiba follows him into his greenroom and is surprised to find a whiskey pressed into his hand. "Eh?" he tries. At Shimura's look he shrugs sheepishly and drinks. It burns and he's not a fan of whiskey but somehow it's just what he needs. "Thanks," he says setting the glass on the low table in front of the couch. He needs to go and change and get to the venue for rehearsal. His manager is probably at the car already so Aiba knows he's probably late and if he's late then everybody is going to have to wait on him. "AH!" he can't help the shriek of surprise (and, oh god he sounds like Sho) as something catches on his overalls and sends him crashing butt-first to the couch.
"You're really going to treat a senpai like that?" Shimura laughs at him. "You can't even take five minutes for a drink?" He slaps his own shoulder. "Come here," he repeats.
Aiba isn't drunk but he goes anyhow, resting his head where Shimura has indicated. The hand in his hair is fatherly and uncle-ish and Leader-like and comforting.
His manager shakes him awake from where he's laying on Shimura Ken's greenroom couch. He's smiling softly. "Let's go," he says. "You should be able to change quickly." He can see his own clothes folded on the coffee table and when he looks at his watch he can see it's only been five minutes.
Five minutes and time enough to rebuild.
"Yeah!" he tells his manager. "Let's go!" He's ready for the storm to pick him up again.
Eternity
Ohno is thirty.
His girlfriend is twenty-eight.
They've been dating for six years.
"When?" she asks him. He knows she doesn't mean it. They're fighting and this is her low-blow. "It's always 'Arashi needs to build momentum' and 'Arashi is too popular right now' and even 'Julie-san says not now'. Well what about what I say?" she demands.
Ohno sighs internally. "I have to go to work," he says softly. He cups her elbow, holds when she tries to pull away. "You know I love you," he says. "Six years of this?" he gives her arm a small shake. "Why would anybody put up with it if it wasn't for love?"
Her face crumples. "You always say that," she sniffles.
"It's just a little while longer," he tells her. "Can't you bear with it for just a little bit more?" Who knows how long it will be. Nakai is thirty-eight and still not married. Hell, Nakai is thirty-eight and only recently admitted to dating. "Soon," he soothes her, letting go of her arm to run his hands over her hair. "I promise—for both of us—I promise it'll be soon."
He can't count the number of times he's lied to her this way.
"You always say that," she whispers. "You always do."
It's all he has to offer her. A heart full of love and a mouthful of promises he can never keep.
Conscience
"Anything you want to say, Kazunari?" his mother asks. She smoking at their kitchen table.
Nino has been his mother's son for twenty-four years. He knows when he's caught. "About what?" he tries anyhow.
His mother snorts in amusement. "Nice try, child of mine," she praises him. He matches her smile with his own and she slaps him sharply across the back of the head with a thick fold of papers. "Now explain this."
Rubbing the back of his head, Nino takes the papers. Bank statements, just like he thought. "It's a savings account?" he says, like he's guessing. His mother's eyes narrow. "It's just a savings account!" he protests. "There's not even a lot in there!" Except there IS a lot. It's a lot compared to what they've had before. Nino gets a little giddy and dizzy looking at the numbers on the page. He feels powerful and unstoppable. This is what he has done.
Stubbing out her cigarette his mother gives him an ominous stare. "And why is it my name on that account?"
Nino reigns in his glory and truly looks at his mother.
She is beautiful and she is older than her years. She is infinitely tired and worn and she is soft with it. She is his mother. He watched her scrimp and save and stretch and scrape and stand tall despite it all. He's seen her suffer and he's seen her in silence. He has watched her keep herself from crumbling and endure and succeed. He's seen her smile and he's heard her cry. He has felt her push and shove and slap at him to make him live up to himself. He's seen her give him everything she had or could get. She is his mother and the lack of words to convey his love chokes him.
"You know me," he says to her. "I'm a kid. I'm irresponsible. What's going to happen if I actually get my hands on that money?" He moves restlessly. "Use it to pay bills or something. Something worthwhile. I'd just blow it on games."
"Kazunari," his mother sighs and shakes her head at him. The papers get folded and set aside. "The first thing is buying you new underpants. You can't buy your own yet? Full of holes. It's like you're a hobo."
"Christ, Ma."
Triangle
Idol-Jun, Personal-Jun, Secret-Jun-that-nobody-knows. Personal-Jun, Idol-Jun, Secret-Jun-that-nobody-knows. Secret-kun, Idol-kun, Jun-kun. Three points of him and time has finally worn down the edges and Jun is finally comfortable. He sort of laughs at his teenage-self and his heart full of glass. Cheer up, emo-kid, he toasts his former self with a snicker.
"Jun is drunk," Shun croons at him.
He is. He's sprawled all drunkenly on Shun's obscene leather couch giggling into his umpteenth glass of wine. "I'm gay," he says, laughing into his cup as he drains it. Oh. Shit, he thinks when he finishes. He said that out loud. To another person. He tilts his head to find Shun, sprawled out beside him. Or down, rather, sprawled out with his head in Jun's own lap. Hello, he thinks. "Yeah, gay," he says.
Shun smiles up at him, beams that angelic smile at him. "You sure are," he says affectionately. He gives Jun's knee a kiss that Jun can feel warm through his slacks. It's so cozy. "Gay as a…I don't know. Just gay. Really gay. So into dudes."
He can't help giggling again. "No, I mean it," he tells Shun, petting his hair. "I'm really—I do like men. I've never told—not even Arashi—not anybody but—"
"You don't have to tell anybody." Shun struggles to sit up and Jun endures a smack to the chest, an elbow to the groin-area, and a head knocking painfully into his chin as Shun rights himself. "Jun. Anybody who loves you knows you're…you." He frowns, like he can't think. He probably can't. They are SO drunk. "You're just Jun and you like to look at dudes. And ass. You're such an ass man. It doesn't matter if it's guys or chicks or Mao who's going to punch you in the face if you keep looking." He pats him clumsily on the cheek. "S'okay. What the hell. Dudes for everybody!"
Jun is dizzy. It's not all the wine. "Shun?" He's so lovely. "You're an idiot."
Shun kisses him on the mouth, possibly having been aiming for his cheek. "Still love you, though," he says as though that makes sense.
"I love you, too," Jun says and passes out on Shun's couch.
Idol-Jun and Jun and nobody else.
Satellite
Disconnected, apart. Sometimes Sho forgets that he's got a mother and a father and a little sister and a baby brother. He's missed so much for Arashi. He's had to force time for them. There are photos he's not in at events he should have attended. And he's so happy in the ones he is in. Sometimes he looks exhausted but he's always beaming. What kind of big brother beams about picking his baby brother up from swim lessons? He should be grumbling and grumpy and not happy to have any time at all.
He stares at the picture on his phone. His family in India. He sends his sister an e-mail. "I didn't know you were going!" it says "Are you having fun?"
A minute later he gets an e-mail, this time from his brother. "Great time! Wish you were here!" it says.
Sho waits a minute before writing his reply. "Boarding the plane to Vancouver," he writes. "Having my own adventure!"
He turns his phone off as he boards the plane. He has visions of his family meeting him at the airport there. Or showing up at his hotel room door a day or so after he's got himself settled. He daydreams of showing them the Olympics behind the scenes. But he knows it won't happen. He'll be too busy and his family is on holiday in India anyhow—and it's beautiful there, they should enjoy it. He loved it. Above the clouds and the ocean, he turns his phone back on and snaps a picture of himself at his window. He writes a message, "On my way to join you," it says.
He doesn't send it.
Ogura meets him at the baggage claim in Canada. "Sho-kun!" he greets him with a hug and Sho puts aside his longing for a place he cannot be.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-13 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-14 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-13 02:41 am (UTC)Thanks for sharing these.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-14 06:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-13 02:57 am (UTC)hahahahahaha
thank u^^
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-14 06:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-11-13 10:18 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-14 06:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-13 10:47 pm (UTC)OKAY TUCKING THE SAP AWAY. The little glimpses of reality behind Arashi's popularity and fame are really nice, especially because in none of those are Arashi trying to excuse anything! From the fact that they're just tired to the bits of time that they can barely spare for the people they love to the suppression of the self that they have to go through for their career - and yet they are all moving on, just a little, even if not everything's all right. I don't know if I'm being negative, but this is the way I love Arashi best - that even though life's not perfect, though they have to give up important things for what they do, they'll make do, somehow. Because they're Arashi, and it's for Arashi.
I have to give you massive props for including Shimura Ken in here, because we hear so much about him being such an awesome senior but nobody every writes him. Plus Nino's mom picking after Nino's underwear AHAHAHA you'll never be good enough to talk down your mother, Nino! AND SHUN. HI, SHUN. I DON'T KNOW IF ANYBODY CAN LOVE YOU MORE THAN JUN DOES BUT I CAN CERTAINLY TRY. I realize that I'm paying more attention to the secondary characters right now but honestly? They're worth it.
i.e. these are so lovely and thank you so much for sharing these! They made my day brighter ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-14 06:42 pm (UTC)I'm trying to figure out how loving the reality of Arashi is negative. Because we know they give up things, miss things, hide things, hurt, want, get tired--all those things, we know they feel them and do them and yet they go on and they still love their jobs at the end of the day. And as much as they say they love the fans, I think that if they didn't love each other (and their staff and managers) and have the people they have in their lives...I think if they didn't have that then they wouldn't be happy and love their jobs. So I find nothing negative in loving every part of Arashi, even the not-so-great stuff.
Also: Lol! Go ahead and focus on the secondary characters! Shun deserves love! And so does Shimura! The way Aiba talks about him is so happy and when you see him interact with Aiba, it's obvious he's just a great guy to work with who really gives a damn. I wanted to look at these guys in a context that was outside of just each other, at the other people in their lives, so I'm actually happy you liked them enough to focus on them.
♥ ILU.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-15 03:56 pm (UTC)Depressing isn't exactly the right word for it; I'd say they're just more nitty-gritty-realistic, since being a rainbow boyband doesn't mean it's always all sunshine and puppies.
- Poor tired!Aiba :((( But it's so like Aiba not to know his own limits
and to feel guilty about 5 days to recover from a collapsed lung >__>- Aiba sounds like Sho! <3 Kinda like what they say about
fivesomescouples who spend a lot of time together...- ShimuKen! ShimuKen is totally awesomesauce and needs to be written more ♥
- Ohno + 6-year-long gf! Somehow, as terrible as it sounds, I can't really imagine what Ohno's relationships are like. But I'd love to have Riida's love life / gf / wedding just casually brought up in conversation one day in the random talk bit they do before the guest appears on Shiyagare (Sho: "Oh, and by the way, Satoshi-kun, congrats on your firstborn!")
- You write the side of Ohno that the public doesn't see incredibly well; even though it's not the slightly spacey / child-like / laid-back man that a lot of fics might characterise him as, it doesn't seem out of character in the slightest.
- I can't help feeling that this ficlet has probably the highest chance of being really, actually true though, and that's what makes it all the more heart-rending ;___;
- Aw, this ficlet is so... Nino. (Actually, all the ficlets capture the essence of each member perfectly, but somehow this needs to be said more =P)
- Nino-mama <333 I'm totally a closet Nino fan, but I'm sorry, Nino-mama totally pwns her spawn XDD
- B-but holey underwear is comfy underwear! *___*
- Cheer up, emo-kid ♥
- Shun! And Jun the drunk-gay-ass-man! (On second thoughts, those adjectives should probably not be strung all together at once...)
- Somehow you write Jun's drunk POV so well it all kinda swims into focus. *awed at how that works*
- Sho mail! Having my own adventure! = D'AWWW.
- His secret hope that his family would be there is just... ;___; And he so would cheer himself up by thinking like that, you're right!
- Again, this ficlet is hard-hitting since it feels like it's quite possibly a factlet rather than a ficlet.
ASDFGHJKL; Beautiful writing as always! I'm sorry for the random comment; I'll stop doing the creepy random commenter thing now.
*re-lurks*