New York, Rio, TOKIO - Chapter 1: Mischievous Mail

[yoru-no-hikaru.livejournal.com]

Pairing: Nagase/Shigeru  ( O_o  )
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own JE-stuff, or people
Warnings: bit dark, but mainly fluffy (regardless of the link ^_^ )
Multi-Chapter


Summary: 15-year-old Nagase has only just been placed in a band as the main vocalist. In addition to the stress that comes with debuting the boy finds himself confronted with foul fan mail. Fortunately his new bandmates are very attentive - if not always voluntarily so. ^_^


Note: I decided to post this on a special request and now I seriously hope that I won't regret it. ^_^" This is a story that's based on Nagase's report on Shounen Club Premium in which he talked about the hate mails he got when he joined Tokio. Well... actually it's based on my discussion with lilly0 and yukitsubute on the matter, who did a big deal of the imagery. :D Love you girls! <3

Nagase stared at the pile of mail on his table. He’d settled down on the little sofa in his room, legs bent and chin resting on his knees. Both his arms were hugging his legs and he kept twitching nervously and biting his lip. When he realized he didn’t even know what time it was and how long he’d been sitting there, finally a reaction came. He got mad. So mad that he jumped up without a second thought, grabbed his mic and a sheet and stormed out his room. It must have been quite late, because he didn’t meet or even see anyone on the corridor. He came to a halt four doors down the floor and knocked.

As the door was opened Shigeru blinked at him. “Nagase-kun?! What…?!”

He didn’t get to finish his question, though, as the younger boy simply wiggled past him into the room and wordlessly crawled into the bed, arranging his sheets.

Shigeru took the bizarre scene in for a few moments before trying to catch Nagase’s attention again.

“Hey, Nagase-kun,” he asked exasperatedly, “What…. What are you…? What is this?”

Not even turning his head to look at the elder, Nagase told him evenly, “I’m sleeping here tonight.”

“Oh, I see,” Shigeru blinked. “And will you tell me how I’m honoured like that?”

“I…” Nagase began, then thought the better. “I’ll just stay tonight. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Sumimasen.”

Shigeru looked at the youngster in disbelief. “Will you at least ask me if it’s okay to stay?”

That was the moment Nagase did turn to look at him. “Is it not? You’re my elder, right? So, when I’m in distress you should help.”

“But I don’t even know your distress,” Shigeru argued.

“Ah,” Nagase made, “but you can’t demand pay-back for taking care of a junior. So it’s for me to say or to keep quiet.”

That said the teenager snuggled under his sheets, head plopping onto the pillow.

Once again, Shigeru blinked at the scene in front of him. Scratching his head he wondered what to do about the rather delicate situation. No way could he sleep in that same bed as the boy. He couldn’t just kick Nagase out either, though. The couch was not an option, since it was too short, even for Shigeru. There was still the floor, of course, but….

Another knock on the door ripped Shigeru out of his train of thoughts. More annoyed than confused he opened the door the second time that night.

“What?” he demanded harshly.

Yamaguchi jumped back a bit. “Wah! Shigeru-kun, what’s with you?”

Shigeru inspected his band mate closely. “I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing here at this time of night?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late, but we really have a problem,” Yamaguchi explained.

“What is it?” Shigeru asked, more interested.

“Well, how to put it….. Nagase seems to be off,” Yamaguchi informed him.

“What do you mean, he’s off?” Shigeru inquired, eyeing into his room, seeing Nagase’s form still on the bed.

“Well, Nagase seemed pre-occupied during rehearsals today, so I wanted to go and see if he’s alright. But when I got into his room, it was empty. But I found this and I think that’s why Nagase ran off.”

“Why on earth would you think the boy ran off,” Shigeru demanded, grabbing the paper Yamaguchi had held out for him.

As he read the letter, the band leader’s eyes grew wider.

Hate mail?

“There’s more,” Yamaguchi informed him. “There’s a stack of these in Nagase’s room. Poor kid. I would run if I got something like this.”

Shigeru blinked at him, then hastily waved him off. “The boy didn’t run – at least not far.”

Yamaguchi blinked at him. Shigeru grinned, pointing past the door to the bed in his room. At that Yamaguchi’s eyes grew wide.

“Nagase-kun!” the bassist exclaimed.

“Ssshhhhhhhhh!” Shigeru shushed him. “Don’t catch his attention. What were you thinking anyway, reading his mail?”

“Well, I didn’t go looking for it,” Yamaguchi defended himself. “He left it open on his table.”

“Well, at least that explains why he said he won’t sleep alone in his room,” Shigeru analysed.

Yamaguchi nodded. “So what do we do now?”

Shigeru considered for a moment, then shook his head. “We do nothing for now.”

“Eh?” Yamaguchi burst out, earning another warning glance from his band leader.

“I talked to Nagase and asked him what’s on his mind, but he wouldn’t say. So apparently, he doesn’t want us to know. For now we’ll just report to Johnny and try to keep such things at bay. Maybe Nagase-kun will get accustomed soon and not be bothered by it anymore.”

“But what if he doesn’t?” Yamaguchi objected.

“We’ll discuss this again in a week’s time, okay?” Shigeru suggested. “If the situation does not improve, we’ll think of a new plan.”

“Okay, fine,” the bassist agreed. “Will you be okay?” he asked, gesturing towards the boy on the bed.

Shigeru nodded. “Not to worry.”

“Fine, then. Keep me up to date. Good night.”

Shigeru nodded. “Sure. Good night. Oh, just…. Don’t tell Taichi about this. He might not take it too well.”

“What, you think I’m stupid? Taichi won’t be able to torture this out of me,” Yamaguchi stated firmly as he finally left.

As he shut the door again, Shigeru’s eyes went back to the bed, where Nagase was lying and had already fallen asleep. He looked at the younger boy and a sympathetic smile came to his face.

“You have it rough, don’t you?” Shigeru sighed. “Not to worry. We’ll stand by you and we will see this through. We’ll keep you save.”

With another sigh Shigeru grabbed his sheets and arranged them on the floor. Using a pullover as a pillow he arranged himself as best he could and went to sleep as well.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

“-senpai!”

Shigeru cringed at the harsh sound. What was that?!

“Joshima-senpai!” a voice demanded again.

Shigeru rolled over and

“AH-Itaiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!”

banged his head against the bed.

“Joshima-senpai, are you okay?”

Shigeru forced his eyes open and saw a pair of big worried eyes looking down at him from the bed.

Right. Nagase-kun. The letters. The floor. Damn, my head hurts.

“Did you fall out of bed?” Nagase asked innocently.

Shigeru gave him a dirty look. “More like you kicked me.”

The boy blushed at that. “G-gomen nasai.”

Shigeru considered him for a moment, then waved him off. “Oh, whatever. Forget it.”

“Sorry,” Nagase said again.

“I said it’s okay now,” Shigeru explained calmly. “So no more excuses.”

“Okay,” Nagase nodded.

“Good. I’ll make some coffee. You want some?”

Nagase thought about that for a moment, then smiled, nodding again.

Shigeru smiled back. “Right then, I’ll make coffee. Toast?”

Another happy nod. Shigeru smiled to himself at how easily the boy was pleased as he made his way into his camping kitchen. He didn’t realise Nagase was following him until the boy bumped into him, apparently not looking where he was going.

“Whoa, your room is like… huge,” Nagase mused in a fascinated tune.

“Well, I’m a long year employee and I’m band leader,” Shigeru explained, fumbling with the coffee machine. “And this is still nothing compared to Shounen Tai, or Otokogumi.”

“I think it’s great,” Nagase pointed out.

“Well, I’m happy it meets your taste,” Shigeru teased.

“Do you even have your own flat, Joshima-senpai? I mean, with a room like this…”

“I do have a flat,” Shigeru explained, starting to fix the toast. “But I only go there when we have longer breaks. And stop calling me Joshima-senpai, I feel like an old man.”

“What should I call you, then?” Nagase asked, blinking at him.

“Just the first name will do,” Shigeru decided.

“But…” Nagase objected, “you’re by far my senior.”

“Yeah well, but we’re band mates now and that’s different. We’re all on first name basis, so you shouldn’t make the exception.”

“Okay,” Nagase gave in warily. He took a deep breath, then tried, “Shigeru-kun.”

“There you go,” Shigeru smiled. “Not so hard, is it?”

“It’s weird,” Nagase told him.

“You’ll get used to it.”

Nagase smiled at him again and nodded.

“Toast will be ready in a few minutes,” Shigeru told him. “If you want to, you can take a shower first.”

“Thanks,” Nagase accepted happily.

“Right, let me get you a towel.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shigeru almost jumped out of his seat when there was a knock on his door that night; not because it came unexpected, but because it came unexpectedly early. A look at his clock told him that it was only 8 p.m. Even so he got up and sure enough opened the door to find Nagase standing outside again, mic in one hand, his sheets in the other.

“Sorry, Shigeru-kun,” Nagase mumbled. “Can I…?”

Without a word Shigeru slid to the side, gesturing for the boy to come in.

Nagase blinked at him.

“What?” Shigeru demanded. “You do want to come in, don’t you?”

The boy nodded.

“Well, then get a move on, I won’t stand here all night.”

Nagase slipped into the room quickly, throwing his sheet onto the bed, fumbling with his mic.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m here again?” Nagase asked, sounding wary.

“I tried yesterday,” Shigeru explained. “But you wouldn’t say. So I guess I can’t make you. It’s okay, you don’t have to tell if you don’t wanna.”

With that Shigeru sat back down and continued his reading. Nagase eyed him all the while when he hopped onto the bed and arranged himself to go to sleep. He kept wondering about this unexpected turn of events, but eventually fell asleep.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

About four nights into their strange routine Shigeru had stopped locking his door in the first place before Nagase turned up. For the fifth night he had gotten himself a new couch that was fit to lie on.

“Wow,” Nagase exclaimed when he saw the new item. “That’s cool!” When he realised what the sofa was intended for, though, Nagase wondered. “Why don’t you sleep in the bed?”

“You sleep in the bed,” Shigeru explained.

“Well but, why can’t we both sleep in here?”

“That would be seriously inappropriate,” Shigeru told him. “I shouldn’t even have you in this room. If Taichi ever finds out.”

“Taichi-kun?” Nagase asked, confused.

Shigeru nodded. “Never tell him that you come here at night. He will… misunderstand and it will cause a lot of trouble.”

Nagase thought on that for a moment, then came to the conclusion that it didn’t make any sense and just shrugged.

“Okay, no tell Taichi-kun.”

“Good boy,” Shigeru teased, grinning. “Now sleep, it’s late.”

Nagase nodded, arranging his sheets. He kept tossing and turning for a while, before shifting to flip himself over fully and face into the room and towards Shigeru.

“Shigeru-kun,” Nagase began warily.

“What?” Shigeru asked, blinking.

“I…” Nagase licked his lips nervously, “I got letters. From fans. TOKIO fans, that is. I… They don’t really like me, so they wrote…. That they hate me…. scratch out my picture and stuff….”

Shigeru looked at the boy for a while, pondering his options. Then, with a soft smile on his face, he got up and went to sit down at the edge of the bed. His hand came down to rub soothingly over Nagase’s back.

“I know,” Shigeru said calmly.

Nagase blinked.

“Tatsuya found them in your room when you were sleeping here already. He came to talk to me about it. We decided together that we want to wait and see if you can master this by yourself.”

“Sorry,” Nagase said sadly. “I’m not that strong. I can’t handle it alone.”

“You finally came out and talked,” Shigeru told him. “That’s actually a very brave thing to do. So you do master the situation quite well. A wise man always knows when and where to seek help,” he explained.

Nagase beamed at him. “So I’m a wise man?”

Shigeru laughed at that. “Well, you do have the basics. I believe there are some things left for you to learn, but I think you’re on a good way.”

Nagase smiled at that. “I’ll keep trying hard.”

“Good,” Shigeru nodded.

“Ne, Shigeru-kun?”

“Hm?”

“There’s something else I want to ask you,” Nagase said silently.

“What’s that?” Shigeru asked.

“Stay here tonight,” the boy pleaded, already clinging to Shigeru’s shirt, holding him captive.

“Eh-what?!” Shigeru demanded.

“Please,” Nagase mumbled, snuggling up against him.

“What are you doing?” Shigeru shrieked, freezing in his position.

The boy, however, didn’t even react, just arranged himself comfortably, sighing contentedly as he found a good position and drifted off to sleep.

“Hah, Shigeru-kun….”

The band leader kept sitting there for a while, his eyes wide open. After a while he realised that there was no escaping Nagase, so with an exasperated sigh, he arranged himself on the bed as well, trying to find some much needed sleep.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________


Okay, my first non-KinKi series. I wonder whether people will be interested in the pairing. I don't even remember how it hit me anymore. Anyway, I hope that some people will like it. Yoroshiku. ^_^ v

Chapter 2