[Arashi] [Sakumiya] Number Six

[radhaj]

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If I owned these people, Jun would be going on even bigger shopping sprees to spoil me. Yup
Warnings: Angst. Hinted sexual content
Summary: Sixth. Number six. Not even fifth. Some talent to become sixth in a band that actually only had five members.
A certain Music Station broadcast leaves Nino questioning his place in the band.
Note: rakun definitely needs a mention here because I used one of her ideas in this and, as always, she's my biggest supporter in writing and proofread this story for me too.
Sorry I haven't been writing much lately, been having troubles with motivation for it.


Number Six

The atmosphere in the van on their ride from the studio was heavy. And it was mostly his fault, and Nino hated that almost more than he had hated how easy it had been for him to keep a smile on his face during the filming of the show itself, even as his heart had given a painful lurch at the unpleasant surprise. At least the manager was completely oblivious to it all, a continuous string of words flowing from his mouth as he interchangeably praised them on the perfect performance (and that was crap too, Nino knew, because he had made a mistake and he just didn't do mistakes) and informing them on what work was left for today. But that was not unexpected. Nino was a good actor and all of them were good at hiding their true emotions to a point where no one but the other members could see through it and realize the truth.

And oh, the others did realize the truth. It was everywhere, starting from the way Jun continued to fiddle with his seatbelt as if he couldn't get it to stop digging into his shoulder and it was annoying him, and ending with Sho's failure to immediately correct the manager on one of the details of their upcoming schedule, leaving the man to notice it himself only ten minutes later.

“...for the written interview, but you have until Monday to finish that one up, I am simply reminding you of it, just in case. Also, you shouldn't forget to get your copies of the script for the filming of...”

Nino tuned it all out again. He was in no mood to care, even if he knew he was being ridiculous. It had just been some random dude. What had his age been again? Sixteen? Obviously he just didn't know better than to state his own personal opinion as fact. The producers of Music Station should have known better than to keep the footage in, perhaps, but maybe they had wanted to start some controversy, jerk their sleepy audience a bit and ignite a discussion. It wasn't even that it was the first time someone stated the “ranking of their popularity”, although it definitely was worse when their faces and reactions were filmed as they got announced.

Nino swallowed down a sigh and refused to raise his eyes to look at any of his bandmates as he stepped out of the van and trudged into the building they had driven to. He justified his feelings by telling himself it was only because he'd been a bit down in general lately that he was allowing this to get to him. Normally, he was used to distancing himself from any such things quite successfully as he understood that people and media liked to sink their poisonous fangs into them for no other reason than that they were famous and easy targets. But with how much his health problems had peaked lately and with how busy he was with literally no time for himself and with how luck seemed to have abandoned him in general (or at least it felt like this to him recently), his mental armour must have frayed down and left him more vulnerable. And that was why he just couldn't push it away from his head.

Sixth. Number six. Not even fifth. Some talent to become sixth in a band that actually only had five members.

He just wanted to go home, for one evening this week, early enough to not have to immediately go to bed if he wanted to have more than four hours of sleep. Granted, if he got the free time today, he'd be likely to just spend it moping, but he didn't care. He just didn't want to go into the studio and work on choreo that he already had down as it was. He didn't want to discuss further details of a tour that he had already shared all of his ideas on anyway. He didn't want to stay in the vicinity of these people that kept throwing him pitying and for some reason apologetic glances. He just wanted to be left alone.

He was obviously not the only one affected though. So after they had changed clothes so they could practice, Nino's lack-luster movements went mostly unnoticed since Masaki was tripping and making others fall with record-frequency as he just kept screwing up the steps and forgetting to change positions in time which made him run into others. His desperate “Sorry. I'm so sorry I'll just... I'm sorry, Sho-chan, did I hurt you...” were becoming as much of a continuous background noise as the music and at some point Nino simply had had enough.

“This is ridiculous,” he snapped, making every single person twirl their heads around to look at him as he stepped on the heel of one of his feet with the other so he could slip them out of his shoes without needing to bend down and irritate his already sore back further. The damn shoes weren't even fitting him comfortably anymore and he just hoped he didn't get any blisters for his efforts up until now, “We know this shit already, we need rest more than we need another practice where we're too tired to even think!” he pointed out, glaring at anyone who would meet his eyes and challenging them to disagree. A couple of staff members guiltily looked away and even the choreographers seemed to be unable to form a protest that didn't sound like they didn't care that the group was obviously and seriously overworked.

“Nino is right, this is just a disaster, we're not getting anything done,” Jun took over, much more calmly than him but very obviously not pleased with the situation, “I'm sorry for calling you all out here for nothing, but I think it would be a much more productive way to spend time if we just took a breather for once and wait until Leader finished the rest of...”

Nino didn't listen to it any further. Now that it seemed like the cancellation of the practice was a decided thing, he just grabbed his sneakers by the laces and walked out of the room first. He was out of his practice clothes before anyone else even had the chance to follow him out and then he was off again. He knew he'd have to return in time for the meeting later, but for now he just needed to get away from everyone.

He found himself a lovely break room that was one full floor away from the one that Arashi usually used and settled down with his DS. Having the familiar console in his hands immediately made some of the stress melt away. But even as he started playing, he couldn't get away from his thoughts completely.

Perhaps it was true after all. Everyone acted like making a general ranking of the Arashi members was a taboo thing to do and the official version was that they were all loved the same, but wasn't that just them lying to themselves? They were all loved, but some people loved certain members more than others and someone was bound to end up in last place if someone made a full survey of these opinions. And just when had been the last time that Nino was chosen as a favourite by someone that they jokingly asked to tell them their own personal ranking?

Did it really matter though? One more reason why Nino felt so bad about this was because he knew it shouldn't matter. The least popular member of Arashi was still more popular than a huge portion of other Japanese celebrities. And he loved all the members, their successes were his joys, so why couldn't he just be happy either way? He wasn't jealous, was he? He wasn't that despicable, was he?

But he had had insecurities about his own place in Arashi for ages and this only brought it all out. Did he truly even deserve to be in Arashi? Was he truly worth the humbling friendship of the other four? Would it not be better if they had someone else, someone better, someone who didn't keep making sarcastic and mocking comments at them? Someone who didn't hit Aiba-chan on the head quite as much? Someone who didn't keep complaining, who didn't have so many problems, someone who wouldn't escape to play video games instead of staying with his friends as if he was the only one affected by crap?

His attention wandering, it was no wonder that by the time he focused on the DS fully again, the screen read “Game Over” and he snapped it shut frustratedly before discarding it onto the couch and rubbing his hands over his face tiredly. He was so pathetic, sulking away childishly over a tiny thing such as this...

“Ah, here you are Kazu,” his private haven was suddenly interrupted by an opened door and a well-wishing expression on the face that poked in. Nino flinched from the surprise and then grimaced. He would have thought that the fact that he had deliberately sought out another room for himself was enough of a clue for the others to know he did not desire any company at the moment. But of course, the biggest mother-hen in Japan just had to worry and come find him anyway, “We were wondering where you went off to. Matsujun's still talking with the choreography staff about something, but Masaki and Satoshi went to the canteen to get something to eat. You sure you don't want to join them?”

“I'm not hungry,” Nino answered grumpily, taking his DS back into his hands and opening it up to make a point, although he no longer even felt like playing. Sho refused to take the hint again and entered the room completely, closing the door behind him and sitting down on the couch next to Nino's feet. The younger man stubbornly ignored him, not looking up even once in the hopes that Sho would just go away. He should have known better than to expect something like that.

“Kazu,” the older man's voice was gentle but serious and very obviously requesting attention. Nino considered starting a completely new game, “If it had been anyone else but you with us, Arashi would have never become what it is now.”

Nino startled and his hands obviously shook. He had expected Sho to bring the whole thing up since he was now here anyway, but he hadn't expected the other man to immediately hit the nail on the head so perfectly. Drawing his legs in even closer to himself, Nino curled up a bit more and still refused to direct his eyes at anything but the screen of his console.

“It's easy to say that now when none of us will ever know it better,” he breathed out, his thumbs sliding over the buttons without actually pressing any of them. “Game Over” was still flashing on the screen. He hadn't even known one could get a game over in this game, “I've never been a proper idol. Rude, with a mean sense of humour, huge face and no nice body to show off,” he continued mumbling. He hadn't meant to say so much, but now that he started he was finding it hard to stop, “It's a wonder it took so long for someone to say i-”

“Kazu, you know that what that guy said was just his own personal, limited view and had nothing to do with reality,” Sho interrupted him heatedly and the smaller man found himself wishing he could just run away from the discussion, because...

“I know,” he whispered. But because it was Sho, he felt it was only fair to finish, “But that doesn't stop it from making me feel like crap.”

Silence descended over them as that painfully true statement hung in the air. Stopping any pretence that he was playing completely, Nino hugged his knees to himself and turned to his side so he was just a small ball pushing its face to the backrest of the couch. He could hear the older man exhale tiredly and then the couch dipped more as Sho shifted closer to his friend and put a hand on his back. When Nino didn't immediately try to shake it off or shy away from the touch, the hand slipped higher to grasp a shoulder and rested there for now.

“We all have our own insecurities, Kazu,” he spoke up softly then, “You know as well as I do just how many times Masaki has cried because he was sure no one took him seriously or thought of him as anything other than the foolish, comical relief of the group. Or the amount of time Matsujun spends on his appearance, not because he's vain, but because there are just so many times one can hear they have a scary face before starting to feel terrible about it. And let's not even touch upon the times when I start thinking that I don't just fail a lot but actually am a failure in everything I do.”

Nino couldn't help but snort into the couch.

“That's because you are,” he teased automatically and then suddenly clamped his mouth shut, “Here I go again...” he mumbled, biting his lower lip as he realized he couldn't reign in his mocking even at a time when Sho was doing his best to comfort him. Poking fun at something that the older man was admitting as his biggest insecurity. What a friend he was. Seriously, why did anyone even bother to...

But his self-depreciating thoughts were interrupted by a low chuckle.

“See, and that's exactly why having you around makes it all better for all of us,” the news-casting idol said unexpectedly, and Nino ended up lifting up his face to actually look at Sho uncomprehendingly, not following the logic. Sho's expression melted into a small, patient smile, “You made fun of it,” he said, as if it explained anything.

“Yeah, I made fun of something you feel terrible about. Just like the bastard I always act as,” he grumbled, about to retreat back into his shell of mopiness until he saw Sho shaking his head.

“You made fun of it, yes. But people only make fun of ridiculous stuff,” he explained further, “You make fun of things that are not true. And that, or a flick upside the head is more convincing in making a person believe their insecurities are unfounded than a million well-wishing words could be. You are the one that always gets us up when we're down, if in unconventional ways, and we owe you so much for it. But I'm sure you are usually well-aware of it and that's why you do it. It's just the current situation that makes you forget the truth and view it in a bad light. Really, Kazu, I wish there was someone who could do it for you as well as you do it for us,” the older man continued, now pulling on Nino's shoulder in a way that made him lie on his back again, facing his bandmate and having no choice but to meet Sho's earnest gaze, “There is no such thing as a “proper idol” in general. Everyone does it their own way, if we didn't, we'd all be the same and everyone would get bored in an instant. You can be rude, yes, but it's usually for a reason and part of your style. Your sense of humour might be mean, but it serves its own purpose and is sharp and feels like a breath of fresh air among all the dumb jokes that we deal with every day. The fans adore you for it. Your face is, if anything, too small for me to fit all the kisses that I want onto it. And I have no issue whatsoever with proving to you, once again, just how amazing I find your body to be,” he finished countering all of Nino's earlier comments, and left the younger man blushing.

“You only say that because you want to get into my pants again,” Nino mumbled with a pout, but couldn't deny that Sho's words had actually helped and his heavy mood had abated slightly already, leaving empty space that was quickly getting filled with sweeter and hotter feelings. His bandmate just smirked and crawled over him so his face hovered right above his.

“Even if it was part of the reason... who could blame me?” he asked silkily, already bending down and brushing his soft, full lips along Nino's jawline, making the smaller man shiver, especially when he also lifted one of his hands and let it sneakily push in under Nino's shirt, making the fabric slip upwards and expose some of the milky skin that Sho was already stroking, “A lot of people would love comforting you in this way,” he added in a sultry whisper, shifting lower so he could attach his mouth to the side of Nino's neck.

“Good thing... ah... that you have priority with me then, isn't it, Sho-chan?” Nino asked, giving in as he obviously had no qualms about the direction this was now taking. However, suddenly, both of them got startled as the door to the room opened abruptly causing them to flinch away and swirl their faces towards it, wide-eyed, only to find Jun standing at the doorway and staring at them.

“Uhm... Jun, we...” Sho started stuttering awkwardly but trailed off when their youngest bandmate's face twisted into a smirk.

“I see Nino is being well taken care of,” he laughed, taking a step back, “Don't mind me. I'll go and comfort our number five instead then,” he said with a tiny wink and left, closing the door behind him.

-*-

In an unusual twist of events, Ohno Satoshi found himself to be the only one not late for the meeting later that evening.

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Note2: I would love to know what you thought of this!