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Journey to the Stars
(or the Idiotic Love Story of Tegoshi and his Boyband) 7/12 by Tha Wrecka
See part 0 for details.
7.
It was still biting cold in the mornings and his breath was forming a fine mist in front of his face. His sunglasses kept fogging up.
It was annoying. He had to keep waiting until he was sure the camera wasn't pointed at him so he could take them off and wipe them clean.
Tegoshi leaned back against the chair, closed his eyes and relaxed. He just let Shige run his fingers through his hair. It was almost like a head massage and so nice.
Shige's fingers rubbed over a spot on Tegoshi's scalp that really needed it with just the right pressure. Tegoshi was sure that he had a completely blissed out expression on his face. He hoped that Shige wasn't going to stop soon, but knew that if it went on much longer he'd start getting sleepy.
"Are you comfortable there?" Ryo said, like a voice out of a thick fog.
Tegoshi was comfortable. There was something very relaxing about letting Shige do his hair. He welcomed Shige's fingers through his hair and the way he wielded the curling iron and his styling products, trusted that Shige would make him look good enough to perform.
"Yes," Tegoshi said in a soft, fluttery voice.
"You are so weird," Shige laughed and started with the hair gel.
Shige's fingers stroked across Tegoshi's temple, rubbed underneath his ears, brushed across the top off his head. It felt absolutely wonderful.
It just wasn't as fun when they got real hairstylists to do their hair for shoots. Tegoshi liked the way Shige did his hair better. It's not that Shige was better at doing his hair, of course; just that Tegoshi liked it more.
They slipped into costumes, new and old, stretched into shape, moved on cue.
They sang and Tegoshi felt like he'd come home.
Home is in their hands, their smiles. This is what they were going to be for the rest of forever. Tegoshi closed his eyes and felt the melody flowing through him, surrendered himself to the song. Their voices wrapped around him completely and made him feel safe and cared for.
Oh, how he'd missed being on stage.
Kei-chan was crying again. Tegoshi had a feeling that soon Massu would be, too. Even Shige was a little teary-eyed. It was kind of cute how they could be such babies at times.
It felt good, right. Even Nishikido-kun was a little moved.
Someone was feeding Shige again.
This happened a lot. Tegoshi sometimes wondered how it was Shige didn't get fat. It couldn't be from the dancing - half the time Shige looked like he was phoning it in.
Yamapi and Koyama were helping stuff Shige, who wasn't struggling as much as he wanted anyone to believe. Tegoshi couldn't stop laughing at the faces he was pulling.
Ryo shoved food into Shige's mouth again. His lip was slick and shiny with the grease from the meat. It was kind of gross.
"How much would it take to feed Shige until he threw up?" Ryo asked.
"I've lost a kilo!" Ryo exclaimed, horrified. He stepped off the scales looking less than pleased.
"Ryo-chan eats a lot! But he'd put on some weight if he stopped giving so much of his food to Shige, ne?" Yamapi said.
Ryo favoured him with a grumpy look.
A lot of doing a concert tour was about waiting, waiting in dressing rooms and on buses and backstage between numbers. They would fill it up with eating, playing silly games, doing 'magic' with Shige. Yamapi mostly sat quietly by himself or Nishikido-kun but sometimes he would look up at what everyone else was doing and crack a smile. At one point Nishikido-kun said that he wished he'd brought a pack of cards so they'd have something to do. Shige remembered to bring books but let people distract him so much he barely read them.
All the concert venues were so dreary and grey backstage but that was better than sitting uselessly by the stage and watching the lighting technicians make last minute adjustments.
Shige stole Koyama's chips. Shige did this all the time - Koyama ate hardly any of the chips. Yamapi wondered why Koyama didn't just give the chips to Shige but he wasn't about to ask.
"Pat me," Yamapi commanded, from where he was laying on Koyama's lap. Koyama, of course, complied immediately.
"You can be so lazy," Ryo said.
"Mmm, yes," Yamapi agreed, huge smile on his face as Koyama stroked his hair.
"I bet you're like that in bed, too. You'd just lie back and let the other person do all the work, smiling like an idiot the whole time," Ryo said.
Tegoshi giggled, only he had food in his mouth so it came out like a combination of snorting and choking. Shige smacked the side of his head and told him to close his mouth.
"Oh, Ryo-chan, I always knew you fantasised about me in the bedroom~" Yamapi joked in a sing-song voice.
"Look, I'll pretend to be a lizard," Yamapi said.
"Flicking your tongue in and out isn't pretending to be a lizard," Ryo interrupted.
"I'll do it anyway."
Yamapi was communicating in nothing but twisty facial expressions and weird grunty noises again. He did this a lot.
Tegoshi sometimes liked to make a game of deciphering what he meant when he was like this.
Was he hungry? Was he tired? Was he miming that he wanted his water bottle or his bag? Did he want someone to bring him his clothes or take his pants off?
Koyama bustled away to make a cup of tea. Maybe this meant he wanted tea and Kei-chan was just more tuned in to his wavelength.
Tegoshi walked off to search for everyone else.
Massu was exercising again.
Nishikido-kun was in a room by himself playing air guitar. He looked so awesome. How can anyone look so cool?
Tegoshi sometimes wondered how they got anything done with the amount of spazzy dancing they did for a joke and the amount they made fun of each other's dancing and songs. Kei-chan probably spent more time doing the steps wrong to make people laugh than he did doing them right.
They ate together a lot. Tegoshi usually wasn't particularly loud in his appreciation of food but he felt a little like they were rubbing off on him, changing him, maybe for the better. It was really enriching them to try so many different things and Tegoshi felt like they shared their feelings with the food and only ingested more love for the group.
Shige walked along the hallway, nodding at the backstage crew as he went past. He caught snatches of conversation as he walked; from the juniors, the crew, his silly bandmates.
"It's cool when you do imitations of your sempai. I mean, you're really good at it! I know you feel like it helps you learn from them, too. I just like you even better when you're just being Tegoshi," Masuda said, giving Tegoshi the puppy dog eyes.
"I know, Massu. Now watch me do Nagase again and tell me if I've improved," Tegoshi replied.
At the end of the hallway Koyama and Pi were jumping on each other - their new favourite stupid thing.
Inside the room Ryo was peacefully reading a book on rock and roll or guitars or possibly musicians of the 20th century who died of drug overdoses.
Shige sat at the table. The stage was still being set up for the performance and it was hour before they even had to start doing their hair and make-up. He leaned forward onto the table, let his head rest on his arms and went to sleep.