Author's Notes: This show made me think and wonder about far too many things involving these two :P Hopefully this is the last of it _o_ |
Takashi has always been more...involved in his characters in the several performances they've shared together, Tuti will readily admit. He remembers and even goes so far as to celebrate the birthdays of forever-young Kikumaru and Hitsugaya, unfailingly, year after year, where Tuti has trouble remembering to call his own mother on hers. This isn't something he's proud of, but it's true nonetheless. Which isn't to say that he isn't happy to be back here, he is--there's something nostalgic and amusing and familiar watching Moriyama-san increase the number of wrinkles around his mouth and eyes as he frowns into his mirror, trying his level best to disguise the fact that Momo-chan has quite a bit less hair now than he did five years ago. Or catching Souta slinking away from the catering area cradling armfuls of PET bottles with the labels ripped off to disguise his attempts at concocting new flavors of Inui Juice, scribbling the recipes feverishly into his neglected Inui Notebook. He is happy, but...maybe because this was just another job to Tuti, maybe because for Takashi it was so much more than a job--he can't muster up the same explosive excitement Takashi can, no matter the festivities going on around him. He's ashamed that the first thing he thought in the back of his mind when his manager relayed the message that first cast was being invited back was, 'And here come another five years of "Golden Pair" jokes...' The lights are unbearably hot despite their thin, light clothing, and the peppy music beats a heavy bass thrum into his chest, just off time with the thumping of his own heart as he sinks into the place he goes mentally right before he steps on stage. He hasn't stood in front of an audience this large in years--really, since their own Dream Live--and the tension and worry and excitement all work to flood his bloodstream with adrenaline to prep him for the upcoming dance sequence. He loosens his grip and gives his racket a spin, snatching it back up with his free hand and drying his sweaty palm one last time on a towel one of the others left sitting on the props table. He takes a deep, ragged breath in the darkness, and then a staff member casts them both a glance, a nod, a signal, and practically shoves them out onto the stage. Tsujimoto-kun and Shouta-kun are already halfway down the hanamichi, and the music is peaking to segue into the first verse. His heart leaps into his throat the same way it does right before the lights come up when an On starts, the few seconds when he can't review anything in his head yet can't quite launch into a number and he's left flailing about mentally. But then Takashi steps into his peripheral vision, gleaming smile pasted on as surely as the bandage on his cheek, because he knows that while Takashi may be excited about this--more than Tuti even--he's been frantically practicing with Shouta-kun during every rehearsal break just to get down Kikumaru's paces in this song perfectly. It's seeing things like that out of the guy that reminds Tuti that, with time, perseverence will overtake raw talent, and he can feel Takashi's dance skills nipping at his heels. "When I would look back, you were always there. That sense of security let me be daring." Takashi tosses a glance over his shoulders, hips shaking along with the beat and nailing every skip, jump, twist and turn with ease. Their mics are turned off--this isn't their song, after all--but that doesn't stop Takashi from putting his all into they lyrics, trilling them out just loud enough to reach Tuti's ears; perhaps not so secretly, Tuti is glad to have this personal performance all to himself here on this stage in front of thousands of onlookers. It's risky, it's thrilling. It's very Takashi. Because that's how it's always been, it feels like. Takashi's always the one to take the little risks, despite having so much more to lose. Tamaoki-san's best efforts have not stopped him from snapping shots on the toilet, spamming his blog with pictures of Tuti snoring away on the shinkansen, or insisting that asses are so appropriate things to post about. Tuti will readily admit he's jealous of this presence Takashi has to him that he can do anything, say anything, be as immature as he wants, and no one ever seems to think much of it, even attribute it to his charm. He's sexy, fashionable, charismatic, a million things Tuti isn't. "One plus one is infinity. You bring out the best in me. I'm so glad you were there." Tuti's chest seizes when he overcorrects for a nearly missed step, almost tripping himself up--but he manages a self-deprecating smile when Takashi catches his eye, mildly concerned for the uncharacteristic slip-up. He curses himself mentally--and adds in a choice word or two for Takashi; the guy knows it's distracting to Tuti, yet he's insisted on singing along. Probably because he knows it's distracting. They execute a quick synchronized turn, and in a whirl are darting back into the shadows, rushing past two other actors out to replace them for the rest of the song. It was a cameo, yet it's still left him breathless with the strain. He wonders offhandedly how Tsujimoto-kun and Shouta-kun can handle being on 100% of the time on that little scrap of center stage, and then reconsiders what he's seen of them during rehearsals for this show. On second thought, he imagines it's not nearly as hard for them. They've cultivated an image about them that they can still relax in, one he and Takashi have since moved on from. No one wants to see two thirty-somethings making eyes at one another. Far from fan service--at this point, it's embarrassing. Something brushes his arm, and he glances down to find Takashi pushing a water bottle at him, its label carefully removed by the conscientious staff members scurrying around backstage. He ducks a nod and they make their way quickly around a corner after being tutted at for dawdling by a stagehand. Pressing a shoulder into the double doors separating the gakuya area from the wings, Takashi takes a swig from his bottle and swirls the water around a few times, lifting his brows expectantly. He swallows with some effort. "One down." "We're already counting?" Takashi shrugs, tugging off the towel (brightly emblazoned Dream Live 7th) from around his neck. "You are." Tuti pauses, glancing at him sideways and not quite sure what Takashi is pressing at. "I'm not." Takashi makes a sound that says Tuti's full of shit, and he barks a laugh. "What? I'm not!" They both squeeze to the side of the hall to let a few Rikkai members bustle by in a blur of yellow and black. Takashi's shoulder stays pressed up against him even when the need has passed, and he can feel how warm the other man is even through their clothes. "You almost missed the crossover with your stupid long legs and big feet." He pulls away from the wall, headed towards first cast's dressing room, and though he doesn't give any outward indication, the tone tells Tuti there's nothing but amusement in the biting chastisment. "Sounds like someone needs more rehearsals." Tuti jogs to catch up with him. "I got distracted." "By what?" He starts swinging his arms at his side, sinking into the mannerisms of the 15-year-old he's supposed to be playing at the moment. "Someone wouldn't shut up even though he knows I can't dance as well if there's singing involved." "Not like you were the one singing." Tuti rolls his eyes and bumps their shoulders together. "You know Ueshima-sensei's gonna bitch at you for singing if he catches it." "It's a musical, aren't we supposed to sing?" he rationalizes, but Tuti knows he understands Tuti's point. Anything that might disrupt the smooth flow of this mammoth franchise that TeniMyu has become is cause for an earful from the director, despite the strings that had to be pulled to get first cast back in the first place. He wrinkles his nose and glances away, taking a swig of his water bottle the way he does when he doesn't want Tuti to be able to read his emotions on his face, a feat he's grown quite accomplished at over the years. "It's more fun to have a reason to dance, you know." Tuti reaches over and snatches up the towel Takashi's still toting, using it to mop his own forehead and muffle his snorted laughter. "I never have problems with it." He offers the towel back to Takashi, who shrinks away in feigned disgust. Tuti just rolls his eyes and wraps it around his neck. He mentally corrects himself; it's not that he never has problems with dancing without thinking. He's always thinking while he's dancing. If he pulls off his moves well, he's worried about everyone else dancing with him and whether or not he'll have to compensate at some other point in the routine. If he doesn't pull them off well, he's mentally berating himself and already working up a regimen to ensure it never happens again. He can't imagine ever having time to give a thought to why he's dancing. It's a role; it's his job. All he has to do is do it and do it well, and that's the extent of his duty. But Takashi is Takashi, and for whatever reason he's cooked up in his head, he has to have something driving each and every pounding of his bright white sneakers on the stage. It's easy for him to slip back into his role as Kikumaru; rather than feeling upstaged by Shouta-kun, Takashi seems to have taken this as a learning opportunity on both parts, sitting huddled with Shouta-kun in front of his script almost as much as the fifth cast pair seem to share their own. They laugh and share secret smiles that unsettle Tuti, mostly because he's sure Takashi's riling up the younger generation and spreading filthy rumors that are sure to come back and bite him in the ass later. He'll be surprised if they aren't invited on some sort of mock double date when this is all over, just because Takashi thinks it will be a barrel of laughs to see Tuti embarrassed. "Veranda," someone interrupts his thoughts, and he glances down to see Takashi has grabbed three of his fingers and is dragging him past the half-open door leading to their dressing room, through which he can hear Buchou and Kime laughing loudly at something they've just seen on the stage monitors. He isn't sure where this mysterious "veranda" Takashi seems intent on leading him is, but he suspects, from the frantic way his friend is clutching at his fingers, that it's some place decidedly more private than the dressing room. The "veranda" turns out to be the balcony just at the end of a small corner of hallway cluttered with stage debris, on which a small ash bin has been placed that those among the cast who smoke might have a place to toss their used-up butts at the end of a break. It being the middle of a performance, there's no one else out here; too easy to miss your cue when distracted by the evening landscape and a dwindling death stick between your lips. Takashi props the door open behind them--just in case--with a cinder block, and the monitors scattered throughout the backstage hallways all echo faintly with the sound of the goings-on on stage. They won't need to even poke their heads back into the wings for another thirty minutes at least, so they're more than safe for the time being taking a short jaunt outside. It's chilly, a welcome change from the stuffy, exhausting heat of the backstage area. It's been raining most of the day, which is not a very promising start to the run, admittedly, but still better than the miserable heat that's riding fast on its heels. "Remember back after my first show, at the uchiage afterwards--I sat outside with you while you smoked three cigarettes in a row because you were disappointed at flubbing a line during one of the songs?" "Hey--I got all of, like, three solo lines. It was a big deal to mess up even one, especially when I'd already completed dozens of rehearsals and performances flawlessly before." Takashi glances over at him, grinning wide to show his teeth. "They weren't flawless." "Says who?" "Eiji-san." "Yeah, well, he doesn't have room to talk." They both smile and shake their heads at this, before Tuti continues. "...And yeah, I remember." "Mmm. I'm glad." "What, that I remember?" A nod. "Moriyama-san's the one whose memory's going, not mine." Takashi snorts and looks away, biting his lip. "This is our container." Tuti cocks his head, smiling nervously to hide his confusion. "Our what?" Takashi waves a hand at their surroundings. "Our container. Oishi and Kikumaru have their special place they go that's all theirs to talk about things. We have ours." Tuti glances around, taking in the small square of balcony they're currently huddled under, mist spraying their faces with each biting gust of wind, and he squints, unimpressed. "...Our place is kind of damp." Takashi doesn't respond directly, but his lips quirk up unwillingly. "I mean...this is our last time to do something like this." "To sneak out in between our cues and reminisce about the 'good old days' away from everyone else?" "Exactly." "We do that all the time, though," he reminds, brows lifting, and Takashi pushes his shoulder. "We do! Name one span of time in the last seven years or so when we haven't had opportunity, if we wanted, to blow off an uchiage or weekend with friends and go to your place or mine and marathon old musicals or just talk until our throats were hoarse or--" He drops his voice and takes a step closer, "--or find some other way to capture that old magic." Takashi doesn't let his body respond the way it wants to; they've still got another hour until the show ends, and then there's the uchiage to get through afterwards. Instead, he cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he stares up at Tuti. "So you're not at all sad to see these shows ending?" Tuti hems and haws, thinking through his response. "...A little, sure." He regards Takashi with amusement. "It's left me with some great memories, that's for sure." "Mmm, I like to think we still would've found each other even without this gig." "Is this what they call 'magnetic attraction,' Nagayama-san?" He quirks his brows up hopefully, and Takashi loops his arms around Tuti's neck, being careful not to jostle the wig or wrinkle the carefully ironed jersey. "Call it whatever you want, this is still special." Tuti lets his carefully crafted mask drop away for a moment, and his expression grows neutral, granting Takashi the grace of seeing his true feelings on the matter. "It is. And that's why I want to memorize every last moment here, and then walk away." "So you're not sad." Takashi's voice is resigned; not so disappointed, though. He's come to expect this sort of approach to a role from Tuti. "What the hell do I have to be sad for? I'll still have you; I'll still have Moriyama-san and Kime-chan and Eiki and all of them. I'll still have DVDs when I want to see how bad we were when we first started this gig, and I'll still have your number in my cell phone when I'm trying to remember which performance it was at where we made Souta drink his own Inui juice--" "Senshuuraku when we graduated." "--thank you." Takashi smiles at the quick response. "And none of that, not one moment, is going to change after curtain two weeks from now." Takashi nods, like he's been telling himself the same thing for weeks now and it just isn't sinking in. "I know." "But you're still sad." Takashi shrugs. "You know me. I'm a crybaby; I get attached to my roles. I cry when I get done wrapping a guest spot for a random drama!" Tuti rolls his eyes, because he knows this is true. "It's just...this was my first, you know? Lots of firsts for me. So I'm...really happy I get to be here to see it end. And I'm happy to get to do it with you." Tuti looks far too pleased with himself, rubbing his palms over Takashi's biceps to warm up the muscles which have cooled in their short time outside. "I'm pretty happy I get to do it with you, too." A buzzer sounds from inside, reminding all that the guest corner is about to start and that everyone should be changing into their next outfits now. "Even if Icchan was a better dancer." |
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