[je] 10 songs meme
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays.
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
note: all the songs are on imeem: i, ii, iii, iv, v. translations to i, iv, and v are here, here, and here.
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i. hybrid rainbow | bump of chicken
koichi doesn’t decorate his side of the room with posters or family pictures. his walls are bare and clean and white, minimalist, because koichi is all about the essentials. in the window, though, he hangs a little crystal dangling on string; it’s a bauble made to hang from rearview mirrors in cars. some sunny lazy mornings, the sun filters through the glass panes and hits the crystal in the perfect way, refracting rainbows on the walls in dizzying array.
nagase, on his side of the room, is dozing still; a late night last night, but all nights are late for nagase these days. ‘debut,’ he had whispered to koichi, hushed because that’s how debut is spoken of among the juniors, with quiet reverence. koichi had gotten up early and finished his homework–he’s studious, which had been a surprise to some at first. now, math is finished and chemistry nearly so. his bed is already made, but he crawls into nagase’s, stealing some pillow. it’s not yet lunch; he has time for a quick nap. in the afternoon, there will be dance rehearsals, more work–but sunday mornings are slow, tranquils things; thick and sweet and golden-lit like honey. koichi dozes to the even breathing of nagase.
later, there will be lunch, will be dance rehearsals and concert planning and television filming for koichi; variety shows and studio recordings and photoshoots for nagase. later, they will smile for the cameras and interview for magazines; be idols to an adoring public. later, nagase will wear leather and fur and boots, too short shorts and too tight vests–his limbs will be slim and boyish still to those of his bandmates, but he will stand in the front, will stand in the center, will sing his throat raw. later, koichi will meet up with tsuyoshi, always tsuyoshi–that’s how it’s been, how it always will be, koichi and tsuyoshi, koichi and tsuyoshi, kinki kids; and they will sing about dreams and forever and love; will promise always, always, always–
later, later; tomorrow, tomorrow.
later, later: they will move out of the dormitories, will host their own shows and have their own careers and do their own projects, will meet only when their schedules coincide–
(debut, nagase had said, and maybe there was a frightened lilt to his voice; it’s a beginning, not an end, koichi had smiled; koichi, unsentimental, uncomforting, but who had immense faith in some things, some things don’t end, occhan)
later, later, but not yet. the kaleidescope of sunburnt colors swing gently on koichi’s white walls, in time to the crystal prism hanging in the window. they have time yet, slow weekend mornings to nap away.
tomorrow, tomorrow: but it isn’t a limit, not a limit at all.
here is only partway through.
ii. so what | pink
kinki don’t fight, in the traditional sense of the term. they don’t shout and they never throw things and they’re too self-conscious to resort to physical violence. tsuyoshi sulks, though, sometimes: he becomes vicious, contemptuous, acid dripping from his insults. koichi goes cold and silent; for all his fastidiousness, he’s slow to anger, but also slow to appease. no one gives a cold shoulder quite like koichi; silent and aloof for sometimes months on end.
koichi isn’t bothered by tsuyoshi’s solo debut; he doesn’t lie about that in the interviews. koichi’s the consummate showman, but it’s all learned. he’s never been comfortable in front of the camera, he’s never loved the attention of thousands at a time, he’s never been a natural performer like tsuyoshi. he doesn’t grudge tsuyoshi his solo debut.
“what are you doing?” he asks, though, at the outfits, the lack of usual cheery sparkle during MCs. some things, koichi doesn’t understand; doesn’t understand how easily tsuyoshi can verbalize emotions, doesn’t understand tsuyoshi’s propensity for introspection, doesn’t understand tsuyoshi’s colors or moodiness or whimsicality. but koichi understands what it takes to be an idol, understands what he has to do for his job; koichi understands that an idol who doesn’t dance, who doesn’t smile, who doesn’t promise always, always, always is no idol at all.
“it’s not me,” says tsuyoshi, and he means this world, this industry, these lies. tsuyoshi isn’t about business, isn’t about professionalism; tsuyoshi is Artist. his world is about the truthfulness of expression, the evocation of emotions, the reflection of life.
but: “this isn’t about you,” says koichi, cold and biting, because that how koichi lives; because for koichi, work transcends everything else. this isn’t about you is koichi’s truth; but it isn’t tsuyoshi’s–and that’s their schism, the million hairfine, tiny fractures in the existence called ‘kinki kids’.
their impasse, their stalemate. it never shows too visibly; koichi’s too professional, and tsuyoshi’s sense of privacy too strong. they’ve both been with the company for too long, have been at the top since their junior days, for personal relations to leak into their working one.
but tsuyoshi’s mocking is little more biting, a little less sardonic and little more sarcastic. and koichi grows cold: all hard edges and bitter wintriness, icy like the december winds.
you can’t go on like this, their managers says to each: i can, says tsuyoshi, i’m all right, i’ll be–i’ll be fine; and so what? says koichi, can we go on either way?
(they get over it, though, because that’s how they are, because they’re not stupid, because they’ve been at this for too long. their edges have never quite fit, but the years are sanding away the imperfections. they’re not quite friends, but they’re partners, and maybe that means more.)
iii. on the radio | regina spektor
koichi does not love in generalities. he knows people who do, people who love people for being people, people who love humanity en masse. koichi’s affection is hesitant, stuttering; full of pauses and tentative starts, like koichi’s shyly spoken sentences. his heart is always partly closed–an unsentimental heart, but frail.
did someone break your heart once? nagase likes to ask. koichi suspects that nagase’s actually a big girl, the way he likes to gossip with koichi.
no, says koichi, which is sort of a lie. he’d had a cat once. and because nagase–even outside their world of television cameras and too-bright spotlights and layers of concealing makeup, the screaming thousands and the glittering, scratchy costumes and the careful, brilliant smiles–even outside their public personas, nagase is his friend; because nagase is–is nagase, koichi says: that is. well. i had a cat once, you see. but then it died.
and then you closed your heart forever and forever, laments nagase. there is something dramatic in his tone, the narration of a tragedy. and promised never to love another.
koichi smiles, faint, amused. no, he says. koichi does not believe in love stories. he’s very practical about some things, mostly because he doesn’t think about them too much.
(you’re young until you’re not. you love until you don’t. you try until you can’t)
“that’s not how it works, occhan,” he says.
yeah? asks nagase, but it’s not a challenge. because this is nagase: full of easy smiles and warm laughter, a comfortable presence. he invites koichi out to yakiniku in the early mornings, before the sun’s yet up. nagase’s this hands are large and broad, though his fingers are surprisingly slim; and he’s careful with koichi’s heart.
(–you hope it don’t get hurt; but even if it does–)
they stagger home, bellies too full, leaning against each other for support. “‘m glad,” nagase tells koichi, “‘m glad your heart’s not broken,” and aho, koichi calls him, slipping into accented dialect, with sunlit affection in his chest.
(even if it does; you’d just do it all again.)
iv. supernova | bump of chicken
koichi’s not good with words. when they’re his, when they’re not on a scriptboard, they emerge clinking and fragmented like pieces of broken porcelain. there’s something imprecise about words; they never mean quite what he wants them to; they always mean a little too much.
to the audience, he doesn’t know what else to say sometimes but thank you. it seems small, pale; worn thin and formulaic. there’s no other phrase that he knows, though; nothing else that approaches his meaning.
you are my marriage, he can’t say, doesn’t know how. you are my work. you transcend all else.
you’ve been here, always.
one day, he knows, he will fade. it’s already been more than ten years and the lifespan of an idol is short. they’re old, he and tsuyoshi. one day, they’ll be replaced; there will be someone else, fresh-faced and young, full of idealism and dreams, the embodiment of hope. that’s how the business works.
they’re commodities.
but–
“what are your plans for the future?” the interviewers loved to ask.
“i think,” koichi would answer, quiet but firm, “right now is most important.”
(because this is what koichi also knows: that he goes back to SHOCK, year after year after year, because of how hard it is, how exhausting it is, how suicidal it is. the burn in his lungs with each breath, the tremor in all his limbs as he stumbles backstage, the way his knees buckle while the staff strip the bloody armor off of him–each is a litany of i’m alive, i’m alive, i’m alive.)
the audience still come, are here, now. this is enough for koichi. thank you is insufficient, does not fully express what he means, the immensity of his gratitute, but he’s never been good with words. they’re here to see him, still so awkward in front of cameras even after all these years; buy the magazines though he’s never been good at photoshoots; listen to him though he stumbles and trips over his words. they’re here, for him, and koichi, who would like to but cannot convey emotions in mathematics, can only say:
i’ll work harder.
v. seikai no yakusoku | baisho cheiko
koichi and tsuyoshi meet like this: backstage at a hikaru genji concert, introduced to each other by a short, stooped old man who spoke strange japanese. this story, they tell often; tsuyoshi in sneakers and cap on backwards, cheeky and rebellious; koichi, the filial child, neatly dressed and eyes shy behind his glasses.
the other stories they tell, backdancing for hikaru genji before smap; setting off fireworks onstage and spilling their bucket of water and causing hikaru genji to fall. the apologies afterwards, the magnanimous pardons. the embarrassment of that incident has faded with time, has sublimed into humor instead. it’s a good story, and the audience’s laughter spills bright and gratifying.
a memory that they do not tell:
they’re going to kill us, aren’t they? tsuyoshi asked in a tremulous hush. his eyes were huge, his face white. koichi was beside him, where they stood before one of hikaru genji’s dressing room doors. johnny-san wasn’t happy. it wasn’t like we did it on purpose though. do you think they’re going to be very angry? w-we’re still kids, right, and there are–there are, like, laws against that sort of violence, aren’t–?
they were roughly the same height, though koichi looked a lot taller, partly because of how slim he was, partly because of the way he carried himself. they were about the same age too, but koichi was a year ahead in school, and that was a big difference at thirteen. standing in front of that door, in front of that doorway, koichi too was pale; but tsuyoshi was looking at him with nervous, unblinking eyes.
it’ll be all right, said koichi, because that felt appropriate, and managed a steady (though rather thin) voice. he thought about it. tsuyoshi wasn’t much good at apologies; he was cheekily charming and his smiles were bright and impossibly cheerful. but he had grown up in a privileged household, doted on by his parents. he’d never had much practice with apologies.
koichi, who’d grown up in a household of women, was a bit better at the duty thing.
i’ll--you know, said koichi, and breathed in, and knocked.
(he meant: don’t worry.
and tsuyoshi nodded, and breathed in; and trusted.)
