Banany's fic journal

Title: Mine (Part 2/9)
Pairings: Golf/Mike, Golf/Mike/Yamapi
Word count: 3,100
Rating: PG
Summary: Golf and Mike had always been closer to one another than anyone else. Yamapi threatened that.


Yamapi couldn't tell them apart.

Golf and Mike hadn't known exactly what to expect when they met him, since they weren't really friends. Still, when Mike had smiled politely at him and said, "Hello, Yamashita-san!" in practiced Japanese, he hadn't expected the response to be, "Hello... Golf?"

The real Golf had snorted before he'd been able to stop himself, causing a pained expression to cross this manager's face, whilst earning a blank look from Yamapi. He hurried to cover up his mistake by saying, "I'm Golf," after which Mike hastened to re-introduce himself too. Yamapi nodded, and said something which their translator repeated as, "I'm sorry about that. I'm looking forward to working with you."

Mike could tell that while he was trying to remain professional, Yamashita really wanted to cringe and smack himself for making such a dumb mistake so early on in. He probably imagined he'd already gotten both brothers to assume that the project was going to be a complete disaster - Thirty seconds in, and he'd already screwed up. New record!
However, when their translators and managers and all the other people who worked from behind the scenes turned away to discuss behind the scenes business, Yamapi sidled up to Mike and asked in English, "English okay, yes?"

Mike's eyebrows rose, not really having expected Yamapi to initiate conversation with him, much less in a foreign language. "English okay." He replied in Japanese.

After that, Yamapi thought for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry I'm calling you Golf. Sometimes I am... very idiot." And then he smiled, looking for all the world as if he hoped he'd been understood. Mike felt his anxiety drain away.

"Me too. Sometimes." He smiled back, then attempted to think of the Japanese phrase for 'Sometimes I'm clumsy' without avail and ended up switching to English. Yamapi only stared at him blankly, so Mike quickly switched back to something he knew Yamapi would understand, "It's okay." He said, "It's fine. Yes?"

Yamapi grinned widely, nodded and gave him the thumbs up.



They went to the hotel and slept after that, trying to shake off the jetlag from the two hour time difference, then spent the next day familiarizing themselves with where they were going to be working. This also included hours of boring business-meeting like talk that Golf, being the elder sibling, had developed a tolerance for. On the other hand, Mike was bored enough to kill himself and his mind had automatically shut off. He was trying - he really, honestly was trying - but whenever he wasn't interested his mind drifted away from the subject. On top of all that, they even had to hear it all twice (Once from the Johnny's staff, which he didn't understand, and once from their translator, which he wasn't really listening to anyway).

It wasn't like they were saying anything he actually needed to know anyway. Just things about how they hoped that the Japanese fans would have a good reaction to the Thai boys (They hoped that they'd make a lot of money off them), that they and Yamashita-kun would get along (Play nice or we'll have you deported immediately), and that they knew Golf and Mike would do their best (We're going to make you work so hard that you can't walk anymore, and when it comes to that point, we're putting you in wheel chairs and you'll continue with your schedule as normal).

After that, it was a whole bunch of times and dates which totally went in one ear and out the other, and Mike's eyelids began to droop. He may have even started to doze off if something hadn't smacked him right in the middle of the forehead. He sat bolt upright, but fortunately no one noticed. No one but Yamapi, that was. Mike stared at him for a moment, then realized that he'd torn up some of the paper they'd been given for note-taking and had crumpled it into little balls. As soon as Mike noticed this, Yamapi flicked another one at his head. Fortunately it missed and flew right over his shoulder.

He could have ignored him. Could have rolled his eyes at him, tried to be mature, and gone back to trying to concentrate on the unbelievably boring meeting. He could have. But of course, Mike didn't. Instead, he grinned - a childish 'You missed!' grin - and stuck his tongue out, just enough so that none of the others noticed. He expected that Yamapi would probably just respond to that by flicking another bit of paper at him and going back to the meeting himself, but instead he stuck out his lips in what looked a lot like a kissy-face, and twisted them in a way that should have been physically impossible.

Mike couldn't help himself, and burst into a fit of giggles, which he quickly turned into a fit of coughing to save face. Golf immediately had an arm around his shoulders, frantically asking if he was okay. It made him feel a little guilty; because of having suffered from asthma when he was little, Golf automatically panicked when Mike started to cough a lot. He waved him off, telling him, "I'm fine, I'm fine", and once he noticed that everyone had stopped talking, told the translator, "Tell them I'm sorry. We can carry on now."

They started up from where they'd left off, and once no one was paying him any more attention, he snuck another peek at Yamapi. Yamapi smiled at him. Mike smiled back.
After that, he somehow found it a lot easier to concentrate.



In a country where politeness was slightly less highly prized, Yamapi probably would have been threatened with bodily harm if he managed to lose the Thai boys today. However, this was Japan and that just wasn't the sort of thing that you went around saying to the other people in your company. So as Golf and Mike told the translator they'd be fine alone (This morning, before the second round of mind-numbing meetings, Yamapi had produced a Japanese to Thai dictionary, and a Japanese to English electronic translator. They figured they could get along by using those), Yamashita was only told to take good care of them, and to make sure that he was careful.

Even though it was half past three, they went to get a meal first, half because Golf and Mike were kind of hungry, and half because when Yamapi had suggested it, he'd sounded so excited about going to get food. He'd even tried to ask them in Thai by saying, 'restaurant?', which took a few seconds to click, because he'd gotten the tone wrong and had actually managed to say a dirty word.

After that, they went sight-seeing (To some places they had been, and some places they hadn't), but all got tired of it after a couple of hours. It was starting to pass on to evening anyway, so Yamapi eventually just suggested in English, "Boring. Karaoke?" To which both the boys readily agreed.

"I want to sing Japanese songs. D'you think I can do it?" Mike elbowed his brother as they headed to Yamapi's car, "I don't want to embarrass myself in front of Yamashita."
Yamapi glanced at them curiously, picking up his name amongst what sounded like gibberish to him, but they were too immersed in their conversation to notice.

"I don't know, aren't you always singing Takki and Tsubasa songs in the shower? Or Gackt? Yeah, I can totally hear you from my room," Golf replied, elbowing back, then tickling him, earning a smack on the hand, "Don't you know the lyrics to some of the songs off by heart now?"
Mike shrugged, "I think I do. But I can't read Japanese, so how do I know if I'm wrong?"
"You don't," Golf said, and then said completely out of the blue, "He looks really different this time, right? I was surprised."
He didn't have to explain any further. Mike watched Yamashita as they entered the karaoke building, comparing him to the skinny, shy, blonde one that they'd first met on their previous visit to Japan.
"Yeah," He agreed, "But I think he looks really good this way."
Golf didn't say another word after that.

Mike ended up sitting between the two of them, because he needed Yamapi to enter the Japanese song titles into the karaoke tablet for him. It turned out that he remembered more lyrics than he'd thought he would, and Yamapi actually praised him, both for his singing voice and pronunciation, which made Mike giddy. He was being praised by Yamashita Tomohisa. He praised Golf too of course, but when Mike had first told him what he wanted to sing, and could he please put it in for him, Yamapi's face had lit up and he'd asked, "Japanese song?". It was that look that had made Mike feel special.

They sung together as well (A Takki and Tsubasa song), and Mike found himself wondering what he'd been so nervous about just before they'd left Thailand. Clearly he and his brother were hitting it off with Yamapi just fine. They spent about three hours there, and Yamapi was halfway through a slower song when he realized that Mike was dozing off on his shoulder. Golf noticed a moment later, and grabbed Yamapi's English to Japanese translator (The dictionary only went from Japanese to Thai, and there was no way he'd be able to find the words he wanted using it).

"Nuisance?" He finally asked, skimming his fingertips over his brother's hair fondly, "Wake up?"
"No. It's okay." And Golf didn't know what he thought of the smile that Yamapi was wearing on his face as he looked down at his brother, except that maybe it was kind of out of place, because he wasn't supposed to look at Mike that way, and Golf wasn't sure he liked it.

The woman from the counter rang up the phone on their wall half an hour after that, telling them that the time they'd booked for was up, but they could have ten more minutes if they wanted. Yamapi declined and finally went to awaken Mike, who was now curled up on the couch, sound asleep. After a couple of nudges, he stirred, and rubbed his face with both hands, blinked lazily, then stared up with bleary eyes.

"You fell asleep." Golf told him, as if he couldn't have guessed on his own, "We have to go now, okay?"

Mike muttered something, stretched and yawned, then looked around again to get his bearings. When he noticed Yamapi in front of him, he waved, "Hello."

Yamapi responded with, "Good morning", and offered him a hand up, but Golf grabbed him around the middle before he had time to accept and hoisted him off the couch. Mike squeaked, which soon turned to laugher, then wriggled out of Golf's grip, and the three of them headed back to the counter. Yamapi paid for all of them, drove them back to the hotel, and even walked them inside before he left. Mike watched until he was out of sight, then caught up with Golf who was asking the staff for their room keys (They'd left them at the desk that morning for safe keeping).

Mike leant against the wall as they waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor. "That was fun." He yawned as he spoke, and put a hand to his mouth to cover it, disfiguring his words somewhat. Golf didn't say anything and just kept waiting, not looking even half as happy as Mike felt. Mike frowned, feeling concerned, and rested a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You okay, Golf? Are you tired? I sure am."

The elevator doors finally popped open, and it was only once they were on their way to their floor that Golf spoke.
"Mike... You know, the way you fell asleep on Yamashita was really stupid. What were you thinking?"

Mike's eyebrows rose in surprise at the annoyed tone in his brother's voice, and his mind had trouble forming a reply much more comprehensible than, "Huh?"
Golf huffed, and shook his head.

"Look, it was just dumb of you. I mean, come on, we're supposed to be professional and what do you go and do? You need to grow up and take our job seriously. I mean, we're practically representing Thailand over here, but all you ever do is keep acting like a little kid."

They reached their destination and the doors opened, but neither made a move to get out. Mike's mind overflowed with responses and accusations about how that's not what he'd said on the plane at all, and Golf was a big hypocrite and he'd said that they should have fun over here as well as do work, so what was he talking about, and Mike didn't act like a little kid at all. But he couldn't voice all of that, or even reason with himself, let alone Golf. Because the truth was, on top of suddenly being angry with him, he was also confused and upset.

"Oh, like karaoke's a professional situation anyway. Thanks for ruining my night. Loser." He squeezed through the now-closing elevator doors, narrowly escaping from his brother, and stormed off down the corridor to his room, biting back what felt to him suspiciously like a sob.

The doors shut, cutting off Golf's view of his retreating sibling's back. He waited a moment before pressing the button to open the doors again, feeling glad that they weren't sharing a room. It would give him time away from Mike to think about this, and with the current situation, it made things a lot less awkward. It wasn't that they'd never fought before or anything, but this time felt kind of different. He wasn't even sure what they were fighting over or exactly why he was so mad at Mike. Yeah, he knew it was because Mike had fallen asleep on Yamashita, and that just wasn't something you should do with someone who was barely more than an acquaintance, but why did he pick an argument about it? It wasn't like Mike had done it intentionally or anything.

He half grumbled nonsense, half sighed to himself as he unlocked his room and kicked his shoes off. After shutting and locking the door, he brushed his teeth and then, too tired to have a bath, set his alarm so he'd be able to have one in the morning and fell asleep on top of the bedcovers in his clothes.


They ate together in the hotel lobby in silence the next day. Golf, not used to being the one who apologized, refused to do so and Mike refused to meet his brother's eyes. The two couldn't get to work fast enough, where they met up with Yamapi who didn't really notice anything wrong. All three were immediately swept up into reviewing a draft for the lyrics of their single, and were told to give opinions or suggest changes where they thought improvements could be made.

That was about the time Yamashita noticed that something was up. He wasn't quite sure what it was - he didn't know them that well after all - but their relations seemed strained today. They weren't talking more than was absolutely necessary, and there was none of the nudging, or snickering under their breath at inside jokes, or any of the shared expressions that had seemed so common over the last three days.

He couldn't really ask them about it during work, but as soon as they were given lunch break (One hour, and one hour only) he cornered Golf near a vending machine as he was buying a drink, and asked, "Are you okay?"
Golf hesitated. He couldn't really explain this to Yamapi, what with their limited knowledge of one other's respective languages. More than that, he wasn't really sure he wanted anyone else to know that he and Mike were fighting. Especially not so early on into the job. Instead, he forced a smile and replied, "Yeah, I'm okay."

Yamashita remained completely unconvinced - he was part of the entertainment business after all, and he was used to having to lie. It was easy to recognize one when it was directed at him. Still, he didn't want to push the issue further if he wasn't welcome to and left Golf to get his lunch. Instead, he went off to find Mike.

He asked the same question - "Are you okay? - but received quite a different response. Mike's face crumbled into an upset expression and he shook his head. Yamapi wasn't sure if he preferred this almost-crying look over the Golf's lies or not. Despite that, he placed a comforting hand on the boy's back, urging him to try and talk.

Mike hoped that by telling Yamapi what had happened, they'd be able to work together and figure out what the problem with Golf was. By the end of their slightly incorrect, choppy, stop-start conversation ("Golf and I are fight. He's angry... so I slept on your shoulder.") Yamapi managed to understand the gist of the problem.
Unfortunately, once he understood why Golf was mad, he was even more confused as to the reason than Mike. Last night when Mike had fallen asleep on him, Golf had seemed amused, and the way he'd treated his sleeping brother when he'd offered to wake him up had even been slightly tender. It really didn't make any sense that he should be so angry about it now. He tried to explain this to Mike, but didn't really have any luck.

However, between their difficulty communicating and lack of solutions to the problem, Yamapi managed to cheer Mike up a whole lot, and on the way back to reviewing the lyrics to their still-titleless single, Mike pulled Golf to the side and quickly told him, "Sorry for making you mad. I didn't mean to. And I don't think you're a loser either." And Golf didn't really want to, maybe couldn't, respond in any way other than telling Mike that it was all okay, that maybe he'd over-reacted just a tiny bit.

As he entered the room and saw them mock-fighting with one another (Mike poking Golf in the cheek with a pen while Golf gave Mike a painful looking noogie with his left hand), Yamapi couldn't help but smile.

He caught Mike's eye once he'd returned to his seat, and the look that they shared spoke their thoughts more clearly than any words ever could;
"Thank you."
"Any time."
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