Banany's fic journal

Title: Ugly
Characters: Jin, Kame, Ryo and Yamapi. Brief mentions of the other KAT-TUN members
Word count: 944
Rating: PG
Summary: The boys examine a particularly hideous picture from a photo shoot of Kamenashi and Yamapi.



It was a terrible, terrible photograph.
It was in fact, Kamenashi Kazuya decided all by himself, quite possibly the worst photo in the history of the Johnny's Agency. Evidently, at the photo shoot with Yamapi, he'd done himself an injustice by not looking at the pictures that they'd taken and choosing which ones he definitely didn't want used.
The problem was that he’d been tired. He’d been tired from filming Nobuta, he’d been tired from being stuck doing this photoshoot all day long, and all he really wanted to do was sleep.

He was going to kill the magazine staff. They must have taken hundreds upon hundreds of photos during that day. After the obligatory posed page-spreads, they'd told him and Yamashita, 'Just goof off, act natural, and we'll get some un-posed shots', and then they'd clicked away, and finished up, and he'd told them to handle the rest and that he was going home.
Big mistake.
He realized this only while looking at the magazine with Yamapi and the rest of KAT-TUN once it had come out a month later.
"We look terrible." He said, drawing the attention of the other six towards the - actually rather small - picture. There was a moment of silence, before all manners of laughter ranging from suppressed giggles to undignified snorts erupted from the other six guys. Really, the photo was very tiny, but once it caught your attention it was hard to tear your eyes away.
"I'm hideous." Kame lamented, "Look at me. My face is all scrunched up and my mouth is wide open. And my teeth look terrible."

It was, of course, at that exact moment that Nishikido Ryo chose to walk past. Of course he'd actually be working in the same vicinity as them on the same day that they were looking at hideous, failed photoshoot pictures.

"Funny it took you this long to notice. I thought you'd have come to that conclusion sooner, what with all the time you spend in front of the mirrors around here."
Kame dismissed the insult with a casual flip of his hand, "You're just jealous because I'm tall enough to see into them."
Ryo's fingers twitched, and his lip curled dangerously, but then he caught sight of the picture they'd all been staring at before and broke into a gleeful cackle. He gave Kamenashi and Yamapi each a brief pat on the shoulder, before chuckling again and shaking his head.

"Oh man, that really is a terrible shot. Never mind Kame's ugly mug, what's up with your face, Pi?" He gestured to the shot, where Yamapi's lips are pulled into an almost impossible shape. "What were you trying to do?"
Yamapi grinned, "I did that on purpose. I was trying to make Kame laugh. We were supposed to be doing natural shots, but he wouldn't stop posing, so I tried to loosen him up. Didn't know they'd take a picture while I was doing it, though."
They all examined it for a moment and Ryo snickered again, "He was probably posing because he didn't want to, you know, end up looking stupid."

Kame would have usually gotten slightly testy at the obvious (although not very creative) insult, but this time he had to agree with the implications. He really did look dreadful. It was lucky this hadn't happened back when he’d just been getting started, or the Johnny's fan base would never have paid him mind again, in fear of having their eyes burned from their sockets.
"It's terrible. I'm glad I don't really look like that." He said, jabbing the page distastefully with his thumb.
"Happens to all of us." Nakamaru reassured him, "Don't worry about it. By the time next month's magazine comes out, no one will remember this at all."
Jin had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the entire ordeal, but suddenly pulled the magazine closer to himself and began to inspect it.
"I dunno," He said, sounding vaguely thoughtful, "I kinda like it."

What followed his comment was a collective silence, which in turn was followed by an interesting assortment of varying facial expressions. Ueda's in particular looked like an odd cross between the face of someone who'd just seen something particularly disgusting, and someone who'd just been smacked between the eyes with a soccer ball.

"...What?" Was about all that Kame could muster. Yamapi just sat back with a fond smile, completely used to his best friend's eccentricities.
"Are you looking at the right shot?" Koki asked, sounding as disbelieving as everyone else looked.
Jin nodded, motioning towards the correct photo. Ryo raised his eyebrows.
"Jin, aren't you working hard to try and escape that dumb image you've fallen into?"
"I'm not stupid!" Jin replied, his voice clearly indignant, "I just kinda like the picture, is all." He flapped his hand towards Kame, "Because you look happy in it. You both do."
No one really had any response to that, other than leaning in closer to re-examine the photo with this new opinion in mind.

Kame looked at the place where his mouth usually was, replaced by a wide, ugly crack trying to pass for a grin. He looked at the crinkles around his eyes from laughter that made him look about ten years older, and then at Yamapi's purposefully dorky, but somewhat amused face.
Then he looked at Jin, wondering how someone who was such a moron could sometimes be so insightful.
"No matter what you say,” Kame said, “We still look absolutely awful."
Then he looked down at the picture again.
But yeah. Absolutely awful in a kind of good way.
Maybe he could see why they'd picked this photo after all.