Banany's fic journal

Title: Voices (Part 6/?)
Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Tegoshi/Masuda
Word count: 4,369
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Following an accident, the members of NEWS are left in hospital in comas. Upon awakening, their memories have been replaced with those of other people, from another life.




His face felt think and heavy with paste, and his hair was unnaturally stiff and solid. The suit was crisp and neat and new, and rubbed against his body in all the wrong places, as if it didn't fit him, despite being the perfect size. Everything fit perfectly these days, in ways nothing ever used to.

"Pout a little, please. Not too much, just a... yes, that's right. And if you could try and look intense... that's perfect. Okay, good."
He knew what was coming, but still had little time to ready himself before everywhere was lit up with blinding flashes. And same as always, in the fading white light, the studio was filled with wraith-like silhouettes and faint voices that called to him, as though they were trying to lure him into their faraway world. He stared blankly through them.

When he'd first begun this job, it had frightened him. He'd almost quit after only a few months, but his mother had refused to let him, and so he'd forced himself to endure it. Get used to it. After all, it was always over in a few seconds, he reasoned.
"Good job, Nishito-san. Now, don't look directly at the camera this time. Please smile... Okay, that's good. Now, look down a bit. No, keep your chin up. Just your eyes downcast... perfect."

There were a couple of seconds before the studio was filled with light once again, and he was surrounded by the faceless white shadows. They moved with an unearthly grace, and spoke in faint, distorted voices.

"Nishikido--" "--san."
"Smile..."
"Ryo--" "--is really--" "--always has..."
One of them swept through him, but he didn't feel a thing, didn't even flinch. And then the white light and voices subsided, and only the photographer, his crew and his camera were left in the suddenly silent, enormous studio.

"Good job, Nishito-san, we're all done for the day. You can go and get changed."
He finally relaxed his limbs, and scratched a spot on his cheek where it itched. He'd been dying to do it for the last half hour, but hadn't been able to risk smearing the makeup. He graced the photographer with a smile on his way to the changing room, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. Not that his smiles ever did. Not that it really mattered; it was funny how sincerity wasn’t important inside the pages of a magazine. The photographer smiled back. It could have been genuine, could have been false. Nishito Akira never could tell.

Once he was finally in the privacy of the changing room, he stripped off the outfit he'd been required to wear for the shoot, and changed back into his street clothes. A hat and a pair of sunglasses followed – you could never be too careful out in public – and then he gathered up the suit he was required to return.

He passed the photographer and his assistant on his way out, catching snatches of their conversation as he went by.
"... so easy to work with. A bit cold like everyone says, but still so easy to work with."

"Yes, I noticed. He's so new to the modelling scene, but he hardly needed any instruction or reprimands. A natural in front of the camera."
Nishito nodded at them as a sort of farewell as he passed, and they stopped talking and smiled in response, thanking him for a day of hard work.
He took the elevator down to the ground floor and left the suit at reception, then retrieved his bag from the secretary. She bowed and said goodbye, adding another smile to the pile he'd received today. He smiled back too, faker than plastic, and then left through the automatic doors.

He stepped out onto the street, turning to take once last look at the towering building, twisted steel and cold glass, looming and artificial.
"I hope you all fucking die." He muttered under his breath. Then he walked away.

~*~*~*~

Massu's heart beat had finally slowed down, Tegoshi noted, and his skin was gradually cooling. His own skin felt a little less flushed as well, but it would still be a while before he'd be comfortable having the blankets over him. He knew he'd cool down faster if he got off of Massu, but right now he'd prefer being a little overheated to doing that.

"I missed this." Tegoshi murmured drowsily. His cheek was nestled firmly against Massu's shoulder, with his head pillowed close to the crook of his neck. "I missed you." He sighed deeply; a sigh somewhere between contentment and exhaustion. Tonight was the first time they'd made love since the accident and he'd almost forgotten how good it felt, before, during and after.

Massu made a soft sound of agreement, running his fingers through Tegoshi's hair. It made Tegoshi squirm a bit, in an attempt to get him to stop.
"It still hasn't grown back all the way yet." He said, referring to the patch he'd had shaven off for his operation. Despite how confident he seemed all of the time, he was a little insecure about it. "I've been using this shampoo that's meant to stimulate my follicles but it only really helps it grow back by half an inch every two weeks." There was obvious displeasure in his voice, sounding as though he'd been expecting it to work much faster, just because it was for him. That just made Massu laugh.

"I think it's kind of cute." He said, gently touching the spot. He knew there was a scar there, and he was worried that it'd still hurt if he touched it too hard.
"But I have to keep it covered for photos, and I'm getting tired of hat hair." Tegoshi replied, nuzzling his face further into Massu's neck. He sounded like he was about to fall asleep.

"I think that's cute too." Massu said. He kept stroking, lulling both himself and Tegoshi with the gentle, rhythmic motion. "Don't worry, anyway. Everything'll be back to normal soon."
"Even my hair?" Tegoshi giggled softly, in a voice laced with drowsiness. "You know, if Yamashita-san would wake up, I'm sure everything would be okay. He's always so calm and he always knows what to do."
"Yeah," Massu yawned, sounding even sleepier, "He's smart. But we can always rely on him, right? He'll wake up for us soon."
Eventually Massu's hand stilled on Tegoshi's head, indicating that he'd fallen asleep. Tegoshi followed soon after.


The sound of the alarm clock jolted them from sleep about an hour earlier than they needed to be awake. It was something of a defence that they used every time they slept together, in order to make sure no one walked in on them while they were still in a compromising position.

Massu groaned and rolled over, going right back to sleep the moment Tegoshi hit the snooze button. Tegoshi, knowing that he'd probably do exactly the same thing if he wriggled into Massu's warmth and lay there for a 'just a few more minutes', rolled in the other direction, out from under the covers and onto the floor. It was a very un-Tegoshi-like trick that he'd discovered long ago to get himself up; roll out of bed before you know what you're doing and let the cold air wake you up.

The alarm clock rang twice more before Massu decided it was time to for him to follow. By this time, Tegoshi had already dressed, brushed his teeth, and laid out a futon on the floor of the room in a way that made it look like one of them had slept in it. Massu stumbled into the bathroom, bleary eyed, and was about to brush his teeth when Tegoshi caught up with him.

"I used your toothbrush." He whispered into Massu's ear, and then kissed him square on the mouth. "You don't mind, right?"
Massu muttered something in a drowsy voice, about Tegoshi's mouth and already putting things in there, which could have either been obscene or innocent, depending on what noun he'd used. Tegoshi couldn't tell.

"Let's have breakfast out." He said in way of a reply, ignoring whatever it was that Massu had been muttering about. "We can go to a cafe or something."
Almost as though Tegoshi had pressed some sort of switch, Massu perked up at the idea of hot chocolate and pastries and went about his morning routine with a newly acquired vigour.

They bid Massu's parents farewell as they left, who both smiled back at them. Neither were any wiser as to what the two boys had been doing the night before, as far as Tegoshi could tell. And he felt guilty all of a sudden, because of this secret they were keeping, and it scared him sometimes that it could cause a rift between them and their families. But as they got into Tegoshi's car, Massu's hand accidentally brushed his own, and he felt warmth spread through him from the contact.
It was either keep their relationship a secret, or not have it at all. And Tegoshi already knew which he preferred.

~*~*~*~

The week had passed quickly, but quite intensely for Seisuke. Not only did it seem that he'd had his photo taken more times in seven days than he had up until now in his entire life time, but he'd started back at university too. He just thanked his lucky stars that he and Shige were both studying law.

At the moment, their photo shoots would be printed in the magazines without the name NEWS attached. The company had figured that fans would panic if they gave the impression that the group would carry on, regardless of whether Ryo and Yamapi woke up.
It had been a delicate decision for management to make. They didn't want to seem as though they were splitting the remaining members up again - especially not when they had said, word for word that there were 'no plans for another official hiatus in the future' at the press conference. But on the other hand if, like he and Masuda had out of the blue, Ryo and Yamapi miraculously woke up within the next week, having to call the group off suspension would only be a hassle.

Finally, it had been decided that Masuda, Tegoshi, Koyama and he would still work together as a group, under nothing but their own names. There would be no plans for official releases of any sort of media, no group appearances on any shows other than Shounen Club, and the concert that they had been in the middle of when the accident happened would remain cancelled.

It was almost like being a group without being one. And Koyama couldn't have been happier with the decision.

"I'm kind of glad." He'd told Shige, as the two of them huddled around a DVD player, watching an old KAT-TUN concert that they'd back danced in as juniors. It was to be Shige's 'lesson' for the day, Koyama had announced before he'd pressed play on the DVD. He'd had to pick himself and Koyama out from behind KAT-TUN whenever it was K.K.Kitty who were back dancing.

"What are you glad about?" He'd asked, glancing at Koyama, then looking back at the screen.
"Well, you know how after we were told the other day that we wouldn't be called NEWS for now, since it's just the four of us, you were saying that it was kind of like taking our identity away and stuff and not really promoting group spirit?"

Shige nodded. He remembered saying that. Names were important, after all.
"Yeah. Well, I'm kind of glad that we're not going to be called NEWS without the others. After... well, after the things with Kusano and Uchi-kun. It took me almost our entire hiatus before I could really start thinking of just the six of us as NEWS."

And Shige had kind of understood why Koyama was kind of glad. Because a lot had changed around Koyama over the past few weeks, and it didn't seem like the group mother could take it if his view on his beloved group had to change for a second time as well.

He watched him from the corner of his eye, subsequently missing a very obvious shot of Koyama dancing behind two members of KAT-TUN – one was Akanishi, and one was either Nakamaru or Taguchi, but Shige couldn't really tell yet – and the topic had suddenly been dropped in favour of Koyama shrieking that if Shige had missed that shot of him, what kind of friend was he, and to pay closer attention.
Shige shot back that Koyama always danced with his mouth hanging open and it was too embarrassing to watch properly. They'd ended up wrestling on the ground, rolling around, giggling and shrieking until one of them knocked over an end table.
That had been three days ago.

Now, three days later, Seisuke fidgeted in a chair in his psychiatrist's room. Dr. Leone was ten minutes late, and he was starting to grow nervous. He'd been a little edgy upon arrival, but now that she wasn't showing up, he was beginning to feel more and more unsettled by the moment. He didn't know why. There wasn't any good reason for him to feel like that just because she was late; he could understand it if he'd thought that she was perhaps his last hope for a diagnosis, but he had doubted from the beginning that she'd be of any help at all.

He'd been run through tests for Dissociative Identity Disorder, schizophrenia, and pretty much every single other psyche altering mental illness in known existence. He and his family had been questioned about substance abuse, of both the legal and illegal kinds, and there were still no leads. He highly doubted that some quirky, criticized psychiatrist was going to be able to help him all on her own. But still, the fact that she wasn't turning up made him nervous.

If she didn't come in the next ten minutes, he told himself, he'd go and ask somebody.
As luck would have it, he was just about to leave the room when she arrived, hardly the image he had in his head of someone with a PhD. She was short, even by Japanese standards, and slightly stocky, with a baby face and full lips but comparatively narrow eyes. She did have a vaguely foreign look about her, but like his psychiatrist had told him, it wasn't particularly noticeable. The stack of paper in her arms seemed quite overwhelming for someone of her size, and he wondered if she shouldn't have put it in a bag.
"Ah!" She paused upon seeing him, and bowed in way of greeting. Seisuke quickly rose from his chair to reciprocate.

"You must be..." She began, and then paused, looking at him almost intensely, "Which name do you like to be called by?"
He stared at her dumbly, not really understanding what she meant. He knew that English speakers sometimes called one another by their given names from the first time they met, but if this woman had been raised in Japan as he'd been told, she should already understand how the culture worked. She shouldn't need to ask questions like that.

Seeing that he was confused, Dr. Leone hastened to explain, "Are you more comfortable being called by your name from this world, or your name from the other world?"
Seisuke suddenly felt chilled. He knew that she would have been briefed about his condition, but there was something about the way she asked that question that made her seem so... familiar with his situation. A slight shiver went through his body at the thought, and he immediately distrusted her.

"I only have one name." He said, and his voice came out sounding colder than he'd meant it to. "I assume that you would have been told, but if no one has informed you already, it's Kato Shigeaki. Pleased to meet you."
She didn't miss a beat, and went to deposit her papers on Seisuke's psychiatrist's desk. "I see. Please to meet you too, Kato-san. I'm Haruka Leone. Feel free to call me what you like."

They both sat down, Seisuke back in the chair he'd started in, and her in the one across from it, holding a clipboard in her lap. He felt strangely on edge, ready to run from a danger that he was almost positive didn't exist. Silence followed as she scratched what were most likely notes onto the lined paper on her clipboard. After about a minute, Seisuke couldn't stand the lack of conversation in the room anymore.

"So why was it that you want to see me?" He asked, linking his hands together and placing them in his lap so he couldn't fidget. "Are you able to help figure out what this condition is, or...?" He wanted to add, 'Am I just of interest to you?' to the end of that sentence, but it seemed too rude to be acceptable, so instead he finished with, "Or is it some other reason?"

She looked at him carefully for a moment, and when she replied, it wasn't the answer he'd expected. "I figured your condition out long ago, before you were ever inflicted with it."

He stared at her in shock, mouth hanging slightly too widely open, too stunned to speak. She just continued, as though she'd said nothing unusual. "Although admittedly it is highly rare, its characteristics are so unique that it's easily identifiable."
She stopped then, giving him a chance to absorb the information – something he would have been grateful for, had he been in any condition to realize what she was doing – and returned to writing her notes.

"But... but if it's so easy to... well, if you knew what it was as soon as you heard about me, then how come..." Seisuke trailed off.
"How come no one else identified it from the beginning?" She finished for him. He nodded. That was exactly what he'd been wondering.
"Well, that's the real predicament here." Dr. Leone told him. "That's exactly what is going to make this difficult for both you and me. You see, this condition of yours, it is incredibly easy to diagnose, assuming you believe it exists. And unfortunately, I'm forced to admit that the large majority of my field doesn't."

She let that settle in as well, and Seisuke noticed that the cold feeling from before was still there, mixed in with his unease.
"So you mean, the existence of my problem hasn't been proven?" He asked, a little incredulously. She nodded in response.
"It hasn't been at all. I have my arguments and proof of sorts, but without the necessary scientific evidence to back it up, many don't accept it." She laughed softly, and Seisuke wondered what was so funny. "If you want an idea of what I mean by 'many', I best tell you now that as far as I know, I'm the only professional in Japan who's convinced of it. I know of two in Italy, and there are maybe four or five in America. I've had a couple of conferences, and the number of us there has always been roughly around twenty. This is professionals, mind you, with degrees and plenty of common sense. There are plenty of crazy people in the world, willing to believe in crazy theories."

Seisuke pursed his lips. He didn't like the sound of this; for a moment there, he'd been hopeful, but now he had to wonder if she really did know what was wrong with him, or if it was just, as she said, a 'crazy theory'.
"So, what exactly is this theory of yours?" He asked, wondering if she'd get around to explaining it to him.
"Well..." Dr. Leone said, her tone thoughtful, "I'm not sure what the chances of you believing me are. But assuming that you do, I wonder if you'd consent to helping me with my research."
For some reason, the word research scared Seisuke, and he swallowed. "Well, maybe." He answered grudgingly. "Once you explain."
She nodded, happy with that for now. "Well," Leone began, "To start off with, do you believe in life on other planets?"
Seisuke's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Other planets? If you say anything about aliens, I..."

"No, no." She cut him off. "Nothing like that. I'm just curious. I, for one, do. Not on any of the planets near earth, of course. When you think about everything that is needed on earth to make it inhabitable for life forms, the chances of it happening elsewhere seem like one in a million. Maybe even one in a billion, maybe more. But then again, the universe is so huge, who knows what else is out there? Maybe the universe never stops.
" We can't comprehend something like that, but then again, long ago, humans couldn't comprehend a lot of the things that we understand today. So when you think of it like that, when there may be an unlimited number of planets out there, doesn't it seem arrogant to think that it was only earth on which intelligent life developed?"

"Hmm...." Seisuke mulled over the idea for a moment. It was true that while science had advanced greatly in recent years, it was still too limited to find things far beyond Earth. "I guess so, when you put it like that."
Dr. Leone nodded. "Then, what about other realities? Other times and places that exist along side ours, that we can't see, hear or reach?"
Seisuke looked startled again. "I don't think that..."
"Well, let's put it this way." She interrupted him, "At the start of the day, if someone had asked for your opinion on intelligent life on other planets, what would your answer have been?"
He was silent, but she didn't say anything else, instead waiting for an answer from him.
"I guess I would have said that it didn't exist." He finally admitted.

"Okay." Dr. Leone said, "If so, then humour me for a moment. What if I said that our reality existed beside another one, working separately from one another? They're not reliant on each other, and are completely unrelated and designed to be unaffected by the other. But then, any system has flaws. For example, the body can get injured, like when you cut yourself, and at such times unwanted things like dirt of germs can get into the wound. But your body fights back, repairs the wound, makes sure you're not harmed by the germs and dirt, and soon enough you're as good as new. If you think of the fabric of our reality like that of your body, it too can tear if it's hurt badly enough, and let in things that aren't meant to be there. But it can also repair itself, and deal with the intruding materials. Do you have any idea what I'm saying?"

Seisuke bit his lip. He thought that perhaps he had some, but he didn't think he liked it. "Are you saying that the... the wall between two realities tore, and my... my conscience fell through into Kato Shigeaki's body? This has to be a joke."
"In a way. It's more complicated than that, but you more or less seem to have the general gist." The woman was completely serious. There wasn't a trace of jest in her face or voice. Seisuke felt the hair on his arms rising.
"You're crazy." He said flatly, no longer worried about whether he was being rude or not. "You're seriously crazy."

Leone just smiled, patient and not at all unkind. "It's funny you should think that. There are a lot of people out there who would say the same thing about you."
Seisuke swallowed again, audibly this time, and neither of them spoke. Finally, Leone stood up, startling him.
"Well, our time is up, and I probably can't tell you much more without overloading you. I expect you'll need a lot of time to process this. Everyone always does. I'll speak with your psychiatrist after this, and if you want to speak with me again, all you have to do is ask. If not, I won't bother you. Thank you for your time. I hope to see you again."
The moment she began collecting up her papers, Seisuke bolted from the room without so much as a farewell.


He didn't really want to go home. If he went home, eventually he would end up in his quiet room, and when it was quiet, he'd start to think. Everything he'd been told today seemed so impossible. And yet, what had been happening to him for the past few weeks, since waking up as Kato Shigeaki, also seemed impossible. This world he'd woken up in was so similar to his, but was different in many ways too. The names of the cities and towns were the same, but the names of streets were different. The celebrities and politicians, the stores and clothing brands, they were all different to those in the world he had grown up in.

In strange ways, it made sense, and he didn't want it to. If he was in the wrong reality because of some 'system error' or whatever that crazy Dr. Leone had wanted to call it, Seisuke doubted he'd ever get back. He'd be living as the wrong person until the day he died, stealing a life away from not only Shigeaki, but his friends, parents, and millions of fans as well.
If he went back to his house, into his room to be alone, he'd keep thinking like this. And he couldn't handle it. It was too overwhelming.

It was at that moment that his phone went off in his pocket with almost perfect timing. He took it out and flipped it open hastily.

'I've got a free evening. Karaoke?' It was from Koyama. Shige felt a grin spread across his face. He quickly typed out a reply.
'Sure. Where should we meet?'

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that maybe everything he'd discussed in the psychiatrist's office should have still been weighing heavy on him, but for some reason, on his way to meet Koyama, he felt as though he was floating.
~*~*~*~