Hey! Say! JUMP, If Just One Wish

Title: If Just One Wish [Yabu/Takaki]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for costume racks.
Summary: Takaki is totally confused! Yabu acts weird, and Chinen knows things.
AN: okay, FINALLY this fic is finished. I started this after the BEST live on Shokura where during SU*RI*RU Takaki has a total costume fail, and everybody else’s shirt is yanked open and his is stuck by one silly button. That was like, oh, last year. BUT W/E.

If Just One Wish

“Ah, Takaki-kun,” Yabu says from behind, making Takaki jump and fumble the hanger his costume is on so that it clatters to the floor. “Finally got that button undone, I see.”

“Senpai behind the costume rack?” Takaki asks, affecting cool as he bends down to pick up the costume and hook it on the rack. “That’s not terribly original, Yabu-kun.”

“Neither is being the kouhai who can’t get his clothes off by himself,” Yabu retorts, taking a step closer, and then another one, until Takaki finds himself leaning back into the row of costumes. Yabu’s smirk is making his stomach knot, making his fingers twist in the clothes behind him.

“The button was stuck.” Takaki keeps his voice casual and just a touch condescending like Koyama-senpai taught them for silly reporters at interviews. “I couldn’t help it. We shouldn’t be taking our clothes off anyway. It’s demeaning, and we’re all underage.”

“Not for long, Yuyan~” Yabu says, eyes knowing, although Takaki isn’t sure exactly what it is that Yabu knows.

Then he leans forward and kisses Takaki on the mouth, firm and thorough. Takaki is too startled to do anything but snort air through his nose, the movement making hangers scrape behind him.

He still hasn’t reacted by the time Yabu pulls away, regarding Takaki for a moment while he touches the tip of his tongue to the dent in his upper lip, worrying it just a tiny bit. Then he smiles, Yabu-kun’s normal smile, the one he uses on-stage and on-camera, only Takaki never noticed before how Yabu-kun’s smile is sharp at the corners, how the curl of his fingers against his waist is anything but casual.

“See you in the dressing room, Takaki-kun,” Yabu says, and then he saunters off, leaving Takaki with two fistfuls of synthetic fabric and an erratic pulse.

*****

“Hey,” Takaki sticks his head in the dressing room, and when he sees that nobody is there except Inoo, Daiki, and Chinen lounging casually in Inoo’s lap, he scuttles inside and closes the door behind him. “Have you guys noticed Yabu acting weird?”

“Weird?” Daiki tilts his head, and Chinen leans back to peer at Takaki upside-down.

“Weird how?” Inoo asks, not looking up from the video game magazine Daiki has open on his lap.

“Oh, you know,” Takaki chews his lower lip, “just, weird. Doing weird…things.”

Inoo looks up and lifts an eyebrow. “Like…for instance you right now?”

“No,” Takaki licks his lower lip and darts a glance at Chinen, “more like…Chii, can you give us a second?”

Chinen pouts, but Takaki gives him a pleading look, and in the end Chinen heaves a put-out sigh and climbs off Inoo’s lap to trudge out the door, giving Takaki one last reproachful look. Takaki promises himself he’ll make it up to Chinen later, then turns back to find Inoo and Daiki both staring at him expectantly.

“Weird things,” Inoo prompts.

“Yabu kissed me,” Takaki admits, then he goes back to chewing on his lower lip.

“That’s not weird, Yuyan,” Daiki says. “Yabu kissed me this morning when I found his deodorant.”

“He kissed me when I found Hikaru,” Inoo added. “Ryutarou and Yamada just put a bunch of towels over him while he was taking a nap.”

“No!” Takaki interrupts. “He really kissed me! On the mouth.”

Takaki waits for his bandmates to make faces of horror and shock, but instead they just stare at Takaki for a moment longer before turning back to the magazine.

“I’m telling you,” Daiki insists, “fingerless elbow-length gloves are in!”

Takaki throws his hands in the air and stomps off to go find somebody who knows weirdness when he sees it.

*****

The next day at practice, things seem back to normal, and Takaki relaxes in the bustle of people having their hair done and ankles wrapped and necks headlocked.

At least until Takaki goes to strip off his street clothes and another pair of arms slide around his waist, hands settling over Takaki’s on his belt buckle.

“Need some help with that too?” Yabu murmurs in Takaki’s ear when Takaki freezes.

“I…” Takaki swallows and shifts, but it just makes Yabu slide against more of him. “Yabu-kun…”

Before he can stutter much more than that out, Yabu has Takaki’s belt unbuckled. His palm is warm against Takaki’s stomach for a moment before Yabu pulls away with a low chuckle. He saunters off as Takaki stares after him with a dangling jaw.

Daiki and Inoo were less than helpful, so Takaki searches out the member of BEST who’s known Yabu the longest. He finds Hikaru surrounded by the members of 7, all of them watching expectantly as Hikaru holds a deck of cards fanned out between his fingers.

“Okay,” Hikaru says, voice loud and dramatic and vaguely European. “Is one of these your card?”

He flips the whole fan over with a flourish to show the face sides.

“No,” Ryutarou says flatly while everyone else groans. The crowd disperses, but Hikaru’s grin doesn’t dim at all, and he slaps Ryutarou’s ass on the way by.

“Don’t worry,” Hikaru says to Takaki, “they’ll feel the magic sooner or later, ne?”

“Um,” Takaki says noncommittally. “Hikaru-kun, can I ask you something? It’s about Yabu-kun.”

“What about Yabu-kun?” asks a voice near Takaki’s waist, and when he looks down he realizes that the crowd is one-fifth less dispersed than he thought it was. Chinen blinks up at Takaki, arms around Takaki’s middle. “I know things about Yabu-kun.”

“Chii,” Takaki starts, then recalls that he brushed off Chinen yesterday and if he does it twice in a row Chinen will be sad and somewhere some baby kittens will starve, “if you go dig some change out of my bag, I’ll buy you a soda.”

“Deal!” Chinen beams, then skips off in search of Takaki’s bag. Takaki turns back to Hikaru.

“Pick a card,” Hikaru says, and Takaki does just to humor him in the hopes that he might in return get some useful advice.

“You’re close to Yabu,” Takaki starts, taking a cursory glance at his card. “He’s been acting weird.”

“He’s not a very good actor,” Hikaru commented, holding the deck back out.

Gritting his teeth, Takaki slipped his card back into the middle of the pile. “I mean, yesterday he kissed me, and today he sort of…manhandled me, and…”

Takaki trails off when Hikaru taps the cards into a pile, and then they burst into flames. As Takaki stares, Hikaru calmly blows the flame out like a birthday candle.

“Where did you learn this card trick?” Takaki asks weakly.

“It was my turn to baby-sit Chinen while you were still doing Gokusen.” Hikaru licks his thumb and pulls the top card off the deck and hands it over. “I ended up trapped with Ninomiya-senpai in a closet for an hour and a half.”

Takaki blinks a the Queen of Hearts in his hand. “That’s not my card.”

“That’s what you should’ve picked up in the first place,” Hikaru shrugs, taking the card back and strolling off, shuffling his deck idly.

“Hey, Ryu-chan,” Yuto asks from several feet away, “why is the Ace of Spades in your underwear?”

*****

“Keito-kun,” Takaki tries to keep his smile friendly and free of desperation, “you went to an all-boys boarding school, right?”

Keito nods hesitantly, but stays silent and he keeps darting nervous glances to the side. Honestly Takaki would rather not have been reduced to asking this particular member of JUMP for information like this, but nobody else has been any help at all.

And after his attempt with Yamada and Yuto, Takaki figures it can’t really get any worse.

“Okay, so say,” Takaki barrels on ahead, “one boy, at your school, hypothetically, touches another boy a lot and fiddles with his buttons and maybe some kissing is involved. Hypothetically!” Takaki hastens to add when Keito’s eyes fill with terror. “What exactly would you think was going on with that first boy?”

“Yuyan,” Chinen pops up suddenly, making Keito and Takaki both nearly jump out of their skin. When they turn they find Chinen giving Takaki a chastising look. “You’re scaring Keito-kun. I told you I know things. Ne, it’s okay, Keito-kun, I’ll handle this.”

Keito escapes as quickly as he can, relief flooding his features, and then Chinen turns back to Takaki. Takaki is frowning.

“Why do you know things?” he demands. “Who taught you things?”

“Yuyan,” Chinen shakes his head sadly, “when one jyannis traps another jyannis behind a costume rack, it only means one thing.”

“Oh,” says Takaki, who thinks about Yabu’s sharp smile and suddenly feels very stupid.

“Unless it’s KAT-TUN,” Chinen hastens to add, “because then it means some other stuff that Ohno-kun says I’ll understand when I’m older.”

“OHHH,” says Takaki.

*****

“Who taught Chinen things?” Takaki demands, hands on his hips. “And why didn’t they teach me?!”

“We thought you knew!” Daiki protests. “You were always behind the costume rack with Hasshi, what were you even doing?”

“Getting our costumes!” Takaki retorts. “What did you think we were…OH GOD,” Takaki’s face scrunches up in horror, “HE WAS FOURTEEN.”

“We know that’s a bit old for you, Yuyan,” Inoo pats Takaki on the shoulder, and Takaki shoves him off his folding chair.

The group violence is interrupted when Yabu strolls into the dressing room, and Inoo and Daiki clear out quickly, dragging a half-dressed, squawking Ryutarou and a befuddled Yuto out with them.

“So,” Takaki clears his throat when they’re alone. “I hear you like me.”

Yabu shrugs, expression still neutral. “So what if I do?”

“Well,” Takaki clears his throat some more, “I might be okay with that.”

“You might?” Yabu’s expression thaws a little, and he takes a step closer.

“I might possibly be interested in meeting you behind the costume rack later,” Takaki offers, then adds, “unless you learned what that means from Kamenashi-kun.”

“Why stand on ceremony?” Yabu asks, and now he’s close enough that Takaki can see the grin that’s just barely curling the corners of Yabu’s mouth. “Here’s good enough for me.”

The kiss is a lot better now that Takaki knows it’s coming, rough and sweet, Yabu getting his hands into Takaki’s hair to muss it up just as Takaki slides his own under the edge of Yabu’s T-shirt.

They don’t get much further than that, though, because when they tumble onto the couch it turns out that Hikaru’s just been covered up by towels again, and he shows them a thing or two that Yamapi-kun taught him about bony knees and elbows.

Which, Takaki guesses, maybe explains why so many people go for the costume rack instead.