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This is it. The boulder that broke the camel’s back—or whatever the saying is. Composed of neon cardboard cutouts garrish enough to trigger a migraine: The latest Together with Maman music video, a spring special.
Uramichi can’t recall what he’s doing, how he got here, why no one warned him of what was happening today. Yet here he is all the same, baking under the spotlight with one blonde wig and a shorts-dress. You read that right. Shorts. Dress. All to see tomorrow. At least the heels are comfortable.
Across the stage atop a step ladder unsubtly concealed by a cardboard tower, stands Iketeru, shouting cursive. He sports a suitable outfit for the role of Knight in Shining Armor Without the Armor: puffy sleeves, swooping hair, pants. On the floor below him lies Utano the Dragon’s budget-consuming, golf-mat body, sprawled dead. He’s jealous.
There’s plot here somewhere. A script, wading with the dust motes. But Iketeru has decided to sprint with his role and the director has since run alongside him.
Uramichi prickles.
He really needs to scratch his ass.
A shadowed crew member gestures to him. The camera swerves in time as Uramichi clasps his hands together, possessed. “Oh, my prince!” he cries. “My knight in shining armor!” A flurry of plastic sakura petals are unleashed from above; Uramichi could inhale, choke, and die. But no sooner does the fantasy start than it withers. Heedless of the rolling cameras, one of his coworkers would surely heimlich him, to which their brilliant director would edit the footage into a scene that’d make it past the final cut. The logical conclusion: a pixelated clip of him choking, immortalized on the official Youtube channel for the world to see. He can’t take that chance.
The music crescendos. As Uramichi fights his cheek muscles from collapsing, Iketeru bounds towards him with all the dramatic flair of a soap opera reunion. This is the one part of the script he’d memorized, not only because it contained two out of his three total lines, but because it was the music video’s end—a fade to black as the knight runs to his saved princess. Yet he keeps running.
Iketeru enters the shower of petals. Like a theatrical car wreck, he crashes into Uramichi, dips him, and kisses him, square on the mouth. Feedback floods the room and drowns out the music. Iketeru is warm. He smells overpoweringly of roses. His eyelashes flutter, like a pair of disembodied wings.
What the fuck?
The clapperboard snaps. “Cut!”
Iketeru separates with a pop. Despite his growing need to rip himself out of his grasp, he can’t look away. Have his eyelashes always been that long?
The peanut gallery—Usahara, Kumatani—erupts into chatter: “Woah! I’ve never seen his face so red!” and “…Was that his first kiss?” Uramichi cranes his neck and glares. It’s enough of a message, for Usahara yelps while Kumatani smartly backs into the shadows. God, his kouhai are gonna be the death of him. Speaking of…
Iketeru smiles, still cradling him in his arms as if he couldn’t fathom the possibility that he may have single handedly kissed—kissed!—their jobs goodbye. But knowing Iketeru, it truly is possible.
“I-ke-te-ru oniisan.” Uramichi punctuates the syllables with a tone menacing, accusatory, and embarrassed all at once. “I don’t remember that being in the script!” He writhes, though Iketeru’s grip is shockingly vice-like.
Iketeru’s mouth parts in question. Great. He doesn’t even seem flustered, just confused, which makes this and Uramichi’s still flushed face all the more mortifying.
“Iketeru-kun!”
Oh, they were in it now. What sort of punishment would this incur if not to get fired? A suspension? A paycut? Another extra special tacked onto an already packed schedule?
The director emerges from the shadows, nose and cheeks red—sobbing. “Oh my, it didn’t even occur to me to include a scene like that! Such drama! Such—such passion!”
Uramichi blanks. “Huh?”
xoxo
The break room wall is white.
Uramichi stares at the state of himself in the mirror: dressless, down to a tank and shorts. His blonde wig pools over the vanity. Across his lips, the faint shine of lip balm…
Grabbing the hem of his tank, Uramichi violently wipes his face. The fabric catches on his mouth, and he’s reminded of Iketeru with his soft, smooth—
What. The. Hell.
In the mirror, Uramichi is unrecognizably pink. He buries his face into his shirt. What is he, a junior high student? With his luck, the door opens. He doesn’t have to look.
“Uramichi-oniisan...”
Uramichi drops his shirt. He’s so out of it, he can’t even complain about Iketeru’s no-knocking problem. “Iketeru-oniisan,” he says to his wig.
“I’m really sorry for kissing you out of the blue like that.” Iketeru twiddles his thumbs. “Sometimes, I get so deep into a role, I—”
Uramichi sighs. “Don’t worry about it. Just ... warn me if you plan on doing something like that again.” Warn him? Wouldn’t the proper thing to say be, ‘Never do that again!’ or something dramatic but entirely in his right, ‘I can sue you for sexual harassment!!’ He tests them on his tongue, but they don’t quite feel right.
Iketeru hasn’t left. In fact, he comes closer and plops himself onto an adjacent chair with a metallic screech. “Uramichi-oniisan,” he says, dead serious. “You can also kiss me if that will help make things even.”
Uramichi chokes on his spit. In his shock, he meets Iketeru’s gaze, sparkly and earnest, and all too Iketeru. “It doesn’t really work like that,” he says weakly.
“Oh.” Iketeru deflates. A beat later he perks up, not unlike his beloved twin dog. “Oh, I get it! Instead, please feel free to kiss me when I least expect it! That will surely make things even.”
The room may as well have imploded at the speed that the air is sucked out of the room. Iketeru remains whole and unflinching. Out of his body, Uramichi manages to reply, “Iketeru oniisan, no. Just—no. I will not do that to you.”
Iketeru pouts. “But I think it’s a great—“
A knock on the door, along with a muffled question. For the first time in his life ever, Uramichi is grateful for a surprise guest during break. “Oh, there you are, Iketeru-kun!” It’s the producer, looking as amiable as ever. “The director is looking for you. Sorry to intrude!” He leaves with a soft click.
“I suppose I should go.” Iketeru sighs, folding his hands in his lap. “I know you said no, but I really wouldn’t mind. If not, please let me know another way I can make it up to you!” He stands with one last graceless shriek of his chair, and is gone.
Just him and his reflection again…
Uramichi is a regular to wiping whole days and weeks from his memory, many of which feature the most egregious Together with Maman outfits and scenarios. So, he can wipe the simple moment of Iketeru’s ridiculous request. His phone alarm goes off—a curt reminder to start heading back onstage. Uramichi pinches the bridge of his nose, feels the heat of his face, and sighs.
He needed a smoke.