Title: EVERYBODY’S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY HONEYStarring: Yamashita Tomohisa and Inoue Mao and A LOT of other famous people
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Love/comedy
Disclaimer: No I don’t own Yamapi (though I wish and pray hard I do) or Mao. I am not whatsoever affiliated with JE either. It’s fiction. Look it up in the dictionary.
Chapters: ?
CHAPTER 12If you’ve broken up with someone you really love, you would know the kind of pain that heartbreak gives. But if you’re not a famous idols or actress who’s forced to break up with someone you’re surely in love with because it is against some kind of rule, then you don’t know jack-diddly squat how that feels like. No question that everything’s been hard for Yamapi and Mao. They had to go and move on in separate ways. There’s a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go. Yamapi went back to performing, forcing himself to smile and sing happily, touring and working as hard as he did before he met Mao. Mao went back to school and never rode the train again, for some obvious reason. Of course, when the time they had to start filming their drama came, they met each other, after a hiatus from seeing each other. They talked on the phone a few times, but it was different facing each other again. One of the phone conversations they had went:
MAO: Hello?
PI: Are you awake?
MAO: No, this is a dream, I’m asleep.
PI: You know, when you’re grumpy and sarcastic, you’re not cute at all.
MAO: [laughs] So how can I be of service to you?
PI: [scoffs] Service? Okay, how much for you to come here, give me an oil massage and then afterwards sleep with me?
MAO: Don’t you have like 10 other girlfriends to do that kind of stuff?
PI: Nah, I don’t want anything. I just called because I want to, before I go to sleep.
MAO: [smiles] I’m glad you did.
PI: So…what’re you wearing now?
MAO: PI!!!
PI: I was joking. Do you miss me?
MAO: What if I tell you I don’t? What would you do?
PI: Nothing. Because I know you do.
MAO: No, I don’t.
PI: Well just so you know, I don’t miss you either.
MAO: [pissed] Bye bye!
PI: Mao-chan. I do miss you. Why else would I call?
MAO: Fine. Me too.
PI: [sneers] You think about me?
MAO: Honestly, I try not to.
PI: Nande, I think about you a lot. Sometimes it’s unpleasantly painful, but other times it calms me. Like talking to you right now, it makes me feel so much better.
MAO: Are you in bed?
PI: Yeah, you?
MAO: Yeah. You better sleep now. You know you need it badly, you’re deprived of it.
PI: Fine, fine. I’m hanging up.
MAO: Goodnight Yamashita-kun.
PI: Don’t call me that.
MAO: Pi-chan then.
PI: Better. Goodnight, Macchan.
MAO: Macchan?
PI: I call you that behind your back.
MAO: Oh. Goodnight…stop thinking about me too much ne.
PI: I’ll try.
MAO: Oh and just for the record…I’m wearing your shirt…ja ne.
That was the last phone call they shared before they saw each other again. And now that they’re facing each other again to work, it felt to Yamapi as if he was in junior high school scenario: when you come face to face with the prettiest girl in school whom you have this major crush on and you don’t know what to say or how to act. He felt as if his manliness was weakened by Mao’s presence. They acted as if they were just good friends, and they were just good friends…in front of the crew and camera, but they both knew there exists an unspoken vulnerability between them, a tension thick in the atmosphere that they might grope at each other and make out in any second.
The kissing scenes were troubling. Not for Yamapi and Mao, but for the crew. At one point, a kissing scene took a staggering 12 takes. Whether Yamapi screwed up on purpose or not, it is not for certain.
“Yamashita-kun! You really had you tongue in there!” the director exclaimed, after yelling cut for the nth time.
“We’re trying to make it look more realistic.”
“I understand but kids will be watching this, please make it more wholesome. Now this time, no more tongue.”
“Hai, sorry director.”
They would re-take the scene again, and Yamapi would “accidentally” slip in the tongue again, and lather, rinse, repeat. It was their only chance to be a “couple” so they took advantage of that chance to make out and act like the couple they want to be. The cast and crew were surprised by their chemistry on set. The director and producers didn’t need to tell them what to do to make the scene more passionate or romantic, believing that they were just extremely good actors. Teppei once asked,
“How long have you been together again?”
Yamapi and Mao looked at each other.
“We broke up.” Mao answered in a hushed voice.
“No way!” Teppei exclaimed, looking surprised.
“Yeah, no way!” Yamapi joined Teppei.
Koichi once visited Mao on the set, and the whole crew and cast got all jumped up about him and Mao, thinking they were dating. This did not make Yamapi happy at all. Mao let Koichi in her dressing room one lunch time, with Koichi bringing her her favorite food, natto. How could she resist. She was so giddy about it too, which even made Yamapi more jealous. Yamapi barged in the dressing room, still in his “motorcycle badass” get-up.
“I thought you have a scene to film.” Mao asked him.
Yamapi eyed Koichi threateningly as he sat down on the couch there.
“Yeah I’m done, and man was it cool riding the motorbike over a high ramp, I felt like Evil Knievel. Have you done that Koichi?”
“No I haven’t.”
“You haven’t either, a stunt double does that for you.” Mao intervened, her mouth full of rice.
Yamapi threw a couch pillow at her.
“Usai! I’m capable enough to do dangerous stuff you know. I know a thing or two about bikes.”
“Koichi-kun does too, ne Koichi-kun? He has a Harley.”
“Ya-ya, I only use it once in a while. I’m not very good with it.”
Yamapi deliberately made a loud gagging sound. What a phony, he thought.
“Nanni?” Mao asked, startled by his muffled gagging sound.
“Nothing.”
“Want some of Koichi-kun’s natto?”
Yamapi shook his head disdainfully.
“Come on, I’ll feed you.” she said, raising her chopsticks.
Yamapi smiled and went over to her, and bent down as she fed him like he was a baby. She patted his head afterwards.
“Kawaii.” she laughed.
Yamapi was called from outside by one of the crew. He stood up and stole a loud kiss on her cheek.
“Yummy!” he said, then ran outside.
Mao smiled as she continued to eat.
“I think it’s alright for you two to get back together.” Koichi commented.
“Nah.” she said, waving him off.
It’s not that she didn’t want to, of course she did. But she knew things are complicated. Their more-than-friends-but-less-than-lovers plan worked out pretty well, but there was always this yearning deep inside.
When came the time for them to promote their ever-so-anticipated drama, to their delight, they were able to spend even more time together, going from place to place together, guesting on shows, press cons, and whatnot. Sure it was tiring, but as long as they side by side, they couldn’t possible complain.
On the show Utaban:
TAKASAN: There are kissing scenes, ne?
PI: Hai.
NAKAI: You haven’t done much kissing scenes, have you?
PI: I’ve done some!
NAKAI: Sure, off-screen maybe.
[laughter]
TAKASAN: Have you done any preparations for the scenes, Mao-chan?
MAO: [looks at Pi] Not really… LIE.
TAKASAN: So you didn’t practice kissing your hand or something?
MAO: [laughing] Ya….da!
NAKAI: So, who’s it going to be for you? Matsumoto, Yuuta, Eiji, or Yamapi?
TAKASAN: Include me, Hiro-chan.
NAKAI: Uruhe!
MAO: [laughs] I’ll have to pick Taka-san.
PI: Who?!
[Major laughter]
They didn’t know just how anticipated their drama was going to be, until the first episode was aired. It received high ratings; the first episode alone acquired a staggering figure. It could’ve even surpassed HYD’s pilot episode ratings. Was it because MARS was such a hit manga? Maybe. Was it because everyone waned to see Yamapi on a motorbike? Definitely plausible. It is indefinite what drew the audience to it. What’s certain is, their tandem seemed to have sparked a sensation, causing a huge speculation amongst the people who watch TV. It was an epidemic, a craze, a phenomenon, or whatever word fits best for it, it won everyone’s attention and Yamapi and Mao were the “It Boy” and the “It Girl” as if they weren’t “It” already. The center of every meaningful homeroom discussion in schools was them. The main topic in forum threads on the net was them. They were being watched now more than ever, and they didn’t know exactly if it’s a good or bad thing. They didn’t know why the media was so focused on them when a Hikaru Genji member was fired from Johnny’s because of meth use, Erika Sawajiri bitch-slapped someone, Beyonce was in town for a concert, and all the other more significant happenings in Nippon that deserve to be getting attention as well.
One night, after filming, while Mao was changing in her dressing room ready to go home, Yamapi knocked on the door.
“Wait, keep the door closed.” she said, hastily putting on her clothes.
“Why?”
“I’m getting dressed.”
“Why?”
“When I walk outside naked, people throw garbage at me.”
“Why can’t I go in?”
Mao rolled her eyes and opened the door quickly to let him in.
“What am I, a stranger? Like I haven’t seen you naked before?” he complained.
“It’s different now.”
“Emotionally I’m still your boyfriend. So nothing’s different. I can even close my eyes and picture you naked. See?” he said and closed his eyes.
Mao gaped in horror.
“I can see you naked in my head right now.”
Mao hit him hard on the stomach.
“That’s sick, stop doing that!”
“Listen. Something happened. You do know that people are prying about our lives right? Especially now that our dynamic duo became such a big hit?”
“Yes…”
“Well, people have been trying to dig up stuff about us, so…remember that time when I drove you home, and we exchanged numbers and posed for the security camera in your building?”
“Yes…”
“Well, it’s out, and everyone has seen them by now. And they know it was at your place.”
“Okay…it wasn’t like we were doing anything suspicious at that time, we just met then. So they can’t make conclusions, because there’s no proof.”
“True. But then, lo and behold, our Print Club photo sticker leaked out. How’d that happen?”
Mao’s eyes widened.
“Seriously?” she gasped.
“Someone posted it on the net just today. Hours from now it will be on every tabloid. Where’s your copy of the photo sticker?”
Mao scratched her head and crinkled her nose. She re-traced where she’d gone and what she’s done with the sticker: It was in her wallet, then she took it out when she missed him, then she put it in her pocket when she went to school, and in the middle of a class lecture, she put it on her table, smiling at it the whole time, then she remembered the bell rang and she was in a hurry to get out because she still had filming to do. But she didn’t recall taking back the photo sticker at all. *insert doomed music*
“Oh no I think I left it in the classroom and someone must’ve taken it.” she breathed, and put her hands on her cheeks.
“Why would you take it out?”
“Like you don’t.”
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know. Say it’s not you in the sticker?”
“Any idiot can tell it’s me. Anyone can tell it’s you too, you had your face unnecessarily close to the camera doing the V sign.”
“Then our career is over.”
“Don’t get all negative.”
“I’m not. I’m panicking.”
“Well there’s no use. We can’t deny those now.”
“We’ll just issue a statement that it was a long time ago and we broke up and we apologize to them?”
“Hell no!”
“Is there another way?”
“There should be. I just don’t know what.”
“Do you think Johnny knows now?”
“Probably.”
“Do you think there’s mass suicide going on as we speak?”
“Let’s not mention suicide for a while and think this through.”
“Wow so this is how it feels like to be in a scandal.”
“Scandal? You think our relationship is a scandal? I treasure that photo sticker and you leave it on your desk. I am so hurt.”
“Let’s just act normal, ne. And if we get mobbed or something outside, then we’ll rethink our next career move.”
“We wouldn’t know, what if they actually accept it? I mean, if they’re so fond of us, they wouldn’t be all against it. Don’t you think?”
Mao and Yamapi pondered and mulled over quietly in the dressing room. The secret’s out but somehow, they weren’t scared or guilty because they never felt as if they had something to hide or to be ashamed of. Not even for a second.
After a long time of just sitting there, thinking and contemplating, Yamapi decided to go out.
“Where are you going?” Mao asked.
“I don’t know. Let out my feelings.”
“Are you scared?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Mao showed a small smile.
“Me too. It’s weird.”
Yamapi smiled in return and went for the door.
“We’re in this together, ne. I won’t leave your side, so you do your best while I do my part too.”
Mao nodded and he was out the door, to the awaiting world.
--END OF TWELFTH CHAPTER--
