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December 21, 2019
Excitement is in the air as Hey! Say! JUMP's second of three shows winds to a close in Nagoya Dome; faintly in the background, the announcements that the show is over and that the staff will be announcing shortly which seating areas can leave first waft through the air, and around them, staff descend to retrieve costume pieces and inform them of any schedule updates for the next day. Yuto, however, has little time for all of that; now that the show is done, he only has one thing in mind as he comes off the stage after the encore and immediately checks his phone, his hands almost shaking with excitement. It's not that he wasn't excited for the performance; of course he was, and it's been great to finally see their Japanese fans this year after their Taiwan concerts in the fall, but today, in particular, there's something else on his mind. Today is the day that Keito has promised he'll text with his flight itinerary for his winter vacation, and Yuto feels like he cannot possibly wait another second to find out when he's finally going to get to see Keito again for the first time since summer.
Sure enough, when he manages to get his phone unlocked with trembling fingers, there's a text from Keito: I forwarded you the email from JAL, see you in a few days! followed up by a winking emoji. Yuto hurriedly switches from LINE to the email app, flipping through the various spam messages and coupons and messages from the management until he finds the forwarded itinerary from Keito. Departure from JFK: December 23, 2019, 10:55 am EST; Arrival at NRT: December 24, 2019, 3:25 pm JST. He lets out a sigh of relief to see it, almost as if the reservation proves that Keito is really coming home, that Yuto will finally get to see him in 4 short days-- of course, Keito had been planning to visit home for the holidays all along, but knowing he's getting on a plane in less than 48 hours finally makes it real. This whole period of time, with Keito's studying abroad, has been hard on Yuto, but knowing that they'll be back together soon makes it a lot easier to bear.
And so he flips back to LINE and sends off a quick, Thanks! Let me know where to meet you on the 24th. I can't wait to see you, before tossing his phone back into his bag and finally beginning to strip off his sweaty costume. It will be fun to go out for dinner with the other members tonight, fun to perform in Nagoya one more time tomorrow, but right now, Keito is the only thing truly on Yuto's mind.
December 22
The last show of the Nagoya run falls the next evening, and Yuto does his best to put Keito out of his mind and focus only on the performance and the fans, but try as he might, in every moment of downtime, his mind is in New York, wondering what Keito is doing, if he's done with his schoolwork for the term, if he's packing, if he's prepared. He's texted off and on throughout the day, but he knows the time difference makes it hard for Keito to respond in a timely manner, so besides a few short updates, he's mostly in the dark about Keito's progress towards his trip back to Japan. It's pointless to sit around and wonder and speculate, he's well aware, and he needs to put his focus into his work, but yet it's so hard not to keep glancing at his watch and thinking about what Keito must be doing right now.
But for the time being, he manages to put it out of his head to finish out the Nagoya shows; imminent reunion with his boyfriend or not, Yuto loves performing, loves getting a chance to interact with the fans, loves singing and dancing and drumming and all the rest, and once he gets into the right mindset, he has a blast just as always, from the start of the show until the end of the encore. Still, just as soon as the show is over, almost like clockwork, his mind jumps back to Keito, his hands eagerly searching for his phone in his bag even before he really knows what he's doing once he makes it backstage for the final time that evening. However, there's no notification on his screen, no message when he opens LINE, and despite his high spirits and energy from performing only a few moments earlier, he can't help but feel like a burst balloon, and he falls down into the chair at his little changing station heavily.
It's not that he expects to be Keito's first priority all the time, especially when Keito is over ten thousand kilometers away, but after they'd practically been joined at the hip from the moment JUMP was formed until past their tenth anniversary, it's been rough adjusting not just to the physical distance, but also the natural emotional distance that comes with it. He knows Keito is focused on his schoolwork, that he's doing new things and making new friends, not to mention that he's on a totally different time schedule and that Yuto has his own obligations and can't always answer texts and phone calls as well, but as the two years that Keito is scheduled to be away have gone on, Yuto can't help but feel sad about that fact that he can't expect to be on Keito's list of priorities anymore, not to mention near the top. It had always felt natural to text with Keito about anything that popped into his mind, and he'd naturally always expected Keito to respond, and to text with thoughts and photos and feelings of his own. Their relationship had always been that way, easy to be in contact even when they weren't physically together, for ten years, so now that the change in situation has brought about a change in their communication as well, Yuto can't help but feel like there's more than ten thousand kilometers between them.
But he knows that's just life, and that Keito can't be blamed for being busy. Soon, the two years will be over, and before that, Keito will be home for the winter holidays, and so until then, Yuto will just have to pull himself together and wait.
December 23
The day of Keito's flight back to Japan, Yuto has a magazine photoshoot scheduled for the morning followed by rehearsals at the studio for the upcoming Tokyo Dome shows all afternoon and into the evening. The knowledge that Keito probably has a lot to do the night before and then the morning of the trip before he gets to the airport to catch his flight (mid-morning in the US but late in the evening in Japan) makes it easy enough to focus on his work, but when he doesn't get anything more than a "good night" around 3 pm (1 am New York time) and then nothing for the rest of the day, he starts to get antsy. If Keito is going to be catching an international flight at 10:55 am, he needs to be at the airport by at least 8:30 or so, right? Which means he certainly has to leave home by 6 or so in the morning New York time, 8 pm Japan time...right? Yuto isn't that familiar with New York and he can't be exactly sure about the times, but certainly Keito can't just... teleport to the airport. There are train times or traffic conditions to consider... And Yuto knows Keito isn't always the most careful when it comes to the details, but that only makes the worrying worse-- what if he hasn't planned correctly, or he's overslept, or...
He texts off and on when he can in breaks in rehearsal, but it's hard to focus when he doesn't know what Keito's schedule is or what he should be expecting. However, when he gets home at 10 pm to still have heard nothing from Keito, he starts to get frustrated. Despite the fact that he has a packed schedule for the next few days (leading up, of course, to Kouhaku and Johnny's Countdown and the intense rehearsal schedule that comes along with their regular New Year's activities), he ends up staying up until past when Keito's flight was supposed to have left, only to hear nothing. When he finally gives up and goes to bed around 2 am, still having heard nothing, he can't sleep anyway with worry over Keito, and ends up being woken up from his half-asleep state when, around 3:45, Keito finally texts that he's missed his flight. In his sleep deprivation, Yuto doesn't even know how to deal with that information besides to think that, short of a miracle, this is going to be the worst Christmas ever.
December 24
Yuto is not in a good mood when he arrives at morning rehearsal on the day of Christmas Eve. After Keito had informed him that he had missed his flight and almost nothing else besides a promise to make sure he was on the next possible plane to Tokyo, Yuto had spent the rest of the night restless and aggravated. After all, it seemed pretty hard not to be when he couldn't understand why Keito was behaving so frustratingly. It's one thing not to be able to text when he's busy, it's one thing to make a mistake and miss his plane, but then to not give Yuto any information about it and not follow up with information about another flight or... anything at all, not even an apology?! Yuto loves Keito from the bottom of his heart, including all of his flaws, and he knows well that Keito can be careless and irresponsible at times, but perhaps after the long time spent apart, this really feels like the last straw.
And so, he goes to morning rehearsals feeling grumpy and put out. He knows the others can tell something is up, but he can't bring himself to care, and ends up acting like a petulant teenager, shrugging when the others ask him what's wrong and refusing to talk about the problem. After all, how can he? The others will just shrug it off and say, "Oh, that's Keito," or worse, roll their eyes and tell Yuto it's his own fault for dating someone he knows is irresponsible, and so he keeps his mouth shut and tries his hardest to focus despite the frustration and anxiety churning around in his mind and his heart.
Rehearsal ends in the early afternoon that day, and then Yuto has a variety show filming to promote his upcoming drama before wrapping up in the late evening. When he checks his phone again after he returns to the dressing room after the filming, he's at least somewhat relieved to see a message from Keito informing him that Keito has gotten another flight scheduled for around the same time today, and he'll only be a day later than expected.
It's calming to know that, for better or for worse, he'll be reunited with Keito within the next 24 hours, but he still can't help but be a little bothered that Keito still hasn't apologized or offered any further information about the whole incident. But he supposes that there's not really anything that he can do about it now, and so tries to put his hard feelings and annoyance aside as he wishes Keito a safe flight and then heads to bed on possibly the worst night-before-Christmas of his entire life.
December 25
While somewhat more well rested than the previous day, Yuto's spirits aren't much higher when he shows up at rehearsal on Christmas morning. He knows being an idol means working at all times, even on holidays and days most people take a break from work to do something fun, and he really doesn't mind, but this year, he thought that at the very least, he'd have had Keito around to brighten up his Christmas, and the disappointment mixed with lingering frustration in Keito's direction doesn't leave him in a very good mood for a full day of rehearsals. Starting from tomorrow, they'll be doing tech rehearsals with lighting and sound and eventually full dress rehearsals at the dome, which will certainly be tiring but at least a change in the routine, but today is still in the studio only, and Yuto feels sick of it. There's always days like this rehearsing for any show, but on top of everything else, Yuto just doesn't feel like he has the energy to deal with it all, and he just wants to go home and curl up and feel sorry for himself.
It doesn't help when, around 4 in the afternoon, he finally gets a text from Keito: hey I made it back where r u? Despite the fact that it's a totally normal message in a totally normal tone for their texting to one another, something about it gets in Yuto's already frazzled nerves. At rehearsal, of course, where the hell else would I be he wants to respond, but he takes a deep breath and stops himself before he has a chance to do anything that he might regret. He's been impatiently waiting to see Keito for six months now; he doesn't want to let his frustration over this isolated incident ruin the brief time they have together before Keito has to go back to America for his next term at school, so he deletes what he starts to write three times before finally replying, At the studio for rehearsal until 9, but we have a dinner break from 5 to 6, can I meet you somewhere?
He isn't expecting a response back very quickly, seeing as Keito hasn't gotten back to him in a timely manner for the past week even when the situation seriously warranted it, but to his surprise, his message is marked as "read" almost immediately, followed back an ok and then a I think I can make it but maybe like close to 6, can u pick up some stuff to eat quick together?
Seriously?! Yuto wants to scream, but he somehow manages to hold it in and keep himself from throwing his phone across the room. Still, he's shocked that after everything, Keito can barely make time to see him and is asking him to do favors when he couldn't even be bothered to answer Yuto's texts for hours over the past few days. He knows it's probably not Keito's fault that he can't make it from Narita to the downtown neighborhood where the rehearsal studio is located, and that it's not terribly pushy to ask that Yuto buy food for them to eat together in advance, but at the end of everything Keito has done this whole week, Yuto can't bring himself to see any of it in a favorable light. But he needs to get back to rehearsal anyway, and so he shoots off a quick, yeah, ok before tossing his phone back into his bag.
An hour later, Yuto finds himself bundling up to leave the rehearsal studio and trying to push aside his feelings of negativity for now. After all, in less than an hour, he'll finally get to see Keito, however briefly, for the first time in months, and he doesn't want to let his lingering annoyance ruin it. And so, he braves the cold to head out to a nearby supermarket to get food as per Keito's request, trying to look at the bright side at least for now.
The supermarket is only about a block from the studio, so it doesn't take long to get there, and Yuto tries to spend the time efficiently, double checking the list of items that Keito had asked him to pick up. He's just about to pass through the automatic sliding doors, his nose buried in his phone, when all of a sudden, a very familiar voice from behind him startles him with a distinctly British-accented "Surprise."
Yuto turns around so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash, thinking he must be either dreaming or losing his mind, but sure enough, there is Keito, smiling that endearingly hesitant smile of his and holding up a plastic bag sporting the KFC logo. Yuto's mouth falls open, and it takes him at least a whole minute to get past his shock enough to gasp out, "K-Keito?! You're here?!"
"Yeah..." Keito replies with an awkward laugh, "Um... I wanted to surprise you..."
"I'm definitely surprised...!" Yuto replies, rubbing his eyes just to make sure one last time that he actually isn't dreaming. "I... I thought you wouldn't be here for another hour...!"
"Uh... Yeah... That was a lie...?" Keito admits hesitantly, seeming unsure about even his own choices. "I'll... try to explain, but... do you want to want to go inside before this gets cold?”
There are about a thousand things that Yuto wants to say, ranging from that was a terrible idea for a surprise you moron to I love you and I've missed you so much, but it's hard to get them past his lips, and besides, standing in front of the grocery store isn't the place anyway. And so, "Come on," is what comes out of his mouth, a small smile curling at the corner of his lips as he grabs Keito's hand and leads the way back to the studio.
December 26
Yuto wakes up on the morning of December 26 feeling warm and comfortable despite the unpleasant ringing of his alarm. A glance at the clock tells him it's 7:30, far too early for him to be getting up for rehearsal at Tokyo Dome, which won't start until the late morning after the tech crew have had a chance to set up the stage and lighting and sound equipment. But before he has a chance to be too confused, a familiar weight beside him in bed reminds him of the context of his unusually early alarm, and he smiles to himself, rolling over to find Keito still asleep beside him. He'd set his alarm early to make sure he had plenty of time for a slow morning with Keito before work.
However, he knows Keito must be incredibly jet lagged, and he doesn't feel like he's in any particular rush to get up, himself, so he snuggles up a bit into Keito's side, feeling warm and contented. Reflecting over the past week, it's hard to believe he can possibly feel so happy, but after yesterday, things finally seem right again in the world. After they'd gone back to the studio and holed up in one of the dressing rooms once Keito had greeted all of the other members, Yuto hadn't been able to hide his confusion over Keito suddenly appearing on the scene early to surprise him after acting so much like he hadn't cared about Yuto at all over the past few days. Keito had been shocked to hear that Yuto had felt that way-- Yuto knows that Keito has never been the best with putting himself in other people’s shoes, and it's one of the things he knows he has to gently help him with and forgive him for, so admittedly, this makes sense in hindsight. He had sheepishly admitted that he had been trying to surprise Yuto all along, albeit on the 24th, and that was why he hadn't been communicating; he'd been afraid of ruining his surprise, especially when, he apologetically and embarrassedly explained, he'd overslept on the 23rd and missed his original flight.
To hear it all explained out had made Yuto feel like he was going to burst from so many feelings at once; relief that Keito really had cared about him after all and guilt for how upset he'd gotten about it and love and appreciation for Keito going out of his way to plan a surprise. It had felt like a Christmas miracle, both to find out that Keito really did love him so much and to have all of the bad feelings from the past week erased, and so he'd gotten emotional and cried a little and hugged Keito like he never wanted to let go, because... well, he didn't.
And so after Yuto had had to go back to rehearsal, Keito had gone to see his family before meeting Yuto back at his apartment after Yuto finished with work, and now here they were, finally reunited after so long, and Yuto has never felt better. After a few more minutes, he nudges Keito a little, leaning in to kiss him briefly and smiling at him as Keito's eyes slowly begin to open.
"Merry Christmas," Yuto greets gently with a warm smile, and Keito looks adorably confused as he blinks and begins to wake up.
"But... It's the 26th...?" he replies at length, and Yuto laughs warmly, wrapping his arms around Keito and kissing him again.
"Merry Christmas in America, then," he replies with a laugh, and when Keito grins and kisses him back, Yuto feels like, despite the reality of his packed schedule for the next week or so, right now, he didn't have a care in the world.