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Utsugi Shiro was one of the most infuriating men Ryo had the pleasure of knowing.
“Ryo-kun?” a distant voice crackled on the other end of the line, still mired by sleep.
Ryo huffed. In his apartment, shrouded in darkness, his phone screen emitted his only source of light, which was promptly snuffed out as he put it up to his ear. “Finally decided to pick up, huh?”
“I think I still have jet lag…” Shiro mewled.
“Well you wouldn’t have this problem if you had stayed in Japan like you should have,” Ryo bit back. He really had the nerve to transfer overseas after all Ryo did for him.
“Ah, so that’s why you blocked me back then?”
Beep.
Immediately, the line was cut off. With just a single press of his thumb, Utsugi Shiro was no more, obliterated from existence — until the phone began to ring again. Its shrill tone droned on and on as Ryo glared at the offending name splashed across his screen. Ryo’s shit list was never ending, but Ryo reserved a special place for Shiro, just for him, right at the top, for the amount of crimes he had committed without batting an eye. Ryo had known him long before Shiro was the fresh faced employee at Tsukumo Productions with mismatched socks, and he was always annoyingly good at pissing him off.
Still, out of the mercy of his benevolent heart, Ryo decided to let him speak.
“Did you need something from me?” Shiro continued as if nothing had happened.
Beep.
The phone rung again. Persistent.
“You need help, don’t you?”
Beep.
“Please stop hanging up on me,” Shiro whined as soon as Ryo had picked up. “You called me for a reason.”
“First of all, I do not need help,” Ryo quipped.
“Then, why would you call me in the middle of the night?” Shiro asked, straight to the point. “There has to be something keeping you up.”
“I’m collecting a debt,” Ryo continued.
“Really now?” That damn Shiro couldn’t even humour him. “Is this another one of those favours I keep owing?”
“Who do you even work for?” Like that silly mochi pounding rabbit on the moon, it was thanks to Tsukumo Productions that Shiro even had a home.
“The talent at the company,” Shiro said without missing a beat. Belatedly, he let out a gasp. “Oh, you meant the President… Didn’t you resign for some reason?”
Beep.
This time, the phone didn’t ring again. Ryo allowed him ten whole minutes before deciding to take swift, decisive action.
“I almost fell back asleep…” Shiro mumbled when he finally picked up. “Ryo-kun, please. I would love to help, but can this wait until morning?”
“How can this wait? Don’t you know this is the most important—”
“Sorry, good night, Ryo-kun. I’ll speak to you in person tomorrow.”
Beep.
Ryo’s phone finally fell into silence.
“Shiro!” Ryo growled at his dead slab of a phone. “How dare you? I swear I’ll make sure you’ll regret this!”
Unfortunately, Shiro was true to his word.
“What are you doing here?” Ryo spat, with all the offence of being confronted by a bug.
“Security recognised me so they let me in,” Shiro simply replied, perched on a sofa, having already made himself home in Ryo’s apartment. Ryo had been sick of being confined within these four walls, and now, not even riffraff could be kept out.
“You think you can just waltz in here after you left me?” Ryo snapped, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. “I’ll have to print out giant posters of your face to make sure they never let you in here again.”
“I tried to look for you at the main branch but heard you were under house arrest,” Shiro said, without flinching. “So naturally, I brought some snacks.”
Ryo stopped everything. “What kind?”
Not too long after, the table was set with their glasses full of wine and plates full of canapes. Shiro knew the locations of his crockery much too easily. Ryo would have to shuffle their positions for next time.
“Enough!” Ryo yelped after enjoying a particularly delicious rice cracker. “Why are you even here?”
After delicately dabbing at his mouth with a napkin, Shiro pulled out 4 pristine files from his briefcase: papers Ryo would recognise anywhere, copies of ŹOOĻ’s application forms. Ryo had meticulously scouted each of them, so none of the printed material about their appeal points or whatever mattered, but Shiro had diligently done his homework, sticky notes filled with handwriting scattered about their pages.
“Tsukumo Productions’ rising stars: ŹOOĻ,” Shiro said, laying out the files on the table, their plates set aside, getting right into business.
“What about them?” Ryo grunted, leaning back in his chair as he swirled the wine in his glass.
“They’re who you wanted to discuss last night,” Shiro replied. “I thought I’d come prepared before I meet our talent.”
“Now wait just a second,” Ryo said, holding up a finger. “What makes you think I even care about these chumps?”
Shiro took a pointed look at him. “What else would you be calling me about at 4am in the morning?”
“It could have been anything,” Ryo whined, huffing out a quick harumph as he tossed his head. “If only someone had stayed on the call to find out.”
“Ryo-kun,” Shiro said, a face full of obvious pity. “When will you stop lying to yourself?”
Ryo stared back, all pretence wiped from his face as he said in a low, quiet tone, “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“Not really,” Shiro replied, his eyebrows raising. He never had the necessary poker face for the entertainment industry, an open book with a single prod — and yet, that same simpleness was infuriating. He’d make a fantastic trump card for his enemies, but here he was, locked in with Ryo instead. “That’s why I’ve come here to ask you for more details. You weren’t exactly forthcoming with information last night.”
Shiro always seemed to know much more than his air headed self let on. He knew too much, and yet, he never took advantage.
It would happen though. They all did. They all betrayed him eventually. Shiro was only biding his time.
“Okay. Fine,” Ryo said, crashing back into his chair, his arms thrown up in a shrug. “Say I tell you everything about these losers. What are you going to do? Blackmail them? Extort them?”
“I’ll protect them, like you would have wanted.”
Ryo narrowed his eyes, but before his lips could twist in a frown, a bark of a laugh burst forth. “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear that last bit. Did you just say something about me wanting to protect them?”
“Ryo-kun,” Shiro said, smiling despite Ryo’s barbs. “No one’s here to watch us, you know?”
“You sicken me,” Ryo spat. People smiled when they wanted something: light and sweet to hide the knife behind ther back, kind and gentle to ease the killing blow.
“Oh, so this is the thing people call ‘tsundere’, right?” Shiro said, nodding sagely.
“Stop talking like you’re some anime-obsessed freak,” Ryo snapped.
“Right, this always happens with you, doesn’t it? We keep losing the plot,” Shiro said, tapping the files between them to draw their attention back. “ŹOOĻ: the stars you cultivated with your incredible headhunting skills.”
“Go on,” Ryo said, with a wave of his hand. It was all a farce to butter him up, but it never hurt to hear praise, no matter how fake it was.
The first file Shiro pointed to was a boy with a permanent smirk, even though this was meant to be a professional photograph attached to his personal file.
“Isumi Haruka: one of the double centres of the group,” Shiro said. He looked up, breaking out of his script. “He’s still in school?”
“Ah yes, that’s the idol industry, isn’t it? Costumes like school uniforms. ‘Graduation’. Sparkly clean innocence. The public are obsessed with youth, no matter their own age. Good thing they’re male idols. You have a bit more time before the public consider them too old and trash them for the next young sacrifice,” Ryo said, mimicking a slice against his throat.
Shiro frowned. “You’ve not marketed Isumi-san that way though, unlike IDOLiSH7 who have one of their minor members in the ‘Sexiest Men’ lists. Instead, when I listen to his voice, it’s a pure, clear sound.”
“A choir boy, his prayers unheard by Our Father in heaven,” Ryo said, flicking his hand out like discarding a piece of trash. “What better way to use that angelic voice of his than with all the rage of hell which heaven cast him into?”
Shiro held his chin in thought. “I see… So instead of capitalising on the innocence the idol industry thrives upon… You harnessed his tenacious youth to resonate with the audience’s passion to cling for life.”
Ryo shrugged. “Something like that.”
Shiro performed a little clap, which wasn’t entirely displeasing to hear. “Well done, Ryo-kun. His pure energy contrasts with…” Shiro pointed to the next in line: a boy with sharp eyes and fangs peeking through his grin. “Inumaru Toma: the brasher half of the centres.”
“Oh, that’s just his face. He’s actually just a lost little puppy, chasing his own tail, abandoned in the rain like a forgotten pet who was more trouble than he was worth, boo hoo,” Ryo said, faking tears. “If you take him in, careful he doesn’t bite the hand that feeds.”
“Despite his ‘bad boy’ image, he’s really just lonely… I’m starting to understand ŹOOĻ’s appeal,” Shiro nodded along. “Then, next is Natsume Minami—”
“Creepy.”
As silence suddenly stretched between them, Shiro spoke up, “And?”
“That’s it.” Ryo shrugged. “Next.”
“A 19 year old can’t be that scary, can he?” Shiro said, a bemused smile on his face as he considered the deceptively delicate features of ŹOOĻ’s composer.
“Of course he can. They’re the worst,” Ryo said, not the least bit amused. “Still wet behind the ears and thinks he’s seen it all. Barely flinches when I do anything. Didn’t even need me to approach him with the sad spiel. He just jumped right in there, all gung-ho about revenge before I was even involved.”
“Isn’t this what they call a ‘you issue’?”
“Anyway, next, last one, let’s get this over with.”
“Well then.” Shiro kept a hand on top of the last file as he pushed it forward. A cocky, self assured grin was affixed to the last boy. “If you please, Mido Torao.”
“Some playboy who can’t spit out what he wants.” Ryo frowned as Shiro lifted his head and stared him straight in the eyes. “What?”
“Nothing. Carry on.”
“I know just what you’re thinking,” Ryo said, adjusting his suit lapels. He couldn’t even go anywhere, but he had to be dressed up anyway. “I’ve got the looks, the money, the charisma, just like Torao, but why aren’t I fighting them off with a stick? Completely, utterly boring. There’s enough of that in this business.”
“Well, no,” Shiro retorted. “You were on the right track though. I have one last file.”
Before Ryo could furrow his brow, Shiro pulled out another sheet, tucked underneath Torao’s file, with an extremely familiar visage.
“Tsukumo Ryo: the former President of Tsukumo Productions.”
Ryo lunged forward, slamming his wine glass against the coffee table with a horrible thud, the contents within sloshing like a sea in a storm. “What are you playing at now?”
Shiro held up a finger. “Please let me finish. There’s a theme, isn’t there?” His grey eyes glinting, he stared right through Ryo. “They’ve all been hurt.”
Ryo narrowed his eyes, his lips a thin line as he waited for Shiro’s next move.
“They all wanted to tear down the same world that brought them so much pain,” Shiro continued in the bone chilling silence. “I can’t pretend to understand I know what you’ve been through. Your family has made you distrust this world, but maybe these boys have shown you that you’re not alone. That’s how we connect to each other. That’s the power of idols.”
In a low, calculated whisper, Ryo answered, “You think I care?”
“I think you care more than you realise. You care, you get hurt, it repeats. That’s why you hide so much,” Shiro said, his smile never wavering. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Ryo-kun.”
Ryo recoiled, hissing. Behind all his theatrics — his face, his mask, his shield — he was no different to the idols he reviled. The very thought knocked him sick. “Right, that’s enough!” Ryo yelped, jumping to his feet and ushering Shiro away. “Out, out, get out!”
“Wait, Ryo-kun!” Shiro whined, a sudden leaden weight fused to the sofa. “Do they know you’re leaving?”
“What… does it… even matter?” Ryo grunted, a grown man forced to pull another grown man out of his apartment.
Suddenly, Shiro shot to his feet, matching his eye level, but Ryo refused to stumble. “They’re the idols you raised.”
“It was… never going to last!” Ryo retorted as he ushered Shiro out.
Shiro braced himself against the doorframe as he turned back to Ryo. “Then I’ll take care of them, for as long as it takes for you to be ready to face them again.”
“Good bye. Forever,” Ryo said as he gave Shiro one last push out the front door. “That’s never going to happen.”
He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone. Damn all the grapes in the world.
“See you tomorrow,” was all Shiro said as Ryo slammed the door shut in his face.
It was finally quiet in his apartment.
Shiro’s accursed aftershave still lingered though. It took a cloud of air freshener to dispel all of Shiro’s presence away, choking Ryo in the process. He frowned as he stared down at the remains of their meal and the scattered papers Shiro had left behind.
ŹOOĻ looked up at him: young and bright and foolish. Their meeting had sparked a flicker of hope within them, strangers united in adversity, but the world would soon snuff it back out. It would have been better if that light had never started at all, their passion a raging inferno until the wick was consumed, knowing what could have been. It would have hurt less if Ryo flooded the world anew like he had wanted.
Ryo knew. He had made them, after all.
Yet — and yet, and yet, and yet — it persisted.
That desire to care throbbed in him, no matter how many layers he buried it under. Despite all the despair in the world, people still fought, even for him. He clawed at his chest and cursed his human heart.
Ryo sighed as he looked for the best photograph he had to print out for his anti-Shiro posters. Shiro was a man infuriating enough to cut down any of his defences, so he needed to start small.