In
His Shoes
by
omi
"No, no, no," Niou rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You're doing it all wrong! You have to... I dunno, slouch a little more or something. And your hair... Bleh," He stepped up close to Yagyuu and ran his hands through his wig until it was practically standing on its end.
Yagyuu frowned and resisted the urge to step back. The wig itched and he could feel the start of perspiration on his scalp and neck. The leather band around his wrist was constricting. His newly pierced ear hurt. Worse, he felt strangely undressed, with the school tie dangling loose around his neck and his shirt half-unbuttoned. Not for the first time, Yagyuu wondered what had he been thinking when he agreed to Niou's insane proposal.
The boys were in the alley behind Niou's house, the first time that they actually went outside as one another; previously, they had only experimented in the privacy of Niou's room. It didn't seem so bad then, behind a locked door and no one else to see except Niou. Now, even in the relative quiet of the alley, Yagyuu felt extremely conspicious, as if he had the words 'LOOK AT ME!' emblazened in bright neon colours across his forehead.
The feeling made his soul twitch.
Niou finished messing with the wig and stepped back, examining Yagyuu's appearance with a critical eye. He made one last adjustment to Yagyuu's shirt, pulling it further over his hip, and cocked his head. "I guess this will have to do," he grimaced. "And stop looking as if your grandmother died."
Yagyuu bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile. "Fine," he said through the frozen rictus of his face. "Could we please get on with it?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Niou as he shook out his school jacket and started to put it on. "Hey, it's not like I want to be the tightwad who has to button every friggin button in the middle of summer," he muttered as swift nimble fingers did up buttons and tightened the tie. He smoothed the jacket along his body, meticulously adjusting the fit and the length of his cuffs, and finally took out a pair of glasses -- Yagyuu's spare pair with the lenses exchanged for plain glass -- and perched them on his face. "Well?" he asked seriously when he finished.
Much as he hate to admit, Niou was good. His face, usually expressive and voluble, seemed to still and take on an certain gravity. His entire body posture changed, straightening to a ramrod position, shoulders stiffening almost imperceptably. He was no longer recognisable as Niou.
Yagyuu thought for a moment. "You should--" he started to say when Niou suddenly held up his hand. "Wait, wait!" He said, closing his eyes. His lips pursed slightly, became thinner. "I'm trying to imagine that I have a big stick jammed up my ass... Stick. Ass. Stick." He took a deep breath. "Got it," he breathed.
Niou opened his eyes. There was an additional furrow between his brows, and a tension along the line of his jaw, as if it was permanently set. There was a coldness about his eyes that warned people to keep their distance.
He was the splitting image of Yagyuu.
"Fuck you," said Yagyuu and turned on his heel and walked out of the alley.
A faint smile curled around Niou's mouth, and he walked faster, lengthening his stride to catch up with Yagyuu.
The boys walked together in relative peace down the streets of downtown Tokyo. Peace, that is, except for the soft litany of murmured instructions.
"... Put your hand in your pocket and swagger a little more."
"... I would have totally perved at the girl in blue who just walked by..."
"... God, would it kill you to smile a little more naturally?"
"... Stop tensing your shoulders!"
Yagyuu-as-Niou stopped in the middle of the street and turned to look at Niou-as-Yagyuu. "Look," he said, a visible vein twitching at his forehead. "Will you kindly stop the running commentary?"
Niou-as-Yagyuu pushed his glasses up higher onto the bridge of his nose, and replied just as coldly. "I wouldn't have to give a running commentary if you just tried a little harder," he said derisively. "You can't even fool a blind man with your current performance, much less pull it off at the Nationals."
Yagyuu-as-Niou forced himself to smile, his eyes two frozen lakes in winter. "You really want me to act like you? Fine." He turned and cast a swift glance up and down the street. Soon, he found what he was looking for -- a man in a suit two sizes too small was obviously harassing a buxom schoolgirl -- and deliberately sauntered over.
"Ne, ni-san," Yagyuu-as-Niou drawled, coming up much too close to the man. "Are you looking for talent?" He dragged the last word out, giving it an emphasis that left no questions about what he meant.
The talent scout blinked several times at this sudden intrusion, and the girl he was talking to took the opportunity to leave. "Who--"
Yagyuu-as-Niou smiled brilliantly as he draped himself around the man. "Ne," he said, body pressed against the scout's side, his warm breath puffing against his ear, "I've always wanted to be a porn star..."
"E, Eh?" the man stuttered, and a flush started to spread over his face and ears and down his neck.
Yagyuu-as-Niou trailed his hand down his own chest, his nipple clearly visible in the gaping shirt. "Don't you think I've got a great body?" He said, looking up through lowered lashes. "I'm bisexual, you know. That means I do girls and boys... Do... or be done to..."
"Tha', that's great!" The man breathed, unable to tear his eyes away from Yagyuu-as-Niou's chest. He swallowed, hard. "Boys, boys are good too... Our company is always looking for the next star!"
Yagyuu-as-Niou looked over the man's shoulder, directly at Niou-as-Yagyuu, his white hair a blazing corola of light in the blazing summer sun, and the corners of his mouth tilted up in a smile of pure deviltry. "Really?" He cooed, eyes not leaving Niou's. "How wonderful!" He laughed and broke off eye contact. "Here, my number," Yagyuu-as-Niou plucked a pen out of the scout's shirt pocket and wrote swiftly Niou's name and mobile number in large sprawling letters across the man's palm. "I'm Niou Masaharu, but you can call me Masa-kun!"
"Masa-kun," repeated the scout dazedly.
"So are you going to call me later?" Yagyuu-as-Niou pouted, and his hip rubbed suggestively against the scout's paunch.
The man looked up, his eyes avid, and he licked his lips. "I have a contract right here in my briefcase. We could sign you on right away. You could start filming tomorrow -- no, tonight!"
Niou curled his fingers into the man's jacket, threw his head back and laughed.
- fini -