Sho Gets a Death Note...Cell Phone App
Jan. 25th, 2010 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astrangestormTitle: Sho Gets a Death Note...Cell Phone App
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Sho, all of Arashi
Summary: “ENTER A NAME AND THEY WILL DIE.”
Notes/Warnings: A 2010 Sho Birthday Request from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cris_kanaschiro who wanted me to follow up on "When Ohno is lost at sea, Sho takes over as Arashi's leader." This is...crack. Oh my god is this crack.
He really had to stop drinking so much. He was running out of quick fix hangover remedies, and they had filming this afternoon. He’d been out with several senpai last night. He couldn’t exactly turn down the drinks they were pouring for him. Then he’d just look like a dick.
He pulled himself out of bed, getting into some comfortable clothes. Hopefully they’d put him in something nice for filming – nothing with lots of buttons or zippers and accessories he didn’t even recognize. His phone buzzed with an update from his manager – just the usual reminder about filming and other obligations.
There was something else blinking – not a new mail or anything. In fact, he didn’t recognize the little skull emoticon blinking in the corner of the phone’s screen. He clicked through his apps, and the skull emoticon was there again, informing him of his new purchase.
Purchase? When had he bought some new thing for his phone? He had enough stuff on his phone that he didn’t have time for. It said DEATH NOTE in big bold lettering, and he scratched his head.
“The hell’s a Death Note?”
He selected the program, and suddenly the phone emitted a little laughing noise that scared him enough to make him drop it.
When he picked up the cell phone again, all that was visible on the screen was a command to “ENTER A NAME AND THEY WILL DIE.” What the hell kind of cell phone app was this? Well, either way, he didn’t have time for it. He snapped the phone closed and shoved it in his pocket. He needed breakfast before he left the house.
--
They’d have a day off tomorrow, and Sho was pretty happy about that. He’d have time to call up the cell phone provider and ask them to delete the program from his phone. Even though he could easily delete other applications, he couldn’t find an uninstall or deactivate option for the Death Note program. It just kept prompting for him to type in someone’s name.
Now Sho didn’t really think that typing in someone’s name in his phone would lead to their death. That would be impossible. He’d typed in some murderer’s name that morning in the car, a name he remembered from a Zero broadcast. The little skull had smiled, and the program had turned off with another stupid laugh. Totally pointless. As far as Sho knew, the guy was still rotting in prison.
“I thought you were focusing on art this year, Leader,” Aiba said, packing up to head home for the night.
Ohno shrugged. “Well, it’s just a one day thing. And I haven’t been out in a while.”
“Bring sunblock,” Jun teased him.
Sho didn’t contribute to the conversation about Ohno’s pending fishing trip. He was desperately clicking through his phone trying to find a way to delete the stupid program. How much had he paid for it? His cell phone bill hadn’t even registered a charge for it yet.
Nino was waving a hand in front of his face. “Hey! We’re talking to you!”
He looked up. “What? What did I do?”
“We just asked what you were doing on your day off tomorrow?”
Truthfully? Sleeping. Nagging the phone provider. Then more sleeping.
He shrugged, closing his phone again. Willing the program to erase itself was not the most logical use of his brain power. He had scripts to look over anyhow. “I’ll probably just relax and…”
One of the staff came running in, nearly knocking Aiba down in his haste. “You’ll never believe who just died!”
“An actress? A politician?” Jun asked at the same time Aiba asked about some panda in a Chinese zoo.
Sho felt his heart start to race. There was no possible way that a cell phone application could KILL someone. It was…it was just insane.
“No, it was the guy who killed all those elderly people in a nursing home,” the staff member confirmed. “He had a heart attack in his cell!”
Sho could feel the phone nearly burning a hole in his pocket. It was the murderer he’d jokingly entered in just hours earlier. As a joke. As a test of the stupid Death Note program that would not go away. Sho had…killed him?
“Well, he was a terrible person,” Nino said. “I don’t think anyone will miss him.” The others murmured their opinions, but Sho didn’t hear anything, just imagining the sinister little laugh the Death Note made.
“I need to go home,” he said, fleeing as quickly as he could.
--
It was all over the news that night about the sudden death of the murderer in jail. Most of public opinion seemed to be happy that the man had died. One woman interviewed on the street had gone as far as to say that the man had received his comeuppance.
Maybe it was a coincidence, Sho thought as he huddled under the blankets in his room. Maybe it had just been a heart attack. The cell phone was on his desk, too far to reach. The skull was blinking again, prompting him for a name, and he was too afraid to touch the phone for fear he’d accidentally kill someone again. Sho didn’t want to be a killer. Murdering a murderer was still murder after all.
What if people traced it back to him? What if the government had monitored the activity on his phone? It would be a PR disaster – Arashi would be in huge trouble, and it would be all his fault. He’d get kicked out of the agency, he’d lose all the work and relationships he’d been cultivating for years. Maybe he’d even go to jail.
First thing in the morning, he’d call the phone company. Even with his eyes closed, he could imagine the blinky skull reminding him of the horrible thing he’d done.
--
He was on the phone with his provider for hours, and they swore up and down that none of their third party affiliates offered a phone app called “Death Note.” They thought he was crazy. Even describing the program, the skull, the laughter…it didn’t help.
“There’s no such program available for any of our handsets or other mobile devices, sir.”
He swore up and down that it existed. It was frustrating. Maybe he’d tell the guy on the other side of the line just who he was and how he did not need this stupid application and would they please just send him a new phone? Sho didn’t really like pulling the fame card, but he liked jail and being universally reviled a lot less.
“My name is Sakurai Sho. I am a member of Arashi. Isn’t there something you could do?”
“We still don’t have a Death Note application, sir.” Sho remembered C no Arashi and dealing with crazy people who complained to companies. Now he was the crazy person, wasn’t he?
The news was on in the background, and they kept harping on the dead murderer. The dead murderer that Sho had dead-ified with his freaking cell phone. He hung up without saying thank you or goodbye or anything. He spent the next twenty minutes pacing his bedroom floor, biting his nails while pacing his bedroom floor and then a few brief moments wondering if anyone would believe him if he claimed responsibility.
They’d be doing Zero segments on his catastrophic fall from glory, and the tabloids would Photoshop his picture to make him look like a demon, and he wouldn’t get to go shopping with Masaki any more and he wouldn’t get to go to the Olympics. They’d take the Olympics away!
His cell phone buzzed, and he screamed like a little girl. Not that he’d admit to it if someone accused him of it later.
But it wasn’t the skull or the laughing or anything to do with the Death Note program. It was just a mail from Leader. He opened the attachment, and he’d sent yet another photo of himself proudly holding a fish while at sea. Well, at least someone was enjoying their day.
He hit reply. “Satoshi-kun,” he wrote absentmindedly, “congratulations on your big catch.” He shut the phone and was ready to flush it down the toilet when it laughed at him.
Sho’s stomach did a flip flop in sheer terror. The phone wasn’t supposed to be laughing – he’d just been responding to Leader’s message. He didn’t even have the Death Note program open, did he? But the phone was still laughing, and now it was flashing “Satoshi-kun” back at him and…did he just kill Ohno!?
“No,” he muttered aloud, “no no no no.” He’d known Ohno for half of his life – he didn’t want his demonic cell phone snuffing out his friend’s existence! He called Ohno’s number – if he wasn’t typing out the man’s name, maybe it would be okay?
“Pick up!” he howled, listening to the ringing. “You just sent me a mail, your phone should be right next to you!”
The voicemail picked up instead. “I’m not here. Sorry.” Then there was the tone, and Sho didn’t know what to say. Be careful out there? Try not to die today because I may have inadvertently told my cell phone to kill you?
He hung up instead. He had to get rid of this stupid cell phone.
--
When he walked into the green room the next day before Shukudai filming, he was feeling good. He’d turned his cell phone off and left it in the closet of his bedroom behind some school yearbooks and some old dirty magazines he thought he’d thrown out years ago.
He’d sent his manager an email using his laptop, saying that his phone was broken. If his phone was off, it couldn’t kill anyone, right?
But the green room was suspiciously empty. A few minutes later, his manager found him. “There you are, come quickly, you need to make a statement. I tried to call you…”
“What, what’s going on?”
“It’s Ohno-san. His ship never made it back to port last night.”
--
Okay. Now he was really screwed. And upset to boot. Had he killed Ohno? And all the people on board his fishing boat?
Well, there was little time because there were already press gathered outside of NTV demanding an answer for where Ohno was. The agency and Ohno’s manager hadn’t heard from him since he left, and they were already sending the coast guard out to search where the boat was supposed to have been.
The others were frantic, and it was usually Sho’s job to be the calm face of reason. They’d already given him something to read for the impromptu press conference. Too bad it didn’t say anything about Sho being responsible for their Leader being lost at sea. The cameras were already snapping at a frenzied pace, blinding him again and again.
“We are all sure this is a misunderstanding and that Ohno-san’s boat will return soon,” he read as directed while the other members fidgeted behind him. Sho was sweating under the lights, and if this press conference didn’t end soon, he’d probably pass out.
“At this time, we are suspending all Arashi activities until we hear about Ohno-san’s safe return. Already, boats are combing the waters where Ohno-san was reportedly fishing yesterday…”
“Do you think Ohno-san drowned?” one reporter shouted rudely while another one nearly elbowed someone in the face to scream “Will you take over as Arashi’s leader, Sakurai-san?”
“I…what?” he shouted, feeling Aiba’s reassuring hand squeezing his shoulder. They didn’t even know what happened to Ohno yet and already people were asking if he’d be the new leader? Arashi wasn’t Arashi without their leader, Sho knew that.
And Sho had just destroyed Arashi hadn’t he? More cameras went off, and even though he was usually fine with pressure, it was too much. Arashi would be done, it was all his fault, Ohno was swimming with his beloved fishes and…
“Sho-san!” he heard Jun’s voice cry out, but everything was blurry and gee, the floor was so comfortable…
--
“Fainting on national television. Good job,” Nino’s voice said, rousing him from his comfortable sleep.
So it hadn’t just been a dream. The press conference had been all too real – “Will you take over as Arashi’s leader?”
Well, that would be hard to do from a maximum security prison cell.
“Where’s…manager?” he mumbled, waking up in an unfamiliar room, most likely somewhere in the NTV building.
“Oh, you left him some fun stuff to talk about,” Nino said, sitting in a chair next to the couch where they’d laid him out. “I think Aiba almost wet his pants when you fainted.”
Wasn’t Nino even worried about the fact that Leader was lost at sea?
“I…I was a bit flustered.”
“You were sweating like a guy in a sauna,” Nino informed him. “Very unattractive, GQ.”
“Are you here to help me?”
Nino held out a chocolate bar. “Here, this’ll help get your blood sugar back up. We had to pour some orange juice down your throat before. Jun-kun enjoyed doing that a bit too much, if you ask me.”
He sat up slowly, thinking about the cell phone still sitting at the back of his closet. He unwrapped the chocolate and took a bite. Maybe he could breach the topic with Nino. Aiba would probably flip out, Jun wouldn’t believe him, and well, Ohno wasn’t here. They’d been friends for years. Nino would have to believe him.
“Nino…”
He was fumbling with some cards. “Yep.”
“If I…was responsible for Leader’s death, how would you react?”
Nino looked up at him, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “What?”
“I mean, not intentionally. It was an accident.”
“Sho-chan,” Nino interrupted. “Did you hit your head on the podium or something?”
This wasn’t going well. “Well, you see, I’ve got this program on my cell phone and if you put someone’s name in, it KILLS them. Kills them dead! That murderer from the other day? I put his name in my phone and hours later, boom, dead! And then I responded to Satoshi’s mail from yesterday and my phone laughed at me…”
Nino got up. “I’ll get the doctor.”
He tried to grab his friend’s wrist. “Wait, don’t go! I’m not crazy, it’s on my phone! Nino, wait!”
But Nino moved fast when the shit hit the fan, and it most certainly had. Now his friend either thought Sho was a murderer or that Sho was insane. Either way, it would bring the doctor or the cops, and he really would get committed if they asked him to repeat what he told Nino. Couldn’t just blame it on idol lifestyle exhaustion slash a bandmate missing at sea.
He had to get away from here.
He was still in his clothes for the Shukudai filming that got canceled, and they’d given him a hoodie. He zipped it up and grabbed a bento from the craft service table as he snuck out of the building.
Sho knew exactly what he had to do. He had to destroy that cell phone before it killed again.
--
Of course, he’d gotten out of the building and realized that his house keys and wallet were still in his bag with his street clothes. Oh well. Shiodome was a hike from home, but he had no time. He jogged as best he could past businessmen on their lunch breaks and office ladies on a smoking break. He probably looked like a terrorist.
He waited at a busier intersection, realizing that running with the plastic bento lunch box was just going to slow him down. And having already run a few kilometers had tuckered him out. He settled himself on a bench and broke the thing open, devouring the onigiri and sashimi inside without a care.
He’d killed the guy in prison, and now he’d killed one of his best friends. They were going to catch on. At least he’d get a nice last meal before they hauled him away. There was a TV screen hanging on one of the buildings at the intersection, and he felt his blood run cold.
“Sakurai Sho, idol and newscaster, is missing. After erratic behavior this morning, he disappeared from Nippon Television Tower. Police are already on the look-out…”
Damn it. They were going to be at his house weren’t they? He wouldn’t be able to get to his phone. Well, he had to try anyhow. He dumped the rest of his lunch in the trash and kept running.
He got a block away from his house, and there was a swarm of police cars. Damn it, Nino. It was Nino’s fault for ratting him out. Maybe if he had his phone, he could put in the first bit of the kanji in his friend’s name and threaten…
Whoa. He did NOT need to start thinking like that. He gave himself a smack in the head. Wasn’t the death of one group member enough to deal with? Nino could be annoying, sure, but he didn’t need to be cell phone killed.
He had to get in the house, but how? He waited in the alley, plotting, waiting for the police to give up and drive off.
He didn’t get a chance to act on any of the stupid plans his brain contrived because he felt a strong hand grab him by the shoulder, and when he turned around, Aiba and Matsujun were looking at him like he’d sprouted a second head. They’d followed him all this way?
“Nino says you said you have an evil cell phone,” Aiba said, his voice very grave and uncharacteristically cold.
“Where is it?” Jun asked, no-nonsense as ever.
“You believe me?”
“No,” his bandmates answered in perfect unison.
He looked at his shoes. Correction – the boots the stylist had set out for him. “You have to see the program to believe it. It’s in my closet. Please, go get it, and I’ll prove it to you?”
Aiba and Jun exchanged worried glances. “I’ll go get it,” Aiba said. “You…don’t run away again, alright?”
Maybe if Sho had Aiba’s stupid mirror costume he could blend in and sneak about. Whatever. Aiba went off to negotiate his way into Sho’s house while Jun kept an eye on him.
“I put his name in my phone, Matsujun,” he lamented, leaning against the alley wall. “Satoshi-kun’s name.”
“I think you need to see a medical professional.”
He bopped his head back against the concrete. “I’m not crazy, you know.”
“Says the man with a killer cell phone app.”
Several minutes later, Aiba came running up, cell phone in hand. “I said I knew your computer password so I’d check if you left a suicide note.”
“Masaki!” he cried.
“Good plan,” Jun said, snatching the phone away and turning it on. “Where is it?”
He tried to get the phone away from his bandmate, but Jun was already thumbing through Sho’s contacts and programs. “Be careful with that! Don’t put anyone’s name in it by mistake.”
Suddenly, the phone went off. “Murao-san,” Jun announced. “You have the News Zero guy’s number in your phone?”
They’d even gotten Murao-san involved? Just how crazy and distressed did everyone think he was? “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Aiba asked. “I’ll say hi.”
“Don’t! Just let it go to voicemail!”
“Murao-san! Hey!” Aiba said, grabbing the phone out of Jun’s hand. “Murao-san? Murao-san, are you still there?”
The cell phone let out a shrieking laugh, and Aiba dropped it. Instead of breaking, it was unfortunately quite durable, and Jun gasped at the sight of the skull showing up on the screen.
Why had the phone laughed? He hadn’t typed in Murao-san’s name! Had it just reacted to Aiba’s voice?! He screamed. The killer, Satoshi, now Murao-san?! He was beyond screwed. He jumped up and down, trying to smash the phone with his boots. “I’m not a killer! Really, I’m not!”
“Sho-san,” Jun said, trying to restrain him. “Wait…”
“Don’t stop him! That phone is evil!” Aiba was screeching, and he was stomping on Sho’s feet to try and help.
“Just…take the battery out!” Jun finally shouted, and he and Aiba stopped jumping on the phone.
“Oh,” Sho said quietly. Jun crouched down and picked up the phone. They'd broken it in half, but the skull was still there on the screen. He opened the back of it and removed the battery.
“That should…”
The screen flickered, prompting Sho to enter in another name. “It’s still evil,” Aiba whispered, covering his mouth.
“I told you. I told you!”
“Just…no names okay? Don’t use names,” Jun reasoned. “We have to get rid of it.”
The phone chuckled. Not laughing, just a sinister chuckling this time.
“I think the phone knows,” Aiba murmured, trembling like a leaf.
“Matsu…” Sho stopped himself. “You chuck the battery,” he said to Jun, then pointed to Aiba. “You get rid of the screen, I’ll get rid of the bottom half of the phone.”
“How?”
--
Now the video screens of Tokyo were reporting three missing Arashi members after the sudden disappearance of leader Ohno’s fishing boat. Sho could only imagine how irritated Nino was right then. If their fans could see them now, Sho thought bitterly as they arranged the three cell phone parts on the train tracks.
The Yamanote Line came by every few minutes like clockwork. This would definitely be the end of it.
They crouched in the bushes away from the tracks, huddling together. “I’m sorry I doubted you, S-chan,” Aiba said. The phone was several feet away, but they couldn’t be too careful.
“I told you I wasn’t crazy.”
“Train’s coming,” Jun whispered, and the three of them watched as the train came barreling down the tracks on its way to Shinagawa Station. “I can’t believe we are destroying a demonic cell phone.”
“It’ll hear you, J-kun!” Aiba complained.
The train came flying by full of rush hour passengers, and they watched the sparks kick up as the first car hit the phone parts. It was like an Odoroki no Arashi special…set in hell, Sho imagined.
Once the train was clear, they came out from behind the bush. The phone was thoroughly smashed, and the skull was gone from the flattened view screen. Sho exhaled in a sigh of relief.
That was when Aiba’s cell phone rang.
The three of them screamed like little girls. Not that any of them would admit to it later, even though Aiba had nearly jumped onto Sho’s back like a spider monkey at the sound of his Jungle Book ringtone.
“Should I answer it?”
Jun was still shaking. “Who…who is it?”
The other Yamanote Line train would be coming around in the opposite direction, so Aiba held the phone away from himself like a dirty diaper as they hurried away from the tracks and back to the bushes.
“Oh,” Aiba said when they got there. “It’s Leader!”
“Well, answer it then!” Sho screeched.
Aiba did so.
“Leader, where the hell were you? We thought Sho’s evil cell phone killed you...evil cell phone, I said.” There was a pause, and Jun and Sho nearly climbed on top one another to get close to Aiba and his phone. “What do you mean you didn’t go on your trip? Where have you been all day? At your aunt’s house?!”
Jun yanked the phone away. “Leader!” Jun looked furious. “You had us all worried and you slept in?!”
“He slept in,” Aiba told Sho as though they hadn’t just heard Jun say as much.
So if Ohno was alive, then maybe his cell phone had just been…very strange. And maybe the guy in prison had died of natural causes. Maybe Sho wasn’t really a murderer!
“Call Murao-san,” he told Jun.
“Like I have Murao-san’s number,” Jun said. “No, not you, Leader. Murao-san from News Zero.”
“Oh, it’s in my phone,” Sho said, reaching instinctively for his pocket. “Oh.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Aiba said, patting him on the shoulder. “I think we killed the evil.”
“Yeah, well get your ass to NTV and explain, would you?” Jun was still saying. “Yes, you’re in a lot of trouble. You nearly killed Sho-san with worry!” He hung up on Ohno and shook his head. “I think we’re in the clear.”
Sho fell back against the dirt in his relief, listening to the next train come roaring by. “Thank god.”
--
“That was the stupidest idea I ever heard,” Nakai grumbled.
SMAP’s Evil Lair of Doom was filled with sad faces that evening. Their plan had failed. Again. There’d be no knocking their kohai off the charts. Arashi was going to definitely dominate Oricon for another year, and they were running out of ideas for how to crush them.
The Ohno pot and threesome scandal they’d tried to revive? No dice.
The neverending Nino and Masami affair? Useless.
And of course the whole “bury Aiba alive” thing had been taken off the docket entirely for being too much work.
“Program a weird thing onto Sakurai’s phone to drive him crazy. It was stupid, Goro!” Shingo cried, flinging a fluffy pillow at him. It missed, hitting the depressed Tsuyoshi square in the face.
Goro shrugged. “Sorry! It was the latest phone software!” He was looking at the box for the Death Note program with a frown. “It says right here ‘drives even the most sane person cuckoo! Make them think they’ve killed their friends!’ I paid a lot of money for this.”
Nakai had been banking on Ohno’s laziness, sending that Photoshopped fish picture to Sakurai’s phone while Tsuyoshi and Takuya paid off the boat captain. And it had almost worked! The whole prisoner thing was a serendipitous thing of beauty. But no.
Kimura shook his head, gesturing to their Arashi Known Weaknesses flow chart with his laser pointer. “I still say we go with the Matsujun is a woman thing for next time. Look at those hips!”
“They are pretty nice,” Shingo noted. “I mean, womanly.”
Nakai stomped his feet. “Just you wait Arashi,” he said to no one in particular. “We’ll get you next time!”
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Sho, all of Arashi
Summary: “ENTER A NAME AND THEY WILL DIE.”
Notes/Warnings: A 2010 Sho Birthday Request from
cris_kanaschiro who wanted me to follow up on "When Ohno is lost at sea, Sho takes over as Arashi's leader." This is...crack. Oh my god is this crack.He really had to stop drinking so much. He was running out of quick fix hangover remedies, and they had filming this afternoon. He’d been out with several senpai last night. He couldn’t exactly turn down the drinks they were pouring for him. Then he’d just look like a dick.
He pulled himself out of bed, getting into some comfortable clothes. Hopefully they’d put him in something nice for filming – nothing with lots of buttons or zippers and accessories he didn’t even recognize. His phone buzzed with an update from his manager – just the usual reminder about filming and other obligations.
There was something else blinking – not a new mail or anything. In fact, he didn’t recognize the little skull emoticon blinking in the corner of the phone’s screen. He clicked through his apps, and the skull emoticon was there again, informing him of his new purchase.
Purchase? When had he bought some new thing for his phone? He had enough stuff on his phone that he didn’t have time for. It said DEATH NOTE in big bold lettering, and he scratched his head.
“The hell’s a Death Note?”
He selected the program, and suddenly the phone emitted a little laughing noise that scared him enough to make him drop it.
When he picked up the cell phone again, all that was visible on the screen was a command to “ENTER A NAME AND THEY WILL DIE.” What the hell kind of cell phone app was this? Well, either way, he didn’t have time for it. He snapped the phone closed and shoved it in his pocket. He needed breakfast before he left the house.
--
They’d have a day off tomorrow, and Sho was pretty happy about that. He’d have time to call up the cell phone provider and ask them to delete the program from his phone. Even though he could easily delete other applications, he couldn’t find an uninstall or deactivate option for the Death Note program. It just kept prompting for him to type in someone’s name.
Now Sho didn’t really think that typing in someone’s name in his phone would lead to their death. That would be impossible. He’d typed in some murderer’s name that morning in the car, a name he remembered from a Zero broadcast. The little skull had smiled, and the program had turned off with another stupid laugh. Totally pointless. As far as Sho knew, the guy was still rotting in prison.
“I thought you were focusing on art this year, Leader,” Aiba said, packing up to head home for the night.
Ohno shrugged. “Well, it’s just a one day thing. And I haven’t been out in a while.”
“Bring sunblock,” Jun teased him.
Sho didn’t contribute to the conversation about Ohno’s pending fishing trip. He was desperately clicking through his phone trying to find a way to delete the stupid program. How much had he paid for it? His cell phone bill hadn’t even registered a charge for it yet.
Nino was waving a hand in front of his face. “Hey! We’re talking to you!”
He looked up. “What? What did I do?”
“We just asked what you were doing on your day off tomorrow?”
Truthfully? Sleeping. Nagging the phone provider. Then more sleeping.
He shrugged, closing his phone again. Willing the program to erase itself was not the most logical use of his brain power. He had scripts to look over anyhow. “I’ll probably just relax and…”
One of the staff came running in, nearly knocking Aiba down in his haste. “You’ll never believe who just died!”
“An actress? A politician?” Jun asked at the same time Aiba asked about some panda in a Chinese zoo.
Sho felt his heart start to race. There was no possible way that a cell phone application could KILL someone. It was…it was just insane.
“No, it was the guy who killed all those elderly people in a nursing home,” the staff member confirmed. “He had a heart attack in his cell!”
Sho could feel the phone nearly burning a hole in his pocket. It was the murderer he’d jokingly entered in just hours earlier. As a joke. As a test of the stupid Death Note program that would not go away. Sho had…killed him?
“Well, he was a terrible person,” Nino said. “I don’t think anyone will miss him.” The others murmured their opinions, but Sho didn’t hear anything, just imagining the sinister little laugh the Death Note made.
“I need to go home,” he said, fleeing as quickly as he could.
--
It was all over the news that night about the sudden death of the murderer in jail. Most of public opinion seemed to be happy that the man had died. One woman interviewed on the street had gone as far as to say that the man had received his comeuppance.
Maybe it was a coincidence, Sho thought as he huddled under the blankets in his room. Maybe it had just been a heart attack. The cell phone was on his desk, too far to reach. The skull was blinking again, prompting him for a name, and he was too afraid to touch the phone for fear he’d accidentally kill someone again. Sho didn’t want to be a killer. Murdering a murderer was still murder after all.
What if people traced it back to him? What if the government had monitored the activity on his phone? It would be a PR disaster – Arashi would be in huge trouble, and it would be all his fault. He’d get kicked out of the agency, he’d lose all the work and relationships he’d been cultivating for years. Maybe he’d even go to jail.
First thing in the morning, he’d call the phone company. Even with his eyes closed, he could imagine the blinky skull reminding him of the horrible thing he’d done.
--
He was on the phone with his provider for hours, and they swore up and down that none of their third party affiliates offered a phone app called “Death Note.” They thought he was crazy. Even describing the program, the skull, the laughter…it didn’t help.
“There’s no such program available for any of our handsets or other mobile devices, sir.”
He swore up and down that it existed. It was frustrating. Maybe he’d tell the guy on the other side of the line just who he was and how he did not need this stupid application and would they please just send him a new phone? Sho didn’t really like pulling the fame card, but he liked jail and being universally reviled a lot less.
“My name is Sakurai Sho. I am a member of Arashi. Isn’t there something you could do?”
“We still don’t have a Death Note application, sir.” Sho remembered C no Arashi and dealing with crazy people who complained to companies. Now he was the crazy person, wasn’t he?
The news was on in the background, and they kept harping on the dead murderer. The dead murderer that Sho had dead-ified with his freaking cell phone. He hung up without saying thank you or goodbye or anything. He spent the next twenty minutes pacing his bedroom floor, biting his nails while pacing his bedroom floor and then a few brief moments wondering if anyone would believe him if he claimed responsibility.
They’d be doing Zero segments on his catastrophic fall from glory, and the tabloids would Photoshop his picture to make him look like a demon, and he wouldn’t get to go shopping with Masaki any more and he wouldn’t get to go to the Olympics. They’d take the Olympics away!
His cell phone buzzed, and he screamed like a little girl. Not that he’d admit to it if someone accused him of it later.
But it wasn’t the skull or the laughing or anything to do with the Death Note program. It was just a mail from Leader. He opened the attachment, and he’d sent yet another photo of himself proudly holding a fish while at sea. Well, at least someone was enjoying their day.
He hit reply. “Satoshi-kun,” he wrote absentmindedly, “congratulations on your big catch.” He shut the phone and was ready to flush it down the toilet when it laughed at him.
Sho’s stomach did a flip flop in sheer terror. The phone wasn’t supposed to be laughing – he’d just been responding to Leader’s message. He didn’t even have the Death Note program open, did he? But the phone was still laughing, and now it was flashing “Satoshi-kun” back at him and…did he just kill Ohno!?
“No,” he muttered aloud, “no no no no.” He’d known Ohno for half of his life – he didn’t want his demonic cell phone snuffing out his friend’s existence! He called Ohno’s number – if he wasn’t typing out the man’s name, maybe it would be okay?
“Pick up!” he howled, listening to the ringing. “You just sent me a mail, your phone should be right next to you!”
The voicemail picked up instead. “I’m not here. Sorry.” Then there was the tone, and Sho didn’t know what to say. Be careful out there? Try not to die today because I may have inadvertently told my cell phone to kill you?
He hung up instead. He had to get rid of this stupid cell phone.
--
When he walked into the green room the next day before Shukudai filming, he was feeling good. He’d turned his cell phone off and left it in the closet of his bedroom behind some school yearbooks and some old dirty magazines he thought he’d thrown out years ago.
He’d sent his manager an email using his laptop, saying that his phone was broken. If his phone was off, it couldn’t kill anyone, right?
But the green room was suspiciously empty. A few minutes later, his manager found him. “There you are, come quickly, you need to make a statement. I tried to call you…”
“What, what’s going on?”
“It’s Ohno-san. His ship never made it back to port last night.”
--
Okay. Now he was really screwed. And upset to boot. Had he killed Ohno? And all the people on board his fishing boat?
Well, there was little time because there were already press gathered outside of NTV demanding an answer for where Ohno was. The agency and Ohno’s manager hadn’t heard from him since he left, and they were already sending the coast guard out to search where the boat was supposed to have been.
The others were frantic, and it was usually Sho’s job to be the calm face of reason. They’d already given him something to read for the impromptu press conference. Too bad it didn’t say anything about Sho being responsible for their Leader being lost at sea. The cameras were already snapping at a frenzied pace, blinding him again and again.
“We are all sure this is a misunderstanding and that Ohno-san’s boat will return soon,” he read as directed while the other members fidgeted behind him. Sho was sweating under the lights, and if this press conference didn’t end soon, he’d probably pass out.
“At this time, we are suspending all Arashi activities until we hear about Ohno-san’s safe return. Already, boats are combing the waters where Ohno-san was reportedly fishing yesterday…”
“Do you think Ohno-san drowned?” one reporter shouted rudely while another one nearly elbowed someone in the face to scream “Will you take over as Arashi’s leader, Sakurai-san?”
“I…what?” he shouted, feeling Aiba’s reassuring hand squeezing his shoulder. They didn’t even know what happened to Ohno yet and already people were asking if he’d be the new leader? Arashi wasn’t Arashi without their leader, Sho knew that.
And Sho had just destroyed Arashi hadn’t he? More cameras went off, and even though he was usually fine with pressure, it was too much. Arashi would be done, it was all his fault, Ohno was swimming with his beloved fishes and…
“Sho-san!” he heard Jun’s voice cry out, but everything was blurry and gee, the floor was so comfortable…
--
“Fainting on national television. Good job,” Nino’s voice said, rousing him from his comfortable sleep.
So it hadn’t just been a dream. The press conference had been all too real – “Will you take over as Arashi’s leader?”
Well, that would be hard to do from a maximum security prison cell.
“Where’s…manager?” he mumbled, waking up in an unfamiliar room, most likely somewhere in the NTV building.
“Oh, you left him some fun stuff to talk about,” Nino said, sitting in a chair next to the couch where they’d laid him out. “I think Aiba almost wet his pants when you fainted.”
Wasn’t Nino even worried about the fact that Leader was lost at sea?
“I…I was a bit flustered.”
“You were sweating like a guy in a sauna,” Nino informed him. “Very unattractive, GQ.”
“Are you here to help me?”
Nino held out a chocolate bar. “Here, this’ll help get your blood sugar back up. We had to pour some orange juice down your throat before. Jun-kun enjoyed doing that a bit too much, if you ask me.”
He sat up slowly, thinking about the cell phone still sitting at the back of his closet. He unwrapped the chocolate and took a bite. Maybe he could breach the topic with Nino. Aiba would probably flip out, Jun wouldn’t believe him, and well, Ohno wasn’t here. They’d been friends for years. Nino would have to believe him.
“Nino…”
He was fumbling with some cards. “Yep.”
“If I…was responsible for Leader’s death, how would you react?”
Nino looked up at him, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “What?”
“I mean, not intentionally. It was an accident.”
“Sho-chan,” Nino interrupted. “Did you hit your head on the podium or something?”
This wasn’t going well. “Well, you see, I’ve got this program on my cell phone and if you put someone’s name in, it KILLS them. Kills them dead! That murderer from the other day? I put his name in my phone and hours later, boom, dead! And then I responded to Satoshi’s mail from yesterday and my phone laughed at me…”
Nino got up. “I’ll get the doctor.”
He tried to grab his friend’s wrist. “Wait, don’t go! I’m not crazy, it’s on my phone! Nino, wait!”
But Nino moved fast when the shit hit the fan, and it most certainly had. Now his friend either thought Sho was a murderer or that Sho was insane. Either way, it would bring the doctor or the cops, and he really would get committed if they asked him to repeat what he told Nino. Couldn’t just blame it on idol lifestyle exhaustion slash a bandmate missing at sea.
He had to get away from here.
He was still in his clothes for the Shukudai filming that got canceled, and they’d given him a hoodie. He zipped it up and grabbed a bento from the craft service table as he snuck out of the building.
Sho knew exactly what he had to do. He had to destroy that cell phone before it killed again.
--
Of course, he’d gotten out of the building and realized that his house keys and wallet were still in his bag with his street clothes. Oh well. Shiodome was a hike from home, but he had no time. He jogged as best he could past businessmen on their lunch breaks and office ladies on a smoking break. He probably looked like a terrorist.
He waited at a busier intersection, realizing that running with the plastic bento lunch box was just going to slow him down. And having already run a few kilometers had tuckered him out. He settled himself on a bench and broke the thing open, devouring the onigiri and sashimi inside without a care.
He’d killed the guy in prison, and now he’d killed one of his best friends. They were going to catch on. At least he’d get a nice last meal before they hauled him away. There was a TV screen hanging on one of the buildings at the intersection, and he felt his blood run cold.
“Sakurai Sho, idol and newscaster, is missing. After erratic behavior this morning, he disappeared from Nippon Television Tower. Police are already on the look-out…”
Damn it. They were going to be at his house weren’t they? He wouldn’t be able to get to his phone. Well, he had to try anyhow. He dumped the rest of his lunch in the trash and kept running.
He got a block away from his house, and there was a swarm of police cars. Damn it, Nino. It was Nino’s fault for ratting him out. Maybe if he had his phone, he could put in the first bit of the kanji in his friend’s name and threaten…
Whoa. He did NOT need to start thinking like that. He gave himself a smack in the head. Wasn’t the death of one group member enough to deal with? Nino could be annoying, sure, but he didn’t need to be cell phone killed.
He had to get in the house, but how? He waited in the alley, plotting, waiting for the police to give up and drive off.
He didn’t get a chance to act on any of the stupid plans his brain contrived because he felt a strong hand grab him by the shoulder, and when he turned around, Aiba and Matsujun were looking at him like he’d sprouted a second head. They’d followed him all this way?
“Nino says you said you have an evil cell phone,” Aiba said, his voice very grave and uncharacteristically cold.
“Where is it?” Jun asked, no-nonsense as ever.
“You believe me?”
“No,” his bandmates answered in perfect unison.
He looked at his shoes. Correction – the boots the stylist had set out for him. “You have to see the program to believe it. It’s in my closet. Please, go get it, and I’ll prove it to you?”
Aiba and Jun exchanged worried glances. “I’ll go get it,” Aiba said. “You…don’t run away again, alright?”
Maybe if Sho had Aiba’s stupid mirror costume he could blend in and sneak about. Whatever. Aiba went off to negotiate his way into Sho’s house while Jun kept an eye on him.
“I put his name in my phone, Matsujun,” he lamented, leaning against the alley wall. “Satoshi-kun’s name.”
“I think you need to see a medical professional.”
He bopped his head back against the concrete. “I’m not crazy, you know.”
“Says the man with a killer cell phone app.”
Several minutes later, Aiba came running up, cell phone in hand. “I said I knew your computer password so I’d check if you left a suicide note.”
“Masaki!” he cried.
“Good plan,” Jun said, snatching the phone away and turning it on. “Where is it?”
He tried to get the phone away from his bandmate, but Jun was already thumbing through Sho’s contacts and programs. “Be careful with that! Don’t put anyone’s name in it by mistake.”
Suddenly, the phone went off. “Murao-san,” Jun announced. “You have the News Zero guy’s number in your phone?”
They’d even gotten Murao-san involved? Just how crazy and distressed did everyone think he was? “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Aiba asked. “I’ll say hi.”
“Don’t! Just let it go to voicemail!”
“Murao-san! Hey!” Aiba said, grabbing the phone out of Jun’s hand. “Murao-san? Murao-san, are you still there?”
The cell phone let out a shrieking laugh, and Aiba dropped it. Instead of breaking, it was unfortunately quite durable, and Jun gasped at the sight of the skull showing up on the screen.
Why had the phone laughed? He hadn’t typed in Murao-san’s name! Had it just reacted to Aiba’s voice?! He screamed. The killer, Satoshi, now Murao-san?! He was beyond screwed. He jumped up and down, trying to smash the phone with his boots. “I’m not a killer! Really, I’m not!”
“Sho-san,” Jun said, trying to restrain him. “Wait…”
“Don’t stop him! That phone is evil!” Aiba was screeching, and he was stomping on Sho’s feet to try and help.
“Just…take the battery out!” Jun finally shouted, and he and Aiba stopped jumping on the phone.
“Oh,” Sho said quietly. Jun crouched down and picked up the phone. They'd broken it in half, but the skull was still there on the screen. He opened the back of it and removed the battery.
“That should…”
The screen flickered, prompting Sho to enter in another name. “It’s still evil,” Aiba whispered, covering his mouth.
“I told you. I told you!”
“Just…no names okay? Don’t use names,” Jun reasoned. “We have to get rid of it.”
The phone chuckled. Not laughing, just a sinister chuckling this time.
“I think the phone knows,” Aiba murmured, trembling like a leaf.
“Matsu…” Sho stopped himself. “You chuck the battery,” he said to Jun, then pointed to Aiba. “You get rid of the screen, I’ll get rid of the bottom half of the phone.”
“How?”
--
Now the video screens of Tokyo were reporting three missing Arashi members after the sudden disappearance of leader Ohno’s fishing boat. Sho could only imagine how irritated Nino was right then. If their fans could see them now, Sho thought bitterly as they arranged the three cell phone parts on the train tracks.
The Yamanote Line came by every few minutes like clockwork. This would definitely be the end of it.
They crouched in the bushes away from the tracks, huddling together. “I’m sorry I doubted you, S-chan,” Aiba said. The phone was several feet away, but they couldn’t be too careful.
“I told you I wasn’t crazy.”
“Train’s coming,” Jun whispered, and the three of them watched as the train came barreling down the tracks on its way to Shinagawa Station. “I can’t believe we are destroying a demonic cell phone.”
“It’ll hear you, J-kun!” Aiba complained.
The train came flying by full of rush hour passengers, and they watched the sparks kick up as the first car hit the phone parts. It was like an Odoroki no Arashi special…set in hell, Sho imagined.
Once the train was clear, they came out from behind the bush. The phone was thoroughly smashed, and the skull was gone from the flattened view screen. Sho exhaled in a sigh of relief.
That was when Aiba’s cell phone rang.
The three of them screamed like little girls. Not that any of them would admit to it later, even though Aiba had nearly jumped onto Sho’s back like a spider monkey at the sound of his Jungle Book ringtone.
“Should I answer it?”
Jun was still shaking. “Who…who is it?”
The other Yamanote Line train would be coming around in the opposite direction, so Aiba held the phone away from himself like a dirty diaper as they hurried away from the tracks and back to the bushes.
“Oh,” Aiba said when they got there. “It’s Leader!”
“Well, answer it then!” Sho screeched.
Aiba did so.
“Leader, where the hell were you? We thought Sho’s evil cell phone killed you...evil cell phone, I said.” There was a pause, and Jun and Sho nearly climbed on top one another to get close to Aiba and his phone. “What do you mean you didn’t go on your trip? Where have you been all day? At your aunt’s house?!”
Jun yanked the phone away. “Leader!” Jun looked furious. “You had us all worried and you slept in?!”
“He slept in,” Aiba told Sho as though they hadn’t just heard Jun say as much.
So if Ohno was alive, then maybe his cell phone had just been…very strange. And maybe the guy in prison had died of natural causes. Maybe Sho wasn’t really a murderer!
“Call Murao-san,” he told Jun.
“Like I have Murao-san’s number,” Jun said. “No, not you, Leader. Murao-san from News Zero.”
“Oh, it’s in my phone,” Sho said, reaching instinctively for his pocket. “Oh.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Aiba said, patting him on the shoulder. “I think we killed the evil.”
“Yeah, well get your ass to NTV and explain, would you?” Jun was still saying. “Yes, you’re in a lot of trouble. You nearly killed Sho-san with worry!” He hung up on Ohno and shook his head. “I think we’re in the clear.”
Sho fell back against the dirt in his relief, listening to the next train come roaring by. “Thank god.”
--
“That was the stupidest idea I ever heard,” Nakai grumbled.
SMAP’s Evil Lair of Doom was filled with sad faces that evening. Their plan had failed. Again. There’d be no knocking their kohai off the charts. Arashi was going to definitely dominate Oricon for another year, and they were running out of ideas for how to crush them.
The Ohno pot and threesome scandal they’d tried to revive? No dice.
The neverending Nino and Masami affair? Useless.
And of course the whole “bury Aiba alive” thing had been taken off the docket entirely for being too much work.
“Program a weird thing onto Sakurai’s phone to drive him crazy. It was stupid, Goro!” Shingo cried, flinging a fluffy pillow at him. It missed, hitting the depressed Tsuyoshi square in the face.
Goro shrugged. “Sorry! It was the latest phone software!” He was looking at the box for the Death Note program with a frown. “It says right here ‘drives even the most sane person cuckoo! Make them think they’ve killed their friends!’ I paid a lot of money for this.”
Nakai had been banking on Ohno’s laziness, sending that Photoshopped fish picture to Sakurai’s phone while Tsuyoshi and Takuya paid off the boat captain. And it had almost worked! The whole prisoner thing was a serendipitous thing of beauty. But no.
Kimura shook his head, gesturing to their Arashi Known Weaknesses flow chart with his laser pointer. “I still say we go with the Matsujun is a woman thing for next time. Look at those hips!”
“They are pretty nice,” Shingo noted. “I mean, womanly.”
Nakai stomped his feet. “Just you wait Arashi,” he said to no one in particular. “We’ll get you next time!”
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Date: 2010-01-26 12:00 am (UTC)YOU KNOW WHAT THAT NEEDS? A STAMP OF APPROVAL.
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Date: 2010-01-26 05:09 pm (UTC)