2006, January

Matsumoto Jun woke up with the loud ringing of his phone. Groggily reaching for his phone on his bed side table, he flipped it open and angrily huffed at the person who called him.

"What?" 

"Hello to you too." It was Ohno Satoshi. 

"What is it Ono?" He grumbled, still half-asleep.

"Wake up. We have a schedule today remember?" 

"I remember, but our schedule is at 5pm. It's only..." Jun trailed as he looked over at the time on his alarm clock. "Bastard, it's only 9 am!" 

"Yeah, it's 9 am but everyone agreed to meet at 11 am. Last minute rehearsals. As I remember, you were the one who suggested to meet earlier to practice before the show." Ono answered, sounding a little annoyed. 

"Ugh fine. I'm up. I'll be there before 11." Jun said, closing his phone and placing it at the bed side table. He turned over in his bed and stared at the ceiling. After a few more minutes of staring blankly at his room's ceiling, Jun decided to get up and begrudgingly took a shower. Within 45 minutes he was out of his apartment and into his car.

He arrived on the set of the show they will be performing at with 10 minutes to spare before 11 am. Jun was greeted by his fellow ARASHI members; Ohno Satoshi, Sakurai Sho, Aiba Masaki, and Ninomiya Kazunari. They were all mockingly clapping at him as he walked towards them. 

"Wow, always the clutch guy." Nino said as Jun reached them.

"Clutch? I have 10 more minutes. That's not clutch at all." Jun protested. 

"Why are you so agitated this early in the morning?" Aiba said to him.

"It's not that early, but yeah, why are you so grouchy?" Sho said.

"Probably because I woke him up." Ono snickered. "I must have ruined his precious dreams with Inoue Mao-san." 

"Shut up! I'm annoyed because you did wake me up way too early, but that's it. Nothing related at all to Mao." Jun exclaimed to s as they all sat down at the table to discuss today's schedule.

The hours passed with them fully immersed in rehearsals, by 4pm everyone was ready to go and just waiting for the start of the show. Jun was looking at his phone intently, wondering if there's something wrong with his phone since a message he's been waiting for has yet to come. 

"Why are you boring a hole through your phone?" Aiba walked over to him and sat beside him. 

"No, I'm not." Jun said as he quickly placed his phone in his pocket. Feeling it heavier as he anticipated it to ring or make a sound any minute. 

"You are. So tell me, what's wrong?" Aiba pressed on.

"Well, nothing is exactly wrong it's just that...you know" Jun trailed on.

"Out with it, Jun. We've known each other for years and years. I'm not saying how long so it doesn't put emphasis on our aging years, but you know what I mean. So come on, spit it out." Aiba said.

"You know how I did Hana Yori Dango, right?" Jun started.

"Well, yeah. Everyone knows, idiot. Is this about doing the Season 2? Do you not want to?" Aiba said, looking a little concerned.

"No! No! That's not it at all!" Jun exclaimed. "It's about Hana Yori Dango, but not about having second thoughts on doing the drama. It's specifically more about the people I'm doing it with."

"People you're doing it with? F4? You guys became super close right? If I recon, they're your closest friends, well next to us, ofcourse." Aiba was now looking very confused as to where this conversation with Jun is leading. 

"Not the guys! Ugh seriously, Aiba let me finish if you want to know." Jun was exhasperated, his irritation had been reaching it's limits the more he tried to explain. "It's Mao."

"Mao? Inoue Mao?" Aiba repeated.

"Yeah, do you know anyone else named Inoue Mao that I did Hana Yori Dango with?" Jun glared at him.

"What about her?" Aiba pressed on.

"I don't really know. We became friends and became close too while shooting the drama, but for some reason she's not contacting me. I even sent her a What's Up? text a while ago and I didn't even get a reply." Jun exhaled, obviously annoyed at what's going on. 

"Let me get this straight, you're annoyed because she's not replying to your messages?" Aiba clarified.

Jun nodded. "Yeah. The last time I saw her was at the wrap up party at the end of December, and the last time I talked to her was when she replied to my Happy New Year message. That was two weeks ago." 

Jun looked over at Aiba who was practically stretching his face with a large smile. "What the heck are you smiling for? Can't you see I'm bothered by this?" Jun exclaimed, this time loud enough for the rest of ARASHI members to walk towards them and inquire about what's happening.

"Yo, what's going on? Why is Aiba smiling like a maniac?" Sho asked.

"You okay, Aiba?" Ono said, looking a little concerned. 

"MatsuJun here is having problems." Aiba said to them, still not ceasing his wide smile.

"He's having problems and you're smiling at him? Are you really that ty of a friend?" Nino looked at the both of them.

"No! Not the seriously problematic kind of problems. It's lady problems." Aiba explained, still smiling widely.

"Really? Which lady is it this time?!" Ono said, sitting down to fully absorb the situation before them. Nino and Sho followed suit. 

"Oi! It's not actually a lady problem, I'm just...you know, a little concerned and bothered." Jun protested. 

"So? Who is it about?" Nino pressed on. 

"Inoue Mao." Aiba announced, his eyes looking over at the other ARASHI members with glee.

A couple of hooting noises were made by Sho, Nino and Ono simultaneously. 

"What's with that reaction?!" Jun exclaimed.

"So, what's gotten Jun all bothered?" Sho asked, ignoring Jun. 

"He said, Inoue-san wasn't replying to his messages." Aiba fully exposing Jun's dilemma to the other members.

Jun raised his head to see all ARASHI members looking at him, all with a smirked on their faces. 

"What? What?" Jun asked, very confused by how they're all reacting. "What's up with you, guys?" 

"You're bothered because she's not replying to you?" Nino said. Jun nodded.

"Jun! You didn't tell us you liked her?! I guess all that teasing we did to you had some truth to it after all." Sho said.

"What? No! I don't like her. I mean, I do like her, we're friends but not like like her." Jun said, shaking his head at how incredulous their words were. 

"Well, you're bothered she's not messaging you back and you're acting all anxious a while ago while you were staring at your phone. If it isn't you liking her then I don't know what that is." Aiba said to Jun.

"I said, I'm just bothered because we were close during the shoot, but now there's no drama shooting we aren't talking like we used to so I'm a bit weirded out by it because I thought we were friends and that we've become close after spending time at the drama shoot for a year. It's not anything romantic like you guys are implying! I just want to keep our friendship!" Jun exclaimed, trying to explain to his friends his actual predicament and for them to not create these fantasies in their head about him liking Inoue Mao romantically. 

"So you're saying this is about friendship?" Ono asked.

"Yes! That's exactly what I've been saying. Friends reply to their friend's messages right? How come she isn't replying then?" Jun exhaled. 

"You don't reply to our messages." Nino said. Jun turned to him with a confused look. 

"What?" 

"Yeah, you never reply to people when it's not work related, unless they send multiple messages or call you." Sho chimed in.

"How is that in any relation to what's going on with Mao?" Jun looked at them, almost feeling his annoyance bubbling up the surface. 

"Well, you're getting a taste of your own medicine." Ono smirked at him smugly. 

Jun was about to say something when the a set crew called them for their performance. 

Really, this isn't the time to be bothered by this. We have work to focus on. Jun thought to himself as they all stood up to prepare to get on stage. 

"And for the record, Jun. We don't get THAT concerned and bothered when you don't reply to us. Only people masking romantic feeling as friendship get as bothered as you do when someone does not reply to their texts." Aiba smiled at him slyly. Jun did not have the time to retort back as they were all ushered on to the stage to start their performance. 

--

 

Enjoy Chapter 2! 

I'm not entirely sure about how ARASHI interacts with each other so forgive me if there are any inconsistencies with how they are in real life, but as I've said the only thing that I'm keeping factual in this FF is that everything started with Hana Yori Dango in 2005, the rest i just pulled out of my imagination hahahaha

thank you so much for reading!

-W