Prompt: 089 ~ Tongue-Tied                                                                                                                                                              June 2011©
Fandom: ViViD
Focus: Shin x Saya
Word Count: 1,138

            Shin was used to working in close quarters with pretty girls.

            Japan’s most attractive women were frequent faces inside PSC headquarters, and he himself often sang alongside them onstage or acted with them in MVs. Shin worked closely with even the most intimidatingly beautiful women, speaking confidently with them behind the scenes to ensure that every detail of ViViD’s new releases came out perfectly. Shin was used to working around beautiful women and speaking his mind clearly to them. He prided himself on his ability to avoid being distracted by their obvious graces.

            It had taken a lot of discipline and training to manage the feat, but he’d done it, and now he could waltz right up to a lingerie clad super model and discuss every detail of the job with them. However, when it came to the less-than-super-model-stunning best friend of the actress that ViViD was currently filming with, all of Shin’s training went down the drain in an instant.

            Ayame was a girl much higher up the super-star social ladder than the boys of ViViD were, snagging her for their music video had been nothing short of miraculous. Her status made the shot caller in the filming process, and her main demand was that her best friend was allowed to tag along on set. And so, Saya had stepped into Shin’s life.

            Where Ayame was a bold and brazen actress, sexy and confident enough to take on Reno toe to toe, Saya was soft and achingly shy. She wasn’t timid exactly, she was just quiet. It was nature’s way of balancing out Ayame. Saya’s calm grounded the actress, and Ayame’s gregarious aggression ensured that Saya was social enough to survive. Saya was delicate and unassuming, observant like no one else. She was quiet and would never start a conversation, but she looked at you when you struck up a dialogue and it was obvious that she genuinely cared about your thoughts and opinions. She could tell when you weren’t being as honest as she hoped you would be.

            Saya’s eyes were open and accepting, but the ripple of sadness in them when she sense anything less than utter honesty made Shin wish he were a saint. Around her, Shin found himself unable to bluff, or even to adopt the stage persona that allowed him to play a confident card. Around Saya, Shin wasn’t a rockstar. He had to be himself.

            As a boy on the edge of manhood, a kid on the edge of the adult world of music and industry, and a student without much experience in studying the ways of women, Shin often found himself quite tongue-tied. Saya was the only one capable of drawing that out of him, and she did it unfailingly.

            He would say something to Ryouga and then catch Saya smiling at him and his words would just disappear. It didn’t even matter that most of the time she was on the other side of the warehouse they were shooting in. If Saya smiled at him, Shin’s command over his words evaporated.

            His bandmates attributed Ayame to Shin’s sudden inability to articulate. She was gorgeous after all, and fiery enough to ruffle even Reno’s feathers. It was generally presumed among the ranks of ViViD that Shin was the most vulnerable to the charms of a woman like Ayame. Even Koki was considered safer, because even as adorable and ‘innocent’ as he was, he didn’t have a drop of shyness in him.

            Such discussions usually took place when Ayame and Saya were on one side of the warehouse, chatting away, while the boys were on the other. Saya would smile at something that Ayame said and then look over to Shin like she wished he could have heard her comment. It left Shin in the awkward position of trying to explain that he wasn’t the least bit taken to Ayame while spluttering and blushing with all the giddiness of an embarrassed admirer.

            Ironically, it was Ayame that figured it all out.

            She confronted him about it rather cleverly, by calling him out in the midst of filming a scene with him. It prevented him from looking away and over to Saya, which would have distracted him too much to answer, and it ensured that he couldn’t run away.

            “You like her don’t you?”

            “Eh?”

            “It’s not me,” Ayame elaborated, “you like Saya, don’t you?”

            “What are you talking about?” Shin retuned, feeling his face warm up. It was hardly visible under all the makeup he was wearing, but Ayame was close enough to see the blush rise.

            She smiled slightly, not so much that it broke character, but enough to show she meant it. “It’s okay, you know. You’re a sweet guy. I’ll give you my permission to like her.”

            “Eh?”

            “We’re going to have to work on this whole embarrassment thing though,” Ayame told him chipperly. “I won’t let my Saya date an idiot.”

            “I’m not an idiot,” Shin protested immediately.

            “I know that,” Ayame told him. “But I have a reputation to uphold, so I need to make sure that she knows that.”

            “Eh?”

            “You know, you really are quiet cute, even when you’re tongue-tied.”

            Shin didn’t respond. He wanted to frown, but the camera was rolling and a frown would ruin the shot. His expression was supposed to be slightly dazed, mesmerized. Ayame laughed softly at his struggle and shifted slightly so that he could see over her shoulder. Saya was standing just out of the way, observing. The moment she noticed that Shin could see her, she smiled.

            A wave of lightheadedness crashed over him, perfectly captured by the rolling camera.

            Ayame laughed again, letting the moment play out. Then she said, “I’m making Reno get coffee with me when we finish up here. You should come so that Saya doesn’t feel like a third wheel.”

            “Eh?”

            Ayame just smirked as the scene finished up and IV came over to take Shin’s place with her in front of the camera. IV helped haul Shin to his feet, saying, “Come on, lover boy, some of us actually have work to do here.”

            He laughed and Shin found himself shoved off set and in the company of none other than Saya. Shin found himself completely tongue tied. He couldn’t say a thing and so he just settled for watching IV and Ayame in silence. Ayame wasn’t holding anything back.

            After a moment of watching Ayame manhandle the bassist, Saya commented quietly, “Ayame certainly is forceful, isn’t she?”

            Shin couldn’t help but to connect the sentiment to his own experience with the actress. “She certainly is,” he agreed, adding, “It makes her nice side all the more surprising.”

            Saya grinned and replied conspiratorially, prompting the start of the first discussion between them in which neither was to tongue-tied to talk.


                                                                        ♡♥Finite♥♡