Shun hadn’t figured out when, but he wanted to get his ears pierced. It was partly because of the rock stars on television, and partly because his mother had always been wearing pretty earrings, before she had to sell them. He had always liked his mum way more than he did his dad, and she had to put up with a lot of things. He admired her a lot. The problem was this; He was scared of needles.

He, Maiyama Haruki (as he actually had to remind himself was his actual name at times), was so scared of needles, it made him cry, even at the age of 16.

Every time he went to the doctor he felt pathetic, but luckily he went as rarely as him and his mother could get away with without anyone noticing how poor they actually were. Especially since his mum insisted on putting the money he earned into a savings account for university (he didn’t even want to go to university, honestly).

But he couldn’t let anyone else know that he was scared, not with how he liked to play cool, even though he knew he failed. Sometimes he could relate to that Miko-something guy in that Monthly-something anime that he watched with Tommy, though he would never admit that either.

So one day, he decided, he was going to get his ears pierced, and he asked a classmate who had done it to herself and others several times, and she seemed incredibly psyched about it. Said something about making her dreams come true by letting her pierce holes into boys skin, but he didn’t really listen. His heart was beating too fast for that.

He was going to get in trouble for this with Tesshi and God, he knew that already, but recently he was feeling more and more like his body wasn’t his own. He still didn’t want to be an idol, he wanted to be a rock star. So during lunch break, they were hiding in the chemistry lab, him holding on to the chair he was sitting on, her sterilizing a safety pin.

He bit his lip as the girl cleaned his skin and put ice on it, and he closed his eyes. He could feel the bar of soap push against the back of his earlobe, and he gripped the chair a bit tighter.

The pain wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Mostly because he had imagined it being earth-shattering and bloody. There was some blood of course, but the girl took care of him like a pro. She continued with the other ear, and she put a pair of subtle studs in his sore ears.

Afterward, his head was spinning as he started to breath properly again, and she declined his offer to pay. She was red in the face and had to excuse herself pretty soon after. Shun had his lunch alone on the roof, his one friend already having finished while he was in the chem lab. By every class that day he got more nervous of just how badly the people at work would react. Oh god, maybe he shouldn’t have done this after all.

He was late coming to Hollywood Tokyo.

The small studs had been on his mind and after the last class ended he went to the bathroom to think. But in the end, they would only notice the empty holes anyway, he was sure, so he decided that since he had already done it, he might as well do it properly.

Tommy thought it was cute, Makki thought it was cool. Kira thought he was being an idiot and Kakeru was trying to get Kira to not be so harsh on him. Then Tesshi showed up, and before anyone could say the first rule of Shounen Hollywood he was sent to the president’s office.

He was let out quite a while later, a sore ego and a proper scolding behind him. But he felt strangely liberated. He had done it, something he chose without asking for permission, and he was not going to go back on his decision. He was punished by means of not being allowed to perform for the rest of the week (both to punish him and make sure he took proper care of the piercings so he didn’t get them infected, because that would only cause even more trouble), and honestly, it was a pretty mild punishment, for what it was worth. He knew he would miss performing though, even if being an idol wasn’t what he wanted to do.

However, there was a paragraph added to his contract; he was now legally bound to ask permission for any future “stupid ideas” he had, as was so eloquently put.

Shun was pretty bothered by that part, and had been made to bring a copy of the contact for both him and his mum to sign and bring back to the president.

He had to ask himself;

Was it really worth it in the end?

Everything he had done just seemed to end in more restrictions.

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