Dream Boy: Waxing Gibbous (3/4)
Nov. 1st, 2011 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maayacolabackupTitle: Dream Boy
Pairing: Kame/Jin
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Jin dreams of the moon, over and over and over again.
Jin dreams of rain.
Warm and gentle, falling down on him until he’s soaked to the bone.
He doesn’t mind, because the rain’s not cold, and it smells like the change in seasons—like soil and flowers and new life.
And then Kame’s beside him, offering him a closed umbrella. Jin takes it from him, then opens his mouth to thank Kame, but then Kame is gone, and suddenly it’s night, and the moon is in the sky.
Jin reaches into his pocket and pulls out the silver necklace from Olvera Street, and offers it to the moon. It glows in the moonlight.
#
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
You know the night's magic
Seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight
Seems to shine in your blush...
--Moondance, Van Morrison
#
They go to Griffith Observatory, which by now, Jin knows quite well because he visits every chance he gets, just to look at the night sky projections in the huge dome, leaning back and taking in all the stars. He and Kame try and point out all the differences between the sky here and the sky in Japan, and Jin translates all the blurbs about the constellations while Kame ‘oooh’s and ‘ahhh’s in amazement, face open and expressive.
Jin thinks if he saw Kame, just like this, when he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t mind sleeping forever.
“What are you thinking about?” Kame asks him, poking his index finger right between Jin’s brows.
“Huh?”
“You had this look on your face, like you were thinking too hard about something.” Kame’s eyes twinkle at him. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Hey!” Jin says, and he’s not mad, just laughing. He likes this familiarity, the way they fit together in all their awkward differences just like a jigsaw puzzle.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Greek Mythology,” Jin tells him with a teasing grin, and Kame laughs.
When Kame laughs, Jin thinks, it’s like a waterfall, crashing down into the pit of Jin’s stomach. Jin feels like he’s between two times, and a shadow of Kame as he was, graceless and gangly, flits in front of Jin’s eyes, just for a fraction of a second.
There are tons of children underfoot, but that’s one of the things Jin loves about it. He loves kids, how passionate they are, and how freely they express their joy and their sadness. Sometimes, when he looks at them, he sees an echo of his younger self, and at the same time, a projection of everything he wants to be: fearless, and full of optimism and hope.
Kame watches the kids quietly. He’s got on a knit hat of Jin’s today, and Jin wants to tell him he can keep it since it looks better on him than it ever looked on Jin. His glasses are sliding down his nose, and he looks contemplative.
“I’m surprised you don’t have kids already,” Kame says, still watching the school group tumbling around the lobby, tugging on the limbs of their friends and just being kids. “You’re twenty-eight now, and you’ve been talking about starting a family since you were sixteen.”
“Ah, well, life happens, you know?”
“No future Mrs. Akanishi picked out yet?” Kame jokes, and Jin frowns.
“Not really,” Jin says flatly. “Got a wedding ring picked out for Anne?”
Kame turns to look at him with surprise. “You know about Anne?”
Jin flushes, and realizes he’s probably just outed himself for internet stalking or something. “I mean…everybody knows about you and Anne,” Jin mumbles, looking anywhere but at Kame.
Kame laughs. “I’m not dating Anne,” Kame says, chuckling. “I mean, we did date, for a while. But we’re just friends. Good friends. She’s cool.”
“She’s too tall for you anyway,” Jin says with a frown, directing his gaze to the floor.
“Oh don’t be so shallow,” Kame says. “I like long legs just as much as anyone else does. I don’t have any complexes about my height anymore, and I refuse to let you give me any.”
“I love your height,” Jin blurts out, and then he risks a glance up at Kame through his lashes, and Kame is looking at him like he just declared a sexual preference for zebras. Jin searches desperately for the previous topic of conversation, so he doesn’t have to explain that Kame’s the perfect height, because when Jin pulls him into a hug, Kame’s face fits right into the crook of his neck. “If Anne is so cool, why’d you break up?”
Kame’s face straightens, and his eyes lose focus, like his mind is far away. “She told me I was waiting for someone else,” Kame says.
“Someone else?” Jin echoes, and Kame snaps back to now.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kame says. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Jin says, and they walk out to Jin’s car. Jin stops in front of it, and lights a cigarette. Kame leans back against the car as he waits. Jin offers him a cigarette too, but Kame declines with a shake of his head.
Kame's hands are shoved in his pockets, and he looks relaxed and free. He takes a deep breath, the kind that makes his chest puff out, and then he exhales.
"This is nice," Kame says, and Jin grins at him. He loves this place, he really does, because Jin has always loved looking at the night sky.
"It's a great view," Jin replies, and Kame turns from looking out at the constellations to look at Jin with slight surprise, before his face breaks into a radiant smile, the kind that makes Jin feel like he’s melting where he stands.
"Oh, yes, it is," Kame says, eyes alight in a way that reminds Jin, achingly, of the way Kame used to look at him all the time, like Jin was wonderful. "But that's not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?" Jin queries, walking over until he and Kame are standing side by side.
"Spending time with you again. Making new memories with you." Kame pulls off his cap, and pushes a hand through his hair, careless of how it looks, relaxed and natural. "I missed you."
Jin has so much he wants to say. He wants to tell Kame that living without him in his life has been like living with a chunk missing from his heart. He wants to tell Kame that having him here, in Jin's new home, has made Jin feel whole again for the first time in a long time. That talking to him is something Jin's been longing for since he lost it. But the words don't come. "I missed you too," is all Jin can manage.
Maybe Kame can hear all the rest of it in his tone though, because he looks at Jin; he looks at him carefully, and then stands a little closer, until Jin can feel the heat of Kame's body through the thin fabric of his t-shirt and smell the lemon and hibiscus of Kame's hair.
He fingers the necklace in his pocket, and imagines how it would look hanging around Kame’s neck.
#
Kame, Jin remembers, has got this way of humming when he writes. It’s not a song, or a melody, just this flat, weird sound that makes it impossible to look away from him.
Kame’s just writing some souvenir list, but Jin’s caught up in the familiarity of it all, and how everything Kame does is emblazoned across Jin’s memory, like a brand.
#
Jin has to spend almost three consecutive days in rehearsal for his shows, sleeping on couches and eating instant noodles with Dom on the roof of the rehearsal studio, smoking cigarettes and trying not to pass out.
When he gets home, Kame is lying on his sofa, bare feet hanging over the edge of the sofa, a large tome opened in his lap. Jin recognizes it from before.
“Jin, are you alright?” Kame asks, closing the book and setting it on the coffee table.
“Just want to sleep forever,” Jin says, and Kame sits up. Kame hesitantly pats his lap, and nothing has ever sounded so wonderful to Jin.
Jin flops down on the couch, his head falling easily into Kame’s lap. His eyes close, heavy, and then Kame tentatively runs a hand through Jin’s greasy hair, and Jin sighs. Kame must take it as an invitation, because his hand grows bolder, weaving through the strands of Jin’s hair, tugging and twisting in a way that makes Jin want to mewl with delight.
“How’s the show coming?”
“Well,” Jin says. “I’m so tired.”
“Then sleep,” Kame tells him, hand steadily pulling through Jin’s too-long mane and Jin feels sleep beckoning him.
Later, and Jin doesn’t know how much later, only that it’s dark outside now, Jin opens his eyes. Above him, Kame has drifted to sleep, too, slumped against the arm of Jin’s sofa, neck in a strange position and hand still tangled in Jin’s locks. His glasses sit crooked on his nose, and his mouth is parted slightly in sleep.
Jin doesn’t want to wake him, because he looks so peaceful. Jin reaches up and slips Kame’s glasses off his face, folding them carefully and setting them on top of Kame’s huge text. Then he closes his eyes again, enjoying the texture of Kame’s ribbed shirt against the skin of his cheek and the solid feeling of Kame’s thighs beneath his head.
The next time Jin wakes up, Kame is staring down at him. Kame’s eyes are round, and he looks confused. His tongue peeks out to wet his lips, and he blinks twice as Jin tries to focus on him.
Kame’s a little flushed, Jin thinks, and there’s something in his eyes that Jin feels like he should know, should recognize, but it eludes him.
Later still, when Kame has retreated to the guest room and Jin is alone in the living room, eating peanut butter from the jar and watching Cartoon Network, Jin keeps thinking about the gentle soothing of Kame’s fingers against his scalp, and the way stress just melted away under his touch.
Jin sleeps deeply, and he doesn’t dream.
#
The Moon appears in front of the slumbering Endymion, and sensing the light, he opens his eyes, eyelashes fluttering against the moon’s light, and for a moment, he sees the most beautiful vision he has ever encountered through his sleepy eyes. Just a moment is enough. In Endymion’s heart blossoms a passion so intense and steadfast he knows that he’ll never love another. He wakes, fully, but the moon, the beautiful moon, that he’s imagined so close beside him, is far away, high up in the night sky, impossibly out of reach. Endymion is sure that such perfection must be a dream, but the moonlight glances across his sleeping face night after night, and Endymion can’t resist the pull of the moon’s gravity.
#
When Lizzy and Aubree find out that Jin has a friend from Japan visiting, they invite themselves over for dinner. Jin tells Kame about it with an apology in his eyes, but Kame just crosses his arms and demands Jin take him to the grocery store.
“We can just order pizza,” Jin says, and Kame gives him this look that Jin swears his mother’s given him hundreds of times that tells Jin he’s ordering take-out for guests over Kame’s dead body.
Kame’s fascinated by the expanse of American grocery stores, eyes wide and amazed at the sheer size. “Americans think it’s more convenient this way. It’s why the stores in Tokyo are starting to resemble this, though. Because it is easier than going to the butcher for meat, and stuff like that.”
Jin picks out all kinds of disgusting American treats for Kame to taste, while Kame selects vegetables and makes Jin show him where he can find the ethnic foods section so he can find the right sorts of spices to make curry. Kame raises his eyebrows at the Cap’n Crunch, but Jin knows Kame, and he’s pretty sure Kame will be addicted to the stuff before he can even blink. Kame likes to pretend he likes healthy foods and being reasonable, but secretly, Kame loves to sleep in unmade beds and eat things that are terrible for him if he thinks no one is looking.
They return home triumphant, and Kame puts everything away in the kitchen while Jin watches helplessly and tries to stay out of his way.
“You have this huge kitchen,” Kame says. “And all I have seen you do in it is make ramen.”
“I also make cheeseburgers,” Jin informs him smugly, and Kame rolls his eyes.
Lizzy and Aubree show up twenty minutes earlier than they say they will, and Kame freaks out because his hair is still pulled back in a sloppy ponytail and he’s wearing comfy loose clothing that he for some reason thinks is unacceptable. Jin thinks Kame’s got this casual sort of elegance that means he looks good in whatever he wears, so he tugs Kame with him to answer the door.
The girls are all smiles as they walk in, and Jin elbows Lizzy as they walk in. “You’re early,” he says, and Lizzy shrugs and grins. Jin introduces them to Kame, and both girls eyes light with recognition at Kame’s name.
They all make their way into the kitchen, where Kame immediately excuses himself to work on the food. Jin wonders if Kame is nervous.
“So,” Lizzy says, as she sits at the kitchen table watching Kame chop onions with curious eyes. “I thought you didn’t chill with your old band mates anymore.”
Jin squirms in his chair. “Well, it’s complicated.”
Aubree leans forward, elbows on the table, to stare at Jin. “What’s with that face?”
“What face?” Jin says defensively, his eyes once again wandering to Kame’s profile as he works. “I’m not making a face.”
“You look like your hand is in the cookie jar,” Lizzy says. “No one cares if you still talk to your old bandmates, Jin. It’s not some terrible secret.”
“I know that,” Jin says, forcing himself to look back at the two girls in his kitchen. “It’s just we haven’t talked that much. It was sort of a surprise visit.”
“Awww, how cute!” Aubree says, leaning forward even further and ruffling Jin’s hair. “He came to surprise you!”
“I don’t really know why he came,” Jin replies, pouting and blowing his hair back out of his face.
“Akanishi,” Kame says, in a voice that demands Jin’s presence, and Jin jumps up and hurries to the kitchen, ignoring Lizzy’s low whistle and Aubree’s mocking whip crack.
“Kame?” Kame shoves a knife in Jin’s hand, and directs him towards the peppers.
“Cut,” Kame says sharply, and Jin gulps and does as Kame says. Kame goes back to the onions, slamming the knife down too hard and making Jin wince. Aubree and Lizzy are cackling at the table, leaning over Lizzy’s cell while Lizzy plays a video. Jin thinks it’s the one of him and Dom having a beer chugging competition at the Sonic drive-through last Halloween, but he can’t be sure—the sound is faint.
“Did I…do something?” Jin asks, after a minute of Kame angrily slicing at the onions.
“No,” Kame says, sighing. He scoots over to Jin and takes the knife back. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Entertain your guests. Your girlfriend’s probably angry you haven’t spent that much time with her the past few weeks.”
“Girlfriend?” Jin asks quizzically, tilting his head to the side in confusion.
“The red-headed one,” Kame says, not looking up. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”
Jin can’t help it. He laughs. “This is America, Kame. Girls and boys can just touch each other and it doesn’t imply anything like a romantic relationship. Aubree’s my friend, and so is Lizzy. Nothing more.”
“Oh,” Kame says, and his tight grip around the knife handle visibly relaxes. “Okay.”
“Were you…jealous?” Jin asks tentatively, brushing his hand to Kame’s elbow in the lightest of touches. His stomach sinks, and he wonders if Kame likes Aubree or Lizzy or something, and he’s jealous of Jin maybe having claimed one of them. “I think Aubree is single, if you like her—“
“No!” Kame says, and it’s loud enough for the two girls to quickly turn to look at them, distracted from their video. Lizzy, who understands a little Japanese, raises an eyebrow at Jin, who waves her off. “It’s not that.”
“Then what made you upset?” Jin asks.
“I…” Kame quiets. “Um.” Kame scoops up the onions and drops them into the pot he’s got sizzling on the stove, and then comes back for Jin’s peppers. “You chopped these like a six year old.” He starts stirring the mixture into the oil, and then checks on the meat that’s cooking in a separate pan.
“Don’t change the subject,” Jin says sternly, and Kame stops stirring.
“It’s just before, you said you didn’t have…”
Oh, Jin thinks. The Observatory. Jin remembers Kame asking, vaguely, about Jin’s love life, but Jin had been far more focused on Kame’s. “Oh, yeah. I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not looking, either.” He tugs on the fabric of the flannel shirt Kame’s wearing. It’s Jin’s, actually—Jin had let him borrow it when Kame complained about the air conditioner being on too high. “Hey, you know I’m a terrible liar. Also I’m not going to lie to you.”
Kame swallows, and starts stirring again. “Okay,” Kame says, and Jin really wants to hug him. Instead, he goes over to the sink and washes the rice until the water runs clear, and then turns on the rice cooker.
Dinner is fantastic—Kame’s always made good curry, and Aubree and Lizzy make him blush with compliments that Kame doesn’t have to speak English to understand, because it’s all in orgasmic moans and extra helpings.
Kame tries, with his limited English, to talk with the girls, and Lizzy tries back with her fledgling Japanese, and Jin translates the rest when things get confusing. It’s a fun night.
When they’re leaving, Aubree stops Jin as Jin starts to close the door behind them. Kame is in the kitchen still, and Jin can hear the sink running. Aubree’s hand wraps around Jin’s arm, her neon green painted nails digging a little into the skin of his forearm. “He’s really nice, Jin,” she says, and Jin nods.
“Yeah.”
“You care about him a lot, don’t you?” she asks, and Jin nods again, slowly, not because he has to think about it, but because he doesn’t know where she’s going with it. “He cares about you a lot too.” She smiles knowingly, and Jin doesn’t understand why. “You should pay more attention to what your heart is telling you.”
And then she lets go of his arm and backs out the door. Jin shuts it behind her, and then leans his back against it.
Lately, Jin thinks, all he can seem to do is listen to his heart, because it’s always beating so damn loud.
Still, it’s good advice. When he sees Kame standing by the stairs, still wearing Jin’s flannel shirt, the sleeves falling halfway down his hands and more hair fallen out of the ponytail than still in it, he gives into his urge to hug. He stands behind Kame and wraps his arms around him pulling Kame’s back into his chest. Kame tenses at first, but then he relaxes with a sigh, and Jin buries his face in Kame’s hair and breathes in the unique smell of Kame, and tries to memorize the way Kame feels in his arms right now, which is so different from the way it felt years ago but is also so much the same. “I’m glad you’re here,” Jin whispers.
Kame doesn’t reply, but after a moment he pulls himself smoothly free of Jin’s grasp, and Jin lets his arms fall naturally to his sides. His heart is hammering in his chest, for some reason, and Jin’s listening, but he doesn’t really understand. “Goodnight, Jin,” Kame says, eyes indecipherable, and then he goes upstairs. Jin hears the doorway to the guest bedroom close.
“Goodnight,” he replies, to an empty living room.
#
When Jin leaves KAT-TUN officially, it’s a shitshow. He keeps hearing about his betrayal, to the point where Jin is afraid to look on the internet or turn on entertainment television. It’s almost a relief to escape Japan, in the end, when he goes to audition for a film role, because it least he doesn’t have to close his eyes when he walks past the newspapers in the convenience stores, or wonder if people on the streets recognize him; if they’re whispering behind their hands about what a terrible person he is for wanting to do something different.
When Jin breathes in the LA air, it smells like freedom. Like summer. It’s amazing.
Jin calls Kame once a week for sixth months, and Kame never answers a single call. He finds out from Nakamaru that Kame’s changed his number on accident. Nakamaru doesn’t mean to tell him, it just slips out, and it sends Jin’s heart plummeting in his chest.
Jin misses the smell the evening rain, and the light of the moon that’s bright even through an overcast sky.
#
“It’s so peaceful here,” Kame says one afternoon as they sit on deck chairs in the yard. Kame is reading that book, and he’s got a highlighter tucked behind his ear and a fine-tipped pen in his hand. He’s jotting notes in the corner in sloppy kanji. Jin’s got a GQ in hand, but he’s not really reading it; he’s too busy watching Kame to bother flipping through the pages.
“Peaceful?” Jin asks, because he’s never heard Los Angeles described as ‘peaceful’ before.
“Yeah,” Kame says. “I think I really needed a break. From…everything.”
Jin thinks back to when he’d creepily stalked Kame on the internet, reading about the extensive number of commitments and tasks Kame had on a daily basis—dramas, variety show appearances, his radio show, his baseball stuff. He thinks back to the dark purple bruises under Kame’s eyes when he’d shown up on Jin’s doorstep, too.
“Is that why you came?” Jin asks, and Kame looks up at him over the top of his glasses. “To take a break?”
“No,” Kame says, and he bites his lip for a moment, like he’s thinking of saying something else. Jin doesn’t speak, watches Kame back, trying to puzzle out what the expressions flitting across his face mean. “It’s not that.”
“Oh,” Jin says, and Kame sighs and looks back down at his book.
Jin feels like he’s missing something, but he doesn’t know what it is.
“Kame, can I ask you a question?” Jin says, and it’s hesitant.
Kame nods, and Jin wants to ask him why. Why he refused to say a word to Jin for years.
Why he waited for Jin to give up on him before he walked back into Jin’s life and made a new place for himself in it.
“Nevermind,” Jin says, and he doesn’t understand this feeling at all, like he’s reaching and reaching for something he’ll never be able to touch.
#
“Kame, if you get this call, you should call me back,” Jin says to Kame’s voicemail. “Because I really want to talk to you.” Jin’s hand grips his cell phone tightly in his hand. “I really miss hearing your voice.” Jin sighs. “I don’t know why you won’t answer the phone when I call. If you’re mad at me, you should just yell. Scream. Tell me I abandoned you. Tell me I suck. Tell me you’re angry. Just…Just talk to me,” he says.
It’s the same message he left last week.
It’s the same message he left the week before last, too.
Kame never calls him back.
#
It’s four in the morning, and Jin kind of wants to die as he picks up his phone. “This had better be an emergency,” Jin says into the receiver. “Like, you’d better be bleeding to death on the side of the road and this is the last conversation we’re ever going to have, because if you’re still alive next time I come to Japan, I’m actually going to kill you.”
“Well, aren’t you just delightful today,” Yamapi says, and Jin wants to punch him in the nuts. “No ‘hi, how are you’ for your best friend in the whole wide world?”
“No, because you suck,” Jin replies. “I have rehearsals forever and ever, and I’m tired as hell.”
“Go back to sleep after this, then,” Yamapi says dismissively. Jin’s read stuff, though, about REM cycles, and he doesn’t know what an alt rock band from the ninties has to do with sleep, but he knows he’s supposed to sleep a certain number of hours uninterrupted in order to be a regularly functioning human being.
“Oh my god, I hate you so much,” Jin says, and Yamapi cackles.
“You love me,” he says, and then Jin can hear him take a huge bite of something, and it makes his next words hard to make out. “So how’s everything going with your hard-shelled housemate?”
Jin rolls his eyes, and smiles. “It’s okay,” Jin says. “It’s…actually it’s really nice. To spend time with him.”
“I really don’t get you guys. You don’t talk forever, and then Kame shows up at your house unannounced and now you guys are totally tight bros again, even though you totally haven’t talked about why he’s there or why you guys didn’t talk that whole time you, like, didn’t talk.”
“It’s fine,” Jin says.
“It’s fine now,” Yamapi says. “But Jin. Don’t forget he doesn’t live there with you for real. He’s going to leave again. Things might go back to the way they were before if you don’t talk about it.”
Jin tries to swallow around the lump that pops up in his throat. He puts his arm over his eyes, because tiny cracks of light from the coming dawn are starting to peek through his window, and Jin doesn’t like to see this time of day if he can help it. “I know,” Jin says. “You know that I know that.”
“So don’t…don’t get yourself hurt, okay?”
“I won’t,” Jin replies, and Yamapi sighs heavily. “I am totally prepared for that.”
“You’re the worst at lying. If there was Guinness book record for that, I swear Jin, your picture would be in there, extra huge and adorned with some squiggly emphasizing border.”
“Fuck you,” Jin says, and Yamapi laughs. “I’m an honest and forthright person by nature. That’s not a bad quality.”
“It is for an idol,” Yamapi says. “But that’s neither here nor there. Just…be careful Jin. Don’t get all attached to the idea of Kamenashi being there; everything’s back here waiting for him.”
“Yeah,” Jin says, but they both know it’s too late for that.
#
There’s a huge pile of socks on the floor between them, and Jin gulps at the task of sorting them, but Kame just rolls up his sleeves and spreads them all out, so they can try and find matches.
“Why are all your socks different? “ Kame asks, and Jin frowns.
“Because I keep having to buy news packs and I always forget the brand,” Jin answers.
“Why do you keep having to buy new packs?”
“Because I always lose one of every pair of socks. I don’t know how,” Jin adds quickly before Kame can comment. “It’s like my socks are in a conspiracy. Somehow, out of three pairs of socks, after a month there are only two socks left. I don’t know where they go. I suspect the floor is eating them.”
Kame snorts. “Or they’re all under your bed.”
“My room is not that messy,” Jin defends, and Kame’s raised eyebrow gently rebukes him. “Okay, so maybe it could be more organized, but it’s not that bad.”
“Whatever,” Kame says. “Your room is a cesspool of despair. Where hygiene goes to die.” Jin blushes, and he doesn’t know what comes over him. Maybe it’s because he and Kame are bantering like old times, Kame gently ribbing him and Jin having no comeback that isn’t shy admittance of Kame’s valid point, but he sort of launches himself at Kame, hands finding there way to Kame’s sides and tickling him. Kame is laughing, choking with it. They’re squirming around, like they’re still kids, rolling in a pile of clean, unmatched socks, and Jin feels them getting stuck in his hair and he doesn’t care. He’s got Kame trapped, straddling him, both wrists in Jin’s right hand while the left tickles him, and if Kame wasn’t laughing so much, he’d definitely be able to escape.
“Mercy, mercy,” Kame gasps, and Jin grins triumphantly when Kame looks up at him through his lashes, echoes of laughter in the lines around his mouth.
He’s beautiful, Jin thinks, and suddenly, Jin wants to kiss him. Kame’s mouth looks soft and inviting, and Jin wants to lean down and capture it, because Kame is warm and vibrant beneath him.
Oh, Jin thinks, as the bottom drops out of his stomach. Oh.
Kame’s laugh trails off as Jin tenses, and abruptly the air between them becomes strange, Kame’s eyes focusing in on Jin as Jin tries to figure out what’s come over him. “Jin?” Kame asks, and Jin feels panic well up inside him so rapidly that it takes his breath away.
“I...” Jin blinks, and then he’s standing, backing away from his feelings and the realization and the searching look on Kame’s face. “I think I hear my phone,” Jin croaks, and then he races up the stairs, dashing into his bedroom and closing the door behind him.
He dives face first onto his bed, body splayed like a starfish. His pulse is racing, and he feels like he’s on fire, and all those feelings of confusion that Kame always makes gush inside of him are simmering beneath the surface, and maybe Jin finally understands them.
Oh, Jin thinks. Shit.
Jin supposes he should have figured it out before this, that he should have known that the way he feels about Kame defies any sort of normal friendship or whatever, but Jin feels like he’s been punched in the gut, and he’s still trying to find air, deep breaths not helping him at all because he still feels light-headed and sick.
Jin’s in love.
In love with Kame. Impossible, unpredictable Kame, who’s a man, who lives in Japan, who might still be in love with his ex-girlfriend, who’s completely unavailable to Jin in every conceivable way.
And maybe, Jin thinks, he’s always been in love with Kame. Actually, he’s pretty sure he has been, because nothing feels different, inside of him, except that he knows what this feeling is.
Oh.
Maybe an hour later, when Jin’s managed to convince himself that he can keep his cool, that maybe “I just realized I’m totally, stupidly in love with you,” might not be written on his face, he goes back downstairs.
But Kame’s nowhere to be found, and Jin’s socks are all paired and folded together at the ankle, heaped into the laundry basket, except for one lone unmatched sock hanging over the edge.
It hurts, Jin realizes. This hurts.
#
Jin wants to avoid Kame, because he hasn’t figured out what to do or what to say, and he hasn’t figured out if he’s going to do or say anything at all, but he can’t. He’s drawn to Kame, and he’s unable to stay away.
Jin wonders if Kame can feel the difference between them now, Jin simultaneously drawing back and leaning in to Kame’s accidental touches, stumbling over his words and skin turning red at every inquisitive look.
Jin feels like an adolescent. He feels like writing love songs and throwing tantrums and listening to sad, sad music in his room with the lights out self-indulgently mired in the misery that is unrequited love. Some days he feels like the words are seconds from crossing his lips, and some days he feel like he wants to bury those same words as deep inside of him as he can.
#
Jin dreams of fireflies.
They’re glowing so brightly in the night air, and Jin’s eyes are enchanted. He reaches out to catch them, and suddenly they’ve turned into stars.
Jin’s hands grasp empty air, and then the night is too dark to see.
#
Kame drags Jin with him to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kame takes pictures of all the stars of people he’s met, or people he admires, with his oversized camera, as Jin walks ahead of him, hands in his pockets listening to music.
Jin keeps looking back at Kame though, and Kame is enchanting, his face set in a tiny smile, camera held up between two steady hands as the afternoon sun shines brightly down on him.
Jin is dazzled by his radiance. Kame catches him staring once, and snaps a picture of Jin, whose eyes are wide with his mouth falling open, before Jin can blink and hide his face, and the triumphant grin he gives Jin is enough to make Jin feel like he’s falling apart.
#
Jin sweats his way through practices, hours and hours of dancing and singing, and all he can think about is Kame, laughing and smiling, a grain of rice at the corner of his lip that Jin aches to brush off with his thumb.
Kame is always waiting when he gets home, that history book in his lap, face in a concentrated frown that breaks into a soft grin when Jin walks in.
Jin never wants to come home to anything else ever again.
#
"So you're going to leave? Just like that?" Kame asks, legs crossed at the ankle as he leans back in the foldout chair. "On some whim, you're going to go halfway across the world?" Kame's voice is hot with held-back anger
"It's not a whim, Kame. You know I've been wanting to go and learn English for a while now." Jin's voice is hotter.
"So get a tutor. Take a class, or something, like normal people. Don't go gallivanting to the other side of the world when I--" Kame stops, and looks away at some imaginary point in the distance. His hands grip the side of his chair, knuckles white and red around the edges. "When we need you."
"You know it's not the same as living there, Kame. I'll learn faster, get closer to my dream--"
"What happened to our dream, Jin? We're debuting. We waited so long, and now it's here. Our turn. Why now?"
"Then when, Kame? When am I supposed to go?" Jin's hands come up and rub at his eyes, pushing on them to try and relax his headache. "When it's time for the next single? Or the next one? You know how this works. It'll be single after single after single. Variety show after performance after concert. It's never going to stop. I want to go now, Kame. Before I'm trapped."
"Jin," Kame says, and now his arms are wrapped around himself protectively, like he's trying to ward off his own emotions. "Jin we were supposed to do this together."
"Just wait for me. I'll definitely come back," Jin says. "Just wait for me."
"How are we supposed to be KAT-TUN without an 'A'?" Kame asks, and it's soft. His anger has quieted, and all Jin can see is that gentle melancholy that's been running like a tiny stream through Kame's center in the past year; a shadow behind his eyes that makes him look older, and wiser.
"You'll have to carry it for me," Jin whispers, and then he stands up, and closes the distance between them, grabbing Kame in a tight hug. Kame is stiff in his arms. "And if you ever need me, for anything, anything at all, I'll be here for you, okay?" Kame relaxes, just a little, so Jin presses his advantage. "Seriously. You can just show up wherever I'm staying, and cry on my shoulder, or whatever."
Kame laughs, then, and it turns into a tiny sob. "You've got all these big dreams, Jin," Kame says. "One day you're not going to come back, because they aren't the same as mine, anymore." Kame looks vulnerable, something that’s been missing in Kame lately, hidden beneath intense willpower and almost terrifying focus. The Kame in front of him looks so young, and so fragile, and Jin just holds him tighter. Jin’s heart is in overdrive, because even though he’s tried to ignore it, Kame still makes his pulse race faster than Jin had ever thought was humanly possible until now.
"But this time, Kame," Jin says, running his hand anxiously through Kame's hair as the other lays heavy on Kame's back. "This time I'll be back."
Jin thinks about Kame, carrying the K and the A on his already over-weary shoulders, the entire plane ride to Los Angeles.
#
Kame’s book is almost finished. As the pages dwindle, Jin has a sinking feeling that Kame’s time here, with him, is dwindling too.
#
Jin dreams of the beach again.
He’s running and running and running, but Kame is as untouchable as the moon.
#
“I hate that I can’t even be mad at you,” Kame says, leaning against the concrete wall. Jin is standing next to him, puffing on a cigarette, eyes closed because he can’t look at Kame right now. “I know this is what you’ve wanted for a while now.”
“I can’t miss this chance,” Jin says quietly. “I can’t. This is one of my dreams.”
“I know,” Kame says. “I know.” He hears Kame take a deep breath. “I just wish it didn’t feel like you were abandoning us to do it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jin says. He opens his eyes. Kame’s face is inscrutable. “You’ve carried the K and the A before.”
Kame laughs bitterly. “Yeah, I suppose I have.”
“I can’t do what I want to do and be in KAT-TUN, Kame. I can’t have the weight of a band on my shoulders while I’m trying to pursue a solo career in the United States.”
“Are we a weight, Jin?”
“I don’t mean it like that, Kame, and you know it.” Jin sighs, and drops his cigarette to the gravel, putting it out with the toe of his shoe. “You’ll never be a weight to me.”
Jin and Kame aren’t as close now as they used to be, the pull of Jin’s increasingly bigger dreams dragging him further and further away from him, and the group. The feeling of being trapped, that had receded with Jin’s first trip to Los Angeles, has been clawing its way back up his ribs and closing in around his lungs.
Mostly Jin wants to reach out to that California coastline, and now he’s been given a chance.
But even if KAT-TUN isn’t where he is musically, even if Jin’s got new friends and new adventures and new parties, there’s still Kame. For him, there will always be Kame. He knows that as surely as he knows the sun will rise in the morning, as surely as he knows he needs air to breathe.
For him, there will always be Kame.
“Good luck with your new life,” Kame says, and it’s the last time Jin sees him.
#
They lay on their backs out in the grass of Jin's court yard, heads resting on Jin's oversized black hoodie that Jin's spread out like a blanket beneath them.
“Are you going to come to my show next week?”
“I don’t know,” Kame says.
The sky is clear. "The stars are really bright here," Jin says. "You can see them more easily than you can in Japan."
"Even though it's the same sky," Kame says slowly, like he's tasting the words as he says them, "the stars look completely different here." It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it sounds final, somehow.
"What do you mean?" Jin asks, turning his head to look at Kame's profile. Jin has all the lights out in the courtyard in an attempt to avoid the mosquitoes that linger here, even after summer draws to a close, and all he can see is the faint outline of Kame's distinctive nose, subtly illuminated by the soft light from Jin's kitchen. Jin can't read Kame's face, but that doesn't have much to do with the light.
"When did we stop reaching for the same set of stars, Jin?" Kame asks him, and Jin doesn't know the exact answer. Maybe he does, but it hurts to think about it. Jin's gotten good at pushing aside the things that hurt.
"Sometime between then and now," Jin says, and Kame laughs sharply, more like a bark.
"Do you remember..." Kame starts, but then he trails off.
Jin reaches up above him, stretching his arms as far as they'll go. "When we said we'd shine brighter together?" Jin offers, ignoring the way his gut clenches and the flush that's fighting it's way up his neck. Kame's still looking at the sky, though, and a gentle breeze blows, and Kame still smells of lemon and hibiscus. "Like it was yesterday."
"What happened to us, Jin?"
Jin's asked himself the same question hundreds of times, and no matter how many times he turns it over in his head, he still doesn't know the answer.
But for some reason, he thinks Kame's not really asking.
"You tell me," Jin says. "All I know is that one day, you were gone."
"I was gone?" Kame says, his voice harsh, even though he's only speaking in a whisper. "You were the one that found all these new dreams that didn’t involve me--"
"It wasn't like that," Jin says, and his voice comes out louder than he means it to. "You know that, Kame,” he continues in a quieter tone.
Jin remembers feeling trapped. Remembers the lights that used to thrill him becoming nothing more than bars to a cage, capturing him in the spotlight and leaving him bare and on display. He remembers wondering, panicked, if this, this, was what they had worked for, and if he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to get out.
Jin remembers being confused, too, and maybe that was the worst part of all, because with those lights shining down so hot and bright, Jin was so afraid someone would see.
"Do I?" Kame asks, but he sounds resigned. "The first time you left. That's when we started reaching for different stars. You and your American constellations."
"Yeah," Jin says, but it isn't true. It was before that, way before, he knows.
Kame had started shining so bright all on his own, without notice or warning, that Jin, well... Jin kept forgetting to look at the sky at all.
Jin had started wanting to reach for the moon right beside him.
Even now, when he's got all these dreams, all these ambitions, and he's taking his chances and giving it all he's got, he still...
When Jin closes his eyes at night and dreams, it is of soft touches and the heat of a heavy weight by his side, of gentle breaths on the soft skin of a bared shoulder, of lemon and hibiscus and the lick of moonlight. Jin dreams of the moon, over and over and over again.
“I came because…I needed to see your American Dream,” Kame says into the silence, and Jin sucks in a lungful of air at the tone of Kame’s voice, the way it ripples down his spine and makes him want to slide closer. “I wanted to see what you were dreaming of these days.”
“Why?” Jin asks, and it’s too blunt. “You basically told me to have a nice life, and wrote me out of yours.”
“You wrote me out of yours way before that, Jin. You’ve dreaming about things that didn’t involve me for years.”
Jin has been dreaming of lots of things that did involve Kame, too, Jin wants to say, but he can’t. It’s like when Jin’s on a television show, when he knows everyone is watching—he just freezes up, because he’s so worried about saying the wrong thing he can’t ever say the right one.
“I just wanted…” Kame stops for a breath, before he rushes on. “I guess I just wanted to see if it was worth it. To see if you were happy.” Kame looks at Jin, and Jin doesn’t have to open his eyes to feel the weight of Kame’s gaze.
“And?” Jin says, his voice straining with the effort. There’s a stone on his chest, making it hard for him to do anything more than that.
“This…this was the right choice for you,” Kame tells him. “You’re sparkling again.” Kame’s next breath is shuddering, like the leaves on the maple trees on a breezy autumn day in Tokyo. Jin can hear the air crackling, just like that, between them.
Jin wants to tell Kame that Jin is sparkling because Kame is here. That he loves America, and he loves his career and his social life and his house and the weather and all of those inconsequential things, but god, he loves Kame so much more than that. Jin doesn’t have just one dream, he’s got hundreds of them, head stuffed so full of them he always forgets the words.
But his biggest dream, since he was fifteen and foolish and staring at the stars, is for Jin and Kame to make it.
Jin is pretty sure, when he told Kame that, years ago when Jin couldn’t have even begun to fathom that his life might end up like this, that Kame had thought he’d meant KAT-TUN, or that Jin had been referring to superstardom or something like that.
But Jin had just wanted them to make it. Them. Two boys with not much in common but big dreams and connected hearts, with intertwined fingers and a lot of hope.
“Kame, I…”
“If you could do it all over again, would you still come here? Do this?”
“Yes,” Jin says aloud. But I would have held on to you tighter, remains unuttered, echoing in Jin’s head like a gunshot. "Building a new career here, in a completely different place—it’s hard. One of the hardest things I’ve done. But…I want more than things that are easy."
“I just wanted to see your dream,” Kame says. “Now I can finally say goodbye to our old one.”
Jin feels like the Earth is swallowing him whole, like he can’t move and he can’t tell Kame that that’s not what Jin wants, not even close to what Jin wants.
Jin wants to find Kame’s hand in the dark.
Kame sits up, next to him, pushing himself up with his strong arms, and smiles down on Jin. It's not a happy smile, or a sad one. "I'm going to go inside," Kame says, and he stands. Jin sits up too, picking up his sweatshirt and shrugging it on. "See you," Kame says, and he disappears into the house.
Jin follows him after a few minutes, stopping in the back doorway when he sees Kame sitting at the kitchen table, arms folded and head resting atop them. Kame's eyes are closed, and his eyelashes look dark against his pale skin. Los Angeles sun hasn't tanned Kame's skin at all, Jin thinks, but Kame seems to glow healthier anyway, fuller cheeks giving him a softer, gentler look that reminds Jin of being young and carefree.
Jin can't resist the urge to run his hand through Kame's hair, which looks soft and inviting, and so he does, just once. It feels as good as it looks, free of hair product, and naturally a little wavy. The roots of it are a dark black now, from a month of no upkeep, but it caresses Jin's palm just like it always has. Jin remembers it feeling just like this.
Jin remembers everything feeling just like this.
His fingers slide down to Kame's face, tracing his eyebrows and slowly following the uneven bridge of his nose. His thumbs run over the two moles on Kame's chin, and tease at the outline of Kame's lips.
Kame is so still, and Jin thinks he could stand here, fingertips brushing soft skin, forever.
It's not like a love song. Jin doesn't feel like there's a rainbow exploding behind his eyes or any kinds of endless possibilities. The only colors he sees are purples and blues, like a fresh bruise, and his heart just hurts, because there aren't endless possibilities, not for him and Kame, who are separated by 9000 kilometers and words that Jin might never say.
Jin's love story has never been destined to have a happy ending. He's known that. He's always known that.
It's why he's worked so hard to push the feelings away, he thinks. Why he never acknowledged them. Maybe Jin has some sort of unconscious self-preservation. Maybe, Jin’s heart didn’t want to break.
Jin manages to stop, and to walk away, but he pauses at the stairs and looks back at Kame. Kame's eyes are open now, and he's looking steadily at Jin. There's a mystery in his eyes that makes Jin scared and excited all at once. "You're awake," Jin says, and Kame tilts his head to the side.
"The kitchen table isn't for sleeping. I was just thinking."
"Your eyes were closed," Jin explains hastily, and Kame just keeps staring at him, like he can see through Jin, see how confused and frightened and yearning he is.
"Yes, they were," Kame says. "My thoughts are clearer in the dark."
"Oh." Jin tugs on his own hair. It's not as soft as Kame's. Probably because he hasn't had a haircut since January, and he always forgets to use conditioner. "Goodnight," Jin says, and retreats up the stairs.
Later, after they've both gone to bed, Jin stares blankly at his ceiling, covers pulled all the way up to his chin, the soft cotton tickling him and brushing against the small beginnings of the beard he's cultivating.
He can't sleep. He keeps thinking about the way Kame had looked at him as he stood at the foot of the stairs, eyes unreadable but fierce. That look burns through him, searing hot, even now, hours after he's retreated to his room and hidden like a child beneath his sheets.
The sound of his door opening startles him. His glasses are on the bedside table, but there's only one person it can be, and Jin relaxes even as his heart starts to beat with the rapidity of a rabbit’s with his chest.
"Jin," Kame says, and his voice cuts through the air even though it's barely a whisper, ringing in Jin's ears as loud and clear as a bell. "Can I..."
Jin smiles, and for a moment, just a moment, he pretends the past ten years don't stand between them like a great big wall. He pretends, and it makes it easy to lift up one side of his blankets and scoot to one side of the bed, making just enough room for Kame to curl up beside him.
Kame is just as warm as Jin remembers, but the feeling of laying next to Kame the man, who slips one muscular arm across Jin's belly, is so very different from laying next to Kame the boy, who clung to Jin with bony arms, nothing but edges and rough spots.
Maybe Jin's thoughts are clearer in the dark, too. Because now, it's as if everything is in sharp focus, and Kame is the bright moon amongst all the glittering stars. Kame has always, always been Jin's moon; even when Jin put the Pacific Ocean between them he looked up to the sky and watched him wax and wane, his heart like the ocean tides, rising and falling to Kame's pull.
Jin tingles everywhere that Kame touches, and he feels impossibly young, like a teenager all over again, awash in heady, giddy emotion that makes him both terrified and almighty.
As Kame's breathing evens out beside him, Kame finding somnolence much easier than Jin will be able to, Jin's heart beats to the rhythm of endless, inescapable love.
"Kame," Jin whispers. "Kame, Kame, Kame." And Kame stirs, just a little, and his lips brush the skin of Jin's neck, and his exhales are warm and heavy and Jin feels like he's going to burst from his skin. "Let's shine brighter together."
The gentle rise and fall of Kame's chest eventually lulls Jin to sleep as well.
#
“Jin,” Kame says, and Jin shirts, rolling on his side to face Kame. The futon is small, but big enough for two thin, gangly teenage boys.
“What’s wrong?” Jin whispers, because Koki is asleep, breathing heavily behind Kame on his own futon, and Jin doesn’t want to wake him.
“It’s not possible, is it?” Kame’s voice is warm and heavy, like soil after the rain.
“What isn’t possible?” Jin replies. Kame’s legs brush his own, the cotton of Kame’s pajama pants brushing against Jin’s bare calves, an innocent touch that Jin will never forget, and Jin thinks anything is possible.
“For us to stay just like this. We’ll have to grow up.”
“Maybe,” Jin says. “But when that time comes, we’ll be something new.”
“What?” Kame asks.
“I don’t know yet,” Jin says, burying his face in Kame’s neck. “It’ll be up to us to figure it out.”
#
When Jin wakes up, he's cold. The space beside him his empty, and Jin knows, somehow, that Kame is gone.
He finds a note on the kitchen table, next to the fruit bowl.
Thank you is all it says, in crisp, clear English letters.
Jin's emotions are tumbling over each other, rolling around inside of him and crushing everything in their path, until Jin is left wrecked and demolished and empty.
Jin's built all these walls to protect himself from his eager heart, and in four weeks, Kame has managed to tear down every single one of them.
Jin takes a deep breath, and there's a change in the air. It smells like fall. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out the silver necklace and clenching it tightly in his hand.
I’m not going to cry, Jin tells himself.
That night, it's cloudy, and Jin can't see the moon at all.
#
Full Moon
Pairing: Kame/Jin
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Jin dreams of the moon, over and over and over again.
Jin dreams of rain.
Warm and gentle, falling down on him until he’s soaked to the bone.
He doesn’t mind, because the rain’s not cold, and it smells like the change in seasons—like soil and flowers and new life.
And then Kame’s beside him, offering him a closed umbrella. Jin takes it from him, then opens his mouth to thank Kame, but then Kame is gone, and suddenly it’s night, and the moon is in the sky.
Jin reaches into his pocket and pulls out the silver necklace from Olvera Street, and offers it to the moon. It glows in the moonlight.
#
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
You know the night's magic
Seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight
Seems to shine in your blush...
--Moondance, Van Morrison
#
They go to Griffith Observatory, which by now, Jin knows quite well because he visits every chance he gets, just to look at the night sky projections in the huge dome, leaning back and taking in all the stars. He and Kame try and point out all the differences between the sky here and the sky in Japan, and Jin translates all the blurbs about the constellations while Kame ‘oooh’s and ‘ahhh’s in amazement, face open and expressive.
Jin thinks if he saw Kame, just like this, when he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t mind sleeping forever.
“What are you thinking about?” Kame asks him, poking his index finger right between Jin’s brows.
“Huh?”
“You had this look on your face, like you were thinking too hard about something.” Kame’s eyes twinkle at him. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Hey!” Jin says, and he’s not mad, just laughing. He likes this familiarity, the way they fit together in all their awkward differences just like a jigsaw puzzle.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Greek Mythology,” Jin tells him with a teasing grin, and Kame laughs.
When Kame laughs, Jin thinks, it’s like a waterfall, crashing down into the pit of Jin’s stomach. Jin feels like he’s between two times, and a shadow of Kame as he was, graceless and gangly, flits in front of Jin’s eyes, just for a fraction of a second.
There are tons of children underfoot, but that’s one of the things Jin loves about it. He loves kids, how passionate they are, and how freely they express their joy and their sadness. Sometimes, when he looks at them, he sees an echo of his younger self, and at the same time, a projection of everything he wants to be: fearless, and full of optimism and hope.
Kame watches the kids quietly. He’s got on a knit hat of Jin’s today, and Jin wants to tell him he can keep it since it looks better on him than it ever looked on Jin. His glasses are sliding down his nose, and he looks contemplative.
“I’m surprised you don’t have kids already,” Kame says, still watching the school group tumbling around the lobby, tugging on the limbs of their friends and just being kids. “You’re twenty-eight now, and you’ve been talking about starting a family since you were sixteen.”
“Ah, well, life happens, you know?”
“No future Mrs. Akanishi picked out yet?” Kame jokes, and Jin frowns.
“Not really,” Jin says flatly. “Got a wedding ring picked out for Anne?”
Kame turns to look at him with surprise. “You know about Anne?”
Jin flushes, and realizes he’s probably just outed himself for internet stalking or something. “I mean…everybody knows about you and Anne,” Jin mumbles, looking anywhere but at Kame.
Kame laughs. “I’m not dating Anne,” Kame says, chuckling. “I mean, we did date, for a while. But we’re just friends. Good friends. She’s cool.”
“She’s too tall for you anyway,” Jin says with a frown, directing his gaze to the floor.
“Oh don’t be so shallow,” Kame says. “I like long legs just as much as anyone else does. I don’t have any complexes about my height anymore, and I refuse to let you give me any.”
“I love your height,” Jin blurts out, and then he risks a glance up at Kame through his lashes, and Kame is looking at him like he just declared a sexual preference for zebras. Jin searches desperately for the previous topic of conversation, so he doesn’t have to explain that Kame’s the perfect height, because when Jin pulls him into a hug, Kame’s face fits right into the crook of his neck. “If Anne is so cool, why’d you break up?”
Kame’s face straightens, and his eyes lose focus, like his mind is far away. “She told me I was waiting for someone else,” Kame says.
“Someone else?” Jin echoes, and Kame snaps back to now.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kame says. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Jin says, and they walk out to Jin’s car. Jin stops in front of it, and lights a cigarette. Kame leans back against the car as he waits. Jin offers him a cigarette too, but Kame declines with a shake of his head.
Kame's hands are shoved in his pockets, and he looks relaxed and free. He takes a deep breath, the kind that makes his chest puff out, and then he exhales.
"This is nice," Kame says, and Jin grins at him. He loves this place, he really does, because Jin has always loved looking at the night sky.
"It's a great view," Jin replies, and Kame turns from looking out at the constellations to look at Jin with slight surprise, before his face breaks into a radiant smile, the kind that makes Jin feel like he’s melting where he stands.
"Oh, yes, it is," Kame says, eyes alight in a way that reminds Jin, achingly, of the way Kame used to look at him all the time, like Jin was wonderful. "But that's not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?" Jin queries, walking over until he and Kame are standing side by side.
"Spending time with you again. Making new memories with you." Kame pulls off his cap, and pushes a hand through his hair, careless of how it looks, relaxed and natural. "I missed you."
Jin has so much he wants to say. He wants to tell Kame that living without him in his life has been like living with a chunk missing from his heart. He wants to tell Kame that having him here, in Jin's new home, has made Jin feel whole again for the first time in a long time. That talking to him is something Jin's been longing for since he lost it. But the words don't come. "I missed you too," is all Jin can manage.
Maybe Kame can hear all the rest of it in his tone though, because he looks at Jin; he looks at him carefully, and then stands a little closer, until Jin can feel the heat of Kame's body through the thin fabric of his t-shirt and smell the lemon and hibiscus of Kame's hair.
He fingers the necklace in his pocket, and imagines how it would look hanging around Kame’s neck.
#
Kame, Jin remembers, has got this way of humming when he writes. It’s not a song, or a melody, just this flat, weird sound that makes it impossible to look away from him.
Kame’s just writing some souvenir list, but Jin’s caught up in the familiarity of it all, and how everything Kame does is emblazoned across Jin’s memory, like a brand.
#
Jin has to spend almost three consecutive days in rehearsal for his shows, sleeping on couches and eating instant noodles with Dom on the roof of the rehearsal studio, smoking cigarettes and trying not to pass out.
When he gets home, Kame is lying on his sofa, bare feet hanging over the edge of the sofa, a large tome opened in his lap. Jin recognizes it from before.
“Jin, are you alright?” Kame asks, closing the book and setting it on the coffee table.
“Just want to sleep forever,” Jin says, and Kame sits up. Kame hesitantly pats his lap, and nothing has ever sounded so wonderful to Jin.
Jin flops down on the couch, his head falling easily into Kame’s lap. His eyes close, heavy, and then Kame tentatively runs a hand through Jin’s greasy hair, and Jin sighs. Kame must take it as an invitation, because his hand grows bolder, weaving through the strands of Jin’s hair, tugging and twisting in a way that makes Jin want to mewl with delight.
“How’s the show coming?”
“Well,” Jin says. “I’m so tired.”
“Then sleep,” Kame tells him, hand steadily pulling through Jin’s too-long mane and Jin feels sleep beckoning him.
Later, and Jin doesn’t know how much later, only that it’s dark outside now, Jin opens his eyes. Above him, Kame has drifted to sleep, too, slumped against the arm of Jin’s sofa, neck in a strange position and hand still tangled in Jin’s locks. His glasses sit crooked on his nose, and his mouth is parted slightly in sleep.
Jin doesn’t want to wake him, because he looks so peaceful. Jin reaches up and slips Kame’s glasses off his face, folding them carefully and setting them on top of Kame’s huge text. Then he closes his eyes again, enjoying the texture of Kame’s ribbed shirt against the skin of his cheek and the solid feeling of Kame’s thighs beneath his head.
The next time Jin wakes up, Kame is staring down at him. Kame’s eyes are round, and he looks confused. His tongue peeks out to wet his lips, and he blinks twice as Jin tries to focus on him.
Kame’s a little flushed, Jin thinks, and there’s something in his eyes that Jin feels like he should know, should recognize, but it eludes him.
Later still, when Kame has retreated to the guest room and Jin is alone in the living room, eating peanut butter from the jar and watching Cartoon Network, Jin keeps thinking about the gentle soothing of Kame’s fingers against his scalp, and the way stress just melted away under his touch.
Jin sleeps deeply, and he doesn’t dream.
#
The Moon appears in front of the slumbering Endymion, and sensing the light, he opens his eyes, eyelashes fluttering against the moon’s light, and for a moment, he sees the most beautiful vision he has ever encountered through his sleepy eyes. Just a moment is enough. In Endymion’s heart blossoms a passion so intense and steadfast he knows that he’ll never love another. He wakes, fully, but the moon, the beautiful moon, that he’s imagined so close beside him, is far away, high up in the night sky, impossibly out of reach. Endymion is sure that such perfection must be a dream, but the moonlight glances across his sleeping face night after night, and Endymion can’t resist the pull of the moon’s gravity.
#
When Lizzy and Aubree find out that Jin has a friend from Japan visiting, they invite themselves over for dinner. Jin tells Kame about it with an apology in his eyes, but Kame just crosses his arms and demands Jin take him to the grocery store.
“We can just order pizza,” Jin says, and Kame gives him this look that Jin swears his mother’s given him hundreds of times that tells Jin he’s ordering take-out for guests over Kame’s dead body.
Kame’s fascinated by the expanse of American grocery stores, eyes wide and amazed at the sheer size. “Americans think it’s more convenient this way. It’s why the stores in Tokyo are starting to resemble this, though. Because it is easier than going to the butcher for meat, and stuff like that.”
Jin picks out all kinds of disgusting American treats for Kame to taste, while Kame selects vegetables and makes Jin show him where he can find the ethnic foods section so he can find the right sorts of spices to make curry. Kame raises his eyebrows at the Cap’n Crunch, but Jin knows Kame, and he’s pretty sure Kame will be addicted to the stuff before he can even blink. Kame likes to pretend he likes healthy foods and being reasonable, but secretly, Kame loves to sleep in unmade beds and eat things that are terrible for him if he thinks no one is looking.
They return home triumphant, and Kame puts everything away in the kitchen while Jin watches helplessly and tries to stay out of his way.
“You have this huge kitchen,” Kame says. “And all I have seen you do in it is make ramen.”
“I also make cheeseburgers,” Jin informs him smugly, and Kame rolls his eyes.
Lizzy and Aubree show up twenty minutes earlier than they say they will, and Kame freaks out because his hair is still pulled back in a sloppy ponytail and he’s wearing comfy loose clothing that he for some reason thinks is unacceptable. Jin thinks Kame’s got this casual sort of elegance that means he looks good in whatever he wears, so he tugs Kame with him to answer the door.
The girls are all smiles as they walk in, and Jin elbows Lizzy as they walk in. “You’re early,” he says, and Lizzy shrugs and grins. Jin introduces them to Kame, and both girls eyes light with recognition at Kame’s name.
They all make their way into the kitchen, where Kame immediately excuses himself to work on the food. Jin wonders if Kame is nervous.
“So,” Lizzy says, as she sits at the kitchen table watching Kame chop onions with curious eyes. “I thought you didn’t chill with your old band mates anymore.”
Jin squirms in his chair. “Well, it’s complicated.”
Aubree leans forward, elbows on the table, to stare at Jin. “What’s with that face?”
“What face?” Jin says defensively, his eyes once again wandering to Kame’s profile as he works. “I’m not making a face.”
“You look like your hand is in the cookie jar,” Lizzy says. “No one cares if you still talk to your old bandmates, Jin. It’s not some terrible secret.”
“I know that,” Jin says, forcing himself to look back at the two girls in his kitchen. “It’s just we haven’t talked that much. It was sort of a surprise visit.”
“Awww, how cute!” Aubree says, leaning forward even further and ruffling Jin’s hair. “He came to surprise you!”
“I don’t really know why he came,” Jin replies, pouting and blowing his hair back out of his face.
“Akanishi,” Kame says, in a voice that demands Jin’s presence, and Jin jumps up and hurries to the kitchen, ignoring Lizzy’s low whistle and Aubree’s mocking whip crack.
“Kame?” Kame shoves a knife in Jin’s hand, and directs him towards the peppers.
“Cut,” Kame says sharply, and Jin gulps and does as Kame says. Kame goes back to the onions, slamming the knife down too hard and making Jin wince. Aubree and Lizzy are cackling at the table, leaning over Lizzy’s cell while Lizzy plays a video. Jin thinks it’s the one of him and Dom having a beer chugging competition at the Sonic drive-through last Halloween, but he can’t be sure—the sound is faint.
“Did I…do something?” Jin asks, after a minute of Kame angrily slicing at the onions.
“No,” Kame says, sighing. He scoots over to Jin and takes the knife back. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Entertain your guests. Your girlfriend’s probably angry you haven’t spent that much time with her the past few weeks.”
“Girlfriend?” Jin asks quizzically, tilting his head to the side in confusion.
“The red-headed one,” Kame says, not looking up. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”
Jin can’t help it. He laughs. “This is America, Kame. Girls and boys can just touch each other and it doesn’t imply anything like a romantic relationship. Aubree’s my friend, and so is Lizzy. Nothing more.”
“Oh,” Kame says, and his tight grip around the knife handle visibly relaxes. “Okay.”
“Were you…jealous?” Jin asks tentatively, brushing his hand to Kame’s elbow in the lightest of touches. His stomach sinks, and he wonders if Kame likes Aubree or Lizzy or something, and he’s jealous of Jin maybe having claimed one of them. “I think Aubree is single, if you like her—“
“No!” Kame says, and it’s loud enough for the two girls to quickly turn to look at them, distracted from their video. Lizzy, who understands a little Japanese, raises an eyebrow at Jin, who waves her off. “It’s not that.”
“Then what made you upset?” Jin asks.
“I…” Kame quiets. “Um.” Kame scoops up the onions and drops them into the pot he’s got sizzling on the stove, and then comes back for Jin’s peppers. “You chopped these like a six year old.” He starts stirring the mixture into the oil, and then checks on the meat that’s cooking in a separate pan.
“Don’t change the subject,” Jin says sternly, and Kame stops stirring.
“It’s just before, you said you didn’t have…”
Oh, Jin thinks. The Observatory. Jin remembers Kame asking, vaguely, about Jin’s love life, but Jin had been far more focused on Kame’s. “Oh, yeah. I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not looking, either.” He tugs on the fabric of the flannel shirt Kame’s wearing. It’s Jin’s, actually—Jin had let him borrow it when Kame complained about the air conditioner being on too high. “Hey, you know I’m a terrible liar. Also I’m not going to lie to you.”
Kame swallows, and starts stirring again. “Okay,” Kame says, and Jin really wants to hug him. Instead, he goes over to the sink and washes the rice until the water runs clear, and then turns on the rice cooker.
Dinner is fantastic—Kame’s always made good curry, and Aubree and Lizzy make him blush with compliments that Kame doesn’t have to speak English to understand, because it’s all in orgasmic moans and extra helpings.
Kame tries, with his limited English, to talk with the girls, and Lizzy tries back with her fledgling Japanese, and Jin translates the rest when things get confusing. It’s a fun night.
When they’re leaving, Aubree stops Jin as Jin starts to close the door behind them. Kame is in the kitchen still, and Jin can hear the sink running. Aubree’s hand wraps around Jin’s arm, her neon green painted nails digging a little into the skin of his forearm. “He’s really nice, Jin,” she says, and Jin nods.
“Yeah.”
“You care about him a lot, don’t you?” she asks, and Jin nods again, slowly, not because he has to think about it, but because he doesn’t know where she’s going with it. “He cares about you a lot too.” She smiles knowingly, and Jin doesn’t understand why. “You should pay more attention to what your heart is telling you.”
And then she lets go of his arm and backs out the door. Jin shuts it behind her, and then leans his back against it.
Lately, Jin thinks, all he can seem to do is listen to his heart, because it’s always beating so damn loud.
Still, it’s good advice. When he sees Kame standing by the stairs, still wearing Jin’s flannel shirt, the sleeves falling halfway down his hands and more hair fallen out of the ponytail than still in it, he gives into his urge to hug. He stands behind Kame and wraps his arms around him pulling Kame’s back into his chest. Kame tenses at first, but then he relaxes with a sigh, and Jin buries his face in Kame’s hair and breathes in the unique smell of Kame, and tries to memorize the way Kame feels in his arms right now, which is so different from the way it felt years ago but is also so much the same. “I’m glad you’re here,” Jin whispers.
Kame doesn’t reply, but after a moment he pulls himself smoothly free of Jin’s grasp, and Jin lets his arms fall naturally to his sides. His heart is hammering in his chest, for some reason, and Jin’s listening, but he doesn’t really understand. “Goodnight, Jin,” Kame says, eyes indecipherable, and then he goes upstairs. Jin hears the doorway to the guest bedroom close.
“Goodnight,” he replies, to an empty living room.
#
When Jin leaves KAT-TUN officially, it’s a shitshow. He keeps hearing about his betrayal, to the point where Jin is afraid to look on the internet or turn on entertainment television. It’s almost a relief to escape Japan, in the end, when he goes to audition for a film role, because it least he doesn’t have to close his eyes when he walks past the newspapers in the convenience stores, or wonder if people on the streets recognize him; if they’re whispering behind their hands about what a terrible person he is for wanting to do something different.
When Jin breathes in the LA air, it smells like freedom. Like summer. It’s amazing.
Jin calls Kame once a week for sixth months, and Kame never answers a single call. He finds out from Nakamaru that Kame’s changed his number on accident. Nakamaru doesn’t mean to tell him, it just slips out, and it sends Jin’s heart plummeting in his chest.
Jin misses the smell the evening rain, and the light of the moon that’s bright even through an overcast sky.
#
“It’s so peaceful here,” Kame says one afternoon as they sit on deck chairs in the yard. Kame is reading that book, and he’s got a highlighter tucked behind his ear and a fine-tipped pen in his hand. He’s jotting notes in the corner in sloppy kanji. Jin’s got a GQ in hand, but he’s not really reading it; he’s too busy watching Kame to bother flipping through the pages.
“Peaceful?” Jin asks, because he’s never heard Los Angeles described as ‘peaceful’ before.
“Yeah,” Kame says. “I think I really needed a break. From…everything.”
Jin thinks back to when he’d creepily stalked Kame on the internet, reading about the extensive number of commitments and tasks Kame had on a daily basis—dramas, variety show appearances, his radio show, his baseball stuff. He thinks back to the dark purple bruises under Kame’s eyes when he’d shown up on Jin’s doorstep, too.
“Is that why you came?” Jin asks, and Kame looks up at him over the top of his glasses. “To take a break?”
“No,” Kame says, and he bites his lip for a moment, like he’s thinking of saying something else. Jin doesn’t speak, watches Kame back, trying to puzzle out what the expressions flitting across his face mean. “It’s not that.”
“Oh,” Jin says, and Kame sighs and looks back down at his book.
Jin feels like he’s missing something, but he doesn’t know what it is.
“Kame, can I ask you a question?” Jin says, and it’s hesitant.
Kame nods, and Jin wants to ask him why. Why he refused to say a word to Jin for years.
Why he waited for Jin to give up on him before he walked back into Jin’s life and made a new place for himself in it.
“Nevermind,” Jin says, and he doesn’t understand this feeling at all, like he’s reaching and reaching for something he’ll never be able to touch.
#
“Kame, if you get this call, you should call me back,” Jin says to Kame’s voicemail. “Because I really want to talk to you.” Jin’s hand grips his cell phone tightly in his hand. “I really miss hearing your voice.” Jin sighs. “I don’t know why you won’t answer the phone when I call. If you’re mad at me, you should just yell. Scream. Tell me I abandoned you. Tell me I suck. Tell me you’re angry. Just…Just talk to me,” he says.
It’s the same message he left last week.
It’s the same message he left the week before last, too.
Kame never calls him back.
#
It’s four in the morning, and Jin kind of wants to die as he picks up his phone. “This had better be an emergency,” Jin says into the receiver. “Like, you’d better be bleeding to death on the side of the road and this is the last conversation we’re ever going to have, because if you’re still alive next time I come to Japan, I’m actually going to kill you.”
“Well, aren’t you just delightful today,” Yamapi says, and Jin wants to punch him in the nuts. “No ‘hi, how are you’ for your best friend in the whole wide world?”
“No, because you suck,” Jin replies. “I have rehearsals forever and ever, and I’m tired as hell.”
“Go back to sleep after this, then,” Yamapi says dismissively. Jin’s read stuff, though, about REM cycles, and he doesn’t know what an alt rock band from the ninties has to do with sleep, but he knows he’s supposed to sleep a certain number of hours uninterrupted in order to be a regularly functioning human being.
“Oh my god, I hate you so much,” Jin says, and Yamapi cackles.
“You love me,” he says, and then Jin can hear him take a huge bite of something, and it makes his next words hard to make out. “So how’s everything going with your hard-shelled housemate?”
Jin rolls his eyes, and smiles. “It’s okay,” Jin says. “It’s…actually it’s really nice. To spend time with him.”
“I really don’t get you guys. You don’t talk forever, and then Kame shows up at your house unannounced and now you guys are totally tight bros again, even though you totally haven’t talked about why he’s there or why you guys didn’t talk that whole time you, like, didn’t talk.”
“It’s fine,” Jin says.
“It’s fine now,” Yamapi says. “But Jin. Don’t forget he doesn’t live there with you for real. He’s going to leave again. Things might go back to the way they were before if you don’t talk about it.”
Jin tries to swallow around the lump that pops up in his throat. He puts his arm over his eyes, because tiny cracks of light from the coming dawn are starting to peek through his window, and Jin doesn’t like to see this time of day if he can help it. “I know,” Jin says. “You know that I know that.”
“So don’t…don’t get yourself hurt, okay?”
“I won’t,” Jin replies, and Yamapi sighs heavily. “I am totally prepared for that.”
“You’re the worst at lying. If there was Guinness book record for that, I swear Jin, your picture would be in there, extra huge and adorned with some squiggly emphasizing border.”
“Fuck you,” Jin says, and Yamapi laughs. “I’m an honest and forthright person by nature. That’s not a bad quality.”
“It is for an idol,” Yamapi says. “But that’s neither here nor there. Just…be careful Jin. Don’t get all attached to the idea of Kamenashi being there; everything’s back here waiting for him.”
“Yeah,” Jin says, but they both know it’s too late for that.
#
There’s a huge pile of socks on the floor between them, and Jin gulps at the task of sorting them, but Kame just rolls up his sleeves and spreads them all out, so they can try and find matches.
“Why are all your socks different? “ Kame asks, and Jin frowns.
“Because I keep having to buy news packs and I always forget the brand,” Jin answers.
“Why do you keep having to buy new packs?”
“Because I always lose one of every pair of socks. I don’t know how,” Jin adds quickly before Kame can comment. “It’s like my socks are in a conspiracy. Somehow, out of three pairs of socks, after a month there are only two socks left. I don’t know where they go. I suspect the floor is eating them.”
Kame snorts. “Or they’re all under your bed.”
“My room is not that messy,” Jin defends, and Kame’s raised eyebrow gently rebukes him. “Okay, so maybe it could be more organized, but it’s not that bad.”
“Whatever,” Kame says. “Your room is a cesspool of despair. Where hygiene goes to die.” Jin blushes, and he doesn’t know what comes over him. Maybe it’s because he and Kame are bantering like old times, Kame gently ribbing him and Jin having no comeback that isn’t shy admittance of Kame’s valid point, but he sort of launches himself at Kame, hands finding there way to Kame’s sides and tickling him. Kame is laughing, choking with it. They’re squirming around, like they’re still kids, rolling in a pile of clean, unmatched socks, and Jin feels them getting stuck in his hair and he doesn’t care. He’s got Kame trapped, straddling him, both wrists in Jin’s right hand while the left tickles him, and if Kame wasn’t laughing so much, he’d definitely be able to escape.
“Mercy, mercy,” Kame gasps, and Jin grins triumphantly when Kame looks up at him through his lashes, echoes of laughter in the lines around his mouth.
He’s beautiful, Jin thinks, and suddenly, Jin wants to kiss him. Kame’s mouth looks soft and inviting, and Jin wants to lean down and capture it, because Kame is warm and vibrant beneath him.
Oh, Jin thinks, as the bottom drops out of his stomach. Oh.
Kame’s laugh trails off as Jin tenses, and abruptly the air between them becomes strange, Kame’s eyes focusing in on Jin as Jin tries to figure out what’s come over him. “Jin?” Kame asks, and Jin feels panic well up inside him so rapidly that it takes his breath away.
“I...” Jin blinks, and then he’s standing, backing away from his feelings and the realization and the searching look on Kame’s face. “I think I hear my phone,” Jin croaks, and then he races up the stairs, dashing into his bedroom and closing the door behind him.
He dives face first onto his bed, body splayed like a starfish. His pulse is racing, and he feels like he’s on fire, and all those feelings of confusion that Kame always makes gush inside of him are simmering beneath the surface, and maybe Jin finally understands them.
Oh, Jin thinks. Shit.
Jin supposes he should have figured it out before this, that he should have known that the way he feels about Kame defies any sort of normal friendship or whatever, but Jin feels like he’s been punched in the gut, and he’s still trying to find air, deep breaths not helping him at all because he still feels light-headed and sick.
Jin’s in love.
In love with Kame. Impossible, unpredictable Kame, who’s a man, who lives in Japan, who might still be in love with his ex-girlfriend, who’s completely unavailable to Jin in every conceivable way.
And maybe, Jin thinks, he’s always been in love with Kame. Actually, he’s pretty sure he has been, because nothing feels different, inside of him, except that he knows what this feeling is.
Oh.
Maybe an hour later, when Jin’s managed to convince himself that he can keep his cool, that maybe “I just realized I’m totally, stupidly in love with you,” might not be written on his face, he goes back downstairs.
But Kame’s nowhere to be found, and Jin’s socks are all paired and folded together at the ankle, heaped into the laundry basket, except for one lone unmatched sock hanging over the edge.
It hurts, Jin realizes. This hurts.
#
Jin wants to avoid Kame, because he hasn’t figured out what to do or what to say, and he hasn’t figured out if he’s going to do or say anything at all, but he can’t. He’s drawn to Kame, and he’s unable to stay away.
Jin wonders if Kame can feel the difference between them now, Jin simultaneously drawing back and leaning in to Kame’s accidental touches, stumbling over his words and skin turning red at every inquisitive look.
Jin feels like an adolescent. He feels like writing love songs and throwing tantrums and listening to sad, sad music in his room with the lights out self-indulgently mired in the misery that is unrequited love. Some days he feels like the words are seconds from crossing his lips, and some days he feel like he wants to bury those same words as deep inside of him as he can.
#
Jin dreams of fireflies.
They’re glowing so brightly in the night air, and Jin’s eyes are enchanted. He reaches out to catch them, and suddenly they’ve turned into stars.
Jin’s hands grasp empty air, and then the night is too dark to see.
#
Kame drags Jin with him to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kame takes pictures of all the stars of people he’s met, or people he admires, with his oversized camera, as Jin walks ahead of him, hands in his pockets listening to music.
Jin keeps looking back at Kame though, and Kame is enchanting, his face set in a tiny smile, camera held up between two steady hands as the afternoon sun shines brightly down on him.
Jin is dazzled by his radiance. Kame catches him staring once, and snaps a picture of Jin, whose eyes are wide with his mouth falling open, before Jin can blink and hide his face, and the triumphant grin he gives Jin is enough to make Jin feel like he’s falling apart.
#
Jin sweats his way through practices, hours and hours of dancing and singing, and all he can think about is Kame, laughing and smiling, a grain of rice at the corner of his lip that Jin aches to brush off with his thumb.
Kame is always waiting when he gets home, that history book in his lap, face in a concentrated frown that breaks into a soft grin when Jin walks in.
Jin never wants to come home to anything else ever again.
#
"So you're going to leave? Just like that?" Kame asks, legs crossed at the ankle as he leans back in the foldout chair. "On some whim, you're going to go halfway across the world?" Kame's voice is hot with held-back anger
"It's not a whim, Kame. You know I've been wanting to go and learn English for a while now." Jin's voice is hotter.
"So get a tutor. Take a class, or something, like normal people. Don't go gallivanting to the other side of the world when I--" Kame stops, and looks away at some imaginary point in the distance. His hands grip the side of his chair, knuckles white and red around the edges. "When we need you."
"You know it's not the same as living there, Kame. I'll learn faster, get closer to my dream--"
"What happened to our dream, Jin? We're debuting. We waited so long, and now it's here. Our turn. Why now?"
"Then when, Kame? When am I supposed to go?" Jin's hands come up and rub at his eyes, pushing on them to try and relax his headache. "When it's time for the next single? Or the next one? You know how this works. It'll be single after single after single. Variety show after performance after concert. It's never going to stop. I want to go now, Kame. Before I'm trapped."
"Jin," Kame says, and now his arms are wrapped around himself protectively, like he's trying to ward off his own emotions. "Jin we were supposed to do this together."
"Just wait for me. I'll definitely come back," Jin says. "Just wait for me."
"How are we supposed to be KAT-TUN without an 'A'?" Kame asks, and it's soft. His anger has quieted, and all Jin can see is that gentle melancholy that's been running like a tiny stream through Kame's center in the past year; a shadow behind his eyes that makes him look older, and wiser.
"You'll have to carry it for me," Jin whispers, and then he stands up, and closes the distance between them, grabbing Kame in a tight hug. Kame is stiff in his arms. "And if you ever need me, for anything, anything at all, I'll be here for you, okay?" Kame relaxes, just a little, so Jin presses his advantage. "Seriously. You can just show up wherever I'm staying, and cry on my shoulder, or whatever."
Kame laughs, then, and it turns into a tiny sob. "You've got all these big dreams, Jin," Kame says. "One day you're not going to come back, because they aren't the same as mine, anymore." Kame looks vulnerable, something that’s been missing in Kame lately, hidden beneath intense willpower and almost terrifying focus. The Kame in front of him looks so young, and so fragile, and Jin just holds him tighter. Jin’s heart is in overdrive, because even though he’s tried to ignore it, Kame still makes his pulse race faster than Jin had ever thought was humanly possible until now.
"But this time, Kame," Jin says, running his hand anxiously through Kame's hair as the other lays heavy on Kame's back. "This time I'll be back."
Jin thinks about Kame, carrying the K and the A on his already over-weary shoulders, the entire plane ride to Los Angeles.
#
Kame’s book is almost finished. As the pages dwindle, Jin has a sinking feeling that Kame’s time here, with him, is dwindling too.
#
Jin dreams of the beach again.
He’s running and running and running, but Kame is as untouchable as the moon.
#
“I hate that I can’t even be mad at you,” Kame says, leaning against the concrete wall. Jin is standing next to him, puffing on a cigarette, eyes closed because he can’t look at Kame right now. “I know this is what you’ve wanted for a while now.”
“I can’t miss this chance,” Jin says quietly. “I can’t. This is one of my dreams.”
“I know,” Kame says. “I know.” He hears Kame take a deep breath. “I just wish it didn’t feel like you were abandoning us to do it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jin says. He opens his eyes. Kame’s face is inscrutable. “You’ve carried the K and the A before.”
Kame laughs bitterly. “Yeah, I suppose I have.”
“I can’t do what I want to do and be in KAT-TUN, Kame. I can’t have the weight of a band on my shoulders while I’m trying to pursue a solo career in the United States.”
“Are we a weight, Jin?”
“I don’t mean it like that, Kame, and you know it.” Jin sighs, and drops his cigarette to the gravel, putting it out with the toe of his shoe. “You’ll never be a weight to me.”
Jin and Kame aren’t as close now as they used to be, the pull of Jin’s increasingly bigger dreams dragging him further and further away from him, and the group. The feeling of being trapped, that had receded with Jin’s first trip to Los Angeles, has been clawing its way back up his ribs and closing in around his lungs.
Mostly Jin wants to reach out to that California coastline, and now he’s been given a chance.
But even if KAT-TUN isn’t where he is musically, even if Jin’s got new friends and new adventures and new parties, there’s still Kame. For him, there will always be Kame. He knows that as surely as he knows the sun will rise in the morning, as surely as he knows he needs air to breathe.
For him, there will always be Kame.
“Good luck with your new life,” Kame says, and it’s the last time Jin sees him.
#
They lay on their backs out in the grass of Jin's court yard, heads resting on Jin's oversized black hoodie that Jin's spread out like a blanket beneath them.
“Are you going to come to my show next week?”
“I don’t know,” Kame says.
The sky is clear. "The stars are really bright here," Jin says. "You can see them more easily than you can in Japan."
"Even though it's the same sky," Kame says slowly, like he's tasting the words as he says them, "the stars look completely different here." It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it sounds final, somehow.
"What do you mean?" Jin asks, turning his head to look at Kame's profile. Jin has all the lights out in the courtyard in an attempt to avoid the mosquitoes that linger here, even after summer draws to a close, and all he can see is the faint outline of Kame's distinctive nose, subtly illuminated by the soft light from Jin's kitchen. Jin can't read Kame's face, but that doesn't have much to do with the light.
"When did we stop reaching for the same set of stars, Jin?" Kame asks him, and Jin doesn't know the exact answer. Maybe he does, but it hurts to think about it. Jin's gotten good at pushing aside the things that hurt.
"Sometime between then and now," Jin says, and Kame laughs sharply, more like a bark.
"Do you remember..." Kame starts, but then he trails off.
Jin reaches up above him, stretching his arms as far as they'll go. "When we said we'd shine brighter together?" Jin offers, ignoring the way his gut clenches and the flush that's fighting it's way up his neck. Kame's still looking at the sky, though, and a gentle breeze blows, and Kame still smells of lemon and hibiscus. "Like it was yesterday."
"What happened to us, Jin?"
Jin's asked himself the same question hundreds of times, and no matter how many times he turns it over in his head, he still doesn't know the answer.
But for some reason, he thinks Kame's not really asking.
"You tell me," Jin says. "All I know is that one day, you were gone."
"I was gone?" Kame says, his voice harsh, even though he's only speaking in a whisper. "You were the one that found all these new dreams that didn’t involve me--"
"It wasn't like that," Jin says, and his voice comes out louder than he means it to. "You know that, Kame,” he continues in a quieter tone.
Jin remembers feeling trapped. Remembers the lights that used to thrill him becoming nothing more than bars to a cage, capturing him in the spotlight and leaving him bare and on display. He remembers wondering, panicked, if this, this, was what they had worked for, and if he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to get out.
Jin remembers being confused, too, and maybe that was the worst part of all, because with those lights shining down so hot and bright, Jin was so afraid someone would see.
"Do I?" Kame asks, but he sounds resigned. "The first time you left. That's when we started reaching for different stars. You and your American constellations."
"Yeah," Jin says, but it isn't true. It was before that, way before, he knows.
Kame had started shining so bright all on his own, without notice or warning, that Jin, well... Jin kept forgetting to look at the sky at all.
Jin had started wanting to reach for the moon right beside him.
Even now, when he's got all these dreams, all these ambitions, and he's taking his chances and giving it all he's got, he still...
When Jin closes his eyes at night and dreams, it is of soft touches and the heat of a heavy weight by his side, of gentle breaths on the soft skin of a bared shoulder, of lemon and hibiscus and the lick of moonlight. Jin dreams of the moon, over and over and over again.
“I came because…I needed to see your American Dream,” Kame says into the silence, and Jin sucks in a lungful of air at the tone of Kame’s voice, the way it ripples down his spine and makes him want to slide closer. “I wanted to see what you were dreaming of these days.”
“Why?” Jin asks, and it’s too blunt. “You basically told me to have a nice life, and wrote me out of yours.”
“You wrote me out of yours way before that, Jin. You’ve dreaming about things that didn’t involve me for years.”
Jin has been dreaming of lots of things that did involve Kame, too, Jin wants to say, but he can’t. It’s like when Jin’s on a television show, when he knows everyone is watching—he just freezes up, because he’s so worried about saying the wrong thing he can’t ever say the right one.
“I just wanted…” Kame stops for a breath, before he rushes on. “I guess I just wanted to see if it was worth it. To see if you were happy.” Kame looks at Jin, and Jin doesn’t have to open his eyes to feel the weight of Kame’s gaze.
“And?” Jin says, his voice straining with the effort. There’s a stone on his chest, making it hard for him to do anything more than that.
“This…this was the right choice for you,” Kame tells him. “You’re sparkling again.” Kame’s next breath is shuddering, like the leaves on the maple trees on a breezy autumn day in Tokyo. Jin can hear the air crackling, just like that, between them.
Jin wants to tell Kame that Jin is sparkling because Kame is here. That he loves America, and he loves his career and his social life and his house and the weather and all of those inconsequential things, but god, he loves Kame so much more than that. Jin doesn’t have just one dream, he’s got hundreds of them, head stuffed so full of them he always forgets the words.
But his biggest dream, since he was fifteen and foolish and staring at the stars, is for Jin and Kame to make it.
Jin is pretty sure, when he told Kame that, years ago when Jin couldn’t have even begun to fathom that his life might end up like this, that Kame had thought he’d meant KAT-TUN, or that Jin had been referring to superstardom or something like that.
But Jin had just wanted them to make it. Them. Two boys with not much in common but big dreams and connected hearts, with intertwined fingers and a lot of hope.
“Kame, I…”
“If you could do it all over again, would you still come here? Do this?”
“Yes,” Jin says aloud. But I would have held on to you tighter, remains unuttered, echoing in Jin’s head like a gunshot. "Building a new career here, in a completely different place—it’s hard. One of the hardest things I’ve done. But…I want more than things that are easy."
“I just wanted to see your dream,” Kame says. “Now I can finally say goodbye to our old one.”
Jin feels like the Earth is swallowing him whole, like he can’t move and he can’t tell Kame that that’s not what Jin wants, not even close to what Jin wants.
Jin wants to find Kame’s hand in the dark.
Kame sits up, next to him, pushing himself up with his strong arms, and smiles down on Jin. It's not a happy smile, or a sad one. "I'm going to go inside," Kame says, and he stands. Jin sits up too, picking up his sweatshirt and shrugging it on. "See you," Kame says, and he disappears into the house.
Jin follows him after a few minutes, stopping in the back doorway when he sees Kame sitting at the kitchen table, arms folded and head resting atop them. Kame's eyes are closed, and his eyelashes look dark against his pale skin. Los Angeles sun hasn't tanned Kame's skin at all, Jin thinks, but Kame seems to glow healthier anyway, fuller cheeks giving him a softer, gentler look that reminds Jin of being young and carefree.
Jin can't resist the urge to run his hand through Kame's hair, which looks soft and inviting, and so he does, just once. It feels as good as it looks, free of hair product, and naturally a little wavy. The roots of it are a dark black now, from a month of no upkeep, but it caresses Jin's palm just like it always has. Jin remembers it feeling just like this.
Jin remembers everything feeling just like this.
His fingers slide down to Kame's face, tracing his eyebrows and slowly following the uneven bridge of his nose. His thumbs run over the two moles on Kame's chin, and tease at the outline of Kame's lips.
Kame is so still, and Jin thinks he could stand here, fingertips brushing soft skin, forever.
It's not like a love song. Jin doesn't feel like there's a rainbow exploding behind his eyes or any kinds of endless possibilities. The only colors he sees are purples and blues, like a fresh bruise, and his heart just hurts, because there aren't endless possibilities, not for him and Kame, who are separated by 9000 kilometers and words that Jin might never say.
Jin's love story has never been destined to have a happy ending. He's known that. He's always known that.
It's why he's worked so hard to push the feelings away, he thinks. Why he never acknowledged them. Maybe Jin has some sort of unconscious self-preservation. Maybe, Jin’s heart didn’t want to break.
Jin manages to stop, and to walk away, but he pauses at the stairs and looks back at Kame. Kame's eyes are open now, and he's looking steadily at Jin. There's a mystery in his eyes that makes Jin scared and excited all at once. "You're awake," Jin says, and Kame tilts his head to the side.
"The kitchen table isn't for sleeping. I was just thinking."
"Your eyes were closed," Jin explains hastily, and Kame just keeps staring at him, like he can see through Jin, see how confused and frightened and yearning he is.
"Yes, they were," Kame says. "My thoughts are clearer in the dark."
"Oh." Jin tugs on his own hair. It's not as soft as Kame's. Probably because he hasn't had a haircut since January, and he always forgets to use conditioner. "Goodnight," Jin says, and retreats up the stairs.
Later, after they've both gone to bed, Jin stares blankly at his ceiling, covers pulled all the way up to his chin, the soft cotton tickling him and brushing against the small beginnings of the beard he's cultivating.
He can't sleep. He keeps thinking about the way Kame had looked at him as he stood at the foot of the stairs, eyes unreadable but fierce. That look burns through him, searing hot, even now, hours after he's retreated to his room and hidden like a child beneath his sheets.
The sound of his door opening startles him. His glasses are on the bedside table, but there's only one person it can be, and Jin relaxes even as his heart starts to beat with the rapidity of a rabbit’s with his chest.
"Jin," Kame says, and his voice cuts through the air even though it's barely a whisper, ringing in Jin's ears as loud and clear as a bell. "Can I..."
Jin smiles, and for a moment, just a moment, he pretends the past ten years don't stand between them like a great big wall. He pretends, and it makes it easy to lift up one side of his blankets and scoot to one side of the bed, making just enough room for Kame to curl up beside him.
Kame is just as warm as Jin remembers, but the feeling of laying next to Kame the man, who slips one muscular arm across Jin's belly, is so very different from laying next to Kame the boy, who clung to Jin with bony arms, nothing but edges and rough spots.
Maybe Jin's thoughts are clearer in the dark, too. Because now, it's as if everything is in sharp focus, and Kame is the bright moon amongst all the glittering stars. Kame has always, always been Jin's moon; even when Jin put the Pacific Ocean between them he looked up to the sky and watched him wax and wane, his heart like the ocean tides, rising and falling to Kame's pull.
Jin tingles everywhere that Kame touches, and he feels impossibly young, like a teenager all over again, awash in heady, giddy emotion that makes him both terrified and almighty.
As Kame's breathing evens out beside him, Kame finding somnolence much easier than Jin will be able to, Jin's heart beats to the rhythm of endless, inescapable love.
"Kame," Jin whispers. "Kame, Kame, Kame." And Kame stirs, just a little, and his lips brush the skin of Jin's neck, and his exhales are warm and heavy and Jin feels like he's going to burst from his skin. "Let's shine brighter together."
The gentle rise and fall of Kame's chest eventually lulls Jin to sleep as well.
#
“Jin,” Kame says, and Jin shirts, rolling on his side to face Kame. The futon is small, but big enough for two thin, gangly teenage boys.
“What’s wrong?” Jin whispers, because Koki is asleep, breathing heavily behind Kame on his own futon, and Jin doesn’t want to wake him.
“It’s not possible, is it?” Kame’s voice is warm and heavy, like soil after the rain.
“What isn’t possible?” Jin replies. Kame’s legs brush his own, the cotton of Kame’s pajama pants brushing against Jin’s bare calves, an innocent touch that Jin will never forget, and Jin thinks anything is possible.
“For us to stay just like this. We’ll have to grow up.”
“Maybe,” Jin says. “But when that time comes, we’ll be something new.”
“What?” Kame asks.
“I don’t know yet,” Jin says, burying his face in Kame’s neck. “It’ll be up to us to figure it out.”
#
When Jin wakes up, he's cold. The space beside him his empty, and Jin knows, somehow, that Kame is gone.
He finds a note on the kitchen table, next to the fruit bowl.
Thank you is all it says, in crisp, clear English letters.
Jin's emotions are tumbling over each other, rolling around inside of him and crushing everything in their path, until Jin is left wrecked and demolished and empty.
Jin's built all these walls to protect himself from his eager heart, and in four weeks, Kame has managed to tear down every single one of them.
Jin takes a deep breath, and there's a change in the air. It smells like fall. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out the silver necklace and clenching it tightly in his hand.
I’m not going to cry, Jin tells himself.
That night, it's cloudy, and Jin can't see the moon at all.
#
Full Moon
