Dream Boy: Waxing Crescent (1/4)
Nov. 1st, 2011 02:17 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's dreams are fleeting, not made up of solid or concrete images.
Sometimes, just the simple blooming of a night flower, petals unfolding in the moonlight, or fireflies flitting about in the air, tiny beacons in the dark of the evening. Sometimes it’s the stars, glowing ethereal from thousands upon thousands of kilometers up in the sky, looking, deceivingly, close enough to touch. Sometimes it's a smell, like freshly cut grass or the sweet scent of citron.
Sometimes, it's the soft touch of a square palm on his arm, or the lacing of short, strong fingers through his own, or maybe a laughing mouth releasing a giggle that's followed with a hiccup, or a brush of cotton against the skin of his calf. The ephemeral press of lips on the skin of his neck.
No matter what, though, Jin always, always, dreams of the moon.
#
"Jin, honey, are you doing okay?" Jin's mom sounds tinny through the phone. "I saw the YouTube link you sent yesterday, of that interview you did for your movie, and you look so thin."
"I'm fine, Mom," Jin says, rolling his eyes and smiling. "And yes, I'm eating. We even cooked yesterday, instead of me ordering take-out and camping in front of the TV."
Jin digs in his pocket for his car keys, and smirks triumphantly when he finds them. He holds the phone between his chin and his shoulder as he opens the door to the passenger side, and sets his bag and his lunch on the floor.
"Who is 'we'? Do you finally have a girlfriend?"
Jin laughs loudly into the phone. "I don't have a girlfriend, Mom. Dom was over, and we made macaroni and cheese."
Jin's walked around to the driver's side and climbed into the car, and now he's sliding the key into the ignition so he can turn on the air. It's the hottest part of summer, after all, and he's starting to sweat in the heat. It's not humid though-- he likes that about Los Angeles weather.
"A handsome boy like you, with no girlfriend. You know, Jin, if you want to date a nice American girl, your father and I won't mind--"
"Mom!" Jin says, with a sound somewhere between a screech and a chuckle, and his mom is laughing too. "I don't have time right now. The movie comes out in like, five months, and promotions are going to be insane. Plus putting together the concert and concert rehearsals…"
"I can't wait to see your movie," Jin's mom gushes, and Jin grins wide. "I know you'll be good, baby."
"You'd think it was good if I sneezed on camera for an hour," Jin says wryly, but he's pleased.
"Well, yes, you're my son," she says. "Pisuke came over for dinner last night, by the way. He has a girlfriend, despite his busy career."
"Does he?" Jin asks. He probably owes Yamapi a call, anyway. He hasn't talked to his best friend in almost a month beyond scattered emails, thanks to both their schedules and time zones.
"Don't you keep up with anything in Japan?" his mom chides, and Jin sheepishly tugs on his baseball cap. He leans back in the seat, relaxing. He can't drive and talk at the same time, anyway, so he might as well be comfortable.
"Yeah," Jin says vaguely. "Friends and stuff. Pi and Yuu and Ryo-chan. Josh is doing alright, too."
"KAT-TUN's new single is doing well," Jin's mom says after a moment's pause.
"That's... good," Jin says, and he means it, even if it feels awkward, still, to talk about a KAT-TUN that doesn't involve him.
It's not that he misses it. Well, he does. He misses some parts of it, and he didn’t hate anyone, not by a long shot; KAT-TUN was a big part of his childhood and early adulthood. He owes his opportunities now to KAT-TUN, too, and he knows that. But. It's not weird to talk about it because of that.
It's just he hasn't talked to any of them in a long time. He stayed in touch, for a while, with Nakamaru, but the more Jin's life moved over to the United States, the less he tried.
There's a weird sense of melancholy that still washes over him, when he hears about them. He doesn't miss being a part of KAT-TUN, but he misses KAT-TUN all the same. Not actively, but a little part of his heart twinges at times like these. The feeling of Koki's hand slapping too hard into his back, or of Nakamaru giving him that look when he was being exceptionally stupid. Ueda's joking derision and Junno's bad puns. Kamenashi... They’d been soldiers in the same war for such a long time.
"You should find out how they're doing," Jin's mom says, after a minute passes with neither of them speaking. "I wish you would tell me what happened with you and Kame-chan."
"That's alright," Jin says. "I don't need to talk to them." Jin huffs. "And I've told you time and again that nothing happened with me and Kamenashi." Jin feels the usual tightness in his gut at the other man's name, but he ignores it, closing his eyes. "People grow up. People change. People grow apart. That's all."
"Okay, Jin," his mom replies, but he can't help but think she doesn't believe him.
"How's Reio?" Jin asks, and his mom lets him change the subject.
When he hangs up the phone, he throws it into the passenger seat and grabs his plastic sunglasses from the dashboard, putting them on and then shifting the car into drive.
The whole way home, his mind keeps drifting.
He doesn't have to care how they're doing, he convinces himself. They're selling records without him, and he's doing his thing here. Everything's fine.
They're just chasing different dreams these days, and that's fine. It's all fine. The feeling in his chest is nostalgia, that's all. Fond memories, or something.
Jin's made a new life for himself, and he's happy.
#
Recorded myths tell the tale of a man named Endymion, who had the misfortune of falling in love with the moon, high up in the night sky and so far from his reach that he couldn't imagine crossing the distance.
The moon came out, every night, to visit that shepherd, and Endymion only fell deeper and deeper into love.
And it is because of love that he fell asleep, endless sleep, so that he might remain beautiful and in love forever.
He's still sleeping now, it's said, although there's debate as to where. There's debate over most of the legend, to be sure; whether he was a shepherd or a king, whether it was Zeus who put him to sleep, or Hypnos in a fit of jealousy.
But regardless of ‘where’s or ‘when’s, "to sleep the sleep of Endymion" is to dream of love for eternity.
#
“Jin, have you picked out the songs for the first set yet?” Dom asks, leaning back in his swivel chair and spinning. “I’m so excited to hit the road with you again. Last time was so much fun!”
“Oh hell, I don’t even know. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to include any of the old songs in the sets or not.” Jin scratches his cheek with delicate nails. “I dunno what to do. I’ve got to include some of them, I guess—one full length album isn’t enough to support a concert, right?” A huge concert. The venues will be as big as his Japanese venues, this time. It’s got to be a better show.
“Sure it is, but you should at least include the ones that were on the mini-album you released in Japan. Sometimes I think more Americans bought that than Japanese people.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jin says. “I just want it to be perfect.”
“Nothing is perfect, Jin. All you can do is your best. Sing the songs you want to sing. Do what you’ve been doing, it seems to be working.”
“Define ‘working,’” Jin says. “I’m kind of worried people are more fascinated with my bizarre past than they are with my music.”
“Well, you’re kinda fighting an uphill battle, dude. And a long Google search history of pics of you in drag holding hands with men.”
“Shut up,” Jin says, grabbing his coke off the table and snagging the straw between his lips. “I can’t believe that was on TMZ.”
“It was awesome,” Dom crows. “Even if they couldn’t even say Akakame right.”
Jin’s mouth falls into a frown. “Whatever. That’s my old life.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘old life,’ Jin. You’ve only got one life, and Japan, KAT-TUN, was a big part of it, whether you want it to follow you here or not.”
“Yeah,” Jin says, slurping soda. “I don’t want to forget it,” Jin says. Sometimes, though, thinking about people he’s left behind, people he can’t talk to anymore… it just makes him hurt. “I’ve just got some things I’d rather not have keep coming up.”
“Like Akakame?” Dom asks, and Jin closes his eyes, leaning back against his own chair.
“Yeah,” Jin replies. Like Akakame.
#
“Akakame,” Ueda barks, and Jin and Kame jump in their huddled conference about a prank they’re plotting for Nakamaru. Kame’s face is shining with mischief. “Whatever terrible, unacceptable thing you’re plotting together-- that will probably result in my misery and despair-- it can wait until later.”
“We have our own nickname now,” Kame says. “Akakame.”
“I like it,” Jin says shyly, and Kame’s smile reflects in Jin’s eyes like moonlight.
#
Jin dreams of honeysuckle, the sweet scent wafting into Jin’s nose when he opens the window to look out upon the night.
It tickles his nose, and he knows how the flowers taste on his tongue, grade school curiosity leading to stamens in his mouth as he tests the flower’s taste.
Jin takes a deep breath, and gazes down at the vines of them, growing up along the fence in Jin’s back yard. They glow in the light of the moon, and instead of flowers, they look like stars.
#
Jin is drinking coffee as he sits on the edge of the stage. Dom is sitting next to him, with his own latte, and Aubree and Lizzy are stretching behind them, occasionally shouting lewd things at one of the new male dancers on the tour. Jin was lucky to get the three of them again—he didn’t think it would work out but the stars had aligned. Working with good friends is never a chore, and now that Jin’s starting to get more successful, his tour is a little bigger, a little louder. It’s nice to have familiar faces amongst all the new ones.
“You decide on your set lists?”
Jin’s hand slides into his pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of lined paper from his notebook. “Yeah, I think so,” Jin says, and he hands Dom the list. “What do you think?”
“Looks solid,” Dom says, after he peruses the list and hands it back to Jin. “Varied.”
“Ah, I’m still not sure,” Jin says. “But I am sure about all the debut album stuff, so we can just choreo and rehearse those numbers first.”
“Just go with your gut, man,” Dom tells him, and Jin winces.
“Dude, this is the Staples Center. If I make a boring show, there will be four times as many people to disappoint.”
“Woah, who replaced you with Nancy Negative? You’ll be fine.”
Aubree squeals, and Jin leans his head back, bending so he’s upside down to eye them.
Dom sets his empty cup down between them as Jin watches Lizzy and Aubree with a smile. “Do you like either of them?” Dom asks. “I always wondered, you know. If you did.”
“What?” Jin asks. “No, it’s not like that.” Jin awkwardly kicks his legs out in front of him like a toddler in a high chair. Jin’s not suave, or cool, and he never knows what he can say when people ask him these kinds of questions that doesn’t sound offensive.
“Why not?” Dom asks. “Is it because they’re not Japanese, or something?” Dom looks like he doesn’t even see that as a viable reason, not with Jin, who embraces all things American with open arms
“Of course not,” Jin replies. “That’s not it at all. It’s just…” It’s hard to explain, Jin thinks, what attracts you to people. What makes you want to… to hold someone’s hand, to be closer to them than you are to anyone else. What makes them as important to you as the air.
Jin can’t help but remember Kame’s face, when Jin told him that he was going to be making his solo stuff permanent. That he wasn’t going to be coming back to KAT-TUN. He still remembers the way Kame’s faced had smoothed, become blank and unreadable and detached. Still remembers the words he said. The way Kame had disappeared and Kamenashi, the consummate professional, had taken Kame’s place. Jin had wanted to gather him close and tell Kame that leaving the group didn’t mean leaving Kame, wanted to tell Kame that it was going to be hard but…
“Ah,” Dom says, stretching his arms above his head. “I get it.”
“Get what?” Jin asks, and Dom smiles knowingly. Jin looks down and examines his nails, the way they dig into the denim of his jeans as his hands clench his thighs.
“Jin, shouldn’t you be practicing, too?” Aubree shouts over at him playfully.
“I’m not going to forget the words again, so chill out,” Jin shouts back, and he squeezes his eyes shut to wet his contacts before he looks back at the girls.
“What are you guys talking about over here, all serious and stuff?” Lizzy asks, bouncing over with Aubree in tow. “Jin looks like he just saw himself in sparkly pleather pants and feathers on Perez.”
“Fuck you, too,” Jin says, and Lizzy snickers.
“We’re talking about love,” Dom says. Lizzy claps her hands in delight and Aubree furrows her brow, looking back and forth between Dom and Jin
“Have you ever been in love, Jin?” Aubree sounds curious, and teasing.
“Not yet,” Jin says, standing up. He doesn’t want to think about it. “Don’t we have a concert to rehearse for?”
“Thought you weren’t going to forget the words?”
“Never hurts to practice once more, just in case,” Jin replies, and then he grabs a mic. “No second chances once the show starts.”
#
"Jin, try and remember the lyrics this time," Koki says, his face quirked into a half-smile as Jin sheepishly pulls his hair back from his face in a bizarre approximation of a ponytail. He can still feel the shorter pieces tickling the back of his neck, wet with Jin's sweat. A bead of moisture slowly crawls down the middle of his back, and Jin pulls his shoulders forward, tightening the fabric of his shirt across his back to catch it.
The air is stale, and Jin wishes there was a window to open, but of course there isn't-- Johnny wouldn't want to do anything to make rehearsal rooms look less like jail cells, Jin figures. That would probably make them all less productive, and more likely to smoke during practice.
Jin itches for a cigarette, at the moment; not particularly for the nicotine, but more for the familiar weight of the cigarette on his lower lip, and the reassuring heat of the smoke filling his lungs and bleeding out of his nose. It stings. Jin likes that.
But instead of trying to convince Ueda to let him take five minutes to go up to the roof and have a smoke, he leans back against the wall, sliding down it until his butt hits the floor. The wall feels cool against the heated skin of his shoulders and arms, and it help with the tiny niggling beginnings of a headache that tease at him.
"Every time you forget, it's one more time we have to run through it," Nakamaru says, but there's nothing angry or heated in his tone. Just statement of a fact, one Jin knows all too well. He looks at Koki's hunched form and knows he's tired. They're all tired. Even Junno is drooping, his seemingly boundless energy almost depleted, and Jin feels something like guilt coil in his stomach, even though he knows he's giving it his best.
Jin rolls his neck, loosening the kinks in his muscles. They've been here for hours, dancing, rehearsing. They're too young to mess up, too new. They're just debuting. This is their first single. "Sorry," Jin says, scratching his neck. "I'm trying."
"We know," Kame says, and Jin turns his head to the left to take in Kame, who sits against the glass on the other side of the room, body curled around itself, arms locked around his knees. "Of course you are."
He looks so damn small. He's so thin Jin can see his ribs, even through the ribbed fabric of his tank shirt, and his wrists look so slender Jin wonders if he'll break. They don't have time to break. That's what makes Jin feel the guiltiest of all.
Kame looks up at him, eyes piercing, and Jin can see the shadows beneath his eyes, the color of plums hanging heavy from the branches at the end of summer.
"Shall we go again?" Kame's voice, nasal and sharp, sits in the air like a command. Kame's not their leader, but he's always leading these days. Jin's not sure when it switched, when Kame stopped following Jin and Jin stopped trying to lead him. But now, sometimes, Jin doesn't even realize that he's following Kame. Jin wonders if he would follow Kame right off a cliff, and not even realize it until he feels himself hurtling off the edge.
"Alright!" Junno says, putting his left hand up in a fist, like he's preparing for war. Ueda nods, and he's already standing, running a hand through his sweaty hair and dropping the other hand down, thumb tangling in the cotton string tightening his shorts around his hips.
"Yes," Ueda says, pressing his lips flat together. "Again."
Jin mouths the words to himself as he too stands, and when his eyes flick back over to Kame, the younger man is smiling at him softly.
The way the light hits him, he looks almost unearthly, and Jin wonders if he reaches down and touches, if his hand will pass right through; if Kame, this small thin shell of what used to be Kame, is nothing but air and illusion.
So Jin does reach down, to offer a hand up, and the hand that grasps his own is far from fragile. Kame's grip is far from weak, and the tension of muscle is obvious when Kame effortlessly lets Jin drag him to his feet. Jin's hand tingles at the touch. Something about Kame makes it hard for Jin to let go of that bony hand, so he pulls it, him closer to Jin.
"I got them, this time," Jin says, quiet and fierce. Kame's heat, steady and familiar at his side, makes Jin feel more sure. Ueda clears his throat, and Koki cracks another sideways grin.
"Yeah, it's okay, really Jin. You'll get it." Then Koki turns on that big, wide, irrepressible grin and winks at Jin, smug like a kitten about to get away with something. "It's not your fault your head is so empty."
"Shut up," Jin mumbles, and crosses his arms, catching his elbows with his hands. Kame comes to stand beside him, and leans slightly against him, pressing into Jin's side just enough that Jin can feel the warmth of Kame's sweaty skin. Jin looks down at him, and Kame is looking straight ahead, Kame's tongue flicking out to lick at chapped, cracked lips. He's quiet.
It's Kame's way, lately, to be quiet instead of silly. To be strong instead of vulnerable. Jin doesn't know why it has changed, only that it has.
"It's okay, Jin," Ueda says. "You're still pretty." Ueda is examining his glossy nails as he speaks, a tiny smirk on his face.
"I've got it now," Jin says with a pout. He runs the words through his head one more time. Kame pulls away, and Jin turns to look at him again. This time Kame meets his eyes.
There, in Kame's steady gaze, Jin can see the flashing stage lights, the heavy roar of the audience, the burn in his muscles from running and jumping and dancing. He can feel the words ripping from his throat, sweet and hot, and that burns too.
Kame smiles, and Jin wonders if Kame can see the same thing when he looks at Jin-- the fruit of secrets and furtive promises whispered against soft cheeks as they huddled under heavy blankets, hands linked, pressed together shoulder to elbow.
He wonders if Kame can taste victory along the edges of his tongue every time they perform, like Jin can, or if he remembers when they were so young and hungry and their dreams curled like cigarette smoke up to the sky-- dreams of concerts and debuts and being famous.
When Kame blinks, it breaks Jin's thought process, and the world comes back into focus. Nakamaru is shoving Junno, who is chuckling madly with a self-satisfied grin on his face, and Ueda is glaring at them both as Koki starts needling him.
Kame's still got a tiny grin on his drawn face, and Jin thinks Kame knows what he's thinking. He always has.
The reason Jin can't remember the words isn't because Jin is stupid, or forgetful, or because he’s empty-headed. Jin isn't any of those things, anyway, so they wouldn't be the cause of his problem.
It's just that Jin's always had his head so stuffed full of dreams there isn't really room for much of anything else.
Jin gets it perfect, the next time. “Let’s do it once more,” Kame says, smiling at Jin. “No second chances once the show starts.”
#
Jin dreams of warm moonlight tickling his eyelids. Of the touch of calloused fingers against his brow and a low voice telling him it’s time to wake up.
But when he opens his eyes, it’s day, and Jin is alone.
#
Jin never expects to become friends with Jason Derulo beyond their casual working relationship. But when it comes time to work on his second U.S. album, Jason seems excited to work with Jin again, and despite the five year age difference, they actually have quite a bit in common. That leads to drinks, and pick-up basketball games at the gym, and the occasional ‘how’s life?’ texts.
That's how Jin finds himself at Jason's luxurious Beverly Hills mansion, at a birthday party Jason's throwing for his new girlfriend. The place is packed, and Jin's having a good time, but it's a lot of people, and the drunker he gets, the harder it is too keep up with everyone's English. He’s brought Lizzy as his date, but she’s wandered off somewhere; she was hitting on some random Asian guy at the bar last time he saw her.
Jin finds an escape on the balcony, and he leans with a sigh against the rail, setting his tumbler of whiskey down on the table and pulling out his mostly empty pack of cigarettes.
He lights it, and as he inhales, he closes his eyes.
"Taking a break?" It's a low female voice, and when Jin opens his eyes, the alcohol makes it hard to focus on her. "I preferred being the only one out here."
"So sorry," Jin says. "I just needed some fresh air."
"Then why are you smoking?"
"It was a figure of speech," Jin replies, and then he tilts his chin up to look at the sky.
"It's a full moon," she says, after a few moments of silence. Jin looks at her again. She's wearing a red dress, and her legs go on for miles, and her hair is styled in this short and spiky cut that flatters her face. She's got a strong jaw, but it suits her. She's gorgeous, Jin thinks, and any other guy in Jin's position, single and a little drunk and not low on confidence, would be hitting on her right now.
But Jin's eyes inescapably wander back up to the moon. "It is a full moon," he says. "I love looking at the moon. It's so bright." It reminds Jin of sitting on the roof of the jimusho, Kame looking at the stars and Jin looking at Kame. It reminds Jin of Okinawa too, just him and Kame against the empty backdrop of the beach at night, moon so bright and clear overhead.
"Do you know the Greek myth?" The girl asks, and Jin shakes his head in the negative. "About Endymion and the Moon?"
It rings with vague familiarity in Jin's head, and he snaps his fingers. "Sailor Moon!" he says, and the girl throws her head back and laughs. "She's like the Moon Princess? And he's the prince of the Earth?"
"I did watch that as a kid," the girl replies. "But I mean the actual myth. In some versions, I think Endymion is a prince, but most of the times he's just a simple shepherd." Now she's leaning next to Jin against the railing, side by side. She grabs his smoke and takes a puff, pink-stained lips closing in a tight circle around Jin's cigarette. "One day he falls in love with the Moon. He thinks it's a hopeless love." She hands Jin back his cigarette, and he stares, bemusedly, at the lipstick marks.
"Falls in love?" Jin asks. "With the moon?"
"Ever heard of 'mooning' after someone? Daydreaming and pining?"
"No," Jin says. "I haven't. But I'll remember it."
"Don't bother," she says with a chuckle. "It's a little outdated." She spins around, then, so her elbows are resting on the railing instead of her back. "Anyway, Endymion and the Moon fall in love."
"The Moon is a person?"
"It's a myth, silly," she says, and now she's drinking from his tumbler, and Jin would draw a line in the sand but he's had enough to drink so it doesn't really matter. He feels easy and relaxed, like the summer night air is loosening his muscles or something.
"What's the point?" Jin asks. There might not be one; Jin's definitely had stranger conversations drunk, and he knows drunk musings don’t always have some kind of point.
"The way you were looking up at the sky," the woman says, and she sets Jin's whiskey back on the table and takes a step away from the railing. "You looked like a man who's fallen in love with the Moon."
She retreats then into the party, into the loud noises and flashing lights and drunken swaying, leaving Jin standing alone on the balcony, thoughts blowing through his mind like leaves in the autumn wind.
#
Jin’s dreams that night are vivid, starlight shining down on a pale face, grass under his back and a warm body pressed against his side.
“Let’s shine brighter together,” Jin says, in the dream, and then the body next to him is gone.
“We can’t,” Kame says. The smell of lemons. Moonlight.
When Jin wakes up, he’s cold.
#
There are many versions, passed down through tradition and in art and in epic poetry, about why Endymion slipped into an everlasting sleep.
The most romantic, by far, is the one that proclaims he loved the Moon so deeply and completely that he would do anything to stay in the light of that love-- even if it meant meeting only in his dreams.
#
Jin keeps crossing songs of the set list, and scribbling in new ones. ‘Paparats’ comes and goes six times, and Jin debates ‘Tipsy Love’ at least as often, drawing a line through it, and writing it back in.
Jin thinks maybe this set list is kind of like his life. He knows how he wants it to look in the end, but he doesn’t know which pieces he needs to get there.
He’s never been afraid of failure. Jin isn’t afraid of jumping from the top of the highest mountain and spreading his arms wide and finding out then and there if he can fly.
It’s what makes him strong. It’s also what makes him weak.
#
The sound of the doorbell is not totally out of the ordinary, Jin supposes, although his friends usually know better than to wake him up before four in the afternoon on a Sunday.
His head is pounding. His hangover is more wretched than usual, and his stomach is rolling. He’d had too much whiskey at Jason’s party last night, he thinks. Way too much. The last thing he wants to do right now is get out of bed and answer the door, since he's pretty sure he's just wearing last night's clothes and that he probably reeks of booze and cologne.
The doorbell rings again though, and Jin groans, grabbing his pillow up from the floor and smashing it into his face, inhaling the scent of fabric softener and enjoying the cool white cotton rubbing against his skin. Then he sighs and rolls over, blearily opening his eyes. The room swims into immediate focus, which means he's slept with his contacts in again, and he blinks a few times to clear the stickiness from his eyes, letting natural tears wet the lenses.
The clock by his bedside proclaims it to be a little after two in the afternoon in bright green numbers, glowing too bright for Jin in the darkness of his bedroom, where he keeps the curtains drawn to spare himself the more painful aspects of a hangover.
The doorbell chimes a third time, and Jin bellows "I'm coming," at the top of his lungs before he falls out of bed, slamming onto his elbow and swearing. The sheets come with him, and he untangles them as he stands, throwing them onto the bed before promptly tripping over his shoes, which he'd left by his bedroom door. He swears again, jerking open the door.
The wooden steps are cold under his bare feet, but it helps wake him up. The banister is slick under his hand as it glides along it, helping Jin balance.
He undoes the locks, turning the deadbolt with a steady twist of his wrist, and pulls the heavy oak door open.
The warm Los Angeles air rushes in, and it tickles at Jin's bangs, the shorter pieces that always obnoxiously fall into his eyes and make it harder for him to see. The light is almost unbearable, and Jin squints out into it, left hand coming up to scratch anxiously at his stomach.
The hand drops as Jin takes in the figure in front of him. "Kame?" he croaks out, feeling his eyes grow wider as he looks at him.
Jin would be lying if he said he wasn't more drinking Kame in, trying to wrap his mind around Kame in his impossibly crisp blazer and tastefully ripped jeans standing at Jin's door in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.
Jin suddenly feels self-conscious, tongue running over his unbrushed teeth and belatedly noticing the tight skin around his mouth that indicates he's probably got dried drool in a white circle around it. It’s not his sexiest moment, that’s for sure.
Then Kame clears his throat. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" Kame says, and his voice-- it's not quite the same as Jin remembers it. It's still got that soft, nasal quality to it, but there's something less sure about it, and Jin, even with his barely roused, alcohol-fogged mind, can hear that slight tremble.
It makes him open the door wider, to make room for Kame to walk past him and into the house.
Kame's carrying only a single duffle bag, and his eyes are obscured with large black sunglasses. Now that he's inside, in dimmer light, Jin can see that Kame hasn't shaved, and that Kame's nails are longer than he usually keeps them. Kame's lips are chapped and cracked, too, like Kame's been too preoccupied to even think of it.
If this were eight years ago, Jin would already have his arm around Kame's shoulder, pulling the man who once again looks too thin into his side, and tucking Kame's head beneath his own. Kame's soft breaths would blow lightly onto his neck as Jin took in the scent of Kame's hair as the strands tickled his nose.
But this isn't then, this is now, and all Jin can do is stick his hands anxiously into the pockets of his stiff jeans, and try and figure out if he had more to drink last night than he had thought.
"Can I get you some water?" Jin asks, more to fill the silence than to be polite. Also his own throat has become dry, and his chest is tight, and he needs... He doesn't know what he needs, but water is as good a start as anything.
"Yeah," Kame says, and it's more of a croak than a word.
"Sit down, or something," Jin says hurriedly, reaching over into Kame's space to slide Kame's bag off of his shoulder. Kame jumps when Jin's fingers press against him, and Jin feels that familiar electricity, even through the smooth, thick fabric of Kame's blazer. Jin quickly withdraws his hand, bringing the bag with him, setting it down next to the sofa as he retreats to the kitchen. "I swear my couches and chairs are clean. I try and keep my crazy upstairs."
Kame offers him a dry chuckle, and it makes Jin nervous. He doesn't know why his palms are sweating, really, because he's in his own house in his own territory, and just because he hasn't seen Kame in three years he's known him for over ten. Jin doesn't realize he's just standing there, staring, until Kame's tongue comes out and licks his lips nervously, and Kame looks down at Jin's hardwood floors.
It reminds Jin of when they were younger, when an unsure Kame would tuck his chin just like that, hair falling into his face and hiding his face from Jin's inquisitive gaze. It reminds Jin of a time when Kame wanted his reassurance.
"Right, water," Jin mumbles, and then he spins on his heel, walking purposefully toward the kitchen.
He keeps the water glasses on the drying rack, because he's too lazy to put them in the cabinet after he washes them. He grabs two, hands shaking slightly, standing them upright, and then he reaches for the refrigerator handle, to get out the water filter. He only makes it halfway there when he hears the tapping of Kame's shoes onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor.
Jin doesn't look up at Kame, just stares at his shoes; thick-heeled combat boots with laces only done up halfway, hasty knots holding them closed at the ankle. "Sorry," Kame whispers. "I wasn't sure if I should take off my shoes."
"It doesn't matter," Jin says, and he grabs the water filter from the refrigerator, filling two cups and handing one to Kame. Jin watches as Kame takes a slow sip, lips pressing tentatively against the glass. Kame's hand is shaking, Jin notices, and he wishes he hadn't, because it makes him worried. “Live the American Dream.”
He hasn't worried about Kame in a long time, and he's not sure if it's good for him to start again now. He's worked so hard to push those kinds of feelings as deep as they'll go, to hide them, bury them, somewhere inside of himself so he doesn't have to see them. Because those feelings… they just make Jin confused. Kame just makes Jin confused, in general, because Jin doesn’t understand the rolling in his gut and the way his tongue feels thick around Kame. He never has.
Jin takes a sip of his own water, and immediately sighs in relief. He should probably root up some aspirin, too, for the pounding in his head, but he still feels a little tipsy and knows he shouldn't mix the two. He closes his eyes to savor the way the cool liquid soothes his stomach, trying to focus on that instead of the fact that Kamenashi Kazuya is in Los Angeles, standing in Jin's kitchen with his shoes on, making all these feelings he's managed to avoid thinking about for years start bubbling and churning under the surface of his skin.
"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here?" Kame queries, setting his empty glass down on the island countertop in the center of the kitchen. His hand stays wrapped around the glass, though, and the other hand is at his hip, thumb sliding into a belt loop.
Kame looks scared, Jin thinks, and defensive, and tired. He looks so tired.
Jin considers, for a moment, all the things that could have brought Kame here, to him, after all this time. But then he realizes it doesn't really matter.
"I told you once," Jin says, turning around and putting his glass into the sink. "That if you needed me, for anything, I'd be there for you." Jin turns on the hot water, letting it run into the glass. Watching the steam makes him want a cigarette. "It doesn't matter when I said it," Jin continues. "I still meant it. Mean it." He does. He always will.
"I was hoping you might," Kame replies softly.
Jin shuts off the water, wiping his hands on his shirt and wincing at the smell of beer that wafts up. "So, I figure whatever has brought you here, to me of all people," and then Jin's mouth fumbles, because he doesn't really speak Japanese all that often anymore. "You can, you know, tell me later. Or not. Or whatever."
"Or whatever?" Kame says, and Jin can see faint hints of a smile pulling at Kame's thin mouth. "You always did forget your lyrics." Kame runs a hand through his hair, and Jin wishes Kame would take off his sunglasses. He feels like a hypocrite even thinking that, but he wants to see the expression in Kame's eyes. He wants a hint of what Kame might be thinking. As to why Kame flew halfway around the world to see Jin. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're forgetting your own language."
"Shut up," Jin mumbles, closing his eyes and leaning back against the sink. "I need to shower."
"True," Kame says, and Jin opens his eyes again to look at him.
"I wasn't expecting company," Jin defends, restlessly ruffling his own hair. His nails feel soothing on his scalp.
"Sorry," Kame says. "I would have called, but...I didn't really know I was coming here until I was, you know, coming here." Kame shifts uneasily, looking out Jin's kitchen window to his courtyard. He rolls his shoulders, and Jin wonders how long ago he'd even gotten off the plane. "This is a nice place."
"I love it," Jin says. "There's so much space. It's beautiful."
"Don't complement your own house, Akanishi," Kame says, but there's not any chiding in his voice. It's like he's saying it out of habit, but Jin and Kame haven't had anything resembling a casual conversation since 2009.
"I meant Los Angeles, Kame," Jin snaps back, and then scowls playfully even as his chest constricts. The expression feels foreign on his face, and maybe it's because he and Kame...it hasn't been like this for so long that Jin's forgotten what it felt like, to talk with Kame about something that isn’t work. Maybe just to talk with Kame at all.
"So I’m still Kame?" Kame muses, and Jin feels a blush rising up his neck, and he wants to slap his hands to his cheeks because he's twenty-eight years old and acting nervous around Kame is embarrassing.
"Are you staying?" Jin blurts out, and then he shuffles his weight from foot to foot. "I mean, here. In my house. Here."
Kame's hands slide up to his face, and he slides his sunglasses off his face, folding then carefully before hanging them from the neck of his shirt. Then he looks up and their gazes lock for the first time.
Kame's eyes are red, and underneath they're puffy, like it's been ages since Kame's slept. Without the glasses, Jin can see just how hollow Kame's face is-- thin in a way Jin hasn't seen since Nobuta, when he'd maybe been worried that Kame would waste away to nothing. "Would that be okay?" Kame asks, and the tension in the room is so thick that Jin feels like he can barely breathe.
Kame is...Kame is looking at him the same way he did when he was fifteen, asking Jin if it was okay if he shared his futon, because it was too cold at night. Like he's afraid Jin is going to say no. Like he's afraid Jin is going to laugh at him and make him go away. Like Jin is going to reject him.
Jin finds himself just as incapable of doing those things now as he's always been. The feelings bubble faster and faster, and Jin wonders if his skin can contain them.
"Yeah," Jin says, and it's more an exhalation than an utterance. "Of course that would be okay." He feels like his chest is so tight his heart doesn't have any space to beat, and his hands are gripping the countertop behind him so tightly that it hurts, digging into his palm and making his knuckles ache. "Of course you can."
Kame's disbelieving smile, edged with relief and something else Jin can't quite figure out, bleeds into Jin, and makes him feel a little, strangely, like his heart is melting.
#
That night, for the first time in a year, Jin dreams of the beach.
The air smells of salt and sea, and in the night, the breeze is crisp. The sand is cool and textured beneath him, digging in to the soles of his feet as he walks barefoot along the ocean's edge. The waves lap at his feet, pushed and pulled by the tide.
The moon is bright and full in the sky above them.
There's a figure, down the shore, waving to him frantically. A young boy, just a little younger than Jin himself, hair wild from the wind and grin lighting up the night. Jin feels his heart skip a beat.
Jin starts running toward the boy, sand flying up and sticking to his calves, and getting trapped under the rolled cuffs of his jeans.
But then the boy starts running too, and Jin can't catch him, Jin can't keep up. No matter how much he runs, the boy is always out of reach.
The boy, Kame, is laughing, and laughing, and Jin tries to make him out but the moonlight on the water is reflecting into his eyes and Jin can't see.
He can't see anything at all.
Jin blinks, and suddenly he can see, and it's his ceiling, beige and boring, and he can touch, but all his hands can grasp is the soft cotton of his sheets and the sweaty fabric of his t-shirt.
Jin licks dry lips, and his pulse is racing.
"Why are you here, Kame?" Jin whispers into his empty bedroom.
There's no answer for him.
“Fuck.”
#
First Quarter
Pairing: Kame/Jin
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Jin dreams of the moon, over and over and over again.
Jin's dreams are fleeting, not made up of solid or concrete images.
Sometimes, just the simple blooming of a night flower, petals unfolding in the moonlight, or fireflies flitting about in the air, tiny beacons in the dark of the evening. Sometimes it’s the stars, glowing ethereal from thousands upon thousands of kilometers up in the sky, looking, deceivingly, close enough to touch. Sometimes it's a smell, like freshly cut grass or the sweet scent of citron.
Sometimes, it's the soft touch of a square palm on his arm, or the lacing of short, strong fingers through his own, or maybe a laughing mouth releasing a giggle that's followed with a hiccup, or a brush of cotton against the skin of his calf. The ephemeral press of lips on the skin of his neck.
No matter what, though, Jin always, always, dreams of the moon.
#
"Jin, honey, are you doing okay?" Jin's mom sounds tinny through the phone. "I saw the YouTube link you sent yesterday, of that interview you did for your movie, and you look so thin."
"I'm fine, Mom," Jin says, rolling his eyes and smiling. "And yes, I'm eating. We even cooked yesterday, instead of me ordering take-out and camping in front of the TV."
Jin digs in his pocket for his car keys, and smirks triumphantly when he finds them. He holds the phone between his chin and his shoulder as he opens the door to the passenger side, and sets his bag and his lunch on the floor.
"Who is 'we'? Do you finally have a girlfriend?"
Jin laughs loudly into the phone. "I don't have a girlfriend, Mom. Dom was over, and we made macaroni and cheese."
Jin's walked around to the driver's side and climbed into the car, and now he's sliding the key into the ignition so he can turn on the air. It's the hottest part of summer, after all, and he's starting to sweat in the heat. It's not humid though-- he likes that about Los Angeles weather.
"A handsome boy like you, with no girlfriend. You know, Jin, if you want to date a nice American girl, your father and I won't mind--"
"Mom!" Jin says, with a sound somewhere between a screech and a chuckle, and his mom is laughing too. "I don't have time right now. The movie comes out in like, five months, and promotions are going to be insane. Plus putting together the concert and concert rehearsals…"
"I can't wait to see your movie," Jin's mom gushes, and Jin grins wide. "I know you'll be good, baby."
"You'd think it was good if I sneezed on camera for an hour," Jin says wryly, but he's pleased.
"Well, yes, you're my son," she says. "Pisuke came over for dinner last night, by the way. He has a girlfriend, despite his busy career."
"Does he?" Jin asks. He probably owes Yamapi a call, anyway. He hasn't talked to his best friend in almost a month beyond scattered emails, thanks to both their schedules and time zones.
"Don't you keep up with anything in Japan?" his mom chides, and Jin sheepishly tugs on his baseball cap. He leans back in the seat, relaxing. He can't drive and talk at the same time, anyway, so he might as well be comfortable.
"Yeah," Jin says vaguely. "Friends and stuff. Pi and Yuu and Ryo-chan. Josh is doing alright, too."
"KAT-TUN's new single is doing well," Jin's mom says after a moment's pause.
"That's... good," Jin says, and he means it, even if it feels awkward, still, to talk about a KAT-TUN that doesn't involve him.
It's not that he misses it. Well, he does. He misses some parts of it, and he didn’t hate anyone, not by a long shot; KAT-TUN was a big part of his childhood and early adulthood. He owes his opportunities now to KAT-TUN, too, and he knows that. But. It's not weird to talk about it because of that.
It's just he hasn't talked to any of them in a long time. He stayed in touch, for a while, with Nakamaru, but the more Jin's life moved over to the United States, the less he tried.
There's a weird sense of melancholy that still washes over him, when he hears about them. He doesn't miss being a part of KAT-TUN, but he misses KAT-TUN all the same. Not actively, but a little part of his heart twinges at times like these. The feeling of Koki's hand slapping too hard into his back, or of Nakamaru giving him that look when he was being exceptionally stupid. Ueda's joking derision and Junno's bad puns. Kamenashi... They’d been soldiers in the same war for such a long time.
"You should find out how they're doing," Jin's mom says, after a minute passes with neither of them speaking. "I wish you would tell me what happened with you and Kame-chan."
"That's alright," Jin says. "I don't need to talk to them." Jin huffs. "And I've told you time and again that nothing happened with me and Kamenashi." Jin feels the usual tightness in his gut at the other man's name, but he ignores it, closing his eyes. "People grow up. People change. People grow apart. That's all."
"Okay, Jin," his mom replies, but he can't help but think she doesn't believe him.
"How's Reio?" Jin asks, and his mom lets him change the subject.
When he hangs up the phone, he throws it into the passenger seat and grabs his plastic sunglasses from the dashboard, putting them on and then shifting the car into drive.
The whole way home, his mind keeps drifting.
He doesn't have to care how they're doing, he convinces himself. They're selling records without him, and he's doing his thing here. Everything's fine.
They're just chasing different dreams these days, and that's fine. It's all fine. The feeling in his chest is nostalgia, that's all. Fond memories, or something.
Jin's made a new life for himself, and he's happy.
#
Recorded myths tell the tale of a man named Endymion, who had the misfortune of falling in love with the moon, high up in the night sky and so far from his reach that he couldn't imagine crossing the distance.
The moon came out, every night, to visit that shepherd, and Endymion only fell deeper and deeper into love.
And it is because of love that he fell asleep, endless sleep, so that he might remain beautiful and in love forever.
He's still sleeping now, it's said, although there's debate as to where. There's debate over most of the legend, to be sure; whether he was a shepherd or a king, whether it was Zeus who put him to sleep, or Hypnos in a fit of jealousy.
But regardless of ‘where’s or ‘when’s, "to sleep the sleep of Endymion" is to dream of love for eternity.
#
“Jin, have you picked out the songs for the first set yet?” Dom asks, leaning back in his swivel chair and spinning. “I’m so excited to hit the road with you again. Last time was so much fun!”
“Oh hell, I don’t even know. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to include any of the old songs in the sets or not.” Jin scratches his cheek with delicate nails. “I dunno what to do. I’ve got to include some of them, I guess—one full length album isn’t enough to support a concert, right?” A huge concert. The venues will be as big as his Japanese venues, this time. It’s got to be a better show.
“Sure it is, but you should at least include the ones that were on the mini-album you released in Japan. Sometimes I think more Americans bought that than Japanese people.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jin says. “I just want it to be perfect.”
“Nothing is perfect, Jin. All you can do is your best. Sing the songs you want to sing. Do what you’ve been doing, it seems to be working.”
“Define ‘working,’” Jin says. “I’m kind of worried people are more fascinated with my bizarre past than they are with my music.”
“Well, you’re kinda fighting an uphill battle, dude. And a long Google search history of pics of you in drag holding hands with men.”
“Shut up,” Jin says, grabbing his coke off the table and snagging the straw between his lips. “I can’t believe that was on TMZ.”
“It was awesome,” Dom crows. “Even if they couldn’t even say Akakame right.”
Jin’s mouth falls into a frown. “Whatever. That’s my old life.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘old life,’ Jin. You’ve only got one life, and Japan, KAT-TUN, was a big part of it, whether you want it to follow you here or not.”
“Yeah,” Jin says, slurping soda. “I don’t want to forget it,” Jin says. Sometimes, though, thinking about people he’s left behind, people he can’t talk to anymore… it just makes him hurt. “I’ve just got some things I’d rather not have keep coming up.”
“Like Akakame?” Dom asks, and Jin closes his eyes, leaning back against his own chair.
“Yeah,” Jin replies. Like Akakame.
#
“Akakame,” Ueda barks, and Jin and Kame jump in their huddled conference about a prank they’re plotting for Nakamaru. Kame’s face is shining with mischief. “Whatever terrible, unacceptable thing you’re plotting together-- that will probably result in my misery and despair-- it can wait until later.”
“We have our own nickname now,” Kame says. “Akakame.”
“I like it,” Jin says shyly, and Kame’s smile reflects in Jin’s eyes like moonlight.
#
Jin dreams of honeysuckle, the sweet scent wafting into Jin’s nose when he opens the window to look out upon the night.
It tickles his nose, and he knows how the flowers taste on his tongue, grade school curiosity leading to stamens in his mouth as he tests the flower’s taste.
Jin takes a deep breath, and gazes down at the vines of them, growing up along the fence in Jin’s back yard. They glow in the light of the moon, and instead of flowers, they look like stars.
#
Jin is drinking coffee as he sits on the edge of the stage. Dom is sitting next to him, with his own latte, and Aubree and Lizzy are stretching behind them, occasionally shouting lewd things at one of the new male dancers on the tour. Jin was lucky to get the three of them again—he didn’t think it would work out but the stars had aligned. Working with good friends is never a chore, and now that Jin’s starting to get more successful, his tour is a little bigger, a little louder. It’s nice to have familiar faces amongst all the new ones.
“You decide on your set lists?”
Jin’s hand slides into his pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of lined paper from his notebook. “Yeah, I think so,” Jin says, and he hands Dom the list. “What do you think?”
“Looks solid,” Dom says, after he peruses the list and hands it back to Jin. “Varied.”
“Ah, I’m still not sure,” Jin says. “But I am sure about all the debut album stuff, so we can just choreo and rehearse those numbers first.”
“Just go with your gut, man,” Dom tells him, and Jin winces.
“Dude, this is the Staples Center. If I make a boring show, there will be four times as many people to disappoint.”
“Woah, who replaced you with Nancy Negative? You’ll be fine.”
Aubree squeals, and Jin leans his head back, bending so he’s upside down to eye them.
Dom sets his empty cup down between them as Jin watches Lizzy and Aubree with a smile. “Do you like either of them?” Dom asks. “I always wondered, you know. If you did.”
“What?” Jin asks. “No, it’s not like that.” Jin awkwardly kicks his legs out in front of him like a toddler in a high chair. Jin’s not suave, or cool, and he never knows what he can say when people ask him these kinds of questions that doesn’t sound offensive.
“Why not?” Dom asks. “Is it because they’re not Japanese, or something?” Dom looks like he doesn’t even see that as a viable reason, not with Jin, who embraces all things American with open arms
“Of course not,” Jin replies. “That’s not it at all. It’s just…” It’s hard to explain, Jin thinks, what attracts you to people. What makes you want to… to hold someone’s hand, to be closer to them than you are to anyone else. What makes them as important to you as the air.
Jin can’t help but remember Kame’s face, when Jin told him that he was going to be making his solo stuff permanent. That he wasn’t going to be coming back to KAT-TUN. He still remembers the way Kame’s faced had smoothed, become blank and unreadable and detached. Still remembers the words he said. The way Kame had disappeared and Kamenashi, the consummate professional, had taken Kame’s place. Jin had wanted to gather him close and tell Kame that leaving the group didn’t mean leaving Kame, wanted to tell Kame that it was going to be hard but…
“Ah,” Dom says, stretching his arms above his head. “I get it.”
“Get what?” Jin asks, and Dom smiles knowingly. Jin looks down and examines his nails, the way they dig into the denim of his jeans as his hands clench his thighs.
“Jin, shouldn’t you be practicing, too?” Aubree shouts over at him playfully.
“I’m not going to forget the words again, so chill out,” Jin shouts back, and he squeezes his eyes shut to wet his contacts before he looks back at the girls.
“What are you guys talking about over here, all serious and stuff?” Lizzy asks, bouncing over with Aubree in tow. “Jin looks like he just saw himself in sparkly pleather pants and feathers on Perez.”
“Fuck you, too,” Jin says, and Lizzy snickers.
“We’re talking about love,” Dom says. Lizzy claps her hands in delight and Aubree furrows her brow, looking back and forth between Dom and Jin
“Have you ever been in love, Jin?” Aubree sounds curious, and teasing.
“Not yet,” Jin says, standing up. He doesn’t want to think about it. “Don’t we have a concert to rehearse for?”
“Thought you weren’t going to forget the words?”
“Never hurts to practice once more, just in case,” Jin replies, and then he grabs a mic. “No second chances once the show starts.”
#
"Jin, try and remember the lyrics this time," Koki says, his face quirked into a half-smile as Jin sheepishly pulls his hair back from his face in a bizarre approximation of a ponytail. He can still feel the shorter pieces tickling the back of his neck, wet with Jin's sweat. A bead of moisture slowly crawls down the middle of his back, and Jin pulls his shoulders forward, tightening the fabric of his shirt across his back to catch it.
The air is stale, and Jin wishes there was a window to open, but of course there isn't-- Johnny wouldn't want to do anything to make rehearsal rooms look less like jail cells, Jin figures. That would probably make them all less productive, and more likely to smoke during practice.
Jin itches for a cigarette, at the moment; not particularly for the nicotine, but more for the familiar weight of the cigarette on his lower lip, and the reassuring heat of the smoke filling his lungs and bleeding out of his nose. It stings. Jin likes that.
But instead of trying to convince Ueda to let him take five minutes to go up to the roof and have a smoke, he leans back against the wall, sliding down it until his butt hits the floor. The wall feels cool against the heated skin of his shoulders and arms, and it help with the tiny niggling beginnings of a headache that tease at him.
"Every time you forget, it's one more time we have to run through it," Nakamaru says, but there's nothing angry or heated in his tone. Just statement of a fact, one Jin knows all too well. He looks at Koki's hunched form and knows he's tired. They're all tired. Even Junno is drooping, his seemingly boundless energy almost depleted, and Jin feels something like guilt coil in his stomach, even though he knows he's giving it his best.
Jin rolls his neck, loosening the kinks in his muscles. They've been here for hours, dancing, rehearsing. They're too young to mess up, too new. They're just debuting. This is their first single. "Sorry," Jin says, scratching his neck. "I'm trying."
"We know," Kame says, and Jin turns his head to the left to take in Kame, who sits against the glass on the other side of the room, body curled around itself, arms locked around his knees. "Of course you are."
He looks so damn small. He's so thin Jin can see his ribs, even through the ribbed fabric of his tank shirt, and his wrists look so slender Jin wonders if he'll break. They don't have time to break. That's what makes Jin feel the guiltiest of all.
Kame looks up at him, eyes piercing, and Jin can see the shadows beneath his eyes, the color of plums hanging heavy from the branches at the end of summer.
"Shall we go again?" Kame's voice, nasal and sharp, sits in the air like a command. Kame's not their leader, but he's always leading these days. Jin's not sure when it switched, when Kame stopped following Jin and Jin stopped trying to lead him. But now, sometimes, Jin doesn't even realize that he's following Kame. Jin wonders if he would follow Kame right off a cliff, and not even realize it until he feels himself hurtling off the edge.
"Alright!" Junno says, putting his left hand up in a fist, like he's preparing for war. Ueda nods, and he's already standing, running a hand through his sweaty hair and dropping the other hand down, thumb tangling in the cotton string tightening his shorts around his hips.
"Yes," Ueda says, pressing his lips flat together. "Again."
Jin mouths the words to himself as he too stands, and when his eyes flick back over to Kame, the younger man is smiling at him softly.
The way the light hits him, he looks almost unearthly, and Jin wonders if he reaches down and touches, if his hand will pass right through; if Kame, this small thin shell of what used to be Kame, is nothing but air and illusion.
So Jin does reach down, to offer a hand up, and the hand that grasps his own is far from fragile. Kame's grip is far from weak, and the tension of muscle is obvious when Kame effortlessly lets Jin drag him to his feet. Jin's hand tingles at the touch. Something about Kame makes it hard for Jin to let go of that bony hand, so he pulls it, him closer to Jin.
"I got them, this time," Jin says, quiet and fierce. Kame's heat, steady and familiar at his side, makes Jin feel more sure. Ueda clears his throat, and Koki cracks another sideways grin.
"Yeah, it's okay, really Jin. You'll get it." Then Koki turns on that big, wide, irrepressible grin and winks at Jin, smug like a kitten about to get away with something. "It's not your fault your head is so empty."
"Shut up," Jin mumbles, and crosses his arms, catching his elbows with his hands. Kame comes to stand beside him, and leans slightly against him, pressing into Jin's side just enough that Jin can feel the warmth of Kame's sweaty skin. Jin looks down at him, and Kame is looking straight ahead, Kame's tongue flicking out to lick at chapped, cracked lips. He's quiet.
It's Kame's way, lately, to be quiet instead of silly. To be strong instead of vulnerable. Jin doesn't know why it has changed, only that it has.
"It's okay, Jin," Ueda says. "You're still pretty." Ueda is examining his glossy nails as he speaks, a tiny smirk on his face.
"I've got it now," Jin says with a pout. He runs the words through his head one more time. Kame pulls away, and Jin turns to look at him again. This time Kame meets his eyes.
There, in Kame's steady gaze, Jin can see the flashing stage lights, the heavy roar of the audience, the burn in his muscles from running and jumping and dancing. He can feel the words ripping from his throat, sweet and hot, and that burns too.
Kame smiles, and Jin wonders if Kame can see the same thing when he looks at Jin-- the fruit of secrets and furtive promises whispered against soft cheeks as they huddled under heavy blankets, hands linked, pressed together shoulder to elbow.
He wonders if Kame can taste victory along the edges of his tongue every time they perform, like Jin can, or if he remembers when they were so young and hungry and their dreams curled like cigarette smoke up to the sky-- dreams of concerts and debuts and being famous.
When Kame blinks, it breaks Jin's thought process, and the world comes back into focus. Nakamaru is shoving Junno, who is chuckling madly with a self-satisfied grin on his face, and Ueda is glaring at them both as Koki starts needling him.
Kame's still got a tiny grin on his drawn face, and Jin thinks Kame knows what he's thinking. He always has.
The reason Jin can't remember the words isn't because Jin is stupid, or forgetful, or because he’s empty-headed. Jin isn't any of those things, anyway, so they wouldn't be the cause of his problem.
It's just that Jin's always had his head so stuffed full of dreams there isn't really room for much of anything else.
Jin gets it perfect, the next time. “Let’s do it once more,” Kame says, smiling at Jin. “No second chances once the show starts.”
#
Jin dreams of warm moonlight tickling his eyelids. Of the touch of calloused fingers against his brow and a low voice telling him it’s time to wake up.
But when he opens his eyes, it’s day, and Jin is alone.
#
Jin never expects to become friends with Jason Derulo beyond their casual working relationship. But when it comes time to work on his second U.S. album, Jason seems excited to work with Jin again, and despite the five year age difference, they actually have quite a bit in common. That leads to drinks, and pick-up basketball games at the gym, and the occasional ‘how’s life?’ texts.
That's how Jin finds himself at Jason's luxurious Beverly Hills mansion, at a birthday party Jason's throwing for his new girlfriend. The place is packed, and Jin's having a good time, but it's a lot of people, and the drunker he gets, the harder it is too keep up with everyone's English. He’s brought Lizzy as his date, but she’s wandered off somewhere; she was hitting on some random Asian guy at the bar last time he saw her.
Jin finds an escape on the balcony, and he leans with a sigh against the rail, setting his tumbler of whiskey down on the table and pulling out his mostly empty pack of cigarettes.
He lights it, and as he inhales, he closes his eyes.
"Taking a break?" It's a low female voice, and when Jin opens his eyes, the alcohol makes it hard to focus on her. "I preferred being the only one out here."
"So sorry," Jin says. "I just needed some fresh air."
"Then why are you smoking?"
"It was a figure of speech," Jin replies, and then he tilts his chin up to look at the sky.
"It's a full moon," she says, after a few moments of silence. Jin looks at her again. She's wearing a red dress, and her legs go on for miles, and her hair is styled in this short and spiky cut that flatters her face. She's got a strong jaw, but it suits her. She's gorgeous, Jin thinks, and any other guy in Jin's position, single and a little drunk and not low on confidence, would be hitting on her right now.
But Jin's eyes inescapably wander back up to the moon. "It is a full moon," he says. "I love looking at the moon. It's so bright." It reminds Jin of sitting on the roof of the jimusho, Kame looking at the stars and Jin looking at Kame. It reminds Jin of Okinawa too, just him and Kame against the empty backdrop of the beach at night, moon so bright and clear overhead.
"Do you know the Greek myth?" The girl asks, and Jin shakes his head in the negative. "About Endymion and the Moon?"
It rings with vague familiarity in Jin's head, and he snaps his fingers. "Sailor Moon!" he says, and the girl throws her head back and laughs. "She's like the Moon Princess? And he's the prince of the Earth?"
"I did watch that as a kid," the girl replies. "But I mean the actual myth. In some versions, I think Endymion is a prince, but most of the times he's just a simple shepherd." Now she's leaning next to Jin against the railing, side by side. She grabs his smoke and takes a puff, pink-stained lips closing in a tight circle around Jin's cigarette. "One day he falls in love with the Moon. He thinks it's a hopeless love." She hands Jin back his cigarette, and he stares, bemusedly, at the lipstick marks.
"Falls in love?" Jin asks. "With the moon?"
"Ever heard of 'mooning' after someone? Daydreaming and pining?"
"No," Jin says. "I haven't. But I'll remember it."
"Don't bother," she says with a chuckle. "It's a little outdated." She spins around, then, so her elbows are resting on the railing instead of her back. "Anyway, Endymion and the Moon fall in love."
"The Moon is a person?"
"It's a myth, silly," she says, and now she's drinking from his tumbler, and Jin would draw a line in the sand but he's had enough to drink so it doesn't really matter. He feels easy and relaxed, like the summer night air is loosening his muscles or something.
"What's the point?" Jin asks. There might not be one; Jin's definitely had stranger conversations drunk, and he knows drunk musings don’t always have some kind of point.
"The way you were looking up at the sky," the woman says, and she sets Jin's whiskey back on the table and takes a step away from the railing. "You looked like a man who's fallen in love with the Moon."
She retreats then into the party, into the loud noises and flashing lights and drunken swaying, leaving Jin standing alone on the balcony, thoughts blowing through his mind like leaves in the autumn wind.
#
Jin’s dreams that night are vivid, starlight shining down on a pale face, grass under his back and a warm body pressed against his side.
“Let’s shine brighter together,” Jin says, in the dream, and then the body next to him is gone.
“We can’t,” Kame says. The smell of lemons. Moonlight.
When Jin wakes up, he’s cold.
#
There are many versions, passed down through tradition and in art and in epic poetry, about why Endymion slipped into an everlasting sleep.
The most romantic, by far, is the one that proclaims he loved the Moon so deeply and completely that he would do anything to stay in the light of that love-- even if it meant meeting only in his dreams.
#
Jin keeps crossing songs of the set list, and scribbling in new ones. ‘Paparats’ comes and goes six times, and Jin debates ‘Tipsy Love’ at least as often, drawing a line through it, and writing it back in.
Jin thinks maybe this set list is kind of like his life. He knows how he wants it to look in the end, but he doesn’t know which pieces he needs to get there.
He’s never been afraid of failure. Jin isn’t afraid of jumping from the top of the highest mountain and spreading his arms wide and finding out then and there if he can fly.
It’s what makes him strong. It’s also what makes him weak.
#
The sound of the doorbell is not totally out of the ordinary, Jin supposes, although his friends usually know better than to wake him up before four in the afternoon on a Sunday.
His head is pounding. His hangover is more wretched than usual, and his stomach is rolling. He’d had too much whiskey at Jason’s party last night, he thinks. Way too much. The last thing he wants to do right now is get out of bed and answer the door, since he's pretty sure he's just wearing last night's clothes and that he probably reeks of booze and cologne.
The doorbell rings again though, and Jin groans, grabbing his pillow up from the floor and smashing it into his face, inhaling the scent of fabric softener and enjoying the cool white cotton rubbing against his skin. Then he sighs and rolls over, blearily opening his eyes. The room swims into immediate focus, which means he's slept with his contacts in again, and he blinks a few times to clear the stickiness from his eyes, letting natural tears wet the lenses.
The clock by his bedside proclaims it to be a little after two in the afternoon in bright green numbers, glowing too bright for Jin in the darkness of his bedroom, where he keeps the curtains drawn to spare himself the more painful aspects of a hangover.
The doorbell chimes a third time, and Jin bellows "I'm coming," at the top of his lungs before he falls out of bed, slamming onto his elbow and swearing. The sheets come with him, and he untangles them as he stands, throwing them onto the bed before promptly tripping over his shoes, which he'd left by his bedroom door. He swears again, jerking open the door.
The wooden steps are cold under his bare feet, but it helps wake him up. The banister is slick under his hand as it glides along it, helping Jin balance.
He undoes the locks, turning the deadbolt with a steady twist of his wrist, and pulls the heavy oak door open.
The warm Los Angeles air rushes in, and it tickles at Jin's bangs, the shorter pieces that always obnoxiously fall into his eyes and make it harder for him to see. The light is almost unbearable, and Jin squints out into it, left hand coming up to scratch anxiously at his stomach.
The hand drops as Jin takes in the figure in front of him. "Kame?" he croaks out, feeling his eyes grow wider as he looks at him.
Jin would be lying if he said he wasn't more drinking Kame in, trying to wrap his mind around Kame in his impossibly crisp blazer and tastefully ripped jeans standing at Jin's door in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.
Jin suddenly feels self-conscious, tongue running over his unbrushed teeth and belatedly noticing the tight skin around his mouth that indicates he's probably got dried drool in a white circle around it. It’s not his sexiest moment, that’s for sure.
Then Kame clears his throat. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" Kame says, and his voice-- it's not quite the same as Jin remembers it. It's still got that soft, nasal quality to it, but there's something less sure about it, and Jin, even with his barely roused, alcohol-fogged mind, can hear that slight tremble.
It makes him open the door wider, to make room for Kame to walk past him and into the house.
Kame's carrying only a single duffle bag, and his eyes are obscured with large black sunglasses. Now that he's inside, in dimmer light, Jin can see that Kame hasn't shaved, and that Kame's nails are longer than he usually keeps them. Kame's lips are chapped and cracked, too, like Kame's been too preoccupied to even think of it.
If this were eight years ago, Jin would already have his arm around Kame's shoulder, pulling the man who once again looks too thin into his side, and tucking Kame's head beneath his own. Kame's soft breaths would blow lightly onto his neck as Jin took in the scent of Kame's hair as the strands tickled his nose.
But this isn't then, this is now, and all Jin can do is stick his hands anxiously into the pockets of his stiff jeans, and try and figure out if he had more to drink last night than he had thought.
"Can I get you some water?" Jin asks, more to fill the silence than to be polite. Also his own throat has become dry, and his chest is tight, and he needs... He doesn't know what he needs, but water is as good a start as anything.
"Yeah," Kame says, and it's more of a croak than a word.
"Sit down, or something," Jin says hurriedly, reaching over into Kame's space to slide Kame's bag off of his shoulder. Kame jumps when Jin's fingers press against him, and Jin feels that familiar electricity, even through the smooth, thick fabric of Kame's blazer. Jin quickly withdraws his hand, bringing the bag with him, setting it down next to the sofa as he retreats to the kitchen. "I swear my couches and chairs are clean. I try and keep my crazy upstairs."
Kame offers him a dry chuckle, and it makes Jin nervous. He doesn't know why his palms are sweating, really, because he's in his own house in his own territory, and just because he hasn't seen Kame in three years he's known him for over ten. Jin doesn't realize he's just standing there, staring, until Kame's tongue comes out and licks his lips nervously, and Kame looks down at Jin's hardwood floors.
It reminds Jin of when they were younger, when an unsure Kame would tuck his chin just like that, hair falling into his face and hiding his face from Jin's inquisitive gaze. It reminds Jin of a time when Kame wanted his reassurance.
"Right, water," Jin mumbles, and then he spins on his heel, walking purposefully toward the kitchen.
He keeps the water glasses on the drying rack, because he's too lazy to put them in the cabinet after he washes them. He grabs two, hands shaking slightly, standing them upright, and then he reaches for the refrigerator handle, to get out the water filter. He only makes it halfway there when he hears the tapping of Kame's shoes onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor.
Jin doesn't look up at Kame, just stares at his shoes; thick-heeled combat boots with laces only done up halfway, hasty knots holding them closed at the ankle. "Sorry," Kame whispers. "I wasn't sure if I should take off my shoes."
"It doesn't matter," Jin says, and he grabs the water filter from the refrigerator, filling two cups and handing one to Kame. Jin watches as Kame takes a slow sip, lips pressing tentatively against the glass. Kame's hand is shaking, Jin notices, and he wishes he hadn't, because it makes him worried. “Live the American Dream.”
He hasn't worried about Kame in a long time, and he's not sure if it's good for him to start again now. He's worked so hard to push those kinds of feelings as deep as they'll go, to hide them, bury them, somewhere inside of himself so he doesn't have to see them. Because those feelings… they just make Jin confused. Kame just makes Jin confused, in general, because Jin doesn’t understand the rolling in his gut and the way his tongue feels thick around Kame. He never has.
Jin takes a sip of his own water, and immediately sighs in relief. He should probably root up some aspirin, too, for the pounding in his head, but he still feels a little tipsy and knows he shouldn't mix the two. He closes his eyes to savor the way the cool liquid soothes his stomach, trying to focus on that instead of the fact that Kamenashi Kazuya is in Los Angeles, standing in Jin's kitchen with his shoes on, making all these feelings he's managed to avoid thinking about for years start bubbling and churning under the surface of his skin.
"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here?" Kame queries, setting his empty glass down on the island countertop in the center of the kitchen. His hand stays wrapped around the glass, though, and the other hand is at his hip, thumb sliding into a belt loop.
Kame looks scared, Jin thinks, and defensive, and tired. He looks so tired.
Jin considers, for a moment, all the things that could have brought Kame here, to him, after all this time. But then he realizes it doesn't really matter.
"I told you once," Jin says, turning around and putting his glass into the sink. "That if you needed me, for anything, I'd be there for you." Jin turns on the hot water, letting it run into the glass. Watching the steam makes him want a cigarette. "It doesn't matter when I said it," Jin continues. "I still meant it. Mean it." He does. He always will.
"I was hoping you might," Kame replies softly.
Jin shuts off the water, wiping his hands on his shirt and wincing at the smell of beer that wafts up. "So, I figure whatever has brought you here, to me of all people," and then Jin's mouth fumbles, because he doesn't really speak Japanese all that often anymore. "You can, you know, tell me later. Or not. Or whatever."
"Or whatever?" Kame says, and Jin can see faint hints of a smile pulling at Kame's thin mouth. "You always did forget your lyrics." Kame runs a hand through his hair, and Jin wishes Kame would take off his sunglasses. He feels like a hypocrite even thinking that, but he wants to see the expression in Kame's eyes. He wants a hint of what Kame might be thinking. As to why Kame flew halfway around the world to see Jin. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're forgetting your own language."
"Shut up," Jin mumbles, closing his eyes and leaning back against the sink. "I need to shower."
"True," Kame says, and Jin opens his eyes again to look at him.
"I wasn't expecting company," Jin defends, restlessly ruffling his own hair. His nails feel soothing on his scalp.
"Sorry," Kame says. "I would have called, but...I didn't really know I was coming here until I was, you know, coming here." Kame shifts uneasily, looking out Jin's kitchen window to his courtyard. He rolls his shoulders, and Jin wonders how long ago he'd even gotten off the plane. "This is a nice place."
"I love it," Jin says. "There's so much space. It's beautiful."
"Don't complement your own house, Akanishi," Kame says, but there's not any chiding in his voice. It's like he's saying it out of habit, but Jin and Kame haven't had anything resembling a casual conversation since 2009.
"I meant Los Angeles, Kame," Jin snaps back, and then scowls playfully even as his chest constricts. The expression feels foreign on his face, and maybe it's because he and Kame...it hasn't been like this for so long that Jin's forgotten what it felt like, to talk with Kame about something that isn’t work. Maybe just to talk with Kame at all.
"So I’m still Kame?" Kame muses, and Jin feels a blush rising up his neck, and he wants to slap his hands to his cheeks because he's twenty-eight years old and acting nervous around Kame is embarrassing.
"Are you staying?" Jin blurts out, and then he shuffles his weight from foot to foot. "I mean, here. In my house. Here."
Kame's hands slide up to his face, and he slides his sunglasses off his face, folding then carefully before hanging them from the neck of his shirt. Then he looks up and their gazes lock for the first time.
Kame's eyes are red, and underneath they're puffy, like it's been ages since Kame's slept. Without the glasses, Jin can see just how hollow Kame's face is-- thin in a way Jin hasn't seen since Nobuta, when he'd maybe been worried that Kame would waste away to nothing. "Would that be okay?" Kame asks, and the tension in the room is so thick that Jin feels like he can barely breathe.
Kame is...Kame is looking at him the same way he did when he was fifteen, asking Jin if it was okay if he shared his futon, because it was too cold at night. Like he's afraid Jin is going to say no. Like he's afraid Jin is going to laugh at him and make him go away. Like Jin is going to reject him.
Jin finds himself just as incapable of doing those things now as he's always been. The feelings bubble faster and faster, and Jin wonders if his skin can contain them.
"Yeah," Jin says, and it's more an exhalation than an utterance. "Of course that would be okay." He feels like his chest is so tight his heart doesn't have any space to beat, and his hands are gripping the countertop behind him so tightly that it hurts, digging into his palm and making his knuckles ache. "Of course you can."
Kame's disbelieving smile, edged with relief and something else Jin can't quite figure out, bleeds into Jin, and makes him feel a little, strangely, like his heart is melting.
#
That night, for the first time in a year, Jin dreams of the beach.
The air smells of salt and sea, and in the night, the breeze is crisp. The sand is cool and textured beneath him, digging in to the soles of his feet as he walks barefoot along the ocean's edge. The waves lap at his feet, pushed and pulled by the tide.
The moon is bright and full in the sky above them.
There's a figure, down the shore, waving to him frantically. A young boy, just a little younger than Jin himself, hair wild from the wind and grin lighting up the night. Jin feels his heart skip a beat.
Jin starts running toward the boy, sand flying up and sticking to his calves, and getting trapped under the rolled cuffs of his jeans.
But then the boy starts running too, and Jin can't catch him, Jin can't keep up. No matter how much he runs, the boy is always out of reach.
The boy, Kame, is laughing, and laughing, and Jin tries to make him out but the moonlight on the water is reflecting into his eyes and Jin can't see.
He can't see anything at all.
Jin blinks, and suddenly he can see, and it's his ceiling, beige and boring, and he can touch, but all his hands can grasp is the soft cotton of his sheets and the sweaty fabric of his t-shirt.
Jin licks dry lips, and his pulse is racing.
"Why are you here, Kame?" Jin whispers into his empty bedroom.
There's no answer for him.
“Fuck.”
#
First Quarter
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Dream Boy: Waxing Crescent (1/4)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-26 04:45 pm (UTC)Like the way of switch between past and now.
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Pikka
off to part 2