Satellite Hearts (Akame, R) [3/5]

[maayacolabackup]

Part Three

*

Kame finds out Jin’s name has been taken off of Johnny’s web a week after it happens. There was a time when he would have been the first to know, but he’s become too good at avoiding anywhere that might mention Jin’s name to see the news.

There was a time when anything Jin did might have meant Kame was doing it too.

But that time has long since passed when Kame hears about Akanishi Jin’s ‘disappearance’ on the news. Kame watches Jin’s face on the screen with a sense of disbelief, a sort of empty, echoing feeling of confusion and detachment that Kame associates with breaking a nail, or cutting his face shaving. This sort of brief flash of… something small, like a tiny gust of wind that makes the candles flicker, and the moment crystallizes in Kame’s memory, just like that.

Kame’s sitting on the sofa. He’s wearing his favorite t-shirt, a soft navy-blue one with an unraveling hem that’s faded with repeat washings. His jeans are artfully torn at the thighs, and there’s a hole in the toe of his right sock. His hair feels greasy. His eye itches, just enough to irritate, but not enough to warrant scratching at. His lips feel chapped.

The montages of Jin across the screen seem to move in slow motion. Kame feels a little dizzy, and it’s like there’s water rushing in his ears, muting out the sound of Seasons as it plays over and over again in the background as the news reporter discusses the case.

“Akanishi was a no-show for five days at scheduled appearances. Many wonder if this is a publicity stunt by Akanishi in order to raise interest in his upcoming single,” the reporter says, and why does Kame feel so lost?

His cell phone is ringing. “Kame,” Nakamaru says on the other end of the line. “You watching the news?”

“Yeah,” Kame says, or tries to say, but his voice comes out as a harsh whisper, crackling along the word.

Nakamaru seems to understand. “No one’s heard from him, Kame. Not Yamashita, not Nishikido…No one. His mom says he left a note, and that’s it.”

Kame hears Nakamaru, but it’s from a distance. Nakamaru, waiting for Kame’s response with steady, even breaths, is like an anchor to reality that Kame wishes he could cling to, adrift as he is right now. “He said that he couldn’t do this anymore,” Kame says. “The last time.” Dry lips. “He meant it, this time.”

“Kame, are you going to be okay?” Nakamaru says, after a moment’s hesitation. “Do you need—“

“It’s fine,” Kame says. “I’m fine. I just… I need to go. Do something.” Kame swallows, and Nakamaru sighs.

“Okay,” he replies. “Call if you need anything.” There’s a rustling sound on the other end of the phone, as if Nakamaru is casting about for something to say, shuffling his weight from foot to foot, the collar of his button up rubbing against the receiver like it always does. “Anything.”

“Thanks,” Kame says, and ends the call, tossing his phone to the other side of the sofa.

But it’s impossible to sit there.

Kame walks to the door, slipping into his black boots and sitting on the edge of the genkan to lace them up. His fingers are trembling. It’s fine, he thinks, because he’s tired, after all. Three days spent with only four hours of sleep a night filming his new drama. That’s why it’s hard to focus on the laces. It’s why his eyes feel so blurry, too, he figures.

He throws on a scarf and a hat, too, and grabs his coat on the way out the door. The hallway isn’t heated, and neither is the elevator. Kame shivers. The lobby almost feels too hot, and Kame quickly waves to the guard standing stationary at the door. The front of cold wind hits his face, and it stings. It slices at Kame’s cheeks, are they wet?, and pulls at the ends of his hair, making them cling to the sides of his neck.

There are no paparazzi waiting outside his apartment building, like Kame half-expects there to be. It’s for the best, really, because Kame isn’t wearing make-up, and there’s a hole in his sock, and he knows that even if in his big black boots, no one else ever will, and it wouldn’t really do to be ambushed by a camera crew right now.

Kame finds himself in the park near his building when he blinks. It’s not that he’s planned on coming here, but he’s not surprised that this is where he ended up. The grass is frozen beneath his feet. It’s brown and crunches as he walks off the path, and toward the trees.

In the summer, there are picnics on this lawn, but in the heart of winter, the park is deserted, the occasional sparrow the only visitor.

Kame remembers a day in December many years ago. He remembers the way Jin’s hair had stuck to Jin’s lips, the way Jin’s laugh had echoed through the empty park like bells, the way Jin had rested gloved fingertips on the underside of Kame’s chin to make Kame stare him in the eyes.

Kame can remember the way Jin’s arm had felt heavy across his shoulder, the way Jin’s wool coat had smelled of pines and cigarettes, and the way Jin’s breath, when he exhaled, blowing across Kame’s fluttering eyelashes, had smelled of citrusy gum.

Kame can remember the way Jin’s fingers had folded around his own, pulling Kame’s hand into his own pocket as Kame had shivered in the wind’s assault. “Hey,” Jin had whispered. “Isn’t it a good thing I’m here to warm you up?” A smile had played around the corners of his mouth, and Kame had stared at the way Jin’s mole had disappeared into the crinkles around his eyes when that smile had spread across his face into a wide grin.

Kame remembers a night in a very different December, when Jin had kissed him, hot breath in cool snow, and asked Kame to come with him.

And now, as Kame sinks to his knees, bare skin touching frozen grass through those artfully torn holes in his expensive jeans, Kame thinks he might like to fall back into that moment, and let it consume him.


*


Kame sleeps with the light on, because when the lights are off, he always remembers how much Jin had been afraid of losing himself in the dark.

On quiet nights, Kame wonders if he does it so that when Jin comes back, Kame wants Jin to know Kame won’t let him get lost again.



*

“Don’t touch me,” Jin says. “Not in front of other people.”

“What?” Kame says, because Jin’s only talking to Kame, not to Nakamaru who shoves him across the stage, or to Koki who tackles him with giant bear hugs. He’s not talking to Ueda who leans back against him, or to Junno, who bumps into him and giggles as they bounce around stage.

Kame contemplates the warmth of Jin’s palm in his own, bowing in front of a crowd so excited to see them all together again. A symbol of unity in a band disjointed.

“Why me?” Kame asks, and even as he says it, he knows. Akakame always hurt Jin more than it hurt Kame. For all that Jin’s always loved what he does, and pretends he doesn’t care what people say, Jin’s the softest of them all.

“Everyone thinks,” Jin pulls on the brim of his hat. “Everyone thinks we’re gay together.”

“So?” Kame says. “We’re not. Who cares what they think?” Kame stretches his neck, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Jin.

“I care,” Jin says. “I really, really care.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not,” Jin hisses, and there’s something in his gaze that’s begging Kame to understand. Then it’s gone, and there’s only that locked away look in Jin’s eyes, shadowed beneath Jin’s dark fedora, and Kame can’t read Jin at all, even as Jin’s emotions leak out of Jin’s skin and cause goosebumps to rise on Kame’s forearms.

“Alright,” Kame whispers, and Jin is so damn quiet.


*


“Excellently done, Kame,” Meisa says as she watches the tailor work. “I knew I could count on you.”

“Anything for you, Sister Angela,” Kame says in his cheerful Kousaku voice, and when Meisa looks over at him, he bats his eyelashes playfully.

“The suits are gorgeous. They look classy and expensive. I knew you’d do better than Yuichi.”

“Of course I would,” Kame says. “I love Nakamaru like a brother, but the day I let him dress me for a formal event is the day I admit myself to an insane asylum.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Yuichi’s fashion sense for everyday life,” Meisa says. “I think the argyle’s kind of hot.”

“Wow,” Kame says. “I guess that’s love.”

Meisa smirks at him. “But there will be not argyle on the groomsmen at my wedding.”

“That’s my girl,” Kame says with a grin, and Meisa laughs so hard she throws her head back.

Meisa and Kame have been friends for years, ever since they worked on One Pound together. Kame likes Meisa, because she’s no-nonsense and always has something smartass to say, and she doesn’t put up with anyone’s mess. Kame likes that in anyone, but in Meisa it comes in a particularly kind package.

When she’d finally met Nakamaru four years ago at Kame’s birthday party, he’d never expected them to end up together, but in a lot of ways it makes sense. Kame also doesn’t really have many doubts about who tops in bed, either, but as much as he loves Nakamaru, he doesn’t really want to imagine his buttoned up friend getting whipped in the bedroom as much as he's whipped out of it.

When Junno comes out of the dressing room, the tailor trailing behind him muttering about letting out the hem of the trousers, Meisa lets out a low whistle. “Kame, you want to pick out my bridesmaids’ dresses too? Maki’s a little hopeless with it.”

“I think we’d better leave that to her,” Kame says. “She’s already upset with me about, you know, introducing you to Nakamaru.”

“Mm,” Meisa says. “I suppose you’re right.” Meisa tosses her long hair behind her, and grins shark-like at Kame. “There’s only you left, now, Kame.”

“Not interested,” Kame says firmly. “I barely have time for both my family and my professional obligations. Squeezing in friends is a challenge. You want me to add a relationship to that?”

“You’re pushing forty, Kame. You’re old enough that you should start figuring out what you really want, and young enough that you can still reach out with both hands and grab it.”

“Why’s everyone on my case about this lately?” Kame asks. “Do I seem miserable?”

“No,” Meisa says. “You don’t.” She reaches into her handbag and grabs her phone, lacquered nails tapping across the touchscreen. “But, Kame, all of us remember what you were like, you know, when you had…”

“I never had anything,” Kame says.

“You used to shine just a little bit brighter, Kame. Maybe we all just remember that.” Meisa’s studiously looking at her phone, in a way that Kame knows is because she doesn’t want to look directly at him. Meisa’s never been the type for a heart to heart. She’s more of the type to give you a stern talking to when you’re being silly or stubborn, and Kame wonders if Nakamaru put her up to this. “It’s like Akanishi took a piece of you with him when he left,” Meisa says, and then she looks up suddenly.

“He did,” Kame admits, and he’s never admitted it before, not aloud. Meisa stares at him with wide eyes, and Kame lifts his hand up and presses it against his chest, on the right side, and wonders where his heart is now.



*



Some things never change. The world shifts and turns and spins around them, but that thing never, ever changes, constant and steady.

That’s Kame’s love for Jin. Time marches forward and Jin moves further away and comes closer again, and everything else molds and fits in the spaces he creates.

But Kame has always loved Jin, even before he knew that’s what it was. And some things never change.




*


The ninth postcard is from Alaska. There’s the profile of an Inuit on the front, strong nose in profile, warm looking hood made out of some sort of animal pelt hiding most of the rest of the face.

It reminds Kame of a winter when he was seventeen, before things had gotten complicated. It reminds Kame of playing in the snow, Jin’s stupid wheezing laugh ringing in the air, and then a cup of warm tea in his hands, making his fingers tingle as his heart does the same from a different sort of warmth.

Winter’s so cold here, is written, and Kame knows Jin’s not talking about the weather.



*



They all know the signs now. The way Jin stops answering even direct questions, the way his eyes glaze over and he fades out.

It confuses the interviewers, too. Jin tries to pull himself up and into the conversation, and Kame can visibly see the struggle, but Jin just stumbles over his words and fumbles through life when he’s like this, and they all try to draw attention away from him and pick up the slack, but it’s hard. It’s hard because the interviewers notice, and the fans notice, and their anger just translates into Jin getting even quieter, even more withdrawn.

When Jin doesn’t show up for rehearsal, Kame knows Jin’s at the bottom of a valley. Kame doesn’t bother to knock on Jin’s door. He knows where the spare key is—Jin keeps it in the same place his mother keeps it, taped to the underside of his door-buzzer, because Jin has a habit of forgetting his keys and forgetting where the spare is, too, if he makes the hiding place more complicated. Kame peels it off, vowing to remember to return it on his way out.

Jin’s apartment is dark. Kame slides the key into his pocket, and walks forward. The edge of his toe pushes at a glass bottle, and Kame stops, and gropes along the wall for the light switch he knows is there. The light flickers on, and there are a few beer bottles littering the floor, like Jin tried to get drunk and gave up.

Kame used to come here more than he does now. He remembers when Jin moved into this place, sweating and flushed after carrying everything up. Jin had collapsed on the floor, stomach heaving up and down, and Kame had stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at Jin with a look. “Fine, fine, I’ll start unpacking,” Jin said, and Yamapi had made a whip-cracking sound as he’d set the box down. “What’s your hurry?”

“The sooner you unpack, the more sure I’ll be you aren’t going to disappear on me again,” Kame had said, and Jin had looked up at him, lips parted in surprise, before that unfathomable look had crept back into his eyes.

Now, that spot where Jin had flopped out spread eagle is taken by an expensive coffee table covered in magazines about all sorts of random things, like confectionary baking and model-robot creation, that Kame’s eighty percent sure Jin will never read. There’s also a fitness magazine, but that’s probably Yamapi’s, who had called Kame earlier and said he had no idea what to do with Jin.

Jin’s bedroom isn’t a mess, by Jin-standards. There are socks all over the floor, and piles and piles of similar looking white and black t-shirts on the chairs, but there are no coffee mugs with months-old residue in them and there are no half-consumed bottles of Gatorade, either. At least, if there are, Kame can’t make them out with only the light of the hallway to illuminate the room. He walks in and closes the door behind him, plunging them both into darkness.

“Hi,” Kame whispers, and Jin doesn’t respond. Kame does hear him move though, and when he squints, he notices that Jin’s only lying on one side of his bed.

Kame slips onto the other side, and then Jin is close, bare chest pressed to Kame’s side, lips grazing Kame’s clothed shoulder. “Hi,” Jin mumbles, and Kame sighs in relief. Jin’s breath smells of beer, and Kame can smell it on the exhale.

“We have an interview tomorrow,” Kame says, and Jin’s hand wraps around Kame’s bicep.

“I know,” Jin says. “I’ll be there.” Jin’s hair falls long and wild in his face. “Kame, I’m so tired.”

“I know,” Kame says, and he tentatively reaches for Jin’s hair, and Jin leans into the touch, the way he always does when it’s perfectly dark and Jin’s warm from the heat of the blankets, his drowsy limbs heavy and soft as they press against Kame for comfort.

“Stay,” Jin says, and of course Kame will stay. “Even if you don’t want to.”

Kame always stays, just like Jin always leaves, satellites orbiting in opposite directions.



*



Akihisa stumbles toward a stranger’s puppy, and Kame laughingly grabs him before he can get too close. “That’s not Ieyasu, Akihisa. Be careful,” Kame says, and Yamapi looks up from his mobile to look at the little boy.

“Akihisa, don’t get hurt or your mother will have my head,” Yamapi says, and Kame laughs as Akihisa presses his face against Kame’s leg.

“How’d you get stuck with babysitting duty, again?” Kame asks. He and Yamapi had agreed to meet early last week, because it has been awhile since they’ve seen each other. When Yamapi had shown up with Akihisa in tow, Kame had been surprised but not displeased. Akihisa is starting to look like Yamapi, a little, and Kame sometimes wonders what keeps Yamapi from settling down himself and having his own kids.

“Rina’s been looking so tired lately that I volunteered,” Yamapi replies. “Plus, I knew you wouldn’t mind.” The street gets narrow in the press of people, and Kame checks to make sure his sunglasses are still in place as the crowd gets thicker. Yamapi does the same, settling his nephew securely against his chest ad he uses his left hand to tug his hat lower on his brow.

“I don’t,” Kame says.

“Where we headed?” Yamapi asks. “By the way, I got interviewed for your documentary.”

“Oh really?” Kame asks. He’d known they were going to do additional interviews with other people about their documentary, but as always with Johnny’s productions, Kame has no idea who or when or why. “What did they ask?”

“About being Juniors together. All sorts of weird stuff. And about Shuuji to Akira.”

“Really?” Kame asks. “Well, I hope it wasn’t too big of a bother.”

“Naw, I just told them I thought you were looking fat and old these days, and—“

“Shut up if you value your life,” Kame says. “I’ve spent too much time with idols lately.” Kame leads them off the main road onto a side street, and breathes a sigh of relief as the crowd gets thinner. The Ginza area is always trouble to brave, but Kame likes too many things here to avoid it. “Fellow idols know all the right buttons to push.”

“This is Jin’s favorite restaurant,” Yamapi says, hefting his nephew up to his hip, large hand pressed to the base of the little boy’s back. Akihisa smiles, and giggles, and Kame grins at the small boy.

“Was,” Kame says. “Was Jin’s favorite restaurant.” It sounds biting, but Kame doesn’t mean it that way. “Who knows what he likes these days.”

“Probably the same shit,” Yamapi says. “I wonder what he’s doing now. I wish he’d call, or write, or something. Instead of this silence.” Yamapi adjusts his hold on Akihisa. “At least he sends you postcards. And his mom messages me sometimes that Jin’s informed her he’s still alive.”

“The postcards,” Kame says. “Jin’s pleasant way of reminding us all that he’s out exploring the world and can’t bother to tell us he’s okay.”

“Isn’t that what they are, though?” Yamapi says with a tiny smile. “Jin’s way of telling you he's okay?” Yamapi sighs. “Jin’s way of telling you he’s thinking about you?”

“Not you, too,” Kame says with a groan. “I swear, Jin and I…”

“All I’m saying,” Yamapi tells Kame, “is that Jin was my best friend, and I don’t get postcards. Neither do Ryo-chan or Yuu.” Yamapi’s smile grows a little larger. “Whatever’s between you two, it transcends friendship. It’s almost like you’re magnets, or like some invisible force just won’t let you drift apart.”

“Jin sure gave it his best shot,” Kame says and Yamapi scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, squinting his eyes at Kame. Age hasn’t diminished the sharpness of Yamapi’s cheekbones, and Yamapi’s got a weird perm for his movie, too.

“Kame,” Yamapi says. “Jin… he wasn’t okay. We all pretended that he was, because it was easier to ignore the obvious signs, but Jin wasn’t okay. A million different things were eating him up inside, and he wasn’t getting better with time, he was falling apart.” Yamapi nods at the hostess as she gestures them to follow her lead as she leads him through the maze of tables to the more isolated booths in the back. Two of Japan’s top movie stars might draw more attention to this smaller restaurant, but Kame and Yamapi are loyal customers, and the staff is always willing to help them hide away. “I just hope he found the help he needed. Or something.”

“I know,” Kame says, and his voice is low and rough and entirely wrong, and Yamapi is just looking at him. Akihisa’s happy laughs drag Kame’s vision down to the boy, whose big fluffy hair reminds him of Jin. “It doesn’t make it hurt less, not hearing from him. Wondering everyday if he’s okay, if he’s happy. If he’s hiding away in hotel rooms for days on end with the lights out.”

“Yeah,” Yamapi says. “And don’t you doubt I’m going to punch him in the face when he gets here for the wedding next week, for making me worried. Straight in the face.”

“No you’re not,” Kame says. “Oh my goodness, he would look awful in the wedding photos if you did that.”

“I’m going to do it,” Yamapi says with a laugh. “Just you wait.”

“I am waiting,” Kame says. “I’ve been waiting for years for Jin to come back. Maybe I ought to punch him in the face too.”

It’s easier to think of Jin finally coming home as more of a reality than a dream when he’s talking about it with Yamapi, whose hair Akihisa is enjoying thoroughly as Kame and Yamapi wait for a server.

“You won’t,” Yamapi says, and Yamapi’s smile stretches across his whole face, and maybe it’s better if they’re all waiting together. “You save your face-punching for taxi-drivers.”

“Haha,” Kame says, deadpan.

“It’s been more than a decade and that’s still the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done.”

Kame looks down at the menu. That’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever been caught doing, he wants to correct, but then he’d have to explain about the time he and Jin broke into--

“I wonder if Jin ever thinks about us,” Kame says.

“Of course he does,” Yamapi says. “Jin’s got so much love in his heart but he’s shit at expressing it.” Yamapi runs his finger back up the menu. “Maybe that makes the postcards, like, the Jin version of sonnets.”

Kame snorts, and Akihisa reaches across the table and upends the salt.

Yamapi doesn’t say anything when Kame orders the Chicken Parmesan, which is what Jin always used to order. But he does offer Kame a tiny smile.


*


Jin won’t admit anything is wrong, not to his friends, not to his family. Certainly not to Kame.

Kame’s pretty sure that sometimes Jin won’t even admit it to himself.

The cameras catch all of Jin’s worst moments, and Kame would like to protect him. But no amount of diverting attention can hide the fact that Jin’s buried so deep inside himself that he’s barely interacting with the world.

“He’s just exhausted,” Kame says, and Koki slugs Jin in the arm, and Jin blinks slowly and laconically. “He’s just been working too hard.”

“Right,” the host says, and Kame can tell she doesn’t believe them. Still, she can’t say anything, it’s not professional.

Later, Jin apologizes, softly and quietly, and it’s nothing, nothing like the boy who never said sorry unless it was tickled out of him, gleeful laughter and innocent smiles.

But Kame still knows him, even as Jin is trying to push Kame away, even as Jin turns to Yamapi and Nishikido for companionship for reasons Kame still doesn’t really understand.

It’s not like they fought, or that Kame’s forgotten about Jin, or anything like that. It’s just that Jin’s pulled himself light years away from Kame, and Kame can only find him when Jin reaches a hand out of the dark and grabs a hold on Kame’s wrist.

“You ever coming back?” Kame asks, and Jin doesn’t answer, just looks at him with impassive eyes that chill Kame to his bones.

There is no sun, and Kame’s spinning out of orbit.

“What did I do?” Kame asks helplessly, and Jin swallows.

“It’s not your fault,” Jin says. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“Not funny,” Kame says pointedly, and Jin winces.

“Who’s laughing?” Jin pulls his fedora down lower so Kame can’t see more than the shadow it casts over the upper part of his face. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let me help you,” Kame says, and then remembers the way Jin had said “especially not you”. “Or your family. Or Yamapi. Or Nishikido. Or Shirota. Anyone, damnit, Jin.”

“I’m just selfish,” Jin says. “And I’m trying not to be.” His words are vague. “I want it all, but the price for any of it is too high.”

“What?” Kame says, and Jin smiles. There’s no joy in it. Kame can’t see his teeth, or his tongue flattening and filling in the bottom of his mouth. Things Jin’s always done when he’s happy.

Jin isn’t happy. “It’s dark,” Jin says, and Kame doesn’t have a response for that, because it’s the middle of the day, and they’re standing outside on a sidewalk in front of the television studio and it’s a bright day.

Strangely, Kame can’t feel the sun on him either. But later that evening, when Kame’s dressed in his pajamas and the gel is washed from his hair and his skin scrubbed clean of foundation, he finds a faint sunburn on the back of his neck.


*


The sun is orbited by four planets, four gas-giants, two known dwarf planets, and millions and millions of meteors, asteroids and comets, moving at different speeds and in different directions and at different distances.

Kame thinks love is like the sun, and of the countless things circling it- not close enough to touch but forever trapped in its pull, one of them is Kame’s lost and independently beating heart.


*


“You’ve got a black eye,” is the first thing Kame says to Jin in seven years, after answering the door, because Jin does. It’s swollen and puffy and purple, and Jin’s lip is split too. “Come inside,” is the second thing he says, because Kame worries Jin will look like a thug in Nakamaru’s wedding pictures and he doesn’t want to remember Jin like that when Jin inevitably disappears again.

“Yeah,” Jin says, as he slips out of his sneakers and plods into the hallway like he belongs there. “Yamapi punched me in the face.” Jin reaches up and touches his lip, and then he winces. “Twice. And then he called me a selfish asshole who didn’t deserve any friends.” Jin uses one finger to scratch at his hair, like he used to do when it was done just-so, solidified with hairspray and Jin’s careful crafting. Now it’s a mess, but Kame guesses old habits die hard. “Can I have some water?”

Kame nods. “He said he was going to do that. And then what happened?” Kame asks, walking toward the kitchen. “You didn’t lose any teeth, did you?”

“He hugged me and told me I was really stupid and that he missed me like hell,” Jin says. “I missed him like hell too.” Jin is following him into the flat, close to Kame’s back, like he used to do before, and Kame can hear Jin’s footsteps, always heavier than Kame’s own, so loudly in his ears. “Then he told me I’d better come see you next or he was going to punch me so hard my face would come out the back of my head.”

“Oh?” Kame says, and then it hits him, all of a sudden, that Jin is here, in his apartment, right now, and it’s been seven years and Kame’s been holding his breath, somehow, and he’s dizzy with all the oxygen flooding his lungs at last. Kame feels his knees buckle, and he wonders if he’ll fall.

But warm hands grip at his upper arms and Jin is pulling Kame into his arms. “The water can wait,” Jin says, and Jin’s breath smells like mint, of course it does, and his skin is hot, and their knees are banging into each other because Jin’s got Kame in an embrace that’s more like a chokehold. And, Kame thinks, none of that matters, because Kame feels, somehow, like he’s waking up.

“We have to put ice on your eye,” Kame mumbles into Jin’s shoulder, and Jin laughs, a little shakily.

“Kame, it’ll be okay for another minute or so. The ice can wait too.” Jin seems caught between anxiousness and amusement.

“But the photos,” Kame says, and Jin sighs into Kame’s hair, and Kame can feel every muscle in Jin’s body as they shift against his own. “You’re not allowed to ruin all those memories.”

“Don’t worry,” Jin says. “Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry,” Kame repeats fuzzily. “Jin.”

“I wanted to come see you first,” Jin says, and the words fall on Kame like the sun’s rays, warm and soft, and Kame’s heart is hammering against his ribs. He feels sick. “But I was too scared.”

Kame doesn’t know what to say to that. A part of him feels like he’s dreaming, but it’s too vivid. It’s too much.

Kame tries to pull back, and Jin can tell, and he immediately drops his arms, stepping back like he’s been burned. “Sorry,” Jin says. “I shouldn’t have…” touched you like that is left unsaid, but Kame hears it. Of course he does.

Years and years will pass, and Kame will still know the things Jin thinks it’s impossible to say.

Kame doesn’t know what to do, or what to say. Kame’s been wanting to see Jin for so long, and he’s planned all these things that he needs to get off his chest, but in the moment, all he can do is stare. Jin seems to be doing the same thing, and they’re not touching at all now but there’s still the lingering tingle of their embrace, and it’s burning Kame up inside.

Jin, Kame thinks, is burning up inside, too.

Years and years will pass and Kame and Jin will still be connected in all these terrible, bruising ways.

“It’s fine,” Kame says, and he doesn’t know what he’s saying is fine, because nothing is fine. Jin knows that, too, Kame can see the knowledge in Jin’s eyes when he meets them full-on for the first time. “I’m going to get something for your eye.”

“Okay,” Jin says, and there’s something hopeful in Jin’s eyes that Kame can’t begin to contemplate. Kame feels like he standing on thin ice, and he’ll slip and fall if he moves too fast. “And the water, if you don’t mind.”

Kame wets his lips, and Jin is looking at him so carefully that Kame wonders if Jin thinks he’ll disappear.

Kame thinks that’s ironic. “I’m not going anywhere, Akanishi,” Kame says, as he steps backward through the entryway to the kitchen. “It’s not me who’s the flight risk.”

Jin doesn’t flinch. “I know,” Jin says, and he shoves his hands deep in his pockets, and his baggy gray t-shirt bunches against his stomach, because it’s trapped between his arms and his side.

Jin is thirty-nine and he looks almost exactly the same.

Kame grabs a bottle of sparkling water from the refrigerator, because that’s the kind Jin likes, and the ice-tray from the freezer, he sets it down on the counter. Jin is near; Kame can feel him, but Kame wills his shaking hands to still, and reaches into the cabinet for a Ziploc, the kind he puts his fruit in, in the morning, when he’s running late to filming. He cracks the ice, twisting the tray in his hands, and dumps the ice carelessly on the counter. He picks up the cubes one by one and drops them into the baggy, and zips it closed.

When he turns around, Jin is standing there, and Kame can’t read the expression on his face, not even a little.

But Kame looks at Jin’s bruised eye and offers him the bag of ice cubes, and Jin takes it, and the brush of their fingers makes Jin gasp.

At least, Kame thinks, he’s not the only one whose feelings are rushing through him. Maybe Jin feels like Kame feels: like everything is moving around him and he’s standing perfectly still in the midst of it.

“Put it on your eye,” Kame says, and the words stick to the edges of his throat and tongue, like peanut butter, and he forces them out.

Jin smiles nervously, and Kame’s stomach flops. It’s been seven years, and Jin can still do this to him.

“Okay,” Jin says, and he presses it to his face. He winces at the cool, and Kame offers him the water bottle, and Jin looks surprised that it’s his favorite brand, or that Kame remembers he likes the sparkling kind.

“Like I could have forgotten,” Kame murmurs, and Jin flushes, but it’s not a… it’s not a bad flush. It’s more like Jin is pleased, and unsure, and all of those things that Jin has always been.

Jin is thirty-nine and he acts almost exactly the same.

Almost.

It’s almost, because Jin takes a drink of his sparkling water and pulls the ice away from his eyes, and there’s no lock. Jin is looking at Kame, and Kame can see all the way through.

“Can we talk?” Jin asks, and Kame numbly shakes his head.

“Not tonight,” Kame says, and Jin reaches forward, catching a piece of Kame’s hair between his fingers.

“It’s long,” Jin offers. “I like when it’s black.”

“You do?” Kame says, and there’s a moment where Kame forgets that this Jin is seven years older and hopefully seven years wiser.

“Yeah,” Jin says.

Kame walks into the living room and Jin follows. Kame collapses down on the sofa, but Jin doesn’t follow this time. Jin is paused with his back to Kame, and Kame takes a moment to breathe in. The air has changed. Maybe, Kame thinks, it’s a little sweeter.

“This map,” Jin says, and Kame lets his eyes fall closed, leaning his head back on the sofa. “It’s me?”

“Yes,” Kame says. “And no.”

“It’s one or the other, isn’t it?” Jin asks, and Kame feels the couch sink as Jin sits down on the opposite side. “Yes or no.”

Kame rolls his head away from Jin, who has left a lot of space between them, but not enough, Kame thinks, because Kame is hot like he’s under the blazing summer sun. It’s late, Kame thinks, and a long time from sunrise. He opens his eyes and studies the map, the map he presses a new pushpin in with every postcard with fingers that no longer shake. “Yes. And no.”

Jin laughs, and it’s enough to get Kame to turn toward him hesitantly. Jin’s got the ice pressed to his eye, but the curl of his lips is vibrant to Kame’s hungry eyes. “You never used to be enigmatic with me, Kame,” Jin says, and Kame wants to lean forward and rest his hand on Jin’s knee. Jin’s jeans are torn there, revealing a slice of tanned skin, and a scab that wasn’t there before.

“It’s been a long time,” Kame says, and Jin frowns.

“That reminds me,” Jin says, and he reaches into the pocket of his sweatshirt, pulling out a square of paper. “This is for you.”

Kame takes it from him. It’s not paper at all. It’s a postcard. On the front of it is Odawara Castle, with its white walls and grey-shingled roofs, standing atop its stone foundation. Japan, it says, and Kame’s eyes memorize every millimeter of it, even though it’s a picture he’s seen plenty of times before. It’s a place he’s been.

He and Jin had gone there together once, when they were still kids, and Jin had clung to Kame as their guide had told scary ghost stories that made Jin act more like they were in a haunted house than in a national landmark. Kame hadn’t minded.

Japan, Kame thinks, and then he looks over at Jin. Jin has fallen asleep, curled up into a small ball, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. He looks so young, the way his hair falls into his face, the back of his left hand pressed against his cheek and his mouth slack. The ice rests idly in his right hand, lax against the back cushion, and Kame can’t help the hysterical laughter that bubbles up inside of him. He pulls his knees up and presses his face into them, resting his forehead against his kneecaps and taking deep breaths.

Jin is asleep on Kame’s couch, and Kame’s not allowed to burn to dust.

Kame stands, holding the postcard with both hands. He walks over to the table near his genkan and grabs the pushpins. He finds a red one, red like the bright circle in the center of the Japanese flag, representing the rising sun, and walks over to the map. Japan is easy to find, and Kame presses the pin in, and his chest is so tight. In a way, Kame thinks, it’s like his heart has come home.

He walks into his bedroom and grabs the extra blanket he keeps at the end of his bed, and one of his pillows, and returns out to the living room. Jin has sprawled, legs stretching the length of the sofa, and Jin has cutely turned his face into his sweatshirt for warmth.

Kame covers him in the blanket, and then drops to his knees. He carefully lifts Jin’s head with his right hand. Jin’s hair is as soft and fluffy as it looks, Kame thinks. It still feels like a cloud between Kame’s fingers. Kame slides the pillow under Jin’s head, and Jin smiles contentedly, and Kame aches and aches.

“Goodnight, Jin,” Kame whispers, and presses the tiniest of kisses to Jin’s forehead.

And yes, Kame thinks, it is exactly like his heart has come home.



*


“What’s this for?” Kame asks, holding the folded map carefully in his hands. Nakamaru takes it back from him, tearing the plastic and pulling the map out, unfolding it. It’s huge, Kame thinks. It’s two meters long, and it takes both of them to hold it.

“It’s a map of the world,” Nakamaru says. “The whole world.”

“I know that,” Kame says. “But why are you giving it to me?”

“Because you’re lost,” Nakamaru says. “You’ve been lost for five years, and when people are lost, you give them directions.”

“I’m lost?” Kame says, and he looks down on the oceans and the continents unfolded between them with a sense of desperation.

“Yes,” Nakamaru says. “Or at least your heart is. And I can’t give you directions,” Nakamaru brushes one hand, the hand not holding the thick paper, through his short hair, eyebrows knitted together in frustration. “So I’m giving you a map.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Kame asks, and there’s some kind of choked laughter bubbling in his throat. It’s always worse this time of year. This is when he left. This is when he gave everything up. This is when Kame didn’t go with him, or drag him back.

Nakamaru roots through his pocket, pulling out a packet of multicolor thumbtacks, and wiggles them in the air. “For the postcards,” Nakamaru says. “That way, even if you can’t find your heart, you can keep track of where it’s been.” Nakamaru sighs. “Ueda thinks I’m enabling you.”

Kame looks at Nakamaru, who’s looking back at him firmly, without judgment or hesitation. Just looking at him, silent and supportive.

And maybe it’s because Kame holds himself together three-hundred-and-sixty-four days a year, and is mostly happy three-hundred-and-sixty-four days a year, and puts one foot in front of the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four days a year… Maybe it’s because of that that there’s one day a year he wants, more than anything, to see Jin sitting across the room from him, smoking a cigarette, legs crossed at the knee in contrast to his oversized jeans, hair tangled about his shoulders and the beginnings of a mustache on his upper lip. Or like he looked when Kame last saw him, resolute and warm and fierce against Kame’s mouth, cloaked in wool and smelling of mint and desperation and longing.

A memory of a kiss, a second kiss, one that burns in his memory brighter than it should; brighter than Kame wants it to.

One day this year, Kame thinks, as his hands tremble, the map shaking between them. One day this year I can be stupid like this.

Kame and Nakamaru hang the map up on the wall on his living room. Kame takes down two very expensive art prints to make the room, but he knows another place he can put them, where his mother won’t make faces at the nude female forms depicted, and where Ryo won’t leer.

Kame goes upstairs and grabs the shoebox from under his bed as Nakamaru smoothes the map on the wall, trying to press out the wrinkles with the flat of his palm. He comes back downstairs with the box clutched to his chest.

Kame presses the pins into wall, twelve of them, enjoying the resistance as the sharp metal end sinks into his unmarred walls. He’ll fix them later, or maybe he won’t.

A map of his heart, Kame thinks, goes from China to Greece to Alaska to Prague. Kame’s heart’s been all around the world, and each postcard is like a satellite signal back home, letting Kame know it’s still beating out there, somewhere.

“I don’t know why I can’t let go,” Kame says, and Nakamaru stands next to him, pushing against Kame with his shoulder. He reaches forward, to the box of postcards that Kame brought down, and pulls out the one on top. China. The first one.

“You’re the only one who gets these,” Nakamaru says, holding one up. “Not Shirota, not Yamashita, not Nishikido or any of them. Probably not his American friends, either. Just you. And only Jin’s parents know where he is, you know?” Nakamaru drops the card back in the box and surveys the map. “Seems to me he can’t let go either.”

“But he’s the one that left,” Kame says. “And I’m too smart, too practical, and too put-together to sit around and wait for him to come back.”

“The human heart is an interesting thing,” Nakamaru says. “We can tell it things, over and over and over again, and...” Nakamaru trails off, and he doesn’t really need to continue. “Whatever Jin was…is to you… Whatever you guys are to each other, it’s always been something neither of you can deny, no matter how hard you try.”

“Kizuna,” Kame says, and he thinks about holding Jin against his chest in the dark as Jin tries to wish himself away.


*



The rehearsal room is quiet, and Kame feels a tension build in the room. It’s a slow burn, like an orchestral piece making a protracted crescendo, and everyone can feel it.

When they break for water, Kame leans back against the mirrors, knowing he’s smudging them but relishing the cool surface anyway. His hair is sticky with sweat, clinging to his neck and ears. His eyes are closed, but he knows when Jin stops in front of him, letting his eyes slowly open to take in Jin’s frustrated face.

The others are gone, and it’s just Jin and Kame alone in the rehearsal room, surrounded by mirrors and that steady hum of unresolved business.

“You told Johnny,” Jin spits, and his arms are wrapped around his torso like a shield.

“I’m really worried about you, Jin,” Kame says, and he tries to put it all into his voice. All of the fear and all of the helplessness. All of the way he feels when Jin sinks into himself and no one can find him for days. “I don’t know what else to do. I think you need help or something, and I can’t. I’m not enough.”

Jin’s eyes are cold, but he’s here. All of him is here and he’s looking at Kame like he doesn’t even know him. “I trusted you,” Jin says, and Kame shivers, because oh God no, this was never about trust, this was about Kame watching Jin slip through his fingers.

Kame reaches out toward Jin and Jin steps back, and now his eyes are like diamonds, hard and cool, reflecting the light in the rehearsal room, ugly and yellow and fluorescent. “Jin, I wasn’t trying to betray you, I just…”

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” Jin asks, and there’s an edge to his voice, that borders on hysteria. “Because I don’t. I don’t know. I might lose my solo concerts.”

“Jin,” and Kame moves forward, grabbing Jin and pulling him close. Jin struggles, but Kame’s stronger than Jin now, and Jin’s also not fighting very hard.

“Let go of me,” Jin hisses, and his nails claw at Kame’s biceps, and Kame just lets him, the thin gashes only stinging a little as Jin gives in before he ever really starts.

“No,” Kame says. “I won’t let you lock me out.”

Jin lets his head fall into the curve of Kame’s neck, nose cold on Kame’s skin. Kame ventures a hand up Jin’s back, a soothing stroke, and Jin shudders, releasing a harsh breath into the hollow where Kame’s shoulder becomes his clavicle. “It’ll be okay.”

“It hasn’t begin okay for a while,” Jin says. “Why can’t I do this?”

“Jin,” Kame mutters again, and it’s just Jin’s name, but they both know that it’s all Kame can offer. They both know that it isn’t enough.

“You weren’t supposed to talk about it,” Jin whispers, and it tickles his collarbone. Jin’s hair, swept back in an overly gelled ponytail, ends curled elaborately, is thick between Kame’s fingers as he destroys the style with gentle tugs, but Jin doesn’t seem to mind, body still trembling as Kame holds him close. “When you talk about it, it’s real.”

Their hearts beat in tandem.

“I know,” Kame says. “But I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Not this,” Jin says. “Not this.” And Jin pulls away from him, and looks at him. Kame can see Jin’s fire in his eyes, flickering bright still.

“I’m sorry,” Kame says, and remembers the way Jin’s fingertips feel so cold when they’re lying side by side in the pitch black, curtains drawn and Jin’s shallow breathing as he grasps at being awake.

“Me too,” Jin says. “I’m sorry, too.” Jin is still staring.

“I’ll always be here, Jin, if you ask me to be.”

“It’s funny,” Jin says. “Because you’re the only person who can help, but I can’t bring myself to let you.”

Then Jin is gone, and Kame can only stare at the door, smelling mint and sweat mingling in the air like a calling card, and feeling a soul rattling cold seep into his bones.



*


The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow ;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

--The Night is Darkening Around Me, Emily Bronte


*


Kame wakes up in the morning with a nagging sense that he has to be somewhere. That sense is usually right, so Kame gets quickly out of bed and gets ready for the day, sighing at how greasy his hair feels and vowing to wash it twice tonight to make up for his negligence. He finally picks up his phone, and summons his appointment book, which tells him that, yes, he has to meet the others at Ueda’s flat in forty-five minutes to rehearse for their singing bit in the documentary.

He isn’t expecting to see Jin still curled up in sleep on his couch, the blanket Kame had draped over him last night slipping off his shoulders, Jin’s lips parted in peaceful sleep, and hair stark against Kame’s white pillow. His eye is a mess, all purples and blues that Kame hopes fade to greens that are more easily covered with foundation.

Last night comes back to Kame in a rush, and he stops, and he just stares at Jin, who stirs in his sleep. His eyes flutter open, and he takes in Kame with a drowsy gaze. “You’re dressed.” Kame only makes out the words because he’s practiced. He’s been interpreting Jin’s unintelligible sleep talk for far more than half his life.

“I have things to do,” Kame says, and his voice comes out crackling, like it always does in the morning before he’s had caffeine. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Why haven’t you screamed at me?” Jin asks, his words coming out bleary and confused. “Told me how selfish I am, or how much you hate me, or how much you can’t forgive me?”

Kame’s not ready to figure out those answers for himself, let alone give them to Jin. He needs time to process, and it’s funny, Kame thinks, that he’s had all the time in the world and now everything feels like it’s moving too fast.

“I don’t hate you,” Kame says. “Have I ever hated you?” Kame wipes his hands on his jeans, and looks over toward the clock. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Where do you have to go?” Jin queries, and Kame decides to take that as a yes, and assume Jin does want coffee, because it takes twenty minutes to get to Ueda’s flat, and that means Kame’s only got fifteen before he has to leave. He walks into the kitchen, zipping the fly to his jeans as he walks.

“Tatsuya’s,” Kame replies loudly, putting the whole coffee beans into the grinder. The whirring sound must cover the creaks of Jin getting up and stretching in the living room, because Kame isn’t expecting to see Jin standing next to him, and it startles him. He recovers quickly, though, and dumps the coffee grounds into the coffee maker, adding water to the machine, and then leans across the counter. “We’ve got to sing.”

“I thought you didn’t sing anymore,” Jin says, and then his eyes dart off to the side. “I mean, I thought KAT-TUN had retired.”

“We have,” Kame says. “But we’re singing together for a documentary.”

“A documentary?” Jin asks, and Kame nods, walking past Jin to retrieve two mugs from the cabinet.

“About KAT-TUN,” Kame says. “We’re going to sing together as a surprise bonus.”

“Oh,” Jin says, and Kame doesn’t look up at him. “That’s nice.”

“It is,” Kame says. “How long are you staying?”

“Nine days,” Jin says. “Haven’t bought my ticket back yet, but nine days."

“Nine days,” Kame says dully. Nine days to catch up on seven years. It’s not enough. Kame’s not sure how much time would be enough.

“Can we talk?” Jin says, in a rush, and Kame swallows, bracing himself against the kitchen counter. “I just… I really…”

“Later,” Kame says. “Right now, I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Right, of course,” Jin says, and the words are thick. Kame looks up at Jin, through the cover over his bangs, and Jin looks wound up and miserable, like a kicked puppy, and it makes Kame’s stomach clench up uncomfortably.

“I didn’t say never,” Kame says. “I just said not right now.” And Jin finds his gaze and holds it, and like always, it’s like Jin’s looking into him, reading between the lines.

Jin’s skin is dry on the bridge of his nose, Kame thinks disjointedly, as the coffee pot makes an obnoxious noise that lets him know the coffee is ready.

“Okay,” Jin says, his lips making a thin line. “I can wait.”

Kame knows all about waiting.

He pours two cups of coffee, and adds two spoons of sugar to his and milk to Jin’s, and Jin watches him with careful eyes. Their fingers brush when Jin takes the mug from Kame’s hand, and there’s a spark. There’s always a spark, Kame thinks, one he’s never been able to feel with anyone else.

“You want to come?” Kame asks, before he can stop himself. “To Ueda’s, I mean.”

Jin takes a sip of his coffee, eyes closing blissfully. “You’ve always made better coffee than anyone else,” Jin says. Then he licks his lips, and pushes a strand of messy hair behind his ear. “And yes.”

Kame smiles, and Jin smiles back, soft and tentative.

Jin, Kame knows, has always wanted to be brave.

*

The fourteenth postcard is from Greece. Beautiful, Mediterranean Greece. Santorini Ja it says, and Kame only knows it’s Greece because of the small type on the back, and the little Greek flag Kame only recognizes thanks to there having been an Olympics there a while back, plastering the flag across televisions around the world. The smooth, white-plastered building is captured in front of the setting sun, blue-domed roofs in stark contrast to the orange and gold sky.

Kame can see the reflection of the sun in the clear, gorgeous water.

It makes Kame think of Odysseus, who went to fight a war in Troy and took more than twenty years to come home. Odysseus braved a Cyclops, an enchantress, the Underworld and sirens, all in the effort to return to Ithaca.

It makes Kame feel like Penelope, waiting and waiting without knowing for sure whether the seas will be fair, or when the waves will bring in the ship Kame is longing for.

Odysseus, Kame thinks, was known for his cunning and wit, and he outsmarted all his foes to deliver himself safely back whence he came.

Jin’s not known for his cunning or his wit, he’s just got his big, stupid, sensitive heart and his good intentions. And Jin’s foes aren’t the sort that Jin would be able to outsmart, anyway, because they’re all parts of Jin that Jin had tried and tried to hide away.

So Kame just pushes a pin into the wall, and waits, and waits, and waits, watching to see if the tide will change.


*


Jin tries to explain it. “Sometimes, I just keep lying here, and lying here,” Jin says. “And I think that if I just lie here long enough, I’ll disappear.”

“Why would you want to disappear?” Kame asks, and he wants to reach out to Jin, but Jin often doesn’t want to be touched. He shies away from it, even if it’s Kame.

“I don’t know,” Jin says. “Sometimes I just want people to stop looking at me.” Jin pushes his hair out of his face, and Kame’s eyes linger on the graceful slope of Jin’s forehead in profile, and the way that mole by his eye is exposed when the front of Jin’s hair is trapped in the spaces between his fingers. It’s these small things that make Jin beautiful, Kame thinks. “Sometimes I think if they stop looking I can stop existing for them and start existing for myself again.”

“Do you want me to stop looking?” Kame asks, and Jin pauses, languid and liquid, eyes soft as they swerve to take in Kame’s serious countenance.

“No,” Jin says, and Kame feels like the energy between them, that undefined force that drags them together over and over again, as hard as they pull in opposite directions, and is opaque enough to touch. It’s so thick in the air around them that Kame doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to stand the suffocation. “Not you,” Jin says. “You make me feel less lost.”

Kame reaches forward and rests his fingertips near Jin’s bicep. They don’t make contact with the skin, but Kame knows Jin can feel his fingers all the same. Shared heat, and maybe a flicker of understanding.

Four

Comments

[natsukashi-yume.livejournal.com]

“Don’t touch me,” Jin says. “Not in front of other people.” blow to the gut.

"Then it’s gone, and there’s only that locked away look in Jin’s eyes, shadowed beneath Jin’s dark fedora, and Kame can’t read Jin at all, even as Jin’s emotions leak out of Jin’s skin and cause goosebumps to rise on Kame’s forearms." Amazing how he's an open book sometimes and other times he's shuttered in his gilded cage.

"Kame also doesn’t really have many doubts about who tops in bed, either, but as much as he loves Nakamaru, he doesn’t really want to imagine his buttoned up friend getting whipped in the bedroom as much as he whipped out of it." *cackling in glee* /what is this rollercoaster

"Kame lifts his hand up and presses it against his chest, on the right side, and wonders where his heart is now." Sometimes, it's easiest to admit things in the most casual way.

"It’s hard because the interviewers notice, and the fans notice, and their anger just translates into Jin getting even quieter, even more withdrawn." I'd suppressed this stage from my memory. T_______T

"Kame always stays, just like Jin always leaves, satellites orbiting in opposite directions." You have succeeded in constructing the sentence that shatters my heart. </3 T________________T Everyone snarking on Kame before they express their lip biting worry is something. It warms my heart and still shreds it to pieces. "It’s just that Jin’s pulled himself light years away from Kame, and Kame can only find him when Jin reaches a hand out of the dark and grabs a hold on Kame’s wrist." This feeling is so familiar, so wrenching. &hearts;&hearts;&hearts; Forever in love with this sun/satellite metaphor. &hearts;&hearts;&hearts; "Kame can hear Jin’s footsteps, always heavier than Kame’s own, so loudly in his ears." One of those little details I really really love in your writing. "the words fall on Kame like the sun’s rays, warm and soft, and Kame’s heart is hammering against his ribs. He feels sick." OH GOD I FEEL SICK TOOO T____________T "Years and years will pass, and Kame will still know the things Jin thinks it’s impossible to say." "Years and years will pass and Kame and Jin will still be connected in all these terrible, bruising ways." THERE'S SOMETHING LARGE AND PAINFUL IN MY THROAT TRYING TO ESCAPE "Jin is looking at Kame, and Kame can see all the way through." like a knot loosening, i swear, in my chest. too invested in this. "Jin is asleep on Kame’s couch, and Kame’s not allowed to burn to dust." dude, i like totally understand. T____T "“For the postcards,” Nakamaru says. “That way, even if you can’t find your heart, you can keep track of where it’s been.” Nakamaru sighs. “Ueda thinks I’m enabling you.”" GOD MARU ENABLE AWAY *SOB* drinking tea like an alcoholic and sobbing at your perfectly restrained angsty Kame who's HAPPY 364 days of the year but falls apart that one day. "Or like he looked when Kame last saw him, resolute and warm and fierce against Kame’s mouth, cloaked in wool and smelling of mint and desperation and longing." /creepily loving on this sentence comments likely to trail off as eyes too blurry with tears to type. "“Nine days,” Jin says." this kind of exploded my heart. "There’s always a spark, Kame thinks, one he’s never been able to feel with anyone else." the essence of akame. the ending of this part... finding breathing difficult.

[natsukashi-yume.livejournal.com]

T___T not sure why lj hates me and my useless comments.