maayacolabackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maayacolabackup) wrote2012-01-15 02:11 am
maayacolabackup) wrote2012-01-15 02:11 am
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Satellite Hearts (Akame, R) [4/5]
Part Four
*
Thou, sun, art half as happy'as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
--The Sun Rising, John Donne
*
“Sorry I’m late,” Kame says, when Junno answers the door in a pair of comfortable looking sweatpants, like it’s his place and not Ueda’s. “But I brought a friend,” he adds as he walks into the flat, Jin at his heels.
“Holy shit,” Koki says, and the glass he’s holding slips from his hand and crashes to the ground, spilling water everywhere. Ueda swears, loudly, and leans down to pick up the glass as Koki bounds to the door and grabs Jin in a fierce hug. “Jin fucking Akanishi, you’re alive.”
“I am,” Jin says, and fingers the bruise around his eye, wincing as his fingers find a particularly raw spot.
“Kame,” Nakamaru says chidingly. “Haven’t you learned your lesson about punching people in the face?”
Kame bristles. “It was fifteen years ago, and the next person that brings it up, I will punch in the face,” Kame mutters. “Seriously.”
“Ah, no, this one’s from Yamapi, I’m afraid,” Jin interrupts, and leans against Koki, who is still looking at Jin like he’s seen a ghost.
“Yamapi?” Junno exclaims. “But he’s so…gentle.”
“I’ve been a very bad friend,” Jin says quietly, with no excuse in his voice. “And I’ve got a lot to make up for.” Kame can feel Jin’s eyes on him, but Kame focuses in on Ueda, ignoring the way he wants to reach out and touch any part of Jin he can reach, or press the back of his hand to the back of Jin’s, just so he can remind himself that Jin’s really here. “Congratulations,” Jin says to Nakamaru, and Nakamaru beams.
“Thanks!”
“And inviting me…” Jin shoves his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for that.”
“Wouldn’t be the same without you,” Nakamaru says quietly, and Jin’s eyes are a little glassy. Everyone’s are, really.
“Do you have the music sheets? I don’t really remember the arrangement,” Kame says, like he does in interviews when things get off track.
“I do,” Ueda says, and there’s an awkward moment where they’re all frozen in place, and Jin clears his throat.
“I’m going to have a smoke,” Jin says, and gestures toward the balcony. “Kame rushed me this morning.”
“I hate being late,” Kame says. “And you wake up too slow.” It’s a conversation they’ve had countless times. It doesn’t feel out of place. Step by step.
Jin scowls a little, but it’s playful, and then he fishes around in his trouser pockets for his cigarettes, walking out onto the balcony and letting the glass door shut behind him. Kame watches him light up, leaning forward with his forearms resting on the rail, hair blowing gently in the wind. He looks like a magazine cover, Kame thinks, even with the bruise on his face and his hair uncombed.
“So, you and Jin had a slumber party last night,” Koki says teasingly, and Nakamaru snorts while Kame rolls his eyes. “Should I be jealous, Kame-chan? I thought we had something special.”
“He fell asleep on the couch after I made him apply ice to his eye,” Kame says. “You know I’d never cheat on you, sweetheart.”
Koki drops an arm around Kame’s shoulders and pulls him into a sideways hug. “Did you guys talk?”
“No,” Kame says. “Not yet.”
Nakamaru drums his fingers on the coffee table, and sighs. “Should we get started? Meisa’s freaking out over place cards, and I’ll have to go console her in a couple of hours when she realizes I have an odd number of cousins.”
Koki suppresses a laugh, and it comes out like a squeal, loud, and they all laugh, and then Ueda passes out music sheets, and blows his pitch pipe, and they begin.
They sound pretty good, Kame thinks, for not having done this in two years. They sound clear, and their voices meld together well. They’ve been singing this song for over twenty years, and it’s like no time has passed as they trip and stumble over half-forgotten lyrics, picking up each other’s slack in the way they always have.
Kame’s not sure when Jin comes back inside. All he knows is that when they get to the chorus, suddenly there’s a high tenor harmonizing with him, lifting the volume up, sweet and clear, in a way Kame hasn’t heard in so long he thinks he’s imagining it.
But he isn’t, and Jin’s voice is threading through theirs, and they all sound so full and whole that Kame throbs with it. KAT-TUN, he thinks. A KAT-TUN where he’s only the ‘K’, and the ‘A’ is soaring, filling in holes and gliding across high notes effortlessly, letting Koki fall back down into his natural range with a surprised smile.
“Sorry,” Jin says, flushing, when the song ends and they all turn to stare at him. “I’ve always liked this song.”
Ueda raises an eyebrow at Jin. “You need to go drink some water, Akanishi. Your voice was straining there, at the end. You’re out of practice.”
“I am not,” Jin retorts, and his hands bunch up into the fabric of his jeans, clutching them like he’s afraid they’ll all be furious with him for singing along. Kame thinks that’s ridiculous. “I still sing all the time. I just don’t get filmed doing it.” Jin shakes his hair out of his face. “Still, sorry, I know I’m not…” Jin trails off, and Kame knows it’s because Jin has so many possible endings to that sentence that he isn’t sure what to choose.
Kame catches Ueda’s eye, and Ueda nods.
“You’ll always be KAT-TUN’s ‘A’,” Kame says. “If you want to be.”
Jin looks like he might cry, and Ueda breaks the moment by clapping his hands. “Are you in or out, Akanishi? We’ve got to practice again.”
“I’m in,” Jin says, after barely a moment’s hesitation, and Koki’s beaming and Junno’s jumping up and down in place like an overexcited rabbit. Nakamaru has a dopey grin on his face, and Ueda looks pleased, too. Kame wonders what expression is on his own face right now.
“Kita is going to flip out,” Koki says with a chuckle. “Totally flip out.”
“It’ll be on camera,” Kame warns, and Jin bites on his lower lip and looks straight at Kame without flinching.
“I know,” Jin says. “And…that’ll be okay.”
“Then let’s go,” Nakamaru says, and then they are singing.
*
There’s something enchanting in the way Jin looks when he thinks no one is watching. The tension melts from his shoulders, and the bravado leaves his face, and all that’s left is the Jin Kame knows; the Jin he grew up with, and the Jin who isn’t stumbling over every single word he says because he’s learned too many lessons about speaking out of turn.
“I’m going,” Jin says, and Kame sits down next to him on the bench. There is only about a foot between them, but it feels like miles. “To California. Again.”
“Yeah,” Kame says. “I heard.” Kame’s throat is dry, and the air he brings in on his next intake smells like cigarette smoke. Jin isn’t smoking, though, just sitting there, legs spread and eyes on the sky. “Management told us.”
“I was going to tell you,” Jin says, frowning. “But I kept thinking that no one would like it. I’m not sure I like it.”
“You’re not coming back, are you?” Kame asks, and the silence in the air after he asks makes him feel like the Earth has hushed to listen for Jin’s answer. Inside of him though, his heart is thundering, loud and crashing, and Kame knows the answer... But hearing Jin say it will make it real. Kame has always needed things to be real.
“Probably not,” Jin says. “Probably not.” Jin’s got a purple scarf wrapped around his neck, and it draws Kame's gaze to the dark circles under Jin’s eyes; makes them seem more harsh in the bright light of day.
“Okay,” Kame says, and he doesn’t know what else to say. He looks over at Jin, who doesn’t look afraid or nervous or sad. Jin’s just looking up at the sky, like up there he can see his own bright future.
But then Jin looks at Kame, and Kame can see it buried there in his eyes—that hidden spark of melancholy that Jin would rather Kame not see, but Kame always sees. Kame knows Jin so well, even when he can’t fathom the ‘why’s or the ‘how’s.
Jin knows Kame too. “It’s not like we’ll never see each other again,” Jin says. “So stop looking at me like that.”
Kame can’t. So instead he looks up at the sky too, wondering if he can see what Jin sees up there. All he sees are clouds.
Jin’s fingertips lightly brush his own, and Kame can barely call it a touch, but it sends a sort of fleeting warmth up his arm and into his chest, speeding up the thudding beat of his heart.
*
Jin’s always been more into soccer than baseball.
He wonders if that’s what Jin is doing in Argentina. The postcard has Lionel Messi across the front, in his uniform of white and light blue, name scrawled in cursive letters, gold and embossed. He’s dribbling a ball down the field, hair wet with perspiration; an action shot.
It’s the seventh postcard.
Soccer players are like me, Jin’s written. Always running.
*
“Where should I drop you?” Kame says, as Jin rests in the passenger seat, looking jetlagged and exhausted. “Your parents' house?”
“Yeah,” Jin says. “Thanks.”
“It’s not out of my way,” Kame says.
“Not for the ride,” Jin says. “For… yesterday.”
“You already had a black eye,” Kame says. “Wasn’t much left to do.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jin says, and his throat does sound a little raw.
“Have you really been singing?” Kame asks, and Jin tilts toward him. Jin’s body language is open. If Kame was giving or receiving an interview, he’d take it as a good sign.
But Kame is not giving an interview. Kame is talking to Jin, whose mood can change so quickly that Kame gets whiplash. “Yeah,” Jin says. “In, like, bars and stuff. Small shows under another name. I love singing.” Jin pulls away again, resting his head against the window. His hair fans out around his shoulders. “It’s the rest I didn’t really like.”
“You liked being famous, sometimes,” Kame says, slowing the car at a traffic light. “It wasn’t all bad, right?”
Jin’s hand creeps out and grabs a hold of a small piece of Kame’s shirt, just a pinch of the material between his index finger and thumb, the way he does when he wants reassurance and he doesn’t know how to ask for it. “No,” Jin says. “It definitely wasn’t.”
“The America stuff… that was worth it, right?” Jin’s always so hot, Kame thinks. Sweltering. Just the small point of contact between them makes Kame feel like he’s blistering.
“It was a taste of freedom,” Jin says. “The real thing is better.”
“Ah,” Kame says, and the light won’t change. Jin’s face is still mashed against the window, and Kame wonders if he’s even looking at anything, or if he’s just not-looking at Kame.
“But fame gave me you,” Jin says. “Us.”
“What ‘us’?” Kame says bitterly, before he can stop himself, and Jin flinches, retracting his hand. “There’s just me. And there’s you, and half the time I don’t know where you are.”
“That’s funny,” Jin says. "Because the whole time, it feels like you are with me.”
That isn't Kame. Kame is here, in Tokyo, making commercials and filming movies and talking about baseball, watching movies with his niece and living the life he’s made for himself.
There’s a map on Kame’s wall, though, and a piece of Kame was with Jin, Kame knows. “That’s because you’re crazy,” Kame says, and Jin laughs, flopping his head toward Kame, lower lip between his teeth. Kame’s driving, so he can’t turn completely to Jin, but out of the corner of his eye, he watches Jin study him. Kame wonders if Jin can see through him just as facilely as he can see through Jin when Jin is loose and easy like this.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” Jin asks, after a moment, and the way Jin asks… Something about it sounds hopeful. Kame doesn’t want it to. Kame doesn’t want Jin to have missed him as much as he missed Jin. He wants Jin to have been perfectly happy without him. It would make it easier, Kame thinks, to pretend like he was perfectly happy too. It would make all this seem worth it, in the end.
“I have work,” Kame says, and Jin sighs and closes his eyes, and Kame can see him pulling into himself. “But after work would be okay.”
“Yeah?” Jin asks, and Jin’s staring down at his shoes and Kame can’t believe that Jin is thirty-nine, because he’s still got that child-like aura that’s always made Kame want to protect him.
“Yes,” Kame says, and Jin’s still got the most beautiful smile, and Kame’s drawn inexorably closer to the brightly burning sun.
*
“Akanishi,” Kame says into the phone. “Why are you such an asshole?” It’s just voicemail. Jin didn’t answer his phone.
Jin’s on the news. Back in Japan, promoting ‘Eternal.’ It’s a beautiful song. Kame remembers when Jin wrote it.
He hasn’t called Kame. Kame hasn’t talked to him in so long he’s almost forgotten the way Jin’s voice sounds when he’s drowsy on the other end of the line, words slurred and ideas out of order like Jin always does when he’s sleepy. Kame’s wondering if he’s done something wrong.
“Whatever I did, Jin, can you just tell me? Whatever’s gone wrong between us, somewhere along the line.... I want to fix it.”
Kame’s hands grip the side of his phone, and he wonders if his knuckles are white. Kame wants to know if Jin’s finally going to lock the rest of himself up from Kame too. If even the pieces of Jin that were just for him are gone, lost in the shadows in Jin’s eyes that only grow deeper every time he sees him.
Kame’s pulse roars in his ears, and it’s like the rushing sound of the wind when he drives in his truck with the top down, only it’s not refreshing, and Kame’s hair isn’t what’s windblown, it’s his heart.
It burns, and Kame wonders if this what it feels like to break a bond.
*
Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done pray tell me,
Then I, my thoughts, will dim.
Haste! ‘lest while you’re lagging
I may remember him!
--Heart, we will forget him, Emily Dickenson
*
Shooting is tiring. Kame’s covered in beer—his bandmate, in the movie, splashes him with beer to get his attention in the first part of the scene, and for the next four hours, Kame can feel his mascara running down his eyes, and his lashes are sticky with beer, and it’s unpleasant. But Kame’s a professional, and even if the overwhelming smell makes him a little nauseous, it probably helps his performance. It’s easier to pretend to be angry when he thinks about how long his hair is going to keep smelling like this. There’s only one more day of shooting left after this. The filming had been extended so the director could shoot these two extended scenes, and so they could re-film a couple that hadn’t come out quite right, and Kame will be as relieved to creep back into his own appearance as he always is. He examines his chipped black nail polish with a frown. He likes the way his nails look better when they’re clear and glossy, these days.
Kame calls Jin’s mom when he gets off work. The number is long unused, and Kame worries that she’ll have changed it, but it’s still the same. She answers with a chipper “Bonjour,” and that’s how Kame knows it’s her—Jin’s mom always answers the phone in some foreign language, from a movie she’s just watched or a website she’s been looking at. All the Akanishis have weird quirks like that, and Kame thinks it makes them fun.
“Is Jin there?” he asks, and she’s cooing into the phone, and Kame’s smiling despite the way he feels gross, because she’s sweet.
“Kame-chan, is that you?” she asks, and she sounds shocked. “It’s so nice to hear your voice.”
“Yours too,” Kame says. “Really, it is.”
“I wish you’d call more often,” she says. “I hear from Pisuke all the time.” Kame quirks a smile as he remembers the way Jin used to whine about his mom stealing all his friends. It’s still cute, Kame thinks. She’s still got it.
“Sorry,” Kame says. “I just didn’t…” The towel he’s got around his neck is starting to smell like beer too. Kame will go shower, in a minute, but he’d wanted to do this first.
“I know,” she says. “I get it.” Her voice is rich and warm, and she talks like a woman in her thirties, even when it’s been a long time since she was that.
“Is Jin there?” Kame asks, after a bit of awkward silence.
“Jin’s still sleeping.”
“Oh,” Kame says. “In that case-“
“Oh, no you don’t,” she says, and Kame can hear the scolding in her voice. “I’ll go wake him up.”
“Okay,” Kame says, and wraps his arm around himself as he leans against his truck. Normally he’d protest, but Kame wants her to wake Jin up. He doesn’t want Jin to sleep through the short time he’s got here, and the short time Kame’s got to spend with him before he jets off again.
About a minute later, Jin’s sleepy voice is on the other end of the line, and Kame knows what Jin looks like right now, all sleep-heavy limbs and ruffled hair, and now there’s all these new little details too, like Jin’s stubble and the way the sun’s bleached out places on the ends of his hair. “Hullo?” Jin says, in English, and Kame feels this giant, warm bubble expanding in his chest.
“I’m getting off work,” Kame says, and Jin gasps at Kame’s voice. “Do you want me to come and get you?”
“Yeah,” Jin says, sounding more awake. Then Jin’s swearing, and Kame can hear him stumbling out of his covers, and Kame’s throat is dry, because he can see this, all of this, in his head, and it makes him feel impossibly young, or like he’s outside of time. “Fuck, just tore my jeans.”
“They were already torn,” Kame says. “If you mean the ones from yesterday.”
“Oh,” Jin says, breathlessly, like he’s nervous, or like this is a date, and not two… friends grabbing dinner to try and catch up on seven years of silence. “I’ll be ready. When you get here.”
“Sure,” Kame says easily, like his heart isn’t beating a mile a minute at the soft sound of Jin’s voice on the other end of the line. “Forty minutes.”
Jin slides easily into the car, later, and he wrinkles his nose. “Have you been drinking?” Jin asks, and Kame laughs, and explains about the shooting, and Jin asks tiny, hesitant questions, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to know the answers. Like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask about Kame’s life.
Kame gets that. He’s afraid too. He wants to know all the places Jin has been, and all the things Jin has seen, but parts of him don’t want to know the answer.
Kame takes Jin out for clams. Jin likes clams, even if the way he eats them is disgusting, with weird sauces that almost want to make Kame gag, except Jin looks so cute eating them that Kame can’t be too upset.
Kame offers to drop Jin off at home, but Jin shakes his head no.
“I’ll just take the train,” Jin says. “Later, I mean. It’s not like anyone remembers my face.”
“You’d be surprised,” Kame says, and Jin shrugs.
“A cab, then,” Jin replies. “I want to watch a movie. Do you have any movies?”
“You know I have movies,” Kame replies. Kame’s got hundreds of movies, because people always give them to him as gifts, despite the fact that Kame’s really not the sort who loves movies. He’s in movies, so a little of the magic is gone there, and he also tends to want to use his free time to see the people he loves or catch up on sleep. Still, he’s got a formidable collection, even if half of them are still in the cellophane wrappers because he’s never opened them.
“Still in the packaging?” Jin asks knowingly, and Kame’s floating, and he doesn’t know if he likes this feeling. He doesn’t know if he likes the way it’s so easy to fall back into step with Jin.
Jin doesn’t go home that night, and Kame doesn’t make him leave. Jin just puts on Titanic, and curls up on the end of the sofa, eyes glued to the screen.
“So this is still your favorite movie, huh?” Kame asks, and Jin glances at him with a small grin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jin says, as he returns to the screen. Leonardo DiCaprio is smiling roguishly at the red-haired woman whose name escapes Kame at the moment. “My favorite movie is Tomb Raider. Angelina Jolie’s boobs.” But Jin’s lips twitch as he says it, because he knows Kame can read the truth in the way Jin turns the volume up after the opening credits roll.
Kame feels drowsy at the other end of the couch before the boat even sinks, his toes pressing against Jin’s thigh. Jin’s hand comes down to rest on his ankle, and it’s strangely comforting. It doesn’t feel like the two people on the couch haven’t seen each other in seven years, or like they’ve been drifting further and further apart even as their hearts try and pull them together. It feels more like breathing in the fresh air at the beginning of fall, or like the first sip of coffee, lifting heavy eyes to start a new day.
Jin thumb rubs in a circle along the bone in Kame’s ankle, and Kame falls to sleep to a chorus of violins, and the image of Jin’s drawn brow staring despairingly at the screen.
When he wakes up, he’s alone on the couch.
The image of Jin sitting on his kitchen sink with a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth is not an unfamiliar one, but some things have changed, Kame thinks. Jin’s arms aren’t so thin, now, and he’s got patches of sunburned skin along his neck where his tank shirt doesn’t cover. Jin’s back is straight instead of hunched, too, and when he looks at Kame, his eyes are clear. Kame looks away quickly.
“You could smoke outside,” Kame says, and Jin laughs.
“I could,” he agrees. “But I’m not going to, because it’s hot outside.” There’s a bit of a whine in his voice, and Kame isn’t expecting it.
“I’ve always let you get away with it before,” Kame sighs. “Why change my ways now?”
Jin smiles, crookedly. “Can we talk?”
“Do we have to?” Kame asks, and Jin blows a ring of smoke up towards the vent above the stove.
“You’re one of the most important people in the world to me, Kame,” Jin says. “That’s never changed.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” Kame says, and Jin presses the heel of his palm to his forehead.
“I found a specialist,” Jin says. “In America. One who didn’t know anything about me.” Jin chuckles. “When I was trying to become famous in America, I thought that would finally make me happy. I was making the music I wanted to make, and I could walk around without a disguise, most of the time. It was nice.” Jin laughs at himself. “But I guess you can only bury your problems for so long.”
Kame sits down on the kitchen table, and lets his legs dangle from the edge, and Jin stares down to where Kame’s leg presses against the table leg.
“You used to yell at me for that,” Jin says. “Sitting on your kitchen table.”
“The table’s not new anymore,” Kame says. “And I’ve got lots of nephews.”
“Oh,” Jin says. “I guess that makes sense.”
“What did your specialist say?” Kame asks.
“That I was depressed,” Jin says. “And that I was afraid.”
“You had to go to America for that?” Kame says, and Jin laughs, and Kame reaches across the meter or so between them and snags Jin’s cigarette. That’s familiar too.
“Yeah,” Jin says. “I did.” His eye’s fading to a lovely mottled green. Kame can see the dark circles under his eyes underneath the bruise.
“Right,” Kame says, and the smoke stings his lungs. “Did you learn anything new?”
“Yeah,” Jin says, and he tries to hold Kame’s gaze but Kame’s looking at the ceiling now, and thinking about the map on his wall.
“Me too,” Kame says, and Jin takes back his cigarette.
*
Kame steps out of the elevator and into the lobby, and the man waiting, thumb pressed to the call button, is the last person Kame is prepared to see.
“Jin,” Kame says, and Jin’s got his hood up. It creates a shadow, and Kame can’t see his eyes.
“Kame,” Jin says, and he points awkwardly at the car waiting outside the door. Jin doesn’t come around Johnny’s very often and it shows. Kame can see his hesitance in the set of his shoulders. They bow forward, and Jin’s mouth is tight. “You heading out?”
“Yes,” Kame says, and he swallows. He can’t take his eyes off of Jin. Jin is like a ghost: someone who exists only in Kame’s daydreams, and seeing him now, flesh and bone in front of Kame’s hungry eyes, is hard to fathom. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” Jin says, and his voice hitches, and he coughs. “Been a long time, I mean.”
“It doesn’t always have to be a long time,” Kame says, and Jin tugs anxiously on the sleeves of his sweatshirt, pulling the ends until they cover his hands. He’s like an overgrown child. Kame snorts, and Jin’s mouth falls into the shape of an ‘O’ at the sound, and maybe that expression of surprise makes this all feel real to Kame, not the product of an overactive imagination. “My phone number is the same. You can talk to me about how many kids you want to have or something.” There’s a clench in Kame’s stomach.
“You look good,” Jin says, and then he tenses, like he didn’t mean to say that, or like his mouth ran off before his brain could catch up. “I mean, you look healthy, and happy, and—“
“I am,” Kame says. “Healthy and happy. The band is doing well, too.” They both look, startled, when the elevator doors close behind Kame’s back. The elevator has been called elsewhere. Jin will have to wait for the next one.
“I saw that,” Jin says. “I mean, I keep up with it. And stuff.” Jin reaches up and scratches at his nose. “Sort of.”
“And my phone number is still the same,” Kame repeats, and Jin sighs.
“It’s complicated.”
“Did I do something?” Kame asks. “For some reason, I thought we had managed to fix things, before. Then you dropped off the face of the Earth.”
“I was in America.” Jin’s voice is hoarse, sort of like he’s holding his breath. A piece of black, wavy hair peeks out from under his hood. Jin’s always had a way of looking charming despite his lack of polish. Kame wants to push the hair back, tuck it behind Jin’s ear and see if Jin’s locked away again.
“My email’s the same too,” Kame replies, and the elevator, that Jin’s pressed the up button on, is still six floors away. “I miss you.”
Kame isn’t just talking about now, he’s talking about then, and Jin understands, Kame knows Jin understands, because suddenly Jin’s standing closer, and now Kame can see his eyes, bright and nervous beneath floppy bangs. “I miss you too,” Jin says, and Kame’s heart quivers at the waver in Jin’s thin voice. Jin’s lips are tight.
“Then why are you hiding from me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Kame replies. “You’re important to me, Jin. And the way you flash hot and cold makes it hard for me to figure out if I’m important to you.”
“God, Kame,” Jin says, and then Jin is even closer, and Kame can smell the mint on his breath, and Kame is picking up the faint scent of Jin’s laundry detergent, too. “Of course you’re—“ Jin stops, and laughs a little. “Do you really not get it?”
“Really, Jin. I really don’t get it.” Kame hooks his thumbs through his own belt loops, and their arms brush as he moves.
“I’m not flashing hot and cold,” Jin says, and Kame peers under that silly hood to watch Jin’s shifting eyes. “I’m a mess, Kame.”
“You’ve always been a mess,” Kame replies, and Jin leans against him a little, almost unconsciously, Kame thinks, and at least some things will always be the same.
“I don’t want to drag you into this,” Jin says. “I don’t want to take you down with me. Because if I let you… If I let you, you will.” The way he says it borders on panicked, and Kame’s heart skips a beat, because Jin’s…Kame thinks Jin is acknowledging that strange tension between them, that Kame’s never understood and that Jin’s always backed away from like a skittish colt. “You always do.”
“Oh, Jin,” Kame says, and laughs. “I’m your friend, Jin. You’re not taking me down. I’m following you. Or I’m pulling you up.” Kame pushes his hair back. It’s too long. He’ll cut it before New Year’s.
“Kame,” Jin says desperately. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it about lights-out days?” Kame asks, and Jin scratches at his face, hard enough to leave his cheek a little red. “Because, Jin, we were in the same group for years. You don’t have to push us, me, out over that.”
“It’s not that,” Jin says, and Jin is stepping back from Kame a little, almost running into the potted plant that rests between the two elevators. Jin swears under his breath in English, and exasperation rises in Kame’s chest and he wants answers from Jin. He’s tired of Jin’s voicemail and Jin showing up when he feels like it, throwing Kame’s life into disarray and then disappearing again as if he never was. It hurts, and it’s always been, well, complicated between them, like Jin and Kame are from two separate planets and speak two different languages, at the same time as some inevitable force is pulling them together. Sometimes Kame knows what Jin needs with just the angle of Jin’s brows, and sometimes Kame feels like he’ll never know what Jin needs, because Jin’s trying so hard to block him out. “There’s something else.”
“Jin, after all this time, I don’t think there’s anything you need to hide from me. Not if it’ll help you to say it to someone.”
“You remember what it was like,” Jin says. “When we were friends.” Kame reels back at Jin’s words.
“I thought we still were,” Kame says, and Jin’s lips press even tighter.
“I meant…” Jin sighs. “You know, publically.” Kame raises and eyebrow, and Jin looks away from it. “You know…too close.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of being close to me. The world won’t end. Is this about…” Kame thinks about Jin’s baggy clothes, about Jin hiding his thin frame beneath them like he’s trying to disappear into their folds. He thinks about Jin, cringing back when Koki tells him how pretty he is. He thinks about a PV where no one can see Jin’s face. “Jin, is this all about some gay rumors? Some speculations in a tabloid are making you run away? Jin, that’s such bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. I gave a UStream conference and foreign fans sent hundreds of messages about Akame, Kame. That’s what they call it, overseas, instead of Akakame.”
“It’s just nonsense, Jin. It happens to everyone in our business. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Jin makes this helpless noise and jams his hands into his jean pockets as the elevator dings its arrival. “Are you sure about that?” Jin says grimly, and Kame’s about to say ‘yes’, to reach forward, but then the elevator doors are opening, and Jin is walking in and pressing the ‘door-close’ button harshly, and Kame is left standing there, mouth half open in preparation to speak, hands grasping at empty air.
Kame thinks about Jin all day. Through two interviews, a meeting, and a rushed business lunch that might result in another CM series that will plaster Kame’s face in subway cars.
“Kamenashi,” his manager says, and Kame looks up, surprised to see the car stopped in front of his home. “Get some rest. You’re totally out of it.”
Kame’s not tired, though. He’s all pent up, raging against his own skin. He just wants…
He just wants to talk to Jin. To know why Jin keeps pulling away when Kame just wants him to come closer. He wants to know how Jin is doing. He wants to know that Jin is okay. That Jin, now that he doesn’t have Kame to curl up against under the duvet as he hides from the world, isn’t leaving important pieces of himself just lying around for other people to find.
Kame finds himself inside his apartment before he can blink, and he’s going through the motions, pulling an instant dinner out of the fridge and putting it in the microwave. He sets the timer for five minutes.
The doorbell.
Kame wonders if it’s his niece, carrying a carton of juice and a couple of films in her hand, trying to forget about school deadlines in an evening with her uncle. Kame wouldn’t mind that, not tonight.
It’s not his niece. It’s Jin, and Jin is inside in his genkan in his oversized black sweatshirt and Kame still can’t see his hands and even more hair is falling into his face.
Jin closes the door behind him; just slams it, and Jin doesn’t give Kame a chance to register his presence. “What if they’re right?” Jin says, and his voice breaks, and then he pushes Kame against the hard wall of the hallway and kisses him.
Jin’s mouth is rough, and Kame’s too surprised to kiss him back. Jin pulls away quickly, and presses himself against the opposite wall, hands flat against the surface, leaving Kame to stare across at him and touch his lips with shock. Kame’s mouth is tingling. “Oh,” Kame says, and Jin’s shoulders hunch forward. “This might make it harder for you to have kids.”
“You think I haven’t thought of that?”
“How long…?”
“A long time,” Jin replies. “Oh god, a long time.” Jin’s voice crackles along the words, and yes, Kame thinks, this is complicated.
Kame’s mind is racing, and he’s putting together pieces as fast as he can, but the microwave is chiming, and he’d never meant to leave that bento in there for the whole time, and it’s probably ruined, and Jin is crawling even deeper into himself as Kame tries to figure out what he should do.
Kame thinks about the way his heart beats faster when Jin moves closer to him, and also about the way Jin’s always tried to pull back, that look Kame could never understand lingering in his big, honest eyes. He thinks about the way Jin’s touch, some small brush of skin against skin, sets Kame on fire, and the way Jin’s always flinching back like he’s been burnt. “You…” Kame says, searching for the words, and Jin’s staring at his red neon shoes and Kame’s staring at Jin.
Kame thinks love is like the sun, and its rays are so harsh on the both of them right now as they orbit around it.
And now, Kame’s starting to think that maybe Jin’s always understood the pull between them better than Kame has. That Jin has known that kizuna meant those meaning-laden touches in the dark. “Yeah,” Jin says. “It’s—“
And Kame kisses him. Kame sets his hands against the wall on either side of Jin’s face and dives forward, and Jin hesitates only a moment before he opens up beneath him. Jin’s knees are slightly bent, and Kame’s right thigh slides between them, and Kame’s chest is pressed to Jin’s. Jin’s arms set themselves carefully along Kame’s hips, hands grasping at Kame’s flannel shirt at the small of his back.
And this, maybe, says everything they’ve never been able to say, traveling between them in a code they both comprehend that’s comprised of needy tongues and desperate lips that seek their mates.
Jin’s mouth is like an inferno, dragging Kame deeper and deeper, and Kame doesn’t mind. “Jin,” Kame says against Jin’s lips, and Jin shudders again, and then he’s pushing Kame away.
“We can’t,” Jin says. “You know we can’t.” Jin sounds strained. “I’m too fucked up and you’re too Kamenashi.”
“Too Kamenashi?” Kame asks. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… fuck, Kame. Being gay isn’t good for business.”
“This isn’t business,” Kame says, and Jin laughs.
“Everything is business, Kame. Personal lives are for people who don’t live under a goddamn microscope, with people picking apart every word you’re saying and writing about what a terrible person you are on the message boards.”
“I did Anan,” Kame says. “I can get away with anything.”
“Yeah, but actually wanting to fuck a man, Kame? That’s not being a Johnny. Johnny’s boys do it for fanservice. They touch each other but they’re still available to be their fan’s perfect boyfriend.”
“Jin, what are you saying?”
“I can’t… I’ve never been good at lying. At pretending to care when I don’t, or at pretending not to care when I do. And I can’t… I can’t share this feeling, and I can’t not share it, either.”
Kame’s trying to keep up, but he can’t keep track of the jumping of Jin’s thoughts. “What?”
“It’s easier not to talk to you than to pretend I want less from you than I do,” Jin says, and now maybe Kame’s starting to understand. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. I’m so fucked up.”
“Jin,” Kame says, and his whole body is buzzing, telling him to move closer and kiss Jin again. Kame’s torn between wanting to listen to Jin, and his head telling him he’s stupid for not having figured all this out before. Jin’s not supposed to have figured this out first, because now Kame doesn’t have time to think through how to talk him down. How to make it okay.
That’s one of Kame’s jobs, even when he and Jin haven’t talked in months and months, because Kame’s one of the only people in the world that can still Jin’s shaking with a single touch.
“Now you know,” Jin says. “So you can stop asking, because you know.”
Kame understands what the tension between them is now; that feeling like lava is running through his veins instead of blood. “Jin, this…”
“We can’t,” Jin says despairingly, and Kame feels like someone’s dropped a bucket of ice-water down on them both, because Kame’s frozen and Jin is shivering. “I’m not going to take you down with me.”
“Then why did you…?”
“I at least owed you an explanation,” Jin says. “At least an answer for the silence.”
“Jin,” Kame says. “I…”
“I know,” Jin says. “Because really, it’s always been this between us, Kame, even if I tried not to admit it. It’s always been this, and it hurts, looking at you.”
“Hurts?”
“I spend my days trying to come up with words that aren’t ‘leave me alone,’ and my nights trying to push back the words I really want to say. I do millions of things it terrifies me to do, and can’t do one of the things I’m most sure of.” Jin’s hand reaches out tentatively, like he’s not sure he’s allowed, and his fingers brush at Kame’s cheek. “I’m so tired, and some days I don’t…” The words are tumbling over each other, like Jin’s trying to get them all out before he thinks better of it. “It’s easier to stay in bed, those days.” Jin lets his hand fall from Kame’s cheek, drawing back into himself. “I don’t want to drag you into the dark with me.”
“What if I wanted to go?” Kame says boldly, even as he quakes. “What if your dark days didn’t scare me? What if I thought the days with the lights on were worth all the days with the lights off?”
“What if it cost you your career?” Jin says, and the words cut through Kame. “What if it costs you KAT-TUN? Dramas? Movies? What if I asked you to give up everything to come with me.” Jin wraps his arms around himself. “I want to disappear, sometimes, and I’m not selfish enough to take you with me.”
Kame’s heart is uncontrollably racing. Kame’s shaken up, and the strangest thing is, for a fleeting second, he’s willing to cast it all aside, before reality surges back in. It’s not just Kame, after all. There are people depending on him, and he’s still got dreams he wants to pursue. Goals. He wonders if Jin catches the flicker of indecision in his eyes. “Jin…”
“I won’t ask you,” Jin says. “I just wanted you to know why I… for years I…” Jin takes a deep breath. “Just be my friend.” Jin’s mouth is swollen and shiny, but Kame knows better than to reach forward and claim it. “Just stay my friend.”
“I will if you let me,” Kame says, and the bond between them thrums strong and powerful, undeniable to them both.
“I’ll let you,” Jin says. “Oh god, I’ll let you.”
Kame laces their fingers together, and it hurts a little less. “Okay,” Kame says, and Kame gets ready to pretend.
*
Kame’s shaking hands with the staff, thanking them for their hard work, bowing at the waist over and over again until he feels dizzy, and it’s done. It’s the first time Kame’s wrapped a project without another in the wings in years, and there’s an overwhelming relief that his body belongs to him again, and not to a stylist or to a character.
Kame’s been itching for a vacation for a while. He’s still got a radio show, of course, and he still does sports news once a week, joking around with Saitoh about his own baseball stats while Saitoh playfully teases him about his thwarted pro career. But that’s not work, for Kame, because it’s quick, and easy, and often Kame is wearing his most comfortable jeans and a knit hat, drinking iced coffee from an aluminum can while he records the radio show, and Kame’d be talking about the same things with Saitoh, on air or off. Before they’d gotten the show two years ago, they’d sat on the balcony at Saitoh’s house and talked baseball over beer.
But no movies means Kame can take off his nail polish, scrub his face clean of eyeliner unless he feels like wearing it, and cut his hair any way he’d like. He can lose or gain ten pounds, and no one will know. That’s a nice thought.
And really, what better time than the present? Kame thinks, as he rolls down his window and his hair blows annoyingly into his face. He dials his hairdresser without thinking, and asks if he’s got any free slots in the next two hours.
“For you? Anytime,” he says, and the next thing Kame knows, there are two inch chunks of hair falling to the floor under the stylist's skilled scissors, and Kame’s exhaling.
The black hair, Kame’s natural color, looks like so much more on the floor than it had felt like on his head, but his head does feel lighter.
“Do you want me to take the color back up to auburn?” his hairdresser asks, and Kame remembers the way Jin had curled a piece around his finger and smiles.
“No,” Kame says. “Black is fine.”
He feels like himself again when he walks out of the salon, hair shorn so that it falls in shorter layers around his face and barely touches the back of his neck.
His phone is ringing. “Kamenashi!” Ryo’s yelling into the phone, kind of like he’s in the middle of a laugh and it hasn’t quite tapered off. “Do you want to catch drinks with us?”
“Who is included in ‘us’?” Kame asks, already mentally cataloguing the things he has to do tonight as either ‘immediate’ or ‘can wait until tomorrow’. Nothing is really falling into the first category except feed Ieyasu, who gets grouchy if he isn’t fed on time, but Kame has an automatic feeder for that purpose, and he’s pretty sure he filled it up two days ago, as Jin used Kame’s only extra unused toothbrush to clean his teeth in the bathroom as he hummed the beat to some random upbeat song Kame’s never heard, because he and Jin have opposite tastes in music.
“Me and Pi and Jin,” Ryo says. “Jin’s pining for you- ow!” Kame hears, and then it’s Jin on the phone.
“We’d like it if you came,” Jin says, and his voice is low and smooth, lazy letters the way it gets when Jin has been drinking. “I’d like it,” Jin adds.
“Not tired of me yet, Akanishi?” Kame jokes, even as his pulse quickens just from the sound of Jin’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Never,” Jin breathes, and then he coughs anxiously, as if he didn’t mean to say that, and Kame can hear Ryo and Yamapi laughing on the other end of the line. “Just…come.”
“See you soon,” Kame says, and Ryo texts him the name of the bar. Kame contemplates dropping his car at home and taking a cab, but he knows if he shows up in a taxi Ryo will have nothing but jokes about his inability to hold his liquor. It’s true though, so Kame does end up taking his car back to his flat, and catching a cab out to Roppongi, where his three friends have already started drinking even though it’s only four in the afternoon. The driver lets him out in front of GerOnimo, where expats spill out the doors on Friday nights, Kame remembers vaguely, and Kame doesn’t know if that’s still true, because he hasn’t been out to that sort of place in years and years, and he’s always been more of the ‘sake and conversation’ sort of guy anyway, so maybe he’s remembering wrong completely.
Kame walks for a few blocks until he spots the place. It’s a quiet, classy looking bar, the kind Kame doesn’t feel too old for, and inside, when he opens the door, is the smell of hookah and expensive whiskey and leather. Kame likes it immediately.
Ryo waves frantically, and Jin takes advantage of Ryo’s distraction, diving in and tickling Ryo along the ribs, which makes Ryo giggle and it’s then that Kame slides into the booth next to Jin.
The leather is cool, and so is the smooth oak of the table when Kame rests his hands on it. There are four empty glasses in front of Jin, and they all look like cranberry and vodkas. Yamapi seems to be nursing a Guinness, and Ryo’s got a Cosmo, and Kame’s lips quirk a little, wondering if he should start in this soon.
“I’ve already been teasing him about the Cosmo,” Jin slurs, and turns heavy eyes to Kame. “So feel fee to join in.”
Ryo scowls at Kame, and Kame smiles at him sweetly. “I don’t need to,” Kame says. “The fact that everyone already knows there are jokes worth making is all the satisfaction I need.” Kame raises an imperious eyebrow at one of the waiters, and she holds up one finger, telling Kame she’ll be over in just a minute. “No use beating a dead horse.”
“I have no such tact,” Ryo says. “So what’s your one drink going to be tonight?”
Yamapi laughs. “It should be whatever that pretty waitress is bringing Jin,” Yamapi says. “Because he sure as hell doesn’t need another.”
“I’m fine,” Jin says, and his glassy eyes are bright and shining. “Everything’s fine.”
“Everything?” Kame asks, and Jin is melting into his side, warm and pliable, breath smelling strongly of liquor. Yamapi looks at Kame questioningly as Jin mashes his face into Kame’s shoulder, practically falling into Kame’s lap.
“Now you’re here,” Jin mumbles, and it’s muffled by Kame’s shirt, but Kame can hear him clearly anyway. Kame just sends a helpless look at Yamapi and Ryo both, and the waitress finally makes her way over.
“What can I get you?” she asks, and Kame wants to look at the drink menu but his arm is trapped. He wriggles it free and snakes it around Jin, arm pressing along the warmth of Jin’s back, so Jin falls against his chest and he can use both of his hands.
“I’ll have a tumbler of the Midleton VR, thanks,” Kame says ignoring the woman’s stare as Jin nestles himself even closer, putting his chin on Kame’s shoulder. “No ice.”
“Our friend is done,” Ryo tells her. “No matter what, don’t bring him anything else.”
“Alright,” she says with a smile, and Jin huffs, blowing warm, vodka-scented air onto Kame’s neck. Kame licks his lips, and shivers.
“I finished my movie, today,” Kame says into the still air, and Yamapi runs with it.
“I noticed! Haircut and all,” Yamapi replies, and Jin shifts again, sliding his arm around Kame’s waist.
“If you throw up on Kame, he’s not going to be super happy,” Ryo says. “I don’t know why you insisted on chugging four vodka drinks before Kame even got here, but I guess some things never change.”
“Nervous,” Jin says, and Kame swallows as Jin’s lips brush the skin. Jin is so warm.
“I feel like this is a private moment,” Ryo says, and Yamapi laughs, and Jin lazily gives them the finger and peels himself up off of Kame, resting his arms on the table and pillowing his head on them.
“Ryo-chan,” Jin says. “I didn’t miss you at all.” Ryo leans forward and pulls on Jin’s hair, and Jin yelps. “Just kidding!”
“Bakanishi,” Yamapi says, and there’s a fondness in his eyes that Kame’s always thought was reserved just for Jin. “Welcome home.”
Jin lifts his head to free one of his arms, and his hand creeps its way under the table to find the hem of Kame’s t-shirt. His fingers toy with the material, and every so often the tips of his fingers brush the bare skin of Kame’s side. Kame feels like blushing, or like moving away, or maybe like moving closer.
“I’m back,” he says, and Kame wants to cry, because Jin will be leaving again soon, and Kame will once again have an empty chest, heart beating wherever Jin takes it.
*
Jin’s like a shirt with a hole in it, Kame thinks. Jin is a shirt that Kame wants to wear when the world feels off-kilter, when he can’t figure out up from down. Jin’s all faded, now, the ink worn away and hems unraveling, but Kame wants to wear him anyway, because Jin’s so much softer now; warm and slow smiles replacing quick and loud laughs.
It’s terrifying, Kame thinks, that no matter how much time passes, Kame can feel the slow and ever-present burn of that bond that will never break, and that Kame wants to feel the soft cotton of Jin’s touch stretching across his shoulders, holes and all.
*
It takes eleven or twelve hours to fly to Australia from Japan on a direct flight.
When Kame gets a postcard from Australia, a kangaroo in a top hat on the front of the card, Kame looks up ticket costs and arrival times in Sydney, just because he’s curious, and not because he’s crazy.
It’s just that his heart feels further away than usual, and it’s wrenching in his chest, and for a minute, Kame wants to do something wild.
Haven’t seen any crocodiles, Jin’s written, and there’s a little cartoon of one of the creatures, jaws open wide.
Kame uses a green pushpin for that one, and he plops it straight in the middle of the continent, because he’s got no idea where Jin is.
*
Jin’s heavy, Kame thinks, as he pulls them both out of the cab in front of Jin’s house, Jin leaning on him heavily. Kame gestures to the driver to wait a moment for him, and the driver chuckles to himself. Jin’s got his finger up to his lips, like he’s telling Kame to be quiet, and Kame laughs.
“Are you really almost forty?” Kame asks. “Because there’s no way your stumbling drunk self is getting into that house without waking anyone.”
“I will if you help me,” Jin says, and Kame sighs, looking longingly at the cab waiting to take him home.
“Hold on a second,” Kame says, leaving a swaying Jin as he lets the driver know he can go on ahead, pulling cash from his pocket to pay the fare. “Okay, let’s go, Jin.”
“Thanks,” Jin says, Kame thinks, and then Jin is fumbling around in his baggy jeans pocket for his keys, and when he finds them, Kame snatches them away, sliding them easily into the lock. “Why does if feel like we’re teenagers who’ve snuck out?”
“I don’t know,” Jin says. “I’ve never had to sneak out. My mom just threw condoms at my face and let me go.”
“Your family is nuts, Jin,” Kame says, and he guides Jin toward the stairs, Jin’s bodyweight mostly pressed into his side for balance. He manages to get Jin into the guest room Jin’s clearly camped out in, surveying the tattered t-shirts littering the floor with disdain and the expensive button-ups discarded the same way with a bit of dismay. “You’ve only been here four days and you’ve trashed the place.”
Jin hiccups, and collapses onto the bed, and Kame starts to tug the covers out from under him, in hopes of tucking him in. But Jin doesn’t move, and Kame makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, looking up at Jin, who is staring at him. “Kame,” Jin says, and Kame gives up, putting his hands on his hips.
“Let me,” Kame says, and then Jin hooks an ankle around Kame’s knee and jerks him forward. Kame falls to the duvet on his hands and knees, on of his hands falling on Jin’s thigh. Kame feels light-headed. He’s not completely sober himself, last buzz from his whiskey still lingering.
Jin reaches out and grabs a handful of Kame’s shirt, and Kame falls to Jin’s chest. “Kame,” Jin says again, and Kame sighs, letting Jin pull Kame into an embrace.
“Jin, you’re drunk,” Kame says, and Jin exhales. Kame can feel it against his forehead, which rests right below Jin’s lips.
“I love your hair,” Jin says. “It’s still black.”
“Yes,” Kame says, and he lets himself fall slack as Jin hugs him a little tighter.
“Stay,” Jin says. “Even if you don’t want to, stay.”
“I’m not the one who leaves,” Kame says, but Jin’s arms are already loosening, Jin falling into sleep. Kame lifts his head to look up at Jin, who is drooling and his hair is knotted in at least three places Kame can see without really looking. Jin’s hands burn his skin.
Kame rolls off Jin to his side, and maybe it’s the alcohol, but maybe, just for tonight, he can pretend. “Kame,” Jin mumbles in his sleep, and he curves toward Kame, settling sweetly when his clothed thigh brushes Kame’s, almost like he just wanted to know Kame was there.
“Jin, don’t do this to me,” Kame whispers to the slumbering man. “Don’t make me feel like this all over again, and then just leave.”
There’s a map in Kame’s living room, and there’s a box of postcards under Kame’s bed, and there’s Jin’s breath hot on Kame’s eyelids, and Kame can’t help but wonder if he’s going to burn alive, until there’s nothing left of him but ash and dreams he’s long since locked away.
Five
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And then it's just, Jin's back, and that doesn't solve anything. There's no dramatic reunion. There's more pretence, and touches they allow themselves to have, and Kame cutting his hair and keeping it black because Jin likes that and sitting on the couch watching Titanic like it's ten years ago, and Jin chugging four vodka and cranberries because Kame is coming to the bar later. Nothing's fixed; it's just that the wounds are re-opening. #CRYALLTHETEARS
The metaphor of Jin as the T-shirt Kame has worn out by loving for so long. T.T
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AND ASDFGHHLJH I was really depressed writing a lot of parts four and five and I had to give myself a present afterwards. #hugs #hugs It makes me super excited that all this comes through, by the way!! SO EXCITED.
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"Soccer players are like me, Jin’s written. Always running." *throws things*
"Kame doesn’t want Jin to have missed him as much as he missed Jin. He wants Jin to have been perfectly happy without him. It would make it easier, Kame thinks, to pretend like he was perfectly happy too. It would make it all this seem worth it, in the end." This is so perfectly crafted.
"Kame’s drawn inexorably closer to the brightly burning sun." LIKE ICARUS
I love this Emily Dickenson poem. ♥
"Jin asks tiny, hesitant questions, like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to know the answers. Like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to ask about Kame’s life." So precise, so real.
“You’re important to me, Jin. And the way you flash hot and cold makes it hard for me to figure out if I’m important to you.” /SO MUCH EMPATHY
"That Jin, now that he doesn’t have Kame to curl up against under the duvet as he hides from the world, isn’t leaving important pieces of himself just lying around for other people to find." ughhhhh T_________T
"It’s easier not to talk to you than to pretend I want less from you than I do." Does it mean I'm fucked up too if I know exactly what he means? Self-preservation.
"I spend my days trying to come up with words that aren’t ‘leave me alone,’ and my nights trying to push back the words I really want to say. I do millions of things it terrifies me to do, and can’t do one of the things I’m most sure of." I don't think this side of Jin has EVER been so well-articulated.
"“I won’t ask you,” Jin says. “I just wanted you to know why I… for years I…” Jin takes a deep breath. “Just be my friend.” Jin’s mouth is swollen and shiny, but Kame knows better than to reach forward and claim it. “Just stay my friend.”" ok, like razors to the heart. so gorgeous and...
"Kame laces their fingers together, and it hurts a little less. “Okay,” Kame says, and Kame gets ready to pretend." and here... I was listening to a song that has the lyrics "what I am to you, you do not need..." *slowly dying*
omg, drunk Jin and Pi and snarky Ryo and hapless Kame and "Kame wants to cry, because Jin will be leaving again soon, and Kame will once again have an empty chest, heart beating wherever Jin takes it." ugh ugh love this.
"Kame can’t help but wonder if he’s going to burn alive, until there’s nothing left of him but ash and dreams he’s long since locked away." i can't. *SOB*
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There was a time when anything Jin did might have meant Kame was doing it too.
“Don’t touch me,” Jin says. “Not in front of other people.”
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.
But Kame has always loved Jin, even before he knew that’s what it was.
Kame always stays, just like Jin always leaves, satellites orbiting in opposite directions.
“You save your face-punching for taxi-drivers.”
“Maybe that makes the postcards, like, the Jin version of sonnets.”
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.
Jin, Kame knows, has always wanted to be brave.
Jin’s not known for his cunning or his wit, he’s just got his big, stupid, sensitive heart and his good intentions.
Soccer players are like me, Jin’s written. Always running.
“But it gave me you,” Jin says. “Us.”
“It’s not bullshit. I gave a UStream conference and foreign fans sent hundreds of messages about Akame, Kame. That’s what they call it, overseas, instead of Akakame.”
“We can’t,” Jin says. “You know we can’t.” Jin sounds strained. “I’m too fucked up and you’re too Kamenashi.”
“I don’t know,” Jin says. “I’ve never had to sneak out. My mom just threw condoms at my face and let me go.”
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Omg that is both adorable and gross at the same time. You are the best T_T
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<3 <3 Jin does a lot of things that are adorable and gross at the same time. My dearest.
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