Swear (2/2)

[maayacolabackup]

Title: Swear (2/2)
Pairing: Akame
Rating:  NC-17
Genre: romance, friendship, not au in a weird way, angst
Notes: I don't usually address Jin leaving the group, because, um, I don't like to talk about things that break my heart. Anyway this is my epic akame hatesex piece that ended up as something completely different than what I intended because I'm a huge sap and so yeah my outline went out the window. I probably won't write Akame again, because PIn is my OTP, but I wanted to write this, and so I did. I think it's what I wanted, so I hope you like it. Split into 2 parts cause it's too long :(
Summary: Jin misses Kame in so many ways, but it seems impossible to scale the wall that stands between them. 10,000+ words.

***

Jin is ringing in 2011 with more and more good news. He’s in an honest to goodness Hollywood film, his tour was a roaring success, and his single came out at number one.

He’s at Yamapi’s birthday party when the first bad thing that’s happened since the ball drop bumps into him and spills rum and coke all over his expensive Fubu hoodie. “Fuck!” Jin exclaims.

“I’m so sorry!” A familiar nasal voice says, and Jin feels dread well up in his stomach. He hasn’t looked at this face in over a year, hasn’t heard this voice in almost as long. “Jin?” His first name. He hasn’t heard that in far longer, not from that mouth.

Jin looks at Kamenashi, in his expensive designer jeans, with his hair falling immaculately around his beautiful, angular face, and feels it all come rushing back to him.

Jin hates how Kame is always making him FEEL, bursting at the seams with all sorts of emotions Jin can’t understand and Jin can feel his face reacting, because Jin has never been good at hiding his emotions.

And then Kame reaches out and touches him on the arm. It’s the first time Kame has touched him off camera since…that time, and Jin feels dizzy, like he’ll never be able to deal with Kamenashi like he deals with everyone else. “Can we…talk?”

“I have to go,” Jin says, but doesn’t move his arm. He remembers overhearing Kame’s choked voice through the door, and it’s all the hesitation Kamenashi needs for encouragement.

“Next week,” Kame says. “I’ll call you.”

“You can’t,” Jin mumbles out, and Kame looks stricken. “My number’s changed,” he adds quickly, and the expression on Kame’s face is almost a smile, and there’s something else that Jin doesn’t get—when did he stop being able to read Kame? And Jin wonders if it might be hope.

Jin gives Kamenashi his new number and stumbles out of the club, and into his car. He only had one drink, and feels fine to drive.

He looks at the turtle plushie on the dashboard and waits for his heart to slow down. “Stop it, Turtle,” he whispers at the plushie, which he leaves in the car so he never has to travel alone.

***

Jin still buys vanilla ice-cream and leaves it in the freezer, even though he hates it.

***

Kamenashi calls the home phone instead of Jin’s cell, and when Yamapi answers the phone, his eyes fall out of his head. “Kamenashi, what’s up?...You want to talk to WHO? Yeah, Akanishi is home, hold on.”

Kame is breathless on the other line. “I didn’t save the number in my phone right. I mean, I typed it in but didn’t save it, I was to nervous and then…”

“It’s fine,” Jin interrupts, and Yamapi is unabashedly eavesdropping in the kitchen entryway, looking at Jin as if he has six heads because Jin is on the phone with his arch nemesis.

It’s been four days since the club, since the party, and Jin has been on pins and needles.

“Let’s get coffee tomorrow,” Kame says.

“Okay.”

“Two is okay? At…the shop across from the old baseball field?”

Jin swallows as he remembers Kame and him sneaking there and eating cookies before going back to Kame’s house. Kame’s mom always scolded them for spoiling their appetites, somehow knowing despite the pains they took to make it a secret. Jin found out years later the old lady who owned the shop used to call and say she’d ‘given the sweet boys cookies, since they were so cute,’ and he’d been a little disappointed Kame’s mom wasn’t really a ninja.

“Yeah, sounds fine,” Jin says, swallowing again. “Sounds just fine.”

He hangs up, and Yamapi taps a foot. “So?” he says.

“He wants to talk, get coffee.”

“Is this why you bailed on my birthday party?”

“It’s not like that—“

“I’m glad you guys are going to talk. Finally. Thank god.”

Jin puts his head in his hands. “Yeah, I guess.”

***

“I’ve never been to a soccer game,” Kamenashi said as they watched a game on tv. He leaned his head on Jin’s shoulder.

“I’ll take you to one someday, promise.”

Kame held out his pinky. “Swear?”

“Yeah,” Jin said, and he did.

***

Jin and Kame have coffee, and talk about their jobs, Kamenashi’s new niece, and their dogs.

It’s surprisingly pleasant, and so they agree to do it again. And again. Jin doesn’t tell anyone about it, and he assumes Kamenashi doesn’t either, since no one asks him about it. After the first time, Yamapi asked him how it had gone and Jin had shrugged. Yamapi hadn’t asked again.

Jin thinks he assumes it didn’t go well.

But Jin thinks it went too well, because he’s seeing bits and pieces of Old Kame, and it’s making him all confused inside. Jin had gotten used to the burning lust he felt around Kamenashi, but it’s presence without rage made him churn in an entirely new way. And worse still was the return of the sweaty palms and quick breathing, the red flush from a brush of shoulder against shoulder, the rapid heartbeat.

Jin still doesn’t understand why Kame makes him feel this way, only this time he’s going to think about it carefully.

When he goes to Budapest at the end of April to film his movie, he exchanges emails with Kamenashi everyday. Sometimes they are inane, about food or what his co-stars are like, and sometimes Kame sends him quotes from whatever poetry book he’s reading at the moment, and Jin sends back witty responses like That’s so gay, Kamenashi, or What the fuck does that even mean? And Kame sends back a smiley face and Jin finds himself filled with a warm burst of something that he can’t name.

Jin still calls Pi every Friday, and one Friday when Pi mentions he’s going out to dinner with Kamenashi, hesitantly, Jin has to stop himself from saying “I know, Kamenashi told me yesterday,” and he realizes he might be living a secret life.

When he gets back from Budapest, he and Yamapi are sitting on the couch watching soccer and Yamapi looks at him and says: “So tell me about your secret girlfriend.”

Jin sputters. “I do not have a secret girlfriend!” But then he thinks of Kamenashi and inexplicably blushes.

“Ooohhhhh kay.” And then Yamapi pauses. “Is it a secret boyfriend?” And Jin spits popcorn kernels across the table. “Ew, dude, that is DISGUSTING,” Pi says, and Jin glares at him.

“Well, what did you expect my reaction to be?! I’m not gay, ass.” Jin takes a napkin to pick up the wet popcorn. “What kind of question is that?”

Yamapi shrugs. “Well, you’re acting weird. You were singing 'Beauty and the Beast' in the shower yesterday, man. That is serious love. And since you used to be in gay love with Kamenashi I figured you could be in gay love with someone else, now.”

Jin doesn’t even find most of that worth responding to. “I don’t know anything about love, remember?”

“Alright,” Yamapi says, but he’s watching Jin out of the corner of his eye for the rest of the night.

Jin wonders if love might be feeling like you’re going to explode from all the vines of impatience growing tangled up your veins and wrapping around your heart. Jin wonders if love might be taking a turtle plushie to Budapest, so you don’t have to travel alone.

He sends Kame a text. You look like a total tool on the baseball news right now.

Fuck you. Is the response, and Jin smiles.

***

Jin remembers every minute in the hospital after Kame collapses from exhaustion on day during practice. Kame looks so small on the white sheets, an IV in his arm, and Jin wants to protect him more than anything. It’s snowing outside, and Kame hates winter. He prefers the fall. “Jin looks like the fall, too,” he’d said once.

A nurse peeks her head in. “Visiting hours are over, young man,” she whispers to Jin, and Jin slowly, despairingly, releases Kamenashi’s hand. Kame immediately starts to whimper and groan, his eyes clenching in discomfort.

The nurse looks alarmed. She looks at Jin. He flashes her a crooked smile. “Neither of us do very well alone,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Well,” she says, “Just this once.”

She leaves Jin there, and Jin lays on the bed next to Kamenashi, who immediately curls into him. “Hey, my prince,” Jin whispers. “Wake up, your princess is waiting.”

Kamenashi smiles in his sleep. And it snows.

***

Before Jin knows it, it’s almost time for Christmas, and Jin is pondering what to get Kamenashi.

Jin doesn’t understand his relationship with Kamenashi at all. They argue all the time, but it’s softer somehow.

He’s sitting in their café (their café) and Kame is telling Jin he looks like a cow with all that cake in his mouth. “Shut up,” Jin says. “I am frail, and I need sugar.”

Honestly, Jin is exhausted, and he should be sleeping now. He’s doing a big Christmas concert, and rehearsals have wiped him completely out. But Kame had called, and Jin had been finding it harder and harder to say no.

“Whatever, you are not frail, Akanishi. You are still the fattest of us all,” Kame says, and Jin looks appraisingly at Kamenashi and thinks about how thin the others had looked at lunch last week and supposes Kamenashi may be right. “But you do look tired.”

“Eh, it’s no big deal,” Jin says, flushing. “Really.”

Kamenashi does that thing, with his eyebrow, that he picked up sometime when Jin wasn’t talking to him at all, and seeing it now makes Jin inexplicably angry. Jin doesn’t know if it’s because it’s so condescending, or if it’s because he hates thinking about the fact that he and Kame weren’t friends for so long that Kame developed ticks without him noticing.

“I hate your eyebrows,” he says. “I really, really hate them.”

Kamenashi’s eyes slit at him. “What?”

“I just hate them,” Jin says, before realizing Kamenashi is angry.

“What does my physical appearance have to do with you, anyway?” he says, and Jin doesn’t know what to say. “You’re such an asshole, and it’s not even conscious with you. What does that even mean?”

Jin slouches in his chair. “Nevermind.”

“Explain it to me,” Kamenashi says.

“I can’t,” Jin says helplessly. “I can’t explain it to you when I don’t even know the answer for myself.”

“Akanishi,” Kamenashi says, and Jin looks up from his latte. Kame’s wearing his stone face, and Jin hates that, too. “What is this?”

Jin has no answer. “What do you want for Christmas?” Jin says instead, and for the first time in years and years and years, Kamenashi smiles, a real, genuine smile, just for him. And Jin gives the feeling in his chest a name.


***

Jin goes home and writes a song. He then calls his manager and demands it be added to his set.

“No back up dancers, no music,” he tells her. “Just me and a guitarist.”

“What does it even sound like?” she asks, already giving in.

“Like magic.”

***

Jin’s Christmas concert is a big success. The media is on fire with it, talking about his rising star and his reformed image, his soulful music that he wrote all by himself. Jin feels like he might die of pride.

The next day, he is doing an interview, and the interviewer asks about his new song. “I wrote it two weeks ago,” Jin says to her, smiling.

“What’s it about?” the interviewer queries, and Jin smiles a megawatt grin, one that he hasn’t really shown to a television camera since 2005.

“I think,” he says slowly, “I think it’s about love.”

Yamapi texts him 30 minutes later, when he’s off air and walking to his car.

YOU HAVE A SECRET GIRLFRIEND?!!!?!?!

 

Nope, he types back.

THEN YOU WISH YOU HAD A SECRET GIRLFRIEND?!?!?!

 

Yeah. But I don’t think it’s mutual.

Yamapi doesn’t text back for 15 minutes then, and Jin is halfway home when his phone buzzes.

I bought TEQUILA. COME HOME AND CRY D:

Jin loves Yamapi, too.

***

They can’t meet again until New Year’s Eve. Jin is invited to 80 bazillion different parties, and gets cussed out by Ryo on the phone (“What, are you too big a celebrity now to come out and dance like an idiot with us poor proletariat-types?”), but Jin manages to avoid committing to any of them.

He goes to Kamenashi’s apartment for the first time.

Kamenashi opens the door wearing a tight, black t-shirt and a loose pair of black silk pants. “Hey,” he says, smiling that smile, and Jin feels his insides squirming.

“Here,” he says, and shoves the envelope into Kame’s hands. “Merry Christmas,” he mumbles into his own chest, eyes on the floor.

Kamenashi grabs his wrist and pulls him inside. “Come in, you idiot.”

Jin finds himself on the couch, a soft brown leather one, drinking tea. Kame’s apartment isn’t anything like what Jin expected. It’s all full of browns and beiges, and the curtains are a soft butter yellow. “I expected skulls,” he says, in lieu of something else to say.

Kamenashi looks surprised he remembers. “My bedroom is like that, but my mom hates that stuff,” he admits with a laugh. “So I did out here to look like the fall.” Jin's heart is in his throat, and he’s scared he knows this feeling.

Kame’s face is soft in the lamplight.

“You look like him tonight,” Jin says, and Kamenashi looks confused. “Like Kame, I mean. My Kame,” and Jin drinks from his tea as the silence expands around them.

“Open it,” Jin says then, gesturing to the envelope.

Inside are season passes to Jin’s favorite soccer team. “I promised you once,” he says uncomfortably, “that I’d take you…”

“JIN,” Kamenashi says, and his voice is filled with something that Jin can’t quite place. “Jin, this is…”

“And I want to keep my promises,” Jin explains quickly, not sure if the emotion in Kame’s voice is good or bad. “And next year I’m going to buy you a kotatsu and I always keep vanilla ice-cream in my fridge and I took that stupid turtle to Budapest.”

Kamenashi is staring at him now. “Then why…”

Jin feels miserable, looking at Kame’s face that is a mixture of confusion and anger and something else…something else…

“That time,” Jin manages. “That time I told you not to touch me,” and Kame’s face hardens and Jin can see Old Kame starting to disappear again so he knows he has to say it fast. “It’s because every time you touched me it felt like my skin was on fire, like I couldn’t breathe unless you were beside me, like my heart weighed 500 pounds and if you weren’t carrying it then how was I supposed to go anywhere and I hated it! I hated having no control and not wanting to share you and…”

Jin can’t breathe, can’t look at Kamenashi’s face, and has to escape.

Jin finds himself scrambling off the couch and out the door in seconds, leaving Kamenashi staring, wide-eyed, at the spot he has just vacated.

***

Jin doesn’t leave his room for 3 days. On the second day, Yamapi comes into Jin’s room and sits on the bed while Jin sulks under the covers.

“So Kamenashi is your secret girlfriend,” he says conversationally, and Jin refuses to dignify him with an answer. “You are so stupid,” Pi says. “So you can just stay there and sulk until your encore show tomorrow.”

***

Jin knows someone special is in the audience because his manager keeps giving him these sketchy looks.

Jin knows it is Kamenashi because during ‘Eternal’, a spotlight goes on, and Kamenashi joins him on stage as the surprise guest, and Jin’s heart stops in his chest.

Their voices have always sounded beautiful together, and Jin can just imagine the newspapers and blogs tomorrow, going crazy about this unexpected duet.

Kame won’t stop looking at him.

When the show is over, Jin goes backstage to his dressing room, and Kame is waiting outside of it. “I hate you,” Kame says as a greeting. Jin can’t tell if he’s smiling or grimacing. “You really suck. You can’t just tell someone they completely misread you, made your life miserable, and wasted years of time while you were secretly in love with them,” Kamenashi starts, while Jin stands there and shivers, not knowing where this is going or if he’s lost Kamenashi’s friendship all over again.

“And you’re so selfish, as if you were the only one who felt that way, you stupid ass,” and Jin doesn’t understand, but Kamenashi seems to realize they’re in a hallway and pulls him inside the dressing room, locking the door.

“Yamapi explained about the eyebrows,” Kamenashi says, and Jin winced. “You’re so…I don’t know why I…” And Kamenashi grabs him, and kisses him.  “I’m so angry at you right now. I just hate you.” And kisses him again.

And Jin’s so afraid Kamenashi will change his mind, shove him away. Jin can see that this is a mix of Old Kame and New Kame.

“I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to stop…this,” Jin breathes into Kame’s mouth, and Kame growls. And Jin feeds on the anger, thinks it’s hot.

“So don’t,” he says, pushing Jin hard. Jin falls on the floor, wincing as he hits the hard floor of the dressing room, glaring up at Kame.

“You’re such a dick, even when-“ Kame straddles him then, putting a hand none-too-gently over Jin’s mouth. “Shut up,” he hisses. “You’re always talking and it’s just-“ Jin kisses him, forcing his tongue into Kame’s open mouth. “You shut up,” he replies, craning his neck up as far as he can, his abs straining, to crush his lips to Kame’s over and over and over. Kame moves and moans under the kiss, into the kiss, impatiently fumbling with the garish buttons on Jin’s performance shirt. They stubbornly refuse to undo, so Kame snarls and rips the shirt apart.

“You asshole,” Jin moans out as Kame’s lips fasten on his now-bared nipples, and feels his teeth. “I, fuck, I love this shirt, FUCK,” and Kame is licking a trail up to Kame’s lips, hovering above them. ‘I’ll buy you a new one, then,” he says, before he descends.

Jin has never felt like this before: filled with rage and confusion and pain, but also like everything in his life has been leading up to this, writhing underneath Kamenashi fucking Kazuya, surrendering to him, and unable to think of anything but how much he doesn’t want it to stop. His whole body is on fire, and he fears he might burn up.

And then his eyes meet Kame’s and Kame is burning too, he sees it all reflecting back at him from Kame’s eyes, and well, Jin thinks, at least we’re turning to ashes together.

Soon, they’re both naked, gasping at the touch of flesh on flesh for the first time, of the hard planes of Kame’s thin and wiry frame uncomfortably rubbing against Jin’s slightly softer body; or maybe at the sharp pang of pleasure at the friction between their swollen cocks.

Jin is kissing every part of Kame’s body that he can reach, still pinned beneath him, Kame’s lithe thighs resting on either side of his hips.

Jin is dying. He feels like he hasn’t breathed in minutes, and ever shudder and whimper that escapes Kame’s mouth drives Jin insane, stabbing him sharply until he feels his emotions bleeding out into the space between them.

“Let me fuck you,” Kame says, his voice cracking slightly, and Jin undulates his permission.

Kame swears, the reaches a shaking hand up to the dressing room counter. He grabs something, and then Jin feels a slick finger nudging at his entrance.  Kame pauses. “Have you ever-“

“No,” Jin grunts, wriggling closer to the finger. “Just girls, really. Never wanted anyone like this. Only wanted you.” Kame hisses, and slides the finger home, flexing it back and forth, stretching.

“I didn’t know you would want…” Kame replied, his teeth gritting together. Jin feels he discomfort but longs for it, even—something familiar in a sea of newness.

“You’ve done this before,” Jin says, his voice as tight as his thighs, afraid to move, needing to move, dying to move, as Kame adds another finger, scissoring them slightly. Kame flushes, and Jin can’t remember ever being more aroused in his life, wrapped around Kame’s fingers and watching the red linger in his cheeks and throat.

“Just…just to myself,” Kame finally says, and Jin thinks he could cum from that image alone.

Jin, desperate and writhing, as Kame’s quick fingers brush his prostate again, speaks into the thick air, his breath exploding from him like steam from a boiling train engine. “Fuck me, already.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to—“

“Now who’s talking too much?” Jin says, and Kame leans forward and kisses him, and it’s not forceful at all. It’s soft and tender and even more confusing than any kiss they’ve ever shared before, because Jin doesn’t understand it. Because the anger and the lust are the things that Jin understands between himself and Kame, and this isn’t that.

And then Kame is sliding into him, and it hurts, but it hurts like Jin had been living his life in black and white, and suddenly everything is in startling, vivid color.

Jin’s hips buck wildly as Kame’s thrusts nudge his prostate again and again, and he knows he won’t last long, and thinks Kame won’t either. They’ve had ten years of foreplay, after all, and the build up was too much—Kame keeps hitting his prostate, and the lines in Jin’s head between pleasure and pain begin to blur, and when Kame‘s hand reaches for his cock, grasping it firmly, the lines between consciousness and unconsciousness begin to blur too.

Before he can make sense of it all, before he even realizes it, he’s coming all over Kame’s hand, and he can feel the warm spurts inside himself as Kame comes too.

The lay together, Kame collapsed on top of Jin, cock softening inside him, on the dressing room floor, and Jin has no idea how he ended up here, or what he’s doing; only he knows that Kame isn’t cold at all, he so warm and Jin never wants to let go.

“This is fucked up,” Kame said finally, into Jin’s chest, his breath blowing across Jin’s skin like a promise. “I can’t believe you made me waste so much TIME.”

“ I can’t let you go again,” Jin says, and realizes that it’s true.

Kame freezes as he processes the words. His body is still and stiff, and fear grips Jin’s heart as Kame gets colder and colder in his arms. But then Kame sighs, and melts back into Jin, after the scariest ten seconds of Jin’s life. “Okay,” he sighs.

“Okay?” Jin asks.

“It’s okay if you don’t let me go,” Kame says quietly. “I’ve never been able to let you go either.” The room is silent now, except for their soft breaths, and Jin knows the room must smell like burning as he crumbles into ashes.

He thinks of his turtle, which is sitting in his duffel, along with his clothes and his painkillers, and of the ice-cream in his freezer.

This isn’t a fairy tale, Jin thinks, but it’s alright.

***

Jin waits for KAT-TUN’s practice to end, sitting on a bench in the hallway outside the choreo room. He can remember when he used to be on the receiving end of Kame’s sharp tongue and barking corrections and narrowed eyes, and a part of him misses the feeling of belonging.

But then Koki is exiting the room to refill his water bottle, and looks surprised to see him. Seeing Jin waiting there, he looks confused. “Is there something you need, man?”

“Nope, not really,” he says.

“Well, practice is over…” he says, and then they chat for a little while, about nothing and then about Nakamaru’s new girlfriend, who Koki describes as sweet (Koki is not talking about her personality, but about her fantastic ass) and Jin listens and responds and Jin can’t remember if it’s 2006 or 2012.

But then he excuses himself and walks into the room. Nakamaru is on the floor, back to the mirror, drinking water and eyes closed. Ueda is next to him, examining his complexion. Koki is right behind Jin, standing in the door. But Jin is looking over to where Taguchi and Kame are standing, laughing about something as Kame vigorously towels the sweat out of his hair that’s too long again, the tendrils curling up on his shoulders.

Jin approaches him, and lays a hand lightly on the back of his neck to get his attention. But he instead gains everyone’s attention, and Jin remembers that the last time they were all together, Jin had punched Kame in the face. “Hey,” he says softly to Kame, pretending as if they are alone. “Dinner?”

Kame looks at him, and his eyes soften in a way Jin hasn’t seen since they were children. “Of course,” he replies, just as softly, and grabs his duffel bag.

The others are watching with eagle eyes, weighing every gesture, and Jin knows it.  They watch incredulously as the two leave together. They’re not touching at all, and they’re not even looking at each other, but Jin holds his happiness tight to his heart.

They don’t understand the way Jin feels around Kame, like a wild animal who isn’t sure if the other is friend or foe. They’ve only seen one side of Jin’s strange relationship with Kame, not the side where Kame melts into him like butter and tells Jin how he’s sorry and Jin whispers that he’s sorry too and then they kiss and their kisses are full of idealism and dreams and Jin feeling like he’s 16 all over again.

But this isn’t the past. This Kame isn’t Old Kame or Stone Kame, but some weird mix that Jin can’t get enough of, and he wants to spend a lifetime exploring and cataloguing every reaction.

Kame laces his fingers with Jin’s when they’re out of the room, and Jin smiles and looks over at his future.

***

Jin strokes his fingers across Kame’s brow. “It’s all fuzzy again,” Jin says, unexpectedly.

Kame reaches his hands up, in a panic, to feel his eyebrows. “Wait seriously? How is that even--”

“No, no,” Jin says, laughing. “I meant your heart.” And then he drops his face into Kamenashi’s neck, and grins.

Love is feeling like you’re going to die, but you’ve never been happier to be alive. Love is burning. Love is sharp angles and anger and pleasure and sometimes confusion. Love is knowing without the other person, your life is just a little bit less. Love is sex on the dressing room floor, angry kisses, and secret coffee dates. Love is Kamenashi, for Jin. Love is a turtle on the dashboard.

“Oh, Princess Jinnifer, you’re so romantic.”

Jin, who is 28 years old, knows all about love.

They buy a kotatsu.