maayacolabackup | Acts of Faith [3/3]

This time, when Kazuya gets a call from Johnny, he is waiting for it. “Time to record kid,” he says, without greetings or pleasantries. “It’s time for KAT-TUN to come back.”

The single is slow, but upbeat. It’s just the right kind of song to perform acoustic, standing or sitting still in front of a mike and displaying vocal talent over flashy dance moves. KAT-TUN hasn’t done one like this is a while, but it’s perfect-- Kazuya still can’t dance, not yet, although he gets closer and closer every day.

When Kazuya opens his mouth to sing, in the recording booth, for the first time in months, he feels like he’s coming home. Ueda, who’s singing the harmony, looks at him from his mike, grinning.

They’re back.

The fans roar when Kazuya steps on stage for the first time in over three months at Music Station. “Kame, Kame, Kame,” he hears, and he’s full to bursting.

“Did you miss me?” he says into the mike, in a low voice, before winking salaciously. He runs a hand through his hair-- it’s only an inch long, shorter than he’s ever worn it, but Kazuya thinks he might like it. There’s nothing to hide behind, and his face looks too angular and too harsh, but it’s a reminder that he survived. It’s just hair, he thinks. It’s just hair. But the fans are screaming, screaming themselves hoarse, and Kazuya can’t do anything then, but sing from his heart.

After the show, Kazuya is sweating and shaking and overwhelmed. His phone rings, and it’s Jin. “What a great performance,” Jin says, and he sounds like he’s traveling.

“Where are you?” Kazuya asks, basking, just a little, at the praise he hears in Jin’s voice. Kazuya hasn’t needed Jin’s praise since they were young, but Jin gives praise so rarely that Kazuya always glows when he gets it, because Jin wouldn’t say it if he didn’t really mean it, and sometimes he wouldn’t say it even if he did.

“On my way to a meeting,” Jin sighs. “Are you free tonight?”

Kazuya looks over at the others, who are squirting each other with water bottles and laughing at Nakamaru, who looks put upon as usual. “I might stay with the guys,” Kazuya answers, and Jin clears his throat.

“I meant...later than that,” Jin clarifies, his voice anxious. “I...never mind.”

Kazuya sucks his lower lip into his mouth. “I...well, you should come, then,” he says, as if it’s no big deal that Jin wants to come over to his apartment in the middle of the night, for no reason. Kazuya’s not sick anymore, and there are no more excuses, only...”I sleep better, when you’re there,” Kazuya admits, quietly.

Jin exhales, and it’s loud in Kazuya’s ear. “I write better, too,” Jin replies. “I’ll see you around 3, then.”

“Yeah,” Kazuya says, his heartbeat accelerating for reasons he doesn’t understand.

***

Jin is walking on the treadmill next to him, keeping pace with Kazuya as they reach the halfway point on their third kilometer. “Run the last half?” Jin says, turning to looks at Kazuya, who is already sweating and wheezing. Jin is unaffected, his hair still hanging loose and fluffy around his shoulders.

“I hate you, right now,” Kazuya says as he adjusts the speed on his treadmill. They run the distance, and when the treadmill starts to slow down, easing into cool-down mode, Kazuya grips the bar to support himself. His leg and his chest are burning.

He looks up at Jin, whose face is lit with sheer joy. “You did it!” Jin says, and there’s pride in his slightly flushed face, pride for Kazuya, and it makes Kazuya feel full, like he’s just eaten a huge meal or like he’s just finished a huge concert, that kind of complete and total satisfaction.

Jin is sweating now too, some of his hair sticking to the back of his neck, and his skin a pretty rose color from exertion. He looks graceful though, and Kazuya can’t stop staring at him, wondering when Jin had become so beautiful, turning from some kind of fluffy overgrown puppy into a strong and confident man.

He swallows, hard, and pushes the thought away.

***

Kazuya’s first choreography session, after 4 months of rehabilitation on his legs, is like running a marathon.

Koki is slapping him on the back, hard, when they finish, and then grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. ‘Kame-chan, you’re back!!”

Kazuya, who is wheezing and puffing and redder than he’s ever been in his life, manages to beam back at Koki, and then they’re all grinning at each other, excitement visibly crackling in the air.

Dome show. Dome show. They’ve got to earn back the Dome show. They haven’t felt hunger like this since they were juniors, and it’s refreshing, to care so much.

But when Kazuya gets home, his leg starts to cramp up. The pain is intense, and he can’t bring himself to do anything more than prop it up on the arm of the couch, unable to even go and get painkillers. He calls Jin, but Jin doesn’t answer. He thinks about calling one of the others, but then he remembers their excited faces and feels like he can’t tell them how much this hurts.

When Jin comes over to check on him and sees a sweaty, un-showered Kazuya lying on the couch, he immediately retreats to the kitchen for a glass of water and some ibuprofen. He hands them both to Kazuya, who takes them gratefully. “I got your call,” Jin says, “but I was on the phone with my U.S. record company.” He gently lifts Kazuya’s leg and slides under it, so that it rests in his lap, and pushes up his sleeves. “I’m glad you called. I knew to come over as soon as I could, because you never call.”

Kazuya sighs in relief as Jin slowly starts to work his magic on his leg. His fingers press into the aching muscles, turning the burning pain into as steady, dull, manageable ache. “You’re a lifesaver,” Kazuya tells him, as he finally relaxes into the couch.

“An apple one, right? I hate the cherry flavored ones,” Jin cracks.

Kazuya contentedly grins. “No, grape,” he teases in return.

“Choreo was rough today, huh?” Jin replies.

“Yeah,” Kazuya hums, “But the show, if we get to do it, is going to be amazing.”

“Of course it will be,” Jin chides. “KAT-TUN is always amazing.”

And Kazuya finally wants to ask. “Then why did you abandon us?” he asks, and Jin’s hands still for a moment, before resuming their massage of Kazuya’s injured leg.

“I was wondering when you would get around to asking,” Jin finally answers. “There are many reasons. But I never thought about it as abandoning you.”

Kazuya is quiet. He doesn’t want to interrupt, he just wants to listen.

“When Johnny said to me, ‘Jin, do you want to do solo work?’ I didn’t even consider saying no.” Jin rolls his neck, and there’s a soft cracking sound. “Then he said ‘I’m going to take you out of KAT-TUN.’”

Kazuya bites his lip.

Jin takes a deep breath. “He said ‘You guys sound fantastic together, but Jin, you don’t belong there. You’re too brash, and too different from the other guys. And I want to try and do something different with you.’ And honestly? I wanted to try something different too. I loved doing solo stuff. Up on the stage, singing what i wanted to sing, and dancing how I wanted to dance; I was the most excited about performing that I had been in a long time. And America...” Jin stops for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I liked performing with you guys, too. But writing my own songs...singing to crowds who liked the real me, just me, no costumes, no holding back-- I loved that. I still LOVE that.”

Kazuya’s hands are clenched into fists. He gets that. He really does, but he doesn’t...”So why did you just disappear?”

“I thought,” Jin says distantly, “that I would have more time to tell you before Johnny hauled me on camera to announce it.” He looks down at his hands, which are resting on Kazuya’s leg. “I thought I would have more time, and then I didn’t. And I knew you’d be angry, that I didn’t tell you myself.” He quirks a smile. “I’m not terrific at apologizing, and I’m not terrific at acknowledging my own mistakes. Also I was terrified to see you guys, terrified to see what you thought of me.”

Kazuya feels his eyes start to sting. “So you just decided not to face us at all? Not to even try?”

Jin’s hair falls in front of his face, obscuring Kazuya’s view. “I never claimed to be smart, Kame. I never claimed to be anything but me.”

“All this time,” Kazuya says, and his own voice sounds miles away from him, as if he’s hearing it from the inside of a bubble. “All this time, I thought it was because of me.”

Jin looks up then, into Kazuya’s eyes, and his shock is visible. “Oh Kame, no,” he says, shaking his head in denial. “No.” He sounds like he might cry.

But Kazuya can still remember that day clearly. Summer was setting in, in earnest, and Kazuya was hot, too hot, and irritated, and Jin was being apathetic, his mind clearly somewhere other than here, with the group, while they discussed their next single. He remembers picking a fight. He remembers the last words he said to Jin. “If you’re going to be like this, you might as well not be here at all.”

He remembers Jin’s last words to him. “Fuck off, Kamenashi,” before he stormed out of the meeting room.

The next day, Jin hadn’t come. Soon, too soon, it had been official.

“Kame, Kame, no!” Jin says, and his hands are clenching on Kazuya’s shoulders, and his grip is too tight. “It was decided before that, Kame. It wasn’t you,” Jin repeats, and Kazuya feels a heavy weight lifting off his heart. He feels freer. He hadn’t even known the weight was there, but now he is looking at Jin with fresh eyes, and an open heart. “It wasn’t you,” Jin says, one last time, pulling Kazuya in for a hug, the first one they’ve shared in years and years. Kazuya’s go-en is sandwiched between them, and Kazuya can smell the sweat in Jin’s hair. His arm is trapped at an awkward angle, but it doesn’t matter at all, because Kazuya is so fucking happy.

***

As Kazuya’s rehearsals increase to every day, and Jin starts rehearsals too, for his new album, somehow Jin starts to sleep at Kazuya’s apartment. He always stumbles in, with the key Kazuya finally just gave him, at around midnight, sweaty and exhausted. He quickly showers, and then comes and joins Kazuya on his bed, sometimes with his guitar, and sometimes he just pulls Kazuya’s throbbing leg into his lap to gently massage it the way he learned how to months ago watching a Youtube video about rehabilitation.

Kazuya can’t really believe it’s been over 4 months since the accident, but he also can’t believe it’s only been 4 months since Jin. He thinks of his life sometimes in terms of Before Jin, and After Jin, but he doesn’t use acronyms because…well, it sends his mind in directions he doesn’t want it to go in.

Anyway, sometimes Jin sleeps on his couch, but sometimes Jin falls asleep writing music on the bed, and Kazuya tucks him in, under the blankets, smiling at him softly before drifting off himself. And Jin’s deep breathing, it turns out, is just as comforting as his lullabies, because Kazuya can always fall asleep to the rhythmic, soothing sound of Jin beside him.

It takes Koki to point out the obvious, that they are basically living together, when Koki eavesdrops on one of his phone-calls with Jin. “What time are you coming home tonight?” Kazuya asks Jin, mentally planning what he’s going to cook.

“Maybe around seven or eight?” Jin replies. “I’m not really sure, cause we’re doing the jacket shoot for my album tonight.” Jin sounds exhausted already.

“Okay,” Kazuya says. “Good luck today. See you later.” He ends the call, and Koki is staring at him, one eyebrow raised.

“You and Jin are living together now?” Koki asks, something teasing and entirely inappropriate in his voice.

“Not really,” Kazuya says, but as he says it, he realizes it’s a lie. Jin must go back to his apartment sometimes, because Jin is constantly wearing different clothing and he never uses Kazuya’s shampoo when he showers because “it smells like gay.” But there is a steadily growing collection of oversized sweatshirts on the chairs in Kazuya’s bedroom, and Jin has a Badtz Maru themed toothbrush in Kazuya’s bathroom, that Kazuya had picked out for him one day as a joke at the convenience store when he complained about always having stale breath when he stayed over with Kazuya’s place. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“All I know,” Koki says, “Is that you asked Jin if he was coming home, not if he was coming over.”

Kazuya starts. “Oh,” he says, and then thinks about how quiet the apartment is until Jin comes, and thinks he doesn’t mind if Jin thinks of his apartment as home, since Kazuya can’t imagine home without him anymore.

***

One morning, Kazuya wakes up groggy and extremely hot, sweating in the heat of his bed. He tries to push the covers off of him, but they’re a living breathing human, in the form of Jin. Jin’s arm is thrown over his waist, pinning him to the bed. His breath blows warm on Kazuya’s cheek, as he inhales and exhales, and Kazuya can’t move, frozen by his shock. He swallows, and tilts his face a little, to look at Jin’s peaceful features, relaxed in slumber. His lips are set into a natural pout, and his eyelashes, from this close, look endless. His face is close, too close, and Kazuya’s heart doesn’t seem to be beating.

He pries Jin’s hand of his waist and retreats to the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water as he tries to calm his frazzled nerves.

The next night, when Jin sleeps on the sofa, Kazuya is so, so cold in the night, and when he wakes up, he’s rolled up in both of his comforters and he’s still shivering.

***

Kazuya notices them more now, the small miniscule little touches he was never aware of before, just Jin’s arms brushing against his, or the way Jin is always absentmindedly picking lint of Kazuya’s flannel button downs, or the way Jin’s thigh presses against his when they sit next to each other on the couch while Jin attempts, for the millionth time, to explain to Kazuya why soccer is remotely interesting.

Nakamaru isn’t one to miss much, Kazuya thinks wryly. “What’s wrong?” he asks Kazuya, one day when Jin is with them, and they’re eating ice-cream cones on the back porch of Kazuya’s parents’ house. Kazuya’s mother is delighted to have “all her boys” over, and feeds them enough to feed a whole army, or maybe the cast of Dream Boys. Jin is roughhousing with Koji and Koki on the lawn, pushing and shoving them for possession of the frisbee, in order to send it whizzing hazardously toward Ueda, who is his teammate.

“Has Jin always been so big?” Kazuya asks him, and Nakamaru is contemplative.

“What do you mean?” He takes a big bite of his ice-cream, and then dances around a little in place at his brain-freeze. “Cold, cold, it’s cold!” Kazuya laughs, and shakes his head.

“Are you sure you’re the oldest?” He grins, and turns his eyes back to Jin, who is now being pinned to the ground by Koki, who is relentlessly tickling his collarbone. “Mercy, mercy!” Jin screeches, in the high-pitched yell he’s famous for, and Kazuya forgets where he is for a moment, just watching him. Jin sparkles, even in the rapidly sinking sun, as nighttime encroaches upon them.

Nakamaru calms, and takes another, smaller nip at his cone. “Jin’s pretty charismatic,” Nakamaru says. “But,” and Kazuya turns to look at Nakamaru now, and Nakamaru is looking right back at him. “But Jin’s always been something different for you.”

Kazuya licks his lips, and tastes chocolate ice-cream. His hair is sticking uncomfortably to his neck—it’s just long enough that it annoys the hell out of him, but to short to pull off his neck in any way. And he considers. “What do you mean by that?”

Nakamaru chuckles to himself. “I dunno, Kame, but everything Jin does cuts you twice as deep. It’s scary how much you care about what he does…it’s why he made Koki nervous, worming his way so deeply back into your life before we could blink.”

The chocolate is too sweet. “Okay,” Kazuya says, and Nakamaru stands, and gives him a hand up. “We should join them, huh?”

Kazuya nods. The smile Jin throws at him, when he joins the game, melts Kazuya’s insides faster than the heat had melted his dessert.

***

Johnny comes to see them rehearsing for a Music Station performance, watching Kazuya carefully, and weighing the groups performance in his mind. He waits until they finish running through the choreography three times before he walks over to the stereo and turns it off. He looks at them seriously, and Kazuya wonders if Johnny is going to tell them it’s not good enough, that Kazuya isn’t good enough anymore, and Kazuya’s going to be shuffled off to wherever it is that pop stars with no future in the industry go, and he’ll have to hang out with Joey Fatone from N*Sync and watch reruns of Cartoon KAT-TUN all day to remember the good ole days.

But Johnny smiles, and Kazuya releases a breath.

“Next month,” Johnny says, “KAT-TUN will have a comeback show at the Tokyo Dome.”

They all stare at him wide eyes, and suddenly Junno makes this horrific squeal of joy that catapults the rest of them into celebration. Johnny makes a satisfied face, and leaves without fanfare, while Kazuya is wrapped up in a hug between Koki and Nakamaru, who are squeezing him so tight he can’t breathe. Junno is doing a private little jig, and Ueda is watching them all as if they are children, but the excitement in his eyes is visible if you know him-- Ueda only truly comes alive on stage.

Kazuya, when he is released from the hug, puts a faux-stern look on his face. “Now we have to practice TWICE as hard,” he says, lips twitching.

“Yes, sir!” Koki mocks, before running over to the stereo to start the song over.

***

Jin is sitting on the floor scribbling in his English textbook, and Kazuya is looking at the set-list with a critical eye.

“What’s wrong?” Jin asks.

“It’s the set list,” Kazuya says, narrowing his eyes. “We have to mix a lot more slow songs into it because of me, and it feels low energy.”

Jin “hmmms” thoughtfully. “Can’t you just be suspended in the air, or some shit, singing while the others dance?”

Kazuya contemplates it, and realizes it’s a solid idea. “Yeah, thanks,” he says. “I’ll mention it to the others. It’s just...I don’t want to single myself out anymore. KAT-TUN is different now. Less, ‘Jin and Kame and their band’ and more ‘KAT-TUN’.”

Jin nods. “I noticed. It’s...it’s good.” But then Jin makes a face, a kind of embarrassed one that Kazuya doesn’t really get. “Still, I mostly just notice you, when I watch. You’re so...” he searches for a word. “You’re so bright.”

Kazuya’s embarrassed now, too. “Bright?”

Jin looks down, smiling wryly at his textbook, as if he’ll find some kind of answer inside of it. “I just can’t take my eyes off of you when you’re performing.” He says it softly, and there’s something simmering under the surface of his words. Then Jin smiles that megawatt grin at him, the one that makes his lower jaw jut out at a weird angle. “It must be the flamboyant swivel hip dances,” he teases, and the moment is broken.

“You’re one to talk,” Kazuya retorts, laughing and throwing a sofa cushion at Jin’s stupid face.

But when they go to sleep that night, Jin, for the first time, climbs into bed with Kazuya without pretence, with no guitar and no notebook, and pulls the covers up over them both. They aren’t touching, but Kazuya struggles to go to sleep for a long time, finally tumbling into slumber as Jin starts to hum ‘Water Dance’ in a soft tone, late into the night.

***
Kazuya would like to focus on his concert preparations, but for some reason, all he can think about is Jin.

“I can’t stop thinking about Jin,” he says to Koki after rehearsal one day, and Koki laughs.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Koki says, and Kazuya flushes.

“What are you talking about?”

Nakamaru joins them, face scrunched up. “What he’s saying is, the man has moved into your apartment, you see him at least 10 hours a day most days, and yet you still clutch your cell phone whenever you’re at work in case he texts you, because goodness knows what would happen if you don’t respond at the speed of light.”

Kazuya makes an indignant noise. “It’s not like that--”

Koki snorts. “Yes it is. You should buy like 5,000 roses and confess your love to him with the petals scattered for effect. You know how Jin is into that sappy shit.”

Kazuya does know, because one time Jin made him watch ‘Titanic’ and then cried for three hours afterwards, eating about 3 packs of Oreos and sobbing about the harsh realities of love. He claims his favorite movie is ‘Die Hard’, but actually it’s ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ which Kazuya sees him watching on his Macbook in secret sometimes. Kazuya pretends he doesn’t notice, but Jin sobs pretty hard at the ending and sometimes Kazuya surreptitiously moves the tissue box closer to Jin’s side.

But then Koki’s words catch up with him. “Love? What are you talking about?”

Koki and Nakamaru both look at him as if he has just said something incredibly stupid. “Oh, Kame-chan,” Koki says, patting him on the shoulder. “You’re so silly.”

Flustered, Kazuya takes a big gulp of water from his thermos. “I’m not silly,” he pouts, feeling his heart hammering in his chest.

Love. Love. Love. Love.

Now that the feeling has a name, though, Kazuya can’t make it shut up or go away, and it looms in the back of his mind, haunting him while he dreams.

***

Jin drives him to the hospital for his last check-up. When Kazuya’s given a clean bill of health, and the go-ahead for the Dome Concert, and the whole thing is finally over, Jin grabs his wrists, and squeezes so tight it makes Kazuya wince, but Kazuya understands. Kazuya understands because his other hand is clenched so hard the nails are leaving semi-circle grooves in the flesh of his palm, and he doesn’t have to look at Jin, his Jin, to know he’s trying not to cry in relief.

***

It’s everything he wants it to be, the Tokyo Dome. Everything it’s always been for him, everything it needs to be. It’s thrilling and perfect and overflowing, and Kazuya finally thinks: ‘I made it.’

Kazuya is flush with exertion and adrenaline, and can feel the screaming of his fans rushing through his veins. It’s like liquid energy. He knows he’ll be tired tomorrow, exhausted even, and that his leg will be absolutely useless, but right now, he feels like he’s on top of the fucking world, and nothing will manage to push him down. He’s bursting with joy and success, floating on it, incapacitated by it.

When he sees Jin, standing assuredly backstage in their dressing room, his hands in his jeans pockets, hair loose and a brilliant grin lighting up his whole face, Kazuya doesn’t think. It’s like heady adrenaline has replaced the need for courage. He just grabs Jin’s face and pulls it down to his own, planting a big, loud kiss on Jin’s smiling mouth. Koki lets out a loud whoop of amusement, and Ueda makes a disgusted groan.

Jin freezes, and Kazuya drops his hands and leans away. He grins nervously and takes a step back, but then Jin is grabbing the lapels of his ugly velvet suit and dragging him back in, diving in with an open mouth to capture Kazuya’s lips with his own. Jin’s tongue immediately licks at Kazuya’s lips, and Kazuya allows it in, his own tongue reaching out tentatively to tangle. They kiss slowly and thoroughly, and Jin makes a sweet sound in his throat that sends a trill singing through Kazuya’s gut.

Nakamaru clears his throat, and Jin reluctantly (and it’s really reluctant, Kazuya can tell) breaks the kiss, breathing as hard as Kazuya, who has just put on a three-hour comeback show at the Tokyo Dome. Jin’s eyes are closed, and his face is rosy pink with embarrassment or pleasure, Kazuya can’t tell, but maybe it’s both. His lips are swollen too, looking inviting, and Kazuya doesn’t know why he hasn’t ever done this before—why he hasn’t been kissing Jin’s pouting, sensual, irresistible mouth his whole life.

“This must stop,” Ueda says. “I want to be able to eat again, sometime in the future.”

Junno only looks mildly interested, twirling a piece of feathered hair around his fingers as he stares at them.

Nakamaru and Koki look like proud fathers on their kids’ first day of school, looking at Kazuya dotingly like he’s just gotten an ‘A’ on a test.

And maybe he has, Kazuya thinks. Maybe he just got an ‘A ‘on the most important test of his life, and his prize is kissing Jin, is Jin opening his mouth to feel more of Kazuya from the inside out.

Jin’s eyes, now, are dark with the promise of later, and Kazuya shivers when his fingers linger on Kazuya’s arm even as they turn back to their friends, (all of whom have expressions containing various shades of amusement,) and rub slow patterns into the sensitive skin at the inside of his elbow.

***

When they get home late that night, tension is coiled like a cobra in Kazuya’s belly, slithering and hissing against the walls. He locks the door of his apartment, and follows Jin to the couch, sitting next to him. The silence is thick, but not awkward.

“You kissed me,” Jin says, finally, his voice a little shaky. Kazuya clenches his hands into fists, resting them against the leather of the sofa in order to keep himself from covering his face. He turns to look at Jin, who is staring at him with something dark and exciting in his eyes. “What took you so long?”

And Kazuya leans forward and kisses Jin’s left eyebrow, then his right. He places a small kiss on his nose, before finding the corner of his mouth and kissing him there, too. Jin groans impatiently, his hands fisting in Kazuya’s t-shirt, jerking him forward, before he covers Kazuya’s lips with his own. This kiss is even better than the last one, if only because they are alone, and Kazuya doesn’t have to fight the moan that bubbles up inside him at the sweet feeling of completion that kissing Jin gives him. It’s like Kazuya is suddenly wide awake, and every sensation is twice as strong as usual. He feels every ridge of Jin’s mouth, and every small brush of Jin’s chapped lips against his own. His body tingles at the slight brush of Jin’s knuckles against his sides through his shirt, and he hears Jin’s tiny gasps and murmurs as if Jin is in stereo, echoing through his head and his heart.

He kisses Jin desperately, as if Jin is going to disappear, and Jin is kissing him back just as fiercely, until they are tangled together on the leather sofa, limbs intertwined as they kiss. Their kisses are becoming sloppy and wet. More often than not, Jin misses his mouth when he slides back in, leaving a trail of saliva across Kazuya’s cheek, but Kazuya’s guilty of the same.

Finally, their kisses slow, and Kazuya finds himself resting on Jin’s chest, Jin’s arms wrapped around him tightly, hold him close. Kazuya is gripping Jin’s shoulders, assuring himself that this is real, that Jin is here. His necklace is digging into his clavicle, trapped between their bodies. It feels warm against Kazuya’s chest, and it hurts, the way it’s pressed into his flesh. That helps Kazuya remember this is real, that small pain.

But Kazuya’s heart is beating fast, and suddenly he’s so afraid that if Jin disappears, if he disappears now, everything will hurt twice as bad as before, and it’ll be one mountain Kazuya can never climb. After all, anything Jin does has always cut him twice as deep.

Jin moves one hand to pick up Kazuya’s, and laces their fingers together gently. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers. The soft puffing, as Jin sucks in air, is warm on Kazuya’s face, tickling his forehead and blowing his short hair. His palm is balmy and steady against Kazuya’s, and he can feel Jin’s pulse thrumming all around him, as if Jin is surrounding him in every conceivable way. “Not this time.”

And Kazuya exhales. Kazuya wants to believe him, so he does. It’s an act of faith. The go-en is warm against his chest.

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From:

sweetspicyhot.livejournal.com

So Beautiful. I mean it. I loved every part. You know at first I thought Kame was going to relapse at some point, and I was on my guard. But when that didn't happen I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. You are a wonderful writer and I love this fic. Hugs and Hearts <3

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Acts of Faith [3/3]

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