(one-shot) dreams come true [2/3]
The door to his make-up studio is propped open, bright light seeping through the crack in the early slivers of morning sunlight. Confused, Kame pushes the door all the way open, hesitating to dump his bag near the entryway before walking in.
Someone’s in one of the make-up chairs - Kame can just see the outline of the elbow at the corner, tufts of hair sticking out from the top of the back. Eyebrows furrowing, he steps forward, clearing his throat and preparing his best smile, his professional smile for whatever disruption has decided to come in this early in the morning.
The chair whirls around, and Kame’s eyes widen.
“Yesterday,” Jin starts, before Kame can even begin to speak. “Yesterday, I couldn’t. But Yamapi called me when he got home.”
The composure returns to Kame’s face, sorrow drowned out by a quiet fury that masks onto his face. “Whatever I said yesterday wasn’t meant for you,” he replies, shoulders tense. “I was just giving tips.”
“Giving tips,” Jin repeats, as if it is a foreign language. “Kamenashi - ”
“Akanishi,” Kame interrupts. “Please get out of my workplace.”
“Ten years,” Jin replies, and Kame jolts like he’s been shocked with electricity, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Composed, Jin eyes the actions, meets Kame’s unforgiving eyes. “Do you still play?”
Sucking in a shaky breath, Kame finally lets his hands clench, fingers splaying out wide against his own waist, clinging as if to hold himself in place. “You have no fucking right to ask me,” he says, each consonant pronounced precisely, flatly. He raises a hand with an exaggerated gesture, palm outstretched towards the still open door as he steps back to make room for a pathway to it. “Now, if you please.”
Biting his lip, Jin deflates a little, rises from the chair. “Look, Kame. Let me - ”
“I’ve looked for ten years, Jin,” Kame lowers his hand, moves aside. “I don’t want to look anymore. I’ve found this,” he motions towards the make-up tables, “And it’s enough. Maybe you were right in doing what you did. This suits me better, don’t you think?”
Something darkens in Jin’s eyes, in his voice. “You loved piano,” he whispers, without sparing even a glance towards the make-up tables, the neatly placed schedules, the lights and holiday decorations Koki put up last night. “You love piano, Kame,” he breathes out. Kame shuts his eyes tightly, reels a step back, tries to block out the softness in Jin’s voice, the darkened eyes, like Jin is reaching into his ribcage and slowly, gently digging out his heart.
“No.” The word is forced, uncomfortably loud, but he manages it. “I can’t play piano,” Kame says. “Don’t go saying things you don’t know about.”
“You what?” The shock that registers in Jin’s face is almost worth it. “You love piano. What are you talking - ”
“I can’t play the piano,” Kame repeats steadily, eyes opening to gaze at Jin with intense fierceness. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You - ”
“The door’s right there,” Kame points left to the doorway, finger barely trembling as he watches Jin, the hesitant uncertainty in his steps as he moves towards the door. “Thanks for dropping by,” Kame calls out, albeit sarcastically, when he notices Koki coming in through the doorway. Jin shakes his head, brushing past the confused assistant and out down the hallway. “I really appreciate it,” Kame ends quietly, eyes dropping when Koki gives him a curious, questioning look, swiftly glancing behind to watch Jin disappear down the hall.
“What was that about?”
Shaking his head, Kame closes his eyes. “Nothing,” he sighs out, and his fingers twitch involuntarily at the mere thought, the ache spreading through his veins, his heart, his entire body.
“Nothing at all,” he reaffirms, like he is trying to convince himself more than anyone.
---
It’s almost nine at night by the time Kame is driving home, city and holiday lights smearing into irregular patterns in his peripheral vision. Rain patters onto his frantically sweeping windshield wipers, and he sits back in frustration when yet again, he finds himself behind a long, long line of traffic ten blocks away from his apartment.
In a futile attempt to escape his boredom, he settles back, drumming his fingers along the dashboard and glancing out the side window. A large building towers in his sight, illuminated by flashing lights - it’s a shopping mall, the shine of tiled floors and bustle of restaurants within. One advertisement hanging off the side is for some modernized furniture store, another for “Japan’s Best Ramen!” and another -
Kame inhales, his eyes falling on the last sign in the row. It’s for a piano store, and at the very bottom, in small text, says “practice rooms available for rent per hour.” His fingers freeze on the dashboard, breaths shallow. A loud beep from behind startles him, jumping slightly to realize that the light ahead has turned a zigzagged green through the droplets splashed on his front window.
Before he can control his own instincts, his car surges forward, reaching the intersection in a second. And against his own will, his hands tilt the steering wheel left, turning the car into the parking lot across the street, right below the flashing signs and mill of nighttime passerby, young couples with hands clasped tightly together, families stepping into the bright glow of restaurant entrances.
Kame stays in his car for a long minute before taking out the umbrella from under his seat, fingering the smooth waterproof fabric. His heart is thumping nervously, fingers shaking in anxiety as he swings the door open, sliding his umbrella open. He slams the door closed behind him, remembering in his haze to lock it as he stares up at the building, the sign for the piano store larger and closer than before.
Lowering his gaze, Kame sets his sight on the entrance to the mall, double glass doors opening and closing with customers. He breathes in deeply, tells himself that perhaps he’s just going in because he’s hungry, because he’ll find a little something to eat. The hand holding his umbrella is still shaking uncontrollably, and he clamps his other hand over it, steadying the shake of drops that fling onto his skin.
Somehow, he makes it across the street, past a few crowds of teenagers and mothers scolding little children in booths near the restaurant windows. He steps inside, pulling his umbrella shut and eyes searching, locating a small café wedged into the corner a bit further off.
In the store next to the café, there’s the figure of a grand piano on display, glossy and polished.
Fingers clenching, he grits his teeth, lowering his head and briskly walking forward. There are a few empty tables in the café, but still a large amount of people - too many people, he says to himself. “Too many people,” he murmurs out loud as he approaches the café, as his feet bring him past it, bring him to a halt in front of the grand piano at the next entrance. He reaches out, gliding a fingertip across its surface, so softly it doesn’t even leave a fingerprint.
“May I help you, sir?” An attendant is giving him her bright, professional smile, and Kame is reminded of himself, of all the smiles he’s handed out over the years, smiles that don’t matter, don’t count, aren’t even real. He bites back the disgust rising inside him, tries to disorganize the paranoia that is beginning to seep into his thoughts.
“Do you have practice rooms available?” His own voice sounds strange in his ears, so weakly strained, so unlike himself. But the attendant, she just smiles, just keeps on smiling so much that he’s afraid her face is going to break, that the corners are just going to drop and shatter like a porcelain doll on the tiled ground. Her words fly past his ears, in one and out the other, and he’s almost robotic now, writing his name where she tells him to and pulling out the credit card from his wallet. “Just charge it on there,” he hears himself telling her, giving an indefinite answer when she asks him for how long.
“The store closes at eleven,” she informs him; smile still plastered, sticky sweet. “But as long as you return the key when you’re done, you can stay as long as you want. Our key slots have sensors; they calculate the time for you. And it’ll just charge to your credit card.”
He nods, keeps on nodding, makes sounds of confirmation. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and she tosses her head, keeps the professional smile.
“No problem, sir,” she says. “Enjoy yourself.”
(Enjoy yourself, he repeats in his mind like a mantra, and it’s so ironic that he almost wants to laugh.)
---
The practice room is tiny, an enclosed space with only enough room for the upright piano and a bench, and maybe some room for his feet. He props up his still dripping umbrella near the door, shuts it quietly behind him. It’s eerily silent, save for the faint sounds of people in the next rooms practicing, but the walls are so thick he can barely recognize what they’re even playing.
He sags onto the piano bench, sliding over to the center of the keyboard and staring down at the pattern of black and white, the mix of emotions whizzing in his mind, the ring in his ears. Carefully, he brings his hands up, fingers curving, flexing, curving again in pain. He rests them onto the keys; right thumb on middle C. He’ll just play a scale. Just one scale.
His thumb hits C, and the note resounds in the small room, bouncing off the walls and into his ears. It’s out of tune, he notes, but it’s perfect, so perfect. It’s so perfect, and he keeps on going, silent tears sliding down his cheeks as he positions each finger into place, thumb edging over to hit the F. When he reaches B, the second-to-last note - just one more, and he’d be done, finished, he’d have played an entire scale, he can’t. He wills his finger downwards, presses the heel of his free hand into his eyelids so he won’t scream against the pain, but it’s too much. The finger is just barely above the key, the tip of the nail scraping against the pearly white surface, and it’s too damn much.
Kame bites his lip, swallows down the bile rising in his throat from the pain, and he lets go. His hand collapses on the keyboard, emitting a chaotic chord of notes, and he lets it slip off, lets the silence weigh down on his shoulders like he is willing to carry the burden of the world.
He buries his face into his palms, into the never-forgiving ache of his stupid fingers and his stupid heart and his stupid overflowing tears, and screams.
---
That night, the piano is far away in his dreams - a hazy, blurred vision at the far end of the room, a vision that he grasps for but cannot reach, falls short of. There’s screaming in his ears, a palm slapping his cheek, and it hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts. He’s shouting back, voice cracking and tears breaking loose and she’s there, the old hag, the woman who married his father without his consent and refused to let him follow his dreams, called them stupid and his dead father stupid - all pianists, all musicians, so, so stupid. The woman who kicked Jin out of the house for singing, the woman who ruined his life.
He is shouting his lungs out, heavy breaths and slamming doors and kicking furniture until his toes bruise. He can hear Jin’s voice over the phone, the soft whispering, the promises to return, to come back and bring Kame to Tokyo with him - only for a while, Jin promises, just for a while and I’ll come back for you. And Kame believes him, believes him with all his might, with all the willpower he gathers inside of him.
The piano fades into nothing more than a silhouette in the background, dimmed against the onslaught of sharp, contrasting images, of his fist pounding into the wall of his bedroom when he learns of Jin’s debut, when he knows for sure that Jin isn’t coming back. There’s a hole in the wall, wooden splinters pricking into his skin, and he can taste the blood in his mouth from biting down on his lip too hard. His fingers are cracking against the wooden pillars supporting the house from inside, his nails are chipping, but he just keeps on punching, just keeps on enlarging the hole until his stepmother is screaming shrill nonsense in his ear, hauling him away with strong arms.
This time, he wakes up sobbing, curling into a ball and fisting his hands so tightly to make it stop hurting, but it won’t stop.
He can’t stop.
---
“Kame,” there’s a hand waving in front of face, obstructing his vision. Reeling back, Kame blinks to see Koki staring at him in concern, half-eaten sandwich lying on the plate in front of him. “Kame, you look tired. Are you okay?”
“Mm,” without answering properly, Kame returns absently to poking at his meal, the gooey pasta sauce that oozes onto the sides of his plate. He twists his lips into a frown, as if he can’t remember why he got it in the first place, and stands up abruptly. “I’m not hungry,” he states when he sees Koki’s confused, inquisitive look. “I’ll be back in the studio if you need me.”
“Where are you going, Kamenashi-kun?” Cheerfully, Yamashita slides into the seat beside him, eyeing the untouched pasta on his plate. “Looks like a delicious lunch.”
Halting in his steps, Kame gives Koki a glance, but the assistant just shrugs. Reluctantly, Kame sits himself back down, pushing the plate of uneaten pasta back into its original place and continuing his brave pokes at it with his fork, sending Koki a quiet glare when the other hides a smile behind his hand.
“Hey, Pi,” someone else swings a leg over, sliding in and stopping short when he notices Kame drearily prodding at the pasta. Yamashita smiles brightly, clapping the newcomer on the back and pronouncing his name loudly.
“Hey, Jin! What’s up?” At the greeting, Kame starts, fork dropping from his fingers as he turns to gaze at Jin. The older man nods, eyes falling upon the heaps of tomato sauce and pasta on the table.
“Um,” uncomfortably, Kame drops his gaze. “I just remembered that I have to cut my lunch break short today. I have to - ”
“I don’t feel like eating this,” Jin cuts in, using his fork to poke at his own pasta. It’s covered with only a cheesy sauce, melted white and flaked mozzarella. Freezing, Kame turns to look at him, gaze wavering only in the slightest. “Does anyone want it?” Jin raises his head, eyes pinning Kame back into his seat.
“It looks like Kame doesn’t want his pasta,” Koki chimes in, and smirks at the subdued, grateful look Jin shoots him from across the table. “Maybe you two should switch.”
Kame opens his mouth in protest. “Oh, I - ”
“Here you go, Kamenashi-kun,” Yamashita drags Jin’s full plate over, still steaming hot. In return, he pulls Kame’s plate of tomato sauced pasta away, shoving it in front of Jin’s face, whose features quirk into a tentative smile, a bit crestfallen at the edges. “Enjoy your meals!”
Biting his lip, Kame stares at the food now placed in front of him. He plucks a piece of pasta with his chopsticks, experimentally putting it into his mouth and chewing slowly. The cheese dissolves into a wonderful mixture of flavor, and he gives a quiet smile, almost unnoticed by the rest of the table, especially as the rest of the idols begin to flock around Yamashita’s greetings.
(From the other side of the table, Jin smiles, a sad, sad smile. He lifts a tomato slice with his fingertips with a flicker of remembrance on his face, and tries not to think about how it used to be, those dreams that never came true.)
---
Yamashita catches him by the elbow later on, while he is walking back down the hall to the make-up studio. “Hey,” the star greets, and Kame nods politely, flashing his always professional, always perfect smile. Yamashita laughs, steps into pace with his walking. “You know, with a smile like that, you could be a star.”
Kame scoffs half-heartedly. “I’m sure,” he replies, but the twitch of his fingers doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I heard you play piano.” It’s so casual, so easily thrown out there that Kame nods absently, only to realize a second later what’s really been said. He spins around, stopping in his tracks to fix Yamashita with his gaze.
“Who told you that?”
“I have my sources,” Yamashita gestures vaguely. “So? Do you?”
Suppressing a sigh, Kame hunches his shoulders, toe stubbing the ground in idle movements. “Why?”
“Well,” Yamashita muses, putting a thoughtful hand to his chin for good measure. “I wrote this song recently, and it has a piano part. I thought it’d be cool if I could perform it live with, you know, a real pianist.” He pauses. “I hear you’re really good.”
“False,” Kame replies immediately, and then bites his lip. His fingers flex a little at his side, curling into tight balls as he bites down harder. “But I can try,” he hears himself say, and it sounds foreign, even to his own ears. “Try.” Unconsciously, his thumb moves to rub against his crooked fourth finger, and he fights back the wince threatening behind the thin veil of his smile.
“Awesome!” Genuine joy spreads over Yamashita’s features, his face rising into a smile, eyes into slits. “I’ll give you the music at the end of today. Thanks so much, Kamenashi,” he gives a thumbs-up. “That’s all. I have to get back to rehearsal, so,” he waves, “See you later.”
Unsure, Kame nods, still wearing his forced smile, and waves until Yamashita has disappeared around the corridor. He lets out a deep breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, hands unfolding into open palms, into un-straight fingers and the ache that shoots like electric sparks through his nerves.
Gritting his teeth, he relaxes his hands, lets the fingers bend slightly and the pain subside.
---
part 3
Someone’s in one of the make-up chairs - Kame can just see the outline of the elbow at the corner, tufts of hair sticking out from the top of the back. Eyebrows furrowing, he steps forward, clearing his throat and preparing his best smile, his professional smile for whatever disruption has decided to come in this early in the morning.
The chair whirls around, and Kame’s eyes widen.
“Yesterday,” Jin starts, before Kame can even begin to speak. “Yesterday, I couldn’t. But Yamapi called me when he got home.”
The composure returns to Kame’s face, sorrow drowned out by a quiet fury that masks onto his face. “Whatever I said yesterday wasn’t meant for you,” he replies, shoulders tense. “I was just giving tips.”
“Giving tips,” Jin repeats, as if it is a foreign language. “Kamenashi - ”
“Akanishi,” Kame interrupts. “Please get out of my workplace.”
“Ten years,” Jin replies, and Kame jolts like he’s been shocked with electricity, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Composed, Jin eyes the actions, meets Kame’s unforgiving eyes. “Do you still play?”
Sucking in a shaky breath, Kame finally lets his hands clench, fingers splaying out wide against his own waist, clinging as if to hold himself in place. “You have no fucking right to ask me,” he says, each consonant pronounced precisely, flatly. He raises a hand with an exaggerated gesture, palm outstretched towards the still open door as he steps back to make room for a pathway to it. “Now, if you please.”
Biting his lip, Jin deflates a little, rises from the chair. “Look, Kame. Let me - ”
“I’ve looked for ten years, Jin,” Kame lowers his hand, moves aside. “I don’t want to look anymore. I’ve found this,” he motions towards the make-up tables, “And it’s enough. Maybe you were right in doing what you did. This suits me better, don’t you think?”
Something darkens in Jin’s eyes, in his voice. “You loved piano,” he whispers, without sparing even a glance towards the make-up tables, the neatly placed schedules, the lights and holiday decorations Koki put up last night. “You love piano, Kame,” he breathes out. Kame shuts his eyes tightly, reels a step back, tries to block out the softness in Jin’s voice, the darkened eyes, like Jin is reaching into his ribcage and slowly, gently digging out his heart.
“No.” The word is forced, uncomfortably loud, but he manages it. “I can’t play piano,” Kame says. “Don’t go saying things you don’t know about.”
“You what?” The shock that registers in Jin’s face is almost worth it. “You love piano. What are you talking - ”
“I can’t play the piano,” Kame repeats steadily, eyes opening to gaze at Jin with intense fierceness. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You - ”
“The door’s right there,” Kame points left to the doorway, finger barely trembling as he watches Jin, the hesitant uncertainty in his steps as he moves towards the door. “Thanks for dropping by,” Kame calls out, albeit sarcastically, when he notices Koki coming in through the doorway. Jin shakes his head, brushing past the confused assistant and out down the hallway. “I really appreciate it,” Kame ends quietly, eyes dropping when Koki gives him a curious, questioning look, swiftly glancing behind to watch Jin disappear down the hall.
“What was that about?”
Shaking his head, Kame closes his eyes. “Nothing,” he sighs out, and his fingers twitch involuntarily at the mere thought, the ache spreading through his veins, his heart, his entire body.
“Nothing at all,” he reaffirms, like he is trying to convince himself more than anyone.
---
It’s almost nine at night by the time Kame is driving home, city and holiday lights smearing into irregular patterns in his peripheral vision. Rain patters onto his frantically sweeping windshield wipers, and he sits back in frustration when yet again, he finds himself behind a long, long line of traffic ten blocks away from his apartment.
In a futile attempt to escape his boredom, he settles back, drumming his fingers along the dashboard and glancing out the side window. A large building towers in his sight, illuminated by flashing lights - it’s a shopping mall, the shine of tiled floors and bustle of restaurants within. One advertisement hanging off the side is for some modernized furniture store, another for “Japan’s Best Ramen!” and another -
Kame inhales, his eyes falling on the last sign in the row. It’s for a piano store, and at the very bottom, in small text, says “practice rooms available for rent per hour.” His fingers freeze on the dashboard, breaths shallow. A loud beep from behind startles him, jumping slightly to realize that the light ahead has turned a zigzagged green through the droplets splashed on his front window.
Before he can control his own instincts, his car surges forward, reaching the intersection in a second. And against his own will, his hands tilt the steering wheel left, turning the car into the parking lot across the street, right below the flashing signs and mill of nighttime passerby, young couples with hands clasped tightly together, families stepping into the bright glow of restaurant entrances.
Kame stays in his car for a long minute before taking out the umbrella from under his seat, fingering the smooth waterproof fabric. His heart is thumping nervously, fingers shaking in anxiety as he swings the door open, sliding his umbrella open. He slams the door closed behind him, remembering in his haze to lock it as he stares up at the building, the sign for the piano store larger and closer than before.
Lowering his gaze, Kame sets his sight on the entrance to the mall, double glass doors opening and closing with customers. He breathes in deeply, tells himself that perhaps he’s just going in because he’s hungry, because he’ll find a little something to eat. The hand holding his umbrella is still shaking uncontrollably, and he clamps his other hand over it, steadying the shake of drops that fling onto his skin.
Somehow, he makes it across the street, past a few crowds of teenagers and mothers scolding little children in booths near the restaurant windows. He steps inside, pulling his umbrella shut and eyes searching, locating a small café wedged into the corner a bit further off.
In the store next to the café, there’s the figure of a grand piano on display, glossy and polished.
Fingers clenching, he grits his teeth, lowering his head and briskly walking forward. There are a few empty tables in the café, but still a large amount of people - too many people, he says to himself. “Too many people,” he murmurs out loud as he approaches the café, as his feet bring him past it, bring him to a halt in front of the grand piano at the next entrance. He reaches out, gliding a fingertip across its surface, so softly it doesn’t even leave a fingerprint.
“May I help you, sir?” An attendant is giving him her bright, professional smile, and Kame is reminded of himself, of all the smiles he’s handed out over the years, smiles that don’t matter, don’t count, aren’t even real. He bites back the disgust rising inside him, tries to disorganize the paranoia that is beginning to seep into his thoughts.
“Do you have practice rooms available?” His own voice sounds strange in his ears, so weakly strained, so unlike himself. But the attendant, she just smiles, just keeps on smiling so much that he’s afraid her face is going to break, that the corners are just going to drop and shatter like a porcelain doll on the tiled ground. Her words fly past his ears, in one and out the other, and he’s almost robotic now, writing his name where she tells him to and pulling out the credit card from his wallet. “Just charge it on there,” he hears himself telling her, giving an indefinite answer when she asks him for how long.
“The store closes at eleven,” she informs him; smile still plastered, sticky sweet. “But as long as you return the key when you’re done, you can stay as long as you want. Our key slots have sensors; they calculate the time for you. And it’ll just charge to your credit card.”
He nods, keeps on nodding, makes sounds of confirmation. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and she tosses her head, keeps the professional smile.
“No problem, sir,” she says. “Enjoy yourself.”
(Enjoy yourself, he repeats in his mind like a mantra, and it’s so ironic that he almost wants to laugh.)
---
The practice room is tiny, an enclosed space with only enough room for the upright piano and a bench, and maybe some room for his feet. He props up his still dripping umbrella near the door, shuts it quietly behind him. It’s eerily silent, save for the faint sounds of people in the next rooms practicing, but the walls are so thick he can barely recognize what they’re even playing.
He sags onto the piano bench, sliding over to the center of the keyboard and staring down at the pattern of black and white, the mix of emotions whizzing in his mind, the ring in his ears. Carefully, he brings his hands up, fingers curving, flexing, curving again in pain. He rests them onto the keys; right thumb on middle C. He’ll just play a scale. Just one scale.
His thumb hits C, and the note resounds in the small room, bouncing off the walls and into his ears. It’s out of tune, he notes, but it’s perfect, so perfect. It’s so perfect, and he keeps on going, silent tears sliding down his cheeks as he positions each finger into place, thumb edging over to hit the F. When he reaches B, the second-to-last note - just one more, and he’d be done, finished, he’d have played an entire scale, he can’t. He wills his finger downwards, presses the heel of his free hand into his eyelids so he won’t scream against the pain, but it’s too much. The finger is just barely above the key, the tip of the nail scraping against the pearly white surface, and it’s too damn much.
Kame bites his lip, swallows down the bile rising in his throat from the pain, and he lets go. His hand collapses on the keyboard, emitting a chaotic chord of notes, and he lets it slip off, lets the silence weigh down on his shoulders like he is willing to carry the burden of the world.
He buries his face into his palms, into the never-forgiving ache of his stupid fingers and his stupid heart and his stupid overflowing tears, and screams.
---
That night, the piano is far away in his dreams - a hazy, blurred vision at the far end of the room, a vision that he grasps for but cannot reach, falls short of. There’s screaming in his ears, a palm slapping his cheek, and it hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts. He’s shouting back, voice cracking and tears breaking loose and she’s there, the old hag, the woman who married his father without his consent and refused to let him follow his dreams, called them stupid and his dead father stupid - all pianists, all musicians, so, so stupid. The woman who kicked Jin out of the house for singing, the woman who ruined his life.
He is shouting his lungs out, heavy breaths and slamming doors and kicking furniture until his toes bruise. He can hear Jin’s voice over the phone, the soft whispering, the promises to return, to come back and bring Kame to Tokyo with him - only for a while, Jin promises, just for a while and I’ll come back for you. And Kame believes him, believes him with all his might, with all the willpower he gathers inside of him.
The piano fades into nothing more than a silhouette in the background, dimmed against the onslaught of sharp, contrasting images, of his fist pounding into the wall of his bedroom when he learns of Jin’s debut, when he knows for sure that Jin isn’t coming back. There’s a hole in the wall, wooden splinters pricking into his skin, and he can taste the blood in his mouth from biting down on his lip too hard. His fingers are cracking against the wooden pillars supporting the house from inside, his nails are chipping, but he just keeps on punching, just keeps on enlarging the hole until his stepmother is screaming shrill nonsense in his ear, hauling him away with strong arms.
This time, he wakes up sobbing, curling into a ball and fisting his hands so tightly to make it stop hurting, but it won’t stop.
He can’t stop.
---
“Kame,” there’s a hand waving in front of face, obstructing his vision. Reeling back, Kame blinks to see Koki staring at him in concern, half-eaten sandwich lying on the plate in front of him. “Kame, you look tired. Are you okay?”
“Mm,” without answering properly, Kame returns absently to poking at his meal, the gooey pasta sauce that oozes onto the sides of his plate. He twists his lips into a frown, as if he can’t remember why he got it in the first place, and stands up abruptly. “I’m not hungry,” he states when he sees Koki’s confused, inquisitive look. “I’ll be back in the studio if you need me.”
“Where are you going, Kamenashi-kun?” Cheerfully, Yamashita slides into the seat beside him, eyeing the untouched pasta on his plate. “Looks like a delicious lunch.”
Halting in his steps, Kame gives Koki a glance, but the assistant just shrugs. Reluctantly, Kame sits himself back down, pushing the plate of uneaten pasta back into its original place and continuing his brave pokes at it with his fork, sending Koki a quiet glare when the other hides a smile behind his hand.
“Hey, Pi,” someone else swings a leg over, sliding in and stopping short when he notices Kame drearily prodding at the pasta. Yamashita smiles brightly, clapping the newcomer on the back and pronouncing his name loudly.
“Hey, Jin! What’s up?” At the greeting, Kame starts, fork dropping from his fingers as he turns to gaze at Jin. The older man nods, eyes falling upon the heaps of tomato sauce and pasta on the table.
“Um,” uncomfortably, Kame drops his gaze. “I just remembered that I have to cut my lunch break short today. I have to - ”
“I don’t feel like eating this,” Jin cuts in, using his fork to poke at his own pasta. It’s covered with only a cheesy sauce, melted white and flaked mozzarella. Freezing, Kame turns to look at him, gaze wavering only in the slightest. “Does anyone want it?” Jin raises his head, eyes pinning Kame back into his seat.
“It looks like Kame doesn’t want his pasta,” Koki chimes in, and smirks at the subdued, grateful look Jin shoots him from across the table. “Maybe you two should switch.”
Kame opens his mouth in protest. “Oh, I - ”
“Here you go, Kamenashi-kun,” Yamashita drags Jin’s full plate over, still steaming hot. In return, he pulls Kame’s plate of tomato sauced pasta away, shoving it in front of Jin’s face, whose features quirk into a tentative smile, a bit crestfallen at the edges. “Enjoy your meals!”
Biting his lip, Kame stares at the food now placed in front of him. He plucks a piece of pasta with his chopsticks, experimentally putting it into his mouth and chewing slowly. The cheese dissolves into a wonderful mixture of flavor, and he gives a quiet smile, almost unnoticed by the rest of the table, especially as the rest of the idols begin to flock around Yamashita’s greetings.
(From the other side of the table, Jin smiles, a sad, sad smile. He lifts a tomato slice with his fingertips with a flicker of remembrance on his face, and tries not to think about how it used to be, those dreams that never came true.)
---
Yamashita catches him by the elbow later on, while he is walking back down the hall to the make-up studio. “Hey,” the star greets, and Kame nods politely, flashing his always professional, always perfect smile. Yamashita laughs, steps into pace with his walking. “You know, with a smile like that, you could be a star.”
Kame scoffs half-heartedly. “I’m sure,” he replies, but the twitch of his fingers doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I heard you play piano.” It’s so casual, so easily thrown out there that Kame nods absently, only to realize a second later what’s really been said. He spins around, stopping in his tracks to fix Yamashita with his gaze.
“Who told you that?”
“I have my sources,” Yamashita gestures vaguely. “So? Do you?”
Suppressing a sigh, Kame hunches his shoulders, toe stubbing the ground in idle movements. “Why?”
“Well,” Yamashita muses, putting a thoughtful hand to his chin for good measure. “I wrote this song recently, and it has a piano part. I thought it’d be cool if I could perform it live with, you know, a real pianist.” He pauses. “I hear you’re really good.”
“False,” Kame replies immediately, and then bites his lip. His fingers flex a little at his side, curling into tight balls as he bites down harder. “But I can try,” he hears himself say, and it sounds foreign, even to his own ears. “Try.” Unconsciously, his thumb moves to rub against his crooked fourth finger, and he fights back the wince threatening behind the thin veil of his smile.
“Awesome!” Genuine joy spreads over Yamashita’s features, his face rising into a smile, eyes into slits. “I’ll give you the music at the end of today. Thanks so much, Kamenashi,” he gives a thumbs-up. “That’s all. I have to get back to rehearsal, so,” he waves, “See you later.”
Unsure, Kame nods, still wearing his forced smile, and waves until Yamashita has disappeared around the corridor. He lets out a deep breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, hands unfolding into open palms, into un-straight fingers and the ache that shoots like electric sparks through his nerves.
Gritting his teeth, he relaxes his hands, lets the fingers bend slightly and the pain subside.
---
part 3