(one-shot) something different
Title: Something Different
Author: fingeredheart
Pairing: Akame
Genre: Angst, friendship, a little something more
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not much belongs to me.
Summary: It's different this time around.
A/N: For wooden_buttons, with tons of love and hatred. ♥ clearly my writing is more worn out from k_x than I thought, so sorry this isn't totally up to par :( anyways, it feels nice writing non-AU again. This is not meant to represent my stance on recent news, however you choose to interpret it. Comments are, as always, lovely. Enjoy!
Jin’s always been a bit reckless.
His feet are edged in between the skinny, whitewashed pillars; his head is tilted upwards, smoke disappearing in upwards wisps from the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Long, strong fingers grasp the upper railing, hair tossed over his shoulders in curly strands.
“Fancy seeing you here,” comes a voice from inside, and Jin whips around with dark eyes to see Kame leaned against the doorway, arms crossed and glimpses of apartment light dancing across his features. When Jin just shrugs and takes another deep drag, as if this were his balcony instead of Kame’s, Kame quirks an eyebrow.
“Just felt like dropping by,” Jin replies, but his voice is strained, lips pulled into a tight, thin line by the time Kame reaches him, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the railing. Jin shifts a gaze in his direction, the bunched up fabric of his sleeves around the elbows, the quiet, rhythmic swing of his necklaces shadowed in the dusk of evening.
Sniffing, Kame stretches slowly, his bracelets hanging precariously above the city streets for a moment before his hands pull back into the safety of the balcony. “You never just drop by,” he remarks, but it’s less of an accusation than anything, really. “Nervous about the Asia tour?”
Jin eyes him swiftly, almost anxiously, and Kame’s forehead creases. “Perhaps,” is the only answer Jin offers, but there’s a softer, blurrier haze in his eyes, the painstakingly familiar glint of something more. A frown tugs at Kame’s lips, but he stops himself, forces his muscles to work into what resembles a hopefully reassuring smile, pieced carefully together to make everything all right.
Something snaps in Jin’s eyes, and he breaks the eye contact to gaze down at his feet, worn Converse stuffed into gaps too tiny. His smile is weak when he glances back up, full of hollow confidence that Kame only sees but doesn’t feel. It has Kame’s mind reeling, this sense of déjà vu that overcomes his senses as he curls trembling fingers around the railing to steady himself.
He knows what happens next.
--
He doesn’t find out officially until two months later. He is standing beside a plastic chair, spinning a water bottle into the air and catching it - balanced - between two fingertips, when Ueda calls, voice unusually tense and breathless. Kame listens absent-mindedly, tapping his fingers on the back of the plastic chair and smoothing them over the rough texture. Words fly past him - Los Angeles, six months, totally different from last time, will you be okay? - and all he does is nod and smile, nod and smile even though Ueda can’t see him. Kame’s good at nodding and smiling. It’s fine with me.
The director is calling him back to set, voice coarse and impatient above the shuffle of staff members and low murmuring of his co-stars, standing around in a shapeless crowd on the set. Kame purses his lips, bidding Ueda good-bye as cheerfully as if he were waving farewell to his niece beneath the fresh, brilliant sunlight of suburban Tokyo.
He returns to set with Tegoshi’s high-pitched chatter filling his ears, the curve of a smile imprinted on his features perfectly.
--
The media glosses it over with details; the fans go insane. Through the midst of it, Kame doesn’t move from his seat on the sofa chair in the corner of the rehearsal room, flipping through his magazine as if he hasn’t already read it from front to back cover. He peeks up at the rest of the group, sans Jin, crowded around the desktop on the far side of the room.
It takes twenty minutes for them to tire of it, the obnoxious, glittering bold of tabloids and the incomprehensible, overwhelming reactions of fans. Junno is the one who finally minimizes the browser window, pushing his chair backwards with a screech and startling them all. Kame watches out of the corner of his eyes as they disperse into an unspoken turmoil of emotion. They know as well as he does that no matter what, they’re all in this together.
What brings him to open the browser window ten minutes later, when Junno has closed the blinds and disappeared from sight, he can’t say. He clicks through each link pertaining to the story - it spreads like wildfire; he’s not surprised - and skims every one, never tearing his eyes from the pages upon pages of details, rumors, thoughts, critiques, statements that may or may never have been made.
He ends up in a forum, the edges of the layout scrawled with their band name and faces, idolized. The article mentions his own name at the end - the sentence he’d offered when Johnny had pressed him for a statement, anything. He stares at the cold, rigid text his words have been put in, the meaning that’s been cast upon a few words he threw together just to appease his boss and appear to put fans at ease.
Scrolling down, he makes his way through multiple ellipses, torn comments, heartbroken emoticons. He makes it down to the very, very end - in fact, he is almost about to exit out - when two familiar characters squished together make him pause, index finger hovering in midair over the mouse.
“AkaKame,” is all the comment says - no emoticon, no response to the news, no relevance at all, really. Just a few words thrown together, just two names that haven’t been uttered together for years, at least not in the intimate, name-squished way.
Kame releases a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and closes out of the window on impulse.
(It doesn’t have to be the same as last time.)
--
“Just dropping by,” Kame announces, almost awkwardly, as soon as Jin steps in the door. Adequately shocked, Jin freezes in his movements, raising his head to meet Kame’s gaze over the marble countertops, the wired surround-sound stereo system, the obnoxious hum of the tall, sleek silver refrigerator cornered into the kitchen. Kame’s hand is worked around the side of the doorframe, pinky ring glinting with subtle clarity in the sunlight.
With a breath, Jin dumps his bags onto the floor. “I thought you’d already figured it out,” he says, but it sounds like an excuse, even to his ears. He bites his lip and watches as Kame turns around, strolling out onto the balcony, strands of hair rippling against bare cheekbones in the breeze.
Kame swings his legs over the railing, slipping his feet crookedly into the spaces and nudging his toes to rest beneath the bottom edge of the railings. “You always overestimate me,” he remarks, knowing by the muted hush of footsteps in the carpet that Jin has neared enough to hear him. Eyes fluttering closed, he lets the air flap at his jacket, flattening the fabric of his clothing tighter around him - an invisible, empty embrace.
“I’m not sorry,” Jin’s voice is right behind him, and he flinches, but doesn’t budge from the spot. Instead, he waits, anticipates the footsteps scratching to a halt just behind him, the light, lingering touch of Jin’s fingers smoothing a path down his arm. “You knew before anyone else,” he mouths into Kame’s nape, arms wrapping around the slender waist, and Kame breathes out slowly, shakily. “Kame,” Jin whispers, hot breath ghosting over his skin.
With softened eyes, Kame loosens his legs, spinning around to face Jin, who draws away. Kame observes the curious tilt of Jin’s head, the languid cock of his hips, the stylish, comfortingly washed out colors of his outfit, the unruly hair. Finally, he clears his throat, peeks to see Jin inhaling quietly. “Nervous?”
The surprise in Jin’s eyes is beautiful, a wave of sparkling relief. “Definitely,” is Jin’s immediate response, his grin pressing into the corners of his cheeks.
“You better be,” Kame says, and the warmth in Jin’s laughter is enough to convince him that this time, it is totally different.
Author: fingeredheart
Pairing: Akame
Genre: Angst, friendship, a little something more
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not much belongs to me.
Summary: It's different this time around.
A/N: For wooden_buttons, with tons of love and hatred. ♥ clearly my writing is more worn out from k_x than I thought, so sorry this isn't totally up to par :( anyways, it feels nice writing non-AU again. This is not meant to represent my stance on recent news, however you choose to interpret it. Comments are, as always, lovely. Enjoy!
Jin’s always been a bit reckless.
His feet are edged in between the skinny, whitewashed pillars; his head is tilted upwards, smoke disappearing in upwards wisps from the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Long, strong fingers grasp the upper railing, hair tossed over his shoulders in curly strands.
“Fancy seeing you here,” comes a voice from inside, and Jin whips around with dark eyes to see Kame leaned against the doorway, arms crossed and glimpses of apartment light dancing across his features. When Jin just shrugs and takes another deep drag, as if this were his balcony instead of Kame’s, Kame quirks an eyebrow.
“Just felt like dropping by,” Jin replies, but his voice is strained, lips pulled into a tight, thin line by the time Kame reaches him, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the railing. Jin shifts a gaze in his direction, the bunched up fabric of his sleeves around the elbows, the quiet, rhythmic swing of his necklaces shadowed in the dusk of evening.
Sniffing, Kame stretches slowly, his bracelets hanging precariously above the city streets for a moment before his hands pull back into the safety of the balcony. “You never just drop by,” he remarks, but it’s less of an accusation than anything, really. “Nervous about the Asia tour?”
Jin eyes him swiftly, almost anxiously, and Kame’s forehead creases. “Perhaps,” is the only answer Jin offers, but there’s a softer, blurrier haze in his eyes, the painstakingly familiar glint of something more. A frown tugs at Kame’s lips, but he stops himself, forces his muscles to work into what resembles a hopefully reassuring smile, pieced carefully together to make everything all right.
Something snaps in Jin’s eyes, and he breaks the eye contact to gaze down at his feet, worn Converse stuffed into gaps too tiny. His smile is weak when he glances back up, full of hollow confidence that Kame only sees but doesn’t feel. It has Kame’s mind reeling, this sense of déjà vu that overcomes his senses as he curls trembling fingers around the railing to steady himself.
He knows what happens next.
--
He doesn’t find out officially until two months later. He is standing beside a plastic chair, spinning a water bottle into the air and catching it - balanced - between two fingertips, when Ueda calls, voice unusually tense and breathless. Kame listens absent-mindedly, tapping his fingers on the back of the plastic chair and smoothing them over the rough texture. Words fly past him - Los Angeles, six months, totally different from last time, will you be okay? - and all he does is nod and smile, nod and smile even though Ueda can’t see him. Kame’s good at nodding and smiling. It’s fine with me.
The director is calling him back to set, voice coarse and impatient above the shuffle of staff members and low murmuring of his co-stars, standing around in a shapeless crowd on the set. Kame purses his lips, bidding Ueda good-bye as cheerfully as if he were waving farewell to his niece beneath the fresh, brilliant sunlight of suburban Tokyo.
He returns to set with Tegoshi’s high-pitched chatter filling his ears, the curve of a smile imprinted on his features perfectly.
--
The media glosses it over with details; the fans go insane. Through the midst of it, Kame doesn’t move from his seat on the sofa chair in the corner of the rehearsal room, flipping through his magazine as if he hasn’t already read it from front to back cover. He peeks up at the rest of the group, sans Jin, crowded around the desktop on the far side of the room.
It takes twenty minutes for them to tire of it, the obnoxious, glittering bold of tabloids and the incomprehensible, overwhelming reactions of fans. Junno is the one who finally minimizes the browser window, pushing his chair backwards with a screech and startling them all. Kame watches out of the corner of his eyes as they disperse into an unspoken turmoil of emotion. They know as well as he does that no matter what, they’re all in this together.
What brings him to open the browser window ten minutes later, when Junno has closed the blinds and disappeared from sight, he can’t say. He clicks through each link pertaining to the story - it spreads like wildfire; he’s not surprised - and skims every one, never tearing his eyes from the pages upon pages of details, rumors, thoughts, critiques, statements that may or may never have been made.
He ends up in a forum, the edges of the layout scrawled with their band name and faces, idolized. The article mentions his own name at the end - the sentence he’d offered when Johnny had pressed him for a statement, anything. He stares at the cold, rigid text his words have been put in, the meaning that’s been cast upon a few words he threw together just to appease his boss and appear to put fans at ease.
Scrolling down, he makes his way through multiple ellipses, torn comments, heartbroken emoticons. He makes it down to the very, very end - in fact, he is almost about to exit out - when two familiar characters squished together make him pause, index finger hovering in midair over the mouse.
“AkaKame,” is all the comment says - no emoticon, no response to the news, no relevance at all, really. Just a few words thrown together, just two names that haven’t been uttered together for years, at least not in the intimate, name-squished way.
Kame releases a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and closes out of the window on impulse.
(It doesn’t have to be the same as last time.)
--
“Just dropping by,” Kame announces, almost awkwardly, as soon as Jin steps in the door. Adequately shocked, Jin freezes in his movements, raising his head to meet Kame’s gaze over the marble countertops, the wired surround-sound stereo system, the obnoxious hum of the tall, sleek silver refrigerator cornered into the kitchen. Kame’s hand is worked around the side of the doorframe, pinky ring glinting with subtle clarity in the sunlight.
With a breath, Jin dumps his bags onto the floor. “I thought you’d already figured it out,” he says, but it sounds like an excuse, even to his ears. He bites his lip and watches as Kame turns around, strolling out onto the balcony, strands of hair rippling against bare cheekbones in the breeze.
Kame swings his legs over the railing, slipping his feet crookedly into the spaces and nudging his toes to rest beneath the bottom edge of the railings. “You always overestimate me,” he remarks, knowing by the muted hush of footsteps in the carpet that Jin has neared enough to hear him. Eyes fluttering closed, he lets the air flap at his jacket, flattening the fabric of his clothing tighter around him - an invisible, empty embrace.
“I’m not sorry,” Jin’s voice is right behind him, and he flinches, but doesn’t budge from the spot. Instead, he waits, anticipates the footsteps scratching to a halt just behind him, the light, lingering touch of Jin’s fingers smoothing a path down his arm. “You knew before anyone else,” he mouths into Kame’s nape, arms wrapping around the slender waist, and Kame breathes out slowly, shakily. “Kame,” Jin whispers, hot breath ghosting over his skin.
With softened eyes, Kame loosens his legs, spinning around to face Jin, who draws away. Kame observes the curious tilt of Jin’s head, the languid cock of his hips, the stylish, comfortingly washed out colors of his outfit, the unruly hair. Finally, he clears his throat, peeks to see Jin inhaling quietly. “Nervous?”
The surprise in Jin’s eyes is beautiful, a wave of sparkling relief. “Definitely,” is Jin’s immediate response, his grin pressing into the corners of his cheeks.
“You better be,” Kame says, and the warmth in Jin’s laughter is enough to convince him that this time, it is totally different.