[fic] checks and balances (jin and yamapi, pg)
another card ficlet because autumnjaide was on vacation and didn't get her card until recently. ♥
title: checks and balances
pairing/characters: jin and yamapi (pin only if you squint)
rating: pg
wordcount: 589
notes: for autumnjaide ♥ (In Russian here, courtesy of jana_nox!)
Yamapi spends a lot of time thinking about things like Growing Up and Becoming A Proper Adult. Jin is alternately impatient to be older and stubbornly determined to cling to childhood: all the perks of being 20-and-up and none of the responsibilities. Yamapi is torn between the desire to live on his own like a real adult and the desire to help his mother like a dutiful son; Jin is torn between the desire for his own pad and the desire for his mother to help with his laundry.
Needless to say, when Jin tells Yamapi he's going to live by himself in America for six months Yamapi is positive he's heard wrong.
"You don't know even know how to scramble an egg," he says dumbly, dazed, when he finally understands what Jin is saying.
Jin shrugs. "It can't be that hard, right? I've just never seriously tried learning to cook, that's why I can't really do it yet." He crosses his arms over his chest. Yamapi decides it's not worth an argument right now - besides, if worse comes to worse, Jin can live on McDonald's until he can purchase a decent rice cooker.
"That's not the point," he says instead. "You - what are you going to do about finding an apartment? You don’t know LA at all, it's supposed to be really dangerous - "
"I know some people," Jin interrupts. "My mom's friend moved there with her family, so she's going to ask them to give me an introduction." He grins. "Their son's our age. Hope he knows the good clubs."
He wants to smack the stupid smile off Jin's face. "It's not a vacation," he says, "don't you get it? There won't be anyone you can rely on, you're going to have to do everything yourself, and if you mess up you'll have to suck it up and live with it because you can't come running back home."
"I'm not running anywhere," Jin says, voice rising. "I'm an adult, aren't I? I can take care of myself."
"But don't you get it," Yamapi says angrily, "none of us can help you -- "
"I don't need your help!"
There's a long silence. Yamapi must look exactly like he feels because Jin's expression immediately shifts from angry to guilty. Still, Jin doesn't speak.
Yamapi's throat is sticky. He says, "I know you don't."
That's enough to chase away the last traces of anger and hurt, until Jin is only looking at Yamapi with pleading written in every line of his face. "I just want to do something I want for once. Before I have to grow up all the way."
"You'll be okay." Yamapi's voice scratches a little. "I'm only worried because. Because." There are a thousand words that could fill the space and none of them would quite encompass what lies between them.
"Because you're turning into an old man," Jin supplies, surprising a laugh from Yamapi.
"No, stupid," he says, "because I think if you 'seriously' try to learn to cook you might burn down the entire apartment complex."
Jin narrows his eyes. "You'll see," he says. "Maybe I'll become a chef instead. I'll come back and open a famous restaurant and everyone will want to go there." But I won't let you in is implied.
"Maybe you'll poison your customers."
"Shut up!" Jin throws a pillow at Yamapi, and with it effectively kills any possibility of further attempts at mature conversation.
When Jin opens his going away present from Yamapi, there's a rice cooker inside.