Beneath it all
Akanishi Jin leaned against the wall, wondering why he had snapped at Kame the way he did. He had managed to keep everyone at a safe distance; someone like Kame shouldn’t perturb him. But the truth was he did, he had seen Kame with Koki before, but after the last two encounters, he realized those brief glimpses didn’t do justice to Kame at all. He doubted Kame knew how alluring his innocence coupled with his intelligence was or that the way he moved his hips to the music in the middle of the dance floor wasn’t very innocent at all. It was like Kame had an unfinished quality to him, something that intrigued people to take a closer look.
He hadn’t expected his persistence though, normally it had been easy enough to ward away the questions with intimidation and charm, but it seemed as though Kame had made it his personal mission to prove everyone wrong, that Jin wasn’t that callous bastard they all believed him to be. Kamenashi Kazuya was almost like the stuff of what his nightmares were made of, that strange openly pensive gaze looking into his eyes as though he didn’t believe him at all, as though he thought Jin was holding back something. Well, maybe he was, but he didn’t plan on letting anyone near it. He thought Kame was a nice diversion, except that he symbolized everything he had run away from, all those people who cared too much and those he was going to eventually hurt.
Jin didn’t like shouldering that responsibility, didn’t like how his father’s happiness was wholly dependent on his health. There was nothing he could do about it, the condition of his health was beyond him and maybe him settling far north in Sapporo had more to do with his version of a self-inflicted punishment. His father was going to lose him, whether he liked to admit it or not, cutting off all forms of contact with him had been his last parting gift to his father, not that he would have understood. The idea of watching your son waste away, while you remained helpless was probably the cruelest thing in the world, and if Jin could, he wanted to spare his father that pain. In the end, the only person he didn’t mind hurting over and over again was himself.
Finally Jin fished inside his pockets and took out the pill bottle. He uncapped it and swallowed the two pills. This was his life now, dependent and centered around these pills. He managed a bitter smile before he tossed the pill bottle with a careless flick of his wrist, into the dustbin. Except that the pill bottle didn’t end up where Jin wanted it. Instead it ricocheted off the wall, rolling onto the floor. And Jin, heading into the washroom, didn’t see the slight figure of Kame in the shadows, stooping down and pocketing the pill bottle.
~*~
“Koki, I saw someone downing pills on the way to the restroom just now.” Kame omitted mentioning Jin, because he had come to the conclusion that Koki didn’t like Jin and whatever opinion he had was likely going to be colored with his own prejudice.
“Maybe they’re recreational drugs. It’s not that unusual you know.” Koki said, more preoccupied with messaging Nakamaru on his cell. Kame leaned his head back and brushed his fingers over the bottle, snug in his pocket. Koki’s reply didn’t answer his questions at all, instead it only served to confuse him further. He had brought it up to the light in the narrow doorway earlier and it looked like one of those prescription medicine bottles dispensed at clinics. He had tried to make out the English words written on the label but it was too much of a scribble. The next few days, Kame forgot about the pill bottle. It was as though he forcibly shoved it to the back of his mind as he got busy with registering for university and trying to figure out his living arrangements in Tokyo. Finally he summoned up enough courage as he looked at the barely intelligible words on the label, trying out all the possible combinations. It was as though Kame’s sense of self-preservation had forbidden him to take that one step forward, as though something would change and alter irrevocably with this action. When the internet explorer took a longer time to load and Kame sat up, somehow knowing that he had hit the right word.
Maybe it was medication for stomach flu. Maybe it was just a random container and when Kame saw the words that glared back at him from the glaring screen, those thoughts fell apart. And he could feel his entire mind go blank as he blinked. Somewhere, he could hear the ticking of the clock and even with his knitted sweater draped around him he felt cold. And he thought about Jin, the intimidation in his stance and the brief flicker of uncertainty in his eyes - as though he was wary of his questions. And he began to slowly see an equation between how the pill bottle and Jin’s behavior were related. His shoulders slouched, just barely, as he tried to control the ridiculous urge to cry. Kame braced his hands on the edge of the computer table, gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned white, before he flung his bag over his shoulders, armed with the pill bottle in his pocket.
~*~
This time, since Koki wasn’t with him, Kame had to wait outside in the cold just like all the other patrons. And he didn’t feel cold, the strange thing was he didn’t feel anything at all. It was as though he had shut out all the bustle, all the raucous laughter and the merry-making around him. For the first time, Susukino didn’t seem all that pretty and mesmerizing. It seemed like a sad place adorned with Christmas lights to hide the sordid and the seedy, a place where people drank away their loneliness and tried to put behind the unpleasant. When he finally got inside the pub, he held onto the strap of his sling bag as he looked around, lost and unsure. Then he saw Nakamaru and Koki lounging around in the usual booth and he walked right over. There was a look of surprise on Koki’s face and Nakamaru was already leaning drunkenly into his girlfriend.
“Where’s Akanishi Jin? I need to speak with him.” He ignored the disapproval in Koki’s eyes and he tiptoed, trying to see above the bobbing heads of the crowd.
“Jin? That guy’s probably well-known in Susukino’s male and female population already. Love them, leave them. That’s his motto.” Maru’s words stung Kame even if he knew there was no real malice in it.
“I don’t get why you guys are so ready to judge someone from what little you see of him.” Kame’s voice raised a few octaves as he took one step forward, his knees bumping against the table.
“And you’re trying to say you know him better than we do?” He heard the terse anger in Koki’s voice and Koki simply stood up, looking at him with that unreadable expression and he knew if he apologized now, Koki wouldn’t hold it against him. Koki was always like that, tender and giving and he had always been the one on the receiving end. He had never questioned it, in fact he had taken it all for granted. Did Jin have someone like that? All he had heard about was the malignant rumors circling around him, the endless stream of people around Jin, but did any of them stay long enough to unravel that mystery? He doubted anyone knew enough of Jin, or actually cared enough about him to come to his defense.
“You don’t see me sitting around and passing judgments on him do you? And yes, I think I know him better. At least more than you do.” It came out harsher than he intended and he could see the words, like a series of cruelly inflicted blows in Koki’s eyes. He could feel his conviction wavering and he reached out tentatively for Koki. Instead Koki shrugged his hand aside, and Kame’s hand swung against the glass of drink on the edge of the table. The glass toppled over, shattering on the floor and he could feel the eyes of everyone drawn over to their table. Koki sat down, his back to him and this was the first time he felt Koki was so unreachable. Swallowing his pride, he bent down to retrieve the shards of glass before he saw Jin sitting at a distance, his piercing eyes looking in his direction. For a moment, the tears threatened to spill over, because Jin had already tried to warn him away. And here he was, quarreling with Koki because of a label on a pill bottle, because of a person who had meant too much to him in too short a time.
He hurriedly picked up the largest shard of glass, placing it onto the table before he dashed towards the exit. He didn’t know what he was thinking, or why he was so eager to come up to Jin’s defense when the person himself made it clear that he didn’t care. He walked mindlessly to the car park, which was encrusted with white and he could feel his lungs constricting. Finally he squatted down in the narrow space between two cars, his body shivering violently at the sudden change in temperatures. It was only then that he felt the pain and when he opened his palm, he saw the streak of blood and the small piece of glass embedded in his flesh.
He gripped his wrist tightly with his other hand, trying to stem the flow of blood even as his tears fell onto the dirty trodden snow beneath him. Jin was nothing to him, they had a dance and that was the only time their paths had actually intersected. It should have remained that way, their lives running in parallels to each other, but knowledge of the fact that Jin might have an illness made it impossible for Kame to look away. He looked down at the blob of blood on his palm, viscous and sticky. It was the very thing sustaining his life while Jin’s was slowly killing him from within. He wished Koki was here, wished he could ask Koki how Death chose its victims, and why there didn’t seem to be any fairness in either life or death. At that thought, his composure crumbled and his silent sobs gave way to loud wretched crying. Part of him was amazed that those sobs came from him. Kame couldn’t remember the last time he cried like this. But then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he had shouted at Koki.
Kame didn’t know how long he squatted there, his hands numb from the rasp of snow and the frost gathering around his boots. When he saw a pair of feet in front of him, he raised his head, expecting to see Koki. Instead it was Jin, and Kame thought he looked like an apparition in the blurry snow. Jin squatted down until he was eye-level with him, and he grasped Kame’s hand towards him. Kame wondered whether he had heard his outburst just now and he pulled his hand back. There was a little smile on Jin’s face.
“What’re you doing here? Come on, let me look at your hand.” Jin’s voice was strangely persuasive, and it was so different from the last time he spoke to him that Kame relented. He watched Jin look at his palm intently, before he raised his gaze to Kame.
“You don’t have to defend me, I told you I didn’t mind.” Jin’s fingers were gently caressing his hand, and Kame could feel some of the heat seeping into him. “And Koki’s very worried.”
“Really? How can anyone not mind?” Kame said, his teeth chattering. And then something changed in the way Jin looked at him, as though he had reached his decision about him as he looked at him with those lucent eyes, moving his thumb slowly, sinuously over Kame’s wrist, over his accelerating pulse.
“You know Kame, you’re the strangest person I’ve ever known.” He heard that honeyed whisper and Jin leaned forward, closing the distance between them. When Jin’s lips brushed against his, it was nothing like he expected. It was like a breath of soft air fluttering against his chapped lips and it was so delicate it seemed like fear and sweetness bundled into one.
And in those brief few seconds, the long endless Hokkaido nights, they didn’t seem so lonely after all.
He hadn’t expected his persistence though, normally it had been easy enough to ward away the questions with intimidation and charm, but it seemed as though Kame had made it his personal mission to prove everyone wrong, that Jin wasn’t that callous bastard they all believed him to be. Kamenashi Kazuya was almost like the stuff of what his nightmares were made of, that strange openly pensive gaze looking into his eyes as though he didn’t believe him at all, as though he thought Jin was holding back something. Well, maybe he was, but he didn’t plan on letting anyone near it. He thought Kame was a nice diversion, except that he symbolized everything he had run away from, all those people who cared too much and those he was going to eventually hurt.
Jin didn’t like shouldering that responsibility, didn’t like how his father’s happiness was wholly dependent on his health. There was nothing he could do about it, the condition of his health was beyond him and maybe him settling far north in Sapporo had more to do with his version of a self-inflicted punishment. His father was going to lose him, whether he liked to admit it or not, cutting off all forms of contact with him had been his last parting gift to his father, not that he would have understood. The idea of watching your son waste away, while you remained helpless was probably the cruelest thing in the world, and if Jin could, he wanted to spare his father that pain. In the end, the only person he didn’t mind hurting over and over again was himself.
Finally Jin fished inside his pockets and took out the pill bottle. He uncapped it and swallowed the two pills. This was his life now, dependent and centered around these pills. He managed a bitter smile before he tossed the pill bottle with a careless flick of his wrist, into the dustbin. Except that the pill bottle didn’t end up where Jin wanted it. Instead it ricocheted off the wall, rolling onto the floor. And Jin, heading into the washroom, didn’t see the slight figure of Kame in the shadows, stooping down and pocketing the pill bottle.
~*~
“Koki, I saw someone downing pills on the way to the restroom just now.” Kame omitted mentioning Jin, because he had come to the conclusion that Koki didn’t like Jin and whatever opinion he had was likely going to be colored with his own prejudice.
“Maybe they’re recreational drugs. It’s not that unusual you know.” Koki said, more preoccupied with messaging Nakamaru on his cell. Kame leaned his head back and brushed his fingers over the bottle, snug in his pocket. Koki’s reply didn’t answer his questions at all, instead it only served to confuse him further. He had brought it up to the light in the narrow doorway earlier and it looked like one of those prescription medicine bottles dispensed at clinics. He had tried to make out the English words written on the label but it was too much of a scribble. The next few days, Kame forgot about the pill bottle. It was as though he forcibly shoved it to the back of his mind as he got busy with registering for university and trying to figure out his living arrangements in Tokyo. Finally he summoned up enough courage as he looked at the barely intelligible words on the label, trying out all the possible combinations. It was as though Kame’s sense of self-preservation had forbidden him to take that one step forward, as though something would change and alter irrevocably with this action. When the internet explorer took a longer time to load and Kame sat up, somehow knowing that he had hit the right word.
Maybe it was medication for stomach flu. Maybe it was just a random container and when Kame saw the words that glared back at him from the glaring screen, those thoughts fell apart. And he could feel his entire mind go blank as he blinked. Somewhere, he could hear the ticking of the clock and even with his knitted sweater draped around him he felt cold. And he thought about Jin, the intimidation in his stance and the brief flicker of uncertainty in his eyes - as though he was wary of his questions. And he began to slowly see an equation between how the pill bottle and Jin’s behavior were related. His shoulders slouched, just barely, as he tried to control the ridiculous urge to cry. Kame braced his hands on the edge of the computer table, gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned white, before he flung his bag over his shoulders, armed with the pill bottle in his pocket.
~*~
This time, since Koki wasn’t with him, Kame had to wait outside in the cold just like all the other patrons. And he didn’t feel cold, the strange thing was he didn’t feel anything at all. It was as though he had shut out all the bustle, all the raucous laughter and the merry-making around him. For the first time, Susukino didn’t seem all that pretty and mesmerizing. It seemed like a sad place adorned with Christmas lights to hide the sordid and the seedy, a place where people drank away their loneliness and tried to put behind the unpleasant. When he finally got inside the pub, he held onto the strap of his sling bag as he looked around, lost and unsure. Then he saw Nakamaru and Koki lounging around in the usual booth and he walked right over. There was a look of surprise on Koki’s face and Nakamaru was already leaning drunkenly into his girlfriend.
“Where’s Akanishi Jin? I need to speak with him.” He ignored the disapproval in Koki’s eyes and he tiptoed, trying to see above the bobbing heads of the crowd.
“Jin? That guy’s probably well-known in Susukino’s male and female population already. Love them, leave them. That’s his motto.” Maru’s words stung Kame even if he knew there was no real malice in it.
“I don’t get why you guys are so ready to judge someone from what little you see of him.” Kame’s voice raised a few octaves as he took one step forward, his knees bumping against the table.
“And you’re trying to say you know him better than we do?” He heard the terse anger in Koki’s voice and Koki simply stood up, looking at him with that unreadable expression and he knew if he apologized now, Koki wouldn’t hold it against him. Koki was always like that, tender and giving and he had always been the one on the receiving end. He had never questioned it, in fact he had taken it all for granted. Did Jin have someone like that? All he had heard about was the malignant rumors circling around him, the endless stream of people around Jin, but did any of them stay long enough to unravel that mystery? He doubted anyone knew enough of Jin, or actually cared enough about him to come to his defense.
“You don’t see me sitting around and passing judgments on him do you? And yes, I think I know him better. At least more than you do.” It came out harsher than he intended and he could see the words, like a series of cruelly inflicted blows in Koki’s eyes. He could feel his conviction wavering and he reached out tentatively for Koki. Instead Koki shrugged his hand aside, and Kame’s hand swung against the glass of drink on the edge of the table. The glass toppled over, shattering on the floor and he could feel the eyes of everyone drawn over to their table. Koki sat down, his back to him and this was the first time he felt Koki was so unreachable. Swallowing his pride, he bent down to retrieve the shards of glass before he saw Jin sitting at a distance, his piercing eyes looking in his direction. For a moment, the tears threatened to spill over, because Jin had already tried to warn him away. And here he was, quarreling with Koki because of a label on a pill bottle, because of a person who had meant too much to him in too short a time.
He hurriedly picked up the largest shard of glass, placing it onto the table before he dashed towards the exit. He didn’t know what he was thinking, or why he was so eager to come up to Jin’s defense when the person himself made it clear that he didn’t care. He walked mindlessly to the car park, which was encrusted with white and he could feel his lungs constricting. Finally he squatted down in the narrow space between two cars, his body shivering violently at the sudden change in temperatures. It was only then that he felt the pain and when he opened his palm, he saw the streak of blood and the small piece of glass embedded in his flesh.
He gripped his wrist tightly with his other hand, trying to stem the flow of blood even as his tears fell onto the dirty trodden snow beneath him. Jin was nothing to him, they had a dance and that was the only time their paths had actually intersected. It should have remained that way, their lives running in parallels to each other, but knowledge of the fact that Jin might have an illness made it impossible for Kame to look away. He looked down at the blob of blood on his palm, viscous and sticky. It was the very thing sustaining his life while Jin’s was slowly killing him from within. He wished Koki was here, wished he could ask Koki how Death chose its victims, and why there didn’t seem to be any fairness in either life or death. At that thought, his composure crumbled and his silent sobs gave way to loud wretched crying. Part of him was amazed that those sobs came from him. Kame couldn’t remember the last time he cried like this. But then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he had shouted at Koki.
Kame didn’t know how long he squatted there, his hands numb from the rasp of snow and the frost gathering around his boots. When he saw a pair of feet in front of him, he raised his head, expecting to see Koki. Instead it was Jin, and Kame thought he looked like an apparition in the blurry snow. Jin squatted down until he was eye-level with him, and he grasped Kame’s hand towards him. Kame wondered whether he had heard his outburst just now and he pulled his hand back. There was a little smile on Jin’s face.
“What’re you doing here? Come on, let me look at your hand.” Jin’s voice was strangely persuasive, and it was so different from the last time he spoke to him that Kame relented. He watched Jin look at his palm intently, before he raised his gaze to Kame.
“You don’t have to defend me, I told you I didn’t mind.” Jin’s fingers were gently caressing his hand, and Kame could feel some of the heat seeping into him. “And Koki’s very worried.”
“Really? How can anyone not mind?” Kame said, his teeth chattering. And then something changed in the way Jin looked at him, as though he had reached his decision about him as he looked at him with those lucent eyes, moving his thumb slowly, sinuously over Kame’s wrist, over his accelerating pulse.
“You know Kame, you’re the strangest person I’ve ever known.” He heard that honeyed whisper and Jin leaned forward, closing the distance between them. When Jin’s lips brushed against his, it was nothing like he expected. It was like a breath of soft air fluttering against his chapped lips and it was so delicate it seemed like fear and sweetness bundled into one.
And in those brief few seconds, the long endless Hokkaido nights, they didn’t seem so lonely after all.