West Hollywood
Title: West Hollywood
Pairing/Group: Akame
Rating: R (for Jin and Josh's dirty mouths)
Warnings: Strong language, particularly of a derogatory nature; sap
Word count: ~1800
Notes: Thanks so much to my last-minute betas! You both helped me out so much! ^__^ To elanielyn, I really hope you enjoy this!
Written for elanielyn for je-holiday 2011. ^__^
Summary: April 2009. Jin invites Kame out for drinks with his friends. Josh almost ruins the evening.
It's Jin's fault that Josh and Kame get off to a rocky start. All Jin wants is for all of his friends to get along, but he doesn't realize how big of a mistake it is to invite Kame to join them at a swanky club event in Roppongi until the damage is already done. Most of his friends can hold their liquor, but that doesn't stop them from becoming the kinds of people they tend to turn into when the inhibitions start to come down. Josh in particular is a talkative, obnoxious drunk, and usually that's fine because everyone else is drunk, as well. Besides, they know Josh is just being Josh-he's harmless, and he doesn't mean a word of what he says when he's under the influence.
But when Jin sees Kame's shoulders go tense, his polite mask cracking at Josh's less-than-considerate tone that breaches the language barrier even when his slurred English does not, for even the split-second before Kame recovers and hides his moment of vulnerability behind a long swig of beer, Josh has crossed the line.
Jin tries his damnedest to keep his irritation locked away, tucked deep down out of sight until he can get Josh alone, but keeping his heart off his sleeve has never been a strength of his. Neither has lying, and he's faced enough uncomfortable situations in his 25 years to know that trying to do both at the same time is pretty much a lost cause. The closest he's ever gotten to pulling it off is going blank and reciting memorized lines, but that only works for TV shows, not real life. If he's lucky, a couple of people at the table might buy it, but his closest friends, including the one person he needs to lie convincingly to, will see right through it.
In the end, he stumbles through something about volunteering to serve as Keibo's wingman so his buddy can score with a hot Asian girl normally way out of his league, but despite Jin's best efforts to avoid looking at Kame, they make eye contact at the last second. Kame gives him a textbook Kamenashi Skeptical Look over the rim of his beer. Composure fading fast in the face of those intense eyes and downturned eyebrows, Jin turns on his heel and ushers Josh towards the back door, not even remembering to swing by the dance floor on the way out to make his own lie convincing. He feels Kame's eyes on his back the whole way.
Jin doesn't know enough English to convey how angry he is other than poking Josh in the chest and interjecting with various conjugations of the word 'fuck' a lot, so he tries that, and he guesses it's pretty effective given how Josh shrinks in the face of his wrath. “Look, I really don't give a fuck if you get along with Kamenashi or not-you can think he's a snob and an asshole and an uptight fucking prick if you want-God knows he's all that and more, but who he sleeps with is none of your fucking business, and if you have any sense whatsoever, you won't tell anyone anything about it-ever.”
Before Josh can say anything in response, Jin jabs him again. “And if I ever hear you call him a faggot again, I'll make sure you never find another songwriting job in Japan again. Do you fucking understand me?”
Josh nods once, numbly, before Jin lets him go and heads back inside. Walking back to the table, he does feel a bit bad about threatening one of his friends, but protecting Kame has always come first. The urge to do so is like a little lick of flame deep down inside him he first remembers feeling at the age of fourteen, and it still burns just as brightly as it had that day. There are times when that little flame becomes a raging inferno, like tonight, and others when it dims considerably, but with every year that passes, Jin grows more certain that nothing short of his own death can extinguish it.
When he gets back to the table, Kame's chair is empty, and Jin's ready to run out of the club after him, assuming he'd had enough and decided to go home, until Joey pipes up that Kame just went to take a leak.
When he pushes the restroom door open, Jin spots Kame standing before the farthest urinal, in perfect accordance with the Unspoken Rule. As far as Jin can tell, they're the only two people in the bathroom, but Jin still takes the urinal beside Kame, not at all wanting to shout what he feels obligated to tell his friend across the room.
Kame shifts uncomfortably at the clear violation of The Rule, but otherwise maintains his composure as he shakes out and zips up.
“If this is about what just happened with Josh,” Kame says, moving over to the row of sinks to wash his hands, “don't worry about it. It's fine. I don't even know what he said to me, so it doesn't matter.”
“But it does matter, Kazu,” Jin retorts, hurrying to follow suit. “You need to know, because it could cause problems for you if you don't.”
That gets Kame's attention, and he leans back against the counter as if to say, 'Go on.'
“He asked,” Jin starts, but swallows and clears his throat when all of a sudden his tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth. “He asked if you've ever spent time in West Hollywood.” That's not all Josh said, but he doesn't see any value in quoting him word-for-word. There's some English slang Jin knows, but prefers not to use if he can help it.
One of Kame's sculpted eyebrows inches towards his hairline. “And what's so bad about wanting to know that? I haven't, anyway, so what's the big deal?”
“Because...” Jin's heart sinks at the thought of spelling it out for Kame, but he knows there's no other way to make Kame understand. “Because the kind of people who live around West Hollywood are the same kind of people who tend to live around Ni-chome.”
It only takes a few seconds for realization to dawn on Kame's face, and Jin watches with dread as Kame's complexion turns ashen. When Kame speaks again, his voice sounds noticeably less controlled.
“How does he know that about me?” he asks, a moment before his expression contorts with disbelief and rage, and he points an accusing finger at Jin. “Did you tell him?”
“Kazu, I would never,” Jin hisses, taking Kame's hand in both of his own as though pleading for Kame to believe him, and also for Kame to lower his voice. “He didn't need anyone to tell him. He knew the second you started speaking English. It's in the way you talk.”
Kame doesn't say anything in response to that, just blinks, and Jin sees Kame's eyebrows tilt downwards to an angle Jin recognizes as bafflement.
“It's kind of like a dialect, but not quite the same. It's just a way of speaking that, um...well, people like you tend to use, and if you've been practicing your English on the foreigners in Ni-chome, chances are that's where you picked it up. It's not like it's your fault or anything. It probably just happened, and there's no way you could have known.”
When Jin sees Kame looking at him in horror and like any moment Jin's going to need to find a paper bag for Kame to breathe into, he quickly adds, “If it makes you feel any better, I spent so much time trying to pick up chicks in LA that now people tell me I speak English like a Valley Girl. And trust me, most of the time, they don't mean that as a compliment.”
Instead of calming down, however, Kame pulls his hand out of Jin's grasp and fists both hands in his hair. “Oh my God. OhmyGod, Jin...Jin, what am I going to do? What if it's not just Josh? What if other people know? What if I've already wrecked my career? I thought I was being so careful, I can't help who I am, Jin, I just can't. I tried, but...”
Jin surges forward and envelops Kame in a tight hug, letting his friend clutch at his shoulders while he runs a hand soothingly up and down the length of Kame's back.
“Easy, Kazu,” he murmurs, repeating the calm command until he feels the rate of Kame's breathing start to even out. “Don't panic. No one else is going to find out and sell you out to the press. You know how I know?”
Kame doesn't say anything, just keeps gripping the back of Jin's T-shirt in his small hands, and he eventually heaves a deep, shaky sigh that sounds like resignation.
“Because you, Kazu, are smart, and you know how to go out and be discreet about it.”
That gets a humorless chuckle out of Kame. “Not arguing that one.”
“Oi,” Jin chides, without heat. “The second reason I know everything is gonna be okay is because I already handled the situation with Josh.”
Jin says this proudly, but Kame just snorts. “Your way of handling things, Jin, is to throw accusations and punches first and ask questions later. Don't think I've forgotten.”
“I didn't punch him!” Jin fires back. “I just threatened to have Johnny run him out of town if he ever breathed a word of it to anyone, ever.”
Kame's laughter starts as a sputter, but it quickly progresses to a full-out belly laugh, to the point where Jin has to hold Kame up so Kame doesn't pull them both to the floor. “You didn't.”
“I did,” Jin assures him, and he feels the little flame inside him glowing so brightly he thinks it's a wonder Kame can't see it.
Or maybe he can, Jin thinks, when Kame pulls back from the embrace. The color still hasn't quite come back to Kame's cheeks, and Jin can tell from the tension curled in his shoulders that he's not likely to let his guard down around Jin's friends when he heads back to the table, but he lets Jin in enough to see a brief flicker of something akin to affection in his eyes.
“Thanks, Jin,” Kame says quietly, “for always looking after me.”
A flurry of responses come to Jin's mind at once: 'You don't have to thank me,' 'I don't know how to not look after you,' 'I'll always look after you, because I'll always care about you.'
But by the time Jin decides on one and blurts it out (“It's because I've always cared about you the most!”) Kame is gone. The restroom door swings shut behind him.
Pairing/Group: Akame
Rating: R (for Jin and Josh's dirty mouths)
Warnings: Strong language, particularly of a derogatory nature; sap
Word count: ~1800
Notes: Thanks so much to my last-minute betas! You both helped me out so much! ^__^ To elanielyn, I really hope you enjoy this!
Written for elanielyn for je-holiday 2011. ^__^
Summary: April 2009. Jin invites Kame out for drinks with his friends. Josh almost ruins the evening.
It's Jin's fault that Josh and Kame get off to a rocky start. All Jin wants is for all of his friends to get along, but he doesn't realize how big of a mistake it is to invite Kame to join them at a swanky club event in Roppongi until the damage is already done. Most of his friends can hold their liquor, but that doesn't stop them from becoming the kinds of people they tend to turn into when the inhibitions start to come down. Josh in particular is a talkative, obnoxious drunk, and usually that's fine because everyone else is drunk, as well. Besides, they know Josh is just being Josh-he's harmless, and he doesn't mean a word of what he says when he's under the influence.
But when Jin sees Kame's shoulders go tense, his polite mask cracking at Josh's less-than-considerate tone that breaches the language barrier even when his slurred English does not, for even the split-second before Kame recovers and hides his moment of vulnerability behind a long swig of beer, Josh has crossed the line.
Jin tries his damnedest to keep his irritation locked away, tucked deep down out of sight until he can get Josh alone, but keeping his heart off his sleeve has never been a strength of his. Neither has lying, and he's faced enough uncomfortable situations in his 25 years to know that trying to do both at the same time is pretty much a lost cause. The closest he's ever gotten to pulling it off is going blank and reciting memorized lines, but that only works for TV shows, not real life. If he's lucky, a couple of people at the table might buy it, but his closest friends, including the one person he needs to lie convincingly to, will see right through it.
In the end, he stumbles through something about volunteering to serve as Keibo's wingman so his buddy can score with a hot Asian girl normally way out of his league, but despite Jin's best efforts to avoid looking at Kame, they make eye contact at the last second. Kame gives him a textbook Kamenashi Skeptical Look over the rim of his beer. Composure fading fast in the face of those intense eyes and downturned eyebrows, Jin turns on his heel and ushers Josh towards the back door, not even remembering to swing by the dance floor on the way out to make his own lie convincing. He feels Kame's eyes on his back the whole way.
Jin doesn't know enough English to convey how angry he is other than poking Josh in the chest and interjecting with various conjugations of the word 'fuck' a lot, so he tries that, and he guesses it's pretty effective given how Josh shrinks in the face of his wrath. “Look, I really don't give a fuck if you get along with Kamenashi or not-you can think he's a snob and an asshole and an uptight fucking prick if you want-God knows he's all that and more, but who he sleeps with is none of your fucking business, and if you have any sense whatsoever, you won't tell anyone anything about it-ever.”
Before Josh can say anything in response, Jin jabs him again. “And if I ever hear you call him a faggot again, I'll make sure you never find another songwriting job in Japan again. Do you fucking understand me?”
Josh nods once, numbly, before Jin lets him go and heads back inside. Walking back to the table, he does feel a bit bad about threatening one of his friends, but protecting Kame has always come first. The urge to do so is like a little lick of flame deep down inside him he first remembers feeling at the age of fourteen, and it still burns just as brightly as it had that day. There are times when that little flame becomes a raging inferno, like tonight, and others when it dims considerably, but with every year that passes, Jin grows more certain that nothing short of his own death can extinguish it.
When he gets back to the table, Kame's chair is empty, and Jin's ready to run out of the club after him, assuming he'd had enough and decided to go home, until Joey pipes up that Kame just went to take a leak.
When he pushes the restroom door open, Jin spots Kame standing before the farthest urinal, in perfect accordance with the Unspoken Rule. As far as Jin can tell, they're the only two people in the bathroom, but Jin still takes the urinal beside Kame, not at all wanting to shout what he feels obligated to tell his friend across the room.
Kame shifts uncomfortably at the clear violation of The Rule, but otherwise maintains his composure as he shakes out and zips up.
“If this is about what just happened with Josh,” Kame says, moving over to the row of sinks to wash his hands, “don't worry about it. It's fine. I don't even know what he said to me, so it doesn't matter.”
“But it does matter, Kazu,” Jin retorts, hurrying to follow suit. “You need to know, because it could cause problems for you if you don't.”
That gets Kame's attention, and he leans back against the counter as if to say, 'Go on.'
“He asked,” Jin starts, but swallows and clears his throat when all of a sudden his tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth. “He asked if you've ever spent time in West Hollywood.” That's not all Josh said, but he doesn't see any value in quoting him word-for-word. There's some English slang Jin knows, but prefers not to use if he can help it.
One of Kame's sculpted eyebrows inches towards his hairline. “And what's so bad about wanting to know that? I haven't, anyway, so what's the big deal?”
“Because...” Jin's heart sinks at the thought of spelling it out for Kame, but he knows there's no other way to make Kame understand. “Because the kind of people who live around West Hollywood are the same kind of people who tend to live around Ni-chome.”
It only takes a few seconds for realization to dawn on Kame's face, and Jin watches with dread as Kame's complexion turns ashen. When Kame speaks again, his voice sounds noticeably less controlled.
“How does he know that about me?” he asks, a moment before his expression contorts with disbelief and rage, and he points an accusing finger at Jin. “Did you tell him?”
“Kazu, I would never,” Jin hisses, taking Kame's hand in both of his own as though pleading for Kame to believe him, and also for Kame to lower his voice. “He didn't need anyone to tell him. He knew the second you started speaking English. It's in the way you talk.”
Kame doesn't say anything in response to that, just blinks, and Jin sees Kame's eyebrows tilt downwards to an angle Jin recognizes as bafflement.
“It's kind of like a dialect, but not quite the same. It's just a way of speaking that, um...well, people like you tend to use, and if you've been practicing your English on the foreigners in Ni-chome, chances are that's where you picked it up. It's not like it's your fault or anything. It probably just happened, and there's no way you could have known.”
When Jin sees Kame looking at him in horror and like any moment Jin's going to need to find a paper bag for Kame to breathe into, he quickly adds, “If it makes you feel any better, I spent so much time trying to pick up chicks in LA that now people tell me I speak English like a Valley Girl. And trust me, most of the time, they don't mean that as a compliment.”
Instead of calming down, however, Kame pulls his hand out of Jin's grasp and fists both hands in his hair. “Oh my God. OhmyGod, Jin...Jin, what am I going to do? What if it's not just Josh? What if other people know? What if I've already wrecked my career? I thought I was being so careful, I can't help who I am, Jin, I just can't. I tried, but...”
Jin surges forward and envelops Kame in a tight hug, letting his friend clutch at his shoulders while he runs a hand soothingly up and down the length of Kame's back.
“Easy, Kazu,” he murmurs, repeating the calm command until he feels the rate of Kame's breathing start to even out. “Don't panic. No one else is going to find out and sell you out to the press. You know how I know?”
Kame doesn't say anything, just keeps gripping the back of Jin's T-shirt in his small hands, and he eventually heaves a deep, shaky sigh that sounds like resignation.
“Because you, Kazu, are smart, and you know how to go out and be discreet about it.”
That gets a humorless chuckle out of Kame. “Not arguing that one.”
“Oi,” Jin chides, without heat. “The second reason I know everything is gonna be okay is because I already handled the situation with Josh.”
Jin says this proudly, but Kame just snorts. “Your way of handling things, Jin, is to throw accusations and punches first and ask questions later. Don't think I've forgotten.”
“I didn't punch him!” Jin fires back. “I just threatened to have Johnny run him out of town if he ever breathed a word of it to anyone, ever.”
Kame's laughter starts as a sputter, but it quickly progresses to a full-out belly laugh, to the point where Jin has to hold Kame up so Kame doesn't pull them both to the floor. “You didn't.”
“I did,” Jin assures him, and he feels the little flame inside him glowing so brightly he thinks it's a wonder Kame can't see it.
Or maybe he can, Jin thinks, when Kame pulls back from the embrace. The color still hasn't quite come back to Kame's cheeks, and Jin can tell from the tension curled in his shoulders that he's not likely to let his guard down around Jin's friends when he heads back to the table, but he lets Jin in enough to see a brief flicker of something akin to affection in his eyes.
“Thanks, Jin,” Kame says quietly, “for always looking after me.”
A flurry of responses come to Jin's mind at once: 'You don't have to thank me,' 'I don't know how to not look after you,' 'I'll always look after you, because I'll always care about you.'
But by the time Jin decides on one and blurts it out (“It's because I've always cared about you the most!”) Kame is gone. The restroom door swings shut behind him.