FIC FOR ELANIELYN
For: elanielyn
From: juniority
Title: The Perpetual Star
Pairings/Characters: Jin/Ueda
Rating: R/NC-17
Warnings: Language, fairly explicit sexual encounters between two consenting adults
Notes: Please consider this as taking place in a slightly divergent timeline, wherein every detail is exactly the same as reality except that Jin is unmarried. The title for this comes from T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.”
Summary: Jin takes Ueda to an alien restaurant. There is also silence, and shooting stars. But Jin’s pretty sure that it starts with the alien restaurant.
Sometimes Jin hears managers and producers complaining about him. Okay, maybe it happens a little too frequently to qualify as “sometimes.” It’s usually about his bad habit of ending up in tabloids, due to his preference for unwinding in a wild way after a long day. Sometimes though [see, it’s applicable!], it’s about the way his image isn’t really concrete. For example, in terms of coordinating concerts, it’s pretty difficult to arrange a smooth transition between a song with a beat designed to get everybody on their feet, dancing and screaming along, and a song meant to make everyone reflect on the magnitude of love. And they can’t exactly label him “family friendly” and pawn him off to a campaign for household appliances or businessman suits or whatever, because no matter how much he loves kids, it’s pretty obvious that he loves partying too, so finding products for him to endorse is a huge challenge.
The list of reasons why Jin is difficult to manage goes on and on, and in some ways, Jin can’t totally fault the people in charge of it for complaining. But mutability is a hallmark of Jin’s. It has afforded him success in the music industries of two very different nations, and furthermore is a point of personal pride. Jin likes that no one can quite figure him out. He considers himself to be unpredictable in the sexiest of ways. Tell him not to change, hah! Might as well tell him not to wear hideously colored, ridiculously oversized (and overpriced) sneakers. Plus he doesn’t take orders well. Say: “do this” and he’s twice as likely to turn around and do something completely different, just to make a point. Jin is the nail that has always refused to be hammered down, the nail that refuses to be a nail simply because it’s expected of him. If Jin was ever a nail, it’d because it damn well pleased him to be a nail, and he’d still do whatever he wanted, nail or not.
Anyways, he isn’t a nail, he’s an international idol stealthily slipping on a pair of his beloved sneakers and disappearing into the night. Morning. Balefully squinting up at the sun, Jin wishes he had a pair of shades, or a fedora and pulls up the hood of his jacket.
It isn’t until he sees a gaggle of old grandma ladies, probably on their way to do the day’s grocery shopping, that he realizes that this is not the same neighborhood he remembers being in last night, not by a long shot. Well that sucks. Looking around for some providential sign, a familiar store or restaurant or bar, Jin hopes fervently that fortune will smile on him before it does some fan, who would doubtlessly be all too pleased to stumble upon an easily recognizable, totally disoriented, and very lost international sensation.
The fifty foot high green alien is no help at all, only emphasizing the fact that Jin has no clue where he is. Jin would definitely remember the alien. On impulse he walks into the building that couldn't be more out of place here. Inside, he only gets more confused.
Brightly lit and decorated in kitschy way that would have been labeled “futuristic” back in maybe the ‘70s, the carpet is plush dark blue patterned with flying saucers and the bright orange walls are nearly completely covered in framed newspaper articles. Not all of them are written in Japanese: lots are in English or Spanish, and there are tons in languages that Jin can’t recognize (he has a vague idea that one of the more complicated looking clippings is in Russian, however it could have just as easily been Swedish or Swahili). They’re all reports on UFO sightings, with bold headings, lots of exclamation points, and grainy pictures of something in the distance.
A hostess in a spacesuit shows him to a booth that’s recessed into the wall. It has a bubble shaped window that offers him a view of deep space; the projection shifts slowly to offer the illusion of motion, and through the image Jin can make out what looks like an arcade room. He has to check it out, but not before he gets his food.
Of course it’s gimmicky. The pancakes and eggs are shaped like flying saucers, the bacon strips are arranged to look like a planet on his place, and his coffee mug is an alien head. It tastes good though, and the silliness appeals to Jin, just like how the weirdness of the restaurant itself appeals to him.
Halfway through the meal he gets the idea to use his phone to do a search for the restaurant. Sure enough, his query yields an address in seconds, this being the only “giant space alien restaurant” in the country. Now he knows where he is, which fortunately isn’t that far from where he needs to be.
On his way out, he stops in the gift shop, where he buys a canister of fluorescent alien slime and one of the alien head mugs to commemorate the experience.
“Gross,” is Pi’s verdict, two fingers deep into the goop and grinning like a kid. They’re loitering in the lobby of the nondescript building that houses the offices of their respective managers, who have long since learned that the best way to ensure timeliness on the part of the two idols is to schedule their meetings at the same time. As they’re a bit early, they have time to kill and few ways to do it. Fortunately, as it always has throughout the years, the company of each other proves entertainment enough.
Their conversation is easy, governed by laughter, not grammar, and punctuated with familiarity that affords understanding. It’s never awkward; Jin listens avidly to Pi’s girl stories, regales him in turn with tales of his own misadventures. Pi is prejudiced neither for nor against the accounts that include members of their same sex. For him, Jin is Jin, and Jin talking about sex is Jin talking about sex. It’d take more than a few stories to shake the rock solid foundation of Pi’s confidence in his sexuality, which is as decisively heterosexual as Jin’s is intrepidly open for interpretation and re-interpretation depending on the situation.
Kame comes around the corner and Jin shuts up. He feels awkward, even though Kame, suave Kame, is smiling, friendly and unguarded. “Hello Akira, Jin.”
“Hey Shuuji.”
“Uhn.”
Kame quirks one plucked brow in a way that would be quizzical, if Jin didn’t know that he knew exactly why Jin’s greeting was so lackluster. Jin likes to keep Kame and Pi separate, and though they’re both cognizant of this fact, they persist in remaining friends (don’t they think about Jin’s feelings at all?). He doesn't like to share either of them, especially not with each other. Jealousy rears its familiar head and makes him uncomfortable and slightly angry. It pisses him off that Shuuji and Akira, that old betrayal, has lasted this long.
They’re talking, making plans for a night on the town. “Me too.” Jin blurts out.
“Well, duh.” Jin knows that Kame is rolling his eyes at him without even having to look.
“Dragging you along is better than listening to you whine if we didn’t,” Pi adds.
“Like you didn’t whine for three whole hours when I went out with Ryo without you!”
And as the conversation descends into one of their arguments that’s far more humorous than it is serious, Kame escapes. He doesn’t have the patience, or the time.
Sunset finds the three of them in a quiet little bar that Jin’s never been to before. It quickly becomes evident why: there’s no dance floor or music, and the one TV in the place is airing some old baseball game. The atmosphere is laid-back, the clientele consisting of all-male, platonic groups of five or fewer conversing amongst themselves as they sip from snifters. Not really Jin’s speed in the slightest, and to make matters worse, Kame and Pi almost immediately began talking (read: gossiping) about some huge inter-agency thing that he missed because he was in America.
Feeling envious, Jin decides that he won’t tell them about the alien restaurant. That will teach them to ignore him and bring him to this boring bar. He drains his beer with a few long swallows, them switches to tequila in hopes that getting smashed might somehow redeem the evening.
Kame says that maybe he should slow down. Jin responds that maybe he should shut up.
All three of them are surprised when someone suddenly stops at their table and addresses them collectively, Jin because he was absorbed in his drinks, Pi and Kame because they were absorbed in their conversation.
“I hope you don’t mind if I join you. Sitting and drinking alone gives off a distinctly ‘alcoholic’ vibe.”
(It isn’t really that surprising that someone else from their agency is here. The list of “safe” bars and clubs (places where the high-profile can kick back or party or whatever with relatively little intrusion) in the area isn’t all that long.)
“Tatsuya, it’s been forever. Your hair’s still so short!” Pi exclaims while Kame pulls up a chair.
Ueda laughs, runs his fingers through it. “It is, isn't it? I didn’t take into account how long it’d take to grow back to an acceptable length when they told me to shave it. My mistake.”
As Kame and Pi exchange pleasantries with Ueda, Jin surreptitiously takes in the appearance that Pi drew his attention to. All of Ueda’s features are so much starker without hair to soften them. He looks youthful. He looks dangerous.
He looks a little bit like an alien. Mysterious and beautiful, and when his dark eyes meet Jin’s and pull him in, Jin (almost) believes that it’s because of some inhuman magic, not something a whole hell of a lot more visceral. Maybe he should have listened to Kame and slowed down after all. Because now Ueda is looking at him like he’s waiting for Jin to say something, and Kame and Pi are too busy talking to save him.
Then Ueda calls for a fresh bottle of tequila (when had Jin finished the last one?). He ours out a shot, first for Jin, then himself, and then unceremoniously downs it and pours another. Jin hastily does the same, because as long as he’s drinking, he doesn’t have to be talking.
As they work their way to the bottom of the bottle, somehow the silence between them changes. It stops feeling oppressive and uncomfortable, and Jin wonders if maybe they’re communicating without words; if they are, it must be a result of Ueda’s alien magic powers because he’s usually horrible at stuff like that. The rest of the night passes in that velvety, dulcet silence. Even when one or the other of them is engaged by Kame or Pi, the silence stretches between them. It’s a completely new sort of situation for Jin --who is almost never quiet unless he’s sulking-- and yet somehow it’s fitting, fitting for there to be this expressive silence between then, fitting for Ueda, who is so foreign yet familiar to him, to be the one to bring this about.
When the night has wound down, everyone says their goodbyes, and Pi takes responsibility for Jin, who, though not stupid drunk, is definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol.
“Why don’t you leave him to me? I used to be his leader, after all.”
Both of Kame’s eyebrows shoot up. “Do you even know where he lives?”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out.” The words are steely silver. Kame takes the hint and dodges the bullet.
So Ueda and Jin are left together with their silence. It’s cloudless, and though the many lights of the city obscure the view, the sky is still mostly visible, distant blue-black pinpricked with light. For a little while, they just walk, growing sober in the cold that isn’t unbearable because they're bundled up in jackets and blue jeans. The streets are mostly empty; the last trains have long since reached their final destinations and restaurants and bars have either released their clients ages ago so that they could get home or are keeping them until the next day comes and brings work with it. Describing it as “peaceful” wouldn’t be quite right, but it’s close.
And then the heavens light up. Ueda gasps, Jin gapes, as, in a moment whose sublime poignancy defies, words hundreds of stars simultaneously soar to their deaths.
Cold fingers join Jin’s in his pocket. He instinctively squeezes them, and though they were sharing the moment before, now it truly becomes one of togetherness. These shootings stars are just for them.
They do not sully them with wishes, because Jin already knows how to make his dreams come true, because Ueda knows that there’s no force in this world stronger than his own willpower. It ends as quickly as it began, in absolute silence. Something undeniable tugs on Jin’s heartstrings and he turns, only to find that Ueda is already there, meeting him with lips fuller and softer than his own.
Getting home is a blur. Jin honestly could not say how they did it if he tried. But somehow here he is, watching Ueda slide his key into the lock because his depth perception is too messed up to manage doing so. Shoes get lined up neatly in the entryway, less care given to coats and every other article of clothing. In the morning they’ll laugh when they discover Ueda’s underwear draped over the TV.
Ueda leaves bites marks in the crooks of his elbows, the arches of his feet, and the curves of both his butt cheeks, places that are never scrutinized too carefully. Sadistically oblivious to the desperate swell of Jin’s erection, he leaves wet kisses up and down Jin’s sides until Jin gives in.
“Please.”
The word, the first they’ve exchanged in who knows how long, elicits a chuckle.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard you say in all the years that I’ve known you.”
He relents then, sucking down Jin’s dick without any warning. The way Jin instantly arches up and moans in surprise and arousal brings a smirk to his lips and prompts him to say, smugly: “you never even saw me coming.”
“Not yet I haven’t,” Jin retorts, and then Ueda finds himself on his back at the mercy of a vengeful tongue. His struggles to get on top again are more for effect than anything else, because he loves it that Jin is just as wicked, dominating, and unpredictable as he is.
And smooth. Jin isn’t always smooth, but he sure is right now, and as he manages to locate (by feel alone!) a small tube of lubricant in the messy drawer in his bedside stand while still kissing Ueda with an overwhelming sensuality akin to nothing that he has ever known before, Ueda gains a new appreciation of that smoothness. Then Jin pauses and smiles at him, and Ueda feels a little fuzzy inside in a way that he can’t blame on alcohol or lust.
“You should go out with me, Tat-chan. I’ll take you on a date to the coolest restaurant in the world!” He’s whispering, and it shouldn’t be sexy but it is, sexy and endearing.
“What are you talking about? This, this is hardly the time to-“ Ueda cuts himself off with an embarrassing whimper of pleasure as one of Jin’s slick fingers slowly slides into him.
“Say yes,” Jin urges. Only, when Ueda does, he finds it not quite satisfying enough, and doesn't relent in his actions until he has Ueda screaming it.
Then they lay back and just breathe, sated and elated and so quiet that they can hear the snow falling outside, snow surely born of shooting stars because there still isn’t a cloud in the sky. Jin gets up to peer out the window, unabashedly naked and as lovely in the dark as he is in the light.
Looking at him, Ueda struggles to reconcile this Jin who gave himself willingly with the Jin he knows who belongs only to himself. He finds it difficult, finds that Jin defies explanation. But Ueda is hardly open with his heart either, a consummate liar who prizes his privacy and has no qualms about lying to protect it. If Jin can live with not understanding him, he can live with not understanding Jin.
The man in his thoughts startles him out of them by speaking. “We should find where the falling stars fell to.”
His words inspire in Ueda the image of a valley filled with dying lights.
“I’d rather not. Lets go someplace where stars are born instead.”
“Both!” Jin proposes, and dive-bombs the bed with no warning, further rumpling the sheets and blankets. Ueda strokes the nape of his neck as Jin gets comfortable using his chest as a pillow.
“First you have to keep your promise and take me to the coolest restaurant in the world though.”
Jin is amenable to that, and they arrange a date and time for Jin to escort Ueda to the location in question. The way Ueda ends up embracing everything about the wacky, weird restaurant, from the fifty foot high green alien to the French fries served in rocket ships, makes Jin’s heart flutter. Before they arrived, he’d worried that Ueda might hold himself aloof from all the oddity, too cool or mature to take part in the faux-outer space experience that Jin delighted in. He holds his breath as Ueda checks everything out, then bursts into relieved, ecstatic laughter when Ueda insists on reading every article on the wall (that he’s able to) before they go to their seats. It’s difficult to pick just one highlight of the evening, but if Jin had to, he’d say it was when the restaurant’s mascot, a cheerily eerie alien, snuck up on Ueda and made him shriek.
“This can be one of our places,” Ueda tells Jin over a shared slice of in-house made moon pie, and Jin just nods because his mouth is glued shut with marshmallow, and because if he spoke, he’d probably embarrass himself by saying something overly emotional. It’s just a dumb restaurant, but somehow Ueda liking it just means so much to him. And anyways, Ueda gets it without Jin having to say anything.
The night air tastes like spring with the memory of snow. Far in the distance, smoke rises purposefully into a sky populated by static stars. It heralds a hazardous, fanciful thrill. This is not industrial smoke; it is the wispy smoke of dreams.
Jin looks at Ueda, and finds that Ueda’s eyes are already waiting for his.
Decked out in their purchases from the alien gift shop they set off towards where the surreal adventure seems to be emanating from. It’s unlikely that they’ll be spotted at this hour, and anyways, sacrificing enjoyment for caution isn’t in either of their natures.
They even dare to hold hands as they walk, two perpetual stars lit up in starlight.
From: juniority
Title: The Perpetual Star
Pairings/Characters: Jin/Ueda
Rating: R/NC-17
Warnings: Language, fairly explicit sexual encounters between two consenting adults
Notes: Please consider this as taking place in a slightly divergent timeline, wherein every detail is exactly the same as reality except that Jin is unmarried. The title for this comes from T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.”
Summary: Jin takes Ueda to an alien restaurant. There is also silence, and shooting stars. But Jin’s pretty sure that it starts with the alien restaurant.
Sometimes Jin hears managers and producers complaining about him. Okay, maybe it happens a little too frequently to qualify as “sometimes.” It’s usually about his bad habit of ending up in tabloids, due to his preference for unwinding in a wild way after a long day. Sometimes though [see, it’s applicable!], it’s about the way his image isn’t really concrete. For example, in terms of coordinating concerts, it’s pretty difficult to arrange a smooth transition between a song with a beat designed to get everybody on their feet, dancing and screaming along, and a song meant to make everyone reflect on the magnitude of love. And they can’t exactly label him “family friendly” and pawn him off to a campaign for household appliances or businessman suits or whatever, because no matter how much he loves kids, it’s pretty obvious that he loves partying too, so finding products for him to endorse is a huge challenge.
The list of reasons why Jin is difficult to manage goes on and on, and in some ways, Jin can’t totally fault the people in charge of it for complaining. But mutability is a hallmark of Jin’s. It has afforded him success in the music industries of two very different nations, and furthermore is a point of personal pride. Jin likes that no one can quite figure him out. He considers himself to be unpredictable in the sexiest of ways. Tell him not to change, hah! Might as well tell him not to wear hideously colored, ridiculously oversized (and overpriced) sneakers. Plus he doesn’t take orders well. Say: “do this” and he’s twice as likely to turn around and do something completely different, just to make a point. Jin is the nail that has always refused to be hammered down, the nail that refuses to be a nail simply because it’s expected of him. If Jin was ever a nail, it’d because it damn well pleased him to be a nail, and he’d still do whatever he wanted, nail or not.
Anyways, he isn’t a nail, he’s an international idol stealthily slipping on a pair of his beloved sneakers and disappearing into the night. Morning. Balefully squinting up at the sun, Jin wishes he had a pair of shades, or a fedora and pulls up the hood of his jacket.
It isn’t until he sees a gaggle of old grandma ladies, probably on their way to do the day’s grocery shopping, that he realizes that this is not the same neighborhood he remembers being in last night, not by a long shot. Well that sucks. Looking around for some providential sign, a familiar store or restaurant or bar, Jin hopes fervently that fortune will smile on him before it does some fan, who would doubtlessly be all too pleased to stumble upon an easily recognizable, totally disoriented, and very lost international sensation.
The fifty foot high green alien is no help at all, only emphasizing the fact that Jin has no clue where he is. Jin would definitely remember the alien. On impulse he walks into the building that couldn't be more out of place here. Inside, he only gets more confused.
Brightly lit and decorated in kitschy way that would have been labeled “futuristic” back in maybe the ‘70s, the carpet is plush dark blue patterned with flying saucers and the bright orange walls are nearly completely covered in framed newspaper articles. Not all of them are written in Japanese: lots are in English or Spanish, and there are tons in languages that Jin can’t recognize (he has a vague idea that one of the more complicated looking clippings is in Russian, however it could have just as easily been Swedish or Swahili). They’re all reports on UFO sightings, with bold headings, lots of exclamation points, and grainy pictures of something in the distance.
A hostess in a spacesuit shows him to a booth that’s recessed into the wall. It has a bubble shaped window that offers him a view of deep space; the projection shifts slowly to offer the illusion of motion, and through the image Jin can make out what looks like an arcade room. He has to check it out, but not before he gets his food.
Of course it’s gimmicky. The pancakes and eggs are shaped like flying saucers, the bacon strips are arranged to look like a planet on his place, and his coffee mug is an alien head. It tastes good though, and the silliness appeals to Jin, just like how the weirdness of the restaurant itself appeals to him.
Halfway through the meal he gets the idea to use his phone to do a search for the restaurant. Sure enough, his query yields an address in seconds, this being the only “giant space alien restaurant” in the country. Now he knows where he is, which fortunately isn’t that far from where he needs to be.
On his way out, he stops in the gift shop, where he buys a canister of fluorescent alien slime and one of the alien head mugs to commemorate the experience.
“Gross,” is Pi’s verdict, two fingers deep into the goop and grinning like a kid. They’re loitering in the lobby of the nondescript building that houses the offices of their respective managers, who have long since learned that the best way to ensure timeliness on the part of the two idols is to schedule their meetings at the same time. As they’re a bit early, they have time to kill and few ways to do it. Fortunately, as it always has throughout the years, the company of each other proves entertainment enough.
Their conversation is easy, governed by laughter, not grammar, and punctuated with familiarity that affords understanding. It’s never awkward; Jin listens avidly to Pi’s girl stories, regales him in turn with tales of his own misadventures. Pi is prejudiced neither for nor against the accounts that include members of their same sex. For him, Jin is Jin, and Jin talking about sex is Jin talking about sex. It’d take more than a few stories to shake the rock solid foundation of Pi’s confidence in his sexuality, which is as decisively heterosexual as Jin’s is intrepidly open for interpretation and re-interpretation depending on the situation.
Kame comes around the corner and Jin shuts up. He feels awkward, even though Kame, suave Kame, is smiling, friendly and unguarded. “Hello Akira, Jin.”
“Hey Shuuji.”
“Uhn.”
Kame quirks one plucked brow in a way that would be quizzical, if Jin didn’t know that he knew exactly why Jin’s greeting was so lackluster. Jin likes to keep Kame and Pi separate, and though they’re both cognizant of this fact, they persist in remaining friends (don’t they think about Jin’s feelings at all?). He doesn't like to share either of them, especially not with each other. Jealousy rears its familiar head and makes him uncomfortable and slightly angry. It pisses him off that Shuuji and Akira, that old betrayal, has lasted this long.
They’re talking, making plans for a night on the town. “Me too.” Jin blurts out.
“Well, duh.” Jin knows that Kame is rolling his eyes at him without even having to look.
“Dragging you along is better than listening to you whine if we didn’t,” Pi adds.
“Like you didn’t whine for three whole hours when I went out with Ryo without you!”
And as the conversation descends into one of their arguments that’s far more humorous than it is serious, Kame escapes. He doesn’t have the patience, or the time.
Sunset finds the three of them in a quiet little bar that Jin’s never been to before. It quickly becomes evident why: there’s no dance floor or music, and the one TV in the place is airing some old baseball game. The atmosphere is laid-back, the clientele consisting of all-male, platonic groups of five or fewer conversing amongst themselves as they sip from snifters. Not really Jin’s speed in the slightest, and to make matters worse, Kame and Pi almost immediately began talking (read: gossiping) about some huge inter-agency thing that he missed because he was in America.
Feeling envious, Jin decides that he won’t tell them about the alien restaurant. That will teach them to ignore him and bring him to this boring bar. He drains his beer with a few long swallows, them switches to tequila in hopes that getting smashed might somehow redeem the evening.
Kame says that maybe he should slow down. Jin responds that maybe he should shut up.
All three of them are surprised when someone suddenly stops at their table and addresses them collectively, Jin because he was absorbed in his drinks, Pi and Kame because they were absorbed in their conversation.
“I hope you don’t mind if I join you. Sitting and drinking alone gives off a distinctly ‘alcoholic’ vibe.”
(It isn’t really that surprising that someone else from their agency is here. The list of “safe” bars and clubs (places where the high-profile can kick back or party or whatever with relatively little intrusion) in the area isn’t all that long.)
“Tatsuya, it’s been forever. Your hair’s still so short!” Pi exclaims while Kame pulls up a chair.
Ueda laughs, runs his fingers through it. “It is, isn't it? I didn’t take into account how long it’d take to grow back to an acceptable length when they told me to shave it. My mistake.”
As Kame and Pi exchange pleasantries with Ueda, Jin surreptitiously takes in the appearance that Pi drew his attention to. All of Ueda’s features are so much starker without hair to soften them. He looks youthful. He looks dangerous.
He looks a little bit like an alien. Mysterious and beautiful, and when his dark eyes meet Jin’s and pull him in, Jin (almost) believes that it’s because of some inhuman magic, not something a whole hell of a lot more visceral. Maybe he should have listened to Kame and slowed down after all. Because now Ueda is looking at him like he’s waiting for Jin to say something, and Kame and Pi are too busy talking to save him.
Then Ueda calls for a fresh bottle of tequila (when had Jin finished the last one?). He ours out a shot, first for Jin, then himself, and then unceremoniously downs it and pours another. Jin hastily does the same, because as long as he’s drinking, he doesn’t have to be talking.
As they work their way to the bottom of the bottle, somehow the silence between them changes. It stops feeling oppressive and uncomfortable, and Jin wonders if maybe they’re communicating without words; if they are, it must be a result of Ueda’s alien magic powers because he’s usually horrible at stuff like that. The rest of the night passes in that velvety, dulcet silence. Even when one or the other of them is engaged by Kame or Pi, the silence stretches between them. It’s a completely new sort of situation for Jin --who is almost never quiet unless he’s sulking-- and yet somehow it’s fitting, fitting for there to be this expressive silence between then, fitting for Ueda, who is so foreign yet familiar to him, to be the one to bring this about.
When the night has wound down, everyone says their goodbyes, and Pi takes responsibility for Jin, who, though not stupid drunk, is definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol.
“Why don’t you leave him to me? I used to be his leader, after all.”
Both of Kame’s eyebrows shoot up. “Do you even know where he lives?”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out.” The words are steely silver. Kame takes the hint and dodges the bullet.
So Ueda and Jin are left together with their silence. It’s cloudless, and though the many lights of the city obscure the view, the sky is still mostly visible, distant blue-black pinpricked with light. For a little while, they just walk, growing sober in the cold that isn’t unbearable because they're bundled up in jackets and blue jeans. The streets are mostly empty; the last trains have long since reached their final destinations and restaurants and bars have either released their clients ages ago so that they could get home or are keeping them until the next day comes and brings work with it. Describing it as “peaceful” wouldn’t be quite right, but it’s close.
And then the heavens light up. Ueda gasps, Jin gapes, as, in a moment whose sublime poignancy defies, words hundreds of stars simultaneously soar to their deaths.
Cold fingers join Jin’s in his pocket. He instinctively squeezes them, and though they were sharing the moment before, now it truly becomes one of togetherness. These shootings stars are just for them.
They do not sully them with wishes, because Jin already knows how to make his dreams come true, because Ueda knows that there’s no force in this world stronger than his own willpower. It ends as quickly as it began, in absolute silence. Something undeniable tugs on Jin’s heartstrings and he turns, only to find that Ueda is already there, meeting him with lips fuller and softer than his own.
Getting home is a blur. Jin honestly could not say how they did it if he tried. But somehow here he is, watching Ueda slide his key into the lock because his depth perception is too messed up to manage doing so. Shoes get lined up neatly in the entryway, less care given to coats and every other article of clothing. In the morning they’ll laugh when they discover Ueda’s underwear draped over the TV.
Ueda leaves bites marks in the crooks of his elbows, the arches of his feet, and the curves of both his butt cheeks, places that are never scrutinized too carefully. Sadistically oblivious to the desperate swell of Jin’s erection, he leaves wet kisses up and down Jin’s sides until Jin gives in.
“Please.”
The word, the first they’ve exchanged in who knows how long, elicits a chuckle.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard you say in all the years that I’ve known you.”
He relents then, sucking down Jin’s dick without any warning. The way Jin instantly arches up and moans in surprise and arousal brings a smirk to his lips and prompts him to say, smugly: “you never even saw me coming.”
“Not yet I haven’t,” Jin retorts, and then Ueda finds himself on his back at the mercy of a vengeful tongue. His struggles to get on top again are more for effect than anything else, because he loves it that Jin is just as wicked, dominating, and unpredictable as he is.
And smooth. Jin isn’t always smooth, but he sure is right now, and as he manages to locate (by feel alone!) a small tube of lubricant in the messy drawer in his bedside stand while still kissing Ueda with an overwhelming sensuality akin to nothing that he has ever known before, Ueda gains a new appreciation of that smoothness. Then Jin pauses and smiles at him, and Ueda feels a little fuzzy inside in a way that he can’t blame on alcohol or lust.
“You should go out with me, Tat-chan. I’ll take you on a date to the coolest restaurant in the world!” He’s whispering, and it shouldn’t be sexy but it is, sexy and endearing.
“What are you talking about? This, this is hardly the time to-“ Ueda cuts himself off with an embarrassing whimper of pleasure as one of Jin’s slick fingers slowly slides into him.
“Say yes,” Jin urges. Only, when Ueda does, he finds it not quite satisfying enough, and doesn't relent in his actions until he has Ueda screaming it.
Then they lay back and just breathe, sated and elated and so quiet that they can hear the snow falling outside, snow surely born of shooting stars because there still isn’t a cloud in the sky. Jin gets up to peer out the window, unabashedly naked and as lovely in the dark as he is in the light.
Looking at him, Ueda struggles to reconcile this Jin who gave himself willingly with the Jin he knows who belongs only to himself. He finds it difficult, finds that Jin defies explanation. But Ueda is hardly open with his heart either, a consummate liar who prizes his privacy and has no qualms about lying to protect it. If Jin can live with not understanding him, he can live with not understanding Jin.
The man in his thoughts startles him out of them by speaking. “We should find where the falling stars fell to.”
His words inspire in Ueda the image of a valley filled with dying lights.
“I’d rather not. Lets go someplace where stars are born instead.”
“Both!” Jin proposes, and dive-bombs the bed with no warning, further rumpling the sheets and blankets. Ueda strokes the nape of his neck as Jin gets comfortable using his chest as a pillow.
“First you have to keep your promise and take me to the coolest restaurant in the world though.”
Jin is amenable to that, and they arrange a date and time for Jin to escort Ueda to the location in question. The way Ueda ends up embracing everything about the wacky, weird restaurant, from the fifty foot high green alien to the French fries served in rocket ships, makes Jin’s heart flutter. Before they arrived, he’d worried that Ueda might hold himself aloof from all the oddity, too cool or mature to take part in the faux-outer space experience that Jin delighted in. He holds his breath as Ueda checks everything out, then bursts into relieved, ecstatic laughter when Ueda insists on reading every article on the wall (that he’s able to) before they go to their seats. It’s difficult to pick just one highlight of the evening, but if Jin had to, he’d say it was when the restaurant’s mascot, a cheerily eerie alien, snuck up on Ueda and made him shriek.
“This can be one of our places,” Ueda tells Jin over a shared slice of in-house made moon pie, and Jin just nods because his mouth is glued shut with marshmallow, and because if he spoke, he’d probably embarrass himself by saying something overly emotional. It’s just a dumb restaurant, but somehow Ueda liking it just means so much to him. And anyways, Ueda gets it without Jin having to say anything.
The night air tastes like spring with the memory of snow. Far in the distance, smoke rises purposefully into a sky populated by static stars. It heralds a hazardous, fanciful thrill. This is not industrial smoke; it is the wispy smoke of dreams.
Jin looks at Ueda, and finds that Ueda’s eyes are already waiting for his.
Decked out in their purchases from the alien gift shop they set off towards where the surreal adventure seems to be emanating from. It’s unlikely that they’ll be spotted at this hour, and anyways, sacrificing enjoyment for caution isn’t in either of their natures.
They even dare to hold hands as they walk, two perpetual stars lit up in starlight.