FIC FOR DUSK037
For: dusk037
From: akumanakoi
Title: The game of love.
Pairings/Characters: Nakamaru, Ueda & Kame
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:
Notes: I hope you enjoy this, dusk037, I was given a prompt by someone for a fic a while back that I decided would suit this fic well, so I went with it and I hope I came up with something you will like to read. :) I also hope you don't mind that I left the pairing as a surprise... it makes the fic more fun that way, I think!
Summary: Kame, Ueda and Nakamaru all have love on their mind, but who has the biggest advantage and disadvantage, and are any of those things really important in the game of love?
“Can I have a word with you?”
Ueda Tatsuya confronted his group-mate Kame as the other man stood in one corner of their set for the day, flicking absently through his phone as they took a much needed break from shooting.
“Just a word?”
Ueda gave him a deadpan look, and nodded firmly. “I’m not one of your fans,” he pointed out, and then put one finger up when Kame tried to respond. “But that is kind of why I’m here.”
“Oh?” Kame raised one eyebrow, and shifted his weight onto one hip. “Okay, go on then.”
“I found these -” Ueda spoke seriously, and a moment later he had dug the entire contents of both of his pockets into Kame’s hands. The contents of both of his pockets seemed to be over a dozen small slips of paper. Kame carefully shifted them onto one hand, and then lifted one up with his now spare hand, taking a look at the small lettering on one of the slips.
“I didn’t know you cared so much,” Kame commented.
“- in Yuichi’s bag.”
Kame looked up from reading the dates and times from all the discarded cinema tickets; tickets for his recent movie, and looked at Ueda in skepticism. “He bought these?”
“Either that or he got a side job sweeping up movie theaters,” Ueda commented, his eyes still on the tickets that Kame was going through in his hands.
Kame bent down to pick up a ticket that had fluttered to the ground, and when he moved upright again, the look on his face was of pure glee.
Ueda’s eyes narrowed a little. “I thought you didn’t want him to like you.”
Kame placed the tickets back in Ueda’s hands, and let the hands linger there for a moment, squeezing the ends of the other’s fingers. “In the game of love, the one who loves less always has an advantage,” he told him, and then let go of his fingers, leaving Ueda with the tickets scattered across his hands. “This -” He pointed to the mess in the other’s hand. “- gives me a huge advantage.”
As Kame was called back by the director to do a solo shoot, Ueda thought he could see a spring in the other’s step as he walked back onto the set. The man left behind leaned against one of the pillars in the room, and dug his cellphone out of his pocket. His finger hit the icon for his message box, and to his drafts folder, which was flashing up with the number twenty one.
Twenty one times that he had started to tell him how much he really liked him, twenty one times he had decided against it. Twenty one times put him at a huge disadvantage, if what Kame was saying was true. He hit the delete button, and soon those twenty one messages had disappeared. As he too was called to film again, that small action had made him feel just a little better.
Kame’s eyes were half-lidded by the time he finally took the elevator to his apartment, so tired that it had taken him five attempts to remember the code that would get him into the elevator in the first place. The route through the corridor to his apartment door was so normal to him that he didn’t even think about it until his foot made contact with something hard.
“Shit,” he cursed loudly, and looked down to find a pile of three cardboard boxes that were so big they reached all the way up to the apartment number plate by his door. Still slightly annoyed at these huge things being in the way when he just wanted to get inside and go to bed, he ripped the tape from the top box, and pulled back the flap. What faced him underneath was his own face, as well as those of the rest of the members of the group. His face included.
There were 200 CDs sitting in those three boxes, he knew and he didn’t even have to count, because he was the one who had ordered them. So he could see the smile on that annoy face when this single sold more than their last one. 200 probably wouldn’t even make a difference, he supposed, but it made him feel better at least.
He unlocked his apartment door and pushed the boxes into the genkan before slipping inside himself. He took them no further, not wanting to see his failure right now. He did however, pull one single CD from the box, and padded into his living room.
As he sat on the couch with the DVD in his player watching the PV while only half awake, he recalled that there had been 52 tickets taken from Yuichi’s bag. 52 versus 200 put him at a huge disadvantage.
He turned off the PV when their fellow group mate Ueda Tatsuya appeared on the screen. It felt like he was smirking at him.
Ueda Tatsuya didn’t sleep well that night.
The words Kame had said to him at the shoot that day were going round and round in his head, in that annoying voice that he just couldn't get rid of because it was in his head and he couldn't just leave the room like he usually would.
If Kame had looked closely at the tickets and studied more than just the movie title, he would have realised that it just wasn’t practical for Nakamaru Yuichi to be at that movie theater at those times, but he supposed it was just like Kame not to look past the fact that someone wanted to see his face on the big screen 52 times.
He tossed and turned in bed and glanced at the pile of tickets sitting on the cabinet beside his bed and he reached one hand out of the covers and swept them away with his fingers, deleted as if like the drafts in his inbox. If what Kame said was right, 52 tickets and 21 messages put him at a huge disadvantage.
Kame was stupid. And he was wrong. And how did he know that the other didn't have all of his drama appearances on DVD a hundred times or a room in his apartment filled with his pictures. It wasn't like he had ever been there to see. But that thought made him feel like he had the ego the size of a house, so he wiped it from his mind. He also felt like it was just a hopeful thought.
The disadvantage wasn't that he loved less, it was because he loved at all.
That thought didn't help him sleep any easier.
Nakamaru Yuichi was late to filming the following day, but this had become so frequent throughout the years that none of the others even called it late any more, they called it 'Yuichi time'. The others hadn't even bothered to rush to get ready in time, and Ueda was still lounging around in their dressing room in the clothes he had arrived in.
“Didn't you wear those yesterday?” Nakamaru asked as he dumped his bag down in the corner of the room.
Ueda raised an eyebrow and looked up from the video he was watching on his phone. “You notice what I'm wearing?”
Without missing a beat, Nakamaru replied, “no, you just stink.”
“You stink at being on time,” Ueda retorted, pouting his lips fiercely. He swung his legs round until they were on the ground and stood up, slipping his phone in his pocket and standing up, stretching his arms above his head.
As he let out his weariness by flexing his arms, and then pulled off his hooded sweatshirt in preparation to go and shower before their filming session. He supposed now that Nakamaru had finally arrived, it was time to stop lying around. As he pulled his arms out of the sleeve and pulled it over his head, a few slips of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground.
Nakamaru leaned over to retrieve them for the other man. “You dropped something.”
“Oh? What?” Ueda asked, shirt draped over the back of the couch.
“Cinema... tickets,” Nakamaru replied slowly, as he looked over the slips in his hands. “Five times? You went to see Kame's movie five times?”
Ueda's mistake had been the night before. Pushing all those slips from his bed side table, onto the clothes he had abandoned on the carpet before bed, the clothes he had decided to slip into again this morning. He was lucky that there weren't more than five.
“It's good to support our members, right?”
“Five times?” Nakamaru replied sceptically, but Ueda had already grabbed his towel and made his escape toward the shower.
With the bathroom door slammed shut and locked, and Nakamaru now alone again, he stared down at the slips of paper in his hand. Five times meant that Ueda must really want to see Kame's face on the big screen. Five times caused jealousy to shoot through him. He tore the slips into pieces, and dropped them in the garbage can in the room, and then sunk down on the couch to wait for his turn in the shower.
As the days went by, Kame became increasingly annoyed at those two boxes of CDs that were still sitting by his door where unfortunately, he could see them every time he came in and out of the building. It also meant he was forever in danger of someone finding out his little secret if they happened to visit and got curious. The box was slightly dented at one corner where he had kicked it occasionally in frustration.
Four days after they had been delivered, he finally decided to do something about them.
He turned on his computer, dragged the box into the room and flopped down into the chair in front of his desk, and began to get to work. His face was creased with concentration as he took each and every CD out of that box and did what he had to do.
Two hours later, his fingers were sore and the contents of the box were now piled up all around him, but he had finally completed his mission. Japan's Yahoo Auctions site was now filled over and over with copies of KAT-TUN's Expose single.
It was an hour or so later when all the purchase emails started to come in. 1, 2, 10, 50, 100, and finally his email inbox displayed 199 new emails. He'd sold all but one of the CDs. One, he could deal with, but 199 gone put his advantage right back.
Nakamaru wanted to feel like he didn't really need an excuse to visit his group-mate Ueda's apartment, but the wrist watch in his pocket served as a pretty good one. He had noticed it in the shower in their dressing room a couple of days earlier and had kept hit hidden away as he worked up the courage to go to give it him back. The watch was a good excuse but the reason was something entirely different. Five times put him at a huge disadvantage, and it was time to even the score out. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do when he got there, but he wasn't one for thinking things through before he jumped into them.
He rung the doorbell five times before he realised that no one was going to answer. He supposed he should have expected it. Ueda Tatsuya spent more time running around in the park nearby than he did in his apartment, and he wouldn't be surprised if the other was there right now. He let out a deep sigh and then took a seat on the step, deciding he had enough free time to wait for him to return.
After losing sleep over what he had found in Ueda's possession he was somewhat exhausted, and in the warm weather with his head leaning back against the door, he soon drifted off into a light sleep, which was rudely interrupted by someone poking his leg with their foot. He jerked awake suddenly, and immediately recalled the situation he was in, assuming that Ueda had arrived home from his run. Instead, when he looked up, he found himself faced by a man with a huge box in his arms.
“Oh, hi,” Nakamaru said, and stretched, acting like it was completely natural for him to be sitting outside a random apartment.
A moment later, a piece of paper was thrust in his direction. “Sign here,” the man said, and Nakamaru stared up at him for a moment as if he were crazy.
“Wait, this isn't my -” he started, but it seemed like the delivery man didn't really care so long as he got rid of his box, so Nakamaru supposed it wouldn't be too much of a big deal to sign for the package and give it to his group-mate when he returned. He scribbled his signature on the slip of paper and received the large box from the man, setting it down beside him.
He wasn't planning on really paying much attention to the box, but his eyes caught the slip stuck to the top that named its contents. In the box, according to what was written, was 199 CDs. Not able to hold in his curiosity, he ripped away the tape holding the box shut, and opened it up.
As he looked at the 199 identical copies of their most recent single, he thought it was nice that Ueda was helping the group to up their sales.
When Ueda finally arrived home an hour later, Nakamaru had finally given up and left but the box was still sitting on the step in front of the door. He didn't even need to look inside to know what was in there. 199 copies of their single Expose which he had purchased from Yahoo Auctions because he knew there were certain people who would feel bad if they looked and thought that they were unwanted.
Kame's words the previous week came back to him once again, and as he picked up the box to carry it inside, he realised that 199 CDs put him at a huge disadvantage. He pushed the box into the corner of his genkan, gave it a frustrated kick, and left it there, not even bothering to open the box to check inside. He didn't even want to see his own face right now, let alone his. He wanted to forget the box even existed.
Unfortunately, there was one last reminder still to come. When he sunk down on the couch and pulled out his phone to check his messages, he found one from Nakamaru telling him how nice it was that he was supporting the group by buying so many copies of their single.
A moment later his cellphone was launched across the room and his fist buried in the soft leather of his couch. Then he was on his feet, charging across the room and picking it up again and before he really knew what he was even doing he was dialling Nakamaru's number and pressing the phone to his ear, waiting impatiently for the other man to answer.
Ueda didn't even allow Nakamaru a 'hello'. The moment he heard the click on the line that showed his group-mate had answered, he growled down the line. “That's not why I did it.”
“What?” The confusion was evident in his voice, and Ueda thought it sounded like had just woken up.
“What were you doing at my apartment?”
“You left your watch in the dressing room. I figured you might want it back.”
Ueda automatically glanced to his empty wrist. That wasn't a lie. He didn't have his watch and now he thought about it, he had last seen it when they had been in the dressing room. But he was still fuming that he didn't want to just let things go as easily as that.
“Well why did you look in my box?!” he asked.
Nakamaru sighed down the line. He was well used to Ueda being in these angry and defensive moods, and easily stayed calm. “I wanted to see if I could mock your taste in music,” he told him. “Turns out it's pretty good. Look Tatsuya, it's not a bad thing if you want to help support the group.” Both of them knew it wasn't the first time the group members had purchased copies of their own singles to help their sales.
“I said, that's not why I did it,” Ueda practically hissed down the phone.
There was silence for a moment or two, and then Nakamaru's voice came down the line again. “The same reason had those tickets,” he realized. “There's no point in getting mad with me over this,” he commented. “You need to tell Kame.”
The silence this time was on Ueda's end of the line. “You're right,” his voice finally came, and then Ueda hung up the phone.
Nakamaru hung up his end of the phone, and settled back down against his pillow, where he had been taking a relaxing nap until he had been rudely interrupted by Ueda. He let his eyes slip closed, but somehow sleep didn't come quite so easily. He tossed and turned for a few minutes and then he grabbed for his phone again and went to his message inbox and then to his drafts. Inside were 15 messages that he hadn't been able to gather the courage to send. He was a hypocrite and Ueda wasn't the only person who needed to tell Kame.
It had been a week since their single Expose had been released and the group was waiting patiently to find out how their sales had gone in this first week. It was the difference between this single doing better or worse than the last, and it was always a nervewracking thing to wait for, if only because they had all been betting on it.
The others had been sceptical on whether this one would sell better than their last one, with even Nakamaru thinking his solo might tip things to the lower end a little, but Ueda Tatsuya had been confident that they could do it, and had been the only one to bet that they would fare better this time.
“Good luck.”
It was an anxious wait for the results, the group sitting around a table in a meeting room fiddling with the money they might soon lose on the bet between their fingers, a computer sitting in front of them about to display the results.
With slight hesitation, Nakamaru (who had been put in charge of the computer) reached out his hand and clicked to refresh the page that would tell them what they had all been waiting to see. He was leaning over the screen so no one else could see the result, but not for very long because Koki gave him a hard kick underneath the table. When he finally leaned back again, there was a wide grin on his face, and a sour look appeared on Ueda's face until the other man slid a small pile of bills across the table to him.
“What are you so happy about?” Kame spoke sourly as he pushed his own money across to Ueda. Of course it wasn't a bad thing that this single had sold more than the last one but he just hated to lose to Ueda, that was all. Looking across the room though at Ueda's smiling face as he collected his winnings, underneath that sour look, he thought that buying those 200 copies of the single was very worth it, even if he was now 20,000 yen out of pocket.
With that announcement over, the meeting broke up and the members planned on going their separate ways as they always did, but before Kame was able to leave, he was grabbed by both Ueda and Nakamaru almost at the same time. “I need to talk to you,” they both said at almost exactly the same time, and Ueda gave Nakamaru a strange look, wondering what he could possibly want to talk to Kame about.
“There's only one of me,” Kame pointed out, liking the sudden attention. “You, wait your turn~” he told Nakamaru, and then he took Ueda by his arm and dragged him by the arm to one of the empty meeting rooms nearby.
Out in the corridor and now alone, Nakamaru took a seat on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the room the pair had disappeared into, feeling like he was waiting to go into a job interview. Just like if that was really the case, he felt like once they came out of that room there was no point even beginning to have his own conversation. In the game of love, he felt like no matter what he did, he would always have a disadvantage.
“It wasn't Yuichi who got those cinema tickets,” Ueda began, half leaning against the table. He stood up straight and kicked the ground absently with his heel, not able to sit still. “It was me.”
Kame had sat down as soon as he had entered the room, but the shock of this revelation caused him to stand up suddenly and he stared at the other, his eyebrows creased in confusion. “You bought those tickets?” he asked to confirm.
Ueda let out a shrug, as if it really wasn't a big deal, and looked round at Kame. “It's good to support our members.”
Kame sniggered and took a couple of steps closer to Ueda. “Do you expect me to believe that excuse? There were over fifty tickets there, that's a little more than supporting.”
“You think I'm lying?!” Ueda was beginning to get angry because he knew it was totally a lie and he didn't like that Kame could see through him that easily. His hands were balling into fists but annoyingly, Kame didn't seem at all afraid of him.
In fact, Kame was edging closer and closer and before he even had a chance to punch him, Kame's lips were pressed against his and his back was pressed against the table. He didn't even have it in him to complain about the uncomfortable position he was perched in because he was so shocked. It occurred to him that he had never been that close to Kame before, but it was hard to think about anything while in this position.
He closed his eyes and let Kame's lips touch his, let his tongue run along their insides and then over his teeth and he even allowed a satisfied groan to escape his lips as he wrapped his arms around the other man's waist if only to keep himself steady as Kame put increasing pressure on his body and he felt his feet start to leave the ground as he was pushed further onto the table.
“I like you, Ueda Tatsuya,” Kame whispered as he pulled back a little to take a breath, and then he leaned forward to begin to kiss him again as his hands snaked along the other man's sides, but Ueda jerked his head back so quickly that it made contact with the table he was now half lying on.
Ueda looked up at Kame, and it was so tempting just to let this continue because Kame was a good kisser and it wasn't like he was hating every minute of it, but he just couldn't go on.
“There's something you need to know,” he said seriously, forcing himself into a seated position and pushing Kame from off him. “I never went to the movie,” he admitted.
Kame was a little taken aback by suddenly being rejected, and frowned at the other man. “What do you mean?”
“I bought them,” Ueda explained. “But I bought them so I could find out how you would feel if Yuichi did something like that for you. I didn't go even once.”
Kame stood straight, his shoulders stiffening, and stared at Ueda. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Well now I'm not so sure, because all it did was make me stupidly jealous.” Ueda gave an immature pout, like it was all Kame's fault, and his hands were balling up into fists
“Why would you be jealous?” Kame asked, his frown deepening with every one of Ueda's words. He was aware that he was firing out questions like it was an interrogation, but it kind of was.
“Why do you think?”
“Stop answering my questions with a question,” Kame replied with his voice raising a little, and he was beginning to get angry now. He didn't like it when people didn't make any sense.
Nakamaru's palms were beginning to sweat as he sat outside the room. It was beginning to feel less like an interview and more like he was waiting in the school corridor to see the headmaster. He was going through what he wanted to say in his mind over and over and he didn't know why he was thinking about it so hard when Ueda and Kame were probably in there having sex on the meeting room table.
Except maybe not, because a moment later he he heard Kame's voice yelling from inside, and he knew what happened with those two when they got angry, so he stood up from his seat and pushed open the door to stop what was inevitably going to happen.
“What's going on?”
Two pairs of eyes turned to the opening door and the direction of the voice, and Kame scowled at him. “Tatsuya is an idiot. Did he tell you about the movie tickets?”
Nakamaru wondered if he should even bother answering, with how the other was looking at him, but he opened his mouth and said, “he went to see your movie. I know.”
“No, he didn't go and see my movie. He bought tickets for my movie and then showed them to me and told me that you had been to see my movie,” Kame huffed.
“Why would he do that?”
“I don't know, why don't we ask him? Ueda?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on Ueda, and then Nakamaru sighed and sat down in one of the chairs in the room. “Is this high school or something? We're grown-ups now, guys. I'm too old for this.”
“We're the same age,” Ueda pointed out, and the tension in his shoulders started to disappear a little. Nakamaru was right. This was stupid. “Kazuya, I need to speak to Yuichi. Alone.”
Kame was still quite tense and angry and now suspicious and being made to leave the room like he was the younger child who wasn't allowed to hear whatever they were planning on talking about didn't make him feel any better. He frowned at the other two in the room, and then turned on his heel with a dramatic swirl, and left the room.
Nakamaru put his palms against his forehead and rested his elbows on the table, letting out a long suffering sigh. “Do you ever feel like you're stuck in some crazy love triangle?”
“Isn't that what this is?” Ueda asked, looking across at the other.
“No. No, there's no triangle here. You showed Kazuya those movie tickets to find out if he liked me, right? And clearly he doesn't, because he bought 200 copies of our single to help you win that stupid bet. It's not a triangle, because I'm not involved.”
Ueda shrugged his shoulders a little, playing with his cellphone in his hands just for something to do with them. “You didn't see the look on his face when I told him you'd been to see his movie fifty two times.”
“Clearly you didn't see the look on it when he saw you had won the bet,” Nakamaru retorted, and then he moved his palm to his chin and looked at the other thoughtfully. “Kazuya just likes to like people. He thinks he has an advantage because he has his love spread two ways.”
“I'm starting to think that is an advantage,” Ueda muttered under his breath.
“It's not a triangle though, right? It's Kame with two arrows leading from him.”
“I guess so,” Ueda agreed, even though he didn't really agree.
Nakamaru stood up from his seat and walked over to the window, turning away from the other to look out of it, wanting to avoid the other's eyes as he spoke. “What if it was a triangle?” he asked. “Would I be at a disadvantage?”
He didn't have to say anything else, because before he had barely even finished his sentence, Ueda was behind him, reaching out to place his hand on the other man's cheek. And then Ueda's lips were on his and kissing him with more passion than he thought he had ever been kissed before. He turned to face the other completely, his back pressed up against the window as Ueda's strong hands gripped at the fabric of his shirt covering his collar bones, keeping complete control over Nakamaru as he took the long awaited opportunity to explore every part of his lips and mouth, and Nakamaru had no complaints at all.
It took a while, but eventually Nakamaru came to his senses and realised that he shouldn't just be leaning limply against the window, and his own arms slid round Ueda's waist and pulled him closer, pressing his body against the other's as Ueda reached down to put his own arms underneath his shirt. Nakamaru was reminded that Ueda had something wonderful under his own shirt, and before they even really realised it, they were both topless and Ueda had manoeuvred them to the table again, but this time, he was in total control.
Kame felt like a naughty school boy as he sat out in the corridor waiting for Nakamaru and Ueda to finish talking about whatever adult things it was they needed to talk about. He kept getting his phone out and checking the time, and then putting it away for a while before getting out and checking it again. One minute passed. Then five. Then ten. Then finally he had been sitting there for half an hour and was getting bored, and what could they have to talk about that took that long anyway?
He peeled himself off the plastic chair he had been waiting in, and opened the door to the meeting room. He wasn't sure what he expected to see. The pair sitting having a boring conversation, a heated argument if things had gotten really serious. What he actually witnessed was something he hadn't even considered to be a possibility.
The first thing he realised was that there were no clothes. The second thing he realised was that the pair were on top of the table, and the third thing he realised was that they were locked together in something that as far as he was concerned, Ueda Tatsuya and Nakamaru Yuichi should not be doing together, not unless he was there too, but it didn't seem like he was invited.
“I see,” Kame spoke very loudly, and the other two finally realised he was there, and were momentarily still as both turned to look at the third man. Nakamaru looked like he might dye there and then of embarrassment, but Ueda didn't seem to care even in the slightest.
“He's a better kisser than you,” Ueda remarked with a grin, and before Nakamaru could ask how he knew that, Ueda's lips were back on his and it was as if Kame had never been there in the first place.
Kame watched the pair for just a moment, before letting out a frustrated sigh. “Whatever. I'm going to go and find Junno,” he told the pair, and he only really said it in the vain hope of making them jealous but they didn't even seem to be listening so he decided that maybe he really would go and find Junno after all. Another person to hold an advantage over.
Ueda heard the door closing as Kame left them in peace, and pulled back from that kiss he had so firmly planted on Nakamaru's lips.
“What did he mean by -” Nakamaru began, despite the fact that neither of them really wanted to or were in a position to argue right now.
“Shhh,” was Ueda's only reply, signalling the end of the conversation before it had already begun, and after that, Nakamaru couldn't speak any more at all.
An hour later, when the pair finally gathered the energy to dress themselves to leave before they were caught by someone, Ueda finally got to thinking about what Kame had told him those weeks earlier about the one being the least in love having the advantage.
“Do you think that's true?” he asked Nakamaru after repeating that comment to him.
Nakamaru pulled his shirt over his head and took a few steps closer, giving the other a knowing and satisfied smile. “It doesn't seem like either of us are at a disadvantage after that,” he told him.
This time it wasn't 200 vs 52 vs 21, it was 1 vs 1, and Ueda thought that maybe the only ones with the advantage were the ones that loved equally.
From: akumanakoi
Title: The game of love.
Pairings/Characters: Nakamaru, Ueda & Kame
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:
Notes: I hope you enjoy this, dusk037, I was given a prompt by someone for a fic a while back that I decided would suit this fic well, so I went with it and I hope I came up with something you will like to read. :) I also hope you don't mind that I left the pairing as a surprise... it makes the fic more fun that way, I think!
Summary: Kame, Ueda and Nakamaru all have love on their mind, but who has the biggest advantage and disadvantage, and are any of those things really important in the game of love?
“Can I have a word with you?”
Ueda Tatsuya confronted his group-mate Kame as the other man stood in one corner of their set for the day, flicking absently through his phone as they took a much needed break from shooting.
“Just a word?”
Ueda gave him a deadpan look, and nodded firmly. “I’m not one of your fans,” he pointed out, and then put one finger up when Kame tried to respond. “But that is kind of why I’m here.”
“Oh?” Kame raised one eyebrow, and shifted his weight onto one hip. “Okay, go on then.”
“I found these -” Ueda spoke seriously, and a moment later he had dug the entire contents of both of his pockets into Kame’s hands. The contents of both of his pockets seemed to be over a dozen small slips of paper. Kame carefully shifted them onto one hand, and then lifted one up with his now spare hand, taking a look at the small lettering on one of the slips.
“I didn’t know you cared so much,” Kame commented.
“- in Yuichi’s bag.”
Kame looked up from reading the dates and times from all the discarded cinema tickets; tickets for his recent movie, and looked at Ueda in skepticism. “He bought these?”
“Either that or he got a side job sweeping up movie theaters,” Ueda commented, his eyes still on the tickets that Kame was going through in his hands.
Kame bent down to pick up a ticket that had fluttered to the ground, and when he moved upright again, the look on his face was of pure glee.
Ueda’s eyes narrowed a little. “I thought you didn’t want him to like you.”
Kame placed the tickets back in Ueda’s hands, and let the hands linger there for a moment, squeezing the ends of the other’s fingers. “In the game of love, the one who loves less always has an advantage,” he told him, and then let go of his fingers, leaving Ueda with the tickets scattered across his hands. “This -” He pointed to the mess in the other’s hand. “- gives me a huge advantage.”
As Kame was called back by the director to do a solo shoot, Ueda thought he could see a spring in the other’s step as he walked back onto the set. The man left behind leaned against one of the pillars in the room, and dug his cellphone out of his pocket. His finger hit the icon for his message box, and to his drafts folder, which was flashing up with the number twenty one.
Twenty one times that he had started to tell him how much he really liked him, twenty one times he had decided against it. Twenty one times put him at a huge disadvantage, if what Kame was saying was true. He hit the delete button, and soon those twenty one messages had disappeared. As he too was called to film again, that small action had made him feel just a little better.
Kame’s eyes were half-lidded by the time he finally took the elevator to his apartment, so tired that it had taken him five attempts to remember the code that would get him into the elevator in the first place. The route through the corridor to his apartment door was so normal to him that he didn’t even think about it until his foot made contact with something hard.
“Shit,” he cursed loudly, and looked down to find a pile of three cardboard boxes that were so big they reached all the way up to the apartment number plate by his door. Still slightly annoyed at these huge things being in the way when he just wanted to get inside and go to bed, he ripped the tape from the top box, and pulled back the flap. What faced him underneath was his own face, as well as those of the rest of the members of the group. His face included.
There were 200 CDs sitting in those three boxes, he knew and he didn’t even have to count, because he was the one who had ordered them. So he could see the smile on that annoy face when this single sold more than their last one. 200 probably wouldn’t even make a difference, he supposed, but it made him feel better at least.
He unlocked his apartment door and pushed the boxes into the genkan before slipping inside himself. He took them no further, not wanting to see his failure right now. He did however, pull one single CD from the box, and padded into his living room.
As he sat on the couch with the DVD in his player watching the PV while only half awake, he recalled that there had been 52 tickets taken from Yuichi’s bag. 52 versus 200 put him at a huge disadvantage.
He turned off the PV when their fellow group mate Ueda Tatsuya appeared on the screen. It felt like he was smirking at him.
Ueda Tatsuya didn’t sleep well that night.
The words Kame had said to him at the shoot that day were going round and round in his head, in that annoying voice that he just couldn't get rid of because it was in his head and he couldn't just leave the room like he usually would.
If Kame had looked closely at the tickets and studied more than just the movie title, he would have realised that it just wasn’t practical for Nakamaru Yuichi to be at that movie theater at those times, but he supposed it was just like Kame not to look past the fact that someone wanted to see his face on the big screen 52 times.
He tossed and turned in bed and glanced at the pile of tickets sitting on the cabinet beside his bed and he reached one hand out of the covers and swept them away with his fingers, deleted as if like the drafts in his inbox. If what Kame said was right, 52 tickets and 21 messages put him at a huge disadvantage.
Kame was stupid. And he was wrong. And how did he know that the other didn't have all of his drama appearances on DVD a hundred times or a room in his apartment filled with his pictures. It wasn't like he had ever been there to see. But that thought made him feel like he had the ego the size of a house, so he wiped it from his mind. He also felt like it was just a hopeful thought.
The disadvantage wasn't that he loved less, it was because he loved at all.
That thought didn't help him sleep any easier.
Nakamaru Yuichi was late to filming the following day, but this had become so frequent throughout the years that none of the others even called it late any more, they called it 'Yuichi time'. The others hadn't even bothered to rush to get ready in time, and Ueda was still lounging around in their dressing room in the clothes he had arrived in.
“Didn't you wear those yesterday?” Nakamaru asked as he dumped his bag down in the corner of the room.
Ueda raised an eyebrow and looked up from the video he was watching on his phone. “You notice what I'm wearing?”
Without missing a beat, Nakamaru replied, “no, you just stink.”
“You stink at being on time,” Ueda retorted, pouting his lips fiercely. He swung his legs round until they were on the ground and stood up, slipping his phone in his pocket and standing up, stretching his arms above his head.
As he let out his weariness by flexing his arms, and then pulled off his hooded sweatshirt in preparation to go and shower before their filming session. He supposed now that Nakamaru had finally arrived, it was time to stop lying around. As he pulled his arms out of the sleeve and pulled it over his head, a few slips of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground.
Nakamaru leaned over to retrieve them for the other man. “You dropped something.”
“Oh? What?” Ueda asked, shirt draped over the back of the couch.
“Cinema... tickets,” Nakamaru replied slowly, as he looked over the slips in his hands. “Five times? You went to see Kame's movie five times?”
Ueda's mistake had been the night before. Pushing all those slips from his bed side table, onto the clothes he had abandoned on the carpet before bed, the clothes he had decided to slip into again this morning. He was lucky that there weren't more than five.
“It's good to support our members, right?”
“Five times?” Nakamaru replied sceptically, but Ueda had already grabbed his towel and made his escape toward the shower.
With the bathroom door slammed shut and locked, and Nakamaru now alone again, he stared down at the slips of paper in his hand. Five times meant that Ueda must really want to see Kame's face on the big screen. Five times caused jealousy to shoot through him. He tore the slips into pieces, and dropped them in the garbage can in the room, and then sunk down on the couch to wait for his turn in the shower.
As the days went by, Kame became increasingly annoyed at those two boxes of CDs that were still sitting by his door where unfortunately, he could see them every time he came in and out of the building. It also meant he was forever in danger of someone finding out his little secret if they happened to visit and got curious. The box was slightly dented at one corner where he had kicked it occasionally in frustration.
Four days after they had been delivered, he finally decided to do something about them.
He turned on his computer, dragged the box into the room and flopped down into the chair in front of his desk, and began to get to work. His face was creased with concentration as he took each and every CD out of that box and did what he had to do.
Two hours later, his fingers were sore and the contents of the box were now piled up all around him, but he had finally completed his mission. Japan's Yahoo Auctions site was now filled over and over with copies of KAT-TUN's Expose single.
It was an hour or so later when all the purchase emails started to come in. 1, 2, 10, 50, 100, and finally his email inbox displayed 199 new emails. He'd sold all but one of the CDs. One, he could deal with, but 199 gone put his advantage right back.
Nakamaru wanted to feel like he didn't really need an excuse to visit his group-mate Ueda's apartment, but the wrist watch in his pocket served as a pretty good one. He had noticed it in the shower in their dressing room a couple of days earlier and had kept hit hidden away as he worked up the courage to go to give it him back. The watch was a good excuse but the reason was something entirely different. Five times put him at a huge disadvantage, and it was time to even the score out. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do when he got there, but he wasn't one for thinking things through before he jumped into them.
He rung the doorbell five times before he realised that no one was going to answer. He supposed he should have expected it. Ueda Tatsuya spent more time running around in the park nearby than he did in his apartment, and he wouldn't be surprised if the other was there right now. He let out a deep sigh and then took a seat on the step, deciding he had enough free time to wait for him to return.
After losing sleep over what he had found in Ueda's possession he was somewhat exhausted, and in the warm weather with his head leaning back against the door, he soon drifted off into a light sleep, which was rudely interrupted by someone poking his leg with their foot. He jerked awake suddenly, and immediately recalled the situation he was in, assuming that Ueda had arrived home from his run. Instead, when he looked up, he found himself faced by a man with a huge box in his arms.
“Oh, hi,” Nakamaru said, and stretched, acting like it was completely natural for him to be sitting outside a random apartment.
A moment later, a piece of paper was thrust in his direction. “Sign here,” the man said, and Nakamaru stared up at him for a moment as if he were crazy.
“Wait, this isn't my -” he started, but it seemed like the delivery man didn't really care so long as he got rid of his box, so Nakamaru supposed it wouldn't be too much of a big deal to sign for the package and give it to his group-mate when he returned. He scribbled his signature on the slip of paper and received the large box from the man, setting it down beside him.
He wasn't planning on really paying much attention to the box, but his eyes caught the slip stuck to the top that named its contents. In the box, according to what was written, was 199 CDs. Not able to hold in his curiosity, he ripped away the tape holding the box shut, and opened it up.
As he looked at the 199 identical copies of their most recent single, he thought it was nice that Ueda was helping the group to up their sales.
When Ueda finally arrived home an hour later, Nakamaru had finally given up and left but the box was still sitting on the step in front of the door. He didn't even need to look inside to know what was in there. 199 copies of their single Expose which he had purchased from Yahoo Auctions because he knew there were certain people who would feel bad if they looked and thought that they were unwanted.
Kame's words the previous week came back to him once again, and as he picked up the box to carry it inside, he realised that 199 CDs put him at a huge disadvantage. He pushed the box into the corner of his genkan, gave it a frustrated kick, and left it there, not even bothering to open the box to check inside. He didn't even want to see his own face right now, let alone his. He wanted to forget the box even existed.
Unfortunately, there was one last reminder still to come. When he sunk down on the couch and pulled out his phone to check his messages, he found one from Nakamaru telling him how nice it was that he was supporting the group by buying so many copies of their single.
A moment later his cellphone was launched across the room and his fist buried in the soft leather of his couch. Then he was on his feet, charging across the room and picking it up again and before he really knew what he was even doing he was dialling Nakamaru's number and pressing the phone to his ear, waiting impatiently for the other man to answer.
Ueda didn't even allow Nakamaru a 'hello'. The moment he heard the click on the line that showed his group-mate had answered, he growled down the line. “That's not why I did it.”
“What?” The confusion was evident in his voice, and Ueda thought it sounded like had just woken up.
“What were you doing at my apartment?”
“You left your watch in the dressing room. I figured you might want it back.”
Ueda automatically glanced to his empty wrist. That wasn't a lie. He didn't have his watch and now he thought about it, he had last seen it when they had been in the dressing room. But he was still fuming that he didn't want to just let things go as easily as that.
“Well why did you look in my box?!” he asked.
Nakamaru sighed down the line. He was well used to Ueda being in these angry and defensive moods, and easily stayed calm. “I wanted to see if I could mock your taste in music,” he told him. “Turns out it's pretty good. Look Tatsuya, it's not a bad thing if you want to help support the group.” Both of them knew it wasn't the first time the group members had purchased copies of their own singles to help their sales.
“I said, that's not why I did it,” Ueda practically hissed down the phone.
There was silence for a moment or two, and then Nakamaru's voice came down the line again. “The same reason had those tickets,” he realized. “There's no point in getting mad with me over this,” he commented. “You need to tell Kame.”
The silence this time was on Ueda's end of the line. “You're right,” his voice finally came, and then Ueda hung up the phone.
Nakamaru hung up his end of the phone, and settled back down against his pillow, where he had been taking a relaxing nap until he had been rudely interrupted by Ueda. He let his eyes slip closed, but somehow sleep didn't come quite so easily. He tossed and turned for a few minutes and then he grabbed for his phone again and went to his message inbox and then to his drafts. Inside were 15 messages that he hadn't been able to gather the courage to send. He was a hypocrite and Ueda wasn't the only person who needed to tell Kame.
It had been a week since their single Expose had been released and the group was waiting patiently to find out how their sales had gone in this first week. It was the difference between this single doing better or worse than the last, and it was always a nervewracking thing to wait for, if only because they had all been betting on it.
The others had been sceptical on whether this one would sell better than their last one, with even Nakamaru thinking his solo might tip things to the lower end a little, but Ueda Tatsuya had been confident that they could do it, and had been the only one to bet that they would fare better this time.
“Good luck.”
It was an anxious wait for the results, the group sitting around a table in a meeting room fiddling with the money they might soon lose on the bet between their fingers, a computer sitting in front of them about to display the results.
With slight hesitation, Nakamaru (who had been put in charge of the computer) reached out his hand and clicked to refresh the page that would tell them what they had all been waiting to see. He was leaning over the screen so no one else could see the result, but not for very long because Koki gave him a hard kick underneath the table. When he finally leaned back again, there was a wide grin on his face, and a sour look appeared on Ueda's face until the other man slid a small pile of bills across the table to him.
“What are you so happy about?” Kame spoke sourly as he pushed his own money across to Ueda. Of course it wasn't a bad thing that this single had sold more than the last one but he just hated to lose to Ueda, that was all. Looking across the room though at Ueda's smiling face as he collected his winnings, underneath that sour look, he thought that buying those 200 copies of the single was very worth it, even if he was now 20,000 yen out of pocket.
With that announcement over, the meeting broke up and the members planned on going their separate ways as they always did, but before Kame was able to leave, he was grabbed by both Ueda and Nakamaru almost at the same time. “I need to talk to you,” they both said at almost exactly the same time, and Ueda gave Nakamaru a strange look, wondering what he could possibly want to talk to Kame about.
“There's only one of me,” Kame pointed out, liking the sudden attention. “You, wait your turn~” he told Nakamaru, and then he took Ueda by his arm and dragged him by the arm to one of the empty meeting rooms nearby.
Out in the corridor and now alone, Nakamaru took a seat on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the room the pair had disappeared into, feeling like he was waiting to go into a job interview. Just like if that was really the case, he felt like once they came out of that room there was no point even beginning to have his own conversation. In the game of love, he felt like no matter what he did, he would always have a disadvantage.
“It wasn't Yuichi who got those cinema tickets,” Ueda began, half leaning against the table. He stood up straight and kicked the ground absently with his heel, not able to sit still. “It was me.”
Kame had sat down as soon as he had entered the room, but the shock of this revelation caused him to stand up suddenly and he stared at the other, his eyebrows creased in confusion. “You bought those tickets?” he asked to confirm.
Ueda let out a shrug, as if it really wasn't a big deal, and looked round at Kame. “It's good to support our members.”
Kame sniggered and took a couple of steps closer to Ueda. “Do you expect me to believe that excuse? There were over fifty tickets there, that's a little more than supporting.”
“You think I'm lying?!” Ueda was beginning to get angry because he knew it was totally a lie and he didn't like that Kame could see through him that easily. His hands were balling into fists but annoyingly, Kame didn't seem at all afraid of him.
In fact, Kame was edging closer and closer and before he even had a chance to punch him, Kame's lips were pressed against his and his back was pressed against the table. He didn't even have it in him to complain about the uncomfortable position he was perched in because he was so shocked. It occurred to him that he had never been that close to Kame before, but it was hard to think about anything while in this position.
He closed his eyes and let Kame's lips touch his, let his tongue run along their insides and then over his teeth and he even allowed a satisfied groan to escape his lips as he wrapped his arms around the other man's waist if only to keep himself steady as Kame put increasing pressure on his body and he felt his feet start to leave the ground as he was pushed further onto the table.
“I like you, Ueda Tatsuya,” Kame whispered as he pulled back a little to take a breath, and then he leaned forward to begin to kiss him again as his hands snaked along the other man's sides, but Ueda jerked his head back so quickly that it made contact with the table he was now half lying on.
Ueda looked up at Kame, and it was so tempting just to let this continue because Kame was a good kisser and it wasn't like he was hating every minute of it, but he just couldn't go on.
“There's something you need to know,” he said seriously, forcing himself into a seated position and pushing Kame from off him. “I never went to the movie,” he admitted.
Kame was a little taken aback by suddenly being rejected, and frowned at the other man. “What do you mean?”
“I bought them,” Ueda explained. “But I bought them so I could find out how you would feel if Yuichi did something like that for you. I didn't go even once.”
Kame stood straight, his shoulders stiffening, and stared at Ueda. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Well now I'm not so sure, because all it did was make me stupidly jealous.” Ueda gave an immature pout, like it was all Kame's fault, and his hands were balling up into fists
“Why would you be jealous?” Kame asked, his frown deepening with every one of Ueda's words. He was aware that he was firing out questions like it was an interrogation, but it kind of was.
“Why do you think?”
“Stop answering my questions with a question,” Kame replied with his voice raising a little, and he was beginning to get angry now. He didn't like it when people didn't make any sense.
Nakamaru's palms were beginning to sweat as he sat outside the room. It was beginning to feel less like an interview and more like he was waiting in the school corridor to see the headmaster. He was going through what he wanted to say in his mind over and over and he didn't know why he was thinking about it so hard when Ueda and Kame were probably in there having sex on the meeting room table.
Except maybe not, because a moment later he he heard Kame's voice yelling from inside, and he knew what happened with those two when they got angry, so he stood up from his seat and pushed open the door to stop what was inevitably going to happen.
“What's going on?”
Two pairs of eyes turned to the opening door and the direction of the voice, and Kame scowled at him. “Tatsuya is an idiot. Did he tell you about the movie tickets?”
Nakamaru wondered if he should even bother answering, with how the other was looking at him, but he opened his mouth and said, “he went to see your movie. I know.”
“No, he didn't go and see my movie. He bought tickets for my movie and then showed them to me and told me that you had been to see my movie,” Kame huffed.
“Why would he do that?”
“I don't know, why don't we ask him? Ueda?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on Ueda, and then Nakamaru sighed and sat down in one of the chairs in the room. “Is this high school or something? We're grown-ups now, guys. I'm too old for this.”
“We're the same age,” Ueda pointed out, and the tension in his shoulders started to disappear a little. Nakamaru was right. This was stupid. “Kazuya, I need to speak to Yuichi. Alone.”
Kame was still quite tense and angry and now suspicious and being made to leave the room like he was the younger child who wasn't allowed to hear whatever they were planning on talking about didn't make him feel any better. He frowned at the other two in the room, and then turned on his heel with a dramatic swirl, and left the room.
Nakamaru put his palms against his forehead and rested his elbows on the table, letting out a long suffering sigh. “Do you ever feel like you're stuck in some crazy love triangle?”
“Isn't that what this is?” Ueda asked, looking across at the other.
“No. No, there's no triangle here. You showed Kazuya those movie tickets to find out if he liked me, right? And clearly he doesn't, because he bought 200 copies of our single to help you win that stupid bet. It's not a triangle, because I'm not involved.”
Ueda shrugged his shoulders a little, playing with his cellphone in his hands just for something to do with them. “You didn't see the look on his face when I told him you'd been to see his movie fifty two times.”
“Clearly you didn't see the look on it when he saw you had won the bet,” Nakamaru retorted, and then he moved his palm to his chin and looked at the other thoughtfully. “Kazuya just likes to like people. He thinks he has an advantage because he has his love spread two ways.”
“I'm starting to think that is an advantage,” Ueda muttered under his breath.
“It's not a triangle though, right? It's Kame with two arrows leading from him.”
“I guess so,” Ueda agreed, even though he didn't really agree.
Nakamaru stood up from his seat and walked over to the window, turning away from the other to look out of it, wanting to avoid the other's eyes as he spoke. “What if it was a triangle?” he asked. “Would I be at a disadvantage?”
He didn't have to say anything else, because before he had barely even finished his sentence, Ueda was behind him, reaching out to place his hand on the other man's cheek. And then Ueda's lips were on his and kissing him with more passion than he thought he had ever been kissed before. He turned to face the other completely, his back pressed up against the window as Ueda's strong hands gripped at the fabric of his shirt covering his collar bones, keeping complete control over Nakamaru as he took the long awaited opportunity to explore every part of his lips and mouth, and Nakamaru had no complaints at all.
It took a while, but eventually Nakamaru came to his senses and realised that he shouldn't just be leaning limply against the window, and his own arms slid round Ueda's waist and pulled him closer, pressing his body against the other's as Ueda reached down to put his own arms underneath his shirt. Nakamaru was reminded that Ueda had something wonderful under his own shirt, and before they even really realised it, they were both topless and Ueda had manoeuvred them to the table again, but this time, he was in total control.
Kame felt like a naughty school boy as he sat out in the corridor waiting for Nakamaru and Ueda to finish talking about whatever adult things it was they needed to talk about. He kept getting his phone out and checking the time, and then putting it away for a while before getting out and checking it again. One minute passed. Then five. Then ten. Then finally he had been sitting there for half an hour and was getting bored, and what could they have to talk about that took that long anyway?
He peeled himself off the plastic chair he had been waiting in, and opened the door to the meeting room. He wasn't sure what he expected to see. The pair sitting having a boring conversation, a heated argument if things had gotten really serious. What he actually witnessed was something he hadn't even considered to be a possibility.
The first thing he realised was that there were no clothes. The second thing he realised was that the pair were on top of the table, and the third thing he realised was that they were locked together in something that as far as he was concerned, Ueda Tatsuya and Nakamaru Yuichi should not be doing together, not unless he was there too, but it didn't seem like he was invited.
“I see,” Kame spoke very loudly, and the other two finally realised he was there, and were momentarily still as both turned to look at the third man. Nakamaru looked like he might dye there and then of embarrassment, but Ueda didn't seem to care even in the slightest.
“He's a better kisser than you,” Ueda remarked with a grin, and before Nakamaru could ask how he knew that, Ueda's lips were back on his and it was as if Kame had never been there in the first place.
Kame watched the pair for just a moment, before letting out a frustrated sigh. “Whatever. I'm going to go and find Junno,” he told the pair, and he only really said it in the vain hope of making them jealous but they didn't even seem to be listening so he decided that maybe he really would go and find Junno after all. Another person to hold an advantage over.
Ueda heard the door closing as Kame left them in peace, and pulled back from that kiss he had so firmly planted on Nakamaru's lips.
“What did he mean by -” Nakamaru began, despite the fact that neither of them really wanted to or were in a position to argue right now.
“Shhh,” was Ueda's only reply, signalling the end of the conversation before it had already begun, and after that, Nakamaru couldn't speak any more at all.
An hour later, when the pair finally gathered the energy to dress themselves to leave before they were caught by someone, Ueda finally got to thinking about what Kame had told him those weeks earlier about the one being the least in love having the advantage.
“Do you think that's true?” he asked Nakamaru after repeating that comment to him.
Nakamaru pulled his shirt over his head and took a few steps closer, giving the other a knowing and satisfied smile. “It doesn't seem like either of us are at a disadvantage after that,” he told him.
This time it wasn't 200 vs 52 vs 21, it was 1 vs 1, and Ueda thought that maybe the only ones with the advantage were the ones that loved equally.