[fic] he's like a virgin losing a child: chapter two (3/3)
He takes Pacific Coast Highway to the main beach, drops his two passengers off on the sidewalk, warning them to watch out for sharks and killer whales. Tohaku believes him and his eyes widen with fear, tears forming, but Kame only smiles in amusement and waves as Jin drives off.
The rest of the day Jin can barely concentrate on working; he spills a mocha all over the counter, counts out the wrong change, even snaps at his employees when they talk to him. Maria, the assistant manager of the café, finally takes pity on the other workers and takes Jin aside.
“Hey Jin,” she says, rubbing a hand over his arm. “Maybe you should take a break now.”
She’s Latino, so her English is difficult for Jin to understand, is difficult for even the native speakers that work in the cafe. He used to think she had a thing for him. Jin remembers her girlfriend’s name is Sandra.
“You know I don’t like resting while the others work,” he says, but he sighs because he knows something is wrong with him today, and his help is only doing more harm then good.
“We all know that. But you pay us to work, you know? You’re too tense, too uptight today, so just… You do enough for us already.”
Jin smiles at Maria and nods. “You’re right, you’re always right. I should just give you the place and become your assistant manager.”
“You love Figaro way too much to give it up,” Maria protests, but the faint blush on her cheeks Jin manages to see as she turns away makes him grin.
“I’ll be in the back then. Call me if you need anything.”
Maria simply waves a hand above her head, already heading over to the espresso machine to make the next order. Jin slips into the back room.
He sits for a while on one of the worn chairs in the back, jokes around with Ethan when the young teenager comes back to get more plastic cups, tries to be responsible and get a head start on the pile of bills waiting patiently in the office, but he quickly runs out of things to do and starts to get nervous, tapping his foot wildly on the tiled floor. He’s about to go back to Maria and insist on helping when his cell phone vibrates in his pocket.
He fishes the white thing out, and frowns when he sees the restricted number. He answers anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kame.”
Jin immediately straightens from his previous slouch. “Kame,” he breathes. He had forgotten how Kame’s voice sounded over the phone. The connection only adds on to the sound, doesn’t detract from his voice as it does to Jin’s. He feels that old warmth in his gut bubble up once more.
“When you off work?” Kame asks.
“Why, do you need a ride?” He looks at his wrist. His watch says four o’clock.
“I- not unless you’re free.”
“When you own the place you work at, you’re technically always free,” Jin replies. He is already heading towards the office as he speaks, and he grabs his belongings just when Kame replies.
“True. Well then, chauffer, I would like to request a ride.” Jin waves to Maria as he heads out, his keys jangling as he tosses them around.
“Sure thing. Glad to be of service. And I’ll see you in a few? I gotta hang up to drive.”
“We’re right where you dropped us off. Drive safely.”
“Yup. Bye.”
He snaps the phone closed as Kame says his goodbye, and soon he’s on the road again, zooming through the streets, car turned north. And sure enough, the pair is standing on the sidewalk as he drives up, the same location as before. Tohaku’s shoulders are sunburned, and Kame’s nose looks redder then normal. Both their hair has that stringy look which comes from the ocean, and Kame’s jean shorts are dripping with sea water.
“I pushed Jiji into the ocean!” To-kun says, bounding up to the car as Jin gets out. He giggles when Kame sighs.
“You let him do that?” Jin questions, smirking.
“That kid is trickier than you think. He’d do that same thing to you, and you would fall for it faster than I did.” Kame stuffs his bag into the back with more force then is needed.
“To-kun,” Jin says. He turns towards the child. “To-kun, make sure I’m around when you push him in again. I have to see it.”
“Please don’t encourage him Akanishi.”
“Yes yes,” Jin mumbles. “To-kun, I’d suggest you get in the back. Your Jiji is in a bad mood.”
Kame slams the trunk closed. “Jin,” Kame says exasperatedly. “Please.”
“Yes yes,” Jin whines. He pushes Tohaku in the right direction, before opening his car door and clambering inside. He turns on the ignition and waits for the rest to load. When Tohaku closes his door, Jin quickly pulls away and speeds off.
They drive awhile as Kame explains their day, and halfway through the ride Tohaku’s snores fill the car. They share a grin and keep talking, their voices quieter then before.
They’re almost home when it happens again. The haze falls over him; his mind grows foggy and suddenly he’s not all there.
“Hey, wasn’t that the turnoff?” Kame asks as they whiz by a street. Kame straightens up when they pass another, and he watches it fly away behind them before turning to Jin.
“No. No, I’m pretty sure it’s up closer to, um,” Jin waves a hand, “whatever that street is.” He’s frantically looking around then, but everything is unfamiliar and confusing, and the cars whizzing by look different, almost alien. Did he recognize this place? Was this Laguna?
“Jin, turn left up here.”
“What?”
“Left! Turn left!”
Jin feels the dread rise up from deep inside himself, and he doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t but he has to.
“I forget which way is left.”
He expects Kame to be angry, to sigh, to yell, and he wants Kame to do these things, but he doesn’t sigh, doesn’t say a thing. Jin can see him biting his lower lip, eyes cast towards the floor. Somehow, Kame’s silence hurts more than if he had been exasperated.
“I, uh…” Jin mumbles. He is blushing, furiously blushing, because he forgot the way to his house and the difference between right and left and he hates it, hates how easily he can forget these things and hates how he is supposed to be the one taking care of Kame when more often then not their roles reverse.
“Pull over Jin,” Kame says, and Jin feels like ignoring his request but knows that would be foolish.
“You can’t drive,” he protests, even while maneuvering the car over towards the curb. “You don’t have a license.”
“You know I have to.”
“No. You don’t. We can just sit here and wait until it passes,” he stubbornly snaps, gazing resolutely out the side window as they come to a stop.
“And then you’ll start driving and it’ll happen again. I can’t put Tohaku in that sort of danger.”
“I don’t-“
“Get out. I’m driving.”
Something about Kame’s voice made Jin realize it would be best to listen. He slipped out onto the street and stood for a moment looking out at the traffic before turning back, moving around the car to switch places with Kame. As he passes the younger, he feels a hand brush his shoulder, comforting and warm, but it barely does a thing to erase the pain he is suffering. Kame swings the car around, the sound of his hands hitting the steering wheel the only noise in the car. He doesn’t look at Kame the rest of the ride home.
It starts coming back to him as he watches the town fly by, and he remembers the streets and the buildings and Laguna is his home again. He breathes a sigh of relief when they finally arrive, but his happiness is disrupted as they enter the house.
“What happened back there?” Kame asks. They are in the entry hallway, and when Tohaku runs up the stairs, leaving the two alone, Kame takes a step closer. Jin closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, and Kame continues. “Why did your… thing, suddenly pop up like that?”
“Why do you avoid it?” Jin replies, feeling annoyed from what happened in the car and at himself and at Kame, for his pitying looks and worried expressions. He throws his keys harder then necessary into the bowl sitting on a table beside him. “Why can’t you just say it?”
“Well, I-“
“I hate,” he grinds out, teeth clenching, “being pitied.”
Kame’s eyes grow cold. “Fine. Your fucking Alzheimer’s disease then, you bastard.”
“My fucking early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. My fucking death sentence.”
“When you say things like that, it makes me think you want to be pitied,” Kame snidely replies. He is glaring at Jin now, flickering hatred showing behind his outwardly cold eyes, and Jin is hard pressed to hold back the bubbling anger building in his chest.
“And early-onset, late-onset; there’s no difference,” Kame sneers.
“There sure as hell is. You should know. You were the one that figured out I had it.”
“It’s not like that makes me any more special. I was just in the wrong place at the right time.”
“Wrong place?” Jin hisses. “No wonder you disappeared after all that happened. You hated the burden of being first to know!”
“I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t,” Kame says, and a silence envelopes the two until Kame continues.
“It was horrible, Akanishi.” Kame is wringing his hands together, twisted into a jumble of fingers always moving, never stopping. “One moment… one moment you were fine, and laughing and talking to me and the next… You just looked at me and- I could see it in your eyes. You didn’t know who I was. You just said, ‘who are you?’ and that… that was it.”
“You think it was hard? You think it was horrible? Did you ever stop to think about me?” Jin knows that his words are childish, and he doesn’t mean them, wishes he doesn’t have to say them, but he can’t let Kame know that Maru had told him everything. He can’t let Kame know he’d found out the secret behind Kame’s drinking, Kame’s behavior. Kame can’t know. Not yet.
“I don’t like comparing other people’s pain, Akanishi. It’s not a contest. It both hurt us, hit us hard, and I, I want to be honest; there were times I wished I had never met you, so that I wouldn’t have had to… deal, with your disease.”
Jin forces a laugh, tries to make it sound condescending, rude. “Just accept it and get over it Kame.”
“When someone you’ve known ten, maybe eleven years, suddenly forgets you, forgets themselves, when not a moment before they were calling you by your nickname, laughing over the past, you can’t just… get over that.”
“Then don’t come complaining to me how hard my disease is for you! Just forget about it!” Jin snaps.
“You’re the one who told me to address this. You’re just contradicting yourself now Akanishi,” Kame points out. His face is slowly relaxing, anger dissipating, because he caught Jin in a trap, a trap that Jin could have seen from a mile away, but can’t avoid because he can’t let the other know. Jin has never before felt so tempted to spill all, but he can’t, he can’t. He must let himself fall deeper into the hole.
“I don’t want to do this right now,” he begins, turning away. “Just stop.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jin can see Kame’s mouth open, no doubt ready with a retort, but a sudden thud echoes through the ceiling, coming from the direction of Tohaku’s room. An oppressive silence settles down upon the house. He turns back around to face Kame.
“What was that?” Jin asks. Kame shrugs, but his eyes betray his anxiousness. They flicker upwards, gazing at the ceiling.
Suddenly, a high-pitched keening shatters through the near silence of the house, a hammer to glass. It’s like nothing Jin has heard before, and it leaves him shuddering, panic exploding abruptly and swift. He can’t make out what it is and then a bundle of movement rushes past his side.
“Tohaku? Tohaku? ” Kame is screaming, hysterically screaming, and he’s running towards the stairs, already bounding up the steps before Jin realizes that the sound was a child’s scream. In that moment everything falls away, nothing matters, except that precious little boy just above them, obviously in danger, obviously in need of help.
He’s following Kame up the stairs when Tohaku screams again.