[fic] shank: part three
“There’s obviously something from your past that you try to avoid,” Yabu says, smiling. “And I’ve got a feeling it has something to do with the trigger that caused your… misbehavior at the Open. So why don’t you just tell me what that is,” Yabu prompts.
“I don’t know how it would be relevant!”
“Oh, so there is something then!” Yabu exclaims. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“I’d rather not.”
Yabu smiles at him, his eyes disappearing. “Now.”
And Jin tells him.
“That’s it?” Yabu asks when Jin finishes. The shrink frowns. “That’s it? You ran away from home, leaving your mother alone, all to become a professional tennis player.”
“Yes,” Jin lies. “That’s all there is.”
The shrink sits there silently, flipping through the pages of his notes, occasionally looking up at Jin sitting there impatiently, thrumming his fingers on his knee.
“Well,” Yabu finally says. “I’m not sure what exact thing caused you to react like how you did, but there’s probably some conflict from your childhood that is yet unresolved. And that is why, in two days, you’re going to be going on a trip to-”
“What? No!” Jin protests, because he knows what is coming next.
“-your hometown. You haven’t been home since you ran away. It’s time you return.”
* * *
“Kame,” Jin says. He takes a step closer to the other, but Kamenashi flinches and Jin stops.
“Look, I gotta go,” Kame rushes out, words mumbled and voice shaking. “I gotta go.” And he starts to gather his things, haphazardly throwing them into his tool box. His hand is trembling. Before Jin can stop him, he’s already packed and up and striding towards the door. He stops suddenly in the doorway but doesn’t turn around.
“I think it’s better we stay hitting partners, and only hitting partners,” Kame says softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And with that, he’s gone, leaving Jin alone in the bathroom.
He stares blankly ahead of him.
Kame had been his ‘unresolved childhood conflict’? It was because of Kame that he’d thrown his racket at the umpire? All Kame?
Jin shakes his head, before striding through the bathroom and out into the hall. He clobbers down the stairs and out the door.
He’s badly in need of a drink.
* * *
“Something’s bothering you,” Koki observes, when Jin walks up to the bar at the Red Lion later that evening. The other man is half-lying on the counter, his cheek pressed into the top of the bar with his arms sprawled out before him. His words come out slurred, and Jin can barely understand him through his muttering.
“How much have you had to drink already?” Jin asks, ignoring Koki’s words when he sees a long line of empty glasses sitting before the other. He snatches the beer from the other’s limp grasp and gulps down a mouthful.
“Nuthin’,” Koki snaps, and manages to push himself up from the bar enough to sit straight in his chair. He sways, and Jin thinks it’s a miracle he doesn’t fall over. “I didn’t drink a single drop.”
“Liar,” Jin says. “What’s that then?” he asks, pointing to the row of glasses.
“Ueda’s,” is Koki’s reply. Jin snorts.
“But something’s bothering you,” Koki echoes. “I want to know what.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Oh don’t be such a kid, Jin,” Koki reprimands. “Just tell me.”
Jin looks at Koki skeptically, but sighs in defeat. “It’s…”
“It’s…?” Koki prompts. Jin wonders how Koki can sound so drunk, yet act so sober. He shakes his head and gives in all the way.
“It’s Kamenashi.”
Koki breaks out into a grin. “I knew it.”
“What?” Jin says, startled. “How did you…?” He looks at Koki with a sharp gaze.
“It’s probably over your recent ‘kiss and make up’ session,” the other explains.
Jin realizes that of course Koki wouldn’t know about his recent epiphany, and breathes easier.
“Yeah,” Jin assures Koki.
“‘Cause it’s not that easy to just, go back to normal, to be ‘o-m-g, best friends, oh my god’ again,” Koki continues, and he laughs at his observation. But he quickly turns serious. “At least, not after nine years of whatever that was between you two,” he says, and waves a hand in the air in what’s supposed to be a gesture of the ‘you know what I’m taking about’ sort. But in his drunken state, it looks more like he’s swatting at a fly.
“I just don’t understand why he can’t just let it go!” Jin complains. “Why does our relationship have to be so difficult with him? He used to be such an easy guy; still is probably, just not with me. With me, it’s hard.”
“Or not hard, maybe that’s the problem.”
Jin looks at Koki with utter disgust; Koki just giggles. “Funny,” Jin finally snaps. “But no. We’re not- It’s not like with us. I mean, he doesn’t even want to be my friend right now, let alone… something more…” He trails off, blushing.
“You sure about that?” Koki slurs, and he flops his head onto his open palm, looking at Jin with twinkling eyes.
“What? Of course I’m-”
“He’s been pining over you since high school, you know.”
Jin coughs violently. Koki reaches out to pat him viciously on his back. “Breathe, breathe,” he says, and giggles drunkenly when Jin proceeds to cough even harder.
“You’re fucking with me,” Jin chokes out, disbelief evident in his voice.
“Well yeah,” Koki replies with a sloppy grin, and he sticks out a tongue, wagging it so his piercing shines in the bar’s light. “I am fucking with you, if you wanna be technical about it.”
“Now is not the time Koki, you bastard,” Jin bites out, and he surges forward, grabbing Koki’s collar in a fist. But then Koki smiles at him, the grin wicked, before his eyes roll back into his head and he passes out. Jin shoves him onto the bar in disgust, but immediately springs forward when the other begins to slide off the counter.
“Great,” he mutters, and swings Koki’s arm around his shoulder. He stands up, slaps a 2,000 yen note on the bar and leaves, dragging Koki’s heavy form away.
They’re in Jin’s car, driving back to Koki’s apartment, when Koki suddenly awakens. He groans and clears his throat, turning in his seat towards Jin.
“We three all watch your matches together, you know,” he says, matter-of-factly. “We saw you in the finals at the Australian, we saw you win the Indian Wells Tournament, and-”
“Let me guess,” Jin interrupts, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. “And you saw me at the French.”
“Yeah,” Koki says. “Yeah, we saw that too.”
There’s a silence, an awful, awful silence, broken only by the sound of a few cars whizzing by the Mustang, before Jin can finally speak. “How are you not disgusted with me?” Jin whispers, and hates that his voice sounds like he’s holding back tears.
“Because. Because. You’re Jin. You wouldn’t do that, not normally. But something made you act like that, right?” Koki slurs.
“Koki, I-”
“It has to do with Kamenashi, doesn’t it?”
The car swerves into the other lane, and Jin curses under his breath, wrenching the steering wheel to the left and back into the correct lane.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Koki finishes, and his head flops back against the headrest. He’s asleep moments later.
The drive is silence the whole rest of the way. Jin takes the other home, but doesn’t stay the night.
* * *
He gets home late and the house is empty, and Jin hazily remembers his mother informing him she’d be gone that weekend on a trip with friends. Sighing, he moves through the dark house to the kitchen, and takes out a pack of beer from the fridge. He moves through the kitchen to the back room, and plops down heavily at the low table, settling onto a seat cushion. He sets the beer on the table and pulls one out, popping the lid and swigging.
He has to think things over, has to make sense of what he’s just heard. Because if what Koki had said is true…
“Well that makes things even more fucking difficult, doesn’t it,” he says to the empty house.
He drinks another bottle of beer, and another and another, and it’s not until he’s nearly a sputtering mess on the floor that he stops drinking. He doesn’t have enough coordination to pop open another can of beer anyway.
He thinks of Kame and he so wants to know the truth. And suddenly his phone is in his hand, and he’s pushing the ‘send’ button and the phone is ringing and he’s letting it. Then a voice says ‘hello,’ the reply rough with sleep, and Jin realizes with horror that it’s Kame.
“Hello?” the voice says again.
“K-Kame. Hi. It’s Jin. I’m sorry, did I wake you?” he replies, and winces at the slur in his speech.
“No,” Kame says, but the word comes out slow and confused, almost like a question. Jin resists the urge to slam his forehead on the table before him. “Is there something wrong? What is it?”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Jin replies, but he doesn’t say anything further.
“Then why did you call?” Kame asks.
“Um…”
Jin knows why he’s called, knows what he’s about to say, and he knows that sober Jin would never, not ever, utter the words. But he’s not sober, he’s completely smashed, and the words slip out before the last bit of his common sense can stop them.
“You’re… you’re in love with me. Koki told me, you know, today, at the bar.”
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Kame replies with a laugh, but his voice shakes, and the last syllable comes out almost too choked up to hear.
“Is it true? It’s not, isn’t it. He’s just fucking with me. I mean, is it true?”
There’s a long, drawn out silence, and Jin can only hear Kame’s labored breathing through the earpiece. He decides hazily that it’s a nice sound, a good sound, and that Jin wouldn’t mind listening to it for a while longer, but the silence grows too awkward even for Jin in his drunken state, so he says “Kame?” and hopes that it will prompt an answer from the other.
Finally, it comes.
“And if it is true?”
Kame doesn’t deny it. Suggests that maybe what Koki had said is the truth. Jin’s panicking, heart thumping uncontrollably, and he doesn’t know how to reply, how to react, so he just does the first thing that comes into his mind.
He hangs up.
Jin regrets it immediately, and almost, almost, calls Kame back. But he stops himself in time, and instead sits there on his couch, gawking blankly at the blinking screen of the phone. He vaguely thinks that maybe Kame will call him back instead, but after sitting still for what seems like hours, Jin realizes that will never happen.
So Kame… loves him? Kamenashi Kazuya- the man Jin has hated for the past nine years and who Jin only recently has learned to stand- loves him?
“This kills,” he groans into the darkness of the room. But then his head falls forward, his eyes suddenly heavy and impossible to keep open, and he promptly passes out on the table, a mess of limbs and beer bottles around him.
His dreams are troubled that night.
* * *
Jin wakes up the next morning with a splitting headache, a sore feeling in the cheek he’d slept on, and a vague sense of dread hovering just above his head, like a dark raincloud just about to release a fury of wind and lightning and sheets and sheets of rain. He sits at the table studying his fingernails, wracking his brain for answers, and the cloud creeps closer, an ominous black shape hovering in the air.
Nothing comes to him. The cloud reaches the space above him, and it stops and hangs there, suspended overhead but motionless. Jin sighs and stretches out his back, then rises from the floor.
His phone falls from his lap and lands softly in the carpet with a dull thunk. And Jin looks down and sees the cell lying there; its sleek black form is a startling contrast to the white carpet of the living room. Then the cloud bursts, the rain falling heavily, each one like an icy fragment of glass cutting and cutting his skin, and the night before rushes back to him. His heart leaps up to his throat, and nausea rises with it, making the world spin and spin around him.
He reaches forward to grab the phone from the ground, then flips it open. No missed calls. Taking in a deep breath, he calls Kamenashi.
The other immediately picks up the phone. Jin curses profusely in his head, closes his eyes in a dramatic wince, and tells himself to stop being a fucking pussy.
“Hi.”
“Jin?” Kamenashi asks. His voice sounds tired. The nausea kicks back in full force.
“I just woke up.”
There’s a pause, and Kame’s awkward cough reverberates across the phone line. It’s a lonely sound.
“Oh, you did?” is the reply, and even to Jin it sounds strained. Jin wishes he knew the word ‘fuck’ in more languages. It would come in handy in situations such as this one.
“And, I checked my phone. I mean- It said I called you last night. At some fucking ungodly hour. Did I call you last night?”
“You… did.” Kamenashi’s voice now sounds wary.
“Ah shit. Look. I was really drunk last night. I’m sorry to have bothered you yesterday, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“But, you-”
“I’ve completely forgotten what I said to you,” Jin lies. “It wasn’t anything… bad, was it?”
“Oh.”
“Shit, it was. Look, Kame, I’m sorry. What did I-“
“You didn’t say anything bad Jin,” Kame replies with a laugh.
Jin’s mouth drops open. If he hadn’t known better, he would have believed Kame in a heartbeat with that response. Kamenashi would make one hell of a fine actor.
But now they’re both lying.
“There’s nothing to worry about. It was funny, you were funny,” Kame says, and he laughs again. “Don’t worry about it.”
Jin hates knowing they’re both fucking liars. He almost tells Kamenashi the truth, but holds his tongue.
He doesn’t need that sort of drama.
Jin fakes a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I really thought I’d screwed up there.” Scratch that last thought, they’d both make damn good actors. Jin’s even starting to believe himself.
He hears the faint rumbling of his mother’s truck, and it calls him back to reality. There’s a pile of beer bottles at his feet, and a few have spilled liquid all over the surface of the table, creating sticky chains of beer islands stretching from end to end, and it all has to be clean before his mother gets home. He curses.
“Look, Kamenashi, I have to run. We still on for tennis?”
“Yes, but-”
“Great,” Jin interrupts. “See you later then.”
And he hangs up. The car’s rumbling grows louder. He can hear the blasting of the radio now, and he realizes with horror that he can recognize the guitar riff. She’s way too close.
Snatching up a handful of bottles, he bolts towards the kitchen. The bottles jangle together when he chucks them into the garbage, but he can’t afford a wince. Grabbing a wet, pink sponge from the sink, he whirls around, careens off the walls in an effort to run faster and flies out the room, literally colliding with the dirty table when he skitters to a halt in the next room, and settles down to clean.
* * *
“You sure I didn’t say anything stupid last night?” Jin says, when the score is 15-30 in the sixth game of the set. “I still can’t fucking believe I called you.”
When did he become this good at lying?
“You didn’t say anything stupid. It’s nothing, it’s fine. I’d told you it was funny, remember?” His bright grin is infectious, and even though Jin knows it’s a goddamn fake, he can’t help but return it.
When did Kame become this good at lying?
“We’re in the middle of a game Jin,” Kame gently reminds him. “Come on, let’s finish this. I’m gonna beat you this time,” he adds, and his grin turns vicious. His challenge doesn’t come without truth. They’re on serve, and Kamenashi is leading in the set score.
“Never,” Jin replies. He grips his racket with a little more fervor. He bounces back and forth, back and forth on the balls of his feet, and his heart begins to race in response to the exertion of the movement. “Get ready for this,” he warns.
He aces the next serve.
Kamenashi still wins the set.
* * *
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me…
The words are on repeat in his head. He tries to forget them, but he can’t escape. They follow him everywhere, constantly snapping at his ankles, tearing at his hair, pulling at his clothes. They hold him prisoner and they hold the key and he’ll never get out. He’s talking to his mother and the words are still playing; he’s at the bar with Koki and the words beat against his chest in time with his heart; he’s talking to Kame himself and the words tear at his throat, threatening to escape.
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me…
* * *
“I thought I told you not to follow me around the house anymore,” Kame says to Jin, who is leaning against the entryway into the kitchen.
Jin sighs, and slinks up next to the other. Kame’s standing at the kitchen counter, a soapy sponge grasped tightly in his hand, scrubbing at the counter’s surface.
“Oh come on Kamenashi,” Jin protests, as he steps up closer to the other. Kame says nothing.
Jin sighs again, and leans over to takes a sponge from the soapy bucket sitting on the floor just next to Kame. He squeezes out extra water, and the suds well up underneath his fingers. The bubbles tickle his skin, and he laughs softly at the feeling. Kame is looking at him out of the corner of his eye, eyebrows raised in surprise, and Jin simply slaps the wet sponge onto the counter next to Kame and starts scrubbing.
“…what?” Jin says after a moment, without looking at Kame. He’s trying desperately to hold back a grin. “Don’t you want help?”
“Whatever,” Kame mutters. He goes back to cleaning, still mumbling under his breath, rubbing the sponge back and forth with much more vigor than before. With Kame’s back turned, Jin finally lets himself smile.
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me… Jin thinks. The smile disappears, but there’s a lump in his throat and his pulse is racing and it’s almost painful. He feels Kame next to him, every inch of him attuned to the other, always knowing where he is and never forgetting he’s there. He tells himself over and over again that the feeling in his chest is not longing.
He hates that it’s a lie.
* * *
Weeks pass, and it all melts together into blur of hazy memories and vivid moments and ‘he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.’
Kame is finally talking to him in his home again, and Jin can’t help but compare himself to a puppy, padding around and following Kame like he is the only thing important in the world. Kame makes him help every time he’s there now, but Jin doesn’t mind it.
They’re sweeping the front porch when Kame suddenly sighs and stops working, leaning heavily on his broom.
“Hey, something wrong?” Jin asks.
“Just tired, is all,” Kame replies. He takes in a deep breath, but it doesn’t rejuvenate him. If anything, he looks even more exhausted.
“Kame,” he says, and Kame’s head comes up slowly.
“You work too much,” Jin says. Without thinking, he lifts a hand towards Kame’s face, and with a thumb swipes underneath Kame’s right eye, where a dark circle like a bruise rests in the hollow above his prominent cheek. Kamenashi flinches but doesn’t move away.
“Those aren’t from working,” Kame replies softly.
“What are they from then?” Jin strokes his thumb across Kame’s cheek again. This time Kame doesn’t flinch, and he relaxes underneath Jin’s touch.
Then Jin realizes himself, and pulls his hand away quickly.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” Kamenashi replies, looking down again at the porch when Jin’s hand leaves his face. “I can’t,” he explains. “I just… can’t.”
Jin remains silent, studying the other currently examining hands curled around his broomstick, looking at his fingernails like they’re the most interesting thing in the universe and Jin has the sudden urge to tilt Kame’s head up with a soft touch on his chin. “You’ve always had trouble with sleeping,” he decides with. “I remember,” he continues, when Kame glances up and fixes him with an impressed look.
“You used to ask to borrow my stuffed bear whenever you slept over,” Jin can’t help but add. He’s feeling ambitious today.
And the reward is sweet.
Kamenashi blushes such brilliant shade of red that Jin has to choke down a laugh. The color floods his cheeks in a rush, only stopping its excursion of Kame’s face when it reaches the other’s ears, and Jin only catches the vivid look of absolute horror plastered to Kame’s face before he swings up his broom, brandishing it like a sword and slashing at Jin with the bristles.
“You bastard!” Kame exclaims.
“Woah,” Jin squeaks, and he leans backward to escape a deadly swoop of the broom. “It’s true though!” Jin protests. “You would always sleep with a stuffed animal.”
Kame stops short and glares at him, and Jin thinks the attack might be over, but Kame suddenly shrieks, cursing at him and advancing forward, attacking him with renewed vigor.
“Shit,” Jin hisses, and he raises his own broom to block a quite nasty attack. Kame presses down on his raised broom, but Jin pushes back and they stand there in a stalemate, Kame breathing hard and Jin grinning. The dark circles under his eyes are still there, but the exhaustion in his face has disappeared, and he looks revived, healthy. Kame is scowling deeply, and he huffs when Jin pushes against Kame’s broom even harder, using his greater strength to shove Kame away.
“Fuck you,” Kame says, and Jin can’t help but start laughing. He collapses onto the porch, sitting on the edge of the steps, and leans forward, clapping his hands in mirth.
“…what?” Kame snaps. “Why are you laughing?” He steps off the porch at these words and turns around, looking at Jin sitting on the porch in confusion.
“Oh Kame,” Jin says. He pats the porch next to him. “Come on, sit.” Kame sighs and stumbles forward, moving to sit in the spot Jin pointed out. When Kame settles next to him, he raises an arm and slings it around the other’s shoulder, giving him a rough half-hug.
“Fuck off,” Kame says, but he doesn’t push the other away.
“You have quite the dirty mouth Kamenashi,” Jin replies, but he takes the arm away.
Dusk is arriving, the light of the day slowly fading, and they look out at the setting sun.
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me… Jin thinks.
“Well, okay,” Jin whispers. “Okay.”
“Did you say something?” Kame asks.
“Nope,” Jin replies. “Come on,” he says, “let’s finish sweeping this porch.” He gets up and offers a hand towards Kame, and he’s fine with letting his heart race and that warmth rise in his belly when Kame’s fingers gently receive his outstretched hand. He pulls the other man up, and reaches for their forgotten brooms where they’ve dropped onto the porch.
Kame’s hand brushes against his own when Jin hands the broom off. Jin grins and starts sweeping, and Kame follows his example shortly after.
* * *
Kamenashi is leaning over in his ready position, elbows nearly touching his bent knees as he waits for Jin to serve. That familiar look of concentration is staring straight at Jin, and he’s twirling his racket around in his right hand, shaking his head.
The spinning racket distracts Jin, and suddenly it’s mesmerizing to him. He watches Kame’s slender, too slender hand twist the handle. You’re too skinny, he suddenly wants to say. Don’t you fucking eat? he wants to add. And then he wants to grab the other by the wrist, and drag him away from the courts and his work and rest of the whole damn town, to sit him down in front of a plate of his mother’s wholesome and wonderfully-cooked food, and sit there next to him and make him eat until all the food is gone and he’s groaning in pain from being stuffed so full and-
“Aren’t you going to serve?” he hears. The spinning stops, the racket stills, his mind screeches to a halt. Jin snaps his gaze up to see Kamenashi staring at him. The other’s face is unreadable.
“Sorry, uh. I was… distracted.”
“I can see that,” Kamenashi replies, and he laughs when Jin just glares at him. “Get to serving,” he orders, and jerks his chin at the service box.
Jin mutters incoherent threats under his breath and serves; it’s a double fault and he realizes, utterly horrified, that he’s just lost that game. Kamenashi is nearly rolling on the floor with laughter when Jin curses at his mistake, and it makes him angry enough to grab another ball from his pocket and slam it towards the farthest end of the building, grinning with a sick satisfaction when it collides with the wall. It hits with a dull thud then springs away, speeding like a bullet back towards their court, and Jin curses again when it nearly hits him in the stomach. He manages to twist away in time, and Jin compliments himself on such a graceful maneuver, but then his ankle turns when he lands, his court shoes sticking to the surface of the court, and he nearly trips over his feet.
Kame is writhing with laughter when Jin finally looks up at him, and he stands there and glares at the other while the other continues laughing. Kame is stomping down with his foot, clapping his hands and leaning over like he’s in pain, and the laughter is too infectious. Before he realizes it, Jin is laughing too, doubling over and clutching at his stomach and nearly braying with laughter. There are tears rolling down his face, and his sight it blurred from the wetness but he can still see Kame laughing on the other side of the net, now leaning on his racket to stay upright.
The smile on the other’s face is genuine. Jin’s heart skips a beat at the sight, and Jin is struck with the thought that Kame is most pretty when he’s laughing.
Koki’s silly grin creeps into his mind, a tongue stuck out with a piercing gleaming in brilliant light.
But he loves me, he loves me, he loves me… Jin thinks. Koki’s face disappears and all he can think of is Kame.
A ball screams by Jin’s head, and he nearly shrieks in surprise. He looks up with a startled expression and sees Kame standing across from him, now up at the net and close, very close. He could just run up and raise a hand to his cheek and lean in and…
“You almost hit me!” Jin screeches. “What are you doing?”
“Getting your attention,” Kame snaps back. “I don’t know about you, but I like to finish my tennis matches.”
“Fuck you,” Jin snaps. “You only want to play this out because you’re winning,” he adds, but he picks up two balls resting near the wall and gently lobs them over the net. Kame catches them with his racket and walks back towards the baseline.
“You finally ready to start playing again?” Kame asks.
“Just serve already,” Jin says, waving a hand at the service box in front of him.
Kame serves and the game begins.
Much to Jin’s mortification, Kame ends up winning the match.
* * *
The call comes at four in the morning. The shrill ringing of his cell jolts him awake, and with a low snarl, he sits up in his bed and grabs the thing from his bedside table before answering it.
“You better have a fucking good reason to be calling me right now,” he hisses.
“The suspension is over!” Maru responds jubilantly. “You’re coming back to Tokyo!”
A hand plunges into his chest, breaking through ribs before grabbing a hold of his heart and squeezing, every moment the grasp growing firmer and firmer, tightening around his heart until every beat puts him into a writhing agony. There’s a roaring in his ears that is deafening, and all he can think of is ‘no, no, no.’
“No,” he whispers, “not yet.”
But Maru doesn’t hear him over the sound of his own voice.
Jin frantically holds back his sobs. This hurts like white-hot iron pressed against his skin, like acid biting through. The hopelessness makes him want to scream himself hoarse.
He feels torn between his obligations and his desires, literally sundered into two pieces, and it’s more painful then anything he’s experienced before. It’s between tennis and staying, and tennis is a thing he’s worked for and sweated for and bled for and suffered for, for not just weeks and months but for years and years, and something he loves so passionately, so ardently. He doesn’t want to give that up for staying, even though there are now four perfect excuses for him to use: Ueda, Koki, his mother and…
And Kame.
Thinking of Kame drives a fresh new shard of pain through his chest, biting hot yet icy cold, digging in and through and leaving behind nothing but guilt and regret. Jin doesn’t want to imagine what his second attempt at running away will do to Kame.
But he’ll come back, he thinks. He’ll come back to Iiyama and his mother and Ueda and Koki and especially Kame, eventually.
Right?
Somehow, he manages to ignore the fact that his promise to return is a lie. He can’t afford thoughts like that.
So it’s between tennis and staying, and the decision has already been made.
Jin knows he’s going back to Tokyo. Jin knows he’s going to leave.
He’s gone by six.
His mother gets a quick goodbye and a hurried explanation, and as he drives swiftly away from the house, he sees her standing there, a hand raised in farewell. She looks old, worn down, as if years have been added to her shoulders and her features in those two hours he’d been getting ready to leave. She smiles but it’s strained, and in the light of the early morning her lonely silhouette drives twinges of regret and guilt straight through his heart. He drives on.
Ueda and Koki get a voicemail. Kame gets nothing at all. And somehow, that hurts most of all.
* * *
He’s almost out of the city when he realizes what street he’s on, where he is and he curses something fierce but it’s too late. The tennis courts rise up on the left of the car and Jin can only continue on driving.
Kame’s standing outside his truck, his head turned towards the loud sound of the Mustang. His eyes brighten in recognition when he sees the car, and he raises a hand to wave but Jin doesn’t stop, just keeps driving past the parking lot and away. Kame’s face crumples into a look of confusion, and the hurt, the pain, follow onto his face just moments later.
This reminds Jin too much of that time nine years ago, with him on the train and Kame left behind, to suffer alone and to be hated by someone he loves. Jin is barely able to suppress the nausea.
He’s at the edge of the town when the longing begins to strokes at his back and his arms, pulling at him softly, and it whispers Kame’s name into his ear, taunting him, teasing him, murmuring gentle but slimy words that bite and hurt more than anything he’s felt before. ‘He’ll never want to see you again,’ they hiss. ‘You’ve lost your chance with him.’
It’s in this moment that Jin realizes what he feels towards Kame. It’s in this moment that Jin realizes it’s too late.
* * *
He takes the two-day drive in one go, never resting. He arrives in Tokyo a total mess, and nearly collapses in the hallway outside his apartment. He manages to stumble against the wall instead, and with shaking fingers pushes the key into the lock and swings open his door.
He falls onto his bed moments later and lets sleep take him.
Maru wakes him up the next morning, and he’s groaning awake, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, when Maru starts lecturing.
“Why didn’t you call me when you got back?” he asks, poking Jin with his still shoed foot. “Get up, we’ve got lots of work to do. The Open is in two weeks.”
“Take your shoes off,” Jin mumbles. The events of the past two days are coming back to him, and all he wants to do is sleep and forget.
“Get up, you lazy ass,” Maru snaps. “Taguchi is doing a lesson with you in one hour.”
“Fuck off.”
A towel snaps against his head, and he yelps in surprise. “Goddammit, Maru, that hurt,” Jin spits out, and he pushes himself off the bed with the strength of his arms alone.
“Good,” Maru says, when Jin is standing up in front of him. “You’re leaving in thirty minutes. Get to it.”
Jin obediently begins to get ready.
Maybe working hard at tennis will help him forget. He has to hope for it.
* * *
He lands in America two weeks later.
He’s received with mixed emotions. The suspension is over, he’s paid his dues, but people are apprehensive of him playing. Some people are afraid of him. Some people hate him. Some people welcome him back. Some people forgive him. His return to the tennis world hurts, but this is what he loves, this is what he wants to do. Without tennis he is nothing. He’ll earn back the world’s respect. He’ll do it.
* * *
He wins the Open but Kame isn’t there.
He realizes the win means nothing to him.
* * *
Jin’s room in the hotel is cold. He sits in the chair by the bed, staring at his intertwined fingers resting on his knees. He wonders what time it is. The room is silent.
His phone rattles on the table, vibrations coming every few seconds, but Jin lets it ring. He unfolds his hands and puts them flat on his legs, gripping his thighs. His fingers tighten with every ring.
The vibrations stop, the silence resumes. He relaxes his grip on his knees but keeps them resting there. He lets his head fall backward and he looks up the ceiling. A long vibration shatters the silence.
Voicemail. Jin doesn’t get up.
He falls asleep in the chair.
* * *
Jin wakes to darkness in his room. He stomach growls, but he lies there for a moment longer, rolling his tense shoulders and neck. The chair is comfortable for sitting, but not for sleeping. Finally, he gets up with a groan, softly padding over to the hotel phone and calling room service. He doesn’t know what he orders. He puts the phone down and heads back towards his chair.
Jin remembers the call from earlier. He changes directions and goes over to the table. He picks up the phone.
Kame, the display reads. One missed call from Kame.
He doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know what to expect, but the hope bubbles up in his chest and he’s powerless to stop the feeling. His mouth is suddenly dry, his palms sweaty. He holds the phone up to his ear with trembling fingers and listens to the voicemail.
“Hi. It’s, um, Kamenashi. Look, I- I watched you win the Open. You were… amazing. Really. Just. That was some damn good tennis. I wanted to say congrats on the win. That was really something special. Your first major Open, and I hope not the last. But knowing you Jin, you’ll win them all. And twice, too; you’re too goddamn stubborn not to. Just, keep playing hard. You’re amazing, you know that? Really- really great. I- We all miss you. Goodbye.”
And the call ends.
Jin falls to his knees and screams into the carpet.
* * *
Jin wakes up from a nightmare minutes or hours or days later from a harsh knock on the door of his hotel room. He groans and settles back down into his chair, praying that the knocking will cease, but when another loud bang nearly makes Jin jump right out of his skin, he hisses in irritation and gives up.
“Fucking go away Maru,” Jin snaps.
“It’s not Maru,” Yabu says. “It’s your lovely shrink.”
Jin’s eyes snap open, and words escape him.
“I’m coming in now,” The Twig says, and he hears the door being opened and suddenly the shrink is standing in the doorway of his room.
“How’d you- Where’d you- You fucking have my key!”
“Your manager was gracious enough to lend me his, actually,” the shrink explains, and he slinks into the room, a manila folder tucked under his right arm. He settles down in a chair across from Jin and smiles that goddamned squinty smile. Jin resists the urge to punch him.
“What are you doing here? Why the fuck are you in America?”
“It seems you’ve finally found some closure,” The Twig says, ignoring Jin’s questions. He opens the folder suddenly and plops it on his lap before flipping through the various leafs of paper haphazardly organized in it.
“What do you mean?” Jin asks. He’s all nerves and tension sitting in the seat across from the shrink (The Twig, he corrects himself), and he hates being back in a room with this person, with this man-boy Yabu who seems to know so much about him yet who possibly can’t.
“Well…” The Twig says, and his voice trails off as he studies a piece of paper on his lap with an intense glare of concentration. “The Open. You won it.”
A lance of pain pierces his heart, but he manages to nod.
“And…” The Twig begins, and he once again trails off, studying the paper once more. There’s a tense five seconds of silence, with Jin sitting impatiently in the chair, fidgeting like a child who’s had his hand up in the air for too long yet is still being ignored by the teacher.
“Well what is it?” Jin finally snaps.
“Oh,” the shrink says, and looks up at Jin in surprise, as if he’d completely forgotten Jin had been there all along. “Yes. You also never once yelled at the umpires, no matter how angry you got. I call that closure. Going home must have really helped you reach this point.”
Jin squeezes his eyes shut when his shrink’s words bring up memories he’d rather not think about.
“There’s something else bothering you.”
Jin nods, but he says nothing more.
“I’m not your enemy here Jin,” Yabu says, and the pure warmth in his voice makes Jin snap his eyes open in surprise. The other has the smile plastered to his face, and his eyes have disappeared into the grin. “I’m someone you can trust.”
So Jin opens his mouth, takes a deep breath, and tells him everything. Tells him about the train ride those nine years ago, and the newly discovered reason why he’d been alone on that fateful ride; tells him about the hatred he’s harbored towards Kamenashi for nine years; tells him about Ueda and the bar and the brief but defining relationship he’d had with Koki; tells him about his mother and her unwavering love; tells him about tennis with Kame and those hours spent together in his house; and tells him about the reason he’s left a second time. There’s nothing he misses or leaves out, except for that one night of drunken Koki and fateful phone calls and ugly lies; everything else is laid bare, and the relief is staggering.
When he’s finished, the room plunges right back into silence, and Yabu is a pondering figure in his chair, eyes closed and mouth opened slightly, organizing his thoughts and preparing his next words.
“Here’s what I think,” Yabu finally says. He trails off for a third time, but Jin doesn’t feel the need to be impatient. Finally, after a long pause, the shrink begins again.
“I think that you win all your matches for Kamenashi.”
There’s a lengthy pause after Yabu’s statement, but Jin can’t protest it or deny it, because it’s the truth and he wants it to be.
“And that famous temper of yours, that one that seems to be gone now; that temper wasn’t because of the umpire or your opponents or the fans, it was because you felt betrayed by the one you won those matches for.”
Jin nods slowly, because everything suddenly becomes clear to him, and his epiphany from before, that Kame’s the reason why he’s harbored so much hidden anger and resentment, that Kame is his ‘unresolved childhood conflict,’ clicks into place.
But then something else pops up in his mind, and he realizes something else, something new, that makes total and complete sense, and it’s so obvious, so palpable, that Jin wonders how he hasn’t seen it before until now.
“And I don’t feel the need to be angry and resentful anymore, because I’ve realized now that I love him,” he says. His heart beats faster as he finally says this truth, and he briefly closes his eyes to compose himself. When he opens his eyes again, Yabu is looking back at him with a serious expression and compassionate eyes.
“Well this is a new development,” Yabu replies.
“No… not really,” Jin says back slowly, processing each word as they leave his lips. “No, I’d have to say it’s a nine years old development.”
“Then that explains everything,” Yabu replies, and he smiles again, his eyes disappearing into slits.
“I guess it does,” Jin says, and his heart sings inside his chest.
“You know what I think now?” Yabu asks Jin. Jin looks up at him and shakes his head, but he knows what the shrink’s answer will be.
“I think it’s time for you to go back home.”
* * *
Kame gets home from a hard day’s work late, around eleven, and he’d driven home with heavy eyelids, fighting off sleep. A group of young teenagers had wanted the courts at a quarter until closing time, and Kame hadn’t felt like refusing them.
He yawns and fumbles with the keys in the lock until he finally unlocks the door. He throws his stuff on the table in the entryway while slipping off his shoes, then walks further into the apartment.
The display on his voicemail machine in the kitchen flashes red in the dark of the room. He walks up to it and presses a button, waiting for the machine to replay the message.
“I won it for you, you know,” Jin’s voice says. “I win everything for you.”
Kame’s mouth drops open and he snaps it closed, swallowing hard, and his heart lurches up into his throat, soaring up and away at the sound of Jin’s voice. He remembers his call from a few days before, his goddamn stupid call. This is Jin’s response.
It’s always been a distant dream, a whimsical fantasy, thoughts in the dark when he’s lying alone and cold in his bed, because Jin has always been a person that was unattainable to him, a friend and nothing more, but here he is, saying those kinds of words in that kind of choked-up tone and Kame realizes it sounds uncannily like his own message had. And it makes Kame wonder, makes Kame hope, and there’s suddenly a lump in throat and he’s the happiest he’s been in a long time.
Kame will wait for Jin. He’ll wait, because Jin’s coming back.
* * *
Jin’s on the next flight to Japan, but his destination is not Tokyo.
The green rice fields of the country stretch out underneath the plane as it begins its decent, and Jin watches it silently, his face passive and calm.
Inside, he is a turmoil of emotion (panic, fear, guilt, hope). His hands are damp on his knees. He looks down at the endless green and thinks ‘he is down there.’
His mouth goes dry, and he tries to swallow. His throat feels like sandpaper. He looks away from the brilliant green and snaps the window covering down.
* * *
Koki meets him at the airport.
It’s an awkward affair, and Jin can tell immediately that there’s more then enough anger harbored in Koki’s eyes for the other to start a fist fight with him right then and there in the airport. Jin has to tread softly, or the other would surely explode.
“Welcome back,” Koki sneers, when Jin notices him waiting by the International Terminal. “Glad this town is at least somewhat important to such a star as yourself that you’d actually come back.”
“Thank you, it is,” Jin replies, docile. He knows that the physical beating Koki is just itching to deal out to him is uncalled for; as for the verbal beating, that he deserves.
“I need help with my bags,” Jin adds, deciding on a neutral subject that will keep them out of trouble. He points in the direction of the luggage claim, and Koki stalks away without a word. They stand by the revolving luggage claim in tense silence, and Jin’s skin prickles with his need to resolve this anger, this resentment, that stands between them.
They make it into the car, luggage packed, before Koki explodes. The words come out in a rush, and Jin doesn’t even flinch when they come.
“So it wasn’t enough to fucking abandon everyone just one time-“
“What?” Jin says intelligently.
“-no, you had to do it a second time. You’re a fucking bastard, you know that, right?”
“Koki. There’s a reason-“
Koki slams his hands down on the steering wheel simultaneously. “What, you think you have an excuse for leaving like that? Again? With only some fucking voicemail message that explained nothing but shit?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” Koki bites out. “Explain.”
So Jin explains. And when he gets to the part about loving Kame, he chokes on his words but only briefly, allowing a blush to dust across his cheeks before continuing on with his explanation. The car is silent when he finishes.
“So…” Koki begins after a moment. “So,” he says again, but nothing more falls past his lips.
“What?” Jin prompts, and Koki finally opens his mouth to say something.
“Tennis is important to you,” Koki says, and Jin looks at the other with astonishment written clearly on his face. He’d expected biting words, or disbelief, not an attempt to reason out Jin’s explanation. It must mean Koki somewhat trusts his words to be truth?
“I think you left to keep tennis in your life. If you hadn’t left, you’d probably never have gotten the opportunity to return.”
“I-“
“This deal about you loving Kame is surprising,” Koki interrupts. He sighs and looks down at his hands still clutching the steering wheel. “I knew that ‘us’ was only just temporary, but Kame? Really? You hated him for nine years.”
“Actually, I felt more betrayed for nine years, nor hated. I’ve realized that now.”
“Then I’m… happy for you. But he doesn’t know yet, does he.”
“…I don’t know.”
“And that’s why you came back, to tell him.”
“Yes.”
“You leaving hurt like hell you know,” Koki says, his words sudden and out of place in their current direction of conversation. But Jin follows the change without skipping a beat, and he smiles apologetically.
“I’m sorry Koki,” Jin replies, and he knows it’s not enough to fix everything he’s done, but it’s a start, it’s a start.
“Yeah, well, I got over you pretty damn quickly,” Koki snaps. And then he jams his keys into the ignition, revs up his engine, and peels away from the curb, speeding away from the airport. They say nothing more on the subject.
* * *
“I’ve quit drinking,” Koki says to him when they make it to freeway. There’s a grim smile on his face as he says this, and he glances quickly at Jin before turning his attention back on the road.
Jin says nothing for a moment, just allows the words to process before he replies. A thousand different things to say run through his mind, and he attempts to sift through them to find the right one.
“I’m glad for that,” he finally decides upon.
“It took you leaving for me to realize I drink too much, so I guess… thanks.”
“Alright Koki. You’re welcome.”
They drive on in silence, Jin watching the passing road and the green field stretching out into the horizon. He’s nervous, and his palms are sweaty when he puts them on his knees in an attempt to stop them from bouncing nervously.
“Where are we headed?” Koki asks Jin, suddenly breaking the long silence. Jin glances up and realizes they’re just minutes from reaching Iiyama. From reaching home.
“Take me to the courts, would you?” Jin asks, and he chokes on the words, the nervous bubbling in his stomach making it hard for him to concentrate.
“Sure.”
* * *
When they arrive at the courts it’s late, nearly ten, but the lights are still on in the main building. The front office is dark, but Kame’s truck is still in the parking lot and the sight of the familiar car both assures Jin and makes him nearly ache with the need to be anywhere but here.
“Thanks for the ride, Koki,” he says, and he climbs out of the front seat. Koki pops the back of his car for Jin, and he opens the trunk to drag out his heavy tennis bag. Heaving the thing onto his right shoulder, Jin walks up to Koki’s window, leaning over and placing a gentle arm on the top of the car. Koki rolls down the window.
“I’ll wait for you out here,” Koki says. “Take your time, I don’t mind waiting.”
“Thank you,” Jin says, and he nods, stepping away from car. Then before the loud and clambering thoughts of panic and self doubt whirling around in his thoughts can stop him, he quickly strides up to the building and steps in.
The front office is empty, but there’s a faint light shinning out from under the crack between the storage room’s door and the floor. Jin realizes that just beyond that thin, flimsy piece of wood is Kame.
His heart starts skipping.
Taking a deep breath, he ignores the urgent and sudden desire to fling open that door and finally face Kame, and slips through the front room towards the back, quietly sliding open the door to the courts. He steps onto the concrete and leaves the sliding-door open behind him.
Jin steps up to the net, drops his tennis bag down next to it, pulls out a racket, a few balls, and walks up towards the baseline.
He squeezes his grip tighter.
He holds a tennis ball loosely in his other hand.
He bounces the ball once, twice.
He serves.
And he serves again. And again and again and again, until he’s dripping sweat from exertion and his lungs heave for air and his arms feel like jelly and his legs can barely hold him. And still he serves.
And then there’s a sudden gasp behind him, and Jin whirls around to see Kame standing in the doorway, mouth agape, cheeks flushed with a soft blush.
“J-Jin…?” he stutters, and he falters backwards into the dark room behind him, as if trying to escape.
Jin reacts swiftly. He drops his racket and lunges forward, just managing to grab a hold of the other’s hand before he disappears. He drags a protesting Kame by hand onto the courts, and when the other ceases his struggling, Jin stops moving.
“I have to tell you something. So please,” he exclaims when Kame opens his mouth to speak, and at Jin’s sudden exclamation, Kame snaps his jaws closed, “don’t talk.”
Kame watches him warily, but Jin looks down and sees their hands still intertwined in between them. He gathers his courage, ignores his uncontrollably thumping heart, and begins.
“I’ve lied to you.”
Kame’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth yet again. Jin raises his free hand and covers Kame’s open mouth with his palm. “Please. Let me finish.”
Jin suppresses a shudder when Kame exhales hot breath onto his palm in a sigh, and when the other nods, Jin reluctantly takes away his hand. “That time I called you- you remember that, right?- I really didn’t forget what I’d said that night. I remembered everything.”
Jin takes in a deep breath and lets it out, the exhale sounding shaky even to his own ears. He looks up at Kame, as is surprised to find his face totally devoid of emotion, completely passive.
Then suddenly, it darkens.
Kame tears his hand away from Jin’s grasp, coils it into a fist, and hits him. Hard.
“Shit,” Jin hisses, as the sharp jab of Kame’s fist to his shoulder sends a wave of pain through his body. He steps away, but Kame advances swiftly, swinging at him again.
“You bastard!” Kame yells. “You bastard, you bastard, you bastard! All this time I thought you didn’t know, and what’s a guy supposed to do in that situation, of course I’m going to lie because you lied and… You bastard!”
Kame attempts for a punch to the face, but Jin sends a silent thanks to the years and years of tennis training that had given him lightning-fast reflexes. He grabs at Kame’s fist and manages to block it with a palm. He winces at the impact. Tennis had also given Kame something: damn strong muscles.
“But here’s the thing,” Jin whispers, and he tugs at Kame’s hand forcefully. Kame stumbles forward in surprise, colliding softly with Jin’s chest, and before the other can get away Jin wraps his arms around the other’s body and buries his head into Kame’s shoulder.
The change is instantaneous. The other relaxes in Jin’s embrace, and Kame grabs fistfuls of his shirt, pulling Jin closer, putting his cheek softly onto Jin’s shoulder and turning his head into Jin’s neck.
“Your back is sweaty,” Kame mumbles into Jin’s neck. Jin mummers his assent.
“Took you long enough,” he mumbles again.
Jin laughs softly.
“Yeah,” he replies.
* * *
Their first date is at a restaurant, and Jin remembers it for years to come.
Jin stops by Kame’s place at six, and he stands in front of the door with his hands in his pockets, resisting the urge to pace as he sums up enough courage to knock on the door. He never gets the nerve. Kame opens the door as he is stepping up for his third attempt at a knock, and they both stand there as if in shock, appraising each other.
“You look good,” Jin says to break the silence. Kame’s wearing pants and a simple long-sleeve shirt, and it’s stunningly different for Jin, who has only seen him in working clothes or tennis clothes; loose and dirty and hardly flattering. He likes this ‘casually dressed but not too casual’ Kame. He thinks of all the other ‘Kame’s’ there might be and grows giddy with anticipation. His heart seems to thump against his rib cage in an attempt to fling itself towards Kame.
He loves this man.
“Thanks,” Kame replies, and he smiles shyly. “You too,” he adds.
“Thank you,” Jin says, and there’s a grin the size of Venus on his face. “Shall we go?”
“Yes,” Kame says, and he steps out from his apartment and locks the door behind him.
They walk to Jin’s car (his mother’s old sedan; Jin’s Mustang he left in Tokyo), and it’s silent between them, but not uncomfortably so. Jin catches the other’s eye when Kame settles down into the passenger’s seat, and they exchange a smile.
They fill the silence with small talk as Jin drives to the restaurant, and they’re forced to park a few blocks away from the place, as parking in the small town of Iiyama has always been limited. Jin shuts off the engine of the car and climbs out, waiting for Kame to join him on the sidewalk.
Kame appears moments later, and steps around the car onto the pavement next to Jin. Jin smiles at him, and when Kame laughs nervously Jin reaches out to grab one of Kame’s hands. Kame’s palms are sweaty underneath his touch, and his hand shakes slightly even in the firm grasp of Jin’s fingers. Jin squeezes the other’s hand in an attempt to console and comfort the other. The shaking stops.
“I’m as nervous as you are,” Jin whispers, and he smiles when a blush blooms delicately on Kame’s cheeks. Jin’s stomach flips and flutters from the touch of Kame’s sweaty palm in his own.
“Okay,” Kame says, and the nervous feeling surrounding him disappears. He squeezes Jin’s hand and starts walking again, pulling Jin along.
The rest of the night is as perfect as that moment was. Jin knows this is forever.
* * *
Their first kiss is in a booth at an American-style restaurant.
They see a movie for their date that night, a subbed version of some American movie or other, and it leaves Jin in some kind of mood. So when they’re walking back to the car together and Jin sees the American diner appear suddenly on the right, he can’t help but want to go inside.
Besides, Jin doesn’t want the date to end just yet. He grabs Kame’s hand and pulls him into the diner. The other docilely follows him without protest. Maybe he doesn’t want the date to end that soon either.
They choose a booth towards the back of the place, and a kindly old woman takes their order. Kame gets a shake- a chocolate one- and Jin gets a simple order of fries. The spread is nothing like the good ol’ grub he remembers from back in the States, but it’s still good, and they quietly eat in their booth, talking in hushed tones.
It’s towards the end of their meal when Jin takes a fry and scoops out some of Kame’s shake with it, before popping it into his mouth and closing his eyes in pleasure at the taste. When he opens his eyes he is immediately drawn to his companion’s face, and he laughs when he sees Kame’s disgusted expression.
“Fries with a shake?”
“It’s good, trust me,” Jin replies. “Here, try it.” He picks up another fry and repeats the action, scooping out more of Kame’s shake, and he holds up the fry to the other’s mouth. The other hesitates, and the shake drips a little on Jin’s thumb as it melts, but Kame eventually opens his mouth and takes the fry from Jin’s fingers.
And as Jin takes his hand away, Kame surprises him by reaching out and grabbing a hold on Jin’s palm, bringing Jin’s thumb up to his mouth. He hesitantly licks off the drops of shake still clinging to his skin.
The act is so endearing, yet so sensual, that Jin can’t help but kiss him.
At first it’s a soft pressing of skin against skin, a light brushing of lips, but it’s enough to send bolts of electricity down his spine, and the heat between them is almost too much to contain. Kame’s hands are suddenly in his hair, grabbing his head and pulling him closer, and their lips rejoin, and Jin can’t help but open his mouth and allow their tongues to intertwine, hot and wet and pleasurable, so pleasurable.
He forces himself to pull away from Kame, and rests his forehead against the other’s. “You taste like ice cream,” Jin mumbles, and he offers Kame a soft grin.
“Now you do too,” Kame replies, and he leans back in for another kiss.
* * *
He meets up with Koki three weeks after coming back home. There’s a funny sense of déjà vu when he slides up next to the other at the bar in the Red Lion, but he knows that everything has changed. He’s not sure what to expect, but Koki just looks at him for a couple more seconds than is absolutely necessary before turning his head away to hide a smile.
“We’re dating now,” Koki says after a moment of silence, jerking his head at the bartender. Jin follows the other’s gesture and nods at Ueda when the other looks up and them and smiles.
Ueda nods back, and gives him a wink, before turning back to help the newest costumer stumbling up to the bar.
“And how did that happen?” Jin asks, somewhat taken aback.
“Oh, you know, a certain someone I know just ups and leaves me all alone to cry out my sorrow to the universe, and a certain someone else who actually gives a shit came to clean up the broken shards that were my heart. And that person happened to be Ueda.”
The words are bitter and biting and true, but said with just the right amount of sarcasm to know that Koki is okay enough to say them. Jin glances at Koki and isn’t surprised to find him grinning widely.
“Oh yes, of course,” Jin replies, and he grins back.
Ueda traipses over eventually, and he gives Jin a glass of beer dripping with foam before he even needs to ask. They exchange a few words, but Jin can tell that there’s no animosity between them, and he breathes easier.
They’ve all forgiven him. A sense of belonging swells up in his chest, and he smiles to himself, finally feeling at home.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Ueda says to Koki sarcastically, and he sets down a glass of something pink and nonalcoholic in front of his boyfriend.
“Thanks, honeybunch,” Koki replies, and they grin at each other over the bar, before Ueda turns away to attend to another customer.
“You guys are meant for each other,” Jin blurts out jokingly. Koki laughs, and asks ‘you think?’ and they leave it at that.
“So how are things with Kame?” Koki suddenly asks. Just the sound of his boyfriend’s name makes his heart leap in his chest, and Jin can’t hold back his goofy grin.
“It’s great,” he replies, then pauses as he lets the words sink in. “Yeah, it’s going great.”
“You’re hot when you’re in love,” Koki says with a laugh, and Jin blushes a brilliant red, shoving his friend’s ribs hard with a jabbing elbow.
Koki simply grins at him.
Jin just smiles back.