[fic] one chance: (1/2)
Title: One Chance
Pairing(s): Akame
Genre: Angst, Fluff
Rating: PG-14
Summary: Sometimes you only have one chance and it's up to you to take it.
Sometimes at night when he was alone, he would pull out an old jazz CD Kame had given to him a few months ago, a selection of solos performed by artists from America. Though he usually preferred singing along to music instead of simply listening, it was something of a relief to just hear the soothing melody of a flute or the relaxing resonance of a sax.
There was one song in particular (track 12 on the CD) that always made his heart give a sad little twist. It was Kame’s favorite, a duet between the trombone and the tenor saxophone, a winding piece with a solo going back and forth between the two instruments.
He remembered Kame saying on that one Christmas morning ‘if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, at least listen to my favorite’ in a sharp and formal tone, pointing a slender finger at the number on the jacket cover. It was after he had come back from America, after the other had suddenly begun to act like he hated him, that Kame had given him the gift. He was completely taken aback from the present, not expecting anything from the other man except a “meri kurisumasu” and a nod in acknowledgement. Therefore he didn’t have anything to give back to Kamenashi expect a stuttered thank you when the man had shoved the CD into his hands. He made sure to give the other a bottle of wine from the States he had been saving at the New Years concert, telling Kame the lame excuse he had forgotten it on Christmas.
Something had told him Kame knew he was lying, because the younger man had taken the bottle wordlessly and turned away to walk stiffly into the dressing room. Singing ‘Seishun Amigo’ later that night was the most awkward thing he had every recalled doing. Kame smiling at him and acting like nothing had happened hurt worse than Kame ignoring him in anger.
Thus number 12 was always a painful thing to hear, making him dwell in the past so long that he began to have a hard time distinguishing between reality and dreams. And yet he always pressed the repeat button right when the trombone sounded the last note, relishing in the loud crackling sound before the song began, anticipating the first blared note from the tenor. He could never understand why he listened to it over and over, when each time was like a bullet through the chest and a siren in his head.
But even so, such as on this Sunday night a day before dance rehearsals, he would always find himself pressing repeat on the stereo, hoping and praying that this time the song would give him the courage to confront Kame, to finally ask him ‘what the hell is wrong with you,’ to finally shove the other against the wall and kiss Kame until he was breathless and wanting. Yet he knew it would never happen, because no matter how confident and cocky he portrayed himself to be on camera or on screen or in his lyrics, when it came to Kame all of it was meaningless. When it came to Kame he transformed into a spineless and gangly brat of yesteryear, a bullied elementary youth, a person who was hopelessly tongue-tied and hopelessly in love. And nothing he did to prepare himself for facing Kame made it any difference.
So just three hours before he had to leave the apartment for work, he found himself listening to the music again and again and again, dreaming for a day he knew would never come. He only turned off the stereo when a reminder-text from his manager of the next day’s schedule popped up on the screen of his cell, telling him in hard, black words how little sleep he would be getting that night.
After stumbling to the bed, he lay there just staring at the ceiling, not even trying to sleep though he knew how much he would regret it in the morning. He couldn’t get out of his mind that the next day was another chance, another opportunity to see the man he so often thought of and dreamed of and cried over. For Kame’s hatred towards him was surely going to lessen over time, for someday the song would surely give him the courage to confess, for surely tomorrow would be the day his fortunes changed.
When the alarm sounded at 3:30, the fantastical atmosphere of the night was snatched away, his hope and dreams shattered in the shrill ringing of his cellphone. No matter how possible it seemed at night, the morning with its somber reality and dismal truth would always dash his hopes against the wall, leaving him covetous for the night once more.
* * *
It was still dark when he arrived at the studio and he was thankful for the cover of pre-dawn to hide the dark circles under his eyes. Out in public, the exhaustion in his eyes was embarrassing to show and he only breathed easy when he was finally in the walls of the studio, where everyone else looked as haggard as he did and people looking refreshed were the ones that stood out.
It was so early that the lights in the building were not turned on yet so he made his way up the stairs in the dark, feeling the railings with his hands to navigate the dark stairwell. The spaces in between the steps were dark, and though he felt quite silly he ran the last few stairs as quickly as he could, afraid of the unknown depths in between the steps. So when a head popped out quizzically from the top of the landing he failed to realize the danger of another person and their heads bashed together with a painfully loud crack. He stumbled back a few steps, rubbing his aching forehead with his left hand as he clutched frantically on the railing to keep his balance. He heard the other let out a startled cry, then fall silent.
“Are you alright?” he heard the other say, and when the familiar voice reached his ears he couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.
“Kamenashi?”
A pause, then: “Akanishi?”
“Yeah,” he said with a shaky voice, forgetting at once his throbbing head. He stepped up the last few steps to where Kame was standing. The dark hid the other’s face from his searching eyes, but his memory provided the other’s perfect features for him. He felt his heart begin to pound.
“Are you alright?” Kame said again. By the faint light coming from the windows he could barely make out the faint outline of Kamenashi’s arm clutching his eye.
“Ah, yeah… I’m fine,” he stuttered, though a quick touch with his fingers told him that his forehead was steadily swelling. “How ‘bout you? You ok?”
“I don’t think so.”
Panic erupted in his heart at that, a dreadful feeling settling painfully into his stomach.
“What do you mean?” he said, stepping closer to Kame.
“I can’t see out of my left eye.”
The lights took that time as the perfect opportunity to turn on and as the florescence flickered slowly to life, he took in the sight of Kame’s form. The patches of skin he could see on Kame’s face under the other’s hand were red and swollen, and the right eye looking at him was scrunched up in pain.
“Well, your hand is kinda, over it,” he stated lamely. Kame scoffed, a gesture that made him automatically think ‘he hates me, he hates me,’ and then curse his own stupidity under his breath.
“I know that,” the younger man stated exasperatedly, rolling his eye. “Is there any ice in this place? I need-” he cut off and squinted in his direction. Kame’s glare made him blush slightly and he nervously shuffled around on his feet.
“That looks horrible, Akanishi,” Kamenashi said, pointing a finger at his own swollen forehead. He reached his own finger up to touch the bump and winced when it touched the raw surface. “You’re gonna need some ice too,” Kame said, before turning around and quickly disappearing behind the white door. He scrambled to follow the other, eager for this small chance to finally be alone with Kame. Regardless of how awkward or painful the experience might be, he couldn’t let this chance slip between his fingers.
The lights in the rehearsal studio were still turned off when he stepped into the room and as the door shut closed, it slowly enveloped the place in pitch-black darkness. He swung a hand over to the wall next to him and spent a minute running his hand up and down the mirrors to find the switch. The light immediately lit up the room when he found it and he saw Kamenashi’s bag thrown haphazardly in the corner of the room. Kame was no where to be seen, so he quickly ran into the back room connected to the studio. Kame was there, leaning over the small refrigerator the whole group shared, his hand still covering his eye.
“I should take a look,” he heard himself say, and the other immediately straightened up at the sound of his voice. He took a step closer to Kame. The younger member turned slowly then lifted his hand from his face, finally revealing the injured eye but still keeping the eyelid closed.
A dark bruise was slowly forming on the cheekbone, another one on the skin above Kame’s eyebrow. It looked pretty bad and he winced in response, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty for running into the other in the first place.
“Gosh Kamenashi. I’m pretty sorry,” he said. “It looks painful.”
“I was just an accident,” he heard the other mumble. When Kame said nothing more, he suddenly knew that the other was furious at him.
“Can you open it?” he asked, trying to convey how sorry he was to Kame by looking as guilty as possible. Kame gave him a nod in answer. “Let me see your eye then,” he continued.
The eyelid fluttered open, revealing a brown orb staring straight at him. It was unfocused and that made him worried.
“I can’t see,” Kame said. That familiar panic rose again in his stomach. “I can tell that you’re blocking the light from the studio though.”
“That’s good,” he breathed. He lifted a hand to the others face and, not really believing he was actually doing it, asked: “May I?” He winced when his voice cracked a little, but thankfully was able to hold his hand steady, effectively hiding his true nervousness inside.
“Yeah.”
He placed his hand on the others head, nearly sighing as his hand rested softly against the other’s silky hair. He felt the other shudder and immediately pulled his hand away.
“Did that hurt?” he asked.
“No,” Kame said, a strange tone in his voice. “Keep going.”
He set his hand back on the other’s soft locks and with a careful motion, looking at the other’s eyes for any indication he was hurting Kame, softly brushed his thumb against the bruise. He heard a soft intake of breath but this time did not take his hand away.
“It’s ok, it didn’t hurt,” Kame hurried to say. “Does it look weird or anything?”
He leaned in closer to examine the eye, trying his best to ignore that Kame’s slightly parted lips were just inches away from his own. The brown orb was looking straight at his face but in its unfocused state seemed to be resting on a location behind his head. He put his thumb on Kame’s eyebrow, lifting the brow slightly to look at the eye. The other shuddered once more, in pain he believed, but due to Kame’s urgings earlier ignored the motion.
On a closer look he noticed that the pupil, barely visible against the slight dark of the room and the brown orb surrounding it, was dilated. He tried to remember; did that mean a concussion?
He leaned back and immediately began to miss the closeness of the other. But as much as he wanted it, he couldn’t deny that he would have done something stupid if he had stayed that close to temptation any longer. And he hated that he could only be close to the other when Kame was hurt, for otherwise this intimate contact would have been impossible. Kame didn’t let people he hated get too near.
“So you can’t see, you said.”
“I can tell that you’re blocking the light,” Kame repeated. “It’s kind of getting better though. I’ll be fine.”
He noticed the pupil in Kame’s eye growing larger and felt a weight lifting off his shoulders at Kame’s words that he was okay. If he had injured the other man any worse… He tried not to think about how he would have felt then.
“Let me get the ice,” he said, and stepped past the other man towards the refrigerator. When he felt Kame’s small hand catch his sweatshirt’s bulky sleeve his breath caught in his throat.
“Is there… something wrong?” he began. Kame seemed like he was about to speak, but then he dropped the hand to his side.
“Never mind.”
“Oh,” he replied, hiding his disappointment by turning back to the fridge. It took a minute for him to find the ice but thankfully it was bagged, ready to dispense its healing coolness for any injury their group encountered during practice.
He slipped off his sweatshirt and wrapped it around one of the bags before handing the bundle to Kame. The other man mumbled his thanks and with that, he turned away from Kame and walked into the other room to grab his towel. He wrapped the bag of ice and placed the cold bundle against his forehead with a sigh; the pain in his forehead by that time was slightly dizzying.
Kame had by that time moved back into the studio and the two stayed there in the room awkwardly, each one sitting against opposite sides of the mirrored walls, neither one saying a thing to the other. The only audible sound was the noise of the bags crinkling as either Kame or he shifted the ice. The silence in the room quickly mounted up to deafening proportions, the tense atmosphere so thick he could cut it with a knife. When it became too much to bear, he hastily spoke.
“Why were you here early?”
Kame looked up at his words and blinked his one eye in slight shock. He realized that Kame was probably totally confused as to why a person he hated was talking to him in the first place. Regardless, he had to break the unnerving silence and Kame was too polite to ignore a question, no matter who asked it.
“I wanted to practice the new dance steps a little,” Kame replied after a moments pause. The other closed his eye and leaned his head back against the mirror, staring at the ceiling. As the wide expanse of skin on Kame’s throat was exposed at this action, he gulped. It seemed slightly unfair that the man he loved so much could hate him, but fate seemed to screw things up like that.
“Why were you here?” the younger member asked. As he spoke, the Adam’s apple at his throat bobbed up and down enticingly. How would it feel to kiss that deliciously white skin?
“Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d come here early since there was nothing else to do at home.”
“That’s rare, coming early. For you that is,” Kame said. He winced at the sharpness in Kame’s voice.
“I guess,” he replied.
The room plunged back into silence. He cursed his habit of answering Kame’s answers with the fewest words possible and searched around in his head for something else he could possibly say.
Kame suddenly sprang up from his seated position, startling him into jerking his head back. He groaned when his head hit against the glass mirror.
“Let’s practice together,” Kamenashi said, expertly throwing the ice towards his stuff in the corner of the room. The now melted ice sloshed as it hit the bag with a thump.
“What?” he asked in shock. The man could barely see out of his left eye a minute ago and now he wanted to dance?
He scrambled up from his position to protest. “But aren’t you hurt? I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to dance after I hit you that hard.”
“I once finished an entire concert after falling off the stage so I’m sure I can handle it. I lost sleep when I woke up early so I don’t want to waste any of that time by just sitting around. I came here to dance so let’s practice.”
He felt a sudden urge to push the other back down on the floor and prohibit the man from even moving but, knowing the other man’s habit of bitching about people treating him like he was too delicate to do anything, wisely did nothing. “Alright,” he reluctantly said. “Let’s dance."
Part Two