Prompt 10: The Sky Above, The World Beneath - Team Future
Title: The Sky Above, The World Beneath
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Summary: The way up.
Prompt: Diamond Eyes
Notes: Many thanks to R, always. ♥
--
Akanishi? It's Kamenashi. They just told me. Today - just a few minutes ago. They said you - I'm worried, Akanishi. So call me. Okay? I'll talk to you later. Bye.
It's Kamenashi again. You should - you should talk to Yamashita, you know, he's pretty worried, too. Don't - just talk to someone. Bye.
Hi, Akanishi. I'm not sure you're getting these, so you should call me if you are. Or something. Um, I heard they've set a date for the hearing. I know you're going to - be there. I just wanted to know, do you need anything before that or do you want anyone to come there too or - this sounds so stupid. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you're sick of these. You don't have to call, just send me a message or something. Or tell Yamashita to call me. That's all. Bye.
Akanishi, look - I know it's been - rough. Between us. And I know that's probably not very high on your list of priorities to talk about right now, so just wait a minute, please, and hear me out. It's been rough. But we've known each other a long time now. And we always - we've had some pretty bad things happen and we still managed to get through it, and I just wanted - I just wanted to know if you're okay. I hope you are. Tell me if I, if I can talk to anyone or do anything or - anything. Just let me know. Okay, Jin? Anything. Take care of yourself. Goodbye.
--
The air was heavy. Kame imagined he could feel it pressing down on his shoulders and touching clammy fingers to back of his neck. He really could feel the latter, he realized, and guessed from the faint itch they were probably tendrils of wet hair. He shifted in his seat, just a little, enough to draw the attention of the man seated across from him. The man, heavyset, red and shining like a well-boiled tomato, was undoubtedly in more discomfort than Kame was. He smiled, affably enough, and Kame bobbed his head politely.
The train was thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds late now. The angle of the station roof versus the sun was not in Kame's favor; he could see the precious line of shade receding across the concrete platform, and if the train didn't arrive soon it would disappear altogether. Kame entertained a brief vision of himself shriveling like an ant under a magnifying glass until he crumpled and burst into white flame - but no, it was far too wet, the humidity would extinguish him immediately. He hated watching that particular form of play, anyway.
Sixteen minutes, twenty-one seconds. He debated buying another drink from the vending machine down the platform for just a minute, and quickly decided the effort expended would hardly be worth the return. If he sat still - very still - he almost couldn't feel the dampness of his t-shirt.
There was a faint rumble in the distance. Kame and the stranger next to him exchanged a brief glance. Surely not a figment of hopeful imagination, then. The rumbling grew louder. With a wheeze the man heaved himself to his feet. Kame stood, too, and picked up the plastic bag at his feet. In his palms, slick with perspiration, the handles were slippery.
Louder, and louder, until at last Kame heard the screech of metal on metal and felt a hot breeze tug at his hair and cool his cheeks as the train rounded the curve and groaned to a halt in front of the station.
Kame took a gulp of wet air.
The doors opened.
--
Only three people stepped off the train. Jin was the last.
He was two cars away. "Over here," Kame called, raising a hand - unnecessary, since the only other creature in sight was Kame's stranger, who was now leading a papery white-haired woman away.
Jin looked over. Kame tightened his grip on the slippery plastic handles. Jin walked slowly - reluctantly? Kame couldn't tell - toward him, allowing Kame plenty of time to absorb and analyze the details of his appearance. Hair - undyed and longer than it had been in several years, skin - browner than Kame's, expression - unreadable. Several woven bracelets decorated the wrist of his bare arm and a dark cord followed the line of his collarbone down under his shirt; otherwise he wore no jewelry. There was a heavy rucksack over his shoulders, and his jeans were fraying.
Jin came to a stop a few feet away, just beyond a natural distance. He slid his hands in his pockets and regarded Kame with dark eyes. They stood there, looking at each other, for what felt to Kame like a geologic age, until he was compelled to break the silence.
"Ohisashiburi." It's been a while.
Jin smiled faintly. "Hisashiburi. How long, exactly?"
"Three years, two months." Kame's answer was automatic, and he regretted it immediately after - but Jin would have known that was the sort of thing Kame naturally kept track of. He hadn't asked out of politeness.
"It's hot," Kame said, because he had to say something more, "let's not stand out here too long. My car's just behind the station."
Jin nodded and followed Kame through the turnstile (Kame's lowest-fare ticket, solely so he could get onto the platform, had cost 180 yen) out to the tiny rectangle of asphalt. Kame shaded his eyes against the sun, which seemed to ripple, weak and watery, through the humid haze. He felt Jin stop beside him.
Before them, the mountains soared sharply upward, presenting them with jagged walls of green; deep, thick, luxuriant green. It made Kame thirsty to look at them.
He stole a glance at Jin. Jin was looking around slowly, mouth in the shape of a small o. A little corner of Kame was satisfyingly pleased.
"This one's mine," he said, again unnecessarily. There was only one car in the six spaces of the lot, and its sleek silver body looked distinctly out of place against the faded concrete of the station walls.
Jin finally looked away from the mountains as Kame unlocked the door. "Did you drive this here from Tokyo?" he said. The emphasis was, this?
Kame nodded. "Throw your pack in the back, the trunk's full. Yeah, I did. It gets good mileage, actually. And it's air-conditioned."
"It can really handle the roads here?" Jin did as instructed and climbed in.
"So far." Kame shrugged. "They're not that bad, anyway, in the summer. Hold this?"
Jin accepted the plastic bag and settled it on his lap. Kame pulled out of the parking lot, and they headed toward the mountains.
The roads were narrow and quickly steepened. Kame was glad of the excuse to focus on his driving instead of balancing a lopsided conversation. It was odd - Jin was barely taller than Kame, though admittedly broader in the shoulder, but the front of the car seemed cramped with him in it. Kame kept his eyes steady ahead as they sped through long tunnels and past stands of bamboo passing in a green blur.
"I missed the mountains," Jin said abruptly.
Kame started. "What?"
"Where I went," Jin said. "There weren't any mountains. I missed them."
Kame couldn't resist a little smile. "There aren't very many mountains in Tokyo, either."
"Yeah, but - " Jin stopped. Kame could envision his expression without bothering to look over, staring off at nothing with his mouth partway open in a way that would make someone less fortunate look halfwitted. "It's different," Jin said eventually. "Even though it's usually too smoggy to see anything. You know they're there."
"Yeah," said Kame. "I guess so."
"Where was it, anyway?" Kame asked after a few minutes. "The place with no mountains."
There was no answer.
--
Steeply slanted roofs, mimicking the angle of the mountains, flashed by.
"That's Takanomura," Kame felt compelled to say. "It's the closest village, but there's really not much - well, I usually go down to the valley if I need anything."
"It's pretty," Jin said quietly.
The road rose and dipped over a small hill. Jin twisted around in his seat to watch the village disappear. Up ahead, a small fork branched off the main road into a thick grove of trees. Kame slowed and took the turnoff.
Here, the road was not so well-maintained as Kame's earlier remarks indicated. Overhead, the trees grew close together and the road continued to climb as the little car bumped and jostled along, a silver fish in a green river.
"It's not far on this road," Kame said. "Sorry."
"Hm?" Surprise colored Jin's voice. "No, it's fine. It's nothing."
The same question rose on Kame's tongue: Just where were you? Kame swallowed it and pressed his lips together until it hurt.
Another sharp curve, and there, almost hidden in the weeds, was the overgrown drive. Kame knew from experience that the road came to an abrupt end about a kilometer on, where construction had halted when the elections were over and the ruling party moved to pump money into a new region. But the car turned onto the dirt track, wound past a knotted grove of trees, and emerged into a sudden flood of sunlight.
"Here we are," said Kame.
The circle of gravel was in the middle of a small clearing. In front of them, the house rose from the side of the mountain itself, abutted on one side by a mossy green outcropping. Steep eaves jutted down to shelter a balcony overlooking the sloping mountainside, and through the trees beyond there was the barest glimpse of a grassy field. Somewhere, there was the sound of running water.
Jin got out of the car slowly. He said nothing; his expression was eloquent enough.
Kame got out, too, and went to the trunk. With a heave, he lifted out a large, battered cardboard box and rejoined Jin, whose head was tilted back as he gazed around the clearing.
"You can walk down to the village from here," Kame said, nodding at a narrow dirt path disappearing down among the trees. "They told me the road was only built twenty years ago."
"They?" Jin asked as they made their way up to the house.
"The landowners. I'm renting."
"How long have you been out here?"
Kame didn't answer right away.
"A while," he said finally. "I don't remember exactly." He mounted the front steps and balanced the box on one hip so he could open the door. It was never locked.
It was cooler inside - it was cooler outside, even, on the mountain than it had been at the station, but the air still weighed down. Kame dropped the box on the dining table with several muffled thumps as the contents knocked against each other.
"What should I do with this?" he heard from behind him.
Kame turned. Jin was holding up the plastic bag.
"Oh, I'll take that - thanks." Kame took the bag and moved toward the kitchen. He stopped. "Would you like something to drink?"
"If it's not too much trouble," Jin said formally. He slid the rucksack off his shoulders and eased it to the ground gently.
Kame stashed the bag in the refrigerator and withdrew a thermos of cold tea. He heard rustling, and a voice from the other room said, "Pears?"
"They're fresh," he called back. "Summer pears. There was a stand by the road into the valley." He poured two cups of tea and carried them back to Jin, who was looking in the box.
"I didn’t think they’d be in season,” he said.
Kame offered him a cup. They sipped in silence. Jin's eyes were riveted on the big window overlooking the clearing; he appeared to be unaware that his free hand was fiddling with one of his bracelets.
"If you want to put away your stuff I'll show you your room," Kame said, when it seemed Jin wasn't going to pick up his cup again.
Jin started. "What? Oh. Okay." He swung his rucksack up with no apparent effort and followed Kame upstairs.
The room was Western style, light and cool despite the diluted sunlight. A window overlooked the leafy slope. "Please use it however you want," Kame said. "If it's all right with you."
Jin brushed his bangs back. "It's fine. It's good. Thanks."
The silence thickened. Kame looked around the room. It didn't provide any immediate help.
He said, grasping, "How long have you been back?"
Jin shrugged, a roll of his shoulders from one side to the other. "A while." His mouth quirked. "I'm not jetlagged, if that’s what you mean."
"Oh. Okay. Good. Then I guess... you can unpack and rest and I'll make something for dinner? If you like?"
"Sure." Jin bent down and undid the straps of his rucksack. "In a few hours?"
"That should be fine. I'll see you then." Kame backed out of the room. Jin looked up and raised an eyebrow. Kame shook his head and quickly retreated. His cheeks were hot. Jin's afterimage burned in his vision as he went downstairs.
--
"It wasn't necessary for you to know," Kame's manager said, tight-lipped.
"It wasn't necessary? Someone's - " He choked on the word. Swallowed. Wiped a hand across his mouth.
Kame's manager appeared not to notice. "No," he said. "It wasn't." The spot on his chin, red and crusted, seemed to throb. "We were hoping to keep things - quiet. The boy's family doesn't need a fuss."
The air conditioner must have been set too high. Kame's shoulders prickled. He tucked his hands under his arms and set his teeth.
"It's gone slightly beyond our projections," his manager was saying. "We're recalculating. It's unfortunate for Akanishi-kun that he'll have to be involved - "
"What?" Surprise tore the words from his throat too harshly. "Akanishi?"
"He'll have to give evidence and of course then his name will be tied up with the incident in the news. As will KAT-TUN's." Kame's manager tapped a pencil thoughtfully against the papers on his desk.
Kame said, with difficulty, "Why does Akanishi have to - do anything?"
His manager glanced up. "He found the body."
There was a sharp buzzing in Kame's ears. His manager said, "You need to start thinking about your future, Kamenashi-kun."
--
"Itadakimasu."
"Itadakimasu."
It had been a long time since Kame had eaten in total silence; at least, when there was more than one person present.
He had made soumen, traditional enough for the heat. For several minutes it provided convenient white noise, at least, clinks and splashes as they dipped long bunches of threadlike noodles in their sauce bowls.
There wasn't a clock in the room, but Kame swore he could hear one ticking away. There was a weight on the back of his neck. The air felt thick enough he could imagine cutting it like tofu: neat, solid squares to serve with the meal.
His bowl was empty, Jin's nearly so. Kame cleared his throat.
"Is there anything you want to do in particular?" His own voice rang, too loud, in his ears.
Jin's arm jerked and the thread-fine noodles between his chopsticks fell back into the bowl with a soft splash. He scrubbed at the table with a napkin for a minute, head down, before finally answering Kame.
"What is there to do around here?"
"Not much," Kame said with an uncomfortable laugh. "Hike, mostly. Enjoy nature."
Kame thought Jin would laugh, or maybe not laugh but make that particular expression, that little twitch of the mouth and eyebrows that meant, pathetic. He did neither. He simply nodded and asked, "Are there good trails?"
Kame didn't show his surprise. He said, "There's the path down to the village, the one I pointed out, and then there's another one heading up the mountain. There's a shrine somewhere nearby, and another trail out of the village, I think. I have a map...?"
"Could I have a look?"
The map was in the cupboard, or was it upstairs? It was in the cupboard. Jin had cleared away the dishes, and Kame spread it out on the table and tapped it with his index finger.
"This is us - the house. This is the house." He ran the finger from the small star, in pencil, along a tiny dotted line, down to slightly larger black dot. "This is Takanomura. This," - another dotted line - "goes up the mountain, and these," - two lines, darker, out of the village - "cross the little valley and head toward Tsuruyama," - a final single dot, larger than the first. "The shrine is anyone's guess."
"Can I - ?" Kame nodded and Jin slid the map over to where he sat. He leaned his chin on one hand and studied it intently.
Several minutes passed. Kame crossed his legs; recrossed them. Tugged at the hem of his shirt. Leaned an elbow on the table; both elbows; sat back. He reviewed and discarded a dozen observations in rapid succession and glanced over. Jin was staring at a point on the map, frowning; a small furrow had appeared between his eyebrows.
Kame opened his mouth.
Jin folded the map and stood up. Kame closed his mouth. Jin said, "Sorry, I'm still a little tired. I think I should go to sleep early."
"Right," Kame said. "Of course. Do you want the bath...?"
Jin made a face. "In this weather? No thanks, I'll just shower."
"Okay. Down the hall, on the right."
Jin nodded and disappeared. Kame heard the floor upstairs creak, then footsteps coming back down the stairs and down the hall. After a minute, there was the sound of water rumbling through the pipes.
Kame stood up and went to the closet. He balanced in his arms a large, ungainly old microscope, a notebook, and a small box that weighed twice as much as the rest and carried them over to the table. From the box he removed a stack of yellowing envelopes. He picked up the top envelope and extracted a heavy glass slide. Careful to hold it by its edges, he slid it under the microscope lens.
He put his eye to the microscope and squinted, twirling the silvery knob on the side back and forth and back again. After a minute, he moved back and reached for the notebook. He unclipped a pen from the cover, opened the book, and, moving periodically from the notebook to the microscope and back, began to draw.
The water stopped running. Kame replaced the slide in the envelope and set it to the side of the stack. He took the next slide out and placed it under the lens. Footsteps down the hall. Kame reached for his notebook.
A voice said, "Night."
Kame looked up. Jin was standing in the doorway. Tendrils of dark hair clung damply to his temples.
"Good night," said Kame.
Footsteps upstairs again, then silence. Kame bent over the microscope.
--
They had been giving a twenty-four hour warning. The next day the headline blared from every trashy newsstand in the city, wide and nauseating, as the editors no doubt drank themselves into a self-congratulatory stupor.
Kame called Yamapi.
"This is Yamashita."
Kame didn't bother with niceties. "It's Kamenashi. Akanishi won't answer his phone. I've been - worried."
Yamapi let out a short bark of laughter. "You're worried?"
"Yes," Kame said, quietly furious, "of course I'm worried, what do you think I - " He stopped.
He said slowly, "You haven't talked to him either?"
After a minute Yamapi said, "His mother called me to tell me was all right. So, you know, I wouldn't think he'd crashed into a bus or something. He hasn't talked to me - anyone - since he - found - "
Kame drew in a sharp breath.
"They told me he has to testify," he said.
"They told me the same thing." Yamapi's voice was paper-thin, the fragile skin over a churning vortex. With a stinging shock that shouldn't have been, Kame realized Yamapi was exactly as demolished as he was.
"So it's true," he said. "That boy - Shinoda-kun - was - was - "
"Murdered," Yamapi said, and his voice cracked.
Kame's breath was coming too fast. He tried to breathe deeply, deliberately, anything to balance his pounding heart. His throat was clogged with bile. "Before this," he said, "I didn't even know his name."
"Neither did Jin," said Yamapi.
--
For a moment, when Kame woke up, he couldn't remember why all his muscles were tensed.
The memory returned with the force of a bag of wet concrete and he felt his heart slam against his ribs. Just upstairs -
Kame sat up and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The morning was already hot; his sheets were plastered to his legs and scratchy with drying sweat. He took a long, steadying breath and swung himself out of bed.
The kitchen was empty. On the counter, a row of drying dishes gleamed in the light. Next to them was a scrap of paper.
Hiking. Took your map. I hope that's okay. Back by evening.
J
Kame let out a long breath.
He made himself breakfast absentmindedly - too much so; slicing a pear, he saw the bright shock of red before he felt the sting. Wincing by reflex, he held the injured finger under the faucet until it numbed and wrapped the bandage too tightly for comfort.
By the time he finished eating, clumsily, it was past nine o'clock. The sun was already high and white. If anything, the pressure in the air had increased. Kame sat back in his chair and gazed out the window. Some tiny corner of his mind methodically identified the birds speeding past, even as his mind roiled.
His leg was jiggling restlessly. Kame shoved his chair back and opened, again, the cupboard where the microscope and slides were kept.
He crouched down and reached in until his entire arm was swallowed, feeling cautiously among a spiky pile of junk in the very back. His fingers brushed paper. He grasped the envelope, withdrew it, and sat back on his heels.
The shock of Jin's handwriting, stark and black and square, still shot a tiny surge of adrenaline through Kame - though nothing compared to the heart-stopping jolt of seeing it staring up at him as he'd sifted through the mail.
Kame had memorized the brief message within. Kamenashi: I'll be there on the 26th. Akanishi Jin. He didn't bother taking the note out, but sat crouched on his heels looking down at the envelope.
He hadn't expected Jin to say yes.
Kame realized he was frowning and thrust the envelope back in the cupboard. He got to his feet and headed for the bathroom, stopped, turned on his heel, took two steps toward the entryway, stopped, turned again, let out a noise of frustration and went to the bathroom to retrieve a scrubbing brush. He had found, early on, that if his body was exhausted enough his mind would follow.
--
Kame had scrubbed the bath and cleaned the whole kitchen by noon. He ate a couple of rice balls and started again. By mid-afternoon, the floors were spotless and every flat surface gleamed. The heat was worse than the day before; Kame's shirt stuck to his back and sides and sweat ran down his forehead and the back of his neck. It wasn't enough.
There was a pile of old shingles rotting behind the house. For weeks Kame had meant to move them to where they could be carted away, in case any chemicals leached into the stream. The rippling sun beat down on the back of his neck. He bent and straightened and bent again until there was a constant acid twinge in his back, until several plastic garbage bags bulged and he dragged them, inch by inch, to his car.
It was late afternoon when Kame staggered into the house. His neck ached with the effort of holding his head upright. He took a cold shower, laid down on the couch, and fell immediately asleep.
--
He woke up at dusk.
It seemed unusually dark. Kame squinted at his watch, and sat bolt upright. It was nearly seven o'clock. Jin should have been back already.
On cue, he heard the front door open.
The light was on and Kame in the kitchen by the time Jin appeared. Jin's hair was plastered to his forehead and neck in damp curls. His t-shirt was dark with sweat and his hands streaked with dirt; everything about him was loose.
"Was it a good hike?" Kame asked.
Jin nodded. He opened his mouth, then closed it and stretched his arms behind his back, rolling his neck in a slow circle.
"Good," Kame said to the counter. "Why don't you clean up and I'll find something eat?" He risked looking up. Jin was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and frowning.
"I'll help, if you want," Jin said, "when I'm done."
Kame blinked once, twice. "No," he said, "that's all right, I'll be fine - " He realized as he heard the words coming out of his mouth that they were the wrong ones. Jin shrugged, mouth straightening, and disappeared down the hall.
Cold udon. That made some kind of noodles two nights in a row, Kame realized. He looked around the kitchen - not, it was too late to think of anything else.
Jin reappeared, dripping all over the floor, as Kame turned from stacking small dishes on the counter to take the tea from the refrigerator. Wordlessly, Jin took the pile and set them out on the table, two of each, as Kame followed with the wide serving bowl.
Apparently, Jin had no problems with repetitive meals, if the speed with which he shoveled the udon into his mouth was any judge. Kame watched with mild horror and a certain amount of scientific curiosity as the plateful vanished in what seemed to be a matter of seconds.
"So you must have gone the long way," Kame said after Jin paused to swallow most of the glass of tea in one gulp.
Jin paused and looked from his plate to Kame's. He hesitated. "Sorry," he said. "I'm being rude."
"What? Oh, no." Kame was quick to shake his head. "It's fine. Go ahead."
Jin took another, much smaller sip. "It was long," he offered. "I looked around this area for a while, as far as the little meadow out back, then I went down to the village and took the trail up the other mountain. Tsuruyama."
Kame nodded. "That's not easy, is it. You must be in better - in good shape."
Jin raised an eyebrow. Kame felt his face heat. "I mean - " He floundered; he meant exactly what he'd said.
Jin snorted - a laugh, Kame thought, as his shoulders relaxed. "Better than I used to be? Yeah, probably."
Kame chose his next words with the care of one picking footsteps through a minefield. "You must have been working hard while you were gone."
It was interesting, he thought clinically, how one could actually see Jin's face shut down. "Not really," Jin said.
Silence again, brittle and thorned. Kame set his teeth and repeated over and over to himself idiot, idiot, idiot.
"Everyone assumes I wasn't in Japan," Jin said abruptly and viciously. "What if I stayed and didn't tell you? What if I just wanted to forget about all of you?"
Kame took a deep breath. Jin's hits had always been able to strike home in a way no one else's could. "I don't think you could have," he said when he knew his voice would be even. "Stayed. Without someone noticing. They tried to say you had anyway, you know, there were reports about you being sighted all over Tokyo, or in Osaka or the country, after a while."
Jin's eyebrows drew together. "No one told me that," he said.
Kame shrugged. "It was just like the first time."
Jin was still frowning. He propped his elbows on the table and asked, "How did - how did you know they weren't true?"
I didn't want them to be. Kame took two fat, pale noodles between his chopsticks, swirled them in sauce, and sucked them in. They tasted insipid. He set his chopsticks down and rested his hands on his legs.
"I guess I didn't think you could forget anything if you stayed in Tokyo," he said.
As close as they'd come to mentioning it. Kame's arms prickled. He didn't dare look at Jin. He could have sworn he could feel Jin vibrating like a string, holding himself stiff and still and about to snap.
Jin said, in a voice Kame hadn't ever heard before, "You were right."
Kame's palms hurt. He glanced down. His hands were fisted; his nails dug into the flesh of his palms.
"Did it work?" he asked.
Jin let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Sometimes," he said.
A tiny measure of pressure went like a whisper of air from a balloon, just enough to ease away from the breaking point. Kame exhaled and reached, with a hand that barely shook, for his glass. Eyes closed, he took a long, long drink.
When he opened his eyes, Jin was standing up, clearing away his dishes. Kame looked down at his own half-empty plate. He had never noticed how closely the noodles resembled shiny white worms.
He, too, got up and began to clear the table.
Without asking, Jin set his armful in the sink and turned on the faucet. He picked up the long-handled brush and looked around with a tiny frown.
Kame took the dish soap from its cabinet and set it next to the sink.
For a minute there was nothing but the sounds of crockery and running water. Kame ran the dishcloth over the little bowls and placed them back in their cupboards automatically. He was very careful, measuring the distance between them, never to turn or take a step at the wrong time.
He was so determined to concentrate on the gloss of the lacquer, the exact positioning of each plate on top of its fellows, that he missed Jin's shoulders settle, as they always did before he was deliberate. "I've been wondering," Jin said. "How did you end up here? How did you even find this place?"
For just a moment, in a childish fit of retaliation, Kame was tempted to pretend he hadn't heard. But sense won out, and it wasn't as though he hadn't been expecting to hear it eventually. He glanced over at Jin, whose arms were braced against the sink, looking down.
"I was looking for somewhere out of the way," he said. "I got tired."
Jin nodded. Kame couldn't see his face. "Good," he said. "You never did take enough breaks."
The decision was not conscious. Kame sucked in a breath and said, "Actually." He put down the cloth and put his hands in his pockets. "They told me to go somewhere quiet. For a while."
Jin's head came up and he turned around. Kame met his look steadily.
"I found it myself," he said. "I had - there were a lot of offers, of places to stay. But I didn't want to - take advantage of their kindness."
Jin's eyes were very wide and very dark. He started to speak, and stopped. Kame could see the pattern of thoughts flitting across his face like cloud across the sky and, absurdly, almost had to hide a smile.
"I didn't - no one said anything," Jin said finally. "You didn't say anything." - faintly accusatory.
To Kame's surprise, he felt a small laugh bubble up. "It's not the sort of thing you slip into a casual letter," he said.
Jin didn't laugh. Instead he said, "I'm sorry."
"What?" Kame said, and was amazed at how regular his voice sounded.
Jin held his gaze. "I should have - asked about you earlier. Or something." He was frowning again. "I didn't realize."
"No," Kame said. He struggled for breath. "It's fine. Really. I'd rather not."
Jin was leaning back on the counter now, both hands resting on the edge of the sink. He said, "What were you doing last night? With the microscope?"
Kame leaned against the refrigerator himself and crossed his arms. He could feel his heart thump just above his wrist.
"When I got here - " He paused. "I had a lot of time on my hands. At first I was just... sleeping all day, or sitting outside. Then I tried all kinds of things, painting, reading, even haiku -" He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh, but Jin was silent, dark eyes on Kame's face.
"My - the person who said I should come here told me that writing might help but I've never been very good at that. Anyway, I found this box in the store room upstairs. All these slides, and the microscope. At first I was just looking at them because I didn't have anything else to do, but after a while I thought I'd see if I could make my own and match them up and then little by little..." Kame shrugged. "I have a couple old books, you know, birds and flowers. And I've been pressing some specimens, and drawing... my drawing's gotten a lot better, you know." He laughed, again. "I think the next step is to get a better camera."
Jin had not looked away once during this recital. "So you're a... naturalist?"
Kame smiled a little. "Maybe? I guess. An amateur. I know it's strange. I never had any interest in it when I was a kid."
Jin nodded. Kame felt a sudden, heaving swell of exhaustion, the kind he normally associated with strenuous physical activity. He closed his eyes very briefly.
Jin was still watching him when he opened them. Kame couldn't read his expression. "You're tired, too," Jin said. "I'm just going to - " He gestured loosely away from the kitchen.
Kame nodded, maybe too quickly. "Okay. Yeah."
When he heard the creak of Jin's footsteps ascending the staircase, Kame let himself slacken. His knees were trembling. Slowly, he slid down the face of the refrigerator, inch by inch, until he was on the floor with his knees up and his head tucked against them, concentrating on taking one deep breath after another.
Part Two
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Summary: The way up.
Prompt: Diamond Eyes
Notes: Many thanks to R, always. ♥
--
Akanishi? It's Kamenashi. They just told me. Today - just a few minutes ago. They said you - I'm worried, Akanishi. So call me. Okay? I'll talk to you later. Bye.
It's Kamenashi again. You should - you should talk to Yamashita, you know, he's pretty worried, too. Don't - just talk to someone. Bye.
Hi, Akanishi. I'm not sure you're getting these, so you should call me if you are. Or something. Um, I heard they've set a date for the hearing. I know you're going to - be there. I just wanted to know, do you need anything before that or do you want anyone to come there too or - this sounds so stupid. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you're sick of these. You don't have to call, just send me a message or something. Or tell Yamashita to call me. That's all. Bye.
Akanishi, look - I know it's been - rough. Between us. And I know that's probably not very high on your list of priorities to talk about right now, so just wait a minute, please, and hear me out. It's been rough. But we've known each other a long time now. And we always - we've had some pretty bad things happen and we still managed to get through it, and I just wanted - I just wanted to know if you're okay. I hope you are. Tell me if I, if I can talk to anyone or do anything or - anything. Just let me know. Okay, Jin? Anything. Take care of yourself. Goodbye.
--
The air was heavy. Kame imagined he could feel it pressing down on his shoulders and touching clammy fingers to back of his neck. He really could feel the latter, he realized, and guessed from the faint itch they were probably tendrils of wet hair. He shifted in his seat, just a little, enough to draw the attention of the man seated across from him. The man, heavyset, red and shining like a well-boiled tomato, was undoubtedly in more discomfort than Kame was. He smiled, affably enough, and Kame bobbed his head politely.
The train was thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds late now. The angle of the station roof versus the sun was not in Kame's favor; he could see the precious line of shade receding across the concrete platform, and if the train didn't arrive soon it would disappear altogether. Kame entertained a brief vision of himself shriveling like an ant under a magnifying glass until he crumpled and burst into white flame - but no, it was far too wet, the humidity would extinguish him immediately. He hated watching that particular form of play, anyway.
Sixteen minutes, twenty-one seconds. He debated buying another drink from the vending machine down the platform for just a minute, and quickly decided the effort expended would hardly be worth the return. If he sat still - very still - he almost couldn't feel the dampness of his t-shirt.
There was a faint rumble in the distance. Kame and the stranger next to him exchanged a brief glance. Surely not a figment of hopeful imagination, then. The rumbling grew louder. With a wheeze the man heaved himself to his feet. Kame stood, too, and picked up the plastic bag at his feet. In his palms, slick with perspiration, the handles were slippery.
Louder, and louder, until at last Kame heard the screech of metal on metal and felt a hot breeze tug at his hair and cool his cheeks as the train rounded the curve and groaned to a halt in front of the station.
Kame took a gulp of wet air.
The doors opened.
--
Only three people stepped off the train. Jin was the last.
He was two cars away. "Over here," Kame called, raising a hand - unnecessary, since the only other creature in sight was Kame's stranger, who was now leading a papery white-haired woman away.
Jin looked over. Kame tightened his grip on the slippery plastic handles. Jin walked slowly - reluctantly? Kame couldn't tell - toward him, allowing Kame plenty of time to absorb and analyze the details of his appearance. Hair - undyed and longer than it had been in several years, skin - browner than Kame's, expression - unreadable. Several woven bracelets decorated the wrist of his bare arm and a dark cord followed the line of his collarbone down under his shirt; otherwise he wore no jewelry. There was a heavy rucksack over his shoulders, and his jeans were fraying.
Jin came to a stop a few feet away, just beyond a natural distance. He slid his hands in his pockets and regarded Kame with dark eyes. They stood there, looking at each other, for what felt to Kame like a geologic age, until he was compelled to break the silence.
"Ohisashiburi." It's been a while.
Jin smiled faintly. "Hisashiburi. How long, exactly?"
"Three years, two months." Kame's answer was automatic, and he regretted it immediately after - but Jin would have known that was the sort of thing Kame naturally kept track of. He hadn't asked out of politeness.
"It's hot," Kame said, because he had to say something more, "let's not stand out here too long. My car's just behind the station."
Jin nodded and followed Kame through the turnstile (Kame's lowest-fare ticket, solely so he could get onto the platform, had cost 180 yen) out to the tiny rectangle of asphalt. Kame shaded his eyes against the sun, which seemed to ripple, weak and watery, through the humid haze. He felt Jin stop beside him.
Before them, the mountains soared sharply upward, presenting them with jagged walls of green; deep, thick, luxuriant green. It made Kame thirsty to look at them.
He stole a glance at Jin. Jin was looking around slowly, mouth in the shape of a small o. A little corner of Kame was satisfyingly pleased.
"This one's mine," he said, again unnecessarily. There was only one car in the six spaces of the lot, and its sleek silver body looked distinctly out of place against the faded concrete of the station walls.
Jin finally looked away from the mountains as Kame unlocked the door. "Did you drive this here from Tokyo?" he said. The emphasis was, this?
Kame nodded. "Throw your pack in the back, the trunk's full. Yeah, I did. It gets good mileage, actually. And it's air-conditioned."
"It can really handle the roads here?" Jin did as instructed and climbed in.
"So far." Kame shrugged. "They're not that bad, anyway, in the summer. Hold this?"
Jin accepted the plastic bag and settled it on his lap. Kame pulled out of the parking lot, and they headed toward the mountains.
The roads were narrow and quickly steepened. Kame was glad of the excuse to focus on his driving instead of balancing a lopsided conversation. It was odd - Jin was barely taller than Kame, though admittedly broader in the shoulder, but the front of the car seemed cramped with him in it. Kame kept his eyes steady ahead as they sped through long tunnels and past stands of bamboo passing in a green blur.
"I missed the mountains," Jin said abruptly.
Kame started. "What?"
"Where I went," Jin said. "There weren't any mountains. I missed them."
Kame couldn't resist a little smile. "There aren't very many mountains in Tokyo, either."
"Yeah, but - " Jin stopped. Kame could envision his expression without bothering to look over, staring off at nothing with his mouth partway open in a way that would make someone less fortunate look halfwitted. "It's different," Jin said eventually. "Even though it's usually too smoggy to see anything. You know they're there."
"Yeah," said Kame. "I guess so."
"Where was it, anyway?" Kame asked after a few minutes. "The place with no mountains."
There was no answer.
--
Steeply slanted roofs, mimicking the angle of the mountains, flashed by.
"That's Takanomura," Kame felt compelled to say. "It's the closest village, but there's really not much - well, I usually go down to the valley if I need anything."
"It's pretty," Jin said quietly.
The road rose and dipped over a small hill. Jin twisted around in his seat to watch the village disappear. Up ahead, a small fork branched off the main road into a thick grove of trees. Kame slowed and took the turnoff.
Here, the road was not so well-maintained as Kame's earlier remarks indicated. Overhead, the trees grew close together and the road continued to climb as the little car bumped and jostled along, a silver fish in a green river.
"It's not far on this road," Kame said. "Sorry."
"Hm?" Surprise colored Jin's voice. "No, it's fine. It's nothing."
The same question rose on Kame's tongue: Just where were you? Kame swallowed it and pressed his lips together until it hurt.
Another sharp curve, and there, almost hidden in the weeds, was the overgrown drive. Kame knew from experience that the road came to an abrupt end about a kilometer on, where construction had halted when the elections were over and the ruling party moved to pump money into a new region. But the car turned onto the dirt track, wound past a knotted grove of trees, and emerged into a sudden flood of sunlight.
"Here we are," said Kame.
The circle of gravel was in the middle of a small clearing. In front of them, the house rose from the side of the mountain itself, abutted on one side by a mossy green outcropping. Steep eaves jutted down to shelter a balcony overlooking the sloping mountainside, and through the trees beyond there was the barest glimpse of a grassy field. Somewhere, there was the sound of running water.
Jin got out of the car slowly. He said nothing; his expression was eloquent enough.
Kame got out, too, and went to the trunk. With a heave, he lifted out a large, battered cardboard box and rejoined Jin, whose head was tilted back as he gazed around the clearing.
"You can walk down to the village from here," Kame said, nodding at a narrow dirt path disappearing down among the trees. "They told me the road was only built twenty years ago."
"They?" Jin asked as they made their way up to the house.
"The landowners. I'm renting."
"How long have you been out here?"
Kame didn't answer right away.
"A while," he said finally. "I don't remember exactly." He mounted the front steps and balanced the box on one hip so he could open the door. It was never locked.
It was cooler inside - it was cooler outside, even, on the mountain than it had been at the station, but the air still weighed down. Kame dropped the box on the dining table with several muffled thumps as the contents knocked against each other.
"What should I do with this?" he heard from behind him.
Kame turned. Jin was holding up the plastic bag.
"Oh, I'll take that - thanks." Kame took the bag and moved toward the kitchen. He stopped. "Would you like something to drink?"
"If it's not too much trouble," Jin said formally. He slid the rucksack off his shoulders and eased it to the ground gently.
Kame stashed the bag in the refrigerator and withdrew a thermos of cold tea. He heard rustling, and a voice from the other room said, "Pears?"
"They're fresh," he called back. "Summer pears. There was a stand by the road into the valley." He poured two cups of tea and carried them back to Jin, who was looking in the box.
"I didn’t think they’d be in season,” he said.
Kame offered him a cup. They sipped in silence. Jin's eyes were riveted on the big window overlooking the clearing; he appeared to be unaware that his free hand was fiddling with one of his bracelets.
"If you want to put away your stuff I'll show you your room," Kame said, when it seemed Jin wasn't going to pick up his cup again.
Jin started. "What? Oh. Okay." He swung his rucksack up with no apparent effort and followed Kame upstairs.
The room was Western style, light and cool despite the diluted sunlight. A window overlooked the leafy slope. "Please use it however you want," Kame said. "If it's all right with you."
Jin brushed his bangs back. "It's fine. It's good. Thanks."
The silence thickened. Kame looked around the room. It didn't provide any immediate help.
He said, grasping, "How long have you been back?"
Jin shrugged, a roll of his shoulders from one side to the other. "A while." His mouth quirked. "I'm not jetlagged, if that’s what you mean."
"Oh. Okay. Good. Then I guess... you can unpack and rest and I'll make something for dinner? If you like?"
"Sure." Jin bent down and undid the straps of his rucksack. "In a few hours?"
"That should be fine. I'll see you then." Kame backed out of the room. Jin looked up and raised an eyebrow. Kame shook his head and quickly retreated. His cheeks were hot. Jin's afterimage burned in his vision as he went downstairs.
--
"It wasn't necessary for you to know," Kame's manager said, tight-lipped.
"It wasn't necessary? Someone's - " He choked on the word. Swallowed. Wiped a hand across his mouth.
Kame's manager appeared not to notice. "No," he said. "It wasn't." The spot on his chin, red and crusted, seemed to throb. "We were hoping to keep things - quiet. The boy's family doesn't need a fuss."
The air conditioner must have been set too high. Kame's shoulders prickled. He tucked his hands under his arms and set his teeth.
"It's gone slightly beyond our projections," his manager was saying. "We're recalculating. It's unfortunate for Akanishi-kun that he'll have to be involved - "
"What?" Surprise tore the words from his throat too harshly. "Akanishi?"
"He'll have to give evidence and of course then his name will be tied up with the incident in the news. As will KAT-TUN's." Kame's manager tapped a pencil thoughtfully against the papers on his desk.
Kame said, with difficulty, "Why does Akanishi have to - do anything?"
His manager glanced up. "He found the body."
There was a sharp buzzing in Kame's ears. His manager said, "You need to start thinking about your future, Kamenashi-kun."
--
"Itadakimasu."
"Itadakimasu."
It had been a long time since Kame had eaten in total silence; at least, when there was more than one person present.
He had made soumen, traditional enough for the heat. For several minutes it provided convenient white noise, at least, clinks and splashes as they dipped long bunches of threadlike noodles in their sauce bowls.
There wasn't a clock in the room, but Kame swore he could hear one ticking away. There was a weight on the back of his neck. The air felt thick enough he could imagine cutting it like tofu: neat, solid squares to serve with the meal.
His bowl was empty, Jin's nearly so. Kame cleared his throat.
"Is there anything you want to do in particular?" His own voice rang, too loud, in his ears.
Jin's arm jerked and the thread-fine noodles between his chopsticks fell back into the bowl with a soft splash. He scrubbed at the table with a napkin for a minute, head down, before finally answering Kame.
"What is there to do around here?"
"Not much," Kame said with an uncomfortable laugh. "Hike, mostly. Enjoy nature."
Kame thought Jin would laugh, or maybe not laugh but make that particular expression, that little twitch of the mouth and eyebrows that meant, pathetic. He did neither. He simply nodded and asked, "Are there good trails?"
Kame didn't show his surprise. He said, "There's the path down to the village, the one I pointed out, and then there's another one heading up the mountain. There's a shrine somewhere nearby, and another trail out of the village, I think. I have a map...?"
"Could I have a look?"
The map was in the cupboard, or was it upstairs? It was in the cupboard. Jin had cleared away the dishes, and Kame spread it out on the table and tapped it with his index finger.
"This is us - the house. This is the house." He ran the finger from the small star, in pencil, along a tiny dotted line, down to slightly larger black dot. "This is Takanomura. This," - another dotted line - "goes up the mountain, and these," - two lines, darker, out of the village - "cross the little valley and head toward Tsuruyama," - a final single dot, larger than the first. "The shrine is anyone's guess."
"Can I - ?" Kame nodded and Jin slid the map over to where he sat. He leaned his chin on one hand and studied it intently.
Several minutes passed. Kame crossed his legs; recrossed them. Tugged at the hem of his shirt. Leaned an elbow on the table; both elbows; sat back. He reviewed and discarded a dozen observations in rapid succession and glanced over. Jin was staring at a point on the map, frowning; a small furrow had appeared between his eyebrows.
Kame opened his mouth.
Jin folded the map and stood up. Kame closed his mouth. Jin said, "Sorry, I'm still a little tired. I think I should go to sleep early."
"Right," Kame said. "Of course. Do you want the bath...?"
Jin made a face. "In this weather? No thanks, I'll just shower."
"Okay. Down the hall, on the right."
Jin nodded and disappeared. Kame heard the floor upstairs creak, then footsteps coming back down the stairs and down the hall. After a minute, there was the sound of water rumbling through the pipes.
Kame stood up and went to the closet. He balanced in his arms a large, ungainly old microscope, a notebook, and a small box that weighed twice as much as the rest and carried them over to the table. From the box he removed a stack of yellowing envelopes. He picked up the top envelope and extracted a heavy glass slide. Careful to hold it by its edges, he slid it under the microscope lens.
He put his eye to the microscope and squinted, twirling the silvery knob on the side back and forth and back again. After a minute, he moved back and reached for the notebook. He unclipped a pen from the cover, opened the book, and, moving periodically from the notebook to the microscope and back, began to draw.
The water stopped running. Kame replaced the slide in the envelope and set it to the side of the stack. He took the next slide out and placed it under the lens. Footsteps down the hall. Kame reached for his notebook.
A voice said, "Night."
Kame looked up. Jin was standing in the doorway. Tendrils of dark hair clung damply to his temples.
"Good night," said Kame.
Footsteps upstairs again, then silence. Kame bent over the microscope.
--
They had been giving a twenty-four hour warning. The next day the headline blared from every trashy newsstand in the city, wide and nauseating, as the editors no doubt drank themselves into a self-congratulatory stupor.
Kame called Yamapi.
"This is Yamashita."
Kame didn't bother with niceties. "It's Kamenashi. Akanishi won't answer his phone. I've been - worried."
Yamapi let out a short bark of laughter. "You're worried?"
"Yes," Kame said, quietly furious, "of course I'm worried, what do you think I - " He stopped.
He said slowly, "You haven't talked to him either?"
After a minute Yamapi said, "His mother called me to tell me was all right. So, you know, I wouldn't think he'd crashed into a bus or something. He hasn't talked to me - anyone - since he - found - "
Kame drew in a sharp breath.
"They told me he has to testify," he said.
"They told me the same thing." Yamapi's voice was paper-thin, the fragile skin over a churning vortex. With a stinging shock that shouldn't have been, Kame realized Yamapi was exactly as demolished as he was.
"So it's true," he said. "That boy - Shinoda-kun - was - was - "
"Murdered," Yamapi said, and his voice cracked.
Kame's breath was coming too fast. He tried to breathe deeply, deliberately, anything to balance his pounding heart. His throat was clogged with bile. "Before this," he said, "I didn't even know his name."
"Neither did Jin," said Yamapi.
--
For a moment, when Kame woke up, he couldn't remember why all his muscles were tensed.
The memory returned with the force of a bag of wet concrete and he felt his heart slam against his ribs. Just upstairs -
Kame sat up and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The morning was already hot; his sheets were plastered to his legs and scratchy with drying sweat. He took a long, steadying breath and swung himself out of bed.
The kitchen was empty. On the counter, a row of drying dishes gleamed in the light. Next to them was a scrap of paper.
Hiking. Took your map. I hope that's okay. Back by evening.
J
Kame let out a long breath.
He made himself breakfast absentmindedly - too much so; slicing a pear, he saw the bright shock of red before he felt the sting. Wincing by reflex, he held the injured finger under the faucet until it numbed and wrapped the bandage too tightly for comfort.
By the time he finished eating, clumsily, it was past nine o'clock. The sun was already high and white. If anything, the pressure in the air had increased. Kame sat back in his chair and gazed out the window. Some tiny corner of his mind methodically identified the birds speeding past, even as his mind roiled.
His leg was jiggling restlessly. Kame shoved his chair back and opened, again, the cupboard where the microscope and slides were kept.
He crouched down and reached in until his entire arm was swallowed, feeling cautiously among a spiky pile of junk in the very back. His fingers brushed paper. He grasped the envelope, withdrew it, and sat back on his heels.
The shock of Jin's handwriting, stark and black and square, still shot a tiny surge of adrenaline through Kame - though nothing compared to the heart-stopping jolt of seeing it staring up at him as he'd sifted through the mail.
Kame had memorized the brief message within. Kamenashi: I'll be there on the 26th. Akanishi Jin. He didn't bother taking the note out, but sat crouched on his heels looking down at the envelope.
He hadn't expected Jin to say yes.
Kame realized he was frowning and thrust the envelope back in the cupboard. He got to his feet and headed for the bathroom, stopped, turned on his heel, took two steps toward the entryway, stopped, turned again, let out a noise of frustration and went to the bathroom to retrieve a scrubbing brush. He had found, early on, that if his body was exhausted enough his mind would follow.
--
Kame had scrubbed the bath and cleaned the whole kitchen by noon. He ate a couple of rice balls and started again. By mid-afternoon, the floors were spotless and every flat surface gleamed. The heat was worse than the day before; Kame's shirt stuck to his back and sides and sweat ran down his forehead and the back of his neck. It wasn't enough.
There was a pile of old shingles rotting behind the house. For weeks Kame had meant to move them to where they could be carted away, in case any chemicals leached into the stream. The rippling sun beat down on the back of his neck. He bent and straightened and bent again until there was a constant acid twinge in his back, until several plastic garbage bags bulged and he dragged them, inch by inch, to his car.
It was late afternoon when Kame staggered into the house. His neck ached with the effort of holding his head upright. He took a cold shower, laid down on the couch, and fell immediately asleep.
--
He woke up at dusk.
It seemed unusually dark. Kame squinted at his watch, and sat bolt upright. It was nearly seven o'clock. Jin should have been back already.
On cue, he heard the front door open.
The light was on and Kame in the kitchen by the time Jin appeared. Jin's hair was plastered to his forehead and neck in damp curls. His t-shirt was dark with sweat and his hands streaked with dirt; everything about him was loose.
"Was it a good hike?" Kame asked.
Jin nodded. He opened his mouth, then closed it and stretched his arms behind his back, rolling his neck in a slow circle.
"Good," Kame said to the counter. "Why don't you clean up and I'll find something eat?" He risked looking up. Jin was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and frowning.
"I'll help, if you want," Jin said, "when I'm done."
Kame blinked once, twice. "No," he said, "that's all right, I'll be fine - " He realized as he heard the words coming out of his mouth that they were the wrong ones. Jin shrugged, mouth straightening, and disappeared down the hall.
Cold udon. That made some kind of noodles two nights in a row, Kame realized. He looked around the kitchen - not, it was too late to think of anything else.
Jin reappeared, dripping all over the floor, as Kame turned from stacking small dishes on the counter to take the tea from the refrigerator. Wordlessly, Jin took the pile and set them out on the table, two of each, as Kame followed with the wide serving bowl.
Apparently, Jin had no problems with repetitive meals, if the speed with which he shoveled the udon into his mouth was any judge. Kame watched with mild horror and a certain amount of scientific curiosity as the plateful vanished in what seemed to be a matter of seconds.
"So you must have gone the long way," Kame said after Jin paused to swallow most of the glass of tea in one gulp.
Jin paused and looked from his plate to Kame's. He hesitated. "Sorry," he said. "I'm being rude."
"What? Oh, no." Kame was quick to shake his head. "It's fine. Go ahead."
Jin took another, much smaller sip. "It was long," he offered. "I looked around this area for a while, as far as the little meadow out back, then I went down to the village and took the trail up the other mountain. Tsuruyama."
Kame nodded. "That's not easy, is it. You must be in better - in good shape."
Jin raised an eyebrow. Kame felt his face heat. "I mean - " He floundered; he meant exactly what he'd said.
Jin snorted - a laugh, Kame thought, as his shoulders relaxed. "Better than I used to be? Yeah, probably."
Kame chose his next words with the care of one picking footsteps through a minefield. "You must have been working hard while you were gone."
It was interesting, he thought clinically, how one could actually see Jin's face shut down. "Not really," Jin said.
Silence again, brittle and thorned. Kame set his teeth and repeated over and over to himself idiot, idiot, idiot.
"Everyone assumes I wasn't in Japan," Jin said abruptly and viciously. "What if I stayed and didn't tell you? What if I just wanted to forget about all of you?"
Kame took a deep breath. Jin's hits had always been able to strike home in a way no one else's could. "I don't think you could have," he said when he knew his voice would be even. "Stayed. Without someone noticing. They tried to say you had anyway, you know, there were reports about you being sighted all over Tokyo, or in Osaka or the country, after a while."
Jin's eyebrows drew together. "No one told me that," he said.
Kame shrugged. "It was just like the first time."
Jin was still frowning. He propped his elbows on the table and asked, "How did - how did you know they weren't true?"
I didn't want them to be. Kame took two fat, pale noodles between his chopsticks, swirled them in sauce, and sucked them in. They tasted insipid. He set his chopsticks down and rested his hands on his legs.
"I guess I didn't think you could forget anything if you stayed in Tokyo," he said.
As close as they'd come to mentioning it. Kame's arms prickled. He didn't dare look at Jin. He could have sworn he could feel Jin vibrating like a string, holding himself stiff and still and about to snap.
Jin said, in a voice Kame hadn't ever heard before, "You were right."
Kame's palms hurt. He glanced down. His hands were fisted; his nails dug into the flesh of his palms.
"Did it work?" he asked.
Jin let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Sometimes," he said.
A tiny measure of pressure went like a whisper of air from a balloon, just enough to ease away from the breaking point. Kame exhaled and reached, with a hand that barely shook, for his glass. Eyes closed, he took a long, long drink.
When he opened his eyes, Jin was standing up, clearing away his dishes. Kame looked down at his own half-empty plate. He had never noticed how closely the noodles resembled shiny white worms.
He, too, got up and began to clear the table.
Without asking, Jin set his armful in the sink and turned on the faucet. He picked up the long-handled brush and looked around with a tiny frown.
Kame took the dish soap from its cabinet and set it next to the sink.
For a minute there was nothing but the sounds of crockery and running water. Kame ran the dishcloth over the little bowls and placed them back in their cupboards automatically. He was very careful, measuring the distance between them, never to turn or take a step at the wrong time.
He was so determined to concentrate on the gloss of the lacquer, the exact positioning of each plate on top of its fellows, that he missed Jin's shoulders settle, as they always did before he was deliberate. "I've been wondering," Jin said. "How did you end up here? How did you even find this place?"
For just a moment, in a childish fit of retaliation, Kame was tempted to pretend he hadn't heard. But sense won out, and it wasn't as though he hadn't been expecting to hear it eventually. He glanced over at Jin, whose arms were braced against the sink, looking down.
"I was looking for somewhere out of the way," he said. "I got tired."
Jin nodded. Kame couldn't see his face. "Good," he said. "You never did take enough breaks."
The decision was not conscious. Kame sucked in a breath and said, "Actually." He put down the cloth and put his hands in his pockets. "They told me to go somewhere quiet. For a while."
Jin's head came up and he turned around. Kame met his look steadily.
"I found it myself," he said. "I had - there were a lot of offers, of places to stay. But I didn't want to - take advantage of their kindness."
Jin's eyes were very wide and very dark. He started to speak, and stopped. Kame could see the pattern of thoughts flitting across his face like cloud across the sky and, absurdly, almost had to hide a smile.
"I didn't - no one said anything," Jin said finally. "You didn't say anything." - faintly accusatory.
To Kame's surprise, he felt a small laugh bubble up. "It's not the sort of thing you slip into a casual letter," he said.
Jin didn't laugh. Instead he said, "I'm sorry."
"What?" Kame said, and was amazed at how regular his voice sounded.
Jin held his gaze. "I should have - asked about you earlier. Or something." He was frowning again. "I didn't realize."
"No," Kame said. He struggled for breath. "It's fine. Really. I'd rather not."
Jin was leaning back on the counter now, both hands resting on the edge of the sink. He said, "What were you doing last night? With the microscope?"
Kame leaned against the refrigerator himself and crossed his arms. He could feel his heart thump just above his wrist.
"When I got here - " He paused. "I had a lot of time on my hands. At first I was just... sleeping all day, or sitting outside. Then I tried all kinds of things, painting, reading, even haiku -" He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh, but Jin was silent, dark eyes on Kame's face.
"My - the person who said I should come here told me that writing might help but I've never been very good at that. Anyway, I found this box in the store room upstairs. All these slides, and the microscope. At first I was just looking at them because I didn't have anything else to do, but after a while I thought I'd see if I could make my own and match them up and then little by little..." Kame shrugged. "I have a couple old books, you know, birds and flowers. And I've been pressing some specimens, and drawing... my drawing's gotten a lot better, you know." He laughed, again. "I think the next step is to get a better camera."
Jin had not looked away once during this recital. "So you're a... naturalist?"
Kame smiled a little. "Maybe? I guess. An amateur. I know it's strange. I never had any interest in it when I was a kid."
Jin nodded. Kame felt a sudden, heaving swell of exhaustion, the kind he normally associated with strenuous physical activity. He closed his eyes very briefly.
Jin was still watching him when he opened them. Kame couldn't read his expression. "You're tired, too," Jin said. "I'm just going to - " He gestured loosely away from the kitchen.
Kame nodded, maybe too quickly. "Okay. Yeah."
When he heard the creak of Jin's footsteps ascending the staircase, Kame let himself slacken. His knees were trembling. Slowly, he slid down the face of the refrigerator, inch by inch, until he was on the floor with his knees up and his head tucked against them, concentrating on taking one deep breath after another.
Part Two