Warm & Solid - JE - PG
Title: Warm & Solid
Pairing/Group: Yamashita Tomohisa/Akanishi Jin
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 3,781
Notes: Written for suboshiyui for je_holiday 2010. A special thanks for the super-speedy beta by Dani!
Summary: Jin tours America; Yamapi realizes that’s a little bit too far away.
Yamapi thinks Jin is going to be amazingly popular in the US. He's almost excited enough about it for Jin that Jin can ignore the sting of being dropped from KAT-TUN. Jin'd hoped the company would have more confidence in him, even if he's used to the rest of his band's--not his band, have to remember that, not anymore--KAT-TUN's censure.
Jin has all these goals, all the dreams, and he's worked for them. He has. He's lucked into them too, and he's grateful for the opportunities he's getting. Grateful enough to work harder than he ever has before, gamble more than he ever has before, because seeing his dreams come true is worth it, and this is his shot to make them. But,
"When I don't have you warm and solid under my hands, I can't be sure of anything." It slips out like an accident, and, like all accidents, Jin can't take it back.
If Yamapi falters for a moment, Jin can't tell. He's looking, but he can't decide if he wants to find something or if he doesn't; dreams and anxieties pile together until he's not even sure what he wants comfort for. Yamapi's voice is warm and bright, though, his grin no smaller than a moment ago. "Bakanishi," he says, like he's used the nickname every day, and not like reality, which is that he hasn't used it in years. "You're going to be amazing."
Jin grins back, because Yamapi's best smiles have always been contagious. "Am. You mean I am amazing."
*
Life after that is a whirlwind of planning. Translators, and contracts, and the Jimusho staunchly refusing to do anything on anything other than a conditional basis. By the time Jin gets Stateside, he's excited and ready to go, and not nearly as exhausted as he by all rights should be. Booking every new city is like a fight, but it's a fight Jin's ready for, and every successive concert helps his case.
He doesn't think about missing anyone or anything consciously, because he's busy, and because he can't afford to. He calls his mother semi-regularly, family passing the phone around depending on who's home when he gets through. It's a lot more often than when he's in Japan, but she worries if he's overseas, so he makes an effort.
He doesn't think about calling or writing Yamapi; he just does.
*
It’s a lot worse this time, which doesn’t make any sense to Yamapi. They’ve done this before-Yamapi on this side of the ocean, and Jin over on the other, in Los Angeles learning English. This time Jin is touring though, and can’t keep a schedule of staying up to ridiculous hours his time to tell Yamapi good morning, even if he’s exhausted or drunk or whatever. Even if Yamapi had to get up extra early to make it and lied and told Jin he had filming and would have been up anyway.
Sometimes Jin calls after a concert, way into the middle of the night for him, still running high on endorphins even though strike was hours ago. The mix of euphoria and exhaustion is intoxicating, even over the phone. Just hearing Jin’s voice is a little intoxicating, really, like a contact high. Jin doesn’t really call unless he’s too wound up to sleep. The adrenaline makes him reckless and he forgets about things like time differences. Otherwise they mostly just email. Occasionally Yamapi gets a postcard from some city in America he’s never heard of (which is most of them, because he'd never cared before). He sometimes thinks about sending Jin random postcards and omiyage and shit back, but Jin’s been everywhere Yamapi’s going, and if he wanted stuff from Japan, he’d be here.
Instead, Yamapi blames the weird hollow feeling in his head where Jin is supposed to be, just a few train stops away, or in the next dressing room down, on the fact that he’s just broken up with his latest girlfriend. Normally, Jin would be taking him out and getting him trashed, even though Yamapi never really liked this one that much anyway.
We don’t need to do this, Yamapi would tell Jin, even as he shrugged on his coat. I broke up with her, after all.
A break up’s a break up, Jin would reply. Jin wouldn’t bring him back until they both had trouble remembering their names. He’d stay at Yamapi’s overnight, and no one would talk about feelings and they’d both be massively hung over the next day. It was a lousy way of coping-and Yamapi didn’t even really like this one that much anyway, so it was completely unnecessary-but it, well, not helped exactly, but Yamapi always felt better after. Well, apart from the headache and the nausea.
So Yamapi’s just broken up with his latest girlfriend, but Jin’s in America, somewhere ridiculous like not the only two cities Yamapi’s ever bothered getting straight. Ryo’s not the same as Jin at all. He just keeps pointing out that Yamapi broke up with Ai-san, and Yamapi only ever really liked the fact that she packed him a lunch sometimes and that she wasn’t always boring, and that he spent the last three weeks complaining about her nonstop, so he’s really got no reason to be upset. Like sheer repetition will make it stick and make Yamapi stop moping. That’s definitely the reason Yamapi misses Jin so much this time. There isn’t any other good reason, after all-last time was a lot more uncertain, and Yamapi didn’t miss Jin half as much. It’s got to be the break up.
***
"You're still moping," Ryo says, dropping his bag mostly on Yamapi's lap instead of on the couch next to him.
"I am not moping," Yamapi retorts. "I don't have any reason to mope."
"Right, that's why Tegoshi brought you kalbi yesterday, and you gave most of it to Shige."
"Kalbi is no good when you don't grill it with company," he says. "Besides, Shige likes kalbi."
"Shige hates kalbi. Ever since we force-fed him everyone's portion on tour that one time," Ryo tells him.
"Shige didn't have any complaints."
"That's because you're moping, and he didn't want to hurt your feelings. And that should really tell you something. Shige was being nice," Ryo says.
"Shige's only mean to you. It's because you're mean," Yamapi tells him.
Ryo picks up his bag, just to drop it on Yamapi again. It proves Yamapi's point, but he's too busy moping to care.
***
Days stretch out to weeks. Jin is doing well, better than the agency really thought he would. Yamapi is definitely over Ai-san. He doesn't think of her at all, the mingled annoyance and relief and just a touch of loneliness he'd felt at first totally gone. He still feels weird and hollow, but he doesn't have anything to blame it on anymore.
***
It hits Yamapi suddenly, almost out of the blue, while eating cheap ramen in a cheap street shop. It's nothing special, just convenient. It's even actual dinner time, not ridiculously early or late like a good third of all Yamapi's meals are, crammed into the odd spaces between photo shoots and interviews and filming and rehearsals and every other miscellaneous engagement that comes as a part of the job. He's eating by himself, and probably he would be that day, that time in any other life, a quick bite and then off again for a late photo shoot with the rest of his band as the sun goes down. Myojo, maybe. Or Potato. One of those two, he can't even remember.
But he's alone, and the food is cheap and fast, and nothing about the day or the place or the lack of company has any meaning at all; and none of that matters because suddenly Yamapi realizes, he's in love. He's in love, and he's lonely not because he's eating alone, but because Jin's not there, and even if he were at a table full of friends and family he'd still be lonely because Jin's on a concert tour in America and Yamapi can't punch him on the shoulder for being an idiot or call him names for being awesome (because good friends help check egos).
Yamapi will finish dinner and be lonely; and he'll go to his photo shoot, and be lonely; and then he'll go home, and be lonely because it'll be morning for Jin then, and Jin never calls in the morning. He'll be lonely all night, except for when he's writing Jin a stupid email with sixteen cat macros attached to it just to be annoying, and when (if) Jin calls him at ass-fuck in the morning to tell him how the latest concert went and how fans in America sound different than fans in Japan just from the sound of a concert hall.
He's been lonely for weeks, and it has nothing to do with ex-girlfriends or how many pretty people he does or doesn't pick up in clubs.
***
The only reason Yamapi knows where Jin will be in the approximately 31 hours it will take him to get there is because he bribed one of the staff-san who handles tour arrangements from the Japan end of things with nikuman brought from a special supplier Koyama's mom knows. Yamapi's not above pulling the strings he has, even if he has to make a special trip out past Chiba to do it.
November 13th is maybe the longest day of his life, because he gets on a midnight flight in Japan, and when he lands it's nearly 5PM local time. He catches another flight out of Houston, but didn't want to risk missing a 7:30 flight, so he books the 11PM one instead. It gets him in to Houston in the very early hours of the morning, before dawn because it's winter, so it's technically the 14th before Yamapi finds his exhausted way to Jin's hotel.
Yamapi doesn't have any bags because this is an idiot's trip, but it's finally doing him some good because it saves him time getting out of Houston's airport. He's got Jin's hotel written on a post-it note he miraculously didn't lose in the last five wasted hours in LAX, so he gives it straight to the cabby instead of trying to use his non-existent English on no real sleep. The ride takes a little bit more than half an hour, so it's not even seven in the morning by the time the cab pulls up to the hotel.
It's a lot nicer than the kinds of places Jin stayed at last time, when Yamapi went to visit him in Los Angeles and Jin rented a car for them to go see San Francisco and to hit the American beaches, so Yamapi has a significantly harder time talking his way in past the concierge than he thought he would. He tries to string a sentence together in English to explain what he is doing and who he is, but he can't get his tired mind to wrap around the grammar any more than he can get his tongue to wrap around the strange syllables. Instead he does his spiel in Japanese and passes over a business card. It's got Johnny's and Associates as the company under his name (in Japanese). Fortunately he'd gotten Jin's room number when he got the hotel address, so he just keeps repeating that in English, and he thinks the company name matching the one Jin and the rest of his staff are using and all the Japanese are probably what convinces the concierge he's just a part of their group that got a little lost and not an unwashed lunatic stumbling randomly into the hotel lobby.
The clerk looks through a list of names, presumably the names of the members of Jin's concert tour staff, to make sure he's on it.
"Company staff," Yamapi says, pointing at his business card again, then adds, "Visit" (which comes out more like 'bizito') "Room 438."
"Yes, OK, I see that you're staff. 438 is registered only to Mr. Akanishi" (which comes out more like 'aKAneeshee'), "so I can't give you the key to the room, but you can go on up and knock, since you're with his group." Yamapi doesn't understand a third of it, but the concierge isn't looking so intractable anymore, and gestures to the elevators, so Yamapi smiles gratefully and heads up.
Yamapi leans against the doorframe after he knocks. He thinks he can hear Jin falling out of bed and scrambling to get the door, but when the door actually opens, it startles Yamapi awake, and he realizes he'd managed to fall asleep upright. Jin's standing in the doorway with his mouth hanging open. He looks like an idiot, and all of a sudden Yamapi feels eight thousand times better, even if he also still feels like the dictionary definition of exhausted.
"What are you doing here?" Jin asks. "No one's hurt, right?"
"What? No! Everyone's fine," Yamapi answers. "I'm--
"Nevermind then," Jin interrupts."You look like you've forgotten what sleep is. You can tell me later. We've got the room until noon; go get into bed."
Yamapi doesn't need telling twice, and he doesn't even bother taking his sweatshirt off, he just tumbles face-down across the mattress and lets Jin deal with the rest. He's awake long enough to roll when Jin pushes him, and that somehow gets him under covers. At this point, Yamapi would believe in Jin-magic as long as he got to stay in the bed. Jin slides into bed beside him, and Yamapi has just enough time to register the warmth before he's down for the count.
*
Yamapi's by himself when he wakes up at 11:30, and ravenous. He's halfway out of his sweatshirt, like Jin had tried to get it off him in the middle of the night--well, morning. When he was sleeping, whenever that was. Yamapi's not entirely sure with the jetlag--and then had given it up for a lost cause halfway. It takes Yamapi a couple of moments to figure out how to get the rest of the way untangled without getting his arms tangled up inside. There's not enough time to try going back to sleep, and Yamapi's not sure if there's going to be enough time for him to get breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. He does have time for a shower, though, and between Jin's toiletry kit and the hotel's shampoo, Yamapi feels nearly human again by the time he climbs out.
Jin's back in the room, with a brown paper bag from Starbucks that Yamapi fervently hopes is breakfast. It is, and Jin tells him he's got about ten minutes to eat while Yamapi fishes a pair of clean underwear out of his backpack.
"I used your razor," Yamapi says by way of reply, and digs in. Americans have a weird thing for pumpkin flavours. "So why do I only have 10 minutes?"
"Because we have to check out at noon, so that's when the bus is coming to take us and the equipment to the airport. Some of us are on tour, you know. Not being tourists." The last bit is in English, for the pun. Yamapi grins crookedly and smacks at Jin while he finishes inhaling his scone thing. Then the rest of the sentence catches up with him.
"Wait, what? Airport?" he queries.
"Are you telling me you really flew like, 24 hours to come sleep in my hotel bed, and then just stay here in Houston? I refuse to believe you're just using me for cheap lodging, so I did a little bit of embarrassing grovelling and got you a ticket on the plane back to Los Angeles."
"More like 30 hours," he says.
Jin rolls his eyes because that's really not the point. Yamapi laughs.
***
Jin’s concert in L.A. is phenomenal; he feels a little like he’s flying, between the usual performance high and the confidence that comes from feeling like he’s on home turf, a place he knows at least as well as Tokyo and so much better than any of the other places he’s ever toured, either side of the Pacific.
Yamapi refuses to come to the concert venue, not even backstage (“I’m not even supposed to be here,” he’d hissed, “much less anywhere I’ll get seen. Don’t even try to tell me you weren’t planning ways to drag me up on stage.” Jin just laughed and put his hands up, capitulating. He didn’t try to pretend he’d been plotting differently), and so Jin hardly sees him all day.
Yamapi’s awake when he gets back in the evening, finally, finally winding down, ears still ringing from the audience and the bass. Jin pauses in the entryway to the hotel room, caught between the door to the bathroom and the door to the closet, jacket half off. Japan’s colder than L.A. this time of year, but he still wants the jacket, the extra layer somehow comforting.
“I thought you’d be sleeping by now,” Jin says, giving up any attempt to be quiet as he drops his things in a heap by the closet door.
“Jet lag,” Yamapi tells him with a smile. “I was half-asleep all day, and then suddenly around 7 pm I was wide awake. Maybe I should have gone to your concert anyway. I saved you some room service, if you’re hungry and pasta’s okay. We could heat it back up.”
Yamapi hops up to pull the leftovers out of the mini fridge in the corner when Jin nods. There isn’t a proper kitchen, and there are no silverware or dishes, but there is a little counter tucked into the inner wall with a microwave and another sink. It’s probably the nicest hotel room Jin’s ever stayed in for work.
“You ever planning on telling me why you’re here? I mean, not that I don’t want you here, but, like, you’re not having a breakdown or something, right?” Jin says at last, unable to hold on to the question any longer. His tone is light, like he wants it to be, but he’s worried and not entirely convinced it doesn't show through. Yamapi doesn’t go off on flights (figurative or literal) across the world for no reason. He’s always been the relatively responsible half of their duo.
Yamapi won’t look at him suddenly, eyes sliding from his face and over to the food heating in the microwave like the timer running down holds answers to something. Jin holds his breath, dimly aware that he’s doing it, but he doesn’t make any effort not to; he feels like he can’t afford to miss whatever Yamapi’s gearing up to say.
“I, well. You know. I just, you know, wanted to-,” Yamapi says, still resolutely refusing to meet Jin’s eyes. “Well, you know, I broke up with Ai-chan,” he settles on at last, which isn’t really what he wants to say at all, probably, because it makes no sense.
“Yeah, a couple weeks ago,” Jin says back, mouth pursed and brow furrowed, trying to work it out. "I don't really see what that's got to do with anything."
"I broke up with Ai-chan, but that didn't really matter, and, just- I mean, we always go out for drinks after, but you were in America." Jin blinks at Yamapi, lost, but of course Yamapi misses it because he's still resolutely watching the microwave. Yamapi's eyes flick to Jin's face at last, and his tension visibly melts as he rolls his eyes at the confused look Jin's got to be giving him. "I mean I like you, okay? Like dating, like."
To his credit, Jin only goggles at Yamapi for a split second, because, duh. "Well of course you do. I'm eminently love-able. You didn't have to chase me to America to tell me that!"
"Kinda did," Yamapi says. "Couldn't have you do anything stupid like fly back to Japan to tell me how much you love me back in the middle of your solo concert tour."
"Sure, right," Jin scoffs. "Come here and give me a kiss, Mr. Dating-Like." Jin gets the distinct impression that Yamapi is torn between rolling his eyes again, and doing like he says, but the kiss wins out in the end.
It's not perfect or revelatory or world-changing. It doesn't shatter the earth, or shake it apart. It just settles into Jin's bones and makes Yamapi grin like he just got the best present of his life even through the kiss, and Jin has a dazed half-moment where he thinks he doesn't want to ever do anything else again.
Yamapi pulls back a breath and whispers, "You fly me to the moon. America's nothing," against Jin's lips, and kisses him again.
***epi***
"And then, and then he said, 'You fly me to the moon. America's nothing.'" Jin positively crows with delight, while Ryo laughs uproariously through the video Skype connection.
Yamapi pouts and scowls at them both. "You thought that was totally sweet at the time. You practically melted. You sighed my name. Why am I the one being made fun of?
"Your word against his! Your word against his!" Ryo cackles gleefully. He is enjoying this far more than he ought. Yamapi hates his life, and especially hates his friends. He has awful friends.
"I need a new boyfriend," Yamapi tells them both. "My current one is annoying."
"I don't hear you debating that it happened," Ryo points out at the same time Jin says, "Whatever, you love me. You chased me to America to tell me so!"
"I am really changing my mind about that. I'm getting on the next plane back to Japan and I'm going to stop taking any of your calls and you will pine away without me now that you know what you'll be missing."
Jin gets this sly look on his face then, the kind that Yamapi is swiftly figuring out means Jin is going to try to jump him. "Oh really? I will just have to think of something to convince you to stay, then, won't I?" And Jin's voice has dropped an octave, at least, firmly in that shivery, growly territory that makes Yamapi want to jump him first. Jin licks his lips, and there's a liquid grace to his movements as he turns and advances on Pi.
"I am hanging up on you now!" Ryo practically shouts through the computer's speakers. "I don't want to be involved in any of your perverted shenanigans." Yamapi really needs new friends, but he thinks he might keep the boyfriend.
Pairing/Group: Yamashita Tomohisa/Akanishi Jin
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 3,781
Notes: Written for suboshiyui for je_holiday 2010. A special thanks for the super-speedy beta by Dani!
Summary: Jin tours America; Yamapi realizes that’s a little bit too far away.
Yamapi thinks Jin is going to be amazingly popular in the US. He's almost excited enough about it for Jin that Jin can ignore the sting of being dropped from KAT-TUN. Jin'd hoped the company would have more confidence in him, even if he's used to the rest of his band's--not his band, have to remember that, not anymore--KAT-TUN's censure.
Jin has all these goals, all the dreams, and he's worked for them. He has. He's lucked into them too, and he's grateful for the opportunities he's getting. Grateful enough to work harder than he ever has before, gamble more than he ever has before, because seeing his dreams come true is worth it, and this is his shot to make them. But,
"When I don't have you warm and solid under my hands, I can't be sure of anything." It slips out like an accident, and, like all accidents, Jin can't take it back.
If Yamapi falters for a moment, Jin can't tell. He's looking, but he can't decide if he wants to find something or if he doesn't; dreams and anxieties pile together until he's not even sure what he wants comfort for. Yamapi's voice is warm and bright, though, his grin no smaller than a moment ago. "Bakanishi," he says, like he's used the nickname every day, and not like reality, which is that he hasn't used it in years. "You're going to be amazing."
Jin grins back, because Yamapi's best smiles have always been contagious. "Am. You mean I am amazing."
*
Life after that is a whirlwind of planning. Translators, and contracts, and the Jimusho staunchly refusing to do anything on anything other than a conditional basis. By the time Jin gets Stateside, he's excited and ready to go, and not nearly as exhausted as he by all rights should be. Booking every new city is like a fight, but it's a fight Jin's ready for, and every successive concert helps his case.
He doesn't think about missing anyone or anything consciously, because he's busy, and because he can't afford to. He calls his mother semi-regularly, family passing the phone around depending on who's home when he gets through. It's a lot more often than when he's in Japan, but she worries if he's overseas, so he makes an effort.
He doesn't think about calling or writing Yamapi; he just does.
*
It’s a lot worse this time, which doesn’t make any sense to Yamapi. They’ve done this before-Yamapi on this side of the ocean, and Jin over on the other, in Los Angeles learning English. This time Jin is touring though, and can’t keep a schedule of staying up to ridiculous hours his time to tell Yamapi good morning, even if he’s exhausted or drunk or whatever. Even if Yamapi had to get up extra early to make it and lied and told Jin he had filming and would have been up anyway.
Sometimes Jin calls after a concert, way into the middle of the night for him, still running high on endorphins even though strike was hours ago. The mix of euphoria and exhaustion is intoxicating, even over the phone. Just hearing Jin’s voice is a little intoxicating, really, like a contact high. Jin doesn’t really call unless he’s too wound up to sleep. The adrenaline makes him reckless and he forgets about things like time differences. Otherwise they mostly just email. Occasionally Yamapi gets a postcard from some city in America he’s never heard of (which is most of them, because he'd never cared before). He sometimes thinks about sending Jin random postcards and omiyage and shit back, but Jin’s been everywhere Yamapi’s going, and if he wanted stuff from Japan, he’d be here.
Instead, Yamapi blames the weird hollow feeling in his head where Jin is supposed to be, just a few train stops away, or in the next dressing room down, on the fact that he’s just broken up with his latest girlfriend. Normally, Jin would be taking him out and getting him trashed, even though Yamapi never really liked this one that much anyway.
We don’t need to do this, Yamapi would tell Jin, even as he shrugged on his coat. I broke up with her, after all.
A break up’s a break up, Jin would reply. Jin wouldn’t bring him back until they both had trouble remembering their names. He’d stay at Yamapi’s overnight, and no one would talk about feelings and they’d both be massively hung over the next day. It was a lousy way of coping-and Yamapi didn’t even really like this one that much anyway, so it was completely unnecessary-but it, well, not helped exactly, but Yamapi always felt better after. Well, apart from the headache and the nausea.
So Yamapi’s just broken up with his latest girlfriend, but Jin’s in America, somewhere ridiculous like not the only two cities Yamapi’s ever bothered getting straight. Ryo’s not the same as Jin at all. He just keeps pointing out that Yamapi broke up with Ai-san, and Yamapi only ever really liked the fact that she packed him a lunch sometimes and that she wasn’t always boring, and that he spent the last three weeks complaining about her nonstop, so he’s really got no reason to be upset. Like sheer repetition will make it stick and make Yamapi stop moping. That’s definitely the reason Yamapi misses Jin so much this time. There isn’t any other good reason, after all-last time was a lot more uncertain, and Yamapi didn’t miss Jin half as much. It’s got to be the break up.
***
"You're still moping," Ryo says, dropping his bag mostly on Yamapi's lap instead of on the couch next to him.
"I am not moping," Yamapi retorts. "I don't have any reason to mope."
"Right, that's why Tegoshi brought you kalbi yesterday, and you gave most of it to Shige."
"Kalbi is no good when you don't grill it with company," he says. "Besides, Shige likes kalbi."
"Shige hates kalbi. Ever since we force-fed him everyone's portion on tour that one time," Ryo tells him.
"Shige didn't have any complaints."
"That's because you're moping, and he didn't want to hurt your feelings. And that should really tell you something. Shige was being nice," Ryo says.
"Shige's only mean to you. It's because you're mean," Yamapi tells him.
Ryo picks up his bag, just to drop it on Yamapi again. It proves Yamapi's point, but he's too busy moping to care.
***
Days stretch out to weeks. Jin is doing well, better than the agency really thought he would. Yamapi is definitely over Ai-san. He doesn't think of her at all, the mingled annoyance and relief and just a touch of loneliness he'd felt at first totally gone. He still feels weird and hollow, but he doesn't have anything to blame it on anymore.
***
It hits Yamapi suddenly, almost out of the blue, while eating cheap ramen in a cheap street shop. It's nothing special, just convenient. It's even actual dinner time, not ridiculously early or late like a good third of all Yamapi's meals are, crammed into the odd spaces between photo shoots and interviews and filming and rehearsals and every other miscellaneous engagement that comes as a part of the job. He's eating by himself, and probably he would be that day, that time in any other life, a quick bite and then off again for a late photo shoot with the rest of his band as the sun goes down. Myojo, maybe. Or Potato. One of those two, he can't even remember.
But he's alone, and the food is cheap and fast, and nothing about the day or the place or the lack of company has any meaning at all; and none of that matters because suddenly Yamapi realizes, he's in love. He's in love, and he's lonely not because he's eating alone, but because Jin's not there, and even if he were at a table full of friends and family he'd still be lonely because Jin's on a concert tour in America and Yamapi can't punch him on the shoulder for being an idiot or call him names for being awesome (because good friends help check egos).
Yamapi will finish dinner and be lonely; and he'll go to his photo shoot, and be lonely; and then he'll go home, and be lonely because it'll be morning for Jin then, and Jin never calls in the morning. He'll be lonely all night, except for when he's writing Jin a stupid email with sixteen cat macros attached to it just to be annoying, and when (if) Jin calls him at ass-fuck in the morning to tell him how the latest concert went and how fans in America sound different than fans in Japan just from the sound of a concert hall.
He's been lonely for weeks, and it has nothing to do with ex-girlfriends or how many pretty people he does or doesn't pick up in clubs.
***
The only reason Yamapi knows where Jin will be in the approximately 31 hours it will take him to get there is because he bribed one of the staff-san who handles tour arrangements from the Japan end of things with nikuman brought from a special supplier Koyama's mom knows. Yamapi's not above pulling the strings he has, even if he has to make a special trip out past Chiba to do it.
November 13th is maybe the longest day of his life, because he gets on a midnight flight in Japan, and when he lands it's nearly 5PM local time. He catches another flight out of Houston, but didn't want to risk missing a 7:30 flight, so he books the 11PM one instead. It gets him in to Houston in the very early hours of the morning, before dawn because it's winter, so it's technically the 14th before Yamapi finds his exhausted way to Jin's hotel.
Yamapi doesn't have any bags because this is an idiot's trip, but it's finally doing him some good because it saves him time getting out of Houston's airport. He's got Jin's hotel written on a post-it note he miraculously didn't lose in the last five wasted hours in LAX, so he gives it straight to the cabby instead of trying to use his non-existent English on no real sleep. The ride takes a little bit more than half an hour, so it's not even seven in the morning by the time the cab pulls up to the hotel.
It's a lot nicer than the kinds of places Jin stayed at last time, when Yamapi went to visit him in Los Angeles and Jin rented a car for them to go see San Francisco and to hit the American beaches, so Yamapi has a significantly harder time talking his way in past the concierge than he thought he would. He tries to string a sentence together in English to explain what he is doing and who he is, but he can't get his tired mind to wrap around the grammar any more than he can get his tongue to wrap around the strange syllables. Instead he does his spiel in Japanese and passes over a business card. It's got Johnny's and Associates as the company under his name (in Japanese). Fortunately he'd gotten Jin's room number when he got the hotel address, so he just keeps repeating that in English, and he thinks the company name matching the one Jin and the rest of his staff are using and all the Japanese are probably what convinces the concierge he's just a part of their group that got a little lost and not an unwashed lunatic stumbling randomly into the hotel lobby.
The clerk looks through a list of names, presumably the names of the members of Jin's concert tour staff, to make sure he's on it.
"Company staff," Yamapi says, pointing at his business card again, then adds, "Visit" (which comes out more like 'bizito') "Room 438."
"Yes, OK, I see that you're staff. 438 is registered only to Mr. Akanishi" (which comes out more like 'aKAneeshee'), "so I can't give you the key to the room, but you can go on up and knock, since you're with his group." Yamapi doesn't understand a third of it, but the concierge isn't looking so intractable anymore, and gestures to the elevators, so Yamapi smiles gratefully and heads up.
Yamapi leans against the doorframe after he knocks. He thinks he can hear Jin falling out of bed and scrambling to get the door, but when the door actually opens, it startles Yamapi awake, and he realizes he'd managed to fall asleep upright. Jin's standing in the doorway with his mouth hanging open. He looks like an idiot, and all of a sudden Yamapi feels eight thousand times better, even if he also still feels like the dictionary definition of exhausted.
"What are you doing here?" Jin asks. "No one's hurt, right?"
"What? No! Everyone's fine," Yamapi answers. "I'm--
"Nevermind then," Jin interrupts."You look like you've forgotten what sleep is. You can tell me later. We've got the room until noon; go get into bed."
Yamapi doesn't need telling twice, and he doesn't even bother taking his sweatshirt off, he just tumbles face-down across the mattress and lets Jin deal with the rest. He's awake long enough to roll when Jin pushes him, and that somehow gets him under covers. At this point, Yamapi would believe in Jin-magic as long as he got to stay in the bed. Jin slides into bed beside him, and Yamapi has just enough time to register the warmth before he's down for the count.
*
Yamapi's by himself when he wakes up at 11:30, and ravenous. He's halfway out of his sweatshirt, like Jin had tried to get it off him in the middle of the night--well, morning. When he was sleeping, whenever that was. Yamapi's not entirely sure with the jetlag--and then had given it up for a lost cause halfway. It takes Yamapi a couple of moments to figure out how to get the rest of the way untangled without getting his arms tangled up inside. There's not enough time to try going back to sleep, and Yamapi's not sure if there's going to be enough time for him to get breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. He does have time for a shower, though, and between Jin's toiletry kit and the hotel's shampoo, Yamapi feels nearly human again by the time he climbs out.
Jin's back in the room, with a brown paper bag from Starbucks that Yamapi fervently hopes is breakfast. It is, and Jin tells him he's got about ten minutes to eat while Yamapi fishes a pair of clean underwear out of his backpack.
"I used your razor," Yamapi says by way of reply, and digs in. Americans have a weird thing for pumpkin flavours. "So why do I only have 10 minutes?"
"Because we have to check out at noon, so that's when the bus is coming to take us and the equipment to the airport. Some of us are on tour, you know. Not being tourists." The last bit is in English, for the pun. Yamapi grins crookedly and smacks at Jin while he finishes inhaling his scone thing. Then the rest of the sentence catches up with him.
"Wait, what? Airport?" he queries.
"Are you telling me you really flew like, 24 hours to come sleep in my hotel bed, and then just stay here in Houston? I refuse to believe you're just using me for cheap lodging, so I did a little bit of embarrassing grovelling and got you a ticket on the plane back to Los Angeles."
"More like 30 hours," he says.
Jin rolls his eyes because that's really not the point. Yamapi laughs.
***
Jin’s concert in L.A. is phenomenal; he feels a little like he’s flying, between the usual performance high and the confidence that comes from feeling like he’s on home turf, a place he knows at least as well as Tokyo and so much better than any of the other places he’s ever toured, either side of the Pacific.
Yamapi refuses to come to the concert venue, not even backstage (“I’m not even supposed to be here,” he’d hissed, “much less anywhere I’ll get seen. Don’t even try to tell me you weren’t planning ways to drag me up on stage.” Jin just laughed and put his hands up, capitulating. He didn’t try to pretend he’d been plotting differently), and so Jin hardly sees him all day.
Yamapi’s awake when he gets back in the evening, finally, finally winding down, ears still ringing from the audience and the bass. Jin pauses in the entryway to the hotel room, caught between the door to the bathroom and the door to the closet, jacket half off. Japan’s colder than L.A. this time of year, but he still wants the jacket, the extra layer somehow comforting.
“I thought you’d be sleeping by now,” Jin says, giving up any attempt to be quiet as he drops his things in a heap by the closet door.
“Jet lag,” Yamapi tells him with a smile. “I was half-asleep all day, and then suddenly around 7 pm I was wide awake. Maybe I should have gone to your concert anyway. I saved you some room service, if you’re hungry and pasta’s okay. We could heat it back up.”
Yamapi hops up to pull the leftovers out of the mini fridge in the corner when Jin nods. There isn’t a proper kitchen, and there are no silverware or dishes, but there is a little counter tucked into the inner wall with a microwave and another sink. It’s probably the nicest hotel room Jin’s ever stayed in for work.
“You ever planning on telling me why you’re here? I mean, not that I don’t want you here, but, like, you’re not having a breakdown or something, right?” Jin says at last, unable to hold on to the question any longer. His tone is light, like he wants it to be, but he’s worried and not entirely convinced it doesn't show through. Yamapi doesn’t go off on flights (figurative or literal) across the world for no reason. He’s always been the relatively responsible half of their duo.
Yamapi won’t look at him suddenly, eyes sliding from his face and over to the food heating in the microwave like the timer running down holds answers to something. Jin holds his breath, dimly aware that he’s doing it, but he doesn’t make any effort not to; he feels like he can’t afford to miss whatever Yamapi’s gearing up to say.
“I, well. You know. I just, you know, wanted to-,” Yamapi says, still resolutely refusing to meet Jin’s eyes. “Well, you know, I broke up with Ai-chan,” he settles on at last, which isn’t really what he wants to say at all, probably, because it makes no sense.
“Yeah, a couple weeks ago,” Jin says back, mouth pursed and brow furrowed, trying to work it out. "I don't really see what that's got to do with anything."
"I broke up with Ai-chan, but that didn't really matter, and, just- I mean, we always go out for drinks after, but you were in America." Jin blinks at Yamapi, lost, but of course Yamapi misses it because he's still resolutely watching the microwave. Yamapi's eyes flick to Jin's face at last, and his tension visibly melts as he rolls his eyes at the confused look Jin's got to be giving him. "I mean I like you, okay? Like dating, like."
To his credit, Jin only goggles at Yamapi for a split second, because, duh. "Well of course you do. I'm eminently love-able. You didn't have to chase me to America to tell me that!"
"Kinda did," Yamapi says. "Couldn't have you do anything stupid like fly back to Japan to tell me how much you love me back in the middle of your solo concert tour."
"Sure, right," Jin scoffs. "Come here and give me a kiss, Mr. Dating-Like." Jin gets the distinct impression that Yamapi is torn between rolling his eyes again, and doing like he says, but the kiss wins out in the end.
It's not perfect or revelatory or world-changing. It doesn't shatter the earth, or shake it apart. It just settles into Jin's bones and makes Yamapi grin like he just got the best present of his life even through the kiss, and Jin has a dazed half-moment where he thinks he doesn't want to ever do anything else again.
Yamapi pulls back a breath and whispers, "You fly me to the moon. America's nothing," against Jin's lips, and kisses him again.
***epi***
"And then, and then he said, 'You fly me to the moon. America's nothing.'" Jin positively crows with delight, while Ryo laughs uproariously through the video Skype connection.
Yamapi pouts and scowls at them both. "You thought that was totally sweet at the time. You practically melted. You sighed my name. Why am I the one being made fun of?
"Your word against his! Your word against his!" Ryo cackles gleefully. He is enjoying this far more than he ought. Yamapi hates his life, and especially hates his friends. He has awful friends.
"I need a new boyfriend," Yamapi tells them both. "My current one is annoying."
"I don't hear you debating that it happened," Ryo points out at the same time Jin says, "Whatever, you love me. You chased me to America to tell me so!"
"I am really changing my mind about that. I'm getting on the next plane back to Japan and I'm going to stop taking any of your calls and you will pine away without me now that you know what you'll be missing."
Jin gets this sly look on his face then, the kind that Yamapi is swiftly figuring out means Jin is going to try to jump him. "Oh really? I will just have to think of something to convince you to stay, then, won't I?" And Jin's voice has dropped an octave, at least, firmly in that shivery, growly territory that makes Yamapi want to jump him first. Jin licks his lips, and there's a liquid grace to his movements as he turns and advances on Pi.
"I am hanging up on you now!" Ryo practically shouts through the computer's speakers. "I don't want to be involved in any of your perverted shenanigans." Yamapi really needs new friends, but he thinks he might keep the boyfriend.