A treat for amhrancas
A treat for: amhrancas
Cooked up by: A friendly chef
Title: I dreamed a dream
Characters/Groups: Akanishi Jin, Kato Shigeaki, Shirota Yu, Nishikido Ryo, Yamashita Tomohisa
Genre: Humor
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slight profanity
Summary: With the pressure on to produce new music Jin turns to the least obvious source for help, at least not to himself.
Author's Notes: For amhrancas, this turned out very different than I had initially intended, but I hope you still enjoy it. And an extra special thanks to my beta for being so amazingly kind as to even fix my formatting for me when my computer decided that it hated me.
“Why are we in a cheap liquor store, wearing these ridiculous outfits?”
“Because we don’t have drive-thru liquor stores like they do in America, and you’re out of beer? What’s wrong with our disguises, no one will ever recognize us.”
Jin surveyed the clothes he was wearing, all dark black with a wide-brimmed hat to match.
“I look like Zorro without his mask; which would be cool and all if I were out saving the day and impressing the ladies, but we’re supposed to be hanging out at my place, doing nothing more strenuous than ordering take-out.” He argued, “Besides, you’re a fucking giant, I think people will notice you no matter what you’re wearing.”
Shirota snorted as he picked up a case of beer, “Okay, yeah, but we always get spotted by someone, and at least this way we get to have a little fun with it.” He punctuated his point with a failed attempt at imitating a salsa move and an “Olay!”
Jin laughed and shook his head at the eccentric antics, but chimed in with his own bad attempts at speaking Spanish as he made his way over an aisle to grab a bottle of whiskey.
“Next time let’s bring Ryo; we can try to trick him into dressing like one of the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.”
“Or an Oompa-loompa.”
“Got a sombrero somewhere hidden in your closet? He’s gotten pretty brown lately; if he doesn’t shave I think we could pass him off as Mexican.”
“I’m part Spanish, dumbass, that’s not the same as Mexican. Why the hell would I have a sombrero?”
“Who knows, you have all sorts of weird things. Admit it, I’m a genius.” He flashed a cheeky grin and stuck out his tongue playfully before strutting up to the register as if people normally wore ridiculous costumes to buy a twelve pack.
“Damn, this is nasty. How did they fuck up black, iced coffee?” Jin made a face as he put his cup back on the table, “It’s just coffee and ice, not that hard. I knew we should have gone to Starbucks.”
Shige sipped his own cup of coffee before replying, “Maybe they just confused your order with someone else’s, I’m sure they’ll replace it.”
“If I learned anything in America it’s that you never complain if your order gets screwed up; they spit in your food, and that’s if they’re nice,” He shook his head forlornly.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Servers bustled passed to tend to other customers as an awkward atmosphere surrounded the table. Both men were unsure of how to start a proper conversation without one of their mutual friends around. When the silence had stretched on for too long Shige eventually cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable air..
“Not to be rude, but why did you call me, out of the blue, and invite me to coffee?”
“Everyone I tried first was busy, and you’re usually pretty good company when I crash your drinking adventures with Pi and Ryo, so I figured we could hang for a half hour on our own, yeah? Plus I’ve been meaning to study my English some more, and figured that you could help, since everyone always claims you’re the smart one.”
An amused smile tugged at the corner of Shige’s lips, “Everyone says you’re a flighty man-whore; are you sure you want to go with that argument? Besides, I’m pretty sure your English would be a lot better than mine.”
“Alright, so maybe I just figured you wouldn’t be rude enough to refuse to quiz me on things if I asked, once we were here and already ordered our coffee,” Jin returned the smile, glad that the awkwardness seemed to be diffusing from the situation.
Shige sighed, “Fine, but you could have bought my coffee for me at least then.”
“Next time, I swear.”
Jin threw the pen and note pad he had been holding on the coffee table, narrowly missing the ashtray full of cigarette butts. A groan escaped his lips as he slumped down further on his leather sofa. “Ugh, this is no good. I need something with more substance, mindless bass beats work for my club music, but this song needs to hit the fans from behind, blindside them, knock them off their feet with something new and different, but it still needs to be me. You know?”
“So write it however you’re feeling,” Ryo tossed a crumpled up snack wrapper at him, “turn your thoughts into notes and rifts. It should be easier to write lyrics for it once you have that down, since you’ll know where it’s coming from already.”
“But what if it turns out to be shit?”
“Well then that’d mean that you’re shit, wouldn’t it?”
“Glad to see you have such great confidence in me,” Jin chucked the wrapper back while grumbling.
Ryo simply picked the wrapper up and took it to the kitchen to put in the trash, leaving Jin to stare up at the yellow stained ceiling. When he returned a moment later he carried two cans of beer. Plopping on the couch beside his friend he softly thumped one can against Jin’s temple.
“If you write what you feel, then it doesn’t matter if it’s the biggest piece of shit music in the world. People will like it because it has real meaning."
With a smile, Jin nudged Ryo with his elbow, “Stop trying to be deep and shit, it doesn’t suit you.”
“No need to be jealous just because I make better music than you do.”
Jin elbowed him a bit harder than before, “Oh shut up and help me with the bridge, asshole.”
“Weren’t you playing that earlier?” Ryo reached over to where he had left his guitar on the floor, picked it up, and began strumming a tune.
“Nah, that was just fooling around.”
“Just use that, it sounded better than your usual shit.”
“I keep having the weirdest fucking dreams,” Jin put his phone on speaker and placed it on the countertop so that he could use both hands to better pilfer through his fridge for the left-over pizza that he could have sworn was still in there, “First I’m playing dress-up with Yu, then I’m having coffee with Kato to go over verb tenses in English….”
“You didn’t drink a can of soda before going to sleep again did you; you do remember the last time you did that, right?” Pi’s voice came through fuzzily, but he could still hear the humor in his tone.
“No, and these dreams weren’t as weird as us playing superheroes in a world full of Hello Kitty; that was just disturbing.”
Pi full out laughed at that, “You’re probably just stressed from work. You were supposed to have those lyrics finished last week, and you were told to try and write something that wasn’t about getting drunk or getting laid.”
“Yeah, well, every time I ask someone’s advice on that they just keep telling me to write something that comes from within, or some sappy bullshit.” Giving up on the pizza, Jin grabbed a can of beer and shut the fridge, turning to the cabinet beside it for the half eaten bag of chips instead.
“Maybe this is your subconscious trying to tell you something. Maybe that’s you trying to connect with you to show the fans one of the other sides of you.”
“What, the side of me that’s Zorro?” joked Jin.
“Don’t play dumb with me, it’s not going to work, I know you’re not as stupid as you seem.”
“Way to be encouraging, Pi.”
“Just write the song, okay. There’s plenty for you to write about, other than women and booze. We can go out and celebrate once you’ve finished, it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, alright. Later.”
“Work hard.”
Jin smiled, “Thanks, Pi.”
Taking his chips out to the living room Jin sat down on the floor in front of his coffee table. With a smile and a shake of his head he reached over to pick up his laptop from where it lay askew on the carpet. Opening a new word document he began to type. He might not know exactly what to write, but he felt like it would be a lot easier than it had been before.