A treat for holly_berri
A treat for: holly_berri
Cooked up by: A friendly chef
Title: Bigmouth strikes again
Characters/Groups: KAT-TUN, Jin Akanishi.
Genre: Slice of life
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: “I'm like, not even kidding, there's a monster under my bed!”
Author's Notes: Saki, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks to my wonderful beta for going over this in a flash too.
Bigmouth strikes again
The first one Jin calls is Nakamaru. Of course*. Jin will never risk Ueda coming all the way here just to mock him and do nothing about the low grumbling and creaking under his bed. He’d just gotten this particular piece of furniture, huge and wide but low enough so that neither he (nor any other human being) could get under it. And that was how he knew it was no regular human being under it, munching and chirping when he’d opened his eyes ten minutes ago.
It could only be a monster.
“I'm like, not even kidding, there's a monster under my bed!”
Maru laughs. Of course. But he sighs with a parental condescension and Jin shrinks a little in the doorframe, eyeing the creaking bed and thinking he really would’ve liked to sleep at least until it was past eleven. With everything going on, the end of the movie and the promotions and coming back to music, he almost never has time to sleep in. Yesterday, he’d gone to bed with a huge grin thinking of all the long hours he’ll get to spend in dream land, wrapped in his fluffy duvets because it is the middle of winter and he prefers wrapping himself in covers than turning up the heat.
But there has to be a monster under his bed.
Just. His. Luck.
Jin can swear he can hear the tires turning and the car speeding over the phone, that's how he knows the older man is now driving to his place - if Maru’s calm voice telling him so isn’t enough reassurance. Sadly, he totally overlooked the fact Nakamaru is probably even more of a coward when it comes to reaching for unknown things hidden in dark places. And there is plenty of evidence and footage of that, one click away***.
As soon as Nakamaru sets foot on his room and the first creak reaches his ears, there are long fingers clawing his forearm and Jin’s hopes sink to the floor.
He still pushes Nakamaru into the bedroom.
"Just pull it out!"
"I'm not getting anywhere near that!" shrieks the other, hands clawed on the doorframe.
And they glare at each other, panting a little when Jin manages to throw Maru inside and the other gets back to the door before Jin has successfully locked him in. Another small ruckus echoes behind them and they both yelp, stumbling out of the room in a mess of limbs that manages to throw Jin to the floor when Maru steps on his foot. The door closes with a loud thud that silences the growls.
Maru leans on the closed door. He has the face of a defeated veteran, a strategos searching for the best course of action in the face of these unfortunate circumstances. Finally, he takes a deep sigh and looks at Jin with grave eyes.
Jin gulps.
"We need help."
*Actually, the first one he calls is Pi, but his friend groans and mutters something on his side of the line before Jin is left listening to his loud breathing and realizes his best friend has gone back to sleep. Jin then swears he needs to find himself another best friend, who would’ve understood his distressed call for help**.
**In his defence, Pi recognizes Jin’s shriek on the phone for what it is. And he isn’t about to lose a morning off because something has crawled inside Jin’s apartment.
***Not that Jin stalks all his friends on the Internet, but Maru’s face live had been priceless and Jin had been curious about the recorded version, the grimacing and pouting and lameness of it all. The fact he hadn’t slept that weekend marathoning CTKT had nothing to do with stalking tendencies either.
---
They call Kame.
Or Jin calls Kame and gets hanged up on twice. He is about to start ranting about the youngest being a drama queen and the worst friend and his need of getting over himself when Maru puts a soft hand on the one that’s furiously redialling and tells him to hold on. And then, he calls Kame.
He doesn’t get hanged up on (and Jin glares at his smug half grin).
“Kame-kun, how are you?”
Jin sighs, eyeing his bedroom door while Maru goes back to the living room, explaining things to Kame in that soft lulling voice he always uses to ease them up. Apparently, Maru hasn’t changed a single bit, playing the unappointed intermediary and the fire fighter of the group. Which shouldn’t shock Jin this much; he hasn’t been gone for that long. A year now (two?) is not enough time for it to have made huge changes.
Right.
When Maru clicks his phone shut with a small smile tugging on his lips, Jin scowls and strangles a cushion. Not that it makes any difference because the cushion is still soft and Maru seems to think he’s hugging it. Which he isn’t.
“Kame is coming,” Maru explains. And informs Jin he should keep his temper in check because Kame isn’t in the best of moods. He demanded to know why was he being summoned to Jin’s apartment so early in the morning, which isn't really as early as Kame made it sound, but he still has a point. Jin is about to retort something as bitchy as Maru made Kame sound when Maru’s phone beeps again and he ignores Jin, all big nose smugness and long fingers playing over the keyboard.
“Koki is on his way.”
Jin may be a little shocked by his power of summoning. But he only strangles the cushion into the afterlife.
---
They may have gotten tired of standing guard outside his bedroom and were now sprawled in the hallway, backs halfway leaning on the wall and a deck of cards in disarray between them. The clock ticks past 11AM and Maru demands Jin lend him a sweater, grumbling in annoyance at Jin’s utter refusal to turn up the heat and how the other seems to have enough layers to look actually bulky. “Long hair keeps you warm,” Maru snaps, and Jin would’ve retorted indignantly if he hadn’t been too busy laughing uncontrollably at Maru’s scrunched up nose*.
Maru looks ridiculous, argyle sweater peeking from under the hoodie Jin had thrown at him.
The bell rings then and they both look up. It should be Kame, Jin thinks. And nudges Maru’s knee with his toes to get him to stand up and go get the door, not really in the mood of appeasing a sleep deprived Kamenashi. Not after he’d hanged up on him. Twice.
What he hears after the door opens is not Kame though, but a small ruckus that overrides Maru’s yelp of surprise and then three sets of footsteps rapidly approaching Jin’s small fortress outside his bedroom door. It’s Koki.
With Junno.
A fact hard to ignore when the tall man throws himself through the apartment and into the hallway, stumbling in excitement and scaring Jin enough to recoil against the wall. Jin jumps, startled, and vaguely registers Maru tugging on his arm, but Junno is already in the middle of his legendary “Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguc-“ when an even louder ruckus comes from inside Jin’s bedroom and shushes them all into shocked silence.
The way Junno trips backwards and falls on top of both Maru and Koki is hilarious.
*The fact his nose is extra large makes the gesture more on the hilarious side than the cute that would’ve been if, say, Ueda or Koki - or even Kame, with his bitchy I’m-better-than-thou scrunched up bumpy nose - would’ve made it look. Although Jin has to concede, this scowling Maru has it’s own appeal.
---
With all four of them now in the hallway, it becomes a little too cramped and impossible to move. Junno alone occupies a good chunk of space and, even though he’d be useful if the monster decides to move out of the bedroom and into the rest of the house, it becomes a problem after the third time Koki swears and pushes his feet away from his lap so he can throw in a card.
“We’re getting nothing out of this,” Maru finally says. Jin looks at him in awe, because Maru looks resolute and determined and he’s the first to stand up even if the game hasn’t finished yet. “Let’s go to the living room.”
Junno gathers the cards as Koki scrambles up - and Jin growls at him for kicking his shin in the process -, but they soon relocate to the living room and it is more comfortable than the crowded hallway. By far. Maru looks smug once again as he stretches out in Jin’s armchair. It’s still a mystery when he got that half grin he’s been pulling all morning, but Jin’s mind recalls learning he’s been spending more time with Kame and grimaces. More time with Kame is never a good thing; it always ends in either more lewd or more ironic or even geekier behaviour from those who were over exposed, depending on the subject at hand.
Jin would’ve expected Maru to catch the lameness and not the smugness.
“You’re out of beer!” Koki yells then, pulling him out of his train of thoughts.
Jin snaps his head towards the kitchen, ready to reply he’d just stocked the fridge himself, when he sees Koki’s arms full of cans. Even if he hadn’t, the clinking on the low table from where he laid the icy cold cans tells him his fridge had just been raided. Jin sighs. It is fair compensation for their help. Or rather moral support, because so far no one is doing anything to get the monster out of his room.
That situation needs to change. Soon.
“How are we getting it out?” Jin asks. And his voice sounds like a small whine, but it must have been his drowsiness because it may be almost noon, but he hasn’t slept enough and that tends to show on his mood. “The monster is still there.”
Maru sighs from his place in the armchair, giving him a sidelong glance as Junno extends a can towards Koki. Jin snuggles into the couch and jumps a bit when Koki lets himself fall on it; he probably would have spilled some beer if he didn’t have enough practice ensuring he didn't. Their cans clink, but Jin turns to Maru with the question still on his face. Why Maru? He isn’t sure, but he seems to be running the show so far and Jin is sure the rest of them wouldn’t make a better job of it.
It’s Junno who speaks first, fingers playing with his beer. “How did the monster got in there, Jin-kun?” he asks, innocent voice riddled with curiosity.
He only needs a second to ponder. “I don’t know,” Jin answers honestly, looking at his hands and maybe sinking a bit more into the sofa. “I woke up with the weird creaking and I ran out of my bedroom as soon as-”
Koki snorts. And that’s when Jin realizes they’re all grinning at him and his predicament, especially Junno with that huge bright deceiving grin of his, and Jin wants to throw the cushions at them and smack Junno upside the head. He would have, if they hadn’t been sitting diametrically opposite, and Koki hadn’t started to laugh loudly beside him. It is more embarrassing, actually, when Maru cracks a smirk and Jin feels like strangling a cushion again just because he can’t very well eliminate his rescue team.
Not before the monster is gone.
Koki snickers and leans forward, grabbing another can of beer. The small bump of metal against Jin’s forehead pulls him out of his sulking, but then the rapper drops it on his lap and it’s ice cold against his sweatpants. Jin is about to throw a fit, but the bell rings and their attention switches to the door*.
*Later, Koki’s version would differ greatly from Jin’s. He will tease him about the high pitched shriek he gave when the frozen can dropped on his lap and how he almost fell face first off the sofa when he stumbled up and away from it. Junno and Maru had outright laughed at him and Jin had felt a fierce blush crawling up his face, but he refused to acknowledge it and said he was going for another dry pair of sweatpants. And that was when the bell rang.
---
This time, it is Kame.
With a deeply upset frown. Clearly coming from the baseball field because he has his cap on and his bat peeking from his backpack - although lately he’s started to take the damn wooden thing everywhere with him and that first assertion may be wrong because of that small fact*. His hair is everywhere, flat and dishevelled and still a little damp, and he clearly needs a bit of a shave if he wants to keep his perfect pristine reputation going.
It’s probably his day off.
"It's my day off," he huffs. Jin smirks, and Kame’s deadly glare is directed towards him. The younger one then surveys his sweatpants (because Jin hasn’t changed yet and there’s a huge wet mark in his groin area that looks like anything but the can that was dropped there). Kame sighs heavily and searches for Maru, seemingly disturbed by the image in front of him. He may have done a double take (that is quite amusing) when he spots Maru’s neat argyle sweater underneath Jin’s hideous 2-sizes-2-big hoodie. His voice is laced with something akin to regret and dread when he finally speaks.
"Why am I here?"
Maru smiles at him, in that deceiving calm way of his, and wraps one arm over Kame’s shoulder, and pulls him inside the apartment. Jin fumbles with his sweatpants a bit when Koki nudges him, and Jin only manages to see until Maru chooses to leave the armchair in favour of sharing a sofa with Kame as he explains him their current predicament. From the laundry, where he finds the cleanest pair of sweatpants he can, he listens to the soft hum of Maru’s voice and the murmur of Koki and Junno’s chitchat.
When Jin returns, Kame is not scowling anymore, but he seems vaguely annoyed and strangely amused.
*It got actually a bit scary when they had a meeting with their manager and Kame had appeared with the bat, swinging it casually around with that sleep deprived glossy look he sometimes had after an especially tiring week. Clearly, the manager had thought the worst. The news of the postponement of this year’s lives arrived later that day. Straight to their inboxes.
---
Kame is laying on his couch, which is as long (or short) as he is, Maru sitting beside his legs, and Jin forgets for a second that he doesn’t really have to scowl or be surprised at how at ease they seem to be with each other, not after Kame had openly been trying to glomp and smooch their oldest both on and off camera. He’s heard from Koki and Ueda, and apparently the way in which Kame smiles as he lets his hair be petted by Maru is quite a common sight, if he goes by the lack of reaction from everyone else. Kame looks half asleep; Jin vaguely remembers Pi telling him how petting Kame’s hair was a sure way to put him to sleep (a much needed tactic when he was running at high speed like a beheaded chicken around the dressing room).
Then, Jin’s stomach growls.
Koki smirks. “We need food.”
Junno agrees. And runs to the kitchen, Koki in tow. Only Jin pouts, feeling a little silly when Maru half grins at him and shakes his head. Kame even raises his head from where he’s lying on the cushions, sleepy eyes looking at him from under long lashes and he might have a cushion red mark on his cheek. Jin wants to point at it and mock it.
“Do you even cook, Jin?” Kame mumbles. And his tone of voice is nothing but mocking, even if it’s slurred and comes in cocky bits. As if he were the only person in KAT-TUN with cooking skills.
Jin smirks. “Haven’t you seen my Facebook?” he asks, because obviously Jin had pictures cooking there that were evidence enough of his cooking skills.
Instead, he receives a blank stare.
Maru snorts.
“There’s nothing here!” Koki yells, followed by a, “Only some cheese-looking thing,” from Junno, that isn’t very helpful and it sounds like he’s still half buried inside the fridge.
Kame snorts. Jin is getting kind of annoyed at all the snorting going on around his house.
“I didn’t exactly invite you all for lunch,” he snaps.
“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before dragging us all here,” Kame snaps back as he sits up, now a little less drowsy than he was before, legs drawn up to his chest as he almost kneels beside Maru.
Jin glares. “You cook then.”
“Me?! Why-?”
“Yes, Kame-chan! You cook!” Koki intervenes. Jin almost smiles when Kame goes from snappy angry little man to worried mother hen. Especially when Koki pulls on his sleeve and Kame’s frown looks more pondering than dismissive.
“But-”
“We’d love that,” Maru cuts in. Jin grins now.
Kame shuts his mouth in an instant. Turns to Maru, who is looking at him with a soft half smile, composed as always. Then his eyes travel from Koki to Junno and he ends up glaring at Jin, probably thinking how it’s all Jin’s fault that he’s been somehow tricked into cooking for all of them when he isn’t even hungry himself.
“Fine,” Kame gives in, probably pleased by the little cheers he gets despite the fact he’s trying to frown at them as if he didn’t like being praised and nudged into cooking. He finally cracks a smile when Maru pats him on the back when he stands. “I’ll go buy something then,” he adds, trying to put some order to his still-slightly-damp hair so it doesn’t really look like he’s been lying on a couch. Which does nothing to change the bedhair effect he has at the moment. Kame then extends a hand towards them. “Money?”
Jin is the first to react. “You cheaps-”
“Didn’t you win the MVP, Kame-chan?” Junno asks innocently.
Kame frowns. “Yes, but-”
“Use that then!”
“What?!” Kame’s shriek would’ve been more adequate as a response to an insult and not a simple lunch treat proposal made in Junno’s cheerful voice. “Why shoul-”
“You bought your brothers watches and you can’t buy us lunch?” comes Koki’s indignant question.
Kame frowns again. “They’re my family-”
Collective gasp.
“And we aren’t?!” asks Koki, chest flaring up, and Kame snorts. Jin would’ve believed the hurt in his voice if the rapper hadn’t immediately cracked a smile and messed up Kame’s already fluffy hair.
Kame growls a little, pushing Koki off his back playfully, and gets his coat on his way out, the door closing behind his hurried footsteps with a loud thud. Koki and Junno then turn and grin at Maru, thumbs up at how easy Kame is to manipulate, realization or not on his part. Jin is a little amused and a tad bit jealous he could never really play Kame like that, being on the other side of the spectrum most of the time. Then again, he never had the never-ending energy of Junno and Koki combined on his side either; Kame probably lets them have their way just out of tiredness.
With Kame gone though, there isn’t much to do in the house; at least, nothing that's not related to the monster under Jin’s bed that everyone is so keen on ignoring (and thus they keep on cutting Jin off whenever he even tries to mention it). Jin gives up for the time being and fishes his phone out of his pocket, several blinking red lights greeting him at once, notifications from all the social networks he’s been stocking through time, and decides maybe he’ll do twitter after Facebook even though his email should have a higher priority, but he isn’t really sure he’ll find anything interesting in his inbox. He hasn’t even scrolled past the first bunch of @ mentions when he has to dodge Koki’s hand clawing at his phone and telling him to lay off it. Jin barely manages to scramble to the balcony to check his timeline in peace.
He’s been out here five minutes, maybe less*, when he hears an enraged war cry coming from inside his living room, Junno’s guttural scream -“DIEEEE!”- making him turn an alarmed gaze through the crystal cut glass door.
He peeks just in time to see Maru unplugging the TV and Junno’s pained howl of sorrow.
*Jin can’t really be sure how long he’s been out there, pressing buttons and sending tiny 140-characters messages, because he’s joined in some 5-person conversation he knew he shouldn’t have while he had pressing matters to deal with under his bed. But sometimes his timeline gets talkative. And they have the worst timing in the world.
---
When Kame gets back from the grocery store, he finds quite an awkward atmosphere in the living room. Junno and Koki are sitting on the rug, one glare and one pout directed towards the TV, Maru surveying them both from the armchair. Jin’s back on the balcony and seems clueless to the tense glaring going on inside his apartment. Kame decides to just roll his eyes and walk straight to the kitchen, a sigh clearly saying he doesn’t really want to know.
That was 10 minutes ago. Now though, Junno keeps opening and closing the door of Jin’s bedroom, the ruckus from the corner under the bed growing louder and then diminishing after the loud thud. Without any video games to entertain himself with (something that had been implicitly forbidden after Maru gave them a warning look when Junno tried to plug it in again), he’d taken it upon himself to either amuse or annoy the monster into getting out of Jin’s room. His laughter vibrates from the hallway and Jin pouts, now surer than ever they were not going to get the monster out anytime soon. Koki rolls his eyes, makes another ball out of Jin’s napkins, and huffs.
Then joins Junno in opening and closing the door.
Maru rolls his eyes as well and stands up. Jin’s eyes are on him for a second, but then the other man just looks longingly at the hallway, where Koki’s giggles entwine with Junno’s loud cackles in a symphony of hilarity. Maru’s footsteps pad to the kitchen and he stands in the doorframe, arms crossed over the borrowed oversized hoodie over his argyle sweater, and stares at Kame as he throws together a red and green concoction in a big steaming pot.
"What are you doing?" he asks. Kame barely spares him a glance, finishes throwing the sauce into the pot. Turns to the boiling pasta beside it. “Kame?”
"Spaghetti," the youngest answers. And grabs a wooden large spoon, stirring the sauce for a bit. It’s quite; comfortable. Kame stirring the sauce and not sparing him much attention, Maru watching the wooden utensil in his hand turning and turning and turning-
Until Junno hollers especially loud and they both turn in the general direction of the commotion.
They both sigh. And crack a soft chuckle when they do so in sync. Kame smiles at him, Maru’s form now shadowing over the pots and noticing the oven was also on. He sniffs a bit, gets closer to take a peek. His eyes shine in recognition and he turns to Kame with bright eyes, like a kid that just discovered the secret stash of Christmas presents.
Kame smiles. "I got us some garlic bread,” he whispers, face bright with excitement, and opens the oven door, the delicious smell of butter and garlic filling the kitchen.
He makes sure Jin isn’t looking when he closes the swinging door enough for the aroma not to leak outside the kitchen. Kame grins conspiratorially and hands him a pieces.
Maru grins.
---
Kame’s food is wonderful. Like they all expect, even though no one really tells him straight out in case he’d get too smug and start rambling on how to make the pasta perfect depending on which sauce they were mixing it with*. At first, when Koki and Junno come running and almost tackle Kame to the floor when he and Maru appear with their plates, Jin is sulking on the sofa. He even waits for them to settle before launching into a long rant on how they were all there but no one was taking care of the monster yet.
Kame had been the only one paying him any attention (the food would get cold after all), which is quite clear by his glare, but then Koki hums and Junno praises the spaghetti, and the glare is gone. As it is what little attention Jin’s tantrum has managed to obtain. Kame looks especially satisfied when the frown on Jin’s face turns into a delighted moan. Or he does until Jin grabs his phone once again and ignores the food in favour of furiously tapping on his keyboard.
This time, Jin can’t dodge the hand snatching his phone.
Kame glares and signals his plate, instructing him to keep on eating.
Maru snickers, remembering how several weeks ago, when Kame had been pondering getting a new phone, Jin had offered to teach him about all those apps and trinkets that made smartphones the best things on Earth. By the time he got to explain Kame the wonders of twitter, the younger had growled in annoyance and told Jin he didn’t even need all those things, since he wasn’t planning to ever getting anything other than his current email account. And then, Jin had called him an old man.
It’d been fairly amusing saving Jin from Kame’s bat dropping on his head.
"Kame, give it back!” urges Jin, almost turning over his plate of spaghetti on his haste to get the apparatus back. Koki snorts as Jin launches against the youngest, but Kame only turns his back on him and keeps pressing the keys as if he knows what he’s doing. “I have to reply to Yuu, Kame."
"I can do it," deadpans the youngest, now blocking Jin’s access to the phone with one arm.
Jin claws at his phone, ignoring Koki’s protests at being in the middle of the little brawl. He tries to reason as he twists himself over Kame’s left side in a failed attempt to recover his phone. "But your English is bad."
"Why can't I do it in Japanese?!" asks Kame indignant, and Junno cracks a smile that receives glares from both Jin and Kame. Soon though, Jin is almost all over Kame’s back and Maru doubts Kame is able to write anything with the way he keeps moving the phone so Jin can’t get to it.
Koki moves backwards with a huff and stares longingly at his food.
Jin moans. "It's not- urgh, you smell of garlic-"
Maru snorts, but it’s lost to the sound of Jin’s phone hitting him square on the chest. Koki and Junno blink at the sudden conclusion of their little scuffle, Kame glowering at where the phone drops on the floor. Jin’s out of breath for a moment.
"It's something in Spanish," Kame snaps. And starts to clean up -clearly- annoyed, snatching Junno’s plate even though the other hasn’t even finished yet. Maru laughs, but covers it with a soft cough. There’s no point in fuelling Kame’s moments.
Just as he’s standing to help in the kitchen, a new crash comes from Jin's room and everyone panics.
Jin lowers his phone down and pouts.
“Alright,” Maru sighs, seeing as there’s no more dancing around the main issue anymore. Jin lightens up a bit.
*Junno had made that mistake once, if Maru’s memory wasn’t failing him, a couple of months ago. They’ve been subjected to an extensive course of wine combinations depending on the food they were about to have. And Junno had merely praised Kame about the wine going perfectly with the mushrooms. After that, no culinary praises were directly thrown Kame’s ways in other form than enthusiastic hums and smiles.**
**Maru may have praised him more often though. But Kame only smiles and keeps that knowledge to himself.
---
Kame sighs and takes a peek inside, Junno’s towering form behind him not really needing to make any effort to peek over Kame’s head. They close the door with a silent click and go back to the living room, plopping beside the others on the rug, where they had been discussing possible ways to lure the monster out of his dark corner. Jin’s hopeful eyes turns to Kame, who turns to Junno, who solemnly puts his elbows in the low table and crosses his fingers, thumbs pressed against his chin.
“The monster knocked your lamp over.”
Jin grimaces.
"Alright,” Maru says, and there’s not a trace of doubt in his face. Koki notices the twinkle in both Kame and Jin’s eyes when Maru acts this in control.
“This calls for extreme measures."
Everyone looks back at Maru. Maru turns to Kame. Kame nods.
And fishes his phone out of his pants.
---
The thirty minutes it takes Ueda to get there, they spend leisurely sitting around the small low table in the middle of Jin’s living room, messily dipping their spoons in the chocolate mousse Kame had bought as a dessert because he knew how most of them had a sweet tooth. No one really pointed out it was basically Maru being the one excited about that sweet overdose, especially when Kame had threatened to leave them all without dessert if they kept on complaining.
Ueda eyes them all from the genkan over Jin’s shoulder. Impassive.
Kame hands him a spoon.
Jin intercepts it in a flash. “Monster, first… monster!”
And so Maru grabs a hold of Ueda’s sleeve, pulling him into the hallway under Kame and Jin’s surveying stares. He mutters the whole affair in a couple of lines, but Ueda waves him off, giggles a little, and opens the door in less than five seconds, letting it close behind him with a soft click. There’s a tense silence, and even Junno stops spooning the spongy dessert to turn his attention towards Jin’s bedroom. They all walk closer to where Maru is standing near the door, ears glued to the door, listening intently inside.
Then, a crash. A fall. A strong pull of wood and screech of something against the floor.
And Ueda’s manic guffaw.
Jin turns to Maru who turns to Kame who turns to where Junno is grinning until Koki smacks him upside the head and gets a playful whine in return. They focus again when the doorknob turns, the door slowly opening, silent on its hinges. Ueda’s bright shiny grin meets them then, a small ball of fur snuggling against his chest, where’s he’s holding the sneaky thing so it wouldn’t scramble out and apparently he’s also trying to untwine some kind of cord that was twisted on his little paws. Then, two bright tiny dark eyes peeks at all the heads surrounding it. It screeches.
Koki and Kame attack Ueda, cooing at the little tiny animal, while the older man giggles and laughs and seems not to have any problem at all with his other two bandmates being silly to the sleek tiny baby ferret.
“Quite a scary monster, Jin-kun,” Junno says, so innocently honest that he sounds utterly fake, and Jin punches him. The tall man still laughs.
Jin huffs and stomps back to the living room. “You were all scared of it,” he glowers, and Maru pats him on the back.
---
It’s not really a surprise when Koki decides to adopt the little ferret. None of the others can and they can’t very well leave him out in the city alone when the little guy had randomly (and mysteriously) crawled inside Jin’s apartment for some reason. Never mind animal shelters, Koki doesn’t even consider them an option. And also, he could be Koume-chan’s new little brother and she’ll now have to share her jelly made especially for ferrets and Koki’s personal menagerie will keep on growing. Just like that. Jin wants to mock him and Kame seems to want to protest, but he says nothing and keeps petting the ferret with a small pout that goes away as soon as Maru bumps against his shoulder, cheering him up a little. Kame already has a handful with his dogs.
Ueda cockily smirks from his place, finishing the chocolate dessert on his own as a reward for his valiant intervention.
It feels comfortably normal.
After a while, once Jin isn’t sulking anymore and they’re just sitting around the low table, watching the tiny ferret running over the surface (conveniently devoid of any breakable objects), Jin clears his throat. The way his ex bandmates turn to him at once makes him a bit anxious, a tad nervous. Which is silly, after spending almost all their day off lounging around and coming up with the silliest monster theories and strategies to fight it.
"Well," Jin starts, hands deep in his sweatshirt. It’s quite similar to the one he’s lent Nakamaru, he thinks. "I… have… wine?"
A pause.
(The briefest of them)
"I'll get it," Kame calls. And he has a smile on his face as he stands up, immediately turning to Jin's kitchen while the others roll their eyes, knowing the place Jin keeps his decent liquor stashed.
However, the soft amused smiles don’t leave their faces as Kame returns to the floor again, bottle of wine in hand and cork opener on the other, and Koki's new pet attacks the empty mould of chocolate mousse. Outside, it’s dark already.
But it feels warmer than a winter's night ought to be. Despite Jin’s refusal to turn on the heat.
Fin