Gift fic for changetje
Intergroup Gold for changetje
from pot_and_kettle
Title: Two Men and a Wall
Pairings/Groups: Jin/Shige (KAT-TUN+solo/NEWS),
Rating: R flirting with the NC-17 line
Warnings: AU, Shige’s hard life, mentioned het porn (as in the porn that is watched on one’s computer/TV), mentioned slash porn
Summary: It starts with an addiction to porn.
Notes: For changetje for jerainbowbridge 2010! I hope you like it. Title is a head-nod to Man, Woman, and Wall, a Japanese film that is only loosely related to this (or very, depending on how important you consider the wall). Many thanks to L for being on the receiving end of my late night fic flail and betaing. ♥
---
It’s an unseasonably cool day when Shige moves out of his parents’ home into a tiny studio. The walls are dreadfully thin, enough so to clearly hear the rustle of leaves on the trees across the street. One spot of his kitchen counter is warmer than the rest, and the heat can be traced to a patch of wall, presumably where his neighbor has his hot water heater or rice cooker plugged in and perpetually on. It’s clean, the rent is cheap, and Shige knows that he’s getting exactly what he’s paying for.
But he’s independent now, after three years of working and saving while still paying for university, and viewing his apartment through the rose-colored glasses that come with the first taste of freedom, the bare space is home.
At least, it feels that way until eleven o’clock at night, when he’s rudely jerked from the beginnings of sleep by heavy bass and the husky coy murmurs of a female right next to his head.
He freezes, wondering if Americans-for she’s speaking in English-have a penchant for breaking into homes and molesting young Japanese men and if his research into the safety of the neighborhood had been completely incorrect. And then she moans, a man answers her, and Shige realizes that his neighbor is having sex.
Even hiding under the covers with headphones on, Shige can’t shake the feeling of embarrassment.
---
Shige likes routine. He likes to go from classes to work to home on a schedule with only planned deviations-lunch with friends, meetings with his professors, things that can be carefully accounted for and worked into his calendar. When he comes home, he drinks coffee and begins his homework, breaking only for dinner.
It’s disconcerting, then, when he’s quietly drinking coffee and making notes for a research paper for his economics class and there’s a terrible sort of squeal that ends with a breathy “Ah!” like someone is being murdered and enjoys it.
This must be what they call a “screamer.” At least this time it sounds so ridiculous and exaggerated that Shige isn’t turned on at all.
---
His neighbor, Shige thinks, must be a prostitute, one specializing in American women. It’s the only explanation for the amount of sex the other man seems to have at all hours of the day and night.
There’s nothing wrong with being a prostitute (besides the increased risk of disease and assault); everyone needs to earn a living. Shige just wishes that his neighbor could earn it more quietly, and perhaps within a narrower timeframe. He doesn’t enjoy being forced into the role of a voyeur-or-at least-well. He doesn’t deny that listening, imagining, putting visuals to sounds is arousing, to a point. To a point.
Of course, when he hears two men going at it, this time both in Japanese, the point completely disappears, and it’s not until Shige realizes that he’s just come over his notes from today’s management class.
Noise-cancelling headphones. Even if he has to eat less to do it, Shige vows to save up for them (though he can’t help but think the savings fund could be spent far more pleasurably next door).
---
As though the man next door knows Shige’s thoughts, the amount of customers seems to increase, and with it, the amount of tissues that Shige goes through. He refuses to have Koyama, senpai, best friend and supplier of free ramen for years over-because what if (dear God) his neighbor started screwing someone next door?
With a deep sigh, Shige begins to pack his bag as the first strains of a woman’s husky voice penetrate the walls; it’s time to strategically retreat to the nearby internet café. As he looks around for his spare laptop charger (whilst being grateful that at least this time his neighbor isn’t playing obnoxious funk music), his neighbor talks.
“The last one’s tits were better.”
What.
“They’re better than your face,” another man replies. Another man-another-and the girl doesn’t stop moaning. Definitely must be American, one who doesn’t understand Japanese. Shige feels pity for how jaded the other two prostitutes have become (while simultaneously envying the client for her two-for-one special).
“At least she’s a natural blonde,” the first says. “But you’re right, the last one was better.”
The woman stops moaning abruptly. Shige holds his breath.
“Hey, I was finally getting into it,” a third protests.
A third. Wait.
“I’m tired of blondes,” whines the first. “We need something new and exciting.”
“A redhead?” suggests the third, and Shige jumps at the crack of skin on skin: a high five.
“If you put on gay porn again, I swear I will-”
Porn. They’re watching porn.
“-pretend to be really pissed off and insulted to hide your hard-on?” The first interrupts the second.
All this time, his next door neighbor has been watching porn.
“-kill you in your sleep. I have keys, it could happen.”
Porn. He’s been quietly suffering and maintaining the atmosphere for someone’s obsession with porn.
After a belch, the first man scoffs. “I don’t fear your bite-sized rage, Ryo-chan.”
He’d better fear Shige’s.
“He’d definitely bite though,” the third man says thoughtfully.
“You inconsiderate porn-addicted asshole!” Shige shrieks.
There is a moment of horrified (furious), oh-shit-we’re (you’re)-fucked silence.
“You have a neighbor?” One of them whispers as Shige stomps towards his door.
“Don’t answer. Pretend like you’re not here,” another replies frantically (Shige is fairly certain it’s the first).
“I can hear you,” Shige snarls, banging on the door. “Do you know what I’ve been going through the last few months?! I have deadlines, I have papers, I’m a full-time student with a full-time job, and your stupid. Fucking. Addiction-”
The door opens.
“It’s his apartment, his name is Jin, please come in and continue,” a short man (the second voice) says with rather frightening smile, not even giving Shige the chance to refuse as he’s dragged in.
---
The short one, Ryo, seems to think that Shige is the night’s newest form of entertainment, and even though it’s not his apartment, usurps the position of host from Jin, plying Shige with food and drink.
“You’re so quiet, I never thought you were home.” Jin, the first voice, pleads his innocence.
“He needs to watch porn, it’s the muse for half his lyrics.” Yamapi, the third voice and apparent best friend, defends his case.
Ryo and Jin, as it turns out, are members of a band, or a band looking for at least two, preferably three more members (with Yamapi as the manager). It explains the bizarre hours, but it doesn’t really explain the addiction to porn, and Shige points this out.
“Everyone watches porn,” the three of them say in unison.
“No they don’t,” Shige protests.
“Of course they do,” responds Jin. “Don’t you?”
“I-well-no.” Shige mumbles into his bottle of beer.
“I’m keeping him,” Ryo announces to the incredulous silence that follows.
---
Shige has regretted it every single time he’s lost his temper. It’s one of the only times he acts impulsively, completely without regard for the consequences, and it always ends badly. Being “adopted” by Ryo, though, is definitely the worst result by far. It means that despite his best efforts to ignore the other man (and they really are good, until Ryo knocks hard enough to make the walls shake for minutes on end, so that the entire hallway complains and Shige opens the door), Shige can’t.
“Haven’t you ever heard that ‘no’ means ‘no’?” Shige gripes as Ryo drags him (literally) to band practice.
“When you tell Jin that his song sucks, he listens. When I tell him, he thinks I’m being me, which I am, but that’s not the point. Just stay long enough to hear it. I’ll treat you to dinner.”
“You’ll owe me dinner anyway, because he never stops asking about my sex life.”
The questions are only the tip of the iceberg. Jin seems to delight in alternately humiliating and vexing him, whichever is easiest and happens first. The easiest, of course, is the way Jin continues to watch porn.
“You’re purposely leaving it on when you leave your apartment, aren’t you?” Shige finally says.
Jin blinks innocently, or at least, Shige thinks that’s what he’s trying to do. It makes him look more like some kind of farmyard animal.
“I hope your power bill beggars you.” It’s not much of an insult, but voicing it aloud makes Shige feel better until it makes Jin become more hostile. He tries to refuse going out with them, but Yamapi joins Ryo in collectively ignoring the meaning of the word “no,” and it’s hard to refuse their company when he actually likes them.
---
“You need to cut your hair.” When Ryo says that, Shige half-expects the other to whip out the scissors himself.
“It makes your face looks fat-ow.” Jin glares across the table and steals Ryo’s beer.
“I know,” Shige says, because he knows that he’s still young enough that the baby fat hasn’t completely disappeared, and he has a round face anyway. It’s entirely coincidence, and convenience, and the fact that really, the hair salon happens to be right there and cheap. He asks them to chop it off into something edgy.
“You don’t look like a total disgrace anymore,” Ryo says the next day, but Shige has already learned to read him, and smiles at the backhanded compliment.
Jin grunts, and Shige wonders why he feels disappointed.
---
They’re at a club, the first real club that Shige’s ever been to; with Koyama, it’s less about drinking and more about experience. He hadn’t wanted to go, but Yamapi had insisted-Ryo had been too focused on mapping out his Get Laid Gameplan for the night. Somehow (because there is no way their “band” is known well enough yet), Yamapi and Jin have connections, and they hop the line straight into the VIP section.
Yamapi pays attention to Shige at the bar as though to distract him from Ryo’s negligence (though Shige doesn’t mind), making sure he has (more than) enough to drink, that he really doesn’t want to dance, until Shige laughs and pushes the other man off in the general direction of the dance floor. Jin moodily sulks across from him on a couch, watching Shige through narrowed eyes as he mouths at the rim of a bottle of beer.
“He’s my best friend.” The words catch him off-guard, and Shige feels a cold throb of-disappointment? Discomfort? Sobriety?-something in his gut.
He looks at Jin, confused, his happy mood entirely disappearing. “I know.”
---
Sometimes he sings in the shower. He can’t help it. His bathroom is so small and feels so private, Shige sings along with whatever’s playing inside his head.
Loud banging on his door makes the song die in his throat, and Shige finishes rinsing off.
“I know you’re home, Kato,” Jin says.
“Then you know I’m dripping wet in the bathroom,” he replies dryly.
He answers the door still in his towel, and doesn’t even have the chance to take a breath before Jin starts.
“I have a better voice.” Jin’s brow is wrinkled, like he’s concentrating very hard to say it.
“I-I know.” It stings, more than a bit. It’s not as though Shige was singing for anyone. And Jin’s voice isn’t even comparable to his; the vocalist is in another league.
His neighbor is already walking back to his own apartment, but he stops midway, head turned just enough that Shige can see his profile.
“And if you’re going to wander around shirtless, you should work out.”
That makes Shige flinch. “Right,” he whispers, shutting his door.
Shige is aware of his limitations, of his shortcomings-he just wishes that they weren’t so painfully obvious to everyone else; he knows what he can do, what he can do well, and it gives him confidence, knowing that he’ll shine at the right time.
But he wishes that Jin wouldn’t look so angry about his failures.
He wonders when Jin’s opinion started mattering so much.
---
One of the more interesting things about dropping in (he’s been dragged there so much that it feels natural to go when he has nothing to do) on Ryo and Jin’s practices is that Shige can hear all the mistakes Jin makes. Little errors, especially in kanji, but occasionally strange combinations of readings when he sings, or the wrong kanji in written lyrics, will crop up.
“This one,” Shige points, after Ryo hands him papers to proofread.
“I’m not stupid,” Jin scowls.
Shige nods absently, focused on reading. “I know.”
“I hate your attitude,” Jin hisses, grabbing the lyric sheets out of his hands. “It’s always ‘I know.’ I know, I know, I know,” he mimics, voice high and nasal. “You’re not better than me. Your degree isn’t worth anything in this world.”
Shige’s eyes are wide, and his mouth moves without sound. He hates how his lower lip trembles just the slightest bit as it forms an O before he clears his throat.
“I didn’t . . . I meant, ‘I understand,’ ” he says in a hoarse, whispery voice. “I’m sorry.”
He walks away quickly, feeling unreasonably hurt, leaving Jin stands alone in the hall, and hates the twisting of his stomach.
---
It’s not hard to avoid them, at first. Final exams are coming up, he has to finish his paper for graduation, and Shige practically lives in the university library out of necessity.
Of course, after graduation, his excuses run out.
“I need to find a job,” he says when Ryo knocks on his door.
“Bullshit, you’re avoiding us. You still need to eat. You look way too thin.”
Ryo grabs him, just like Shige knew he would, and he’s dragged along to an awkward dinner, where he and Jin say nothing to each other. He doesn’t even look in that general direction, and finally the tension gets to be too much, so he throws down enough to cover his share, and murmurs an excuse.
He purposely chooses a street to walk down that’s far from the cherry blossom viewing crowds, and walks, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
“Oi, Shige.” It’s Yamapi, jogging after him, and Shige slows until the other man catches up.
“I’ve known Jin for a really long time,” he starts by saying, and Shige should feel bad for listening with only half an ear, but he doesn’t.
“He’s terrible at sharing,” Yamapi finally says. “He doesn’t know how to share friends, or beer, and it’s even worse because he’s totally a mooch on top of it, and he’s confused because he likes you.”
“He’s confused because he likes me,” Shige repeats skeptically.
“He’s confused because he doesn’t know if he’s jealous that he has to share you with us, or us with you.”
“He’s confused because he likes me?” Shige yelps and stops walking. It shouldn’t seem like such a surprise, because Jin having the mental maturity of a ten-year-old when it comes to relationships makes sense.
Yamapi looks at him. “I thought you knew about the gay porn.”
“He likes me?”
“You-” Yamapi, uncharacteristically, fidgets, and looks uncomfortable, “-you are gay, right?”
---
“I don’t think we’d suit because you drive me crazy. And you’re way too addicted to porn. And you’re mean.”
“I tentatively accept your feelings on the condition that we date right away so that we can decide that you make me-that we make each other miserable.”
“You’re really-really, really, really-attractive, but your personality is deficient.”
“I kind of want you, but I think that’s mostly because of my unfulfilled prostitute fantasies.”
“Yes, I will go out with you.”
“No, I won’t.”
Shige dutifully tries out each and every response that comes to mind. He hasn’t dated in a while (two years), and because his experience isn’t much (just the one at the end of high school), he really doesn’t know how adult (or “adult,” since it’s Jin) relationships work.
“Let’s try it and see what happens.”
“If you grovel, I might consider it.” He definitely likes that one the best.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Ryo asks from his doorway. “Don’t you ever lock your door? Didn’t anyone teach you about basic personal safety?”
“What prostitute fantasies?” Jin asks, looking just a bit too cocky and sure of himself until Ryo elbows him sharply in the side (“Just like we rehearsed,” Ryo hisses). “I’m sorry I’m an asshole, will you please go out with me?”
“Okay,” Shige says automatically. “Wait, now? For real? Are you really sorry?”
“No take-backs,” Ryo cuts in quickly. “You can’t reverse your decision.”
“Yes,” Jin answers without clarifying further, and smirking-Shige is sure that it’s because Jin knows that it bothers him.
“Of course I move out, start my life as an adult, and get thrown back mentally into primary school,” Shige mutters, closing his door in their faces. “Of course I do.”
---
The first date is terrible. Conversation is stilted and bare and everything they say or ask, they already know about each other.
“We should do this again some time,” Jin says quickly at their doors, brushing a quick kiss across Shige’s lips and slamming the door of his apartment closed before Shige can even ask why or are you serious.
But Jin is, because he texts Shige later the next day.
“Yakiniku?” Shige says in response to the question of what he wants for dinner, because it’s just as easy to walk over and knock on Jin’s door as it is to reply.
“Sure,” Jin replies, looking surprised and pleased as Ryo waves Jin’s phone at Shige from behind Jin’s back.
The date is better. They make out in the hallway until the sound of a door opening sends them racing into their individual apartments.
And they don’t call or text or do anything except exchange idiotic grins, sly winks (Jin), and maybe a bit of blushing (Shige, though he’ll never admit it, not that he has to, because Ryo points it out).
---
“I have to do everything myself,” Ryo gripes at the club after dragging them both out; tonight it’s Yamapi’s turn to prowl the crowd. “Seriously, you two are such girls. I should be getting laid by you two out of gratitude; you can’t even go on a date without me.”
“You’re too short,” Jin sneers, shifting just close enough that his side touches Shige from knee to shoulder on the couch.
Ryo doesn’t stop the commentary until Jin pulls Shige up and towards the dance floor.
“Seriously, you dance like a drunk scarecrow with no rhythm,” Jin laughs, twining his fingers through Shige’s belt loops to pull him closer and direct his movement, but it’s not unkind.
Shige shrugs with a grin, because he knows that it’s true, and goes for his best inviting look (he’s sure it comes off as a drunken leer). “Then why don’t you teach me, Akanishi.”