Circus for a Psycho 16/16
Title: Circus for a Psycho
Author:
joatex
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Supernatural, Romance (maybe....?)
Warning: None...I think... (-_-U)
Disclaimer: No.... the boys aren't mine, sad.... but true (T^T)
Summary: The circus is supposed to be a place of fun and laughter, but not Circo Insanus. On the outside, it appears to be a new, modern-style circus, but on the inside, it harbors a dark, sinister secret, one that has remained hidden for years. But when KAT-TUN goes to take in a show, it ends up going from a night of fun, to a fight for survival.
A/N: Enjoy (n_n)
Previous Chapters: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Chapter 16: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Kazuya's eyes slowly fluttered open and sunlight beat down on him, temporarily blinding him. As his eyes adjusted, he lifted his head up and found he was laying on the cool, green grass beside Jin, his hand touching his. Reflexively, he withdrew his hand and felt his face warm up a bit, despite the coolness in the air. Kazuya glanced back at him.
Jin was out cold, but looked peaceful nonetheless; he didn't looked pained or tormented like he had back in the Nether when he was slowly having his life drained from him. That was when everything caught up with Kazuya. He began looking around at his surroundings, expecting to find charred grass and burned remains of circus tents. Instead, all he found was the large, open field that the circus had been set up in that night.
Kazuya then looked down at himself. His clothes should have been torn, and his skin should have been covered with soot, but he was clean as could be, and his clothes were untouched. "It's all gone….," he said aloud. To his right, Jin grumbled and slowly sat up. "What's gone?" he asked groggily while rubbing the remaining sleep from his eyes. When he stopped, he looked up, and Kazuya saw as the realization hit him just as it had hit him.
There was nothing left to signify that the circus had been there. No tents, no pamphlets, not even an empty bag of cotton candy. "What?…Where did it….," he said, confused, and looked around some more. He then turned and looked to Kazuya, his eyes and face completely serious. "All of that happened last night, right? It wasn't just some kind of dream or hallucination, was it?"
Kazuya could see that this was troubling Jin, and with good reason too. If he had gone through all of what Jin had that night, only to wake up and find that there was no evidence of it even happening, he would have wanted it verified, too. "It happened, and if it didn't and we all hallucinated the whole thing, then we all had the same hallucination," Kazuya said reassuringly.
This answer seemed to provide Jin with some relief, but Kazuya could still tell that he was a bit uneasy. Kazuya turned his gaze away, and when he did, his eyes feel on the unconscious forms of the rest of their friends. Koki, Tatsuya, Maru, and Junno all laid in the same general vicinity, and just like Kazuya and Jin, none of them had any burns or scratches on their clothes or bodies.
"How could it all just disappear like that without leaving anything behind?" Jin muttered under his breath. Kazuya wasn't sure if he meant to say that aloud or not, but he answered him regardless. "Maybe it wasn't even real." Jin turned around and looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "What? Now you don't believe any of this ever happened? You don't believe that some maniac tried to kill me and steal my identity, or that you were almost killed trying to help me?" he asked, appalled.
Kazuya could pick up on the hurt in Jin's voice, and the look of betrayal on his face. He hadn't meant for his statement to come across like it had, and now he felt guilty that it had.
"No, that's not what I meant, Jin," he said carefully, making sure not to trip over his words again, "What I meant was that it was real, but maybe, at the same time, it wasn't. We both know that that circus and the people in it had been around for hundreds of years, living off the life of other people. It was like….Like a shadow, or a shell. All that circus did was hold itself together by strings all these years, and now that the strings have been cut, it just all faded away as time caught up with it…..What I'm getting at is that at some point, that circus stopped being real with time."
Kazuya was hoping he had cleared up his previous statement enough for Jin to understand that he wasn't doubting the fact that they had all come close to dying, and that Kazuya did believe that it all had happened. "I was just trying to explain why it vanished like it did," he added.
Jin nodded and looked out over to where all of the tents had been only hours ago. "Yeah," he said, "I get what you're saying. The circus….It was kind of like a ghost, just lingering about." Kazuya felt a flood of relief wash over him now that he knew that Jin no longer felt like he was alone in the matter.
Kazuya then moved closer to Jin and now sat beside him on the grass. Looking down at his arms, and the pink burns that were almost completely faded away, he told him, "Trust me, I know it was all to real…..I can still feel the shock of those cage bars when I touched them…..I can still smell the smoke as everything caught on fire…..It all happened, and if anyone says otherwise, then they're in denial, or they didn't experience the horrible things that we did."
They remained silent for a moment before Kazuya finally asked the one question that had been gnawing on his mind since he woke up. "Tell me this, though…..Were you really going to kill yourself back there, when Ringmaster had me?" he asked. Jin was silent for what felt like forever. He closed his eyes, sighed heavily, and said, "Yes." Kazuya didn't think that that one little word would have carried so much weight with it.
The weight of that word settled down in the pit of his stomach; Jin was really planning on sacrificing himself to save him. Some people might have been flattered, or even thankful, but for Kazuya, he felt troubled, troubled by the fact that Jin would have ended his own life for his sake. "Why?" he asked softly.
Jin picked at a blade of grass and said calmly, "There was no point in all of us dying, and that's exactly what would have happened if I hadn't done what I did. Ringmaster would have killed you, and he might have killed the others as well. Then he would have gotten rid of me. So, to me, it made more sense for me to die than everyone else that was important to me," he explained.
Kazuya watched as his fingers plucked at grass blade after grass blade. There was a kind of elegance to it, a kind that one wouldn't have expected from such a simple act. "That's not the entire reason you did it though, is it?" he asked. Jin stopped fidgeting with the grass and stared down at the ground beside his hand.
"No, it's not," he admitted. Kazuya simply nodded; he didn't feel as if this was the right time to press things further. He then felt as Jin placed his hand on his shoulder. He gave the slightest tug, a signal that meant for Kazuya to come closer, and he did. Kazuya moved right to his side and rested his head on Jin's shoulder.
"There's going to be a lot more to work out from this than just the fact that we nearly died," Jin told him. Kazuya knew exactly what he was talking about. He had referenced to the one thing that they had discovered that could counteract Ringmaster's magic, which was love. Kazuya fully agreed with him on this.
They would have to sift through and figure out just what to do with their recent information. The first step, though, was figuring out exactly just what version of 'love' that they felt towards each other. Was it the love of a friend? Of a sibling? Of something more?
Kazuya was sure he knew which it was for him, a feeling that he had only recently discovered while trapped in the Nether, but that didn't mean that Jin had the same feeling towards him. He could think differently, not love Kazuya in the same way that he did towards him.
Kazuya wasn't sure how he would handle knowing such a thing. He'd probably go on and put on a smile whenever Jin was around. The sheer thought of it pained him. Kazuya, realizing he had been silent for too long, said, "Yeah, there's going to be a lot the two of us have to sort out before things can ever go back to normal."
+++++++++++++
Jin wasn't going to deny that Kazuya was right, that it would take a while before they could even figure out what normal was again. Not only did their fight for survival that night play a factor into it, but also the fact that there were certain feelings now that had come into the light.
The question was, what kind of feelings were they? Jin was pretty sure about what his were, but he had no idea what Kazuya's might be. Did Kazuya think of him as he did of him now? It almost killed Jin to not know, but he wasn't going to push it. He would let Kazuya decide that for himself, without any interference from him.
This was to be Kazuya's decision. The way they sat now, with his head on Jin's shoulder, could have been interpreted in many different ways. It could have been a comforting gesture between two people that had nearly lost their lives, and strictly just want the close comfort of another person.
Or maybe it was the gesture of two close friends, maybe even more. It killed Jin not knowing which it was. He wanted so desperately to ask him what he thought of the matter, how he felt about it. But he held hit tongue and didn't utter a word about it. Kazuya moved a bit and looked up at him.
"It shouldn't be too difficult or painful though, right?" Kazuya asked, a gentle smile added on to the question for reassurance. Jin smiled back, although he felt that it was more sad than reassured; he hoped Kazuya wouldn't notice this. "Yeah, it shouldn't be, but what I think will be the most difficult is accepting whatever the other person feels," he replied.
Kazuya seemed to let this statement weigh on his mind for a moment. He then said, "Well, it shouldn't be that difficult if the other feels the same, right?" Jin cast his eyes down, avoiding Kazuya's gaze and pretending he had spotted something more interesting, and said, "Yeah, but what if the other doesn't feel the same way? Then what?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw as Kazuya bite down on his lower lip and thought over his question.
There was something about that little gesture, one that he might not even have realized that he was doing, that Jin found to be unique, something that solely belonged to Kazuya. "You have a point," he said after a bit more thinking, "I guess if one doesn't feel the same way as the other, then we just go back to the way things were. I mean, it wasn't until this whole ordeal that either one of us even knew that we had any kind of feelings towards each other."
It was the truth, and Jin wasn't about to deny it. If it hadn't been for Kazuya freeing him and him discovering how he had done it, Jin probably would have gone on with his life as he had before; thinking of Kazuya as a friend. But something about that night and everything that they went through, made Jin realize that he did feel something for him, something that had been there for a long time, but had just never paid any mind to.
Now, that feeling screamed and shouted and begged to be noticed. It had certainly made its presence known, and now it was starting to get deafening. "But the real question is if things ever really could go back to normal," he muttered aloud, which he hadn't meant to. Jin mentally kicked himself for allowing such a slip-up. Kazuya lifted his head from Jin's shoulder and stared at him, his face a mask of confusion.
"You don't think things could go back to how they used to be if we didn't feel the same about each other?" he asked. Jin ran a hand through his hair, which had several pieces of grass in it from where he had been laying on the ground, and said, "No, I don't. Not for me, at least." He removed the last blade of grass from his hair and threw it on the ground, where it blended in. "Why?" Kazuya asked.
Jin took in a deep breath, struggling to find the words he needed, and finally turned to face Kazuya. He said, "Because I don't think I could handle the fact in knowing if you didn't feel the same way. This feeling I have for you now, it won't be quiet. Since back in the Nether, when you helped to free me, it's made sure I know it's there. Even now, it's doing the same thing. I just don't think I could handle having to listen to that for the rest of my life if the feelings weren't mutual. It would drive me crazy."
Silence hung in the air around them, despite the sounds of children screaming and laughing in the nearby park; it was almost like they were in their own little world now. Kazuya placed his hand on Jin's, and he could feel the rough burns on his palms. It was a simple gesture, but it, mixed with the look in his eyes, was loud and clear.
Without any words, it was just like Kazuya was asking, "What do you feel for me? Tell me. Show me. Let me know so I can tell you my own feelings." Jin was taking a chance, going out on a limb, but he knew they would have to cross this bridge sooner or later, so why not now? He leaned in and placed a kiss on Kazuya's lips, and not a second later, he kissed back. When he did, a flood of relief washed over Jin.
Kazuya didn't reject him, he didn't push him away and tell him that wasn't how he felt. Kazuya accepted it and returned his feelings. They broke their kiss and stared at one another in silence for a moment. Kazuya's cheeks were flushed, and Jin could feel heat creeping up on his own face. Kazuya then smiled a smile that reflected the same relief that Jin had felt only moments ago. He, too, couldn't help but grin.
But their small, celebratory moment came to an end when their friends behind them began to stir. Koki sat up, rubbing the back of his neck, and said, "Man, you could have woken us up instead of letting us lay on this hard ground. My back is so messed up right now." Jin grinned and said to him, "Sorry, but you all looked so peaceful, I just couldn't bring myself to disturb you."
Beside him, Kazuya tried to hide his smile. Koki shot Jin a look and grumbled something under his breath. Now standing he looked out to the open field and asked, "Where did the circus go? There should be like, a pile of charcoals now." Junno, who now stood beside Koki, said, "Yeah, there should be something left behind. It doesn't make sense that everything vanished."
Jin raised an eyebrow, "Really? After everything you saw last night, you're really getting analytical about the circus vanishing?" A blush of embarrassment crept up to Junno's ears. "Good point," he said sheepishly. Tatsuya and Maru had both regained consciousness as well. Jin watched as Koki helped them to their feet. "Well," Tatsuya said, "what do we do now? Call the police and report what happened?"
Koki shook his head and told him, "You really think the police will believe any of the things we saw last night? They'd think we're crazy. I say we just leave it be. I mean, that Ringmaster guy is dead, right? That's justice enough, in my opinion."
There was no arguing with Koki's logic, because for once, he was right. The police wouldn't believe their story, even if they showed the cops with filmed evidence of that night. All they could do was go home and resume their lives like nothing happened. Although, that wasn't exactly true for Jin and Kazuya, for something had happened to them, something that the others knew very little about.
Maru brushed grass off his pants and said, "Well, I don't know about any of you guys, but I could really go for something to eat." It didn't take even a second for Koki to agree, and shortly after, Tatsuya and Junno followed suit. Tatsuya turned to Jin and Kazuya and asked them, "Are you guys going to come with us and find someplace to get some breakfast?"
The two glanced at one another for a second, then Jin spoke up and said, "Nah, I think we're good. We'll catch up with you guys at Junno's later, though." Tatsuya shrugged and ran off after Koki, Maru, and Junno. Out of the corner of his eye, Jin caught a glimpse of Kazuya walking towards the field that had housed the circus.
He hurried after him and found that Kazuya had stopped right where the center tent of the circus would have been. Kazuya then looked up at the blindingly blue sky and said, "Who's to say that everything that the circus caused vanished along with it when it went up in flames?"
Jin stood beside him and said, "It didn't." The circus had left behind one thing for both of them; a future together. Their hands and fingers intertwined together as one, a symbol of unity, and they both smiled up at the sky.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A/N: So I suck and between rl, laziness, losing this chapter in my hard drive somewhere a couple of times, and then writer's block when I tried to rewrite it, it's taken this long for me to update the final chapter of this fic. All I can say is sorry. I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter and even if no one reads this I'll be glad that I at least finished it. Hope you all have a great day.
Oh and yes I'm still trying to finish my other fics, I made a promise to myself that I would not drop any fics, and I plan to keep that promise. It might take me some time but it WILL get done. lol (n_n)
Fic List
Author:
joatex
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Supernatural, Romance (maybe....?)
Warning: None...I think... (-_-U)
Disclaimer: No.... the boys aren't mine, sad.... but true (T^T)
Summary: The circus is supposed to be a place of fun and laughter, but not Circo Insanus. On the outside, it appears to be a new, modern-style circus, but on the inside, it harbors a dark, sinister secret, one that has remained hidden for years. But when KAT-TUN goes to take in a show, it ends up going from a night of fun, to a fight for survival.
A/N: Enjoy (n_n)
Previous Chapters: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Chapter 16: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Kazuya's eyes slowly fluttered open and sunlight beat down on him, temporarily blinding him. As his eyes adjusted, he lifted his head up and found he was laying on the cool, green grass beside Jin, his hand touching his. Reflexively, he withdrew his hand and felt his face warm up a bit, despite the coolness in the air. Kazuya glanced back at him.
Jin was out cold, but looked peaceful nonetheless; he didn't looked pained or tormented like he had back in the Nether when he was slowly having his life drained from him. That was when everything caught up with Kazuya. He began looking around at his surroundings, expecting to find charred grass and burned remains of circus tents. Instead, all he found was the large, open field that the circus had been set up in that night.
Kazuya then looked down at himself. His clothes should have been torn, and his skin should have been covered with soot, but he was clean as could be, and his clothes were untouched. "It's all gone….," he said aloud. To his right, Jin grumbled and slowly sat up. "What's gone?" he asked groggily while rubbing the remaining sleep from his eyes. When he stopped, he looked up, and Kazuya saw as the realization hit him just as it had hit him.
There was nothing left to signify that the circus had been there. No tents, no pamphlets, not even an empty bag of cotton candy. "What?…Where did it….," he said, confused, and looked around some more. He then turned and looked to Kazuya, his eyes and face completely serious. "All of that happened last night, right? It wasn't just some kind of dream or hallucination, was it?"
Kazuya could see that this was troubling Jin, and with good reason too. If he had gone through all of what Jin had that night, only to wake up and find that there was no evidence of it even happening, he would have wanted it verified, too. "It happened, and if it didn't and we all hallucinated the whole thing, then we all had the same hallucination," Kazuya said reassuringly.
This answer seemed to provide Jin with some relief, but Kazuya could still tell that he was a bit uneasy. Kazuya turned his gaze away, and when he did, his eyes feel on the unconscious forms of the rest of their friends. Koki, Tatsuya, Maru, and Junno all laid in the same general vicinity, and just like Kazuya and Jin, none of them had any burns or scratches on their clothes or bodies.
"How could it all just disappear like that without leaving anything behind?" Jin muttered under his breath. Kazuya wasn't sure if he meant to say that aloud or not, but he answered him regardless. "Maybe it wasn't even real." Jin turned around and looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "What? Now you don't believe any of this ever happened? You don't believe that some maniac tried to kill me and steal my identity, or that you were almost killed trying to help me?" he asked, appalled.
Kazuya could pick up on the hurt in Jin's voice, and the look of betrayal on his face. He hadn't meant for his statement to come across like it had, and now he felt guilty that it had.
"No, that's not what I meant, Jin," he said carefully, making sure not to trip over his words again, "What I meant was that it was real, but maybe, at the same time, it wasn't. We both know that that circus and the people in it had been around for hundreds of years, living off the life of other people. It was like….Like a shadow, or a shell. All that circus did was hold itself together by strings all these years, and now that the strings have been cut, it just all faded away as time caught up with it…..What I'm getting at is that at some point, that circus stopped being real with time."
Kazuya was hoping he had cleared up his previous statement enough for Jin to understand that he wasn't doubting the fact that they had all come close to dying, and that Kazuya did believe that it all had happened. "I was just trying to explain why it vanished like it did," he added.
Jin nodded and looked out over to where all of the tents had been only hours ago. "Yeah," he said, "I get what you're saying. The circus….It was kind of like a ghost, just lingering about." Kazuya felt a flood of relief wash over him now that he knew that Jin no longer felt like he was alone in the matter.
Kazuya then moved closer to Jin and now sat beside him on the grass. Looking down at his arms, and the pink burns that were almost completely faded away, he told him, "Trust me, I know it was all to real…..I can still feel the shock of those cage bars when I touched them…..I can still smell the smoke as everything caught on fire…..It all happened, and if anyone says otherwise, then they're in denial, or they didn't experience the horrible things that we did."
They remained silent for a moment before Kazuya finally asked the one question that had been gnawing on his mind since he woke up. "Tell me this, though…..Were you really going to kill yourself back there, when Ringmaster had me?" he asked. Jin was silent for what felt like forever. He closed his eyes, sighed heavily, and said, "Yes." Kazuya didn't think that that one little word would have carried so much weight with it.
The weight of that word settled down in the pit of his stomach; Jin was really planning on sacrificing himself to save him. Some people might have been flattered, or even thankful, but for Kazuya, he felt troubled, troubled by the fact that Jin would have ended his own life for his sake. "Why?" he asked softly.
Jin picked at a blade of grass and said calmly, "There was no point in all of us dying, and that's exactly what would have happened if I hadn't done what I did. Ringmaster would have killed you, and he might have killed the others as well. Then he would have gotten rid of me. So, to me, it made more sense for me to die than everyone else that was important to me," he explained.
Kazuya watched as his fingers plucked at grass blade after grass blade. There was a kind of elegance to it, a kind that one wouldn't have expected from such a simple act. "That's not the entire reason you did it though, is it?" he asked. Jin stopped fidgeting with the grass and stared down at the ground beside his hand.
"No, it's not," he admitted. Kazuya simply nodded; he didn't feel as if this was the right time to press things further. He then felt as Jin placed his hand on his shoulder. He gave the slightest tug, a signal that meant for Kazuya to come closer, and he did. Kazuya moved right to his side and rested his head on Jin's shoulder.
"There's going to be a lot more to work out from this than just the fact that we nearly died," Jin told him. Kazuya knew exactly what he was talking about. He had referenced to the one thing that they had discovered that could counteract Ringmaster's magic, which was love. Kazuya fully agreed with him on this.
They would have to sift through and figure out just what to do with their recent information. The first step, though, was figuring out exactly just what version of 'love' that they felt towards each other. Was it the love of a friend? Of a sibling? Of something more?
Kazuya was sure he knew which it was for him, a feeling that he had only recently discovered while trapped in the Nether, but that didn't mean that Jin had the same feeling towards him. He could think differently, not love Kazuya in the same way that he did towards him.
Kazuya wasn't sure how he would handle knowing such a thing. He'd probably go on and put on a smile whenever Jin was around. The sheer thought of it pained him. Kazuya, realizing he had been silent for too long, said, "Yeah, there's going to be a lot the two of us have to sort out before things can ever go back to normal."
+++++++++++++
Jin wasn't going to deny that Kazuya was right, that it would take a while before they could even figure out what normal was again. Not only did their fight for survival that night play a factor into it, but also the fact that there were certain feelings now that had come into the light.
The question was, what kind of feelings were they? Jin was pretty sure about what his were, but he had no idea what Kazuya's might be. Did Kazuya think of him as he did of him now? It almost killed Jin to not know, but he wasn't going to push it. He would let Kazuya decide that for himself, without any interference from him.
This was to be Kazuya's decision. The way they sat now, with his head on Jin's shoulder, could have been interpreted in many different ways. It could have been a comforting gesture between two people that had nearly lost their lives, and strictly just want the close comfort of another person.
Or maybe it was the gesture of two close friends, maybe even more. It killed Jin not knowing which it was. He wanted so desperately to ask him what he thought of the matter, how he felt about it. But he held hit tongue and didn't utter a word about it. Kazuya moved a bit and looked up at him.
"It shouldn't be too difficult or painful though, right?" Kazuya asked, a gentle smile added on to the question for reassurance. Jin smiled back, although he felt that it was more sad than reassured; he hoped Kazuya wouldn't notice this. "Yeah, it shouldn't be, but what I think will be the most difficult is accepting whatever the other person feels," he replied.
Kazuya seemed to let this statement weigh on his mind for a moment. He then said, "Well, it shouldn't be that difficult if the other feels the same, right?" Jin cast his eyes down, avoiding Kazuya's gaze and pretending he had spotted something more interesting, and said, "Yeah, but what if the other doesn't feel the same way? Then what?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw as Kazuya bite down on his lower lip and thought over his question.
There was something about that little gesture, one that he might not even have realized that he was doing, that Jin found to be unique, something that solely belonged to Kazuya. "You have a point," he said after a bit more thinking, "I guess if one doesn't feel the same way as the other, then we just go back to the way things were. I mean, it wasn't until this whole ordeal that either one of us even knew that we had any kind of feelings towards each other."
It was the truth, and Jin wasn't about to deny it. If it hadn't been for Kazuya freeing him and him discovering how he had done it, Jin probably would have gone on with his life as he had before; thinking of Kazuya as a friend. But something about that night and everything that they went through, made Jin realize that he did feel something for him, something that had been there for a long time, but had just never paid any mind to.
Now, that feeling screamed and shouted and begged to be noticed. It had certainly made its presence known, and now it was starting to get deafening. "But the real question is if things ever really could go back to normal," he muttered aloud, which he hadn't meant to. Jin mentally kicked himself for allowing such a slip-up. Kazuya lifted his head from Jin's shoulder and stared at him, his face a mask of confusion.
"You don't think things could go back to how they used to be if we didn't feel the same about each other?" he asked. Jin ran a hand through his hair, which had several pieces of grass in it from where he had been laying on the ground, and said, "No, I don't. Not for me, at least." He removed the last blade of grass from his hair and threw it on the ground, where it blended in. "Why?" Kazuya asked.
Jin took in a deep breath, struggling to find the words he needed, and finally turned to face Kazuya. He said, "Because I don't think I could handle the fact in knowing if you didn't feel the same way. This feeling I have for you now, it won't be quiet. Since back in the Nether, when you helped to free me, it's made sure I know it's there. Even now, it's doing the same thing. I just don't think I could handle having to listen to that for the rest of my life if the feelings weren't mutual. It would drive me crazy."
Silence hung in the air around them, despite the sounds of children screaming and laughing in the nearby park; it was almost like they were in their own little world now. Kazuya placed his hand on Jin's, and he could feel the rough burns on his palms. It was a simple gesture, but it, mixed with the look in his eyes, was loud and clear.
Without any words, it was just like Kazuya was asking, "What do you feel for me? Tell me. Show me. Let me know so I can tell you my own feelings." Jin was taking a chance, going out on a limb, but he knew they would have to cross this bridge sooner or later, so why not now? He leaned in and placed a kiss on Kazuya's lips, and not a second later, he kissed back. When he did, a flood of relief washed over Jin.
Kazuya didn't reject him, he didn't push him away and tell him that wasn't how he felt. Kazuya accepted it and returned his feelings. They broke their kiss and stared at one another in silence for a moment. Kazuya's cheeks were flushed, and Jin could feel heat creeping up on his own face. Kazuya then smiled a smile that reflected the same relief that Jin had felt only moments ago. He, too, couldn't help but grin.
But their small, celebratory moment came to an end when their friends behind them began to stir. Koki sat up, rubbing the back of his neck, and said, "Man, you could have woken us up instead of letting us lay on this hard ground. My back is so messed up right now." Jin grinned and said to him, "Sorry, but you all looked so peaceful, I just couldn't bring myself to disturb you."
Beside him, Kazuya tried to hide his smile. Koki shot Jin a look and grumbled something under his breath. Now standing he looked out to the open field and asked, "Where did the circus go? There should be like, a pile of charcoals now." Junno, who now stood beside Koki, said, "Yeah, there should be something left behind. It doesn't make sense that everything vanished."
Jin raised an eyebrow, "Really? After everything you saw last night, you're really getting analytical about the circus vanishing?" A blush of embarrassment crept up to Junno's ears. "Good point," he said sheepishly. Tatsuya and Maru had both regained consciousness as well. Jin watched as Koki helped them to their feet. "Well," Tatsuya said, "what do we do now? Call the police and report what happened?"
Koki shook his head and told him, "You really think the police will believe any of the things we saw last night? They'd think we're crazy. I say we just leave it be. I mean, that Ringmaster guy is dead, right? That's justice enough, in my opinion."
There was no arguing with Koki's logic, because for once, he was right. The police wouldn't believe their story, even if they showed the cops with filmed evidence of that night. All they could do was go home and resume their lives like nothing happened. Although, that wasn't exactly true for Jin and Kazuya, for something had happened to them, something that the others knew very little about.
Maru brushed grass off his pants and said, "Well, I don't know about any of you guys, but I could really go for something to eat." It didn't take even a second for Koki to agree, and shortly after, Tatsuya and Junno followed suit. Tatsuya turned to Jin and Kazuya and asked them, "Are you guys going to come with us and find someplace to get some breakfast?"
The two glanced at one another for a second, then Jin spoke up and said, "Nah, I think we're good. We'll catch up with you guys at Junno's later, though." Tatsuya shrugged and ran off after Koki, Maru, and Junno. Out of the corner of his eye, Jin caught a glimpse of Kazuya walking towards the field that had housed the circus.
He hurried after him and found that Kazuya had stopped right where the center tent of the circus would have been. Kazuya then looked up at the blindingly blue sky and said, "Who's to say that everything that the circus caused vanished along with it when it went up in flames?"
Jin stood beside him and said, "It didn't." The circus had left behind one thing for both of them; a future together. Their hands and fingers intertwined together as one, a symbol of unity, and they both smiled up at the sky.
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A/N: So I suck and between rl, laziness, losing this chapter in my hard drive somewhere a couple of times, and then writer's block when I tried to rewrite it, it's taken this long for me to update the final chapter of this fic. All I can say is sorry. I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter and even if no one reads this I'll be glad that I at least finished it. Hope you all have a great day.
Oh and yes I'm still trying to finish my other fics, I made a promise to myself that I would not drop any fics, and I plan to keep that promise. It might take me some time but it WILL get done. lol (n_n)
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