Fic for paddyabroad (Part 1 of 4)
Title: Red thread of faith
By: uchikins
Pairing: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya (any other pairings are PURELY platonic bromance fyi).
Rating: NC-17, to be safe.
Genre/Warnings: AU, romance, fluff, fantasy, humour. Warning for sex and the supernatural (spirits).
Prompt (if used): To quote our dear Mark Twain, “watch your chance and hit him with a brick”.
Notes: My prompt can be interpreted differently and my take on it was that someone watches the other, take the chance when it comes and what happens after that hits the other like a brick in the head. O-Ryu is the real God ruling over the Willow trees. Loosely based on this story.
The mentioned Kyoto shrine exists in reality. And for the songs, you can be free to guess which songs I might mean with, for example, “Shuu wo aratameru” (“Begin a new chapter”). “Chiheisen” (“Horizon”) is made up by me, so is many of the other groups. The persons belong to themselves.
Around 40,000 words. Thanks to S, F and C for helping me lots with this fic!!
Summary: In Japan, the common view on the supernatural is that it may exist, but it also may not. Akanishi Jin believed in it as a young boy; now, he’s one of the most popular men in Japan and as a member of the pop group Chiheisen he doesn’t believe in such things anymore. Unbeknownst to him, a special spirit still believes in him and on New Year the spirit gets a chance - he gets one year. Without Jin knowing anything about the deal, the new year starts. And things will never be the same again.
When you grow up, what hunts your imagination are the magic things. You hear about how there are gods up in the sky and gods in the forest; gods in the water and gods in the wind. The spirits are everywhere too and you pay all of them a visit at the shrine, offering a hundred yen to them and bowing.
You sit outside the shrine in the woods, beneath a Willow tree. With a careful hand you pat the bark softly and tell the tree that it won't ever be lonely because you will always be there for it no matter what. It's a small tree, not standing out in any way because it’s so tiny and looks so frail compared to the other trees around. But its branches are stronger than they look like and are reaching out for the sky, trying to touch the blue ceiling above them, while the leaves are falling down on you, giving the lightest caress on your cheek.
There is an image of a turtle, almost as big as your hand, on the Willow trees stem; maybe it’s someone’s hand work, something a person carved in, or maybe it is nature being funny like that. You name the tree “Kame”, fondly patting the stem.
It’s with a smile you tell the tree that one day it will be the greatest Willow tree of them all because no other tree is as beautiful as it is. You are sure the tree is able to hear you, because as the seasons pass and the autumn comes, it is the only tree in the nearby of the shrine that has all its leaves in the deepest colour of gold.
("If you were a human, you would be the prettiest," you confidently say and grin. “A golden heart.”
When you fall asleep with your back against the tree, you dream a dream. You are bathing in the sunlight with someone. It’s a golden sunlight. When you wake up, you can't remember who it was, but you know it's the brightest shining person of them all.)
The years pass by and you forget all about the gods and the spirits around you. The supernatural becomes something you barely remember; it flutters by sometimes as a memory you are very fond of, but you're not able to grasp what it was. The only thing you actually remember is a brightness you've never seen after that one time in your childhood.
But the rest is forgotten.
Because magic and spirits?
They don't exist.
*
As colourful fireworks lit the darkened sky, a woman dressed in a deep red tanzen kimono stepped onto the holy ground, walking beneath the torii and up the stone stairs. Her hair was neatly tied up and although she wasn’t the beauty she once had been in the village, making everyone turn on their heads to look at her, she had aged with dignity. Next to her was a tall man in blue tanzen with white obi, hair cut short and a face that had too many wrinkles, telling about the persistent wind and weather that had marred a young soul old. But he had wrinkles around his eyes that spoke of how many times he had smiled and although he never had been the most handsome in the town, he was standing out in his own way.
As the couple walked their way past the stands selling different wares, all from toshikoshi soba to Daruma-san, two younger men followed them in silence. The Shinto shrine they attended wasn’t popular or well-known, as it was only a local one, but the shrine on the mountain hill was for those who knew about it, one of the most beautiful shrines they had ever seen. Its surroundings were delicately decorated buildings, such as its shamusho, and the garden was a masterpiece of its own, with Willow trees and Sakura trees all around the shrine, blending out in the rest of the forest as if no one knew where the holy ground ended and where the wild began.
On the road along the hill up to the shrine, the older couple and the two men walking behind them met other people - friends, relatives - and they all greeted each other with wishes for a happy new year. One of the two younger men, the one dressed in a grey tanzen, bowed politely to everyone they met along the road with a big smile on his lips. The one next to him stuck out from the crowd, dressed in a hakama, his shoulder-long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. He didn’t do much else than make a light bow to the ones who seemed to know him and his lips were a straight line.
When the four people reached the shrine, passing by the maidens who were taking care of the New Year oracles and selling them, they took up their coins and threw them into the box. Simultaneously they clapped their hands, bowed and prayed for a little while before they clapped again and turned to walk back down the road again.
When the woman in red tanzen asked the young man in hakama what was wrong, the man was sullen in his reply.
“Mom, I could have been at Kohaku Uta Gassen now. Or out with my friends.”
“Son, you’re twenty-five years old,” the older man with the wrinkles said, “and it’s common for people to have their hatsumode with the family.”
“Just because Reio’s still here, you can’t use him against me,” his son in hakama said. “This is so-“
The mother of the family turned around to take a hold of her son’s hand, standing next to the maids’ stand with oracles. “Jin, I know you’re not used to having the first shrine visit with us, you haven’t done it for many years, but remember that this is how we do it. This is where you come from. You grew up here and loved it. You should respect it.”
Her son met his mother’s eyes and it seemed like a moment of guilt washed over him. But the flash in his eyes was gone after a second and he looked away.
“I didn’t say I don’t respect it, did I?” he mumbled and pulled his hand out of his mother’s grip.
She seemed content with his apology, knowing that it was about as much she would ever get in apology from him, and smiled to his brother. If someone was going to recognize them as a family, it would be the plump lips that went from mother to son in the family.
“What do you say, Reio, shall we let him slip away from apologizing properly?”
It was said with such a teasing glint in her eyes that Reio immediately caught on to it and they joked with the other brother as the father bought four oracles for the year from the maids.
The girls tried to hide it but they couldn’t help to sneak a peak ever so often at the handsome man in hakama, standing next to his brother who was almost as good-looking as him but with black hair cut short. Jin noticed them after a while though and ignored them, walking around so he stood with his back to them. He was given his paper sheet from his father and he read it once, then twice, and finally a third time.
“What does your oracle say?” Jin heard Reio’s voice and he shook his head as he looked up.
“Nothing exciting, really, just that I will get bad luck. How about yours?”
“I’m going to succeed with work and find someone to marry. Isn’t that very…” He searched for the word, “… cliché?”
“I think it’s lovely,” their mother decided and their father nodded with an amused smile. “We’re not going to do much, I think, other than that I will make new friends and your father will get promoted.”
“I am going to go and tie this to a tree.”
Jin walked away, leaving his family on the stone road, and disappeared into the darkness between the trees, only lightened up by a few lamps here and there, hanging on branches. Jin continued to walk until he found something he hadn’t been looking for, but Jin couldn’t describe it; it was as if he had been searching for it without knowing so.
It was hidden behind other Willow trees, a place that Jin couldn’t place in his memory other than that he knew he had been there before. The place was shielded from other shrine visitors' eyes and although it was dark outside, Jin’s feet found their way over roots and in between trees, walking on a small path through the woods.
When his feet stopped, like on a command not given by Jin himself, Jin looked up and was stunned. In front of him was a beautiful Willow tree, as taken from one of those nature- and science-magazines Jin never had the willpower to read and merely flipped through to look at the pictures. If Jin didn’t know better, after years and years from hanging out with Ryo and Pi, he would have described the tree has having a shimmery aura. The other trees were peaceful while this tree had a vibrant aura that Jin could feel with every nerve in his body.
Jin’s steps were careful when he walked closer to the tree, lifting his feet high enough to not fall over the roots on the ground. It was with fumbling fingers that Jin tied the bad omen at the root of the tree, wishing for it to not happen.
He sighed. “I don’t want any changes.”
Jin laid his hand on the tree’s stem in silence and felt the engraving of a turtle. It was as if something was trying to tell him something, a voice inside of him, but he shrugged it off. He wasn’t the one to be caught standing there, molesting a tree, so he went back to the rest of his family and tripped very gracefully over roots laying in his way.
*
The paper tied to the Willow tree’s root swayed in a wind, rustling the long branches hanging to the ground.
Your new year will be filled with new experiences. They will be fun and sad; good and bad. You will learn new things and also teach others what you know. You won’t only be the teacher but also the student.
You are going to be scared but as long as you follow your heart, you will find your happiness. Don’t fear changes.
The place where a hand earlier had been resting on the Willow tree’s bark was slowly moving. It wasn’t the tree itself moving but rather the energy it radiated, an energy moving up and down in waves and stopping where Jin’s hand had been and suddenly something moved.
”… Jin?”
Another soft wind rustled the tree’s leaves; a yielded voice called out, low and wondering.
It was silent for a while, before it called out again, but this time the voice was stronger when another name was echoed in the forest.
“O-Ryu-sama!”
There was a great, white light that shone over the tree and it descended to the ground. It wasn’t a person or a thing, but it had an aura that could be felt from all over the forest.
“I heard you, Willow tree,” O-Ryu began speaking to the tree. The tree rustled again and then another light shone, a pink one, and it left the tree.
“Kame,” the Willow tree spirit said. “My name is Kame.”
O-Ryu gave the spirit a wondering look. “Why?”
“Because that’s what Jin named me and that’s my name.”
“What do we have here?” another god’s voice was heard and the Willow tree spirit’s heart almost stopped… if it now would have been able to have a heart.
“Izumi-sama,” he said in deepest respect, “now that you’re here, I would want to ask for both your and O-Ryu-sama’s help.”
“For what?
“To become a human.”
O-Ryu fell silent and Izumi didn’t do anything but examine Kame with her eyes, a smile forming on her lips.
“… Human?” O-Ryu said after a minute. “Why a human?”
Kame didn’t reply and Izumi gave out a snickering kind of laughter, reminding Kame of a murmuring stream.
“I know why,” she said, “I know why I felt drawn to him begin with. I never go anywhere for nothing. He’s in love with the human.”
O-Ryu was silent and then sighed. “My dear… Kame… don’t you know what we say? Spirits and humans can’t be together.”
“Why’s that?” Izumi interrupted. “It’s been done before.”
“Not a real spirit and a human,” O-Ryu said.
“No, but a spirit in human form and a human.”
“… But in their case, it was obvious that the human liked her. He stopped them from killing her.”
“But this Jin must like something about Kame,” Izumi said, “because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t come back to this place so many years afterwards. When humans grow up, they forget everything about us.”
Kame mumbled something that neither of the other spirits could hear and they turned their focus back on him.
“What?” O-Ryu asked.
Kame harrumphed. “Jin didn’t. He maybe doesn’t remember why he came back, but he hasn’t forgotten about me.”
The two gods were silent, thinking about what Kame had said. Then Izumi spoke again; this time the voice was firm and deciding, not leaving any room for disagreement.
“O-Ryu, you know the old tale. It was decided by gods greater than us that if a human loves a spirit and the spirit loves the human back, it is possible for them to be together. Nothing is more important than love. It’s what both the gods and the humans agree on. If Kame loves this Jin, we should let him do what he wants. But we don’t know one hundred percent that the human loves Kame.”
O-Ryu made an agreeing hum. “Kame’s one of my dearest spirits. He’s never asked or complained over anything, even though he was so small when everyone else was big. I know that Kame grew stronger and more beautiful thanks to Jin. But I will not let one of my spirits become a human and regret it for the rest of his life, Izumi.”
“I won’t regret it!” Kame said, forgetting himself for a moment. “I know it!”
“I know that you’re happy now when Jin’s back, but I don’t want to let you become a human and then suffer the rest of your life,” O-Ryu said to Kame. “But… I could give you a year. But since this is love, I can’t take the decision all by myself.”
“Kame,” Izumi said, “if I gave you, with O-Ryu’s permission, one year as a human, would you take it?”
There was no hesitation in Kame’s answer. “I would.”
A light was growing among the Willow trees.
“O-Ryu-sama, Izumi-sama…” Kame said, voice low and filled with gratitude.
“One year, Kame. One year. If he hasn’t told you he loves you until then, you will go back to this Willow tree. New Year to New Year. Don’t forget that.”
“I promise.”
The light grew stronger and stronger; O-Ryu’s light blending together with Izumi’s. Green and blue meshed together and then Kame felt his own light being transformed, a faint pink colour shining brighter and whiter for each second and then it was like lightning flashing through the trees and over the shrine.
Then everything was quiet.
*
January
A bird chirped somewhere in the forest and the digital clock on Jin’s wrist showed ’09:21’ when the car he sat in was turned off where it was parked close to the shrine.
“We’re heading home in half an hour, Pi,” Jin said to a man dressed in stone-washed jeans and a plain t-shirt. “I just want to go here one last time.”
Pi shrugged, zipping up his leather jacket and fixing the cap on his brown-haired head as he stepped out of the car with Jin, who was cuddling into his thick Canada Goose-jacket with a pair of aviator sunglasses perched upon his nose.
“If I wanted to complain, I would have done so earlier when I went up after only two hours of sleep and drove here to get you,” Pi curtly said.
“So you’re not complaining over having to go to a shrine in the morning because your dear friend since ten years wants to go there?”
“It’s my hatsumode, so why should I complain?” Pi asked and walked up to the shrine, visiting it for the first time in the new year. “You should be lucky you weren’t forced as the rest of Johnny’s to appear on NHK or anything else on New Year. It sucked and the after-party was boring as hell. Not even MatsuJun showed up, and we all know how he loves his wine. It had been funnier if you had been there.”
“The paparazzi must’ve missed me too,” Jin muttered, walking next to Pi, and blinked at the sunlight that hit his eyes.
“Be happy they didn’t see you when your father picked you up in Tokyo on the 29th and he had to get your drunk passed-out self into the car. Those pictures could’ve been enough for any paparazzi to be able to retire.”
Jin pouted and then the two men stood in front of the shrine. They threw their coins into it and bowed before clapping their hands in prayer. Again a bird sang from somewhere inside the forest.
A soft breeze, as if from nowhere, swept over the shrine. Jin heard Pi mutter something about it being unusually windy for New Year’s Day. The willow trees swayed in the winds and Jin bowed a last time. He didn’t particularly believe in these things, but there was a feeling inside of him that wanted something to change; he just didn’t know what.
Jin rose up and turned around. There were people behind him and he began walking to the crowd, then there was someone who caught his eyes. It was a man, but one who could be mistaken for a woman, who stood behind the crowd and looked at him. His eyes were sparkling in the early sunlight and he didn’t do anything but stare at Jin. Then Jin blinked, and the man was gone.
*
Others had calm and un-stressful holidays usually. But neither Jin nor Pi’s common work was a job everyone could do, so they both knew their holidays would not ever be normal either.
Jin was happy to have his own car back as he drove it through the city and parked outside a tall, grey building. He stepped out of the black vehicle and saw Pi rolling up next to him before turning the engine off.
They walked together to the building but just as Jin was about to open his mouth, Pi beat him to it.
“Don’t complain having work on the second day of January. I had go up early yesterday to come and pick you up as the best friend I am who read your mail,” Pi said to Jin as they pushed the back door to the Johnny’s building open. “And if you are going to whine about me being in Tokyo during New Year and you not, I am not going to let you try my new Playstation game,” he added before Jin could open his mouth.
Jin kept silent. He and Pi never were in dire need of constant chit-chat and especially not after a night which Jin had spent drinking and writing lyrics. Composing new songs took energy from Jin he didn’t know he was able to lose; a piece of his soul was ripped out and he used the sharp part of it to carve his thoughts into words. But although he wrote with his soul, he never felt like he could get everything down.
“But Pi, you should read the song I wrote yesterday,” Jin said and followed his group member through the corridors and up an elevator.
“Okay, what’s it about?” Pi asked and walked out on the sixth floor.
“The paparats,” Jin said and took off his black Canada Goose. “Annoying shit.”
Before Pi could open a door labelled ‘Chiheisen, 603’, it swung open. “You mean those vultures you feed every so often?”
Jin glared at the short dark-haired man with a Cheshire cat grin in front of him.
“Hi, Ryo, happy New Year to you too,” Jin said sourly and Ryo snorted.
“Stop being so grumpy, Jinnie boy,” Ryo said with a happy tone that Jin knew Ryo used just because he could get on Jin’s nerves with it.
Being best friends with Pi and Ryo had its pros and cons, and sometimes the cons, like them knowing exactly which buttons to press to get Jin annoyed but not close to throwing stuff yet, weighed over.
“I hate you,” Jin announced and walked over to his chair in front of the mirror. “Your head looks like a penis in that haircut.”
Ryo rolled his eyes and made a high-five with Pi, who looked around in the room.
“No Tat-chan here yet?”
Ryo shook his head. “Nope, he’s busy with Blue-Waves. Texted him earlier and he said he’ll be here in time. He was surprised over this sudden conference too but he said he would make sure to be here in time.”
“Well,” Pi said, “the press conference isn’t until 1PM and he’s our Tat-chan. He’ll be here. If it had been Jin, he would rather have lunch and be late instead of being on time.”
Jin ignored the both men behind him and stared into the make-up mirror, switching between doing that and flipping his cell-phone open, until a whistle was heard and the door to room 503 was opened.
It was the group’s stylists and make-up artists, all men wearing name-tags, and the earlier silence was disturbed with a scrambling as a hip-hop guy and a man in bright coloured patterns pulled a rolling stand with clothes on over the door step. In their steps two tall men walked; both of them with dark brown hair to the shoulders but where one of them had an indifferent expression on his face, the other had a wide Pepsodent white smile.
Pi immediately got engrossed in a conversation with the stylists about the suits hanging on the stand and the man with a bored face walked to the chair Ryo sat in, greeting him with a nod before unpacking his make-up kit.
“Did you have a nice holiday?” Jin’s favourite make-up artist, a man by the name of Taguchi Junnosuke, asked with his trademark smile. “I heard you spent it with your family.”
He took Jin’s long dark bangs in his hands and tied them up in a bun on the back of Jin’s head, so that they wouldn’t be in the way when he applied the make-up.
Jin tensed and wriggled a little on his seat at Junno’s question. “Uh, yeah. Management wanted me to… like, take a breather, you know.”
“Ah, sou?” Junno began applying moisturizer to Jin’s face. “I understand.”
“Yeah. The tabloids went a bit haywire the last time I was out partying and… uh, pictures leaked. Management wasn’t too happy about it. I hope this press con won’t be about it.”
“It probably is, since Chiheisen is a group with you as its only member and it’s only you who counts.” Ryo snorted, accidentally getting powder in his nose and sneezed loudly.
Jin relished in a snicker and almost fell down from his chair when Ryo replied with a kick on his chair.
*
The press was running around in the local; every paparazzi and reporter tried to get the best seats and the TV cameras and light set were set up in front of the rectangular white table, behind which seven black plastic chairs were standing.
The room was buzzing before a suited man in his twenties, with a Mohican hair cut and glasses, walked up to stand behind the table and announce the arrival of the Johnny’s group Chiheisen and its members Yamashita Tomohisa, Akanishi Jin, Nishikido Ryo and Ueda Tatsuya.
The minute Chiheisen showed up, everyone dressed in suits (but with different accessories, thanks to their unnaturally creative stylists), media’s cameras began making shuttering noises as they photographed every step the members took. They walked up to the manager with the name tag “Kato Shigeaki” and all the members bowed to the media before Shige motioned for them to sit down; himself remaining standing up.
Jin never found these kinds of commitments entertaining; the lamps were blinding him the first seconds each time and when a photographed took a photo with lightning on, he thought he would get ticks.
“Good afternoon everyone and thank you for coming, my name is Kato Shigeaki,” Shige said and bowed. “This is a press conference regarding Johnny’s Agency’s Chiheisen activities this year. There will be individual work for the members, but that is something we will speak of later. This was hosted for the sake of the group Chiheisen is.”
Jin glanced up at Shige in disbelief. He didn’t get the younger man all the time, but now he was more cryptic than necessary. None of the other members knew the real cause of this conference apparently, since all of them now looked at Shige.
Shige harrumphed. “Now I will leave the word to our superior in the management, Takizawa Hideaki-san.”
Shige took a step back and from a side door a man in his thirties with prominent features came out. His hair was coloured in a dark carrot colour and he gave an idol-like smile to the cameras, bowing as he walked to stand next to Shige. He was born to stand in the spotlight, not blinking once at the strong lights.
“Hello, I am Takizawa,” Takki said, “and I have an announcement to make.”
Chiheisen stared at Takki, no-one caring anymore about being polite.
Takki blinked at them before continuing. “We have a new member in the group.”
Jin was almost on the verge on standing up from his chair, only stopped by Pi holding him down by his sleeve, and Ryo’s mouth became a thin line as he stared blankly in front of him. Neither Ueda nor Pi showed any change in their face expressions, but then Pi was also one of the highest ranked actors (which was most likely for his ability to look completely void of any emotion) and there were many things needed for Ueda to be moved in any way.
The reporters immediately began buzzing again until Takki put up a hand, silencing them all.
“We have him here today. I hope you all will welcome our latest star to the media scene. Everyone, this is Kamenashi Kazuya.”
From the same side door, a man appeared and Jin gaped. He didn’t know why he was agape; maybe it was because he had been without a girlfriend for too long and this man reminded him of a woman, this Kamenashi with sharp structure of the cheekbones, nose and chin, thin eyebrows, very fair brown hair cut to his shoulders and a pair of eyes that Jin recognized.
He had seen them somewhere before. Okay, eyes were eyes and the most of the people Jin had met had had eyes, but those eyes…
Not looking at Chiheisen’s members, Kame went to stand between Takki and Jin, who was sitting down and staring at him. Kame presented himself in a clear but nervous voice to the press as Kamenashi Kazuya, twenty-three years old and from a small town outside of Tokyo.
“Please take care of me,” Kame ended the presentation and sat down on the chair Takki nodded at. Takki and Shige sat down themselves on the remaining two chairs the furthest to the left.
Jin met Kame’s eyes when the two years younger man sneaked a glance at him and their eyes locked. None was looking away but continued to look at each other as the conference moved on.
“Chiheisen is no longer a group with only four people,” Takki said. “For the coming year we are going to expand. If four persons are what the fans want, we will go back to four. But before deciding on that, please give our Kamenashi-kun a chance. Now you are welcome to ask any questions.”
The rest of the conference was manoeuvred by Takki, who easily dodged the questions that were the slightest negative about any member of Chiheisen (Jin’s partying was a hot topic the first three minutes) and went for the ones in which he could go on about the potential the group and its members had.
After half an hour, Takki announced the press conference over and he led the new Chiheisen out the back door with Shige left at the table, thanking everyone for coming there and giving sayings to quote in the evening news.
When the group of men after a brisk five minutes promenade got to a room named ‘Chiheisen, 311’ that kept a round table and chairs inside it, Takki opened the door and held it open for everyone to go inside.
It wasn’t until the door was closed that hell broke loose. To say that Jin and Ryo were upset was an understatement, while Pi didn’t say anything and Ueda was staring intensively at Kame.
“WHY?” Jin demanded to know and Ryo had an ice-cold furious glance in his eyes that was scarier than the tone of Jin’s voice.
Kame shrunk behind Takki, staring at his pointy leather shoes.
“BECAUSE,” Takki said, “you haven’t been a proper group for a long time now.”
Jin snorted. “Come on, don’t give me that shi-“
“Who’s been releasing CDs lately? Who’s been in a drama? Who’s been doing solo work?”
Everyone stood silent in the room and all what could be heard was the distant noise other people in the building made and Takki’s voice. When he spoke and claimed his air, Takki was a man one wouldn’t dare to protest to.
“I thought so,” Takki said after a while. “It’s been solo job for you lately. Except for you, Jin, who’s been awfully quiet in the business since you starred in ‘Bandage’. The only thing that’s been about you these last months and that’s been shadowing everything else has been your ability to make ‘scandalous headlines’. I know,” Takki stopped Jin who opened his mouth to protest, “it’s not always true, but it’s not the truth that matters. It’s what the fans think about you. One picture says more than thousand words, and considering the amount of pictures leaked you will have to write one song per day for the rest of your life to be able to match up.”
Takki walked back to Kame and laid his hand on his shoulder. Kame looked up and met Takki and Chiheisen’s eyes.
“With Kame here,” Takki explained, “we will bring back the focus to Chiheisen. You all are popular on your own, yes, but that doesn’t do us much help when the fans ditch you when you turn back to your group.”
Understanding dawned upon Ryo, who straightened his back where he stood.
“Like how Pi’s fans, the ones who love him for being the perfect idol, dislike Jin and the fans who likes him because they think Jin’s ‘the shit who’s been to LA’?” Ryo said, accent heavy on the English words.
Jin bit his under-lip unconsciously.
“Exactly,” Takki said. “That’s what I mean. I want Chiheisen to be a group again. For this to be able to happen, you need something fresh. Someone new. Someone like Kame. He doesn’t have any experience in this kind of life, but he’s fully committed to what needs to be done. He’ll bring the group together. You know that Johnny has given Koichi and me the responsibility lately for all the new talents, and I have hand-picked Kame. Trust me. He will help you.”
The room was silent again. Then Pi took words in his mouth.
“Welcome to Chiheisen, Kamenashi-san,” he said and bowed to the younger man.
Kame’s eyes widened in surprise and they grew even bigger when also Ryo and Ueda bowed to him. It took a while before a welcoming was heard from Jin too, but without a bow.
It seemed totally fine with Takki anyway, who grinned and ruffled Kame’s perfect hair into a mess when Kame bowed and thanked them all.
“Told you it would go great,” Takki said and glanced at his Rolex watch. “Sorry, got to run, have to see if Shige made it out alive from the press hall yet.”
“He’s from Kansai, he’ll make it,” Ryo said and then Takki was out the door again.
There was an eerie silence after the boss’ departure and Kame was still nervous being around the other men, weighing from one foot to the other, but with the safety of knowing that they had accepted him Kame bowed to Chiheisen for a second time.
“My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. Please take care of me.”
And whatever response he would have been expecting was not the one got to hear when someone moved quickly towards him.
“What are you doing here?” Ueda said, hand forcefully gripping Kame’s shoulders to turn him up again.
Kame froze in shock over Ueda’s outburst. “What?”
Ueda blinked and his voice was mellow as he spoke again. “I mean, what are…”
Noticing the awkward tension between the two men, Ryo and Yamapi looked from person to the other. Jin didn’t sense it, thus he was too busy typing a reply on his cell-phone and the stupid thing didn’t show the right kanji. He had to complain to someone about the turn of events - and someone who wouldn’t snitch to Takki on him. He had sent an angry mail to his porn-is-my-best-friend friend SUBARU about Takki forcing him to meet a creepy fan for Shounen Club and SUBARU had showed it to Takki, which had ended with Takki giving him cleaning duties for the toilets and showers the next months.
Ueda saw the others staring at him and Kame and he shook his head.
“Sorry, I must’ve confused you with someone else,” he said and released the hold of his shoulders. “My name is Ueda Tatsuya. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” Kame repeated.
Pi’s voice was neutral but in a nice and friendly tone when he spoke. “I guess you already know all of us, but I’ll be polite too. I’m Yamashita Tomohisa and it’s nice to meet you. I’m often in dramas so I guess you’ve already seen me in ‘Code Blue’.”
“I’m Nishikido Ryo, also in dramas but I do musicals too since Pi’s fans yell too much for him to be able to sing in theatres,” Ryo said and avoided a slap on the back of his head from Pi, “and it’s nice to meet you. I guess I can understand why Takki want you to be in our group.”
Jin, who had locked the keypad on his phone and put it away, didn’t say a thing but left the room the same door Takki used when he exited.
He didn’t feel Kame’s hurt eyes in his back. Pi muttered about him being immature and Ryo and Ueda nodded in unison.
“Give him time, he’s still in shock or whatever,” Ryo said.
“That’s Akanishi-san?” Kame said and made confirming hums.
“He’s our professional diva. Childish though but wouldn’t hurt fly. For that we have Tat-chan, our boxing fairy princess,” Ryo snorted but began laughing when Ueda turned to him and made a punch-sign with his fist in his hands. “Okay, sorry, just joking.”
Kame stiffened. “’Fairy princess’?”
“Ever since he started in this agency, he’s said he’s able to see the supernatural things. You know, ghost and fairies and spirits and that.” There was a blip on Ryo’s phone and he glanced at in, the kanji for ‘Akanishi Jin’ flashing on the screen. “And sorry, but I’ll go and see what the brat is up to. Pi, come on.”
With Pi in his steps, Ryo took the lead to go and find their missing member and left their oldest and newest member alone in the room.
“… So,” Ueda said after an awkward silence, “want to go for ramen?”
*
Hidden beneath caps and sunglasses, Ueda took Kame out for his first ramen ever. But he did thoroughly research before he ordered the dish and made sure that the spirit wouldn’t die by eating normal Japanese food.
“My body is a human’s so I need your food,” Kame mumbled and Ueda kept a stern face when he took the steaming bowls and went to sit down in the corner of the small Japanese hole-in-wall shop.
Kame had at first been reluctant to follow Ueda, but after Ueda’s argument about his aura being pink and that it wasn’t normal for Willow trees to walk around as human, Kame had gone with him to the restaurant. His things had been laid in Chiheisen’s dressing room and after a quick change they now sat there on high chairs, somewhere in the nearby of Ikebukuro’s Marunouchi Line, and Ueda helped Kame to hold the chopsticks.
None of them said anything while eating. After Ueda finished his soup first, he turned to Kame.
“What are you doing here?”
Kame swayed on his seat. “Eh…”
“And don’t tell me lies because I can see when people… and spirits…. lie.”
“Okay.” Kame laid down his chopsticks. “What do you want to know?”
“Is your name really ‘Kamenashi Kazuya’?”
“Yes,” Kame said, “but yet it’s not. My nickname is ‘Kame’ and Jin gave it to me when I was younger, and now as a human I need both a first and a last name. I took a name that had ‘Kame’ in it - Kamenashi - and then I took the first name from a manga I found.”
“Okay,” Ueda said and let it all sink in. “What is your purpose with being a human?”
“I’m here to make Akanishi Jin fall in love with me.”
Ueda was milliseconds away from falling down from his chair but he kept it together. “What?”
“I have one year. If I haven’t gotten Jin to love me until next New Year, I will return to my home… my Willow tree and never see him again. O-Ryu-sama and Izumi-sama helped me become human and the rest of it was fixed by Takki and-“
“Takki’s a spirit!?” Ueda was this time glad he had put down his chopsticks because otherwise he would’ve dropped them. “But he… his aura…”
“No, all he told me was that I should call him Takki, look out for cars, don’t go home with strangers and that he had been in my situation before.”
“Oh. I see.” In one way, Ueda could see how some things made sense but could not ever weigh up for the rest of the things he had learned today. “So… one year?”
“One year to make Jin love me. I can’t tell him who I really am and I can not get help from spirits or humans to make him fall in love with me. It has to be all me.”
There was a look in Kame’s eyes that spoke for its own; he had decided to do everything in his power and by his own strength to make Jin like him. He didn’t have a plan figured out yet, but he had 364 days to go.
Wishing him the best of luck, Ueda ordered two beers and gave one to Kame.
“Drink it,” he said, “you’re going to need it.”
*
Kame’s new home was an apartment in the easy laid-back part of Ootsuka, one of the smaller stations around the Jr Yamanote Line which Kame had learned was a train that went in a circle; going to all the important parts of Tokyo and also his home. Takki told him when he showed him how to use a key that he should not ever take the subway, because when Takki had tried it for the first time he had ended up somewhere close to a shrine and a giant jalapeno on a roof in a place called Asakusa and had missed important meetings because of it.
“What’s a jalapeno?” Kame asked and placed the apartment keys in his pocket.
Takki opened a box named ‘Takki’s things, do not touch! Be careful! Both sides up!’ and went through it; finding a book and shoving it into Kame’s hands.
“Here, read it. It’s a cook book.”
With a powerful ‘huff’, Takki lift up the carton box and carried it from the hallway into the small living room that was Kame’s. It was, as the hallway, not very homely and cosy yet (and after Kame had seen Takki’s apartment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted it cosy if cosy meant glitter, sequins, shiny things and gold everywhere) but there were all the essential things Kame would need, including a brand new cell-phone for Kame to use in case he wanted to ask Takki how to open a window.
Takki had been Kame’s lifeline the first days after transformation. He had turned up at the shrine and spoken to the spirits in the woods before Kame had been introduced to him. Takki was going to teach him how to live in the human’s world, since it had changed a lot from when they had lived in harmony with the spirits and the nature. It was thanks to Takki (and mentions of Jin) that Kame had overcome his first fear of the slim red growling thing called a car and stepped into it with Takki.
It was also thanks to Takki that he had learned what to eat and not to eat as a human (apparently he should keep to eating salads and a little meat, but Kame had refused salads first since it was like eating his own leaves) and how to handle his body when things got ‘out of his control’ (although Kame felt embarrassed over having Takki see him naked and teach him how to hold things to pee). It was easy to know when to shower though (except for how to handle the temperature of the water, almost boiling Kame alive the first time) and what to use in the shower - things smelled badly in the big city compared to the cleanliness in the air surrounding the shrine and Kame didn’t want to smell bad himself too.
“Kame?” Takki called out to the tree spirit from the living room and Kame woke up from his daydreaming.
“Yes, sorry,” Kame said and walked inside the living room, his slippers doing their ‘flip-flap’ sound as he walked. “What is it?”
Glancing up from his box filled with books, magazines and DVDs, Takki nodded at Kame. Kame stared back before Takki nodded at him to sit down and Kame crouched down to sit on his heels on Takki’s level, on the other side of the box.
“Here,” Takki said and picked up a magazine, “is a cartoon magazine. It’s about the top manga and animé series over the years and it is good knowledge, for fun facts to talk to people about. This one,” he continued and picked up another magazine, “is for fashion and I bought it on my way here. You should go through it too and see how stars dress. I know I got you fixed for today and Tsubasa’s taken you out shopping, but tomorrow it’s all your own.”
Kame fished up a DVD from the box, staring at its cover. It took Takki a while to recognize Kame’s expression as a mix of fear and confusion and he bent over to look at it.
“Ah,” Takki said, “forgot about that one. Those guys are Coat West.”
“’Coat West’?” Kame repeated.
“Yes, they are in the porn industry.” Takki’s face widened in an almost creepy smile. “And they’re the best.”
“… What’s porn?” Kame said after a few seconds and the smile on Takki’s face fell.
“Right, forgot to tell you about it. You’ve only watched those top notch-dramas, haven’t you?”
Kame nodded. He had, after being taken home to Takki’s apartment in Ginza, been commanded to watch a bunch of TV series recommended by the older man (or younger, depending on how one would count the years of a spirits as human years). Apparently they were good to learn about the society from, and Kame had gone through all from ’Mr Brain’ and ‘14Sai No Haha’ to ‘Hana Yori Dango’ with a screaming guy in ugly hair. Kame had by then swore to never do his hair like that; he quite liked it from his transformation, although he suspected not all Japanese men had a blonde shade of brown in their hair by nature. Or a carrot colour in their hair, as Takki sported.
The carrot on the opposite on Kame sighed. “This, my friend, is what makes everything go round.”
“Like love and air and money?”
“You really have watched too much drama. But we can say it’s like that, yes. Coat West are in the sex industry. They sell porn; basically, they sell sex. Sex is what humans have to make babies.”
Kame frowned. “But isn’t it only possible to make babies with a girl?”
“… Yes, but in this case they do the same thing but without getting a baby. I have a book here about human anatomy too for you to read. Sort of the things I’ve collected through the years… I swear, if I had had these things to start with, everything would’ve been so much easier. You don’t want to know what I’ve been through these years! No idea, I tell you! Do you know how complicated it is to have sex without knowing which part goes where? And this whole condom thing too.”
Takki was only met by Kame’s questioning blinking eyes and silence.
“Kame, just watch it and then you’ll know what to do with Jin if things go the right way. I love him like a younger brother, but he is dumb and follows wherever his dick points.”
Kame’s ears reddened and the rest of his usually pale face took a shade of deeper red. “Uh, and with the dick you mean…”
“Yes, that part and yes, you’ll do it like Coat West. See it as an instruction video, just like ‘ROOKIES’ and the baseball game, okay?”
Again, Takki grinned knowingly when Kame nodded and Takki patted his head. “That’s my Willow tree boy. Just don’t tell O-Ryu-sama I’ve told you this.”
*
After he left Kame alone in his apartment, Takki came back the morning after to pick the boy up to work. Neither he nor Kame trusted Kame to know Tokyo enough yet to be able to go on his own with subway to the Johnny’s building.
Kame had managed to get in bed at a decent time the previous night, only to have to bolt up from bed when he was close to fall asleep because he had forgotten to brush his teeth. It was important since humans took great care of their bodies and Kame wanted to nail everything about this role perfectly. A role that could become his real self, if he was lucky.
When Kame stepped into the car, Takki questioned him about the onigiri he had to breakfast (which Kame had eaten) and if he had locked the door (which Kame had done). With everything in order, they drove to work and with Takki behind the wheel Kame wasn’t sure if others also let go of it to start drumming around on everything while singing loudly to ‘Crazy Rainbow’ when driving. He couldn’t say it was safe, as Takki grabbed the wheel and turned on it quickly more than once to avoid a crash.
It was half an hour later Kame was in Chiheisen’s dressing room, still alive and all limbs intact, and Pi congratulated him to surviving a drive with Takki. Pi had seen them in the parking lot beneath the house when he had parked his own car and since he had grown up with Takki as his older, protective brother he had also learned what not to do in traffic.
“As soon as everyone’s here, I’ll talk to you about the week’s schedule,” the lawyer from the day before, Shige, said from a comfortable spot in the dressing room’s couch.
He was around Kame’s human age, but the air he had given out as a lawyer was an aura of someone much older. When Shige was half asleep in the sofa, head resting against Ryo’s shoulder, Kame thought he looked much younger. He didn’t have to ask either; the way both Pi and Ryo were relaxed with him spoke of years of friendship. Maybe they weren’t as deep in the connections as Takki had said that Jin, Pi and Ryo were, but the loyalty and trust were there.
Kame guessed it was all that mattered.
“I’ll be right back, just going to go and buy a Calpis,” Kame said and rose up from his black tree chair.
The other three in the sofa nodded and said they would wait with the meeting until he was back, even if Jin and Ueda actually came on time for once.
With brisk steps, Kame went peeked out in the corridor. No-one he could recognize was there and he stood pondering on which way to go for a few seconds before heading to the elevator, guessing the funny machine from which small metal coins could transform into sodas was in that direction.
He found it with the tables and chairs next to the elevator and pressed three coins into an opening. After he had gotten his drink, he was on his way to open it when the elevator made a ‘ding!’ and two men walked out from it, one dressed in jeans and a t-shirt named RUSS-K and the other wearing beige trousers and an argyle sweater. Kame had never seen them before and judging by their conversation falling quiet when they saw Kame, he guessed they didn’t know him either. Not until one of the men halted in his tracks and suddenly began smiling widely at Kame.
“You must be Kamenashi-san!” the man said and his eyes were barely able to be seen beneath the single pair of eyelids.
Kame was a little taken aback but nodded and made a bow. “Yes, nice to meet you, I’m Kamenashi Kazuya.”
The blond continued to shine at him. “I’m Koyama Keiichiro, MC of Shounen Club. This is Nakamaru Yuichi, my co-host,” Koyama added and pointed with his thumb at the man with big nose and short dark hair next to him. “We’re also the ones in charge of many Juniors around here in the building and if you ever wonder anything, you’re welcome to ask us. Or Shige. He’s really nice too. I think you already know Pi and Ryo too since you’re in their group, and Yuichi is best friends with Ueda so you know Ueda is nice too.”
“Koyama, just shut it,” a voice behind Nakamaru and Koyama said. “And move, I can’t get out of the elevator!”
Jin didn’t sound annoyed although his features showed deep dark circles beneath his eyes and hair in a mess hidden beneath a cap; but Kame had to admit it was the mere sound of Jin’s voice that made his heart jump.
It wasn’t until Koyama spoke that Kame wondered if the cheerful man had been hurt by Jin’s comment, but Koyama only gave Jin a caring look.
“Are you feeling well, Jin-kun?” Koyama asked and received a grumble in response from Jin who had passed by the trio next to the machine. “If you need any medication I have some in my Junior kit!”
Jin waved a hand back at Koyama, turning right around a corner and disappearing from their sight.
Nakamaru made a small but content sigh. “Happy to see he’s alive though.”
Koyama nodded. “I hope he’s taking care.”
“You know Akanishi-san?” Kame asked and Nakamaru and Koyama turned their attention back to the newcomer.
“Jin? Oh yes, we’ve known him and the rest of your group since we auditioned,” Nakamaru said. “We’ve also been in temporary groups together with all different people from the agency when we were Juniors, and then one group after another debuted and we got stuck on hosting Shokura.”
Koyama pouted. “Yuichi, don’t say it like that, we love our work!”
Nakamaru shrugged, yawning. “I do, but when I have to take five Juniors home to my house at two in the morning because they’re dead drunk and are afraid of going home, I think I’d rather resign.”
Koyama was about to reply and the conversation would have dragged even further out on the time if Shige hadn’t come by then and almost been tackled by Koyama, who apparently also was an old friend to Shige, and then Shige had dragged Kame back with him to the dressing room to start the meeting without Ueda, who was at home feeling ill.
Shige was giving out schedules and talking with the group about how to put up the promotions through the year for Chiheisen, both for the group and for the individuals. There were ideas from Takki and the management about the year and although Jin knew that they had things to say about the ideas, the ball lay in the management’s hands in the end. So Chiheisen, with Ueda participating over Skype on Shige’s laptop, agreed on at least three single releases during the year and a number of live performances. Many other group activities were agreed to too and after them, Shige went over to the member’s personal papers. Pi was perhaps casted to a movie, Ryo could get a lead in a summer drama, Ueda could maybe get a mini-album release with Blue-Waves and Jin had commercials. Kame hadn’t gotten any solo offers from any company yet, but Shige said that Takki didn’t think it would be any problem later on when people actually knew who he was.
“But regarding the drama and the movie, could you come with me?” Shige asked Pi and Ryo. “I have a bunch of papers about them in another room and it would be better if you could come with me, since I don’t feel like running all over the place with them.”
“So unprofessional, Shige, so unprofessional,” Ryo said and clicked his tongue.
“Like you’ve ever cared before.” Shige made a face back at Ryo and Pi laughed at it.
It wasn’t long until Jin and Kame were alone in the room together. The atmosphere was thick and Kame didn’t know what to say. Jin hadn’t showed him any bigger interest before and now he was flipping his cell-phone open and shut, sitting on the couch’s arm.
Jin tried to ignore Kame at first and how ridiculously well his jeans fit him. Kame seemed like a fucking picture perfect idol though, with his hair nicely layered and framing his face and a slender body that some French brand would love if they wanted Kame to model something. Not to mention how Kame seemed to be like a silent, serious grey rat. A good looking rat… so maybe a mouse then.
And he knew that he had to get along with Kame sooner or later. Jin didn’t have to like him, but they were in the same group.
“Hey, you.”
Kame looked up from his stack of papers and met Jin’s eyes. Jin had walked over to stand in front of his chair and now the older singer was watching him with a decided look in his eyes.
“Me?”
”Name’s Akanishi Jin, Kamenashi.” Jin reached out his hand to Kame. “I hope we’ll get along.”
Kame stared at his hand for a while before he took it and Jin pulled his hand back as if it had gotten burnt. There had been a weird comfortable feeling when Kame’s fingers had wrapped around his hand and then it had intensified to an indescribable heat.
*
The first weeks in January were put aside for Kame to learn names and people in the idol industry. He had a go-through on the history of Johnny’s and the hierarchy and how to behave and not to behave as an idol.
More or less all the lessons Jin had slept through his whole life.
*
Ueda had, for a reason unknown to everyone in Chiheisen, invited everyone in the group over to his home for dinner a Friday later in January. There was a small guess from Kame’s side that Takki might have a finger into it, but when he had asked Takki the man neither confirmed nor denied it.
Kame didn’t care about the reason later on when he got out of Takki’s car and saw another man strolling his way toward Ueda’s apartment building. Kame thanked the gods, although he guessed they had nothing to do with it, that Jin and he had arrived to Ueno at the same time. After an awkward silence in which they tried to decide without words which of them was going to push the ringing bell’s button on Ueda’s door, Jin pushed it and Ueda opened.
“You’re welcome in,” Ueda greeted them. “I haven’t set out the plates yet but you can go to the kitchen anyway. The drinks are in there.”
The first one to head to the kitchen was Jin, kicking off his shoes and walking in his socks over the room down the hallway. Kame followed but froze in his moves the same second he stepped his foot in the kitchen. Ueda, who was walking right behind him, walked into Kame and huffed.
“Kamenashi?”
“W-w-w-wh… You should know.”
Kame’s voice was trembling in shock; although it was clear he tried to hold himself together.
“What?”
It was low, as a wheeze. “Murderer!”
Ueda blinked. “I must’ve missed something now.”
“You know!” Kame said and turned around to face Ueda. “Can’t you see them?”
“What ‘them’ and where?” Jin was confused. He had no idea what was going on anymore.
“In the kitchen,” Kame said. “On the table! They’re dead!”
Jin, who heard Kame since he was only a few steps away, eyed the table. It was a new one, a white table in plastic, matching the rest of the luxurious apartment in black and white and reminding of the homes featured in home styling magazines with the right vases, decorations and all that glittery shiny special expensive stuff.
Stepping around Kame, Ueda peeked at the table. “There’s nothing dead on the… Oh. Jin, will you take Kame to the living room?“
It wasn’t a question as much as it was Ueda demanding something and Jin sceptically looked at them.
“Follow me,” he told Kame and they went into the other open area.
Behind their backs, Ueda took the bouquet from the vase on the table and threw it in the bin. Plausibly, Takki had thought of everything that Kame could possibly need to know, except the concept of humans killing flowers to make their homes prettier.
Kame and Jin were alone in the living room on the couch, sitting in one end each and not saying anything; Kame was simply too nervous to talk to Jin of all people alone and Jin didn’t know what to say. They heard Ueda rumble around in the kitchen and then he popped his head into the living room, telling his two group members food would be ready in ten minutes.
Jin glanced down at his cell-phone. Pi and Ryo were on their way, they wrote, and they both thought he should try talking to Kame. Everyone in the group had changed contact details with him, even the stylists had, but Jin hadn’t even said a word to him after the one time they shook hands.
“DID YOU KNOW,” Kame suddenly said in a high pitched tone and startled Jin, “it is impossible to lick your elbow?”
“… Huh?”
Kame’s ears and cheeks took a deep tint of pink and he smiled uneasily when Jin stared at him. He didn’t know why he had burped it out like that to Jin. Of all the deep thoughtful ideas Kame had come up with to tell Jin, of all the great one-liners he had learned in dramas, he just had to pull something that they had said on Discovery Channel the night before.
As Kame was more or less deceasing because of faux pas, Jin continued to stare at him and felt awkward with Kame nervously fiddling the hole in his ripped jeans.
“I can… try?” Jin said slowly and Kame’s eyes widened in surprise.
Jin didn’t even know why he was doing it, but maybe he didn’t think very much that moment. He took off his sweatshirt and Kame swallowed thickly when he saw the t-shirt beneath riding up, revealing a trail of hair going down from Jin’s navel to somewhere into his jeans.
It was on the sofa Ryo and Ueda found them later, Jin stoic in his tries to lick his elbow and Kame was observing him in fascination.
“You’re perfect for each other, if your hobby is to do stupid things and it is Kame’s hobby to support it, Jin,” Ryo said and Jin shot him a short glare, complete with narrowed eyes.
“You’re just jealous I am almost reaching and you can’t,” Jin said.
When Pi finally arrived to the dinner, Ueda was laying out plates on the living room’s table and Ryo and Jin were in a mortal combat about who was the one to first reach an elbow with their tongue. Kame was helping Ueda at the same time he studied the non-progressing fight between Ryo and Jin.
“Don’t you know it’s impossible to do that?” Pi said to the two men on the couch.
“Let’s ignore them,” Ueda said, “and eat instead.”
The first one to give up was Jin, because his stomach was empty and the tempura smelled delicious, and he took the seat next to Kame. None of them said anything as the dinner began and they ate in silence for the greater part of an hour, both listening to the other three group members' stories.
Kame gave him a shy glance and Jin looked back. When Kame’s eyes locked with his, he couldn’t help but feel a smile tugging the corners of his lips. Kame smiled back and after that, the rest of the evening felt better to Jin.
He had no idea that his smile had made Kame’s whole week.
[Part 2 of 4]
By: uchikins
Pairing: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya (any other pairings are PURELY platonic bromance fyi).
Rating: NC-17, to be safe.
Genre/Warnings: AU, romance, fluff, fantasy, humour. Warning for sex and the supernatural (spirits).
Prompt (if used): To quote our dear Mark Twain, “watch your chance and hit him with a brick”.
Notes: My prompt can be interpreted differently and my take on it was that someone watches the other, take the chance when it comes and what happens after that hits the other like a brick in the head. O-Ryu is the real God ruling over the Willow trees. Loosely based on this story.
The mentioned Kyoto shrine exists in reality. And for the songs, you can be free to guess which songs I might mean with, for example, “Shuu wo aratameru” (“Begin a new chapter”). “Chiheisen” (“Horizon”) is made up by me, so is many of the other groups. The persons belong to themselves.
Around 40,000 words. Thanks to S, F and C for helping me lots with this fic!!
Summary: In Japan, the common view on the supernatural is that it may exist, but it also may not. Akanishi Jin believed in it as a young boy; now, he’s one of the most popular men in Japan and as a member of the pop group Chiheisen he doesn’t believe in such things anymore. Unbeknownst to him, a special spirit still believes in him and on New Year the spirit gets a chance - he gets one year. Without Jin knowing anything about the deal, the new year starts. And things will never be the same again.
When you grow up, what hunts your imagination are the magic things. You hear about how there are gods up in the sky and gods in the forest; gods in the water and gods in the wind. The spirits are everywhere too and you pay all of them a visit at the shrine, offering a hundred yen to them and bowing.
You sit outside the shrine in the woods, beneath a Willow tree. With a careful hand you pat the bark softly and tell the tree that it won't ever be lonely because you will always be there for it no matter what. It's a small tree, not standing out in any way because it’s so tiny and looks so frail compared to the other trees around. But its branches are stronger than they look like and are reaching out for the sky, trying to touch the blue ceiling above them, while the leaves are falling down on you, giving the lightest caress on your cheek.
There is an image of a turtle, almost as big as your hand, on the Willow trees stem; maybe it’s someone’s hand work, something a person carved in, or maybe it is nature being funny like that. You name the tree “Kame”, fondly patting the stem.
It’s with a smile you tell the tree that one day it will be the greatest Willow tree of them all because no other tree is as beautiful as it is. You are sure the tree is able to hear you, because as the seasons pass and the autumn comes, it is the only tree in the nearby of the shrine that has all its leaves in the deepest colour of gold.
("If you were a human, you would be the prettiest," you confidently say and grin. “A golden heart.”
When you fall asleep with your back against the tree, you dream a dream. You are bathing in the sunlight with someone. It’s a golden sunlight. When you wake up, you can't remember who it was, but you know it's the brightest shining person of them all.)
The years pass by and you forget all about the gods and the spirits around you. The supernatural becomes something you barely remember; it flutters by sometimes as a memory you are very fond of, but you're not able to grasp what it was. The only thing you actually remember is a brightness you've never seen after that one time in your childhood.
But the rest is forgotten.
Because magic and spirits?
They don't exist.
*
As colourful fireworks lit the darkened sky, a woman dressed in a deep red tanzen kimono stepped onto the holy ground, walking beneath the torii and up the stone stairs. Her hair was neatly tied up and although she wasn’t the beauty she once had been in the village, making everyone turn on their heads to look at her, she had aged with dignity. Next to her was a tall man in blue tanzen with white obi, hair cut short and a face that had too many wrinkles, telling about the persistent wind and weather that had marred a young soul old. But he had wrinkles around his eyes that spoke of how many times he had smiled and although he never had been the most handsome in the town, he was standing out in his own way.
As the couple walked their way past the stands selling different wares, all from toshikoshi soba to Daruma-san, two younger men followed them in silence. The Shinto shrine they attended wasn’t popular or well-known, as it was only a local one, but the shrine on the mountain hill was for those who knew about it, one of the most beautiful shrines they had ever seen. Its surroundings were delicately decorated buildings, such as its shamusho, and the garden was a masterpiece of its own, with Willow trees and Sakura trees all around the shrine, blending out in the rest of the forest as if no one knew where the holy ground ended and where the wild began.
On the road along the hill up to the shrine, the older couple and the two men walking behind them met other people - friends, relatives - and they all greeted each other with wishes for a happy new year. One of the two younger men, the one dressed in a grey tanzen, bowed politely to everyone they met along the road with a big smile on his lips. The one next to him stuck out from the crowd, dressed in a hakama, his shoulder-long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. He didn’t do much else than make a light bow to the ones who seemed to know him and his lips were a straight line.
When the four people reached the shrine, passing by the maidens who were taking care of the New Year oracles and selling them, they took up their coins and threw them into the box. Simultaneously they clapped their hands, bowed and prayed for a little while before they clapped again and turned to walk back down the road again.
When the woman in red tanzen asked the young man in hakama what was wrong, the man was sullen in his reply.
“Mom, I could have been at Kohaku Uta Gassen now. Or out with my friends.”
“Son, you’re twenty-five years old,” the older man with the wrinkles said, “and it’s common for people to have their hatsumode with the family.”
“Just because Reio’s still here, you can’t use him against me,” his son in hakama said. “This is so-“
The mother of the family turned around to take a hold of her son’s hand, standing next to the maids’ stand with oracles. “Jin, I know you’re not used to having the first shrine visit with us, you haven’t done it for many years, but remember that this is how we do it. This is where you come from. You grew up here and loved it. You should respect it.”
Her son met his mother’s eyes and it seemed like a moment of guilt washed over him. But the flash in his eyes was gone after a second and he looked away.
“I didn’t say I don’t respect it, did I?” he mumbled and pulled his hand out of his mother’s grip.
She seemed content with his apology, knowing that it was about as much she would ever get in apology from him, and smiled to his brother. If someone was going to recognize them as a family, it would be the plump lips that went from mother to son in the family.
“What do you say, Reio, shall we let him slip away from apologizing properly?”
It was said with such a teasing glint in her eyes that Reio immediately caught on to it and they joked with the other brother as the father bought four oracles for the year from the maids.
The girls tried to hide it but they couldn’t help to sneak a peak ever so often at the handsome man in hakama, standing next to his brother who was almost as good-looking as him but with black hair cut short. Jin noticed them after a while though and ignored them, walking around so he stood with his back to them. He was given his paper sheet from his father and he read it once, then twice, and finally a third time.
“What does your oracle say?” Jin heard Reio’s voice and he shook his head as he looked up.
“Nothing exciting, really, just that I will get bad luck. How about yours?”
“I’m going to succeed with work and find someone to marry. Isn’t that very…” He searched for the word, “… cliché?”
“I think it’s lovely,” their mother decided and their father nodded with an amused smile. “We’re not going to do much, I think, other than that I will make new friends and your father will get promoted.”
“I am going to go and tie this to a tree.”
Jin walked away, leaving his family on the stone road, and disappeared into the darkness between the trees, only lightened up by a few lamps here and there, hanging on branches. Jin continued to walk until he found something he hadn’t been looking for, but Jin couldn’t describe it; it was as if he had been searching for it without knowing so.
It was hidden behind other Willow trees, a place that Jin couldn’t place in his memory other than that he knew he had been there before. The place was shielded from other shrine visitors' eyes and although it was dark outside, Jin’s feet found their way over roots and in between trees, walking on a small path through the woods.
When his feet stopped, like on a command not given by Jin himself, Jin looked up and was stunned. In front of him was a beautiful Willow tree, as taken from one of those nature- and science-magazines Jin never had the willpower to read and merely flipped through to look at the pictures. If Jin didn’t know better, after years and years from hanging out with Ryo and Pi, he would have described the tree has having a shimmery aura. The other trees were peaceful while this tree had a vibrant aura that Jin could feel with every nerve in his body.
Jin’s steps were careful when he walked closer to the tree, lifting his feet high enough to not fall over the roots on the ground. It was with fumbling fingers that Jin tied the bad omen at the root of the tree, wishing for it to not happen.
He sighed. “I don’t want any changes.”
Jin laid his hand on the tree’s stem in silence and felt the engraving of a turtle. It was as if something was trying to tell him something, a voice inside of him, but he shrugged it off. He wasn’t the one to be caught standing there, molesting a tree, so he went back to the rest of his family and tripped very gracefully over roots laying in his way.
*
The paper tied to the Willow tree’s root swayed in a wind, rustling the long branches hanging to the ground.
Your new year will be filled with new experiences. They will be fun and sad; good and bad. You will learn new things and also teach others what you know. You won’t only be the teacher but also the student.
You are going to be scared but as long as you follow your heart, you will find your happiness. Don’t fear changes.
The place where a hand earlier had been resting on the Willow tree’s bark was slowly moving. It wasn’t the tree itself moving but rather the energy it radiated, an energy moving up and down in waves and stopping where Jin’s hand had been and suddenly something moved.
”… Jin?”
Another soft wind rustled the tree’s leaves; a yielded voice called out, low and wondering.
It was silent for a while, before it called out again, but this time the voice was stronger when another name was echoed in the forest.
“O-Ryu-sama!”
There was a great, white light that shone over the tree and it descended to the ground. It wasn’t a person or a thing, but it had an aura that could be felt from all over the forest.
“I heard you, Willow tree,” O-Ryu began speaking to the tree. The tree rustled again and then another light shone, a pink one, and it left the tree.
“Kame,” the Willow tree spirit said. “My name is Kame.”
O-Ryu gave the spirit a wondering look. “Why?”
“Because that’s what Jin named me and that’s my name.”
“What do we have here?” another god’s voice was heard and the Willow tree spirit’s heart almost stopped… if it now would have been able to have a heart.
“Izumi-sama,” he said in deepest respect, “now that you’re here, I would want to ask for both your and O-Ryu-sama’s help.”
“For what?
“To become a human.”
O-Ryu fell silent and Izumi didn’t do anything but examine Kame with her eyes, a smile forming on her lips.
“… Human?” O-Ryu said after a minute. “Why a human?”
Kame didn’t reply and Izumi gave out a snickering kind of laughter, reminding Kame of a murmuring stream.
“I know why,” she said, “I know why I felt drawn to him begin with. I never go anywhere for nothing. He’s in love with the human.”
O-Ryu was silent and then sighed. “My dear… Kame… don’t you know what we say? Spirits and humans can’t be together.”
“Why’s that?” Izumi interrupted. “It’s been done before.”
“Not a real spirit and a human,” O-Ryu said.
“No, but a spirit in human form and a human.”
“… But in their case, it was obvious that the human liked her. He stopped them from killing her.”
“But this Jin must like something about Kame,” Izumi said, “because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t come back to this place so many years afterwards. When humans grow up, they forget everything about us.”
Kame mumbled something that neither of the other spirits could hear and they turned their focus back on him.
“What?” O-Ryu asked.
Kame harrumphed. “Jin didn’t. He maybe doesn’t remember why he came back, but he hasn’t forgotten about me.”
The two gods were silent, thinking about what Kame had said. Then Izumi spoke again; this time the voice was firm and deciding, not leaving any room for disagreement.
“O-Ryu, you know the old tale. It was decided by gods greater than us that if a human loves a spirit and the spirit loves the human back, it is possible for them to be together. Nothing is more important than love. It’s what both the gods and the humans agree on. If Kame loves this Jin, we should let him do what he wants. But we don’t know one hundred percent that the human loves Kame.”
O-Ryu made an agreeing hum. “Kame’s one of my dearest spirits. He’s never asked or complained over anything, even though he was so small when everyone else was big. I know that Kame grew stronger and more beautiful thanks to Jin. But I will not let one of my spirits become a human and regret it for the rest of his life, Izumi.”
“I won’t regret it!” Kame said, forgetting himself for a moment. “I know it!”
“I know that you’re happy now when Jin’s back, but I don’t want to let you become a human and then suffer the rest of your life,” O-Ryu said to Kame. “But… I could give you a year. But since this is love, I can’t take the decision all by myself.”
“Kame,” Izumi said, “if I gave you, with O-Ryu’s permission, one year as a human, would you take it?”
There was no hesitation in Kame’s answer. “I would.”
A light was growing among the Willow trees.
“O-Ryu-sama, Izumi-sama…” Kame said, voice low and filled with gratitude.
“One year, Kame. One year. If he hasn’t told you he loves you until then, you will go back to this Willow tree. New Year to New Year. Don’t forget that.”
“I promise.”
The light grew stronger and stronger; O-Ryu’s light blending together with Izumi’s. Green and blue meshed together and then Kame felt his own light being transformed, a faint pink colour shining brighter and whiter for each second and then it was like lightning flashing through the trees and over the shrine.
Then everything was quiet.
*
January
A bird chirped somewhere in the forest and the digital clock on Jin’s wrist showed ’09:21’ when the car he sat in was turned off where it was parked close to the shrine.
“We’re heading home in half an hour, Pi,” Jin said to a man dressed in stone-washed jeans and a plain t-shirt. “I just want to go here one last time.”
Pi shrugged, zipping up his leather jacket and fixing the cap on his brown-haired head as he stepped out of the car with Jin, who was cuddling into his thick Canada Goose-jacket with a pair of aviator sunglasses perched upon his nose.
“If I wanted to complain, I would have done so earlier when I went up after only two hours of sleep and drove here to get you,” Pi curtly said.
“So you’re not complaining over having to go to a shrine in the morning because your dear friend since ten years wants to go there?”
“It’s my hatsumode, so why should I complain?” Pi asked and walked up to the shrine, visiting it for the first time in the new year. “You should be lucky you weren’t forced as the rest of Johnny’s to appear on NHK or anything else on New Year. It sucked and the after-party was boring as hell. Not even MatsuJun showed up, and we all know how he loves his wine. It had been funnier if you had been there.”
“The paparazzi must’ve missed me too,” Jin muttered, walking next to Pi, and blinked at the sunlight that hit his eyes.
“Be happy they didn’t see you when your father picked you up in Tokyo on the 29th and he had to get your drunk passed-out self into the car. Those pictures could’ve been enough for any paparazzi to be able to retire.”
Jin pouted and then the two men stood in front of the shrine. They threw their coins into it and bowed before clapping their hands in prayer. Again a bird sang from somewhere inside the forest.
A soft breeze, as if from nowhere, swept over the shrine. Jin heard Pi mutter something about it being unusually windy for New Year’s Day. The willow trees swayed in the winds and Jin bowed a last time. He didn’t particularly believe in these things, but there was a feeling inside of him that wanted something to change; he just didn’t know what.
Jin rose up and turned around. There were people behind him and he began walking to the crowd, then there was someone who caught his eyes. It was a man, but one who could be mistaken for a woman, who stood behind the crowd and looked at him. His eyes were sparkling in the early sunlight and he didn’t do anything but stare at Jin. Then Jin blinked, and the man was gone.
*
Others had calm and un-stressful holidays usually. But neither Jin nor Pi’s common work was a job everyone could do, so they both knew their holidays would not ever be normal either.
Jin was happy to have his own car back as he drove it through the city and parked outside a tall, grey building. He stepped out of the black vehicle and saw Pi rolling up next to him before turning the engine off.
They walked together to the building but just as Jin was about to open his mouth, Pi beat him to it.
“Don’t complain having work on the second day of January. I had go up early yesterday to come and pick you up as the best friend I am who read your mail,” Pi said to Jin as they pushed the back door to the Johnny’s building open. “And if you are going to whine about me being in Tokyo during New Year and you not, I am not going to let you try my new Playstation game,” he added before Jin could open his mouth.
Jin kept silent. He and Pi never were in dire need of constant chit-chat and especially not after a night which Jin had spent drinking and writing lyrics. Composing new songs took energy from Jin he didn’t know he was able to lose; a piece of his soul was ripped out and he used the sharp part of it to carve his thoughts into words. But although he wrote with his soul, he never felt like he could get everything down.
“But Pi, you should read the song I wrote yesterday,” Jin said and followed his group member through the corridors and up an elevator.
“Okay, what’s it about?” Pi asked and walked out on the sixth floor.
“The paparats,” Jin said and took off his black Canada Goose. “Annoying shit.”
Before Pi could open a door labelled ‘Chiheisen, 603’, it swung open. “You mean those vultures you feed every so often?”
Jin glared at the short dark-haired man with a Cheshire cat grin in front of him.
“Hi, Ryo, happy New Year to you too,” Jin said sourly and Ryo snorted.
“Stop being so grumpy, Jinnie boy,” Ryo said with a happy tone that Jin knew Ryo used just because he could get on Jin’s nerves with it.
Being best friends with Pi and Ryo had its pros and cons, and sometimes the cons, like them knowing exactly which buttons to press to get Jin annoyed but not close to throwing stuff yet, weighed over.
“I hate you,” Jin announced and walked over to his chair in front of the mirror. “Your head looks like a penis in that haircut.”
Ryo rolled his eyes and made a high-five with Pi, who looked around in the room.
“No Tat-chan here yet?”
Ryo shook his head. “Nope, he’s busy with Blue-Waves. Texted him earlier and he said he’ll be here in time. He was surprised over this sudden conference too but he said he would make sure to be here in time.”
“Well,” Pi said, “the press conference isn’t until 1PM and he’s our Tat-chan. He’ll be here. If it had been Jin, he would rather have lunch and be late instead of being on time.”
Jin ignored the both men behind him and stared into the make-up mirror, switching between doing that and flipping his cell-phone open, until a whistle was heard and the door to room 503 was opened.
It was the group’s stylists and make-up artists, all men wearing name-tags, and the earlier silence was disturbed with a scrambling as a hip-hop guy and a man in bright coloured patterns pulled a rolling stand with clothes on over the door step. In their steps two tall men walked; both of them with dark brown hair to the shoulders but where one of them had an indifferent expression on his face, the other had a wide Pepsodent white smile.
Pi immediately got engrossed in a conversation with the stylists about the suits hanging on the stand and the man with a bored face walked to the chair Ryo sat in, greeting him with a nod before unpacking his make-up kit.
“Did you have a nice holiday?” Jin’s favourite make-up artist, a man by the name of Taguchi Junnosuke, asked with his trademark smile. “I heard you spent it with your family.”
He took Jin’s long dark bangs in his hands and tied them up in a bun on the back of Jin’s head, so that they wouldn’t be in the way when he applied the make-up.
Jin tensed and wriggled a little on his seat at Junno’s question. “Uh, yeah. Management wanted me to… like, take a breather, you know.”
“Ah, sou?” Junno began applying moisturizer to Jin’s face. “I understand.”
“Yeah. The tabloids went a bit haywire the last time I was out partying and… uh, pictures leaked. Management wasn’t too happy about it. I hope this press con won’t be about it.”
“It probably is, since Chiheisen is a group with you as its only member and it’s only you who counts.” Ryo snorted, accidentally getting powder in his nose and sneezed loudly.
Jin relished in a snicker and almost fell down from his chair when Ryo replied with a kick on his chair.
*
The press was running around in the local; every paparazzi and reporter tried to get the best seats and the TV cameras and light set were set up in front of the rectangular white table, behind which seven black plastic chairs were standing.
The room was buzzing before a suited man in his twenties, with a Mohican hair cut and glasses, walked up to stand behind the table and announce the arrival of the Johnny’s group Chiheisen and its members Yamashita Tomohisa, Akanishi Jin, Nishikido Ryo and Ueda Tatsuya.
The minute Chiheisen showed up, everyone dressed in suits (but with different accessories, thanks to their unnaturally creative stylists), media’s cameras began making shuttering noises as they photographed every step the members took. They walked up to the manager with the name tag “Kato Shigeaki” and all the members bowed to the media before Shige motioned for them to sit down; himself remaining standing up.
Jin never found these kinds of commitments entertaining; the lamps were blinding him the first seconds each time and when a photographed took a photo with lightning on, he thought he would get ticks.
“Good afternoon everyone and thank you for coming, my name is Kato Shigeaki,” Shige said and bowed. “This is a press conference regarding Johnny’s Agency’s Chiheisen activities this year. There will be individual work for the members, but that is something we will speak of later. This was hosted for the sake of the group Chiheisen is.”
Jin glanced up at Shige in disbelief. He didn’t get the younger man all the time, but now he was more cryptic than necessary. None of the other members knew the real cause of this conference apparently, since all of them now looked at Shige.
Shige harrumphed. “Now I will leave the word to our superior in the management, Takizawa Hideaki-san.”
Shige took a step back and from a side door a man in his thirties with prominent features came out. His hair was coloured in a dark carrot colour and he gave an idol-like smile to the cameras, bowing as he walked to stand next to Shige. He was born to stand in the spotlight, not blinking once at the strong lights.
“Hello, I am Takizawa,” Takki said, “and I have an announcement to make.”
Chiheisen stared at Takki, no-one caring anymore about being polite.
Takki blinked at them before continuing. “We have a new member in the group.”
Jin was almost on the verge on standing up from his chair, only stopped by Pi holding him down by his sleeve, and Ryo’s mouth became a thin line as he stared blankly in front of him. Neither Ueda nor Pi showed any change in their face expressions, but then Pi was also one of the highest ranked actors (which was most likely for his ability to look completely void of any emotion) and there were many things needed for Ueda to be moved in any way.
The reporters immediately began buzzing again until Takki put up a hand, silencing them all.
“We have him here today. I hope you all will welcome our latest star to the media scene. Everyone, this is Kamenashi Kazuya.”
From the same side door, a man appeared and Jin gaped. He didn’t know why he was agape; maybe it was because he had been without a girlfriend for too long and this man reminded him of a woman, this Kamenashi with sharp structure of the cheekbones, nose and chin, thin eyebrows, very fair brown hair cut to his shoulders and a pair of eyes that Jin recognized.
He had seen them somewhere before. Okay, eyes were eyes and the most of the people Jin had met had had eyes, but those eyes…
Not looking at Chiheisen’s members, Kame went to stand between Takki and Jin, who was sitting down and staring at him. Kame presented himself in a clear but nervous voice to the press as Kamenashi Kazuya, twenty-three years old and from a small town outside of Tokyo.
“Please take care of me,” Kame ended the presentation and sat down on the chair Takki nodded at. Takki and Shige sat down themselves on the remaining two chairs the furthest to the left.
Jin met Kame’s eyes when the two years younger man sneaked a glance at him and their eyes locked. None was looking away but continued to look at each other as the conference moved on.
“Chiheisen is no longer a group with only four people,” Takki said. “For the coming year we are going to expand. If four persons are what the fans want, we will go back to four. But before deciding on that, please give our Kamenashi-kun a chance. Now you are welcome to ask any questions.”
The rest of the conference was manoeuvred by Takki, who easily dodged the questions that were the slightest negative about any member of Chiheisen (Jin’s partying was a hot topic the first three minutes) and went for the ones in which he could go on about the potential the group and its members had.
After half an hour, Takki announced the press conference over and he led the new Chiheisen out the back door with Shige left at the table, thanking everyone for coming there and giving sayings to quote in the evening news.
When the group of men after a brisk five minutes promenade got to a room named ‘Chiheisen, 311’ that kept a round table and chairs inside it, Takki opened the door and held it open for everyone to go inside.
It wasn’t until the door was closed that hell broke loose. To say that Jin and Ryo were upset was an understatement, while Pi didn’t say anything and Ueda was staring intensively at Kame.
“WHY?” Jin demanded to know and Ryo had an ice-cold furious glance in his eyes that was scarier than the tone of Jin’s voice.
Kame shrunk behind Takki, staring at his pointy leather shoes.
“BECAUSE,” Takki said, “you haven’t been a proper group for a long time now.”
Jin snorted. “Come on, don’t give me that shi-“
“Who’s been releasing CDs lately? Who’s been in a drama? Who’s been doing solo work?”
Everyone stood silent in the room and all what could be heard was the distant noise other people in the building made and Takki’s voice. When he spoke and claimed his air, Takki was a man one wouldn’t dare to protest to.
“I thought so,” Takki said after a while. “It’s been solo job for you lately. Except for you, Jin, who’s been awfully quiet in the business since you starred in ‘Bandage’. The only thing that’s been about you these last months and that’s been shadowing everything else has been your ability to make ‘scandalous headlines’. I know,” Takki stopped Jin who opened his mouth to protest, “it’s not always true, but it’s not the truth that matters. It’s what the fans think about you. One picture says more than thousand words, and considering the amount of pictures leaked you will have to write one song per day for the rest of your life to be able to match up.”
Takki walked back to Kame and laid his hand on his shoulder. Kame looked up and met Takki and Chiheisen’s eyes.
“With Kame here,” Takki explained, “we will bring back the focus to Chiheisen. You all are popular on your own, yes, but that doesn’t do us much help when the fans ditch you when you turn back to your group.”
Understanding dawned upon Ryo, who straightened his back where he stood.
“Like how Pi’s fans, the ones who love him for being the perfect idol, dislike Jin and the fans who likes him because they think Jin’s ‘the shit who’s been to LA’?” Ryo said, accent heavy on the English words.
Jin bit his under-lip unconsciously.
“Exactly,” Takki said. “That’s what I mean. I want Chiheisen to be a group again. For this to be able to happen, you need something fresh. Someone new. Someone like Kame. He doesn’t have any experience in this kind of life, but he’s fully committed to what needs to be done. He’ll bring the group together. You know that Johnny has given Koichi and me the responsibility lately for all the new talents, and I have hand-picked Kame. Trust me. He will help you.”
The room was silent again. Then Pi took words in his mouth.
“Welcome to Chiheisen, Kamenashi-san,” he said and bowed to the younger man.
Kame’s eyes widened in surprise and they grew even bigger when also Ryo and Ueda bowed to him. It took a while before a welcoming was heard from Jin too, but without a bow.
It seemed totally fine with Takki anyway, who grinned and ruffled Kame’s perfect hair into a mess when Kame bowed and thanked them all.
“Told you it would go great,” Takki said and glanced at his Rolex watch. “Sorry, got to run, have to see if Shige made it out alive from the press hall yet.”
“He’s from Kansai, he’ll make it,” Ryo said and then Takki was out the door again.
There was an eerie silence after the boss’ departure and Kame was still nervous being around the other men, weighing from one foot to the other, but with the safety of knowing that they had accepted him Kame bowed to Chiheisen for a second time.
“My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. Please take care of me.”
And whatever response he would have been expecting was not the one got to hear when someone moved quickly towards him.
“What are you doing here?” Ueda said, hand forcefully gripping Kame’s shoulders to turn him up again.
Kame froze in shock over Ueda’s outburst. “What?”
Ueda blinked and his voice was mellow as he spoke again. “I mean, what are…”
Noticing the awkward tension between the two men, Ryo and Yamapi looked from person to the other. Jin didn’t sense it, thus he was too busy typing a reply on his cell-phone and the stupid thing didn’t show the right kanji. He had to complain to someone about the turn of events - and someone who wouldn’t snitch to Takki on him. He had sent an angry mail to his porn-is-my-best-friend friend SUBARU about Takki forcing him to meet a creepy fan for Shounen Club and SUBARU had showed it to Takki, which had ended with Takki giving him cleaning duties for the toilets and showers the next months.
Ueda saw the others staring at him and Kame and he shook his head.
“Sorry, I must’ve confused you with someone else,” he said and released the hold of his shoulders. “My name is Ueda Tatsuya. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” Kame repeated.
Pi’s voice was neutral but in a nice and friendly tone when he spoke. “I guess you already know all of us, but I’ll be polite too. I’m Yamashita Tomohisa and it’s nice to meet you. I’m often in dramas so I guess you’ve already seen me in ‘Code Blue’.”
“I’m Nishikido Ryo, also in dramas but I do musicals too since Pi’s fans yell too much for him to be able to sing in theatres,” Ryo said and avoided a slap on the back of his head from Pi, “and it’s nice to meet you. I guess I can understand why Takki want you to be in our group.”
Jin, who had locked the keypad on his phone and put it away, didn’t say a thing but left the room the same door Takki used when he exited.
He didn’t feel Kame’s hurt eyes in his back. Pi muttered about him being immature and Ryo and Ueda nodded in unison.
“Give him time, he’s still in shock or whatever,” Ryo said.
“That’s Akanishi-san?” Kame said and made confirming hums.
“He’s our professional diva. Childish though but wouldn’t hurt fly. For that we have Tat-chan, our boxing fairy princess,” Ryo snorted but began laughing when Ueda turned to him and made a punch-sign with his fist in his hands. “Okay, sorry, just joking.”
Kame stiffened. “’Fairy princess’?”
“Ever since he started in this agency, he’s said he’s able to see the supernatural things. You know, ghost and fairies and spirits and that.” There was a blip on Ryo’s phone and he glanced at in, the kanji for ‘Akanishi Jin’ flashing on the screen. “And sorry, but I’ll go and see what the brat is up to. Pi, come on.”
With Pi in his steps, Ryo took the lead to go and find their missing member and left their oldest and newest member alone in the room.
“… So,” Ueda said after an awkward silence, “want to go for ramen?”
*
Hidden beneath caps and sunglasses, Ueda took Kame out for his first ramen ever. But he did thoroughly research before he ordered the dish and made sure that the spirit wouldn’t die by eating normal Japanese food.
“My body is a human’s so I need your food,” Kame mumbled and Ueda kept a stern face when he took the steaming bowls and went to sit down in the corner of the small Japanese hole-in-wall shop.
Kame had at first been reluctant to follow Ueda, but after Ueda’s argument about his aura being pink and that it wasn’t normal for Willow trees to walk around as human, Kame had gone with him to the restaurant. His things had been laid in Chiheisen’s dressing room and after a quick change they now sat there on high chairs, somewhere in the nearby of Ikebukuro’s Marunouchi Line, and Ueda helped Kame to hold the chopsticks.
None of them said anything while eating. After Ueda finished his soup first, he turned to Kame.
“What are you doing here?”
Kame swayed on his seat. “Eh…”
“And don’t tell me lies because I can see when people… and spirits…. lie.”
“Okay.” Kame laid down his chopsticks. “What do you want to know?”
“Is your name really ‘Kamenashi Kazuya’?”
“Yes,” Kame said, “but yet it’s not. My nickname is ‘Kame’ and Jin gave it to me when I was younger, and now as a human I need both a first and a last name. I took a name that had ‘Kame’ in it - Kamenashi - and then I took the first name from a manga I found.”
“Okay,” Ueda said and let it all sink in. “What is your purpose with being a human?”
“I’m here to make Akanishi Jin fall in love with me.”
Ueda was milliseconds away from falling down from his chair but he kept it together. “What?”
“I have one year. If I haven’t gotten Jin to love me until next New Year, I will return to my home… my Willow tree and never see him again. O-Ryu-sama and Izumi-sama helped me become human and the rest of it was fixed by Takki and-“
“Takki’s a spirit!?” Ueda was this time glad he had put down his chopsticks because otherwise he would’ve dropped them. “But he… his aura…”
“No, all he told me was that I should call him Takki, look out for cars, don’t go home with strangers and that he had been in my situation before.”
“Oh. I see.” In one way, Ueda could see how some things made sense but could not ever weigh up for the rest of the things he had learned today. “So… one year?”
“One year to make Jin love me. I can’t tell him who I really am and I can not get help from spirits or humans to make him fall in love with me. It has to be all me.”
There was a look in Kame’s eyes that spoke for its own; he had decided to do everything in his power and by his own strength to make Jin like him. He didn’t have a plan figured out yet, but he had 364 days to go.
Wishing him the best of luck, Ueda ordered two beers and gave one to Kame.
“Drink it,” he said, “you’re going to need it.”
*
Kame’s new home was an apartment in the easy laid-back part of Ootsuka, one of the smaller stations around the Jr Yamanote Line which Kame had learned was a train that went in a circle; going to all the important parts of Tokyo and also his home. Takki told him when he showed him how to use a key that he should not ever take the subway, because when Takki had tried it for the first time he had ended up somewhere close to a shrine and a giant jalapeno on a roof in a place called Asakusa and had missed important meetings because of it.
“What’s a jalapeno?” Kame asked and placed the apartment keys in his pocket.
Takki opened a box named ‘Takki’s things, do not touch! Be careful! Both sides up!’ and went through it; finding a book and shoving it into Kame’s hands.
“Here, read it. It’s a cook book.”
With a powerful ‘huff’, Takki lift up the carton box and carried it from the hallway into the small living room that was Kame’s. It was, as the hallway, not very homely and cosy yet (and after Kame had seen Takki’s apartment, he wasn’t sure if he wanted it cosy if cosy meant glitter, sequins, shiny things and gold everywhere) but there were all the essential things Kame would need, including a brand new cell-phone for Kame to use in case he wanted to ask Takki how to open a window.
Takki had been Kame’s lifeline the first days after transformation. He had turned up at the shrine and spoken to the spirits in the woods before Kame had been introduced to him. Takki was going to teach him how to live in the human’s world, since it had changed a lot from when they had lived in harmony with the spirits and the nature. It was thanks to Takki (and mentions of Jin) that Kame had overcome his first fear of the slim red growling thing called a car and stepped into it with Takki.
It was also thanks to Takki that he had learned what to eat and not to eat as a human (apparently he should keep to eating salads and a little meat, but Kame had refused salads first since it was like eating his own leaves) and how to handle his body when things got ‘out of his control’ (although Kame felt embarrassed over having Takki see him naked and teach him how to hold things to pee). It was easy to know when to shower though (except for how to handle the temperature of the water, almost boiling Kame alive the first time) and what to use in the shower - things smelled badly in the big city compared to the cleanliness in the air surrounding the shrine and Kame didn’t want to smell bad himself too.
“Kame?” Takki called out to the tree spirit from the living room and Kame woke up from his daydreaming.
“Yes, sorry,” Kame said and walked inside the living room, his slippers doing their ‘flip-flap’ sound as he walked. “What is it?”
Glancing up from his box filled with books, magazines and DVDs, Takki nodded at Kame. Kame stared back before Takki nodded at him to sit down and Kame crouched down to sit on his heels on Takki’s level, on the other side of the box.
“Here,” Takki said and picked up a magazine, “is a cartoon magazine. It’s about the top manga and animé series over the years and it is good knowledge, for fun facts to talk to people about. This one,” he continued and picked up another magazine, “is for fashion and I bought it on my way here. You should go through it too and see how stars dress. I know I got you fixed for today and Tsubasa’s taken you out shopping, but tomorrow it’s all your own.”
Kame fished up a DVD from the box, staring at its cover. It took Takki a while to recognize Kame’s expression as a mix of fear and confusion and he bent over to look at it.
“Ah,” Takki said, “forgot about that one. Those guys are Coat West.”
“’Coat West’?” Kame repeated.
“Yes, they are in the porn industry.” Takki’s face widened in an almost creepy smile. “And they’re the best.”
“… What’s porn?” Kame said after a few seconds and the smile on Takki’s face fell.
“Right, forgot to tell you about it. You’ve only watched those top notch-dramas, haven’t you?”
Kame nodded. He had, after being taken home to Takki’s apartment in Ginza, been commanded to watch a bunch of TV series recommended by the older man (or younger, depending on how one would count the years of a spirits as human years). Apparently they were good to learn about the society from, and Kame had gone through all from ’Mr Brain’ and ‘14Sai No Haha’ to ‘Hana Yori Dango’ with a screaming guy in ugly hair. Kame had by then swore to never do his hair like that; he quite liked it from his transformation, although he suspected not all Japanese men had a blonde shade of brown in their hair by nature. Or a carrot colour in their hair, as Takki sported.
The carrot on the opposite on Kame sighed. “This, my friend, is what makes everything go round.”
“Like love and air and money?”
“You really have watched too much drama. But we can say it’s like that, yes. Coat West are in the sex industry. They sell porn; basically, they sell sex. Sex is what humans have to make babies.”
Kame frowned. “But isn’t it only possible to make babies with a girl?”
“… Yes, but in this case they do the same thing but without getting a baby. I have a book here about human anatomy too for you to read. Sort of the things I’ve collected through the years… I swear, if I had had these things to start with, everything would’ve been so much easier. You don’t want to know what I’ve been through these years! No idea, I tell you! Do you know how complicated it is to have sex without knowing which part goes where? And this whole condom thing too.”
Takki was only met by Kame’s questioning blinking eyes and silence.
“Kame, just watch it and then you’ll know what to do with Jin if things go the right way. I love him like a younger brother, but he is dumb and follows wherever his dick points.”
Kame’s ears reddened and the rest of his usually pale face took a shade of deeper red. “Uh, and with the dick you mean…”
“Yes, that part and yes, you’ll do it like Coat West. See it as an instruction video, just like ‘ROOKIES’ and the baseball game, okay?”
Again, Takki grinned knowingly when Kame nodded and Takki patted his head. “That’s my Willow tree boy. Just don’t tell O-Ryu-sama I’ve told you this.”
*
After he left Kame alone in his apartment, Takki came back the morning after to pick the boy up to work. Neither he nor Kame trusted Kame to know Tokyo enough yet to be able to go on his own with subway to the Johnny’s building.
Kame had managed to get in bed at a decent time the previous night, only to have to bolt up from bed when he was close to fall asleep because he had forgotten to brush his teeth. It was important since humans took great care of their bodies and Kame wanted to nail everything about this role perfectly. A role that could become his real self, if he was lucky.
When Kame stepped into the car, Takki questioned him about the onigiri he had to breakfast (which Kame had eaten) and if he had locked the door (which Kame had done). With everything in order, they drove to work and with Takki behind the wheel Kame wasn’t sure if others also let go of it to start drumming around on everything while singing loudly to ‘Crazy Rainbow’ when driving. He couldn’t say it was safe, as Takki grabbed the wheel and turned on it quickly more than once to avoid a crash.
It was half an hour later Kame was in Chiheisen’s dressing room, still alive and all limbs intact, and Pi congratulated him to surviving a drive with Takki. Pi had seen them in the parking lot beneath the house when he had parked his own car and since he had grown up with Takki as his older, protective brother he had also learned what not to do in traffic.
“As soon as everyone’s here, I’ll talk to you about the week’s schedule,” the lawyer from the day before, Shige, said from a comfortable spot in the dressing room’s couch.
He was around Kame’s human age, but the air he had given out as a lawyer was an aura of someone much older. When Shige was half asleep in the sofa, head resting against Ryo’s shoulder, Kame thought he looked much younger. He didn’t have to ask either; the way both Pi and Ryo were relaxed with him spoke of years of friendship. Maybe they weren’t as deep in the connections as Takki had said that Jin, Pi and Ryo were, but the loyalty and trust were there.
Kame guessed it was all that mattered.
“I’ll be right back, just going to go and buy a Calpis,” Kame said and rose up from his black tree chair.
The other three in the sofa nodded and said they would wait with the meeting until he was back, even if Jin and Ueda actually came on time for once.
With brisk steps, Kame went peeked out in the corridor. No-one he could recognize was there and he stood pondering on which way to go for a few seconds before heading to the elevator, guessing the funny machine from which small metal coins could transform into sodas was in that direction.
He found it with the tables and chairs next to the elevator and pressed three coins into an opening. After he had gotten his drink, he was on his way to open it when the elevator made a ‘ding!’ and two men walked out from it, one dressed in jeans and a t-shirt named RUSS-K and the other wearing beige trousers and an argyle sweater. Kame had never seen them before and judging by their conversation falling quiet when they saw Kame, he guessed they didn’t know him either. Not until one of the men halted in his tracks and suddenly began smiling widely at Kame.
“You must be Kamenashi-san!” the man said and his eyes were barely able to be seen beneath the single pair of eyelids.
Kame was a little taken aback but nodded and made a bow. “Yes, nice to meet you, I’m Kamenashi Kazuya.”
The blond continued to shine at him. “I’m Koyama Keiichiro, MC of Shounen Club. This is Nakamaru Yuichi, my co-host,” Koyama added and pointed with his thumb at the man with big nose and short dark hair next to him. “We’re also the ones in charge of many Juniors around here in the building and if you ever wonder anything, you’re welcome to ask us. Or Shige. He’s really nice too. I think you already know Pi and Ryo too since you’re in their group, and Yuichi is best friends with Ueda so you know Ueda is nice too.”
“Koyama, just shut it,” a voice behind Nakamaru and Koyama said. “And move, I can’t get out of the elevator!”
Jin didn’t sound annoyed although his features showed deep dark circles beneath his eyes and hair in a mess hidden beneath a cap; but Kame had to admit it was the mere sound of Jin’s voice that made his heart jump.
It wasn’t until Koyama spoke that Kame wondered if the cheerful man had been hurt by Jin’s comment, but Koyama only gave Jin a caring look.
“Are you feeling well, Jin-kun?” Koyama asked and received a grumble in response from Jin who had passed by the trio next to the machine. “If you need any medication I have some in my Junior kit!”
Jin waved a hand back at Koyama, turning right around a corner and disappearing from their sight.
Nakamaru made a small but content sigh. “Happy to see he’s alive though.”
Koyama nodded. “I hope he’s taking care.”
“You know Akanishi-san?” Kame asked and Nakamaru and Koyama turned their attention back to the newcomer.
“Jin? Oh yes, we’ve known him and the rest of your group since we auditioned,” Nakamaru said. “We’ve also been in temporary groups together with all different people from the agency when we were Juniors, and then one group after another debuted and we got stuck on hosting Shokura.”
Koyama pouted. “Yuichi, don’t say it like that, we love our work!”
Nakamaru shrugged, yawning. “I do, but when I have to take five Juniors home to my house at two in the morning because they’re dead drunk and are afraid of going home, I think I’d rather resign.”
Koyama was about to reply and the conversation would have dragged even further out on the time if Shige hadn’t come by then and almost been tackled by Koyama, who apparently also was an old friend to Shige, and then Shige had dragged Kame back with him to the dressing room to start the meeting without Ueda, who was at home feeling ill.
Shige was giving out schedules and talking with the group about how to put up the promotions through the year for Chiheisen, both for the group and for the individuals. There were ideas from Takki and the management about the year and although Jin knew that they had things to say about the ideas, the ball lay in the management’s hands in the end. So Chiheisen, with Ueda participating over Skype on Shige’s laptop, agreed on at least three single releases during the year and a number of live performances. Many other group activities were agreed to too and after them, Shige went over to the member’s personal papers. Pi was perhaps casted to a movie, Ryo could get a lead in a summer drama, Ueda could maybe get a mini-album release with Blue-Waves and Jin had commercials. Kame hadn’t gotten any solo offers from any company yet, but Shige said that Takki didn’t think it would be any problem later on when people actually knew who he was.
“But regarding the drama and the movie, could you come with me?” Shige asked Pi and Ryo. “I have a bunch of papers about them in another room and it would be better if you could come with me, since I don’t feel like running all over the place with them.”
“So unprofessional, Shige, so unprofessional,” Ryo said and clicked his tongue.
“Like you’ve ever cared before.” Shige made a face back at Ryo and Pi laughed at it.
It wasn’t long until Jin and Kame were alone in the room together. The atmosphere was thick and Kame didn’t know what to say. Jin hadn’t showed him any bigger interest before and now he was flipping his cell-phone open and shut, sitting on the couch’s arm.
Jin tried to ignore Kame at first and how ridiculously well his jeans fit him. Kame seemed like a fucking picture perfect idol though, with his hair nicely layered and framing his face and a slender body that some French brand would love if they wanted Kame to model something. Not to mention how Kame seemed to be like a silent, serious grey rat. A good looking rat… so maybe a mouse then.
And he knew that he had to get along with Kame sooner or later. Jin didn’t have to like him, but they were in the same group.
“Hey, you.”
Kame looked up from his stack of papers and met Jin’s eyes. Jin had walked over to stand in front of his chair and now the older singer was watching him with a decided look in his eyes.
“Me?”
”Name’s Akanishi Jin, Kamenashi.” Jin reached out his hand to Kame. “I hope we’ll get along.”
Kame stared at his hand for a while before he took it and Jin pulled his hand back as if it had gotten burnt. There had been a weird comfortable feeling when Kame’s fingers had wrapped around his hand and then it had intensified to an indescribable heat.
*
The first weeks in January were put aside for Kame to learn names and people in the idol industry. He had a go-through on the history of Johnny’s and the hierarchy and how to behave and not to behave as an idol.
More or less all the lessons Jin had slept through his whole life.
*
Ueda had, for a reason unknown to everyone in Chiheisen, invited everyone in the group over to his home for dinner a Friday later in January. There was a small guess from Kame’s side that Takki might have a finger into it, but when he had asked Takki the man neither confirmed nor denied it.
Kame didn’t care about the reason later on when he got out of Takki’s car and saw another man strolling his way toward Ueda’s apartment building. Kame thanked the gods, although he guessed they had nothing to do with it, that Jin and he had arrived to Ueno at the same time. After an awkward silence in which they tried to decide without words which of them was going to push the ringing bell’s button on Ueda’s door, Jin pushed it and Ueda opened.
“You’re welcome in,” Ueda greeted them. “I haven’t set out the plates yet but you can go to the kitchen anyway. The drinks are in there.”
The first one to head to the kitchen was Jin, kicking off his shoes and walking in his socks over the room down the hallway. Kame followed but froze in his moves the same second he stepped his foot in the kitchen. Ueda, who was walking right behind him, walked into Kame and huffed.
“Kamenashi?”
“W-w-w-wh… You should know.”
Kame’s voice was trembling in shock; although it was clear he tried to hold himself together.
“What?”
It was low, as a wheeze. “Murderer!”
Ueda blinked. “I must’ve missed something now.”
“You know!” Kame said and turned around to face Ueda. “Can’t you see them?”
“What ‘them’ and where?” Jin was confused. He had no idea what was going on anymore.
“In the kitchen,” Kame said. “On the table! They’re dead!”
Jin, who heard Kame since he was only a few steps away, eyed the table. It was a new one, a white table in plastic, matching the rest of the luxurious apartment in black and white and reminding of the homes featured in home styling magazines with the right vases, decorations and all that glittery shiny special expensive stuff.
Stepping around Kame, Ueda peeked at the table. “There’s nothing dead on the… Oh. Jin, will you take Kame to the living room?“
It wasn’t a question as much as it was Ueda demanding something and Jin sceptically looked at them.
“Follow me,” he told Kame and they went into the other open area.
Behind their backs, Ueda took the bouquet from the vase on the table and threw it in the bin. Plausibly, Takki had thought of everything that Kame could possibly need to know, except the concept of humans killing flowers to make their homes prettier.
Kame and Jin were alone in the living room on the couch, sitting in one end each and not saying anything; Kame was simply too nervous to talk to Jin of all people alone and Jin didn’t know what to say. They heard Ueda rumble around in the kitchen and then he popped his head into the living room, telling his two group members food would be ready in ten minutes.
Jin glanced down at his cell-phone. Pi and Ryo were on their way, they wrote, and they both thought he should try talking to Kame. Everyone in the group had changed contact details with him, even the stylists had, but Jin hadn’t even said a word to him after the one time they shook hands.
“DID YOU KNOW,” Kame suddenly said in a high pitched tone and startled Jin, “it is impossible to lick your elbow?”
“… Huh?”
Kame’s ears and cheeks took a deep tint of pink and he smiled uneasily when Jin stared at him. He didn’t know why he had burped it out like that to Jin. Of all the deep thoughtful ideas Kame had come up with to tell Jin, of all the great one-liners he had learned in dramas, he just had to pull something that they had said on Discovery Channel the night before.
As Kame was more or less deceasing because of faux pas, Jin continued to stare at him and felt awkward with Kame nervously fiddling the hole in his ripped jeans.
“I can… try?” Jin said slowly and Kame’s eyes widened in surprise.
Jin didn’t even know why he was doing it, but maybe he didn’t think very much that moment. He took off his sweatshirt and Kame swallowed thickly when he saw the t-shirt beneath riding up, revealing a trail of hair going down from Jin’s navel to somewhere into his jeans.
It was on the sofa Ryo and Ueda found them later, Jin stoic in his tries to lick his elbow and Kame was observing him in fascination.
“You’re perfect for each other, if your hobby is to do stupid things and it is Kame’s hobby to support it, Jin,” Ryo said and Jin shot him a short glare, complete with narrowed eyes.
“You’re just jealous I am almost reaching and you can’t,” Jin said.
When Pi finally arrived to the dinner, Ueda was laying out plates on the living room’s table and Ryo and Jin were in a mortal combat about who was the one to first reach an elbow with their tongue. Kame was helping Ueda at the same time he studied the non-progressing fight between Ryo and Jin.
“Don’t you know it’s impossible to do that?” Pi said to the two men on the couch.
“Let’s ignore them,” Ueda said, “and eat instead.”
The first one to give up was Jin, because his stomach was empty and the tempura smelled delicious, and he took the seat next to Kame. None of them said anything as the dinner began and they ate in silence for the greater part of an hour, both listening to the other three group members' stories.
Kame gave him a shy glance and Jin looked back. When Kame’s eyes locked with his, he couldn’t help but feel a smile tugging the corners of his lips. Kame smiled back and after that, the rest of the evening felt better to Jin.
He had no idea that his smile had made Kame’s whole week.
[Part 2 of 4]