fic for blinkbling24
Title: Jindiana Jones and the Turtle's Spear
By: elanielyn
Pairing: Akame
Word count: 10.124 yeah, it got a bit out of hand at some point
Rating: NC-17
Genre/Warnings: Possible mistakes about how an archeological excavation works and loose assumptions on Japan’s history.
Notes: To my lovely beta: thank you for your help all through this, you know my fics are what they are just because you are there but you are still not scary. And thanks to P. too for the title! ♥ To my recipient: I really hope you like this, since I have surely tried my best to write something you would like. It was a pleasure writing for you! ☺
Summary: Kamenashi Kazuya, History student, is assigned for a summer course to the archeological site under the direction of one Akanishi Jin, who is for some reason cosplaying Indiana Jones. Kame wished the anomalies would have stopped there.
Kamenashi jumped off the bus and his heavy hiking boots lifted a small cloud of dust from the ground. He shifted the linen bag over his shoulder and followed the instructions the man by the vehicle’s door was shouting out. The sixteen History students lined up in front of the grey concrete building, shifting uncomfortably and sharing polite smiles. Kamenashi dumped his bag onto the ground and pulled his baseball cap off to fan himself with it; it was really hot.
“Good morning, our dear volunteers! You’re welcome to our wonderful archaeological site! I hope you like it here, because this will be your home for the next month!” The line shifted a little as two men emerged from the building. “My name is Yamashita Tomohisa and this is my colleague Akanishi Jin! We’re the directors of this site and you’ll be working under our guidance!”
The guy standing next to Kamenashi leaned toward him a little with confusion clear in his voice. “Any idea why he’s dressing as… Indiana Jones?”
Kamenashi merely shook his head and blinked at their new bosses equally surprised. The one addressed as Akanishi Jin and dressed as Indiana Jones lashed his whip into the air, making it crack way to close to the volunteers for comfort. He raised his worn out hat a bit and grinned at the students.
“I will now read the list to check everyone’s here and give you your identity cards. You must wear this at all times within the site. Alright, then… Abe Kenichi-kun?”
As Akanishi read the names aloud and gave out the tags Yamashita directed the newcomers toward their rooms, encouraging them to use their day getting used to the site and to each other, and to carefully read the instructions sheets placed on their beds.
“Kamenashi Kazuya-kun?”
Kame raised his hand quickly. “Here!”
He was expecting to just get his name tag and go find his room, but Akanishi walked up to him until their noses were almost touching; the man was taller than Kame and he had to bend his back backward awkwardly to keep looking at him in the eye. Kame gulped and squirmed uncomfortably.
“A- Akanishi-san?”
“Kamenashi-kun, right? Kame-kun! Did you know that according to Feng Shui turtles will bring success and prosperity to work projects if placed facing the North? We have assigned you a room in the proper direction, so I hope your presence contributes to this site! Here, your key. Next, Morimoto Kazumi-chan?”
Kame blinked at Akanishi for a moment, not really sure about what to make of the man’s words. Only as the girl standing on his right cleared her throat discreetly he remembered what he was supposed to do and quickly moved out of the line. Still a little bewildered he took the sheet of paper with the way to his room Yamashita was handing him. The archeologist smiled at the confused student.
“Don’t mind Jin’s words much, he enjoys teasing the new students. Don’t let it get to you and he’ll get tired soon.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It was easy to get used to the routine at the site. Wake up early, shower, get dressed, work on the excavations until lunch, break to avoid the hottest hours and then more work until there was not enough visibility to continue. Shower, dinner, free time and an early night. The rooms were not very big - barely space enough for two pairs of bunks beds - but his roommates were friendly enough. The room was not placed towards the North nor was it facing anywhere toward it, but Kame was far from pointing that out to Akanishi.
The archeologists themselves were another matter. They were nice, open and easy going. It had been quite a shock for their students at first, but they had gotten used to it fast. Akanishi had changed out of the Indiana Jones costume too; apparently he only used it to prank the new students - though Kame had to admit it looked good on him. Actually Kame had to admit even the simple black t-shirt Akanishi usually wore looked good on him, even if the low cut V neck that distracted Kame’s sight a little too much for his own good.
Kame had never tried to hide the fact that he liked men - he didn’t shout it out at every chance, but neither did he hide it from those who asked. Seeing their new bosses had been quite a shock: even being a History student himself, his image of historians and archeologists consisted mainly of bitter old people with thick glasses and a serious lack of hair. Neither Yamashita nor Akanishi fitted on that description though. Both were very nice to look at, actually, and Akanishi especially caught Kame’s eye. Broad shoulders, strong chest, deep eyes, bright smile; it was just impossible not to feel drawn towards him. Not that Kame was planning to take it anywhere further than a silly crush.
He did wish, however, that Akanishi would stop publicly teasing him with the turtle thing at every possible chance.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“Kame-kun!”
Kame sighed as Akanishi’s yell resonated around the vast excavation site. He lifted himself up with some effort, groaning as his sore muscles protested after having been bent over the soil for hours. He wiped the dust from his loose trousers and dried the sweat off his forehead with his forearm, not caring anymore about the dirt; mud and dust were impossible to avoid in the excavation.
“Yes, sir! Coming!”
Kame fixed his baseball cap over his head to keep the long, damp strands of hair from getting into his eyes. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat and sticking to his chest, but Akanishi looked not better. The man had tied his black mane into a short ponytail and the shirt he usually wore over his black t-shirt was wrapped around his hips; even the t-shirt itself was covered in dark wet patches, the broad expanse of Akanishi’s chest that the garment exposed glistening with sweat. Kame pushed out of his mind thoughts of licking the protruding collarbones as he walked up to his boss.
“What did you want, sir?”
Akanishi smiled at him and Kame fidgeted. Akanishi smiling at him couldn’t mean anything good. The man pointed toward a cartwheel full of plastic boxes and bags containing small rocks, pieces of pottery and metal, all carefully placed to avoid breaking anything.
“As you know, an important part of any archeological research is cataloguing and analyzing the pieces found. We have been accumulating pieces lately and now that you guys are here they really need some proper cataloguing, else they will just pile up with whatever you find and it’ll be a mess. So it’d be great if you could give a hand at the lab to get all those sorted out.”
Kame looked at the pile in the cartwheel in dismay. That would take days, and no matter how important, academic work was boring when you were on site. And the lab did not even have AC; he would just die from dehydration in there. As he looked at Akanishi the man was smirking amusedly at him, clearly aware of what he was asking his student to do. All desire for making out with the man quickly fled Kame’s mind as he suddenly felt like strangling his boss - he was sure Akanishi had picked him out of all the students just because he wanted to annoy him, and it had worked because Kame could feel his rage toward the archeologist growing. However, he couldn’t find a way out and he did want to get the credits the excavation course offered. Kame felt his shoulders slump.
“Sure, Akanishi-san.”
He spent the rest of the week secluded in the lab, bent over the table as he strained his eyes to catalogue the pieces helped only by the light of the computer screen.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Kame smiled as he sat next to Morimoto-chan; she was talking animatedly with the man in front of them, but stopped long enough to smile back at Kame. The big table for the meals was placed outside, near the building and under a big fabric awning to provide a nice shadow that the students very much welcomed after the hours working under the morning sun.
Kame had just finished his work in the lab and the fresh air felt nice, even though it carried the smell of food and made his stomach rumble; he was famished. He had not noticed the time passing and had missed the start of lunch time, so by the time he had arrived at the table the rest were almost finished.
Kame grinned happily as someone handed him a full plate and promptly dug in. The students took turns in cooking so the food wasn’t always the best, but Kame was so hungry he couldn’t have cared less. He distractedly noted as people around him started to get up to put the plates away and wash them, chatting animatedly. From the corner of his eye he noticed Akanishi standing up and he could hear him saying something, but Kame was not, however, in the mood to put up with the archeologist and so decided to ignore his little speech and the small shocked comments around him. At least until a meatball hit him square on the forehead. Kame looked up bewildered to find Akanishi with another projectile in hand, smirking devilishly.
“Food war!”
There were only a few seconds of shock before hell broke loose. Kame watched in dismay as his food was quickly snatched away from his plate, meatballs disappearing to be used as projectiles against students and bosses alike. He tried protecting his lunch with his arms, but it was no use and he soon gave up and joined the fight instead. Spaghetti and meatballs covered in tomato sauce flew across the air to stain skin, hair and clothes, and as the food started to get scarce it came the turn for the contents of glasses and jars to be thrown against anyone within reach.
Everyone was laughing and squealing loudly, girls trying to cower as boys attacked mercilessly. Kame was drenched and his face was full of sauce smudges, but even joining the fight late he had been able to give out as much as he had taken. He had not missed, however, how Akanishi had been targeting only him. Most of the students had been attacking only each other, not quite daring to go against their bosses even though it had been the two archeologists who had started the fight. Yamashita had been throwing food at everyone and had gotten quite a lot of it himself at the end, but Kame was sure at least 90% of the edible projectiles hitting him had been thrown by Akanishi, and he could now rest assured the man didn’t have a bad aim.
The food war slowly started to die down when most of the projectiles were already on the ground and everyone was covered in sauce and dirt. As food stopped flying around the archeologists clapped their hands to call everyone’s attention. Akanishi rubbed a bit of sauce off his cheek and licked his thumb to clean some more from Yamashita’s nose, making the man jump away with a disgusted cry that - judging by his wide smile - was mostly mockery. Akanishi laughed, facing the students again.
“And with this our traditional food war is over! I hope you have had fun and haven’t got too dirty… Now if we just clear this mess up we’ll all be free to get a shower and rest a bit before starting our work again!”
The students cheered loudly and quickly started picking up the ruined food, washing dishes and glasses and wiping the big table clean. With the excitement gone and at the sight of all the wasted food Kame’s stomach gave a loud protesting rumble, and the young man looked at his empty plate with a desolated expression; he would have to go on without food until dinner.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It had been raining for the last two days and the excavation site had been closed down, since the mud and the loose ground made excavating difficult and dangerous; all the students had been rearranged to different groups to catalogue the pieces at the lab or work at the small on-site museum, either guiding the groups visiting it or organizing the exhibitions. Finally the weather had cleared up by the weekend and the excavations had resumed.
Kame straightened himself up with a groan. Despite the heavy hiking boots his socks were brown and drenched with mud, and so were the rest of his clothes and there was even a mud stain on his chin. As he stretched his aching back his foot slipped on some loose ground. He squeaked, flailing his arms to avoid falling and only barely managed to keep his balance. He kept his arms stretched after he finally came to a stop, and released a deep sigh after making sure he was safe.
His cap had flew off his head after his near fall. Kame shook his head to get his hair off his eyes and went to retrieve the white and blue striped cap, that lately was looking more brown than any other color, though then again, so were most of Kame’s clothes. It had fallen on the place where his foot had slipped, and doing so he had removed some ground and mud. A sudden shine caught his eye as he bent down to retrieve his cap.
The student quickly fell to his knees and pushed the mud away with his bare hands. Under the ground lay an oval wood piece that shined under the sun. Kame reached for his instruments blindly, too excited about the new discovery to take his eyes apart from it. Excavating a bit around it he discovered the lid of a small box, and then the rest of it buried deeper under the soil.
Once the full piece was visible Kame took a small brush to remove the dirt from the piece and carefully wiped away all the mud he could. The small case was made of wood covered in a lacquer that gave the piece a deep rust tone. The surface was craved with the sinuous bodies of dragons, magnificent phoenixes and complicated floral designs along with a string of Chinese characters that Kame could not read; on the lid the emblem of the local lord appeared accompanied by some more characters.
Kame frowned. Evidences of commerce with the overseas nation had rarely been found in that region and what had been found were mostly small ceramic pieces or coins, never something as rich as the chest he had just found. Kame felt the excitement rising in his chest and pushing a wide smile onto his lips. He carefully pulled the box out of the small hole he had excavated around the discovery and placed it on the ground. It didn’t seem false, but it didn’t fit with the site’s history either and he wanted some confirmation first. However, he did not want to embarrass himself in front of his bosses, so Kame called one of his classmates first.
Takahashi-kun inspected the piece carefully, crouched down next to Kame after having been called for a second opinion. Kame fretted nervously next to him.
“What do you think? It doesn’t look like it’s false, does it?”
Takahashi looked unsure, carefully turning the crate a bit to inspect it from another angle. “It… does not. But it doesn’t fit with what researchers know about the site at all. Was it really that close to the surface?”
“Yeah, it was under some ground that gave way when I slipped.”
“Are you sure it’s not a prank from Akanishi-san? He seems quite fond of teasing you.”
“But he couldn’t be sure I would find it, right? It could have been anyone…”
Takahashi shrugged, placing the rich piece back on the ground. “I don’t know. Abe-kun! Can you come here for a moment? Kamenashi-kun has just found this and it doesn’t really look false, but it doesn’t fit the site’s history at all. What do you think?”
Abe crouched down next to them and took the wooden box in his hands to check it. He gave it back after a few moments with a shake of his head and an amused grin. “Definitely false. Commerce with China in this zone was not important enough as to yield pieces this rich, most of what has been found in this site were ceramics and small metallic objects, nothing this important. Akanishi-san must be trying to tease you again. I don’t know what you have done to him, but the guy is set on fooling you, mate.”
Kame sighed as the two students left, animatedly chatting about how glad they were that Akanishi was not picking up on them instead. Kame looked at the box again; it was so beautiful, he couldn’t help but to feel sad it was false. He fished his handkerchief out of his pocket, and even though it was not exactly clean it served him to wipe away most of the mud covering the lacquer. It shone under the sunlight, glistening in his hands. It was the most important discovery he had made while working on the site, and probably the most relevant one any of the students had found so far. He ran his thumb over the Chinese characters engraved on the lid, feeling their traces and the mud and sand still caught in them.
Kame rose to his feet again, the chest securely held in his hands. It was his discovery and he wasn’t going to give up on it so soon. Kame had a determined frown on his face, lips pursed in an annoyed pout. He was ready to yell at Akanishi if the man had been unprofessional enough to do such a thing.
Akanishi was directing the work of some other students in another zone of the site. He was easy to tell apart from the others even from a far, since he was wearing the Indiana Jones hat - he hadn’t worn the entire costume again, but he would often wear the hat to protect himself from the sun. It looked good on him, with the way it fell over his eyes just slightly tilted to one side; Kame thought it made him look cool.
“Akanishi-san, do you have a moment?" He could see the man smirking the moment the archeologist saw him, but he didn’t let himself be intimidated when his boss walked up to him. “I’ve found this piece but it doesn’t seem to fit quite right with the site’s history so I was wondering if you… uhm… wouldn’t have had something to… do with it?”
“Can I see it?”
Kame handed the man the box with an insecure look, almost afraid of letting it go just to discover it was another joke. Akanishi studied the piece carefully and asked a few questions that Kame hastily answered. The archeologist’s expression quickly changed to a serious one that made the student fret. As Yamashita walked closer - probably intent of protecting the poor student from another bad taste joke in the making - Akanishi grabbed his arm and pulled it to his side before placing the lacquered box on his hands.
Kame watched nervously as the two archeologists quickly discussed the newfound piece in hushed tones. Akanishi was making enthusiastic motions with his hands that even knocked his own hat off, while Yamashita kept glancing between the box and Kame. He finally gave it back to the student, and Akanishi put his hand on Kame’s shoulder. Kame squirmed uncomfortably.
“A- Akanishi-san…?”
“Take this to the lab to run the dating tests. Tell them I need the results as soon as possible, it’s important. Go on, go!”
‘As soon as possible’ turned out to be the following afternoon, which in turn had Kame feeling nervous and on edge until then. His mood kept changing between the conviction that Akanishi was just trying to pull another prank on him and the flimsy reassurance that the excited shine in Akanishi’s eyes when he saw the piece must have meant something. He spent the morning distractedly sitting around until his fellow students dragged him back to the bedroom so he would stop making everyone’s work more difficult, too preoccupied about the piece he had found to focus on his own.
Kame jumped a bit on his seat when Akanishi called his name during lunch, but he quickly went to stand by the man’s side. Akanishi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed a bit in a gesture that surely pretended to be reassuring but that made Kame fearfully tense up as he was already expecting the man to shout that it had been all a joke and laugh at him. Kame wasn’t sure he could take the humiliation. He fidgeted when the lacquered box he had found was placed in his hands by Yamashita. The rest of the students were talking between themselves, but the murmurs quieted down as Akanishi cleared his throat loudly.
“As all of you surely know already, Kamenashi-kun made an unusual discovery yesterday. This lacquered box, albeit beautiful, did not quite fit what researches had until now thought of this site, so we sent it to the lab to confirm it wasn’t a fake.” Kame held his breath and only through willpower managed not to close his eyes as he waited for the imminent blow. “The lab has just handed us the results, and the piece is real! This marks a really important discovery that will surely support further studies into the history and development of this site, and Kamenashi-kun will definitely be remembered as an important contributor to it. An applause for him!”
Kame blinked. He looked between Akanishi and the box he was holding a couple of times, not quite believing what he had just heard. Only as the rest of the students started to applaud and cheer at him did he finally started wrapping his head around it. Kame felt himself blushing as a sheepish smile tugged on his lips, turning more confident as pictures started to be taken. He held the box more securely in one hand and flashed a victory sign with the other as Yamashita took a picture of them with a Polaroid camera.
By the end of the day the picture was safely tucked inside a book in his bag and a blurry version of it was his phone’s wallpaper. His shoulders hurt from too many strong pats on the back and in less than a day he had become the most popular student in the group.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Akanishi managed to be nice to him for a couple of days after the discovery. Nice enough to greet him properly when they met and drop the turtle joking, at least. Kame was not only still excited about having found such an important piece, but Akanishi’s suddenly nice disposition only served to lift his mood and maybe - just maybe - give his crush on the man a bit of fuel.
The peace only lasted for a few days, though, and soon enough Akanishi was back to teasing - and almost bullying - him. During the following week Kame found himself walking in his underwear or even just a towel around the building after his clothes had been stolen during his shower, spending two days with his mouth green when Akanishi discreetly spilled some colorants on his food or sporting a turtle badly drawn with markers on his baseball cap.
The sky had been covered with dark gray, heavy looking clouds all day and even though it hadn’t rained yet the humidity had completely drenched Kame’s t-shirt in a few hours despite his having taken a shower after lunch. There wasn’t even the slightest breeze and the heat was making everyone dizzy. Kame had been assigned to work in one of the pits for the afternoon. It was one of the deepest at almost four meters in depth, so a ladder was needed to go in and wearing a helmet was mandatory. The helmet Akanishi had handed him had - of course - a turtle sticker. It was heavy, made him feel hotter, pressed the sweat dampened strands of hair against his forehead until they got into his eyes, made focusing difficult and made his head itch. The pit was about three meters long and two meters in width, so it at least allowed Kame to move around a bit and sit down comfortably as long as he didn’t mind getting his trousers even dirtier.
Akanishi silently approached the pit in which Kame was working and leaned in a bit to check on the young man. The archeologist had to bite his lips to avoid laughing as he thought about the joke he had been planning. He hadn’t even told Yamashita about it because he was just sure the other man would stop him - for some reason he had been sympathizing with Kamenashi lately, which didn’t please Akanishi at all.
Kame was facing away from the rope ladder and had his earphones on; he was distracted enough to not notice Akanishi looking at him from above, even though the archeologist stared intently at his student’s nape for some five minutes straight to make sure Kamenashi wouldn’t notice his presence. Biting back another snicker Akanishi grabbed the ropes and pulled the ladder up, carefully folding it on the ground. He wasn’t planning on leaving the student there for long, just until Kame realized the lack of the ladder and then maybe for a little more while the young man called out for help.
“Oi, Akanishi!” The archeologist whipped around, heart beating madly in his chest as he heard Yamashita’s call. He quickly scrambled to get up, smiling as innocently as he could at his friend while he tried to hide the neatly folded rope ladder. Yamashita raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You look suspicious.”
Akanishi pouted at his colleague. “You always say that, it has lost its meaning already.”
Yamashita laughed amusedly. “True enough. Do you have a moment? They need some help at the lab.”
“Sure, let’s go.” Akanishi was eager to agree, quickly taking Yamashita far from the place with a sigh of relief as it seemed the man had not noticed his little prank yet.
The problems at the laboratory took longer than Akanishi had expected. Yamashita and he had to focus all their attention to solve them and the archeologists didn’t notice time passing or the rain that started to fall heavily at some point of the afternoon. Akanishi had completely forgotten about his prank on Kamenashi and only as someone asked for the student when they were settling down for dinner did he remember he had left the young man in a deep pitch under the heavy rain.
Akanishi didn’t heed Yamashita’s surprised call as he dashed toward the pitches zones. He was suddenly pale, heart racing in his chest as he thought about Kamenashi. His boots slid over the mud as he skidded to a stop near the pitch where Kamenashi had been excavating, and sure enough the ladder was still folded near the rim. Even though the noise of the rain was loud he could still hear the faint cries for help of the student; Kamenashi’s voice was hoarse, he had probably been calling out for a while.
Akanishi kneeled next to the rim of the pitch and looked down; it was dark, but Kamenashi had a small electric torch lit. He was damp and shivering against the muddy wall of the pitch. His eyes were red rimmed under the dark fringe that stuck to his forehead, pressed down by the bright yellow helmet, and his armed looked painfully twisted. Akanishi gulped, suddenly worried about the young man. He threw the ladder down, but he could see Kamenashi had problems getting to his feet.
“Oi! Kamenashi! Are you alright? Can you climb up?”
The answer took a moment to come, rueful and angry. “I can’t move my arm.”
Akanishi quickly climbed down the ladder himself. The ground was covered in a layer of mud that reached the hem of his trousers. Kame’s own clothes were ruined as he had been sitting on the ground, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. The student hissed when Jin touched his injured arm and jerked away a bit.
“What happened?”
“I tried to climb up the wall.”
Akanishi nodded. Rain was still falling and Kame kept shivering in the cold. The archeologist took a quick glance at the rope ladder and decided to risk it. “Can you hold onto my back?”
It was a bit difficult, but Kame managed and so did the ladder to hold their combined weight. Akanishi rushed to take the student to the small infirmary within the site and sat him on the rigid stretcher before wrapping him in some blankets and taking off his helmet. Kame sighed tiredly and closed his eyes for a moment, only to open them again when Akanishi squeezed his shoulder lightly.
“Can I take a look at your arm?” The student looked at him with an unreadable expression, but he finally pushed the blankets apart to reveal his injured arm. Kame hissed in pain when Akanishi touched it, even though the archeologist was trying to be careful. “It’s only dislocated. If you can bear with the pain for a moment, I can fix it.”
“Do you know how to do it?”
“A first aid course is mandatory to hold the position Yamashita and I have.”
Kame nodded slowly and closed his eyes again. “Just… do it fast.”
Even though Akanishi tried to be fast and careful, the student still couldn’t help a pained cry as his arm was popped back into place. Akanishi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and slowly lowered his slightly trembling body to lie on the stretcher before covering him with the blankets again. Kame did not seem all that cold anymore, but instead his cheeks were starting to show a dark flush that announced a fever.
Akanishi fretted uncomfortably for a few moments, unsure about what to do. He searched through the cabinet for a painkiller and handed it to Kame with a cup of water, but he had to help him to sit upright so Kame could drink.
“I think we should put your arm into a sling, just to be sure it won’t get more hurt.” Kame grunted something impossible to understand; he looked tired, a bit like he was falling asleep. “Look, I’m sorry…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Akanishi-san.”
“Just listen, okay? I’m sorry! It was supposed to be just a joke, I didn’t mean any harm! I didn’t think that it’d turn out this bad…”
“Oh, great! You didn’t think it’d turn out this bad?! You left me in a four meters deep pitch for hours, in the rain, but it was all a joke? Well, in case you didn’t notice, it’s not funny! You have been playing jokes on me since I arrived here and it’s not funny! Oh, haha, my arm is dislocated and I’m probably going to catch a cold just because you wanted to play a joke on me, how funny!”
Kame had somehow managed to push himself upright on the stretcher, and even though he kept his injured arm close to his body he was gesticulating energetically with the other one as he yelled. Akanishi stepped back instinctively; Kamenashi had been taking his jokes without as much as a reaction until then, and the sudden angry outburst intimidated him.
That was how Yamashita found them, obviously worried after his friend had run away from the dinner table and their long absence. He took a look at the scene - Kamenashi breathing raggedly with his arm closely pressed to his body and Akanishi looking at him with wide worried eyes a few steps away - and sighed. He placed a hand on the other archeologist’s shoulder to push him out.
“I’ll take care of it from here, Jin. Go to have dinner, the others are worried about Kamenashi-kun.” Akanishi made an attempt to complain, but Yamashita shook his head and pushed him more firmly toward the door. “Just go, okay? You’ll only make things worse right now. Go.”
The archeologist left with a last glance to the injured student, who let himself fall against the stretcher as the door closed. Yamashita walked up to him and took a look at the injured arm.
“Dislocated?”
“Yeah. Akanishi-san just fixed it.”
“Okay. I’m going to put it in a sling; it may hurt a bit when I move it.”
The painkiller did calm him a bit, but still Kame grunted in pain as Yamashita maneuvered his arm into a sling. The archeologist wrapped the blankets around his shoulders again and fetched a towel to dry the student’s hair dry, since he looked too tired to do it himself with only one arm. Kame was surprised, but he didn’t try to get away and just sighed.
“Jin likes you.”
Kame’s eyes shot open, wide and shocked as he looked bewildered at the archeologist. “What?!”
“I know it’s difficult to believe, but it’s true. Jin likes you; he has had a crush on you since he saw your picture on the profiles we were sent.”
“But… He has done nothing but tease and bully me since I arrived! It rather looks like he hates me.”
“It’s just the way he has of trying to get your attention. He’s a bit of a kid with this, but he never meant any harm to you… I know this is not an excuse, but he really does like you and he didn’t want to hurt you.” Yamashita placed the towel aside and squeezed the uninjured shoulder of his student. “I’ll talk to him tonight. You go to your bedroom and get some rest, I’ll tell one of your roommates to bring you something for dinner.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Kame had came down with a fever after the hours spent under the rain and with his arm in the sling he could not help much around the site, the lab or the museum, so he had been told to stay in bed for the week and rest. After the busy routine he had gotten used to the hours in bed seemed to stretch forever to the student, and not enough reading, studying or surfing the internet with his laptop seemed to be enough to fill them.
He was luckily feeling better by Friday morning, and even though he still couldn’t help in the excavations he felt recovered enough to take a walk around the site. The official story about his arm’s injury - or at least what he had been answering when questioned about it - was that he had fallen down, and even though Kame doubted his fellow students were really buying it, no one said anything about the excuse. They greeted Kame happily and told him to be careful and not overdo it.
Kame’s cheerful mood didn’t last long, though, and disappeared when Akanishi approached him after lunch. The other students were quick to leave them alone and even Yamashita made himself scarce when Akanishi walked up to Kame with his hat brim low, covering his nervous eyes. It was not common to see the usually confident and boisterous archeologist behaving like that and it did make him Kame feel a little bit softer toward the man, but after the latest incident he definitely wasn’t going to go easy on Akanishi just because the man felt sorry.
“Kamenashi-kun… Can I have a word with you?” Kame simply gave his boss a cold look and a short nod. “Since this weekend will be everyone’s last one at the site Yamashita and I have decided to give all of you both Saturday and Sunday free, so you can go relax a bit and maybe go to town or something and well… I- I was thinking that I should make thing up to you after how I have been behaving and well… If you’d like it I was thinking I could take you to town and treat you to dinner… There’s this nice ryokan and I could pay for your bedroom so you have a chance to properly rest… If you want. I just really want to compensate you somehow after how badly I’ve treated you.”
Kame looked at Akanishi suspiciously, not sure whether or not to believe him. Akanishi looked sorry enough to be telling the truth, but still Kame was not exactly thrilled with the idea of spending two whole days with him alone.
“What would the others think? I can’t go with you on a private trip and expect the rest of the students to say nothing.”
“We’ll tell them I’m taking you to the hospital to check your arm is doing okay and doesn’t need further care. I’m responsible for your wellbeing while you’re here after all.”
“Some responsible boss you are.” Akanishi looked down at his angry grumble. Kame caught sight of Yamashita looking at them over the man’s shoulder and he remembered their conversation. He had thought that after all the bullying he would have gotten over his silly crush on Akanishi, but now that he knew the archeologist liked him too… Two days together alone did not seem all that terrible from that perspective. Kame sighed and gave Akanishi another cold glance. “Alright. You better make this up to me for this.”
Akanishi looked shocked for a moment, but soon a huge grin took over his lips. He nodded so enthusiastically his usual worn out hat fell to the ground, but Akanishi didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “I promise it’ll be fun! Prepare your bag; I’ll pick you up tomorrow’s morning!”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
At the end it turned out Akanishi was serious about taking him to the local hospital, much to Kame’s surprise. He got an X-Ray scanner to check he had not received any serious damage to his arm, and they both yelled at by the doctor for not having come in earlier. Kame assured the doctor he had not been feeling any intense pain and that he had painkillers enough to get by - two whole bottles, actually, since Yamashita had been giving him the ones from the site’s infirmary instead of letting him take the ones he had packed himself, insisting that since it was Akanishi’s fault he got injured it was the site that should provide him with meds. At least the doctor agreed it was safe for him to go without the sling.
The atmosphere between them was tense once they were out of the hospital. Kame was not quite willing to drop his coldness toward Akanishi after what the man had done to him, so the archeologist’s earnest efforts to start a conversation with him ended with short dry monosyllables for an answer. They wandered around the small town for the best part of the morning, looking at shops and generally making time until lunch.
Akanishi had the decency to at least take him to a nice, expensive looking restaurant. They were shown to a small private table at the back of the dining room and left alone with their menus to decide; Kame didn’t feel even the smallest guilt when he ordered the most expensive item on it, accompanied by the most expensive beer. Akanishi fretted a bit on his seat, but made sure to fill the student’s glass as soon as their drink arrived.
They ate in silence for a while, but Akanishi was intent on starting anew with the student and that seemed to include civil conversation with him. Kame, crush or not, didn’t feel like being very civil to the archeologist.
“So, Kamenashi-kun, how are you, uhm, enjoying your stay at the site?”
Kame raised an eyebrow, pinning his boss with a look that stated he couldn’t get any more stupid. It was Akanishi who had decided drop the student/boss relationship treating him to a weekend out, anyway, he could very well deal with the consequences.
“Minor accidents and bullying apart? It’s been great.”
And Kame had to admit he was enjoying Akanishi’s sudden insecurity and embarrassed blushing, and very much at that. When he wasn’t behaving like a douchebag Akanishi looked quite adorable, and Kame’s crush was going strong again.
“It’s been great having you guys here.” Kame looked at the archeologist over the rim of his beer glass. The man was staring intently at his plate, apparently not daring to look at the student in the eye. “I- I mean… When I was a kid I wanted to be an archeologist because I thought it was like in the Indiana Jones’ movies, adventures and a hot chick and all of that and I obviously knew it was not like that when I actually started studying History but it’s always great to see new students arriving. Those people… I mean, the people who lived in this village, or in any other, depend on us to discover their lives, to tell the world who they were and how they lived and how that contributed to who we are now, but no one seems to find interest in History nowadays, so it’s always great to see new students coming in and showing such a passion about archeology and History and like… stuff.”
Akanishi’s cheeks were dark red when he finished talking and he looked as embarrassed as if he had just opened his heart to Kame. The student looked at him as the man downed his beer in one go. So maybe Akanishi was nice after all. So maybe they could get along if they tried. Kame reached to take the bottle of beer and filled Akanishi’s glass to the rim again.
“And… Why are you studying History, Kamenashi-kun?”
“I have always liked History, ever since I was a kid. My mother spent my whole High School years insisting I rethink my future and studied something more useful like Economics or Politics or something… I think she was hoping that someone would somehow bang some sense into my head or something… But at least she didn’t stop me at the end. Sure a lot of people like History as a hobby, but if we leave it as just that… If no one studies History, seriously studies it for a living, then it will just fade away, right? We can’t let our past fade away like that and disappear, because it’s our past after all and we need to know it, we can’t go on without knowing who we are or what there was before us, right?”
Akanishi nodded, obviously pleased at the sudden collaborative spirit of his student. He grinned widely and Kame found himself smiling too, feeling a bit like an idiot as one simple - yet so very bright - smile was able to tear down all his stubborn walls of hostility. Akanishi raised his glass toward him.
“To History!”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The rest of the afternoon was spent in a much nicer atmosphere. They visited the local temple and at some point decided to sit down in the terrace of a small café to have a cold drink, as it was easy to get tired in the heavy and damp heat of summer. It was not so uncomfortable as they could now talk in a relaxed way, and Akanishi even insisted Kame called him simply Jin, since he had been teasing him with the “Kame-kun” nickname ever since the first day. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but soon Kame discovered that Jin made it easy to be informal with him.
The ryokan was almost full of tourists and Jin had only been able to book a room, but the staff assured them that it was equipped with two individual futon and after setting the bedding it was obvious that it was a room wide enough so they wouldn’t have to sleep too close to each other or feel uncomfortable. A big paper sliding door gave way to a small inner garden that let a light, fresh breeze into the room. Kame opened it widely and smiled at the fragrant smell of the bright colored flowers.
After a month working in the mud of the site, where even in the showers there was a certain amount of dirt, it felt wonderful to take a long soaking bath in one of the ryokan’s thermal baths. The water was warm as it covered his body, relaxing tired muscles and even calming down the pain of his injured arm. Jin sunk into the bath in front of him, and it was quite a challenge not to stare at the well toned muscles that glistened with water and sweat, and a total matter of will power not to let his sight travel down the thin trail of hair on the man’s stomach, since Jin seemed to consider that the towel was put to a much better use as a pillow for where his neck rested against the rough hewn rocks. Kame could feel his cheeks blushing and heating up, but he was quick to attribute it to the hot water and the steam when Jin looked worriedly at him.
The light cotton yukata felt soft and much more comfortable than their usual work clothes; its gentle touch over their fresh clean skin felt wonderful. Jin was still trying to make it up to Kame for the constant teasing of the last month, so he ordered quite a generous traditional dinner that was brought to their room by a kimono clad woman. It was delicious and they both stuffed themselves. Kame let himself fall against the fluffy futon with a contented sigh and patted his full stomach. Dinner had been accompanied by quite a generous amount of alcohol too, and his head felt a little light. As Jin grunted something and got up to disappear into the toilet, Kame rolled on the futon until he could reach his discarded bag. He dug around for his painkillers and popped one into his mouth. He was putting the bottle back into the bag when Jin exited the toilet; the archeologist froze and looked at him with a horrified expression.
“Are those painkillers… yours?” Kame nodded slowly, as Jin’s sudden mood change was scaring him. “Oh crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap…”
“Jin? What happened? It’s just a painkiller.”
Jin looked at him with a guilty expression and slowly started to back away from the student until he was pressed against the wall farthest from him. Kame shifted a bit, growing more nervous by the second.
“Jin…?”
“Look, don’t get angry but… When I was still teasing you I… might have… changedyourpainkillersforaphrodisiacs.”
“WHAT?!”
“I’M SORRY, OKAY?! I thought it’d be funny and then you simply didn’t use any and then I forgot to change them back and pfffft.”
Jin decided that it was safer to keep the pillow that hit him square on the face right where it had landed.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“… Kamenashi-kun?”
“Shut up.”
“But…”
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Akanishi. Just. Shut up.”
Kame was sitting with his back to the archeologist as he tried to think of anything but the heat slowly taking over his body, and he was pretty sure the sight of Akanishi was not going to help with that. And he was still angry at the man. Mad. Seething. Horny. No!
Kame shifted a bit where he was sitting, but the growing erection tenting his yukata made it difficult to be comfortable in any position. Whenever he moved his legs in the slightest it rubbed against his thighs and the cotton of his clothes, and the aphrodisiac, combined with the alcohol, made his skin tingle with heat at even the smallest stimulation. He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath to calm down, but all he could think about was the intense arousal he was feeling. Almost unconsciously his hand rubbed against the bulge between his legs, and his moan was loud and clear in the otherwise silent room. Kame considered drowning himself in the onsen.
He was too preoccupied with his arousal to notice how Jin had crawled cross the distance separating them. Kame gasped and jerked a bit when the man hugged him from behind, but Jin was quick to wrap an arm around his middle and catch his wrists with his other hand, so the student could not get away. Kame shivered as he felt the archeologist’s breath tickling the skin behind his ear; it was quickly driving him crazy with want.
“This” Kame moaned a bit as Jin’s hand brushed lightly against the cotton covering his cock “is my fault, right?”
“O- of course!”
“Then I should help you with it.”
Kame was in no position to argue that and he really didn’t want to. Jin pressed himself closer against the student and sneaked his hand between the folds of the yukata to close it around the man’s erection. As it didn’t seem like Kame was going to try to get away Jin released his wrists in favor of trying to get the obi undone. The position was tricky with the way the student was moving and rubbing himself against Jin, and the archeologist’s growing erection didn’t help either, but he finally managed. Kame’s hips jerked sharply as Jin’s free hand moved to his chest to pinch his nipples.
Jin tugged his own yukata open as he maneuvered Kame to lie on his back on the futon. The aphrodisiac was taking its toll on the man and Kame was panting heavily and shivering at every touch. Even the soft cotton of the yukata sliding over his skin made his arousal grow. He wrapped his arms around Jin’s neck and pulled him down and for a moment they looked at each other with eyes clouded with lust, so close that their breaths mixed. Kame still had the presence of mind to realize that he had been fantasizing about kissing those lips that were so close to his own for the best part of the last few weeks, but then Jin leaned in and every coherent thought fled the student’s brain. Jin’s lips were soft and plump and he was demanding, tongue pushing into Kame’s mouth as his whole body pressed down on the supine one.
Kame moaned when Jin broke the kiss to lick a trail down his jaw and neck. The student had his eyes closed and his hand tightly closed in the archeologist’s black hair, too lost in pleasure to be careful about hurting his boss anymore. Jin’s mouth was a trail of fire over his already feverish skin; it sent shocks of pleasure through his body as it closed around a perky nipple and even as Kame whimpered and tried to squirm away at a slightly harsh bite, Jin only wrapped a hand around his torso to lift it up and lap his tongue soothingly at the red and sore nub.
It was almost tortuous as Jin slowly licked his way down the student’s stomach. He was hard too, but the sight of the young man under him was just too enticing to ignore: he was lying on the opened yukata, arms still encased in the soft cotton, and his skin glistened with sweat and saliva as he squirmed in pleasure; it was obvious the aphrodisiac had long since taken away his coherence. Kame’s lips were red after the kiss, his nipples perky and swollen and cock hard and proud between his thighs. Jin licked his lips and closed his hand around the man’s erection; pumping it once he watched as Kame arched off the futon with loud moans slipping from his luscious mouth. Jin leaned in to kiss him again, a hot and mess of tongues and teeth and spit that only aroused them more.
It was a surprise when Kame came. He pulled painfully on Jin’s hair to push his head away as he cried out his release, body shaking under the archeologist as Jin kept stroking his cock through his orgasm. It left Kame shaking, the force of it and how suddenly it had hit him, undoubtedly because of the aphrodisiac. Jin sat back on his heels to let the man breathe and calm down and maybe then hopefully realize the archeologist’s raging erection and help him with it too, but soon it was obvious Kame was going to take a while to open his eyes.
Only not so, because just as Jin sighed and finally started to get up to take care of things himself in the bathroom, Kame groaned again. The archeologist turned around just to see Kame’s cock was coming alive again. He went back to the futon, staring at the aroused student with a mix of shock and amusement.
“You’re hard again?! So soon?!”
Kame glared, trying to resist the urge to touch himself. “You fed me a fucking aphrodisiac, what were you expecting?”
“Well, technically you took it yourself…”
“Akanishi…”
Jin was smart enough to pick on the angry tone taking over the student’s voice, and he knew better than to try to argue with him. He took a condom out of one of the side pockets of his bag and hovered over Kame again; his shamelessly open yukata encased their bodies like curtains.
“Guess I’ll have to help you some, right?”
“Just do something!”
Jin laughed, but he was fast to kiss the man again. Kame was sensitive after having reached his orgasm once already and his cock was hardening quickly even with the slightest touches. Jin grunted as thin slender fingers cupped his erection, and he was happy to thrust into the loose fist of Kame’s fingers; at least now that the aphrodisiac was slowly weakening the man seemed to have enough presence of mind to return a helping hand of his own.
Kame yelped when Jin pushed two fingers into him. It had been a while since he had been with someone and neither he nor Jin were carrying any lube around, so Jin had used spit and it was obviously not enough. Kame pulled the archeologist down for a kiss with a demanding grunt. Jin gave a breathy laugh, amused, but he obliged. Kame arched into the kiss as the man started stroking his cock again to keep the student aroused while he stretched him, though the aphrodisiac was still doing a pretty good job with that.
Jin pulled his fingers out before Kame was properly stretched, but Kame couldn’t really care less. He spread his legs wider as the archeologist sat back on his heels to put the condom on; it had some lubrication, but Jin spat on his hand to help the process a bit. It still hurt and the pain made Kame tense up and breathe shakily, but Jin was nice enough to ignore his own arousal for a moment long enough to pause and give him a bit of time to adjust. Kame would have been thankful for it any other day, but with the - albeit reduced - effect of the aphrodisiac making his cock feel harder than ever despite the previous orgasm, he’d rather Jin started moving soon. He wrapped his arms around Jin’s neck and pulled on the black hair again.
“Jin…” He breathed.
The man smirked above him and started moving slowly, too slowly and Kame groaned in frustration. “Yeah?”
“Move.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll be feeding you a whole bottle of those aphrodisiacs and not helping you.”
“Well, well, doesn’t the turtle have a mean streak?”
“Maybe just a joking one.”
Jin laughed, but his own arousal was too much to keep ignoring it and he finally started to move seriously. Kame gasped, taken aback at the sudden force of the thrusts, but he soon wrapped his legs around Jin’s hips to encourage him. The cotton of the man’s yukata brushed against the inside of his thighs as Jin moved and tickled the sensitive skin there. They found a rhythm fast, Jin pumping Kame’s cock as Kame moved to meet each of Jin’s thrusts, and every time the archeologist hit his sweet spot he felt himself getting lighter and higher until all he could think about was the white hot pleasure washing through him.
His orgasm was not as sudden as the first time; it started as a warm feeling pooling at the pit of his stomach that quickly spread through the rest of his body until even his toes were curling with its force, but it was still strong enough to make him shake and cry out Jin’s name. The archeologist grunted something in response that Kame obviously didn’t hear. The student was tightening around him and it felt so good, so tight and hot and like Kame was eager to suck him in again every time Jin pushed into him that he could not hold it any longer. He came with a guttural grunt, his hips still snapping into the limp body under his as he rode out his orgasm.
It took Kame a few minutes to be fully conscious of his surroundings again. He felt exhausted, completely spent and sore; his backside hurt and so did his cock after the two close orgasms. His skin was sticky with cum and sweat and the cotton that had once felt so nice now stuck to his body in an uncomfortable way. And he was feeling way too hot, though that could have something to do with the body closely pressed to his. Kame groaned in discomfort and tried to roll away from the man, but Jin was not to be discouraged and cuddled against him again, and even wrapped an arm around his waist for reinforcement. Kame groaned and contemplated moving to the other futon, but the wide room that had seemed so convenient in the afternoon made the distance in between the two beddings too much to bother with it as tired as he was, and it didn’t seem like Jin was going to let him go anyway. Kame groaned again as Jin pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek.
“I hate you.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The sixteen History students were standing in a line in front of the main building again with their bags hanging from their shoulders and their clothes much dirtier than four weeks before. In front of them Akanishi was back into his Indiana Jones outfit, but no one could bring themselves to care after a month of suffering the archeologist’s antics. At least he was letting Yamashita give the goodbye speech, though of course no one was expecting him to let them go without a final word - and much less one Kamenashi Kazuya, who had been spending the last week at the site trying to hide a rather indiscreet hickey on his neck.
Akanishi placed a hand on the handle of his whip as he walked up and down the line of students a couple of times like he was considering the words for a speech to the nation. He cleared his throat and looked at the students like a general would look to his soldiers, though the effect was greatly diminished by Yamashita quite visibly rolling his eyes behind him.
“My dear students… I hope you have enjoyed your time here, and I hope you have been able to learn from us.” He made a dramatic pause, and pushed his hat back to let everyone see his bright smile. “But if you haven’t, do not fear! We’ll have received an offer from your university to teach one of the main subjects next semester, and I’m happy to tell you all we have accepted!” The man obviously relished on the chorus of surprised gasps and comments that followed his statement, but he motioned for the students to calm down as he finally came to halt before Kame, pinning him with an amused look and a smirk that didn’t announce anything good. “I’ll be looking forward to meeting you all again!”
Kame seriously considered whether it was too late to finally listen to his mother and change his degree to something more useful - and more importantly, Akanishi-free - like Economics, for example.
By: elanielyn
Pairing: Akame
Word count: 10.124 yeah, it got a bit out of hand at some point
Rating: NC-17
Genre/Warnings: Possible mistakes about how an archeological excavation works and loose assumptions on Japan’s history.
Notes: To my lovely beta: thank you for your help all through this, you know my fics are what they are just because you are there but you are still not scary. And thanks to P. too for the title! ♥ To my recipient: I really hope you like this, since I have surely tried my best to write something you would like. It was a pleasure writing for you! ☺
Summary: Kamenashi Kazuya, History student, is assigned for a summer course to the archeological site under the direction of one Akanishi Jin, who is for some reason cosplaying Indiana Jones. Kame wished the anomalies would have stopped there.
Kamenashi jumped off the bus and his heavy hiking boots lifted a small cloud of dust from the ground. He shifted the linen bag over his shoulder and followed the instructions the man by the vehicle’s door was shouting out. The sixteen History students lined up in front of the grey concrete building, shifting uncomfortably and sharing polite smiles. Kamenashi dumped his bag onto the ground and pulled his baseball cap off to fan himself with it; it was really hot.
“Good morning, our dear volunteers! You’re welcome to our wonderful archaeological site! I hope you like it here, because this will be your home for the next month!” The line shifted a little as two men emerged from the building. “My name is Yamashita Tomohisa and this is my colleague Akanishi Jin! We’re the directors of this site and you’ll be working under our guidance!”
The guy standing next to Kamenashi leaned toward him a little with confusion clear in his voice. “Any idea why he’s dressing as… Indiana Jones?”
Kamenashi merely shook his head and blinked at their new bosses equally surprised. The one addressed as Akanishi Jin and dressed as Indiana Jones lashed his whip into the air, making it crack way to close to the volunteers for comfort. He raised his worn out hat a bit and grinned at the students.
“I will now read the list to check everyone’s here and give you your identity cards. You must wear this at all times within the site. Alright, then… Abe Kenichi-kun?”
As Akanishi read the names aloud and gave out the tags Yamashita directed the newcomers toward their rooms, encouraging them to use their day getting used to the site and to each other, and to carefully read the instructions sheets placed on their beds.
“Kamenashi Kazuya-kun?”
Kame raised his hand quickly. “Here!”
He was expecting to just get his name tag and go find his room, but Akanishi walked up to him until their noses were almost touching; the man was taller than Kame and he had to bend his back backward awkwardly to keep looking at him in the eye. Kame gulped and squirmed uncomfortably.
“A- Akanishi-san?”
“Kamenashi-kun, right? Kame-kun! Did you know that according to Feng Shui turtles will bring success and prosperity to work projects if placed facing the North? We have assigned you a room in the proper direction, so I hope your presence contributes to this site! Here, your key. Next, Morimoto Kazumi-chan?”
Kame blinked at Akanishi for a moment, not really sure about what to make of the man’s words. Only as the girl standing on his right cleared her throat discreetly he remembered what he was supposed to do and quickly moved out of the line. Still a little bewildered he took the sheet of paper with the way to his room Yamashita was handing him. The archeologist smiled at the confused student.
“Don’t mind Jin’s words much, he enjoys teasing the new students. Don’t let it get to you and he’ll get tired soon.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It was easy to get used to the routine at the site. Wake up early, shower, get dressed, work on the excavations until lunch, break to avoid the hottest hours and then more work until there was not enough visibility to continue. Shower, dinner, free time and an early night. The rooms were not very big - barely space enough for two pairs of bunks beds - but his roommates were friendly enough. The room was not placed towards the North nor was it facing anywhere toward it, but Kame was far from pointing that out to Akanishi.
The archeologists themselves were another matter. They were nice, open and easy going. It had been quite a shock for their students at first, but they had gotten used to it fast. Akanishi had changed out of the Indiana Jones costume too; apparently he only used it to prank the new students - though Kame had to admit it looked good on him. Actually Kame had to admit even the simple black t-shirt Akanishi usually wore looked good on him, even if the low cut V neck that distracted Kame’s sight a little too much for his own good.
Kame had never tried to hide the fact that he liked men - he didn’t shout it out at every chance, but neither did he hide it from those who asked. Seeing their new bosses had been quite a shock: even being a History student himself, his image of historians and archeologists consisted mainly of bitter old people with thick glasses and a serious lack of hair. Neither Yamashita nor Akanishi fitted on that description though. Both were very nice to look at, actually, and Akanishi especially caught Kame’s eye. Broad shoulders, strong chest, deep eyes, bright smile; it was just impossible not to feel drawn towards him. Not that Kame was planning to take it anywhere further than a silly crush.
He did wish, however, that Akanishi would stop publicly teasing him with the turtle thing at every possible chance.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“Kame-kun!”
Kame sighed as Akanishi’s yell resonated around the vast excavation site. He lifted himself up with some effort, groaning as his sore muscles protested after having been bent over the soil for hours. He wiped the dust from his loose trousers and dried the sweat off his forehead with his forearm, not caring anymore about the dirt; mud and dust were impossible to avoid in the excavation.
“Yes, sir! Coming!”
Kame fixed his baseball cap over his head to keep the long, damp strands of hair from getting into his eyes. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat and sticking to his chest, but Akanishi looked not better. The man had tied his black mane into a short ponytail and the shirt he usually wore over his black t-shirt was wrapped around his hips; even the t-shirt itself was covered in dark wet patches, the broad expanse of Akanishi’s chest that the garment exposed glistening with sweat. Kame pushed out of his mind thoughts of licking the protruding collarbones as he walked up to his boss.
“What did you want, sir?”
Akanishi smiled at him and Kame fidgeted. Akanishi smiling at him couldn’t mean anything good. The man pointed toward a cartwheel full of plastic boxes and bags containing small rocks, pieces of pottery and metal, all carefully placed to avoid breaking anything.
“As you know, an important part of any archeological research is cataloguing and analyzing the pieces found. We have been accumulating pieces lately and now that you guys are here they really need some proper cataloguing, else they will just pile up with whatever you find and it’ll be a mess. So it’d be great if you could give a hand at the lab to get all those sorted out.”
Kame looked at the pile in the cartwheel in dismay. That would take days, and no matter how important, academic work was boring when you were on site. And the lab did not even have AC; he would just die from dehydration in there. As he looked at Akanishi the man was smirking amusedly at him, clearly aware of what he was asking his student to do. All desire for making out with the man quickly fled Kame’s mind as he suddenly felt like strangling his boss - he was sure Akanishi had picked him out of all the students just because he wanted to annoy him, and it had worked because Kame could feel his rage toward the archeologist growing. However, he couldn’t find a way out and he did want to get the credits the excavation course offered. Kame felt his shoulders slump.
“Sure, Akanishi-san.”
He spent the rest of the week secluded in the lab, bent over the table as he strained his eyes to catalogue the pieces helped only by the light of the computer screen.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Kame smiled as he sat next to Morimoto-chan; she was talking animatedly with the man in front of them, but stopped long enough to smile back at Kame. The big table for the meals was placed outside, near the building and under a big fabric awning to provide a nice shadow that the students very much welcomed after the hours working under the morning sun.
Kame had just finished his work in the lab and the fresh air felt nice, even though it carried the smell of food and made his stomach rumble; he was famished. He had not noticed the time passing and had missed the start of lunch time, so by the time he had arrived at the table the rest were almost finished.
Kame grinned happily as someone handed him a full plate and promptly dug in. The students took turns in cooking so the food wasn’t always the best, but Kame was so hungry he couldn’t have cared less. He distractedly noted as people around him started to get up to put the plates away and wash them, chatting animatedly. From the corner of his eye he noticed Akanishi standing up and he could hear him saying something, but Kame was not, however, in the mood to put up with the archeologist and so decided to ignore his little speech and the small shocked comments around him. At least until a meatball hit him square on the forehead. Kame looked up bewildered to find Akanishi with another projectile in hand, smirking devilishly.
“Food war!”
There were only a few seconds of shock before hell broke loose. Kame watched in dismay as his food was quickly snatched away from his plate, meatballs disappearing to be used as projectiles against students and bosses alike. He tried protecting his lunch with his arms, but it was no use and he soon gave up and joined the fight instead. Spaghetti and meatballs covered in tomato sauce flew across the air to stain skin, hair and clothes, and as the food started to get scarce it came the turn for the contents of glasses and jars to be thrown against anyone within reach.
Everyone was laughing and squealing loudly, girls trying to cower as boys attacked mercilessly. Kame was drenched and his face was full of sauce smudges, but even joining the fight late he had been able to give out as much as he had taken. He had not missed, however, how Akanishi had been targeting only him. Most of the students had been attacking only each other, not quite daring to go against their bosses even though it had been the two archeologists who had started the fight. Yamashita had been throwing food at everyone and had gotten quite a lot of it himself at the end, but Kame was sure at least 90% of the edible projectiles hitting him had been thrown by Akanishi, and he could now rest assured the man didn’t have a bad aim.
The food war slowly started to die down when most of the projectiles were already on the ground and everyone was covered in sauce and dirt. As food stopped flying around the archeologists clapped their hands to call everyone’s attention. Akanishi rubbed a bit of sauce off his cheek and licked his thumb to clean some more from Yamashita’s nose, making the man jump away with a disgusted cry that - judging by his wide smile - was mostly mockery. Akanishi laughed, facing the students again.
“And with this our traditional food war is over! I hope you have had fun and haven’t got too dirty… Now if we just clear this mess up we’ll all be free to get a shower and rest a bit before starting our work again!”
The students cheered loudly and quickly started picking up the ruined food, washing dishes and glasses and wiping the big table clean. With the excitement gone and at the sight of all the wasted food Kame’s stomach gave a loud protesting rumble, and the young man looked at his empty plate with a desolated expression; he would have to go on without food until dinner.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
It had been raining for the last two days and the excavation site had been closed down, since the mud and the loose ground made excavating difficult and dangerous; all the students had been rearranged to different groups to catalogue the pieces at the lab or work at the small on-site museum, either guiding the groups visiting it or organizing the exhibitions. Finally the weather had cleared up by the weekend and the excavations had resumed.
Kame straightened himself up with a groan. Despite the heavy hiking boots his socks were brown and drenched with mud, and so were the rest of his clothes and there was even a mud stain on his chin. As he stretched his aching back his foot slipped on some loose ground. He squeaked, flailing his arms to avoid falling and only barely managed to keep his balance. He kept his arms stretched after he finally came to a stop, and released a deep sigh after making sure he was safe.
His cap had flew off his head after his near fall. Kame shook his head to get his hair off his eyes and went to retrieve the white and blue striped cap, that lately was looking more brown than any other color, though then again, so were most of Kame’s clothes. It had fallen on the place where his foot had slipped, and doing so he had removed some ground and mud. A sudden shine caught his eye as he bent down to retrieve his cap.
The student quickly fell to his knees and pushed the mud away with his bare hands. Under the ground lay an oval wood piece that shined under the sun. Kame reached for his instruments blindly, too excited about the new discovery to take his eyes apart from it. Excavating a bit around it he discovered the lid of a small box, and then the rest of it buried deeper under the soil.
Once the full piece was visible Kame took a small brush to remove the dirt from the piece and carefully wiped away all the mud he could. The small case was made of wood covered in a lacquer that gave the piece a deep rust tone. The surface was craved with the sinuous bodies of dragons, magnificent phoenixes and complicated floral designs along with a string of Chinese characters that Kame could not read; on the lid the emblem of the local lord appeared accompanied by some more characters.
Kame frowned. Evidences of commerce with the overseas nation had rarely been found in that region and what had been found were mostly small ceramic pieces or coins, never something as rich as the chest he had just found. Kame felt the excitement rising in his chest and pushing a wide smile onto his lips. He carefully pulled the box out of the small hole he had excavated around the discovery and placed it on the ground. It didn’t seem false, but it didn’t fit with the site’s history either and he wanted some confirmation first. However, he did not want to embarrass himself in front of his bosses, so Kame called one of his classmates first.
Takahashi-kun inspected the piece carefully, crouched down next to Kame after having been called for a second opinion. Kame fretted nervously next to him.
“What do you think? It doesn’t look like it’s false, does it?”
Takahashi looked unsure, carefully turning the crate a bit to inspect it from another angle. “It… does not. But it doesn’t fit with what researchers know about the site at all. Was it really that close to the surface?”
“Yeah, it was under some ground that gave way when I slipped.”
“Are you sure it’s not a prank from Akanishi-san? He seems quite fond of teasing you.”
“But he couldn’t be sure I would find it, right? It could have been anyone…”
Takahashi shrugged, placing the rich piece back on the ground. “I don’t know. Abe-kun! Can you come here for a moment? Kamenashi-kun has just found this and it doesn’t really look false, but it doesn’t fit the site’s history at all. What do you think?”
Abe crouched down next to them and took the wooden box in his hands to check it. He gave it back after a few moments with a shake of his head and an amused grin. “Definitely false. Commerce with China in this zone was not important enough as to yield pieces this rich, most of what has been found in this site were ceramics and small metallic objects, nothing this important. Akanishi-san must be trying to tease you again. I don’t know what you have done to him, but the guy is set on fooling you, mate.”
Kame sighed as the two students left, animatedly chatting about how glad they were that Akanishi was not picking up on them instead. Kame looked at the box again; it was so beautiful, he couldn’t help but to feel sad it was false. He fished his handkerchief out of his pocket, and even though it was not exactly clean it served him to wipe away most of the mud covering the lacquer. It shone under the sunlight, glistening in his hands. It was the most important discovery he had made while working on the site, and probably the most relevant one any of the students had found so far. He ran his thumb over the Chinese characters engraved on the lid, feeling their traces and the mud and sand still caught in them.
Kame rose to his feet again, the chest securely held in his hands. It was his discovery and he wasn’t going to give up on it so soon. Kame had a determined frown on his face, lips pursed in an annoyed pout. He was ready to yell at Akanishi if the man had been unprofessional enough to do such a thing.
Akanishi was directing the work of some other students in another zone of the site. He was easy to tell apart from the others even from a far, since he was wearing the Indiana Jones hat - he hadn’t worn the entire costume again, but he would often wear the hat to protect himself from the sun. It looked good on him, with the way it fell over his eyes just slightly tilted to one side; Kame thought it made him look cool.
“Akanishi-san, do you have a moment?" He could see the man smirking the moment the archeologist saw him, but he didn’t let himself be intimidated when his boss walked up to him. “I’ve found this piece but it doesn’t seem to fit quite right with the site’s history so I was wondering if you… uhm… wouldn’t have had something to… do with it?”
“Can I see it?”
Kame handed the man the box with an insecure look, almost afraid of letting it go just to discover it was another joke. Akanishi studied the piece carefully and asked a few questions that Kame hastily answered. The archeologist’s expression quickly changed to a serious one that made the student fret. As Yamashita walked closer - probably intent of protecting the poor student from another bad taste joke in the making - Akanishi grabbed his arm and pulled it to his side before placing the lacquered box on his hands.
Kame watched nervously as the two archeologists quickly discussed the newfound piece in hushed tones. Akanishi was making enthusiastic motions with his hands that even knocked his own hat off, while Yamashita kept glancing between the box and Kame. He finally gave it back to the student, and Akanishi put his hand on Kame’s shoulder. Kame squirmed uncomfortably.
“A- Akanishi-san…?”
“Take this to the lab to run the dating tests. Tell them I need the results as soon as possible, it’s important. Go on, go!”
‘As soon as possible’ turned out to be the following afternoon, which in turn had Kame feeling nervous and on edge until then. His mood kept changing between the conviction that Akanishi was just trying to pull another prank on him and the flimsy reassurance that the excited shine in Akanishi’s eyes when he saw the piece must have meant something. He spent the morning distractedly sitting around until his fellow students dragged him back to the bedroom so he would stop making everyone’s work more difficult, too preoccupied about the piece he had found to focus on his own.
Kame jumped a bit on his seat when Akanishi called his name during lunch, but he quickly went to stand by the man’s side. Akanishi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed a bit in a gesture that surely pretended to be reassuring but that made Kame fearfully tense up as he was already expecting the man to shout that it had been all a joke and laugh at him. Kame wasn’t sure he could take the humiliation. He fidgeted when the lacquered box he had found was placed in his hands by Yamashita. The rest of the students were talking between themselves, but the murmurs quieted down as Akanishi cleared his throat loudly.
“As all of you surely know already, Kamenashi-kun made an unusual discovery yesterday. This lacquered box, albeit beautiful, did not quite fit what researches had until now thought of this site, so we sent it to the lab to confirm it wasn’t a fake.” Kame held his breath and only through willpower managed not to close his eyes as he waited for the imminent blow. “The lab has just handed us the results, and the piece is real! This marks a really important discovery that will surely support further studies into the history and development of this site, and Kamenashi-kun will definitely be remembered as an important contributor to it. An applause for him!”
Kame blinked. He looked between Akanishi and the box he was holding a couple of times, not quite believing what he had just heard. Only as the rest of the students started to applaud and cheer at him did he finally started wrapping his head around it. Kame felt himself blushing as a sheepish smile tugged on his lips, turning more confident as pictures started to be taken. He held the box more securely in one hand and flashed a victory sign with the other as Yamashita took a picture of them with a Polaroid camera.
By the end of the day the picture was safely tucked inside a book in his bag and a blurry version of it was his phone’s wallpaper. His shoulders hurt from too many strong pats on the back and in less than a day he had become the most popular student in the group.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Akanishi managed to be nice to him for a couple of days after the discovery. Nice enough to greet him properly when they met and drop the turtle joking, at least. Kame was not only still excited about having found such an important piece, but Akanishi’s suddenly nice disposition only served to lift his mood and maybe - just maybe - give his crush on the man a bit of fuel.
The peace only lasted for a few days, though, and soon enough Akanishi was back to teasing - and almost bullying - him. During the following week Kame found himself walking in his underwear or even just a towel around the building after his clothes had been stolen during his shower, spending two days with his mouth green when Akanishi discreetly spilled some colorants on his food or sporting a turtle badly drawn with markers on his baseball cap.
The sky had been covered with dark gray, heavy looking clouds all day and even though it hadn’t rained yet the humidity had completely drenched Kame’s t-shirt in a few hours despite his having taken a shower after lunch. There wasn’t even the slightest breeze and the heat was making everyone dizzy. Kame had been assigned to work in one of the pits for the afternoon. It was one of the deepest at almost four meters in depth, so a ladder was needed to go in and wearing a helmet was mandatory. The helmet Akanishi had handed him had - of course - a turtle sticker. It was heavy, made him feel hotter, pressed the sweat dampened strands of hair against his forehead until they got into his eyes, made focusing difficult and made his head itch. The pit was about three meters long and two meters in width, so it at least allowed Kame to move around a bit and sit down comfortably as long as he didn’t mind getting his trousers even dirtier.
Akanishi silently approached the pit in which Kame was working and leaned in a bit to check on the young man. The archeologist had to bite his lips to avoid laughing as he thought about the joke he had been planning. He hadn’t even told Yamashita about it because he was just sure the other man would stop him - for some reason he had been sympathizing with Kamenashi lately, which didn’t please Akanishi at all.
Kame was facing away from the rope ladder and had his earphones on; he was distracted enough to not notice Akanishi looking at him from above, even though the archeologist stared intently at his student’s nape for some five minutes straight to make sure Kamenashi wouldn’t notice his presence. Biting back another snicker Akanishi grabbed the ropes and pulled the ladder up, carefully folding it on the ground. He wasn’t planning on leaving the student there for long, just until Kame realized the lack of the ladder and then maybe for a little more while the young man called out for help.
“Oi, Akanishi!” The archeologist whipped around, heart beating madly in his chest as he heard Yamashita’s call. He quickly scrambled to get up, smiling as innocently as he could at his friend while he tried to hide the neatly folded rope ladder. Yamashita raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You look suspicious.”
Akanishi pouted at his colleague. “You always say that, it has lost its meaning already.”
Yamashita laughed amusedly. “True enough. Do you have a moment? They need some help at the lab.”
“Sure, let’s go.” Akanishi was eager to agree, quickly taking Yamashita far from the place with a sigh of relief as it seemed the man had not noticed his little prank yet.
The problems at the laboratory took longer than Akanishi had expected. Yamashita and he had to focus all their attention to solve them and the archeologists didn’t notice time passing or the rain that started to fall heavily at some point of the afternoon. Akanishi had completely forgotten about his prank on Kamenashi and only as someone asked for the student when they were settling down for dinner did he remember he had left the young man in a deep pitch under the heavy rain.
Akanishi didn’t heed Yamashita’s surprised call as he dashed toward the pitches zones. He was suddenly pale, heart racing in his chest as he thought about Kamenashi. His boots slid over the mud as he skidded to a stop near the pitch where Kamenashi had been excavating, and sure enough the ladder was still folded near the rim. Even though the noise of the rain was loud he could still hear the faint cries for help of the student; Kamenashi’s voice was hoarse, he had probably been calling out for a while.
Akanishi kneeled next to the rim of the pitch and looked down; it was dark, but Kamenashi had a small electric torch lit. He was damp and shivering against the muddy wall of the pitch. His eyes were red rimmed under the dark fringe that stuck to his forehead, pressed down by the bright yellow helmet, and his armed looked painfully twisted. Akanishi gulped, suddenly worried about the young man. He threw the ladder down, but he could see Kamenashi had problems getting to his feet.
“Oi! Kamenashi! Are you alright? Can you climb up?”
The answer took a moment to come, rueful and angry. “I can’t move my arm.”
Akanishi quickly climbed down the ladder himself. The ground was covered in a layer of mud that reached the hem of his trousers. Kame’s own clothes were ruined as he had been sitting on the ground, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. The student hissed when Jin touched his injured arm and jerked away a bit.
“What happened?”
“I tried to climb up the wall.”
Akanishi nodded. Rain was still falling and Kame kept shivering in the cold. The archeologist took a quick glance at the rope ladder and decided to risk it. “Can you hold onto my back?”
It was a bit difficult, but Kame managed and so did the ladder to hold their combined weight. Akanishi rushed to take the student to the small infirmary within the site and sat him on the rigid stretcher before wrapping him in some blankets and taking off his helmet. Kame sighed tiredly and closed his eyes for a moment, only to open them again when Akanishi squeezed his shoulder lightly.
“Can I take a look at your arm?” The student looked at him with an unreadable expression, but he finally pushed the blankets apart to reveal his injured arm. Kame hissed in pain when Akanishi touched it, even though the archeologist was trying to be careful. “It’s only dislocated. If you can bear with the pain for a moment, I can fix it.”
“Do you know how to do it?”
“A first aid course is mandatory to hold the position Yamashita and I have.”
Kame nodded slowly and closed his eyes again. “Just… do it fast.”
Even though Akanishi tried to be fast and careful, the student still couldn’t help a pained cry as his arm was popped back into place. Akanishi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and slowly lowered his slightly trembling body to lie on the stretcher before covering him with the blankets again. Kame did not seem all that cold anymore, but instead his cheeks were starting to show a dark flush that announced a fever.
Akanishi fretted uncomfortably for a few moments, unsure about what to do. He searched through the cabinet for a painkiller and handed it to Kame with a cup of water, but he had to help him to sit upright so Kame could drink.
“I think we should put your arm into a sling, just to be sure it won’t get more hurt.” Kame grunted something impossible to understand; he looked tired, a bit like he was falling asleep. “Look, I’m sorry…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Akanishi-san.”
“Just listen, okay? I’m sorry! It was supposed to be just a joke, I didn’t mean any harm! I didn’t think that it’d turn out this bad…”
“Oh, great! You didn’t think it’d turn out this bad?! You left me in a four meters deep pitch for hours, in the rain, but it was all a joke? Well, in case you didn’t notice, it’s not funny! You have been playing jokes on me since I arrived here and it’s not funny! Oh, haha, my arm is dislocated and I’m probably going to catch a cold just because you wanted to play a joke on me, how funny!”
Kame had somehow managed to push himself upright on the stretcher, and even though he kept his injured arm close to his body he was gesticulating energetically with the other one as he yelled. Akanishi stepped back instinctively; Kamenashi had been taking his jokes without as much as a reaction until then, and the sudden angry outburst intimidated him.
That was how Yamashita found them, obviously worried after his friend had run away from the dinner table and their long absence. He took a look at the scene - Kamenashi breathing raggedly with his arm closely pressed to his body and Akanishi looking at him with wide worried eyes a few steps away - and sighed. He placed a hand on the other archeologist’s shoulder to push him out.
“I’ll take care of it from here, Jin. Go to have dinner, the others are worried about Kamenashi-kun.” Akanishi made an attempt to complain, but Yamashita shook his head and pushed him more firmly toward the door. “Just go, okay? You’ll only make things worse right now. Go.”
The archeologist left with a last glance to the injured student, who let himself fall against the stretcher as the door closed. Yamashita walked up to him and took a look at the injured arm.
“Dislocated?”
“Yeah. Akanishi-san just fixed it.”
“Okay. I’m going to put it in a sling; it may hurt a bit when I move it.”
The painkiller did calm him a bit, but still Kame grunted in pain as Yamashita maneuvered his arm into a sling. The archeologist wrapped the blankets around his shoulders again and fetched a towel to dry the student’s hair dry, since he looked too tired to do it himself with only one arm. Kame was surprised, but he didn’t try to get away and just sighed.
“Jin likes you.”
Kame’s eyes shot open, wide and shocked as he looked bewildered at the archeologist. “What?!”
“I know it’s difficult to believe, but it’s true. Jin likes you; he has had a crush on you since he saw your picture on the profiles we were sent.”
“But… He has done nothing but tease and bully me since I arrived! It rather looks like he hates me.”
“It’s just the way he has of trying to get your attention. He’s a bit of a kid with this, but he never meant any harm to you… I know this is not an excuse, but he really does like you and he didn’t want to hurt you.” Yamashita placed the towel aside and squeezed the uninjured shoulder of his student. “I’ll talk to him tonight. You go to your bedroom and get some rest, I’ll tell one of your roommates to bring you something for dinner.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Kame had came down with a fever after the hours spent under the rain and with his arm in the sling he could not help much around the site, the lab or the museum, so he had been told to stay in bed for the week and rest. After the busy routine he had gotten used to the hours in bed seemed to stretch forever to the student, and not enough reading, studying or surfing the internet with his laptop seemed to be enough to fill them.
He was luckily feeling better by Friday morning, and even though he still couldn’t help in the excavations he felt recovered enough to take a walk around the site. The official story about his arm’s injury - or at least what he had been answering when questioned about it - was that he had fallen down, and even though Kame doubted his fellow students were really buying it, no one said anything about the excuse. They greeted Kame happily and told him to be careful and not overdo it.
Kame’s cheerful mood didn’t last long, though, and disappeared when Akanishi approached him after lunch. The other students were quick to leave them alone and even Yamashita made himself scarce when Akanishi walked up to Kame with his hat brim low, covering his nervous eyes. It was not common to see the usually confident and boisterous archeologist behaving like that and it did make him Kame feel a little bit softer toward the man, but after the latest incident he definitely wasn’t going to go easy on Akanishi just because the man felt sorry.
“Kamenashi-kun… Can I have a word with you?” Kame simply gave his boss a cold look and a short nod. “Since this weekend will be everyone’s last one at the site Yamashita and I have decided to give all of you both Saturday and Sunday free, so you can go relax a bit and maybe go to town or something and well… I- I was thinking that I should make thing up to you after how I have been behaving and well… If you’d like it I was thinking I could take you to town and treat you to dinner… There’s this nice ryokan and I could pay for your bedroom so you have a chance to properly rest… If you want. I just really want to compensate you somehow after how badly I’ve treated you.”
Kame looked at Akanishi suspiciously, not sure whether or not to believe him. Akanishi looked sorry enough to be telling the truth, but still Kame was not exactly thrilled with the idea of spending two whole days with him alone.
“What would the others think? I can’t go with you on a private trip and expect the rest of the students to say nothing.”
“We’ll tell them I’m taking you to the hospital to check your arm is doing okay and doesn’t need further care. I’m responsible for your wellbeing while you’re here after all.”
“Some responsible boss you are.” Akanishi looked down at his angry grumble. Kame caught sight of Yamashita looking at them over the man’s shoulder and he remembered their conversation. He had thought that after all the bullying he would have gotten over his silly crush on Akanishi, but now that he knew the archeologist liked him too… Two days together alone did not seem all that terrible from that perspective. Kame sighed and gave Akanishi another cold glance. “Alright. You better make this up to me for this.”
Akanishi looked shocked for a moment, but soon a huge grin took over his lips. He nodded so enthusiastically his usual worn out hat fell to the ground, but Akanishi didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. “I promise it’ll be fun! Prepare your bag; I’ll pick you up tomorrow’s morning!”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
At the end it turned out Akanishi was serious about taking him to the local hospital, much to Kame’s surprise. He got an X-Ray scanner to check he had not received any serious damage to his arm, and they both yelled at by the doctor for not having come in earlier. Kame assured the doctor he had not been feeling any intense pain and that he had painkillers enough to get by - two whole bottles, actually, since Yamashita had been giving him the ones from the site’s infirmary instead of letting him take the ones he had packed himself, insisting that since it was Akanishi’s fault he got injured it was the site that should provide him with meds. At least the doctor agreed it was safe for him to go without the sling.
The atmosphere between them was tense once they were out of the hospital. Kame was not quite willing to drop his coldness toward Akanishi after what the man had done to him, so the archeologist’s earnest efforts to start a conversation with him ended with short dry monosyllables for an answer. They wandered around the small town for the best part of the morning, looking at shops and generally making time until lunch.
Akanishi had the decency to at least take him to a nice, expensive looking restaurant. They were shown to a small private table at the back of the dining room and left alone with their menus to decide; Kame didn’t feel even the smallest guilt when he ordered the most expensive item on it, accompanied by the most expensive beer. Akanishi fretted a bit on his seat, but made sure to fill the student’s glass as soon as their drink arrived.
They ate in silence for a while, but Akanishi was intent on starting anew with the student and that seemed to include civil conversation with him. Kame, crush or not, didn’t feel like being very civil to the archeologist.
“So, Kamenashi-kun, how are you, uhm, enjoying your stay at the site?”
Kame raised an eyebrow, pinning his boss with a look that stated he couldn’t get any more stupid. It was Akanishi who had decided drop the student/boss relationship treating him to a weekend out, anyway, he could very well deal with the consequences.
“Minor accidents and bullying apart? It’s been great.”
And Kame had to admit he was enjoying Akanishi’s sudden insecurity and embarrassed blushing, and very much at that. When he wasn’t behaving like a douchebag Akanishi looked quite adorable, and Kame’s crush was going strong again.
“It’s been great having you guys here.” Kame looked at the archeologist over the rim of his beer glass. The man was staring intently at his plate, apparently not daring to look at the student in the eye. “I- I mean… When I was a kid I wanted to be an archeologist because I thought it was like in the Indiana Jones’ movies, adventures and a hot chick and all of that and I obviously knew it was not like that when I actually started studying History but it’s always great to see new students arriving. Those people… I mean, the people who lived in this village, or in any other, depend on us to discover their lives, to tell the world who they were and how they lived and how that contributed to who we are now, but no one seems to find interest in History nowadays, so it’s always great to see new students coming in and showing such a passion about archeology and History and like… stuff.”
Akanishi’s cheeks were dark red when he finished talking and he looked as embarrassed as if he had just opened his heart to Kame. The student looked at him as the man downed his beer in one go. So maybe Akanishi was nice after all. So maybe they could get along if they tried. Kame reached to take the bottle of beer and filled Akanishi’s glass to the rim again.
“And… Why are you studying History, Kamenashi-kun?”
“I have always liked History, ever since I was a kid. My mother spent my whole High School years insisting I rethink my future and studied something more useful like Economics or Politics or something… I think she was hoping that someone would somehow bang some sense into my head or something… But at least she didn’t stop me at the end. Sure a lot of people like History as a hobby, but if we leave it as just that… If no one studies History, seriously studies it for a living, then it will just fade away, right? We can’t let our past fade away like that and disappear, because it’s our past after all and we need to know it, we can’t go on without knowing who we are or what there was before us, right?”
Akanishi nodded, obviously pleased at the sudden collaborative spirit of his student. He grinned widely and Kame found himself smiling too, feeling a bit like an idiot as one simple - yet so very bright - smile was able to tear down all his stubborn walls of hostility. Akanishi raised his glass toward him.
“To History!”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The rest of the afternoon was spent in a much nicer atmosphere. They visited the local temple and at some point decided to sit down in the terrace of a small café to have a cold drink, as it was easy to get tired in the heavy and damp heat of summer. It was not so uncomfortable as they could now talk in a relaxed way, and Akanishi even insisted Kame called him simply Jin, since he had been teasing him with the “Kame-kun” nickname ever since the first day. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but soon Kame discovered that Jin made it easy to be informal with him.
The ryokan was almost full of tourists and Jin had only been able to book a room, but the staff assured them that it was equipped with two individual futon and after setting the bedding it was obvious that it was a room wide enough so they wouldn’t have to sleep too close to each other or feel uncomfortable. A big paper sliding door gave way to a small inner garden that let a light, fresh breeze into the room. Kame opened it widely and smiled at the fragrant smell of the bright colored flowers.
After a month working in the mud of the site, where even in the showers there was a certain amount of dirt, it felt wonderful to take a long soaking bath in one of the ryokan’s thermal baths. The water was warm as it covered his body, relaxing tired muscles and even calming down the pain of his injured arm. Jin sunk into the bath in front of him, and it was quite a challenge not to stare at the well toned muscles that glistened with water and sweat, and a total matter of will power not to let his sight travel down the thin trail of hair on the man’s stomach, since Jin seemed to consider that the towel was put to a much better use as a pillow for where his neck rested against the rough hewn rocks. Kame could feel his cheeks blushing and heating up, but he was quick to attribute it to the hot water and the steam when Jin looked worriedly at him.
The light cotton yukata felt soft and much more comfortable than their usual work clothes; its gentle touch over their fresh clean skin felt wonderful. Jin was still trying to make it up to Kame for the constant teasing of the last month, so he ordered quite a generous traditional dinner that was brought to their room by a kimono clad woman. It was delicious and they both stuffed themselves. Kame let himself fall against the fluffy futon with a contented sigh and patted his full stomach. Dinner had been accompanied by quite a generous amount of alcohol too, and his head felt a little light. As Jin grunted something and got up to disappear into the toilet, Kame rolled on the futon until he could reach his discarded bag. He dug around for his painkillers and popped one into his mouth. He was putting the bottle back into the bag when Jin exited the toilet; the archeologist froze and looked at him with a horrified expression.
“Are those painkillers… yours?” Kame nodded slowly, as Jin’s sudden mood change was scaring him. “Oh crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap…”
“Jin? What happened? It’s just a painkiller.”
Jin looked at him with a guilty expression and slowly started to back away from the student until he was pressed against the wall farthest from him. Kame shifted a bit, growing more nervous by the second.
“Jin…?”
“Look, don’t get angry but… When I was still teasing you I… might have… changedyourpainkillersforaphrodisiacs.”
“WHAT?!”
“I’M SORRY, OKAY?! I thought it’d be funny and then you simply didn’t use any and then I forgot to change them back and pfffft.”
Jin decided that it was safer to keep the pillow that hit him square on the face right where it had landed.
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
“… Kamenashi-kun?”
“Shut up.”
“But…”
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Akanishi. Just. Shut up.”
Kame was sitting with his back to the archeologist as he tried to think of anything but the heat slowly taking over his body, and he was pretty sure the sight of Akanishi was not going to help with that. And he was still angry at the man. Mad. Seething. Horny. No!
Kame shifted a bit where he was sitting, but the growing erection tenting his yukata made it difficult to be comfortable in any position. Whenever he moved his legs in the slightest it rubbed against his thighs and the cotton of his clothes, and the aphrodisiac, combined with the alcohol, made his skin tingle with heat at even the smallest stimulation. He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath to calm down, but all he could think about was the intense arousal he was feeling. Almost unconsciously his hand rubbed against the bulge between his legs, and his moan was loud and clear in the otherwise silent room. Kame considered drowning himself in the onsen.
He was too preoccupied with his arousal to notice how Jin had crawled cross the distance separating them. Kame gasped and jerked a bit when the man hugged him from behind, but Jin was quick to wrap an arm around his middle and catch his wrists with his other hand, so the student could not get away. Kame shivered as he felt the archeologist’s breath tickling the skin behind his ear; it was quickly driving him crazy with want.
“This” Kame moaned a bit as Jin’s hand brushed lightly against the cotton covering his cock “is my fault, right?”
“O- of course!”
“Then I should help you with it.”
Kame was in no position to argue that and he really didn’t want to. Jin pressed himself closer against the student and sneaked his hand between the folds of the yukata to close it around the man’s erection. As it didn’t seem like Kame was going to try to get away Jin released his wrists in favor of trying to get the obi undone. The position was tricky with the way the student was moving and rubbing himself against Jin, and the archeologist’s growing erection didn’t help either, but he finally managed. Kame’s hips jerked sharply as Jin’s free hand moved to his chest to pinch his nipples.
Jin tugged his own yukata open as he maneuvered Kame to lie on his back on the futon. The aphrodisiac was taking its toll on the man and Kame was panting heavily and shivering at every touch. Even the soft cotton of the yukata sliding over his skin made his arousal grow. He wrapped his arms around Jin’s neck and pulled him down and for a moment they looked at each other with eyes clouded with lust, so close that their breaths mixed. Kame still had the presence of mind to realize that he had been fantasizing about kissing those lips that were so close to his own for the best part of the last few weeks, but then Jin leaned in and every coherent thought fled the student’s brain. Jin’s lips were soft and plump and he was demanding, tongue pushing into Kame’s mouth as his whole body pressed down on the supine one.
Kame moaned when Jin broke the kiss to lick a trail down his jaw and neck. The student had his eyes closed and his hand tightly closed in the archeologist’s black hair, too lost in pleasure to be careful about hurting his boss anymore. Jin’s mouth was a trail of fire over his already feverish skin; it sent shocks of pleasure through his body as it closed around a perky nipple and even as Kame whimpered and tried to squirm away at a slightly harsh bite, Jin only wrapped a hand around his torso to lift it up and lap his tongue soothingly at the red and sore nub.
It was almost tortuous as Jin slowly licked his way down the student’s stomach. He was hard too, but the sight of the young man under him was just too enticing to ignore: he was lying on the opened yukata, arms still encased in the soft cotton, and his skin glistened with sweat and saliva as he squirmed in pleasure; it was obvious the aphrodisiac had long since taken away his coherence. Kame’s lips were red after the kiss, his nipples perky and swollen and cock hard and proud between his thighs. Jin licked his lips and closed his hand around the man’s erection; pumping it once he watched as Kame arched off the futon with loud moans slipping from his luscious mouth. Jin leaned in to kiss him again, a hot and mess of tongues and teeth and spit that only aroused them more.
It was a surprise when Kame came. He pulled painfully on Jin’s hair to push his head away as he cried out his release, body shaking under the archeologist as Jin kept stroking his cock through his orgasm. It left Kame shaking, the force of it and how suddenly it had hit him, undoubtedly because of the aphrodisiac. Jin sat back on his heels to let the man breathe and calm down and maybe then hopefully realize the archeologist’s raging erection and help him with it too, but soon it was obvious Kame was going to take a while to open his eyes.
Only not so, because just as Jin sighed and finally started to get up to take care of things himself in the bathroom, Kame groaned again. The archeologist turned around just to see Kame’s cock was coming alive again. He went back to the futon, staring at the aroused student with a mix of shock and amusement.
“You’re hard again?! So soon?!”
Kame glared, trying to resist the urge to touch himself. “You fed me a fucking aphrodisiac, what were you expecting?”
“Well, technically you took it yourself…”
“Akanishi…”
Jin was smart enough to pick on the angry tone taking over the student’s voice, and he knew better than to try to argue with him. He took a condom out of one of the side pockets of his bag and hovered over Kame again; his shamelessly open yukata encased their bodies like curtains.
“Guess I’ll have to help you some, right?”
“Just do something!”
Jin laughed, but he was fast to kiss the man again. Kame was sensitive after having reached his orgasm once already and his cock was hardening quickly even with the slightest touches. Jin grunted as thin slender fingers cupped his erection, and he was happy to thrust into the loose fist of Kame’s fingers; at least now that the aphrodisiac was slowly weakening the man seemed to have enough presence of mind to return a helping hand of his own.
Kame yelped when Jin pushed two fingers into him. It had been a while since he had been with someone and neither he nor Jin were carrying any lube around, so Jin had used spit and it was obviously not enough. Kame pulled the archeologist down for a kiss with a demanding grunt. Jin gave a breathy laugh, amused, but he obliged. Kame arched into the kiss as the man started stroking his cock again to keep the student aroused while he stretched him, though the aphrodisiac was still doing a pretty good job with that.
Jin pulled his fingers out before Kame was properly stretched, but Kame couldn’t really care less. He spread his legs wider as the archeologist sat back on his heels to put the condom on; it had some lubrication, but Jin spat on his hand to help the process a bit. It still hurt and the pain made Kame tense up and breathe shakily, but Jin was nice enough to ignore his own arousal for a moment long enough to pause and give him a bit of time to adjust. Kame would have been thankful for it any other day, but with the - albeit reduced - effect of the aphrodisiac making his cock feel harder than ever despite the previous orgasm, he’d rather Jin started moving soon. He wrapped his arms around Jin’s neck and pulled on the black hair again.
“Jin…” He breathed.
The man smirked above him and started moving slowly, too slowly and Kame groaned in frustration. “Yeah?”
“Move.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll be feeding you a whole bottle of those aphrodisiacs and not helping you.”
“Well, well, doesn’t the turtle have a mean streak?”
“Maybe just a joking one.”
Jin laughed, but his own arousal was too much to keep ignoring it and he finally started to move seriously. Kame gasped, taken aback at the sudden force of the thrusts, but he soon wrapped his legs around Jin’s hips to encourage him. The cotton of the man’s yukata brushed against the inside of his thighs as Jin moved and tickled the sensitive skin there. They found a rhythm fast, Jin pumping Kame’s cock as Kame moved to meet each of Jin’s thrusts, and every time the archeologist hit his sweet spot he felt himself getting lighter and higher until all he could think about was the white hot pleasure washing through him.
His orgasm was not as sudden as the first time; it started as a warm feeling pooling at the pit of his stomach that quickly spread through the rest of his body until even his toes were curling with its force, but it was still strong enough to make him shake and cry out Jin’s name. The archeologist grunted something in response that Kame obviously didn’t hear. The student was tightening around him and it felt so good, so tight and hot and like Kame was eager to suck him in again every time Jin pushed into him that he could not hold it any longer. He came with a guttural grunt, his hips still snapping into the limp body under his as he rode out his orgasm.
It took Kame a few minutes to be fully conscious of his surroundings again. He felt exhausted, completely spent and sore; his backside hurt and so did his cock after the two close orgasms. His skin was sticky with cum and sweat and the cotton that had once felt so nice now stuck to his body in an uncomfortable way. And he was feeling way too hot, though that could have something to do with the body closely pressed to his. Kame groaned in discomfort and tried to roll away from the man, but Jin was not to be discouraged and cuddled against him again, and even wrapped an arm around his waist for reinforcement. Kame groaned and contemplated moving to the other futon, but the wide room that had seemed so convenient in the afternoon made the distance in between the two beddings too much to bother with it as tired as he was, and it didn’t seem like Jin was going to let him go anyway. Kame groaned again as Jin pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek.
“I hate you.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
The sixteen History students were standing in a line in front of the main building again with their bags hanging from their shoulders and their clothes much dirtier than four weeks before. In front of them Akanishi was back into his Indiana Jones outfit, but no one could bring themselves to care after a month of suffering the archeologist’s antics. At least he was letting Yamashita give the goodbye speech, though of course no one was expecting him to let them go without a final word - and much less one Kamenashi Kazuya, who had been spending the last week at the site trying to hide a rather indiscreet hickey on his neck.
Akanishi placed a hand on the handle of his whip as he walked up and down the line of students a couple of times like he was considering the words for a speech to the nation. He cleared his throat and looked at the students like a general would look to his soldiers, though the effect was greatly diminished by Yamashita quite visibly rolling his eyes behind him.
“My dear students… I hope you have enjoyed your time here, and I hope you have been able to learn from us.” He made a dramatic pause, and pushed his hat back to let everyone see his bright smile. “But if you haven’t, do not fear! We’ll have received an offer from your university to teach one of the main subjects next semester, and I’m happy to tell you all we have accepted!” The man obviously relished on the chorus of surprised gasps and comments that followed his statement, but he motioned for the students to calm down as he finally came to halt before Kame, pinning him with an amused look and a smirk that didn’t announce anything good. “I’ll be looking forward to meeting you all again!”
Kame seriously considered whether it was too late to finally listen to his mother and change his degree to something more useful - and more importantly, Akanishi-free - like Economics, for example.