Fic for green_feelings (2/5)
Part 1
Day 3 - Rome to NAPLES
They are already moored in Naples, when Jin wakes up next day. Or rather jumps up with a start, deluded by the bright sun shining right into his window into believing for a moment that he must've slept far into the day, and Kame has knocked on his door in vain and left without him. He settles down a little when a brief glance on his cellular informs him that it is just a little over eight. And yesterday they have decided to go to breakfast at nine, so that they can enjoy the relative peace with everybody already off for their excursions.
He is still jumping around on one foot though, trying to get the other into the leg of his trousers, when the knock finally comes. Because (of all the ridiculous things to engage in on such a fine morning) he has been trying to decide what he is going to wear for today. Like really... Like all through the last few days he wasn't just changing the t-shirts perfunctorily (and, well, the underwear too, sure).
He blames Kamenashi for this. Entirely. The guy is just so immaculate in all his designer clothes, Jin feels like he wouldn't want to look like the other side of the “how to/how not to” picture when standing beside him... Well, not to the extent that he feels that he does.
It doesn't help that he only has one other pair of jeans in his luggage, as baggy and formless as the ones he wore yesterday, only in darker blue. And it's not that he is so firm a believer in traveling light, only his other trousers were off at the cleaner's when he started packing, due to be picked up from there for more than a week already. And of course there was no way in hell that he could manage it in the few hours he had left before his flight.
He opens the door, and there Kame is, as immaculate as ever - in new jeans, and new t-shirt, and new deep-blue woolen cardigan. His hair in a carefully arranged, though not quite professional mess. (Jin's hair is still a mess. And there is nothing arranged or professional about it).
“Oh,” Kame says, “It's still fifteen minutes to nine, so take your time. I just have been up for ages already and I thought I'd knock in case you are too, but I can wait...” and almost starts to close the door, but then gives a little... squeal?.. (for the life of him Jin can't find another word to describe the sound) His mouth opening in sheer amazement. “Ah!... you have a window!”
“A balcony,” Jin corrects proudly, as if it is a personal achievement, and not a pure game of chance that had some people canceling at the last moment, leaving the travel agency with the need to sell the cabin quickly (and cheaply) to the first person interested (aka Jin). But of course! Kame's cabin is across the corridor, meaning that it must be an inside one... “You can wait there, if you want to,” he offers benignly, and within moments the guy is pretty much hanging out over the railing in his eagerness to see the city beyond.
It looks cute, and Jin chuckles as he tries to get his hair into something that would at least resemble an order, thinking about the way their evening proceeded after they got back from Rome.
***
It is really amazing how the two of them just clicked together somehow, in such a short time. Jin doesn't count, he's spent years living in Europe and even before that his whole family was pretty slack in the formalities prescribed by the Japanese culture. Kamenashi, on the other hand, seems to be much more traditionally brought up. And the way they had somehow overstepped quite a few stages of casual acquaintanceship in a single day is what makes it truly amazing.
They didn't spend that much time together after returning on board, what with Kame still adjusting to a different time zone. Though he took a nap on the ride back: his head leaning onto the glass, and a tiny grimace marring his features every time it bumped on the window-edge due to a sharp turn.
But they did have a pair of drinks in the bar before the turtle started to space out completely, talking this time of nothing serious, but rather exchanging the anecdotes from their past lives.
Kame's jokes (as Jin discovered) tended to be lame. Lame enough, in fact, that they reminded Jin about a fellow junior from the times he was still a part of the jimusho, a tall and gangly youth by the name of Taguchi, whose sense of humor was just so weird that he was bullied for it by every single person around (not excluding Jin himself). But then, at the time when Jin was being pretty much expelled under the pretext of being sent to London to learn more about composing, Taguchi was one of the very few people who approached him. While the others rather behaved like Jin's bad luck might be contagious... He didn't tell much, just something about “being expelled not meaning much if you excel out there”, which was just so lame as a joke, but warmed Jin's heart nevertheless.
Jin hopes that Taguchi had a chance to debut. He hasn't heard of him, but then Taguchi was neither a soloist nor a band-leader material. So far as Jin can tell, he could even be in one of the bands Jin wrote the songs for, singing them happily from somewhere far in the second plane. Perhaps, Jin should ask Yamapi about him, when next they meet...
Yeah, right. And face Pi's insatiable curiosity to the point where he will just blabber helplessly about everything in his boring life that only might be of interest for his best friend. And have the latter come up with some lame jokes of his own, something like “Lamenashi and Bakanishi make for a perfect pair”.
And there Jin stops, because - one - his hair isn't going to look any better than this, and - two - the pun is not that bad actually. Lamenashi and Bakanishi indeed. No wonder they clicked.
***
Kame's face is all somber surprisingly, as Jin joins him on the balcony. And he stares somewhere along the coast and over to the sea, or maybe at the looming mountain at the far end of the bay.
“That's Vesuvius,” he says without looking at Jin.
Ah... Oh... Jin glances at the two-headed mountain with a new respect. It explains it then. “Living on the volcano” has a special meaning for Japanese, with one of the most active seismic zones on Earth running right under their proverbial feet.
Yesterday, when they were coming upstairs to the bar, they sort of stumbled into the crowd of fellow cruisers, who were signing themselves in for the next day excursions. Jin wasn't particularly keen on listening to a lot of completely useless historical data, but he figured that if Kame wanted to join, he'd rather prefer to tag along with him to spending the day in town all on his own.
Kame, actually, seemed pretty eager at first. But then, once they came somewhat closer to the counter and read that there was actually only one excursion scheduled that went after the city-tour straight on to Pompeii, he almost recoiled, muttered: “No, I do not think I will go...”, and quickly proceeded to push his way out of the crowd.
Later, when they were already on the upper deck, smoking into the shifting darkness of the sea, their stomachs warm with a couple of shots of whiskey and their silence companionable, Jin asked him offhandedly about this curious change of plans.
“I've... made a report from the tsunami-affected area once,” Kame said finally, when the pause after Jin's question seemed almost too long. “This, probably, is an absurd overreaction on my part, considering this whole thing with Pompeii happened what... more than a millennium ago? But I just do not want to see the place where people... didn't even have time to understand... what hit them...”
Jin looks at the two-headed mountain, and it, well... looms. Neapolitans might not live “upon” the volcano, literally, but they certainly live in its shadow.
***
Naples is smaller than Rome (or London, or Tokyo). Maybe bigger than Nice. Jin is not sure, it's not like he did explore Nice extensively. It certainly looks more “lived in”, like there are actually more locals than tourists among the people they encounter, especially once they wander deeper into the streets and away from the sea.
Kame, surprisingly, knows quite a lot about the European history, and Jin is even a little envious, because he lives in bloody England, and all he knows about Nelson is that he is “that one-eyed sailor on top of the column half-covered in pigeon shit”. Well, that and some vague memories from an old black and white movie one of his friends had veritably coerced him into watching. Kame, on the other side, talks about sea battles and political intrigues, about British ambassador and his young wife, who wrote what by our modern standards we would consider a “supportive fan-letter” to the famous vice-admiral, and how they later met right here in Naples and became lovers almost with her husband's consent.
“I've read a book about it,” he shrugs, when Jin questions him on his excessive knowledge. “It was a fascinating read.”
They turn to go back to the sea-side after a while. But, even counting the many times they swerve into the narrow side-streets due to Kame's urge to photograph any kind of odd thing (flower pots, and motorbikes, and bed linen quivering in the wind as it hangs across the street). Even counting the full hour they spend inside the Galleria Umberto with Kame slipping in and out of fashion boutiques, examining all possible kinds of shirts and cardigans, and bags - absolutely every shop that sells bags. Even counting their heated argument before the St. Lorenzo, where Jin just flatly refuses to go underground to inspect the excavations under the church. And even deals a sort of dirty blow in asking just how is this different from traveling to bloody Pompeii? For which he just receives an indignant huff (apparently it is vastly different, even if for the life of him Jin still cannot say how) and a sulking turtle for a pair of blocks afterward. Until Kame yelps and almost throws himself under a car in his rush to photograph some obscure street chapel, and then the sulk is forgotten and they are talking again... Even counting all that, they are back to the sea-side, and it is barely quarter past two...
***
Jin knows what is going to happen when they just come in view of Castel d'Ovo, out there on its narrow tongue of land. The photographer in Kamenashi targets on it without fail, to the point where Jin can swear that he can hear the half-formed impulses running inside the turtle's brain “views... beautiful... must... get there!” He really doesn't mind though. So long as it is not some musty and dimly lit underground chambers but instead an elevated fortress with wide open-vista terraces, he is only for it. Is it his fault that underground chambers give him the spooks?
Besides, the turtle is really good with his camera. Professionally good almost, and it is so much pity that Jin cannot quite imagine him having a personal exhibition back in Japan. But then, he is only a caster for a single TV program, which would be, Jin supposes, not such a “slave for life” contract as is habitual for his own agency (and Jin is working - quietly but steadily - even around that). So there shouldn't be anything precluding Kame from having one elsewhere. And maybe Jin could talk with some of his acquaintances in London on his behalf.
The wind is stronger up on the terrace, and the views are breathtaking, which, so it happens, means that they are going to stay here for some time. And while the turtle is busy searching for an ideal viewpoint, Jin rests his butt on the stone balustrade and just squints leisurely into the sun.
There are few tourists up here, nobody but two girls in their immediate vicinity. Italian from the looks of them and, as Jin notes with obvious relief, both of them shorter than him. He won't admit to it but those towering blondes on board the liner have been imperceptibly chipping on his self-esteem.
One is small, and curvacious, and laughs all the time. And the other is perhaps about the same height as Kame, and generally bears some resemblance to him, what with her narrow face, a spare elegant figure and a hint of that occasionally haughty posture that the turtle assumes sometimes. Jin decides that he likes the taller one more.
He is almost drifting off into a half-doze when there is a soft by now familiar chuckle somewhere right in front of him, and a hastily added: “No-no, don't open your eyes, stay right as you are!” And he feels somehow proud, elevated into the category of objects worthy of Kame's lens. It's not even a digital, as he confirms by opening his eyes the barest slit, which only makes him prouder. For as he has learned, Kame only digs out his professional camera to photograph something that he deems as an artistic challenge for himself.
He closes his eyes again and waits for a series of clicks... that never comes. Instead there is a breathy female voice struggling with unfamiliar words: “Excuse me for... eh... l'incomodo! Could you... eh... photograph... me and my friend together? Please?”
It is the shorter of the girls that does the asking, a heavy blush visible even through the natural tan of her face. Kame looks like a “snow-white” beside her. A pretty annoyed “snow-white” to be precise. And Jin hears a very low, but still distinct “grmph” of displeasure, before the turtle packs his camera back inside his bag and goes to do the girls' bidding as the polite Japanese boy that he is.
He ends up photographing the girls together, then separately, deftly directing them to turn this way and that, lift the chin, sit, stand and bend to get a better angle. All those years in modeling turned for once into something useful, Jin suspects. And the guy so-o can make a living as a photographer...
Then they want a picture with Jin. And then Jin takes one of them with Kame, where the turtle somehow succeeds in looking completely frozen, even if there is a bright smile on his face, and his arms are draped around the girls' shoulders, and the girls themselves are draped all around him like ivy around a stick.
He still looks a little frozen and frustrated as they retreat to “their” part of the terrace, the girls staying behind and only glancing furtively into their direction... Correction, into Kame's direction. And Jin should be jealous, perhaps... Only he isn't. The whole situation is so funny, really, since Kame just stomps away completely unaware of it, without even glancing back one single time.
“Are you going to photograph me now, as you wanted to before we were interrupted?” Jin asks just to break the silence. “Or have you lost the right mood?”
“Yes,” Kame mutters as if he's breaking from some deep reverie, and then more determinedly, “yes, please, if you do not mind. You looked good against that background...”
“Oh... alright then,” Jin agrees amiably, and easily assumes exactly the same pose as when he sat there before. Good bodily memory was a benefit when learning the dancing steps, and it still is good at least for something. Jin can tell that
Kame is pleasantly impressed. A tiny satisfied smile is so cute as it shines through his professional concentration that Jin cannot hold back a teasing remark, just to prod the other a little, when he comes closer to give some last adjustment to how Jin's hair should look.
“Ka-ame-kun,” he whines, “it's not fa-air. Those girls are so-o smitten with yo-u... Especially the...you know...” he shows it with his hands, “voluptuous one!”
“Oh Jin-kun,” Kame answers in tune, a little chuckle breaking into the middle of the sentence, and his smile broadening, “it's not like I'm interested in them... at al... ah!” He stops himself abruptly and just stands there: mouth still open and eyes wide, stunned by his own slip...
Jin, on the other hand... Well, Jin, on the other hand, is not much better. Because he never felt that moment of a coin... well, just so abruptly, dropping... And everything just suddenly makes so much sense: in Kame's behavior, and in his own behavior. And why he didn't feel jealous. Except towards the girls when they clung to Kame way too much...
His mouth goes dry, so he licks his lips once... and then again. And sees the action mirrored by Kame unconsciously. And almost growls around something huge that's lodged itself in his throat: “Uh... neither am I?” Which isn't exactly true, not always, not elsewhere... But right here and now it is about the truest thing Jin has said in his entire life.
The tension between the two of them is intense - a living thing... And Jin feels a little overwhelmed to the point where he almost wants to... shuffle his feet?.. whatever... To break somehow from the very suddenness and intensity of it.
The attraction is nothing new, has been growing gradual and undetected since the moment they had stumbled into each other on that first day. Only now it is finally acknowledged and is almost too much...
Should he kiss Kame? Should he wait and let Kame take the initiative? Jin's eyes flicker between the turtle's eyes: bottomless, smoldering... The turtle's lips: a little open, slightly wet from where that tongue has run over them right now... His head angling a little... Jin's own head angles a little in perfect accordance.
The fuck is with him, really, feeling so raw and unsure and out of his depth?
Jin knows he's bi, has known he's bi since sixteen, since furtive hurried kisses in a behind the scenes closet, since clumsy experiments with equally clumsy co-juniors. Hasty and passionate, with a side-dish of danger if ever they had been caught...
The irony of his London existence though is that while the possibilities are so much better: no one gives a damn about his sexual life there, no one is going to be any the wiser in Japan… The opportunities are really few. European males just do not do it for him. They are alright as friends, but as sexual attraction goes he finds them vaguely disgusting: too meaty, too heavy, too ungraceful. Lacking the very qualities that would turn him on.
So he's been satisfying his needs on the other side of the bi-equation mostly. His last encounter with a male being a Korean language student he had met in a Soho bar, who was due to go back home two days after they met. And it was all friendly and drunk and nowhere as overwhelming as what he feels now.
Should they already?! Because he is going to anyway... because...
Only Kame whirls... this very moment... out of Jin's reach, out of Jin's sight. Stumbling in his motion unseeingly, catching himself on the balustrade, crushing his fist into it in a way that must've hurt, breathing rapidly, harshly. His back to Jin, his whole body shaking with the force of that breathing.
“No... No... I can't... Not now... Oh Kami-sama, I can't...”
And Jin feels even more confused, baffled by this turn of events. Has he misread the situation completely? Is Kame not, perhaps, attracted to him the way it seemed? (Because it did seem to Jin that their attraction was mutual...) Does he perhaps have someone else in Japan, whom he doesn't want to cheat on? Has Jin scared him with his advances?
Only - what advances? He hasn't even done anything! And it hurts... It just fucking hurts...
It takes him a moment to recognize that Kame is walking away: briskly, quickly, without looking back. Just walking away without waiting for Jin. And Jin might be a fool, but he cannot let him go away like this, without even trying to apologize and set things right. Well, as right as they can be set - considering...
Because he really liked Kame as a friend, and because Jin isn't some kind of rapist or something, a simple “no” would be enough actually...
The turtle is moving away though, as quick as he can without breaking into a run. And Jin only overtakes him at the very exit from the terrace. Reaches him just in time to grab on his wrist to prevent him from falling, when Kame stumbles over one of the low steps marking the sloping descent...
And it scares Jin a little that apparently the other hasn't been even looking where he was walking. Scares him more that he now stops meekly, not even trying to wrestle his arm from Jin's hand. His own hands tightly fisted, his face turned away from Jin, staring somewhere down, nowhere in particular... He looks pale, shaken, a little wild. And it makes Jin angry for some reason, because he isn't... Because - is he as scary as that?
“Look”, he says urgently, “I... apologize if I misinterpreted what happened earlier... But I wasn't going to... jump you without your consent or something... I...”
He stops. Because - starting from the very first words that he said, Kame is shaking his head quietly, insistently, like he is saying “no... no... no”. Mumbles something under his breath of which Jin catches only perhaps every third word: “...not your fault... not you... about me... sorry...” And Jin's anger evaporates under a flood of... concern? For, when the other glances up fleetingly, his eyes are pained, and lost, and Jin doubts that Kame sees him at all over whatever inner turmoil is causing him this near panic attack.
Jin's seen Kame in different moods, in different modes over those two days. There is the official and reserved Kamenashi of their first meeting. The contemplative and resigned Kame, reminiscing about his past in Rome. The slightly tipsy Lamenashi, telling silly jokes in the bar. Kame the photographer, brimming with excitement over a good shot, concentrated and professional while adjusting his camera settings. There is a slightly condescending intellectual. The sulking child. And the alluring sexual creature he only glimpsed briefly during that charged moment on the roof just now.
Thinking about that, he's really seen so many faces, so many facets of Kame in such a short time. And he might like some of them and dislike the others... But what Jin is sure about: is that he absolutely can not bear to see him like how he is now. This is the state he absolutely doesn't want to see Kame in. Ever again.
He wishes he knew what to do though. Well, in fact, he wishes he could just crush the other towards himself and somehow absorb the tension and whatever else is hurting the turtle to such an extent. But somehow it was exactly their close proximity that set this whole landslide off. So Jin fears that it would only hurt the other more if he does... And he wishes he knew whatever it is that brought Kame into the state he is in, so that he could figure in which way to help him.
It certainly doesn't help if he just stands here not doing anything at all.
Experimentally, Jin takes a step down the slope, tugging a little on the tense wrist he still has in his grip. And when it works, when Kame follows him listlessly, he quickens the steps, only slowing for every time there is this low step breaking the slope. Because he still doesn't really think that the turtle actually looks where he walks.
***
There is perhaps another dozen houses on the little islet besides the castle, lower stories given off to what in summer must be an assortment of outdoor cafes. Now though most of their windows are closed by the iron curtains, the tables and chairs stocked together beside the railings, and only a few still stand open. Even if they seem practically abandoned as well.
Jin swerves into the first one that's open, sits Kame at one of the tables, and finally lets go of his wrist, only to briefly press a warm palm to a stiff shoulder, “Stay here, alright? I'll go bring us something…” before he enters the dimly lit interior of the cafe.
Well, if by “something” he meant something strong (and he is of the firm opinion that Kame needs some - direly), he obviously should have chosen another place. For this is but a day-time reheat pizzeria, a dingy pit-stop for those poor souls, who are too hungry to go another hundred meters into the city proper and actually eat something nice. The unhappy consequence of that, for Jin, is that it features an assortment of soft drinks and beer, some cheaper versions of local wines and that's - unbelievably - all.
“Whaa.. what? No whiskey? Vodka? Gin? Tequila? Cognac?” He tries for every strong drink he ever tasted. Well, there is also sake, but that's just too far-fetched. He doubts that the heavily mustached old man behind the counter has even heard about sake. Actually, he looks like Jin could've been speaking in Japanese, for all the reaction he's getting.
And it would've been entirely alright, meaning, Jin would've long left already and gone to seek “better pastures” elsewhere... But there is Kame, sitting in a strange slightly sideways posture, one hand gripping onto the edge of the table top, like he is going to crush the fake marble, the other likewise - onto the plastic armrest of his chair... And Jin just hates the need to get him up again and drag him anywhere else in this state, especially - not all the way back to the quay.
“Just. Something. Strong,” he tries again, enunciating each word really slowly in hope of being understood. “Like... brandy? My friend... he needs it... badly... So... Just something. Please?” And there are his puppy eyes in their “full-on” mode, which could make his manager run and slip him beer, disguised inside a tea-cup, when he was facing a tough business meeting after a really late night.
Well, there is a reaction now, at least. The old man squints at Kame, hunched over the outside table, then back onto Jin's begging posture, nods to whatever he's thinking and shuffles off into the backroom. Jin hopes it doesn't just mean that he's got tired of Jin and decided to take a nap.
He reappears after a minute though, carrying a bottle the likes of which Jin only saw in old Italian movies. Or, well, in the windows of souvenir-shops. Only there - the twigs braided like a basket around their stout circular bodies were fresh and yellow and new, while here they are all brown and worn.
“Grappa,” the old man explains laconically. “Per me... Not for sale.” He still pours generous portions of clear liquid into two shot glasses, putting them before Jin. “Prego.”
The liquid stinks strongly of alcohol, barely perceptibly - of grapes. It's undeniably strong, though, and, judging that there is only a quarter of a bottle left, the old man has obviously already drunk it - and lived.
“Grazie,” Jin tells. Which is the only Italian word he knows, apart from all those largo and allegro moderato and the rest of the musical terms. And he bows. To hell with it being a Japanese custom, it seems appropriate. Just as appropriate as leaving a twenty euro note on the counter and not even thinking about change.
***
He returns to their table, where Kame still stares into the table-top like it is the most interesting thing in the world, and gently pushes one of the glasses into the guy's field of vision.
“Come on,” he urges quietly when there is no reaction from the other at first, “come on, it won't help you unless you drink it.”
And Kame does. Throws the whole glass in, bottoms up, only to dissolve in a helpless coughing fit in the aftermath. When it subsides though, there is something just imperceptibly slacker about the posture of his back, and Jin feels relieved. He is too, about the fact that Kame's hand doesn't return to the edge of the table again, but fiddles idly with the glass he just emptied. Jin's almost tempted to offer the guy his own full one as well, but then decides that he might need it later, perhaps. There is no need to rush.
Instead he slowly untangles the turtle's other hand from the armrest it grips, squeezing it a little in the most impersonal kind of tactile comfort that he can come up with, offering it as a friendlier object for gripping - if Kame needs to do so.
For Kame is a very tactile person, surprisingly so for a Japanese, as he unconsciously demonstrated on multiple occasions throughout their short acquaintanceship. So Jin thinks a kind of physical reassurance that skin-on-skin contact offers might actually work the best.
“Explain,” he asks gently. “I don't know what happened. I won't deny that I am attracted to you... but I hope you trust me enough to know I won't jump you. We can be just friends, it's okay... it's just that I'd like to know... what did I do wrong? So, please... explain?”
He watches as the adam's apple moves sharply up and down this impossibly slender exquisite neck; bears with it, as Kame's grip on his hand tightens momentarily almost vice-like. But then it relaxes some more, and Kame nods once in a “fair enough” admittance and starts talking, his voice steady if a little monotone, like he isn't talking about himself.
***
“I told you already that I was unwell...” he says, as his fingers whirl the glass in a steady spiral across the dusty table-top. “You probably thought that I... well... collapsed at work...”
“Yeah,” Jin admits unnecessarily, for he rather thinks it was but a rhetorical question, “something like that...”
“Well... it wasn't...” The whirling stops suddenly, but Kame still stares on where the glass stands. Doesn't try to look at Jin at all. “I did collapse alright... only it wasn't at work...” And then he breathes it out as one word almost. “It-was-in-a-love-hotel... Me and my partner, we just had sex... and I stood up to go to the bathroom to wash up... and then it just... everything went black...”
Jin doesn't even know what hurts more: Kame's hand tightening again over his, or his own other hand doing just the same to his knee. But he listens, listens attentively, now that Kame is talking, is willing to share something obviously hurtful and embarrassing with... none other but Jin.
“My partner... he tried to rouse me, I suppose... but I wouldn't come to... So he panicked... and called the ambulance... And, well, obviously one of the paramedics... recognized me... and wanted to make some quick cash...”
Jin's heart lurches painfully. This is it - the ultimate nightmare that his idol-friends would wake up from in the night - shrieking. Something that Jin himself is seemingly exempt from, by both his living abroad and generally not being much of the “public face” in the first place.
“Ex-baseball star Kamenashi found unconscious in a love-hotel after a session of drunk sex.” Kame quotes bitterly. “Gay sex... the... pictures he took... were pretty explicit.”
The grip on Jin's hand really hurts, but Jin doesn't mind at all. They both are shaking a little now, and he just wonders how Kamenashi has managed to appear so friendly and natural, and not just plainly broken-down after a nightmare like this. So maybe the cruise was helpful after all to make him temporarily forget about it all.
“The irony of it...” Kame continues, “is that I wasn't drunk... was already feeling a little unwell during our dinner before, would've really postponed the whole thing, only my partner was leaving on a month long business trip the very next day, so... The hospital was most helpful in this regard though... they actually disclaimed me being drunk. And well... informed me that they set the disqualification procedure in motion, for well... the one that sold me. Only they couldn't disclaim the... other stuff as well... because it was true, obviously. And their silence on that account was, well... telling”.
There is a soft shuffling behind them and Kame stops, as the shop-keeper mutely puts two more glasses of clear liquid on their table, and also a plate of potato-chips and an ashtray, before he pats Jin briefly upon the shoulder and goes off, taking their empty glasses away.
And Jin hasn't even noticed that he has emptied his, nor, come to that - that he has lit a cigarette already. He pushes the pack towards Kame and the turtle lights up and inhales gratefully. He is still tense, but it feels like telling has eased him up a little. The fact that someone else knows about all that beside himself.
“I woke up,” he goes on and picks a chip from the plate, but doesn't eat it, just plays with it as he did with his empty glass before - a nervous habit, “to the flashes all around myself... and the microphones shoved under my nose... was still dazed... thought I was in the studio, or... or at the photoshoot... s-smiled for them...” His voice hitches a little, but Kame grits his teeth and forces it down, and continues in the same impersonal voice. “Couldn't answer them really... which was a blessing, considering... Do not know how they got there... inside the hospital... whose relatives they pretended to be... or did they just bribe someone? Then the nurse came to check the IV and chased them away...”
“Your partner?” Jin asks, because he simply cannot imagine that Kame was apparently seriously ill and had to deal with all that to boot, and, as it seems, there wasn't anyone near him to even chase away the paps but the nurse.
“He?” Kame seems almost surprised by the question, only not really. “He had a business-trip, remember? We weren't lovers, just sex buddies, I guess... It was... convenient, for both of us... It's not easy to find someone who would have, well... similar interests... so...”
“I do not think I will be seeing him anymore,” He concludes with just a bit of sarcasm.
“He was... is... an executive at the modeling company that I work... worked for. They actually sent a person to the hospital to inform me they wouldn't be needing my services from now on. Told me, it was my own fault... but that they were willing to compensate for the time before the end of our current deal... so long as I do not drag the “good name of their company” into the dirt I had obviously landed myself in. I thought even then that it was partially... about him... a bribe, really. I took it anyway,” he looks at Jin for the first time since starting his story, and his eyes are vulnerable, still hurting, but there is also a hint of defiance.
“So you see, Akanishi-san, I'm some kind of a socially ostracized person now. Someone you would probably... not want to associate with...”
“Oh stop it!” Jin exclaims almost angrily. “Just... just stop it!
“When did it happen?” He asks in a gentler tone, when after his outburst Kame turns away abruptly, and gulps down his second grappa, and just... breathes: in and out, in and out again...
“A little over three weeks ago,” he answers finally in a really small voice. “I... still think you shouldn't...”
“What is with your other job?” Jin cuts through this bullshit with a more urgent question, and the turtle sighs, and puts his hands into his hair, lowering the head so that it almost touches the table-top.
“I don't know,” he says quietly. “The... TV company management... they wanted to fire me immediately. But the... team, they were really protective of me. And the program manager, he... talked with the higher-ups. And they have agreed to keep me on, but insisted that I took some time off to... fade from the lime-light... So I guess... I guess I'm fine for now... I... I can do without modeling, but I'd really... really hate to lose this job...”
Jin knows, hasn't spent his life in the entertainment business to not know, that the turtle is anything but fine. The TV officials might have agreed to keep him on for now, but the real trial will come when Kamenashi returns to work and goes on air for the first time after this whole mess. It all depends on how the audience will react, and how much of hate- vs. support-mail the studio receives on his behalf. Till that day Kame hangs virtually in the air, the company's decision being easily reversible if need be.
And Jin is angry. He is angry on the fucking officials only thinking of potential danger to their companies. And he is angry on the fucking sensation-seeking paparazzi. And on the fucking hypocrite society that gleefully savors such articles and then pretends to blame the poor subjects of them, while actually craving for more of juicy gossip like this.
He is also really angry on the turtle's cowardly “partner” hiding behind his company's back. And, to a lesser degree, on the turtle himself, for just accepting all this punishment like it was really due to him... for his sins, - which are no sins, not in Jin's book.
“Come on,” he urges the now silent Kame, thrusting the remaining full glass into his direction, “come on, drink this as well, and let's go!”
“Go? Where?” Kamenashi seems genuinely surprised by Jin's sudden burst of energy. (He drinks the glass though, shuddering a little as the liquid burns his throat on its way down).
“The ship,” Jin replies like it is something self-explanatory. The idea sprung quite unexpectedly into his mind, but he likes it the more he thinks of it. “Look... we are still friends, right? Well, unless you'd want us to be something more... and... what I mean is - I'm open for both options!”
“Friends?” it sounds as if Kamenashi is weighing the word on his tongue. “Yes, let’s be friends.” He nods with more decisiveness than he's shown for some while. “I'm... not sure if I'm ready for any kind of 'something more' right now... but I'd like for us to remain friends, very much so!”
There is a tentative smile finding its way onto the turtle's face again, and Jin feels even surer about his plan.
“Well, let's go back to the ship then,” he proposes brightly, “and then, let's have 'the boys' night out' tonight! There is everything we need for that actually: the arcade, billiards, karaoke, you choose! But - first and foremost - let's get royally drunk!”
Part 3
Day 3 - Rome to NAPLES
They are already moored in Naples, when Jin wakes up next day. Or rather jumps up with a start, deluded by the bright sun shining right into his window into believing for a moment that he must've slept far into the day, and Kame has knocked on his door in vain and left without him. He settles down a little when a brief glance on his cellular informs him that it is just a little over eight. And yesterday they have decided to go to breakfast at nine, so that they can enjoy the relative peace with everybody already off for their excursions.
He is still jumping around on one foot though, trying to get the other into the leg of his trousers, when the knock finally comes. Because (of all the ridiculous things to engage in on such a fine morning) he has been trying to decide what he is going to wear for today. Like really... Like all through the last few days he wasn't just changing the t-shirts perfunctorily (and, well, the underwear too, sure).
He blames Kamenashi for this. Entirely. The guy is just so immaculate in all his designer clothes, Jin feels like he wouldn't want to look like the other side of the “how to/how not to” picture when standing beside him... Well, not to the extent that he feels that he does.
It doesn't help that he only has one other pair of jeans in his luggage, as baggy and formless as the ones he wore yesterday, only in darker blue. And it's not that he is so firm a believer in traveling light, only his other trousers were off at the cleaner's when he started packing, due to be picked up from there for more than a week already. And of course there was no way in hell that he could manage it in the few hours he had left before his flight.
He opens the door, and there Kame is, as immaculate as ever - in new jeans, and new t-shirt, and new deep-blue woolen cardigan. His hair in a carefully arranged, though not quite professional mess. (Jin's hair is still a mess. And there is nothing arranged or professional about it).
“Oh,” Kame says, “It's still fifteen minutes to nine, so take your time. I just have been up for ages already and I thought I'd knock in case you are too, but I can wait...” and almost starts to close the door, but then gives a little... squeal?.. (for the life of him Jin can't find another word to describe the sound) His mouth opening in sheer amazement. “Ah!... you have a window!”
“A balcony,” Jin corrects proudly, as if it is a personal achievement, and not a pure game of chance that had some people canceling at the last moment, leaving the travel agency with the need to sell the cabin quickly (and cheaply) to the first person interested (aka Jin). But of course! Kame's cabin is across the corridor, meaning that it must be an inside one... “You can wait there, if you want to,” he offers benignly, and within moments the guy is pretty much hanging out over the railing in his eagerness to see the city beyond.
It looks cute, and Jin chuckles as he tries to get his hair into something that would at least resemble an order, thinking about the way their evening proceeded after they got back from Rome.
***
It is really amazing how the two of them just clicked together somehow, in such a short time. Jin doesn't count, he's spent years living in Europe and even before that his whole family was pretty slack in the formalities prescribed by the Japanese culture. Kamenashi, on the other hand, seems to be much more traditionally brought up. And the way they had somehow overstepped quite a few stages of casual acquaintanceship in a single day is what makes it truly amazing.
They didn't spend that much time together after returning on board, what with Kame still adjusting to a different time zone. Though he took a nap on the ride back: his head leaning onto the glass, and a tiny grimace marring his features every time it bumped on the window-edge due to a sharp turn.
But they did have a pair of drinks in the bar before the turtle started to space out completely, talking this time of nothing serious, but rather exchanging the anecdotes from their past lives.
Kame's jokes (as Jin discovered) tended to be lame. Lame enough, in fact, that they reminded Jin about a fellow junior from the times he was still a part of the jimusho, a tall and gangly youth by the name of Taguchi, whose sense of humor was just so weird that he was bullied for it by every single person around (not excluding Jin himself). But then, at the time when Jin was being pretty much expelled under the pretext of being sent to London to learn more about composing, Taguchi was one of the very few people who approached him. While the others rather behaved like Jin's bad luck might be contagious... He didn't tell much, just something about “being expelled not meaning much if you excel out there”, which was just so lame as a joke, but warmed Jin's heart nevertheless.
Jin hopes that Taguchi had a chance to debut. He hasn't heard of him, but then Taguchi was neither a soloist nor a band-leader material. So far as Jin can tell, he could even be in one of the bands Jin wrote the songs for, singing them happily from somewhere far in the second plane. Perhaps, Jin should ask Yamapi about him, when next they meet...
Yeah, right. And face Pi's insatiable curiosity to the point where he will just blabber helplessly about everything in his boring life that only might be of interest for his best friend. And have the latter come up with some lame jokes of his own, something like “Lamenashi and Bakanishi make for a perfect pair”.
And there Jin stops, because - one - his hair isn't going to look any better than this, and - two - the pun is not that bad actually. Lamenashi and Bakanishi indeed. No wonder they clicked.
***
Kame's face is all somber surprisingly, as Jin joins him on the balcony. And he stares somewhere along the coast and over to the sea, or maybe at the looming mountain at the far end of the bay.
“That's Vesuvius,” he says without looking at Jin.
Ah... Oh... Jin glances at the two-headed mountain with a new respect. It explains it then. “Living on the volcano” has a special meaning for Japanese, with one of the most active seismic zones on Earth running right under their proverbial feet.
Yesterday, when they were coming upstairs to the bar, they sort of stumbled into the crowd of fellow cruisers, who were signing themselves in for the next day excursions. Jin wasn't particularly keen on listening to a lot of completely useless historical data, but he figured that if Kame wanted to join, he'd rather prefer to tag along with him to spending the day in town all on his own.
Kame, actually, seemed pretty eager at first. But then, once they came somewhat closer to the counter and read that there was actually only one excursion scheduled that went after the city-tour straight on to Pompeii, he almost recoiled, muttered: “No, I do not think I will go...”, and quickly proceeded to push his way out of the crowd.
Later, when they were already on the upper deck, smoking into the shifting darkness of the sea, their stomachs warm with a couple of shots of whiskey and their silence companionable, Jin asked him offhandedly about this curious change of plans.
“I've... made a report from the tsunami-affected area once,” Kame said finally, when the pause after Jin's question seemed almost too long. “This, probably, is an absurd overreaction on my part, considering this whole thing with Pompeii happened what... more than a millennium ago? But I just do not want to see the place where people... didn't even have time to understand... what hit them...”
Jin looks at the two-headed mountain, and it, well... looms. Neapolitans might not live “upon” the volcano, literally, but they certainly live in its shadow.
***
Naples is smaller than Rome (or London, or Tokyo). Maybe bigger than Nice. Jin is not sure, it's not like he did explore Nice extensively. It certainly looks more “lived in”, like there are actually more locals than tourists among the people they encounter, especially once they wander deeper into the streets and away from the sea.
Kame, surprisingly, knows quite a lot about the European history, and Jin is even a little envious, because he lives in bloody England, and all he knows about Nelson is that he is “that one-eyed sailor on top of the column half-covered in pigeon shit”. Well, that and some vague memories from an old black and white movie one of his friends had veritably coerced him into watching. Kame, on the other side, talks about sea battles and political intrigues, about British ambassador and his young wife, who wrote what by our modern standards we would consider a “supportive fan-letter” to the famous vice-admiral, and how they later met right here in Naples and became lovers almost with her husband's consent.
“I've read a book about it,” he shrugs, when Jin questions him on his excessive knowledge. “It was a fascinating read.”
They turn to go back to the sea-side after a while. But, even counting the many times they swerve into the narrow side-streets due to Kame's urge to photograph any kind of odd thing (flower pots, and motorbikes, and bed linen quivering in the wind as it hangs across the street). Even counting the full hour they spend inside the Galleria Umberto with Kame slipping in and out of fashion boutiques, examining all possible kinds of shirts and cardigans, and bags - absolutely every shop that sells bags. Even counting their heated argument before the St. Lorenzo, where Jin just flatly refuses to go underground to inspect the excavations under the church. And even deals a sort of dirty blow in asking just how is this different from traveling to bloody Pompeii? For which he just receives an indignant huff (apparently it is vastly different, even if for the life of him Jin still cannot say how) and a sulking turtle for a pair of blocks afterward. Until Kame yelps and almost throws himself under a car in his rush to photograph some obscure street chapel, and then the sulk is forgotten and they are talking again... Even counting all that, they are back to the sea-side, and it is barely quarter past two...
***
Jin knows what is going to happen when they just come in view of Castel d'Ovo, out there on its narrow tongue of land. The photographer in Kamenashi targets on it without fail, to the point where Jin can swear that he can hear the half-formed impulses running inside the turtle's brain “views... beautiful... must... get there!” He really doesn't mind though. So long as it is not some musty and dimly lit underground chambers but instead an elevated fortress with wide open-vista terraces, he is only for it. Is it his fault that underground chambers give him the spooks?
Besides, the turtle is really good with his camera. Professionally good almost, and it is so much pity that Jin cannot quite imagine him having a personal exhibition back in Japan. But then, he is only a caster for a single TV program, which would be, Jin supposes, not such a “slave for life” contract as is habitual for his own agency (and Jin is working - quietly but steadily - even around that). So there shouldn't be anything precluding Kame from having one elsewhere. And maybe Jin could talk with some of his acquaintances in London on his behalf.
The wind is stronger up on the terrace, and the views are breathtaking, which, so it happens, means that they are going to stay here for some time. And while the turtle is busy searching for an ideal viewpoint, Jin rests his butt on the stone balustrade and just squints leisurely into the sun.
There are few tourists up here, nobody but two girls in their immediate vicinity. Italian from the looks of them and, as Jin notes with obvious relief, both of them shorter than him. He won't admit to it but those towering blondes on board the liner have been imperceptibly chipping on his self-esteem.
One is small, and curvacious, and laughs all the time. And the other is perhaps about the same height as Kame, and generally bears some resemblance to him, what with her narrow face, a spare elegant figure and a hint of that occasionally haughty posture that the turtle assumes sometimes. Jin decides that he likes the taller one more.
He is almost drifting off into a half-doze when there is a soft by now familiar chuckle somewhere right in front of him, and a hastily added: “No-no, don't open your eyes, stay right as you are!” And he feels somehow proud, elevated into the category of objects worthy of Kame's lens. It's not even a digital, as he confirms by opening his eyes the barest slit, which only makes him prouder. For as he has learned, Kame only digs out his professional camera to photograph something that he deems as an artistic challenge for himself.
He closes his eyes again and waits for a series of clicks... that never comes. Instead there is a breathy female voice struggling with unfamiliar words: “Excuse me for... eh... l'incomodo! Could you... eh... photograph... me and my friend together? Please?”
It is the shorter of the girls that does the asking, a heavy blush visible even through the natural tan of her face. Kame looks like a “snow-white” beside her. A pretty annoyed “snow-white” to be precise. And Jin hears a very low, but still distinct “grmph” of displeasure, before the turtle packs his camera back inside his bag and goes to do the girls' bidding as the polite Japanese boy that he is.
He ends up photographing the girls together, then separately, deftly directing them to turn this way and that, lift the chin, sit, stand and bend to get a better angle. All those years in modeling turned for once into something useful, Jin suspects. And the guy so-o can make a living as a photographer...
Then they want a picture with Jin. And then Jin takes one of them with Kame, where the turtle somehow succeeds in looking completely frozen, even if there is a bright smile on his face, and his arms are draped around the girls' shoulders, and the girls themselves are draped all around him like ivy around a stick.
He still looks a little frozen and frustrated as they retreat to “their” part of the terrace, the girls staying behind and only glancing furtively into their direction... Correction, into Kame's direction. And Jin should be jealous, perhaps... Only he isn't. The whole situation is so funny, really, since Kame just stomps away completely unaware of it, without even glancing back one single time.
“Are you going to photograph me now, as you wanted to before we were interrupted?” Jin asks just to break the silence. “Or have you lost the right mood?”
“Yes,” Kame mutters as if he's breaking from some deep reverie, and then more determinedly, “yes, please, if you do not mind. You looked good against that background...”
“Oh... alright then,” Jin agrees amiably, and easily assumes exactly the same pose as when he sat there before. Good bodily memory was a benefit when learning the dancing steps, and it still is good at least for something. Jin can tell that
Kame is pleasantly impressed. A tiny satisfied smile is so cute as it shines through his professional concentration that Jin cannot hold back a teasing remark, just to prod the other a little, when he comes closer to give some last adjustment to how Jin's hair should look.
“Ka-ame-kun,” he whines, “it's not fa-air. Those girls are so-o smitten with yo-u... Especially the...you know...” he shows it with his hands, “voluptuous one!”
“Oh Jin-kun,” Kame answers in tune, a little chuckle breaking into the middle of the sentence, and his smile broadening, “it's not like I'm interested in them... at al... ah!” He stops himself abruptly and just stands there: mouth still open and eyes wide, stunned by his own slip...
Jin, on the other hand... Well, Jin, on the other hand, is not much better. Because he never felt that moment of a coin... well, just so abruptly, dropping... And everything just suddenly makes so much sense: in Kame's behavior, and in his own behavior. And why he didn't feel jealous. Except towards the girls when they clung to Kame way too much...
His mouth goes dry, so he licks his lips once... and then again. And sees the action mirrored by Kame unconsciously. And almost growls around something huge that's lodged itself in his throat: “Uh... neither am I?” Which isn't exactly true, not always, not elsewhere... But right here and now it is about the truest thing Jin has said in his entire life.
The tension between the two of them is intense - a living thing... And Jin feels a little overwhelmed to the point where he almost wants to... shuffle his feet?.. whatever... To break somehow from the very suddenness and intensity of it.
The attraction is nothing new, has been growing gradual and undetected since the moment they had stumbled into each other on that first day. Only now it is finally acknowledged and is almost too much...
Should he kiss Kame? Should he wait and let Kame take the initiative? Jin's eyes flicker between the turtle's eyes: bottomless, smoldering... The turtle's lips: a little open, slightly wet from where that tongue has run over them right now... His head angling a little... Jin's own head angles a little in perfect accordance.
The fuck is with him, really, feeling so raw and unsure and out of his depth?
Jin knows he's bi, has known he's bi since sixteen, since furtive hurried kisses in a behind the scenes closet, since clumsy experiments with equally clumsy co-juniors. Hasty and passionate, with a side-dish of danger if ever they had been caught...
The irony of his London existence though is that while the possibilities are so much better: no one gives a damn about his sexual life there, no one is going to be any the wiser in Japan… The opportunities are really few. European males just do not do it for him. They are alright as friends, but as sexual attraction goes he finds them vaguely disgusting: too meaty, too heavy, too ungraceful. Lacking the very qualities that would turn him on.
So he's been satisfying his needs on the other side of the bi-equation mostly. His last encounter with a male being a Korean language student he had met in a Soho bar, who was due to go back home two days after they met. And it was all friendly and drunk and nowhere as overwhelming as what he feels now.
Should they already?! Because he is going to anyway... because...
Only Kame whirls... this very moment... out of Jin's reach, out of Jin's sight. Stumbling in his motion unseeingly, catching himself on the balustrade, crushing his fist into it in a way that must've hurt, breathing rapidly, harshly. His back to Jin, his whole body shaking with the force of that breathing.
“No... No... I can't... Not now... Oh Kami-sama, I can't...”
And Jin feels even more confused, baffled by this turn of events. Has he misread the situation completely? Is Kame not, perhaps, attracted to him the way it seemed? (Because it did seem to Jin that their attraction was mutual...) Does he perhaps have someone else in Japan, whom he doesn't want to cheat on? Has Jin scared him with his advances?
Only - what advances? He hasn't even done anything! And it hurts... It just fucking hurts...
It takes him a moment to recognize that Kame is walking away: briskly, quickly, without looking back. Just walking away without waiting for Jin. And Jin might be a fool, but he cannot let him go away like this, without even trying to apologize and set things right. Well, as right as they can be set - considering...
Because he really liked Kame as a friend, and because Jin isn't some kind of rapist or something, a simple “no” would be enough actually...
The turtle is moving away though, as quick as he can without breaking into a run. And Jin only overtakes him at the very exit from the terrace. Reaches him just in time to grab on his wrist to prevent him from falling, when Kame stumbles over one of the low steps marking the sloping descent...
And it scares Jin a little that apparently the other hasn't been even looking where he was walking. Scares him more that he now stops meekly, not even trying to wrestle his arm from Jin's hand. His own hands tightly fisted, his face turned away from Jin, staring somewhere down, nowhere in particular... He looks pale, shaken, a little wild. And it makes Jin angry for some reason, because he isn't... Because - is he as scary as that?
“Look”, he says urgently, “I... apologize if I misinterpreted what happened earlier... But I wasn't going to... jump you without your consent or something... I...”
He stops. Because - starting from the very first words that he said, Kame is shaking his head quietly, insistently, like he is saying “no... no... no”. Mumbles something under his breath of which Jin catches only perhaps every third word: “...not your fault... not you... about me... sorry...” And Jin's anger evaporates under a flood of... concern? For, when the other glances up fleetingly, his eyes are pained, and lost, and Jin doubts that Kame sees him at all over whatever inner turmoil is causing him this near panic attack.
Jin's seen Kame in different moods, in different modes over those two days. There is the official and reserved Kamenashi of their first meeting. The contemplative and resigned Kame, reminiscing about his past in Rome. The slightly tipsy Lamenashi, telling silly jokes in the bar. Kame the photographer, brimming with excitement over a good shot, concentrated and professional while adjusting his camera settings. There is a slightly condescending intellectual. The sulking child. And the alluring sexual creature he only glimpsed briefly during that charged moment on the roof just now.
Thinking about that, he's really seen so many faces, so many facets of Kame in such a short time. And he might like some of them and dislike the others... But what Jin is sure about: is that he absolutely can not bear to see him like how he is now. This is the state he absolutely doesn't want to see Kame in. Ever again.
He wishes he knew what to do though. Well, in fact, he wishes he could just crush the other towards himself and somehow absorb the tension and whatever else is hurting the turtle to such an extent. But somehow it was exactly their close proximity that set this whole landslide off. So Jin fears that it would only hurt the other more if he does... And he wishes he knew whatever it is that brought Kame into the state he is in, so that he could figure in which way to help him.
It certainly doesn't help if he just stands here not doing anything at all.
Experimentally, Jin takes a step down the slope, tugging a little on the tense wrist he still has in his grip. And when it works, when Kame follows him listlessly, he quickens the steps, only slowing for every time there is this low step breaking the slope. Because he still doesn't really think that the turtle actually looks where he walks.
***
There is perhaps another dozen houses on the little islet besides the castle, lower stories given off to what in summer must be an assortment of outdoor cafes. Now though most of their windows are closed by the iron curtains, the tables and chairs stocked together beside the railings, and only a few still stand open. Even if they seem practically abandoned as well.
Jin swerves into the first one that's open, sits Kame at one of the tables, and finally lets go of his wrist, only to briefly press a warm palm to a stiff shoulder, “Stay here, alright? I'll go bring us something…” before he enters the dimly lit interior of the cafe.
Well, if by “something” he meant something strong (and he is of the firm opinion that Kame needs some - direly), he obviously should have chosen another place. For this is but a day-time reheat pizzeria, a dingy pit-stop for those poor souls, who are too hungry to go another hundred meters into the city proper and actually eat something nice. The unhappy consequence of that, for Jin, is that it features an assortment of soft drinks and beer, some cheaper versions of local wines and that's - unbelievably - all.
“Whaa.. what? No whiskey? Vodka? Gin? Tequila? Cognac?” He tries for every strong drink he ever tasted. Well, there is also sake, but that's just too far-fetched. He doubts that the heavily mustached old man behind the counter has even heard about sake. Actually, he looks like Jin could've been speaking in Japanese, for all the reaction he's getting.
And it would've been entirely alright, meaning, Jin would've long left already and gone to seek “better pastures” elsewhere... But there is Kame, sitting in a strange slightly sideways posture, one hand gripping onto the edge of the table top, like he is going to crush the fake marble, the other likewise - onto the plastic armrest of his chair... And Jin just hates the need to get him up again and drag him anywhere else in this state, especially - not all the way back to the quay.
“Just. Something. Strong,” he tries again, enunciating each word really slowly in hope of being understood. “Like... brandy? My friend... he needs it... badly... So... Just something. Please?” And there are his puppy eyes in their “full-on” mode, which could make his manager run and slip him beer, disguised inside a tea-cup, when he was facing a tough business meeting after a really late night.
Well, there is a reaction now, at least. The old man squints at Kame, hunched over the outside table, then back onto Jin's begging posture, nods to whatever he's thinking and shuffles off into the backroom. Jin hopes it doesn't just mean that he's got tired of Jin and decided to take a nap.
He reappears after a minute though, carrying a bottle the likes of which Jin only saw in old Italian movies. Or, well, in the windows of souvenir-shops. Only there - the twigs braided like a basket around their stout circular bodies were fresh and yellow and new, while here they are all brown and worn.
“Grappa,” the old man explains laconically. “Per me... Not for sale.” He still pours generous portions of clear liquid into two shot glasses, putting them before Jin. “Prego.”
The liquid stinks strongly of alcohol, barely perceptibly - of grapes. It's undeniably strong, though, and, judging that there is only a quarter of a bottle left, the old man has obviously already drunk it - and lived.
“Grazie,” Jin tells. Which is the only Italian word he knows, apart from all those largo and allegro moderato and the rest of the musical terms. And he bows. To hell with it being a Japanese custom, it seems appropriate. Just as appropriate as leaving a twenty euro note on the counter and not even thinking about change.
***
He returns to their table, where Kame still stares into the table-top like it is the most interesting thing in the world, and gently pushes one of the glasses into the guy's field of vision.
“Come on,” he urges quietly when there is no reaction from the other at first, “come on, it won't help you unless you drink it.”
And Kame does. Throws the whole glass in, bottoms up, only to dissolve in a helpless coughing fit in the aftermath. When it subsides though, there is something just imperceptibly slacker about the posture of his back, and Jin feels relieved. He is too, about the fact that Kame's hand doesn't return to the edge of the table again, but fiddles idly with the glass he just emptied. Jin's almost tempted to offer the guy his own full one as well, but then decides that he might need it later, perhaps. There is no need to rush.
Instead he slowly untangles the turtle's other hand from the armrest it grips, squeezing it a little in the most impersonal kind of tactile comfort that he can come up with, offering it as a friendlier object for gripping - if Kame needs to do so.
For Kame is a very tactile person, surprisingly so for a Japanese, as he unconsciously demonstrated on multiple occasions throughout their short acquaintanceship. So Jin thinks a kind of physical reassurance that skin-on-skin contact offers might actually work the best.
“Explain,” he asks gently. “I don't know what happened. I won't deny that I am attracted to you... but I hope you trust me enough to know I won't jump you. We can be just friends, it's okay... it's just that I'd like to know... what did I do wrong? So, please... explain?”
He watches as the adam's apple moves sharply up and down this impossibly slender exquisite neck; bears with it, as Kame's grip on his hand tightens momentarily almost vice-like. But then it relaxes some more, and Kame nods once in a “fair enough” admittance and starts talking, his voice steady if a little monotone, like he isn't talking about himself.
***
“I told you already that I was unwell...” he says, as his fingers whirl the glass in a steady spiral across the dusty table-top. “You probably thought that I... well... collapsed at work...”
“Yeah,” Jin admits unnecessarily, for he rather thinks it was but a rhetorical question, “something like that...”
“Well... it wasn't...” The whirling stops suddenly, but Kame still stares on where the glass stands. Doesn't try to look at Jin at all. “I did collapse alright... only it wasn't at work...” And then he breathes it out as one word almost. “It-was-in-a-love-hotel... Me and my partner, we just had sex... and I stood up to go to the bathroom to wash up... and then it just... everything went black...”
Jin doesn't even know what hurts more: Kame's hand tightening again over his, or his own other hand doing just the same to his knee. But he listens, listens attentively, now that Kame is talking, is willing to share something obviously hurtful and embarrassing with... none other but Jin.
“My partner... he tried to rouse me, I suppose... but I wouldn't come to... So he panicked... and called the ambulance... And, well, obviously one of the paramedics... recognized me... and wanted to make some quick cash...”
Jin's heart lurches painfully. This is it - the ultimate nightmare that his idol-friends would wake up from in the night - shrieking. Something that Jin himself is seemingly exempt from, by both his living abroad and generally not being much of the “public face” in the first place.
“Ex-baseball star Kamenashi found unconscious in a love-hotel after a session of drunk sex.” Kame quotes bitterly. “Gay sex... the... pictures he took... were pretty explicit.”
The grip on Jin's hand really hurts, but Jin doesn't mind at all. They both are shaking a little now, and he just wonders how Kamenashi has managed to appear so friendly and natural, and not just plainly broken-down after a nightmare like this. So maybe the cruise was helpful after all to make him temporarily forget about it all.
“The irony of it...” Kame continues, “is that I wasn't drunk... was already feeling a little unwell during our dinner before, would've really postponed the whole thing, only my partner was leaving on a month long business trip the very next day, so... The hospital was most helpful in this regard though... they actually disclaimed me being drunk. And well... informed me that they set the disqualification procedure in motion, for well... the one that sold me. Only they couldn't disclaim the... other stuff as well... because it was true, obviously. And their silence on that account was, well... telling”.
There is a soft shuffling behind them and Kame stops, as the shop-keeper mutely puts two more glasses of clear liquid on their table, and also a plate of potato-chips and an ashtray, before he pats Jin briefly upon the shoulder and goes off, taking their empty glasses away.
And Jin hasn't even noticed that he has emptied his, nor, come to that - that he has lit a cigarette already. He pushes the pack towards Kame and the turtle lights up and inhales gratefully. He is still tense, but it feels like telling has eased him up a little. The fact that someone else knows about all that beside himself.
“I woke up,” he goes on and picks a chip from the plate, but doesn't eat it, just plays with it as he did with his empty glass before - a nervous habit, “to the flashes all around myself... and the microphones shoved under my nose... was still dazed... thought I was in the studio, or... or at the photoshoot... s-smiled for them...” His voice hitches a little, but Kame grits his teeth and forces it down, and continues in the same impersonal voice. “Couldn't answer them really... which was a blessing, considering... Do not know how they got there... inside the hospital... whose relatives they pretended to be... or did they just bribe someone? Then the nurse came to check the IV and chased them away...”
“Your partner?” Jin asks, because he simply cannot imagine that Kame was apparently seriously ill and had to deal with all that to boot, and, as it seems, there wasn't anyone near him to even chase away the paps but the nurse.
“He?” Kame seems almost surprised by the question, only not really. “He had a business-trip, remember? We weren't lovers, just sex buddies, I guess... It was... convenient, for both of us... It's not easy to find someone who would have, well... similar interests... so...”
“I do not think I will be seeing him anymore,” He concludes with just a bit of sarcasm.
“He was... is... an executive at the modeling company that I work... worked for. They actually sent a person to the hospital to inform me they wouldn't be needing my services from now on. Told me, it was my own fault... but that they were willing to compensate for the time before the end of our current deal... so long as I do not drag the “good name of their company” into the dirt I had obviously landed myself in. I thought even then that it was partially... about him... a bribe, really. I took it anyway,” he looks at Jin for the first time since starting his story, and his eyes are vulnerable, still hurting, but there is also a hint of defiance.
“So you see, Akanishi-san, I'm some kind of a socially ostracized person now. Someone you would probably... not want to associate with...”
“Oh stop it!” Jin exclaims almost angrily. “Just... just stop it!
“When did it happen?” He asks in a gentler tone, when after his outburst Kame turns away abruptly, and gulps down his second grappa, and just... breathes: in and out, in and out again...
“A little over three weeks ago,” he answers finally in a really small voice. “I... still think you shouldn't...”
“What is with your other job?” Jin cuts through this bullshit with a more urgent question, and the turtle sighs, and puts his hands into his hair, lowering the head so that it almost touches the table-top.
“I don't know,” he says quietly. “The... TV company management... they wanted to fire me immediately. But the... team, they were really protective of me. And the program manager, he... talked with the higher-ups. And they have agreed to keep me on, but insisted that I took some time off to... fade from the lime-light... So I guess... I guess I'm fine for now... I... I can do without modeling, but I'd really... really hate to lose this job...”
Jin knows, hasn't spent his life in the entertainment business to not know, that the turtle is anything but fine. The TV officials might have agreed to keep him on for now, but the real trial will come when Kamenashi returns to work and goes on air for the first time after this whole mess. It all depends on how the audience will react, and how much of hate- vs. support-mail the studio receives on his behalf. Till that day Kame hangs virtually in the air, the company's decision being easily reversible if need be.
And Jin is angry. He is angry on the fucking officials only thinking of potential danger to their companies. And he is angry on the fucking sensation-seeking paparazzi. And on the fucking hypocrite society that gleefully savors such articles and then pretends to blame the poor subjects of them, while actually craving for more of juicy gossip like this.
He is also really angry on the turtle's cowardly “partner” hiding behind his company's back. And, to a lesser degree, on the turtle himself, for just accepting all this punishment like it was really due to him... for his sins, - which are no sins, not in Jin's book.
“Come on,” he urges the now silent Kame, thrusting the remaining full glass into his direction, “come on, drink this as well, and let's go!”
“Go? Where?” Kamenashi seems genuinely surprised by Jin's sudden burst of energy. (He drinks the glass though, shuddering a little as the liquid burns his throat on its way down).
“The ship,” Jin replies like it is something self-explanatory. The idea sprung quite unexpectedly into his mind, but he likes it the more he thinks of it. “Look... we are still friends, right? Well, unless you'd want us to be something more... and... what I mean is - I'm open for both options!”
“Friends?” it sounds as if Kamenashi is weighing the word on his tongue. “Yes, let’s be friends.” He nods with more decisiveness than he's shown for some while. “I'm... not sure if I'm ready for any kind of 'something more' right now... but I'd like for us to remain friends, very much so!”
There is a tentative smile finding its way onto the turtle's face again, and Jin feels even surer about his plan.
“Well, let's go back to the ship then,” he proposes brightly, “and then, let's have 'the boys' night out' tonight! There is everything we need for that actually: the arcade, billiards, karaoke, you choose! But - first and foremost - let's get royally drunk!”
Part 3