Comfort [1/1] (JE/Discovery // Junno/Rena)

[krysyuy]

Title: Comfort
Author: Krys Yuy
Prompt: #32/mess
Summary: Rena gets a visit from her boyfriend in the wake of upsetting news. Sometimes the only thing you can do for someone you love is be there for them.
Pairing/Characters: Taguchi Junnosuke/Komine Rena (KAT-TUN/Discovery)
Rating: PG/K+
Word Count: ~2,300
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters used. This fic is purely for entertainment purposes only.
Author’s Notes: For je_prompts. This was originally written in reaction to news of the split, so deals with the Jincident. It started out as a drabble, but is obviously no longer the case. xD A bit angsty before it turns fluffy? I don’t even know what this is anymore… Hopefully someone enjoys it. ^.^;; If you’re so inclined, please leave feedback - that would be really nice. ♥ Thank you! I can’t write drunk people. OTL


Rena clipped her hair back, then tied the front of her robe together with one hand. She used the other to wipe the sleep from her eyes as she glared at the front door. Behind it was the source of the offending noises that had woken her up. It was three in the morning! She needed sleep, not the insistent knocking that was getting louder by the second.

“Who the hell -” She looked through the peephole. Suddenly, she was a lot more awake, sour mood forgotten. She unfastened the chain and opened the door hurriedly. She took in the tall figure standing just outside her door. “What happened? Are you all right?”

He smiled, bleary-eyed and fatigued, squinting at her from behind his square black frames. “Rena-chan.” He leaned against the doorframe with his arm, swaying where he stood.

She frowned. “Get in here, idiot,” she said, grabbing his shirtsleeve. She tugged him inside and he slung an arm around her shoulders. She nearly stumbled when he leaned against her with his full weight. “Are you drunk?”

He pressed his nose to her hair and breathed in deeply. “Drunk on love for you,” he said.

“You did not just say that,” she replied, shaking her head. “Come on.” She felt him smile as lips moved to hover over her temple, and she could smell the wisps of cigarette smoke and alcohol on the collar of his white button-up shirt. So he was at that billiards bar… “You are drunk.”

He shook his head. She caught his white hat before it slipped off and slid it back on him. “Just tired,” he replied. He slouched even further so he could lean his head against hers.

Rena didn’t believe him for a second. She made him kick off his sneakers and then led him to her bedroom, trying not to stagger under his tall frame. Meanwhile, her out-of-it boyfriend was muttering to himself - no, wait. She listened carefully and realized he was humming. Her grip on him tightened.

They reached her bed and she tried to set him down easy, but he ended up tumbling on the sheets, white hat flying off and long limbs dangling over the edge. He giggled, his thick-rimmed glasses now askew, and clutched one of her pillows to his chest.

Rena sighed, sitting down in the space not occupied by her boyfriend’s sprawled form. She turned and lifted her leg so that it rested on the bed while the other touched the floor. She watched him quietly for a moment. He had already calmed enough to start humming again, off in his own little world with his eyes closed.

“Junnosuke,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. He stilled, whether from her voice or her touch, she didn’t know. “Tell me what happened.”

He shook his head again, his back-to-brown locks growing rumpled and haphazard against her linens.

Something was wrong. Besides showing up at her door at three in the morning unannounced, he was humming ballads under his breath. He only did that when he was a combination of drunk and sad/upset. She found that out firsthand after their first fight as a couple.

Rena scooted further up on the bed, closer to where Junno’s head lay by the headboard. She crossed her legs and skimmed her fingers along the curve of his cheek.

There was a warm puff of air against her palm as he sighed. “… Jin quit.”

“Quit?” she echoed. She couldn’t claim surprise. Over the past year, Junno had voiced his concerns to her more than once about the member he considered his longest friend still in Johnny’s.

“More like left. But that’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?” He sounded suspiciously sober, as if the mere topic of their conversation was enough to douse the effects of whatever he had been drinking earlier.

But it was the traces of bitterness in his tone that had her running a hand through his soft brown hair. She sat back against the headboard with her legs folded to one side. Idly, she wondered if he would bleach his hair platinum blond again. She had just gotten used to it when he had changed it back.

Junno responded to her attempts at soothing by leaning into her touch. But his eyes remained closed and his hold on her pillow was now tight with tension. She wanted to make this better for him, somehow. But what could she say? She knew how he felt about KAT-TUN, the absolute loyalty he held for his group. To have a member leave… She had no idea what he was going through.

“The others are taking it pretty well,” Junno said. He breathed, in and out, in and out - quiet, controlled breaths. “Koki didn’t overturn the table this time.” He chuckled, and as if that was some kind of trigger, he started to laugh hysterically. He rolled onto his other side, and her hand slid off his hair and onto the mattress. His shoulders shook with the force of his laughs and she stared at the back of his head, worried.

“Junnosuke…”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes open into tiny slits. “Maybe I am a teeny, tiny, eensy bit drunk,” he conceded as his laughter died down, demonstrating with the small space between his thumb and index finger.

“How are you taking it?” she asked, even though it was pretty obvious the answer was not very well at all.

Junno looked back at the wall. He rubbed his face with his palms. “I’m a mess,” he said. “I can’t decide if I’m mad, depressed or relieved… Is it selfish that I’m not happy for him? I should be, right? If I call myself his friend, I should be happy.” His knuckles turned white as his fingers dug into the pillow. “So what if he doesn’t want us anymore?”

Rena placed a firm hand on his shoulder and forced him to turn over. He looked up at her and his usually warm, lively brown eyes were so sad her heart ached.

“He’s an idiot,” she said. She had a few other choice words for his ex-groupmate, which she dismissed. She wouldn’t waste any further thought on him, not when it was Junno that needed her. “And you… you’re not a mess.” She smoothed his bangs back and attempted to fix his hair so it could regain some of its order. “And you’re not selfish. You’re hurt.”

He blinked once, then looked away. She would have thought he was drawing away from her if he hadn’t then shifted closer, using her thigh as a cushion for his head. She rubbed circles at the nape of his neck and worked at the nerves gathered there.

“Some part of you knew,” she said softly; gently reminding him of all the conversations they had prior to this night, of his fears that this second trip to America would be a permanent leave.

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less,” he said, and she had no reply to that.

A moment later, he added, “He always did have bigger dreams than ours.” His tone was almost entirely blank, and if she hadn’t known him for years now, she would have missed the slight catch in his voice. “I used to envy him. He could dream and dream and dream, and even when we were Juniors, I somehow knew he would make it happen.”

She could read between the lines of what he wasn’t saying. I thought I would be there when he did.

His gaze was faraway as he continued, “We used to share the same dream, y’know.”

“Going worldwide,” she murmured. Gold was still one of her favorite KAT-TUN songs. The fact that it had been Junno’s designated song for the KAT-TUN special medley around the time they debuted… well, that was a happy coincidence.

His head tilted up and something in her heart somehow tightened and released at the same time when she saw the small grin on his face. “Don’t you wanna see it when we make it worldwide?” he sang quietly.

She couldn’t stop her smile even if she wanted to. Junno’s dream was KAT-TUN. After all this time, he still had such child-like enthusiasm for his group, and that would always be enough to put a smile on her face. It wasn’t by far his only dream, but it was one of his biggest and one he had worked at for nearly ten years and counting. She admired that about him, his tenacity and his faithfulness.

All was quiet for the next several minutes, nothing but the sound of their breathing and the rustle of cloth against sheets to fill in the silence. She combed her hand through his hair slowly, again and again, moving in time to a beat only she could hear as she stared out her bedroom window and up at the moon hanging low in the sky.

“I don’t want to resent him.” Junno’s voice was small, pitiful and tired, a whispered confession in the darkness.

The dim light from her lamp allowed her to see that his eyes were becoming suspiciously bright behind his glasses. “You could never resent anyone,” she said with absolute certainty.

“I want to be okay with this,” he said, voice fierce but faint with exhaustion all at once. His fingers gripped her sheets tightly. “I swear I do.”

“Junnosuke, you don’t have to convince me,” she replied. She pried his fingers open and massaged them until they loosened up. “And you can’t expect to be okay with this overnight. It’s going to take time.”

His head shifted against her thigh, and he punctuated his nod with a long yawn.

She laced her fingers through his and he put up no resistance, not that he ever did. Her lips curved up at the edges. “Do you need anything right now?” she asked.

At her question, he seemed ready to just about curl into her. Rena bent down, her nose barely brushing his upside down profile, and twisted locks of his brown hair around her fingers.

“Marry me.”

She jerked up, heart stuttering, and her gaze darted to his face, only to find him absently staring at her kneecap, his smile faint and sleepy. His eyelids were hardly open.

“I’m still drunk, I think,” he said in a distracted tone, not quite aware of what he asked. He snuggled closer and pushed his hand behind her back so he could loop an arm around her waist.

She almost rapped her knuckles on his forehead in annoyance, but drew back in favor of letting him rest. “Make it worldwide first and then we’ll talk,” she said wryly.

Junno mumbled something she couldn’t catch. She leaned back down, but he had already gone quiet again, more than halfway to dreamland. She shook her head and took off his glasses, placing them on the nightstand.

After discarding her robe, Rena lay down and settled in. She drew the covers over both their bodies and turned on her side to face Junno. She traced the lines of his face with the pads of her fingers, unable to erase his troubled expression from her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. That this happened. That you’re hurting.

Rena sighed as he drew her closer to him and threw an arm over her hip. His heat seeped into her and after a few moments, she fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, her hand intertwined with his.

-

There was a light stroke against her cheek and Rena burrowed further under the blankets, emerging just enough from her slumber to register the tender kiss pressed to her forehead. The corners of her lips twitched up, but sleep pulled her back under before she could hear the words whispered against her skin.

-

A couple hours later, Rena stirred. If there was one thing she could rely on, it was her internal clock - even staying up late, she always woke up at the same time. She reached over, but didn’t feel anything aside from her rumpled blanket. Groggy, she pushed herself up on her elbow and wiped at her eyes.

The space beside her was empty. Work was the only thing that could pull Junno away from her side (well, that and billiards) - his work ethic was something he never budged on. And if she knew Johnny’s, she wouldn’t be surprised if Junno’s schedule somehow got busier.

Disappointed, she sighed and rubbed her cheeks, surprised when she felt something crinkle. She pulled whatever it was away from her skin. Her disappointment instantly melted into pleasure.

In her hand, Junno’s neat script was scrawled on a wrinkled pink post-it note.

Rena-chan is the best!

Love, Jun

A large smiley face in the corner was the final flourish that was all Junno.

She smiled and reached for her cell on the nightstand. With the post-it stuck to her index finger, she used her free hand to type a message and then hit the ‘Send’ button.

U ok?

His reply was instant, and she figured he already had his phone out. It was a good thing he wasn’t on his PSP - if that were the case, she wouldn’t have been able to reach him for hours.

Better than yesterday.

That was all she needed to know. Glad, she glanced at the clock and then winced. Her manager would probably be calling her any minute. She sent him another message as she rolled out of bed, one eye on the screen, another on the clothes she was pulling out of her dresser.

:) C u 2nite?

I won’t show up semi-drunk this time, promise. Luv u.

She bit her lip to smother another smile. A pause, then her phone vibrated again:

(*^3^*)

She laughed, her thumb brushing over the silver ring on her right hand. She kissed two of her fingers before pressing them to the screen.

Luv u 2.

fin.

Crossposted to je_prompts, heat_up_je, jent_fanfics, kattun_fanfics.

I’m so rusty when it comes to fanfiction. やべぇ…