I'm-writing-I-swear fic snippet.
The plan was to have this fic done for Jin's birthday. It is demon!verse fic. I know I said over and over that I wouldn't write more demon!verse fic and you all can thank matchynishi for this miracle.
But, well, it's not finished and going to be a bit belated.
So have a snippet for now:
It was not Dropkick Friend's best performance, and Kame should know because he's been to all of their shows and many of their practices since he (accidentally, as Jin would insist) made a claim on their lead vocalist's immortal soul. In general they were pretty good for an amateur band, and he had to give Ryo credit for being the one who made sure they rehearsed regularly. If left up to Jin and Yamapi, they'd have plenty of passion but not, well, the actual discipline to practice. And Shirota couldn't be arsed most of the time to take initiative, so they all put up with Ryo's dictatorship. To a degree. With numerous failed attempts at rebellion.
But it wasn't lack of practice that threw them off tonight. More like lack of planning. Kame had figured that doing a show immediately after exam week wasn't the smartest idea, but he was outvoted by the band members who thought it was just bloody brilliant.
"It won't just be a celebration," Yamapi explained at rehearsal pre-exams. "It'll be like a-a-"
"Signal!" Jin's voice was bolstered by the mic and reverberated in the small studio they rented for ¥2,000 an hour.
Yamapi snapped his fingers and pointed at Jin. "Yeah! A signal to all the other students. We'll be the first to announce it. Term's over!"
"School's out!" Jin added.
"Summer break!" they chorused.
"You'd think they never graduated junior high," Ryo sneered, adjusting the strap of his bass.
Kame uncrossed, then recrossed his legs from where he sat on a battered couch pushed up against a chipped wall. The only reason he was here at all was because Ryo said that if he was present Jin wouldn't have any feasible reason to skip. "I just think after exams-"
"Excuse me, are you a member of this band? No? Then I don't care. I wouldn't care even if you were."
"NISHIKIDO," Jin roared into the mic. "DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE."
"Bring it, Akanishi," Ryo taunted with a one-finger salute and Jin marched on over.
Kame sighed and pulled out a book. He'd been to enough rehearsals to know that this was how they usually started.
Then came exam week. Kame made sure Jin rolled out of bed in time for his English oral ("Which isn't nearly as sexy as it should be," Jin complained) and that he didn't procrastinate like hell on a term paper. Kame also helped Yamapi prepare for his Marketing Strategy presentation even though they had to do it while Jin was taking a Psychology exam or nothing would get done. Finally, the week ended. And as Kame predicted, Friday evening they got shithouse drunk. Saturday they sobered up just in time to do it again for the 9:30 show.
"I never will forget those nights," Jin sang in mostly lucid English. "I wonder if it was a dream..." He liked doing covers of American bands. He wrote his own, too, and kept most of them stashed away even though the ones he had shared with the band were some of their most popular. On the outside he was dismissive of compliments regarding his songwriting ("When it comes to singing Bakanishi seems cool. The poor fans, they have no idea," Yamapi lamented), and Jin always looked comfortable on stage, but not complacent. He looked good up there, confident, but when he'd let Kame take a look at a few torn-out sheets of lyrics, all scratched out pencil scribbles and slanting words crammed into the margins, he'd been brusquely shy.
You wouldn't know it seeing him with his eyes at half-mast and a flirty smirk tugging the corners of his mouth. "Remember how you made me crazy? Remember how I made you scream..." The crowd gathered at the foot of the stage screamed plenty. Kame had a good view from where he sat at a table on the second floor, well away from the stifling pack of bodies below.
"Now I don't understand what happened to our love, but babe, when I get you back-" Jin raised a fist in the air and for a brief second tipped his face up to grin, sweaty with his too-long hair sticking to his skin and his eyes squinting under the lights, at Kame. "I'm gonna show you what I'm made of!"
Kame's lips twitched against his fingers where he propped his chin up in one hand, and with his other he raised his beer in an acknowledging toast. Not the band's most technically skilled show, no, but one of their most high-energy. They were good at that. The best. Kame glanced down at the mass of people shouting, laughing, and pumping their arms to the music. Humanity was as tangled as it ever was, so completely chaotic and alive. Bewildering and infuriating and thrilling. Easy to love, but love them too much and then they're easy to hate. To Fall for.
Kame wasn't sure when he moved, but he found himself standing up with both arms braced on the railing and leaning forward as Jin carried through the next verse ("Don't look back, you can never look back"). Kame swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat but didn't look down.
Jin was spotlighted on the stage. He swaggered over to Yamapi, slung an arm around his shoulders and they both bent their heads over the mic to belt out the chorus. This was going to be one of those shows that left Jin hoarse and happy about it. He'd smile and laugh, wince when it hurt, and Kame would bury his face in the crook of Jin's neck and kiss his throat.
Kame sighed and closed his eyes, feeling warm from more than the alcohol and crowded theater. Too easy.
"Shots!" Ryo declared after the show. "What do you losers want?"
"Redheaded sluts," Jin leered.
"Blowjobs," Yamapi deadpanned.
Shirota rolled his eyes and added, "Orgasms," for the sake of following up.
Kame really couldn't one-up that, at least not where alcoholic beverage innuendo was concerned.
"Fuck your fucking girly drinks," Ryo snarled with a slightly manic, sharp-toothed grin that would have made most people back away slowly. He stalked off towards the bar and could be heard ordering a round of, "Tequila, straight up!"
"Oh!" Jin said like a light bulb switching on. He made a half-assed attempt to rise from his slouch and check his pockets. "Where the fuck did I..."
"Here." Kame withdrew a creased envelope that already had its flap torn open and tapped it against Jin's cheek. Jin whipped his head around so fast he almost jabbed himself in the eye on the corner.
"Cool, thanks." Jin snatched it and displayed the envelope with a flourish before slapping it down in front of Yamapi. "This came for you."
Yamapi stared down at the ravaged piece of mail that bore his name printed on a nondescript label. "And what possessed you to read my mail?" he asked, more baffled than offended-which relieved Kame somewhat. He'd wanted to steam it open and seal it back up like it'd never been desecrated, but Jin had scoffed at that idea and eagerly ripped into it in the name of friendship.
"Because what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine." Jin grinned hugely, feeling smug and good on his post-concert high. He tipped his chair back to balance on the two legs. "Just read it, you dumbfuck."
"Something is wrong with you," Yamapi stated, narrow-eyed and deservedly suspicious of Jin's behavior. But he examined the envelope anyway, pulling out the folded sheet inside and flipping it open to skim. His eyes tracked the first couple of lines and began to bulge, jaw working but with no sound coming out.
Jin made no effort to contain his laughter and wobbled in his precarious seat, saved from a flat-out collapse by Kame's steadying hand on the back of his chair.
"No!" Pi gaped.
"Hell, yeah!" Jin crowed.
Shirota plucked the letter from Yamapi's fingers to read its contents, brows rising. "Congratulations."
"I never applied for this internship!" Yamapi sputtered, grabbing the acceptance letter to stare at it some more.
"I know." Jin's chair plunked down on all four legs again and he leaned an elbow on top of the table. "Since you're so lame I filled out the app for you."
Yamapi blinked and then stared in mildly alarmed wonder at Jin. "I think I want to clasp you in, like, a manfully emotional hug or some shit."
Jin shook his head in a negative. "We're not wasted enough for that yet."
"Oh, okay, then." He folded the letter like he was going to put it down but five seconds later unfolded it and read it again. "Dude. This is awesome. I guess I don't need that job at Ben & Jerry's after all."
"Wait a minute. Free ice cream?" Jin made a swipe for the letter which Pi clutched protectively to his chest. "Give me that! I take it back!"
"Never! It has my name on it, it's mine!" The scuffle ended abruptly when Yamapi shoved the letter down inside his pants and Jin instantly recoiled with an exaggerated shudder.
Jin turned big, pleading puppy-dog eyes on Shirota. "Yuu, could you-"
"Denied. I'm not touching Pi's junk for the sake of free ice cream."
Crossing his arms, Jin sat back in his chair with a huff, throwing Pi a dirty look. "Fine. Know what? You can thank me by doing the dishes for a week. And paying for all my drinks. And buying me a Gibson Dark Fire guitar."
"Yes. Maybe. No," Yamapi replied respectively. "You wouldn't even know what to do with a Dark Fire. It'd be too complicated for your tiny brain."
"Shut up, compared to you my brain is enormous. Besides, what's there to figure out? It's a robot guitar that tunes itself! It tunes itself!"
"If I was going to buy a ¥300,000 guitar I wouldn't waste it on you. I wouldn't even let you breathe near it."
"You are the worst friend ever!" Jin looked between Kame and Shirota. "Are you guys hearing this? Pi wins the award for being the WORST. FRIEND. EVER. Where the hell are those shots, I have sorrows that need drowning."
"I might let you gaze longingly at it," Yamapi continued thoughtfully. "From a distance. Behind a window of bulletproof glass."
They were all saved from whatever Jin might have tried to do in response to that when Ryo arrived with a tray of tequila shots. There were glasses for each of them filled with pale brown liquid and nothing else.
"Where's my salt and lime?" Jin demanded, and three pairs of eyes darted nervously to Ryo. Kame rubbed his temples; demons were, in fact, capable of getting drunk.
"Sorry, didn't know you babies wanted training wheels." And just to prove what a man he was, Ryo grabbed a glass and tipped it back in one, well, arguably smooth motion. But the gauntlet was thrown. Masculinity was at stake. One by one, the others took up their glasses.
"Wait, wait!" Yamapi said, flapping his hands excitedly before Jin could knock his back. "Do a lover's shot!"
"You do a lover's shot!" Jin fired back before he could think about it because next he belatedly added, "with... no one! Because you suck."
Yamapi ignored him and cheerfully faced Kame. "Okay, do it with me!"
"DIE IN A FIRE." Jin forcibly linked his arm with Kame's, making some tequila splash over the rims of their glasses and wetting their fingers. Jin glared determinedly at nothing in particular through his embarrassment. Kame was caught between wanting to sink through the floor and wanting to grin like the rest of these morons. He caught Jin's eye and gave a nod.
"Ready? One, two..."
The straight shot of liquor was intense and unforgiving as it scorched a Listerine burn down his throat. It was really kind of awful-and cheap, trust Ryo not to splurge on the good stuff-but then he slammed the empty glass on the table with Jin's right after and there was a lot of juvenile whooping and hollering and Kame warmed from the inside out.
"So who's up for a drinking game?" Pi asked brightly.
To be continued. Expect the full story in a week or two!
As an extra bonus (!!!), have a calendar page taken from Jin/Pi/Kame's apartment.
And that's all I got for now. Happy 4th and happy birthday to Jin!
But, well, it's not finished and going to be a bit belated.
So have a snippet for now:
It was not Dropkick Friend's best performance, and Kame should know because he's been to all of their shows and many of their practices since he (accidentally, as Jin would insist) made a claim on their lead vocalist's immortal soul. In general they were pretty good for an amateur band, and he had to give Ryo credit for being the one who made sure they rehearsed regularly. If left up to Jin and Yamapi, they'd have plenty of passion but not, well, the actual discipline to practice. And Shirota couldn't be arsed most of the time to take initiative, so they all put up with Ryo's dictatorship. To a degree. With numerous failed attempts at rebellion.
But it wasn't lack of practice that threw them off tonight. More like lack of planning. Kame had figured that doing a show immediately after exam week wasn't the smartest idea, but he was outvoted by the band members who thought it was just bloody brilliant.
"It won't just be a celebration," Yamapi explained at rehearsal pre-exams. "It'll be like a-a-"
"Signal!" Jin's voice was bolstered by the mic and reverberated in the small studio they rented for ¥2,000 an hour.
Yamapi snapped his fingers and pointed at Jin. "Yeah! A signal to all the other students. We'll be the first to announce it. Term's over!"
"School's out!" Jin added.
"Summer break!" they chorused.
"You'd think they never graduated junior high," Ryo sneered, adjusting the strap of his bass.
Kame uncrossed, then recrossed his legs from where he sat on a battered couch pushed up against a chipped wall. The only reason he was here at all was because Ryo said that if he was present Jin wouldn't have any feasible reason to skip. "I just think after exams-"
"Excuse me, are you a member of this band? No? Then I don't care. I wouldn't care even if you were."
"NISHIKIDO," Jin roared into the mic. "DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE."
"Bring it, Akanishi," Ryo taunted with a one-finger salute and Jin marched on over.
Kame sighed and pulled out a book. He'd been to enough rehearsals to know that this was how they usually started.
Then came exam week. Kame made sure Jin rolled out of bed in time for his English oral ("Which isn't nearly as sexy as it should be," Jin complained) and that he didn't procrastinate like hell on a term paper. Kame also helped Yamapi prepare for his Marketing Strategy presentation even though they had to do it while Jin was taking a Psychology exam or nothing would get done. Finally, the week ended. And as Kame predicted, Friday evening they got shithouse drunk. Saturday they sobered up just in time to do it again for the 9:30 show.
"I never will forget those nights," Jin sang in mostly lucid English. "I wonder if it was a dream..." He liked doing covers of American bands. He wrote his own, too, and kept most of them stashed away even though the ones he had shared with the band were some of their most popular. On the outside he was dismissive of compliments regarding his songwriting ("When it comes to singing Bakanishi seems cool. The poor fans, they have no idea," Yamapi lamented), and Jin always looked comfortable on stage, but not complacent. He looked good up there, confident, but when he'd let Kame take a look at a few torn-out sheets of lyrics, all scratched out pencil scribbles and slanting words crammed into the margins, he'd been brusquely shy.
You wouldn't know it seeing him with his eyes at half-mast and a flirty smirk tugging the corners of his mouth. "Remember how you made me crazy? Remember how I made you scream..." The crowd gathered at the foot of the stage screamed plenty. Kame had a good view from where he sat at a table on the second floor, well away from the stifling pack of bodies below.
"Now I don't understand what happened to our love, but babe, when I get you back-" Jin raised a fist in the air and for a brief second tipped his face up to grin, sweaty with his too-long hair sticking to his skin and his eyes squinting under the lights, at Kame. "I'm gonna show you what I'm made of!"
Kame's lips twitched against his fingers where he propped his chin up in one hand, and with his other he raised his beer in an acknowledging toast. Not the band's most technically skilled show, no, but one of their most high-energy. They were good at that. The best. Kame glanced down at the mass of people shouting, laughing, and pumping their arms to the music. Humanity was as tangled as it ever was, so completely chaotic and alive. Bewildering and infuriating and thrilling. Easy to love, but love them too much and then they're easy to hate. To Fall for.
Kame wasn't sure when he moved, but he found himself standing up with both arms braced on the railing and leaning forward as Jin carried through the next verse ("Don't look back, you can never look back"). Kame swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat but didn't look down.
Jin was spotlighted on the stage. He swaggered over to Yamapi, slung an arm around his shoulders and they both bent their heads over the mic to belt out the chorus. This was going to be one of those shows that left Jin hoarse and happy about it. He'd smile and laugh, wince when it hurt, and Kame would bury his face in the crook of Jin's neck and kiss his throat.
Kame sighed and closed his eyes, feeling warm from more than the alcohol and crowded theater. Too easy.
"Shots!" Ryo declared after the show. "What do you losers want?"
"Redheaded sluts," Jin leered.
"Blowjobs," Yamapi deadpanned.
Shirota rolled his eyes and added, "Orgasms," for the sake of following up.
Kame really couldn't one-up that, at least not where alcoholic beverage innuendo was concerned.
"Fuck your fucking girly drinks," Ryo snarled with a slightly manic, sharp-toothed grin that would have made most people back away slowly. He stalked off towards the bar and could be heard ordering a round of, "Tequila, straight up!"
"Oh!" Jin said like a light bulb switching on. He made a half-assed attempt to rise from his slouch and check his pockets. "Where the fuck did I..."
"Here." Kame withdrew a creased envelope that already had its flap torn open and tapped it against Jin's cheek. Jin whipped his head around so fast he almost jabbed himself in the eye on the corner.
"Cool, thanks." Jin snatched it and displayed the envelope with a flourish before slapping it down in front of Yamapi. "This came for you."
Yamapi stared down at the ravaged piece of mail that bore his name printed on a nondescript label. "And what possessed you to read my mail?" he asked, more baffled than offended-which relieved Kame somewhat. He'd wanted to steam it open and seal it back up like it'd never been desecrated, but Jin had scoffed at that idea and eagerly ripped into it in the name of friendship.
"Because what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine." Jin grinned hugely, feeling smug and good on his post-concert high. He tipped his chair back to balance on the two legs. "Just read it, you dumbfuck."
"Something is wrong with you," Yamapi stated, narrow-eyed and deservedly suspicious of Jin's behavior. But he examined the envelope anyway, pulling out the folded sheet inside and flipping it open to skim. His eyes tracked the first couple of lines and began to bulge, jaw working but with no sound coming out.
Jin made no effort to contain his laughter and wobbled in his precarious seat, saved from a flat-out collapse by Kame's steadying hand on the back of his chair.
"No!" Pi gaped.
"Hell, yeah!" Jin crowed.
Shirota plucked the letter from Yamapi's fingers to read its contents, brows rising. "Congratulations."
"I never applied for this internship!" Yamapi sputtered, grabbing the acceptance letter to stare at it some more.
"I know." Jin's chair plunked down on all four legs again and he leaned an elbow on top of the table. "Since you're so lame I filled out the app for you."
Yamapi blinked and then stared in mildly alarmed wonder at Jin. "I think I want to clasp you in, like, a manfully emotional hug or some shit."
Jin shook his head in a negative. "We're not wasted enough for that yet."
"Oh, okay, then." He folded the letter like he was going to put it down but five seconds later unfolded it and read it again. "Dude. This is awesome. I guess I don't need that job at Ben & Jerry's after all."
"Wait a minute. Free ice cream?" Jin made a swipe for the letter which Pi clutched protectively to his chest. "Give me that! I take it back!"
"Never! It has my name on it, it's mine!" The scuffle ended abruptly when Yamapi shoved the letter down inside his pants and Jin instantly recoiled with an exaggerated shudder.
Jin turned big, pleading puppy-dog eyes on Shirota. "Yuu, could you-"
"Denied. I'm not touching Pi's junk for the sake of free ice cream."
Crossing his arms, Jin sat back in his chair with a huff, throwing Pi a dirty look. "Fine. Know what? You can thank me by doing the dishes for a week. And paying for all my drinks. And buying me a Gibson Dark Fire guitar."
"Yes. Maybe. No," Yamapi replied respectively. "You wouldn't even know what to do with a Dark Fire. It'd be too complicated for your tiny brain."
"Shut up, compared to you my brain is enormous. Besides, what's there to figure out? It's a robot guitar that tunes itself! It tunes itself!"
"If I was going to buy a ¥300,000 guitar I wouldn't waste it on you. I wouldn't even let you breathe near it."
"You are the worst friend ever!" Jin looked between Kame and Shirota. "Are you guys hearing this? Pi wins the award for being the WORST. FRIEND. EVER. Where the hell are those shots, I have sorrows that need drowning."
"I might let you gaze longingly at it," Yamapi continued thoughtfully. "From a distance. Behind a window of bulletproof glass."
They were all saved from whatever Jin might have tried to do in response to that when Ryo arrived with a tray of tequila shots. There were glasses for each of them filled with pale brown liquid and nothing else.
"Where's my salt and lime?" Jin demanded, and three pairs of eyes darted nervously to Ryo. Kame rubbed his temples; demons were, in fact, capable of getting drunk.
"Sorry, didn't know you babies wanted training wheels." And just to prove what a man he was, Ryo grabbed a glass and tipped it back in one, well, arguably smooth motion. But the gauntlet was thrown. Masculinity was at stake. One by one, the others took up their glasses.
"Wait, wait!" Yamapi said, flapping his hands excitedly before Jin could knock his back. "Do a lover's shot!"
"You do a lover's shot!" Jin fired back before he could think about it because next he belatedly added, "with... no one! Because you suck."
Yamapi ignored him and cheerfully faced Kame. "Okay, do it with me!"
"DIE IN A FIRE." Jin forcibly linked his arm with Kame's, making some tequila splash over the rims of their glasses and wetting their fingers. Jin glared determinedly at nothing in particular through his embarrassment. Kame was caught between wanting to sink through the floor and wanting to grin like the rest of these morons. He caught Jin's eye and gave a nod.
"Ready? One, two..."
The straight shot of liquor was intense and unforgiving as it scorched a Listerine burn down his throat. It was really kind of awful-and cheap, trust Ryo not to splurge on the good stuff-but then he slammed the empty glass on the table with Jin's right after and there was a lot of juvenile whooping and hollering and Kame warmed from the inside out.
"So who's up for a drinking game?" Pi asked brightly.
To be continued. Expect the full story in a week or two!
As an extra bonus (!!!), have a calendar page taken from Jin/Pi/Kame's apartment.
And that's all I got for now. Happy 4th and happy birthday to Jin!