Pikame Fic: Sleeping Beauty in Reverse (2/2)
Title: Sleeping Beauty in Reverse (2/2)
Fandom: JE
Pairing: Pikame
Rating: PG15
Warning: dark!fic. Also, tenses change like WHOA.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: In which everything is alright with the world. Well, other than the fact that Yamapi thinks there’s a ghost who looks a little too much like Kame haunting him, that is.
.
.
previous part.
Is it you I want,
Or just the notion of
A heart to wrap around
So I can find my way around?
(Rain - Breaking Benjamin)
-
…and what do you think death is? Yamapi asked.
Kame looked at him, and then said, You.
-
“Did you hate me?”
Yamapi frowns. “You’re using past tense.” He informs him a bit slowly. “Why is that?”
“I have no doubt regarding your feelings towards the present me. What I’d like to know is your feelings towards me before I - disappeared.” His voice lowers at the last word, almost as if he was uncomfortable saying it at all.
Yamapi looks right at him. “Doesn’t matter anymore, does it? It won’t change anything.”
Kame tilts his head to the side, seeming to be considering it carefully. “But it will. Maybe not on my person, but have you heard about these things called guilt and regret? I heard they’re going to haunt a person until-“
“Have we ever had the same conversation-before?” he cut him, and not only for the sake of stopping the flow of words, but also because he’s honestly intrigued. There’s this… feeling, like déjà vu maybe, that nags at him relentlessly and begs him to find what it is that seems… not right.
A flicker in Kame’s eyes. And then he turns away, away from him. “You tell me.”
Kame’s back is on him, so he can’t make out Kame’s expression, but is it… sadness that he hears in Kame’s voice for a second there?
He hesitates. “Ah. Never mind, then.” He looks at the door, and back at Kame again, but Kame’s still not looking at him. Yamapi stares. The soft ray of the sunshine through the balcony glass doors in the afternoon. The subtle ruffle of the leaves of the plants outside the doors. The open window in the kitchen. A coat thrown carelessly over the back of the coach. The noise coming from the flat screen TV. The stiffness of that back as it refuses to acknowledge his presence.
Why are you hiding from me?
Contrary to what your fangirls would like to say, the world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.
Something is… off. They talk, they argue, and they fight. If they make up, then there would be meals and a bit of what Yamapi refuses to call cuddling. And if they don’t, which is more often than not, one of them-Kame Kame Kame Kame Kame-would storm out in a huff of cold fury and even colder expression.
He blinks.
There’s only darkness, accompanied by artificial lights from the sleepless city beyond the balcony. The leaves do not ruffle. The kitchen window is closed. There’s no coat over the back of the couch, and the TV is turned off. Every variable changes, except for one: Kame’s still there.
Why is he still there? Yamapi stares at him in confusion.
It’s then that Kame turns to him, his expression… not empty-not exactly-but it’s something that Yamapi doesn’t know how to categorize either, and it gnaws at him. The expression is quite familiar, even if the scene is all wrong wrong wrong wrong-
“Why are you looking at me like that?” a mere curiosity, nothing more, and Yamapi really needs to stop looking for something that isn’t there.
“Like what?” he tries to make it light and casual, but halfway through, he chokes on his own words and he only sounds strangled instead.
“Like… that. Funny, I guess, except not in the humorous way. More like… weird? Unusual? Or disbelieving, perhaps?” the completely flat way Kame delivers it makes him sound as if he is only stating hard fact and nothing else, even if the amused smirk on his lips completely at odds with his tone.
Yamapi swallows. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Kame rolls his eyes in exasperation-a gesture that is alarmingly becoming quite familiar to Yamapi. “More like, there’s something I’m telling you.”
You don’t know the half of it. I’m not withholding anything, but you keep asking the wrong questions.
An unamused snort escapes his parted lips-hollow and bitter with a slight taste of desperation. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”
Kame doesn’t look away. “Exactly what you think it is.”
Except he doesn’t even know what he’s thinking, if at all, considering he feels as if he was only going through the motion, only doing what his instinct and his body tells him to, without even consulting the better part of his head since apparently his brain has taken a vacation along with his sanity, and totally forgot to tell the rest of his body of that little fact.
“I’m tired of this,” Yamapi says, and maybe it’s the truth. No, it is the truth, and he just couldn’t admit to himself how much it terrifies him.
“I know.” Kame says, eyes still honed in on him-as if transfixed, as if he was unable to look away.
Yamapi’s eyes-in the end, by the end, always always always-find their way to Kame even when he doesn’t see anyone or anything at all. Every variable changes except Kame, and he always wonders about that little fact, since it is logically impossible for inanimate object to change while human constantly evolve and grow and change.
“Why are you still here, really?” soft, low, near a whisper, and it would be a wonder if Kame heard it at all. But then he remembers, oh right, ghosts.
“I can’t. ” His tone is accusing, and the look in his eyes makes sure Yamapi know it is directed at him.
Right. As if Yamapi even has any idea what’s going on anymore.
“I’m tired,” he repeats, and walks away without even a backward glance.
He tells himself he’s not running away, but who’s he kidding?
All the way, Kame’s gaze burns into his back.
-
“What do you think Death is?”
Kame asked him that once, so very long ago, when they were lying together on the grass with the moon shining softly high above them. It was one night in summer, with cicadas chirping happily and fireflies twinkling joyfully around them, and he still couldn’t figure out what on earth he was thinking when he agreed to get outside with Kame, instead of just staying in their air-conditioned room. At least if he had stayed, he wouldn’t have been soaked wet in his own sweat like that.
He looked at Kame then, but Kame wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the sky, a thoughtful look on his face. Yamapi was really fascinated by the faint light illuminating his silhouette, making his face lines look softer, translucent even, and he just couldn’t look away.
“I don’t know. Terrible thing, perhaps?”
Kame raised an eyebrow at him. “…perhaps?”
“Yeah, well. It’s not like I’ve ever been dead, mind you.” He shrugged. “Why the sudden interest anyway?”
Kame smiled - just a small twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth, nothing really noticeable, but still Yamapi was mesmerized by it. He totally blamed the booze in his system and the moonlight for the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes off Kame’s face.
He shifted and-subtly-scooted closer to Kame, his right hand almost touched Kame’s left one, and yet still he couldn’t bring himself to bridge that small distance between them. Just a small brush, a slight twitch, just a little more.
“Nah. Just curious, is all.” Kame closed his eyes for a moment and arched his back on the ground, as if he was trying to take in his surrounding at once: the smell, the feel, the air, everything. Yamapi swallowed. “I mean, in the movies, the one thing that gets threatened the most is one’s life, right? Some even dares to sacrifice others’ as long as they get to live.” Kame turned his head to the side, slowly opening his eyes, looking right at Yamapi. Yamapi felt his mouth suddenly go dry. “Which means, death is really the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone.”
“…or to your loved ones, really.” Yamapi added.
Kame laughed. “Or to your loved ones.” He agreed.
But there was something - something in the way Kame said it that didn’t feel right to Yamapi. Even when Kame smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled. Even when Kame’s eyes sparkling brightly under the starry sky.
“You’re saying you’re afraid of life.” Yamapi observed, meaning it only as an off-handed comment, but then Kame slowly - very slowly - turned to look at him, and he saw in Kame’s face something so raw, so unguarded that he found himself frozen on the spot by the intensity of it. “Wha -“
“Don’t,” Kame said, and kissed him.
…and in his fierce kiss was an honest plea to close the subject and forget all about it.
-
Once, Yamapi got shitfaced so hard he blabbered to Toma things he would never admit while sober. He didn’t even know what he said, but whatever it was, it put a troubled look on Toma’s face.
“But Pi-chan,” Toma said, a frown creasing his forehead, “you’ve never felt nothing towards Kame-chan.”
Cue an indignant spluttering on Yamapi’s part, accompanied by mangled words that didn’t mean much.
“That’s why I never understand why you insist on calling your little arrangement with Kame-chan ’a one night stand’. Especially since you fail so hard at the ‘one night’ part of the term. You do realize it stops being a ‘one night stand’ when it happens more than once, right?” Toma looked more than a little worried now, but it only infuriated Yamapi further.
“It still doesn’t mean anything.” Yamapi glared.
“Then why,” Toma asked, “are you worrying about it?”
-
(This was what Toma didn’t say but Yamapi still heard: you want it to mean something.)
-
“What do you think death is?”
He’s watching him now, his every reaction to that simple question, and he sees a moment when surprise is shown on Kame’s face, but then it’s quickly gone only to be replaced by a slow spread of a confident smirk over thin lips.
“I am Death.”
He stares at him. Did Kame just…?
Yamapi can’t breathe. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Have you--forgiven me now?
“What do you think?” Kame says, with a smile that tells nothing and everything at once.
Yamapi looks him; really looks at him--this sorry excuse for a ghost, who in all appearance looks exactly like Kame, and wonders, not for the first time--is it really only in appearance this thing resembles Kame?
Said thing only keeps smiling at him.
Standing up, he takes a last lingering glance at Kame’s form before walking past him, his hand hovering over the top of Kame’s head in a way that would make it a pat on the head--if only he can touch him. “If only-if only you’re really the real Kame.” He says without looking back, a resignation in his voice as he lets his hand linger about Kame’s arm and squeezes it as if on reflex-
He freezes.
- It holds.
“Wha -“ his eyes widen, and he instantly turns back to Kame at the exact time Kame tries to turn around and all he manages to hear is a desperate sounding “Yama -“ before he sees Kame fade into nothingness right in front of his very eyes.
He stares.
What. What. What.
Eyes blown wide, he stares at the space where Kame has just been a fraction of second ago, trying to digest just what on earth exactly has happened; it’s then he realizes that he can no longer feel that cold prickle-that sharp itch at the back of his neck-that somehow has always signified Kame’s presence.
the moment you can touch me is the moment I will vanish from your sight - forever.
“Kame…?” he tries, and pauses, waiting for the expected reply. He casts his eyes about the room, trying to find a glimmer, a shadow, something. But still there’s none--
There’s none else in the room.
“Kame.” He tries again, a bit more insistently this time, and waits a beat. But still the dragging silence is the only thing that dares to answer him. “Kame - KAME!”
His own harsh breathing roaring in his ears, he runs to the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the balcony--anywhere. But-but nothing. The shadow he finds is his own, the voice he hears is his own, and the only movement he catches is of his own making.
He has never noticed before how the stillness of his own room can be so deafening.
-
The thing is, Ryo said, Ugly Face never does anything halfway. When he does something, he does it with all his might, with all his heart, with everything he has, and it’s. Most people can’t handle that.
Yamapi only flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
Can you imagine, Ryo said again, being the center of such intense devotion? It’s-terrifying, is what it is.
Yamapi looked at him. Speaking from experience, are you? ”
A flash of Ryo’s teeth. Wouldn’t you like to know.
Okay, fine, so Kame’s a little intense. Yamapi said. Still don’t see what this has got to do with me.
When Ryo looked back at him, there was pity in his eyes. Tell me, Ryo said, how many people have you been sleeping with ever since you slept with him?
Yamapi opened his mouth to answer, blinked, and then closed his mouth again, a frown marring his forehead. Shit.
Exactly. Ryo said. But this time, he didn’t smirk, and. And somehow, that was worse.
-
He waited; he had waited for a full night, just to be sure, but. But Kame never comes back. No sign of him, no feel of him, and Yamapi is. Getting desperate.
“Ueda,” he grips the older boy’s arms, “please. Please, tell him to come back to me. Get him back to me. I-I just.”
The first thing he does upon arriving on the Johnny’s Ent HQ is barge into KAT-TUN’s practice session, grab Ueda, and drag him to the emergency stairs--where none would interrupt them.
“What,” Ueda says, “are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the ghost of your dead teammate! I’m talking about Kame, and don’t you dare acting all stupid on me now, because I know you’ve seen him, I know you’ve looked at him-“
“I repeat,” Ueda says in his no-nonsense voice, “what are you talking about?”
“It’s Kame, he. He’s-“ the words rush out of his mouth, tumbling after each other, in a hurry to leave, “missing. He’s gone last night, and he didn’t come back, and you’ve got to help me getting him back; I know you can-after all, that day-that day, Bakanishi and Ryo-chan were there too, but you were the only one who-the only one who looked right at him, him by my side, and-“
“Yamapi.” Ueda puts a hand up in front of his face, effectively stopping his tirade. “I think I know what you’re talking about, but-“
“Then you could bring him back?” he looks at Ueda hopefully.
“BUT,” Ueda starts again, “but I only saw you. And Ryo. And Jin. And that’s it; I didn’t see anyone else, and I certainly didn’t see Kame.”
Like the ground is snatched from beneath him; the feeling is quite disconcerting. “But I saw how you looked at Kame-at the space beside me that day! I know you’ve seen something, so don’t you dare telling me-“
“I did see something,” Ueda cuts him, “but it wasn’t Kame. What I saw was Jin’s reflection on the mirror wall behind you, gesturing at me in silly poses to-to humor you. Or something. And then I left, because I just didn’t want to get caught up in the stupid game you guys were playing. And that’s it.” Ueda shrugs, though his eyes are not-unkind. “I guess you must have watched me too closely to see Jin and Ryo on the other side of the room.”
Yamapi stares at Ueda, like Ueda has just taken the very foundation of his world and he’s left to watch it crumble into ruin. “What?”
“There’s no such thing,” Ueda says carefully, “as ghost, Yamapi.”
Then-who-what it was, the thing that had invaded Yamapi’s life for the last few months, masquerading as the dead and buried Kamenashi Kazuya? The thing that always seemed to know his innermost thoughts and desires? Just what-
“I,” Yamapi says, “had to go. Please,” he puts a hand over his mouth, trying his hardest not to scream, “excuse me.”
He runs; he runs and runs and runs and runs--ignoring Ueda’s shouts, ignoring everyone and everything--until his lungs burst, until his legs burn, until he could feel nothing but the physical pain on his body, until he could think nothing but the way his body screams at him to just stop.
-
In the end, Kame’s condition was never stabilized enough to allow visitors, and the doctor only let them watch from behind a glass. The doctors had given him plenty explanations for the reason, but in his state, he could barely process normal conversation, let alone medical mumbo-jumbo. All he knew was just-just that Kame might suffer a long time, that there was a possibility he might not come out of his coma, and-and.
And that the probability of his recovery rated below ten percent, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Yamapi didn’t think he could stand for it.
So he didn’t.
-
The moment Takki sees him entering Johhny’s HQ building a week later, Takki instantly drags him into the nearest room and demands him what’s wrong.
Yamapi stares at him. “But nothing’s wrong.”
Takki looks at him in a way that reminds Yamapi of his own mother, with that reprimand look in his eyes and the creased lines of worry on his forehead. “Then what’s this I heard about you seeing a ghost, spacing out all the time, and chatting up thin air?”
“Jin is a babble mouth.” He replies automatically.
Takki’s eyebrow arches up. “Actually, Koyama and Shige were the ones who told me.”
“Oh.” He pauses. And then adds, “Koyama and Shige are babble mouths.”
Takki smacks him on the head. “Give it up already.” He sighs, then in a quieter voice says, “Is it because of Kame?”
Yamapi only looks at Takki blankly. “You should stop making it as if the world revolves around Kame. His head is big enough as it is.”
Takki stares him down for a few second, lips slightly parted. Then Yamapi winces as Takki proceeds to destroy his stylist’s work by tiredly running a hand through his artfully-messed-up hair.
“So I was right after all.” There’s something decidedly strange in Takki’s voice, like-sympathy? Resignation? “You’re still grieving him, even after all this time. So it’s true, then, that you’re still thinking that you’re to blame for his death?”
Yamapi stares at him. Is that… glitter, in Takki’s hair?
“I won’t even pretend to know what you’re talking about.” Yamapi says. “Also, I really hope you don’t have to go before a camera in the next hour, because your fans would burst into tears once they saw that atrocious hairdo.”
Takki goes on as if he didn’t hear him speak. “I understand that it would be Kame’s death anniversary in a few days, so I guess it’s kind of expected for you to act weird about it, but you should try to accept that it wasn’t your fault that Kame didn’t make it out alive.”
Leaning back on his heels, he crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head to the side slightly. “Tsubasa-san would totally disown you for the way you dreadfully mistreated your hair style. And for putting on glitter. Glitter. What the hell.”
Takki blinks. Then he narrows his eyes. “Stop trying to distract me. We’re talking about you here, not me.”
“But the glitter is totally vying for my attention. It’s just so…shiny. And sparkly. And glittery. And completely distracting.” He tells Takki’s hair. “Is glitter a new black or something?”
“Yamashita Tomohisa.”
At the stern tone, he forces his eyes away from Takki’s hair and focuses on Takki’s face instead. “What?” he gives Takki the wronged look of the innocents.
“Just…” Takki gestures with his hand, “tell me what it is that’s been bothering you?”
Yamapi only looks at him blankly.
“Something to do with ghosts?” Takki prompts expectantly.
Yamapi studies Takki’s face, wondering where this is going, if he’s only teasing him or something. But all he can see in his senior’s face is undisguised worry and genuine concerns - for him. Then he feels some familiar pang in his gut, coiling low in his stomach. It feels like guilt.
Oh well. If Takki couldn’t be trusted, then he doesn’t know who could. Besides, he owes him that much.
His nails digging into his arms, Yamapi says, “But there’s no ghost.” He frowns. “Not anymore, at least.”
But that little admission seems to interest Takki. “…Not anymore?”
“Yeah, well.” Yamapi shrugs. “There used to be one following me around, you know. Since a few weeks ago, I think. But then suddenly he just went WHAM! and I’ve never seen him again.”
“I see. And this…ghost, ” it sounds as if it pains Takki to even say it, “it looked like… Kame?”
“Well, no.” Yamapi looks at Takki as if he was crazy. “It didn’t look like Kame. It was Kame.”
Takki’s eyebrows disappear behind his admittedly long bangs.
“And you’re so sure about this because…?”
“He - it - he knew things only Kame knew.” Yamapi frowns. And then adds, “That, and the fact that he dressed like Kame used to. None could really imitate such random hit and miss fashion sense like that. Which was--is --annoying. One would think that living with me, who always makes it every year to the best five in The Most Stylist Men in Japan list, would improve his fashion sense, but nooo. It was like, he did it on purpose to annoy me.”
“I…see.” Takki says. “You know, this is the first time you’ve ever admitted to having ‘something’ with Kame. So… you lived together? It was true then, that you two were an ‘item’?”
“…An item.” Yamapi deadpans.
Takki raises an eyebrow at him. “You know, as in ‘lovers’?”
Yamapi looks at him blankly. Lovers. Lovers.
Hey, what are we?
“Lovers.” He says, blinking, rolling the word around on his tongue, savoring the taste delicately. And then he laughs - a loud, full-blown laugh that borders on hysterical and has him clutching his stomach from the force of it after a few moments.
“Holy shit. You thought Kame and I were lovers?” he continues to laugh till he feels his eyes sting and his lungs empty, till he feels as if he couldn’t go on anymore. “We weren’t lovers. We had something, yes, but it wasn’t love. It was never about love.”
Takki stares at him. “Pi-chan, really, you shouldn’t have to -“
“No, just hear me out. It was only supposed to be a fling, what Kame and I had; but then it grew into something that eventually couldn’t be controlled anymore, and we let it - we let it. If I had to give an example, then it would be best to describe it as an experiment.”
Takki looks decidedly uncomfortable. Yamapi doesn’t blame him, really, considering he himself isn’t feeling very sane at the moment.
“Lovers?” He snorts. “Oh please. We don’t even like each other.”
Takki bites his lip. “But Pi-chan, Kame-chan did li-“
“Do you remember,” Yamapi cuts him, “I was the only person in Kame’s hospital room when the machines started going crazy, and the nurses started rushing in?”
Takki hesitantly nods.
“It wasn’t a coincidence; it wasn’t a coincidence that Kame stopped breathing while I was there, because I,” he stops. Takes a breath. And then, eyes entirely on Takki’s own, tells him, “Because I was the one who removed his oxygen mask and cut off his air supply.”
“So you were right, Takki. The accident didn’t kill him.” He smiles his sincerest smile. “I did.”
-
“My point exactly: death in itself is the utmost freedom one could wish for.”
“No.” Yamapi said. “No, it’s not. Death is a coward’s last escape. Death is not-is never-an answer. Death is. Death is-“
“Yamapi,” Kame cut him, “breathe.”
Yamapi did-try inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
“We’re drunk.” Yamapi began. “We’ve had too much to drink. We’re wasted. Our minds are no longer in the right places. Let’s just forget this-let’s just forget.”
Kame looked at him. A bottomless dark pit in his eyes. “I’m saying-“ Kame’s eyes were still on him, “-that it’s not easier to leave than to be left behind. I’m saying-“ his voice hitched, “-there’re times when one who doesn’t want to leave just had to, for the better of the one left behind.”
Yamapi laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. “You really need to work better on your metaphor. Death is about the worst metaphor one could use, since nothing-nothing is funny when it comes to death. Also, is this-is this your way of breaking it up with me?”
Kame’s lips thinned.
Yamapi blinked. Parted his lips. Closed them. Blinked some more. And then he threw his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed until he was gasping for breath.
“Unbelievable.” Yamapi says, turning his back and away, hands raking up his hair; it was either that or punch the wall, and he couldn’t afford to hurt himself since he had a shooting first thing tomorrow. “Un-fucking-believable. So now you’ve finally gotten bored with me, you decided it’d be better to just throw me aside like a fucking broken toy. You treated all your lovers like this, or am I just that special?”
Kame punched him.
(and then the accident happened, and regret was suddenly everybody’s bestfriend.)
-
“I,” Takki begins, “don’t know what makes you think what you think, but. But it seems to me you’ve misunderstood some things. For one, Kame-chan did like you;” Yamapi opens his mouth to protest, but immediately closes it again the moment Takki raises a hand to silence him.
…some habits are just hard to break.
“Besides, he wouldn’t spend so much time with you otherwise, don’t you think?”
Yamapi snorts. “Hello, have you met him? Mr. Too Polite To Say No probably thought it would be bad for his rep if he kept avoiding the leader of NEWS. He was kind of hypocrite that way.”
Takki only regards him thoughtfully. “Then why,” Takki asks, “did you spend so much time with him?”
Yamapi blinks. “…Huh?”
“Say Kame was really with you only so he wouldn’t look bad. But Pi-chan,” Takki says, “that still didn’t explain why you spent your time with him. Ezpecially since I know you’re not the kind of guy who does things just to please others.”
Yamapi blinks some more. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Repeats. “…what?”
Takki waves a hand expansively, like he always does when he’s trying to distract himself. “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Some people see the same thing, only to describe it differently. There’s no right or wrong; there’s only how we see it, and our presupposition beforehand. So, Pi-chan,” Takki says, “I just had to ask: how, exactly, did you see Kame?”
Yamapi stares at him. “…wha-”
What Yamapi remembers most about Kame is not his smile, his eyes, his hair, his too-thin frame, or his spidery fingers. Instead, it’s the fact that Kame always bruised easily, and how he always healed longer than anybody else Yamapi ever knew-both in body, and mind. That was why Kame always kept everything close to his chest. That was why despite his apparent easy-going persona, getting close to Kame was like pulling teeth. The ones who ever got close enough was his bandmates, and his bandmates only.
Kame didn’t seem to have any problem exchanging quips with Koki, or bullying Nakamaru, or conspiring with Ueda, or mocking Taguchi’s every pun, or laughing carelessly with Jin. He didn’t seem to mind letting his bandmates see the real him, while--
While he was with Yamapi, it was always polite smile this, careful grin that, controlled laugher here, calculated eye-roll there-
“He just-didn’t seem real.” Yamapi frowns.
There’s this…strange look upon Takki’s face, like. Like-sympathy? “Oh Pi-chan.” Takki says. “Then what about his…ghost?”
He was cruel and insensitive with no regard to anyone’s privacy, and always did what he wanted without a care in the world-something the real Kamenashi Kazuya wouldn’t do, and exactly like-
Exactly like Yamapi had always hoped Kame to be.
“Oh.” Yamapi says, covering his mouth with a hand. “Oh.”
You willed me into existence, ghost-Kame had said.
There’s no such thing, Ueda had said carefully, as ghost, Yamapi.
“I kept waiting for you to realize it, but-but you never did.” A voice says.
Yamapi turns toward it so fast he nearly gets a whiplash.
Kame’s voice rings out even as his body is still in the process of materializing-starting from his shoes, his legs, his waist, his chest, his neck, and then his face and wavy hair-which is the same length and style as it was before the accident, just like the clothes he used to appear in, just like the accessories he used to wear.
Why-why did he never even realize it?
“So what, you’re really just a figment of my imagination?” his voice breaks at the last two words, like a dam that’s about to break. That’s why this…thing always seemed to know which button to push; that ‘s why this thing always seemed to know everything about him-his desires, his fears, his hopes…
All because he was him.
“In essence, yes. But if you want to get technical, then it’d be more appropriate to say I’m the manifestation of your… guilt."
“What-are you talking about?”
“This sort of thing,“ Kame says, “has a way of coming back to us, even when we’re convinced they’ve gone away; or that we totally do not feel it.” Then Kame looks right at him, “this thing called guilt and regret.”
“Seriously?” Yamapi has a sudden desire to laugh. “seriously?”
“Pi-chan, who are you talking to?” Takki’s voice, sounding worried and concerned, pushes trough the haze in Yamapi’s mind; but he ignores it-just like he used to ignore everything when Kame was in the room.
“I guess I’m meant to remind you that-you and I? We haven’t always been this way. And-and I know you regretted how we’ve lashed out at each other just before the accident happened-“
“Geez, I wonder how you’d know such thing.” Yamapi says in his most deadpan voice.
“But,” Kame says, “but we actually managed to-to reconcile, just, just before it--”
“What,” Yamapi says, feeling like an old broken record, “are you talking about?”
Kame smiles.
It makes Yamapi wants to punch himself for ever putting such a broken smile there, on Kame’s face.
“Try to remember, Pi. If even I could remember, then you must have, too.”
-
Kame punched him.
In his unbalanced state, the force was enough to send him sprawling to the floor in an undignified heap. Yamapi was just so surprised it didn’t even register until he found one of his hands grasping the cold marble of the floor, while his other hand tracing his bruised jaw, the area behind it a little tender and just-numb.
“You punched me!” Yamapi claimed indignantly, staring up at Kame in absolute astonishment, because-what the hell.
Then Kame went after him-his knees on either side of Yamapi’s thighs, his hands grasping Yamapi’s collar, pulling him upright; then he felt a hand detached itself from his collar, and Yamapi instantly closed his eyes, bracing for the pain from the hand that was obviously about to punch him again-
Soft, chapped lips suddenly touched his own.
Surprised, Yamapi opened his eyes again, only to see Kame’s face so close to his own, sharing the same breath, their noses nearly touching. Kame’s palm pressed against Yamapi’s unbruised cheek, gently. While Kame’s other hand-is on Yamapi’s nape, just tight enough to tell Yamapi it was there on purpose.
“Stop-“ Yamapi choked out, voice tight, “-doing this. Stop-confusing me.” He tried to throw Kame off, hands pushing at Kame’s chest, Kame’s shoulder, but Kame wouldn’t budge.
“Then listen!” Kame’s fingers were pressing against Yamapi’s cheeks, his nails threatening to graze into the skin. “You never, ever, listen!”
“Then stop. Lying. To me!” Yamapi screamed, feeling all the frustration and worry and anger and hurt mounting up, crowding against each other until they fell over. “Was it amusing to you, watching me bend to your every whim, trying and failing to get you what you want?!” he tries to duck his head, but Kame’s fingers on his face wouldn’t let him. “I,” Yamapi tried again, “I don’t-did you get a good laugh, then? Out of this sick little game, did you-“
“It was never a game to me.” Kame said quietly, his tone stood in contrast with Yamapi’s just a second ago. “Since the start, it was never a game to me. I-I was just. Didn’t know what to do.”
“What?” which was the only coherent thing Yamapi could say right now.
“I wanted to stay,” Kame said, “that first time. But you-you kept sending me this, this look, like I was amazing or something, and I just. I couldn’t handle it.”
“What-what are you talking about?”
“Remember-remember how Takki told you that you’ve never been a good actor when you had no script? That night was no different.” Kame’s fingers are shaking. “Your eyes-they told me I might just be the most wonderful thing they had ever seen, and it--.” He took a deep breath, “-it scared me.”
Yamapi could only stare at him.
“I was scared, and paranoid, and I just couldn’t make myself believe it. I was looking for a release, not an attachment; and yet you gave me both-that night.”
“I told you-stop lying!” Yamapi shouted, feeling hope blabbering inside his chest, teasing him, taunting him, and he. He didn’t think he could take it anymore if it would turn out to be empty. “Stop lying to me; stop talking. Just-“
“And I told you to listen!” Kame shouted, raising his voice unexpectedly. “This is what I’m talking about! I kept telling you things, I kept leaving you chances, and yet you just put a blind eye and closed your ears from me, and I. I was waiting.” He bit his lower lip, and then, in a much lower voice continued, “I kept waiting for you to either accept me or reject me but you never picked up a clue.”
Kame was breathing hard now; Yamapi could see the rise and fall of his chest, could feel the trembling of his hands, could sense the desperation radiating off of him, and this. This was just-too much.
“So what, you ran away because you realized I liked you?” Yamapi was really tempted to start laughing again. But he didn’t, since if he did, this time he might just never stop, even when all this was still not funny. Because, really, who would ever believe that?
Except.
The thing was, Yamapi was not used to be the one in control. Sure, when he was among his own group, he was the one they count on to make all the hard decisions. But whenever Kame was involved, all responsibilities fell so naturally on the boy. And the boy also always looked so at ease whenever he was at the center stage that Yamapi had started to wait for Kame’s cue, for Kame’s signal, before he started making his own moves.
He was just not used to be the one in charge when Kame was involved.
And that was exactly the case, wasn’t it? From the start, he always thought Kame was the one in charge. But the truth was-the truth was, it was him all along. For once, he was the one in charge, and Kame was the one who moved according to his cue, and. And it was just so fucking surreal he ended up thinking it was only his imagination.
“It was-“ Kame struggled to find the appropriate expression, “-unexpected. Then I started leaving pieces of my heart around for you to pick up, but you kept pretending you didn’t know what I’m doing!”
That…was probably because he didn’t. Know, that was. Because, really, what the hell.
“Then why,” Yamapi said, “are you breaking up with me?”
Again, Kame’s lips thinned. For a few seconds, he was just looking at Yamapi, with-with this…look in his eyes, one that made Yamapi wanted to-
One that made Yamapi wanted.
“I want a new start.” Kame finally said, soft. “I just… couldn’t stand this anymore.”
“Wha-“ Yamapi felt numb. A new start. Without-me?
Then Kame pinched both his cheeks, before smacked them lightly, which was just--Ow!
“I’m-“ Kame began, “--breaking it up with you. Not-“ he gestured wildly with his hand, “-breaking up with you.”
It took Yamapi an embarrassingly long time to process that statement. And then he just had to duck and hide his face, because-um.
“That’s why,” Kame said, tracing a finger down Yamapi’s cheekbone, “I told you to listen. But you just had to ignore me and just assumed everything, didn’t you?”
“Um.” Yamapi said, since he was kind of at a loss for words and all.
A finger under his jaw brought him to face Kame, and the look upon Kame’s face was just so-Yamapi just didn’t-it was just--
“Hey,” Kame said, and his voice was just as…tender as the look on his face. “Would you like to-do over? Us, that is.” There was a twitch to the corner of Kame’s lips, like beginning of a smile. “Properly, this time.”
Yamapi felt like he might actually combust due to all these feelings inside his chest if he opened his mouth, so he just pulled Kame into his lap and started kissing the living daylight out of him. It-wasn’t exactly a good kiss, since it was-too sloppy, too fast, too slow, too hard, too soft, too much--like he couldn’t get enough.
But he thought it was okay though, since Kame laughed into the kiss.
“You’ve got a rehearsal practice in an hour. Let’s just,” Kame said, pressing his forehead into Yamapi’s, his hands on Yamapi’s shoulders, “continue this later. After all-“ he laughed again as Yamapi started leaving kisses down his jaw, down his neck, “we’ve got all the time in the world, right?”
Yamapi cursed whoever it was had arranged his schedule.
“Sure.” Yamapi conceded, long-sufferingly. Besides, Kame was smiling, smiling, smiling--
He just never thought it would be Kame’s last smile.
-
“I’ve never, “ ghost-Kame is saying, “been sure what made you suppressed the memory, but.”
Ah.
“I,” Yamapi says, because, what else could he say to that? But. But what he really wants to say to Kame is Please-don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me-with those sad, sad eyes. don’t--
“I guess you must have tried to erase the accident from your memory, and in the process-in the process, you also accidentally erased the memory prior to the accident-just to be safe.” Kame’s voice’s gone quiet again. “Even as that memory was one that-one that was vital, to you. And me.”
“I,” Yamapi tries again, “am sorry. For-“ loving you, forgetting you, killing you, misunderstanding you, everything, “being such an insensitive jerk.”
Kame laughs-the sudden, startled but pleased kind, the one that brings a smile to his eyes. “Oh dear.” Kame says. “What would I do without you?”
“Cry. Repeatedly.” Yamapi grins his charming grin. “Because I’m just that awesome. And unreplaceable.”
”And loud, too. Let’s not forget that part.“ Kame shakes his head. But he’s still smiling though, so that’s okay.
“Pi-chan.” Takki says.
“Might as well you’re no longer here, though.” Yamapi says. “Because one thing that I’ve just realized? Is that, no matter how much time we have, we still would never know everything about each other, and that. That is strangely…reassuring.”
“Oh? Looks like somebody’s been through some soul-searching lately~” Kame’s biting his lip in that way he has when he’s trying not to laugh.
“So.”
“So?”
“Won’t you,” Yamapi says, reaching out a hand to Kame, palm up, “come away with me?”
This-this Kame might just be a version in Yamapi’s head, a vision he created out of desperation, but. But still his heart hammering thunder in his chest; still his stomach does aflutter; still his ears roaring loud into his brain; still, he is left uncertain.
And still, Kame smiles and smiles and smiles at him. And then takes his hand.
“With pleasure.” Kame says.
Yamapi smiles back.
Somewhere in his peripheral vision, Takki is asking him what’s wrong, are you okay, who’re you speaking to, please speak to me, dam you Pi--
But all he could see at this second is Kame and the way he smiles at him and how much he--
-
O brave prince, o brave prince
Grant her a true kiss
So she can be free
-
He stared at Kame’s form, laid on the white cotton sheet of the hospital bed; the boy looked deadly pale--with his skin losing their color, his closed eyelids, the near-frown on his forehead, and the downturn of his lips.
The machines kept humming steadily.
He pressed his palm against Kame’s cheek; it felt strangely clammy and feverish at the same time. Or maybe it was just him. He couldn’t be sure anymore.
Softly, softly, carefully, as if Kame might break-and he just might, in his current condition-Yamapi pressed both his palms on Kame’s cheeks-just like Kame used to when he kissed him-letting his face hovering close on top of Kame’s, the tips of their noses touching. And then, just as carefully, his left hand traveled downward, fingering the pulse point on Kame’s neck, while. While his other hand traced the edge of the oxygen mask, stopping at the connected tube. With the same care, slowly, he pulled the mask off and replaced it with his lips-just as his finger was pressing just hard enough on Kame’s pulse point.
He didn’t keep his eyes open. He needed to make this as real as possible, and didn’t want his last memory of Kame was of his lifeless face.
Here, right now, on this moment, he could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist; here, in this space, there was only him and Kame and none else; here, he could pretend everything was alright, that he had control over every little thing.
Once he no longer felt Kame’s pulse, he opened his eyes-only to jump back in shock, mouth hanging open in disbelief.
Kame’s eyes were open.
But he had-
“Wha-“
It was then the door to the room was blasted open, nurses and doctors rushing in in a flurry of movements and frantic shoutings. It was then he also realized the machines had been going crazy for quite some time. It was then he realized, as he was pushed out of the room, that he--
-
“Ready to go?” Yamapi can’t stop the grin from nearly splitting his face in two, can’t stop the way his heart flutter when he sees Kame already waiting in the passenger’s seat of his Honda Jazz. Even the way Kame looks at him in disapproval still makes the butterfly in his stomach dance.
“They’re gonna miss you, you know.” Kame says. “And they will never, ever, stop looking for you, because your friends are crazily stubborn that way.”
“They’re also your friends.” Yamapi chides him. “And it’s not like I’m leaving without saying goodbye.”
“You left them a note. On Ryo’s freezer’s door. Stuck with a magnet pin.” Kame says, incredulous. “To say they would be livid would be an understatement.”
Yamapi wraps an arm around Kame’s shoulder, ignoring Kame’s indignant spluttering. “They would understand; I know they would.” He tells Kame’s hair, just before he places a light kiss upon it. “After all, they’re also crazily awesome like that.”
Kame looks up at him. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.” He looks rather unhappy.
“We have,” Yamapi says softly, “wasted so much time already. But at least now-at least now, I would be able to meet you properly.”
“I,” Kame says, “would be totally mad at you; you do realize that, right?”
“I know.” Yamapi says. “But at least you,” he reaches out, his hand brushes through Kame’s hair, “would be real.”
Kame sighs. “Crazy bastard.”
“Only for you.” Yamapi grins, bringing his eyes back to the road as he pulls the car out of the driveway. “Only for you.”
-
--loved him.
-
Dear friends,
Am on vacation. Indeterminably. Please don’t look for me, or I *will* make you regret it. You know I will.
Much love,
Yamashita Tomohisa
PS: No, really, I mean it. Think about all those painfully embarrassing photos I could send to the media.
PPS: Yes, Bakanishi, this includes you.
PPPS: And you also, Toma.
PPPPS: And especially you, Takki. (call off that search party right now, or else.)
PPPPPS: And most definitely you, Ryo-chan. (Seriously.)
.
.
.
fin
Fandom: JE
Pairing: Pikame
Rating: PG15
Warning: dark!fic. Also, tenses change like WHOA.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: In which everything is alright with the world. Well, other than the fact that Yamapi thinks there’s a ghost who looks a little too much like Kame haunting him, that is.
.
.
previous part.
Is it you I want,
Or just the notion of
A heart to wrap around
So I can find my way around?
(Rain - Breaking Benjamin)
-
…and what do you think death is? Yamapi asked.
Kame looked at him, and then said, You.
-
“Did you hate me?”
Yamapi frowns. “You’re using past tense.” He informs him a bit slowly. “Why is that?”
“I have no doubt regarding your feelings towards the present me. What I’d like to know is your feelings towards me before I - disappeared.” His voice lowers at the last word, almost as if he was uncomfortable saying it at all.
Yamapi looks right at him. “Doesn’t matter anymore, does it? It won’t change anything.”
Kame tilts his head to the side, seeming to be considering it carefully. “But it will. Maybe not on my person, but have you heard about these things called guilt and regret? I heard they’re going to haunt a person until-“
“Have we ever had the same conversation-before?” he cut him, and not only for the sake of stopping the flow of words, but also because he’s honestly intrigued. There’s this… feeling, like déjà vu maybe, that nags at him relentlessly and begs him to find what it is that seems… not right.
A flicker in Kame’s eyes. And then he turns away, away from him. “You tell me.”
Kame’s back is on him, so he can’t make out Kame’s expression, but is it… sadness that he hears in Kame’s voice for a second there?
He hesitates. “Ah. Never mind, then.” He looks at the door, and back at Kame again, but Kame’s still not looking at him. Yamapi stares. The soft ray of the sunshine through the balcony glass doors in the afternoon. The subtle ruffle of the leaves of the plants outside the doors. The open window in the kitchen. A coat thrown carelessly over the back of the coach. The noise coming from the flat screen TV. The stiffness of that back as it refuses to acknowledge his presence.
Why are you hiding from me?
Contrary to what your fangirls would like to say, the world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.
Something is… off. They talk, they argue, and they fight. If they make up, then there would be meals and a bit of what Yamapi refuses to call cuddling. And if they don’t, which is more often than not, one of them-Kame Kame Kame Kame Kame-would storm out in a huff of cold fury and even colder expression.
He blinks.
There’s only darkness, accompanied by artificial lights from the sleepless city beyond the balcony. The leaves do not ruffle. The kitchen window is closed. There’s no coat over the back of the couch, and the TV is turned off. Every variable changes, except for one: Kame’s still there.
Why is he still there? Yamapi stares at him in confusion.
It’s then that Kame turns to him, his expression… not empty-not exactly-but it’s something that Yamapi doesn’t know how to categorize either, and it gnaws at him. The expression is quite familiar, even if the scene is all wrong wrong wrong wrong-
“Why are you looking at me like that?” a mere curiosity, nothing more, and Yamapi really needs to stop looking for something that isn’t there.
“Like what?” he tries to make it light and casual, but halfway through, he chokes on his own words and he only sounds strangled instead.
“Like… that. Funny, I guess, except not in the humorous way. More like… weird? Unusual? Or disbelieving, perhaps?” the completely flat way Kame delivers it makes him sound as if he is only stating hard fact and nothing else, even if the amused smirk on his lips completely at odds with his tone.
Yamapi swallows. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Kame rolls his eyes in exasperation-a gesture that is alarmingly becoming quite familiar to Yamapi. “More like, there’s something I’m telling you.”
You don’t know the half of it. I’m not withholding anything, but you keep asking the wrong questions.
An unamused snort escapes his parted lips-hollow and bitter with a slight taste of desperation. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”
Kame doesn’t look away. “Exactly what you think it is.”
Except he doesn’t even know what he’s thinking, if at all, considering he feels as if he was only going through the motion, only doing what his instinct and his body tells him to, without even consulting the better part of his head since apparently his brain has taken a vacation along with his sanity, and totally forgot to tell the rest of his body of that little fact.
“I’m tired of this,” Yamapi says, and maybe it’s the truth. No, it is the truth, and he just couldn’t admit to himself how much it terrifies him.
“I know.” Kame says, eyes still honed in on him-as if transfixed, as if he was unable to look away.
Yamapi’s eyes-in the end, by the end, always always always-find their way to Kame even when he doesn’t see anyone or anything at all. Every variable changes except Kame, and he always wonders about that little fact, since it is logically impossible for inanimate object to change while human constantly evolve and grow and change.
“Why are you still here, really?” soft, low, near a whisper, and it would be a wonder if Kame heard it at all. But then he remembers, oh right, ghosts.
“I can’t. ” His tone is accusing, and the look in his eyes makes sure Yamapi know it is directed at him.
Right. As if Yamapi even has any idea what’s going on anymore.
“I’m tired,” he repeats, and walks away without even a backward glance.
He tells himself he’s not running away, but who’s he kidding?
All the way, Kame’s gaze burns into his back.
-
“What do you think Death is?”
Kame asked him that once, so very long ago, when they were lying together on the grass with the moon shining softly high above them. It was one night in summer, with cicadas chirping happily and fireflies twinkling joyfully around them, and he still couldn’t figure out what on earth he was thinking when he agreed to get outside with Kame, instead of just staying in their air-conditioned room. At least if he had stayed, he wouldn’t have been soaked wet in his own sweat like that.
He looked at Kame then, but Kame wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the sky, a thoughtful look on his face. Yamapi was really fascinated by the faint light illuminating his silhouette, making his face lines look softer, translucent even, and he just couldn’t look away.
“I don’t know. Terrible thing, perhaps?”
Kame raised an eyebrow at him. “…perhaps?”
“Yeah, well. It’s not like I’ve ever been dead, mind you.” He shrugged. “Why the sudden interest anyway?”
Kame smiled - just a small twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth, nothing really noticeable, but still Yamapi was mesmerized by it. He totally blamed the booze in his system and the moonlight for the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes off Kame’s face.
He shifted and-subtly-scooted closer to Kame, his right hand almost touched Kame’s left one, and yet still he couldn’t bring himself to bridge that small distance between them. Just a small brush, a slight twitch, just a little more.
“Nah. Just curious, is all.” Kame closed his eyes for a moment and arched his back on the ground, as if he was trying to take in his surrounding at once: the smell, the feel, the air, everything. Yamapi swallowed. “I mean, in the movies, the one thing that gets threatened the most is one’s life, right? Some even dares to sacrifice others’ as long as they get to live.” Kame turned his head to the side, slowly opening his eyes, looking right at Yamapi. Yamapi felt his mouth suddenly go dry. “Which means, death is really the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone.”
“…or to your loved ones, really.” Yamapi added.
Kame laughed. “Or to your loved ones.” He agreed.
But there was something - something in the way Kame said it that didn’t feel right to Yamapi. Even when Kame smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled. Even when Kame’s eyes sparkling brightly under the starry sky.
“You’re saying you’re afraid of life.” Yamapi observed, meaning it only as an off-handed comment, but then Kame slowly - very slowly - turned to look at him, and he saw in Kame’s face something so raw, so unguarded that he found himself frozen on the spot by the intensity of it. “Wha -“
“Don’t,” Kame said, and kissed him.
…and in his fierce kiss was an honest plea to close the subject and forget all about it.
-
Once, Yamapi got shitfaced so hard he blabbered to Toma things he would never admit while sober. He didn’t even know what he said, but whatever it was, it put a troubled look on Toma’s face.
“But Pi-chan,” Toma said, a frown creasing his forehead, “you’ve never felt nothing towards Kame-chan.”
Cue an indignant spluttering on Yamapi’s part, accompanied by mangled words that didn’t mean much.
“That’s why I never understand why you insist on calling your little arrangement with Kame-chan ’a one night stand’. Especially since you fail so hard at the ‘one night’ part of the term. You do realize it stops being a ‘one night stand’ when it happens more than once, right?” Toma looked more than a little worried now, but it only infuriated Yamapi further.
“It still doesn’t mean anything.” Yamapi glared.
“Then why,” Toma asked, “are you worrying about it?”
-
(This was what Toma didn’t say but Yamapi still heard: you want it to mean something.)
-
“What do you think death is?”
He’s watching him now, his every reaction to that simple question, and he sees a moment when surprise is shown on Kame’s face, but then it’s quickly gone only to be replaced by a slow spread of a confident smirk over thin lips.
“I am Death.”
He stares at him. Did Kame just…?
Yamapi can’t breathe. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Have you--forgiven me now?
“What do you think?” Kame says, with a smile that tells nothing and everything at once.
Yamapi looks him; really looks at him--this sorry excuse for a ghost, who in all appearance looks exactly like Kame, and wonders, not for the first time--is it really only in appearance this thing resembles Kame?
Said thing only keeps smiling at him.
Standing up, he takes a last lingering glance at Kame’s form before walking past him, his hand hovering over the top of Kame’s head in a way that would make it a pat on the head--if only he can touch him. “If only-if only you’re really the real Kame.” He says without looking back, a resignation in his voice as he lets his hand linger about Kame’s arm and squeezes it as if on reflex-
He freezes.
- It holds.
“Wha -“ his eyes widen, and he instantly turns back to Kame at the exact time Kame tries to turn around and all he manages to hear is a desperate sounding “Yama -“ before he sees Kame fade into nothingness right in front of his very eyes.
He stares.
What. What. What.
Eyes blown wide, he stares at the space where Kame has just been a fraction of second ago, trying to digest just what on earth exactly has happened; it’s then he realizes that he can no longer feel that cold prickle-that sharp itch at the back of his neck-that somehow has always signified Kame’s presence.
the moment you can touch me is the moment I will vanish from your sight - forever.
“Kame…?” he tries, and pauses, waiting for the expected reply. He casts his eyes about the room, trying to find a glimmer, a shadow, something. But still there’s none--
There’s none else in the room.
“Kame.” He tries again, a bit more insistently this time, and waits a beat. But still the dragging silence is the only thing that dares to answer him. “Kame - KAME!”
His own harsh breathing roaring in his ears, he runs to the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the balcony--anywhere. But-but nothing. The shadow he finds is his own, the voice he hears is his own, and the only movement he catches is of his own making.
He has never noticed before how the stillness of his own room can be so deafening.
-
The thing is, Ryo said, Ugly Face never does anything halfway. When he does something, he does it with all his might, with all his heart, with everything he has, and it’s. Most people can’t handle that.
Yamapi only flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
Can you imagine, Ryo said again, being the center of such intense devotion? It’s-terrifying, is what it is.
Yamapi looked at him. Speaking from experience, are you? ”
A flash of Ryo’s teeth. Wouldn’t you like to know.
Okay, fine, so Kame’s a little intense. Yamapi said. Still don’t see what this has got to do with me.
When Ryo looked back at him, there was pity in his eyes. Tell me, Ryo said, how many people have you been sleeping with ever since you slept with him?
Yamapi opened his mouth to answer, blinked, and then closed his mouth again, a frown marring his forehead. Shit.
Exactly. Ryo said. But this time, he didn’t smirk, and. And somehow, that was worse.
-
He waited; he had waited for a full night, just to be sure, but. But Kame never comes back. No sign of him, no feel of him, and Yamapi is. Getting desperate.
“Ueda,” he grips the older boy’s arms, “please. Please, tell him to come back to me. Get him back to me. I-I just.”
The first thing he does upon arriving on the Johnny’s Ent HQ is barge into KAT-TUN’s practice session, grab Ueda, and drag him to the emergency stairs--where none would interrupt them.
“What,” Ueda says, “are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the ghost of your dead teammate! I’m talking about Kame, and don’t you dare acting all stupid on me now, because I know you’ve seen him, I know you’ve looked at him-“
“I repeat,” Ueda says in his no-nonsense voice, “what are you talking about?”
“It’s Kame, he. He’s-“ the words rush out of his mouth, tumbling after each other, in a hurry to leave, “missing. He’s gone last night, and he didn’t come back, and you’ve got to help me getting him back; I know you can-after all, that day-that day, Bakanishi and Ryo-chan were there too, but you were the only one who-the only one who looked right at him, him by my side, and-“
“Yamapi.” Ueda puts a hand up in front of his face, effectively stopping his tirade. “I think I know what you’re talking about, but-“
“Then you could bring him back?” he looks at Ueda hopefully.
“BUT,” Ueda starts again, “but I only saw you. And Ryo. And Jin. And that’s it; I didn’t see anyone else, and I certainly didn’t see Kame.”
Like the ground is snatched from beneath him; the feeling is quite disconcerting. “But I saw how you looked at Kame-at the space beside me that day! I know you’ve seen something, so don’t you dare telling me-“
“I did see something,” Ueda cuts him, “but it wasn’t Kame. What I saw was Jin’s reflection on the mirror wall behind you, gesturing at me in silly poses to-to humor you. Or something. And then I left, because I just didn’t want to get caught up in the stupid game you guys were playing. And that’s it.” Ueda shrugs, though his eyes are not-unkind. “I guess you must have watched me too closely to see Jin and Ryo on the other side of the room.”
Yamapi stares at Ueda, like Ueda has just taken the very foundation of his world and he’s left to watch it crumble into ruin. “What?”
“There’s no such thing,” Ueda says carefully, “as ghost, Yamapi.”
Then-who-what it was, the thing that had invaded Yamapi’s life for the last few months, masquerading as the dead and buried Kamenashi Kazuya? The thing that always seemed to know his innermost thoughts and desires? Just what-
“I,” Yamapi says, “had to go. Please,” he puts a hand over his mouth, trying his hardest not to scream, “excuse me.”
He runs; he runs and runs and runs and runs--ignoring Ueda’s shouts, ignoring everyone and everything--until his lungs burst, until his legs burn, until he could feel nothing but the physical pain on his body, until he could think nothing but the way his body screams at him to just stop.
-
In the end, Kame’s condition was never stabilized enough to allow visitors, and the doctor only let them watch from behind a glass. The doctors had given him plenty explanations for the reason, but in his state, he could barely process normal conversation, let alone medical mumbo-jumbo. All he knew was just-just that Kame might suffer a long time, that there was a possibility he might not come out of his coma, and-and.
And that the probability of his recovery rated below ten percent, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Yamapi didn’t think he could stand for it.
So he didn’t.
-
The moment Takki sees him entering Johhny’s HQ building a week later, Takki instantly drags him into the nearest room and demands him what’s wrong.
Yamapi stares at him. “But nothing’s wrong.”
Takki looks at him in a way that reminds Yamapi of his own mother, with that reprimand look in his eyes and the creased lines of worry on his forehead. “Then what’s this I heard about you seeing a ghost, spacing out all the time, and chatting up thin air?”
“Jin is a babble mouth.” He replies automatically.
Takki’s eyebrow arches up. “Actually, Koyama and Shige were the ones who told me.”
“Oh.” He pauses. And then adds, “Koyama and Shige are babble mouths.”
Takki smacks him on the head. “Give it up already.” He sighs, then in a quieter voice says, “Is it because of Kame?”
Yamapi only looks at Takki blankly. “You should stop making it as if the world revolves around Kame. His head is big enough as it is.”
Takki stares him down for a few second, lips slightly parted. Then Yamapi winces as Takki proceeds to destroy his stylist’s work by tiredly running a hand through his artfully-messed-up hair.
“So I was right after all.” There’s something decidedly strange in Takki’s voice, like-sympathy? Resignation? “You’re still grieving him, even after all this time. So it’s true, then, that you’re still thinking that you’re to blame for his death?”
Yamapi stares at him. Is that… glitter, in Takki’s hair?
“I won’t even pretend to know what you’re talking about.” Yamapi says. “Also, I really hope you don’t have to go before a camera in the next hour, because your fans would burst into tears once they saw that atrocious hairdo.”
Takki goes on as if he didn’t hear him speak. “I understand that it would be Kame’s death anniversary in a few days, so I guess it’s kind of expected for you to act weird about it, but you should try to accept that it wasn’t your fault that Kame didn’t make it out alive.”
Leaning back on his heels, he crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head to the side slightly. “Tsubasa-san would totally disown you for the way you dreadfully mistreated your hair style. And for putting on glitter. Glitter. What the hell.”
Takki blinks. Then he narrows his eyes. “Stop trying to distract me. We’re talking about you here, not me.”
“But the glitter is totally vying for my attention. It’s just so…shiny. And sparkly. And glittery. And completely distracting.” He tells Takki’s hair. “Is glitter a new black or something?”
“Yamashita Tomohisa.”
At the stern tone, he forces his eyes away from Takki’s hair and focuses on Takki’s face instead. “What?” he gives Takki the wronged look of the innocents.
“Just…” Takki gestures with his hand, “tell me what it is that’s been bothering you?”
Yamapi only looks at him blankly.
“Something to do with ghosts?” Takki prompts expectantly.
Yamapi studies Takki’s face, wondering where this is going, if he’s only teasing him or something. But all he can see in his senior’s face is undisguised worry and genuine concerns - for him. Then he feels some familiar pang in his gut, coiling low in his stomach. It feels like guilt.
Oh well. If Takki couldn’t be trusted, then he doesn’t know who could. Besides, he owes him that much.
His nails digging into his arms, Yamapi says, “But there’s no ghost.” He frowns. “Not anymore, at least.”
But that little admission seems to interest Takki. “…Not anymore?”
“Yeah, well.” Yamapi shrugs. “There used to be one following me around, you know. Since a few weeks ago, I think. But then suddenly he just went WHAM! and I’ve never seen him again.”
“I see. And this…ghost, ” it sounds as if it pains Takki to even say it, “it looked like… Kame?”
“Well, no.” Yamapi looks at Takki as if he was crazy. “It didn’t look like Kame. It was Kame.”
Takki’s eyebrows disappear behind his admittedly long bangs.
“And you’re so sure about this because…?”
“He - it - he knew things only Kame knew.” Yamapi frowns. And then adds, “That, and the fact that he dressed like Kame used to. None could really imitate such random hit and miss fashion sense like that. Which was--is --annoying. One would think that living with me, who always makes it every year to the best five in The Most Stylist Men in Japan list, would improve his fashion sense, but nooo. It was like, he did it on purpose to annoy me.”
“I…see.” Takki says. “You know, this is the first time you’ve ever admitted to having ‘something’ with Kame. So… you lived together? It was true then, that you two were an ‘item’?”
“…An item.” Yamapi deadpans.
Takki raises an eyebrow at him. “You know, as in ‘lovers’?”
Yamapi looks at him blankly. Lovers. Lovers.
Hey, what are we?
“Lovers.” He says, blinking, rolling the word around on his tongue, savoring the taste delicately. And then he laughs - a loud, full-blown laugh that borders on hysterical and has him clutching his stomach from the force of it after a few moments.
“Holy shit. You thought Kame and I were lovers?” he continues to laugh till he feels his eyes sting and his lungs empty, till he feels as if he couldn’t go on anymore. “We weren’t lovers. We had something, yes, but it wasn’t love. It was never about love.”
Takki stares at him. “Pi-chan, really, you shouldn’t have to -“
“No, just hear me out. It was only supposed to be a fling, what Kame and I had; but then it grew into something that eventually couldn’t be controlled anymore, and we let it - we let it. If I had to give an example, then it would be best to describe it as an experiment.”
Takki looks decidedly uncomfortable. Yamapi doesn’t blame him, really, considering he himself isn’t feeling very sane at the moment.
“Lovers?” He snorts. “Oh please. We don’t even like each other.”
Takki bites his lip. “But Pi-chan, Kame-chan did li-“
“Do you remember,” Yamapi cuts him, “I was the only person in Kame’s hospital room when the machines started going crazy, and the nurses started rushing in?”
Takki hesitantly nods.
“It wasn’t a coincidence; it wasn’t a coincidence that Kame stopped breathing while I was there, because I,” he stops. Takes a breath. And then, eyes entirely on Takki’s own, tells him, “Because I was the one who removed his oxygen mask and cut off his air supply.”
“So you were right, Takki. The accident didn’t kill him.” He smiles his sincerest smile. “I did.”
-
“My point exactly: death in itself is the utmost freedom one could wish for.”
“No.” Yamapi said. “No, it’s not. Death is a coward’s last escape. Death is not-is never-an answer. Death is. Death is-“
“Yamapi,” Kame cut him, “breathe.”
Yamapi did-try inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
“We’re drunk.” Yamapi began. “We’ve had too much to drink. We’re wasted. Our minds are no longer in the right places. Let’s just forget this-let’s just forget.”
Kame looked at him. A bottomless dark pit in his eyes. “I’m saying-“ Kame’s eyes were still on him, “-that it’s not easier to leave than to be left behind. I’m saying-“ his voice hitched, “-there’re times when one who doesn’t want to leave just had to, for the better of the one left behind.”
Yamapi laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. “You really need to work better on your metaphor. Death is about the worst metaphor one could use, since nothing-nothing is funny when it comes to death. Also, is this-is this your way of breaking it up with me?”
Kame’s lips thinned.
Yamapi blinked. Parted his lips. Closed them. Blinked some more. And then he threw his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed until he was gasping for breath.
“Unbelievable.” Yamapi says, turning his back and away, hands raking up his hair; it was either that or punch the wall, and he couldn’t afford to hurt himself since he had a shooting first thing tomorrow. “Un-fucking-believable. So now you’ve finally gotten bored with me, you decided it’d be better to just throw me aside like a fucking broken toy. You treated all your lovers like this, or am I just that special?”
Kame punched him.
(and then the accident happened, and regret was suddenly everybody’s bestfriend.)
-
“I,” Takki begins, “don’t know what makes you think what you think, but. But it seems to me you’ve misunderstood some things. For one, Kame-chan did like you;” Yamapi opens his mouth to protest, but immediately closes it again the moment Takki raises a hand to silence him.
…some habits are just hard to break.
“Besides, he wouldn’t spend so much time with you otherwise, don’t you think?”
Yamapi snorts. “Hello, have you met him? Mr. Too Polite To Say No probably thought it would be bad for his rep if he kept avoiding the leader of NEWS. He was kind of hypocrite that way.”
Takki only regards him thoughtfully. “Then why,” Takki asks, “did you spend so much time with him?”
Yamapi blinks. “…Huh?”
“Say Kame was really with you only so he wouldn’t look bad. But Pi-chan,” Takki says, “that still didn’t explain why you spent your time with him. Ezpecially since I know you’re not the kind of guy who does things just to please others.”
Yamapi blinks some more. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Repeats. “…what?”
Takki waves a hand expansively, like he always does when he’s trying to distract himself. “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Some people see the same thing, only to describe it differently. There’s no right or wrong; there’s only how we see it, and our presupposition beforehand. So, Pi-chan,” Takki says, “I just had to ask: how, exactly, did you see Kame?”
Yamapi stares at him. “…wha-”
What Yamapi remembers most about Kame is not his smile, his eyes, his hair, his too-thin frame, or his spidery fingers. Instead, it’s the fact that Kame always bruised easily, and how he always healed longer than anybody else Yamapi ever knew-both in body, and mind. That was why Kame always kept everything close to his chest. That was why despite his apparent easy-going persona, getting close to Kame was like pulling teeth. The ones who ever got close enough was his bandmates, and his bandmates only.
Kame didn’t seem to have any problem exchanging quips with Koki, or bullying Nakamaru, or conspiring with Ueda, or mocking Taguchi’s every pun, or laughing carelessly with Jin. He didn’t seem to mind letting his bandmates see the real him, while--
While he was with Yamapi, it was always polite smile this, careful grin that, controlled laugher here, calculated eye-roll there-
“He just-didn’t seem real.” Yamapi frowns.
There’s this…strange look upon Takki’s face, like. Like-sympathy? “Oh Pi-chan.” Takki says. “Then what about his…ghost?”
He was cruel and insensitive with no regard to anyone’s privacy, and always did what he wanted without a care in the world-something the real Kamenashi Kazuya wouldn’t do, and exactly like-
Exactly like Yamapi had always hoped Kame to be.
“Oh.” Yamapi says, covering his mouth with a hand. “Oh.”
You willed me into existence, ghost-Kame had said.
There’s no such thing, Ueda had said carefully, as ghost, Yamapi.
“I kept waiting for you to realize it, but-but you never did.” A voice says.
Yamapi turns toward it so fast he nearly gets a whiplash.
Kame’s voice rings out even as his body is still in the process of materializing-starting from his shoes, his legs, his waist, his chest, his neck, and then his face and wavy hair-which is the same length and style as it was before the accident, just like the clothes he used to appear in, just like the accessories he used to wear.
Why-why did he never even realize it?
“So what, you’re really just a figment of my imagination?” his voice breaks at the last two words, like a dam that’s about to break. That’s why this…thing always seemed to know which button to push; that ‘s why this thing always seemed to know everything about him-his desires, his fears, his hopes…
All because he was him.
“In essence, yes. But if you want to get technical, then it’d be more appropriate to say I’m the manifestation of your… guilt."
“What-are you talking about?”
“This sort of thing,“ Kame says, “has a way of coming back to us, even when we’re convinced they’ve gone away; or that we totally do not feel it.” Then Kame looks right at him, “this thing called guilt and regret.”
“Seriously?” Yamapi has a sudden desire to laugh. “seriously?”
“Pi-chan, who are you talking to?” Takki’s voice, sounding worried and concerned, pushes trough the haze in Yamapi’s mind; but he ignores it-just like he used to ignore everything when Kame was in the room.
“I guess I’m meant to remind you that-you and I? We haven’t always been this way. And-and I know you regretted how we’ve lashed out at each other just before the accident happened-“
“Geez, I wonder how you’d know such thing.” Yamapi says in his most deadpan voice.
“But,” Kame says, “but we actually managed to-to reconcile, just, just before it--”
“What,” Yamapi says, feeling like an old broken record, “are you talking about?”
Kame smiles.
It makes Yamapi wants to punch himself for ever putting such a broken smile there, on Kame’s face.
“Try to remember, Pi. If even I could remember, then you must have, too.”
-
Kame punched him.
In his unbalanced state, the force was enough to send him sprawling to the floor in an undignified heap. Yamapi was just so surprised it didn’t even register until he found one of his hands grasping the cold marble of the floor, while his other hand tracing his bruised jaw, the area behind it a little tender and just-numb.
“You punched me!” Yamapi claimed indignantly, staring up at Kame in absolute astonishment, because-what the hell.
Then Kame went after him-his knees on either side of Yamapi’s thighs, his hands grasping Yamapi’s collar, pulling him upright; then he felt a hand detached itself from his collar, and Yamapi instantly closed his eyes, bracing for the pain from the hand that was obviously about to punch him again-
Soft, chapped lips suddenly touched his own.
Surprised, Yamapi opened his eyes again, only to see Kame’s face so close to his own, sharing the same breath, their noses nearly touching. Kame’s palm pressed against Yamapi’s unbruised cheek, gently. While Kame’s other hand-is on Yamapi’s nape, just tight enough to tell Yamapi it was there on purpose.
“Stop-“ Yamapi choked out, voice tight, “-doing this. Stop-confusing me.” He tried to throw Kame off, hands pushing at Kame’s chest, Kame’s shoulder, but Kame wouldn’t budge.
“Then listen!” Kame’s fingers were pressing against Yamapi’s cheeks, his nails threatening to graze into the skin. “You never, ever, listen!”
“Then stop. Lying. To me!” Yamapi screamed, feeling all the frustration and worry and anger and hurt mounting up, crowding against each other until they fell over. “Was it amusing to you, watching me bend to your every whim, trying and failing to get you what you want?!” he tries to duck his head, but Kame’s fingers on his face wouldn’t let him. “I,” Yamapi tried again, “I don’t-did you get a good laugh, then? Out of this sick little game, did you-“
“It was never a game to me.” Kame said quietly, his tone stood in contrast with Yamapi’s just a second ago. “Since the start, it was never a game to me. I-I was just. Didn’t know what to do.”
“What?” which was the only coherent thing Yamapi could say right now.
“I wanted to stay,” Kame said, “that first time. But you-you kept sending me this, this look, like I was amazing or something, and I just. I couldn’t handle it.”
“What-what are you talking about?”
“Remember-remember how Takki told you that you’ve never been a good actor when you had no script? That night was no different.” Kame’s fingers are shaking. “Your eyes-they told me I might just be the most wonderful thing they had ever seen, and it--.” He took a deep breath, “-it scared me.”
Yamapi could only stare at him.
“I was scared, and paranoid, and I just couldn’t make myself believe it. I was looking for a release, not an attachment; and yet you gave me both-that night.”
“I told you-stop lying!” Yamapi shouted, feeling hope blabbering inside his chest, teasing him, taunting him, and he. He didn’t think he could take it anymore if it would turn out to be empty. “Stop lying to me; stop talking. Just-“
“And I told you to listen!” Kame shouted, raising his voice unexpectedly. “This is what I’m talking about! I kept telling you things, I kept leaving you chances, and yet you just put a blind eye and closed your ears from me, and I. I was waiting.” He bit his lower lip, and then, in a much lower voice continued, “I kept waiting for you to either accept me or reject me but you never picked up a clue.”
Kame was breathing hard now; Yamapi could see the rise and fall of his chest, could feel the trembling of his hands, could sense the desperation radiating off of him, and this. This was just-too much.
“So what, you ran away because you realized I liked you?” Yamapi was really tempted to start laughing again. But he didn’t, since if he did, this time he might just never stop, even when all this was still not funny. Because, really, who would ever believe that?
Except.
The thing was, Yamapi was not used to be the one in control. Sure, when he was among his own group, he was the one they count on to make all the hard decisions. But whenever Kame was involved, all responsibilities fell so naturally on the boy. And the boy also always looked so at ease whenever he was at the center stage that Yamapi had started to wait for Kame’s cue, for Kame’s signal, before he started making his own moves.
He was just not used to be the one in charge when Kame was involved.
And that was exactly the case, wasn’t it? From the start, he always thought Kame was the one in charge. But the truth was-the truth was, it was him all along. For once, he was the one in charge, and Kame was the one who moved according to his cue, and. And it was just so fucking surreal he ended up thinking it was only his imagination.
“It was-“ Kame struggled to find the appropriate expression, “-unexpected. Then I started leaving pieces of my heart around for you to pick up, but you kept pretending you didn’t know what I’m doing!”
That…was probably because he didn’t. Know, that was. Because, really, what the hell.
“Then why,” Yamapi said, “are you breaking up with me?”
Again, Kame’s lips thinned. For a few seconds, he was just looking at Yamapi, with-with this…look in his eyes, one that made Yamapi wanted to-
One that made Yamapi wanted.
“I want a new start.” Kame finally said, soft. “I just… couldn’t stand this anymore.”
“Wha-“ Yamapi felt numb. A new start. Without-me?
Then Kame pinched both his cheeks, before smacked them lightly, which was just--Ow!
“I’m-“ Kame began, “--breaking it up with you. Not-“ he gestured wildly with his hand, “-breaking up with you.”
It took Yamapi an embarrassingly long time to process that statement. And then he just had to duck and hide his face, because-um.
“That’s why,” Kame said, tracing a finger down Yamapi’s cheekbone, “I told you to listen. But you just had to ignore me and just assumed everything, didn’t you?”
“Um.” Yamapi said, since he was kind of at a loss for words and all.
A finger under his jaw brought him to face Kame, and the look upon Kame’s face was just so-Yamapi just didn’t-it was just--
“Hey,” Kame said, and his voice was just as…tender as the look on his face. “Would you like to-do over? Us, that is.” There was a twitch to the corner of Kame’s lips, like beginning of a smile. “Properly, this time.”
Yamapi felt like he might actually combust due to all these feelings inside his chest if he opened his mouth, so he just pulled Kame into his lap and started kissing the living daylight out of him. It-wasn’t exactly a good kiss, since it was-too sloppy, too fast, too slow, too hard, too soft, too much--like he couldn’t get enough.
But he thought it was okay though, since Kame laughed into the kiss.
“You’ve got a rehearsal practice in an hour. Let’s just,” Kame said, pressing his forehead into Yamapi’s, his hands on Yamapi’s shoulders, “continue this later. After all-“ he laughed again as Yamapi started leaving kisses down his jaw, down his neck, “we’ve got all the time in the world, right?”
Yamapi cursed whoever it was had arranged his schedule.
“Sure.” Yamapi conceded, long-sufferingly. Besides, Kame was smiling, smiling, smiling--
He just never thought it would be Kame’s last smile.
-
“I’ve never, “ ghost-Kame is saying, “been sure what made you suppressed the memory, but.”
Ah.
“I,” Yamapi says, because, what else could he say to that? But. But what he really wants to say to Kame is Please-don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me-with those sad, sad eyes. don’t--
“I guess you must have tried to erase the accident from your memory, and in the process-in the process, you also accidentally erased the memory prior to the accident-just to be safe.” Kame’s voice’s gone quiet again. “Even as that memory was one that-one that was vital, to you. And me.”
“I,” Yamapi tries again, “am sorry. For-“ loving you, forgetting you, killing you, misunderstanding you, everything, “being such an insensitive jerk.”
Kame laughs-the sudden, startled but pleased kind, the one that brings a smile to his eyes. “Oh dear.” Kame says. “What would I do without you?”
“Cry. Repeatedly.” Yamapi grins his charming grin. “Because I’m just that awesome. And unreplaceable.”
”And loud, too. Let’s not forget that part.“ Kame shakes his head. But he’s still smiling though, so that’s okay.
“Pi-chan.” Takki says.
“Might as well you’re no longer here, though.” Yamapi says. “Because one thing that I’ve just realized? Is that, no matter how much time we have, we still would never know everything about each other, and that. That is strangely…reassuring.”
“Oh? Looks like somebody’s been through some soul-searching lately~” Kame’s biting his lip in that way he has when he’s trying not to laugh.
“So.”
“So?”
“Won’t you,” Yamapi says, reaching out a hand to Kame, palm up, “come away with me?”
This-this Kame might just be a version in Yamapi’s head, a vision he created out of desperation, but. But still his heart hammering thunder in his chest; still his stomach does aflutter; still his ears roaring loud into his brain; still, he is left uncertain.
And still, Kame smiles and smiles and smiles at him. And then takes his hand.
“With pleasure.” Kame says.
Yamapi smiles back.
Somewhere in his peripheral vision, Takki is asking him what’s wrong, are you okay, who’re you speaking to, please speak to me, dam you Pi--
But all he could see at this second is Kame and the way he smiles at him and how much he--
-
O brave prince, o brave prince
Grant her a true kiss
So she can be free
-
He stared at Kame’s form, laid on the white cotton sheet of the hospital bed; the boy looked deadly pale--with his skin losing their color, his closed eyelids, the near-frown on his forehead, and the downturn of his lips.
The machines kept humming steadily.
He pressed his palm against Kame’s cheek; it felt strangely clammy and feverish at the same time. Or maybe it was just him. He couldn’t be sure anymore.
Softly, softly, carefully, as if Kame might break-and he just might, in his current condition-Yamapi pressed both his palms on Kame’s cheeks-just like Kame used to when he kissed him-letting his face hovering close on top of Kame’s, the tips of their noses touching. And then, just as carefully, his left hand traveled downward, fingering the pulse point on Kame’s neck, while. While his other hand traced the edge of the oxygen mask, stopping at the connected tube. With the same care, slowly, he pulled the mask off and replaced it with his lips-just as his finger was pressing just hard enough on Kame’s pulse point.
He didn’t keep his eyes open. He needed to make this as real as possible, and didn’t want his last memory of Kame was of his lifeless face.
Here, right now, on this moment, he could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist; here, in this space, there was only him and Kame and none else; here, he could pretend everything was alright, that he had control over every little thing.
Once he no longer felt Kame’s pulse, he opened his eyes-only to jump back in shock, mouth hanging open in disbelief.
Kame’s eyes were open.
But he had-
“Wha-“
It was then the door to the room was blasted open, nurses and doctors rushing in in a flurry of movements and frantic shoutings. It was then he also realized the machines had been going crazy for quite some time. It was then he realized, as he was pushed out of the room, that he--
-
“Ready to go?” Yamapi can’t stop the grin from nearly splitting his face in two, can’t stop the way his heart flutter when he sees Kame already waiting in the passenger’s seat of his Honda Jazz. Even the way Kame looks at him in disapproval still makes the butterfly in his stomach dance.
“They’re gonna miss you, you know.” Kame says. “And they will never, ever, stop looking for you, because your friends are crazily stubborn that way.”
“They’re also your friends.” Yamapi chides him. “And it’s not like I’m leaving without saying goodbye.”
“You left them a note. On Ryo’s freezer’s door. Stuck with a magnet pin.” Kame says, incredulous. “To say they would be livid would be an understatement.”
Yamapi wraps an arm around Kame’s shoulder, ignoring Kame’s indignant spluttering. “They would understand; I know they would.” He tells Kame’s hair, just before he places a light kiss upon it. “After all, they’re also crazily awesome like that.”
Kame looks up at him. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.” He looks rather unhappy.
“We have,” Yamapi says softly, “wasted so much time already. But at least now-at least now, I would be able to meet you properly.”
“I,” Kame says, “would be totally mad at you; you do realize that, right?”
“I know.” Yamapi says. “But at least you,” he reaches out, his hand brushes through Kame’s hair, “would be real.”
Kame sighs. “Crazy bastard.”
“Only for you.” Yamapi grins, bringing his eyes back to the road as he pulls the car out of the driveway. “Only for you.”
-
--loved him.
-
Dear friends,
Am on vacation. Indeterminably. Please don’t look for me, or I *will* make you regret it. You know I will.
Much love,
Yamashita Tomohisa
PS: No, really, I mean it. Think about all those painfully embarrassing photos I could send to the media.
PPS: Yes, Bakanishi, this includes you.
PPPS: And you also, Toma.
PPPPS: And especially you, Takki. (call off that search party right now, or else.)
PPPPPS: And most definitely you, Ryo-chan. (Seriously.)
.
.
.
fin