Fourth Avenue Café - Chapter 13
Title: Fourth Avenue Café
Pairings: Akame, slight Ryopi, T&T
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jin's a successful artist when a fight with his friends forces him to seek stress relief in a little café where he meets what he considers, the strangest people.
Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4// Chapter 5// Chapter 6// Chapter 7// Chapter 8// Chapter 9// Chapter 10// Chapter 11// Chapter 12
Chapter 13:
Jin lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling blankly as he tried to snap out of his daze.
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“I have a tumor…”
The singer frowned, “but you’ll get better, right? After the surgery, you’ll be alright, right…?”
“Jin…the tumor’s in my brain.”
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When he showed up to work the next day, he must’ve looked devastated because his best friends made a parameter around him, telling the others that it was officially ‘No Making Fun of Akanishi Jin Day’ as they feared his brain might implode or something.
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“The doctors said that the tumor was in the visual cortex, so after the surgery, there’s a large chance that I’ll lose part, if not all of my vision.”
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A couple days after that, he went back to filming his drama, except it’d been announced that the actor that’d been hospitalized wouldn’t be able to film with them so they got a replacement for him. Luckily, they hadn’t done any major filming yet so they were going to start from the first scene all over again.
Jin sighed, wondering if he’d be able to get off early to finally go visit the waiter. He sat there, reading his script again while people continued taking pictures of him from all angles. Was it really that interesting? He was sitting there, pretending to read.
“Akanishi, come here to meet your new co-actor!” Obeying the director’s call, he got up and walked over towards the crowd of people. The man gave a hearty laugh and patted him on the back, “he’s a newbie, this one, so I’m counting on you and Yokoyama, wherever he is, to show him the ropes, eh?”
“Yea, sure…” he looked up at a blinding shade of blonde, then when his eyes traveled down to the new actor’s face…
He screamed.
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They’d finished filming part of the first episode now; he’d wandered back to his seat where he picked up his script once more. At least it’d look like he was working hard… He could hear footsteps approaching him, “Akanishi-kun!”
He looked over and squinted a bit, “yea? Hey, what’s going to happen to your café if you’re over here?”
“I left Nakamaru in charge, he’s responsible enough.”
“Ah…”
“Have you gone to visit Kame lately?” Jin shook his head remorsefully, “oh…I haven’t either, not since a couple days ago, that was right after his surgery. He seemed more or less fine then.”
This caused him to frown, “…don’t you think he was underweight?”
Taguchi paused, “Akanishi-kun…that was because Kame went through radiation…it caused him to lose his appetite and he couldn’t hold any food down without…”
“Oh…well I’m definitely going to get him fat…ter.”
The taller man gave a bright smile at that, “Let’s go visit him today,”
“Sure,” he tried not to stare at the hair or the blue contacts, “has he seen your new…character yet?”
The café owner blinked, “No, why?”
The singer hid his grin behind his script, “no, I was just curious, yea, let’s go today. I want to see him too.”
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So they headed for the hospital after their filming. The two weary men made their way down the hall and stopped in front of their friend’s door. Knocking on it lightly, he opened it to find Kame lying in bed, bandages over one eye. As quietly as he could, he made his way in towards the other’s bed, “…Kame?”
The younger man’s eye fluttered open slowly, “Hn…? Jin?”
He looked over to see his one rose in a vase by the window and smiled softly before turning back to the other, “Sorry, did I wake you?”
Kame shook his head, “No, I just wasn’t really expecting anymore…” suddenly he shifted and sat up so he could see the person behind the singer. His eyes widened, “…Ta-Taguchi…?”
Junno gave him one of his sunshine smiles, “Iriguchi deguchi Taguchi de-”
The younger man’s eyes rolled up as he slumped back down, unconscious.
“Oh my god, you killed Kame!”
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Dear Kame,
Since hospitals are generally gloomy,
I brought something to brighten it up!
Looking for a brush,
Akanishi Jin
P.S. You may need sunglasses for this.
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When the waiter came to again, he furled his brows and looked around, “what happened?”
Jin bit back a grin as he explained, “Taguchi’s head of gold and his lame jokes must’ve been too much of a shock for you to handle so you fainted.”
The waiter let out a laugh, “did I really? Where did he go?”
“He went for a drink, he’ll be back in a few minutes though.” He lightly ran a hand over the other’s bandaged eye, “does it hurt?”
The other shook his head and frowned, “I’m still being stuffed with painkillers.”
The singer gave a small smile, “How appetizing. Next time I come visit, I’m bringing Pi and Ryo-chan with me, okay? They’ve been worried about you too, and I’ll make sure they bring lots of presents with them when they come.”
Kame smiled and nodded, “that’d be nice, and a cup of coffee would be nice too.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. Ueda has his own personal coffee corner in the staff room.” He must’ve looked shocked because the other laughed again, “no one’s complaining because they get free coffee and eye-candy whenever he goes in there, and he knows the head doctor, so it’s all good-Taguchi, you’re back!”
The elder man smiled, “you’re not going to faint on me again, are you?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“I was going to surprise you about the role I got for this drama with Akanishi-kun here.”
Kame blinked, “well you surprised me alright…you’re in a drama with Jin?” he smiled, “sounds like fun. I’m going to watch it you know, so you two better do a really good job or else I’ll get bored halfway through.”
The elder two smiled, “of course, and while we’re out there working our asses off, you better be stuffing food down your mouth. Next time I come back, I expect to see you at least several pounds heavier, alright?”
The waiter grinned, “Deal.”
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Taguchi had left first as he had to see how his shop fared without him, Jin sat beside the other’s bed, looking out the window to where the moon was shining brightly, “today was a good day…”
Kame followed his gaze outside, “It was…but shouldn’t you go home? It’s getting late and you have more filming to do tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yea…I probably should…” reluctantly, he stood up and stretched, “next time, I’m going to bring you a surprise, alright?”
The waiter pursed his lips, “please don’t tell me Koki shaved his head again…”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” he laughed, “you’ll see it when you see it.”
He let out a pout, “No hints?”
“No hints,” he gave the other a kiss on the head, “go sleep, alright? I’ll be seeing you.”
“Alright, goodnight…” the other muttered, snuggling into his pillow.
“Goodnight.”
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He didn’t need anyone to tell him what day it was in his dream; he still remembered it rather vividly. Everything had been loaded onto a large truck, like the ones that he’d always wanted to ride in the back of. But this time, he was riding in the front, away from the peaceful little neighborhood, away from his childhood, and away from his best friend.
Looking out the window from the passenger seat of the moving truck, he could see the other boy standing there, watching him. He shot a hand out of the window and waved, watching the other wave back frantically.
The other boy called out, “You better come back and visit me!”
“I will!”
“You won’t forget me right!?”
“How can I!? You’re Kazu-chan, I’ll come back for sure!”
“I’ll wait then! Good luck!”
As the truck began driving away, he continued looking back at the other boy. And even though there was no such thing as a single tear, he could’ve sworn there was a lonely tear rolling down the other’s face.
But maybe his vision was too blurred by his own tears to tell.
And those distant promises faded into nothing as time continued to pass by.
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The next time he went to visit Kame, as he promised, he brought the other two along. As they made their way down the hall, the two were excitedly tailing him with their pestering chant.
“Kame-”
“Nashi!”
“Kame-”
“Nashi!”
And when he opened the door to the other’s room, the two jumped in with their well rehearsed, “Kame-”
“Nashi!”
The waiter was sitting there, reading a book when they burst into the room. He’d taken the bandages off and was adjusting to only half his vision. He blinked in surprise and delight before a smile formed. “You guys came.”
Ryo looked from the patient to Jin, a boyish grin on his face, “…you two have a system going here, don’t you? You get skinnier and Fat Jin gets fatter, so is this where all your weight comes from, stealing hospital food from Kamenashi?”
The singer felt his face flush slightly, “No, I wouldn’t do anything like that! Just because I stole your lunch when you were in the hospital doesn’t mean I’d do that to anyone-just you!”
The shorter man glared at him, “so it was you! Pi bought it for me!”
Jin backed away, “It didn’t taste good anyways, I swear! Pi didn’t know what he was doing! You would’ve hated it!”
While they were bickering, Pi stood beside the bed while Kame laughed at their antics. He looked down with a wide grin, “we got permission for you to come eat lunch with us, so you better get ready to have a ton of food shoved down your throat.”
Suddenly there was a shriek and a crash as the two lay on the floor, Jin pouted and rubbed his sacred ticklish spot, “Ryo-chan attacked my collarbones again and that stupid wire was there and I tripped and…”
There a small miserable groan, “…Fat Jin, you need to go on a diet.”
He looked down to see that he had ended up half sitting on his best friend who looked very uncomfortable. He scooted off and began laughing.
A moment later, all that could be heard from the room were peals of laughter.
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As they ate, Jin glanced over at Kame; the other was clearly feeling self-conscious of his half-blindness. His best friends must’ve noticed too because Pi suddenly grinned and stole a bite out of everyone’s dish, much to the distraction of everyone and the protest of Ryo, who in turn, stole two bites of the younger singer’s food.
Yamapi protested, “Hey! I only ate one bite of yours!”
“Yea well I’m taking Kamenashi’s share from your dish, we’re here to fatten him up, not you!”
“Well you know what? We’ll fatten him up alright,” he ordered another dish.
Ryo raised a brow, “no way, you’re probably going to finish that dish in minutes,” he raised his hand and ordered another dish.
The younger singer took it as a challenge and called the waiter back to add yet, another dish to their list.
The poor waiter who was serving them ended up running back and forth from the counter to their table as the two took turns ordering dishes. Kame sat there, eyes wide, “can we really finish all of this…?”
Jin laughed, “Who knows, but you better eat hell of a lot!”
When the dishes came, they had to be stacked on top of one another to fit onto the table, the two stared at the tower of food then to each other, “maybe we ordered too much…”
The shorter singer pursed his lips, “Maybe…but who’s paying for all this?”
The two turned their eyes across the table expectantly at Jin.
The singer frowned, “why me!? You two ordered all of this!”
Yamapi cleared his throat, “let’s try to finish as many dishes as we can before we argue for the bill that Jin’s going to pay for. Kame-chan, you better eat at least half of this!”
The youngest stared in disbelief, “half…!? I don’t think my whole family could eat that much…”
Grinning, they began piling food onto his plate, “never know till you try!”
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They managed to clear off quite a few dishes before they were too full to sit up properly. Ryo rested his head on the other’s shoulder, “Pi, I ate too much, you’re going to have to roll me out the door…”
Pi sighed and laid his head on top of the other’s, “What are you talking about, Ryo-chan? I don’t think we’d be able to fit through the door like this…let’s just sit for awhile…”
“What are we going to do about the food?”
“Pack it up and treat NEWS to dinner?”
The shorter singer snorted, “NEWS? Pi, with all this food we could feed everyone in the building and still have extra…”
“Then we’ll just treat everyone!”
Jin looked over to Kame who was slumped in his chair, head tilted back and laughing at their situation. He smiled and discreetly took the other’s hand in his own under the table.
The other rolled his head to face him and shot him a happy grin.
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Jin ended up paying for the meal anyways and the two of them made their way back towards the hospital by themselves since the other two had work to do. The singer looked up and groaned, “I swear, after eating all that, I’ll be full for a week!” They stopped in front of the hospital, “you want to stay outside awhile longer?”
Kame nodded and the two made their way to the back where the garden was. He took a seat on the ledge of a cement box filled with dirt and a tree in the middle. He smiled and looked up at the other, swinging his legs a bit, “You know, at this rate, I really will become fat.”
“Good, that’s what we were trying to do. When do you out of the hospital?”
“In a couple days if all goes well, but then I’ll have to come back every now and then for check ups and stuff.”
“Oh,” he tilted his head slightly, “you’re all better now, right?”
“…more or less I guess.”
“That good.”
There was a pause between them, “does it bother you?”
The singer blinked, “does what bother me?”
“My eye…”
He shook his head, “no, does it bother you?”
Kame shrugged, “a little, I have no idea whether I’m actually blinking or not or anything, I guess I haven’t gotten used to it yet.”
“You look perfectly normal to me, there’s no need to be self-conscious.”
He received a soft smile from the other, “Thanks.”
Jin gave a sheepish grin, “oh,” he reached into his bag and retrieved a small box with a card, “your surprise.”
The waiter blinked and opened the card, “your cards will never cease to amuse me, I never even knew they made cards for ‘Sorry about breaking your arm’ situations…”
He laughed, “Well now you do.”
To the low tech-est person in the country,
This can be considered as your first step to modern technology.
High tech-ish,
Akanishi Jin
Pursing his lips, he opened the box.
Inside lay a new cell phone, “Jin…you shouldn’t have…”
Jin raised a brow, “when will you learn? You’re first of all, not allowed to refuse gifts from me and second, it’s actually more for me than you since this way, I’ll be able to contact you whenever and wherever I want, instead of constantly being on the brink of panic. Expect to be called at least once a day by me.”
Kame pursed the phone gingerly in his hand with a smile, “you’re an idiot…you’re such a stubborn idiot.”
The singer returned the smile, “It can’t be helped.”
The other looked up at the bare branches of the tree he was sitting under, “You didn’t try very hard to move on, did you, Jin? Knowing you…”
He frowned, “why do you want me to move on so badly?”
A shrug, “I’m only a small chapter in your life…I figured it’d be better for you to cut this particular chapter short and move onto another one.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he brushed the hair out of the other’s eyes tenderly, “it’s my life isn’t it, this book? So shouldn’t I be the one who picks whether or not this chapter gets completed or cut off in the middle? And trust me,” he placed a soft kiss on the other’s forehead, “no matter how long or short this chapter is, I want to live it out till the very end.”
Kame sighed and watched him seriously, “just promise me that you won’t cry when this chapter comes to an end.”
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A/N: Yesss another chapter! I'm tired, it's almost 3AM. XD And just because I felt like it, here's a little side-special thing for poor Tackey. The stairs were a lie! ;P Enjoy!
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And a Tackey&Tsubasa Extra
Tackey’s side adventure-ish thing:
He gave a frown in his dressing room as he sat there on his couch. MatsuJun had invited him out for lunch earlier but he had declined for reasons beyond him.
And now he was bored.
So bored.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t go visit his favorite kouhai after ‘the incident’. The one where the embarrassing truth concerning his…appreciation towards a certain visually appealing dancer was blurted out by a certain junior whose name rhymed with ‘Bakanishi’.
“Tackey, you find the dancer visually appealing!?”
After replaying the scene in his head a couple times, he stood up with a frown on his face, “I’m going to kill him.”
Resolved, he walked out of his room and towards the junior’s, though he made a point to steer clear from NEWS’ room. He opened the door, the boy looked over in surprise, “Tackey?”
He looked seriously at the other, “Akanishi, I’m going to shoot you, then I’m going to shoot you again…then I’ll probably shoot you another time just for the hell of it.”
Jin frowned, “…I have a better suggestion! Why don’t you go and eat something? You know what they say…food rhymes with happiness…”
Unmoved, he raised a brow, “and you know what else they say? Akanishi rhymes with dead.”
The junior blinked, “no it doesn’t…oh…” he backed up against his makeup table. “Please, please, please don’t kill me? I still have years and years of my life I’ve yet to live and…tons of food I’ve yet to eat and all the shows I’ve yet to watch and…think of the shrimp! Who’s going to eat all the shrimp when I’m gone!?”
As he continued rambling, Pi suddenly dashed into the room and pulled his best friend by the arm, “sorry Tackey, I have to steal Jin for awhile. Ryo-chan got stuck in a tree and we have to go get him down.”
Unable to get angry at his favorite kouhai, he watched them disappear down the hallway and frowned, so much for that plan. Still frustrated, he decided to take a break and head on outside where in a nearby park, he could hear the juniors yelling. He turned into the park to find the amusing sight of Nishikido stuck in a tree and the two standing at the bottom looking helpless.
Finally letting his senpai-instincts take over, he walked over.
“Jump Ryo-chan, we’ll catch you!”
“No! Are you two stupid!?”
Tackey blinked, “why doesn’t he just climb down?”
Pi looked over, “there’s an ant’s nest in the tree…so it’s covered with ants, and Ryo-chan’s terrified of bugs.”
He raised a brow, “wouldn’t the ants reach him then?”
Jin shrugged, “Apparently not, I guess his yelling scared them off or something.”
He didn’t bother to correct the other about how ants smelt things rather than listened. Yamapi frowned, “should I call a fire truck?”
Tackey would’ve laughed if he wasn’t so frustrated, “Yamapi, that’s for cats, not little boys, little idol boys at that.”
“Then what do we do…?”
“Yamashita Tomohisa, you better get me down or I’m never talking to you again!”
“We’re trying, Ryo-chan!”
“Well try harder!”
Sighing, he realized that the easiest solution was to:
1) Throw something at the boy to knock him out of the tree
2) Cut down the tree
3) Go get him himself
He could only imagine what kind of commotion it’d cause if he were to go with the first two options, so he walked over and rolled his sleeves up. “You two better get ready to catch this kid incase anything happens.”
Climbing up the tree, he realized how right the three were, it was covered in ants. Chewing on his lower lip, he made his way up as quickly as possible, trying not to grimace at the ant guts that covered his palms. Once he reached the branch where the junior was sitting, he climbed over and looked down.
It wasn’t that high.
“Alright Nishikido, let’s get you down.”
Looking down again, he could see the two positioned underneath them, ready to catch something or someone. Ryo looked over and glared at him, “and how do you propose I do that? I’m not jumping.”
He raised a brow, still on all fours, “who said anything about jumping? Your grip sucked so you,” he gave the other a hard shove and watched as the other slipped off the branch, “fell.”
Unfortunately for him, due to Ryo’s fast reflexes, he grabbed the closest thing he could to prevent his fall.
And what he grabbed was the end of Tackey’s jacket.
Giving a yelp, he too was pulled off the tree. But instead of a smooth fall, one of his shoelaces had caught onto a loose branch and so pulled his shoe off in the process. And unfortunately, while the younger two caught the smaller boy before he could hit the ground; there was no one there to catch him.
So while Ryo landed softly in the arms on his friends, he hit the ground ungracefully with a loud thud. The juniors’ eyes widened as they ran to their fallen senior, “Tackey, are you okay!?”
He rolled onto his back, holding his bleeding nose with a groan.
And on the branch he fell off of, his shoe dangled mockingly at him.
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They ended up calling an ambulance for him.
Once in the hospital, they fixed his broken, bloody nose and left him lying there in an uncomfortable bed. He found that every time he attempted to sit up, blood would rush out of his nose, much to his annoyance.
The door opened, he looked over with a glare but did nothing else, not wanting to risk yet another nosebleed. Damn, he had performances coming up too…
When the visitor stepped in, his glare immediately turned into a stare of shock.
It was the visually appealing dancer.
Tackey opened his mouth a couple times but nothing coherent came out. The dancer gave a friendly smile and walked up to the bed, “Hello.”
He immediately sat up.
And simultaneously, blood gushed out his nose.
The dancer gave a concerned look and handed him his box of tissues, “are you alright?”
“Y-yea…” he muttered nasally, holding a ball of tissues over his nose, “what are you doing here?”
“I heard the story from the kiddies, about how you saved Nishikido-kun’s life. Yamashita-kun told me where you were, I hope you don’t mind my visit.”
He knew Yamapi was his favorite for a reason.
The singer shook his head, “of course not, I love visitors,” but he didn’t say anything more on the incident, not wanting to shatter the heroic image the other had of him.
“You’re quite the hero, everyone's talking about it.”
Giving a shrug, he tried to sound as cool as he could, with a bleeding nose, “Hn…wasn’t that big of a deal.”
The other smiled, and he found himself mesmerized by it, “no wonder they look up to you.”
“It was nothing, I’m Tackey by the way. Takizawa Hideaki, but everyone just calls me Tackey. I’d shake your hand but it’s covered in blood and that’s not very attractive.”
The visually appealing dancer laughed, “Tsubasa, Imai Tsubasa.”
Suddenly feeling rather bold, he asked the other, “hey Imai-san…”
“You can call me Tsubasa.”
He felt giddy, maybe it was from the loss of blood… “Tsubasa…when my nose stops bleeding, would you like to go out and get something to eat…with me?”
Tsubasa gave him one of his smiles again, he was pretty sure it made his nose bleed even harder, but he found that he didn’t mind. “Sure, is there anything in particular you want to eat? I’ll make reservations.”
Tackey shook his head, “No, I’ll eat anything.”
The other looked thoughtful for a moment, “Well, I heard there was a really good Italian restaurant a couple streets away from the jimusho…how does that sound?”
He grinned behind the bloodied tissues, “That sounds perfect.”
Pairings: Akame, slight Ryopi, T&T
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jin's a successful artist when a fight with his friends forces him to seek stress relief in a little café where he meets what he considers, the strangest people.
Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4// Chapter 5// Chapter 6// Chapter 7// Chapter 8// Chapter 9// Chapter 10// Chapter 11// Chapter 12
Chapter 13:
Jin lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling blankly as he tried to snap out of his daze.
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“I have a tumor…”
The singer frowned, “but you’ll get better, right? After the surgery, you’ll be alright, right…?”
“Jin…the tumor’s in my brain.”
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When he showed up to work the next day, he must’ve looked devastated because his best friends made a parameter around him, telling the others that it was officially ‘No Making Fun of Akanishi Jin Day’ as they feared his brain might implode or something.
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“The doctors said that the tumor was in the visual cortex, so after the surgery, there’s a large chance that I’ll lose part, if not all of my vision.”
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A couple days after that, he went back to filming his drama, except it’d been announced that the actor that’d been hospitalized wouldn’t be able to film with them so they got a replacement for him. Luckily, they hadn’t done any major filming yet so they were going to start from the first scene all over again.
Jin sighed, wondering if he’d be able to get off early to finally go visit the waiter. He sat there, reading his script again while people continued taking pictures of him from all angles. Was it really that interesting? He was sitting there, pretending to read.
“Akanishi, come here to meet your new co-actor!” Obeying the director’s call, he got up and walked over towards the crowd of people. The man gave a hearty laugh and patted him on the back, “he’s a newbie, this one, so I’m counting on you and Yokoyama, wherever he is, to show him the ropes, eh?”
“Yea, sure…” he looked up at a blinding shade of blonde, then when his eyes traveled down to the new actor’s face…
He screamed.
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They’d finished filming part of the first episode now; he’d wandered back to his seat where he picked up his script once more. At least it’d look like he was working hard… He could hear footsteps approaching him, “Akanishi-kun!”
He looked over and squinted a bit, “yea? Hey, what’s going to happen to your café if you’re over here?”
“I left Nakamaru in charge, he’s responsible enough.”
“Ah…”
“Have you gone to visit Kame lately?” Jin shook his head remorsefully, “oh…I haven’t either, not since a couple days ago, that was right after his surgery. He seemed more or less fine then.”
This caused him to frown, “…don’t you think he was underweight?”
Taguchi paused, “Akanishi-kun…that was because Kame went through radiation…it caused him to lose his appetite and he couldn’t hold any food down without…”
“Oh…well I’m definitely going to get him fat…ter.”
The taller man gave a bright smile at that, “Let’s go visit him today,”
“Sure,” he tried not to stare at the hair or the blue contacts, “has he seen your new…character yet?”
The café owner blinked, “No, why?”
The singer hid his grin behind his script, “no, I was just curious, yea, let’s go today. I want to see him too.”
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So they headed for the hospital after their filming. The two weary men made their way down the hall and stopped in front of their friend’s door. Knocking on it lightly, he opened it to find Kame lying in bed, bandages over one eye. As quietly as he could, he made his way in towards the other’s bed, “…Kame?”
The younger man’s eye fluttered open slowly, “Hn…? Jin?”
He looked over to see his one rose in a vase by the window and smiled softly before turning back to the other, “Sorry, did I wake you?”
Kame shook his head, “No, I just wasn’t really expecting anymore…” suddenly he shifted and sat up so he could see the person behind the singer. His eyes widened, “…Ta-Taguchi…?”
Junno gave him one of his sunshine smiles, “Iriguchi deguchi Taguchi de-”
The younger man’s eyes rolled up as he slumped back down, unconscious.
“Oh my god, you killed Kame!”
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Dear Kame,
Since hospitals are generally gloomy,
I brought something to brighten it up!
Looking for a brush,
Akanishi Jin
P.S. You may need sunglasses for this.
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When the waiter came to again, he furled his brows and looked around, “what happened?”
Jin bit back a grin as he explained, “Taguchi’s head of gold and his lame jokes must’ve been too much of a shock for you to handle so you fainted.”
The waiter let out a laugh, “did I really? Where did he go?”
“He went for a drink, he’ll be back in a few minutes though.” He lightly ran a hand over the other’s bandaged eye, “does it hurt?”
The other shook his head and frowned, “I’m still being stuffed with painkillers.”
The singer gave a small smile, “How appetizing. Next time I come visit, I’m bringing Pi and Ryo-chan with me, okay? They’ve been worried about you too, and I’ll make sure they bring lots of presents with them when they come.”
Kame smiled and nodded, “that’d be nice, and a cup of coffee would be nice too.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. Ueda has his own personal coffee corner in the staff room.” He must’ve looked shocked because the other laughed again, “no one’s complaining because they get free coffee and eye-candy whenever he goes in there, and he knows the head doctor, so it’s all good-Taguchi, you’re back!”
The elder man smiled, “you’re not going to faint on me again, are you?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“I was going to surprise you about the role I got for this drama with Akanishi-kun here.”
Kame blinked, “well you surprised me alright…you’re in a drama with Jin?” he smiled, “sounds like fun. I’m going to watch it you know, so you two better do a really good job or else I’ll get bored halfway through.”
The elder two smiled, “of course, and while we’re out there working our asses off, you better be stuffing food down your mouth. Next time I come back, I expect to see you at least several pounds heavier, alright?”
The waiter grinned, “Deal.”
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Taguchi had left first as he had to see how his shop fared without him, Jin sat beside the other’s bed, looking out the window to where the moon was shining brightly, “today was a good day…”
Kame followed his gaze outside, “It was…but shouldn’t you go home? It’s getting late and you have more filming to do tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yea…I probably should…” reluctantly, he stood up and stretched, “next time, I’m going to bring you a surprise, alright?”
The waiter pursed his lips, “please don’t tell me Koki shaved his head again…”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” he laughed, “you’ll see it when you see it.”
He let out a pout, “No hints?”
“No hints,” he gave the other a kiss on the head, “go sleep, alright? I’ll be seeing you.”
“Alright, goodnight…” the other muttered, snuggling into his pillow.
“Goodnight.”
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He didn’t need anyone to tell him what day it was in his dream; he still remembered it rather vividly. Everything had been loaded onto a large truck, like the ones that he’d always wanted to ride in the back of. But this time, he was riding in the front, away from the peaceful little neighborhood, away from his childhood, and away from his best friend.
Looking out the window from the passenger seat of the moving truck, he could see the other boy standing there, watching him. He shot a hand out of the window and waved, watching the other wave back frantically.
The other boy called out, “You better come back and visit me!”
“I will!”
“You won’t forget me right!?”
“How can I!? You’re Kazu-chan, I’ll come back for sure!”
“I’ll wait then! Good luck!”
As the truck began driving away, he continued looking back at the other boy. And even though there was no such thing as a single tear, he could’ve sworn there was a lonely tear rolling down the other’s face.
But maybe his vision was too blurred by his own tears to tell.
And those distant promises faded into nothing as time continued to pass by.
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The next time he went to visit Kame, as he promised, he brought the other two along. As they made their way down the hall, the two were excitedly tailing him with their pestering chant.
“Kame-”
“Nashi!”
“Kame-”
“Nashi!”
And when he opened the door to the other’s room, the two jumped in with their well rehearsed, “Kame-”
“Nashi!”
The waiter was sitting there, reading a book when they burst into the room. He’d taken the bandages off and was adjusting to only half his vision. He blinked in surprise and delight before a smile formed. “You guys came.”
Ryo looked from the patient to Jin, a boyish grin on his face, “…you two have a system going here, don’t you? You get skinnier and Fat Jin gets fatter, so is this where all your weight comes from, stealing hospital food from Kamenashi?”
The singer felt his face flush slightly, “No, I wouldn’t do anything like that! Just because I stole your lunch when you were in the hospital doesn’t mean I’d do that to anyone-just you!”
The shorter man glared at him, “so it was you! Pi bought it for me!”
Jin backed away, “It didn’t taste good anyways, I swear! Pi didn’t know what he was doing! You would’ve hated it!”
While they were bickering, Pi stood beside the bed while Kame laughed at their antics. He looked down with a wide grin, “we got permission for you to come eat lunch with us, so you better get ready to have a ton of food shoved down your throat.”
Suddenly there was a shriek and a crash as the two lay on the floor, Jin pouted and rubbed his sacred ticklish spot, “Ryo-chan attacked my collarbones again and that stupid wire was there and I tripped and…”
There a small miserable groan, “…Fat Jin, you need to go on a diet.”
He looked down to see that he had ended up half sitting on his best friend who looked very uncomfortable. He scooted off and began laughing.
A moment later, all that could be heard from the room were peals of laughter.
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As they ate, Jin glanced over at Kame; the other was clearly feeling self-conscious of his half-blindness. His best friends must’ve noticed too because Pi suddenly grinned and stole a bite out of everyone’s dish, much to the distraction of everyone and the protest of Ryo, who in turn, stole two bites of the younger singer’s food.
Yamapi protested, “Hey! I only ate one bite of yours!”
“Yea well I’m taking Kamenashi’s share from your dish, we’re here to fatten him up, not you!”
“Well you know what? We’ll fatten him up alright,” he ordered another dish.
Ryo raised a brow, “no way, you’re probably going to finish that dish in minutes,” he raised his hand and ordered another dish.
The younger singer took it as a challenge and called the waiter back to add yet, another dish to their list.
The poor waiter who was serving them ended up running back and forth from the counter to their table as the two took turns ordering dishes. Kame sat there, eyes wide, “can we really finish all of this…?”
Jin laughed, “Who knows, but you better eat hell of a lot!”
When the dishes came, they had to be stacked on top of one another to fit onto the table, the two stared at the tower of food then to each other, “maybe we ordered too much…”
The shorter singer pursed his lips, “Maybe…but who’s paying for all this?”
The two turned their eyes across the table expectantly at Jin.
The singer frowned, “why me!? You two ordered all of this!”
Yamapi cleared his throat, “let’s try to finish as many dishes as we can before we argue for the bill that Jin’s going to pay for. Kame-chan, you better eat at least half of this!”
The youngest stared in disbelief, “half…!? I don’t think my whole family could eat that much…”
Grinning, they began piling food onto his plate, “never know till you try!”
-------------------------
They managed to clear off quite a few dishes before they were too full to sit up properly. Ryo rested his head on the other’s shoulder, “Pi, I ate too much, you’re going to have to roll me out the door…”
Pi sighed and laid his head on top of the other’s, “What are you talking about, Ryo-chan? I don’t think we’d be able to fit through the door like this…let’s just sit for awhile…”
“What are we going to do about the food?”
“Pack it up and treat NEWS to dinner?”
The shorter singer snorted, “NEWS? Pi, with all this food we could feed everyone in the building and still have extra…”
“Then we’ll just treat everyone!”
Jin looked over to Kame who was slumped in his chair, head tilted back and laughing at their situation. He smiled and discreetly took the other’s hand in his own under the table.
The other rolled his head to face him and shot him a happy grin.
-------------------------
Jin ended up paying for the meal anyways and the two of them made their way back towards the hospital by themselves since the other two had work to do. The singer looked up and groaned, “I swear, after eating all that, I’ll be full for a week!” They stopped in front of the hospital, “you want to stay outside awhile longer?”
Kame nodded and the two made their way to the back where the garden was. He took a seat on the ledge of a cement box filled with dirt and a tree in the middle. He smiled and looked up at the other, swinging his legs a bit, “You know, at this rate, I really will become fat.”
“Good, that’s what we were trying to do. When do you out of the hospital?”
“In a couple days if all goes well, but then I’ll have to come back every now and then for check ups and stuff.”
“Oh,” he tilted his head slightly, “you’re all better now, right?”
“…more or less I guess.”
“That good.”
There was a pause between them, “does it bother you?”
The singer blinked, “does what bother me?”
“My eye…”
He shook his head, “no, does it bother you?”
Kame shrugged, “a little, I have no idea whether I’m actually blinking or not or anything, I guess I haven’t gotten used to it yet.”
“You look perfectly normal to me, there’s no need to be self-conscious.”
He received a soft smile from the other, “Thanks.”
Jin gave a sheepish grin, “oh,” he reached into his bag and retrieved a small box with a card, “your surprise.”
The waiter blinked and opened the card, “your cards will never cease to amuse me, I never even knew they made cards for ‘Sorry about breaking your arm’ situations…”
He laughed, “Well now you do.”
To the low tech-est person in the country,
This can be considered as your first step to modern technology.
High tech-ish,
Akanishi Jin
Pursing his lips, he opened the box.
Inside lay a new cell phone, “Jin…you shouldn’t have…”
Jin raised a brow, “when will you learn? You’re first of all, not allowed to refuse gifts from me and second, it’s actually more for me than you since this way, I’ll be able to contact you whenever and wherever I want, instead of constantly being on the brink of panic. Expect to be called at least once a day by me.”
Kame pursed the phone gingerly in his hand with a smile, “you’re an idiot…you’re such a stubborn idiot.”
The singer returned the smile, “It can’t be helped.”
The other looked up at the bare branches of the tree he was sitting under, “You didn’t try very hard to move on, did you, Jin? Knowing you…”
He frowned, “why do you want me to move on so badly?”
A shrug, “I’m only a small chapter in your life…I figured it’d be better for you to cut this particular chapter short and move onto another one.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he brushed the hair out of the other’s eyes tenderly, “it’s my life isn’t it, this book? So shouldn’t I be the one who picks whether or not this chapter gets completed or cut off in the middle? And trust me,” he placed a soft kiss on the other’s forehead, “no matter how long or short this chapter is, I want to live it out till the very end.”
Kame sighed and watched him seriously, “just promise me that you won’t cry when this chapter comes to an end.”
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A/N: Yesss another chapter! I'm tired, it's almost 3AM. XD And just because I felt like it, here's a little side-special thing for poor Tackey. The stairs were a lie! ;P Enjoy!
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And a Tackey&Tsubasa Extra
Tackey’s side adventure-ish thing:
He gave a frown in his dressing room as he sat there on his couch. MatsuJun had invited him out for lunch earlier but he had declined for reasons beyond him.
And now he was bored.
So bored.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t go visit his favorite kouhai after ‘the incident’. The one where the embarrassing truth concerning his…appreciation towards a certain visually appealing dancer was blurted out by a certain junior whose name rhymed with ‘Bakanishi’.
“Tackey, you find the dancer visually appealing!?”
After replaying the scene in his head a couple times, he stood up with a frown on his face, “I’m going to kill him.”
Resolved, he walked out of his room and towards the junior’s, though he made a point to steer clear from NEWS’ room. He opened the door, the boy looked over in surprise, “Tackey?”
He looked seriously at the other, “Akanishi, I’m going to shoot you, then I’m going to shoot you again…then I’ll probably shoot you another time just for the hell of it.”
Jin frowned, “…I have a better suggestion! Why don’t you go and eat something? You know what they say…food rhymes with happiness…”
Unmoved, he raised a brow, “and you know what else they say? Akanishi rhymes with dead.”
The junior blinked, “no it doesn’t…oh…” he backed up against his makeup table. “Please, please, please don’t kill me? I still have years and years of my life I’ve yet to live and…tons of food I’ve yet to eat and all the shows I’ve yet to watch and…think of the shrimp! Who’s going to eat all the shrimp when I’m gone!?”
As he continued rambling, Pi suddenly dashed into the room and pulled his best friend by the arm, “sorry Tackey, I have to steal Jin for awhile. Ryo-chan got stuck in a tree and we have to go get him down.”
Unable to get angry at his favorite kouhai, he watched them disappear down the hallway and frowned, so much for that plan. Still frustrated, he decided to take a break and head on outside where in a nearby park, he could hear the juniors yelling. He turned into the park to find the amusing sight of Nishikido stuck in a tree and the two standing at the bottom looking helpless.
Finally letting his senpai-instincts take over, he walked over.
“Jump Ryo-chan, we’ll catch you!”
“No! Are you two stupid!?”
Tackey blinked, “why doesn’t he just climb down?”
Pi looked over, “there’s an ant’s nest in the tree…so it’s covered with ants, and Ryo-chan’s terrified of bugs.”
He raised a brow, “wouldn’t the ants reach him then?”
Jin shrugged, “Apparently not, I guess his yelling scared them off or something.”
He didn’t bother to correct the other about how ants smelt things rather than listened. Yamapi frowned, “should I call a fire truck?”
Tackey would’ve laughed if he wasn’t so frustrated, “Yamapi, that’s for cats, not little boys, little idol boys at that.”
“Then what do we do…?”
“Yamashita Tomohisa, you better get me down or I’m never talking to you again!”
“We’re trying, Ryo-chan!”
“Well try harder!”
Sighing, he realized that the easiest solution was to:
1) Throw something at the boy to knock him out of the tree
2) Cut down the tree
3) Go get him himself
He could only imagine what kind of commotion it’d cause if he were to go with the first two options, so he walked over and rolled his sleeves up. “You two better get ready to catch this kid incase anything happens.”
Climbing up the tree, he realized how right the three were, it was covered in ants. Chewing on his lower lip, he made his way up as quickly as possible, trying not to grimace at the ant guts that covered his palms. Once he reached the branch where the junior was sitting, he climbed over and looked down.
It wasn’t that high.
“Alright Nishikido, let’s get you down.”
Looking down again, he could see the two positioned underneath them, ready to catch something or someone. Ryo looked over and glared at him, “and how do you propose I do that? I’m not jumping.”
He raised a brow, still on all fours, “who said anything about jumping? Your grip sucked so you,” he gave the other a hard shove and watched as the other slipped off the branch, “fell.”
Unfortunately for him, due to Ryo’s fast reflexes, he grabbed the closest thing he could to prevent his fall.
And what he grabbed was the end of Tackey’s jacket.
Giving a yelp, he too was pulled off the tree. But instead of a smooth fall, one of his shoelaces had caught onto a loose branch and so pulled his shoe off in the process. And unfortunately, while the younger two caught the smaller boy before he could hit the ground; there was no one there to catch him.
So while Ryo landed softly in the arms on his friends, he hit the ground ungracefully with a loud thud. The juniors’ eyes widened as they ran to their fallen senior, “Tackey, are you okay!?”
He rolled onto his back, holding his bleeding nose with a groan.
And on the branch he fell off of, his shoe dangled mockingly at him.
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They ended up calling an ambulance for him.
Once in the hospital, they fixed his broken, bloody nose and left him lying there in an uncomfortable bed. He found that every time he attempted to sit up, blood would rush out of his nose, much to his annoyance.
The door opened, he looked over with a glare but did nothing else, not wanting to risk yet another nosebleed. Damn, he had performances coming up too…
When the visitor stepped in, his glare immediately turned into a stare of shock.
It was the visually appealing dancer.
Tackey opened his mouth a couple times but nothing coherent came out. The dancer gave a friendly smile and walked up to the bed, “Hello.”
He immediately sat up.
And simultaneously, blood gushed out his nose.
The dancer gave a concerned look and handed him his box of tissues, “are you alright?”
“Y-yea…” he muttered nasally, holding a ball of tissues over his nose, “what are you doing here?”
“I heard the story from the kiddies, about how you saved Nishikido-kun’s life. Yamashita-kun told me where you were, I hope you don’t mind my visit.”
He knew Yamapi was his favorite for a reason.
The singer shook his head, “of course not, I love visitors,” but he didn’t say anything more on the incident, not wanting to shatter the heroic image the other had of him.
“You’re quite the hero, everyone's talking about it.”
Giving a shrug, he tried to sound as cool as he could, with a bleeding nose, “Hn…wasn’t that big of a deal.”
The other smiled, and he found himself mesmerized by it, “no wonder they look up to you.”
“It was nothing, I’m Tackey by the way. Takizawa Hideaki, but everyone just calls me Tackey. I’d shake your hand but it’s covered in blood and that’s not very attractive.”
The visually appealing dancer laughed, “Tsubasa, Imai Tsubasa.”
Suddenly feeling rather bold, he asked the other, “hey Imai-san…”
“You can call me Tsubasa.”
He felt giddy, maybe it was from the loss of blood… “Tsubasa…when my nose stops bleeding, would you like to go out and get something to eat…with me?”
Tsubasa gave him one of his smiles again, he was pretty sure it made his nose bleed even harder, but he found that he didn’t mind. “Sure, is there anything in particular you want to eat? I’ll make reservations.”
Tackey shook his head, “No, I’ll eat anything.”
The other looked thoughtful for a moment, “Well, I heard there was a really good Italian restaurant a couple streets away from the jimusho…how does that sound?”
He grinned behind the bloodied tissues, “That sounds perfect.”