Phosphorescent Lights: Chapter 15 [2]
Every secret has a price…
Title: Phosphorescent Lights
Summary: A photographer with no memories whose goal in life is to seek out what he has lost; a businessman who swore revenge for the death of his lover while desperately trying to escape his fixated reality. Two entirely different men with entirely different lives bound together by the threads of destiny. But little do the two know that they are bounded together by more than just simple destiny…
Genre: Romance/Drama
Pairings: Akame (primary), Ryoda (secondary) mentions of Jinda, Pin, Ryopi, Kokame, Kamaki
Other Characters: Jin, Kame, Ueda, Yamashita, Ryo, Koki, slight appearances from Taguchi, Nakamaru, Shige, Ayase, Tegoshi
Content: Romance, drama, AU [Alternate Universe]
Author: Nerd-san
Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with Johnny Entertainment
…are they willing to pay it?
Phosphorescent Lights: Chapter 15 [2]
I don’t want to leave just yet.
“Sir, its closing time.”
I don’t want to leave.
Kame ignored the curator’s voice and continued off in his bland world of make-belief. He didn’t want to leave. He never did, but in the end he would have to anyway.
He stood motionless among the various photographs hung up for display in the art gallery, his eyes straining towards one in particular. Why couldn’t he remember?
His memories had long faded off into the distance. Even at times where he would try to remember the person he had locked in his heart, it seemed a task impossible.
They had left no trace of who they had been. But Kame was positive - certain - that they were real. Somewhere under the vast, vast sky, he was here too. Kame wasn’t sure whether or not they had been waiting for him the way he had been searching for them, but he kept his thoughts positive.
They were out there, somewhere. Kame just didn’t know where. Or how they looked. The one thing he did know, however, was their name.
Three years ago he had woken up and sort of remembered something. He wasn’t sure what it was he was holding onto exactly, but there was something or someone there. It made no sense, the doctors said, that he had remembered anything at all.
Sometimes, Kame selfishly decided that he didn’t want to remember the man if it means that he could forever engrave him into his heart. Realistically put, it had been years and Kame was sure that by now, wherever he was, they were leading a life of their own.
So if it meant that Kame could keep the man for himself, then he didn’t want to remember them.
Like the fading starlight a thousand miles away, they could only look at each other. Most days Kame wondered if the man had still kept love on his mind…if he had still kept Kame in his mind. He doubted it most of the time. Who could have been stubborn enough to wait for so long?
Kame kind of remembered him. In his own way. It could hardly be considered as ‘remembering’ if he couldn’t put a face onto exactly who he was remembering in the first place, but he did know their name.
He hadn’t a clue as to what they did together, what they talked about or anything of that sort but he was certain upon certain that they had existed. He only wondered if they would come back for him - if they were searching for him.
But days passed and he was still gone. Why had it come to this? Feelings engulfed Kame with the morning sun; but his mornings weren’t always as quiet as they were now. When he woke up, there was something missing.
Sound was missing, noise, yelling, morning arguments. He didn’t know why but Kame felt compelled to feel lonely in the silent mornings.
For the past three years he had befriended Tanaka Koki. Kame couldn’t remember the man but he had said that he was a friend of Kame’s long, long ago. It felt awkward at first, their friendship, but with time Kame had begun to grow close to Koki - very close.
They had slept with each other on one occasion two years ago, but that had been merely out of a drunken casualness. Kame figured things to get really awkward really fast, and they had at first, but they ended up passing through that hurdle. Now they remained close friends.
Kame took up photography again, oddly enough he hadn’t known that he had liked photography in his past life, but once again felt drawn into it. The doctors said that his life would be like that. If he was willing enough to remember the past, he would with time.
And even if he wasn’t, he would eventually be drawn into the same things once again if life had given him the chance. They said this was because of something called his ‘collective unconscious’.
“Sir,” the curator came up to Kame now and placed a hand on his shoulder, “its closing time.” Kame merely nodded, still drawn into the same photograph he had come to visit all the time.
This was how he had known Akanishi Jin’s name.
And everyday he would return, without fail, to come and take another look at the man’s photograph. Doing this for three years now, Kame had memorized every part of every detail on the picture.
Kame’s face was there. Jin’s was too, although it was bleeding out of the photo. It was rather dark and only their mucky silhouettes remained in the photo. It was closed up on their ears, lightly touching and their earring very slightly ajar.
The tiny specks of blue glowed in the darkness of the room as if they were the lone flowers budding in the dusk. It was such a simple photograph, yet it spoke in volumes upon volumes of words to Kame.
The curator seemed at a loss and only sighed before heading off to inform the other museum goers of what the time on the clock read.
It was time to go again. Before he left, Kame took a look at his own photo that had been hung up. He honestly couldn’t remember a thing about that moment, about taking the picture, but it had come out rather well.
They were two silhouettes again, although the figures in the picture seemed much more composed and mechanically put in their positions than the first. It wasn’t too dark out, but the two sat facing each other on their knees in the grass.
Kame, or at least who Kame had figured to be himself, sat with his hands at his sides with the other man holding them in place, kissing the top of his head. Shirts ruffled in a rather suggestive manner, and yet the photograph was called Innocent Love.
He read the inscription beneath the photo for the umpteenth time, even though he had long memorized the words.
Title: Innocent Love
Photographer: Kamenashi Kazuya
Placement: Fourth
He had a copy of the photograph at home, enlarged and framed - all the winners had a copy of their artwork. But Kame didn’t want a copy of his photograph. He wanted a copy of Akanishi Jin’s.
Because Akanishi Jin’s photograph showed proof that the man was somewhere out there and not only in Kame’s heart - because it proved to Kame that the man had his other half. His other earring.
On most days, Kame wondered if they were engaged. He didn’t know why. He knew nothing of the earring’s significance, yet something in his heart told him that it was very meaningful to the past him.
He smiled dimly at the absurdity. He and Akanishi Jin engaged? He could hardly believe that the past Kame could have been so rebellious as to walk out of the societal norm by marrying another man. But somehow, he didn’t doubt it.
The people around him were leaving now and Kame too felt the need to leave. But before he left he returned to the first photograph and smiled wistfully.
“Far, far away, like every other night this feeling of wanting to meet you, yet being unable to lingers somewhere in my mind,” he said, holding out his hand out for the picture yet being unable to actually touch it because of the glass that held it in place.
“Am I thinking amiss?” Kame sighed ruefully, stroking the pane that kept him back from the photograph. “You’re somewhere on the other side of this bright orange sky and I wonder: do you still feel the same way?”
He could kind of remember their summer together…or was it autumn? Winter, perhaps? They snuck out and somehow took pictures - did Akanishi Jin remember it too? Kame frowned; he missed the person who was fading away in his memories
Title: Phosphorescent Lights
Photographer: Akanishi Jin
Placement: First
“For the first time, I’ve found absolute happiness”
Kame walked out of the art gallery and began his long tread home. Most days he would get up early to go where he thought he and Akanishi Jin once went. In his photo Innocent Love, they were at some sort of grassy field. But to this day, Kame had no such luck finding the place.
Somehow at the fact, his heart was a little pained.
He took out his keys once he had reached his apartment and opened the front door. He had moved from his older apartment years ago and, with the help of Koki, found a bigger place to live. Not necessarily better, but at least it was a lot roomier. And his head didn’t hurt constantly.
Once inside he saw Koki already in the kitchen, slaving away at his third attempt to make dinner. It was brief, very brief, but for a second Kame could almost - almost - picture Akanishi Jin in the same position. He silently wondered if the man were a bad cook or if his mind was simply making things up.
“Kame,” Koki came out of the kitchen and proceeded to the living room where Kame was now sitting around, “please eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.” Kame pouted, anxiously thinking of something else other than food.
“Kame.”
Even in his apartment with his good friend, Kame wasn’t hungry. His stomach was eating away at him but he still couldn’t bring himself to consume anything.
He was missing something. His life was like an unfinished puzzle; he needed to bring back the missing pieces before he could live in peace.
“What is it that I’m missing, Koki?” Kame questioned rhetorically, flopping back on his couch, resting his head against the skull of the sofa.
He and Koki weren’t exactly living with each other, but it was as close as one got to that position without actually staying with each other all the times.
The two usually had dinner together, mostly at the request of Koki because he saw it fit that Kame shouldn’t be left alone in his state of mind.
If the man had forced himself to remember too much at a time, it was not a good sign of his mental health returning to its proper shape.
Koki seated himself on the floor with a tray of miso soup in front of him. He had been trying to get Kame to eat for the past week ever since the man claimed to have found another piece of his old life - the engraving at the back of his camera.
Koki himself couldn’t make head or tails of the writing and could only offer a shrug and a comforting shoulder for Kame to cry on. Finally processing his friend’s metaphorical question, Koki asked, “hmm?”
“I feel so empty.” Kame admitted, going through yet another photo album. And there it was again. The same regretful face Kame would make when he came across one of the pictures he figured he had been in before. Before someone had tore them limb from limb.
His brows could scrunch together and he’d bite his lower lips hazardously as if trying to place a face to the person who had been ripped out.
“Is it because of the earring?” Koki asked, pointing to the diamond that glistened brightly under the lights. That had been something else that had been readily frustrating Kame.
“Probably,” he confessed, tracing his hand over the small stub. “Its disappearance must have meant that I’ve given it to him, right?” Kame thought back to Phosphorescent Lights. He was sure that Akanishi Jin had the other part.
Koki shrugged unsurely. “Probably.”
“I want to find out just who Akanishi Jin was.”
Koki shook his head. He had remembered his talk with the man right before he had left. He was going back to Tokyo to succeed his company. He had left Kame. He was probably the president now.
And Kame had belonged to A. Jewelry - the sole reason Koki and his doctors had banned him from going to Tokyo. Remembering such a traumatic event as that surely could not have been good for his nerves.
“I’m sure that they’d rather you not live your life in regret,” Koki assured him.
“Did you know who they were?” Kame’s eyes shone with a childlike innocence.
Koki sighed. “Kame, we’ve been through this.” The soup’s getting cold, he added silently. He pushed the tray aside and stood up to carry it back to the kitchen.
“I didn’t know them, not really anyway. All I did know is that you were pretty chummy with this other fella. ’Dunno if you gave him the earring or not - I can’t remember, honestly. You seemed to argue a lot, though.”
“Argue a lot…” Kame watched as Koki exited the room and headed to the kitchen. He contemplated on what was said. “Did I really love them?”
“I don’t know.” Koki called back - because he didn’t. on occasions he was sure that the two hated each other.
Kame watched Koki’s back disappear. The doctors had told him that this had been the third time that his memories had been suppressed. Why was he cursed to live such a desolate life, Kame wondered. Falling in love only to lose it in the end…he didn’t like it.
“Why do I always forget things?” The question was voiced to no one in particular.
“The doctors are still working to find out.” Koki called back as he re-entered the living room. “It seems that you’re not good with handling upsetting experiences. You’re memory loss is triggered when you want to forget.”
Kame shook his desperately at the lack of logic. “Why would I want to forget something so important?!”
“I don’t know.”
Kame sighed and stood up, “Koki, if you don’t mind…I’d like to be alone for a bit.”
“Kame…just eat and I’ll leave you alone.” Koki stated, coming back from the kitchen with empty hands.
“I’ll eat, I’ll eat, I promise.” The man raised his hands in defeat.
“Okay. Don’t make me regret my decision!” Koki warned and watched as Kame made a beeline for the bathroom.
“I won’t!” Kame called back. Even though you’ll hate me for this.
He locked the bathroom door behind him and looked down at the copy of Innocent Love in his hands. There was no doubt in his mind that he had been the one who had snapped the photograph.
If there was one thing that he had regained through the years, it had been his love for photography. But still, something felt empty in his photographs now.
Even his manager had complained that they hadn’t held the same feelings as they did before. He glared down at the other man in the image.
The two were smiling as if they were the happiest beings on earth; Kame was sure even though the shadows had cut off any features on their faces. And, he assumed, at the time they were.
If absolute happiness is what he had given to Akanishi Jin, then at that time, they were probably the happiest beings on earth.
They weren’t holding hands, but their proximity was close; Kame loved the photograph, not as much as Akanishi Jin’s, but he liked it a lot. It was one of the only other visual representations he had of the man.
Kame looked at himself, and then at the other man he simply could not memorize. “…just who were you?”
He couldn’t say that this had been a rash decision on his part. He had been planning it ever since he had seen the engraving on the back of his camera. He, without permission from Koki, had bought his plane ticket a long, long time ago.
I’ll take you to Tokyo someday, until then let’s fill our lives with new memories
Kame retraced the faded words. Akanishi Jin had promised to take him Tokyo. And so, Kame waited. He waited endlessly for their return; for them to take him to where he was. But what little hope he had had worn out over the years.
Finally, after three years, Kame decided that he was sick of waiting. If Akanishi Jin was not going to come and find him, Kame was going to go and find Akanishi Jin.
It wasn’t hard to squeeze through the window in the bathroom. In fact, it was rather easy for someone who had been practicing how to do so without a noise for the past week.
Kame stood on the toilet and grabbed on tightly to the edge of the window and then lifted his entire body upwards.
He could hear Koki’s desolate footsteps fading away and when he was certain that they were gone, Kame heaved up the rest of his body with a low grunt and then pushed open the window with his body altogether.
Sometimes he was glad that he had chose to live on the first floor of the apartment building.
Kame felt a rush of the autumn air in his hair and lungs as he continued to push and push until; finally, he was out of the window. Kame couldn’t help it, but he had landed with an overly loud thud and that was more than enough for Koki to come back to the bathroom to check on the man.
“Kame?!” Koki banged heavily against the bathroom door. “Kame are you okay?!” He yelled again, fretting for his friend’s safety. “Kame! Answer me!”
“Sorry, Koki.” Kame frowned as he picked himself up from off the floor of his backyard and stood to his aching feet. It wasn’t a rash decision at all; at least Kame didn’t think so, not if he had been planning on finding Akanishi Jin for three years.
Koki, panicking, threw on his shoes and began to head outside. He didn’t know why, but his gut feeling had been telling him that Kame was planning on doing what he thought he was doing.
“Kame! Kame!” he yelled again once outside. And for a second he spotted the man’s figure in the back courtyard of the building and his eyes widened in fear. “Kame! What’re you doing?!”
Kame panted and wheezed as he began to run. “Koki, forgive me, but I have to do this!” he called back loudly, turning on his heels and pushing past a few bushes on his way. No one was going to stop him.
“KAME!”
Kame hailed a taxi as he made his way to the airport. He continued to pant as he gave the directions of the airport to the driver. Once he heard his cell phone ringing he was more than sure that it was Koki, but Kame didn’t pick up.
His plane left at seven but Kame was at the airport by six fifty. He brought with him no luggage or anything at all except for his camera and a copy of his photograph.
With a mere silhouette he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to identify Akanishi Jin exactly, but perhaps, as luck would have it, someone else would.
Kame could have sworn he had seen Koki at the airport as he made his way to the plane, but once he had blinked the man was gone. Perhaps it was just his imagination playing tricks on him; Kame was too tired and excited to care.
The plane took off and somehow Kame was a little fidgety. He was sure that someone was bound to go wrong and that leaving couldn’t have been this easy.
Call him paranoid, but Kame continued to turn back in his seat every now and then in fear that somehow Koki or a doctor Koki may have called was also on the plane.
Exactly one hour and twenty-eight minutes later, the plane landed. Continuing on in hi edgy manner, Kame got off the plane. He looked around hopelessly, once he was out of the airport, at a complete loss.
His cell phone rang for the second time, but Kame continued to ignore it. As soon as he returned home, Koki would give him hell for this little stunt.
Outside on the hectic streets, Kame felt out of place. In a city bustling with work and busy people who were in a rush to get to where they were going, he stood in the middle of the crowd without a trace of indifference.
He sighed and began his search, even though he knew the probability of finding Akanishi Jin was slim to nothing. Neither Koki nor his doctors had told him a thing about him. Not where he worked, what he did, who he was.
Kame began to walk, but before he could finish his step, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He frowned but then turned. A man, he didn’t recognize him, but it was a middle aged man dressed in a white doctor’s jacket. His heart dropped.
“Kamenashi Kazuya, right? The Okinawa Medical Department has just called in. Please come with me. It’s dangerous for your health to be here.”
He made the mistake of letting the man out of his grasp for a second, and already, Kame was bolting down the road. He wasn’t going to get caught. Not without talking to Akanishi Jin first. Not without knowing that Akanishi Jin wanted to end their…whatever they had.
“Kamenashi-san!” the doctor yelled again, but hardly began to chase after him. Instead, he took out a phone and gruffly began to dial a number. He had never thought a patient could be so determined and stubborn.
Out of breath, Kame finally hailed a taxi. The driver stopped for Kame and steadily, Kame hopped in on the back. “Where to?” the driver asked.
Kame hadn’t a clue as to what to say. “Just drive!” he shot back, slamming the door and nervously looking behind him and at the doctor who seemed to be eyeing the vehicle.
Minutes passed and his cell phone had resounded. Kame ignored it and then finally, shut it off completely. Kame looked behind him and out the window. Was the Medical Department still after him? Had Koki called them? He shook his head. This wasn’t the time.
Kame nervously fidgeted in his seat. “Hey, can you speed up?” He poked his face out from behind the back seat and at the driver. At the pace they were going, he was sure that the doctors would reach him before he had found his purpose.
“We’re driving at the street limit.” The reply was plainly put and obvious.
An unusual sense of impatience flushed itself through Kame as he unbuckled his seatbelt and positioned himself to the passenger’s seat at the front. “Can I drive?” He asked in all innocence.
The man shook his irately crossed head. “Sir, this is a taxi. Not your own person vehicle.”
Sirens hastened and Kame’s grip on his pants tightened. “I can’t let them catch me!” He wailed helplessly, reaching over for the steering wheel.
Shocked, the taxi-driver began to fight off Kame’s persistent advances to no avail. “Sir!” Their hands met for a split second against the vulgar steering wheel before Kame’s began to dominate and take over.
“Mmmrh!” He struggled helplessly against the driver’s pushes and pulls, but sheer determination allowed the normally hesitant Kame to continue. “Just let go and let me drive!” He growled in frustration as the man’s unrelenting hands returned, covering his own.
“Sir! I’ll call the cops!” The driver warned crossly. “Let go!”
“Go ahead!” Kame cried out bitterly as he took the wheel once more. “What more do I have to lose?!” He didn’t have Akanishi Jin, Koki was sure to hate him for this; the police were nothing in comparison.
“Watch out!” The driver called out again, disorientated at Kame’s destructiveness.
Kame growled lowly, shoving the man’s hands out of the way and taking charge of the vehicle’s direction. “Shut it!”
“I’m calling the cops!”
“Go a damn head!”
The driver gaped in horror as he turned out the window. Objects were passing by at a crazy speed and he felt his throat lurking up his esophagus but finally, he managed a very loud and deranged, “SIR!”
Kame further frowned, stretching from his seat in an unevenly balanced manner, continuing to steer without permission. “I said you can go ahead and call the police! I don’t give a damn!” He yelled in an abrupt confirmation, taking his eyes off the road for a second - a mere second.
The driver completely let go of the wheel and ducked. “WHAT OUT!”
Kame’s eyes widened and he hardly had a moment to prepare himself for the oncoming impact. “AHH!” he screamed but refused to close his eyes out of fear, trying to steer the car away at the last possible minute.
There was another car, a red one who was greatly surpassing the speed limit on their own accord. They were going too fast, Kame deducted, and as was he. Two men, under the same sky, impulsively speeding for their own reasons.
Kame didn’t even have enough time to register the fact that the light had changed color for the worse before he had stepped on the gas pedal. The red car did the same and…
…they crashed.
Kame wondered where he had first met Akanishi Jin. He couldn’t picture where it was exactly, what they had done, or what they had been through together, but they had met someplace. He was sure of that much.
And even though Kame couldn’t see him now, he could try to remember the time they watched the fireworks that lit up the sky. If they had even done such a thing. Things were too vague and fast-moving for the man to recall.
He wanted to run; to run to Akanishi Jin’s place right now. He was scared, sure, but thinking of him - it’d be fine.
Kame, coming back to his sense, felt like he had passed out for a minute while having another out-of-body experience altogether. He blinked once and then twice more to make sure that he was still alive.
The taxi was totaled and parts of the door were coming undone, the front was smashed and the trunk was beat. The green and white car itself was parked angrily across a sidewalk where the innocent pedestrians were now lurking and screaming.
Thankfully, no one else had been hurt.
Kame looked out for the other car. The red one. It too had been totaled; completely destroyed with the trunk itself almost ripping apart. Koki must have long informed the Tokyo Medical Department because all of a sudden, the man could see a doctor.
Or maybe it was just an ordinary man in white, Kame couldn’t be sure.
He was sure, however, that he would rather die than taking his chances. He was close now. He could almost feel it. He was in Tokyo and Akanishi Jin was there somewhere.
No matter what, Kame was not going home until he had finally talked to the man, until the man had finally told him that he had moved on without Kame. Until then, Kame wasn’t ready to move on.
It was by loving Akanishi Jin that he learned love could be bitter. Kame was sure that being with Akanishi Jin must have been the first time I’d cried for someone else.
He stomped out of his car ready to make a break for it, but the man in the red car had long come out and was hastily making his way over to Kame. Kame avoided eye contact and began his mad-dash across the flat plain of ground.
He tried to run past the man who had recklessly crashed into him - Kame didn’t want to think of it as him crashing into the man, after all the latter played a role in it as well. Before Kame could make it past their guard he grabbed a hold of his arm and held him in place.
“W-What the hell do you want?! Can’t you see you’ve already ruined my ride?!” He blurted out in his frustration. He wiggled against the hold. “Let go of me! Have your insurance company pay the bills-”
The man harshly yanked Kame across the arm, Kame wasn’t sure if he was meaning to inflict pain, but he had. And even though his hands had come nowhere near it, it was his head that hurt the most.
Nervous chatter, excited feelings, extreme heartbeats - those were the feelings that belonged only to them. These were the feelings that would always, without fail, belong only to them.
The man who was driving the red car cupped a hand over his mouth in complete and utter shock. His hear beat began to pick up speed dangerously, his head was swiveling with possibility, and for some reason, he could feel his entire dinner crawling up his throat in shock.
He said nothing for the longest time and steadily sirens began to fill the background. Kame continued to struggle in his hold, angrily spitting rude remarks and in a dire need to escape. He didn’t know why, but finally all the man managed was a strangled,
“K-Kame?!”
No matter how thick the crowd, Jin could always find Kame. And here he was - the one with a simple smile, yet hesitant hand and besieged body.
Those exciting feelings; they were still here.