[JE] Be Your Own Secret Girlfriend (2/2)
Title: Be Your Own Secret Girlfriend (2/2)
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: There isn't one, really, but Kame and Jin are the main characters in this.
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst, kind of AU
Word count: 13,250
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: There's nowt so queer as folk, especially when those folk happen to be in the entertainment industry.
Be Your Own Secret Girlfriend (2/2)
Kame's used to doing things by himself. When he has a problem he deals with it alone, not wanting to bother anyone unless he absolutely has to. He's grateful for everything he receives yet prides himself on being self-sufficient. But sometimes he encounters insurmountable walls, and that's when he has to look outside himself for answers.
The problem is, he's not sure what the questions are.
The Internet isn't much help. Kame can't find anything that fits Jin's particular situation, which he's not sure how to classify in the first place, and while he has a number of friends who might be able to advise he's not sure it's a good idea to broach the subject with anyone else. They'll just have to deal with it themselves.
So he thinks about it for a while, considers the best way to make Jin feel comfortable dressing in something a little less masculine in public. In a country where some of the best-known musicians have taken to the stage in a dress and enough make-up to sink a battleship, surely Jin won't have any problems if he decides to experiment a bit?
"You already wore a shiny jacket in your shows," Kame says when they're over at his place, raiding his wardrobe for things Jin might want to borrow. "All you need to do is introduce things a little bit at a time, and everyone will get used to it."
"Fangirls, yes. My friends...not so much."
"Tell them you're trying to emulate the Rolling Stones. I bet no one ever made fun of Keith Richards for wearing make-up.""
"I doubt they ever told him he looked cute, either," Jin says, setting aside a black T-shirt with a winged skull on the front. "And I get that all the time."
"You can't borrow that T-shirt; you'll never manage to get it on over your ego."
Jin smirks and adds another shirt to the pile. He's not even picking out particularly girly ones, just ones he likes. Kame thinks he's like a magpie sometimes, swooping down on whatever catches his eye, whether it's a shiny silver necklace or the latest Apple gadget.
But he's relaxed, and that's the important thing, because Kame's about to suggest something he's not going to like.
"Have you thought at all about what you want to do next?"
"Maybe grab some coffee on my way home? I'm running low-"
"Not like that," Kame says. Jin can be exasperating sometimes. "I think it's time you went out on the town. It's been a week since we went for dinner - now you have to be more ambitious."
"Ambitious?" Jin sits down on the bed, visibly ill-at-ease. "Do I even want to know what you're planning?"
"I doubt it," Kame says cheerfully. "You're free Tuesday afternoon, right?"
"I don't have work, but-"
"Then you're free." Kame doesn't mention that he's had to rearrange his own Tuesday schedule to match. "We're going to the movies. Do you want me to do your nails?"
"No, I do not want you to do my nails!" Jin splutters. "And you'd better be talking about some one-screen, nearly derelict old cinema in the middle of nowhere."
"Nope. Roppongi Hills."
"Couldn't you have picked somewhere a little further out of my neighbourhood? Like in Mexico?"
"I've got it all figured out." Kame's feeling rather proud of himself. "We can still drive, don't worry. Middle of the afternoon, not such a crowd, and you'll be sitting in the dark for most of the time anyway. The important thing isn't that people see you, but that you're there with them. We can even go see Ashita no Joe if you like."
"I'm not going to watch my best friend half-naked while I'm wearing make-up, Kame!"
Kame admits that might not be such a hot idea. "I'm sure we can find something to watch. The movie's not important, anyway."
Jin's competitive nature won't let him back down from a challenge so Kame taunts him into agreeing to go, promising to take the same supplies with just in case. This time Jin insists on adding giant sunglasses and a baseball cap to the "anti-fabulous" kit. Kame thinks he's going to need a bigger manbag.
Tuesday afternoon rolls around and once again, Kame arrives early. Jin answers the door shirtless, having been interrupted in the middle of changing; Kame's amused to see what he's wearing on his lower half.
"Leggings?"
"Don't tell Ueda," Jin says. "I don't even know why I own these."
"At least you have nice legs," Kame says. "It must be all that soccer."
Jin ends up in black leggings, knee-high black boots, a long-sleeved white shirt and purple vest; the combination makes him look like he's auditioning for Pirates of the Caribbean.
"You're no Johnny Depp," Kame says, "but you'll do."
In keeping with the pirate spirit Jin wears his kneeling naked lady in his ear and lets Kame overdo his make-up, on the grounds that if he's going to look like a drama student he might as well go all out. Kame debates going home to get his Queen of Pirates tour T-shirt, just for the occasion, but figures that's hardly going to be inconspicuous.
"I'm going to stand out a mile, aren't I?" Jin says miserably after staring at himself in the mirror for five minutes.
"You did kind of overshoot 'hippie chick' and go straight into 'militant Shakespeare enthusiast'," Kame admits. "Got any love beads?"
Jin doesn't, but they decide the outfit is fine as it is - looks fairly striking, in fact, especially with a long dark coat. Kame wonders at how Jin suddenly does a complete one-eighty about it, until he realises that it looks like cosplay. There's something to be said for plausible deniability.
Fortunately for Jin it's raining heavily when they step outside, so he hides himself under an umbrella from the car park to the cinema. Kame would hold the umbrella, in keeping with his part, but he's shorter by a few inches so it makes sense for Jin to hold it instead.
When they reach the foyer Jin slips the sodden umbrella into a clear plastic sleeve and looks nervously around the room. People stand in small clusters, talking amongst themselves or queuing for tickets and concessions. No one's looking at the two young men dripping by the doors.
"It helps if you breathe occasionally," Kame says, nudging Jin with his elbow to remind him to stop holding his breath. "Keeps your body functioning, and all that."
"Let's just get tickets so we can go hide ourselves away before I see someone I know."
"We're not going to- hey!"
Kame suddenly finds himself being pushed through the door of the men's room by an extremely shaken Jin. Fortunately there are no other occupants.
"Give me the bag," Jin demands. "I'm calling this one off."
"What happened?" Kame says, confused by the way he's been bundled out of sight without so much as a word of warning.
"Yamapi's out there."
"His movie posters are everywhere right now-"
"No, I mean he's out there in the flesh. I know my best friend, Kame. And...I think he saw me too. I'm not walking out of here looking like a pirate queen."
"This might be a good opportunity to tackle the subject with him," Kame says gently. "You'll have to say something eventually."
"I can't. I could maybe explain the outfit - the make-up, even. But not the other stuff." Jin groans, sounding utterly wretched. "I don't know how."
"You managed to tell me."
"But you see things differently! Pi's got all these ideas about how a man should be."
"So do you, and look how that turned out," Kame says with a wry smile. "He's your best friend, Jin. He loves you. He's not going to throw away all those years of friendship because you've got a little more going on than he realised."
But Jin remains adamant and disappears into a cubicle with Kame's bag. Kame sighs and leans against the wall to wait for him. Maybe he should've found a cinema in the middle of nowhere after all.
The door swings open. Yamapi enters, dripping water from his jacket all over the floor. He seems surprised to see Kame but greets him politely, because he's always polite, and professional, and hardworking, and all the things the press don't generally tend to assume about Jin's circle of friends. Kame knows different.
"Is Jin here with you?" Yamapi asks when they're done with the obligatory chit-chat. "I thought I saw him in the foyer a minute ago."
Kame waves his hand towards the occupied cubicle. "Yeah, but he's not feeling so good; I think we're going to head home. How about you? Taking yourself out for a movie?"
"Not exactly. Ryo just mailed me to say he can't make it this afternoon after all, so I guess Gantz will have to wait for another day."
"That's what we were going to see," Jin says as he emerges from the cubicle. "Might as well go together."
They hadn't actually decided what they were going to see, so this comes as a surprise to Kame, but what's even more surprising is that Jin hasn't changed at all. Kame can see a minute smudge by his lips, where he's obviously rubbed off and then reapplied his lipstick, but that's it.
Yamapi doesn't so much as blink. "Did you come straight from work?"
For an idol, that's the ultimate excuse for any amount of outlandish garb. Kame expects Jin to take the easy way out and say 'yes' but he doesn't, though he doesn't explain either and Yamapi doesn't ask, merely enquires if Jin's feeling better now.
"Better than I was." Jin returns Kame's bag. "I don't think I'll be needing this today."
If not for the fact that they're in the men's room and such a gesture could easily be misinterpreted, Kame would hug him out of sheer pride.
They haven't been out together, the three of them, for quite some time. It's not as awkward as it could be, under the circumstances, but even when Kame and Yamapi go out alone Jin's still with them in spirit, colouring their interactions with each other whether they like it or not. It's fitting, then, that he sits in the middle, a tub of popcorn perched on his knee and the umbrella tucked away under his seat. They're in the back row, at the end nearest the door in case anything crops up - namely, random photographers. Even without taking Jin's situation into account the sight of the three of them together is still fodder for gossip magazines.
Jin's face is shuttered tight until he realises that no one is paying any attention to them; everyone is too busy trying to find their own seats before the lights go out, which is due to happen any minute now.
"I'll have to mention the movie in my j-web," Yamapi says. "I hope it's good."
"I'll mention it in my next manual and the fangirls can have a field day trying to work out if we saw it together," Kame says.
"I can't mention it at all." Jin heaves an exaggerated sigh, lamenting his inability to communicate with his fans. "I'll just have to write a song about the film and let that express my feelings to the world."
They kill time until the trailers start by singing movie reviews to the tune of senpai songs; Kame is in the middle of an elaborate critique of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (to the tune of SMAP's 'Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana') when the lights switch off and much to his regret, it's time to stop playing around.
He spends most of the movie wondering if Nino had to have his costume painted on. It's not really his kind of thing but it's not Jin's either - it's neither foreign nor by one of his indie film-making friends - and it doesn't surprise him too much when he notices Jin's painted eyelids fluttering closed. Yamapi has already stolen the popcorn tub so there's no danger in Jin catching a nap.
At least, not until he slumps down in his seat and leans far enough to the side to rest his head against Kame's shoulder. Kame's not sure if the movement's unconscious or not but they've always had each other to lean on, one way or another, and it's the most natural thing in the world to slip an arm around his shoulders to keep him in place.
After the movie Jin's still half-asleep, not quite with it, which is something of a blessing because it stops him fretting about being seen. Kame offers Yamapi a lift home, which he accepts, and they drop Jin off first.
The rain wakes him up and they watch him rush to the front door of his building from the shelter of the car.
"Why did you even bother to drive?" Yamapi asks. "You could just've walked from here."
"Because I still need to get home," Kame says. "Besides, the car's...necessary." He's not sure how to explain that the car is a safety net, a getaway vehicle for their less-than-glamorous escapades. It's not his place to tell.
"Ah." Yamapi nods.
Kame searches for clues in his face and finds nothing. He and Jin can do matching blank faces together. It must be a best friends thing.
Then the question materialises. "Is there something going on with you and Jin that I'm not supposed to know about but you're doing a really bad job of keeping a secret?"
"How do you mean?" Kame squeaks.
"I know why people cuddle in the back row at the movies, Kame."
"That wasn't...uh..."
Kame can't decide. Is it better to let Yamapi assume he and Jin are a couple - which isn't true but Jin might find less awkward to deal with - or tell him the truth?
"We're not together," he hedges, "but I can see why you'd think that."
"Then why..." Yamapi brushes a finger round his eyes and mouth, mimicking a make-up brush, and Kame's stomach begins to twist itself into knots.
"You'll have to talk to Jin about it. It's not my place to tell; I'm sorry. It just might take him a while to work up the nerve, so please be patient."
"He's okay, right?"
"Okay?"
"As in, he's not about to die from some horrible fatal disease and has decided to hide how he's wasting away by dressing up like a girl?"
Kame cracks a grin for the first time since the movie started. "Then yeah, he's okay."
Yamapi grins back. "Then whatever he's got to say, and however long it takes him to say it, is fine by me."
Kame takes it as a positive sign that the radio suddenly starts playing 'Seishun Amigo'.
-----
Yamapi sends him a mail a couple of days later: no words, only a couple of thumbs-up emoji. He gets one from Jin a few minutes afterwards, asking if he's free that evening. He's not, and the appointment's not one he can cancel, but he's got enough time for a quick phone call before he goes out.
"I told you Yamapi would be okay with it," he says by way of a greeting. "He's just sent me a thumbs-up."
"Did you tell him anything after you dropped me at home?" Jin asks.
"I told him to talk to you, that's all. Why?"
"Because he started off by informing me that even if I had a sex change we would still be best friends, and he'd kick Ryo if he tried to look up my skirt."
Kame tries to keep from laughing but the mental image is just too perfect. "I promise, I didn't say a word. What did you tell him?"
"That I wasn't planning on letting surgeons anywhere near me and that if he said one word to Ryo I'd tell everyone about the time he-" Jin cuts himself off. "You don't need to know that."
"But did you tell him everything?"
"I couldn't," Jin whispers, and Kame doesn't need to ask to know which parts he left out. "He thinks I'm a cross-dresser."
"You can build up to the rest," Kame says kindly. "I can be there, if you want."
"Maybe some other time. Are you busy tonight?"
"Sorry, that's what I called to say. I've got a friend's birthday party tonight and if I miss it, he'll never speak to me again."
"Would that be a friend or a friend?" Jin teases.
"Friend, only, and it's none of your business anyway," Kame says. "Come to the party and see for yourself, if you want."
"I think I'll be washing my hair tonight."
"Spoken like a true girl."
-----
It's over a fortnight before they get together again. Kame wants to build on the success at the cinema by taking Jin shopping for accessories in 109, but Jin says he doesn't feel like going out and can they please just stay in and order a pizza or something?
Kame doesn't like his subdued demeanor. Jin's tucked up in the corner of the couch, knees drawn up to his chest and a blanket draped over his legs, with a face like a kicked puppy. He'd better not be infectious; Kame's got a long day ahead of him tomorrow and he really doesn't want to come down with the latest in Jin's long line of colds.
"Stop looking at me like I'm a plague victim," Jin says. "I'm not sick. You don't need to go on one of your obsessive cleaning sprees in my apartment."
"If you're lying to me I'm going to haunt you from beyond the grave." Kame sits down anyway, pushing aside the end of the blanket. Upon closer inspection Jin doesn't appear to be sick; he doesn't have the sniffles, there are no tissues in sight and there's no sign of fever. It's probably safe to stick around. "I take it the thought of shopping didn't appeal?"
Jin shakes his head. "I need to ask your advice on something, and that's impossible in a crowd."
It sounds more serious than a wardrobe disaster, so Kame's content to let it wait until the food arrives and they're both one beer down. They make small talk in the meantime, catching up on each other's lives and those of mutual friends. Jin's been busy lately, enough that Kame sometimes doesn't get a reply to his mails until a couple of days after sending them.
Once Jin starts to explain his problem, Kame understands why.
"I've been seeing this girl for about three weeks," he begins. "She was the photographer on one of the shoots I did a while back, and then we saw each other again at a friend's party and..." He spreads his hands flat on the blanket. "We've been going out a lot lately. Last night she invited me back to her place afterwards."
"Did you go?"
"I wanted to. I knew what would happen if I did. I knew, she knew, we were both cool with it - and I couldn't."
"They sell stuff to help with that now, you know."
Jin gives him a dirty look. "That wasn't what I meant. I didn't even get to that stage because I didn't go with her. It felt like...like I would've been lying to her, if I did."
Kame chews a mouthful of pizza while he considers this. By nature Jin is a very blunt, forthright person. Deception doesn't come easy to him. "You've been with girls since you started feeling like this, haven't you? It's been years."
"Yeah, but before...it didn't matter because I was the only one who knew, and I couldn't figure out any way to live with it so I just suppressed everything. And the kind of girls I like are usually pretty happy to take the lead in bed. I've never been good with that."
"And do you think this one would've been different?"
"Maybe, maybe not, but I sort of feel like I should tell her. What if things get serious? If not with her, what about with someone else? There isn't really a good point in a relationship to say to your girlfriend, 'Oh, by the way, not only do I like to wear girls' clothing sometimes and enjoy having pretty hair, but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't expect too much in the way of manly behaviour from me'."
"Your hair isn't that pretty right now," Kame says. "You should grow it again.
"And no, there isn't a good point. You can either tell people from the start and let them make up their own minds about whether or not you're too much work, or you can wait till you're both invested in the relationship and could potentially get hurt. There's no easy solution, Jin."
Jin's blue-striped socks twitch where they're sticking out from the blanket. "I don't want to get hurt."
"Then if you feel you need to tell this girl you should do it while you don't have much to lose." Kame feels almost cruel saying it so bluntly, but this is a decision only Jin can make.
"But telling people is..." Jin takes a sip of beer and fixes his gaze steadily on Kame. "Have you told your family?"
"About you?"
"No, about you. That you like guys."
They haven't spoken about it directly before and Kame feels his face grow warm. "There hasn't been much point yet," he says as lightly as he can. "It's not like I've had much chance to date - I spend ninety per cent of my time at work and the rest trying to sort out your life. I always thought if I met someone I liked enough to want to take them home to my family, that I'd tell them then.
"Why, thinking about telling your family?"
"Maybe. I think my mum would be okay with it - though she'd probably try to dress me up - but my dad and Reio...I don't know. What does your dad say when he sees you in all your girly high fashion stuff?"
"My dad borrows my clothes," Kame says. "So I don't think he's much good for a comparison."
Jin almost chokes on his pizza, laughing at that one. "But do you think your family would be okay with it?"
"They're my family and they love me - I have to trust that they love me enough to overcome any prejudices they may have. And given how I turned out, I don't think they're likely to disown me if I suddenly bring a boyfriend home. Your family aren't exactly sticklers for regulation either; I know they'll always love you and feel proud of you no matter what."
"Probably." Jin gives him a weak smile. "I just don't want to screw things up. I only get one shot at this."
"As long as you're willing to talk, you can take as many shots as you want." Kame thinks of Jin's 'INP' and grins. "Though if you take too many shots you won't be capable of speech after a while..."
They finish the pizza without ever reaching a conclusion, and Kame receives a mail from Jin the following week to say the girlfriend is now the ex-girlfriend. Since the mail doesn't sound either miserable or panicked he assumes this means Jin never told her anything.
All goes quiet for a while as KAT-TUN occupy themselves preparing for their tour and Jin spends half his time in the studio. He's in more news shows now, though, either talking about his album plans or his upcoming single collaboration, and Kame can't help but notice some subtle changes in his appearance. One day he's wearing a pale pink T-shirt that slides off one shoulder; another day he's painted every other nail fire engine red. His hair's regained some length and it curls down towards his shoulders, framing his face with gentle curves.
Kame's pleased that Jin's taking steps to help himself. If he keeps making gradual changes, he can mold his image into anything he wants.
He thinks Jin may have gone one step too far, however, when he shows up at the NHK Studio with his hair pinned up in a messy bun and wearing more make-up than anyone else in the dressing room.
"We've already finished filming Shounen Club," Nakamaru says, completely ignoring the fact that Jin's standing in the doorway with his mouth wide open, wearing a long-sleeved white tunic over his jeans. "Were you supposed to be on it too?"
"I...I thought it was just supposed to be Kame on the show today," Jin stammers.
"That was Shounen Club Premium," Kame says. "Try to keep up."
"And while you're at it, close the door," Koki adds. "Some of us are still trying to change."
Jin manages to prise himself away from the doorframe and takes a seat next to Kame, who finds it hilarious that he's receiving no reaction whatsoever. But all of KAT-TUN are dressed up for the show, and Jin doesn't look too different from his former bandmates. They probably assume he's working too.
"What are you doing here?" Kame mutters. "Especially dressed like that."
"I panicked and you were the first person I thought of."
"Were they trying to make you talk in front of cameras again?" Junno asks, giving Jin a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. He blinks when he encounters the tunic.
"I'm not working today," Jin says.
Ueda comes over to inspect him. "Then why are you dressed like that?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," Kame says impatiently. "Jin, how did you get here?"
"I walked."
"Wearing women's clothing?" Koki says. "Because I know that top's not for men. My neighbour's got a teenage daughter and she wears hers all the time."
"Yes, wearing women's clothing. I was shopping in Shibuya Mark City, all right?"
Jin's shaking, and Kame's not sure if it's because he's frustrated by the questions, overwhelmed by the realisation that he's effectively outing himself to the rest of KAT-TUN, or a leftover of whatever had him abandoning his shopping trip to find Kame. He scoots closer to Jin, bumping their hips together, and that seems to help a little.
"Shopping," Jin repeats. "That's when I bought the tunic. I already had my hair up. And then there was a booth doing make-up demos and when I stopped to look, I sort of got roped into it."
"It happens to all of us," Ueda says, with a face that says don't ask for details if you value your life.
"It doesn't happen to me," Nakamaru says. "I get handwash demonstrations."
Koki brightens with sudden understanding. "That explains a lot, actually..."
"So you were all dressed up," Kame says, trying to keep them on track. "What then?"
"Have you ever run into two of your ex-girlfriends at the same time, while looking much girlier than either of them?"
Uncomfortable silence falls over the room as everyone stops to contemplate the horror of Jin's situation.
"And that's when I freaked out and left," he finishes.
"Great story," Koki says. "I have to tell it next time I'm on Music Station. It's too good not to share."
Jin smiles sweetly at him. "Try it and I'll rip out your tongue piercing. You won't be telling any stories then."
Nakamaru makes calming hand gestures. "There's no need to go that far. Jin, I know it's embarrassing but it's not the end of the world."
"It is if they start talking about it," Jin says, voice soft. "Guys, this is a really big deal for me."
"Just imagine you're a Junior," Ueda says. "Or Kame. He gets caught looking like a total girl all the time and it doesn't seem to do his reputation any harm. You can laugh it off."
"Take it like a man," Junno advises. Jin aims a kick at his ankle.
"Jin's right about it being a big deal for him," Kame says.
Koki starts snickering. "In case they think he likes it or something?" When Jin and Kame both stare at him in silence, he stops laughing. "He does like it?"
The two-person seat Kame and Jin are sharing seems to shrink as their world reduces in size under the collective stares of Junno, Koki, Ueda and Nakamaru. Kame hasn't even done anything and he's feeling hot and bothered by the attention; he can only imagine how it must feel to Jin.
"Can we talk about this later?" Jin's bun is starting to come undone; stray wisps of dark, wavy hair stick out at all angles. "It's a little stuffy in here."
It's nothing of the sort, but Kame knows what he means. "Let me finish changing and we can go," he says. "I drove today."
"Can I have your car keys?" Jin gasps. "I'll see you there."
Kame hands them to him, gives him directions to the car, and he all but runs out of the room, shopping bags in hand.
"I pretended to go down on him on-stage, wearing high heels and a skirt," Koki says. "Does he honestly think I'm going to give him grief if he does the same thing for fun?"
"I don't know." Kame shrugs, secretly wishing Jin hadn't left him to carry the can. "I think he gives himself more grief over it."
"How long have you known about this?" Nakamaru says.
"Too long."
Kame finishes changing and arranges for the other four to come to his place later. He'll have to get Jin over there first, but that shouldn't be a problem if he's not working. Like it or not, Jin's going to have to tell them - or at least as much as he told Yamapi.
He finds Jin sitting quietly in the car, arms wrapped around himself and head bowed. Not crying, but not happy by any means. His mouth is moving and it's not until Kame slides into the driver's seat that he realises Jin's berating himself under his breath for being so stupid.
"I don't think you're being stupid at all."
Jin doesn't even lift his head to answer. "Do you have any idea how ashamed I feel right now? There's a voice in my head screaming at me for being weak, for being pathetic, for not being a proper man. And I keep telling it to shut up, over and over again, but it only works for so long."
His voice catches and that's when Kame forgets they're in a public car park and leans across to hold him. Who's going to be snapping pictures of them in the car, anyway? Jin's hair has mostly fallen down; Kame removes the last couple of slides and brushes it out with his fingers, stroking gently as Jin sags against him, gratefully accepting all the comfort he's got to give.
"First of all," Kame murmurs, "with a mother like yours you know perfectly well that being female and being weak have nothing to do with each other. As for the rest, bravery is a typical masculine trait and I think you were very brave today. How many times do I have to tell you that there's nothing wrong with being who you are? All of who you are?"
"Tell me until I believe it." Jin sighs against Kame's shoulder. "That might take a while. I shouldn't have gone out like that. I thought...I thought it would be okay. That it was getting easier. And now I'm right back where I started."
"You're a long way from where you started," Kame says fiercely. "And I'm not letting you go backwards. I don't care if I have to hold your hand every step of the way but you are going to learn to live with this."
"If you hold my hand all the time I'm going to get even weirder looks," Jin cracks.
"We're idols - we're used to weird looks. Right?"
"Right."
"So next time you decide to do something like that, remember you're not doing anything wrong. You bought a nice top, you got a free make-over, and you ran into a couple of your exes. Chalk it up to experience."
"A really bad experience."
Kame slides his hand from Jin's hair down his back so he can tighten his arms around him. If words don't work, maybe he can transmit his feelings to Jin through touch. Feelings of pride, of friendship and compassion. The support that Jin needs right now.
"Then we'll just have to make sure the next time is a good experience. I'll go with you. We can treat ourselves to a pampering day - massage, facial, manicure, all that good stuff."
Jin pulls back enough to ensure his words don't get lost in Kame's shirt. "You'd really do it, wouldn't you?"
"It's not out of the ordinary for me. Anyway, you like massages as much as the next guy, so don't say you wouldn't enjoy yourself."
"But you're even more hung up on having people think you're cool than I am."
"Yeah, but my definition of 'cool' includes having confidence in yourself. You can make anything look cool if you do it confidently, whether that's hitting a home run or wearing women's sandals. If you're comfortable, you'll have that confidence and the rest follows on from there."
"I thought I was feeling comfortable," Jin says, sounding uncertain. "For a little while there, while I was sitting in the chair and the girl was working on my eyes, telling me how pretty my hair looked. And then..."
Kame smiles and pats him on the back. "It's a good start. And your hair looks lovely when it's up like that - or it did until the slides fell out. Come stay at my place tonight and I'll do it up for you again."
Jin's eyes narrow with suspicion. "If you say we're going to have a 'girls' night in' I will hit you."
"Nah, I thought we could spend all night playing video games and killing undead stuff with big guns."
"I'm in."
They swing by Jin's apartment to pick up overnight gear; Kame stays in the car and wonders, idly, if Jin wears a nightie these days. Next stop is Family Mart for snacks, though Kame receives strange looks when he buys enough for four additional people.
But it's not until the door goes that Jin realises he's been set up. They've had a pleasant evening so far, messing around with Kame's vast array of hairstyling equipment in between slaying vampires and generally pretending that the world outside doesn't exist. Then Koki shows up at the front door with a bottle of pink Dom Perignon (he says he'd been checking out fan recordings of Jin's new songs on the Internet and thought the drink would be appropriate) and the others close on his heels.
Kame plays host, gets everyone settled somewhere comfortable with something to drink and snacks close at hand, and waits for one of them to break the ice. Damned if it's going to be him this time.
It ends up being Koki. "It's cool if I get you a little black dress for your birthday, yeah?" he says to Jin.
"Only if you get me shoes to match."
Koki flashes him a grin. "You're still a spoilt brat."
"Do you really wear dresses?" Nakamaru says. "I thought you hated dressing up like that. What happened to the 'cool man' image you wanted?"
Jin shoots Kame a conspiratorial smile. "I expanded my definition of 'cool'. And no, I don't wear dresses. I don't know if that's something I'm going to get to or not, but right now I'm not interested."
"You're a lot calmer talking about this than I thought you'd be, given the way you ran out of the dressing room," Ueda says.
"We started drinking once we put the curling tongs away." Kame points to their collection of empties and Ueda nods in understanding.
"Then what are you interested in?" Junno says. "Do we have to start calling you 'Jinnifer'?"
They have a confusing five minutes where Jin attempts to explain that no, he doesn't have any intention of undergoing surgery, he's not taking hormones, and that this isn't all part of an agency scheme to reach a wider audience by appealing to the transgender market. Kame lets him do all the talking on the grounds that he doesn't know how far Jin's going to take his explanation, and only steps in to assure Koki that this is not a delayed reaction to his admitting on Shounen Club that Jin in a nurse's uniform makes his heart pound.
"This business can mess you up pretty bad," Koki says. "It can do a lot worse to you than make you want to look cute."
"I don't even know if it's that," Jin says. "In another life I could be a salaryman with a wife and two young kids, who dresses up like Madonna on weekends."
Nakamaru looks disgusted. "Please tell me you don't dress up like Madonna because I will lose all the respect I ever had for you."
Kame bursts out laughing. "He doesn't dress like Madonna. He's kind of conservative, actually. More of a tomboy than a starlet."
"Way to be classy like none of these hoes, Akanishi." Koki grabs a handful of herby crackers from the bowl. "So do you want to pass as a girl, or what?"
He's taking this rather well, Kame thinks, and then remembers that to the best of his knowledge, Koki's the only one of them who's ever dated a transgender person. It didn't work out, but that's still more experience than the others probably have.
"I don't want to pass," Jin says with slow, careful enunciation so there's no chance he'll be misunderstood. "I might be able to, if I worked on it, but it's not like I want to live full-time as a girl or anything. I like being a guy, I just..."
"You just like being a guy with benefits," Koki says. "Girly ones."
Jin stares at him blankly. "How do you know?"
"If you add up all the performances you and I have had more fake sex together than some couples have had real sex. I know you, Jin. We all do."
It's got to be nerve-wracking, being in Jin's position right now. Kame watches him closely for any sign that he's about to repeat the episode from the car and feels relieved when he gives Koki an embarrassed smile, more shy than spooked.
"So it's not just the clothes?" Ueda says. "What about girls? Or do you prefer guys now?"
"I still like girls," Jin says, and Kame's amused to see every other guy in the room relax their shoulders. "But it's not a good idea for me to date anyone at the moment. It's too complicated. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with it myself."
"What do you..." Junno hesitates, then rephrases. He's said the least, sitting quietly in his corner, and Kame hopes this isn't going to be a problem. "How do you want us to treat you?"
"The same way you've always done," Jin says frankly. "I'm not asking any of you to change."
"But you are." Nakamaru's quick to contradict him. "You're asking us to look at you as someone else."
"Not as someone else," Kame says. "Jin's still the same person he's always been - only now he's working on being more of himself than he was before. Can you understand that?"
"I'm not sure I can understand it," Junno says. "But he's my friend, so I'm trying." He beams at Jin. "You're still working on understanding it too, right? So let's figure it out together."
Nakamaru sighs. "It doesn't make much sense to me, but nothing Jin's done has ever made sense to me. I'm still trying to get over his naked AnAn shoot."
"I knew I was on to something when I said it looked like two girls," Koki crows.
"And what about you?" Jin says to Ueda.
"Just promise me you won't wear leggings."
Jin spends the rest of the evening trying to answer questions that Kame's fairly sure he has no definite answer to, but the important thing is that he's speaking freely on the subject. He's with friends, with people who've known him for years and have seen him in leopard-print swimsuits, and freaking out over insects, and being made to blush by Haruna Ai. They've all had experiences out of the realms of possibility for anyone living a "normal" life, and that helps them see things from a slightly different viewpoint. Maybe they'll never be comfortable enough with it to want to involve themselves to the extent that Kame does, but for now it's enough that Jin knows they don't think badly of him for it.
Koki's the last to leave, and as he does so he offers to play escort from time to time if Jin wants someone to go with him when he's dressed up in public.
"But only if you look respectable," he adds. "I've got a reputation to protect."
Jin smirks. "Not like you'd do my reputation any favours either. Do I look like the kind of girl who hangs out with bikers?"
"You've got a motorbike yourself," Kame points out. "Stop being such a hypocrite."
Koki bumps fists with them both on the way out. Since the Shounen Club filming that afternoon, every other fingernail has been painted red.
-----
Kame wakes up the next morning on his own couch, having relinquished the bed to Jin, and discovers he's already left. There's a note on the table saying he's gone to see Yamapi and he'll call later.
It had better go well. Kame thinks it will, but if it doesn't, it'll set Jin back again and undo all the progress of last night. He checks his phone periodically throughout the day, in case he's missed a call or email, but it's almost ten at night before Jin phones.
"Did you tell him this time?" Kame asks. "How did he take it?"
"Um...not as well as Koki. I think he's a little weirded out because we used to live together, so now he's wondering...well..."
"Should I mail him and say it's not contagious?"
Jin's high-pitched giggle has Kame putting the phone on speaker and setting it down on the dresser so his eardrums don't burst. "I think he got that, eventually. And the clothing, he can understand. But he's having some trouble wrapping his head around the idea that his male best friend feels not-very-manly sometimes."
"Give him time," Kame says. "It's a lot to get used to."
"You managed well enough."
"My view of gender is more fluid than his, I think. You don't have to pick a point on the scale and stick to it. Everyone changes. Why you change, how you change and how you deal with it - that's your business, and sometimes you don't have much choice. You take whatever hand life deals you and do what you can with it."
"What happens if you discard a card, pick up another one and find you've completely ruined your hand?"
Kame smiles down at his new phone wallpaper, a close-up of the two of them from last night. He'd had to take it himself, so the angle's unflattering and Jin's not even looking at the camera because he's laughing so hard, but it's a nice picture, Jin with his hair up and Kame with a lipstick smear on his chin, both of them happy and having fun. It might be the best shot taken of them together in years, and it gives Kame hope.
"Then you throw the entire deck out the window," he says, "and start a new game."
On to transJinder #2 - Even Butterflies Dress For Dinner
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: There isn't one, really, but Kame and Jin are the main characters in this.
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst, kind of AU
Word count: 13,250
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: There's nowt so queer as folk, especially when those folk happen to be in the entertainment industry.
Be Your Own Secret Girlfriend (2/2)
Kame's used to doing things by himself. When he has a problem he deals with it alone, not wanting to bother anyone unless he absolutely has to. He's grateful for everything he receives yet prides himself on being self-sufficient. But sometimes he encounters insurmountable walls, and that's when he has to look outside himself for answers.
The problem is, he's not sure what the questions are.
The Internet isn't much help. Kame can't find anything that fits Jin's particular situation, which he's not sure how to classify in the first place, and while he has a number of friends who might be able to advise he's not sure it's a good idea to broach the subject with anyone else. They'll just have to deal with it themselves.
So he thinks about it for a while, considers the best way to make Jin feel comfortable dressing in something a little less masculine in public. In a country where some of the best-known musicians have taken to the stage in a dress and enough make-up to sink a battleship, surely Jin won't have any problems if he decides to experiment a bit?
"You already wore a shiny jacket in your shows," Kame says when they're over at his place, raiding his wardrobe for things Jin might want to borrow. "All you need to do is introduce things a little bit at a time, and everyone will get used to it."
"Fangirls, yes. My friends...not so much."
"Tell them you're trying to emulate the Rolling Stones. I bet no one ever made fun of Keith Richards for wearing make-up.""
"I doubt they ever told him he looked cute, either," Jin says, setting aside a black T-shirt with a winged skull on the front. "And I get that all the time."
"You can't borrow that T-shirt; you'll never manage to get it on over your ego."
Jin smirks and adds another shirt to the pile. He's not even picking out particularly girly ones, just ones he likes. Kame thinks he's like a magpie sometimes, swooping down on whatever catches his eye, whether it's a shiny silver necklace or the latest Apple gadget.
But he's relaxed, and that's the important thing, because Kame's about to suggest something he's not going to like.
"Have you thought at all about what you want to do next?"
"Maybe grab some coffee on my way home? I'm running low-"
"Not like that," Kame says. Jin can be exasperating sometimes. "I think it's time you went out on the town. It's been a week since we went for dinner - now you have to be more ambitious."
"Ambitious?" Jin sits down on the bed, visibly ill-at-ease. "Do I even want to know what you're planning?"
"I doubt it," Kame says cheerfully. "You're free Tuesday afternoon, right?"
"I don't have work, but-"
"Then you're free." Kame doesn't mention that he's had to rearrange his own Tuesday schedule to match. "We're going to the movies. Do you want me to do your nails?"
"No, I do not want you to do my nails!" Jin splutters. "And you'd better be talking about some one-screen, nearly derelict old cinema in the middle of nowhere."
"Nope. Roppongi Hills."
"Couldn't you have picked somewhere a little further out of my neighbourhood? Like in Mexico?"
"I've got it all figured out." Kame's feeling rather proud of himself. "We can still drive, don't worry. Middle of the afternoon, not such a crowd, and you'll be sitting in the dark for most of the time anyway. The important thing isn't that people see you, but that you're there with them. We can even go see Ashita no Joe if you like."
"I'm not going to watch my best friend half-naked while I'm wearing make-up, Kame!"
Kame admits that might not be such a hot idea. "I'm sure we can find something to watch. The movie's not important, anyway."
Jin's competitive nature won't let him back down from a challenge so Kame taunts him into agreeing to go, promising to take the same supplies with just in case. This time Jin insists on adding giant sunglasses and a baseball cap to the "anti-fabulous" kit. Kame thinks he's going to need a bigger manbag.
Tuesday afternoon rolls around and once again, Kame arrives early. Jin answers the door shirtless, having been interrupted in the middle of changing; Kame's amused to see what he's wearing on his lower half.
"Leggings?"
"Don't tell Ueda," Jin says. "I don't even know why I own these."
"At least you have nice legs," Kame says. "It must be all that soccer."
Jin ends up in black leggings, knee-high black boots, a long-sleeved white shirt and purple vest; the combination makes him look like he's auditioning for Pirates of the Caribbean.
"You're no Johnny Depp," Kame says, "but you'll do."
In keeping with the pirate spirit Jin wears his kneeling naked lady in his ear and lets Kame overdo his make-up, on the grounds that if he's going to look like a drama student he might as well go all out. Kame debates going home to get his Queen of Pirates tour T-shirt, just for the occasion, but figures that's hardly going to be inconspicuous.
"I'm going to stand out a mile, aren't I?" Jin says miserably after staring at himself in the mirror for five minutes.
"You did kind of overshoot 'hippie chick' and go straight into 'militant Shakespeare enthusiast'," Kame admits. "Got any love beads?"
Jin doesn't, but they decide the outfit is fine as it is - looks fairly striking, in fact, especially with a long dark coat. Kame wonders at how Jin suddenly does a complete one-eighty about it, until he realises that it looks like cosplay. There's something to be said for plausible deniability.
Fortunately for Jin it's raining heavily when they step outside, so he hides himself under an umbrella from the car park to the cinema. Kame would hold the umbrella, in keeping with his part, but he's shorter by a few inches so it makes sense for Jin to hold it instead.
When they reach the foyer Jin slips the sodden umbrella into a clear plastic sleeve and looks nervously around the room. People stand in small clusters, talking amongst themselves or queuing for tickets and concessions. No one's looking at the two young men dripping by the doors.
"It helps if you breathe occasionally," Kame says, nudging Jin with his elbow to remind him to stop holding his breath. "Keeps your body functioning, and all that."
"Let's just get tickets so we can go hide ourselves away before I see someone I know."
"We're not going to- hey!"
Kame suddenly finds himself being pushed through the door of the men's room by an extremely shaken Jin. Fortunately there are no other occupants.
"Give me the bag," Jin demands. "I'm calling this one off."
"What happened?" Kame says, confused by the way he's been bundled out of sight without so much as a word of warning.
"Yamapi's out there."
"His movie posters are everywhere right now-"
"No, I mean he's out there in the flesh. I know my best friend, Kame. And...I think he saw me too. I'm not walking out of here looking like a pirate queen."
"This might be a good opportunity to tackle the subject with him," Kame says gently. "You'll have to say something eventually."
"I can't. I could maybe explain the outfit - the make-up, even. But not the other stuff." Jin groans, sounding utterly wretched. "I don't know how."
"You managed to tell me."
"But you see things differently! Pi's got all these ideas about how a man should be."
"So do you, and look how that turned out," Kame says with a wry smile. "He's your best friend, Jin. He loves you. He's not going to throw away all those years of friendship because you've got a little more going on than he realised."
But Jin remains adamant and disappears into a cubicle with Kame's bag. Kame sighs and leans against the wall to wait for him. Maybe he should've found a cinema in the middle of nowhere after all.
The door swings open. Yamapi enters, dripping water from his jacket all over the floor. He seems surprised to see Kame but greets him politely, because he's always polite, and professional, and hardworking, and all the things the press don't generally tend to assume about Jin's circle of friends. Kame knows different.
"Is Jin here with you?" Yamapi asks when they're done with the obligatory chit-chat. "I thought I saw him in the foyer a minute ago."
Kame waves his hand towards the occupied cubicle. "Yeah, but he's not feeling so good; I think we're going to head home. How about you? Taking yourself out for a movie?"
"Not exactly. Ryo just mailed me to say he can't make it this afternoon after all, so I guess Gantz will have to wait for another day."
"That's what we were going to see," Jin says as he emerges from the cubicle. "Might as well go together."
They hadn't actually decided what they were going to see, so this comes as a surprise to Kame, but what's even more surprising is that Jin hasn't changed at all. Kame can see a minute smudge by his lips, where he's obviously rubbed off and then reapplied his lipstick, but that's it.
Yamapi doesn't so much as blink. "Did you come straight from work?"
For an idol, that's the ultimate excuse for any amount of outlandish garb. Kame expects Jin to take the easy way out and say 'yes' but he doesn't, though he doesn't explain either and Yamapi doesn't ask, merely enquires if Jin's feeling better now.
"Better than I was." Jin returns Kame's bag. "I don't think I'll be needing this today."
If not for the fact that they're in the men's room and such a gesture could easily be misinterpreted, Kame would hug him out of sheer pride.
They haven't been out together, the three of them, for quite some time. It's not as awkward as it could be, under the circumstances, but even when Kame and Yamapi go out alone Jin's still with them in spirit, colouring their interactions with each other whether they like it or not. It's fitting, then, that he sits in the middle, a tub of popcorn perched on his knee and the umbrella tucked away under his seat. They're in the back row, at the end nearest the door in case anything crops up - namely, random photographers. Even without taking Jin's situation into account the sight of the three of them together is still fodder for gossip magazines.
Jin's face is shuttered tight until he realises that no one is paying any attention to them; everyone is too busy trying to find their own seats before the lights go out, which is due to happen any minute now.
"I'll have to mention the movie in my j-web," Yamapi says. "I hope it's good."
"I'll mention it in my next manual and the fangirls can have a field day trying to work out if we saw it together," Kame says.
"I can't mention it at all." Jin heaves an exaggerated sigh, lamenting his inability to communicate with his fans. "I'll just have to write a song about the film and let that express my feelings to the world."
They kill time until the trailers start by singing movie reviews to the tune of senpai songs; Kame is in the middle of an elaborate critique of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (to the tune of SMAP's 'Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana') when the lights switch off and much to his regret, it's time to stop playing around.
He spends most of the movie wondering if Nino had to have his costume painted on. It's not really his kind of thing but it's not Jin's either - it's neither foreign nor by one of his indie film-making friends - and it doesn't surprise him too much when he notices Jin's painted eyelids fluttering closed. Yamapi has already stolen the popcorn tub so there's no danger in Jin catching a nap.
At least, not until he slumps down in his seat and leans far enough to the side to rest his head against Kame's shoulder. Kame's not sure if the movement's unconscious or not but they've always had each other to lean on, one way or another, and it's the most natural thing in the world to slip an arm around his shoulders to keep him in place.
After the movie Jin's still half-asleep, not quite with it, which is something of a blessing because it stops him fretting about being seen. Kame offers Yamapi a lift home, which he accepts, and they drop Jin off first.
The rain wakes him up and they watch him rush to the front door of his building from the shelter of the car.
"Why did you even bother to drive?" Yamapi asks. "You could just've walked from here."
"Because I still need to get home," Kame says. "Besides, the car's...necessary." He's not sure how to explain that the car is a safety net, a getaway vehicle for their less-than-glamorous escapades. It's not his place to tell.
"Ah." Yamapi nods.
Kame searches for clues in his face and finds nothing. He and Jin can do matching blank faces together. It must be a best friends thing.
Then the question materialises. "Is there something going on with you and Jin that I'm not supposed to know about but you're doing a really bad job of keeping a secret?"
"How do you mean?" Kame squeaks.
"I know why people cuddle in the back row at the movies, Kame."
"That wasn't...uh..."
Kame can't decide. Is it better to let Yamapi assume he and Jin are a couple - which isn't true but Jin might find less awkward to deal with - or tell him the truth?
"We're not together," he hedges, "but I can see why you'd think that."
"Then why..." Yamapi brushes a finger round his eyes and mouth, mimicking a make-up brush, and Kame's stomach begins to twist itself into knots.
"You'll have to talk to Jin about it. It's not my place to tell; I'm sorry. It just might take him a while to work up the nerve, so please be patient."
"He's okay, right?"
"Okay?"
"As in, he's not about to die from some horrible fatal disease and has decided to hide how he's wasting away by dressing up like a girl?"
Kame cracks a grin for the first time since the movie started. "Then yeah, he's okay."
Yamapi grins back. "Then whatever he's got to say, and however long it takes him to say it, is fine by me."
Kame takes it as a positive sign that the radio suddenly starts playing 'Seishun Amigo'.
-----
Yamapi sends him a mail a couple of days later: no words, only a couple of thumbs-up emoji. He gets one from Jin a few minutes afterwards, asking if he's free that evening. He's not, and the appointment's not one he can cancel, but he's got enough time for a quick phone call before he goes out.
"I told you Yamapi would be okay with it," he says by way of a greeting. "He's just sent me a thumbs-up."
"Did you tell him anything after you dropped me at home?" Jin asks.
"I told him to talk to you, that's all. Why?"
"Because he started off by informing me that even if I had a sex change we would still be best friends, and he'd kick Ryo if he tried to look up my skirt."
Kame tries to keep from laughing but the mental image is just too perfect. "I promise, I didn't say a word. What did you tell him?"
"That I wasn't planning on letting surgeons anywhere near me and that if he said one word to Ryo I'd tell everyone about the time he-" Jin cuts himself off. "You don't need to know that."
"But did you tell him everything?"
"I couldn't," Jin whispers, and Kame doesn't need to ask to know which parts he left out. "He thinks I'm a cross-dresser."
"You can build up to the rest," Kame says kindly. "I can be there, if you want."
"Maybe some other time. Are you busy tonight?"
"Sorry, that's what I called to say. I've got a friend's birthday party tonight and if I miss it, he'll never speak to me again."
"Would that be a friend or a friend?" Jin teases.
"Friend, only, and it's none of your business anyway," Kame says. "Come to the party and see for yourself, if you want."
"I think I'll be washing my hair tonight."
"Spoken like a true girl."
-----
It's over a fortnight before they get together again. Kame wants to build on the success at the cinema by taking Jin shopping for accessories in 109, but Jin says he doesn't feel like going out and can they please just stay in and order a pizza or something?
Kame doesn't like his subdued demeanor. Jin's tucked up in the corner of the couch, knees drawn up to his chest and a blanket draped over his legs, with a face like a kicked puppy. He'd better not be infectious; Kame's got a long day ahead of him tomorrow and he really doesn't want to come down with the latest in Jin's long line of colds.
"Stop looking at me like I'm a plague victim," Jin says. "I'm not sick. You don't need to go on one of your obsessive cleaning sprees in my apartment."
"If you're lying to me I'm going to haunt you from beyond the grave." Kame sits down anyway, pushing aside the end of the blanket. Upon closer inspection Jin doesn't appear to be sick; he doesn't have the sniffles, there are no tissues in sight and there's no sign of fever. It's probably safe to stick around. "I take it the thought of shopping didn't appeal?"
Jin shakes his head. "I need to ask your advice on something, and that's impossible in a crowd."
It sounds more serious than a wardrobe disaster, so Kame's content to let it wait until the food arrives and they're both one beer down. They make small talk in the meantime, catching up on each other's lives and those of mutual friends. Jin's been busy lately, enough that Kame sometimes doesn't get a reply to his mails until a couple of days after sending them.
Once Jin starts to explain his problem, Kame understands why.
"I've been seeing this girl for about three weeks," he begins. "She was the photographer on one of the shoots I did a while back, and then we saw each other again at a friend's party and..." He spreads his hands flat on the blanket. "We've been going out a lot lately. Last night she invited me back to her place afterwards."
"Did you go?"
"I wanted to. I knew what would happen if I did. I knew, she knew, we were both cool with it - and I couldn't."
"They sell stuff to help with that now, you know."
Jin gives him a dirty look. "That wasn't what I meant. I didn't even get to that stage because I didn't go with her. It felt like...like I would've been lying to her, if I did."
Kame chews a mouthful of pizza while he considers this. By nature Jin is a very blunt, forthright person. Deception doesn't come easy to him. "You've been with girls since you started feeling like this, haven't you? It's been years."
"Yeah, but before...it didn't matter because I was the only one who knew, and I couldn't figure out any way to live with it so I just suppressed everything. And the kind of girls I like are usually pretty happy to take the lead in bed. I've never been good with that."
"And do you think this one would've been different?"
"Maybe, maybe not, but I sort of feel like I should tell her. What if things get serious? If not with her, what about with someone else? There isn't really a good point in a relationship to say to your girlfriend, 'Oh, by the way, not only do I like to wear girls' clothing sometimes and enjoy having pretty hair, but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't expect too much in the way of manly behaviour from me'."
"Your hair isn't that pretty right now," Kame says. "You should grow it again.
"And no, there isn't a good point. You can either tell people from the start and let them make up their own minds about whether or not you're too much work, or you can wait till you're both invested in the relationship and could potentially get hurt. There's no easy solution, Jin."
Jin's blue-striped socks twitch where they're sticking out from the blanket. "I don't want to get hurt."
"Then if you feel you need to tell this girl you should do it while you don't have much to lose." Kame feels almost cruel saying it so bluntly, but this is a decision only Jin can make.
"But telling people is..." Jin takes a sip of beer and fixes his gaze steadily on Kame. "Have you told your family?"
"About you?"
"No, about you. That you like guys."
They haven't spoken about it directly before and Kame feels his face grow warm. "There hasn't been much point yet," he says as lightly as he can. "It's not like I've had much chance to date - I spend ninety per cent of my time at work and the rest trying to sort out your life. I always thought if I met someone I liked enough to want to take them home to my family, that I'd tell them then.
"Why, thinking about telling your family?"
"Maybe. I think my mum would be okay with it - though she'd probably try to dress me up - but my dad and Reio...I don't know. What does your dad say when he sees you in all your girly high fashion stuff?"
"My dad borrows my clothes," Kame says. "So I don't think he's much good for a comparison."
Jin almost chokes on his pizza, laughing at that one. "But do you think your family would be okay with it?"
"They're my family and they love me - I have to trust that they love me enough to overcome any prejudices they may have. And given how I turned out, I don't think they're likely to disown me if I suddenly bring a boyfriend home. Your family aren't exactly sticklers for regulation either; I know they'll always love you and feel proud of you no matter what."
"Probably." Jin gives him a weak smile. "I just don't want to screw things up. I only get one shot at this."
"As long as you're willing to talk, you can take as many shots as you want." Kame thinks of Jin's 'INP' and grins. "Though if you take too many shots you won't be capable of speech after a while..."
They finish the pizza without ever reaching a conclusion, and Kame receives a mail from Jin the following week to say the girlfriend is now the ex-girlfriend. Since the mail doesn't sound either miserable or panicked he assumes this means Jin never told her anything.
All goes quiet for a while as KAT-TUN occupy themselves preparing for their tour and Jin spends half his time in the studio. He's in more news shows now, though, either talking about his album plans or his upcoming single collaboration, and Kame can't help but notice some subtle changes in his appearance. One day he's wearing a pale pink T-shirt that slides off one shoulder; another day he's painted every other nail fire engine red. His hair's regained some length and it curls down towards his shoulders, framing his face with gentle curves.
Kame's pleased that Jin's taking steps to help himself. If he keeps making gradual changes, he can mold his image into anything he wants.
He thinks Jin may have gone one step too far, however, when he shows up at the NHK Studio with his hair pinned up in a messy bun and wearing more make-up than anyone else in the dressing room.
"We've already finished filming Shounen Club," Nakamaru says, completely ignoring the fact that Jin's standing in the doorway with his mouth wide open, wearing a long-sleeved white tunic over his jeans. "Were you supposed to be on it too?"
"I...I thought it was just supposed to be Kame on the show today," Jin stammers.
"That was Shounen Club Premium," Kame says. "Try to keep up."
"And while you're at it, close the door," Koki adds. "Some of us are still trying to change."
Jin manages to prise himself away from the doorframe and takes a seat next to Kame, who finds it hilarious that he's receiving no reaction whatsoever. But all of KAT-TUN are dressed up for the show, and Jin doesn't look too different from his former bandmates. They probably assume he's working too.
"What are you doing here?" Kame mutters. "Especially dressed like that."
"I panicked and you were the first person I thought of."
"Were they trying to make you talk in front of cameras again?" Junno asks, giving Jin a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. He blinks when he encounters the tunic.
"I'm not working today," Jin says.
Ueda comes over to inspect him. "Then why are you dressed like that?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," Kame says impatiently. "Jin, how did you get here?"
"I walked."
"Wearing women's clothing?" Koki says. "Because I know that top's not for men. My neighbour's got a teenage daughter and she wears hers all the time."
"Yes, wearing women's clothing. I was shopping in Shibuya Mark City, all right?"
Jin's shaking, and Kame's not sure if it's because he's frustrated by the questions, overwhelmed by the realisation that he's effectively outing himself to the rest of KAT-TUN, or a leftover of whatever had him abandoning his shopping trip to find Kame. He scoots closer to Jin, bumping their hips together, and that seems to help a little.
"Shopping," Jin repeats. "That's when I bought the tunic. I already had my hair up. And then there was a booth doing make-up demos and when I stopped to look, I sort of got roped into it."
"It happens to all of us," Ueda says, with a face that says don't ask for details if you value your life.
"It doesn't happen to me," Nakamaru says. "I get handwash demonstrations."
Koki brightens with sudden understanding. "That explains a lot, actually..."
"So you were all dressed up," Kame says, trying to keep them on track. "What then?"
"Have you ever run into two of your ex-girlfriends at the same time, while looking much girlier than either of them?"
Uncomfortable silence falls over the room as everyone stops to contemplate the horror of Jin's situation.
"And that's when I freaked out and left," he finishes.
"Great story," Koki says. "I have to tell it next time I'm on Music Station. It's too good not to share."
Jin smiles sweetly at him. "Try it and I'll rip out your tongue piercing. You won't be telling any stories then."
Nakamaru makes calming hand gestures. "There's no need to go that far. Jin, I know it's embarrassing but it's not the end of the world."
"It is if they start talking about it," Jin says, voice soft. "Guys, this is a really big deal for me."
"Just imagine you're a Junior," Ueda says. "Or Kame. He gets caught looking like a total girl all the time and it doesn't seem to do his reputation any harm. You can laugh it off."
"Take it like a man," Junno advises. Jin aims a kick at his ankle.
"Jin's right about it being a big deal for him," Kame says.
Koki starts snickering. "In case they think he likes it or something?" When Jin and Kame both stare at him in silence, he stops laughing. "He does like it?"
The two-person seat Kame and Jin are sharing seems to shrink as their world reduces in size under the collective stares of Junno, Koki, Ueda and Nakamaru. Kame hasn't even done anything and he's feeling hot and bothered by the attention; he can only imagine how it must feel to Jin.
"Can we talk about this later?" Jin's bun is starting to come undone; stray wisps of dark, wavy hair stick out at all angles. "It's a little stuffy in here."
It's nothing of the sort, but Kame knows what he means. "Let me finish changing and we can go," he says. "I drove today."
"Can I have your car keys?" Jin gasps. "I'll see you there."
Kame hands them to him, gives him directions to the car, and he all but runs out of the room, shopping bags in hand.
"I pretended to go down on him on-stage, wearing high heels and a skirt," Koki says. "Does he honestly think I'm going to give him grief if he does the same thing for fun?"
"I don't know." Kame shrugs, secretly wishing Jin hadn't left him to carry the can. "I think he gives himself more grief over it."
"How long have you known about this?" Nakamaru says.
"Too long."
Kame finishes changing and arranges for the other four to come to his place later. He'll have to get Jin over there first, but that shouldn't be a problem if he's not working. Like it or not, Jin's going to have to tell them - or at least as much as he told Yamapi.
He finds Jin sitting quietly in the car, arms wrapped around himself and head bowed. Not crying, but not happy by any means. His mouth is moving and it's not until Kame slides into the driver's seat that he realises Jin's berating himself under his breath for being so stupid.
"I don't think you're being stupid at all."
Jin doesn't even lift his head to answer. "Do you have any idea how ashamed I feel right now? There's a voice in my head screaming at me for being weak, for being pathetic, for not being a proper man. And I keep telling it to shut up, over and over again, but it only works for so long."
His voice catches and that's when Kame forgets they're in a public car park and leans across to hold him. Who's going to be snapping pictures of them in the car, anyway? Jin's hair has mostly fallen down; Kame removes the last couple of slides and brushes it out with his fingers, stroking gently as Jin sags against him, gratefully accepting all the comfort he's got to give.
"First of all," Kame murmurs, "with a mother like yours you know perfectly well that being female and being weak have nothing to do with each other. As for the rest, bravery is a typical masculine trait and I think you were very brave today. How many times do I have to tell you that there's nothing wrong with being who you are? All of who you are?"
"Tell me until I believe it." Jin sighs against Kame's shoulder. "That might take a while. I shouldn't have gone out like that. I thought...I thought it would be okay. That it was getting easier. And now I'm right back where I started."
"You're a long way from where you started," Kame says fiercely. "And I'm not letting you go backwards. I don't care if I have to hold your hand every step of the way but you are going to learn to live with this."
"If you hold my hand all the time I'm going to get even weirder looks," Jin cracks.
"We're idols - we're used to weird looks. Right?"
"Right."
"So next time you decide to do something like that, remember you're not doing anything wrong. You bought a nice top, you got a free make-over, and you ran into a couple of your exes. Chalk it up to experience."
"A really bad experience."
Kame slides his hand from Jin's hair down his back so he can tighten his arms around him. If words don't work, maybe he can transmit his feelings to Jin through touch. Feelings of pride, of friendship and compassion. The support that Jin needs right now.
"Then we'll just have to make sure the next time is a good experience. I'll go with you. We can treat ourselves to a pampering day - massage, facial, manicure, all that good stuff."
Jin pulls back enough to ensure his words don't get lost in Kame's shirt. "You'd really do it, wouldn't you?"
"It's not out of the ordinary for me. Anyway, you like massages as much as the next guy, so don't say you wouldn't enjoy yourself."
"But you're even more hung up on having people think you're cool than I am."
"Yeah, but my definition of 'cool' includes having confidence in yourself. You can make anything look cool if you do it confidently, whether that's hitting a home run or wearing women's sandals. If you're comfortable, you'll have that confidence and the rest follows on from there."
"I thought I was feeling comfortable," Jin says, sounding uncertain. "For a little while there, while I was sitting in the chair and the girl was working on my eyes, telling me how pretty my hair looked. And then..."
Kame smiles and pats him on the back. "It's a good start. And your hair looks lovely when it's up like that - or it did until the slides fell out. Come stay at my place tonight and I'll do it up for you again."
Jin's eyes narrow with suspicion. "If you say we're going to have a 'girls' night in' I will hit you."
"Nah, I thought we could spend all night playing video games and killing undead stuff with big guns."
"I'm in."
They swing by Jin's apartment to pick up overnight gear; Kame stays in the car and wonders, idly, if Jin wears a nightie these days. Next stop is Family Mart for snacks, though Kame receives strange looks when he buys enough for four additional people.
But it's not until the door goes that Jin realises he's been set up. They've had a pleasant evening so far, messing around with Kame's vast array of hairstyling equipment in between slaying vampires and generally pretending that the world outside doesn't exist. Then Koki shows up at the front door with a bottle of pink Dom Perignon (he says he'd been checking out fan recordings of Jin's new songs on the Internet and thought the drink would be appropriate) and the others close on his heels.
Kame plays host, gets everyone settled somewhere comfortable with something to drink and snacks close at hand, and waits for one of them to break the ice. Damned if it's going to be him this time.
It ends up being Koki. "It's cool if I get you a little black dress for your birthday, yeah?" he says to Jin.
"Only if you get me shoes to match."
Koki flashes him a grin. "You're still a spoilt brat."
"Do you really wear dresses?" Nakamaru says. "I thought you hated dressing up like that. What happened to the 'cool man' image you wanted?"
Jin shoots Kame a conspiratorial smile. "I expanded my definition of 'cool'. And no, I don't wear dresses. I don't know if that's something I'm going to get to or not, but right now I'm not interested."
"You're a lot calmer talking about this than I thought you'd be, given the way you ran out of the dressing room," Ueda says.
"We started drinking once we put the curling tongs away." Kame points to their collection of empties and Ueda nods in understanding.
"Then what are you interested in?" Junno says. "Do we have to start calling you 'Jinnifer'?"
They have a confusing five minutes where Jin attempts to explain that no, he doesn't have any intention of undergoing surgery, he's not taking hormones, and that this isn't all part of an agency scheme to reach a wider audience by appealing to the transgender market. Kame lets him do all the talking on the grounds that he doesn't know how far Jin's going to take his explanation, and only steps in to assure Koki that this is not a delayed reaction to his admitting on Shounen Club that Jin in a nurse's uniform makes his heart pound.
"This business can mess you up pretty bad," Koki says. "It can do a lot worse to you than make you want to look cute."
"I don't even know if it's that," Jin says. "In another life I could be a salaryman with a wife and two young kids, who dresses up like Madonna on weekends."
Nakamaru looks disgusted. "Please tell me you don't dress up like Madonna because I will lose all the respect I ever had for you."
Kame bursts out laughing. "He doesn't dress like Madonna. He's kind of conservative, actually. More of a tomboy than a starlet."
"Way to be classy like none of these hoes, Akanishi." Koki grabs a handful of herby crackers from the bowl. "So do you want to pass as a girl, or what?"
He's taking this rather well, Kame thinks, and then remembers that to the best of his knowledge, Koki's the only one of them who's ever dated a transgender person. It didn't work out, but that's still more experience than the others probably have.
"I don't want to pass," Jin says with slow, careful enunciation so there's no chance he'll be misunderstood. "I might be able to, if I worked on it, but it's not like I want to live full-time as a girl or anything. I like being a guy, I just..."
"You just like being a guy with benefits," Koki says. "Girly ones."
Jin stares at him blankly. "How do you know?"
"If you add up all the performances you and I have had more fake sex together than some couples have had real sex. I know you, Jin. We all do."
It's got to be nerve-wracking, being in Jin's position right now. Kame watches him closely for any sign that he's about to repeat the episode from the car and feels relieved when he gives Koki an embarrassed smile, more shy than spooked.
"So it's not just the clothes?" Ueda says. "What about girls? Or do you prefer guys now?"
"I still like girls," Jin says, and Kame's amused to see every other guy in the room relax their shoulders. "But it's not a good idea for me to date anyone at the moment. It's too complicated. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with it myself."
"What do you..." Junno hesitates, then rephrases. He's said the least, sitting quietly in his corner, and Kame hopes this isn't going to be a problem. "How do you want us to treat you?"
"The same way you've always done," Jin says frankly. "I'm not asking any of you to change."
"But you are." Nakamaru's quick to contradict him. "You're asking us to look at you as someone else."
"Not as someone else," Kame says. "Jin's still the same person he's always been - only now he's working on being more of himself than he was before. Can you understand that?"
"I'm not sure I can understand it," Junno says. "But he's my friend, so I'm trying." He beams at Jin. "You're still working on understanding it too, right? So let's figure it out together."
Nakamaru sighs. "It doesn't make much sense to me, but nothing Jin's done has ever made sense to me. I'm still trying to get over his naked AnAn shoot."
"I knew I was on to something when I said it looked like two girls," Koki crows.
"And what about you?" Jin says to Ueda.
"Just promise me you won't wear leggings."
Jin spends the rest of the evening trying to answer questions that Kame's fairly sure he has no definite answer to, but the important thing is that he's speaking freely on the subject. He's with friends, with people who've known him for years and have seen him in leopard-print swimsuits, and freaking out over insects, and being made to blush by Haruna Ai. They've all had experiences out of the realms of possibility for anyone living a "normal" life, and that helps them see things from a slightly different viewpoint. Maybe they'll never be comfortable enough with it to want to involve themselves to the extent that Kame does, but for now it's enough that Jin knows they don't think badly of him for it.
Koki's the last to leave, and as he does so he offers to play escort from time to time if Jin wants someone to go with him when he's dressed up in public.
"But only if you look respectable," he adds. "I've got a reputation to protect."
Jin smirks. "Not like you'd do my reputation any favours either. Do I look like the kind of girl who hangs out with bikers?"
"You've got a motorbike yourself," Kame points out. "Stop being such a hypocrite."
Koki bumps fists with them both on the way out. Since the Shounen Club filming that afternoon, every other fingernail has been painted red.
-----
Kame wakes up the next morning on his own couch, having relinquished the bed to Jin, and discovers he's already left. There's a note on the table saying he's gone to see Yamapi and he'll call later.
It had better go well. Kame thinks it will, but if it doesn't, it'll set Jin back again and undo all the progress of last night. He checks his phone periodically throughout the day, in case he's missed a call or email, but it's almost ten at night before Jin phones.
"Did you tell him this time?" Kame asks. "How did he take it?"
"Um...not as well as Koki. I think he's a little weirded out because we used to live together, so now he's wondering...well..."
"Should I mail him and say it's not contagious?"
Jin's high-pitched giggle has Kame putting the phone on speaker and setting it down on the dresser so his eardrums don't burst. "I think he got that, eventually. And the clothing, he can understand. But he's having some trouble wrapping his head around the idea that his male best friend feels not-very-manly sometimes."
"Give him time," Kame says. "It's a lot to get used to."
"You managed well enough."
"My view of gender is more fluid than his, I think. You don't have to pick a point on the scale and stick to it. Everyone changes. Why you change, how you change and how you deal with it - that's your business, and sometimes you don't have much choice. You take whatever hand life deals you and do what you can with it."
"What happens if you discard a card, pick up another one and find you've completely ruined your hand?"
Kame smiles down at his new phone wallpaper, a close-up of the two of them from last night. He'd had to take it himself, so the angle's unflattering and Jin's not even looking at the camera because he's laughing so hard, but it's a nice picture, Jin with his hair up and Kame with a lipstick smear on his chin, both of them happy and having fun. It might be the best shot taken of them together in years, and it gives Kame hope.
"Then you throw the entire deck out the window," he says, "and start a new game."
On to transJinder #2 - Even Butterflies Dress For Dinner