fic: Within These Pages [Jin/Kame; R]
Title: Within These Pages
Author: nami
Genre: Angst/Humor (...I'll make it work. Really)
Rating: R
Pairing: Akame
Summary: Life is like a shoujo manga…in Kame’s eyes, at least.
Notes: For momo, because she has written me so much RyoDa while I have yet to offer anything on her OTP. This is the first and maybe the last? Haha, kidding
Breaks are always a welcome relief for the members of KAT-TUN, who as of late were beginning to show signs of strain and exhaustion due to overwork. Even Junno, the group’s resident energy bunny, isn’t as hyperactive as he usually is, and now cracked less than ten bad puns a day.
That’s one positive way of looking at the situation.
“My yokan is gone again! Oi, Akanishi!” Maru looks accusingly at Jin, who immediately jumps up from the couch.
“I didn’t eat it!” Jin protests vehemently, bits of sweet jelly flying from his mouth and onto the table where Ueda is sitting.
“Ugh, Jin, that’s disgusting,” Ueda complains, shaking tiny, saliva-coated pieces of yokan from the sheet of paper he is currently writing tentative lyrics on.
Maru and Jin roll around on the floor in a flurry of mock punches and headlocks, Koki laughing appreciatively at their immature antics.
Junno jumps over his ‘brawling’ band mates and plops onto the couch next to Kame, who is deeply engrossed with a manga he was reading.
“Hey, that’s Hana Yori Dango!” Junno exclaims, beaming at a startled Kame.
“…yeah, I know it is,” Kame replies, giving Junno a ‘go away, do not disturb me’ look before sticking his nose back into the tankoubon.
Immune to Kame’s (and everyone else’s, for that matter) warning look, Junno rambles on. “It’s been a long time since I saw one of those. That’s a pretty old series, right? I didn’t know you had it, Kame! Who’s your favorite character? Mine’s Makino Tsukushi! ‘Cause she’s so cool-”
“Taguchi!” Kame interrupts irritably. “I’m trying to read here. Go gorge yourself on chocolate-chip cookies or something.” Kame was not a person to cross when he was wielding a shoujo manga volume. Naturally Junno would happily ignore that little bit of significant (and possibly life-preserving) information.
Junno nods, but it is his let’s-be-happy-and-dabble-in-sunshine-and-rainbows nod, not his I-fully-understand-you-and-shall-do-as-you-say nod. “But not now-if I get chocolate stains on my costume again, the managers will yell at me and they’re really scary when they’re mad.”
Jin pushes Maru off him and dives for the sofa, claiming the seat on Kame’s other side. “I know this manga too! Didn’t they make a drama out of it? I remember it because the first time I saw MatsuJun’s stupid perm, I laughed for hours…” He glances back at Maru with a saccharine smile, clearly closing the topic of yokan-stealing.
Maru sighs, a sign of defeat, and focuses his anxiety on Kame, who now looked more than a little peeved. “Guys, I think you should just…”
Junno bounces up and down. “I watched the drama! Matsumoto-kun did a great job at it. Though sometimes I thought you would have been perfect for that role, Akanishi.”
Jin preens. “Of course. I can outdo that baka MatsuJun any day! Not to mention my far superior good looks-”
“Yeah, Akanishi, that Domyouji Tsukasa character fits your personality perfectly! Cocky, violent when pissed off, unbelievably thick…” Koki counts off the reasons on his fingers with a huge smirk. Jin scowls and gets up, moving towards Koki ominously.
“Oi oi oi,” Maru starts in a warning tone.
Jin lunges at Koki, who dodges and sprints off. “See?” Koki laughs as Jin chases him round and round in circles.
Junno claps. “Akanishi totally fits Matsumoto-kun’s role! What about the rest of us? Eto ne…Nakamaru, I think you could be Mimasaka Akira!”
Maru shakes his head at Jin and Koki and turns to Junno, mildly interested. “Huh? Who?”
“The one in the F4 who always dates older women,” Kame answers, pocketing his manga resignedly and joining in the conversation.
“Ehh? Oi, Taguchi! How am I like that guy?” Maru demands.
Kame sighs. “Because he’s the peacemaker. In the story he always keeps his friends in check when they’re fighting.”
Koki hides behind Maru, using him as a shield. “That’s about right. Now, Yuichi, as the peacemaker, it’s your job to take care of this wild beast,” he instructs, pointing at Jin.
“Who are you calling a wild beast?” Jin says indignantly, glaring at Koki.
Junno is delighted. “Sugoi! Exactly like Domyouji!”
“If Nakamaru is Akira, then Koki is Nishikado Soujirou!” Jin declares while simultaneously hitting Junno over the head.
Koki frowns. “Why him?”
“Soujirou’s the guy whose family deals in stuff concerning tea ceremony,” Junno supplies helpfully.
“Right.” Jin nods. “You can be him because you know how to…sew.”
“What does sewing have to do with tea ceremony? Bakanishi!” Koki guffaws.
“Shut up,” Jin retorts, crossing his arms and staring at Koki as if he were the idiot for not seeing the striking resemblance.
“Me! Me! What about me?” Junno prompts them excitedly.
Jin, Koki and Maru scrutinize him for a moment.
“You can be the random extra,” Maru suggests.
“No, he’ll be that guy who gets bullied in the first episode!” Jin exclaims.
“Right, right! ‘Cause you’re always hitting Taguchi, and you’re Domyouji here,” Koki agrees, looking relieved that Jin’s brain wasn’t entirely off course for once.
Junno’s smile drops a notch. “Eh, that’s kinda unfair…”
“He can be Hanazawa Rui,” Ueda speaks up suddenly. Everyone swivels around to look at him, the only one sitting apart from the rest.
Koki starts laughing again. “Isn’t that the guy who’s supposed to be even cooler than Domyouji, the one that the girl in the story fell in love with first?”
Jin is aghast. “Tat-chan, what’s wrong with you? I’m a hundred times cooler than Taguchi!” he whines.
Ueda shrugs. “Taguchi just seems like the type who would be really sweet to his girlfriend.”
“What? I’d make a better boyfriend than him,” Jin argues.
“You can’t be Rui, Akanishi, because he’s smart,” Koki emphasizes matter-of-factly.
“Don’t start on that again,” Jin warns him.
Kame coughs, leaning forward but still trying to appear indifferent and failing miserably. “Aren’t you guys forgetting someone?” he hedges.
“Yeah! What about Ueda?” Junno asks, perking up again now that Ueda had compared him to a main character.
Kame makes a sound of protest but is steadfastly ignored as Jin scoffs, “That’s easy. Tat-chan would be Makino Tsukushi!”
There is a long silence wherein everyone else gapes at a beaming Jin.
“…why am I the girl?” Ueda asks finally, his voice frigid.
Jin gives Ueda an isn’t-that-obvious look. “Because Makino packs a good punch! And you’re a boxer, Uebo, aren’t you?”
Koki and Maru hold their heads in their hands, as if afraid that Jin’s unparalleled lack of common sense would be transmitted to them just by standing near him. “Akanishi,” Koki says in a careful tone that would be fitting when talking to a very small child, “Makino is poor.”
“And she’s completely un-girly! But she has a really strong personality-she never gives up and she doesn’t cry at all even if people bully her!” Junno adds.
“You know, either way you go about this, I think you guys are insulting me on purpose,” Ueda says wryly.
Junno looks horrified. “Oh no, I didn’t mean to-”
“Tat-chan is Makino!” Jin cries insistently, striding over to Ueda and pulling him up. Ueda stumbles into a standing position, nearly losing his balance when Jin throws an arm over his shoulder. “Ne, ne! We’d make a pretty good couple, don’t you think?”
Junno, Koki and Maru simply stare back at him in momentary disbelief. A dark cloud passes over Kame’s face.
Ueda rolls his eyes and pushes Jin’s arm off him. “This conversation has taken a turn towards the bizarrely idiotic. I’m going back to writing lyrics before you morons kill any more of my brain cells,” he announces, ignoring Koki and Maru, who had dissolved into snickers.
Nobody notices Kame storming out of the room in a huff.
----------
Ryo glances up, eyebrows raised, as Kame barges into NewS’ designated room and plops down onto the sofa, looking highly pissed. “Kamenashi. What is your skinny ass doing on our couch? We don’t remember calling you over here,” he drawls in greeting.
Tegoshi, the room’s only other occupant, merely regards Kame with a curious look before returning his attention to the Myojo issue he was leafing through.
“Let me guess. Your secret husband completely ignored you again, didn’t he? And now you’re here to shower your complaints on me like I’m your marriage counselor-again. I swear I ought to get paid for listening to you whine about your nonexistent problems.” Ryo rolls his eyes, putting away the book he was reading.
“It’s not about Jin!” Kame bursts out, standing up and stalking over to where Ryo is sitting.
“The hell it isn’t. Just spit it out so that we can all get on with our lives,” says Ryo with a patronizing smirk.
Kame glares at him but goes on talking. “Everyone was talking about Hana Yori Dango and-”
“My god. Your group talks about shoujo manga in your spare time? I knew it; you guys are just a pathetic bunch of loser pansies. Or should I attribute all the credit for this to your influence on them?” Ryo cuts in.
Kame rubs his temples, looking tired. “Ryo, I didn’t come here to put up with your childish insults.”
“What are you talking about? This is me being nice to you as you begin to ramble about pointlessly trivial matters,” Ryo answers, eliciting a glare from Kame. “Well, go on, I don’t have all day.”
“You know, this could be over in less than five minutes if you stop making smart-assed comments about every single thing I say,” Kame responds irritably.
Ryo holds a hand up in mock surrender. “Sor-ry. Fine, I won’t say anything until you finish your sob story. Happy now?”
Kame scowls at him before launching into a heated summary of KAT-TUN’s previous conversation, and by the end of it, Ryo looks like he could fall off his chair at any given moment from laughing too hard.
“What’s so funny?” Kame demands. “They totally ignored me! They didn’t even try to think of my parallel role! And I was the one who brought the manga in the first place!”
“…I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that so you can still come out of this room with your dignity intact,” Ryo says with a straight face, recovering miraculously fast. He starts laughing again after seeing the dead serious expression on Kame’s face, though. “So Jin really said that Ueda would be Makino Tsukushi? This is priceless; his own best friend is inadvertently admitting that he’s a complete girl…”
“Ueda doesn’t fit Makino’s role at all! And he is not Jin’s best friend,” Kame disputes, pouting.
“One of his best friends, then,” Ryo concedes, raising an eyebrow at him. “And what the hell are you bitching about? Don’t tell me you wanted them to say that you should be Makino. God, this conversation is so whacked-just so you know I’m only doing this to humor you.”
Kame sniffs. “Which character do you think would be fitting for me?” he demands.
Ryo shrugs. “How should I know? You can be that other girl-Sakura-something…”
“Hey, that was my role!” Tegoshi chirps behind them, discarding the magazine he was perusing as soon as his ears picked up something that he thought was related to him.
“No, Tego-nyan, girly boy here was naturally talking about a drama that appeals more to people without a Y-chromosome-something that he obviously wishes he never had-not a story about Yakuza successors and over-exaggerated pudding fights,” Ryo explains patiently to him.
The intended insult flies over Kame’s head as he freaks out over Ryo’s previous answer. “Sakurako? Sakurako?”
Ryo throws him a look that has ‘DUH’ written all over it. “And I thought you were the one who read shoujo manga. Aren’t your similarities obvious? You were hideously ugly as a kid and now you’re-well, you’re still ugly but you look decent enough to pick up a few fans here and there, I guess-and ever since your looks slightly improved you took on this really slutty image. And, you know. You’re obsessed with Jin.” He looks smug as he sums up the reasons.
Kame slaps him hard on the shoulder. “I am not ugly! How dare you!” he practically shrieks.
Ryo winces. “Oh yeah, and did I mention that you also go psycho whenever someone says you’re ugly to your face? Tego-nyan, I’m right, aren’t I?”
Tegoshi nods absently. “Ne, if Kamenashi-kun is Sakurako and Ueda-kun is Tsukushi, then that makes them rivals!”
Ryo snickers. “Interesting. Is this why you were so mad when you came in here uninvited? You’re jealous of donkey face?”
Kame’s cheeks are flaming. “Don’t be stupid, why would I be jealous of Ueda-”
“This is an all-time low for you, Kamenashi. To think you’d end up getting all insecure because Jin prefers Princess Ueda over you,” Ryo comments in mild distaste. “Come to think of it, just the mere fact that Jin chose Ueda instead of you makes you pretty pathetic.”
“Ueda-kun is becoming more and more good-looking these days,” Tegoshi pipes up. “I think he stands a decent chance against Kamenashi-kun!”
Ryo shoots him a concerned glance. “Tego-nyan, you need to arrange an appointment with an optometrist. Your eyesight is clearly going bad.”
“Eh, really? I didn’t notice!” Tegoshi stares back at him, wide-eyed, before squinting at the posters on the walls as if expecting his vision to go blurry when he looked at them. “Are you sure, Ryotan? My eyes seem fine to me…”
“Of course I am,” Ryo answers haughtily. He turns his attention back to Kame. “There you go. Problem solved. Now get out of here before the others come back and I get the urge to ridicule you in front of them,” he orders.
“Bur I can’t be Sakurako! Ryo, your analytic skills at making parallels really suck,” Kame whines.
“Yeah, whatever,” Ryo says exasperatedly, ushering Kame towards the door. “Look, if you really want to philosophize about this, give Uchi a call and you can squeal at each other over the phone or something. And don’t you dare come within ten feet of me when you’re being a complete girl again or I’ll kick you. Goodbye.” And he pushes Kame out, slamming the door behind him.
Tegoshi tilts his head slightly to the side, blinking at Ryo from under his lashes. “Why did you kick him out? He looked pretty upset.”
Ryo snorts. “What, you want me to call him back so that we can discuss the finer points of how the elements of a sappy graphic novel directly correspond with his entire life? I think not.” He shakes his head. He knew that Kame was a weirdo, but what sane man would throw a tantrum over the characters of some romance story that wasn’t even real? Only girls fantasized about such things to that extent. What a freak.
----------
In the following days, Kame acts unusually withdrawn, speaking only when asked a question and keeping to himself during breaks. The others didn’t seem to mind, mostly because they welcomed these rare moments wherein Kame didn’t reprimand them over every little mistake they made, an occurrence that only came by once in a blue moon. Occasionally, though, some of them would throw Kame a worried glance that was not returned as he pored over volume after volume of shoujo manga.
Only Jin seems to be greatly affected by Kame’s strange behavior. He cautiously creeps up to the younger man one afternoon, staring at him until he was forced to look up from his copy of the fourth volume of Koukou Debut.
Jin coughs, a slight acknowledgment to the pointed look that Kame is giving him. “What’s up?” he says brightly.
“Jin, clean up the mess you made,” Ueda calls loudly from across the room, pointing to the fallen pile of shoujo manga on the floor that Jin procured from somewhere, certainly not from Kame.
Reluctantly, Jin moves away to fulfill Ueda’s request. He can feel Kame glaring at the back of his head, but when he has put all the manga back into neat stacks on the table and looks back at him, the other boy is once again completely absorbed in the volume he was reading.
----------
In his dreams he is not the rising pop idol that has sold millions of albums and singles across the country-he is not the man whose life is but an endless repetition of photo shoots and lurid costumes and live concerts radiating the adulation of thousands of screaming fans.
In his dreams he has millions of different identities: a student, someone’s cousin, a store clerk, the person who sits at the farthest pew from the altar as the one he loves is getting married to someone else.
In his dreams there are no sounds, only the vivid colors of the backdrop and the blurred images of people and objects that fade into obscure fog whenever he reaches out to touch them.
In his dreams, he is often a woman. He does not know why, but waking from this particular brand of subconscious imagery always leaves him shivering and feeling a dull, aching throb in his chest.
----------
“Kame. Kame. Wake up.”
Kame stirs from his sleep, blinking groggily as a firm hand shakes him roughly on the shoulder. He sits up, eyes falling onto the anxious features of the one who woke him.
“Are you okay? You said you were just going to rest your eyes for a bit. Our lunch break’s almost over and you haven’t eaten anything yet,” Maru tells him concernedly. His words go unheard as Kame watches Jin and Koki harassing an unresponsive Ueda, Jin poking him repeatedly in the side as the older man’s right eye twitches ever so slightly.
He unconsciously reaches for the manga he had fallen asleep on. Maru observes his movements nervously.
“Kame?” Maru prompts.
“I’m fine,” snaps Kame, fingers tightly curling onto the spine of the book.
“You’ve been reading a lot of those these past few days,” Maru notes, choosing to ignore Kame’s obvious irritation.
Kame shrugs noncommittally. “Does it bother you?”
The expression on Maru’s face is contemplative. “No…not really.” His eyes flicker in Jin’s direction, then to the thing in Kame’s hand. He bites his lip. “Listen, if there’s anything bothering you, you can talk to me, okay?”
The exhaustion is evident in Kame’s eyes, and for a brief moment Maru thinks that he is about to cry. “I will,” the younger man responds quietly, and when Maru blinks again there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Kame at all.
----------
His skirt rustles as the wind rushes past, scattering soft pink petals into the air. He gently reaches out a hand to catch one, holding it in his open palm until the next breeze spirits it away.
He feels the seconds trickling by. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes into hours, but still he waits, a lone figure standing underneath the towering cherry blossom tree in the gathering dusk.
The letter is in his other hand and he clutches onto it as if it would shatter if he dared to let it go, shatter the way the millions of pieces of his heart would as soon as he accepts that he has been waiting in vain.
The sun begins to sink, a ball of fire beyond the horizon that stains the sky orange and brilliant red.
The wind continues to blow. Thousands of sakura petals spiral to the ground in a pink torrent, and it seems as though the tree is weeping for his loss, a bittersweet mimicry of the tears falling down his cheeks.
----------
It is early, but almost everyone is already in the practice room, milling around and bemoaning the precious few minutes they should have spent still sleeping in bed. Maru rushes in and instinctively scans the room for Kame, who is thankfully no longer armed with shoujo manga. Maru sighs in relief and goes up to Koki, snatching the club sandwich in his friend’s hands and taking a huge bite from it.
“Hey!” Koki protests, but Maru just grins at him through tomato-stained teeth.
Jin is the last one to enter, bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. In his left hand is a small branch from a sakura tree, tiny cherry blossoms still clustered on the bark.
“Where’d you get that?” Maru asks as he wrestles with Koki over half a sandwich.
Jin smiles. “I found it in the park on the way here. Isn’t it pretty?”
“You sound like a girl,” Koki chortles. In the split second of distraction, Maru successfully grabs the half-eaten sandwich from his hands and gobbles it up.
Jin ignores the jibe, walking towards Ueda and throwing the branch into his lap.
“What’s this?” Ueda asks, eyebrow raised.
“What does it look like?” Jin rolls his eyes. “Don’t you feel inspired at all? Looking at this, you can come up with poetic lines like ‘cherry blossoms blowing in the wind…’ That sort of thing.”
Ueda picks up the branch and plucks a flower from it before handing it back to Jin. “No thanks.”
Jin pouts and sits down next to Kame, who is staring at the pink flowers with an unreadable expression. Jin thrusts the branch towards him. “You think they’re nice, don’t you?” he asks, tone almost whiny.
Kame nods slowly, and Jin places the branch in his delicate hands, flashing him a quick smile before bouncing back to Ueda and scattering pink petals all over the older man’s hair.
Kame observes them quietly. He glances down at the branch that Jin had handed to him, and a flicker of pain passes through his eyes as his fingers brush against the surface of the fresh blossoms.
----------
The setting is one of the departmental offices of a megacorporation. It is lunch break, and he sits alone at his desk, taking out the bento he prepared for himself earlier that morning.
One of his male colleagues approaches him, words that he cannot hear pouring from the other’s mouth. Another one comes, and then another, and they all start talking, vying for his undivided attention.
He feels himself losing his appetite as he smiles politely, unable to bring himself to either accept or reject their advances. He avoids their eyes, turning to glance at anything and everything that isn’t their eager, beaming faces, and his eyes find their way to a corner of the spacious room, on the man in the crisp gray suit-a superior that he has always harbored a secret crush on. An infatuation that he fully intends on keeping a secret, because it is pointless and futile and simply not allowed.
It takes him a moment to realize that the man is staring back at him, eyes filled with tenderness and longing that makes his breath catch in his throat.
----------
Visiting the juniors’ training area always brings back fond-and sometimes bitter-memories for those who have already debuted. KAT-TUN is no exception.
“What are we doing here again?” Ueda asks, doing a good job at ignoring the intimidated stares and whispers of the young boys ogling them from the side.
“The managers here want to have a word with us,” Kame replies automatically, as he was wont to do when it came to official matters. “We still have half an hour before meeting them, though.”
“Great,” Ueda says dryly, wandering off to look for a quieter, less-junior-populated place.
Koki and Maru are more enthusiastic about the idea of revisiting this place. “Hey, remember that time when you landed on your head after attempting to do a backflip with no hands?” Maru laughs, pointing at one of the spots on the floor that was covered with practice mats. “You fell really hard and your face was so funny ‘cause you were trying not to cry…”
Koki grinned good-naturedly. “Oh yeah? Well, I distinctly remember the time when you…” Their voices fade into the noise of young male chatter all around the room.
“Where’d Akanishi go?” Junno asks Kame as he set his eyes on a trio of juniors doing somersaults.
“I don’t know,” Kame answers dully. Junno nods and sprints away in the direction of his diligently practicing kouhai, probably to teach them how to pull off a proper back flip.
Kame sighs. He is startled when a group of juniors wrack up the courage to approach him, glassy eyes wide with awe and reverence.
“Kamenashi-sempai!” they chorus in their slightly high-pitched voices, elevated more so by a few notes due to sheer nervousness.
Kame chuckles, the first genuine laugh that has left his lips in a while, and he reaches out to pat one particularly terrified kid on the head. He thinks about how good it is to come back here, surrounded by such innocent, eager faces that have never been corrupted by all the negative aspects that come with the glamour of stardom. He feels a twinge of jealousy-they look so carefree, unbound by thousands of restrictions and directives, oblivious to the toils and inconveniences of a severely hectic schedule. At least, not yet.
They tell him of their hopes and dreams, how they truly admire ‘Kamenashi-sempai, famous and good-looking and talented and amazing.’ He can feel someone’s gaze on him and he looks up to see Jin a bit further off, leaning against the wall with a sad smile that mirrors his own.
A child, scarcely ten years old, boldly grabs his hand and stares up at him with fiery eyes. “Sempai is really strong! When I grow up, I’m going to be just like you,” he declares determinedly.
Kame feels the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, feels his throat constricting as he looks down at the boy, so young and naïve and unable to comprehend his own words. A sigh escapes from Jin’s lips and he shakes his head before stepping away from the wall and further from the cluster of children surrounding Kame.
Ignorance is truly bliss.
----------
There is a chase, and in it he is the quarry. He runs as fast as his high-heeled feet can carry him, his mind blank except for a single word: RUN. He does not dare to look back-he had done it once, staring into the unfocused faces of his pursuers and tripping onto the ground in a painful heap. He had recovered then, but now they are gaining on him, reaching out with hands tainted with malice and deception and greed, and he cannot afford to fall into their clutches, he simply can’t.
He rounds the corner and his blood runs cold. Dead end. He rushes right at the wall, clawing his fingers desperately against the weathered cracks with a sinking sense of dread. The feeling of being utterly, helplessly trapped consumes him until his knees collapse and he slides to the ground with his back against the cold unforgiving brick. The faces of his pursuers are brought into sharp relief, forming eerily glinting eyes that gaze lustily at every exposed inch of his skin, mouths twisted in triumphant, self-satisfied smirks.
He screams as rough hands take hold of his arms, tear at his clothes, force his legs apart. One of his captors slaps him hard across the mouth but he can’t stop screaming, and he can taste salty tears and the metallic tang of blood as dirty fingers dig into his wrists and his shoulders and the inside of his thigh-
Terror and desperation mingle into a wave of nausea that washes over him. He feels the strength draining from him, the need to throw up, but his throat is dry and sore from screaming-in a few moments he knows he will be too weak to do even that.
It’s over, he thinks, and his eyes begin to close in helpless resignation. The last thing he sees hovering above his rapidly blurring vision is a shadow of a man grappling with his attackers.
----------
Kame stirs at the sound of a panicked voice yelling his name, wakes up with a start when he registers the weight of something on top of him. He pushes the heavy thing aside abruptly, his breath coming out in jagged, irregular gasps.
“Kame!” Jin’s voice is loud and anxious, and he hurriedly picks himself up off the floor where Kame had, with surprising strength, thrown him onto. He scrambles back onto the bed, eyes wide and panicked as he envelopes a trembling Kame in his arms.
There are tears streaming down Kame’s cheeks and he doesn’t know why-he is left only with the vague notion that he has been dreaming and that the dream made him feel sick and weak and afraid. He clings to the front of Jin’s shirt and finds himself crying uncontrollably, dry, wracking sobs forcing their way out of his quivering lips.
“Shhh, Kame, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Jin’s whisper rings sharp and clear in the darkness of the room. He holds Kame as if he were afraid that he would break, arms wrapped not too loosely, not too tightly around Kame’s shaking shoulders. “It’s all right now. It’s okay,” he repeats, forcing himself to remain calm because how was Kame supposed to calm down when he himself was terrified and confused? He has never seen Kame crying like this, not when they were still awkward, plain-looking kids, not after they debuted, not even when he told the younger man that he was leaving for LA. When Kame cried he was always silent; the tears would leak out until his eyes were puffy and red, but he would never utter a single sound save for the occasional irrepressible sniffle. Jin hated it when Kame cried, because it always seemed like he was still holding back, as if he didn’t want Jin to see him even weaker than he already was. As if he didn’t trust Jin enough to accept that part of him.
And Jin realizes that maybe some things are better off not being seen after all. This is Kame at the most vulnerable that Jin has seen him yet, and Jin is completely at a loss.
It takes what seems like hours before Kame falls silent and limp against Jin’s chest, still as a stone. Jin shifts slightly but Kame doesn’t move, and when Jin is almost certain that the younger boy has fallen asleep, Kame’s hoarse voice shatters the silence in the room. “…this is Ueda’s house.” His tone is dull and lifeless.
Jin still does not know what he is supposed to say. “Yeah, it is,” he starts uncertainly. “He let all of us stay here last night so that we can all go to the interview tomorrow together, and he gave the room next door to Koki and Nakamaru-”
“I know,” Kame interrupts flatly.
Jin laughs nervously, and, feeling somewhat self-conscious, runs a hand through Kame’s hair. “…why were you crying?” he inquires carefully, relieved when Kame doesn’t push him away despite now being somewhat composed.
Kame doesn’t answer for a very long time and for a second Jin thinks he really has fallen asleep. And then he finally says, “I had a dream.”
The hand in Kame’s hair stops momentarily before resuming its course down the soft, silky locks. “About?”
A weary sigh escapes Kame’s lips. “…I can’t remember,” he answers softly, fingers clutching more tightly onto Jin’s shirt.
Jin smiles slightly into Kame’s hair. “Well, I don’t really think it’s worth remembering if it made you cry like that,” he jokes, attempting to force some levity into the suffocating atmosphere of the moment.
“Someone was chasing me,” Kame says, his tone laced with certainty as he tried to recall it. “No…there were a lot of them.”
“Maybe it was a horrible nightmare about hundreds of rabid fangirls running after you!” Jin exclaims, briefly entertaining the mental image of a stampede of screaming fans pursuing a thoroughly scandalized Kame. Just thinking of it makes him laugh.
Kame does not. “Maybe,” he responds, not sounding very convinced.
Jin’s hand slides from Kame’s hair to his chin, gently tilting Kame’s head up so that Jin can look into Kame’s face. In the darkness the only things Jin can make out is the angle of Kame’s jaw and his eyes that glint like two dark beads in the gloom, but without seeing he knows that the whites of Kame’s eye’s are rimmed with red, that there is a split on his lip where he has bitten his teeth into to stop the sobs from escaping his mouth. Jin’s thumb brushes over Kame’s cheek, sticky with dried tears, and he presses his lips lightly against Kame’s, pulling back so quickly that Kame half-wonders if he had only imagined it. “Are you okay now?” Jin asks softly.
Kame nods and loosens his fisted hands, letting his fingers slide over the fabric of Jin’s shirt before awkwardly placing his arms at his sides. Jin takes it as a cue to remove his own arm from around Kame, scooting back to put more space between the two of them. Kame shivers slightly at the loss of Jin’s warmth on his skin.
Jin sits there uncomfortably, hands twitching almost unnoticeably as if they wanted to reach out and touch Kame again, but then he stands and the hands disappear into the pockets of his baggy sweatpants. “So…you should probably go back to sleep now. We still have a few hours left before-”
Kame’s hand latches onto one of his wrists in a firm grip, and Jin stops. There are no words spoken, just a piercing stare directed at confused, hesitant eyes. “We can’t…” Jin starts, but Kame is already tugging hard at his arm and the back of Jin’s knees bump against the side of the mattress, causing him to lose his balance and fall back onto the bed. Jin is too surprised to protest when Kame leans in and kisses him, soft and gentle at first, then growing more demanding as teeth lightly bite on Jin’s lower lip for a response.
Jin snaps out of his daze and slowly kisses back, instincts taking over as his free hand moves to Kame’s shoulder and pushes him down until the slighter man is lying on the bed with his knees tucked, Jin’s upper body pressed against his.
Kame reaches up with both hands, lacing his fingers together at the back of Jin’s neck, fragments of half-forgotten dreams flashing through his mind with every feather-light touch Jin trails across his skin. He misses this, misses the feel of Jin’s hair fanning onto his cheeks, misses the subtle sensations of Jin’s warm breath on his neck, misses the aching friction of Jin’s hips rolling in time to his own. A persistent voice is niggling at the back of his mind, telling him that they’re not supposed to do this, they’re not allowed-but the voice fades out in the wake of Kame’s sharp gasps as Jin pushes the hem of Kame’s shirt up to his shoulder, expert mouth descending upon a taut nipple and sucking hard. Kame arches into Jin, his clasped hands pressing down urgently onto Jin’s nape as he moans loudly with every teasing flick of Jin’s tongue on the sensitive nub.
Jin runs a hand down the other side of Kame’s chest, fingertips sliding over smooth skin and the small bumps that were Kame’s ribs slightly poking out. Kame ought to eat more, Jin notes absently before all train of thought comes to a halt as the younger man’s arousal presses into his abdomen.
Jin’s breathing is low and ragged as Kame writhes beneath him, all shuddering gasps and breathless utterances of Jin’s name and urgent pleas of more, Jin, please, more. The wanton lust in Kame’s voice is enough to make him hard. He raises his head, only catching a short glimpse of Kame’s nipple, pink and slick and erect with Jin’s attentions, before he slides his body upward and crushes his lips against Kame’s once again. Kame moans into his mouth, taking hold of Jin’s hips and shamelessly rubbing their clothed erections together.
“Kazuya,” Jin hisses sharply, fingers curling in pleasure on Kame’s shoulders as Kame continues to grind against him. He is almost past the point of no control when he strains to place a hand on Kame’s hip, holding him down. He pushes himself upward so that he is sitting on his heels, still straddling Kame. His other hand finds its way onto Kame’s stomach and forms a fist, knuckles grazing not-quite-accidentally over the bulge in the threadbare fabric, and his name slips from Kame’s mouth for the nth time. Jin unravels his fingers, tracing them slowly over the waistband of Kame’s boxers, and he hesitantly meets Kame’s gaze for some sort of go-ahead.
Kame’s eyes are half-lidded and dark with lust, mouth parted slightly in an alluring pout, and that is all the assurance that Jin needs.
----------
There is a sharp rap against the other side of the bedroom door. The lump buried under the thick comforter stirs, and a toned arm protrudes from underneath the quilted mass to grope around the bedside table for an alarm clock. Its owner soon realizes that the annoying sound isn’t an alarm clock at all and groans loudly before hurling off the blankets and trudging to the door, where the knocking was growing increasingly louder.
A pillow-creased hand turns the knob and opens the door a crack. “What the hell do you want?” Ueda grumpily demands to the unwanted visitors.
“Geez, can’t you wake up any faster? I was about to kick the door open and check if you’d died in your sleep,” Koki remarks, the force of morning-Ueda’s wrath bouncing off him harmlessly. Behind him, Maru shifts from side to side as he attempts to catch a glimpse of Ueda’s messy bed head.
Ueda’s glare intensified. “Obviously not. Satisfied? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a couple more hours of sleep to attend to.” He makes to close the door but Koki’s hand shoots out and flings the door wide open. The other hand grabs Ueda’s wrist and drags him out of the room.
“Hey!” Ueda protests, grogginess making him gracelessly stumble right into Maru.
“See, I told you he doesn’t primp his hair in his sleep,” Maru tells Koki triumphantly, patting Ueda’s hair, which was sticking out in odd places.
Ueda scowls and dislodges himself from Maru, automatically running a hand through his hair to straighten it out. “You better have a good reason for waking me up, or I’ll-”
“Come on,” Koki interrupts impatiently, half-dragging Ueda down the hall. “You know, you have no right to complain about lack of sleep; Yuichi and I were up half the night!”
“I don’t think I needed to know that,” Ueda replies with a grimace, wrenching away from Koki’s grip and massaging his wrist.
Maru lightly whaps him on the head. “We couldn’t sleep because it was so noisy in the other room!”
“…you mean Taguchi’s snoring again?” Ueda answers.
Maru and Koki exchange a look as they finally stop in front of Kame’s door. “Open it,” Koki tells Ueda.
“Why? And it’s probably locked anyway.” Ueda rolls his eyes but complies, encountering no difficulties in turning the knob and opening the door a couple of inches. He peers in and freezes for a few seconds before promptly drawing his head back and slamming the door shut.
“Look at the bags under our eyes,” Koki complains, pointing to the slightly dark circles beneath his eyes and giving Ueda a pointed look that meant that he ought to take responsibility for this. “It was that bad-”
“Spare me the details,” Ueda halts him, face already noticeably paler than usual.
A huge yawn is heard, and the three turn their heads to see Junno shuffling out of the room two doors down from Kame’s. He blinks in their direction for a few moments before breaking out into a smile and an enthusiastic “Ohayo!”
“Did you sleep well, Taguchi?” Maru asks conversationally as Junno approaches them, elbowing Ueda who was making barely audible choking sounds beside him.
Junno’s eyes widen and he shakes his head vehemently. “Ueda, your house isn’t haunted, is it? Because I kept hearing all these groaning and screaming noises all night! I couldn’t sleep at all! But, you know, I think that screaming voice reminds me of someone…”
Koki imitates the wide-eyed look on Junno’s face. “You know what, Taguchi, we heard those sounds too! And they were so near! I bet the ghosts are in Kame’s room!” He glances sidelong at the door in front of them.
Junno gasps in genuine horror. “What are you guys doing, just standing out here? Kame might have been possessed by spirits by now! Why don’t you go check in on him?” He pushes Ueda aside and dives for the doorknob.
Ueda doesn’t stumble this time. “Uh, Taguchi, I don’t think-”
His words fell on deaf ears as Junno flings the door wide open and barges into the room. Koki, Ueda and Maru turn away instantaneously, calmly putting their hands to their ears when Junno lets out a loud yell.
“Some ghost,” Ueda mutters, glaring at Koki, who has already collapsed to the floor in fits of laughter.
----------
They are in Ueda’s living room. Ueda sits cross-legged on one of the squashy armchairs, Koki perched on one of the arms with a wide smile on his face. Maru prefers sitting Indian-style on the floor, leaning his elbows on the coffee table between him and the sofa. Junno shifts uncomfortably in the other armchair and inwardly wishes that this could all be over with so that they can eat breakfast already. Jin and Kame sit side-by-side on the couch, squirming under the combined gazes of their fellow band mates.
“So.” Koki is looking incredibly smug, so much so that Jin is overcome with the sudden urge to strangle him. “This is certainly an interesting development.”
Ueda snorts. “What’s so interesting about it? They’ve been fucking each other for years.”
Koki shrugs and looks back at Jin and Kame. “Two weeks,” he begins mock-solemnly. “You two were told to keep your hands off each other for just two weeks, and you can’t manage even that. Just so you know, Yuichi’s terribly disappointed in you two right now.”
“I am?” Maru asks, surprised.
“Yeah. Because you now owe me a week of free lunches. You did say that they could stick to the deal, didn’t you?” Koki reminds him.
Maru is crestfallen. “Damn.”
“You placed bets on us?” Kame speaks up incredulously.
“Does that matter? The point is that you failed to fulfill orders! It’s only been a week and a half,” Koki points out. “Hehe, I wonder what your punishment is going to be…”
Jin suddenly jumps up. “This is not my fault! Kame seduced me!” he protests, flailing his arms wildly.
“Excuse me?” Kame interjects coolly.
Jin looks at him in mild disbelief. Whatever happened to the sensitive, vulnerable Kazu-chan of the night before? “Don’t lie! You did!”
Ueda sighs, as if he were a babysitter whose charges were getting quite out of hand. “Jin, don’t put all the blame on Kame. Kame, we are not at work; don’t put on your poker face because you’re not going to get in trouble.”
“We aren’t?” Jin looks hopeful.
“Yet,” Koki promptly adds. Ueda shoots him a look.
Maru waves his hand. “Hold up, you guys really don’t have your priorities straight, do you?” He stands up and flocks over to Kame, worriedly placing his hands on either of Kame’s shoulders. “You’re okay, right? Akanishi didn’t hurt you too much, did he? Do you think you need a day off to recuperate?”
Junno looks vaguely traumatized as he gazes open-mouthed at Kame, then turns away with a flush in his cheeks when Jin catches him staring.
Kame appears completely unfazed by Maru’s mother-hen antics. “I’m fine.”
Maru drags Kame off the couch and instructs him to walk, which Kame obediently does, wincing only just a little bit. Maru glares accusingly at Jin.
Jin is indignant. “He was depressed all week because of that stupid memo! He’s fine because I cured him!” he argues, looking to Kame for support as if daring him to object.
“I was not depressed,” Kame adamantly denies, his calm, collected mask slipping.
“You were crying in your sleep last night; if that isn’t depression then I don’t know what is-”
“I was having a nightmare! Just because a person cries doesn’t mean that he’s suffering from depression!”
“I’m hungry!” Junno says aloud.
Koki slides off Ueda’s armchair, looking slightly bored. “Me too. I’m all for breakfast. You guys coming?”
Maru and Junno immediately follow at Koki’s heels. Ueda rises from his seat and follows suit with the same urgency, although it was probably more out of the fear of what his friends would do to endanger his kitchen than the unpleasant feeling of unattended hunger.
Jin and Kame are still arguing as the four exit the room.
----------
Kame stares passively as Jin lugs an enormous cardboard box into the living room and drags it to Kame’s feet.
“I’ve figured it all out,” Jin announces, opening the flaps and extracting a worn manga volume from the box.
“Where did you get all those?” The blankness in Kame’s eyes dissolve into keen interest as his eyes rove over the numerous titles on the spines of the neatly-arranged volumes.
Jin shrugs. “I borrowed them from Ryo-chan, who borrowed them from Uchi.” He mutters vaguely about Ryo chewing him out because Uchi had mistakenly thought that Ryo wanted to read them for himself and had promptly laughed his ass off before handing the stash over, but Kame had already snatched a book from the box and was far too preoccupied with devouring its contents to sympathize.
“Can I borrow this before you give it back?” Kame asks without looking up.
Jin scowls and snatches the manga from Kame. “Listen to me!”
“What?” Kame shoots him an irritated look.
Jin hurriedly shoves the manga back into the box and closes it, holding his hands over the flaps protectively in case Kame got any ideas. “I’ve read all of these, and I think I know what your problem is.”
“I wasn’t aware I had one,” Kame answers disparagingly, not at all liking the enlightened look on Jin’s face-it was scary; Jin appearing smart was probably a sign for the coming apocalypse.
“Well, now you are,” Jin tells him in a superior tone. “As I was saying. I’ve gone through all this stuff and it is now clear to me that you should be forbidden from reading any of it. At least, all the angsty, sappy, heartbroken parts...”
Kame gapes at him.
“I know you, Kame. I always see you reading shoujo manga when you’re down or really tired. And then you always end up spacing out for a good half hour or more right after you finish reading! I bet you read this before you go to sleep, too! This is what gives you nightmares!” Jin exclaims, slapping a palm onto the box for emphasis.
“How can something I like give me nightmares?” Kame protests.
“Because you’re using it for escapism!” Jin answers. “I looked it up,” he adds proudly after seeing the stunned look on Kame’s face. “I broke into your apartment the other day-”
“You what?”
“-and just as I suspected, you had all your manga littered all over the place! I even checked your DVD player, and as soon as I turned it on I heard that song which went like ‘Itoshii hito no tame ni…’ That opening theme from the anime of that really horrible-”
“Fushigi Yuugi is a classic!” Kame defends, glaring at Jin as if he had just uttered something blasphemous.
Jin pays no heed, obviously of the opinion that Fushigi Yuugi could be wiped off the face of the earth for all he cared. “Anyway,” he barrels on loudly, “You have the habit of going over all the depressing parts of the story when you yourself are depressed, don’t you? And it only ends up making you feel worse.”
Kame doesn’t respond, staring stubbornly at Jin’s shoes.
Jin’s gaze softens. “Kame,” he says softly, cupping Kame’s chin in his hand and staring directly into his eyes. “Happy endings don’t just happen in shoujo manga, you know.”
Kame stiffens and unconsciously glances over Jin’s shoulder, hearing the hushed voices of their band mates in the other room. “Happy endings don’t often happen in real life,” he replies cynically.
Jin laughs. “You’re so overdramatic!” His face turns serious when the thin line that is Kame’s lips doesn’t even twitch. “You don’t chase after a happy ending, Ka-zu-ya.” He presses his forehead to Kame’s, feels Kame’s breath against his lips. “It’s up to you to make one.”
And when Jin kisses him, light and sweet and effective at shutting down whatever Kame was worrying about, Kame starts to think that maybe Jin is right after all.
----------
“Do you think they’ll ever find out that we just made that memo thing up?” Koki asks thoughtfully as he munches on a roast chicken sandwich.
Ueda shrugs. “Only if you tell them, which, I could safely assume, you aren’t stupid enough to do,” he responds, staring with mild distaste at the mayonnaise stains that Koki had left on his once-pristine white tablecloth. “Besides, if one of you did slip up, we can always put all the blame on Nakamaru because he was the one who came up with it in the first place.”
“Oi! That’s unfair!” Maru exclaims in protest.
“You mean Johnny didn’t really order them to keep away from each other for two weeks?” Junno asks, puzzled. He was met with three exasperated stares.
Ueda rolls his eyes. “They’re not going to abstain from sex for a fortnight just because we ask them to. It has to be Johnny’s word-even if Jin were against it, we can always count on Kame to be a stickler for official commands from upper management.”
“But why ask them to do that?” Junno persists.
Koki grins. “To see them suffer.”
“Anti-PDA,” Ueda blandly responds.
“Health reasons,” Maru answers, his face stern as he shot Koki and Ueda a disapproving look.
“Same difference,” Koki says dismissively. “No pain, no gain, right?”
Ueda checks his watch. “We need to go soon-someone go tell the other two that.”
“Oi, Taguchi,” Maru and Koki say in unison.
Junno, who is about to take a huge bite from his sandwich, stares forlornly at it and sighs. “Hai…”
As Junno trudges out of the kitchen, Maru leans back on his chair and groans. “What do we do now? We’ll be on tour again in a couple of days and we can’t afford to have both Kame and Akanishi exhausted because of…strenuous activities.”
Junno stumbles back into the room, beet red. “Too late. I think they’re going for another round,” he informs them in an embarrassed tone.
“Convenient.” Ueda doesn’t bother checking his watch again. He props an elbow up on the table, resting his cheek against his hand, when a thought occurs to him. “Oh no, my couch-” He bolts out of the room in a panic.
Koki whistles. “Well, sounds like they’ve got plenty of energy left over to me,” he chortles at Maru.
Maru merely slumps his head onto the table in despair. You just can’t win them all.
----------
notes: …..PARAMATERS DDDD: I know I fail
Author: nami
Genre: Angst/Humor (...I'll make it work. Really)
Rating: R
Pairing: Akame
Summary: Life is like a shoujo manga…in Kame’s eyes, at least.
Notes: For momo, because she has written me so much RyoDa while I have yet to offer anything on her OTP. This is the first and maybe the last? Haha, kidding
Breaks are always a welcome relief for the members of KAT-TUN, who as of late were beginning to show signs of strain and exhaustion due to overwork. Even Junno, the group’s resident energy bunny, isn’t as hyperactive as he usually is, and now cracked less than ten bad puns a day.
That’s one positive way of looking at the situation.
“My yokan is gone again! Oi, Akanishi!” Maru looks accusingly at Jin, who immediately jumps up from the couch.
“I didn’t eat it!” Jin protests vehemently, bits of sweet jelly flying from his mouth and onto the table where Ueda is sitting.
“Ugh, Jin, that’s disgusting,” Ueda complains, shaking tiny, saliva-coated pieces of yokan from the sheet of paper he is currently writing tentative lyrics on.
Maru and Jin roll around on the floor in a flurry of mock punches and headlocks, Koki laughing appreciatively at their immature antics.
Junno jumps over his ‘brawling’ band mates and plops onto the couch next to Kame, who is deeply engrossed with a manga he was reading.
“Hey, that’s Hana Yori Dango!” Junno exclaims, beaming at a startled Kame.
“…yeah, I know it is,” Kame replies, giving Junno a ‘go away, do not disturb me’ look before sticking his nose back into the tankoubon.
Immune to Kame’s (and everyone else’s, for that matter) warning look, Junno rambles on. “It’s been a long time since I saw one of those. That’s a pretty old series, right? I didn’t know you had it, Kame! Who’s your favorite character? Mine’s Makino Tsukushi! ‘Cause she’s so cool-”
“Taguchi!” Kame interrupts irritably. “I’m trying to read here. Go gorge yourself on chocolate-chip cookies or something.” Kame was not a person to cross when he was wielding a shoujo manga volume. Naturally Junno would happily ignore that little bit of significant (and possibly life-preserving) information.
Junno nods, but it is his let’s-be-happy-and-dabble-in-sunshine-and-rainbows nod, not his I-fully-understand-you-and-shall-do-as-you-say nod. “But not now-if I get chocolate stains on my costume again, the managers will yell at me and they’re really scary when they’re mad.”
Jin pushes Maru off him and dives for the sofa, claiming the seat on Kame’s other side. “I know this manga too! Didn’t they make a drama out of it? I remember it because the first time I saw MatsuJun’s stupid perm, I laughed for hours…” He glances back at Maru with a saccharine smile, clearly closing the topic of yokan-stealing.
Maru sighs, a sign of defeat, and focuses his anxiety on Kame, who now looked more than a little peeved. “Guys, I think you should just…”
Junno bounces up and down. “I watched the drama! Matsumoto-kun did a great job at it. Though sometimes I thought you would have been perfect for that role, Akanishi.”
Jin preens. “Of course. I can outdo that baka MatsuJun any day! Not to mention my far superior good looks-”
“Yeah, Akanishi, that Domyouji Tsukasa character fits your personality perfectly! Cocky, violent when pissed off, unbelievably thick…” Koki counts off the reasons on his fingers with a huge smirk. Jin scowls and gets up, moving towards Koki ominously.
“Oi oi oi,” Maru starts in a warning tone.
Jin lunges at Koki, who dodges and sprints off. “See?” Koki laughs as Jin chases him round and round in circles.
Junno claps. “Akanishi totally fits Matsumoto-kun’s role! What about the rest of us? Eto ne…Nakamaru, I think you could be Mimasaka Akira!”
Maru shakes his head at Jin and Koki and turns to Junno, mildly interested. “Huh? Who?”
“The one in the F4 who always dates older women,” Kame answers, pocketing his manga resignedly and joining in the conversation.
“Ehh? Oi, Taguchi! How am I like that guy?” Maru demands.
Kame sighs. “Because he’s the peacemaker. In the story he always keeps his friends in check when they’re fighting.”
Koki hides behind Maru, using him as a shield. “That’s about right. Now, Yuichi, as the peacemaker, it’s your job to take care of this wild beast,” he instructs, pointing at Jin.
“Who are you calling a wild beast?” Jin says indignantly, glaring at Koki.
Junno is delighted. “Sugoi! Exactly like Domyouji!”
“If Nakamaru is Akira, then Koki is Nishikado Soujirou!” Jin declares while simultaneously hitting Junno over the head.
Koki frowns. “Why him?”
“Soujirou’s the guy whose family deals in stuff concerning tea ceremony,” Junno supplies helpfully.
“Right.” Jin nods. “You can be him because you know how to…sew.”
“What does sewing have to do with tea ceremony? Bakanishi!” Koki guffaws.
“Shut up,” Jin retorts, crossing his arms and staring at Koki as if he were the idiot for not seeing the striking resemblance.
“Me! Me! What about me?” Junno prompts them excitedly.
Jin, Koki and Maru scrutinize him for a moment.
“You can be the random extra,” Maru suggests.
“No, he’ll be that guy who gets bullied in the first episode!” Jin exclaims.
“Right, right! ‘Cause you’re always hitting Taguchi, and you’re Domyouji here,” Koki agrees, looking relieved that Jin’s brain wasn’t entirely off course for once.
Junno’s smile drops a notch. “Eh, that’s kinda unfair…”
“He can be Hanazawa Rui,” Ueda speaks up suddenly. Everyone swivels around to look at him, the only one sitting apart from the rest.
Koki starts laughing again. “Isn’t that the guy who’s supposed to be even cooler than Domyouji, the one that the girl in the story fell in love with first?”
Jin is aghast. “Tat-chan, what’s wrong with you? I’m a hundred times cooler than Taguchi!” he whines.
Ueda shrugs. “Taguchi just seems like the type who would be really sweet to his girlfriend.”
“What? I’d make a better boyfriend than him,” Jin argues.
“You can’t be Rui, Akanishi, because he’s smart,” Koki emphasizes matter-of-factly.
“Don’t start on that again,” Jin warns him.
Kame coughs, leaning forward but still trying to appear indifferent and failing miserably. “Aren’t you guys forgetting someone?” he hedges.
“Yeah! What about Ueda?” Junno asks, perking up again now that Ueda had compared him to a main character.
Kame makes a sound of protest but is steadfastly ignored as Jin scoffs, “That’s easy. Tat-chan would be Makino Tsukushi!”
There is a long silence wherein everyone else gapes at a beaming Jin.
“…why am I the girl?” Ueda asks finally, his voice frigid.
Jin gives Ueda an isn’t-that-obvious look. “Because Makino packs a good punch! And you’re a boxer, Uebo, aren’t you?”
Koki and Maru hold their heads in their hands, as if afraid that Jin’s unparalleled lack of common sense would be transmitted to them just by standing near him. “Akanishi,” Koki says in a careful tone that would be fitting when talking to a very small child, “Makino is poor.”
“And she’s completely un-girly! But she has a really strong personality-she never gives up and she doesn’t cry at all even if people bully her!” Junno adds.
“You know, either way you go about this, I think you guys are insulting me on purpose,” Ueda says wryly.
Junno looks horrified. “Oh no, I didn’t mean to-”
“Tat-chan is Makino!” Jin cries insistently, striding over to Ueda and pulling him up. Ueda stumbles into a standing position, nearly losing his balance when Jin throws an arm over his shoulder. “Ne, ne! We’d make a pretty good couple, don’t you think?”
Junno, Koki and Maru simply stare back at him in momentary disbelief. A dark cloud passes over Kame’s face.
Ueda rolls his eyes and pushes Jin’s arm off him. “This conversation has taken a turn towards the bizarrely idiotic. I’m going back to writing lyrics before you morons kill any more of my brain cells,” he announces, ignoring Koki and Maru, who had dissolved into snickers.
Nobody notices Kame storming out of the room in a huff.
----------
Ryo glances up, eyebrows raised, as Kame barges into NewS’ designated room and plops down onto the sofa, looking highly pissed. “Kamenashi. What is your skinny ass doing on our couch? We don’t remember calling you over here,” he drawls in greeting.
Tegoshi, the room’s only other occupant, merely regards Kame with a curious look before returning his attention to the Myojo issue he was leafing through.
“Let me guess. Your secret husband completely ignored you again, didn’t he? And now you’re here to shower your complaints on me like I’m your marriage counselor-again. I swear I ought to get paid for listening to you whine about your nonexistent problems.” Ryo rolls his eyes, putting away the book he was reading.
“It’s not about Jin!” Kame bursts out, standing up and stalking over to where Ryo is sitting.
“The hell it isn’t. Just spit it out so that we can all get on with our lives,” says Ryo with a patronizing smirk.
Kame glares at him but goes on talking. “Everyone was talking about Hana Yori Dango and-”
“My god. Your group talks about shoujo manga in your spare time? I knew it; you guys are just a pathetic bunch of loser pansies. Or should I attribute all the credit for this to your influence on them?” Ryo cuts in.
Kame rubs his temples, looking tired. “Ryo, I didn’t come here to put up with your childish insults.”
“What are you talking about? This is me being nice to you as you begin to ramble about pointlessly trivial matters,” Ryo answers, eliciting a glare from Kame. “Well, go on, I don’t have all day.”
“You know, this could be over in less than five minutes if you stop making smart-assed comments about every single thing I say,” Kame responds irritably.
Ryo holds a hand up in mock surrender. “Sor-ry. Fine, I won’t say anything until you finish your sob story. Happy now?”
Kame scowls at him before launching into a heated summary of KAT-TUN’s previous conversation, and by the end of it, Ryo looks like he could fall off his chair at any given moment from laughing too hard.
“What’s so funny?” Kame demands. “They totally ignored me! They didn’t even try to think of my parallel role! And I was the one who brought the manga in the first place!”
“…I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that so you can still come out of this room with your dignity intact,” Ryo says with a straight face, recovering miraculously fast. He starts laughing again after seeing the dead serious expression on Kame’s face, though. “So Jin really said that Ueda would be Makino Tsukushi? This is priceless; his own best friend is inadvertently admitting that he’s a complete girl…”
“Ueda doesn’t fit Makino’s role at all! And he is not Jin’s best friend,” Kame disputes, pouting.
“One of his best friends, then,” Ryo concedes, raising an eyebrow at him. “And what the hell are you bitching about? Don’t tell me you wanted them to say that you should be Makino. God, this conversation is so whacked-just so you know I’m only doing this to humor you.”
Kame sniffs. “Which character do you think would be fitting for me?” he demands.
Ryo shrugs. “How should I know? You can be that other girl-Sakura-something…”
“Hey, that was my role!” Tegoshi chirps behind them, discarding the magazine he was perusing as soon as his ears picked up something that he thought was related to him.
“No, Tego-nyan, girly boy here was naturally talking about a drama that appeals more to people without a Y-chromosome-something that he obviously wishes he never had-not a story about Yakuza successors and over-exaggerated pudding fights,” Ryo explains patiently to him.
The intended insult flies over Kame’s head as he freaks out over Ryo’s previous answer. “Sakurako? Sakurako?”
Ryo throws him a look that has ‘DUH’ written all over it. “And I thought you were the one who read shoujo manga. Aren’t your similarities obvious? You were hideously ugly as a kid and now you’re-well, you’re still ugly but you look decent enough to pick up a few fans here and there, I guess-and ever since your looks slightly improved you took on this really slutty image. And, you know. You’re obsessed with Jin.” He looks smug as he sums up the reasons.
Kame slaps him hard on the shoulder. “I am not ugly! How dare you!” he practically shrieks.
Ryo winces. “Oh yeah, and did I mention that you also go psycho whenever someone says you’re ugly to your face? Tego-nyan, I’m right, aren’t I?”
Tegoshi nods absently. “Ne, if Kamenashi-kun is Sakurako and Ueda-kun is Tsukushi, then that makes them rivals!”
Ryo snickers. “Interesting. Is this why you were so mad when you came in here uninvited? You’re jealous of donkey face?”
Kame’s cheeks are flaming. “Don’t be stupid, why would I be jealous of Ueda-”
“This is an all-time low for you, Kamenashi. To think you’d end up getting all insecure because Jin prefers Princess Ueda over you,” Ryo comments in mild distaste. “Come to think of it, just the mere fact that Jin chose Ueda instead of you makes you pretty pathetic.”
“Ueda-kun is becoming more and more good-looking these days,” Tegoshi pipes up. “I think he stands a decent chance against Kamenashi-kun!”
Ryo shoots him a concerned glance. “Tego-nyan, you need to arrange an appointment with an optometrist. Your eyesight is clearly going bad.”
“Eh, really? I didn’t notice!” Tegoshi stares back at him, wide-eyed, before squinting at the posters on the walls as if expecting his vision to go blurry when he looked at them. “Are you sure, Ryotan? My eyes seem fine to me…”
“Of course I am,” Ryo answers haughtily. He turns his attention back to Kame. “There you go. Problem solved. Now get out of here before the others come back and I get the urge to ridicule you in front of them,” he orders.
“Bur I can’t be Sakurako! Ryo, your analytic skills at making parallels really suck,” Kame whines.
“Yeah, whatever,” Ryo says exasperatedly, ushering Kame towards the door. “Look, if you really want to philosophize about this, give Uchi a call and you can squeal at each other over the phone or something. And don’t you dare come within ten feet of me when you’re being a complete girl again or I’ll kick you. Goodbye.” And he pushes Kame out, slamming the door behind him.
Tegoshi tilts his head slightly to the side, blinking at Ryo from under his lashes. “Why did you kick him out? He looked pretty upset.”
Ryo snorts. “What, you want me to call him back so that we can discuss the finer points of how the elements of a sappy graphic novel directly correspond with his entire life? I think not.” He shakes his head. He knew that Kame was a weirdo, but what sane man would throw a tantrum over the characters of some romance story that wasn’t even real? Only girls fantasized about such things to that extent. What a freak.
----------
In the following days, Kame acts unusually withdrawn, speaking only when asked a question and keeping to himself during breaks. The others didn’t seem to mind, mostly because they welcomed these rare moments wherein Kame didn’t reprimand them over every little mistake they made, an occurrence that only came by once in a blue moon. Occasionally, though, some of them would throw Kame a worried glance that was not returned as he pored over volume after volume of shoujo manga.
Only Jin seems to be greatly affected by Kame’s strange behavior. He cautiously creeps up to the younger man one afternoon, staring at him until he was forced to look up from his copy of the fourth volume of Koukou Debut.
Jin coughs, a slight acknowledgment to the pointed look that Kame is giving him. “What’s up?” he says brightly.
“Jin, clean up the mess you made,” Ueda calls loudly from across the room, pointing to the fallen pile of shoujo manga on the floor that Jin procured from somewhere, certainly not from Kame.
Reluctantly, Jin moves away to fulfill Ueda’s request. He can feel Kame glaring at the back of his head, but when he has put all the manga back into neat stacks on the table and looks back at him, the other boy is once again completely absorbed in the volume he was reading.
----------
In his dreams he is not the rising pop idol that has sold millions of albums and singles across the country-he is not the man whose life is but an endless repetition of photo shoots and lurid costumes and live concerts radiating the adulation of thousands of screaming fans.
In his dreams he has millions of different identities: a student, someone’s cousin, a store clerk, the person who sits at the farthest pew from the altar as the one he loves is getting married to someone else.
In his dreams there are no sounds, only the vivid colors of the backdrop and the blurred images of people and objects that fade into obscure fog whenever he reaches out to touch them.
In his dreams, he is often a woman. He does not know why, but waking from this particular brand of subconscious imagery always leaves him shivering and feeling a dull, aching throb in his chest.
----------
“Kame. Kame. Wake up.”
Kame stirs from his sleep, blinking groggily as a firm hand shakes him roughly on the shoulder. He sits up, eyes falling onto the anxious features of the one who woke him.
“Are you okay? You said you were just going to rest your eyes for a bit. Our lunch break’s almost over and you haven’t eaten anything yet,” Maru tells him concernedly. His words go unheard as Kame watches Jin and Koki harassing an unresponsive Ueda, Jin poking him repeatedly in the side as the older man’s right eye twitches ever so slightly.
He unconsciously reaches for the manga he had fallen asleep on. Maru observes his movements nervously.
“Kame?” Maru prompts.
“I’m fine,” snaps Kame, fingers tightly curling onto the spine of the book.
“You’ve been reading a lot of those these past few days,” Maru notes, choosing to ignore Kame’s obvious irritation.
Kame shrugs noncommittally. “Does it bother you?”
The expression on Maru’s face is contemplative. “No…not really.” His eyes flicker in Jin’s direction, then to the thing in Kame’s hand. He bites his lip. “Listen, if there’s anything bothering you, you can talk to me, okay?”
The exhaustion is evident in Kame’s eyes, and for a brief moment Maru thinks that he is about to cry. “I will,” the younger man responds quietly, and when Maru blinks again there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Kame at all.
----------
His skirt rustles as the wind rushes past, scattering soft pink petals into the air. He gently reaches out a hand to catch one, holding it in his open palm until the next breeze spirits it away.
He feels the seconds trickling by. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes into hours, but still he waits, a lone figure standing underneath the towering cherry blossom tree in the gathering dusk.
The letter is in his other hand and he clutches onto it as if it would shatter if he dared to let it go, shatter the way the millions of pieces of his heart would as soon as he accepts that he has been waiting in vain.
The sun begins to sink, a ball of fire beyond the horizon that stains the sky orange and brilliant red.
The wind continues to blow. Thousands of sakura petals spiral to the ground in a pink torrent, and it seems as though the tree is weeping for his loss, a bittersweet mimicry of the tears falling down his cheeks.
----------
It is early, but almost everyone is already in the practice room, milling around and bemoaning the precious few minutes they should have spent still sleeping in bed. Maru rushes in and instinctively scans the room for Kame, who is thankfully no longer armed with shoujo manga. Maru sighs in relief and goes up to Koki, snatching the club sandwich in his friend’s hands and taking a huge bite from it.
“Hey!” Koki protests, but Maru just grins at him through tomato-stained teeth.
Jin is the last one to enter, bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. In his left hand is a small branch from a sakura tree, tiny cherry blossoms still clustered on the bark.
“Where’d you get that?” Maru asks as he wrestles with Koki over half a sandwich.
Jin smiles. “I found it in the park on the way here. Isn’t it pretty?”
“You sound like a girl,” Koki chortles. In the split second of distraction, Maru successfully grabs the half-eaten sandwich from his hands and gobbles it up.
Jin ignores the jibe, walking towards Ueda and throwing the branch into his lap.
“What’s this?” Ueda asks, eyebrow raised.
“What does it look like?” Jin rolls his eyes. “Don’t you feel inspired at all? Looking at this, you can come up with poetic lines like ‘cherry blossoms blowing in the wind…’ That sort of thing.”
Ueda picks up the branch and plucks a flower from it before handing it back to Jin. “No thanks.”
Jin pouts and sits down next to Kame, who is staring at the pink flowers with an unreadable expression. Jin thrusts the branch towards him. “You think they’re nice, don’t you?” he asks, tone almost whiny.
Kame nods slowly, and Jin places the branch in his delicate hands, flashing him a quick smile before bouncing back to Ueda and scattering pink petals all over the older man’s hair.
Kame observes them quietly. He glances down at the branch that Jin had handed to him, and a flicker of pain passes through his eyes as his fingers brush against the surface of the fresh blossoms.
----------
The setting is one of the departmental offices of a megacorporation. It is lunch break, and he sits alone at his desk, taking out the bento he prepared for himself earlier that morning.
One of his male colleagues approaches him, words that he cannot hear pouring from the other’s mouth. Another one comes, and then another, and they all start talking, vying for his undivided attention.
He feels himself losing his appetite as he smiles politely, unable to bring himself to either accept or reject their advances. He avoids their eyes, turning to glance at anything and everything that isn’t their eager, beaming faces, and his eyes find their way to a corner of the spacious room, on the man in the crisp gray suit-a superior that he has always harbored a secret crush on. An infatuation that he fully intends on keeping a secret, because it is pointless and futile and simply not allowed.
It takes him a moment to realize that the man is staring back at him, eyes filled with tenderness and longing that makes his breath catch in his throat.
----------
Visiting the juniors’ training area always brings back fond-and sometimes bitter-memories for those who have already debuted. KAT-TUN is no exception.
“What are we doing here again?” Ueda asks, doing a good job at ignoring the intimidated stares and whispers of the young boys ogling them from the side.
“The managers here want to have a word with us,” Kame replies automatically, as he was wont to do when it came to official matters. “We still have half an hour before meeting them, though.”
“Great,” Ueda says dryly, wandering off to look for a quieter, less-junior-populated place.
Koki and Maru are more enthusiastic about the idea of revisiting this place. “Hey, remember that time when you landed on your head after attempting to do a backflip with no hands?” Maru laughs, pointing at one of the spots on the floor that was covered with practice mats. “You fell really hard and your face was so funny ‘cause you were trying not to cry…”
Koki grinned good-naturedly. “Oh yeah? Well, I distinctly remember the time when you…” Their voices fade into the noise of young male chatter all around the room.
“Where’d Akanishi go?” Junno asks Kame as he set his eyes on a trio of juniors doing somersaults.
“I don’t know,” Kame answers dully. Junno nods and sprints away in the direction of his diligently practicing kouhai, probably to teach them how to pull off a proper back flip.
Kame sighs. He is startled when a group of juniors wrack up the courage to approach him, glassy eyes wide with awe and reverence.
“Kamenashi-sempai!” they chorus in their slightly high-pitched voices, elevated more so by a few notes due to sheer nervousness.
Kame chuckles, the first genuine laugh that has left his lips in a while, and he reaches out to pat one particularly terrified kid on the head. He thinks about how good it is to come back here, surrounded by such innocent, eager faces that have never been corrupted by all the negative aspects that come with the glamour of stardom. He feels a twinge of jealousy-they look so carefree, unbound by thousands of restrictions and directives, oblivious to the toils and inconveniences of a severely hectic schedule. At least, not yet.
They tell him of their hopes and dreams, how they truly admire ‘Kamenashi-sempai, famous and good-looking and talented and amazing.’ He can feel someone’s gaze on him and he looks up to see Jin a bit further off, leaning against the wall with a sad smile that mirrors his own.
A child, scarcely ten years old, boldly grabs his hand and stares up at him with fiery eyes. “Sempai is really strong! When I grow up, I’m going to be just like you,” he declares determinedly.
Kame feels the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, feels his throat constricting as he looks down at the boy, so young and naïve and unable to comprehend his own words. A sigh escapes from Jin’s lips and he shakes his head before stepping away from the wall and further from the cluster of children surrounding Kame.
Ignorance is truly bliss.
----------
There is a chase, and in it he is the quarry. He runs as fast as his high-heeled feet can carry him, his mind blank except for a single word: RUN. He does not dare to look back-he had done it once, staring into the unfocused faces of his pursuers and tripping onto the ground in a painful heap. He had recovered then, but now they are gaining on him, reaching out with hands tainted with malice and deception and greed, and he cannot afford to fall into their clutches, he simply can’t.
He rounds the corner and his blood runs cold. Dead end. He rushes right at the wall, clawing his fingers desperately against the weathered cracks with a sinking sense of dread. The feeling of being utterly, helplessly trapped consumes him until his knees collapse and he slides to the ground with his back against the cold unforgiving brick. The faces of his pursuers are brought into sharp relief, forming eerily glinting eyes that gaze lustily at every exposed inch of his skin, mouths twisted in triumphant, self-satisfied smirks.
He screams as rough hands take hold of his arms, tear at his clothes, force his legs apart. One of his captors slaps him hard across the mouth but he can’t stop screaming, and he can taste salty tears and the metallic tang of blood as dirty fingers dig into his wrists and his shoulders and the inside of his thigh-
Terror and desperation mingle into a wave of nausea that washes over him. He feels the strength draining from him, the need to throw up, but his throat is dry and sore from screaming-in a few moments he knows he will be too weak to do even that.
It’s over, he thinks, and his eyes begin to close in helpless resignation. The last thing he sees hovering above his rapidly blurring vision is a shadow of a man grappling with his attackers.
----------
Kame stirs at the sound of a panicked voice yelling his name, wakes up with a start when he registers the weight of something on top of him. He pushes the heavy thing aside abruptly, his breath coming out in jagged, irregular gasps.
“Kame!” Jin’s voice is loud and anxious, and he hurriedly picks himself up off the floor where Kame had, with surprising strength, thrown him onto. He scrambles back onto the bed, eyes wide and panicked as he envelopes a trembling Kame in his arms.
There are tears streaming down Kame’s cheeks and he doesn’t know why-he is left only with the vague notion that he has been dreaming and that the dream made him feel sick and weak and afraid. He clings to the front of Jin’s shirt and finds himself crying uncontrollably, dry, wracking sobs forcing their way out of his quivering lips.
“Shhh, Kame, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Jin’s whisper rings sharp and clear in the darkness of the room. He holds Kame as if he were afraid that he would break, arms wrapped not too loosely, not too tightly around Kame’s shaking shoulders. “It’s all right now. It’s okay,” he repeats, forcing himself to remain calm because how was Kame supposed to calm down when he himself was terrified and confused? He has never seen Kame crying like this, not when they were still awkward, plain-looking kids, not after they debuted, not even when he told the younger man that he was leaving for LA. When Kame cried he was always silent; the tears would leak out until his eyes were puffy and red, but he would never utter a single sound save for the occasional irrepressible sniffle. Jin hated it when Kame cried, because it always seemed like he was still holding back, as if he didn’t want Jin to see him even weaker than he already was. As if he didn’t trust Jin enough to accept that part of him.
And Jin realizes that maybe some things are better off not being seen after all. This is Kame at the most vulnerable that Jin has seen him yet, and Jin is completely at a loss.
It takes what seems like hours before Kame falls silent and limp against Jin’s chest, still as a stone. Jin shifts slightly but Kame doesn’t move, and when Jin is almost certain that the younger boy has fallen asleep, Kame’s hoarse voice shatters the silence in the room. “…this is Ueda’s house.” His tone is dull and lifeless.
Jin still does not know what he is supposed to say. “Yeah, it is,” he starts uncertainly. “He let all of us stay here last night so that we can all go to the interview tomorrow together, and he gave the room next door to Koki and Nakamaru-”
“I know,” Kame interrupts flatly.
Jin laughs nervously, and, feeling somewhat self-conscious, runs a hand through Kame’s hair. “…why were you crying?” he inquires carefully, relieved when Kame doesn’t push him away despite now being somewhat composed.
Kame doesn’t answer for a very long time and for a second Jin thinks he really has fallen asleep. And then he finally says, “I had a dream.”
The hand in Kame’s hair stops momentarily before resuming its course down the soft, silky locks. “About?”
A weary sigh escapes Kame’s lips. “…I can’t remember,” he answers softly, fingers clutching more tightly onto Jin’s shirt.
Jin smiles slightly into Kame’s hair. “Well, I don’t really think it’s worth remembering if it made you cry like that,” he jokes, attempting to force some levity into the suffocating atmosphere of the moment.
“Someone was chasing me,” Kame says, his tone laced with certainty as he tried to recall it. “No…there were a lot of them.”
“Maybe it was a horrible nightmare about hundreds of rabid fangirls running after you!” Jin exclaims, briefly entertaining the mental image of a stampede of screaming fans pursuing a thoroughly scandalized Kame. Just thinking of it makes him laugh.
Kame does not. “Maybe,” he responds, not sounding very convinced.
Jin’s hand slides from Kame’s hair to his chin, gently tilting Kame’s head up so that Jin can look into Kame’s face. In the darkness the only things Jin can make out is the angle of Kame’s jaw and his eyes that glint like two dark beads in the gloom, but without seeing he knows that the whites of Kame’s eye’s are rimmed with red, that there is a split on his lip where he has bitten his teeth into to stop the sobs from escaping his mouth. Jin’s thumb brushes over Kame’s cheek, sticky with dried tears, and he presses his lips lightly against Kame’s, pulling back so quickly that Kame half-wonders if he had only imagined it. “Are you okay now?” Jin asks softly.
Kame nods and loosens his fisted hands, letting his fingers slide over the fabric of Jin’s shirt before awkwardly placing his arms at his sides. Jin takes it as a cue to remove his own arm from around Kame, scooting back to put more space between the two of them. Kame shivers slightly at the loss of Jin’s warmth on his skin.
Jin sits there uncomfortably, hands twitching almost unnoticeably as if they wanted to reach out and touch Kame again, but then he stands and the hands disappear into the pockets of his baggy sweatpants. “So…you should probably go back to sleep now. We still have a few hours left before-”
Kame’s hand latches onto one of his wrists in a firm grip, and Jin stops. There are no words spoken, just a piercing stare directed at confused, hesitant eyes. “We can’t…” Jin starts, but Kame is already tugging hard at his arm and the back of Jin’s knees bump against the side of the mattress, causing him to lose his balance and fall back onto the bed. Jin is too surprised to protest when Kame leans in and kisses him, soft and gentle at first, then growing more demanding as teeth lightly bite on Jin’s lower lip for a response.
Jin snaps out of his daze and slowly kisses back, instincts taking over as his free hand moves to Kame’s shoulder and pushes him down until the slighter man is lying on the bed with his knees tucked, Jin’s upper body pressed against his.
Kame reaches up with both hands, lacing his fingers together at the back of Jin’s neck, fragments of half-forgotten dreams flashing through his mind with every feather-light touch Jin trails across his skin. He misses this, misses the feel of Jin’s hair fanning onto his cheeks, misses the subtle sensations of Jin’s warm breath on his neck, misses the aching friction of Jin’s hips rolling in time to his own. A persistent voice is niggling at the back of his mind, telling him that they’re not supposed to do this, they’re not allowed-but the voice fades out in the wake of Kame’s sharp gasps as Jin pushes the hem of Kame’s shirt up to his shoulder, expert mouth descending upon a taut nipple and sucking hard. Kame arches into Jin, his clasped hands pressing down urgently onto Jin’s nape as he moans loudly with every teasing flick of Jin’s tongue on the sensitive nub.
Jin runs a hand down the other side of Kame’s chest, fingertips sliding over smooth skin and the small bumps that were Kame’s ribs slightly poking out. Kame ought to eat more, Jin notes absently before all train of thought comes to a halt as the younger man’s arousal presses into his abdomen.
Jin’s breathing is low and ragged as Kame writhes beneath him, all shuddering gasps and breathless utterances of Jin’s name and urgent pleas of more, Jin, please, more. The wanton lust in Kame’s voice is enough to make him hard. He raises his head, only catching a short glimpse of Kame’s nipple, pink and slick and erect with Jin’s attentions, before he slides his body upward and crushes his lips against Kame’s once again. Kame moans into his mouth, taking hold of Jin’s hips and shamelessly rubbing their clothed erections together.
“Kazuya,” Jin hisses sharply, fingers curling in pleasure on Kame’s shoulders as Kame continues to grind against him. He is almost past the point of no control when he strains to place a hand on Kame’s hip, holding him down. He pushes himself upward so that he is sitting on his heels, still straddling Kame. His other hand finds its way onto Kame’s stomach and forms a fist, knuckles grazing not-quite-accidentally over the bulge in the threadbare fabric, and his name slips from Kame’s mouth for the nth time. Jin unravels his fingers, tracing them slowly over the waistband of Kame’s boxers, and he hesitantly meets Kame’s gaze for some sort of go-ahead.
Kame’s eyes are half-lidded and dark with lust, mouth parted slightly in an alluring pout, and that is all the assurance that Jin needs.
----------
There is a sharp rap against the other side of the bedroom door. The lump buried under the thick comforter stirs, and a toned arm protrudes from underneath the quilted mass to grope around the bedside table for an alarm clock. Its owner soon realizes that the annoying sound isn’t an alarm clock at all and groans loudly before hurling off the blankets and trudging to the door, where the knocking was growing increasingly louder.
A pillow-creased hand turns the knob and opens the door a crack. “What the hell do you want?” Ueda grumpily demands to the unwanted visitors.
“Geez, can’t you wake up any faster? I was about to kick the door open and check if you’d died in your sleep,” Koki remarks, the force of morning-Ueda’s wrath bouncing off him harmlessly. Behind him, Maru shifts from side to side as he attempts to catch a glimpse of Ueda’s messy bed head.
Ueda’s glare intensified. “Obviously not. Satisfied? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a couple more hours of sleep to attend to.” He makes to close the door but Koki’s hand shoots out and flings the door wide open. The other hand grabs Ueda’s wrist and drags him out of the room.
“Hey!” Ueda protests, grogginess making him gracelessly stumble right into Maru.
“See, I told you he doesn’t primp his hair in his sleep,” Maru tells Koki triumphantly, patting Ueda’s hair, which was sticking out in odd places.
Ueda scowls and dislodges himself from Maru, automatically running a hand through his hair to straighten it out. “You better have a good reason for waking me up, or I’ll-”
“Come on,” Koki interrupts impatiently, half-dragging Ueda down the hall. “You know, you have no right to complain about lack of sleep; Yuichi and I were up half the night!”
“I don’t think I needed to know that,” Ueda replies with a grimace, wrenching away from Koki’s grip and massaging his wrist.
Maru lightly whaps him on the head. “We couldn’t sleep because it was so noisy in the other room!”
“…you mean Taguchi’s snoring again?” Ueda answers.
Maru and Koki exchange a look as they finally stop in front of Kame’s door. “Open it,” Koki tells Ueda.
“Why? And it’s probably locked anyway.” Ueda rolls his eyes but complies, encountering no difficulties in turning the knob and opening the door a couple of inches. He peers in and freezes for a few seconds before promptly drawing his head back and slamming the door shut.
“Look at the bags under our eyes,” Koki complains, pointing to the slightly dark circles beneath his eyes and giving Ueda a pointed look that meant that he ought to take responsibility for this. “It was that bad-”
“Spare me the details,” Ueda halts him, face already noticeably paler than usual.
A huge yawn is heard, and the three turn their heads to see Junno shuffling out of the room two doors down from Kame’s. He blinks in their direction for a few moments before breaking out into a smile and an enthusiastic “Ohayo!”
“Did you sleep well, Taguchi?” Maru asks conversationally as Junno approaches them, elbowing Ueda who was making barely audible choking sounds beside him.
Junno’s eyes widen and he shakes his head vehemently. “Ueda, your house isn’t haunted, is it? Because I kept hearing all these groaning and screaming noises all night! I couldn’t sleep at all! But, you know, I think that screaming voice reminds me of someone…”
Koki imitates the wide-eyed look on Junno’s face. “You know what, Taguchi, we heard those sounds too! And they were so near! I bet the ghosts are in Kame’s room!” He glances sidelong at the door in front of them.
Junno gasps in genuine horror. “What are you guys doing, just standing out here? Kame might have been possessed by spirits by now! Why don’t you go check in on him?” He pushes Ueda aside and dives for the doorknob.
Ueda doesn’t stumble this time. “Uh, Taguchi, I don’t think-”
His words fell on deaf ears as Junno flings the door wide open and barges into the room. Koki, Ueda and Maru turn away instantaneously, calmly putting their hands to their ears when Junno lets out a loud yell.
“Some ghost,” Ueda mutters, glaring at Koki, who has already collapsed to the floor in fits of laughter.
----------
They are in Ueda’s living room. Ueda sits cross-legged on one of the squashy armchairs, Koki perched on one of the arms with a wide smile on his face. Maru prefers sitting Indian-style on the floor, leaning his elbows on the coffee table between him and the sofa. Junno shifts uncomfortably in the other armchair and inwardly wishes that this could all be over with so that they can eat breakfast already. Jin and Kame sit side-by-side on the couch, squirming under the combined gazes of their fellow band mates.
“So.” Koki is looking incredibly smug, so much so that Jin is overcome with the sudden urge to strangle him. “This is certainly an interesting development.”
Ueda snorts. “What’s so interesting about it? They’ve been fucking each other for years.”
Koki shrugs and looks back at Jin and Kame. “Two weeks,” he begins mock-solemnly. “You two were told to keep your hands off each other for just two weeks, and you can’t manage even that. Just so you know, Yuichi’s terribly disappointed in you two right now.”
“I am?” Maru asks, surprised.
“Yeah. Because you now owe me a week of free lunches. You did say that they could stick to the deal, didn’t you?” Koki reminds him.
Maru is crestfallen. “Damn.”
“You placed bets on us?” Kame speaks up incredulously.
“Does that matter? The point is that you failed to fulfill orders! It’s only been a week and a half,” Koki points out. “Hehe, I wonder what your punishment is going to be…”
Jin suddenly jumps up. “This is not my fault! Kame seduced me!” he protests, flailing his arms wildly.
“Excuse me?” Kame interjects coolly.
Jin looks at him in mild disbelief. Whatever happened to the sensitive, vulnerable Kazu-chan of the night before? “Don’t lie! You did!”
Ueda sighs, as if he were a babysitter whose charges were getting quite out of hand. “Jin, don’t put all the blame on Kame. Kame, we are not at work; don’t put on your poker face because you’re not going to get in trouble.”
“We aren’t?” Jin looks hopeful.
“Yet,” Koki promptly adds. Ueda shoots him a look.
Maru waves his hand. “Hold up, you guys really don’t have your priorities straight, do you?” He stands up and flocks over to Kame, worriedly placing his hands on either of Kame’s shoulders. “You’re okay, right? Akanishi didn’t hurt you too much, did he? Do you think you need a day off to recuperate?”
Junno looks vaguely traumatized as he gazes open-mouthed at Kame, then turns away with a flush in his cheeks when Jin catches him staring.
Kame appears completely unfazed by Maru’s mother-hen antics. “I’m fine.”
Maru drags Kame off the couch and instructs him to walk, which Kame obediently does, wincing only just a little bit. Maru glares accusingly at Jin.
Jin is indignant. “He was depressed all week because of that stupid memo! He’s fine because I cured him!” he argues, looking to Kame for support as if daring him to object.
“I was not depressed,” Kame adamantly denies, his calm, collected mask slipping.
“You were crying in your sleep last night; if that isn’t depression then I don’t know what is-”
“I was having a nightmare! Just because a person cries doesn’t mean that he’s suffering from depression!”
“I’m hungry!” Junno says aloud.
Koki slides off Ueda’s armchair, looking slightly bored. “Me too. I’m all for breakfast. You guys coming?”
Maru and Junno immediately follow at Koki’s heels. Ueda rises from his seat and follows suit with the same urgency, although it was probably more out of the fear of what his friends would do to endanger his kitchen than the unpleasant feeling of unattended hunger.
Jin and Kame are still arguing as the four exit the room.
----------
Kame stares passively as Jin lugs an enormous cardboard box into the living room and drags it to Kame’s feet.
“I’ve figured it all out,” Jin announces, opening the flaps and extracting a worn manga volume from the box.
“Where did you get all those?” The blankness in Kame’s eyes dissolve into keen interest as his eyes rove over the numerous titles on the spines of the neatly-arranged volumes.
Jin shrugs. “I borrowed them from Ryo-chan, who borrowed them from Uchi.” He mutters vaguely about Ryo chewing him out because Uchi had mistakenly thought that Ryo wanted to read them for himself and had promptly laughed his ass off before handing the stash over, but Kame had already snatched a book from the box and was far too preoccupied with devouring its contents to sympathize.
“Can I borrow this before you give it back?” Kame asks without looking up.
Jin scowls and snatches the manga from Kame. “Listen to me!”
“What?” Kame shoots him an irritated look.
Jin hurriedly shoves the manga back into the box and closes it, holding his hands over the flaps protectively in case Kame got any ideas. “I’ve read all of these, and I think I know what your problem is.”
“I wasn’t aware I had one,” Kame answers disparagingly, not at all liking the enlightened look on Jin’s face-it was scary; Jin appearing smart was probably a sign for the coming apocalypse.
“Well, now you are,” Jin tells him in a superior tone. “As I was saying. I’ve gone through all this stuff and it is now clear to me that you should be forbidden from reading any of it. At least, all the angsty, sappy, heartbroken parts...”
Kame gapes at him.
“I know you, Kame. I always see you reading shoujo manga when you’re down or really tired. And then you always end up spacing out for a good half hour or more right after you finish reading! I bet you read this before you go to sleep, too! This is what gives you nightmares!” Jin exclaims, slapping a palm onto the box for emphasis.
“How can something I like give me nightmares?” Kame protests.
“Because you’re using it for escapism!” Jin answers. “I looked it up,” he adds proudly after seeing the stunned look on Kame’s face. “I broke into your apartment the other day-”
“You what?”
“-and just as I suspected, you had all your manga littered all over the place! I even checked your DVD player, and as soon as I turned it on I heard that song which went like ‘Itoshii hito no tame ni…’ That opening theme from the anime of that really horrible-”
“Fushigi Yuugi is a classic!” Kame defends, glaring at Jin as if he had just uttered something blasphemous.
Jin pays no heed, obviously of the opinion that Fushigi Yuugi could be wiped off the face of the earth for all he cared. “Anyway,” he barrels on loudly, “You have the habit of going over all the depressing parts of the story when you yourself are depressed, don’t you? And it only ends up making you feel worse.”
Kame doesn’t respond, staring stubbornly at Jin’s shoes.
Jin’s gaze softens. “Kame,” he says softly, cupping Kame’s chin in his hand and staring directly into his eyes. “Happy endings don’t just happen in shoujo manga, you know.”
Kame stiffens and unconsciously glances over Jin’s shoulder, hearing the hushed voices of their band mates in the other room. “Happy endings don’t often happen in real life,” he replies cynically.
Jin laughs. “You’re so overdramatic!” His face turns serious when the thin line that is Kame’s lips doesn’t even twitch. “You don’t chase after a happy ending, Ka-zu-ya.” He presses his forehead to Kame’s, feels Kame’s breath against his lips. “It’s up to you to make one.”
And when Jin kisses him, light and sweet and effective at shutting down whatever Kame was worrying about, Kame starts to think that maybe Jin is right after all.
----------
“Do you think they’ll ever find out that we just made that memo thing up?” Koki asks thoughtfully as he munches on a roast chicken sandwich.
Ueda shrugs. “Only if you tell them, which, I could safely assume, you aren’t stupid enough to do,” he responds, staring with mild distaste at the mayonnaise stains that Koki had left on his once-pristine white tablecloth. “Besides, if one of you did slip up, we can always put all the blame on Nakamaru because he was the one who came up with it in the first place.”
“Oi! That’s unfair!” Maru exclaims in protest.
“You mean Johnny didn’t really order them to keep away from each other for two weeks?” Junno asks, puzzled. He was met with three exasperated stares.
Ueda rolls his eyes. “They’re not going to abstain from sex for a fortnight just because we ask them to. It has to be Johnny’s word-even if Jin were against it, we can always count on Kame to be a stickler for official commands from upper management.”
“But why ask them to do that?” Junno persists.
Koki grins. “To see them suffer.”
“Anti-PDA,” Ueda blandly responds.
“Health reasons,” Maru answers, his face stern as he shot Koki and Ueda a disapproving look.
“Same difference,” Koki says dismissively. “No pain, no gain, right?”
Ueda checks his watch. “We need to go soon-someone go tell the other two that.”
“Oi, Taguchi,” Maru and Koki say in unison.
Junno, who is about to take a huge bite from his sandwich, stares forlornly at it and sighs. “Hai…”
As Junno trudges out of the kitchen, Maru leans back on his chair and groans. “What do we do now? We’ll be on tour again in a couple of days and we can’t afford to have both Kame and Akanishi exhausted because of…strenuous activities.”
Junno stumbles back into the room, beet red. “Too late. I think they’re going for another round,” he informs them in an embarrassed tone.
“Convenient.” Ueda doesn’t bother checking his watch again. He props an elbow up on the table, resting his cheek against his hand, when a thought occurs to him. “Oh no, my couch-” He bolts out of the room in a panic.
Koki whistles. “Well, sounds like they’ve got plenty of energy left over to me,” he chortles at Maru.
Maru merely slumps his head onto the table in despair. You just can’t win them all.
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notes: …..PARAMATERS DDDD: I know I fail