[fic] Miscommunication
Title: Miscommunication
Author: poppedeggplant
Pairing: akame
Rating: PG-13
Genre: angst, humour (very dry), romance
Disclaimer: I don’t own the boys
Summary: If only they had talked it out, then they wouldn’t have been in such a situation.
A/N: Sequel to Cruel Coincidence. I suggest you read that very very short drabble first before reading this.
A/N2: I feel very accomplished to have finished this! It's one of the longest fics I've written under such a short period of time so don’t rain on my parade and be nice XD Also, this is for my kaasan, shapika , for poking me to finish this. Don’t fall again, okay! <3
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“I can’t take it anymore, I can’t do this,” Jin mumbled into the phone, words muffled by his attempt to hide his tears.
“What can you not do, Jin? Is it him?” Pi asked despite knowing very well that it could only be about him.
“Everything’s gotten worse, so much worse. You don’t know what they did, Pi. I’m losing everything…” his voice failed him, breaking in the end.
Jin was at the verge of breaking apart.
It’s not supposed to be this way, he thought.
Jin was supposed to be happy, the happiest, now that he had Kazuya. But reality came crashing down on him hard, and it had hurt. Life with Kazuya should have been easy, fun and beautiful. He should be floating around on the highest cloud there is.
However, people did not care about his happiness. People, to be more specific, being his family; father, mother… everyone who was supposedly close to him. They just kept on hurting him, dealing him small but painful blows to him, bringing his morale down.
They wanted to hurt the bond Jin and Kazuya had.
The first blow came a few days after he had announced to them that he was leaving them to be with Kazuya. It made sense to Jin; Kazuya needed him more than his family needed him.
At that time, they were in college and Jin was living off a monthly allowance that was just nice for rent and food and all those.
So on one particularly cloudy afternoon, Jin had just finished classes and was probably in a mood darker than the sky. All he really wanted then was a really cold drink and a neck massage.
Oh yeah, a neck massage from Kazuya, Jin drooled at the thought for a moment before realizing how stupid he must have looked and wiped the corners of his mouth hastily with the back of his hand. He was about to head to some nearby food court to grab some food when he realized he was running low on money. Knowing that he could already withdraw his next monthly allowance from some ATM, he walked briskly to the nearest one, his insides doing a little happy dance at the prospect of more money.
But then all his glee was replaced by confusion. There had to be a mistake. It must be a mistake.
$0
Jin’s eyes widened, panicking. He glared at the screen, pulled out his card and stuffed it back in. He looked at the amount displayed.
$0
“The hell?!” Jin yelled out, kicking the side of that damned machine, and stomped away angrily. He yanked out his phone, dialing in a number he had hoped to never use again.
“What did you do?! Why don’t I have any money? Do you want me to die?!” Jin shouted into the phone, uncaring of the bewildered looks random passers-by were giving him or the fact that he had most probably destroyed the eardrums of the man at the other end of the phone.
“I don’t think you need it. After all your final words to me were ‘all I need is Kazuya’, remember? Now, you’ve just interrupted a very important meeting I’m having so I’m hanging up now, Jin.” And the line went dead.
“What?!” Jin screamed to no one in particular now. His hands were balled into fists and his chest was heaving up and down in a very erratic pattern. A string of curses later, he realized standing at the sidewalk and venting off his anger at strangers was not a very smart thing to do so he started to head home.
“I am going to kill that old man. I’ll cut open that beer belly of his and rip out his guts then he’ll give me what I need,” Jin muttered to himself, finding some satisfaction in imagining the fear on his father’s face before his imaginary dismemberment of his father’s body.
He was still mumbling incoherently by the time he reached their apartment. He stopped, taking a few calming breaths before entering. The last thing he needed is a very terrified Kazuya.
Though a very terrified Kazu has its advantages… No, no, stop it, Jin. Jin shook himself out of that train of thought and went inside, shouting what he hoped was a cheerful “tadaima”.
He didn’t know how to break the news to Kazuya. He didn’t plan to be tactful at all because it was useless to try to sugar up words that would still disappoint in the end.
But when he did tell Kazuya, they both felt the painful blow. True, it was just money and money, or lack of it, should not have affected their bond.
However, this was reality, and reality is superficial.
The second blow was very much linked with the first. It was when Jin realized he could not support the both of them. Although Kazuya had tried to convince him that they can survive with just his allowance, Jin wouldn’t have any of it and got himself a part-time job at a nearby café.
After having led a well-sheltered life, Jin was having trouble coping with both his studies and work and still try to have some time off with Kazuya. Jin was not really good with people thus his daily interactions with people at the café had him pulling at his hair and yelling at inanimate objects the minute he reached home. Also, Jin was not the smartest kid on the block and so he could barely keep up during classes after sacrificing a lot of his time at work.
An irate Jin equates to a Jin who is in need of some distressing. Thus every night after his shift, Jin would force a certain Yamashita for a drink or two… or ten. In between glasses, Jin would moan about how hard life was for him or how tired he was.
And frankly, Pi had had enough of his whining.
“Dude, listen,” Pi held Jin’s hand to stop him from finishing up his first glass for that day, and Jin looked up from his glass irritably.
“What?”
“Maybe you forgot what you were working so hard for, but I really hope, for your sake, that you remember it again.” Pi told him before leaving the bar and a very shocked Jin.
Jin sat there for a while, staring blankly into space.
That stupid Yamashita has a point, Jin admitted grumpily before heading back home to have a talk with the one person that could fix everything.
Jin needed to be reminded why he gave everything up in the first place.
But that night, he came home to a sleeping Kazuya. Despite the calmness that surrounded Kazuya, there was something off. The ends of his mouth were curled downwards as if he was upset about something, and his eyebrows were slightly furrowed together which usually meant he was worried. But Jin didn’t want to wake him up so he got changed and snuggled up close to his Kazuya, enjoying the warmth and comfort of Kazuya.
Then he realized, only Kazuya could make him feel contented just by his presence.
It was Kazuya. The person he gave up everything for… was Kazuya.
But by next morning, Kazuya was gone.
Jin had woken up to a cold empty bed and the moment he realized he was alone; he jolted up and searched all over the apartment for anything, his movements clumsy and hasty out of panic.
He didn’t leave anything behind, no note… nothing. If not for his scent that had lingered in their apartment, it was as if Kazuya was never there.
And at the moment, it was like the world had came crashing down on him. It was overwhelming, his emotions; regret, pain, hurt… It was just too much. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his teeth gritted together to keep himself from screaming out. The pain kept building up in him till he couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed to the ground, a crying broken mess.
That was how Pi found him an hour later after Jin ignored all his phone calls and mails.
“Jin!” Pi held him by his shoulders and tried to shake him out of his daze. “What happened, Jin?”
“He’s… gone, Pi, he’s gone.” Jin croaked out, tears falling again. Pi sighed heavily, unable to handle seeing Jin so broken, and engulfed him into a hug, stroking his back comfortingly.
After Jin had calmed down and his cries had reduced to quiet sobs, Pi decided with a silent “yosh!” in his head that he was going to help fix Jin and Kazuya’s relationship because a depressed Jin meant an alcoholic Jin (and during those times, it was Pi who covered Jin’s tabs) and also, he felt like the only sane one in the situation. And sane people are smart… or so he hoped.
“Before he left, did you tell him anything?” Pi asked tentatively, as if testing dangerous waters.
Jin shook his head frantically. “I just… He was… asleep. I didn’t have the chance to… fix things,” Jin replied with hiccups in between his words. Pi mentally face-palmed.
This was going to be so much easier than I thought, Pi thought to himself, a little bit appalled at Jin’s choice of action after Kazuya’s disappearance.
“You know, you could just… go find him and talk things out with him? Won’t that be a lot better than sitting on your butt here, soaking my t-shirt with your tears?” Pi tried again, his tone soft and what he hoped was convincing at the same time.
Jin looked up to him with those big teary eyes that could melt the hearts of many, including Pi.
“Are you sure, Pi?”
Pi nodded confidently.
“Just… fix yourself up first, take a bath or something. You look disgusting.” Pi teased, lightly punching Jin’s shoulder.
After a quick hot shower, Jin rushed out of his apartment, leaving Pi behind without informing him where he was heading to.
Jin needed to find Kazuya as fast as possible before anything happened. He didn’t really know what could happen exactly, but he definitely didn’t want to take any more chances.
He needed to fix them now.
In actual fact, Jin could narrow down Kazuya’s current location to two places; his mum’s house or Tatsuya’s. Deciding that the latter was less troublesome as it required lesser explanation (and he didn’t really have to be polite with Tatsuya), he sped off to Tatsuya’s, uncaring of speed limits and possible accidents.
Three shouts of “let me in!” and an uncountable number of knocks later, Tatsuya opened the door, a tired look on his face. Tatsuya sighed, and held his hand up, stopping Jin from saying anything.
“He’s in the guest room. Go get him,” Tatsuya leaned on the doorframe, giving way to Jin and resting at the same time.
Oh god, people are troublesome, Tatsuya thought, sighed once more and shut the door forcefully before going back to sleep in his room.
Alone.
With no one disturbing him.
Ueda Tatsuya needs his sleep.
In the next room, Jin treaded slowly inside, as if testing Kazuya’s reaction to his presence. The said man was sitting comfortably on the bed, wrapped in a comforter, with a book in hand. Kazuya lips curled into a distinct frown and irritation was shown clearly in his eyes the moment Jin sat himself on the edge of the bed.
Jin turned himself around to face Kazuya directly and gently took the book away from Kazuya’s hands. Kazuya didn’t try to stop him. Jin brought himself nearer to Kazuya until he was right next to him, and the nearer Jin got, the harder Kazuya tried to avoid his gaze.
“Kazuya…” Jin, with his fingertips, tilted Kazuya’s head to face his, “what happened?”
At that, Kazuya turned away hastily, refusing to look into Jin’s eyes. Kazuya was not going to let Jin in that easily. Not after what he had done. But Jin, truthfully, had no idea what he had done.
Miscommunication
Words exist for a reason and if only they had talked earlier on, then maybe they would not have landed themselves in such a difficult situation.
“Kazu, talk to me, what did I do wrong?” Jin asked pleadingly, desperation evident in the strain of his voice.
“Kazuya… please…”
Tears threatened to fall. Hearts were on the verge of breaking.
Kazuya couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around, his face determined.
“You better not drift away from me anymore,” Kazuya pouted, and Jin couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around his Kazuya as tight as he could, as if Kazuya would slip away if his hug was any looser.
“I won’t, I promise, I won’t ever do that,” Jin mumbled into the crook of Kazuya’s neck.
Kazuya smiled his first genuine smile in a long time.
“Jin, let go of me,”
“Why?” Jin panicked.
Kazu doesn’t want me back? He thought as he released Kazuya from the hug, his heart beating faster as he tried to stop himself from crying.
“So I can do this,” and Kazuya held the sides of Jin’s face and leaned in, kissing him sweetly.
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A/N3: I am so tired omg LJ's auto-formatting is such a jerk I had to reformat it on my own /dies/ ANYWAY, this is a different style of writing for me so let me know what you think okay? Commeeeeeeent please~ ^___^