Gift fic for frameofmind6: Some things that change, and the others that don't (3/3)
Part 2
A girl in Theia’s kindergarten came down with measles. She’s is in a different group, so the danger is minimal, but the kindergarten has closed for a week to localize the infection. Meisa doesn’t have any immediate work in the next few days either, so Jin has a rare opportunity to use the car as he wants.
Thus, he finds himself at quarter to three parked inconspicuously across the street from Kame’s apartment house, waiting for the grey agency SUV to reappear from the residents’ parking lot, having safely delivered Kame home after a day of hard work.
Jin has worked pretty hard too, subtly squeezing the schedule by ten minutes here and thirty there, and even managed to finish with some time to spare, which he spent on watching the last half an hour of Going!, before closing the studio and heading over here.
The agency car comes out at last and drives off unhurriedly, its duty fulfilled. Jin gives Kame another ten minutes to change his clothes or whatever, and then huddles deeper into his hoody, lowers his face against the unlikely event of paparazzi lurking somewhere in this protected vicinity, puts his car on alarm and strolls to the front door, silently reciting the code.
It’s dark inside, when he enters the apartment, - again. Kame’s bag lies sideways by the umbrella stand and the suit jacket he wore on Going! looks alien hanging beside the casual jeans and leather coats on the rack. Jin picks up both as he heads inside.
Kame is not in the kitchen this time though, thank God. He’s in the living room, lying face down on the sofa - still in his suit trousers and white shirt.
“Don’t tell me you are drunk,” Jin says casually in place of ‘Hello’, “you’ve only just come home. Unless, of course you had started in the car, right at the Nippon TV building.”
“Not drunk, just tired.” Kame skips the formalities as well. He pushes himself up into a sitting position by the armrest, and pulls his legs closer. “Don’t sit too far, I cannot talk very loudly.”
His voice indeed is scratchy. Not as croaky as the day before, perhaps, but neither the almost normal way he sounded on TV. Jin figures he must have consumed a pack-full of throat candies before going on air, but that’s the problem with quick remedies - the faster they work, the faster the effect wears off afterwards.
He puts the bag and jacket on the armchair, and lifts two pillows from the floor. They must have fallen down earlier, when Kame stretched on the sofa full length. Jin throws one to Kame and puts the other one behind his back as he sits.
For a few moments they just stay silent, both of them suddenly unsure of what to say, the future of KAT-TUN and ‘all these things’ like the two elephants looming in front of them in the room, both topics unavoidable, but too heavy to start on them right away.
Kame is the first to find a safer line of discourse. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “I’m afraid I’m out of the hard liquor, apart from some rum I only use for baking, and there is, like no more than two fingers of that left... But I do have wine and beer, your choice… Come to think, I can do with a can of beer myself… to take off the edge.”
“Cold beer on a sore voice cords. Want to kill your voice altogether?” Jin admonishes gently. “Do you have eggs and milk?”
Kame nods.
“Then I can make you an eggnog a little later - with that rum you’ve mentioned. Well, not exactly eggnog,” he explains hastily, “it’s called ‘Tom and Jerry’ or something, the warm version, but the recipes are similar, so I just call it eggnog. It’ll warm your throat, and well, milk and eggs are good for the voice cords...” He looks on Kame closely. “Say… do your feet hurt? You are rubbing them sort of constantly.”
Kame glances down, startled, to where his fingers are indeed massaging the foot right behind the balls. “Guess, they do… The shoes are a little too close a fit, okay on a normal day, but wearing them after two days of dancing and standing was, probably, not the brightest idea...”
“Want me to massage them for you?” Jin offers, but Kame shakes his head.
“No…” he starts, and then, when Jin continues watching him doubtfully, sighs and amends it. “I do not know… Later?..” He sighs again. “Same goes for eggnog, and even the comfier clothes I really need to change into. For now… can you just stay where you are?”
Kame looks tense, restless, almost as if his whole body is curling involuntarily around some emotion inside he is unable to either contain or let go. The emotion so strong, it has taken up all of him, leaving no space or strength for anything else. And Jin figures - he’ll have to be the one to prick this blister, before Kame’s heart simply suffocates.
“I watched Going! before I drove here” he says, as slowly and matter-of-factly as he can. “They showed bits and pieces of the concert. From what I saw, you three really gave your all...” he trails off and waits, and sure enough, after what seems like a long, long pause, Kame picks up the topic.
“The fans were crying...” he almost whispers. “Cheering and crying - simultaneously...” He looks away from Jin, his gaze unseeing, inwardly re-watching what was happening back at the venue.
“Nakamaru cried too...” Kame continues. “That moment in the video that simply looked like a group hug due to the editing and the Going! team filming from afar… He just… cried. Couldn’t stop… Ueda too. He tried to hide it though, and will probably deny it if you asked him, but I saw his tears...”
“Did you cry?” Jin asks carefully. “During the performance or after it?”
Kame looks… thoughtful, searching, as if he is not sure himself and is now recounting the moments in his memory trying to determine whether he was crying back then or not.
“Nearly. During the ‘Kimi no Yume’…” he answers finally. “I remember thinking that it was such a wrong time, I needed to sing!” He lifts his gaze to meet Jin’s - for the first time in minutes - and his eyes are bright, dry and uncomprehending, the answer he found obviously shocking himself. “I did not cry after that. Somehow, there was always no time for it, and right now I...” - he swallows - “just feel numb... Can’t even tell if I do not want to cry, or if I want it, but cannot...”
Jin turns a little sideways to face him full on. “Theia,” he says, “is a handful… But she is a brave girl, I’ll give her that…” He is glad, when Kame’s face registers some honest surprise on an apparent change of topic. “So, when she runs and falls, scratches her knee and stands there biting her lip so as not to cry, do you know what I tell her?.. Move over here,” he urges, when Kame doesn’t answer, “it’s my and Theia’s secret after all, I can only divulge it with due caution...”
He doesn’t really expect that Kame will fall for this trick, but the guy must be really distracted, for he actually leans forward in reflex, and Jin has only to catch him by the shoulders and bring closer still, so that Kame’s forehead bumps into his shoulder. Then he closes his arms around him firmly and holds him there, when in the first instinctive reaction Kame tries to push away.
“Actually, I do not tell Theia anything,” Jin whispers into his ear. “She’s clever enough to start weeping, when I hug her… There is something, though, that I have to tell you, Kazuya… It’s okay to cry. And it’s okay not to cry. I won’t think that you are weak, if you do, and I won’t think that you are heartless, if you don’t. Either way is okay…”
There is no wailing, no hiccups, no telltale shaking of shoulders. Kame’s fingers clench on Jin’s hoodie, like he is never going to let go, Kame takes one long breath and exhales. And… nothing. He doesn’t try to move away any more, but whether he cries or not, Jin can’t tell.
Either way is okay, he reminds himself.
When he feels the wetness seeping through the thick cotton of his hoodie, it almost catches Jin by surprise.
Several minutes later Kame’s hands unclench and he straightens up, not backing all the way to where he sat before, but putting some distance between the two of them. He avoids looking on Jin.
“Ready for the eggnog now?” Jin asks.
***
He doesn’t go to the kitchen directly though, but makes a detour into Kame’s bedroom, picking up the first sweatpants and tee he finds in the wardrobe - Kame has mentioned that he wanted to change earlier, so he can well do it, while Jin prepares the eggnog, allowing him some time to calm.
Kame trudges into the kitchen a few minutes later, when Jin is beating up the yolks and sugar with the whisk he found by opening one kitchen drawer after the other, and the milk is nicely heating up on the stove.
Kame’s eyes are red and his nose is puffy, but otherwise he looks considerably more like himself. More himself, actually, than Jin has ever seen him since this whole thing started - the sweatpants baggy and the T-shirt looking like Jin should remember it from six years ago.
“Thank you,” he says quietly and hoarsely. “It helped. I feel better now.”
He drags out the second bar chair, previously shoved away into the far end beside the acoustic system, and sits down with his elbows on the counter, watching on as Jin proceeds to beating up the whites.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Yep,” Jin nods. “Where is that rum that you advertised earlier?”
When Kame produces the bottle, Jin mixes the various parts together, adds the hot milk and then ups it with cold milk a bit to make the temperature bearable.
“Sip slowly,” he still cautions, putting the cup before Kame. “It may be hot.”
Kame tastes the thick, creamy liquid and nods approvingly. “It’s nice. Write me the recipe later.”
“It’s good for your throat too… Back in America,” Jin explains, “there was a period when I drank and smoked a lot and my voice cords suffered. So, one of the older singers I knew taught me this thing. It’s nice and smooth, and, well, has enough alcohol in it to… ‘take off the edge’, as you’ve put it.”
“Looks like you have already taken care of my ‘edge’ in a different way.” Kame smiles sheepishly.
“Then the more reason to cheer.” Jin finds another cup, pours about half of the same amount for himself and then gently knocks his cup on Kame’s. “Sip on. You need to drink all of it, while it’s still warm.”
They sit in a companionable silence for a while, sipping on their drinks, and, when Jin asks the question, it’s almost an afterthought - just because Kame looks like he could do with a good week’s rest, and Jin sincerely hopes that he will get it.
“When is your filming starting?”
“In a couple of days…” Kame dips his finger into the largest of the stray milk drops on the surface of the counter and connects them into a complicated pattern with whitish, multiply intersecting lines.
“It’s strange really…” he continues with wry amusement. “I’ve got my first role before KAT-TUN was even formed and have been acting all these years on and off exactly as my solo project. So why does it feel so different all of a sudden? Was I so invested into the group… or rather - has KAT-TUN become such an integral part of me that I feel insufficient now that I am alone?” He looks at Jin curiously. “Did you feel this way too, when you left the group?”
“Well, I’ve never been as invested in KAT-TUN as you were…” Jin begins thoughtfully. And then he thinks back on 2010… like, really thinks back on it, and… It’s fucking ironic.
“But… I can understand your sentiments very well,” he continues bitterly. “About the integral part that one trusts to always be there. Except suddenly… it isn’t.”
There must be something in his tone, or in his gaze - long, and heavy, and wistful - for Kame to go completely still.
“You aren’t speaking about KAT-TUN,” he says, and it is not really a question, but Jin answers anyway.
“No, Kazuya, I’m not speaking about KAT-TUN.”
Kame stays silent for a long moment, looking at the drying pattern on the counter, then nods with resignation. “Guess, we are going to talk about ‘these things’ now…”
“Perhaps.” Jin shrugs. “If you want to. It is not pressing… You had a hard day, and it’s a long talk. We can always leave it for another time.”
“No,” - Kame shakes his head - “let’s talk… These past months, you did a lot for me, and that” - he sighs - “is making me mightily confused, Jin, so… I’d like us to set it straight, before I start imagining things that may not be there.”
He stands up decisively. “I’ll make us some jasmine tea, if beer is off limits.”
Jin stands up as well, to wash their cups and store away what remains of the eggnog. “There is almost a full cup left,” he points out. “You can warm it in the microwave in the morning, if your throat feels worse.”
He remains by the fridge, watching Kame put the water to boil and measure the leaves into a teapot. And everything - from the warm yellowish light in the kitchen to Kame in these baggy sweatpants, preparing the tea - feels so overwhelmingly nostalgic that Jin has to shake himself to come back to the present from all those times he used to stand in this exact spot in the past.
“They are there, you know…” he says softly. “The things that you are imagining. They’ve never really stopped being there at all.”
The teaspoon stills over the pot, and Kame’s shoulders grow tense. “Isn’t it a bit tall? Coming from a married man with daughter and wife?” he asks stiffly without turning.
“Things happen.” Jin shrugs. “And… I do not think that it’s any taller than you breaking up with me, presumably over things that you yourself encouraged me to do…”
The tea-box falls, spilling the leaves on the table, and Kame hisses, turning abruptly and opening his mouth to speak, but Jin raises his hand. “Hush!.. Isn’t it exactly something we mean to set straight?”
He goes back to his chair and sits down there with his elbows on the counter - much in the same way as Kame sat before. “To tell the truth... It really hurt like hell back then, and the residual bitterness may still come through - occasionally… But I know you - you never do things without a reason, Kazuya. And you’d never harm me, unless you believed it was somehow for the greater good…”
He looks at where Kame has the cups lined up before him and is staring at the teapot intently, as if the tea won’t brew if he so much as blinks.
“I hope you’ll tell me ‘why’ sometime…” Jin continues, “but now that we sit here and talk… it’s not what’s important. I think we both established by now that neither of us has drastically changed… So, let’s concentrate on the present and go on from there.”
He slows down to a stop, unsure what else to say to make Kame understand that they shouldn’t get hung up on their past, or not on the worst part of it, at least... and is almost startled, when Kame places a teacup in front of him.
“But you did change, Jin.” He smiles, sitting down beside his own cup. “The previous you… would have made me pay dearly for even imaginary hurt - prior to forgiving it… I must confess, I sort of like the way you grew up…” He looks down at his hands. “Wonder though, if it’s leaving the group or the family life that did it…”
“About my family life…”
It’s not easy to begin, and Jin automatically pats his pockets for the cigarettes, and then freezes with a pack in his hand, reluctant to stop and drag them out to the balcony at such a crucial moment of their talk.
“You can smoke here,” Kame allows. “I still do sometimes, when I’m feeling too lazy to move.” He takes a spare saucer out of the dryer and puts it between them to serve as an ashtray. “Give me one as well… What?” He raises an eyebrow in return to Jin’s adamant ‘You shouldn’t!’ “My throat is better and there is always the eggnog in the fridge.”
The way he bends his head low over Jin’s lighter is so familiar that Jin’s fingers itch to reach out and keep his fringe out of the harm’s way. There is no need though, Kame cuts his hair much shorter this days.
“Right… about my family life…” Jin starts a little breathlessly, when Kame straightens, but gets himself together and puts all the surety he can master into the next phrase. “Meisa and I are just friends.”
“Friends, who are married and raise a common child?” Kame snorts doubtfully.
“As I said, things happen…” Jin shrugs. “We met in the bar at… let’s say, not the brightest day of both our lives. She was still recuperating after a break-up with her boyfriend, I was… still not exactly recovered after you. We drank and… sort of cried on each other’s shoulder. So what happened was a comfort sex and, maybe, a little revenge on the people, who… weren’t there. No lasting commitments, just something to make us feel better for this one night.”
He takes a deep drag on his ciggy before continuing and throws a glance at Kame, who looks… thoughtful, attentive, and - as much as Jin is able to judge - not showing any overt signs of disbelief.
“She called me in a month, in panic, and said she was pregnant. Her agency would not allow her to give birth as a single mom, and… you know, what would have happened if the Old Bitch got the wind of it before we tied the knot…” He raises his eyes again just in time to catch Kame nodding somberly with confirmation and even seemingly - a compassion.
“I’m a Catholic, Kame!” he pleads nevertheless. “Not the kind to go to church every Sunday, but some things are just… Children shouldn’t die just because they may harm someone’s careers!
“And that” - Jin chuckles mirthlessly - “is a short story of how I ended married and in hiatus - all in a single week.”
Kame nods again - in such a way that tells that everything he has heard so far neatly corresponds with however he explained Jin’s actions to himself previously - and then lifts the teapot to fill up Jin’s cup and his own.
Whether he trusts Jin on the next part of the story is much more important though… and trickier.
“I never regretted this choice,” Jin continues, “even if I wallowed in self-pity for a bit. And then at some point… I thought - maybe it’s all for the better, maybe I need to do the most with what I have? So, I won’t lie to you, for a year or two, I… no, both of us, really tried to make it work. The marriage thing… Until we looked on ourselves and saw that we were truly - just roommates. We take turns doing laundry, preparing food and - more importantly - taking care of Theia, but we have our own rooms and we live our own lives… I don’t love her, she doesn’t love me, and we’re not going to…
“And then,” - Jin looks up and straight on Kame - “I met you at that Bruno Mars concert. And six minutes of exchanging polite banalities made me feel more than I did in a few years with my beautiful wife… Not counting the day she gave birth to Theia,” he amends.
Kame stares at his hands - serious, thoughtful - and Jin cannot tell whether he believes him or not, it’s hard with Kame sometimes. But then Kame should know himself how such things go, shouldn’t he?
“Before you start doubting if what I told you is true…” he probes gently, “Mind telling me if that thing between you and Fuka-kyon ended any differently?” He feels satisfaction, when Kame looks sharply up as if… caught.
“I was thinking about approaching you earlier last year,” Jin offers in a way of explanation, “but then all those rumors about the two of you started… Yet, judging by how deep in the corner that second chair was stacked… it must be over already, or isn’t it?”
Surprisingly, Kame chuckles and relaxes - visibly so, as if something in what Jin just said has helped to settle his mind. “Fukada-san… I completely forgot that you’ve worked with her too…” He smiles. “But you are oversherlocking yourself, Jin. We did not sit like this in the kitchen. Never got to this stage…”
He sips at his tea and reaches for cigarettes, but catches himself and shakes his head. “Shouldn’t smoke anymore, do not fancy more eggnog. It’s good but too sweet to drink before sleep…”
“What happened?” Jin asks.
Kame shakes his head. “Nothing really… It was the wrong reasoning to begin with… I met you at that Bruno Mars concert and thought, ‘So, this is Jin, looking fine and happily married. Isn’t it time I tried to move on as well?’ And then we were filming together again… with all those ‘adult’ scenes in the script, and sometimes we sort of reacted - genuinely so.” He sighs.
“And?” Jin prompts.
“And it was… nice.” Kame props his chin on his hand and stares into the wall, recounting. “To prepare food for someone else besides myself, to walk each other’s dogs, to talk about things you wouldn’t have the first inkling about… And, though she was accommodating more than passionate, to have someone to kiss and hold, and have sex with, and just go to sleep together on a regular basis… It was nice too…”
“And?” Jin prompts again, and Kame chuckles, turns toward him and smiles genuinely this time, if a little sadly.
“And - it was a lot similar to what you just told - all a lie. I felt like we were pretending - through and through… Just running away from our loneliness. So, I ended it…” He looks Jin straight in the eyes. “Such a pathetic pair we are, aren’t we?”
“For myself, I prefer to think of it as ‘faithful’,” Jin smirks. “Feels better this way.”
“Some ‘faithful’! When we both slept with other people along the way.”
“Well,” Jin shrugs it off lightheartedly, “we are clearly no monks… Faithful enough to know they were the wrong people?”
Kame yet again is staring anywhere but on Jin, and though he still is smiling placidly, Jin knows he is anxious by how he shifts in place and licks his lips twice before even opening them to talk. ““So, what do we do now that we have established that all those other people are wrong? Do we just… get together like nothing has happened? Do you think that it is possible?”
Yes, Jin understands Kame’s anxiety very well. In a way, it would have been easier, if their relationship were something new, without all these memories of shared past facing them like an insurmountable hurdle or a high cliff they have to close their eyes and jump of. And for Kame, with his constant habit to overthink everything, it must seem even huger than for Jin, who even as an adult often lives by the principle ‘Jump first and think later’.
“For now…” Jin says wearily. “I think we need to go and sleep. It was a hard day, for you especially… And the decisions like this are better made in the morning, when the world seems brighter… I can take the sofa, if you want.”
“Don’t talk bullshit!” Kame snorts. “Being lovers with you - all of a sudden - may seem strange to me… But sharing a bed is something we’ve done since we weren’t even fourteen, and you are not the worst bedpartner… unless you hog all the blankets for yourself.”
***
The tee Kame gives him is Jin’s own, from six years ago, Jin is sure. Forgotten here or just thrown carelessly into a laundry hamper before he left.
Jin doesn’t tell it aloud though, because it may make Kame feel pathetic again, or - Kame being Kame - he could’ve given it to Jin specifically - to test, whether Jin would think that he is pathetic. It’s safer to pretend Jin doesn’t recognize it in any case - six years have passed, after all.
Jin doesn’t think that Kame is pathetic, he has a few Kame’s things himself, safely stacked in the back of his wardrobe. And he still keeps that ring.
So, he slips quietly under the bedcover beside Kame, tugs gently to get a bit more of it for himself, and Kame tugs right back. It’s like riding the bicycle, them re-enacting their nightly routine with such an ease as if it was just yesterday they slept in one bed.
Kame doesn’t turn to snuggle warmly into Jin’s chest though. Lies tensely on his side, the wheels still turning stubbornly in his tired head with such an effort - Jin almost hears them screech.
“About why I dropped you…” he says finally, which is the topic Jin didn’t want to breach at all tonight, but if Kame wants to get it off his chest, he can listen.
“I don’t really know how to explain it… I wasn’t so noble as you imagined me to be, or not completely… You flew away. I was alone. I was miserable. And I felt so torn. Like there were two of me - one that wanted to keep you greedily just for myself, and the other - who didn’t want to be a burden to you, and didn’t want to make you choose eternally between America and your dream, and Japan and me… So, I figured, if I broke with you - you’d be free. Maybe, in time, could find someone more suitable… And, maybe, if I do not wait for you anymore - it won’t hurt so much… Didn’t work out that way, did it?”
“I wish you had told me that back then,” Jin says sadly. “Just told me, ‘Don’t go to America, Jin. Quit the group, go solo, if you want, but stay here.’ I, probably, would have stayed.”
Kame shakes his head. “And you would have hated me eventually for spoiling your chance.”
“I sacrificed it anyway, didn’t I?” Jin smiles. “And never regretted... Actually, the whole ‘going worldwide’ considerably lost its allure without you there to support me.”
Kame is quiet for a while, taking it in. Or, maybe, too emotional. Or, maybe, just falling asleep, now that the thing that bothered him has been said. It’s hard to tell, when all that Jin sees is only his back. He’s on the verge of deciding it’s the latter, when Kame whispers again.
“I don’t think Johnny would have allowed you to back off that easily either. Since part of the reason behind your American tour was ‘putting the Pacific between the two silly boys, who can’t keep their dicks straight’ - his words…”
“That was one of my pet theories,” Jin mutters with wry amusement, “the Old Bitch learning about us somehow and making you drop me or else… The lack of retributions on my end puzzled me though. It wasn’t her style to spare any of the involved.”
“Guess Johnny kept the knowledge to himself. Didn’t give me the talk down either - back then. I’ve only learned about it later, when I came to plead for you after your… unexpected nuptials… What?!” Kame asks defiantly, when Jin gives a startled noise. “Yes, I asked him to at least let you finish the concerts. He refused, but otherwise was rather kind. Told me, he knew about the two of us for years, told me… not to hurt myself over someone, who is married and ‘a Trouble with a big T’, his words again…”
“Thank you for trying,” Jin says, moved to almost beyond words. “I didn’t know…”
“Nobody did. KAT-TUN would have eaten me alive, if they knew… Speaking of which, this problem… It didn’t go anywhere. Johnny - or the Old Bitch - won’t be too happy, if they learn we are an item again.”
“I’m not a Johnny’s talent anymore,” Jin counters easily. “And you… what can they do to you that didn’t happen already? Throw you completely out? Look at me - I’m doing not so bad independently. May even take you in.”
Kame laughs. Like, wholeheartedly laughs for the first time this evening. “Thank you, Jin, but I’ll pass. Thinking of you as my boss gives me the creeps!”
Jin has almost forgotten how much he loves Kame’s laugh. Over the years, ever since they were juniors, he heard Kame whine repeatedly about how he ‘giggles like a child’ or ‘looks atrociously’, when the laughing fit hits him. He even practiced a more adult and subdued version before the mirror. Jin did not mind. Never cared how Kame laughed, when he was with other people. It was okay, so long as he still could laugh without restraint, when he was with Jin… It still is.
The sound of Kame’s laugh, however, reminds Jin about the occasion that bears looking into. The topic is somewhat risky. Yet, if Jin handles it right, and with Kame currently in a lighter mood…
“Want to hear another secret?” Jin smiles wickedly. “But I will only tell it to you, if you turn towards me.”
“Not another trick, like last time?” Kame reconfirms suspiciously, even though he is actually already half-turned.
“Cannot promise it,” Jin smirks. “You’ll have to turn fully to find out.”
He rolls onto his side as well, and once their heads are lying close enough, Jin drops his bomb. “Do you know that you are at least partly responsible for me meeting Meisa at that bar?”
“What? Me? How? Or I am to blame for everything that happens in your life?” Kame sounds shocked and even offended, a little more so than Jin expected, and for a moment he fears that the whole plot may backfire.
“Well… you take up a large part of my life, Kame,” Jin hurries to explain soothingly. “So, it makes sense that many things in it are related to you - in this way or that… As it happens, I felt in need of a drink because I saw you with a man.”
“What? Where?” Now it’s more startled than indignant, which is considerably better.
“Hm-m… I already wanted to talk with you when I came back in March,” Jin starts slowly in his best ‘reading fairy-tales to Theia’ voice, “but it didn’t work out. My schedule was shit and the manager watched me like a hawk... which, by the way, makes sense now that you told me about Johnny. I managed to slip from him somehow in December. Came here,” - he makes a gesture, indicating Kame’s apartment - “and since you weren’t home yet, went to the end of the corridor to wait, hoping that the security staff didn’t change and will remember me enough after more than a year not to chase me away as a lurking stalker… And then you appeared out of the elevator a quarter to midnight. Drunk off your feet, clinging to another man and laughing at something that he was telling you… Didn’t even notice me, though I stood in plain sight only three doors away.”
Kame is frowning, puzzled in earnest now. “That… That just can’t be, Jin. I’m no monk, okay, and I did have sex a couple of times that year. But they were all… well… professionals, and I never brought them home… Come to that, I do not even remember getting drunk other than right here - alone or with friends… Are you sure it wasn’t-”
“I would know our senpais or kohais, right?” Jin counters. “As well, as most of your outside friends… apart from some baseball guys, perhaps, but he didn’t look the type.”
Kame is concentrating like hell, the frown deepening. Looks like the poor guy doesn’t even remember the occasion, which makes teasing him even funnier, and Jin buries his face into the pillow to hide the smirk.
Funnier still that it takes Kame so long to pick up on the not exactly accusatory tone of Jin’s words.
“Wait! Why aren’t you mad at me?” he asks finally with suspicion. “Are you leading me on? It didn’t really happen, did it?”
“It most certainly did,” Jin looks at him fondly. “And I was mad at the time, enough to go and drown my sorrows in the bar, remember? But it’s water under the bridge… Besides,” - he smiles - “I already know, who that person was… An older man, handsome, about my height but a little broader. Doesn’t ring a bell?”
He lets Kame stew in his puzzlement for another half-minute and only then gives him another hint. “You really shouldn’t drink to the point, where you do not remember things… Okay, think ‘Bem’…”
Jin can totally hear the proverbial coin drop.
“Right!” Kame almost cries out in relief. “The wrap-party! There was some last minute wire action to film, and I hadn’t eaten since morning… Bought the champagne myself too, quite a lot of it… So I got pretty drunk by the end of the evening, and Kitamura-san took me home in his car… But he only came in for less than five minutes!” he adds hastily.
“Wouldn’t know about it.” Jin smirks again. “Wasn’t there to see him leave… From what I saw, though… you clang to him sort of - like you were really interested... And,” he continues, ignoring Kame’s incensed ‘I was drunk!’, “in the drama as well, you two played a very convincing bromance.”
“That was all playacting… I mean, it was Bem and Natsume, not… I mean… He isn’t even gay!” Kame splutters, and Jin bites the lip to hold back the mirth.
He is… about ninety percent certain the guy is telling the truth and there was nothing there. Well, except for the onscreen bromance. That was there alright. But provoking Kame is so rewarding. Especially, since the provoked Kame is prone to do things that the sane one would hesitate until eternity before doing. Which, in a way, is something that Jin is sincerely hoping for.
“Look at me,” he teases on unrelentingly. “I never thought I was gay either, I still am not - except when it comes to you.”
“But he is married!”
Admirable logic, Kazuya...
“And I’m not?”
“Fuck it, Akanishi, I’m telling you nothing happened!”
As much as Jin loves to hear Kame laugh, he positively adores him, when Kame gets angry. Kame’s angry is like that of a ferocious tiger kitten - scary, arousing and adorable mixed up in a really volatile cocktail - you have to look out for sharp claws, but want to squeeze him nevertheless.
So Jin acts according to both instinct and plan, when he avoids Kame’s neck-pillow aimed at his head by diving closer and bringing their lips together.
There is a startled ‘Oh…’ that Jin uses to gain a deeper entrance, and then - no answering motion whatsoever, until - when Jin is almost prepared to sign the entire mission off like a fail - there is a tiny moan deep in Kame’s throat, and he turns his head just so, sucking on Jin’s lips just once - lightly, unsurely, like he is not certain if he should be doing it…
Jin takes it as a promising step forward anyway. Which is why he breaks all contact and turns on his other side, making it seem as if he is preparing to go to sleep, when in truth he is counting seconds in his head. Three, four, five… He hears an angry snort, the bed shifts as Kame lifts himself on his elbow, and then he pushes Jin quite forcibly in the shoulder.
“What was it?” Another push. “I asked, what was it?”
“Nothing,” Jin replies nonchalantly, “just checking something…”
“Checking what?”
“Don’t know... If we are still compatible, you kn-”
“Co… Compatible?!” Kame sounds positively seething. “Damn it, turn over, Akanishi!”
“Why?” Jin asks without turning, because a little caution is always advisable, when you are dealing with mad tiger kittens.
There is another snort. “Just want to ‘check something’ for myself. Turn over or else!”
That sounds very, very promising, so Jin obeys, and even before he has rolled over completely…
“Now kiss me, the fuck, properly! I didn’t even understand what it was before!” Kame hisses. It’s such a familiar commanding tone that Jin nearly comes from sheer relief.
And when he obeys again… what follows is also what he expects only more so. Gruff words; and fingers, growing surer with each passing moment; and scorching hot lips, finding the places that Kame is the only one who knows about… Familiar, unchanging, yet blindingly new -every time. Like jumping from a high cliff and like coming home after a hard day.
A girl in Theia’s kindergarten came down with measles. She’s is in a different group, so the danger is minimal, but the kindergarten has closed for a week to localize the infection. Meisa doesn’t have any immediate work in the next few days either, so Jin has a rare opportunity to use the car as he wants.
Thus, he finds himself at quarter to three parked inconspicuously across the street from Kame’s apartment house, waiting for the grey agency SUV to reappear from the residents’ parking lot, having safely delivered Kame home after a day of hard work.
Jin has worked pretty hard too, subtly squeezing the schedule by ten minutes here and thirty there, and even managed to finish with some time to spare, which he spent on watching the last half an hour of Going!, before closing the studio and heading over here.
The agency car comes out at last and drives off unhurriedly, its duty fulfilled. Jin gives Kame another ten minutes to change his clothes or whatever, and then huddles deeper into his hoody, lowers his face against the unlikely event of paparazzi lurking somewhere in this protected vicinity, puts his car on alarm and strolls to the front door, silently reciting the code.
It’s dark inside, when he enters the apartment, - again. Kame’s bag lies sideways by the umbrella stand and the suit jacket he wore on Going! looks alien hanging beside the casual jeans and leather coats on the rack. Jin picks up both as he heads inside.
Kame is not in the kitchen this time though, thank God. He’s in the living room, lying face down on the sofa - still in his suit trousers and white shirt.
“Don’t tell me you are drunk,” Jin says casually in place of ‘Hello’, “you’ve only just come home. Unless, of course you had started in the car, right at the Nippon TV building.”
“Not drunk, just tired.” Kame skips the formalities as well. He pushes himself up into a sitting position by the armrest, and pulls his legs closer. “Don’t sit too far, I cannot talk very loudly.”
His voice indeed is scratchy. Not as croaky as the day before, perhaps, but neither the almost normal way he sounded on TV. Jin figures he must have consumed a pack-full of throat candies before going on air, but that’s the problem with quick remedies - the faster they work, the faster the effect wears off afterwards.
He puts the bag and jacket on the armchair, and lifts two pillows from the floor. They must have fallen down earlier, when Kame stretched on the sofa full length. Jin throws one to Kame and puts the other one behind his back as he sits.
For a few moments they just stay silent, both of them suddenly unsure of what to say, the future of KAT-TUN and ‘all these things’ like the two elephants looming in front of them in the room, both topics unavoidable, but too heavy to start on them right away.
Kame is the first to find a safer line of discourse. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “I’m afraid I’m out of the hard liquor, apart from some rum I only use for baking, and there is, like no more than two fingers of that left... But I do have wine and beer, your choice… Come to think, I can do with a can of beer myself… to take off the edge.”
“Cold beer on a sore voice cords. Want to kill your voice altogether?” Jin admonishes gently. “Do you have eggs and milk?”
Kame nods.
“Then I can make you an eggnog a little later - with that rum you’ve mentioned. Well, not exactly eggnog,” he explains hastily, “it’s called ‘Tom and Jerry’ or something, the warm version, but the recipes are similar, so I just call it eggnog. It’ll warm your throat, and well, milk and eggs are good for the voice cords...” He looks on Kame closely. “Say… do your feet hurt? You are rubbing them sort of constantly.”
Kame glances down, startled, to where his fingers are indeed massaging the foot right behind the balls. “Guess, they do… The shoes are a little too close a fit, okay on a normal day, but wearing them after two days of dancing and standing was, probably, not the brightest idea...”
“Want me to massage them for you?” Jin offers, but Kame shakes his head.
“No…” he starts, and then, when Jin continues watching him doubtfully, sighs and amends it. “I do not know… Later?..” He sighs again. “Same goes for eggnog, and even the comfier clothes I really need to change into. For now… can you just stay where you are?”
Kame looks tense, restless, almost as if his whole body is curling involuntarily around some emotion inside he is unable to either contain or let go. The emotion so strong, it has taken up all of him, leaving no space or strength for anything else. And Jin figures - he’ll have to be the one to prick this blister, before Kame’s heart simply suffocates.
“I watched Going! before I drove here” he says, as slowly and matter-of-factly as he can. “They showed bits and pieces of the concert. From what I saw, you three really gave your all...” he trails off and waits, and sure enough, after what seems like a long, long pause, Kame picks up the topic.
“The fans were crying...” he almost whispers. “Cheering and crying - simultaneously...” He looks away from Jin, his gaze unseeing, inwardly re-watching what was happening back at the venue.
“Nakamaru cried too...” Kame continues. “That moment in the video that simply looked like a group hug due to the editing and the Going! team filming from afar… He just… cried. Couldn’t stop… Ueda too. He tried to hide it though, and will probably deny it if you asked him, but I saw his tears...”
“Did you cry?” Jin asks carefully. “During the performance or after it?”
Kame looks… thoughtful, searching, as if he is not sure himself and is now recounting the moments in his memory trying to determine whether he was crying back then or not.
“Nearly. During the ‘Kimi no Yume’…” he answers finally. “I remember thinking that it was such a wrong time, I needed to sing!” He lifts his gaze to meet Jin’s - for the first time in minutes - and his eyes are bright, dry and uncomprehending, the answer he found obviously shocking himself. “I did not cry after that. Somehow, there was always no time for it, and right now I...” - he swallows - “just feel numb... Can’t even tell if I do not want to cry, or if I want it, but cannot...”
Jin turns a little sideways to face him full on. “Theia,” he says, “is a handful… But she is a brave girl, I’ll give her that…” He is glad, when Kame’s face registers some honest surprise on an apparent change of topic. “So, when she runs and falls, scratches her knee and stands there biting her lip so as not to cry, do you know what I tell her?.. Move over here,” he urges, when Kame doesn’t answer, “it’s my and Theia’s secret after all, I can only divulge it with due caution...”
He doesn’t really expect that Kame will fall for this trick, but the guy must be really distracted, for he actually leans forward in reflex, and Jin has only to catch him by the shoulders and bring closer still, so that Kame’s forehead bumps into his shoulder. Then he closes his arms around him firmly and holds him there, when in the first instinctive reaction Kame tries to push away.
“Actually, I do not tell Theia anything,” Jin whispers into his ear. “She’s clever enough to start weeping, when I hug her… There is something, though, that I have to tell you, Kazuya… It’s okay to cry. And it’s okay not to cry. I won’t think that you are weak, if you do, and I won’t think that you are heartless, if you don’t. Either way is okay…”
There is no wailing, no hiccups, no telltale shaking of shoulders. Kame’s fingers clench on Jin’s hoodie, like he is never going to let go, Kame takes one long breath and exhales. And… nothing. He doesn’t try to move away any more, but whether he cries or not, Jin can’t tell.
Either way is okay, he reminds himself.
When he feels the wetness seeping through the thick cotton of his hoodie, it almost catches Jin by surprise.
Several minutes later Kame’s hands unclench and he straightens up, not backing all the way to where he sat before, but putting some distance between the two of them. He avoids looking on Jin.
“Ready for the eggnog now?” Jin asks.
***
He doesn’t go to the kitchen directly though, but makes a detour into Kame’s bedroom, picking up the first sweatpants and tee he finds in the wardrobe - Kame has mentioned that he wanted to change earlier, so he can well do it, while Jin prepares the eggnog, allowing him some time to calm.
Kame trudges into the kitchen a few minutes later, when Jin is beating up the yolks and sugar with the whisk he found by opening one kitchen drawer after the other, and the milk is nicely heating up on the stove.
Kame’s eyes are red and his nose is puffy, but otherwise he looks considerably more like himself. More himself, actually, than Jin has ever seen him since this whole thing started - the sweatpants baggy and the T-shirt looking like Jin should remember it from six years ago.
“Thank you,” he says quietly and hoarsely. “It helped. I feel better now.”
He drags out the second bar chair, previously shoved away into the far end beside the acoustic system, and sits down with his elbows on the counter, watching on as Jin proceeds to beating up the whites.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Yep,” Jin nods. “Where is that rum that you advertised earlier?”
When Kame produces the bottle, Jin mixes the various parts together, adds the hot milk and then ups it with cold milk a bit to make the temperature bearable.
“Sip slowly,” he still cautions, putting the cup before Kame. “It may be hot.”
Kame tastes the thick, creamy liquid and nods approvingly. “It’s nice. Write me the recipe later.”
“It’s good for your throat too… Back in America,” Jin explains, “there was a period when I drank and smoked a lot and my voice cords suffered. So, one of the older singers I knew taught me this thing. It’s nice and smooth, and, well, has enough alcohol in it to… ‘take off the edge’, as you’ve put it.”
“Looks like you have already taken care of my ‘edge’ in a different way.” Kame smiles sheepishly.
“Then the more reason to cheer.” Jin finds another cup, pours about half of the same amount for himself and then gently knocks his cup on Kame’s. “Sip on. You need to drink all of it, while it’s still warm.”
They sit in a companionable silence for a while, sipping on their drinks, and, when Jin asks the question, it’s almost an afterthought - just because Kame looks like he could do with a good week’s rest, and Jin sincerely hopes that he will get it.
“When is your filming starting?”
“In a couple of days…” Kame dips his finger into the largest of the stray milk drops on the surface of the counter and connects them into a complicated pattern with whitish, multiply intersecting lines.
“It’s strange really…” he continues with wry amusement. “I’ve got my first role before KAT-TUN was even formed and have been acting all these years on and off exactly as my solo project. So why does it feel so different all of a sudden? Was I so invested into the group… or rather - has KAT-TUN become such an integral part of me that I feel insufficient now that I am alone?” He looks at Jin curiously. “Did you feel this way too, when you left the group?”
“Well, I’ve never been as invested in KAT-TUN as you were…” Jin begins thoughtfully. And then he thinks back on 2010… like, really thinks back on it, and… It’s fucking ironic.
“But… I can understand your sentiments very well,” he continues bitterly. “About the integral part that one trusts to always be there. Except suddenly… it isn’t.”
There must be something in his tone, or in his gaze - long, and heavy, and wistful - for Kame to go completely still.
“You aren’t speaking about KAT-TUN,” he says, and it is not really a question, but Jin answers anyway.
“No, Kazuya, I’m not speaking about KAT-TUN.”
Kame stays silent for a long moment, looking at the drying pattern on the counter, then nods with resignation. “Guess, we are going to talk about ‘these things’ now…”
“Perhaps.” Jin shrugs. “If you want to. It is not pressing… You had a hard day, and it’s a long talk. We can always leave it for another time.”
“No,” - Kame shakes his head - “let’s talk… These past months, you did a lot for me, and that” - he sighs - “is making me mightily confused, Jin, so… I’d like us to set it straight, before I start imagining things that may not be there.”
He stands up decisively. “I’ll make us some jasmine tea, if beer is off limits.”
Jin stands up as well, to wash their cups and store away what remains of the eggnog. “There is almost a full cup left,” he points out. “You can warm it in the microwave in the morning, if your throat feels worse.”
He remains by the fridge, watching Kame put the water to boil and measure the leaves into a teapot. And everything - from the warm yellowish light in the kitchen to Kame in these baggy sweatpants, preparing the tea - feels so overwhelmingly nostalgic that Jin has to shake himself to come back to the present from all those times he used to stand in this exact spot in the past.
“They are there, you know…” he says softly. “The things that you are imagining. They’ve never really stopped being there at all.”
The teaspoon stills over the pot, and Kame’s shoulders grow tense. “Isn’t it a bit tall? Coming from a married man with daughter and wife?” he asks stiffly without turning.
“Things happen.” Jin shrugs. “And… I do not think that it’s any taller than you breaking up with me, presumably over things that you yourself encouraged me to do…”
The tea-box falls, spilling the leaves on the table, and Kame hisses, turning abruptly and opening his mouth to speak, but Jin raises his hand. “Hush!.. Isn’t it exactly something we mean to set straight?”
He goes back to his chair and sits down there with his elbows on the counter - much in the same way as Kame sat before. “To tell the truth... It really hurt like hell back then, and the residual bitterness may still come through - occasionally… But I know you - you never do things without a reason, Kazuya. And you’d never harm me, unless you believed it was somehow for the greater good…”
He looks at where Kame has the cups lined up before him and is staring at the teapot intently, as if the tea won’t brew if he so much as blinks.
“I hope you’ll tell me ‘why’ sometime…” Jin continues, “but now that we sit here and talk… it’s not what’s important. I think we both established by now that neither of us has drastically changed… So, let’s concentrate on the present and go on from there.”
He slows down to a stop, unsure what else to say to make Kame understand that they shouldn’t get hung up on their past, or not on the worst part of it, at least... and is almost startled, when Kame places a teacup in front of him.
“But you did change, Jin.” He smiles, sitting down beside his own cup. “The previous you… would have made me pay dearly for even imaginary hurt - prior to forgiving it… I must confess, I sort of like the way you grew up…” He looks down at his hands. “Wonder though, if it’s leaving the group or the family life that did it…”
“About my family life…”
It’s not easy to begin, and Jin automatically pats his pockets for the cigarettes, and then freezes with a pack in his hand, reluctant to stop and drag them out to the balcony at such a crucial moment of their talk.
“You can smoke here,” Kame allows. “I still do sometimes, when I’m feeling too lazy to move.” He takes a spare saucer out of the dryer and puts it between them to serve as an ashtray. “Give me one as well… What?” He raises an eyebrow in return to Jin’s adamant ‘You shouldn’t!’ “My throat is better and there is always the eggnog in the fridge.”
The way he bends his head low over Jin’s lighter is so familiar that Jin’s fingers itch to reach out and keep his fringe out of the harm’s way. There is no need though, Kame cuts his hair much shorter this days.
“Right… about my family life…” Jin starts a little breathlessly, when Kame straightens, but gets himself together and puts all the surety he can master into the next phrase. “Meisa and I are just friends.”
“Friends, who are married and raise a common child?” Kame snorts doubtfully.
“As I said, things happen…” Jin shrugs. “We met in the bar at… let’s say, not the brightest day of both our lives. She was still recuperating after a break-up with her boyfriend, I was… still not exactly recovered after you. We drank and… sort of cried on each other’s shoulder. So what happened was a comfort sex and, maybe, a little revenge on the people, who… weren’t there. No lasting commitments, just something to make us feel better for this one night.”
He takes a deep drag on his ciggy before continuing and throws a glance at Kame, who looks… thoughtful, attentive, and - as much as Jin is able to judge - not showing any overt signs of disbelief.
“She called me in a month, in panic, and said she was pregnant. Her agency would not allow her to give birth as a single mom, and… you know, what would have happened if the Old Bitch got the wind of it before we tied the knot…” He raises his eyes again just in time to catch Kame nodding somberly with confirmation and even seemingly - a compassion.
“I’m a Catholic, Kame!” he pleads nevertheless. “Not the kind to go to church every Sunday, but some things are just… Children shouldn’t die just because they may harm someone’s careers!
“And that” - Jin chuckles mirthlessly - “is a short story of how I ended married and in hiatus - all in a single week.”
Kame nods again - in such a way that tells that everything he has heard so far neatly corresponds with however he explained Jin’s actions to himself previously - and then lifts the teapot to fill up Jin’s cup and his own.
Whether he trusts Jin on the next part of the story is much more important though… and trickier.
“I never regretted this choice,” Jin continues, “even if I wallowed in self-pity for a bit. And then at some point… I thought - maybe it’s all for the better, maybe I need to do the most with what I have? So, I won’t lie to you, for a year or two, I… no, both of us, really tried to make it work. The marriage thing… Until we looked on ourselves and saw that we were truly - just roommates. We take turns doing laundry, preparing food and - more importantly - taking care of Theia, but we have our own rooms and we live our own lives… I don’t love her, she doesn’t love me, and we’re not going to…
“And then,” - Jin looks up and straight on Kame - “I met you at that Bruno Mars concert. And six minutes of exchanging polite banalities made me feel more than I did in a few years with my beautiful wife… Not counting the day she gave birth to Theia,” he amends.
Kame stares at his hands - serious, thoughtful - and Jin cannot tell whether he believes him or not, it’s hard with Kame sometimes. But then Kame should know himself how such things go, shouldn’t he?
“Before you start doubting if what I told you is true…” he probes gently, “Mind telling me if that thing between you and Fuka-kyon ended any differently?” He feels satisfaction, when Kame looks sharply up as if… caught.
“I was thinking about approaching you earlier last year,” Jin offers in a way of explanation, “but then all those rumors about the two of you started… Yet, judging by how deep in the corner that second chair was stacked… it must be over already, or isn’t it?”
Surprisingly, Kame chuckles and relaxes - visibly so, as if something in what Jin just said has helped to settle his mind. “Fukada-san… I completely forgot that you’ve worked with her too…” He smiles. “But you are oversherlocking yourself, Jin. We did not sit like this in the kitchen. Never got to this stage…”
He sips at his tea and reaches for cigarettes, but catches himself and shakes his head. “Shouldn’t smoke anymore, do not fancy more eggnog. It’s good but too sweet to drink before sleep…”
“What happened?” Jin asks.
Kame shakes his head. “Nothing really… It was the wrong reasoning to begin with… I met you at that Bruno Mars concert and thought, ‘So, this is Jin, looking fine and happily married. Isn’t it time I tried to move on as well?’ And then we were filming together again… with all those ‘adult’ scenes in the script, and sometimes we sort of reacted - genuinely so.” He sighs.
“And?” Jin prompts.
“And it was… nice.” Kame props his chin on his hand and stares into the wall, recounting. “To prepare food for someone else besides myself, to walk each other’s dogs, to talk about things you wouldn’t have the first inkling about… And, though she was accommodating more than passionate, to have someone to kiss and hold, and have sex with, and just go to sleep together on a regular basis… It was nice too…”
“And?” Jin prompts again, and Kame chuckles, turns toward him and smiles genuinely this time, if a little sadly.
“And - it was a lot similar to what you just told - all a lie. I felt like we were pretending - through and through… Just running away from our loneliness. So, I ended it…” He looks Jin straight in the eyes. “Such a pathetic pair we are, aren’t we?”
“For myself, I prefer to think of it as ‘faithful’,” Jin smirks. “Feels better this way.”
“Some ‘faithful’! When we both slept with other people along the way.”
“Well,” Jin shrugs it off lightheartedly, “we are clearly no monks… Faithful enough to know they were the wrong people?”
Kame yet again is staring anywhere but on Jin, and though he still is smiling placidly, Jin knows he is anxious by how he shifts in place and licks his lips twice before even opening them to talk. ““So, what do we do now that we have established that all those other people are wrong? Do we just… get together like nothing has happened? Do you think that it is possible?”
Yes, Jin understands Kame’s anxiety very well. In a way, it would have been easier, if their relationship were something new, without all these memories of shared past facing them like an insurmountable hurdle or a high cliff they have to close their eyes and jump of. And for Kame, with his constant habit to overthink everything, it must seem even huger than for Jin, who even as an adult often lives by the principle ‘Jump first and think later’.
“For now…” Jin says wearily. “I think we need to go and sleep. It was a hard day, for you especially… And the decisions like this are better made in the morning, when the world seems brighter… I can take the sofa, if you want.”
“Don’t talk bullshit!” Kame snorts. “Being lovers with you - all of a sudden - may seem strange to me… But sharing a bed is something we’ve done since we weren’t even fourteen, and you are not the worst bedpartner… unless you hog all the blankets for yourself.”
***
The tee Kame gives him is Jin’s own, from six years ago, Jin is sure. Forgotten here or just thrown carelessly into a laundry hamper before he left.
Jin doesn’t tell it aloud though, because it may make Kame feel pathetic again, or - Kame being Kame - he could’ve given it to Jin specifically - to test, whether Jin would think that he is pathetic. It’s safer to pretend Jin doesn’t recognize it in any case - six years have passed, after all.
Jin doesn’t think that Kame is pathetic, he has a few Kame’s things himself, safely stacked in the back of his wardrobe. And he still keeps that ring.
So, he slips quietly under the bedcover beside Kame, tugs gently to get a bit more of it for himself, and Kame tugs right back. It’s like riding the bicycle, them re-enacting their nightly routine with such an ease as if it was just yesterday they slept in one bed.
Kame doesn’t turn to snuggle warmly into Jin’s chest though. Lies tensely on his side, the wheels still turning stubbornly in his tired head with such an effort - Jin almost hears them screech.
“About why I dropped you…” he says finally, which is the topic Jin didn’t want to breach at all tonight, but if Kame wants to get it off his chest, he can listen.
“I don’t really know how to explain it… I wasn’t so noble as you imagined me to be, or not completely… You flew away. I was alone. I was miserable. And I felt so torn. Like there were two of me - one that wanted to keep you greedily just for myself, and the other - who didn’t want to be a burden to you, and didn’t want to make you choose eternally between America and your dream, and Japan and me… So, I figured, if I broke with you - you’d be free. Maybe, in time, could find someone more suitable… And, maybe, if I do not wait for you anymore - it won’t hurt so much… Didn’t work out that way, did it?”
“I wish you had told me that back then,” Jin says sadly. “Just told me, ‘Don’t go to America, Jin. Quit the group, go solo, if you want, but stay here.’ I, probably, would have stayed.”
Kame shakes his head. “And you would have hated me eventually for spoiling your chance.”
“I sacrificed it anyway, didn’t I?” Jin smiles. “And never regretted... Actually, the whole ‘going worldwide’ considerably lost its allure without you there to support me.”
Kame is quiet for a while, taking it in. Or, maybe, too emotional. Or, maybe, just falling asleep, now that the thing that bothered him has been said. It’s hard to tell, when all that Jin sees is only his back. He’s on the verge of deciding it’s the latter, when Kame whispers again.
“I don’t think Johnny would have allowed you to back off that easily either. Since part of the reason behind your American tour was ‘putting the Pacific between the two silly boys, who can’t keep their dicks straight’ - his words…”
“That was one of my pet theories,” Jin mutters with wry amusement, “the Old Bitch learning about us somehow and making you drop me or else… The lack of retributions on my end puzzled me though. It wasn’t her style to spare any of the involved.”
“Guess Johnny kept the knowledge to himself. Didn’t give me the talk down either - back then. I’ve only learned about it later, when I came to plead for you after your… unexpected nuptials… What?!” Kame asks defiantly, when Jin gives a startled noise. “Yes, I asked him to at least let you finish the concerts. He refused, but otherwise was rather kind. Told me, he knew about the two of us for years, told me… not to hurt myself over someone, who is married and ‘a Trouble with a big T’, his words again…”
“Thank you for trying,” Jin says, moved to almost beyond words. “I didn’t know…”
“Nobody did. KAT-TUN would have eaten me alive, if they knew… Speaking of which, this problem… It didn’t go anywhere. Johnny - or the Old Bitch - won’t be too happy, if they learn we are an item again.”
“I’m not a Johnny’s talent anymore,” Jin counters easily. “And you… what can they do to you that didn’t happen already? Throw you completely out? Look at me - I’m doing not so bad independently. May even take you in.”
Kame laughs. Like, wholeheartedly laughs for the first time this evening. “Thank you, Jin, but I’ll pass. Thinking of you as my boss gives me the creeps!”
Jin has almost forgotten how much he loves Kame’s laugh. Over the years, ever since they were juniors, he heard Kame whine repeatedly about how he ‘giggles like a child’ or ‘looks atrociously’, when the laughing fit hits him. He even practiced a more adult and subdued version before the mirror. Jin did not mind. Never cared how Kame laughed, when he was with other people. It was okay, so long as he still could laugh without restraint, when he was with Jin… It still is.
The sound of Kame’s laugh, however, reminds Jin about the occasion that bears looking into. The topic is somewhat risky. Yet, if Jin handles it right, and with Kame currently in a lighter mood…
“Want to hear another secret?” Jin smiles wickedly. “But I will only tell it to you, if you turn towards me.”
“Not another trick, like last time?” Kame reconfirms suspiciously, even though he is actually already half-turned.
“Cannot promise it,” Jin smirks. “You’ll have to turn fully to find out.”
He rolls onto his side as well, and once their heads are lying close enough, Jin drops his bomb. “Do you know that you are at least partly responsible for me meeting Meisa at that bar?”
“What? Me? How? Or I am to blame for everything that happens in your life?” Kame sounds shocked and even offended, a little more so than Jin expected, and for a moment he fears that the whole plot may backfire.
“Well… you take up a large part of my life, Kame,” Jin hurries to explain soothingly. “So, it makes sense that many things in it are related to you - in this way or that… As it happens, I felt in need of a drink because I saw you with a man.”
“What? Where?” Now it’s more startled than indignant, which is considerably better.
“Hm-m… I already wanted to talk with you when I came back in March,” Jin starts slowly in his best ‘reading fairy-tales to Theia’ voice, “but it didn’t work out. My schedule was shit and the manager watched me like a hawk... which, by the way, makes sense now that you told me about Johnny. I managed to slip from him somehow in December. Came here,” - he makes a gesture, indicating Kame’s apartment - “and since you weren’t home yet, went to the end of the corridor to wait, hoping that the security staff didn’t change and will remember me enough after more than a year not to chase me away as a lurking stalker… And then you appeared out of the elevator a quarter to midnight. Drunk off your feet, clinging to another man and laughing at something that he was telling you… Didn’t even notice me, though I stood in plain sight only three doors away.”
Kame is frowning, puzzled in earnest now. “That… That just can’t be, Jin. I’m no monk, okay, and I did have sex a couple of times that year. But they were all… well… professionals, and I never brought them home… Come to that, I do not even remember getting drunk other than right here - alone or with friends… Are you sure it wasn’t-”
“I would know our senpais or kohais, right?” Jin counters. “As well, as most of your outside friends… apart from some baseball guys, perhaps, but he didn’t look the type.”
Kame is concentrating like hell, the frown deepening. Looks like the poor guy doesn’t even remember the occasion, which makes teasing him even funnier, and Jin buries his face into the pillow to hide the smirk.
Funnier still that it takes Kame so long to pick up on the not exactly accusatory tone of Jin’s words.
“Wait! Why aren’t you mad at me?” he asks finally with suspicion. “Are you leading me on? It didn’t really happen, did it?”
“It most certainly did,” Jin looks at him fondly. “And I was mad at the time, enough to go and drown my sorrows in the bar, remember? But it’s water under the bridge… Besides,” - he smiles - “I already know, who that person was… An older man, handsome, about my height but a little broader. Doesn’t ring a bell?”
He lets Kame stew in his puzzlement for another half-minute and only then gives him another hint. “You really shouldn’t drink to the point, where you do not remember things… Okay, think ‘Bem’…”
Jin can totally hear the proverbial coin drop.
“Right!” Kame almost cries out in relief. “The wrap-party! There was some last minute wire action to film, and I hadn’t eaten since morning… Bought the champagne myself too, quite a lot of it… So I got pretty drunk by the end of the evening, and Kitamura-san took me home in his car… But he only came in for less than five minutes!” he adds hastily.
“Wouldn’t know about it.” Jin smirks again. “Wasn’t there to see him leave… From what I saw, though… you clang to him sort of - like you were really interested... And,” he continues, ignoring Kame’s incensed ‘I was drunk!’, “in the drama as well, you two played a very convincing bromance.”
“That was all playacting… I mean, it was Bem and Natsume, not… I mean… He isn’t even gay!” Kame splutters, and Jin bites the lip to hold back the mirth.
He is… about ninety percent certain the guy is telling the truth and there was nothing there. Well, except for the onscreen bromance. That was there alright. But provoking Kame is so rewarding. Especially, since the provoked Kame is prone to do things that the sane one would hesitate until eternity before doing. Which, in a way, is something that Jin is sincerely hoping for.
“Look at me,” he teases on unrelentingly. “I never thought I was gay either, I still am not - except when it comes to you.”
“But he is married!”
Admirable logic, Kazuya...
“And I’m not?”
“Fuck it, Akanishi, I’m telling you nothing happened!”
As much as Jin loves to hear Kame laugh, he positively adores him, when Kame gets angry. Kame’s angry is like that of a ferocious tiger kitten - scary, arousing and adorable mixed up in a really volatile cocktail - you have to look out for sharp claws, but want to squeeze him nevertheless.
So Jin acts according to both instinct and plan, when he avoids Kame’s neck-pillow aimed at his head by diving closer and bringing their lips together.
There is a startled ‘Oh…’ that Jin uses to gain a deeper entrance, and then - no answering motion whatsoever, until - when Jin is almost prepared to sign the entire mission off like a fail - there is a tiny moan deep in Kame’s throat, and he turns his head just so, sucking on Jin’s lips just once - lightly, unsurely, like he is not certain if he should be doing it…
Jin takes it as a promising step forward anyway. Which is why he breaks all contact and turns on his other side, making it seem as if he is preparing to go to sleep, when in truth he is counting seconds in his head. Three, four, five… He hears an angry snort, the bed shifts as Kame lifts himself on his elbow, and then he pushes Jin quite forcibly in the shoulder.
“What was it?” Another push. “I asked, what was it?”
“Nothing,” Jin replies nonchalantly, “just checking something…”
“Checking what?”
“Don’t know... If we are still compatible, you kn-”
“Co… Compatible?!” Kame sounds positively seething. “Damn it, turn over, Akanishi!”
“Why?” Jin asks without turning, because a little caution is always advisable, when you are dealing with mad tiger kittens.
There is another snort. “Just want to ‘check something’ for myself. Turn over or else!”
That sounds very, very promising, so Jin obeys, and even before he has rolled over completely…
“Now kiss me, the fuck, properly! I didn’t even understand what it was before!” Kame hisses. It’s such a familiar commanding tone that Jin nearly comes from sheer relief.
And when he obeys again… what follows is also what he expects only more so. Gruff words; and fingers, growing surer with each passing moment; and scorching hot lips, finding the places that Kame is the only one who knows about… Familiar, unchanging, yet blindingly new -every time. Like jumping from a high cliff and like coming home after a hard day.