KAT-TUN - N.M.P.
Title: For we are invincible with hope
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Summary: It's the end of the world.
KAT-TUN: N.M.P.
He doesn't wake up at dawn.
His eyes are already open to stare blankly as light starts flooding the ground. It sprinkles glitter on the water around him, hides faint red swirling around his limp body. His throat is dry but he can't summon the power to turn his head and drink.
Everything is bright. Everything hurts. The world is quiet save for the faint sloshing of water, a rhythmical counterpoint to the throbbing in his head, the vaguely ticklish sensation of pins and needles in his limbs.
It's fine to die like this, he thinks. No point in living when he has trouble figuring out if he's still breathing at all. He must be. Maybe he should just stop.
He closes his eyes and waits. It won't be long now.
Out of nowhere, cool fingers touch his cheek on the next exhale and he jerks slightly. The fingers continue to his nose, feel his weak breaths leave him.
"It's the end of the world," a voice says further away.
He wants to open his eyes and look at them, tell them to just leave him. He's so close already, why bother?
"No," another voice says, close, so close to his ear. "Not yet."
Colours mix into the darkness behind his eyelids and take him further and further away.
It's fine. The fingers don't leave him.
He wakes up to warm brown eyes and a beautiful smile, but the fingers that change the cool cloth on his forehead are rough and callused no matter how careful they are. This person is unfamiliar, even more so than the kind stranger with the cool hands.
"Hey there, Ophelia," the man says and his voice is deep in a way that doesn't match his pretty face at all.
The room is lit by a single candle next to the bed, a soft glow that doesn't hurt his tired eyes but keeps the darkness from lapping at him. The flame flickers over the stranger's kind features. There's a butterfly sticker just under his right eye, big and gaudy, blue and glitter. The wings seem to be moving with the fire.
"I'm Ueda," the man says. He sits back slightly to give the other more room but stays close enough to provide comfort, a strong presence to keep him from running away.
"You're lucky Kame and Koki found you," he continues, "dying in a lake is so 17th century. What were you thinking?"
He wasn’t thinking anything, that's the problem.
The silence between them is heavy. Two men who barely know each other, with only a thin blanket between his own naked skin and Ueda's pants and the black material of the layers Ueda has wrapped around his torso. He isn't wearing shoes. His toes wriggle when the silence between them turns too oppressive.
"What's your name?" Ueda asks when it becomes clear he won't be getting a response.
He shrugs, draws the blanket tighter over his chest. The room isn't particularly cold but there's something about Ueda's calm gaze that chills him anyway.
"You were dressed like a priestess," Ueda prompts.
He shrugs again. He doesn't remember anything about his clothes either, save from the white chiffon sleeves soaking up water and dragging his arms deeper.
His wrists are wrapped in gauze now. He wonders if he's the type to commit suicide but his memory is all white noise.
"I don't remember," he whispers. It still sounds scary out loud.
Ueda smiles when he speaks. He looks relieved. Must be weird to have a mute guy lying naked in your bed. Not that it's any less weird for the now not so mute guy.
"There's a tattoo on your collarbone," Ueda tells him.
It's a Chinese character, bold black brushstrokes on milky skin. He trails his fingers over it and shudders at the ticklish sensation. He can't imagine letting someone work with needles on such a sensitive place.
"It says benevolence," Ueda says.
He cocks his head.
"Hitoshi?" Ueda tries. "Jin?"
The flame flickers and makes the butterfly jitter on Ueda's face.
"Jin," Jin repeats.
"Okay," Ueda says.
His smile calms the butterfly wings.
There's a stranger in front of the door when he exits the room hours after Ueda's left him alone. He's tall but still smaller than Jin, clad just as black as Ueda. The dark hair that curls in wild tangles on his forehead and the black kohl framing his eyes give his face a hint of danger, a touch of mystery that draws Jin immediately to him.
"So I hear you're Jin," he says and trails a careful finger over Jin's cheek. There's a small cut just under his temple, Ueda had told him.
The hand is cool and familiar, a single ray of light in the darkness that is Jin's memory.
"So I hear you're Kame," Jin whispers.
The touch feels even better without water freezing his body, fabric trapping his limbs, the sun blinding him even with his eyes closed. Now it's Kame's smile and his twinkling eyes that he needs to shield his eyes from.
The walls are made of beige stone, hard and cold and weathered by time, but Kame walks through the labyrinth of high ceilings and higher thrones without seeming bothered by it.
"This used to be a temple," Kame says, and then more quietly: "Before the gods left us."
His voice echoes along the walls and hisses a ghostly left us, left us back at them.
There are five of them, all of them with the same silent resignation sunken in their faces. The few rooms they actually use are filled with stacks of books: ancient philosophy, modern theology, enlightenment, conspiracy theories, George Orwell, Dante Alighieri, John Milton. The Bible.
"The end is coming," Ueda says when he sees Jin's curious look, "we're trying to be prepared."
He's curled up on a dusty couch with yet another stranger, this one tall and thin and apparently fitting perfectly against Ueda's back.
"The end?" Jin asks. "How do you know?"
"How do you not?" tall-and-thin asks. He seems actually curious, not mean in the least. Jin decides he likes him.
"That's Nakamaru," Kame says quietly from behind Jin, "and Koki and Taguchi are behind you."
"Nietzsche says God is dead," the one with black hair and a scowl says.
"God says Nietzsche is dead," the other replies easily. They grin at each other. It must be an old joke, shared too many times between them.
Jin recognizes the first voice from the lake; the one who wanted to leave him there. He isn't sure whether to hit him or thank him. Dying quietly or going down with the world is not a very appealing choice to make.
They're worse though, all of them so terribly blasé about what they think is happening.
"But why are you just sitting around then?"
Kame's fingers wrap around his wrist, "Come."
"No," Jin starts, but they don't even look at him, four faces turned to heavy volumes of philosophy and Kame's hand insistently tugging at him.
There's a balcony just a room away, beige bricks bright against the darkening sky, black clouds hiding the moon.
"You want to fight?" Kame says and lets go of Jin.
Under them, there's a sea of people, all of them in the same ever-present black. Uniformed, armed, moving. Not a second goes by without somebody lashing out, kicking, hitting, slaying, and someone else falling to the ground, sand whirling up to leave the illusion of a person still standing when they're already turning the sand red with their blood.
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," Kame whispers, his eyes wide and wet. "This is what we did. You think we should fight? We tried, Jin, we tried so hard." He takes a deep breath, clears his throat. "We are the leaders of a rebellion we've stopped believing in."
He leaves Jin alone on the balcony, cold stone under his fingertips and war all around him.
Jin finds Kame sitting on the stairs to the top of the temple, closer to heaven than to earth but then again, Kame’s always seemed like a bit of an angel to Jin.
"Hi," Kame says when Jin sits down next to him. It's cold, the ground, the sky, Kame. Jin shivers.
"So," he says, "la vie bohème, huh?"
Kame chuckles weakly. "Kind of. There's no use in fighting, no use in anything, really. We're trying to make the best of it but we don't know how."
"So you're just giving up?"
"Fatalism is a joke for those with hope - but for us, it's fact," Kame hisses, suddenly sharper then the stone digging into Jin's thigh. "Take your idealism and go down there."
"That’s harsh," Jin says.
"I know," Kame says, "I'm sorry, I know it's not your fault. I shouldn't have lashed out at you."
He rests his hand on Jin's knee, rubs little circles into the skin. "Do you wish we would've left you lying there?"
"Maybe," Jin says. Kame's fingers are terribly distracting. "Not really, I guess."
"Yeah?" Kame asks. His hand slips higher to Jin's hips, kneading the muscles subtly.
"It's good here, with you," Jin says, even when cool wind whips his hair into his eyes.
Kame's lips are equally cool but they make Jin feel like he's burning up as they nip on his jaw, lick their way into his mouth, insistent like Kame's fingers, his dark eyes, his soft moans.
"Aren't we moving too fast," Jin whispers as Kame presses closer and closer, their hands looking for skin, their mouths swallowing every breath.
"It's the end of the world," Kame laughs, his voice hoarse against Jin's neck, the sensitive skin of his collarbone where his name is printed. "There's no time to slow down."
He wakes up in a bed and for a moment Jin thinks oh, déjà vu, until he sees Kame sitting at the foot of the bed, back in his clothes and frowning intently at the wall.
"We can't just sit here, right?" Kame murmurs.
Jin sits up, ignores the ache deep inside himself to settle awkwardly next to Kame. They're still virtually strangers, have barely spent a day with each other. He would feel dirty if Kame's smile wasn't still so open and bright when he looked down at him.
"Seize the day," Jin says.
"Is that what you learned?" Kame asks. He has been very careful not to mention the past that Jin doesn't remember.
"It is what I feel."
When they're both quiet, they can almost hear the sounds of swords clashing outside.
Kame starts talking and the noises disappear. "We weren't always like this. Junno is aristocratic, Nakamaru used to teach. What you see now is what the circumstances have made us."
"How can you be so passive," Jin whispers.
"Every action has a reaction," Kame says, "we're reaping what we sowed."
"Well, maybe you should sow some more and hope that the crop will be better this time," Jin snaps.
Kame strokes his cheek, presses a kiss to his forehead. "Maybe you're right."
They sleep with Jin tucked into Kame's embrace and Kame holding him tight like the end is already here.
He wakes up by himself. The room is dark, the bed empty, the air stale. Kame is on the balcony, the other four around him, all of them in black leather, dark capes, gleaming helmets.
"Seize the day, isn't it?" Kame murmurs when Jin comes to stand next to them, oddly bare in just the thin tunic and pants they'd given him.
"So you'll fight?" Jin asks.
"As well as we can," Kame says and suddenly he’s all vulnerable -soft-skinned and pale, his eyes darkened by the stormy sky and black kohl- even when armed to the teeth. He looks like the making of a legend, a shining knight and Jin goes easily to him when Kame stretches his arms out.
"Even when I'm reborn," Kame whispers just for him to hear, "hug me."
Koki is scowling at the sky, Taguchi a stable presence at his side, a smile still on his face. Nakamaru helps Ueda adjust the butterfly on his cheek so it hides the healing gash under it. They are solemn and strong and finally there's hope twinkling in their eyes.
There are tattoos all over their skin, words about honor and pride and freedom and peace printed in black ink on arms. A lonely ray of sunlight shines on them and for a moment, it looks like the words are crawling closer to their hearts.
"No more pain," Jin promises.
What a painful world.
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Summary: It's the end of the world.
KAT-TUN: N.M.P.
He doesn't wake up at dawn.
His eyes are already open to stare blankly as light starts flooding the ground. It sprinkles glitter on the water around him, hides faint red swirling around his limp body. His throat is dry but he can't summon the power to turn his head and drink.
Everything is bright. Everything hurts. The world is quiet save for the faint sloshing of water, a rhythmical counterpoint to the throbbing in his head, the vaguely ticklish sensation of pins and needles in his limbs.
It's fine to die like this, he thinks. No point in living when he has trouble figuring out if he's still breathing at all. He must be. Maybe he should just stop.
He closes his eyes and waits. It won't be long now.
Out of nowhere, cool fingers touch his cheek on the next exhale and he jerks slightly. The fingers continue to his nose, feel his weak breaths leave him.
"It's the end of the world," a voice says further away.
He wants to open his eyes and look at them, tell them to just leave him. He's so close already, why bother?
"No," another voice says, close, so close to his ear. "Not yet."
Colours mix into the darkness behind his eyelids and take him further and further away.
It's fine. The fingers don't leave him.
He wakes up to warm brown eyes and a beautiful smile, but the fingers that change the cool cloth on his forehead are rough and callused no matter how careful they are. This person is unfamiliar, even more so than the kind stranger with the cool hands.
"Hey there, Ophelia," the man says and his voice is deep in a way that doesn't match his pretty face at all.
The room is lit by a single candle next to the bed, a soft glow that doesn't hurt his tired eyes but keeps the darkness from lapping at him. The flame flickers over the stranger's kind features. There's a butterfly sticker just under his right eye, big and gaudy, blue and glitter. The wings seem to be moving with the fire.
"I'm Ueda," the man says. He sits back slightly to give the other more room but stays close enough to provide comfort, a strong presence to keep him from running away.
"You're lucky Kame and Koki found you," he continues, "dying in a lake is so 17th century. What were you thinking?"
He wasn’t thinking anything, that's the problem.
The silence between them is heavy. Two men who barely know each other, with only a thin blanket between his own naked skin and Ueda's pants and the black material of the layers Ueda has wrapped around his torso. He isn't wearing shoes. His toes wriggle when the silence between them turns too oppressive.
"What's your name?" Ueda asks when it becomes clear he won't be getting a response.
He shrugs, draws the blanket tighter over his chest. The room isn't particularly cold but there's something about Ueda's calm gaze that chills him anyway.
"You were dressed like a priestess," Ueda prompts.
He shrugs again. He doesn't remember anything about his clothes either, save from the white chiffon sleeves soaking up water and dragging his arms deeper.
His wrists are wrapped in gauze now. He wonders if he's the type to commit suicide but his memory is all white noise.
"I don't remember," he whispers. It still sounds scary out loud.
Ueda smiles when he speaks. He looks relieved. Must be weird to have a mute guy lying naked in your bed. Not that it's any less weird for the now not so mute guy.
"There's a tattoo on your collarbone," Ueda tells him.
It's a Chinese character, bold black brushstrokes on milky skin. He trails his fingers over it and shudders at the ticklish sensation. He can't imagine letting someone work with needles on such a sensitive place.
"It says benevolence," Ueda says.
He cocks his head.
"Hitoshi?" Ueda tries. "Jin?"
The flame flickers and makes the butterfly jitter on Ueda's face.
"Jin," Jin repeats.
"Okay," Ueda says.
His smile calms the butterfly wings.
There's a stranger in front of the door when he exits the room hours after Ueda's left him alone. He's tall but still smaller than Jin, clad just as black as Ueda. The dark hair that curls in wild tangles on his forehead and the black kohl framing his eyes give his face a hint of danger, a touch of mystery that draws Jin immediately to him.
"So I hear you're Jin," he says and trails a careful finger over Jin's cheek. There's a small cut just under his temple, Ueda had told him.
The hand is cool and familiar, a single ray of light in the darkness that is Jin's memory.
"So I hear you're Kame," Jin whispers.
The touch feels even better without water freezing his body, fabric trapping his limbs, the sun blinding him even with his eyes closed. Now it's Kame's smile and his twinkling eyes that he needs to shield his eyes from.
The walls are made of beige stone, hard and cold and weathered by time, but Kame walks through the labyrinth of high ceilings and higher thrones without seeming bothered by it.
"This used to be a temple," Kame says, and then more quietly: "Before the gods left us."
His voice echoes along the walls and hisses a ghostly left us, left us back at them.
There are five of them, all of them with the same silent resignation sunken in their faces. The few rooms they actually use are filled with stacks of books: ancient philosophy, modern theology, enlightenment, conspiracy theories, George Orwell, Dante Alighieri, John Milton. The Bible.
"The end is coming," Ueda says when he sees Jin's curious look, "we're trying to be prepared."
He's curled up on a dusty couch with yet another stranger, this one tall and thin and apparently fitting perfectly against Ueda's back.
"The end?" Jin asks. "How do you know?"
"How do you not?" tall-and-thin asks. He seems actually curious, not mean in the least. Jin decides he likes him.
"That's Nakamaru," Kame says quietly from behind Jin, "and Koki and Taguchi are behind you."
"Nietzsche says God is dead," the one with black hair and a scowl says.
"God says Nietzsche is dead," the other replies easily. They grin at each other. It must be an old joke, shared too many times between them.
Jin recognizes the first voice from the lake; the one who wanted to leave him there. He isn't sure whether to hit him or thank him. Dying quietly or going down with the world is not a very appealing choice to make.
They're worse though, all of them so terribly blasé about what they think is happening.
"But why are you just sitting around then?"
Kame's fingers wrap around his wrist, "Come."
"No," Jin starts, but they don't even look at him, four faces turned to heavy volumes of philosophy and Kame's hand insistently tugging at him.
There's a balcony just a room away, beige bricks bright against the darkening sky, black clouds hiding the moon.
"You want to fight?" Kame says and lets go of Jin.
Under them, there's a sea of people, all of them in the same ever-present black. Uniformed, armed, moving. Not a second goes by without somebody lashing out, kicking, hitting, slaying, and someone else falling to the ground, sand whirling up to leave the illusion of a person still standing when they're already turning the sand red with their blood.
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," Kame whispers, his eyes wide and wet. "This is what we did. You think we should fight? We tried, Jin, we tried so hard." He takes a deep breath, clears his throat. "We are the leaders of a rebellion we've stopped believing in."
He leaves Jin alone on the balcony, cold stone under his fingertips and war all around him.
Jin finds Kame sitting on the stairs to the top of the temple, closer to heaven than to earth but then again, Kame’s always seemed like a bit of an angel to Jin.
"Hi," Kame says when Jin sits down next to him. It's cold, the ground, the sky, Kame. Jin shivers.
"So," he says, "la vie bohème, huh?"
Kame chuckles weakly. "Kind of. There's no use in fighting, no use in anything, really. We're trying to make the best of it but we don't know how."
"So you're just giving up?"
"Fatalism is a joke for those with hope - but for us, it's fact," Kame hisses, suddenly sharper then the stone digging into Jin's thigh. "Take your idealism and go down there."
"That’s harsh," Jin says.
"I know," Kame says, "I'm sorry, I know it's not your fault. I shouldn't have lashed out at you."
He rests his hand on Jin's knee, rubs little circles into the skin. "Do you wish we would've left you lying there?"
"Maybe," Jin says. Kame's fingers are terribly distracting. "Not really, I guess."
"Yeah?" Kame asks. His hand slips higher to Jin's hips, kneading the muscles subtly.
"It's good here, with you," Jin says, even when cool wind whips his hair into his eyes.
Kame's lips are equally cool but they make Jin feel like he's burning up as they nip on his jaw, lick their way into his mouth, insistent like Kame's fingers, his dark eyes, his soft moans.
"Aren't we moving too fast," Jin whispers as Kame presses closer and closer, their hands looking for skin, their mouths swallowing every breath.
"It's the end of the world," Kame laughs, his voice hoarse against Jin's neck, the sensitive skin of his collarbone where his name is printed. "There's no time to slow down."
He wakes up in a bed and for a moment Jin thinks oh, déjà vu, until he sees Kame sitting at the foot of the bed, back in his clothes and frowning intently at the wall.
"We can't just sit here, right?" Kame murmurs.
Jin sits up, ignores the ache deep inside himself to settle awkwardly next to Kame. They're still virtually strangers, have barely spent a day with each other. He would feel dirty if Kame's smile wasn't still so open and bright when he looked down at him.
"Seize the day," Jin says.
"Is that what you learned?" Kame asks. He has been very careful not to mention the past that Jin doesn't remember.
"It is what I feel."
When they're both quiet, they can almost hear the sounds of swords clashing outside.
Kame starts talking and the noises disappear. "We weren't always like this. Junno is aristocratic, Nakamaru used to teach. What you see now is what the circumstances have made us."
"How can you be so passive," Jin whispers.
"Every action has a reaction," Kame says, "we're reaping what we sowed."
"Well, maybe you should sow some more and hope that the crop will be better this time," Jin snaps.
Kame strokes his cheek, presses a kiss to his forehead. "Maybe you're right."
They sleep with Jin tucked into Kame's embrace and Kame holding him tight like the end is already here.
He wakes up by himself. The room is dark, the bed empty, the air stale. Kame is on the balcony, the other four around him, all of them in black leather, dark capes, gleaming helmets.
"Seize the day, isn't it?" Kame murmurs when Jin comes to stand next to them, oddly bare in just the thin tunic and pants they'd given him.
"So you'll fight?" Jin asks.
"As well as we can," Kame says and suddenly he’s all vulnerable -soft-skinned and pale, his eyes darkened by the stormy sky and black kohl- even when armed to the teeth. He looks like the making of a legend, a shining knight and Jin goes easily to him when Kame stretches his arms out.
"Even when I'm reborn," Kame whispers just for him to hear, "hug me."
Koki is scowling at the sky, Taguchi a stable presence at his side, a smile still on his face. Nakamaru helps Ueda adjust the butterfly on his cheek so it hides the healing gash under it. They are solemn and strong and finally there's hope twinkling in their eyes.
There are tattoos all over their skin, words about honor and pride and freedom and peace printed in black ink on arms. A lonely ray of sunlight shines on them and for a moment, it looks like the words are crawling closer to their hearts.
"No more pain," Jin promises.
What a painful world.