Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - walk away like a movie star (burned in a three-way script) 2
2009
Kamenashi arrives on a Wednesday afternoon, just after Shige's lunch break. He's lugging trash bags full of things with him and there's a baseball cap jammed on his head, bill sideways. He doesn't look any better since the last time Shige saw him, five days earlier.
Shige takes him back to the imaging lab.
"Sit here and we'll begin with a scan of your brain activity," Shige says. He takes a seat at the computer and watches the software blossom across the screen. Kamenashi's hands are curled around the arm rests tightly, so tightly that his knuckles are turning white. He doesn't fight Shige when he puts the nodes against his temples and hooks up the wires to the machine.
"What I'm doing to do is take out each object you brought with you and ask you to think about it," Shige continues. "What we are doing is localizing the memories associated with these objects in your mind, so we can wipe them clean during the erasure."
Kamenashi's eyes are dark as Shige drags over the first of the trash bags and opens the top, drawing out a fedora that looks slightly worse for the wear. Shige sets it on the desk in front of the man and turns back to the computer, typing in the command. On the monitor, the image of Kamenashi's brain shimmers for a second, and then a small section is lit up with a blue circle.
Another one pops up a second later, half an inch away.
"Good," Shige tells him, pulling the hat away again. Kamenashi's eyes follow him as he draws out the second item and places it in the same spot. "We'll get rid of these things for you, so you aren't confused when you wake up and have no memory of them."
Kamenashi doesn't say anything. He just nods, tight-lipped, staring at the hairbrush.
It's easy when the subject is quiet. Kamenashi doesn't struggle or cry or say anything at all, and they make good progress through the bags. When they reach the second one, Shige is on his second cup of coffee and his right wrist feels sore. Yamapi walks in with a quick knock on the door just as Shige is tugging free a small box from the plastic.
"How's it going?" he asks.
"Just fine," Shige tells him. Yamapi's eyes flicker over Shige's face, and then to Kamenashi.
"And how are you today?"
Kamenashi's expression remains impassive. "Great."
Yamapi's fingers tap on Shige's shoulder. "I'm going to steal him for just a moment, alright? We'll be right back."
"Is something wrong?" Shige asks, after he's followed Yamapi out into the hallway and gently shut the door behind him.
"I just wanted to apologize for scheduling Kamenashi in today," Yamapi replies. His eyes are a bit wide. He crosses his arms over his chest and a bit of hair falls into his eyes. Shige wants to reach up and push it aside, behind Pi's ear.
Instead, he loops his hands behind his back, to keep his fingers occupied. "It's okay."
"It's your day off, and I'm really sorry," Pi continues. "It's just that he was really upset, and he saw the card, and I wanted to get him in before-"
"No, really, it's okay," Shige says. Yamapi's face smoothes over in relief.
For a moment, neither of them speaks. Shige opens his mouth and Pi beats him to it, clearing his throat a bit. "I'll come and help tonight," the other man promises. "So we can get it done faster. Okay?"
"Okay," Shige agrees. There's warmth traveling through his entire body. He smiles at Yamapi and Yamapi smiles back, and then the door chimes when someone walks through and it startles both of them. Pi gives him one last look before heading towards the desk to take the client, and Shige pushes open the door to return to where Kamenashi is waiting.
The other man hasn't moved in Shige's absence. Shige sets down the box he had last removed from the bag and places it on the desk.
"Sorry about that," he says. "If you could keep concentrating on the objects-"
"Wait," Kamenashi breathes. He reaches forward for the box, opening it up. Inside, there's a ring; too small to be for anything other than a pinky, it seems, and slightly tarnished like it has seen a lot of wear and wash. Kamenashi holds it like it's the most valuable thing he's ever owned.
Shige waits, and on screen, blue dots appear with tiny 'plings' all across the span of Kamenashi's memories.
"Not this one," Kamenashi says. "I want to keep this."
"You can't," Shige tells him. It's not unusual for someone to ask, but Kamenashi's eyes are already shimmering with unshed tears, and Shige feels bad. There's obvious attachment to the ring. But he knows it'll only be more confusing later, when Kame finds it without the associations in his mind.
Kamenashi's fingers tremble on the outside of the box and he finally looks up, broken. "Please. I- please, just let me keep this. This is... special."
"Kamenashi..."
"Please," the man whispers. "Just this one."
Shige reaches forward and slowly pulls Kamenashi's hands away from the ring box. "You know you can't keep it. It won't mean anything without the memories. It'll only confuse you, when you don't remember how or why you got it."
Kamenashi's eyes are desperate and hurt and he lets Shige move the box to the back end of the desk, away from him. His palms are flat against the surface and he breathes in and out, slowly, and then finally nods.
"Okay?" Shige asks.
Kamenashi swallows so hard Shige can see it and licks his chapped lips. "Okay," he agrees. It's barely a sigh.
--
When Kame gets home that night, he's not sure he can make heads or tails out of anything anymore. He just collapses on one of the chairs that Jin always hated and sits there, staring out at his apartment. It looks like a freight train ran through it. Kame had thrown things around without abandon, trying to grab everything that had memories tied to Jin.
He can't get everything. He can't possibly get everything, because Jin is all over the apartment. Jin saturates everything, from the chairs to the kitchen counters to Kame's bed. Kame's even discarded the sheets because Jin had helped him pick them out, and still, even then, the bed reeks of them. Them. Together.
Shaking, Kame gets himself ready for bed. Kato gave him pills to take that would knock him out flat- so the man promised- and Kame sets them next to the sink while he washes up. His eyes are still gritty and grimy, as if he's rubbed sand in them, and he can only hope that the erasure will rid him of that feeling.
He's wearing new pajamas. They are too stiff and they feel alien beneath him when he sits down. When he moves, they crinkle around his knees and he can barely stand the sensation.
He fills a glass with water, and throws the pills back. As he's rinsing it, he wonders how long it takes for them to work.
The answer is not long. Kame climbs into bed and he can feel them working on his eyes, tugging his eyelids down. Everything is hazy and fuzzy and he thinks if he only had to live like this, that it wouldn't be so bad- he doesn't feel sad when he's floating on clouds.
He closes his eyes. He thinks about Jin. He thinks about all the things he won't remember tomorrow morning: all the fights, the smiles, Jin's radiantly blue hair strewn across the sharp white of Kame's pillowcases. He focuses on them and thinks about them until everything drifts off into black nothingness.
Even then, Kame thinks, he must still dream of Jin.
--
"Showtime," Pi says, in the passenger seat of the van. It's different with him there. Shige feels on edge; usually, night erasure is his field. Yamashita-san trained him to do it on his own so that they could operate with minimal staff, and Shige has never minded, because it was what he was meant to do. He's good at it, and it's pretty easy, but with Yamapi beside him, stepping out of the van to start unloading the equipment, he's nervous.
He wants Pi to look at him and beam with pride and think that Shige does good work. The desire and need for this is so intense it nearly makes him bow over.
The two of them get the equipment up in one trip, which is nice. It usually takes Shige two.
"Nice apartment," Pi comments. He winds the wires around the legs of the small end table they've commandeered to use, and Shige watches him when he thinks he can get away with it. When Yamapi's back is to him, Shige can look at the long, lean line of his frame and the wisps of hair that curl out and away from his neck.
Pi turns around again to power up the system, and Shige busies himself with getting the nodes on the helmet hooked against Kamenashi's head. He feels bad for the man. After the incident with the ring, he'd seemed so lost the whole rest of the time.
Shige can't imagine losing memories of someone who had been so important to him.
"Your father," Shige says, trying to sound casual as he untangles cords, "he thought this was break-through research."
"He did," Pi agrees.
"Do you think he ever did it to himself? I mean, would he?"
Shige can tell he's caught his boss by surprise. Yamapi looks thoughtful and winds some wires around his palm. "I don't know," the other man says. "I don't think he ever would have needed to."
"Do you think they needed to?" Shige asks, softer, looking at Kamenashi's sleeping form on the bed. The man's chest is rising and falling rhythmically, but his forehead is furrowed; even in sleep, Kamenashi doesn't seem at ease.
"I don't know that, either," Pi admits. "I've never- well. I don't know how much it must hurt."
Shige envies him. Shige envies him everything, and so desperately wants to be part of it. But thinking about things is only getting him off-task, and so he pushes the thoughts from his mind and pulls a chair up to the computer, powered on and blinking at him.
"Well," he says. "Should we get started?"
2011
Yamapi wakes up covered in sweat. He's hot and sweltering beneath the sheets and desperately hard. He gives himself one second, and then two, and when the sensations don't dissipate, he sucks in a deep breath again. He dreamt of long, nimble fingers and a blinding smile.
Next to him, Maki doesn't stir. Pi rolls himself over face-down into the pillow, but that only makes things worse, because his body wants to instinctively grind down into the mattress to relieve the ache. His breath catches in his throat and he only barely manages to bite down the groan; there's a throbbing in his head that is unrelated, tied to the wine he drank the night before that has left his body screaming for hydration.
It is obvious that sleep isn't coming again. He turns back over, biting his lower lip, and gently picks himself up from the bed. In the moonlight streaming in through the blinds, he can see the smooth skin of Maki's uncovered shoulder, sheet slipping down her arm.
Pi doesn't move to cover her again. He can barely think, barely get himself to the bathroom. He doesn't turn the lights on until he has closed the door, and even then, only half of them- his own face in the mirror is tired and drawn and lined with things he can't explain away.
He turns on the shower, waiting for the water to warm.
It feels good when he steps in after stripping his boxers; good, and also bad, because his aching need hasn't gone away. He lets the water beat at his face and his fingers slip across his hip to make contact.
The wine wasn't enough to stave off the dreams. It usually is, but in the memories, Pi could feel every touch. He could smell the sweat of skin against skin, the musk of sex and the lingering traces of cologne. Even still, standing in the shower, he can smell them, and he lets his hand curl around himself.
It's too easy. The back of his head hits the porcelain of the shower walls, and he props himself up with a palm pressed flat against the sliding door.
He thinks of dark hair falling in front of keen eyes. He thinks of the way it felt, pressed against the floor, of hands gripping his thighs and leaving indentations in his skin. When his eyes are closed, he can pretend that the fingers moving up and down the length of him aren't his own. The thought makes his knees buckle a bit, memories rising unbidden again.
It doesn't take long. He comes with a swallowed moan and the prick of hot tears in the corners of his eyes. He slumps down the length of the wall and allows the water to hit the top of his head, swirling his traitorous feelings down the drain- if only he could let all of him go down the pipes with it. He can't forget. No matter how much he tries to drown the memories out with wine and beer and cocktails, they are always there.
Pi runs his hands through his sopping hair, pushing it back from his face.
There is nowhere to go but forward.
Maki doesn't wake when he slowly climbs back into the bed again, and Pi spends a long time just staring up at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that the deep, regular breathing from the other side of the mattress is coming from someone else.
--
After a long day with late starts all around, Kame drags his feet down the hall to get to his apartment. There is no activity from any of the other doors, and he can't hear anything when he stills, keys in his hand. He leans closer to Ito-san's front door and tries to pick up a noise that would belay motion within, but there's nothing.
He puts his key into the lock, pausing again. He should go inside. Every aching, tired muscle in his body is telling him to go inside, make himself some dinner, and slip blissfully into his clean sheets.
Kame pulls the key out of the lock and crosses the hall to Ito-san's door, rapping his knuckles sharply against the door before he can change his mind. Just as he is about to pull away and berate himself for doing things he knows he shouldn't, the door opens and Jin's face peers out at him.
"Hi," Jin says, expression breaking into a wide smile.
"Hi," Kame replies. He feels awkward standing in the corridor in his suit. "I- well, I just got home, and I thought I'd see if you wanted to get some dinner."
If possible, Jin's grin widens. "Okay," the man says. "Let me get my shoes."
Kame doesn't know a lot of places nearby, because he doesn't go out much; if he works through dinner, NHK provides them with a catered meal, and when he's on location, everything is provided for him. But he tries to think of something that would appeal to someone like Jin and comes up blank. Jin has seen too much, and Kame doesn't think anything in the small, quiet neighborhood will impress him.
He leads them to a yakiniku place for lack of anything better. He tries to discreetly catch a glimpse of Jin's face as they sit, expecting boredom, and instead finds the man's face open. Jin seems pleased.
Kame tries to quell the sensation as they sit and the waitress asks for their drink orders.
"Sorry," Kame says, when the woman leaves again. "I guess I shouldn't assume that you are free during all these evenings."
"I can be free for you," Jin replies. His gaze is something Kame isn't sure he can describe- or, rather, he isn't sure that he wants to.
He looks around the room and pretends to study the menu hanging above the counter for a long time, even though he already knows what he's going to order.
"How was work?" Jin asks, and when Kame snaps his gaze back to the other man, Jin gestures to Kame's suit. "That's where you came from, right?"
"Yeah," Kame says. He doesn't know why he's so rattled.
Jin seems amused, and Kame desperately hopes it isn't because he can sense Kame's discomfort. After all, Kame had been the one to initiate. "I keep seeing you on TV, when I'm getting ready to go out."
"Busy social life?" Kame asks.
"You could say that," Jin laughs, and there's something really beautiful about the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs like that. His hair is striking in the low lighting- it looks almost navy in the shadows. "I mean, there were a ton of people I knew before I left, and catching up with everyone takes a lot of time."
The waitress drops off their water, and takes their orders, and when she leaves, Jin stirs the ice cubes around with his straw. "Life still goes on, even when I'm not here, you know?" he says. His gaze refuses to let Kame go. "Sometimes it's hard to remember that."
"I find that hard to believe," Kame says, before he can stop himself.
When Jin looks at him in question, his cheeks burn. He hasn't felt this foolish since high school, and he isn't sure why the feeling has picked this moment to return. "I just," he tries, voice hitching, "don't know how anyone's life could go on without you in it."
It's probably the single most horrifying thing he's ever said aloud. He wants the floor to open up and swallow him so he can die of embarrassment alone.
Neither of them says anything until the waitress brings the food over, and when Kame looks up, Jin is smiling at him.
"You're something, aren't you?" the other man says, and it's not really a question, so Kame doesn't know how to answer.
The meal goes quickly. By the time they are walking home, Kame feels more like himself again, as if the phantom that had invaded his body stayed behind when they left the restaurant. In the evening breeze, he feels more at home, on more solid ground. Next to him, Jin chats happily about the music scene in Tokyo and the clubs he's been going to in order to make contacts.
The walk seems too short when they get back to the apartment building.
"I hope work goes well for you this week," Jin says, politely, when they reach Kame's apartment door.
"Thank you," Kame replies. It's more reflex than anything. His keys are in his pocket and he hasn't fished them out yet. Jin pauses mid-step backwards and levels Kame with a long look, layered with impossibilities, and then leans in. It's all way too fast. His mouth catches Kame's before Kame can do anything to resist.
It takes seconds, full ticking seconds, before Kame reacts enough to push Jin back, harder than he'd meant to.
"What the hell?" he hisses. His heart is pounding in his ears.
For the first time since Kame met him, Jin looks confused. "Aren't you?" he asks.
"You- no," Kame stammers out. The floor is rapidly rising up to meet him. "We- no, I can't. You should go. Just- go."
The look Jin gives him then is horrible. Kame knows he will remember it forever, in the pit of his stomach, mixed with all his other regrets that haunt him.
"Sorry," Jin says. He sounds so cold. "My mistake."
He slams his door when he disappears into it. It takes Kame five minutes to manage to get his keys out and his own door unlocked. His kitchen feels too claustrophobic. He doesn't even bother to strip his suit; he just goes into his room and sits on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.
He tries to drive everything away. Jin and his smile and his laugh. Kame presses his palms into his eyes until his vision is dotted with browning splotches, and doesn't realize until he's panting that he's completely lost control of his breathing. He tries to think about the taunts, the jeers- he imagines losing his job.
All he can see is Jin.
He doesn't know how long he sits there. His body moves of its own accord. There are a million things that can go wrong and only one that can go right, and that last one, that single thing, is all he can see. It's all he can feel, right down to his toes. He stumbles out of his front door without thinking and pounds on Ito-san's. He prays that Jin will answer.
It takes the other man awhile, and the door opens cautiously. Jin's face is blank.
Kame stares at him. He can think of nothing to say. Everything gets stuck on his tongue. But the intent has to be clear, because Jin's arm shoots out the door and drags Kame in by his jacket sleeve. As soon as Kame is inside Ito-san's apartment, strewn with Jin's clothes and Jin's things and Jin's life, he moves.
Jin's back hits the wall and the other man hisses and that's when Kame's mouth finds his. There are bits of yakiniku on Jin's lips and Kame lets his tongue sweep across them. Jin moans and Kame's hands find cerulean hair, and all he can think about is how Jin feels against him. That Jin is kissing him back and groaning into Kame's lips and letting Kame's tongue curl around his teeth. His lip ring is a flash of cold against the deluge of heat every time Kame's tongue finds it. He doesn't push Kame away when Kame presses him further into the wall, but he does gasp a little when Kame's teeth find his earlobe.
One of them moves; Kame doesn't know who. With Jin walking backwards and their mouths still fused together, they manage to get back to the couch against the far wall. Jin drops down into it and Kame follows, straddling either side of Jin's waist. Jin is laughing now, short, breathless little bursts of noise in-between kisses, and his hands are sweeping beneath Kame's jacket to push it off his shoulders.
"I knew it," Jin whispers, arching up into Kame's hips. "I knew it, you liar-"
Kame just drags Jin closer to him to kiss him again, silencing the rest of his statement.
After awhile, they are both laughing. They are laughing so hard they can't do anything else, and Kame collapses with his face pressed into Jin's shoulder. Jin's hands are in his hair- or maybe they were always there, and Kame is only now realizing it. He feels giddy and free and terrified, but the fear is a distant feeling, chased off by the others, and he merely takes note of it from where he is.
"What are you afraid of?" Jin asks. His fingers gently threading through Kame's hair are the only things keeping Kame grounded.
"Everything," Kame says. "Aren't you?"
Jin's smile is soft when Kame cranes his head up to see it. "No," Jin whispers.
"I envy you," Kame admits, curling an arm around Jin's middle and letting his muscles relax, one by one, bit by bit against Jin's comforting warmth. Jin's belt is hitting his stomach, but he can ignore it.
They are silent for a long time, and then Jin sighs and leans his cheek against the top of Kame's head. "You think too much."
"You don't think enough," Kame says.
"That really might be true," Jin laughs, and his fingers find the back of Kame's neck. "But I think about you a lot."
Kame can't quite keep the pleased feeling from creeping up his chest, though he tries to push it down. "You don't even know me."
"I want to," Jin says.
His breath is hot against Kame's forehead. Kame raises his head again, finding dark, wide eyes framed with blue hair.
"Okay," he whispers.
2009
"Got him on the scanner," Shige announces, keying in the access code. The map of Kamenashi's brain comes to life on the monitor, alive with memories that are interconnected like a spider web across the contours. The computer has saved the locations of the thoughts jogged to life by the items they'd spent the day going through, one by one.
Pi leans over Shige's shoulder to look at the picture before they begin, so close that Shige can smell the other man's cologne. Shige has to actively focus his eyes on the read-out to keep himself from losing his ability to perform; he knows the keystrokes like the back of his hand, but Pi has a tendency to make his mind fuzzy. Things don't make sense when his boss is around.
"Looks good," Pi says, and his hand moves to squeeze Shige's shoulder. It is a gesture of solidarity, of starting on the process of erasing an entire being from living memory, and Shige knows it's only that. Still, it makes his chest tighten around his hammering heart.
"You really don't have to stay for this," Shige says. With his pinky, he hits the enter key, and the screen goes dark for a moment before lighting up again, with one blinking yellow orb on the first memory in question- working backwards, layer by layer. "It's practically auto-pilot from here on out."
It's almost as if Pi knows Shige is talking out of self-defense. He takes a seat on one of Kamenashi's reclining chairs, fingers curling around the arms. "No, it's fine. I don't usually get to see this part of the process, and it's interesting to me."
"It's really not," Shige tries again, but he's losing steam. He wants Yamapi to stay. "I mean, all I do is type in some stuff and watch to make sure it stays on track."
The look Pi gives him is unreadable. "Then I guess we get some time to get to know each other better."
Shige isn't sure what there is to know. Yamashita-san hired him fresh out of vocational school, taking a chance on a fledgling programmer with his ground-breaking project, and Shige knows he owes the man everything. Even after Yamashita-san passed away, Pi could have fired him at any time. Fired him, or closed the company; after all, Yamapi is married to a movie star. He doesn't need the business for the revenue.
"Your father wanted this business to grow," Shige says, running his hands over the end table that seems willing to support the weight of their equipment.
"I don't have any plans to shut it down," Pi replies.
Shige keeps on eye on the monitor, on the blinking light that signals their connection within Kamenashi's brain. "No, I mean- have you ever thought about hiring more help? With another technician, you could double the clients you get through."
He doesn't think that Pi was expecting that question. The other man sits forward a bit, elbows on his knees, playing with the wedding band on his finger.
"Well," Pi starts, eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling and the spinning fan there, "I suppose. I've thought about hiring more, but I feel like right now... we're at the capacity I want us to be at. Too many, and I'm afraid it'll get out of hand. I don't want to lose sight of why my father started this."
"Why would you lose sight of it?"
Pi's tongue darts over his lips, wetting them. "I don't want to get caught up in the press. Right now, we're largely operating under the radar, for the most part. Our source of clientele is referrals from the cards we send out. I don't... want to advertise. It feels like cheating, in a way. Spoiling it."
Shige isn't sure what he means. Pi looks at the floor, and then at Shige, eyes dark. "Besides," he laughs, "if I hired someone else, you would have to worry about them."
"I don't mind," Shige says honestly.
"I only trust you," Pi replies. It answers nothing, but maybe that was the point. Shige tries to force down the pride he feels knowing that Pi holds him to a level that he doesn't put many other people at; he feels at home within the company. He started there, and he wants to see it through.
They are silent for a few moments, listening to the hum of the equipment on the table and connected to Kamenashi's head.
"Do you ever question who you are?" Pi asks, quietly, and Shige isn't sure for a second if he even heard the other man correctly.
"No," Shige says. "At least, not like our clients. Is that what you were talking about? Like them?"
Pi stares at Kamenashi's sleeping form. "No," he admits. "Not like them. Just... in general. You don't question who you are, or what you want?"
Shige has known what he wants to do with his life since he was ten, and his father brought home a computer for the family to use. He never had a big, life-changing revelation that technology was the thing for him, or that it would change his life. He just knew, easily, that when he was working on coding, that he felt at peace. The lines of code are something he understands. They make sense when the rest of the world is jarred out of place.
"Do you feel trapped?" Shige asks. Yamapi must; he keeps the business alive because it was what his father wanted. Shige has never really thought to ask if it was what Pi wanted, too. Familial obligation can be a jailer to those who never wanted it thrust upon them.
When Pi's gaze finds Shige's again, Shige is almost startled by the surprise and vulnerability there. "Like you cannot believe."
There's too much there, lying underneath the surface; too much to be blamed by what Shige had assumed was at fault. Shige turns away, because the openness in Pi's expression makes him acutely uncomfortable. He doesn't want to be privy to those details.
If he is, he'll never figure out how to let go.
"I'm sorry," he says, just to fill the empty space with something.
"For what?" Pi asks.
"That you feel that way," Shige explains, fiddling with the keyboard.
There is a long moment of silence, so long it makes Shige's skin crawl. And then Pi says, nearer to Shige than Shige remembers him being last time he looked, "Are you?"
--
When Kame comes to again, he's in his hallway, just outside his apartment door. It is nothing spectacular and certainly nothing out of the ordinary, but he can feel something off just beneath it all. Something that isn't quite right- like the playback of a VHS tape that needs the tracking adjusted. There are voices coming from inside his apartment, and he recognizes one of them as his own.
It takes him a moment, and then he knows what he'll see when he goes inside the apartment. He knows what memory he's looking at. This is the last time he saw Jin.
Inside, Kame sees himself. He's angry and pacing, hands balled into fists at his sides. And Jin is standing at the entry way of the living room, heels braced on the kitchen tiles like he's ready to bolt at any given moment.
And Kame knows that he was.
"-don't understand," Kame is yelling. "You can't just do this; you can't just make these decisions."
"This is my life!" Jin shouts back.
Kame doesn't remember knocking over a lamp; maybe he tried to block that part out of his memory. But the lamp ends up on the floor with the base in two pieces and the light bulb cracked, and Kame wishes he didn't have to watch this part again. He already knows what happens.
"Your life involves me, too!" Kame cries. "Or have you already forgotten that? What you do affects me."
"So come with me," Jin says. His voice drops. Suddenly, he looks scared. Kame had been too agitated and angry to see it, but now he can. Standing beside Jin's form in the kitchen, he can see every crack in the man's facade. He doesn't know how he missed it the first time around.
Jin is just waiting for Kame to hurt him. Kame wonders if he even knew it was coming- he had to have. He knew Kame.
"I can't come with you!" Kame says. "Are you fucking stupid? I have a job. I have a life, I have my family. I can't just pack up and leave because you want to go to America!"
"Yes, you can!" Jin shouts. His face is flushed- he looks more pissed off than Kame can ever remember seeing him before. "You can! You have a choice here."
Kame sees himself pause. He remembers the feeling, like the world was coming down around him. This is the moment when he knew. He knew that he couldn't leave everything. And Jin- they couldn't be together the way Jin wanted them to be, not in Japan. Not with Kame's career riding on the fact that no one had found out about them yet. This is the moment when Kame knew that he wasn't going to see Jin again.
This is the moment Kame knew that everything was over.
He sees it in his own face, reflected back like a cruel mirror. "No," he says. "I don't." And suddenly, he's the one standing in the living room. He's no longer watching the scene, but part of it again, taking his rightful spot. He looks at Jin's face across the space between, across the lamp strewn on the carpet- and he watches it break.
"I see," Jin says. Kame can see him trying to get his expression into neutrality, but for a moment, he can't, and it's a crumpled, anguished mess.
"That's just the way life is," Kame says. He remembers saying that. He remembers thinking that it was true.
Jin is shaking his head and staring at his Chuck Taylors. "No, it's not," he spits out. "It's just the way you think life is. And you think everyone else has to think just like you."
"I want to be with you-" Kame starts, and Jin cuts him off by hurling a plastic water bottle at Kame's head that had been sitting on the counter. Kame ducks even though he knows the bottle will go high and explode against the far wall.
"You don't!" Jin screams. "You made your choice, and it isn't me!"
"Jin," Kame tries, but that part isn't in the script; he never said that. Jin turns and flees Kame's apartment, and it's déjà vu watching his back disappear out the door. Kame's heart hammers in his chest once, and then again, and then he takes off after the other man.
He didn't follow Jin. He didn't follow him, and now Jin is gone, and Kame is just chasing down his memory of the man. He gets out into the hallway and sees Jin in the elevator, wiping angrily at his face that's already shining with tears.
"Jin!" he calls, but Jin can't hear him. He stabs at the button for the ground floor and crumples against the wall of the elevator, fingers trying to cover his face even as he slumps down into the corner. Kame runs, but he can't make it to the closing elevator doors in time. Jin is incoherent, sobbing, and Kame can hear the noise even from halfway down the hall.
"Jin, wait!" he cries. "Jin, just wait-"
The elevator doors slide shut, and Kame sees only his own reflection as he stumbles to a stop just in front of them. He presses his fingers against the surface and then pounds one fist against them.
"Jin!" he tries, but there's nothing.
He didn't follow.
This is his memory, and Kame knows that. And Jin is gone, disappeared down the elevator shaft, and Kame knows this memory will be gone, too. He's erasing him. He's erasing the best part of his life line by line, until the whole journal is blank.
Kame pounds against the closed elevator doors again, and looks up the ceiling. "No," he breathes, and
[Part Three]