When Jin was 16, he threw a tantrum in a meeting and told Johnny he was a heartless old geezer and he hated him, then ran away and hid in a closet in the jimusho basement for five hours. He sat there alone in the dark sniffling and enraged until he eventually got so hungry that he called Kame and made him deliver a pizza.
“Don’t tell anyone where I am,” he hissed into the phone. “I’m on the run.”
Kame showed up with a pepperoni triple cheese twenty minutes later. Kame pretty much always shows up with a pepperoni triple cheese, figuratively speaking. Jin calls him with an emergency about once a week. His TV is broken or his favourite hoodie is missing, or he’s drunk and stuck in the middle of nowhere at five in the morning. He’s tired and lonely and bored.
When he has his own emergencies, Kame doesn’t usually call.
“Kame?” Jin asks the dial tone. “Kamenashi?”
He stands there until outside his window is the sound of the city waking up, the dull thud of car doors slamming shut and the drone of reversing trucks. Jin draws back the curtain to see the sun rising over the Tokyo sky. The sky is the fresh pink of healing skin.
He closes his phone slowly and tries to think. What was Kame doing last night? Jin’s not sure, because sometimes Kame gets kind of cagey and weird about his private life, especially when he thinks Jin won’t approve. Jin doesn’t approve of most of Kame’s plans, because they all involve his snobby older friends drinking wine and talking about their stock portfolios. They make Kame act more serious than he is, more mature and miserable than he is when he and Jin eat ramen together in the middle of the night, when he’s goofy and stupid and lame.
Last night, Kame said he didn’t want to come and watch soccer on Jin’s couch because he already had plans. Jin can’t remember what they were, because they’d sounded so boring that he’d drifted off and started emailing around trying to find a replacement friend. Kame had left rehearsal a bit early, beanie pulled low and shady around his face, scarf bunched up around his mouth. Jin can only remember the shadow of him, disappearing into the Shibuya streets with all the other salarymen.
He dials Kame’s number blindly, watching the old man who lives across the street carefully pruning the dead leaves away from his balcony garden. The phone buzzes, three, four times.
Where is he? Jin thinks. Where is he where is he whereishewhereishe?
“The number you have dialled is not in service,” a polite lady’s voice says. Jin hates her. “Please check the number and try again.”
Jin slams the phone in his pocket and pulls his coat on over his pajamas.
Kame doesn’t usually call in an emergency. He doesn’t have to, because Jin always finds him first.
spreading to: acchikocchi
When Jin was 16, he threw a tantrum in a meeting and told Johnny he was a heartless old geezer and he hated him, then ran away and hid in a closet in the jimusho basement for five hours. He sat there alone in the dark sniffling and enraged until he eventually got so hungry that he called Kame and made him deliver a pizza.
“Don’t tell anyone where I am,” he hissed into the phone. “I’m on the run.”
Kame showed up with a pepperoni triple cheese twenty minutes later. Kame pretty much always shows up with a pepperoni triple cheese, figuratively speaking. Jin calls him with an emergency about once a week. His TV is broken or his favourite hoodie is missing, or he’s drunk and stuck in the middle of nowhere at five in the morning. He’s tired and lonely and bored.
When he has his own emergencies, Kame doesn’t usually call.
“Kame?” Jin asks the dial tone. “Kamenashi?”
He stands there until outside his window is the sound of the city waking up, the dull thud of car doors slamming shut and the drone of reversing trucks. Jin draws back the curtain to see the sun rising over the Tokyo sky. The sky is the fresh pink of healing skin.
He closes his phone slowly and tries to think. What was Kame doing last night? Jin’s not sure, because sometimes Kame gets kind of cagey and weird about his private life, especially when he thinks Jin won’t approve. Jin doesn’t approve of most of Kame’s plans, because they all involve his snobby older friends drinking wine and talking about their stock portfolios. They make Kame act more serious than he is, more mature and miserable than he is when he and Jin eat ramen together in the middle of the night, when he’s goofy and stupid and lame.
Last night, Kame said he didn’t want to come and watch soccer on Jin’s couch because he already had plans. Jin can’t remember what they were, because they’d sounded so boring that he’d drifted off and started emailing around trying to find a replacement friend. Kame had left rehearsal a bit early, beanie pulled low and shady around his face, scarf bunched up around his mouth. Jin can only remember the shadow of him, disappearing into the Shibuya streets with all the other salarymen.
He dials Kame’s number blindly, watching the old man who lives across the street carefully pruning the dead leaves away from his balcony garden. The phone buzzes, three, four times.
Where is he? Jin thinks. Where is he where is he whereishewhereishe?
“The number you have dialled is not in service,” a polite lady’s voice says. Jin hates her. “Please check the number and try again.”
Jin slams the phone in his pocket and pulls his coat on over his pajamas.
Kame doesn’t usually call in an emergency. He doesn’t have to, because Jin always finds him first.
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