i'm not dead
Title: Pitter, Patter
Pairing: NaKame
WordCount: 2.2k
Genre: romance
A/N: Wow it’s been a while :x This was a WIP which I recently had the motivation to finish. It’s nice to be friends with words again. For those of you who follow my writing, thank you for your patience! <3 This fic was inspired by nakame offhandedly commenting on how it tends to rain when they’re together.
Summary: The four times it rained on their parade and the one time the parade went on, regardless.
i. shower
Nakamaru had spent close to an hour looking for his misplaced headphones and could only hope his parents were running equally late. The last thing he needed after a day of excruciating rehearsals was a mouthful from his parents about his ingratitude for keeping them waiting on a miserable, grey sky day.
He pushed through the doors of the NHK building and took shelter in the narrow trimming of the foyer as the rain splattered the pavement. He wasn’t alone. Kamenashi was there in the corner, shivering in his thin jacket.
“Why are you still here?” Nakamaru asked, more out of curiosity than concern. Kamenashi was weird but nice, prickly one moment and sporting a smile as warm as sunshine the next.
Kamenashi shrugged and gave a wry grin. “Missed my bus.”
“Ah.” In the distance, Nakamaru could see his parents rolling in. “Do you want a ride?”
It was an easy question, a commonplace courtesy. It made Kamenashi jolt slightly, like Nakamaru had thrown him a curve ball. Nakamaru watched him grapple with it and began to feel self-conscious himself.
“Um. That is. No, but thanks,” there was that soft smile, shy rays peeking through clouds, “Thank you.”
Nakamaru couldn’t help peering back as he drove away, the image of Kamenashi’s tiny form growing smaller until it was completely obscured by the rain. He spent the rest of the ride thinking that he should have smuggled Kamenashi into the trunk of the car regardless.
ii. downpour
They had barely moved an inch in the last five minutes and a headache was beginning to build between the furrow of Kame’s eyebrows. He stared at the time flashing on his cell phone. He was late.
“We’re late,” his manager said, more stating the obvious than reading his thoughts.
“I know.” Kame closed his eyes. He knew what his manager would say next.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel your appointment or else we will be late for the filming.”
“I know,” Kame gritted. Work over private matters. Contracts over relationships. Reputation over promises. It had never been his decision but had somehow become an expectation. Somewhere along the turbulent ride of KAT-TUN’s debut, the expectation had solidified into a rule-never disappoint-that he was too scared to break. There was too much riding on him, on everyone.
It stung.
Months of scheduling and rescheduling, of finding the narrowest of windows to squeeze someone who mattered into the blur of his life, and now they would have to start all over. It hadn’t even been Kame who had taken the courage to offer an olive branch and say, hey, how are you holding up? We’re in the same group but we haven’t talked in what feels like ages. Let’s catch up.
Kame would be on time for his filming, he would do his part, would be the courteous, perfect Kamenashi Kazuya. He knew this like it was a script. And yet he felt like he had failed something huge when he called Nakamaru and told him he would have to cancel on their meeting because he was stuck in traffic, of all things.
“I’m really sorry.” On his lap, his hand had curled into a fist.
Nakamaru’s voice was soft and understanding through the phone. “It’s raining like crazy. Just get there safely, okay. We’ll reschedule.”
And just like that he was forgiven. Kame stared out the rain pelted window, at the blurred lights and swirls of colours, and wondered when the next time would be-wondered when he could finally be Kame and not Kamenashi.
iii. cats and dogs
The post-concert hunger that attacked him after the third show of their tour was worse than its predecessors and Nakamaru thought that tip-toeing across the hall to Kame’s changing room may have had something to do with the churning in his belly. Long gone were the days when they had to squish together, sharing one room. KAT-TUN was breaking records now.
Nakamaru felt a wash of guilt lap at his heels as he stepped silently in front of Kame’s door, casting careful glances over his shoulders. The other members had a way of interrupting and Nakamaru reasoned they could help themselves to his portion of the ample buffet the staff had laid out for them.
“Hey,” he said when Kame answered his knock with a come in. “I thought we could sneak out to eat?”
Kame was flushed pink from his shower, a tank top hanging loosely around his damp, slight form. A fluffy white towel hung bundled around his neck, a domestic exchange for the lurid feather boa he was sporting just hours before. It would be nice to watch Kame stuff his face now that they had a small break before the next concert.
“Just the two of us?”
Nakamaru squashed the urge to clear his throat. “Yes.”
A confused look entered Kame’s eyes before it was overcome by a tiny, not-so-secretly pleased smile. It was so easy, Nakamaru thought. The easiest way to make Kame pliable was to make him feel chosen. Nakamaru felt like a champion having figured that out.
“Okay,” Kame grinned, the light catching the water in his eyelashes and making them glitter brighter than his stage makeup. “You’re buying.”
Ten minutes later, there was a rumble from the darkened sky that put his empty, rebellious stomach to shame.
“Huh… Now what?” Kame threw at him as they stood in the hotel lobby, watching the downpour through the glass doors like a pair of wary housecats.
Nakamaru caught Junno’s reflection in the glass before his bellow reached them.
“Hey, where are you guys going? Can I come?” Behind him, Nakamaru could see Jin, Koki, and Ueda trailing after.
He met Kame’s amused smile and released a heavy sigh.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
iv. storm
Kame had long since realised that he wanted to-to go somewhere with Nakamaru. Anywhere. Somehow, it ended up being Hakone. They spent the day wandering the town’s ins and outs and even with Gidou-san and a crew of cameras tagging behind them, it was the most peace Kame had experienced in a string of long, exhausting months.
Though they helped, it wasn’t the fresh air and lack of harsh Tokyo lights that smoothed the knots in Kame’s muscles, the coiled tangle of his mind, like a hand running over a crease. As Nakamaru spoke, Kame grew lighter, floating weightlessly as Nakamaru lead him to places he knew to be Kame’s favourite.
Kame didn’t know exactly when spending time with Nakamaru had become a luxury but it had, to the point that he was struggling with the urge to bury his face in the crook of Nakamaru’s neck and stay there. It was a familiar urge, something he felt whenever he entered a new hotel room and plunged into the plush sheets of a freshly made bed.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Kame said once again, an echo of when Nakamaru’s soapy hands ran across his back, surprisingly sure and earnest and making Kame tingle down to his toes; he had expected Nakamaru to be the one to fumble and shy away then but he hadn’t-even with the cameras rolling, Nakamaru hadn’t budged.
This time they were both fully clothed, walking along the pavement with Gidou-san packed in a train heading back to Tokyo, and Kame was expressing gratitude for more than the backwash.
The wind picked up as they walked, bending tree tops and making signs creak and sway. Nakamaru’s hair was pushed back, making Kame smile at the rare sight of his forehead; it made him look younger, reminded Kame of the day they first met, running down the street with their hair whipping across their faces much like it did now. The memory warmed like a coal in his chest every time it surfaced.
“You really didn’t have to do this.”
Kame waited for Nakamaru to deny the expanse of what he had done, was ready to pounce on the denial and shatter it because he couldn’t really expect Kame to believe that this whole getaway wasn’t designed to rescue Kame from his exhaustion. It was for a Shuuichi segment, he could say. Or a humble, it really wasn’t much. If he wanted to go the extra mile he could add, I had to save you from your impending breakdown for the sake of the group.
Deep down, Kame dared him to say it, dared him to pretend.
“You could just say thank you and let me win at pachinko next time,” Nakamaru said instead with a smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners like crumpled bed sheets that had been slept in for ages. A smile of long mornings at home.
Kame’s lips were forming the words just as the clouds clustered overhead, thick and dark like swelling bruises.
The wind whistled through the leaves, picking up the harmony as the roar of thunder died down.
Nakamaru gave him a perplexed look and leaned closer. “Sorry-what?”
Kame felt the first raindrop land on his nose, a cold and sobering spell, and he laughed. “Your hair’s a mess.”
He wondered when-if-he’d be able to confess again.
v. drizzle
Nakamaru hadn’t been on a first date in years. Specifically since middle school when he found himself paired off in the middle of a goukan to a girl whom he shared a home economics class with. The relationship lasted for a little more than a year and Nakamaru couldn’t remember why it ended. It had fizzled and died with time like a can of soda gone flat. In university, he found himself too preoccupied with graduating and KAT-TUN to look anywhere else. Plus, he had figured that the group could do without an additional scandal.
Suffice it to say, he was a rookie in the dating game but even so he was surprised by the level of queasy anticipation that prohibited him from staying still for even a second. He had thought that there would be an age limit to experiencing butterflies but there he was, a ripe thirty-two year old man fighting down a smile (and failing) as he waited for his date. Because that’s what it was.
Hey, Yucchi, isn’t it about time we made it a date? A real one.
Definitely failing in the no smiling department: check.
Kame had walked up to him hundreds of thousands of times before but this time it was different and Nakamaru didn’t know if he should look or not look, felt the suspicion that he was staring too hard when he did. When he caught the nervous dart of Kame’s eyes though, neither of them could look at anything but each other and Nakamaru smiled, pleased that Kame was as much of a rookie at this as he was.
“You look good. Very-incognito.”
Kame gave a snort from under his scarf and thick-framed glasses. “You’re lucky you blend right in.”
Nakamaru laughed. “Try not to lose me in the crowd, will you?”
“I couldn’t even if I tried.”
The stubborn finality of those words made them pause and Nakamaru felt his ears grow hot at what was left unsaid. I know you so well I’d know you anywhere.
Kame fumbled through the pause with more grace than Nakamaru could have. “I’ve been looking forward to this for longer than I want to admit. I don’t-I won’t be giving you up to any crowd-or anything, really. You’re booked for the day.”
Nakamaru wanted to say that he was booked for however long Kame wanted him but he wasn’t there quite yet. He wondered how many dates it would take for him to have enough courage to kiss Kame swiftly like the way he wanted to now.
For the moment however, he scratched at his nose and tried not to flush (and failed) under Kame’s watchful gaze. “Shall we?”
They had made it one block towards Nakamaru’s old elementary school-Kame being on an odd mission to revisit Nakamaru’s childhood-when there was a groan from the sky and the dusty side-walk became slowly pockmarked with raindrops.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” Kame growled, head tilted back to glare up at the clouds, and before he could enter into one of his rampages, Nakamaru took a grip of his hand and ran. They ran haphazardly, laughing and directionless as the rain splattered their faces, the aroma of the earth rising under their feet and shrouding them in a delirious haze.
They ran until they were breathless and found shelter under a drooping tree with branches like spider webs. Nakamaru lifted Kame’s rain-smeared glasses off his face and was caught by the sheer clarity of the eyes staring back, the trust in them absolute.
“Sorry about that,” he said without remorse, breathless now from their proximity, “but I’ve been wanting to save you from the rain for… for longer than I want to admit, too.”
A raindrop slid down the curve of a leaf and into the neck of his collar and Nakamaru shivered-shuddered as Kame’s lips found his.
Not for the first or the last time, their heartbeats pitter-pattered to the fall of the rain.
Pairing: NaKame
WordCount: 2.2k
Genre: romance
A/N: Wow it’s been a while :x This was a WIP which I recently had the motivation to finish. It’s nice to be friends with words again. For those of you who follow my writing, thank you for your patience! <3 This fic was inspired by nakame offhandedly commenting on how it tends to rain when they’re together.
Summary: The four times it rained on their parade and the one time the parade went on, regardless.
i. shower
Nakamaru had spent close to an hour looking for his misplaced headphones and could only hope his parents were running equally late. The last thing he needed after a day of excruciating rehearsals was a mouthful from his parents about his ingratitude for keeping them waiting on a miserable, grey sky day.
He pushed through the doors of the NHK building and took shelter in the narrow trimming of the foyer as the rain splattered the pavement. He wasn’t alone. Kamenashi was there in the corner, shivering in his thin jacket.
“Why are you still here?” Nakamaru asked, more out of curiosity than concern. Kamenashi was weird but nice, prickly one moment and sporting a smile as warm as sunshine the next.
Kamenashi shrugged and gave a wry grin. “Missed my bus.”
“Ah.” In the distance, Nakamaru could see his parents rolling in. “Do you want a ride?”
It was an easy question, a commonplace courtesy. It made Kamenashi jolt slightly, like Nakamaru had thrown him a curve ball. Nakamaru watched him grapple with it and began to feel self-conscious himself.
“Um. That is. No, but thanks,” there was that soft smile, shy rays peeking through clouds, “Thank you.”
Nakamaru couldn’t help peering back as he drove away, the image of Kamenashi’s tiny form growing smaller until it was completely obscured by the rain. He spent the rest of the ride thinking that he should have smuggled Kamenashi into the trunk of the car regardless.
ii. downpour
They had barely moved an inch in the last five minutes and a headache was beginning to build between the furrow of Kame’s eyebrows. He stared at the time flashing on his cell phone. He was late.
“We’re late,” his manager said, more stating the obvious than reading his thoughts.
“I know.” Kame closed his eyes. He knew what his manager would say next.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel your appointment or else we will be late for the filming.”
“I know,” Kame gritted. Work over private matters. Contracts over relationships. Reputation over promises. It had never been his decision but had somehow become an expectation. Somewhere along the turbulent ride of KAT-TUN’s debut, the expectation had solidified into a rule-never disappoint-that he was too scared to break. There was too much riding on him, on everyone.
It stung.
Months of scheduling and rescheduling, of finding the narrowest of windows to squeeze someone who mattered into the blur of his life, and now they would have to start all over. It hadn’t even been Kame who had taken the courage to offer an olive branch and say, hey, how are you holding up? We’re in the same group but we haven’t talked in what feels like ages. Let’s catch up.
Kame would be on time for his filming, he would do his part, would be the courteous, perfect Kamenashi Kazuya. He knew this like it was a script. And yet he felt like he had failed something huge when he called Nakamaru and told him he would have to cancel on their meeting because he was stuck in traffic, of all things.
“I’m really sorry.” On his lap, his hand had curled into a fist.
Nakamaru’s voice was soft and understanding through the phone. “It’s raining like crazy. Just get there safely, okay. We’ll reschedule.”
And just like that he was forgiven. Kame stared out the rain pelted window, at the blurred lights and swirls of colours, and wondered when the next time would be-wondered when he could finally be Kame and not Kamenashi.
iii. cats and dogs
The post-concert hunger that attacked him after the third show of their tour was worse than its predecessors and Nakamaru thought that tip-toeing across the hall to Kame’s changing room may have had something to do with the churning in his belly. Long gone were the days when they had to squish together, sharing one room. KAT-TUN was breaking records now.
Nakamaru felt a wash of guilt lap at his heels as he stepped silently in front of Kame’s door, casting careful glances over his shoulders. The other members had a way of interrupting and Nakamaru reasoned they could help themselves to his portion of the ample buffet the staff had laid out for them.
“Hey,” he said when Kame answered his knock with a come in. “I thought we could sneak out to eat?”
Kame was flushed pink from his shower, a tank top hanging loosely around his damp, slight form. A fluffy white towel hung bundled around his neck, a domestic exchange for the lurid feather boa he was sporting just hours before. It would be nice to watch Kame stuff his face now that they had a small break before the next concert.
“Just the two of us?”
Nakamaru squashed the urge to clear his throat. “Yes.”
A confused look entered Kame’s eyes before it was overcome by a tiny, not-so-secretly pleased smile. It was so easy, Nakamaru thought. The easiest way to make Kame pliable was to make him feel chosen. Nakamaru felt like a champion having figured that out.
“Okay,” Kame grinned, the light catching the water in his eyelashes and making them glitter brighter than his stage makeup. “You’re buying.”
Ten minutes later, there was a rumble from the darkened sky that put his empty, rebellious stomach to shame.
“Huh… Now what?” Kame threw at him as they stood in the hotel lobby, watching the downpour through the glass doors like a pair of wary housecats.
Nakamaru caught Junno’s reflection in the glass before his bellow reached them.
“Hey, where are you guys going? Can I come?” Behind him, Nakamaru could see Jin, Koki, and Ueda trailing after.
He met Kame’s amused smile and released a heavy sigh.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
iv. storm
Kame had long since realised that he wanted to-to go somewhere with Nakamaru. Anywhere. Somehow, it ended up being Hakone. They spent the day wandering the town’s ins and outs and even with Gidou-san and a crew of cameras tagging behind them, it was the most peace Kame had experienced in a string of long, exhausting months.
Though they helped, it wasn’t the fresh air and lack of harsh Tokyo lights that smoothed the knots in Kame’s muscles, the coiled tangle of his mind, like a hand running over a crease. As Nakamaru spoke, Kame grew lighter, floating weightlessly as Nakamaru lead him to places he knew to be Kame’s favourite.
Kame didn’t know exactly when spending time with Nakamaru had become a luxury but it had, to the point that he was struggling with the urge to bury his face in the crook of Nakamaru’s neck and stay there. It was a familiar urge, something he felt whenever he entered a new hotel room and plunged into the plush sheets of a freshly made bed.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Kame said once again, an echo of when Nakamaru’s soapy hands ran across his back, surprisingly sure and earnest and making Kame tingle down to his toes; he had expected Nakamaru to be the one to fumble and shy away then but he hadn’t-even with the cameras rolling, Nakamaru hadn’t budged.
This time they were both fully clothed, walking along the pavement with Gidou-san packed in a train heading back to Tokyo, and Kame was expressing gratitude for more than the backwash.
The wind picked up as they walked, bending tree tops and making signs creak and sway. Nakamaru’s hair was pushed back, making Kame smile at the rare sight of his forehead; it made him look younger, reminded Kame of the day they first met, running down the street with their hair whipping across their faces much like it did now. The memory warmed like a coal in his chest every time it surfaced.
“You really didn’t have to do this.”
Kame waited for Nakamaru to deny the expanse of what he had done, was ready to pounce on the denial and shatter it because he couldn’t really expect Kame to believe that this whole getaway wasn’t designed to rescue Kame from his exhaustion. It was for a Shuuichi segment, he could say. Or a humble, it really wasn’t much. If he wanted to go the extra mile he could add, I had to save you from your impending breakdown for the sake of the group.
Deep down, Kame dared him to say it, dared him to pretend.
“You could just say thank you and let me win at pachinko next time,” Nakamaru said instead with a smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners like crumpled bed sheets that had been slept in for ages. A smile of long mornings at home.
Kame’s lips were forming the words just as the clouds clustered overhead, thick and dark like swelling bruises.
The wind whistled through the leaves, picking up the harmony as the roar of thunder died down.
Nakamaru gave him a perplexed look and leaned closer. “Sorry-what?”
Kame felt the first raindrop land on his nose, a cold and sobering spell, and he laughed. “Your hair’s a mess.”
He wondered when-if-he’d be able to confess again.
v. drizzle
Nakamaru hadn’t been on a first date in years. Specifically since middle school when he found himself paired off in the middle of a goukan to a girl whom he shared a home economics class with. The relationship lasted for a little more than a year and Nakamaru couldn’t remember why it ended. It had fizzled and died with time like a can of soda gone flat. In university, he found himself too preoccupied with graduating and KAT-TUN to look anywhere else. Plus, he had figured that the group could do without an additional scandal.
Suffice it to say, he was a rookie in the dating game but even so he was surprised by the level of queasy anticipation that prohibited him from staying still for even a second. He had thought that there would be an age limit to experiencing butterflies but there he was, a ripe thirty-two year old man fighting down a smile (and failing) as he waited for his date. Because that’s what it was.
Hey, Yucchi, isn’t it about time we made it a date? A real one.
Definitely failing in the no smiling department: check.
Kame had walked up to him hundreds of thousands of times before but this time it was different and Nakamaru didn’t know if he should look or not look, felt the suspicion that he was staring too hard when he did. When he caught the nervous dart of Kame’s eyes though, neither of them could look at anything but each other and Nakamaru smiled, pleased that Kame was as much of a rookie at this as he was.
“You look good. Very-incognito.”
Kame gave a snort from under his scarf and thick-framed glasses. “You’re lucky you blend right in.”
Nakamaru laughed. “Try not to lose me in the crowd, will you?”
“I couldn’t even if I tried.”
The stubborn finality of those words made them pause and Nakamaru felt his ears grow hot at what was left unsaid. I know you so well I’d know you anywhere.
Kame fumbled through the pause with more grace than Nakamaru could have. “I’ve been looking forward to this for longer than I want to admit. I don’t-I won’t be giving you up to any crowd-or anything, really. You’re booked for the day.”
Nakamaru wanted to say that he was booked for however long Kame wanted him but he wasn’t there quite yet. He wondered how many dates it would take for him to have enough courage to kiss Kame swiftly like the way he wanted to now.
For the moment however, he scratched at his nose and tried not to flush (and failed) under Kame’s watchful gaze. “Shall we?”
They had made it one block towards Nakamaru’s old elementary school-Kame being on an odd mission to revisit Nakamaru’s childhood-when there was a groan from the sky and the dusty side-walk became slowly pockmarked with raindrops.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” Kame growled, head tilted back to glare up at the clouds, and before he could enter into one of his rampages, Nakamaru took a grip of his hand and ran. They ran haphazardly, laughing and directionless as the rain splattered their faces, the aroma of the earth rising under their feet and shrouding them in a delirious haze.
They ran until they were breathless and found shelter under a drooping tree with branches like spider webs. Nakamaru lifted Kame’s rain-smeared glasses off his face and was caught by the sheer clarity of the eyes staring back, the trust in them absolute.
“Sorry about that,” he said without remorse, breathless now from their proximity, “but I’ve been wanting to save you from the rain for… for longer than I want to admit, too.”
A raindrop slid down the curve of a leaf and into the neck of his collar and Nakamaru shivered-shuddered as Kame’s lips found his.
Not for the first or the last time, their heartbeats pitter-pattered to the fall of the rain.