From the dusty WIP folder...
Title: All Good Things
Pairing: Akame, Jin/Hajime (Kindaichi), Hajime/Jin/Kame
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. I do not claim it happened nor did I make any profit from it.
Summary: Jin has to find Kame with the help of a certain detective. 11,662 words.
A/N: Set in California during the time of Jin’s hiatus and works with the rumor of Kame going to LA for dance school. Started at the time of Jin’s hiatus, abandoned, picked up, drastically altered, then abandoned again. I am rather fond of it though it may possibly make no sense. This is your warning.
Jin caught sight of the fedora through the spotted window at the end of the stairwell. From that angle - four stories almost directly down - the hat looked like it was hovering in the air, a dusty beige with a wide black stripe cutting it in two. It was the kind of thing Jin used to wear when he wanted to play international spy.
Inside, the stairwell was small and cramped. When Jin stopped running, he could hear the pounding of his heart. It made the sudden silence just a little more bearable.
His cell phone rang and Jin jumped. “Shit,” he said, drawing out the ‘s’ so it vibrated, snake-like, on his tongue. It had been one of the first words he’d learned in Los Angeles, and Maria had said that it drove her crazy. Or was it Claire…Candice?
It was a Scarlet on his caller id now.
He shook his head, silenced the phone, and continued down.
The call from Johnny had shaken him more than he’d like to admit. He felt unsteady, hand fumbling on the railing when he remembered Johnny’s voice, low and raspy, slow, lazy drawl to it inherent in mob heads and CEOs - the kind of men assured an attentive audience.
“I’ve hired a detective. He’s good - top of the line. God knows if anything’ll be done if you’re left to your own. He’ll be in touch soon. You’d better hope he finds him, Akanishi.”
Jin wasn’t, when he could force his mind temporarily into some kind of order, scared of the hidden threat behind the words as much as the thought that Kame would, that Kame had -
He burst outside, blinking under the bright noon sun.
“Hey,” somebody called.
“Hey,” they said again, grabbing Jin’s wrist as he went by and swung him around to face the building.
Fedora man was leaning against the wall, one denim-clad leg bent and sneakered foot planted on the bricks. He smiled as Jin stared. “There you are.” His finger grazed the inside of Jin’s hand when he let go.
Jin shivered. “Kamenashi?” But it wasn’t. Jin knew the answer before it even finished leaving his mouth.
Not-Kamenashi tilted his fedora up. “Well, that would certainly make your job a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”
“Who -”
“I’m Kindaichi Hajime. Or Hajime Kindaichi if you prefer the western way of things.” Hajime stuck out a hand. Jin regarded it for a second then pulled back to shake it. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Ok,” Jin said.
He studied Hajime’s hair, dyed brown and feathered at the ends, and his hands - small and delicate - clasped solemnly in front of him. There were slight differences when Jin looked closely; Hajime didn’t resemble Kame so much as he did a younger version of him. Which might have been worse because Jin had liked the younger version of Kame. Hajime certainly made him feel that tug - the tug that reminded him distantly of eating that durian in the market in Taiwan, which had been the most revolting thing he’d ever tasted, slippery and smelly and yellow, except he’d kept on reaching out for more, wanting more like a masochist who couldn’t control himself.
“Johnny hired me,” Hajime said after a pause.
Jin let out a shaky breath. “Shit.”
Hajime smiled. “Yeah. So I was thinking we could go talk to some people.”
Jin shifted on his feet, looked away from that eerily familiar face. “I have class.”
“Skip,” Hajime said. “I’ll be in touch.”
~
Hajime called in a day, in the middle of class, and showed up on campus in an old dust-blue Mustang - vintage, if Jin had been into that kind of thing. Hajime had changed into jeans and a t-shirt, a thin black choker at his neck that gleamed in the sun as he lay sprawled on the hood of the car.
“Hey, stranger,” he called out. “Look what I got.”
Jin was busy staring at his skin, pale unadorned fingers splayed against the hot metal, and at the junction of Hajime’s thighs beneath faded denim. Hajime smiled and held up the keys. Jin caught them, palm up, when Hajime threw them to him.
“Drive. We’ll take turns.”
“Where are we going?” Jin asked, pulling out of the college parking lot and ignoring the stares that the car attracted. It must have been more of a classic than he suspected and he wondered briefly how Hajime had gotten it.
Hajime hummed and lay his head down against the side window, sprawling out in all directions until he was practically melted against the seat. “To find your John Doe. Just follow the map.” Then he closed his eyes lined with rings of fatigue and left Jin to figure out the cramped scrawls across the entire length of California, Japanese kanji a startling contrast to English.
Two hours later and they were on the road, a straight empty path leading into the horizon surrounded by wide expanses of sand and heat and pure nothingness. The car roof they had taken down a few minutes into the ride when Hajime had cracked an eye open in a busy LA intersection and declared that they could do with some fresh air. He’d said it with such a confident and guileless air that Jin had agreed without thinking. The wind did feel good through Jin’s hair. Soothing.
Hajime was asleep in the passenger’s side. Jin let his free hand rest on the clutch, barely grazing Hajime’s thigh when the car shifted just right, and tried to ignore the implications of the shivers that shot through his spine whenever it happened. It felt good. It felt wrong, but good.
He didn’t think he’d feel the same if Hajime wasn’t slumped over in a messy tangle of limbs, a slight whistle coming from his open mouth with every fall of his chest. He looked…unmanufactured, genuine, somebody that didn’t make Jin feel like he was banging up against walls.
There was a lone country station on the radio that faded in and out as Jin drove further into the desert, finally turning into static just as she started singing about a lonely heart. Hajime stirred a bit but didn’t wake.
~
Hajime groaned when Jin pulled into a rest stop and stretched like a cat, shirt riding up his stomach. Jin looked away.
“Why did we stop?”
Jin threw the map at him. It curled around Hajime’s face for a moment before sliding down onto his lap. “Your directions only go as far as this.”
“Oh. Right.”
Hajime seemed utterly unconcerned and, as Jin watched, he curled back up as if ready to fall asleep again. The shadows fell longer under the setting sun, the black of the tree stretching a line down their legs. According to his watch, Jin had been driving for six hours, twenty-six minutes, eighteen seconds - nineteen, as he stared at the digital display.
“I think,” Hajime said after a second, “that we should find ourselves a motel.” He gestured for Jin to start the engine.
“How far away is he?” Jin asked, pulling back onto the road.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“It’s hard to pinpoint down in distance,” Hajime said.
Jin was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that Hajime had about the same idea as him about where they were going, which was none, and who had recommended Hajime to Johnny in the first place? Another thought occurred to Jin. “You’re not going to drag me to some deserted place and hack me to bits, are you?”
Hajime laughed. “No. Besides, I wouldn’t pick a motel to do that in. Too many witnesses.”
It was less reassuring than Jin would have liked, especially when Hajime rejected the first two motels they came to, for some reason that completely eluded Jin. They all looked the same to him: two story buildings that might have once been white a few decades ago when they could still be considered new. The small vacancy sign flashed disjointedly. It irritated Jin’s senses when Shibuya’s neon lights and blinding spotlights had stopped affecting him years ago. It must have been the unwelcome burst of civilization in an endless expanse of desert and road.
He watched Hajime walk back to their car, arms flopping at his side in time with the sway of his hips. Hajime was grinning when he approached. “Grab your bags, I got us a room for the night. Their last double too.”
“Great,” Jin said.
He fell asleep to the image of Hajime before him, shifting into Kame.
~
“There’s a carnival in town.” Hajime’s delighted laughter shook Jin awake. “Let’s go.”
He yanked open the curtains, throwing bright light in the room. It blinded Jin, burning white in his eyes. Jin groaned, burying his head in his pillow.
“I thought we’re supposed to be looking for Kamenashi,” he mumbled.
“We are. Come on.”
The fair was a cacophony of noise, of gaudy plastic rides and hokey painted signs, of paths of brown dirt that got onto everything and hay that tried to. Hajime bought a cowboy hat to go with his plaid shirt, and walked two steps ahead of Jin. He looked completely recovered of whatever had been ailing him the other day and took in everything with wide-eyed boundless energy. Though to be fair, Jin thought as he brushed his bangs away from his face, Hajime hadn’t been the one who’d spent hours driving.
“This is great,” Hajime said, hooking his foot around the bottom rung of a pen. “This is culture.”
The large pig stared back. They apparently gave prizes for fattest pig, or muddiest, if the blue ribbon pinned on the side was any indication.
“It’s pork,” Jin said. “I eat it with rice.”
Hajime laughed as if he’d said something funny. “That reminds me. Here.” He tossed something to Jin that caught the rays of the sun and flashed silver at the highest point of its arced path. Jin caught it by reflex.
He ran a thumb across the phone’s polished surface. “It’s not mine.”
“It is now. Your current cell’s horribly out of date. That one” -- Hajime pointed at the phone -- “has all the important numbers. Plus, it comes with unlimited international calls.”
“I don’t need it,” Jin muttered, flipping through its features.
There were only six numbers stored in the phonebook. Boss was at the top - there was no need asking who that was - and the rest…
“One thing good thing about having an ad contract with the top cell phone company in Japan is constant new phones. Bad thing is you go away for a few months and all their numbers have changed,” Hajime said.
He peeked over Jin’s shoulder and pointed at the screen. “Koki’s hair’s grown. Do you see? He was so proud of it when he took that picture.”
“Yeah,” Jin said. “I don’t --”
“Keep going,” Hajime urged.
The pig ambled over to the fence and looked up at Jin expectantly.
After Junno and Nakamaru - there was no Kamenashi, not that it was any surprise - Jin came upon an entry labeled: Partner. There was no photograph.
“That’s me,” Hajime said. “I thought you might like to take the picture yourself.”
“Partner?” Jin asked, feeling a warm lump dissolve within his chest. He had no reason to feel so happy about a name.
“Yeah. We are. Were.” Hajime frowned. “Will be. It’s rather complicated.”
The pig grunted.
“Hush, you,” Hajime chided. He turned back to Jin. “Anyways, want to take my photograph?”
Jin did. He ended up using the one with Hajime, cowboy hat askew, leaning over the pen, looking to all the world like he was about to kiss a pig. Hajime screwed his face up in displeasure when Jin showed him.
“We’ll take another one later,” Hajime declared, handing the phone back to Jin. “That’s a horrible picture.”
Jin grinned, flipping it open again. Hajime had scrolled past his own entry; Koki’s face was staring back at Jin. He hesitated - thumb hovering over the delete.
Hajime put a hand on his wrist. “Don’t,” he said, grip tightening around Jin’s hand when the phone began to ring. “At least not right now. You can’t run away from everything.”
~
“Do you get Fuji TV in LA?” Junno asked. “Because then you can watch my new drama.”
His voice crackled over the line. Jin moved further away from the bright flickering lights of the Ferris wheel and plugged one ear with a finger. Some kids at the very top of the loop screamed with delight.
“Our last motel had two channels.”
“I’ll record it for you then,” Junno continued, undeterred. “That way you can watch it right when you get back instead of waiting for the DVD.”
“I’m not -” Jin began, stopping at the sound of the phone changing hands.
“How’s Kame?” Nakamaru asked, too unconcerned for it to be true.
“Um,” he said. Hajime was hanging onto the railing next to the ride, smiling a large, toothy grin. Jin cleared his throat. “Still lost, you know.”
“Right. Well, I’m sure you’ll find him. You two had that bond and everything.” He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself.
Jin glanced around. Night had arrived sometime when he hadn’t been looking. It made the garish lights all over the carnival brighter. The lights on the spokes of the Ferris wheel turned Hajime’s hair red then yellow then black before returning it to a dyed brown. Nakamaru was still talking in Jin’s ear.
“- to dance school.”
Jin stirred. “Maybe,” he said, brain freezing on the sight of Hajime’s eyes and how they nearly disappeared as his face creased into a grin. “Maybe he wants to be gone. Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”
He held his phone away from his ear when Nakamaru dropped his, listening as they squabbled over it on the other end. Ueda came onto the line after a moment, slightly out of breath.
“When you come back, I’m going to hit you.”
“I’m not coming back.”
“I’m going to hit you,” Ueda repeated. “Then we’re all going out to dinner.”
~
They sold hot dogs for a dollar fifty piled high with chili and cheese and green peppers that set fire to Jin’s mouth. Hajime downed two while Jin went off in search of edible food and came back with a bagful of popcorn as tall as his waist. They shared it by the carousal, straddling a bench and watching people pass. Most of them were couples or families or the occasional group of teenagers with nothing better to do. Jin didn’t know how they figured in. He didn’t know what he was doing there either.
“Johnny’s a powerful man,” Hajime said when Jin confessed that to him. “And you want to find Kamenashi.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I hate him,” Jin said.
“No, you don’t,” Hajime said with utter conviction. “You don’t hate anyone.”
He kicked his feet, sending plumes of dust skyward, and Jin couldn’t think of a proper reply. He couldn’t look away from Hajime’s smile either, pure and honest in its simplicity. It was much easier to go along with Hajime than fight him.
Their hands bumped casually every now and then, slick with butter, and it was perfect until some large, drunk idiot yelled, “Hey, your girlfriend’s ugly” to Jin. He slurred it slowly enough for Jin to understand.
For a single, shocking moment, Jin thought he saw Ryo among the crowd of blonds, which was - “Impossible,” Jin murmured, feeling an old defensiveness rise. It was not like he’d done anything in the past to prevent Ryo from calling Kame ugly
Jin tensed, wondering if maybe he should defend Hajime’s honor even though Hajime was a boy and not technically his girlfriend. But then Hajime glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes and grabbed his hand in their kettle corn bag, entwining their fingers together.
“Will you back me up if I hit him?” Hajime asked, ignoring the man completely.
Jin studied the man. He was heavier and stupider and just meaner than anything Jin had seen at the fair, prize bulls included. His friends, flushed the same shade of red, looked like they could snap both of them like twigs.
“Yes,” Jin said.
Hajime smiled at him, and it didn’t matter anymore that the only fight Jin had ever been in had been open-handed slaps, anything above the shoulders strictly off limits.
“Even if I start the fight?”
“He called you ugly,” Jin said like it was reason enough.
Hajime laughed. “He called me a girl too.”
“You wouldn’t be an ugly girl.”
“Well, maybe not.” Hajime pulled him up. “Though just for that, I get to choose the next ride.”
They left to the sound of idiots catcalling them from behind. Hajime smiled and blew a kiss at one, who swayed back a little as if hit. In Japan, fangirls would have killed them for Jin.
“Alright,” Jin said. “But only if we go drinking after.”
~
“So this motel sucks,” Hajime announced. He jerked a thumb back at the two-story building, white washed railing all along the side. “They only have singles. But I managed to make them give us a king-sized bed. Wonder what they made of it.”
He grinned at Jin. “Maybe they thought we were lovers. Must have gotten quite a shock. Serves them right.”
Jin followed Hajime up rickety stairs to their room, motel keys clutched tight in his hands, opening the door into depressing brown carpet and a single bed, big enough for two. He imagined the clerk’s leer as he’d handed over the keys and dropped his bags on the floor. “You can have the bed.”
“What? No,” Hajime said, eyes round. He shook his head. “We’ll share.”
It wasn’t a good idea, Jin opened his mouth to say, but he suddenly had Hajime’s mouth against his own, swallowing whatever words he formed, though he must have said it anyways because Hajime pulled away and asked, “Because of this?” against his lips.
Jin nodded. Then threw his head back when Hajime slid to his knees and unbuckled his belt. The taut pressure he’d felt all day that had been like an undecipherable itch pooled at one point and Jin thought, this is it, this is it, thisis, thisisthisisthis…and buried his fingers into silky chin length strands of hair, trying not to think of them belonging to someone else.
Afterwards, he pulled Hajime to him and kissed him slowly, tasting himself in the Hajime’s mouth. He palmed Hajime’s erection unhurriedly, running his thumb across the crown just like how he liked it, comfortable with having another man’s penis in his hands. It was worth it for the tiny gasps Hajime gave out and the wide-eyed wonder when they stared at each other in between kisses.
“Good?” Jin asked.
“Good,” Hajime assured him, thrusting up into his hand. “More.”
~
Jin’s hand tingled from where it had held Hajime’s cock and he stared at it under the stream of the shower, reluctant to wash away the evidence of what had happened. He could still hear Hajime’s cries from when he came and it was enough to make him half hard again, turning to full hardness when he closed his eyes and thought of Hajime’s burst of laughter afterwards, the sound of it warm and shocking and utterly welcome.
Jin spent another half hour in the shower.
Hajime was sitting up when he got out. Jin blushed slightly, thinking that maybe he’d been too loud, but Hajime just said, “Took you long enough. This stuff has completely dried and it’s disgusting,” gesturing to the white on his stomach.
The tension left Jin’s body. “I can help you with that,” he said and buried his head in silky hard muscle, licking a path down to where trails of hair led to Hajime’s restored interest.
~
Jin stretched himself awake under the shadow of a faded yellow archway. A crow in the distance looked down at him and there was sand in his mouth. “This is it?”
The school was larger than he’d expected, or rather looser, with buildings sprawled everything like somebody had strewn them upon the ground. Jin followed Hajime in.
Grace the administrative girl with black nails and a shirt that told them to fuck off showed them the way. “It’s here. Don’t know if anything’s been touched.”
“Thank you,” Hajime said as he slipped past her into the room. Jin followed. The bed pushed against the opposite wall was made, the desk underneath the one window had nothing on it. The closet was heartbreakingly small.
Across the room, a lanky guy got up from the other bed. “Hey. You here for Kamenashi’s stuff?” he asked in perfect Japanese.
“Yes,” Hajime said. “You his roommate?”
Lanky guy nodded once, shuffled his huge feet on threadbare brown carpet. “Yeah. Was.”
Hajime looked at Jin. “Well, I’m Hajime. He’s Akanishi.” Jin managed a tiny wave.
“Lars.” Lars stretched out stick thin arms. They barely grazed the ceiling. “Are you his brother?”
“Yes,” Hajime said before Jin could react, lie rolling off him with barely a ripple. He pointed to Jin. “He’s a close family friend. We’re all really worried about my brother.”
Lars nodded. “I figured. You two look really alike.”
“A lot of people say that. What do you remember about Kamenashi?”
Lanky roommate shrugged. “He seemed polite. Not like the type to kick up a fuss.” His eyes darted to the side, watched Hajime upend the trashcan on the floor and bend down to rifle through its contents. “He seemed nice.”
Jin leaned in the corner farthest away from them. “He’s always nice before you get to know him.”
The roommate looked at him, blinked. “I thought you two were frie-”
“Has any of this been touched?” Hajime interrupted. His arm swept over the crumpled pamphlets he’d arranged along the floor.
“Probably not. I don’t really pay attention to trash.”
Jin peeked over at the glossy brochures. Killer whales and fruit orchards adorned the pages, advertising things that had nothing to do with dance. Hajime shook his head and stuffed them in his blue knapsack. Jin was tempted to burn it immediately along with the baby blue quilt oddly bereft without bed sheets.
“He certainly took a lot of stuff with him,” Jin muttered.
“Oh,” Lars said. “No, he left bags. They put most of it in storage.”
Hajime looked up. “Think you can show us where that is?”
~
“The guy socialized, went out, went to class,” Lars said. He had begun to unwind outside as if freed of something more than just the confines of four walls. Hajime had to run a bit to keep up with his loping gait. “He would pay the most attention when you’re talking though, like he’s really interested in what you’re saying. And he never forgot a promise. A good guy.”
“A good guy,” Hajime repeated to Jin. Jin shrugged.
Lars ran a hand through his black, scruffy hair. “He did have this one odd habit in the mornings. He’d always brush his teeth outside, by the patio. I’d tell him, “Dude, people don’t need to see your toothfoam” but he’d be out there everyday, brushing.” He stopped and looked at them as if hit by a sudden idea. “You don’t suppose that was a sign, do you? Like, he was staring out to the horizon, yearning for freedom and the unknown and shit.”
“He was only here for a week,” Jin said. It was not jealousy resting low in his stomach, imagining Kame with his ridiculous ponytail and his ridiculous red toothbrush out there for the world to see. One week was not enough time for somebody like Lars to be so upset over somebody like Kame.
Lars lifted one bony shoulder and sighed. “But still…”
Hajime patted him on the back. “I’m sure there was no way you could have known.”
Jin’s phone rang.
~
“His roommate’s unstable,” Jin hissed into the phone. “And too attached. I think I should make inquiries. I think this is a lead.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” Ueda said. “How’s Kame?”
“Still missing. Or eaten alive by creepy guy. Who the hell names their Japanese child Lars?”
Ueda clucked softly, sounding something like a cross between a mother and a hen. “You’re supposed to find him, Akanishi.”
“I’m trying.”
“You used to always know where to find him,” Ueda said. “Really try. We’ll be flying out next week. He needs to be there.”
~
It had been a lot easier when it was only one floor in one building and a loudmouthed kid unafraid of anyone. At the end, Jin just closed his eyes and spun around. He tripped over something halfway, burning himself on hot metal when he put out a hand to stop his fall.
Their car remained unsympathetic.
“There you are,” Hajime said behind him. “Help us with these bags.” He was panting, two duffel bags slipping off his shoulders. Lars came up, grinning for some reason.
“He’s stronger than I thought.”
Jin nodded and stuck his hand in his back pocket. “Great.”
“Well, I’ll call you if I think of anything. The school might not like me giving you his things, but I’m sure they’ll be fine once I explain it to them. Bummer about your parents, by the way.”
“Thank you,” Hajime murmured. He slammed the trunk shut.
Jin stared after Lars’ retreating back, dizzy. “You lied to him. Again.”
Hajime shot him a look that was pure Kame - exasperated and indignant. “I’m a detective,” Hajime said. You’re a kid, Jin almost blurted out except Hajime kissed with lazy abandon and lied better than Jin ever could hope to.
Jin felt suddenly like hitting something.
Hajime bumped him in the shoulder. “Come on. Get in the car.”
Onward to part two
Pairing: Akame, Jin/Hajime (Kindaichi), Hajime/Jin/Kame
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. I do not claim it happened nor did I make any profit from it.
Summary: Jin has to find Kame with the help of a certain detective. 11,662 words.
A/N: Set in California during the time of Jin’s hiatus and works with the rumor of Kame going to LA for dance school. Started at the time of Jin’s hiatus, abandoned, picked up, drastically altered, then abandoned again. I am rather fond of it though it may possibly make no sense. This is your warning.
Jin caught sight of the fedora through the spotted window at the end of the stairwell. From that angle - four stories almost directly down - the hat looked like it was hovering in the air, a dusty beige with a wide black stripe cutting it in two. It was the kind of thing Jin used to wear when he wanted to play international spy.
Inside, the stairwell was small and cramped. When Jin stopped running, he could hear the pounding of his heart. It made the sudden silence just a little more bearable.
His cell phone rang and Jin jumped. “Shit,” he said, drawing out the ‘s’ so it vibrated, snake-like, on his tongue. It had been one of the first words he’d learned in Los Angeles, and Maria had said that it drove her crazy. Or was it Claire…Candice?
It was a Scarlet on his caller id now.
He shook his head, silenced the phone, and continued down.
The call from Johnny had shaken him more than he’d like to admit. He felt unsteady, hand fumbling on the railing when he remembered Johnny’s voice, low and raspy, slow, lazy drawl to it inherent in mob heads and CEOs - the kind of men assured an attentive audience.
“I’ve hired a detective. He’s good - top of the line. God knows if anything’ll be done if you’re left to your own. He’ll be in touch soon. You’d better hope he finds him, Akanishi.”
Jin wasn’t, when he could force his mind temporarily into some kind of order, scared of the hidden threat behind the words as much as the thought that Kame would, that Kame had -
He burst outside, blinking under the bright noon sun.
“Hey,” somebody called.
“Hey,” they said again, grabbing Jin’s wrist as he went by and swung him around to face the building.
Fedora man was leaning against the wall, one denim-clad leg bent and sneakered foot planted on the bricks. He smiled as Jin stared. “There you are.” His finger grazed the inside of Jin’s hand when he let go.
Jin shivered. “Kamenashi?” But it wasn’t. Jin knew the answer before it even finished leaving his mouth.
Not-Kamenashi tilted his fedora up. “Well, that would certainly make your job a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”
“Who -”
“I’m Kindaichi Hajime. Or Hajime Kindaichi if you prefer the western way of things.” Hajime stuck out a hand. Jin regarded it for a second then pulled back to shake it. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Ok,” Jin said.
He studied Hajime’s hair, dyed brown and feathered at the ends, and his hands - small and delicate - clasped solemnly in front of him. There were slight differences when Jin looked closely; Hajime didn’t resemble Kame so much as he did a younger version of him. Which might have been worse because Jin had liked the younger version of Kame. Hajime certainly made him feel that tug - the tug that reminded him distantly of eating that durian in the market in Taiwan, which had been the most revolting thing he’d ever tasted, slippery and smelly and yellow, except he’d kept on reaching out for more, wanting more like a masochist who couldn’t control himself.
“Johnny hired me,” Hajime said after a pause.
Jin let out a shaky breath. “Shit.”
Hajime smiled. “Yeah. So I was thinking we could go talk to some people.”
Jin shifted on his feet, looked away from that eerily familiar face. “I have class.”
“Skip,” Hajime said. “I’ll be in touch.”
~
Hajime called in a day, in the middle of class, and showed up on campus in an old dust-blue Mustang - vintage, if Jin had been into that kind of thing. Hajime had changed into jeans and a t-shirt, a thin black choker at his neck that gleamed in the sun as he lay sprawled on the hood of the car.
“Hey, stranger,” he called out. “Look what I got.”
Jin was busy staring at his skin, pale unadorned fingers splayed against the hot metal, and at the junction of Hajime’s thighs beneath faded denim. Hajime smiled and held up the keys. Jin caught them, palm up, when Hajime threw them to him.
“Drive. We’ll take turns.”
“Where are we going?” Jin asked, pulling out of the college parking lot and ignoring the stares that the car attracted. It must have been more of a classic than he suspected and he wondered briefly how Hajime had gotten it.
Hajime hummed and lay his head down against the side window, sprawling out in all directions until he was practically melted against the seat. “To find your John Doe. Just follow the map.” Then he closed his eyes lined with rings of fatigue and left Jin to figure out the cramped scrawls across the entire length of California, Japanese kanji a startling contrast to English.
Two hours later and they were on the road, a straight empty path leading into the horizon surrounded by wide expanses of sand and heat and pure nothingness. The car roof they had taken down a few minutes into the ride when Hajime had cracked an eye open in a busy LA intersection and declared that they could do with some fresh air. He’d said it with such a confident and guileless air that Jin had agreed without thinking. The wind did feel good through Jin’s hair. Soothing.
Hajime was asleep in the passenger’s side. Jin let his free hand rest on the clutch, barely grazing Hajime’s thigh when the car shifted just right, and tried to ignore the implications of the shivers that shot through his spine whenever it happened. It felt good. It felt wrong, but good.
He didn’t think he’d feel the same if Hajime wasn’t slumped over in a messy tangle of limbs, a slight whistle coming from his open mouth with every fall of his chest. He looked…unmanufactured, genuine, somebody that didn’t make Jin feel like he was banging up against walls.
There was a lone country station on the radio that faded in and out as Jin drove further into the desert, finally turning into static just as she started singing about a lonely heart. Hajime stirred a bit but didn’t wake.
~
Hajime groaned when Jin pulled into a rest stop and stretched like a cat, shirt riding up his stomach. Jin looked away.
“Why did we stop?”
Jin threw the map at him. It curled around Hajime’s face for a moment before sliding down onto his lap. “Your directions only go as far as this.”
“Oh. Right.”
Hajime seemed utterly unconcerned and, as Jin watched, he curled back up as if ready to fall asleep again. The shadows fell longer under the setting sun, the black of the tree stretching a line down their legs. According to his watch, Jin had been driving for six hours, twenty-six minutes, eighteen seconds - nineteen, as he stared at the digital display.
“I think,” Hajime said after a second, “that we should find ourselves a motel.” He gestured for Jin to start the engine.
“How far away is he?” Jin asked, pulling back onto the road.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“It’s hard to pinpoint down in distance,” Hajime said.
Jin was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that Hajime had about the same idea as him about where they were going, which was none, and who had recommended Hajime to Johnny in the first place? Another thought occurred to Jin. “You’re not going to drag me to some deserted place and hack me to bits, are you?”
Hajime laughed. “No. Besides, I wouldn’t pick a motel to do that in. Too many witnesses.”
It was less reassuring than Jin would have liked, especially when Hajime rejected the first two motels they came to, for some reason that completely eluded Jin. They all looked the same to him: two story buildings that might have once been white a few decades ago when they could still be considered new. The small vacancy sign flashed disjointedly. It irritated Jin’s senses when Shibuya’s neon lights and blinding spotlights had stopped affecting him years ago. It must have been the unwelcome burst of civilization in an endless expanse of desert and road.
He watched Hajime walk back to their car, arms flopping at his side in time with the sway of his hips. Hajime was grinning when he approached. “Grab your bags, I got us a room for the night. Their last double too.”
“Great,” Jin said.
He fell asleep to the image of Hajime before him, shifting into Kame.
~
“There’s a carnival in town.” Hajime’s delighted laughter shook Jin awake. “Let’s go.”
He yanked open the curtains, throwing bright light in the room. It blinded Jin, burning white in his eyes. Jin groaned, burying his head in his pillow.
“I thought we’re supposed to be looking for Kamenashi,” he mumbled.
“We are. Come on.”
The fair was a cacophony of noise, of gaudy plastic rides and hokey painted signs, of paths of brown dirt that got onto everything and hay that tried to. Hajime bought a cowboy hat to go with his plaid shirt, and walked two steps ahead of Jin. He looked completely recovered of whatever had been ailing him the other day and took in everything with wide-eyed boundless energy. Though to be fair, Jin thought as he brushed his bangs away from his face, Hajime hadn’t been the one who’d spent hours driving.
“This is great,” Hajime said, hooking his foot around the bottom rung of a pen. “This is culture.”
The large pig stared back. They apparently gave prizes for fattest pig, or muddiest, if the blue ribbon pinned on the side was any indication.
“It’s pork,” Jin said. “I eat it with rice.”
Hajime laughed as if he’d said something funny. “That reminds me. Here.” He tossed something to Jin that caught the rays of the sun and flashed silver at the highest point of its arced path. Jin caught it by reflex.
He ran a thumb across the phone’s polished surface. “It’s not mine.”
“It is now. Your current cell’s horribly out of date. That one” -- Hajime pointed at the phone -- “has all the important numbers. Plus, it comes with unlimited international calls.”
“I don’t need it,” Jin muttered, flipping through its features.
There were only six numbers stored in the phonebook. Boss was at the top - there was no need asking who that was - and the rest…
“One thing good thing about having an ad contract with the top cell phone company in Japan is constant new phones. Bad thing is you go away for a few months and all their numbers have changed,” Hajime said.
He peeked over Jin’s shoulder and pointed at the screen. “Koki’s hair’s grown. Do you see? He was so proud of it when he took that picture.”
“Yeah,” Jin said. “I don’t --”
“Keep going,” Hajime urged.
The pig ambled over to the fence and looked up at Jin expectantly.
After Junno and Nakamaru - there was no Kamenashi, not that it was any surprise - Jin came upon an entry labeled: Partner. There was no photograph.
“That’s me,” Hajime said. “I thought you might like to take the picture yourself.”
“Partner?” Jin asked, feeling a warm lump dissolve within his chest. He had no reason to feel so happy about a name.
“Yeah. We are. Were.” Hajime frowned. “Will be. It’s rather complicated.”
The pig grunted.
“Hush, you,” Hajime chided. He turned back to Jin. “Anyways, want to take my photograph?”
Jin did. He ended up using the one with Hajime, cowboy hat askew, leaning over the pen, looking to all the world like he was about to kiss a pig. Hajime screwed his face up in displeasure when Jin showed him.
“We’ll take another one later,” Hajime declared, handing the phone back to Jin. “That’s a horrible picture.”
Jin grinned, flipping it open again. Hajime had scrolled past his own entry; Koki’s face was staring back at Jin. He hesitated - thumb hovering over the delete.
Hajime put a hand on his wrist. “Don’t,” he said, grip tightening around Jin’s hand when the phone began to ring. “At least not right now. You can’t run away from everything.”
~
“Do you get Fuji TV in LA?” Junno asked. “Because then you can watch my new drama.”
His voice crackled over the line. Jin moved further away from the bright flickering lights of the Ferris wheel and plugged one ear with a finger. Some kids at the very top of the loop screamed with delight.
“Our last motel had two channels.”
“I’ll record it for you then,” Junno continued, undeterred. “That way you can watch it right when you get back instead of waiting for the DVD.”
“I’m not -” Jin began, stopping at the sound of the phone changing hands.
“How’s Kame?” Nakamaru asked, too unconcerned for it to be true.
“Um,” he said. Hajime was hanging onto the railing next to the ride, smiling a large, toothy grin. Jin cleared his throat. “Still lost, you know.”
“Right. Well, I’m sure you’ll find him. You two had that bond and everything.” He sounded like he was trying to reassure himself.
Jin glanced around. Night had arrived sometime when he hadn’t been looking. It made the garish lights all over the carnival brighter. The lights on the spokes of the Ferris wheel turned Hajime’s hair red then yellow then black before returning it to a dyed brown. Nakamaru was still talking in Jin’s ear.
“- to dance school.”
Jin stirred. “Maybe,” he said, brain freezing on the sight of Hajime’s eyes and how they nearly disappeared as his face creased into a grin. “Maybe he wants to be gone. Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”
He held his phone away from his ear when Nakamaru dropped his, listening as they squabbled over it on the other end. Ueda came onto the line after a moment, slightly out of breath.
“When you come back, I’m going to hit you.”
“I’m not coming back.”
“I’m going to hit you,” Ueda repeated. “Then we’re all going out to dinner.”
~
They sold hot dogs for a dollar fifty piled high with chili and cheese and green peppers that set fire to Jin’s mouth. Hajime downed two while Jin went off in search of edible food and came back with a bagful of popcorn as tall as his waist. They shared it by the carousal, straddling a bench and watching people pass. Most of them were couples or families or the occasional group of teenagers with nothing better to do. Jin didn’t know how they figured in. He didn’t know what he was doing there either.
“Johnny’s a powerful man,” Hajime said when Jin confessed that to him. “And you want to find Kamenashi.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I hate him,” Jin said.
“No, you don’t,” Hajime said with utter conviction. “You don’t hate anyone.”
He kicked his feet, sending plumes of dust skyward, and Jin couldn’t think of a proper reply. He couldn’t look away from Hajime’s smile either, pure and honest in its simplicity. It was much easier to go along with Hajime than fight him.
Their hands bumped casually every now and then, slick with butter, and it was perfect until some large, drunk idiot yelled, “Hey, your girlfriend’s ugly” to Jin. He slurred it slowly enough for Jin to understand.
For a single, shocking moment, Jin thought he saw Ryo among the crowd of blonds, which was - “Impossible,” Jin murmured, feeling an old defensiveness rise. It was not like he’d done anything in the past to prevent Ryo from calling Kame ugly
Jin tensed, wondering if maybe he should defend Hajime’s honor even though Hajime was a boy and not technically his girlfriend. But then Hajime glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes and grabbed his hand in their kettle corn bag, entwining their fingers together.
“Will you back me up if I hit him?” Hajime asked, ignoring the man completely.
Jin studied the man. He was heavier and stupider and just meaner than anything Jin had seen at the fair, prize bulls included. His friends, flushed the same shade of red, looked like they could snap both of them like twigs.
“Yes,” Jin said.
Hajime smiled at him, and it didn’t matter anymore that the only fight Jin had ever been in had been open-handed slaps, anything above the shoulders strictly off limits.
“Even if I start the fight?”
“He called you ugly,” Jin said like it was reason enough.
Hajime laughed. “He called me a girl too.”
“You wouldn’t be an ugly girl.”
“Well, maybe not.” Hajime pulled him up. “Though just for that, I get to choose the next ride.”
They left to the sound of idiots catcalling them from behind. Hajime smiled and blew a kiss at one, who swayed back a little as if hit. In Japan, fangirls would have killed them for Jin.
“Alright,” Jin said. “But only if we go drinking after.”
~
“So this motel sucks,” Hajime announced. He jerked a thumb back at the two-story building, white washed railing all along the side. “They only have singles. But I managed to make them give us a king-sized bed. Wonder what they made of it.”
He grinned at Jin. “Maybe they thought we were lovers. Must have gotten quite a shock. Serves them right.”
Jin followed Hajime up rickety stairs to their room, motel keys clutched tight in his hands, opening the door into depressing brown carpet and a single bed, big enough for two. He imagined the clerk’s leer as he’d handed over the keys and dropped his bags on the floor. “You can have the bed.”
“What? No,” Hajime said, eyes round. He shook his head. “We’ll share.”
It wasn’t a good idea, Jin opened his mouth to say, but he suddenly had Hajime’s mouth against his own, swallowing whatever words he formed, though he must have said it anyways because Hajime pulled away and asked, “Because of this?” against his lips.
Jin nodded. Then threw his head back when Hajime slid to his knees and unbuckled his belt. The taut pressure he’d felt all day that had been like an undecipherable itch pooled at one point and Jin thought, this is it, this is it, thisis, thisisthisisthis…and buried his fingers into silky chin length strands of hair, trying not to think of them belonging to someone else.
Afterwards, he pulled Hajime to him and kissed him slowly, tasting himself in the Hajime’s mouth. He palmed Hajime’s erection unhurriedly, running his thumb across the crown just like how he liked it, comfortable with having another man’s penis in his hands. It was worth it for the tiny gasps Hajime gave out and the wide-eyed wonder when they stared at each other in between kisses.
“Good?” Jin asked.
“Good,” Hajime assured him, thrusting up into his hand. “More.”
~
Jin’s hand tingled from where it had held Hajime’s cock and he stared at it under the stream of the shower, reluctant to wash away the evidence of what had happened. He could still hear Hajime’s cries from when he came and it was enough to make him half hard again, turning to full hardness when he closed his eyes and thought of Hajime’s burst of laughter afterwards, the sound of it warm and shocking and utterly welcome.
Jin spent another half hour in the shower.
Hajime was sitting up when he got out. Jin blushed slightly, thinking that maybe he’d been too loud, but Hajime just said, “Took you long enough. This stuff has completely dried and it’s disgusting,” gesturing to the white on his stomach.
The tension left Jin’s body. “I can help you with that,” he said and buried his head in silky hard muscle, licking a path down to where trails of hair led to Hajime’s restored interest.
~
Jin stretched himself awake under the shadow of a faded yellow archway. A crow in the distance looked down at him and there was sand in his mouth. “This is it?”
The school was larger than he’d expected, or rather looser, with buildings sprawled everything like somebody had strewn them upon the ground. Jin followed Hajime in.
Grace the administrative girl with black nails and a shirt that told them to fuck off showed them the way. “It’s here. Don’t know if anything’s been touched.”
“Thank you,” Hajime said as he slipped past her into the room. Jin followed. The bed pushed against the opposite wall was made, the desk underneath the one window had nothing on it. The closet was heartbreakingly small.
Across the room, a lanky guy got up from the other bed. “Hey. You here for Kamenashi’s stuff?” he asked in perfect Japanese.
“Yes,” Hajime said. “You his roommate?”
Lanky guy nodded once, shuffled his huge feet on threadbare brown carpet. “Yeah. Was.”
Hajime looked at Jin. “Well, I’m Hajime. He’s Akanishi.” Jin managed a tiny wave.
“Lars.” Lars stretched out stick thin arms. They barely grazed the ceiling. “Are you his brother?”
“Yes,” Hajime said before Jin could react, lie rolling off him with barely a ripple. He pointed to Jin. “He’s a close family friend. We’re all really worried about my brother.”
Lars nodded. “I figured. You two look really alike.”
“A lot of people say that. What do you remember about Kamenashi?”
Lanky roommate shrugged. “He seemed polite. Not like the type to kick up a fuss.” His eyes darted to the side, watched Hajime upend the trashcan on the floor and bend down to rifle through its contents. “He seemed nice.”
Jin leaned in the corner farthest away from them. “He’s always nice before you get to know him.”
The roommate looked at him, blinked. “I thought you two were frie-”
“Has any of this been touched?” Hajime interrupted. His arm swept over the crumpled pamphlets he’d arranged along the floor.
“Probably not. I don’t really pay attention to trash.”
Jin peeked over at the glossy brochures. Killer whales and fruit orchards adorned the pages, advertising things that had nothing to do with dance. Hajime shook his head and stuffed them in his blue knapsack. Jin was tempted to burn it immediately along with the baby blue quilt oddly bereft without bed sheets.
“He certainly took a lot of stuff with him,” Jin muttered.
“Oh,” Lars said. “No, he left bags. They put most of it in storage.”
Hajime looked up. “Think you can show us where that is?”
~
“The guy socialized, went out, went to class,” Lars said. He had begun to unwind outside as if freed of something more than just the confines of four walls. Hajime had to run a bit to keep up with his loping gait. “He would pay the most attention when you’re talking though, like he’s really interested in what you’re saying. And he never forgot a promise. A good guy.”
“A good guy,” Hajime repeated to Jin. Jin shrugged.
Lars ran a hand through his black, scruffy hair. “He did have this one odd habit in the mornings. He’d always brush his teeth outside, by the patio. I’d tell him, “Dude, people don’t need to see your toothfoam” but he’d be out there everyday, brushing.” He stopped and looked at them as if hit by a sudden idea. “You don’t suppose that was a sign, do you? Like, he was staring out to the horizon, yearning for freedom and the unknown and shit.”
“He was only here for a week,” Jin said. It was not jealousy resting low in his stomach, imagining Kame with his ridiculous ponytail and his ridiculous red toothbrush out there for the world to see. One week was not enough time for somebody like Lars to be so upset over somebody like Kame.
Lars lifted one bony shoulder and sighed. “But still…”
Hajime patted him on the back. “I’m sure there was no way you could have known.”
Jin’s phone rang.
~
“His roommate’s unstable,” Jin hissed into the phone. “And too attached. I think I should make inquiries. I think this is a lead.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” Ueda said. “How’s Kame?”
“Still missing. Or eaten alive by creepy guy. Who the hell names their Japanese child Lars?”
Ueda clucked softly, sounding something like a cross between a mother and a hen. “You’re supposed to find him, Akanishi.”
“I’m trying.”
“You used to always know where to find him,” Ueda said. “Really try. We’ll be flying out next week. He needs to be there.”
~
It had been a lot easier when it was only one floor in one building and a loudmouthed kid unafraid of anyone. At the end, Jin just closed his eyes and spun around. He tripped over something halfway, burning himself on hot metal when he put out a hand to stop his fall.
Their car remained unsympathetic.
“There you are,” Hajime said behind him. “Help us with these bags.” He was panting, two duffel bags slipping off his shoulders. Lars came up, grinning for some reason.
“He’s stronger than I thought.”
Jin nodded and stuck his hand in his back pocket. “Great.”
“Well, I’ll call you if I think of anything. The school might not like me giving you his things, but I’m sure they’ll be fine once I explain it to them. Bummer about your parents, by the way.”
“Thank you,” Hajime murmured. He slammed the trunk shut.
Jin stared after Lars’ retreating back, dizzy. “You lied to him. Again.”
Hajime shot him a look that was pure Kame - exasperated and indignant. “I’m a detective,” Hajime said. You’re a kid, Jin almost blurted out except Hajime kissed with lazy abandon and lied better than Jin ever could hope to.
Jin felt suddenly like hitting something.
Hajime bumped him in the shoulder. “Come on. Get in the car.”
Onward to part two