Real Face-Off: Eclipse
Title: Real Face-Off: Eclipse
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya; Akanishi Jin/Yamashita Tomohisa
Summary: I always wanted to be someone my mom would be proud of; someone who, at the end of the day, she was happy popped out of her you know what.
Notes/Warnings: For the Happy Gay Summer fic meme, June 2010. The "long-awaited" third installment of the Akame Twilight saga. Thank you for being patient. I hope it meets your expectations. I will definitely be doing Breaking Dawn at some point. Your support is appreciated more than you know.
When I lived in Japan, my mom always told me that I was a good kid. But. There was always a but. If I broke a lamp, she’d say “Jin, you’re a good kid, but you need to play soccer outside.” If she caught me with a dirty magazine, she’d say “Jin, you’re a good kid, but you know those tits aren’t real.”
My mom’s pretty cool, okay?
I always wanted to be someone my mom would be proud of; someone who, at the end of the day, she was happy popped out of her you know what. But it’s like, hard to be a good kid. In a situation like mine, it’s pretty fucking impossible. See, because Kame wants to marry me, but Pi’s my best friend forever. And since they’re kind of like oil and water or like George W. Bush and dictionaries, they don’t always mix.
I just wanted my life to make sense. I just wanted to be a good kid. What I’m trying to say is that I never wanted to choose.
--
We’d only gotten back from Italy a few weeks ago. If you remember, Kame let me get him off, which was a big step for us. But of course, because he was Kame and he had a stick up his ass the size of a redwood tree, he hadn’t let me do it again.
See, he’d kind of been nervous and worried and paranoid lately, and all his stupid little Kame spazziness was dampening his libido. Since Charlie’s a cop and all, I can get all the latest info I need about the great state of Washington. It was a fucking free-for-all in Seattle the past few weeks.
Murder after murder, people drained of blood and found in the gutter. Of course, a genius like me knew it was the work of vampires, seeing as how I wanted to get in one’s pants 24-7. But because Charlie was a boneheaded douchenozzle, he and his cop buddies were renting all these Animal Planet documentaries on bears and shit, trying to figure out if the Seattle stuff was the work of some crazed rabid grizzly.
See, even I wasn’t retarded enough to think a bear was chillaxing in downtown Seattle waiting to strike at any given moment. But I guess that’s why I wasn’t in law enforcement.
“It’s newborns,” Kame explained, sitting a little too close for comfort as we worked at my desk. For some retarded reason that only my cock seemed to know, I was filling out visa forms to stay in America and potentially attend some sort of college. And before you say it, no, not clown college. Fuck you.
“Newborns? Like babies?” I asked in confusion, bubbling in one of the ‘are you sure you’re not a terrorist?’ questions they like to ask on those forms. “Killer babies? That shit is messed up.”
“Not newborn infants, moron,” Kame said, rolling his eyes. “Newborn vampires. They’re sometimes sloppy when they dispose of their victims. And given the rate the murders are happening, there’s more than one.”
I nodded, filling in some more bubbles. Staying in America was one giant Scantron test. “So like, don’t you guys have some sort of way to get the baby you guys to calm down?”
“Every newborn’s supposed to obey the wishes of its maker. Remember when we watched True Blood last week?”
We’d marathoned the first season, and Kame was such an asshole about it. He fast forwarded all the sex scenes. We got through the whole season in about two and a half hours. “Sookie,” I said in my best southern American drawl (which was better than Kame’s, even though he’d lived over here longer), “Sookie, you are my woman!”
Kame kicked me under the desk. “This is serious, Jin. If the newborns are acting sloppy like this at the behest of their maker, it’s a bad sign. Their maker’s sending a message.”
“Don’t come to Seattle?”
He kicked me again, which was really fucking rude as usual. “It’s a message to me.”
“Well, aren’t we a little self-involved?” And this time I was ready for the kick, shoving his chair and knocking him to the floor before he could attack me.
He righted the chair and sat down again in a huff. “It’s probably Koki,” Kame explained. “He’s still pissed at me for killing Junno.”
“But that was like, a year ago. He needs to move on.”
“You try telling a vampire to move on,” Kame said, and I just kept on filling in the bubbles. He was right. Vampires were more into the emo pain sort of thing than someone who listened to Linkin Park non-stop. Koki had tried to attack me last year, and Pi and his werewolf friends had chased him off. But it did kind of blow that someone out there was really pissed off at Kame and by default, really pissed off at me.
You know, I’d been telling myself for months that being a vampire turned you into a whiny bitch. Maybe before he’d become one, Kame had been a decent guy, laid back even. It was hard to imagine, of course, seeing as how he had PMS all day, every day. So I didn’t really want to be a vampire myself.
I didn’t want to eat people, and if I became a vampire and stayed with Kame, I’d have to drink dogs at the animal shelter. And they’d have to be animals set to be euthanized anyhow. Kame was a real stickler for that sort of thing. Is that how I wanted to spend eternity? Sucking down mutt blood? Not really. I slept most of the day already, and vampires don’t need sleep. So what the hell would I do with an extra fourteen hours in my day forever?
But at the same time, Kame being with me was super dangerous, and I had enough self-preservation tendencies that being undead seemed like it might be an advantage. It would make it a lot harder for Koki to kill me. It would keep those queer ass Volturri motherfuckers from killing me too. Basically, me dying would keep me from...dying.
And now that I’d come to this “maybe, kinda, I might possibly...” sort of attitude about becoming a vampire, Kame didn’t want to talk about it. Any time I asked him if it would hurt for him to turn me or if he would suck me dry in two different places, he’d change the subject. Usually to something lame like the opera or some recipe for lemon bars he was thinking of using, so I gave up every time.
With all the Seattle shit though, it was only a matter of time before one of Koki’s new BFFs found me and turned me into dinner. Or brunch depending on the time of day. I couldn’t just sit on my ass and fill out application forms for Tacoma Community College (or the UCLA one I was hiding with my pot stash).
I finished bubbling in my form and rested my hand on top of Kame’s chilly one. “So like, you’re graduating from Forks High anyhow, and you’re not getting any older looking,” I said, trying to sound smooth and shit. “If I become a vampire, I can just blow off school and we can go anywhere we want.”
I was thinking Venice Beach.
Kame was thinking I was out of my god damned mind. “But your soul, Jin,” Kame said all mournfully. “Vampires don’t have souls. I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t take away the life you were meant to live.”
Please, what life? I was living in Forks, Washington as a Japanese exchange student. My guidance counselor at Forks High thought I’d been joking when I listed rock star and porn star as my one and two career goals.
“Well, if Koki kills me, my life’s over anyway,” I pointed out.
Kame got all defensive, as usual. “What, you think I’d just let him get to you? If you’re feeling frightened, I can stay with you longer. Whatever it takes, I can be by your side as much as you need me to.”
I shuddered at the thought of Kame being there watching and protecting me while I took a shit, just in case that was the time Koki decided to show up. I wasn’t overly fond of that idea. Everybody needs some me time, right?
“Back off, creep,” I said, giving him a shove. “You’re so concerned about being with me forever and shit, but you won’t change me. Stop being so fucking bipolar.”
“So me caring about your mortality and your soul is a mental illness?” he shot back, pen slashing through whatever essay he was writing for fucking Stanford. Pretentious prick. “Me not wanting to doom you forever is a bad thing?”
I’d had enough. Kame was getting me angry, and when I got angry because of Kame, I tended to get horny too. But he never responded well. He wasn’t into the whole angry making out thing. I stood up instead, throwing my pen down and grabbing the keys to Charlie’s shitty ass truck.
“I’m going out.”
Kame was of course waiting outside for me when I got to the truck. I got into the cab anyhow, turning the key in the ignition. “Jin...”
I flipped him off. Both hands. I meant business. “You know where I’m going. And you can’t cross the border, so suck my dick.”
I drove off, leaving him all snarling and whiny and needy.
--
The rez was always so much more laid back than Forks, probably because everyone acted more like Pi than like Kame there. Pi and I had had sort of a falling out on account of me being a prick tease and going to Italy and leaving him behind.
We’d gone for all you can eat crab legs the other week, so we were cool again. Pi was so much easier to talk to than Kame. For one thing, we talked in Japanese most of the time, so I didn’t really have to think, which I preferred. And Pi didn’t really whine much. He just let things go where Kame would harp on something for hours. Like if Kame’s DVR didn’t record Project Runway, I’d have to hear about it for a week. But Pi was more sensible and just downloaded shit from the web without batting an eye.
The truck sputtered, and I parked next to Pi’s motorcycle by the double wide he shared with his mom and stepdad. He was surprised to see me, holding open the screen door. I guess I had some rage radiating off me, because Pi stayed clear even though his werewolfy-ness meant I was no threat to him at all.
“Kamenashi being a dick again?” Pi asked with a sigh as we settled in for some Xbox and goldfish crackers.
I nodded. “Fucker’s applying to Stanford.”
“What’s Stanford?”
I ignored Pi’s question. He’d been here in America for a while, but there was a lot Pi just hadn’t picked up on. “He can be such a bitch,” I complained. “There’s like, all these people getting killed left and right in Seattle, and everyone knows it’s Koki, but Kame thinks the answer is to be all up in my grill.”
Pi’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, we’ve been monitoring the Seattle thing,” he explained. “Kame and his bloodsucking friends better get their stuff under control. Because the pack’s itching to clear them all out.”
This wasn’t good news. A feud between Koki and Kame sucked, but a bigger war between the vampires and wolves would definitely get the Volturri’s attention. And I did not need those rainbow motherfuckers in the Pacific Northwest as long as my heart was still beating.
I shot at some Nazi bitches with my assault rifle while Pi readied his hand grenades. “All Kame has to do is make me a vampire,” I said. “Then I can protect my own damn self.”
Pi paused the game. “What?”
Had I spoken in English on accident? I repeated what I’d said slower, just in case. But Pi looked just as horrified. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“A vampire?” Pi cried. “Jin, you can’t become a vampire.”
“Yeah, I know they’re all pretty stupid,” I interrupted him quickly, “but all those vampires will keep coming after me. Human and vampire couples don’t exactly last long. The whole nice smelling blood thing, so Kame just has to change me...”
Pi tossed the controller on the floor, which I guess meant that Hitler wasn’t getting overthrown today. “Do you know what that means though? For us, I mean.”
“Us?” I asked. Did Pi think we were a couple or something? I mean, he was hot and totally a nice guy, but I wasn’t sure I wanted more than a friends with benefits thing with him.
“Hello, I’m a werewolf. I hate vampires, remember?”
I nodded slowly. “Riiiiight?”
“And if you’re a vampire, we can’t be friends.”
I blinked. “Wait, what? Why the fuck not? Ebony and ivory...”
He scowled at me. “There’s a border, you know. Between La Push and Forks and stuff. Kame can’t cross that border. And you wouldn’t be able to either. Kame making you a vampire this close to La Push is a major no-no on the treaty too.”
“What fucking treaty?”
“Dude, I’m from Japan,” Pi grumbled, “like I really know. I just know there IS one, and if Kame turns you, then we can’t be friends or anything.”
What was with all the ultimatums today? Kame wouldn’t turn me because he cared about my stupid soul. Pi didn’t want Kame to turn me because then I’d be his enemy. Neither of them wanted to be second place in my heart like some kind of fucking soap opera. Was I the only one who actually cared what I wanted? Even my mom would probably be cool with me becoming a vampire if it meant I didn’t get murdered.
I shut my mouth and unpaused the game, hearing Pi sigh when his character got fragged hardcore by a German grenade. We finished the level in silence, and once the box of goldfish was gone, I said I had to get back and finish up some homework.
Pi gave me a hug goodbye, a really nice one. He was always so snuggly and warm. And if I became a vampire, I wouldn’t get to hug or make out with him any longer. For like, eternity. Fucking Koki. Fucking Volturri.
“I’ll ride back with you,” he said quietly. “If you’ll let me.”
Then he made the puppy face, and I relented. I couldn’t tell if he or Kame was the more manipulative guy in my life. He rode shotgun as we headed back to Forks, and of course Kame was waiting right at this stupid invisible border between the rez and town, arms crossed and huffy.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and got out to try and get Kame’s dumb ass out of the street. Pi got out too, giving Kame a dirty look. “What, you don’t trust him to get home on his own?”
“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t given my boyfriend werewolf genital warts,” Kame snitted.
“You don’t even have sex with him,” Pi snapped back. “How would you know if he had genital warts or not?”
Kame looked at me angrily, like I wasn’t supposed to discuss our personal life with my best friend or something. “Jin, let’s go.”
They were both acting like clingy girls. I got back into the truck and gunned it, leaving the both of them behind. Maybe it would be easier if Koki just came and snapped my neck.
--
The rest of the school year followed a similar pattern. Kame started having powwow meetings about Koki with Nakamaru and Ueda, and even though it was supposed to be about my safety and shit, it always ended with those three idiots printing up coupons for the fucking Pottery Barn. I didn’t feel any safer.
I visited Pi whenever Kame got overly weird and whined about wanting me to keep my soul. But now that I’d dangled the “I want to be a vampire” carrot in front of his face, Pi was getting snippier. And he’d been so well-behaved before. It was fucking bizarre. I had two hot guys fighting over me and wanting to keep me safe, but neither of them actually had a feasible plan that would keep me alive long term.
Kame didn’t want me to be a vampire. And if I stayed on the rez with Pi and the tribe, then I couldn’t make out with Kame without starting a war. I was starting to think that much as it would gut me, maybe I had to just get the fuck out of America. It would mean leaving Kame and leaving Pi, but then Koki would probably fuck off if Kame and I broke up. And there’d be no vampire/werewolf war either. I’d just go back to Japan and work at Mister Donut or something.
I kept this plan in the back of my mind. If the newspaper the next day said that more people had been killed in Seattle or if Koki sent me a Facebook friend request just to stalk me, then it was time to call mom and go home. It was a last resort, but at least I wouldn’t die unless the plane crashed or something.
I had graduation ceremony rehearsal later that afternoon, so Pi and I only got through one level in Call of Duty. And it was then, right when I was about to get into the truck that Pi decided to spring a little awkward on me.
“I’m in love with you,” he blurted out when I had my ass halfway onto the seat. I slid back down, sneakers hitting the gravel.
“The fuck?” I asked him, seeing the way he was looking down at his feet. He was serious. He wasn’t just into me for the physical stuff, was he? I didn’t need this. I didn’t need Kame and Pi BOTH obsessively in love with me. When had I given either of them the impression that I was a monogamous romantic type? I’d suck anyone’s dick if the price was right.
“I care about you so much. I’d do anything for you. You’re my best friend, and I love you.”
So uncomfortable. I hadn’t been that uncomfortable since I caught Kame genuinely laughing during an episode of Two and a Half Men. “Pi, listen. I love you too, man. I just don’t...”
He grabbed hold of my shoulders, and the whole werewolf strength kicked in, keeping me from moving. “Jin, you’re like...you’re like my one in a million.”
Oh god oh god, what the fuck was I supposed to say? One in a million? How do you react to that? I stumbled over my words.
“Yeah, but there’s like...three hundred million people just in this country alone. So uh...if you, ya know, do the math that’s like...three thousand people right there.”
“Thirty,” he responded.
“Oh.”
We stood there quietly, and I let Pi’s confession wash over me. Knowing he loved me that much did turn me on a bit, so I didn’t stop him when he pushed me back against the truck and started to kiss me. What can I say, he was a good kisser and it wasn’t all cold like Kame.
He was getting all into it too, very unlike him, since he usually let me dominate the hell out of him. His hips were grinding against mine, and I was getting the impression that he kind of wanted to bend me over the side of the damn truck and take me. I don’t normally go for exhibitionary style, especially since Pi’s mom and stepdad were just inside the double wide watching reruns of Supermarket Sweep.
“Pi,” I said, trying to get him to slow down. I didn’t have any condoms on me or anything, and especially no lube, and I wasn’t about to go Brokeback with a werewolf in broad daylight. Not like he’d transformed or anything, but I don’t know how that stuff works or what sets the furry stuff off.
“Jin, I need you,” he was growling a bit, reaching for my zipper. “Stay here with me a while longer, okay?”
He was doing his usual sucking on my lower lip thing which I totally approved of, but then he made the mistake of his life. He let his fingers drift down my neck, and when they hit my collarbone, I yelped in an utterly masculine, impressive manner. Damn him - it was my most ticklish spot.
“Stop!” I cried, getting his hands away from my sensitive spot. But he just saw it as a challenge because all his energy had concentrated itself between his legs, so the lines of communication to his brain were blocked. “Stop, seriously, dude!”
But he didn’t stop, running his finger all along my collarbone and giving me the heebies hardcore. Finally I tried to punch him in the fucking face for ignoring my repeated suggestion, and that was when I realized that punching a supernatural creature, even a mostly retarded one, was a bad call.
“Fuck! Ow!” I moaned, feeling like every bone in my hand had just shattered.
“Jin!” Pi said. All of a sudden the sensitive and gentle hottie I’d grown to care for resurfaced. “Jin, I’m so sorry! My skeleton’s kind of harder now that I can shift. It’s stronger. You know, like Wolverine.”
Well, it sure had felt like punching adamantium or some shit, because I could barely feel anything. Pi tried to take my hand in his, and it stung like a motherfucker. Yep, definitely broken - if not everything, at least part of it was broken. Fucking werewolf.
I let Pi drive the truck to the hospital, and I did not look forward to the phone call with my mom I’d be having later regarding my medical bills. Kame, of course, had somehow sensed that I was in danger, and he was waiting with his usual sourpuss face. Although since I was injured, he looked even grouchier.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked Pi once I got my hand set. Three fingers were broken, but luckily the rest of my hand was okay. If I’d hit Pi just a bit harder, I’d probably be in physical therapy and a brace and stuff forever.
“Jin punched me,” Pi explained, giving Kame the stink eye.
“Good. You probably deserved it.”
“It’s none of your business,” I said grumpily.
“I think it is, Akanishi, seeing as how we’re soulmates.”
“Oh, not that again!” Pi sighed. “He’s not like, your possession or something, Kamenashi. He’s not another stupid CD of shit music to rip to your iTunes. He’s not like the last boring packet of oatmeal in your boring ass box of oatmeal. He’s not...”
“Shut up,” Kame interrupted him. “And I don’t eat oatmeal.”
“You would,” Pi insisted. “You’re that fucking lame.”
“Enough!” I complained. If I wanted to listen to stupid people arguing about inane shit, I’d watch more Judge Mathis. Which reminded me that there was a whole marathon on tomorrow to look forward to. Broken fingers sucked, but at least there was Judge Mathis. “Kame and I have graduation rehearsal.”
“But you’re hurt,” Kame protested. “And it’s all this idiot’s fault.”
“I’m not going to be doing cartwheels,” I said. I just wanted to graduate and be done with Forks and just mooch off of Charlie until I went back to Japan or got gobbled up by Koki, whatever happened first.
“Well, I’ve graduated a dozen times,” Kame continued. “You don’t really have to rehearse anything. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
But Pi was still grouchy. He and Kame didn’t do so well when they were in the same room, probably because they were mortal enemies or some shit. Pi stood and got all up in Kame’s face. “You’re a fucking stalker, blood boy. Why don’t you let Jin get home on his own? He’s not a baby.”
Kame wrinkled his nose. “You smell like patchouli. Back off.”
Pi snarled, and I noticed little tufts of hair starting to sprout on his chin. They’d be kind of cute if it didn’t imply his clothes were about to tear to shreds, and he was going to transform in the middle of the Forks Medical Center. And the wolf pack didn’t need that kind of exposure.
I got up, insinuating myself between them. If Kame and Pi didn’t hate each other so much, a threesome would probably solve all of our problems. But since they were both so annoying, all I could do was push them apart as best I could with my good hand.
“Look, since you both want in my pants...” Kame gave me a dirty look. “Okay, in my pants either physically or in some romantic self-denial purity ring type of way. Anyhow, since you both want that, and it’s my body after all, I’m laying down some fucking ground rules.”
They both tried to talk, and I held up my broken fingers to remind them of how cray cray they were both getting. “Rule one. I go where I want. If that means I stay at home and watch my damn Judge Mathis marathon all day tomorrow, then that’s what I am doing. If that means I go to the rez, then I go to the rez.”
Pi looked pleased with this rule. Kame did not.
“Rule two, if Kame makes me into a vampire, it will be for safety purposes. And that means your stupid treaty doesn’t matter, and Kame, I’ll still hang out with Pi if I want.”
“That won’t happen,” Kame said, eyes welling up like the thought of me being a bloodsucking killer like him was so horrible.
“Still a rule,” I said. “And...well, I guess that’s all I can think of for right now. But yeah, Pi, thanks for getting me here, although you’re an asshole for having a painful skeleton. So uh...”
Pi could tell he wasn’t really welcome. I felt like shit as he nodded and headed off, but Kame visibly relaxed when he left. Well, as much as someone like Kame actually could relax.
“You’re really serious about me turning you,” Kame said sadly. “It’s dangerous. If I suck too much of your blood, I’ll kill you. And it’ll hurt. I still can’t forget how it felt.”
Well, that wasn’t good news. But pain was just something I was becoming accustomed to now that I’d gotten myself involved with these weirdos. Broken leg, broken fingers, broken heart (shut up, I missed Kame a lot then).
“Yeah,” I told him. Pain was preferable to being dead. Unless they had strippers and Twinkies in heaven, and I wasn’t ready to find out at my age. “I know the risks, but knowing how you and your friends are, it would probably be done safely.”
I was already feeling slightly ill admitting that Kame’s vampire friends would be responsible enough to make sure I didn’t *die* die. They’d plan the whole operation and have contingency plans and a Facebook group to talk it over before it happened. Impulsive they sure were not.
“Okay,” Kame told me, taking my good hand in his chilly one. “If this is what you really think is best, I will consider turning you. But on one condition.”
I already knew what it was. I’d seen all the Say Yes to the Dress episodes he’d added to his DVR. But I decided to humor him. “What condition?”
“We get married first. Well. In a way. We’re guys...”
“If I marry you or have a commitment ceremony with you or we exchange rings out of a quarter machine, does it mean we can do it?”
Kame didn’t appreciate my lack of seriousness. He never did though. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yes, we could do it. But about me turning you...”
“I’ll do it,” I blurted out, skipping past all the creepy commitment ceremony vows of love and devotion and shit. I was already thinking about the wedding night and how many possible surfaces I could bang him on. Besides, America’s divorce rates were through the roof. I could always dump him after he turned me in case he got any weirder. “I’ll marry you, and then you make me a vampire, and it’s totally cool. We can be together forever or whatever.”
His brow furrowed. He was going to say more, but his cell phone buzzed with an incoming text message. “It’s Nakamaru,” he informed me, like I gave a shit who was texting him. He only had what, two friends? Three?
“What does that douche face want?” If it was another discussion about the latest book on the Oprah list, I was getting in the truck and driving myself home.
“It’s Koki,” Kame said, eyes scanning the seemingly hysterical text. “He’s on the move with his...his army?!”
I imagined him in some sort of uniform, his stupidly colored hair an eyesore from yards away, as he marched in with a bunch of douche vampires in similar attire. It was pretty bad news. But at least one fucking vampire was decisive. Kame and his pals were so wishy washy about things like what blood to drink or what kind of antibacterial lotion was best at eliminating germs but didn’t dry the skin too much (I wish I made this shit up, alright?).
Kame ended up calling and talking to Nakamaru, but in his hush hush secret vampire planning voice so I only caught snippets. Something about “protecting Jin” and mountains and “...on such short notice.” The phone call ended, and Kame grabbed me by the arm to haul me out of the hospital. I was sure they’d be tacking on extra money to my bill now because I hadn’t officially been discharged.
I sat in the passenger seat, and Kame drove. “So Koki’s coming?”
He nodded. “Yes. He announced it on his Twitter.”
I blinked. “Well, that was kind of retarded of him. Spoils the surprise.”
“Koki has a bit of a Twitter addiction. He forgets that Nakamaru is still following him, so those kind of details get out...” Kame looked annoyed. “But anyhow, I have to get you out of Forks.”
“Well, I’m not going to Arizona again,” I informed him. “How about Vegas this time?”
Kame said nothing, simply packing a duffel bag with some clothes when we got to Charlie’s place. He hauled a tent out of Charlie’s garage and shoved it in the back of the truck. Well. Looked like we were going camping.
Ueda and Nakamaru were waiting up in the mountains when we arrived. They both looked pretty pissed off about having to help protect me. “Were you able to get in touch with Yoko and Subaru?” Kame asked.
Ueda sighed. “They don’t give a shit if Koki kills your girlfriend. You know it’s porn weekend at their vamp nest. They won’t leave until they run out of Kleenex.”
Kame scowled. “Koki’s got what, fifty vampires? We have three?”
“Two,” Nakamaru complained. “I’m supposed to go to a wine tasting down in Sonoma.”
“You don’t drink wine!” Kame complained. “You’re dead!”
“I spit it out,” Nakamaru answered, crossing his arms. “Wine tasting, not wine drinking.”
“Hey, dillholes!” I interrupted, waving my good hand. “Make me a vampire now, and that’s fifty against four. I think those odds are a little better.”
“No!” the three of them said in unison, and I just sat down on a tree stump. Fucking hell. This was my protection force? Three pussy vampires against Koki’s psychotic Twittering ass and an army?
“They’ll smell us,” Ueda was saying, wrinkling his nose in my direction. “Especially him. He smells like deep fried lard.”
“Fuck you,” I grumbled. I don’t smell like lard, okay? He was just being an asshole.
Nakamaru looked like he really wanted to be somewhere else. “Well, Kame, we’re going to get slaughtered here. What about a truce?”
“A truce?” Kame squealed. “Koki won’t do a truce.”
“How about we just let Koki have him?” Ueda was clearly enjoying my pending death by vampire. “He’s always had bad taste in blood.”
I was running out of ways to tell Ueda to go fuck himself, so I decided to get Nakamaru on my side. Kame complained a lot, but he seemed to listen to the guy. And I finally had a plan - I obviously valued my life enough to come up with one.
“Well,” I said, trying to sound knowledgeable and stuff, “if smell is the thing that’s going to lead Koki right here, then why don’t we hide the smell?”
“An air freshener the size of the Mt. Rainier wouldn’t hide your smell,” Ueda remarked.
But Nakamaru caught on. “Masking the scent will definitely slow him down, give us a chance to ambush the newborns.”
The sweater-wearing poindexter may have looked like Carlton from Fresh Prince, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. “Right? So like, what better way to mask the smell of vampire or human than uh, you know, something not either of those things?”
He was my best friend. He said he’d do anything for me, hadn’t he?
“Werewolves,” Nakamaru said, looking ill.
“Absolutely not,” Kame protested.
But the hamster wheel in Nakamaru’s head was turning. “Werewolves,” he repeated. “Yeah, the werewolf scent would hide us. It would hide Jin too.”
Kame was sputtering, but even Ueda seemed intrigued. “That pothead werewolf and his tribe are pretty strong for a bunch of dogs,” Ueda said. “But would they really ally with us? They hate us as much as we hate them, you know.”
I shrugged. “Pi’s a good kid. He’ll help if Kame asks nicely.”
Kame looked ready to kill me himself. “I don’t need his help.”
Nakamaru and Ueda outvoted him though, and it was agreed upon that we’d ask the werewolves to help fight Koki and his army. There was no way Koki would predict that shit. My cell phone reception was awful in the mountains, so I couldn’t ask Pi to help myself. It was up to Kame to go to the border and bargain with Pi and his tribe himself while Nakamaru and Ueda watched over me.
If the two of them succeeded in not killing each other, maybe we stood a fighting chance.
--
I knew that Pi had happily come to my rescue because he came flying into the tent and tackled me with a big bear hug. Dog hug. Whatever.
“Motherfucker, I have broken fingers, ease up,” I complained, secretly enjoying that if I was going to die, then at least I’d die with my boyfriend AND my best friend around. I’d have someone within arm’s reach to make out with at all times.
“Sorry,” Pi said, blushing slightly. “I’m glad you want me here.”
It made my stomach hurt a little. Whether it was indigestion or lovey dovey feelings for Pi, I didn’t know. “I’m glad you and Kame can stop being bitches for five seconds.”
He shut me up with a bit of tongue attention in my mouth, and I allowed it this time. It wasn’t like Kame had been clamoring to make out with me, especially since I’d agreed to marry him or whatever.
“I have to go,” he said, just before I got his belt undone. I figure we were stopping because of the distinctly Kame-shaped shadow lurking outside the tent. “Just stay here, okay?”
I stayed in the tent and listened to Eminem while the vampires and werewolves had some sort of battle strategy meeting. Since I was apparently a weak human whose “heart would probably explode if he had to run for more than fifteen seconds,” I was to be sequestered in the tent for the duration of the fight.
According to Koki’s Twitter (Nakamaru’s iPhone had great reception, unlike my shitty phone), they were at the La Quinta Inn just west of Tacoma, so they’d probably be to Forks by tomorrow morning. A few scout vampires had already been sent ahead, and Ueda had taken care of them. The numbers were already shrinking.
The sun set, and the wolves and vampires were camped at places throughout the woods to await Koki’s arrival. I was tired, and Kame joined me in the tent. “You seem happy that Yamashita’s here,” he said, sitting down and watching me curl up in the sleeping bag.
“Well, it’s not like you’re that interested in fucking around with me, so yeah, I’m pretty damn happy.”
Kame frowned. Not in the grouchy way, but in the sad way. I always did feel bad when I depressed him. I unzipped the sleeping bag. “Come on, it’s cold. I’m going to freeze my balls off up here.” I never had liked camping.
Kame frowned again, looking at his arm intently. “I can’t protect you. Don’t you get it? All I want to do is keep you safe. I promised you I would, and I can’t. I can’t do anything right. I can’t love you the way you expect someone to because I’m old fashioned. I can’t protect you on my own because Koki has an army. I can’t even keep you warm because my skin is cold.”
I patted the sleeping bag. “Would you shut the fuck up? I’m never going to sleep if you keep whining.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Hold on.” Kame left the tent, and I wondered if I really had upset him. I hadn’t meant to.
I really was serious about being with him, even if I liked making out with Pi a whole damn lot. And much as I didn’t like admitting it, it felt kind of nice knowing that Kame had good intentions about me. He had a douchey way of showing his love and affection and shit, but he did care. I guess.
The tent unzipped again, and I was surprised to see Pi following Kame back inside. Kame sat down on the ground looking forlorn as Pi slipped out of his sneakers and knelt down at my side.
“Kame said you were cold so...”
Oh Kame, I thought. Not only had he asked his enemy to help protect me, but now he was even going to let Pi share my sleeping bag. Maybe I did kind of love him. Maybe I’d even let Kame top when we got married to make up for all this.
I went from chilly to Miami in seconds as Pi got in beside me and zipped the sleeping bag up. I could feel Kame watching, so I turned onto my side facing away. I’d just feel guiltier and shit if I had to watch him watch me and Pi snuggle. He could have picked somewhere other than the mountains to have the last stand with Koki, but whatever.
Once Pi had his lean, muscle-y arms around me, I was out. Kame and Pi were having some sort of serious discussion about me. I was pretty sure it was super important and all about them bonding as supernatural men and shit, but I was tired and my fingers were still broken, so I fell right asleep.
Sorry, I didn’t memorize what they talked about. But I did have a dream that I owned a pachinko parlor, and Kame worked there as a cocktail waitress in a short skirt. So that’s something fun.
--
The sun was just appearing when I felt Pi’s warmth slip away. Of course, if the sun was just coming up, it usually meant another eight hours of sleep for me (if it wasn’t a school day). But today, it was either the last day of my life or Koki’s. I was kind of hoping it would be the last day of his. I tried to get back to sleep, clutching the sleeping bag around me.
The residual heat from Pi’s body was eventually replaced with a bag of ice, or what felt like it as Kame wrapped his arms around me. “Get up, you lazy bitch,” he told me, giving me a shake.
I opened my eyes and frowned. “So affectionate, Kamenashi.”
“It got you up,” he said, helping me to wriggle out of the sleeping bag. I wanted to brush my teeth, take a shit and maybe grab a shower, but it appeared that those options were out. “I’ll stay here in the tent and guard you. They’ve already spotted some of the newborns where the trail ends. Yamashita and his buddies are on them.”
I didn’t much like the idea of Pi being in harm’s way, on account of him being so nice and all. Would he actually be able to kill? Well, probably. He did play a lot of Call of Duty, so if he treated the situation like that, he’d do okay.
“So I can’t leave?” I asked. It was getting a little claustrophobic in the tent. And again. I had to take a shit.
“Not until it’s over.”
“We’re in a big red tent in a green forest,” I pointed out. “It’s not like we’re hiding out of sight or anything.”
Kame rolled his eyes. “It’s the plan everyone agreed on. We won’t let anyone get close.”
And that was when Pi unzipped the tent. “Um, they’re getting close,” he said, nearly out of breath, probably from racing up the mountain in werewolf form and transforming quickly. I knew he was naked out there, but of course, the jerk only poked his head inside the tent.
“Shit,” Kame complained, letting me go. “Whatever you do,” he told me, “you stay in the fucking tent.”
Pi’s head bobbed, and I noticed some blood splatters on his face. I hoped they weren’t his. “I never thought I’d say this, but listen to Kamenashi, okay? Stay in here.”
Fuck them both, I thought angrily. Stay in the tent, Jin. Don’t run, Jin. Don’t think too hard because all your brain cells have probably atrophied from lack of use, Jin.
They both left, and I heard all these grunts and oof noises and growling and whooshing from their super vampire and werewolf speeds as they fought off Koki’s forces. The people I cared about were fighting on my behalf, and if something happened to them, it would be my fault. Not like I’d have much time to wallow in emo pain about it because if Kame or Pi got killed, I’d be following soon after.
I crawled over to the tent flap and was just about to unzip it when I heard Koki’s crazy ass voice. “Where is he?” he screeched. “The dog smell’s not enough to cover the week-old burrito stank!”
I tried making a fist but again, broken fingers. Pi snarled in his werewolf voice, so he’d obviously transformed back.
“Don’t be stupid, Tanaka,” Kame was saying. “We’ve already killed your stupid army. Probably because like you, they can’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground.”
“Fuck you, Kame!” Koki shouted. “We were all friends, you know. Me, you, Ueda, Nakamaru. And Junno. Junno was our friend. Sure, he was an idiot, but he was one of us and you killed him! All for that fat bitch!”
Okay, I don’t smell like week-old burrito, and I’m not fucking fat either. I unzipped the tent and kind of half-fell, half-ninja rolled out of it. Pi looked over, all hairy and not Pi-looking except for the eyes. And he was all panicky. Kame looked equally nervous.
“I am not fat,” I spat at Koki, seeing that his hair was now in a bright red mohawk. “And your buddy Junno attacked me first. Seriously, you need to get over it.”
“You came into our circle of friends and just fucked everything up!” Koki claimed, ready to pounce and rip my head off any second. “It’s like when Lindsay Lohan comes in to Mean Girls and Regina’s totally the head bitch, but then Lindsay Lohan’s all ‘hey I’m new, let me steal all your friends and your respect and...’”
“The climactic battle and there’s talk of Lindsay Lohan movies?” we all heard echo through the cold mountain air.
It was the distraction Kame needed. He jumped on Koki, and there was suddenly a lot more red than the guy’s mohawk. I cringed when I saw Koki’s head go flying into the air from Kame popping it off kind of like a grape tearing off the bunch.
And then Pi joined in and there went a leg, and dude, I would have lost my breakfast if Kame had allowed me to even eat. I didn’t see why limbs needed to be detached. Vampires couldn’t grow more like a lizard or whatever. But either way, that was the end of Koki, and I felt bad for a few seconds.
And then I felt okay because the dude had been plotting my death for over a year. Ueda and Nakamaru hurried over, and Nakamaru just sighed. “A little messy, don’t you think?” he asked, tiptoeing around the remains, hoping to avoid getting blood on his penny loafers.
“It had to be done,” Kame said quietly. “Him or us.”
“Kame, I hope you’re done killing your friends for a while,” Ueda said warily, getting out his matchbook to torch Koki. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
There was a popping noise, and Pi was all naked again. He disappeared behind a tree, unfortunately. I guess he’d left his clothes there. But now that all the vampires were accounted for, and most of the wolves had probably headed back to the rez after the fight, who the hell had interrupted Koki mid-Lohan rant?
Koki’s vampire corpse went up in stinky flames, and that was when Nino the Volturri leapt out of a pine tree and landed right at my feet.
“Yaaaaaahhhh!” I screamed.
One of the other rainbow bitches from Italy, Matsumoto, emerged from behind a large rock. They’d probably been observing like a bunch of pussies, not helping either side.
Kame tensed, immediately hurrying to my side. Pi padded out of the woods in jeans and a wifebeater, but he stayed back by the trees. He could smell powerful vampire after all.
It had definitely been Nino’s voice earlier. Nino looked just as pale and annoyed as he had back in Volterra. He poked me in the ribs with his bony finger. “Hmm, looks like you’re still a lesser lifeform.” He poked me again. “Well, not lesser in every place.”
“Fuck you,” I said boldly. I’d had it, really I had. Crazy battle vs. Koki and his crew, and I’d had to sit in the tent like a bitch. I still had to poop, and now this scrawny little cocksucker was dissing my size. Just because I wasn’t gaunt and shit didn’t make me that fat. Vampires were some mean-spirited fuckers.
Nino just raised an eyebrow. Matsumoto came up behind him, eyeing me suspiciously. “Kamenashi was supposed to turn you,” he said, and I struggled not to laugh at the ridiculous purple smoking jacket he was wearing. The Volturri probably didn’t leave home much.
“I will be,” Kame interrupted. “Soon.”
“It would be regrettable if you lied to us,” Nino said. “We came all this way to check your progress. Oh, and of course to see which of you won.”
Matsumoto snorted. “Using werewolves. Reeks of desperation.”
Pi sprouted hair on his chin again, but Kame gave him a look that implied that transforming and trying to fight Nino or Matsumoto would be a bad move, especially after the battle against Koki’s group.
“After Jin’s high school graduation,” Kame said, finally putting a date on it. That was only a week away. I guess having your vampire frat brothers showing up added enough pressure.
Matsumoto took out a glittery purple Blackberry and started typing. “Graduation huh? And you’ll be updating us on this? Just so we know when we can utilize Fatty’s powers?”
“I’m not fat,” I moaned, mostly to myself at this point since nobody else seemed like they were ever going to intervene on my behalf on the issue.
“You will be the first to know when it’s done,” Kame assured them while Ueda and Nakamaru exchanged doubtful looks behind them. Great. I was going to be some puppet once Kame turned me? No thanks. And what would they do when they discovered I didn’t actually HAVE any powers?
“Thanks for honoring us with your visit,” Nakamaru said, clearing his throat. What a kiss ass.
Nino just shrugged. “We had some frequent flyer miles to use up. It was either here or Paraguay. Fucking airlines.”
Matsumoto shoved his Blackberry back in his douchey Blackberry holster. “Well, congrats on killing that mohawk guy. He was close to exposing us all. Really. He could protect his Twitter. It takes a few seconds to turn things private. Ugh.”
Nino patted me on the shoulder and gave me a wicked smile. “See you again when you’re not so worthless, Chubs!”
And like that, the two of them left. The battle was won, the Volturri looked forward to me becoming a vampire, and I hadn’t died.
Kame and Pi came up to talk to me, but I shook my head. “Talk later,” I declared. “I have to take the world’s largest dump.”
--
So like, I hadn’t wanted to pick between them. It was stupid that I had to. Even though Koki was gone (rest in a million flaming pieces), it was still some werewolf rule with the border and shit. And with how badly Kame had wanted to protect and keep me safe, and how badly I wanted to fuck him until his eyes crossed, it meant that I had to break Pi’s delicate, sensitive werewolf heart.
I had on my cap and gown, and the ceremony was starting in an hour when I met Pi at the border just outside the rez. He’d been crying too, which made me feel like the world’s biggest asshole.
I held back my own manly sniffles and held my arms out. “I still want to be friends with you. I mean, if there’s some way to work around this, you’ll try, won’t you?”
Pi shrugged, rejecting my hug. I put my arms down and felt worse. “I don’t know. I can’t promise anything.” He looked at me with his dark, watery eyes. “Are you sure this is what you still want? Koki’s not after you any longer.”
But the Volturri would be as long as I was a living, breathing human. And after the past few weeks, I wasn’t really in the mood to be overprotected and shoved into a tent in the mountains over and over again. I had to become a bloodsucker. But if Pi was still my friend, maybe I’d be able to avoid the whole whiny bitch transformation that came as part of the package deal.
“This is what I want, man. I’m sorry.”
He just nodded. “Okay. Well.” He looked down at his “I Love Big Knockers” t-shirt that he’d gotten from the Goodwill Store. “Just...I need some time to think.”
Then there was that strange pop, and Pi was a wolf again, running off into the woods and out of my life. I picked up the Big Knockers shirt from the pavement and smelled it. It smelled like motorcycles and his mom and stepdad’s double wide and like my best friend in the whole fucking world.
Needless to say, I felt like shit.
I carried the shirt to the truck with me, setting it down on the seat beside me, and I drove to Forks High. All the other kids were there in caps and gowns, their parents snapping a million pictures. None of them had to deal with the crazy ass shit that I did. I would have resented them for it, but they were all so fucking boring that it wasn’t worth the effort.
Kame had saved me a spot in the last row. He didn’t bother making any snotty remarks about Pi, which I appreciated. I wouldn’t have been able to punch him for it on account of my fingers still being wrapped up.
The principal got up on the stage and started blabbing about our generation being the future and shit. My future was just going to be distinctly different, I realized, feeling Kame’s cold hand resting on my thigh.
From that day forward, everything was going to change.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya; Akanishi Jin/Yamashita Tomohisa
Summary: I always wanted to be someone my mom would be proud of; someone who, at the end of the day, she was happy popped out of her you know what.
Notes/Warnings: For the Happy Gay Summer fic meme, June 2010. The "long-awaited" third installment of the Akame Twilight saga. Thank you for being patient. I hope it meets your expectations. I will definitely be doing Breaking Dawn at some point. Your support is appreciated more than you know.
When I lived in Japan, my mom always told me that I was a good kid. But. There was always a but. If I broke a lamp, she’d say “Jin, you’re a good kid, but you need to play soccer outside.” If she caught me with a dirty magazine, she’d say “Jin, you’re a good kid, but you know those tits aren’t real.”
My mom’s pretty cool, okay?
I always wanted to be someone my mom would be proud of; someone who, at the end of the day, she was happy popped out of her you know what. But it’s like, hard to be a good kid. In a situation like mine, it’s pretty fucking impossible. See, because Kame wants to marry me, but Pi’s my best friend forever. And since they’re kind of like oil and water or like George W. Bush and dictionaries, they don’t always mix.
I just wanted my life to make sense. I just wanted to be a good kid. What I’m trying to say is that I never wanted to choose.
--
We’d only gotten back from Italy a few weeks ago. If you remember, Kame let me get him off, which was a big step for us. But of course, because he was Kame and he had a stick up his ass the size of a redwood tree, he hadn’t let me do it again.
See, he’d kind of been nervous and worried and paranoid lately, and all his stupid little Kame spazziness was dampening his libido. Since Charlie’s a cop and all, I can get all the latest info I need about the great state of Washington. It was a fucking free-for-all in Seattle the past few weeks.
Murder after murder, people drained of blood and found in the gutter. Of course, a genius like me knew it was the work of vampires, seeing as how I wanted to get in one’s pants 24-7. But because Charlie was a boneheaded douchenozzle, he and his cop buddies were renting all these Animal Planet documentaries on bears and shit, trying to figure out if the Seattle stuff was the work of some crazed rabid grizzly.
See, even I wasn’t retarded enough to think a bear was chillaxing in downtown Seattle waiting to strike at any given moment. But I guess that’s why I wasn’t in law enforcement.
“It’s newborns,” Kame explained, sitting a little too close for comfort as we worked at my desk. For some retarded reason that only my cock seemed to know, I was filling out visa forms to stay in America and potentially attend some sort of college. And before you say it, no, not clown college. Fuck you.
“Newborns? Like babies?” I asked in confusion, bubbling in one of the ‘are you sure you’re not a terrorist?’ questions they like to ask on those forms. “Killer babies? That shit is messed up.”
“Not newborn infants, moron,” Kame said, rolling his eyes. “Newborn vampires. They’re sometimes sloppy when they dispose of their victims. And given the rate the murders are happening, there’s more than one.”
I nodded, filling in some more bubbles. Staying in America was one giant Scantron test. “So like, don’t you guys have some sort of way to get the baby you guys to calm down?”
“Every newborn’s supposed to obey the wishes of its maker. Remember when we watched True Blood last week?”
We’d marathoned the first season, and Kame was such an asshole about it. He fast forwarded all the sex scenes. We got through the whole season in about two and a half hours. “Sookie,” I said in my best southern American drawl (which was better than Kame’s, even though he’d lived over here longer), “Sookie, you are my woman!”
Kame kicked me under the desk. “This is serious, Jin. If the newborns are acting sloppy like this at the behest of their maker, it’s a bad sign. Their maker’s sending a message.”
“Don’t come to Seattle?”
He kicked me again, which was really fucking rude as usual. “It’s a message to me.”
“Well, aren’t we a little self-involved?” And this time I was ready for the kick, shoving his chair and knocking him to the floor before he could attack me.
He righted the chair and sat down again in a huff. “It’s probably Koki,” Kame explained. “He’s still pissed at me for killing Junno.”
“But that was like, a year ago. He needs to move on.”
“You try telling a vampire to move on,” Kame said, and I just kept on filling in the bubbles. He was right. Vampires were more into the emo pain sort of thing than someone who listened to Linkin Park non-stop. Koki had tried to attack me last year, and Pi and his werewolf friends had chased him off. But it did kind of blow that someone out there was really pissed off at Kame and by default, really pissed off at me.
You know, I’d been telling myself for months that being a vampire turned you into a whiny bitch. Maybe before he’d become one, Kame had been a decent guy, laid back even. It was hard to imagine, of course, seeing as how he had PMS all day, every day. So I didn’t really want to be a vampire myself.
I didn’t want to eat people, and if I became a vampire and stayed with Kame, I’d have to drink dogs at the animal shelter. And they’d have to be animals set to be euthanized anyhow. Kame was a real stickler for that sort of thing. Is that how I wanted to spend eternity? Sucking down mutt blood? Not really. I slept most of the day already, and vampires don’t need sleep. So what the hell would I do with an extra fourteen hours in my day forever?
But at the same time, Kame being with me was super dangerous, and I had enough self-preservation tendencies that being undead seemed like it might be an advantage. It would make it a lot harder for Koki to kill me. It would keep those queer ass Volturri motherfuckers from killing me too. Basically, me dying would keep me from...dying.
And now that I’d come to this “maybe, kinda, I might possibly...” sort of attitude about becoming a vampire, Kame didn’t want to talk about it. Any time I asked him if it would hurt for him to turn me or if he would suck me dry in two different places, he’d change the subject. Usually to something lame like the opera or some recipe for lemon bars he was thinking of using, so I gave up every time.
With all the Seattle shit though, it was only a matter of time before one of Koki’s new BFFs found me and turned me into dinner. Or brunch depending on the time of day. I couldn’t just sit on my ass and fill out application forms for Tacoma Community College (or the UCLA one I was hiding with my pot stash).
I finished bubbling in my form and rested my hand on top of Kame’s chilly one. “So like, you’re graduating from Forks High anyhow, and you’re not getting any older looking,” I said, trying to sound smooth and shit. “If I become a vampire, I can just blow off school and we can go anywhere we want.”
I was thinking Venice Beach.
Kame was thinking I was out of my god damned mind. “But your soul, Jin,” Kame said all mournfully. “Vampires don’t have souls. I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t take away the life you were meant to live.”
Please, what life? I was living in Forks, Washington as a Japanese exchange student. My guidance counselor at Forks High thought I’d been joking when I listed rock star and porn star as my one and two career goals.
“Well, if Koki kills me, my life’s over anyway,” I pointed out.
Kame got all defensive, as usual. “What, you think I’d just let him get to you? If you’re feeling frightened, I can stay with you longer. Whatever it takes, I can be by your side as much as you need me to.”
I shuddered at the thought of Kame being there watching and protecting me while I took a shit, just in case that was the time Koki decided to show up. I wasn’t overly fond of that idea. Everybody needs some me time, right?
“Back off, creep,” I said, giving him a shove. “You’re so concerned about being with me forever and shit, but you won’t change me. Stop being so fucking bipolar.”
“So me caring about your mortality and your soul is a mental illness?” he shot back, pen slashing through whatever essay he was writing for fucking Stanford. Pretentious prick. “Me not wanting to doom you forever is a bad thing?”
I’d had enough. Kame was getting me angry, and when I got angry because of Kame, I tended to get horny too. But he never responded well. He wasn’t into the whole angry making out thing. I stood up instead, throwing my pen down and grabbing the keys to Charlie’s shitty ass truck.
“I’m going out.”
Kame was of course waiting outside for me when I got to the truck. I got into the cab anyhow, turning the key in the ignition. “Jin...”
I flipped him off. Both hands. I meant business. “You know where I’m going. And you can’t cross the border, so suck my dick.”
I drove off, leaving him all snarling and whiny and needy.
--
The rez was always so much more laid back than Forks, probably because everyone acted more like Pi than like Kame there. Pi and I had had sort of a falling out on account of me being a prick tease and going to Italy and leaving him behind.
We’d gone for all you can eat crab legs the other week, so we were cool again. Pi was so much easier to talk to than Kame. For one thing, we talked in Japanese most of the time, so I didn’t really have to think, which I preferred. And Pi didn’t really whine much. He just let things go where Kame would harp on something for hours. Like if Kame’s DVR didn’t record Project Runway, I’d have to hear about it for a week. But Pi was more sensible and just downloaded shit from the web without batting an eye.
The truck sputtered, and I parked next to Pi’s motorcycle by the double wide he shared with his mom and stepdad. He was surprised to see me, holding open the screen door. I guess I had some rage radiating off me, because Pi stayed clear even though his werewolfy-ness meant I was no threat to him at all.
“Kamenashi being a dick again?” Pi asked with a sigh as we settled in for some Xbox and goldfish crackers.
I nodded. “Fucker’s applying to Stanford.”
“What’s Stanford?”
I ignored Pi’s question. He’d been here in America for a while, but there was a lot Pi just hadn’t picked up on. “He can be such a bitch,” I complained. “There’s like, all these people getting killed left and right in Seattle, and everyone knows it’s Koki, but Kame thinks the answer is to be all up in my grill.”
Pi’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, we’ve been monitoring the Seattle thing,” he explained. “Kame and his bloodsucking friends better get their stuff under control. Because the pack’s itching to clear them all out.”
This wasn’t good news. A feud between Koki and Kame sucked, but a bigger war between the vampires and wolves would definitely get the Volturri’s attention. And I did not need those rainbow motherfuckers in the Pacific Northwest as long as my heart was still beating.
I shot at some Nazi bitches with my assault rifle while Pi readied his hand grenades. “All Kame has to do is make me a vampire,” I said. “Then I can protect my own damn self.”
Pi paused the game. “What?”
Had I spoken in English on accident? I repeated what I’d said slower, just in case. But Pi looked just as horrified. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“A vampire?” Pi cried. “Jin, you can’t become a vampire.”
“Yeah, I know they’re all pretty stupid,” I interrupted him quickly, “but all those vampires will keep coming after me. Human and vampire couples don’t exactly last long. The whole nice smelling blood thing, so Kame just has to change me...”
Pi tossed the controller on the floor, which I guess meant that Hitler wasn’t getting overthrown today. “Do you know what that means though? For us, I mean.”
“Us?” I asked. Did Pi think we were a couple or something? I mean, he was hot and totally a nice guy, but I wasn’t sure I wanted more than a friends with benefits thing with him.
“Hello, I’m a werewolf. I hate vampires, remember?”
I nodded slowly. “Riiiiight?”
“And if you’re a vampire, we can’t be friends.”
I blinked. “Wait, what? Why the fuck not? Ebony and ivory...”
He scowled at me. “There’s a border, you know. Between La Push and Forks and stuff. Kame can’t cross that border. And you wouldn’t be able to either. Kame making you a vampire this close to La Push is a major no-no on the treaty too.”
“What fucking treaty?”
“Dude, I’m from Japan,” Pi grumbled, “like I really know. I just know there IS one, and if Kame turns you, then we can’t be friends or anything.”
What was with all the ultimatums today? Kame wouldn’t turn me because he cared about my stupid soul. Pi didn’t want Kame to turn me because then I’d be his enemy. Neither of them wanted to be second place in my heart like some kind of fucking soap opera. Was I the only one who actually cared what I wanted? Even my mom would probably be cool with me becoming a vampire if it meant I didn’t get murdered.
I shut my mouth and unpaused the game, hearing Pi sigh when his character got fragged hardcore by a German grenade. We finished the level in silence, and once the box of goldfish was gone, I said I had to get back and finish up some homework.
Pi gave me a hug goodbye, a really nice one. He was always so snuggly and warm. And if I became a vampire, I wouldn’t get to hug or make out with him any longer. For like, eternity. Fucking Koki. Fucking Volturri.
“I’ll ride back with you,” he said quietly. “If you’ll let me.”
Then he made the puppy face, and I relented. I couldn’t tell if he or Kame was the more manipulative guy in my life. He rode shotgun as we headed back to Forks, and of course Kame was waiting right at this stupid invisible border between the rez and town, arms crossed and huffy.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and got out to try and get Kame’s dumb ass out of the street. Pi got out too, giving Kame a dirty look. “What, you don’t trust him to get home on his own?”
“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t given my boyfriend werewolf genital warts,” Kame snitted.
“You don’t even have sex with him,” Pi snapped back. “How would you know if he had genital warts or not?”
Kame looked at me angrily, like I wasn’t supposed to discuss our personal life with my best friend or something. “Jin, let’s go.”
They were both acting like clingy girls. I got back into the truck and gunned it, leaving the both of them behind. Maybe it would be easier if Koki just came and snapped my neck.
--
The rest of the school year followed a similar pattern. Kame started having powwow meetings about Koki with Nakamaru and Ueda, and even though it was supposed to be about my safety and shit, it always ended with those three idiots printing up coupons for the fucking Pottery Barn. I didn’t feel any safer.
I visited Pi whenever Kame got overly weird and whined about wanting me to keep my soul. But now that I’d dangled the “I want to be a vampire” carrot in front of his face, Pi was getting snippier. And he’d been so well-behaved before. It was fucking bizarre. I had two hot guys fighting over me and wanting to keep me safe, but neither of them actually had a feasible plan that would keep me alive long term.
Kame didn’t want me to be a vampire. And if I stayed on the rez with Pi and the tribe, then I couldn’t make out with Kame without starting a war. I was starting to think that much as it would gut me, maybe I had to just get the fuck out of America. It would mean leaving Kame and leaving Pi, but then Koki would probably fuck off if Kame and I broke up. And there’d be no vampire/werewolf war either. I’d just go back to Japan and work at Mister Donut or something.
I kept this plan in the back of my mind. If the newspaper the next day said that more people had been killed in Seattle or if Koki sent me a Facebook friend request just to stalk me, then it was time to call mom and go home. It was a last resort, but at least I wouldn’t die unless the plane crashed or something.
I had graduation ceremony rehearsal later that afternoon, so Pi and I only got through one level in Call of Duty. And it was then, right when I was about to get into the truck that Pi decided to spring a little awkward on me.
“I’m in love with you,” he blurted out when I had my ass halfway onto the seat. I slid back down, sneakers hitting the gravel.
“The fuck?” I asked him, seeing the way he was looking down at his feet. He was serious. He wasn’t just into me for the physical stuff, was he? I didn’t need this. I didn’t need Kame and Pi BOTH obsessively in love with me. When had I given either of them the impression that I was a monogamous romantic type? I’d suck anyone’s dick if the price was right.
“I care about you so much. I’d do anything for you. You’re my best friend, and I love you.”
So uncomfortable. I hadn’t been that uncomfortable since I caught Kame genuinely laughing during an episode of Two and a Half Men. “Pi, listen. I love you too, man. I just don’t...”
He grabbed hold of my shoulders, and the whole werewolf strength kicked in, keeping me from moving. “Jin, you’re like...you’re like my one in a million.”
Oh god oh god, what the fuck was I supposed to say? One in a million? How do you react to that? I stumbled over my words.
“Yeah, but there’s like...three hundred million people just in this country alone. So uh...if you, ya know, do the math that’s like...three thousand people right there.”
“Thirty,” he responded.
“Oh.”
We stood there quietly, and I let Pi’s confession wash over me. Knowing he loved me that much did turn me on a bit, so I didn’t stop him when he pushed me back against the truck and started to kiss me. What can I say, he was a good kisser and it wasn’t all cold like Kame.
He was getting all into it too, very unlike him, since he usually let me dominate the hell out of him. His hips were grinding against mine, and I was getting the impression that he kind of wanted to bend me over the side of the damn truck and take me. I don’t normally go for exhibitionary style, especially since Pi’s mom and stepdad were just inside the double wide watching reruns of Supermarket Sweep.
“Pi,” I said, trying to get him to slow down. I didn’t have any condoms on me or anything, and especially no lube, and I wasn’t about to go Brokeback with a werewolf in broad daylight. Not like he’d transformed or anything, but I don’t know how that stuff works or what sets the furry stuff off.
“Jin, I need you,” he was growling a bit, reaching for my zipper. “Stay here with me a while longer, okay?”
He was doing his usual sucking on my lower lip thing which I totally approved of, but then he made the mistake of his life. He let his fingers drift down my neck, and when they hit my collarbone, I yelped in an utterly masculine, impressive manner. Damn him - it was my most ticklish spot.
“Stop!” I cried, getting his hands away from my sensitive spot. But he just saw it as a challenge because all his energy had concentrated itself between his legs, so the lines of communication to his brain were blocked. “Stop, seriously, dude!”
But he didn’t stop, running his finger all along my collarbone and giving me the heebies hardcore. Finally I tried to punch him in the fucking face for ignoring my repeated suggestion, and that was when I realized that punching a supernatural creature, even a mostly retarded one, was a bad call.
“Fuck! Ow!” I moaned, feeling like every bone in my hand had just shattered.
“Jin!” Pi said. All of a sudden the sensitive and gentle hottie I’d grown to care for resurfaced. “Jin, I’m so sorry! My skeleton’s kind of harder now that I can shift. It’s stronger. You know, like Wolverine.”
Well, it sure had felt like punching adamantium or some shit, because I could barely feel anything. Pi tried to take my hand in his, and it stung like a motherfucker. Yep, definitely broken - if not everything, at least part of it was broken. Fucking werewolf.
I let Pi drive the truck to the hospital, and I did not look forward to the phone call with my mom I’d be having later regarding my medical bills. Kame, of course, had somehow sensed that I was in danger, and he was waiting with his usual sourpuss face. Although since I was injured, he looked even grouchier.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked Pi once I got my hand set. Three fingers were broken, but luckily the rest of my hand was okay. If I’d hit Pi just a bit harder, I’d probably be in physical therapy and a brace and stuff forever.
“Jin punched me,” Pi explained, giving Kame the stink eye.
“Good. You probably deserved it.”
“It’s none of your business,” I said grumpily.
“I think it is, Akanishi, seeing as how we’re soulmates.”
“Oh, not that again!” Pi sighed. “He’s not like, your possession or something, Kamenashi. He’s not another stupid CD of shit music to rip to your iTunes. He’s not like the last boring packet of oatmeal in your boring ass box of oatmeal. He’s not...”
“Shut up,” Kame interrupted him. “And I don’t eat oatmeal.”
“You would,” Pi insisted. “You’re that fucking lame.”
“Enough!” I complained. If I wanted to listen to stupid people arguing about inane shit, I’d watch more Judge Mathis. Which reminded me that there was a whole marathon on tomorrow to look forward to. Broken fingers sucked, but at least there was Judge Mathis. “Kame and I have graduation rehearsal.”
“But you’re hurt,” Kame protested. “And it’s all this idiot’s fault.”
“I’m not going to be doing cartwheels,” I said. I just wanted to graduate and be done with Forks and just mooch off of Charlie until I went back to Japan or got gobbled up by Koki, whatever happened first.
“Well, I’ve graduated a dozen times,” Kame continued. “You don’t really have to rehearse anything. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
But Pi was still grouchy. He and Kame didn’t do so well when they were in the same room, probably because they were mortal enemies or some shit. Pi stood and got all up in Kame’s face. “You’re a fucking stalker, blood boy. Why don’t you let Jin get home on his own? He’s not a baby.”
Kame wrinkled his nose. “You smell like patchouli. Back off.”
Pi snarled, and I noticed little tufts of hair starting to sprout on his chin. They’d be kind of cute if it didn’t imply his clothes were about to tear to shreds, and he was going to transform in the middle of the Forks Medical Center. And the wolf pack didn’t need that kind of exposure.
I got up, insinuating myself between them. If Kame and Pi didn’t hate each other so much, a threesome would probably solve all of our problems. But since they were both so annoying, all I could do was push them apart as best I could with my good hand.
“Look, since you both want in my pants...” Kame gave me a dirty look. “Okay, in my pants either physically or in some romantic self-denial purity ring type of way. Anyhow, since you both want that, and it’s my body after all, I’m laying down some fucking ground rules.”
They both tried to talk, and I held up my broken fingers to remind them of how cray cray they were both getting. “Rule one. I go where I want. If that means I stay at home and watch my damn Judge Mathis marathon all day tomorrow, then that’s what I am doing. If that means I go to the rez, then I go to the rez.”
Pi looked pleased with this rule. Kame did not.
“Rule two, if Kame makes me into a vampire, it will be for safety purposes. And that means your stupid treaty doesn’t matter, and Kame, I’ll still hang out with Pi if I want.”
“That won’t happen,” Kame said, eyes welling up like the thought of me being a bloodsucking killer like him was so horrible.
“Still a rule,” I said. “And...well, I guess that’s all I can think of for right now. But yeah, Pi, thanks for getting me here, although you’re an asshole for having a painful skeleton. So uh...”
Pi could tell he wasn’t really welcome. I felt like shit as he nodded and headed off, but Kame visibly relaxed when he left. Well, as much as someone like Kame actually could relax.
“You’re really serious about me turning you,” Kame said sadly. “It’s dangerous. If I suck too much of your blood, I’ll kill you. And it’ll hurt. I still can’t forget how it felt.”
Well, that wasn’t good news. But pain was just something I was becoming accustomed to now that I’d gotten myself involved with these weirdos. Broken leg, broken fingers, broken heart (shut up, I missed Kame a lot then).
“Yeah,” I told him. Pain was preferable to being dead. Unless they had strippers and Twinkies in heaven, and I wasn’t ready to find out at my age. “I know the risks, but knowing how you and your friends are, it would probably be done safely.”
I was already feeling slightly ill admitting that Kame’s vampire friends would be responsible enough to make sure I didn’t *die* die. They’d plan the whole operation and have contingency plans and a Facebook group to talk it over before it happened. Impulsive they sure were not.
“Okay,” Kame told me, taking my good hand in his chilly one. “If this is what you really think is best, I will consider turning you. But on one condition.”
I already knew what it was. I’d seen all the Say Yes to the Dress episodes he’d added to his DVR. But I decided to humor him. “What condition?”
“We get married first. Well. In a way. We’re guys...”
“If I marry you or have a commitment ceremony with you or we exchange rings out of a quarter machine, does it mean we can do it?”
Kame didn’t appreciate my lack of seriousness. He never did though. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yes, we could do it. But about me turning you...”
“I’ll do it,” I blurted out, skipping past all the creepy commitment ceremony vows of love and devotion and shit. I was already thinking about the wedding night and how many possible surfaces I could bang him on. Besides, America’s divorce rates were through the roof. I could always dump him after he turned me in case he got any weirder. “I’ll marry you, and then you make me a vampire, and it’s totally cool. We can be together forever or whatever.”
His brow furrowed. He was going to say more, but his cell phone buzzed with an incoming text message. “It’s Nakamaru,” he informed me, like I gave a shit who was texting him. He only had what, two friends? Three?
“What does that douche face want?” If it was another discussion about the latest book on the Oprah list, I was getting in the truck and driving myself home.
“It’s Koki,” Kame said, eyes scanning the seemingly hysterical text. “He’s on the move with his...his army?!”
I imagined him in some sort of uniform, his stupidly colored hair an eyesore from yards away, as he marched in with a bunch of douche vampires in similar attire. It was pretty bad news. But at least one fucking vampire was decisive. Kame and his pals were so wishy washy about things like what blood to drink or what kind of antibacterial lotion was best at eliminating germs but didn’t dry the skin too much (I wish I made this shit up, alright?).
Kame ended up calling and talking to Nakamaru, but in his hush hush secret vampire planning voice so I only caught snippets. Something about “protecting Jin” and mountains and “...on such short notice.” The phone call ended, and Kame grabbed me by the arm to haul me out of the hospital. I was sure they’d be tacking on extra money to my bill now because I hadn’t officially been discharged.
I sat in the passenger seat, and Kame drove. “So Koki’s coming?”
He nodded. “Yes. He announced it on his Twitter.”
I blinked. “Well, that was kind of retarded of him. Spoils the surprise.”
“Koki has a bit of a Twitter addiction. He forgets that Nakamaru is still following him, so those kind of details get out...” Kame looked annoyed. “But anyhow, I have to get you out of Forks.”
“Well, I’m not going to Arizona again,” I informed him. “How about Vegas this time?”
Kame said nothing, simply packing a duffel bag with some clothes when we got to Charlie’s place. He hauled a tent out of Charlie’s garage and shoved it in the back of the truck. Well. Looked like we were going camping.
Ueda and Nakamaru were waiting up in the mountains when we arrived. They both looked pretty pissed off about having to help protect me. “Were you able to get in touch with Yoko and Subaru?” Kame asked.
Ueda sighed. “They don’t give a shit if Koki kills your girlfriend. You know it’s porn weekend at their vamp nest. They won’t leave until they run out of Kleenex.”
Kame scowled. “Koki’s got what, fifty vampires? We have three?”
“Two,” Nakamaru complained. “I’m supposed to go to a wine tasting down in Sonoma.”
“You don’t drink wine!” Kame complained. “You’re dead!”
“I spit it out,” Nakamaru answered, crossing his arms. “Wine tasting, not wine drinking.”
“Hey, dillholes!” I interrupted, waving my good hand. “Make me a vampire now, and that’s fifty against four. I think those odds are a little better.”
“No!” the three of them said in unison, and I just sat down on a tree stump. Fucking hell. This was my protection force? Three pussy vampires against Koki’s psychotic Twittering ass and an army?
“They’ll smell us,” Ueda was saying, wrinkling his nose in my direction. “Especially him. He smells like deep fried lard.”
“Fuck you,” I grumbled. I don’t smell like lard, okay? He was just being an asshole.
Nakamaru looked like he really wanted to be somewhere else. “Well, Kame, we’re going to get slaughtered here. What about a truce?”
“A truce?” Kame squealed. “Koki won’t do a truce.”
“How about we just let Koki have him?” Ueda was clearly enjoying my pending death by vampire. “He’s always had bad taste in blood.”
I was running out of ways to tell Ueda to go fuck himself, so I decided to get Nakamaru on my side. Kame complained a lot, but he seemed to listen to the guy. And I finally had a plan - I obviously valued my life enough to come up with one.
“Well,” I said, trying to sound knowledgeable and stuff, “if smell is the thing that’s going to lead Koki right here, then why don’t we hide the smell?”
“An air freshener the size of the Mt. Rainier wouldn’t hide your smell,” Ueda remarked.
But Nakamaru caught on. “Masking the scent will definitely slow him down, give us a chance to ambush the newborns.”
The sweater-wearing poindexter may have looked like Carlton from Fresh Prince, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. “Right? So like, what better way to mask the smell of vampire or human than uh, you know, something not either of those things?”
He was my best friend. He said he’d do anything for me, hadn’t he?
“Werewolves,” Nakamaru said, looking ill.
“Absolutely not,” Kame protested.
But the hamster wheel in Nakamaru’s head was turning. “Werewolves,” he repeated. “Yeah, the werewolf scent would hide us. It would hide Jin too.”
Kame was sputtering, but even Ueda seemed intrigued. “That pothead werewolf and his tribe are pretty strong for a bunch of dogs,” Ueda said. “But would they really ally with us? They hate us as much as we hate them, you know.”
I shrugged. “Pi’s a good kid. He’ll help if Kame asks nicely.”
Kame looked ready to kill me himself. “I don’t need his help.”
Nakamaru and Ueda outvoted him though, and it was agreed upon that we’d ask the werewolves to help fight Koki and his army. There was no way Koki would predict that shit. My cell phone reception was awful in the mountains, so I couldn’t ask Pi to help myself. It was up to Kame to go to the border and bargain with Pi and his tribe himself while Nakamaru and Ueda watched over me.
If the two of them succeeded in not killing each other, maybe we stood a fighting chance.
--
I knew that Pi had happily come to my rescue because he came flying into the tent and tackled me with a big bear hug. Dog hug. Whatever.
“Motherfucker, I have broken fingers, ease up,” I complained, secretly enjoying that if I was going to die, then at least I’d die with my boyfriend AND my best friend around. I’d have someone within arm’s reach to make out with at all times.
“Sorry,” Pi said, blushing slightly. “I’m glad you want me here.”
It made my stomach hurt a little. Whether it was indigestion or lovey dovey feelings for Pi, I didn’t know. “I’m glad you and Kame can stop being bitches for five seconds.”
He shut me up with a bit of tongue attention in my mouth, and I allowed it this time. It wasn’t like Kame had been clamoring to make out with me, especially since I’d agreed to marry him or whatever.
“I have to go,” he said, just before I got his belt undone. I figure we were stopping because of the distinctly Kame-shaped shadow lurking outside the tent. “Just stay here, okay?”
I stayed in the tent and listened to Eminem while the vampires and werewolves had some sort of battle strategy meeting. Since I was apparently a weak human whose “heart would probably explode if he had to run for more than fifteen seconds,” I was to be sequestered in the tent for the duration of the fight.
According to Koki’s Twitter (Nakamaru’s iPhone had great reception, unlike my shitty phone), they were at the La Quinta Inn just west of Tacoma, so they’d probably be to Forks by tomorrow morning. A few scout vampires had already been sent ahead, and Ueda had taken care of them. The numbers were already shrinking.
The sun set, and the wolves and vampires were camped at places throughout the woods to await Koki’s arrival. I was tired, and Kame joined me in the tent. “You seem happy that Yamashita’s here,” he said, sitting down and watching me curl up in the sleeping bag.
“Well, it’s not like you’re that interested in fucking around with me, so yeah, I’m pretty damn happy.”
Kame frowned. Not in the grouchy way, but in the sad way. I always did feel bad when I depressed him. I unzipped the sleeping bag. “Come on, it’s cold. I’m going to freeze my balls off up here.” I never had liked camping.
Kame frowned again, looking at his arm intently. “I can’t protect you. Don’t you get it? All I want to do is keep you safe. I promised you I would, and I can’t. I can’t do anything right. I can’t love you the way you expect someone to because I’m old fashioned. I can’t protect you on my own because Koki has an army. I can’t even keep you warm because my skin is cold.”
I patted the sleeping bag. “Would you shut the fuck up? I’m never going to sleep if you keep whining.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Hold on.” Kame left the tent, and I wondered if I really had upset him. I hadn’t meant to.
I really was serious about being with him, even if I liked making out with Pi a whole damn lot. And much as I didn’t like admitting it, it felt kind of nice knowing that Kame had good intentions about me. He had a douchey way of showing his love and affection and shit, but he did care. I guess.
The tent unzipped again, and I was surprised to see Pi following Kame back inside. Kame sat down on the ground looking forlorn as Pi slipped out of his sneakers and knelt down at my side.
“Kame said you were cold so...”
Oh Kame, I thought. Not only had he asked his enemy to help protect me, but now he was even going to let Pi share my sleeping bag. Maybe I did kind of love him. Maybe I’d even let Kame top when we got married to make up for all this.
I went from chilly to Miami in seconds as Pi got in beside me and zipped the sleeping bag up. I could feel Kame watching, so I turned onto my side facing away. I’d just feel guiltier and shit if I had to watch him watch me and Pi snuggle. He could have picked somewhere other than the mountains to have the last stand with Koki, but whatever.
Once Pi had his lean, muscle-y arms around me, I was out. Kame and Pi were having some sort of serious discussion about me. I was pretty sure it was super important and all about them bonding as supernatural men and shit, but I was tired and my fingers were still broken, so I fell right asleep.
Sorry, I didn’t memorize what they talked about. But I did have a dream that I owned a pachinko parlor, and Kame worked there as a cocktail waitress in a short skirt. So that’s something fun.
--
The sun was just appearing when I felt Pi’s warmth slip away. Of course, if the sun was just coming up, it usually meant another eight hours of sleep for me (if it wasn’t a school day). But today, it was either the last day of my life or Koki’s. I was kind of hoping it would be the last day of his. I tried to get back to sleep, clutching the sleeping bag around me.
The residual heat from Pi’s body was eventually replaced with a bag of ice, or what felt like it as Kame wrapped his arms around me. “Get up, you lazy bitch,” he told me, giving me a shake.
I opened my eyes and frowned. “So affectionate, Kamenashi.”
“It got you up,” he said, helping me to wriggle out of the sleeping bag. I wanted to brush my teeth, take a shit and maybe grab a shower, but it appeared that those options were out. “I’ll stay here in the tent and guard you. They’ve already spotted some of the newborns where the trail ends. Yamashita and his buddies are on them.”
I didn’t much like the idea of Pi being in harm’s way, on account of him being so nice and all. Would he actually be able to kill? Well, probably. He did play a lot of Call of Duty, so if he treated the situation like that, he’d do okay.
“So I can’t leave?” I asked. It was getting a little claustrophobic in the tent. And again. I had to take a shit.
“Not until it’s over.”
“We’re in a big red tent in a green forest,” I pointed out. “It’s not like we’re hiding out of sight or anything.”
Kame rolled his eyes. “It’s the plan everyone agreed on. We won’t let anyone get close.”
And that was when Pi unzipped the tent. “Um, they’re getting close,” he said, nearly out of breath, probably from racing up the mountain in werewolf form and transforming quickly. I knew he was naked out there, but of course, the jerk only poked his head inside the tent.
“Shit,” Kame complained, letting me go. “Whatever you do,” he told me, “you stay in the fucking tent.”
Pi’s head bobbed, and I noticed some blood splatters on his face. I hoped they weren’t his. “I never thought I’d say this, but listen to Kamenashi, okay? Stay in here.”
Fuck them both, I thought angrily. Stay in the tent, Jin. Don’t run, Jin. Don’t think too hard because all your brain cells have probably atrophied from lack of use, Jin.
They both left, and I heard all these grunts and oof noises and growling and whooshing from their super vampire and werewolf speeds as they fought off Koki’s forces. The people I cared about were fighting on my behalf, and if something happened to them, it would be my fault. Not like I’d have much time to wallow in emo pain about it because if Kame or Pi got killed, I’d be following soon after.
I crawled over to the tent flap and was just about to unzip it when I heard Koki’s crazy ass voice. “Where is he?” he screeched. “The dog smell’s not enough to cover the week-old burrito stank!”
I tried making a fist but again, broken fingers. Pi snarled in his werewolf voice, so he’d obviously transformed back.
“Don’t be stupid, Tanaka,” Kame was saying. “We’ve already killed your stupid army. Probably because like you, they can’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground.”
“Fuck you, Kame!” Koki shouted. “We were all friends, you know. Me, you, Ueda, Nakamaru. And Junno. Junno was our friend. Sure, he was an idiot, but he was one of us and you killed him! All for that fat bitch!”
Okay, I don’t smell like week-old burrito, and I’m not fucking fat either. I unzipped the tent and kind of half-fell, half-ninja rolled out of it. Pi looked over, all hairy and not Pi-looking except for the eyes. And he was all panicky. Kame looked equally nervous.
“I am not fat,” I spat at Koki, seeing that his hair was now in a bright red mohawk. “And your buddy Junno attacked me first. Seriously, you need to get over it.”
“You came into our circle of friends and just fucked everything up!” Koki claimed, ready to pounce and rip my head off any second. “It’s like when Lindsay Lohan comes in to Mean Girls and Regina’s totally the head bitch, but then Lindsay Lohan’s all ‘hey I’m new, let me steal all your friends and your respect and...’”
“The climactic battle and there’s talk of Lindsay Lohan movies?” we all heard echo through the cold mountain air.
It was the distraction Kame needed. He jumped on Koki, and there was suddenly a lot more red than the guy’s mohawk. I cringed when I saw Koki’s head go flying into the air from Kame popping it off kind of like a grape tearing off the bunch.
And then Pi joined in and there went a leg, and dude, I would have lost my breakfast if Kame had allowed me to even eat. I didn’t see why limbs needed to be detached. Vampires couldn’t grow more like a lizard or whatever. But either way, that was the end of Koki, and I felt bad for a few seconds.
And then I felt okay because the dude had been plotting my death for over a year. Ueda and Nakamaru hurried over, and Nakamaru just sighed. “A little messy, don’t you think?” he asked, tiptoeing around the remains, hoping to avoid getting blood on his penny loafers.
“It had to be done,” Kame said quietly. “Him or us.”
“Kame, I hope you’re done killing your friends for a while,” Ueda said warily, getting out his matchbook to torch Koki. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
There was a popping noise, and Pi was all naked again. He disappeared behind a tree, unfortunately. I guess he’d left his clothes there. But now that all the vampires were accounted for, and most of the wolves had probably headed back to the rez after the fight, who the hell had interrupted Koki mid-Lohan rant?
Koki’s vampire corpse went up in stinky flames, and that was when Nino the Volturri leapt out of a pine tree and landed right at my feet.
“Yaaaaaahhhh!” I screamed.
One of the other rainbow bitches from Italy, Matsumoto, emerged from behind a large rock. They’d probably been observing like a bunch of pussies, not helping either side.
Kame tensed, immediately hurrying to my side. Pi padded out of the woods in jeans and a wifebeater, but he stayed back by the trees. He could smell powerful vampire after all.
It had definitely been Nino’s voice earlier. Nino looked just as pale and annoyed as he had back in Volterra. He poked me in the ribs with his bony finger. “Hmm, looks like you’re still a lesser lifeform.” He poked me again. “Well, not lesser in every place.”
“Fuck you,” I said boldly. I’d had it, really I had. Crazy battle vs. Koki and his crew, and I’d had to sit in the tent like a bitch. I still had to poop, and now this scrawny little cocksucker was dissing my size. Just because I wasn’t gaunt and shit didn’t make me that fat. Vampires were some mean-spirited fuckers.
Nino just raised an eyebrow. Matsumoto came up behind him, eyeing me suspiciously. “Kamenashi was supposed to turn you,” he said, and I struggled not to laugh at the ridiculous purple smoking jacket he was wearing. The Volturri probably didn’t leave home much.
“I will be,” Kame interrupted. “Soon.”
“It would be regrettable if you lied to us,” Nino said. “We came all this way to check your progress. Oh, and of course to see which of you won.”
Matsumoto snorted. “Using werewolves. Reeks of desperation.”
Pi sprouted hair on his chin again, but Kame gave him a look that implied that transforming and trying to fight Nino or Matsumoto would be a bad move, especially after the battle against Koki’s group.
“After Jin’s high school graduation,” Kame said, finally putting a date on it. That was only a week away. I guess having your vampire frat brothers showing up added enough pressure.
Matsumoto took out a glittery purple Blackberry and started typing. “Graduation huh? And you’ll be updating us on this? Just so we know when we can utilize Fatty’s powers?”
“I’m not fat,” I moaned, mostly to myself at this point since nobody else seemed like they were ever going to intervene on my behalf on the issue.
“You will be the first to know when it’s done,” Kame assured them while Ueda and Nakamaru exchanged doubtful looks behind them. Great. I was going to be some puppet once Kame turned me? No thanks. And what would they do when they discovered I didn’t actually HAVE any powers?
“Thanks for honoring us with your visit,” Nakamaru said, clearing his throat. What a kiss ass.
Nino just shrugged. “We had some frequent flyer miles to use up. It was either here or Paraguay. Fucking airlines.”
Matsumoto shoved his Blackberry back in his douchey Blackberry holster. “Well, congrats on killing that mohawk guy. He was close to exposing us all. Really. He could protect his Twitter. It takes a few seconds to turn things private. Ugh.”
Nino patted me on the shoulder and gave me a wicked smile. “See you again when you’re not so worthless, Chubs!”
And like that, the two of them left. The battle was won, the Volturri looked forward to me becoming a vampire, and I hadn’t died.
Kame and Pi came up to talk to me, but I shook my head. “Talk later,” I declared. “I have to take the world’s largest dump.”
--
So like, I hadn’t wanted to pick between them. It was stupid that I had to. Even though Koki was gone (rest in a million flaming pieces), it was still some werewolf rule with the border and shit. And with how badly Kame had wanted to protect and keep me safe, and how badly I wanted to fuck him until his eyes crossed, it meant that I had to break Pi’s delicate, sensitive werewolf heart.
I had on my cap and gown, and the ceremony was starting in an hour when I met Pi at the border just outside the rez. He’d been crying too, which made me feel like the world’s biggest asshole.
I held back my own manly sniffles and held my arms out. “I still want to be friends with you. I mean, if there’s some way to work around this, you’ll try, won’t you?”
Pi shrugged, rejecting my hug. I put my arms down and felt worse. “I don’t know. I can’t promise anything.” He looked at me with his dark, watery eyes. “Are you sure this is what you still want? Koki’s not after you any longer.”
But the Volturri would be as long as I was a living, breathing human. And after the past few weeks, I wasn’t really in the mood to be overprotected and shoved into a tent in the mountains over and over again. I had to become a bloodsucker. But if Pi was still my friend, maybe I’d be able to avoid the whole whiny bitch transformation that came as part of the package deal.
“This is what I want, man. I’m sorry.”
He just nodded. “Okay. Well.” He looked down at his “I Love Big Knockers” t-shirt that he’d gotten from the Goodwill Store. “Just...I need some time to think.”
Then there was that strange pop, and Pi was a wolf again, running off into the woods and out of my life. I picked up the Big Knockers shirt from the pavement and smelled it. It smelled like motorcycles and his mom and stepdad’s double wide and like my best friend in the whole fucking world.
Needless to say, I felt like shit.
I carried the shirt to the truck with me, setting it down on the seat beside me, and I drove to Forks High. All the other kids were there in caps and gowns, their parents snapping a million pictures. None of them had to deal with the crazy ass shit that I did. I would have resented them for it, but they were all so fucking boring that it wasn’t worth the effort.
Kame had saved me a spot in the last row. He didn’t bother making any snotty remarks about Pi, which I appreciated. I wouldn’t have been able to punch him for it on account of my fingers still being wrapped up.
The principal got up on the stage and started blabbing about our generation being the future and shit. My future was just going to be distinctly different, I realized, feeling Kame’s cold hand resting on my thigh.
From that day forward, everything was going to change.