Gift for jackoweskla
To: jackoweskla
From: tokyostory
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Title: Bittersweet Symphony
Pairing/Group: KAT-TUN/NEWS. Yamapi/Jin, Yamapi/Jin/Ryo
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex, threesome.
Notes: Thank you to L for betaing. jackoweskla, I really hope you enjoy this, I had so much fun writing it! Happy Christmas!
Summary: Jin, Yamapi and Ryo swap iPods for six months while Jin goes to America. It changes them in ways they hadn't expected.
So it can change you in ways you hadn't expected (;)), I've uploaded the songs used in the fic under three playlists. The links are:
Ryo's playlist: MU | MF.
Jin's playlist: MU | MF.
Yamapi's playlist: MU | MF.
When the colour comes back into the world, Yamapi starts trying to work out how it's all come about, he and Jin. How he came to be lying like this, soaking wet and out of breath and on his back, with Jin leaning over him. With Jin's mouth over his collarbone, with his breath slick-sweet on his skin.
Jin's skin is wet, dripping onto Yamapi. He's weak, like a kitten, and his eyes are huge and dark. Silently, without prompt, the strength drains from his arms and he lies down. He puts his head on Yamapi's chest, and closes his eyes.
Yamapi wonders whether it matters, how it came about. When it feels so right and so good, whether it even matters that it doesn't make all that much sense. Jin's hair is wet, in little tendrils by Yamapi's neck. Yamapi doesn't want to think any more.
The night before Jin has to leave for the airport, they sit in Ryo's apartment and they drink. It seems something of a sombre farewell party but Jin didn't want a big fuss made. He's nervous, it's obvious in his face. And Ryo doesn't know what to say to that. It'd be easier to tease him, but Jin doesn't look like he's in the mood.
Yamapi is more at home with it, Jin's mood. He lets Jin put his head in his lap and he strokes his hair. Not for the first time, Ryo wonders, about that. He doesn't want to ask, but-
“What presents do you guys want?” Jin says, suddenly. His eyes are closed. He's relaxing.
“I want a sombrero,” Yamapi says, peacefully. “A really big one.”
“He's going to Los Angeles,” Ryo says. “Not Mexico.”
“I bet they sell sombreros everywhere,” Yamapi says. “It's America!”
“Fine, fine,” Ryo says, rolling his eyes. “I want a cowboy, then.”
“Where are they going to sell cowboys?” Yamapi asks, indignant.
“It's America!”
“What do you want a cowboy for?” Jin asks. “That's the more important question.”
“I don't! I was-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jin says, smirking. He turns over in Yamapi's lap, his head not in the least bit graceful. Yamapi nudges him, “careful.”
“What about a cowboy hat?” Yamapi says.
“I think I want a sombrero as well,” Ryo muses. “It's cooler than a cowboy hat.”
“I'm only getting you sombreros if you promise to wear them on-stage or at a shoot or something. In a magazine, so I can buy it in America and laugh at you,” Jin says. “I'll post them to you when I've bought them and you'll have to do the shoots really quick. Or I'm getting you both nothing at all.”
“I wish I was going on holiday,” Ryo says, not for the first time. He's excited about all the tours Kanjani8 have coming up, but it's a grueling schedule and a part of him wants to board the plane with Jin tomorrow. Yamapi goes back to stroking, Jin goes back to almost-sleeping.
“It's not a holiday,” he says, dozily. “More to the left, Pi.”
“Alright, master,” Yamapi says.
“I'm studying.” “Studying what?” Ryo says.
“Pus-” “Don't say it again,” Yamapi says. “Please don't say that again. Urgh.”
“I'm not going out there to have sex, Ryo,” Jin says. “I can do that right here.”
It's comments like that, that do it. That arouse suspicion. Amongst other things. Yamapi goes on stroking, his face impassive. Ryo has an urge to pick up on it, to make a joke out of it or something nonchalant like that but he can't. They're his best friends and they've always been close, but there's just that inch more, now. All the little gestures and touches and words he can't quite get out of his head. And it's partly because he's jealous and partly because it turns him on a bit.
“Not right here,” Ryo says. “You'll ruin the carpet.”
Jin falls asleep, instead. He dozes off, knocks a glass over, so he does ruin the carpet one way or another. Yamapi wakes him up and nudges him off to bed, pads back into the lounge. Ryo sits, chasing his drinks.
“He has to be up in three hours,” Yamapi says. “You want to go to bed?”
“Nah,” Ryo says. He's not tired. He rarely gets tired these days, it's useful. “Do you?”
“Nope,” Yamapi says. “I'm not tired yet. Maybe I'll sleep later.”
“It's going to be weird without him,” Ryo says. “Maybe somebody really intelligent will walk into our lives when he goes. Y'know, cosmic order restored.”
“Shut up,” Yamapi says, nudges him, laughing. “He's not that bad.”
“You think he'll be alright?”
“He'll be fine,” Yamapi says, and he doesn't look worried. Ryo bites on his lip, wanting to say so many things but finding himself unable to.
“Can you imagine going to a foreign country and living on your own?” he says, instead. “We've been doing this for so long I can't imagine it.”
“Sometimes I think about it,” Yamapi says. “I think it'd be good. I think it'll be good for him.”
“You'll miss him.”
Yamapi grins, nods. “I'll miss him.”
“Are you guys-” It's not the way he wanted to ask, really, but it's the kind of thing that's impossible to ask, no matter how you approach it. Ryo's always been a 'rip off the band-aid fast' kind of person. He can't end the sentence, though. There's no way of ending the sentence.
“I don't know,” Yamapi says. “I don't know what's happening. I think he's going through changes. I don't think it's anything serious.”
“Okay,” Ryo says. That makes no sense. Trust those two to come up with something nonsensical.
“Does it bother you?”
“No,” Ryo lies. “It's a bit weird, but I'll get used to it. I think I've known for ages.”
“I don't know,” Yamapi says. “I'm not getting used to anything. Don't get used to it. Like I said, big changes. Who knows.”
“I think the drink's making us morbid and depressing,” Ryo says. “This is the worst send-off party ever. American girls will ask him about his friends and instead of saying that we're hot, muscular and the life of the party, he'll be like, 'oh, yeah, they're probably at home alone, drinking.'”
Yamapi laughs. “He'll be all, 'you know they threw this send-off party for me and all we did was sit in a drunken circle and talk about the good old days.'”
“Fuck, we're getting old, Pi.”
“Don't say that,” Yamapi says. “We're not old. We're just drunk. And depressing. Come on, let's do something fun. We need to send Jin off properly.”
“Okay,” Ryo says, cheerfully. “I'll go and wake him up.”
“No,” Yamapi says. “I mean. We need to give him a present. Something to remember us by.”
“Okay,” Ryo says, sitting down, disappointed. “Like what?”
“Okay...if you were going off on your own, to a foreign country, what would you most want to have with you?”
“Porno mags,” Ryo says, waggling his eyebrows. Yamapi hits him with a cushion.
“Alright,” he says, lying on his back, more comfortable on the floor. “I'd want to take memories, I guess. Good memories.”
“He's got photographs,” Yamapi says. “And he's got his brain. Stop it-”
“I didn't say anything!” Ryo says. But he's smirking.
“I've got it!” Yamapi says. “Music. We'll give him music.”
“What, our CDs?” Ryo says. “I guess we could-”
“No, no, I mean...we'll all swap iPods. We'll give him our music. I'm always playing stuff in the apartment that he likes, he keeps saying he's going to download it and never does. Give him something to remind him of us!”
“Huh,” Ryo says. It's a good idea. A really good idea. “So, what, we put all our iPods into a box and everyone chooses one?”
“Yeah,” Yamapi says, getting excited. “We can wrap them up in something, so it's a secret. It'll be like an early Secret Santa. Come on, it'll be great.”
“Heh,” Ryo says. “I like it. Least one of us has a brain, Pi. I'm going to make a play list on mine.”
Yamapi decides that he wants to do the same, so leaving Jin to sleep in Ryo's bed, he darts the five or ten minutes it takes to get to his apartment. They make play lists, each as amused as each other. They leave a message for the person who'll inherit their iPod. It makes Yamapi feel warm inside, to imagine his music in somebody else's hands for a while. Like an unseen, unspoken bond, thousands of miles away.
Ryo wakes Jin up, tells him to go home and make sure he's packed everything. He tells him about the idea, and Jin gets over-excited, rushing around the apartment, talking around his toothbrush. He's got hours to go before his flight, so he agrees to make a play list of his own. They'll swap at the airport, Ryo says, before Jin gets on the plane.
For the first time in a week or so, Jin looks genuinely excited to be going.
They swap them in the car, outside the airport. It's still early, not many people around. For once, no photographers. Only a bored-looking taxi driver pays them any interest. They each rummage around in the rucksack Yamapi's brought with him, removing their own envelope. Jin can't wait to find out whose iPod he has (he hopes that it isn't his own) but Ryo and Yamapi force him to keep it wrapped until he gets on the plane, so as not to spoil the surprise.
They decide to drop him off rather than coming in, arousing attention. The hug Yamapi gives Jin seems to last forever, until Ryo honks the horn and smirks at them both in the rear-view mirror.
“Get a room,” he says, and Jin just sticks his tongue out. He lugs his bags off to the entrance, walking backwards and waving, until he nearly falls over a small woman pushing a trolley, and decides it's best to turn around. That's the last glimpse they catch of him, falling over a woman with a trolley, and it seems apt, somehow.
Los Angeles isn't like Jin thought it would be. He came with few expectations, so as not to be intimidated or disappointed. It seems much larger and brighter than Tokyo, as if the sun probably never goes down. It's fresh, new, exciting. Scary as hell.
He opened his envelope on the plane. The iPod was black, which gave the game away, and he laughed to himself. The woman beside him, clutching a book about plane crashes with shaky hands, glared at him. He wanted to tell her that her fear was not amusing to him, and that he was going to be spending months with Ryo's music, Ryo, who has no taste Jin approves of. That's amusing to him. He wants to tell her that, but he doesn't dare.
He decides to play Ryo's message, as he walks towards the hall of residence he'll be living at for the next six months or so.
Pi or Bakanishi,
I hope that you got this, Jin. I think it'd do you good to develop some credible taste. I'd pain me if Pi got this, because he already has taste. It'd be a waste of my highly-tuned ear.
Anyway, enjoy the music, don't lose the iPod or drop it in water or anything either of you are capable of doing when you're not supervised. I'll be quizzing you on it, 'kay?
See you soon, idiots.
Ryo.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Jin smiles to himself. The familiarity is comforting. Not so much the music, though. He thumbs the first track. It's dulcet with annoying guitar twirls. It has lyrics he doesn't really understand, though he catches the odd word. The vocal is gritty, grating. He and Ryo will never understand each other.
You can't even dance to it.
When he gets to his hall, the students there investigate him with some curiosity. All new students get that sort of treatment, he thinks, as they certainly don't seem to recognise him. They talk in very slow, jilted English about his name, his family, his journey. They're nice people, but they talk too fast. He'll have to get used to that.
He asks them what Californication means, and they say something about California.
California is where he is, he gets that much. They say it's about the spread of California. Which makes no sense, because places don't grow, don't suddenly get bigger and swallow up other states. Not without the government realising.
They giggle at his attempt to say it, Californication. He laughs, too, because it's funny and because they're not being unkind. If they tried to say Hamamatsu, he'd probably laugh at them.
“There's no danger of you getting it,” one of the guys says. A few times, various phrasings, until Jin gets what he means. And he has to agree. In a way, he's relieved. He doesn't want to be Californicated.
Ryo sets off on the first of Kanjani8's tours not long after the iPod exchange, sleepy and in a way unprepared for everything that's about to hit him. It's been easier with NEWS being on hiatus, to focus on one band and one goal. In a horrible way, there's a sense of dread about being in two bands again. It requires him to spread himself much too thin. The thoughts plague his mind for the first few days and he doesn't talk that much to anybody else.
On the bus, he gets out the new iPod. It's blue, which gave the game away as soon as he unwrapped it. Yamapi's always liked blue. He likes the sky, the ocean. Anything too big to understand. He always was fascinated by things beyond his understanding. He considers himself lucky, because he and Yamapi have very similar taste. It's not as though he's going to be spending months on the road with Jin's music, which is full of attitude and noise and everything that makes Jin Jin, he guesses.
He watches the world go by, the muted mountains and the long, green valleys that spread forever without one person to break up the colour. He watches the sky, which is grey and overcast and not at all the wide, blue shade that Yamapi likes so much. He thinks about Yamapi, and about his silence in the car after Jin had gone. He thinks about the sky then, bright blue with the planes tacked on, like a childish ceiling with stickers on it. The sky hasn't been as blue since.
Ryo or Jin, the message says,
I figure that whichever one of you gets this you won't be too disappointed. I think you both like my music, right? I hope you both like it. We're apart for a little while, so it wouldn't be good if we all hated the music we had to listen to...
Can a friendship be destroyed by music? Heh.
Anyway, enjoy the songs, there's not that many of them, but you know what I'm like. I just listen to everything to death. See you both soon, ne? We're going to have one hell of a party.
Pi.
Southern All Stars - Sea of Love
Ryo doesn't mind Yamapi's music, though it isn't his thing. He prefers mellow music, music he doesn't have to actively process. Music that processes him. Yamapi's music is upbeat, it's music you go running to, or climb buildings to, or sticky-tape fantasies of saving the world to.
It's poppy, it's cheesy, it's uplifting. But at least it isn't dance, and for that, he's thankful. He allows the song to wash over him, the way he would his own music. He tries to switch off the part of himself that wants to resist, because this isn't anything he'd choose to listen to. The vocal is mild, a little bit bland. The strings aren't slow, they're perky. There's chimes and bits of cymbal.
The bus is very quiet. People are asleep, others listening to music on their own, or reading. They're together so much that they relish quiet at any moment they can. It's a lonely life. A wonderful life, but also lonely.
Listening to Yamapi's music grounds him. Slowly, gradually, he starts to feel a bit better. He's reminded of going to visit Yamapi and hearing the song playing as Yamapi cooked for them. The scent of proper home-cooked food, of warmth and friendship and the world being still for a bit. The song is cheesy and frankly, a little bit naff, but it's so distinctly Yamapi that it makes Ryo feel warm inside.
Yamapi always likes the sea, Ryo thinks. Figures that the first track would be about the sea. Only instead of being a vast, gloomy, cold world, it's warm and spirited. Like being submerged in memories. He wants to send Yamapi an e-mail and tell him, but he doesn't.
He still has his pride.
Yamapi feels like he's lost in a big sea of possibilities. The problem with coming off hiatus but losing a band member to another tour is that it leaves your options a bit thin on the ground. Instead, he's looking at all the different dramas and radio shows he could do on his own, and feeling a bit overwhelmed. Change doesn't suit him. He doesn't like change. He's been on unsteady ground for too long, and nothing seems to make sense anymore. He wants to call Jin, but he doesn't dare. Jin went to America for space, and change. Jin likes change.
It seems apt, somehow, that Yamapi ended up with Jin's iPod. He was hoping for it, not because he likes Jin's music but because it would make them feel connected. Yamapi misses Jin and hearing his music, well, it brings them closer together in a way. But for the first few days of the exchange, Yamapi doesn't listen to any music at all because he knows the minute he does, all the change will become real. He leaves it until he's stopped thinking about Jin in his lap, head bowed over his collarbone, and the sweat droplets-
He's waiting until it leaves his mind, and when it does, it's a good three days in. He gets up, prepares himself for the interview he's got that morning, and puts Jin's message on. Finally, he's ready to listen to his voice.
Pi or Ryo-chan,
You guys are LUCKY. Consider this a musical education. I think I put too many songs on the play list because I forgot how many we were supposed to have, but I think that makes you even luckier. More music for your money, right?
So. You better listen up for my learnings. ENJOY.
Jin.
Justin Timberlake - My Love
It's not a bad song, Yamapi thinks. It's too cool for his tastes, and you couldn't work out to it - but there's something of a swagger to it. Something fundamentally Jin. He listens to it, imagines Jin singing in the shower to it, the way he does. Yamapi remembers that Jin took his first iPod into the shower with him and broke it, so he had to buy a new one. It's bright green, apple green, gorgeous. Yamapi's glad that he has it.
He imagines Jin's broken English, his inability to rap, the way he sometimes dances when he's wet and it just adds to the effect. He dances for Yamapi, sometimes. Eyes locked on, hips turning. And Yamapi wonders, what he'd have to do to make it something other than wisps of smoke in the dark. He catches Jin, but only for a moment. And now, he's thousands of miles away, which doesn't help.
Despite himself, he finds himself dancing a bit. He doesn't normally dance, not even when Jin tries to make him. But Jin isn't here, and somebody should be dancing. It's a morning for dancing.
Radiohead - Lucky
Jin wakes up all the time. Having been on American time for a week and a bit, he was hoping that he'd soon start sleeping through the night, but it hasn't happened yet. Yamapi hasn't called, yet. Neither has Ryo. Both of them have sent e-mails, but they're probably busy, and Jin doesn't want to admit that he's lonely. He is, a bit. Everybody talks very fast and he's made friends, but he can't get to know them as well as he wants to because he doesn't want to make them repeat themselves or slow down all the time.
He likes Los Angeles. It's very busy and flustered but it suits him. It's bright and warm and sunny. Everyone seems more laidback. Jin wishes that he could be laidback. He worries a lot, in Los Angeles. About not being called. About not being able to speak the language. About his finances. About his studies. About not having somebody to worry for him. About a thousand and one things.
Ryo's music is depressing, but in an odd way, it helps. He listens to it before he goes to sleep, to help him wind down. Radiohead are slow, with vocals that simmer in the background. Like watching somebody move in slow motion, that's their music. They wash over you, like water. They help Jin to sleep. And when he wakes up, full of worries, they help him to calm down. He listens to the music as he brushes his teeth in the morning, letting the guitars and the slow, soft voice soothe him. He vows not to worry until he has something he can change.
“'Cause I'm your superhero,” he sings along, “We are standing on the edge.”
He likes the idea of being a superhero, even though the guy singing the song doesn't sound too enthusiastic about it.
“It's gonna be a glorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrious day!”
“Would that make you wanna change your scene,” Jin says, slowly. “And wanna be the one in my scene. That means...?”
The girl he sits next to in lectures, she smiles and nods. “Well,” she says. “You need to work on it a bit. But it means what you want to say, pretty much. It's like saying, 'I want you with me. How do I win you over?'”
“There's too much...'wanna',” Jin says. “Wanna wanna. Justin Timberlake is popular here, huh.”
“Is he popular in Japan?”
“Um,” Jin thinks about it. He's never really noticed. He dances to the music in the clubs, and that's about it. He wants to e-mail something to Yamapi in English, because he doesn't want Yamapi to think he's wasting time in America. And he wants it to be a song lyric, because he's hoping Yamapi's got his iPod. He has a feeling about it, and his feelings are usually right. It's just that he's not prepared for answering questions about the chosen lyric, or about Justin Timberlake.
“I don't know,” he says, eventually. “Probably. His music is popular.”
“What other music do you like?”
“Hip-hop,” Jin says, after some thought. And the way it comes out is funny, so they laugh, both of them. He gets her to write it down, the words, and then he e-mails Yamapi. It's probably two in the morning over there, he's never got the hang of time differences, but by the time it's morning in Japan, Jin will have chickened out.
Would that make you wanna change your scene. And wanna be the one in my scene?
-Jin.
Huh? This is Japan! Speak Japanese. Idiot.
-Yamapi
Ryo finds that he's starting to look forward to listening to his music, something that doesn't happen to him very often. He loves his music collection, but he thinks that he doesn't appreciate it enough. It chills him out and calms him down, but he doesn't listen to it, not closely. He's become complacent about it. Listening to Yamapi's music gives him a buzz, of memories and familiarity. Like refreshing his brain with cold water. 'Oh yeah', it says. 'I remember this'.
Yamapi e-mails him after one of the first shows. Ryo's on a high, he can't stop hugging his bandmates, wanting the closeness, the intimacy, the buzz to go on forever. They're the same way, they dog pile onto the bus and talk in excited voices about how fucking fantastic performing is and how they're living the best lives in the world. Yamapi e-mails him, and Ryo can't stop laughing, because there's something fundamentally funny about Jin and Yamapi and their endless network of confusion.
It's a lyric from some song of his. Justin Timberlake? Hang on, I'll ask someone.
-Ryo
What does it mean, though??
-Yamapi
I don't know! This is Jin we're talking about! It's by Justin Timberlake. Subaru doesn't know the title but he says the song's rubbish anyway.
-Ryo
Glay - Yes Summerdays
Ryo remembers the time Jin, Yamapi and he travelled miles to go to the beach. A proper one. Jin and Yamapi had been for a photoshoot some years before and it took them hours to find their way back. They had intended to go there when it was light, but because of all the hassle, it was already evening when they'd arrived. Ryo maintained that it didn't matter, and he was right.
It had been dark, on the beach, and they'd walked along it like aliens on another planet. So dark and delicious and cold, all they'd been able to hear was the sea somewhere in the distance. Unable to see the shore, unable to feel the waves, the three of them had been lost in the in-between, where the air was chilly and salty, and they'd clung onto one another and laughed about it.
It had been nice, just the three of them. Honest. True. They'd lit a fire once they'd found their way back to the shore, drank beer and laughed about the good old days. And danced together, drunken dancing to no music at all, just dancing, just laughing. Just truth, and honesty.
That's what the song reminds him of. Only it wasn't a summer day, more an evening, more something darkly suggestive. Ryo wonders if that's what Yamapi thinks of, when he listens to the song. He wants to be back on that beach. He wants to be back, drunkenly dancing with Yamapi and Jin.
When the group get to bed, it's after two in the morning. They should go to sleep right away, Ryo knows this, but he lies in bed awake, in the dark, thinking. And he knows that he shouldn't be thinking about it, Yamapi and Jin dancing, falling over one another in the sand, but he does. And he thinks about where he'd want to take it, afterwards. Where Yamapi and Jin might take it, afterwards. All drunk and fluid and dancing with their eyes closed, their hands on each other. It becomes a bedroom, it becomes a bed scene, and the two of them have their eyes closed, and their hands on each other.
Jamiroquai - Just Dance
Yamapi starts filming Proposal Daisakusen, which is exciting enough to take his mind off everything else that's going on. He loves acting. It's like escapism, but better. He doesn't just wander off into another world, he controls that world. He touches it, lives it. It's the best form of escapism there is.
The air is starting to feel like spring, and Yamapi listens to Jamiroquai on the train, in the car. He's had to translate the lyrics loosely in his head, but they make him feel better about things. He's often wondered why Jin is so optimistic, so forward-looking. Most of the music he listens to is the same way. Perhaps Yamapi should try it.
Jin is the sort of person who dances out the bad times he goes through. Of course, he'd say that the dancing leads to sex, so maybe he sexes out the bad times, but either way, it's better than getting depressed about it.
The only problem with Jamiroquai is the lunatic lead singer. Yamapi looks the band up on YouTube, and wishes he hadn't.
Richard Ashcroft - Lonely Souls
Jin eventually discovers that you can dance to Ryo's music, after all. It's just slow dancing. Winding dancing. Ryo would call it slutty, but Ryo knows nothing about dancing. Only about depressing music. Jin doesn't like the song by Richard Ashcroft. It's all about dying. He doesn't like music about death. It seems like an oxymoron: music is life, not death.
The beat, though, is something else. He'd dance to this drunk without caring what it's saying. Still, it's no wonder Ryo is so sarcastic and cross, listening to these lyrics all the time.
He calls Yamapi, says, “I'm going to cry in a space that don't hold my name.”
“Um,” Yamapi says. “No fake?”
Jin laughs, and the sound makes them both feel better. He continues in Japanese, “I'm a lonely soul. This song says I am.”
“You got Ryo's iPod, then,” Yamapi says, amused. “He's a lonely soul, too.”
“It's no wonder he's sad,” Jin says. “All of his music is sad.”
“Are you sad?”
“No,” Jin lies. “Yeah. A bit. How are things there? Tell me how things are there.”
Yamapi thinks. Things are boring in Japan. Same old, same old. “Not much to tell,” he says. “Ryo's off touring, NEWS are doing...a few things. We did the concert last week, and the single is out in March, so we're preparing for that. Oh, and I'm filming Proposal Daisakusen. The workload's pretty quiet, except for Ryo. They're working him to death.”
Jin processes this information, but it all feels very far away. He knows that half of KAT-TUN are pissed at him, and it surprises him, to remember that he has a band to come home to.
“What about you?” Jin says. “How are you?”
“I'm bored,” Yamapi says. “I'm eating too much.”
“Ngh,” Jin says. “Tell me about the food.”
“I had barbecue the other day. Proper Korean stuff. Heaps of chicken. And buckwheat noodles, the soft kind-”
“Pi-”
“And vegetables, pan-fried in this honey stuff. Really good sauce.”
“This is 'phone sex. You realise that.”
Yamapi grins. “I had ice-cream afterwards. Sesame seed. Proper stuff. Melt in the mouth stuff.”
“Ungh,” Jin says. “I'm coming home now.”
“I had ribs tonight,” Yamapi says, now feeling malicious. “Shirota and I went out and had ribs. Chunky ones, not the cheap kind. Got all sticky-fingered. So good.”
“I'm living on $10 a day,” Jin says, mournfully.
“What's $10?”
“You don't want to know,” Jin says. “I'm going to die in a space that don't hold my fame, Pi.”
“Die?” Yamapi says. “Don't be stupid.”
“Can I come home and eat with you? Get all sticky-fingered? I could lick the barbecue sauce from your fingers.”
That's turning the tables, Yamapi thinks. And then some. “Yeah,” he says. “You could do that.”
“I'd want to lick everything else, too.”
Yamapi stills, lying on his bed. He's not sure what to make of that. “Uh-huh?” he says. “Like what?”
“I'll come home and show you.”
“Tease,” Yamapi says, relaxing a bit. He's never done 'phone sex before. It's always seemed like something sophisticated people do. He'd probably get it wrong.
“I could lick your neck,” Jin says. “You like it when I do that.”
“There's no barbecue sauce there,” Yamapi says. Wrong.
“I could put some there,” Jin suggests helpfully. “Or I could just kiss it anyway.”
“I miss you,” Yamapi says. “And your neck-licking.”
“I miss you too,” Jin says. “You're the only one who'd let me put barbecue sauce on your neck.”
“Ryo would,” Yamapi concedes. “But only if you didn't tell anybody about it afterwards.”
“I'm lonely, Pi,” Jin says. “I didn't think I'd be this lonely.”
“It's because it's all new,” Yamapi says, calmly. “You were like this when you started a new school. You'll be fine. Stick it out. It'll do you good. We'll all be still here when you get back.”
“For neck-licking.”
“Yeah, for that. Don't worry. And stop listening to Ryo's music. It's not doing you any good.”
“Actually, sometimes...it's alright.”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes, you can dance to it. I'll send you a video of me dancing.”
“Don't send me a video of-”
“I'm gonna send you a video of me dancing. Maybe I'll be naked~”
“I'll send you pictures of my dinner, every night this week.”
“Done.”
“Jin-”
“Gotta go, I think my battery's dying.”
“Your battery is not-”
Jin cackles, and hangs up.
Mr. Children - I Surrender
Sometimes, Ryo needs to feel calm. When he wakes up at 5am having gone to bed at 2am, when he's frustrated because he's living with the same people for months on end, when he's tired and feeling ill, he needs to feel calm. He's glad in those times that Yamapi and he share some musical taste, when he can stick on Mr. Children and not have to think about things too much.
The song is one of their mutual favourites, a slow climber of a song, a rough vocal, a set of tired lyrics. It encompasses what the worst moments of their lives are like: when they have no time and no space and no moments of calm to speak of. When they really just want to give up. When they're awake half the night because the buzz of the shows won't go away. When they can't talk to their families, or follow the stories told by their friends.
When they'd all give away their money for a day off, for a day just to feel peaceful.
There's a moment in the song near the end, where the vocal stops vocalising words and instead resigns itself to a sound, a cry of frustration and of pain. Ryo relates to that. It's more powerful than the rest of the song, put together. Somehow, it's healing. To know that he's not the only one in the world, that morning, that wants to scream.
He falls asleep on the bus and for once, sleeps the good kind of sleep, where there are dreams and where you wake up refreshed. There's no crick in his neck, for once. He wakes up feeling better.
Yamapi e-mails him with a video clip. He's not sure he wants to watch this, because last time it was footage of Yamapi in a cow suit set to music. It was disturbing. Yamapi and Jin have the monopoly on disturbing video clips. But he downloads it and watches it, anyway, and it isn't disturbing so much as vaguely adorable. And irritating.
Jin should know that you can't dance to Richard Ashcroft. You're supposed to chill out to Richard Ashcroft. You're supposed to calmly absorb the music, let it change you inside. You're not supposed to make it slutty by dancing to it. And Jin looks really slutty - with the hips and the hands above his head and, well, it's clear that he made this for Yamapi. It's kinky, that. He likes kinky.
At least Jin isn't naked.
“Your boyfriend's a big slut,” he e-mails back. “And he can't dance.”
“Haha,” Yamapi e-mails back. “Only one of those three statements is true. Should I ask him which?”
Namie Amuro - Hide and Seek
Yamapi is familiar with Namie Amuro (he and Jin once made out to Want Me, Want Me which Jin dances altogether too well to), but he's never been all that fond of her. Her music is jerky, cold, metallic. Jin loves her. She's noisy, with a beat. It's all he ever demands of a track.
Hide and Seek is apt, it must be said. It describes their relationship better than he ever could using all the words in his vocabulary. Only, he's not sure which one of them is hiding and which is seeking. He and Jin talk every few days. He's concerned that Jin is lonely, but trying not to give him enough comfort that he'll entice him into coming home. It'll do Jin good to be out there.
It's just hard, because he misses him. Still. It's almost February and it's still there, the ache. Having his music around is like having Jin there, and at any moment, he expects to walk into his kitchen and see Jin dancing around breakfast. Muttering English lyrics in that awful, pseudo-American way of his.
He keeps the video clip on his 'phone. He e-mails Jin to tell him that he's sent it to Ryo, and Jin e-mails back with a string of curses, which makes Yamapi laugh. Jin then asks what he's eating for lunch, which suggests that he's not all as bothered as he's making out (curious), and Yamapi sends him a picture.
The weeks pass, slowly. Yamapi does this and that to pass the time, and some of it turns out to be fun. He does shoots with Tego, interviews with Shige and Massu. NEWS release a single, and the success of it blows him away. They prepare for their national tour. Once he gets used to the strangeness of Jin being so far away and once Ryo comes back to NEWS, he finds that things get easier. Every morning, he plays one of Jin's tracks, and it helps him feel connected enough not to think about him for the rest of the day.
Hide and Seek is his favourite choice, in the end. The more he listens to it, the more he likes it. It has rhythm, body, warmth when you let it in. He dances to it, because somebody should, and that sets his morning off to a good start. The more he listens, the more the jarring vocal disappears and the more the warmth underneath comes through.
He doesn't tell Ryo that he's starting to like Jin's music. He still has his pride.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
Jin meets with KAT-TUN in New York, a little while before he's due to come home. He assures them that he is coming home and despite himself, he's looking forward to it. Los Angeles gets easier by the day, now that his friends have learnt to speak more slowly and he's learnt to decipher their accents. Things are good, but he's itchy to go home and get back into the swing of the band. Too much time off, it's not good for him, he thinks. And he misses his friends, his family.
He looks in the mirror, a few days before his flight leaves. He wonders whether the tan lines on his hips mean that he's Californicated. People go to the beach a lot, here. Tokyo isn't good at beaches, and Jin thinks he'll miss that. He looks brown, healthy, happy. Maybe that's all being Californicated is. Then again, the man singing the song didn't sound happy, so maybe being Californicated isn't as good as it first appears.
The vocalist is obsessed with California, though, it's weird. It's like he has a vendetta against the place. He asks some of the guys about it (who's Dani California?) but they just laugh at him, praising his good music taste. Jin thinks they don't know who she is, either. He resolves to ask Ryo, when he gets home.
The only line that he understands is “California, show your teeth”, which doesn't make sense because California doesn't have teeth. It does have nice beaches, though.
When he goes to the airport, a few of his friends go too - brandishing cards and goodbye gifts. It touches him, because he didn't think he'd make any sort of lasting impression. He's enjoyed his time with them. It's time to go home, but he's appreciated them, more than he can possibly say.
He boards the plane and reads his cards slowly, one by one. They're happy, somehow tanned, somehow sunshine-sweet. There's a faint scent of orange, of the sea. It makes him happy to read them. He listens to Dani California, wondering if he can borrow any of the lyrics for the press conference that awaits him on the other side.
A week and a bit after he arrives, they throw him a surprise party, his best friends. They all go to the beach, because apparently Ryo hasn't been able to get the place out of his head. It's quiet, it's beautiful and it's the perfect place for a party. Jin hasn't seen his family yet; he's waiting for the press intrusion to die down. He's been working hard since his arrival back into the country, and a party sounds more than welcome. He's hardly had a chance to call any of his friends, much less meet up with them, so his face beams widely when they come to pick him up.
It makes Ryo feel nostalgic, to watch Yamapi and Jin hugging in the back of the car, the same way they did six months previously. This time, it's happy, it's complete, it's all things being right with the world.
“You're tanned,” Yamapi says, as Ryo drives off. It's almost an accusation, but not quite.
“I'm Californicated,” Jin says. Ryo bursts out laughing and Yamapi frowns.
“You're what?”
“I'm tanned,” Jin says. “And I'm happy to be home. Idiot. Give me another hug.”
The beach party is beautiful. Most parties aren't beautiful: they're sort of grotesque, dizzying, a rush and a roar. This one is beautiful. Street lights above them and a bonfire, and a barbecue. Music, the sound of the waves beyond. The dark, the dancing. There's something beautifully hedonistic about it. When they arrive, they sit in the car and watch the scene for a while.
“Whose music are they playing,” Jin asks, leaning out of the window. It makes several people down below cheer and wave. “Is that my music?”
“It's your music,” Yamapi says, shoving into him. “Figured you'd appreciate hearing all that noise again.”
“I kinda liked Ryo's,” Jin admits, sheepishly. “But it's rubbish for a party. You can't even dance to it.”
“Actually,” Ryo says. “I thought that video I saw of you was quite good.”
Jin looks at him in the backseat, in the rear view mirror. He smirks, and Yamapi smirks, and Jin just says, as if it's obvious, “Yeah, it was.”
Eve - Tambourine
They dance, Ryo watches. It's how it's always been, it's how it always will be, probably. Ryo doesn't mind the dancing. There's something about the way Jin does it, how showy and yet how unaware it is - the way Yamapi looks at him as he does it, like he's the only person in the universe worth looking at.
They've always been best friends, as long as Ryo has known them. And now, they're venturing into some other territory. Some other territory that doesn't freak Ryo out as much as it turns him on, however wrong he should feel about it. When Jin winds a hand down Yamapi's front, down his collarbone to his hipbone, when he looks at him with those possessive eyes - Ryo finds it impossible to feel anything but right, right, right.
They're pretty drunk, everyone knows it. They're all drunk, the beer is plentiful and apparently, maybe endless. Ryo is pretty drunk, himself. Otherwise, he'd never think about approaching them, his best friends, his slutty, sexy best friends. He'd never think about trying to slide in-between, about being the meat in the sandwich, as it were.
Only, Jin's giving him come-on eyes and Yamapi's hardly complaining, so Ryo hands his beer bottle to the nearest person and heads onto the seafront. The light is dim there, the world throbbing on a pulse. Everyone is dancing, light cutting through a sea of bodies. Ryo takes his place behind Yamapi, in front of Jin. They dance together, all three of them, as if they're the tiny little discs on one giant tambourine, as if they all shake to the same sound, respond to the same fundamental heartbeat.
Ryo is looking at Jin and Jin is looking at Yamapi, who spreads himself back against Ryo, forward against Jin. His eyes are lidded, content. It's never going to feel this way again, Ryo is faintly aware of it. Jin will go back to KAT-TUN, he and Yamapi will make a go of it. Life will start, again. This is the in-between moment, the pause they all cry out for. The day of peace.
He runs his hands down Yamapi's shoulders, until Yamapi tilts his head, and Jin leans in to kiss the space that's left.
Southern All Stars - Tsunami
They go back to the hotel room, a staggering mess of limbs. Jin is laughing, Yamapi is pulling Ryo around. And Ryo, Ryo's just going wherever the two of them will take him.
“Are you sure,” he says, as the three of them fall through the door. He wants them to be sure. He's so tired of regrets. Jin shuts the door, looking over Ryo's shoulder at Yamapi. Yamapi is looking at Ryo with those hard, black eyes of his, like he's never been surer of anything in his life.
“Okay,” he says. Breathes. “Ok-”
And Yamapi kisses him, then. Jin watches, curious. He waits until Yamapi is done and then he asks, amused,
“How is he?”
“Try him yourself,” Yamapi says, wryly. Jin turns Ryo around and kisses the space Yamapi has left him, as Yamapi takes off his jeans, his shirt.
“What's he doing?” Ryo mutters, as Jin breaks apart. “Is he supposed to be doing that?”
“No,” Jin says, tartily. “Bad Pi. You're supposed to let us do that. He's left his underwear. Ryo?”
Ryo doesn't need asking twice. He climbs onto the bed, where Yamapi is lying and watching, like a cat in anticipation of being petted. He watches Ryo, watching him, a little smile playing on his face. He lifts his hips as Ryo leans forward, closing his eyes as Ryo separates him from fabric. Jin stands behind, licking his lips. He's quietly establishing authority.
“Suck him off,” he says, and it's not a question. Ryo looks over his shoulder, and Yamapi opens his eyes a fraction, so Jin raises an eyebrow, as if prompting argument. Nobody argues, and Ryo looks back at Yamapi. Yamapi is still smiling. He's waiting. He reaches out, cups Ryo's jaw. There's a moment, of something, some silent communication - and Ryo doesn't feel intimidated, or lonely, or frightened anymore. He just feels the energy in the room, the lust and the comfort and the intimacy. And as he leans down, he's not thinking about the fact that he's never done this, only thought about it. He's thinking about Yamapi's face as he takes the head between his lips-
The gasp is something of a surprise. Yamapi's head drops back, the noise edgy, as if he'd intended to keep it up his sleeve for a while. Jin leans against the bedpost, folds his arms, his eyes black with concentration. Ryo looks at him for a bit, seeking approval, until Yamapi tilts his chin upwards. It's stubborn, domineering, hot, and Ryo doesn't argue with any of those things.
He realises, in time, that the more turned on Yamapi gets, the more he can hear Jin breathing behind him. Looking at Yamapi, he knows that he's doing a good job. Bliss is etched across Yamapi's features, easy and honest and true. It's not that difficult to pick up, in the end. He applies pressure when Yamapi flexes his hips for it, tightens when he groans for it. Most of it is instinct. Most of it is just pure connection. And for the past few months, they've written connection across the globe. In comparison, this is easy.
It's when he flicks his eyes across and looks at Jin that he understands just how good a job he's doing. Jin is coming undone, that much is blatant. Jin has his hand in his jeans and his eyes are unfocused. He's watching them both, Yamapi's face as much as Ryo, the one causing it to change and contract like that. He doesn't say a word, but his breathing is something fierce, and that alone makes Ryo bold.
He moves his mouth away, replaces it with a wet hand. “Get on the bed,” he says.
Jin nods, accepting the shifting of power, and undoes his jeans. Ryo leans over, pulls him in by the loose waistband, catching a hint of warm skin underneath - and kisses Jin again, tasting heat, horniness. Yamapi watches, lidded eyes, aroused, barely able to speak.
“Fuck him,” Ryo says, between kisses. Jin pulls back, suddenly, looks at Yamapi. It's Yamapi's turn to raise an eyebrow.
“Someone better had,” he says, and he's half-laughing, but it isn't a joke. “Or I'm going to explode.”
Jin nods, looks back at Ryo, grins. “You'll fuck me?” he says. And it's music to Ryo's ears.
Ryo kneels behind Jin, watches as he preps Yamapi, who responds in ways Ryo never imagined he would. He turns confident, impulsive, needy in bed. Demanding. It's hot. Watching over Jin's shoulder, it's a little like taking it for himself. Only it's better, because Jin is there in the middle, hot, letting Ryo stroke his cock around his hipbone. He preps Jin the way he sees Jin prep Yamapi. They're sharing looks, Yamapi and Jin, both grunting, both twitching, and Ryo feels so powerful there's nothing that could adequately describe it. Nothing he knows of.
Only, there is something that compares. Jin leans down first, lying between Yamapi's legs. Ryo leans down and over him, looping his hands in Yamapi's, looking down and into his eyes, so close he can barely speak. He's able to concentrate in ways Jin can't as he moves in, crying out with the suddenness of it, the tight, white hot, the endless, endless nothingness of it. He can't feel it, except in his mind, except in his imagination, and he's able to nudge Jin's shoulder and say, “ease off a minute”. It's about the three of them. Making a discovery, like being on that beach alone, only the three of them to connect them to humanity, to the world.
Jin takes a minute, and in that minute, Ryo eases himself inside, and the imagination, he realises, doesn't come close. Not by half. He couldn't possibly have imagined it. Everything is condensed to this feeling. To this life, this moment, this trio. There is nothing else. The world comes back only when Jin makes a noise in his throat, and Ryo has to hold back, because it's too good, too dangerously good for words. They stay still for a moment, the three of them, and then Jin is the first to move. He moves into Yamapi, who makes a sound that sounds like heaven: rich, wonderful, Jin's name as a symphony, almost. That good.
And then he moves back, and he echoes the sound, and the beat is set. Jin is the instrument and Yamapi and Ryo, it's as if they're playing him, only they're as lost in it as Jin is. Jin moves between them, forwards and back, a sigh on one end and a grunt on the other, until the sound merges in the middle. And before long, Yamapi comes in: his hips jerk upwards as hard as Jin's thrusts, and Ryo thinks that's a red rag of sorts, so he pushes forwards as Jin moves back. And because it's Jin, and because only Jin could do it - Jin lets the pair of them play him, rising up between them, his head thrown back and his whole body shaking.
“Yes,” he's saying. “Fuck, fuck, yes, please, fuck,”
and Yamapi is echoing it, partly because he's losing control and partly because it turns Jin on, Ryo realises, to hear his voice echoed in Yamapi's. There's something in it, Ryo thinks.
“Fuck him harder,” he says, growls in Jin's ear, biting on his shoulder. And Jin does, he does, and the power is so rich and so good, he rewards Jin by fucking him harder, too, until they're not so much thrusting as just moving together, chasing pleasure down a hill, a bundle of noise, a rolling ball of cries and grunts and need.
“Fuck me harder,” Yamapi says, echoing Ryo, and in the end Jin is right and that's all Ryo needs, all the impetus in the world to make him come, and it takes him by surprise. The force of it, it's like it shocks him, right to the fingertips, as if his very fingernails are sizzling with it. He collapses against Jin, who isn't long afterwards, who knows it's the end and who gets rougher and rougher and rougher as he loses control.
And that's the part Yamapi likes best, the part where Jin loses control. And he sees it in Ryo, then in Jin. Two of them in under thirty seconds, it's more than enough. He holds it off and holds it off until the images are ripe in his head and his cock and then he gives into it, gives into everything, all the dreams and the fantasies and the thrusts and the wet, wet feeling inside-
and he makes more noise than the two of them combined.
They lie for a long time, afterwards. Jin is fast asleep between them, Ryo and Yamapi. Ryo is looking at Yamapi, and the curls of worry are intruding.
“Where do we go from now,” he says, slowly, the words curling over Jin's naked shoulders, the sweat not yet cool. He wants to take them back, before they imprint on Jin, imprint upon the dizzy feeling, before they take the edge off.
Yamapi looks at him, all dark eyes and happy and satisfied, more than he's looked in ages. He stretches, thinks. Jin moves against him, sleepy.
“I don't know,” he says, in the end. But he doesn't sound unhappy about it. “We'll have fun working it out, huh?”
Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
You better lose yourself in the music
The moment you own it, you better never let it go.
From: tokyostory
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Title: Bittersweet Symphony
Pairing/Group: KAT-TUN/NEWS. Yamapi/Jin, Yamapi/Jin/Ryo
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex, threesome.
Notes: Thank you to L for betaing. jackoweskla, I really hope you enjoy this, I had so much fun writing it! Happy Christmas!
Summary: Jin, Yamapi and Ryo swap iPods for six months while Jin goes to America. It changes them in ways they hadn't expected.
So it can change you in ways you hadn't expected (;)), I've uploaded the songs used in the fic under three playlists. The links are:
Ryo's playlist: MU | MF.
Jin's playlist: MU | MF.
Yamapi's playlist: MU | MF.
When the colour comes back into the world, Yamapi starts trying to work out how it's all come about, he and Jin. How he came to be lying like this, soaking wet and out of breath and on his back, with Jin leaning over him. With Jin's mouth over his collarbone, with his breath slick-sweet on his skin.
Jin's skin is wet, dripping onto Yamapi. He's weak, like a kitten, and his eyes are huge and dark. Silently, without prompt, the strength drains from his arms and he lies down. He puts his head on Yamapi's chest, and closes his eyes.
Yamapi wonders whether it matters, how it came about. When it feels so right and so good, whether it even matters that it doesn't make all that much sense. Jin's hair is wet, in little tendrils by Yamapi's neck. Yamapi doesn't want to think any more.
The night before Jin has to leave for the airport, they sit in Ryo's apartment and they drink. It seems something of a sombre farewell party but Jin didn't want a big fuss made. He's nervous, it's obvious in his face. And Ryo doesn't know what to say to that. It'd be easier to tease him, but Jin doesn't look like he's in the mood.
Yamapi is more at home with it, Jin's mood. He lets Jin put his head in his lap and he strokes his hair. Not for the first time, Ryo wonders, about that. He doesn't want to ask, but-
“What presents do you guys want?” Jin says, suddenly. His eyes are closed. He's relaxing.
“I want a sombrero,” Yamapi says, peacefully. “A really big one.”
“He's going to Los Angeles,” Ryo says. “Not Mexico.”
“I bet they sell sombreros everywhere,” Yamapi says. “It's America!”
“Fine, fine,” Ryo says, rolling his eyes. “I want a cowboy, then.”
“Where are they going to sell cowboys?” Yamapi asks, indignant.
“It's America!”
“What do you want a cowboy for?” Jin asks. “That's the more important question.”
“I don't! I was-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jin says, smirking. He turns over in Yamapi's lap, his head not in the least bit graceful. Yamapi nudges him, “careful.”
“What about a cowboy hat?” Yamapi says.
“I think I want a sombrero as well,” Ryo muses. “It's cooler than a cowboy hat.”
“I'm only getting you sombreros if you promise to wear them on-stage or at a shoot or something. In a magazine, so I can buy it in America and laugh at you,” Jin says. “I'll post them to you when I've bought them and you'll have to do the shoots really quick. Or I'm getting you both nothing at all.”
“I wish I was going on holiday,” Ryo says, not for the first time. He's excited about all the tours Kanjani8 have coming up, but it's a grueling schedule and a part of him wants to board the plane with Jin tomorrow. Yamapi goes back to stroking, Jin goes back to almost-sleeping.
“It's not a holiday,” he says, dozily. “More to the left, Pi.”
“Alright, master,” Yamapi says.
“I'm studying.” “Studying what?” Ryo says.
“Pus-” “Don't say it again,” Yamapi says. “Please don't say that again. Urgh.”
“I'm not going out there to have sex, Ryo,” Jin says. “I can do that right here.”
It's comments like that, that do it. That arouse suspicion. Amongst other things. Yamapi goes on stroking, his face impassive. Ryo has an urge to pick up on it, to make a joke out of it or something nonchalant like that but he can't. They're his best friends and they've always been close, but there's just that inch more, now. All the little gestures and touches and words he can't quite get out of his head. And it's partly because he's jealous and partly because it turns him on a bit.
“Not right here,” Ryo says. “You'll ruin the carpet.”
Jin falls asleep, instead. He dozes off, knocks a glass over, so he does ruin the carpet one way or another. Yamapi wakes him up and nudges him off to bed, pads back into the lounge. Ryo sits, chasing his drinks.
“He has to be up in three hours,” Yamapi says. “You want to go to bed?”
“Nah,” Ryo says. He's not tired. He rarely gets tired these days, it's useful. “Do you?”
“Nope,” Yamapi says. “I'm not tired yet. Maybe I'll sleep later.”
“It's going to be weird without him,” Ryo says. “Maybe somebody really intelligent will walk into our lives when he goes. Y'know, cosmic order restored.”
“Shut up,” Yamapi says, nudges him, laughing. “He's not that bad.”
“You think he'll be alright?”
“He'll be fine,” Yamapi says, and he doesn't look worried. Ryo bites on his lip, wanting to say so many things but finding himself unable to.
“Can you imagine going to a foreign country and living on your own?” he says, instead. “We've been doing this for so long I can't imagine it.”
“Sometimes I think about it,” Yamapi says. “I think it'd be good. I think it'll be good for him.”
“You'll miss him.”
Yamapi grins, nods. “I'll miss him.”
“Are you guys-” It's not the way he wanted to ask, really, but it's the kind of thing that's impossible to ask, no matter how you approach it. Ryo's always been a 'rip off the band-aid fast' kind of person. He can't end the sentence, though. There's no way of ending the sentence.
“I don't know,” Yamapi says. “I don't know what's happening. I think he's going through changes. I don't think it's anything serious.”
“Okay,” Ryo says. That makes no sense. Trust those two to come up with something nonsensical.
“Does it bother you?”
“No,” Ryo lies. “It's a bit weird, but I'll get used to it. I think I've known for ages.”
“I don't know,” Yamapi says. “I'm not getting used to anything. Don't get used to it. Like I said, big changes. Who knows.”
“I think the drink's making us morbid and depressing,” Ryo says. “This is the worst send-off party ever. American girls will ask him about his friends and instead of saying that we're hot, muscular and the life of the party, he'll be like, 'oh, yeah, they're probably at home alone, drinking.'”
Yamapi laughs. “He'll be all, 'you know they threw this send-off party for me and all we did was sit in a drunken circle and talk about the good old days.'”
“Fuck, we're getting old, Pi.”
“Don't say that,” Yamapi says. “We're not old. We're just drunk. And depressing. Come on, let's do something fun. We need to send Jin off properly.”
“Okay,” Ryo says, cheerfully. “I'll go and wake him up.”
“No,” Yamapi says. “I mean. We need to give him a present. Something to remember us by.”
“Okay,” Ryo says, sitting down, disappointed. “Like what?”
“Okay...if you were going off on your own, to a foreign country, what would you most want to have with you?”
“Porno mags,” Ryo says, waggling his eyebrows. Yamapi hits him with a cushion.
“Alright,” he says, lying on his back, more comfortable on the floor. “I'd want to take memories, I guess. Good memories.”
“He's got photographs,” Yamapi says. “And he's got his brain. Stop it-”
“I didn't say anything!” Ryo says. But he's smirking.
“I've got it!” Yamapi says. “Music. We'll give him music.”
“What, our CDs?” Ryo says. “I guess we could-”
“No, no, I mean...we'll all swap iPods. We'll give him our music. I'm always playing stuff in the apartment that he likes, he keeps saying he's going to download it and never does. Give him something to remind him of us!”
“Huh,” Ryo says. It's a good idea. A really good idea. “So, what, we put all our iPods into a box and everyone chooses one?”
“Yeah,” Yamapi says, getting excited. “We can wrap them up in something, so it's a secret. It'll be like an early Secret Santa. Come on, it'll be great.”
“Heh,” Ryo says. “I like it. Least one of us has a brain, Pi. I'm going to make a play list on mine.”
Yamapi decides that he wants to do the same, so leaving Jin to sleep in Ryo's bed, he darts the five or ten minutes it takes to get to his apartment. They make play lists, each as amused as each other. They leave a message for the person who'll inherit their iPod. It makes Yamapi feel warm inside, to imagine his music in somebody else's hands for a while. Like an unseen, unspoken bond, thousands of miles away.
Ryo wakes Jin up, tells him to go home and make sure he's packed everything. He tells him about the idea, and Jin gets over-excited, rushing around the apartment, talking around his toothbrush. He's got hours to go before his flight, so he agrees to make a play list of his own. They'll swap at the airport, Ryo says, before Jin gets on the plane.
For the first time in a week or so, Jin looks genuinely excited to be going.
They swap them in the car, outside the airport. It's still early, not many people around. For once, no photographers. Only a bored-looking taxi driver pays them any interest. They each rummage around in the rucksack Yamapi's brought with him, removing their own envelope. Jin can't wait to find out whose iPod he has (he hopes that it isn't his own) but Ryo and Yamapi force him to keep it wrapped until he gets on the plane, so as not to spoil the surprise.
They decide to drop him off rather than coming in, arousing attention. The hug Yamapi gives Jin seems to last forever, until Ryo honks the horn and smirks at them both in the rear-view mirror.
“Get a room,” he says, and Jin just sticks his tongue out. He lugs his bags off to the entrance, walking backwards and waving, until he nearly falls over a small woman pushing a trolley, and decides it's best to turn around. That's the last glimpse they catch of him, falling over a woman with a trolley, and it seems apt, somehow.
Los Angeles isn't like Jin thought it would be. He came with few expectations, so as not to be intimidated or disappointed. It seems much larger and brighter than Tokyo, as if the sun probably never goes down. It's fresh, new, exciting. Scary as hell.
He opened his envelope on the plane. The iPod was black, which gave the game away, and he laughed to himself. The woman beside him, clutching a book about plane crashes with shaky hands, glared at him. He wanted to tell her that her fear was not amusing to him, and that he was going to be spending months with Ryo's music, Ryo, who has no taste Jin approves of. That's amusing to him. He wants to tell her that, but he doesn't dare.
He decides to play Ryo's message, as he walks towards the hall of residence he'll be living at for the next six months or so.
Pi or Bakanishi,
I hope that you got this, Jin. I think it'd do you good to develop some credible taste. I'd pain me if Pi got this, because he already has taste. It'd be a waste of my highly-tuned ear.
Anyway, enjoy the music, don't lose the iPod or drop it in water or anything either of you are capable of doing when you're not supervised. I'll be quizzing you on it, 'kay?
See you soon, idiots.
Ryo.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Jin smiles to himself. The familiarity is comforting. Not so much the music, though. He thumbs the first track. It's dulcet with annoying guitar twirls. It has lyrics he doesn't really understand, though he catches the odd word. The vocal is gritty, grating. He and Ryo will never understand each other.
You can't even dance to it.
When he gets to his hall, the students there investigate him with some curiosity. All new students get that sort of treatment, he thinks, as they certainly don't seem to recognise him. They talk in very slow, jilted English about his name, his family, his journey. They're nice people, but they talk too fast. He'll have to get used to that.
He asks them what Californication means, and they say something about California.
California is where he is, he gets that much. They say it's about the spread of California. Which makes no sense, because places don't grow, don't suddenly get bigger and swallow up other states. Not without the government realising.
They giggle at his attempt to say it, Californication. He laughs, too, because it's funny and because they're not being unkind. If they tried to say Hamamatsu, he'd probably laugh at them.
“There's no danger of you getting it,” one of the guys says. A few times, various phrasings, until Jin gets what he means. And he has to agree. In a way, he's relieved. He doesn't want to be Californicated.
Ryo sets off on the first of Kanjani8's tours not long after the iPod exchange, sleepy and in a way unprepared for everything that's about to hit him. It's been easier with NEWS being on hiatus, to focus on one band and one goal. In a horrible way, there's a sense of dread about being in two bands again. It requires him to spread himself much too thin. The thoughts plague his mind for the first few days and he doesn't talk that much to anybody else.
On the bus, he gets out the new iPod. It's blue, which gave the game away as soon as he unwrapped it. Yamapi's always liked blue. He likes the sky, the ocean. Anything too big to understand. He always was fascinated by things beyond his understanding. He considers himself lucky, because he and Yamapi have very similar taste. It's not as though he's going to be spending months on the road with Jin's music, which is full of attitude and noise and everything that makes Jin Jin, he guesses.
He watches the world go by, the muted mountains and the long, green valleys that spread forever without one person to break up the colour. He watches the sky, which is grey and overcast and not at all the wide, blue shade that Yamapi likes so much. He thinks about Yamapi, and about his silence in the car after Jin had gone. He thinks about the sky then, bright blue with the planes tacked on, like a childish ceiling with stickers on it. The sky hasn't been as blue since.
Ryo or Jin, the message says,
I figure that whichever one of you gets this you won't be too disappointed. I think you both like my music, right? I hope you both like it. We're apart for a little while, so it wouldn't be good if we all hated the music we had to listen to...
Can a friendship be destroyed by music? Heh.
Anyway, enjoy the songs, there's not that many of them, but you know what I'm like. I just listen to everything to death. See you both soon, ne? We're going to have one hell of a party.
Pi.
Southern All Stars - Sea of Love
Ryo doesn't mind Yamapi's music, though it isn't his thing. He prefers mellow music, music he doesn't have to actively process. Music that processes him. Yamapi's music is upbeat, it's music you go running to, or climb buildings to, or sticky-tape fantasies of saving the world to.
It's poppy, it's cheesy, it's uplifting. But at least it isn't dance, and for that, he's thankful. He allows the song to wash over him, the way he would his own music. He tries to switch off the part of himself that wants to resist, because this isn't anything he'd choose to listen to. The vocal is mild, a little bit bland. The strings aren't slow, they're perky. There's chimes and bits of cymbal.
The bus is very quiet. People are asleep, others listening to music on their own, or reading. They're together so much that they relish quiet at any moment they can. It's a lonely life. A wonderful life, but also lonely.
Listening to Yamapi's music grounds him. Slowly, gradually, he starts to feel a bit better. He's reminded of going to visit Yamapi and hearing the song playing as Yamapi cooked for them. The scent of proper home-cooked food, of warmth and friendship and the world being still for a bit. The song is cheesy and frankly, a little bit naff, but it's so distinctly Yamapi that it makes Ryo feel warm inside.
Yamapi always likes the sea, Ryo thinks. Figures that the first track would be about the sea. Only instead of being a vast, gloomy, cold world, it's warm and spirited. Like being submerged in memories. He wants to send Yamapi an e-mail and tell him, but he doesn't.
He still has his pride.
Yamapi feels like he's lost in a big sea of possibilities. The problem with coming off hiatus but losing a band member to another tour is that it leaves your options a bit thin on the ground. Instead, he's looking at all the different dramas and radio shows he could do on his own, and feeling a bit overwhelmed. Change doesn't suit him. He doesn't like change. He's been on unsteady ground for too long, and nothing seems to make sense anymore. He wants to call Jin, but he doesn't dare. Jin went to America for space, and change. Jin likes change.
It seems apt, somehow, that Yamapi ended up with Jin's iPod. He was hoping for it, not because he likes Jin's music but because it would make them feel connected. Yamapi misses Jin and hearing his music, well, it brings them closer together in a way. But for the first few days of the exchange, Yamapi doesn't listen to any music at all because he knows the minute he does, all the change will become real. He leaves it until he's stopped thinking about Jin in his lap, head bowed over his collarbone, and the sweat droplets-
He's waiting until it leaves his mind, and when it does, it's a good three days in. He gets up, prepares himself for the interview he's got that morning, and puts Jin's message on. Finally, he's ready to listen to his voice.
Pi or Ryo-chan,
You guys are LUCKY. Consider this a musical education. I think I put too many songs on the play list because I forgot how many we were supposed to have, but I think that makes you even luckier. More music for your money, right?
So. You better listen up for my learnings. ENJOY.
Jin.
Justin Timberlake - My Love
It's not a bad song, Yamapi thinks. It's too cool for his tastes, and you couldn't work out to it - but there's something of a swagger to it. Something fundamentally Jin. He listens to it, imagines Jin singing in the shower to it, the way he does. Yamapi remembers that Jin took his first iPod into the shower with him and broke it, so he had to buy a new one. It's bright green, apple green, gorgeous. Yamapi's glad that he has it.
He imagines Jin's broken English, his inability to rap, the way he sometimes dances when he's wet and it just adds to the effect. He dances for Yamapi, sometimes. Eyes locked on, hips turning. And Yamapi wonders, what he'd have to do to make it something other than wisps of smoke in the dark. He catches Jin, but only for a moment. And now, he's thousands of miles away, which doesn't help.
Despite himself, he finds himself dancing a bit. He doesn't normally dance, not even when Jin tries to make him. But Jin isn't here, and somebody should be dancing. It's a morning for dancing.
Radiohead - Lucky
Jin wakes up all the time. Having been on American time for a week and a bit, he was hoping that he'd soon start sleeping through the night, but it hasn't happened yet. Yamapi hasn't called, yet. Neither has Ryo. Both of them have sent e-mails, but they're probably busy, and Jin doesn't want to admit that he's lonely. He is, a bit. Everybody talks very fast and he's made friends, but he can't get to know them as well as he wants to because he doesn't want to make them repeat themselves or slow down all the time.
He likes Los Angeles. It's very busy and flustered but it suits him. It's bright and warm and sunny. Everyone seems more laidback. Jin wishes that he could be laidback. He worries a lot, in Los Angeles. About not being called. About not being able to speak the language. About his finances. About his studies. About not having somebody to worry for him. About a thousand and one things.
Ryo's music is depressing, but in an odd way, it helps. He listens to it before he goes to sleep, to help him wind down. Radiohead are slow, with vocals that simmer in the background. Like watching somebody move in slow motion, that's their music. They wash over you, like water. They help Jin to sleep. And when he wakes up, full of worries, they help him to calm down. He listens to the music as he brushes his teeth in the morning, letting the guitars and the slow, soft voice soothe him. He vows not to worry until he has something he can change.
“'Cause I'm your superhero,” he sings along, “We are standing on the edge.”
He likes the idea of being a superhero, even though the guy singing the song doesn't sound too enthusiastic about it.
“It's gonna be a glorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrious day!”
“Would that make you wanna change your scene,” Jin says, slowly. “And wanna be the one in my scene. That means...?”
The girl he sits next to in lectures, she smiles and nods. “Well,” she says. “You need to work on it a bit. But it means what you want to say, pretty much. It's like saying, 'I want you with me. How do I win you over?'”
“There's too much...'wanna',” Jin says. “Wanna wanna. Justin Timberlake is popular here, huh.”
“Is he popular in Japan?”
“Um,” Jin thinks about it. He's never really noticed. He dances to the music in the clubs, and that's about it. He wants to e-mail something to Yamapi in English, because he doesn't want Yamapi to think he's wasting time in America. And he wants it to be a song lyric, because he's hoping Yamapi's got his iPod. He has a feeling about it, and his feelings are usually right. It's just that he's not prepared for answering questions about the chosen lyric, or about Justin Timberlake.
“I don't know,” he says, eventually. “Probably. His music is popular.”
“What other music do you like?”
“Hip-hop,” Jin says, after some thought. And the way it comes out is funny, so they laugh, both of them. He gets her to write it down, the words, and then he e-mails Yamapi. It's probably two in the morning over there, he's never got the hang of time differences, but by the time it's morning in Japan, Jin will have chickened out.
Would that make you wanna change your scene. And wanna be the one in my scene?
-Jin.
Huh? This is Japan! Speak Japanese. Idiot.
-Yamapi
Ryo finds that he's starting to look forward to listening to his music, something that doesn't happen to him very often. He loves his music collection, but he thinks that he doesn't appreciate it enough. It chills him out and calms him down, but he doesn't listen to it, not closely. He's become complacent about it. Listening to Yamapi's music gives him a buzz, of memories and familiarity. Like refreshing his brain with cold water. 'Oh yeah', it says. 'I remember this'.
Yamapi e-mails him after one of the first shows. Ryo's on a high, he can't stop hugging his bandmates, wanting the closeness, the intimacy, the buzz to go on forever. They're the same way, they dog pile onto the bus and talk in excited voices about how fucking fantastic performing is and how they're living the best lives in the world. Yamapi e-mails him, and Ryo can't stop laughing, because there's something fundamentally funny about Jin and Yamapi and their endless network of confusion.
It's a lyric from some song of his. Justin Timberlake? Hang on, I'll ask someone.
-Ryo
What does it mean, though??
-Yamapi
I don't know! This is Jin we're talking about! It's by Justin Timberlake. Subaru doesn't know the title but he says the song's rubbish anyway.
-Ryo
Glay - Yes Summerdays
Ryo remembers the time Jin, Yamapi and he travelled miles to go to the beach. A proper one. Jin and Yamapi had been for a photoshoot some years before and it took them hours to find their way back. They had intended to go there when it was light, but because of all the hassle, it was already evening when they'd arrived. Ryo maintained that it didn't matter, and he was right.
It had been dark, on the beach, and they'd walked along it like aliens on another planet. So dark and delicious and cold, all they'd been able to hear was the sea somewhere in the distance. Unable to see the shore, unable to feel the waves, the three of them had been lost in the in-between, where the air was chilly and salty, and they'd clung onto one another and laughed about it.
It had been nice, just the three of them. Honest. True. They'd lit a fire once they'd found their way back to the shore, drank beer and laughed about the good old days. And danced together, drunken dancing to no music at all, just dancing, just laughing. Just truth, and honesty.
That's what the song reminds him of. Only it wasn't a summer day, more an evening, more something darkly suggestive. Ryo wonders if that's what Yamapi thinks of, when he listens to the song. He wants to be back on that beach. He wants to be back, drunkenly dancing with Yamapi and Jin.
When the group get to bed, it's after two in the morning. They should go to sleep right away, Ryo knows this, but he lies in bed awake, in the dark, thinking. And he knows that he shouldn't be thinking about it, Yamapi and Jin dancing, falling over one another in the sand, but he does. And he thinks about where he'd want to take it, afterwards. Where Yamapi and Jin might take it, afterwards. All drunk and fluid and dancing with their eyes closed, their hands on each other. It becomes a bedroom, it becomes a bed scene, and the two of them have their eyes closed, and their hands on each other.
Jamiroquai - Just Dance
Yamapi starts filming Proposal Daisakusen, which is exciting enough to take his mind off everything else that's going on. He loves acting. It's like escapism, but better. He doesn't just wander off into another world, he controls that world. He touches it, lives it. It's the best form of escapism there is.
The air is starting to feel like spring, and Yamapi listens to Jamiroquai on the train, in the car. He's had to translate the lyrics loosely in his head, but they make him feel better about things. He's often wondered why Jin is so optimistic, so forward-looking. Most of the music he listens to is the same way. Perhaps Yamapi should try it.
Jin is the sort of person who dances out the bad times he goes through. Of course, he'd say that the dancing leads to sex, so maybe he sexes out the bad times, but either way, it's better than getting depressed about it.
The only problem with Jamiroquai is the lunatic lead singer. Yamapi looks the band up on YouTube, and wishes he hadn't.
Richard Ashcroft - Lonely Souls
Jin eventually discovers that you can dance to Ryo's music, after all. It's just slow dancing. Winding dancing. Ryo would call it slutty, but Ryo knows nothing about dancing. Only about depressing music. Jin doesn't like the song by Richard Ashcroft. It's all about dying. He doesn't like music about death. It seems like an oxymoron: music is life, not death.
The beat, though, is something else. He'd dance to this drunk without caring what it's saying. Still, it's no wonder Ryo is so sarcastic and cross, listening to these lyrics all the time.
He calls Yamapi, says, “I'm going to cry in a space that don't hold my name.”
“Um,” Yamapi says. “No fake?”
Jin laughs, and the sound makes them both feel better. He continues in Japanese, “I'm a lonely soul. This song says I am.”
“You got Ryo's iPod, then,” Yamapi says, amused. “He's a lonely soul, too.”
“It's no wonder he's sad,” Jin says. “All of his music is sad.”
“Are you sad?”
“No,” Jin lies. “Yeah. A bit. How are things there? Tell me how things are there.”
Yamapi thinks. Things are boring in Japan. Same old, same old. “Not much to tell,” he says. “Ryo's off touring, NEWS are doing...a few things. We did the concert last week, and the single is out in March, so we're preparing for that. Oh, and I'm filming Proposal Daisakusen. The workload's pretty quiet, except for Ryo. They're working him to death.”
Jin processes this information, but it all feels very far away. He knows that half of KAT-TUN are pissed at him, and it surprises him, to remember that he has a band to come home to.
“What about you?” Jin says. “How are you?”
“I'm bored,” Yamapi says. “I'm eating too much.”
“Ngh,” Jin says. “Tell me about the food.”
“I had barbecue the other day. Proper Korean stuff. Heaps of chicken. And buckwheat noodles, the soft kind-”
“Pi-”
“And vegetables, pan-fried in this honey stuff. Really good sauce.”
“This is 'phone sex. You realise that.”
Yamapi grins. “I had ice-cream afterwards. Sesame seed. Proper stuff. Melt in the mouth stuff.”
“Ungh,” Jin says. “I'm coming home now.”
“I had ribs tonight,” Yamapi says, now feeling malicious. “Shirota and I went out and had ribs. Chunky ones, not the cheap kind. Got all sticky-fingered. So good.”
“I'm living on $10 a day,” Jin says, mournfully.
“What's $10?”
“You don't want to know,” Jin says. “I'm going to die in a space that don't hold my fame, Pi.”
“Die?” Yamapi says. “Don't be stupid.”
“Can I come home and eat with you? Get all sticky-fingered? I could lick the barbecue sauce from your fingers.”
That's turning the tables, Yamapi thinks. And then some. “Yeah,” he says. “You could do that.”
“I'd want to lick everything else, too.”
Yamapi stills, lying on his bed. He's not sure what to make of that. “Uh-huh?” he says. “Like what?”
“I'll come home and show you.”
“Tease,” Yamapi says, relaxing a bit. He's never done 'phone sex before. It's always seemed like something sophisticated people do. He'd probably get it wrong.
“I could lick your neck,” Jin says. “You like it when I do that.”
“There's no barbecue sauce there,” Yamapi says. Wrong.
“I could put some there,” Jin suggests helpfully. “Or I could just kiss it anyway.”
“I miss you,” Yamapi says. “And your neck-licking.”
“I miss you too,” Jin says. “You're the only one who'd let me put barbecue sauce on your neck.”
“Ryo would,” Yamapi concedes. “But only if you didn't tell anybody about it afterwards.”
“I'm lonely, Pi,” Jin says. “I didn't think I'd be this lonely.”
“It's because it's all new,” Yamapi says, calmly. “You were like this when you started a new school. You'll be fine. Stick it out. It'll do you good. We'll all be still here when you get back.”
“For neck-licking.”
“Yeah, for that. Don't worry. And stop listening to Ryo's music. It's not doing you any good.”
“Actually, sometimes...it's alright.”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes, you can dance to it. I'll send you a video of me dancing.”
“Don't send me a video of-”
“I'm gonna send you a video of me dancing. Maybe I'll be naked~”
“I'll send you pictures of my dinner, every night this week.”
“Done.”
“Jin-”
“Gotta go, I think my battery's dying.”
“Your battery is not-”
Jin cackles, and hangs up.
Mr. Children - I Surrender
Sometimes, Ryo needs to feel calm. When he wakes up at 5am having gone to bed at 2am, when he's frustrated because he's living with the same people for months on end, when he's tired and feeling ill, he needs to feel calm. He's glad in those times that Yamapi and he share some musical taste, when he can stick on Mr. Children and not have to think about things too much.
The song is one of their mutual favourites, a slow climber of a song, a rough vocal, a set of tired lyrics. It encompasses what the worst moments of their lives are like: when they have no time and no space and no moments of calm to speak of. When they really just want to give up. When they're awake half the night because the buzz of the shows won't go away. When they can't talk to their families, or follow the stories told by their friends.
When they'd all give away their money for a day off, for a day just to feel peaceful.
There's a moment in the song near the end, where the vocal stops vocalising words and instead resigns itself to a sound, a cry of frustration and of pain. Ryo relates to that. It's more powerful than the rest of the song, put together. Somehow, it's healing. To know that he's not the only one in the world, that morning, that wants to scream.
He falls asleep on the bus and for once, sleeps the good kind of sleep, where there are dreams and where you wake up refreshed. There's no crick in his neck, for once. He wakes up feeling better.
Yamapi e-mails him with a video clip. He's not sure he wants to watch this, because last time it was footage of Yamapi in a cow suit set to music. It was disturbing. Yamapi and Jin have the monopoly on disturbing video clips. But he downloads it and watches it, anyway, and it isn't disturbing so much as vaguely adorable. And irritating.
Jin should know that you can't dance to Richard Ashcroft. You're supposed to chill out to Richard Ashcroft. You're supposed to calmly absorb the music, let it change you inside. You're not supposed to make it slutty by dancing to it. And Jin looks really slutty - with the hips and the hands above his head and, well, it's clear that he made this for Yamapi. It's kinky, that. He likes kinky.
At least Jin isn't naked.
“Your boyfriend's a big slut,” he e-mails back. “And he can't dance.”
“Haha,” Yamapi e-mails back. “Only one of those three statements is true. Should I ask him which?”
Namie Amuro - Hide and Seek
Yamapi is familiar with Namie Amuro (he and Jin once made out to Want Me, Want Me which Jin dances altogether too well to), but he's never been all that fond of her. Her music is jerky, cold, metallic. Jin loves her. She's noisy, with a beat. It's all he ever demands of a track.
Hide and Seek is apt, it must be said. It describes their relationship better than he ever could using all the words in his vocabulary. Only, he's not sure which one of them is hiding and which is seeking. He and Jin talk every few days. He's concerned that Jin is lonely, but trying not to give him enough comfort that he'll entice him into coming home. It'll do Jin good to be out there.
It's just hard, because he misses him. Still. It's almost February and it's still there, the ache. Having his music around is like having Jin there, and at any moment, he expects to walk into his kitchen and see Jin dancing around breakfast. Muttering English lyrics in that awful, pseudo-American way of his.
He keeps the video clip on his 'phone. He e-mails Jin to tell him that he's sent it to Ryo, and Jin e-mails back with a string of curses, which makes Yamapi laugh. Jin then asks what he's eating for lunch, which suggests that he's not all as bothered as he's making out (curious), and Yamapi sends him a picture.
The weeks pass, slowly. Yamapi does this and that to pass the time, and some of it turns out to be fun. He does shoots with Tego, interviews with Shige and Massu. NEWS release a single, and the success of it blows him away. They prepare for their national tour. Once he gets used to the strangeness of Jin being so far away and once Ryo comes back to NEWS, he finds that things get easier. Every morning, he plays one of Jin's tracks, and it helps him feel connected enough not to think about him for the rest of the day.
Hide and Seek is his favourite choice, in the end. The more he listens to it, the more he likes it. It has rhythm, body, warmth when you let it in. He dances to it, because somebody should, and that sets his morning off to a good start. The more he listens, the more the jarring vocal disappears and the more the warmth underneath comes through.
He doesn't tell Ryo that he's starting to like Jin's music. He still has his pride.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
Jin meets with KAT-TUN in New York, a little while before he's due to come home. He assures them that he is coming home and despite himself, he's looking forward to it. Los Angeles gets easier by the day, now that his friends have learnt to speak more slowly and he's learnt to decipher their accents. Things are good, but he's itchy to go home and get back into the swing of the band. Too much time off, it's not good for him, he thinks. And he misses his friends, his family.
He looks in the mirror, a few days before his flight leaves. He wonders whether the tan lines on his hips mean that he's Californicated. People go to the beach a lot, here. Tokyo isn't good at beaches, and Jin thinks he'll miss that. He looks brown, healthy, happy. Maybe that's all being Californicated is. Then again, the man singing the song didn't sound happy, so maybe being Californicated isn't as good as it first appears.
The vocalist is obsessed with California, though, it's weird. It's like he has a vendetta against the place. He asks some of the guys about it (who's Dani California?) but they just laugh at him, praising his good music taste. Jin thinks they don't know who she is, either. He resolves to ask Ryo, when he gets home.
The only line that he understands is “California, show your teeth”, which doesn't make sense because California doesn't have teeth. It does have nice beaches, though.
When he goes to the airport, a few of his friends go too - brandishing cards and goodbye gifts. It touches him, because he didn't think he'd make any sort of lasting impression. He's enjoyed his time with them. It's time to go home, but he's appreciated them, more than he can possibly say.
He boards the plane and reads his cards slowly, one by one. They're happy, somehow tanned, somehow sunshine-sweet. There's a faint scent of orange, of the sea. It makes him happy to read them. He listens to Dani California, wondering if he can borrow any of the lyrics for the press conference that awaits him on the other side.
A week and a bit after he arrives, they throw him a surprise party, his best friends. They all go to the beach, because apparently Ryo hasn't been able to get the place out of his head. It's quiet, it's beautiful and it's the perfect place for a party. Jin hasn't seen his family yet; he's waiting for the press intrusion to die down. He's been working hard since his arrival back into the country, and a party sounds more than welcome. He's hardly had a chance to call any of his friends, much less meet up with them, so his face beams widely when they come to pick him up.
It makes Ryo feel nostalgic, to watch Yamapi and Jin hugging in the back of the car, the same way they did six months previously. This time, it's happy, it's complete, it's all things being right with the world.
“You're tanned,” Yamapi says, as Ryo drives off. It's almost an accusation, but not quite.
“I'm Californicated,” Jin says. Ryo bursts out laughing and Yamapi frowns.
“You're what?”
“I'm tanned,” Jin says. “And I'm happy to be home. Idiot. Give me another hug.”
The beach party is beautiful. Most parties aren't beautiful: they're sort of grotesque, dizzying, a rush and a roar. This one is beautiful. Street lights above them and a bonfire, and a barbecue. Music, the sound of the waves beyond. The dark, the dancing. There's something beautifully hedonistic about it. When they arrive, they sit in the car and watch the scene for a while.
“Whose music are they playing,” Jin asks, leaning out of the window. It makes several people down below cheer and wave. “Is that my music?”
“It's your music,” Yamapi says, shoving into him. “Figured you'd appreciate hearing all that noise again.”
“I kinda liked Ryo's,” Jin admits, sheepishly. “But it's rubbish for a party. You can't even dance to it.”
“Actually,” Ryo says. “I thought that video I saw of you was quite good.”
Jin looks at him in the backseat, in the rear view mirror. He smirks, and Yamapi smirks, and Jin just says, as if it's obvious, “Yeah, it was.”
Eve - Tambourine
They dance, Ryo watches. It's how it's always been, it's how it always will be, probably. Ryo doesn't mind the dancing. There's something about the way Jin does it, how showy and yet how unaware it is - the way Yamapi looks at him as he does it, like he's the only person in the universe worth looking at.
They've always been best friends, as long as Ryo has known them. And now, they're venturing into some other territory. Some other territory that doesn't freak Ryo out as much as it turns him on, however wrong he should feel about it. When Jin winds a hand down Yamapi's front, down his collarbone to his hipbone, when he looks at him with those possessive eyes - Ryo finds it impossible to feel anything but right, right, right.
They're pretty drunk, everyone knows it. They're all drunk, the beer is plentiful and apparently, maybe endless. Ryo is pretty drunk, himself. Otherwise, he'd never think about approaching them, his best friends, his slutty, sexy best friends. He'd never think about trying to slide in-between, about being the meat in the sandwich, as it were.
Only, Jin's giving him come-on eyes and Yamapi's hardly complaining, so Ryo hands his beer bottle to the nearest person and heads onto the seafront. The light is dim there, the world throbbing on a pulse. Everyone is dancing, light cutting through a sea of bodies. Ryo takes his place behind Yamapi, in front of Jin. They dance together, all three of them, as if they're the tiny little discs on one giant tambourine, as if they all shake to the same sound, respond to the same fundamental heartbeat.
Ryo is looking at Jin and Jin is looking at Yamapi, who spreads himself back against Ryo, forward against Jin. His eyes are lidded, content. It's never going to feel this way again, Ryo is faintly aware of it. Jin will go back to KAT-TUN, he and Yamapi will make a go of it. Life will start, again. This is the in-between moment, the pause they all cry out for. The day of peace.
He runs his hands down Yamapi's shoulders, until Yamapi tilts his head, and Jin leans in to kiss the space that's left.
Southern All Stars - Tsunami
They go back to the hotel room, a staggering mess of limbs. Jin is laughing, Yamapi is pulling Ryo around. And Ryo, Ryo's just going wherever the two of them will take him.
“Are you sure,” he says, as the three of them fall through the door. He wants them to be sure. He's so tired of regrets. Jin shuts the door, looking over Ryo's shoulder at Yamapi. Yamapi is looking at Ryo with those hard, black eyes of his, like he's never been surer of anything in his life.
“Okay,” he says. Breathes. “Ok-”
And Yamapi kisses him, then. Jin watches, curious. He waits until Yamapi is done and then he asks, amused,
“How is he?”
“Try him yourself,” Yamapi says, wryly. Jin turns Ryo around and kisses the space Yamapi has left him, as Yamapi takes off his jeans, his shirt.
“What's he doing?” Ryo mutters, as Jin breaks apart. “Is he supposed to be doing that?”
“No,” Jin says, tartily. “Bad Pi. You're supposed to let us do that. He's left his underwear. Ryo?”
Ryo doesn't need asking twice. He climbs onto the bed, where Yamapi is lying and watching, like a cat in anticipation of being petted. He watches Ryo, watching him, a little smile playing on his face. He lifts his hips as Ryo leans forward, closing his eyes as Ryo separates him from fabric. Jin stands behind, licking his lips. He's quietly establishing authority.
“Suck him off,” he says, and it's not a question. Ryo looks over his shoulder, and Yamapi opens his eyes a fraction, so Jin raises an eyebrow, as if prompting argument. Nobody argues, and Ryo looks back at Yamapi. Yamapi is still smiling. He's waiting. He reaches out, cups Ryo's jaw. There's a moment, of something, some silent communication - and Ryo doesn't feel intimidated, or lonely, or frightened anymore. He just feels the energy in the room, the lust and the comfort and the intimacy. And as he leans down, he's not thinking about the fact that he's never done this, only thought about it. He's thinking about Yamapi's face as he takes the head between his lips-
The gasp is something of a surprise. Yamapi's head drops back, the noise edgy, as if he'd intended to keep it up his sleeve for a while. Jin leans against the bedpost, folds his arms, his eyes black with concentration. Ryo looks at him for a bit, seeking approval, until Yamapi tilts his chin upwards. It's stubborn, domineering, hot, and Ryo doesn't argue with any of those things.
He realises, in time, that the more turned on Yamapi gets, the more he can hear Jin breathing behind him. Looking at Yamapi, he knows that he's doing a good job. Bliss is etched across Yamapi's features, easy and honest and true. It's not that difficult to pick up, in the end. He applies pressure when Yamapi flexes his hips for it, tightens when he groans for it. Most of it is instinct. Most of it is just pure connection. And for the past few months, they've written connection across the globe. In comparison, this is easy.
It's when he flicks his eyes across and looks at Jin that he understands just how good a job he's doing. Jin is coming undone, that much is blatant. Jin has his hand in his jeans and his eyes are unfocused. He's watching them both, Yamapi's face as much as Ryo, the one causing it to change and contract like that. He doesn't say a word, but his breathing is something fierce, and that alone makes Ryo bold.
He moves his mouth away, replaces it with a wet hand. “Get on the bed,” he says.
Jin nods, accepting the shifting of power, and undoes his jeans. Ryo leans over, pulls him in by the loose waistband, catching a hint of warm skin underneath - and kisses Jin again, tasting heat, horniness. Yamapi watches, lidded eyes, aroused, barely able to speak.
“Fuck him,” Ryo says, between kisses. Jin pulls back, suddenly, looks at Yamapi. It's Yamapi's turn to raise an eyebrow.
“Someone better had,” he says, and he's half-laughing, but it isn't a joke. “Or I'm going to explode.”
Jin nods, looks back at Ryo, grins. “You'll fuck me?” he says. And it's music to Ryo's ears.
Ryo kneels behind Jin, watches as he preps Yamapi, who responds in ways Ryo never imagined he would. He turns confident, impulsive, needy in bed. Demanding. It's hot. Watching over Jin's shoulder, it's a little like taking it for himself. Only it's better, because Jin is there in the middle, hot, letting Ryo stroke his cock around his hipbone. He preps Jin the way he sees Jin prep Yamapi. They're sharing looks, Yamapi and Jin, both grunting, both twitching, and Ryo feels so powerful there's nothing that could adequately describe it. Nothing he knows of.
Only, there is something that compares. Jin leans down first, lying between Yamapi's legs. Ryo leans down and over him, looping his hands in Yamapi's, looking down and into his eyes, so close he can barely speak. He's able to concentrate in ways Jin can't as he moves in, crying out with the suddenness of it, the tight, white hot, the endless, endless nothingness of it. He can't feel it, except in his mind, except in his imagination, and he's able to nudge Jin's shoulder and say, “ease off a minute”. It's about the three of them. Making a discovery, like being on that beach alone, only the three of them to connect them to humanity, to the world.
Jin takes a minute, and in that minute, Ryo eases himself inside, and the imagination, he realises, doesn't come close. Not by half. He couldn't possibly have imagined it. Everything is condensed to this feeling. To this life, this moment, this trio. There is nothing else. The world comes back only when Jin makes a noise in his throat, and Ryo has to hold back, because it's too good, too dangerously good for words. They stay still for a moment, the three of them, and then Jin is the first to move. He moves into Yamapi, who makes a sound that sounds like heaven: rich, wonderful, Jin's name as a symphony, almost. That good.
And then he moves back, and he echoes the sound, and the beat is set. Jin is the instrument and Yamapi and Ryo, it's as if they're playing him, only they're as lost in it as Jin is. Jin moves between them, forwards and back, a sigh on one end and a grunt on the other, until the sound merges in the middle. And before long, Yamapi comes in: his hips jerk upwards as hard as Jin's thrusts, and Ryo thinks that's a red rag of sorts, so he pushes forwards as Jin moves back. And because it's Jin, and because only Jin could do it - Jin lets the pair of them play him, rising up between them, his head thrown back and his whole body shaking.
“Yes,” he's saying. “Fuck, fuck, yes, please, fuck,”
and Yamapi is echoing it, partly because he's losing control and partly because it turns Jin on, Ryo realises, to hear his voice echoed in Yamapi's. There's something in it, Ryo thinks.
“Fuck him harder,” he says, growls in Jin's ear, biting on his shoulder. And Jin does, he does, and the power is so rich and so good, he rewards Jin by fucking him harder, too, until they're not so much thrusting as just moving together, chasing pleasure down a hill, a bundle of noise, a rolling ball of cries and grunts and need.
“Fuck me harder,” Yamapi says, echoing Ryo, and in the end Jin is right and that's all Ryo needs, all the impetus in the world to make him come, and it takes him by surprise. The force of it, it's like it shocks him, right to the fingertips, as if his very fingernails are sizzling with it. He collapses against Jin, who isn't long afterwards, who knows it's the end and who gets rougher and rougher and rougher as he loses control.
And that's the part Yamapi likes best, the part where Jin loses control. And he sees it in Ryo, then in Jin. Two of them in under thirty seconds, it's more than enough. He holds it off and holds it off until the images are ripe in his head and his cock and then he gives into it, gives into everything, all the dreams and the fantasies and the thrusts and the wet, wet feeling inside-
and he makes more noise than the two of them combined.
They lie for a long time, afterwards. Jin is fast asleep between them, Ryo and Yamapi. Ryo is looking at Yamapi, and the curls of worry are intruding.
“Where do we go from now,” he says, slowly, the words curling over Jin's naked shoulders, the sweat not yet cool. He wants to take them back, before they imprint on Jin, imprint upon the dizzy feeling, before they take the edge off.
Yamapi looks at him, all dark eyes and happy and satisfied, more than he's looked in ages. He stretches, thinks. Jin moves against him, sleepy.
“I don't know,” he says, in the end. But he doesn't sound unhappy about it. “We'll have fun working it out, huh?”
Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
You better lose yourself in the music
The moment you own it, you better never let it go.