fic for kaminikaku
Title: The Way We Fall
By: wooden_buttons
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Word count: 5000~
Rating: PG-13
Genre/Warnings: What-if AU. Fluff, angst, rambling.
Notes: Titles with || at the end happened in the past (they’re flashbacks), because I screwed up the timeline. To kaminikaku, I wasn’t sure what you wanted but, um, I hope you like this. >:
Summary: In 2006, someone left KAT-TUN. It wasn’t Jin.
i. the opening sequence
In Jin’s head, it all goes like this:
*** a few equations ***
[Jin + KAT-TUN’s debut] - Kame = fuck it all
[Jin - Kame] x a few years = going pretty well, if a bit hard because Jin has to keep avoiding everything with Kame in it, including magazines, a few billboards, some sports channels, some brands of electronic razors, suits and shampoo. And KFC.
Jin + Kame + a few years of separation = tolerable, because Jin is totally, completely over him, and when Johnny tells someone to go become an interviewer to “widen his audience appeal,” that someone (Jin) can’t just say no.
Jin made the mistake of never putting into the equation(s) Kame’s newfound (to Jin, at least) muscles and the strength with which he pushes Jin up against the locker, hard enough to make them clang loudly, and even though Jin is taller than him, Kame is relentless, bearing down on him with all he has.
Or the fact that Jin has maybe been in love with him forever, and he’s been ignoring that since Kame left him for baseball all those years ago. Just a few months after their debut. Yeah, no biggie.
In hindsight, Jin thinks, as Kame’s teeth meet the dip of his collarbone, and Jin’s fingers catch on the buttons of Kame’s dirt-stained uniform, that he should have expected this.
After all, Math’s not really Jin’s best subject.
And he’d never been any good at resisting Kame, then, or now.
ii. a conversation in a dark hallway ||
Kame’s not supposed to be going into the Johnny’s and Associates building anymore, he knows that. He read the resignation contract. But well-he can’t just. He can’t just leave. More accurately: he can’t just stay away.
There is a soft rush of footsteps and the swish of a door opening, closing.
The footsteps come to a halt.
“What are you doing here?”
“I-I just wanted to see-” He takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to see you.”
“Bullshit.”
There’s the sound of Jin’s shoes squeaking against the tiles and he’s turning his back and Kame can’t let Jin leave, not now, not when he’s worked up all the courage he has just to come here.
“Jin-”
“Fuck off.”
Kame knows that Jin is angry. He can understand that. But he just needs-he darts forward and grabs Jin’s wrist.
The sharp sting of static when Kame’s fingers meet the smooth skin of Jin’s wrist jolts them. It’s the most they’ve touched in months, almost a year.
“Just leave, Kame,” Jin says, and he sounds tired. The hallway is dark, and neither of them can see just how much they’re both hurting.
For a moment, Kame is completely vulnerable and Jin’s heart clenches madly.
It’s better this way, Jin tells himself.
He twists away from Kame’s grip, and watches resolutely as, for the second time in the duration that Jin has loved him, Kamenashi Kazuya turns his back on him and leaves.
iii. profile of Kamenashi Kazuya as an interviewee
Kame is an easy person to interview.
No matter what, anyone lucky enough to get an interview with him leaves the interview feeling very satisfied with himself. And this is because Kame gives perfectly adequate answers without thinking too long or straying too far from the point.
He just has to grin a certain way or adjust his baseball cap so his hair falls across his forehead just so, and he’s, well. He’s charming. It’s no wonder he’s the face of so many commercials. Kamenashi Kazuya is the media’s darling.
So he doesn’t think this interview should be that difficult. By all accounts, it really shouldn’t be-Akanishi is hardly an experienced interviewer and though he’ll fumble a lot, Kame knows he can cover. So no, the problem isn’t Akanishi Jin’s interviewing skills.
The problem is Akanishi Jin himself.
iv. an exchange of texts messages on New Year’s Eve, 2009 ||
From Jin to Kame, 11:23
dun evenn know f ur stil using ths nmber
From Jin to Kame, 11:24
happy new year
From Jin to Kame, 11:27
mm bt drunk
From Jin to Kame, 11: 29
i haet u...T_T
From Jin to Kame, 11:30
i dont
From Jin to Kame, 11:33
miss you
From Kame to Jin, 1:46
Happy New Year to you too.
v. the weather conditions on all of the three times Jin has ever watched baseball ||
The very first time, it’s raining. Jin hadn’t even planned on coming, but Kame had invited him. It hadn’t even been a proper invitation, but the way Kame had mentioned it, taking his lower lip between his teeth the way he does when he’s nervous, Jin knows he couldn’t have said no.
So that’s why he’s here, getting soaked and feeling pathetic. There’s mud on his shoes and rain streaming down his shirt, and he’d leave, except-Kame’s really amazing at this. Jin doesn’t know how to describe the way Kame plays, but he thinks it might be like how Jin feels when he sings or listens to music. Kame’s not really a very good dancer or singer, but this, the way he moves, the glint in his eyes. This makes people feel.
It makes Jin ignore the cold and the sting of rain, makes him follow the trajectory of the ball when Kame bats it out of the field. It makes Jin run after it and, when the game ends and he hands it to Kame like it’s something sacred, it makes Jin’s heart flutter.
The second time, it’s blisteringly hot, and Kame’s high school team loses the game. Jin doesn’t really get how baseball is played, but he sees the disappointed look on Kame’s face when he fails to catch the ball in the last play. So Jin goes into the locker room after the game, ready to take Kame out to eat somewhere to make him happy. There’s a commotion going on and Jin doesn’t quite remember what he does, but it’s not a good thing.
There’s the feeling of his hand crushing into some other guy’s face and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know what happened-the guy had been shouting at Kame and no one was allowed to do that.
Afterwards, they leave the school and Kame tells Jin that maybe Jin shouldn’t come back to watch his games anymore, because punching the team captain was definitely a bad thing. Kame tells Jin, softly, “I can fight my own battles,” but the way he bumps their shoulders together as they fall into step means that he’s thankful, maybe a bit proud.
The third time, the game is at night, and the starts drip brightly into the sky. Jin comes and watches because he hasn’t really seen or talked to Kame properly in a long time. Jin honestly doesn’t know how Kame’s managed to juggle baseball and JE at the same time, but he has. He’s 20 now, and Jin is 22, and there are scouts at this game. It’s a big game, and Kame shines brighter than all the lights in the stadium.
Kame still picks Jin over his team when they go out to celebrate.
He tells him, haltingly, how the Giants’ manager had talked to him, and maybe, just maybe. Something could come out of this.
Jin doesn’t understand yet what any of this means, just that Kame is happy, and that’s all that matters. Something in his heart uncurls every time he is with Kame, something warm and different. It makes him kiss Kame that night, brave and indestructible but for the fingers that shake when he starts to unbutton Kame’s shirt.
“I want this,” Kame whispers, and Jin gives everything to him.
Jin doesn’t understand, and that’s what makes it so hard to accept when Kame tells him he’s leaving JE for baseball.
That’s probably what makes Jin punch him and break his (already-broken) nose too.
vi. inside the messy mind of Akanishi Jin
His first thought is this: shit, this field is huge.
The second and third ones: sun’s too hot; should have brought my shades.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth in rapid succession: this suit’s too tight; this is going to be a piece of cake; fuck, is that Kamenashi, fuck.
And the seventh, before everything becomes too jumbled for even Akanishi to understand:
I can’t do this.
It’s not just that he’s just kind of realized that doesn’t understand the rules of baseball at all.
It’s not just that the only times he’s actually cared enough to watch a few games (three, to be specific) was years ago, and he’d always made sure to be at the edge of the crowd, just watching behind the chain link fence and cheering under his breath.
It’s because he’s in the middle of this giant field, in an impeccable suit his stylist had forced him into, and his limbs feel like they might be failing him. And Jin knows exactly what (who) is causing this.
Jin just honestly, truly, has no idea what the fuck he’s doing here anymore.
Kamenashi has emerged from the other side of the field, decked in the white uniform of his team, and though he’s so far away that he probably can’t even see Jin, Jin’s sight hones in on him at once. It’s just a glance, Jin’s eyes skimming Kame’s figure, but it’s enough to tell him that this is really happening.
He does a quick about-face, doing a complicated jump and skip when he trips over his feet, and bolts towards-well, anywhere. His brain’s just screaming away away away, and then he is face to face with some weird baseball player guy who beams at him and asks, “Didn’t you say you wanted to interview our star player, Akanishi-san?”
Jin gives him a sort of half-grimace, half-smile that makes his face look paralyzed.
He’s so, utterly, completely screwed.
vii. a locker room scene
“Kamenashi-san?”
Kame is on a bench, lacing up his shoes. He finishes the knot, pulling on the two ends to tighten, and looks up. It’s one of the water boys.
“Yeah?”
“There’s some...guy, waiting for you. Outside. He’s in a suit.”
Kame nods. Guy in a suit. Okay, he can handle that. He stands up and picks up the bat he’s left leaning against the bench.
“Thanks. I’ll be right out.”
The kid nods. Before he goes out, he says, “Oh, and he says his name is Akanishi.”
The bat hits the floor with a pronounced clatter. Kame swears at his traitorous hands.
viii. a few observations
Whenever Jin sees Kame, no matter where it is and no matter how long it’s been since they last saw each other (a week or a minute or five years), he always expects Kame to look different and Kame never does.
Sometimes Kame has gained weight or sometimes he’s lost some, but he’s always looked the same to Jin, who’s known him since he was the skinny kid in too-big shoes who looked uncomfortable in his own skin.
Now he’s not really that skinny, and his shoes fit perfectly, but all Jin can see is that awkward beautiful kid he fell in love with. And that’s the biggest problem.
ix. the interview
*** first take ***
“So, Kamenashi-san.”
That sounds weird, coming from Akanishi’s mouth. Kame doesn’t think he’s ever heard Jin-Akanishi-call him that before.
“Kamenashi-san?”
“Sorry, what?” Kame totally wasn’t paying attention to the question. He laughs off his inattentiveness uneasily.
Akanishi shifts from one foot to the other. He tries a grin and ends up looking slightly pained.
“What do you think has been the secret of your success these past few years?”
That’s a terrible, generic question, Kame wants to tell him.
Instead, he says, going for a serious look, “Hard work, definitely! When you want something, you really have to work for it, and keep moving forward. My teammates, who I argue with a lot, but are always there for me-”
Akanishi actually snorts, barely managing to tamp it down.
Kamenashi’s eyes narrow.
The camera man coughs.
Akanishi sighs. “Can we do it over?”
*** second take ***
“So Kamenashi-san.”
Kame is leaning back on his bat, trying not to think too much. Just answer the questions and get this over with...
It takes a moment for him to register that Jin-Akanishi-has stopped talking. Kame blinks. Has he missed the question again?
Akanishi is grinning sheepishly. “I, um, I forgot the question, could we do another take?”
Kame would say something scathing, except that he’s still trying to accept that he actually found that well, cute.
Damn.
*** third take ***
“So, Kamenashi-san-”
A ball is speeding towards them. Someone across the field calls at Kame to catch it and he-
-doesn’t.
It hits Jin squarely in the middle of his forehead.
“Oops,” Kame deadpans.
x. why Jin hates his life
Jin thinks that’s it. After that horrendous interview, he tells himself it’s okay, he’s done it. So maybe he hadn’t been cool or suave, it doesn’t matter. He’s done. He can get over with his life now. Go to clubs and get drunk, stupid shit like that. (He doesn’t think about how seeing Kame again had done stupid, ridiculous things to his heart.)
Then Johnny calls Jin to his office. He shows Jin some charts, and talks in his old-man voice about ratings and fangirls and chemistry.
Jin blanks out through most of it because he doesn’t want this to be happening.
Johnny sits down on his chair after flipping through the last of the line graphs showing an intense increase in the ratings in that particular episode where he interviewed Kamenashi.
Jin really doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
“YOU,” Johnny says, “take him out to dinner or something. We need press on this.”
“HE HATES ME.” Jin sputters, throwing his hands up.
Johnny shrugs. “You’re being stupid. I’ll give him a call.”
He takes out his mobile and gives Jin a pointed look before he can sulk.
“Don’t give me that shit, Akanishi. I wasn’t the one you went crying to when he left. Oh wait.” Most people probably don’t know, but Johnny Kitagawa can be a bitch sometimes.
Jin growls and stands up.
“Trust me,” Johnny says, simply.
Jin leaves the room. But he doesn’t slam the door as hard as he could have.
xi. things Kame keeps in a box under his bed
1. a worn copy of the script for Gokusen 2, highlighted all over, warped and stained slightly brown where Jin had spilled cola on it on their first day on set in a fit of nervousness
2. KAT-TUN’s debut CD, never listened to
3. KAT-TUN’s debut Album, never listened to
4. KAT-TUN debut DVD, never watched
5. a pinky ring
6. the first homerun ball he ever hit, found by Jin in the field outside Kame’s school
7. lots of magazine clippings, the amount of which is too numerous to consider counting
8. figuratively, his heart
xii. the second locker room scene
“Was thinking about you,” Kame says, managing to make his voice breathy and rough at the same time.
Jin shudders, his body fixed between the cold steel of the lockers and Kame’s heavy warmth. Kame’s mouth is at his collarbone, nipping teeth and full lips, and ohgod-
“This isn’t-we shouldn’t-”
Kame unbuckles Jin’s belt and shoves his hands inside Jin’s pants.
Kame is touching him and fuck, Jin needs-Jin needs to-
“Wake up! Oi!”
Jin swears, jolting upright, and is met with Yamapi’s face, incredibly close to his. He grunts and swats at the general vicinity of Yamapi’s head. The sunlight hurts Jin’s body and he sort of wants to melt into his sheets and back into-that dream.
“Shit,” Jin mumbles. “What time is it?”
“Late enough to be late for your date!” Yamapi tells him this as cheerfully as possible.
“Date? What date-DATE. CRAP.”
Jin jumps out of the bed, scrambles around before hissing at Yamapi, “Get out, I need to get dressed.”
Yamapi takes on a hurt look, “Really, Jin? After all these years of friendship, you’re not comfortable-”
“Get. Out.”
“I’m just trying to be supportive!”
Jin glares.
Yamapi sticks his tongue out, does a quick, two-finger salute and exits.
Jin sits on the bed, digging for his cellphone underneath the sheets. He goes to his inbox again; maybe the message has miraculously disappeared. It hasn’t.
From Johnny Kitagawa to Akanishi Jin
-YOU go watch Kamenashi’s baseball game at Yokohama Stadium. Make sure someone sees you.-
He almost laughs, except he’s nervous and confused and it comes out as a whimper. Make sure someone sees you. That’s a first.
The thing is. The thing is that Jin knows what Kame does to him, what Kame has always done to him. And he knows that, all these years? They haven’t changed anything.
“Jin,” Yamapi says, appearing at Jin’s doorway with a bowl of cereal.
“That’s my cereal. You can’t just eat my cereal,” Jin says.
Yamapi points the spoon at him and says, all-knowing and wise, because he’s Yamapi and he’s Jin’s best friend and he knows everything, “Don’t screw this up.”
xiii. question and answer portion
K: “What do you want to eat?”
A: “Nothing. This place stinks.”
K: “Why did you invite me out here, then?”
A: “It wasn’t my idea.”
K: “What do you want, Akanishi?”
A: “Nothing! I don’t want…could you stop looking at me like that?”
K: “Like what?”
A: “Like-God, Kamenashi-”
K: “I assure you, I’ve never looked at you as if you were God.”
A: “Why do you have to be such an asshole?”
There’s the sound of a chair being pushed back, and really, Kame doesn’t know why he said yes when Jin asked him if he wanted to have lunch after the game, but he knows why he should’ve said no.
If he’d thought they could actually be civilized to each other after…everything that happened, Kame guesses he was wrong.
Jin stands up too, “Wait, don’t-”
He reaches out and grabs Kame’s hand, and there’s that stupid, freezing jolt of static again, where Jin’s fingers meet Kame’s wrist. Jin can feel Kame’s pulse and knows, with a burning certainty, that if he lets Kame turn around and leave again, they’ll never get this fixed. What surprises Jin most of all is that he actually wants this to be fixed.
Kame’s voice is strained when he says, “Don’t make a fucking scene, Akanishi.”
“Then let’s leave,” Jin huffs and drags Kame outside.
Kame surprises the both of them when he lets him.
xiv. things that should not have been said ||
Jin stares at him with those impossibly hurtful eyes and he says three things.
a. Go ahead and leave, I don’t fucking care.
b. We don’t need you.
c. I hate you.
Kame wishes Jin would just punch him, and he gets that granted soon enough.
xv. as opposed to things that should have been said
“We should talk about this.”
Kame blinks, looking up from his lap and remembering where he is. Jin hands him a beer; their fingers don’t touch.
He’s sitting in their old apartment, and Jin is opening the glass door to the balcony and stepping out. He throws a packet of cigarettes over his shoulder without looking and Kame snorts when it hits the wall behind him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of baseball prodigy?” Jin’s voice is soft and small, swallowed by the night sky.
Kame stands up.
It’s kind of surreal, to be back in here. The place hasn’t changed since they bought it together to live closer to the Gokusen set, except that all of Kame’s stuff is gone and all the pictures on the counter are all of Jin and his other friends. There’s this huge painting of a naked woman on the wall behind the sofa and a haphazard collection of English and Japanese CDs stacked near the widescreen TV that he doubts Jin ever uses. Kame didn’t think Jin would keep the apartment, but well. Here he is. Here they are.
“Yeah,” Kame says, “but the people I play with generally look at where they’re throwing the ball.”
Jin actually laughs, and Kame is surprised at how easily that sound travels up his spine and takes its nesting place in his chest. He’s missed this.
Jin’s voice doesn’t shake when he tells Kame to come out into the balcony and join him, but his eyes do.
Kame licks his lips nervously. He remembers too.
xvi. balcony memories ||
Kame’s favorite part of their apartment is the balcony.
Sometimes, when they’re home from a tiring day of shooting, Jin takes a packet of cigarettes and a six-pack, and they sit down on the cold tiles and look over at Japan, leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder, like they own this place, this assortment of apartment buildings and cars and roads.
Sometimes Kame stands there in the late afternoon, and Jin watches as the wind plays with his hair, shifting the red-orange strands in the sunlight.
(In the future, when he’s standing there alone Jin, will wonder if this is where it all began-this crazy mess of a not-exactly-love-affair they have. Jin will wonder why he tried so hard to push Kame away when he’s all Jin’s ever really wanted, and Jin has always fought for the things he’s wanted, except for this.)
Sometimes Jin wakes up too early, and when Kame pads out of his bedroom in the early morning, he catches the sunrise paint Jin gold, filling in the dips and curves of Jin’s body with light that seems to come from the inside.
(In the future, Kame will draw this memory from his mind and compare it to what he has, compares having Jin and having baseball. He won’t regret his decisions, but sometimes that memory will be enough to make him wish he’d chosen differently.)
Sometimes, on this balcony, Jin imagines taking Kame’s fingers and lacing them with his, thinks of Kame’s hand tangling into his hair, of kissing him on the mouth.
xvii. question and answer portion // the million-dollar edition
“Why did you leave?”
Kame’s has been in hundreds of interviews, he knows how to answer questions properly. He can’t answer this one. There are answers, and then there are answers.
“I did it for baseball,” he says, like that’s that.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Jin-” Kame stops himself. From where he’s pressed against the wall of the apartment building, he stares out at the sprawl of the city underneath them. He wonders when Akanishi started becoming Jin again. He wonders when Jin ever became Akanishi.
“I’m not asking you why you left the company Kame.”
I’m asking you why you left me.
He’s gone through it in his head, of course, maybe a thousand times, in his bed at night, or in the shower, maybe even in the middle of a particularly slow game. But. He’s never really had the right answer. If Kame’s honest with himself, he doesn’t really know either.
He just stares at Jin instead, Jin who is leaning on the railings, pressed through metal bars, and the streaks of the setting sun look like burning wings upon his shoulders.
They’re both just trying their best to pretend that they’re not fucking terrified.
xviii. the right answers
“I was fucking scared,” Kame confides later on, defences dissolved by alcohol and Jin’s presence and his eyes and the cold air.
“We were going to debut,” he continues, “and I. I don’t even know. I was just so fucking scared.”
Jin’s eyes are unreadable, but he slides down, back against the railings, so that he is facing Kame and they could be touching if they wanted to. Jin doesn’t know if he does.
Kame laughs softly, slightly bitter, tinged with sadness. “What were we even doing, Jin? Fucking around like that, like, like we were-like we could ever be something.”
“I was a coward,” he says, finally, laid bare and open and naked for Jin to see him, pulsing and raw and scared.
Of all the things Kame expects Jin to do, it’s not this:
Jin leans across the gap that divides them, and it’s more than just 5 years that he’s crossing. It’s all the fears and insecurities they’ve ever had between them, and the aching, ragged fear. He crosses all those and leans in and kisses Kame.
Kame makes a sound, low in his throat: a sigh, a flutter, a tornado being released.
There are so many ways this could go wrong, but Kame decides that, for once in his life, he doesn’t care.
When they break apart, Kame is trembling, a quiet shivering that starts from inside his heart and travels to the tips of his fingers, to the wisps of his hair, to the air that shimmers around him.
“I want you,” Jin tells him, the perfect answer to every question they’ve ever had.
He places one hand flat on the space of wall beside Kame’s head. The other hand travels down to press against the steady beating of Kame’s heart.
“So man up and want me back, Kamenashi.”
xix. morning afters
They don’t have sex. They’re too winded for that and, anyway. Kame wants to go through this properly this time.
He wakes up on the sofa, a blanket thrown over him and with the vague memory of Jin’s weight pressed down on his side. Jin is nowhere to be found, until Kame turns his head towards the balcony and it’s like all those years ago, with the golden light and Jin being utterly beautiful. These years haven’t changed them at all, only made them want each other more.
“You’re a terrible host,” Kame says, pushing himself up on his elbows.
“I’m a great host,” Jin says. He steps in and the sun retreats back inside him. He picks up a mug of coffee from the table beside the sofa and hands it to Kame.
“See? I made you coffee.” He lets their fingers touch this time, and it’s enough to warm Kame up.
“Jin, we really have to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jin says petulantly. He seats himself on the sofa next to Kame, and presses his nose against Kame’s neck gently.
Kame sighs, but Jin is nudging him gently and he’s never been able to stay mad at Jin for a long time.
“You broke my heart,” Jin continues, “you should take responsibility.”
Kame smiles, taking one of Jin’s hands and kissing each of his knuckles.
“Okay,” he says.
He’ll make it work out, this time.
xx. breaking into song
Sometimes, when he’s with Kame, Jin gets the inexplicable urge to break into song. He tries to write Kame a song, and thinks about all the songs he likes, about clubs and drinking and doing things. With girls. Jin likes those songs, but the thought of singing them to Kame is. Wrong.
Being with Kame makes him think of sunsets and pinky promises and stars at night, of whispers and words kept secret, tucked inside his heart.
He hands Kame the sheet of paper when he picks him up from one of his practices.
Every time you're near,
you stir my heart again
Now I'm losing my sense of seasons
I know it's love
It's over flowing
It's over flowing
“Jin,” Kame says, sounding like he’s torn between laughter and disappointment, “I can’t understand any of this.”
Jin nods. “Yeah. I. I’m going to sing it. To you.”
He looks resolute but his heart is going crazy and he wants to kick something. If he had the paper in his hands, he’d have torn it to shreds in his nervousness.
“In…here?” Kame asks, looking around the empty locker room.
It’s just as well that it’s empty, because after he sings, Kame pushes him up against one of the lockers and kisses him deeply. Among other things.
“Just like in my dream,” Jin mumbles dazedly.
Kame, who’s buttoning his uniform back on, stops. “What?”
xxi. the real second locker room scene
There are a few crashes from inside the locker room. A few gasps, then low, dirty sounds.
“Man, don’t go in there.”
“Ah.”
xxii. the fourth game of baseball // the one where jin is a supportive boyfriend
Jin doesn’t think he’s ever spent so much time actively staring at someone until now.
He stares at Kame and he stares at the smoothness and confidence embodied in his movements, the way he runs and swings and tilts his head up to follow the ball and the way the sunlight hits his cheeks in a way that leaves Jin transfixed.
It doesn’t even make him feel like a creep, because a possessive voice inside his head tells him, he’s yours, he’s yours.
He can barely contain himself when Kame hits a homerun, and the whole crowd swells up and brings Jin along with it and all he can think is, that’s guy I love.
xxiii. opening things
They’re in Jin’s apartment, after the game, sprawled lazily on top of each other. Kame’s post-game high has died down a bit, but he’s still a bit skittish, especially when Jin draws a hand down his chest with long, caressing fingers.
“God-Jin-”
Low laughter, “I thought you never thought of me as God?”
“Shut up,” Kame says, and angles their mouths to make sure Jin does exactly that.
They break off, and Kame burrows into Jin’s arms. “Why did you say that though?”
“Mm, say what?”
“You told me to stop looking at you…in a certain way.” Kame’s eyebrows knit together. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you want to fuck me,” Jin answers promptly.
Kame hits him on the chest, which, ow, doesn’t Kame know his own strength?
When Jin says as much, Kame apologizes, grinning, and presses soft kisses to his collarbones, down his chest and ending at his stomach. Jin shivers.
“Seriously, though?” Jin says. “Like I was something, someone, really amazing. It was a bit disturbing. It scared me.” Because that’s how I look at you.
Kame purses his lips, then untangles himself from the bedsheets and goes out of the room. Jin rolls himself onto Kame’s side of the bed and immerses himself in Kame’s scent and warmth.
There’s some shuffling outside, and Jin thinks of all the boxes out there with Kame’s things and Kame’s clothes and Kame’s life, and how they’re bringing everything back here again. He closes his eyes, tight, and squeezes the sheets in his fists, and sighs.
When Kame comes back, he hands Jin a box, and watches silently as Jin takes each object out. The script, the CDs, the pinky ring, the ball, the magazine clippings, all the magazine clippings.
He breathes out. It’s overwhelming.
“All this time-”
“Yeah.”
Jin laughs and it’s a bit crazy, a bit amazed because, wow.
“You’re like. Some creepy stalker fan.”
Kame shrugs. “I guess I am. You think you could live with that?”
“I’ve been waiting for this pretty much my whole life. I think could give it a try.”
Jin closes his eyes. His hand is curled around Kame’s wrist, his thumb rubbing against that bump of bone. He hums a bit.
Kame takes a deep breath. He feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff except that instead of rushing water at the bottom, there’s nothing but darkness.
“I love you,” he says, finally taking the leap.
When Jin’s arms catch him in a tight embrace (I love you, I love you, I love you, whispered over and over), he knows, from here on out, they’ll be falling (flying) together.
.owari.
By: wooden_buttons
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Word count: 5000~
Rating: PG-13
Genre/Warnings: What-if AU. Fluff, angst, rambling.
Notes: Titles with || at the end happened in the past (they’re flashbacks), because I screwed up the timeline. To kaminikaku, I wasn’t sure what you wanted but, um, I hope you like this. >:
Summary: In 2006, someone left KAT-TUN. It wasn’t Jin.
i. the opening sequence
In Jin’s head, it all goes like this:
*** a few equations ***
[Jin + KAT-TUN’s debut] - Kame = fuck it all
[Jin - Kame] x a few years = going pretty well, if a bit hard because Jin has to keep avoiding everything with Kame in it, including magazines, a few billboards, some sports channels, some brands of electronic razors, suits and shampoo. And KFC.
Jin + Kame + a few years of separation = tolerable, because Jin is totally, completely over him, and when Johnny tells someone to go become an interviewer to “widen his audience appeal,” that someone (Jin) can’t just say no.
Jin made the mistake of never putting into the equation(s) Kame’s newfound (to Jin, at least) muscles and the strength with which he pushes Jin up against the locker, hard enough to make them clang loudly, and even though Jin is taller than him, Kame is relentless, bearing down on him with all he has.
Or the fact that Jin has maybe been in love with him forever, and he’s been ignoring that since Kame left him for baseball all those years ago. Just a few months after their debut. Yeah, no biggie.
In hindsight, Jin thinks, as Kame’s teeth meet the dip of his collarbone, and Jin’s fingers catch on the buttons of Kame’s dirt-stained uniform, that he should have expected this.
After all, Math’s not really Jin’s best subject.
And he’d never been any good at resisting Kame, then, or now.
ii. a conversation in a dark hallway ||
Kame’s not supposed to be going into the Johnny’s and Associates building anymore, he knows that. He read the resignation contract. But well-he can’t just. He can’t just leave. More accurately: he can’t just stay away.
There is a soft rush of footsteps and the swish of a door opening, closing.
The footsteps come to a halt.
“What are you doing here?”
“I-I just wanted to see-” He takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to see you.”
“Bullshit.”
There’s the sound of Jin’s shoes squeaking against the tiles and he’s turning his back and Kame can’t let Jin leave, not now, not when he’s worked up all the courage he has just to come here.
“Jin-”
“Fuck off.”
Kame knows that Jin is angry. He can understand that. But he just needs-he darts forward and grabs Jin’s wrist.
The sharp sting of static when Kame’s fingers meet the smooth skin of Jin’s wrist jolts them. It’s the most they’ve touched in months, almost a year.
“Just leave, Kame,” Jin says, and he sounds tired. The hallway is dark, and neither of them can see just how much they’re both hurting.
For a moment, Kame is completely vulnerable and Jin’s heart clenches madly.
It’s better this way, Jin tells himself.
He twists away from Kame’s grip, and watches resolutely as, for the second time in the duration that Jin has loved him, Kamenashi Kazuya turns his back on him and leaves.
iii. profile of Kamenashi Kazuya as an interviewee
Kame is an easy person to interview.
No matter what, anyone lucky enough to get an interview with him leaves the interview feeling very satisfied with himself. And this is because Kame gives perfectly adequate answers without thinking too long or straying too far from the point.
He just has to grin a certain way or adjust his baseball cap so his hair falls across his forehead just so, and he’s, well. He’s charming. It’s no wonder he’s the face of so many commercials. Kamenashi Kazuya is the media’s darling.
So he doesn’t think this interview should be that difficult. By all accounts, it really shouldn’t be-Akanishi is hardly an experienced interviewer and though he’ll fumble a lot, Kame knows he can cover. So no, the problem isn’t Akanishi Jin’s interviewing skills.
The problem is Akanishi Jin himself.
iv. an exchange of texts messages on New Year’s Eve, 2009 ||
From Jin to Kame, 11:23
dun evenn know f ur stil using ths nmber
From Jin to Kame, 11:24
happy new year
From Jin to Kame, 11:27
mm bt drunk
From Jin to Kame, 11: 29
i haet u...T_T
From Jin to Kame, 11:30
i dont
From Jin to Kame, 11:33
miss you
From Kame to Jin, 1:46
Happy New Year to you too.
v. the weather conditions on all of the three times Jin has ever watched baseball ||
The very first time, it’s raining. Jin hadn’t even planned on coming, but Kame had invited him. It hadn’t even been a proper invitation, but the way Kame had mentioned it, taking his lower lip between his teeth the way he does when he’s nervous, Jin knows he couldn’t have said no.
So that’s why he’s here, getting soaked and feeling pathetic. There’s mud on his shoes and rain streaming down his shirt, and he’d leave, except-Kame’s really amazing at this. Jin doesn’t know how to describe the way Kame plays, but he thinks it might be like how Jin feels when he sings or listens to music. Kame’s not really a very good dancer or singer, but this, the way he moves, the glint in his eyes. This makes people feel.
It makes Jin ignore the cold and the sting of rain, makes him follow the trajectory of the ball when Kame bats it out of the field. It makes Jin run after it and, when the game ends and he hands it to Kame like it’s something sacred, it makes Jin’s heart flutter.
The second time, it’s blisteringly hot, and Kame’s high school team loses the game. Jin doesn’t really get how baseball is played, but he sees the disappointed look on Kame’s face when he fails to catch the ball in the last play. So Jin goes into the locker room after the game, ready to take Kame out to eat somewhere to make him happy. There’s a commotion going on and Jin doesn’t quite remember what he does, but it’s not a good thing.
There’s the feeling of his hand crushing into some other guy’s face and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know what happened-the guy had been shouting at Kame and no one was allowed to do that.
Afterwards, they leave the school and Kame tells Jin that maybe Jin shouldn’t come back to watch his games anymore, because punching the team captain was definitely a bad thing. Kame tells Jin, softly, “I can fight my own battles,” but the way he bumps their shoulders together as they fall into step means that he’s thankful, maybe a bit proud.
The third time, the game is at night, and the starts drip brightly into the sky. Jin comes and watches because he hasn’t really seen or talked to Kame properly in a long time. Jin honestly doesn’t know how Kame’s managed to juggle baseball and JE at the same time, but he has. He’s 20 now, and Jin is 22, and there are scouts at this game. It’s a big game, and Kame shines brighter than all the lights in the stadium.
Kame still picks Jin over his team when they go out to celebrate.
He tells him, haltingly, how the Giants’ manager had talked to him, and maybe, just maybe. Something could come out of this.
Jin doesn’t understand yet what any of this means, just that Kame is happy, and that’s all that matters. Something in his heart uncurls every time he is with Kame, something warm and different. It makes him kiss Kame that night, brave and indestructible but for the fingers that shake when he starts to unbutton Kame’s shirt.
“I want this,” Kame whispers, and Jin gives everything to him.
Jin doesn’t understand, and that’s what makes it so hard to accept when Kame tells him he’s leaving JE for baseball.
That’s probably what makes Jin punch him and break his (already-broken) nose too.
vi. inside the messy mind of Akanishi Jin
His first thought is this: shit, this field is huge.
The second and third ones: sun’s too hot; should have brought my shades.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth in rapid succession: this suit’s too tight; this is going to be a piece of cake; fuck, is that Kamenashi, fuck.
And the seventh, before everything becomes too jumbled for even Akanishi to understand:
I can’t do this.
It’s not just that he’s just kind of realized that doesn’t understand the rules of baseball at all.
It’s not just that the only times he’s actually cared enough to watch a few games (three, to be specific) was years ago, and he’d always made sure to be at the edge of the crowd, just watching behind the chain link fence and cheering under his breath.
It’s because he’s in the middle of this giant field, in an impeccable suit his stylist had forced him into, and his limbs feel like they might be failing him. And Jin knows exactly what (who) is causing this.
Jin just honestly, truly, has no idea what the fuck he’s doing here anymore.
Kamenashi has emerged from the other side of the field, decked in the white uniform of his team, and though he’s so far away that he probably can’t even see Jin, Jin’s sight hones in on him at once. It’s just a glance, Jin’s eyes skimming Kame’s figure, but it’s enough to tell him that this is really happening.
He does a quick about-face, doing a complicated jump and skip when he trips over his feet, and bolts towards-well, anywhere. His brain’s just screaming away away away, and then he is face to face with some weird baseball player guy who beams at him and asks, “Didn’t you say you wanted to interview our star player, Akanishi-san?”
Jin gives him a sort of half-grimace, half-smile that makes his face look paralyzed.
He’s so, utterly, completely screwed.
vii. a locker room scene
“Kamenashi-san?”
Kame is on a bench, lacing up his shoes. He finishes the knot, pulling on the two ends to tighten, and looks up. It’s one of the water boys.
“Yeah?”
“There’s some...guy, waiting for you. Outside. He’s in a suit.”
Kame nods. Guy in a suit. Okay, he can handle that. He stands up and picks up the bat he’s left leaning against the bench.
“Thanks. I’ll be right out.”
The kid nods. Before he goes out, he says, “Oh, and he says his name is Akanishi.”
The bat hits the floor with a pronounced clatter. Kame swears at his traitorous hands.
viii. a few observations
Whenever Jin sees Kame, no matter where it is and no matter how long it’s been since they last saw each other (a week or a minute or five years), he always expects Kame to look different and Kame never does.
Sometimes Kame has gained weight or sometimes he’s lost some, but he’s always looked the same to Jin, who’s known him since he was the skinny kid in too-big shoes who looked uncomfortable in his own skin.
Now he’s not really that skinny, and his shoes fit perfectly, but all Jin can see is that awkward beautiful kid he fell in love with. And that’s the biggest problem.
ix. the interview
*** first take ***
“So, Kamenashi-san.”
That sounds weird, coming from Akanishi’s mouth. Kame doesn’t think he’s ever heard Jin-Akanishi-call him that before.
“Kamenashi-san?”
“Sorry, what?” Kame totally wasn’t paying attention to the question. He laughs off his inattentiveness uneasily.
Akanishi shifts from one foot to the other. He tries a grin and ends up looking slightly pained.
“What do you think has been the secret of your success these past few years?”
That’s a terrible, generic question, Kame wants to tell him.
Instead, he says, going for a serious look, “Hard work, definitely! When you want something, you really have to work for it, and keep moving forward. My teammates, who I argue with a lot, but are always there for me-”
Akanishi actually snorts, barely managing to tamp it down.
Kamenashi’s eyes narrow.
The camera man coughs.
Akanishi sighs. “Can we do it over?”
*** second take ***
“So Kamenashi-san.”
Kame is leaning back on his bat, trying not to think too much. Just answer the questions and get this over with...
It takes a moment for him to register that Jin-Akanishi-has stopped talking. Kame blinks. Has he missed the question again?
Akanishi is grinning sheepishly. “I, um, I forgot the question, could we do another take?”
Kame would say something scathing, except that he’s still trying to accept that he actually found that well, cute.
Damn.
*** third take ***
“So, Kamenashi-san-”
A ball is speeding towards them. Someone across the field calls at Kame to catch it and he-
-doesn’t.
It hits Jin squarely in the middle of his forehead.
“Oops,” Kame deadpans.
x. why Jin hates his life
Jin thinks that’s it. After that horrendous interview, he tells himself it’s okay, he’s done it. So maybe he hadn’t been cool or suave, it doesn’t matter. He’s done. He can get over with his life now. Go to clubs and get drunk, stupid shit like that. (He doesn’t think about how seeing Kame again had done stupid, ridiculous things to his heart.)
Then Johnny calls Jin to his office. He shows Jin some charts, and talks in his old-man voice about ratings and fangirls and chemistry.
Jin blanks out through most of it because he doesn’t want this to be happening.
Johnny sits down on his chair after flipping through the last of the line graphs showing an intense increase in the ratings in that particular episode where he interviewed Kamenashi.
Jin really doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
“YOU,” Johnny says, “take him out to dinner or something. We need press on this.”
“HE HATES ME.” Jin sputters, throwing his hands up.
Johnny shrugs. “You’re being stupid. I’ll give him a call.”
He takes out his mobile and gives Jin a pointed look before he can sulk.
“Don’t give me that shit, Akanishi. I wasn’t the one you went crying to when he left. Oh wait.” Most people probably don’t know, but Johnny Kitagawa can be a bitch sometimes.
Jin growls and stands up.
“Trust me,” Johnny says, simply.
Jin leaves the room. But he doesn’t slam the door as hard as he could have.
xi. things Kame keeps in a box under his bed
1. a worn copy of the script for Gokusen 2, highlighted all over, warped and stained slightly brown where Jin had spilled cola on it on their first day on set in a fit of nervousness
2. KAT-TUN’s debut CD, never listened to
3. KAT-TUN’s debut Album, never listened to
4. KAT-TUN debut DVD, never watched
5. a pinky ring
6. the first homerun ball he ever hit, found by Jin in the field outside Kame’s school
7. lots of magazine clippings, the amount of which is too numerous to consider counting
8. figuratively, his heart
xii. the second locker room scene
“Was thinking about you,” Kame says, managing to make his voice breathy and rough at the same time.
Jin shudders, his body fixed between the cold steel of the lockers and Kame’s heavy warmth. Kame’s mouth is at his collarbone, nipping teeth and full lips, and ohgod-
“This isn’t-we shouldn’t-”
Kame unbuckles Jin’s belt and shoves his hands inside Jin’s pants.
Kame is touching him and fuck, Jin needs-Jin needs to-
“Wake up! Oi!”
Jin swears, jolting upright, and is met with Yamapi’s face, incredibly close to his. He grunts and swats at the general vicinity of Yamapi’s head. The sunlight hurts Jin’s body and he sort of wants to melt into his sheets and back into-that dream.
“Shit,” Jin mumbles. “What time is it?”
“Late enough to be late for your date!” Yamapi tells him this as cheerfully as possible.
“Date? What date-DATE. CRAP.”
Jin jumps out of the bed, scrambles around before hissing at Yamapi, “Get out, I need to get dressed.”
Yamapi takes on a hurt look, “Really, Jin? After all these years of friendship, you’re not comfortable-”
“Get. Out.”
“I’m just trying to be supportive!”
Jin glares.
Yamapi sticks his tongue out, does a quick, two-finger salute and exits.
Jin sits on the bed, digging for his cellphone underneath the sheets. He goes to his inbox again; maybe the message has miraculously disappeared. It hasn’t.
From Johnny Kitagawa to Akanishi Jin
-YOU go watch Kamenashi’s baseball game at Yokohama Stadium. Make sure someone sees you.-
He almost laughs, except he’s nervous and confused and it comes out as a whimper. Make sure someone sees you. That’s a first.
The thing is. The thing is that Jin knows what Kame does to him, what Kame has always done to him. And he knows that, all these years? They haven’t changed anything.
“Jin,” Yamapi says, appearing at Jin’s doorway with a bowl of cereal.
“That’s my cereal. You can’t just eat my cereal,” Jin says.
Yamapi points the spoon at him and says, all-knowing and wise, because he’s Yamapi and he’s Jin’s best friend and he knows everything, “Don’t screw this up.”
xiii. question and answer portion
K: “What do you want to eat?”
A: “Nothing. This place stinks.”
K: “Why did you invite me out here, then?”
A: “It wasn’t my idea.”
K: “What do you want, Akanishi?”
A: “Nothing! I don’t want…could you stop looking at me like that?”
K: “Like what?”
A: “Like-God, Kamenashi-”
K: “I assure you, I’ve never looked at you as if you were God.”
A: “Why do you have to be such an asshole?”
There’s the sound of a chair being pushed back, and really, Kame doesn’t know why he said yes when Jin asked him if he wanted to have lunch after the game, but he knows why he should’ve said no.
If he’d thought they could actually be civilized to each other after…everything that happened, Kame guesses he was wrong.
Jin stands up too, “Wait, don’t-”
He reaches out and grabs Kame’s hand, and there’s that stupid, freezing jolt of static again, where Jin’s fingers meet Kame’s wrist. Jin can feel Kame’s pulse and knows, with a burning certainty, that if he lets Kame turn around and leave again, they’ll never get this fixed. What surprises Jin most of all is that he actually wants this to be fixed.
Kame’s voice is strained when he says, “Don’t make a fucking scene, Akanishi.”
“Then let’s leave,” Jin huffs and drags Kame outside.
Kame surprises the both of them when he lets him.
xiv. things that should not have been said ||
Jin stares at him with those impossibly hurtful eyes and he says three things.
a. Go ahead and leave, I don’t fucking care.
b. We don’t need you.
c. I hate you.
Kame wishes Jin would just punch him, and he gets that granted soon enough.
xv. as opposed to things that should have been said
“We should talk about this.”
Kame blinks, looking up from his lap and remembering where he is. Jin hands him a beer; their fingers don’t touch.
He’s sitting in their old apartment, and Jin is opening the glass door to the balcony and stepping out. He throws a packet of cigarettes over his shoulder without looking and Kame snorts when it hits the wall behind him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of baseball prodigy?” Jin’s voice is soft and small, swallowed by the night sky.
Kame stands up.
It’s kind of surreal, to be back in here. The place hasn’t changed since they bought it together to live closer to the Gokusen set, except that all of Kame’s stuff is gone and all the pictures on the counter are all of Jin and his other friends. There’s this huge painting of a naked woman on the wall behind the sofa and a haphazard collection of English and Japanese CDs stacked near the widescreen TV that he doubts Jin ever uses. Kame didn’t think Jin would keep the apartment, but well. Here he is. Here they are.
“Yeah,” Kame says, “but the people I play with generally look at where they’re throwing the ball.”
Jin actually laughs, and Kame is surprised at how easily that sound travels up his spine and takes its nesting place in his chest. He’s missed this.
Jin’s voice doesn’t shake when he tells Kame to come out into the balcony and join him, but his eyes do.
Kame licks his lips nervously. He remembers too.
xvi. balcony memories ||
Kame’s favorite part of their apartment is the balcony.
Sometimes, when they’re home from a tiring day of shooting, Jin takes a packet of cigarettes and a six-pack, and they sit down on the cold tiles and look over at Japan, leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder, like they own this place, this assortment of apartment buildings and cars and roads.
Sometimes Kame stands there in the late afternoon, and Jin watches as the wind plays with his hair, shifting the red-orange strands in the sunlight.
(In the future, when he’s standing there alone Jin, will wonder if this is where it all began-this crazy mess of a not-exactly-love-affair they have. Jin will wonder why he tried so hard to push Kame away when he’s all Jin’s ever really wanted, and Jin has always fought for the things he’s wanted, except for this.)
Sometimes Jin wakes up too early, and when Kame pads out of his bedroom in the early morning, he catches the sunrise paint Jin gold, filling in the dips and curves of Jin’s body with light that seems to come from the inside.
(In the future, Kame will draw this memory from his mind and compare it to what he has, compares having Jin and having baseball. He won’t regret his decisions, but sometimes that memory will be enough to make him wish he’d chosen differently.)
Sometimes, on this balcony, Jin imagines taking Kame’s fingers and lacing them with his, thinks of Kame’s hand tangling into his hair, of kissing him on the mouth.
xvii. question and answer portion // the million-dollar edition
“Why did you leave?”
Kame’s has been in hundreds of interviews, he knows how to answer questions properly. He can’t answer this one. There are answers, and then there are answers.
“I did it for baseball,” he says, like that’s that.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Jin-” Kame stops himself. From where he’s pressed against the wall of the apartment building, he stares out at the sprawl of the city underneath them. He wonders when Akanishi started becoming Jin again. He wonders when Jin ever became Akanishi.
“I’m not asking you why you left the company Kame.”
I’m asking you why you left me.
He’s gone through it in his head, of course, maybe a thousand times, in his bed at night, or in the shower, maybe even in the middle of a particularly slow game. But. He’s never really had the right answer. If Kame’s honest with himself, he doesn’t really know either.
He just stares at Jin instead, Jin who is leaning on the railings, pressed through metal bars, and the streaks of the setting sun look like burning wings upon his shoulders.
They’re both just trying their best to pretend that they’re not fucking terrified.
xviii. the right answers
“I was fucking scared,” Kame confides later on, defences dissolved by alcohol and Jin’s presence and his eyes and the cold air.
“We were going to debut,” he continues, “and I. I don’t even know. I was just so fucking scared.”
Jin’s eyes are unreadable, but he slides down, back against the railings, so that he is facing Kame and they could be touching if they wanted to. Jin doesn’t know if he does.
Kame laughs softly, slightly bitter, tinged with sadness. “What were we even doing, Jin? Fucking around like that, like, like we were-like we could ever be something.”
“I was a coward,” he says, finally, laid bare and open and naked for Jin to see him, pulsing and raw and scared.
Of all the things Kame expects Jin to do, it’s not this:
Jin leans across the gap that divides them, and it’s more than just 5 years that he’s crossing. It’s all the fears and insecurities they’ve ever had between them, and the aching, ragged fear. He crosses all those and leans in and kisses Kame.
Kame makes a sound, low in his throat: a sigh, a flutter, a tornado being released.
There are so many ways this could go wrong, but Kame decides that, for once in his life, he doesn’t care.
When they break apart, Kame is trembling, a quiet shivering that starts from inside his heart and travels to the tips of his fingers, to the wisps of his hair, to the air that shimmers around him.
“I want you,” Jin tells him, the perfect answer to every question they’ve ever had.
He places one hand flat on the space of wall beside Kame’s head. The other hand travels down to press against the steady beating of Kame’s heart.
“So man up and want me back, Kamenashi.”
xix. morning afters
They don’t have sex. They’re too winded for that and, anyway. Kame wants to go through this properly this time.
He wakes up on the sofa, a blanket thrown over him and with the vague memory of Jin’s weight pressed down on his side. Jin is nowhere to be found, until Kame turns his head towards the balcony and it’s like all those years ago, with the golden light and Jin being utterly beautiful. These years haven’t changed them at all, only made them want each other more.
“You’re a terrible host,” Kame says, pushing himself up on his elbows.
“I’m a great host,” Jin says. He steps in and the sun retreats back inside him. He picks up a mug of coffee from the table beside the sofa and hands it to Kame.
“See? I made you coffee.” He lets their fingers touch this time, and it’s enough to warm Kame up.
“Jin, we really have to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jin says petulantly. He seats himself on the sofa next to Kame, and presses his nose against Kame’s neck gently.
Kame sighs, but Jin is nudging him gently and he’s never been able to stay mad at Jin for a long time.
“You broke my heart,” Jin continues, “you should take responsibility.”
Kame smiles, taking one of Jin’s hands and kissing each of his knuckles.
“Okay,” he says.
He’ll make it work out, this time.
xx. breaking into song
Sometimes, when he’s with Kame, Jin gets the inexplicable urge to break into song. He tries to write Kame a song, and thinks about all the songs he likes, about clubs and drinking and doing things. With girls. Jin likes those songs, but the thought of singing them to Kame is. Wrong.
Being with Kame makes him think of sunsets and pinky promises and stars at night, of whispers and words kept secret, tucked inside his heart.
He hands Kame the sheet of paper when he picks him up from one of his practices.
Every time you're near,
you stir my heart again
Now I'm losing my sense of seasons
I know it's love
It's over flowing
It's over flowing
“Jin,” Kame says, sounding like he’s torn between laughter and disappointment, “I can’t understand any of this.”
Jin nods. “Yeah. I. I’m going to sing it. To you.”
He looks resolute but his heart is going crazy and he wants to kick something. If he had the paper in his hands, he’d have torn it to shreds in his nervousness.
“In…here?” Kame asks, looking around the empty locker room.
It’s just as well that it’s empty, because after he sings, Kame pushes him up against one of the lockers and kisses him deeply. Among other things.
“Just like in my dream,” Jin mumbles dazedly.
Kame, who’s buttoning his uniform back on, stops. “What?”
xxi. the real second locker room scene
There are a few crashes from inside the locker room. A few gasps, then low, dirty sounds.
“Man, don’t go in there.”
“Ah.”
xxii. the fourth game of baseball // the one where jin is a supportive boyfriend
Jin doesn’t think he’s ever spent so much time actively staring at someone until now.
He stares at Kame and he stares at the smoothness and confidence embodied in his movements, the way he runs and swings and tilts his head up to follow the ball and the way the sunlight hits his cheeks in a way that leaves Jin transfixed.
It doesn’t even make him feel like a creep, because a possessive voice inside his head tells him, he’s yours, he’s yours.
He can barely contain himself when Kame hits a homerun, and the whole crowd swells up and brings Jin along with it and all he can think is, that’s guy I love.
xxiii. opening things
They’re in Jin’s apartment, after the game, sprawled lazily on top of each other. Kame’s post-game high has died down a bit, but he’s still a bit skittish, especially when Jin draws a hand down his chest with long, caressing fingers.
“God-Jin-”
Low laughter, “I thought you never thought of me as God?”
“Shut up,” Kame says, and angles their mouths to make sure Jin does exactly that.
They break off, and Kame burrows into Jin’s arms. “Why did you say that though?”
“Mm, say what?”
“You told me to stop looking at you…in a certain way.” Kame’s eyebrows knit together. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you want to fuck me,” Jin answers promptly.
Kame hits him on the chest, which, ow, doesn’t Kame know his own strength?
When Jin says as much, Kame apologizes, grinning, and presses soft kisses to his collarbones, down his chest and ending at his stomach. Jin shivers.
“Seriously, though?” Jin says. “Like I was something, someone, really amazing. It was a bit disturbing. It scared me.” Because that’s how I look at you.
Kame purses his lips, then untangles himself from the bedsheets and goes out of the room. Jin rolls himself onto Kame’s side of the bed and immerses himself in Kame’s scent and warmth.
There’s some shuffling outside, and Jin thinks of all the boxes out there with Kame’s things and Kame’s clothes and Kame’s life, and how they’re bringing everything back here again. He closes his eyes, tight, and squeezes the sheets in his fists, and sighs.
When Kame comes back, he hands Jin a box, and watches silently as Jin takes each object out. The script, the CDs, the pinky ring, the ball, the magazine clippings, all the magazine clippings.
He breathes out. It’s overwhelming.
“All this time-”
“Yeah.”
Jin laughs and it’s a bit crazy, a bit amazed because, wow.
“You’re like. Some creepy stalker fan.”
Kame shrugs. “I guess I am. You think you could live with that?”
“I’ve been waiting for this pretty much my whole life. I think could give it a try.”
Jin closes his eyes. His hand is curled around Kame’s wrist, his thumb rubbing against that bump of bone. He hums a bit.
Kame takes a deep breath. He feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff except that instead of rushing water at the bottom, there’s nothing but darkness.
“I love you,” he says, finally taking the leap.
When Jin’s arms catch him in a tight embrace (I love you, I love you, I love you, whispered over and over), he knows, from here on out, they’ll be falling (flying) together.
.owari.