Fic for marlenem
Title: If you want me to stay (I'll be okay)
Pairing: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya
Word count: ~5,000 + notes
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Lots of canon references, mentions of Jincidents, angst all over the bay.
Notes: Translation sources include kattunlove, newshfan, chikara21, shou_negi, iside89, and jone_records. With unabashed and devoted gratitude and affection for certain people and their hand-holding - you know who you are. marlenem, it was a sincere pleasure and here's hoping you enjoy. ♥
Summary: Jin is like the ocean.
"From the beginning I have a character with a spirit eager to serve, so I don’t just enjoy with a self-satisfaction like just having my own way."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2012, MAQUIA Vol. 16.
**
Jin's telephone number
“What’s your favorite ramen?” is the first thing Jin ever says to Kame, preceding “What’s your name?” and “Hi, I’m Jin.” Jin, Jin who likes udon (“Soba? I’m not sure we can be friends, Kazuya”), is wearing track pants with multiple stripes and, even with spiky hair and a jutting jaw, already looks like a star.
After they’re separated into groups, Kame watches Jin out of the corner of his eye. Jin is slightly slow with his steps but his voice soars. When his placard is counted out, Kame watches his face fall, the broken spirit of loss and competition, anger and defeat.
Kame glances down at his own baseball-calloused palms, the worn corner of his number placard. He doesn’t belong here. He’s only fluid because he’s an athlete, and he only ever sings in the shower, and he plays baseball. He loves baseball. But Jin -
“Wait!”
He’s flailing his arms, heedless of the odd looks thrown his way. Jin is holding out his placard to an old man in blue, decked out in shady sunglasses and arms folded over a small chest. Jin’s eyes are wide and uncertain, and Kame feels his heart wrench.
And then, suddenly, Jin is holding his placard again, and he looks up in that moment to meet Kame’s eyes. Something warm and strong knots inside Kame, and in that moment, he knows Jin has made it, too.
--
“I really like your pants,” Jin tells him later, during dinner. Kame picks at the tomatoes on his plate. “They suit you.”
Kame frowns. “Because they’re dorky?”
A crease forms between Jin’s eyebrows, confused and thoughtful. “No,” he says, chewing and swallowing, and he clicks his chopsticks together before reaching over to pluck the tomatoes off Kame’s plate. “Because they’re different. They’re you. And I like you.”
The warmth spreads. Kame feels inexplicably giddy with validation, with trust.
“I like you, too.”
*
Jin presses the piece of paper in his palm just as Kame is getting off the train.
Kame walks out into a sea of people, fist clenched tightly, like he’s holding something precious.
He turns around as the train pulls away and sees Jin with his face pressed against the glass, grinning.
Kame waves at him, smiling stupidly, and feels something warm rise in his chest.
--
“Kazuya, phone for you!” Koji yells. “It’s your boyfriend,” he teases.
“Shut up,” Kame mumbles, blushing, and his brothers laugh.
**
"Akanishi was an 'in fashion' tracksuit with three lines on the sides. It was cool."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2006.04.03, HEY!HEY!HEY.
**
A jar of seashells
Kame has always hated how “best friend” tastes on his lips, so definite and restricted, like he’s caging every close step Jin takes. With the sand in their toes and their lungs searing with salt, defiance against archetypal terms feels disarmingly liberating - fresh, whole, real. They’re not best friends.
They’re AkaKame.
Jin leaps through the waves when the day is through - for all his complaints about matching T-shirts and gross food, he’s still brimming with maniacal energy when the cameras vanish. He casts a handful of seawater at Kame, who splutters in response, bushy eyebrows drawing fiercely indignant until Jin throws his head back and laughs.
Jin, Kame thinks, is like the ocean - unpredictable, unprecedented, but never ceasing, palms of joy spreading on every available surface. The sun glints in his eyes, the masquerade of a promise, and when Kame breathes, he can taste his heart pounding, revels in the raw, pulsing fervor coursing through his veins.
They live in a green tent by the sea, unleashed from the world. The winds that night are rough, but when Kame reaches, Jin grabs him tight, like he’ll never let go.
*
“Ugh, Akanishi, it’s way too early to be awake, why are we-”
“Shut up, Kame,” Jin says cheerfully, and he pulls Kame up onto a giant boulder as dawn begins to break over the horizon.
“Oh,” Kame breathes.
And this-this is the exact moment Kame realizes he wants to kiss another boy, with sand between his toes and the taste of salt on his lips.
The wind is cold and sharp, like an unwelcome friend, but Jin is perched beside him, radiating more warmth than the rising sun.
In the future, all of Kame’s memories of this moment will be in shades of yellow-gold.
The sunrise is a wondrous thing, but nothing can compete with Jin’s smile.
When Kame goes home that day, sand in places he’d rather not think of, in desperate need of a proper bath-he opens his bag and a shower of seashells tumble out.
Oh, indeed.
A note from Kame to Jin: thank you for choosing me
Jin folds the note and carefully puts in his wallet, then looks Kame straight in the eye and says, “It’s not a choice, when it comes to you.”
**
"Actually, you like me, right?"
Akanishi Jin, 2002, Okinawa report.
**
Notes left all over the condo they share while filming Gokusen II
Kame never thought he could live like this, with his clothes strewn all over the apartment and with Jin’s song lyrics scribbled on the dining table. Most days, they eat takeout, battling for leg space on the couch.
It feels wonderfully domestic, and sometimes Kame watches Jin from the corner of his eye and thinks about pressing his lips to the dip of his collarbones, wonders if he would shiver.
Page from the Gokusen II script
It’s only slightly bizarre when Jin spends every spare minute the last few weeks of January inquiring in detail about the nature of Japanese plushies. “Doraemon?” He asks Kame on set one day, hands cupping bitter cold and the tang of crisp air from the sea. “Or maybe Hello Kitty.” He glances sideways, eyes narrow and contemplative. “I wonder if they have Hello Kitty pairs…”
Arching a brow, Kame reaches over to flick Jin’s forehead. His down-feather coat rustles with the movement, black and shapeless over his slender, lanky figure, and he tries to pull the fabric in tighter with small hands. “What?” Jin is feigning hurt, eyes a mask of confusion and innocence. “You don’t like Hello Kitty?”
“I have absolutely nothing against Hello Kitty,” Kame deadpans, and for some reason, the fans are screaming. It’s kind of weird, that they scream whenever Kame even enters Jin’s vicinity. Kind of disturbing, too, except for the fact that for all of Hayato’s rigid cement exterior and defiant glares, Jin is curious, obnoxious and undeterred in his clinginess. “Or plushies.”
“Don’t you?” Jin scuffs the toe of his shoe on the dirt path, biting his lip, and Kame thinks he looks cute, somehow, even with the messy brown hair and smeared faux-injury makeup still evident on his face. “Not too girly?”
With a shrug, Kame shoves his hands into his pockets. “My niece loves them,” he says by way of explanation, and Jin is suddenly strangely quiet. “I guess by association, I’m obliged to as well?” He glances up to catch Jin staring at him, eyes misty dark, and feels the sudden need to clear his throat. There’s something he can’t place, and it twists deep inside him, fierce and relentless, like if he breathes, it’ll only screw in more. He presses his lips together into a smile. “Anyways, if it’s a gift and you really care, then it’s the thought that counts, right?”
--
Two weeks later, on Kame’s birthday, he is ambushed by a single cameraman and Jin’s wildly high-pitched birthday serenade, basket and plushie thrust out at him in clumsy, awkward movements. The smile on his face erupts into bubbly laughter, caught on permanent videotape, but he can’t find it in him to care. Jin’s hands and expression are warm, and Kame, Ryu, just can’t look away.
Later, when the recording light blinks off, Jin - or Hayato, they’re both a blur to Kame now - tugs at his sleeve, and in the shadowed lighting, Kame can see the plainly writ emotions flickering on his face, open and bare, and he gulps. Tangles upon tangles, he thinks, that’s what they are - threads without an end, loops and screws that never loosen, and he draws away just slightly, only enough to create space between them.
Jin looks inexplicably nervous, eyes bright, but he has Hayato’s brave mask on. His voice is hoarse when he speaks, like he’s trying to be tough, to protect what’s important.
“It’s the thought that counts, right?”
Kame’s eyes flutter shut, and he tells himself that Ryu, only Ryu, might care a little too much.
*
Hayato and Ryu are best friends, but Kame doesn’t know what that makes him and Jin. Sometimes Kame wishes he could wear Ryu’s skin all the time. But there’s no Yankumi in real life, no high school delinquents and fistfights to make them realize how much they need each other.
“Jin?” Kame mumbles, and Jin lolls his head so that their eyes meet, Kame stretched out on the sofa and Jin on the floor with his head resting on Kame’s legs.
“Yeah?”
“You’re my best friend. You know that, right?”
Jin laughs and Kame feels his heart lurch.
“Of course, Kamenashi. Kazuya. You. You’re my best friend, too.”
“Okay,” Kame says, and closes his eyes and tells himself, hush, now.
(He’ll take what he can get.)
**
"During the drama Gokusen I didn’t know any of the other actors, but because Kamenashi was there on the site, I was saved."
Akanishi Jin, 2006.08.05, 24hrTV.
**
A note passed from Jin to Kame, through Yamapi
--
A note passed from Kame to Jin, through Yamapi
The truth is, they’d all thought Jin would be Akira.
Yamapi is a natural Shuuji - cool and stellar, the golden boy, and Jin is his honest, quirky sidekick, the one with no wit and too much heart. They’re all given the lines, of course, just for the sake of it, thrown into pairs by numbers drawn from one of Johnny’s old baseball caps, and by some ironic twist, Kame is paired with Yamapi.
Kame doesn’t hate Yamapi. It’s mostly an uncomfortable, polite relation, filled with stilted conversational gaps and one too many staring contests with Kame’s chipped nails and tiled flooring. “Yoroshiku,” Yamapi says, handing over a copy of the script to Kame, and Kame bows deep. “Jin tells me you’re good at this.”
Kame’s not sure if he means acting or reading, but swallows the question, choosing instead to stare unblinkingly at his lines. He’s Shuuji. Shuuji, who, at second glance, is nothing but polished steel over jagged scar lines, Frankenstein in shining armor. He’s the epitome of vulnerability, a green tent against whirlwinds.
When Kame reads aloud, his hands tremble. He can feel Jin’s eyes on him, fixated on his lips, and his voice shakes with the effort of built-up restraint. He’s scared, so scared, and Shuuji is, too.
The steel plates are building, and inside, Kame’s breaking.
--
Jin visits the set sometimes; under the pretense that his mom makes too much food that can’t be eaten. He watches them film, back hunched and sunglasses tinted under harsh light, and there are rough lines etched on his face where a smile used to be.
When the cameras stop rolling, Kame likes to stay on the rooftop. It’s Shuuji’s thinking place. It’s where Jin finds him on more than one occasion, wrapped in nothing but fleece, skin and wind, eyes cast on dangling cranes and street-side vendors.
“Do you like it?”
Kame turns, startled, but Jin isn’t looking. The sunglasses are propped on his head, and his mouth is tight, like he’s trying too hard to stay in control. Kame can feel the plates shifting, uneasy, morphing into knots. “What? The role?”
Jin nods.
“I guess.” There’s a pause. “He’s kind of like Ryu, in ways.”
Something in Jin’s gaze hardens, then, long fingers wrapping around Shuuji’s metallic railing, and Kame wishes he could stop bleeding. “Not really,” Jin says, barely a whisper. He never explains why.
Hastily scribbled by Kame, found by Jin on a surprise visit to the set of Nobuta
“What would you choose?” Jin asks him. His mouth lifts in a half-smile, but his body is tense. He bows his head. “Kame, what would you choose.” It’s a demand, not a question. Jin’s voice is hoarse.
Kame closes the dressing room door and walks over to him, then kneels down at Jin’s feet. He thinks of flying airplanes off the school roof, of Nobuta’s bravery, of Mariko’s love and Akira’s hand on his shoulder.
He closes his hands over Jin’s, folds the paper between their fingers and says, “It’s not a choice, when it comes to you.”
*
I’m sorry, Kame types later. It’s an email he never sends.
I wish it were you.
**
"You failed the audition? I did too - that's how it became Yamapi."
Akanishi Jin, 2009.03.11, Cartoon KAT-TUN, Ep. 100.
**
A note that Jin finds taped to his dressing room mirror
While Kame builds, Jin dissolves.
Kame watches it happen, the way he watches One Piece on rerun - a mind-numbing, looping marathon, and when he reaches, he only grasps thin air and a mirror image of himself. The countdown has whittled down to mere days, but Jin has stopped smiling for months.
“I can’t do this,” Jin says after the last rehearsal. He’s sitting cross-legged on the windowsill, and his voice isn’t even hoarse. They’d sounded perfect together.
“Just one more day,” Ueda replies, terse, pulling on baggy pants and delicately removing his earring. He looks like a flower, but acts like a rock, and sometimes Kame wishes he were that put-together, too. “One night, actually.”
But Jin is shaking his head, mute, even as Ueda shrugs on his duffel bag and prepares to leave. “No,” he whispers, and his eyes flick to Kame briefly, an electric, sharp second. Ueda is moving out the door, and the others have already left, and it’s only them.
Anything but perfect.
“I can’t do this,” Jin repeats, and only Kame hears him. Hayato, without his headstrong courage, is left with just rash, unbridled anger and untamed insecurity.
Hayato, without Ryu, is left with only Jin.
And for Jin, Kame can never be enough.
*
March 23, don’t forget. Jin crumples it in his hand and wishes he could.
Real Face DVD with a note
They don’t even get a free DVD, and Jin’s not going to fucking buy it for himself. It’s not that he’s not proud-he’s just. He’s so tired. (Kame is so far away.)
He finds a copy inside his bag anyway.
**
"No matter what I do, it's me. I would be glad if you could support me. That's what I was thinking."
Akanishi Jin, 2009, Break the Records documentary.
**
Jin’s checklist and an offer from Kame; Kame’s reminders
It’s October, and Kame feels like he’s doing a constant run-through of a script, like there are huge commands in capital letters hovering over his head as he conducts his lines. KAMENASHI stands up from chair. Turns the doorknob to reveal AKANISHI. Room is quiet. KAMENASHI departs room without a word.
Or maybe:
KAMENASHI exits room. AKANISHI runs after him.
AKANISHI is sorry.
Sorry for leaving, or for letting KAMENASHI walk away?
It’s October, and Jin is leaving the band.
If Kame were playing the part, he’d probably offer words of consolation - of empathy, of anything but evasive responses and politely interspersed jokes. He’d be a good friend and a perfect band mate, would promise to pick up the pieces and await Jin’s return, would cover the holes left behind with every patchy, unscrewed plate of his heart that dared to wish it were in Los Angeles, too. If Kame were playing the part, he would have left it at a phone conversation.
But Kame’s never been perfect without Jin.
So instead, Kame walks, without thinking, to Jin’s door. It’s three in the morning, probably the day before in Los Angeles, but Jin is still in Tokyo and Kame’s on his doorstep, dressed in crooked button-down plaid and disgustingly thick sweatpants, black-framed glasses slipping over his bangs.
The door opens.
AKANISHI stares in bewilderment. There are dark circles under his eyes, and all KAMENASHI can think is, the jetlag will only make them worse.
KAMENASHI takes a breath.
(AKANISHI isn’t sorry.)
*
“Kame-”
“I’m only here because I know you don’t know how to pack your bags properly, now shut up, let me in and let me fix your things.”
The keys to Jin’s apartment
Jin wakes up the next morning with his stomach roiling in anticipation and fear. He stumbles out of his room and tells himself it’s pre-flight jitters.
There’s a carton of milk and a box of cereal on the table. Kame is drinking a glass of juice and the condensation has left a wet ring on the placemat. He’s actually reading the newspaper. Jin never reads the newspaper.
Jin doesn’t know what to say, so he picks up his keys and puts them next to Kame’s glass.
Kame takes them, setting the paper down.
Jin must look as terrified as he feels because Kame rolls his eyes and says, “If you screw up in America, I will set your apartment on fire.”
Jin nods. They’re going to be okay.
**
"We talked about a lot of things. I said ittekuruyo. [...] a rough feeling... well. It's really not so deep. After all, this is not good-bye for life."
Akanishi Jin, 2006.10.13, press conference.
**
Draft of a letter from Kame to Jin
--
The letter Kame actually sends
Jin calls him once every week.
“I’m watching your drama,” Jin says, rustling and shifting over the line. Hiroto is complicated - genuine with a crusty exterior, kind in ways but not words. Kame’s plates are working, well enough, without Jin’s tangible presence to upset the balance. Hiroto is easy. Hiroto is, after all, written for him.
“I’m watching the news,” Kame responds, dog-eared script on his lap, hair pinned back in lamplight. “You are on an escapade in the countryside.”
There’s a hoarse laugh, and the clink of glass. Briefly, Kame wonders what the waves are like in Los Angeles, and if they break the way they do on the shores of Okinawa.
“You’re a jerk,” Jin announces solemnly, halfway through the last episode, but Kame can still hear the smile.
“Not me,” he corrects, quiet, and outside, the sun is rising in steep, vivid shades of scarlet. “Just Hiroto, when he can’t help it.”
A postcard from Jin to Kame
Jin sends him dozens of postcards, including one from Paris that Jin admits he didn’t read when he mailed it out.
Kame carefully stores each of them in the shelf where he keeps all of KAT-TUN’s DVDs, singles and albums.
**
"During the time he was in America, he called me several times, and I told him, 'You... They've been reporting about you.' 'Really? I'm sorry.'"
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2007.04.19, press conference.
**
Left by Kame on Jin’s bedside table
He isn’t really sure how it happens.
There’s a flash, and a moment, and their hands are in the middle, six pairs, twelve hands, and suddenly Kame is acutely aware of Jin’s presence at his side, warm and unyielding and undeniably real. Something strong courses through him, liquid fire bursting as their pinkies interlock, and suddenly the lights are on them, ray drops shimmering and dotting Jin’s eyelashes, so close Kame could touch them if he reached out.
So he does. He stretches and tightens, and feels Jin reciprocate, the push and pull as Kame leans his head onto Jin’s shoulder and the stage unfurls before them, a massive quilt of bright lights and faces. Kame’s chest aches with possibility, with bursting hope he never allowed himself to have, but he can’t pull back. The fire is still burning; Kame can see it in Jin’s eyes, and his voice is hoarse with ash and smoke but it sounds perfect - they’re perfect, together.
Kame curls his fingers into Jin’s sleeve, the imprints of a promise. “Welcome home,” he whispers when his mouth is directed away from the microphone, and Jin’s responsive smile is blinding, like the beautiful beginning sparks of firelight just before the engulfing flames begin to destruct.
In the future, Kame will mark Sendai as the place it began, even though he knows - they both know - it probably began the very first time Kame laid eyes on Jin’s double-striped track pants.
And in the future, Kame will tell himself, Sendai is where it ended.
Even though they both know it never should have even begun.
*
Maybe the hardest part of this is how easy it is, how easily Jin can take everything that happened last night-
(the salt of Kame’s skin, the way he shuddered when Jin kissed the knob of bone on the inside of his ankle, the push and pull of their bodies, steady and strong like the tide and the thrum of energy between them)
-and slot it into his life seamlessly. He feels like he’s known it forever, the shiver of Kame’s spine when Jin traces his fingers down his back, the way their hands found each other in the middle of the night, magnets drawn south to north.
No.
Jin has always tried his best to be honest.
The hardest part of all of this, of course, is that Kame will walk away because they both know he has to.
(He doesn’t understand why Kame thinks Jin is the braver one.)
Tucked by Jin into Kame’s pants, found too late by Kame
Kame has never been good at letting himself have things.
(There’s wanting, and then there’s wanting.)
Things like this just don’t work out. Kame knows better than to hope.
**
"The beginning of love is always like a baby. Very simple and beautiful, no matter how difficult and terrible the love grows into."
Kanzaki Hiroto, 2006, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi, Episode 1.
**
Jin's oxygen tank - for emergencies
Jin is keeping his distance, Kame can tell. It’s 2008, and Kame still feels twelve, newly washed ashore and raw with petty, uncontained irritability every time Jin is in his vicinity (and isn’t speaking to him, and him alone). Kame feels the need to impress, to repress, to give and give until he’s left with an empty shell and he no longer has to suppress the urge to hear the crashing waves of Okinawa in his dreams.
“Why are you avoiding Jin?”
Koki tries to understand, of course. But Koki’s got it all wrong.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not,” Koki repeats, a huff of air that jangles his jewelry, and then - “Okay. Why aren’t you being friends with Jin?”
It would be easy, so easy, to tell. Because I don’t want to be just friends. Kame closes a firm grip on his leather bracelet to steady himself, and red flashes behind his eyelids, red like the blood of lipstick, like Oda Nobunaga, like sacrifice. Red like Aka, one half of a whole.
“Why aren’t you?”
There’s a laugh, and Koki’s being thoughtful, all wise and empathic under his façade of steel and graphic. “Me and Akanishi?” He smiles, quietly. “Well, because he’s him, and I’m not you.”
A whole.
“You don’t have to,” Koki’s still saying, and Kame’s still trying not to hear the ocean’s roar. “I just wanted to let you know.” He claps a ringed, broad hand on Kame’s back, an imprint of reassurance, strong and permanent - everything Jin isn’t.
Their theme this year is pirates, like it was back in 2005, when Jin wore maroon velvet and Kame didn’t know how to bleed. A pirate steals for a living, Kame thinks. The way he’s been trying to steal Jin from the world, selfish and unperturbed, the way he strives for the perfection he knows they are together.
Nothing can be perfect. Gold is elusive - even pirates know that.
All or nothing - Kame knows that, too.
*
When Kame was a child, his mother would tell him stories of Ryujin, the sea god who could control the tides, who could drown soldiers and rescue people lost at sea.
When Jin sings Bokura no Machi de in Tokyo Dome, Kame lets himself be carried by the waves and realizes, quite suddenly, that he drowned a long time ago (the dawn breaking over the horizon, salt on his lips and how much he wanted to fall into Jin’s arms).
Later on, Jin sits on the floor in their dressing room, gasping into a mask. Maru grabs a packet of cigarettes from Jin’s bag and throws it at the wall.
Ueda, eyes sharp and knowing, takes Kame by the arm.
Kame is shaking, the door slams behind them and he can’t - he can’t -
“Breathe, Kazuya.”
**
"My human relations are either 0 or 100. If we're together I want to show everything of myself, without pretending, totally."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2012, MAQUIA Vol. 13.
**
A note handed to Kame
Natsu is a riot.
It’s not the first thing on Kame’s mind, spiraling into 2009 with older Ryu seeping through the cracks, but it’s far from the last, too. Jin has always been passionate about music, but this is wholly different - he’s immersed in it, submerged by his inspired harmonization and long, winding notes. He touches a lot, talks even more, and when he looks at Kame, his goofy grin is anything but Hayato’s soft, reserved smile.
They play the roommate game, but Taguchi rigs it by cracking his door open to peek, and Kame’s suddenly thrust in the direction of the second door. “Fingers crossed,” Nakamaru says from behind, and Kame maybe, really, wants it to be Koki.
The door opens.
Jin looks up at him from the right-side bed. “Yoroshiku,” he says, softly, and the chaos falls into silence.
*
Kame blinks at Ueda.
“Is this supposed to be a threat?”
When Ueda smiles, he shows all his teeth.
*
(“Did you plan it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kame-chan.”
“It wasn’t us. Jin did.”)
A note passed from Jin to Maru to Koki to Ueda to Junno
They’re at a meeting, discussing solos. Kame already knows that Jin has something planned with Crystal, had heard about it from the whispering managers. New image and more appeal - that’s all they think about.
Kame wonders if Jin ever really understands the things he sings about.
Jin told him once that it was easier when he didn’t.
When Kame lays out his plans, the kimono and the water and the flying, he catches Jin’s eyes for just a moment.
Later, Jin corners him in the dressing room.
“True love and sacrifice. How noble of you.”
Kame refuses to rise up to the bait.
“If. If that’s what you want - I.”
Jin takes a step forward and he’s so close, now. Kame thinks about Nobunaga and Ranmaru, and how maybe they could have had a chance.
Jin hesitates at the last minute and kisses Kame’s forehead instead. It feels like a blessing.
Kame wants to press his fingers into the soft material of Jin’s shirt.
“Good luck,” Jin mumbles, walking backwards and exiting the room.
When the door closes behind him, Kame finally says, “You too.”
Nobunaga and Ranmaru burned to the ground. Kame is not brave enough to sacrifice everything for love, so he sings about it instead.
(Please, please hold me with those hands.)
Left by Jin on Kame’s bedside table in the Okinawa hotel room
Jin falls ill in Hokkaido, and Kame dreams of suffocating, dark waves barreling the shoreline, his reflection elusive and translucent under gray, filtered sky. “Jin,” he hears, and it’s his own voice echoing, muffled and hazy between the roars of the ocean. A tide of panic is rising in his chest - writhing, shooting flames into the gaps between steel plates, and he’s shattering. “Jin, please breathe. Please.”
When he opens his eyes, his hands are warm. Skin against skin, and his lungs sting when he breathes, like he’s inhaling salty spray. Jin is staring at him in bewilderment. “Kame,” he whispers, and Kame looks down at their intertwined fingers. Jin’s hands twitch. He’s afraid of letting go.
They’ve been friendly on tour - callous jokes, raucous laughter, and the occasional, teasing prod. “Like best friends,” their manager had said happily, nails shimmering with the promise of fame. Kame steeled himself. “Perfect.”
“Kame,” Jin says again, stronger this time, and Kame still hasn’t let go. Natsu is a selfish prick for setting them up together. Kame can never be enough.
But then Jin coughs; a weak, chest-heaving hack that has Kame gripping tighter, and Jin winces. “Sorry,” he manages, and his fingers are loosening of their own accord, slipping out of Kame’s hold like trickling water.
“No,” Kame says, so unexpectedly fierce it scares even himself. “No, let me.” He moves a hand out to press against the papery skin of Jin’s throat, fingers caressing vague hints of stubble on Jin’s chin. “Just don’t.” His heart is hammering, gushing, escaping, and the steel is melting. Just once, he thinks, as he watches Jin’s eyelids flutter shut against his touch. Just once.
If Jin can afford to be selfish, just once, he can, too.
*
They don’t share a room in Okinawa. In the middle of the night, Jin texts him, open your door.
When Kame pads over to the door, Jin’s eyes are wide and mischievous. He holds a finger to his lips, shhh, and points to the other bed. As if on cue, Maru snores loudly and rolls so his back is on them.
They walk on the sand and share a cigarette on the beach. Indirect kiss, Kame thinks.
They don’t talk much. For such a long time, it’s been so loud between the two of them, the blare of speakers and raised voices. Even the way they move around each other, sometimes.
Kame had forgotten they could be like this too. Maybe he’s only supposed to love like this: in the quiet of the night, with the stars and Jin’s soft breath and the two of them huddled against the wind.
He and Jin watch the tide recede slowly, and Kame finally feels his head breaking the surface.
(The loudest thing between them has always been their silence. Kame should have known that that was the best way Jin knew how to say good-bye.)
**
"Akanishi, he might let me do what I want, and I'd let him do what he wants depending on the situation."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2009, Break the Records documentary.
**
JIN is officially leaving the band.
JIN is officially a self-absorbed, ungrateful, repulsive jerk.
At least that’s what KAME tries to tell himself on camera.
But CLOSE ON KAME, and in his eyes, the pieces are falling. Sheer metal flaps that could never have disguised the throbbing, the pulsing, the aching. He’s bleeding.
The ocean roars.
JIN is like the ocean. When the waves crash, they never return.
Left on Jin's coffee table before Kame's flight home
Kame visits Jin in America exactly once.
They eat cup noodles on Jin’s sofa, steam rising up on their faces, and if Kame closes his eyes, he can almost imagine being in Japan again, the taste of ramen on his lips and Jin’s hand close enough to reach for if he ever wanted it.
(Has he ever wanted anything else? He’s learning how to, now.)
Jin sees him off at the airport, and when they hug, Jin’s hands on Kame’s not-so-thin shoulders, Kame thinks maybe he can fly again.
*
(Jin visits Japan more than once, but Kame is no longer first priority.
Kame gathers the plates together, and lets go.)
**
"We didn't split up because we hated each other. But it was just like, at the time, the things we wanted to do weren't on the same axis."
Akanishi Jin, 2011.09.16, TakkiChannel.
**
Jin falls ill just before New Year’s, or so Yamapi says. He’s been dropping hints about meeting Jin at the shrine for the week leading up to 2012, and Kame isn’t sure if he means to imply or to declare.
Regardless, he finds himself dwindling afterwards, even as the other Johnny’s begin to leave the shrine. KAT-TUN is crowded around the door of a van, exchanging sparse words and the obligatory parental greetings. Ueda, with shaven hair, slings an arm around Kame’s shoulder. “Happy New Year, Kame.”
“Happy New Year,” Kame murmurs back, and wonders fleetingly about being put-together.
“You’re going to stay?”
Taguchi is leaving, and Koki’s looking back inquisitively. Kame’s hands are cold and smooth like steel, but somewhere inside him, he can feel the heat brewing, something quiet and reserved tugging through the ashes and smoke. “Yeah,” he says quickly, “just for a bit.” A car has turned into the driveway, and they don’t have to know.
“If you’re sure,” Ueda says, and he’s moving away. He’s always been so strong, Kame thinks, strong and reliable, every one of them, grounding him amidst liquid and fire.
The car pulls to the curb, and the door opens.
On the tip of Kame’s tongue is hisashiburi.
From Kame to Jin, two days late
--
From Jin to Kame, a reply
“You know,” Jin says later, when he’s facing Kame completely. “I recently discovered I like soba a lot better. Than udon.”
The waves are lapping at their toes, silent and calm. Meisa’s family lives in Okinawa. There is no green tent.
“I guess,” Jin is still saying, and in his eyes, the pieces are falling into place. “You were always right, after all.”
**
"I had to do it. This is my way of doing things. This is... all I could do."
Yabuki Hayato, 2005, Gokusen 2, Episode 2.
Pairing: Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya
Word count: ~5,000 + notes
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Lots of canon references, mentions of Jincidents, angst all over the bay.
Notes: Translation sources include kattunlove, newshfan, chikara21, shou_negi, iside89, and jone_records. With unabashed and devoted gratitude and affection for certain people and their hand-holding - you know who you are. marlenem, it was a sincere pleasure and here's hoping you enjoy. ♥
Summary: Jin is like the ocean.
"From the beginning I have a character with a spirit eager to serve, so I don’t just enjoy with a self-satisfaction like just having my own way."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2012, MAQUIA Vol. 16.
**
Jin's telephone number
“What’s your favorite ramen?” is the first thing Jin ever says to Kame, preceding “What’s your name?” and “Hi, I’m Jin.” Jin, Jin who likes udon (“Soba? I’m not sure we can be friends, Kazuya”), is wearing track pants with multiple stripes and, even with spiky hair and a jutting jaw, already looks like a star.
After they’re separated into groups, Kame watches Jin out of the corner of his eye. Jin is slightly slow with his steps but his voice soars. When his placard is counted out, Kame watches his face fall, the broken spirit of loss and competition, anger and defeat.
Kame glances down at his own baseball-calloused palms, the worn corner of his number placard. He doesn’t belong here. He’s only fluid because he’s an athlete, and he only ever sings in the shower, and he plays baseball. He loves baseball. But Jin -
“Wait!”
He’s flailing his arms, heedless of the odd looks thrown his way. Jin is holding out his placard to an old man in blue, decked out in shady sunglasses and arms folded over a small chest. Jin’s eyes are wide and uncertain, and Kame feels his heart wrench.
And then, suddenly, Jin is holding his placard again, and he looks up in that moment to meet Kame’s eyes. Something warm and strong knots inside Kame, and in that moment, he knows Jin has made it, too.
--
“I really like your pants,” Jin tells him later, during dinner. Kame picks at the tomatoes on his plate. “They suit you.”
Kame frowns. “Because they’re dorky?”
A crease forms between Jin’s eyebrows, confused and thoughtful. “No,” he says, chewing and swallowing, and he clicks his chopsticks together before reaching over to pluck the tomatoes off Kame’s plate. “Because they’re different. They’re you. And I like you.”
The warmth spreads. Kame feels inexplicably giddy with validation, with trust.
“I like you, too.”
*
Jin presses the piece of paper in his palm just as Kame is getting off the train.
Kame walks out into a sea of people, fist clenched tightly, like he’s holding something precious.
He turns around as the train pulls away and sees Jin with his face pressed against the glass, grinning.
Kame waves at him, smiling stupidly, and feels something warm rise in his chest.
--
“Kazuya, phone for you!” Koji yells. “It’s your boyfriend,” he teases.
“Shut up,” Kame mumbles, blushing, and his brothers laugh.
**
"Akanishi was an 'in fashion' tracksuit with three lines on the sides. It was cool."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2006.04.03, HEY!HEY!HEY.
**
A jar of seashells
Kame has always hated how “best friend” tastes on his lips, so definite and restricted, like he’s caging every close step Jin takes. With the sand in their toes and their lungs searing with salt, defiance against archetypal terms feels disarmingly liberating - fresh, whole, real. They’re not best friends.
They’re AkaKame.
Jin leaps through the waves when the day is through - for all his complaints about matching T-shirts and gross food, he’s still brimming with maniacal energy when the cameras vanish. He casts a handful of seawater at Kame, who splutters in response, bushy eyebrows drawing fiercely indignant until Jin throws his head back and laughs.
Jin, Kame thinks, is like the ocean - unpredictable, unprecedented, but never ceasing, palms of joy spreading on every available surface. The sun glints in his eyes, the masquerade of a promise, and when Kame breathes, he can taste his heart pounding, revels in the raw, pulsing fervor coursing through his veins.
They live in a green tent by the sea, unleashed from the world. The winds that night are rough, but when Kame reaches, Jin grabs him tight, like he’ll never let go.
*
“Ugh, Akanishi, it’s way too early to be awake, why are we-”
“Shut up, Kame,” Jin says cheerfully, and he pulls Kame up onto a giant boulder as dawn begins to break over the horizon.
“Oh,” Kame breathes.
And this-this is the exact moment Kame realizes he wants to kiss another boy, with sand between his toes and the taste of salt on his lips.
The wind is cold and sharp, like an unwelcome friend, but Jin is perched beside him, radiating more warmth than the rising sun.
In the future, all of Kame’s memories of this moment will be in shades of yellow-gold.
The sunrise is a wondrous thing, but nothing can compete with Jin’s smile.
When Kame goes home that day, sand in places he’d rather not think of, in desperate need of a proper bath-he opens his bag and a shower of seashells tumble out.
Oh, indeed.
A note from Kame to Jin: thank you for choosing me
Jin folds the note and carefully puts in his wallet, then looks Kame straight in the eye and says, “It’s not a choice, when it comes to you.”
**
"Actually, you like me, right?"
Akanishi Jin, 2002, Okinawa report.
**
Notes left all over the condo they share while filming Gokusen II
Kame never thought he could live like this, with his clothes strewn all over the apartment and with Jin’s song lyrics scribbled on the dining table. Most days, they eat takeout, battling for leg space on the couch.
It feels wonderfully domestic, and sometimes Kame watches Jin from the corner of his eye and thinks about pressing his lips to the dip of his collarbones, wonders if he would shiver.
Page from the Gokusen II script
It’s only slightly bizarre when Jin spends every spare minute the last few weeks of January inquiring in detail about the nature of Japanese plushies. “Doraemon?” He asks Kame on set one day, hands cupping bitter cold and the tang of crisp air from the sea. “Or maybe Hello Kitty.” He glances sideways, eyes narrow and contemplative. “I wonder if they have Hello Kitty pairs…”
Arching a brow, Kame reaches over to flick Jin’s forehead. His down-feather coat rustles with the movement, black and shapeless over his slender, lanky figure, and he tries to pull the fabric in tighter with small hands. “What?” Jin is feigning hurt, eyes a mask of confusion and innocence. “You don’t like Hello Kitty?”
“I have absolutely nothing against Hello Kitty,” Kame deadpans, and for some reason, the fans are screaming. It’s kind of weird, that they scream whenever Kame even enters Jin’s vicinity. Kind of disturbing, too, except for the fact that for all of Hayato’s rigid cement exterior and defiant glares, Jin is curious, obnoxious and undeterred in his clinginess. “Or plushies.”
“Don’t you?” Jin scuffs the toe of his shoe on the dirt path, biting his lip, and Kame thinks he looks cute, somehow, even with the messy brown hair and smeared faux-injury makeup still evident on his face. “Not too girly?”
With a shrug, Kame shoves his hands into his pockets. “My niece loves them,” he says by way of explanation, and Jin is suddenly strangely quiet. “I guess by association, I’m obliged to as well?” He glances up to catch Jin staring at him, eyes misty dark, and feels the sudden need to clear his throat. There’s something he can’t place, and it twists deep inside him, fierce and relentless, like if he breathes, it’ll only screw in more. He presses his lips together into a smile. “Anyways, if it’s a gift and you really care, then it’s the thought that counts, right?”
--
Two weeks later, on Kame’s birthday, he is ambushed by a single cameraman and Jin’s wildly high-pitched birthday serenade, basket and plushie thrust out at him in clumsy, awkward movements. The smile on his face erupts into bubbly laughter, caught on permanent videotape, but he can’t find it in him to care. Jin’s hands and expression are warm, and Kame, Ryu, just can’t look away.
Later, when the recording light blinks off, Jin - or Hayato, they’re both a blur to Kame now - tugs at his sleeve, and in the shadowed lighting, Kame can see the plainly writ emotions flickering on his face, open and bare, and he gulps. Tangles upon tangles, he thinks, that’s what they are - threads without an end, loops and screws that never loosen, and he draws away just slightly, only enough to create space between them.
Jin looks inexplicably nervous, eyes bright, but he has Hayato’s brave mask on. His voice is hoarse when he speaks, like he’s trying to be tough, to protect what’s important.
“It’s the thought that counts, right?”
Kame’s eyes flutter shut, and he tells himself that Ryu, only Ryu, might care a little too much.
*
Hayato and Ryu are best friends, but Kame doesn’t know what that makes him and Jin. Sometimes Kame wishes he could wear Ryu’s skin all the time. But there’s no Yankumi in real life, no high school delinquents and fistfights to make them realize how much they need each other.
“Jin?” Kame mumbles, and Jin lolls his head so that their eyes meet, Kame stretched out on the sofa and Jin on the floor with his head resting on Kame’s legs.
“Yeah?”
“You’re my best friend. You know that, right?”
Jin laughs and Kame feels his heart lurch.
“Of course, Kamenashi. Kazuya. You. You’re my best friend, too.”
“Okay,” Kame says, and closes his eyes and tells himself, hush, now.
(He’ll take what he can get.)
**
"During the drama Gokusen I didn’t know any of the other actors, but because Kamenashi was there on the site, I was saved."
Akanishi Jin, 2006.08.05, 24hrTV.
**
A note passed from Jin to Kame, through Yamapi
--
A note passed from Kame to Jin, through Yamapi
The truth is, they’d all thought Jin would be Akira.
Yamapi is a natural Shuuji - cool and stellar, the golden boy, and Jin is his honest, quirky sidekick, the one with no wit and too much heart. They’re all given the lines, of course, just for the sake of it, thrown into pairs by numbers drawn from one of Johnny’s old baseball caps, and by some ironic twist, Kame is paired with Yamapi.
Kame doesn’t hate Yamapi. It’s mostly an uncomfortable, polite relation, filled with stilted conversational gaps and one too many staring contests with Kame’s chipped nails and tiled flooring. “Yoroshiku,” Yamapi says, handing over a copy of the script to Kame, and Kame bows deep. “Jin tells me you’re good at this.”
Kame’s not sure if he means acting or reading, but swallows the question, choosing instead to stare unblinkingly at his lines. He’s Shuuji. Shuuji, who, at second glance, is nothing but polished steel over jagged scar lines, Frankenstein in shining armor. He’s the epitome of vulnerability, a green tent against whirlwinds.
When Kame reads aloud, his hands tremble. He can feel Jin’s eyes on him, fixated on his lips, and his voice shakes with the effort of built-up restraint. He’s scared, so scared, and Shuuji is, too.
The steel plates are building, and inside, Kame’s breaking.
--
Jin visits the set sometimes; under the pretense that his mom makes too much food that can’t be eaten. He watches them film, back hunched and sunglasses tinted under harsh light, and there are rough lines etched on his face where a smile used to be.
When the cameras stop rolling, Kame likes to stay on the rooftop. It’s Shuuji’s thinking place. It’s where Jin finds him on more than one occasion, wrapped in nothing but fleece, skin and wind, eyes cast on dangling cranes and street-side vendors.
“Do you like it?”
Kame turns, startled, but Jin isn’t looking. The sunglasses are propped on his head, and his mouth is tight, like he’s trying too hard to stay in control. Kame can feel the plates shifting, uneasy, morphing into knots. “What? The role?”
Jin nods.
“I guess.” There’s a pause. “He’s kind of like Ryu, in ways.”
Something in Jin’s gaze hardens, then, long fingers wrapping around Shuuji’s metallic railing, and Kame wishes he could stop bleeding. “Not really,” Jin says, barely a whisper. He never explains why.
Hastily scribbled by Kame, found by Jin on a surprise visit to the set of Nobuta
“What would you choose?” Jin asks him. His mouth lifts in a half-smile, but his body is tense. He bows his head. “Kame, what would you choose.” It’s a demand, not a question. Jin’s voice is hoarse.
Kame closes the dressing room door and walks over to him, then kneels down at Jin’s feet. He thinks of flying airplanes off the school roof, of Nobuta’s bravery, of Mariko’s love and Akira’s hand on his shoulder.
He closes his hands over Jin’s, folds the paper between their fingers and says, “It’s not a choice, when it comes to you.”
*
I’m sorry, Kame types later. It’s an email he never sends.
I wish it were you.
**
"You failed the audition? I did too - that's how it became Yamapi."
Akanishi Jin, 2009.03.11, Cartoon KAT-TUN, Ep. 100.
**
A note that Jin finds taped to his dressing room mirror
While Kame builds, Jin dissolves.
Kame watches it happen, the way he watches One Piece on rerun - a mind-numbing, looping marathon, and when he reaches, he only grasps thin air and a mirror image of himself. The countdown has whittled down to mere days, but Jin has stopped smiling for months.
“I can’t do this,” Jin says after the last rehearsal. He’s sitting cross-legged on the windowsill, and his voice isn’t even hoarse. They’d sounded perfect together.
“Just one more day,” Ueda replies, terse, pulling on baggy pants and delicately removing his earring. He looks like a flower, but acts like a rock, and sometimes Kame wishes he were that put-together, too. “One night, actually.”
But Jin is shaking his head, mute, even as Ueda shrugs on his duffel bag and prepares to leave. “No,” he whispers, and his eyes flick to Kame briefly, an electric, sharp second. Ueda is moving out the door, and the others have already left, and it’s only them.
Anything but perfect.
“I can’t do this,” Jin repeats, and only Kame hears him. Hayato, without his headstrong courage, is left with just rash, unbridled anger and untamed insecurity.
Hayato, without Ryu, is left with only Jin.
And for Jin, Kame can never be enough.
*
March 23, don’t forget. Jin crumples it in his hand and wishes he could.
Real Face DVD with a note
They don’t even get a free DVD, and Jin’s not going to fucking buy it for himself. It’s not that he’s not proud-he’s just. He’s so tired. (Kame is so far away.)
He finds a copy inside his bag anyway.
**
"No matter what I do, it's me. I would be glad if you could support me. That's what I was thinking."
Akanishi Jin, 2009, Break the Records documentary.
**
Jin’s checklist and an offer from Kame; Kame’s reminders
It’s October, and Kame feels like he’s doing a constant run-through of a script, like there are huge commands in capital letters hovering over his head as he conducts his lines. KAMENASHI stands up from chair. Turns the doorknob to reveal AKANISHI. Room is quiet. KAMENASHI departs room without a word.
Or maybe:
KAMENASHI exits room. AKANISHI runs after him.
AKANISHI is sorry.
Sorry for leaving, or for letting KAMENASHI walk away?
It’s October, and Jin is leaving the band.
If Kame were playing the part, he’d probably offer words of consolation - of empathy, of anything but evasive responses and politely interspersed jokes. He’d be a good friend and a perfect band mate, would promise to pick up the pieces and await Jin’s return, would cover the holes left behind with every patchy, unscrewed plate of his heart that dared to wish it were in Los Angeles, too. If Kame were playing the part, he would have left it at a phone conversation.
But Kame’s never been perfect without Jin.
So instead, Kame walks, without thinking, to Jin’s door. It’s three in the morning, probably the day before in Los Angeles, but Jin is still in Tokyo and Kame’s on his doorstep, dressed in crooked button-down plaid and disgustingly thick sweatpants, black-framed glasses slipping over his bangs.
The door opens.
AKANISHI stares in bewilderment. There are dark circles under his eyes, and all KAMENASHI can think is, the jetlag will only make them worse.
KAMENASHI takes a breath.
(AKANISHI isn’t sorry.)
*
“Kame-”
“I’m only here because I know you don’t know how to pack your bags properly, now shut up, let me in and let me fix your things.”
The keys to Jin’s apartment
Jin wakes up the next morning with his stomach roiling in anticipation and fear. He stumbles out of his room and tells himself it’s pre-flight jitters.
There’s a carton of milk and a box of cereal on the table. Kame is drinking a glass of juice and the condensation has left a wet ring on the placemat. He’s actually reading the newspaper. Jin never reads the newspaper.
Jin doesn’t know what to say, so he picks up his keys and puts them next to Kame’s glass.
Kame takes them, setting the paper down.
Jin must look as terrified as he feels because Kame rolls his eyes and says, “If you screw up in America, I will set your apartment on fire.”
Jin nods. They’re going to be okay.
**
"We talked about a lot of things. I said ittekuruyo. [...] a rough feeling... well. It's really not so deep. After all, this is not good-bye for life."
Akanishi Jin, 2006.10.13, press conference.
**
Draft of a letter from Kame to Jin
--
The letter Kame actually sends
Jin calls him once every week.
“I’m watching your drama,” Jin says, rustling and shifting over the line. Hiroto is complicated - genuine with a crusty exterior, kind in ways but not words. Kame’s plates are working, well enough, without Jin’s tangible presence to upset the balance. Hiroto is easy. Hiroto is, after all, written for him.
“I’m watching the news,” Kame responds, dog-eared script on his lap, hair pinned back in lamplight. “You are on an escapade in the countryside.”
There’s a hoarse laugh, and the clink of glass. Briefly, Kame wonders what the waves are like in Los Angeles, and if they break the way they do on the shores of Okinawa.
“You’re a jerk,” Jin announces solemnly, halfway through the last episode, but Kame can still hear the smile.
“Not me,” he corrects, quiet, and outside, the sun is rising in steep, vivid shades of scarlet. “Just Hiroto, when he can’t help it.”
A postcard from Jin to Kame
Jin sends him dozens of postcards, including one from Paris that Jin admits he didn’t read when he mailed it out.
Kame carefully stores each of them in the shelf where he keeps all of KAT-TUN’s DVDs, singles and albums.
**
"During the time he was in America, he called me several times, and I told him, 'You... They've been reporting about you.' 'Really? I'm sorry.'"
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2007.04.19, press conference.
**
Left by Kame on Jin’s bedside table
He isn’t really sure how it happens.
There’s a flash, and a moment, and their hands are in the middle, six pairs, twelve hands, and suddenly Kame is acutely aware of Jin’s presence at his side, warm and unyielding and undeniably real. Something strong courses through him, liquid fire bursting as their pinkies interlock, and suddenly the lights are on them, ray drops shimmering and dotting Jin’s eyelashes, so close Kame could touch them if he reached out.
So he does. He stretches and tightens, and feels Jin reciprocate, the push and pull as Kame leans his head onto Jin’s shoulder and the stage unfurls before them, a massive quilt of bright lights and faces. Kame’s chest aches with possibility, with bursting hope he never allowed himself to have, but he can’t pull back. The fire is still burning; Kame can see it in Jin’s eyes, and his voice is hoarse with ash and smoke but it sounds perfect - they’re perfect, together.
Kame curls his fingers into Jin’s sleeve, the imprints of a promise. “Welcome home,” he whispers when his mouth is directed away from the microphone, and Jin’s responsive smile is blinding, like the beautiful beginning sparks of firelight just before the engulfing flames begin to destruct.
In the future, Kame will mark Sendai as the place it began, even though he knows - they both know - it probably began the very first time Kame laid eyes on Jin’s double-striped track pants.
And in the future, Kame will tell himself, Sendai is where it ended.
Even though they both know it never should have even begun.
*
Maybe the hardest part of this is how easy it is, how easily Jin can take everything that happened last night-
(the salt of Kame’s skin, the way he shuddered when Jin kissed the knob of bone on the inside of his ankle, the push and pull of their bodies, steady and strong like the tide and the thrum of energy between them)
-and slot it into his life seamlessly. He feels like he’s known it forever, the shiver of Kame’s spine when Jin traces his fingers down his back, the way their hands found each other in the middle of the night, magnets drawn south to north.
No.
Jin has always tried his best to be honest.
The hardest part of all of this, of course, is that Kame will walk away because they both know he has to.
(He doesn’t understand why Kame thinks Jin is the braver one.)
Tucked by Jin into Kame’s pants, found too late by Kame
Kame has never been good at letting himself have things.
(There’s wanting, and then there’s wanting.)
Things like this just don’t work out. Kame knows better than to hope.
**
"The beginning of love is always like a baby. Very simple and beautiful, no matter how difficult and terrible the love grows into."
Kanzaki Hiroto, 2006, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi, Episode 1.
**
Jin's oxygen tank - for emergencies
Jin is keeping his distance, Kame can tell. It’s 2008, and Kame still feels twelve, newly washed ashore and raw with petty, uncontained irritability every time Jin is in his vicinity (and isn’t speaking to him, and him alone). Kame feels the need to impress, to repress, to give and give until he’s left with an empty shell and he no longer has to suppress the urge to hear the crashing waves of Okinawa in his dreams.
“Why are you avoiding Jin?”
Koki tries to understand, of course. But Koki’s got it all wrong.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not,” Koki repeats, a huff of air that jangles his jewelry, and then - “Okay. Why aren’t you being friends with Jin?”
It would be easy, so easy, to tell. Because I don’t want to be just friends. Kame closes a firm grip on his leather bracelet to steady himself, and red flashes behind his eyelids, red like the blood of lipstick, like Oda Nobunaga, like sacrifice. Red like Aka, one half of a whole.
“Why aren’t you?”
There’s a laugh, and Koki’s being thoughtful, all wise and empathic under his façade of steel and graphic. “Me and Akanishi?” He smiles, quietly. “Well, because he’s him, and I’m not you.”
A whole.
“You don’t have to,” Koki’s still saying, and Kame’s still trying not to hear the ocean’s roar. “I just wanted to let you know.” He claps a ringed, broad hand on Kame’s back, an imprint of reassurance, strong and permanent - everything Jin isn’t.
Their theme this year is pirates, like it was back in 2005, when Jin wore maroon velvet and Kame didn’t know how to bleed. A pirate steals for a living, Kame thinks. The way he’s been trying to steal Jin from the world, selfish and unperturbed, the way he strives for the perfection he knows they are together.
Nothing can be perfect. Gold is elusive - even pirates know that.
All or nothing - Kame knows that, too.
*
When Kame was a child, his mother would tell him stories of Ryujin, the sea god who could control the tides, who could drown soldiers and rescue people lost at sea.
When Jin sings Bokura no Machi de in Tokyo Dome, Kame lets himself be carried by the waves and realizes, quite suddenly, that he drowned a long time ago (the dawn breaking over the horizon, salt on his lips and how much he wanted to fall into Jin’s arms).
Later on, Jin sits on the floor in their dressing room, gasping into a mask. Maru grabs a packet of cigarettes from Jin’s bag and throws it at the wall.
Ueda, eyes sharp and knowing, takes Kame by the arm.
Kame is shaking, the door slams behind them and he can’t - he can’t -
“Breathe, Kazuya.”
**
"My human relations are either 0 or 100. If we're together I want to show everything of myself, without pretending, totally."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2012, MAQUIA Vol. 13.
**
A note handed to Kame
Natsu is a riot.
It’s not the first thing on Kame’s mind, spiraling into 2009 with older Ryu seeping through the cracks, but it’s far from the last, too. Jin has always been passionate about music, but this is wholly different - he’s immersed in it, submerged by his inspired harmonization and long, winding notes. He touches a lot, talks even more, and when he looks at Kame, his goofy grin is anything but Hayato’s soft, reserved smile.
They play the roommate game, but Taguchi rigs it by cracking his door open to peek, and Kame’s suddenly thrust in the direction of the second door. “Fingers crossed,” Nakamaru says from behind, and Kame maybe, really, wants it to be Koki.
The door opens.
Jin looks up at him from the right-side bed. “Yoroshiku,” he says, softly, and the chaos falls into silence.
*
Kame blinks at Ueda.
“Is this supposed to be a threat?”
When Ueda smiles, he shows all his teeth.
*
(“Did you plan it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kame-chan.”
“It wasn’t us. Jin did.”)
A note passed from Jin to Maru to Koki to Ueda to Junno
They’re at a meeting, discussing solos. Kame already knows that Jin has something planned with Crystal, had heard about it from the whispering managers. New image and more appeal - that’s all they think about.
Kame wonders if Jin ever really understands the things he sings about.
Jin told him once that it was easier when he didn’t.
When Kame lays out his plans, the kimono and the water and the flying, he catches Jin’s eyes for just a moment.
Later, Jin corners him in the dressing room.
“True love and sacrifice. How noble of you.”
Kame refuses to rise up to the bait.
“If. If that’s what you want - I.”
Jin takes a step forward and he’s so close, now. Kame thinks about Nobunaga and Ranmaru, and how maybe they could have had a chance.
Jin hesitates at the last minute and kisses Kame’s forehead instead. It feels like a blessing.
Kame wants to press his fingers into the soft material of Jin’s shirt.
“Good luck,” Jin mumbles, walking backwards and exiting the room.
When the door closes behind him, Kame finally says, “You too.”
Nobunaga and Ranmaru burned to the ground. Kame is not brave enough to sacrifice everything for love, so he sings about it instead.
(Please, please hold me with those hands.)
Left by Jin on Kame’s bedside table in the Okinawa hotel room
Jin falls ill in Hokkaido, and Kame dreams of suffocating, dark waves barreling the shoreline, his reflection elusive and translucent under gray, filtered sky. “Jin,” he hears, and it’s his own voice echoing, muffled and hazy between the roars of the ocean. A tide of panic is rising in his chest - writhing, shooting flames into the gaps between steel plates, and he’s shattering. “Jin, please breathe. Please.”
When he opens his eyes, his hands are warm. Skin against skin, and his lungs sting when he breathes, like he’s inhaling salty spray. Jin is staring at him in bewilderment. “Kame,” he whispers, and Kame looks down at their intertwined fingers. Jin’s hands twitch. He’s afraid of letting go.
They’ve been friendly on tour - callous jokes, raucous laughter, and the occasional, teasing prod. “Like best friends,” their manager had said happily, nails shimmering with the promise of fame. Kame steeled himself. “Perfect.”
“Kame,” Jin says again, stronger this time, and Kame still hasn’t let go. Natsu is a selfish prick for setting them up together. Kame can never be enough.
But then Jin coughs; a weak, chest-heaving hack that has Kame gripping tighter, and Jin winces. “Sorry,” he manages, and his fingers are loosening of their own accord, slipping out of Kame’s hold like trickling water.
“No,” Kame says, so unexpectedly fierce it scares even himself. “No, let me.” He moves a hand out to press against the papery skin of Jin’s throat, fingers caressing vague hints of stubble on Jin’s chin. “Just don’t.” His heart is hammering, gushing, escaping, and the steel is melting. Just once, he thinks, as he watches Jin’s eyelids flutter shut against his touch. Just once.
If Jin can afford to be selfish, just once, he can, too.
*
They don’t share a room in Okinawa. In the middle of the night, Jin texts him, open your door.
When Kame pads over to the door, Jin’s eyes are wide and mischievous. He holds a finger to his lips, shhh, and points to the other bed. As if on cue, Maru snores loudly and rolls so his back is on them.
They walk on the sand and share a cigarette on the beach. Indirect kiss, Kame thinks.
They don’t talk much. For such a long time, it’s been so loud between the two of them, the blare of speakers and raised voices. Even the way they move around each other, sometimes.
Kame had forgotten they could be like this too. Maybe he’s only supposed to love like this: in the quiet of the night, with the stars and Jin’s soft breath and the two of them huddled against the wind.
He and Jin watch the tide recede slowly, and Kame finally feels his head breaking the surface.
(The loudest thing between them has always been their silence. Kame should have known that that was the best way Jin knew how to say good-bye.)
**
"Akanishi, he might let me do what I want, and I'd let him do what he wants depending on the situation."
Kamenashi Kazuya, 2009, Break the Records documentary.
**
JIN is officially leaving the band.
JIN is officially a self-absorbed, ungrateful, repulsive jerk.
At least that’s what KAME tries to tell himself on camera.
But CLOSE ON KAME, and in his eyes, the pieces are falling. Sheer metal flaps that could never have disguised the throbbing, the pulsing, the aching. He’s bleeding.
The ocean roars.
JIN is like the ocean. When the waves crash, they never return.
Left on Jin's coffee table before Kame's flight home
Kame visits Jin in America exactly once.
They eat cup noodles on Jin’s sofa, steam rising up on their faces, and if Kame closes his eyes, he can almost imagine being in Japan again, the taste of ramen on his lips and Jin’s hand close enough to reach for if he ever wanted it.
(Has he ever wanted anything else? He’s learning how to, now.)
Jin sees him off at the airport, and when they hug, Jin’s hands on Kame’s not-so-thin shoulders, Kame thinks maybe he can fly again.
*
(Jin visits Japan more than once, but Kame is no longer first priority.
Kame gathers the plates together, and lets go.)
**
"We didn't split up because we hated each other. But it was just like, at the time, the things we wanted to do weren't on the same axis."
Akanishi Jin, 2011.09.16, TakkiChannel.
**
Jin falls ill just before New Year’s, or so Yamapi says. He’s been dropping hints about meeting Jin at the shrine for the week leading up to 2012, and Kame isn’t sure if he means to imply or to declare.
Regardless, he finds himself dwindling afterwards, even as the other Johnny’s begin to leave the shrine. KAT-TUN is crowded around the door of a van, exchanging sparse words and the obligatory parental greetings. Ueda, with shaven hair, slings an arm around Kame’s shoulder. “Happy New Year, Kame.”
“Happy New Year,” Kame murmurs back, and wonders fleetingly about being put-together.
“You’re going to stay?”
Taguchi is leaving, and Koki’s looking back inquisitively. Kame’s hands are cold and smooth like steel, but somewhere inside him, he can feel the heat brewing, something quiet and reserved tugging through the ashes and smoke. “Yeah,” he says quickly, “just for a bit.” A car has turned into the driveway, and they don’t have to know.
“If you’re sure,” Ueda says, and he’s moving away. He’s always been so strong, Kame thinks, strong and reliable, every one of them, grounding him amidst liquid and fire.
The car pulls to the curb, and the door opens.
On the tip of Kame’s tongue is hisashiburi.
From Kame to Jin, two days late
--
From Jin to Kame, a reply
“You know,” Jin says later, when he’s facing Kame completely. “I recently discovered I like soba a lot better. Than udon.”
The waves are lapping at their toes, silent and calm. Meisa’s family lives in Okinawa. There is no green tent.
“I guess,” Jin is still saying, and in his eyes, the pieces are falling into place. “You were always right, after all.”
**
"I had to do it. This is my way of doing things. This is... all I could do."
Yabuki Hayato, 2005, Gokusen 2, Episode 2.