Fic for leen1707 (1/3)
Title: Dented
Author: natsukashi_yume
Pairing: Akame
Word count: 23,267
Rating: R
Warnings: angst, what if AU
Notes: Dear leen1707 I really hope you enjoy this story, even just a fraction of how much I enjoyed writing it. Thank you lovely m for keeping me on track, I really could not have done this without you. Thank you dear s for letting me whine and flail in your direction, and thank you darling c for the sweetest beta job. Thank you to the many, many people who handheld through the rocky days in fandom. ♥ This story turned out to be a kind of a thought experiment... on how Kamenashi and Akanishi's personalities would adjust to match the hypothetical situation.
Summary: Kame thinks that maybe he's odd, to feel so alive and free in moments like this, alone and far away from everyone he loves.
take me home
where them broken brights
are shining down
make me feel alright
when we were young
Johnny calls KAT-TUN into the office, right after the release of their latest single.
It's doing well in the rankings and Kame's not nervous about the sudden meeting. The old man likes to drink a toast with them in the office each time they hit the top of the Oricon charts, and this time's probably not an exception to that tradition.
Koki's laughing about something as they enter the staid, ordinary office and Nakamaru nervously tries to shush him, which never works, but seemingly doesn't prevent him from trying anyway. Kame smiles at their usual antics.
After they settle down with drinks and a hearty congratulations from Johnny, who is still well-preserved like an aging dictator, the old man clears his throat.
Kame holds his breath. The throat clearing always signals an announcement.
"Kamenashi, YOU are going to London to do a photo shoot," the old man says, a sly, stiff half-smile crossing his withered features. "YOU will put out a solo single."
"But sir..." Kame blurts out, before he can think. His mind is reeling, and he's dimly surprised by how the old man can still turn his world upside down on a whim.
"Yamashita's singles are doing well and you've always been one of our biggest sellers. We have to take advantage of your popularity while you're still young and hot on the market. KAT-TUN can take a break for a while."
Kame's heart stutters.
Falls.
Like the hard, jolting drop he makes when his foot misses the bar on the trapeze landing in Dream Boys rehearsals. He hears his voice mumble something, but blood is rushing in his ears and he can't breathe properly.
His hands shake as he swirls the whiskey in the cold glass. He can pick out each individual tinkle of the ice against the glass. He takes a sip, but it hurts to swallow and does nothing to calm his nerves.
Johnny's words have always been commands, never suggestions, never questions that left room for any answers.
It's been so long since Kame said no, anyway. He can't, or no... he won't.
How can he refuse any demands, no matter how whimsical, how unfair? He'll never feel secure enough to say those words in an industry where there's always someone younger, prettier and more ambitious waiting in the wings. He's forgotten how.
For a moment, which feels like a lifetime to Kame, Koki looks sullen, Ueda's brow furrows and Nakamaru is uncharacteristically silent.
Kame can guess at their thoughts, their anxieties and resentments. If the roles were reversed, he would probably feel the same. He knows Ueda has been wanting a single for Mouse Peace since forever, and Koki has approached management at least three times with the concept for a solo rap album.
And Nakamaru... who always says yes to everything, because he feels like he has to. Kame's heart thunders like a drum as he struggles for a way to say 'not now' or 'why not them' or 'I can't do it on my own' or simply 'I don't want this.'
It feels a little bit like Shuuji to Akira all over again, something he didn't ask for, but is supposed to be grateful for nonetheless.
Everyone seems to think that Kame's strong and brave and in control. They don't realize that it's just him trying to exert some modicum of control over the insignificant things in his life that he actually can control. Most of the life-changing decisions in his life have never been in Kame's hands, after all.
Then the next moment Koki's slapping his back and Nakamaru is smiling his congratulations and Ueda sends him a shy half-smirk while Taguchi makes a pun.
But Kame knows them well. Knows them better than his brothers, and knows that they're all trying their utmost to be happy for him. Knows what those tight lines around Koki's mouth, the edge in Nakamaru's smile and Ueda's nervous lip biting mean.
His heart tightens and beats like it's pumping sludge.
He feels sick.
Kame smiles until his cheeks ache. And then he smiles some more.
~~~
The next few days, Kame works a lot. He fills his hours up with baseball and dancing and promos and photo shoots and interviews. Everything is scheduled and choreographed down to the minute, so tightly packed that he has to remind himself to eat.
Kame forgot how to sleep a long time ago.
He likes it though, because it makes it much harder not to let stray thoughts wander in.
Kame doesn't want to think about how the bone-deep tiredness almost feels like adequate punishment, compensation for not standing up for his group mates.
He won't brag about his sleepless nights or blisters this time. They are his personal penance for not being strong enough, not being perfect enough.
He quashes it. All the doubt, all the self-loathing, he buries it under a tight armor of confidence and reliability.
He jokes with the camera crew and pouts cutely for the makeup assistants as they apply more concealer to the dark rings under his eyes with their cool, smooth fingers. They smile at him, utterly charmed.
Kame thinks his shell is perfect.
It feels like he's walking a tightrope with no safety net, more terrifying and exhilarating than all the stunts he's performed in midair.
~~~
Kame watches Tokyo fall away below him as the airplane lifts farther into the air, the tiny cars and the towering skyscrapers that seem so insignificant from up here. He takes a deep breath of the temperature-controlled, recycled air.
He doesn't know why this trip scares him.
It's simple. A photo shoot in London, the city he's always wanted to visit.
He's dreamed about it since he was fifteen years old, painting his toenails the colors of the Union Jack and plastering his walls with posters of Big Ben and the London Bridge. He's run his fingers over the pictures in his guidebook so often that the pages are worn and dog-eared. It's the shabbiest book on his bookshelf, but also the most well loved.
After all, it's held his dreams for so long.
Somehow, he's afraid that the real thing will be a let down. He's nervous that London won't live up to the mythical quality he's given it over the years, embroidering his fantasy with little scraps of details from movies and books and magazine pages.
But there's something else, something larger and more overwhelming. This feeling...
...as if, once he goes he won't come back. The idea of it seizes his chest tightly, so tightly that he can't breathe.
But then Kame does what he's always done when afraid. He talks himself through it. "You're Kamenashi. You're Kamenashi fucking Kazuya. You can do this."
He tries his best not to think about the single, his solo single. Not to think about KAT-TUN's members, their tight, polite expressions as they said their goodbyes. Not to think about their secret hopes and resentments and disappointments, which they've grown too mature and polished to voice any longer.
A few years ago, they would have thrown a few punches, earned a few black eyes, yelled until their throats hurt and then hugged it out with disappointed tears. Now, Kame is left in a deafening silence that he's afraid to break. He's never minded being alone, but now, it feels lonely.
There won't be any joint recording sessions for a while, Kame realizes, his throat raw.
He can't sleep, and the thoughts tumble in his mind endlessly, so he watches the in-flight entertainment, trying to catch English phrases that might help him. He ends up watching the mostly silent comedy of Mr. Bean and laughing until he's nearly crying.
The next thing he knows he's landing in England, walking into the crowded, sterile and confusing hustle and bustle of Heathrow Airport. There are so many people, of all different backgrounds, and Kame keenly feels how little he's traveled and how little he's seen of the wide, wide world.
After he finds his luggage and gets through immigration, he steps into the British air.
Somehow, appropriately, it's damp outside with light raindrops flecking down from a gray, rumbling sky. A half-formed smile stretches on his face and he fills his lungs with the cool air.
The black cabs are exactly as he'd imagined, and he gets into one, showing the driver the name of the hotel, tongue clumsy as he tries to say the words as well.
He looks out of the rain-spattered window, sleep loosening its grip on his mind as he takes in the sodden roads and industrial suburbs of the city.
~~~
The interview passes in a flash. What's memorable about it isn't the ordinary setting of the hotel's restaurant or the interviewer's charming, halting Japanese, but the questions she asks. They linger long after Kame has given her the appropriate idol responses that come to him as naturally as breathing.
What are your goals for your career in the future, Kamenashi-san? Do you want a family? What makes you truly happy? What does love mean to you?
Maybe it's because he's far away from Japan. Maybe it's that they aren't the usual idol magazine questions that allow Kame to answer them with embroidered fantasies of romance.
Something so simple. What makes you happy? And he isn't able to answer.
He's lying on his bed, still musing about the interview when his phone rings.
"Hello?" He answers in English.
The response comes in Japanese, "Hello, Kamenashi-kun. I called to check on how the interview went."
"Ah, it went well," Kame says, recognizing his manager's voice. It must be very early in the morning in Japan now. "The shoot is scheduled for later this evening, to capture the natural light from the sunset."
"Kamenashi-kun. I wish we had a chance to talk about this while you were here, but the decision went forward in the jimusho only last night." Matsuyama-san pauses. Kame's skin prickles.
"With the extra duties of the single promotion and the drama and the play, we don't think you'll have time for Going any longer. Johnny-san also thinks we've gotten the most we can from exposing you to a new audience through the show," he says in a soft, sympathetic voice. "I... know how much you enjoyed being a part of the team. I'm sorry. I tried my best to make the case for you continuing on the show, but you know how these things go."
"Yes," is all Kame can manage to croak out before his throat clogs with emotion. "Thank you for calling."
He hangs up, fingers unsteady, fumbling.
It shouldn't come as a surprise, really.
Kame numbly wonders if he can put off dealing with his feelings long enough to do a decent job at the photo shoot. They'll be shooting at some of the places he's always wanted to see and there was a small part of him that reveled in glee and anticipation. But that hardly seems relevant anymore.
He feels a cold sweat trickle down his back. He breathes in. Breathes out. Goes to the bathroom and splashes some water on his face, not caring how it wrecks his makeup and hair.
Thoughts swirl inside his head, half-formed, phantasms of emotion that he refuses to give himself up to completely yet.
He wonders what the point of it all is. The point of always behaving like the perfect idol, always giving in to demands, always giving 150 percent, always exceeding expectations and never admitting that he's tired or overbooked.
He wonders when it will end, when he will finally hit that invisible, impossible mark he's been aiming for, when he has some sort of say in what happens to his career. Realistically, he knows some people--actually, a lot of people--in his industry can't even dream of reaching that mark, and he should count himself lucky where he is.
But right now, in this moment, with his mind numb and his heart squeezing painfully, Kame wishes there were something to anchor him.
Roughly toweling his face, he walks back to the bedroom and picks up his phone and dials, not caring about the ridiculous international cell phone bill he's likely to get.
"Hello?" His mother's voice.
They've never been a very demonstrative family, and with four boys, his mother has long since given up on any sentimentality from her children, though she always seemed to have a soft spot for Kame. Her warm, work-worn hands always brush gently against his cheek when he visits, measuring if he's healthy by a mother's standards or not.
She never asks about ratings or photo shoots. She asks if he's eating properly, if he's getting at least some sleep, if he has time to relax.
The moment he hears her familiar, soothing voice, he feels a catch in his throat. "Oka-san," he gets out, his voice wobbling. And he knows she can hear the rawness in his voice when she says, "What is it, Kazuya? What's wrong?"
He feels like a child: everything, including his emotions, out of his control.
"Nothing," he says, not wanting to worry her. "I landed in London this morning. I wanted to let you know, so you wouldn't worry." She knows him well enough to guess that something is bothering him, but she also knows him well enough to understand that he'll only tell her when he's ready.
"I'm glad to hear that," she says, voice softening. "Kazu-chan, you know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Yes," he says and his face crumples into a grotesque, silent sob and he covers the phone's receiver for a moment. He breathes, steadies his voice.
"I'll be fine. I miss you and Otoh-san. How is everyone?"
"They're doing well. Apparently your grandfather is having some health problems, but nothing to worry about yet. You can call him when you come back. They send their love."
"Un."
"Do your best Kazuya. I raised strong sons." The note of pride in her voice only makes Kame's heart squeeze more painfully.
"I will."
~~~
Kame feels like he sleepwalked through the photo shoot, not connecting with the camera or the photographer, not even really interacting with his surroundings. But the feedback from the photographer is ecstatic, from what he can tell with his knowledge of English. He catches the word "brilliant" a lot.
~~~
That night, for the first time in a very, very long time, Kame cries for himself. He hasn't let himself give in to this kind of desolation, because he has always had work and professional pride and a reputation to maintain, even among friends, and those always took precedence over any kind of personal crisis.
He has never wanted anyone to worry about him, never wanted to give in to the indulgence of self-pity, but he looks back at the nearly three decades of his life and wonders what he has to show for it at the very end. In the eyes of the world, perhaps a lot, but the painful squeezing in his chest tells him otherwise.
It was always easier to ignore his vulnerabilities when he was busy, but now he wonders if they've only been gathering strength in the shadows.
He muffles his sobs into the pillow, alone in the darkness, in a strange land.
~~~
When he wakes up, groggy after several hours of sleep, Kame is relieved that there's nothing planned for the day. It takes a few minutes for everything to seep back into his consciousness. His eyes are puffy, and his throat aches.
He's finished his professional obligations in London. He was scheduled to have some time to himself. He's almost forgotten the meaning of that.
He takes a long, scalding shower and skips any primping except moisturizer. He doesn't shave. He brushes his teeth on auto-pilot, not looking at his face, which he would normally be examining for blemishes to cover up. Vanity is a part of his job description.
He slips into a comfortable pair of jeans and pulls on the softest T-shirt he can find, shrugging into his leather jacket.
Everything feels distant, muffled, like a static buzz.
He checks and double checks to make sure he has his wallet filled with British pounds and that he has his phone and the hotel room keycard. And the most important things are tucked neatly in the zippered pocket of his bag.
Once on the street, he finds a bakery where he buys a croissant and a coffee, hot and strong and black. The lady at the counter is briefly puzzled by his English pronunciations, but she gives him a soft smile when he points embarrassedly at the croissant.
"There you are, dearie," she says, dropping the change in his hands.
Then Kame walks.
He is simultaneously the happiest and the most miserable he's been in a long time, his emotions simmering dangerously close to the surface. His heart feels like a balloon that might burst at any moment, and he's only hanging on, from breath to breath.
Kame walks in the misty air, concentrating on breathing. Slowly, he notices this scent that's so different from what he's always smelled in Japan, in Tokyo. He wonders what gives each city its special smell, but this, to his inexperienced senses, feels like the essence of London. He commits it to memory, hands in pockets, letting his thoughts drift.
What makes you truly happy, Kamenashi-san?
A melancholy settles inside Kame as he wanders the streets of London, mind both far away and right here. He follows the path he had marked out long ago, during childish daydreams. Walking those paths now feels bittersweet, but he has his guidebook and his camera.
That's enough. For now.
The gloomy skies and rainy sidewalks feel familiar, like they've always existed in his memories and were just waiting to be rediscovered. The farther he walks, the farther everything that's falling apart in his life feels.
His hotel is on one of the side streets of Tottenham Court Road, and he walks down the damp streets past the human tide of Oxford Street towards Covent Garden. He's always loved the sounds of British names, old-fashioned and sturdy.
It feels strange to blend into the flood of humanity, to be just another camera-wielding tourist, and oddly, he forgets that he can't speak the language and doesn't belong. Everything about this feels natural, like innate knowledge, like muscle memory.
His finger rarely strays from the camera's shutter as he takes in the ornately constructed buildings, the cobblestone streets with puddles full of dancing reflections, the brightly colored display windows of shops and bookstores.
On a whim, he buys a crepe, completely fascinated by how the vendor at Covent Garden wields the wooden contraption to make the paper thin food. The lemon and sugar and flour melt in his mouth and taste like a little bite of happiness.
Kame almost feels like he's stopped blinking, because he doesn't want to miss a moment of anything. From Covent Garden, he walks to Leicester Square, slightly bemused by the throngs waiting outside a theater. It looks like a movie premiere. It feels strange to be on the audience's side.
The faces of the strangers in the crowd are so interesting, and he finds himself observing where he has always been the one being observed.
He finds himself both wanting to linger and take his time and wanting to rush so he can see everything in the time he has. He gets himself lost, asking the friendlier looking people for directions in halting English, with lots of gestures.
When he finally makes it to the Thames, it's late afternoon, though the sky is still covered in clouds. The Parliament buildings rise majestically to his right. He buys a simple sandwich in a small coffee shop and walks to the bridge running across the water to eat it.
In all his daydreams, Kame never thought it would be like this. It's oddly peaceful, and not at all unsettling. He feels the lump of emotion in his throat, constricting his chest, but there's so much to distract him, so much to absorb, that he lets his mind wander, thinking about this city's history, about what kind of culture and people created the things he sees around him.
It's in moments like this that Kame wishes he had stayed in school longer, so he could indulge in his curiosity about the city by reading all those hefty, informative books in English.
For almost an hour he wanders around the banks of the Thames, admiring the realness of all the landmarks he had imagined for so long. The London Eye is far bigger than he had imagined, and he goes up in a pod, looking over the city just as the clouds break and a magnificent sunset reveals itself, dusting the sky in warm pastels.
It's breathtaking, pulling a deep and strong chord in Kame's chest.
~~~
Japan feels so far away as Kame eats his traditionally English dinner of fish and chips, tongue slowly relishing the crispy, salty feel of the fries. He sits by himself, but the pub has many people sitting on their own, nursing pints of beer. He orders one for himself, a Guinness with a thick head of foam and a dark, malted taste.
He feels somehow not like himself. Like he doesn't recognize who he is, without his natural surroundings. And he's oddly thankful for the feeling, because he doesn't want to be himself right now.
Kame might have just sabotaged his career.
His flight back was supposed to be taking off right now, but he watches the hands tick on the clock in the dimly lit, musty pub with a hollow pit in his stomach that has nothing to do with a lack of food.
A large part of Kame hates himself at this moment, but he absolutely could not make himself get in the taxi. Not while he was still so lost. The voice in his head hasn't stopped its repeated 'what's the point?' since he chose to tune back into that frequency. It won't let go, and it has paralyzed him.
It's like he has unspooled the thread of what made him Kamenashi Kazuya and it got tangled somehow and he can't wind it back up. He can't go back. He...
He hasn't taken a proper vacation in weeks, months, maybe even years and it's only now that it's hit him, how quickly life has passed, how he's spent more than a decade working towards some kind of invisible goal that now seems so impossibly far away. Always following the rules. Always making work his priority. Putting everything off until it was safer, more convenient.
It's always been the next thing and the next thing and the thing after that and now it's like he can't see ahead and suddenly he's in a dense fog on a lonely road with no idea how he ended up here.
Waiting to live his life.
Before dinner, he emailed his group mates and manager, "Don't worry. I'll be back," and then turned off his phone.
Kame breathes through his mouth and swallows the sob that is threatening to crawl out of his throat. If he's going to do this, he thinks, he's going to do it thoroughly. He's always done everything with 150 percent dedication, and this, whatever it is, isn't going to be an exception.
~~~
Kame expected some kind of culture shock to kick in after a few more days in London, but he has been making his way through London, too busy experiencing everything to really feel the shock of how different it all is. He thinks, maybe, the shock of everything else in his life has dimmed the shock of being surrounded by foreigners in a country that isn't his own. He isn't even sure if he still has a job, but surprisingly he finds it easy to breathe.
Kame walks everywhere, eager to learn how each part of the city connects to the other, and also because the Tube feels claustrophobic the few times he tries it, reminding him too much of the Tokyo subway.
The slight drizzles don't dampen his experience, and there's something refreshing about walking in the light rain. Somehow, Kame doesn't miss the sun. The city seems right somehow, shrouded in clouds, a little bit damp, a little bit nostalgic.
London is fascinating. Kame meanders up to the trendier neighborhoods of Camden and down the calm, stately lanes of Kensington and the brick-building neighborhoods in Hampstead, overgrown with vines of ivy. The names trip on his tongue, but thrive vividly in his memory, and he often finds himself writing them down for people when he asks for directions.
His stilted English isn't as much of a problem as he would have thought and he's surprised by how much he can get across with gestures and eye contact, when he points at things on menus and in guide books. He bows his head in gratitude when people stop to give him directions, and he doesn't feel restricted about how he interacts with people.
There's no one watching Kame, no one reporting on his behavior. He isn't a representative of Japan or Johnny's or KAT-TUN, or even Kamenashi Kazuya, the idol. He's just Kame, someone he hasn't allowed himself to be in a very long time.
Kame cherishes the smiles he gets from strangers and the fumbled small talk that waiters try to engage him in. Most of the people he encounters in London are polite and friendly, but not curious. He doesn't talk much, but it feels fine.
The silence feels comfortable, because his thoughts are loud and Kame realizes he's spent so long not listening to himself. It feels, suddenly, like he has time and space to think and feel... to remember all the things he's neglected in his life because they didn't fit conveniently into his schedule.
He thinks about all the people he's drifted away from over the years. He feels his heart expanding, unfurling and letting itself acknowledge certain feelings again.
Some moments, the dark ones which he doesn't quite want to acknowledge, he's like a fractured mirror that no longer reflects a whole image. He can't hold all the contradicting pieces together, and he has no idea who he is anymore.
But then he thinks, it hardly matters anyway, and he breathes.
You're just Kame.
~~~
It's the fourth day since Kame missed his flight, and the sun shines clear and bright. He does something he hasn't done in years. He walks in the sun, no hat, no sunglasses. He squints hard and enjoys the warm glow of it on his cheeks and the red-orange burn behind his eyelids.
He goes to Buckingham Palace, with the thought that he might as well get all the cliched touristy things done while he's here. The changing of the guards is a quaint, amusing tradition which he documents on his camera along with the hoards of other tourists.
Photography was always one of those pursuits that he put off for later in life or when I have more time or when things get less busy and he didn't even realize how much he missed it until now, as he cradles the digital SLR in his hands, fingers moving with familiarity over the different knobs and buttons. The camera has given him some measure of comfort, a feeling of belonging even while he's so far from home.
As he wanders behind the palace and follows the winding roads, he ends up at Hyde Park. The size of the large green patch looks intimidating on the map, but Kame ventures inside after he's taken enough pictures of the palace grounds. The sprawling green is like an oasis in the city, a sanctuary of nature in the midst of civilization. He lies down in the sun and rests for a while, absorbing the tingling, gentle warmth of the weak English sun.
It would be unfair to say that he'd never relaxed in Japan. He always found his quiet moments of peace and relaxation, with close friends and family, on mini holidays, driving away from the noise, the crowds, the lights of Tokyo into the soothing wildernesses far away from prying eyes.
But as Kame sinks into the grass, in the sun, in a park in the middle of the city, he realizes it's something special, something he hasn't really felt before because he doesn't feel the need to open his eyes and check whether someone is watching. And even if they are watching, they probably don't know or care who he is.
Once he feels the tingling burn of the sun on his skin, Kame gets up with a sigh, dusting off his jeans. The park is so huge, he's slightly worried he might get lost or completely turned around.
But before he can worry too much, Kame gets distracted by a group of British kids playing with a ball and a bat. The bat looks nothing like a baseball bat. It's flat and rectangular, with a cylindrical handle. The ball is made of a stark red leather, with white stitches. He edges closer, observing the game as the kids run back and forth between two parts of the field. The game looks familiar, but he can't remember what it's called.
He hears the solid, familiar thwack of the bat against the ball and he can see how it's heavier and moves in a lower arc than a baseball. One of the kids who's fielding notices him and waves. Kame waves back, surprised and pleased, a smile unconsciously pulling across his face.
The kid calls him over and before long, he's surrounded by a babble of British accented English, with gestures thrown in, illustrating how to throw a ball. He mimics pitching and says, "I know baseball. What is this called?"
"Cricket, mate," one of the kids says with a wide grin.
"Here, give it a try," another says and lightly tosses him the ball. It's heavy, like he'd expected, and hard. His fingers run over the stitches and grooves, so alien yet familiar. Some of the kids laugh good-naturedly as he tries to pitch it like a baseball, and one of them walks him through the steps of how to "bowl" the ball instead of pitching it.
By the time the kids start packing up their equipment, Kame's dusty and exhausted and smiling until his cheeks ache. The sun glints from a low angle, igniting the sky in hazy pinks and oranges and he waves quickly to the cricket players before picking his camera up again.
~~~
Kame ends up taking a taxi back to the hotel, a bit lost and too lazy to find his way back. The exhaustion feels good. His muscles ache in familiar ways, and a sweet pain swells in his heart as he thinks about all the things he was able to accomplish while still on Going: all the childhood heroes he met, all the baseball milestones he reached for himself. At least he has the memories, and they throb, bittersweet in his memory.
He wonders who is going to tell Ueda-san and Egawa-san that he's no longer on the show.
Kame leans his warm forehead against the cool glass of the taxi as dusk fades into night, the city's lights glittering.
He thinks that maybe he's odd, to feel so alive and free in moments like this, alone and far away from everyone he loves. Now, when Kame thinks of Tokyo and thinks of his job and the people he loves, there's a painful churning of anxiety and disappointment in the pit of his stomach. It's easier to be here and now, where no one is around to expect things of him, to be disappointed in him.
Thanking the cabbie in English that comes out a little smoother now, Kame counts out the right change, fumbling in the fading light for the heavy British coins.
Kame shivers as a gust of the cool night wind finds its way inside his jacket. He walks purposefully towards the elevator, and he's so focused on getting to his destination that he doesn't notice until someone grabs his arm. Startled, Kame looks up.
And exhales.
He can't seem to inhale again.
"Yo," Akanishi says.
The sight of him is so shocking, like an unexpected blow to Kame's gut, and he can't do much but stare. Biting his lip to hide the way his body wants to tremble, Kame finally clears his throat. "Yo."
Then he mentally shakes himself. "What the fuck are you doing here, Akanishi?"
"Checking up on you," comes the reply, and Akanishi's eyes sparkle with some kind of mischief and his mouth twists in a smirk that Kame used to find charming once upon a time. Now, it enrages Kame, among other things, and he shakes Akanishi's hand off his arm.
"What do you mean?"
"Management got worried after they couldn't reach you. They kept leaving messages, you know," Akanishi says, and Kame isn't sure if he's trying to be infuriating and smug, or if it just comes naturally. He also realizes he doesn't want wherever this conversation is headed to happen in public.
"Follow me," he grumbles, turning to the elevator and jabbing the button.
His skin prickles with awareness as Akanishi steps into the elevator, and the space never felt so small until now. Kame can feel how his jaw is clenched, but no matter how much he tells himself to relax, all the soothing exhaustion that his body had drifted into just a few minutes ago has evaporated, leaving behind a vibrating tension.
He swipes his keycard viciously until his door opens and a small part of him is laughing at how powerfully capable Akanishi is of disturbing his hard-won calm.
"Get in," he says, not caring how rough he sounds. He's too tired to play nice.
He drops his bag by the foot of the bed and carefully unwinds his camera from his neck to put it on the table in the spacious double room. The jimusho didn't scrimp on hotels for once, though Kame's sure that they've long since switched the bill into his name. He's beyond caring about such details though.
His stomach growls, reminding him of how he hasn't eaten since late in the morning. Kame turns, faces Akanishi, and observes him for a moment. He's standing awkwardly in the narrow corridor leading to the door, a mid-sized duffle thrown over one shoulder, and the other hand scraping absently at his stubble. A hoodie covers his wildly curling hair, which is falling into his eyes, and his jeans hang loose, nearly covering his neon green sneakers.
Akanishi looks like a slob, as usual.
Even if Kame's the one having some sort of crisis, he's managed to comb his hair and wear pants that fit, he thinks acidly. Sure, there's stubble on his jaw, but there's no one around to care and his eyes were tired so he wore his glasses instead. He tsks and asks Akanishi, "Have you eaten yet?"
"No, I came straight from the airport," Akanishi says, eyes wide, as if he'd forgotten Kame was there. Kame barely represses an eye roll.
"Alright, order something while I shower. No tomatoes, you know the deal. Hungry as I am, I might just kill you if I don't eat food first," Kame says, and he's sure Akanishi understands he's not joking.
Once the scalding water is beating down on him, Kame lets his body do what it will, shivering and trembling and flushed, with his heart racing like he's falling off a cliff. He's familiar enough with that feeling. He feels engulfed in so many conflicting emotions, feelings he's always set aside because they're too much to untangle and figure out when it comes to Jin.
But, he thinks, nothing really matters now. There are no appearances to keep up for the jimusho and it's been so long since he and Jin owed each other anything or had any semblance of a friendship to spoil. There's nothing to preserve or salvage, so it really doesn't matter what happens now.
The reassurance doesn't hold as he climbs out of the shower with a shuddering breath and towels off, skin angry and red from the heat. He can barely breathe or see in the steam-clouded room and for a moment he feels suspended in light-headed calm.
Mentally bracing himself, he ties the towel around his waist and walks out, tendrils of steam trailing behind him.
Akanishi's sitting on the bed, biting a nail. He looks up, hair falling in his eyes. Kame glances away and busies himself with his suitcase, pulling out a clean shirt and some boxers. He definitely isn't going to bother dressing up for his present company. He turns his back and shrugs into the shirt, maneuvering the boxers so he can get them on before pulling off the towel. Picking up his glasses from the nightstand, Kame finally turns to Akanishi. Who's observing him quietly in a way that Kame doesn't want to examine.
"What did you order?"
"Uh, burgers and a salad. No tomatoes, promise," Akanishi replies, expression earnest, and he looks so young that something scrapes painfully in Kame's chest.
"Okay, that's fine. What are you doing here?" Akanishi's still sitting on the edge of one bed, so Kame goes to sit on the edge of the other, not really facing him.
"As I was saying, management got worried."
"And what, they thought you were their best hope at getting me back? Akanishi Jin, idol bounty hunter?" Kame scoffs, but inside the scraping gets more painful.
"Well, they needed someone who knows you well and knows English. And besides, I've been here before, so I wouldn't get totally lost. I mean, can you imagine Nakamaru trying to find his way? He'd have five anxiety attacks before leaving the airport."
Kame keeps silent as he thinks of Nakamaru. Steadfast, patient Nakamaru who's always willing to stick his neck out, always willing to accept the blame and work hard. Also, always the first to notice when there's something wrong with Kame.
"He would have a much better chance than you at not being murdered by me," Kame grits out, and he knows he sounds petulant, but his head is beginning to pound.
"Now, now, why so angry, Kamenashi?" And Akanishi isn't laughing yet, but there's that infuriating smirk again.
"I told them I'd be back. I just need to be on my own for a bit," Kame replies, feeling too tired to sustain the anger. They're interrupted by a knock, thank god, and there's the food.
It's silent for a bit as they eat, and it's so surreal how they easily move around each other, from years of familiarity. But other than that, the man sharing his meal with Kame is a stranger, a friend from another lifetime.
Kame forgets when it was that they started hiding things from each other so they wouldn't be able to use information like ammunition in their numerous, pointless fights. The last year that Akanishi was still in the band, it was a miracle if they could interact without blowing up at each other.
Akanishi, back then, was opaque, like fractured, mirrored glass. Kame sensed his moods, but he had no inkling of what the causes of his reactions were. The difference was almost unbelievable. Akanishi with friends, open, pliable, laughing, and almost childishly innocent. And when he was pushed into a corner he would go stone cold, deathly silent, simmering with ice, a flat, blank look in his eyes and his lips pressed tight.
Kame exhales while he's still chewing, remembering to actually taste the burger that he's eating for the first time instead of eating it mechanically. It's a little overdone for his taste, but the seasoning is good and the onions crunch nicely.
"What are you even supposed to do, now that you've found me?"
"You weren't that hard to find, honestly. This is the hotel I stayed at when I was here for filming, and besides, your manager gave me the address," Akanishi says, mouth full and sloppy with half-chewed food. Kame can't count all the ways Akanishi gets under his skin.
"Ugh, finish chewing. And you didn't answer my question," Kame says, getting up to fill his glass with water.
"I'm not really sure. They were worried. And I was free, so I guess I'm just stuck babysitting an idol with a temper tantrum for now," comes the reply.
"Fuck you, I babysat you for years," Kame says, voice tight with repressed rage. He's set his food down and Akanishi's looking at him a little warily, like he knows that one more word will mean a punch in the face, idol or not. He spreads out his hands in a calming gesture.
"Sorry, sorry, just kidding," he says. "I didn't mean it."
"You never do. I don't have the energy to deal with you right now. Finish eating and leave," Kame sighs, slumping back. He can hear his own voice, flat, cold, a frozen glaze over all his molten emotions.
"I don't have a hotel booking for tonight," Akanishi says, and he's making that face, the face that lets him get away with all kinds of things and it irritates Kame. Just to put an end to the discussion he says, "Fine, take the other bed."
Kame's going to be gone by the morning anyway.
~~~
Part 2
Author: natsukashi_yume
Pairing: Akame
Word count: 23,267
Rating: R
Warnings: angst, what if AU
Notes: Dear leen1707 I really hope you enjoy this story, even just a fraction of how much I enjoyed writing it. Thank you lovely m for keeping me on track, I really could not have done this without you. Thank you dear s for letting me whine and flail in your direction, and thank you darling c for the sweetest beta job. Thank you to the many, many people who handheld through the rocky days in fandom. ♥ This story turned out to be a kind of a thought experiment... on how Kamenashi and Akanishi's personalities would adjust to match the hypothetical situation.
Summary: Kame thinks that maybe he's odd, to feel so alive and free in moments like this, alone and far away from everyone he loves.
take me home
where them broken brights
are shining down
make me feel alright
when we were young
Johnny calls KAT-TUN into the office, right after the release of their latest single.
It's doing well in the rankings and Kame's not nervous about the sudden meeting. The old man likes to drink a toast with them in the office each time they hit the top of the Oricon charts, and this time's probably not an exception to that tradition.
Koki's laughing about something as they enter the staid, ordinary office and Nakamaru nervously tries to shush him, which never works, but seemingly doesn't prevent him from trying anyway. Kame smiles at their usual antics.
After they settle down with drinks and a hearty congratulations from Johnny, who is still well-preserved like an aging dictator, the old man clears his throat.
Kame holds his breath. The throat clearing always signals an announcement.
"Kamenashi, YOU are going to London to do a photo shoot," the old man says, a sly, stiff half-smile crossing his withered features. "YOU will put out a solo single."
"But sir..." Kame blurts out, before he can think. His mind is reeling, and he's dimly surprised by how the old man can still turn his world upside down on a whim.
"Yamashita's singles are doing well and you've always been one of our biggest sellers. We have to take advantage of your popularity while you're still young and hot on the market. KAT-TUN can take a break for a while."
Kame's heart stutters.
Falls.
Like the hard, jolting drop he makes when his foot misses the bar on the trapeze landing in Dream Boys rehearsals. He hears his voice mumble something, but blood is rushing in his ears and he can't breathe properly.
His hands shake as he swirls the whiskey in the cold glass. He can pick out each individual tinkle of the ice against the glass. He takes a sip, but it hurts to swallow and does nothing to calm his nerves.
Johnny's words have always been commands, never suggestions, never questions that left room for any answers.
It's been so long since Kame said no, anyway. He can't, or no... he won't.
How can he refuse any demands, no matter how whimsical, how unfair? He'll never feel secure enough to say those words in an industry where there's always someone younger, prettier and more ambitious waiting in the wings. He's forgotten how.
For a moment, which feels like a lifetime to Kame, Koki looks sullen, Ueda's brow furrows and Nakamaru is uncharacteristically silent.
Kame can guess at their thoughts, their anxieties and resentments. If the roles were reversed, he would probably feel the same. He knows Ueda has been wanting a single for Mouse Peace since forever, and Koki has approached management at least three times with the concept for a solo rap album.
And Nakamaru... who always says yes to everything, because he feels like he has to. Kame's heart thunders like a drum as he struggles for a way to say 'not now' or 'why not them' or 'I can't do it on my own' or simply 'I don't want this.'
It feels a little bit like Shuuji to Akira all over again, something he didn't ask for, but is supposed to be grateful for nonetheless.
Everyone seems to think that Kame's strong and brave and in control. They don't realize that it's just him trying to exert some modicum of control over the insignificant things in his life that he actually can control. Most of the life-changing decisions in his life have never been in Kame's hands, after all.
Then the next moment Koki's slapping his back and Nakamaru is smiling his congratulations and Ueda sends him a shy half-smirk while Taguchi makes a pun.
But Kame knows them well. Knows them better than his brothers, and knows that they're all trying their utmost to be happy for him. Knows what those tight lines around Koki's mouth, the edge in Nakamaru's smile and Ueda's nervous lip biting mean.
His heart tightens and beats like it's pumping sludge.
He feels sick.
Kame smiles until his cheeks ache. And then he smiles some more.
~~~
The next few days, Kame works a lot. He fills his hours up with baseball and dancing and promos and photo shoots and interviews. Everything is scheduled and choreographed down to the minute, so tightly packed that he has to remind himself to eat.
Kame forgot how to sleep a long time ago.
He likes it though, because it makes it much harder not to let stray thoughts wander in.
Kame doesn't want to think about how the bone-deep tiredness almost feels like adequate punishment, compensation for not standing up for his group mates.
He won't brag about his sleepless nights or blisters this time. They are his personal penance for not being strong enough, not being perfect enough.
He quashes it. All the doubt, all the self-loathing, he buries it under a tight armor of confidence and reliability.
He jokes with the camera crew and pouts cutely for the makeup assistants as they apply more concealer to the dark rings under his eyes with their cool, smooth fingers. They smile at him, utterly charmed.
Kame thinks his shell is perfect.
It feels like he's walking a tightrope with no safety net, more terrifying and exhilarating than all the stunts he's performed in midair.
~~~
Kame watches Tokyo fall away below him as the airplane lifts farther into the air, the tiny cars and the towering skyscrapers that seem so insignificant from up here. He takes a deep breath of the temperature-controlled, recycled air.
He doesn't know why this trip scares him.
It's simple. A photo shoot in London, the city he's always wanted to visit.
He's dreamed about it since he was fifteen years old, painting his toenails the colors of the Union Jack and plastering his walls with posters of Big Ben and the London Bridge. He's run his fingers over the pictures in his guidebook so often that the pages are worn and dog-eared. It's the shabbiest book on his bookshelf, but also the most well loved.
After all, it's held his dreams for so long.
Somehow, he's afraid that the real thing will be a let down. He's nervous that London won't live up to the mythical quality he's given it over the years, embroidering his fantasy with little scraps of details from movies and books and magazine pages.
But there's something else, something larger and more overwhelming. This feeling...
...as if, once he goes he won't come back. The idea of it seizes his chest tightly, so tightly that he can't breathe.
But then Kame does what he's always done when afraid. He talks himself through it. "You're Kamenashi. You're Kamenashi fucking Kazuya. You can do this."
He tries his best not to think about the single, his solo single. Not to think about KAT-TUN's members, their tight, polite expressions as they said their goodbyes. Not to think about their secret hopes and resentments and disappointments, which they've grown too mature and polished to voice any longer.
A few years ago, they would have thrown a few punches, earned a few black eyes, yelled until their throats hurt and then hugged it out with disappointed tears. Now, Kame is left in a deafening silence that he's afraid to break. He's never minded being alone, but now, it feels lonely.
There won't be any joint recording sessions for a while, Kame realizes, his throat raw.
He can't sleep, and the thoughts tumble in his mind endlessly, so he watches the in-flight entertainment, trying to catch English phrases that might help him. He ends up watching the mostly silent comedy of Mr. Bean and laughing until he's nearly crying.
The next thing he knows he's landing in England, walking into the crowded, sterile and confusing hustle and bustle of Heathrow Airport. There are so many people, of all different backgrounds, and Kame keenly feels how little he's traveled and how little he's seen of the wide, wide world.
After he finds his luggage and gets through immigration, he steps into the British air.
Somehow, appropriately, it's damp outside with light raindrops flecking down from a gray, rumbling sky. A half-formed smile stretches on his face and he fills his lungs with the cool air.
The black cabs are exactly as he'd imagined, and he gets into one, showing the driver the name of the hotel, tongue clumsy as he tries to say the words as well.
He looks out of the rain-spattered window, sleep loosening its grip on his mind as he takes in the sodden roads and industrial suburbs of the city.
~~~
The interview passes in a flash. What's memorable about it isn't the ordinary setting of the hotel's restaurant or the interviewer's charming, halting Japanese, but the questions she asks. They linger long after Kame has given her the appropriate idol responses that come to him as naturally as breathing.
What are your goals for your career in the future, Kamenashi-san? Do you want a family? What makes you truly happy? What does love mean to you?
Maybe it's because he's far away from Japan. Maybe it's that they aren't the usual idol magazine questions that allow Kame to answer them with embroidered fantasies of romance.
Something so simple. What makes you happy? And he isn't able to answer.
He's lying on his bed, still musing about the interview when his phone rings.
"Hello?" He answers in English.
The response comes in Japanese, "Hello, Kamenashi-kun. I called to check on how the interview went."
"Ah, it went well," Kame says, recognizing his manager's voice. It must be very early in the morning in Japan now. "The shoot is scheduled for later this evening, to capture the natural light from the sunset."
"Kamenashi-kun. I wish we had a chance to talk about this while you were here, but the decision went forward in the jimusho only last night." Matsuyama-san pauses. Kame's skin prickles.
"With the extra duties of the single promotion and the drama and the play, we don't think you'll have time for Going any longer. Johnny-san also thinks we've gotten the most we can from exposing you to a new audience through the show," he says in a soft, sympathetic voice. "I... know how much you enjoyed being a part of the team. I'm sorry. I tried my best to make the case for you continuing on the show, but you know how these things go."
"Yes," is all Kame can manage to croak out before his throat clogs with emotion. "Thank you for calling."
He hangs up, fingers unsteady, fumbling.
It shouldn't come as a surprise, really.
Kame numbly wonders if he can put off dealing with his feelings long enough to do a decent job at the photo shoot. They'll be shooting at some of the places he's always wanted to see and there was a small part of him that reveled in glee and anticipation. But that hardly seems relevant anymore.
He feels a cold sweat trickle down his back. He breathes in. Breathes out. Goes to the bathroom and splashes some water on his face, not caring how it wrecks his makeup and hair.
Thoughts swirl inside his head, half-formed, phantasms of emotion that he refuses to give himself up to completely yet.
He wonders what the point of it all is. The point of always behaving like the perfect idol, always giving in to demands, always giving 150 percent, always exceeding expectations and never admitting that he's tired or overbooked.
He wonders when it will end, when he will finally hit that invisible, impossible mark he's been aiming for, when he has some sort of say in what happens to his career. Realistically, he knows some people--actually, a lot of people--in his industry can't even dream of reaching that mark, and he should count himself lucky where he is.
But right now, in this moment, with his mind numb and his heart squeezing painfully, Kame wishes there were something to anchor him.
Roughly toweling his face, he walks back to the bedroom and picks up his phone and dials, not caring about the ridiculous international cell phone bill he's likely to get.
"Hello?" His mother's voice.
They've never been a very demonstrative family, and with four boys, his mother has long since given up on any sentimentality from her children, though she always seemed to have a soft spot for Kame. Her warm, work-worn hands always brush gently against his cheek when he visits, measuring if he's healthy by a mother's standards or not.
She never asks about ratings or photo shoots. She asks if he's eating properly, if he's getting at least some sleep, if he has time to relax.
The moment he hears her familiar, soothing voice, he feels a catch in his throat. "Oka-san," he gets out, his voice wobbling. And he knows she can hear the rawness in his voice when she says, "What is it, Kazuya? What's wrong?"
He feels like a child: everything, including his emotions, out of his control.
"Nothing," he says, not wanting to worry her. "I landed in London this morning. I wanted to let you know, so you wouldn't worry." She knows him well enough to guess that something is bothering him, but she also knows him well enough to understand that he'll only tell her when he's ready.
"I'm glad to hear that," she says, voice softening. "Kazu-chan, you know you can tell me anything, right?"
"Yes," he says and his face crumples into a grotesque, silent sob and he covers the phone's receiver for a moment. He breathes, steadies his voice.
"I'll be fine. I miss you and Otoh-san. How is everyone?"
"They're doing well. Apparently your grandfather is having some health problems, but nothing to worry about yet. You can call him when you come back. They send their love."
"Un."
"Do your best Kazuya. I raised strong sons." The note of pride in her voice only makes Kame's heart squeeze more painfully.
"I will."
~~~
Kame feels like he sleepwalked through the photo shoot, not connecting with the camera or the photographer, not even really interacting with his surroundings. But the feedback from the photographer is ecstatic, from what he can tell with his knowledge of English. He catches the word "brilliant" a lot.
~~~
That night, for the first time in a very, very long time, Kame cries for himself. He hasn't let himself give in to this kind of desolation, because he has always had work and professional pride and a reputation to maintain, even among friends, and those always took precedence over any kind of personal crisis.
He has never wanted anyone to worry about him, never wanted to give in to the indulgence of self-pity, but he looks back at the nearly three decades of his life and wonders what he has to show for it at the very end. In the eyes of the world, perhaps a lot, but the painful squeezing in his chest tells him otherwise.
It was always easier to ignore his vulnerabilities when he was busy, but now he wonders if they've only been gathering strength in the shadows.
He muffles his sobs into the pillow, alone in the darkness, in a strange land.
~~~
When he wakes up, groggy after several hours of sleep, Kame is relieved that there's nothing planned for the day. It takes a few minutes for everything to seep back into his consciousness. His eyes are puffy, and his throat aches.
He's finished his professional obligations in London. He was scheduled to have some time to himself. He's almost forgotten the meaning of that.
He takes a long, scalding shower and skips any primping except moisturizer. He doesn't shave. He brushes his teeth on auto-pilot, not looking at his face, which he would normally be examining for blemishes to cover up. Vanity is a part of his job description.
He slips into a comfortable pair of jeans and pulls on the softest T-shirt he can find, shrugging into his leather jacket.
Everything feels distant, muffled, like a static buzz.
He checks and double checks to make sure he has his wallet filled with British pounds and that he has his phone and the hotel room keycard. And the most important things are tucked neatly in the zippered pocket of his bag.
Once on the street, he finds a bakery where he buys a croissant and a coffee, hot and strong and black. The lady at the counter is briefly puzzled by his English pronunciations, but she gives him a soft smile when he points embarrassedly at the croissant.
"There you are, dearie," she says, dropping the change in his hands.
Then Kame walks.
He is simultaneously the happiest and the most miserable he's been in a long time, his emotions simmering dangerously close to the surface. His heart feels like a balloon that might burst at any moment, and he's only hanging on, from breath to breath.
Kame walks in the misty air, concentrating on breathing. Slowly, he notices this scent that's so different from what he's always smelled in Japan, in Tokyo. He wonders what gives each city its special smell, but this, to his inexperienced senses, feels like the essence of London. He commits it to memory, hands in pockets, letting his thoughts drift.
What makes you truly happy, Kamenashi-san?
A melancholy settles inside Kame as he wanders the streets of London, mind both far away and right here. He follows the path he had marked out long ago, during childish daydreams. Walking those paths now feels bittersweet, but he has his guidebook and his camera.
That's enough. For now.
The gloomy skies and rainy sidewalks feel familiar, like they've always existed in his memories and were just waiting to be rediscovered. The farther he walks, the farther everything that's falling apart in his life feels.
His hotel is on one of the side streets of Tottenham Court Road, and he walks down the damp streets past the human tide of Oxford Street towards Covent Garden. He's always loved the sounds of British names, old-fashioned and sturdy.
It feels strange to blend into the flood of humanity, to be just another camera-wielding tourist, and oddly, he forgets that he can't speak the language and doesn't belong. Everything about this feels natural, like innate knowledge, like muscle memory.
His finger rarely strays from the camera's shutter as he takes in the ornately constructed buildings, the cobblestone streets with puddles full of dancing reflections, the brightly colored display windows of shops and bookstores.
On a whim, he buys a crepe, completely fascinated by how the vendor at Covent Garden wields the wooden contraption to make the paper thin food. The lemon and sugar and flour melt in his mouth and taste like a little bite of happiness.
Kame almost feels like he's stopped blinking, because he doesn't want to miss a moment of anything. From Covent Garden, he walks to Leicester Square, slightly bemused by the throngs waiting outside a theater. It looks like a movie premiere. It feels strange to be on the audience's side.
The faces of the strangers in the crowd are so interesting, and he finds himself observing where he has always been the one being observed.
He finds himself both wanting to linger and take his time and wanting to rush so he can see everything in the time he has. He gets himself lost, asking the friendlier looking people for directions in halting English, with lots of gestures.
When he finally makes it to the Thames, it's late afternoon, though the sky is still covered in clouds. The Parliament buildings rise majestically to his right. He buys a simple sandwich in a small coffee shop and walks to the bridge running across the water to eat it.
In all his daydreams, Kame never thought it would be like this. It's oddly peaceful, and not at all unsettling. He feels the lump of emotion in his throat, constricting his chest, but there's so much to distract him, so much to absorb, that he lets his mind wander, thinking about this city's history, about what kind of culture and people created the things he sees around him.
It's in moments like this that Kame wishes he had stayed in school longer, so he could indulge in his curiosity about the city by reading all those hefty, informative books in English.
For almost an hour he wanders around the banks of the Thames, admiring the realness of all the landmarks he had imagined for so long. The London Eye is far bigger than he had imagined, and he goes up in a pod, looking over the city just as the clouds break and a magnificent sunset reveals itself, dusting the sky in warm pastels.
It's breathtaking, pulling a deep and strong chord in Kame's chest.
~~~
Japan feels so far away as Kame eats his traditionally English dinner of fish and chips, tongue slowly relishing the crispy, salty feel of the fries. He sits by himself, but the pub has many people sitting on their own, nursing pints of beer. He orders one for himself, a Guinness with a thick head of foam and a dark, malted taste.
He feels somehow not like himself. Like he doesn't recognize who he is, without his natural surroundings. And he's oddly thankful for the feeling, because he doesn't want to be himself right now.
Kame might have just sabotaged his career.
His flight back was supposed to be taking off right now, but he watches the hands tick on the clock in the dimly lit, musty pub with a hollow pit in his stomach that has nothing to do with a lack of food.
A large part of Kame hates himself at this moment, but he absolutely could not make himself get in the taxi. Not while he was still so lost. The voice in his head hasn't stopped its repeated 'what's the point?' since he chose to tune back into that frequency. It won't let go, and it has paralyzed him.
It's like he has unspooled the thread of what made him Kamenashi Kazuya and it got tangled somehow and he can't wind it back up. He can't go back. He...
He hasn't taken a proper vacation in weeks, months, maybe even years and it's only now that it's hit him, how quickly life has passed, how he's spent more than a decade working towards some kind of invisible goal that now seems so impossibly far away. Always following the rules. Always making work his priority. Putting everything off until it was safer, more convenient.
It's always been the next thing and the next thing and the thing after that and now it's like he can't see ahead and suddenly he's in a dense fog on a lonely road with no idea how he ended up here.
Waiting to live his life.
Before dinner, he emailed his group mates and manager, "Don't worry. I'll be back," and then turned off his phone.
Kame breathes through his mouth and swallows the sob that is threatening to crawl out of his throat. If he's going to do this, he thinks, he's going to do it thoroughly. He's always done everything with 150 percent dedication, and this, whatever it is, isn't going to be an exception.
~~~
Kame expected some kind of culture shock to kick in after a few more days in London, but he has been making his way through London, too busy experiencing everything to really feel the shock of how different it all is. He thinks, maybe, the shock of everything else in his life has dimmed the shock of being surrounded by foreigners in a country that isn't his own. He isn't even sure if he still has a job, but surprisingly he finds it easy to breathe.
Kame walks everywhere, eager to learn how each part of the city connects to the other, and also because the Tube feels claustrophobic the few times he tries it, reminding him too much of the Tokyo subway.
The slight drizzles don't dampen his experience, and there's something refreshing about walking in the light rain. Somehow, Kame doesn't miss the sun. The city seems right somehow, shrouded in clouds, a little bit damp, a little bit nostalgic.
London is fascinating. Kame meanders up to the trendier neighborhoods of Camden and down the calm, stately lanes of Kensington and the brick-building neighborhoods in Hampstead, overgrown with vines of ivy. The names trip on his tongue, but thrive vividly in his memory, and he often finds himself writing them down for people when he asks for directions.
His stilted English isn't as much of a problem as he would have thought and he's surprised by how much he can get across with gestures and eye contact, when he points at things on menus and in guide books. He bows his head in gratitude when people stop to give him directions, and he doesn't feel restricted about how he interacts with people.
There's no one watching Kame, no one reporting on his behavior. He isn't a representative of Japan or Johnny's or KAT-TUN, or even Kamenashi Kazuya, the idol. He's just Kame, someone he hasn't allowed himself to be in a very long time.
Kame cherishes the smiles he gets from strangers and the fumbled small talk that waiters try to engage him in. Most of the people he encounters in London are polite and friendly, but not curious. He doesn't talk much, but it feels fine.
The silence feels comfortable, because his thoughts are loud and Kame realizes he's spent so long not listening to himself. It feels, suddenly, like he has time and space to think and feel... to remember all the things he's neglected in his life because they didn't fit conveniently into his schedule.
He thinks about all the people he's drifted away from over the years. He feels his heart expanding, unfurling and letting itself acknowledge certain feelings again.
Some moments, the dark ones which he doesn't quite want to acknowledge, he's like a fractured mirror that no longer reflects a whole image. He can't hold all the contradicting pieces together, and he has no idea who he is anymore.
But then he thinks, it hardly matters anyway, and he breathes.
You're just Kame.
~~~
It's the fourth day since Kame missed his flight, and the sun shines clear and bright. He does something he hasn't done in years. He walks in the sun, no hat, no sunglasses. He squints hard and enjoys the warm glow of it on his cheeks and the red-orange burn behind his eyelids.
He goes to Buckingham Palace, with the thought that he might as well get all the cliched touristy things done while he's here. The changing of the guards is a quaint, amusing tradition which he documents on his camera along with the hoards of other tourists.
Photography was always one of those pursuits that he put off for later in life or when I have more time or when things get less busy and he didn't even realize how much he missed it until now, as he cradles the digital SLR in his hands, fingers moving with familiarity over the different knobs and buttons. The camera has given him some measure of comfort, a feeling of belonging even while he's so far from home.
As he wanders behind the palace and follows the winding roads, he ends up at Hyde Park. The size of the large green patch looks intimidating on the map, but Kame ventures inside after he's taken enough pictures of the palace grounds. The sprawling green is like an oasis in the city, a sanctuary of nature in the midst of civilization. He lies down in the sun and rests for a while, absorbing the tingling, gentle warmth of the weak English sun.
It would be unfair to say that he'd never relaxed in Japan. He always found his quiet moments of peace and relaxation, with close friends and family, on mini holidays, driving away from the noise, the crowds, the lights of Tokyo into the soothing wildernesses far away from prying eyes.
But as Kame sinks into the grass, in the sun, in a park in the middle of the city, he realizes it's something special, something he hasn't really felt before because he doesn't feel the need to open his eyes and check whether someone is watching. And even if they are watching, they probably don't know or care who he is.
Once he feels the tingling burn of the sun on his skin, Kame gets up with a sigh, dusting off his jeans. The park is so huge, he's slightly worried he might get lost or completely turned around.
But before he can worry too much, Kame gets distracted by a group of British kids playing with a ball and a bat. The bat looks nothing like a baseball bat. It's flat and rectangular, with a cylindrical handle. The ball is made of a stark red leather, with white stitches. He edges closer, observing the game as the kids run back and forth between two parts of the field. The game looks familiar, but he can't remember what it's called.
He hears the solid, familiar thwack of the bat against the ball and he can see how it's heavier and moves in a lower arc than a baseball. One of the kids who's fielding notices him and waves. Kame waves back, surprised and pleased, a smile unconsciously pulling across his face.
The kid calls him over and before long, he's surrounded by a babble of British accented English, with gestures thrown in, illustrating how to throw a ball. He mimics pitching and says, "I know baseball. What is this called?"
"Cricket, mate," one of the kids says with a wide grin.
"Here, give it a try," another says and lightly tosses him the ball. It's heavy, like he'd expected, and hard. His fingers run over the stitches and grooves, so alien yet familiar. Some of the kids laugh good-naturedly as he tries to pitch it like a baseball, and one of them walks him through the steps of how to "bowl" the ball instead of pitching it.
By the time the kids start packing up their equipment, Kame's dusty and exhausted and smiling until his cheeks ache. The sun glints from a low angle, igniting the sky in hazy pinks and oranges and he waves quickly to the cricket players before picking his camera up again.
~~~
Kame ends up taking a taxi back to the hotel, a bit lost and too lazy to find his way back. The exhaustion feels good. His muscles ache in familiar ways, and a sweet pain swells in his heart as he thinks about all the things he was able to accomplish while still on Going: all the childhood heroes he met, all the baseball milestones he reached for himself. At least he has the memories, and they throb, bittersweet in his memory.
He wonders who is going to tell Ueda-san and Egawa-san that he's no longer on the show.
Kame leans his warm forehead against the cool glass of the taxi as dusk fades into night, the city's lights glittering.
He thinks that maybe he's odd, to feel so alive and free in moments like this, alone and far away from everyone he loves. Now, when Kame thinks of Tokyo and thinks of his job and the people he loves, there's a painful churning of anxiety and disappointment in the pit of his stomach. It's easier to be here and now, where no one is around to expect things of him, to be disappointed in him.
Thanking the cabbie in English that comes out a little smoother now, Kame counts out the right change, fumbling in the fading light for the heavy British coins.
Kame shivers as a gust of the cool night wind finds its way inside his jacket. He walks purposefully towards the elevator, and he's so focused on getting to his destination that he doesn't notice until someone grabs his arm. Startled, Kame looks up.
And exhales.
He can't seem to inhale again.
"Yo," Akanishi says.
The sight of him is so shocking, like an unexpected blow to Kame's gut, and he can't do much but stare. Biting his lip to hide the way his body wants to tremble, Kame finally clears his throat. "Yo."
Then he mentally shakes himself. "What the fuck are you doing here, Akanishi?"
"Checking up on you," comes the reply, and Akanishi's eyes sparkle with some kind of mischief and his mouth twists in a smirk that Kame used to find charming once upon a time. Now, it enrages Kame, among other things, and he shakes Akanishi's hand off his arm.
"What do you mean?"
"Management got worried after they couldn't reach you. They kept leaving messages, you know," Akanishi says, and Kame isn't sure if he's trying to be infuriating and smug, or if it just comes naturally. He also realizes he doesn't want wherever this conversation is headed to happen in public.
"Follow me," he grumbles, turning to the elevator and jabbing the button.
His skin prickles with awareness as Akanishi steps into the elevator, and the space never felt so small until now. Kame can feel how his jaw is clenched, but no matter how much he tells himself to relax, all the soothing exhaustion that his body had drifted into just a few minutes ago has evaporated, leaving behind a vibrating tension.
He swipes his keycard viciously until his door opens and a small part of him is laughing at how powerfully capable Akanishi is of disturbing his hard-won calm.
"Get in," he says, not caring how rough he sounds. He's too tired to play nice.
He drops his bag by the foot of the bed and carefully unwinds his camera from his neck to put it on the table in the spacious double room. The jimusho didn't scrimp on hotels for once, though Kame's sure that they've long since switched the bill into his name. He's beyond caring about such details though.
His stomach growls, reminding him of how he hasn't eaten since late in the morning. Kame turns, faces Akanishi, and observes him for a moment. He's standing awkwardly in the narrow corridor leading to the door, a mid-sized duffle thrown over one shoulder, and the other hand scraping absently at his stubble. A hoodie covers his wildly curling hair, which is falling into his eyes, and his jeans hang loose, nearly covering his neon green sneakers.
Akanishi looks like a slob, as usual.
Even if Kame's the one having some sort of crisis, he's managed to comb his hair and wear pants that fit, he thinks acidly. Sure, there's stubble on his jaw, but there's no one around to care and his eyes were tired so he wore his glasses instead. He tsks and asks Akanishi, "Have you eaten yet?"
"No, I came straight from the airport," Akanishi says, eyes wide, as if he'd forgotten Kame was there. Kame barely represses an eye roll.
"Alright, order something while I shower. No tomatoes, you know the deal. Hungry as I am, I might just kill you if I don't eat food first," Kame says, and he's sure Akanishi understands he's not joking.
Once the scalding water is beating down on him, Kame lets his body do what it will, shivering and trembling and flushed, with his heart racing like he's falling off a cliff. He's familiar enough with that feeling. He feels engulfed in so many conflicting emotions, feelings he's always set aside because they're too much to untangle and figure out when it comes to Jin.
But, he thinks, nothing really matters now. There are no appearances to keep up for the jimusho and it's been so long since he and Jin owed each other anything or had any semblance of a friendship to spoil. There's nothing to preserve or salvage, so it really doesn't matter what happens now.
The reassurance doesn't hold as he climbs out of the shower with a shuddering breath and towels off, skin angry and red from the heat. He can barely breathe or see in the steam-clouded room and for a moment he feels suspended in light-headed calm.
Mentally bracing himself, he ties the towel around his waist and walks out, tendrils of steam trailing behind him.
Akanishi's sitting on the bed, biting a nail. He looks up, hair falling in his eyes. Kame glances away and busies himself with his suitcase, pulling out a clean shirt and some boxers. He definitely isn't going to bother dressing up for his present company. He turns his back and shrugs into the shirt, maneuvering the boxers so he can get them on before pulling off the towel. Picking up his glasses from the nightstand, Kame finally turns to Akanishi. Who's observing him quietly in a way that Kame doesn't want to examine.
"What did you order?"
"Uh, burgers and a salad. No tomatoes, promise," Akanishi replies, expression earnest, and he looks so young that something scrapes painfully in Kame's chest.
"Okay, that's fine. What are you doing here?" Akanishi's still sitting on the edge of one bed, so Kame goes to sit on the edge of the other, not really facing him.
"As I was saying, management got worried."
"And what, they thought you were their best hope at getting me back? Akanishi Jin, idol bounty hunter?" Kame scoffs, but inside the scraping gets more painful.
"Well, they needed someone who knows you well and knows English. And besides, I've been here before, so I wouldn't get totally lost. I mean, can you imagine Nakamaru trying to find his way? He'd have five anxiety attacks before leaving the airport."
Kame keeps silent as he thinks of Nakamaru. Steadfast, patient Nakamaru who's always willing to stick his neck out, always willing to accept the blame and work hard. Also, always the first to notice when there's something wrong with Kame.
"He would have a much better chance than you at not being murdered by me," Kame grits out, and he knows he sounds petulant, but his head is beginning to pound.
"Now, now, why so angry, Kamenashi?" And Akanishi isn't laughing yet, but there's that infuriating smirk again.
"I told them I'd be back. I just need to be on my own for a bit," Kame replies, feeling too tired to sustain the anger. They're interrupted by a knock, thank god, and there's the food.
It's silent for a bit as they eat, and it's so surreal how they easily move around each other, from years of familiarity. But other than that, the man sharing his meal with Kame is a stranger, a friend from another lifetime.
Kame forgets when it was that they started hiding things from each other so they wouldn't be able to use information like ammunition in their numerous, pointless fights. The last year that Akanishi was still in the band, it was a miracle if they could interact without blowing up at each other.
Akanishi, back then, was opaque, like fractured, mirrored glass. Kame sensed his moods, but he had no inkling of what the causes of his reactions were. The difference was almost unbelievable. Akanishi with friends, open, pliable, laughing, and almost childishly innocent. And when he was pushed into a corner he would go stone cold, deathly silent, simmering with ice, a flat, blank look in his eyes and his lips pressed tight.
Kame exhales while he's still chewing, remembering to actually taste the burger that he's eating for the first time instead of eating it mechanically. It's a little overdone for his taste, but the seasoning is good and the onions crunch nicely.
"What are you even supposed to do, now that you've found me?"
"You weren't that hard to find, honestly. This is the hotel I stayed at when I was here for filming, and besides, your manager gave me the address," Akanishi says, mouth full and sloppy with half-chewed food. Kame can't count all the ways Akanishi gets under his skin.
"Ugh, finish chewing. And you didn't answer my question," Kame says, getting up to fill his glass with water.
"I'm not really sure. They were worried. And I was free, so I guess I'm just stuck babysitting an idol with a temper tantrum for now," comes the reply.
"Fuck you, I babysat you for years," Kame says, voice tight with repressed rage. He's set his food down and Akanishi's looking at him a little warily, like he knows that one more word will mean a punch in the face, idol or not. He spreads out his hands in a calming gesture.
"Sorry, sorry, just kidding," he says. "I didn't mean it."
"You never do. I don't have the energy to deal with you right now. Finish eating and leave," Kame sighs, slumping back. He can hear his own voice, flat, cold, a frozen glaze over all his molten emotions.
"I don't have a hotel booking for tonight," Akanishi says, and he's making that face, the face that lets him get away with all kinds of things and it irritates Kame. Just to put an end to the discussion he says, "Fine, take the other bed."
Kame's going to be gone by the morning anyway.
~~~
Part 2