Fic for tia-junan (5/9)
+part four
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By mid-May, Kame is still getting used to seeing @Jin_Akanishi occasionally pop up in his feed. His stomach knots each time, but maybe a little less every day. Kame is now included on some group emails along with Yamapi and other familiar names. Rowan Petersen, for one.
Kame isn't entirely sure why the idea of Jin making new friends in New York bothers him, but it does. His irritation is exacerbated by rumors that Rowan Petersen is planning to open a new restaurant in what used to be the Curry Mama Curry House space over on the Bowery.
One morning in late May, after Kame's just finishing up a few hours volunteering for City Harvest, a non-profit that salvages usable restaurant food waste for hunger-prevention community programs, he gets a message from Jin.
You free?
Kame taps out a response without letting himself think twice.
What's up?
Forty-five minutes later, he's checking the address in his phone against street numbers. Kame thinks he's found the right place when he hears familiar music pouring out from under a half-closed metal shutter covered in graffiti. The panhandler sitting nearby sees Kame peering under the gate and says: "Praise the lord. Can you make that guy turn his damn music off? Why I gotta hear the same three songs all morning."
"Really?" Kame breaks into a smile. "You don't like the Stones?"
The middle-aged lady looks at him. "Mister, I like them just fine. I like 'em a lot less after five hours. This is my sidewalk. He's killing me."
"I'll let him know," Kame says, and he pulls out a twenty, bends over to tuck it into her empty coffee can. He doesn't wait for a response before he crouches down and ducks under the metal shutter.
It's dim inside and it smells musty and neglected. The main source of light comes from a bright bulb in a cage that hangs from a hook on the wall above where a man is squatting under the bulb's glare, a welding mask on and sparks flying from the blow torch in his hands.
Kame's surprised enough that he just stands there through two Stones songs. He props his shoulder against the wall and carefully avoids looking at the bright torch in favor of studying Jin's unmistakable folded-up form, long-sleeved t-shirt hanging off his lanky frame, brown hair curling damply around his neck. When "Let it Bleed and "Paint it Black" give way to "Gimme Shelter," Kame clears his throat and moves until he's somewhere in Jin's line of sight. He doesn't want to interrupt Jin, so he stays there, not watching Jin anymore, but looking around. There are folded-up long tables & assorted chairs piled up on the left side of the long narrow space. The music echoes strangely, bouncing off the bare walls and ripped-up floor, grungy concrete showing through in places. Kame's gaze flicks back to Jin whose dirty jeans and filthy boots are illuminated by spraying sparks. Kame is afraid to startle Jin into making a mistake that might prove injurious, so he slumps down onto the floor, quiet-like, and listens to the music.
Finally Jin finishes and turns off the torch, flipping up the visor. Kame clears his throat and gets to his feet, watches Jin start and nearly fall over backward.
"Hey," Kame says, raising both his hands to show his palms. "Sorry, man. It's just me."
"I didn't know - how long have you been here?" Jin snatches the helmet off and runs a hand through his hair somewhat frantically, but it's kind of hopeless. His hair sticks up in every direction, and Kame finds himself struggling not to laugh.
"Long enough," Kame says. "When'd you learn to weld?" It's an off-hand question, borne of his surprise, but he wishes he could snatch it back the instant it pops out. He watches Jin's face shutter. Kame wonders how he's supposed to navigate the minefield of all the time and space between them if he can't ask a simple question. He wonders if Jin feels the same way.
Jin bites his lip and says, "A couple years ago." He pauses. "In San Francisco."
It's not like Kame hasn't been wondering exactly that: if Jin has been in the U.S. any time recently, where he was, and now he has confirmation. The not knowing hurts like a dull stomach ache. Being angry hurts. He stands there, nodding, uncertain.
Jin looks discomfited as well. He peels off his gloves and looks down, and then back up at Kame, uncertainty clouding his features.
"Is that where you were?" Kame asks. "Before...." He trails off. He means before now. Before here.
He nods. "Yeah."
"Ok." Kame flounders for something to say. "It's a nice city."
Jin's eyes brighten. "Yeah. It was pretty great. And Napa, man. Almost as good as being back in Italy."
"That good?" Kame can't stifle his skepticism.
Jin grins. "Maybe not quite," he allows.
"Hey, we don't do so bad on the East Coast."
"No, I guess not. It's just. It's a different vibe."
"New York is -" Kame begins.
"-a world of its own," Jin finishes, shaking his head. He slaps the gloves against his thigh. "I have to get used to it all over again. So much has changed. I went looking for that dumpling shop we liked in Flushing, you know the one where they made those spicy noodles-"
Kame remembers.
"-but it's gone. The whole block is different now."
"Yeah," Kame says. "You, uh," he falters, "you never came back?"
Jin hesitates before shaking his head and worrying his lower lip. Kame wonders if Jin is at all regretful, if he understands what he blew up and walked away from, what kind of mess he left behind.
"I passed through a few times, but-"
And you never once told me. Kame grits his teeth and inhales, trying very hard to keep his decidedly mixed feelings at bay. He says tightly: "It's been a long time. Whole damn city's different now."
Jin let's out a huff of agreement. "Yeah. You're not kidding. It's crazy." He rubs his nose with the back of one hand before his arm drops and he chews the corner of his mouth.
Kame nods before taking a breath and looking around at the mess."So, um - is this a bad time?" he asks, now wondering why Jin messaged him at all. "You look busy. Should I go?"
"Shit. No, no. I'm sorry, man." Jin raises his hand in a vertical apologetic gesture. "I didn't ask you down here to waste your time," Jin continues, as if reading Kame's mind. "Sorry you had to wait. You should have said something or thrown something at me. I was just trying to finish up-" He gestures to indicate the metal pieces on the floor. "-while I was waiting."
"It's all right," Kame shrugs, slightly mollified. "Wasn't that long. And-" He makes a show of checking his watch. "I have some time, couple hours, before I need to be somewhere. You said something about lunch?" He doesn't let himself think about it, he just asks, and he's oddly relieved when Jin smiles.
Jin pulls down and locks the front metal gate, and turns off the music and the light before he leads Kame back through the property where they weave their way through contractors in heavy work boots and tool belts. Kame gets an eyeful of the work being done before they're in the back alley where Jin slings a messenger bag across his chest. He looks down at his disheveled and dirty clothes and pulls a rueful face.
"I hope you don't mind-" Jin says, gesturing to his attire. "We'll have to slum it."
Kame breaks into a smile. "I think I'll survive," he says dryly.
They settle on a somewhat grimy pizza parlor a block away that serves up giant slices of the kind of pizza Kame loves best after a night of drinking. They pile into opposite sides of a booth with their greasy paper plates and plastic bottles of Coke. Kame watches as Jin drops a bunch of small white napkins on top of his slices to soak up some of the pooling orangey oil.
"So what's going on back there?" Kame asks after he's finished half a slice. He lifts his Coke to his lips as he waits for Jin to answer. Jin's mouth is full.
"Friend of mine just signed the lease," he says after a moment. "He's hoping to get it fixed up to open in about six months."
Kame eyebrows fly up. "Six months?" He whistles softly. "That's crazy. If he can pull that off, he deserves a prize. He got the C of O? Otherwise-"
"No, yeah. I know, man, he's told me horror stories. Said it was a total fucking nightmare getting out from under that shitstorm."
"Yep. It is." Kame makes a face. "It happened to us when we were trying to open Zenzero. We didn't have a fucking clue." He shakes his head. He and Yamapi had been ambitious and earnest and dumb as shit. The Certificate of Occupancy, perhaps the most important document any restaurant in New York could possibly have, was no where to be found. And without it, no work could proceed; every day of delay cost money they could not afford.
"No shit," Jin says wonderingly. "Wow."
Kame shakes his head, takes a giant bite from his pizza and stares off toward the kitchen where he can just make out the tops of the kitchen crew's heads above a crowded counter.
"We'd already sunk so much money into the place. By the time we realized we didn't actually have the C of O...it was either forge ahead and die trying or-" Kame shakes his head. "We might as well have set all our money on fire. At least if we didn't give up, we had the hope of maybe, possibly, fixing the whole mess and recouping the investment. Unless we ran out of money first. Either way we were fucked."
"No kidding," Jin says, "You know, I'd never tell anyone to open a restaurant. Biggest money pit ever."
"So then why am I still doing it?" Kame asks mournfully, staring down at his second slice.
"Good question," Jin says, tipping his Coke toward Kame. "You guys do all right, though."
Kame makes a face. "We do okay."
"So modest," Jin says teasingly. "That's not what Yamapi says. When he talks about Kayakuya," he hastens to clarify.
"You never know. Whole thing could fall apart tomorrow," Kame says.
"Such optimism," Jin replies with a wry twist to his lips.
Kame shakes his head. "I'm a realist. Seen too many enterprises get cocky and make mistakes and the next thing you know they're bleeding customers, can't pay their bills and they're filing for bankruptcy. There's always something. Gas line gets fucked up or the cooks quit or a string of really bad reviews. It's never ending. You gotta stay on top of everything all the time, you can't sit back and pretend things are gonna run themselves. They won't."
"You're preaching to the choir, man."
Kame shifts, slightly embarrassed.
"Well, your efforts seem to have paid off," Jin says. "Yamapi says Kayakuya is doing really well. And come on, give yourself some credit. You got three restaurants posting profits. That's more than a lot of people can say."
"We've been lucky," Kame insists. "Right time, right place, all that. We have really great cooks making really great food. They're the reason people keep coming back." He frowns slightly. "Yamapi's told you about Meisa? We wouldn't survive without her. She keeps us honest so the wheels stay on, you know? Makes sure we run it like a business. Otherwise we'd probably piss all the money away and end up broke all over again."
Jin smiles narrowly. "I'm sure that isn't true."
Jin's right, of course, it isn't. Kame has always been too methodical, too careful for that. Some might even call him a plodder.
"No, yeah, you're right," he sighs, "we're not that exciting." Kame stuffs the last mouthful of pizza into his mouth.
"That's good, though, don't you think?" Jin lowers his chin and a gives Kame a shrewd look. "Predictable profits mean you can pay everyone at the end of the month. There's a lot to be said for that. Anyway, isn't that what running a restaurant is all about? Consistency. Hospitality. And-" Jin smiles as he ticks them off with his fingers, raising a third as he says: "Deliciousness. Making people want to come back."
Jin turns his bottle in a circle on the formica table top. "Anyway, from the outside it looks like whatever you got going on-" he makes a vague twirly gesture with his other hand. "-it's working. Yamapi seems happy." Jin tilts his head a little, narrows his eyes. "And you-"
Kame feels the back of his neck prickle without knowing why.
"You look good," Jin says quietly, nodding as though to himself. There's a warmth in Jin's eyes that Kame finds disconcerting.
"Thanks," Kame replies, not bothering to soften his tone: "I'm rocking the eye bags. I'm glad you approve." He rolls his eyes. Looks down and wipes his fingers ostentatiously.
Jin's Adam's apple bobs. "I'm serious."
Kame feels the tingle of something suspiciously pleased in his chest.
"So who's your friend," he asks to change the subject.
"What?" Jin looks confused.
"Your friend, the one with the space back there." Kame leans back in the booth and levels his gaze at Jin as steadily as he can manage.
"You probably know him," Jin says, a glimmer of something uncertain in his expression. "Rowan Petersen."
Which Kame was half-expecting.
"People are saying he's gonna take over some space on The Bowery," Kame says, furrowing his brow.
"Nope," Jin says. "That was just to throw off the rumor-hounds."
Kame realizes his mouth is dry and his bottle is empty. He crushes it noisily with both his hands.
"So you're working with Rowan Petersen." His voice sounds flat and wrong in his ears.
"Uh," Jin scratches the back of his head, his expression faintly uncomfortable. Perhaps he's picking up on Kame's tone. "Maybe? Sort of. Nothing is settled yet."
"That's just great," Kame says, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "You came back to New York to work with Rowan Petersen. Awesome. Congratulations. I'm sure it'll be great."
Truth is, Kame's starting to lose his temper. He wonders how bad it would be if he just got up and walked away right now, before he has the chance to say anything that might get him in trouble. Yamapi's admonishment rings in his ears, so he's not planning on a scene. Sitting in a crappy pizzeria is definitely public. Maybe not happy-hour-at-Gretel-public, but still outside the proscribed parameters.
Kame looks up from where he's shredded his napkin into tiny little pieces to find Jin's eyes heavy on him.
"Actually," Jin begins, clearing his throat: "that's not why I came back."
There's a note of pleading in Jin's voice, in his eyes, but Kame doesn't really care. Why should he care? Jin can go and work with Rowan fucking Petersen. Jin can do whatever the fuck he wants. Jin is none of his business anymore.
Kame clenches his teeth and stares back at Jin.
"All right," he manages at last. "I'll bite. Why'd you come back."
But now Jin glances away, his expression uncertain and he looks very tired.
"It's complicated," he says.
"I bet," Kame mutters. Jin's eyes snap to his.
"You really do hate me," Jin says, breathless and wondering. He sounds almost - hurt.
Kame bites out a laugh. "As if." He focuses on a spot on the wall behind Jin. "I do not hate you." There, he's said it. Steady, even. Calm.
"Right." Jin's gaze pricks him. "But you're angry."
Kame's jaw clamps even tighter. "What do you think?" he demands in a low voice, leaning forward just a little. "Should I be angry? Do I have anything to be angry about?"
"Yes," Jin says, and that's all it takes, that one simple syllable of acknowledgment, to deflate Kame.
Kame watches as Jin takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"I wanted-" Jin begins, and his voice cracks. "I - I was hoping I could ask for your help."
Kame blinks, his eyebrows rising. "My help? Wait - what?"
Jin rubs a crumpled-up napkin between his fingers. He leans his elbows on the table and scrubs both his hands over his face. Mutters: "Why's this so fucking hard?"
Kame slumps back to watch Jin, wrestling down all sarcastic responses.
"Look," Jin begins, but Kame's phone vibrates on the table next to his empty paper plates. Kame picks it up and examines the message. It's Nina and it flashes "Urgent" which never bodes well. She isn't prone to exaggeration.
Kame exhales noisily and curses under his breath. "On that note," he says, holding his phone out so Jin can see the "urgent" blinking across his screen. He slides out of the booth to stand.
Jin's shoulders sink as he looks up at Kame with an undecipherable expression. "Can-" he begins. "Can we pick this up again later?"
"Fine," Kame says. "Whatever."
"Tonight?" Jin asks hopefully. "I can meet you wherever you want."
Kame doesn't want to be free later. He should say no, definitely not, no way.
"Maybe," he hedges, "but probably not until late."
"Doesn't matter," Jin says with relief. "Let me know when, where."
Kame touches two fingers to the table and taps them there. He doesn't know why he's agreeing, but he nods. "Later," he says, turning away.
When he hears Jin say "Thanks" to his back, he keeps going.
--
Later ends up being half past midnight. Kame stares at his phone for a long time before he finally sends the message explaining where Jin can find him, and then he starts walking.
When Jin arrives at Bar Arkady, a dark little Croatian dive Kame favors on nights when he feels like disappearing into a deep bottle of Balkan plum brandy, Kame's on his third glass of slivovitz and feeling pleasantly anesthetized. The liquor's swaddling effects have blunted his temper to where he can stand back and observe from some kind of objective distance.
Jin taps on Kame's shoulder and Kame twists his upper body to look up and over his shoulder. Raises the little glass before emptying it.
"We're doing shots?" Jin says, his eyebrows rising. He slides onto the stool beside Kame and signals to the bartender for the same.
"Don't know what you're doing," Kame says. "You can do whatever you want. Milos here-" he gestures at the large square-built bald bartender who's pouring slivovitz for Jin. "-will be happy to help you."
Milos does help - he helps so much that, for a little while at least, Kame almost doesn't remember why he's supposed to be upset with Jin. A couple drinks later, he actually feels pretty damn good.
"This is nice," Jin says after awhile in a tone of surprise. Jin's head is propped in one hand and his eyes are thin dark crescents as he watches Kame, their elbows bumping.
Kame has the vague idea he's been talking about the merits of dirty water hot dogs.
"What's nice?" Kame asks. He's flipping his phone end over end in his hands. He rotates the large ring on his left hand, plays with his leather cuffs. Begins tapping the bar in a staccato rhythm. In his head, he's losing an argument over whether or not to ask Jin about the new tattoos. New-to-him, not new. Nothing about Jin is new. Nothing except everything he missed.
Jin reaches over and covers Kame's hands with his own, stilling Kame's restless fidgeting. His hand doesn't linger but he blinks at Kame, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths.
"This" Jin says. "Being here. You're actually - what I mean is - you aren't-" He founders. "It's nice," Jin finally manages, "to see you relaxed."
"Wait. What are-" Kame frowns. "Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking compliment?"
"Sure," Jin says. He's wearing glasses again, heavy dark designer frames. The tricksy light in the bar hits the lenses the wrong way, obscuring Jin's eyes.
Kame snorts softly.
"Because it's nicer when I don't make you feel uncomfortable, is that it?" Kame knows he's somewhat drunk, but he's not too drunk to understand what Jin means.
"That's not what I meant." Jin groans and straightens, dropping his head back, exposing the long line of his throat.
"What did you mean?"
"I just - I meant. It's nice to see you looking happier, I guess."
"So you don't think I look happy, that's what you mean."
"No. Goddamn it, Kame. You're twisting everything I say."
"All right, Jin," Kame says, feeling the words rise above his pleasant haze. "But tell me this. Can you blame me?"
"For what?" Jin says, cagey.
"Can you blame me if I'm not relaxed around you. Seriously, what do you expect. Did you think you could come waltzing back and that everything would be fine? How did you think this was going to go?"
Jin pushes up to hunch over his glass, his head ducked and his expression tense and unhappy. He remains still for a long moment before he nods his head and chews at the corner of his mouth.
"I don't know," Jin says in a low voice. He pulls his glasses off, tossing them to the bar with a clatter. He rubs at one eye with the heel of his right hand. "I don't know, Kame. I guess I hoped-"
"What," Kame says, unable to keep the acid from his voice. "You hoped I would forgive you?"
Jin's head whips over at that. "Forgive me?" Jin asks. "Why would I want you to forgive me?"
Kame stares at Jin. Spots of color ride high on Jin's cheeks, and his eyes are bright and crackling.
"You know why-" Kame begins.
"Yeah," Jin snaps. "I know why you think that. But you can't tell me - you can't pretend-" A muscle twitches along Jin's jaw. "I tried to tell you so many times."
"You tried to tell me what," Kame counters, narrowing his eyes.
Jin laughs bitterly. "You are seriously not that oblivious, Kame. Stop being so self-righteous for more than five seconds and think about it. Or did you just block everything out?"
Kame opens his mouth, a hot retort on his tongue, but he closes it a second later.
Jin takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"We probably should have had this conversation when we were sober," Jin says.
Kame shakes his head vehemently. "No way, man," he says.
"All right," Jin says. "You go first. Tell me why you're upset. Don't make me guess, don't assume I know. How's that."
Kame glances sideways at Jin. He looks over his shoulder, scanning the dim bar before signaling the bartender. A few minutes later, they're ensconced in a booth at the very back, with the remainder of a bottle of slivovitz and a couple glasses between them. Jin sprawls over his side with his back to the wall and his feet on the bench, one elbow on the table.
Kame leans forward, pours for both of them before sliding one glass toward Jin.
"Salud," Jin says, clinking his glass against Kame's harder than he probably should.
Kame lets the fire lick at him as the alcohol burns its way down.
"I'm angry because you left," Kame begins.
"Yeah, I got that part," Jin mutters.
Kame throws him a dirty look. "Do you want me to do this, or what."
"Sorry, you're right." He mimes pulling a zip across his mouth. Kame rolls his eyes.
"So why did you do it?"
Jin rolls his head in Kame's direction. "Do you really not remember?"
Kame holds Jin's gaze for several long seconds before he looks down at the glass between his fingers.
"I remember we wanted to start our own restaurant for years. I mean, we'd been talking about it since we were kids, Jin."
Jin nods. He swallows. "Yeah."
Kame goes back to studying his glass which he spins on the table. "All you wanted to do back then was work hard and learn, to get good-"
"So did you," Jin interjects.
Kame nods. "And we got better." Kame darts a look a Jin before he pulls the bottle to him and hefts it to pour another slug into both their glasses.
Kame started cooking when he was very young, encouraged by his family's cook. In his free time, he'd hang out at a local tapas bar until eventually they started giving him work to do, just to be useful, so he'd quit getting in everyone's way. It started with sweeping the floors and washing dishes until eventually he was chopping vegetables and peeling potatoes. After he met Jin, they spent much of their free time working as dishwashers, busboys, and kitchen help anywhere anyone would have them.
Kame was seventeen when he and Jin took off from Madrid in a yellow 2001 SEAT Arosa. They spent two years wandering around Spain, picking up whatever restaurant work they could find even if it meant washing dishes again, or waiting tables. Ideally they'd both find kitchen work doing whatever the chef would let them do. Oftentimes it was scut work. It didn't matter that by then they'd already worked in restaurants for almost four years. Each new chef put them through their paces with menial kitchen tasks, a process designed to ensure they knew how to do things the right way, the chef's way. Every time they had to prove they could work quickly and cleanly, carry themselves professionally, listen carefully and execute whatever they were asked to do without hesitation.
Eventually they made their way from the Catalonia region of Spain into France, where they spent a season in Marseilles. They quickly moved on to Italy. When they found themselves in Turin, they got work as stagiaires. The process grew more difficult and more demanding because, as their skills increased, the kitchens to which they applied grew more challenging.
They lived hand-to-mouth during that time, a precarious existence fueled mostly by ambition. As stagiares they essentially worked for free, as trainees, the lowest rung of cooks in a kitchen. They shared a tiny flat with several other cooks, went to bed late after dinner service and woke up early, all to come into the kitchen again and start in on the mountains of prep work that awaited them every day.
There were endless baskets of farm-fresh carrots, celery and onions to brunoise - mince into tiny, perfect cubes - for the mirepoix or soffritto that formed the base of so many dishes. There were wooden flats of tomatoes to grate. Kilos and kilos of mussels and oysters to scrub under freezing water. Potatoes to peel. Poultry to debone. Eventually they graduated to learning complicated sauces and handmade pasta, learned to test the doneness of cooked meat through simple touch.
And they weren't always welcome. There were asshole cooks who saw a pair of Japanese kids as interlopers. The people who thought they were just ignorant foreigners who surely couldn't speak the right languages, the ones who thought their growing resumes were complete fabrications, the chefs and kitchen bosses who screamed constant abuse - and worse, the ones who threw things. Like iron skillets and great bloody handfuls of pig guts.
By the time Kame was twenty, he and Jin were line cooks for their greatest mentor, Chef Olivotto, at a magnificent hotel restaurant in Milan run by the Kitagawa Restaurant Group. Under Olivotto's tutelage, they both dramatically rose in the ranks. Two years later, Kitagawa sent them to New York city and chose them to head a new restaurant in a posh mid-town hotel. To say it was a meteoric ascent would be an understatement.
"Was it so bad?" Kame asks softly, frowning. He looks up to meet Jin's eyes. "Was it really that bad?"
"Kame..." Jin begins. He sighs, toying with his empty glass.
"I mean, you just quit. As if-"
Jin's eyes snap to his, something almost warning in them.
"As if you couldn't get away fast enough," Kame finishes. "As if everything we'd been through, everything we'd worked for - as if it meant nothing to you."
As if I meant nothing to you.
The rest is too painful to touch. Let this be about work, about their friendship. Not his heart or the life they shared. Not the memories.
Getting kicked off the soccer team for skipping practice to hang out at a nearby bakery.
Dreaming of the restaurant they would someday own. "I want a red door," Jin would say and Kame would answer: "Of course."
Jin mimicking Keith Richards on Kame's eighteenth birthday, singing "their" song, "You Got The Silver," while pulling twangy notes from a beat-up, borrowed acoustic guitar.
Falling into bed at three in the morning, too tired to even cuddle. Waking up exhausted and cranky, but waking, tangled, holding hands in the dark.
Watching the night-time view of Manhattan spread out before them the first time they ascend the Empire State building, athrill with all the possibilities life in New York holds.
Catching Jin's eyes across a crowded, boiling-hot kitchen in the middle of a service and sharing a weary grin.
Falling asleep in the bath to be woken by coffee and kisses.
Never imagining the day it would end.
Kame has been trying to forget all that for ten years.
"It's not just me," Kame continues, doggedly trying to get through his alcohol-hazed thoughts. "It's everyone who depended on us. We were running a business. We had responsibilities. And you walked out on all of it."
"I did not do that," Jin says in a low gritty voice.
"What do you call it then?"
"I call it bullshit," Jin says, his eyes sparking. "Is that the story you've been telling yourself all this time? Fuck." Jin's legs swing down and he bows over the table, his hands laced around the back of his head.
When Jin's hands slam down on the table, their glasses jump. Kame nearly recoils from Jin's furious gaze.
"I told you. I told you for months. Did you think I was happy working for that bastard? Is that what you think? You think I wanted to just leave all of you to fend for yourselves? I tried to get you to come with me. What else should I have done? What did I need to do to convince you? You wouldn't listen to me. You were so wrapped up in it, even though it was making you sick-"
Kame stares at him, frozen.
"I...I don't know how you can sit there and tell me these made-up bullshit stories. I don't fucking know. You had plenty of warning. I did not just walk away. That was one of the hardest fucking things I ever did in my whole life. I did it because I was going crazy. I was fucking miserable. And you never listened to me. You kept telling me to be patient. Fuck patience." Jin clutches at his head with both hands, his joints bloodless, and his face drawn with anger.
"But...I-I didn't think it was so bad," Kame says in a low voice. "I thought we were having fun."
Jin looks up from where he's been glaring ferociously at the tabletop. He grabs the bottle, filling his glass to the rim. Tosses it back in a convulsive swallow. When he meets Kame's eyes again, his expression is settled into something marginally more composed.
"Sure, it was fun, for awhile," Jin says. "Before we got to New York, it was great. It was a challenge. It was hard work but I loved that. I didn't care if we were poor and exhausted, because we were learning all the time, and that's all I wanted to do - get better."
His gaze sharpens. "But Kitagawa's restaurant - don't you remember how you kept telling me that it was the price we had to pay, that working for him was just a stepping stone. Whatever freedom you think you had was all in your head. He was using us. We were just a pair of pretty faces with good bios he could put in a press release. Didn't you ever wonder why he would choose us, of all people? We were too young and too inexperienced and he knew he could bend us over any way he wanted. You think we built that place? That's a joke. We were his fucking puppets. I hated it. I couldn't do it anymore. Why don't you get that? Maybe you think it's all right to sell your soul to get ahead-"
"What?"
Jin's frown lines cut deep into his face. He shifts. "Oh, come on."
"No, I'm serious, Jin. You think I made some kind of pact with the devil by working for Kitagawa? That I compromised myself by accepting that opportunity? Is that what you're saying?"
Jin stares back at him for a long tense moment. Kame feels himself contract into a dark, silent place where all he hears is the sound of his breathing, the thud of his heartbeat.
Jin shrugs, careless. "Sure," he says. He's very pale.
Kame feels pain rip at his throat, and his vision goes white for a couple seconds. He's trembling, he realizes, as he scrabbles out of the booth and pushes himself to a stand. His breath comes in shallow pants, as if he's been running. He tries to cover his shaky hands when he pulls out his wallet, extracts several bills, tosses them on the table. He watches Jin swallow.
"Kame-" Jin begins, his frown now a grimace.
"Fuck you, Jin," Kame says without meeting his eyes.
"Wait-"
Kame jerks his head to the side, effectively cutting Jin off.
Then he forces himself to meet Jin's stricken gaze. Kame only dimly recognizes he's shaking his head in a helpless futile gesture. His jaw is clenched so hard his teeth ache. Already he sees something like regret blooming in Jin's eyes, but he won't let himself acknowledge it.
Jin tries once more: "Kame, don't-"
"Fuck you," Kame says. "Fuck. You." He makes the mistake of pressing the back of one trembling hand to his mouth for a second before he clenches it into a fist and drops it to his side. Kame backs up a couple faltering steps before he turns, shoves his hands into his pockets, and walks away.
--
The next afternoon, Kame stares at himself in the mirror, gingerly dabbing at the broken corner of his mouth. He works his jaw and tilts his head from side to side, moves his shoulders, twists his torso ever so slightly. It's safe to say everything hurts.
He asks Nina if she can reschedule his meetings for the following week, or at least - he tries for a self-deprecating laugh - the ones requiring a good impression.
She sighs. "What did you do?"
When Yamapi meets Kame for dinner, he takes one look and says, "You're a fucking idiot." But he doesn't ask questions so Kame forces himself explain, lest Yamapi jump to some erroneous conclusion. It's not like he picked a fight somewhere.
Jin calls. Jin sends messages. The first day after and the second, too. Nothing like a deluge, but persistent, and Kame isn't sure how he feels about that. He's trying not to think about anything remotely related to Jin.
The prep cooks look surprised and barely hide their grins when he makes it into Sesamo a couple mornings later, sporting large dark glasses. Not that one or two of them don't also look worse for the wear, but none of them have a giant bruise beside their mouth, big as a plum and about the same color. Or a black eye. Kame stays only long enough to drop off a giant container of short rib ragú and full sheet pans of flour-dusted spinach-ricotta gnocchi for the staff meal later in the day. Andrew's eyes pop when he sees them, as do Haruka's when he leaves the same at Zenzero. He realizes he's probably set all their tongues wagging over his uncharacteristic generosity, but while Kame was hiding out at home, nursing his wounds, he'd cooked, because that's what he does, and now he has all this food to give away.
When Kame takes a look over the pass at Zenzero to gauge the front of the house, he's startled to catch sight of Jin at the bar, nursing a bottle of what looks like Japanese beer and reading something on his pad. Kame jerks back just as he sees Jin's head come up to look around.
Kame retreats quickly with hardly a word of farewell to Haruka, nearly stumbling in his haste to get out the back into the alley. He slows down, then, awash in the cool shade between the buildings, feeling foolish. When he makes it out onto the street, Jin is waiting for him.
Kame stops and backs up, his stomach in free fall.
"Are you stalking me?" Kame pushes at the bridge of his oversized sunglasses before he shoves his hand back into the pocket of his shorts.
Jin huffs a breath and goes pink with embarrassment. "Actually-" He lifts one hand to scratch the back of his neck. He's wearing a light blue rumpled linen shirt with the collar open over a pair of dark green cotton cargo shorts and a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses holds the hair back from his face. The strap of a messenger bag lies across his chest which he nervously fingers with his left hand.
"I didn't think I'd actually find you." He studies his shoes before flicking his eyes back up Kame, seemingly bemused. "I really didn't think it would work."
Kame backs into the shadow of the alley alongside Zenzero. Jin follows.
"Your face," Jin says, his eyebrows drawing together. "What happened?"
Kame barks out a laugh that surprises even him. "I should say the other guy looks worse," Kame says, scuffing his shoe on the concrete underfoot. He sidles past Jin and emerges back into the sunshine and the street. Jin turns to follow and falls into step beside him. "I wasn't that lucky."
"I'm guessing the other guy should have been me," Jin says. Kame frowns before he realizes what Jin means. And then he frowns some more.
"Why does everyone think I got into some bar fight?" he exclaims in exasperation.
"You didn't?" Jin sounds surprised.
"No," Kame says peevishly. "I got my ass kicked in a sparring session at my gym. Boxing, MMA." He casts a sidelong glance at Jin in time to see Jin's eyes widen.
"You did? For real?"
"Mmm," Kame replies. "It was my fault. I made some dumb choices, I wasn't concentrating, and - well, this is what happens when you don't wear headgear. My trainer's pissed." His trainer was livid, rather. Kame isn't sure why he's admitting the truth to Jin.
"I'm sorry," Jin murmurs.
Kame shrugs before he remembers even that small motion hurts. "Don't be. You didn't do it."
Jin snorts. "Didn't I?"
Kame doesn't reply.
"Look," Jin says at last into the silence that lasts the length of two city blocks.
"Hmmm?" Kame keeps his hands anchored in his pockets and doesn't glance at Jin.
"Can we talk?"
Kame laughs out loud, immediately wincing from the jolt of pain along one side of his face. "Because it went so well the last time."
"Don't do that," Jin says, and he sounds pained. "Don't be flip. This matters to me."
That sends a shiver through Kame even if he's not entirely sure why. "That why you're stalking me?" he asks lightly.
"I wouldn't have to if you would answer my messages."
Kame twitches his shoulders uneasily. "Maybe." He takes a breath. "Maybe we should leave this alone," he says in a rough voice, feeling a different kind of pain stab through him, seize him by the throat.
Jin bumps his shoulder lightly. "What if we don't."
Kame's feet stutter to a stop on the sidewalk and Jin stops beside him.
"What if we don't?" Jin repeats. "It's been ten years, Kame. Clearly - clearly things got pretty fucked up." Jin cocks his head at Kame. He isn't composed at all and his voice contains a tremor when he continues: "I just. I'd like to, you know, resolve this."
Kame looks at Jin. "Does this mean-" He swallows hard. "Are you staying? In New York?"
Jin nods, meeting his eyes. "Yes," he says. "I am."
Kame's fists relax in his pockets at Jin's answer. He knows when he opens his hands, there will be deep half-moon gouges in each palm.
--
Kame hears Jin asking, "what do you want?"
Kame blinks and looks up at the sign listing the daily options hanging next to the open window of the truck where a young man with warm brown skin and friendly eyes smiles down at him expectantly. "Uh-" He looks at Jin and blinks again. "Whatever you suggest." Kame inhales deeply through his nose as Jin nods.
A moment later Kame's holding both ice cream cones while Jin pays the guy.
"Come on," Jin says, their fingers tangling awkwardly as he takes back his chocolate-dipped, whipped-cream-wreathed cone.
Kame sits beside Jin on the sun-dappled park bench, leaving enough space between them. He digs into his cone with a spoon because it's less painful than trying to maneuver his tongue, but he still has to tilt his head and make the effort to catch a couple melted rivulets before they escape. He considers the flavors as the ice cream melts in his mouth: two scoops of pale salted plum ice cream that's rich, salty, tart and sweet.
"Thanks," Kame says. "This is really good. Wow."
"I thought you might like it," is all Jin says, busily licking all the drips from where his ice cream threatens to overflow over his fingers. Kame watches for several seconds before he tears his gaze away and fixates on a dog walker with seven little dogs taking a break nearby.
They're both quiet as they finish up, and Kame's stomach begins to knot with dread all over again. He's drawn back to watching Jin as Jin devours the bottom of his cone and wipes his hands with a couple sticky napkins. Jin tosses the napkins into a nearby trash can and then leans forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, his fingers loosely interlaced. He glances left at Kame who warily meets his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Kame blurts before his nerve fails him.
Jin ducks his head and Kame can see the sigh he heaves before his eyes return to Kame. "That isn't-" he begins. "That's not why-" He stops and takes a deep breath. "I just need you to understand," Jin says. "You don't need to apologize, okay. That's not what this is about."
Kame doesn't look away. He'd left Jin at Bar Arkady in a fury, but his rage was all mixed up with his confused rose-tinted memories and, the thing is, Jin's version of history isn't entirely wrong.
"I do understand," Kame says quietly, looking away. "I think I do. You're right. I didn't listen. I just thought - I don't know what I thought. I thought we could tough it out. I thought you were bailing on me. I forgot, I really forgot - I didn't want to remember - how bad it was for you."
When Kame made it home from the bar, he'd lain awake in the dark, tracing and retracing over the Kitagawa years compulsively. Jin's retreat hadn't happened over night. The signs had been there almost from the beginning of their time running the mid-town hotel restaurant in New York City. Jin's relations with Kitagawa management grew fraught after too many fights over food sourcing, menu changes and labor costs, with Kame inevitably in the middle, trying to smooth things over and make it work. Kame had forgotten Jin's rants over the quality of their food supplies - it was their reputations on the line if the food was less than high quality. He'd forgotten the arguments over providing overtime pay to cooks working double and triple shifts, and Kitagawa's insistence on serving so-called "fresh" tomatoes shipped from Chile in the heart of winter. It was like the old man had never heard of a 'food mile' before. But in the end, it was less about trying to maintain their ideals within the corporate culture and more about the destruction of Jin's spirit: the old man's constant demolishing criticism of Jin only snowballed with time.
Kame had forgotten the downward spiral: Jin growing depressed, losing weight and not sleeping. Increasingly, he'd go through the motions at the restaurant only to plan and prepare elaborate late-night feasts for their friends on his days off. Kame remembers that sometimes those exceptional dinners were the only times he'd see Jin relax and smile.
Looking back, Kame wonders if Kitagawa had been shrewder than either of them, if he'd been playing a long game. Kame had always enjoyed a warm relationship with the old man, nothing like the contentiousness that plagued Jin. Now, Kame wonders if Kitagawa had made it so difficult for Jin to stay so Jin would leave.
"It was bad," Jin agrees. "But I thought I could do it because you were there. I stayed as long as I could. I promise you, Kame. I didn't want to leave without you."
For some reason, that strikes Kame dumb. He can't even make himself look at Jin, so he tilts his head up to the leafy canopy overhead until his vision blurs.
Finally, Kame takes a deep breath and opens his mouth.
"We were too young," Jin says before Kame can speak. "We weren't ready for it. Hindsight's twenty-twenty and all that, but we probably should have gone to work for someone like Carmellini or Chang instead of getting wrapped up with Kitagawa." Jin pauses, meets Kame's eyes. "It was different in Milan. We were still learning there, and Chef Olivotto was too well-known and respected for Kitagawa to mess with. Kitagawa knew he needed Chef and Chef knew it. And he looked after us. Once we got to New York, we never had that kind of clout to back us up in a fight. We were just a couple kids with Japanese faces who made Kitagawa look good."
Jin shakes his head. "We were too goddamned grateful. We thought he was doing us a favor. Kitagawa didn't need us. He sure didn't need me. And, as it turned out, he didn't want me."
"I'm sorry," Kame says again.
"Me, too," Jin says. He huffs a soft, brief laugh and ducks his head before he sits up and slouches back on the bench, rolls his head sideways to catch Kame's eyes. "I'm not sorry I left. I was going insane and working for Kitagawa is just not what I wanted for my career. But...I'm sorry I left you."
Are you really? Kame wants to ask, ever the skeptic, not because he thinks Jin is lying, not exactly, but more because he imagines Jin was better off on his own. Jin left when he was twenty-seven, and by that point he'd spent many grueling years learning his craft only to end up far from what he'd been working towards. Kame imagines it was no easy task for Jin to re-discover his path after taking such a detour.
But Kame only hums in response. He watches the stream of cars on the street, the people on the sidewalk, listens to the cacophony of city life. After some time he asks: "You need my help?"
"What?"
"Before, remember? You told me you wanted to ask for my help."
"Oh, right." Jin clears his throat, rubbing his hands over his thighs and shifting beside Kame to cross his legs. "I'm uh, I'm surprised you still remember that. It - it's this thing Rowan and I've been talking about doing, and I suggested you. So, he, uh, he has a proposition for you."
"And?"
Jin makes a face. "I'm kind of afraid to talk about it now."
"Changed your mind about me?" Kame asks mildly.
"No-o," Jin begins. "I just - well, I haven't been the best communicator lately." He laughs self-deprecatingly, but there's an edge to it. "I'd rather not fuck up the pitch, you know?"
Kame frowns. "Okay."
"You've met him, right? He's much better at selling his ideas than I am."
"Actually," Kame says, "I haven't."
Jin's eyes widen. "You're kidding."
Kame's mouth twists and he shakes his head decisively. "Nope. We've attended a lot of the same events, but no, we've never formally met."
Jin's face lights up. "Okay, then!"
"That's good?"
"Well, yes. I'll set something up, so we can all hang. What do you think?"
Kame tries not to look askance at Jin's enthusiasm. "That's fine."
"Terrific." Jin looks pleased, his cheeks flushed with anticipation.
Kame, hiding his butterflies, musters something like a smile.
+part six
::
::
By mid-May, Kame is still getting used to seeing @Jin_Akanishi occasionally pop up in his feed. His stomach knots each time, but maybe a little less every day. Kame is now included on some group emails along with Yamapi and other familiar names. Rowan Petersen, for one.
Kame isn't entirely sure why the idea of Jin making new friends in New York bothers him, but it does. His irritation is exacerbated by rumors that Rowan Petersen is planning to open a new restaurant in what used to be the Curry Mama Curry House space over on the Bowery.
One morning in late May, after Kame's just finishing up a few hours volunteering for City Harvest, a non-profit that salvages usable restaurant food waste for hunger-prevention community programs, he gets a message from Jin.
You free?
Kame taps out a response without letting himself think twice.
What's up?
Forty-five minutes later, he's checking the address in his phone against street numbers. Kame thinks he's found the right place when he hears familiar music pouring out from under a half-closed metal shutter covered in graffiti. The panhandler sitting nearby sees Kame peering under the gate and says: "Praise the lord. Can you make that guy turn his damn music off? Why I gotta hear the same three songs all morning."
"Really?" Kame breaks into a smile. "You don't like the Stones?"
The middle-aged lady looks at him. "Mister, I like them just fine. I like 'em a lot less after five hours. This is my sidewalk. He's killing me."
"I'll let him know," Kame says, and he pulls out a twenty, bends over to tuck it into her empty coffee can. He doesn't wait for a response before he crouches down and ducks under the metal shutter.
It's dim inside and it smells musty and neglected. The main source of light comes from a bright bulb in a cage that hangs from a hook on the wall above where a man is squatting under the bulb's glare, a welding mask on and sparks flying from the blow torch in his hands.
Kame's surprised enough that he just stands there through two Stones songs. He props his shoulder against the wall and carefully avoids looking at the bright torch in favor of studying Jin's unmistakable folded-up form, long-sleeved t-shirt hanging off his lanky frame, brown hair curling damply around his neck. When "Let it Bleed and "Paint it Black" give way to "Gimme Shelter," Kame clears his throat and moves until he's somewhere in Jin's line of sight. He doesn't want to interrupt Jin, so he stays there, not watching Jin anymore, but looking around. There are folded-up long tables & assorted chairs piled up on the left side of the long narrow space. The music echoes strangely, bouncing off the bare walls and ripped-up floor, grungy concrete showing through in places. Kame's gaze flicks back to Jin whose dirty jeans and filthy boots are illuminated by spraying sparks. Kame is afraid to startle Jin into making a mistake that might prove injurious, so he slumps down onto the floor, quiet-like, and listens to the music.
Finally Jin finishes and turns off the torch, flipping up the visor. Kame clears his throat and gets to his feet, watches Jin start and nearly fall over backward.
"Hey," Kame says, raising both his hands to show his palms. "Sorry, man. It's just me."
"I didn't know - how long have you been here?" Jin snatches the helmet off and runs a hand through his hair somewhat frantically, but it's kind of hopeless. His hair sticks up in every direction, and Kame finds himself struggling not to laugh.
"Long enough," Kame says. "When'd you learn to weld?" It's an off-hand question, borne of his surprise, but he wishes he could snatch it back the instant it pops out. He watches Jin's face shutter. Kame wonders how he's supposed to navigate the minefield of all the time and space between them if he can't ask a simple question. He wonders if Jin feels the same way.
Jin bites his lip and says, "A couple years ago." He pauses. "In San Francisco."
It's not like Kame hasn't been wondering exactly that: if Jin has been in the U.S. any time recently, where he was, and now he has confirmation. The not knowing hurts like a dull stomach ache. Being angry hurts. He stands there, nodding, uncertain.
Jin looks discomfited as well. He peels off his gloves and looks down, and then back up at Kame, uncertainty clouding his features.
"Is that where you were?" Kame asks. "Before...." He trails off. He means before now. Before here.
He nods. "Yeah."
"Ok." Kame flounders for something to say. "It's a nice city."
Jin's eyes brighten. "Yeah. It was pretty great. And Napa, man. Almost as good as being back in Italy."
"That good?" Kame can't stifle his skepticism.
Jin grins. "Maybe not quite," he allows.
"Hey, we don't do so bad on the East Coast."
"No, I guess not. It's just. It's a different vibe."
"New York is -" Kame begins.
"-a world of its own," Jin finishes, shaking his head. He slaps the gloves against his thigh. "I have to get used to it all over again. So much has changed. I went looking for that dumpling shop we liked in Flushing, you know the one where they made those spicy noodles-"
Kame remembers.
"-but it's gone. The whole block is different now."
"Yeah," Kame says. "You, uh," he falters, "you never came back?"
Jin hesitates before shaking his head and worrying his lower lip. Kame wonders if Jin is at all regretful, if he understands what he blew up and walked away from, what kind of mess he left behind.
"I passed through a few times, but-"
And you never once told me. Kame grits his teeth and inhales, trying very hard to keep his decidedly mixed feelings at bay. He says tightly: "It's been a long time. Whole damn city's different now."
Jin let's out a huff of agreement. "Yeah. You're not kidding. It's crazy." He rubs his nose with the back of one hand before his arm drops and he chews the corner of his mouth.
Kame nods before taking a breath and looking around at the mess."So, um - is this a bad time?" he asks, now wondering why Jin messaged him at all. "You look busy. Should I go?"
"Shit. No, no. I'm sorry, man." Jin raises his hand in a vertical apologetic gesture. "I didn't ask you down here to waste your time," Jin continues, as if reading Kame's mind. "Sorry you had to wait. You should have said something or thrown something at me. I was just trying to finish up-" He gestures to indicate the metal pieces on the floor. "-while I was waiting."
"It's all right," Kame shrugs, slightly mollified. "Wasn't that long. And-" He makes a show of checking his watch. "I have some time, couple hours, before I need to be somewhere. You said something about lunch?" He doesn't let himself think about it, he just asks, and he's oddly relieved when Jin smiles.
Jin pulls down and locks the front metal gate, and turns off the music and the light before he leads Kame back through the property where they weave their way through contractors in heavy work boots and tool belts. Kame gets an eyeful of the work being done before they're in the back alley where Jin slings a messenger bag across his chest. He looks down at his disheveled and dirty clothes and pulls a rueful face.
"I hope you don't mind-" Jin says, gesturing to his attire. "We'll have to slum it."
Kame breaks into a smile. "I think I'll survive," he says dryly.
They settle on a somewhat grimy pizza parlor a block away that serves up giant slices of the kind of pizza Kame loves best after a night of drinking. They pile into opposite sides of a booth with their greasy paper plates and plastic bottles of Coke. Kame watches as Jin drops a bunch of small white napkins on top of his slices to soak up some of the pooling orangey oil.
"So what's going on back there?" Kame asks after he's finished half a slice. He lifts his Coke to his lips as he waits for Jin to answer. Jin's mouth is full.
"Friend of mine just signed the lease," he says after a moment. "He's hoping to get it fixed up to open in about six months."
Kame eyebrows fly up. "Six months?" He whistles softly. "That's crazy. If he can pull that off, he deserves a prize. He got the C of O? Otherwise-"
"No, yeah. I know, man, he's told me horror stories. Said it was a total fucking nightmare getting out from under that shitstorm."
"Yep. It is." Kame makes a face. "It happened to us when we were trying to open Zenzero. We didn't have a fucking clue." He shakes his head. He and Yamapi had been ambitious and earnest and dumb as shit. The Certificate of Occupancy, perhaps the most important document any restaurant in New York could possibly have, was no where to be found. And without it, no work could proceed; every day of delay cost money they could not afford.
"No shit," Jin says wonderingly. "Wow."
Kame shakes his head, takes a giant bite from his pizza and stares off toward the kitchen where he can just make out the tops of the kitchen crew's heads above a crowded counter.
"We'd already sunk so much money into the place. By the time we realized we didn't actually have the C of O...it was either forge ahead and die trying or-" Kame shakes his head. "We might as well have set all our money on fire. At least if we didn't give up, we had the hope of maybe, possibly, fixing the whole mess and recouping the investment. Unless we ran out of money first. Either way we were fucked."
"No kidding," Jin says, "You know, I'd never tell anyone to open a restaurant. Biggest money pit ever."
"So then why am I still doing it?" Kame asks mournfully, staring down at his second slice.
"Good question," Jin says, tipping his Coke toward Kame. "You guys do all right, though."
Kame makes a face. "We do okay."
"So modest," Jin says teasingly. "That's not what Yamapi says. When he talks about Kayakuya," he hastens to clarify.
"You never know. Whole thing could fall apart tomorrow," Kame says.
"Such optimism," Jin replies with a wry twist to his lips.
Kame shakes his head. "I'm a realist. Seen too many enterprises get cocky and make mistakes and the next thing you know they're bleeding customers, can't pay their bills and they're filing for bankruptcy. There's always something. Gas line gets fucked up or the cooks quit or a string of really bad reviews. It's never ending. You gotta stay on top of everything all the time, you can't sit back and pretend things are gonna run themselves. They won't."
"You're preaching to the choir, man."
Kame shifts, slightly embarrassed.
"Well, your efforts seem to have paid off," Jin says. "Yamapi says Kayakuya is doing really well. And come on, give yourself some credit. You got three restaurants posting profits. That's more than a lot of people can say."
"We've been lucky," Kame insists. "Right time, right place, all that. We have really great cooks making really great food. They're the reason people keep coming back." He frowns slightly. "Yamapi's told you about Meisa? We wouldn't survive without her. She keeps us honest so the wheels stay on, you know? Makes sure we run it like a business. Otherwise we'd probably piss all the money away and end up broke all over again."
Jin smiles narrowly. "I'm sure that isn't true."
Jin's right, of course, it isn't. Kame has always been too methodical, too careful for that. Some might even call him a plodder.
"No, yeah, you're right," he sighs, "we're not that exciting." Kame stuffs the last mouthful of pizza into his mouth.
"That's good, though, don't you think?" Jin lowers his chin and a gives Kame a shrewd look. "Predictable profits mean you can pay everyone at the end of the month. There's a lot to be said for that. Anyway, isn't that what running a restaurant is all about? Consistency. Hospitality. And-" Jin smiles as he ticks them off with his fingers, raising a third as he says: "Deliciousness. Making people want to come back."
Jin turns his bottle in a circle on the formica table top. "Anyway, from the outside it looks like whatever you got going on-" he makes a vague twirly gesture with his other hand. "-it's working. Yamapi seems happy." Jin tilts his head a little, narrows his eyes. "And you-"
Kame feels the back of his neck prickle without knowing why.
"You look good," Jin says quietly, nodding as though to himself. There's a warmth in Jin's eyes that Kame finds disconcerting.
"Thanks," Kame replies, not bothering to soften his tone: "I'm rocking the eye bags. I'm glad you approve." He rolls his eyes. Looks down and wipes his fingers ostentatiously.
Jin's Adam's apple bobs. "I'm serious."
Kame feels the tingle of something suspiciously pleased in his chest.
"So who's your friend," he asks to change the subject.
"What?" Jin looks confused.
"Your friend, the one with the space back there." Kame leans back in the booth and levels his gaze at Jin as steadily as he can manage.
"You probably know him," Jin says, a glimmer of something uncertain in his expression. "Rowan Petersen."
Which Kame was half-expecting.
"People are saying he's gonna take over some space on The Bowery," Kame says, furrowing his brow.
"Nope," Jin says. "That was just to throw off the rumor-hounds."
Kame realizes his mouth is dry and his bottle is empty. He crushes it noisily with both his hands.
"So you're working with Rowan Petersen." His voice sounds flat and wrong in his ears.
"Uh," Jin scratches the back of his head, his expression faintly uncomfortable. Perhaps he's picking up on Kame's tone. "Maybe? Sort of. Nothing is settled yet."
"That's just great," Kame says, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "You came back to New York to work with Rowan Petersen. Awesome. Congratulations. I'm sure it'll be great."
Truth is, Kame's starting to lose his temper. He wonders how bad it would be if he just got up and walked away right now, before he has the chance to say anything that might get him in trouble. Yamapi's admonishment rings in his ears, so he's not planning on a scene. Sitting in a crappy pizzeria is definitely public. Maybe not happy-hour-at-Gretel-public, but still outside the proscribed parameters.
Kame looks up from where he's shredded his napkin into tiny little pieces to find Jin's eyes heavy on him.
"Actually," Jin begins, clearing his throat: "that's not why I came back."
There's a note of pleading in Jin's voice, in his eyes, but Kame doesn't really care. Why should he care? Jin can go and work with Rowan fucking Petersen. Jin can do whatever the fuck he wants. Jin is none of his business anymore.
Kame clenches his teeth and stares back at Jin.
"All right," he manages at last. "I'll bite. Why'd you come back."
But now Jin glances away, his expression uncertain and he looks very tired.
"It's complicated," he says.
"I bet," Kame mutters. Jin's eyes snap to his.
"You really do hate me," Jin says, breathless and wondering. He sounds almost - hurt.
Kame bites out a laugh. "As if." He focuses on a spot on the wall behind Jin. "I do not hate you." There, he's said it. Steady, even. Calm.
"Right." Jin's gaze pricks him. "But you're angry."
Kame's jaw clamps even tighter. "What do you think?" he demands in a low voice, leaning forward just a little. "Should I be angry? Do I have anything to be angry about?"
"Yes," Jin says, and that's all it takes, that one simple syllable of acknowledgment, to deflate Kame.
Kame watches as Jin takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"I wanted-" Jin begins, and his voice cracks. "I - I was hoping I could ask for your help."
Kame blinks, his eyebrows rising. "My help? Wait - what?"
Jin rubs a crumpled-up napkin between his fingers. He leans his elbows on the table and scrubs both his hands over his face. Mutters: "Why's this so fucking hard?"
Kame slumps back to watch Jin, wrestling down all sarcastic responses.
"Look," Jin begins, but Kame's phone vibrates on the table next to his empty paper plates. Kame picks it up and examines the message. It's Nina and it flashes "Urgent" which never bodes well. She isn't prone to exaggeration.
Kame exhales noisily and curses under his breath. "On that note," he says, holding his phone out so Jin can see the "urgent" blinking across his screen. He slides out of the booth to stand.
Jin's shoulders sink as he looks up at Kame with an undecipherable expression. "Can-" he begins. "Can we pick this up again later?"
"Fine," Kame says. "Whatever."
"Tonight?" Jin asks hopefully. "I can meet you wherever you want."
Kame doesn't want to be free later. He should say no, definitely not, no way.
"Maybe," he hedges, "but probably not until late."
"Doesn't matter," Jin says with relief. "Let me know when, where."
Kame touches two fingers to the table and taps them there. He doesn't know why he's agreeing, but he nods. "Later," he says, turning away.
When he hears Jin say "Thanks" to his back, he keeps going.
--
Later ends up being half past midnight. Kame stares at his phone for a long time before he finally sends the message explaining where Jin can find him, and then he starts walking.
When Jin arrives at Bar Arkady, a dark little Croatian dive Kame favors on nights when he feels like disappearing into a deep bottle of Balkan plum brandy, Kame's on his third glass of slivovitz and feeling pleasantly anesthetized. The liquor's swaddling effects have blunted his temper to where he can stand back and observe from some kind of objective distance.
Jin taps on Kame's shoulder and Kame twists his upper body to look up and over his shoulder. Raises the little glass before emptying it.
"We're doing shots?" Jin says, his eyebrows rising. He slides onto the stool beside Kame and signals to the bartender for the same.
"Don't know what you're doing," Kame says. "You can do whatever you want. Milos here-" he gestures at the large square-built bald bartender who's pouring slivovitz for Jin. "-will be happy to help you."
Milos does help - he helps so much that, for a little while at least, Kame almost doesn't remember why he's supposed to be upset with Jin. A couple drinks later, he actually feels pretty damn good.
"This is nice," Jin says after awhile in a tone of surprise. Jin's head is propped in one hand and his eyes are thin dark crescents as he watches Kame, their elbows bumping.
Kame has the vague idea he's been talking about the merits of dirty water hot dogs.
"What's nice?" Kame asks. He's flipping his phone end over end in his hands. He rotates the large ring on his left hand, plays with his leather cuffs. Begins tapping the bar in a staccato rhythm. In his head, he's losing an argument over whether or not to ask Jin about the new tattoos. New-to-him, not new. Nothing about Jin is new. Nothing except everything he missed.
Jin reaches over and covers Kame's hands with his own, stilling Kame's restless fidgeting. His hand doesn't linger but he blinks at Kame, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths.
"This" Jin says. "Being here. You're actually - what I mean is - you aren't-" He founders. "It's nice," Jin finally manages, "to see you relaxed."
"Wait. What are-" Kame frowns. "Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking compliment?"
"Sure," Jin says. He's wearing glasses again, heavy dark designer frames. The tricksy light in the bar hits the lenses the wrong way, obscuring Jin's eyes.
Kame snorts softly.
"Because it's nicer when I don't make you feel uncomfortable, is that it?" Kame knows he's somewhat drunk, but he's not too drunk to understand what Jin means.
"That's not what I meant." Jin groans and straightens, dropping his head back, exposing the long line of his throat.
"What did you mean?"
"I just - I meant. It's nice to see you looking happier, I guess."
"So you don't think I look happy, that's what you mean."
"No. Goddamn it, Kame. You're twisting everything I say."
"All right, Jin," Kame says, feeling the words rise above his pleasant haze. "But tell me this. Can you blame me?"
"For what?" Jin says, cagey.
"Can you blame me if I'm not relaxed around you. Seriously, what do you expect. Did you think you could come waltzing back and that everything would be fine? How did you think this was going to go?"
Jin pushes up to hunch over his glass, his head ducked and his expression tense and unhappy. He remains still for a long moment before he nods his head and chews at the corner of his mouth.
"I don't know," Jin says in a low voice. He pulls his glasses off, tossing them to the bar with a clatter. He rubs at one eye with the heel of his right hand. "I don't know, Kame. I guess I hoped-"
"What," Kame says, unable to keep the acid from his voice. "You hoped I would forgive you?"
Jin's head whips over at that. "Forgive me?" Jin asks. "Why would I want you to forgive me?"
Kame stares at Jin. Spots of color ride high on Jin's cheeks, and his eyes are bright and crackling.
"You know why-" Kame begins.
"Yeah," Jin snaps. "I know why you think that. But you can't tell me - you can't pretend-" A muscle twitches along Jin's jaw. "I tried to tell you so many times."
"You tried to tell me what," Kame counters, narrowing his eyes.
Jin laughs bitterly. "You are seriously not that oblivious, Kame. Stop being so self-righteous for more than five seconds and think about it. Or did you just block everything out?"
Kame opens his mouth, a hot retort on his tongue, but he closes it a second later.
Jin takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"We probably should have had this conversation when we were sober," Jin says.
Kame shakes his head vehemently. "No way, man," he says.
"All right," Jin says. "You go first. Tell me why you're upset. Don't make me guess, don't assume I know. How's that."
Kame glances sideways at Jin. He looks over his shoulder, scanning the dim bar before signaling the bartender. A few minutes later, they're ensconced in a booth at the very back, with the remainder of a bottle of slivovitz and a couple glasses between them. Jin sprawls over his side with his back to the wall and his feet on the bench, one elbow on the table.
Kame leans forward, pours for both of them before sliding one glass toward Jin.
"Salud," Jin says, clinking his glass against Kame's harder than he probably should.
Kame lets the fire lick at him as the alcohol burns its way down.
"I'm angry because you left," Kame begins.
"Yeah, I got that part," Jin mutters.
Kame throws him a dirty look. "Do you want me to do this, or what."
"Sorry, you're right." He mimes pulling a zip across his mouth. Kame rolls his eyes.
"So why did you do it?"
Jin rolls his head in Kame's direction. "Do you really not remember?"
Kame holds Jin's gaze for several long seconds before he looks down at the glass between his fingers.
"I remember we wanted to start our own restaurant for years. I mean, we'd been talking about it since we were kids, Jin."
Jin nods. He swallows. "Yeah."
Kame goes back to studying his glass which he spins on the table. "All you wanted to do back then was work hard and learn, to get good-"
"So did you," Jin interjects.
Kame nods. "And we got better." Kame darts a look a Jin before he pulls the bottle to him and hefts it to pour another slug into both their glasses.
Kame started cooking when he was very young, encouraged by his family's cook. In his free time, he'd hang out at a local tapas bar until eventually they started giving him work to do, just to be useful, so he'd quit getting in everyone's way. It started with sweeping the floors and washing dishes until eventually he was chopping vegetables and peeling potatoes. After he met Jin, they spent much of their free time working as dishwashers, busboys, and kitchen help anywhere anyone would have them.
Kame was seventeen when he and Jin took off from Madrid in a yellow 2001 SEAT Arosa. They spent two years wandering around Spain, picking up whatever restaurant work they could find even if it meant washing dishes again, or waiting tables. Ideally they'd both find kitchen work doing whatever the chef would let them do. Oftentimes it was scut work. It didn't matter that by then they'd already worked in restaurants for almost four years. Each new chef put them through their paces with menial kitchen tasks, a process designed to ensure they knew how to do things the right way, the chef's way. Every time they had to prove they could work quickly and cleanly, carry themselves professionally, listen carefully and execute whatever they were asked to do without hesitation.
Eventually they made their way from the Catalonia region of Spain into France, where they spent a season in Marseilles. They quickly moved on to Italy. When they found themselves in Turin, they got work as stagiaires. The process grew more difficult and more demanding because, as their skills increased, the kitchens to which they applied grew more challenging.
They lived hand-to-mouth during that time, a precarious existence fueled mostly by ambition. As stagiares they essentially worked for free, as trainees, the lowest rung of cooks in a kitchen. They shared a tiny flat with several other cooks, went to bed late after dinner service and woke up early, all to come into the kitchen again and start in on the mountains of prep work that awaited them every day.
There were endless baskets of farm-fresh carrots, celery and onions to brunoise - mince into tiny, perfect cubes - for the mirepoix or soffritto that formed the base of so many dishes. There were wooden flats of tomatoes to grate. Kilos and kilos of mussels and oysters to scrub under freezing water. Potatoes to peel. Poultry to debone. Eventually they graduated to learning complicated sauces and handmade pasta, learned to test the doneness of cooked meat through simple touch.
And they weren't always welcome. There were asshole cooks who saw a pair of Japanese kids as interlopers. The people who thought they were just ignorant foreigners who surely couldn't speak the right languages, the ones who thought their growing resumes were complete fabrications, the chefs and kitchen bosses who screamed constant abuse - and worse, the ones who threw things. Like iron skillets and great bloody handfuls of pig guts.
By the time Kame was twenty, he and Jin were line cooks for their greatest mentor, Chef Olivotto, at a magnificent hotel restaurant in Milan run by the Kitagawa Restaurant Group. Under Olivotto's tutelage, they both dramatically rose in the ranks. Two years later, Kitagawa sent them to New York city and chose them to head a new restaurant in a posh mid-town hotel. To say it was a meteoric ascent would be an understatement.
"Was it so bad?" Kame asks softly, frowning. He looks up to meet Jin's eyes. "Was it really that bad?"
"Kame..." Jin begins. He sighs, toying with his empty glass.
"I mean, you just quit. As if-"
Jin's eyes snap to his, something almost warning in them.
"As if you couldn't get away fast enough," Kame finishes. "As if everything we'd been through, everything we'd worked for - as if it meant nothing to you."
As if I meant nothing to you.
The rest is too painful to touch. Let this be about work, about their friendship. Not his heart or the life they shared. Not the memories.
Getting kicked off the soccer team for skipping practice to hang out at a nearby bakery.
Dreaming of the restaurant they would someday own. "I want a red door," Jin would say and Kame would answer: "Of course."
Jin mimicking Keith Richards on Kame's eighteenth birthday, singing "their" song, "You Got The Silver," while pulling twangy notes from a beat-up, borrowed acoustic guitar.
Falling into bed at three in the morning, too tired to even cuddle. Waking up exhausted and cranky, but waking, tangled, holding hands in the dark.
Watching the night-time view of Manhattan spread out before them the first time they ascend the Empire State building, athrill with all the possibilities life in New York holds.
Catching Jin's eyes across a crowded, boiling-hot kitchen in the middle of a service and sharing a weary grin.
Falling asleep in the bath to be woken by coffee and kisses.
Never imagining the day it would end.
Kame has been trying to forget all that for ten years.
"It's not just me," Kame continues, doggedly trying to get through his alcohol-hazed thoughts. "It's everyone who depended on us. We were running a business. We had responsibilities. And you walked out on all of it."
"I did not do that," Jin says in a low gritty voice.
"What do you call it then?"
"I call it bullshit," Jin says, his eyes sparking. "Is that the story you've been telling yourself all this time? Fuck." Jin's legs swing down and he bows over the table, his hands laced around the back of his head.
When Jin's hands slam down on the table, their glasses jump. Kame nearly recoils from Jin's furious gaze.
"I told you. I told you for months. Did you think I was happy working for that bastard? Is that what you think? You think I wanted to just leave all of you to fend for yourselves? I tried to get you to come with me. What else should I have done? What did I need to do to convince you? You wouldn't listen to me. You were so wrapped up in it, even though it was making you sick-"
Kame stares at him, frozen.
"I...I don't know how you can sit there and tell me these made-up bullshit stories. I don't fucking know. You had plenty of warning. I did not just walk away. That was one of the hardest fucking things I ever did in my whole life. I did it because I was going crazy. I was fucking miserable. And you never listened to me. You kept telling me to be patient. Fuck patience." Jin clutches at his head with both hands, his joints bloodless, and his face drawn with anger.
"But...I-I didn't think it was so bad," Kame says in a low voice. "I thought we were having fun."
Jin looks up from where he's been glaring ferociously at the tabletop. He grabs the bottle, filling his glass to the rim. Tosses it back in a convulsive swallow. When he meets Kame's eyes again, his expression is settled into something marginally more composed.
"Sure, it was fun, for awhile," Jin says. "Before we got to New York, it was great. It was a challenge. It was hard work but I loved that. I didn't care if we were poor and exhausted, because we were learning all the time, and that's all I wanted to do - get better."
His gaze sharpens. "But Kitagawa's restaurant - don't you remember how you kept telling me that it was the price we had to pay, that working for him was just a stepping stone. Whatever freedom you think you had was all in your head. He was using us. We were just a pair of pretty faces with good bios he could put in a press release. Didn't you ever wonder why he would choose us, of all people? We were too young and too inexperienced and he knew he could bend us over any way he wanted. You think we built that place? That's a joke. We were his fucking puppets. I hated it. I couldn't do it anymore. Why don't you get that? Maybe you think it's all right to sell your soul to get ahead-"
"What?"
Jin's frown lines cut deep into his face. He shifts. "Oh, come on."
"No, I'm serious, Jin. You think I made some kind of pact with the devil by working for Kitagawa? That I compromised myself by accepting that opportunity? Is that what you're saying?"
Jin stares back at him for a long tense moment. Kame feels himself contract into a dark, silent place where all he hears is the sound of his breathing, the thud of his heartbeat.
Jin shrugs, careless. "Sure," he says. He's very pale.
Kame feels pain rip at his throat, and his vision goes white for a couple seconds. He's trembling, he realizes, as he scrabbles out of the booth and pushes himself to a stand. His breath comes in shallow pants, as if he's been running. He tries to cover his shaky hands when he pulls out his wallet, extracts several bills, tosses them on the table. He watches Jin swallow.
"Kame-" Jin begins, his frown now a grimace.
"Fuck you, Jin," Kame says without meeting his eyes.
"Wait-"
Kame jerks his head to the side, effectively cutting Jin off.
Then he forces himself to meet Jin's stricken gaze. Kame only dimly recognizes he's shaking his head in a helpless futile gesture. His jaw is clenched so hard his teeth ache. Already he sees something like regret blooming in Jin's eyes, but he won't let himself acknowledge it.
Jin tries once more: "Kame, don't-"
"Fuck you," Kame says. "Fuck. You." He makes the mistake of pressing the back of one trembling hand to his mouth for a second before he clenches it into a fist and drops it to his side. Kame backs up a couple faltering steps before he turns, shoves his hands into his pockets, and walks away.
--
The next afternoon, Kame stares at himself in the mirror, gingerly dabbing at the broken corner of his mouth. He works his jaw and tilts his head from side to side, moves his shoulders, twists his torso ever so slightly. It's safe to say everything hurts.
He asks Nina if she can reschedule his meetings for the following week, or at least - he tries for a self-deprecating laugh - the ones requiring a good impression.
She sighs. "What did you do?"
When Yamapi meets Kame for dinner, he takes one look and says, "You're a fucking idiot." But he doesn't ask questions so Kame forces himself explain, lest Yamapi jump to some erroneous conclusion. It's not like he picked a fight somewhere.
Jin calls. Jin sends messages. The first day after and the second, too. Nothing like a deluge, but persistent, and Kame isn't sure how he feels about that. He's trying not to think about anything remotely related to Jin.
The prep cooks look surprised and barely hide their grins when he makes it into Sesamo a couple mornings later, sporting large dark glasses. Not that one or two of them don't also look worse for the wear, but none of them have a giant bruise beside their mouth, big as a plum and about the same color. Or a black eye. Kame stays only long enough to drop off a giant container of short rib ragú and full sheet pans of flour-dusted spinach-ricotta gnocchi for the staff meal later in the day. Andrew's eyes pop when he sees them, as do Haruka's when he leaves the same at Zenzero. He realizes he's probably set all their tongues wagging over his uncharacteristic generosity, but while Kame was hiding out at home, nursing his wounds, he'd cooked, because that's what he does, and now he has all this food to give away.
When Kame takes a look over the pass at Zenzero to gauge the front of the house, he's startled to catch sight of Jin at the bar, nursing a bottle of what looks like Japanese beer and reading something on his pad. Kame jerks back just as he sees Jin's head come up to look around.
Kame retreats quickly with hardly a word of farewell to Haruka, nearly stumbling in his haste to get out the back into the alley. He slows down, then, awash in the cool shade between the buildings, feeling foolish. When he makes it out onto the street, Jin is waiting for him.
Kame stops and backs up, his stomach in free fall.
"Are you stalking me?" Kame pushes at the bridge of his oversized sunglasses before he shoves his hand back into the pocket of his shorts.
Jin huffs a breath and goes pink with embarrassment. "Actually-" He lifts one hand to scratch the back of his neck. He's wearing a light blue rumpled linen shirt with the collar open over a pair of dark green cotton cargo shorts and a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses holds the hair back from his face. The strap of a messenger bag lies across his chest which he nervously fingers with his left hand.
"I didn't think I'd actually find you." He studies his shoes before flicking his eyes back up Kame, seemingly bemused. "I really didn't think it would work."
Kame backs into the shadow of the alley alongside Zenzero. Jin follows.
"Your face," Jin says, his eyebrows drawing together. "What happened?"
Kame barks out a laugh that surprises even him. "I should say the other guy looks worse," Kame says, scuffing his shoe on the concrete underfoot. He sidles past Jin and emerges back into the sunshine and the street. Jin turns to follow and falls into step beside him. "I wasn't that lucky."
"I'm guessing the other guy should have been me," Jin says. Kame frowns before he realizes what Jin means. And then he frowns some more.
"Why does everyone think I got into some bar fight?" he exclaims in exasperation.
"You didn't?" Jin sounds surprised.
"No," Kame says peevishly. "I got my ass kicked in a sparring session at my gym. Boxing, MMA." He casts a sidelong glance at Jin in time to see Jin's eyes widen.
"You did? For real?"
"Mmm," Kame replies. "It was my fault. I made some dumb choices, I wasn't concentrating, and - well, this is what happens when you don't wear headgear. My trainer's pissed." His trainer was livid, rather. Kame isn't sure why he's admitting the truth to Jin.
"I'm sorry," Jin murmurs.
Kame shrugs before he remembers even that small motion hurts. "Don't be. You didn't do it."
Jin snorts. "Didn't I?"
Kame doesn't reply.
"Look," Jin says at last into the silence that lasts the length of two city blocks.
"Hmmm?" Kame keeps his hands anchored in his pockets and doesn't glance at Jin.
"Can we talk?"
Kame laughs out loud, immediately wincing from the jolt of pain along one side of his face. "Because it went so well the last time."
"Don't do that," Jin says, and he sounds pained. "Don't be flip. This matters to me."
That sends a shiver through Kame even if he's not entirely sure why. "That why you're stalking me?" he asks lightly.
"I wouldn't have to if you would answer my messages."
Kame twitches his shoulders uneasily. "Maybe." He takes a breath. "Maybe we should leave this alone," he says in a rough voice, feeling a different kind of pain stab through him, seize him by the throat.
Jin bumps his shoulder lightly. "What if we don't."
Kame's feet stutter to a stop on the sidewalk and Jin stops beside him.
"What if we don't?" Jin repeats. "It's been ten years, Kame. Clearly - clearly things got pretty fucked up." Jin cocks his head at Kame. He isn't composed at all and his voice contains a tremor when he continues: "I just. I'd like to, you know, resolve this."
Kame looks at Jin. "Does this mean-" He swallows hard. "Are you staying? In New York?"
Jin nods, meeting his eyes. "Yes," he says. "I am."
Kame's fists relax in his pockets at Jin's answer. He knows when he opens his hands, there will be deep half-moon gouges in each palm.
--
Kame hears Jin asking, "what do you want?"
Kame blinks and looks up at the sign listing the daily options hanging next to the open window of the truck where a young man with warm brown skin and friendly eyes smiles down at him expectantly. "Uh-" He looks at Jin and blinks again. "Whatever you suggest." Kame inhales deeply through his nose as Jin nods.
A moment later Kame's holding both ice cream cones while Jin pays the guy.
"Come on," Jin says, their fingers tangling awkwardly as he takes back his chocolate-dipped, whipped-cream-wreathed cone.
Kame sits beside Jin on the sun-dappled park bench, leaving enough space between them. He digs into his cone with a spoon because it's less painful than trying to maneuver his tongue, but he still has to tilt his head and make the effort to catch a couple melted rivulets before they escape. He considers the flavors as the ice cream melts in his mouth: two scoops of pale salted plum ice cream that's rich, salty, tart and sweet.
"Thanks," Kame says. "This is really good. Wow."
"I thought you might like it," is all Jin says, busily licking all the drips from where his ice cream threatens to overflow over his fingers. Kame watches for several seconds before he tears his gaze away and fixates on a dog walker with seven little dogs taking a break nearby.
They're both quiet as they finish up, and Kame's stomach begins to knot with dread all over again. He's drawn back to watching Jin as Jin devours the bottom of his cone and wipes his hands with a couple sticky napkins. Jin tosses the napkins into a nearby trash can and then leans forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, his fingers loosely interlaced. He glances left at Kame who warily meets his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Kame blurts before his nerve fails him.
Jin ducks his head and Kame can see the sigh he heaves before his eyes return to Kame. "That isn't-" he begins. "That's not why-" He stops and takes a deep breath. "I just need you to understand," Jin says. "You don't need to apologize, okay. That's not what this is about."
Kame doesn't look away. He'd left Jin at Bar Arkady in a fury, but his rage was all mixed up with his confused rose-tinted memories and, the thing is, Jin's version of history isn't entirely wrong.
"I do understand," Kame says quietly, looking away. "I think I do. You're right. I didn't listen. I just thought - I don't know what I thought. I thought we could tough it out. I thought you were bailing on me. I forgot, I really forgot - I didn't want to remember - how bad it was for you."
When Kame made it home from the bar, he'd lain awake in the dark, tracing and retracing over the Kitagawa years compulsively. Jin's retreat hadn't happened over night. The signs had been there almost from the beginning of their time running the mid-town hotel restaurant in New York City. Jin's relations with Kitagawa management grew fraught after too many fights over food sourcing, menu changes and labor costs, with Kame inevitably in the middle, trying to smooth things over and make it work. Kame had forgotten Jin's rants over the quality of their food supplies - it was their reputations on the line if the food was less than high quality. He'd forgotten the arguments over providing overtime pay to cooks working double and triple shifts, and Kitagawa's insistence on serving so-called "fresh" tomatoes shipped from Chile in the heart of winter. It was like the old man had never heard of a 'food mile' before. But in the end, it was less about trying to maintain their ideals within the corporate culture and more about the destruction of Jin's spirit: the old man's constant demolishing criticism of Jin only snowballed with time.
Kame had forgotten the downward spiral: Jin growing depressed, losing weight and not sleeping. Increasingly, he'd go through the motions at the restaurant only to plan and prepare elaborate late-night feasts for their friends on his days off. Kame remembers that sometimes those exceptional dinners were the only times he'd see Jin relax and smile.
Looking back, Kame wonders if Kitagawa had been shrewder than either of them, if he'd been playing a long game. Kame had always enjoyed a warm relationship with the old man, nothing like the contentiousness that plagued Jin. Now, Kame wonders if Kitagawa had made it so difficult for Jin to stay so Jin would leave.
"It was bad," Jin agrees. "But I thought I could do it because you were there. I stayed as long as I could. I promise you, Kame. I didn't want to leave without you."
For some reason, that strikes Kame dumb. He can't even make himself look at Jin, so he tilts his head up to the leafy canopy overhead until his vision blurs.
Finally, Kame takes a deep breath and opens his mouth.
"We were too young," Jin says before Kame can speak. "We weren't ready for it. Hindsight's twenty-twenty and all that, but we probably should have gone to work for someone like Carmellini or Chang instead of getting wrapped up with Kitagawa." Jin pauses, meets Kame's eyes. "It was different in Milan. We were still learning there, and Chef Olivotto was too well-known and respected for Kitagawa to mess with. Kitagawa knew he needed Chef and Chef knew it. And he looked after us. Once we got to New York, we never had that kind of clout to back us up in a fight. We were just a couple kids with Japanese faces who made Kitagawa look good."
Jin shakes his head. "We were too goddamned grateful. We thought he was doing us a favor. Kitagawa didn't need us. He sure didn't need me. And, as it turned out, he didn't want me."
"I'm sorry," Kame says again.
"Me, too," Jin says. He huffs a soft, brief laugh and ducks his head before he sits up and slouches back on the bench, rolls his head sideways to catch Kame's eyes. "I'm not sorry I left. I was going insane and working for Kitagawa is just not what I wanted for my career. But...I'm sorry I left you."
Are you really? Kame wants to ask, ever the skeptic, not because he thinks Jin is lying, not exactly, but more because he imagines Jin was better off on his own. Jin left when he was twenty-seven, and by that point he'd spent many grueling years learning his craft only to end up far from what he'd been working towards. Kame imagines it was no easy task for Jin to re-discover his path after taking such a detour.
But Kame only hums in response. He watches the stream of cars on the street, the people on the sidewalk, listens to the cacophony of city life. After some time he asks: "You need my help?"
"What?"
"Before, remember? You told me you wanted to ask for my help."
"Oh, right." Jin clears his throat, rubbing his hands over his thighs and shifting beside Kame to cross his legs. "I'm uh, I'm surprised you still remember that. It - it's this thing Rowan and I've been talking about doing, and I suggested you. So, he, uh, he has a proposition for you."
"And?"
Jin makes a face. "I'm kind of afraid to talk about it now."
"Changed your mind about me?" Kame asks mildly.
"No-o," Jin begins. "I just - well, I haven't been the best communicator lately." He laughs self-deprecatingly, but there's an edge to it. "I'd rather not fuck up the pitch, you know?"
Kame frowns. "Okay."
"You've met him, right? He's much better at selling his ideas than I am."
"Actually," Kame says, "I haven't."
Jin's eyes widen. "You're kidding."
Kame's mouth twists and he shakes his head decisively. "Nope. We've attended a lot of the same events, but no, we've never formally met."
Jin's face lights up. "Okay, then!"
"That's good?"
"Well, yes. I'll set something up, so we can all hang. What do you think?"
Kame tries not to look askance at Jin's enthusiasm. "That's fine."
"Terrific." Jin looks pleased, his cheeks flushed with anticipation.
Kame, hiding his butterflies, musters something like a smile.
+part six