Fourth Avenue Café - Chapter 6
Title: Fourth Avenue Café
Pairings: Akame, slight Ryopi
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jin's a successful artist when a fight with his friends forces him to seek stress relief in a little café where he meets what he considers, the strangest people.
Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4// Chapter 5
Chapter 6:
“Draw a pig for me,” he demanded.
“What?” Kame stared at him with an incredulous look, then looked over at the singer’s two best friends beside him who replied with shrugs and rueful smiles.
“Draw a pig for me,” Jin repeated, holding out a piece of paper and pencil.
The waiter continued to stare at him, tray in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other. Deciding that he was serious, he asked hesitantly, “…is there any specific reason as to why you want me to draw you a pig?”
The singer shook his head and shrugged, “No. Just draw me one.”
Pi didn’t look fazed, “it’s just one of Jin’s random urges. You’ll get used to them. Me and Ryo-chan usually ignore him when he’s like this.”
Ryo didn’t say anything but nodded in agreement, swinging his legs a bit as he eyed the cup of coffee in the waiter’s hand.
The younger man raised a brow and set down the cup, which was immediately snatched away by Ryo. He took the pencil and tapped it on his lips, “I’m warning you now, I’m really bad at drawing.”
Jin crossed his arms stubbornly, “I want a pig.”
“I make no guarantees.” He muttered as he began drawing.
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When he was finished, the three of them were staring at it in fascination, “…what is it?”
He jutted his lower lip out into a pout, “screw you guys. It’s a pig. I told you I was bad,” he turned away to serve other customers.
Ryo raised a brow and looked at the elder, “what the hell was that about? A pig? Your random urges usually involve food or you with a different career, like that pirate phase you had.”
“Or the ninja one,” the youngest contributed helpfully.
“This is different,” he muttered into his cup, blowing the steam away before taking a sip. “I’m confirming something.” The two exchanged strange looks but continued watching him in silence. He looked over, “Ryo-chan, I thought you wanted to go home to sleep…why are you here?”
Ryo shot Pi a wary glare, “Blame Pi, he made me come.”
“No,” Yamapi corrected, “I made Tegoshi make you come.”
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When the NEWS leader bounced into the room, Ryo let out a sigh as the other called out “Ryo-chan, let’s go to the café with Jin.”
He didn’t bother looking up from his magazine, “No.”
“But-”
“No. I don’t care if we both get off early today. I’m going home.”
Pi shot a pout which was ignored, “But-”
“And I don’t care if Jin’s up to something, he’s always up to something.”
“But-”
He flipped the page, “Using the spending time together excuse won’t work, I’m tired and I want to go home.”
“But-”
“Stop it, you’re being stupid.”
Yamapi’s eyes narrowed as his expression took on a serious one and marched off, “fine, two can play at this game. I’ll fight insults with tears.”
This caused Ryo to look up, “What?”
A moment later, Pi returned with Tegoshi in tow. The boy blinked and stood there, confused. The leader whispered something into his ear, his eyes widened as he turned to the man on the couch, “Ryo-tan, is that true!?”
The Osaka man gave a groan, “oh god, are you serious? This isn’t fair at all, Pi.”
Pi ignored him and whispered something else into the boy’s ear, causing him to sniffle, “Ryo-tan…”
He clapped his hands over his ears, “No, nonononononononono absolutely not.”
The singer whispered yet again into the other’s ear, this time, his eyes began tearing, “Ryo-tan…did you really?”
Giving a frustrated groan, he threw the magazine to the floor and stood up, “fine! Fine! I’ll go to the stupid café with stupid you and stupid Jin! Ugh! I hate you!”
Yamapi gave a happy grin and ruffled Tegoshi’s hair, “I was just joking, he didn’t say or do any of those things.”
Tegoshi blinked and immediately stopped sniffling, he smiled, “good, I knew Ryo-tan wasn’t like that” and he walked out the door to find his best friend.
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“Oh man Ryo-chan, Pi’s got you on a lea-” he glared at his best friend who had a hand over his mouth and giving what he considered to be a threatening look. He removed the other’s hand and cautiously changed the subject, “anyways…wonder how long he’s going to take…”
The two turned around to watch the other serve other customers and shrugged.
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When the waiter returned, they watched the two expectantly. And when the younger made no move to strike up a conversation, Jin went and made the first move, “so it really was you.”
Kame set down another cup and raised a brow, letting out an intelligent, “Huh?”
“Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“…did you not know my name before?”
The singer frowned, “I meant the Kamenashi Kazuya who lived on my block before.”
There was a pause, “Oh…”
“Oh? That’s it?”
“Oh…” he shrugged, “you remember now?”
“Yes!” Angry, he stood up and glared at the other, “why the hell didn’t you tell me!?”
The waiter gave another shrug, “It didn’t seem that important, I mean you forgot so there wasn’t really a point in bringing it up.”
The singer’s frown deepened, “Yes there was! You should’ve told me!”
The other regarded him calmly, “Would you’ve listened to me if I’d told you?”
Jin paused, “Yes, no, maybe-that’s not the point! The point is that if you’d told me earlier, I could’ve given this to you earlier!” He passed an envelope over to the other.
Kame blinked and opened it, sliding a card out, Ryo tilted his head and read the cover, “Congratulations it’s a girl…!?”
Pi’s eyes widened as he looked from the waiter to his best friend then back to the waiter, “Jin…please tell me you didn’t…oh my god…you knocked Kame-chan up when he was what? Ten years old!?”
The waiter didn’t make a comment as he read the inside which was simply a folded piece of paper. A moment later his eyes began to tear up, he looked up in attempt to hold back the tears, “…thank you…” he muttered before walking away to the back room.
His friends blinked as he took his seat, “…was it a compensation check?”
He gave a soft laugh, “no, I found it this morning, I’ve been holding onto it for years now…I’ve always meant to give it to him but I guess I never got the chance to until now…remember that phone call, Pi?”
The younger man shook his head though his eyes spoke differently, “No.”
That was one thing he liked about Yamapi, when he told the other to pretend that he never called, he actually did it. “It’s him…”
“Oh…” Pi nodded, understanding the scenario, he got up and tugged on the other’s sleeve, “hey Ryo-chan, there’s a new ramen place a couple blocks down, I heard it’s pretty good. Let’s go try it, I’ll tell you a story over there, okay?”
Ryo frowned slightly, “is it going to be about how Jin knocked up some kid when he was younger?”
The other laughed, “Something close to that but not quite.”
“…do I have to? I want to go home…”
There was a pause, Pi’s eyes widened as he pointed to something outside, “look over there Ryo-chan! What’s that!?”
Blinking, he stood up and looked in the direction Pi was pointing at, “what?”
“Ramen!” Pi called out as he dragged the older man out the door.
Jin laughed, “Come up with your own trick next time!”
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Awhile later, when he was writing down new lyrics, Kame returned, dry-eyed this time. Placing the card down gently on the table, he spoke softly, “I didn’t think you’d keep such sentimental things like this around.”
He returned with a light smile, hands folded on the table, “Well now you know.”
The waiter’s lips curved upwards slightly, “I hope your drawing skills have improved since then.”
“I make no promises,” he looked down, “it’s still better than yours. At least you can tell what it is.”
On the table was a drawing of a two stick figures playing in a rectangular street with matching grins that were bigger than their faces, all messily done in crayon. At the top, there was a message…
To Kazu-chan
Thank you for being my friend!
Your Best Friend,
Jin
“How did you suddenly remember?”
“I knew all along, sort of,” he shrugged, “or my brain knew it, I think. It just kept nagging me until I remembered.”
Kame raised a brow and gave a slow nod, “right…okay, better question, how did you not remember me?”
“Look at you!” Jin stood up with a frown, studying the other, “you’ve changed like hell! You still can’t draw to save your life that's not the point! You’re not that weird dorky little kid with the bushy eyebrows anymore, you’re taller and…and…”
“My eyebrows aren’t bushy anymore?”
“Yes! Exactly!”
The waiter gave a laugh, “So you didn’t recognize me because I tamed my eyebrows…that’s terrible! I still recognized you even though you’re taller and even though your hair’s not blond anymore and even though you yelled at me when I tried to talk to you that one time.”
Jin crossed his arms and huffed, “well you insulted me several times so I think we’re even.”
“Oh really?”
“No wait,” he smacked the other on the head, “that’s for not telling me, and this,” he walked over and embraced the other, “is because I missed you.”
He felt the other tense up for awhile before finally relaxing again, the waiter sighed, “We’ve both changed a lot…you’re not the Jin I used to know and I’m not the Kazuya you used to know…we both broke our promises, didn't we?”
“Yea…”
Kame smiled sadly, sniffling lightly, “I guess we’re not best friends anymore…”
“No,” he tightened the hug with a laugh, “now we’re more than that.”
The two stood there and looked at each other for a moment before the smile turned into a grin on the waiter’s face as he told the other quietly in a singsong tone, “I wouldn’t try anything weird right now if I were you.”
All the thoughts in his mind were put to a halt at the other’s statement, “Why?”
“Because Tat-chan’s standing behind you and he looks really scary.”
“What are you doing?”
Jin froze at the voice and stiffly let go of the other to turn around with a nervous smile, “I was just hugging him! That’s allowed, isn’t it!?”
The elder waiter narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything. Kame laughed at his bodyguard and gave him a quick hug before heading back to Junno to pick up the other customers’ orders.
The singer sat back down and continued watching the waiter beside him nervously; he followed the other’s gaze down onto the piece of paper on the table. Too scared to move the lyrics away, he sat there.
He could feel the tension rising and rising…
A moment later, Ueda pointed at a line, “that’s wrong, it should be ‘I can’t take my eyes off you baby’.”
Jin nearly fell off his chair as he stared at the other, “What?”
“This line…it’s wrong…” then he added quietly to himself, “in so many ways…”
“Oh…huh?”
“It screws up the whole song.”
Looking down, he realized that the other was right. While he was about to rewrite the line, he couldn’t help himself; he let his eyes wander to the waiter only to get smacked on the head rather mercilessly, “Ow! What was that for!?”
The elder shot him a glare which immediately made him close his mouth, “hurry up and change it.” The waiter crossed his arms and looked away, “I won’t let Kame date someone whose English is incompetent. This is your first warning.”
Jin decided that getting Ueda’s permission to date the other was probably going to be harder than getting a wealthy father’s permission to wed his underage daughter.
He changed the lines quickly and looked back up only to see the other’s lips curved up in the smallest of smiles. For the first time, he felt like he wouldn’t die if he were to open his mouth, he shot the other the most dazzling smile he could muster, “thanks for correcting it.”
Ueda gave a shrug, unaffected, and turned around when Kame walked back, “what’s going on?”
“This kid’s English sucks.”
Jin gave a small laugh, “yea, and he corrected it for me.”
The youngest smiled, “Tat-chan’s English is really good, right?”
“It’s better than mine, that’s for sure.”
Kame’s laughed, “Don’t take it too hard, Tat-chan’s just brilliant like that, he had the busiest schedule when he was younger. What are you writing anyways?”
“A new song.”
“What’s it called?”
“YOU.”
“Oh, ca-”
“Kame-chan, I need help over here.”
Interrupted, the waiter looked up at the owner of the shop and nodded, “coming!”
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A couple days later, Pi and Ryo had another one of their arguments. This time it revolved around Pi’s photo shoot and how he was almost very nearly naked for it. Pi was sitting there with his arms crossed while Ryo was nowhere in sight, “Jin…”
He blinked and looked over, “Yea?”
“I told Ryo-chan that it was the inside that counts and he shouldn’t care about this and he was all ‘you’re retarded, fine just go sell yourself like that, see if I care’ and ran off. Translation, please?”
Gathering the knowledge of his friend from all those years back, he managed to make sense of it, “Sure, he basically said that he wants all of you, not just the inside or out and now he’s really pissed at you and probably won’t talk to you for a week.”
Pi swore under his breath, “thanks, I have to go, bye.”
Jin blinked at the disappearing figure of his friend, “…does that mean no cuddling threesome tonight?”
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He sat there in the café while the sun was setting, trying to finish up the song while trying to proceed with another. Rarely in his career had he focused on one song and only one song, he sang the newer one softly to himself. “Eien no freedom…”
Pursing his lips, he wrote down the next line.
Koki had walked by and placed his drink down, he read part of YOU and made a face, “that’s so cheesy.”
Jin laughed, “Love songs are supposed to be like that! What do you listen to?”
“Rap. Sorry, I’m anti-sap.”
“No worries,” he blinked, “if I add some rap in here…hey, it might work…”
The waiter stared at him, “you can rap?”
“No…I’ll find someone else to…do you know how to rap?”
“Yea …”
He smiled, “If you’re interested, tell me, okay? Where’s Kame?”
Koki looked over to the entrance, “he’s at the doctor’s for a checkup today.”
Blinking, he tapped his pencil against his cheek, filtering his brain for possible lyrics, “Oh…you might want to walk away if you’re going to throw up from cheesiness because I’m about to write down really sappy.”
“Thanks for the warning, my shift just ended, I’ll see you next time,” the waiter laughed and walked off.
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Next to visit him was Ueda who stared at the latest line he’d written down, “…why a digital camera?”
He couldn’t tell whether the other was criticizing him, curious, or trying to make small talk, so he answered honestly, “I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything else. Is it that weird?”
Ueda looked over at him before shrugging, “It’s okay.”
Somewhere in his brain, he was being told that the elder was attempting to be nice to him. The thought left him grinning like an idiot, “Hey, how’d you meet Kame anyways?”
“He came up to me and asked me if I was a vampire,” the waiter explained dryly.
Jin opened his mouth but came up with nothing to say so he closed it again. A moment later, he tried again, “Oh…uh…well when I first met him-”
The bell jingled and Kame stepped in, he blinked at the sight of the singer, “Jin? Why are you here at this hour?”
“Because our cud-” he cut himself off when a sudden surge of intelligence hit him, “Pi and Ryo-chan were busy…” he corrected himself carefully, watching Ueda from the corner of his eyes.
But the waiter’s attention wasn’t on him, it was on the younger man before them who had a tired look on his face, “Kame, are you alright? What did the doctor say?”
The younger man gave a weary smile, “he said nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
The elder raised a brow, “You look more worried than me…”
He laughed, “I was worried because you looked worried!”
The singer gaped as Ueda smiled, “you look tired too.”
Kame shrugged, “didn’t sleep that well last night, sorry. I’ll go to bed earlier today.”
Jin continued watching from the side, for the first time in his life, he saw Ueda act brotherly and kind. It gave him goosebumps. Ueda ruffled the younger waiter’s hair, a gesture he’d seen several times now. “I’ll go help Taguchi with clean up, just sit down, alright? I’ll be back in a bit.”
The other nodded obediently and watched as the elder head for the counter. He looked over at Jin, “Is something wrong, Jin?”
“That was completely unexpected and kind of creepy.”
Kame laughed, “You’ll get used to it.”
The singer nodded, not really all that convinced, “so are you alright? You actually look really tired.”
“I’m fine,” he pulled up a chair and looked down at the lines he’d scribbled down before, with a curious smile, he asked Jin, “why a digital camera?”
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On his way home, his head was once again filled with how his day went. For quite awhile, his thoughts lingered on Kame and his worried face. He began humming, opening the door to his apartment, he stepped inside, took a shower and got ready for bed, never stopping that little song of his.
Finally, he plopped onto his bed and muttered the one line he’d thought up while he was humming, “what you worry about will be all right…”
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A/N: Booo school started again. Yea, Jin didn't write all those songs, but in this fic, let's just say he did XD The digital camera bit's from freedom. Thank you commenters! Enjoy!
Pairings: Akame, slight Ryopi
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jin's a successful artist when a fight with his friends forces him to seek stress relief in a little café where he meets what he considers, the strangest people.
Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4// Chapter 5
Chapter 6:
“Draw a pig for me,” he demanded.
“What?” Kame stared at him with an incredulous look, then looked over at the singer’s two best friends beside him who replied with shrugs and rueful smiles.
“Draw a pig for me,” Jin repeated, holding out a piece of paper and pencil.
The waiter continued to stare at him, tray in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other. Deciding that he was serious, he asked hesitantly, “…is there any specific reason as to why you want me to draw you a pig?”
The singer shook his head and shrugged, “No. Just draw me one.”
Pi didn’t look fazed, “it’s just one of Jin’s random urges. You’ll get used to them. Me and Ryo-chan usually ignore him when he’s like this.”
Ryo didn’t say anything but nodded in agreement, swinging his legs a bit as he eyed the cup of coffee in the waiter’s hand.
The younger man raised a brow and set down the cup, which was immediately snatched away by Ryo. He took the pencil and tapped it on his lips, “I’m warning you now, I’m really bad at drawing.”
Jin crossed his arms stubbornly, “I want a pig.”
“I make no guarantees.” He muttered as he began drawing.
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When he was finished, the three of them were staring at it in fascination, “…what is it?”
He jutted his lower lip out into a pout, “screw you guys. It’s a pig. I told you I was bad,” he turned away to serve other customers.
Ryo raised a brow and looked at the elder, “what the hell was that about? A pig? Your random urges usually involve food or you with a different career, like that pirate phase you had.”
“Or the ninja one,” the youngest contributed helpfully.
“This is different,” he muttered into his cup, blowing the steam away before taking a sip. “I’m confirming something.” The two exchanged strange looks but continued watching him in silence. He looked over, “Ryo-chan, I thought you wanted to go home to sleep…why are you here?”
Ryo shot Pi a wary glare, “Blame Pi, he made me come.”
“No,” Yamapi corrected, “I made Tegoshi make you come.”
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When the NEWS leader bounced into the room, Ryo let out a sigh as the other called out “Ryo-chan, let’s go to the café with Jin.”
He didn’t bother looking up from his magazine, “No.”
“But-”
“No. I don’t care if we both get off early today. I’m going home.”
Pi shot a pout which was ignored, “But-”
“And I don’t care if Jin’s up to something, he’s always up to something.”
“But-”
He flipped the page, “Using the spending time together excuse won’t work, I’m tired and I want to go home.”
“But-”
“Stop it, you’re being stupid.”
Yamapi’s eyes narrowed as his expression took on a serious one and marched off, “fine, two can play at this game. I’ll fight insults with tears.”
This caused Ryo to look up, “What?”
A moment later, Pi returned with Tegoshi in tow. The boy blinked and stood there, confused. The leader whispered something into his ear, his eyes widened as he turned to the man on the couch, “Ryo-tan, is that true!?”
The Osaka man gave a groan, “oh god, are you serious? This isn’t fair at all, Pi.”
Pi ignored him and whispered something else into the boy’s ear, causing him to sniffle, “Ryo-tan…”
He clapped his hands over his ears, “No, nonononononononono absolutely not.”
The singer whispered yet again into the other’s ear, this time, his eyes began tearing, “Ryo-tan…did you really?”
Giving a frustrated groan, he threw the magazine to the floor and stood up, “fine! Fine! I’ll go to the stupid café with stupid you and stupid Jin! Ugh! I hate you!”
Yamapi gave a happy grin and ruffled Tegoshi’s hair, “I was just joking, he didn’t say or do any of those things.”
Tegoshi blinked and immediately stopped sniffling, he smiled, “good, I knew Ryo-tan wasn’t like that” and he walked out the door to find his best friend.
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“Oh man Ryo-chan, Pi’s got you on a lea-” he glared at his best friend who had a hand over his mouth and giving what he considered to be a threatening look. He removed the other’s hand and cautiously changed the subject, “anyways…wonder how long he’s going to take…”
The two turned around to watch the other serve other customers and shrugged.
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When the waiter returned, they watched the two expectantly. And when the younger made no move to strike up a conversation, Jin went and made the first move, “so it really was you.”
Kame set down another cup and raised a brow, letting out an intelligent, “Huh?”
“Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“…did you not know my name before?”
The singer frowned, “I meant the Kamenashi Kazuya who lived on my block before.”
There was a pause, “Oh…”
“Oh? That’s it?”
“Oh…” he shrugged, “you remember now?”
“Yes!” Angry, he stood up and glared at the other, “why the hell didn’t you tell me!?”
The waiter gave another shrug, “It didn’t seem that important, I mean you forgot so there wasn’t really a point in bringing it up.”
The singer’s frown deepened, “Yes there was! You should’ve told me!”
The other regarded him calmly, “Would you’ve listened to me if I’d told you?”
Jin paused, “Yes, no, maybe-that’s not the point! The point is that if you’d told me earlier, I could’ve given this to you earlier!” He passed an envelope over to the other.
Kame blinked and opened it, sliding a card out, Ryo tilted his head and read the cover, “Congratulations it’s a girl…!?”
Pi’s eyes widened as he looked from the waiter to his best friend then back to the waiter, “Jin…please tell me you didn’t…oh my god…you knocked Kame-chan up when he was what? Ten years old!?”
The waiter didn’t make a comment as he read the inside which was simply a folded piece of paper. A moment later his eyes began to tear up, he looked up in attempt to hold back the tears, “…thank you…” he muttered before walking away to the back room.
His friends blinked as he took his seat, “…was it a compensation check?”
He gave a soft laugh, “no, I found it this morning, I’ve been holding onto it for years now…I’ve always meant to give it to him but I guess I never got the chance to until now…remember that phone call, Pi?”
The younger man shook his head though his eyes spoke differently, “No.”
That was one thing he liked about Yamapi, when he told the other to pretend that he never called, he actually did it. “It’s him…”
“Oh…” Pi nodded, understanding the scenario, he got up and tugged on the other’s sleeve, “hey Ryo-chan, there’s a new ramen place a couple blocks down, I heard it’s pretty good. Let’s go try it, I’ll tell you a story over there, okay?”
Ryo frowned slightly, “is it going to be about how Jin knocked up some kid when he was younger?”
The other laughed, “Something close to that but not quite.”
“…do I have to? I want to go home…”
There was a pause, Pi’s eyes widened as he pointed to something outside, “look over there Ryo-chan! What’s that!?”
Blinking, he stood up and looked in the direction Pi was pointing at, “what?”
“Ramen!” Pi called out as he dragged the older man out the door.
Jin laughed, “Come up with your own trick next time!”
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Awhile later, when he was writing down new lyrics, Kame returned, dry-eyed this time. Placing the card down gently on the table, he spoke softly, “I didn’t think you’d keep such sentimental things like this around.”
He returned with a light smile, hands folded on the table, “Well now you know.”
The waiter’s lips curved upwards slightly, “I hope your drawing skills have improved since then.”
“I make no promises,” he looked down, “it’s still better than yours. At least you can tell what it is.”
On the table was a drawing of a two stick figures playing in a rectangular street with matching grins that were bigger than their faces, all messily done in crayon. At the top, there was a message…
To Kazu-chan
Thank you for being my friend!
Your Best Friend,
Jin
“How did you suddenly remember?”
“I knew all along, sort of,” he shrugged, “or my brain knew it, I think. It just kept nagging me until I remembered.”
Kame raised a brow and gave a slow nod, “right…okay, better question, how did you not remember me?”
“Look at you!” Jin stood up with a frown, studying the other, “you’ve changed like hell! You still can’t draw to save your life that's not the point! You’re not that weird dorky little kid with the bushy eyebrows anymore, you’re taller and…and…”
“My eyebrows aren’t bushy anymore?”
“Yes! Exactly!”
The waiter gave a laugh, “So you didn’t recognize me because I tamed my eyebrows…that’s terrible! I still recognized you even though you’re taller and even though your hair’s not blond anymore and even though you yelled at me when I tried to talk to you that one time.”
Jin crossed his arms and huffed, “well you insulted me several times so I think we’re even.”
“Oh really?”
“No wait,” he smacked the other on the head, “that’s for not telling me, and this,” he walked over and embraced the other, “is because I missed you.”
He felt the other tense up for awhile before finally relaxing again, the waiter sighed, “We’ve both changed a lot…you’re not the Jin I used to know and I’m not the Kazuya you used to know…we both broke our promises, didn't we?”
“Yea…”
Kame smiled sadly, sniffling lightly, “I guess we’re not best friends anymore…”
“No,” he tightened the hug with a laugh, “now we’re more than that.”
The two stood there and looked at each other for a moment before the smile turned into a grin on the waiter’s face as he told the other quietly in a singsong tone, “I wouldn’t try anything weird right now if I were you.”
All the thoughts in his mind were put to a halt at the other’s statement, “Why?”
“Because Tat-chan’s standing behind you and he looks really scary.”
“What are you doing?”
Jin froze at the voice and stiffly let go of the other to turn around with a nervous smile, “I was just hugging him! That’s allowed, isn’t it!?”
The elder waiter narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything. Kame laughed at his bodyguard and gave him a quick hug before heading back to Junno to pick up the other customers’ orders.
The singer sat back down and continued watching the waiter beside him nervously; he followed the other’s gaze down onto the piece of paper on the table. Too scared to move the lyrics away, he sat there.
He could feel the tension rising and rising…
A moment later, Ueda pointed at a line, “that’s wrong, it should be ‘I can’t take my eyes off you baby’.”
Jin nearly fell off his chair as he stared at the other, “What?”
“This line…it’s wrong…” then he added quietly to himself, “in so many ways…”
“Oh…huh?”
“It screws up the whole song.”
Looking down, he realized that the other was right. While he was about to rewrite the line, he couldn’t help himself; he let his eyes wander to the waiter only to get smacked on the head rather mercilessly, “Ow! What was that for!?”
The elder shot him a glare which immediately made him close his mouth, “hurry up and change it.” The waiter crossed his arms and looked away, “I won’t let Kame date someone whose English is incompetent. This is your first warning.”
Jin decided that getting Ueda’s permission to date the other was probably going to be harder than getting a wealthy father’s permission to wed his underage daughter.
He changed the lines quickly and looked back up only to see the other’s lips curved up in the smallest of smiles. For the first time, he felt like he wouldn’t die if he were to open his mouth, he shot the other the most dazzling smile he could muster, “thanks for correcting it.”
Ueda gave a shrug, unaffected, and turned around when Kame walked back, “what’s going on?”
“This kid’s English sucks.”
Jin gave a small laugh, “yea, and he corrected it for me.”
The youngest smiled, “Tat-chan’s English is really good, right?”
“It’s better than mine, that’s for sure.”
Kame’s laughed, “Don’t take it too hard, Tat-chan’s just brilliant like that, he had the busiest schedule when he was younger. What are you writing anyways?”
“A new song.”
“What’s it called?”
“YOU.”
“Oh, ca-”
“Kame-chan, I need help over here.”
Interrupted, the waiter looked up at the owner of the shop and nodded, “coming!”
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A couple days later, Pi and Ryo had another one of their arguments. This time it revolved around Pi’s photo shoot and how he was almost very nearly naked for it. Pi was sitting there with his arms crossed while Ryo was nowhere in sight, “Jin…”
He blinked and looked over, “Yea?”
“I told Ryo-chan that it was the inside that counts and he shouldn’t care about this and he was all ‘you’re retarded, fine just go sell yourself like that, see if I care’ and ran off. Translation, please?”
Gathering the knowledge of his friend from all those years back, he managed to make sense of it, “Sure, he basically said that he wants all of you, not just the inside or out and now he’s really pissed at you and probably won’t talk to you for a week.”
Pi swore under his breath, “thanks, I have to go, bye.”
Jin blinked at the disappearing figure of his friend, “…does that mean no cuddling threesome tonight?”
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He sat there in the café while the sun was setting, trying to finish up the song while trying to proceed with another. Rarely in his career had he focused on one song and only one song, he sang the newer one softly to himself. “Eien no freedom…”
Pursing his lips, he wrote down the next line.
Koki had walked by and placed his drink down, he read part of YOU and made a face, “that’s so cheesy.”
Jin laughed, “Love songs are supposed to be like that! What do you listen to?”
“Rap. Sorry, I’m anti-sap.”
“No worries,” he blinked, “if I add some rap in here…hey, it might work…”
The waiter stared at him, “you can rap?”
“No…I’ll find someone else to…do you know how to rap?”
“Yea …”
He smiled, “If you’re interested, tell me, okay? Where’s Kame?”
Koki looked over to the entrance, “he’s at the doctor’s for a checkup today.”
Blinking, he tapped his pencil against his cheek, filtering his brain for possible lyrics, “Oh…you might want to walk away if you’re going to throw up from cheesiness because I’m about to write down really sappy.”
“Thanks for the warning, my shift just ended, I’ll see you next time,” the waiter laughed and walked off.
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Next to visit him was Ueda who stared at the latest line he’d written down, “…why a digital camera?”
He couldn’t tell whether the other was criticizing him, curious, or trying to make small talk, so he answered honestly, “I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything else. Is it that weird?”
Ueda looked over at him before shrugging, “It’s okay.”
Somewhere in his brain, he was being told that the elder was attempting to be nice to him. The thought left him grinning like an idiot, “Hey, how’d you meet Kame anyways?”
“He came up to me and asked me if I was a vampire,” the waiter explained dryly.
Jin opened his mouth but came up with nothing to say so he closed it again. A moment later, he tried again, “Oh…uh…well when I first met him-”
The bell jingled and Kame stepped in, he blinked at the sight of the singer, “Jin? Why are you here at this hour?”
“Because our cud-” he cut himself off when a sudden surge of intelligence hit him, “Pi and Ryo-chan were busy…” he corrected himself carefully, watching Ueda from the corner of his eyes.
But the waiter’s attention wasn’t on him, it was on the younger man before them who had a tired look on his face, “Kame, are you alright? What did the doctor say?”
The younger man gave a weary smile, “he said nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
The elder raised a brow, “You look more worried than me…”
He laughed, “I was worried because you looked worried!”
The singer gaped as Ueda smiled, “you look tired too.”
Kame shrugged, “didn’t sleep that well last night, sorry. I’ll go to bed earlier today.”
Jin continued watching from the side, for the first time in his life, he saw Ueda act brotherly and kind. It gave him goosebumps. Ueda ruffled the younger waiter’s hair, a gesture he’d seen several times now. “I’ll go help Taguchi with clean up, just sit down, alright? I’ll be back in a bit.”
The other nodded obediently and watched as the elder head for the counter. He looked over at Jin, “Is something wrong, Jin?”
“That was completely unexpected and kind of creepy.”
Kame laughed, “You’ll get used to it.”
The singer nodded, not really all that convinced, “so are you alright? You actually look really tired.”
“I’m fine,” he pulled up a chair and looked down at the lines he’d scribbled down before, with a curious smile, he asked Jin, “why a digital camera?”
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On his way home, his head was once again filled with how his day went. For quite awhile, his thoughts lingered on Kame and his worried face. He began humming, opening the door to his apartment, he stepped inside, took a shower and got ready for bed, never stopping that little song of his.
Finally, he plopped onto his bed and muttered the one line he’d thought up while he was humming, “what you worry about will be all right…”
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A/N: Booo school started again. Yea, Jin didn't write all those songs, but in this fic, let's just say he did XD The digital camera bit's from freedom. Thank you commenters! Enjoy!