Something you just can't explain 1/3 (Oneshot)
Title: Something you just can’t explain
Author: nimlothemeli
Pairing: Akame (Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya)
Fandom: KAT-TUN, JE
Genre: Angst, Romance
Rating: R
Word count: ~8.700
Summary: Jin only left two things behind him, a turtle shaped magnet on Kame’s refrigerator door and a message in English Kazuya doesn’t understand, before he left for his American dream.
Notes: This is my first try at something like this, it's longer than I thought I'd be able to manage and I really hope that I didn't loose some important part of it on the way... Enjoy!
Thank you rikachi! After the chat we had togeher I managed to breathe new life into Jin's predicament.
Part 1
It was dark again, it was always dark when he got home, always darker than the night before and the night before that. It was like he was spiralling even further away from reality as we know it, maybe he’d end up on an uncharted shore line somewhere totally new, just maybe... But he wouldn’t bet on that, he knew that he was just going to stay here, immersed in the ever growing darkness that blinded him just like if he was staring into the sun.
The stainless steal refrigerator door shone from the street lights outside the kitchen window, making him notice the piece of paper that hung there, fasted with a magnet in the shape of a turtle. A sick joke, had been his first thought when the other one had bought it for him, but with so much else which concerned that man he had never really found out the reason behind him putting it there.
He was sure that it was from him, because it had appeared just a day before he had left that first time, accompanied by a message that still hang were he had left it. It was in English, probably with poor grammar as well, and said something about always remembering something.
Kazuya snickered when he touched the paper and traced the contours of the small turtle, tracing the contours of himself.
“So this is where my story begins, huh?” he asked the small image of himself, disregarding from the blurry image of his real self in the stainless steel refrigerator door, “on my own now right?”.
The silence made him miss his family, his dog and even the staff at the office. If he stood there a few minutes more he was sure that he’d finally even miss the rest of the members in KAT-TUN, even though he had been aching to tell Koki to shut up just hours earlier. The darkness and the silence made him miss everything about the daytime, even the traffic jams and hours of waiting outside TV-studios.
The turtle started to warm under his touch, a sign that he had been standing there far to long lost in his own thoughts, a sign that the tub was probably filled.
“So you’re enjoying you’re day off right?” Koki asked with one of his insanely thin eyebrows raised. Kazuya himself had always sported very highly controlled eye brows, but Koki had recently taken it to a whole new level. Maybe he should ask why, but it didn’t seem like the right opportunity for that sort of thing.
“Then you can tell me why the hell you’re at the office buried in papers!?” Koki hissed trying to control his obvious rage. Maybe it was the right time to ask about the eyebrows...
“I can’t relax if I know there’s something left for me to do, you know that”, Kazuya answered trying to keep calm and relaxed. There were juniors loitering all over the place and he had worked hard on having a great relationship with them, he wouldn’t let a silly argument with this gangster destroy it.
“I’m calling Ueda, maybe he can punch some sense into you...” Koki huffed while fishing out his cell phone from his over sized chinos.
“Koki-”
“Hi! Ueda, are you still in the building or what?”
“Koki, please don-”
“Then you can get that firm ass of yours down to the third floor, the turtle has escaped”, Koki said and hung up. Some of the juniors close by seemed to be impressed by the victorious look he gave Kazuya, some looked like they would rather have their moms to cling to.
“That was fucking unnecessary!” Kazuya hissed in a low voice so that, hopefully, only Koki could hear.
“It was not! Me and Ueda are going to finish whatever it is you think is so important and YOU are going to go home again... or go to the park... or a book store... whatever you like. But you are not staying in this building and you are not going to go pick up some new script!”.
“Mhmm... and then they kicked you out?” Maru asked with a big smile.
“Yeah, they even asked the security to inform them if I set my foot in there again today”, Kazuya sulked while poking his pasta with his fork.
“There’s just one thing I can’t understand-”, Maru started but was cut short by an guy wearing a washed out hoodie stopping by their table giving Kazuya a strange look.
“Excuse me sir, can I help you?” Maru asked while kicking Kazuya under the table, making him aware of the intruder.
“No no... excuse me..” the man blurted out and walked away.
“What the hell was that about?!” Maru growled while throwing a piece of bread at his plate, “can you believe people these days, if they want our autographs then just ask! Don’t fucking disturb me and then walk away!” he continued.
Kazuya found it almost hilarious that Maru felt so strongly about it, he himself had stopped caring about personal boundaries and privacy a long time ago because he had no personal life left to protect.
“He got scared because he caught a sight of your nose in profile” he muttered into his whine glass which made Maru hiss and throw the rest of the massacred bread roll on him. Kazuya loved being tipsy in the middle of the day with Maru. What he didn’t love was that the man had made him think of Jin, it made his heart ache for something he didn’t know what it was.
Home again, dark, a bit chilly, lonely and dead quiet.
He started filling the tub up, like he always did, walking to the fridge, like he always did, touched the turtle on the fridge door, like he always did, removed the turtle magnet and the paper with it - like he had never done before.
“We don’t want anyone to catch a sight of you right? You’re my little secret, my own special friend” he whispered, afraid of that if he made too much noise the silence would retaliate.
“This is nice, we haven’t been together all at once in your place for ages” Koki sighed while making himself comfortable in Kazuya’s couch, a couch that had cost him so much that if Koki knew he’d jump straight up and give Kazuya a horrified look.
“I second that!” Junno called while trying to knock Ueda out in the fighting game they were playing on the big flat Tv-screen. Ueda mumbled something as well before he managed to kill Junno’s character in the game.
“Hey! That’s not how it’s supposed to work! You’re good at that in real life, I’M supposed to be good at it in the game!” Junno shouted while sporting those infamous crazy eyes he got while playing games.
“Shut up will ya!” Ueda retorted while pointing his fist at the shouting boy, a threat scary enough to even get Junno to stay quiet.
Kazuya peeked at his bandmates from the kitchen doorway, he couldn’t help but to love the shouting and the laughter echoing through his home. He wanted to tell them to let Junno freak out as much as he wanted, he never wanted it to get quiet again. Maru gave him a curious look from were he was standing bent over the dish washer loading in the plates and cutlery they’d used for dinner.
“You like it don’t you?”
“Mhm...” Kazuya answered with a smile before he could stop himself, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to stop himself from admitting it.
“Then I’ll try to ignore that Taguchi is worse than ever...” Maru whispered to himself, barely loud enough for Kazuya to hear. It warmed his heart to the core.
There was more work to be done then there were hours of the day, the finale of the drama Kazuya starred in was getting closer and closer, there was no time at all for sleep. The few times he actually had time to make it back to the apartment he was to tired to even notice that it was dark and he had absolutely no time for talking with the small image of himself on the refrigerator door.
He had put it back there the minute after the boys left his apartment, but had locked the note in with baby pictures and other important mementos in the little fire proof safe he had bought placed under his bed. It wasn’t really necessary because he had memorized every letter of the note, even though he didn’t quite understand it all.
“You think he’ll come see us this time?” Junno asked with a big grin. Koki just kicked at him under the table and made a hissing noise perfected during the years he had tried to convince people he really was a gangster.
It took Kazuya a few seconds before he realized that they were talking about something he didn’t know about.
“Who? Who’s gonna see us?” he asked.
“No one Kame, it’s just Junno being a weirdo... you know him, alwa-”
“WHO!?” he snapped at Koki while standing up in front of him.
“Kame, calm down. We just thought that it’d be better... considering how you took it... we didn’t know what to-” Maru started but was himself cut off by Ueda.
“It’s Akanishi, he’s in Japan, the press caught him at the airport last week and I overheard some juniors that had heard Yamapi talk about it. There, I’ve said it, I don’t get why you guys keep whispering about him...”
But Kazuya didn’t hear the rest, he had already stormed out of the room and headed for his apartment.
“And, apparently, he didn’t come to see us...” Junno sulked while sitting in a corner watching Koki stretch.
“What did you expect?” Ueda asked, “him coming here, watching us while we practised? Going out for ramen and beer afterwards? Sharing stories about our crazy fans and our amazing live shows?”
Junno looked a bit hurt by his harsh words, like he was Akanishi hearing what was said, but it didn’t take him long to recover.
“No! I just thought that... that... that our friendship meant more to him... None of us have his number anymore... he’d have to look US up if he...” he said, letting the last words trail out into oblivion when he saw Kazuya in the mirrors on the wall. The sad look was replaced by a panicky one, the one were his always narrow eyes actually opened fully.
Kazuya felt his heart break all over again.
“It’s starting to become a ritual now right? Me coming home, standing here talking to you... maybe we should make this Kame-time” he said softly, giggling a bit at his own childish joke.
“You never really told me what happened when Jin left the first time”
Maru had booked a table at a criminally expensive restaurant in Shibuya and who was Kazuya to turn down a free meal? He just hoped that this wasn’t going to turn into an interrogation and that Maru would get hammered enough so he could get him to pay for him too.
“Nothing happened, it just collapsed in on itself, like a faltering building during an earthquake”
“You know I find that pretty hard to believe because you two were standing stronger an stronger by the day and you still are. If not that, then what happened?”
“I don’t remember Maru, I simply just can’t remember no matter how hard I try...”
“Thanks for the truth” Maru said and gave him a reassuring smile.
What he didn’t tell Maru was that he was certain of the fact that if he had remembered then he probably could’ve stopped Jin from leaving a second time.
Their dressing room was quiet, just like it always was when they all were to fed up with it all, when they couldn’t stand the sight of anything JE or themselves. Kazuya himself felt like he was having trouble breathing, like the room was closing in on him.
“He can’t be serious...” Junno sniffed from his left, he seemed to be the only one that actually felt sad.
“He must’ve been because he said it after thinking about it... and we all know that if Akanishi has thought about something then he’s pretty sure about it” Ueda said from his right, making the whole room freeze up.
“I never want to see him again!” Junno burst out, tears flowing down his flushed cheeks, making Kazuya want to hug him but then he was already out of the room and Kazuya was still sitting on the floor.
Koki awoke from his deep thoughts and threw a empty water bottle on the floor, starting to mimic Jin’s words in a nasal tone, “it was child play, never serious enough, always too flashy and too flamboyant for anyone but screaming girls and housewives to buy in to. If someone would ask me to do those things again I’d be embarrassed and ask them if something was wrong with them-”
“Koki, please, don’t-” Maru said but Koki didn’t stop.
“When you’re in the middle of it you get blind, it’s like the Stockholm syndrome or something...” Koki finished and emphasized his anger by kicking the water bottle he seconds earlier had thrown on the floor.
“I think he’s right though...” Kame whispered almost to himself, but the others heard and Koki made sure to slam the door extra hard when he stormed out.
“I called and told him I hated him” Pi exclaimed while sitting down at the table next to Kazuya.
“Who?”
“What do you mean who? Jin off course!”
“Oh... you shouldn’t have done that, you’ll regret it later”
“The hell I will!”
“He’s one of your best friends Pi, you WILL miss him and you WILL regret it”
“Maybe... but he’s not smart enough to hold it against me forever and I’m not stupid enough to let things like this be left unnoticed”
“If you say so...”
“Yes Shuji-kun, I say so, and Akira is always dead on when it comes to friendships”
“Koki refuses to speak with me”
“It’ll pass Kame, he’ll get over it. You know that he’s the gangster with a golden heart” Maru said comfortingly. And sure enough, Kazuya found Koki outside his door a week later with a bottle of expensive rice wine. It was less dark in the apartment after that night.
Part 2 -->