[JE] Surprises In Store
Title: Surprises In Store
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff
Word count: 1,640
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Summary: One year after the events of 'Customer Service', Kame and Jin are opening up their own magic shop.
Surprises In Store
"Would you hurry up?" Over by the window, Kame was tapping his foot on the newly-polished floor. "It's almost ten o'clock!"
Jin checked his watch. "It's only nine-thirty. We've got plenty of time before the grand opening."
A mere half an hour wasn't enough for Kame. "Everything has to be perfect."
With Kame in charge, the odds were good that everything *would* be perfect. 'Red Turtle Charms' was going to make its debut exactly one year after the removal of Jin's gypsy curse, and they'd been working feverishly for months to prepare the shop for opening day.
The shop's logo was, of course, a small red turtle, trimmed in gold, with a miniature K & A entwined on its shell; the colour theme evoked the feeling of royalty, despite the tight corners and narrow aisles. Every shelf was crammed with pre-made charms, lovingly crafted by Kame (and occasionally by Jin, now that he'd passed his final exams and qualified to practice magic for profit), and to fit in with the other vendors on Harajuku's Takeshita Street, each one took the form of a stylish accessory. There were hairbands that changed the wearer's hair colour, bracelets that soothed pain, and even socks that enabled the wearer to dance for days without feeling tired.
"It'll be fine," Jin said. "What could you possibly have left to do?"
Kame didn't have a ready answer for him. They'd already prepared the one and only cash register, there were bags in place, the shop was as clean as they could possibly make it and all the debris had been cleared away. All the red-and-gold price labels were straight (Kame knew this because he'd personally gone round with a spirit level and checked), the tiny red baskets were neatly stacked (despite Jin walking into them - twice), and the congratulatory bouquet from Ueda had pride of place along the back wall.
"I don't know, but I'll think of something," Kame said darkly. "There are photographers lurking outside, Jin. If we screw up, it'll be all over the papers for days."
"You're always in the papers anyway," Jin pointed out.
The media had had a field day when *the* Kamenashi Kazuya had dropped out of the party scene, prompting all sorts of speculation that he was having an affair with a foreign princess, that he had a major alcohol problem and was spending all his time in rehab, and secretly had a family of eight to support. Kame found it quite amusing, all the more so because none of it even came close to the truth. Jin had his odd moments of princess-like behaviour but he was as Japanese as Kame, they weren't raising a family together because even Kame wasn't skilled enough to magic up a male pregnancy, and Kame was actually drinking less now that he wasn't going out all the time.
Not that he and Jin didn't go out. Far from it. In fact, the paparazzi pictures of Kame had started to feature Jin, as well, simply because he was always there. There was something to be said for owning a shop in a street full of stores selling goods of famous mages, such as the trickster Ninomiya Kazunari - Jin found it quite amusing that he could pop next door and buy himself a Kame keychain. (He owned three already.)
"If we land up in the news, I want it to be because our opening was such a success, not because the whole building fell down thanks to termites or something." Kame pulled the curtains aside and peered out the window. "Have you seen the queue? There are girls lined up all the way down to Omotesando and back again! We didn't even advertise!"
"Um..." Jin busied himself with brushing imaginary specks of dust from the counter, completely oblivious to the smear down his cheek.
"Tell me you didn't."
"Technically, I didn't," Jin hedged. "I...sort of...bribed Pi and his friend Massu with food, and got them to go out in the street and distribute packets of tissues with our name, logo and address on."
Kame groaned. "Typical. Imps will do anything for food."
"It's good business sense to advertise, Kame, and Ueda didn't mind lending me Pi for the cause."
"We don't have room for all those customers." The wheels in Kame's mind started to turn. "We need...a ticketing system! That's it. There's no way we can cram everyone in here at the same time - not without making the store bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and no one can possibly do that."
"Actually, I met this guy at the market last week who had a police box-" Jin began, but Kame cut him off by muttering about dimensions and ticket machines and how they had to make sure the girls were queuing safely out of harm's way.
Five minutes later, a ticket dispenser had appeared outside the shop, along with a screen for displaying numbers. There was a mad scramble for tickets; Kame winced at some of the noises but didn't dare peek out.
"Look on the bright side," Jin said. "We sell a great range of charms to cover bruises." He brought out a basket full of said charms, arranged it on the stand opposite the door, and popped a price label on top with a simple snap of his fingers.
Jin's self-satisfied grin made Kame laugh. "Show-off. There's a whole stack of labels under the counter, you didn't have to magic one up."
"I know. But it's still such a novelty, Kame."
Having passed his final exams less than a month ago, after a year of intensive coaching from Kame, Ueda, and any experts Kame could possibly rope in to help, Jin was still relishing the ability to transmute energy into matter using only his own body as a channel. Kame had warned him against doing it needlessly, particularly since he'd once collapsed from exhaustion after trying to conjure up lunch for Pi, but that didn't diminish Jin's enthusiasm in the slightest.
"If you've got all that energy to spare, you can have first turn on till," Kame suggested.
Jin wasn't amused, but since he wasn't at all sure he wanted to be out on the shop floor getting mobbed by screaming teenagers, he didn't argue except to say, "We should've hired an assistant."
"We don't have room for an assistant, unless you trust an imp to man the store."
"I don't trust an imp to do anything except eat, play tricks on people and pester them for cuddles."
Kame pretended to ponder, looking slyly at Jin out of the corner of his eye. "Hmm, who else do I know like that?"
Jin glared at him. "When do I ever pester you for cuddles?"
"When you're asleep, mostly."
"Don't blame me for what my sleeping body does. I can't help it if it thinks you're comfortable to snuggle up with."
The apartment above the shop had but one bedroom, most of which was taken up by their shared bed as it had to be big enough for Jin to sprawl selfishly without crowding Kame out. If Jin started the night as a starfish, he inevitably ended up as a limpet, wrapped around Kame with such fierce possessiveness that if Kame woke first, which was usually the case, he often had a difficult time prying himself loose.
"Your sleeping body thinks a lot of crazy things. So does your waking body, actually."
"So does yours, Kazuya "It's three a.m. and I can't go to sleep because I have to clean the entire apartment right now" Kamenashi."
Kame shrugged. "If I hadn't done it, we would've had chocolate dripping from the ceiling for weeks. Next time you decide you want to surprise me with a cake, tell me first?"
"It would've been fine if I hadn't tried to follow the recipe," Jin muttered.
Jin's cooking, like his magic, relied largely on improvisation for its success. Precision work was more Kame's scene.
A shrill alarm blared from Kame's watch, sending him into a tizzy until he remembered he'd set it for five to ten, not ten o'clock. "We need to get ready," he said.
"We've been ready for hours!" Jin sat down on the edge of the counter, refusing to budge until he actually had to open the door and let the first horde of customers inside. "It's going to be fine, I promise. Look at all those customers out there. We'll have sold all our stock before lunch!"
Kame gave a worried glance at the inventory. "You think I should try to clone it all first? I know I wrote a spell for that somewhere..."
"You have a cloning spell?" Jin's mind went temporarily blank, overwhelmed by the interesting possibilities.
Blank state of mind notwithstanding, Kame could read Jin's thoughts perfectly. "It doesn't work on living creatures, so you can stop looking hopeful and help me open the shutters."
Pouting, Jin moved to comply, but Kame caught him round the waist as he walked past, pulling him into a comfortable embrace. Jin relaxed into it, sliding his arms round Kame's neck the way he did when they flew together, though there was no time for flight now.
"We're going to be a success, aren't we?" Kame whispered, lips tickling Jin's ear. "We're going to sell every charm in the shop and accept commissions for hundreds more, and then you and I are going to close the shutters and celebrate our triumphant first day."
Jin let his fingers skim beneath the neckline of Kame's black 'Red Turtle Charms' T-shirt. "Can we skip straight to the celebration part?"
"Not unless you want to give the customers a show." Kame started laughing as daylight began to flood in. "I forgot I'd set the shutters to open automatically at ten!"
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Genre: Fluff
Word count: 1,640
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Summary: One year after the events of 'Customer Service', Kame and Jin are opening up their own magic shop.
Surprises In Store
"Would you hurry up?" Over by the window, Kame was tapping his foot on the newly-polished floor. "It's almost ten o'clock!"
Jin checked his watch. "It's only nine-thirty. We've got plenty of time before the grand opening."
A mere half an hour wasn't enough for Kame. "Everything has to be perfect."
With Kame in charge, the odds were good that everything *would* be perfect. 'Red Turtle Charms' was going to make its debut exactly one year after the removal of Jin's gypsy curse, and they'd been working feverishly for months to prepare the shop for opening day.
The shop's logo was, of course, a small red turtle, trimmed in gold, with a miniature K & A entwined on its shell; the colour theme evoked the feeling of royalty, despite the tight corners and narrow aisles. Every shelf was crammed with pre-made charms, lovingly crafted by Kame (and occasionally by Jin, now that he'd passed his final exams and qualified to practice magic for profit), and to fit in with the other vendors on Harajuku's Takeshita Street, each one took the form of a stylish accessory. There were hairbands that changed the wearer's hair colour, bracelets that soothed pain, and even socks that enabled the wearer to dance for days without feeling tired.
"It'll be fine," Jin said. "What could you possibly have left to do?"
Kame didn't have a ready answer for him. They'd already prepared the one and only cash register, there were bags in place, the shop was as clean as they could possibly make it and all the debris had been cleared away. All the red-and-gold price labels were straight (Kame knew this because he'd personally gone round with a spirit level and checked), the tiny red baskets were neatly stacked (despite Jin walking into them - twice), and the congratulatory bouquet from Ueda had pride of place along the back wall.
"I don't know, but I'll think of something," Kame said darkly. "There are photographers lurking outside, Jin. If we screw up, it'll be all over the papers for days."
"You're always in the papers anyway," Jin pointed out.
The media had had a field day when *the* Kamenashi Kazuya had dropped out of the party scene, prompting all sorts of speculation that he was having an affair with a foreign princess, that he had a major alcohol problem and was spending all his time in rehab, and secretly had a family of eight to support. Kame found it quite amusing, all the more so because none of it even came close to the truth. Jin had his odd moments of princess-like behaviour but he was as Japanese as Kame, they weren't raising a family together because even Kame wasn't skilled enough to magic up a male pregnancy, and Kame was actually drinking less now that he wasn't going out all the time.
Not that he and Jin didn't go out. Far from it. In fact, the paparazzi pictures of Kame had started to feature Jin, as well, simply because he was always there. There was something to be said for owning a shop in a street full of stores selling goods of famous mages, such as the trickster Ninomiya Kazunari - Jin found it quite amusing that he could pop next door and buy himself a Kame keychain. (He owned three already.)
"If we land up in the news, I want it to be because our opening was such a success, not because the whole building fell down thanks to termites or something." Kame pulled the curtains aside and peered out the window. "Have you seen the queue? There are girls lined up all the way down to Omotesando and back again! We didn't even advertise!"
"Um..." Jin busied himself with brushing imaginary specks of dust from the counter, completely oblivious to the smear down his cheek.
"Tell me you didn't."
"Technically, I didn't," Jin hedged. "I...sort of...bribed Pi and his friend Massu with food, and got them to go out in the street and distribute packets of tissues with our name, logo and address on."
Kame groaned. "Typical. Imps will do anything for food."
"It's good business sense to advertise, Kame, and Ueda didn't mind lending me Pi for the cause."
"We don't have room for all those customers." The wheels in Kame's mind started to turn. "We need...a ticketing system! That's it. There's no way we can cram everyone in here at the same time - not without making the store bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and no one can possibly do that."
"Actually, I met this guy at the market last week who had a police box-" Jin began, but Kame cut him off by muttering about dimensions and ticket machines and how they had to make sure the girls were queuing safely out of harm's way.
Five minutes later, a ticket dispenser had appeared outside the shop, along with a screen for displaying numbers. There was a mad scramble for tickets; Kame winced at some of the noises but didn't dare peek out.
"Look on the bright side," Jin said. "We sell a great range of charms to cover bruises." He brought out a basket full of said charms, arranged it on the stand opposite the door, and popped a price label on top with a simple snap of his fingers.
Jin's self-satisfied grin made Kame laugh. "Show-off. There's a whole stack of labels under the counter, you didn't have to magic one up."
"I know. But it's still such a novelty, Kame."
Having passed his final exams less than a month ago, after a year of intensive coaching from Kame, Ueda, and any experts Kame could possibly rope in to help, Jin was still relishing the ability to transmute energy into matter using only his own body as a channel. Kame had warned him against doing it needlessly, particularly since he'd once collapsed from exhaustion after trying to conjure up lunch for Pi, but that didn't diminish Jin's enthusiasm in the slightest.
"If you've got all that energy to spare, you can have first turn on till," Kame suggested.
Jin wasn't amused, but since he wasn't at all sure he wanted to be out on the shop floor getting mobbed by screaming teenagers, he didn't argue except to say, "We should've hired an assistant."
"We don't have room for an assistant, unless you trust an imp to man the store."
"I don't trust an imp to do anything except eat, play tricks on people and pester them for cuddles."
Kame pretended to ponder, looking slyly at Jin out of the corner of his eye. "Hmm, who else do I know like that?"
Jin glared at him. "When do I ever pester you for cuddles?"
"When you're asleep, mostly."
"Don't blame me for what my sleeping body does. I can't help it if it thinks you're comfortable to snuggle up with."
The apartment above the shop had but one bedroom, most of which was taken up by their shared bed as it had to be big enough for Jin to sprawl selfishly without crowding Kame out. If Jin started the night as a starfish, he inevitably ended up as a limpet, wrapped around Kame with such fierce possessiveness that if Kame woke first, which was usually the case, he often had a difficult time prying himself loose.
"Your sleeping body thinks a lot of crazy things. So does your waking body, actually."
"So does yours, Kazuya "It's three a.m. and I can't go to sleep because I have to clean the entire apartment right now" Kamenashi."
Kame shrugged. "If I hadn't done it, we would've had chocolate dripping from the ceiling for weeks. Next time you decide you want to surprise me with a cake, tell me first?"
"It would've been fine if I hadn't tried to follow the recipe," Jin muttered.
Jin's cooking, like his magic, relied largely on improvisation for its success. Precision work was more Kame's scene.
A shrill alarm blared from Kame's watch, sending him into a tizzy until he remembered he'd set it for five to ten, not ten o'clock. "We need to get ready," he said.
"We've been ready for hours!" Jin sat down on the edge of the counter, refusing to budge until he actually had to open the door and let the first horde of customers inside. "It's going to be fine, I promise. Look at all those customers out there. We'll have sold all our stock before lunch!"
Kame gave a worried glance at the inventory. "You think I should try to clone it all first? I know I wrote a spell for that somewhere..."
"You have a cloning spell?" Jin's mind went temporarily blank, overwhelmed by the interesting possibilities.
Blank state of mind notwithstanding, Kame could read Jin's thoughts perfectly. "It doesn't work on living creatures, so you can stop looking hopeful and help me open the shutters."
Pouting, Jin moved to comply, but Kame caught him round the waist as he walked past, pulling him into a comfortable embrace. Jin relaxed into it, sliding his arms round Kame's neck the way he did when they flew together, though there was no time for flight now.
"We're going to be a success, aren't we?" Kame whispered, lips tickling Jin's ear. "We're going to sell every charm in the shop and accept commissions for hundreds more, and then you and I are going to close the shutters and celebrate our triumphant first day."
Jin let his fingers skim beneath the neckline of Kame's black 'Red Turtle Charms' T-shirt. "Can we skip straight to the celebration part?"
"Not unless you want to give the customers a show." Kame started laughing as daylight began to flood in. "I forgot I'd set the shutters to open automatically at ten!"