[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 39 ~Now What~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: Back to the present. Kame, Jin, Koki, Tatsuya... um... well, stuff.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 39 ~Now What~
“Wow, you’re making a habit of sleeping in these days…”
Kame rolled his eyes at Koki. “I was up half the night and Ueda was in my bed. Plus… you must have given Jin the most comfortable blanket we have. I may have to switch with him when he’s not looking…”
“Right. That’s why you like the blanket…” Koki chuckled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kame asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“I think you like him.”
Koki was teasing him. Kame decided to play along. “Of course I do.”
“See? I…”
But Kame laughed and cut in with, “If by ‘like him’ you mean ‘regularly wish to strangle’ him.” Kame frowned and finally added, “He’s annoying and he just doesn’t think and he argues about everything. I don’t hate him, but that doesn’t mean I like him.”
Shaking his head, Koki said, “Kame, I know I’ve only been here for five months but... I know what I’ve seen and, well, I’ve heard the rumors.”
Rumors? About him? No, surely not. He’d never heard anything and Kizuna was a pretty close-knit group. He’d have heard, right? It’s not like they don’t know his past, or, well, most of it. Hell, he’s known Yurina the longest and that was ever since he was eighteen (though, admittedly, most of Kizuna he’d only known for a few years). “What are you talking about? What rumors?”
“That you won’t let yourself fall in love. Well, some of them say it’s can’t and some say won’t but the end is the same.”
All Kame could do was stare at Koki in shock. “T-that’s not true. Who’s saying this?”
“Well… everyone.”
Kame shook his head. “It’s not true.”
Koki’s eyes narrowed a bit as he gave Kame a studying gaze before asking, “Have you ever been on a date, even if it turned out to be a bad one? Or even just shared a kiss, just one time?”
“I’m too busy to go on dates and who would I want to kiss in the first place?” Though the kiss Jin had sprung on him unexpectedly came to mind and he blushed. At first he had seriously freaked out over it but after he settled down… well, let’s just say it came to mind more often than Kame thought it should.
“You… you’re blushing!” Koki exclaimed. “Oh, oh… You HAVE. You’ve kissed someone!”
“No… no, I… did not. I… No.” But his blush only worsened.
“You have! Who was it?” and another searching gaze. “It was Jin, wasn’t it? You kissed him! Oh…. oh… this is so funny…” Koki laughed. “Wait till I…”
“It’s not funny!” Kame shrieked back at him. “I didn’t kiss him! He kiss…” Kame realized what he was saying and stopped, but it wasn’t soon enough.
“He kissed you? And he’s not dead? You really do like him!”
Blushing worse than perhaps he ever had before, all Kame could so was mumble, “Shut up!” and flee the kitchen.
But Koki called after him, “Wait, Kame! Come back! I need to talk to you. Important stuff!”
Sighing, Kame spun around and walked back into the kitchen. “What?” he asked irritably.
“Hey, hey! Don’t bite my head off just because…”
“This is why you wanted me back in here?”
Koki shook his head. “No. No, I want you to talk to Tatsuya like… like you did with me, five months ago. I think… I think it would do him some good. I know it helped me. I know… starting from that moment, I looked forward to the next day again. I started to slowly realized I wasn’t as worthless as Papa K convinced me I was. I know you’ve never worked for the man, but you obviously worked for someone just as bad because you know. You get it. Please, will you talk to him?”
“He doesn’t know me. Do you really think he will open up to me?” Kame asked, completely forgetting about the conversation he’d just tried to leave.
Smiling, Koki responded with, “You really don’t see it, do you?”
“I…” but Kame wasn’t exactly sure what Koki was talking about. “See what?”
“Just trust me when I say, he’ll open up to you, if you approach him honestly, like how you treat the rest of us. Besides, he’s got nowhere else to go but it doesn’t mean he’ll want to stay. But if you talk to him, if he sees how you are and how much the rest of us respect you… He’ll know this is a good place to make a home.”
“I’ll talk to him, then. A bit later. Jin’s with him now. Just… um… well, he can’t sleep on my mat forever. We need to find him a place of his own so Jin can go back to his spot and I can go back to mine.”
Koki mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Or you could invite Jin to share your spot and let Tatsuya have his…”
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing. I was just saying, I’ll do my best. We’re… well, really crowded. Maybe if we could pull up a couple of the back pews in the sanctuary, we’d have some more sleeping space. It’s not like we use them all.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Okay, make it happen.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Koki laughed again.
This time Kame left the kitchen and Koki didn’t stop him.
Why was Koki so convinced there was something between him and Jin? He’d only ever seen them argue before. And it wasn’t like Jin’s the only person he’s argued with at the church, so…
Well, Koki could think whatever he wanted. Kame knew better.
Though…
It did kind of hurt his feelings that everyone had been saying those things behind his back when he’d tried so hard to be up front with them all as much as he could. He supposed not even Kizuna was immune to the human need for gossip.
Heading down the hall back towards the office, Kame asked everyone he passed to go help Koki pull up some of the back pews. Hmm… there had to be something they could do with them. It’d be so wasteful to just throw them out. Maybe they could sell them, or at least donate them or something.
About halfway there, he came across Jin carrying the dishes from breakfast.
Kame fought the urge to warn Jin about Koki’s prying and also the urge to threaten him against telling Koki anything about that kiss. Instead, he stopped him to ask about Tatsuya. “You’re Ueda’s friend; how does he seem to you?”
“He laughed at me and called me an idiot. I think that means he’s okay.” But Jin looked so sad as he said it. Kame knew there was no way Jin would be disappointed about his friend being okay and it wasn’t the first time Jin had been called an idiot and he’d been fine those other times, so there was obviously something else going on.
“What’s wrong?” Kame asked softly. He found Jin’s sadness unexpectedly made him feel on edge, uncomfortably so even.
Jin stopped dead in his tracks. From the look on his face, it seemed like he was torn between wanting to confide in Kame and not wanting to talk about it at all regardless of who was asking. After that brief struggle, he finally sighed, leaning against the wall. “He won’t talk to me. He said I wouldn’t understand. He… Damn, this is frustrating as hell!” Jin started out quietly but the last bit came out more like a growl. “I told him that I may not have lived through the same shit but that I’m his friend and I could still listen. But I guess that’s not good enough. I don’t know what to do for him.”
But Jin’s expression instantly changed, wide-eyed and intent like he’d just had the most brilliant idea ever. “Wait, you can talk to him! I remember what you said at the motel, right?”
So Jin had been paying attention after all. Well, nice to be wrong every now and again.
Jin kept going with, “So… you know that stuff! You’ll understand whatever he says I can’t understand and then he will be happy again! Right?” Jin grabbed Kame’s hand, nearly dropping the bowls he had in the other. “Please, you have to talk to him!”
Kame didn’t snatch his hand back irritably like he usually would, mostly because he barely noticed. Yes, Jin knew he didn’t like to be touched... but all Kame could think at that moment was how protective, how good, how caring…
Yes, that was the right word. Caring. He could see how caring Jin’s heart really was. Kame’s thoughts flitted back to the night before, Jin’s arms around him as he cried for Yoko and the others he’d hurt in his life. He’d felt it then, too…
“Okay, Jin. I’ll talk to him.”
Jin nodded and then suddenly seemed to realize he’d grabbed Kame again, because he quickly let go. “Um… I… sorry. I shouldn’t have… I mean, I know…” but the man couldn’t get the full sentence out.
“…how to ruin a moment? Yes, yes you do know that.” Kame rolled his eyes.
“A moment?” Jin asked. He sounded a bit confused.
Which was just as well. Kame had spoken without considering his words first. He didn’t want Jin to know what was going through his head.
“I guess I better put these dishes back in the kitchen…” But as Jin pushed away from the wall, he stopped once more. “Ne, Kame? What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“You kept your promise. Tatsuya is safe. I can’t go back to the hotel; it’s too close to Papa K and besides, they’re going to renovate it soon. I know you can’t stand me… but you also said I had to stay because of Papa K. I don’t know… where I’m supposed to be. Am I… should I go? I’m used to moving from one hole to another so that’s not… I just meant… I’m not a member of Kizuna and you’re so overcrowded… and I want Tatsuya to have a place to stay even if that means giving him my place…”
And Jin just kept rambling and some of it was annoying and some of it was endearing and Kame finally decided to interrupt, putting a hand on Jin’s arm to get him to stop talking. “You… could have a home here, with… us… I mean,” and Kame was sure he was blushing again (something that was getting really, really annoying but thankfully Jin didn’t seem to notice), “If you want one.”
Jin looked extremely relieved to hear that. “I’ll think about it.” And he took off for the kitchen. But he stopped once more, turned back around to look Kame’s way, and said, “Thank you. Really. I…” but he just shook his head, turned back around again, and disappeared down the hall.
So Kame continued on the rest of the way to the church office.
Tatsuya was still sitting in there, though he’d moved to lean again the wall under the cabinet. He looked so tired, though that was to be expected. Shame he hadn’t thought to bring some ibuprofen from the med kit in the kitchen.
As Kame walked in, Tatsuya looked up at him. “You are… Kame?”
“I am.”
“Thank you.”
Kame wasn’t expecting the expression of gratitude so suddenly. He responded without thinking, “For what?” Then it sunk in and he felt like an idiot.
Yes, he’d pulled a Jin. The look Tatsuya gave him pretty much confirmed it. “You… saved me. All of you. And Jin said…” but Tatsuya suddenly stopped, like he’d started to say something he felt he really probably shouldn’t. But before Kame could respond, he continued with, “You saved him from his own idiocy. That’s something I never quite managed to do before… he’s so damn stubborn. So thank you for that, too. So, did you really kick his ass in a bank lobby?”
“He said I kicked his ass?” Kame asked, shocked at the thought of Jin admitting he’d been beaten.
“No, he said he kicked yours. But luckily I speak Jin.” Tatsuya was smiling though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Unfortunately, Kame recognized those eyes. He’d seen them in the mirror more times than he’d like to remember. “It doesn’t feel real, does it?” Kame said softly.
Tatsuya shook his head. “No, it doesn’t.”
“You feel like you must somehow have earned it, that you deserved to go through that.”
This time Tatsuya didn’t say anything; he just gave a small nod. The smile was gone.
“What do you really remember, Ueda-san?”
For a moment there was only quiet as Tatsuya stared at him. Kame watched as the silent tears started to run down Tatsuya’s face. “I don’t want to remember.”
“I know. I know. But you can’t live life that way. The things you don’t face will haunt you for the rest of your life. I tried that for years and things just kept getting worse and worse. I had these nightmares and I would wake up screaming.”
“What happened to you?”
It was still hard to talk about and he still kept a few things to himself, but Kame really thought it would help Tatsuya to hear it. “My father pimped me out. It… got bad. Painful. I ran away and I was living in an alley on Pearl Street. I blocked out a lot of what happened at my father’s house until someone he knew found me and drugged me. I woke up cuffed to his bed with no memory of how I got there. I escaped, but… I was hurt and I knew I couldn’t go back. Even when I found two wonderful people who took me in and gave me a job and everything… I still had nightmares. They didn’t stop until I stopped running away.”
Tatsuya looked down at the floor. “My father… used to come to my room at night… My mother blamed me. She said if I wouldn’t dress so slutty and act so slutty, he’d stop coming after me and would go back to her bed. She sold me to Papa K just to get me out of the house. Said if I was going to act like a slut, I should just go be one and stop ruining her family…”
It was a surprisingly common experience. Tesshi’s background was a lot similar only he’d been sold to a drug dealer. Actually, Tesshi and Massu both were sold to the same drug dealer though Tesshi ended up a toy and Massu a drug mule.
“How old were you?” Kame asked.
“Twelve. I was twelve. How old were you?”
“I ran away when I was fifteen, but he’d been selling me since I was eleven and ‘training’ me since I was seven or eight…”
“What about your mom? Or did she not care?”
“She was dead. I didn’t have anyone who cared about me, only people taking advantage. It’s… a hard way to live life, isn’t it? It makes it hard to trust people.”
Tatsuya nodded.
“We aren’t the only people here who have pasts like this. You know about Koki’s past. Jin’s never had to sell himself but he hasn’t had an easy life by any stretch of the imagination either. We all end up on the street with nobody we can count on except ourselves and even then… well, we start to even doubt our own abilities. But we found each other despite everything. I have people I care about and people who care about me. You have people who care about you, too.”
“Jin cared enough to nearly throw his life away at that bank. He cared enough to follow my orders when I know he can barely stand to be around me and he even managed to stop being such an ass. I may not have known him very long but I can definitely tell that’s something that comes hard to him. Everything he did from the moment Papa K found you at the hotel until this moment… everything… was for you.” Kame sighed. “He made himself vulnerable. He trusted me even though he barely knew me because it didn’t matter what happened to him as long as you were safe. And now, even though he can’t go back to squat at the hotel anymore and has no idea where to go or what to do next, his first concern was making sure there’s room here for you, even if he has to leave to make it happen.”
“Wait, he’s leaving?!” Panic rapidly spread across Tatsuya’s face.
But Kame shook his head. “We aren’t making him leave; we’re pulling up some of the pews in the sanctuary to make more room. You’ll get your own space there, for as long as you choose to stay with us but as for how long he’ll stay, that’s something he had to decide for himself.”
Silence for a moment, but then Tatsuya asked, “I can leave, then?”
“I know it’s… well, it isn’t exactly that you don’t trust us to let you leave; it’s that you’ve never had that luxury. Papa K’s… controlling even on his best days.” If he even had ‘best days’ since losing his eye ten years ago. Kame hoped he didn’t. “But, yes, you can leave. You don’t have to stay here. I think Koki would like you to stay but you’ll have to decide what’s best for yourself. Jin, too.”
“Jin will stay.” Tatsuya said after a brief silence. “Even if I go, he’ll stay.”
Kame couldn’t help it; he laughed. He hadn’t meant to. He didn’t want Tatsuya to think he was laughing AT him either, because he wasn’t. “Maybe he will… at least, long enough to strangle me in my sleep first.”
“No, he’ll stay and he’ll make a fool of himself and he’ll threaten to leave in embarrassment but he won’t go.”
“You sound so sure… how can you be so sure about this?” Kame finally asked. Jin himself had said that if Kame let him out of the office, he wouldn’t stay. Of course, when he learned Kizuna would help Tatsuya, he’d changed his mind but now that task was done.
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
What was that supposed to mean? What answer?
Even though Kame really wanted to know more what Tatsuya meant, that wasn’t why he’d come to talk to him. Instead, Kame answered any questions Tatsuya had about Kizuna, the members, their mission… Even after that, they just kept talking. Tatsuya seemed relieved to have someone to talk to about the things he’d experienced who would understand but wouldn’t run tattling to Papa K.
But after an hour and a half, Tatsuya was pretty much falling asleep whether he wanted to or not. Kame used the office phone to call the number that annoying reporter Yamashita gave him to let him know it was okay to publish his article now that their mission was over. He left to give Tatsuya some peace and quiet.
He had intended to go see how things were going in the sanctuary but he didn’t make it that far because he was practically run over by Junno and Nishikido.
Before Kame could even ask why they were there, Nishikido said, “We need to talk.”
That didn’t sound good…
There was always one more problem to deal with in life, wasn’t there…
+++
He could have a home here. That’s what Kame told him.
Frankly, he was surprised Kame made the offer. Sometimes Jin thought Kame couldn’t stand him. Hell, at first, he couldn’t stand Kame. But it was the strangest thing. The more he thought about the man, the more he wanted to be here, helping him. He… well, except for being so scared for Tatsuya, he was actually happier here than he could remember being in a long time.
No, it wasn’t just because of Kame. Koki was a strange blend of funny and stubborn but he was dependable. The Trio (that’s what he’d mentally started calling Massu, Shige, and Koyama) liked to tease him. They treated him like an idiot older brother but, still, a brother. The whole of Kizuna were some of the best people he’d ever met and not a single one of them (as far as he could tell) considered him to be street trash like most of the people he’d met in his life.
A home…
With Kizuna.
With Kame.
Well, someone had to keep an eye out for him. Jin was sure he’d run himself ragged and faint from lack of eating if someone wasn’t there to make him take better care of himself.
Though… had the man really said his name in his sleep? It didn’t seem very likely…
But Jin had to admit, the thought of it made him feel kinda special.
Yes. If Kame was okay with it, he’d stay. He’d join Kizuna. It’s not like he had something better to do. At least this way, he can do some good with his life. Jin only hoped it wasn’t too hard to adjust to not being the guy in charge. When you live on your own, you’re the only boss you have. But in the gang, that wouldn’t be true anymore.
Still…
It was worth it.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 40 ~Real Hope~
A/N: Okay, here you go. IT'll be a few days before you get another update though.
Anyways, seems like Koki and Tatsuya think Jin and Kame should be together, or at least they think they like each other. Is it in their minds or are they picking up on stuff Jin and Kame are too dense to realize? We shall see.
And, oooh, what could Ryo and Junno want to talk about? Any guesses?