[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 47 ~Spoons and Office Supplies~
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. They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be? How much is fate and how much choice? And how will their meeting change the world around them?
Author's Note: Well, here you go. I'm on a roll here. I only hope it's all of as good a quality as I usually give you guys. These stupid steroids have been having an effect of me and it's made me more edgy and so I worry it's flowing over into my writing too. But I wouldn't be able to tell so I leave it to your eyes.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!! THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!
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 47 ~Spoons and Office Supplies~
He’d made a right mess, hadn’t he?
Now that he’d calmed down, Kame felt so embarrassed at freaking out like that. It was just that it was so sudden. Jin was going to leave and somehow it ripped its way through every protective barrier he’d wrapped so very tightly around his heart.
Because that’s what it was. That’s what he’d done. There was no denying it now. He’d put up walls. Hell, they were still there. But in his completely irritating and yet also completely amazing way, Jin slipped past them.
Not far past, mind you, but enough that he couldn’t ignore it. Oh, to Kame it seemed far, for sure, if only because it was the furthest anyone had ever - quite literally - gotten…
Well, no, that was’t quite the truth of it either. He had let others in. He’d let Kizuna in. All of them. He felt something for them. It’s what he imagined a real family would feel like towards each other. Granted, he had no experience to compare them to in making that judgment, considering his father. But it’s what he had always imagined it would feel like.
It wasn’t his dilemma with Jin that Kame had made Koki promise to not tell. Koki realized that, too. At least, he seemed to have. Kizuna already knew stuff about him, things that could actually cause him a lot of trouble if they wanted to make his life miserable. Mistakes he’d made. Even… even people he’d killed. Though the mess with Jin felt even more personal than that…
But it would make him feel foolish to try to hide what he could no longer deny to himself.
No, he just didn’t want Kizuna to know how utterly he’d fallen apart at the seams over it. It was his job to keep them safe. If they had to worry about him, about whether he had it in him to do that job or not…
That’s a fear he didn’t want to inflict upon them.
Though a small piece of him conceded there might be more than a fair share of vanity in it as well and not just concern.
Just a bit.
But he couldn’t just sit around. He might not want to face Jin - he had no idea what to say to him! - but regardless of it all, it didn’t change the fact that Kizuna had a problem and Kame needed Jin’s help and they’d never finished their conversation.
So Kame stood purposefully and walked as calmly and deliberately as he could back to the office he’d fled fifteen minutes earlier.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be back tonight.” Jin was leaning against the wall. He looked worried. “If… if you need me somewhere else, I’d understand. I can move to the sanctuary. It won’t take any trouble to do that.”
Was that what he wanted?
Well, he’d never liked the fact that he was sharing the office in the first place. But he must have tapped into that stubbornness Koki had just been accusing him of, because suddenly the thought of kicking Jin out of the office tasted like failure. It would mean he let his own fears and insecurity rule him, instead of the other way around.
That wasn’t him. Not anymore. Not for years. He faced his problems now, right?
“If I kicked you out, then…”
But Jin interrupted him. “Oh, I wouldn’t say anything, I swear!” He was waving his hands in front of him. “I won’t, I meant. Either way. I…”
With a small growl, Kame was the one to interrupt this time. “Stop interrupting me. I can’t think of a single time since I met you where you correctly guessed the rest of my sentences so maybe you should stop trying to answer what you think I’m going to say and wait until I actually say something? Interrupting people… it’s just so damn rude!”
“I just meant…” and Jin trailed off, eyes to the floor. But there was something in Jin’s voice that made Kame stop and reevaluate his attitude.
Jin… he wasn’t saying that to get Kame to trust him for his own sake, was he? He was trying in his blunt, rude way to show Kame that he could be counted on so that Kame himself wouldn’t have to worry. So that problems from him didn’t take away strength Kame would rather have to put towards the one thing that matter the most to him: Kizuna and their care.
Jin didn’t want him to have to ask for this. Jin wanted to give it to him no matter what it took. He was clumsy in his attempts but they weren’t thoughtless, which is exactly how Kame had been treating him. It’s exactly how Kame had viewed him on more than one occasion.
Kame suddenly felt guilty.
Time and again, Jin kept surprising him.
“Jin, please look at me,” he asked softly.
Jin did as he asked but to Kame, his eyes looked rather like a dog expecting to be whipped.
“I think… I really owe you an apology. I think…” and he shook his head. “I think I have been far ruder to you and much more unfair than you deserve or even than you’ve been behaving yourself every time I have called you that. I don’t know why, though… and I’m not saying it’s an excuse at all, but what happened earlier does make the why a bit clearer to me at least. I think. But that’s not your fault, either.”
Jin looked so serious and there was something deeply funny in seeing that face look so serious but Kame wasn’t about to laugh. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about that so I thought… if I moved, you wouldn’t have to. We could get started on the real reason you asked me to come to the office and… and… you could just treat it like some b-bad memory, push it out of mind and… and…”
Except that it wasn’t a bad memory, was it? That was the strangest part. Logically, it should have been because every experience he had in his head that it could possibly stir was bad. Completely horrible, either so very humiliating or just brutal. But those memories didn’t come until the kiss had ended and, like that very first kiss that Jin had stolen, whenever he thought back to it, the first thing he noticed was that it was rather nice, wasn’t it…
Oh, god, he was blushing again, wasn’t he?
Nip that in the bud.
“I… I’m not ready for it. I’m really, really not. I don’t know why I did it. I… something just… you were walking away and it suddenly hurt so much because I’d decided to trust you with this, to rely on you because you could help and even actually wanted to help. You had just confided in me, too. I haven’t forgotten that. You told me you wanted to do something right for a change and not just take the easy path in life. You want to be better than you are, like so many of us here want for ourselves, and then it suddenly was collapsing around both of us and then… the thought of you going before you could do that… that you’d be gone for good… But I wasn’t ready and I should have known that. But that doesn’t mean it was a bad memory, Jin. Everything in my life should have made it one but I swear to you that it wasn’t one. Can… can it just be a good memory for us, then? Is that okay? I’m… You’ve slipped in somehow and I didn’t want it and I can’t undo it but I can’t handle it, either.”
Great. Blushing and babbling like an idiot.
“But if I keep going, in my stubborn way, I can deal with this. And I don’t let my fear make me back down from doing the right thing for others anymore because I’m strong now, so much stronger than I ever was most of my life. I can’t let my fears rule my life. And so I refuse to throw you out of this office, especially when the fault lies on my side to begin with.”
There was an incredibly long, awkward silence but the next words would have to be Jin’s and Kame would wait as long as he had to.
And Jin did finally break the silence. “Koki’s plotting.”
“I know. I imagine they all are. They’re so meddlesome, I swear. Like a bunch of little old ladies. And Koki’s the worst. But… safety in numbers? We’ll… we’ll get some long-handled spoons from the kitchen so we can defend ourselves and we’ll barricade this door with stolen office supplies and blankets. We fight to the death!”
“Long live the resistance!” Jin shouted a bit too loudly but he was very amusingly triumphant-sounding.
And just like that, the awkwardness was gone. It was like it had never been there to begin with.
See? He could do this.
Like Jin said, what’s right, not just what’s easy.
“Well, enough goofing off. Seriously, Jin, are you just going to lay around the office all day?” Kame teased.
“Hey, I’m standing, aren’t I?” But though the voice sounded serious, the look that came with it wasn’t.
“I’ll be honest, Jin. I don’t expect you to find anything. I know I could be wrong but when I say I trust them, it’s not just words. Even if I were wrong, though you would be the most attractive target for them because - and this time, please let me finish the sentence first? - you will have had less time in which to potentially cement your loyalty to the group… yes, that’s probably the better way to phrase it that what I was… well, anyway, there’s not much you can actively do to hunt them down. Just… you will want to get to know everyone if you’re staying, anyway. So just do that. Pay attention to what you see. Like I said, nothing will probably come from it and there probably isn’t anything that could. But I have to take these steps because it’s my responsibility to the people I love.”
“I can do that.” Jin nodded. “Really, I see a whole lot more than you think I do. Than everyone usually expects from me. It’s how I’ve survived the streets since my mother kicked me out at ten.”
“I’m starting to see that, Jin. I really am.” But Kame laughed. “Though you can still be such an idiot… your new nickname is Bakanishi. I hereby declare it so.”
“Hey!” Jin whined. “That’s so meeeeeaaaan!”
“But can you really deny it?”
Shaking his head, Jin said, “Not really. But you know this means war.” He laughed.
“What happened to ‘long live the resistance’?”
“The resistance will carry on without you,” Jin said, nodding very matter-of-factly.
“Hey, who made you resistance boss? I thought I was resistance boss! You can't kick me out of my own resistance!”
“You’ve lost your noble goals. Your tyranny must be replaced before the resistance falls! Long live the resistance!” And Jin took off wildly, throwing himself through the office door and shouting, “LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE!” as he went along.
Kame rolled his eyes.
The man really was an idiot, wasn’t he?
But… maybe just the kind of idiot he really needed around here. Though he might be the only one thinking that, Kame had to admit, once he saw the number of stunned people standing around staring after Jin fleeing form.
Ah, well.
That took care of Kizuna itself. Time to talk to Yuya. It wouldn't take that long for Detective Nishikido to get the information together for him.
Though, that reminded him... apparently Jin wasn't the only one getting embarrassing nicknames these days... Tego-nyan, indeed!
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 48 ~The Prosecution's Case~
A/N: I am sorry about how silly this gets. Except I'm not. I'm totally lying to you.
But I can just picture Jin running all willy-nilly down the hall shouting that at the top of his lungs.
I think Jin's still really confused about what a lot of Kame's semi-confession meant, but he's picked up on the fact that a.) Kame doesn't hate him, and b.) Kame liked the kiss but that they're going to pretend it didn't happen while at the same time not denying it. They're... it's a thing that happened and won't happen again and there's no reason to talk about it. That's what Jin took from that conversation, what he was able to pull from the whole confusing mess. He figures, if he sticks to that, then things will be okay.
At least, that's my perspective.
So...
Kame's done what he can to check internally. Guess he can focus more outward.