fic: Remains (1/7)
Title: Remains
Author: prologuesized
Pairing: Akame (Short side-pairings: Jin/OC, Pi/OC - hopefully it won't scare you away, though, I tried to keep them readable)
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Sci-fi, Romance, Adventure, Action
Disclaimer: Actually, I own a couple of side-characters. That's about it.
Summary: Akanishi Jin lives the life of a writer stuck in a world he feels he has no control over or pressing interest on. However, everything changes when he drives over a stranger by the name of Kamenashi Kazuya - a man who proves to be from an another world and universe entirely, whisking him away to an adventure through universes and time in order to fulfil his vendetta and stop his enemy from succeeding in his plan to maintain reign over as many universes as possible and starting out a universe-wide war.
Author Note: Umm, finally posting this years NaNoWriMo. Because I promised. I feel quite unsure with this work and it starts off a bit slowly but... please bear with it? It's a month's work :< More interesting stuff is coming... uh... a bit later in this :3 Just stick around.
I'll do my best to post a chapter every other day. So you have about two weeks to enjoy this, uhm, well, THIS. Enjoy.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,300
Remains
Chapter 1
Maybe being in love with him was yet another odd form of bestiality - he wasn’t the one to ever know the correct answer to the sudden assumption, but at times a lot of weird thoughts ran through his head with the most inappropriate timings. It was something unfixable, people close to him had concluded after years of trying to snap him out of it. He wasn’t about to argue.
How did he end up with bestiality once again?
He certainly just wasn’t one to know. Keeping track of one’s own mind and thoughts was entirely unnecessary. No one demanded the extra effort. At least no one he’d do it for.
He groaned, panted and rolled on his back, hands holding on the soft, feminine hips that were joining him in the delirious sprint of sensations and ecstasy. Her mouth was opened and a soft noise was rising from her throat, making shivers run up his spine. Jin felt a tempting pull back to reality as he buried his face in her bosom. Not as soft as the ideal would’ve been but that had never been the point. Not with her in this relationship. Looks had never been its foundation.
Her arms wrapped around his nape and continued down to his shoulders, pulling his torso upwards and disconnecting it from the bumping mattress. He sought her lips with his own and tangled them awkwardly and breathlessly together. Their fingers enlaced and Jin fell back to the mattress, body convulsing as the blood and adrenaline and god knew what hormones rushed in his veins.
So far so good.
The alarm went off and he groaned loudly in annoyance, trying to slam it away with his hand but not quite reaching. What a fucking nuisance it was, he never would’ve even bothered with one but Kai had one evening walked straight in the bedroom and plugged a brand new one in. Who had he been to say no way, not in his apartment, if it meant not having her over anymore? She actually had a job that required her attendance in the morning. Well, he wasn’t raging with jealously about that. It wasn’t really his kind thing.
Kai ran her fingers through her long fringe and slowed down, obviously battling with the pros and cons of both stopping and continuing the act. Jin bucked his hips and managed to jerk violently from the wire in his attempt to reach the small cubic device but instead of grabbing it he managed to make it drop off the table and hit the ground.
The fucking little chirper still just wouldn’t go off. He let out a frustrated roar and wrapped his arms around Kai’s lower back, rising to meet her lips again.
“Just ignore it. Come on, let it go. It’s not going to be that long anymore,” he panted and pressed a convincingly sloppy kiss on her neck. Seriously, if she was going to just ditch him there he was going to… well, he didn’t exactly know what, but something bad was bound to happen. He could be such a bitchy kid when something sweet was forcibly taken away from him.
She pressed him harshly back against the mattress and smirked the smirk Jin had come to find one of her most thrilling features. A wide smile spread on his lips and his heart started drumming just a bit faster in anticipation.
After that it was just throaty wails and pleasuring waves. And he really, really liked it that way.
She got up straight after and rushed to make it to the shower as Jin decided to just stay lying on the bed with his eyes closed and a content smile on his lips. One of the pros that definitely hit off a huge amount of the cons of having a girlfriend was having someone there for him in the early hours of the morning. There had always just been something about the mornings for him. Probably the hazy yet gentle state of mind and actual emotions before all the thinking.
The piercing sound of the alarm clock was disturbing him from his slumber, though. He groaned, sat up and fished the little device in his hand with the use of the wire, tampered with the buttons as his routines had taught him and dropped it uncaringly back to the floor. It wasn’t like it would’ve been his anyway.
He let out a deep exhale as he grabbed some napkins to tidy himself up with before putting on some fresh boxers, slippers and a robe. He trailed with wobbly knees to the kitchen where he quickly flicked on the power button of his laptop and continued over to the counter in an attempt to prepare some coffee.
Kai, prominently more of a morning person than he was, walked back to the kitchen. She was rubbing her short, dark hair dry with a simple beige towel as she laid her hand gently on his shoulder and claimed a brief peck before he went back to the counters and searched for at least a couple of cleansed mugs.
“How is the book going?” she chattered after glancing at his laptop, fetching a slice of bread for herself, knowing he didn’t have an appetite right after waking up. Jin leaned against the counter and shrugged.
“Fine,” he muttered and cursed at the coffee maker’s questionable speed. A headache was quickly forming and pulsating at the back of his head and if you asked him, he wasn’t one for full-blast caffeine withdrawals. Not if there was any way to avoid it.
Kai took a bite of her bread and rolled her eyes.
Here we go again.
“What?” he asked and motioned at the laptop. “A book is a book and it’s fine, thank you for asking. That’s it.”
“Just whatever,” she answered reluctantly and rose on her legs. “I really don’t feel like having a fight over such a stupid little thing once again.”
“Me either, you’re the one rolling the eyes in here,” the smartass words slipped from Jin’s lips. He rolled his own eyes and crossed his arms. “If my book is fine then it is fine, why do you have to get so pissed off about it?”
He never could hold his tongue in threatening situations. If someone was going to get put down, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. Ever.
“I said I don’t want to fight so don’t get so defensive about it, Jin. Just drop it,” she argued with a strained voice. Jin knew she meant well, he really did. It was him, who was the beast after all, but still the entire blame couldn’t be put on him - relationships consisted of working mutualism. Sometimes things just changed.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her ever because he had. Greatly so.
He looked away in frustration and felt his shoulders rising defensively. Survival mechanisms.
What a bitchy kid he was.
“Why don’t you just drop it?” he insisted coldly. “Don’t start with this shit first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll buy coffee on the way. See you for lunch,” she stopped him and slipped her coat on, fastening the belt with skilled and slim female fingers. “Have fun in your fictive shell.”
Jin merely muttered something as she walked out on him. He pursed his lips and poured himself a cup of brewed black coffee, sat on his chair and clicked a Microsoft Word Document open.
He stopped to wonder when things had become so strained and unhappy, when life had changed them so much. When it was that the love between them was drained.
Different worlds were the active culprits, most likely. He wasn’t really a loner of a writer to be exact, but maybe he just never truly conquered the skill of teamwork. Most likely not. He rather went with individual benefits to get by.
Not when he was in genuine love, though. Or with people he never wanted to let go of. Those were always the number ones in his world, always the ones he wanted to care and sacrifice himself for.
The realisation about the end of something so beautiful and sacred in his world was always a big and sorrowful shock. He wished he could stop the cycle but it kept repeating itself over and over again. Maybe it took years, maybe months. He wondered if there was something to end it with.
Well, at least now for once the feeling did seem to be mutual. Fixing it just wasn’t going well. Maybe he should consider giving up.
Not just yet, though. He didn’t want to let go of the illusion yet. He didn’t want to deny the feelings he used to harbour.
He took a long, bitter sip of his coffee, set the mug on the table and started finishing with his latest fictional downpour. Foolish, silly romance novels felt a bit out of his world right now. Great for some escapism.
Maybe he just fell in love with his heroine instead of Kai, he stopped to wonder briefly.
…Where the hell were those thoughts coming from anyway? He rolled his eyes. No, it certainly wasn’t so. The love he felt for her was channelled from the hero’s emotions. It wasn’t his girl and thus there was no way he would’ve been in genuine love with her.
End of the story.
How ridiculous it was to be an emotional writer? Well, what life gives you take, he figured.
He did love the formation of words on his document, though. The flow, the dance, black appearing on white. How the lines just expanded and everything lived around him in a spur of colours, sounds and sensations. It was a physical and psychological disorientation. It wasn’t something he forced out. It came out.
Now, he was telling the story of a street guitarist Eito and the daughter of a popular clothing company, Nozomi. They were speaking through him in words of broken voices and raw fingertips yet gentle caresses and melodies.
All he had to do was see, feel and keep his fingers running on the worn, sleek keyboard of his companion, the graduation present laptop from his mother and father.
There were so many different levels where one could experience things. Everyday life constructed perfect pages with strikingly real emotions.
People just failed to see it and forgot the possibilities that were always there, right around them. Perfection wasn’t ever what he was after. It didn’t exist and, for him, it didn’t really even have to exist.
He pushed the key typing the last dot maybe a little too exaggeratingly and let out a heavy heave. A weight was off his chest. He could breathe again.
A long labour of a story was gone. It was born now.
He smiled and printed the missing pages, added them to his filer and spent the next five minutes rummaging through his apartment in search for his mobile phone and hunting down for the pile of washed shirts since he wasn’t quite sure where he had last left them. He kicked his slippers from his feet as he sat down on the edge of the bed and started pulling his black dress-pants on.
Being messy did have its downsides.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Oh how he disliked annoying noises that had a habit of being continuous and repetitive.
Answer. He didn’t bother listening to polite introductions.
“Shige, I’ve got the shit ready. I’ll come over now so make sure you’ve got some time for me, okay?” he chattered to the phone as he placed the filer in his briefcase, put his laptop to sleep and started searching for a formal-enough coat. “Love you.”
“A nice warning at least a week beforehand would’ve been brilliant,” Shige complained from the other end and Jin chuckled silently to himself as he imagined him scratching the stress-inflicted rash on his sweaty neck. It was nice to go poking around with it. “I can’t expect anything that requires normal protocol from you. But yeah, stop by, I’m drowning in these piles of shit people keep giving me. What a waste of paper.”
“Don’t go environmental on me,” Jin laughed as he settled with a simple black trench coat over his shirt jacket and started struggling in dressing himself and squishing the phone between his ear and shoulder. It was great to have an agent he could freely chat around with. Many probably weren’t as lucky. “I’m a writer. I want forests to die for books.”
“Ouch,” Shige hissed. “I’d rather keep the trees alive if it meant I’d have less shit to go through here. Go green.”
“Just be ready for me and my anti-green papers,” Jin cut his speech loudly and pulled his shoes on. “I’ll be right there.”
“I only put up with you for the profits.”
“Sure you do,” Jin muttered as he cut the call and slipped the mobile phone in his pants’ pocket. He ran his fingers through his hair to force it into at least a somewhat presentable shape as he opened the door and was greeted with a wide grin and two carton cups of Starbucks’ espresso.
He buried his face in his hands and groaned in discontentment.
“Why is it that when I don’t feel like socialising everyone just keeps butting in?”
“Shut up and drink your coffee. It should be strong enough,” Pi ignored his complaints, took his hand and forced the cup in his hands before pulling him out and closing the door behind him. “Yuuka threw me out again. So much for being gentle. Your friend needs a shoulder to cry on so bow down and succumb.”
Jin started rapidly walking down the stairs of the apartment block. Pi had a tendency of being annoying and clingy. No wonder his girlfriends grew tired of him. He knew through personal experiment that he did.
“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Pi objected and started prancing down the stairs, flapping his hands like a mad bird. “Wait. I’m coming with you. Stop being so boring! You’re going to need me one day too and I assume you’ve had some girl-issues yourself. It’s written all over your bitchy face. So let’s share and whine, shall we?”
“Nothing’s changing,” Jin complied and pursed his lips as Yamapi reached him and slowed down to walk side by side with him. “We just argue. The time we aren’t having sex we argue. It’s frustrating. It’s like a wake up call.”
“Yuuka says I’m not mature enough. Apparently I don’t appear to be serious about her. How can I be serious when she keeps pushing me away?” Pi argued his own case. “Women. Who gets them?”
“I don’t,” Jin sighed. “…I just wonder how relationships change. How once you can be so close and you’re so sure about things and the next moment you realise you just don’t bring out the best in each other out anymore.”
“You sound like a girl,” Yamapi noted. “A gossiping girl. One could assume you’re perfect at understanding them.”
“You started the gossiping,” Jin objected and shoved his friend against the wall as he stepped out the front doors to the cool city streets. He stopped for a while to inhale the scent of gas and pollution before Pi jumped on his back so that he almost dropped his coffee but managed to hold onto it dearly with an accompanying wail.
“You really aren’t mature,” Jin shot at his friend as he shoved him off. “I’m going to the publisher. You better not embarrass me before the building.”
“Stop being so serious already. You weren’t always this serious. Where’s the child I used to play around with?” Pi snorted. “I miss your smiles. They’re rare now.”
“Maybe I just grew up? Yuuka would like you to grow up too,” Jin noted and took a long sip from his coffee. Strong espresso. Now, finally, that indicated a good morning.
“It didn’t save your relationship either, I think I won’t bother. I don’t want to become as boring as you. Plus I’m positive that you don’t really want me to change,” he smiled at him and cast away the lid from his coffee cup. “She should love me for who I am. She knew what she started going out with.”
Jin shrugged in an agreeing manner and ruffled Pi’s hair absent-mindedly. Pi really did look down.
“I want to fix us, though,” Pi wondered aloud as they forced their way past the masses of people on the streets. “I really like her. I don’t understand why it’s so hard.”
“She’s hot-headed. You let her dominate the relationship. It doesn’t work for you and you’re not proving her the existence of your already questionable testosterone levels,” Jin noted indifferently. “We’re both just waiting for a break up, aren’t we?”
“I wonder if I should just give up,” Pi sighed. “What can I do? Maybe we just really aren’t suited for each other.”
“This is as far as you will go,” Jin stated as he made an abrupt stop and turned to his friend with an encouraging smile on his face. “Just run back to her and try. If it doesn’t work out then it just doesn’t. You can’t force it to work out. But you can make an effort.”
Pi drew in a long breath and nodded hesitantly. “…I guess you’re right. I should be running back.”
Jin waved his hand and turned around with a heavy heave.
It was all people could really think about. Relationships. It was a mantra that went on and on for nearly 24 hours per day and the end was nowhere in sight. Love was a universal language and occurring that brought people from all over the world together as one.
It’s just that maybe it would’ve been a bit less tiring if everything really wasn’t about love for such a big time of his life. Maybe he should’ve gone for a different kind of profession than an everyday romance novelist. Or not.
He stepped through the flashy glass doors to the skyscraper and after politely nodding for a few security guards and receptionists he headed for the lifts on the right. He had just stepped in when something bumped into him violently from the behind.
“I never asked you, how is your book? Do you have it with you? Can you read it for me?” Pi’s chirpy voice echoed in the small space as he pushed the button to the floor of the publisher’s office. “Is it yet another boring real-life thing?”
“I don’t do fantasy or science fiction,” Jin groaned and tried to shake his friend off. “I’ve never done it and I never will, I don’t see the point. It just doesn’t happen. I don’t feel like telling fairytales, I want to actually touch people. Give them something they can relate to.”
“Don’t you believe in anything out of this world?” Pi questioned him with a hurt expression. “You do know that ghost in Tegoshi’s place? The one that always freaks him out? He’s moving out this month, by the way.”
“Why would I care about Tegoshi,” Jin rolled his eyes. “He’s a wimp.”
“Not my point,” Pi interjected smartly and walked out backwards from the lift as they arrived on the right floor and the metal doors slid open. “The point was do you believe in ghosts? You know, this entire science and religion stuff both sound pretty lacking for me. But if when you die your soul is released and there exists something like a fourth dimension that has something to do with time and that could explain a lot about ghosts, their appearances and functions!”
“Horror stories~” Jin clicked his tongue and patted his friend’s shoulder. “If you prove it to me I can think it over. Not that I think you ever can because there are no such things as ghosts. You guys have fun with it.”
“Honestly you’re just a scared wimp yourself,” Pi chuckled to himself and leaned in closer, face threateningly close and fingers pinching Jin’s cheeks as an annoyingly smug expression spread all over his face. “Right, Jin-chan?”
Jin almost fell over as he tried to back away and shrug his friend off. Sometimes he really wondered how he managed to put up with it all.
Well, Pi had been his best friend since childhood. It was him who had changed. It felt good that at least someone could be so steady through life. Yuuka really should’ve appreciated it. Pi was warm and genuine and it was way more than what could’ve been said about many other men out there to just hunt some trunk.
“Shut up…” he muttered as he slipped away and ran off with his briefcase. “Go home, you freak!”
“Yesss!” Pi yelled after him, not sounding the slightest bit of embarrassed or hurt. “Good job with the book! I’m sure it’ll be just as boring as the previous ones!”
Well, Pi’s taste for literature was limited and mostly consisted of the literature versions of Star Wars and whatnot. Not a part of his focus group.
--
He smiled as he pushed inside Shige’s office with a hint of a smile still on his face. Shige immediately tossed the papers he had currently been reading to the trash can. It was bound to overflow within an hour.
“You have a very annoying new receptionist,” Jin informed him with a light yet displeased voice. “She kept stalling me, insisting that I did not have an appointment with Shige-san and thus couldn’t come in. Didn’t you tell her I was coming over, Shige dear?”
He walked in slowly and teasingly, throwing his head back and biting his lip. Just for the heck of it.
It was great having such a light atmosphere with the agent.
“I’m sorry sweetie, I must be cheating on you,” Shige answered, his lashes fluttering and lips pursed. “Now, sit down. Let’s have a talk before I turn to the editor. Slam it on the table. You’re making my fingers itch.”
“You desperate romantic,” Jin smirked as he put his briefcase on the simple wooden chair and pulled the black filer out, offering it to the anticipant man. “There. The last chapter. Be pleased and put it on the bookstore shelves.”
“Will do, just give me some months,” Shige nodded. “I’ll get it done. Now, sit down. Let’s talk about your contract.”
“Do I have to renew it?” Jin complained. “Can’t you just do it for me?”
“Sit,” Shige said, his voice more serious and professional all of sudden. “There are some things I really need to discuss with you.”
Jin sighed and crashed unsurely on the chair, leaning back with his arms and legs both crossed. He really hated the feeling of a conflict in the air. The day was running threateningly high on the bad atmosphere straight from the morning.
He fiddled with the tablecloth nervously and felt his shoulders tense, waiting for the impact.
“The company’s not doing so great,” Shige reluctantly admitted. “We need to lay off some writers. You’re under the threat.”
“WHAT?” Jin complained loudly and dashed forwards on his seat. “Why me? My books sell, that’s not fair!”
“We’d just like you to show some… change and improvement, so to say,” Shige kept up his calm mannerism and bowed his head politely. “It’s not that your books are bad, they just lack some versatility. It’s a threat in the business. People will soon grow tired and we’re the ones who are losing money here.”
Jin snorted and looked away rebelliously.
“These people are from entirely different worlds and social statuses. The previous ones were ex-classmates with a lot of conflicts in the past and present. The ones before those just simply ran into each other. Are you telling me I’m not versatile? I’m a romantic novelist. That’s what I write.”
“Just… consider… broadening your horizons,” Shige urged him, selecting his words carefully. “Your contract will run out in a year. You have time for one more book to show us something new.”
“I’m leaving,” Jin declared as he rose on his feet, grabbing and closing his briefcase again. “Thank you for your time, Shige-san.”
Professional. Cold. If he was hurt then he sure as hell was going to show it, simple as that.
He walked out of the cosy office and Shige’s concerned stare. A sigh rose from his throat as he peered out of the windows he walked by. The smallest kind of rain droplets were colliding with the window and the sky was like a sad and grey watercolour painting.
It just felt like everything was going to go downhill that day.
It would’ve been nice to smile for a while without any intrusions. At least every once in a while.
Clear umbrellas were hardly any comfort and streets filled with people not quite there and in a bad mood always left him feeling solitary.
--
Kai was exceptionally quiet that afternoon as they sat with the table between them serving as a distance provider and after some rather reluctant tries of small talk he simply left it as it was. It didn’t feel right.
“…Do you want a prawn?” he tried to ask politely and offered Kai one with his chopsticks. Hesitantly. Coffee wasn’t supposed to be cold, yet Kai was. Cold and unpleasant. It made him feel like a child surrounded by heavy silence.
Kai wiped her lips with her napkin and swallowed her rice slowly. Jin had never been able to read her mind, but if there was something he had learned it was that when Kai thought about something that apathetically it was going to prove to be something greatly upsetting. Her eyes trailed the small hall and chattering people around them. Jin felt distance.
“…Alright. Not then,” he withdrew awkwardly and set his chopsticks down. He hadn’t really had an appetite right from the beginning and, judging by Kai’s plate, she hadn’t either.
“What do you think of us, Jin?” she managed to open her pretty plump lips, eyes finally finding his and it felt like she was closing up even more like an old treasure chest, once so shiny and all his.
Jin sniffed and shrugged. She didn’t even look surprised.
“I just think it isn’t what it used to be anymore,” he finally felt the words repeated so many times in his head run out to the open. “I just can’t… I can’t feel it. I do feel something. But I don’t really know.”
She nodded and shied away, entirely a different person than what she was when they first met. Still, he couldn’t say she had exactly changed as a person. The change had only happened between them. Between their interaction and feelings.
She did carry feelings for him but, like his, they were tainted and ready to be finally discarded. Only winter-flowers made it through the snow and frost. Maybe they weren’t like a winter-flower after all.
“I think we loved each other,” she finally said and smiled sadly at him. “I think we really did.”
“Me too,” Jin agreed and felt a nasty sting somewhere in his chest. Alright, now his feelings were catching up with him. It felt lonely and tight.
She hadn’t looked quite so beautiful in months. And he knew exactly why she looked so beautiful right now.
“We’re breaking up,” he voiced out what had crossed both of their minds countless times. “This is our last lunch together, isn’t it?”
She smiled a bit and nodded. Her eyes were left sorrowful, though.
Breaking up was always the hardest part.
“It’s only going to get better for us from now on,” Jin kept on talking, the words just slipping out of his mouth. He had a habit of talking through silent and anxious situations. When everything changed. She nodded in agreement. Jin bit his lip and drew in an anxious breath.
“Can we stay as friends?” he tried. “Or something.”
A painful grimace took over her facial features and Jin knew the indecent try was worth nothing at all. He found it in himself to bring a soft smile on his face. “Ah. I understand.”
“It’s useless,” she nodded with an apologetic smile on her face. “There just isn’t anything really between us anymore and our social circles are different. And after all the feelings I used to have… I don’t think I can continue with just being friends anymore either.”
Jin understood. If he was honest with himself, he knew he felt the same.
He rose on his feet and started fishing for his wallet from his pocket. Kai looked up at him concernedly.
“Aren’t you going to stay and finish?” she stuttered a bit. Jin merely shook his head, handed her the bill for the entire meal and forced a convincing smile on his face.
For the first time in a long time it actually was warm.
“Good luck,” he wished and bowed politely. How odd it felt to bow to Kai. It had been so long. “…Take care.”
“You too,” she smiled sadly and nodded to him. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“…Mm,” Jin grinned and pulled his coat on. “…Thanks for you too. It was nice while it lasted.”
Leaving a person once important behind in one’s life was probably one of the most difficult and ground-shaking things he ever had to experience. But at least there was something to smile about in this particular case.
They had parted with good regards unlike the last months of their relationship.
He only cried when he reached the rain outside the glass doors.
He didn’t bother with an umbrella as he walked into the early winter downpour.
--
Pi’s apartment’s warmth flooded over him as the said owner of the house opened the door with a dumbfounded look plastered on his face. He must’ve really looked like a wet and kicked puppy just then.
“Come on in,” he quickly offered and moved out of the way, letting him stumble to the narrow hallway. The chills still made his bluish lips tremble as he kicked his shoes off and dripped water to the ground.
“Oh god, just take it off,” Pi grimaced. “But not everything. I have Yuuka over. You are not showing your junk in front of her or I’m going to kill you.”
“It isn’t funny, Pi,” Jin wailed and threw his coat, jacket and shirt to the ground. Fuck one ruined jacket. He could be a jobless beggar within a year anyway, suits were more trouble than use in that state.
“I’ll go get a towel,” Pi offered concernedly and rushed away. Jin figured he could just as well walk in and invade his friend’s living room couch. The girl could go. It wasn’t as if she would’ve been there to stay for much long anyway either.
He had been hoping she would’ve been in the bedroom or something (or maybe not - he really wouldn’t have wanted to run into that) but there she was, eyeing him curiously with her eyes. Not an entirely nice look. No, actually not even that. She just really wasn’t fond of him.
“What?” he started picking up a fight and walked over to her. “Make space.”
She withdrew her legs and Jin crashed into the couch, starting to pull his pants off. Yuuka covered her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she blabbered in shock. Jin rolled his eyes reluctantly.
“I’m trying not to ruin your boyfriend’s couch, that’s what I’m doing,” he complained. “You could show a little more heart to someone in distress.”
“And you could talk a little more politely to my girlfriend,” Pi cut in and threw the towel at him. “There, dry yourself. And put these on,” he continued and placed a pair of baggy college sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt on the armrest. “Now, make space.”
He squished between the two of them as Jin pulled on the sweatpants. What a barricade.
Jin decided it was time to claim something his. He wasn’t about to share. Not right now.
“…She’s gone now,” he sniffed and buried his face in his friend’s shoulder. “Kai. We broke up. I want to do something with just us guys.”
He felt Pi turning to glance at Yuuka briefly. She wasn’t saying anything but he could very well imagine the glare she was giving him. No.
Instead, he couldn’t have been more surprised to hear actually a rather soft and concerned tone in her voice as she told Pi gently that she was going to the bedroom to read some of his manga so they could have privacy for a while. He raised his head and looked at her as she left the room, nodding politely and unsurely at him from the doorframe.
“She’s not as bad as you think,” Pi told him as he leaned against him, stroking his wet hair. “She really is nice. When she is.”
Jin sniffed and nodded as he wrapped his arms around his friend. Pi hugged him back and rubbed his back.
“Alright. Are you alright?” he asked softly. Jin nodded.
“…It’s not that I’m upset that she’s gone,” he spoke slowly, trying to figure his own thoughts out. Speaking about them helped. He had difficulties understanding the hurl if he stayed silent. “I just… dislike breaking up. We used to be close. It’s not nice realising that it isn’t so and isn’t going to be so anymore.”
“I know,” Pi smiled at him. “Get yourself together. Sleep over it and go to group dates. Single life can be fun.”
Jin nodded and ran his fingers through his hair in order to pull the soaked fringe back. It was already getting fast dark outside. The city lights were whispering quiet melodies like triangle echoes.
“Sometimes I hate what the world is,” he told his friend quietly, exhaling heavily in an attempt to rid himself of the weights on his shoulders. “There’s nothing groundbreaking for me to know and experience anymore. Everything I like changes but still the world is dully the same.”
“Don’t be so negative,” Pi scolded him with a smile on his lips. “You can’t know it. Tomorrow could already be entirely different. Maybe you should visit Tegoshi and get on the bottom of that ghost issue of his.”
He laughed. Genuinely.
“You’re a great friend,” he told his best friend with a smile as he withdrew. “Don’t you ever dare to change, Pi.”
“Don’t you dare to pressure me,” Pi smirked back. “Of course I’ll change. But I’ll try to stay positive for you. There’s enough negativity in you for an entire block of people.”
“Jerk,” Jin accused and shoved his friend, pursing his lips. “No there isn’t!”
Pi ruffled his hair. He enjoyed the touch and hugged him again.
“I’ll be going home now,” he declared as he stood up. “I’ll be borrowing these clothes. You can put mine to dry, I’ll pick them up some other time. Thank you. I feel much better now.”
“No problem,” Pi smiled and high-fived him. “If I won’t hear from you I’m dropping the clothes off myself. But wait,” he interjected and ran to the kitchen. He came back having fetched his car keys he shook right before his face. “Drive safely, JinJin. Stay dry.”
Jin kicked him as he walked off and enjoyed the wail behind him. Such exaggeration. And it wasn’t even raining that much anymore.
“I’m off!” he yelled loudly so Yuuka could hear him too. …Maybe she wasn’t quite that bad after all. “See you later, Pink Ranger!”
He ran out of the house laughing.
--
What worked for burning heartache and sadly low self-esteem after a rather nasty (or in this case actually a pretty smooth) break up?
Love songs. Happy voices melding together in a thrilling swirl of notes and varying frequencies. God it felt good.
He drummed the wheel as he drove through the relatively empty streets. He didn’t exactly live in the centre of Tokyo - his apartment was in one of the biggest apartment buildings standing in the outer areas with less public buildings and more ordinary homes. He had just managed to avoid the awful traffic of people returning from work and was driving through almost abandoned streets feeling pure bliss.
There almost never was that certain kind of privacy in a metropolis.
He was just hitting the chorus of the song full blast (and with his lung power, it really was full blast) when he noticed something dashing under the streetlights only a little ahead, headed… right towards the road?
“Motherfuck-” he managed to exclaim in panic with stumbling English as he hit the breaks, listened to the maddening screech and the awful thump as the person (oh holy shit, it was a person) was hit by the front of the car and he disappeared out of sight, presumably falling to the ground. It all happened way too fast for his liking.
He would’ve liked to say it became dead quiet afterwards but that was not the case. The blood on his veins and every single cell in his body froze, he could swear, but it most certainly wasn’t quiet. Not with the radio.
He had just run over a person. With a car. And the said car was blasting the horror out to everyone.
He managed to get his violently trembling arms moving, turned off the radio and stumbled out of the car with his barely-awakened legs. Surreal. Everything was surreal and somewhere out there. Shock, he concluded. It just had to be shock. He was experiencing shock. Him.
Breathing. Oh god, the person was alive too!?
He wailed and ran to the man’s side. At least he wasn’t under the wheels or anything, just curled up on the ground, gritting his teeth and shaking in pain, clad in a thin leather jacket and a ripped pair of jeans. The suppressed growls of agony were alarming.
“Are you hurt?” he managed to stutter stupidly. What did he fucking think, he just drove over the man! “Do I need to call the-”
“No,” the man gasped and rolled on his back, eyes shut and brow furrowed in pain as he held his right wrist tightly. “No, I’m okay. Just fine. Don’t bother calling anyone. Oh fucking hell.”
Not quite so convincing. He kneeled down beside the man and tried to remove his healthy hand from his obviously pained wrist.
“Ouch. Ouch,” the man wailed a bit and gritted his teeth together, exhaling deeply to calm himself down. “I’m positive it isn’t broken but I think I might’ve sprained it. You wouldn’t happen to have anything cold on you, do you?”
“Ah. Yeah. Sure,” Jin stuttered and cursed to the deepest pits of hell his lagging brains. His thoughts were running way too slowly. It made him feel unintelligent. He could now honestly say that he was ready to be officially a shock state hater. “I’ll be right back. Just wait here, alright?”
“I’ll try not to go anywhere,” the man grimaced with his voice dripping sarcasm and closed his eyes again, his skin slightly damp and waxy as Jin hurried to the trunk of his car in order to fetch a first aid kit.
“I’ll fix it,” he offered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to run over you, this is completely my fault. It’s just that it was really dark and you just came out of nowhere, haven’t you ever heard of a reflector?!”
“Sorry,” the man groaned through his strained lips. “I really am. I lost track of where I was going. I should be more careful.”
Jin wrapped a cold gel bag around the man’s wrist concernedly. His day really had sucked exceptionally much. It was getting ridiculous. He was kind of afraid more bad stuff was coming his way. He wasn’t usually quite that unlucky.
The man sniffed and wiped his runny nose, seemingly apologetic. The pain seemed to be subsiding. What a relief. So he didn’t hit him badly. At least he hoped so.
Some lone cars passed them by but none bothered to stop. Maybe it was alright that way. They didn’t seem badly hurt, did they? The young man was already sitting up at least.
He started wrapping bandage tightly around the man’s wrist, trying to keep it from swelling too much. Even he knew some bits of first aid. He hoped.
“I tried to protect myself by instinct,” the said man tried to offer an explanation. “Slammed my hands on the car. I guess this one twisted a bit badly but otherwise I think it’s just cuts and bruises. Don’t feel bad. You look like you’re on a guilt trip.”
“You look messy,” the words slipped from his mouth. He really wasn’t good at keeping his thoughts to himself. Oh fuck damn it. “And malnourished.” As if that had anything to do with him driving over him.
The man looked at him, his widened eyes filled with odd wonder. The look didn’t last for long before it hardened to a calculative one and he glanced around, fidgeting nervously where he sat.
Jin started feeling awkward.
“Can I drive you home?” he tried to offer. He hoped he was going to be lawsuit free even a few months from now. The man grimaced and shook his head. Jin resulted to pouting. “Why? I can drive. I really can.”
“I’m pretty much just wandering around,” the man admitted reluctantly. “I’m not staying anywhere so I don’t really need a ride.”
Quite fast-paced wandering the man did, sure. Jin pulled him to his legs and grabbed the first aid kit from the ground.
“In the car,” he ordered. “You can’t sleep out here. As if it isn’t bad enough already that you’re hanging all alone the streets in the middle of the night, you have that sprained wrist now too. You’re coming over,” he declared and offered his right hand. “Akanishi Jin.”
The man was still fidgeting and checking the surroundings like out of a paranoid habit before nodding stiffly and politely, eyes wary as he looked up at him, slightly shorter than himself. But he was probably above the average height of a Japanese person. The man seemed to be too.
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” he introduced himself as he bowed to pick up his back bag with his healthy hand. “I’d shake your hand but unfortunately my right hand isn’t quite in shape for some harsh twisting, if you understand.”
He just shoved Kamenashi from his back towards the car. One night of actually doing a decent deed out of pure good will couldn’t hurt. And he owed it to the man anyway after almost running over him. No, scratch that, running over him. Simply put.
Kamenashi slipped an oval-shaped onyx pendant that hung in a long silver chain back under his simple white shirt almost as if guarding it. Jin couldn’t quite put his hand onto it but somehow there was the feeling that he was from another world entirely.
In the end, all Jin could really fixate on in his disorganized state of mind was the blinking and swarming city lights that formed a sea world around him and lulled him down from his adrenaline high with sweet little lullabies.
Kamenashi sat besides him and looked silently out of the window with dark bags under his thin eyes, pressing the cold gel bag on his sprained wrist.
Author: prologuesized
Pairing: Akame (Short side-pairings: Jin/OC, Pi/OC - hopefully it won't scare you away, though, I tried to keep them readable)
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Sci-fi, Romance, Adventure, Action
Disclaimer: Actually, I own a couple of side-characters. That's about it.
Summary: Akanishi Jin lives the life of a writer stuck in a world he feels he has no control over or pressing interest on. However, everything changes when he drives over a stranger by the name of Kamenashi Kazuya - a man who proves to be from an another world and universe entirely, whisking him away to an adventure through universes and time in order to fulfil his vendetta and stop his enemy from succeeding in his plan to maintain reign over as many universes as possible and starting out a universe-wide war.
Author Note: Umm, finally posting this years NaNoWriMo. Because I promised. I feel quite unsure with this work and it starts off a bit slowly but... please bear with it? It's a month's work :< More interesting stuff is coming... uh... a bit later in this :3 Just stick around.
I'll do my best to post a chapter every other day. So you have about two weeks to enjoy this, uhm, well, THIS. Enjoy.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,300
Remains
Chapter 1
Maybe being in love with him was yet another odd form of bestiality - he wasn’t the one to ever know the correct answer to the sudden assumption, but at times a lot of weird thoughts ran through his head with the most inappropriate timings. It was something unfixable, people close to him had concluded after years of trying to snap him out of it. He wasn’t about to argue.
How did he end up with bestiality once again?
He certainly just wasn’t one to know. Keeping track of one’s own mind and thoughts was entirely unnecessary. No one demanded the extra effort. At least no one he’d do it for.
He groaned, panted and rolled on his back, hands holding on the soft, feminine hips that were joining him in the delirious sprint of sensations and ecstasy. Her mouth was opened and a soft noise was rising from her throat, making shivers run up his spine. Jin felt a tempting pull back to reality as he buried his face in her bosom. Not as soft as the ideal would’ve been but that had never been the point. Not with her in this relationship. Looks had never been its foundation.
Her arms wrapped around his nape and continued down to his shoulders, pulling his torso upwards and disconnecting it from the bumping mattress. He sought her lips with his own and tangled them awkwardly and breathlessly together. Their fingers enlaced and Jin fell back to the mattress, body convulsing as the blood and adrenaline and god knew what hormones rushed in his veins.
So far so good.
The alarm went off and he groaned loudly in annoyance, trying to slam it away with his hand but not quite reaching. What a fucking nuisance it was, he never would’ve even bothered with one but Kai had one evening walked straight in the bedroom and plugged a brand new one in. Who had he been to say no way, not in his apartment, if it meant not having her over anymore? She actually had a job that required her attendance in the morning. Well, he wasn’t raging with jealously about that. It wasn’t really his kind thing.
Kai ran her fingers through her long fringe and slowed down, obviously battling with the pros and cons of both stopping and continuing the act. Jin bucked his hips and managed to jerk violently from the wire in his attempt to reach the small cubic device but instead of grabbing it he managed to make it drop off the table and hit the ground.
The fucking little chirper still just wouldn’t go off. He let out a frustrated roar and wrapped his arms around Kai’s lower back, rising to meet her lips again.
“Just ignore it. Come on, let it go. It’s not going to be that long anymore,” he panted and pressed a convincingly sloppy kiss on her neck. Seriously, if she was going to just ditch him there he was going to… well, he didn’t exactly know what, but something bad was bound to happen. He could be such a bitchy kid when something sweet was forcibly taken away from him.
She pressed him harshly back against the mattress and smirked the smirk Jin had come to find one of her most thrilling features. A wide smile spread on his lips and his heart started drumming just a bit faster in anticipation.
After that it was just throaty wails and pleasuring waves. And he really, really liked it that way.
She got up straight after and rushed to make it to the shower as Jin decided to just stay lying on the bed with his eyes closed and a content smile on his lips. One of the pros that definitely hit off a huge amount of the cons of having a girlfriend was having someone there for him in the early hours of the morning. There had always just been something about the mornings for him. Probably the hazy yet gentle state of mind and actual emotions before all the thinking.
The piercing sound of the alarm clock was disturbing him from his slumber, though. He groaned, sat up and fished the little device in his hand with the use of the wire, tampered with the buttons as his routines had taught him and dropped it uncaringly back to the floor. It wasn’t like it would’ve been his anyway.
He let out a deep exhale as he grabbed some napkins to tidy himself up with before putting on some fresh boxers, slippers and a robe. He trailed with wobbly knees to the kitchen where he quickly flicked on the power button of his laptop and continued over to the counter in an attempt to prepare some coffee.
Kai, prominently more of a morning person than he was, walked back to the kitchen. She was rubbing her short, dark hair dry with a simple beige towel as she laid her hand gently on his shoulder and claimed a brief peck before he went back to the counters and searched for at least a couple of cleansed mugs.
“How is the book going?” she chattered after glancing at his laptop, fetching a slice of bread for herself, knowing he didn’t have an appetite right after waking up. Jin leaned against the counter and shrugged.
“Fine,” he muttered and cursed at the coffee maker’s questionable speed. A headache was quickly forming and pulsating at the back of his head and if you asked him, he wasn’t one for full-blast caffeine withdrawals. Not if there was any way to avoid it.
Kai took a bite of her bread and rolled her eyes.
Here we go again.
“What?” he asked and motioned at the laptop. “A book is a book and it’s fine, thank you for asking. That’s it.”
“Just whatever,” she answered reluctantly and rose on her legs. “I really don’t feel like having a fight over such a stupid little thing once again.”
“Me either, you’re the one rolling the eyes in here,” the smartass words slipped from Jin’s lips. He rolled his own eyes and crossed his arms. “If my book is fine then it is fine, why do you have to get so pissed off about it?”
He never could hold his tongue in threatening situations. If someone was going to get put down, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. Ever.
“I said I don’t want to fight so don’t get so defensive about it, Jin. Just drop it,” she argued with a strained voice. Jin knew she meant well, he really did. It was him, who was the beast after all, but still the entire blame couldn’t be put on him - relationships consisted of working mutualism. Sometimes things just changed.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her ever because he had. Greatly so.
He looked away in frustration and felt his shoulders rising defensively. Survival mechanisms.
What a bitchy kid he was.
“Why don’t you just drop it?” he insisted coldly. “Don’t start with this shit first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll buy coffee on the way. See you for lunch,” she stopped him and slipped her coat on, fastening the belt with skilled and slim female fingers. “Have fun in your fictive shell.”
Jin merely muttered something as she walked out on him. He pursed his lips and poured himself a cup of brewed black coffee, sat on his chair and clicked a Microsoft Word Document open.
He stopped to wonder when things had become so strained and unhappy, when life had changed them so much. When it was that the love between them was drained.
Different worlds were the active culprits, most likely. He wasn’t really a loner of a writer to be exact, but maybe he just never truly conquered the skill of teamwork. Most likely not. He rather went with individual benefits to get by.
Not when he was in genuine love, though. Or with people he never wanted to let go of. Those were always the number ones in his world, always the ones he wanted to care and sacrifice himself for.
The realisation about the end of something so beautiful and sacred in his world was always a big and sorrowful shock. He wished he could stop the cycle but it kept repeating itself over and over again. Maybe it took years, maybe months. He wondered if there was something to end it with.
Well, at least now for once the feeling did seem to be mutual. Fixing it just wasn’t going well. Maybe he should consider giving up.
Not just yet, though. He didn’t want to let go of the illusion yet. He didn’t want to deny the feelings he used to harbour.
He took a long, bitter sip of his coffee, set the mug on the table and started finishing with his latest fictional downpour. Foolish, silly romance novels felt a bit out of his world right now. Great for some escapism.
Maybe he just fell in love with his heroine instead of Kai, he stopped to wonder briefly.
…Where the hell were those thoughts coming from anyway? He rolled his eyes. No, it certainly wasn’t so. The love he felt for her was channelled from the hero’s emotions. It wasn’t his girl and thus there was no way he would’ve been in genuine love with her.
End of the story.
How ridiculous it was to be an emotional writer? Well, what life gives you take, he figured.
He did love the formation of words on his document, though. The flow, the dance, black appearing on white. How the lines just expanded and everything lived around him in a spur of colours, sounds and sensations. It was a physical and psychological disorientation. It wasn’t something he forced out. It came out.
Now, he was telling the story of a street guitarist Eito and the daughter of a popular clothing company, Nozomi. They were speaking through him in words of broken voices and raw fingertips yet gentle caresses and melodies.
All he had to do was see, feel and keep his fingers running on the worn, sleek keyboard of his companion, the graduation present laptop from his mother and father.
There were so many different levels where one could experience things. Everyday life constructed perfect pages with strikingly real emotions.
People just failed to see it and forgot the possibilities that were always there, right around them. Perfection wasn’t ever what he was after. It didn’t exist and, for him, it didn’t really even have to exist.
He pushed the key typing the last dot maybe a little too exaggeratingly and let out a heavy heave. A weight was off his chest. He could breathe again.
A long labour of a story was gone. It was born now.
He smiled and printed the missing pages, added them to his filer and spent the next five minutes rummaging through his apartment in search for his mobile phone and hunting down for the pile of washed shirts since he wasn’t quite sure where he had last left them. He kicked his slippers from his feet as he sat down on the edge of the bed and started pulling his black dress-pants on.
Being messy did have its downsides.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Oh how he disliked annoying noises that had a habit of being continuous and repetitive.
Answer. He didn’t bother listening to polite introductions.
“Shige, I’ve got the shit ready. I’ll come over now so make sure you’ve got some time for me, okay?” he chattered to the phone as he placed the filer in his briefcase, put his laptop to sleep and started searching for a formal-enough coat. “Love you.”
“A nice warning at least a week beforehand would’ve been brilliant,” Shige complained from the other end and Jin chuckled silently to himself as he imagined him scratching the stress-inflicted rash on his sweaty neck. It was nice to go poking around with it. “I can’t expect anything that requires normal protocol from you. But yeah, stop by, I’m drowning in these piles of shit people keep giving me. What a waste of paper.”
“Don’t go environmental on me,” Jin laughed as he settled with a simple black trench coat over his shirt jacket and started struggling in dressing himself and squishing the phone between his ear and shoulder. It was great to have an agent he could freely chat around with. Many probably weren’t as lucky. “I’m a writer. I want forests to die for books.”
“Ouch,” Shige hissed. “I’d rather keep the trees alive if it meant I’d have less shit to go through here. Go green.”
“Just be ready for me and my anti-green papers,” Jin cut his speech loudly and pulled his shoes on. “I’ll be right there.”
“I only put up with you for the profits.”
“Sure you do,” Jin muttered as he cut the call and slipped the mobile phone in his pants’ pocket. He ran his fingers through his hair to force it into at least a somewhat presentable shape as he opened the door and was greeted with a wide grin and two carton cups of Starbucks’ espresso.
He buried his face in his hands and groaned in discontentment.
“Why is it that when I don’t feel like socialising everyone just keeps butting in?”
“Shut up and drink your coffee. It should be strong enough,” Pi ignored his complaints, took his hand and forced the cup in his hands before pulling him out and closing the door behind him. “Yuuka threw me out again. So much for being gentle. Your friend needs a shoulder to cry on so bow down and succumb.”
Jin started rapidly walking down the stairs of the apartment block. Pi had a tendency of being annoying and clingy. No wonder his girlfriends grew tired of him. He knew through personal experiment that he did.
“Wait wait wait wait wait!” Pi objected and started prancing down the stairs, flapping his hands like a mad bird. “Wait. I’m coming with you. Stop being so boring! You’re going to need me one day too and I assume you’ve had some girl-issues yourself. It’s written all over your bitchy face. So let’s share and whine, shall we?”
“Nothing’s changing,” Jin complied and pursed his lips as Yamapi reached him and slowed down to walk side by side with him. “We just argue. The time we aren’t having sex we argue. It’s frustrating. It’s like a wake up call.”
“Yuuka says I’m not mature enough. Apparently I don’t appear to be serious about her. How can I be serious when she keeps pushing me away?” Pi argued his own case. “Women. Who gets them?”
“I don’t,” Jin sighed. “…I just wonder how relationships change. How once you can be so close and you’re so sure about things and the next moment you realise you just don’t bring out the best in each other out anymore.”
“You sound like a girl,” Yamapi noted. “A gossiping girl. One could assume you’re perfect at understanding them.”
“You started the gossiping,” Jin objected and shoved his friend against the wall as he stepped out the front doors to the cool city streets. He stopped for a while to inhale the scent of gas and pollution before Pi jumped on his back so that he almost dropped his coffee but managed to hold onto it dearly with an accompanying wail.
“You really aren’t mature,” Jin shot at his friend as he shoved him off. “I’m going to the publisher. You better not embarrass me before the building.”
“Stop being so serious already. You weren’t always this serious. Where’s the child I used to play around with?” Pi snorted. “I miss your smiles. They’re rare now.”
“Maybe I just grew up? Yuuka would like you to grow up too,” Jin noted and took a long sip from his coffee. Strong espresso. Now, finally, that indicated a good morning.
“It didn’t save your relationship either, I think I won’t bother. I don’t want to become as boring as you. Plus I’m positive that you don’t really want me to change,” he smiled at him and cast away the lid from his coffee cup. “She should love me for who I am. She knew what she started going out with.”
Jin shrugged in an agreeing manner and ruffled Pi’s hair absent-mindedly. Pi really did look down.
“I want to fix us, though,” Pi wondered aloud as they forced their way past the masses of people on the streets. “I really like her. I don’t understand why it’s so hard.”
“She’s hot-headed. You let her dominate the relationship. It doesn’t work for you and you’re not proving her the existence of your already questionable testosterone levels,” Jin noted indifferently. “We’re both just waiting for a break up, aren’t we?”
“I wonder if I should just give up,” Pi sighed. “What can I do? Maybe we just really aren’t suited for each other.”
“This is as far as you will go,” Jin stated as he made an abrupt stop and turned to his friend with an encouraging smile on his face. “Just run back to her and try. If it doesn’t work out then it just doesn’t. You can’t force it to work out. But you can make an effort.”
Pi drew in a long breath and nodded hesitantly. “…I guess you’re right. I should be running back.”
Jin waved his hand and turned around with a heavy heave.
It was all people could really think about. Relationships. It was a mantra that went on and on for nearly 24 hours per day and the end was nowhere in sight. Love was a universal language and occurring that brought people from all over the world together as one.
It’s just that maybe it would’ve been a bit less tiring if everything really wasn’t about love for such a big time of his life. Maybe he should’ve gone for a different kind of profession than an everyday romance novelist. Or not.
He stepped through the flashy glass doors to the skyscraper and after politely nodding for a few security guards and receptionists he headed for the lifts on the right. He had just stepped in when something bumped into him violently from the behind.
“I never asked you, how is your book? Do you have it with you? Can you read it for me?” Pi’s chirpy voice echoed in the small space as he pushed the button to the floor of the publisher’s office. “Is it yet another boring real-life thing?”
“I don’t do fantasy or science fiction,” Jin groaned and tried to shake his friend off. “I’ve never done it and I never will, I don’t see the point. It just doesn’t happen. I don’t feel like telling fairytales, I want to actually touch people. Give them something they can relate to.”
“Don’t you believe in anything out of this world?” Pi questioned him with a hurt expression. “You do know that ghost in Tegoshi’s place? The one that always freaks him out? He’s moving out this month, by the way.”
“Why would I care about Tegoshi,” Jin rolled his eyes. “He’s a wimp.”
“Not my point,” Pi interjected smartly and walked out backwards from the lift as they arrived on the right floor and the metal doors slid open. “The point was do you believe in ghosts? You know, this entire science and religion stuff both sound pretty lacking for me. But if when you die your soul is released and there exists something like a fourth dimension that has something to do with time and that could explain a lot about ghosts, their appearances and functions!”
“Horror stories~” Jin clicked his tongue and patted his friend’s shoulder. “If you prove it to me I can think it over. Not that I think you ever can because there are no such things as ghosts. You guys have fun with it.”
“Honestly you’re just a scared wimp yourself,” Pi chuckled to himself and leaned in closer, face threateningly close and fingers pinching Jin’s cheeks as an annoyingly smug expression spread all over his face. “Right, Jin-chan?”
Jin almost fell over as he tried to back away and shrug his friend off. Sometimes he really wondered how he managed to put up with it all.
Well, Pi had been his best friend since childhood. It was him who had changed. It felt good that at least someone could be so steady through life. Yuuka really should’ve appreciated it. Pi was warm and genuine and it was way more than what could’ve been said about many other men out there to just hunt some trunk.
“Shut up…” he muttered as he slipped away and ran off with his briefcase. “Go home, you freak!”
“Yesss!” Pi yelled after him, not sounding the slightest bit of embarrassed or hurt. “Good job with the book! I’m sure it’ll be just as boring as the previous ones!”
Well, Pi’s taste for literature was limited and mostly consisted of the literature versions of Star Wars and whatnot. Not a part of his focus group.
--
He smiled as he pushed inside Shige’s office with a hint of a smile still on his face. Shige immediately tossed the papers he had currently been reading to the trash can. It was bound to overflow within an hour.
“You have a very annoying new receptionist,” Jin informed him with a light yet displeased voice. “She kept stalling me, insisting that I did not have an appointment with Shige-san and thus couldn’t come in. Didn’t you tell her I was coming over, Shige dear?”
He walked in slowly and teasingly, throwing his head back and biting his lip. Just for the heck of it.
It was great having such a light atmosphere with the agent.
“I’m sorry sweetie, I must be cheating on you,” Shige answered, his lashes fluttering and lips pursed. “Now, sit down. Let’s have a talk before I turn to the editor. Slam it on the table. You’re making my fingers itch.”
“You desperate romantic,” Jin smirked as he put his briefcase on the simple wooden chair and pulled the black filer out, offering it to the anticipant man. “There. The last chapter. Be pleased and put it on the bookstore shelves.”
“Will do, just give me some months,” Shige nodded. “I’ll get it done. Now, sit down. Let’s talk about your contract.”
“Do I have to renew it?” Jin complained. “Can’t you just do it for me?”
“Sit,” Shige said, his voice more serious and professional all of sudden. “There are some things I really need to discuss with you.”
Jin sighed and crashed unsurely on the chair, leaning back with his arms and legs both crossed. He really hated the feeling of a conflict in the air. The day was running threateningly high on the bad atmosphere straight from the morning.
He fiddled with the tablecloth nervously and felt his shoulders tense, waiting for the impact.
“The company’s not doing so great,” Shige reluctantly admitted. “We need to lay off some writers. You’re under the threat.”
“WHAT?” Jin complained loudly and dashed forwards on his seat. “Why me? My books sell, that’s not fair!”
“We’d just like you to show some… change and improvement, so to say,” Shige kept up his calm mannerism and bowed his head politely. “It’s not that your books are bad, they just lack some versatility. It’s a threat in the business. People will soon grow tired and we’re the ones who are losing money here.”
Jin snorted and looked away rebelliously.
“These people are from entirely different worlds and social statuses. The previous ones were ex-classmates with a lot of conflicts in the past and present. The ones before those just simply ran into each other. Are you telling me I’m not versatile? I’m a romantic novelist. That’s what I write.”
“Just… consider… broadening your horizons,” Shige urged him, selecting his words carefully. “Your contract will run out in a year. You have time for one more book to show us something new.”
“I’m leaving,” Jin declared as he rose on his feet, grabbing and closing his briefcase again. “Thank you for your time, Shige-san.”
Professional. Cold. If he was hurt then he sure as hell was going to show it, simple as that.
He walked out of the cosy office and Shige’s concerned stare. A sigh rose from his throat as he peered out of the windows he walked by. The smallest kind of rain droplets were colliding with the window and the sky was like a sad and grey watercolour painting.
It just felt like everything was going to go downhill that day.
It would’ve been nice to smile for a while without any intrusions. At least every once in a while.
Clear umbrellas were hardly any comfort and streets filled with people not quite there and in a bad mood always left him feeling solitary.
--
Kai was exceptionally quiet that afternoon as they sat with the table between them serving as a distance provider and after some rather reluctant tries of small talk he simply left it as it was. It didn’t feel right.
“…Do you want a prawn?” he tried to ask politely and offered Kai one with his chopsticks. Hesitantly. Coffee wasn’t supposed to be cold, yet Kai was. Cold and unpleasant. It made him feel like a child surrounded by heavy silence.
Kai wiped her lips with her napkin and swallowed her rice slowly. Jin had never been able to read her mind, but if there was something he had learned it was that when Kai thought about something that apathetically it was going to prove to be something greatly upsetting. Her eyes trailed the small hall and chattering people around them. Jin felt distance.
“…Alright. Not then,” he withdrew awkwardly and set his chopsticks down. He hadn’t really had an appetite right from the beginning and, judging by Kai’s plate, she hadn’t either.
“What do you think of us, Jin?” she managed to open her pretty plump lips, eyes finally finding his and it felt like she was closing up even more like an old treasure chest, once so shiny and all his.
Jin sniffed and shrugged. She didn’t even look surprised.
“I just think it isn’t what it used to be anymore,” he finally felt the words repeated so many times in his head run out to the open. “I just can’t… I can’t feel it. I do feel something. But I don’t really know.”
She nodded and shied away, entirely a different person than what she was when they first met. Still, he couldn’t say she had exactly changed as a person. The change had only happened between them. Between their interaction and feelings.
She did carry feelings for him but, like his, they were tainted and ready to be finally discarded. Only winter-flowers made it through the snow and frost. Maybe they weren’t like a winter-flower after all.
“I think we loved each other,” she finally said and smiled sadly at him. “I think we really did.”
“Me too,” Jin agreed and felt a nasty sting somewhere in his chest. Alright, now his feelings were catching up with him. It felt lonely and tight.
She hadn’t looked quite so beautiful in months. And he knew exactly why she looked so beautiful right now.
“We’re breaking up,” he voiced out what had crossed both of their minds countless times. “This is our last lunch together, isn’t it?”
She smiled a bit and nodded. Her eyes were left sorrowful, though.
Breaking up was always the hardest part.
“It’s only going to get better for us from now on,” Jin kept on talking, the words just slipping out of his mouth. He had a habit of talking through silent and anxious situations. When everything changed. She nodded in agreement. Jin bit his lip and drew in an anxious breath.
“Can we stay as friends?” he tried. “Or something.”
A painful grimace took over her facial features and Jin knew the indecent try was worth nothing at all. He found it in himself to bring a soft smile on his face. “Ah. I understand.”
“It’s useless,” she nodded with an apologetic smile on her face. “There just isn’t anything really between us anymore and our social circles are different. And after all the feelings I used to have… I don’t think I can continue with just being friends anymore either.”
Jin understood. If he was honest with himself, he knew he felt the same.
He rose on his feet and started fishing for his wallet from his pocket. Kai looked up at him concernedly.
“Aren’t you going to stay and finish?” she stuttered a bit. Jin merely shook his head, handed her the bill for the entire meal and forced a convincing smile on his face.
For the first time in a long time it actually was warm.
“Good luck,” he wished and bowed politely. How odd it felt to bow to Kai. It had been so long. “…Take care.”
“You too,” she smiled sadly and nodded to him. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“…Mm,” Jin grinned and pulled his coat on. “…Thanks for you too. It was nice while it lasted.”
Leaving a person once important behind in one’s life was probably one of the most difficult and ground-shaking things he ever had to experience. But at least there was something to smile about in this particular case.
They had parted with good regards unlike the last months of their relationship.
He only cried when he reached the rain outside the glass doors.
He didn’t bother with an umbrella as he walked into the early winter downpour.
--
Pi’s apartment’s warmth flooded over him as the said owner of the house opened the door with a dumbfounded look plastered on his face. He must’ve really looked like a wet and kicked puppy just then.
“Come on in,” he quickly offered and moved out of the way, letting him stumble to the narrow hallway. The chills still made his bluish lips tremble as he kicked his shoes off and dripped water to the ground.
“Oh god, just take it off,” Pi grimaced. “But not everything. I have Yuuka over. You are not showing your junk in front of her or I’m going to kill you.”
“It isn’t funny, Pi,” Jin wailed and threw his coat, jacket and shirt to the ground. Fuck one ruined jacket. He could be a jobless beggar within a year anyway, suits were more trouble than use in that state.
“I’ll go get a towel,” Pi offered concernedly and rushed away. Jin figured he could just as well walk in and invade his friend’s living room couch. The girl could go. It wasn’t as if she would’ve been there to stay for much long anyway either.
He had been hoping she would’ve been in the bedroom or something (or maybe not - he really wouldn’t have wanted to run into that) but there she was, eyeing him curiously with her eyes. Not an entirely nice look. No, actually not even that. She just really wasn’t fond of him.
“What?” he started picking up a fight and walked over to her. “Make space.”
She withdrew her legs and Jin crashed into the couch, starting to pull his pants off. Yuuka covered her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she blabbered in shock. Jin rolled his eyes reluctantly.
“I’m trying not to ruin your boyfriend’s couch, that’s what I’m doing,” he complained. “You could show a little more heart to someone in distress.”
“And you could talk a little more politely to my girlfriend,” Pi cut in and threw the towel at him. “There, dry yourself. And put these on,” he continued and placed a pair of baggy college sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt on the armrest. “Now, make space.”
He squished between the two of them as Jin pulled on the sweatpants. What a barricade.
Jin decided it was time to claim something his. He wasn’t about to share. Not right now.
“…She’s gone now,” he sniffed and buried his face in his friend’s shoulder. “Kai. We broke up. I want to do something with just us guys.”
He felt Pi turning to glance at Yuuka briefly. She wasn’t saying anything but he could very well imagine the glare she was giving him. No.
Instead, he couldn’t have been more surprised to hear actually a rather soft and concerned tone in her voice as she told Pi gently that she was going to the bedroom to read some of his manga so they could have privacy for a while. He raised his head and looked at her as she left the room, nodding politely and unsurely at him from the doorframe.
“She’s not as bad as you think,” Pi told him as he leaned against him, stroking his wet hair. “She really is nice. When she is.”
Jin sniffed and nodded as he wrapped his arms around his friend. Pi hugged him back and rubbed his back.
“Alright. Are you alright?” he asked softly. Jin nodded.
“…It’s not that I’m upset that she’s gone,” he spoke slowly, trying to figure his own thoughts out. Speaking about them helped. He had difficulties understanding the hurl if he stayed silent. “I just… dislike breaking up. We used to be close. It’s not nice realising that it isn’t so and isn’t going to be so anymore.”
“I know,” Pi smiled at him. “Get yourself together. Sleep over it and go to group dates. Single life can be fun.”
Jin nodded and ran his fingers through his hair in order to pull the soaked fringe back. It was already getting fast dark outside. The city lights were whispering quiet melodies like triangle echoes.
“Sometimes I hate what the world is,” he told his friend quietly, exhaling heavily in an attempt to rid himself of the weights on his shoulders. “There’s nothing groundbreaking for me to know and experience anymore. Everything I like changes but still the world is dully the same.”
“Don’t be so negative,” Pi scolded him with a smile on his lips. “You can’t know it. Tomorrow could already be entirely different. Maybe you should visit Tegoshi and get on the bottom of that ghost issue of his.”
He laughed. Genuinely.
“You’re a great friend,” he told his best friend with a smile as he withdrew. “Don’t you ever dare to change, Pi.”
“Don’t you dare to pressure me,” Pi smirked back. “Of course I’ll change. But I’ll try to stay positive for you. There’s enough negativity in you for an entire block of people.”
“Jerk,” Jin accused and shoved his friend, pursing his lips. “No there isn’t!”
Pi ruffled his hair. He enjoyed the touch and hugged him again.
“I’ll be going home now,” he declared as he stood up. “I’ll be borrowing these clothes. You can put mine to dry, I’ll pick them up some other time. Thank you. I feel much better now.”
“No problem,” Pi smiled and high-fived him. “If I won’t hear from you I’m dropping the clothes off myself. But wait,” he interjected and ran to the kitchen. He came back having fetched his car keys he shook right before his face. “Drive safely, JinJin. Stay dry.”
Jin kicked him as he walked off and enjoyed the wail behind him. Such exaggeration. And it wasn’t even raining that much anymore.
“I’m off!” he yelled loudly so Yuuka could hear him too. …Maybe she wasn’t quite that bad after all. “See you later, Pink Ranger!”
He ran out of the house laughing.
--
What worked for burning heartache and sadly low self-esteem after a rather nasty (or in this case actually a pretty smooth) break up?
Love songs. Happy voices melding together in a thrilling swirl of notes and varying frequencies. God it felt good.
He drummed the wheel as he drove through the relatively empty streets. He didn’t exactly live in the centre of Tokyo - his apartment was in one of the biggest apartment buildings standing in the outer areas with less public buildings and more ordinary homes. He had just managed to avoid the awful traffic of people returning from work and was driving through almost abandoned streets feeling pure bliss.
There almost never was that certain kind of privacy in a metropolis.
He was just hitting the chorus of the song full blast (and with his lung power, it really was full blast) when he noticed something dashing under the streetlights only a little ahead, headed… right towards the road?
“Motherfuck-” he managed to exclaim in panic with stumbling English as he hit the breaks, listened to the maddening screech and the awful thump as the person (oh holy shit, it was a person) was hit by the front of the car and he disappeared out of sight, presumably falling to the ground. It all happened way too fast for his liking.
He would’ve liked to say it became dead quiet afterwards but that was not the case. The blood on his veins and every single cell in his body froze, he could swear, but it most certainly wasn’t quiet. Not with the radio.
He had just run over a person. With a car. And the said car was blasting the horror out to everyone.
He managed to get his violently trembling arms moving, turned off the radio and stumbled out of the car with his barely-awakened legs. Surreal. Everything was surreal and somewhere out there. Shock, he concluded. It just had to be shock. He was experiencing shock. Him.
Breathing. Oh god, the person was alive too!?
He wailed and ran to the man’s side. At least he wasn’t under the wheels or anything, just curled up on the ground, gritting his teeth and shaking in pain, clad in a thin leather jacket and a ripped pair of jeans. The suppressed growls of agony were alarming.
“Are you hurt?” he managed to stutter stupidly. What did he fucking think, he just drove over the man! “Do I need to call the-”
“No,” the man gasped and rolled on his back, eyes shut and brow furrowed in pain as he held his right wrist tightly. “No, I’m okay. Just fine. Don’t bother calling anyone. Oh fucking hell.”
Not quite so convincing. He kneeled down beside the man and tried to remove his healthy hand from his obviously pained wrist.
“Ouch. Ouch,” the man wailed a bit and gritted his teeth together, exhaling deeply to calm himself down. “I’m positive it isn’t broken but I think I might’ve sprained it. You wouldn’t happen to have anything cold on you, do you?”
“Ah. Yeah. Sure,” Jin stuttered and cursed to the deepest pits of hell his lagging brains. His thoughts were running way too slowly. It made him feel unintelligent. He could now honestly say that he was ready to be officially a shock state hater. “I’ll be right back. Just wait here, alright?”
“I’ll try not to go anywhere,” the man grimaced with his voice dripping sarcasm and closed his eyes again, his skin slightly damp and waxy as Jin hurried to the trunk of his car in order to fetch a first aid kit.
“I’ll fix it,” he offered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to run over you, this is completely my fault. It’s just that it was really dark and you just came out of nowhere, haven’t you ever heard of a reflector?!”
“Sorry,” the man groaned through his strained lips. “I really am. I lost track of where I was going. I should be more careful.”
Jin wrapped a cold gel bag around the man’s wrist concernedly. His day really had sucked exceptionally much. It was getting ridiculous. He was kind of afraid more bad stuff was coming his way. He wasn’t usually quite that unlucky.
The man sniffed and wiped his runny nose, seemingly apologetic. The pain seemed to be subsiding. What a relief. So he didn’t hit him badly. At least he hoped so.
Some lone cars passed them by but none bothered to stop. Maybe it was alright that way. They didn’t seem badly hurt, did they? The young man was already sitting up at least.
He started wrapping bandage tightly around the man’s wrist, trying to keep it from swelling too much. Even he knew some bits of first aid. He hoped.
“I tried to protect myself by instinct,” the said man tried to offer an explanation. “Slammed my hands on the car. I guess this one twisted a bit badly but otherwise I think it’s just cuts and bruises. Don’t feel bad. You look like you’re on a guilt trip.”
“You look messy,” the words slipped from his mouth. He really wasn’t good at keeping his thoughts to himself. Oh fuck damn it. “And malnourished.” As if that had anything to do with him driving over him.
The man looked at him, his widened eyes filled with odd wonder. The look didn’t last for long before it hardened to a calculative one and he glanced around, fidgeting nervously where he sat.
Jin started feeling awkward.
“Can I drive you home?” he tried to offer. He hoped he was going to be lawsuit free even a few months from now. The man grimaced and shook his head. Jin resulted to pouting. “Why? I can drive. I really can.”
“I’m pretty much just wandering around,” the man admitted reluctantly. “I’m not staying anywhere so I don’t really need a ride.”
Quite fast-paced wandering the man did, sure. Jin pulled him to his legs and grabbed the first aid kit from the ground.
“In the car,” he ordered. “You can’t sleep out here. As if it isn’t bad enough already that you’re hanging all alone the streets in the middle of the night, you have that sprained wrist now too. You’re coming over,” he declared and offered his right hand. “Akanishi Jin.”
The man was still fidgeting and checking the surroundings like out of a paranoid habit before nodding stiffly and politely, eyes wary as he looked up at him, slightly shorter than himself. But he was probably above the average height of a Japanese person. The man seemed to be too.
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” he introduced himself as he bowed to pick up his back bag with his healthy hand. “I’d shake your hand but unfortunately my right hand isn’t quite in shape for some harsh twisting, if you understand.”
He just shoved Kamenashi from his back towards the car. One night of actually doing a decent deed out of pure good will couldn’t hurt. And he owed it to the man anyway after almost running over him. No, scratch that, running over him. Simply put.
Kamenashi slipped an oval-shaped onyx pendant that hung in a long silver chain back under his simple white shirt almost as if guarding it. Jin couldn’t quite put his hand onto it but somehow there was the feeling that he was from another world entirely.
In the end, all Jin could really fixate on in his disorganized state of mind was the blinking and swarming city lights that formed a sea world around him and lulled him down from his adrenaline high with sweet little lullabies.
Kamenashi sat besides him and looked silently out of the window with dark bags under his thin eyes, pressing the cold gel bag on his sprained wrist.