birthday bandwagon gift #1
Title: Spa Treatment
Pairing: NaKame
Genre: FWP
Word Count: 3.4k
Rating: G
Warnings: October 2013
A/N: A wish fulfillment for ladyc2 who requested something cute and sweet. <3 Inadvertently prompted by Joo (as always) and well, nakame being nakame . <3
Summary: The many ways in which Nakamaru takes care of KAT-TUN’s youngest.
ETA: Russian translation by leen1707 ♥
i.
It's not even 5am yet when the doorbell sounds and Nakamaru opens the door to find Kame.
"I'm here for my spa treatment."
No hello or good morning or I'm so sorry for waking you from your sleep, let me grovel at your feet my dear sweet, Nakamaru.
It's too early in the morning for anything to make sense.
"Are you sleeping?" Kame asks him when he's sneaked inside and Nakamaru wants to reply with a scathing I was but Kame is already moving towards his bedroom, sure steps telling him where to turn.
"Good. Let's sleep. Get me an extra pillow. I like the fluffy kind if you don't mind."
Nakamaru is about to ask him why he doesn't just sleep in his own king-sized bed but his own yawn cuts him off. Right. He can save the questions for when the sun is up and thinking doesn’t feel like wading through syrup.
Kame shucks out his jeans while Nakamaru finds him a pair of sweats. The hunt doesn’t take long and Kame pulls them on along with one of Nakamaru’s nicer t-shirts without his usual complaints.
Kame's toes are cold under the sheets and Nakamaru gives him more share of the blanket to warm him up, piling it over his shoulders until it bunches and Kame looks like a snuggly caterpillar. Kame smiles into his pillow, eyes shut and already halfway to dreamland after dragging Nakamaru out.
"I like you."
Nakamaru flicks the lamp switch off.
He knows that spa treatment is Kame-code for take care of me, please.
Nakamaru wakes up first. Kame’s phone is ringing.
A roll and a stretch and Nakamaru cancels the call.
He lies flat on his back again, trying to plan a strategy that will enable him to extract himself from under Kame’s leg with the least exertion. Kame’s breaths are long and deep and Nakamaru can feel them along his arm.
He doesn’t really want to get up just yet.
He allows himself ten more minutes.
Nakamaru has already flipped to the entertainment section of the newspaper by the time he hears his name being slurred out in a sleepy beckon. The coffee machine makes a burping sound and the brewing comes to a stop.
Just in time, Nakamaru thinks with a smile and flips to another page.
The soft sound of bare feet hitting the floorboards echoes through the apartment and steadily grows louder until it comes to a stop.
“It’s nine. You made me oversleep.”
Nakamaru notes how Kame still sounds tired. He should have pushed the meeting back even later.
“Where’s my phone?”
Nakamaru sets aside the newspaper and stands up, looking at Kame at last.
“Shut up,” Kame says before Nakamaru can snicker at the stray tufts of his bed hair. The neck of Nakamaru’s t-shirt has stretched so that it almost hangs off Kame’s shoulder. Nakamaru pulls it back up before he passes him by to get to the coffee machine.
“Your phone is on the counter.”
He pours Kame’s portion in a black mug and his own in a white. There’s no cream or sugar in Kame’s, just enough espresso to fuel a rocket.
“My manager called,” Kame notes out loud, scrolling through his missed calls.
Nakamaru shrugs. “Be there by noon.”
“I was supposed to be there by eight.”
Nakamaru goes to the fridge to bring out the eggs.
“Tell them your car had tire problems.” When there’s no response, Nakamaru hesitates, and then recalls how fast Kame had forfeited to sleep, eyes fluttering shut the instant his head touched Nakamaru’s extra fluffy pillow.
Briskly, he cracks an egg into a bowl and then another.
“Tell them I dropped your phone into the toilette.”
There’s still no response. Nakamaru opens and closes a drawer, opens and closes another. Stupid misplaced whisk.
Nakamaru feels Kame’s sleep-warmed heat before he feels the arms closing around his waist, a head leaning against the back of his shoulder.
“Thank you,” Kame mumbles.
Nakamaru stills. He sees the whisk peeking underneath the spatula.
“Go put your slippers on,” he replies as flat as he can, “your feet will get cold.”
“Thank you,” Kame says again and doesn’t let go.
ii.
On the day his role in the movie is confirmed, Kame gives him a call.
“I can’t sleep.” Kame’s voice is breathy, his words choppy and fast and Nakamaru can see him fidgeting with his hair, the collar of his shirt, anything he can get a hand on.
“It’s midnight. Way too early to be your bedtime.”
That makes Kame laugh in his ear.
“You’re such a mother, Nakamaru.”
Nakamaru. Nakamaru snorts.
“Say that the next time you invite yourself over to my bed.”
Another laugh, higher in pitch this time. He imagines Kame pacing, rearranging things that don’t need to be rearranged. The smile is evident and Nakamaru imagines it being bright enough to light up Tokyo Dome on its own.
“I need to do something.”
“What?”
A pent-up sigh, Kame probably running a rough hand through his hair.
“Something. Are you… are you busy?”
Nakamaru had just changed into his pyjamas. He’s sitting in bed with an open war novella by his side. He’s on the chapter where the hero arrives home at last, only to find that the world has moved on without him.
He’s warm and cozy and he wouldn’t be tempted to get up even if someone slipped a million dollar check under his door.
“Not particularly, no.”
The playground is deserted at this time of night and Nakamaru finds it the safest place to take a drunk-out-of-his-mind-with-excitement Kame out for a walk. Kame skips ahead of him, his arms swinging by his sides, and when he turns around abruptly, the soft glow from the nearby street lamps hugs him like stage lights.
“Let’s play tag!” he announces like it’s a brilliant idea for two adult men to run around a playground sized for toddlers. A hand plants on the dead center of his chest before Nakamaru has any say in it. “You’re it!”
And Kame’s off, running up the slide in three strides and waving cheekily at Nakamaru like he’s managed to climb the tallest spire of the tallest castle.
Nakamaru gives him a deeply unimpressed look from below and when he thinks Kame has let his guard down, he makes his move.
Kame let’s out yelp that’s more of an outraged squeal than anything and Nakamaru doubles over, laughing and laughing.
“Shoes don’t count!” Kame insists.
“Since when?” Nakamaru shouts back through a smile that won’t go away.
“Since always!”
He watches the giant pompom on the tip of Kame’s tuque bounce as he runs across the playground bridge to the other side. Nakamaru counts to five before he gives chase.
They’re exhausted within half an hour and the game ends when Nakamaru catches Kame on the monkey bars; even with Kame’s hands fully gripping the bars, his feet hadn’t lifted off the ground. It was probably the first time Kame looked too tall.
Kame pulls off his tuque, his hair plastered to his forehead. Nakamaru feels the sweat dampen his own as well.
“I don’t know how kids do it,” Kame says, eyes childishly wide. “My niece and nephew can go on for hours.”
Nakamaru shrugs. “Being a kid is harder than it looks.”
It’s nearing 2am and Kame insists they can’t leave without a go at the swings.
“Push me?” Kame sends him an imploring look that Nakamaru can’t decline, not under that ridiculous pompom at least. “Make me fly, Yucchi.”
The sky is a dark, velvet blue, the stars hidden by the city lights. From where Nakamaru stands, it looks like Kame is plunging into it again and again, each time with a shout that’s all innocence and wonder.
When the swing slows to a stop, Nakamaru walks around so that he’s facing Kame. He stretches out a hand to fix Kame’s tuque before it can slide off the back of his head.
“So, have you let it all out?”
Kame nods his head and then grins uncontrollably.
“I’m going to be a spy, Yucchi,” he whispers into the night like the secret is too big for daylight to handle.
“Really? I hadn’t realised,” Nakamaru returns with a grin of his own and tugs Kame out of the swing by his hand. He frowns. “You should have brought gloves. Your hands are freezing.”
Kame gives an impish shrug. “That’s what pockets are for.”
Nakamaru thinks he should have expected it when Kame’s hand dives into the pocket of his coat.
“You planned this.”
Kame laughs, throaty and loud. “How was I supposed to know you’d wear something with pockets? I’m not a spy just yet.”
For a brief moment, Nakamaru wonders at how much they know about each other and just how much of that could be classified as confidential information.
Too much of it, certainly.
They walk zigzagged on the sidewalk, shoulders bumping and laughter colliding. Nakamaru feels intoxicated, like Kame has slipped something into the night air that makes Nakamaru inhale all too eagerly.
He has fun pulling to the side, changing directions spontaneously as Kame squawks and tips over and calls him names. His hand remains stubbornly fixed in Nakamaru’s coat pocket. It’s too dark for anyone to see, too late for anyone to be around.
“This was fun,” Kame says once they’ve neared the neighbourhood that houses Nakamaru’s apartment. Nakamaru doesn’t know if it was intentional, but they’ve stopped directly under the beam of a looming street lamp. The mothership arriving to teleport Kame away.
It feels like the climax of a story he doesn’t want to end just yet.
“It was.” Nakamaru turns to face him. “I beat you.”
Kame throws his head back with a laugh and then narrows his eyes at him playfully.
“You cheated. You’re a cheating cheater, Nakamaru Yuichi.” Kame’s voice softens around his name, syllables breathy and slow. His gaze is clear and bright, a twinkle from a fallen star flickering in his eyes. “You didn’t have to come, but you always do… Do you know what that means?”
Always. This is far from the first time Nakamaru has let himself be dragged out to calm Kame’s nerves, to help him come down safely from his high, but he’s never really kept count. He doesn’t see the point because it doesn’t really matter if it’s the fifth time or the tenth or the thirtieth-he knows he’ll be there the next time too.
He thinks he knows why.
“I’m the best at taking care of turtles.”
“The best, huh?” Kame questions and leans closer. Nakamaru stands impassively, the feeling coming back to his cold-numbed cheeks. He can feel the warm breath of Kame’s chuckle tickle his chapped lips before Kame moves back, looking impressed. “You sure are on a winning streak today.”
Nakamaru finally moves his eyes down from where he had them trained onto Kame’s forehead the second he got close.
“Cheater’s luck,” he replies with a smirk and gestures forward with his chin. “Let’s get going. I can’t feel my nose.”
Kame stays stubbornly put and pulls out his hand to hide it in his own pocket. The other one gives him a small wave.
“I should take a cab back to my place,” Kame says with an apologetic smile. “I’m not so jittery now but… I probably won’t be able to sleep. I’ll end up keeping you up the whole night.”
Nakamaru glances at his watch. 2:37 AM. There’s not much of the night left and Nakamaru won’t be able to sleep if he sends Kame away like this anyway. In the end, he’d rather stay up with Kame marathoning an anime series in his living room than stay up all alone with his worry.
Swiftly, he grabs Kame’s hand and stuffs it back into the pocket of his coat.
“We can think of something fun to do,” he says with a firm nod.
Kame gapes back at him for a long moment and Nakamaru wants to ask what now until Kame’s lips melts into a sly grin, his eyebrows lowering in a leer that’s all shameless suggestion.
“Why, Yucchi-”
Nakamaru tugs the tuque down over his eyes.
iii.
Kame doesn’t leave the room even when their last meeting as five is over. Nakamaru lingers beside him, shooing what’s left of KAT-TUN out the door with his eyes.
The room is thick with quiet and Kame keeps his eyes lowered, like he’s offering a silent moment for what once was and will never be again. The anger that Nakamaru had upended into the room earlier begins to simmer once more.
There’s a sound of a sharp breath, followed by more that are equally choppy. For being the one to call Koki out, Kame was uncannily quiet during their meeting. Nakamaru hadn’t hesitated to unleash the frustrations on his behalf.
It wasn’t enough though, Nakamaru knows, watching the tremors begin in Kame’s shoulders and tumble down his arms. The lag period is ending, Kame’s body catching up with the aftershocks. Nakamaru can sense Kame working himself up and doesn’t think it’s worth it, not when it’s all over.
Artlessly, he drops his hand into Kame’s lap. It sits there, palm down and unassuming. For a stretched moment, it sits there ignored until Kame’s own lands on top.
Nakamaru leans back in his seat as Kame’s fingers run over his hand. The touches are careful but bold, savouring the topography of Nakamaru’s hand, the texture of his skin, the shape of his fingernails. Minutes pass and Nakamaru hears the difference, the slowing of Kame’s breath.
Kame swipes a thumb over the bump of his knuckle.
“You won’t leave… right?”
You can’t, you aren’t allowed, I won’t let you. It’s easy to decipher.
Kame’s finger tentatively traces the outline of his pinky, skirting around an impossibility that feels possible in the aftermath-when it shouldn’t. Kame should never be made to feel this.
Another stroke across his knuckles makes the simmering disappear before it can reach a boil.
“Well, I’ve been here for six hours now… kind of pushing it.” There’s a laugh with an audible crack and Nakamaru weaves and locks their fingers together. “Don’t be stupid. I’ll always be here.”
The tension flows out of Kame in increments, slowly but surely. Nakamaru doesn’t know when he became such a good a shock absorber but he’s never been this thankful for it.
iv.
Nakamaru and Taguchi have both finished their seconds while Ueda is munching his way through his fifth. It doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Kame has barely eaten half of his first before he excuses himself to the bathroom, probably so that he can foot the bill on his own than to actually freshen up.
“Idiot,” Ueda mutters at his back and Nakamaru asks the waiter to wrap up Kame’s food to-go before Ueda can get at it.
“You didn’t have to-”
Nakamaru thrusts the to-go bag at him until Kame finally takes it.
“Take it home, put it in your fridge, and eat it when it’s not too late in the evening for you to worry about your weight.”
Kame peers at him through a face that’s slimmer than it was weeks ago.
“I think you worry more about it than I do.”
“I know you,” is all Nakamaru says and reminds himself that they’re seven years past Nobuta.
It’s not guilt, Nakamaru thinks. He just won’t let Kame be alone this time.
“You’re bony too,” Kame grumbles when Nakamaru has him cornered with a sweet bun from the Shuuichi staff. “You could use the calories more than I can.”
Kame pokes him on the tip of his nose and Nakamaru swats away at his distraction attempt.
“I’m always bony. You never said anything about it before.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been way worse and you’ve never said anything either,” Kame returns like a whiplash with no force or aim. They both still feel the sting of it and the wrapper crinkles loudly between them when Kame quickly grabs the bun. “I didn’t mean-I’m sorry. I’ll eat this. I promise. Just not right now.”
Kame’s ducked his head down, watching his own fingers play nervously with the plastic wrap.
It could be guilt, but it’s not. At least not all of it.
“Hey,” Nakamaru says and pokes at Kame’s cheek with a finger when his head lifts slowly. In the end, all he wants is for Kame to know that he’s being watched over, even if only in a fumbling, Nakamaru-esque way.
“You look great by the way. I mean it.”
The immediate smile pushes at his fingertip.
v.
“Where are you now?” Nakamaru asks when his phone rings. It’s been days since they’ve last spoken, weeks since they’ve been in the same room.
“Singapore.” The response comes through muffled and hazy.
Nakamaru leans back in the car seat as he’s driven to wherever his location shoot for Shuuichi is supposed to be. It’s a skateboard park, if he remembers correctly. He’s supposed to be hip and show the viewers how to do skateboard tricks.
Nakamaru would tell Kame if only he didn’t think that Kame might hurt himself from laughing.
“Where are you specifically?”
There are more muffled words that sound like the name of a fancy hotel and, “bed.”
Nakamaru turns his head to the side so that his smile can’t be seen from the rear-view mirror.
“All tired out from being a genius spy? How many people did you shoot today?”
“Three… I think. I got to take one down with my hands. It was great.” He sounds like he means it even though he’s falling asleep on the phone. Nakamaru can recognise the signs by now.
“Go to sleep or you’ll hate yourself later,” Nakamaru tells him as he watches the city roll past through the window. “You can rub your war film in my face later.”
“I like your face,” Kame mumbles. “I miss your face.”
Delirious sweet-talk, Nakamaru checks off. He knows Kame will be drifting away any time now.
“Sleep,” he says firmly.
“’s why I called you.” There’s a breathy sigh that sounds like ‘Yucchi dumb dumb’ but Kame laughs and corrects it as, “Keep talking, Yucchi.”
So Nakamaru talks. He talks about Choco and soccer and how switching laundry detergents has been his best decision of the week.
“My bed sheets smell like heaven,” Nakamaru says proudly.
There’s a sleep-drunk lisp that Nakamaru puts together as, “Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Do I need to?” Nakamaru returns and shifts the phone to his other ear before he continues the monotone playback of his day’s events, meal by meal. Kame listens silently for the most part and Nakamaru keeps an ear out for any soft snores.
Nakamaru is recommending a new fish market he came across that sells delicious squid when he hears an odd sound that’s followed by silence. He pauses.
“Kame…?” he ventures, though it’s likely Kame has already-there’s a drowsy laugh that spills like melted butter.
“Sorry. I thought you said-something else.”
“What?” Nakamaru asks, enjoying Kame’s state of sleepy bliss. He can imagine a rumpled head digging into a pillow, trying to hide a smile that peeps through nevertheless.
“That you love me.”
It’s like driving over a dozen speed bumps at 120km/hr. No brakes, no seat belt.
It’s like this every time.
Nakamaru doesn’t know what else it could be.
His eyes flicker to the driver and then return to the window. He hesitates but not long enough for Kame to fall asleep on his words.
“I could have said that.”
He hears a deep, happy breath that may as well be his own.
“Say it to me next time. When I’m back and more awake.”
“Okay,” he agrees easily when he knows it won’t be.
Or maybe it will.
Kame coming home to him is as natural as rolling out of bed in the morning to pour coffee for two. The black mug sits on the lower shelf of his kitchen cupboard, waiting along with the spare t-shirt and sweats that have a separate drawer of their own. His emergency turtle-care kit.
“You’re not allowed to stop,” Kame’s voice trickles through the phone and Nakamaru laughs an apology and continues telling Kame what he had for breakfast that morning. The gentle snores start soon after.
Nakamaru knows that ‘keep talking’ is Kame-code for be my lullaby.
*end
Pairing: NaKame
Genre: FWP
Word Count: 3.4k
Rating: G
Warnings: October 2013
A/N: A wish fulfillment for ladyc2 who requested something cute and sweet. <3 Inadvertently prompted by Joo (as always) and well, nakame being nakame . <3
Summary: The many ways in which Nakamaru takes care of KAT-TUN’s youngest.
ETA: Russian translation by leen1707 ♥
i.
It's not even 5am yet when the doorbell sounds and Nakamaru opens the door to find Kame.
"I'm here for my spa treatment."
No hello or good morning or I'm so sorry for waking you from your sleep, let me grovel at your feet my dear sweet, Nakamaru.
It's too early in the morning for anything to make sense.
"Are you sleeping?" Kame asks him when he's sneaked inside and Nakamaru wants to reply with a scathing I was but Kame is already moving towards his bedroom, sure steps telling him where to turn.
"Good. Let's sleep. Get me an extra pillow. I like the fluffy kind if you don't mind."
Nakamaru is about to ask him why he doesn't just sleep in his own king-sized bed but his own yawn cuts him off. Right. He can save the questions for when the sun is up and thinking doesn’t feel like wading through syrup.
Kame shucks out his jeans while Nakamaru finds him a pair of sweats. The hunt doesn’t take long and Kame pulls them on along with one of Nakamaru’s nicer t-shirts without his usual complaints.
Kame's toes are cold under the sheets and Nakamaru gives him more share of the blanket to warm him up, piling it over his shoulders until it bunches and Kame looks like a snuggly caterpillar. Kame smiles into his pillow, eyes shut and already halfway to dreamland after dragging Nakamaru out.
"I like you."
Nakamaru flicks the lamp switch off.
He knows that spa treatment is Kame-code for take care of me, please.
Nakamaru wakes up first. Kame’s phone is ringing.
A roll and a stretch and Nakamaru cancels the call.
He lies flat on his back again, trying to plan a strategy that will enable him to extract himself from under Kame’s leg with the least exertion. Kame’s breaths are long and deep and Nakamaru can feel them along his arm.
He doesn’t really want to get up just yet.
He allows himself ten more minutes.
Nakamaru has already flipped to the entertainment section of the newspaper by the time he hears his name being slurred out in a sleepy beckon. The coffee machine makes a burping sound and the brewing comes to a stop.
Just in time, Nakamaru thinks with a smile and flips to another page.
The soft sound of bare feet hitting the floorboards echoes through the apartment and steadily grows louder until it comes to a stop.
“It’s nine. You made me oversleep.”
Nakamaru notes how Kame still sounds tired. He should have pushed the meeting back even later.
“Where’s my phone?”
Nakamaru sets aside the newspaper and stands up, looking at Kame at last.
“Shut up,” Kame says before Nakamaru can snicker at the stray tufts of his bed hair. The neck of Nakamaru’s t-shirt has stretched so that it almost hangs off Kame’s shoulder. Nakamaru pulls it back up before he passes him by to get to the coffee machine.
“Your phone is on the counter.”
He pours Kame’s portion in a black mug and his own in a white. There’s no cream or sugar in Kame’s, just enough espresso to fuel a rocket.
“My manager called,” Kame notes out loud, scrolling through his missed calls.
Nakamaru shrugs. “Be there by noon.”
“I was supposed to be there by eight.”
Nakamaru goes to the fridge to bring out the eggs.
“Tell them your car had tire problems.” When there’s no response, Nakamaru hesitates, and then recalls how fast Kame had forfeited to sleep, eyes fluttering shut the instant his head touched Nakamaru’s extra fluffy pillow.
Briskly, he cracks an egg into a bowl and then another.
“Tell them I dropped your phone into the toilette.”
There’s still no response. Nakamaru opens and closes a drawer, opens and closes another. Stupid misplaced whisk.
Nakamaru feels Kame’s sleep-warmed heat before he feels the arms closing around his waist, a head leaning against the back of his shoulder.
“Thank you,” Kame mumbles.
Nakamaru stills. He sees the whisk peeking underneath the spatula.
“Go put your slippers on,” he replies as flat as he can, “your feet will get cold.”
“Thank you,” Kame says again and doesn’t let go.
ii.
On the day his role in the movie is confirmed, Kame gives him a call.
“I can’t sleep.” Kame’s voice is breathy, his words choppy and fast and Nakamaru can see him fidgeting with his hair, the collar of his shirt, anything he can get a hand on.
“It’s midnight. Way too early to be your bedtime.”
That makes Kame laugh in his ear.
“You’re such a mother, Nakamaru.”
Nakamaru. Nakamaru snorts.
“Say that the next time you invite yourself over to my bed.”
Another laugh, higher in pitch this time. He imagines Kame pacing, rearranging things that don’t need to be rearranged. The smile is evident and Nakamaru imagines it being bright enough to light up Tokyo Dome on its own.
“I need to do something.”
“What?”
A pent-up sigh, Kame probably running a rough hand through his hair.
“Something. Are you… are you busy?”
Nakamaru had just changed into his pyjamas. He’s sitting in bed with an open war novella by his side. He’s on the chapter where the hero arrives home at last, only to find that the world has moved on without him.
He’s warm and cozy and he wouldn’t be tempted to get up even if someone slipped a million dollar check under his door.
“Not particularly, no.”
The playground is deserted at this time of night and Nakamaru finds it the safest place to take a drunk-out-of-his-mind-with-excitement Kame out for a walk. Kame skips ahead of him, his arms swinging by his sides, and when he turns around abruptly, the soft glow from the nearby street lamps hugs him like stage lights.
“Let’s play tag!” he announces like it’s a brilliant idea for two adult men to run around a playground sized for toddlers. A hand plants on the dead center of his chest before Nakamaru has any say in it. “You’re it!”
And Kame’s off, running up the slide in three strides and waving cheekily at Nakamaru like he’s managed to climb the tallest spire of the tallest castle.
Nakamaru gives him a deeply unimpressed look from below and when he thinks Kame has let his guard down, he makes his move.
Kame let’s out yelp that’s more of an outraged squeal than anything and Nakamaru doubles over, laughing and laughing.
“Shoes don’t count!” Kame insists.
“Since when?” Nakamaru shouts back through a smile that won’t go away.
“Since always!”
He watches the giant pompom on the tip of Kame’s tuque bounce as he runs across the playground bridge to the other side. Nakamaru counts to five before he gives chase.
They’re exhausted within half an hour and the game ends when Nakamaru catches Kame on the monkey bars; even with Kame’s hands fully gripping the bars, his feet hadn’t lifted off the ground. It was probably the first time Kame looked too tall.
Kame pulls off his tuque, his hair plastered to his forehead. Nakamaru feels the sweat dampen his own as well.
“I don’t know how kids do it,” Kame says, eyes childishly wide. “My niece and nephew can go on for hours.”
Nakamaru shrugs. “Being a kid is harder than it looks.”
It’s nearing 2am and Kame insists they can’t leave without a go at the swings.
“Push me?” Kame sends him an imploring look that Nakamaru can’t decline, not under that ridiculous pompom at least. “Make me fly, Yucchi.”
The sky is a dark, velvet blue, the stars hidden by the city lights. From where Nakamaru stands, it looks like Kame is plunging into it again and again, each time with a shout that’s all innocence and wonder.
When the swing slows to a stop, Nakamaru walks around so that he’s facing Kame. He stretches out a hand to fix Kame’s tuque before it can slide off the back of his head.
“So, have you let it all out?”
Kame nods his head and then grins uncontrollably.
“I’m going to be a spy, Yucchi,” he whispers into the night like the secret is too big for daylight to handle.
“Really? I hadn’t realised,” Nakamaru returns with a grin of his own and tugs Kame out of the swing by his hand. He frowns. “You should have brought gloves. Your hands are freezing.”
Kame gives an impish shrug. “That’s what pockets are for.”
Nakamaru thinks he should have expected it when Kame’s hand dives into the pocket of his coat.
“You planned this.”
Kame laughs, throaty and loud. “How was I supposed to know you’d wear something with pockets? I’m not a spy just yet.”
For a brief moment, Nakamaru wonders at how much they know about each other and just how much of that could be classified as confidential information.
Too much of it, certainly.
They walk zigzagged on the sidewalk, shoulders bumping and laughter colliding. Nakamaru feels intoxicated, like Kame has slipped something into the night air that makes Nakamaru inhale all too eagerly.
He has fun pulling to the side, changing directions spontaneously as Kame squawks and tips over and calls him names. His hand remains stubbornly fixed in Nakamaru’s coat pocket. It’s too dark for anyone to see, too late for anyone to be around.
“This was fun,” Kame says once they’ve neared the neighbourhood that houses Nakamaru’s apartment. Nakamaru doesn’t know if it was intentional, but they’ve stopped directly under the beam of a looming street lamp. The mothership arriving to teleport Kame away.
It feels like the climax of a story he doesn’t want to end just yet.
“It was.” Nakamaru turns to face him. “I beat you.”
Kame throws his head back with a laugh and then narrows his eyes at him playfully.
“You cheated. You’re a cheating cheater, Nakamaru Yuichi.” Kame’s voice softens around his name, syllables breathy and slow. His gaze is clear and bright, a twinkle from a fallen star flickering in his eyes. “You didn’t have to come, but you always do… Do you know what that means?”
Always. This is far from the first time Nakamaru has let himself be dragged out to calm Kame’s nerves, to help him come down safely from his high, but he’s never really kept count. He doesn’t see the point because it doesn’t really matter if it’s the fifth time or the tenth or the thirtieth-he knows he’ll be there the next time too.
He thinks he knows why.
“I’m the best at taking care of turtles.”
“The best, huh?” Kame questions and leans closer. Nakamaru stands impassively, the feeling coming back to his cold-numbed cheeks. He can feel the warm breath of Kame’s chuckle tickle his chapped lips before Kame moves back, looking impressed. “You sure are on a winning streak today.”
Nakamaru finally moves his eyes down from where he had them trained onto Kame’s forehead the second he got close.
“Cheater’s luck,” he replies with a smirk and gestures forward with his chin. “Let’s get going. I can’t feel my nose.”
Kame stays stubbornly put and pulls out his hand to hide it in his own pocket. The other one gives him a small wave.
“I should take a cab back to my place,” Kame says with an apologetic smile. “I’m not so jittery now but… I probably won’t be able to sleep. I’ll end up keeping you up the whole night.”
Nakamaru glances at his watch. 2:37 AM. There’s not much of the night left and Nakamaru won’t be able to sleep if he sends Kame away like this anyway. In the end, he’d rather stay up with Kame marathoning an anime series in his living room than stay up all alone with his worry.
Swiftly, he grabs Kame’s hand and stuffs it back into the pocket of his coat.
“We can think of something fun to do,” he says with a firm nod.
Kame gapes back at him for a long moment and Nakamaru wants to ask what now until Kame’s lips melts into a sly grin, his eyebrows lowering in a leer that’s all shameless suggestion.
“Why, Yucchi-”
Nakamaru tugs the tuque down over his eyes.
iii.
Kame doesn’t leave the room even when their last meeting as five is over. Nakamaru lingers beside him, shooing what’s left of KAT-TUN out the door with his eyes.
The room is thick with quiet and Kame keeps his eyes lowered, like he’s offering a silent moment for what once was and will never be again. The anger that Nakamaru had upended into the room earlier begins to simmer once more.
There’s a sound of a sharp breath, followed by more that are equally choppy. For being the one to call Koki out, Kame was uncannily quiet during their meeting. Nakamaru hadn’t hesitated to unleash the frustrations on his behalf.
It wasn’t enough though, Nakamaru knows, watching the tremors begin in Kame’s shoulders and tumble down his arms. The lag period is ending, Kame’s body catching up with the aftershocks. Nakamaru can sense Kame working himself up and doesn’t think it’s worth it, not when it’s all over.
Artlessly, he drops his hand into Kame’s lap. It sits there, palm down and unassuming. For a stretched moment, it sits there ignored until Kame’s own lands on top.
Nakamaru leans back in his seat as Kame’s fingers run over his hand. The touches are careful but bold, savouring the topography of Nakamaru’s hand, the texture of his skin, the shape of his fingernails. Minutes pass and Nakamaru hears the difference, the slowing of Kame’s breath.
Kame swipes a thumb over the bump of his knuckle.
“You won’t leave… right?”
You can’t, you aren’t allowed, I won’t let you. It’s easy to decipher.
Kame’s finger tentatively traces the outline of his pinky, skirting around an impossibility that feels possible in the aftermath-when it shouldn’t. Kame should never be made to feel this.
Another stroke across his knuckles makes the simmering disappear before it can reach a boil.
“Well, I’ve been here for six hours now… kind of pushing it.” There’s a laugh with an audible crack and Nakamaru weaves and locks their fingers together. “Don’t be stupid. I’ll always be here.”
The tension flows out of Kame in increments, slowly but surely. Nakamaru doesn’t know when he became such a good a shock absorber but he’s never been this thankful for it.
iv.
Nakamaru and Taguchi have both finished their seconds while Ueda is munching his way through his fifth. It doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Kame has barely eaten half of his first before he excuses himself to the bathroom, probably so that he can foot the bill on his own than to actually freshen up.
“Idiot,” Ueda mutters at his back and Nakamaru asks the waiter to wrap up Kame’s food to-go before Ueda can get at it.
“You didn’t have to-”
Nakamaru thrusts the to-go bag at him until Kame finally takes it.
“Take it home, put it in your fridge, and eat it when it’s not too late in the evening for you to worry about your weight.”
Kame peers at him through a face that’s slimmer than it was weeks ago.
“I think you worry more about it than I do.”
“I know you,” is all Nakamaru says and reminds himself that they’re seven years past Nobuta.
It’s not guilt, Nakamaru thinks. He just won’t let Kame be alone this time.
“You’re bony too,” Kame grumbles when Nakamaru has him cornered with a sweet bun from the Shuuichi staff. “You could use the calories more than I can.”
Kame pokes him on the tip of his nose and Nakamaru swats away at his distraction attempt.
“I’m always bony. You never said anything about it before.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been way worse and you’ve never said anything either,” Kame returns like a whiplash with no force or aim. They both still feel the sting of it and the wrapper crinkles loudly between them when Kame quickly grabs the bun. “I didn’t mean-I’m sorry. I’ll eat this. I promise. Just not right now.”
Kame’s ducked his head down, watching his own fingers play nervously with the plastic wrap.
It could be guilt, but it’s not. At least not all of it.
“Hey,” Nakamaru says and pokes at Kame’s cheek with a finger when his head lifts slowly. In the end, all he wants is for Kame to know that he’s being watched over, even if only in a fumbling, Nakamaru-esque way.
“You look great by the way. I mean it.”
The immediate smile pushes at his fingertip.
v.
“Where are you now?” Nakamaru asks when his phone rings. It’s been days since they’ve last spoken, weeks since they’ve been in the same room.
“Singapore.” The response comes through muffled and hazy.
Nakamaru leans back in the car seat as he’s driven to wherever his location shoot for Shuuichi is supposed to be. It’s a skateboard park, if he remembers correctly. He’s supposed to be hip and show the viewers how to do skateboard tricks.
Nakamaru would tell Kame if only he didn’t think that Kame might hurt himself from laughing.
“Where are you specifically?”
There are more muffled words that sound like the name of a fancy hotel and, “bed.”
Nakamaru turns his head to the side so that his smile can’t be seen from the rear-view mirror.
“All tired out from being a genius spy? How many people did you shoot today?”
“Three… I think. I got to take one down with my hands. It was great.” He sounds like he means it even though he’s falling asleep on the phone. Nakamaru can recognise the signs by now.
“Go to sleep or you’ll hate yourself later,” Nakamaru tells him as he watches the city roll past through the window. “You can rub your war film in my face later.”
“I like your face,” Kame mumbles. “I miss your face.”
Delirious sweet-talk, Nakamaru checks off. He knows Kame will be drifting away any time now.
“Sleep,” he says firmly.
“’s why I called you.” There’s a breathy sigh that sounds like ‘Yucchi dumb dumb’ but Kame laughs and corrects it as, “Keep talking, Yucchi.”
So Nakamaru talks. He talks about Choco and soccer and how switching laundry detergents has been his best decision of the week.
“My bed sheets smell like heaven,” Nakamaru says proudly.
There’s a sleep-drunk lisp that Nakamaru puts together as, “Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Do I need to?” Nakamaru returns and shifts the phone to his other ear before he continues the monotone playback of his day’s events, meal by meal. Kame listens silently for the most part and Nakamaru keeps an ear out for any soft snores.
Nakamaru is recommending a new fish market he came across that sells delicious squid when he hears an odd sound that’s followed by silence. He pauses.
“Kame…?” he ventures, though it’s likely Kame has already-there’s a drowsy laugh that spills like melted butter.
“Sorry. I thought you said-something else.”
“What?” Nakamaru asks, enjoying Kame’s state of sleepy bliss. He can imagine a rumpled head digging into a pillow, trying to hide a smile that peeps through nevertheless.
“That you love me.”
It’s like driving over a dozen speed bumps at 120km/hr. No brakes, no seat belt.
It’s like this every time.
Nakamaru doesn’t know what else it could be.
His eyes flicker to the driver and then return to the window. He hesitates but not long enough for Kame to fall asleep on his words.
“I could have said that.”
He hears a deep, happy breath that may as well be his own.
“Say it to me next time. When I’m back and more awake.”
“Okay,” he agrees easily when he knows it won’t be.
Or maybe it will.
Kame coming home to him is as natural as rolling out of bed in the morning to pour coffee for two. The black mug sits on the lower shelf of his kitchen cupboard, waiting along with the spare t-shirt and sweats that have a separate drawer of their own. His emergency turtle-care kit.
“You’re not allowed to stop,” Kame’s voice trickles through the phone and Nakamaru laughs an apology and continues telling Kame what he had for breakfast that morning. The gentle snores start soon after.
Nakamaru knows that ‘keep talking’ is Kame-code for be my lullaby.
*end