Akame: throw away your cares and fears, PG
Title: throw away your cares and fears
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Warnings: None, really.
For: trangai. Ilu darling. ♥ This fic is complete at last, yay! I'm sorry it is so late and I hope you enjoy it. ♥
Word Count: 2,305
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Author’s Notes: Un-beta’ed. I don’t know why, but I’m never really satisfied with the endings of my fics. The ending of this one is-- sort of open to interpretation, I supposed. It’s not certain what really happens to either of them, but they’ve reached a sort of conclusion, in their own way.
throw away your cares and fears
one.
Friday evening, they are coming out of the studio. It’s not been a great rehearsal. Everyone seems to be tired today-- it’s the end of the week, after all, and they all made too many mistakes in their dance steps, especially Jin.
They all wave goodbye to the staff and to the other members, and then Jin turns to Kame and asks, “Am I stupid?”
Jin’s brows are furrowed, and it’s a serious expression, something which makes Kame pause and consider the question. Jin is eighteen and Kame is sixteen. It is a time when questions don’t have hidden meanings behind them. Jin knows exactly what he is saying and Kame knows as well.
“No,” Kame replies, and it is perhaps not as truthful as it should be, because the real answer going through his head is sometimes, yes. But it’s okay to lie for things like this, because they are friends and Jin looks like he needs some reassurance right now.
“I am, aren’t I?” Jin is looking down now, drawing invisible circles on the floor with his right foot. “I’m an idiot.”
And there is an instant when this picture registers in Kame’s mind, and years from now he will remember it clearly-- like a black and white photograph, a boy with soft hair and hands in his jeans pockets, unsure and vulnerable for that one moment in time, (a boy who meant everything to Kame).
It is this instant when Kame stops thinking and he says, “No. You’re not.” Jin looks up, eyes wide, beginning to smile a little. “You’re not,” Kame repeats, sucking in a huge breath.
This time, he really believes in it.
---
two.
Their first kiss is right on the step leading to the door of the apartment block where Jin lives. They are walking home together after rehearsals, and they’re going to have the first concert ever as KAT-TUN in two months. Even though none of them in the group really get along well and half of them don’t even like the group at all, Kame is still a little dazed with this prospect, dreams spinning through his head, an imagined stage and lights and fans screaming. When Jin waves goodbye to Kame, the grin on Jin’s face makes Kame feel giddier than ever. It is bright and it catches in Kame’s eye, dazzling like sunshine.
Some strange force propels Kame, the opposite of gravity, and suddenly he is standing on the tip of his toes, leaning forwards ever so slightly, and his lips meet Jin’s. Kame feels Jin’s grin melting into the kiss, and Kame isn’t quite sure what he’s doing and he’s never done anything like this before, but he just knows it’s the right thing to do, because Jin isn’t backing away. Instead, Jin shuffles his feet so that they’re closer still, the narrowest of gaps between their bodies. The exhilaration is tingling through every nerve in Kame’s body, and he can’t wait, can’t wait until the moment when they will both stand on the stage together, holding hands and announcing the fact that they are KAT-TUN, they are K and A and together they are part of something amazing.
It is the first time Kame thinks he might actually like being in KAT-TUN.
When they break apart, Jin is looking at Kame with glazed eyes, and they both don’t know what to say. It’s awkward, and something beats in Kame’s heart, hesitant and fearful, but it’s okay, because Jin starts smiling and smiling and it’s like sunshine in Kame’s eyes again.
They are still too young to care, to be afraid.
---
three.
They are at an amusement park together, riding on the ferris wheel. It is a sunny day and they are sitting in silence in a red gondola, slowly travelling upwards as the wheel rotates. Kame stares at the world outside through the glass. The crowds below are tiny, swarms of little children and their parents. Kame looks further, beyond the roller coasters and the stalls selling cotton candy, and he sees green trees and buildings in the distance.
Then he looks up, and there are slivers of white in the sky, clouds that he can almost touch now, if only there weren’t the pane of glass between them.
“We will stand this high someday,” he whispers, and Jin looks at him, puzzled. Jin doesn’t understand, but he will, eventually. Kame turns away from the outside world and smiles at Jin. On impulse, he reaches out and his fingers slip around Jin’s wrist, feeling the steady beat there. “We will be on top of the world.”
“We are already,” Jin responds, still not understanding.
Kame’s smile widens.
“Not yet,” Kame says, and he interwines his fingers around Jin’s. “Not yet.” He presses his mouth onto Jin’s and tries to give Jin a taste of his dreams through their kiss, tongues tangling in the promise of a brilliant future, of being something together.
Kame doesn’t yet realize that this future means that maybe, maybe they won’t be able to kiss each other on doorsteps and in ferris wheel gondolas anymore.
(Nor does he realize that after the highest point, they will begin their descend down, down, down.)
---
four.
The two of them are very close. It’s become natural to Kame, a part of his life, something he does without needing to think. Kame is a thinker, and not thinking means a lot to Kame. He doesn’t think when he steps a little closer to Jin, when his gaze meets Jin’s and they both smile and it is-- it will be forever. Sometimes Kame breathes down Jin’s neck and Jin cries out “it tickles!” They fall into a giggling heap and it is all natural. Kame inhales and it is the same air that Jin is exhaling, and that is natural too. Sometimes they laugh together and it’s nothing, nothing at all but butterflies in their stomach and dizzy moments when they think they could be blind (because they say love is blind).
four and a half.
And even though they are growing up, they are still too young to care. Kame is a thinker, but he throws away his thoughts for Jin. He isn’t aware of the dangers that loom ahead, because the days are dripping of honey and he is only nineteen, and youth is gleaming in his eyes, glowing from his skin. He is changing. But then, everything else is changing too.
Kame doesn’t think he’ll forget the day when he’s called into Johnny’s office alone, and when he finally learns to be afraid.
---
five.
Kame is twenty when they reach the highest point.
Their schedules are packed, day after day of endless work, rehearsals and concerts and filming of TV promotions for their debut single. Everywhere Kame goes, the tune of Real Face rings around him. They are famous; everyone knows who they are. Everyone knows who he is. He is exhausted, limbs aching and eyelids heavy, but he bathes in the spotlight and soaks in the roar of the fans and reminds himself that this has always been his dream, always always always.
But it doesn’t help that there’s a voice at the back of his mind, constantly nagging, telling him that he never quite imagined it to be like this. Telling him that he’s forgotten something important.
Sometimes there’s a blur in the corner of Kame’s eye, and Jin is smiling at someone else. Kame thinks fleetingly of sunshine and clouds and then it all crumbles away into the beat of the music and dance steps. Nothing else.
(Stay away.)
He avoids Jin’s gaze most of the time. The air he breathes in hurts his lungs. Kame isn’t sure if he remembers what the word ‘forever’ means anymore, and he isn’t sure if he wants to remember. There is a strange feeling throbbing at the back of his throat all the time. He tries to ignore it, but it chokes him sometimes.
Kame knows what it is. It’s fear. He just doesn’t know why it’s there. There used to be times when he was unafraid of everything, when the world had been a wider place than it was now, when he was sixteen, seventeen-- nineteen.
But he wonders why he feels so old now, even though he’s only twenty and there is supposed to a beautiful future ahead of him.
---
six.
Then the descent begins.
Kame never saw it creeping around the corner, but everything is happening all of a sudden. Jin announces that he’s leaving, out of the blue. He’s going to America, and Kame doesn’t want to believe it. America, America, why America anyway? Kame thinks it’s stupid, Jin’s stupid-- and a memory from four years ago wraps around his mind and smothers him, that black and white photograph of a boy with soft hair and hands in his jeans pocket (that boy who meant everything to him).
Jin is stupid, after all. They are famous, they are at their highest point. And Kame knows that they will fall, they will crash and there will only be splinters and shards left of them. KAT-TUN can’t be spelt without the A.
But even so, Kame doesn’t say a word to Jin, doesn’t ever try to persuade him to stay.
(Stay away.)
So Jin leaves and no one holds him back.
Kame is still afraid, and the stage lights are breaking and the screams are dying down, but he clings onto the fragments of his dream and wishes that it could have been different.
(four and three-quarters.
Johnny’s office is spacious and the walls are white and clean. Kame thinks nothing of it all when he walks in. He has been in here many times before.
“You, stay away from him. Or neither of you will get what you want in the end,” Johnny says, and it is the only thing he needs to say.
Stay away.
Kame opens his mouth and doesn’t know how to respond. Something hot and painful is boiling in his chest, and it’s blocking his throat and nose and mouth and ears and eyes-- and the immaculate walls are starting to dissolve in his vision.)
---
seven.
Jin comes back after six months, just when things have stopped tumbling downhill.
Things have changed. Kame never thought they would. When Jin went away, Kame felt like he was running all the time and always tripping over, because things were unraveling too quickly and he was out of breath, but he always thought it was different for everyone else. The rest of KAT-TUN had to be keeping up fine, and Jin-- the world had stopped entirely for Jin. Static, nothing.
But when Kame sees Jin after those six months, he realizes how wrong he has been. Jin looks like he’s fallen and bruised himself one too many times, just like Kame does.
Kame learns now that the world doesn’t ever pause for anyone, but this revelation doesn’t comfort him. The fear grows and folds itself into his sleep, sprouting nightmares of red flames, burning and consuming everything in their path (amusement parks and apartment blocks), and all the while he looks on, helpless, as the world keeps on spinning. One day the stage lights will disappear entirely and there will be not a single screaming fan left.
---
eight.
They go out for a walk when the sky is dark, just the two of them. Jin was the one who suggested it-- “The moon looks pretty tonight, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be great to go for a walk now?” His words hadn’t made any sense to Kame, but then that’s the case most of the time, and it’s never mattered. The only thing that matters is whether Kame wants to listen or not.
And this time, Kame decided he wanted to listen.
They are strolling along a riverside promenade. The lights of the ever-busy Tokyo are dancing on the water, haunting blue and green hues. They’re not talking, but it’s not really awkward, Kame doesn’t think-- it’s an easy, soft silence, with the humming of the background noise that you’ll always hear, living in a city. The autumn night air has a certain chill to it, and it’s refreshing in a sense. For the first time in a long, long while, Kame feels unafraid, free, natural. It’s almost alien to him now, feeling this way.
He feels bold enough to speak first. “Jin,” he ventures, and the name is soothing on his tongue. “Do you remember--?” He doesn’t finish, because he doesn’t know how. There are too many things to remember, because they share too many memories between them, as many as those uncountable hazy floating lights on the surface of the water, all blending into one another.
“Do I remember what?” Jin prompts, and waits. But Kame is still uncertain of what exactly to say. Staring at the lights are making him giddy. He looks at Jin instead, and he finally grasps the right words.
“Do you remember being blind?” Kame whispers.
“I was never--” Jin splutters, confused, but Kame cuts him off mid-sentence, kissing him full on the lips. Kame’s mind spirals with that small thrill that he’s missed so much, that small thrill that he always gets when he kisses Jin. They both close their eyes and they don’t need to remember being blind, because right now, they are blind all over again.
(nine.
“Why?” Jin asks.
“I was afraid my dream would shatter,” Kame replies.
“Are you not afraid anymore?”
“You threw away six months; I can throw away a lifetime,” Kame laughs, and it sounds half-delirious to Jin. Daring. Fearless. “So would you forgive me?” he adds when he’s stopped laughing.
“For what?”
“I suppose I was the stupid one, after all.”)
--fin.
End note: “Nine is not yet the full or complete, number ten, but it does mark the ending. … it can represent the conclusion or ending of a matter. …The number nine represents finality or judgment.” - the symbolic meaning of the number nine
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Warnings: None, really.
For: trangai. Ilu darling. ♥ This fic is complete at last, yay! I'm sorry it is so late and I hope you enjoy it. ♥
Word Count: 2,305
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Author’s Notes: Un-beta’ed. I don’t know why, but I’m never really satisfied with the endings of my fics. The ending of this one is-- sort of open to interpretation, I supposed. It’s not certain what really happens to either of them, but they’ve reached a sort of conclusion, in their own way.
throw away your cares and fears
one.
Friday evening, they are coming out of the studio. It’s not been a great rehearsal. Everyone seems to be tired today-- it’s the end of the week, after all, and they all made too many mistakes in their dance steps, especially Jin.
They all wave goodbye to the staff and to the other members, and then Jin turns to Kame and asks, “Am I stupid?”
Jin’s brows are furrowed, and it’s a serious expression, something which makes Kame pause and consider the question. Jin is eighteen and Kame is sixteen. It is a time when questions don’t have hidden meanings behind them. Jin knows exactly what he is saying and Kame knows as well.
“No,” Kame replies, and it is perhaps not as truthful as it should be, because the real answer going through his head is sometimes, yes. But it’s okay to lie for things like this, because they are friends and Jin looks like he needs some reassurance right now.
“I am, aren’t I?” Jin is looking down now, drawing invisible circles on the floor with his right foot. “I’m an idiot.”
And there is an instant when this picture registers in Kame’s mind, and years from now he will remember it clearly-- like a black and white photograph, a boy with soft hair and hands in his jeans pockets, unsure and vulnerable for that one moment in time, (a boy who meant everything to Kame).
It is this instant when Kame stops thinking and he says, “No. You’re not.” Jin looks up, eyes wide, beginning to smile a little. “You’re not,” Kame repeats, sucking in a huge breath.
This time, he really believes in it.
---
two.
Their first kiss is right on the step leading to the door of the apartment block where Jin lives. They are walking home together after rehearsals, and they’re going to have the first concert ever as KAT-TUN in two months. Even though none of them in the group really get along well and half of them don’t even like the group at all, Kame is still a little dazed with this prospect, dreams spinning through his head, an imagined stage and lights and fans screaming. When Jin waves goodbye to Kame, the grin on Jin’s face makes Kame feel giddier than ever. It is bright and it catches in Kame’s eye, dazzling like sunshine.
Some strange force propels Kame, the opposite of gravity, and suddenly he is standing on the tip of his toes, leaning forwards ever so slightly, and his lips meet Jin’s. Kame feels Jin’s grin melting into the kiss, and Kame isn’t quite sure what he’s doing and he’s never done anything like this before, but he just knows it’s the right thing to do, because Jin isn’t backing away. Instead, Jin shuffles his feet so that they’re closer still, the narrowest of gaps between their bodies. The exhilaration is tingling through every nerve in Kame’s body, and he can’t wait, can’t wait until the moment when they will both stand on the stage together, holding hands and announcing the fact that they are KAT-TUN, they are K and A and together they are part of something amazing.
It is the first time Kame thinks he might actually like being in KAT-TUN.
When they break apart, Jin is looking at Kame with glazed eyes, and they both don’t know what to say. It’s awkward, and something beats in Kame’s heart, hesitant and fearful, but it’s okay, because Jin starts smiling and smiling and it’s like sunshine in Kame’s eyes again.
They are still too young to care, to be afraid.
---
three.
They are at an amusement park together, riding on the ferris wheel. It is a sunny day and they are sitting in silence in a red gondola, slowly travelling upwards as the wheel rotates. Kame stares at the world outside through the glass. The crowds below are tiny, swarms of little children and their parents. Kame looks further, beyond the roller coasters and the stalls selling cotton candy, and he sees green trees and buildings in the distance.
Then he looks up, and there are slivers of white in the sky, clouds that he can almost touch now, if only there weren’t the pane of glass between them.
“We will stand this high someday,” he whispers, and Jin looks at him, puzzled. Jin doesn’t understand, but he will, eventually. Kame turns away from the outside world and smiles at Jin. On impulse, he reaches out and his fingers slip around Jin’s wrist, feeling the steady beat there. “We will be on top of the world.”
“We are already,” Jin responds, still not understanding.
Kame’s smile widens.
“Not yet,” Kame says, and he interwines his fingers around Jin’s. “Not yet.” He presses his mouth onto Jin’s and tries to give Jin a taste of his dreams through their kiss, tongues tangling in the promise of a brilliant future, of being something together.
Kame doesn’t yet realize that this future means that maybe, maybe they won’t be able to kiss each other on doorsteps and in ferris wheel gondolas anymore.
(Nor does he realize that after the highest point, they will begin their descend down, down, down.)
---
four.
The two of them are very close. It’s become natural to Kame, a part of his life, something he does without needing to think. Kame is a thinker, and not thinking means a lot to Kame. He doesn’t think when he steps a little closer to Jin, when his gaze meets Jin’s and they both smile and it is-- it will be forever. Sometimes Kame breathes down Jin’s neck and Jin cries out “it tickles!” They fall into a giggling heap and it is all natural. Kame inhales and it is the same air that Jin is exhaling, and that is natural too. Sometimes they laugh together and it’s nothing, nothing at all but butterflies in their stomach and dizzy moments when they think they could be blind (because they say love is blind).
four and a half.
And even though they are growing up, they are still too young to care. Kame is a thinker, but he throws away his thoughts for Jin. He isn’t aware of the dangers that loom ahead, because the days are dripping of honey and he is only nineteen, and youth is gleaming in his eyes, glowing from his skin. He is changing. But then, everything else is changing too.
Kame doesn’t think he’ll forget the day when he’s called into Johnny’s office alone, and when he finally learns to be afraid.
---
five.
Kame is twenty when they reach the highest point.
Their schedules are packed, day after day of endless work, rehearsals and concerts and filming of TV promotions for their debut single. Everywhere Kame goes, the tune of Real Face rings around him. They are famous; everyone knows who they are. Everyone knows who he is. He is exhausted, limbs aching and eyelids heavy, but he bathes in the spotlight and soaks in the roar of the fans and reminds himself that this has always been his dream, always always always.
But it doesn’t help that there’s a voice at the back of his mind, constantly nagging, telling him that he never quite imagined it to be like this. Telling him that he’s forgotten something important.
Sometimes there’s a blur in the corner of Kame’s eye, and Jin is smiling at someone else. Kame thinks fleetingly of sunshine and clouds and then it all crumbles away into the beat of the music and dance steps. Nothing else.
(Stay away.)
He avoids Jin’s gaze most of the time. The air he breathes in hurts his lungs. Kame isn’t sure if he remembers what the word ‘forever’ means anymore, and he isn’t sure if he wants to remember. There is a strange feeling throbbing at the back of his throat all the time. He tries to ignore it, but it chokes him sometimes.
Kame knows what it is. It’s fear. He just doesn’t know why it’s there. There used to be times when he was unafraid of everything, when the world had been a wider place than it was now, when he was sixteen, seventeen-- nineteen.
But he wonders why he feels so old now, even though he’s only twenty and there is supposed to a beautiful future ahead of him.
---
six.
Then the descent begins.
Kame never saw it creeping around the corner, but everything is happening all of a sudden. Jin announces that he’s leaving, out of the blue. He’s going to America, and Kame doesn’t want to believe it. America, America, why America anyway? Kame thinks it’s stupid, Jin’s stupid-- and a memory from four years ago wraps around his mind and smothers him, that black and white photograph of a boy with soft hair and hands in his jeans pocket (that boy who meant everything to him).
Jin is stupid, after all. They are famous, they are at their highest point. And Kame knows that they will fall, they will crash and there will only be splinters and shards left of them. KAT-TUN can’t be spelt without the A.
But even so, Kame doesn’t say a word to Jin, doesn’t ever try to persuade him to stay.
(Stay away.)
So Jin leaves and no one holds him back.
Kame is still afraid, and the stage lights are breaking and the screams are dying down, but he clings onto the fragments of his dream and wishes that it could have been different.
(four and three-quarters.
Johnny’s office is spacious and the walls are white and clean. Kame thinks nothing of it all when he walks in. He has been in here many times before.
“You, stay away from him. Or neither of you will get what you want in the end,” Johnny says, and it is the only thing he needs to say.
Stay away.
Kame opens his mouth and doesn’t know how to respond. Something hot and painful is boiling in his chest, and it’s blocking his throat and nose and mouth and ears and eyes-- and the immaculate walls are starting to dissolve in his vision.)
---
seven.
Jin comes back after six months, just when things have stopped tumbling downhill.
Things have changed. Kame never thought they would. When Jin went away, Kame felt like he was running all the time and always tripping over, because things were unraveling too quickly and he was out of breath, but he always thought it was different for everyone else. The rest of KAT-TUN had to be keeping up fine, and Jin-- the world had stopped entirely for Jin. Static, nothing.
But when Kame sees Jin after those six months, he realizes how wrong he has been. Jin looks like he’s fallen and bruised himself one too many times, just like Kame does.
Kame learns now that the world doesn’t ever pause for anyone, but this revelation doesn’t comfort him. The fear grows and folds itself into his sleep, sprouting nightmares of red flames, burning and consuming everything in their path (amusement parks and apartment blocks), and all the while he looks on, helpless, as the world keeps on spinning. One day the stage lights will disappear entirely and there will be not a single screaming fan left.
---
eight.
They go out for a walk when the sky is dark, just the two of them. Jin was the one who suggested it-- “The moon looks pretty tonight, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be great to go for a walk now?” His words hadn’t made any sense to Kame, but then that’s the case most of the time, and it’s never mattered. The only thing that matters is whether Kame wants to listen or not.
And this time, Kame decided he wanted to listen.
They are strolling along a riverside promenade. The lights of the ever-busy Tokyo are dancing on the water, haunting blue and green hues. They’re not talking, but it’s not really awkward, Kame doesn’t think-- it’s an easy, soft silence, with the humming of the background noise that you’ll always hear, living in a city. The autumn night air has a certain chill to it, and it’s refreshing in a sense. For the first time in a long, long while, Kame feels unafraid, free, natural. It’s almost alien to him now, feeling this way.
He feels bold enough to speak first. “Jin,” he ventures, and the name is soothing on his tongue. “Do you remember--?” He doesn’t finish, because he doesn’t know how. There are too many things to remember, because they share too many memories between them, as many as those uncountable hazy floating lights on the surface of the water, all blending into one another.
“Do I remember what?” Jin prompts, and waits. But Kame is still uncertain of what exactly to say. Staring at the lights are making him giddy. He looks at Jin instead, and he finally grasps the right words.
“Do you remember being blind?” Kame whispers.
“I was never--” Jin splutters, confused, but Kame cuts him off mid-sentence, kissing him full on the lips. Kame’s mind spirals with that small thrill that he’s missed so much, that small thrill that he always gets when he kisses Jin. They both close their eyes and they don’t need to remember being blind, because right now, they are blind all over again.
(nine.
“Why?” Jin asks.
“I was afraid my dream would shatter,” Kame replies.
“Are you not afraid anymore?”
“You threw away six months; I can throw away a lifetime,” Kame laughs, and it sounds half-delirious to Jin. Daring. Fearless. “So would you forgive me?” he adds when he’s stopped laughing.
“For what?”
“I suppose I was the stupid one, after all.”)
--fin.
End note: “Nine is not yet the full or complete, number ten, but it does mark the ending. … it can represent the conclusion or ending of a matter. …The number nine represents finality or judgment.” - the symbolic meaning of the number nine