Who Are We? - Chapter 3
Title: Who Are We?
Pairing: Akame
Genre: AU, Romance
Rating: NC-17
Beta: infynitehexes
Disclaimer: Own nothing but the plot, sadly.
Warnings: I don’t know how to warn you without spoiling the story so just read at your own risk. LOL
Summary: He wakes up naked to find himself in bed with a beautiful young man and without any of his memories. What’s his name again?
A/N: Looking at it now, I think it turned out short? IDK. Some nerdy talk ahead, too. Anyways, enjoy!
Chapter 3
It was 8 in the morning and Jin was sitting on a stool along the kitchen counter, silently sipping his coffee and timidly waiting for Kame to finish cooking. There was a strong aroma of frying garlic and some kind of sharp, tasty whiff that Jin could not place, but he was growing impatient. It seemed that the more he smelled Kame’s dish-in-progress, the hungrier he got.
Jin could only watch, however, as Kame worked. The smaller man was like a pro in the kitchen with the way he moved around, flicking his wrist as he shook the frying pan, squaring his shoulders as he swiftly chopped some more garlic. Kame licked his moist lips as he glanced at the stove, and suddenly Jin was reminded of what happened yesterday on the couch, and felt his cheeks heat up. Thankfully, Kame was still too busy to notice his blush.
After what they had ended up doing - which felt good, even if it was not entirely the proper thing to do in the midst of a problem such as Jin’s memory loss - it seemed like Kame made it a point to keep them both level-headed and plan out Jin’s course of action in light of said memory loss. They had agreed that Jin was going to the doctor today, of course on the condition that Kame was going to accompany him.
His boyfriend also answered any of the questions he suddenly felt the urge to ask, but mainly he inquired about very basic things like their birthdays, school stuff, Jin’s family (he had a little brother overseas!), and what Jin liked to do in his free time. Jin also found out that it was indeed Kame’s mother whom they lived with. Apparently, she went away on vacation but should be back in a few days. According to Kame, she and Jin’s mother were good friends. Hence, Jin had free accommodation in the Kamenashi residence.
The house had space to spare for Jin, since it was just Kame and his mother who lived together now. Kame’s father had passed away some years back, and Kame’s brothers all live on their own now. Kame was a composition major at the same university Jin was enrolled in, and though he was actually two years younger, he was also a graduating student like Jin.
“So I have a geek for a boyfriend,” Jin kiddingly remarked as they watched TV last night, earning attacks on his collarbones, which he found outrageously ticklish. In a desperate attempt to defend himself, he flailed around and made wild grasps at Kame’s bony wrists, somehow managing to pin Kame down on the couch. They stayed like that for a few seconds, looking at each other wordlessly, before Jin realized what he’d done and sat back down shyly.
Kame was just warm and charming, and even if Jin still could not remember a thing, he had no doubts: indeed, Jin was in love with this man, who simply felt perfect for him. It actually felt good, falling in love with Kame (all over again, like it was the first time). This feeling of pure happiness about being with Kame would be something that Jin would treasure even if and when his memory comes back.
“What are you thinking about?” Kame asked good-naturedly as he sat down across the counter, pulling Jin out of the schmaltzy trance he was in.
“N - nothing,” Jin replied awkwardly, trying to regain composure and not just gush over the man in front of him. Kame set down the dishes he had prepared for their breakfast. “Just… thinking about… us, that’s all…” Jin’s voice trailed away awkwardly.
Kame smiled before speaking, though Jin could tell that something was bothering him. “I understand if you feel that this is weird, being in a relationship with someone you don’t remember… someone you don’t even know - ”
There was a hint of some emotion in Kame’s voice that Jin couldn’t quite make out, but it made him worry anyways, and he felt obliged to reassure the younger man. Stumbling over his words, Jin spoke, “No! I mean - I didn’t exactly panic when I woke up next to you, right? But - I obviously can’t remember if - if I’m in a relationship or something - ”
“Hey.” Smiling, Kame reached from across the counter top and amiably put a hand on Jin’s shoulder. “Don’t stress yourself. Your head’s clearly not healthy enough if you’re suffering from memory loss, and straining it won’t get you any better.”
As Jin nodded with a smile and dug into his meal, he thought that just maybe, this man was right. Overthinking wouldn’t make sense when Jin couldn’t think of anything anyway. All he knew at this point were a few essentials in his life, and if those bits of information were right, he’d probably have to retrace his steps to find out who he really was. That is, of course, if worse comes to worst and his memory didn’t come back at all.
oOo
The walk on the way to the doctor was more terrifying than Jin had imagined that morning. He thought he would just be chill about it and casually go, but as they strolled - well, Kame strolled, whereas Jin stiffly marched - to this private clinic just a few blocks from their house, Jin was beginning to feel increasingly nervous as to what the doctor’s findings would be.
He thought, too, that Kame would take him to a hospital, but what Kame had described to him was a small clinic which was supposedly just an addition to the doctor’s house. Who in the world became a doctor on second thought?
“His name is Kimura Takuya-sempai,” Kame explained to Jin as they passed by a flower shop adjacent to a boxing gym while nodding his greetings to the personnel at both establishments. “Well, Kimura-sensei to others since he’s a doctor, but he’s our sempai from university.”
“I thought we were studying in an arts university…?” Jin asked, confused.
“Yes, we are,” Kame replied. “After studying music, Kimura-sempai decided he wanted to become a doctor, too, and so he earned necessary units and went on to med school.”
Jin snorted, “Sounds like something you would do.” He was not surprised that Kame was on good terms with this sempai of theirs, because from what he knew so far, Kame seemed very much like an achiever. Birds of the same feather flock together.
“I don’t really know…” Kame answered seriously, deep in thought and unaware that Jin was actually poking fun at him. “The medical field sounds good, but I think I want to delve more into the field of advanced technology supporting multi-audio assimilation - I mean - I’m majoring in composition, right? And I feel that the methods we’ve studied are, naturally, still heavily based on classical music theories and techniques. I’d love to innovate - ”
“Woah - Kame - stop - ” Jin finally managed to interrupt. “What language are you even talking in?”
“What are you talking about? You’re a music student, too - ”
“Except that I can’t remember, right?” Jin replied with a half-snide, half-hurt expression.
“Oh. Right.”
At that moment, Kame finally halted in front of a small clinic with a sign above that indicated general practice, which made Jin all the more uneasy about this. If Kame looked up to this Kimura-sempai, then Jin did not have reason to doubt this man’s ability. But wouldn’t he be better off seeing a brain doctor right away?
Beyond the clear glass door was a waiting area of sorts, a sofa against the wall and a labeled visual map of the human anatomy on the opposite side. Beside the couch was a neat stack of an assortment of English and Japanese magazines, and to the other side was another glass door, a frosted one this time. Jin plopped down quite cheerily and, after a slightly affronted look from Kame, the smaller man followed suit.
“Are we, like, really close to this Kimura-sempai?” Jin found himself whispering, because the clinic was really silent with only the low hum of the air conditioning to be heard.
“Well, we’re okay… As for you…” Kame replied sheepishly, at which Jin rolled his eyes.
“Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun,” a middle-aged man wearing eyeglasses and a white lab coat over his long-sleeved shirt and pants greeted them, emerging when the frosted glass door opened.
“Kimura-sempai,” Kame returned the greeting, bowing to the man. Jin reluctantly did the same.
Kimura-sempai held the door open and motioned for them to proceed to the clinic. The inside was as simple as the waiting area; the only difference being this room had medical stuff in it. Kame sat down on a cushioned bench along the wall, but not before making Jin sit down on the patient’s bed across it.
“Oh…” the doctor articulated softly upon turning to them, realizing that Jin was his patient. He retrieved a chart from a file cabinet along the wall and peered at Jin through his glasses. “What seems to be the problem?”
“He’s suffering from memory loss,” Kame supplied curtly. Kimura-sempai surveyed him for a moment before turning back to Jin.
“You can’t remember?” the doctor confirmed, asking Jin directly.
“Yes, everything,” Jin nodded. “I didn’t even know my name when I woke up - ”
“But ever since waking up, you remember everything that has happened?”
Jin thought for a bit, glancing up at the ceiling as he examined his recent memories. Indeed, nothing seemed missing. He can remember everything he did from the point when he first woke up.
“Yeah, I can remember those pretty clearly.”
“I will need to conduct further tests, of course, but initially, I can diagnose this as retrograde amnesia,” Kimura-sempai said as he jotted down notes on Jin’s chart. “There are two basic kinds of memory loss, retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is when a person can’t retain recent events, as if they can’t be deposited into long term memory. Retrograde amnesia, on the other hand, is when a person fails to recall all memories up to a certain point in his life, but is able to store new memories - precisely what you’re experiencing at the moment.”
Jin stared back, perplexed, and it was Kame who had some questions to ask.
“But, Kimura-sempai, this condition isn’t permanent… right?”
“Well, it depends upon the cause, and the health of the brain prior to the onset of amnesia,” their sempai tolerantly answered.
Jin was asked about the feeling in his fingers and toes, Kame was asked if Jin recently fell down the stairs or any other similar accident wherein he might have hit his head, and the doctor also asked if Jin was an alcoholic.
“No, he’s a heavy drinker, but he’s not a drunkard,” Kame replied with a bit of distaste. “He maintains school grades, and has a great social life - ” Jin thought that last bit was said in a rather derisive manner, and he would have to ask about that later.
The doctor was staring at his chart though he didn’t appear to be reading it, deep in thought. Finally, he raised his gaze and asked Kame, “What was Akanishi-kun’s last activity before going to bed on the night prior to his memory loss?”
“We had sex,” Jin replied readily, even before Kame could figure out how to put it. The younger man tore his gaze away, and Kimura-sempai looked a bit uncomfortable, but he managed to remain professional.
“Ah, well…”
“Well what?” Jin now asked impatiently.
“Sexual intercourse might have caused it,” Kimura-sempai replied, back to writing on Jin’s chart.
“Seriously?” Jin challenged, skeptical.
“Not the very act of sex - ”
“Oh, I might have hit my head during sex, huh?” Jin piped up, thus earning a death glare from Kame. “But yeah, you were saying, doc…?” he added sheepishly.
“Amnesia isn’t exclusively caused by head trauma,” Kimura-sempai explained, pulling out a chair and settling on it, facing the two men. “It is brought about, plainly put, by attacks on the brain. These attacks vary: physical trauma, stroke, oxygen deprivation, and even some types of drugs. But the most common and most dangerous cause of memory loss is none other than your college best friend.”
Kame and Jin stared vacantly back at the doctor.
“Stress,” the doctor finally said, and comprehension dawned on Kame’s face. Jin, however, scratched his head.
“I don’t get it. Why would I lose my memory because of stress? Isn’t sex supposed to make you feel good?”
The second time Jin mentioned sex, Kame looked like he wanted to cringe. Kimura-sempai, on the other hand, laughed as he set his chart down.
“Oh, I’m sure it does. You of course know that stress is experienced due greatly to the fatigue that the brain feels. And more often than not, the brain is easy to fool.”
Kame nodded in understanding, but Jin was waiting for more, so Kimura-sempai continued.
“Did you know that crying and laughing are essentially the same non-respiratory air movement? The presence of tears cannot even be counted as a difference, because you sometimes laugh too much that you begin to cry,” the doctor explained, a smirk hinting on his lips. “The difference lies within your reason for such reaction. Either way, laughing or crying is a bodily response. The human body’s instincts and reactions during pleasurable experiences are strikingly similar to those processes that take place when a human feels threatened or scared.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jin finally said, catching on with all the geeky talk. “My brain made me forget my memories because it thought I was under a lot of stress?”
“Yes, concisely put, that’s about it,” affirmed the doctor.
“Wow… My brain’s pretty stupid, huh - ”
Jin’s remark made Kame laugh out loud, but then Jin sent him an upset, hurt look and he abruptly stopped.
After their discussion, Kimura-sempai performed a few more physical tests on Jin, and took blood samples, too, promising results within a week. After some more nerdy chat between Kimura-sempai and Kame (“Tell me about your thesis over coffee soon, ne, Kamenashi-kun?” Jin cringed inwardly at the doctor’s invitation), they finally walked out of the clinic and decided to take a stroll.
Jin was still deep in thought as they walked down the street once more. The doctor said that, while stress in itself was common, stress due to sex was such a rare cause of memory loss that it was impossible to tell if he’d be able to remember at all. Jin didn’t know what to feel. He was happy waking up to this life, but he couldn’t help but feel that he was missing a lot of things.
“This… is just so weird, don’t you think? Having sex and…” Jin sighed, sitting down on a bench in the park.
“Yeah… Was it so mind-blowing that you literally forgot your n - ?” Kame had almost finished his joke before noticing the heartbreakingly miserable look on Jin’s face. “Hey…”
“I’m… scared,” Jin confessed with a bare whisper, his gaze set low.
“The old Jin would never have said that.”
Kame sat beside him and firmly held his hand.
“Anyone in your shoes would be scared, Jin, and it’s normal to feel pressured to remember your past. You don’t need to stress yourself, though,” he gave Jin’s hand a gentle squeeze. “It will all come back to you at the right time…”
Jin cast his eyes at the trees around the park. The sun was setting behind them, yellow and orange melting into the dusk, and it was a beautiful sight, coupled with the soft breeze and hearing Kame’s soothing voice in his ear. But like the tinge of crimson between the sunset and the night sky, the dread continued to tug at the corners of Jin’s consciousness.
“What if my memory never comes back?”
The smile that Jin received in response was something that felt vaguely familiar. It roused some feeling inside him that, though he couldn’t quite identify, made him feel calm, and gave him hope. The smile, and the man wearing it, was his refuge.
“If nothing comes back to you, you’ve always had, and will always have me.”
To be continued…
oOo
I’m now scared that I might not be able to update next Saturday because RL sucks so much but don’t mind me. Ganbarimasu! >_<
Share your thoughts on this chapter? :)
Go to CHAPTER 4
Back to CHAPTER 2
Return to FIC LIST