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soundczechfic) wrote1984-01-19 10:18 pm
soundczechfic) wrote1984-01-19 10:18 pm
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FIC: "I Believe You Liar" 1/7
Akanishi Jin has returned to Tokyo after spending several months in the States promoting his first US single, Yellow Gold, which achieved an impressive top 40 ranking on the Billboard R&B Charts. Representatives of Johnny & Associates say they are pleased with his success and are proud to welcome him back home, where he will be working on the follow up to last November’s smash hit album, Akanishi Jin: The Greatest.
Despite Akanishi’s professional success, he is still plagued by gossip about difficulties in his personal life, including tabloid speculation about promiscuity, substance abuse, and sour relations with former bandmates and other agency insiders. The agency categorically denies all rumours.
–Tokyohive, February 2011
—
The office is quiet at this time of night. There’s a janitor in the stairwell who sheepishly hides his cigarette behind his back as Jin passes, but other than that the halls are deserted, doors hanging open to reveal empty offices shuttered and dark. It’s creepy, really. Emptied of the juniors and the make up artists, the costume girls and the harried, neurotic looking managers, this place seems full of ghosts.
Makino-san ushers Jin into Johnny’s office and disappears back into the barren halls, promising to be back with some drinks.
Kame glances over his shoulder as Jin stumbles into the office, and Jin sees his brow rumple with slight confusion before it is cleanly wiped away, effortlessly hidden in that way that Kame seems to have mastered over the years. Jin has never learned the art.
“Hey,” Kame says, as if this is normal and they haven’t both just been summoned into Johnny’s office closer to the crack of dawn than the dead of night. He’s wearing a dark suit with a tie pulled close to undone, his hair still super idol coiffed. He was probably working before he came here. Jin was sleeping.
It’s the first time Jin has seen him since the hesitant going away party the group had thrown after their very last performance together, really just six cans of beer and some conbini cake in their dressing room. It’s been a year, maybe. Jin feels like he should say something good.
“Long time no see,” he says instead, and eases himself into the chair at Kame’s side. The chair behind Johnny’s desk is empty; Jin wonders where he is, but it’s no good to ask. They’ll wait until Johnny is good and ready, even if it is after two in the morning. Jin tries to peer at the notes on the desk but they all seem to be about Matsumoto Jun’s hairstyle, and Jin can’t really see how that would bring them into the office at this hour. He looks at Kame. “What’s going on?”
Kame shrugs. “I don’t know either.”
The idea that Kame is clueless makes Jin really nervous. Kame has a network of spies within the jimusho – or maybe just a network of admin types who have a crush on him, Jin’s never really been sure. However he gets the info, he gets it. When Kame is surprised by something, it’s usually bad news. Bad news handed down from the top.
“Any guesses?” Jin asks hopefully.
“I did have before you walked in,” Kame says, grim faced. “Now, who the hell knows.”
Jin picks a snow globe up from Johnny’s desk and shakes it, watching the tiny plastic flakes bloom and swirl around the little penguin trapped inside. The office is totally silent, but in the distance Jin can hear the whirr of a vacuum cleaner and the occasional bubble of a water cooler. He tries to think of something to say to Kame but comes up empty; it would be hard enough in the outside world, but in this room it is impossible.
Occasionally, he thinks he feels Kame’s eyes on him, but when he glances over Kame is staring down at his nails, which aren’t black chipped or sparkling like they should be, but bare and neat like an average guy.
Johnny comes in after fifteen minutes, wearing his pyjamas beneath a grey towelling robe. Jin looks at Kame out of the corner of his eye, hoping to see amusement to match his own. Kame’s mouth is very small and thin, hopefully with hilarity.
“I’ve discovered the solution to all our problems,” Johnny says without preamble. He sinks into his chair and reaches into his drawer for a pack of cigarettes. Johnny smokes some weird French brand. He doesn’t offer them one. Nor does he seem as if he’s going to explain what problems he feels they have.
“Sir?” Kame asks, hands politely folded in his lap, now.
“You are going to be friends again,” he says, jabbing in their direction with his cigarette, now slowly curling smoke into the air. “AKAKAME LIVES.”
“Eh?” Jin exclaims, and looks across at Kame for help, but finds nothing but a smooth, blank face. A vault.
“Go out and get caught by the paparazzi,” Johnny says, cigarette now firmly clamped in his mouth. “That’s an order.”
“Johnny,” Jin starts.
“This conversation doesn’t leave this room.” Johnny looks at Kame. “Not even Takahashi-san, you hear me?”
Takahashi is Kame’s squat middle-aged manager; the most boring man Jin has ever met. Why it would matter if he found out that they’re – what, fraudulently rekindling their childhood friendship? - is anyone’s guess.
“Johnny,” Jin repeats more forcefully, but Kame just bows his head and says, “Yes sir.”
“This is bullshit,” Jin says.
Johnny laughs at him. “Get out of here,” he says. “I’m an old man. I need my rest.”
—
The first thing Jin does is tell Josh. Before he’s even out of the car park, before he’s even put the key into the ignition, his phone is glued to his ear and Josh is expressing his disbelief. Telling Josh stuff is comforting because he’s still naïve enough about the world Jin lives in to be surprised or outraged about things. Most of Jin’s Japanese friends would just say, yeah, and?
“The old man has really lost it this time,” Josh says just as the elevator doors open and Kamenashi strolls out and into the basement parking garage.
“I know,” Jin says. He watches as Kame remotely unlocks a gleaming black sports car that Jin’s never seen before. He’s wearing a hat now, pulled low and suspicious like a film noir detective. Once Jin had probably been closer to Kame than anyone else in his life, but now it’s like he really could be a character in a bad movie, a one dimensional caricature that vanishes whenever he moves out of Jin’s line of vision.
As if Kame senses him watching, he looks up and catches sight of Jin in his car. He raises one hand and sort of half-heartedly waves before getting into his sleek, fancy car, disappearing behind tinted windows. Ceasing to exist.
—
Kame is already shedding his clothes as he lets himself into the apartment, shoes haphazardly abandoned in the entrance, tie pulled loose and draped over the umbrella stand. He leaves every piece of his suit in a different room of the house, then collapses on the couch in his underwear and socks. He wants a beer but it’s been a long day and the fridge is really far away.
He grabs a banana from the fruit bowl on the table instead. The skin is starting to break out in black splodges, probably just this side of edible. Sometimes his mother comes over and leaves food in his apartment while he’s gone; he keeps trying to tell her to stop because half the time he’s gone for so long that the food goes rotten in his absence. He wonders if his fridge is full of mouldy cheese and toxic stew.
He doesn’t know what to think about Johnny’s orders, so he tries not to. He’d been a bit offended at the horrified look on Akanishi’s face, honestly; it’s been a long time since they were what anyone would call close friends, but he thought things had been a bit better, the last few years. Good enough that they could talk, sometimes, about meaningless things, mutual friends and new music and foreign politics. Good enough that sometimes they could laugh together and Jin would crack and smile at him honestly, the distance between them momentarily breached.
It seems almost a year of absence has not made the heart grow fonder.
Whatever, Kame thinks, and bites into his banana.
—
It takes almost a week and a half for them to find a simultaneous gap in their schedules; Jin ends up grudgingly delaying his planned weekend trip to Korea with the boys because otherwise it might be another twenty years until they find another gap between Kamenashi’s photoshoots and production meetings and promotional spots.
They meet at a Starbucks not far from the Jimusho, where the paparazzi should already be sniffing around, looking for a bunch of juniors chatting up girls or maybe a stray member of SMAP just trying to get a caffeine hit. Jin walks in uncharacteristically early; he doesn’t see anyone he recognises when he looks around, so he orders a grande pumpkin spice latte and slumps into an armchair to play Angry Birds on his iPhone.
Kamenashi is late, which gives Jin time to start fidgeting. He keeps hoping he’ll get a message calling the whole thing off. He’s not nervous about seeing him, he tells himself, he’s just dreading how totally boring this afternoon is going to be. He should have brought Josh or someone along for the ride, to fill in the gaps between Kamenashi’s bitching and nagging.
He’s just considering sending Josh a message and ordering him to get his ass here now when Kamenashi finally walks in, practically unrecognisable in a dark baseball cap and baggy jacket, collar angled to hide part of his face. Jin recognises him from the way he moves, the gentle sway of his hips as he walks, but nobody else seems to notice his entrance. Jin had been spotted the second he walked in and small clusters of teenage girls have been tittering ever since.
“You suck at being conspicuous,” Jin says when Kamenashi arrives in front of him. “Take off your disguise, 007.”
“I came on the subway,” Kamenashi says. As he pulls off his glasses and hat one of the girls that has been blatantly spying on Jin makes a choking, shrieking noise that Kamenashi tries to pretend not to hear, but Jin sees the slight twitch of his mouth. He knows Kamenashi secretly enjoys getting hysterical reactions. They mostly make Jin uncomfortable.
Jin is starting to feel irritated already. “Nice to see you could deign to make an appearance,” he snips.
Kamenashi rolls his eyes and sits. “Like I said, I took the subway.” He pulls off his scarf and runs a hand through his hair, leaving it messier and more rumpled than before. “I’m sorry.”
“Right,” Jin says. He inhales, spine drawing up straight, fists on his knees. His cheeks puff with air. He can’t think of anything else to say. “This is uncomfortable.”
Kamenashi slumps in his chair, elbows sticking out and legs sprawled. “It’s not so bad.”
Jin prods at what is left of his latte with a spoon, then pushes the paper cup away. It’s cold. “I knew the old man was going senile, but this is nuts even for him.”
“I’ve been called into his office in the middle of the night for worse,” Kame says, eyes on his hands rather than Jin’s face.
Jin snorts; he can barely resist making some joke about booty calls that will inevitably just trigger an insane bitchfit; a tabloid story about Kamenashi dumping his coffee on his head and storming out of Starbucks is not going to help either of them.
“Like what?” he asks instead.
Kamenashi just shrugs and says, “Let’s see a movie.”
—
Sitting in a movie theatre at least means they don’t have to talk. Jin buys popcorn and is a bit surprised when Kamenashi basically eats it all until Jin shifts it into the crook of his other elbow, too far away for him to reach.
“Stingy,” Kame mutters, slumping to his other side, opening up a valley between them. Halfway through the movie Jin feels a bit bad and shoves the popcorn back between them, but Kame ignores it, cheek resting on his fist, eyes fixed resolutely on the boobs and explosions that make up the bulk of the movie. Every time Jin looks over at him he feels his own rancour grow.
When it is over they sit through most of the credits because Kame wants to know who did the make up or score or stunt co-ordination or some shit. Jin checks his email, forwarding a bunch of dirty jokes from Josh to Pi.
Against Jin’s better judgment, he offers Kame a lift home, mostly because his mother’s voice is in his ear reminding him to be generous and polite. She always liked Kamenashi. She never understood what happened between them. If Jin thinks about it too much he doesn’t understand either.
In the car, Kame tries to prod Jin into offering an opinion on the movie, but Jin can’t bring himself to agree when Kame starts talking about how awesome the effects were, illustrating the spectacular motorcycle crash with his hands, even though he agrees. He just shrugs and says, “It was okay, I guess.” He flicks on the wipers as they drive out of the garage and fat splodges of rain hit the windscreen. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”
Kame looks at him with exaggerated disbelief, meeting Jin’s hostility with a small, cajoling smile. “You love that kind of thing.”
Jin snorts. “How would you know?”
His stupid little smile doesn’t disappear, but Jin sees it freeze and turn artificial. He tries to reel back his own antagonism, but it’s too late, he feels grumpy and angry and he still doesn’t understand why the fuck they have to do this, or how Kamenashi can accept it so easily. Now that they’re alone behind Jin’s tinted windows, he can’t muster up the energy to hide.
“Well,” Kamenashi says finally, collecting himself. “I thought it was awesome.”
“You’d think anything was awesome if management told you to,” Jin says. He pulls up at the stop light and is horrified to see that they are basically stuck in a glorified car park. Lines of cars stretch into the distance, barely moving.
Kame sighs. His left leg is trembling slightly, a sure sign of agitation. “Is there something you want to say to me?” he asks.
“No,” Jin says. He jabs the radio on angrily, hissing when Real Face blares out because the universe hates him that much. Kame turns his face away as Jin switches the stereo over to CD and Lil Wayne interrupts Koki mid-sentence.
“Come on,” Kamenashi announces after a minute, his voice low and flat. “You won’t have a better opportunity than this.”
“Fine,” Jin grips the steering wheel. “I don’t understand how you can just accept this.”
“It’s just work,” Kame says finally, sliding his sunglasses on and staring out the window.
Jin laughs without amusement. “That’s your answer to everything.”
Kame’s fingers trace a hole high up in the thigh of his jeans. “It’s the only answer I have.”
“So what, anything is okay for work?” Jin spits. “That’s all that matters to you? Lying and cheating and using people, all that’s fine, as long as Kamenashi Kazuya keeps his name up in lights?”
His body language is shutting Jin out completely; Jin is dimly aware that he’s going too far, but it feels impossible to resent the boiling resentment that is bubbling up in his throat. He wants to call Kamenashi names just to see them hurt.
“I don’t understand where this is coming from,” Kame says finally, that rough, serious voice familiar from the many times that Kamenashi had to sit KAT-TUN down and tell them how things were. When he had to nag them into line. “It’s been years since…” He takes a breath, as if reaching inside himself to deal with Jin’s immaturity. “I just don’t understand why you’re suddenly so angry.”
“I don’t like liars,” Jin says. “And I don’t like that you’re turning me into one.”
“I’m not turning you into anything,” Kamenashi objects. “You make your own choices. If you want this to stop then whatever, go to Johnny and tell him that yourself. But for me…” The hole in his jeans keeps getting bigger where Kame is tearing away the threads. “There are things I want to protect, and that means…” He wraps his hands together in one big joined fist and presses it between his knees, shoulders drawing up uncomfortably. “Integrity is a luxury that I can’t afford.”
“You want to protect yourself, you mean,” Jin accuses, but Kame isn’t responding to him anymore. When Jin pulls up to the address Kame gave him, he bows his thanks and gets out without a word. As Jin pulls away from the curb, he can’t help but watch Kamenashi in the rear view mirror, getting smaller and more remote by the second.
—
“Maybe you’re like his beard,” Josh says, swigging from a beer bottle. They’re sitting on Jin’s balcony looking out over the Roppongi Hills, feet propped up on the railing. “Like Tom Cruise’s wives. Only instead of making him look straight, you’re supposed to be making him look cool.”
Jin giggles. “Nothing could make Kamenashi look cool.”
Josh waves his cigarette in the air. They’ve been sitting here drinking and coming up with theories for about an hour, and Jin is relieved to feel that hysterical tension leaking out of him. He feels kind of exhausted. “No seriously, it’s like, “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!”
Jin stares at him blankly.
“That’s a Star Wars reference,” Josh says helpfully.
Jin flicks his beer bottle lid off the table. “So I’m like Harrison Ford?”
“No, retard, that’s Han Solo.” He stubs out the cigarette. “Obi Wan Kenobi is a Jedi. You’re like the Jedi Master of being cool.”
“And what’s Kamenashi, Darth Vader?” Jin can imagine Kame flouncing around in that black cape and mask pretty easily, actually. It could be the concept for KAT-TUN’s next PV.
“No way, that would mean he was like, the coolest.” Josh swings back on his chair thoughtfully. “I think he’s C3PO.”
“Huh?” Jin tries to think back. He’d last seen Star Wars when he was about eight years old, and while his memory is that it was awesome, he doesn’t exactly have the cast list memorised. “Is that the little round robot?”
Josh shakes his head seriously. “No, it’s the faggy gold one.”
Jin cracks up.
—
The second time they meet, it takes Kame more than hour to get ready because suddenly every item of clothing he owns seems to say he is the kind of person Jin apparently thinks he is. He’s not really sure what clothes have to do with it, but he can’t stop thinking of the disgusted look on Jin’s face as he questioned Kame’s integrity, and the memory makes him cast aside expensive cashmere t-shirts and silk sweaters, designer flannel shirts and a hoodie with his own name emblazoned on it in diamantes. He knows there is nothing he can do to pass Jin’s judgment, but he feels the terrifying urge to make himself as non-descript as possible. If he can dress all dull and beige and boring then maybe Jin won’t even notice he’s there and he’ll be able to escape this whole ordeal with his dignity intact.
In the end he gets so fed up with himself that he just grabs the first t-shirt his hand falls on – a ¥40,000 gift from a designer – and stomps angrily into his favourite Gucci boots, wondering when he started trying to win Jin over again. He’s not supposed to care about this stuff anymore. It’s been years since he has put any serious effort into mending that bridge, after every tentative reparative gesture was met with stubborn resilience or outright hostility. He’s not about to kill himself trying now.
He just has to keep reminding himself that there’s no use in chasing lost causes.
—
He’s not exactly surprised to walk into their private room in the yakiniku restaurant Jin had chosen to find him with a group of five or six of his foreigner friends. Whatever Jin thinks, they’ve known each other long enough now that Kame has a fairly good understanding of how Jin’s brain works, and he knows that from now on Jin will do anything possible to follow Johnny’s orders to the letter without really following them at all.
Kame vaguely recognises the blond guy – Josh – from some photos Nakamaru had shown him of Jin’s bon voyage concert the year before, but the others are total strangers that Jin introduces so quickly Kame gives up trying to remember their names. He nods and bows politely, taking the empty seat at the end of the table beside a guy who, at least, gives him a broad, friendly smile before turning back to the conversation.
Everyone is laughing and talking in English and as much as Kame tries to focus on the conversation, he can only pick up the general gist of the chatter sporadically; at first it seems like they’re talking about women, but then they might be talking about cars, or travel, or movies. He hears words he recognises but after a while they cease to mean anything to him and he stops even trying to pay attention, focusing instead on grilling the meat, watching the bright blood red of the beef slowly turn brown.
Once the meat is cooked and everyone is stuffing their faces, Kame finds himself watching Jin, feeling delighted, even in his exclusion, to see Jin smiling and laughing and happy. Sometimes Jin looks over and, as if remembering he is there suddenly, like a shock to the system, his eyes go dark and grumpy, the expression to which Kame has grown accustomed. It only ever lasts for the split second that he meets Kame’s eyes.
While they’re eating, the guy at Kame’s side turns and tries to engage him in conversation; his Japanese is terrible, but Kame appreciates that he is trying at the very least. His name is Peter and he is from Chicago. He is one of Jin’s dancers. That is the most information that Kame gets before Jin interrupts them loudly, asking Peter something obnoxious in English that makes everybody laugh.
Kame rests his chin in his hand and draws patterns in the condensation on his soda glass. He wonders if it would be rude to go home early and go to bed. Johnny has pulled some kind of shady manoeuvre to clear up Kame’s schedule enough to give him time to go on these stupid outings with Jin, but apparently did not see fit to make any more time than usual for Kame to sleep.
He closes his eyes and thinks of all the things he could have done with this evening that would have been better than sitting here and being forthrightly ignored by his former best friend.
Laundry. Watching TV. Going to the batting cages, maybe, and working out some of his aggression. Finally giving his mother her birthday present. Sleeping. Sleeping. Sleeping. Returning all the messages on his voicemail from people who actually like him. Painting his living room wall red like he has been planning for more than a year. Reading any one of the stack of scripts that are perpetually piling up in the passenger seat of his car. Anything.
When he opens his eyes Jin is staring at him, ignoring everything that is going on around him. At Jin’s side Josh is telling an animated story with his hands. He could be talking about elephants and spaceships for all Kame understands.
“Excuse me,” Kame says, standing up. “I have to make a call.”
Peter waves as he leaves, but no-one else seems to notice, except Jin, whose disinterest is so exaggerated as to be totally falsified.
There’s a balcony attached to the back of the restaurant. Kame slips out and sneaks a cigarette, leaning on the wall. A cat jumps down from the roof of the neighbouring building and he crouches to scratch it behind the ears, laughing when it rolls over onto its back and purrs.
When Kame comes back, the room is empty; only the dirty dishes and a half-full jug of beer are left. A waitress is standing in the doorway, eyes huge and panicked and leather folder held tightly between her two tiny hands.
“Excuse me, sir, Akanishi-sama said you were going to get the bill,” she says, and Kame almost laughs. Of course he did.
“My friends had to work,” Kame explains politely, and reaches out to take the folder, looking down at the bill as she shuffles away. ¥75,435.
Kame sighs and slips his credit card into the book.
—
@tokyojosh: BESSSSSSSSSSSSSSST YAKINIKU TODAY. Thanks Kamenashi lol 24 March
—
Jin feels kind of bad about stiffing Kamenashi with the bill, but only after Josh tells Kusano and he sees the slightly horrified expression on his face. They’re sitting on Jin’s living room floor eating pizza that JIN PAID FOR but Kusano is looking at Jin like he’s some kind of monster.
“Dude…” Kusano says, pizza dangling halfway to his mouth, as if he has forgotten about it.
“Shut up,” Jin says. “Don’t judge me.”
Kusano finally remembers the pizza in his hand and stuffs it in his mouth. He talks around a gobful of cheese and salami. “That’s pretty harsh, dude.”
Jin shoves his pizza away angrily, suddenly not at all hungry. “I thought I said to shut up.”
“It was funny,” Josh offers defensively. “It’s not like he’s our friend.”
“But–“ Kusano starts, cutting off abruptly when Jin gets up and storms into the kitchen to get another beer. Jin pops the can and then angrily drags his iPhone out of his pocket, sending Kame a message:
ill pay u back for the yakuniku
Kame doesn’t reply for six hours, until 3am:
Don’t worry about it.
Somehow, it just makes Jin angry again.
—
Kame’s manager drops the paper into Kame’s lap when he climbs into the car after the taping of Going on Sunday night. Kame picks it up and turns to the page Takahashi has dogeared. There’s a blurry, indistinct photograph of himself in line for tickets at the cinema, and another of him standing an arm’s length away from Jin, stealing a handful of popcorn as they waited for the theatre to open. The headline is huge and red; AkaKame reunites? The article speculates that Jin’s absence from KAT-TUN has somehow helped them rekindle a friendship torn apart by professional differences.
Takahashi’s face is grim. “It’s best if you don’t associate with Akanishi-san.”
Kame folds the paper and tucks it into his messenger bag. “Oh?”
“We’ve worked so hard to keep your reputation clean,” Takahashi says. “That guy is toxic.”
Kame bristles. “That’s not true.”
“It is as far as senior management is concerned.” Takahashi takes off his glasses to clean them, looking away from Kame the way he does whenever Kame digs in his heels about something and refuses to move. “There are some who don’t understand why Johnny-san is going out of his way for such a rude and ungrateful brat.” He replaces his glasses. “It’s best for you to stay out of the line of fire.”
Kame looks out the window. “My social life is none of your business.”
—
Jin blows off four appointments with Kame – three because he can’t be bothered, and one just to be a dick – before they finally meet about two weeks after the yakiniku incident. They’re supposed to play minigolf but Kame shows up wearing a suit and says they’re going to lunch at his friend’s place instead. They drive about an hour and a half outside of Tokyo and Kame gets lost three times trying to find the sprawling property; his GPS is broken and Jin ends up having to navigate using his phone. It’s actually good because otherwise Kamenashi might keep trying to make the same awkward, careful conversation he was attempting in the city.
Kame’s friend turns out to be some rich old tycoon and an oddball assortment of guests almost comically ranging in age and personality. Kame and Jin sit with a 40 year old racehorse owner named Yuuko. She and Kame seem to know each other well; she keeps calling him Kazu-chan and asking him questions about random mutual acquaintances. Jin’s not sure when Kame has time to make all these weird friends, but this lady at least seems interesting. After lunch, while they’re drinking coffee, Kamenashi wanders off to talk to the host and Yuuko begins telling Jin stories about her travels all over the world. She’d be hot if she was just five years younger. 40 is a bit too close to his mother’s age.
He goes looking for Kame when she excuses herself to take a phone call, and finds him sitting in another room with the tycoon’s daughter Ayumi, bent over a magazine spread of MatsuJun in a wet white t-shirt. The walls are covered in Arashi posters. They’re laughing, and Jin stands just outside the room for a moment, the sound of Kame’s genuine giggles enough to jolt him off guard for a moment.
“Is Akanishi really like they say?” Ayumi asks as they flip to Jin’s spread. He feels his cheeks burn as he looks at himself spread provocatively along a leather couch. It’s embarrassing.
“Like what?” Kame replies.
“You know,” she says, and her voice drops to a whisper. “A bad guy.”
“No way,” Kame says. “He’s nice, you should go talk to him.”
“You should have brought Matsumoto-san instead,” she whines.
“I think Jin’s better than Matsumoto-san,” Kame says.
“Why?” Ayumi asks.
That’s when Kame laughs again. “I’m probably biased,” he admits. “He’s one of my oldest friends.”
Jin stomps off. He’s relieved to find Yuuko standing with some architect. When she leaves he asks if she’d mind giving him a lift back to the city. On the way home he fantasises about fucking her in the back seat, maybe stopping and spending the weekend at one of the ryokan they pass on the way home, just to distract himself from the dull, painful throbbing in his stomach that he doesn’t understand.
—
The articles about their reconciliation become more frequent, illustrated with creepy photos taken through the windows of coffee shops and car windows. They meet up at least once a week. Jin tries to bring his friends along wherever possible; he doesn’t know if he can spend another hour sitting alone with Kame without scratching his eyes out.
The truth is, he’s trying to be good, but whenever Jin tries to do something that he doesn’t really want to he fails miserably. He knows he’s being a dick and that Kamenashi’s seemingly infinite patience is probably wearing thin, but he really can’t help it and he doesn’t know why. He’d been angry at Kame once, a long time ago, but he considers that to be a different life, a different person. He’s not that battered, lonely kid anymore, blindsided by the sudden abandonment.
He’s above this shit.
He just has to figure out a way to remember that every time he looks at Kamenashi’s stupid, traitorous face.
—
Kamenashi’s patience really is wearing thin. He spends half his time with Jin mentally counting to ten, twenty, thirty, three hundred, three thousand, though he’s not sure if he’s going to throw a punch or burst into frustrated tears. He’s tired and stressed and tired of punishing himself and being punished for something that happened when he was nineteen years old, something that spiralled so wildly out of his control. They’re adults now. At some point, they’re just going to have to get over it.
He’d actually been under the impression that Jin got over it years ago; one minute he’d sworn Kame was somehow simultaneously dead to him and his sworn nemesis, then he was leaving for Los Angeles. He came back as a different person, with all these new friends and hobbies. A distant, moody stranger impossibly out of Kame’s reach, but polite, at least. Friendly but remote.
Kame should probably be happy that his childish, vindictive best friend is still in there somewhere, pushing angrily at whatever prison Jin had wrangled him into. Arms flailing wildly through the bars to swipe scratches in Kame’s skin. The angry little monster inside.
It should make him happy, but it doesn’t. All these years, and Jin is still furious.
—
Kame goes to a dingy club in Roppongi with Jin and what seems like about three dozen of his closest friends. The bar is full of foreigners that don’t really notice him as he passes. He has vague memories of coming here with Jin when they were teenagers, underage and ducking in the back entrance. It doesn’t really surprise him that Jin is still coming to the same place. Jin is, for all his posturing, essentially a loyal creature of habit. He’ll probably go to that same club until the day he dies.
Jin grunts hello as he arrives, his attention instantly diverted by the tall, slim redhead he keeps buying drinks for. Jin spends most of the night ignoring him, but the dancer Kame remembers from the yakiniku incident – Peter – spots him and pulls him into a group of people that keep offering him champagne and shots of vodka. They’re all noisy and laughing and for once don’t seem to realise that he’s supposed to be a social leper, so he keeps taking whatever they offer him, feeling himself getting louder and funnier himself.
He ends up curled into the corner of a couch, feeling a bit giddy and leaning against Peter’s muscular shoulder because he’s too fucked up to sit straight. He watches Jin while everyone is talking; masochistically lingering on the gentleness of his smile and the way he leans just a little into the girl’s space. They haven’t slept together, he can tell. She doesn’t quite return Jin’s attention, listening to her friend’s stories rather than returning Jin’s avid gaze.
She’s beautiful, he supposes. If you’re into that kind of thing.
—
Jin wakes up in a foul mood. There’s a warm body in the bed next to him but it’s not Kelly like he’d been angling for, it’s Kusano, fully dressed and drooling into Jin’s shoulder. Jin shoves him aside and crawls out of bed in search of coffee. He’d barely had anything to drink last night, but somehow his head still aches and his mouth tastes like stale beer. There’s no coffee left and he wonders if it is too douchey to shake Kusano awake and make him run out to the conbini to get some. Probably, but he’s tempted anyway. Instead, he sits at his kitchen table rubbing his eyes and swigging flat Coke from a week-old bottle.
At the end of last night he’d been the only person sober enough to get Kamenashi home in a cab, and he’d had to drag him up to his apartment with an arm around his shoulder. That guy was surprisingly heavy now, a solid sack of muscle and flesh insolently hanging from Jin’s neck. He’d collapsed into bed when Jin shoved him, whimpering slightly as the room span around him.
“Wait,” he’d slurred, reaching out to grab Jin’s wrist.
“What?” Jin snapped. “Do you need a bucket?”
“NO,” Kame said.
“Spit it out,” Jin said, “The meter’s running.”
“I’m TRYING,” Kame rolled into his pillow, face smushed and hair already in disarray. He reeked of cigarettes and spilled beer, a shock of stinkiness in this pleasantly perfumed apartment. “YOU KEEP INTERRUPTING.”
“Jesus, you’re wasted,” Jin said, yanking his arm from Kame’s grasp. “I’m going.”
“I don’t understand how you can hate me so much,” Kame whined. Jin paused in the doorway, the frail, scratchy note in Kame’s voice making his stomach turn over with guilt. “I just don’t understand how you do it.” He rolled over onto his back, eyes red and bloodshot. He was still wearing his boots. They rubbed black marks on his sheets. “I can’t,” he said “No matter what you do to me, I can’t.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before–“ Jin exploded, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t even know how.
“Jin,” Kame said miserably, but Jin was already walking out the door.
—
Kame is on the shinkansen headed for Sendai when Jin calls. He’s grateful that shinkansen etiquette gives him an excuse to reject the call; his head is throbbing and his throat is hoarse and he doesn’t quite remember what he said to Jin to make him storm out of his apartment, but it was probably pathetic.
The phone keeps ringing over and over, vibrations causing a dentist’s drill buzz on the tray table. Kame takes the phone and shoves it in his pocket. He pulls his hood up and tries to bury his face inside it, slumping against the window. At first he tries to sleep but when he can’t he opens his eyes and stares at the passing scenery, the buildings and billboards that sidle up to the railway lines. He wishes he’d stopped on his way to get something greasy and disgusting to eat. He feels queasy.
Jin sends him an email that says, FUCKER! Answer your phone! and Kame barely stops himself from sending back a torrent of abuse. He doesn’t understand how he can be so thoroughly cast out of Jin’s good graces yet still be expected to be available to him 24/7. He’s a busy guy. There are people that have to wait a month for Kamenashi Kazuya to return a phone call.
It only takes him a few hours to return Jin’s call, after he’s interviewed half the team and buttered up the coach a bit just because he can. He still feels hungover so he bums a cig from the boom guy. He sits crosslegged in the outfield, staring up at the early spring sun. The players are doing jumping jacks on the other side of the field, sweating and panting. Sometimes, Kame’s really glad he gave up on his olympic dreams. When he’s feeling lazy. His own job is hard work a lot of the time but it is offset by the long stretches in which he just has to stand around and look pretty.
He rests his head in his hand as the phone rings, dread prickling the skin on the inside of his wrists. He’s not entirely sure what he’s done to raise Jin’s ire now, but he’s got more than a dozen missed calls which would have been nuts even when they were inseparable.
“You really couldn’t resist,” Jin spits the second he answers the phone.
Kame absently tugs up a few blades of grass. He doesn’t know what Jin is talking about, which will probably just make Jin angrier. “Huh?” he asks after a while.
“Did you do it just to piss me off?” Jin’s anger is doing a pretty good job of covering his whining, but Kame hears it, the petulant little kid that still doesn’t really understand why everything can’t always go his own way.
Kame rubs his forehead, feeling the low nauseous thud of his hangover returning with strength. “I still don’t know what we’re talking about,” he admits finally.
“Don’t give me that,” Jin scoffs.
“I’m serious,” Kame insists. “If you wanna fight about this you’re going to have to fill me in because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jin snaps, “Kelly!”
“I don’t know who that is,” Kame says.
“KELLY,” Jin repeats more forcefully.
“Is that the redhead you were tracking like a stalker last night?” He takes Jin’s hiss as confirmation. “I don’t even remember talking to her.”
“Then why is she asking me about my ‘friend’ Kamenashi?” Jin asks suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” Kame says.
Jin is implacable. “I don’t believe you.”
Kame breathes quietly for a minute, nonplussed. He’s not exactly Kinsey 6 gay, but he’s getting there, and he thought Jin knew that. It’s not like he’s been hiding it; he never made a big deal about coming out or anything but Jin has met two of his ex-boyfriends and Kame never tried to hide that that is what they were. The idea that Jin really didn’t know has never occurred to him.
Finally, he says, “I’m into guys, retard.”
He almost enjoys the silence that ensues, followed by Jin’s small, quiet, “Eh?”
“You can have Kelly,” Kame says. “I’m not interested.”
“Did you just come out to me?” Jin asks.
“Well,” Kame says. “I thought I did that like four years ago, but apparently you missed it.”
“What?” Jin says.
The team are starting to wind up their training, so Kame gets up and dusts off his suit pants. “I have to go,” Kame says, and hangs up.
—
Jin sits on his couch with his phone in his hand for like five minutes after that. It’s not that it’s a shock, exactly; he’d wondered about Kame in the past, even when they were really young. It’s been a long time since he really thought about it. Kamenashi flirts with women all the time. Jin doesn’t understand why he expends the effort if he’s not planning on any follow through.
He slumps on the couch, deflated. He’d felt so furious a few minutes ago, having spent almost a full day mentally replaying Kelly’s questions about Kame, oh-so-casually phrased and delivered practically first thing this morning as if she couldn’t possibly wait until a decent hour to find out all about her future husband. Now he doesn’t know quite what to do; he still feels angry, even if he shouldn’t. He still wants some kind of revenge. He wants to go back in time and stop Kelly from meeting Kamenashi so he doesn’t have to face the thought that maybe she’s just not all that into him. She’d rather some lame-o instead. Some gay lame-o.
Jin’s life sucks.
—
Jin hates photoshoots most of the time, especially now that he is all on his own. He’d never given and serious thought to how much he’d actually miss Taguchi or any of those other retards, but whenever he has to sit around a studio alone, trussed up in uncomfortable clothes and slathered in disgusting orange make-up, he can’t help but think about how much faster the time would go if Taguchi was sitting next to him in a matching ugly cumberband, telling his stupid jokes. It’s been months since he spoke to anyone but Nakamaru. And Kamenashi, he supposes. If that counts.
The Wink Up staff press a few issues of their own magazine into his hands, bowing and grovelling apologetically because the photographer is stuck in traffic. Jin flips through the pages, skipping any that have his face on them. He reads an interview with News and sends Pi an email to mock him about its contents.
He almost flips straight past the interview with Kamenashi until he spots his own name in tiny font. He reads with some trepidation, half expecting that Kame may have gotten fed up and exposed is treachery to the loyal Wink Up readers. There’s no trace of anger in Kame’s words, though, just a casual account of eating yakiniku with Akanishi and his friends. Heavily censored, like reading a top secret document in which all the most interesting bits have been redacted. Akanishi. Friends. Meat. Fun.
It makes Jin feel worse than if Kamenashi had revealed the truth.
—
Kame hasn’t told anyone about the arrangement, not even the other members. He tries not to break Johnny’s rules unless it’s absolutely necessary, always, in the back of his mind, aware that today could be the day that the company decides they’re all too much trouble and scrubs them off the list.
Even if he could tell them, he doesn’t want to. It seems shameful, somehow, like they’re going to look at him and suddenly see the person that Jin does, now. He knows it is stupid. The other members have seen him at his absolute worst and haven’t turned on him. They’re all fucked up in their own ways, but they all protect each other, in the end.
Koki broaches the subject when too many tabloid reports bank up and Jin becomes the bloated elephant in the room, sulking on the couch and eating up the atmosphere. Just like old times.
“You’ve been hangin’ out with Akanishi?” he says. They’re being fitted for costumes for the tour, standing like scarecrows, glimmering rags hanging around their elbows and from their hips.
Kame is too aware of the stylist kneeling at his feet; a dangerous variable. Koki should know better than to talk about this in front of her. Any talk about his relationship with Jin is highly classified and has been for years.
He says, “Yeah.”
He knows Koki wants to say, ‘why’. It is written all over his face, in the slight twitch of his moustached mouth. Instead, he says, “How is he?”
Kame’s arms are tired. He rolls his neck, trying to ease the muscles into submission.
“Fine,” he says, and they don’t talk about it again.
—
Jin usually talks to Nakamaru on the phone about once a month, but he’s been avoiding returning his calls ever since this whole Kame thing started. He’s worried Kame has told him all about what a douche he’s been and he doesn’t know if he can stand hearing the gentle disapproval in Nakamaru’s voice. That guy is always so patient with him, standing by even when Jin has given him every reason in the world not to.
It was Nakamaru that tried to patch things up between them the first time, at least five years ago now. He’d called them both out for ramen and tried to negotiate a peace treaty. Jin can still remember the sight of him with his head buried in his hands as he’d pushed his own seat back and stormed out of the restaurant. Kame with his hands folded in his lap, unmoving.
Nakamaru calls when Jin is just sitting around on his couch and can’t think of a single reason in the world not to answer. Slowly, reluctantly, feeling exhaustion sweep over him, Jin swipes the call open and says, “Yo.”
It’s actually good to hear Nakamaru’s voice.
They chat about football and KAT-TUN’s upcoming single, the problems Junno is having with his secret fiance, the new season of True Blood, stovepipe jeans (Nakamaru's love and Jin's intense loathing), a mutual friend’s upcoming movie, and then, Nakamaru finally says, “Have you really patched things up with Kamenashi?”
Jin scratches the side of his nose, closing his eyes. “Ah,” he says at length. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad,” Nakamaru says. He sounds kind of emotional, which is just uncomfortable. “Seriously, I’m really glad.”
Jin feels like an asshole.
—
By the time Kamenashi joins them at the karaoke place Jin’s been drinking sweet, girly cocktails with stupid names for hours and he’s feeling loud and obnoxious. He’d commandeered the mic for almost the first hour, starting with some Kanye and Lil Wayne but quickly devolving into Hello!Project’s back catalogue at his friend’s urging. When Kame gets there he’s run out of energy, croaky voiced and sprawled across the bench. Josh is desecrating a Rolling Stones classic.
Jin doesn’t even say hello as Kame enters.
Kame is quiet, tucked into a corner, flicking absently back and forth through the songbook. He doesn’t queue up any songs, which isn’t like him. When he and Jin used to come to karaoke together when they were kids they’d spend half the time fighting over the playlist and the rest sloppily singing over each other’s selections, relieved not to think about pitch or tone or any of those other boring things they were supposed to care about, as idols. Jin keeps waiting for Kame to grab the controls and line up ten boring old Beatles songs in a row, but he doesn’t. He just sits there with his chin in his fist, face blank as Kusano moves into the chorus of My Sharona.
He’s probably turned down plans with a Texas oil baron and the princess of Bulgaria to be here, but Jin doesn’t care. No-one looks down their noses at Jin’s friends. So they’re not sitting around eating lobster and talking about the opera or their investment portfolios or whatever. Jin’s friends are simple and awesome and real, not like those posers Kamenashi hangs out with. He wants to lean across the table, jab Kame in the chest and tell him so.
As if sensing Jin’s indignant stare, Kame turns and looks back at him, head tilted slightly, inquisitively. Jin scowls back at him. Kame rolls his eyes and finishes off the last of his beer.
“Snob,” Jin says. He doesn’t know if Kame can hear him over Kusano’s wailing, but Ryo does. He elbows Jin in the side and says, “Take it easy, dillweed.”
Ryo had Jin’s back for the first few weeks of this whole Kamenashi debacle, but lately his loyalty has been less and less convincing, disappearing completely the second he has a few drinks. A few weeks ago Jin found him leaning heavily on Kame’s shoulders, drunk and lumberingly affectionate, talking about how glad he was that they’re all friends. That fucking traitor. When Jin had tried to reach out and take Ryo off his hands, Kame had just wrapped his arm more securely around Ryo’s waist and said, “It’s ok, I’ve got him.”
Jin orders another round of drinks just as Kusano is wrapping up his song. The first few notes of the next song send a little missile of aggravation through him and Jin looks around, wondering which one of these betrayers queued up The fucking D-Motion. Kusano tries to hand Jin the mic, because Jin always sings this when they come to karaoke, but he can’t. Not this time, with Kame’s curious, bemused eyes on him. He shoves the mic away.
“Why’d you put this on?” he asks. “I’m not contractually obligated to sing this shit anymore.”
Kame’s mouth twists. Everyone goes quiet except for the tinny muzak pounding out through the sound system. They miss the first line of lyrics, and then the second, and then Kame begins to sing.
For a few seconds, the words can barely be heard over the backing track, and then Kusano presses the mic into his hand and his voice blares to life, a bit thin and husky like he might be getting a cold.
The song sounds lonely when only Kame is singing. Jin finds it hard not to join in; even at their worst, music was something that was always easy between them. All they have to do is close their eyes and let go and their voices will find a way to figure things out.
It was actually Jin that chose this song. For KAT-TUN. They’d known already that he was going to leave and they’d all wanted something good, something really good, something to send him off with a bang. Jin just wanted something that would make everybody happy.
Listening to Kame makes him feel queasy, but he tells himself he isn’t guilty. He just needs to take a piss.
By the time he comes back from the bathroom, the song is over, and Kame is gone. Jin gets an email a few hours later.
This is over, it says. I’ll talk to Johnny.
Part Two
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most incoherent commenter
And then there was: He just has to figure out a way to remember that every time he looks at Kamenashi’s stupid, traitorous face. T________T
Kame should probably be happy that his childish, vindictive best friend is still in there somewhere, pushing angrily at whatever prison Jin had wrangled him into. Arms flailing wildly through the bars to swipe scratches in Kame’s skin. The angry little monster inside.
It should make him happy, but it doesn’t. All these years, and Jin is still furious.
You're breaking my heart into these tiny little shards and I think I'm letting you because I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE US A HAPPY ENDING RIGHT...RIGHT
Obviously I cannot resist quoting anymore:
He doesn’t understand how he can be so thoroughly cast out of Jin’s good graces yet still be expected to be available to him 24/7. He’s a busy guy. There are people that have to wait a month for Kamenashi Kazuya to return a phone call.
It only takes him a few hours to return Jin’s call
I love this. The Kamenashi confidence and "he's a busy guy" but he's really just weak for Jin anyway sjdkljfsl
AND THEN JIN IS AN IDIOT JLSKF "DID YOU JUST COME OUT TO ME" even though he's met two of Kame's exes. Oh Jin. The points he never manages to catch onto. Somehow your characterizations of Akame are the ultimate canon to me. Besides perfection...
Koki and Nakamaru made me so happy :( "I'm really glad" Oh Maru :( Maru is the best, always. Forever. :(
The way you characterize Jin jsdlkjs I could write odes about it. It's so real. You write them as real as they can get, fit in things I'd never have expected but that make me go "man, I know how that feels" I have no idea how you do it. You are the best :( Jin being a jerk to Kame - once upon a time I used to act that way around my crushes, laughing.
“Why’d you put this on?” he asks. “I’m not contractually obligated to sing this shit anymore.”
God. God, somehow that really hurt -
It was actually Jin that chose this song. For KAT-TUN. They’d known already that he was going to leave and they’d all wanted something good, something really good, something to send him off with a bang. Jin just wanted something that would make everybody happy.
FITZ. FITZ. I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE. JSDKLJLS I WANT MY HEART MENDED IN THE NEXT SIX PARTS.
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Off to Part 2 :)))
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liked this part too
always, in the back of his mind, aware that today could be the day that the company decides they’re all too much trouble and scrubs them off the list.
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It feels so vivid, I can totally imagine Kame and Jin's relationship actually being like this! Kame does seem to have a huge amount of patience, so, when he loses it at the end, it really makes me feel bad for both him and Jin.
Off to reading part 2... I have to see what happens! Thanks for writing this beautiful piece of art, because that's what it feels like, to me :)
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You are my favorite fan fic writer ~ thx <3
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I just love reading it over and over again. I may not comment all the time but I do enjoy reading all of these. :)
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I'm glad Kame is the one that tells Jin it's over in the end
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