FIC: "I Believe You Liar" 4/7

[soundczechfic]

Jin is unprepared for the return of his psychotic preoccupation with knowing Kame’s whereabouts at any given moment of the day. He’d had a kind of vague, abstract memory of being like that as a teenager, but he’d figured the feeling had been exaggerated in his memory, rather than totally and completely understated.

He’s always been a bit overbearing and possessive with his friends, his sense of entitlement increasing the closer he gets to them, but this is extreme even for him. As a kid, if he’d wanted to know where Kame was, he’d have just called or emailed where are you, simple and direct, not bothering to reply if the answer was not particularly worrying or interesting. Now, though, they’re in this in-between period where he’s not sure it is really his business to know, so he just sits there staring at his phone, willing Kame to suddenly email and tell him. Usually he breaks after an hour of psychic compulsion fails to produce results, sending a painstakingly casual message like, I’m chillin’ with the boys, sup? and hoping Kame will respond in kind.

He’s never been sure what it is that he thinks will happen in his absence, just that the idea that Kame is out there somewhere in the world and Jin doesn’t know where fills him with a creeping anxiety, slowly growing in intensity the longer Kame is gone. Jin is not at all sure how they managed to cease all social contact for five years, as they’ve been friends again for less than two months and he’s already at the point where he’s freaking out if Kame doesn’t contact him for two hours at a time.

Josh is just about ready to kill him. They’re supposed to be working, laying down demos for Jin’s next CD, but Jin’s attention keeps drifting from the music in front of him, gnawing away at him until he picks up his phone and checks it just to make sure he hasn’t missed a message; his phone is always accidentally switching itself onto silent, and it could totally sit there vibrating without him noticing.

“If you touch that phone one more time it is going out the window,” Josh threatens after about an hour of this. He hits save forcefully and glares at Jin. “Why don’t you just call him?”

“Who?” Jin asks innocently.

“‘Who’,” Josh mimics. “Kamenashi, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jin protests. “I’m just checking the scores.”

Josh stares at him skeptically. “What scores?”

“Um.” Jin coughs. It is midweek; they are probably not playing soccer anywhere in the world right now. “I’m playing Words With Friends with some guy in Arizona.”

Josh tears the phone out of Jin’s hands.

“I’m improving my vocabulary!” Jin cries. By the time Josh lets him have his phone back four hours later, he has about a dozen messages from Kusano and three from Kame, who is on location in Yokohama. The tiny, hysterical voice at the back of Jin’s mind subsides, and he sends back a photo of Josh’s aggravated, tired face.

—


“Did you meet Suzuki Sho?” Jin’s manager’s assistant asks him one day. She’s kind of strict and would not usually be this informal with him, but the phone call she’s just received has apparently shocked her into delinquency. She is staring at him sort of open-mouthed.

“I don’t know,” Jin says. “Who?”

“He’s the head of Sony’s marketing division,” she says. “He wants to talk to you about being the spokesman for their new line of mp3 players.”

Jin frowns. “I’m really more of an iPod man…”

“Akanishi-san!” she snaps. “This is a very big contract. A very important contract.”

Jin shrinks in his chair and nods compliantly.

“He said he met you at a function recently,” she is making notes the old fashioned way with pen and paper. “You don’t remember?”

Something dimly bubbles up in Jin’s brain; a little man in a shiny suit who kept talking about Jin’s wild and sexy image while Kame abandoned him to get them some drinks. He’d given Jin a business card that he tucked in his wallet and forgot about. He pulls it out now and looks at it; Suzuki Sho, Director of Marketing.

“Oh,” he says, “Yeah,” and hands her the card.

She sighs and takes the card, then disappears to find Jin’s real manager.

Jin calls Kame, “Were you pimping me out at that party the other day?” He’d been distracted by all the delicious miniature food that hot waitresses kept bringing past, but now that he thinks about it Kame did introduce him to a lot of old guys in nice clothes.

“Yeah,” Kame says.

“Oh,” Jin says. “Really?”

“Of course,” Kame says. He sounds distracted; there’s a lot of noise in in the background. “Why do you think Johnny wanted you to hang out with me?”

Jin remembers Josh’s theory about him giving Kame a bit of street cred and winces, because this makes a lot more sense. “………………..Oh.”

“Did you get a job?” Kame asks.

“Yeah,” Jin says.

“Good,” Kame says. “Now we don’t have to go to that gala thing on Sunday.”

“You said there was going to be motorcycle racing,” Jin says suspiciously.

“I lied,” Kame says, and hangs up.

—

Jin forces Kame to join Facebook. Actually, it’s more like Jin joins Facebook on Kame’s behalf, commandeering the computer while Kame lies on the bed, flicking through some pretentious-looking photography magazine.

“Isn’t it against the rules?” Kame asks. “What if the fans find it?”

“How would they find it?” Jin asks. “As far as Facebook is concerned you’re a 53 year old woman from Uruguay.” He angles the computer so Kame can see his profile photo, a frumpy, grumpy looking woman with a stern expression. His name is apparently Caoimhe Gonzalez.

“What’s the point, then?” Kame abandons the magazine and crawls off the bed so he can sit cross-legged on the floor next to Jin.

“So you can keep in touch with your friends,” Jin says. “It’s utilitarian.”

“But none of my friends are on Facebook,” Kame replies.

“I am,” Jin says. “And Josh, and Ryo.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kame says flatly. “I’m sure my best friends Josh and Ryo are just dying to add me.”

“Ryo already did,” Jin says smugly. Kame leans in to look at the news feed, seeing that Caoimhe is now friends with John Thompson, an old black man in a sombrero. Ryo, apparently. The rest of the news feed is full of updates from celebrities and companies that Jin has apparently decided Kame ‘likes’; Justin Timberlake and Johnny Depp and Tokyo Disney. Kanye West has updated about ten times in a row. At the bottom of the page, Caoimhe Gonzalez likes Jin Akanishi.

“Oh look,” Jin says, just as a little red flag appears at the top of the page. “There’s your best friend Josh.”

Josh is listed as Josh Rules, with a photo of his stupid gaijin face. A few seconds after he accepts the request, the first message on Kame’s wall appears.

sup man nice pic lol

“But he hates me,” Kame says, incredulously.

“No he doesn’t,” Jin says reassuringly. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

Kame rolls his eyes. “Then why did he tell a total stranger in a bar that I ‘sucked a lot of cock to get where I am’?”

Jin stares at him open mouthed. “What? When?!”

“I don’t know,” Kame says, grumpily slumping to one side, a little further out of Jin’s reach. “Ages ago. Before you left KAT-TUN, even. I’d never even met him.” He picks at a loose thread on his jeans. “Word spreads fast, though. This town is smaller than you’d think.”

“That doesn’t sound like Josh,” Jin says, unconvincingly. “It was probably Bryan.”

“I don’t even know who that is!” Kame protests.

“He went back to America,” Jin says. “But it sounds just like him.”

“Or maybe you’re just friends with lots of assholes.” Kame crosses his arms, now in an irrevocably bad mood.

“No,” Jin says insistently. “They’re nice. I just poisoned them against you.” Jin ‘likes’ Josh’s comment. “Josh promised he’d give you a clean slate. I kind of just assumed he’d get the same from you.”

Kame stares at Jin and wonders how Jin is the one that convinced all his friends that Kame is some kind of career prostitute but he’s the one that ends up feeling guilty. After a minute, he says grudgingly, “Ok, ok.”

“Besides,” Jin says. “At least I introduce you to my friends. I don’t even know who yours are.”

Kame blinks. “I’ve introduced you to my friends…” he says, a bit uncertainly, because he hasn’t, really.

“Not those rich dudes you ‘network’ with,” Jin says. Kame has taken him to a few dinners with influential businessman essentially fulfilling his end of the bargain with Johnny. Getting Jin out there. Letting people know he’s not just an erratic, temperamental brat, that he’s also delightful. “They don’t count. And not KAT-TUN, they don’t count either. Or your brothers.”

Kame sighs and thinks of Mori, who keeps inviting him out even though Kame has repeatedly blown him off. He’s seen Jin three times this week. He’s probably seen Mori three times in the past three months.

“Why?” Kame says finally. “You always hate my friends.”

“That’s not true!” Jin protests, and sometimes Kame can’t believe how self-deluded Jin is. “We have loads of mutual friends.”

“Sure,” Kame says. “People we met together, or people you introduced me to.” Jin is still staring at him wide-eyed, as if he can’t believe that Kame is spreading such outrageous lies.

“What about… what’s his face… the baseball guy. With the zits.”

Juri-kun. Jin had met him for about twenty minutes one afternoon when Kame was about 15, which was apparently long enough for Jin to decide that he was using Kame because he was a Johnny and that Kame should be careful. Every time Kame had mentioned him Jin had said, “I don’t know about that guy…” until he moved halfway across the country and Kame rarely saw him anymore, and suddenly Jin’s feelings about him became totally neutral.

“Whatever,” Kame sighs. “If you want to meet my friends, then fine. I’ll set it up.”

“I’m sure I’ll love them,” Jin says confidently.

—

Jin hates them.

Especially stupid, pretentious M-san, who keeps going on and on about photography stuff that Jin doesn’t understand and can’t imagine ever caring about. He keeps making stupid camera-related jokes and then he and Kame laugh as if they’re totally hilarious. His name isn’t even really M. M isn’t even really a name. He’s really stupid, boring, Mori.

Jin tries to smile and be charming, though, because Kame keeps looking at him with a little knowing smirk, and Jin refuses to let him see that he was right. He beams back at Kame to show what a great time he’s having. Talking about cameras. In Japanese. In some old guy’s living room. Jin smiles forcefully.

Eventually, the subject turns to M’s new line. He brings out some sketches and samples to show Kame, who exclaims over them as if they’re life-changing pieces of fashion history and not just slightly customised jeans and t-shirts. The t-shirts are familiar-looking, and Jin realises with an almost alarming stab of resentment that he’s seen Kame wearing slight variations on the design about a thousand times. He was wearing one two days ago when they took their dogs for a walk in Yoyogi Park.

“Ahh, awesome,” Jin says, with elaborate enthusiasm, pretending not to notice when Kame looks at him, eyes alight with amusement. “You’re really talented, M-san.”

“Isn’t he?” Kame says. “Which is your favourite, Akanishi?”

Jin scowls at him. “The red one,” he says.

“Which red one?” M asks. There are three red t-shirts spread in a row; one is emblazoned with the signature M in white, one is covered in grungy, clashing pink stars, and the other has a verse of poetry in English that even Jin can tell does not make sense.

“The M,” Jin says after a long, slightly awkward pause.

“It’s yours,” M grins, gathering it in his hands and presenting it grandly to Jin as if it is a generous gift and he is not essentially using Jin as a living billboard.

“Thanks,” Jin says. He aims for a genuine smile but he’s pretty sure it ends up coming out closer to a grimace. “I’ll… wear it.”

Kame clears his throat and when Jin looks at him he’s got his hand over his mouth as if he was coughing, but Jin knows he was laughing. That fucker.

The other guys sitting around seem like they are maybe not so bad, but they are friends with The Enemy so Jin is pretty sure they must be pretty crap underneath their harmless facades. He talks to one guy about movies, which is okay at first, but he has this way of talking about Kame as if he knows him really well, as if explaining him to Jin, and that relationship quickly grows sour. Well, for Jin. The other guy still seems pretty into it.

Jin endures for two hours, and then he yawns loudly and says, “Well, I’m beat.”

It is 10pm, and he knows Kame wants to laugh at him again, but he goes along with it. “Yeah, I have to get up early tomorrow.” He stands, stretching out his muscles. “We should get out of here.”

“Yes,” Jin says, hoping that his relief is not too apparent. M-san walks them to the door, where they all hover uncomfortably for a minute before M gives Kame a half hug and kisses him on the cheek. Jin’s body is all stiff with apprehension, but M does not touch him.

Kame’s number one closest friend joins them and says, “I’m having a show next month.” He smiles into Kame’s eyes and Jin wants to tell them to get a room. The guy is sort of short and weedy and plain, but Kame’s ex looks like a math teacher, so Jin’s not entirely sure that rules him out in Kame’s books. “Well, a group show. But I’m in it. You should come.” He glances at Jin. “You too, Akanishi-kun.”

Kame glances at him sidelong and Jin blurts, “We’ll be there!” He wonders who this enthusiastic person is. “With bells on.”

“Wonderful!” The guy says, and finally, they’re allowed to leave.

“With bells on?” Kame asks as they walk down the path. They’d parked almost four blocks away.

Jin sniffs. “I’m excited to see my new friend’s work,” he says haughtily.

“Uh huh,” Kame says dubiously.

Jin is insistent. “I am an enthusiastic patron of the arts.”

“Okay,” Kame says, but he’s still smiling in that annoying, obnoxious way, like Jin doesn’t even have to be honest because Kame sees right through him anyway.

“I can’t believe I forgot to get his number,” Jin says. “I totally wanted to hang out again soon.”

It’s starting to rain. Kame pulls a tiny leopard print umbrella out of his bag and unfolds it over their heads. Jin squeezes as close to Kame’s body as possible, but he can feel fat, warm drops of rain on his elbow. He reaches out and takes the umbrella so he can hold it a little higher. Kame is too short and the spines kept getting tangled in Jin’s hair.

“I’ll just text him your number,” Kame says. “And tell him to give you a call.”

“NO,” Jin explodes, scowling as Kame starts laughing. He pulls the umbrella away maliciously, watching with satisfaction as the rain paints dark spots on Kame’s t-shirt and his hair starts to turn frizzy. Kame runs a hand through his hair and the frizziness disappears into slick, dark strips in the path left by his fingers. He plasters himself to Jin’s side, grabbing Jin’s wrist so he can’t pull the shelter away. Jin feels the wet splodges on Kame’s shoulder rubbing against his arm and his skin prickles uncomfortably.

“You totally hated them,” Kame says with obnoxious confidence. “You’re like the most transparent person in the world.”

Jin huffs. “I’m just shy.”

Kame looks up at him through damp lashes, knowing and sly. “Last night you danced on a table with a European princess in front of about two hundred people.”

“I was drunk,” Jin objects. “And she’s not a princess. She’s the ambassador’s daughter.”

“Whatever,” Kame says. He scratches lazily at his wet t-shirt. “You’re such a snob.”

“I’M a snob,” Jin explodes. He shoves Kame, who grabs Jin’s arm to stop from toppling over into the gutter. “Your friends may as well be sitting around in black turtlenecks talking about French existentialism.”

“They’re nice,” Kame says. “And I think they’re interesting.”

Jin frowns. “I’m not interesting?”

Kame stares at him. “Why are you like this?” They’ve finally reached his car and Kame leaves the shelter of the umbrella to cross to the driver’s side door. Jin stands on the footpath, shoulders hunched and scowling. “I’ve never met anyone who is so simultaneously full of himself and pathologically insecure.”

“HEY,” Jin objects, scrambling to fold the umbrella and get in the car when Kame opens the door and disappears inside. When he finally slides into the passenger seat Kame is messing with his hair in the rear view mirror, shaking out the moisture with his fingers. Jin crosses his arm and sniffs, waiting for Kame to apologise. He waits for almost a minute, then, realising the apology is not forthcoming, shoves Kame in the side of the head, messing up Kame’s careful reconstruction of his hairstyle.

Kame laughs. “It’s okay if you hate them,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“I’m not full of myself!” Jin cries.

“Mm,” Kame hums noncommittally, turning the key in the ignition.

“And I hate your friends because they’re pretentious nerds who are obviously using you just to sell their shitty t-shirts,” Jin continues. “If you made some proper friends I might like them.”

Kame snorts.

Jin glares at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Kame says, pulling into the street. The radio is softly playing the Keri Hilson CD Jin put on earlier.

“What?” Jin repeats insistently. “Spit it out.”

“I don’t know,” Kame shrugs. “It seems like I could bring Pi over to meet you and you’d tell me that you thought I’d made friends with a serial killer.”

Jin narrows his eyes. “I would not,” he says obstinately. “I’m not some jealous freak.”

“I didn’t say that,” Kame sighs. “You’re just a bit. You know. Protective, maybe.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Jin asks.

“Nothing,” Kame says. “But you don’t need to. I can look after myself. And I do, I promise.”

“You do not,” Jin says. “You just let people take and take and take from you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kame says. “I never let anybody take anything I don’t want to give.”

Jin looks at him. “Even me?”

Kame glances at him and then back at the road.

“Even you,” he says after a minute, but Jin isn’t sure that he believes him.

—

They’re sitting around a coffee shop one day when Josh says, “I need to get some new duds.”

Kame isn’t really listening to the conversation, even though he is aware they are speaking Japanese for his benefit. He is leafing through a script his manager is trying to get him the lead in; he would be playing an ex-police officer who turns to crime to pay his sick mother’s medical bills. Reading the script, Kame doubts he’ll get the role and doesn’t really want it anyway. The script is pretty bad and the role calls for him to shave his head. When he told Jin, he laughed for about twenty minutes and has been calling him bozu ever since. Kame’s hair has made a lot of sacrifices for his career over the years, but this might be too far even for him.

“Why?” Jin asks. He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch and his foot keeps jiggling against Kame’s thigh. Kame puts his hand on Jin’s ankle to make him stop.

“I met this girl,” Josh says sheepishly. “She’s all fancy and shit. I think she only agreed to go out with me because I was driving your car.”

Kame isn’t sure how Jin’s car could possibly make anybody dateable. It’s huge and always full of junk, old magazines and soda cans, discarded clothes, empty McDonalds bags and half-full bottles of Iced Tea. It’s a giant, portable dumpster.

“I figured I’d get some nice clothes, take her some place pricey.” Josh makes a sheepish face and stirs his coffee. “Can’t hurt, right?”

“She sounds like a bitch,” Jin says.

“Yeah,” Josh says. “But she’s hot, so whatevs.”

“Pathetic,” Jin groans. “Okay, so we’ll go shopping. I’ll fit you out nice.”

“Yeah,” Josh says, and then pauses cautiously for a minute and says, “Actually, I was thinking the Eternal Jeanist could help me out.”

Kame looks up and realises Josh is staring at him and Jin is looking mutinously between them.

“Fuck you,” Jin says. “I’m fashionable.”

They all stare at his dirty jeans and stretched out hoodie for a few minutes, and Jin repeats, “Fuck you,” crossing his arms over his chest to hide the coffee stain he’s obviously just noticed beneath the collar.

Kame puts down his script. “What’s your price range?”

Josh looks at him and then says, “Um, how much did your outfit cost…”

Kame just came from taping some new promos for Going. He looks down at himself, the cashmere sleeves pushed up to the elbow and the tweed stovepipes, perfectly tailored. “You should probably aim lower.”

“That means his pants probably cost more than your rent,” Jin says. He reaches out and feels the fabric stretched over Kame’s knee. “I think this fabric is woven from diamonds and unicorn fur.”

“Unicorns don’t have fur,” Kame says. “And shut up, it’s not like I paid for them.”

He has equally outrageously priced trousers at home that he did pay for, but he’s not going to own up to that any time soon, even if Jin is a gigantic hypocrite who regularly wears a watch that looks like it was hand crafted by Zsa Zsa Gabor.

“I just want nice pants,” Josh says sadly.

“There’s always Aoki Slim,” Kame says, slouching and resting his coffee on his knee. He has to lift it up to avoid spilling it all over his ridiculously overpriced pants when Jin elbows him in the side.

“Don’t be a dick,” Jin says. “Help my boy out.”

Kame laughs. “It’s alright,” he tells Josh, smiling reassuringly. “I’ll look after you.”

“Thanks,” Josh says, but the smile he returns is uncertain, and he looks like he is already doubting his own wisdom.

—

Two and a half hours later, Kame is standing outside the change room in a swanky Ginza boutique, angrily knocking on the door and commanding that Josh come out. The manager has already offered to comp Josh’s outfit in exchange for Kame’s promise that he’ll also take one of their coats and wear it on TV. It would be great, if Josh would just come out and let him see the fucking outfit.

“Come on,” he says, rapping sharply on the door. At first he’d been sweet and cajoling, but his patience with that had run out quickly. Jin is sitting on a loveseat across the room, flipping through a French fashion magazine full of half-naked supermodels and drinking his second glass of champagne.

“Take your time, buddy,” he calls, ignoring Kame’s dirty look.

“What’s the problem?” Kame asks, resting his head on the doorframe. He’d had plans this evening, but it doesn’t look like they’re getting out of here any time soon.

A long silence, and then Josh’s tiny, muffled voice: “These pants are really tight,” he says.

Kame sighs.

“I just realised I’m fat,” Josh says. “I look like a tub of lard.”

Kame frowns. He’d chosen some black slimline pants and a soft, grey sweater with a loose, fluid collar and a few silver threads running through it.

The muffled voice is a bit hysterical. “Plus I’m fucking sparkling like Edward Cullen!”

Kame turns and looks at Jin, who shrugs and pours himself another glass of champagne from the bottle the manager left them. Kame’s own glass is abandoned on the table on the other side of the room. Kame sighs.

“I thought you wanted to get laid,” he snaps finally. “Suck it up.”

A pause, and then Josh opens the door; he tugs the sweater out of shape at the waist and whines, “My thighs look all bulgy.”

“No,” Kame says. “It’s good. You look hot.”

Josh turns and looks at himself in the mirror, frowning uncertainly. He fiddles with the collar. Then, without looking at Kame, he asks, “Would you date me?”

“Sure,” Kame lies. He brushes a piece of lint of Josh’s shoulder. “You’re sweeping me off my feet right now.”

Jin chokes on his champagne and splutters, “GROSS.”

Kame ignores him and claps his hands over Josh’s shoulders, massaging them like he’s a heavyweight champion about to step into the ring. “You’ll be fine,” he says, then peers up at Josh’s sandy hair. “We should probably make an appointment at my salon, though.”

Josh’s hands fly up to his hair. “What does that mean?” he asks. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing…” Kame says hesitantly. “I mean, it’s fine… I guess…”

Josh spins around and asks Jin, “Is my hair ugly?”

Jin shrugs. “I thought you wanted it to look like that.”

“Like what?” Josh asks.

“You know…” Jin says. “Like a scarecrow.”

“ASSHOLE,” Josh yelps.

“It’ll be fine,” Kame says. “My stylist is a miracle worker.”

—

Later, when Josh is having his pants altered and the manager is going through their coats and holding them up against Kame’s body trying to find the perfect fit, Jin tugs his sleeve and says, “Thanks.” The whole ordeal, his cancelled plans and the wasted afternoon, suddenly seems worth it.

“No problem,” Kame says, then, because it will make Jin happy, and Josh isn’t around to hear, “He’s not so bad.”

“He’s retarded,” Jin says, but he’s smiling shyly, obviously pleased.

The manager holds out a burnt orange blazer for Kame to try on. He’d never choose it himself but the fabric is soft and it fits perfectly across the shoulders, almost like it had been tailored for him; it doesn’t pull too tight across his right bicep like his coats usually do.

Jin helps him smooth down the sleeves, tugging childishly at the cuffs. He turns the collar down where it sticks up a little in back, and then he says, “You look great,” standing so close that Kame wants to shove him away.

For a second, all Kame can think is, don’t do this to me, and then he’s saved by Josh’s return, Jin stepping neatly away as if Kame had imagined the whole thing.

—

Johnny has always been in the habit of making sudden decisions on their behalf and forgetting to notify them before the media did it for them. If their normal managers are working on a project, they might get two or three month’s notice. If the project is Johnny’s baby, they’re lucky to get a week.

This is how Jin finds himself with three weeks to plan a three-night stint in Seoul. In theory, this shouldn’t that difficult; it is essentially a rehash of the shows he’d done on home turf earlier in the year. Except that Jin can’t remember his own lyrics or choreography, and most of his dancers have scattered into other jobs or back to the States; even Dom and Joey have abandoned him. Johnny says he has to use the Juniors anyway, but won’t let him take the best ones because they’re getting ready for Dream Boys. So basically, Jin is fucked.

Kame, who has been touring on and off all year in between filming Going and doing the five bajillion other things they sign him up for, is unsympathetic. He meets Jin in the common room after Dream Boys rehearsal, hair tied up like a stupid, comforting pineapple, and proceeds to roll his eyes and disparage Jin’s whining.

“Oh no,” he says, voice flat. “You’ve got to go to Korea and do a solo show and you get total artistic control.” He pulls the hair tie out of his hair and the pineapple collapses in a wave across his brow. “I don’t care what they say, life’s hard for Akanishi Jin.”

“Shut your face,” Jin says. “It is, okay?”

Kame snorts. “Come back to me and complain when you’re playing the same character in a musical for the sixth year running. Seventh? I don’t even know anymore.”

Jin frowns. “You love doing Dream Boys.”

Kame shrugs and steals Jin’s soda. “It would be nice to do something new.” He sips through Jin’s straw, laughing. Bitterly, maybe, just a little. A breathy, cold sound. “Every year Johnny promises it is just one more year…”

It had honestly never occurred to Jin that Kame might struggle with his obligations. He’s always been such a stoic workaholic that Jin had always assumed that the idea of revolt had never even occurred to him. The idea of Kame doing Dream Boys year in year out when he doesn’t even want to is depressing and Jin momentarily considers staging some kind of coup on his behalf.

“Oh well,” Kame says after a minute. “Working with the kids is fun.”

That reminds Jin of his own troubles, and he rips his soda out of Kame’s hand.

“You took all the good juniors,” he grumbles.

Kame frowns, crossing his arms. “Shut up, they’re all good.”

Jin leans over and rests his forehead on the table. “I don’t even recognise any of them anymore,” he says. “What happened to Yabu?”

Kame blinks. “Are you serious?”

“What?” Jin stares back, clueless.

“He’s in Hey Say Jump, Jin. He debuted.”

“Oh,” Jin says. “Right.”

“Unbelievable,” Kame mutters. He folds his elbows and rests his head on them so he and Jin can lie eye to eye.

“Don’t berate me when I’m having troubles,” Jin whines. “What am I gonna do?”

“You should see it as an opportunity,” Kame says, rubbing his cheek sleepily on his sleeve. “Any one of those kids would lose a limb to dance for you. Educating them is your legacy.”

“As if,” Jin snorts, but Kame’s face is so earnest that it makes his stomach skitter nervously. He never understands how Kame can do this; half the time he’s such a bitch, but when he’s being serious it’s like sitting in front of Mother Teresa, calm and serene.

“You’ve forgotten,” Kame scolds softly. He nudges Jin with his shoulder. Jin pushes back half-heartedly. “Where would we be if Koichi hadn’t chosen us?”

Jin stacks his fists one on top of the other and rests his chin on them, thinking back. How young and stupid they’d been. The arrogance of their excitement. He’s never really connected those early days to anything that came after – how Koichi gave him KAT-TUN and KAT-TUN gave him the world. He sighs.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

—

New Johnny’s Junior unit Baddaz are preparing to make their stage debut in Seoul. Formed by Akanishi Jin (27) as backdancers for his forthcoming Korean debut, the group consists of Mizuki Yuu (15), Taguchi Kunimitsu (15), Tsuchiya Yuuichi (14), Mikey Jones (14), and Asou Akira (14). Their selection marks the first time that Akanishi has worked with Johnny’s Juniors since his departure from KAT-TUN in 2010.
– Yahoo Japan

—

They don’t see each other for a couple of weeks. For Kame, days pass in a blur of feather boas and sparkling boxing gloves, sorting out adolescent spats between the juniors. At the end of the day he sinks into the bath to ease the ache where the flying harness has jolted his joints out of line. He dreams about joining the circus.

The days for Jin seem to be passing with frustration at his rag-tag gaggle of backdancers. Kame sat in on the auditions, feeling bad for the kids who walked in with stars in their eyes only to be sent away. The kids Jin had chosen in the end had been the goofy ones that just loved to dance, limbs melting lazily into Jin’s songs. Three of them Kame had never even seen before, and he’s pretty familiar with the juniors.

Jin keeps mailing him about them all day, messages ranging from gentle pride about their achievements to apoplectic rage at their incompetence/misbehaviour/insolence. He has to message Kame rather than disciplining them because the third day of rehearsals he’d yelled at Asou Akira, a 14 year old, who had promptly burst into horrified tears and he hasn’t been able to say a harsh word to them since.

You’ll make a good dad one day, Kame mails, thinking about a small army of children with big dumb eyes and fluffy, wild hair.

lol i know Jin replies, attaching a picture of a beaming 15 year old wearing Jin’s favourite fluoro pink hoodie, which has apparently been regifted.

Kame barely resists setting it as his wallpaper. Every now and then he takes out his phone and just looks at it, stupid smile spreading on his face.

—


Jin is nervous before the first Seoul show. He’s always a bit nervous before a show, but it’s somehow worse now, with five anxious little faces sitting around staring at him as if he can be trusted to save them if it all somehow goes horribly wrong. He supposes this is what it must have been like to be Kame in KAT-TUN in the old days.

Everyone is sitting around in their bedazzled leather hoodies. Jin had originally insisted that their costumes were going to be simple and tasteful but then the costume girl had come in with her bedazzler and he’d gotten kind of swept up in the excitement. Now he’s got five glittering juvenile delinquents milling around, giving him a headache whenever their shoulders catch the lights.

His manager Kawamura comes in fifteen minutes before the show starts and runs through the setlist with them, reminding the kids of their cues and asking Jin repeatedly if he remembers all the lyrics.

“Yes,” he says defensively, even though the honest answer is most of them.

“Oh,” Kawamura says absently, “By the way, Kamenashi and Taguchi are here.”

“Oh my god,” Mizuki breathes. He’s obsessed with Kame, but he’s also probably the only junior in the whole company who has somehow never managed to speak to him directly. He’d confessed to Jin a week into rehearsals that Kame is his hero and he wants to be just like him when he grows up.

Even though Jin had said, “Why?” he’d still promised him that if he worked hard and behaved himself he’d hook it up when they got back to Tokyo. He figures they’ll take him to karaoke or something. He hasn’t told Kame yet but if Jin knows Kame then he’s not going turn his nose up at an opportunity to play the idolised senpai for an hour or two whether he knows the kid or not.

“Don’t let it throw you,” Jin says, advice which is as necessary for him as it is for the kid. He’d never want to be as lame as Kame when he grows up, but the news that he and Taguchi are here still makes his anxiety skyrocket. He wants them to be proud of him or something. He wants them to think it was worth it.

“Come on,” Jin says, and pulls the kids into a circle to bump fists.

A few times during the first few songs, he tries to peer up through the lights to find their faces, which is foolish because it is both distracting and impossible. From centre stage he can’t see anybody’s faces, just his own repeated on uchiwas a thousand times over. A gently undulating sea.

It’s not until he’s running around the walkway, skittering away from the violently groping hands of his most devoted fans, that he even knows where they are. A small cluster of girls are facing the wrong direction, clutching each other’s arms and shrieking, and there they are, leaning precariously on the flimsy rail that is the only thing protecting them from the ravenous crowd. They are wearing staff t-shirts and carrying uchiwas that are years old; In Taguchi’s Jin is blond and in Kame’s he has mushroom-shaped hair and a stupid look on his face. His stomach turns a bit in embarrassment that explodes into excitement when he draws near and they start waving madly, and he sees Kame’s face, eyes bright and beaming grin.

The fans lose their minds as he draws up to the platform where they’re standing and climbs aboard with a tug of assistance and a hug from Taguchi. When he throws an arm around Kame’s shoulder as he sings, the world goes white with noise. It makes something inside him grind shyly to a halt before picking up full speed, adrenaline rushing to his brain and making him crazy.

That’s the only explanation he has for what happens next; he just wants to hear them scream like that some more, wants to see if they can get louder. Later, he’ll think about how weird and gay and embarrassing it is, but in that moment, it only seems natural to yank Kame against his side and kiss him enthusiastically on the side of the head.

The fans can get louder. Jin jogs down the stairs back to the walkway, leaving chaos in his wake.

—

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—

Kame and Taguchi sit on Jin’s bed and play cards while he showers. They’re all going to take the kids out for Korean BBQ, but Jin has been in the shower forever. They can hear his voice warbling over the running water, singing his own songs.

“He seems happy,” Taguchi says as he lays down his card. The game he’s teaching Kame is complicated and Kame doesn’t really understand what is going on, just that he is losing. He throws down a card angrily. Taguchi wiggles his eyebrows. “He kissed you~”

Kame scoffs, ignoring the slight fluttering of his traitorous heart. He’s decided that he’s angry about it, because if he’s not angry then he’ll just be confused, and he promised himself years ago that he’d never be disoriented by Jin again. “I’d hardly call that a kiss.”

“Did it make you doki-doki?” Taguchi teases, oblivious to his displeasure.

“Don’t be stupid,” Kame says, and leans over and kisses Taguchi sloppily on the cheek. “You know I only have eyes for you, Jun-chan.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jin grumbles as he comes out of the bathroom, as if Kame and Taguchi might really have been about to consummate their burning passion for one another. He is bare-chested and his jeans are only half-fasted, wet hair curling floozily around his face. Kame stares resolutely at his cards and not at Jin’s slender, goofy body, his pleasant muscles beneath pale, vulnerable skin.

“Finally,” Kame says as Jin slips a flimsy black t-shirt over his head, collar slipping hazhazardly around his collarbones. “You’re so slow.”

“I was fast,” Jin protests. He jams a cap over his wet hair and fishes his phone out of his pocket, absently reading his email until he gets to one that makes him stop and stare for a minute.

“Oh,” he says after a moment.

“What?” Kame asks. He unfolds himself from the bed and crosses to Jin’s side, taking his wrist to glance at the screen. It’s all in English, but he recognises his own name.

“Um,” Jin says, eyes suddenly darting around uncomfortably. They both just stare back at him expectantly. “It’s from Josh.”

“And?” Kame prods.

“‘Twitter told me that you and Kamenashi made out on stage, lol.” Jin reads. “Did u finally go gay?”

Kame scowls, shoving Jin’s wrist away. “Well, what did you expect to happen? You’re the one that practically molested me.”

“It wasn’t me,” Jin protests. “It was Aquaneesha~”

“Whatever,” Kame says, crossing his arms. He feels his shoulders drawing up, ostentatiously showcasing his irritation. He concentrates on trying to smooth out his taut muscles.

Jin peers at him. “Are you angry?”

His uncertainty is ridiculous; it’s obvious Kame is. Kame counts to ten. He is unwilling to let this escalate into a full-scale incident when he’d dragged Taguchi out of bed at the crack of dawn just to come here, when there is a group of excited juniors waiting for them down the hall, when he doesn’t even really know what part he is angriest about anyway. He shrugs. On the bed, Taguchi is still shuffling the cards, seemingly oblivious to the rising tension.

Jin scratches the back of his head, looking like a sheepish child. “But it made the girls so happy,” he says with a sad little face, as if he can’t understand why Kame is being so mean to him. “Since when are you so uptight about fanservice? You and Koki are usually dry humping all over the place.”

It’s different, Kame wants to say, but doesn’t.

“It’s fine,” he says instead. “Let’s go.”

—

It’s obviously not fine.

Jin spends most of the night staring holes into Kame’s head, trying to get him to look up and meet Jin’s eye so they can share a moment of understanding and everything will be forgotten and Jin won’t have to feel guilty anymore, but Kame isn’t being forthcoming. He’s lavishing attention on the juniors instead, slowly winding them up in his web like a benevolent spider. He patiently answers Mizuki’s questions, sometimes gently, sometimes frankly with a cheeky smile. Mizuki is spellbound, almost swooning with admiration.

It turns out Taguchi is a huge hit in Korea, too. Girls keep stopping to stare, even though Jin is pretty sure most people here don’t recognise them. They look at Taguchi and giggle behind their hands. Taguchi just grins winningly back at them until they giggle and blush and scurry away.

Jin is not having a good night.

When they get back to the hotel, Kame and Taguchi say goodbye in the elevator and Jin goes up to his room on the 23rd floor alone. He sits around in his hotel robe feeling fancy for a while, drinking from miniature bottles of champagne and watching a documentary about baboons. When the novelty of that wears off, he sulks.

After an hour, before he can think about it too much, he takes the elevator to the 13th floor. He can’t remember their room number, so he accidentally knocks on the wrong door twice before he finally finds them. He bows and apologises profusely to the Korean businessmen who open the door. When he finds them, Taguchi opens the door in a t-shirt and jeans. Kame is lounging on the bed in a towelling robe that matches Jin’s.

“I’m gonna go make a phone call,” Taguchi says, closing the door behind him.

Jin sits down on the bed next to Kame, who is lying on his back, hugging a lumpy pillow to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Jin says. He sits by Kame’s shoulder at the foot of the bed.

“For what?” Kame asks. He stares at the spots on the ceiling. Jin wants to reach out and force Kame to look at him. He feels weak, but the idea of fighting with Kame again is terrifying.

“You know,” Jin says. “Whatever. Whatever I did to make you angry.”

Kame makes a tired, bemused noise. “I don’t know either,” he says. He rolls on his side, away from Jin, and Jin tugs weakly at his shoulder until he rolls back. He tugs too hard and Kame’s face ends up colliding with Jin’s knee. Kame lies there without moving, nose mashed into Jin’s robe.

“Is the idea of kissing me funny to you?” Kame asks after a minute.

“No,” Jin says. “Well, a bit, maybe.”

“Because it’s disgusting?” Kame asks. His voice is muffled into Jin’s robe and Jin’s heart wrenches painfully, because fuck, fuck, fuck, he can be an insensitive dick sometimes. He never means to hurt anyone. Sometimes he does anyway.

“No,” Jin says, shaking Kame’s shoulder.

“Right,” Kame says, clearly not believing him.

“It’s not,” Jin says, and pushes Kame’s hair out of the way so he can lean down and press his lips dryly against Kame’s temple; he lingers there a moment, feeling the heat radiating from Kame’s skin. Jin has kissed other guy friends, but they always taste like smoke and sweat and burger grease, except Pi, whose skin is perpetually ocean-sprayed. Kame tastes like milky tea and honey. “See?”

“I see,” Kame says, then he’s quiet for a long time, until he finally presses his face into the mattress and grumbles, “Get off me, you stink like booze.”

“I smell like fucking roses,” Jin insists, wrapping his hand around the back of Kame’s head and smooshing his face into the covers, laughing at Kame’s struggles.

—

Jin spends the better part of three days trying to figure out how to get out of Kame’s friend’s stupid art show, but in the end he remembers Kame brushing the lint from Josh’s shoulders and giving him tips on romancing Japanese women, and heroically resigns himself to attendance.

That doesn’t mean he’ll go quietly. He lies flat on his back on his bed loudly complaining (“THEY’RE GOING TO TALK TO ME ABOUT POSTMODERNISM”) while Kame goes through his closet trying to find something for him to wear so that “you don’t look like a hobo and embarrass me.”

In the end it’s not really that bad. One of the artists is a famous fashion photographer by day, so there are a lot of hot women walking around in artistically skimpy clothing and Jin is suddenly glad that he let Kame manhandle him into a designer suit he’d forgotten he even owned. Early in the evening Kame introduces him to a British model called Venice who has long ginger coloured hair and a gap-toothed smile. Jin spends about an hour trying fruitlessly to charm her while Kame weaves through the crowd schmoozing with his seemingly endless cabal of acquaintances, occasionally meeting Jin’s eyes across the room and smiling broadly in a way that he doesn’t smile at any of those posers. A secret smile in front of a room full of people.

After a while, Jin gives up on Venice and wanders listlessly to Kame’s side, awkwardly hovering while Kame listens to some famous art guy talk about Jackson Pollock. When the guy finally walks away to go bore some other poor soul, Kame elbows Jin and says, “You have the worst poker face in the world.”

“I’m inscrutable,” Jin protests, but Kame’s eyes have already drifted across the room and his face goes a bit weird and grey like he’s an overwrought anime character. Jin follows his eyes and sees a huge painting, all bold, thick lines that look stark and sad somehow.

Jin blinks. “That’s you,” he says, staring at the naked back rising up the canvas, the subject’s face just barely turned to the side, facing away. To anyone else, this would be an anonymous figure, shadowy and discreet, but Jin has been looking at this back half his life; always essentially the same no matter how much the body changes, impossibly slim waist swelling up into sturdy shoulders, always slightly curved to one side, hips tilted and spine melting. The painting is too intimate. Jin wants to throw himself in front of it and stop people from looking at it, as if he’s walked into a room and found the walls plastered in stills from Kame’s sex tape. Panic starts eating his stomach up. He can’t stop staring at the muscles that ripple in oils across the canvas. It is a study in obsession. His hackles rise.

Kame’s face is grim. “Hitoshi must be part of this show,” he says, turning abruptly from the canvas.

“Hitoshi?” Jin repeats, voice abnormally squeaky. It takes him a minute to connect the name with the dweeby little ex-boyfriend he met months ago, and the memory sends fresh rage through him. He starts to storm over to the canvas to see it close up; to read the name plate and be outraged all over again at whatever heinous title that scumbag has chosen to give his betrayal.

Kame grabs his wrist to stop him. “Don’t call attention to it,” he says, then, smiling cajolingly, “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“You can see your butt,” Jin hisses. “It’s practically pornography.”

They stare at each other for a moment. Kame keeps smiling at him gently as if he’s a mental patient, but Jin can see the disquiet beneath the blankness. “It’s not like anyone can tell its me.”

“I can,” Jin says stubbornly. “And you can.”

“Then it’s our secret,” Kame says, squeezing his wrist. A few people are watching them and Jin wonders what this scene looks like. “Just forget about it.”

Jin frowns unhappily but lets Kame drag him over to say hello to the guy that invited him here, whose name Jin still can’t remember. While they talk, Jin tries to nod and laugh in the right places, but his eyes keep drifting over to the canvas, a hot feeling prickling the back of his neck.

Later, he slips away and writes a cheque for the gallery owner, unable to stand the thought of some perverted old collector taking this piece of Kame home, putting him over the fireplace. Standing around with his skeezy friends and gazing at Kame’s naked flesh. It’s different, somehow, to the shop photos and magazines that line the bedroom walls of thirteen year old girls. This is like a piece of Kame sold against his will.

He doesn’t tell Kame. He doesn’t really understand his own actions, but he’s still afraid that Kame would understand them all too well.

—

Hitoshi confronts them by Kame’s car. He’s drunk, tie pulled askew and collar haphazardly unbuttoned, hair messed up in an undignified fashion. At least he looks more interesting than the first time Jin saw him.

He stumbles towards Kame and asks, desperately, “What are you doing here with him?”

Kame frowns. “We’re friends.”

Hitoshi scowls. “You’re with him all the time,” he cries. “You’re always in the papers.”

Kame winces. Hitoshi stumbles forward a few steps and reaches out. For a minute Jin thinks he’s going to shake Kame. He finds himself surging forward like he’s going to get between them, but Hitoshi just grabs Kame’s hand, clasping it pathetically.

“Please, tell me you’re not with him, Kazuya,” he begs. “I’ll believe you, just promise me.”

Kame opens his mouth to answer but Jin’s mouth is bigger and faster and hostility has been eating him alive ever since he saw that painting of Kame, hanging out there in public for all the world to see.

“So what if he is?” he asks, getting in Hitoshi’s face. He’s got a good four or five inches on the guy and usually he’d feel bad about picking on a little guy, but he’s too furious to think about it. “What business is it of yours?”

“Jin,” Kame says, tugging on his arm. He sounds exasperated. “You’re not helping.”

“I’ll handle this, Kazu,” Jin says imperiously, ignoring the look of disbelief Kame gives him. Hitoshi’s face has gone all red and sweaty. He looks like a giant red balloon about to pop.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Kame says. “Both of you.” He unlocks his car and gets in.

Hitoshi gazes miserably up at Jin. He hisses, “You never even wanted him,” and stomps away. Jin watches him go through the clearing haze of his rage, smiling sheepishly when Kame rolls his eyes and turns the ignition.

“You’re such an idiot,” Kame says. “I don’t need you to do stuff like that.”

“I can’t help it,” Jin replies, eyes on the strange lines of Kame’s face. The rolling lights outside cast neon patterns on his skin as they pull out of the lot. “I don’t understand what you saw in that guy.”

“He wasn’t always like that,” Kame says, with a wistfulness that ties Jin up in knots. “Just towards the end.”

Jin wants to ask how it happened. There’s still so much that happened to Kame in the time they were apart that he doesn’t know, huge pieces of Kame that he doesn’t understand. He’d once been the premier Kamenashi Kazuya historical scholar, so it seems wrong now that Jin isnt familiar with the details of the breakdown of his relationship with Hitoshi, or that there are former lovers out there whose names Jin doesn’t even know.

“He seems like a total dick,” Jin says, instead of all the things he really wants to say.

—

“I haven’t ever,” Jin slurs, as if they had been in the middle of a conversation and not watching a shitty game show in comfortable silence ever since Jin had drunkenly knocked down Kame’s door at about 2am. “Not ever. That’s lame, right?”

“Haven’t ever what?” Kame asks, attention still half on the screen where a contestant is trying to run through a huge vat of tofu to catch a mechanical greyhound.

Jin turns to him gracelessly, arm balanced on the back of the couch by Kame’s shoulder. He keeps shifting closer to Kame until his knees are rammed up against Kame’s thigh.

“Kissed a guy,” he says. He is staring at Kame’s face quizzically, as if trying to read a language that he doesn’t understand. “What’s good about it?”

Alarm keeps rolling Kame’s stomach over. “I don’t know,” he says, leaning as far back on the couch as he can, trying to wrench himself out of Jin’s personal bubble. “It’s the same as kissing a girl, more or less.”

“You like it better, though,” Jin says, almost a question except by now he’s breathing onto Kame’s skin, his lips almost brushing Kame’s cheek. So close and getting closer, and the panic in Kame’s stomach explodes in a cold sweat down his spine. “Show me,” Jin murmurs, and for a minute Kame is paralysed with equal parts terror and lust, but self preservation wins out as Jin’s bottom lip drags wetly against his cheek. He puts his hands on Jin’s shoulders and pushes him away firmly.

“Cut it out.” He’s panting and he can feel that his face must be flushed red and blotchy, and Jin just sits there staring as if he doesn’t understand how Kame can do this to him. Kame glares at him. “I won’t be your bicurious experiment.”

Jin throws himself drunkenly back on the couch, arms crossed and pouting. “You’re so stingy.” He mutinously kicks over an empty water bottle on the coffee table. “I bet there are loads of guys who want to make out with me.”

“I bet there are,” Kame says, looking back at the tv, heart still beating hummingbird-fast. He can’t look at Jin and see the flush in his cheeks or the luxurious swell of his lips. He stares at the tofu guy until he hears the sound of Jin’s snoring and he’s safe and horny and alone.

Part Five

Comments

[singlehappiness.livejournal.com]

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“Good,” Kame says. “Now we don’t have to go to that gala thing on Sunday.”

“You said there was going to be motorcycle racing,” Jin says suspiciously.

“I lied,” Kame says, and hangs up.

JSKDLJFKLSJDLF

JIN HATING KAME'S FRIENDS. M-SAN. JOSH. SCARECROW HAIR. KAME LYING ABOUT GOING OUT WITH HIM. JIN'S CON. THE KISS. TWITTER TRENDING TOPICS. KAME'S NAKED BACK AND HITOSHI AND JIN GOING "SO WHAT IF HE IS"

“I haven’t ever,” Jin slurs, as if they had been in the middle of a conversation and not watching a shitty game show in comfortable silence ever since Jin had drunkenly knocked down Kame’s door at about 2am. “Not ever. That’s lame, right?”

“I bet there are,” Kame says, looking back at the tv, heart still beating hummingbird-fast. He can’t look at Jin and see the flush in his cheeks or the luxurious swell of his lips. He stares at the tofu guy until he hears the sound of Jin’s snoring and he’s safe and horny and alone.

sorry this is the worst comment ever I AM EXPLODING