tretton

tretton — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 03:36:00 GMT

Fandom, what is this? WHAT IS THIS? This was posted like A MONTH AGO. Why did it take so long for it to reach me and force me to stay up all night reading it?

Gravely disappointed in you now.

Gravely.

tretton — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:31:31 GMT

RAZORS. SO LOVELY.

tretton — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:58:15 GMT

tretton — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:42:28 GMT

I feel like maybe Jin wants to leave KAT-TUN and join News and have more member-ai in his life.

even though my heart is black~

tretton — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:12:20 GMT

The Akame Bias je_holiday Toplist 2009

#3 Safekeeping
GII fic. GII FIC. GII! FIC!

#2 Again tonight, embraced by the stars...
"(Shards of him might make it back to Japan in the belly of a giant tuna,
but Jin doesn't fancy explaining that one to their manager.)"

~~#1 The Chr~~
Oh right, sorry.

#1 All Around
Love Actually AU. With Akame.
Words cannot express my glee.
alkdjfngakjdnfgkjandfg
LOVE. ACTUALLY. AU.
WORDS. NOT. GLEE.
JIN.

tretton — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:28:32 GMT

Title: Big in Japan
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4 702
Disclaimer: No money has or will be made from the production of the following text. Apart from quotes, all situations and dialogues within the story are purely fictional.
Disclaimer II: Some of the quotes in the story have been slightly altered for strictly grammatical or structural purposes but should in no way be seen as attempts to distort their true meaning. For clarification, a list of their original sources can be found here.
Summary: Things are easy when you're big in Japan.
A/N: With endless gratitude to Ian for beta, honesty and encouragement. And the soothing of my frazzled nerves.

no illusions (1998)

Nobody talks to you in your first dance class. Coming straight from the last lesson of the day you were forced to run the last bit and your right shoulder is still sore from the extra weight of your bag, packed chock full: the history quiz you nearly flunked this morning, the baseball glove you insist on bringing everywhere, an introduction to stardom in the afternoon. In school you haven’t told anyone yet.

The basics are easy when you’re at the very back row, following all the bolder boys’ moves. Even if you’re copying mistakes it matters less when nobody sees you and not just because dancing isn’t baseball. You manage to get scolded for languidness anyway.

The boy from your audition is there, wide-eyed and full of life, surrounded by new friends already. During break they stand in a half-circle around him, raising their voices at regular intervals, fighting for his attention. He’s a star already, you think. It almost makes you walk out of this room, stinking of teenage sweat, the air thick with hope and pomposity. You’re nothing like him and some people were just meant to shine. It doesn’t matter. You have your eyes set on different glories. Then the boy catches sight of you sitting in the corner, drinking water. Your eyes meet by accident and you notice it takes him a second to place you, then he gives a half-wave which you scramble to return, the tips of your ears burning. After that you feel like you have no choice but to stay.

“Nakamaru’s mom, Nakamaru and me, the three of us ran from Shiba Park to Kamiya Cho. We just ran.”

Kamenashi Kazuya (March 18, 2007)

things will happen while they can (1998)

His name is Nakamaru. He’s got long, soft fingers and skin not used to the pinch of brothers or cousins by the dozen and his mother is a sprinter. She’s a decisive, tall woman with a subdued sort of beauty that genes never bothered modelling themselves after in the case of her son. After the first introduction full of adrenaline and no room for the usual hesitation, you forget what it is you’re running towards, what it is you’re both supposed to do when the three of you reach your destination. The only motions your body has yet to memorise is the swing of the bat, the right angle of your elbow, the blaze in your arm as the ball leaves your hand and the burst of instinctual tension in your thighs before you take off from base. Still, somebody has decided you deserve to be let out of the practise rooms and onto the glittering stage. The list was posted outside the door after your latest rehearsal. Nobody had told you that you were on trial from the moment you stepped inside the building. You don’t know yourself why you’d qualify for any performance involving the sharp eye of a camera to spot the hesitation in your movements. A Johnny! a girl in your class had exclaimed with awestruck excitement. She’d known more about this world than you do.

Nakamaru’s mother leads the way, and the thrill of your heart beating to keep your legs and exhilaration running surprises you for a moment. This morning when you woke up, you weren’t even sure you wanted to come here.

“When I was little, I was always a troublemaker. [...] I really disliked being bound to things, but on the other hand, for things that I liked, you couldn't stop me if you tried.”

Akanishi Jin (June 2006)

“Even if he himself wants to be an adult, I think in KAT-TUN he’s the number one ‘kid’. I don’t know whether someday that side of him will be gone or not. But if it will… it’ll be lonely.”

Taguchi Junnosuke (circa 2005-2006)

where the eastern sea is so blue (2003)

“That guy,” Jin tells you on the way to the shop, “I can’t believe he went and got one the same week I told him about it. We could have at least gone together, he just wanted to beat me to it. But it was my idea, you know!”

You know. After several years of practise, gradually getting used to Jin’s sudden whims, you ought to know. The tirade stings less than you expect, partly because Jin seldom means anything by being self-absorbed and tactless, partly because the turn of events now means you’re the one who gets to accompany him. Not Yamapi. It doesn’t even matter that Yamapi had to head off to Stand Up! filming right after Shounen Club recording today. You should be embarrassed the way a meagre offhand invite from Jin manages to bring you such delight. But the anticipation rubs off. Jin’s mum doesn’t know, the jimusho has yet to decide about Yamapi’s earlier stunt and Jin’s still worried about the pain, despite stubborn determination and Yamapi’s smug assertion that it hurts for less than a second.

“You’ve checked it out beforehand, right?” you can’t help saying when Jin pushes the door open, a small clink of a bell announcing your entrance. “That they have the right equipments and so on, properly licensed or whatever?”

Jin gives you a look that tells you you’re being precisely as much of a bore as you suspect you are. “It’s the same place Pi got his,” Jin says. So that’s that.

You’re right by his shoulder when he stands bent over the glass counter, your eyes following the rows of stones and designs. “I can get exactly what I want,” he brags. “I’ve been saving the entire month.” And you can picture his mother’s face when she realises what it is she’s been funding for the past couple of weeks. The silver gleam of a small skull seizes your attention and when Jin catches you looking he laughs. “You’re so predictable,” he says and the surge of an impulse dies in the same instant it was formed. He’s right - this was his idea.

Jin’s bare chest makes your cheeks shimmer with heat for reasons you’re not particularly clear on yourself. At the recording hall you’d hardly notice the lack of a shirt on any of the juniors backstage. But in the bland fluorescent light in the room behind the curtain at the back of the shop, your eyes keep getting drawn to the urgent rise and fall of Jin’s stomach and the way that at this point in time Jin’s exposure is out of place. It doesn’t fit with anything else but the anxious way he shifts on the seat when the tawny shopkeeper, his arms covered in tattoos, a cigarette at the edge of his mouth, lifts the needle and Jin’s eyes widen. This isn’t the version Jin will tell to the world once it’s over. In Jin’s version he wasn’t scared at all, he merely hoisted up his shirt and told the guy to get on with it, as if this were some sort of masculine ritual only the selected few go through and he’s not about to attach a glittering gem to his stomach, skin still as soft as silk even after nineteen years of it being in his casual care. You want to reach out to take his hand, to reassure him, but it doesn’t matter which version, Jin’s or yours – a thing like that isn’t meant to occur, ever. So instead you hit him on the head.

“You said you weren’t scared.”

“It’s a big needle!” he exclaims, his eyes still transfixed.

“How else is it supposed to get right through?” you point out.

“Kame!” he yelps, throws you a slightly panicked glance and then urgently adds: “Wait!” in a hollering tone when the shopkeeper reaches for his skin. Jin sinks down further on the seat and takes a deep breath, his eyes closed. He opens his eyes and looks at the needle once more and then he does what he always does, what you’ve been watching him do from the day you met him – he nods his assertion and plunges headfirst into life.

Q: [They] said that Koki-kun really did not want to be a part of KAT-TUN.
A: I hated it.

Tanaka Koki (June 15, 2008)

crystal bits of snowflakes all around my head and in the wind (2001)

You’re fifteen years old on the first day of the rest of your life.

The cramped room at the studio where you’ve been assigned to change clothes is oppressive in its silence despite, or maybe as a consequence of how small the space is between the six of you. The first thing Tanaka Koki said when he barged in, still in his school uniform (the same one as Yamapi and Toma, and you’re sure Koki’s aware of the significance) was: “Just to make this clear – there’s nobody in this room who I’ve ever backdanced for.” That particular modification of the truth hadn’t gone over very well with Jin and after a heated argument about the total sum of their respective screen time and when and where they’d last gotten to hold a microphone they’d ended up at opposite corners of the room, Jin angrily turning pages in his manga, sitting on the floor behind the clothes rack and Koki by the makeup table with his back to the rest of you, staring at his own face with a rage you’re surprised fails to scorch a hole in the mirror and the wall behind it. You have to admit you’re a bit in awe of Ueda Tatsuya when he pulls the headphones from his ears and calmly asks if Koki knows the routine.

“What do you think?” Koki spits back, looking at Ueda in the mirror.

“I think the rest of us just spent the past week rehearsing five different numbers that we finally managed to not mix up in the end and that you weren’t there when it happened. And then I’m thinking if we’ve just gone through all that work only to have you mess it up at the last minute it would sort of be a big waste of time.”

“Now-” Nakamaru starts nervously, when he sees the outrage on Koki’s face. Maru’s still the nicest person you’ve met in the jimusho. It’s impossible this is a trait that will ever work to his advantage.

“I can’t believe this!” Koki exclaims and stands up, the chair falling backwards. “I get put in a unit full of complete nobodies and then you’re trying to imply that I’d be the one to drag us down?”

“You think anybody else is honoured by your presence?” Jin mutters darkly from the floor.

It’s two hours until recording and you decide, then and there, as Koki storms out and Taguchi Junnosuke says, “Well I think it’s exciting!” with a daunting sort of smile, that you’re going to keep your head low. You’re going to get through this without making a fuss because Pop Jam won’t last forever. And neither will KAT-TUN.

“I suppose we’re all looking for something like a challenge to ourselves. As if we’re walking in the dark and searching for something.”

Kamenashi Kazuya (May 2005)

things are easy when you’re (2005)

Happiness is the brief flash of a roar of screams and the pound of the bass, going right into your body to keep your limbs in time to the music. Bright lights and flickering penlights in the dark. The inside of your costumes stink and yet each day you shrug into them with a sigh of content. “This is it,” Koki keeps saying in the changing room backstage, even when he’s exhausted. “This is it,” and you all know it is. The bus keeps shipping you from town to town and you wake up sore and confused and for a second you forget why you’re here and not being scouted for a pro baseball contract, the calluses on your palms long gone by now. But all it takes is slipping in through the backdoor of whatever arena or hall you’re currently in the process of conquering and you remember what it is. Happiness is the soaring of your emotions and the high notes you force out of your throat and the all consuming grin of Jin’s mouth before he covers it with yours, his hands at the back of your neck. Jin, Jin, Jin. His idiocy must be contagious because you find yourself letting him inside. You keep ending up in the same hotel room and he keeps ending up in the same bed as the one you’re trying to sleep in. Sometimes when you were younger and you realised with the horror of reality pounding in your head that you wanted to kiss him, you imagined him finding out to be the end of the world. But the burning touch of his clumsy hands on your skin nearly brought you undone the first time, you could feel the seams supposed to hold your emotions in check shrivel up and disappear into thin air from the moment that whatever this is started.

This is it, this is everything you’ve yearned for these past years, everything at the same time and you know for sure nobody should be happier or more grateful and you’ve never been so scared before in your life. You master the art of compartmentalising; you feel like you’re splitting yourself in two sometimes. The smiling idol on stage who vows to give all of himself to the fans in direct conflict with the awkward young man who’s lucky enough to get to watch Akanishi Jin blissfully sleep in the early hours of dawn. And who desperately tries to regret ever letting him prolong that first hesitant brush of your lips if only because he knows there’s no comparing to this person. There’s no comparing to this moment in time.

Q: How do you feel? Are you a little sad or…?
A: I’m 100% sure of my decision.

Akanishi Jin (October 13, 2006)

shall I stay here at the zoo? (2006)

The heavy silver cutlery connects with the china with a clatter, sending creamy mushroom sauce in a messy fountain around your plate, some of it getting on your shirt. Jin’s not looking at you. Jin hasn’t looked at you for a long time, months even, if you bothered counting. You don’t.

“We-” you choke. “We’re just getting started.”

“Some of us are,” he mutters with the stubborn contempt that didn’t use to intimidate you like it does these days. This dinner, the offhand way he’d asked you out after finishing the last of the Utawara filming for the day; it had taken you fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant but hope springs so fucking eternal you’d been lightheaded by the time you stepped out of the cab.

“That’s unfair,” you say, trying to swallow down the betrayal you feel every time he looks at you and doesn’t understand how important he is, how much it hurts that he thinks his absence in your life was something you chose willingly. “You’ve turned down offers,” you say, your throat burning. “You-”

“I know it’s pointless,” he interrupts with a carefully arranged air of arrogance, “but I sort of miss the Kamenashi who could hold a conversation completely void of shoptalk. It’s not like I don’t get fed this bullshit every time I’m in a meeting.”

“Then why even tell me in advance?” you bite out. “If I’m such a useless friend to you, why not wait and tell me with the rest of them?”

His eyes are black when he looks up. “You’re not my friend,” he says and the moment you hear it you realise that, to him, that’s the simple truth. It’s not a cruel jibe, not a defensive lash-out, carelessly constructed to cause as much pain as possible; to him it’s a conclusion. And some things never change. His honesty’s always been the thing that can damage you the most. It’s almost cruel the way that, even in this helpless moment, you can’t help admiring him for it.

“Doing a job like this means that I’m not like a normal person. I think big lies are wrong. I wouldn’t say I liked something if I didn’t. But I think there are times when it’s best to keep my mouth shut.”

Kamenashi Kazuya (June 6, 2009)

passing silhouettes (2007)

The minute Masami-san takes you aside at the airport you’re struck with the sudden notion that she knows. The lines of her face are subtly disrupt, her eyes deep and the bulging planner she’s never seen without is left somewhere in the VIP lounge with the rest of the staff, Johnny-san and the other members and the only conclusion that you can draw during the one minute walk to the benches by the panorama window overlooking the runway is that she knows. She knows everything.

Masami-san hasn’t been with you all from the start. But she’s the most competent of all the managers you’ve seen come and go during the years. She catches on quickly, gets things done rapidly and knows precisely when it’s best to bluntly offer her opinion and when it’s time to keep her mouth respectfully shut. She’s fair in a way you know not everybody can appreciate due to the ever-present forthrightness in her words and manners. You’ve never seen her back down from a challenge, never even seen her flinch in the face of an unexpected conflict. More than once have you heard words like ‘calculating’ and ‘cold’ mentioned in association with her name. And out of all the managers you’ve had since debuting – she’s your favourite.

After several long seconds of tense silence with the palms of her hands restlessly sweeping over the smooth surface of her suit trousers, she lets out an unexpected laugh which startles you into meeting her eyes.

“This is harder than I expected,” she admits with a leniency in her voice you seldom hear.

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s better to say it directly rather than making it sound pretty,” you say, trying to sound like you mean it. Trying to feel like you do.

She nods her agreement and with a decisive straightening of her spine, she’s ‘Mrs. manager-san’ in an instant. Opening with the subject you’ve been expecting and dreading.

“Regarding Akanishi-san,” she says, your heartbeat skipping at the familiar resonance of it. “I know this is usually something only Johnny-san talks to you about. But just this once he asked me to bring it up before we left.”

You nod, trying to will yourself into curious sincerity, telling yourself it’s just another meeting, just another layout of the strategies.

“Well,” she says calmly, “like you said. Putting it frankly: we need for the two of you to get along.”

“Get along,” you repeat numbly, more to yourself than anyone else.

“Yes,” Masami-san says. “I know you think it’s important that all matters concerning the group gets discussed strictly within the group with all members present, but seeing as this is a matter restricted to the two of you-”

“But Akanishi isn’t,” you interrupt, not certain where you’re going with this. The stress getting to your composure. “Akanishi-san and me aren’t.... Well, I’m not the one who’s been talking about giving people black eyes,” you say pointedly.

“And you’d never say such a thing in the first place,” Masami-san agrees with a smile more polite than indulgent now. “You’re smarter than that, aren’t you Kamenashi-san?”

You look out the window to get away from her searching eyes. “I’m not smarter than anybody else,” you say quietly.

“That aside,” Masami-san goes on, somehow gently relentless. “I think you’re well aware that either you and Akanishi find a way to coexist without any more consequences like the one we’re currently stranded in - or there exists no such thing as even an outline for Akanishi Jin’s comeback to KAT-TUN.”

Her gaze does not waver when you’re distressed into jerking your head back in her direction.

“You can’t be serious,” you say, aware of how your gaze is now stripped of all of its layers. “This isn’t my decision.”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be,” she answers curtly, dismissive of your indignation on the other members’ behalf. “Like I said: what we need is for you two to sort things out again. Do you think that’s something attainable?”

Is that attainable? you ask yourself when you allow his face to drift to the surface of your mind, the details of his features as clear as if you’d seen him yesterday: at a photo shoot, in a tour preparation meeting, in any of the corridors you’ve walked for the last four months he’s been absent, in your bed, contently sprawled out and exposed for the benefit of your appreciative eyes, on the mattress you used to own before you moved to a bigger place and his visits became few and far between. Is that attainable? you ask the sting of recalling his carefree face.

“I miss the food,” he’d complained the last time you called. Informing you, “I miss Tokyo. I miss my mum,” and giving you a clear indication as to what it was he wanted out of this meeting, this reunion of the six. His hopes and expectations. Getting them placed in the palm of your hand almost makes you smile at the irony.

“I know we always demand a lot from you,” Masami-san suddenly says. Interrupting your drawn-out reflections, the expression on your face self-conscious as you force it once more back in her direction.

“I demand the same things of myself,” you press out on routine. “It’s reasonable-”

“The company thinks it’s reasonable,” she cuts you off. “I don’t always agree with it.” The flicker of empathy in the darkness of her eyes calling your first instinct to mind. As a person, you respect her on many levels. And the moment of vertigo when you consider the option of taking this foolish risk, this idiocy of even allowing the thought of, for once, just speaking frankly about it, is endless. Then you smile. You let it fill up your face and smooth over the cracks in your facade. The light in your eyes that you know distracts even the most stoic of professionals. Even the people who know you better than that.

“Masami-san shouldn’t worry so much,” you admonish, almost playfully. “I understand. I’ll talk to him. No,” you insist when she tries to speak, “even better, I’ll be nice to him.”

If she suspects there’s any difference between this Kamenashi and the one she startled into candour just a few moments ago, she doesn’t let it on. She graciously lets you keep on playing your part. And whether that makes her cruel or kind, you’d have a hard time trying to decide the answer.

“Frankly speaking it felt like this half year, I was working with a thorn stuck somewhere, but now it’s finally gone.”

Kamenashi Kazuya (April 20, 2007)

here’s my comeback on the road again (2007-2008)

For months on end you exist in the wavering, elevated state of not knowing where you stand with Jin. You’ve been in this situation before, unaware and prickly without the assurance of his approval. Somehow, when you were kids and you grew up working by his side, always seeking his eyes when you forgot your dance moves on stage and trailing in his footsteps when he decided to bring you to Yamapi’s without asking for permission, you became used to the idea that he’d be a constant in your life. Even the dread of the years you spent, shifting from not comprehending a debut without KAT-TUN and realising that the only thing your success meant to management was money in their pockets and demographics to take an interest in; on the other side of your debut you understood that losing them all would have been something akin to tearing off a limb – that losing his friendship would have been to bring a part of you outside of your body for the distinct sensation of slowly suffocating the life from it.

“I don’t understand,” Koki frowned in the changing room one night. “Didn’t he give you a lift home yesterday?” Koki taking perverse pleasure, you’re convinced, in making you suffer through the implication of what he really means by that. “Didn’t you talk?”

You’re not sure. Talking being such a complicated process when it’s just the two of you. Jin spoke, you’re positive, but you were too busy trying to read him to really listen to his words. You used to hang to them, thinking they were prophesies of the success he was bound to head into, the future written somewhere in the starry sky behind his eyes. These days you’re afraid to listen to him sometimes, knowing how capable he is of cutting through your defences. He used to do it without understanding or intention. Now he does it because he’s aware of the strings still connected to his fingers, your heartache one tug away.

Still, he’s not cruel, you think, you hope, needing it to be true. If he were you’d certainly have a role to play in the alteration. But there’s one thing you’re certain of – his heart has always been bigger than yours. The things you’ve put him through, even the ones he imagined, you’re not convinced you’d have been so forgiving, so repeatedly willing to approach someone who can promise you nothing but disappointment. And still he’s not cruel, he’s not callous. He waits one month after your heartbreak with Kyoko, one round in her apartment, coming face to face with your own inadequacy, then another round in the press, being taken aside after group meetings, scraping your heels and bowing your head to their disappointment, the letdown of how much better you could have handled this. How much less emotional you could have been. One month of bearing with his tender kindness before he tucks a wisp of hair behind your ear one evening in his apartment, giving you a moment’s worth of warning before gently guiding your mouth towards his, pressing his palm to your thundering heartbeat.

It’s not such a good idea. It might even be a bad one and the words you try to press out with the oxygen slipping through your lips between kisses start out as objections. However, you’re so sore with sensations by then, weeks of his attention turning your head around and the still aching wound of rejection and betrayal that you’re utterly helpless to the recognition that he still wants you. You’re a wreck, a sliver of the star you’re supposed to be, watery eyed and embarrassing. But he still wants you.

Q: You talked on the phone yesterday?
A: Yes, we did. […] We talked about a lot of things. I said, ‘Ittekuruyo’.

Akanishi Jin (October 13, 2006)

you did what you did to me – now it’s history I see (2006)

Jin’s apartment is located in a quiet area, full of decent families and proper office workers. At night there’s hardly any traffic, no neon signs or spotlights reaching into Jin’s bedroom. Tonight it’s only the moonlight laying claim to your naked skin.

To be honest, you wanted to strangle him the moment he appeared next to you outside the studio back entrance a few hours ago, suggesting a joint cab with his eyes alight, still in the yellow t-shirt with Maru’s logo and running on the sort of energy you knew had long since abandoned your own body after twenty-four hours of tear jerking and the constant importance of good spirit. Am I supposed to be grateful? you had the sudden urge to ask him. Five years of scrambling for your attention and now all you have left to give me is a goodbye quickie? Here was a man who had, only hours before, taken what had once been the most important connection in your life and displayed it on national television as a simple association with a colleague. And in return you had, as usual, made a fool of yourself. But you assume it takes years to perfect the sort of expertise it requires to say no to him. You’ve hardly had any practise.

Now his body is spooned up along your backside, your head pillowed on an arm that must have long since fallen asleep and his thumb stroking slow possessive circles on the jut of your hipbone. A year ago he’d have told you it was dangerous bringing sharp objects into bed (and you’d have laughed too, his sense of humour has never been any more refined than yours), tonight you’ll have to settle for listening to him thinking it.

“This isn’t what friends do, right?” you say into a silence almost a half an hour old. You expect him to pull away, disappointed in your lack of respect for banned subjects but you can’t help yourself. There’s no spell left to break. Only the foreign concept of the merciless truth that he’s leaving. He’s leaving.

Instead his thumb stops moving and a sigh whispers across your neck. “I don’t even want to be your friend,” he says. You feel his forehead pressing into the back of your head. “I want...” he mumbles and then his hand covers your hip with renewed strength, his digits pressing into your skin. “I always want what I can’t have.”

You wait until you’re sure whatever howl of emotion it is that tears at your insides subsides enough for you to be certain it’s not going to come pouring out as soon as you open your mouth. You wait so long you’re not sure he’s still awake by the time you reach for his hand and bring it to your mouth for one desperate kiss. Into his palm you whisper: “I want you to come back to me,” and then you quickly close it around your confession, covering his fist full of secrets with both of your hands.

He doesn’t say anything. You think maybe he has fallen asleep. But when you turn your head around to look at him he meets your eyes, brings the closed fist to his mouth, opens it and swallows your words.

Big in Japan - Resources

tretton — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:38:46 GMT

#1
Text: Nakamaru’s mom, Nakamaru and me, the three of us ran from Shiba Park to Kamiya Cho. We just ran.
By: Kamenashi Kazuya
Edits or cuts: -
Date: March 18, 2007
Origin: Kame interviewed on the Shounen Club Premium. Quote taken from subs by BNS.
Source: http://community.livejournal.com/jone_records/27511.html

#2
Text: When I was little, I was always a troublemaker. [...] I really disliked being bound to things, but on the other hand, for things that I liked, you couldn't stop me if you tried.
By: Akanishi Jin
Edits or cuts: [(laugh). I loved soccer and the "Dragonball" series, and I hated studying.]
Date: June 2006
Origin: Jin in JJ, as translated by bonjovial
Source: http://bonjovial.livejournal.com/781556.html

#3
Text: Even if he himself wants to be an adult, I think in KAT-TUN he’s the number one ‘kid’. I don’t know whether someday that side of him will be gone or not. But if it will… it’ll be lonely.
By: Taguchi Junnosuke
Edits or cuts: Even if he himself wants to be an adult, [but] I think in KAT-TUN he’s the ichiban ‘kid’. I don’t know whether someday that side of him will gone or not. But if it will... it’ll be lonely.
Date: 2005-2006
Origin: Unknown magazine interview with Junno as translated by kizunamichi
Source: http://community.livejournal.com/kattunlove/4006628.html

#4
Text: Q: [They] said that Koki-kun really did not want to be a part of KAT-TUN.
A: I hated it.
By: Tanaka Koki
Edits or cuts: [Nakamaru-kun and Kamenashi-kun have been on this show. And those two both] said that…
Date: June 15, 2008
Origin: Koki interviewed on the Shounen Club Premium. Quote taken from subs by newshfan
Source: http://newshfan.livejournal.com/40783.html

#5
Text: I suppose we’re all looking for something like a challenge to ourselves. As if we’re walking in the dark and searching for something.
By: Kamenashi Kazuya
Edits or cuts: -
Date: May 3, 2005 (release date)
Origin: Kame’s interview on the KAT-TUN Live of Kaizokuban DVD. Quote taken from subs by HESF.
Source: http://tako.just-hesitate.net/?page_id=19

#6
Text: Q: How do you feel? Are you a little sad or…?
A: I’m 100% sure of my decision.
By: Akanishi Jin.
Edits or cuts: -
Date: October 13, 2006 (date of the video October 14, 2006)
Origin: Jin interviewed at the press conference announcing his hiatus. Clip from TBS Broadcaster, quote taken from subs by newshfan
Source: http://newshfan.livejournal.com/127722.html

#7
Text: Doing a job like this means that I’m not like a normal person. I think big lies are wrong. I wouldn’t say I liked something if I didn’t. But I think there are times when it’s best to keep my mouth shut.
By: Kamenashi Kazuya
Edits or cuts: -
Date: June 6, 2009
Origin: Kame on Kizuna Shokudo. Quote taken from subs by newshfan.
Source: http://newshfan.livejournal.com/111398.html

#8
Text: Frankly speaking it felt like this half year, I was working with a thorn stuck somewhere, but now it’s finally gone.
By: Kamenashi Kazuya
Edits or cuts: Frankly speaking it felt that this half year, I was working with a thorn stuck somewhere, but now it’s finally gone.
Date: April 20, 2007
Origin: Comment from Kame at the press conference announcing Jin’s return to KAT-TUN. As translated by maishampoo
Source: http://community.livejournal.com/kattunlove/1433233.html

#9
Text: Q: You talked on the phone yesterday?
A: Yes, we did. […] We talked about a lot of things. I said ‘Ittekuruyo’.
By: Akanishi Jin
Edits or cuts: Q: You talked on the phone yesterday?
A: Ah, yes, we did. [Yes... ]we talked about a lot of things. I said "Ittekuruyo"
Date: October 13, 2006
Origin: Jin answering a question concerning Kame at the press conference announcing his hiatus. As translated by riccichan.
Source: http://community.livejournal.com/kattunlove/899818.html

A/N: As a slightly insignificant side-note; while I’m shamelessly fond of the original, it was in fact Ane Brun’s cover of Big in Japan ♫ which prompted this fic.

tretton — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:22:13 GMT

WHAT. IS. THIS?

PLEASE. PLEASE TELL ME IT'S NOT ANOTHER SHITTY MANGA ADAPTATION WHERE HE'S SUPPOSED TO TAKE THE BLAME IF EVERYTHING IS FULL OF CRACK AND NO ONE CARES. I DON'T EVEN CARE IF THIS POST WOULD TURN OUT TO BE EMBARRASSING IN RETROSPECT. I JUST WANT HIM IN SOMETHING THAT MAKES SENSE. OR HAS HIGH RATINGS, WHICHEVER IS FINE. AND WHY IS IT ALWAYS THE CHINESE FANDOM WHICH FINDS OUT FIRST ABOUT...... WHATEVER THIS IS. THAT I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT.

ps: Yes, I know. This. Is spamming.

SOBBING

tretton — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:14:59 GMT

I love ViVi.

GIVE ME HQ. NOW.

tretton — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:56:45 GMT

EVERYBODY'S READ THIS, RIGHT? RIGHT?

tretton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:33:38 GMT

Title: On picking up where you left off
Pairing: Ryo/Uchi
Ratiing: PG
Word count: 862
Disclaimer: This has never happened, there is no money being made here and no harm intended.
Notes: Happy birthday Ian ♥ Considering how late I am, maybe you'd think I was working on something more... substantial.
Notes2: Remember that time you told Sarah about how you had a dream about writing an X-Men Akame drabble?

Uchi calls him one day, four years after leaving without a trace; Uchi’s apartment cleaned out, his number connecting to impersonal recordings instead of Uchi’s stupid voicemail. Four years of thinking Uchi’s in trouble, of thinking Uchi’s dead, of thinking Uchi just better be dead, or else.

“Hey,” Uchi says, his light tone ripping away layers of emotions in Ryo’s chest. “It’s me.”

“What?” Ryo says. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘it’s me’. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

And then Ryo hangs up on him.

Uchi texts him an address to a cheap American style diner the next day. 12:00 ? <^_^; it continues. Ryo just stares at his phone.

Ryo’s almost decided he’s not going when he gets up to go to the bathroom down the corridor and suddenly finds himself out on the street without even his suit jacket on. September’s just getting started and the wind insistently ruffling his hair suggests fall is around the corner. The fence surrounding the construction site across the street is covered in election posters. Half of candidate Nakamatsu’s poster ripped down, the rest of it flopping half-heartedly in the wind, his cut off face still displaying the broad grin accompanying his message.

Vote for freedom and supremacy!

“What the fuck,” Ryo mutters as he crosses the street and shoves his fists into his pockets.

The lunchtime bustle is at a faint peak when Ryo steps inside. The waitresses in pink outfits and the interior painfully plastic, emphasised by the broken juke-box in the corner, pastel colours reflecting off of the metallic surfaces on tables and counter. Ryo’s never been to America but he’s sure there’s more to it than what can be perceived in movies. At least assuming America’s changed at all since the 1950s.

Uchi’s by the counter, twirling his fork and waving. Even with the longer black hair, the mute grey jacket and jeans he looks exactly the same, down to the way he effortlessly shrugs off Ryo’s hard glare with a little twitch of his mouth.

Ryo orders the mushroom omelette. Uchi’s already half-way through his cheesecake.

“It’s lunch,” Ryo enlightens him. “Have some food idiot.”

“I see you haven’t changed either,” Uchi tells him happily, as if he could read Ryo’s mind. “Always looking out for me.”

“Don’t talk to me about looking out for people,” Ryo says and tries to imagine having this conversation with someone else. Someone who’d have some sort of decorum. Or just someone sane.

“I’ve been abroad,” Uchi tells him. As if that’s some sort of explanation, and then with a delicate movement of his gloved hand places a small plush panda in the space between their plates. It’s got a scorched left ear and the white patches have started turning an unappealing shade of grey. Ryo scoots his plate away from it.

“Got you a souvenir,” Uchi says.

“Don’t do that,” Ryo says on the way back to his office building. It’s sudden and harsh-sounding, interrupting Uchi’s inane chattering. But at least it’s not reaching out and strangling Uchi or trying to make Uchi explain about how they were planning to go see a movie one day four years ago and then the next day finding out from Uchi’s twitchy landlord that he’d never had no ‘Uchi Hiroki’ on the second floor.

“Do what?” Uchi asks, uncertain for the first time in- In years, Ryo realises and clenches his fist.

“Don't act like everything's the same. I know that’s how you deal with things but it’s not how I do it. You used to know that. You never used to be stupid. At least not when it mattered. And I spent two years, wasting time trying to find you while you apparently never even- Just because I thought you were my best friend. And I sure as hell thought it was one of those times when it mattered.”

Uchi gives the end of the street a searching look, stuffs his fists into the pockets of his jacket and sways a bit on the balls of his feet. “I never wanted to be anyone special,” he says. “I mean like, I never longed for anything more exciting out of life. Being boring. I wouldn’t have minded very much.”

“That’s just another way of saying you’re lazy,” Ryo tells him.

Uchi smiles. “I wouldn’t have minded that either.” And then he says, “Look, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“There’re a lot of things you need to tell me,” Ryo spits. “But I already know you’re a mutant,” and as Uchi freezes, his eyes going wide, Ryo wishes he could punch him. If only because Ryo’s always wanted to know what it feels like to touch him.

“The professor says I’ve been holding back for years,” Uchi tells Ryo later, not long before he disappears again. “Unconsciously. Like I was waiting for something.”

“Waiting for what?” Ryo asks.

“Waiting for you to start developing your powers,” Uchi says and for a second when Ryo’s heart stops and his blood freezes he’s sure Uchi’s developed the ability to drain the life out of a person without having to touch them anymore.

Please have a good one

tretton — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:47:36 GMT

I really think you should all go read Sweet Plum Wine. This is probably the only context in which I will ever rec fic that isn't strictly Akakame. Pin isn't really... OK, Pin makes my soul go blankface. Blankface in a way that even Akakame usually can't save me from. So maybe it isn't saying much to claim that this is the best Akamepi fic I've ever read. Maybe I should just say that it's brilliant. Because it is.

PS: I had some sort of breakthrough regarding uniAU at work today, I kept reaching for post-its, hastily outlining scenes in the middle of cairn-name corrections. Possibly I have enough for me to stop staring at Word and actually write something again. But you know, aldkfjgn, again, this isn't saying much. T_T

tretton — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:51:26 GMT

Title: I won't write it in the sky
Pairing: Akame
Rating: PG
Word count: 2 641
Disclaimer: This has never happened, there is no money being made here and no harm intended.
Summary: Ueda has his ways and his theories, Koki doesn't even want to know, Junno just likes to pretend a lot and Maru thinks too much.
Notes: I was going to write a drabble. About Jin and Kame shopping in LA. I'm so incompetent.

They eat lunch at the hotel, because there’re things to do afterwards and this is where they’re supposed to drop Jin off. Because no one trusts Jin’s sense of direction, picking him up from the station in a country Jin’s more familiar with than any of the staff coming with them to New York. Still he seemed relieved when Ueda called him yesterday, informing Jin everything’s been taken care of, as if Jin hadn’t received a phone call from the jimusho days prior to their conversation. But he’d been on edge when he left. Ueda had wanted to make sure he was all right. That he wasn’t going to storm in all filled up with his own special sort of indignity. Ready for a tantrum. If there ever was, now’s definitively not such a good time for that. Ueda’s used to it, thinking ahead for Jin when he refuses to do it himself. Especially now that Kame’s stopped doing it.

Yeah, Jin had said yesterday, I know. It’s good, right? I mean it’ll be good to see you all again, as if he was having trouble believing the statement himself. And maybe if it hadn’t been Ueda he’d have said something else. Been less honest. Or possibly more so. Jin can’t even lie over the phone.

Ueda is sure Kame calls him sometimes. Afterwards you can always tell. Kame’ll be distant and silent. Once again made aware of the solid reality of Jin not being there anymore - Kame seems caught unaware. Even though they’re laughing more now, are feeling at ease with each other, Ueda notices it makes Kame uncomfortable. How well it all works out without Jin.

And now it’s three months since Ueda’s last seen Jin and Kame is fretting in the corner of his eye, refolding his napkin for what must be something like the twentieth time in the last 15 minutes and Junno is the only one still eating, the only one still set on trying to entertain some sort of notion of a warm and heartfelt reunion lying ahead, Koki is seething in his seat, probably going through every single indignity he’s had to bear with since Jin’s plane took off from Tokyo and Maru is already looking sort of exhausted from the stress. Ueda takes a sip of water and watches Kame unfold his napkin, smoothing it out on the white tablecloth before finding a new surface to form a line on, following the edge with his thumb. Ueda can tell when Jin walks in by the slight jerk of Kame’s finger, how it goes off course and crash-lands close to his plate.

It takes three minutes of awkward backslapping and stiff smiles before Jin mentions in an offhand sort of way that he’s very tired. By which point Koki starts shouting.

Then again, Ueda thinks, as Kame sinks down on his chair, reaching for his napkin - it’s better to just get this over with.

They bundle Jin up in one of the quilted jackets. He huddles in it, laughs with ease despite the bags under his eyes, complains about the cold when he’s asked to take it off. There’s something different about him, Ueda notices, but it’s not this. His petulance still shines through. He still relies on the fact that everybody thinks he’s such a darling, they’ll let him get away with it. It’s a good thing Koki’s already let off some steam. It’s a good thing Koki’s not there.

When Jin disappears to change clothes Ueda glimpses Kame sitting in the makeshift changing room before the door closes. Kame who suppresses his emotions into oblivion. And Jin who never bothers to nurture the privileges he gets served. His good looks and his charms, his voice and his popularity. Kame’s expectations. Years of disappointments, simple misunderstandings turned sour, earnest compliments taken the wrong way and Kame still expects the world from Jin.

“You’re going to LA?”

Déjà vu Koki thinks as he watches Kame pack his duffel bag.

“I’ll be back in three days,” Kame says with an eye roll.

“What? Is he in trouble? Gotten someone else pregnant?”

Kame snorts, folding a shirt. “Like I’d be the one they send. You know I have to ask for permission before I can go.”

Koki finds himself wishing they’d said no. But then that’d have pissed Jin off. And even one very vast ocean away Koki has no doubt Jin would have tried to get his way, would have caused a stir with phone calls and angry messages left on voice mail in the middle of the night. Threats about calling journalists. As if anything’s more hot stuff right now than Jin’s own party snapshots constantly floating about, Pikachu costume or sans Pikachu costume. And for all the trouble it would have saved Kame to not see Jin it wouldn’t exactly have made things better.

Better. Like how they’ve all been since Jin left. Kame always frowns and turns silent whenever Koki tries to make a point about how much more complicated Jin makes everything. Koki tells himself it’s not malicious. It’s just fact.

“I’ll buy you something, ne?” Kame says and throws him a smile over his shoulder. Bright and genuine. Koki’s never understood what it is about Jin that makes Kame so instantly delighted. And so acutely depressed.

Koki drives Kame to the airport. It’s in the middle of the day but Koki calls him anyway, digging his phone out from his pocket the minute Kame disappears behind the sliding doors.

“What?” Jin says, picking up. He’s always woken up like that, with a start, bad-tempered at being interrupted, a little breathless like he’s constantly dreaming about running.

“If he wants to go somewhere, you just take him there,” Koki tells him.

“What?” he repeats, the indignity already creeping up on him, instinctual from continuous taunts about his intelligence.

“I realise your idea of having fun differs quite a bit but this time you will just indulge him, you hear me? Even if you think it’s boring and pointless.”

“I was going to do that anyway,” he mutters. “Don’t talk to me like I’m someone who doesn’t know him.”

“You don’t know how to make him happy. That’s for sure.”

Jin doesn’t have a comeback for that one. Koki imagines his silent pout and his long tousled bedhair, his flashing eyes, unseen in some dark room. Such a child.

“Three days off,” Koki ponders at length, “and he wastes them on you.”

Junno’s not there when Kame stops by. He’s shooting close-ups in the studio. Instead he hears about it from Yoko. Lunch is over and Jin’s left to shoot his own close-ups when Junno returns to their room to find Yoko in a state of barely suppressed excitement.

“Kame was here,” Yoko says the moment Junno shows up in the doorway. “With Jin,” he leers, a bit like it’s a joke, mostly just frank.

“Oh, really,” Junno answers, shrugs out of his suit jacket. “Mou, he could have waited until I got back.” Because Yoko’s not familiar with that particular joke. That We Avoid Junno Like the Plague joke. Jin does his best to keep Yoko updated though.

Yoko shrugs, a jerky hasty movement. “You know how it is. He has his own drama to shoot.”

Junno nods, searching for a clothes hanger.

“Are they always like that?” Yoko asks well before the silence in the room gets awkward. “Now, I mean. I know how they were before.”

Junno frowns but doesn’t turn around to show it. “Like what?”

“You know,” Yoko says, a little impatient. “Attached at the hip. ‘No, Kame can’t come play with you, I’m taking him on an aimless drive round Shibuya’, ‘No, you can’t borrow Kame, I’m using him right now and then Pi’s asked for him’-”

“Not that,” Junno says with a disarming laugh. “Of course I know what they were like before. What do you mean they’re like now?”

“Well,” Yoko contemplates, “Every time I see them on TV they look tense. I thought they would be tense.”

“They weren’t?” Junno asks fleetingly, now looking for his t-shirt.

“No, they seemed fine. Comfy. Jin was obviously pleased to see him.”

“So. You’re asking me are they always like they used to be before? Now?”

Yoko waves a hand in front of his face to indicate a negative. “No, they’ll never be like before. Like Kame’d ever allow it. I’m just saying. It’s sort of strange. Why’d they try to hide that they’re getting along?”

Junno finds his t-shirt. At last. Sharing a dressing room with Jin has never been a favourite of his. It’s not so much that Jin’s messy, more a case of Jin just not caring.

“Yoko,” Junno says. “Are you asking me if Jin and Kame are sleeping with each other?”

Yoko holds his breath for a few seconds, holds Junno’s eyes, his mouth halfway open before Junno flashes him a wide grin and they snort into laughter.

Three days later Junno meets Jin in the corridor, dressed in his own clothes, helmet in hand.

“Heading out for lunch?” Junno asks when passing him by.

Jin halts and turns around, nodding. “There was a two hour gap so I thought I’d take off.”

Junno nods as well and tries to recall if he has any puns for awkward silences, or motorcycles. He could definitively whip one out about secret rendezvous but Jin’d probably hit him and out of shape or not, Jin’s punches are never half-hearted. Jin shuffles his feet and avoids Junno’s eyes.

Junno settles for “Don’t be late,” before heading back to their room. When he looks over his shoulder Jin’s still standing there.

“Do you want to come?” Jin asks, visibly steeling himself for the answer. Still, it’s as good as it’ll ever get. Him and Jin, trying to coexist.

Junno smiles.

“No. I just wanted you to ask.”

Jin rolls his eyes, but his shoulders slumps back into relaxation and he smiles before tugging his helmet on, turning to head out the exit.

It’s an unusual scenario, going out drinking with Kame. Most of the time Kame’s busy or Kame’s already made plans with someone else or Kame’s planning on going home to read some script before fainting to sleep. Maru’s not so sure he had planned on actually going anywhere at all before asking Kame, expecting the usual polite decline. But it’s already three beers late when any of this occurs to Maru. And along with Kame’s usual exhaustion and now the intoxication, any sensible conversation is out of the question.

There’s a constant stream of people floating about near their table, both female and male and all of them equally interested in flirting with Kame. Maru knows Kame’s aware of them, Kame always knows when people are watching him and even though the alcohol does its best to get rid of it, the stiffness in Kame’s spine never quite loosens throughout the entire night.

Kame doesn’t get up from the table. He makes Maru go get him his drinks, he focuses his undivided attention on Maru and not so unlike a child he begs for Maru to tell him stories, waving away his assertions that nothing interesting ever happens to him.

“Tell me about filming in New York,” Kame begs wistfully.

At half past two Kame decides Maru wants to dance. “I’m being boring, sorry,” he apologises, dragging Maru along with him, seemingly deaf to all protests. They dance for the 15 minutes it takes for Kame to get entirely beat and then they go back to the table, Kame lying down on the sofa, asking for vodka shots before going out like a light.

Maru doesn’t know what to do with him. He’s never been to Kame’s apartment, can count the people that he’s sure have on one hand. None of whom Maru’s particularly keen on calling at 3 AM on a weeknight. Make that weekmorning. He has an early wake up call coming up in just a few hours and the text messages he sends Ueda are replied with:

Sleeping. Don’t call me.

It’s 15 minutes of undecided scrolling through his phonebook, a few attempts to get Kame to make sense before Kame’s phone rings. Maru hesitates before fishing it out of Kame’s jeans pocket but all apprehension goes out the window when he sees the caller ID.

“Oh, God,” he says, flipping the phone open. “I never thought I’d say this but, Akanishi. You have to come save me.”

Jin doesn’t say much. He puts up a hand to stop him when Maru starts at a bleary explanation, Kame hanging off Maru’s shoulder. Maru’s just happy they’ve made it out to the parking lot and now he’s contemplating how much the potential paparazzi shots are going to cost the jimusho. With Maru’s luck and Kame’s tendency to fall in and out of favour with upper management, Maru’s thinking they might not even bother.

“Have you puked?” Jin asks, straightforward, putting his hands on Kame’s shoulders.

“Disgustin’,” Kame mumbles and waves a hand as if trying to abate Jin’s peering with it.

“Yeah, well, you might feel better if you did.”

“Hate pukin’,” Kame continues. “Can’t make me.”

“I sort of can,” Jin mutters, opening the car door and gesturing for Maru to drop Kame on the passenger seat. “But I won’t.”

Kame tries to climb into the car himself and ends up sprawled all over the seat, giggling and kicking at whoever tries to get near him. It’s not a very efficient form of abuse and Jin soon has a firm hold on his legs, scooting Kame down on the seat to get a better angle to prop him up. “Jin,” Kame says when Jin’s got an arm around his waist, their faces too close, Kame’s tone soft and unguarded, Jin’s breath halting and Maru’s just about to turn away when Kame says “Jin, I need to throw up.”

Jin drives Maru home first. Deciding he’d cause less trouble from the backseat Kame’s already snoring somewhere in the dark and they’re two blocks away from Maru’s place when Maru asks Jin “Does he do this a lot?”

“No,” Jin says and then stiffens because this is an arrangement Maru’s in on and according to the unwritten rules of it Jin’s not supposed to know what Kame does and doesn’t do on a regular basis. Not anymore. Jin and Kame gave up on being best of friends a long time ago. They’re something all right but that’s a truth existing solely in the pauses between acceptable subjects. The elephant in the room. Though in Maru’s opinion theirs is the sort of elephant people like to pat and coo at and go It’s adorable! If it doesn’t destroy the interior we can keep it, right?

“He’s practically an alcoholic,” Jin says by the next red light. “It’s just that he doesn’t get out much.”

Maru snorts but keeps quiet the rest of the way. When they get to his stop he thanks Jin again and says goodnight to the snores, getting an incoherent mumble that Jin answers with “We’ll be there in ten,” before Maru shuts the car door behind him, stumbling out into the chilly night air, already digging around in his bag for the keys, trying to contemplate through the empty pounding in his head whether the code he’s got in mind is the right one or if it’s actually the PIN for his cell phone. Maru looks over his shoulder when he hears the car drive off, watches the red lights disappear behind a corner and just stands there for a while, a little dazed, realising that he’s just experienced one of those things that, when he wakes up tomorrow, will have turned into something that officially, never even happened.

Back in a week

tretton — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:26:47 GMT

I don't even know why I'd need an away notice when I don't post as regular as once a week. At first, I didn't want to go with my family to the west coast and observe the flurry of activity as our new summer cottage arrives to the island by helicopter. But I know that if I didn't I'd just earn myself a lifetime of crankily being left out at family dinners when the subject of That Time When the Summer Cottage Arrived by Helicopter comes up. Which it inevitably will. Plus, after reading Fitz's latest I feel like a week in solitary, without access to the World Wide Web is just what I need to recover.

If anyone would be prepared to fill me in on what I've missed when I return I wouldn't be so gracious as to say no to it though.

I hope something good happens to you this week.

Take care. ♥

Lolol Gokusen II fic

tretton — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:36:23 GMT

Title: Of importance
Pairing: Hayato/Ryu
Rating: R
Word count: 3 457
Disclaimer: There is no money being made here and no harm intended.
Warnings: Angst
Notes: I like it when Hayato and Ryu are sweet like puppies. Crazy in love and too dense to realise they're so obviously meant to be. It's always very frustrating to read but you just get through it because you know the reward is waiting for you at the end when Hayato kisses Ryu because it's the only thing Hayato'll ever figure out before Ryu does and Hayato's all about the bold gestures and the repressed feelings he'll never put to words. But it's alright because Ryu really gets him. They don't need words. That's how in love they are. And, yeah, I really, really like it when Hayato/Ryu fic is like this.

Naturally, when I write it you're just lucky I didn't kill Ryu in a plane crash. Because I couldn't work it into the story.

Finally. This isn't a fic. It might look like a fic but it isn't. This is not-a-fic I'm putting here in all its unedited glory just to make sure I don't start working on it again. Because I don't have the time for it. I need to prioritise or I'll have a hissy fit.

Ryu comes back on a Friday, hours before the funeral. Hayato meets him at the airport in his father’s old suit, still a bit too large after all these years, loose sleeves getting in his way as he sips stale coffee on a creaking plastic bench in arrivals. He’s staring at an instant ramen ad on a screen right next to the board when a sleek and thin man steps up to him

“What?” Hayato asks as he stands up. “Your plane was early? Never heard that one before.”

Ryu offers a weak smile, he looks pale and neatly put together. “Actually you’re late. Like I knew you’d be. Which is why I gave you the wrong time.”

Hayato huffs and laughs and makes a gesture as if to take his hand but changes his mind midway, somewhat rowdily flinging his arms around him, crushing Ryu's outstretched hand against his chest. Ryu smells musky and stingy, like something defined and highly adequate. He smells like success.

They pool around them at the funeral. Ryu and Hayato, searching for the jagged sort of leadership that Hayato used to offer. Hayato feels more unsuited for the role than ever before. Ryu would have been a better leader, really, but he was never interested, despite the way Hayato always relied on him to point out flaws in his magnificent plans.

Tsuchi seems relieved when he sees Ryu, gives him a crumbling hug that nearly topples Ryu to the ground. Hayato’s lips twitch and he’s filled with an urge to reach out and ruffle Ryu’s hair, tell him You’re so tiny, like he used to when they were still in high school. When Take was still alive.

“Cancer?” Ryu whispers on a crackling connection from Washington. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. They don’t know. It’s the bones and there’s no one- " Hayato’s voice breaks. "He’s not going to make it. That’s all they know.”

That used to embarrass him. How he could never keep his emotions in check. It was a good enough quality to possess when in a fight. But it made it difficult when he tried to just tell someone that he cared. That’s why, in most cases, he ended up saying nothing at all. And Ryu is no exception, but Hayato trusts Ryu will understand him regardless.

“I’ll come as soon as I can,” Ryu says before hanging up.

They drink rounds of beer in a cheap place on the corner of Hayato’s block, taking turns to pay for them and toasting in Take’s honour until they’re slumped on their elbows on the table. “How long are you staying?” Hyuuga asks as they watch Tsuchi trying to take control of his long limbs in order to transport himself to the bathroom. They observe him leaning dangerously against a beam in the middle of the room as Ryu shrugs and says “A couple of days,” and Hayato feels something almost lucid and painful stir in his chest. That’s a couple of days longer than he had dared to hope for.

“Where’re you staying at?” Hyuuga says with a little slur as he stares up at Ryu with his head on the table. Ryu shrugs and Hayato sits up straight. “Baka!” he says with a sudden increase in volume, “You’re staying with me of course!”

Hyuuga makes a little gurgling sound, maybe something that's supposed to be a giggle or possibly a snort. “Your place’s tiny. It’s like the closet of a, ah, closet.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Hayato persist, “He’s staying with me!” and looks genuinely outraged at the thought of any objections.

When Hayato slides in the key to his apartment he’s at that stage when he’s long since passed the peak of his intoxication and is now starting to feel slightly nauseous, catching up with the exhaustion his body’s been weighted down by for the last couple of days. His head’s cleared enough for him to turn to Ryu standing in the grimy, ill-lit stairway and recognise that Ryu doesn’t belong in this place. It was easy enough when they were at school and he could spit at the importance of cultivated manners. He used to think of Ryu as someone who had betrayed his class because it was such a cool thing to imagine and Hayato sometimes liked to think Ryu did all of that for him, to get to be a part of Hayato’s wretched and unruly world. But now Ryu’s grown up and even hanging on the banister, looking like he’s going to get thrown down the stairs any minute now by the sheer weight of the bag slung over his shoulder, he’s still so very obviously trim and handsome and nothing like Hayato.

“What?” he says when he notices Hayato’s turned around. “Did you lose your key?”

“It’s actually- I guess it is kind of tiny.”

Ryu looks surprised and then tries to push past Hayato to get at the door handle. “You told me,” he mutters. “I said I don’t mind.”

“That was me,” Hayato points out as Ryu gets the door open and fumbles on the wall for a light switch. Hayato winces a little when he finds it and light floods over his mess of dirty clothes and a few days worth of dishes in the tiny kitchen area. “It’s-” he says and swallows.

Ryu gratefully collapses in a little heap on the bed that takes up a large section of the room. “You used to be so proud,” he says with his eyes closed and then opens them to look at Hayato.

“Of what?” Hayato asks as he closes the door.

“Everything. Just- Yourself.”

Hayato laughs and shrugs out of the suit jacket, hanging it over the back of a chair. “Not much to be proud of these days.”

“You’re still you,” Ryu says, sounding a little wistfully. “I’d say that’s plenty to be proud of.”

Hayato's alarm wakes them up at six thirty. “I have work,” Hayato says. He had contemplated rolling out his futon on the floor before going to bed earlier but it had seemed like such a strenuous task to handle he’d simply dropped down next to Ryu in the end.

He can feel Ryu’s eyes on him as he rummages around in his closet for a clean shirt. “What do you do?” Ryu asks in a hoarse voice.

“I work in a conbini three blocks from here,” Hayato says and tries not to think about all of the great things he told Ryu he’d do when they were teenagers. How much money he’d have and what a successful life he’d lead.

Ryu gives him a crooked smile from the bed that Hayato doesn’t return. “I’ll be back around three. Do you want a key?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“There’s food,” Hayato says with a little half-wave towards the fridge before leaving.

He’s eating rice balls when Hayato gets back. Wearing one of Hayato’s old sweatshirts he looks small and childish and he smiles at him when Hayato takes off his jacket.

“How was work?”

“I was late,” Hayato says as he sits down to grab a rice ball of his own. “Got yelled at.”

Ryu grins again and Hayato tells him to shut up with his mouth full of rice.

“Do you want to go out?” Hayato asks and then immediately regrets it. Ryu calls him sometimes, from Shanghai, London, Milan. Ryu’s been around the world while Hayato’s been running up a steady tab at the same place for three years now. He doesn’t want to take Ryu out clubbing, doesn’t want to give him a tour of his shitty life.

But Ryu merely smiles from the other side of the bed where they lie watching a game show on Hayato’s small TV. “I liked the place from last night. Let’s just go there again.”

Hayato wrinkles his nose. “Why?”

“They knew your name and everything. I don’t know what you’ve been up to all these years but you must have spent at least some of your time there. I like that idea. Going someplace where you belong.”

“It’s just somewhere I go to eat and drink beer. Look you don’t have to pretend-”

“I’m not pretending,” Ryu says and suddenly looks at him, startled but fierce. “You think I’m pretending?”

“No, I think- It’s just- I don’t really know what you expect from me.”

“Expect? What are you talking about? I don’t expect anything.”

“Let’s just-” Hayato says and stands up to avoid Ryu’s searching eyes. “Let’s just go.”

Hayato hadn’t planned on it but they get drunk again and sometime around half past one when they try to make their way back to his apartment on unsteady legs Ryu says “You can hit me if that would make you feel better,” in that calm an collected voice that used to be the only thing Hayato would listen to when fury got to his head.

Hayato laughs and then strikes out with his left hook. Ryu reciprocates with a fist to his stomach that sends them both tumbling to the ground and Hayato’s so out of it. He hasn’t been in a fight for years. They wrestle clumsily but it just ends in Hayato slumping down on top of Ryu, breathing heavily, his face pressed into the juncture of Ryu’s neck.

“Did you leave because of me?” Hayato asks despite not wanting to know the answer.

And just like in all of the nightmares Hayato’s had Ryu says “Yes.” He touches Hayato’s hair. It’s gentle and hesitant and it makes Hayato flinch and raise his head to look at him.

He looks scared.

“Ryu,” Hayato says and feels something catch in his throat, something that’s not entirely due to being drunk. “Ryu,” he says and touches Ryu’s face, feels his own soften.

It’s kind of like a fight, Hayato thinks. Except he doesn’t want to win, he just wants it to go on and on until he’s drained and empty doesn’t have anything left to give.

“Hayato,” Ryu breathes when they kiss and bite and scratch at each other on the bed.

The alarm starts again at six thirty. Hayato reaches out to turn it off and then slumps back down. “You’ll be late,” Ryu says when Hayato makes no further effort to get up.

“I hate my job.”

Ryu turns around and leans on an elbow, seemingly innocent in the pale morning light he frowns down at him. “But-”

“Don’t you get it? I hate my job. I hate my apartment. I hate my life. It’s so stupid. You coming back is the best thing that’s happened for years. It’s pathetic.”

“Hayato,” Ryu says and lays a cold hand against his cheek.

He ends up late for work again.

The apartment’s empty when he gets back. Hayato looks at Ryu’s opened but unpacked bag standing in the centre of the floor. Looks at the clean plates on the dish rack and thinks that Ryu must have been severely bored to be driven to such extents. Ryu hates housework. At least he used to. Maybe that’s changed, Hayato thinks when his phone starts ringing.

“I’m at Kuma’s place,” Ryu says. “Come have dinner.”

Hayato thought about asking Kuma for a job after graduation. But he knew he probably couldn’t afford it. Hayato didn’t want to cause any trouble. So he took the first job available and moved out as soon as he could afford it. Ryu left a month after graduation. It took Hayato about the same amount of time to accept that he was gone. He used to eat dinner at Kuma’s every night those first two months. He stopped going when Ryu called him from New Delhi and told him he was working in his father’s company.

“Yabuki,” Kuma says when Hayato ducks into the small ramen shop, puts his fist to his sides and scrutinizes him up and down. Hayato bends his head and feels like a bashful schoolboy, caught up to no good. Then Kuma laughs and tugs him in for a bone-crackling hug.

“Oi, you could have at least stopped by to let me know he was still alive,” Kuma says with a nod in the direction of the counter where Ryu sits grinning at them.

Monday is his day off. They catch a train that brings them to a small town by the ocean in less than an hour. Walking along the pier Hayato takes his hand and drags him into an alley between rundown industrial buildings, the thud of Ryu’s body hitting the wall making empty echoes as Hayato unbuckles Ryu's belt to give him a handjob. Ryu laughs and moans and grips his shoulders and Hayato presses his hardness into sharp hips and feels like a teenager all over again.

Spring is late this year and the salty winds blowing in from the water are cold and persistent. They watch the waves sitting on a wooden railing, side by side.

“In school,” Hayato starts and Ryu turns to look at him. “Did you know? I mean, what you felt. Did you know?”

Ryu nods and Hayato doesn’t know why he asked. Doesn’t know what to do with information like that.

“I know you don’t need it,” Hayato suddenly says. “But it’s like- Those things important to me. Wanting to protect them. I want to protect you too.”

The thin silence breaks as Ryu’s phone starts to ring in his pocket.

“Don’t answer,” Hayato says before he realises what he’s thinking. Ryu gives him a startled glance and then leans in to press a quick kiss to his chapped lips before jumping down from the railing.

“When are you leaving?” Hayato asks when he gets back, doesn’t care about the petulant tone in which he says it.

“Tomorrow,” Ryu says quietly.

Hayato leaves for work as usual on Tuesday. He prefers it this way. Swift and efficient, like pulling off a band aid. Ryu will be gone when he gets back and Hayato will get on with trying to figure out what it is he wants with his life.

He keeps glancing at the time as he works. Ten AM comes and goes and Hayato imagines Ryu in first class. Ryu on his way to wherever he’s going and then he thinks about Ryu in Hayato’s clothes; Ryu in his bed, naked and honest and beautiful. He drops a can of beans on the floor and mr Washio glares at him from behind the counter.

He goes to Kuma’s ramen shop after work.

“Left again, did he?” Kuma says when he slumps down by the counter.

Hayato laughs and pretends to stare at the menu. “Nothing keeping him,” he mutters as bile pricks somewhere deep in his throat. He's not there because he’s hungry.

“Yo,” Ryu says the next time he calls.

“Yo,” Hayato answers, trying to sound casual. As he sits up he spills his beer and swears quietly.

“What was that?”

“Ah, nothing. Just- Where are you?”

“New York,” Ryu says and Hayato can hear him walking, can hear traffic and faint voices passing by.

“You stole my sweatshirt,” Hayato says when he can’t think of anything else.

“I did,” Ryu says with a little laugh. “I’m sorry. I’ll give it to you when I get back.”

“And when is that?”

Ryu sighs into the phone and Hayato takes a sip of his beer bottle just to do something. He feels like throwing it across the room but that would only mean he’d have to take care of it later, when he’s feeling even more miserable than right now.

“How do you-“ Ryu begins. “How is it you see us? How do you even see this working out?”

Hayato hangs up and throws the beer bottle across the room.

“Hayato,” Take said a few days before he passed away. Lying in his hospital bed looking faded and grey, smiling despite the hand that Hayato was probably holding on way too hard to. “Hayato,” he’d said and looked him in the eye. “Now that you’ll see him again, don’t do anything stupid.”

Hayato doesn’t know if this is what Take meant. That he shouldn’t have slept with Ryu. That maybe he’d destroyed what they’d had by turning it into something sordid and cheap.

Hayato kissed Ryu once when they were younger. Ryu had looked so shocked that Hayato had apologised immediately, laughed and said it was a joke, idiot. Caught you, didn’t I?

“You’re so stupid,” was Take’s only reply when Hayato later told him the story. “You’re so stupid.” And then he’d smiled, as if he knew more about it than Hayato did.

It’s two AM, exactly one month since their last phone call, when Hayato wakes up to the buzz of his doorbell. He knows it’s Ryu. Even though it makes no sense. The last time Ryu left, he stayed away for three years. And Hayato’s convinced there is no person on this earth more stubborn and proud than Odagiri Ryu.

“I can hear you breathing,” Ryu says after letting Hayato watch him through the peep hole for a while.

“My neighbours will think you’re crazy. Talking to a closed door,” Hayato says without moving a muscle. Watching him.

Ryu gives him a sceptical look through the hole. “I don’t know Hayato. The walls in this building are pretty thin. I think they can hear you.”

Hayato opens up but doesn’t invite him in, keeps his hand on the door handle as he leans against the frame. “How do you know that?” he asks.

“Your neighbour told me,” Ryu says with a wave towards the door opposite Hayato’s. “When she stopped by to complain about the noises.”

“The noises?” Hayato asks and frowns.

“The noises we were- When-” Ryu says and then shifts his bag on his shoulder, shifts his eyes away from Hayato.

And maybe if they’d still been in school Hayato would have found his embarrassment irresistible. Would have smiled and blushed himself.

“Do you regret it?” Hayato asks and the sound of his voice seems to cut through the air like a knife. Ugly and raw when compared to Ryu's soft tones.

Ryu looks up, wide eyes and innocence. Ryu hasn't become jaded with age, the years only seem to soften him. “What?” he questions with a little frown.

“Fucking me,” Hayato spits. Don’t do anything stupid. “Do you regret it?”

“Did I look like I regretted it?” Ryu asks. Calm and collected.

“I don’t know,” Hayato says and feels his shoulders rise in a shrug, like his body and brain are trying to collaborate despite being separated at the moment. “You left,” he says, hoarse like he rehearsed this while screaming.

Ryu looks away. Hayato wants to hit him and hold him at the same time. Force some of his frustration into this resistant creature before him.

“I was thinking,” Ryu says, a sudden sound in the silence surrounding them. “Leaving because of you and leaving you are two different things.”

“How was I supposed to know that? You were always the first one to call me stupid.”

“I only said it because I knew it wasn’t really true.”

Hayato could probably have kept it up a lot longer. The sham. Pretending to debate whether or not to let him in. Pretending to have more resolve. Pretending he wouldn’t kiss him today. Wouldn’t sleep with him and make the same mistake all over again. But then his neighbour opens a crack in her door and Hayato drags him inside with a roll of his eyes.

He could have kept it up for hours. But Hayato’s apartment is too small, Ryu’s presence all too pressing. Hayato kisses him as soon as his bag hits the floor.

“I thought about it,” Hayato says.

“About what?” Ryu asks. They’re watching TV again, even the same game show as before Hayato thinks.

“About how I see this working out.”

“And?” Ryu prompts

“I couldn’t think of anything.”

Ryu twists his fingers around the loose threads in Hayato’s ripped jeans. “I see,” he says.

“But,” Hayato says and takes his hand. “I want you to stay anyway.”

“You know, Take once said,” Ryu says as they make their way to Kuma’s ramen shop, walking close, sharing glances and smiles. Hayato’s heart still aches every time someone mentions Take’s name and he grabs hold of Ryu’s hand to try to take the edge off the pain. Ryu makes a small startled movement and looks down at their entwined fingers. He looks back at Hayato and says “Take once said he’d never truly be worried about me,” and then stops to lay one of his cold hands on Hayato’s cheek. “Because you’d always protect me.”

rec

tretton — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:50:09 GMT

GO READ!

And don't you dare turn around when you see the premise. The Akame is SO GOOD.

Damn it. Why do I always end up in these situations every time I'm just about to go on trips?

tretton — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:49:24 GMT

Get well! fic for Aki

tretton — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:57:26 GMT

Title: Skin bared
Pairing: Akame
Rating: R
Word count: 1 728
Disclaimer: This has never happened, there is no money being made here and no harm intended.
Concrit: Oh, feel free. I ain't got no beta baby.
Summary: A photo shoot, a lunch and a promise.
Notes: Ok. Before you kill me, let me just say that I will keep dedicating these to you until I get it right. Because this isn't happy!pr0n. This isn't even pr0n. This is more like the boring stuff that happens in between the pr0n. So, if we summarize: THIS STORY HAS NO POINT AND NO PR0N. *cries* And I am so shameless for naming it 'Skin bared'.

”What,” Kame says and fumbles with the thin sheet wrapped around his waist. “What,” nearly drops it and then decides to pull it securely around his shoulders, managing to give Jin a full frontal flash in the process. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to give you moral support,” Jin says with a smirk.

“Thank you. Now go. Away,” Kame bites out.

“No. I think I’ll stay here, in case you feel you need me for anything.”

“I don’t. I won’t. Your moral support would be much more efficient if you weren’t actually present.”

“Now, don’t be like that. After all, this was your idea.”

“It was not!”

“It was too. Naomi asked you what you wanted and you said you wanted more ero promoting and I thought she was going to faint because that was right after you’d had that shoot with Myojo out in the rain with your hands down in your pants.”

Kame winces, blushes and then tries to hide it by pulling the sheet more tightly around his throat. That had been rather awkward. Two hours of lying in the street, soaking wet, going through the process of gradually unzipping five different pair of pants with one very demanding photographer bent over him, rapping out orders such as “Spread your legs!” and “Show me your throat!” and then enthusiastically breaking into a chorus of “Yes. Yes. Yes!” whenever he thought Kame did something right. Kame had driven home with the distinct feeling of having just been fucked through a camera lens and a very persistent cold. He hadn’t wanted to do another one of those shoots for at least another six months. But then the magazine had come out and well, he had looked sort of good. Even Jin had admitted so, after collecting himself from choking on his lunch.

“Yes. But,” Kame tries to argue. “I never said anything about nude photos.”

Jin snickers.

“Kamenashi-san,” an assistant interrupts. “If you would please, they’re ready for you now.”

“Hey. Don’t worry,” Jin says as Kame starts to shuffle towards the set. “Just remember that I’ll be right here for you. Watching. Recording things with my cell phone.”

Kame shoots him a murderous look over his shoulder, causing the sheet to slip down.

It’s nowhere near as bad as Kame had imagined it to be. The photographer is a subdued and gentle sort of man that likes to pull his face away from the camera every once in a while to gesticulate with his hands how he wants Kame to move, what sort of expression he’s aiming for. Sitting on his knees on the cold floor with just a white sheet crinkling between his legs he somehow feels more dignified than any of the other times he’s been posing with his shirt pulled up and stretched wide, jeans riding low, trying satisfy the calls for more of this or that, pouting and jutting.

“From behind I think, yes,” the photographer, Hayashi-san says quietly and nods to an assistant that rushes forward to drape the sheet over him in a more artistic manner. Kame suddenly imagines Jin skulking around in the background and feels his face heat.

“It’s perfectly alright if you’re embarrassed,” Hayashi-san tells him and snaps a picture of Kame’s downcast face, smiles at him. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Kame smiles back and tries to ignore the prickling that’s started to spread over his skin at the thought of Jin.

Three hours later he’s shrugging into a worn black sweater, picking up his bracelets and scanning the room for anything else of his left behind.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks Jin who’s slumped low in the sofa, busy shredding the label on a bottle of water. He stiffens and looks at Kame, then quickly looks away again.

“Nothing.”

“You’re the one who insisted on staying in the room. If this is going to be awk-”

“How much weight have you lost lately?”

Kame stuffs his own water bottle into his bag and tugs on a hat before taking out his sunglasses.

“Oi, Kame,” Jin says with a wavering warning in his voice.

“Let’s have lunch. You can force me to eat more than I can manage. It will be just like old times.”

Jin hesitates, as if waiting for the punch line of a joke he doesn’t get. Then he breaks into a smile.

“I know a place.”

“Actually, I heard the food here is atrocious.”

Jin throws him a glance and takes off his seatbelt. “It’s gotten better. You know, since last time.” He gets out of the car and Kame follows, trails after him into the apartment building

“So what are we having?” he asks once they’re in the elevator.

Jin grins at his own image in the mirror right next to Kame’s head. “Mom’s leftovers.”

“Oh, thank God. For a while there I thought you were going to cook.”

“For you? Don’t be ridiculous,” Jin scoffs and gets out of the elevator.

“You hurt my feelings. I’ve cooked for you.”

“That was five years ago,” he says over his shoulder as he unlocks the door, gets inside and shrugs out of his jacket. He slips one shoe off before noticing Kame watching him.

“What?”

“It was five years ago.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Yeah, but.” Kame takes off his own jacket and looks for a place to put it. “You can just pull that sort of information out of the blue?”

“You remember too.”

“Only because we had a major fight that day.”

Jin wrinkles his nose. “That’s too depressing Kame.” Walks into the kitchen. “Only remembering the days we fought.”

Kame follows him. “I didn’t say that.”

Jin doesn’t answer, just takes out two plates, hands one to Kame before turning to the fridge to get the food.

“You smoke too much.”

Jin exhales a curling trail towards the ceiling and sinks down in his chair, kicking lightly as he finds a foot beneath the table. “I know.”

Kame kicks back and leans forward on his elbows, giving Jin an indecipherable look. “Have you decided about that part yet?”

Scrunching up his face he takes another drag. “It’s the same shit as last time. And I got another offer but then they tell me it’s this part or nothing and I shouldn’t even have been handed that other script in the first place.” He huffs.

Kame sighs. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“When am I not doing stupid things in your eyes?”

“You know you fuck things up for us too. When they put you in the freezer for a couple of months we have to work twice as much by the time they give us another single. Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?”

Jin leans forward and ashes his cigarette, tugs at his hair in frustration and throws Kame a glare. “What if I turn them both down?”

“Akanishi…”

“I don’t want the part!” he suddenly shouts and stubs out the cigarette.

Kame looks exhausted for a moment, then he stands and gathers up his plate, takes his glass with the other hand and heads for the kitchen. Walking past his chair Jin throws out an arm and catches him around the waist. Lifting the plate and glass high up in alarm Kame tries to squirm away.

“I hate it when you call me ‘Akanishi’.”

“No. I mean it. No. I’m not in the mood.”

“Yes you are. You’re pissed off,” Jin decides and steers him closer. “You’re always in the mood when you’re pissed off.”

With Jin forcefully kneading him through the jeans Kame lets out a helpless moan and quickly puts down the china with a clatter, placing his hands on Jin’s shoulders in stead.

“I’ve always liked these pants,” Jin informs him as he works the belt buckle open.

“Then I won’t wear them around you anymore,” Kame says and swallows. “If they distract you.”

Jin grins up at him and tilts his head into Kame’s hand when it sinks into his hair. “You distract me. The pants are just a bonus. Or rather,” he tugs on the fabric and kisses an uncovered hipbone, “taking them off you is.”

“I guess it can’t be helped then.”

“No.” Jin laughs. “It really can’t.” And then he pushes Kame forward, guiding him into the coiling heat of his mouth.

Flopping down on his back on the bed, Kame tries to get his eyes to refocus. Jin rolls over and leans his head on an elbow, watching him with a satisfied expression, smiling.

“Where did you learn that?” he asks and reckons that if he tried to get up his legs wouldn’t bear him at the moment.

“L.A.”

“Right. Well, I take it all back. Definitively money well spent.” Jin hits him on the shoulder and drops his head on Kame’s chest.

“Ow. Ow. Your head’s really heavy, you know that?”

“Shut up.”

Jin sits on the step leading into his apartment watching him while Kame puts on his shoes. A towel wrapped around his waist he’s on the way to the shower, his hair sticking up in odd places making him look young and soft-faced.

“Kame,” he says when he reaches for the jacket.

“Yes?”

“I miss you.”

Adjusting his jacket Kame avoids his eyes, fiddles with the zipper. Jin sighs and stands up.

“Will you call me sometime? Like. When I say ‘let’s have lunch some time soon’ will you actually try to remember and make it happen?”

“Then will you stop acting differently with me compared to how you act with everyone else?”

Slapping away his hands and pulling up the zipper Jin gives him a faint smile. “I’ve always acted differently with you.”

“It didn’t use to be the bad kind of ‘different’,” Kame says quietly, almost mumbling.

After a few moments of silence, the faint sound of the clock in Jin’s kitchen ticking off seconds in the soundtrack of their failed attempts at communication, Jin holds up his pinkie.

Kame laughs. Meets Jin’s eyes with a questioning look as if to say Are you serious?

I sure am.

When their fingers curl around each other Kame thinks that this is the best way in which Jin has touched him in years. It’s only a very small area of skin coming into contact with another. But it’s finally an area that matters.

fanfic rec

tretton — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:09:42 GMT

soucieux does it again. I knew the moment I clicked I never wanted this fic to end. No one does stylish and unfailing akame AU like soucieux. I'm jealous.

A Prelude to Number Six?

Akame fic

tretton — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:51:54 GMT

Title: Avalanche
Pairing: Akame
Rating: R
Word count: 1 672
Disclaimer: This has never happened, there is no money being made here and no harm intended.
Concrit: Oh, feel free. I ain't got no beta baby.
Summary: Coming home is an avalanche of sorts. But that doesn't mean things change.
Notes: I wasn't going to keep this title. I don't like how stuffy and pretentious it sounds. But I couldn't think of anything better. And I don't like how I couldn't keep my sticky hands off the fluff despite my good intentions. So there.

Jin shows up on Kame’s doorstep one night, without so much as a text message in advance. Kame’s alone and exhausted. Jin’s worn around the edges, frazzled and sunburnt, slumping yet slightly breathless and pent up. He looks tired. But good. So good. Better than he’s looked for years. Kame doesn’t say a word. Jin takes a step forward into the apartment, closing the door Kame’s opened behind him, a sweet familiar scent trailing up Kame’s nose. The car key Jin’s holding in his hand clinks against the door handle and for a second, when he turns around and notices their proximity, Jin seems surprised Kame hasn’t moved. Jin opens his mouth as if to speak, which is why Kame’s not prepared for him leaning forward, pressing his chapped lips against Kame’s. It’s the first time Kame’s kissed anyone since February. Since New York. Since Jin’s tongue slid silkily against his, leaving a taste of coffee in his mouth. Since Jin said “I’ll see you soon” (the big fat liar) in English before waving goodbye. Kame feels foolish. He calculates the amount of lips Jin’s kissed since New York, tries to disregard the number he comes up with and shivers when Jin sighs into his mouth and breaks the kiss. He straightens up. Kame still hasn’t moved a muscle, hasn’t kissed him back or spoken. And Jin bends his head down, blatantly disappointed. Hair falls over his eyes, silky bangs covering up his knotted eyebrows. His flickering eyelashes. His half-open mouth and tensing jaw. It’s Jin, Kame thinks stupidly before kissing Jin’s frowning mouth.

The key falls to the floor as Jin delicately cups Kame’s face. Kame fists his hands deep into the fabric of Jin’s oversized sweater, pulling more of Jin closer to his body, a desperate sound slipping from the corner of Kame’s mouth. Jin doesn’t taste much of anything this time around. Jin trails a hand up his back under the t-shirt and it’s there again. It’s the heady sensation of Jin’s fingers against Kame’s skin. He gasps helplessly. Jin bites Kame’s lower lip and dips his other hand below the waistline of Kame’s jeans.

It’s been months. Kame has avoided thinking about it but it’s been months, and once Kame takes a step backwards, a vague notion about the direction of his bedroom, they tumble to the ground.

Jin falling on top of him on the floor is quite painful. He lets out an absentminded sound of discomfort but doesn’t let Jin speak when he levels himself up on his elbows above Kame, looking mildly concerned but mostly turned on, eyes glazed over. Instead Kame quickly captures Jin’s mouth with his own again. And again. He wants Jin’s skin, exposed for his itching fingers, and he wants it now. Yet he can’t seem to get enough of kissing him while pulling his sweater up over his back, nails scraping against skin to make up for the bruises he’s going to earn himself for letting Jin top while having sex on the floor.

Kame wants it to go on forever. In the end he comes from the feeling of having Jin on top of him again. Having his overwhelming presence fill up the same room Kame’s in. Jin bites at his collarbone and grinds his hips against Kame’s, all fluid-like motions and burning breaths, just like Kame remembers him. He climaxes with his jeans still on, one hand clawing uselessly at the floor, the other buried deep in Jin’s tangling hair.

For hours they just stumble around in the apartment, communication in grunts and gasps and a constant exchange of fluids. It would have been disgusting if it wasn’t exactly what Kame wanted. And needed.

Jin’s sweat staining Kame’s skin, Jin’s legs sliding slickly against Kame’s; Kame leaving a trail of saliva on Jin’s shivering collarbones before finding a nipple with his scraping teeth, milking a whining sound from Jin, a rapture of writhing limbs; Jin letting out something of an anguished shout when they’re fucking on the bed, Kame’s bent legs tensing and trembling as Jin’s seed fills him.

Speaking as a perfectionist, he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Tadaima” is the first thing Jin says to him after coming back from America. They’re in Kame’s claustrophobic shower, crammed close together and not really getting much done in terms of washing. Kame doesn’t know what to say. He’s been waiting to hear that from Jin since the day he left. He ends up holding the showerhead directly over Jin’s head. Jin flails and sputters predictably. Kame laughs until his chest starts to hurt and turns his back on Jin when he realizes he’s crying. “Baka,” Jin mutters sullenly, pressing up against Kame’s back while reaching for the shampoo, smearing his wet hair against Kame’s cheek. It’s second on the list of things Kame’s been longing to hear Jin say to him.

- - - - -

“Have you noticed how we keep on having the exact same conversation over and over again?” Jin said in an even voice into the darkness. “We’ve had the same conversation for a whole year now.”

Kame blew out air through his nose and turned on his side, facing away from Jin. “I still don’t see why you have to leave.”

“But this is my point. All we ever do is work. And I’m so tired. I keep thinking ‘I’ll work hard’ but what’s the use when you’re always around, out-shining me?”

“Selfish,” Kame muttered and fisted the sheet in front of him until his hand started to ache.

“So what if I am? Don’t you ever just want to get away? Ne, Kazuya, don’t you ever wish for things to change?” Jin asked, a fingertip tracing patterns on the back of Kame’s neck.

“No,” Kame answered stonily.

- - - - -

Morning finds Kame alone in bed. He’s not quite sure yesterday really happened until he follows the trail of clothes out the doorway and spots him smoking by a window in the kitchen, jeans falling off his naked hips and sunlight trying to abate his goose bumps. For the longest moment Kame stands rooted to the spot.

Growing up, it had been a common statement that Jin looked good. People would constantly inform him as if anxious Jin would think differently. As if Jin of all people needed to hear that. And Jin would blush and act according to custom and eventually it would turn into an offhand knowledge Jin felt assurance in. Kame could see it in the way he moved and talked. Jin was well aware his looks were above average. But sometimes Kame wishes people would have held their tongue. That it wouldn’t have been a thing that’d been practically beaten into Jin when there were other traits you could choose to compliment him for. Especially on days when Kame sees Jin reduce himself to shards of all that he is. Jin can get so insecure it seems stupid to Kame. And he absolutely hates the way Jin at times obviously thinks that looking good is all he ever will excel in.

Standing there, watching Jin mix smoke with sunrays, Kame wants to tell him You don’t look good, you’re beautiful. There’s a difference.

Eventually Jin notices Kame and turns to him. “Ohayou,” he says, peering. Kame finds himself blushing at Jin’s voice, remembering the reason for its hoarse quality. He makes breakfast but hardly minds when eating turns into fucking on the kitchen table.

Days later they’re in a hotel room somewhere Kame’s quite honestly lost track of, Jin’s fingers lazily stretching him. He’s let go of the nervous edge in his voice, unfitting and awkward.

“Do you like that?” he asks in a low tone, a rumbling sound in Kame’s ears, settling somewhere deep in his body. “Is that good?” They’re all rhetorical questions Kame doesn’t feel inclined to answer. Instead he twists and moans, chases the sensation of Jin’s soft lips distracting him from any possible pain. Jin securely clutches at a hip and slips another finger inside.

“Feels good?”

“Am I hurting you?”

And Kame wants to laugh, wants to say You’re always hurting me. He grasps for Jin, finds a shoulder and tugs urgently.

When Jin’s lips finds Kame’s he opens his mouth eagerly, lets Jin dip his tongue in to meet Kame’s. Somewhere in the middle he goes slack jawed as Jin pushes into him. His questions down to singular words. “Good?” he says into Kame’s neck.

“Jin,” Kame pants. “Jin, just give it to me. I want it.”

“I want it,” he says and Jin lets go of his restraint.

It’s harsh and near-painful and Kame thinks he’s been missing this, he’s been waiting for this and he’s been longing for this. It’s been days and almost weeks that Jin’s been back now but Kame keeps touching him to reassure himself. Keeps thinking I've missed you, like it’s something he could say out loud without consequences. Then, when he’s on the edge, not quite sure if he can take it anymore, yet just as uncertain he wants it to end, Jin smoothes Kame’s hair back from his face; a distractingly gentle gesture that makes Kame still. Jin’s eyes meet his and he asks “Just like that?” and gives a firm thrust that makes Kame’s thoughts go disjointed. “Just like that,” Kame slurs and Jin thrusts again. Kame flings an arm over his face and comes, sticky streaks of seed soon getting smeared onto Jin’s stomach as well.

“Kazuya,” Jin grunts when he buries his head into the sheets right next to Kame’s head. “Uh, Kazuya,” as warmth fills him thickly and sweetly, Jin’s faintly trembling weight settling on top of him. Kame buries his nose in Jin’s hair and thinks of being without Jin. Thinks of how they keep picking up seamlessly break-up after break-up . They’ve done it before and Kame fears they’re going to keep on doing it until some unfathomed disaster inevitably splits them apart.

It won’t last, he thinks. It’s perfect. But it won’t last.