defeminized (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
defeminized) wrote2012-05-07 01:06 am
defeminized) wrote2012-05-07 01:06 am
Entry tags:
candid - kame/nakamaru
Title: candid
Pairing: Nakamaru/Kame
Wordcount: 4042
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teeth-damaging fluff, limited knowledge of photography, glossed-over porn, rambles, and I think Nakamaru’s kind of stalkerish in here
Summary: As a “Congratulations for Entering College” gift, Kame buys Nakamaru a camera.
Notes: Forpaint_asmile, a late birthday gift. Sorry that this doesn’t have angst nor actual porn :/, but I still hope you like it!
Inspired by this set of photos, along with this set of photos, and maybe this. Companion music is either this or this, pick your choice :P Special thanks tokyjr, who came to my rescue at the last minute to help with betaing. All other mistakes are mine, feel free to point out.
*
There was once when Nakamaru thought that he would have the whole world in his hand if he could calmly plan the best and expect the worst.
Naturally—or ironically—nothing ever goes according to how he had planned.
He had wanted to ace the entrance exam to a widely coveted private high school (because it had an escalator system and nothing secures his future more than an a school with an escalator system, plus it came with an added bonus of a scholarship); but the cute girl in the class signed him up to be an idol and he was in no position to deny the opportunity.
He had—once, after an unfruitful practice—decided that maybe the life of an idol wasn’t meant for him. He didn’t have the face, the charisma nor the motivation, and perhaps he could still aim for a college scholarship. That night, he dreamt about jamming in a club and seeing himself beatboxing and the crowd going wild for him. He woke up feeling like he should be questioning how he had been able to beatbox in his dream, but the only thing he was concentrating on was the fact that there was a way he could still make it.
He had written down an extensive proposal to himself for a post-Johnny life if he wouldn’t be debuting by the age of 23, but Kame came backstage after one of their Dream Boys nights and told him, “We are going to debut”.
He decided that while the best things in life have always hit him when he least expected them, it doesn’t mean that he should stop planning in advance.
*
Nakamaru considers himself quite a master with the computer, though he’s still only a moderate computer geek and not quite at the Junno-level of proficiency.
He tries to fix Kame’s laptop (it was a simple problem, really, reformatting hard disks is one of his expertise’s) and Kame complains about how much of a bother it is to maintain a computer, and why is it that computers couldn’t fix themselves if they were so efficient.
Nakamaru chuckles a little. After getting past the annoyance of having to listen to Kame talking endlessly, Nakamaru finds it adorable that he could ramble for so long and never really hit the point, even though Kame’s words could be as cutting as a sword when necessary. Maybe Kame’s strength is in his ability to effortlessly fashion his speech mannerism according to the situation.
“You’re mad at something,” he says.
“No,” Kame says immediately. “How much longer will it take?” he asks, referring to how Nakamaru’s rebooting his computer.
“Just a little longer,” Nakamaru answers.
Kame’s quite a master in denying, he thinks, and maybe that’s his strength too.
*
As a “Congratulations for Entering College” gift, Kame buys Nakamaru a camera.
Nakamaru twitches a little at the gift, because it’s Nikon and it looks expensive and it looks like something Kame should have kept for himself and—
“Shut up,” Kame says as he playfully slaps Nakamaru’s back. “Take pictures of your campus, I want to see them.”
“Or you can come and take them yourself,” Nakamaru mutters, playing with the auto-focus lens. “I’ve been there a few times for my enrollment, think you’d like it.”
“What are you talking about?” Kame says, looking slightly scandalised. “You should take them, because I want to see your campus through your lenses. What good would it do if I were the one taking them?”
Nakamaru might have a slight advantage when it comes to computers—and maybe environment—but Kame’s definitely superior in photography.
Maybe he doesn’t deserve the camera, he thinks, but Kame beams at him as he takes test shots around his apartment and he casts the thought aside.
*
Nakamaru keeps the camera in his backpack at all times because he thinks that it might be convenient to take candid pictures of his campus and later, his surroundings.
He starts by taking pictures of the founder’s statue, the regal looking memorial of Ookuma Shigenobu. He takes a few, experimenting with various angles and positions. Kame thinks that he should have focused on the statue instead of the background, because apparently by equally focusing on the trees at the back, he’s diluting the grandeur of the statue.
Next, he takes pictures of the graduating students during their convocation and he regrets his decision because a sea of people is a bitch to take pictures of. Kame takes one single look at the pictures stored in a folder in his computer and laughs, because apparently nothing but ten years of practice could fix those pictures.
Nakamaru expands his scope by taking pictures of the buskers along the bustling streets, the fighting dogs on the sidewalks, the busy takoyaki stall owner by the temple, and sometimes, Kame himself.
Kame breaks into small laughs every so often when Nakamaru takes pictures of him, because he’s undecided on how should he pose for Nakamaru.
“Just… pose?” Nakamaru says, slightly puzzled at the way Kame becomes slightly shy—not, he corrects, flustered at the idea of being photographed by Nakamaru.
Kame nods mischievously and walks around Nakamaru’s apartment, repeatedly asking Nakamaru to take pictures of him posing, sometimes naturally, sometimes awkwardly, but most of the time, awkwardly.
Kame stays and chooses the best pictures Nakamaru has taken, then asks Nakamaru to email him the ones he likes, and Nakamaru suddenly realises that Kame has never said anything about hating his pictures, even if he always has opinions about Nakamaru’s photography skills.
*
Nakamaru sorts his pictures and finds Kame an extremely photogenic subject. Seeing him in still is not like seeing him in motion and in real, because Kame in still form has a kind of ageless beauty in it.
He notices how sometimes the lines on his face are the same in two separate pictures, and yet they portray completely different emotions. He observes the way Kame’s eyes soften when he’s showing the face of a person in love, the effortlessly fluid flow running through his face, conjuring the indescribable sense of harmony. He sees the way Kame’s face hardens when he’s unhappy, the purse of his lips and the way the fire of fury ignites on his face.
Kame’s a star alright, and Nakamaru’s feels closest to him when he’s analysing his pictures, studying the contour of his face.
*
Kame asks Nakamaru to join him for a drink with his acquaintances and Nakamaru refuses. He has to hand in an assignment tomorrow and he needs his beauty sleep to be able to wake up the next day to do a last check on his final draft.
About 30 minutes before midnight, he gets a call from Kame.
“I love ~~ you,” Kame says, obviously drunk, against the roar of laughter in the background.
“What?”
“It means that I ~love~ you, idiot,” Kame says again, this time giggling.
No, Nakamaru thinks as he hangs up. It means I’m going to have to pick you up.
*
One of the acquaintances turns out to be Nishioka Tsuyoshi, and Nakamaru finds himself stammering as he faces the (relatively much) larger Nishioka in the bar where Kame has apparently lost a drinking game.
“We were playing Truth or Dare, and he lost,” Nishioka says, “and well, we asked him to say I love you to one of his bandmates, and he picked you.”
“Oh.” Nakamaru nods knowingly.
“He chose dare, and he was already really drunk by then,” Nishioka continues, “at some point he started asking if he could kiss me instead of calling any of you guys.”
“What?”
Nishioka laughs.
“Don’t worry, I declined, which was why he called you,” Nishioka pats Nakamaru on his back. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
Nakamaru bows. “No, thank you for taking care of him.”
*
Kame’s a rather horrible drunk. He clings to Nakamaru on the way out of the bar, inside the car (making the drive home an excruciating process), proclaims his love for Nakamaru’s body parts every few seconds (Nakamaru winces when Kame mentions his… more elusive parts, even though the only thing Kame says about it is how Nakamaru never lets anyone see it), shouts his hate for Jin, refuses to go home and whines at how Nishioka denied him a kiss.
At least he didn’t puke, Nakamaru thinks, counting his blessings.
“Now, now, you sleep here,” Nakamaru says as he drops Kame to the bed. He rises up, planning to go to the bathroom to prepare a piece of hot towel, but is immediately stopped by Kame’s grip around his pinky.
“Don’t go,” he moans, surprisingly soft and coherent.
“I’m making a hot towel,” Nakamaru says with the softness that matches Kame’s, “I’m coming back in a while.”
“No,” Kame insists, pulling him down and Nakamaru finds himself falling to the bed beside him.
“Stop being stubborn,” Nakamaru commands, rather firmly, though it doesn’t stop Kame from wrapping himself around Nakamaru.
“Don’t go,” Kame says. They are now eye-to-eye with each other and Nakamaru’s not sure what he should do.
Kame smells strongly of alcohol, and Nakamaru feels tipsy just by staying with him.
“Stay with me?” Kame pleads with a sober tone.
Nakamaru slides his fingers through Kame’s hair, slightly wet and sticky from the sweat, and strokes his head gently.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers, and Kame shifts himself closer.
Kame closes his eyes and starts muttering again like an actual drunk, and Nakamaru starts wondering if he’s actually drunk or just pretending so that Nakamaru would stay.
Nakamaru realises that it doesn’t matter even if Kame was pretending, because his chest starts beating to a funny rhythm and everything’s sort of not making sense.
*
It’s one of those things again, planning to do something and another thing happens. But this time, the force is so strong, Nakamaru can’t lie to himself and say that it was never planned.
*
“—do you think that he’s denying me on purpose, Yucchi? Am I a bad kisser?”
Kame rambles on and on, because apparently no one ever denies him a kiss and no one, not even Nishioka Fucking Tsuyoshi the Great can say no to him. And why would they want to hear him say disgusting things to his bandmate anyway, isn’t it gross?
Nakamaru brings Kame face close to his, presses his lips over his and feels himself immediately intoxicated.
Kame stills for a while, as though he’s trying to digest the fact that Nakamaru just kissed him and Nakamaru steals the chance to press in deeper.
That night, Nakamaru kisses Kame to sleep.
*
Falling in love can’t be unplanned, Nakamaru thinks. One can’t just wake up one morning and decide that he’s in love.
He places the warm towel on Kame’s forehead and recalls the pictures he had taken of him.
There’s nothing more beautiful than a peacefully sleeping Kame and Nakamaru wonders if he has always been in love with him.
*
Kame doesn’t mention what happened that night to anyone, including Nakamaru. After getting past the initial period of confusion, Nakamaru decides to forget that the kiss ever happened.
*
The management announces a new temporary project for them and Nakamaru quivers in shock when he hears the word “roller-coaster”.
He tries refusing, threatening, refusing again, threatening to delay shooting (“But it would only be you and the staff! You can’t just threaten them like that!” Koki says), refusing yet again, but nothing works.
Ueda scoffs at him and tells him to man up, because he’s an idol and what kind of impression he’s giving if he’s not going to get over his fear of heights.
Junno smiles and talks about how great it was when he went bungee-jumping just a month ago.
Kame says nothing.
Nakamaru goes back to his apartment, legs wobbling as he walks and ends up taking horribly-focused pictures of children playing in the park.
*
Kame pouts when he sees the next batch of Nakamaru’s pictures.
“Just when I thought you were making improvements,” he complains, frown lines visible on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” Nakamaru apologises, not really meaning it.
Kame continues to click on the pictures and enlarge them to tell Nakamaru exactly where he went wrong with them. Like the picture with the girl and the marbles, Kame says that he should have focused on the way the girl holds the marbles, because his picture didn’t show the perspective of the innocence that he was aiming. The picture with the boy kicking a ball, Kame says that the picture was terribly focused, because Nakamaru must had taken it with a shaking hand.
“I couldn’t even stand straight,” Nakamaru says and Kame immediately turns to him.
“Yucchi,” he says, “is there something wrong?”
“Nothing,” Nakamaru replies.
“There is,” Kame insists, eyes firm and demanding. “Tell me.”
Kame pulls Nakamaru near and stares right into his eyes.
“You’re lying.”
Nakamaru swallows his saliva as he tries not to avert his eyes from Kame’s and his insides do somersaults. Kame seems to have sensed his hesitance; he takes Nakamaru’s hands and squeezes them gently.
“Yucchi, you don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Nakamaru resists the urge to pull Kame into an embrace, and instead wills himself to give Kame a reluctant smile and reassures him.
“I’m okay,” he says, pulling one of his hands away from Kame’s grip and caresses his cheek.
Kame doesn’t budge.
“I’m okay, trust me.”
*
Kame acts like his usual self during the shooting for the magazine. He laughs and fiddles with Miura-san’s camera and makes Ueda’s stylist’s life a nightmare for messing up Ueda’s hair for the tenth (or more) time and telling Junno how much he sucks.
With an exception.
He stops Nakamaru in his tracks as he heads to the makeup room and asks him, “Will you go on a date with me?”
Nakamaru’s too shocked to say anything, so Kame takes it as a yes and swiftly skips away.
“This Friday, I’ll pick you up at 10 am!”
*
Right after Nakamaru gets in Kame’s car, he hands him a blindfold.
“Close your eyes,” Kame commands.
“What? Now?”
“Yes,” Kame says as he pushes his sunglasses up his nose and revs up the car engine. “It’s a surprise.”
*
In the darkness of the day—how ironic, he thinks—Nakamaru depends on the rest of his senses to guess where Kame’s going. Judging by the way the car stops every now and then, he knows that Kame’s not taking the highway, which means that he’s going somewhere near and accessible. Judging by the way the car doesn’t smell of food, he knows that Kame hasn’t packed or bought any food, which means that they are not going to stay the night or go somewhere with no restaurant. Judging by the way he keeps going up the stairs for what seems to be an eternity, he knows that Kame’s taking him somewhere above the ground, and he’s not liking it.
It’s a good thing that Kame holds his hand all the way through; he feels much safer to have him to hold on to.
*
“You may open your eyes now,” Kame says and Nakamaru slowly unties his blindfold, the insides of his stomach making knots at the thought of possibly being a few kilometres above the ground.
He opens his eyes and he’s standing on top of the Tokyo Sky Tree, staring down at his beloved city. There are the skyscrapers, the miniature houses and the distant mountains—and Kame standing by his side.
It’s beautiful.
Everything’s so beautiful, Nakamaru couldn’t care about how he’s probably about a kilometre above the ground and he should be shaking in fear.
“It’s so pretty up here,” Kame coos.
“Yes,” Nakamaru says.
“Are you scared?” Kame asks and Nakamaru immediately turns to look directly below, almost feeling like fainting from the height.
Kame slides next to him and fixes his hands on the railing to keep him stable. Nakamaru’s instinct asks him to run away, far, far away, but Kame’s hold is firm and he can’t escape.
“It’s not scary,” he says.
“What isn’t?”
“Height.”
Nakamaru’s heart hits his chest like a jackhammer, and he’s beginning to suspect that it has nothing to do with the height.
“Think of it as being on top of the world, having everything under your control,” Kame says softly.
*
Everything Kame says is so Kame, Nakamaru thinks. Being able to control everything, being able to oversee everything, being able to be on top; Kame’s aspiration is Kame himself, in the form of an intangible resolve.
Nakamaru remembers what he has seen in the pictures he takes of Kame and remembers what he had once thought about his own life.
*
“Kame,” Nakamaru says, “let me go.”
“No,” Kame says. “You’re still scared.”
“Yes,” Nakamaru admits. “So let me go.”
Kame lets him go, releases his hand one after another, and pulls him into a sudden kiss.
Nakamaru feels the hair at the back of his head stand, his pulse race, and his knees weaken. Kame pulls nearer and presses deeper and all Nakamaru can think of is how long he has been wanting to be kissed like this, how long has it been since he first kissed Kame in the dark when he was barely sober, and how he feels like everything in the world is in place.
Kame pulls away for a while and Nakamaru asks him, “What do you think you are doing?”
Kame smiles and kisses him again, “Paying you back.”
“What?”
Kame hushes him. “Shut up and let me kiss you.”
*
In that moment as they kiss so far above the ground, Nakamaru feels like nothing matters.
Height doesn’t, his feelings don’t, the fact that Kame remembers how Nakamaru had once kissed his drunken self to sleep doesn’t.
He feels like flying, like floating—like a free man, devoid of any kind of fear.
*
Nakamaru sorts his folder with Kame’s pictures again, and finds himself looking at them with a different pair of eyes.
His pictures suddenly look alive.
*
“Take a picture of me,” Kame says when spring comes and they go to this park for their magazine shooting.
Nakamaru’s adjusting his lenses, testing his focus on the colourful petals.
“No, the photographers have taken enough,” Nakamaru says and he regrets almost immediately. He can’t believe he has forgotten how persistent Kame can get.
“Yucchi,” Kame says, tugging at his shirt.
Nakamaru stands up.
“Look over there,” he instructs, giving in to the wordless plea and Kame smiles happily.
*
Nakamaru sees the glow in the pictures he took of Kame against the backdrop of blossoming trees, and he thinks of a million things.
The Tokyo Sky Tree and its proximity to the sky, the way Kame mumbled when he was drunk, and the glint in his eyes as he clicks away with his camera.
He makes a scrapbook out of pictures of Kame, feeling rather like a stalker, telling himself that something inside him can’t help wanting to protect everything his pictures could ever capture about Kame.
*
“Do you like me, Yucchi?” Kame asks when he pushes Nakamaru onto his bed.
“Why do you ask that?” Nakamaru replies, trying very hard to ignore the hands that are tracing along his chest.
Kame pouts at seeing his own question replied with another. “You’re not fun. I like you, you know?”
“Really?”
Kame bends down and kisses Nakamaru’s neck. “Yes, I like you. I like you a lot.”
“Why?”
There’s a hand slipping inside Nakamaru shirt and Nakamaru feels his blood rush. He instinctively touches Kame’s hip, inciting a small moan from Kame.
“You make me feel safe,” Kame says.
*
Sometimes Nakamaru wants to ask Kame, “Do you want to be with me?”.
Sometimes he wants to ask him something simpler, “Are you okay with me kissing you?”
Kame says that Nakamaru makes him feel safe and he feels like he should have been getting the answers to his question, but something tells him that it’s not enough. It’s not what he wants. It’s not what he’s looking for.
Being able to make Kame feel safe feels strangely like an understated achievement and Nakamaru feels something sinking inside him.
*
“Is making you feel safe a good thing?” Nakamaru asks.
Kame doesn’t answer.
Instead, he puts his hand inside Nakamaru’s pants and strokes him hard.
*
He understands now.
Nakamaru wants to smack himself in the face for not realising it sooner.
He has always wanted Kame, but he must have been doing a bad job at showing it if Kame doesn’t know it.
*
“Let’s take a picture,” Kame says, holding out a disposable camera. “You use your camera and I can use this thing here.”
“Here?” No matter how kinky it might sound, the bed seems to be a rather unstrategic place to take pictures at.
Before he can hear an answer, Kame kisses him on the lips and he hears a click from the disposable camera.
“Yes, here,” Kame says.
Nakamaru holds up his camera and pulls Kame towards him so that he leans on him slightly. He presses the button a few times and previews it.
“I like it, let’s take it from that side,” Kame says, almost bouncing on the bed, and Nakamaru obliges.
They take a few more pictures from various angles and Kame launches a surprise attack by taking pictures of—
“What are you doing? Don’t take pictures of my crotch!”
Kame laughs and lies flat on the bed and Nakamaru takes the chance to pin him to the bed and takes pictures of his laughing face.
When Kame stops laughing and wriggling around, he turns to Nakamaru. “Alright, now, you take pictures of me.”
Nakamaru takes that as a cue to focus with that disposable camera and takes pictures of Kame’s—
“Did you just make me take pictures of your tongue?”
Kame laughs again in amusement and Nakamaru shudders to see what kind of pictures he has taken.
*
It turns out that the picture of him and Kame together are the best he has ever taken.
He particularly likes the one with Kame looking at him with most gentle expression he has ever seen him in, his eyes softening with infatuation and lips slightly curving upwards. He looks at Nakamaru like he’s the only one visible, like he’s the only who matters.
Nakamaru decides that he should stop looking at Kame through the lens of his camera.
*
Nakamaru shows Kame the best picture he has taken of them, and Kame looks happy.
“It’s perfect,” he says.
He watches Kame as he enlarges the picture, studying its every angle and the faces that were captured and Nakamaru pulls him away from the computer screen to kiss him.
Kame looks slightly puzzled, but he tightens his arm around Nakamaru’s waist and kisses him with the kind of fiery passion that he has never shown Nakamaru before.
“What is—“
Nakamaru hushes him. “What do you think if I”—he pecks Kame’s lips lightly—“stop making you feel safe and start making you crazy?”
Kame’s expression is priceless, the kind that can never be captured with a camera, yet the kind that will live down through Nakamaru’s memories as the most beautiful, the most unimaginable.
“What makes you think you should do that?”
Because I’m crazy about you. “Because I like you.”
“That’s all?”
That’s not all. “That’s all.”
Kame chuckles as they kiss again. “Liar.”
“Let’s just say that if you need to choose between kissing Nishioka and kissing me, I’d rather if you choose me.”
“You’re so demanding.”
“I told you,” Nakamaru says as he leans in, “I’m going to make you crazy.”
Kame closes the gap between them and hugs him so tightly, it hurts to breathe.
*
That night, Nakamaru strokes Kame’s back to sleep and he feels his chest heavy with the weight of his own feelings.
It’s a funny feeling, but he now knows with an astounding clarity that as long as Kame stays in his arms, he would have the whole world in his hands.
*
Pairing: Nakamaru/Kame
Wordcount: 4042
Rating: PG
Warnings: Teeth-damaging fluff, limited knowledge of photography, glossed-over porn, rambles, and I think Nakamaru’s kind of stalkerish in here
Summary: As a “Congratulations for Entering College” gift, Kame buys Nakamaru a camera.
Notes: For
paint_asmile, a late birthday gift. Sorry that this doesn’t have angst nor actual porn :/, but I still hope you like it! Inspired by this set of photos, along with this set of photos, and maybe this. Companion music is either this or this, pick your choice :P Special thanks to
kyjr, who came to my rescue at the last minute to help with betaing. All other mistakes are mine, feel free to point out.There was once when Nakamaru thought that he would have the whole world in his hand if he could calmly plan the best and expect the worst.
Naturally—or ironically—nothing ever goes according to how he had planned.
He had wanted to ace the entrance exam to a widely coveted private high school (because it had an escalator system and nothing secures his future more than an a school with an escalator system, plus it came with an added bonus of a scholarship); but the cute girl in the class signed him up to be an idol and he was in no position to deny the opportunity.
He had—once, after an unfruitful practice—decided that maybe the life of an idol wasn’t meant for him. He didn’t have the face, the charisma nor the motivation, and perhaps he could still aim for a college scholarship. That night, he dreamt about jamming in a club and seeing himself beatboxing and the crowd going wild for him. He woke up feeling like he should be questioning how he had been able to beatbox in his dream, but the only thing he was concentrating on was the fact that there was a way he could still make it.
He had written down an extensive proposal to himself for a post-Johnny life if he wouldn’t be debuting by the age of 23, but Kame came backstage after one of their Dream Boys nights and told him, “We are going to debut”.
He decided that while the best things in life have always hit him when he least expected them, it doesn’t mean that he should stop planning in advance.
Nakamaru considers himself quite a master with the computer, though he’s still only a moderate computer geek and not quite at the Junno-level of proficiency.
He tries to fix Kame’s laptop (it was a simple problem, really, reformatting hard disks is one of his expertise’s) and Kame complains about how much of a bother it is to maintain a computer, and why is it that computers couldn’t fix themselves if they were so efficient.
Nakamaru chuckles a little. After getting past the annoyance of having to listen to Kame talking endlessly, Nakamaru finds it adorable that he could ramble for so long and never really hit the point, even though Kame’s words could be as cutting as a sword when necessary. Maybe Kame’s strength is in his ability to effortlessly fashion his speech mannerism according to the situation.
“You’re mad at something,” he says.
“No,” Kame says immediately. “How much longer will it take?” he asks, referring to how Nakamaru’s rebooting his computer.
“Just a little longer,” Nakamaru answers.
Kame’s quite a master in denying, he thinks, and maybe that’s his strength too.
As a “Congratulations for Entering College” gift, Kame buys Nakamaru a camera.
Nakamaru twitches a little at the gift, because it’s Nikon and it looks expensive and it looks like something Kame should have kept for himself and—
“Shut up,” Kame says as he playfully slaps Nakamaru’s back. “Take pictures of your campus, I want to see them.”
“Or you can come and take them yourself,” Nakamaru mutters, playing with the auto-focus lens. “I’ve been there a few times for my enrollment, think you’d like it.”
“What are you talking about?” Kame says, looking slightly scandalised. “You should take them, because I want to see your campus through your lenses. What good would it do if I were the one taking them?”
Nakamaru might have a slight advantage when it comes to computers—and maybe environment—but Kame’s definitely superior in photography.
Maybe he doesn’t deserve the camera, he thinks, but Kame beams at him as he takes test shots around his apartment and he casts the thought aside.
Nakamaru keeps the camera in his backpack at all times because he thinks that it might be convenient to take candid pictures of his campus and later, his surroundings.
He starts by taking pictures of the founder’s statue, the regal looking memorial of Ookuma Shigenobu. He takes a few, experimenting with various angles and positions. Kame thinks that he should have focused on the statue instead of the background, because apparently by equally focusing on the trees at the back, he’s diluting the grandeur of the statue.
Next, he takes pictures of the graduating students during their convocation and he regrets his decision because a sea of people is a bitch to take pictures of. Kame takes one single look at the pictures stored in a folder in his computer and laughs, because apparently nothing but ten years of practice could fix those pictures.
Nakamaru expands his scope by taking pictures of the buskers along the bustling streets, the fighting dogs on the sidewalks, the busy takoyaki stall owner by the temple, and sometimes, Kame himself.
Kame breaks into small laughs every so often when Nakamaru takes pictures of him, because he’s undecided on how should he pose for Nakamaru.
“Just… pose?” Nakamaru says, slightly puzzled at the way Kame becomes slightly shy—not, he corrects, flustered at the idea of being photographed by Nakamaru.
Kame nods mischievously and walks around Nakamaru’s apartment, repeatedly asking Nakamaru to take pictures of him posing, sometimes naturally, sometimes awkwardly, but most of the time, awkwardly.
Kame stays and chooses the best pictures Nakamaru has taken, then asks Nakamaru to email him the ones he likes, and Nakamaru suddenly realises that Kame has never said anything about hating his pictures, even if he always has opinions about Nakamaru’s photography skills.
Nakamaru sorts his pictures and finds Kame an extremely photogenic subject. Seeing him in still is not like seeing him in motion and in real, because Kame in still form has a kind of ageless beauty in it.
He notices how sometimes the lines on his face are the same in two separate pictures, and yet they portray completely different emotions. He observes the way Kame’s eyes soften when he’s showing the face of a person in love, the effortlessly fluid flow running through his face, conjuring the indescribable sense of harmony. He sees the way Kame’s face hardens when he’s unhappy, the purse of his lips and the way the fire of fury ignites on his face.
Kame’s a star alright, and Nakamaru’s feels closest to him when he’s analysing his pictures, studying the contour of his face.
Kame asks Nakamaru to join him for a drink with his acquaintances and Nakamaru refuses. He has to hand in an assignment tomorrow and he needs his beauty sleep to be able to wake up the next day to do a last check on his final draft.
About 30 minutes before midnight, he gets a call from Kame.
“I love ~~ you,” Kame says, obviously drunk, against the roar of laughter in the background.
“What?”
“It means that I ~love~ you, idiot,” Kame says again, this time giggling.
No, Nakamaru thinks as he hangs up. It means I’m going to have to pick you up.
One of the acquaintances turns out to be Nishioka Tsuyoshi, and Nakamaru finds himself stammering as he faces the (relatively much) larger Nishioka in the bar where Kame has apparently lost a drinking game.
“We were playing Truth or Dare, and he lost,” Nishioka says, “and well, we asked him to say I love you to one of his bandmates, and he picked you.”
“Oh.” Nakamaru nods knowingly.
“He chose dare, and he was already really drunk by then,” Nishioka continues, “at some point he started asking if he could kiss me instead of calling any of you guys.”
“What?”
Nishioka laughs.
“Don’t worry, I declined, which was why he called you,” Nishioka pats Nakamaru on his back. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
Nakamaru bows. “No, thank you for taking care of him.”
Kame’s a rather horrible drunk. He clings to Nakamaru on the way out of the bar, inside the car (making the drive home an excruciating process), proclaims his love for Nakamaru’s body parts every few seconds (Nakamaru winces when Kame mentions his… more elusive parts, even though the only thing Kame says about it is how Nakamaru never lets anyone see it), shouts his hate for Jin, refuses to go home and whines at how Nishioka denied him a kiss.
At least he didn’t puke, Nakamaru thinks, counting his blessings.
“Now, now, you sleep here,” Nakamaru says as he drops Kame to the bed. He rises up, planning to go to the bathroom to prepare a piece of hot towel, but is immediately stopped by Kame’s grip around his pinky.
“Don’t go,” he moans, surprisingly soft and coherent.
“I’m making a hot towel,” Nakamaru says with the softness that matches Kame’s, “I’m coming back in a while.”
“No,” Kame insists, pulling him down and Nakamaru finds himself falling to the bed beside him.
“Stop being stubborn,” Nakamaru commands, rather firmly, though it doesn’t stop Kame from wrapping himself around Nakamaru.
“Don’t go,” Kame says. They are now eye-to-eye with each other and Nakamaru’s not sure what he should do.
Kame smells strongly of alcohol, and Nakamaru feels tipsy just by staying with him.
“Stay with me?” Kame pleads with a sober tone.
Nakamaru slides his fingers through Kame’s hair, slightly wet and sticky from the sweat, and strokes his head gently.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers, and Kame shifts himself closer.
Kame closes his eyes and starts muttering again like an actual drunk, and Nakamaru starts wondering if he’s actually drunk or just pretending so that Nakamaru would stay.
Nakamaru realises that it doesn’t matter even if Kame was pretending, because his chest starts beating to a funny rhythm and everything’s sort of not making sense.
It’s one of those things again, planning to do something and another thing happens. But this time, the force is so strong, Nakamaru can’t lie to himself and say that it was never planned.
“—do you think that he’s denying me on purpose, Yucchi? Am I a bad kisser?”
Kame rambles on and on, because apparently no one ever denies him a kiss and no one, not even Nishioka Fucking Tsuyoshi the Great can say no to him. And why would they want to hear him say disgusting things to his bandmate anyway, isn’t it gross?
Nakamaru brings Kame face close to his, presses his lips over his and feels himself immediately intoxicated.
Kame stills for a while, as though he’s trying to digest the fact that Nakamaru just kissed him and Nakamaru steals the chance to press in deeper.
That night, Nakamaru kisses Kame to sleep.
Falling in love can’t be unplanned, Nakamaru thinks. One can’t just wake up one morning and decide that he’s in love.
He places the warm towel on Kame’s forehead and recalls the pictures he had taken of him.
There’s nothing more beautiful than a peacefully sleeping Kame and Nakamaru wonders if he has always been in love with him.
Kame doesn’t mention what happened that night to anyone, including Nakamaru. After getting past the initial period of confusion, Nakamaru decides to forget that the kiss ever happened.
The management announces a new temporary project for them and Nakamaru quivers in shock when he hears the word “roller-coaster”.
He tries refusing, threatening, refusing again, threatening to delay shooting (“But it would only be you and the staff! You can’t just threaten them like that!” Koki says), refusing yet again, but nothing works.
Ueda scoffs at him and tells him to man up, because he’s an idol and what kind of impression he’s giving if he’s not going to get over his fear of heights.
Junno smiles and talks about how great it was when he went bungee-jumping just a month ago.
Kame says nothing.
Nakamaru goes back to his apartment, legs wobbling as he walks and ends up taking horribly-focused pictures of children playing in the park.
Kame pouts when he sees the next batch of Nakamaru’s pictures.
“Just when I thought you were making improvements,” he complains, frown lines visible on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” Nakamaru apologises, not really meaning it.
Kame continues to click on the pictures and enlarge them to tell Nakamaru exactly where he went wrong with them. Like the picture with the girl and the marbles, Kame says that he should have focused on the way the girl holds the marbles, because his picture didn’t show the perspective of the innocence that he was aiming. The picture with the boy kicking a ball, Kame says that the picture was terribly focused, because Nakamaru must had taken it with a shaking hand.
“I couldn’t even stand straight,” Nakamaru says and Kame immediately turns to him.
“Yucchi,” he says, “is there something wrong?”
“Nothing,” Nakamaru replies.
“There is,” Kame insists, eyes firm and demanding. “Tell me.”
Kame pulls Nakamaru near and stares right into his eyes.
“You’re lying.”
Nakamaru swallows his saliva as he tries not to avert his eyes from Kame’s and his insides do somersaults. Kame seems to have sensed his hesitance; he takes Nakamaru’s hands and squeezes them gently.
“Yucchi, you don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Nakamaru resists the urge to pull Kame into an embrace, and instead wills himself to give Kame a reluctant smile and reassures him.
“I’m okay,” he says, pulling one of his hands away from Kame’s grip and caresses his cheek.
Kame doesn’t budge.
“I’m okay, trust me.”
Kame acts like his usual self during the shooting for the magazine. He laughs and fiddles with Miura-san’s camera and makes Ueda’s stylist’s life a nightmare for messing up Ueda’s hair for the tenth (or more) time and telling Junno how much he sucks.
With an exception.
He stops Nakamaru in his tracks as he heads to the makeup room and asks him, “Will you go on a date with me?”
Nakamaru’s too shocked to say anything, so Kame takes it as a yes and swiftly skips away.
“This Friday, I’ll pick you up at 10 am!”
Right after Nakamaru gets in Kame’s car, he hands him a blindfold.
“Close your eyes,” Kame commands.
“What? Now?”
“Yes,” Kame says as he pushes his sunglasses up his nose and revs up the car engine. “It’s a surprise.”
In the darkness of the day—how ironic, he thinks—Nakamaru depends on the rest of his senses to guess where Kame’s going. Judging by the way the car stops every now and then, he knows that Kame’s not taking the highway, which means that he’s going somewhere near and accessible. Judging by the way the car doesn’t smell of food, he knows that Kame hasn’t packed or bought any food, which means that they are not going to stay the night or go somewhere with no restaurant. Judging by the way he keeps going up the stairs for what seems to be an eternity, he knows that Kame’s taking him somewhere above the ground, and he’s not liking it.
It’s a good thing that Kame holds his hand all the way through; he feels much safer to have him to hold on to.
“You may open your eyes now,” Kame says and Nakamaru slowly unties his blindfold, the insides of his stomach making knots at the thought of possibly being a few kilometres above the ground.
He opens his eyes and he’s standing on top of the Tokyo Sky Tree, staring down at his beloved city. There are the skyscrapers, the miniature houses and the distant mountains—and Kame standing by his side.
It’s beautiful.
Everything’s so beautiful, Nakamaru couldn’t care about how he’s probably about a kilometre above the ground and he should be shaking in fear.
“It’s so pretty up here,” Kame coos.
“Yes,” Nakamaru says.
“Are you scared?” Kame asks and Nakamaru immediately turns to look directly below, almost feeling like fainting from the height.
Kame slides next to him and fixes his hands on the railing to keep him stable. Nakamaru’s instinct asks him to run away, far, far away, but Kame’s hold is firm and he can’t escape.
“It’s not scary,” he says.
“What isn’t?”
“Height.”
Nakamaru’s heart hits his chest like a jackhammer, and he’s beginning to suspect that it has nothing to do with the height.
“Think of it as being on top of the world, having everything under your control,” Kame says softly.
Everything Kame says is so Kame, Nakamaru thinks. Being able to control everything, being able to oversee everything, being able to be on top; Kame’s aspiration is Kame himself, in the form of an intangible resolve.
Nakamaru remembers what he has seen in the pictures he takes of Kame and remembers what he had once thought about his own life.
“Kame,” Nakamaru says, “let me go.”
“No,” Kame says. “You’re still scared.”
“Yes,” Nakamaru admits. “So let me go.”
Kame lets him go, releases his hand one after another, and pulls him into a sudden kiss.
Nakamaru feels the hair at the back of his head stand, his pulse race, and his knees weaken. Kame pulls nearer and presses deeper and all Nakamaru can think of is how long he has been wanting to be kissed like this, how long has it been since he first kissed Kame in the dark when he was barely sober, and how he feels like everything in the world is in place.
Kame pulls away for a while and Nakamaru asks him, “What do you think you are doing?”
Kame smiles and kisses him again, “Paying you back.”
“What?”
Kame hushes him. “Shut up and let me kiss you.”
In that moment as they kiss so far above the ground, Nakamaru feels like nothing matters.
Height doesn’t, his feelings don’t, the fact that Kame remembers how Nakamaru had once kissed his drunken self to sleep doesn’t.
He feels like flying, like floating—like a free man, devoid of any kind of fear.
Nakamaru sorts his folder with Kame’s pictures again, and finds himself looking at them with a different pair of eyes.
His pictures suddenly look alive.
“Take a picture of me,” Kame says when spring comes and they go to this park for their magazine shooting.
Nakamaru’s adjusting his lenses, testing his focus on the colourful petals.
“No, the photographers have taken enough,” Nakamaru says and he regrets almost immediately. He can’t believe he has forgotten how persistent Kame can get.
“Yucchi,” Kame says, tugging at his shirt.
Nakamaru stands up.
“Look over there,” he instructs, giving in to the wordless plea and Kame smiles happily.
Nakamaru sees the glow in the pictures he took of Kame against the backdrop of blossoming trees, and he thinks of a million things.
The Tokyo Sky Tree and its proximity to the sky, the way Kame mumbled when he was drunk, and the glint in his eyes as he clicks away with his camera.
He makes a scrapbook out of pictures of Kame, feeling rather like a stalker, telling himself that something inside him can’t help wanting to protect everything his pictures could ever capture about Kame.
“Do you like me, Yucchi?” Kame asks when he pushes Nakamaru onto his bed.
“Why do you ask that?” Nakamaru replies, trying very hard to ignore the hands that are tracing along his chest.
Kame pouts at seeing his own question replied with another. “You’re not fun. I like you, you know?”
“Really?”
Kame bends down and kisses Nakamaru’s neck. “Yes, I like you. I like you a lot.”
“Why?”
There’s a hand slipping inside Nakamaru shirt and Nakamaru feels his blood rush. He instinctively touches Kame’s hip, inciting a small moan from Kame.
“You make me feel safe,” Kame says.
Sometimes Nakamaru wants to ask Kame, “Do you want to be with me?”.
Sometimes he wants to ask him something simpler, “Are you okay with me kissing you?”
Kame says that Nakamaru makes him feel safe and he feels like he should have been getting the answers to his question, but something tells him that it’s not enough. It’s not what he wants. It’s not what he’s looking for.
Being able to make Kame feel safe feels strangely like an understated achievement and Nakamaru feels something sinking inside him.
“Is making you feel safe a good thing?” Nakamaru asks.
Kame doesn’t answer.
Instead, he puts his hand inside Nakamaru’s pants and strokes him hard.
He understands now.
Nakamaru wants to smack himself in the face for not realising it sooner.
He has always wanted Kame, but he must have been doing a bad job at showing it if Kame doesn’t know it.
“Let’s take a picture,” Kame says, holding out a disposable camera. “You use your camera and I can use this thing here.”
“Here?” No matter how kinky it might sound, the bed seems to be a rather unstrategic place to take pictures at.
Before he can hear an answer, Kame kisses him on the lips and he hears a click from the disposable camera.
“Yes, here,” Kame says.
Nakamaru holds up his camera and pulls Kame towards him so that he leans on him slightly. He presses the button a few times and previews it.
“I like it, let’s take it from that side,” Kame says, almost bouncing on the bed, and Nakamaru obliges.
They take a few more pictures from various angles and Kame launches a surprise attack by taking pictures of—
“What are you doing? Don’t take pictures of my crotch!”
Kame laughs and lies flat on the bed and Nakamaru takes the chance to pin him to the bed and takes pictures of his laughing face.
When Kame stops laughing and wriggling around, he turns to Nakamaru. “Alright, now, you take pictures of me.”
Nakamaru takes that as a cue to focus with that disposable camera and takes pictures of Kame’s—
“Did you just make me take pictures of your tongue?”
Kame laughs again in amusement and Nakamaru shudders to see what kind of pictures he has taken.
It turns out that the picture of him and Kame together are the best he has ever taken.
He particularly likes the one with Kame looking at him with most gentle expression he has ever seen him in, his eyes softening with infatuation and lips slightly curving upwards. He looks at Nakamaru like he’s the only one visible, like he’s the only who matters.
Nakamaru decides that he should stop looking at Kame through the lens of his camera.
Nakamaru shows Kame the best picture he has taken of them, and Kame looks happy.
“It’s perfect,” he says.
He watches Kame as he enlarges the picture, studying its every angle and the faces that were captured and Nakamaru pulls him away from the computer screen to kiss him.
Kame looks slightly puzzled, but he tightens his arm around Nakamaru’s waist and kisses him with the kind of fiery passion that he has never shown Nakamaru before.
“What is—“
Nakamaru hushes him. “What do you think if I”—he pecks Kame’s lips lightly—“stop making you feel safe and start making you crazy?”
Kame’s expression is priceless, the kind that can never be captured with a camera, yet the kind that will live down through Nakamaru’s memories as the most beautiful, the most unimaginable.
“What makes you think you should do that?”
Because I’m crazy about you. “Because I like you.”
“That’s all?”
That’s not all. “That’s all.”
Kame chuckles as they kiss again. “Liar.”
“Let’s just say that if you need to choose between kissing Nishioka and kissing me, I’d rather if you choose me.”
“You’re so demanding.”
“I told you,” Nakamaru says as he leans in, “I’m going to make you crazy.”
Kame closes the gap between them and hugs him so tightly, it hurts to breathe.
That night, Nakamaru strokes Kame’s back to sleep and he feels his chest heavy with the weight of his own feelings.
It’s a funny feeling, but he now knows with an astounding clarity that as long as Kame stays in his arms, he would have the whole world in his hands.