defeminized (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
defeminized) wrote2011-09-26 07:56 am
defeminized) wrote2011-09-26 07:56 am
Entry tags:
Letters to Nobody - Kame/Jin
Title: Letters to Nobody
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing: Jin/Kame, Kame/Kyoko
Warnings: Het, Los Angeles Part 1
Notes: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pinkeuphoria1, and thanks to randomicicle for her fabulous story.
Original Story: Overture, byrandomicicle.
Originally posted here @![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
jentfic_remix.
Summary: Just one of the many Jincident 1.0 stuff.
--
It’s afternoon in France right now, Jin thinks. He doesn’t know why he cares.
He’s in New York for the weekend, an invitation from JC and her family. It’s now two months since he has been in America and the first time since he has left Los Angeles. San Francisco’s next after he returns to Los Angeles, a road trip with the others from JC’s gang. Chicago comes after, though it might also be Houston instead, depending on where Lupe Fiasco is playing next. Jin’s manager wasn’t very happy when he had first heard of his plans. There is too little money allocated for Jin’s “little” adventure overseas and Los Angeles is too far away from New York. It’s also thanks to JC that he actually gets here, Jin thinks, smiling to himself.
“Come on, Jin,” she had said. Jin likes the way the people in America pronounce his name. Jin back home was crass, the emphasis on the consonant was heavy, as though they were saying his name through their teeth. Over here, they call him like they are requesting for something. Jin chuckles as he remembers the many times he has mistakenly answered to someone ordering gin in the bar. Gene, he says to himself. It’s how they call him here, like his name doesn’t stick out the way his accent does. It’s generic enough that everybody can pronounce his name and not wish that Asian languages are less of a bitch, while distinctive enough that they can remember it from the first introduction. Jin likes it here in America.
“You show ‘em what you have,” JC had said while poking his arm. “Sing and throw ‘em down.” That was how Jin had picked up a guitar belonging to JC’s roommate, Gina, who is currently sharing a bed with JC’s sister next door, and started playing on the streets to earn his travel fund. He was invited to perform in some of the pubs too, singing his own randomly mashed-up renditions of Chris Brown, Kanye, and even Beyonce. He will never forget how he sang Crazy in Love right on the spot with a string of randomly made-up chords. Not that he even likes Beyonce, even though he actually does, but it was during that night that he had earned the most. Enough for a plane trip to New York and back.
Or enough for a one-way trip back to Japan.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” JC’s chirpy voice drags him out of the bed. “Mom made breakfast, and she makes the greatest blueberry pies.”
“Waking up,” Jin obeys. “Where’s Gina?”
“Out, at her cousin’s,” JC says. Gina’s a little strange even by the JC’s standard, and JC has been quite the oddball. Jin likes them though. They don’t judge. Nobody here needs to know that he’s a superstar in Japan. When they asked if he was some sort of a socialite when he had first met them, Jin just laughed them off.
“You said something Japanese in your sleep,” JC says.
Jin’s shocked. He hasn’t been speaking any Japanese, save for the phone calls back to his mother, in months. “Really?”
“Yea, like that time.”
Oh, right. That time. It was that time when he woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare he had forgotten. He only remembered it as a reeling ride of twinkling stage lights, deafening chants of his name and the sounds of cameras clicking as they captured his every motion. He had lied to JC about missing the spotlight and the stage, and cooked up a story about a lost love back at home instead. It wasn’t a complete lie, Jin thinks, if he counts analogies as a disguise for a truth. Misleading, yes, but not complete lies.
“Did you dream about the girl again?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember dreaming this time around.”
JC sits beside him, offering him a warm wet towel. “Look man, if anything’s bothering you, you know you can count on me, right?”
Jin takes the towel and rubs it roughly over his face. “I know,” he answers. “And I love you for that.” Being able to say ‘I love you’, meaning it and yet not having to imply a lifelong responsibility is another reason why Jin likes it here.
“Want me to take you somewhere after breakfast?” JC offers, making her way to the door and out of the room to give Jin some privacy.
“It’s alright, I can take care of it myself,” Jin says gratefully. “Spend more time with your family, we are only staying here for the weekend.”
JC beams gleefully. “Remember that we say grace over here.”
“I know. It’s the tenth time you have said it since we arrived.”
“Dork.”
Breakfast is a merry affair. Jin realises that the members of JC’s family are all dancers of some sort, even her father. Mr Abrams, a street-dancing legend, tore his hamstring in a college football match and never managed to recover. Her little sister, Janis, is a ballerina like her mother whereas her little brother, Jon is a student in Julliard. Jin sees where JC gets her bubbly personality from. Suddenly, he misses his family.
He takes off after helping out with cleaning the dishes, walking around randomly on the Brooklyn streets and saying ‘Good day!’ to random old men, shoe-cleaners, newspaper vendors, and kids playing basketball. New York is a little more crowded while Los Angeles is more rowdy, and people in New York, Jin observes, walk, talk, and eat faster.
Jin finds himself strolling into a park and sits down on a bench. He scrolls through his phonebook, looking for his mother’s phone number only to stop at another name under his mother’s.
Kame, Jin reads.
Jin knows Kame’s in Paris at the moment, an information helpfully supplied by Nakamaru. They had called him a few days ago, asking him if Kame had contacted him. Jin had answered with an honest ‘No’, and it was after a few minutes of begging, mostly on Jin’s part, that they had agreed to divulge about Kame’s sudden application for a few days off. Nakamaru also told him that they had thought of Jin first, and Jin immediately understood without further explanation. They called Jin a few hours later, telling him that Kame had called them from the airport, apologising for his sudden actions and informing that he would be in Paris for a few days.
Jin doesn’t know why Kame would be rushing to Paris. He doesn’t want to know. Though he has an inkling of what the Paris trip might be all about, he doesn’t want it confirmed. What good would it do anyway, other than to make him feel more miserable? It’s not even like he never confronted Kame about it, with all the conversations always ending up with them glaring at each other and a sentence away from throwing punches to each other. Kame insisted that Jin was being unreasonable while Jin accused him for being impulsive. Nakamaru called them both idiots; neither had agreed.
There’s someone coughing on his left and Jin sees a very old Caucasian man doodling with a blunt pencil on a block of drawing paper.
“Hi,” he greets in English.
“Are you from Japan?” the old man asks in Japanese, taking Jin by surprise.
Jin’s eyes go round with initial shock. “Yes, how do you know?” he replies with a question, also in Japanese.
“Your phone,” the old man says with a smile. “I’m sorry I pried. It’s not often that I see anything Japanese over here.”
Jin smiles back. “It’s alright. Have you been to Japan?”
“Fought a war there,” the old man replies. “You kind of reminded me of a girl I met when I was there. I’m sorry if this sounds weird.”
Jin laughs. “I get that all the time.”
The old man drops his pencil and laughs along. “Which, the looking like a girl part or looking like someone?”
“Looking like a girl,” Jin answers and picks the pencil up for him. “Do you guys keep in contact? You and the girl?”
“Not since I left,” the old man says, looking wistfully towards nowhere. “She was about to get married.”
“Really?”
“I loved her,” the old man continues, “And I still do.”
“Did you tell her?”
The old man stops his drawing. “I would never do that. Her fiancé was the best friend I had made in Japan.”
Jin admires the old man instantly. Jin has heard of countless tales of wartime romances, including some told to him by his grandmother. They always follow the same old pattern of boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl and then the objections from everyone. Jin thinks that the stories are beautiful. It’s really surreal to see one of them living right before his eyes.
“I still write letters to her,” old man says. “Tons and tons of them, telling her things I couldn’t say to her face.” He turns to Jin and adds, “I’m a coward, right?”
Jin shakes his head. “I think you’re brave, jii-chan. Any normal person would have tried to forget about her and move on. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“You’re doing it too,” the old man says, unexpectedly. “Holding the emotions inside you and refusing to even acknowledge them. You wish you could make it go away, am I right?”
Jin stares at the random doodle the old man has been doing. “It’s not like I even know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“You do,” the old man assures him, like he knows Jin more than Jin knows himself. “You keep staring at the name on the phone. It’s a very important person to you, right?”
“Yes, but it’s not like you and the girl.”
“What does it matter?”
Jin thinks hard, but can’t come up with an answer. “It’s not like that.”
“Really,” the old man says, concluding instead of asking. Somehow, the non-questioning tone freaks Jin out more than a questioning tone would.
Stupid Kame, Jin thinks. Things would have been easier if his relationship with Kame was less complicated, or if Kame was just less complicated. If Kame would just stop whatever he’s doing right now.
“Here,” the old man says, shoving a piece of torn paper and a pen towards Jin. “Write it down.”
Jin takes the offering. “What should I say?”
“Whatever you want to say,” the old man grins. “It helps to cope.”
The old man gets up very slowly, muttering expressions of pain under his breath. “I should get going now.”
“Jii-chan!” Jin calls. “How should I call you?”
People are eyeing them suspiciously, and Jin doesn’t blame them. It’s probably not often for the people here to spot a young Japanese man speaking in Japanese with an old, battle-worn Caucasian man.
“My name is John, and people in Japan call me Potter-san. Maybe you should too.”
“Have a nice day!” Jin shouts in English, and Potter-san gives him a salute without looking back at him.
Jin holds the paper in his hand and starts writing. Things that make sense; things that don’t. Things he never wanted to say; things he wanted to say badly. It’s almost like a song, the way the language alternates between English and Japanese and gibberish. There’s no one addressed on the paper; he’s writing it to nobody and about nobody in particular.
Jin folds the paper and inserts it into the nearest mailbox.
--
“Kazuya-kun?”
Kame turns around. Kyoko-san is taking off her coat, hooking it on the hanger standing beside the door, locking it before she walks towards him.
“You have lost weight,” she comments, the gloved hand caressing his face gently.
“I have missed you,” Kame whispers, linking their hands together. “How have you been?”
“As you can see, I’m well,” she answers, smiling generously. Kame likes that air of elegance around her.
Kame has taken the liberty to take a few days off from work and fly over to meet her, much to the shock of his bandmates and the managers. They thought he had been possessed with the leftover soul of Jin and was ready to ditch them. Kame had laughed when they called him. There was no reason to panic at all, he had said. It might have seemed like a sudden decision, but it really isn’t. He has been planning this trip for days, only not informing anyone because it’s not anyone’s business at all, not even his bandmates.
He has come to France to end everything between him and Kyoko-san.
“I’m sorry that I’ve come here so suddenly,” Kame says. “It must have been quite a trouble.”
Kyoko-san chuckles. “Stop being so polite with me, Kazuya-kun. You feel like a stranger when you do that, and no, you don’t trouble me at all.”
She clasps his hand with both of hers and points to the direction of the sofa with her dainty head. “Have a seat,” she offers.
Kame pulls her to his chest. “It’s nice to meet you, after all this time,” he says. She pats his back affectionately, neither lingering nor repelling. Kame loves the comfort that comes with her, the non-existence of the pressure of being perfect at all times. Being with Kyoko-san makes Kame feel like he’s being protected, despite endlessly vowing that he would be the one to protect her.
She retreats to the small kitchen near the dining table and returns with a cup of tea.
“Remember to rest properly,” she reminds. “Don’t get yourself jet-lagged.”
“I will,” Kame says, sipping the hot tea. The warmth from the tea flows in his body like electricity, prompt and rapid. “Kyoko-san, I-“
“Shh,” she silences him. She twists his shoulder slightly so that he faces her fully and cups his cheeks. She pulls him to her and kisses him softly on the lips. Kame’s slightly taken aback, but he kisses back nonetheless. He has missed her soft lips guiding him, her milky skin that melts at the touch of his fingers, the soothing calmness of her body that trembles in contrast with his impatient urges. Kame will miss her very much.
Kame lingers for a while when they part. It’s probably the last kiss she will ever give him and he doesn’t want it to end too soon.
“Kazuya-kun,” she whispers. “You’re troubled, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he replies with a hushed murmur. She understands him well and she doesn’t judge him no matter what. Kame could probably wax poetic for eternity about this woman, this incredible woman, but she’ll never be his.
She couldn’t be his.
He clings to her. “I’m sorry, Kyoko-san.”
“It’s OK,” she reassures. “I understand.”
She holds him in her arms and the next thing he knows is that he has fallen asleep on the sofa.
“Don’t worry, you have only been sleeping for an hour,” she says, looking at him from beside the large window. Her arms are crossed and hair tied in a loose ponytail as opposed to the bun earlier. From the translucent glasses of the window, he can see that the setting sun is casting friendly rays on the city; it’s almost dusk.
“I need to go back to my hotel room,” Kame says. It’s now or never, he has to say it.
“You better,” Kyoko-san says. “He’ll be returning in a while.”
Kame knows who exactly she’s referring to. Kyoko-san is getting married to another man, a French millionaire, in a month. The news broke Kame’s heart when he first heard of it a few months ago, but it isn’t why he’s here.
“Kyoko-san, I am not going to see you again,” Kame declares.
She looks at him like she’s looking past him.
“I am genuinely happy for you,” he continues. “That’s why I’m not going to see you again. Ever.”
She looks down at her crossed arms and smiles. “You’re not doing it for me. You’re doing it for yourself.”
Kame is not stunned. Kyoko-san has always been able to understand him best.
“I know,” Kame admits. “I have opened too many chapters of my life, I want to end them one by one.” You’re the chapter I need to close the fastest, Kame thinks. There is nothing left to be told in this particular chapter. It should have ended when Kyoko-san told him of her marriage, but he had refused to. He had loved her too much to want to see it end.
“You cannot end them all like you ended this one with me,” she advises. “Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, some chapters are not meant to be closed with a definite ending?”
“Yes,” Kame answers thoughtfully. “I just need to find out which those chapters are.”
“You already know which they are, that’s why you came here.”
Kame slumps in the sofa he has barely risen from. “You know me too well, Kyoko-san. It’s always like this; you magically pull everything I have been thinking and throw it back at me. I can never keep secrets,” he concludes playfully.
“I don’t want you to keep secrets from me. I love how honest you are with everything, including things about me.”
Kame closes his eyes. His mind races to scan everything in his life – his career, his band, Johnny-san, his family, and Jin.
God, Jin.
“Have you spoken to Akanishi-kun?”
Kame’s eyes are still closed. “I don’t want to talk to him.” It’s true.
“Maybe he wants to talk to you,” Kyoko-san says, speculating blindly.
“I’m not ready,” Kame says, extracting his deepest fear. “I’m not prepared for what he has to say to me.”
“He loves you, you know?”
Kame knows. Jin has always been there by his side, giving him love he probably never deserved. More than not knowing what kind of relationship they were in, it has always been about their inability to know how to reciprocate. Kame loves him too, he just doesn’t know how he has wanted Jin to love him back. Nakamaru was right; they are both idiots.
“I will always love you, Kyoko-san,” he tells her.
Kyoko-san walks towards him and gives him a peck on his forehead. “Thank you, Kazuya-kun.”
Kame smiles at her. “Please be happy.”
“Don’t worry.”
Kame leaves the hotel room feeling relieved for the first time in years. He fastens his sweater and walks on the sideway towards his hotel, only stopping to have a cup of coffee in a pretty café, served by a young waitress who fortunately could understand his minimal English.
There’s a mailbox on the side of the street where he sees a young girl is standing next to, licking a stamp and attaching it on the envelope before throwing it in it.
He signals for the waitress for a pen and a paper and starts writing. The waitress beams at him, pleased that he’s been needing her service for more than necessary. He also sees her talking excitedly in French with her co-worker; Kame thinks that she likes him.
He lists out every single messy chapter in his life and their closure status. On the point where he writes ‘I want Kyoko-san to be happy’, he happily crosses the words out and writes ‘she will be happy’. On the point where he writes ‘I want KAT-TUN to be successful’, he crosses again and writes ‘I will bring them to the greatest height I can’. On the point where he writes ‘I want to play baseball again’, he overwrites with ‘I am going to wait for a suitable project’. Finally, on ‘I want Jin to come back’, he writes ‘I will ask Johnny-san to let us talk to him’ without crossing the words.
That chapter has yet to be closed.
He folds the paper neatly into the shape of a paper plane and shoves it into the pocket on the side of his jacket. He takes the cup of coffee and nods politely to the waitress, then runs out of the café to the nearest bridge he can find.
He throws the paper plane to the river, watching it soar briefly and fall slowly onto the surface of the water, floating along the current and washing all his troubles away.
--
A month later, Jin learns that Potter-san has passed away from a stroke.
On his next trip to New York, he doesn’t have to work for his flight ticket. He also doesn’t have to stay with JC’s family.
He pays a visit to Potter-san’s grave and places a bouquet of flower in front of his gravestone before going to meet his bandmates.
He’s going to tell them that he wants to go back to Japan.
--
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing: Jin/Kame, Kame/Kyoko
Warnings: Het, Los Angeles Part 1
Notes: Thanks to
pinkeuphoria1, and thanks to randomicicle for her fabulous story. Original Story: Overture, by
randomicicle. Originally posted here @
jentfic_remix. Summary: Just one of the many Jincident 1.0 stuff.
--
It’s afternoon in France right now, Jin thinks. He doesn’t know why he cares.
He’s in New York for the weekend, an invitation from JC and her family. It’s now two months since he has been in America and the first time since he has left Los Angeles. San Francisco’s next after he returns to Los Angeles, a road trip with the others from JC’s gang. Chicago comes after, though it might also be Houston instead, depending on where Lupe Fiasco is playing next. Jin’s manager wasn’t very happy when he had first heard of his plans. There is too little money allocated for Jin’s “little” adventure overseas and Los Angeles is too far away from New York. It’s also thanks to JC that he actually gets here, Jin thinks, smiling to himself.
“Come on, Jin,” she had said. Jin likes the way the people in America pronounce his name. Jin back home was crass, the emphasis on the consonant was heavy, as though they were saying his name through their teeth. Over here, they call him like they are requesting for something. Jin chuckles as he remembers the many times he has mistakenly answered to someone ordering gin in the bar. Gene, he says to himself. It’s how they call him here, like his name doesn’t stick out the way his accent does. It’s generic enough that everybody can pronounce his name and not wish that Asian languages are less of a bitch, while distinctive enough that they can remember it from the first introduction. Jin likes it here in America.
“You show ‘em what you have,” JC had said while poking his arm. “Sing and throw ‘em down.” That was how Jin had picked up a guitar belonging to JC’s roommate, Gina, who is currently sharing a bed with JC’s sister next door, and started playing on the streets to earn his travel fund. He was invited to perform in some of the pubs too, singing his own randomly mashed-up renditions of Chris Brown, Kanye, and even Beyonce. He will never forget how he sang Crazy in Love right on the spot with a string of randomly made-up chords. Not that he even likes Beyonce, even though he actually does, but it was during that night that he had earned the most. Enough for a plane trip to New York and back.
Or enough for a one-way trip back to Japan.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” JC’s chirpy voice drags him out of the bed. “Mom made breakfast, and she makes the greatest blueberry pies.”
“Waking up,” Jin obeys. “Where’s Gina?”
“Out, at her cousin’s,” JC says. Gina’s a little strange even by the JC’s standard, and JC has been quite the oddball. Jin likes them though. They don’t judge. Nobody here needs to know that he’s a superstar in Japan. When they asked if he was some sort of a socialite when he had first met them, Jin just laughed them off.
“You said something Japanese in your sleep,” JC says.
Jin’s shocked. He hasn’t been speaking any Japanese, save for the phone calls back to his mother, in months. “Really?”
“Yea, like that time.”
Oh, right. That time. It was that time when he woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare he had forgotten. He only remembered it as a reeling ride of twinkling stage lights, deafening chants of his name and the sounds of cameras clicking as they captured his every motion. He had lied to JC about missing the spotlight and the stage, and cooked up a story about a lost love back at home instead. It wasn’t a complete lie, Jin thinks, if he counts analogies as a disguise for a truth. Misleading, yes, but not complete lies.
“Did you dream about the girl again?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember dreaming this time around.”
JC sits beside him, offering him a warm wet towel. “Look man, if anything’s bothering you, you know you can count on me, right?”
Jin takes the towel and rubs it roughly over his face. “I know,” he answers. “And I love you for that.” Being able to say ‘I love you’, meaning it and yet not having to imply a lifelong responsibility is another reason why Jin likes it here.
“Want me to take you somewhere after breakfast?” JC offers, making her way to the door and out of the room to give Jin some privacy.
“It’s alright, I can take care of it myself,” Jin says gratefully. “Spend more time with your family, we are only staying here for the weekend.”
JC beams gleefully. “Remember that we say grace over here.”
“I know. It’s the tenth time you have said it since we arrived.”
“Dork.”
Breakfast is a merry affair. Jin realises that the members of JC’s family are all dancers of some sort, even her father. Mr Abrams, a street-dancing legend, tore his hamstring in a college football match and never managed to recover. Her little sister, Janis, is a ballerina like her mother whereas her little brother, Jon is a student in Julliard. Jin sees where JC gets her bubbly personality from. Suddenly, he misses his family.
He takes off after helping out with cleaning the dishes, walking around randomly on the Brooklyn streets and saying ‘Good day!’ to random old men, shoe-cleaners, newspaper vendors, and kids playing basketball. New York is a little more crowded while Los Angeles is more rowdy, and people in New York, Jin observes, walk, talk, and eat faster.
Jin finds himself strolling into a park and sits down on a bench. He scrolls through his phonebook, looking for his mother’s phone number only to stop at another name under his mother’s.
Kame, Jin reads.
Jin knows Kame’s in Paris at the moment, an information helpfully supplied by Nakamaru. They had called him a few days ago, asking him if Kame had contacted him. Jin had answered with an honest ‘No’, and it was after a few minutes of begging, mostly on Jin’s part, that they had agreed to divulge about Kame’s sudden application for a few days off. Nakamaru also told him that they had thought of Jin first, and Jin immediately understood without further explanation. They called Jin a few hours later, telling him that Kame had called them from the airport, apologising for his sudden actions and informing that he would be in Paris for a few days.
Jin doesn’t know why Kame would be rushing to Paris. He doesn’t want to know. Though he has an inkling of what the Paris trip might be all about, he doesn’t want it confirmed. What good would it do anyway, other than to make him feel more miserable? It’s not even like he never confronted Kame about it, with all the conversations always ending up with them glaring at each other and a sentence away from throwing punches to each other. Kame insisted that Jin was being unreasonable while Jin accused him for being impulsive. Nakamaru called them both idiots; neither had agreed.
There’s someone coughing on his left and Jin sees a very old Caucasian man doodling with a blunt pencil on a block of drawing paper.
“Hi,” he greets in English.
“Are you from Japan?” the old man asks in Japanese, taking Jin by surprise.
Jin’s eyes go round with initial shock. “Yes, how do you know?” he replies with a question, also in Japanese.
“Your phone,” the old man says with a smile. “I’m sorry I pried. It’s not often that I see anything Japanese over here.”
Jin smiles back. “It’s alright. Have you been to Japan?”
“Fought a war there,” the old man replies. “You kind of reminded me of a girl I met when I was there. I’m sorry if this sounds weird.”
Jin laughs. “I get that all the time.”
The old man drops his pencil and laughs along. “Which, the looking like a girl part or looking like someone?”
“Looking like a girl,” Jin answers and picks the pencil up for him. “Do you guys keep in contact? You and the girl?”
“Not since I left,” the old man says, looking wistfully towards nowhere. “She was about to get married.”
“Really?”
“I loved her,” the old man continues, “And I still do.”
“Did you tell her?”
The old man stops his drawing. “I would never do that. Her fiancé was the best friend I had made in Japan.”
Jin admires the old man instantly. Jin has heard of countless tales of wartime romances, including some told to him by his grandmother. They always follow the same old pattern of boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl and then the objections from everyone. Jin thinks that the stories are beautiful. It’s really surreal to see one of them living right before his eyes.
“I still write letters to her,” old man says. “Tons and tons of them, telling her things I couldn’t say to her face.” He turns to Jin and adds, “I’m a coward, right?”
Jin shakes his head. “I think you’re brave, jii-chan. Any normal person would have tried to forget about her and move on. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“You’re doing it too,” the old man says, unexpectedly. “Holding the emotions inside you and refusing to even acknowledge them. You wish you could make it go away, am I right?”
Jin stares at the random doodle the old man has been doing. “It’s not like I even know what I’m supposed to feel.”
“You do,” the old man assures him, like he knows Jin more than Jin knows himself. “You keep staring at the name on the phone. It’s a very important person to you, right?”
“Yes, but it’s not like you and the girl.”
“What does it matter?”
Jin thinks hard, but can’t come up with an answer. “It’s not like that.”
“Really,” the old man says, concluding instead of asking. Somehow, the non-questioning tone freaks Jin out more than a questioning tone would.
Stupid Kame, Jin thinks. Things would have been easier if his relationship with Kame was less complicated, or if Kame was just less complicated. If Kame would just stop whatever he’s doing right now.
“Here,” the old man says, shoving a piece of torn paper and a pen towards Jin. “Write it down.”
Jin takes the offering. “What should I say?”
“Whatever you want to say,” the old man grins. “It helps to cope.”
The old man gets up very slowly, muttering expressions of pain under his breath. “I should get going now.”
“Jii-chan!” Jin calls. “How should I call you?”
People are eyeing them suspiciously, and Jin doesn’t blame them. It’s probably not often for the people here to spot a young Japanese man speaking in Japanese with an old, battle-worn Caucasian man.
“My name is John, and people in Japan call me Potter-san. Maybe you should too.”
“Have a nice day!” Jin shouts in English, and Potter-san gives him a salute without looking back at him.
Jin holds the paper in his hand and starts writing. Things that make sense; things that don’t. Things he never wanted to say; things he wanted to say badly. It’s almost like a song, the way the language alternates between English and Japanese and gibberish. There’s no one addressed on the paper; he’s writing it to nobody and about nobody in particular.
Jin folds the paper and inserts it into the nearest mailbox.
--
“Kazuya-kun?”
Kame turns around. Kyoko-san is taking off her coat, hooking it on the hanger standing beside the door, locking it before she walks towards him.
“You have lost weight,” she comments, the gloved hand caressing his face gently.
“I have missed you,” Kame whispers, linking their hands together. “How have you been?”
“As you can see, I’m well,” she answers, smiling generously. Kame likes that air of elegance around her.
Kame has taken the liberty to take a few days off from work and fly over to meet her, much to the shock of his bandmates and the managers. They thought he had been possessed with the leftover soul of Jin and was ready to ditch them. Kame had laughed when they called him. There was no reason to panic at all, he had said. It might have seemed like a sudden decision, but it really isn’t. He has been planning this trip for days, only not informing anyone because it’s not anyone’s business at all, not even his bandmates.
He has come to France to end everything between him and Kyoko-san.
“I’m sorry that I’ve come here so suddenly,” Kame says. “It must have been quite a trouble.”
Kyoko-san chuckles. “Stop being so polite with me, Kazuya-kun. You feel like a stranger when you do that, and no, you don’t trouble me at all.”
She clasps his hand with both of hers and points to the direction of the sofa with her dainty head. “Have a seat,” she offers.
Kame pulls her to his chest. “It’s nice to meet you, after all this time,” he says. She pats his back affectionately, neither lingering nor repelling. Kame loves the comfort that comes with her, the non-existence of the pressure of being perfect at all times. Being with Kyoko-san makes Kame feel like he’s being protected, despite endlessly vowing that he would be the one to protect her.
She retreats to the small kitchen near the dining table and returns with a cup of tea.
“Remember to rest properly,” she reminds. “Don’t get yourself jet-lagged.”
“I will,” Kame says, sipping the hot tea. The warmth from the tea flows in his body like electricity, prompt and rapid. “Kyoko-san, I-“
“Shh,” she silences him. She twists his shoulder slightly so that he faces her fully and cups his cheeks. She pulls him to her and kisses him softly on the lips. Kame’s slightly taken aback, but he kisses back nonetheless. He has missed her soft lips guiding him, her milky skin that melts at the touch of his fingers, the soothing calmness of her body that trembles in contrast with his impatient urges. Kame will miss her very much.
Kame lingers for a while when they part. It’s probably the last kiss she will ever give him and he doesn’t want it to end too soon.
“Kazuya-kun,” she whispers. “You’re troubled, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he replies with a hushed murmur. She understands him well and she doesn’t judge him no matter what. Kame could probably wax poetic for eternity about this woman, this incredible woman, but she’ll never be his.
She couldn’t be his.
He clings to her. “I’m sorry, Kyoko-san.”
“It’s OK,” she reassures. “I understand.”
She holds him in her arms and the next thing he knows is that he has fallen asleep on the sofa.
“Don’t worry, you have only been sleeping for an hour,” she says, looking at him from beside the large window. Her arms are crossed and hair tied in a loose ponytail as opposed to the bun earlier. From the translucent glasses of the window, he can see that the setting sun is casting friendly rays on the city; it’s almost dusk.
“I need to go back to my hotel room,” Kame says. It’s now or never, he has to say it.
“You better,” Kyoko-san says. “He’ll be returning in a while.”
Kame knows who exactly she’s referring to. Kyoko-san is getting married to another man, a French millionaire, in a month. The news broke Kame’s heart when he first heard of it a few months ago, but it isn’t why he’s here.
“Kyoko-san, I am not going to see you again,” Kame declares.
She looks at him like she’s looking past him.
“I am genuinely happy for you,” he continues. “That’s why I’m not going to see you again. Ever.”
She looks down at her crossed arms and smiles. “You’re not doing it for me. You’re doing it for yourself.”
Kame is not stunned. Kyoko-san has always been able to understand him best.
“I know,” Kame admits. “I have opened too many chapters of my life, I want to end them one by one.” You’re the chapter I need to close the fastest, Kame thinks. There is nothing left to be told in this particular chapter. It should have ended when Kyoko-san told him of her marriage, but he had refused to. He had loved her too much to want to see it end.
“You cannot end them all like you ended this one with me,” she advises. “Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, some chapters are not meant to be closed with a definite ending?”
“Yes,” Kame answers thoughtfully. “I just need to find out which those chapters are.”
“You already know which they are, that’s why you came here.”
Kame slumps in the sofa he has barely risen from. “You know me too well, Kyoko-san. It’s always like this; you magically pull everything I have been thinking and throw it back at me. I can never keep secrets,” he concludes playfully.
“I don’t want you to keep secrets from me. I love how honest you are with everything, including things about me.”
Kame closes his eyes. His mind races to scan everything in his life – his career, his band, Johnny-san, his family, and Jin.
God, Jin.
“Have you spoken to Akanishi-kun?”
Kame’s eyes are still closed. “I don’t want to talk to him.” It’s true.
“Maybe he wants to talk to you,” Kyoko-san says, speculating blindly.
“I’m not ready,” Kame says, extracting his deepest fear. “I’m not prepared for what he has to say to me.”
“He loves you, you know?”
Kame knows. Jin has always been there by his side, giving him love he probably never deserved. More than not knowing what kind of relationship they were in, it has always been about their inability to know how to reciprocate. Kame loves him too, he just doesn’t know how he has wanted Jin to love him back. Nakamaru was right; they are both idiots.
“I will always love you, Kyoko-san,” he tells her.
Kyoko-san walks towards him and gives him a peck on his forehead. “Thank you, Kazuya-kun.”
Kame smiles at her. “Please be happy.”
“Don’t worry.”
Kame leaves the hotel room feeling relieved for the first time in years. He fastens his sweater and walks on the sideway towards his hotel, only stopping to have a cup of coffee in a pretty café, served by a young waitress who fortunately could understand his minimal English.
There’s a mailbox on the side of the street where he sees a young girl is standing next to, licking a stamp and attaching it on the envelope before throwing it in it.
He signals for the waitress for a pen and a paper and starts writing. The waitress beams at him, pleased that he’s been needing her service for more than necessary. He also sees her talking excitedly in French with her co-worker; Kame thinks that she likes him.
He lists out every single messy chapter in his life and their closure status. On the point where he writes ‘I want Kyoko-san to be happy’, he happily crosses the words out and writes ‘she will be happy’. On the point where he writes ‘I want KAT-TUN to be successful’, he crosses again and writes ‘I will bring them to the greatest height I can’. On the point where he writes ‘I want to play baseball again’, he overwrites with ‘I am going to wait for a suitable project’. Finally, on ‘I want Jin to come back’, he writes ‘I will ask Johnny-san to let us talk to him’ without crossing the words.
That chapter has yet to be closed.
He folds the paper neatly into the shape of a paper plane and shoves it into the pocket on the side of his jacket. He takes the cup of coffee and nods politely to the waitress, then runs out of the café to the nearest bridge he can find.
He throws the paper plane to the river, watching it soar briefly and fall slowly onto the surface of the water, floating along the current and washing all his troubles away.
--
A month later, Jin learns that Potter-san has passed away from a stroke.
On his next trip to New York, he doesn’t have to work for his flight ticket. He also doesn’t have to stay with JC’s family.
He pays a visit to Potter-san’s grave and places a bouquet of flower in front of his gravestone before going to meet his bandmates.
He’s going to tell them that he wants to go back to Japan.
--
Letters to Nobody - Kame/Jin
Re: Letters to Nobody - Kame/Jin
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The flow and style is really nice and suit the plot.
Too bad in reality Jin will leave again and forever this time.
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Thanks, I'm happy you like this!
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