Boku no Yakuza Aijin, Final Part
Sachiko didn't see Kamenashi at the café for nearly two weeks, and she felt sick to her stomach when she realized it was possible they had broken up. She certainly wasn't not the only one affected by his absence. Although naturally clumsy, as the days continued to pass without any sign of the gangster, Jin grew more and more distracted. He constantly stammered out apologies for mixing up orders and incorrectly totaling bills--mistakes he'd never made before, even when he was brand-new to the job. When he did complete his tasks correctly, his smiles when he interacted with the customers lacked their usual warmth, and his gaze often flicked to the empty chair in what had become known to the regulars as 'that mobster's corner'. His melancholy continued long enough that Sachiko started to worry it might cost him his job. In her sketchpad, she defaced some of her earlier sketches of Kamenashi with outrageous beards and mustaches. On others, she gave him demon horns and long fangs. Even for a yakuza, she thought him unnecessarily cruel for allowing this to happen.
But Kamenashi returned later that same week, and Jin's eagerness to serve him suggested they were still together, but perhaps going through a rough patch in their relationship. Indeed, although Kamenashi had graced the café with his presence after nearly three weeks away, he didn't seem particularly pleased with Jin. It wasn't uncommon for him to tease the waiter, trying to cop a feel or pull him down to whisper something in his ear that Jin's eyes go wide and his cheeks flush, but he apparently took the harassment to a new level when he was pissed off. He shamelessly nudged his chopsticks off the edge of the table with his elbow, then demanded Jin bend over to pick them up for him (as usual, he was wearing his sunglasses, but it was obvious to everyone in the café what he was looking at when Jin obeyed), pulled Jin back by his apron strings when he tried to walk away, and casually stuck a dress pant-clad leg out into the aisle when Jin walked by with another table's order.
Sachiko couldn't help but roll her eyes as she watched this take place. She understood that the relationship the two of them shared wasn't exactly normal, but that didn't justify the harsh treatment Kamenashi was showing Jin. At least not at his workplace, where disruption by a customer over a personal matter could easily cost him his job. Though, if Jin's manager hadn't said or done anything about it until this point, it was possible he had other, more pressing concerns than how they interacted with each other in his dining room. So long as it didn't interfere with the café's profits in any way, probably.
Just because management put up with it, though, didn't mean she had to. Fed up with Kamenashi's antics, she signaled for the check. However, she reconsidered packing up her things and finding another place to study when she saw the mobster slip his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to make eye contact with Jin. It was the first time she had ever seen his eyes. Just like she had imagined, they were almond-shaped and intense. The piercing stare he fixed Jin with across the café made her heart pound in her chest, the same way it did when she tuned in to the last episode of a really good drama. A noticeable shiver ran down the length of Jin's spine when he glanced in Kamenashi's direction and saw his expression. A meaningful look passed between the two of them before the waiter ducked into the kitchen.
Once he disappeared from view, Kamenashi pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, and Sachiko turned her attention back to her schoolwork. After a stern lecture from her parents about her wavering concentration and slipping grades (no doubt a result of her watching Kamenashi and Jin, but they knew nothing about that and she wasn't particularly keen on telling them), she realized she had to devote at least some of her time at the café to getting her assignments done, instead of eating up the entire two hours devising elaborate story lines that detailed the gangster and waiter pair's romantic involvements. So she diligently began working on a practice exam she had due for her cram school class that evening.
Despite the nature of the café, the members of the waitstaff generally went out of their way to avoid disturbing their customers if they seemed to be otherwise engaged, so Sachiko was startled to hear Jin's voice at her tableside when he came back with the bill for the melon soda she had ordered.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, moving to take back the billfold he had just set at her elbow. “I gave you the wrong one.”
Before he pulled it away, she caught a glimpse of a handwritten note stuck inside. The scrawl was messy, but she was able to make out the words. Sorry I barged into your office! I promise I won't do it again! it read, accompanied by a rather large, cartoonish crying face at the bottom. Her curiosity only grew when she looked up at Jin and saw that his cheeks had gone pink as he corrected his mistake. She had a feeling she knew to whom Jin would present the other receipt, and sure enough, she watched him shuffle over to Kamenashi's table, his head bowed and looking apologetic.
Well, that was interesting. Jin had clearly done something to upset the other, and the vague apology on the receipt left open a wide range of possibilities as for what the transgression had been. Sachiko's friends often told her she had a wildly active imagination, and it was going into overdrive now. Her practice exam went unfinished as she pulled out her sketchpad, setting to work on a fresh page of panels.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and still Kame says nothing about moving Jin into his own apartment. It's difficult at first, but eventually they adjust to each other's presence and fall into a routine. When Jin first moves in, he has access to only the parking garage and the elevator that goes up to the living quarters, but as time goes on, he gets to see other parts of the building. He still knows nothing of the business conducted on the upper floors, but he learns that Kame has his own office, and that he practically rules the conference room across the hall from that office. He also gets to spend some time in the lower quarters with Koki and Maru, where they often rap, beatbox, and sing until the wee hours of the morning.
Probably the hardest aspect of the yakuza lifestyle for him to adjust to is Kame's schedule. Or, rather, his lack of a set schedule. There are some days he leaves the apartment before Jin's even awake, returning exhausted and hungry in the late evening like a regular salaryman, and then there are others where he stays in bed all day, rising in the late afternoon to spend all night out on the streets. Jin has a feeling the nights are more dangerous than the days, so in the few hours where they're both awake and in the apartment between when Jin gets home from the café and Kame heads out for the night, Jin tries his best not to do anything to annoy the other. The last thing he wants to do is give Kame more to worry about right before he possibly has to put himself in danger.
The other thing Jin struggles with is the fact that he often doesn't know where Kame goes late at night. It's not quite so bad when Maru stays behind, because at least then he has someone to pass the time with (who can fill him in on some of the details of what's going on if he asks), but when Kame takes both Koki and Maru with him, he's on his own, and he often can't fight off the worries that plague him. He really doesn't want to think about what kind of situation could be so dangerous that Kame needs two bodyguards (because, even though Maru introduced himself to Jin as Kame's lawyer, he's good enough with a gun and knows enough jujitsu to make Jin very, very glad he didn't make fun of him when they first met), but it's hard not to, laying alone in their bed late at night and wondering if Kame will be coming home. On those nights, he usually has to roll over on his stomach and press his nose to the other man's pillow before he can get to sleep, but even with the scent of Kame's shampoo invading his senses as he drifts off, he doesn't sleep well. It's very rare when Kame's gone that Jin makes it through the night without waking up in a cold sweat at least once.
Even more troubling is how Kame's been acting lately. He's high enough in the organization where he can send underlings out to do his dirty work for him, so he typically doesn't have to go out at night very often, but as time goes by, Jin finds himself spending more nights alone, and the frown lines on Kame's face before he goes out seem to grow deeper with every passing day. Jin tries his best to comfort him, asking him to confide in him and tell him what's wrong, but the gangster only sighs and shakes his head, his shoulders hunching so much that Jin thinks there's just as much tension in his posture as a taut bowstring. Some of it eases, though, escaping his body in pleasant shudders, when large, long-fingered hands move to try and massage the tightness away.
Even when Kame's eyes fall closed in bliss and he leans into the touch, he still only gives Jin a general idea of what's bothering him. It's still better than nothing, though, so Jin intently listens to whatever Kame's willing to tell him. He says something about a young group of trainees not learning the ropes as quickly as they should, and having to oversee the situation himself so they don't make any mistakes big enough to jeopardize the entire operation. “If this keeps up,” he starts, but quickly stops again. Jin gets the feeling sometimes (a lot of the time) that Kame does a lot to prevent him from finding out about the harsh realities of what he often has to do, and Jin doesn't know how he feels about that. In some regards, he appreciates the gesture, but in others, he really, really doesn't.
Tonight marks the third night in a row that Kame's been gone, and it's one of those times that Jin feels more angry that his lover won't confide in him than appreciative. His legs tangle in the blankets as he tosses and turns in restless sleep, sweat beading on his forehead as he tries to fight his way out of yet another nightmare--the kind that always ends with the light rapidly fading from Kame's eyes. He eventually wakes, and the sound of his harsh breathing betrays the silence of the still, dark room. He doesn't try to fall back asleep right away, knowing it will be a fruitless effort, so instead, he lets out another long sigh and gets up to make some tea.
The hot beverage feels good going down, spreading comforting warmth outwards through his body from where it settles in his belly, but he still feels weary in a way that tells him sleep won't be coming back to him any time soon. After he rinses out his mug in the sink, he slips some baggy sweatpants on over his boxers, pulls a t-shirt over his head, and slips on a pair of sandals by the front door, intent on roaming the halls of headquarters until he feels the need to sleep start to overtake him or dawn breaks--whichever comes first.
As criminals tend to wake with the rise of the moon instead of the sun, the corridors are far from empty at 2AM when Jin starts to wander, but the gangsters don't pay him much attention as he passes, and he doesn't pay them much in return, preferring to remain lost in his thoughts than attempt to interact with anyone. In his mind, he goes back to that night he and Kame first met, thinking of the necklace that passed in and out of his hands, dragging him into a turbulent and dangerous, but at the same time exciting and passionate, relationship before Kame finally sold it. He thinks of Ueda and his dissolved smuggling ring, of the threat his men posed that resulted in Kame vowing to give his life to protect him. Even though the threat has been vanquished, Kame's promise hasn't faded, and Jin thinks that everything he's suffered through up until this point has been worth it for that.
That's the conclusion he finally comes to. It's worth it. Though the circumstances of their meeting made their forging a relationship seem impossible, and indeed it's true that at times they've struggled, the differences that once made it difficult for them to get on have since made them both stronger people, and in turn strengthened their bond. By getting involved with Kame, he's found someone to love, which, apart from someday playing his guitar in America, is all he's ever wanted. And it brings him unspeakable joy to see the light of happiness in Kame's eyes grow brighter the longer they're together. It goes without saying that the yakuza's changed drastically since they first met. While he still shows his job the same seriousness as he always has, in his downtime, the load he bears on his shoulders seems visibly lighter. He laughs louder, he smiles more, and it almost seems as though the person he was when he was younger is finally starting to show himself again. Or, perhaps it's more that the good is starting to blend with who he's become since suffering through the bad, transforming him into a completely new person. Either way, Jin sometimes can't believe he's been the one to bring about such a change in him.
Without his realizing it, his feet lead him to the closed door of Kame's office. He runs his fingers over the brass doorknob and smiles, thinking of the few times he's been here before and seen Kame hard at work, leaning forward in his high-backed leather chair to type away at his computer or scrawl something down on a piece of paper. On a whim, he decides that just once, he'd like to sit in that chair and pretend to be Kame. Except instead of working, he'll pour himself vodka on the rocks and drag the chair over to the windows after he's drawn back the shades so he can look out at the Tokyo skyline and feel powerful. So long as he doesn't disturb anything important, Kame shouldn't mind too much, right?
He tries turning the knob a little, and to his surprise, the door clicks open. Excited that he might actually get to live out his little fantasy, he starts to step through, but he freezes when he looks down and sees the faint glow of a light coming from inside. Curiosity getting the better of him, he peeks around the edge of the door, and the sight he's greeted with inside the office forces a quiet gasp from his throat. In all his imaginings of what Kame gets up to when he's gone from their apartment at night, he never once thought that he would end up back at his office. Yet here he is, and he's not alone.
The figure he recognizes as Kame's stands against the drapes at the back of the room. Shadows from the single lamp illuminated in the room dance across his face, and Jin can just make out his expression well enough to see he's directing a cold, hard glare at the two figures standing over his desk. Actually, when Jin shifts to get a better look and his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees that he's wrong. Kame's steel eyes bore into the back of the short, scrawny man who's visibly shaking as he sits at the desk, looking far too small to fit in such a large chair. Jin recognizes neither him nor the tall, intimidating figure leaning over him from across the mahogany surface. With only a view of his profile, he can't make out the exact look on his face, but his posture gives away that he's no happier with this kid than Kame is.
Jin looks between them then, and...oh. Oh. The young man seated at Kame's desk has his left arm outstretched, palm up, and the only thing that keeps it from shaking violently is the hard grip the other man has on his forearm. The metal blade catches in the light given off by the small desk lamp before it comes down hard and fast on the man's right pinky finger. The boy at the desk screams. Behind the door, Jin screams, too.
All three men look up at the sound, and Jin finds that hard, cold glare turned on him when Kame recognizes his silhouette in the doorframe. He stands there paralyzed for a moment, but turns to run when Kame starts striding towards him. He sees how the gangster's lips form a hard, thin line, no doubt with the effort of restraining himself from screaming at him, but his barely-suppressed rage leaks through his narrowed eyes.
The door to Kame's office slams shut and locks at the same moment Jin dives into the conference room. For a moment, he considers locking himself in to protect himself from Kame's wrath, but quickly reconsiders when he realizes that would only make Kame even more angry with him, and besides, he doesn't know where to even start looking for the key. His limbs tremble a little as he paces back and forth, making him feel weak, and his fear only grows when he hears the sound of muffled shouting coming from the locked room across the hall. Though he can't make out the words, he recognizes Kame's nasally voice blending with a deep, booming one that must belong to the man who was wielding the knife. He can't help but wonder if they're arguing because of him, or if they would have ended up raising their voices at each other even if their “meeting” had gone undisturbed. He's not sure which would be worse.
The shouting eventually dies down, but Jin still has a long time to think before anyone emerges from the office. Too long. His thoughts keep circling back to the blade disappearing into the flesh of the man's knuckle, the sight of his face contorted with agony. Jin is neither stupid nor ignorant. He knows exactly what he just walked in on and what it means. Yakuza practice finger-cutting as a means of punishment, to weaken and make dependent those who cannot or will not obey orders. It's also to reinforce loyalty. Looking down at his own hands, he pictures the weak-looking man placing the severed tip of his pinky into Kame's outstretched hand, then replaces the image of one of himself slipping a small, silver band over one of Kame's fingers. What's the difference, really? Well, obviously the former situation is much more painful, but Jin would endure any pain for Kame. Especially if the end result was his swearing his loyalty to him. Really, that might not be so bad...
Jin jumps when the conference room door bangs open, and Kame stands in its wake. He must have sent the other two men on their way already, because he's no longer even trying to hold back his fury. “You,” he starts, advancing on Jin with a storm raging in his eyes, “what the fuck were you thinking?! Really, why do I even bother trying to shield you from exactly what it is I have to do when you're just going to go and seek it out yourself?”
Normally, Jin doesn't see the point in fighting back when Kame gets angry. While it's true the yakuza has a quick temper, he's also very good about controlling it, and he often cools down just as quickly as he gets riled up. But this is one argument that Jin can't ignore, because this time, Kame clearly does have it wrong, and he won't feel comfortable in this relationship until he sets him straight. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe that's not what I want? You try your damnedest to protect me from how violent your world is, but you can't, Kame, because I've been too involved in it from the very beginning for it to not affect me. No, I don't particularly like everything you do, but that doesn't mean I should go about pretending it doesn't exist! I want to help you, Kame, in any way I can, but it's impossible for me to do that when you won't even let me in! What is it going to take for you to trust me?”
The anger in Kame's eyes quickly gets replaced with the soft, open look of harsh realization. “You're right,” he mumbles after a while, his voice going slightly quiet and hoarse with the admission of his mistake. “I'm sorry. You do understand more than I give you credit for, don't you?”
Jin nods and wraps his arms around Kame's waist in a loose embrace. He presses a kiss to the shorter man's temple and rests his cheek against the top of his head. They stay in that position for a while, until Jin recalls what he had been thinking of before the other walked in, and he lifts his head again to ask what he thinks is a perfectly valid question. “Ne, Kame, what you did to that guy in there...would you ever consider doing that to me?”
A sick feeling of dread settles in his stomach when Kame goes tense in his arms, and he knows before his back slams into the edge of the conference table that he's fucked up. Again. He struggles against the grip Kame has on his wrists above his head, pinning him to the hard surface, but the gangster is all taut muscle under his Armani suit and inked skin, and no matter how much Jin thrashes, he can't break free.
Kame leans down and gets right in his face, very much like that time he broke down and took out on him all of his pent-up rage and anguish for Hayato's death. There's nearly as much anger in his eyes now as there was that time, too. “See, this is why I can't let you in, Jin! You think you understand what my world is like, but you don't. The truth is, you don't have a fucking clue!”
Jin feels a sting somewhere deep inside him at just how hurtful Kame's words are, but he tries not to let it show. The sting turns into something else, though, when Kame continues, his words lowering to a hiss against Jin's ear that makes him thrash again, but for a completely different reason.
“If you really think I would ever do something to weaken, disfigure, or harm you in my eyes, you're a fucking moron. Can't you see I treasure you too much for that? Why else would I try so hard to protect you? Dammit, Jin, one way or another, I'm going to show you what you mean to me...”
Jin's eyes close, and his head tilts back as he moans at Kame's words. Teeth nip their way along the line of his jaw, but then Kame pulls back, and Jin bucks up sharply at the loss of the warm body pressing against him. He hears the click of a belt buckle being undone, followed by the rustling of clothing falling, and then he feels a rush of cool air against his bare skin as a hand tugs the waistband of his sweatpants down.
It hurts, really hurts when Kame enters him, between the edge of the table digging into the small of his back and the lack of proper lubrication, but Jin's toes curl all the same when Kame looks at him like that and kisses him like he wishes they could go on kissing forever. He digs his fingers into Kame's shoulders, arching and groaning when the discomfort from the stretch fades, leaving behind only the glorious sensation of Kame pushing deep, filling him up in a way he didn't know was possible.
For all the urgency they have when they starts, it abates when they fall into a slow, steady rhythm. Jin tosses his head from side to side, because he can feel every single movement of Kame inside of him, and it's positively euphoric. He fights to keep his eyes open, and he decides it's worth the effort when he sees the look Kame's giving him, full of passion, determination, lust, and what can only be love. He pulls Kame close then, touching him everywhere he can reach, trying to make the sensations as good for him as the ones he's getting, and he gets a rush of satisfaction when Kame lets out a pleased sound at the touch of his thumbs to his small, highly sensitive nipples after he works his fingers beneath the hem of his dress shirt.
Whether as a reward or just because he wants to, Jin isn't sure, but Kame moves his mouth to all the places on Jin's neck, shoulders, and chest he knows he's sensitive, and he has the taller man positively writhing under him when he spends enough time working his lips, tongue, and especially his teeth over each spot in turn to give him what will be a rather nice collection of love bites come morning. Since they've been together, he's learned the secret of Jin's oddly hypersensitive collarbones, so he pays particular attention to those, gently running his lips over them and coating them with his hot breath until Jin's all but vibrating beneath him, babbling incoherently into his ear and begging for more.
Kame's kisses turn rough and biting as they both approach the edge, and Jin moves his hands from Kame's torso to his shoulder blades to rake his nails down his back. At some point, Jin's feet leave the floor, falling out of his sandals to wrap tightly around Kame's back as he tries to hold him as tightly as possible against his body. The sounds they make almost seem to harmonize as they feel the moment drawing to an end. Kame rocks up on his toes to push against the spot that will make Jin sing for him, and he wraps his hand tightly around the hard flesh trapped between their bodies, forcing him over the edge with a wail that makes the coil wound tightly in his own belly snap. Whole body trembling, he empties himself deep into Jin with a long moan of his name, and his mouth works hungrily over his when he falls spent against him, as though trying to drink Jin's feelings for him through long, sucking kisses.
They pant against each other's lips when they fall apart, eyes soft with emotion and the fading haze of orgasm. Tangling a hand in Jin's damp hair, Kame runs his tongue across his lips and for a moment struggles to speak. He eventually figures out what he wants to say, though. “Jin, I-I love you...”
Jin just smiles and closes his eyes, letting the warmth of Kame's words spread from his heart to the top of his head and the very tips of his fingers and toes. “...I love you, too.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sachiko spread in front of her as many pieces of paper as she could fit on the small café table. She was done. Before her laid pages of Jin and Kamenashi at every stage of their relationship, and she felt her heart thudding lightly in her chest as she looked over them all. After months of almost constant work, each chapter of her doujinshi was almost exactly the way she wanted it. Even though long days of editing, inking, and scanning laid ahead of her, knowing she had everything she had imagined down on paper was exhilarating, and from here on out, she would happily do the grunt work, because the weight of being in the middle of a daunting project was finally, finally gone. For once ignorant to Jin and Kamenashi's presence inside the café, she sharpened her pencil and eagerly set to work.
She couldn't remain ignorant for long, though. She wasn't sure why she chose that particular moment to look up, but she did so just in time to see Jin's gaze follow one of the waitresses as she walked by--a pretty, young girl with a cute smile and a dainty tiara perched atop waves of honey-brown curls. She wasn't the only one who noticed his attention on her.
Jin let out a surprised yelp when Kamenashi suddenly gripped him hard by the shoulder, whirling him around to face him. He leaned in close, tugging him down by the collar so they were face-to-face. Even though Jin had a few inches on him, when Kamenashi looked him straight on with that dangerous glint in his eyes, he seemed like the taller of the two. And he knew it.
Jin's posture went rigid as he fought to keep his balance in that position, but the gangster seemed completely unperturbed by the other man's struggle to stay upright. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled, so much so that Sachiko had to strain to hear it. “Were you looking at her, Jin?”
The waiter tried to look away, perhaps to catch another glimpse of the waitress and tell Kamenashi that no, he wasn't looking at her long, shapely legs or the deliberate sway in her hips as she walked so much as the sparkly tiara she wore in her hair, because he had always wanted one, and he definitely had the hair for it, right? Big mistake.
Kamenashi gripped Jin's chin between his fingers and harshly turned his head back to face him. “Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you, Jin! Now tell me, were you looking at her?!”
“N-No, I...tiara?” Jin tried again. He yelped as Kamenashi relinquished his grip on his face, only to grab his collar with both hands and pull him so only a few centimeters remained between his lips.
“You listen to me, and you listen well, Jin. This relationship you have with me is not to be taken lightly. Do you understand? There are a lot of crazy, fucked-up people out there--men who wouldn't think twice about grabbing you off the street, fucking you once, then slitting your throat and dumping your corpse down a fucking storm drain just to get to me. Now I did not take you in and have you inked with my mark to protect you from those fuckers just so you could gawk at every fucking floozy who walks by. Do I make myself clear?”
His voice started out quiet, but by the end he was shouting loud enough for the entire café to hear. He didn't seem to notice that the rest of the establishment had gone silent, though, and that every set of eyes was now on them. He merely grabbed Jin harshly by the ear and started dragging him towards the back door, ignoring the other man's cry of pain as he did so. “Let's go. You're making a scene.”
A loud thud from somewhere behind them made Jin look back towards the dining room as Kamenashi pulled him away, and he saw that one of the café's regular customers, a quiet girl who always seemed to be drawing something or another in her sketchpad, had fallen to the floor in a dead faint.
Kame made one final show of shoving Jin through the door and slamming it behind them before collapsing in a fit of laughter against the wall in the alley. “Ne, Jin,” he said, removing his hat and dark sunglasses to reveal warm brown eyes shining with mirth, “do you think they bought it?”
The waiter echoed his laugh and pressed his body to the other's against the wall, earning a content hum from his boyfriend at their sudden closeness. “Kazu, you're such a good actor, you almost had me fooled.”
Kame could feel Jin's hot breath against his lips as he spoke, and he leaned up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Almost fooled you, huh? Even though faking out your co-workers and making them think I'm in the yakuza was your idea?”
A wide smile spread across Jin's face, in response to both the kiss and how successfully they'd pulled off their little stunt. “It was a good plan. I'm pretty sure they're all scared of you now.”
Kame wrapped his arms around Jin's neck and started playing with the hairs at the base of his neck. “Are you ever going to tell them I'm just a lowly magazine photographer, and I don't actually have any ties to the mafia?
“And reveal that instead of threatening me all the time, you actually send me cutesy text messages full of emoji? No way. It's more fun to let them be scared.”
Kame laughed again. “In that case, we should probably get out of here before someone sees us. You pinning me to the wall like this instead of the other way around would probably look pretty suspicious, huh?”
At the reminder of their position, Jin lowered his hands to Kame's hips and gave them a gentle squeeze, a touch the younger man instantly leaned into. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed. But he made no motion to pull away. Instead, their lips met again, eyes fluttering closed as their mouths moved languidly together, tongues flicking out to taste. There was a quiet, wet sound when they pulled apart. “I really was looking at her tiara, by the way.”
“I know. Why, though? Was the one I gave you for your birthday not good enough?”
“It's not that. I was just looking to see if hers was the same as mine.”
“Uh-huh. And the fact that she was practically falling out of her shirt beneath her apron had nothing to do with it, right?”
The tips of Jin's ears went red. “Well...”
Kame couldn't help but laugh at the guilty look on his boyfriend's face. “Kinda hard not to notice, huh?” he asked, his rhetorical tone hopefully letting Jin know he didn't care if he looked. He straightened a little against the wall. “Shall we?”
“Ah, right.” Embarrassment fading, Jin pulled away, but eagerly gripped Kame's hand in his own, swinging them a little between them. “Lead the way, yakuza-boyfriend!”
“Jin, I'm not in the yakuza.”
“Mou, spoilsport, Kazu!”
“Seriously, I don't even have tattoos!”
“It'd make for a pretty good story, though, wouldn't it?”
“Yeah, it probably would.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Even though Sachiko had been making doujinshi and attending Komike since her second year in middle school, she'd never received such a positive response to one of her works as she had for Boku no Yakuza Aijin (or YakuAi, as she had a few times overheard it affectionately called). In addition to her overflowing cashbox (the contents of which she put towards tuition at Geidai, a decision her parents had finally agreed to after she told them how many copies she had sold), almost every day for weeks after the convention, e-mails from people who had apparently stopped by her booth popped up in her inbox. Although not all of the messages she received were positive, for the most part she was overjoyed to read the encouraging ones and send responses back.
In some cases, she spent hours typing up replies. She was happy to detail the art styles and techniques she used within the doujinshi to those who asked, and even when responding to shorter comments, she responded as thoroughly and insightfully as possible. She shied away, however, from the long messages in which the sender attempted to deeply analyze the content of her work and asked for academic-level responses regarding Kamenashi and Jin's characterization. She didn't have any problem with academic writing, but because she drew her inspiration for the doujinshi from real people, she had trouble seeing them as characters, and thus felt a little squeamish at the thought of answering whether or not Jin's masochistic tendencies or his desire to find someone to attach himself to were a result of childhood slavery and abuse. For one thing, she didn't know, and for his sake, she certainly hoped not.
For every comment she got asking about art or symbolism, she probably received about ten that simply gushed praise. Although these weren't her favorite e-mails to respond to (it actually got pretty tedious after a while), seeing that so many people enjoyed her work made her feel fantastic. The endless cries of, “More, please! I can't get enough!” tempted her to consider a sequel, but she knew with the college application season in full-swing, she wouldn't have time. So instead of vaguely hinting that a continuation to Jin and Kamenashi's story was in the works, she simply e-mailed them back the street address of a small cosplay café in Akihabara.
But Kamenashi returned later that same week, and Jin's eagerness to serve him suggested they were still together, but perhaps going through a rough patch in their relationship. Indeed, although Kamenashi had graced the café with his presence after nearly three weeks away, he didn't seem particularly pleased with Jin. It wasn't uncommon for him to tease the waiter, trying to cop a feel or pull him down to whisper something in his ear that Jin's eyes go wide and his cheeks flush, but he apparently took the harassment to a new level when he was pissed off. He shamelessly nudged his chopsticks off the edge of the table with his elbow, then demanded Jin bend over to pick them up for him (as usual, he was wearing his sunglasses, but it was obvious to everyone in the café what he was looking at when Jin obeyed), pulled Jin back by his apron strings when he tried to walk away, and casually stuck a dress pant-clad leg out into the aisle when Jin walked by with another table's order.
Sachiko couldn't help but roll her eyes as she watched this take place. She understood that the relationship the two of them shared wasn't exactly normal, but that didn't justify the harsh treatment Kamenashi was showing Jin. At least not at his workplace, where disruption by a customer over a personal matter could easily cost him his job. Though, if Jin's manager hadn't said or done anything about it until this point, it was possible he had other, more pressing concerns than how they interacted with each other in his dining room. So long as it didn't interfere with the café's profits in any way, probably.
Just because management put up with it, though, didn't mean she had to. Fed up with Kamenashi's antics, she signaled for the check. However, she reconsidered packing up her things and finding another place to study when she saw the mobster slip his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to make eye contact with Jin. It was the first time she had ever seen his eyes. Just like she had imagined, they were almond-shaped and intense. The piercing stare he fixed Jin with across the café made her heart pound in her chest, the same way it did when she tuned in to the last episode of a really good drama. A noticeable shiver ran down the length of Jin's spine when he glanced in Kamenashi's direction and saw his expression. A meaningful look passed between the two of them before the waiter ducked into the kitchen.
Once he disappeared from view, Kamenashi pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, and Sachiko turned her attention back to her schoolwork. After a stern lecture from her parents about her wavering concentration and slipping grades (no doubt a result of her watching Kamenashi and Jin, but they knew nothing about that and she wasn't particularly keen on telling them), she realized she had to devote at least some of her time at the café to getting her assignments done, instead of eating up the entire two hours devising elaborate story lines that detailed the gangster and waiter pair's romantic involvements. So she diligently began working on a practice exam she had due for her cram school class that evening.
Despite the nature of the café, the members of the waitstaff generally went out of their way to avoid disturbing their customers if they seemed to be otherwise engaged, so Sachiko was startled to hear Jin's voice at her tableside when he came back with the bill for the melon soda she had ordered.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, moving to take back the billfold he had just set at her elbow. “I gave you the wrong one.”
Before he pulled it away, she caught a glimpse of a handwritten note stuck inside. The scrawl was messy, but she was able to make out the words. Sorry I barged into your office! I promise I won't do it again! it read, accompanied by a rather large, cartoonish crying face at the bottom. Her curiosity only grew when she looked up at Jin and saw that his cheeks had gone pink as he corrected his mistake. She had a feeling she knew to whom Jin would present the other receipt, and sure enough, she watched him shuffle over to Kamenashi's table, his head bowed and looking apologetic.
Well, that was interesting. Jin had clearly done something to upset the other, and the vague apology on the receipt left open a wide range of possibilities as for what the transgression had been. Sachiko's friends often told her she had a wildly active imagination, and it was going into overdrive now. Her practice exam went unfinished as she pulled out her sketchpad, setting to work on a fresh page of panels.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and still Kame says nothing about moving Jin into his own apartment. It's difficult at first, but eventually they adjust to each other's presence and fall into a routine. When Jin first moves in, he has access to only the parking garage and the elevator that goes up to the living quarters, but as time goes on, he gets to see other parts of the building. He still knows nothing of the business conducted on the upper floors, but he learns that Kame has his own office, and that he practically rules the conference room across the hall from that office. He also gets to spend some time in the lower quarters with Koki and Maru, where they often rap, beatbox, and sing until the wee hours of the morning.
Probably the hardest aspect of the yakuza lifestyle for him to adjust to is Kame's schedule. Or, rather, his lack of a set schedule. There are some days he leaves the apartment before Jin's even awake, returning exhausted and hungry in the late evening like a regular salaryman, and then there are others where he stays in bed all day, rising in the late afternoon to spend all night out on the streets. Jin has a feeling the nights are more dangerous than the days, so in the few hours where they're both awake and in the apartment between when Jin gets home from the café and Kame heads out for the night, Jin tries his best not to do anything to annoy the other. The last thing he wants to do is give Kame more to worry about right before he possibly has to put himself in danger.
The other thing Jin struggles with is the fact that he often doesn't know where Kame goes late at night. It's not quite so bad when Maru stays behind, because at least then he has someone to pass the time with (who can fill him in on some of the details of what's going on if he asks), but when Kame takes both Koki and Maru with him, he's on his own, and he often can't fight off the worries that plague him. He really doesn't want to think about what kind of situation could be so dangerous that Kame needs two bodyguards (because, even though Maru introduced himself to Jin as Kame's lawyer, he's good enough with a gun and knows enough jujitsu to make Jin very, very glad he didn't make fun of him when they first met), but it's hard not to, laying alone in their bed late at night and wondering if Kame will be coming home. On those nights, he usually has to roll over on his stomach and press his nose to the other man's pillow before he can get to sleep, but even with the scent of Kame's shampoo invading his senses as he drifts off, he doesn't sleep well. It's very rare when Kame's gone that Jin makes it through the night without waking up in a cold sweat at least once.
Even more troubling is how Kame's been acting lately. He's high enough in the organization where he can send underlings out to do his dirty work for him, so he typically doesn't have to go out at night very often, but as time goes by, Jin finds himself spending more nights alone, and the frown lines on Kame's face before he goes out seem to grow deeper with every passing day. Jin tries his best to comfort him, asking him to confide in him and tell him what's wrong, but the gangster only sighs and shakes his head, his shoulders hunching so much that Jin thinks there's just as much tension in his posture as a taut bowstring. Some of it eases, though, escaping his body in pleasant shudders, when large, long-fingered hands move to try and massage the tightness away.
Even when Kame's eyes fall closed in bliss and he leans into the touch, he still only gives Jin a general idea of what's bothering him. It's still better than nothing, though, so Jin intently listens to whatever Kame's willing to tell him. He says something about a young group of trainees not learning the ropes as quickly as they should, and having to oversee the situation himself so they don't make any mistakes big enough to jeopardize the entire operation. “If this keeps up,” he starts, but quickly stops again. Jin gets the feeling sometimes (a lot of the time) that Kame does a lot to prevent him from finding out about the harsh realities of what he often has to do, and Jin doesn't know how he feels about that. In some regards, he appreciates the gesture, but in others, he really, really doesn't.
Tonight marks the third night in a row that Kame's been gone, and it's one of those times that Jin feels more angry that his lover won't confide in him than appreciative. His legs tangle in the blankets as he tosses and turns in restless sleep, sweat beading on his forehead as he tries to fight his way out of yet another nightmare--the kind that always ends with the light rapidly fading from Kame's eyes. He eventually wakes, and the sound of his harsh breathing betrays the silence of the still, dark room. He doesn't try to fall back asleep right away, knowing it will be a fruitless effort, so instead, he lets out another long sigh and gets up to make some tea.
The hot beverage feels good going down, spreading comforting warmth outwards through his body from where it settles in his belly, but he still feels weary in a way that tells him sleep won't be coming back to him any time soon. After he rinses out his mug in the sink, he slips some baggy sweatpants on over his boxers, pulls a t-shirt over his head, and slips on a pair of sandals by the front door, intent on roaming the halls of headquarters until he feels the need to sleep start to overtake him or dawn breaks--whichever comes first.
As criminals tend to wake with the rise of the moon instead of the sun, the corridors are far from empty at 2AM when Jin starts to wander, but the gangsters don't pay him much attention as he passes, and he doesn't pay them much in return, preferring to remain lost in his thoughts than attempt to interact with anyone. In his mind, he goes back to that night he and Kame first met, thinking of the necklace that passed in and out of his hands, dragging him into a turbulent and dangerous, but at the same time exciting and passionate, relationship before Kame finally sold it. He thinks of Ueda and his dissolved smuggling ring, of the threat his men posed that resulted in Kame vowing to give his life to protect him. Even though the threat has been vanquished, Kame's promise hasn't faded, and Jin thinks that everything he's suffered through up until this point has been worth it for that.
That's the conclusion he finally comes to. It's worth it. Though the circumstances of their meeting made their forging a relationship seem impossible, and indeed it's true that at times they've struggled, the differences that once made it difficult for them to get on have since made them both stronger people, and in turn strengthened their bond. By getting involved with Kame, he's found someone to love, which, apart from someday playing his guitar in America, is all he's ever wanted. And it brings him unspeakable joy to see the light of happiness in Kame's eyes grow brighter the longer they're together. It goes without saying that the yakuza's changed drastically since they first met. While he still shows his job the same seriousness as he always has, in his downtime, the load he bears on his shoulders seems visibly lighter. He laughs louder, he smiles more, and it almost seems as though the person he was when he was younger is finally starting to show himself again. Or, perhaps it's more that the good is starting to blend with who he's become since suffering through the bad, transforming him into a completely new person. Either way, Jin sometimes can't believe he's been the one to bring about such a change in him.
Without his realizing it, his feet lead him to the closed door of Kame's office. He runs his fingers over the brass doorknob and smiles, thinking of the few times he's been here before and seen Kame hard at work, leaning forward in his high-backed leather chair to type away at his computer or scrawl something down on a piece of paper. On a whim, he decides that just once, he'd like to sit in that chair and pretend to be Kame. Except instead of working, he'll pour himself vodka on the rocks and drag the chair over to the windows after he's drawn back the shades so he can look out at the Tokyo skyline and feel powerful. So long as he doesn't disturb anything important, Kame shouldn't mind too much, right?
He tries turning the knob a little, and to his surprise, the door clicks open. Excited that he might actually get to live out his little fantasy, he starts to step through, but he freezes when he looks down and sees the faint glow of a light coming from inside. Curiosity getting the better of him, he peeks around the edge of the door, and the sight he's greeted with inside the office forces a quiet gasp from his throat. In all his imaginings of what Kame gets up to when he's gone from their apartment at night, he never once thought that he would end up back at his office. Yet here he is, and he's not alone.
The figure he recognizes as Kame's stands against the drapes at the back of the room. Shadows from the single lamp illuminated in the room dance across his face, and Jin can just make out his expression well enough to see he's directing a cold, hard glare at the two figures standing over his desk. Actually, when Jin shifts to get a better look and his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees that he's wrong. Kame's steel eyes bore into the back of the short, scrawny man who's visibly shaking as he sits at the desk, looking far too small to fit in such a large chair. Jin recognizes neither him nor the tall, intimidating figure leaning over him from across the mahogany surface. With only a view of his profile, he can't make out the exact look on his face, but his posture gives away that he's no happier with this kid than Kame is.
Jin looks between them then, and...oh. Oh. The young man seated at Kame's desk has his left arm outstretched, palm up, and the only thing that keeps it from shaking violently is the hard grip the other man has on his forearm. The metal blade catches in the light given off by the small desk lamp before it comes down hard and fast on the man's right pinky finger. The boy at the desk screams. Behind the door, Jin screams, too.
All three men look up at the sound, and Jin finds that hard, cold glare turned on him when Kame recognizes his silhouette in the doorframe. He stands there paralyzed for a moment, but turns to run when Kame starts striding towards him. He sees how the gangster's lips form a hard, thin line, no doubt with the effort of restraining himself from screaming at him, but his barely-suppressed rage leaks through his narrowed eyes.
The door to Kame's office slams shut and locks at the same moment Jin dives into the conference room. For a moment, he considers locking himself in to protect himself from Kame's wrath, but quickly reconsiders when he realizes that would only make Kame even more angry with him, and besides, he doesn't know where to even start looking for the key. His limbs tremble a little as he paces back and forth, making him feel weak, and his fear only grows when he hears the sound of muffled shouting coming from the locked room across the hall. Though he can't make out the words, he recognizes Kame's nasally voice blending with a deep, booming one that must belong to the man who was wielding the knife. He can't help but wonder if they're arguing because of him, or if they would have ended up raising their voices at each other even if their “meeting” had gone undisturbed. He's not sure which would be worse.
The shouting eventually dies down, but Jin still has a long time to think before anyone emerges from the office. Too long. His thoughts keep circling back to the blade disappearing into the flesh of the man's knuckle, the sight of his face contorted with agony. Jin is neither stupid nor ignorant. He knows exactly what he just walked in on and what it means. Yakuza practice finger-cutting as a means of punishment, to weaken and make dependent those who cannot or will not obey orders. It's also to reinforce loyalty. Looking down at his own hands, he pictures the weak-looking man placing the severed tip of his pinky into Kame's outstretched hand, then replaces the image of one of himself slipping a small, silver band over one of Kame's fingers. What's the difference, really? Well, obviously the former situation is much more painful, but Jin would endure any pain for Kame. Especially if the end result was his swearing his loyalty to him. Really, that might not be so bad...
Jin jumps when the conference room door bangs open, and Kame stands in its wake. He must have sent the other two men on their way already, because he's no longer even trying to hold back his fury. “You,” he starts, advancing on Jin with a storm raging in his eyes, “what the fuck were you thinking?! Really, why do I even bother trying to shield you from exactly what it is I have to do when you're just going to go and seek it out yourself?”
Normally, Jin doesn't see the point in fighting back when Kame gets angry. While it's true the yakuza has a quick temper, he's also very good about controlling it, and he often cools down just as quickly as he gets riled up. But this is one argument that Jin can't ignore, because this time, Kame clearly does have it wrong, and he won't feel comfortable in this relationship until he sets him straight. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe that's not what I want? You try your damnedest to protect me from how violent your world is, but you can't, Kame, because I've been too involved in it from the very beginning for it to not affect me. No, I don't particularly like everything you do, but that doesn't mean I should go about pretending it doesn't exist! I want to help you, Kame, in any way I can, but it's impossible for me to do that when you won't even let me in! What is it going to take for you to trust me?”
The anger in Kame's eyes quickly gets replaced with the soft, open look of harsh realization. “You're right,” he mumbles after a while, his voice going slightly quiet and hoarse with the admission of his mistake. “I'm sorry. You do understand more than I give you credit for, don't you?”
Jin nods and wraps his arms around Kame's waist in a loose embrace. He presses a kiss to the shorter man's temple and rests his cheek against the top of his head. They stay in that position for a while, until Jin recalls what he had been thinking of before the other walked in, and he lifts his head again to ask what he thinks is a perfectly valid question. “Ne, Kame, what you did to that guy in there...would you ever consider doing that to me?”
A sick feeling of dread settles in his stomach when Kame goes tense in his arms, and he knows before his back slams into the edge of the conference table that he's fucked up. Again. He struggles against the grip Kame has on his wrists above his head, pinning him to the hard surface, but the gangster is all taut muscle under his Armani suit and inked skin, and no matter how much Jin thrashes, he can't break free.
Kame leans down and gets right in his face, very much like that time he broke down and took out on him all of his pent-up rage and anguish for Hayato's death. There's nearly as much anger in his eyes now as there was that time, too. “See, this is why I can't let you in, Jin! You think you understand what my world is like, but you don't. The truth is, you don't have a fucking clue!”
Jin feels a sting somewhere deep inside him at just how hurtful Kame's words are, but he tries not to let it show. The sting turns into something else, though, when Kame continues, his words lowering to a hiss against Jin's ear that makes him thrash again, but for a completely different reason.
“If you really think I would ever do something to weaken, disfigure, or harm you in my eyes, you're a fucking moron. Can't you see I treasure you too much for that? Why else would I try so hard to protect you? Dammit, Jin, one way or another, I'm going to show you what you mean to me...”
Jin's eyes close, and his head tilts back as he moans at Kame's words. Teeth nip their way along the line of his jaw, but then Kame pulls back, and Jin bucks up sharply at the loss of the warm body pressing against him. He hears the click of a belt buckle being undone, followed by the rustling of clothing falling, and then he feels a rush of cool air against his bare skin as a hand tugs the waistband of his sweatpants down.
It hurts, really hurts when Kame enters him, between the edge of the table digging into the small of his back and the lack of proper lubrication, but Jin's toes curl all the same when Kame looks at him like that and kisses him like he wishes they could go on kissing forever. He digs his fingers into Kame's shoulders, arching and groaning when the discomfort from the stretch fades, leaving behind only the glorious sensation of Kame pushing deep, filling him up in a way he didn't know was possible.
For all the urgency they have when they starts, it abates when they fall into a slow, steady rhythm. Jin tosses his head from side to side, because he can feel every single movement of Kame inside of him, and it's positively euphoric. He fights to keep his eyes open, and he decides it's worth the effort when he sees the look Kame's giving him, full of passion, determination, lust, and what can only be love. He pulls Kame close then, touching him everywhere he can reach, trying to make the sensations as good for him as the ones he's getting, and he gets a rush of satisfaction when Kame lets out a pleased sound at the touch of his thumbs to his small, highly sensitive nipples after he works his fingers beneath the hem of his dress shirt.
Whether as a reward or just because he wants to, Jin isn't sure, but Kame moves his mouth to all the places on Jin's neck, shoulders, and chest he knows he's sensitive, and he has the taller man positively writhing under him when he spends enough time working his lips, tongue, and especially his teeth over each spot in turn to give him what will be a rather nice collection of love bites come morning. Since they've been together, he's learned the secret of Jin's oddly hypersensitive collarbones, so he pays particular attention to those, gently running his lips over them and coating them with his hot breath until Jin's all but vibrating beneath him, babbling incoherently into his ear and begging for more.
Kame's kisses turn rough and biting as they both approach the edge, and Jin moves his hands from Kame's torso to his shoulder blades to rake his nails down his back. At some point, Jin's feet leave the floor, falling out of his sandals to wrap tightly around Kame's back as he tries to hold him as tightly as possible against his body. The sounds they make almost seem to harmonize as they feel the moment drawing to an end. Kame rocks up on his toes to push against the spot that will make Jin sing for him, and he wraps his hand tightly around the hard flesh trapped between their bodies, forcing him over the edge with a wail that makes the coil wound tightly in his own belly snap. Whole body trembling, he empties himself deep into Jin with a long moan of his name, and his mouth works hungrily over his when he falls spent against him, as though trying to drink Jin's feelings for him through long, sucking kisses.
They pant against each other's lips when they fall apart, eyes soft with emotion and the fading haze of orgasm. Tangling a hand in Jin's damp hair, Kame runs his tongue across his lips and for a moment struggles to speak. He eventually figures out what he wants to say, though. “Jin, I-I love you...”
Jin just smiles and closes his eyes, letting the warmth of Kame's words spread from his heart to the top of his head and the very tips of his fingers and toes. “...I love you, too.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sachiko spread in front of her as many pieces of paper as she could fit on the small café table. She was done. Before her laid pages of Jin and Kamenashi at every stage of their relationship, and she felt her heart thudding lightly in her chest as she looked over them all. After months of almost constant work, each chapter of her doujinshi was almost exactly the way she wanted it. Even though long days of editing, inking, and scanning laid ahead of her, knowing she had everything she had imagined down on paper was exhilarating, and from here on out, she would happily do the grunt work, because the weight of being in the middle of a daunting project was finally, finally gone. For once ignorant to Jin and Kamenashi's presence inside the café, she sharpened her pencil and eagerly set to work.
She couldn't remain ignorant for long, though. She wasn't sure why she chose that particular moment to look up, but she did so just in time to see Jin's gaze follow one of the waitresses as she walked by--a pretty, young girl with a cute smile and a dainty tiara perched atop waves of honey-brown curls. She wasn't the only one who noticed his attention on her.
Jin let out a surprised yelp when Kamenashi suddenly gripped him hard by the shoulder, whirling him around to face him. He leaned in close, tugging him down by the collar so they were face-to-face. Even though Jin had a few inches on him, when Kamenashi looked him straight on with that dangerous glint in his eyes, he seemed like the taller of the two. And he knew it.
Jin's posture went rigid as he fought to keep his balance in that position, but the gangster seemed completely unperturbed by the other man's struggle to stay upright. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled, so much so that Sachiko had to strain to hear it. “Were you looking at her, Jin?”
The waiter tried to look away, perhaps to catch another glimpse of the waitress and tell Kamenashi that no, he wasn't looking at her long, shapely legs or the deliberate sway in her hips as she walked so much as the sparkly tiara she wore in her hair, because he had always wanted one, and he definitely had the hair for it, right? Big mistake.
Kamenashi gripped Jin's chin between his fingers and harshly turned his head back to face him. “Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you, Jin! Now tell me, were you looking at her?!”
“N-No, I...tiara?” Jin tried again. He yelped as Kamenashi relinquished his grip on his face, only to grab his collar with both hands and pull him so only a few centimeters remained between his lips.
“You listen to me, and you listen well, Jin. This relationship you have with me is not to be taken lightly. Do you understand? There are a lot of crazy, fucked-up people out there--men who wouldn't think twice about grabbing you off the street, fucking you once, then slitting your throat and dumping your corpse down a fucking storm drain just to get to me. Now I did not take you in and have you inked with my mark to protect you from those fuckers just so you could gawk at every fucking floozy who walks by. Do I make myself clear?”
His voice started out quiet, but by the end he was shouting loud enough for the entire café to hear. He didn't seem to notice that the rest of the establishment had gone silent, though, and that every set of eyes was now on them. He merely grabbed Jin harshly by the ear and started dragging him towards the back door, ignoring the other man's cry of pain as he did so. “Let's go. You're making a scene.”
A loud thud from somewhere behind them made Jin look back towards the dining room as Kamenashi pulled him away, and he saw that one of the café's regular customers, a quiet girl who always seemed to be drawing something or another in her sketchpad, had fallen to the floor in a dead faint.
Kame made one final show of shoving Jin through the door and slamming it behind them before collapsing in a fit of laughter against the wall in the alley. “Ne, Jin,” he said, removing his hat and dark sunglasses to reveal warm brown eyes shining with mirth, “do you think they bought it?”
The waiter echoed his laugh and pressed his body to the other's against the wall, earning a content hum from his boyfriend at their sudden closeness. “Kazu, you're such a good actor, you almost had me fooled.”
Kame could feel Jin's hot breath against his lips as he spoke, and he leaned up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Almost fooled you, huh? Even though faking out your co-workers and making them think I'm in the yakuza was your idea?”
A wide smile spread across Jin's face, in response to both the kiss and how successfully they'd pulled off their little stunt. “It was a good plan. I'm pretty sure they're all scared of you now.”
Kame wrapped his arms around Jin's neck and started playing with the hairs at the base of his neck. “Are you ever going to tell them I'm just a lowly magazine photographer, and I don't actually have any ties to the mafia?
“And reveal that instead of threatening me all the time, you actually send me cutesy text messages full of emoji? No way. It's more fun to let them be scared.”
Kame laughed again. “In that case, we should probably get out of here before someone sees us. You pinning me to the wall like this instead of the other way around would probably look pretty suspicious, huh?”
At the reminder of their position, Jin lowered his hands to Kame's hips and gave them a gentle squeeze, a touch the younger man instantly leaned into. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed. But he made no motion to pull away. Instead, their lips met again, eyes fluttering closed as their mouths moved languidly together, tongues flicking out to taste. There was a quiet, wet sound when they pulled apart. “I really was looking at her tiara, by the way.”
“I know. Why, though? Was the one I gave you for your birthday not good enough?”
“It's not that. I was just looking to see if hers was the same as mine.”
“Uh-huh. And the fact that she was practically falling out of her shirt beneath her apron had nothing to do with it, right?”
The tips of Jin's ears went red. “Well...”
Kame couldn't help but laugh at the guilty look on his boyfriend's face. “Kinda hard not to notice, huh?” he asked, his rhetorical tone hopefully letting Jin know he didn't care if he looked. He straightened a little against the wall. “Shall we?”
“Ah, right.” Embarrassment fading, Jin pulled away, but eagerly gripped Kame's hand in his own, swinging them a little between them. “Lead the way, yakuza-boyfriend!”
“Jin, I'm not in the yakuza.”
“Mou, spoilsport, Kazu!”
“Seriously, I don't even have tattoos!”
“It'd make for a pretty good story, though, wouldn't it?”
“Yeah, it probably would.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Even though Sachiko had been making doujinshi and attending Komike since her second year in middle school, she'd never received such a positive response to one of her works as she had for Boku no Yakuza Aijin (or YakuAi, as she had a few times overheard it affectionately called). In addition to her overflowing cashbox (the contents of which she put towards tuition at Geidai, a decision her parents had finally agreed to after she told them how many copies she had sold), almost every day for weeks after the convention, e-mails from people who had apparently stopped by her booth popped up in her inbox. Although not all of the messages she received were positive, for the most part she was overjoyed to read the encouraging ones and send responses back.
In some cases, she spent hours typing up replies. She was happy to detail the art styles and techniques she used within the doujinshi to those who asked, and even when responding to shorter comments, she responded as thoroughly and insightfully as possible. She shied away, however, from the long messages in which the sender attempted to deeply analyze the content of her work and asked for academic-level responses regarding Kamenashi and Jin's characterization. She didn't have any problem with academic writing, but because she drew her inspiration for the doujinshi from real people, she had trouble seeing them as characters, and thus felt a little squeamish at the thought of answering whether or not Jin's masochistic tendencies or his desire to find someone to attach himself to were a result of childhood slavery and abuse. For one thing, she didn't know, and for his sake, she certainly hoped not.
For every comment she got asking about art or symbolism, she probably received about ten that simply gushed praise. Although these weren't her favorite e-mails to respond to (it actually got pretty tedious after a while), seeing that so many people enjoyed her work made her feel fantastic. The endless cries of, “More, please! I can't get enough!” tempted her to consider a sequel, but she knew with the college application season in full-swing, she wouldn't have time. So instead of vaguely hinting that a continuation to Jin and Kamenashi's story was in the works, she simply e-mailed them back the street address of a small cosplay café in Akihabara.