"Either Way, I'll Break Your Heart Someday", Jin/Kame
Title: Either Way, I'll Break Your Heart Someday
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Character, Pairing(s): Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, implied adult situations
Summary: Of all the things he'd done in his life, leaving had been one of the least selfish, hadn't it?
Notes: Written for je_ficgames 2010. Title from a song by Augustana. This story was started before the KAT-TUN announcement the weekend of July 17th. The goal here was to try and explain Jin's first hiatus from the group in 2006-07, so hopefully readers will be understanding. Please bear in mind that this story is not meant to serve as a commentary or judgment on the current situation. Our prompt was "one day you're in, the next you're out".
It wasn't really Kame's fault.
That was what Taguchi had said the other day, thinking he was being helpful or comforting or whatever the motivation had been. Jin didn't want to hear about it, about any of it really. It was already in his face every time he went to work. With Shounen Club and Utawara, it was hard to ignore. Turning on the TV or the radio, it was hard to ignore. He heard the song, heard Kame and then heard Pi and wondered if it could have been him. He heard the song and sometimes wished it didn't have Kame at all.
Still, it wasn't really Kame's fault. And deep down, Jin knew that. Opportunities came and the order came down and you just did it. That was work. If it wasn't trying to dance in some glittery red bolero jacket with feathers that Arashi had worn four years ago, it was something else. If it wasn't Kame on the single, it would have been someone else.
But what Jin thought deep down and what Jin actually did about it usually differed. It wasn't Kame's fault, but it didn't stop him from answering his friend in short, clipped responses. He sat in the back of the company van in the morning, keeping his bag on the seat beside him instead of at his feet. He went out at night with friends, went home with people he didn't necessarily know and if a mail made its way to his phone in that time, he had more important things to do than answer it.
Taguchi noticed, made his comments, and by the end of November, he'd arranged for KAT-TUN to go out as KAT-TUN for once. Kame didn't have shooting until the next afternoon, and when there were six hungry guys and a table full of food, it was easier to forget that Kame was a little more than the rest of them now. A little more, but with the way he kept his jacket on and tucked himself into the corner of the booth, a little less. Jin wasn't the only one watching, either. He could see the way Koki tried to dump extra food onto Kame's plate. Maru kept asking if they should order more. Kame just smiled and shook his head.
It wasn't normal, Jin realized, and since he'd been working his hardest to pretend Kame didn't exist and that Shuuji to Akira didn't matter, he hadn't noticed. But even in the low-lit booth of the yakiniku restaurant, Kame's features were sharper than usual. His eyes didn't have much of a spark in them. There was being exhausted, and then there was this. Jin didn't have a name for it. He wasn't a doctor or anything.
When it came time to go, he stalled. He paid his share and hit the bathroom, and despite him being an asshole the past few months, he found Kame waiting outside for him. “Got another one?” he asked, smelling Kame's cigarette smoke mingling with the night air as soon as he moved away from the entrance. It was finally starting to get chillier, and Kame had his jacket around him tightly.
“Yeah.”
In a few seconds he had one lit too, and they stood there by the street outside the restaurant. It was strange. Only a few months ago during the summer, they'd had no trouble finding the words to say. During the summer, there hadn't been Shuuji to Akira.
Much as he didn't want to admit it, Jin was worried. What was the point of keeping his distance all these weeks if it just took one dinner to let it all flood back? It was something Jin had never been able to put his finger on. Even when there was no debut single, Kame pissed him off. But at the same time, he needed him. Kame in his life made sense, and he hadn't bothered to think much more deeply about it than that.
“Tackey bought me some things when we were out the other week,” he said, remembering the bottles sitting at home.
He didn't even know why he was asking. Until he'd parked his ass in the booth at the restaurant, he hadn't really given a shit about much going on with Kame. The guy had always been on the thinner side, but this wasn't right, and he was starting to feel like he should have noticed sooner. He wondered if maybe his own behavior had contributed to whatever was so obviously wrong. Of course, he never knew how to ask that kind of thing.
Instead he just shrugged a bit and watched the cars drive by. “I know you've got stuff tomorrow.”
Kame put his cigarette out and nodded. “I've got time, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Kame shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and didn't look at him. He just stared at the pavement, and Jin wondered if a strong enough gust of wind could blow him away. “You know I've always got time if you want me to make time.”
It was Kame's way of saying he missed him, that he was sorry, that he had nothing to actually be sorry for, probably a hundred things in one. Jin wondered if Taguchi or one of the others had said something to Kame, or if the four of them were all talking behind their backs. It didn't much matter. Jin had offered, and Kame had accepted, even tonight. It usually went without a lot of talking from here, always had.
They took a cab, and the alcohol from Tackey remained where Jin had left it. He didn't bother to offer an apology. He'd just fuck up his words or pick a fight or Kame'd be the one to pick the fight, so instead it just came down to things that made sense. Pulling off Kame's jacket made sense once they were inside, and it seemed to make sense to Kame to reach forward, pulling on him and letting their lips meet after however the hell long it had been.
Kame didn't kiss like a girl, and Jin had kissed his share of girls. It was more competitive, and Jin liked that. He liked the way he could yank on Kame's hair or tug him around by the belt loops on his pants, the kind of thing you just couldn't do to a girl without getting slapped across the face. Kame's body felt different under his fingertips. There was less of him to touch, and Jin wanted to apologize. It wasn't the right time, and bringing it up would only upset him.
It was a strange form of reconciling. Jin and Pi had fought before, done the silent treatment, and one day they'd just started talking as though nothing had happened. Reconciling with Kame was a different story, but Jin always liked what it meant. It meant attention and sweat and fumbling under bedsheets that had become less awkward as the years went on and they discovered what the other needed.
What Jin needed that night was Kame, every part of him that he'd pushed away and ignored and been jealous of all these weeks. All the parts that were growing thin and weary with stress and pressure and being alone. Jin thought he'd been the lonely one.
Kame got up with the sun, body wired like a clock when he did a drama on top of regular work. “I'm getting picked up at home, so I should obviously be there.”
“Yeah,” he replied, still half-asleep.
“Jin?” He felt a poke. “Jin?”
“What?” he asked, burying his face in the pillow further.
“Are we fine now? I mean...” Kame let his voice trail off, and Jin didn't know what the answer was supposed to be. Neither of them had ever talked about what “fine” was between them. They were both easily persuaded by an act first, forget to ask questions later way of thinking. For Jin, turning on the radio wasn't going to make the single go away, and Kame's debuted status wasn't going to disappear either.
He just didn't need Kame to disappear, he realized. “We're fine,” he grumbled before Kame picked his jacket off of the floor and escorted himself out.
--
By January, there was still no word- not that Jin had expected anything different, and in the rare times when he was completely honest with himself, he obviously hadn't, but it was still a bit hard to swallow when he really thought about it. Shuuji to Akira was over; after watching Kame layer his costumes at the countdown costume to perform in both groups, it had taken quite awhile for the bitter sensation to completely leave the back of Jin's throat, and he was glad that Nobuta itself had wrapped up last month.
But the truth of the matter is that it was almost harder to take post New Year. Lack of direction meant no one had been scrambling to make good on whatever promises had been doled out, and Jin started January gearing up for yet another year of waiting. Waiting on things that wouldn't go through, waiting on his bow that might never happen. It wasn't a particularly upbeat start- which was probably why Shirota Yu was commenting about seeing so much more of Jin all of a sudden.
Not that Yu was complaining, really. "It's just that we've been out every night this week," the man said, even as he shrugged off his jacket and ran a hand through his hair to dislodge the tiny snowflakes that had gathered there on their walk between clubs. "Isn't it time to go home?"
Home meant thinking about all the things that he could run from when chasing whiskey shots. Jin didn't want to go home. "Naw. One more, okay?"
"It's always one more," Yu sighed, but he sat down anyway. Jin could always count on him for that, at least- could always count on the man sticking with him when he couldn't quite find the words to explain why he really needed that last beer. It was hard to verbalize because the agency is going to keep us as juniors forever when the debut end game had seemed so tantalizingly close before; Yu didn't ask for an explanation, and Jin didn't feel much like offering one.
He thought about going home with one of the girls they met, one of the girls who wore too much eye makeup and long decal on her fingernails. It would be easy to do. Her palm had been sliding across the inseam of his jeans for the better part of an hour, achingly teasing contact that hit his veins harder than the alcohol did.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he nearly knocked over a drink fishing in his pockets for it. Come take care of Kamenashi, it said, from Yamapi's mobile. Jin didn't ask why Kame was even out with Pi- he didn't ask because he was afraid that the answer would be something about permanency, about Shuuji to Akira staying in the agency line-up. He didn't ask because he didn't think he could handle the answer- it was best to leave it hanging.
"Akanishi?" the girl asked. There was a dusting of glitter on her fake eyelashes, and they shimmered in the low light when she blinked. "Are you coming with us?"
It would be easy to slip his phone back in his pocket and claim he got the email too late. But Jin had never been one for taking the easy road out- not when it really mattered, anyway.
"Sorry," he mumbled, and rose to exit the booth without knocking his thighs into the side of the table. "Got somewhere I have to be."
He shot off a quick reply asking for a location, which didn't end up being too far. By the time he got there, Yamapi was looking somewhat sour and practically pushed Kame into Jin so he could duck out of the restaurant. "Seriously, take him home," Pi sighed.
Kame was laughing, and Jin could feel every movement echoed in the tips of his fingers pressed against the bones in Kame's spine.
"Drink too much," he told him, even as the last shot lingered on his tongue from earlier.
Kame didn't protest when Jin got him into the cab, didn't say much on the way home. He just sort of stared out the window at the lights passing by the glass. He might have been close to passing out, but Jin didn't really think so- Kame got sick before falling asleep most of the time, and he didn't seem close to the threshold yet.
It seemed like a long ride to Kame's place, silence filled with all the things Jin thought maybe he should have been saying aloud.
"Don't have to stay," Kame said as they exited the cab and Jin threw a bundle of bills at the driver. He was drunk, but not drunk enough to add the extra bit Jin could hear in his mind- never have to stay.
"Shut up," Jin told him, and led him inside.
He made Kame drink some water because he'd be useless the next day otherwise, and Jin didn't want to be responsible for that, even indirectly. Not when there was so much riding on them, on all of them. It took awhile to coerce Kame to get in bed and sleep it off, and when Jin made to leave, Kame's fingers wrapped themselves firmly around Jin's and wouldn't let him go.
"Wait," the other man murmured, half-muffled by his face pressed against his pillow linen. "Don't go."
"I have an early morning," Jin said, even though it was a lie.
The fingers curled around his hand tightened. "Jin."
Kame tasted like sake when Jin found his mouth. Like sake and regret and everything Jin had been swallowing down for months. The mattress creaked when Jin settled his weight down on either side of Kame's waist, coaxing the man's lips open and running his hands through the tangles of hair Kame hadn't bothered to brush out before laying down.
"We're going to debut," Kame sighed against Jin's cheek, when Jin's teeth found the sensitive skin of his neck. Kame's limbs wrapped themselves around Jin's form, and he kept repeating the phrase, over and over, until Jin was sure the only person he was trying to convince was himself.
It didn't make it any easier to hear, so Jin kissed him instead, just to stem the repetition. They were on the same destructive path, just at different stages of the way down. When Jin buried himself in the warmth willingly offered beneath him, he couldn't tell which of them was copping out the most, and he wasn't sure it really mattered anymore.
--
The debut news had come as a shock. At first, Jin hadn't even believed it. Maybe it was some kind of prank the management was playing on them, just to see if they were awake that day. But here they were with a concert at the Tokyo Dome under their belts, a debut single and an album, and it had all happened so fast.
The “good work” and “congratulations” mails came in from his seniors and juniors alike, and Jin was learning what being busy actually meant. Sure, they'd done a lot as juniors but there'd never been this much press in such a short amount of time. He was walking down the street and seeing his face plastered everywhere now, whether it was a poster for their album or a newspaper with another debut conference picture on it. His mother had a folder full of clippings to “save for the future” even though Jin had been in magazines and things for years. But this was different, she had insisted, going at the paper with her scissors again.
PV filming had just wrapped earlier that day, and the group dinner was a far cry from the one in the fall. For one, the company was covering the cost of this one - of course, that meant management types were scattered around the table stuffing their faces just as much as they were. It wasn't every day that a new group debuted.
He looked down and around the long table the company had reserved for the celebration of sorts, and Jin saw so many different expressions. It seemed like the other members were just as shell-shocked as he was, seeing the hushed conversation and quiet laughs coming from Koki and Junno's end of the table. Their manager was speaking enthusiastically about sale expectations and promotions to Ueda, who mostly just sipped his water and nodded.
Were they happy? Yeah, Jin decided. Yeah, they were damn happy. They'd worked their asses off for years, watching friends get to the next level ahead of them. It just felt like something they had earned, all six of them together. But he was starting to understand how the mere word “debut” could affect someone. The stakes were higher, the expectations were higher, and Jin wasn't so sure he liked that part of it. They were being molded more and more into a marketable product. Well, that was how Maru had talked about it, trying to sound smart and all that. But he supposed it was true.
It would be harder to get away with things. There'd be far less forgiveness for rule breaking. And every time Jin reminded himself of the company leash tightening, he couldn't help glancing across the table to where Kame was sitting and eating quietly. Debut meant something more than a dance number on Shounen Club. Everything was going to be scrutinized now.
This time when he met Kame's eyes, there was something different in them. As if he'd taken a break from trying to be the perfect idol the surrounding agency types expected in favor of just being himself. It was a look Kame tended to save for times when they were alone, nights when it just made sense to be together without stressing about what it meant.
It was like all the blood went straight south at that look. They were all wired, even with the long shoot for the PV earlier in the day. Kame shouldn't be so careless, and Jin shouldn't be letting Kame's carelessness get to him. But professionalism and good behavior weren't exactly aspirations of his anyhow. Kame took a sip from his water glass, lips on the rim and fingers smearing the edges. His eyes were across the table, meeting Jin's own with an intent definitely not appropriate for a restaurant with the other members and for damn sure not with management types.
He excused himself awkwardly, nearly knocking the chair back as he got up and headed for the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, trying to clear his mind. Or maybe not clear it completely - just clear it of the look and the implication in Kame's eyes. Jin wasn't a complete idiot. He wanted the same thing, the same sort of celebratory “we finally debuted together” moment they hadn't been able to share on account of being ridiculously busy for days. There'd been no time to themselves.
He sighed, staring at himself in the mirror. Maybe he'd just send Kame a mail, imply that they should meet after dinner. He even had the mail halfway composed when the bathroom door opened, and Kame found him.
“Was beginning to think you'd ducked out the kitchen exit,” Kame said, leaning back against the door he'd just come through.
He stayed at the sink, holding the porcelain just to have something to keep him from moving. Jin watched Kame through the mirror, seeing his features somewhat reversed but just as wicked as he had looked at the table. “Someone's gonna come through that door, and they'll hit you in the head with it.”
Kame was looking rather proud of himself, but it wasn't something Jin hadn't grown accustomed to all these years. “Are you hiding from me? In a bathroom?”
“Hiding? I had to take a piss.”
“Okay,” Kame said, crossing his arms. “And the staring into the mirror thing? That's how you follow up on a bathroom break?”
He finally turned and stared right back. “You're doing this now?”
“Doing what?”
Frustrating asshole. He waved his arms helplessly. “This...the eyes and the way you're smiling at me like I'm some...some...object.”
And now he felt like an idiot. Or girly. He wasn't completely sure, but he kind of wanted to keep some space between himself and his band mate before they did something very ill advised. Jin was all for ill advised, but they had been filming their debut PV that very day, and even he had his limits. Their manager was probably drinking some good quality sake paid for by the company through the door and just down the hall.
“But we should celebrate. I'd like to,” Kame said, taking a very dangerous step forward, “if you're interested.”
“You just want to get laid,” Jin pointed out.
“That's usually all it takes for you,” Kame snapped back. Another step forward until the tips of his sneakers were almost brushing against the toes of Jin's boots.
Jin's entire body was buzzing. "We can't do this here," he said, but it came out softer than he'd anticipated, and with a lot less force. He wasn't even sure that he meant it; it certainly didn't feel like he did.
"Can't we?" Kame asked. The tips of his fingers were pressing up against Jin's sides, just above where his jeans hung snug against his hips. Tiny pinpricks of electricity was all it took, and Jin forgot all the reasons they couldn't. Shouldn't.
Kame's eyes fluttered half-closed as he leaned in, as Jin moved forward.
The bathroom door opened.
Whatever time had been stalling sped back up, quicker than it should be and hissing against Jin's ears. Kame didn't even get a step back before Jin's eyes found the figure that had just walked through- a junior associate, some nerdy-looking guy with too much oil in his hair and a tie that he'd probably bought at a hundred yen shop. And Jin panicked when the adrenaline hit the back of his throat in a coppery, bitter tang. He did the first thing he could think of to do.
He lied. "Had something in my teeth." It didn't even sound convincing to his own ears when he stammered, and he wanted to kick himself afterwards. The associate just looked at him, and then at Kame, who was staring at his feet, flushed so red the tips of his ears were darkening.
"Oh," the man said. His hand was still on the door. Probably just came to take a leak. "Is it out?"
Jin couldn't breathe. "Yes," he whispered, and it was all the louder he could even force the air out of his lungs. It felt like someone had kicked him in the chest.
Kame scampered away and brushed past the associate at the door so fast he knocked their shoulders together on his way out. Jin stayed where he was because there didn't seem to be a single force inside him that could get his muscles to move.
The man let the door swing shut when he walked in and put his hands under the sink. Jin's watch clanked noisily against the porcelain side.
"Kinda hot out there, right?" he asked, coupled with shaky, nervous laughter. It was awful. There was no way he was fooling anybody and he knew it, even as the words kept falling out past his lips of their own accord. The associate didn't look up- just slowly turned the faucet off. He didn't even look up.
"Seems to be," was the response. And then the other man left again, without looking at Jin, without another word- without doing whatever it had been he'd come into the bathroom for, anyway, unless he'd just wanted to rinse his hands off.
Jin stayed where he was, heart thundering against his ribcage, so loud he swore he could hear it over the din past the door.
He wasn't even surprised when, before he even crawled into bed that night in an anxious heap, his mobile buzzed with a new email from his manager.
Meeting tomorrow. 8 AM.
--
Yamamoto's office wasn't decorated with much. Everything in it was standard issue aside from the chair she had at the desk. There were a few filing cabinets and a small stack of papers on her desk, but she was too meticulous to let anything pile up. The open space on the surface was more startling than any mess would have been, and Jin didn't like it. It wasn't meant to make anyone comfortable, and it certainly was having the opposite effect on him.
She hadn't looked at or spoken to either of them for five minutes. She just kept writing something on the paper in front of her, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose a bit, and Jin just stared at the corner of the desk nearest to him. It looked like it would hurt of someone ran into it, like it would bruise.
In the chair beside him, Kame was silent. He was hunched over, shoulders bowed, like he could make himself disappear by folding himself up into tiny squares.
The wait was worse than anything else could have been. Jin's muscles were wound so tight they hurt.
Finally, Yamamoto put her pen down. She pulled her glasses off and stared down at them, frowning a bit. "You know why you were called here," she said, and it wasn't a question.
"Yes," Jin mumbled. Kame might have answered as well, but Jin couldn't hear- the shrieking in his ears was too loud.
"This isn't unheard of," she continued, setting her glasses down on the paper and folding her hands in her lap. Jin didn't know how she could look so calm when it felt like his entire world was falling apart around him, scattering at his feet in tiny shards. "We know that this sort of thing happens. But it ends now."
All of the air left Jin's lungs, so quickly it ached.
"You are a debuted group. This isn't a game. What you do now not only reflects on you as a group and as artists, but also on us as an agency. You will be watched with a much higher level of scrutiny and held to higher standards. The stakes are higher now, and this ends. Do you understand?"
"Yes." Jin's mouth was dry; it was hard to swallow at all.
Yamamoto's eyes were hard. "Don't make us regret allowing KAT-TUN to debut."
There were so many things Jin wanted to say, so many things he wanted to start with. An apology, maybe, but for what- well, he didn't know. They'd just been given what they'd worked so hard for, and here it was, already being threatened. Their career was on the line. From the corner of his vision, Jin could see Kame's knees shaking, knocking against the metal armrests of the chair.
"You understand that even now, you work for us," she said. "You work for us, you reflect on us, and we make the decisions."
"Yes," both Kame and Jin murmured, and when it appeared she was looking for more, Jin tried to clear his throat enough to add, "We understand."
She eyed them both, and Jin couldn't place the expression on her face. Disappointment, maybe. Annoyance.
"Listen," she said, and picked up her glasses again. She looked less severe with them on, less angular. "I'm going to arrange some public events with the two of you, get you out there. Let the press take some pictures and start some rumors." When Jin opened his mouth, she held up a single finger, and it was enough to make him bite his tongue again. "Separately. Let the press publish rumors of the actresses you are seeing, the models you are hanging out with."
Was this was debuting was like, then? The agency planned Jin's outings, his social life, so that everything could be used to the company's advantage? It didn't feel much like success- it felt empty. Meaningless. Like he was just the face for his own life, parading around as someone he wasn't.
Kame was shaking more, and he had a hand over his eyes so Jin couldn't see. He didn't really want to see.
"We will work out the specifics and give them to you at a later date," Yamamoto said, and by 'we', Jin knew that it didn't include him. It was his life, his image, his career, and he wasn't involved in the planning process.
There was a moment of silence, where Jin could hear Yamamoto's pen scratching against the paper, and then she looked up. "You're dismissed."
Kame didn't look at him at all, even after they closed the office door after them. Jin felt like every pair of eyes in the room were on him, even though no one was even looking up. He felt oddly exposed. And humiliated.
"I'll see you at filming," Kame mumbled, hands shoved in his pockets.
"Yeah," Jin just answered. He couldn't get anything else out. "Yeah."
He watched Kame's retreating form until the other man disappeared around the corner.
--
Spring came, and then rain fell to announce the official start of summer with its unrelenting heat. With each passing day, Jin was starting to realize that he was nothing more than a cog in a machine. And for some people, it must become second nature. It just wasn't something he could really talk to Pi about without sounding like a whiny jackass. With the amount of work they had, knowing that someone else was taking care of the details - transportation, meals, scheduling - was helpful.
But at the same time, as the humidity grew more intense and he found himself at another club at 1:30 AM with a girl he only kind of sort of knew, he was starting to wonder where things had gone so horribly wrong. His mind rewound to that awkward morning in Yamamoto's office, to the way she'd mentioned that what had been going on with him and Kame was nothing new. So why did he feel like they were being punished more than anyone else had been before?
The girl beside him was already pretty drunk, and he was too, and if he had enough control of his faculties when they left, he'd probably have the cab driver take them to a love hotel. The act wasn't really a hardship for him, but knowing that the whole thing had been set up, laid in his lap, just expected to run its natural course was what made him wake up in the morning and feel guilty. It was seeing that empty bed for the tenth or twentieth time and knowing that it was a sanctioned scandal. If he got caught and photographed, the agency would make like it hadn't happened, brush it aside even though they had been the one to introduce him to so-and-so model from so-and-so agency.
So long as it wasn't drugs, they were turning a blind eye. So long as it wasn't Kame.
Even without the private moments between them, he and Kame had always been together. He'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't miss him. They saw each other for work, but the guy was a mystery to him now. Kame had always been good at clamming up when there'd been issues in the past, but they'd eventually found each other again.
It was the agency's fault in a way, always pairing them up. If it was so damn inevitable that their lives got complicated and intertwined after so many years, then why was it such a bad thing?
"Are you taking me home?" the girl asked him, painted fingernails scratching against the rough texture of his jeans. "I don't know what kind of girl you take me for..."
"Relax," he told her. They'd be filming for 24 Hour TV segments before too long, getting things prepared to air come August. The coming weeks were going to be brutal. "I'll just get you a cab."
But even as he came out of the club with her, he imagined that someone from Friday or Josei Seven was lurking with a camera as he helped her into a taxi. "Leaving separately," the story would probably say, "but we all know what Akanishi's up to again." It sold issues either way.
When he got home, he went straight to bed. That sure wouldn't sell tabloids.
--
Another meeting for 24 Hour TV under their belts, and Jin still wasn't looking forward to being up that long and working the whole time. Well, most of the time. Matsumoto had teased him before an Utawara taping, expecting him to fall asleep on air or say something embarrassing once exhaustion really set in. As soon as Jin pointed out that Matsumoto had cried on air when Arashi hosted, the guy left him alone about it.
But it was still something to worry about. He didn't talk that much on TV, but who knew what kind of stuff would come out of his mouth while trying to fill time for that long? He supposed that Maru would do most of the awkward silence filler stuff, and if not him, then Kame would. 24 Hour TV was just one more expectation on their shoulders for the year.
He was walking to the elevator banks and of course, Kame was the only there waiting now that the others had left. Jin just turned up the sound on his mp3 player, hoping to concentrate on the music and not on Kame standing beside him. They talked as they had to for work, but Kame ignored him the rest of the time. And Jin supposed he was ignoring Kame too. The elevator doors opened, and they entered.
Kame leaned back against the wall, and Jin fiddled with his playlist. He was trying to find a nice, loud song to blast his eardrums with, but he hadn't been alone with Kame in so long. He pulled out one of the earbuds and muttered a "nice work today" comment, something so generic that Kame actually snorted at him.
"What?" he asked, pausing the player. "I can't even talk to you?"
He didn't expect Kame to grab him by the collar of his t-shirt, fingers scraping hastily against his neck. Kame's mouth was hot and insistent, and since they only had a few more floors to go, it was over before the doors even opened again. He stood there in the elevator after it dinged open, holding the mp3 player in his hand as Kame departed.
His brain finally caught up with him, and he chased Kame out into the hall. "Wait!"
But Kame was Kame, and he kept walking towards the rear exit to sneak out into the night and away from him. Jin followed, knowing with each passing second that no company demand would be enough to stop him. "Wait, damn it!" he called after him, watching Kame's retreating back. "You don't just get to do that!"
Kame finally halted before turning the corner just before the exit. He looked mortified. "Look, I need to be somewhere."
It wasn't fair. They couldn't just ignore each other for weeks and then pull this teasing kind of shit. "Yeah, I bet you do," he said, and his words were flying out in a way he hoped to avoid come 24 Hour TV. "They set you up with someone for tonight?"
"You don't have to go," Kame told him, looking angry or jealous or something Jin couldn't quite pinpoint. "They set them up, but you don't have to go to every damn thing they tell you to."
He ignored that. It was just dodging the question. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "You're being stupid."
"Yeah, it was stupid," Kame shot back, and Jin could still taste him on his lips. "But what's even more stupid is us having this conversation here."
"Where else am I supposed to talk to you?"
"We don't get to talk. If you gave a shit about KAT-TUN at all, you'd know that."
Kame was questioning his commitment to the group? After he'd been the one to jump on him in the elevator? He shoved Kame hard, nearly knocking him over. "The fuck is your problem?"
And because any time they'd fought when they were younger tended to go the same way, Kame shoved back. "My problem? I give everything I have to this job!"
He got Kame's shirt in his fist, pulling him so they were close. "And I don't?"
"You have to let me go," Kame said. "Right now."
"Why? So you can keep playing their game? Like a good little boy?"
"Jin. Let me go."
He didn't know if he wanted to punch Kame's lights out or make what happened in the elevator look like nothing.
"Let. Go," Kame repeated.
"Something wrong, gentlemen?"
They both turned to see a building security guard standing before them, walkie talkie at the ready to call more of his uniformed friends over. There wasn't going to be a chance for resolution, was there? Kame was going to get to walk away, thinking himself the better person because he hadn't been the one to shout or start the fight. He'd just pulled shit behind closed doors.
He shoved Kame back roughly, storming past the guard without another word.
--
By the time he got to work in the morning, his manager informed him of another meeting in Yamamoto's office. Maybe it would have been easier to just hit the stop button in the elevator.
This time, Kame hadn't been invited, but his manager had. A video tape rested in the middle of the woman's desk.
"Surely you're aware of the cameras in the NTV building," Yamamoto informed him, and Jin's blood ran cold. In the building didn't necessarily mean the elevator did it?
He said nothing, hearing the rustling of papers beside him as his manager pulled them from a briefcase. Yamamoto's face wasn't even angry this time. Not even disappointed.
"Akanishi, we've drawn up some options for you. I trust that the discussion we have today will stay in the room."
He didn't know how to respond. Instead, he nodded. Just as he always had and always would.
He'd accused Kame of playing their game like a good little boy. Maybe he should have accused himself.
--
There were so many other things he'd wanted to put in that letter- all the things he couldn't figure out how to say out loud, all the things that got stuck against his tongue when he tried to form the words. There were just too many things he couldn't say out loud that needed to be said; that was the truth of it, it seemed, the situation summed up in a brief summary. There was just too much there, and he couldn't say any of it.
It wasn't that he didn't try. He did. He penned the bits he knew he could read out loud, the bits that would make fans woozy and fuzzy, the bits his manager would love. And when the others found him backstage and Taguchi gave him a bear-hug and there were pats on his shoulders, it just made him feel that much worse.
Because there was more he had to say, and he couldn't even say all of it.
"I'm going abroad," he said, and a second later he thought maybe he should have given it some lead-up. He should have, but what would he say? Yamamoto's face was swirling in front of his vision, options heavy like lead in the pit of his stomach. "I'm- going to be leaving."
"What do you mean?" Taguchi said. He pulled away and held Jin at arm's length, confusion blossoming all over his features.
"For good?" Ueda asked. And that was the heart of the matter, the real center of it- Jin wished he had an answer for him.
The only answer he had was standing a few feet away, staring at the toes of his sneakers, refusing to meet Jin's gaze. "I don't know," Jin answered honestly. "No, I mean- not for good. Just for ... awhile."
Saying it out loud didn't make it any easier. Especially when they questioned him and all he could tell them was that he wanted to learn languages, to travel while he was young- he was an actor, wasn't he? Maybe not the best one, maybe not even a good one, but he did it.
Maybe he did it too well. Kame didn't even look at him again, not even when they were leaving and getting ready to go home and finally crash after the long, never-ending 24 Hour TV filming. Jin stopped him by the door, sticking a foot in front of the opening. Kame either had to walk over it and risk touching him or stay where he was.
He chose freezing.
"Don't you have anything to add?" Jin asked. There was so much betrayal and bitterness in his chest he thought it was all going to bubble up and boil over, all over the place. He was doing this for Kame- and he couldn't even say that. Couldn't even explain that. There was an invisible hand on his shoulder, fingers tightening around the joint. Yamamoto's words were in his head, clearer than anything else.
You can take Kamenashi down with you, or you can do as we tell you to do and save both your careers.
"Have fun," Kame just said, and stepped over Jin's ankle without looking back.
--
He thought maybe two months would make a difference- that maybe it wouldn't hurt so much or sting so much when he finally boarded the plane with his duffel bags and his iPod and a hat thrown over his hair. That maybe something would have changed and things would feel do-able, that he'd be able to breathe.
Two months changed nothing. He sat by the window of the plane and stared out at the strip beneath them and wondered if heartbreak in America tasted any less awful.
--
There was something thrilling about New York. Just being there buzzed in Jin's veins, and he didn't think it was all because of the skyscrapers and the atmosphere. New York City was sprawling around him and shooting up towards the sky with lights that twinkled bright in the darkness, but the real challenge had been meeting the other members again after so long apart. Jin hadn't been able to eat all day prior to it- not that he'd had much money to splurge on food anyway.
And the first ten minutes had been awful. Worse than awful, worse than when he'd left, worse than the feeling he woken up to in his gut the first week of being in Los Angeles. Taguchi couldn't muster a smile and Koki had yelled the whole time, and Kame wouldn't even look at him. Jin had wanted to head straight back to California and call the whole thing off; KAT-TUN, his career, the weekend, all of it.
Then it had been okay. They'd laughed and made fun of Maru's stupid shirt and ordered some ridiculously overpriced appetizers from the bar, and it had been okay. Things shifted back to where they were supposed to be. The world righted its axis once more.
At least, that was what Jin told himself as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, hands gripping the side of the sink so tight his knuckles were turning white. It was too quiet in the hotel room, and it made his skin crawl. Not sleeping had given him dark bags under his eyes that stretched across like smeared make-up. When was the last time he'd even thought to run a brush through his hair?
The knock on the door nearly sent him flying in surprise.
He had about a half second to recognize who it was when he opened the door before the figure came barreling into him, into the dim lights of the room. And then his senses were full of Kame's cologne, Kame's hair, Kame's mouth finding his just as it always had when the door slammed closed behind him. Jin's back hit the wall, hip making sharp contact with the corner.
For a moment, that was it. Kame's mouth was hot and insistent, needy and seeking and-
-no.
Jin pushed Kame back as hard as he could, against the opposite wall.
"What are you doing?" he gasped, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. Like it would help, like it would erase it all. "We can't do this."
"What are you talking about?" Kame asked. His palms were pressed flat against the wall, but his fingers were starting to curl in. He was like a feral cat, hunched and ready to pounce.
Four months were flashing before Jin's eyes. Four months of living off ramen cups, of taking classes, of wondering what the others were doing in his absence. "We can't do this," he repeated, and it was almost as much for himself as it was for Kame.
"I- I thought," Kame started.
"This is over," Jin said. Everything felt so very hollow. "I left to end this. It has to be over."
Kame just stared at him with wide eyes. "You left to...?"
"It's over," Jin said.
He could see Kame's face breaking apart. He could see it and he wanted to reach out and put it back together, but he couldn't- he couldn't say that he'd left to save them both. That he'd left to save KAT-TUN, to keep them under the scandal radar. He'd left to save himself because he couldn't stop feeling like he needed Kame there.
"You don't care about us at all," Kame seethed. "About us, about KAT-TUN, you don't give a shit. You just care about yourself and what you want. Isn't this what all of this has always been about?"
No. "Yes," Jin breathed.
And Kame was moving, pissed, fueled by what had to be five months of bottled rage he'd swallowed down every morning when there were only five bodies present for filming. "You're so fucking selfish, Akanishi. I thought I knew you, I thought I- but you're so fucking selfish, aren't you?"
Jin started laughing. Of all the things he'd done in his life, leaving had been one of the least selfish, hadn't it? And here he was, having this conversation in a dark hotel room on the far side of the globe with the one person he'd wanted to see every day since he'd left. He laughed, and the sound caught in his throat, and he just kept laughing because he couldn't do anything else.
Kame's fist hit him in the nose. It was a good punch, too- Kame'd always been good at that, after throwing so many fastballs.
"You don't care about any of us, or what it's been like!" Kame ranted, even as Jin slid down the wall with a hand pressed against his face. There was wetness against his fingers- blood. Kame had busted his nose pretty good. And even as his eyes prickled automatically with hot tears from the burgeoning pain, he laughed- if he stopped, he'd tell Kame everything.
He couldn't tell Kame everything. He couldn't tell Kame anything.
"Then why don't you just go back to them," Jin spat, blood dripping down his fingers. "Why don't you go and just leave me alone?"
He'd always been good at pushing people away, hadn't he?
Kame gave him one last glare, and Jin looked away. And then Kame was gone, out the door in a whirl that took absolutely everything with him.
Jin stayed where he was for a very long time.
When he finally dragged his screaming body up and into the bathroom once more, the mirror had a much different image to show him. There was blood smeared across his face, splatters of it on the front of his shirt. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Kame wouldn't be back.
Jin let his fingers trail across the drying blood on his shirt. Everything was a mess, and his face was just the tip of the iceberg. He pushed himself away from the sink and stumbled into the shower, turning it on and not even caring that the water coming out was completely frigid. He just collapsed in the corner and let the water pelt him, let it wash the blood from his skin and soak through his clothes.
The night trickled by like a death sentence, like an execution just waiting to be carried out.
--
Jin called his manager the next morning, and asked to be transferred through to Yamamoto's office line. It was late, but she'd be there- she was always there.
"This is Yamamoto," she said crisply, when she picked up.
"It's Akanishi," Jin replied. "I want to come back."
Silence, and then, "And what makes you think that you are ready?"
There were bruises on Jin's noise, around his eyes, bruises that not even make-up could completely hide. "I'm ready. I know what I have to do."
"And Kamenashi?" she asked.
"It's over," Jin said. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the world away. "I took care of it. You- don't have to worry about that anymore."
Jin could hear the rustling of papers on the other end.
"Alright," Yamamoto told him. "You know what's on the line here. I'll get things started. When I feel like things are ready, I'll contact you."
"How long?" Jin asked.
"A couple of months."
The line went dead. Jin let his phone fall away from his ear and bit his fingernail down to the quick until it bled, staring at the opposite wall and the paisley floral wallpaper covering it. He could go home again, but only after giving up everything. And he thought maybe that was the way it worked, anyway- he didn't get the luxury of privacy. He didn't get the luxury of living out his own desires.
Fame was a fickle mistress. But he'd take it. Because he always had. And he'd always known what his choice was going to be, even if he had to lose himself in the process.
After all, one day you're out, and the next, you're back in.
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Character, Pairing(s): Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, implied adult situations
Summary: Of all the things he'd done in his life, leaving had been one of the least selfish, hadn't it?
Notes: Written for je_ficgames 2010. Title from a song by Augustana. This story was started before the KAT-TUN announcement the weekend of July 17th. The goal here was to try and explain Jin's first hiatus from the group in 2006-07, so hopefully readers will be understanding. Please bear in mind that this story is not meant to serve as a commentary or judgment on the current situation. Our prompt was "one day you're in, the next you're out".
It wasn't really Kame's fault.
That was what Taguchi had said the other day, thinking he was being helpful or comforting or whatever the motivation had been. Jin didn't want to hear about it, about any of it really. It was already in his face every time he went to work. With Shounen Club and Utawara, it was hard to ignore. Turning on the TV or the radio, it was hard to ignore. He heard the song, heard Kame and then heard Pi and wondered if it could have been him. He heard the song and sometimes wished it didn't have Kame at all.
Still, it wasn't really Kame's fault. And deep down, Jin knew that. Opportunities came and the order came down and you just did it. That was work. If it wasn't trying to dance in some glittery red bolero jacket with feathers that Arashi had worn four years ago, it was something else. If it wasn't Kame on the single, it would have been someone else.
But what Jin thought deep down and what Jin actually did about it usually differed. It wasn't Kame's fault, but it didn't stop him from answering his friend in short, clipped responses. He sat in the back of the company van in the morning, keeping his bag on the seat beside him instead of at his feet. He went out at night with friends, went home with people he didn't necessarily know and if a mail made its way to his phone in that time, he had more important things to do than answer it.
Taguchi noticed, made his comments, and by the end of November, he'd arranged for KAT-TUN to go out as KAT-TUN for once. Kame didn't have shooting until the next afternoon, and when there were six hungry guys and a table full of food, it was easier to forget that Kame was a little more than the rest of them now. A little more, but with the way he kept his jacket on and tucked himself into the corner of the booth, a little less. Jin wasn't the only one watching, either. He could see the way Koki tried to dump extra food onto Kame's plate. Maru kept asking if they should order more. Kame just smiled and shook his head.
It wasn't normal, Jin realized, and since he'd been working his hardest to pretend Kame didn't exist and that Shuuji to Akira didn't matter, he hadn't noticed. But even in the low-lit booth of the yakiniku restaurant, Kame's features were sharper than usual. His eyes didn't have much of a spark in them. There was being exhausted, and then there was this. Jin didn't have a name for it. He wasn't a doctor or anything.
When it came time to go, he stalled. He paid his share and hit the bathroom, and despite him being an asshole the past few months, he found Kame waiting outside for him. “Got another one?” he asked, smelling Kame's cigarette smoke mingling with the night air as soon as he moved away from the entrance. It was finally starting to get chillier, and Kame had his jacket around him tightly.
“Yeah.”
In a few seconds he had one lit too, and they stood there by the street outside the restaurant. It was strange. Only a few months ago during the summer, they'd had no trouble finding the words to say. During the summer, there hadn't been Shuuji to Akira.
Much as he didn't want to admit it, Jin was worried. What was the point of keeping his distance all these weeks if it just took one dinner to let it all flood back? It was something Jin had never been able to put his finger on. Even when there was no debut single, Kame pissed him off. But at the same time, he needed him. Kame in his life made sense, and he hadn't bothered to think much more deeply about it than that.
“Tackey bought me some things when we were out the other week,” he said, remembering the bottles sitting at home.
He didn't even know why he was asking. Until he'd parked his ass in the booth at the restaurant, he hadn't really given a shit about much going on with Kame. The guy had always been on the thinner side, but this wasn't right, and he was starting to feel like he should have noticed sooner. He wondered if maybe his own behavior had contributed to whatever was so obviously wrong. Of course, he never knew how to ask that kind of thing.
Instead he just shrugged a bit and watched the cars drive by. “I know you've got stuff tomorrow.”
Kame put his cigarette out and nodded. “I've got time, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Kame shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and didn't look at him. He just stared at the pavement, and Jin wondered if a strong enough gust of wind could blow him away. “You know I've always got time if you want me to make time.”
It was Kame's way of saying he missed him, that he was sorry, that he had nothing to actually be sorry for, probably a hundred things in one. Jin wondered if Taguchi or one of the others had said something to Kame, or if the four of them were all talking behind their backs. It didn't much matter. Jin had offered, and Kame had accepted, even tonight. It usually went without a lot of talking from here, always had.
They took a cab, and the alcohol from Tackey remained where Jin had left it. He didn't bother to offer an apology. He'd just fuck up his words or pick a fight or Kame'd be the one to pick the fight, so instead it just came down to things that made sense. Pulling off Kame's jacket made sense once they were inside, and it seemed to make sense to Kame to reach forward, pulling on him and letting their lips meet after however the hell long it had been.
Kame didn't kiss like a girl, and Jin had kissed his share of girls. It was more competitive, and Jin liked that. He liked the way he could yank on Kame's hair or tug him around by the belt loops on his pants, the kind of thing you just couldn't do to a girl without getting slapped across the face. Kame's body felt different under his fingertips. There was less of him to touch, and Jin wanted to apologize. It wasn't the right time, and bringing it up would only upset him.
It was a strange form of reconciling. Jin and Pi had fought before, done the silent treatment, and one day they'd just started talking as though nothing had happened. Reconciling with Kame was a different story, but Jin always liked what it meant. It meant attention and sweat and fumbling under bedsheets that had become less awkward as the years went on and they discovered what the other needed.
What Jin needed that night was Kame, every part of him that he'd pushed away and ignored and been jealous of all these weeks. All the parts that were growing thin and weary with stress and pressure and being alone. Jin thought he'd been the lonely one.
Kame got up with the sun, body wired like a clock when he did a drama on top of regular work. “I'm getting picked up at home, so I should obviously be there.”
“Yeah,” he replied, still half-asleep.
“Jin?” He felt a poke. “Jin?”
“What?” he asked, burying his face in the pillow further.
“Are we fine now? I mean...” Kame let his voice trail off, and Jin didn't know what the answer was supposed to be. Neither of them had ever talked about what “fine” was between them. They were both easily persuaded by an act first, forget to ask questions later way of thinking. For Jin, turning on the radio wasn't going to make the single go away, and Kame's debuted status wasn't going to disappear either.
He just didn't need Kame to disappear, he realized. “We're fine,” he grumbled before Kame picked his jacket off of the floor and escorted himself out.
--
By January, there was still no word- not that Jin had expected anything different, and in the rare times when he was completely honest with himself, he obviously hadn't, but it was still a bit hard to swallow when he really thought about it. Shuuji to Akira was over; after watching Kame layer his costumes at the countdown costume to perform in both groups, it had taken quite awhile for the bitter sensation to completely leave the back of Jin's throat, and he was glad that Nobuta itself had wrapped up last month.
But the truth of the matter is that it was almost harder to take post New Year. Lack of direction meant no one had been scrambling to make good on whatever promises had been doled out, and Jin started January gearing up for yet another year of waiting. Waiting on things that wouldn't go through, waiting on his bow that might never happen. It wasn't a particularly upbeat start- which was probably why Shirota Yu was commenting about seeing so much more of Jin all of a sudden.
Not that Yu was complaining, really. "It's just that we've been out every night this week," the man said, even as he shrugged off his jacket and ran a hand through his hair to dislodge the tiny snowflakes that had gathered there on their walk between clubs. "Isn't it time to go home?"
Home meant thinking about all the things that he could run from when chasing whiskey shots. Jin didn't want to go home. "Naw. One more, okay?"
"It's always one more," Yu sighed, but he sat down anyway. Jin could always count on him for that, at least- could always count on the man sticking with him when he couldn't quite find the words to explain why he really needed that last beer. It was hard to verbalize because the agency is going to keep us as juniors forever when the debut end game had seemed so tantalizingly close before; Yu didn't ask for an explanation, and Jin didn't feel much like offering one.
He thought about going home with one of the girls they met, one of the girls who wore too much eye makeup and long decal on her fingernails. It would be easy to do. Her palm had been sliding across the inseam of his jeans for the better part of an hour, achingly teasing contact that hit his veins harder than the alcohol did.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he nearly knocked over a drink fishing in his pockets for it. Come take care of Kamenashi, it said, from Yamapi's mobile. Jin didn't ask why Kame was even out with Pi- he didn't ask because he was afraid that the answer would be something about permanency, about Shuuji to Akira staying in the agency line-up. He didn't ask because he didn't think he could handle the answer- it was best to leave it hanging.
"Akanishi?" the girl asked. There was a dusting of glitter on her fake eyelashes, and they shimmered in the low light when she blinked. "Are you coming with us?"
It would be easy to slip his phone back in his pocket and claim he got the email too late. But Jin had never been one for taking the easy road out- not when it really mattered, anyway.
"Sorry," he mumbled, and rose to exit the booth without knocking his thighs into the side of the table. "Got somewhere I have to be."
He shot off a quick reply asking for a location, which didn't end up being too far. By the time he got there, Yamapi was looking somewhat sour and practically pushed Kame into Jin so he could duck out of the restaurant. "Seriously, take him home," Pi sighed.
Kame was laughing, and Jin could feel every movement echoed in the tips of his fingers pressed against the bones in Kame's spine.
"Drink too much," he told him, even as the last shot lingered on his tongue from earlier.
Kame didn't protest when Jin got him into the cab, didn't say much on the way home. He just sort of stared out the window at the lights passing by the glass. He might have been close to passing out, but Jin didn't really think so- Kame got sick before falling asleep most of the time, and he didn't seem close to the threshold yet.
It seemed like a long ride to Kame's place, silence filled with all the things Jin thought maybe he should have been saying aloud.
"Don't have to stay," Kame said as they exited the cab and Jin threw a bundle of bills at the driver. He was drunk, but not drunk enough to add the extra bit Jin could hear in his mind- never have to stay.
"Shut up," Jin told him, and led him inside.
He made Kame drink some water because he'd be useless the next day otherwise, and Jin didn't want to be responsible for that, even indirectly. Not when there was so much riding on them, on all of them. It took awhile to coerce Kame to get in bed and sleep it off, and when Jin made to leave, Kame's fingers wrapped themselves firmly around Jin's and wouldn't let him go.
"Wait," the other man murmured, half-muffled by his face pressed against his pillow linen. "Don't go."
"I have an early morning," Jin said, even though it was a lie.
The fingers curled around his hand tightened. "Jin."
Kame tasted like sake when Jin found his mouth. Like sake and regret and everything Jin had been swallowing down for months. The mattress creaked when Jin settled his weight down on either side of Kame's waist, coaxing the man's lips open and running his hands through the tangles of hair Kame hadn't bothered to brush out before laying down.
"We're going to debut," Kame sighed against Jin's cheek, when Jin's teeth found the sensitive skin of his neck. Kame's limbs wrapped themselves around Jin's form, and he kept repeating the phrase, over and over, until Jin was sure the only person he was trying to convince was himself.
It didn't make it any easier to hear, so Jin kissed him instead, just to stem the repetition. They were on the same destructive path, just at different stages of the way down. When Jin buried himself in the warmth willingly offered beneath him, he couldn't tell which of them was copping out the most, and he wasn't sure it really mattered anymore.
--
The debut news had come as a shock. At first, Jin hadn't even believed it. Maybe it was some kind of prank the management was playing on them, just to see if they were awake that day. But here they were with a concert at the Tokyo Dome under their belts, a debut single and an album, and it had all happened so fast.
The “good work” and “congratulations” mails came in from his seniors and juniors alike, and Jin was learning what being busy actually meant. Sure, they'd done a lot as juniors but there'd never been this much press in such a short amount of time. He was walking down the street and seeing his face plastered everywhere now, whether it was a poster for their album or a newspaper with another debut conference picture on it. His mother had a folder full of clippings to “save for the future” even though Jin had been in magazines and things for years. But this was different, she had insisted, going at the paper with her scissors again.
PV filming had just wrapped earlier that day, and the group dinner was a far cry from the one in the fall. For one, the company was covering the cost of this one - of course, that meant management types were scattered around the table stuffing their faces just as much as they were. It wasn't every day that a new group debuted.
He looked down and around the long table the company had reserved for the celebration of sorts, and Jin saw so many different expressions. It seemed like the other members were just as shell-shocked as he was, seeing the hushed conversation and quiet laughs coming from Koki and Junno's end of the table. Their manager was speaking enthusiastically about sale expectations and promotions to Ueda, who mostly just sipped his water and nodded.
Were they happy? Yeah, Jin decided. Yeah, they were damn happy. They'd worked their asses off for years, watching friends get to the next level ahead of them. It just felt like something they had earned, all six of them together. But he was starting to understand how the mere word “debut” could affect someone. The stakes were higher, the expectations were higher, and Jin wasn't so sure he liked that part of it. They were being molded more and more into a marketable product. Well, that was how Maru had talked about it, trying to sound smart and all that. But he supposed it was true.
It would be harder to get away with things. There'd be far less forgiveness for rule breaking. And every time Jin reminded himself of the company leash tightening, he couldn't help glancing across the table to where Kame was sitting and eating quietly. Debut meant something more than a dance number on Shounen Club. Everything was going to be scrutinized now.
This time when he met Kame's eyes, there was something different in them. As if he'd taken a break from trying to be the perfect idol the surrounding agency types expected in favor of just being himself. It was a look Kame tended to save for times when they were alone, nights when it just made sense to be together without stressing about what it meant.
It was like all the blood went straight south at that look. They were all wired, even with the long shoot for the PV earlier in the day. Kame shouldn't be so careless, and Jin shouldn't be letting Kame's carelessness get to him. But professionalism and good behavior weren't exactly aspirations of his anyhow. Kame took a sip from his water glass, lips on the rim and fingers smearing the edges. His eyes were across the table, meeting Jin's own with an intent definitely not appropriate for a restaurant with the other members and for damn sure not with management types.
He excused himself awkwardly, nearly knocking the chair back as he got up and headed for the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, trying to clear his mind. Or maybe not clear it completely - just clear it of the look and the implication in Kame's eyes. Jin wasn't a complete idiot. He wanted the same thing, the same sort of celebratory “we finally debuted together” moment they hadn't been able to share on account of being ridiculously busy for days. There'd been no time to themselves.
He sighed, staring at himself in the mirror. Maybe he'd just send Kame a mail, imply that they should meet after dinner. He even had the mail halfway composed when the bathroom door opened, and Kame found him.
“Was beginning to think you'd ducked out the kitchen exit,” Kame said, leaning back against the door he'd just come through.
He stayed at the sink, holding the porcelain just to have something to keep him from moving. Jin watched Kame through the mirror, seeing his features somewhat reversed but just as wicked as he had looked at the table. “Someone's gonna come through that door, and they'll hit you in the head with it.”
Kame was looking rather proud of himself, but it wasn't something Jin hadn't grown accustomed to all these years. “Are you hiding from me? In a bathroom?”
“Hiding? I had to take a piss.”
“Okay,” Kame said, crossing his arms. “And the staring into the mirror thing? That's how you follow up on a bathroom break?”
He finally turned and stared right back. “You're doing this now?”
“Doing what?”
Frustrating asshole. He waved his arms helplessly. “This...the eyes and the way you're smiling at me like I'm some...some...object.”
And now he felt like an idiot. Or girly. He wasn't completely sure, but he kind of wanted to keep some space between himself and his band mate before they did something very ill advised. Jin was all for ill advised, but they had been filming their debut PV that very day, and even he had his limits. Their manager was probably drinking some good quality sake paid for by the company through the door and just down the hall.
“But we should celebrate. I'd like to,” Kame said, taking a very dangerous step forward, “if you're interested.”
“You just want to get laid,” Jin pointed out.
“That's usually all it takes for you,” Kame snapped back. Another step forward until the tips of his sneakers were almost brushing against the toes of Jin's boots.
Jin's entire body was buzzing. "We can't do this here," he said, but it came out softer than he'd anticipated, and with a lot less force. He wasn't even sure that he meant it; it certainly didn't feel like he did.
"Can't we?" Kame asked. The tips of his fingers were pressing up against Jin's sides, just above where his jeans hung snug against his hips. Tiny pinpricks of electricity was all it took, and Jin forgot all the reasons they couldn't. Shouldn't.
Kame's eyes fluttered half-closed as he leaned in, as Jin moved forward.
The bathroom door opened.
Whatever time had been stalling sped back up, quicker than it should be and hissing against Jin's ears. Kame didn't even get a step back before Jin's eyes found the figure that had just walked through- a junior associate, some nerdy-looking guy with too much oil in his hair and a tie that he'd probably bought at a hundred yen shop. And Jin panicked when the adrenaline hit the back of his throat in a coppery, bitter tang. He did the first thing he could think of to do.
He lied. "Had something in my teeth." It didn't even sound convincing to his own ears when he stammered, and he wanted to kick himself afterwards. The associate just looked at him, and then at Kame, who was staring at his feet, flushed so red the tips of his ears were darkening.
"Oh," the man said. His hand was still on the door. Probably just came to take a leak. "Is it out?"
Jin couldn't breathe. "Yes," he whispered, and it was all the louder he could even force the air out of his lungs. It felt like someone had kicked him in the chest.
Kame scampered away and brushed past the associate at the door so fast he knocked their shoulders together on his way out. Jin stayed where he was because there didn't seem to be a single force inside him that could get his muscles to move.
The man let the door swing shut when he walked in and put his hands under the sink. Jin's watch clanked noisily against the porcelain side.
"Kinda hot out there, right?" he asked, coupled with shaky, nervous laughter. It was awful. There was no way he was fooling anybody and he knew it, even as the words kept falling out past his lips of their own accord. The associate didn't look up- just slowly turned the faucet off. He didn't even look up.
"Seems to be," was the response. And then the other man left again, without looking at Jin, without another word- without doing whatever it had been he'd come into the bathroom for, anyway, unless he'd just wanted to rinse his hands off.
Jin stayed where he was, heart thundering against his ribcage, so loud he swore he could hear it over the din past the door.
He wasn't even surprised when, before he even crawled into bed that night in an anxious heap, his mobile buzzed with a new email from his manager.
Meeting tomorrow. 8 AM.
--
Yamamoto's office wasn't decorated with much. Everything in it was standard issue aside from the chair she had at the desk. There were a few filing cabinets and a small stack of papers on her desk, but she was too meticulous to let anything pile up. The open space on the surface was more startling than any mess would have been, and Jin didn't like it. It wasn't meant to make anyone comfortable, and it certainly was having the opposite effect on him.
She hadn't looked at or spoken to either of them for five minutes. She just kept writing something on the paper in front of her, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose a bit, and Jin just stared at the corner of the desk nearest to him. It looked like it would hurt of someone ran into it, like it would bruise.
In the chair beside him, Kame was silent. He was hunched over, shoulders bowed, like he could make himself disappear by folding himself up into tiny squares.
The wait was worse than anything else could have been. Jin's muscles were wound so tight they hurt.
Finally, Yamamoto put her pen down. She pulled her glasses off and stared down at them, frowning a bit. "You know why you were called here," she said, and it wasn't a question.
"Yes," Jin mumbled. Kame might have answered as well, but Jin couldn't hear- the shrieking in his ears was too loud.
"This isn't unheard of," she continued, setting her glasses down on the paper and folding her hands in her lap. Jin didn't know how she could look so calm when it felt like his entire world was falling apart around him, scattering at his feet in tiny shards. "We know that this sort of thing happens. But it ends now."
All of the air left Jin's lungs, so quickly it ached.
"You are a debuted group. This isn't a game. What you do now not only reflects on you as a group and as artists, but also on us as an agency. You will be watched with a much higher level of scrutiny and held to higher standards. The stakes are higher now, and this ends. Do you understand?"
"Yes." Jin's mouth was dry; it was hard to swallow at all.
Yamamoto's eyes were hard. "Don't make us regret allowing KAT-TUN to debut."
There were so many things Jin wanted to say, so many things he wanted to start with. An apology, maybe, but for what- well, he didn't know. They'd just been given what they'd worked so hard for, and here it was, already being threatened. Their career was on the line. From the corner of his vision, Jin could see Kame's knees shaking, knocking against the metal armrests of the chair.
"You understand that even now, you work for us," she said. "You work for us, you reflect on us, and we make the decisions."
"Yes," both Kame and Jin murmured, and when it appeared she was looking for more, Jin tried to clear his throat enough to add, "We understand."
She eyed them both, and Jin couldn't place the expression on her face. Disappointment, maybe. Annoyance.
"Listen," she said, and picked up her glasses again. She looked less severe with them on, less angular. "I'm going to arrange some public events with the two of you, get you out there. Let the press take some pictures and start some rumors." When Jin opened his mouth, she held up a single finger, and it was enough to make him bite his tongue again. "Separately. Let the press publish rumors of the actresses you are seeing, the models you are hanging out with."
Was this was debuting was like, then? The agency planned Jin's outings, his social life, so that everything could be used to the company's advantage? It didn't feel much like success- it felt empty. Meaningless. Like he was just the face for his own life, parading around as someone he wasn't.
Kame was shaking more, and he had a hand over his eyes so Jin couldn't see. He didn't really want to see.
"We will work out the specifics and give them to you at a later date," Yamamoto said, and by 'we', Jin knew that it didn't include him. It was his life, his image, his career, and he wasn't involved in the planning process.
There was a moment of silence, where Jin could hear Yamamoto's pen scratching against the paper, and then she looked up. "You're dismissed."
Kame didn't look at him at all, even after they closed the office door after them. Jin felt like every pair of eyes in the room were on him, even though no one was even looking up. He felt oddly exposed. And humiliated.
"I'll see you at filming," Kame mumbled, hands shoved in his pockets.
"Yeah," Jin just answered. He couldn't get anything else out. "Yeah."
He watched Kame's retreating form until the other man disappeared around the corner.
--
Spring came, and then rain fell to announce the official start of summer with its unrelenting heat. With each passing day, Jin was starting to realize that he was nothing more than a cog in a machine. And for some people, it must become second nature. It just wasn't something he could really talk to Pi about without sounding like a whiny jackass. With the amount of work they had, knowing that someone else was taking care of the details - transportation, meals, scheduling - was helpful.
But at the same time, as the humidity grew more intense and he found himself at another club at 1:30 AM with a girl he only kind of sort of knew, he was starting to wonder where things had gone so horribly wrong. His mind rewound to that awkward morning in Yamamoto's office, to the way she'd mentioned that what had been going on with him and Kame was nothing new. So why did he feel like they were being punished more than anyone else had been before?
The girl beside him was already pretty drunk, and he was too, and if he had enough control of his faculties when they left, he'd probably have the cab driver take them to a love hotel. The act wasn't really a hardship for him, but knowing that the whole thing had been set up, laid in his lap, just expected to run its natural course was what made him wake up in the morning and feel guilty. It was seeing that empty bed for the tenth or twentieth time and knowing that it was a sanctioned scandal. If he got caught and photographed, the agency would make like it hadn't happened, brush it aside even though they had been the one to introduce him to so-and-so model from so-and-so agency.
So long as it wasn't drugs, they were turning a blind eye. So long as it wasn't Kame.
Even without the private moments between them, he and Kame had always been together. He'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't miss him. They saw each other for work, but the guy was a mystery to him now. Kame had always been good at clamming up when there'd been issues in the past, but they'd eventually found each other again.
It was the agency's fault in a way, always pairing them up. If it was so damn inevitable that their lives got complicated and intertwined after so many years, then why was it such a bad thing?
"Are you taking me home?" the girl asked him, painted fingernails scratching against the rough texture of his jeans. "I don't know what kind of girl you take me for..."
"Relax," he told her. They'd be filming for 24 Hour TV segments before too long, getting things prepared to air come August. The coming weeks were going to be brutal. "I'll just get you a cab."
But even as he came out of the club with her, he imagined that someone from Friday or Josei Seven was lurking with a camera as he helped her into a taxi. "Leaving separately," the story would probably say, "but we all know what Akanishi's up to again." It sold issues either way.
When he got home, he went straight to bed. That sure wouldn't sell tabloids.
--
Another meeting for 24 Hour TV under their belts, and Jin still wasn't looking forward to being up that long and working the whole time. Well, most of the time. Matsumoto had teased him before an Utawara taping, expecting him to fall asleep on air or say something embarrassing once exhaustion really set in. As soon as Jin pointed out that Matsumoto had cried on air when Arashi hosted, the guy left him alone about it.
But it was still something to worry about. He didn't talk that much on TV, but who knew what kind of stuff would come out of his mouth while trying to fill time for that long? He supposed that Maru would do most of the awkward silence filler stuff, and if not him, then Kame would. 24 Hour TV was just one more expectation on their shoulders for the year.
He was walking to the elevator banks and of course, Kame was the only there waiting now that the others had left. Jin just turned up the sound on his mp3 player, hoping to concentrate on the music and not on Kame standing beside him. They talked as they had to for work, but Kame ignored him the rest of the time. And Jin supposed he was ignoring Kame too. The elevator doors opened, and they entered.
Kame leaned back against the wall, and Jin fiddled with his playlist. He was trying to find a nice, loud song to blast his eardrums with, but he hadn't been alone with Kame in so long. He pulled out one of the earbuds and muttered a "nice work today" comment, something so generic that Kame actually snorted at him.
"What?" he asked, pausing the player. "I can't even talk to you?"
He didn't expect Kame to grab him by the collar of his t-shirt, fingers scraping hastily against his neck. Kame's mouth was hot and insistent, and since they only had a few more floors to go, it was over before the doors even opened again. He stood there in the elevator after it dinged open, holding the mp3 player in his hand as Kame departed.
His brain finally caught up with him, and he chased Kame out into the hall. "Wait!"
But Kame was Kame, and he kept walking towards the rear exit to sneak out into the night and away from him. Jin followed, knowing with each passing second that no company demand would be enough to stop him. "Wait, damn it!" he called after him, watching Kame's retreating back. "You don't just get to do that!"
Kame finally halted before turning the corner just before the exit. He looked mortified. "Look, I need to be somewhere."
It wasn't fair. They couldn't just ignore each other for weeks and then pull this teasing kind of shit. "Yeah, I bet you do," he said, and his words were flying out in a way he hoped to avoid come 24 Hour TV. "They set you up with someone for tonight?"
"You don't have to go," Kame told him, looking angry or jealous or something Jin couldn't quite pinpoint. "They set them up, but you don't have to go to every damn thing they tell you to."
He ignored that. It was just dodging the question. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "You're being stupid."
"Yeah, it was stupid," Kame shot back, and Jin could still taste him on his lips. "But what's even more stupid is us having this conversation here."
"Where else am I supposed to talk to you?"
"We don't get to talk. If you gave a shit about KAT-TUN at all, you'd know that."
Kame was questioning his commitment to the group? After he'd been the one to jump on him in the elevator? He shoved Kame hard, nearly knocking him over. "The fuck is your problem?"
And because any time they'd fought when they were younger tended to go the same way, Kame shoved back. "My problem? I give everything I have to this job!"
He got Kame's shirt in his fist, pulling him so they were close. "And I don't?"
"You have to let me go," Kame said. "Right now."
"Why? So you can keep playing their game? Like a good little boy?"
"Jin. Let me go."
He didn't know if he wanted to punch Kame's lights out or make what happened in the elevator look like nothing.
"Let. Go," Kame repeated.
"Something wrong, gentlemen?"
They both turned to see a building security guard standing before them, walkie talkie at the ready to call more of his uniformed friends over. There wasn't going to be a chance for resolution, was there? Kame was going to get to walk away, thinking himself the better person because he hadn't been the one to shout or start the fight. He'd just pulled shit behind closed doors.
He shoved Kame back roughly, storming past the guard without another word.
--
By the time he got to work in the morning, his manager informed him of another meeting in Yamamoto's office. Maybe it would have been easier to just hit the stop button in the elevator.
This time, Kame hadn't been invited, but his manager had. A video tape rested in the middle of the woman's desk.
"Surely you're aware of the cameras in the NTV building," Yamamoto informed him, and Jin's blood ran cold. In the building didn't necessarily mean the elevator did it?
He said nothing, hearing the rustling of papers beside him as his manager pulled them from a briefcase. Yamamoto's face wasn't even angry this time. Not even disappointed.
"Akanishi, we've drawn up some options for you. I trust that the discussion we have today will stay in the room."
He didn't know how to respond. Instead, he nodded. Just as he always had and always would.
He'd accused Kame of playing their game like a good little boy. Maybe he should have accused himself.
--
There were so many other things he'd wanted to put in that letter- all the things he couldn't figure out how to say out loud, all the things that got stuck against his tongue when he tried to form the words. There were just too many things he couldn't say out loud that needed to be said; that was the truth of it, it seemed, the situation summed up in a brief summary. There was just too much there, and he couldn't say any of it.
It wasn't that he didn't try. He did. He penned the bits he knew he could read out loud, the bits that would make fans woozy and fuzzy, the bits his manager would love. And when the others found him backstage and Taguchi gave him a bear-hug and there were pats on his shoulders, it just made him feel that much worse.
Because there was more he had to say, and he couldn't even say all of it.
"I'm going abroad," he said, and a second later he thought maybe he should have given it some lead-up. He should have, but what would he say? Yamamoto's face was swirling in front of his vision, options heavy like lead in the pit of his stomach. "I'm- going to be leaving."
"What do you mean?" Taguchi said. He pulled away and held Jin at arm's length, confusion blossoming all over his features.
"For good?" Ueda asked. And that was the heart of the matter, the real center of it- Jin wished he had an answer for him.
The only answer he had was standing a few feet away, staring at the toes of his sneakers, refusing to meet Jin's gaze. "I don't know," Jin answered honestly. "No, I mean- not for good. Just for ... awhile."
Saying it out loud didn't make it any easier. Especially when they questioned him and all he could tell them was that he wanted to learn languages, to travel while he was young- he was an actor, wasn't he? Maybe not the best one, maybe not even a good one, but he did it.
Maybe he did it too well. Kame didn't even look at him again, not even when they were leaving and getting ready to go home and finally crash after the long, never-ending 24 Hour TV filming. Jin stopped him by the door, sticking a foot in front of the opening. Kame either had to walk over it and risk touching him or stay where he was.
He chose freezing.
"Don't you have anything to add?" Jin asked. There was so much betrayal and bitterness in his chest he thought it was all going to bubble up and boil over, all over the place. He was doing this for Kame- and he couldn't even say that. Couldn't even explain that. There was an invisible hand on his shoulder, fingers tightening around the joint. Yamamoto's words were in his head, clearer than anything else.
You can take Kamenashi down with you, or you can do as we tell you to do and save both your careers.
"Have fun," Kame just said, and stepped over Jin's ankle without looking back.
--
He thought maybe two months would make a difference- that maybe it wouldn't hurt so much or sting so much when he finally boarded the plane with his duffel bags and his iPod and a hat thrown over his hair. That maybe something would have changed and things would feel do-able, that he'd be able to breathe.
Two months changed nothing. He sat by the window of the plane and stared out at the strip beneath them and wondered if heartbreak in America tasted any less awful.
--
There was something thrilling about New York. Just being there buzzed in Jin's veins, and he didn't think it was all because of the skyscrapers and the atmosphere. New York City was sprawling around him and shooting up towards the sky with lights that twinkled bright in the darkness, but the real challenge had been meeting the other members again after so long apart. Jin hadn't been able to eat all day prior to it- not that he'd had much money to splurge on food anyway.
And the first ten minutes had been awful. Worse than awful, worse than when he'd left, worse than the feeling he woken up to in his gut the first week of being in Los Angeles. Taguchi couldn't muster a smile and Koki had yelled the whole time, and Kame wouldn't even look at him. Jin had wanted to head straight back to California and call the whole thing off; KAT-TUN, his career, the weekend, all of it.
Then it had been okay. They'd laughed and made fun of Maru's stupid shirt and ordered some ridiculously overpriced appetizers from the bar, and it had been okay. Things shifted back to where they were supposed to be. The world righted its axis once more.
At least, that was what Jin told himself as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, hands gripping the side of the sink so tight his knuckles were turning white. It was too quiet in the hotel room, and it made his skin crawl. Not sleeping had given him dark bags under his eyes that stretched across like smeared make-up. When was the last time he'd even thought to run a brush through his hair?
The knock on the door nearly sent him flying in surprise.
He had about a half second to recognize who it was when he opened the door before the figure came barreling into him, into the dim lights of the room. And then his senses were full of Kame's cologne, Kame's hair, Kame's mouth finding his just as it always had when the door slammed closed behind him. Jin's back hit the wall, hip making sharp contact with the corner.
For a moment, that was it. Kame's mouth was hot and insistent, needy and seeking and-
-no.
Jin pushed Kame back as hard as he could, against the opposite wall.
"What are you doing?" he gasped, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. Like it would help, like it would erase it all. "We can't do this."
"What are you talking about?" Kame asked. His palms were pressed flat against the wall, but his fingers were starting to curl in. He was like a feral cat, hunched and ready to pounce.
Four months were flashing before Jin's eyes. Four months of living off ramen cups, of taking classes, of wondering what the others were doing in his absence. "We can't do this," he repeated, and it was almost as much for himself as it was for Kame.
"I- I thought," Kame started.
"This is over," Jin said. Everything felt so very hollow. "I left to end this. It has to be over."
Kame just stared at him with wide eyes. "You left to...?"
"It's over," Jin said.
He could see Kame's face breaking apart. He could see it and he wanted to reach out and put it back together, but he couldn't- he couldn't say that he'd left to save them both. That he'd left to save KAT-TUN, to keep them under the scandal radar. He'd left to save himself because he couldn't stop feeling like he needed Kame there.
"You don't care about us at all," Kame seethed. "About us, about KAT-TUN, you don't give a shit. You just care about yourself and what you want. Isn't this what all of this has always been about?"
No. "Yes," Jin breathed.
And Kame was moving, pissed, fueled by what had to be five months of bottled rage he'd swallowed down every morning when there were only five bodies present for filming. "You're so fucking selfish, Akanishi. I thought I knew you, I thought I- but you're so fucking selfish, aren't you?"
Jin started laughing. Of all the things he'd done in his life, leaving had been one of the least selfish, hadn't it? And here he was, having this conversation in a dark hotel room on the far side of the globe with the one person he'd wanted to see every day since he'd left. He laughed, and the sound caught in his throat, and he just kept laughing because he couldn't do anything else.
Kame's fist hit him in the nose. It was a good punch, too- Kame'd always been good at that, after throwing so many fastballs.
"You don't care about any of us, or what it's been like!" Kame ranted, even as Jin slid down the wall with a hand pressed against his face. There was wetness against his fingers- blood. Kame had busted his nose pretty good. And even as his eyes prickled automatically with hot tears from the burgeoning pain, he laughed- if he stopped, he'd tell Kame everything.
He couldn't tell Kame everything. He couldn't tell Kame anything.
"Then why don't you just go back to them," Jin spat, blood dripping down his fingers. "Why don't you go and just leave me alone?"
He'd always been good at pushing people away, hadn't he?
Kame gave him one last glare, and Jin looked away. And then Kame was gone, out the door in a whirl that took absolutely everything with him.
Jin stayed where he was for a very long time.
When he finally dragged his screaming body up and into the bathroom once more, the mirror had a much different image to show him. There was blood smeared across his face, splatters of it on the front of his shirt. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Kame wouldn't be back.
Jin let his fingers trail across the drying blood on his shirt. Everything was a mess, and his face was just the tip of the iceberg. He pushed himself away from the sink and stumbled into the shower, turning it on and not even caring that the water coming out was completely frigid. He just collapsed in the corner and let the water pelt him, let it wash the blood from his skin and soak through his clothes.
The night trickled by like a death sentence, like an execution just waiting to be carried out.
--
Jin called his manager the next morning, and asked to be transferred through to Yamamoto's office line. It was late, but she'd be there- she was always there.
"This is Yamamoto," she said crisply, when she picked up.
"It's Akanishi," Jin replied. "I want to come back."
Silence, and then, "And what makes you think that you are ready?"
There were bruises on Jin's noise, around his eyes, bruises that not even make-up could completely hide. "I'm ready. I know what I have to do."
"And Kamenashi?" she asked.
"It's over," Jin said. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the world away. "I took care of it. You- don't have to worry about that anymore."
Jin could hear the rustling of papers on the other end.
"Alright," Yamamoto told him. "You know what's on the line here. I'll get things started. When I feel like things are ready, I'll contact you."
"How long?" Jin asked.
"A couple of months."
The line went dead. Jin let his phone fall away from his ear and bit his fingernail down to the quick until it bled, staring at the opposite wall and the paisley floral wallpaper covering it. He could go home again, but only after giving up everything. And he thought maybe that was the way it worked, anyway- he didn't get the luxury of privacy. He didn't get the luxury of living out his own desires.
Fame was a fickle mistress. But he'd take it. Because he always had. And he'd always known what his choice was going to be, even if he had to lose himself in the process.
After all, one day you're out, and the next, you're back in.