Chocolate Fic for saengie
To: saengie
From: koneho
Title: This Could Be Your Love Song
Pairing: Akanishi Jin & YUI (singer)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They meet because he becomes her fan. But the funny thing is, he's the rockstar and she's the no-name street musician.
A/N: When I saw this pairing listed on my recipient's list of what they'd like to receive, I had to write it; Jin and YUI are two of my favorite singers. I hope that she enjoys reading this, because I definitely enjoyed writing it. Thanks so much to the mods for their patience, and to YUI&Jin for their music-it was great inspiration. The song YUI sings near the end is my own dubious translation of “NAMIDAIRO/The Colour of Tears.”
There are a few “inside jokes” in the fic that fans of both YUI and Jin will hopefully understand. They're not terribly relevant to the main story, but I hope you spot them.
Thanks to G&H for helping me flesh this thing out without realizing it. And lastly, thanks, J, for the beta.
He's got good looks and a nice style and money and fame, and it's landed him in the dimly-lit VIP room of some swanky nightclub in Shibuya, surrounded by girls whose natural hair colours are lost with their childhood. He's dressed in designer jeans and thousand-dollar shoes, and women cling to him like bees to honey. They stare at him like he's the most fascinating thing in the world, and laugh at everything he says, even if he's not making jokes.
Jin knows that none of these girls really care about what he thinks, and they care about what he can do, and who he is, and what he's worth. He's a big-name celebrity around Japan, the singer of a rock band whose album is at the top of the charts. Beyond that, what is there to know? Certainly not his other dreams and aspirations and his opinions.
He's surrounded by people he can't call friends, and as the music gets louder and he drinks more beer, Jin vaguely wonders when he's supposed to be enjoying being a star.
*
Ninomiya's bar isn't crowded or smokey or loud; it's small and quiet and intimate. Jin likes it when he wants to be out by himself, sitting at a table listening to Mika sing her songs. Mika is a siren, brilliant and seductive, with her long hair and mischievous eyes. Jin loves to listen to her voice, husky and low and humming through his veins like alcohol, but better.
Sometimes, it isn't Mika who sings, but others. People Ninomiya's hired for a song or two, looking to be discovered maybe, or just be heard by someone other than themselves. Jin thinks the bar is a treasure trove of talent; Nino only showcases the ones he likes.
This night, it's a single stool and a microphone stand.
Jin orders something light, something easy-a rum and Coke-and lights up a cigarette.
A woman-a girl-climbs up onstage, wearing sensible walking shoes and jeans, and her guitar seems to dwarf her, she looks so soft and frail.
She strums her guitar once, twice, and whispers her name; it sounds like a secret that only a few are privy to know. “My name is Yui,” she tells the bar, “and I wrote this song.”
*
“Where else do you sing?” he asks, nursing a shot of tequila as she drinks a soda at the bar.
“Here,” she replies. “And some other places.”
“What other places?” he asks; he somehow really wants to know, wonders if maybe he could come see her again.
She turns to him, sipping soda through a straw as she smiles. “Everywhere,” she tells him simply. “You can find me anywhere.”
*
“That girl you hired the last time I was here,” Jin begins, and Nino's grin goes wicked. Jin hates the way Nino looks so goddamned knowing, like he's been expecting Jin to do this-it's one of the reasons he didn't want to ask Nino for help in the first place.
“Which one?” Nino retorts, wiping some glasses before taking someone's order of whiskey on the rocks.
“With the guitar,” Jin replies, knowing that he'd never hear the end of it, whether he stopped talking now or not. Might as well get the information he wanted out of it before Nino gets started with the teasing. “The Fender elcoustic. You know the one I'm talking about-she drank Pepsi.”
Nino laughs, a devious, delighted sound. “You remember what she drank at my bar during your first meeting a week ago?” he clarifies, and his grin only gets wider. Jin decides at this moment that he really kind of hates Nino sometimes.
“Yes,” Jin grits out, and Nino relents with a nod. “I was just wondering...about her name...or where you found her...”
*
She's cute, as girls go-not unattractive, but not show-stopping either. Yui is adorable at the very least, and sweet at the most.
She writes her own music and sings her own songs, and she sounds kind of like an angel playing guitar, if angels played music outside train stations and in parks and playgrounds at odd times of the night. But she's not what the talent scouts are looking for, not by a long-shot; what matters in entertainment now isn't music and lyrics and soul, but long legs and wide eyes and a body other girls would die for. Yui doesn't have any of that.
So she strums her guitar and she sings her songs from station to station, as the talent scouts run past her to chase down some stylishly-dressed girl with long legs and the perfect hair.
“Hey! How would you like to be a star?”
*
They meet again, purely by chance, when Jin's on his way home from a party he helped set up for one of his friends. She's sitting on the sidewalk with her guitar, hair in her face and looking perfectly unobtrusive. If he hadn't been looking for her since the last time they spoke, he would've probably walked past her without a second thought.
She sings, and it sounds happy and beautiful and free, kind of like how Jin used to sing before his voice got strained and chained down by contracts and appearances and interviews and the tabloids. She sings like how Jin wants to keep singing-all by herself, without anyone telling her what songs to sing and how she should sing it.
She stops playing when he approaches, looks up at him like she's not sure who he is.
He pauses, uncertain of what to say, and recognition lights up in her eyes.
“I told you,” she speaks up with a shy little smile, before he even opens his mouth. “I told you you can find me singing anywhere.”
*
He searches for her at night. Sometimes he finds her, but a lot of times he doesn't. He wonders if he's acting like a stalker, but she doesn't seem to mind him following her everywhere.
“How many Yuis do you know?” she asks, as he settles down beside her under the shadows of a tree in the park. She seems genuinely curious, but without the spite or jealousy. Just curious. Yui's emotions and thoughts, Jin has come to realize after several of their meetings, aren't simple, but straightforward. Her voice is gentle but firm, and her personality quiet but determined.
“I don't know,” he admits truthfully, and pulls out his phone. “Let me see.”
He starts counting them, one by one, and next to him, Yui shifts, strums her guitar. She plays melodies as he scrolls, finds the fifth Yui in his address book and keeps going. “Nine,” he says, his voice quiet. “Ten including you.”
She hums thoughtfully, bows her head over her music. Jin looks at her, wary.
“My guitar,” she finally says, sounding troubled, “isn't tuned correctly.”
Somehow, he feels relieved. “Here,” he offers, sliding his phone into his pocket before holding out his hands. “I'll tune it for you.”
*
“I haven't seen your face in the tabloids for weeks,” Pi announces, and his voice is a mixture of relief and wariness. “What's the deal, Jin?”
“Oh. Uh.” Jin blinks at his best friend and publicist, shrugging. “Guess I've lost their interest. Do you want your eggs scrambled or what?”
“Whatever you know how to cook.” Jin nods and returns his attention to his stove. Pi leafs through Josei Seven briefly before setting it down, and Jin arrives with a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. “All that bacon is going to kill you.”
“But it's good.” Jin stares at Pi like he's stupid. “So might as well die happy.”
They share the plate; they've known each other since they were teenagers, kept in touch despite Pi's going away to college and Jin's journey to stardom. Jin's other excuse is that it's too much work washing two separate plates, and besides, “our food fits on one big one, anyway.” Pi heaps eggs on toast while Jin munches on bacon, and it doesn't take long before Pi's curiosity gets the best of him.
“So you gonna tell me or what?”
Jin pauses, strip of bacon halfway to his mouth. His expression is guarded. Pi understands that look; it means Jin's doing something his agency won't like. He wonders if that means he'll have to keep Jin's secrets-not that he doesn't mind, because that's what best friends do.
“Her name's Yui.” And it comes out in a rush, words falling all over themselves on their way out of Jin's mouth. “She's a street musician, and she's brilliant. Her songs are-gorgeous, I don't even know, Pi. They're all hers, from the lyrics to the melodies to the arrangements. Sometimes I find her playing somewhere-and we talk. She plays at train stations a lot. And parks. She's good. You should see her guitars, she takes such good care of them, she loves them. That's all. I go in disguise, I guess nobody's noticed us, even though they should. Her voice is clear and strong and beautiful, and-”
“Jin,” Pi interrupts, looking mildly aghast, “you're fanboying a street musician.”
Jin stops short and draws back, bacon in hand and looking ridiculous in an oil-spattered old t-shirt and his boxers.
“But,” he counters a beat later, “she's amazing.”
*
Keiko is Jin's personal assistant. Jin has gone through five assistants since he debuted as a musician, and he's slept or had volatile relationships with all of them. Keiko is Pi's underclassman in college, and she's lucky number six. So far, Keiko's lasted over a year, hasn't threatened to quit, sue, or sell Jin out to the tabloids, or taken off her underwear at any opportunity. She keeps Jin's schedule, keeps him out of too much trouble, and helps keep his image clean when she can.
It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
“All you've given me is her name and her occupation,” she tells Pi over the phone. “I'm not Columbo, you know.”
Pi sighs, sounding weary. It's been a week since breakfast with Jin and the tabloids are starting to wonder where the bad boy of the music world has gone. It won't be long before they start looking harder. Pi wants to know who Jin is meeting and what makes her special. But it doesn't help when she's so damn mysterious. “Do you have anything?” he asks anxiously. He wants-needs to know this girl, this Yui, needs to know if she's going to break Jin's heart like girls before her, by selling pieces of him to the highest tabloid bidder.
Keiko chews her lip, tries to pick between Jin's privacy and keeping him away from the paparazzi. The second option wins out.
“Jin has ten girls named Yui listed in his address book,” she finally says. “I'll go check them out.”
*
“Hold on,” Jin says, and Yui does, fingers wrapped securely around a bar. She looks at Jin with a smile and nods, and Jin grins in return.
He grips another bar and starts to run, spinning the playground carousel. It's late at night and it's just the two of them at the children's playground, and as long as they don't make too much noise, Jin doubts they'll attract any attention. The carousel is in good shape, well-oiled and smooth, and when the momentum gets it going, Jin hurriedly jumps on, too, and Yui gasps and laughs beside him as they play like little kids.
Four rotations in and Yui leans against him, warm against his side, turning her face to press against his arm. He can feel her smiling.
In the end, he's the one who gives up first, letting his feet dangle over the edge and into the sand to slow the carousel down, and when it stops Yui leans away and grins.
“It helps if you keep your eyes closed,” she tells him. “You get dizzy slower.”
Jin nods. “I'll remember that for next time,” he promises, and Yui laughs behind her hands.
*
“He's just worried, Jin,” Keiko says, hand held out for Jin's phone.
He glares at her, and it's the angriest Keiko's seen Jin get. They've always gotten along fairly well-better, in fact, than Pi had ever expected; Keiko knows when to push and when to step away when it comes to Jin, who doesn't want to to feel boxed in by his career. But this Jin almost looks like a stranger, defiant and secretive.
“So he thought he'd ask you to pull this shit behind my back?” Jin's voice is sharp and dark, and Keiko winces. Perhaps asking Jin outright about this girl was the better option, but she didn't do that and now she'd have to deal with that decision.
“Tomohisa's worried,” she repeats, refusing to back down. “You're almost never home at night, you never tell anyone where you're going, we don't know this girl you're meeting, and he-we're worried about you.” She meets Jin's eyes. “Jin, we just want to make sure you're not going to get hurt.”
“I won't. Thanks for your concern.” Jin hides the phone behind his back. “Get out.”
Keiko stands her ground. “We're not just doing this because it's our job, Jin.” She doesn't even flinch when he approaches, even if Jin dwarfs her easily, and outweighs her by about twenty kilograms. “We're worried because we're your friends. Especially Tomohisa.”
Jin stares her down, but his anger is tempered by understanding. Keiko sees him clench his jaw, and then he turns away, annoyed.
“When's my next day off?” he asks, but the bite in his voice is gentler now.
“Day after tomorrow,” Keiko replies crisply.
Jin broods for a few minutes, scrolling through his address book. Keiko sees him purse his lips, and then he speaks up.
“I'll ask her if she wants to have breakfast with us, then.”
Keiko lets out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding.
*
Yui makes herself a sandwich and looks at the calendar stuck on the refrigerator door. “The day after tomorrow?” she asks, taking a bite of wheat and lettuce and turkey. “I don't mind.”
“Is it okay?” Jin asks anxiously on the other end of the line. “If you're uncomfortable with it...”
“No,” Yui interrupts quietly, setting down her sandwich to pick up her glass of lemon water. “I don't mind meeting your friends.”
There's a pause, and then Jin asks, “We're friends, too, right?”
Yui stops, glass halfway to her lips, and Jin can hear her smile in her voice when she answers.
“Of course. We've been friends for a while now, didn't you know?”
*
“I could make you famous,” Pi tells Yui some time after Jin introduces them. “I have connections with a lot of agencies who would love to have you.”
He doesn't offer out of vanity, or because Jin asks-because Jin hasn't. Pi offers because Jin fervently believes in and stands by Yui's talent, and he doesn't do that for just anyone, no matter how much she likes them. Jin believes in Yui; Pi believes in Jin.
Yui shakes her head, looking small and ordinary in Pi's large office. “No,” she says simply, without a hint of snobbery or regret. She looks at Pi carefully, her words simple and precise. “I want to make it on my own, without special favours being done for me.”
Pi stares at her, wonders from where she came. It's hard to find people like that nowadays, especially in an industry like this. Maybe Jin's right, Pi thinks. Maybe she's something special.
“Just thought I'd offer,” he tells her, and she nods and smiles and they never speak of it again.
*
Jin reads the chords in Yui's notebook, plays the melody slowly. The sun is just setting; the children are already being called away by their mothers.
Yui and Jin are hiding in a shadowed part of a jungle gym, pretending the world outside doesn't really exist.
“It's my new song,” Yui tells him in her usual soft way, hugging her knees and looking down at her notebook.
“Where are the words?” Jin asks.
Yui smiles faintly, presses a hand against the side of her head. “Here,” she replies, and then presses the same hand to her heart, “and here.”
He stops and stares, almost forgetting the guitar cradled in his lap. There's a light in her eyes, and he can't turn away, and all too suddenly he's aware of the two of them together like this, hidden away from everyone, from cameras and spotlights and interviews, from people who ask too many questions and don't really care about the answers. Right here, under a plastic jungle gym with sand in his shoes and Yui in front of him, feels comfortable and happy.
Jin thinks that his falling in love should've stopped with her music.
*
She's known who he was since she first saw him at the bar.
To encounter one of Japan's most famous-or maybe infamous, if she ever believed the tabloids-young idols once in a run-down bar that doesn't even really have a name (everyone just calls it “Nino's bar”) is luck. To have the same idol approach and want to befriend you is a great deal of luck. To spend time with an idol and realize that behind the nice hair and charisma and the expensive sunglasses is a boy with a beautiful voice and just as beautiful a smile is something completely different.
Yui smiles and writes down her lyrics. She finishes the chorus just as her phone beeps.
She picks it up; she laughs softly. Quickly and easily she types a reply-at the very end, she adds a picture of cherries.
*
Their next meeting involves convenience store food, orange juice, and Jin's feelings.
“I think I want to kiss you,” Jin confesses, and his voice is soft and earnest, completely without the usual arrogance he displays on television, onstage. There's a warmth to it that reminds Yui of hot chocolate, a kind of perfect, gentle comfort. “If that's okay.”
He's not like how the tabloids write him at all, Yui realizes; carrying that careless, conceited grace that comes with being one of the hottest new talents in the industry. The Jin she knows still stumbles over guitar chords, his hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as he eats donuts and coffee for breakfast. He's ripped jeans and sweaters in hideous colors that somehow makes him even more beautiful than the leather jackets and new boots he wears in all his photos.
“I'm,” Yui begins, and she feels a little helpless, looking into his eyes, “I mean...I haven't kissed anyone in a long time. I think it's because I might not be very good.” It sounds so silly, and Jin lights up, and there's that beautiful smile that he won't let the cameras ever catch, eyes crinkled at the corners as his fingers trail up her arm, and his hands settle warm and heavy on her shoulders.
“I really don't think that's the problem,” he tells her, and he's so close, if he just leaned in a little more...
“You can kiss me,” Yui blurts out.
“That's my girl,” Jin says with a smile, and he does.
*
She wakes up on Jin's couch in Jin's apartment, Jin's heavy jacket pulled over her head, and the first thing Yui thinks is that her feet are a little cold.
When she can't fall back asleep again, Yui pushes the jacket off her head and sits up, clinging to the back of the couch as she stares blearily around the apartment. Early morning light filters in through the balcony, a cool, silver-yellow that spills across the hardwood floors and gives off an amber glow. Yui curls up, tucking her feet under her, hair tangled around her ears and sticking out in odd places, and that's how Jin finds her when he shuffles out barefoot into the living room, his hair all over his face.
Yui folds her arms over the back of the couch and greets him, her voice a song, “Good morning.”
Jin pauses, pushing his hair out of his face to look at her-at Yui, her hair sticking up and out and blankets tangled around her legs, and he smiles, wide and delighted. He's never been a morning person, but he wouldn't mind waking up early to her.
He reaches out, stroking her hair, tucking layers behind her ears and away from her eyes, and she leans into his touch, and it feels so comfortable and right, like she belongs right here in his home, belongs in his life.
“What do you want for breakfast?” he asks.
“You can cook?” Yui's voice is surprised and curious, and Jin ducks his head, wondering when was the last time he felt embarrassed in front of a girl.
“I was thinking we could get room service,” he offers instead, and she smiles crookedly and grabs his hand, strokes the calluses on his fingertips and closes her eyes.
“Eggs,” she decides. “Sunny-side up. And toast.”
*
“Here,” Jin says, and his beautiful voice has a rhythm to it, a lilt of excitement that can infect. He places the headphones over Yui's ears, pushes her hair from her face and smiles. He kisses her; he can never help it, not with the way she looks at him like that. “It's one of the new songs in my next album, I want you to hear it.”
Yui smiles, shy and happy, and Jin watches her as he pushes 'play.' He knows he's written something good when her eyes light up, when she looks at him and blushes, because Yui and music belong together and she only looks so happy when the melody's just right, when the lyrics have meaning.
*
They keep their clandestine meetings at night, at little parks. Sometimes he listens to her singing outside train stations, heavily disguised, and he never stays for long. They keep trying, despite their lives that never really match, because this means something.
This is important. Music and sandboxes and swings, soft kisses in the park, her hand in his.
*
Jin rests his chin on her shoulder, arms strong and sure around her smaller frame. “A family would be great someday,” he says quietly, thumb moving in gentle circles along the skin of Yui's wrist. “Two kids, maybe three...I want kids,” he confesses, and he suddenly feels so shy, he's not sure why that is. He turns his head a little, rests his temple against hers, feels his heartbeat quicken a little; he's said these same words to interviewers and reporters so many times before, but it's different with Yui. Maybe it's because he wants her to be a part of it, these little wishes he has. They feel so much more tangible when she's around. He thinks he's still young and idealistic when he's around her, and realizes he's missed the feeling. “A little boy and a little girl. That'd be cute, right?”
“Yeah,” Yui says vaguely, and the way she sounds makes Jin wince for a reason he can't explain. “That'd be nice.”
“...you don't like it?” he asks, unsure and uncertain and all the other feelings he's never let show in public.
“I think it's fine for you,” Yui whispers, and looks down and refuses to meet his eyes. “If that's the kind of thing you want, it's something you should get.”
Jin hold on her tightens for a fraction-there's a moment there, somewhere between her voice and the way she can't look at him now, that makes him feel that something has gone very wrong. “Yui,” he says, and his voice is no longer soft.
“The idea of a family like that...it's not a future I can see for myself.”
*
“You've known her for all of how long, and you start talking about being a family, about having kids,” Keiko says without much sympathy, rearranging Jin's schedule when a variety show moves Jin's interview from this week to next. “This is a more modern time, you know; not all girls dream of marrying and then becoming housewives.”
“I wonder if that's the case,” Jin murmurs, drumming his fingers on the smooth surface of his guitar. It makes him think of Yui, and her soft, sad eyes that make it a little hard to breathe sometimes. And the way she'd looked at him that night, as he talked about what he wanted in the future-it'd been just a little heartbreaking, the way the smile had suddenly left her.
He looks up, pushing his hair out of his face to peer at Keiko. “You really think that's it?” he asks anxiously.
Keiko lifts her head and regards Jin quietly, her busy scribbling coming to a halt. She's never seen Jin look so serious before, about something that isn't his music, not his friends nor family. Frankly, she's never seen Jin look or act or sound like this when it comes to a girl.
“I don't know,” she finally sighs. She doesn't want to give Jin advice, because she has no idea what's going on. “Talk to Tomohisa,” she tells him, before returning his schedule book. “And you have a photoshoot tomorrow morning, so don't go drinking tonight.”
“Don't worry,” Jin reassures her, a ghost of his old, flirtatious smile back curving his mouth. “I'll stay pretty.”
*
Yui writes the next few chords down, tries again. She thinks of Jin, of children, of happy families that remain unbroken, walking past her in the park where she sings sometimes, when she doesn't have anything else to do. She thinks of the future she can't quite see for herself, the future that Jin sees so easily.
The music won't come-the words jumbled and confusing. Yui drops her pen and hugs her knees, wondering how this happened.
*
He doesn't see Yui for one month, two weeks, and three days. Not that he's been counting, he just remembers the date of the last time they saw each other-it was the night she'd blocked him off, and walls that he didn't even know she had were suddenly between them. He's not counting the days; he just so happens to remember the date of the last time.
The last time.
Pi dumps him into a dazed, drunken heap in his own front hall, letting Ryo lock the door behind them. Jin pulls off his boots with moderate difficulty, and even manages to stagger to his feet before Pi can drag him around. “Too much tequila,” he grumbles, managing to make it to couch and sinking down onto it with immense relief.
“No shit,” Ryo says mildly, tossing the keys to Pi as the two of them follow him into the living room. “I'm gonna get water.”
“Get me some too,” Pi says, and turns his attention to Jin. “You alright?”
Jin grins wryly, tilting his head back and throwing an arm across his eyes. “I haven't gone drinking like that in years,” he slurs, feeling an insane desire to laugh. “I can taste my own breath-it's tequila and midori liqueur, just so you know.” He swallows heavily, thinks he needs water because his throat feels dry. “I don't know what I have tomorrow.”
Pi sighs, drops Jin's keys onto his coffee table. “I'll ask Keiko to see what she can do; let you sleep in a little.” He's seen Keiko work scheduling miracles when she puts her mind to it.
Jin curls up on his side, closing his eyes against the pounding in his skull. “Thanks,” he says hoarsely.
Ryo comes back, and there's silence, punctuated only by soft voices and the crackle of plastic water bottles.
Then a phone rings.
Jin sits up, moves like he isn't drunk at all. He's got his phone in hand when Ryo grabs his wrist, then points his water bottle to Pi, speaking quietly to someone on the other end of the line with his back turned to them.
“Not yours,” Ryo says gently, softly, and something cracks.
Jin fights back the choked sob threatening to move past his throat, his lips, because he doesn't cry; he doesn't cry, he's a grown man and a single woman isn't-shouldn't be-enough to make him like this, except somehow it is. Yui, with her songbird voice and her smiles and the way she looks when the wind's whipping her hair around on the swings, means a hell of a lot, and suddenly she's gone, and there's a hollow in Jin's life he hadn't expected to hurt so much. He thinks he should get over it; he hasn't heard her voice in weeks, hasn't seen her and her guitar in over a month.
But somehow he can't, because he hadn't expected all of it to end like it did.
Jin curls up in on himself, phone forgotten by his side, and closes his eyes, wishing that he'd drunk himself incoherent.
*
“What do you mean you haven't talked to him in a month?” Erika is one of Yui's neighbors, and one of Yui's students-she teaches guitar to make some extra money. Erika is beautiful, with her pale, exotic eyes that she inherited from her mother; cool and regal and quite Parisian, in Yui's personal opinion.
“I don't know.” Yui strums her guitar, listening to the faint sound of Erika's metronome. Erika is one of those beautiful girls: the remarkable mix Japanese beauty and French mystery who would make the perfect idol. Yui pales in comparison. “I just...I don't know.”
“That,” Erika says with a touch of impatience in her sultry voice, “sounds a little like running away.” Erika isn't fond of that kind of thing, Yui knows. Erika is up-front and ferocious when she wants to be-Erika's mother says it's the French in her.
“It's not,” Yui insists softly, avoiding her friend's gaze, even though a very big part of her agrees with Erika. “I just realized that it wasn't going to end well, not at all, so I thought-”
Erika strums her guitar, a sharp, sudden twang of strings that make Yui jump. “He didn't ask you to marry him and have his kids at that exact moment, if I remember you telling me correctly.”
Yui pauses, bows her head. “No,” she admits. “He didn't.”
“So then,” Erika continues, relentless and unyielding in her efforts to make Yui understand, “what's the problem?”
“I think...if it were him, I wouldn't mind having that family.”
Erika blinks, momentarily stunned. Yui, in all the time they've known each other, has never shown an inkling of wanting to settle down, get married, and have kids. Yui's first and foremost had always been her music...shit, Erika thinks, eyes widening at the realization that for Yui, this was as serious as it would get.
“Except from my experience,” Yui continues, heedless of Erika's sudden inability to speak, “families don't stay together very long.”
The metronome continues on in the silence that follows.
*
Jin's on his second beer when a girl with great legs and bedroom eyes strides onto Nino's little stage holding a guitar. “Erika,” she says in a low voice by way of introduction, before seating herself on a stool and settling the guitar on her lap. She starts to play, and to Jin's surprise, she sings a song that sounds soft and sweet and just a little bit wistful. It sounds bright, almost, strange coming from this smokey-eyed girl wearing what looks like a pair of designer boots and skinny jeans. It sounds young.
He wants to think it sounds a little bit like Yui, but he can't think of her, not when he's finally capable of not having to go out clubbing and drinking at late hours just so he can fall asleep exhausted, without the barest hint of dreams.
When his thoughts return to Nino's bar, she's done-the smokey-eyed girl, Erika, murmurs her thanks and slides off the stool, leaving the stage with a runway walk better that some of the girls Jin's seen at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show. When she seats herself beside him at the bar and asks for a glass of Chardonnay, Jin gestures to Nino: “Put it on my tab.”
Erika's lips quirk into a little smile. “Nice way to start a conversation,” she drawls in her bedroom voice.
“I liked your song,” Jin comments by way of reply.
“Hmm. 'Stay with me.'” Jin blinks and the girl laughs, low and soft and seductive. “The name of the song.”
“You wrote it?” Nino returns with the glass of Chardonnay and Erika lifts it to her lips. When she sets it down, Jin sees the mark of her lipstick on the rim. Cherry red. Classic.
“A friend did.” Erika strokes the fretboard of the guitar she's leaned against the bar. It stands between them, almost like a guard, as if Jin would even try anything beyond buying a pretty lady a drink. Especially when she was giving off the don't even try vibes. “It's a recent composition and I liked it.” Erika laughs again, “But don't tell her I sang it for tonight. With her guitar, too.”
Jin grins, easy and warm. Erika looks unapproachable, but in uncharacteristically sweet. “I won't,” he promises, “because I have no idea who your friend is.”
Erika lifts her glass and smiles at him over the rim of it, her free hand still tracing the fretboard of her guitar. “Oh, I think you do,” she replies, finishing off the Chardonnay. “Thanks for the drink, and Ninomiya-san, I'll see you around.” She flashes the bartender a smile and picks up the guitar, and Jin notices the make.
It's a Fender elcoustic.
*
“When's my next night off?” Jin asks, grabbing a pair of jeans and stuffing them into his duffel bag.
“Thursday,” Keiko replies, Jin's schedule book open on her lap as she eats apple slices with caramel from the closest McDonald's. “Why?”
“Just wanted to know.” Jin zips the bag closed and turns to his assistant. “Alright, get out of my apartment, I'm locking up.”
“I have one apple slice left!”
*
“Did they like the new song?” Yui asks, watching Erika pick out the perfect shade of lip gloss.
“It was a smash.” Erika smiles at Yui through her mirror, decides on a tinted lip balm instead. “Would've been better if you sang it yourself.”
Yui laughs a little, hugs her guitar. “I haven't gone out to play in weeks,” she admits.
Erika grabs her mascara. “Well then, maybe you should.”
*
There's a man in the playground.
Yui stops, already halfway towards the swings, when she notices. She hesitates, unsure and not entirely scared, and the stranger rises from where he's sitting on the swings-and notices her.
“Ah...”
Jin, dressed in a plain gray hoodie and scuffed, messy jeans, lifts a hand in greeting. “Hey.” He sounds just as surprised as Yui feels.
Yui nods, her hold on her guitar case tightening. Jin smiles faintly, fleetingly, and they stand around awkwardly.
Jin's nerves give in first.
“I'll leave you alone to play, then,” he says, laughing nervously.
Yui watches him walk away before her mind catches up.
“Jin.”
He can still remember the last time she said his name.
*
They sit on the carousel, and it shifts a little with their weight.
“Where did you go?” Jin asks, breaking the silence first. Now that he's here-they're here, and Yui doesn't show any signs of suddenly leaving like she did the last time, he has questions he needs answered. “Why'd you stop returning my calls?”
Yui rubs the fabric of her skirt between her fingertips. “I don't know,” she says after a pause.
Jin sets his jaw. “That's...not even a real answer,” he says.
“It's the only one I have.”
“Jeez.” Jin laughs, but not because anything's funny. “That was it? You just...up and left and disappeared for no actual reason?”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't-” Jin stops, tries to contain his voice, his emotions. “Don't apologize. That's a cop out.”
Yui looks at him. “But I am,” she says, and he stands up so fast the carousel turns a little. Yui braces her feet against the sand to stop it.
He feels brittle and cracked and frayed at the edges, and her voice, subdued and so completely unlike herself, familiar and unfamiliar after so damn long, doesn't help. “Then give me a reason!” he snaps, and she starts at his voice and meets his eyes. “You can't just sit here and not say anything, it doesn't help, apologizing doesn't help, and if I knew this is all I was going to get I wouldn't have even bothered waiting here every goddamn night-” He sucks in a breath and brings a hand to his eyes. “Okay,” he says carefully, “no. Just...was it me? I just want to know that, if you can tell me.”
Yui's gaze is steady like her voice. “I don't think we'd be happy in the end.”
Jin drops his hand, looking bewildered. “Wh-” he begins, before shaking his head. “No. No. That's-that doesn't even make sense. Why...how did you decide that? Why did you decide that?” His voice goes sharp. “You don't get to decide that by yourself!”
“I was-”
“I was in the relationship too!” Jin steps forward and stops, wants to get near her and run away at the same time. “You don't get to decide that you don't make me happy, Yui!”
She lowers her eyes to her lap. “I'm sorry,” is all she can say.
“That's not enough,” he replies quietly, and by the time Yui can find the courage to look up, he's already walking away.
She doesn't call him back a second time.
*
The next song hurts to write, but she writes it nonetheless. She spends nights bent over paper, crossing out words and writing notes in the margins. Sometimes her mother catches some of the song as she plays guitar, comments on how sad it sounds, sadder than the other things she's written.
The first time she heard that, Yui nodded, and kept on playing.
*
“What are you listening to?” she asks Erika one day, and Erika pushes her headphones back.
“The new LANDS album,” Erika replies. “Do you want to hear some of it?”
Yui's gaze lands on the album cover, and her smile goes bittersweet. Erika thinks it's a very ugly look on her. “You could always talk to him again,” she says bluntly, and Yui blinks at her.
“...what would I say? He doesn't want to hear me apologize,” she murmurs, reaching out for the case, studying Jin's face on the cover booklet.
“He doesn't know why you're so scared of relationships. You could always try to explain.” Erika sits up, grabs Yui's hand. “You know,” she says softly, “he isn't your father. He won't walk out on you like that.”
Yui searches Erika's face. “What if I'm the one who messes up?” she finally asks.
Erika laughs. “You already did that,” she replies matter-of-factly, “and he still waited for you that second time.”
*
“There is a girl playing on the sidewalk outside the building,” Kame says, peering out the window.
“There's a what?” Jin asks absently, trying to memorize the lyrics to one of the new songs on the upcoming LANDS single.
“A girl,” Kame repeats. “She's playing guitar outside the company building.” He frowns, squints down into the street. “Ah, man, she's just a kid. Management's going to call the cops on her if she doesn't move.”
It is at that moment that Pi peers into the dressing room. “I think you guys need to see this,” he says, not even bothering to ask why Kame's hanging out in the LANDS dressing room. “I can't remember the last time someone pulled a stunt this crazy.”
“Is she good?” Kame asks, grabbing his jacket and following Pi. Jin reluctantly tags along.
“Yeah, the receptionist tells me that her voice is great,” Pi says, “but that's not gonna stop the cops from arresting her for this, so you might as well listen to her before they get here.”
By the time they reach the entrance there's a crowd, both inside and outside the building. People surround the singer, and Jin can hear the faint sound of a guitar over their voices. Pi and Kame push through, eager to listen, and Jin sighs when he gets dragged along, pulled into the crush of bodies.
I've grown used to seeing a sad face
reflected in the puddles.
Because I intend not to speak, it hurts.
I was given kindness, and then driven to tears...
it was sly of you.
On a night when my tear-colored voice can't be heard,
I'm so troubled, I want to be more selfish.
It's that voice, and that guitar, and the way the words seem to pull at something in his gut, that make Jin stop fighting to get away.
I'm a liar around you.
I kept hoping you'd realize it:
that I'm not a strong person in the least.
I've decided I can't let my tears fall;
it's very troubling, right? I won't become selfish.
The song is soft and sad and beautiful, and just on this side of heartbreaking. Jin pushes to the front of the crowd, and that's when Yui sees him.
Are you alright? I've somehow started asking again,
but things don't really seem that way.
Ah~ feel my love. Ah~
She finishes the song and the crowd claps, or at least they look like they're clapping, because Jin can't hear them. Jin can't hear them because there is a roaring in his ears. There is a roaring in his ears because Yui is close enough to touch, and she looks like she wants to let him.
He doesn't, though-he can't-because of the people surrounding them.
Yui sets her guitar back in its case, picks it up, and leaves as abruptly as she came.
*
“This is where I used to go every night,” Jin says.
Pi hands him a can of coffee bought from the convenience store just across the street. “This place is pretty open,” he comments, and wonders how photographers could've missed Jin playing here like a little kid, sitting on the swings or even climbing the jungle gym.
Then he realizes that maybe it's because the photographers have never seen a Jin like that, young and immature and carefree. Maybe they were just blind.
“We'd play under the jungle gym,” Jin says, pointing. “Hide under there if we got here early and there were still people. She'd sing a little, teach me some chords.” He pauses, looks down at the can cradled on his lap. “I know how to play one of the songs she wrote.”
“It's...nice here.” Pi sits beside his best friend on the carousel, feels it turn a little. “Quiet.”
Jin nods, opening his can of coffee and taking a measure gulp. They sit in silence for a while-a long while that stretches up as far as the night sky.
Then Jin speaks again.
“I miss her when I sing.”
*
She takes a deep breath and pulls on her shoes, while Erika holds out a jacket. “It might be cold,” Erika says quietly, and Yui smiles as she pulls it on. “Where are you going to play?”
“Maybe at the playground,” Yui replies, “and then wander around for a little.”
“Be careful.”
Yui smiles a little wider, and picks up her guitar case. “I will,” she promises.
*
“Go on ahead.”
“You sure?”
Jin nods, holds out his empty can of coffee for Pi to take. “I'm gonna hang out here for a little while,” he says, “but I'll go home soon.”
Pi watches him carefully, then plucks the can from his grip. “Okay,” he agrees, “but don't stay out too late.”
Jin laughs, salutes his best friend. “Yes, sir,” he jokes, and waves Pi away.
He's staring up at the stars when he hears the faint strains of a guitar, and Jin bolts upright, searching for the sound. The carousel creaks a little as it shifts from the move, but he's not paying attention. The guitar is soft, too soft, but he listens, and it's not long before he hears her voice.
It's the same song from the last time, the one that hurt.
He finds her where they used to hide together, cramped and comfortable under the jungle gym. She's not singing for anyone but herself now, tucked away in a shadowy corner. Jin listens, tries to memorize the words. Her voice is still beautiful. He listens as she trails away, falls silent, just strumming her guitar. He ducks his head and crawls into the small space with her, and she gasps, surprised.
“Hi,” he whispers, shifting to a sitting position and getting sand in his shoes. This feels familiar.
“Hi,” she replies, just as softly, and for a beat they stare at each other, unsure of what to say.
Jin draws a breath and opens his mouth when Yui speaks.
“My father ran out on me and my mother when I was born.”
He falls silent, stunned by the sudden declaration, the way she speaks like this is a common thing, a normal thing.
“I don't know why he did that. I never knew him.” Yui pauses, then sets her guitar down into her case, strokes the smooth planes of it, back and forth, back and forth. “I grew up without him and I still don't know who he is or where he is.” She stares down into her guitar, frowning slightly, thoughtfully.
“...I didn't know.”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says simply, “you didn't.”
Jin remembers the way she had looked when he talked about family, about having children, about having a home. He feels stricken, a little guilty even-despite the fact that he didn't know, he'd hurt her, talking about that. “I'm sor-” he begins, but Yui shakes her head again and he stops.
“When you were talking, I thought, I wonder how it would be for me.” Yui turns to him, looking uncertain. “That kind of thing always seemed so distant, but the way you talked about it. I guess it felt like it suddenly got closer. And I wondered, what would happen, if I had a family, too, someday? If it would break.” She hesitates. “I wondered...if it were-if it were you and me, someday, if you would run out on me, like he did to my mother. That's what I thought.”
“You didn't think we'd be happy in the end,” Jin whispers, remembering the last time.
Yui nods once, curling up and hugging her knees. “I was scared,” she finally admits, “because I don't want you to leave.”
It takes only a moment for Jin to close the distance between them, despite the cramped space hindering him. This is the closest he's been to her since the last time they met at the playground, and he thinks it's unfair that she's just like he remembers-she's looking at him with those eyes, soft and warm and making his breath hitch. “I won't,” he says, because he didn't. She was the one who had gone.
The corners of her mouth turn down a little. “You don't know that for sure,” she argues softly. “How do you know if we'll be happy in the end?”
“I don't,” he replies breathlessly, and because he can't resist it anymore, he reaches out, fingertips grazing her temple as he pushes a chunk of her hair out of her face. “I really don't know for certain, but I think we can always try.”
Yui's expression crumples, and Jin presses his fingers against her chin, makes her meet his eyes.
“We'll cross that bridge when we get there,” he says, and he smiles. “Hey, you never know, I could end up making you unbelievably happy.”
She laughs, but it comes out sounding a little bit like a sob. “If it's you, I'll try,” she says, and Jin gathers her into an embrace. She crawls towards him, clinging to the back of his sweater as she cries, and the way she fits into his arms makes him want to hold on to her for hours.
“Do you think it'll be okay?” she whispers, and he rests his cheek against her hair.
“We'll just have to see how it goes,” he murmurs.
They stay there in their crowded little space under the jungle gym, with sand in their shoes, and after a while, Yui sniffles and pulls away, pushing her hair out of her face. Jin looks at her, and the words come out before he even realizes it.
“You're cute even when you cry.”
Yui looks up at him with wide eyes, fingers curled against the sides of her face, with tear tracks still on her cheeks. Jin laughs a little sheepishly, but feels a little hopeful when she finally smiles. It's faint and wavering but it's there, and hey, he's willing to take what he can get.
“Right now,” she says softly, “is that part in the movies where couples usually kiss.”
He chuckles, the sound soft and warm and loving, like how a hug would sound, and Yui feels it wrap around her. “I think you're right,” he tells her.
So he does.
From: koneho
Title: This Could Be Your Love Song
Pairing: Akanishi Jin & YUI (singer)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They meet because he becomes her fan. But the funny thing is, he's the rockstar and she's the no-name street musician.
A/N: When I saw this pairing listed on my recipient's list of what they'd like to receive, I had to write it; Jin and YUI are two of my favorite singers. I hope that she enjoys reading this, because I definitely enjoyed writing it. Thanks so much to the mods for their patience, and to YUI&Jin for their music-it was great inspiration. The song YUI sings near the end is my own dubious translation of “NAMIDAIRO/The Colour of Tears.”
There are a few “inside jokes” in the fic that fans of both YUI and Jin will hopefully understand. They're not terribly relevant to the main story, but I hope you spot them.
Thanks to G&H for helping me flesh this thing out without realizing it. And lastly, thanks, J, for the beta.
He's got good looks and a nice style and money and fame, and it's landed him in the dimly-lit VIP room of some swanky nightclub in Shibuya, surrounded by girls whose natural hair colours are lost with their childhood. He's dressed in designer jeans and thousand-dollar shoes, and women cling to him like bees to honey. They stare at him like he's the most fascinating thing in the world, and laugh at everything he says, even if he's not making jokes.
Jin knows that none of these girls really care about what he thinks, and they care about what he can do, and who he is, and what he's worth. He's a big-name celebrity around Japan, the singer of a rock band whose album is at the top of the charts. Beyond that, what is there to know? Certainly not his other dreams and aspirations and his opinions.
He's surrounded by people he can't call friends, and as the music gets louder and he drinks more beer, Jin vaguely wonders when he's supposed to be enjoying being a star.
*
Ninomiya's bar isn't crowded or smokey or loud; it's small and quiet and intimate. Jin likes it when he wants to be out by himself, sitting at a table listening to Mika sing her songs. Mika is a siren, brilliant and seductive, with her long hair and mischievous eyes. Jin loves to listen to her voice, husky and low and humming through his veins like alcohol, but better.
Sometimes, it isn't Mika who sings, but others. People Ninomiya's hired for a song or two, looking to be discovered maybe, or just be heard by someone other than themselves. Jin thinks the bar is a treasure trove of talent; Nino only showcases the ones he likes.
This night, it's a single stool and a microphone stand.
Jin orders something light, something easy-a rum and Coke-and lights up a cigarette.
A woman-a girl-climbs up onstage, wearing sensible walking shoes and jeans, and her guitar seems to dwarf her, she looks so soft and frail.
She strums her guitar once, twice, and whispers her name; it sounds like a secret that only a few are privy to know. “My name is Yui,” she tells the bar, “and I wrote this song.”
*
“Where else do you sing?” he asks, nursing a shot of tequila as she drinks a soda at the bar.
“Here,” she replies. “And some other places.”
“What other places?” he asks; he somehow really wants to know, wonders if maybe he could come see her again.
She turns to him, sipping soda through a straw as she smiles. “Everywhere,” she tells him simply. “You can find me anywhere.”
*
“That girl you hired the last time I was here,” Jin begins, and Nino's grin goes wicked. Jin hates the way Nino looks so goddamned knowing, like he's been expecting Jin to do this-it's one of the reasons he didn't want to ask Nino for help in the first place.
“Which one?” Nino retorts, wiping some glasses before taking someone's order of whiskey on the rocks.
“With the guitar,” Jin replies, knowing that he'd never hear the end of it, whether he stopped talking now or not. Might as well get the information he wanted out of it before Nino gets started with the teasing. “The Fender elcoustic. You know the one I'm talking about-she drank Pepsi.”
Nino laughs, a devious, delighted sound. “You remember what she drank at my bar during your first meeting a week ago?” he clarifies, and his grin only gets wider. Jin decides at this moment that he really kind of hates Nino sometimes.
“Yes,” Jin grits out, and Nino relents with a nod. “I was just wondering...about her name...or where you found her...”
*
She's cute, as girls go-not unattractive, but not show-stopping either. Yui is adorable at the very least, and sweet at the most.
She writes her own music and sings her own songs, and she sounds kind of like an angel playing guitar, if angels played music outside train stations and in parks and playgrounds at odd times of the night. But she's not what the talent scouts are looking for, not by a long-shot; what matters in entertainment now isn't music and lyrics and soul, but long legs and wide eyes and a body other girls would die for. Yui doesn't have any of that.
So she strums her guitar and she sings her songs from station to station, as the talent scouts run past her to chase down some stylishly-dressed girl with long legs and the perfect hair.
“Hey! How would you like to be a star?”
*
They meet again, purely by chance, when Jin's on his way home from a party he helped set up for one of his friends. She's sitting on the sidewalk with her guitar, hair in her face and looking perfectly unobtrusive. If he hadn't been looking for her since the last time they spoke, he would've probably walked past her without a second thought.
She sings, and it sounds happy and beautiful and free, kind of like how Jin used to sing before his voice got strained and chained down by contracts and appearances and interviews and the tabloids. She sings like how Jin wants to keep singing-all by herself, without anyone telling her what songs to sing and how she should sing it.
She stops playing when he approaches, looks up at him like she's not sure who he is.
He pauses, uncertain of what to say, and recognition lights up in her eyes.
“I told you,” she speaks up with a shy little smile, before he even opens his mouth. “I told you you can find me singing anywhere.”
*
He searches for her at night. Sometimes he finds her, but a lot of times he doesn't. He wonders if he's acting like a stalker, but she doesn't seem to mind him following her everywhere.
“How many Yuis do you know?” she asks, as he settles down beside her under the shadows of a tree in the park. She seems genuinely curious, but without the spite or jealousy. Just curious. Yui's emotions and thoughts, Jin has come to realize after several of their meetings, aren't simple, but straightforward. Her voice is gentle but firm, and her personality quiet but determined.
“I don't know,” he admits truthfully, and pulls out his phone. “Let me see.”
He starts counting them, one by one, and next to him, Yui shifts, strums her guitar. She plays melodies as he scrolls, finds the fifth Yui in his address book and keeps going. “Nine,” he says, his voice quiet. “Ten including you.”
She hums thoughtfully, bows her head over her music. Jin looks at her, wary.
“My guitar,” she finally says, sounding troubled, “isn't tuned correctly.”
Somehow, he feels relieved. “Here,” he offers, sliding his phone into his pocket before holding out his hands. “I'll tune it for you.”
*
“I haven't seen your face in the tabloids for weeks,” Pi announces, and his voice is a mixture of relief and wariness. “What's the deal, Jin?”
“Oh. Uh.” Jin blinks at his best friend and publicist, shrugging. “Guess I've lost their interest. Do you want your eggs scrambled or what?”
“Whatever you know how to cook.” Jin nods and returns his attention to his stove. Pi leafs through Josei Seven briefly before setting it down, and Jin arrives with a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. “All that bacon is going to kill you.”
“But it's good.” Jin stares at Pi like he's stupid. “So might as well die happy.”
They share the plate; they've known each other since they were teenagers, kept in touch despite Pi's going away to college and Jin's journey to stardom. Jin's other excuse is that it's too much work washing two separate plates, and besides, “our food fits on one big one, anyway.” Pi heaps eggs on toast while Jin munches on bacon, and it doesn't take long before Pi's curiosity gets the best of him.
“So you gonna tell me or what?”
Jin pauses, strip of bacon halfway to his mouth. His expression is guarded. Pi understands that look; it means Jin's doing something his agency won't like. He wonders if that means he'll have to keep Jin's secrets-not that he doesn't mind, because that's what best friends do.
“Her name's Yui.” And it comes out in a rush, words falling all over themselves on their way out of Jin's mouth. “She's a street musician, and she's brilliant. Her songs are-gorgeous, I don't even know, Pi. They're all hers, from the lyrics to the melodies to the arrangements. Sometimes I find her playing somewhere-and we talk. She plays at train stations a lot. And parks. She's good. You should see her guitars, she takes such good care of them, she loves them. That's all. I go in disguise, I guess nobody's noticed us, even though they should. Her voice is clear and strong and beautiful, and-”
“Jin,” Pi interrupts, looking mildly aghast, “you're fanboying a street musician.”
Jin stops short and draws back, bacon in hand and looking ridiculous in an oil-spattered old t-shirt and his boxers.
“But,” he counters a beat later, “she's amazing.”
*
Keiko is Jin's personal assistant. Jin has gone through five assistants since he debuted as a musician, and he's slept or had volatile relationships with all of them. Keiko is Pi's underclassman in college, and she's lucky number six. So far, Keiko's lasted over a year, hasn't threatened to quit, sue, or sell Jin out to the tabloids, or taken off her underwear at any opportunity. She keeps Jin's schedule, keeps him out of too much trouble, and helps keep his image clean when she can.
It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
“All you've given me is her name and her occupation,” she tells Pi over the phone. “I'm not Columbo, you know.”
Pi sighs, sounding weary. It's been a week since breakfast with Jin and the tabloids are starting to wonder where the bad boy of the music world has gone. It won't be long before they start looking harder. Pi wants to know who Jin is meeting and what makes her special. But it doesn't help when she's so damn mysterious. “Do you have anything?” he asks anxiously. He wants-needs to know this girl, this Yui, needs to know if she's going to break Jin's heart like girls before her, by selling pieces of him to the highest tabloid bidder.
Keiko chews her lip, tries to pick between Jin's privacy and keeping him away from the paparazzi. The second option wins out.
“Jin has ten girls named Yui listed in his address book,” she finally says. “I'll go check them out.”
*
“Hold on,” Jin says, and Yui does, fingers wrapped securely around a bar. She looks at Jin with a smile and nods, and Jin grins in return.
He grips another bar and starts to run, spinning the playground carousel. It's late at night and it's just the two of them at the children's playground, and as long as they don't make too much noise, Jin doubts they'll attract any attention. The carousel is in good shape, well-oiled and smooth, and when the momentum gets it going, Jin hurriedly jumps on, too, and Yui gasps and laughs beside him as they play like little kids.
Four rotations in and Yui leans against him, warm against his side, turning her face to press against his arm. He can feel her smiling.
In the end, he's the one who gives up first, letting his feet dangle over the edge and into the sand to slow the carousel down, and when it stops Yui leans away and grins.
“It helps if you keep your eyes closed,” she tells him. “You get dizzy slower.”
Jin nods. “I'll remember that for next time,” he promises, and Yui laughs behind her hands.
*
“He's just worried, Jin,” Keiko says, hand held out for Jin's phone.
He glares at her, and it's the angriest Keiko's seen Jin get. They've always gotten along fairly well-better, in fact, than Pi had ever expected; Keiko knows when to push and when to step away when it comes to Jin, who doesn't want to to feel boxed in by his career. But this Jin almost looks like a stranger, defiant and secretive.
“So he thought he'd ask you to pull this shit behind my back?” Jin's voice is sharp and dark, and Keiko winces. Perhaps asking Jin outright about this girl was the better option, but she didn't do that and now she'd have to deal with that decision.
“Tomohisa's worried,” she repeats, refusing to back down. “You're almost never home at night, you never tell anyone where you're going, we don't know this girl you're meeting, and he-we're worried about you.” She meets Jin's eyes. “Jin, we just want to make sure you're not going to get hurt.”
“I won't. Thanks for your concern.” Jin hides the phone behind his back. “Get out.”
Keiko stands her ground. “We're not just doing this because it's our job, Jin.” She doesn't even flinch when he approaches, even if Jin dwarfs her easily, and outweighs her by about twenty kilograms. “We're worried because we're your friends. Especially Tomohisa.”
Jin stares her down, but his anger is tempered by understanding. Keiko sees him clench his jaw, and then he turns away, annoyed.
“When's my next day off?” he asks, but the bite in his voice is gentler now.
“Day after tomorrow,” Keiko replies crisply.
Jin broods for a few minutes, scrolling through his address book. Keiko sees him purse his lips, and then he speaks up.
“I'll ask her if she wants to have breakfast with us, then.”
Keiko lets out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding.
*
Yui makes herself a sandwich and looks at the calendar stuck on the refrigerator door. “The day after tomorrow?” she asks, taking a bite of wheat and lettuce and turkey. “I don't mind.”
“Is it okay?” Jin asks anxiously on the other end of the line. “If you're uncomfortable with it...”
“No,” Yui interrupts quietly, setting down her sandwich to pick up her glass of lemon water. “I don't mind meeting your friends.”
There's a pause, and then Jin asks, “We're friends, too, right?”
Yui stops, glass halfway to her lips, and Jin can hear her smile in her voice when she answers.
“Of course. We've been friends for a while now, didn't you know?”
*
“I could make you famous,” Pi tells Yui some time after Jin introduces them. “I have connections with a lot of agencies who would love to have you.”
He doesn't offer out of vanity, or because Jin asks-because Jin hasn't. Pi offers because Jin fervently believes in and stands by Yui's talent, and he doesn't do that for just anyone, no matter how much she likes them. Jin believes in Yui; Pi believes in Jin.
Yui shakes her head, looking small and ordinary in Pi's large office. “No,” she says simply, without a hint of snobbery or regret. She looks at Pi carefully, her words simple and precise. “I want to make it on my own, without special favours being done for me.”
Pi stares at her, wonders from where she came. It's hard to find people like that nowadays, especially in an industry like this. Maybe Jin's right, Pi thinks. Maybe she's something special.
“Just thought I'd offer,” he tells her, and she nods and smiles and they never speak of it again.
*
Jin reads the chords in Yui's notebook, plays the melody slowly. The sun is just setting; the children are already being called away by their mothers.
Yui and Jin are hiding in a shadowed part of a jungle gym, pretending the world outside doesn't really exist.
“It's my new song,” Yui tells him in her usual soft way, hugging her knees and looking down at her notebook.
“Where are the words?” Jin asks.
Yui smiles faintly, presses a hand against the side of her head. “Here,” she replies, and then presses the same hand to her heart, “and here.”
He stops and stares, almost forgetting the guitar cradled in his lap. There's a light in her eyes, and he can't turn away, and all too suddenly he's aware of the two of them together like this, hidden away from everyone, from cameras and spotlights and interviews, from people who ask too many questions and don't really care about the answers. Right here, under a plastic jungle gym with sand in his shoes and Yui in front of him, feels comfortable and happy.
Jin thinks that his falling in love should've stopped with her music.
*
She's known who he was since she first saw him at the bar.
To encounter one of Japan's most famous-or maybe infamous, if she ever believed the tabloids-young idols once in a run-down bar that doesn't even really have a name (everyone just calls it “Nino's bar”) is luck. To have the same idol approach and want to befriend you is a great deal of luck. To spend time with an idol and realize that behind the nice hair and charisma and the expensive sunglasses is a boy with a beautiful voice and just as beautiful a smile is something completely different.
Yui smiles and writes down her lyrics. She finishes the chorus just as her phone beeps.
She picks it up; she laughs softly. Quickly and easily she types a reply-at the very end, she adds a picture of cherries.
*
Their next meeting involves convenience store food, orange juice, and Jin's feelings.
“I think I want to kiss you,” Jin confesses, and his voice is soft and earnest, completely without the usual arrogance he displays on television, onstage. There's a warmth to it that reminds Yui of hot chocolate, a kind of perfect, gentle comfort. “If that's okay.”
He's not like how the tabloids write him at all, Yui realizes; carrying that careless, conceited grace that comes with being one of the hottest new talents in the industry. The Jin she knows still stumbles over guitar chords, his hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as he eats donuts and coffee for breakfast. He's ripped jeans and sweaters in hideous colors that somehow makes him even more beautiful than the leather jackets and new boots he wears in all his photos.
“I'm,” Yui begins, and she feels a little helpless, looking into his eyes, “I mean...I haven't kissed anyone in a long time. I think it's because I might not be very good.” It sounds so silly, and Jin lights up, and there's that beautiful smile that he won't let the cameras ever catch, eyes crinkled at the corners as his fingers trail up her arm, and his hands settle warm and heavy on her shoulders.
“I really don't think that's the problem,” he tells her, and he's so close, if he just leaned in a little more...
“You can kiss me,” Yui blurts out.
“That's my girl,” Jin says with a smile, and he does.
*
She wakes up on Jin's couch in Jin's apartment, Jin's heavy jacket pulled over her head, and the first thing Yui thinks is that her feet are a little cold.
When she can't fall back asleep again, Yui pushes the jacket off her head and sits up, clinging to the back of the couch as she stares blearily around the apartment. Early morning light filters in through the balcony, a cool, silver-yellow that spills across the hardwood floors and gives off an amber glow. Yui curls up, tucking her feet under her, hair tangled around her ears and sticking out in odd places, and that's how Jin finds her when he shuffles out barefoot into the living room, his hair all over his face.
Yui folds her arms over the back of the couch and greets him, her voice a song, “Good morning.”
Jin pauses, pushing his hair out of his face to look at her-at Yui, her hair sticking up and out and blankets tangled around her legs, and he smiles, wide and delighted. He's never been a morning person, but he wouldn't mind waking up early to her.
He reaches out, stroking her hair, tucking layers behind her ears and away from her eyes, and she leans into his touch, and it feels so comfortable and right, like she belongs right here in his home, belongs in his life.
“What do you want for breakfast?” he asks.
“You can cook?” Yui's voice is surprised and curious, and Jin ducks his head, wondering when was the last time he felt embarrassed in front of a girl.
“I was thinking we could get room service,” he offers instead, and she smiles crookedly and grabs his hand, strokes the calluses on his fingertips and closes her eyes.
“Eggs,” she decides. “Sunny-side up. And toast.”
*
“Here,” Jin says, and his beautiful voice has a rhythm to it, a lilt of excitement that can infect. He places the headphones over Yui's ears, pushes her hair from her face and smiles. He kisses her; he can never help it, not with the way she looks at him like that. “It's one of the new songs in my next album, I want you to hear it.”
Yui smiles, shy and happy, and Jin watches her as he pushes 'play.' He knows he's written something good when her eyes light up, when she looks at him and blushes, because Yui and music belong together and she only looks so happy when the melody's just right, when the lyrics have meaning.
*
They keep their clandestine meetings at night, at little parks. Sometimes he listens to her singing outside train stations, heavily disguised, and he never stays for long. They keep trying, despite their lives that never really match, because this means something.
This is important. Music and sandboxes and swings, soft kisses in the park, her hand in his.
*
Jin rests his chin on her shoulder, arms strong and sure around her smaller frame. “A family would be great someday,” he says quietly, thumb moving in gentle circles along the skin of Yui's wrist. “Two kids, maybe three...I want kids,” he confesses, and he suddenly feels so shy, he's not sure why that is. He turns his head a little, rests his temple against hers, feels his heartbeat quicken a little; he's said these same words to interviewers and reporters so many times before, but it's different with Yui. Maybe it's because he wants her to be a part of it, these little wishes he has. They feel so much more tangible when she's around. He thinks he's still young and idealistic when he's around her, and realizes he's missed the feeling. “A little boy and a little girl. That'd be cute, right?”
“Yeah,” Yui says vaguely, and the way she sounds makes Jin wince for a reason he can't explain. “That'd be nice.”
“...you don't like it?” he asks, unsure and uncertain and all the other feelings he's never let show in public.
“I think it's fine for you,” Yui whispers, and looks down and refuses to meet his eyes. “If that's the kind of thing you want, it's something you should get.”
Jin hold on her tightens for a fraction-there's a moment there, somewhere between her voice and the way she can't look at him now, that makes him feel that something has gone very wrong. “Yui,” he says, and his voice is no longer soft.
“The idea of a family like that...it's not a future I can see for myself.”
*
“You've known her for all of how long, and you start talking about being a family, about having kids,” Keiko says without much sympathy, rearranging Jin's schedule when a variety show moves Jin's interview from this week to next. “This is a more modern time, you know; not all girls dream of marrying and then becoming housewives.”
“I wonder if that's the case,” Jin murmurs, drumming his fingers on the smooth surface of his guitar. It makes him think of Yui, and her soft, sad eyes that make it a little hard to breathe sometimes. And the way she'd looked at him that night, as he talked about what he wanted in the future-it'd been just a little heartbreaking, the way the smile had suddenly left her.
He looks up, pushing his hair out of his face to peer at Keiko. “You really think that's it?” he asks anxiously.
Keiko lifts her head and regards Jin quietly, her busy scribbling coming to a halt. She's never seen Jin look so serious before, about something that isn't his music, not his friends nor family. Frankly, she's never seen Jin look or act or sound like this when it comes to a girl.
“I don't know,” she finally sighs. She doesn't want to give Jin advice, because she has no idea what's going on. “Talk to Tomohisa,” she tells him, before returning his schedule book. “And you have a photoshoot tomorrow morning, so don't go drinking tonight.”
“Don't worry,” Jin reassures her, a ghost of his old, flirtatious smile back curving his mouth. “I'll stay pretty.”
*
Yui writes the next few chords down, tries again. She thinks of Jin, of children, of happy families that remain unbroken, walking past her in the park where she sings sometimes, when she doesn't have anything else to do. She thinks of the future she can't quite see for herself, the future that Jin sees so easily.
The music won't come-the words jumbled and confusing. Yui drops her pen and hugs her knees, wondering how this happened.
*
He doesn't see Yui for one month, two weeks, and three days. Not that he's been counting, he just remembers the date of the last time they saw each other-it was the night she'd blocked him off, and walls that he didn't even know she had were suddenly between them. He's not counting the days; he just so happens to remember the date of the last time.
The last time.
Pi dumps him into a dazed, drunken heap in his own front hall, letting Ryo lock the door behind them. Jin pulls off his boots with moderate difficulty, and even manages to stagger to his feet before Pi can drag him around. “Too much tequila,” he grumbles, managing to make it to couch and sinking down onto it with immense relief.
“No shit,” Ryo says mildly, tossing the keys to Pi as the two of them follow him into the living room. “I'm gonna get water.”
“Get me some too,” Pi says, and turns his attention to Jin. “You alright?”
Jin grins wryly, tilting his head back and throwing an arm across his eyes. “I haven't gone drinking like that in years,” he slurs, feeling an insane desire to laugh. “I can taste my own breath-it's tequila and midori liqueur, just so you know.” He swallows heavily, thinks he needs water because his throat feels dry. “I don't know what I have tomorrow.”
Pi sighs, drops Jin's keys onto his coffee table. “I'll ask Keiko to see what she can do; let you sleep in a little.” He's seen Keiko work scheduling miracles when she puts her mind to it.
Jin curls up on his side, closing his eyes against the pounding in his skull. “Thanks,” he says hoarsely.
Ryo comes back, and there's silence, punctuated only by soft voices and the crackle of plastic water bottles.
Then a phone rings.
Jin sits up, moves like he isn't drunk at all. He's got his phone in hand when Ryo grabs his wrist, then points his water bottle to Pi, speaking quietly to someone on the other end of the line with his back turned to them.
“Not yours,” Ryo says gently, softly, and something cracks.
Jin fights back the choked sob threatening to move past his throat, his lips, because he doesn't cry; he doesn't cry, he's a grown man and a single woman isn't-shouldn't be-enough to make him like this, except somehow it is. Yui, with her songbird voice and her smiles and the way she looks when the wind's whipping her hair around on the swings, means a hell of a lot, and suddenly she's gone, and there's a hollow in Jin's life he hadn't expected to hurt so much. He thinks he should get over it; he hasn't heard her voice in weeks, hasn't seen her and her guitar in over a month.
But somehow he can't, because he hadn't expected all of it to end like it did.
Jin curls up in on himself, phone forgotten by his side, and closes his eyes, wishing that he'd drunk himself incoherent.
*
“What do you mean you haven't talked to him in a month?” Erika is one of Yui's neighbors, and one of Yui's students-she teaches guitar to make some extra money. Erika is beautiful, with her pale, exotic eyes that she inherited from her mother; cool and regal and quite Parisian, in Yui's personal opinion.
“I don't know.” Yui strums her guitar, listening to the faint sound of Erika's metronome. Erika is one of those beautiful girls: the remarkable mix Japanese beauty and French mystery who would make the perfect idol. Yui pales in comparison. “I just...I don't know.”
“That,” Erika says with a touch of impatience in her sultry voice, “sounds a little like running away.” Erika isn't fond of that kind of thing, Yui knows. Erika is up-front and ferocious when she wants to be-Erika's mother says it's the French in her.
“It's not,” Yui insists softly, avoiding her friend's gaze, even though a very big part of her agrees with Erika. “I just realized that it wasn't going to end well, not at all, so I thought-”
Erika strums her guitar, a sharp, sudden twang of strings that make Yui jump. “He didn't ask you to marry him and have his kids at that exact moment, if I remember you telling me correctly.”
Yui pauses, bows her head. “No,” she admits. “He didn't.”
“So then,” Erika continues, relentless and unyielding in her efforts to make Yui understand, “what's the problem?”
“I think...if it were him, I wouldn't mind having that family.”
Erika blinks, momentarily stunned. Yui, in all the time they've known each other, has never shown an inkling of wanting to settle down, get married, and have kids. Yui's first and foremost had always been her music...shit, Erika thinks, eyes widening at the realization that for Yui, this was as serious as it would get.
“Except from my experience,” Yui continues, heedless of Erika's sudden inability to speak, “families don't stay together very long.”
The metronome continues on in the silence that follows.
*
Jin's on his second beer when a girl with great legs and bedroom eyes strides onto Nino's little stage holding a guitar. “Erika,” she says in a low voice by way of introduction, before seating herself on a stool and settling the guitar on her lap. She starts to play, and to Jin's surprise, she sings a song that sounds soft and sweet and just a little bit wistful. It sounds bright, almost, strange coming from this smokey-eyed girl wearing what looks like a pair of designer boots and skinny jeans. It sounds young.
He wants to think it sounds a little bit like Yui, but he can't think of her, not when he's finally capable of not having to go out clubbing and drinking at late hours just so he can fall asleep exhausted, without the barest hint of dreams.
When his thoughts return to Nino's bar, she's done-the smokey-eyed girl, Erika, murmurs her thanks and slides off the stool, leaving the stage with a runway walk better that some of the girls Jin's seen at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show. When she seats herself beside him at the bar and asks for a glass of Chardonnay, Jin gestures to Nino: “Put it on my tab.”
Erika's lips quirk into a little smile. “Nice way to start a conversation,” she drawls in her bedroom voice.
“I liked your song,” Jin comments by way of reply.
“Hmm. 'Stay with me.'” Jin blinks and the girl laughs, low and soft and seductive. “The name of the song.”
“You wrote it?” Nino returns with the glass of Chardonnay and Erika lifts it to her lips. When she sets it down, Jin sees the mark of her lipstick on the rim. Cherry red. Classic.
“A friend did.” Erika strokes the fretboard of the guitar she's leaned against the bar. It stands between them, almost like a guard, as if Jin would even try anything beyond buying a pretty lady a drink. Especially when she was giving off the don't even try vibes. “It's a recent composition and I liked it.” Erika laughs again, “But don't tell her I sang it for tonight. With her guitar, too.”
Jin grins, easy and warm. Erika looks unapproachable, but in uncharacteristically sweet. “I won't,” he promises, “because I have no idea who your friend is.”
Erika lifts her glass and smiles at him over the rim of it, her free hand still tracing the fretboard of her guitar. “Oh, I think you do,” she replies, finishing off the Chardonnay. “Thanks for the drink, and Ninomiya-san, I'll see you around.” She flashes the bartender a smile and picks up the guitar, and Jin notices the make.
It's a Fender elcoustic.
*
“When's my next night off?” Jin asks, grabbing a pair of jeans and stuffing them into his duffel bag.
“Thursday,” Keiko replies, Jin's schedule book open on her lap as she eats apple slices with caramel from the closest McDonald's. “Why?”
“Just wanted to know.” Jin zips the bag closed and turns to his assistant. “Alright, get out of my apartment, I'm locking up.”
“I have one apple slice left!”
*
“Did they like the new song?” Yui asks, watching Erika pick out the perfect shade of lip gloss.
“It was a smash.” Erika smiles at Yui through her mirror, decides on a tinted lip balm instead. “Would've been better if you sang it yourself.”
Yui laughs a little, hugs her guitar. “I haven't gone out to play in weeks,” she admits.
Erika grabs her mascara. “Well then, maybe you should.”
*
There's a man in the playground.
Yui stops, already halfway towards the swings, when she notices. She hesitates, unsure and not entirely scared, and the stranger rises from where he's sitting on the swings-and notices her.
“Ah...”
Jin, dressed in a plain gray hoodie and scuffed, messy jeans, lifts a hand in greeting. “Hey.” He sounds just as surprised as Yui feels.
Yui nods, her hold on her guitar case tightening. Jin smiles faintly, fleetingly, and they stand around awkwardly.
Jin's nerves give in first.
“I'll leave you alone to play, then,” he says, laughing nervously.
Yui watches him walk away before her mind catches up.
“Jin.”
He can still remember the last time she said his name.
*
They sit on the carousel, and it shifts a little with their weight.
“Where did you go?” Jin asks, breaking the silence first. Now that he's here-they're here, and Yui doesn't show any signs of suddenly leaving like she did the last time, he has questions he needs answered. “Why'd you stop returning my calls?”
Yui rubs the fabric of her skirt between her fingertips. “I don't know,” she says after a pause.
Jin sets his jaw. “That's...not even a real answer,” he says.
“It's the only one I have.”
“Jeez.” Jin laughs, but not because anything's funny. “That was it? You just...up and left and disappeared for no actual reason?”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't-” Jin stops, tries to contain his voice, his emotions. “Don't apologize. That's a cop out.”
Yui looks at him. “But I am,” she says, and he stands up so fast the carousel turns a little. Yui braces her feet against the sand to stop it.
He feels brittle and cracked and frayed at the edges, and her voice, subdued and so completely unlike herself, familiar and unfamiliar after so damn long, doesn't help. “Then give me a reason!” he snaps, and she starts at his voice and meets his eyes. “You can't just sit here and not say anything, it doesn't help, apologizing doesn't help, and if I knew this is all I was going to get I wouldn't have even bothered waiting here every goddamn night-” He sucks in a breath and brings a hand to his eyes. “Okay,” he says carefully, “no. Just...was it me? I just want to know that, if you can tell me.”
Yui's gaze is steady like her voice. “I don't think we'd be happy in the end.”
Jin drops his hand, looking bewildered. “Wh-” he begins, before shaking his head. “No. No. That's-that doesn't even make sense. Why...how did you decide that? Why did you decide that?” His voice goes sharp. “You don't get to decide that by yourself!”
“I was-”
“I was in the relationship too!” Jin steps forward and stops, wants to get near her and run away at the same time. “You don't get to decide that you don't make me happy, Yui!”
She lowers her eyes to her lap. “I'm sorry,” is all she can say.
“That's not enough,” he replies quietly, and by the time Yui can find the courage to look up, he's already walking away.
She doesn't call him back a second time.
*
The next song hurts to write, but she writes it nonetheless. She spends nights bent over paper, crossing out words and writing notes in the margins. Sometimes her mother catches some of the song as she plays guitar, comments on how sad it sounds, sadder than the other things she's written.
The first time she heard that, Yui nodded, and kept on playing.
*
“What are you listening to?” she asks Erika one day, and Erika pushes her headphones back.
“The new LANDS album,” Erika replies. “Do you want to hear some of it?”
Yui's gaze lands on the album cover, and her smile goes bittersweet. Erika thinks it's a very ugly look on her. “You could always talk to him again,” she says bluntly, and Yui blinks at her.
“...what would I say? He doesn't want to hear me apologize,” she murmurs, reaching out for the case, studying Jin's face on the cover booklet.
“He doesn't know why you're so scared of relationships. You could always try to explain.” Erika sits up, grabs Yui's hand. “You know,” she says softly, “he isn't your father. He won't walk out on you like that.”
Yui searches Erika's face. “What if I'm the one who messes up?” she finally asks.
Erika laughs. “You already did that,” she replies matter-of-factly, “and he still waited for you that second time.”
*
“There is a girl playing on the sidewalk outside the building,” Kame says, peering out the window.
“There's a what?” Jin asks absently, trying to memorize the lyrics to one of the new songs on the upcoming LANDS single.
“A girl,” Kame repeats. “She's playing guitar outside the company building.” He frowns, squints down into the street. “Ah, man, she's just a kid. Management's going to call the cops on her if she doesn't move.”
It is at that moment that Pi peers into the dressing room. “I think you guys need to see this,” he says, not even bothering to ask why Kame's hanging out in the LANDS dressing room. “I can't remember the last time someone pulled a stunt this crazy.”
“Is she good?” Kame asks, grabbing his jacket and following Pi. Jin reluctantly tags along.
“Yeah, the receptionist tells me that her voice is great,” Pi says, “but that's not gonna stop the cops from arresting her for this, so you might as well listen to her before they get here.”
By the time they reach the entrance there's a crowd, both inside and outside the building. People surround the singer, and Jin can hear the faint sound of a guitar over their voices. Pi and Kame push through, eager to listen, and Jin sighs when he gets dragged along, pulled into the crush of bodies.
I've grown used to seeing a sad face
reflected in the puddles.
Because I intend not to speak, it hurts.
I was given kindness, and then driven to tears...
it was sly of you.
On a night when my tear-colored voice can't be heard,
I'm so troubled, I want to be more selfish.
It's that voice, and that guitar, and the way the words seem to pull at something in his gut, that make Jin stop fighting to get away.
I'm a liar around you.
I kept hoping you'd realize it:
that I'm not a strong person in the least.
I've decided I can't let my tears fall;
it's very troubling, right? I won't become selfish.
The song is soft and sad and beautiful, and just on this side of heartbreaking. Jin pushes to the front of the crowd, and that's when Yui sees him.
Are you alright? I've somehow started asking again,
but things don't really seem that way.
Ah~ feel my love. Ah~
She finishes the song and the crowd claps, or at least they look like they're clapping, because Jin can't hear them. Jin can't hear them because there is a roaring in his ears. There is a roaring in his ears because Yui is close enough to touch, and she looks like she wants to let him.
He doesn't, though-he can't-because of the people surrounding them.
Yui sets her guitar back in its case, picks it up, and leaves as abruptly as she came.
*
“This is where I used to go every night,” Jin says.
Pi hands him a can of coffee bought from the convenience store just across the street. “This place is pretty open,” he comments, and wonders how photographers could've missed Jin playing here like a little kid, sitting on the swings or even climbing the jungle gym.
Then he realizes that maybe it's because the photographers have never seen a Jin like that, young and immature and carefree. Maybe they were just blind.
“We'd play under the jungle gym,” Jin says, pointing. “Hide under there if we got here early and there were still people. She'd sing a little, teach me some chords.” He pauses, looks down at the can cradled on his lap. “I know how to play one of the songs she wrote.”
“It's...nice here.” Pi sits beside his best friend on the carousel, feels it turn a little. “Quiet.”
Jin nods, opening his can of coffee and taking a measure gulp. They sit in silence for a while-a long while that stretches up as far as the night sky.
Then Jin speaks again.
“I miss her when I sing.”
*
She takes a deep breath and pulls on her shoes, while Erika holds out a jacket. “It might be cold,” Erika says quietly, and Yui smiles as she pulls it on. “Where are you going to play?”
“Maybe at the playground,” Yui replies, “and then wander around for a little.”
“Be careful.”
Yui smiles a little wider, and picks up her guitar case. “I will,” she promises.
*
“Go on ahead.”
“You sure?”
Jin nods, holds out his empty can of coffee for Pi to take. “I'm gonna hang out here for a little while,” he says, “but I'll go home soon.”
Pi watches him carefully, then plucks the can from his grip. “Okay,” he agrees, “but don't stay out too late.”
Jin laughs, salutes his best friend. “Yes, sir,” he jokes, and waves Pi away.
He's staring up at the stars when he hears the faint strains of a guitar, and Jin bolts upright, searching for the sound. The carousel creaks a little as it shifts from the move, but he's not paying attention. The guitar is soft, too soft, but he listens, and it's not long before he hears her voice.
It's the same song from the last time, the one that hurt.
He finds her where they used to hide together, cramped and comfortable under the jungle gym. She's not singing for anyone but herself now, tucked away in a shadowy corner. Jin listens, tries to memorize the words. Her voice is still beautiful. He listens as she trails away, falls silent, just strumming her guitar. He ducks his head and crawls into the small space with her, and she gasps, surprised.
“Hi,” he whispers, shifting to a sitting position and getting sand in his shoes. This feels familiar.
“Hi,” she replies, just as softly, and for a beat they stare at each other, unsure of what to say.
Jin draws a breath and opens his mouth when Yui speaks.
“My father ran out on me and my mother when I was born.”
He falls silent, stunned by the sudden declaration, the way she speaks like this is a common thing, a normal thing.
“I don't know why he did that. I never knew him.” Yui pauses, then sets her guitar down into her case, strokes the smooth planes of it, back and forth, back and forth. “I grew up without him and I still don't know who he is or where he is.” She stares down into her guitar, frowning slightly, thoughtfully.
“...I didn't know.”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says simply, “you didn't.”
Jin remembers the way she had looked when he talked about family, about having children, about having a home. He feels stricken, a little guilty even-despite the fact that he didn't know, he'd hurt her, talking about that. “I'm sor-” he begins, but Yui shakes her head again and he stops.
“When you were talking, I thought, I wonder how it would be for me.” Yui turns to him, looking uncertain. “That kind of thing always seemed so distant, but the way you talked about it. I guess it felt like it suddenly got closer. And I wondered, what would happen, if I had a family, too, someday? If it would break.” She hesitates. “I wondered...if it were-if it were you and me, someday, if you would run out on me, like he did to my mother. That's what I thought.”
“You didn't think we'd be happy in the end,” Jin whispers, remembering the last time.
Yui nods once, curling up and hugging her knees. “I was scared,” she finally admits, “because I don't want you to leave.”
It takes only a moment for Jin to close the distance between them, despite the cramped space hindering him. This is the closest he's been to her since the last time they met at the playground, and he thinks it's unfair that she's just like he remembers-she's looking at him with those eyes, soft and warm and making his breath hitch. “I won't,” he says, because he didn't. She was the one who had gone.
The corners of her mouth turn down a little. “You don't know that for sure,” she argues softly. “How do you know if we'll be happy in the end?”
“I don't,” he replies breathlessly, and because he can't resist it anymore, he reaches out, fingertips grazing her temple as he pushes a chunk of her hair out of her face. “I really don't know for certain, but I think we can always try.”
Yui's expression crumples, and Jin presses his fingers against her chin, makes her meet his eyes.
“We'll cross that bridge when we get there,” he says, and he smiles. “Hey, you never know, I could end up making you unbelievably happy.”
She laughs, but it comes out sounding a little bit like a sob. “If it's you, I'll try,” she says, and Jin gathers her into an embrace. She crawls towards him, clinging to the back of his sweater as she cries, and the way she fits into his arms makes him want to hold on to her for hours.
“Do you think it'll be okay?” she whispers, and he rests his cheek against her hair.
“We'll just have to see how it goes,” he murmurs.
They stay there in their crowded little space under the jungle gym, with sand in their shoes, and after a while, Yui sniffles and pulls away, pushing her hair out of her face. Jin looks at her, and the words come out before he even realizes it.
“You're cute even when you cry.”
Yui looks up at him with wide eyes, fingers curled against the sides of her face, with tear tracks still on her cheeks. Jin laughs a little sheepishly, but feels a little hopeful when she finally smiles. It's faint and wavering but it's there, and hey, he's willing to take what he can get.
“Right now,” she says softly, “is that part in the movies where couples usually kiss.”
He chuckles, the sound soft and warm and loving, like how a hug would sound, and Yui feels it wrap around her. “I think you're right,” he tells her.
So he does.