A slow unraveling of secrets (Pin, R) [2/2]
Title: A slow unraveling of secrets [2/2]
Pairing: Pin
One-Shot
Rating: R
Genre: friendship, romance, R
Disclaimer: I don't own any people. Yet.
Summary: In which Jin spends a lot of time trying to solve a mystery, puts bros before hos, and then spends even more time trying to figure out just what he wants from his best friend Pi.
Jin got back in the taxi with the girl of the night, and turned off his phone. He fucked the girl four times at her apartment and then went home and drank a bottle of tequila.
He turned his phone back on and saw 3 missed calls from Ryo and 8 from Pi. He ignored them and called Crystal. “Crystal,” he said, into the phone.
“Jin, how drunk ARE you it’s 6AM, “ she said groggily.
“I drank a bottle of tequila after I saw Yamapi making out with a man.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Do you want to come over?” she said, eventually. “It’s early enough that no one would know and get the wrong idea.”
“Yes, please.” Jin said, and he got into yet another taxi after a quick shower. His hair, tied back in a messy ponytail, dug into his neck and with all the tequila he was surprised he could even feel that.
Crystal opened the door wearing flannel pajamas and a bath robe, 2 big mugs of coffee in her hands. “Here, drink.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, and then he fell into her arms.
“It’s okay,” she said. “What are best friends for?” Jin remembered saying those words, and wanted to cry.
***
Jin spent the next 24 hours at Crystal’s apartment. Crystal lived about an hour away from Jin’s neighborhood, so they usually met out, to avoid scandal and to save on commuting, but Jin was too drunk, and too confused, to be seen in public, and Crystal only had about 4 hours of work that day. Jin was sure he probably had more but one phone call with Kame (“Did you sit under a keg and drink until you passed out?”) convinced Kame that Jin could not possibly do an interview with anyone under any circumstances, and one call with his manager had convinced him that something was really wrong when Jin refused to defend himself as usual. (“Jin, whatever it is, work it out by tomorrow, we have a photo shoot and a CF shoot.”)
Crystal, aside from one radio show she left for, had sat with him all day in mostly silence. They watched American films, laughed at the terrible jokes that none of their other friends would get since they didn’t speak English, and did nothing. Crystal curled up in the armchair and studied Korean for an hour or so, but other than that the day had been consumed in companionable avoidance as Jin slowly sobered up.
“I cannot believe you didn’t pass out,” Crystal said, as Jin started to feel less and less like a drunk person and more and more like a hungover person.
Jin thought about why, for the first time since coming to Crystal’s, he had drunk so much, and to his horror, he felt himself starting to cry.
Crystal sat next to him a flung a friendly arm over his shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said again, and Jin found himself pouring out the whole story, about the jeans and the lies and how it wasn’t fair that he had to see it, and Crystal tentatively asked a question.
“Is it…a big deal that he likes guys? To you, I mean?” Jin was silent. He thought about it, and he thought about how much he loved gay-ass Kame and Taguchi, who was also pretty fucking gay, and how it never mattered to him about them and what they did in their bedrooms at home at all, because they were people and it was less competition for hot chicks.
“It’s not that he’s gay.” Jin replied. “Or not gay. Interested in men, sometimes or all the time. It’s not that. “
“What is it, then? Why are you so…torn up?”
“Because he LIED. Because I’M his best friend and I shouldn’t have had to find out on accident by watching him SCORE and he should have told me whenever he figured it out! And because…” he stopped, and thought about it, and realization struck him like a punch in the stomach. “And because,” he started again, “because everyone knew about it but ME.”
Crystal’s arms tightened around him. “Maybe it’s cause it was you.”
“He knows I don’t care about shit like that.”
“Yeah,” Crystal said, “but you’re the most important person in the world to him, so maybe it was harder to tell you than anyone else.”
Jin was silent.
“Or maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Jin asked, looking over at Crystal seriously. She worried her lower lip between her teeth and sighed. “Crystal, what? Don’t be a cocktease.”
Crystal laughed and shoved him. “Look dude, why don’t you just talk to him. Tomorrow. When you’re not drunk.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll talk to him.”
Jin looked at her, her beautiful brown skin a few shades darker than Pi’s, and he imagined Pi again, remembering how his head had looked thrown back in ecstasy and another man nibbled at his neck, how Jin had felt so betrayed and confused and out of the loop as everyone around him harboured Pi’s secret.
“Oh…” He choked on the word. “Okay.”
“Okay what?” she replied, sassy in her confidence. Crystal possessed every trait he admired in a woman, he thought. She was confident, capable and beautiful.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Good. Now let’s watch DOA. That is a truly awful movie and there’s lots of T&A, so you’ll like it.”
Jin laughed, and was glad he’d called her. He’d call her out on her twitter tomorrow. “You love me.”
“I do,” she said, “but not enough to let you sit here and feel sorry for yourself."
***
When Jin turned his phone on the next day and saw that Pi had left him 16 voicemails, and 7 texts that all said some variation of Talk to me, or Let me explain, Jin realized he was going to have to pretty immediately talk to Yamapi, or Yamapi was going to drive him, and the world, insane.
So he opened his phonebook, and found himself dialing Kamenashi instead.
Kame answered the phone like a little bitch, with “Are you sober now?” and Jin responded with “Fuck you.” There was nothing to say, for a moment, before Jin remembered his revelation on Crystal’s couch. “So…how long have you known?” Jin asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Kame didn’t understand what Jin was asking though, so he continued on. “Known what? That you were an alcoholic? Since you were 16 and dragged two hookers into our dorm. Or should I say, they dragged YOU.”
“Known Pi liked dudes. Known Pi fucked dudes.”
Kame gasped. “He TOLD you. Finally.”
Jin didn’t get why everyone thought Yamapi was going to man up and tell him whatever it is he was supposed to tell him, but he wasn’t and fuck anyone who thought Jin hadn’t just been slapped in the face with the revelation of the decade. “NO, he didn’t TELL me anything. He got CAUGHT is what happened. Caught getting molested on the dance floor and LIKING it, since he thought I had left. SO how long have you fucking KNOWN. Am I the only person who thought Pi and I were best friends who told each other everything and apparently we’ve been living this huge lie where we go out to clubs and pick up chicks but secretly SECRETLY he’s been picking up dudes after I left with a woman? How is that okay?!” Jin almost screamed into the phone.
Kame let out a soft sigh. “Look, I told him, and Ryo told him, that he should just tell you that he didn’t really like women and you would still be his best friend but…”
“How long, Kamenashi. Just…how long has our friendship been a total lie. “
“Jin, it hasn’t been a total lie, it’s just one thing-“
“It’s a HUGE THING, Kame. You know I don’t give a fuck about sexual orientation, I care about being fucking LIED to, and I just want to know how long.”
“Since I was 18.”
Jin’s heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. “No one told me for six years. Everyone let me take him out to clubs, make insensitive gay jokes, show him straight porn, and generally be an absolute dick for SIX YEARS.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you, fuck him, and fuck this.”
Jin hung up the phone.
***
Crystal called him that night to remind him to talk to Yamapi.
“Six years,” he told her. “Everyone else has known for 6 years. I don’t know if I can forgive him for this.”
“Talk to him, Jin. Just. Do it. For yourself at least.”
Jin was an absolute wretch in practice, and was also absolutely useless. By now the rest of KAT-TUN knew what had happened, as Ryo had come by to talk to him and they had ended up screaming at each other about whether Ryo should have told Jin anything. After they had screamed for a good 5 minutes Jin quietly conceded “You’re right. It wasn’t your place to tell me. It was his. And he didn’t. And that’s it.”
Jin texted Yamapi 3 days later. Why did you lie to me?
The text was returned in 2 minutes. I was really scared.
Jin wrote back. I love you so much, how could you think I would stop being your friend?
Yamapi took longer to respond this time. Once I had lied for 3 months, it was easier to lie for 4. Months turned to years.
Jin texted back rapidly, not understanding. But why did you lie in the first place?
Yamapi’s response was in English. LET’S TALK.
Jin was sober, so he drove to Yamapi’s place.
Yamapi opened the door in boxers, his bangs pulled up in an ugly purple hair band, and his eyes ringed with dark circles. All the lights in the apartment were out.
Jin walked passed him, slipping out of his Adidas sandals and walking into the living room. He didn’t need the lights. He knew everything in this apartment in and out, like he had thought he knew his best friend.
Yamapi turned on a light anyway, and Jin leaned back on the couch. Jin looked at Yamapi in the dim light, his eyes swollen from lack of sleep, his lips chapped, hair greasy and uncombed, and couldn’t help but want to console him. Yamapi stood there, with the countenance of a kicked puppy, waiting to be scolded for chewing Jin’s slippers. It was all much more serious than that, but seeing Yamapi’s absolute guilt and pain, and the knowledge that he had been struggling with as much as Jin had, made Jin realize that this…this could heal. Yamapi loved him, after all, and he loved Pi.
He patted the seat beside him on the couch. “Come here, fatass.” Yamapi looked up then, from his intense study of the wooden floor, and met Jin’s gaze for the first time. Jin broke it quickly, but continued to pat the seat. When Pi sat down, with enough distance between them to make it feel not at all natural, not at all EASY, Jin groaned and pulled Yamapi’s head down into his lap, like he had 1000 times before, and would 1000 times again. He pulled out the hair tie and stroked his fingers through the greasy hair. “When’s the last time you took a shower, Pi?”
“Last Saturday,” he mumbled back.
“And the last time you ate?”
“Last Saturday.”
“Slept?”
“Last Saturday.”
Jin sighed. “You’re pathetic,” he grumbled, still running his fingers through Pi’s hair. Yamapi rolled over so he was looking up at Jin. “I’m pathetic without you.”
Jin cracked a crooked smile, and it felt wrong on his face. It must have looked wrong too, because Yamapi closed his eyes immediately. “So why did you lie to me, then? Did you think this would change? Did you think I wouldn’t still be here?”
Yamapi took a deep breath. “No. It’s not that I swear. It’s that after we got to know each other it seemed to late. Like it stood huge between us like something you should have known from the start. I just never corrected you. I figured one day you would find out. But after years, YEARS had passed I was scared. It was like this horrible secret. ‘Jin,’ I could imagine myself saying, ‘Jin, I don’t like women,’ and then you would say ‘That’s okay,’ and everything would be fine, but…”
Jin looked down at him, eyes scrunched tight and moist, skin dry and chapped, and all he could do was keep running his fingers through Pi’s hair as he shuddered.
“So say it now.”
“It’s too late, now. I waited too long. I was such a coward.”
“Pi.” Yamapi sat up suddenly, and looked straight on at Jin.
“Jin, I don’t like women.”
Jin pulled Yamapi to him, crushing him in a hug. “That’s okay,” Jin said, and Yamapi nuzzled his neck. It felt a little wet, like Yamapi was crying, but he totally wasn’t because that would mean that moisture on Jin’s face was probably also crying, and Jin was very manly, so he didn’t do things like cry in front of his bros. “Don’t lie to me ever again. If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, face still nuzzled in Jin’s neck. “I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend.”
“I know. You’re mine too. That’s why it hurt that you didn’t trust me, confide in me. I’m not going to reject you. Even if you kill someone, I’ll still love you. There’s nothing you could do that would end our friendship. If you don’t want to bang hot chicks, that’s fine. More for me.”
Yamapi didn’t look up from his shoulder.
***
KAT-TUN (and NewS, it turned out) were happy to see things return to some sort of status quo. It was awkward at first (“Pi, do you even like this kind of club?” “YES, stupid, I like to dance, too, you know.”) and the first time they met up again after their manly communing at Pi’s apartment was tense, but slowly Jin relaxed again. But not completely, because now he knew he needed to pay attention.
It’s fixed, he tweeted at Crystal the next day, and she sent him a smiley face back.
As much as he blamed Pi for not telling him, he also blamed himself for not noticing. And now that he knew, it’s like clues were everywhere. Yamapi’s shirts, for one. Also the way his eyes slowly lingered on their male waiter’s backside, or the way he charmed the cute boy at the DVD rental shop who clearly had a huge crush on him. (And Jin didn’t know he was gay either. How many people Jin interacted with on a daily basis were secretly gay, anyway?) No wonder Pi had expected him to bring it up-as well as he knew the man, he really should have noticed.
And so, to prevent something like that from ever happening again, Jin began watching. Really paying attention.
He paid attention to the way Yamapi picked the carrots out of his curry even though they were the only healthy thing he cooked into it. He called him out on it once, and Yamapi grinned. “I hate carrots, you know that.” Jin was puzzled. “But you make it. You could easily just not use carrots.”
“They add to the flavor of the curry,” he replied, and Jin nodded. That made sense. “Also you like carrots in your curry,” Pi added, not looking at Jin, and instead focusing on the carrot he was picking out.
He paid attention to the way Yamapi always fussed with this one piece of hair in the front. “Leave it alone, Pi!” “It looks weird.” “It looks fine, relax. Here let me.” Jin took the piece of hair and artfully pushed it back. “Now it’s out of your face.” Yamapi took to styling it like that afterwards, and Jin knew it was because he was a genius.
He paid attention to the way the Yamapi always had to have something in his hands, between his fingers. Sometimes it was the remote, which Yamapi ALWAYS had (even if Jin was the one watching TV and Yamapi was asleep in his lap, so Jin had to press the buttons between Yamapi’s fingers gripped around the control) and sometimes it was a piece of Jin’s sweatshirt or a piece of Jin’s hair. Sometimes it was a smooth patch of Jin’s back, which Jin didn’t mind because he and Yamapi had always been close, and he was glad things were returning to normal.
He paid attention to the hesitant way Yamapi touched him at first, after Jin knew he was gay. The way he looked at Jin like the way they’d been for years was no longer okay, because now Jin knew. He watched the relief in his eyes when Jin went right on treating as he’d always treated him, touching him as he’d always touched him.
And with all that paying attention, he realized Yamapi was in love with him. It was in every look Yamapi gave him, every thoughtful gesture, every soft touch. Jin wondered if Yamapi had always been in love with him.
Before he realized what he was doing, he stopped bring girls home and started spending more time at the table with Ryo and Pi. He was fascinated by this development, that he had noticed it all by himself. And he was right, he knew in his heart he was right, that Yamapi really was in love with him.
First he called Crystal. “Jin, how lovely to hear from you at a normal time of day.”
“So I think Yamapi is in love with me.”
“Hmmm.” She replied, non-committal. “Honestly, I thought that might be why he never told you. He didn’t want you to start looking at his actions and wondering what was behind them.”
Jin mostly agreed with Crystal. It was, after all, after he found out Pi was gay that he noticed he was in love with him. “So what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jin replied. “I have to give him the chance to tell me, and I don’t want to confront him, and I don’t know how I feel about it yet.”
“You’re surprisingly calm.”
Jin supposed he was. He knew he couldn’t panic, couldn’t mess up. Not about something as important as this. A part of Jin selfishly wished he had never noticed THIS, so he could fuck women and not feel like he was hurting Yamapi every time he left the club with a new face/fantastic set of boobs. This was all very Hard, and Jin didn’t like things that were hard, and he wondered when being friends with Pi had gotten so very complicated.
He asked Kame, nonchalantly in the dressing room one day, after 2 months of thinking about the problem had yielded no course of action. Maybe a second opinion, no matter how bitchy, would help him clear it up. “Kame, how long has Pi been in love with me?”
Kame looked up. “He TOLD you.” Jin was really getting tired of Kame giving Yamapi credit for anything requiring balls and/or telling things to Jin that Jin really needed to know.
“Of course he didn’t, I’m just not stupid, now that I’m paying attention.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing, for now. How long?”
“But how do you feel about it?” Jin had been asking himself the same question, but he really didn’t know. He loved Yamapi, and he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life without Yamapi’s steady presence and warm shoulder comforting him through it. But there was a big difference between being someone’s best friend, and being someone’s lover. That difference, to Jin, came down to vaginas. And boobs. He really liked boobs.
But he also liked the way Yamapi could finish his sentences for him and put carrots in his curry even though he hated carrots and the way Yamapi smelled when he pushed back into him on a crowded train. And those things were important too.
“I don’t…know. I’m not gay. I’ve been pretty firmly heterosexual since I was old enough to have sex.” Kame rolled his eyes. “But Yamapi…he’s my most important person, after my family. I’ve never been in love with a girl, and Yamapi and I have spent YEARS together, and he makes me happy, and he’s IMPORTANT. And I love him, but that’s different from being IN love, and I know that.”
Kame looked surprised that he had thought it through so much. “How long have you known, then?” he asked.
“About 2 months, give or take. How long has Yamapi been in love with me?”
“About 6 years, give or take.”
Jin swallowed as he thought about what it might feel like to be in love with someone for 6 years, thinking there’s no hope of them loving you back. He wondered how Yamapi could stand it, how he’d been so tough. But he still..didn’t know what to do, and he realized he couldn’t ask Kame, or Crystal, or Ryo. He had to ask himself.
***
Their managers informed them of the AnAn photoshoot on the same day. Yamapi texted him about it that night, since Jin couldn’t go meet him for dinner since he had to work until 11 and then he was going to work on a new solo song. Is it going to be okay for you?
Jin texted back: It’s just a photoshoot, fatass. You should be more concerned with how fat you’re going to look standing next to me naked. Yamapi texted back quickly, Whatever, you're just jealous of my body. Go eat a piece of lettuce, heard manager put you on a new diet.
Whatever, Jin texted back. He thought about it, and realized Pi had some really fantastic boobs.
Koki had a field day about it. “Wait, wait, let me get this straight. You have to do a gay porn shoot for the AnAn sex issue with Yamapi? I didn’t know they were into documentary-type shit.”
Taguchi cuffed Koki on the back of the head and Kame shot a worried look in Jin’s direction. “It’s fine,” he mouthed back, and hoped it was fine.
3 days later, at the shoot, Jin realized that he would, in fact, be naked with Yamapi, posing in some really suspicious positions on a king size bed. Yamapi was looking at the director with a look on his face like he would rather have sex with Johnny than be here in such a humiliating moment. The photographer was going on and on about how complementary their looks were, and the costume assistant was pulling at Jin’s jeans like an overeager teenager about to lose her virginity. Jin kind of wanted to die.
“This isn’t awkward right?” Jin said, looking at Yamapi as Yamapi’s face was dusted with powder. “And why do they have a costume designer when there are no costumes except for my fantastic ass?” He added snarkily.
Yamapi grimaced. “This is extremely awkward, and I’d rather be fucking Johnny.”
“I think I might be insulted,” Jin replied. “Would you really rather have sex with Johnny than me?” Jin looked up at Yamapi through his eyelashes, and saw Yamapi swallow uncomfortably. Yamapi sighed and wrapped his bathrobe tighter around his body.
“I don’t think there’s a person on this planet who would rather have sex with Johnny that YOU.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special, Pi.”
“I don’t like girls, remember? Which is why I’m worried.”
“Yamapi,” Jin said, looking at him straight on, with no joking or pretence in his voice or face. “It’s going to be alright. You can imagine anyone you want in my place if that makes it easier.”
Yamapi looked back at him, and said nothing but Jin could see his heart resting there in his eyes.
“Or you don’t have to pretend at all, if you don’t want to. You can just remember it’s me, and NOTHING is going to make me leave you. Nothing.” He finished, and cleared his throat.
Yamapi looked at him with fear and something…else lingering at the corner of his lips, and Jin wondered if he understood the message Jin was trying to get across.
The director of the shoot called out to them. “You boys ready? Let’s go!”
Somehow, later, Jin found himself lying under Yamapi, both arms held above his head by Yamapi’s and Yamapi’s head buried in the nook between his neck and shoulder. Jin’s thigh brushed slightly against Yamapi’s erection as he moved his leg according to the director’s instructions, and Yamapi hissed; an angry, needy sound that made blood pool in Jin’s stomach against his will. His flaccid cock twitched as the camera shuttered. “Yamashita, lean closer to Akanishi’s face, like you’re about to kiss him.”
Yamapi groaned and leaned down, his eyes half-lidded as his gaze met Jin’s. He exhaled onto Jin’s mouth and Jin breathed in at the same time, and it was as if there was steam between them, and was it always this hot in here? Jin’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes caught Yamapi’s, which were burning with desire and shame and guilt all at once. As if the fact that he was so turned on was something he had done wrong, as if Jin wasn’t just as unhinged by this as he was.
Seeing that look in his eyes made Jin’s heart hurt. “Akanishi, flip over so you’re on top, and drag your hand across Yamashita’s stomach.” Jin followed the instructions to the letter, and soon found his index finger traveling slowly down the center of Yamapi’s abs as they quivered under his touch. A bright flash, and four clicks of the camera. “Perfect, Akanishi.” Yamapi came undone under his soft strokes as Jin looked down on him, his hair hanging like a curtain and hiding his face from the camera. “Wow, Akanishi, you’re doing great!” Yamapi’s erection brushed against his arm as he moved it to help support himself, and he moved his thigh in between Pi’s to add some dynamic to the shot. “It looks so real,” an assistant murmured. “How can they be so professional?”
When Yamapi’s eyes opened again, he looked afraid. His hard cock lay warm and real against Jin’s leg, and Jin could think of only one way to reassure him that being aroused now was okay, and that he wasn’t mad, or disgusted or confused anymore. Jin smiled at him, softly, and then lowered his body so that his own shaft, now stiff and aching, pressed into Yamapi’s hip bone. “Don’t worry about it,” Jin whispered. “Me too.” Yamapi’s eyes had widened, and the camera clicked a few more times.
“Okay, it’s a wrap,” said the photographer, and the director agreed. “Easiest shoot I’ve ever done with two models, for this sort of issue,” he said, and Jin couldn’t suppress a blunt snort.
“Easy, my ass,” he muttered, and Pi looked up at him and cracked a small, tense smile. “I’ve heard your ass is pretty easy.” Jin looked back over at him. “Not really,” he replied as he shrugged on his robe again, covering his erection in thick terrycloth. “I’ve actually taken up a new life of meditative celibacy.” When he looked up again, Yamapi too was covered up in a matching white robe. “Let’s go drink coffee before we do the clothed shots,” Jin finished.
“Okay,” Pi replied easily, as if they hadn’t been, only moments before, rubbing their erect penises against each other in the name of art and possibly Johnny fanservice. Jin liked how his relationship with Yamapi still had that familiarity, even if he was standing on the edge of a giant precipice and was thinking about diving head first into the unknown dangers below. “Sorry about…”
“Don’t be ridiculous; we were doing a sexy photoshoot and we are both sexy people. It was bound to happen,” Jin said, not meeting Pi’s gaze.
In the dressing room, they were alone. Jin mixed two cups of instant coffee, and handed one to Yamapi. Yamapi looked solemnly into his cup, as if the bits of unmixed sugar around the edge held the answers to some deep mystery. “You’re shit at mixing instant coffee, Jin,” Pi said. “There’s all kinds of unmixed sugar around the edges.”
“You’re shit at telling me things I need to know,” Jin replied. Yamapi slowly looked up at him, expression blank. Jin continued, “Oh Jin, I’ll never not tell you some big huge secret again! Oh Jin, I didn’t tell you about the whole gay thing because it was too weird, you know?” he said, in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Yamapi, but got the point across pretty clearly that he was annoyed or pissed about something Yamapi had done. Yamapi blinked twice, slowly, his eyelashes resting briefly and ethereally against his cheeks before flying up again. His gaze met Jin’s, waiting for the rest. “How long have you been in love with me?” Jin finally asked, breaking the silence.
For some reason, whatever Yamapi had been expecting, he had clearly not been expecting that. His instant coffee dropped from his hand as he gaped at Jin. Jin stared back at him, bemused. “Do you think, Pi, that I am stupid? I have eyes. And basic common sense.”
“Correct on the first, null on the second,” Pi replied absentmindedly, with an air of habit. “You definitely have eyes, but you definitely Do Not have common sense.” Pi stared at his hands, as if wondering how they had betrayed him. “When…?”
“Just tell me, be completely honest with me for once, damnit. How long have you been in love with me?”
“Forever,” Pi replied. “I didn’t want to mess anything up, I didn’t want to lose you…” he rambled, and Jin grabbed him by the collar of his robe and slammed him into a wall. He pushed his face right in front of Yamapi’s and forced Pi to look him directly in the eyes.
“I told you, didn’t I, that I wasn’t going to reject you, that I wasn’t going to LEAVE you, that nothing would make me forget what we mean to each other. Stop…” Jin released his grip, and Yamapi exhaled. “Stop underestimating how much I can take, how much I can know. Tell me all of it, and let me…let me…” he trailed off. “I haven’t finished thinking about it. I didn’t mean to bring it up before I had.”
Yamapi looked at him, unbelievingly. “Thinking about what?”
“How I’m going to react to all…this…What I need to do so you don’t get hurt and I don’t get hurt. But I’m not GOING anywhere.” He remembered what he had said to Kame, earlier, and inhaled. “You’re IMPORTANT, and that will never change.” Jin chugged his instant coffee, and squeezed the paper cup into a ball before tossing it in the trash. “I’m going to go change.”
“Jin, we’re in the dressing room,” Pi said, exasperated and confused and almost whining.
“I’m gonna go change in the bathroom,” he said, and grabbed the jeans and the indecent furred strappy thing that passed for a top in the idol industry. “I’ll see you on set.”
He texted Pi that night. Stop thinking about it and go to sleep.
How do you know I’m thinking about it?
Because I am, and I know you. Go to bed, you have an interview 2morrow.
How come you can remember my schedule and not your own, Bakanishi?
Jin smiled, and went to sleep.
And two weeks after that, Jin and Pi had still not discussed the GIANT HEAVING ELEPHANT that was Pi’s undying love, but Jin thought he was making headway in his personal reflection and soul searching. And meanwhile he and Pi continued to eat curry with carrots and watch DVDs on the couch, and Yamapi continued to look at him every so often with incredulous eyes, as if he could not believe Jin was carrying on everyday life with the ginormous elephant stealing every bit of available space in whatever room they happened to be in. Jin thought it was a shame they didn’t hang out outside more, where the elephant could have a little more space to move around, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped.
Hang out with me tomorrow, Jinny, came a text from Crystal one Tuesday night while Jin and Yamapi sat on the couch watching an old episode of Trick. Yamapi looked at the text over J and his mouth made a line. “She’s just a friend,” Jin blurted out without meaning to. Yamapi scoffed. “Doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I guess,” but his mouth relaxed and Jin snuggled back down into his lap and stole some more popcorn from the bowl on the table.
When Jin arrived at Crystal’s apartment, there were two tumbers of whiskey on the glass table in the living room, and Crystal held a copy of AnAn in her arms. “So, Jin, I think you’re being a little thick.”
Jin looked at her, and she opened the magazine. The pictures were…well, they were better than he had expected, more beautiful and artistic than it had seemed at the time, while he shivered from a mix of embarrassment and desire and Yamapi looked at him with those terrified eyes… Actually they were beautiful, and Jin realized, suddenly, that he could imagine a life making beautiful images like that with Yamapi.
“It’s possible to OVERTHINK stuff sometimes, you know?” she said in English. “Like, to think way too hard about stuff that should be easy. You and Yamashita…you’re like two parts of a whole, and you’ve kinda always been that way. And I know you love girls, Jin, the whole world knows you love girls. But you also love Yamashita, and that’s enough, without putting labels on it or trying to sort it into some neat little box. You totally love him, and don’t you think you should put him out of his misery?”
Jin looked at Crystal and she stared earnestly back, still holding the magazine open toward him with the pornographic images of him and Pi on a bed glaring out at him. Suddenly, Jin snorted. “Crystal, you are…the best. I.CHI.BAN.”
Crystal tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I know,” she replied.
***
The next morning, Jin saw Yamapi at the jimusho and it just sort of jumped out of his mouth. “I love you too,” he said. Yamapi looked at him, mouth agape and arms sort of akimbo, and Jin looked up at the clock. “Shit, I’m late!” he yelled, then ran. When he turned the corner, he stopped running, and breathed in and out, slowly. He walked leisurely the rest of the way to the meeting room, arriving 15 minutes early for their meeting. A slow hum throbbed through his body.
A text. Jin WTF What is wrong with you?
Another text. Really?
Jin responded with one word. Yes.
***
Later, when they’re both lying on the floor in Jin’s apartment, Yamapi’s head pillowed on his arms and Jin, on his back, hair splayed around him and eyes toward the ceiling, they are quiet.
Jin is incredibly aware of Yamapi’s every movement, his soft breaths wheezing in the space between his arms and the floor, his terrible gay t-shirt, and the soft heat given off by his toned arm that lies adjacent to Jin’s ribcage. He’s so distracted by that heat-it’s bubbling within him, pooling in his belly, and up into his chest, squeezing down painfully on his heart in a way Jin hasn’t felt since he was an awkward teenager in terrible like with Ito Yuu, a girl in his class with long eyelashes and amazing collarbones. Yamapi is everywhere in his thoughts, surrounding him like rainy season or cigarette smoke, but better, more tangible even than the weather and more real than the sweet song of nicotine in his blood. Squeeze. He thinks it’s the constriction in his chest, and in his throat that makes him croak out the words “We could…”
And suddenly Yamapi, with a speed Jin didn’t know he possessed, hovers over him, one arm supporting his bodyweight, holding him 4 centimeters above Jin, and the other tangles itself in Jin’s hair. Yamapi lowers his face to Jin’s, and presses a soft kiss to his eyebrow, and then one to his nose. “YES,” he whispers forcefully, before claiming Jin’s lips with his own.
Jin’s mouth opens immediately, and Yamapi moans as his tongue tangles with Jin’s and it’s so HOT and Jin can feel himself moaning too; he can hear it, in a disconnected part of his brain. But all he can think about is the rough slip of Yamapi’s tongue across his, the soft tug on his lower lip as Yamapi grabs it between his teeth and sucks on it. When Yamapi’s mouth parts from his and wanders down to Jin’s jaw line, nipping along it softly, delicately, almost reverently, that’s when Jin registers that Yamapi is shaking.
Jin rips Yamapi off his neck, both hands on either side of Yamapi’s face, and dragging his eyes up to meet Jin’s own. “Hey, it’s me,” Jin says, and suddenly realizes HE’S shaking too. “Hey, we’re…this is you and me. And no matter what, it’s…So don’t…Can we…?” he trails off, and then, Yamapi smiles, slightly.
“Yes.”
And then. And then it’s Jin who pulls Yamapi down to him, their bodies slamming into each other as Jin lays under Yamapi and cranes his neck up to recapture Yamapi’s lips with his own. His hands slide up from Yamapi’s cheeks and slide desperately into his hair, trying to bring him closer, and closer still. Yamapi mewls into the tug, and Jin feels a part of himself he didn’t even know was missing slide into place like a puzzle piece. He wonders why he was afraid, why there was a time he didn’t want this. He pours all that feeling into Yamapi, through the gentle swipe of his tongue across Yamapi’s molars and the soft suck and blow of air into each other’s mouth. “We are…” Jin breathes out tightly before sucking on Yamapi’s adam’s apple, lathing his tongue across it. Yamapi’s breath hitches, and he hums, softly.
“Yes.”
Pairing: Pin
One-Shot
Rating: R
Genre: friendship, romance, R
Disclaimer: I don't own any people. Yet.
Summary: In which Jin spends a lot of time trying to solve a mystery, puts bros before hos, and then spends even more time trying to figure out just what he wants from his best friend Pi.
Jin got back in the taxi with the girl of the night, and turned off his phone. He fucked the girl four times at her apartment and then went home and drank a bottle of tequila.
He turned his phone back on and saw 3 missed calls from Ryo and 8 from Pi. He ignored them and called Crystal. “Crystal,” he said, into the phone.
“Jin, how drunk ARE you it’s 6AM, “ she said groggily.
“I drank a bottle of tequila after I saw Yamapi making out with a man.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Do you want to come over?” she said, eventually. “It’s early enough that no one would know and get the wrong idea.”
“Yes, please.” Jin said, and he got into yet another taxi after a quick shower. His hair, tied back in a messy ponytail, dug into his neck and with all the tequila he was surprised he could even feel that.
Crystal opened the door wearing flannel pajamas and a bath robe, 2 big mugs of coffee in her hands. “Here, drink.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, and then he fell into her arms.
“It’s okay,” she said. “What are best friends for?” Jin remembered saying those words, and wanted to cry.
***
Jin spent the next 24 hours at Crystal’s apartment. Crystal lived about an hour away from Jin’s neighborhood, so they usually met out, to avoid scandal and to save on commuting, but Jin was too drunk, and too confused, to be seen in public, and Crystal only had about 4 hours of work that day. Jin was sure he probably had more but one phone call with Kame (“Did you sit under a keg and drink until you passed out?”) convinced Kame that Jin could not possibly do an interview with anyone under any circumstances, and one call with his manager had convinced him that something was really wrong when Jin refused to defend himself as usual. (“Jin, whatever it is, work it out by tomorrow, we have a photo shoot and a CF shoot.”)
Crystal, aside from one radio show she left for, had sat with him all day in mostly silence. They watched American films, laughed at the terrible jokes that none of their other friends would get since they didn’t speak English, and did nothing. Crystal curled up in the armchair and studied Korean for an hour or so, but other than that the day had been consumed in companionable avoidance as Jin slowly sobered up.
“I cannot believe you didn’t pass out,” Crystal said, as Jin started to feel less and less like a drunk person and more and more like a hungover person.
Jin thought about why, for the first time since coming to Crystal’s, he had drunk so much, and to his horror, he felt himself starting to cry.
Crystal sat next to him a flung a friendly arm over his shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said again, and Jin found himself pouring out the whole story, about the jeans and the lies and how it wasn’t fair that he had to see it, and Crystal tentatively asked a question.
“Is it…a big deal that he likes guys? To you, I mean?” Jin was silent. He thought about it, and he thought about how much he loved gay-ass Kame and Taguchi, who was also pretty fucking gay, and how it never mattered to him about them and what they did in their bedrooms at home at all, because they were people and it was less competition for hot chicks.
“It’s not that he’s gay.” Jin replied. “Or not gay. Interested in men, sometimes or all the time. It’s not that. “
“What is it, then? Why are you so…torn up?”
“Because he LIED. Because I’M his best friend and I shouldn’t have had to find out on accident by watching him SCORE and he should have told me whenever he figured it out! And because…” he stopped, and thought about it, and realization struck him like a punch in the stomach. “And because,” he started again, “because everyone knew about it but ME.”
Crystal’s arms tightened around him. “Maybe it’s cause it was you.”
“He knows I don’t care about shit like that.”
“Yeah,” Crystal said, “but you’re the most important person in the world to him, so maybe it was harder to tell you than anyone else.”
Jin was silent.
“Or maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Jin asked, looking over at Crystal seriously. She worried her lower lip between her teeth and sighed. “Crystal, what? Don’t be a cocktease.”
Crystal laughed and shoved him. “Look dude, why don’t you just talk to him. Tomorrow. When you’re not drunk.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll talk to him.”
Jin looked at her, her beautiful brown skin a few shades darker than Pi’s, and he imagined Pi again, remembering how his head had looked thrown back in ecstasy and another man nibbled at his neck, how Jin had felt so betrayed and confused and out of the loop as everyone around him harboured Pi’s secret.
“Oh…” He choked on the word. “Okay.”
“Okay what?” she replied, sassy in her confidence. Crystal possessed every trait he admired in a woman, he thought. She was confident, capable and beautiful.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Good. Now let’s watch DOA. That is a truly awful movie and there’s lots of T&A, so you’ll like it.”
Jin laughed, and was glad he’d called her. He’d call her out on her twitter tomorrow. “You love me.”
“I do,” she said, “but not enough to let you sit here and feel sorry for yourself."
***
When Jin turned his phone on the next day and saw that Pi had left him 16 voicemails, and 7 texts that all said some variation of Talk to me, or Let me explain, Jin realized he was going to have to pretty immediately talk to Yamapi, or Yamapi was going to drive him, and the world, insane.
So he opened his phonebook, and found himself dialing Kamenashi instead.
Kame answered the phone like a little bitch, with “Are you sober now?” and Jin responded with “Fuck you.” There was nothing to say, for a moment, before Jin remembered his revelation on Crystal’s couch. “So…how long have you known?” Jin asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Kame didn’t understand what Jin was asking though, so he continued on. “Known what? That you were an alcoholic? Since you were 16 and dragged two hookers into our dorm. Or should I say, they dragged YOU.”
“Known Pi liked dudes. Known Pi fucked dudes.”
Kame gasped. “He TOLD you. Finally.”
Jin didn’t get why everyone thought Yamapi was going to man up and tell him whatever it is he was supposed to tell him, but he wasn’t and fuck anyone who thought Jin hadn’t just been slapped in the face with the revelation of the decade. “NO, he didn’t TELL me anything. He got CAUGHT is what happened. Caught getting molested on the dance floor and LIKING it, since he thought I had left. SO how long have you fucking KNOWN. Am I the only person who thought Pi and I were best friends who told each other everything and apparently we’ve been living this huge lie where we go out to clubs and pick up chicks but secretly SECRETLY he’s been picking up dudes after I left with a woman? How is that okay?!” Jin almost screamed into the phone.
Kame let out a soft sigh. “Look, I told him, and Ryo told him, that he should just tell you that he didn’t really like women and you would still be his best friend but…”
“How long, Kamenashi. Just…how long has our friendship been a total lie. “
“Jin, it hasn’t been a total lie, it’s just one thing-“
“It’s a HUGE THING, Kame. You know I don’t give a fuck about sexual orientation, I care about being fucking LIED to, and I just want to know how long.”
“Since I was 18.”
Jin’s heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. “No one told me for six years. Everyone let me take him out to clubs, make insensitive gay jokes, show him straight porn, and generally be an absolute dick for SIX YEARS.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you, fuck him, and fuck this.”
Jin hung up the phone.
***
Crystal called him that night to remind him to talk to Yamapi.
“Six years,” he told her. “Everyone else has known for 6 years. I don’t know if I can forgive him for this.”
“Talk to him, Jin. Just. Do it. For yourself at least.”
Jin was an absolute wretch in practice, and was also absolutely useless. By now the rest of KAT-TUN knew what had happened, as Ryo had come by to talk to him and they had ended up screaming at each other about whether Ryo should have told Jin anything. After they had screamed for a good 5 minutes Jin quietly conceded “You’re right. It wasn’t your place to tell me. It was his. And he didn’t. And that’s it.”
Jin texted Yamapi 3 days later. Why did you lie to me?
The text was returned in 2 minutes. I was really scared.
Jin wrote back. I love you so much, how could you think I would stop being your friend?
Yamapi took longer to respond this time. Once I had lied for 3 months, it was easier to lie for 4. Months turned to years.
Jin texted back rapidly, not understanding. But why did you lie in the first place?
Yamapi’s response was in English. LET’S TALK.
Jin was sober, so he drove to Yamapi’s place.
Yamapi opened the door in boxers, his bangs pulled up in an ugly purple hair band, and his eyes ringed with dark circles. All the lights in the apartment were out.
Jin walked passed him, slipping out of his Adidas sandals and walking into the living room. He didn’t need the lights. He knew everything in this apartment in and out, like he had thought he knew his best friend.
Yamapi turned on a light anyway, and Jin leaned back on the couch. Jin looked at Yamapi in the dim light, his eyes swollen from lack of sleep, his lips chapped, hair greasy and uncombed, and couldn’t help but want to console him. Yamapi stood there, with the countenance of a kicked puppy, waiting to be scolded for chewing Jin’s slippers. It was all much more serious than that, but seeing Yamapi’s absolute guilt and pain, and the knowledge that he had been struggling with as much as Jin had, made Jin realize that this…this could heal. Yamapi loved him, after all, and he loved Pi.
He patted the seat beside him on the couch. “Come here, fatass.” Yamapi looked up then, from his intense study of the wooden floor, and met Jin’s gaze for the first time. Jin broke it quickly, but continued to pat the seat. When Pi sat down, with enough distance between them to make it feel not at all natural, not at all EASY, Jin groaned and pulled Yamapi’s head down into his lap, like he had 1000 times before, and would 1000 times again. He pulled out the hair tie and stroked his fingers through the greasy hair. “When’s the last time you took a shower, Pi?”
“Last Saturday,” he mumbled back.
“And the last time you ate?”
“Last Saturday.”
“Slept?”
“Last Saturday.”
Jin sighed. “You’re pathetic,” he grumbled, still running his fingers through Pi’s hair. Yamapi rolled over so he was looking up at Jin. “I’m pathetic without you.”
Jin cracked a crooked smile, and it felt wrong on his face. It must have looked wrong too, because Yamapi closed his eyes immediately. “So why did you lie to me, then? Did you think this would change? Did you think I wouldn’t still be here?”
Yamapi took a deep breath. “No. It’s not that I swear. It’s that after we got to know each other it seemed to late. Like it stood huge between us like something you should have known from the start. I just never corrected you. I figured one day you would find out. But after years, YEARS had passed I was scared. It was like this horrible secret. ‘Jin,’ I could imagine myself saying, ‘Jin, I don’t like women,’ and then you would say ‘That’s okay,’ and everything would be fine, but…”
Jin looked down at him, eyes scrunched tight and moist, skin dry and chapped, and all he could do was keep running his fingers through Pi’s hair as he shuddered.
“So say it now.”
“It’s too late, now. I waited too long. I was such a coward.”
“Pi.” Yamapi sat up suddenly, and looked straight on at Jin.
“Jin, I don’t like women.”
Jin pulled Yamapi to him, crushing him in a hug. “That’s okay,” Jin said, and Yamapi nuzzled his neck. It felt a little wet, like Yamapi was crying, but he totally wasn’t because that would mean that moisture on Jin’s face was probably also crying, and Jin was very manly, so he didn’t do things like cry in front of his bros. “Don’t lie to me ever again. If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, face still nuzzled in Jin’s neck. “I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend.”
“I know. You’re mine too. That’s why it hurt that you didn’t trust me, confide in me. I’m not going to reject you. Even if you kill someone, I’ll still love you. There’s nothing you could do that would end our friendship. If you don’t want to bang hot chicks, that’s fine. More for me.”
Yamapi didn’t look up from his shoulder.
***
KAT-TUN (and NewS, it turned out) were happy to see things return to some sort of status quo. It was awkward at first (“Pi, do you even like this kind of club?” “YES, stupid, I like to dance, too, you know.”) and the first time they met up again after their manly communing at Pi’s apartment was tense, but slowly Jin relaxed again. But not completely, because now he knew he needed to pay attention.
It’s fixed, he tweeted at Crystal the next day, and she sent him a smiley face back.
As much as he blamed Pi for not telling him, he also blamed himself for not noticing. And now that he knew, it’s like clues were everywhere. Yamapi’s shirts, for one. Also the way his eyes slowly lingered on their male waiter’s backside, or the way he charmed the cute boy at the DVD rental shop who clearly had a huge crush on him. (And Jin didn’t know he was gay either. How many people Jin interacted with on a daily basis were secretly gay, anyway?) No wonder Pi had expected him to bring it up-as well as he knew the man, he really should have noticed.
And so, to prevent something like that from ever happening again, Jin began watching. Really paying attention.
He paid attention to the way Yamapi picked the carrots out of his curry even though they were the only healthy thing he cooked into it. He called him out on it once, and Yamapi grinned. “I hate carrots, you know that.” Jin was puzzled. “But you make it. You could easily just not use carrots.”
“They add to the flavor of the curry,” he replied, and Jin nodded. That made sense. “Also you like carrots in your curry,” Pi added, not looking at Jin, and instead focusing on the carrot he was picking out.
He paid attention to the way Yamapi always fussed with this one piece of hair in the front. “Leave it alone, Pi!” “It looks weird.” “It looks fine, relax. Here let me.” Jin took the piece of hair and artfully pushed it back. “Now it’s out of your face.” Yamapi took to styling it like that afterwards, and Jin knew it was because he was a genius.
He paid attention to the way the Yamapi always had to have something in his hands, between his fingers. Sometimes it was the remote, which Yamapi ALWAYS had (even if Jin was the one watching TV and Yamapi was asleep in his lap, so Jin had to press the buttons between Yamapi’s fingers gripped around the control) and sometimes it was a piece of Jin’s sweatshirt or a piece of Jin’s hair. Sometimes it was a smooth patch of Jin’s back, which Jin didn’t mind because he and Yamapi had always been close, and he was glad things were returning to normal.
He paid attention to the hesitant way Yamapi touched him at first, after Jin knew he was gay. The way he looked at Jin like the way they’d been for years was no longer okay, because now Jin knew. He watched the relief in his eyes when Jin went right on treating as he’d always treated him, touching him as he’d always touched him.
And with all that paying attention, he realized Yamapi was in love with him. It was in every look Yamapi gave him, every thoughtful gesture, every soft touch. Jin wondered if Yamapi had always been in love with him.
Before he realized what he was doing, he stopped bring girls home and started spending more time at the table with Ryo and Pi. He was fascinated by this development, that he had noticed it all by himself. And he was right, he knew in his heart he was right, that Yamapi really was in love with him.
First he called Crystal. “Jin, how lovely to hear from you at a normal time of day.”
“So I think Yamapi is in love with me.”
“Hmmm.” She replied, non-committal. “Honestly, I thought that might be why he never told you. He didn’t want you to start looking at his actions and wondering what was behind them.”
Jin mostly agreed with Crystal. It was, after all, after he found out Pi was gay that he noticed he was in love with him. “So what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jin replied. “I have to give him the chance to tell me, and I don’t want to confront him, and I don’t know how I feel about it yet.”
“You’re surprisingly calm.”
Jin supposed he was. He knew he couldn’t panic, couldn’t mess up. Not about something as important as this. A part of Jin selfishly wished he had never noticed THIS, so he could fuck women and not feel like he was hurting Yamapi every time he left the club with a new face/fantastic set of boobs. This was all very Hard, and Jin didn’t like things that were hard, and he wondered when being friends with Pi had gotten so very complicated.
He asked Kame, nonchalantly in the dressing room one day, after 2 months of thinking about the problem had yielded no course of action. Maybe a second opinion, no matter how bitchy, would help him clear it up. “Kame, how long has Pi been in love with me?”
Kame looked up. “He TOLD you.” Jin was really getting tired of Kame giving Yamapi credit for anything requiring balls and/or telling things to Jin that Jin really needed to know.
“Of course he didn’t, I’m just not stupid, now that I’m paying attention.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing, for now. How long?”
“But how do you feel about it?” Jin had been asking himself the same question, but he really didn’t know. He loved Yamapi, and he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life without Yamapi’s steady presence and warm shoulder comforting him through it. But there was a big difference between being someone’s best friend, and being someone’s lover. That difference, to Jin, came down to vaginas. And boobs. He really liked boobs.
But he also liked the way Yamapi could finish his sentences for him and put carrots in his curry even though he hated carrots and the way Yamapi smelled when he pushed back into him on a crowded train. And those things were important too.
“I don’t…know. I’m not gay. I’ve been pretty firmly heterosexual since I was old enough to have sex.” Kame rolled his eyes. “But Yamapi…he’s my most important person, after my family. I’ve never been in love with a girl, and Yamapi and I have spent YEARS together, and he makes me happy, and he’s IMPORTANT. And I love him, but that’s different from being IN love, and I know that.”
Kame looked surprised that he had thought it through so much. “How long have you known, then?” he asked.
“About 2 months, give or take. How long has Yamapi been in love with me?”
“About 6 years, give or take.”
Jin swallowed as he thought about what it might feel like to be in love with someone for 6 years, thinking there’s no hope of them loving you back. He wondered how Yamapi could stand it, how he’d been so tough. But he still..didn’t know what to do, and he realized he couldn’t ask Kame, or Crystal, or Ryo. He had to ask himself.
***
Their managers informed them of the AnAn photoshoot on the same day. Yamapi texted him about it that night, since Jin couldn’t go meet him for dinner since he had to work until 11 and then he was going to work on a new solo song. Is it going to be okay for you?
Jin texted back: It’s just a photoshoot, fatass. You should be more concerned with how fat you’re going to look standing next to me naked. Yamapi texted back quickly, Whatever, you're just jealous of my body. Go eat a piece of lettuce, heard manager put you on a new diet.
Whatever, Jin texted back. He thought about it, and realized Pi had some really fantastic boobs.
Koki had a field day about it. “Wait, wait, let me get this straight. You have to do a gay porn shoot for the AnAn sex issue with Yamapi? I didn’t know they were into documentary-type shit.”
Taguchi cuffed Koki on the back of the head and Kame shot a worried look in Jin’s direction. “It’s fine,” he mouthed back, and hoped it was fine.
3 days later, at the shoot, Jin realized that he would, in fact, be naked with Yamapi, posing in some really suspicious positions on a king size bed. Yamapi was looking at the director with a look on his face like he would rather have sex with Johnny than be here in such a humiliating moment. The photographer was going on and on about how complementary their looks were, and the costume assistant was pulling at Jin’s jeans like an overeager teenager about to lose her virginity. Jin kind of wanted to die.
“This isn’t awkward right?” Jin said, looking at Yamapi as Yamapi’s face was dusted with powder. “And why do they have a costume designer when there are no costumes except for my fantastic ass?” He added snarkily.
Yamapi grimaced. “This is extremely awkward, and I’d rather be fucking Johnny.”
“I think I might be insulted,” Jin replied. “Would you really rather have sex with Johnny than me?” Jin looked up at Yamapi through his eyelashes, and saw Yamapi swallow uncomfortably. Yamapi sighed and wrapped his bathrobe tighter around his body.
“I don’t think there’s a person on this planet who would rather have sex with Johnny that YOU.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special, Pi.”
“I don’t like girls, remember? Which is why I’m worried.”
“Yamapi,” Jin said, looking at him straight on, with no joking or pretence in his voice or face. “It’s going to be alright. You can imagine anyone you want in my place if that makes it easier.”
Yamapi looked back at him, and said nothing but Jin could see his heart resting there in his eyes.
“Or you don’t have to pretend at all, if you don’t want to. You can just remember it’s me, and NOTHING is going to make me leave you. Nothing.” He finished, and cleared his throat.
Yamapi looked at him with fear and something…else lingering at the corner of his lips, and Jin wondered if he understood the message Jin was trying to get across.
The director of the shoot called out to them. “You boys ready? Let’s go!”
Somehow, later, Jin found himself lying under Yamapi, both arms held above his head by Yamapi’s and Yamapi’s head buried in the nook between his neck and shoulder. Jin’s thigh brushed slightly against Yamapi’s erection as he moved his leg according to the director’s instructions, and Yamapi hissed; an angry, needy sound that made blood pool in Jin’s stomach against his will. His flaccid cock twitched as the camera shuttered. “Yamashita, lean closer to Akanishi’s face, like you’re about to kiss him.”
Yamapi groaned and leaned down, his eyes half-lidded as his gaze met Jin’s. He exhaled onto Jin’s mouth and Jin breathed in at the same time, and it was as if there was steam between them, and was it always this hot in here? Jin’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes caught Yamapi’s, which were burning with desire and shame and guilt all at once. As if the fact that he was so turned on was something he had done wrong, as if Jin wasn’t just as unhinged by this as he was.
Seeing that look in his eyes made Jin’s heart hurt. “Akanishi, flip over so you’re on top, and drag your hand across Yamashita’s stomach.” Jin followed the instructions to the letter, and soon found his index finger traveling slowly down the center of Yamapi’s abs as they quivered under his touch. A bright flash, and four clicks of the camera. “Perfect, Akanishi.” Yamapi came undone under his soft strokes as Jin looked down on him, his hair hanging like a curtain and hiding his face from the camera. “Wow, Akanishi, you’re doing great!” Yamapi’s erection brushed against his arm as he moved it to help support himself, and he moved his thigh in between Pi’s to add some dynamic to the shot. “It looks so real,” an assistant murmured. “How can they be so professional?”
When Yamapi’s eyes opened again, he looked afraid. His hard cock lay warm and real against Jin’s leg, and Jin could think of only one way to reassure him that being aroused now was okay, and that he wasn’t mad, or disgusted or confused anymore. Jin smiled at him, softly, and then lowered his body so that his own shaft, now stiff and aching, pressed into Yamapi’s hip bone. “Don’t worry about it,” Jin whispered. “Me too.” Yamapi’s eyes had widened, and the camera clicked a few more times.
“Okay, it’s a wrap,” said the photographer, and the director agreed. “Easiest shoot I’ve ever done with two models, for this sort of issue,” he said, and Jin couldn’t suppress a blunt snort.
“Easy, my ass,” he muttered, and Pi looked up at him and cracked a small, tense smile. “I’ve heard your ass is pretty easy.” Jin looked back over at him. “Not really,” he replied as he shrugged on his robe again, covering his erection in thick terrycloth. “I’ve actually taken up a new life of meditative celibacy.” When he looked up again, Yamapi too was covered up in a matching white robe. “Let’s go drink coffee before we do the clothed shots,” Jin finished.
“Okay,” Pi replied easily, as if they hadn’t been, only moments before, rubbing their erect penises against each other in the name of art and possibly Johnny fanservice. Jin liked how his relationship with Yamapi still had that familiarity, even if he was standing on the edge of a giant precipice and was thinking about diving head first into the unknown dangers below. “Sorry about…”
“Don’t be ridiculous; we were doing a sexy photoshoot and we are both sexy people. It was bound to happen,” Jin said, not meeting Pi’s gaze.
In the dressing room, they were alone. Jin mixed two cups of instant coffee, and handed one to Yamapi. Yamapi looked solemnly into his cup, as if the bits of unmixed sugar around the edge held the answers to some deep mystery. “You’re shit at mixing instant coffee, Jin,” Pi said. “There’s all kinds of unmixed sugar around the edges.”
“You’re shit at telling me things I need to know,” Jin replied. Yamapi slowly looked up at him, expression blank. Jin continued, “Oh Jin, I’ll never not tell you some big huge secret again! Oh Jin, I didn’t tell you about the whole gay thing because it was too weird, you know?” he said, in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Yamapi, but got the point across pretty clearly that he was annoyed or pissed about something Yamapi had done. Yamapi blinked twice, slowly, his eyelashes resting briefly and ethereally against his cheeks before flying up again. His gaze met Jin’s, waiting for the rest. “How long have you been in love with me?” Jin finally asked, breaking the silence.
For some reason, whatever Yamapi had been expecting, he had clearly not been expecting that. His instant coffee dropped from his hand as he gaped at Jin. Jin stared back at him, bemused. “Do you think, Pi, that I am stupid? I have eyes. And basic common sense.”
“Correct on the first, null on the second,” Pi replied absentmindedly, with an air of habit. “You definitely have eyes, but you definitely Do Not have common sense.” Pi stared at his hands, as if wondering how they had betrayed him. “When…?”
“Just tell me, be completely honest with me for once, damnit. How long have you been in love with me?”
“Forever,” Pi replied. “I didn’t want to mess anything up, I didn’t want to lose you…” he rambled, and Jin grabbed him by the collar of his robe and slammed him into a wall. He pushed his face right in front of Yamapi’s and forced Pi to look him directly in the eyes.
“I told you, didn’t I, that I wasn’t going to reject you, that I wasn’t going to LEAVE you, that nothing would make me forget what we mean to each other. Stop…” Jin released his grip, and Yamapi exhaled. “Stop underestimating how much I can take, how much I can know. Tell me all of it, and let me…let me…” he trailed off. “I haven’t finished thinking about it. I didn’t mean to bring it up before I had.”
Yamapi looked at him, unbelievingly. “Thinking about what?”
“How I’m going to react to all…this…What I need to do so you don’t get hurt and I don’t get hurt. But I’m not GOING anywhere.” He remembered what he had said to Kame, earlier, and inhaled. “You’re IMPORTANT, and that will never change.” Jin chugged his instant coffee, and squeezed the paper cup into a ball before tossing it in the trash. “I’m going to go change.”
“Jin, we’re in the dressing room,” Pi said, exasperated and confused and almost whining.
“I’m gonna go change in the bathroom,” he said, and grabbed the jeans and the indecent furred strappy thing that passed for a top in the idol industry. “I’ll see you on set.”
He texted Pi that night. Stop thinking about it and go to sleep.
How do you know I’m thinking about it?
Because I am, and I know you. Go to bed, you have an interview 2morrow.
How come you can remember my schedule and not your own, Bakanishi?
Jin smiled, and went to sleep.
And two weeks after that, Jin and Pi had still not discussed the GIANT HEAVING ELEPHANT that was Pi’s undying love, but Jin thought he was making headway in his personal reflection and soul searching. And meanwhile he and Pi continued to eat curry with carrots and watch DVDs on the couch, and Yamapi continued to look at him every so often with incredulous eyes, as if he could not believe Jin was carrying on everyday life with the ginormous elephant stealing every bit of available space in whatever room they happened to be in. Jin thought it was a shame they didn’t hang out outside more, where the elephant could have a little more space to move around, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped.
Hang out with me tomorrow, Jinny, came a text from Crystal one Tuesday night while Jin and Yamapi sat on the couch watching an old episode of Trick. Yamapi looked at the text over J and his mouth made a line. “She’s just a friend,” Jin blurted out without meaning to. Yamapi scoffed. “Doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I guess,” but his mouth relaxed and Jin snuggled back down into his lap and stole some more popcorn from the bowl on the table.
When Jin arrived at Crystal’s apartment, there were two tumbers of whiskey on the glass table in the living room, and Crystal held a copy of AnAn in her arms. “So, Jin, I think you’re being a little thick.”
Jin looked at her, and she opened the magazine. The pictures were…well, they were better than he had expected, more beautiful and artistic than it had seemed at the time, while he shivered from a mix of embarrassment and desire and Yamapi looked at him with those terrified eyes… Actually they were beautiful, and Jin realized, suddenly, that he could imagine a life making beautiful images like that with Yamapi.
“It’s possible to OVERTHINK stuff sometimes, you know?” she said in English. “Like, to think way too hard about stuff that should be easy. You and Yamashita…you’re like two parts of a whole, and you’ve kinda always been that way. And I know you love girls, Jin, the whole world knows you love girls. But you also love Yamashita, and that’s enough, without putting labels on it or trying to sort it into some neat little box. You totally love him, and don’t you think you should put him out of his misery?”
Jin looked at Crystal and she stared earnestly back, still holding the magazine open toward him with the pornographic images of him and Pi on a bed glaring out at him. Suddenly, Jin snorted. “Crystal, you are…the best. I.CHI.BAN.”
Crystal tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I know,” she replied.
***
The next morning, Jin saw Yamapi at the jimusho and it just sort of jumped out of his mouth. “I love you too,” he said. Yamapi looked at him, mouth agape and arms sort of akimbo, and Jin looked up at the clock. “Shit, I’m late!” he yelled, then ran. When he turned the corner, he stopped running, and breathed in and out, slowly. He walked leisurely the rest of the way to the meeting room, arriving 15 minutes early for their meeting. A slow hum throbbed through his body.
A text. Jin WTF What is wrong with you?
Another text. Really?
Jin responded with one word. Yes.
***
Later, when they’re both lying on the floor in Jin’s apartment, Yamapi’s head pillowed on his arms and Jin, on his back, hair splayed around him and eyes toward the ceiling, they are quiet.
Jin is incredibly aware of Yamapi’s every movement, his soft breaths wheezing in the space between his arms and the floor, his terrible gay t-shirt, and the soft heat given off by his toned arm that lies adjacent to Jin’s ribcage. He’s so distracted by that heat-it’s bubbling within him, pooling in his belly, and up into his chest, squeezing down painfully on his heart in a way Jin hasn’t felt since he was an awkward teenager in terrible like with Ito Yuu, a girl in his class with long eyelashes and amazing collarbones. Yamapi is everywhere in his thoughts, surrounding him like rainy season or cigarette smoke, but better, more tangible even than the weather and more real than the sweet song of nicotine in his blood. Squeeze. He thinks it’s the constriction in his chest, and in his throat that makes him croak out the words “We could…”
And suddenly Yamapi, with a speed Jin didn’t know he possessed, hovers over him, one arm supporting his bodyweight, holding him 4 centimeters above Jin, and the other tangles itself in Jin’s hair. Yamapi lowers his face to Jin’s, and presses a soft kiss to his eyebrow, and then one to his nose. “YES,” he whispers forcefully, before claiming Jin’s lips with his own.
Jin’s mouth opens immediately, and Yamapi moans as his tongue tangles with Jin’s and it’s so HOT and Jin can feel himself moaning too; he can hear it, in a disconnected part of his brain. But all he can think about is the rough slip of Yamapi’s tongue across his, the soft tug on his lower lip as Yamapi grabs it between his teeth and sucks on it. When Yamapi’s mouth parts from his and wanders down to Jin’s jaw line, nipping along it softly, delicately, almost reverently, that’s when Jin registers that Yamapi is shaking.
Jin rips Yamapi off his neck, both hands on either side of Yamapi’s face, and dragging his eyes up to meet Jin’s own. “Hey, it’s me,” Jin says, and suddenly realizes HE’S shaking too. “Hey, we’re…this is you and me. And no matter what, it’s…So don’t…Can we…?” he trails off, and then, Yamapi smiles, slightly.
“Yes.”
And then. And then it’s Jin who pulls Yamapi down to him, their bodies slamming into each other as Jin lays under Yamapi and cranes his neck up to recapture Yamapi’s lips with his own. His hands slide up from Yamapi’s cheeks and slide desperately into his hair, trying to bring him closer, and closer still. Yamapi mewls into the tug, and Jin feels a part of himself he didn’t even know was missing slide into place like a puzzle piece. He wonders why he was afraid, why there was a time he didn’t want this. He pours all that feeling into Yamapi, through the gentle swipe of his tongue across Yamapi’s molars and the soft suck and blow of air into each other’s mouth. “We are…” Jin breathes out tightly before sucking on Yamapi’s adam’s apple, lathing his tongue across it. Yamapi’s breath hitches, and he hums, softly.
“Yes.”