A piece of Kame for pautami
Title: Keep the Faith
Pairing/Group: Kokame
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: Professional baseball player Kamenashi Kazuya thinks life is perfect, until his boyfriend gets fed up and walks out.
Note: for pautami on the Kame-Exchange! I hope you enjoy this, I’m sorry if it’s not exactly what you were looking for…
"Good work today!" Kame shouts, sweeping his duffel bag off the bench and leaving the locker room as the other players call out similar responses. He's filled with a sense of satisfaction; they've been training and practicing for months, and now with the first game of the baseball season just ahead, he knows he is ready. The rest of the team is doing just as well, morale raised by their star player.
His cell phone rings as he's walking to his car, and the name on the display only makes his day better.
"The team is doing so well," he says by way of greeting as he answers the call.
"Hi, Kazuya, nice to talk to you too. Oh, I'm fine, thanks for asking." His boyfriend's tone is sarcastic and he feels his good mood fading.
"Sorry," he says immediately, not wanting to start a fight. They've had enough of those lately. "Hi, Koki. How's your day going?"
"Your dog threw up on the tatami mats," Koki answers sourly. Kame nearly hits the car in front of him and slams on the brakes.
"The tatami?" he very nearly shouts, because those are expensive and now he'll have to buy new mats. He tries to bring his voice down a few levels, to even his breathing before his good mood is completely wasted. "How did Ran-chan get in the tatami room?"
"I have no idea. I didn't even go in there until I heard her coughing. Maybe you left it open this morning?"
And with a groan Kame remembers forgetting to shut the door because he swore he was going right back in there after getting a second cup of coffee, and Koki had distracted him with a question about his schedule.
"You're right, that was my fault. Is she okay?"
"I checked her out, since I have my bag here. She seems fine, she hasn't thrown up again, but she's seemed down all day."
Not for the first time, Kame is grateful his boyfriend is a veterinarian. "That's good," he sighs. "I hit a home run today," he announces a moment later, a bit of his smile returning. "It was only practice, but still -"
He's resigned to his good mood being a distant memory as Koki starts in on him for not caring more about his own pet and for being too obsessed with baseball. "Couldn't you just pretend that other things matter to you?" Koki snaps, and they shouldn't be having this conversation over the phone. Kame pressed his lips together so he doesn't yell back while he parks his car and heads into the apartment building.
"Koki," he tries to cut in as he fishes his keys out of his pocket.
"- and I'm tired of babysitting your dog, I want to -"
He pushes the door open and hangs up the call. "Don't you hang up in me!" he hears Koki shout from somewhere within the apartment. He kicks off his shoes and drops his bag in the hallway before following the sound of his boyfriend's voice. "That complete ass, I'm going to kill him -"
"I would appreciate it if you didn't," Kame says quietly as he leans against the kitchen doorframe, arms folded and one eyebrow quirked. Koki turns. "I happen to enjoy being alive."
"You," Koki growls. Kame raises a hand to ward off the coming argument. He's suddenly tired, as if his fading good mood took his energy with it.
"I'll leave early tomorrow. Why don't you call Nakamaru and make plans for tomorrow night?"
"It's not that easy, Kazuya. You can't fix everything so easily."
"Weren't you just complaining about not having your own life? Whoever told you that you had to stay here anyway?"
Kame realizes how that sounds as the words hit the air and Koki goes still. "That's - not that I - Koki!" His boyfriend is pushing past him, heading for the front door, and Kame tries to stop him. "Matte, Koki!"
"Don't wait up." Koki pulls away and Kame stares, helpless, as he walks out. It's a moment that's been coming for months now, one or the other getting fed up with the arguments and the fighting.
"Damn it!"
Later, as he's sitting alone on the couch when he should be resting up for practice, he wonders where they went wrong. Everything had been so perfect before, from the time they'd met in Koki's office to recently.
“Help!”
Koki ran out of the back office to find a handsome man, cradling a dog and looking quite panicked. “What’s wrong?” he asked, keeping his voice calm.
“Some son-of-a-bitch hit my dog and she’s hardly breathing!”
Shit. “Follow me.” He led the way to the emergency room and motioned for the man to set his dog down on the table. “Name?”
“Ran.”
He glanced up patiently. “Your name?”
“Oh - Kamenashi. Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“Kamenashi-san, please trust her to me. I’ll take care of her.”
Kame nodded silently and exited the room, though quite reluctantly.
Hours passed, and Kame even called his team’s manager to say he wouldn’t make it in to that evening’s practice. Finally Koki came out and gave him a reassuring smile. “She’s fine now. I’d like to keep her here for a few days just to keep an eye on her.”
On impulse, Kame stood and hugged the veterinarian. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much,” he whispered.
Kame shuts his eyes and tips his head back against the couch, letting out a slow breath. After Koki had helped Ran-chan, they’d sort of just clicked, and everything was downhill and easy from there there. Maybe too easy. It was always so easy being with Koki.
“Watch -” Kame nearly giggled as they stumbled over the genkan and nearly fell into the hallway. They weren’t drunk, just tipsy enough to be uncoordinated. “There’s a step there.”
“No kidding,” Koki mumbled, and then Kame found himself with his back to a wall and the other’s mouth on his neck. That was a little new; they’d kissed before but it was always kind of shy and awkward, sort of a ‘hello-goodbye’ ritual.
He supposed he would have to thank the gods of ‘liquid courage’ later, then.
“Bedroom?” Koki asked, and he hummed, considering his state of coordination.
“I don’t know if I can make it that far.”
Only when Koki let out a groan did he realize what that sounded like, and he bit his lip. He didn’t really feel like going with walls tonight, not their first time. “Yeah, okay. Come on.” It took several uncoordinated moments and multiple instances of stumbling before they finally reached the bedroom, and he pressed Koki against the doorframe, lips hungrily seeking the other’s.
“Kazuya,” Koki breathed finally. “Can we - bed?”
He nodded, not feeling any more coherent than Koki was. “Let’s go.”
After a long moment of trying to not think about the situation, he gives up and makes himself a cup of tea, changing into pajamas while it steeps. He isn’t likely to get much sleep, but there is no reason why he has to stay on the couch all night.
He doesn’t curl up on Koki’s side of the bed. He’s not that weak. And if he switches their pillows, that’s just because Koki’s is more comfortable. It has nothing to do with the familiar scent that helps calm him down just a little.
His phone beeps and he lifts his head from the pillow, staring blankly across the room at it for a full minute before getting up and going to look at the message. It’s from Koki’s address, which makes his heart race for a moment, but the message isn’t from Koki at all.
Are you and Koki fighting? He’s been complaining about you for the past three hours and he’s just passed out on my couch. -Nakamaru
Oh.
He sends a quick reply confirming that Koki’s not happy with him and has every right to be upset, and please just let him stay there for a day or two until they can patch things up.
He doesn’t know how they’re going to fix it, though. He’s never really fought with his boyfriend before. They’ve argued, but neither of them has ever just left like this.
He takes his phone with him when he returns to the bed, but he’s definitely not hoping that Koki will call.
* * * *
Morning dawns bright and far too early; he only slept for maybe an hour and even then it was fitful. Even when he has away games for baseball, he always talks to Koki before he falls asleep. It just doesn’t feel right without the other.
He gets a message halfway through making a breakfast he won’t eat; his manager, asking if he will be at practice at all since he’s already late, and as much as he knows he should agree for the sake of his team and his career, he doesn’t.
I’m not feeling well, he responds. It’s not technically a lie; there’s something in his chest that aches and makes him feel a little sick to his stomach.
His breakfast stays untouched on the table as he calls the place he ordered the tatami from before, and orders new mats for the room. Ran-chan looks up at him from her little bed and he automatically gets food for her, petting her gently. “You won’t leave me, ne, Ran-chan?” he coos, and she wags her tail and tries to lick his face. He takes that as agreement and doesn’t feel any better.
Around noon, Koki comes home. He looks surprised to see him, and Kame remembers that he’s supposed to be at practice.
“What are you doing here?” Koki asks, a little harshly. He has dark circles under his eyes.
“I live here,” he retorts, moving back into the kitchen for coffee or tea or something, anything so he doesn’t have to look at his boyfriend. He settles for a glass of water. Koki follows him anyway and he almost wants to beg no, please don’t, but he doesn’t.
“Shouldn’t you be at practice?”
“I called in sick.”
“You - what?”
He looks up finally and shrugs. “You wanted a day off. I’ll take care of things here. You can go out if you want to.”
“Kazuya, that’s not -” Koki stops, looks at him a little more closely. He keeps his eyes averted. “Have you eaten anything today?”
He shrugs again, noncommittal, and looks into his glass like it holds the answers he wants. “I wasn’t really hungry,” he mumbles, and there’s a long moment of silence.
“You idiot,” Koki sighs, and he’s being pulled into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he still doesn’t really know what he did to make the other so angry. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Koki says. “I couldn’t really sleep well last night without you.”
“Me, too.”
They stand there for a few long minutes - hours, who knows? - and then he lifts his head from the other’s shoulder, finally feeling like he can breathe again.
“Ne, Kazu-chan,” Koki says, and he gives his boyfriend a questioning look. “I think we need to set aside a night or two just for us.”
And like that he knows, everything clicks. He’s been focused on baseball, since the season’s starting soon, and completely neglecting the other.
“I think so, too,” he agrees. “And then you need a day or two for you, so I’ll set those aside.”
Koki smiles and nods, and he smiles back before it turns into a yawn that he tries to smother before it starts. He fails and the other laughs at him before tugging him toward the bedroom. “Nap time.”
“Don’t you have to work?” Kame asks.
“It’s my day off,” Koki answers, and they topple onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and chuckles. Kame smiles to himself as he tucks his head under Koki’s chin, and Koki’s arms wrap around him and hold him tightly.
“I ordered new tatami,” he says.
Koki is silent for a long moment. “You did?”
He nods, finally lifting his head when Koki doesn’t say anything else. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh and finally it comes out in a strange half-choked sigh.
“What?”
“I ordered them yesterday after I cleaned up.”
Kame blinks, and then he’s scrambling off the bed and trying to find his phone. “Shit,” he complains while the line is dialing. Koki just laughs at him, at them, and he grins. “Hi, my name is Kamenashi Kazuya, I ordered new tatami earlier… yeah, I’d like to cancel that order.”
They’re far from perfect, but this moment, as Koki’s nearly dying with laughter and he’s trying to keep his voice from shaking as he talks to the irritated salesperson on the phone, is enough. He crawls back onto the bed when the phone call is finished and Koki lets him worm his way back into their former embrace, still chuckling a little.
After a moment, Koki’s voice cuts into the quiet air. “So, you know how I said we should set a night or two aside…?”
He’s already miles ahead of the other, lifting his head so he can press their lips together. He doesn’t need perfect. Just this, them, together.
Pairing/Group: Kokame
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: Professional baseball player Kamenashi Kazuya thinks life is perfect, until his boyfriend gets fed up and walks out.
Note: for pautami on the Kame-Exchange! I hope you enjoy this, I’m sorry if it’s not exactly what you were looking for…
"Good work today!" Kame shouts, sweeping his duffel bag off the bench and leaving the locker room as the other players call out similar responses. He's filled with a sense of satisfaction; they've been training and practicing for months, and now with the first game of the baseball season just ahead, he knows he is ready. The rest of the team is doing just as well, morale raised by their star player.
His cell phone rings as he's walking to his car, and the name on the display only makes his day better.
"The team is doing so well," he says by way of greeting as he answers the call.
"Hi, Kazuya, nice to talk to you too. Oh, I'm fine, thanks for asking." His boyfriend's tone is sarcastic and he feels his good mood fading.
"Sorry," he says immediately, not wanting to start a fight. They've had enough of those lately. "Hi, Koki. How's your day going?"
"Your dog threw up on the tatami mats," Koki answers sourly. Kame nearly hits the car in front of him and slams on the brakes.
"The tatami?" he very nearly shouts, because those are expensive and now he'll have to buy new mats. He tries to bring his voice down a few levels, to even his breathing before his good mood is completely wasted. "How did Ran-chan get in the tatami room?"
"I have no idea. I didn't even go in there until I heard her coughing. Maybe you left it open this morning?"
And with a groan Kame remembers forgetting to shut the door because he swore he was going right back in there after getting a second cup of coffee, and Koki had distracted him with a question about his schedule.
"You're right, that was my fault. Is she okay?"
"I checked her out, since I have my bag here. She seems fine, she hasn't thrown up again, but she's seemed down all day."
Not for the first time, Kame is grateful his boyfriend is a veterinarian. "That's good," he sighs. "I hit a home run today," he announces a moment later, a bit of his smile returning. "It was only practice, but still -"
He's resigned to his good mood being a distant memory as Koki starts in on him for not caring more about his own pet and for being too obsessed with baseball. "Couldn't you just pretend that other things matter to you?" Koki snaps, and they shouldn't be having this conversation over the phone. Kame pressed his lips together so he doesn't yell back while he parks his car and heads into the apartment building.
"Koki," he tries to cut in as he fishes his keys out of his pocket.
"- and I'm tired of babysitting your dog, I want to -"
He pushes the door open and hangs up the call. "Don't you hang up in me!" he hears Koki shout from somewhere within the apartment. He kicks off his shoes and drops his bag in the hallway before following the sound of his boyfriend's voice. "That complete ass, I'm going to kill him -"
"I would appreciate it if you didn't," Kame says quietly as he leans against the kitchen doorframe, arms folded and one eyebrow quirked. Koki turns. "I happen to enjoy being alive."
"You," Koki growls. Kame raises a hand to ward off the coming argument. He's suddenly tired, as if his fading good mood took his energy with it.
"I'll leave early tomorrow. Why don't you call Nakamaru and make plans for tomorrow night?"
"It's not that easy, Kazuya. You can't fix everything so easily."
"Weren't you just complaining about not having your own life? Whoever told you that you had to stay here anyway?"
Kame realizes how that sounds as the words hit the air and Koki goes still. "That's - not that I - Koki!" His boyfriend is pushing past him, heading for the front door, and Kame tries to stop him. "Matte, Koki!"
"Don't wait up." Koki pulls away and Kame stares, helpless, as he walks out. It's a moment that's been coming for months now, one or the other getting fed up with the arguments and the fighting.
"Damn it!"
Later, as he's sitting alone on the couch when he should be resting up for practice, he wonders where they went wrong. Everything had been so perfect before, from the time they'd met in Koki's office to recently.
“Help!”
Koki ran out of the back office to find a handsome man, cradling a dog and looking quite panicked. “What’s wrong?” he asked, keeping his voice calm.
“Some son-of-a-bitch hit my dog and she’s hardly breathing!”
Shit. “Follow me.” He led the way to the emergency room and motioned for the man to set his dog down on the table. “Name?”
“Ran.”
He glanced up patiently. “Your name?”
“Oh - Kamenashi. Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“Kamenashi-san, please trust her to me. I’ll take care of her.”
Kame nodded silently and exited the room, though quite reluctantly.
Hours passed, and Kame even called his team’s manager to say he wouldn’t make it in to that evening’s practice. Finally Koki came out and gave him a reassuring smile. “She’s fine now. I’d like to keep her here for a few days just to keep an eye on her.”
On impulse, Kame stood and hugged the veterinarian. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much,” he whispered.
Kame shuts his eyes and tips his head back against the couch, letting out a slow breath. After Koki had helped Ran-chan, they’d sort of just clicked, and everything was downhill and easy from there there. Maybe too easy. It was always so easy being with Koki.
“Watch -” Kame nearly giggled as they stumbled over the genkan and nearly fell into the hallway. They weren’t drunk, just tipsy enough to be uncoordinated. “There’s a step there.”
“No kidding,” Koki mumbled, and then Kame found himself with his back to a wall and the other’s mouth on his neck. That was a little new; they’d kissed before but it was always kind of shy and awkward, sort of a ‘hello-goodbye’ ritual.
He supposed he would have to thank the gods of ‘liquid courage’ later, then.
“Bedroom?” Koki asked, and he hummed, considering his state of coordination.
“I don’t know if I can make it that far.”
Only when Koki let out a groan did he realize what that sounded like, and he bit his lip. He didn’t really feel like going with walls tonight, not their first time. “Yeah, okay. Come on.” It took several uncoordinated moments and multiple instances of stumbling before they finally reached the bedroom, and he pressed Koki against the doorframe, lips hungrily seeking the other’s.
“Kazuya,” Koki breathed finally. “Can we - bed?”
He nodded, not feeling any more coherent than Koki was. “Let’s go.”
After a long moment of trying to not think about the situation, he gives up and makes himself a cup of tea, changing into pajamas while it steeps. He isn’t likely to get much sleep, but there is no reason why he has to stay on the couch all night.
He doesn’t curl up on Koki’s side of the bed. He’s not that weak. And if he switches their pillows, that’s just because Koki’s is more comfortable. It has nothing to do with the familiar scent that helps calm him down just a little.
His phone beeps and he lifts his head from the pillow, staring blankly across the room at it for a full minute before getting up and going to look at the message. It’s from Koki’s address, which makes his heart race for a moment, but the message isn’t from Koki at all.
Are you and Koki fighting? He’s been complaining about you for the past three hours and he’s just passed out on my couch. -Nakamaru
Oh.
He sends a quick reply confirming that Koki’s not happy with him and has every right to be upset, and please just let him stay there for a day or two until they can patch things up.
He doesn’t know how they’re going to fix it, though. He’s never really fought with his boyfriend before. They’ve argued, but neither of them has ever just left like this.
He takes his phone with him when he returns to the bed, but he’s definitely not hoping that Koki will call.
* * * *
Morning dawns bright and far too early; he only slept for maybe an hour and even then it was fitful. Even when he has away games for baseball, he always talks to Koki before he falls asleep. It just doesn’t feel right without the other.
He gets a message halfway through making a breakfast he won’t eat; his manager, asking if he will be at practice at all since he’s already late, and as much as he knows he should agree for the sake of his team and his career, he doesn’t.
I’m not feeling well, he responds. It’s not technically a lie; there’s something in his chest that aches and makes him feel a little sick to his stomach.
His breakfast stays untouched on the table as he calls the place he ordered the tatami from before, and orders new mats for the room. Ran-chan looks up at him from her little bed and he automatically gets food for her, petting her gently. “You won’t leave me, ne, Ran-chan?” he coos, and she wags her tail and tries to lick his face. He takes that as agreement and doesn’t feel any better.
Around noon, Koki comes home. He looks surprised to see him, and Kame remembers that he’s supposed to be at practice.
“What are you doing here?” Koki asks, a little harshly. He has dark circles under his eyes.
“I live here,” he retorts, moving back into the kitchen for coffee or tea or something, anything so he doesn’t have to look at his boyfriend. He settles for a glass of water. Koki follows him anyway and he almost wants to beg no, please don’t, but he doesn’t.
“Shouldn’t you be at practice?”
“I called in sick.”
“You - what?”
He looks up finally and shrugs. “You wanted a day off. I’ll take care of things here. You can go out if you want to.”
“Kazuya, that’s not -” Koki stops, looks at him a little more closely. He keeps his eyes averted. “Have you eaten anything today?”
He shrugs again, noncommittal, and looks into his glass like it holds the answers he wants. “I wasn’t really hungry,” he mumbles, and there’s a long moment of silence.
“You idiot,” Koki sighs, and he’s being pulled into a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he still doesn’t really know what he did to make the other so angry. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Koki says. “I couldn’t really sleep well last night without you.”
“Me, too.”
They stand there for a few long minutes - hours, who knows? - and then he lifts his head from the other’s shoulder, finally feeling like he can breathe again.
“Ne, Kazu-chan,” Koki says, and he gives his boyfriend a questioning look. “I think we need to set aside a night or two just for us.”
And like that he knows, everything clicks. He’s been focused on baseball, since the season’s starting soon, and completely neglecting the other.
“I think so, too,” he agrees. “And then you need a day or two for you, so I’ll set those aside.”
Koki smiles and nods, and he smiles back before it turns into a yawn that he tries to smother before it starts. He fails and the other laughs at him before tugging him toward the bedroom. “Nap time.”
“Don’t you have to work?” Kame asks.
“It’s my day off,” Koki answers, and they topple onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and chuckles. Kame smiles to himself as he tucks his head under Koki’s chin, and Koki’s arms wrap around him and hold him tightly.
“I ordered new tatami,” he says.
Koki is silent for a long moment. “You did?”
He nods, finally lifting his head when Koki doesn’t say anything else. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh and finally it comes out in a strange half-choked sigh.
“What?”
“I ordered them yesterday after I cleaned up.”
Kame blinks, and then he’s scrambling off the bed and trying to find his phone. “Shit,” he complains while the line is dialing. Koki just laughs at him, at them, and he grins. “Hi, my name is Kamenashi Kazuya, I ordered new tatami earlier… yeah, I’d like to cancel that order.”
They’re far from perfect, but this moment, as Koki’s nearly dying with laughter and he’s trying to keep his voice from shaking as he talks to the irritated salesperson on the phone, is enough. He crawls back onto the bed when the phone call is finished and Koki lets him worm his way back into their former embrace, still chuckling a little.
After a moment, Koki’s voice cuts into the quiet air. “So, you know how I said we should set a night or two aside…?”
He’s already miles ahead of the other, lifting his head so he can press their lips together. He doesn’t need perfect. Just this, them, together.