A Thousand Words - Chapter 2
Title: A Thousand Words
Pairing: Akame
Genre: Romance, Angst
Length: Chaptered; Chapter 2: 2900 words
Description: Love vanished with the flash, but the instilled memories would bring back their feelings...
( Prologue) ( Chapter 1)
2 Weeks Later
It was raining again, he absentmindedly noted to himself. It wasn’t that he could hear the drops as they tapped on the window so much as his eyes caught on the rivulets of water making their way to the sill in front of him. Instead he heard the loud blasts of music pounding into his ears from his headphones.
They were a godsend, his headphones. Jin was shutting the world out with them, leaving himself in a place where all he could hear was the thumping beat and all he could see was what he chose to. Right then he was choosing to stare out at the window versus the woman he knew was trying desperately to get his attention.
“Jin!”
The shout rang out, barely reaching his ears through the filtered out background noise and bass of the music. He ignored it though. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with her or the reality of his life right this second. Instead his eyes again tracked the life cycle of a rain drop, from its rapid descent from the heavens to its demise on the sheet of glass in front of him, all the way to its next life as a part of a larger pool of water concentrated on the edge of the ledge.
It was calming, the steady and repetitiveness of rain. It soothed him in a way that he had long thought he would never be able to be soothed again. His life was miserable, and he was tired. Still, he knew he was on his way to his next life, a part of something larger, something he wasn’t sure he was ready for or even wanted. Still like that drop of water, he had no choice. This was his destiny.
“Jin! Stop ignoring me!”
Again the shout penetrated the sound barrier he had put up around himself, and, with a sigh, he rotated around from the meditative rain and focused on the woman who was so desperately trying to get his attention. As if looking at a piece of artwork, he scanned her features.
Her eyes were almond shaped and a deep brown. Her jawline was square but with a soft rounding to it adding femininity. Her nose and smile perfectly proportioned to her face, not that she was smiling at that moment. Overall he couldn’t help but find her beautiful, if only on the outside.
He watched as her eyes narrowed at him, a sign of the irritation she was feeling. The muscle in her jaw tensed and flexed a little as well. He understood her irritation but refused to be affected by it. Her anger was hers and hers alone. He simply cocked his head to the side and slid the headphones of his ears to rest by his neck, the music still reaching them but at a much more muted volume.
“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. We can get a sonogram and find out what we are having. You are coming with me, right?” she posed the question and let it hang in the air between them.
Jin’s own eyes narrowed in response. Without responding he stood up and strolled across the room. He paused beside the couch where his lovely wife was sitting and dipped down to her ear.
“My child always comes first, Dear.”
His tone was near a sneer and garnered him the raising of her eyebrows in either shock or anger. He knew not which nor cared. He resumed standing and waltzed out of the room before she could respond, his footsteps sounding loudly on the hardwood floor.
Making his way to his office/studio, Jin felt the echo of his words pounding in his ears as clearly and as loudly as the music that had been piped in from the headphones. Reaching his desk, he slid into his chair and tossed the now offending headphones across the desk before letting the words wash over him again and again.
“My child always comes first…” “My child always comes first…” “My child always comes first…”
Despite the sinking feeling he felt at the words, Jin knew they were true and always would be. He loved his unborn child and would put that baby before everything, even himself, and he had. That precious being yet to be born had cost him so much already. His heart was broken, and yet he knew he would do it again.
With a deep sigh and a scrub of the face, he tried to block it all out. He didn’t want to think of the child, nor the price he had paid. Yet despite his best efforts, the thoughts bombarded him. He had lost the love of his life, the most important part of him and his world, with one bad decision. As the English saying went, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
Pain shot through his heart as his mind focused on the image of the man he loved sitting in a coffee shop tears streaming down his face. Jin hated that day and hated that memory. Still on it played in his mind, as if someone had lost the remote to his inner TV leaving him unable to press the stop button. In his mind’s eye, he watched as the most special person on the face of the planet up and walked away from him, tear tracks blending in with the rain as he stepped out in to it.
With a groan, the closest he allowed himself to get to a scream, he shoved away from the desk. He felt trapped and needed to get out. The memories and the space were crushing him, causing him to feel like he would have a panic attack if he didn’t get fresh air. His lungs were screaming for it as much as his head was.
Quickly he made his way back to the main room and grabbed his keys from the bowl on the table. She looked up at him and quirked her eyebrow in question. He ignored her though, needing to escape this place. He was out the door as soon as he could be. He didn’t pause there though. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to breathe until he had the wind on his face.
The second he stepped out of the high rise complex the rain batted him in the face. He hadn’t thought about the rain in his mad flight out of the condo. Now as it washed down his face, he thought it was fitting. He was down and miserable in the mind, might as well be wet and miserable in the body.
His thoughts actually provoked a half smile from him. With a sigh and a kind of now-what attitude, Jin walked down the street, letting the rain soak him to the core. He knew not where he was going, but the walk in the rain was refreshing his mind, body, and soul.
His steps took him towards the quiet little park at the center of the neighborhood. The rain was slowly easing up but was still coming down in a steady beat. On the way Jin spotted a newsstand. With his lack of umbrella he thought a newspaper would at least shield him for a little while and the multiple of sheets would provide something to sit on the wet benches found in the park.
He smiled at the attendant of the stand, handing over a few bucks for the rag. His heart stopped however, his fingers relaxing slightly resulting in the bills drifting to the ground instead of the outstretched hand of the owner. Jin didn’t notice at all. His attention was focused solely on the picture on the front of the tabloid.
There in perfect replication a thousand times over was the face that had been haunting him not five minutes earlier. Jin’s hand reached out slowly as if it was reaching into a fire. He almost felt as if he was, judging from the way his eyes and nose burned. Sadly, he knew that wasn’t from an actual fire, but from unshed tears.
Jin brought the paper closer to his face, his eyes seeking out every detail of the image. It was a picture of Kame with a girl, one he didn’t recognize and was sure was just some random person. However, Kame’s lips were on the girl’s cheek indicating he did indeed know the young lady. For reasons he didn’t want to acknowledge, that knowledge hurt his heart.
He woke up from his daze when the owner snorted at his dropping of the bills. Jin wryly smiled, bent, and picked up the bills before depositing them in the correct place this time. He took his paper and once again stepped out of the protection the awning of the newsstand had provided. The rain didn’t deter his focus from the tabloid.
The headline read something along the lines of Kame spotted on a date with a young unknown lady. Jin knew that the headline was probably just some fabricated lie. However, he knew perfectly well how tabloids sometimes got it right. He hated them for that very reason. In his case, they had gotten it right and under coercive tactics, he had been forced to alter his life or have it blown apart even without his help.
He thought back to the day that the phone call had come in from Meisa. She had said she was pregnant and that the tabloids knew about it. The tone of her voice had let him know right away it was true. She had the sound of tears in her voice and absolute panic. There was no choice for him. He was going to protect her and this child they had made.
Jin recalled making the decision, calling up the tabloid, and the heartbreak he experienced throughout the process. He hadn’t believed one fight would have led to all that fall out. He still couldn’t believe it. It was still as shocking to Jin almost 4 months later.
Focusing back on the present, he ignored the words and just looked at the picture. Kame was smiling and genuinely looked happy. Jin was glad. His mind mentally traced the outline of Kame’s face several times. With a sigh, he resigned himself to his life and Kame to his and slung the paper under his arm.
He was no longer interested in using the paper for protection from the elements. He was almost right back in that funk he had been in when he left, only now more chilled. He wasn’t interested in the park looming nearby either, and instead turned his feet back toward his condo high rise. If he was going to be all gloomy and resigned, he might as well face the reality by facing the reality.
He made his way back relatively slow, considering the rain had picked back up and was now borderline typhoon in its power and wind. Still his feet refused to walk any faster to his fate. Jin finally reached the safety of the building and sloshed his way into the nearby elevators. Pressing the button he ascended to the correct floor, alighted, and went into his and her home.
She popped up off the couch the second he walked through the door. Her hands where on her hips, and she seemed ready to fight. However, when she noticed he was dripping, her nose wrinkled in distaste, and, instead of the tongue lashing she planned, nothing came out of her mouth. Jin just skated on by and into the bed room down the hall.
He was in the process of removing the sopping clothes when she glided in to the room. Jin heard her come in by the soft patter of her footsteps on the flooring. He didn’t turn. He wasn’t going to acknowledge her. Instead he continued to strip down to nothing, planning on a hot shower to warm his chilled frame.
Jin was actually shocked when he felt her hands on his bare shoulders, and in fact he jumped a little at the contact. It wasn’t that her hands were cold, more in fact warmer than his goosebumped flesh. It was the fact that they never touched each other, except on those rare occasions in front of the media and public that dictated a cuddle or a hand hold or something of the like. Jin frowned at the brush of her hands on his skin. Sliding out of her grasp he tossed a look of contempt over the offended shoulder.
“What? I can’t touch you now? Am I not your wife? The mother of your child?”
Meisa’s voice held a note of malice in her voice. She was clearly upset. Jin really didn’t care though; he was currently dealing with his own thoughts and problems. With a shrug, he started to pad his way in to the bathroom. He was arrested by a gasp from across the room.
His lovely wife was standing there holding the wet rag of a newspaper, the one he had forgotten in his need to get undressed and away from her touch. He frowned again deeper. This wasn’t a good thing to have forgotten. Meisa hated Kame, and this was going to lead to another fight. Closing his eyes, he took a breath and let it out slowly, mentally counting to ten before attempting to speak.
Ten…Nine…Eight…Seven…Six….Fi-
The count was broken by something cold and wet being pushed into his naked chest. He knew what it was of course. Still he focused on his breathing and slowly opened his eyes. There was Meisa standing in front of him, very angry and jabbing the paper at him.
“Is this why I can’t touch you? Is this why you won’t be with your wife? Is this more important to you than me and the baby?”
The rant went on and on it seemed. Jin just let her yell and ask her absurd questions. He wasn’t going to respond. He refused to get into an argument about Kame with her. Kame was off limits and would never be something they talked about.
“I bet you still see your little fucking bitch of a boyfriend, don’t you? I bet you cheat on me all the time. You don’t even care about the baby at all. ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS KAME!”
The shout echoed through the open spaces of the very trendy condo. Jin ground his teeth together. It was very hard not to get pissed off, and it seemed like his temper control had taken a vacation, leaving him almost as mad as the woman glaring up at him. He bit his cheek in an attempt to calm himself and prevent the outburst that was right on the tip of his tongue. With another deep breath, he settled a little, well enough to not scream back, but to calmly say something.
“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Me. Now.”
Each word was clipped, an indication of his anger. Meisa ignored the implications however and stepped even closer. Jin instinctively took a step back, ending up flush against the wall. With a tight frown, he moved away from the wall and glared back at Meisa. He held up a hand to stop her from coming any closer. He needed a minute or he was going to hurt her. Thankfully she stopped moving and stayed at a distance from him.
“First, you may be my wife, but you are not my mother or my nanny. You do not get to dictate to me anything or chastise me as if I am a little child. Secondly, Kame is not to ever come out of your mouth again. He is off limits FOREVER. Lastly, if all I cared about was Kame, do you think I would be here, married to you? I sure as fuck hope not because, Sweetheart, let me tell you, I would be out of here so damn fast you wouldn’t be sure I was even here to begin with.”
Jin cocked his head and smiled sweetly at the end of his rant. His tone of voice and stance still indicated his anger, but the smile was more of a go-fuck-yourself gesture. Meisa’s eyes flashed with more than anger it seemed. Jin thought for a brief moment he saw hurt in them as well. He didn’t really care though.
To be honest, a part of him wanted to hurt her, to slice a deep enough wound with all this that she felt the same sense of loss because of this union that he did. Jin hated that part of him in a way as well. He wanted to be different than he was. He wanted life to be different than it was. However, that was not the case. That was a pipe dream.
“Are we done here? I would really like to shower.”
Jin didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he made his way into the bathroom and cut on the water. Right before he stepped under the warm welcoming spray, he heard the front door open and slam. Briefly he wondered where she was going, but again decided that if she was still mad, that was her problem. Jin ducked his head under the spray and let the water wash away the last few hours, willing it to wash away the last few months too.
( Chapter 3)