[JE] Aim for the Stars, Shoot for the Moon
Title: Aim for the Stars, Shoot for the Moon
Pairing: Akame
Rating: G? Do I need a warning for...uh...undeath?
Genre: Very weird angst
Word count: Approx. 4,500
Disclaimer: Not mine, dammnit.
Summary: Jin reaches for the stars by jumping off a balcony.
Author's Notes: This is a result of Akame-meta discussions with maya_morning in which we theorised about the changes seen in Jin since his return from L.A. The cause is pure speculation, but watch him being interviewed or look at some of the shop photos (post-Keep the Faith in particular) to see how up and down he is.
Aim for the Stars, Shoot for the Moon
Jin's face is wet with tears, though they don't belong to him. They feel no more real than the dim memories of aches, of broken bones and shattered organs, of the sickening splintering of skin and self. These things are in the past now, but the tears are fresh and still falling.
They belong to Kame; these light, salty splashes. Jin discovers this only when he opens his eyes to find Kame kneeling beside him, sobbing in quiet despair.
"Wake up," Kame whispers. "Why won't you wake up?"
Jin opens his mouth, tries to tell Kame that he *is* awake, but it's an effort to force the air up from his lungs and he only manages a slurred wheeze. Still, it's enough to attract Kame's attention, and that's what counts.
"Jin?" Kame's voice is tired and incredulous and hopeful all at once; it breaks Jin's heart to hear it crack.
He makes another stab at speech, and while it's still a strain, as though he's trying to force old, rusted machinery back into use, he produces a raspy reply of "Kame".
Kame wipes his eyes on his sleeve and offers Jin a watery smile. It's a far cry from his gleeful, goofy grin, or his proud, confident smirk, or any of the millions of smiles in between.
"Don't cry."
"I thought you were never going to wake up, idiot. I think it's okay to shed a few tears over that."
Jin wipes a hand over his face. It feels like more than just a few, but he's not inclined to argue the point.
"Can you sit up?" Kame asks, and Jin is surprised to discover that he can do so quite easily. There is no pain, and only a little stiffness from lying on the ground. As he moves, his view changes from Kame's face against star-studded black to a blue-green sphere too immense for his eyes to take in.
He takes a deep breath, wondering why he is able to do so, and turns back to Kame. "Is that Earth?"
Kame shifts position to hug his knees to his chest. "I think so. Doesn't it look amazing?" He points at the globe, at one particular patch where the swirls of cloud part on a familiar sight. "There's Japan."
"Oh," Jin says, not sure what to make of all this. "Shouldn't we be there? Instead of..."
He looks around at the barren, rocky emptiness, his curiosity warring with apprehension. Because if they're not on Earth, and what they're seeing is the planet as viewed from space, then...
"The moon," Kame says flatly. "We're on the moon. Is this what you had in mind when you said we were going to fly to the stars?"
-----
Two hours earlier...
It's supposed to be a night of celebration, a party to commemorate their sixth number one single, and Jin keeps drinking in the hopes that it will encourage everyone else to do the same, only faster, and then they won't notice him sneaking out. He's already tried leaving twice, but people keep cornering him to talk and it takes forever to extricate himself from the alcohol-induced conversation.
Parties aren't nearly as much fun as they used to be, not when there are so many people, all of them with their own agendas, and it's not just a bunch of friends there because they actually want to be together. Jin's friends *are* there, true, but they're scattered, so Jin props himself up on a stool by the window, beer in hand, and tries to look like he's merrily plastered instead of bored, tired, and a little lonely.
Someone approaches from the left, talking in slurred, underwater tones. Or perhaps that's just Jin's hearing, he's not sure. Someone else approaches from the right, and now he's getting a stream of blurred babble in stereo. Jin contemplates telling them both to shut up and get the hell away from him, then realises that he doesn't know who they are and that it's probably wisest not to offend anyone who might crucify him in the press.
So he closes his eyes.
After a few minutes, the babbling stops. Jin dares to crack open one eye to check that his unwelcome companions have abandoned him to his apparent drunken stupor; in the tiny strip of vision that results, he sees Kame coming towards him.
"Hey." One hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. "If you're going to sleep at a party, at least do it on something more comfortable than a barstool."
Jin opens his eyes properly. "I'm not asleep." His voice comes out like syrup, thick and sticky. "Yet," he adds.
"You need air." Kame gulps down the rest of his bottle and sets it down carefully on an empty square of table. "We both do. Come on."
He manages to work his shoulder under Jin's arm; both of them stagger over to the sliding door and it is only when even Kame has trouble opening it that Jin realises that they are equally inebriated.
When they finally make it out to the balcony, they have it to themselves - cool, clean night air and a sprinkle of stars. They shut the door behind them; the party sounds are muted and with the curtain falling back into place, only a narrow band of light shows from the interior. No one is interested in looking outside.
Kame retracts his shoulder, so Jin takes up leaning on the rail for support, his face turned to the sky, aiming his gaze high enough to escape the bright lights of Tokyo beneath. It's pretty: shiny sequins on black velvet, he thinks. Stars that are millions of miles away - some dead, some bursting with life - and the one thing they all have in common?
They're not this stupid party.
"If you're going to throw up over the railing, at least warn the people below," Kame advises with a giggle. He edges closer to Jin until their arms are pressed together on the metal bar.
So when Kame nudges Jin and asks him what he's thinking, they are near enough that Jin could, if he wanted, breathe his answer directly into Kame's ear. He doesn't, but since Kame's one of the few people who would ask him that question and actually care about the reply, he honours him with the truth.
"I'm thinking how nice it would be to go away again."
The amusement fades from Kame's voice. "Back to America? Or somewhere else, this time?"
"Oh, further than that." Jin sighs and points to the brightest star he can see. "There. Or maybe there." He keeps moving his finger, sweeping the sky as he speaks. "That one, even. It doesn't matter, so long as they're not here."
"I don't think they want idols in the space program, Jin. Too high maintenance."
Jin allows himself a half-smile at Kame's response. "That's not what I meant and you know it."
"Yeah, I know." Kame begins to tap out a tune on the railings with his fingernails. "But I also know it's not going to happen. You can't escape that easily."
"Escape, huh?" Jin's been trying to escape since he walked through the door a couple of hours ago, but neither he nor Kame are talking about the party. "I managed it once."
"And you came back six months later," Kame points out. "It wasn't a permanent solution to anything."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
They've had this conversation maybe a hundred times since their debut, with slight variations introduced by Jin's L.A. stay. There's never any resolution. It was a study trip, it was a rest, it was a chance to get away from the debut whirlwind, it was an opportunity to retreat and clear his head, it was a time where he could try out new things without the whole world watching his every move.
Mostly, it was a way for Jin to step back from his life and try to figure out how he could manage it. Kame, with his ability to juggle half-a-dozen different careers at once and do well at all of them while getting less sleep than a mother of newborn twins, sometimes had difficulty understanding why other people couldn't keep up the same pace.
"But it didn't even work as a temporary solution." Kame's frustration is evident, though dimmed by night and bleary vision. "Can you honestly say you're happier now than you were before you left?"
Jin thinks about the number of times he's seen himself on TV lately, quite clearly bored, blanking out and fidgeting. It isn't always that his mind is wandering - on the contrary, sometimes he's concentrating very hard indeed. Because if he doesn't, he'll be caught out. Either way, his attention span isn't what it should be and he can't always bring himself to care. If he makes people laugh by doing something silly, well, at least he's doing *something*.
"I'm happier about different things?" he tries. "It's not like I spend all my time moping around in corners, Kame." Except when he's at really boring parties, of course.
Kame allows that this is true. "Not all the time, but enough that people are starting to notice. If you freeze up on camera, or you arrive for work looking like you haven't slept in three months, or you're a zombie during interviews...it shows, Jin. Those times when you're uncomfortable, you get nervous, you tense up, and the whole song goes wrong from your first note."
He winces at Kame's blunt condemnation but can't offer a denial. "And what do you expect me to do about it?" he says bitterly. "Quit? Or maybe just refuse to show my face in public? Never sing live again?"
"I don't *expect* you to do anything." Kame rubs his palms over his face; tucks his hair back behind his ears to stop the breeze blowing it every which way. "Except what you want to do. And if either of us ever figures out what that is, I'll do whatever I can to help you achieve it."
Jin can't trust his alcohol-soaked brain to produce a response that doesn't sound incurably sappy, so he doesn't even try, merely lets Kame's words hang in the few inches of air between them and revels in the pleasant, tingling warmth that spreads through his body and makes his mind go comfortably numb. It's nice, this business of not thinking too much.
It means that when he starts to climb over the rail, there are no internal alarm bells ringing to warn him that he's right on the edge of the balcony.
Kame does it instead. "Jin? What are you...no, don't do that, it's dangerous."
Jin nods absently, not caring in the slightest that his bootheels are wedged between the bars and his toes are hanging in empty air; it's only his hands on the railing that keep him in place. The night sky looks different from this side.
"You have to climb back over, okay?" Kame starts to reach for Jin's hands, then draws back as though concerned that he might startle him into letting go. "It's not safe."
"The stars are closer now, Kame," Jin says dreamily. "It feels like I can fly there from here. Take my time to work things out by myself."
"You can take all the time you want, I promise. Just climb back over the rail and we'll get out of here."
Jin ignores him as easily as he ignores the first twinge of fear, a slow burn in his stomach that sits and waits for him to make a move. "Millions of miles away, and we can still see them. Isn't that incredible? It's like they're right there. Do you want to go with me?"
"Not right now, okay? We'll go together another time, but tonight's no good." Kame is practically pleading. "If you come back over here, we'll discuss it - plan a trip, even."
"I don't think it's really the kind of trip you can plan, Kame."
Jin watches a sliver of the moon appear from behind a cloud, and imagines himself alone on its surface. The thought is not entirely welcome. Jin likes being around people, enjoys the affection and companionship offered him by his family and friends - but he also likes to be able to choose the people he associates with, the people who see him, and that's an area in which he has little to no choice.
Choice. That's what it all comes down to, doesn't it? Choose between this and that, Akanishi-kun, but not that because the fans won't like it. You can be like this person, you can be like that person, but you have to wait until you're truly successful to be yourself and if you're still trying to figure out who that is, you'll get no help from us.
Before he can change his mind, Jin takes both hands off the rail and reaches out to cup the nearest star.
-----
"I wasn't aiming for the moon."
"But you got us here anyway," Kame says. "I grabbed you the moment you let go, and we both fell off the balcony. I woke up a while ago."
Jin looks down at himself. He's still wearing the same outfit he donned for the party - they both are - and for all that his body remembers a painful meeting with the ground, it doesn't seem to be any the worse for wear. Moreover, he no longer feels drunk.
Which is unfortunate, because that means that this is probably real and Kame is going to kill him for getting them both stuck on the moon. If he's not already dead, of course. Jin doesn't know what to make of that.
"How long have we been here?"
Kame shrugs. "No idea. Our watches have stopped and our cell phones won't switch on. Not that we could call anyone anyway..."
"Sorry," Jin mumbles.
"It's all right - I don't want to be one of those guys who call just to say they're on the moon; I really hate that kind of person." Kame's humour normally makes Jin laugh but this time the joke falls flat.
"I wasn't apologising for that."
"I know, Jin, but..." Kame looks at him helplessly. "You jumped off a balcony. What am I supposed to say about that?"
"I was going to reach the stars," Jin huffs.
"Sure you were. By jumping off a balcony."
Jin squirms under Kame's gaze. "So I was drunk. You were too."
"Yeah, but I didn't jump off a balcony."
"Would you please stop saying that?"
"No, because you need to think about this. You wanted time - and now you've got all the time in the world. I'll even leave you alone if you want. Maybe I'll go for a walk and see if I can find an American flag."
With that, Kame uncurls himself and begins to stand up, but Jin grabs a trailing handful of his red and black shirt.
"Don't go."
Kame tugs his shirt free from Jin's fingers and sits back down. "Fine. I'll stay. But don't just sit here and Earth-gaze; before we go back you need to be sure that...well..."
"Go back?"
"Back to the party. Look."
Kame points to a seemingly-empty patch of space hovering somewhere before them, with the Earth as a backdrop. Jin looks, seeing nothing at first. He holds his gaze steady, however, and gradually, an image starts to form.
A rectangle of light, encompassed by a dark border of curtains, with silhouettes of dancers and drinkers making merry till they drop. It is the party as viewed from the balcony, a scene through the sliding door.
"You see? We walk through that portal, and nothing happened tonight. We go home: no broken bones, no funerals. That's one choice."
Jin scratches his nose, considers this for a moment. "There are other choices?"
"We could stay here - we'd be bored, but we wouldn't have to worry about stalkers. I haven't seen anyone else since I woke up, and I looked around a lot when I was trying to find help for you. That's when I saw the two portals."
Jin scans the area but he still only sees the one. "Two?"
Kame turns to point behind them. Jin follows the line of his finger and eventually fixes on a particular swirl of stars that seem nearer than the rest, moving in random spirals in a rough approximation of an upright rectangle. Another portal: one comprising stars, space and the unknown, leading out into the universe.
It gives Jin an unsettling feeling, this second door. If he steps through it, he'll be swallowed up by the vastness of space, torn apart as he returns to chaos. He doesn't want to go that way. Not yet.
Nor does he want to remain on the moon. To stay would be to give in to indecision and condemn himself to an eternity in limbo.
That only leaves one option. The trouble is, Jin isn't completely certain he wants to take that one, either.
He makes a feeble suggestion about looking for another door, to which Kame gives half-hearted agreement. They know they'll find nothing, no matter how long they search.
"We're going home," Kame says. "But we're not going anywhere until you want to go."
"I don't want to stay here, and I'm not ready to take Door #2, thank you. It's a lot easier to keep the stars in perspective when you haven't spent your evening drinking everything in sight."
"Not good enough." Kame pushes Jin to his feet, then wraps one arm round his shoulders and stands them both facing the Earth. "Look at our home. See Japan? Think about your family. Think about your friends, and your dog, and your favourite restaurants, and every time you've ever kicked a soccer ball. Think about the people who love you, even if they don't say it."
Jin sighs. "Those aren't the parts of my life that cause me problems."
"All right." Kame tries again. "Then, what about every time you've misread kanji, or said something stupid - in Japanese *or* English - or screwed up the lyrics?"
"Don't act like *your* singing's always perfect." Kame and Music Station have never been a winning combination.
"I'm not saying it is. But do those things bother you?"
"A little, but..." Things like that, they make Jin feel dumb, but only for as long as he remembers them. In time he forgets the niggling, unimportant troubles, because they don't really matter in the long run. He gets embarrassed, he flusters, and he moves on. He might not be a genius but he knows he's not an idiot, and everyone who counts knows it too.
Kame's arm tightens round his shoulders. "So that's a little. What about a lot? What is it that's upsetting you so much that you're red-eyed and miserable in half your photos?"
It's not as if Kame doesn't have any idea, as if they haven't discussed this before in frantic dressing-room conversations that frequently culminate in Jin being ushered out to the studio or the stage, only to hang back and wander off the moment he can manage it. But Jin can't put it into words, the pressure he feels, so no matter how much they talk, they still end up going round in circles.
Somewhere inside Jin, lingering painfully close to the surface, is the shy little boy whose mother sent him off to audition in the hopes that it would bring him out a bit.
Which it has. He's done things on stage that he'd probably never have done in a "normal" life, and had more than his fair share of amazing experiences. Every career has its highs and lows, of course. That's to be expected, and he tries to live his life without regrets.
But when that life has to be lived in the public eye, and a child's selfishness gives way to an adult's desperate need for privacy, an idol who struggles to keep his emotions from the surface finds it difficult to maintain a smile.
"I was ill when those were taken," Jin protests.
"*All* of them?"
"Well...some of them. But I'm allowed to have bad days, aren't I?"
Jin can answer his own question, as Kame well knows. If they're having bad days, they have to keep going anyway, working to make other people happy. It's all part of the job. But when Jin has a bad day, he's exposed for everyone to see, even more so than on the days when he's genuinely happy and can laugh with a light heart.
"If it was up to me, you wouldn't have any," Kame says. "But I don't think it's possible to be happy all the time. If we were, we wouldn't be able to appreciate it."
"You're happy, right?"
"At the moment? Not really. But I'm dead - sort of - and on the moon, so I think that's justified."
Jin smiles properly for the first time since he arrived at the party. "And you're taking it very well."
"That's because I know it's only temporary. I got all my panicking out the way with while you were unconscious - by the time you woke up, I'd wound down to minor hysterics."
Although Kame's words are irreverent, there is a quick, faint nervousness in his voice that makes Jin feel better about the whole situation. He feels like he should be freaking out too; on some level he is, but he's also at peace. Whether they're on the real moon, which is unlikely, or just some strange afterlife created by Jin's desire to reach the stars, they are without an audience.
"Okay," Jin says, "but you're normally at least satisfied with what we do, aren't you?"
"Most of the time, yeah. That doesn't mean I don't think there are things we could improve upon, or that we could try out. I'd just rather channel my energy into fixing problems than worrying about them."
Jin waits for Kame to continue, to enlighten him on his tactics for remaining calm in the face of thousands of fangirls, but no such wisdom is forthcoming. Perhaps Kame could write a self-help manual on the subject, which would no doubt sell extremely well.
"So pretend you're me," Jin says at last. "What would you do?"
"Prank-call Yamapi and confuse him for days."
Kame catches his eye, making them both laugh for a moment, before he answers seriously. "I'd try to figure out what was making me unhappy and what I could do about it. Like, cutting down on my workload," this prompts further laughter, since Kame only knows how to *add* to his workload, "talking to the photographers about having more control over the way I was shot, or having some kind of security item or routine. Whatever I could do to make myself comfortable, preferably without compromising my work.
"But the first thing I'd do would be to talk to someone."
Jin shakes off Kame's arm and takes a wary step backwards. "Like a psychiatrist?"
"Like a friend. Talk to the people who worry about you, okay? Let us help."
"But you guys do help - all the time!" Jin assures him. "Even if we have stupid arguments sometimes and we make fun of each other, we're still KAT-TUN. All six of us.
"And if I didn't want that, I'd have quit after returning to Japan...or I'd never have come back at all."
"See?" Kame points to the homeward portal, where the party is in full swing. "The lights just got brighter. I think you've found your reason to go home."
It isn't that Jin's family or his other friends don't help, because they do, whether they understand his feelings or not. And because they care, they want to try.
But it's the other members of KAT-TUN who are there the most, and while all six of them retain their individuality, they are far from the group of raw, unpolished brats who were thrown together for work. They may not always understand each other. They fight. They have their own opinions, and they can't always compromise.
But they can be supportive. Jin knew that when he left for L.A., and when he came back, he found out all over again. So it doesn't matter what he has to do to rearrange his life more to his liking, because he knows he won't be doing it alone. He'll have five friends backing him up.
"Shall we go back?" Kame asks.
Jin takes a last look at the Earth, a beautiful ball of blue and green, and thinks that he might be ready to take his place there again. In global terms, he's not quite sure where that might be. Maybe it's Japan, maybe it's America, maybe it's somewhere he's never been before. But he knows his place in KAT-TUN - right between Kamenashi Kazuya and Taguchi Junnosuke - and he's going to stay there.
"Do you think we'll remember this?"
Kame shrugs and offers him a grin. "You tell me - this is your crazy idea of an afterlife. Come on." He extends his hand and after a moment's hesitation, Jin takes it and follows him through the portal.
-----
The next morning...
Jin wakes up to find himself lying in his own bed - not an unexpected discovery, perhaps, except that he's not alone. Kame is sprawled next to him on the sheets, and he's beginning to stir.
"Morning," Kame says through a yawn; Jin returns an equally sleepy greeting.
They're both fully dressed, aside from their boots, and it takes Jin a few minutes to remember that they went to a party last night. He remembers being bored and drinking a lot, but that's about it. He shakes his head and starts the painfully slow process of getting up.
"Don't bother," Kame advises. "Nobody's going to expect us to show our faces till noon anyway. After you nearly fell off the balcony last night - taking me with you! - Nakamaru and Ueda decided we were completely smashed and bundled us both in a taxi." He rubs the sleep from his eyes and sighs in contentment. "I don't feel like I had anything stronger than mineral water last night. This is great!"
Jin doesn't feel hungover either, though he can't bring himself to feel quite as thrilled about it as Kame. "Sorry about the balcony thing," he mumbles.
"Don't worry about it; I don't really remember it anyway." Kame sits up and catches Jin's arm, prompting him to turn. "I don't remember *that*, either, and I know you weren't wearing it last night. Did you get a new necklace?"
Jin looks down at his black T-shirt and catches sight of something shiny hanging from a slender silver chain. He catches it in his palm, holds it out to get a better look.
It's a tiny silver star.
Pairing: Akame
Rating: G? Do I need a warning for...uh...undeath?
Genre: Very weird angst
Word count: Approx. 4,500
Disclaimer: Not mine, dammnit.
Summary: Jin reaches for the stars by jumping off a balcony.
Author's Notes: This is a result of Akame-meta discussions with maya_morning in which we theorised about the changes seen in Jin since his return from L.A. The cause is pure speculation, but watch him being interviewed or look at some of the shop photos (post-Keep the Faith in particular) to see how up and down he is.
Aim for the Stars, Shoot for the Moon
Jin's face is wet with tears, though they don't belong to him. They feel no more real than the dim memories of aches, of broken bones and shattered organs, of the sickening splintering of skin and self. These things are in the past now, but the tears are fresh and still falling.
They belong to Kame; these light, salty splashes. Jin discovers this only when he opens his eyes to find Kame kneeling beside him, sobbing in quiet despair.
"Wake up," Kame whispers. "Why won't you wake up?"
Jin opens his mouth, tries to tell Kame that he *is* awake, but it's an effort to force the air up from his lungs and he only manages a slurred wheeze. Still, it's enough to attract Kame's attention, and that's what counts.
"Jin?" Kame's voice is tired and incredulous and hopeful all at once; it breaks Jin's heart to hear it crack.
He makes another stab at speech, and while it's still a strain, as though he's trying to force old, rusted machinery back into use, he produces a raspy reply of "Kame".
Kame wipes his eyes on his sleeve and offers Jin a watery smile. It's a far cry from his gleeful, goofy grin, or his proud, confident smirk, or any of the millions of smiles in between.
"Don't cry."
"I thought you were never going to wake up, idiot. I think it's okay to shed a few tears over that."
Jin wipes a hand over his face. It feels like more than just a few, but he's not inclined to argue the point.
"Can you sit up?" Kame asks, and Jin is surprised to discover that he can do so quite easily. There is no pain, and only a little stiffness from lying on the ground. As he moves, his view changes from Kame's face against star-studded black to a blue-green sphere too immense for his eyes to take in.
He takes a deep breath, wondering why he is able to do so, and turns back to Kame. "Is that Earth?"
Kame shifts position to hug his knees to his chest. "I think so. Doesn't it look amazing?" He points at the globe, at one particular patch where the swirls of cloud part on a familiar sight. "There's Japan."
"Oh," Jin says, not sure what to make of all this. "Shouldn't we be there? Instead of..."
He looks around at the barren, rocky emptiness, his curiosity warring with apprehension. Because if they're not on Earth, and what they're seeing is the planet as viewed from space, then...
"The moon," Kame says flatly. "We're on the moon. Is this what you had in mind when you said we were going to fly to the stars?"
-----
Two hours earlier...
It's supposed to be a night of celebration, a party to commemorate their sixth number one single, and Jin keeps drinking in the hopes that it will encourage everyone else to do the same, only faster, and then they won't notice him sneaking out. He's already tried leaving twice, but people keep cornering him to talk and it takes forever to extricate himself from the alcohol-induced conversation.
Parties aren't nearly as much fun as they used to be, not when there are so many people, all of them with their own agendas, and it's not just a bunch of friends there because they actually want to be together. Jin's friends *are* there, true, but they're scattered, so Jin props himself up on a stool by the window, beer in hand, and tries to look like he's merrily plastered instead of bored, tired, and a little lonely.
Someone approaches from the left, talking in slurred, underwater tones. Or perhaps that's just Jin's hearing, he's not sure. Someone else approaches from the right, and now he's getting a stream of blurred babble in stereo. Jin contemplates telling them both to shut up and get the hell away from him, then realises that he doesn't know who they are and that it's probably wisest not to offend anyone who might crucify him in the press.
So he closes his eyes.
After a few minutes, the babbling stops. Jin dares to crack open one eye to check that his unwelcome companions have abandoned him to his apparent drunken stupor; in the tiny strip of vision that results, he sees Kame coming towards him.
"Hey." One hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. "If you're going to sleep at a party, at least do it on something more comfortable than a barstool."
Jin opens his eyes properly. "I'm not asleep." His voice comes out like syrup, thick and sticky. "Yet," he adds.
"You need air." Kame gulps down the rest of his bottle and sets it down carefully on an empty square of table. "We both do. Come on."
He manages to work his shoulder under Jin's arm; both of them stagger over to the sliding door and it is only when even Kame has trouble opening it that Jin realises that they are equally inebriated.
When they finally make it out to the balcony, they have it to themselves - cool, clean night air and a sprinkle of stars. They shut the door behind them; the party sounds are muted and with the curtain falling back into place, only a narrow band of light shows from the interior. No one is interested in looking outside.
Kame retracts his shoulder, so Jin takes up leaning on the rail for support, his face turned to the sky, aiming his gaze high enough to escape the bright lights of Tokyo beneath. It's pretty: shiny sequins on black velvet, he thinks. Stars that are millions of miles away - some dead, some bursting with life - and the one thing they all have in common?
They're not this stupid party.
"If you're going to throw up over the railing, at least warn the people below," Kame advises with a giggle. He edges closer to Jin until their arms are pressed together on the metal bar.
So when Kame nudges Jin and asks him what he's thinking, they are near enough that Jin could, if he wanted, breathe his answer directly into Kame's ear. He doesn't, but since Kame's one of the few people who would ask him that question and actually care about the reply, he honours him with the truth.
"I'm thinking how nice it would be to go away again."
The amusement fades from Kame's voice. "Back to America? Or somewhere else, this time?"
"Oh, further than that." Jin sighs and points to the brightest star he can see. "There. Or maybe there." He keeps moving his finger, sweeping the sky as he speaks. "That one, even. It doesn't matter, so long as they're not here."
"I don't think they want idols in the space program, Jin. Too high maintenance."
Jin allows himself a half-smile at Kame's response. "That's not what I meant and you know it."
"Yeah, I know." Kame begins to tap out a tune on the railings with his fingernails. "But I also know it's not going to happen. You can't escape that easily."
"Escape, huh?" Jin's been trying to escape since he walked through the door a couple of hours ago, but neither he nor Kame are talking about the party. "I managed it once."
"And you came back six months later," Kame points out. "It wasn't a permanent solution to anything."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
They've had this conversation maybe a hundred times since their debut, with slight variations introduced by Jin's L.A. stay. There's never any resolution. It was a study trip, it was a rest, it was a chance to get away from the debut whirlwind, it was an opportunity to retreat and clear his head, it was a time where he could try out new things without the whole world watching his every move.
Mostly, it was a way for Jin to step back from his life and try to figure out how he could manage it. Kame, with his ability to juggle half-a-dozen different careers at once and do well at all of them while getting less sleep than a mother of newborn twins, sometimes had difficulty understanding why other people couldn't keep up the same pace.
"But it didn't even work as a temporary solution." Kame's frustration is evident, though dimmed by night and bleary vision. "Can you honestly say you're happier now than you were before you left?"
Jin thinks about the number of times he's seen himself on TV lately, quite clearly bored, blanking out and fidgeting. It isn't always that his mind is wandering - on the contrary, sometimes he's concentrating very hard indeed. Because if he doesn't, he'll be caught out. Either way, his attention span isn't what it should be and he can't always bring himself to care. If he makes people laugh by doing something silly, well, at least he's doing *something*.
"I'm happier about different things?" he tries. "It's not like I spend all my time moping around in corners, Kame." Except when he's at really boring parties, of course.
Kame allows that this is true. "Not all the time, but enough that people are starting to notice. If you freeze up on camera, or you arrive for work looking like you haven't slept in three months, or you're a zombie during interviews...it shows, Jin. Those times when you're uncomfortable, you get nervous, you tense up, and the whole song goes wrong from your first note."
He winces at Kame's blunt condemnation but can't offer a denial. "And what do you expect me to do about it?" he says bitterly. "Quit? Or maybe just refuse to show my face in public? Never sing live again?"
"I don't *expect* you to do anything." Kame rubs his palms over his face; tucks his hair back behind his ears to stop the breeze blowing it every which way. "Except what you want to do. And if either of us ever figures out what that is, I'll do whatever I can to help you achieve it."
Jin can't trust his alcohol-soaked brain to produce a response that doesn't sound incurably sappy, so he doesn't even try, merely lets Kame's words hang in the few inches of air between them and revels in the pleasant, tingling warmth that spreads through his body and makes his mind go comfortably numb. It's nice, this business of not thinking too much.
It means that when he starts to climb over the rail, there are no internal alarm bells ringing to warn him that he's right on the edge of the balcony.
Kame does it instead. "Jin? What are you...no, don't do that, it's dangerous."
Jin nods absently, not caring in the slightest that his bootheels are wedged between the bars and his toes are hanging in empty air; it's only his hands on the railing that keep him in place. The night sky looks different from this side.
"You have to climb back over, okay?" Kame starts to reach for Jin's hands, then draws back as though concerned that he might startle him into letting go. "It's not safe."
"The stars are closer now, Kame," Jin says dreamily. "It feels like I can fly there from here. Take my time to work things out by myself."
"You can take all the time you want, I promise. Just climb back over the rail and we'll get out of here."
Jin ignores him as easily as he ignores the first twinge of fear, a slow burn in his stomach that sits and waits for him to make a move. "Millions of miles away, and we can still see them. Isn't that incredible? It's like they're right there. Do you want to go with me?"
"Not right now, okay? We'll go together another time, but tonight's no good." Kame is practically pleading. "If you come back over here, we'll discuss it - plan a trip, even."
"I don't think it's really the kind of trip you can plan, Kame."
Jin watches a sliver of the moon appear from behind a cloud, and imagines himself alone on its surface. The thought is not entirely welcome. Jin likes being around people, enjoys the affection and companionship offered him by his family and friends - but he also likes to be able to choose the people he associates with, the people who see him, and that's an area in which he has little to no choice.
Choice. That's what it all comes down to, doesn't it? Choose between this and that, Akanishi-kun, but not that because the fans won't like it. You can be like this person, you can be like that person, but you have to wait until you're truly successful to be yourself and if you're still trying to figure out who that is, you'll get no help from us.
Before he can change his mind, Jin takes both hands off the rail and reaches out to cup the nearest star.
-----
"I wasn't aiming for the moon."
"But you got us here anyway," Kame says. "I grabbed you the moment you let go, and we both fell off the balcony. I woke up a while ago."
Jin looks down at himself. He's still wearing the same outfit he donned for the party - they both are - and for all that his body remembers a painful meeting with the ground, it doesn't seem to be any the worse for wear. Moreover, he no longer feels drunk.
Which is unfortunate, because that means that this is probably real and Kame is going to kill him for getting them both stuck on the moon. If he's not already dead, of course. Jin doesn't know what to make of that.
"How long have we been here?"
Kame shrugs. "No idea. Our watches have stopped and our cell phones won't switch on. Not that we could call anyone anyway..."
"Sorry," Jin mumbles.
"It's all right - I don't want to be one of those guys who call just to say they're on the moon; I really hate that kind of person." Kame's humour normally makes Jin laugh but this time the joke falls flat.
"I wasn't apologising for that."
"I know, Jin, but..." Kame looks at him helplessly. "You jumped off a balcony. What am I supposed to say about that?"
"I was going to reach the stars," Jin huffs.
"Sure you were. By jumping off a balcony."
Jin squirms under Kame's gaze. "So I was drunk. You were too."
"Yeah, but I didn't jump off a balcony."
"Would you please stop saying that?"
"No, because you need to think about this. You wanted time - and now you've got all the time in the world. I'll even leave you alone if you want. Maybe I'll go for a walk and see if I can find an American flag."
With that, Kame uncurls himself and begins to stand up, but Jin grabs a trailing handful of his red and black shirt.
"Don't go."
Kame tugs his shirt free from Jin's fingers and sits back down. "Fine. I'll stay. But don't just sit here and Earth-gaze; before we go back you need to be sure that...well..."
"Go back?"
"Back to the party. Look."
Kame points to a seemingly-empty patch of space hovering somewhere before them, with the Earth as a backdrop. Jin looks, seeing nothing at first. He holds his gaze steady, however, and gradually, an image starts to form.
A rectangle of light, encompassed by a dark border of curtains, with silhouettes of dancers and drinkers making merry till they drop. It is the party as viewed from the balcony, a scene through the sliding door.
"You see? We walk through that portal, and nothing happened tonight. We go home: no broken bones, no funerals. That's one choice."
Jin scratches his nose, considers this for a moment. "There are other choices?"
"We could stay here - we'd be bored, but we wouldn't have to worry about stalkers. I haven't seen anyone else since I woke up, and I looked around a lot when I was trying to find help for you. That's when I saw the two portals."
Jin scans the area but he still only sees the one. "Two?"
Kame turns to point behind them. Jin follows the line of his finger and eventually fixes on a particular swirl of stars that seem nearer than the rest, moving in random spirals in a rough approximation of an upright rectangle. Another portal: one comprising stars, space and the unknown, leading out into the universe.
It gives Jin an unsettling feeling, this second door. If he steps through it, he'll be swallowed up by the vastness of space, torn apart as he returns to chaos. He doesn't want to go that way. Not yet.
Nor does he want to remain on the moon. To stay would be to give in to indecision and condemn himself to an eternity in limbo.
That only leaves one option. The trouble is, Jin isn't completely certain he wants to take that one, either.
He makes a feeble suggestion about looking for another door, to which Kame gives half-hearted agreement. They know they'll find nothing, no matter how long they search.
"We're going home," Kame says. "But we're not going anywhere until you want to go."
"I don't want to stay here, and I'm not ready to take Door #2, thank you. It's a lot easier to keep the stars in perspective when you haven't spent your evening drinking everything in sight."
"Not good enough." Kame pushes Jin to his feet, then wraps one arm round his shoulders and stands them both facing the Earth. "Look at our home. See Japan? Think about your family. Think about your friends, and your dog, and your favourite restaurants, and every time you've ever kicked a soccer ball. Think about the people who love you, even if they don't say it."
Jin sighs. "Those aren't the parts of my life that cause me problems."
"All right." Kame tries again. "Then, what about every time you've misread kanji, or said something stupid - in Japanese *or* English - or screwed up the lyrics?"
"Don't act like *your* singing's always perfect." Kame and Music Station have never been a winning combination.
"I'm not saying it is. But do those things bother you?"
"A little, but..." Things like that, they make Jin feel dumb, but only for as long as he remembers them. In time he forgets the niggling, unimportant troubles, because they don't really matter in the long run. He gets embarrassed, he flusters, and he moves on. He might not be a genius but he knows he's not an idiot, and everyone who counts knows it too.
Kame's arm tightens round his shoulders. "So that's a little. What about a lot? What is it that's upsetting you so much that you're red-eyed and miserable in half your photos?"
It's not as if Kame doesn't have any idea, as if they haven't discussed this before in frantic dressing-room conversations that frequently culminate in Jin being ushered out to the studio or the stage, only to hang back and wander off the moment he can manage it. But Jin can't put it into words, the pressure he feels, so no matter how much they talk, they still end up going round in circles.
Somewhere inside Jin, lingering painfully close to the surface, is the shy little boy whose mother sent him off to audition in the hopes that it would bring him out a bit.
Which it has. He's done things on stage that he'd probably never have done in a "normal" life, and had more than his fair share of amazing experiences. Every career has its highs and lows, of course. That's to be expected, and he tries to live his life without regrets.
But when that life has to be lived in the public eye, and a child's selfishness gives way to an adult's desperate need for privacy, an idol who struggles to keep his emotions from the surface finds it difficult to maintain a smile.
"I was ill when those were taken," Jin protests.
"*All* of them?"
"Well...some of them. But I'm allowed to have bad days, aren't I?"
Jin can answer his own question, as Kame well knows. If they're having bad days, they have to keep going anyway, working to make other people happy. It's all part of the job. But when Jin has a bad day, he's exposed for everyone to see, even more so than on the days when he's genuinely happy and can laugh with a light heart.
"If it was up to me, you wouldn't have any," Kame says. "But I don't think it's possible to be happy all the time. If we were, we wouldn't be able to appreciate it."
"You're happy, right?"
"At the moment? Not really. But I'm dead - sort of - and on the moon, so I think that's justified."
Jin smiles properly for the first time since he arrived at the party. "And you're taking it very well."
"That's because I know it's only temporary. I got all my panicking out the way with while you were unconscious - by the time you woke up, I'd wound down to minor hysterics."
Although Kame's words are irreverent, there is a quick, faint nervousness in his voice that makes Jin feel better about the whole situation. He feels like he should be freaking out too; on some level he is, but he's also at peace. Whether they're on the real moon, which is unlikely, or just some strange afterlife created by Jin's desire to reach the stars, they are without an audience.
"Okay," Jin says, "but you're normally at least satisfied with what we do, aren't you?"
"Most of the time, yeah. That doesn't mean I don't think there are things we could improve upon, or that we could try out. I'd just rather channel my energy into fixing problems than worrying about them."
Jin waits for Kame to continue, to enlighten him on his tactics for remaining calm in the face of thousands of fangirls, but no such wisdom is forthcoming. Perhaps Kame could write a self-help manual on the subject, which would no doubt sell extremely well.
"So pretend you're me," Jin says at last. "What would you do?"
"Prank-call Yamapi and confuse him for days."
Kame catches his eye, making them both laugh for a moment, before he answers seriously. "I'd try to figure out what was making me unhappy and what I could do about it. Like, cutting down on my workload," this prompts further laughter, since Kame only knows how to *add* to his workload, "talking to the photographers about having more control over the way I was shot, or having some kind of security item or routine. Whatever I could do to make myself comfortable, preferably without compromising my work.
"But the first thing I'd do would be to talk to someone."
Jin shakes off Kame's arm and takes a wary step backwards. "Like a psychiatrist?"
"Like a friend. Talk to the people who worry about you, okay? Let us help."
"But you guys do help - all the time!" Jin assures him. "Even if we have stupid arguments sometimes and we make fun of each other, we're still KAT-TUN. All six of us.
"And if I didn't want that, I'd have quit after returning to Japan...or I'd never have come back at all."
"See?" Kame points to the homeward portal, where the party is in full swing. "The lights just got brighter. I think you've found your reason to go home."
It isn't that Jin's family or his other friends don't help, because they do, whether they understand his feelings or not. And because they care, they want to try.
But it's the other members of KAT-TUN who are there the most, and while all six of them retain their individuality, they are far from the group of raw, unpolished brats who were thrown together for work. They may not always understand each other. They fight. They have their own opinions, and they can't always compromise.
But they can be supportive. Jin knew that when he left for L.A., and when he came back, he found out all over again. So it doesn't matter what he has to do to rearrange his life more to his liking, because he knows he won't be doing it alone. He'll have five friends backing him up.
"Shall we go back?" Kame asks.
Jin takes a last look at the Earth, a beautiful ball of blue and green, and thinks that he might be ready to take his place there again. In global terms, he's not quite sure where that might be. Maybe it's Japan, maybe it's America, maybe it's somewhere he's never been before. But he knows his place in KAT-TUN - right between Kamenashi Kazuya and Taguchi Junnosuke - and he's going to stay there.
"Do you think we'll remember this?"
Kame shrugs and offers him a grin. "You tell me - this is your crazy idea of an afterlife. Come on." He extends his hand and after a moment's hesitation, Jin takes it and follows him through the portal.
-----
The next morning...
Jin wakes up to find himself lying in his own bed - not an unexpected discovery, perhaps, except that he's not alone. Kame is sprawled next to him on the sheets, and he's beginning to stir.
"Morning," Kame says through a yawn; Jin returns an equally sleepy greeting.
They're both fully dressed, aside from their boots, and it takes Jin a few minutes to remember that they went to a party last night. He remembers being bored and drinking a lot, but that's about it. He shakes his head and starts the painfully slow process of getting up.
"Don't bother," Kame advises. "Nobody's going to expect us to show our faces till noon anyway. After you nearly fell off the balcony last night - taking me with you! - Nakamaru and Ueda decided we were completely smashed and bundled us both in a taxi." He rubs the sleep from his eyes and sighs in contentment. "I don't feel like I had anything stronger than mineral water last night. This is great!"
Jin doesn't feel hungover either, though he can't bring himself to feel quite as thrilled about it as Kame. "Sorry about the balcony thing," he mumbles.
"Don't worry about it; I don't really remember it anyway." Kame sits up and catches Jin's arm, prompting him to turn. "I don't remember *that*, either, and I know you weren't wearing it last night. Did you get a new necklace?"
Jin looks down at his black T-shirt and catches sight of something shiny hanging from a slender silver chain. He catches it in his palm, holds it out to get a better look.
It's a tiny silver star.