[JE] Take Your Own Advice
Title: Take Your Own Advice
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame x Jin
Genre: Fluff
Word count: Approx. 5,000
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: The Akakame email exchange makes a welcome return to the pages of Myojo.
A/N: Written for my help_japan winner, redjae ! Thank you very much for bidding on me, Jae (and indeed, thank you everyone else who bid), and I hope you'll enjoy this. Thanks go to misao_duo for providing the emoji, and sweetpaopuwind for performing vast amounts of emoji surgery on this fic. Cheers for making it cute, Tori! ^_^
Take Your Own Advice
With everyone tightening their purse strings and spending less on entertainment, magazine sales had suffered in recent months and for Myojo, which faced a lot of competition on the idol mag front, the future looked uncertain. Short of rebranding themselves as a monthly Arashi compendium, the only way they could improve their plummeting sales was to bring back one of their most popular features: Whisper Sweetly Please - the Akakame Email Exchange.
Of course with Akanishi Jin's departure from KAT-TUN, the column had to be rejigged slightly and more often than not the whole thing was done over Skype, but sometimes it worked out that both Jin and Kame were in the same country at the same time, and then, the editors agreed, their answers were much more heartfelt (and contained less English slang).
-----
Friendly love?
Text: Dear Jin-kun and Kame-chan, I am in my first year of high school and recently, I have started to pay more attention to one of my male friends. Even though I'm a girl, because we grew up together I have never seen him as a boy before, but now we're in the same class when I see him working hard on his studies, I think he's cool. Have either of you suddenly realised that you like someone you've known for ages?
From Mai
K: Ah, it's been a while since we've done this corner, hasn't it?
A: Yep. Since the last time, we've both worked with lots of different people.
K: Did you like any of them~~~?
A: Like that? Of course not, idiot.
K: Then, how about before~~?
A: Ah, maybe Nakamaru? One day I suddenly saw his nose in a beautiful light...
K: When did you develop that kind of fetish?
-----
The first time Jin started to notice Kame as anything more than a furry-eyebrowed, baseball-obsessed brat with crazy hair and a gap-toothed smile wasn't when they shared a tent in Okinawa, huddling together on the beach at the mercy of the agency. Kame was raw, unfinished then - they both were, still blunt and unpolished kids who had no idea what their future held. But Jin was older, taller, closer to the idols they were supposed to be growing into; Kame was his friend, and that was all there was to it.
It wasn't when Kame started getting his eyebrows done, either. Jin had no idea how but Johnny had this gift for spotting kids who were going to grow up to be jaw-droppingly beautiful, and Kame was one of them. Not immediately, of course, but Kame slowly evolved, becoming increasingly striking, and KAT-TUN began to look like a group of beautiful, dangerous rebels. (Though their "bad boy" image didn't suit them terribly well, given their collective weirdness, dorkiness, and occasional moments of outright girliness.) Jin thought KAT-TUN were amazing, but they were his coworkers and friends and that was it.
It was only when they filmed Gokusen 2 together, and Jin noticed that Hayato and Ryu had enough explosive chemistry to blow up a warehouse between them, that he realised he wasn't even acting. All those yearning looks from Hayato to Ryu, that made the director happy and made Nakama Yukie ruffle his hair, were all Jin - and he aimed those looks at Kame, even though he didn't know why. Ryu's red hair and black uniform made Kame look pale and beautiful, all cold, sharp edges and smooth, icy skin hiding pain beneath. It hurt Jin to look at him. It hurt even more when Kame seized him by his jacket, or tried to break his jaw, or flat-out ignored him, because for a while there Hayato and Ryu were on pretty bad terms.
But afterwards, when the cameras stopped rolling, Kame would help him up and laugh it off, ask if he wanted anything from the vending machine, maybe suggest they stop off for ramen on the way home. Jin liked looking at Kame better then, because Kame smiled a lot more than Ryu did and if Ryu's smile was always for Hayato, it felt like Kame's was always for Jin.
-----
How do I approach him?
Text: Good afternoon, Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun. I work in an office and recently, a guy I like started to work in the same department. We're both single and he's very kind to me, and we always get along well when we're at work. I think I'd like to try dating with him, but I'm not sure how to approach him. Please give me some advice!
From: Haruka
K: Office romance~~! You had one of those, right?
A: In a drama!
K: Did your forbidden romance with Anego teach you anything that would help Haruka-san
A: Shut up! You had one of those too.
Do you have any advice?
K: Hmm, maybe she should start with something small? Like eating lunch together at work.
A: That's good. It's a natural approach, right? And from things like that they'll get to know each other better.
K: It's hard to approach someone you like, ne?
-----
Jin didn't like planning too far ahead, because if his plans didn't work out he just got stressed and upset. But a lot of plans got made about his life simply because of his job, so he knew when he was filming, and when he was touring, and when he had to make nice to industry hot-shots he normally wouldn't be seen dead with.
What he didn't know was how Kame, whose schedule was ten times more complicated than his, could possibly find time for a social life. Kame was all grown up now, with carefully shaped eyebrows and the gap in his teeth fixed. He still had the lump on his nose, but that was a baseball souvenir and Jin knew he'd keep it forever. It made no difference to his looks - improved them, actually, because, the tiny imperfection made him more real, more accessible to mere mortals.
At least, he would've been accessible if Jin could've figured out how to approach him. He was conscious that doing anything that could disrupt relations in an already volatile group was probably a bad idea, and he wasn't sure how Kame felt - or if he even liked guys - but he couldn't just do nothing. He'd been sitting on his feelings long enough already.
He tried to suggest going out for a meal, just the two of them, but Kame thought he meant the whole group and so the six of them went for okonomiyaki, rather than the romantic Italian dinner Jin had envisioned.
Then he suggested a movie, but cinema schedules and Kame's schedules proved to be incompatible. When Kame offered to see about rearranging his, Jin felt guilty and told him not to worry about it.
Being spontaneous didn't work either, as Jin discovered when he went to pick Kame up after a photoshoot, only to discover Kame had driven himself that day.
He was on the verge of giving up when Kame showed up on his doorstep one Sunday with a massive pot of curry, saying he'd made too much and thought Jin might appreciate it. Six hours later all the curry was gone, and so was Kame, but they had tentative plans to go shopping together for a birthday present for Kame's niece.
-----
First Kiss!!!
Text: Dear Jin-kun, Kazuya-kun. I have been going out with my boyfriend for three weeks now and we haven't had our first kiss yet. He's very shy and I've never had a boyfriend before, so it seems like things are moving quite slowly. I'm excited but also sort of nervous. Have you ever been nervous about kissing someone for the first time?
From: Kira
K: I was so nervous the first time I kissed my niece! She was so tiny, I thought I might break her
A: Screen kisses make me nervous...
K: Because you have to worry about both your partner and the camera?
A: Something like that...
K: Then forget the camera's there and pretend it's just the two of you!
A: If I forget the camera's there, then things will go too far!
K: Don't say such things in Myojo
-----
Jin was no stranger to first kisses. He wasn't even a stranger to kissing Kame, because photographers asked for weird things sometimes.
But there was a big difference between two kids pecking each other on the cheek for the camera, and two men touching each other for the first time. At first it was like they had some kind of wall between them. Made of glass, so they could see through it, but it was too slippery to climb. All they could do was break through and hope they didn't get hurt in the process.
They were on Jin's couch, enjoying a night off with a few choice discs from his DVD collection, when the wall finally shattered.
"Remind me to give Shirota some tips," Kame said as the end credits for ROOKIES rolled.
"On his acting?"
"On his baseball. That was painful."
Jin's face fell. "Just pretend you've never played in your life, okay? Then maybe you'll appreciate the drama more."
"Oh, I appreciate it." Kame sat up straighter and grinned. "I appreciate you finding the only DVD you've got that's even remotely baseball-related for us to watch together. Very thoughtful of you."
He planted a quick thank-you kiss on Jin's lips and Jin sat back, caught by surprise. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to figure out what to say to Kame, but no sound emerged.
"You look like a goldfish," Kame teased. "Should I go get some fishflakes to feed to you?"
"I'll show you what you can do with your fishflakes..."
They knew each other too well. Competition often drove their relationship - both personal and professional - prompting them both to set their sights on higher goals, and neither wanted to lose to the other. That, more than anything, was what made Jin slide a hand through Kame's soft brown hair and press close, brushing their lips together for a moment before retreating to watch the smile spread across Kame's face.
"I'm sure you taste much better than fishflakes," Kame said. "Even if you did have green peppers on your side of the pizza."
Jin stuck out his tongue in response, which Kame took as an invitation. They had to switch off the DVD, though, because it seemed wrong to be making out on the couch while one of Jin's friends beat up classroom furniture on television.
-----
We had a fight
Text: Dear Kame-chan and Jin-kun, I am in my second year of middle school and feel miserable because I had a big fight with my best friend over a boy we both like. We've known each other since we started elementary school but I'm worried this will be the end of the friendship. Do you think I can somehow make up with her?
From: KAT-TUN-ga-daisuki
K: This is a big problem, isn't it?
A: Everything seems that way when you're in middle school, but really, isn't the fight over a very small thing?
K: Right, right. Everyone fights with their friends, but if the friendship is that strong, it doesn't matter.
A: The boy might be interested in someone else altogether, and then what will you do? Isn't it better to move past it?
K: They want to stay friends, right? So apologising is a good place to start.
A: That's right! Apologise straight away and the friend will feel like apologising too.
K: It can be hard to say you're sorry, but if you don't try, you might never make up.
A: Good luck!
-----
Since their formation KAT-TUN argued about everything from the trivial to the life-changing, sometimes coming to blows over the most ridiculous of things. It was a measure of the bond between them that none of the fights ever did permanent damage to the group's dynamics. Bruises and blood were the bonds of brotherhood, just as much as mocking and squabbling, and they were all the better for it.
But over the years, they grew up. They were all experienced enough now to know when to stick to their guns, and when it was better to compromise. They all walked individual paths, but ultimately, those paths went in the same direction.
Jin almost looked forward to the arguments that ensued every time they had to decide on anything as a group, such as the themes for their tours, or what they wanted to do with Cartoon KAT-TUN. Those, at least, were productive, and together the six of them could accomplish some spectacular things.
What he hated were the arguments he had with Kame - the private, non-work ones they had behind closed doors. Those were the worst. Kame wouldn't let him get away with using his own special brand of logic and nonsense anymore, not when it was about the two of them, because he said if Jin wasn't mature enough to discuss it in real words then he obviously wasn't mature enough to be in this relationship in the first place.
Oh, not the little things, like whose turn it was to pick the restaurant or whose choice of music got played in the car when they went for a drive. They could usually manage to compromise on those.
But the big things, they filled Jin with dread.
"You're going and that's final," Kame said. "If you pass up this chance I'm never speaking to you again."
"But the tour-"
"Don't worry about the tour. We've managed it fine with five people before and we can do it again. How often do you get the chance to do a show in America?"
"Never, but-"
"And haven't you always wanted to do this, to take your music to other countries?"
"Yes, but-"
"You know as well as I do that you'll be miserable if you don't go, thinking about what might've been, and you'll ruin the tour for everyone. Do you really want that?"
"No..." Jin had already caused enough problems for the group, and didn't feel inclined to cause any more, but he was damned whichever option he took.
Taking his show - his creation - to America and performing before foreign audiences was his dream, but he hadn't thought it would become reality so soon. Too soon. His English wasn't good enough and he didn't have enough songs in English and maybe his hair was too long for American audiences and-
"Stop overthinking this," Kame said. "You're going to make the world fall in love with you and that's the end of it.
"Of course you're going to be nervous. You always are. But you've overcome those feelings every single time, right?"
Jin couldn't say "because you were always there" because that would just be sappy, but he reached across the space between their cushions to squeeze Kame's fingers and Kame got the message anyway, smiling at him with encouragement in his eyes.
"We're all going to be so proud of you," Kame continued. "KAT-TUN really are going to make it worldwide this year. This is better than concerts in Shanghai, or acting in a Clint Eastwood movie. You're going to take on America on its own terms, and you're going to win."
There it was again, that competitive spirit. Maybe he could make this work after all. Except...
"I'll be gone for months," Jin said. "And then you'll be away too. We won't see each other for ages."
"That's what the Internet's for."
"Big talk coming from a guy who bought a new computer because he forgot his password and couldn't get into the old one."
Pink tinted Kame's cheeks. "I'm not that bad anymore! Nakamaru's been teaching me over Skype."
Jin fought to ignore the sudden surge of jealousy but failed. "And what exactly have the two of you been doing on Skype?"
"Oh, this and that..."
"Tease."
Kame left his own giant floor cushion and squeezed himself onto Jin's, wrapping an arm around Jin's waist to keep from falling off. "Go to America, okay? I'm not about to pine away without you. The time will fly by once you get busy, and before you know it you'll be home again."
"Yeah, I'll be home and you'll be off to Korea," Jin said glumly. "That doesn't help."
"Okay, but eventually we'll be in the same country again. It's not...it's not going to be 2006 all over again, all right? This is different."
"You mean, this time it's for work, so you approve."
"And last time was for your sanity, so I approve of that too, even if it took me a while to realise it."
That made Jin feel a little better. He tilted his head to the side, leaning into Kame, so Kame leaned back. They'd always propped each other up, one way or another.
"Besides," Kame said, "if I genuinely thought this would be bad for you, I'd tell you so. We all would. We're not exactly the best at keeping our mouths shut."
No disputing that. If the other members of KAT-TUN thought Jin would be making a mistake by going to LA, they'd tell him so in no uncertain terms. That they'd all tried to reassure him in some way that it would be okay to go meant it probably was.
"I'll do it. But..."
"But?"
"Leave a light burning for me, will you?"
Kame grinned. "I'll set the whole damned stage ablaze for you."
-----
What about the future?
Text: Good day, Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun. Recently, I have been talking with my boyfriend about the future, although we are both still in high school. I want to get married someday and start a family but I'm not sure that he does, so I wonder if it's better to end things now? Please tell me what I should do!
From: Yuuko
K: Breaking up like that is too harsh, isn't it?
A: If you don't know for sure, you should at least find out.
K: But what if Yuuko-chan is right and she and her boyfriend want different futures?
A: Even then, it's not impossible if both parties are willing to compromise.
K: If they take the time to properly understand each other's needs, right~~
A: Right. If they are happy now, it would be a waste to throw that away.
K: Would you stay with someone whose dreams are different from yours~~
A: If I loved them enough to bear it.
K: If they loved you that much in return, they wouldn't want you to bear it.
A: Then it's best to find a compromise, isn't it?
-----
Interviews were confusing things. Jin had lost count of the number of times he'd contradicted himself, sometimes in the same week, in the responses he'd given. In one area, at least, he'd been fairly consistent - his desire to marry as soon as possible and have several children. He couldn't wait to be a proud papa. He loved his friends' children and younger siblings as though they were his own, and they loved him right back.
Kame loved kids as well and absolutely doted on his young niece, but while he'd expressed his own interest in marriage, he'd been inconsistent about it, and sometimes Jin didn't know what he wanted at all.
If Kame had been adamant about settling down with a nice girl and raising a family, that might've made things easier. Jin could've given up on him then, because the two of them could no more bear a child than they could fly, and adoption in Japan was a tricky business - especially for two men. Not to mention, two men who happened to be both celebrities and in the closet.
But Kame excelled at ambiguity and Jin hated to plan, which made trying to figure out if the two of them had any kind of future together damned near impossible.
"I thought I'd have a kid by now," Jin said, all forlorn as he gathered his twenty-seventh birthday cards into a messy stack. Half of them played some obnoxious tune and he had to be careful not to set them off.
Kame opened the lid of the large plastic box in which Jin was stashing all birthday stuff for later sorting. "With our agency? Did you honestly think they'd let you get away with making yourself ineligible this early on?"
"Well, maybe not with a kid, but I thought I'd at least have a long-term girlfriend or something." He turned his gaze on Kame. "Although-"
"One word, Akanishi, and I'm going to take this bowling ball Koki gave you and drop it on a body part you'll miss. Then you can forget all about having kids."
Jin dumped the cards in the box and snatched up a cushion to cover his lap, just in case. "I was going to say, having a long-term boyfriend is pretty good too - especially one who cooks."
"You just love me for my skills in the kitchen."
"Not true! Your skills in the bedroom are also impressive."
"Well," Kame said with false modesty, "I wasn't going to say anything, but..."
The cushion left Jin's lap and went flying towards Kame's head in retaliation. Kame dodged. The cushion hit the remaining musical birthday card on the desk, which happened to be of the programmable variety. Jin made a mental note to find out which one of his friends thought 'Lovejuice' was an appropriate song for a birthday card.
Kame doubled over with laughter and refused to move, which meant Jin had to tend to the offending card himself. (But not with a sledgehammer, since it turned out to be from his mother, so he threw it into the bedroom and shut the door on it.)
"She'll probably put something Korean in next year's card," Kame said when he finally got his breath back. "Either that or a chipmunk version of 'Hey Girl'."
"We'll find out in a year." Jin abandoned the post-birthday clean-up and threw himself down on the couch. "You think we'll still be celebrating together when I turn thirty?"
"I know maths isn't your strong point but you're turning twenty-eight next year, Jin. Not thirty." Kame joined him on the couch, taking a playful swipe at his collarbones along the way and making him clutch at his shirt. "And even when you're thirty, yeah, I'm sure we'll celebrate in some fashion. If your old bones are up to it, anyway."
"I'll be up for it- er, to it, no matter how old my bones get," Jin said indignantly. "And what if we're in different countries? Or not even speaking to each other anymore?"
"If we're in different countries, we'll steam up the Internet with our webcams and I'll make it up to you when we're together. And why wouldn't we be speaking to each other? Are you planning on taking a vow of silence? Because you know it wouldn't last past the first round of drinks."
Something about the frank certainty in Kame's voice made Jin feel like he was worrying over nothing - if Kame thought they were going to be together, then they were, and nothing could change that. There wasn't much Kame couldn't accomplish when he set his mind to it, and maybe if one of them felt that way, it would be enough. But still...
"So you don't think, maybe," Jin tried to sound casual, "that one or both of us will be settled down, starting to raise a family by then?"
"Feeling broody again?"
"Not exactly." Jin licked his lips, anxious not to say the wrong thing, because that would guarantee they wouldn't be speaking in three years. "Just wondering how long we can stay like this."
Kame snuggled up close, because he knew Jin found it easier to trust actions than words from him, and Jin didn't complain when Kame's arm draped itself over his shoulders. Nor when Kame's lips found his cheek, over and over again. It was a pleasant - if ticklish - distraction, but when Jin turned his head it wasn't to kiss him back.
"We can stay like this as long as we want to," Kame said. "Nobody's telling us to stop anymore, or hadn't you noticed? I guess they figure now we're no longer in the same group, we won't spend much time together."
It had been a long time since they'd had warnings to cool it off - warnings Jin found somewhat contradictory, since the agency hadn't hesitated to pair them up in the past for the sake of titillating fangirls. In a way it took the pressure off. They knew how to be discreet, now. How to steal scraps of free time and make them their own, in places no one would care. Jin found it much easier to relax when he knew no one was watching his every move.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "But you know I want kids, and...well...neither of us is really equipped for that."
"And if we were, we'd probably have a dozen by now. We could get Kanjani8 to babysit."
"There's a new line of business for Johnny's. Idol babysitters. They could hire out Arashi and charge a fortune."
Jin didn't mean to get them both laughing but it happened anyway. As long as they could still laugh, and make fun of each other, things were okay. They'd stopped laughing in 2006, for a while, and it had taken months for Jin to regain his smile. He wondered, sometimes, if getting involved with someone in the same industry was a mistake. Twice the problems, twice the stress.
"I can't promise you any of the things you want." Kame brushed his lips over Jin's forehead. "I can't give you children, unless you want to try kidnapping my niece. And neither of us has the time to stay home and raise a kid right now anyway.
"But if you want to start investigating adoption, or surrogacy, I'll help. If that's the future you want, I'll help you create it. If you want me to."
It was as much commitment as he was ever going to get out of Kame, Jin thought, and it seemed genuine enough. He could probably suggest starting an orphanage and Kame would agree with it right now.
"Of course I want you to. We'll need someone to look after us when I can't dance without breaking a hip and you're too old to molest Juniors without getting arrested."
"Then we'll become a pair of award-winning songwriters and spend our lives travelling," Kame said. "We can get a couple of Juniors to push our wheelchairs."
"We'll have flying wheelchairs by that point and we'll control them with our thoughts."
"So mine will automatically take me to boutiques and yours will take you to nightclubs?"
Jin smirked. "Even when I'm ninety, I'll still have a better social life than you."
"I'm just more choosy about my friends - and my drinks are more expensive than yours."
"If you're trying to imply that I'm not good enough for you, you're sleeping alone for the next fifty years."
Kame recoiled in mock-horror. "How ever will I cope? More to the point, how ever will you cope?"
"I wouldn't." Jin smiled sheepishly. "I'd crack after a couple of months."
"I know." Kame's hand slipped from Jin's shoulder to skim teasing fingers below the neck of his shirt. "I know just how to weaken your resistance, too.
"And I would never try to imply something like that. Parts of us have grown up but somewhere inside we're still the same two boys who camped out in Okinawa and held hands in New York. Those parts will always be the same, and that makes us even."
This time, Jin let himself be distracted. Kame knew all his weak points, after all, just as he knew Kame's. It was part of what made them ideally matched as either enemies or friends, and why they couldn't help feeling the heat between them even when they weren't on speaking terms. And since they were now on considerably better than speaking terms...
Maybe they were never going to have a "normal" life together, where they bought a house, raised a trio of kids, wore suits and ties and put in long days at the office before going out drinking with colleagues. But it wasn't a life either of them could stomach for long, and Jin felt happy with what they had - this crazy, mixed-up, international, musical existence where expensive jewellery and industry parties were the order of the day, living in the recording studio for days on end and stepping out on the stage to the screams of thousands of girls (and not a few men). Their schedules meant limited time together, but quality over quantity, and they didn't need to waste precious hours trying to understand each other.
So Kame could joke about the future, and Jin could laugh and crack jokes of his own, but the knowledge that Kame wanted them to have a future together in the first place was enough to ease that lonely, hopeless feeling, the one that said he was somehow going to end up without anyone because all his chances had flown by and now it was too late.
With Kame, it might not turn out as he'd expected, but it would never be too late. They could work on it one day at a time.
-----
Best wishes!
Text: Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun, although this column is supposed to be for asking advice, as I write this email to you both, my problems have already been solved! That is the power of the two of you together - amazing, isn't it? I hope that this relationship continues forever. Best wishes for the future!
From: The Black Ranger
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame x Jin
Genre: Fluff
Word count: Approx. 5,000
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: The Akakame email exchange makes a welcome return to the pages of Myojo.
A/N: Written for my help_japan winner, redjae ! Thank you very much for bidding on me, Jae (and indeed, thank you everyone else who bid), and I hope you'll enjoy this. Thanks go to misao_duo for providing the emoji, and sweetpaopuwind for performing vast amounts of emoji surgery on this fic. Cheers for making it cute, Tori! ^_^
Take Your Own Advice
With everyone tightening their purse strings and spending less on entertainment, magazine sales had suffered in recent months and for Myojo, which faced a lot of competition on the idol mag front, the future looked uncertain. Short of rebranding themselves as a monthly Arashi compendium, the only way they could improve their plummeting sales was to bring back one of their most popular features: Whisper Sweetly Please - the Akakame Email Exchange.
Of course with Akanishi Jin's departure from KAT-TUN, the column had to be rejigged slightly and more often than not the whole thing was done over Skype, but sometimes it worked out that both Jin and Kame were in the same country at the same time, and then, the editors agreed, their answers were much more heartfelt (and contained less English slang).
-----
Friendly love?
Text: Dear Jin-kun and Kame-chan, I am in my first year of high school and recently, I have started to pay more attention to one of my male friends. Even though I'm a girl, because we grew up together I have never seen him as a boy before, but now we're in the same class when I see him working hard on his studies, I think he's cool. Have either of you suddenly realised that you like someone you've known for ages?
From Mai
K: Ah, it's been a while since we've done this corner, hasn't it?
A: Yep. Since the last time, we've both worked with lots of different people.
K: Did you like any of them~~~?
A: Like that? Of course not, idiot.
K: Then, how about before~~?
A: Ah, maybe Nakamaru? One day I suddenly saw his nose in a beautiful light...
K: When did you develop that kind of fetish?
-----
The first time Jin started to notice Kame as anything more than a furry-eyebrowed, baseball-obsessed brat with crazy hair and a gap-toothed smile wasn't when they shared a tent in Okinawa, huddling together on the beach at the mercy of the agency. Kame was raw, unfinished then - they both were, still blunt and unpolished kids who had no idea what their future held. But Jin was older, taller, closer to the idols they were supposed to be growing into; Kame was his friend, and that was all there was to it.
It wasn't when Kame started getting his eyebrows done, either. Jin had no idea how but Johnny had this gift for spotting kids who were going to grow up to be jaw-droppingly beautiful, and Kame was one of them. Not immediately, of course, but Kame slowly evolved, becoming increasingly striking, and KAT-TUN began to look like a group of beautiful, dangerous rebels. (Though their "bad boy" image didn't suit them terribly well, given their collective weirdness, dorkiness, and occasional moments of outright girliness.) Jin thought KAT-TUN were amazing, but they were his coworkers and friends and that was it.
It was only when they filmed Gokusen 2 together, and Jin noticed that Hayato and Ryu had enough explosive chemistry to blow up a warehouse between them, that he realised he wasn't even acting. All those yearning looks from Hayato to Ryu, that made the director happy and made Nakama Yukie ruffle his hair, were all Jin - and he aimed those looks at Kame, even though he didn't know why. Ryu's red hair and black uniform made Kame look pale and beautiful, all cold, sharp edges and smooth, icy skin hiding pain beneath. It hurt Jin to look at him. It hurt even more when Kame seized him by his jacket, or tried to break his jaw, or flat-out ignored him, because for a while there Hayato and Ryu were on pretty bad terms.
But afterwards, when the cameras stopped rolling, Kame would help him up and laugh it off, ask if he wanted anything from the vending machine, maybe suggest they stop off for ramen on the way home. Jin liked looking at Kame better then, because Kame smiled a lot more than Ryu did and if Ryu's smile was always for Hayato, it felt like Kame's was always for Jin.
-----
How do I approach him?
Text: Good afternoon, Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun. I work in an office and recently, a guy I like started to work in the same department. We're both single and he's very kind to me, and we always get along well when we're at work. I think I'd like to try dating with him, but I'm not sure how to approach him. Please give me some advice!
From: Haruka
K: Office romance~~! You had one of those, right?
A: In a drama!
K: Did your forbidden romance with Anego teach you anything that would help Haruka-san
A: Shut up! You had one of those too.
Do you have any advice?
K: Hmm, maybe she should start with something small? Like eating lunch together at work.
A: That's good. It's a natural approach, right? And from things like that they'll get to know each other better.
K: It's hard to approach someone you like, ne?
-----
Jin didn't like planning too far ahead, because if his plans didn't work out he just got stressed and upset. But a lot of plans got made about his life simply because of his job, so he knew when he was filming, and when he was touring, and when he had to make nice to industry hot-shots he normally wouldn't be seen dead with.
What he didn't know was how Kame, whose schedule was ten times more complicated than his, could possibly find time for a social life. Kame was all grown up now, with carefully shaped eyebrows and the gap in his teeth fixed. He still had the lump on his nose, but that was a baseball souvenir and Jin knew he'd keep it forever. It made no difference to his looks - improved them, actually, because, the tiny imperfection made him more real, more accessible to mere mortals.
At least, he would've been accessible if Jin could've figured out how to approach him. He was conscious that doing anything that could disrupt relations in an already volatile group was probably a bad idea, and he wasn't sure how Kame felt - or if he even liked guys - but he couldn't just do nothing. He'd been sitting on his feelings long enough already.
He tried to suggest going out for a meal, just the two of them, but Kame thought he meant the whole group and so the six of them went for okonomiyaki, rather than the romantic Italian dinner Jin had envisioned.
Then he suggested a movie, but cinema schedules and Kame's schedules proved to be incompatible. When Kame offered to see about rearranging his, Jin felt guilty and told him not to worry about it.
Being spontaneous didn't work either, as Jin discovered when he went to pick Kame up after a photoshoot, only to discover Kame had driven himself that day.
He was on the verge of giving up when Kame showed up on his doorstep one Sunday with a massive pot of curry, saying he'd made too much and thought Jin might appreciate it. Six hours later all the curry was gone, and so was Kame, but they had tentative plans to go shopping together for a birthday present for Kame's niece.
-----
First Kiss!!!
Text: Dear Jin-kun, Kazuya-kun. I have been going out with my boyfriend for three weeks now and we haven't had our first kiss yet. He's very shy and I've never had a boyfriend before, so it seems like things are moving quite slowly. I'm excited but also sort of nervous. Have you ever been nervous about kissing someone for the first time?
From: Kira
K: I was so nervous the first time I kissed my niece! She was so tiny, I thought I might break her
A: Screen kisses make me nervous...
K: Because you have to worry about both your partner and the camera?
A: Something like that...
K: Then forget the camera's there and pretend it's just the two of you!
A: If I forget the camera's there, then things will go too far!
K: Don't say such things in Myojo
-----
Jin was no stranger to first kisses. He wasn't even a stranger to kissing Kame, because photographers asked for weird things sometimes.
But there was a big difference between two kids pecking each other on the cheek for the camera, and two men touching each other for the first time. At first it was like they had some kind of wall between them. Made of glass, so they could see through it, but it was too slippery to climb. All they could do was break through and hope they didn't get hurt in the process.
They were on Jin's couch, enjoying a night off with a few choice discs from his DVD collection, when the wall finally shattered.
"Remind me to give Shirota some tips," Kame said as the end credits for ROOKIES rolled.
"On his acting?"
"On his baseball. That was painful."
Jin's face fell. "Just pretend you've never played in your life, okay? Then maybe you'll appreciate the drama more."
"Oh, I appreciate it." Kame sat up straighter and grinned. "I appreciate you finding the only DVD you've got that's even remotely baseball-related for us to watch together. Very thoughtful of you."
He planted a quick thank-you kiss on Jin's lips and Jin sat back, caught by surprise. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to figure out what to say to Kame, but no sound emerged.
"You look like a goldfish," Kame teased. "Should I go get some fishflakes to feed to you?"
"I'll show you what you can do with your fishflakes..."
They knew each other too well. Competition often drove their relationship - both personal and professional - prompting them both to set their sights on higher goals, and neither wanted to lose to the other. That, more than anything, was what made Jin slide a hand through Kame's soft brown hair and press close, brushing their lips together for a moment before retreating to watch the smile spread across Kame's face.
"I'm sure you taste much better than fishflakes," Kame said. "Even if you did have green peppers on your side of the pizza."
Jin stuck out his tongue in response, which Kame took as an invitation. They had to switch off the DVD, though, because it seemed wrong to be making out on the couch while one of Jin's friends beat up classroom furniture on television.
-----
We had a fight
Text: Dear Kame-chan and Jin-kun, I am in my second year of middle school and feel miserable because I had a big fight with my best friend over a boy we both like. We've known each other since we started elementary school but I'm worried this will be the end of the friendship. Do you think I can somehow make up with her?
From: KAT-TUN-ga-daisuki
K: This is a big problem, isn't it?
A: Everything seems that way when you're in middle school, but really, isn't the fight over a very small thing?
K: Right, right. Everyone fights with their friends, but if the friendship is that strong, it doesn't matter.
A: The boy might be interested in someone else altogether, and then what will you do? Isn't it better to move past it?
K: They want to stay friends, right? So apologising is a good place to start.
A: That's right! Apologise straight away and the friend will feel like apologising too.
K: It can be hard to say you're sorry, but if you don't try, you might never make up.
A: Good luck!
-----
Since their formation KAT-TUN argued about everything from the trivial to the life-changing, sometimes coming to blows over the most ridiculous of things. It was a measure of the bond between them that none of the fights ever did permanent damage to the group's dynamics. Bruises and blood were the bonds of brotherhood, just as much as mocking and squabbling, and they were all the better for it.
But over the years, they grew up. They were all experienced enough now to know when to stick to their guns, and when it was better to compromise. They all walked individual paths, but ultimately, those paths went in the same direction.
Jin almost looked forward to the arguments that ensued every time they had to decide on anything as a group, such as the themes for their tours, or what they wanted to do with Cartoon KAT-TUN. Those, at least, were productive, and together the six of them could accomplish some spectacular things.
What he hated were the arguments he had with Kame - the private, non-work ones they had behind closed doors. Those were the worst. Kame wouldn't let him get away with using his own special brand of logic and nonsense anymore, not when it was about the two of them, because he said if Jin wasn't mature enough to discuss it in real words then he obviously wasn't mature enough to be in this relationship in the first place.
Oh, not the little things, like whose turn it was to pick the restaurant or whose choice of music got played in the car when they went for a drive. They could usually manage to compromise on those.
But the big things, they filled Jin with dread.
"You're going and that's final," Kame said. "If you pass up this chance I'm never speaking to you again."
"But the tour-"
"Don't worry about the tour. We've managed it fine with five people before and we can do it again. How often do you get the chance to do a show in America?"
"Never, but-"
"And haven't you always wanted to do this, to take your music to other countries?"
"Yes, but-"
"You know as well as I do that you'll be miserable if you don't go, thinking about what might've been, and you'll ruin the tour for everyone. Do you really want that?"
"No..." Jin had already caused enough problems for the group, and didn't feel inclined to cause any more, but he was damned whichever option he took.
Taking his show - his creation - to America and performing before foreign audiences was his dream, but he hadn't thought it would become reality so soon. Too soon. His English wasn't good enough and he didn't have enough songs in English and maybe his hair was too long for American audiences and-
"Stop overthinking this," Kame said. "You're going to make the world fall in love with you and that's the end of it.
"Of course you're going to be nervous. You always are. But you've overcome those feelings every single time, right?"
Jin couldn't say "because you were always there" because that would just be sappy, but he reached across the space between their cushions to squeeze Kame's fingers and Kame got the message anyway, smiling at him with encouragement in his eyes.
"We're all going to be so proud of you," Kame continued. "KAT-TUN really are going to make it worldwide this year. This is better than concerts in Shanghai, or acting in a Clint Eastwood movie. You're going to take on America on its own terms, and you're going to win."
There it was again, that competitive spirit. Maybe he could make this work after all. Except...
"I'll be gone for months," Jin said. "And then you'll be away too. We won't see each other for ages."
"That's what the Internet's for."
"Big talk coming from a guy who bought a new computer because he forgot his password and couldn't get into the old one."
Pink tinted Kame's cheeks. "I'm not that bad anymore! Nakamaru's been teaching me over Skype."
Jin fought to ignore the sudden surge of jealousy but failed. "And what exactly have the two of you been doing on Skype?"
"Oh, this and that..."
"Tease."
Kame left his own giant floor cushion and squeezed himself onto Jin's, wrapping an arm around Jin's waist to keep from falling off. "Go to America, okay? I'm not about to pine away without you. The time will fly by once you get busy, and before you know it you'll be home again."
"Yeah, I'll be home and you'll be off to Korea," Jin said glumly. "That doesn't help."
"Okay, but eventually we'll be in the same country again. It's not...it's not going to be 2006 all over again, all right? This is different."
"You mean, this time it's for work, so you approve."
"And last time was for your sanity, so I approve of that too, even if it took me a while to realise it."
That made Jin feel a little better. He tilted his head to the side, leaning into Kame, so Kame leaned back. They'd always propped each other up, one way or another.
"Besides," Kame said, "if I genuinely thought this would be bad for you, I'd tell you so. We all would. We're not exactly the best at keeping our mouths shut."
No disputing that. If the other members of KAT-TUN thought Jin would be making a mistake by going to LA, they'd tell him so in no uncertain terms. That they'd all tried to reassure him in some way that it would be okay to go meant it probably was.
"I'll do it. But..."
"But?"
"Leave a light burning for me, will you?"
Kame grinned. "I'll set the whole damned stage ablaze for you."
-----
What about the future?
Text: Good day, Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun. Recently, I have been talking with my boyfriend about the future, although we are both still in high school. I want to get married someday and start a family but I'm not sure that he does, so I wonder if it's better to end things now? Please tell me what I should do!
From: Yuuko
K: Breaking up like that is too harsh, isn't it?
A: If you don't know for sure, you should at least find out.
K: But what if Yuuko-chan is right and she and her boyfriend want different futures?
A: Even then, it's not impossible if both parties are willing to compromise.
K: If they take the time to properly understand each other's needs, right~~
A: Right. If they are happy now, it would be a waste to throw that away.
K: Would you stay with someone whose dreams are different from yours~~
A: If I loved them enough to bear it.
K: If they loved you that much in return, they wouldn't want you to bear it.
A: Then it's best to find a compromise, isn't it?
-----
Interviews were confusing things. Jin had lost count of the number of times he'd contradicted himself, sometimes in the same week, in the responses he'd given. In one area, at least, he'd been fairly consistent - his desire to marry as soon as possible and have several children. He couldn't wait to be a proud papa. He loved his friends' children and younger siblings as though they were his own, and they loved him right back.
Kame loved kids as well and absolutely doted on his young niece, but while he'd expressed his own interest in marriage, he'd been inconsistent about it, and sometimes Jin didn't know what he wanted at all.
If Kame had been adamant about settling down with a nice girl and raising a family, that might've made things easier. Jin could've given up on him then, because the two of them could no more bear a child than they could fly, and adoption in Japan was a tricky business - especially for two men. Not to mention, two men who happened to be both celebrities and in the closet.
But Kame excelled at ambiguity and Jin hated to plan, which made trying to figure out if the two of them had any kind of future together damned near impossible.
"I thought I'd have a kid by now," Jin said, all forlorn as he gathered his twenty-seventh birthday cards into a messy stack. Half of them played some obnoxious tune and he had to be careful not to set them off.
Kame opened the lid of the large plastic box in which Jin was stashing all birthday stuff for later sorting. "With our agency? Did you honestly think they'd let you get away with making yourself ineligible this early on?"
"Well, maybe not with a kid, but I thought I'd at least have a long-term girlfriend or something." He turned his gaze on Kame. "Although-"
"One word, Akanishi, and I'm going to take this bowling ball Koki gave you and drop it on a body part you'll miss. Then you can forget all about having kids."
Jin dumped the cards in the box and snatched up a cushion to cover his lap, just in case. "I was going to say, having a long-term boyfriend is pretty good too - especially one who cooks."
"You just love me for my skills in the kitchen."
"Not true! Your skills in the bedroom are also impressive."
"Well," Kame said with false modesty, "I wasn't going to say anything, but..."
The cushion left Jin's lap and went flying towards Kame's head in retaliation. Kame dodged. The cushion hit the remaining musical birthday card on the desk, which happened to be of the programmable variety. Jin made a mental note to find out which one of his friends thought 'Lovejuice' was an appropriate song for a birthday card.
Kame doubled over with laughter and refused to move, which meant Jin had to tend to the offending card himself. (But not with a sledgehammer, since it turned out to be from his mother, so he threw it into the bedroom and shut the door on it.)
"She'll probably put something Korean in next year's card," Kame said when he finally got his breath back. "Either that or a chipmunk version of 'Hey Girl'."
"We'll find out in a year." Jin abandoned the post-birthday clean-up and threw himself down on the couch. "You think we'll still be celebrating together when I turn thirty?"
"I know maths isn't your strong point but you're turning twenty-eight next year, Jin. Not thirty." Kame joined him on the couch, taking a playful swipe at his collarbones along the way and making him clutch at his shirt. "And even when you're thirty, yeah, I'm sure we'll celebrate in some fashion. If your old bones are up to it, anyway."
"I'll be up for it- er, to it, no matter how old my bones get," Jin said indignantly. "And what if we're in different countries? Or not even speaking to each other anymore?"
"If we're in different countries, we'll steam up the Internet with our webcams and I'll make it up to you when we're together. And why wouldn't we be speaking to each other? Are you planning on taking a vow of silence? Because you know it wouldn't last past the first round of drinks."
Something about the frank certainty in Kame's voice made Jin feel like he was worrying over nothing - if Kame thought they were going to be together, then they were, and nothing could change that. There wasn't much Kame couldn't accomplish when he set his mind to it, and maybe if one of them felt that way, it would be enough. But still...
"So you don't think, maybe," Jin tried to sound casual, "that one or both of us will be settled down, starting to raise a family by then?"
"Feeling broody again?"
"Not exactly." Jin licked his lips, anxious not to say the wrong thing, because that would guarantee they wouldn't be speaking in three years. "Just wondering how long we can stay like this."
Kame snuggled up close, because he knew Jin found it easier to trust actions than words from him, and Jin didn't complain when Kame's arm draped itself over his shoulders. Nor when Kame's lips found his cheek, over and over again. It was a pleasant - if ticklish - distraction, but when Jin turned his head it wasn't to kiss him back.
"We can stay like this as long as we want to," Kame said. "Nobody's telling us to stop anymore, or hadn't you noticed? I guess they figure now we're no longer in the same group, we won't spend much time together."
It had been a long time since they'd had warnings to cool it off - warnings Jin found somewhat contradictory, since the agency hadn't hesitated to pair them up in the past for the sake of titillating fangirls. In a way it took the pressure off. They knew how to be discreet, now. How to steal scraps of free time and make them their own, in places no one would care. Jin found it much easier to relax when he knew no one was watching his every move.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "But you know I want kids, and...well...neither of us is really equipped for that."
"And if we were, we'd probably have a dozen by now. We could get Kanjani8 to babysit."
"There's a new line of business for Johnny's. Idol babysitters. They could hire out Arashi and charge a fortune."
Jin didn't mean to get them both laughing but it happened anyway. As long as they could still laugh, and make fun of each other, things were okay. They'd stopped laughing in 2006, for a while, and it had taken months for Jin to regain his smile. He wondered, sometimes, if getting involved with someone in the same industry was a mistake. Twice the problems, twice the stress.
"I can't promise you any of the things you want." Kame brushed his lips over Jin's forehead. "I can't give you children, unless you want to try kidnapping my niece. And neither of us has the time to stay home and raise a kid right now anyway.
"But if you want to start investigating adoption, or surrogacy, I'll help. If that's the future you want, I'll help you create it. If you want me to."
It was as much commitment as he was ever going to get out of Kame, Jin thought, and it seemed genuine enough. He could probably suggest starting an orphanage and Kame would agree with it right now.
"Of course I want you to. We'll need someone to look after us when I can't dance without breaking a hip and you're too old to molest Juniors without getting arrested."
"Then we'll become a pair of award-winning songwriters and spend our lives travelling," Kame said. "We can get a couple of Juniors to push our wheelchairs."
"We'll have flying wheelchairs by that point and we'll control them with our thoughts."
"So mine will automatically take me to boutiques and yours will take you to nightclubs?"
Jin smirked. "Even when I'm ninety, I'll still have a better social life than you."
"I'm just more choosy about my friends - and my drinks are more expensive than yours."
"If you're trying to imply that I'm not good enough for you, you're sleeping alone for the next fifty years."
Kame recoiled in mock-horror. "How ever will I cope? More to the point, how ever will you cope?"
"I wouldn't." Jin smiled sheepishly. "I'd crack after a couple of months."
"I know." Kame's hand slipped from Jin's shoulder to skim teasing fingers below the neck of his shirt. "I know just how to weaken your resistance, too.
"And I would never try to imply something like that. Parts of us have grown up but somewhere inside we're still the same two boys who camped out in Okinawa and held hands in New York. Those parts will always be the same, and that makes us even."
This time, Jin let himself be distracted. Kame knew all his weak points, after all, just as he knew Kame's. It was part of what made them ideally matched as either enemies or friends, and why they couldn't help feeling the heat between them even when they weren't on speaking terms. And since they were now on considerably better than speaking terms...
Maybe they were never going to have a "normal" life together, where they bought a house, raised a trio of kids, wore suits and ties and put in long days at the office before going out drinking with colleagues. But it wasn't a life either of them could stomach for long, and Jin felt happy with what they had - this crazy, mixed-up, international, musical existence where expensive jewellery and industry parties were the order of the day, living in the recording studio for days on end and stepping out on the stage to the screams of thousands of girls (and not a few men). Their schedules meant limited time together, but quality over quantity, and they didn't need to waste precious hours trying to understand each other.
So Kame could joke about the future, and Jin could laugh and crack jokes of his own, but the knowledge that Kame wanted them to have a future together in the first place was enough to ease that lonely, hopeless feeling, the one that said he was somehow going to end up without anyone because all his chances had flown by and now it was too late.
With Kame, it might not turn out as he'd expected, but it would never be too late. They could work on it one day at a time.
-----
Best wishes!
Text: Kamenashi-kun, Akanishi-kun, although this column is supposed to be for asking advice, as I write this email to you both, my problems have already been solved! That is the power of the two of you together - amazing, isn't it? I hope that this relationship continues forever. Best wishes for the future!
From: The Black Ranger