[JE] Hair-raising Escapades (Electronic and Otherwise) 2/2
Title: Hair-raising Escapades (Electronic and Otherwise) 2/2
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame/Jin
Rating: PG
Genre: Kind of AU
Word count: 12,430
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Part 1
Hair-raising Escapades (Electronic and Otherwise) 2/2
New Lex isn't exactly top of Kame's list of favourite nightspots. In fact, it's not even on the list. But it's like a second home to Jin - or possibly third, given how much time he spends in LA these days - and Kame thinks it would be a good idea for Jin to go there when he's all dressed up. If he can feel comfortable there, it'll go a long way towards boosting his confidence.
That's the only positive aspect Kame can see of this situation. Jin couldn't take them all in his car, so Ueda offered to go separately. An opportunity for escape, Kame thinks, but he's pleasantly surprised when Ueda meets them out front, jogging on the spot to keep himself warm. It's unlikely he'll stay long, though. Ueda likes to keep his private life to himself, but Kame's pretty sure it doesn't involve hanging out in clubs in Roppongi.
Despite his attire Jin gets recognised at the door, though nobody bats an eyelid. Tokyo is nothing if not a haven for eccentric dressers. He doesn't have to pay, which means neither do the rest of them, though they all still have to get their drinks tokens as normal. It'll be soft drinks for Jin all night unless he wants to leave his car, but Kame can order whatever he wants and he thinks alcohol will be essential for his survival. Being too short to make himself seen through the crowd at the bar, he hands Junno a token and asks him to get anything that's likely to make his liver curl up and die.
Jin stashes his little bag in the lockers by the stairs. Nakamaru looks like he'd like to hide inside a locker too, but settles for turning up the collar of his jacket, which he's trying to use to cover his T-shirt.
He needn't have bothered. Despite the videos playing along one wall and the coloured lights of glowsticks, it's dark inside the club and no one's paying any attention to the fluorescent girl flaunting herself on his chest. They're all too busy dancing.
Koki leads the way through the crowd to the VIP section, where a starstruck indie band suddenly decide to leave and free up a table. One of them bangs knuckles with him as he goes, and Kame thanks his lucky stars that Koki has such a diverse fanbase, willing to relinquish their nice, cosy corner. Now if only he can hide out here until it's time to leave...
Junno and Ueda materialise with the drinks, and Nakamaru downs half of his in one gulp before sliding as far into the corner as he can get. Kame follows at a more sedate pace, wishing he'd remembered to bring his cigarettes because he could really do with one right now. He inhales second-hand smoke, sweat and perfume and lets himself tune out. He can do this. He can let the music wash over him and just hang out in the corner, doing his own thing, and-
"Let's dance!" Jin says, grabbing him by the wrist. "We can't let Koki have all the fun!"
So much for the wallflower plan. Koki's already up and dancing with some pink-haired girl, doing his best to work off the chocolate cake. For a heartbeat Kame thinks Jin means for them to dance together, but together means everyone in the room, one seething, heaving mass of bodies contorting in time to the music. Kame finds it strange, not standing out in a crowd of dancers on the stage. One of many keeping the beat: it's easy to lose himself here.
Maybe that's why Jin's relaxing now.
Not so relaxed he doesn't notice Kame's being squashed, though. He steers them away from a trio of burly foreigners, over to the wall where photographs depict the club's memories through people. Everyone's been there one time or another. Kame finds himself looking for signs of Jin on the wall.
He finds the real Jin instead, standing between him and the horde of dancers, flushed and happy and more like himself than ever. This time he can't drink, so he dances.
"Okay?" Jin asks. He's not quite yelling but if the music suddenly stopped, he'd be audible outside.
"Fine!" It's too much work to speak in long sentences. "You?"
"Not bad! I've only seen three people I know and nobody close!"
That would also explain why he's stopped keeping his head down. The situation might not be to Kame's liking but there's no denying it's working out for Jin.
Kame breaks into a grin, which Jin returns with interest and takes as a sign that it's okay to throw himself back out there on the dancefloor, safe in his anonymity. Jin's space is immediately filled by one of the big Americans and the girl he's trying to dance with. When the girl's spiked heel almost goes through Kame's boot, he decides it's time to effect an escape. Their table can't be that far away.
-----
Kame spends the better part of the next hour parked at the table, occasionally fighting his way through to the bar. He's got company: Nakamaru, after attempting to cut loose on the floor, comes back to wail that he's being stalked by a Russian model and that Kame has to save him from her.
"She even tried to follow me into the bathroom!" he says.
"Don't know any Russian, sorry."
Nakamaru hits him on the arm. "You're not helping. Besides, even if I knew Russian, I don't think she's taking no for an answer!"
They agree that the safest thing to do is stay put. Nakamaru faces the wall so his glowing shirt doesn't give him away. Stupid thing's like having a target painted on his chest.
Junno returns to the table long enough to set down an empty glass and inform them he's just had a message from Rena asking him to meet her. Koki's with him; he understands.
"Go see your girlfriend," he says, attempting to throw an arm around Junno's shoulders and missing. "It means a lot to me that you let us all come out on your birthday."
Junno looks bewildered. "My birthday?"
"Yeah. Happy birthday, man."
"And happy birthday to you too." Junno successfully disengages himself from the drunken octopus clamped round his waist. "See you guys later."
"Take me with you," Nakamaru begs.
"I didn't know you were into threesomes," Koki says. "Hey, I've got this great idea for your birthday..."
Kame distracts Koki by passing him his own half-drunk beer and Junno makes his escape sans Nakamaru, who bemoans his lot in life. Unfortunately neither of them can use the same excuse, and Kame feels like he can't leave until Jin does in case something happens. Jin's not drinking, which means he's less likely to say or do something stupid, but the consequences now are that much more serious. This is one of Jin's "safe" places, so if he encounters any kind of setback here, there's no telling how it will affect him.
Ueda's the next to leave. He doesn't even bother coming up with an excuse. "I feel like going for a run," he says. "Have a good weekend."
Koki accepts that one too, so Nakamaru tries his luck.
"I've got this essay I need to finish and I'm feeling kind of tired, so-"
"You need to get moving, get your blood flowing! Exercise is good for creativity!"
Poor Nakamaru gets dragged off to dance again, leaving Kame laughing by himself in the corner. He's not alone for long, though, because Jin returns for a break and sits down next to him to work on his Coke.
"You should dance more," Jin says.
"I kept getting hit by flying elbows."
"You what?" Jin shuffles closer so he can hear better.
Kame repeats himself with increased volume, but it's hard to talk when Jin's right beside him, pressed thigh-to-thigh. At that distance they should be whispering into each other's ears, not shouting. It's intimate but not, together in a private corner of a public place.
"We could find you a club specially for short people?"
In that case, Jin wouldn't be allowed. "Or I could wear platforms?" Kame suggests. "Not sure how well I'd be able to dance, but..." He trails off as he notices Jin's hair is coming loose. The clip on the right clings on for dear life while the braids it once held are flying free. "Stay still a sec."
"Huh?"
Kame removes the clip altogether and waves it in front of Jin by way of explanation, so Jin holds still for emergency haircare. The plaits themselves remain tight, thankfully, so no rebraiding is required, and it's a simple matter to pull them together in a bunch.
It's not so simple to pull away, to remove his hands from Jin's hair. He continues to fuss with it, stroking it under the guise of reshaping the upper braids to his liking. He can't do the same on the left unless they switch positions, which he does by boldly sliding himself over Jin's lap. If they were anywhere else he wouldn't try it but it's easier in the dark.
Jin squirms but doesn't protest when Kame lands on his other side. Changing positions doesn't do a thing to increase the distance between them. Kame takes the final handful of braids to run through his fingers, petting Jin the way he would a puppy until he realises he can't keep it up forever. Reluctantly he reattaches the clip, cups a hand around Jin's ear and breathes, "Fixed."
When he receives no response, he turns around to find Nakamaru staring at them with mournful eyes. "After all my hard work..."
-----
Koki had agreed to call it a night after another round of 'dodge the Russian model', much to Nakamaru's relief, and Jin had dropped them all off at home. Kame had listened to the voice of common sense and not invited him in, given what had happened last time he'd been drinking around Jin. He'd like to avoid a repeat performance at all costs.
The weekend passes easily enough. He emails Koki with birthday greetings, receiving in return a photo of Nakamaru cringing away from a tall blonde woman who looks like she wants to devour him. For a model she doesn't dress very well, Kame thinks.
He doesn't hear from Jin, which is probably a good thing. Fixing a guy's hair? Fine. Petting a guy's hair? Fine if you happen to be in showbusiness. Crawling over a guy's lap so you can blatantly cosy up to him from a different angle? Fine if you have that kind of relationship, but they don't. He might as well just have thrown himself at Jin.
At least he can blame the alcohol. He consoles himself with the fact that if Jin had minded, he'd have said something. He's not one to stay quiet when he's annoyed, especially with his friends, with whom he has no barriers.
Work drives all thoughts of Jin from Kame's mind for a while because after a year's break from his usual winter drama slot, he's cast in Split and spends his non-existent free time reading up about disassociative identity disorder. His character, Nishikawa Hikaru, is an earnest young police detective with a strong sense of justice and a quasi-flirtatious relationship with his partner, to be played by Kuroki Meisa in a way Sister Angela would never approve of.
When the pair are assigned to a special unit dedicated to catching the notorious art thief, Kage, Nishikawa makes catching Kage his obsession, lets it drive him to acts that fall in the grey area of the spectrum as he slowly becomes more and more like his shadow self.
But what Nishikawa doesn't realise is that he and Kage are one and the same.
Kame's relishing the chance to play a villain - his guest appearance in Mr. Brain didn't really count - and Kage ought to do interesting things for his career. He's a man with a flexible sense of right and wrong, and no compunction about disposing of people who get in his way. He's smart, too, using all his skill to pull off intricate, complex thefts, throwing the occasional bone to the police to remove his competitors. Kage isn't a good guy, but he shares his body with a man who is, and Kame's interested to see what happens when the two personalities begin to merge. There's no limit to what he can do with a nice, juicy part like this.
It'll be another year of working through Christmas, probably, but it's not like he had plans, and he's missed acting. Maybe they'll eat KFC on the set and sing carols to each other during the breaks.
It'll mean a new single for KAT-TUN too - something dark, with a PV full of mystery - and there will be the usual promotion to do. Kame can't wait for all the hustle and bustle to begin.
When it does, his manager has a surprise for him. It's not something new for Johnny's, having a Twitter account for a drama role, but it's one of the few times anyone's suggested getting Kame to do anything that involves technology. He can fix televisions but social networking is not his strong point. "Kage" will drop hints to the police on his Twitter, titillating the viewers with his thoughts and opinions on the cases. His manager gives him the login details for the splitshadow account, slaps him on the back, and tells him to have fun.
Kame takes one look at the website and calls Jin before he accidentally locks himself out of the account or something. When Jin finally stops laughing, he agrees to come over that evening to share his pearls of Twitter wisdom.
"The first thing you have to remember," he says when he arrives, "is that people are crazy. When your haters find out they have a way to communicate with you, they'll do it. They'll tweet insults at you in half-a-dozen different languages, they'll Photoshop pics and link you to them, they'll tell you- wait, you know what? Just don't look at your @ messages."
Kame has to wait for Jin to take a breath before he says, "Can you start by showing me where to log in?"
"Right." Jin exhales slowly. "Do you have beer? I think we've got a long night ahead of us."
They sit down at the table with Kame's laptop, which is mostly used for research, shopping, and all things baseball-related. He doesn't use it everyday, unlike Jin, who seems to be permanently glued to his gadget collection. Jin pops open a beer; Kame sticks with mineral water in case his subconscious gets any funny ideas. They're sitting on separate chairs and thus have a gap between them but he's taking no chances.
The first thing Jin does is make Kame change his password. "Your manager set this up, right? So you need to make sure no one but you can access the account. You don't want anyone tweeting anything strange."
"It's for a drama character - I'm only going to be tweeting strange things," Kame points out. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." Jin is adamant about this. "Make sure you don't forget the password. Oh, and don't make it anything obvious, like your dogs' names. There are lunatics out there who will try to guess it."
Kame finds it very strange, being lectured so seriously on such a trivial subject, but he supposes that having been doing this for almost three quarters of a year himself, Jin probably knows what he's talking about. They also change the password on the webmail address associated with the account, created solely for that purpose, and Jin declares himself satisfied when they've ensured that Kame has total control over it.
"Now we have to do something about that background," Jin says. "At least they gave you a DP."
"A what?"
"Display picture," Jin says in English, then explains in Japanese.
The picture's okay - Kame recognises his own silhouette - but Jin's not happy with the sparkly purple background.
"You need to put your own picture in here. What's your character into?"
"Robbery, murder, the usual."
"Helpful."
Kame shrugs. "You want me to call the writers and ask about this guy's taste in art?"
"Maybe we can put together some-" Jin cuts himself off when Kame gives him the "don't make me do anything involving graphics" face. "Do you have any pictures of moonlit nights?"
Kame has several, so they pick one to use. It's a night view from the roof of his building, Tokyo spread out below the moon's watchful eye, just ripe for a thief to go about his business.
"Are you allowed to start using this thing yet?"
"Not until next week," Kame says.
Jin thinks it over. "You don't have any followers yet, so it's okay to practise a little. We can just delete them afterwards."
"And followers are?"
"People who subscribe to your Twitter so they can read what you say." Jin points out the Following/Follower counts on the screen. They both say zero. "And you can follow people too, but I guess you won't be doing that since this is for a drama."
"So I could follow you?"
"It would drive the fangirls and our managers crazy," Jin says. "You should do it."
He shows Kame how to search for users on Twitter and click to follow them, then logs into his own email to show him the message he'll receive when people follow him.
Kage (@splitshadow) is now following your tweets (@Jin_Akanishi) on Twitter.
"When people follow me, am I supposed to follow them back?"
"It's a bad idea unless you actually know them. You can see if someone tweets at you, though, even if you don't follow them, so long as their account is unlocked." Kame's sure his face signals 'information overload', because Jin immediately adds, "Which your account is going to be, so don't worry about it. See, if someone writes a message using the 'at' symbol followed by your username, you can see it here."
Jin logs into his own account to show Kame some examples, and it doesn't escape Kame's notice that while his account is in Japanese, Jin's is in English. It's one thing to listen to him converse in English; it's quite another to watch him navigate so casually through sites in his second language without even pause for thought. Jin may say and do some dumb things, sometimes, and his Japanese can be very hit and miss, but Kame doesn't know how anyone can ever think he's stupid. He shows Kame tweets he's exchanged in Spanish with Shirota Yuu and Kame feels like he could burst with pride, even though he has no clue what any of it means.
"See? Your own tweets and those from the people you follow show up in your timeline here." Most of the people Jin follows tweet in English. "If you're following people who are following each other and they have a conversation that doesn't include you, you can see it anyway."
Kame holds up a hand. "Slow down. Assume I'm not going to be following anyone. This is for work."
"Sure it is." Jin gives him a sly smile. "You'll get your own eventually; you know you will."
"I just want to know how to make it work without breaking it, that's all."
Jin looks less than convinced, but he teaches Kame about hashtags, and retweeting, and adding links to tweets. And most importantly, how to delete tweets in case he makes a mistake.
"I do that all the time," he confesses. "If it's just, like, one little typo, you can use an asterisk with a correction."
It's like the session he had with Nakamaru, learning how to use Skype, except that Nakamaru had given him a set of nicely illustrated instructions with bullet points and highlights. Jin rattles through things at his own pace and insists on telling him everything he could ever possibly want to know about Twitter - most of which he will likely never use.
Still, there's something fun about the idea of taking his character out into the world this way. He's done j-webs in character before, but he's never been able to see what the fans think of them. Now he can get immediate responses.
"Can I see what fans are tweeting at you?" he asks, and before Jin can stop him, he clicks on the mentions.
After skimming through them, he wishes he hadn't. There's a lot of support, from what he can make out, but also some tweets that are definitely designed to hurt. Some of them are about his appearance and a couple mention Lex. Evidently, word's out about what Jin was wearing that night.
"You always attract this much hate?"
Jin's face is locked down tight but his eyes are sad. "It comes and goes. I ignore them."
It's obvious it comes at a cost, though. "So a bunch of idiots have some crazy ideas about you. That doesn't make them right," Kame says, offering an encouraging smile.
"Even the ones who say I'm looking more like you these days?"
"Is that supposed to be a compliment or are they insulting us both?"
Jin shrugs. "I'm not replying to ask them. This is why I said not to look. It's great being able to communicate with my fans like this but it leaves me exposed, too. I don't want that to happen to you."
"I'm used to brushing off hate." How many times has Kame come under fire for his drama ratings, as if he were carrying the whole thing on his shoulders? Sadly, too many to count. He hopes the new one will be different. "I'm not letting it get to me anymore."
"If your weight drops to 40kg again I am going to personally report anyone who messages you with hate as a spammer."
Kame's amused by the mental image of Jin tapping furiously away on his iPad, reporting spammers one after the other with the same fierce concentration he uses when trying to learn new dance steps. "My knight in baggy armour."
Jin grins and bows his head. "I live to serve."
"You live to do a lot of things. Serving isn't one of them."
There's no way Jin can refute that charge, so he doesn't even try. He teaches Kame one final element of Twitter - how to block users.
"Since you're public they'll still be able to see your tweets, but they can't follow you," he says. "I only found it because I accidentally blocked Josh once."
"So I could block people with names like 'hatekamenashi', then?"
"Block anyone you like. You're playing a bad guy, right?"
"Yeah. I shouldn't just block people who get in my way, I should hunt them down and kill them." Kame sighs in contentment. "They finally let me audition for a villain's role - one with a dual personality, at that. I haven't been able to play anyone this complex since-" He stops there because Nobuta wo Produce is still something of a touchy subject.
"Since Shuuji," Jin finishes for him. "But I think most of your roles have had something special about them. Maybe not so much in that wine series..."
"Even Shizuku had his moments. But if BANDAGE was your chance to show what you can do, maybe this is mine."
Jin turns completely around on his chair so his whole body faces Kame, all joking forgotten. "Don't kill yourself for this role," he says. "I know you'll put everything into it because you always do, but you've got nothing to prove. Everyone already knows what you can do - everyone who counts, anyway."
Mineral water notwithstanding Kame feels tipsy now, drunk on happiness and nostalgia. They've had times where they can barely exchange civil words and times when it would take a crowbar to separate them, but somehow Jin always comes through, standing up for him when he least expects it. That's the determined, confident teenage boy he fell for all those years ago, the one who sang and danced his way to stardom and dragged his slow turtle friend along for the ride until they drew level. Sometimes one overtakes, and then the other catches up again, but if it hadn't been for Jin Kame doubts he'd even still be in the race - baseball would've lured him back for good.
Having a friend to share it with makes all the difference, though.
"And I suppose you count?"
"I always count," Jin says smugly, and whether they're on speaking terms or not, that's true as far as Kame's concerned.
He's not sure there will ever be a time when Jin doesn't count. Even if he goes away and marries some American girl, has the babies he so desperately wants and starts a whole new life for himself elsewhere...even then, he'll still count. Sometimes Kame takes a look at his own feelings and laughs at himself for not tossing them out like so much waste. He's kept them for years, nurtured them, locked them away in the back of his mind where they can't escape and make him say or do things that will give him away.
It's too late for that now. As much as he'd like to put them back in the box, he can't quite bring himself to do it. If Jin hadn't kissed him back, maybe. If he'd pushed Kame away immediately instead of clutching his hips. All it takes is one insignificant hope to keep those feelings alive.
"You okay?" Jin asks. "You're spacing out. Overwhelmed by modern technology?"
Kame feels his face grow warm, realises he's been staring at Jin and hopes his expression wasn't too sappy. He has to stay focussed.
"Just thinking about the kind of things I could tweet," he says quickly. "I guess I'll have to keep it in character."
"This is why you need to get one of your own," Jin says. "I ask people questions all the time - then I risk looking at my replies. Things like the music genres they like and stuff. Ballads or hip-hop. Sweet or spicy."
"Armani or Diesel." Kame starts to glaze over again. "I could block anyone who gave me the wrong answer."
Jin and fashion are not always on speaking terms, even if he is quite attached to his A&F hoodies. "What's the right answer?"
"Burberry."
"Unfair!"
"I wouldn't block you. You can be my number one follower."
Alas, that honour has been denied Jin, as they discover when Kame refreshes to find he's been followed by a beauty shop account, selling products guaranteed to banish the shadows from under his eyes.
"How does it know?" he wonders while Jin blocks it, logs into his own account and follows Kame before anyone else can sneak in.
"There." Jin's satisfied now. "I'm your number one."
Always, but Kame's not about to say that. "And I'm your number...hundred and fifty thousand or something. Not that I'll understand half the stuff you tweet anyway."
"And you'll be in character, so I probably won't understand anything you tweet."
"You'll just have to watch to keep yourself informed," Kame says. "Same as everyone else."
"If I'm in the country," Jin says airily, so Kame punches him in the arm. "I'll...buy the DVDs afterwards?"
"I bought yours." Kame points across the room to his DVD collection. There's an entire shelf dedicated to supporting his friends, which means he owns a lot of dramas he's never gotten around to finishing but it looks good whenever someone comes over.
Jin gets up to examine the collection for himself, occasionally passing comment on the contents (he still hasn't forgiven Nakamaru for inflicting the RESCUE-training episode of Cartoon KAT-TUN on him), and works his way down to the next shelf. He groans when he finds the Glee boxsets.
"What?" Kame says. "You should support it too - hasn't one of your dancer friends been in it a couple of times?"
"I can't get away from it, Kame. The show's taken over the US. I think it's trying to take over the world. When I'm in the States, every time I walk into a store there's nothing but Glee. It's all over the charts and everything."
"Being popular doesn't make it bad."
"I didn't say it was bad, I just-"
"Have you even seen an episode?"
Jin shakes his head, a sheepish smile on his face. "Um...Aubree showed me a clip where she was dancing. That's about it."
"Then I think it's time you watched an episode." And Kame knows exactly which one to show him. Jin's a Lady Gaga fan; he should appreciate the music at the end, even if he decides he hates everything else.
Jin agrees to suffer through an episode on the condition that Kame feeds him. Kame makes them both omurice, squeezing their names on the top in ketchup. He used to try doing pictures, but his drawing skills with a ketchup bottle are no better than with a pencil, so he doesn't bother anymore. He can manage a heart when he makes it for his niece and that's good enough.
They watch with the subtitles on - mostly for Kame's benefit, since he doubts there's anything in the show that Jin's not going to be able to understand. (In terms of language, at least. Concepts, he's not so sure about.) And it saves Kame naming all the characters, too.
Not that Jin absorbs any of the names. "That guy would never make it in Johnny's," he says when Finn accidentally breaks Rachel's nose with his horrible dancing.
Kame agrees. "When we break noses, we break them on purpose."
"I thought KAT-TUN were trying to move away from the tough guy image?"
"Not intentionally. Maybe we need to do CMs for more macho products."
"Power drills," Jin says. "Tow-trucks. Cement mixers."
"Because your average television viewer is always on the look out for a shiny new cement mixer."
Jin dissolves into giggles and admits that even KAT-TUN might have a hard time selling construction equipment.
He stops laughing when he sees Rachel letting herself be talked into a nose job. "Why's she doing that?"
"Because she doesn't like the way she looks," Kame explains. "She thinks if she has a nose like Quinn's - the blonde girl - she'll be prettier."
"But she's pretty just the way she is!"
"You know that, I know that, and pretty much everyone around her knows that - but she's going to take some convincing."
Rachel's not the only one with something about herself that she perceives as a flaw, as Jin soon discovers. McKinley's glee club is full of quirky characters, some nicer than others. Santana's not one of Kame's favourites, though he started liking her more towards the end of season two, but Jin likes her immediately.
"She's hot, she's tough, and sassy as hell," he says. "What's not to like?"
Kame thinks this says a lot about Jin's taste in women. "She's in love with her best friend." He points out Brittany on the screen. "Some people don't like that."
Jin gives Brittany an appraising glance. "She's got good taste. Please tell me she's not seriously hooking up with that Carrot-ski guy."
"Karofsky! And no, they're just using each other, don't worry."
"I'm not worried," Jin says, frowning. "But I don't like bullies."
There's a big difference between the kind of bullying Jin and his friends inflict on each other and the kind he'd had to deal with in school. It's a long time ago, now, but Kame can't help wondering how Jin would've turned out if he'd been schooled in America. A high school jock, wandering the halls with a cheerleader hanging on his arm? A singer like Kurt, casting spells with his voice? Or would he have been like Mike Chang (if Mike could sing), with a foot in both camps?
When Kurt's boyfriend Blaine turns up to sing to Kurt on the steps of the school and the two embrace for the camera, Jin asks, "Is everyone on this show gay?" He's not sneering, or asking in a derogatory way, merely curious.
"Only a few people, but it's still a surprising number for a mainstream American show, isn't it? You don't get that in Japan much." Kame tries to keep the bitterness from his voice, without success.
"Is...is that why you watch it?"
"It's why I tried it, yeah - heard about it from a friend - but when I started watching, I found a lot of good reasons to keep going." On the screen, Kurt breaks into song and Kame smiles. "That's one of them. Doesn't he sound incredible?"
Jin has to admit that he does, and actually stops talking long enough to listen. He pulls out his iPhone to identify the song and Kame tells him before the search completes. With all the hip-hop and rap on Jin's playlists, sometimes Kame forgets he's got fairly broad musical tastes. As teenagers they watched The Wizard of Oz together and Jin sang along with every single song, mangling the English (not that he cared, at that age) and teasing Kame about being short enough to play one of the Munchkins. Jin's voice has changed since then; 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' would sound different now but Kame has no doubt it would still be as sweet. They've been over that rainbow together, the two of them, even if it's not the same rainbow everyone else thinks it is.
Emma's session with the therapist, brief though it is, has Jin looking decidedly uncomfortable and Kame has to pause to give him some background on the fruit-cleaning. As a country, Japan doesn't really know what to do with mental illness - keep quiet, tuck it away, conform and do your duty to society without making yourself different - and it jars him sometimes watching Western shows where it's often out in the open. It's not that he doesn't know anyone personally - he wasn't kidding when he reeled off a whole long list of disorders in the agency to Jin - but almost no one ever comes out and says it.
Not like Emma finally does at the end, with her 'OCD' T-shirt, and Kame pays close attention to Jin's expression when he sees the club gather for their 'Born This Way' number. He's mouthing the lyrics, and he smiles and nods when he sees Finn's 'CAN'T DANCE' shirt. Kame appreciates Kurt's 'LIKES BOYS' shirt, but while it's something he's struggled with in himself it's not something he wants to change. None of the cast are wearing a T-shirt that fits Jin's particular situation but that's not the point, and Kame hopes he gets it anyway.
He does. "You're about as subtle as a sledgehammer, Kame. You know that?"
"So what would your T-shirt say?"
"'CONFUSED'."
"That must be your equivalent of 'GINGER'. Try again?"
"'HORRIBLY CONFUSED'."
Kame sighs. Nothing's ever easy when it comes to Jin. "Confused about feeling like a girl?"
"Not really. I mean, yeah, but it's...um..." Jin licks his lips; a flush spreads across his cheeks. "Forget it."
Forget it? Not likely, but Kame doesn't press. He's intrigued because it looks like Jin's taken a step or two unaccompanied, hopefully in the right direction, and even if he's confused he appears to be more confident. Maybe being dressed up at Lex helped his progress along that mental path. It's what they've been working towards.
Kame's proud but at the same time, a little sad. This has brought them closer together in so many ways - what happens when Jin doesn't need him anymore? When he figures out how to live with himself just the way he is, how to make his dreams and his reality match up? No more pretend dates, no more sharing of secrets.
Or maybe not, because Kame's in this up to his neck and there's no way he can walk away. There's no predicting how this will all turn out.
"What about your T-shirt?" Jin asks. "What would it say?"
Kame licks his lips, hopes his eyes don't give too much away when he looks at Jin and says, "Same as yours."
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Kame/Jin
Rating: PG
Genre: Kind of AU
Word count: 12,430
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Part 1
Hair-raising Escapades (Electronic and Otherwise) 2/2
New Lex isn't exactly top of Kame's list of favourite nightspots. In fact, it's not even on the list. But it's like a second home to Jin - or possibly third, given how much time he spends in LA these days - and Kame thinks it would be a good idea for Jin to go there when he's all dressed up. If he can feel comfortable there, it'll go a long way towards boosting his confidence.
That's the only positive aspect Kame can see of this situation. Jin couldn't take them all in his car, so Ueda offered to go separately. An opportunity for escape, Kame thinks, but he's pleasantly surprised when Ueda meets them out front, jogging on the spot to keep himself warm. It's unlikely he'll stay long, though. Ueda likes to keep his private life to himself, but Kame's pretty sure it doesn't involve hanging out in clubs in Roppongi.
Despite his attire Jin gets recognised at the door, though nobody bats an eyelid. Tokyo is nothing if not a haven for eccentric dressers. He doesn't have to pay, which means neither do the rest of them, though they all still have to get their drinks tokens as normal. It'll be soft drinks for Jin all night unless he wants to leave his car, but Kame can order whatever he wants and he thinks alcohol will be essential for his survival. Being too short to make himself seen through the crowd at the bar, he hands Junno a token and asks him to get anything that's likely to make his liver curl up and die.
Jin stashes his little bag in the lockers by the stairs. Nakamaru looks like he'd like to hide inside a locker too, but settles for turning up the collar of his jacket, which he's trying to use to cover his T-shirt.
He needn't have bothered. Despite the videos playing along one wall and the coloured lights of glowsticks, it's dark inside the club and no one's paying any attention to the fluorescent girl flaunting herself on his chest. They're all too busy dancing.
Koki leads the way through the crowd to the VIP section, where a starstruck indie band suddenly decide to leave and free up a table. One of them bangs knuckles with him as he goes, and Kame thanks his lucky stars that Koki has such a diverse fanbase, willing to relinquish their nice, cosy corner. Now if only he can hide out here until it's time to leave...
Junno and Ueda materialise with the drinks, and Nakamaru downs half of his in one gulp before sliding as far into the corner as he can get. Kame follows at a more sedate pace, wishing he'd remembered to bring his cigarettes because he could really do with one right now. He inhales second-hand smoke, sweat and perfume and lets himself tune out. He can do this. He can let the music wash over him and just hang out in the corner, doing his own thing, and-
"Let's dance!" Jin says, grabbing him by the wrist. "We can't let Koki have all the fun!"
So much for the wallflower plan. Koki's already up and dancing with some pink-haired girl, doing his best to work off the chocolate cake. For a heartbeat Kame thinks Jin means for them to dance together, but together means everyone in the room, one seething, heaving mass of bodies contorting in time to the music. Kame finds it strange, not standing out in a crowd of dancers on the stage. One of many keeping the beat: it's easy to lose himself here.
Maybe that's why Jin's relaxing now.
Not so relaxed he doesn't notice Kame's being squashed, though. He steers them away from a trio of burly foreigners, over to the wall where photographs depict the club's memories through people. Everyone's been there one time or another. Kame finds himself looking for signs of Jin on the wall.
He finds the real Jin instead, standing between him and the horde of dancers, flushed and happy and more like himself than ever. This time he can't drink, so he dances.
"Okay?" Jin asks. He's not quite yelling but if the music suddenly stopped, he'd be audible outside.
"Fine!" It's too much work to speak in long sentences. "You?"
"Not bad! I've only seen three people I know and nobody close!"
That would also explain why he's stopped keeping his head down. The situation might not be to Kame's liking but there's no denying it's working out for Jin.
Kame breaks into a grin, which Jin returns with interest and takes as a sign that it's okay to throw himself back out there on the dancefloor, safe in his anonymity. Jin's space is immediately filled by one of the big Americans and the girl he's trying to dance with. When the girl's spiked heel almost goes through Kame's boot, he decides it's time to effect an escape. Their table can't be that far away.
-----
Kame spends the better part of the next hour parked at the table, occasionally fighting his way through to the bar. He's got company: Nakamaru, after attempting to cut loose on the floor, comes back to wail that he's being stalked by a Russian model and that Kame has to save him from her.
"She even tried to follow me into the bathroom!" he says.
"Don't know any Russian, sorry."
Nakamaru hits him on the arm. "You're not helping. Besides, even if I knew Russian, I don't think she's taking no for an answer!"
They agree that the safest thing to do is stay put. Nakamaru faces the wall so his glowing shirt doesn't give him away. Stupid thing's like having a target painted on his chest.
Junno returns to the table long enough to set down an empty glass and inform them he's just had a message from Rena asking him to meet her. Koki's with him; he understands.
"Go see your girlfriend," he says, attempting to throw an arm around Junno's shoulders and missing. "It means a lot to me that you let us all come out on your birthday."
Junno looks bewildered. "My birthday?"
"Yeah. Happy birthday, man."
"And happy birthday to you too." Junno successfully disengages himself from the drunken octopus clamped round his waist. "See you guys later."
"Take me with you," Nakamaru begs.
"I didn't know you were into threesomes," Koki says. "Hey, I've got this great idea for your birthday..."
Kame distracts Koki by passing him his own half-drunk beer and Junno makes his escape sans Nakamaru, who bemoans his lot in life. Unfortunately neither of them can use the same excuse, and Kame feels like he can't leave until Jin does in case something happens. Jin's not drinking, which means he's less likely to say or do something stupid, but the consequences now are that much more serious. This is one of Jin's "safe" places, so if he encounters any kind of setback here, there's no telling how it will affect him.
Ueda's the next to leave. He doesn't even bother coming up with an excuse. "I feel like going for a run," he says. "Have a good weekend."
Koki accepts that one too, so Nakamaru tries his luck.
"I've got this essay I need to finish and I'm feeling kind of tired, so-"
"You need to get moving, get your blood flowing! Exercise is good for creativity!"
Poor Nakamaru gets dragged off to dance again, leaving Kame laughing by himself in the corner. He's not alone for long, though, because Jin returns for a break and sits down next to him to work on his Coke.
"You should dance more," Jin says.
"I kept getting hit by flying elbows."
"You what?" Jin shuffles closer so he can hear better.
Kame repeats himself with increased volume, but it's hard to talk when Jin's right beside him, pressed thigh-to-thigh. At that distance they should be whispering into each other's ears, not shouting. It's intimate but not, together in a private corner of a public place.
"We could find you a club specially for short people?"
In that case, Jin wouldn't be allowed. "Or I could wear platforms?" Kame suggests. "Not sure how well I'd be able to dance, but..." He trails off as he notices Jin's hair is coming loose. The clip on the right clings on for dear life while the braids it once held are flying free. "Stay still a sec."
"Huh?"
Kame removes the clip altogether and waves it in front of Jin by way of explanation, so Jin holds still for emergency haircare. The plaits themselves remain tight, thankfully, so no rebraiding is required, and it's a simple matter to pull them together in a bunch.
It's not so simple to pull away, to remove his hands from Jin's hair. He continues to fuss with it, stroking it under the guise of reshaping the upper braids to his liking. He can't do the same on the left unless they switch positions, which he does by boldly sliding himself over Jin's lap. If they were anywhere else he wouldn't try it but it's easier in the dark.
Jin squirms but doesn't protest when Kame lands on his other side. Changing positions doesn't do a thing to increase the distance between them. Kame takes the final handful of braids to run through his fingers, petting Jin the way he would a puppy until he realises he can't keep it up forever. Reluctantly he reattaches the clip, cups a hand around Jin's ear and breathes, "Fixed."
When he receives no response, he turns around to find Nakamaru staring at them with mournful eyes. "After all my hard work..."
-----
Koki had agreed to call it a night after another round of 'dodge the Russian model', much to Nakamaru's relief, and Jin had dropped them all off at home. Kame had listened to the voice of common sense and not invited him in, given what had happened last time he'd been drinking around Jin. He'd like to avoid a repeat performance at all costs.
The weekend passes easily enough. He emails Koki with birthday greetings, receiving in return a photo of Nakamaru cringing away from a tall blonde woman who looks like she wants to devour him. For a model she doesn't dress very well, Kame thinks.
He doesn't hear from Jin, which is probably a good thing. Fixing a guy's hair? Fine. Petting a guy's hair? Fine if you happen to be in showbusiness. Crawling over a guy's lap so you can blatantly cosy up to him from a different angle? Fine if you have that kind of relationship, but they don't. He might as well just have thrown himself at Jin.
At least he can blame the alcohol. He consoles himself with the fact that if Jin had minded, he'd have said something. He's not one to stay quiet when he's annoyed, especially with his friends, with whom he has no barriers.
Work drives all thoughts of Jin from Kame's mind for a while because after a year's break from his usual winter drama slot, he's cast in Split and spends his non-existent free time reading up about disassociative identity disorder. His character, Nishikawa Hikaru, is an earnest young police detective with a strong sense of justice and a quasi-flirtatious relationship with his partner, to be played by Kuroki Meisa in a way Sister Angela would never approve of.
When the pair are assigned to a special unit dedicated to catching the notorious art thief, Kage, Nishikawa makes catching Kage his obsession, lets it drive him to acts that fall in the grey area of the spectrum as he slowly becomes more and more like his shadow self.
But what Nishikawa doesn't realise is that he and Kage are one and the same.
Kame's relishing the chance to play a villain - his guest appearance in Mr. Brain didn't really count - and Kage ought to do interesting things for his career. He's a man with a flexible sense of right and wrong, and no compunction about disposing of people who get in his way. He's smart, too, using all his skill to pull off intricate, complex thefts, throwing the occasional bone to the police to remove his competitors. Kage isn't a good guy, but he shares his body with a man who is, and Kame's interested to see what happens when the two personalities begin to merge. There's no limit to what he can do with a nice, juicy part like this.
It'll be another year of working through Christmas, probably, but it's not like he had plans, and he's missed acting. Maybe they'll eat KFC on the set and sing carols to each other during the breaks.
It'll mean a new single for KAT-TUN too - something dark, with a PV full of mystery - and there will be the usual promotion to do. Kame can't wait for all the hustle and bustle to begin.
When it does, his manager has a surprise for him. It's not something new for Johnny's, having a Twitter account for a drama role, but it's one of the few times anyone's suggested getting Kame to do anything that involves technology. He can fix televisions but social networking is not his strong point. "Kage" will drop hints to the police on his Twitter, titillating the viewers with his thoughts and opinions on the cases. His manager gives him the login details for the splitshadow account, slaps him on the back, and tells him to have fun.
Kame takes one look at the website and calls Jin before he accidentally locks himself out of the account or something. When Jin finally stops laughing, he agrees to come over that evening to share his pearls of Twitter wisdom.
"The first thing you have to remember," he says when he arrives, "is that people are crazy. When your haters find out they have a way to communicate with you, they'll do it. They'll tweet insults at you in half-a-dozen different languages, they'll Photoshop pics and link you to them, they'll tell you- wait, you know what? Just don't look at your @ messages."
Kame has to wait for Jin to take a breath before he says, "Can you start by showing me where to log in?"
"Right." Jin exhales slowly. "Do you have beer? I think we've got a long night ahead of us."
They sit down at the table with Kame's laptop, which is mostly used for research, shopping, and all things baseball-related. He doesn't use it everyday, unlike Jin, who seems to be permanently glued to his gadget collection. Jin pops open a beer; Kame sticks with mineral water in case his subconscious gets any funny ideas. They're sitting on separate chairs and thus have a gap between them but he's taking no chances.
The first thing Jin does is make Kame change his password. "Your manager set this up, right? So you need to make sure no one but you can access the account. You don't want anyone tweeting anything strange."
"It's for a drama character - I'm only going to be tweeting strange things," Kame points out. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." Jin is adamant about this. "Make sure you don't forget the password. Oh, and don't make it anything obvious, like your dogs' names. There are lunatics out there who will try to guess it."
Kame finds it very strange, being lectured so seriously on such a trivial subject, but he supposes that having been doing this for almost three quarters of a year himself, Jin probably knows what he's talking about. They also change the password on the webmail address associated with the account, created solely for that purpose, and Jin declares himself satisfied when they've ensured that Kame has total control over it.
"Now we have to do something about that background," Jin says. "At least they gave you a DP."
"A what?"
"Display picture," Jin says in English, then explains in Japanese.
The picture's okay - Kame recognises his own silhouette - but Jin's not happy with the sparkly purple background.
"You need to put your own picture in here. What's your character into?"
"Robbery, murder, the usual."
"Helpful."
Kame shrugs. "You want me to call the writers and ask about this guy's taste in art?"
"Maybe we can put together some-" Jin cuts himself off when Kame gives him the "don't make me do anything involving graphics" face. "Do you have any pictures of moonlit nights?"
Kame has several, so they pick one to use. It's a night view from the roof of his building, Tokyo spread out below the moon's watchful eye, just ripe for a thief to go about his business.
"Are you allowed to start using this thing yet?"
"Not until next week," Kame says.
Jin thinks it over. "You don't have any followers yet, so it's okay to practise a little. We can just delete them afterwards."
"And followers are?"
"People who subscribe to your Twitter so they can read what you say." Jin points out the Following/Follower counts on the screen. They both say zero. "And you can follow people too, but I guess you won't be doing that since this is for a drama."
"So I could follow you?"
"It would drive the fangirls and our managers crazy," Jin says. "You should do it."
He shows Kame how to search for users on Twitter and click to follow them, then logs into his own email to show him the message he'll receive when people follow him.
Kage (@splitshadow) is now following your tweets (@Jin_Akanishi) on Twitter.
"When people follow me, am I supposed to follow them back?"
"It's a bad idea unless you actually know them. You can see if someone tweets at you, though, even if you don't follow them, so long as their account is unlocked." Kame's sure his face signals 'information overload', because Jin immediately adds, "Which your account is going to be, so don't worry about it. See, if someone writes a message using the 'at' symbol followed by your username, you can see it here."
Jin logs into his own account to show Kame some examples, and it doesn't escape Kame's notice that while his account is in Japanese, Jin's is in English. It's one thing to listen to him converse in English; it's quite another to watch him navigate so casually through sites in his second language without even pause for thought. Jin may say and do some dumb things, sometimes, and his Japanese can be very hit and miss, but Kame doesn't know how anyone can ever think he's stupid. He shows Kame tweets he's exchanged in Spanish with Shirota Yuu and Kame feels like he could burst with pride, even though he has no clue what any of it means.
"See? Your own tweets and those from the people you follow show up in your timeline here." Most of the people Jin follows tweet in English. "If you're following people who are following each other and they have a conversation that doesn't include you, you can see it anyway."
Kame holds up a hand. "Slow down. Assume I'm not going to be following anyone. This is for work."
"Sure it is." Jin gives him a sly smile. "You'll get your own eventually; you know you will."
"I just want to know how to make it work without breaking it, that's all."
Jin looks less than convinced, but he teaches Kame about hashtags, and retweeting, and adding links to tweets. And most importantly, how to delete tweets in case he makes a mistake.
"I do that all the time," he confesses. "If it's just, like, one little typo, you can use an asterisk with a correction."
It's like the session he had with Nakamaru, learning how to use Skype, except that Nakamaru had given him a set of nicely illustrated instructions with bullet points and highlights. Jin rattles through things at his own pace and insists on telling him everything he could ever possibly want to know about Twitter - most of which he will likely never use.
Still, there's something fun about the idea of taking his character out into the world this way. He's done j-webs in character before, but he's never been able to see what the fans think of them. Now he can get immediate responses.
"Can I see what fans are tweeting at you?" he asks, and before Jin can stop him, he clicks on the mentions.
After skimming through them, he wishes he hadn't. There's a lot of support, from what he can make out, but also some tweets that are definitely designed to hurt. Some of them are about his appearance and a couple mention Lex. Evidently, word's out about what Jin was wearing that night.
"You always attract this much hate?"
Jin's face is locked down tight but his eyes are sad. "It comes and goes. I ignore them."
It's obvious it comes at a cost, though. "So a bunch of idiots have some crazy ideas about you. That doesn't make them right," Kame says, offering an encouraging smile.
"Even the ones who say I'm looking more like you these days?"
"Is that supposed to be a compliment or are they insulting us both?"
Jin shrugs. "I'm not replying to ask them. This is why I said not to look. It's great being able to communicate with my fans like this but it leaves me exposed, too. I don't want that to happen to you."
"I'm used to brushing off hate." How many times has Kame come under fire for his drama ratings, as if he were carrying the whole thing on his shoulders? Sadly, too many to count. He hopes the new one will be different. "I'm not letting it get to me anymore."
"If your weight drops to 40kg again I am going to personally report anyone who messages you with hate as a spammer."
Kame's amused by the mental image of Jin tapping furiously away on his iPad, reporting spammers one after the other with the same fierce concentration he uses when trying to learn new dance steps. "My knight in baggy armour."
Jin grins and bows his head. "I live to serve."
"You live to do a lot of things. Serving isn't one of them."
There's no way Jin can refute that charge, so he doesn't even try. He teaches Kame one final element of Twitter - how to block users.
"Since you're public they'll still be able to see your tweets, but they can't follow you," he says. "I only found it because I accidentally blocked Josh once."
"So I could block people with names like 'hatekamenashi', then?"
"Block anyone you like. You're playing a bad guy, right?"
"Yeah. I shouldn't just block people who get in my way, I should hunt them down and kill them." Kame sighs in contentment. "They finally let me audition for a villain's role - one with a dual personality, at that. I haven't been able to play anyone this complex since-" He stops there because Nobuta wo Produce is still something of a touchy subject.
"Since Shuuji," Jin finishes for him. "But I think most of your roles have had something special about them. Maybe not so much in that wine series..."
"Even Shizuku had his moments. But if BANDAGE was your chance to show what you can do, maybe this is mine."
Jin turns completely around on his chair so his whole body faces Kame, all joking forgotten. "Don't kill yourself for this role," he says. "I know you'll put everything into it because you always do, but you've got nothing to prove. Everyone already knows what you can do - everyone who counts, anyway."
Mineral water notwithstanding Kame feels tipsy now, drunk on happiness and nostalgia. They've had times where they can barely exchange civil words and times when it would take a crowbar to separate them, but somehow Jin always comes through, standing up for him when he least expects it. That's the determined, confident teenage boy he fell for all those years ago, the one who sang and danced his way to stardom and dragged his slow turtle friend along for the ride until they drew level. Sometimes one overtakes, and then the other catches up again, but if it hadn't been for Jin Kame doubts he'd even still be in the race - baseball would've lured him back for good.
Having a friend to share it with makes all the difference, though.
"And I suppose you count?"
"I always count," Jin says smugly, and whether they're on speaking terms or not, that's true as far as Kame's concerned.
He's not sure there will ever be a time when Jin doesn't count. Even if he goes away and marries some American girl, has the babies he so desperately wants and starts a whole new life for himself elsewhere...even then, he'll still count. Sometimes Kame takes a look at his own feelings and laughs at himself for not tossing them out like so much waste. He's kept them for years, nurtured them, locked them away in the back of his mind where they can't escape and make him say or do things that will give him away.
It's too late for that now. As much as he'd like to put them back in the box, he can't quite bring himself to do it. If Jin hadn't kissed him back, maybe. If he'd pushed Kame away immediately instead of clutching his hips. All it takes is one insignificant hope to keep those feelings alive.
"You okay?" Jin asks. "You're spacing out. Overwhelmed by modern technology?"
Kame feels his face grow warm, realises he's been staring at Jin and hopes his expression wasn't too sappy. He has to stay focussed.
"Just thinking about the kind of things I could tweet," he says quickly. "I guess I'll have to keep it in character."
"This is why you need to get one of your own," Jin says. "I ask people questions all the time - then I risk looking at my replies. Things like the music genres they like and stuff. Ballads or hip-hop. Sweet or spicy."
"Armani or Diesel." Kame starts to glaze over again. "I could block anyone who gave me the wrong answer."
Jin and fashion are not always on speaking terms, even if he is quite attached to his A&F hoodies. "What's the right answer?"
"Burberry."
"Unfair!"
"I wouldn't block you. You can be my number one follower."
Alas, that honour has been denied Jin, as they discover when Kame refreshes to find he's been followed by a beauty shop account, selling products guaranteed to banish the shadows from under his eyes.
"How does it know?" he wonders while Jin blocks it, logs into his own account and follows Kame before anyone else can sneak in.
"There." Jin's satisfied now. "I'm your number one."
Always, but Kame's not about to say that. "And I'm your number...hundred and fifty thousand or something. Not that I'll understand half the stuff you tweet anyway."
"And you'll be in character, so I probably won't understand anything you tweet."
"You'll just have to watch to keep yourself informed," Kame says. "Same as everyone else."
"If I'm in the country," Jin says airily, so Kame punches him in the arm. "I'll...buy the DVDs afterwards?"
"I bought yours." Kame points across the room to his DVD collection. There's an entire shelf dedicated to supporting his friends, which means he owns a lot of dramas he's never gotten around to finishing but it looks good whenever someone comes over.
Jin gets up to examine the collection for himself, occasionally passing comment on the contents (he still hasn't forgiven Nakamaru for inflicting the RESCUE-training episode of Cartoon KAT-TUN on him), and works his way down to the next shelf. He groans when he finds the Glee boxsets.
"What?" Kame says. "You should support it too - hasn't one of your dancer friends been in it a couple of times?"
"I can't get away from it, Kame. The show's taken over the US. I think it's trying to take over the world. When I'm in the States, every time I walk into a store there's nothing but Glee. It's all over the charts and everything."
"Being popular doesn't make it bad."
"I didn't say it was bad, I just-"
"Have you even seen an episode?"
Jin shakes his head, a sheepish smile on his face. "Um...Aubree showed me a clip where she was dancing. That's about it."
"Then I think it's time you watched an episode." And Kame knows exactly which one to show him. Jin's a Lady Gaga fan; he should appreciate the music at the end, even if he decides he hates everything else.
Jin agrees to suffer through an episode on the condition that Kame feeds him. Kame makes them both omurice, squeezing their names on the top in ketchup. He used to try doing pictures, but his drawing skills with a ketchup bottle are no better than with a pencil, so he doesn't bother anymore. He can manage a heart when he makes it for his niece and that's good enough.
They watch with the subtitles on - mostly for Kame's benefit, since he doubts there's anything in the show that Jin's not going to be able to understand. (In terms of language, at least. Concepts, he's not so sure about.) And it saves Kame naming all the characters, too.
Not that Jin absorbs any of the names. "That guy would never make it in Johnny's," he says when Finn accidentally breaks Rachel's nose with his horrible dancing.
Kame agrees. "When we break noses, we break them on purpose."
"I thought KAT-TUN were trying to move away from the tough guy image?"
"Not intentionally. Maybe we need to do CMs for more macho products."
"Power drills," Jin says. "Tow-trucks. Cement mixers."
"Because your average television viewer is always on the look out for a shiny new cement mixer."
Jin dissolves into giggles and admits that even KAT-TUN might have a hard time selling construction equipment.
He stops laughing when he sees Rachel letting herself be talked into a nose job. "Why's she doing that?"
"Because she doesn't like the way she looks," Kame explains. "She thinks if she has a nose like Quinn's - the blonde girl - she'll be prettier."
"But she's pretty just the way she is!"
"You know that, I know that, and pretty much everyone around her knows that - but she's going to take some convincing."
Rachel's not the only one with something about herself that she perceives as a flaw, as Jin soon discovers. McKinley's glee club is full of quirky characters, some nicer than others. Santana's not one of Kame's favourites, though he started liking her more towards the end of season two, but Jin likes her immediately.
"She's hot, she's tough, and sassy as hell," he says. "What's not to like?"
Kame thinks this says a lot about Jin's taste in women. "She's in love with her best friend." He points out Brittany on the screen. "Some people don't like that."
Jin gives Brittany an appraising glance. "She's got good taste. Please tell me she's not seriously hooking up with that Carrot-ski guy."
"Karofsky! And no, they're just using each other, don't worry."
"I'm not worried," Jin says, frowning. "But I don't like bullies."
There's a big difference between the kind of bullying Jin and his friends inflict on each other and the kind he'd had to deal with in school. It's a long time ago, now, but Kame can't help wondering how Jin would've turned out if he'd been schooled in America. A high school jock, wandering the halls with a cheerleader hanging on his arm? A singer like Kurt, casting spells with his voice? Or would he have been like Mike Chang (if Mike could sing), with a foot in both camps?
When Kurt's boyfriend Blaine turns up to sing to Kurt on the steps of the school and the two embrace for the camera, Jin asks, "Is everyone on this show gay?" He's not sneering, or asking in a derogatory way, merely curious.
"Only a few people, but it's still a surprising number for a mainstream American show, isn't it? You don't get that in Japan much." Kame tries to keep the bitterness from his voice, without success.
"Is...is that why you watch it?"
"It's why I tried it, yeah - heard about it from a friend - but when I started watching, I found a lot of good reasons to keep going." On the screen, Kurt breaks into song and Kame smiles. "That's one of them. Doesn't he sound incredible?"
Jin has to admit that he does, and actually stops talking long enough to listen. He pulls out his iPhone to identify the song and Kame tells him before the search completes. With all the hip-hop and rap on Jin's playlists, sometimes Kame forgets he's got fairly broad musical tastes. As teenagers they watched The Wizard of Oz together and Jin sang along with every single song, mangling the English (not that he cared, at that age) and teasing Kame about being short enough to play one of the Munchkins. Jin's voice has changed since then; 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' would sound different now but Kame has no doubt it would still be as sweet. They've been over that rainbow together, the two of them, even if it's not the same rainbow everyone else thinks it is.
Emma's session with the therapist, brief though it is, has Jin looking decidedly uncomfortable and Kame has to pause to give him some background on the fruit-cleaning. As a country, Japan doesn't really know what to do with mental illness - keep quiet, tuck it away, conform and do your duty to society without making yourself different - and it jars him sometimes watching Western shows where it's often out in the open. It's not that he doesn't know anyone personally - he wasn't kidding when he reeled off a whole long list of disorders in the agency to Jin - but almost no one ever comes out and says it.
Not like Emma finally does at the end, with her 'OCD' T-shirt, and Kame pays close attention to Jin's expression when he sees the club gather for their 'Born This Way' number. He's mouthing the lyrics, and he smiles and nods when he sees Finn's 'CAN'T DANCE' shirt. Kame appreciates Kurt's 'LIKES BOYS' shirt, but while it's something he's struggled with in himself it's not something he wants to change. None of the cast are wearing a T-shirt that fits Jin's particular situation but that's not the point, and Kame hopes he gets it anyway.
He does. "You're about as subtle as a sledgehammer, Kame. You know that?"
"So what would your T-shirt say?"
"'CONFUSED'."
"That must be your equivalent of 'GINGER'. Try again?"
"'HORRIBLY CONFUSED'."
Kame sighs. Nothing's ever easy when it comes to Jin. "Confused about feeling like a girl?"
"Not really. I mean, yeah, but it's...um..." Jin licks his lips; a flush spreads across his cheeks. "Forget it."
Forget it? Not likely, but Kame doesn't press. He's intrigued because it looks like Jin's taken a step or two unaccompanied, hopefully in the right direction, and even if he's confused he appears to be more confident. Maybe being dressed up at Lex helped his progress along that mental path. It's what they've been working towards.
Kame's proud but at the same time, a little sad. This has brought them closer together in so many ways - what happens when Jin doesn't need him anymore? When he figures out how to live with himself just the way he is, how to make his dreams and his reality match up? No more pretend dates, no more sharing of secrets.
Or maybe not, because Kame's in this up to his neck and there's no way he can walk away. There's no predicting how this will all turn out.
"What about your T-shirt?" Jin asks. "What would it say?"
Kame licks his lips, hopes his eyes don't give too much away when he looks at Jin and says, "Same as yours."