[JE] A Pint a Year (Keeps an Idol's Career)
Title: A Pint a Year (Keeps an Idol's Career)
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Rating: PG
Word count: 1142
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: When Jin's senpai warned him that becoming a Junior meant he'd be signing his life away, he didn't think they meant it literally.
A/N: For the
hc_bingo square 'abuse'. The deadline for this bingo round is almost upon us, which means I'm looking at my abandoned WIPs and wondering which ones I can shoehorn into bingo squares. I have no idea why I started writing this one but the blood donations are going to keep the old man alive and in charge, which is why the filename was originally 'ktvamp'. (I figured it might be a bit misleading to tag for 'vampires' when none appear, though.)
Crossposted at AO3
A Pint a Year (Keeps an Idol's Career)
When Jin's senpai warned him that becoming a Junior meant he'd be signing his life away, he didn't think they meant it literally.
"But why do we have to donate blood?" he asked as the nurse rolled up his sleeve. It was three days after his eighteenth birthday and giving blood should've been the farthest thing from his mind. "Is this part of some charity drive?"
"Please stay still, Akanishi-kun," the nurse said tartly. "You don't want to draw the process out any more than necessary, do you?"
Jin didn't. He let them take a pint and feed him juice and cookies, and Tackey came by to drive him home. He wouldn't answer any of Jin's questions, though, and eventually the mystery faded, buried by more pressing concerns about songs, and costumes, and whether or not the agency would allow him to get his belly button pierced.
The following year, he had to give another pint. This time he tried to chat up the nurse as a means of extracting information from her. She shot him down in flames and he left the clinic feeling thoroughly embarrassed and in no way enlightened. He thought about asking Nakamaru or Ueda if they knew, since being older, they'd started first, but KAT-TUN were going through one of their rough patches (they didn't have as many smooth patches as the agency would like, not yet) and he didn't want them to accuse him of complaining, of not wanting to pull his weight.
So he bore with it until the next year, when Kame had his first turn with the needle. And that just seemed wrong, because Kame was this pale, tiny little thing who couldn't possibly spare even a drop of blood, or so Jin told the nurse when he insisted on going along in case Kame felt nervous about it. Kame, who had no problem speaking his mind to people to whom he had no need to be polite, told Jin exactly what he thought of that idea.
Still, Jin felt pretty sure Kame was grateful for the company. He didn't actually say so, but he smiled when Jin opened the car door for him and asked him half a dozen times if he was feeling okay. (He rolled his eyes on the seventh time, though.)
"Still feeling okay?" Jin asked for the eighth time as he parked outside Kame's place. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why it mattered so much more to him that Kame was okay than any of the others in KAT-TUN, who were all donors too. Probably the same reason he'd chosen Kame to take with him on his "prize" trip to Okinawa, and that was something he didn't want to think too much about. "Not going to pass out trying to make it through your front door?"
Kame snorted. "Sure that's not what happened on your first turn?"
"Hey! Don't insult the guy who was nice enough to drive you home."
"You're right." Kame grabbed his bag from the backseat. "Thanks for the ride." He paused with his hand on the door. "They told me I have to do it again next year. You do it every year too, right?"
"Yeah, since I turned eighteen, and it'll be twice a year when I turn twenty. Don't know how long we have to keep this up." Jin sighed. "Probably the rest of our careers."
"Why?"
"Because it's in our contracts."
"Not that. I mean, why are we donating blood in the first place?"
Jin didn't have an answer for him, and Kame didn't get anywhere with his attempts to bribe their senpai with his cooking. There were a lot of things the agency didn't talk about, like what happened to people who left (or worse yet, the people who tried to leave and showed up the next morning with haunted eyes and high collars, pledging their eternal loyalty to Johnny H. Kitagawa). It wasn't restricted to the Juniors either - he'd heard from Yamapi after his debut that he still had to give his donation every year, not that he knew why.
It didn't seem like much. They were young, they were healthy, they could afford to spare it. The agency had their sweat and sometimes their tears, so why not their blood too? As a return for the chance to make a living doing what they loved, a pint or two every twelve months amounted to very little.
But every six months meant another trip to the clinic and another bandage on Jin's arm that he wasn't allowed to tell his parents about. He'd asked, once, what would happen if he explained it to his family, and the nurse had given him a cookie and an ultimatum. Damned if he was going to be the one to endanger KAT-TUN's future debut.
"I don't like it either," Kame said when Jin told him, "but it has to be our turn next. We're ready, you know we are."
"We've been ready for a long time," Jin grumbled. "Maybe they're waiting until we've given ten pints or something. I'd like to debut before I'm thirty."
"You will. We all will."
But it wasn't up to Kame - it was up to all of them. Jin didn't want to be one of those Juniors who got left behind when all his friends debuted. He'd seen what had happened to Four Tops. After that, there was really no choice left to him, to them, to anyone who wanted to make it. And Jin wanted that, badly, even if it meant needles and bruising and questions nobody wanted to answer. It was his blood and he had every right to keep it where it belonged, inside his body.
Most of the year, he could pretend that was true. He could sing and dance, and fool around for the cameras with the others on Shounen Club. He could teach himself songs on the guitar and pretend not to notice that patch on the underside of his arm, where faded bruises remained in his imagination. No big deal. Just like everyone else.
Except when Kame picked him up afterwards, or he picked Kame up, and they'd take it in turns to wait with a steadying arm and teasing comment at the ready. Kame always resented the temporary weakness, and Jin would have to distract him from not being able to go out and play baseball straight away by challenging him to play it on Nintendo instead. Kame would return the favour by cooking Jin a proper meal when his turn came, because Jin's skills in that arena were questionable enough without adding dizziness to the mix and it was considerably safer to keep him away from knives.
Kame couldn't keep him away from the needles, but he made it easier for Jin to forget about them afterwards.
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Rating: PG
Word count: 1142
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit
Summary: When Jin's senpai warned him that becoming a Junior meant he'd be signing his life away, he didn't think they meant it literally.
A/N: For the
hc_bingo square 'abuse'. The deadline for this bingo round is almost upon us, which means I'm looking at my abandoned WIPs and wondering which ones I can shoehorn into bingo squares. I have no idea why I started writing this one but the blood donations are going to keep the old man alive and in charge, which is why the filename was originally 'ktvamp'. (I figured it might be a bit misleading to tag for 'vampires' when none appear, though.)
Crossposted at AO3
A Pint a Year (Keeps an Idol's Career)
When Jin's senpai warned him that becoming a Junior meant he'd be signing his life away, he didn't think they meant it literally.
"But why do we have to donate blood?" he asked as the nurse rolled up his sleeve. It was three days after his eighteenth birthday and giving blood should've been the farthest thing from his mind. "Is this part of some charity drive?"
"Please stay still, Akanishi-kun," the nurse said tartly. "You don't want to draw the process out any more than necessary, do you?"
Jin didn't. He let them take a pint and feed him juice and cookies, and Tackey came by to drive him home. He wouldn't answer any of Jin's questions, though, and eventually the mystery faded, buried by more pressing concerns about songs, and costumes, and whether or not the agency would allow him to get his belly button pierced.
The following year, he had to give another pint. This time he tried to chat up the nurse as a means of extracting information from her. She shot him down in flames and he left the clinic feeling thoroughly embarrassed and in no way enlightened. He thought about asking Nakamaru or Ueda if they knew, since being older, they'd started first, but KAT-TUN were going through one of their rough patches (they didn't have as many smooth patches as the agency would like, not yet) and he didn't want them to accuse him of complaining, of not wanting to pull his weight.
So he bore with it until the next year, when Kame had his first turn with the needle. And that just seemed wrong, because Kame was this pale, tiny little thing who couldn't possibly spare even a drop of blood, or so Jin told the nurse when he insisted on going along in case Kame felt nervous about it. Kame, who had no problem speaking his mind to people to whom he had no need to be polite, told Jin exactly what he thought of that idea.
Still, Jin felt pretty sure Kame was grateful for the company. He didn't actually say so, but he smiled when Jin opened the car door for him and asked him half a dozen times if he was feeling okay. (He rolled his eyes on the seventh time, though.)
"Still feeling okay?" Jin asked for the eighth time as he parked outside Kame's place. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why it mattered so much more to him that Kame was okay than any of the others in KAT-TUN, who were all donors too. Probably the same reason he'd chosen Kame to take with him on his "prize" trip to Okinawa, and that was something he didn't want to think too much about. "Not going to pass out trying to make it through your front door?"
Kame snorted. "Sure that's not what happened on your first turn?"
"Hey! Don't insult the guy who was nice enough to drive you home."
"You're right." Kame grabbed his bag from the backseat. "Thanks for the ride." He paused with his hand on the door. "They told me I have to do it again next year. You do it every year too, right?"
"Yeah, since I turned eighteen, and it'll be twice a year when I turn twenty. Don't know how long we have to keep this up." Jin sighed. "Probably the rest of our careers."
"Why?"
"Because it's in our contracts."
"Not that. I mean, why are we donating blood in the first place?"
Jin didn't have an answer for him, and Kame didn't get anywhere with his attempts to bribe their senpai with his cooking. There were a lot of things the agency didn't talk about, like what happened to people who left (or worse yet, the people who tried to leave and showed up the next morning with haunted eyes and high collars, pledging their eternal loyalty to Johnny H. Kitagawa). It wasn't restricted to the Juniors either - he'd heard from Yamapi after his debut that he still had to give his donation every year, not that he knew why.
It didn't seem like much. They were young, they were healthy, they could afford to spare it. The agency had their sweat and sometimes their tears, so why not their blood too? As a return for the chance to make a living doing what they loved, a pint or two every twelve months amounted to very little.
But every six months meant another trip to the clinic and another bandage on Jin's arm that he wasn't allowed to tell his parents about. He'd asked, once, what would happen if he explained it to his family, and the nurse had given him a cookie and an ultimatum. Damned if he was going to be the one to endanger KAT-TUN's future debut.
"I don't like it either," Kame said when Jin told him, "but it has to be our turn next. We're ready, you know we are."
"We've been ready for a long time," Jin grumbled. "Maybe they're waiting until we've given ten pints or something. I'd like to debut before I'm thirty."
"You will. We all will."
But it wasn't up to Kame - it was up to all of them. Jin didn't want to be one of those Juniors who got left behind when all his friends debuted. He'd seen what had happened to Four Tops. After that, there was really no choice left to him, to them, to anyone who wanted to make it. And Jin wanted that, badly, even if it meant needles and bruising and questions nobody wanted to answer. It was his blood and he had every right to keep it where it belonged, inside his body.
Most of the year, he could pretend that was true. He could sing and dance, and fool around for the cameras with the others on Shounen Club. He could teach himself songs on the guitar and pretend not to notice that patch on the underside of his arm, where faded bruises remained in his imagination. No big deal. Just like everyone else.
Except when Kame picked him up afterwards, or he picked Kame up, and they'd take it in turns to wait with a steadying arm and teasing comment at the ready. Kame always resented the temporary weakness, and Jin would have to distract him from not being able to go out and play baseball straight away by challenging him to play it on Nintendo instead. Kame would return the favour by cooking Jin a proper meal when his turn came, because Jin's skills in that arena were questionable enough without adding dizziness to the mix and it was considerably safer to keep him away from knives.
Kame couldn't keep him away from the needles, but he made it easier for Jin to forget about them afterwards.