fic: Sunset Smiles (And Whatnots)
“Look look look Kame!” Jin screamed with a childish and over-excited glee and a smile that spread brightly almost ear-to-ear on his youthful face. “Aaaa, we’re so high! I swear we can see most of Tokyo from here, this is amazing -”
Kame, unlike his chirpy companion, sat steadily on his seat with a strained expression, refusing to look anywhere except the opposite bench, cursing mentally how Jin was pretty successfully disturbing him by standing on the way and fidgeting around. The boy just couldn’t sit still.
He had loudly opposed the idea of riding the Ferris Wheel from the very start only to lose the argument and being pushed into one with his even louder companion. So he had decided to just sit still through the ride and keep his face until it was over.
A mistake in his calculations, it seemed.
“Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” he groaned and buried his face in his hands, very aware of the cameras and microphones (one visibly being attached to his t-shirt’s collar) recording his humiliation second by second. “What are you, blonde? No, wait, you are,” he whined louder and let his posture drop as he crouched on his seat. “Nevermind.”
“I don’t get you at all,” Jin babbled on, completely unaffected by his company’s sullen mood, and pressed his palms against the glass. “Come on, this is completely safe! People do this all the time!”
“I doooon’t,” Kame whined, pressing his nails to his cheeks, eyes glazed. “Please don’t remind me. Please don’t. How long is this going to take anymore?”
“We’re almost up,” Jin chirped excitedly as he peered down at the city and its masses of people. “Just a bit more, Kame!”
Almost up. So not even halfway through yet. Kame groaned, straightened his upper body and threw his head back, palms pressing against his eyes in a blinding fashion. He saw stars.
Jin sat next to him with a giddy smile and nudged his shoulder. “Come on, it’s not so high! Just look! When you get used to it it’s really not high at all.”
Kame opened his eyes reluctantly and peered out of the window. Blue sky, some white, puffy clouds lined with gold and skyscrapers. He bit his lip and moved closer to the edge of the booth and peered down.
A mistake.
“AAAA SCARY SCARY SCARY!” he cried out pathetically and backed away towards Jin, grasping his arm. “IT’S SUPER HIGH, DON’T LIE TO ME!”
“I’m not lying!” Jin shot back, hurt colouring his defending voice and cheeks burning. “…It’s really not high.”
Then he was all back to shining, giddy smiles, sitting on the bench on his knees and peering down from the window behind them. Kame pressed his lips together. It really was scary. And Jin being unaffected by it… Well, that was humiliating. But it wasn’t the kind of scary Jin understood.
He did. Heights really did it for him.
“The sun is setting! Do you think it’ll get all pretty while we’re still riding?” Jin babbled on, his fingers drumming the green, plastic bench they were sitting on. Kame tried taking in a deep breath to calm himself, fingers gripping the bench, and shrugged the best he could.
“Can you stop talking about the sky while we’re on it?” he groaned in a displeased manner. “Bakanishi. If you turn into another Junno who has difficulties reading the atmosphere I might as well kill you.”
“IT’S AKANISHI!” Jin shot back at him through his pursed lips and shoved him, making him collide with the booth’s wall. Kame looked out of the window.
“AAAA SCARY SCARY SCARY LET ME BACK, LET ME BACK!” he squealed and grasped Jin’s shirt again as they backed away to the middle of the bench. Jin snorted.
“The studio’s so going to love your screams. Fans could make remixes if this will get aired,” he bullied, peering his face close to Kame’s in an affectionately teasing manner, a stupid grin plastered all across his face. “‘Aaa scary scary scary let me baaaaaaaack!’”
“Stop it,” Kame groaned. “Seriously Jin, drop it. Now.”
Jin shrugged, still seeming undoubtedly amused by his idea as he threw an arm around Kame, sighed deep and looked out of the window again. Kame sulked, very well aware of the cameras and glancing at them briefly. Jin didn’t seem to be bothered at all. He hardly ever was, the carefree him.
Sometimes Kame wanted to be like him. Sometimes he was. Even if it was just a bit for a while.
He blamed too much of the older boy’s company on it.
“I want to do this again some day,” Jin told him, trying to snuggle up to him, a loud spur of giggles emitting from his twisting form as he tried to find a comfortable position in his crouch. “I want to see what this would be like in the dark, with all the city lights and -”
“Make Yamashita come with you, I’m not coming,” Kame groaned and tried to push Jin off.
“Eeeeeh, but I want to do it with you!” Jin complained. “This is sort of… our thing now!”
Ca-me-ra. Kame kicked Jin’s calf. The boy really didn’t sometimes get how easily he let out indications that could even more easily be misinterpreted.
“I’m not coming,” he stated. “And stop moving around, the booth is swinging. …Oh my god, it’s swinging,” he whimpered and squeezed his shorts’ fabric in his fists, blood draining from his face.
“What? Scaaaryyyy?” Jin teased him immediately, nudging his shoulder with a stupid grin, eyes shining in the golden rays coming from the windows. His eyes really were a pretty colour with that. He wondered what his own were like, if they were as pretty. Only briefly though. With Jin it was hard to think for long. “Scary scary scary -!”
Kame slapped his head and got on his wobbly feet to sit on the opposite bench. Oh god. Sky. Just sky behind Jin. Oh god. He rocked on his bench miserably.
Heights really, really did it for him.
At least he didn’t scream the whole way through the ride like with the rollercoaster. And at least it hadn’t been Jin who had been sitting beside him through that.
…Or actually… compared to this…
He would’ve easily switched if he had the chance. At least it would’ve been over sooner and with less talking.
“Ah, don’t you think these things are romantic?” Jin sighed, looking out of the window dreamily again.
He groaned. Jin really just didn’t get it.
“Yeah, they market these with that,” he replied smartly. Which was probably why they were sitting there with just the two of them too. It was the most plausible explanation. “Putting that behind your ear for future date plans?”
Jin blushed. “Maybe,” he muttered somewhat reluctantly.
All giddy, embarrassed and stupidly-smiling, rosy-cheek Jin again. What a lovely junior.
Girls were going to love him.
Kame smiled a bit, even if it was left a bit strained. Or a bit more. Still.
“Romantic~” he got his chance to tease the older boy back. Jin pursed his lips and frowned.
“Am not,” he muttered an answer and folded his arms. “Shut up.”
“Romantic~” Kame continued teasing him. “Romantic, romantic, romantic~!”
“AM NOT!” Jin screamed. “BESIDES IT’S GOOD TO BE ROMANTIC. SO SHUT UP!”
Kame laughed and for once it didn’t sound too strained. Win. He kicked Jin’s knee as the boy finally set his feet on the floor again. Jin kicked him back softly, not affording to lose but not daring to hurt. They kept doing it for a while and Kame could swear he could imagine the video editing crew shaking their heads while having to watch through it.
Jin finally grew tired of the never-ending battle, got on his feet, spread his arms wide and headed towards him. The booth swung in a way that felt threatening to Kame.
“AAAH NO NO NO DON’T, STOP IT JIN AND SIT BACK!” he screamed. Jin ignored his protest and glomped him, jumping on his lap and burying his fingers in Kame’s hair and ruffling with his tongue out in an annoying way, a grin all over his face again, eyes mischievous. “GET OFF!”
“Nooo~” Jin teased. “I might make the booth swing again!”
“Idiot! And it’s swinging already!” Kame groaned and pushed him off next to him. “It’s not funny!”
“It is pretty funny,” Jin objected with a stupid smile, eyes somewhat hesitant on whether he could get away with joking with it or not. “It’s pretty funny, Kame.”
It was not.
Kame let himself look out of the window hesitantly again, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. They were coming down already. Relief.
“Oww, it’ll be over soon,” Jin noted sadly and stood on his feet again, walking to the window on the door and peering down. “Do you think we could go for another round?”
“No,” Kame said firmly. “And I wouldn’t even if we could.”
Jin pursed his lips. “You ruin the mood. This is supposed to be fun.”
“You were having fun,” Kame objects. “It’s not like I ruined it for you.”
“But you didn’t have fun!” Jin complained. “I wanted us both to have fun!”
Kame sighed. The moping Jin was back. Yay for teenage moodswings. Jin was a bit more than awfully good with them. Kame didn’t want to know anything about his hormonal balance.
“I had fun,” he stated firmly. “As much as I could. Really.”
Jin dropped to sit down next to him again, arms crossed and eyes set down to the floor. His mouth was pursed and eyebrows knit together. Harsh. Kame nudged him.
“…You better,” Jin finally stated and took his hand, entwining their fingers and squeezing.
Ca-me-ras. Kame’s palm was sweating. The electricity was mortifying sometimes. It made him feel all giddy inside. “Like jell-o,” Jin had once tried to explain it to him from his point of view, babbling something incoherently. “You know, the American Jell-o thing, there are all kinds of colours and flavours and -”
Jin snuggled up to him, staring as high up at the golden sky as he could. Kame’s breathing got just a bit hoarser and he felt an odd kind of relaxation step in to accompany the awful awkwardness. Cameras gave him that with Jin for some reason.
“Can you see the horizon?” Jin asked him. Kame pressed his lips tightly together and peered out. Looking at the horizon wasn’t so bad. He nodded. “See that long red streak, it’s like the red jell-o, you know, the -”
“American Jell-o thing,” Kame finished his sentence. “Yeah, I looked it up.”
“Oh. I want to taste it one day,” Jin shrugged and let his head drop on Kame’s shoulder. “People say that the red one is the best. I want to try them all.”
Kame let his own head rest gently against the top of Jin’s head. Jin held his hand just a bit tighter. …The sky really was beautiful. A mix of warm colours all melting to each other one after another.
The sound of their peacefully but somehow loudly beating hearts filled the booth as they both stared at the horizon, wrapped up in each other.
When the ride came to a halt and they were let out, Kame didn’t laugh. It was more comfortable to be silent for some reason. He didn’t even complain as badly as he thought he would’ve.
Jin laughed all the way as he ran to the cameras.
But that was so much like Jin after all.
All smiles and awkward displays affection.
With him anyway.