fic: Remains (3/7)
Title: Remains
Author: prologuesized
Pairing: Akame (Short side-pairings: Jin/OC, Pi/OC - hopefully it won't scare you away, though, I tried to keep them readable)
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Sci-fi, Romance, Adventure, Action
Disclaimer: Actually, I own a couple of side-characters. That's about it.
Summary: Akanishi Jin lives the life of a writer stuck in a world he feels he has no control over or pressing interest on. However, everything changes when he drives over a stranger by the name of Kamenashi Kazuya - a man who proves to be from an another world and universe entirely, whisking him away to an adventure through universes and time in order to fulfil his vendetta and stop his enemy from succeeding in his plan to maintain reign over as many universes as possible and starting out a universe-wide war.
Author Note: Heere we go! I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through the fic and now I’m actually starting to get some stuff in and started. Well, it should start getting interesting from now on. Hopefully you’ll agree on that…
Enjoy the crazy.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,800
Chapter 3
Jin stood sulkily against the wall, his arms crossed and a bubble gum slowly expanding as it formed into a carbon dioxide filled bubble. Kame threw his back bag properly on and nodded at him, bowing his head slightly.
Jin burst the bubble and chewed the soft material back inside his mouth, trying to find any kind of farewell words. It was amusingly odd how empty his brains felt like. Well, he wasn’t the best with goodbyes. It wasn’t as if he would’ve even known Kame for a long time either. For all he knew, Kame was a complete and odd stranger who had just hit his place for an unexpectedly long time.
He was getting soft.
Kame inhaled a long breath and his tongue sneaked out of his mouth to lick his lip nervously, a habit Jin had long ago picked up on.
Jin started the production of another gum bubble, waiting for the opening of his own wordy chest. Somehow it felt a bit distant though. Probably because they didn’t really know each other, he convinced himself again with a mental nod. Insignificant people were just that exactly - insignificant. It wasn’t as if he bothered much, nor had much to say.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” Kame bowed politely, a bit stiff and seemingly uneasy himself. Jin smirked at him and sucked the bubble in again. He really had to get his voice back.
“Thank you for keeping company,” he answered, bowing himself. “You were really nice to be around even if I still don’t get you at all. I guess you’re just weird like that.”
Kame laughed, his cheeks rising and eyes shaped blissfully into mere thin lines. Jin smiled to himself too, offering his hand to the other man. Kame shook it and Jin knew that was going to be it, no phone numbers or contact information exchanged.
It was alright, though.
“Take care,” he smiled at his short-term friend again, opening the door to the cool early winter city setting. Kame stepped out after jamming his hands in his thin leather jacket’s pockets, making Jin sigh.
“Wait,” he insisted and surprise spread on Kame’s oval face when he started going through the clothing racks. Eventually he pulled out one of his winter jackets, a red and black chequered one, and offered it to Kame who shook his head awkwardly.
“No, I can’t take it,” he grimaced. “It’s yours. I’ve been abusing your hospitality well enough already.”
“Take it,” Jin demanded and forced the jacket on the slimmer man’s hands. Kame shivered slightly in the cold. He grinned at him. “Just put it on, stay warm and go.”
“Thank you,” Kame found it in him to repeat the two words once again as he pulled the jacket on over his thin leather one. It was way too big on him but looked fine nevertheless. At least he seemed warmer and more taken care of.
“I’ll be off now,” Kame said his goodbyes once again as he opened the door, still somehow lingering. Jin smiled and nodded, waving his hand dismissively. Kame turned around and walked away.
Not wanting to appear clingy Jin closed the door and walked back inside the apartment.
It was odd how quiet it was. It wasn’t like Kame would’ve always been loud - actually, during his stay he had been rather quiet. Maybe it was just Jin’s mind making up all the visions of him being happy, talkative and loud. He couldn’t recall many such situations.
He strolled to the window and looked out at the man heading his way through the wet and dirty streets. Kame smelled the sleeve of his jacket with an unreadable expression and Jin stared at him with his lips pursed as Kame’s eyes slid shut. Was Kame merely trying to smell something familiar or did he smell foul?
He smelled his armpit and grimaced, burying his face in his hands. Of course.
As Kame disappeared to the crowded streets he slumped to the bathroom and turned the shower on. His pipes were stupid enough to take at least five minutes before heating the water. Kame (and he on his first time too, not even mentioning any visitors he accidentally forgot to warn or purposefully bullied) had learned it the hard way. The term “cold shower” got a very new meaning when it came to his shower.
He shed off his clothes, waited, and finally stepped under the spring.
All Kame had taken from him was that one jacket. It didn’t matter much. He had a same jacket in blue colour anyway.
The quiet feeling was merely about the jacket. He had been pretty fond of it.
--
He had almost forgotten what it was like without company in-between spending his days writing books when his friends worked. His day was spent strolling around the mall in search for at least relatively fascinating DVD boxes (mostly American stuff, he found himself preferring their culture and way of making TV shows and movies), new suits and some casual but fashionable clothes he could feel at ease wearing when he was lazing around at home or at a club or going to some promoting events with a strong suit ban. Fuckers. The way he dressed was none of their business.
He had his iPod and expensive, huge earphones on as he strolled down the streets to the outer parts of the city. The bass was brilliant, drums made his insides tremble pleasurably and he felt like wasting some more of his pointless time by walking rather than jumping on a bus that would’ve made a stop just two blocks away from his apartment.
He lit up a cigarette, drawing smoke in and stretching when something crashed into him from his right so fast and hard that he didn’t have time to realise something was happening, never mind actually reacting.
Instead, he hit the ground. The scrapes he got hurt and his earphones slid off.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM!?” he roared furiously, wishing to at least scare the idiot of a person off for revenge. He did not get taken down without revenge. The poor individual was going to pretty fucking well feel it.
He was going to say a very memorable hello with a fist.
Before that happened, however, the person rolled off him and back on his feet with a swift motion as if from a well-practiced martial art and was dashed at by three people all at once. One person appeared as the previous three were midway to his target, looking around and quickly sprinting after the others.
Jin merely sat where he was and blinked in confusion. The world had just stopped making sense to him.
Kame struck his fist in one of the men’s jaw, making him stumble for a few steps backwards, headed at Jin whose arms shot up in defence. Oh fucking hell. The disco song blasting from the ear phones felt amusingly absurd.
The man did collide with him with such speed and force that he fell over, landing on Jin’s lap. Oh great. Now he was becoming a civilian casualty, wasn’t he? He had nothing to do with this! As if he hadn’t spent well enough time at the police station already and had his papers stained with assaults and a case of public nudity which was never ever to be talked about and that was only because he had been drunk, lost a bet and failing to hook up with a girl-!
“Another Kamenashi,” a pretty-faced man clicked his tongue and grabbed Kame’s wrist. Kame twisted him and managed to get loose but wasn’t able to dodge the fist flying his way, bruising the corner of his eye.
The man on Jin shoved him to the ground harshly and moved back on his feet, approaching Kame furiously. Jin sensed danger and stumbled back on his feet. A smaller guy approached him nervously, obviously not a natural fighter.
“Sir, may I ask you to stand back for your own well-being-”
Polite in this situation? What was he, a joke?
Jin pushed the little man away from his way and back to the smaller alley without the slightest hint of pity. Someone he knew seemed to be in a way more urgent condition to care about than complete strangers.
The pretty-faced man disappeared with a quiet crack (or was it a swoosh?) and the tallest man whined, jamming his foot to the ground, discontented. Nobody except for Jin seemed startled about the matter.
For him? It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Paranoia grew over him. Maybe the man had become invisible?
He whined. Now this had to be a dream. He had taken the bus after all and fallen asleep on one of the benches and this was the outcome, he was sure. There was no way people were really appearing and disappearing right in front of his eyes.
He wasn’t that lonely yet! He was not hallucinating. Was not.
“Come with us and we’ll see if you can argue yourself a deal, Kame-chan,” the same gangster who had previously fallen on him offered threateningly at Kame, patting his swollen cheekbone gently with his fingertips. “You could become our scientist. I’m sure Yokoyama would kindly consider ditching Subaru for you. You learned from the very best after all, isn’t that right?”
Kame’s eyes flared up and he forgot about his wrists completely, dashing at the other man and starting a violent wrestle on their feet. Jin dodged them as they stumbled his way, wondering why everyone seemed insistent on coming at his way. He couldn’t be that big of a problem magnet.
“Koki!” the taller man wailed and dashed after the fighting pair, trying to catch a strong hold of the struggling Kame. “No unnecessary fight!”
“Well he isn’t coming without a fight!” Koki defended himself as Kame tried to struggle away from the two of them in vain. Panic took over his eyes. The smaller guy was jogging to their direction as well.
One thing crossed Jin’s mind: Kame did not appear to want to be there. On top of that, the people were holding him against his will and hurting him.
He dashed at them, threw the smaller man violently away again and attacked the gangster (Koki, if he understood correctly) with all his strength and high school period practice, knocking him down with a busted lip and airless lungs. The tallest man looked at him with his eyes wide in surprise and sudden fear before he kicked him in his calves at the same time when Kame yanked strongly again, got loose, turned around and sent a fairly decent kick on his hipbone, knocking him down.
“Fu-” only managed to leave the gangster’s voice before he disappeared. Kame smiled smugly at the two remaining attackers, brushed his hair back from his sweaty forehead and took a ready position.
“Ready to crawl back in your own place?” he asked kindly. The smaller man seemed to be retreating but the tallest man hesitated.
Jin, however, didn’t. No matter how stupid of a fighter the goofy man looked, he wasn’t taking any chances, never mind with anyone he didn’t even know.
He drew his fist back, took a few steps forwards in order to gain more force in his fist and attacked ferociously. Had he known previously that he was still a natural in gang fights he might’ve been concerned about his potential on the wrong kind of business but none of it made a difference now.
Both of the men panicked and disappeared without further casualties. Jin panted heavily and turned to look at a bruised Kame. The man’s jaw was bloody and he seemed to have bitten his tongue and bruised his lip rather badly.
Kame grimaced as the pain settled better in and grasped a strong hold of his wrist, bending over. Jin rushed to his side concernedly. Kame shouldn’t have used that hand quite yet to give blows like that to other human beings.
“Get my bag,” Kame ordered as he sat on the ground, hands shaking. Jin worried about letting his eyes leave the man but tore his eyes away and tried to focus on searching for the bag in question before Kame grunted and pointed at the alleyway with his healthy hand and spat blood on the ground.
Kame laughed a bit as he returned and sat besides the man. It felt absurd.
“Are you alright?” he asked concernedly, trying to wipe the man’s chin with his hand but failing rather pathetically. “What the hell just..?”
Kame pushed his hand away and spat on his hand, trying to use hydration to cleanse his skin better. It might’ve worked better if his saliva wasn’t bloody as it was. Jin sighed.
“You’re quite a fighter,” Kame sniffed, his words sounding thick. Maybe his tongue had swollen? “Didn’t expect that from you. You always struck me as a boring person.”
What a nice thing to hear. Jin grimaced.
“I was the class leader in high school,” he informed the other man. “The rebel. It’s a miracle I graduated.” Well, he had to give it to Kame that it was something that was difficult to see in him anymore. Everyone probably had their worst phases. His had just been exceptionally bad.
“Well, thank you anyway,” Kame bowed his head to him, trying to wipe his chin again. Jin spat on his own hand, trying to help. He hoped Kame didn’t mind but he couldn’t possibly walk around in that shape.
“It’s alright,” Kame insisted, shying away from his touch stiffly. Jin snarled and pulled Kame closer, helping by force. Kame’s muscles were hard to the touch. “I’m fine, really.”
“In what sense? And what the hell just happened?” Jin demanded to know. Kame sighed, rolling his eyes and rising back on his feet, flipping his back bag on again.
“In every sense,” Kame informed. “They didn’t get anything crucial from me and neither did they succeed in dragging me along with them. They’re still just as out of things as they’ve previously been, trying to go with luck. Too bad for them luck doesn’t match skills.”
Jin let Kame pull him on his feet. His hand was cold from the cool air and Jin realised that the ground had stained both of their clothes fairly more than decently. He sighed and looked at Kame’s eyes again. Kame was confidently staring at him. It was maybe the slightest bit of disturbing even if it did feel oddly warm.
He picked up his belongings, turned his iPod off and jammed it in his jacket’s pocket. Kame was more fascinating now.
“I want to know everything,” Jin claimed, pursing his lips as he drew in a deep breath in anticipation. Kame managed to throw at him something between a grimace and a pained smile before he started walking along the pathway. Jin ran after him and sandwiched himself between the ugly concrete walls of the buildings and Kame’s bony shoulders.
“Everything is something I can’t tell,” Kame apologized, a smile playing on his lips, gaze never meeting his as it continued onwards the same way his dragging feet worked. “If I tell you something you’re a part of this. It is not a road where you can return from.”
“First I want you to tell me who the bad guy is,” Jin concluded. First things first. Kame’s smile slowly died away as a bitter and cold look filled his eyes, drowning the kindness and joy of life underneath.
“The thing is that both sides are the bad guys,” Kame answered his question. “It’s just about which side you see as the worse one.”
“How can it be so?” Jin wondered. “So this isn’t a battle between good and bad or anything?”
Kame shook his head, legs dragging slowly onwards. Jin could imagine ash clouding him, drying their mouths and stinging in their eyes that were about to start watering.
The mental image wanted to form into a book. He held on to the feeling as it tried to catch his breath away.
“So what is it exactly that you’re a bad guy for?” Jin tried pushily, growing more and more serious every second. “What makes you a bad guy?”
“I want to kill somebody,” Kame answered nonchalantly, still not turning his gaze to Jin. Jin fell silent. “It all might’ve started on my side but no matter what I will not stop until I’ve had my revenge.”
Kame’s hands curled into tight fists as he walked and his head bowed slightly down under the invisible weight. Jin clasped a hold of his arm, trying to shake him off the weird state with physical contact.
“What have they done then?” he insisted on knowing. “I can’t judge with only a small glimpse of the story.”
Kame smiled bitterly, glancing around the dirty streets as they walked. Jin gulped, disliking the sudden murderous aura Kame was emitting. There was an entirely other kind of person before him than the one who smiled and did all kinds of kind gestures. This one had a heart too, yes - it was just inflicted to the point where it ceased pumping warmth in him anymore.
“They killed my mentor,” Kame answered, ice tearing through every syllable.
Silence didn’t always feel heavy and frozen, Jin knew that - he often experienced somewhat enjoyable silences, the kind that made every participant feel warm, fuzzy and comfortable. What was odd about the particular following silence was the disturbing mix of the good and bad.
Condolences were absolutely useless when simply spoken.
“You’re coming back at my house,” he finally said. Kame snapped his head at him, surprise in his eyes. Jin bit his lips and tried to smirk but it turned more into a grimace. “Look at you. I can’t even let you walk around on your own without having you pick up a fight, can I?”
“…Thank you,” Kame bowed his head but Jin pushed his shoulder dismissively.
“It’s what friends do,” he justified his decision. “We take care of each other. I’m expecting a nice and juicy story when we get there, though. To serve as a payment, of course. You don’t appear all too wealthy or capable of maintaining a job.”
Kame merely nodded and searched for his hand. Jin wasn’t sure if he was happy or not that he couldn’t feel the man’s pulse with his hand.
He wasn’t exactly sure whether he wanted to know and speculate anything.
--
Jin shook his head. No no no no no. No fucking way. Ever. Kame took a long drag out of his cigarette, a bag of peas from the freezer wrapped in a kerchief and pressed on the quickly swelling and bruised corner of his eye. Had he not been so shocked and still out of it Jin might’ve found it in himself to feel some sympathy. Now, however, it was not going to happen.
“You can’t tell me you’re a hardcore realist,” Kame mumbled, removing the ice pack from his eye for a brief while. Probably didn’t want to get frostbitten. “Or well, knowing you, you might actually fit the part.”
“This is too absurd,” Jin shook his head. “I’m not gullible enough to believe you. You’re trying to fill my head with shit.”
“Then where did all those people disappear to? Thin air?” Kame snorted and blew smoke out of his nostrils, relaxed. Jin bit his lip. He hadn’t quite been able to accept that fact yet. “Of course there are different universes. People have been aware of their possibility for centuries, it’s just that people haven’t had the skill and knowledge to pass and travel through them.”
“Well maybe that’s your universe. I mean,” Jin grimaced, “No. Just no. Universes and whatnot, no.”
“Alright then,” Kame scoffed and got up on his feet from the couch, walking towards the… front door?
No way.
“Alright, alright!” Jin yelled after him and grabbed a hold of the hem of his shirt. “Let’s say… if these parallel universes would exist… then what?”
“I’m not quite sure if you can call them parallel,” Kame corrected him confidently. He seemed rather empathetic. Jin felt like he was being treated like a third grader idiot again. “They aren’t really parallel. Universes aren’t lines nor do they exist in a certain shape at a certain place. They don’t necessarily remain at a constant distance.”
“Too much theory,” Jin interjected the obvious science freak. Or maybe just a universe freak? He wouldn’t know. “…Is it necessary for me to know that?”
“Ah. No,” Kame shook his head and walked back again, crashing on the couch beside him. “I guess it isn’t. Don’t let me get started. But the point was that different universes do exist.”
“And you’re from elsewhere,” Jin repeated what Kame had told him, still feeling reluctant to believe anything. “As in, from an entirely other universe. Somewhere… can I say out there?” he asked, waving his hand with a wide motion. Kame grinned. It was so odd how he seemed so scientific about it when it was just pure… pure… science fiction story stuff!
“Say whatever you want to. I can’t exactly define where the ‘out there’ is, but they do exist and the portals aren’t really here. They’re in the continuum.”
Too much information for his everything-but-scientific brains. Way too much. Jin grimaced. How the hell did he run into a science nerd? He had always felt like an idiot around them. All he knew about science was random snippet information about sex, basics of biology, physics and chemistry (including the “never ever put an egg into the microwave” just as a classy example learned from experience) but that was pretty much about it. Literature had always worked better for him as it was fictional. He could quiz his friends about real work and write normal every day romance novels. One didn’t need much science and education for that.
He shook his head. Too much thinking. Universes. He was supposed to think about some goddamn fucking universes that, apparently, existed.
How delightful. He really couldn’t take any simplicity for granted then.
“I’m getting lost in the terms,” Jin admitted humbly. “Just give the story, will you? What the hell just happened? Why are you here?”
“I was the apprentice of a man who did a lot of research on universes,” Kame started. “For years we did research and some practical experiments. He took me in when I was 11 years old and since then he let me participate in everything. I was all alone and he guided me, educated me and took care of me. Pretty much everything I’m knowledgeable with is connected to universes, though,” he smiled tiredly. “His passion.”
“But he was killed,” Jin nodded, remembering little bits of their earlier conversation. He didn’t sound too unsympathetic, did he? “And now you want revenge. Why are they after you?”
“For the exact same reason why they killed my mentor,” Kame admitted and stumped his cigarette to the ashtray. “They want the information we gathered. We got a breakthrough. It was only about testing it anymore but it works.”
“So they do want you alive?” Jin sighed, relieved. Kame snorted.
“It’s that and the same, really. The information is on the chip attached to my brains,” Kame informed him, looking up at his eyes and patting the temple that wasn’t under the ice pack. “I’d potentially be of great help but all they really need is that chip.”
Now that wasn’t calming.
“Their knowledge about matter’s ability to switch and re-attach itself to another universe is limited,” Kame continued, getting on with his universe-knowledge spree again. Jin got ready to lose the track and kept nodding enthusiastically in order to at least appear smart. “It requires a tier. Its composition is extremely difficult to determine, never mind getting a hold of everything and making sure it’s attached.”
“A tier,” Jin nodded. “…What tier?”
Kame held up his pinky. There was a rather thick ring made of what seemed to be yellow gold. Simple with no carvings or stones. Jin’s eyebrows rose.
“The ring?”
Kame nodded and patted his head. “Good boy.”
“WHAT?!” Jin exclaimed, withdrawing grumpily and slapping the other man’s hand away. Kame merely laughed. “What?!”
“You just appeared to be out of everything so I thought it was good you could at least understand something when it’s made simple enough,” Kame tried to make him feel better and pursed his lips. “I guess all of this is just too complex for you.”
“It is not!” Jin argued back, crossing his arms furiously. “Continue. I dare you to. Continue. I will get it.”
“Alright, prepare yourself,” Kame teased, an intelligent glimmer in his eyes. “Anyway, of course the setting is just as ridiculously stupid and cliché as any ordinary science fiction novel’s - the bad guy wants to take over the universes. Who cares simply about the world when you can do so much more? Human nature,” he scoffed coldly. Jin couldn’t help but agree. From what he could conclude from his world it all sounded pretty legit. Except for the whole universe stuff, of course. Shit. “Of course he’s doing his best to avoid any possible rivals so he keeps it low. His force isn’t very big. You just met it,” he noted. “Those are his first-hand men, carefully selected to hunt me down. Isn’t that lovely?”
Jin nodded. It was rather impressive. “All of that just for you?”
“Just for me. Plus all the resources and research. They’re trying to turn Tackey’s old place upside down in search for the knowledge we managed to acquire. Too bad they realised that the person who slipped away has all the answers,” Kame sighed. “And since the universes just keep splitting and splitting I, and most likely my uncountable multiples, have a hard time escaping all the forces. It’s good to have an advantage though,” he grinned. “They’re still missing the tier. Well, they do have some sort of a tier - that’s why they can stay at least for a while. Otherwise it’d be impossible for them to leave their natural universe.”
“So what happens if you don’t have a tier?” Jin asked. Kame bit his lip and gulped, raising his pinky again and leaning in.
“If I lose this I lose my stabilizer. I lose my own matter and snap away from this world,” he stated slowly. “If I lose this I won’t be able to escape.”
Understandable enough. Jin felt the urge to nod again. “So no matter what you cannot lose it?”
“I cannot lose it,” Kame repeated his words to add emphasis. “No matter what.”
“Is that the only one you have?” Jin asked curiously. “One of a kind? Can you make more?”
“Not with my resources, no,” Kame shook his head. “It’s the only copy that exists. Except for the ones my multiples are carrying, of course.”
“I don’t get this multiple stuff,” Jin grimaced. “What multiples?”
“Universes are splitting,” Kame tried to explain. “You can’t even calculate the speed, it’s unbelievable. Every choice and action, anything that could’ve gone differently basically, tears away and creates a new alternative. It’s happening even as I speak.”
He was seriously getting the chills, alright? Jin groaned. Too much to comprehend. Maybe Kame was a nutcase. Why was he even listening? He should’ve been calling the white jackets.
“Are you telling me there are millions of Jins somewhere… uh… out there?” Jin asked, fearing the answer. He didn’t feel quite so unique anymore. Kame shook his head.
“No, I’m telling you there are gazillions and gazillions of yous out there. You just can’t imagine the number. Some are exactly like you, some are almost exactly like you with only slight differences and some are completely different. Wherever life has gotten them.”
Quite disturbing. Jin drew in a deep breath. Freaky.
“So they want… uh… a chip in your brain to… uh… learn how to travel through universes… properly?” Jin tried to sum up his acquired knowledge slowly. Kame nodded. “If it’s so hard why don’t they just figure it out themselves?”
“Because Tackey was the best,” Kame stated. “My mentor. Takizawa Hideaki. He was the best of the best. What we have collected is the result of over ten years of investigation. Who knows how long it will take them to get as far as we did? What if a rival comes along and does better? It’s a run now,” Kame nodded, licking his lips uneasily. “Their best option is to hunt me and my knowledge down.”
“I’m curious, didn’t anyone try to ambush you earlier?” Jin asked, tilting his head slightly. “Researching something like that sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Kame admitted. “But we kept well-hidden. No collaborations, as little contact with the outside world as possible. Every piece of information was well protected. Even with me almost no one really knew my name, some neighbours didn’t even know of my existence. We had a good cover. It just finally cracked,” Kame mumbled, pursing his lips anxiously. His eyes were getting darker again. “…It’s my fault.”
“How is it your fault?” Jin tried to ask. Kame merely shook his head and got up on his feet, sniffing anxiously.
The conversation seemed to have come to a halt.
Maybe he shouldn’t press on it. It was a serious deal for Kame. …It was his entire world.
“Do you have fresh clothes for me?” Kame mumbled, removing the ice bag from his swollen face again. Jin nodded and headed towards the bedroom, head still spinning. He wished he could’ve understood. Or at least absorbed everything like a sponge. Now he just felt utterly confused.
It could be merely a dream. It really could.
Kame dropped the pea bag to the sink on their way and Jin went ahead to rummage through his closet, pulling out a plain white V-necked T-shirt and a pair of baggy college trousers. Kame took them gratefully and tried to measure the trouser size with his hips.
“Ah, you’re so skinny,” Jin realised and grunted. “Those are going to fall off.”
“Do you have anything smaller?” Kame tried, his cheeks burning slightly reddish. “…You don’t, do you?”
“I do, I do, don’t worry,” Jin insisted and dug deeper in his closet, going through his big stack of jeans. “…I don’t.”
Kame licked his lips and crossed his arms nervously. Jin felt sorry and awkward. Kame’s pants were ripped, dirty and soaked. Nevertheless, it was winter and Kame seemed to feel really uneasy about walking around in his boxers.
“Fuck,” he cursed and pulled out some jeans that he recalled were too small for himself. “Wait, I’ll get a belt and that should do. It’s your fault for being so skinny, I’m normal…” Well, he didn’t really know what normal was. Plus their body types were like the two opposites - he was manly and bulky whereas Kame was slim and lithe. …And he had more weight on.
Fuck weight.
He gave Kame one of his belts and Kame took it gratefully. Jin patted his shoulder.
“Take a shower,” he insisted and pushed Kame towards the bathroom. “You’re dirty and I think you might want those scrapes cleansed.”
“I’m fine,” Kame insisted but walked towards the bathroom nevertheless. Shower had probably already been his motive when asking for fresh clothes. He had worn his own ones since Jin had first met him. God they needed to be washed.
Kame turned around after reaching the door, still an uneasy look on his face. Jin looked at him awkwardly and realised he was still standing rooted when he should’ve probably fucked off elsewhere. Damn it.
“Ah, I’ll go?” he stuttered and laughed. “I’ll be next. Just come when you’re ready.”
“Jin,” Kame stopped him before he left. Jin turned to look at him. …He really seemed exhausted.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Kame requested, licking his lips nervously again. “You attacked them and they saw you. It’s not safe. They know you’re with me so… stay inside.”
…Kame worried for him? Jin pursed his lips, feeling dumbfounded. He nodded and mumbled something that was at least supposed to resemble an agreement.
“Just… just take a shower,” he pulled a smile at Kame and tried to brush him off. “I’m not going anywhere without taking one myself.”
Kame slipped in and closed the door behind him. Jin listened to the quiet snap of the lock.
Perhaps he should start worrying about himself. If Kame did already then it could really be called for.
Then again, Kame was paranoid. But they had seen them. …But with all the universe splitting how big of an army had he after himself?
He groaned. Great.
He really should start worrying.
--
“What are you doing?” Jin asked as Kame sat on the floor with a candle and some strange equipment. Kame yanked him closer from his wrist, almost making him fall over as he started wrapping measuring tape around his pinky.
Kame pulled the measuring tape back, checked it and started adjusting his equipment quietly. Jin pursed his lips. One of the things that pissed him off the most was being obviously included in something but having no one answer and tell what was going on.
“Hey-!” he started aggressively but Kame cocked his head towards the kitchen, still engrossed in… well, whatever he was doing.
“Get me an ice bag,” he requested. Great. Now he was being bossed around in his own apartment too, wasn’t he? Not to mention all of his frozen food would melt with the speed Kame required them.
“Why-”
“Can you just please go and get one?” Kame asked, turning his gaze up and stopping momentarily. “I’m going to need it.”
He didn’t feel like getting one. Not when he was being treated the way he was.
He sat to the ground, crossed his arms and shook his head in refusal. Kame looked up at him, seeming tight and annoyed.
“No,” Jin refused verbally. “I want to know what you’re doing. I’m involved now, I don’t want to hear excuses or be shrugged away.”
Kame glared at him and poured some silvery pearls in a… what was it? A mould?
He dropped a few drops of some unidentified liquid in the pearls and used the candle to light things up. Jin wailed and shot to his feet.
“I have a fire alarm, you know!” he exclaimed and rushed to go and turn it off. Kame didn’t seem to bother caring much. Asshole. Whatever he was doing. A science junkie. Instead he was slipping some thin whatever, that almost resembled plastic but still not quite, under the ring on his pinky. “Show at least some respect to my home! If you start a fire I’m going to kill you!”
He turned around to see Kame pressing his lips into a thin line in anxious anticipation and… dropping a couple of droplets on his own pinky ring he was still wearing?
Wait a second. That felt threatening.
“Hey Kame, you aren’t going to-?”
Flames lit up and Kame’s hand jerked in pain. Jin froze.
What the hell was Kame doing?!
“KAME, WHAT THE FUCK?!” Jin exclaimed in shock and fear, rushing over to his friend who merely tried to push him off, struggling to do whatever he was doing. Jin felt panic.
“Don’t m-make me accidentally s-set you on fire!” Kame managed to roar, holding his wrist as his hands shook violently in pain. The golden ring in his hand melted slowly, dripping tiny droplets to the mould.
Ah. This must’ve been the reason why Kame had been asking for an ice bag.
What the hell was he doing? He was going to burn his finger off!
Jin dashed to the freezer, pulling out several bags and towels before coming back. Kame’s eyes were barely open as he used some sort of stick to reform the ring in his hand as well as he could. Jin was still shaking.
Kame reached for another bottle with his convulsing hand but knocked it over. Jin picked it up for him and opened it. Kame seemed grateful.
“F-f-in-ger,” he managed to whimper and Jin poured half of the small bottle’s contents on Kame’s hand. The flame died out and Kame fell on his back, still obviously shaking in pain.
Alright, now he was worried. Kame’s finger was burning red and white and seemed to be developing really nasty burn marks and blisters. He didn’t even want to know what degree burn it was. It had to be a bad one.
He crawled on top of the man, took a hold of his wrist and kept his hand tightly in place as he pressed an ice bag on the finger. Kame screeched and convulsed, trying to get away but Jin insisted.
“It’s burnt, Kame. I need to cool it down,” he apologized. Kame seemed out of breath and kept opening his mouth, trying to form some incoherent words but only succeeding in wailing tearfully. Jin kept gulping, trying to force the man to stay still.
He had to be insane.
Kame was sweating and crying silently, pressing his face in Jin’s shoulder and holding on tightly to his sleeve with his better hand as he tried to cool down his wound and not give Kame a frost bite on top of everything. It was a tough job. Especially when he couldn’t help but grow more and more worried.
Slowly Kame seemed to start getting a hold of himself, still pained but more coherent. Jin helped him sit up and Kame kept leaning to his chest. Jin didn’t dare pushing him away. Kame really had to be in pain.
“P-p-pour the l-liquid to the mould,” Kame managed to grunt, hissing in pain as he managed to take the ice bag from Jin’s hand and hold it on his own, hands still shaking. Jin obeyed jumpily and the fire died out soon as the first droplet came down to the flames. Kame was biting his whitened lips.
“Put it on,” he requested. Jin glared at him.
“It is a ring,” he realised and stared at Kame in disbelief. “You burned your finger for a fucking ring? Are you completely out of your mind?!”
“Put. It. On,” Kame demanded, meeting his stare with his own. He was gaining his strength and grip of himself back. He seemed to be quite a glarer, alright. Jin gulped but stubbornly remained seated. “If we need to change the scenery you’ll need it. You’ll be risking your life if you won’t have it on so put it on. I owe it to you.”
“For the fight?” Jin snorted, still angry at Kame’s actions. “You fucking burned your finger because you felt like you owed me? Because of a fight?!”
“Because you were seen!” Kame shot back at him furiously. “Do you have any idea what I’ve dragged you in?! I would’ve preferred not to but now that the damage is done it’s completely my fault and I owe it to you.”
Jin bit his lip. …Kame was fucking insane.
“But you burned your finger,” he kept insisting childishly. “Are you a fucking maniac or something?”
For a brief moment Kame actually seemed genuinely hurt by his words. Jin felt his standpoint falter. But still… no one who was sane did that. It must’ve hurt like hell. No, it had to still be burning like hell and the pain would continue for… how long did burn marks last for? A long time anyway.
He wasn’t even sure if a burn of that degree needed some special caretaking.
“I’ll take care of it when you slip your ring on,” Kame offered, lowering his voice in order to create some sort of peace between them. He didn’t feel very fond of an argument either, not now. Well, he was in pain. Jin had to understand.
He couldn’t let Kame be untreated, could he?
“Fuck you, Kamenashi,” he muttered coldly and forced the (thankfully) cold ring from its mould. He slipped the cool metal ring on his finger. It seemed almost perfectly silver except for a flawed golden wave on one side. Kame sighed, relaxing a bit.
“I have my first aid kit on my bag,” he offered and lied down on the floor. Jin grew worried again but couldn’t help noticing that Kame seemed to trust him enough to let him go through his bag.
He dug out a bright blue zipped up bag from within Kame’s rucksack and opened it. Tubes, wrapping, painkillers and whatever. It was a bit hard to see exactly what it contained because it felt a bit like a miniature portable hospital.
It shouldn’t have been so amusing.
“Light yellow tube. It has a label where it reads that it’s salve for burns,” Kame mumbled tiredly from the floor. Jin started taking things out of the small bag in order to find what he was looking for. “And take some bandage too. I don’t think I want any dirt in this.”
Jin held out the salve for Kame who took it gratefully, removed the cap and started adding it to the wound. It looked like a nasty job. Jin wondered how Kame managed. His ability to tolerate pain had to be high.
In the end it was Jin who wrapped up the finger. It was also Jin who cleaned up Kame’s belongings and placed them inside the bag. He did understand why and didn’t object, though. More like insisted.
Kame really had well enough with tolerating the pain.
The rest of the day was silent and not once did Kame work on that mysterious necklace of his, nor did they speak a word about the absurdity of Kame’s world, issues and plans. Kame seemed way too preoccupied with his thoughts. Jin figured maybe it was better for him to try to digest what he had already gotten out of the younger man first before forcing more out of him.
--
“I’m not coming today, Pi,” Jin muttered to his mobile phone, leaning against the corridor wall. The strong painkillers Kame had taken had already put him into a deep slumber on his bed and he didn’t dare waking the man up. Maybe it was better to sleep and relax than suffer and worry. “Something came up. I promise later but… not tonight.”
“Alright then,” his friend sighed, obviously disappointed but still understanding. “Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s alright,” Jin agreed after thinking about it for a little. As ridiculous as it was, it did feel like things were fine. It wasn’t like anyone was going to find them where they were. “Something just came up with Kame so I’ll stick with him tonight. We’ll see another day. I’ll see if you can come over tomorrow.”
“Alright. Tell Kame-chan I said hi. He seemed nice,” Pi mumbled. “Maybe a bit boring but it isn’t like I really know him.”
Boring? Was Pi serious? It felt so weird to think about Kame as boring anymore. He hazily recalled a time he had felt the same way himself but now…
“You’d be surprised how fascinating he can be,” Jin smiled as he talked to the phone. “He’s got a lot up his sleeve.”
“Oh. Well, good for him.”
“Mm,” Jin agreed. “I’ll see you another time. I promise. I’ll make this up to you.”
“Take me out to watch that cool movie I’ve been talking about. Yuuka refuses. Apparently it’s too scary for her. I’m sick of chick flicks.”
Of course. Jin grimaced. The horror movie. He really, really sucked with horror movies.
“Alright,” he agreed. He could still manage to turn Pi’s head in the theatres, he was sure. Pi was easy to play sometimes. “I promise.”
He ended the call and sighed.
Time passed slowly when he was the only one awake.
--
Time passed slowly. For some reason conversing felt difficult so the two of them found themselves getting bored playing card and board games on the living room floor, wrapped up in warm blankets as the floor heating acted just as bitchily as the owner of the said apartment.
Kame didn’t seem fond of going out in order to keep their hiding place… well, hidden. Lately all they had had for lunch and dinner had been canned beans and bread his mother had thankfully once stacked in his freezer.
It was starting to come out of his ears by now, though. Real food would’ve been really, really nice fuck damn it.
Jin threw the dices and moved his game piece accordingly. He was leading. Snakes and ladders, they had printed it out on a paper from somewhere online and were using bread crumbs as game pieces. Kame claimed to have never known such a game. Whether it was because of universal differences or Kame’s childhood deprivation, neither knew. At least it made it easier for him to kick Kame’s ass. Even if it was just a game that required pure luck.
“Phantom!”
Jin stared at Kame, dumbfounded. Where had that come from?
“Roger that. Shoot me,” Kame answered seemingly to nothing at all. He seemed alarmed and ready to jump up all of sudden. Jin started growing uneasy as well. What was going on?
“They’ve got your location. And they know your company, that’s how they figured it out. Akanishi Jin, right? 5th floor-”
“Shit,” Kame cursed. “How long?”
“Five minutes. Get moving.”
The voice sounded familiar. He just couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before.
He hated being out of things.
Kame checked his pendant, threw his rucksack over his shoulder and yanked Jin by the arm. Jin stumbled on his feet. Wait, what? Now? Now? Where were they going?!
“My stuff-” he started but Kame stopped him by pushing him to the hallway and ripping jackets from the clothing rack for both of them. Jin slipped his on and Kame merely held onto his own.
“Out-”
The door exploded right in front of him.
That had not been five minutes. Not even nearly.
He stumbled backwards with a pained cry and felt his skin bruising. It fucking hurt. Everything was surrounded by thick smoke and… he just wasn’t really aware of anything anymore.
There was a sound of a shot. He felt himself stumble backwards. Pain somewhere on his left side. …Was his shirt getting wet?
Things happened too fast.
There was a quiet crack and for a moment all Jin felt was airy bliss all around him except for arms strongly wrapping themselves around him and clinging on. He was surrounded by a nauseating swirl of melding colours and flashes.
Where was he again?
Author: prologuesized
Pairing: Akame (Short side-pairings: Jin/OC, Pi/OC - hopefully it won't scare you away, though, I tried to keep them readable)
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Sci-fi, Romance, Adventure, Action
Disclaimer: Actually, I own a couple of side-characters. That's about it.
Summary: Akanishi Jin lives the life of a writer stuck in a world he feels he has no control over or pressing interest on. However, everything changes when he drives over a stranger by the name of Kamenashi Kazuya - a man who proves to be from an another world and universe entirely, whisking him away to an adventure through universes and time in order to fulfil his vendetta and stop his enemy from succeeding in his plan to maintain reign over as many universes as possible and starting out a universe-wide war.
Author Note: Heere we go! I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through the fic and now I’m actually starting to get some stuff in and started. Well, it should start getting interesting from now on. Hopefully you’ll agree on that…
Enjoy the crazy.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,800
Chapter 3
Jin stood sulkily against the wall, his arms crossed and a bubble gum slowly expanding as it formed into a carbon dioxide filled bubble. Kame threw his back bag properly on and nodded at him, bowing his head slightly.
Jin burst the bubble and chewed the soft material back inside his mouth, trying to find any kind of farewell words. It was amusingly odd how empty his brains felt like. Well, he wasn’t the best with goodbyes. It wasn’t as if he would’ve even known Kame for a long time either. For all he knew, Kame was a complete and odd stranger who had just hit his place for an unexpectedly long time.
He was getting soft.
Kame inhaled a long breath and his tongue sneaked out of his mouth to lick his lip nervously, a habit Jin had long ago picked up on.
Jin started the production of another gum bubble, waiting for the opening of his own wordy chest. Somehow it felt a bit distant though. Probably because they didn’t really know each other, he convinced himself again with a mental nod. Insignificant people were just that exactly - insignificant. It wasn’t as if he bothered much, nor had much to say.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” Kame bowed politely, a bit stiff and seemingly uneasy himself. Jin smirked at him and sucked the bubble in again. He really had to get his voice back.
“Thank you for keeping company,” he answered, bowing himself. “You were really nice to be around even if I still don’t get you at all. I guess you’re just weird like that.”
Kame laughed, his cheeks rising and eyes shaped blissfully into mere thin lines. Jin smiled to himself too, offering his hand to the other man. Kame shook it and Jin knew that was going to be it, no phone numbers or contact information exchanged.
It was alright, though.
“Take care,” he smiled at his short-term friend again, opening the door to the cool early winter city setting. Kame stepped out after jamming his hands in his thin leather jacket’s pockets, making Jin sigh.
“Wait,” he insisted and surprise spread on Kame’s oval face when he started going through the clothing racks. Eventually he pulled out one of his winter jackets, a red and black chequered one, and offered it to Kame who shook his head awkwardly.
“No, I can’t take it,” he grimaced. “It’s yours. I’ve been abusing your hospitality well enough already.”
“Take it,” Jin demanded and forced the jacket on the slimmer man’s hands. Kame shivered slightly in the cold. He grinned at him. “Just put it on, stay warm and go.”
“Thank you,” Kame found it in him to repeat the two words once again as he pulled the jacket on over his thin leather one. It was way too big on him but looked fine nevertheless. At least he seemed warmer and more taken care of.
“I’ll be off now,” Kame said his goodbyes once again as he opened the door, still somehow lingering. Jin smiled and nodded, waving his hand dismissively. Kame turned around and walked away.
Not wanting to appear clingy Jin closed the door and walked back inside the apartment.
It was odd how quiet it was. It wasn’t like Kame would’ve always been loud - actually, during his stay he had been rather quiet. Maybe it was just Jin’s mind making up all the visions of him being happy, talkative and loud. He couldn’t recall many such situations.
He strolled to the window and looked out at the man heading his way through the wet and dirty streets. Kame smelled the sleeve of his jacket with an unreadable expression and Jin stared at him with his lips pursed as Kame’s eyes slid shut. Was Kame merely trying to smell something familiar or did he smell foul?
He smelled his armpit and grimaced, burying his face in his hands. Of course.
As Kame disappeared to the crowded streets he slumped to the bathroom and turned the shower on. His pipes were stupid enough to take at least five minutes before heating the water. Kame (and he on his first time too, not even mentioning any visitors he accidentally forgot to warn or purposefully bullied) had learned it the hard way. The term “cold shower” got a very new meaning when it came to his shower.
He shed off his clothes, waited, and finally stepped under the spring.
All Kame had taken from him was that one jacket. It didn’t matter much. He had a same jacket in blue colour anyway.
The quiet feeling was merely about the jacket. He had been pretty fond of it.
--
He had almost forgotten what it was like without company in-between spending his days writing books when his friends worked. His day was spent strolling around the mall in search for at least relatively fascinating DVD boxes (mostly American stuff, he found himself preferring their culture and way of making TV shows and movies), new suits and some casual but fashionable clothes he could feel at ease wearing when he was lazing around at home or at a club or going to some promoting events with a strong suit ban. Fuckers. The way he dressed was none of their business.
He had his iPod and expensive, huge earphones on as he strolled down the streets to the outer parts of the city. The bass was brilliant, drums made his insides tremble pleasurably and he felt like wasting some more of his pointless time by walking rather than jumping on a bus that would’ve made a stop just two blocks away from his apartment.
He lit up a cigarette, drawing smoke in and stretching when something crashed into him from his right so fast and hard that he didn’t have time to realise something was happening, never mind actually reacting.
Instead, he hit the ground. The scrapes he got hurt and his earphones slid off.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM!?” he roared furiously, wishing to at least scare the idiot of a person off for revenge. He did not get taken down without revenge. The poor individual was going to pretty fucking well feel it.
He was going to say a very memorable hello with a fist.
Before that happened, however, the person rolled off him and back on his feet with a swift motion as if from a well-practiced martial art and was dashed at by three people all at once. One person appeared as the previous three were midway to his target, looking around and quickly sprinting after the others.
Jin merely sat where he was and blinked in confusion. The world had just stopped making sense to him.
Kame struck his fist in one of the men’s jaw, making him stumble for a few steps backwards, headed at Jin whose arms shot up in defence. Oh fucking hell. The disco song blasting from the ear phones felt amusingly absurd.
The man did collide with him with such speed and force that he fell over, landing on Jin’s lap. Oh great. Now he was becoming a civilian casualty, wasn’t he? He had nothing to do with this! As if he hadn’t spent well enough time at the police station already and had his papers stained with assaults and a case of public nudity which was never ever to be talked about and that was only because he had been drunk, lost a bet and failing to hook up with a girl-!
“Another Kamenashi,” a pretty-faced man clicked his tongue and grabbed Kame’s wrist. Kame twisted him and managed to get loose but wasn’t able to dodge the fist flying his way, bruising the corner of his eye.
The man on Jin shoved him to the ground harshly and moved back on his feet, approaching Kame furiously. Jin sensed danger and stumbled back on his feet. A smaller guy approached him nervously, obviously not a natural fighter.
“Sir, may I ask you to stand back for your own well-being-”
Polite in this situation? What was he, a joke?
Jin pushed the little man away from his way and back to the smaller alley without the slightest hint of pity. Someone he knew seemed to be in a way more urgent condition to care about than complete strangers.
The pretty-faced man disappeared with a quiet crack (or was it a swoosh?) and the tallest man whined, jamming his foot to the ground, discontented. Nobody except for Jin seemed startled about the matter.
For him? It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Paranoia grew over him. Maybe the man had become invisible?
He whined. Now this had to be a dream. He had taken the bus after all and fallen asleep on one of the benches and this was the outcome, he was sure. There was no way people were really appearing and disappearing right in front of his eyes.
He wasn’t that lonely yet! He was not hallucinating. Was not.
“Come with us and we’ll see if you can argue yourself a deal, Kame-chan,” the same gangster who had previously fallen on him offered threateningly at Kame, patting his swollen cheekbone gently with his fingertips. “You could become our scientist. I’m sure Yokoyama would kindly consider ditching Subaru for you. You learned from the very best after all, isn’t that right?”
Kame’s eyes flared up and he forgot about his wrists completely, dashing at the other man and starting a violent wrestle on their feet. Jin dodged them as they stumbled his way, wondering why everyone seemed insistent on coming at his way. He couldn’t be that big of a problem magnet.
“Koki!” the taller man wailed and dashed after the fighting pair, trying to catch a strong hold of the struggling Kame. “No unnecessary fight!”
“Well he isn’t coming without a fight!” Koki defended himself as Kame tried to struggle away from the two of them in vain. Panic took over his eyes. The smaller guy was jogging to their direction as well.
One thing crossed Jin’s mind: Kame did not appear to want to be there. On top of that, the people were holding him against his will and hurting him.
He dashed at them, threw the smaller man violently away again and attacked the gangster (Koki, if he understood correctly) with all his strength and high school period practice, knocking him down with a busted lip and airless lungs. The tallest man looked at him with his eyes wide in surprise and sudden fear before he kicked him in his calves at the same time when Kame yanked strongly again, got loose, turned around and sent a fairly decent kick on his hipbone, knocking him down.
“Fu-” only managed to leave the gangster’s voice before he disappeared. Kame smiled smugly at the two remaining attackers, brushed his hair back from his sweaty forehead and took a ready position.
“Ready to crawl back in your own place?” he asked kindly. The smaller man seemed to be retreating but the tallest man hesitated.
Jin, however, didn’t. No matter how stupid of a fighter the goofy man looked, he wasn’t taking any chances, never mind with anyone he didn’t even know.
He drew his fist back, took a few steps forwards in order to gain more force in his fist and attacked ferociously. Had he known previously that he was still a natural in gang fights he might’ve been concerned about his potential on the wrong kind of business but none of it made a difference now.
Both of the men panicked and disappeared without further casualties. Jin panted heavily and turned to look at a bruised Kame. The man’s jaw was bloody and he seemed to have bitten his tongue and bruised his lip rather badly.
Kame grimaced as the pain settled better in and grasped a strong hold of his wrist, bending over. Jin rushed to his side concernedly. Kame shouldn’t have used that hand quite yet to give blows like that to other human beings.
“Get my bag,” Kame ordered as he sat on the ground, hands shaking. Jin worried about letting his eyes leave the man but tore his eyes away and tried to focus on searching for the bag in question before Kame grunted and pointed at the alleyway with his healthy hand and spat blood on the ground.
Kame laughed a bit as he returned and sat besides the man. It felt absurd.
“Are you alright?” he asked concernedly, trying to wipe the man’s chin with his hand but failing rather pathetically. “What the hell just..?”
Kame pushed his hand away and spat on his hand, trying to use hydration to cleanse his skin better. It might’ve worked better if his saliva wasn’t bloody as it was. Jin sighed.
“You’re quite a fighter,” Kame sniffed, his words sounding thick. Maybe his tongue had swollen? “Didn’t expect that from you. You always struck me as a boring person.”
What a nice thing to hear. Jin grimaced.
“I was the class leader in high school,” he informed the other man. “The rebel. It’s a miracle I graduated.” Well, he had to give it to Kame that it was something that was difficult to see in him anymore. Everyone probably had their worst phases. His had just been exceptionally bad.
“Well, thank you anyway,” Kame bowed his head to him, trying to wipe his chin again. Jin spat on his own hand, trying to help. He hoped Kame didn’t mind but he couldn’t possibly walk around in that shape.
“It’s alright,” Kame insisted, shying away from his touch stiffly. Jin snarled and pulled Kame closer, helping by force. Kame’s muscles were hard to the touch. “I’m fine, really.”
“In what sense? And what the hell just happened?” Jin demanded to know. Kame sighed, rolling his eyes and rising back on his feet, flipping his back bag on again.
“In every sense,” Kame informed. “They didn’t get anything crucial from me and neither did they succeed in dragging me along with them. They’re still just as out of things as they’ve previously been, trying to go with luck. Too bad for them luck doesn’t match skills.”
Jin let Kame pull him on his feet. His hand was cold from the cool air and Jin realised that the ground had stained both of their clothes fairly more than decently. He sighed and looked at Kame’s eyes again. Kame was confidently staring at him. It was maybe the slightest bit of disturbing even if it did feel oddly warm.
He picked up his belongings, turned his iPod off and jammed it in his jacket’s pocket. Kame was more fascinating now.
“I want to know everything,” Jin claimed, pursing his lips as he drew in a deep breath in anticipation. Kame managed to throw at him something between a grimace and a pained smile before he started walking along the pathway. Jin ran after him and sandwiched himself between the ugly concrete walls of the buildings and Kame’s bony shoulders.
“Everything is something I can’t tell,” Kame apologized, a smile playing on his lips, gaze never meeting his as it continued onwards the same way his dragging feet worked. “If I tell you something you’re a part of this. It is not a road where you can return from.”
“First I want you to tell me who the bad guy is,” Jin concluded. First things first. Kame’s smile slowly died away as a bitter and cold look filled his eyes, drowning the kindness and joy of life underneath.
“The thing is that both sides are the bad guys,” Kame answered his question. “It’s just about which side you see as the worse one.”
“How can it be so?” Jin wondered. “So this isn’t a battle between good and bad or anything?”
Kame shook his head, legs dragging slowly onwards. Jin could imagine ash clouding him, drying their mouths and stinging in their eyes that were about to start watering.
The mental image wanted to form into a book. He held on to the feeling as it tried to catch his breath away.
“So what is it exactly that you’re a bad guy for?” Jin tried pushily, growing more and more serious every second. “What makes you a bad guy?”
“I want to kill somebody,” Kame answered nonchalantly, still not turning his gaze to Jin. Jin fell silent. “It all might’ve started on my side but no matter what I will not stop until I’ve had my revenge.”
Kame’s hands curled into tight fists as he walked and his head bowed slightly down under the invisible weight. Jin clasped a hold of his arm, trying to shake him off the weird state with physical contact.
“What have they done then?” he insisted on knowing. “I can’t judge with only a small glimpse of the story.”
Kame smiled bitterly, glancing around the dirty streets as they walked. Jin gulped, disliking the sudden murderous aura Kame was emitting. There was an entirely other kind of person before him than the one who smiled and did all kinds of kind gestures. This one had a heart too, yes - it was just inflicted to the point where it ceased pumping warmth in him anymore.
“They killed my mentor,” Kame answered, ice tearing through every syllable.
Silence didn’t always feel heavy and frozen, Jin knew that - he often experienced somewhat enjoyable silences, the kind that made every participant feel warm, fuzzy and comfortable. What was odd about the particular following silence was the disturbing mix of the good and bad.
Condolences were absolutely useless when simply spoken.
“You’re coming back at my house,” he finally said. Kame snapped his head at him, surprise in his eyes. Jin bit his lips and tried to smirk but it turned more into a grimace. “Look at you. I can’t even let you walk around on your own without having you pick up a fight, can I?”
“…Thank you,” Kame bowed his head but Jin pushed his shoulder dismissively.
“It’s what friends do,” he justified his decision. “We take care of each other. I’m expecting a nice and juicy story when we get there, though. To serve as a payment, of course. You don’t appear all too wealthy or capable of maintaining a job.”
Kame merely nodded and searched for his hand. Jin wasn’t sure if he was happy or not that he couldn’t feel the man’s pulse with his hand.
He wasn’t exactly sure whether he wanted to know and speculate anything.
--
Jin shook his head. No no no no no. No fucking way. Ever. Kame took a long drag out of his cigarette, a bag of peas from the freezer wrapped in a kerchief and pressed on the quickly swelling and bruised corner of his eye. Had he not been so shocked and still out of it Jin might’ve found it in himself to feel some sympathy. Now, however, it was not going to happen.
“You can’t tell me you’re a hardcore realist,” Kame mumbled, removing the ice pack from his eye for a brief while. Probably didn’t want to get frostbitten. “Or well, knowing you, you might actually fit the part.”
“This is too absurd,” Jin shook his head. “I’m not gullible enough to believe you. You’re trying to fill my head with shit.”
“Then where did all those people disappear to? Thin air?” Kame snorted and blew smoke out of his nostrils, relaxed. Jin bit his lip. He hadn’t quite been able to accept that fact yet. “Of course there are different universes. People have been aware of their possibility for centuries, it’s just that people haven’t had the skill and knowledge to pass and travel through them.”
“Well maybe that’s your universe. I mean,” Jin grimaced, “No. Just no. Universes and whatnot, no.”
“Alright then,” Kame scoffed and got up on his feet from the couch, walking towards the… front door?
No way.
“Alright, alright!” Jin yelled after him and grabbed a hold of the hem of his shirt. “Let’s say… if these parallel universes would exist… then what?”
“I’m not quite sure if you can call them parallel,” Kame corrected him confidently. He seemed rather empathetic. Jin felt like he was being treated like a third grader idiot again. “They aren’t really parallel. Universes aren’t lines nor do they exist in a certain shape at a certain place. They don’t necessarily remain at a constant distance.”
“Too much theory,” Jin interjected the obvious science freak. Or maybe just a universe freak? He wouldn’t know. “…Is it necessary for me to know that?”
“Ah. No,” Kame shook his head and walked back again, crashing on the couch beside him. “I guess it isn’t. Don’t let me get started. But the point was that different universes do exist.”
“And you’re from elsewhere,” Jin repeated what Kame had told him, still feeling reluctant to believe anything. “As in, from an entirely other universe. Somewhere… can I say out there?” he asked, waving his hand with a wide motion. Kame grinned. It was so odd how he seemed so scientific about it when it was just pure… pure… science fiction story stuff!
“Say whatever you want to. I can’t exactly define where the ‘out there’ is, but they do exist and the portals aren’t really here. They’re in the continuum.”
Too much information for his everything-but-scientific brains. Way too much. Jin grimaced. How the hell did he run into a science nerd? He had always felt like an idiot around them. All he knew about science was random snippet information about sex, basics of biology, physics and chemistry (including the “never ever put an egg into the microwave” just as a classy example learned from experience) but that was pretty much about it. Literature had always worked better for him as it was fictional. He could quiz his friends about real work and write normal every day romance novels. One didn’t need much science and education for that.
He shook his head. Too much thinking. Universes. He was supposed to think about some goddamn fucking universes that, apparently, existed.
How delightful. He really couldn’t take any simplicity for granted then.
“I’m getting lost in the terms,” Jin admitted humbly. “Just give the story, will you? What the hell just happened? Why are you here?”
“I was the apprentice of a man who did a lot of research on universes,” Kame started. “For years we did research and some practical experiments. He took me in when I was 11 years old and since then he let me participate in everything. I was all alone and he guided me, educated me and took care of me. Pretty much everything I’m knowledgeable with is connected to universes, though,” he smiled tiredly. “His passion.”
“But he was killed,” Jin nodded, remembering little bits of their earlier conversation. He didn’t sound too unsympathetic, did he? “And now you want revenge. Why are they after you?”
“For the exact same reason why they killed my mentor,” Kame admitted and stumped his cigarette to the ashtray. “They want the information we gathered. We got a breakthrough. It was only about testing it anymore but it works.”
“So they do want you alive?” Jin sighed, relieved. Kame snorted.
“It’s that and the same, really. The information is on the chip attached to my brains,” Kame informed him, looking up at his eyes and patting the temple that wasn’t under the ice pack. “I’d potentially be of great help but all they really need is that chip.”
Now that wasn’t calming.
“Their knowledge about matter’s ability to switch and re-attach itself to another universe is limited,” Kame continued, getting on with his universe-knowledge spree again. Jin got ready to lose the track and kept nodding enthusiastically in order to at least appear smart. “It requires a tier. Its composition is extremely difficult to determine, never mind getting a hold of everything and making sure it’s attached.”
“A tier,” Jin nodded. “…What tier?”
Kame held up his pinky. There was a rather thick ring made of what seemed to be yellow gold. Simple with no carvings or stones. Jin’s eyebrows rose.
“The ring?”
Kame nodded and patted his head. “Good boy.”
“WHAT?!” Jin exclaimed, withdrawing grumpily and slapping the other man’s hand away. Kame merely laughed. “What?!”
“You just appeared to be out of everything so I thought it was good you could at least understand something when it’s made simple enough,” Kame tried to make him feel better and pursed his lips. “I guess all of this is just too complex for you.”
“It is not!” Jin argued back, crossing his arms furiously. “Continue. I dare you to. Continue. I will get it.”
“Alright, prepare yourself,” Kame teased, an intelligent glimmer in his eyes. “Anyway, of course the setting is just as ridiculously stupid and cliché as any ordinary science fiction novel’s - the bad guy wants to take over the universes. Who cares simply about the world when you can do so much more? Human nature,” he scoffed coldly. Jin couldn’t help but agree. From what he could conclude from his world it all sounded pretty legit. Except for the whole universe stuff, of course. Shit. “Of course he’s doing his best to avoid any possible rivals so he keeps it low. His force isn’t very big. You just met it,” he noted. “Those are his first-hand men, carefully selected to hunt me down. Isn’t that lovely?”
Jin nodded. It was rather impressive. “All of that just for you?”
“Just for me. Plus all the resources and research. They’re trying to turn Tackey’s old place upside down in search for the knowledge we managed to acquire. Too bad they realised that the person who slipped away has all the answers,” Kame sighed. “And since the universes just keep splitting and splitting I, and most likely my uncountable multiples, have a hard time escaping all the forces. It’s good to have an advantage though,” he grinned. “They’re still missing the tier. Well, they do have some sort of a tier - that’s why they can stay at least for a while. Otherwise it’d be impossible for them to leave their natural universe.”
“So what happens if you don’t have a tier?” Jin asked. Kame bit his lip and gulped, raising his pinky again and leaning in.
“If I lose this I lose my stabilizer. I lose my own matter and snap away from this world,” he stated slowly. “If I lose this I won’t be able to escape.”
Understandable enough. Jin felt the urge to nod again. “So no matter what you cannot lose it?”
“I cannot lose it,” Kame repeated his words to add emphasis. “No matter what.”
“Is that the only one you have?” Jin asked curiously. “One of a kind? Can you make more?”
“Not with my resources, no,” Kame shook his head. “It’s the only copy that exists. Except for the ones my multiples are carrying, of course.”
“I don’t get this multiple stuff,” Jin grimaced. “What multiples?”
“Universes are splitting,” Kame tried to explain. “You can’t even calculate the speed, it’s unbelievable. Every choice and action, anything that could’ve gone differently basically, tears away and creates a new alternative. It’s happening even as I speak.”
He was seriously getting the chills, alright? Jin groaned. Too much to comprehend. Maybe Kame was a nutcase. Why was he even listening? He should’ve been calling the white jackets.
“Are you telling me there are millions of Jins somewhere… uh… out there?” Jin asked, fearing the answer. He didn’t feel quite so unique anymore. Kame shook his head.
“No, I’m telling you there are gazillions and gazillions of yous out there. You just can’t imagine the number. Some are exactly like you, some are almost exactly like you with only slight differences and some are completely different. Wherever life has gotten them.”
Quite disturbing. Jin drew in a deep breath. Freaky.
“So they want… uh… a chip in your brain to… uh… learn how to travel through universes… properly?” Jin tried to sum up his acquired knowledge slowly. Kame nodded. “If it’s so hard why don’t they just figure it out themselves?”
“Because Tackey was the best,” Kame stated. “My mentor. Takizawa Hideaki. He was the best of the best. What we have collected is the result of over ten years of investigation. Who knows how long it will take them to get as far as we did? What if a rival comes along and does better? It’s a run now,” Kame nodded, licking his lips uneasily. “Their best option is to hunt me and my knowledge down.”
“I’m curious, didn’t anyone try to ambush you earlier?” Jin asked, tilting his head slightly. “Researching something like that sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” Kame admitted. “But we kept well-hidden. No collaborations, as little contact with the outside world as possible. Every piece of information was well protected. Even with me almost no one really knew my name, some neighbours didn’t even know of my existence. We had a good cover. It just finally cracked,” Kame mumbled, pursing his lips anxiously. His eyes were getting darker again. “…It’s my fault.”
“How is it your fault?” Jin tried to ask. Kame merely shook his head and got up on his feet, sniffing anxiously.
The conversation seemed to have come to a halt.
Maybe he shouldn’t press on it. It was a serious deal for Kame. …It was his entire world.
“Do you have fresh clothes for me?” Kame mumbled, removing the ice bag from his swollen face again. Jin nodded and headed towards the bedroom, head still spinning. He wished he could’ve understood. Or at least absorbed everything like a sponge. Now he just felt utterly confused.
It could be merely a dream. It really could.
Kame dropped the pea bag to the sink on their way and Jin went ahead to rummage through his closet, pulling out a plain white V-necked T-shirt and a pair of baggy college trousers. Kame took them gratefully and tried to measure the trouser size with his hips.
“Ah, you’re so skinny,” Jin realised and grunted. “Those are going to fall off.”
“Do you have anything smaller?” Kame tried, his cheeks burning slightly reddish. “…You don’t, do you?”
“I do, I do, don’t worry,” Jin insisted and dug deeper in his closet, going through his big stack of jeans. “…I don’t.”
Kame licked his lips and crossed his arms nervously. Jin felt sorry and awkward. Kame’s pants were ripped, dirty and soaked. Nevertheless, it was winter and Kame seemed to feel really uneasy about walking around in his boxers.
“Fuck,” he cursed and pulled out some jeans that he recalled were too small for himself. “Wait, I’ll get a belt and that should do. It’s your fault for being so skinny, I’m normal…” Well, he didn’t really know what normal was. Plus their body types were like the two opposites - he was manly and bulky whereas Kame was slim and lithe. …And he had more weight on.
Fuck weight.
He gave Kame one of his belts and Kame took it gratefully. Jin patted his shoulder.
“Take a shower,” he insisted and pushed Kame towards the bathroom. “You’re dirty and I think you might want those scrapes cleansed.”
“I’m fine,” Kame insisted but walked towards the bathroom nevertheless. Shower had probably already been his motive when asking for fresh clothes. He had worn his own ones since Jin had first met him. God they needed to be washed.
Kame turned around after reaching the door, still an uneasy look on his face. Jin looked at him awkwardly and realised he was still standing rooted when he should’ve probably fucked off elsewhere. Damn it.
“Ah, I’ll go?” he stuttered and laughed. “I’ll be next. Just come when you’re ready.”
“Jin,” Kame stopped him before he left. Jin turned to look at him. …He really seemed exhausted.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Kame requested, licking his lips nervously again. “You attacked them and they saw you. It’s not safe. They know you’re with me so… stay inside.”
…Kame worried for him? Jin pursed his lips, feeling dumbfounded. He nodded and mumbled something that was at least supposed to resemble an agreement.
“Just… just take a shower,” he pulled a smile at Kame and tried to brush him off. “I’m not going anywhere without taking one myself.”
Kame slipped in and closed the door behind him. Jin listened to the quiet snap of the lock.
Perhaps he should start worrying about himself. If Kame did already then it could really be called for.
Then again, Kame was paranoid. But they had seen them. …But with all the universe splitting how big of an army had he after himself?
He groaned. Great.
He really should start worrying.
--
“What are you doing?” Jin asked as Kame sat on the floor with a candle and some strange equipment. Kame yanked him closer from his wrist, almost making him fall over as he started wrapping measuring tape around his pinky.
Kame pulled the measuring tape back, checked it and started adjusting his equipment quietly. Jin pursed his lips. One of the things that pissed him off the most was being obviously included in something but having no one answer and tell what was going on.
“Hey-!” he started aggressively but Kame cocked his head towards the kitchen, still engrossed in… well, whatever he was doing.
“Get me an ice bag,” he requested. Great. Now he was being bossed around in his own apartment too, wasn’t he? Not to mention all of his frozen food would melt with the speed Kame required them.
“Why-”
“Can you just please go and get one?” Kame asked, turning his gaze up and stopping momentarily. “I’m going to need it.”
He didn’t feel like getting one. Not when he was being treated the way he was.
He sat to the ground, crossed his arms and shook his head in refusal. Kame looked up at him, seeming tight and annoyed.
“No,” Jin refused verbally. “I want to know what you’re doing. I’m involved now, I don’t want to hear excuses or be shrugged away.”
Kame glared at him and poured some silvery pearls in a… what was it? A mould?
He dropped a few drops of some unidentified liquid in the pearls and used the candle to light things up. Jin wailed and shot to his feet.
“I have a fire alarm, you know!” he exclaimed and rushed to go and turn it off. Kame didn’t seem to bother caring much. Asshole. Whatever he was doing. A science junkie. Instead he was slipping some thin whatever, that almost resembled plastic but still not quite, under the ring on his pinky. “Show at least some respect to my home! If you start a fire I’m going to kill you!”
He turned around to see Kame pressing his lips into a thin line in anxious anticipation and… dropping a couple of droplets on his own pinky ring he was still wearing?
Wait a second. That felt threatening.
“Hey Kame, you aren’t going to-?”
Flames lit up and Kame’s hand jerked in pain. Jin froze.
What the hell was Kame doing?!
“KAME, WHAT THE FUCK?!” Jin exclaimed in shock and fear, rushing over to his friend who merely tried to push him off, struggling to do whatever he was doing. Jin felt panic.
“Don’t m-make me accidentally s-set you on fire!” Kame managed to roar, holding his wrist as his hands shook violently in pain. The golden ring in his hand melted slowly, dripping tiny droplets to the mould.
Ah. This must’ve been the reason why Kame had been asking for an ice bag.
What the hell was he doing? He was going to burn his finger off!
Jin dashed to the freezer, pulling out several bags and towels before coming back. Kame’s eyes were barely open as he used some sort of stick to reform the ring in his hand as well as he could. Jin was still shaking.
Kame reached for another bottle with his convulsing hand but knocked it over. Jin picked it up for him and opened it. Kame seemed grateful.
“F-f-in-ger,” he managed to whimper and Jin poured half of the small bottle’s contents on Kame’s hand. The flame died out and Kame fell on his back, still obviously shaking in pain.
Alright, now he was worried. Kame’s finger was burning red and white and seemed to be developing really nasty burn marks and blisters. He didn’t even want to know what degree burn it was. It had to be a bad one.
He crawled on top of the man, took a hold of his wrist and kept his hand tightly in place as he pressed an ice bag on the finger. Kame screeched and convulsed, trying to get away but Jin insisted.
“It’s burnt, Kame. I need to cool it down,” he apologized. Kame seemed out of breath and kept opening his mouth, trying to form some incoherent words but only succeeding in wailing tearfully. Jin kept gulping, trying to force the man to stay still.
He had to be insane.
Kame was sweating and crying silently, pressing his face in Jin’s shoulder and holding on tightly to his sleeve with his better hand as he tried to cool down his wound and not give Kame a frost bite on top of everything. It was a tough job. Especially when he couldn’t help but grow more and more worried.
Slowly Kame seemed to start getting a hold of himself, still pained but more coherent. Jin helped him sit up and Kame kept leaning to his chest. Jin didn’t dare pushing him away. Kame really had to be in pain.
“P-p-pour the l-liquid to the mould,” Kame managed to grunt, hissing in pain as he managed to take the ice bag from Jin’s hand and hold it on his own, hands still shaking. Jin obeyed jumpily and the fire died out soon as the first droplet came down to the flames. Kame was biting his whitened lips.
“Put it on,” he requested. Jin glared at him.
“It is a ring,” he realised and stared at Kame in disbelief. “You burned your finger for a fucking ring? Are you completely out of your mind?!”
“Put. It. On,” Kame demanded, meeting his stare with his own. He was gaining his strength and grip of himself back. He seemed to be quite a glarer, alright. Jin gulped but stubbornly remained seated. “If we need to change the scenery you’ll need it. You’ll be risking your life if you won’t have it on so put it on. I owe it to you.”
“For the fight?” Jin snorted, still angry at Kame’s actions. “You fucking burned your finger because you felt like you owed me? Because of a fight?!”
“Because you were seen!” Kame shot back at him furiously. “Do you have any idea what I’ve dragged you in?! I would’ve preferred not to but now that the damage is done it’s completely my fault and I owe it to you.”
Jin bit his lip. …Kame was fucking insane.
“But you burned your finger,” he kept insisting childishly. “Are you a fucking maniac or something?”
For a brief moment Kame actually seemed genuinely hurt by his words. Jin felt his standpoint falter. But still… no one who was sane did that. It must’ve hurt like hell. No, it had to still be burning like hell and the pain would continue for… how long did burn marks last for? A long time anyway.
He wasn’t even sure if a burn of that degree needed some special caretaking.
“I’ll take care of it when you slip your ring on,” Kame offered, lowering his voice in order to create some sort of peace between them. He didn’t feel very fond of an argument either, not now. Well, he was in pain. Jin had to understand.
He couldn’t let Kame be untreated, could he?
“Fuck you, Kamenashi,” he muttered coldly and forced the (thankfully) cold ring from its mould. He slipped the cool metal ring on his finger. It seemed almost perfectly silver except for a flawed golden wave on one side. Kame sighed, relaxing a bit.
“I have my first aid kit on my bag,” he offered and lied down on the floor. Jin grew worried again but couldn’t help noticing that Kame seemed to trust him enough to let him go through his bag.
He dug out a bright blue zipped up bag from within Kame’s rucksack and opened it. Tubes, wrapping, painkillers and whatever. It was a bit hard to see exactly what it contained because it felt a bit like a miniature portable hospital.
It shouldn’t have been so amusing.
“Light yellow tube. It has a label where it reads that it’s salve for burns,” Kame mumbled tiredly from the floor. Jin started taking things out of the small bag in order to find what he was looking for. “And take some bandage too. I don’t think I want any dirt in this.”
Jin held out the salve for Kame who took it gratefully, removed the cap and started adding it to the wound. It looked like a nasty job. Jin wondered how Kame managed. His ability to tolerate pain had to be high.
In the end it was Jin who wrapped up the finger. It was also Jin who cleaned up Kame’s belongings and placed them inside the bag. He did understand why and didn’t object, though. More like insisted.
Kame really had well enough with tolerating the pain.
The rest of the day was silent and not once did Kame work on that mysterious necklace of his, nor did they speak a word about the absurdity of Kame’s world, issues and plans. Kame seemed way too preoccupied with his thoughts. Jin figured maybe it was better for him to try to digest what he had already gotten out of the younger man first before forcing more out of him.
--
“I’m not coming today, Pi,” Jin muttered to his mobile phone, leaning against the corridor wall. The strong painkillers Kame had taken had already put him into a deep slumber on his bed and he didn’t dare waking the man up. Maybe it was better to sleep and relax than suffer and worry. “Something came up. I promise later but… not tonight.”
“Alright then,” his friend sighed, obviously disappointed but still understanding. “Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s alright,” Jin agreed after thinking about it for a little. As ridiculous as it was, it did feel like things were fine. It wasn’t like anyone was going to find them where they were. “Something just came up with Kame so I’ll stick with him tonight. We’ll see another day. I’ll see if you can come over tomorrow.”
“Alright. Tell Kame-chan I said hi. He seemed nice,” Pi mumbled. “Maybe a bit boring but it isn’t like I really know him.”
Boring? Was Pi serious? It felt so weird to think about Kame as boring anymore. He hazily recalled a time he had felt the same way himself but now…
“You’d be surprised how fascinating he can be,” Jin smiled as he talked to the phone. “He’s got a lot up his sleeve.”
“Oh. Well, good for him.”
“Mm,” Jin agreed. “I’ll see you another time. I promise. I’ll make this up to you.”
“Take me out to watch that cool movie I’ve been talking about. Yuuka refuses. Apparently it’s too scary for her. I’m sick of chick flicks.”
Of course. Jin grimaced. The horror movie. He really, really sucked with horror movies.
“Alright,” he agreed. He could still manage to turn Pi’s head in the theatres, he was sure. Pi was easy to play sometimes. “I promise.”
He ended the call and sighed.
Time passed slowly when he was the only one awake.
--
Time passed slowly. For some reason conversing felt difficult so the two of them found themselves getting bored playing card and board games on the living room floor, wrapped up in warm blankets as the floor heating acted just as bitchily as the owner of the said apartment.
Kame didn’t seem fond of going out in order to keep their hiding place… well, hidden. Lately all they had had for lunch and dinner had been canned beans and bread his mother had thankfully once stacked in his freezer.
It was starting to come out of his ears by now, though. Real food would’ve been really, really nice fuck damn it.
Jin threw the dices and moved his game piece accordingly. He was leading. Snakes and ladders, they had printed it out on a paper from somewhere online and were using bread crumbs as game pieces. Kame claimed to have never known such a game. Whether it was because of universal differences or Kame’s childhood deprivation, neither knew. At least it made it easier for him to kick Kame’s ass. Even if it was just a game that required pure luck.
“Phantom!”
Jin stared at Kame, dumbfounded. Where had that come from?
“Roger that. Shoot me,” Kame answered seemingly to nothing at all. He seemed alarmed and ready to jump up all of sudden. Jin started growing uneasy as well. What was going on?
“They’ve got your location. And they know your company, that’s how they figured it out. Akanishi Jin, right? 5th floor-”
“Shit,” Kame cursed. “How long?”
“Five minutes. Get moving.”
The voice sounded familiar. He just couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before.
He hated being out of things.
Kame checked his pendant, threw his rucksack over his shoulder and yanked Jin by the arm. Jin stumbled on his feet. Wait, what? Now? Now? Where were they going?!
“My stuff-” he started but Kame stopped him by pushing him to the hallway and ripping jackets from the clothing rack for both of them. Jin slipped his on and Kame merely held onto his own.
“Out-”
The door exploded right in front of him.
That had not been five minutes. Not even nearly.
He stumbled backwards with a pained cry and felt his skin bruising. It fucking hurt. Everything was surrounded by thick smoke and… he just wasn’t really aware of anything anymore.
There was a sound of a shot. He felt himself stumble backwards. Pain somewhere on his left side. …Was his shirt getting wet?
Things happened too fast.
There was a quiet crack and for a moment all Jin felt was airy bliss all around him except for arms strongly wrapping themselves around him and clinging on. He was surrounded by a nauseating swirl of melding colours and flashes.
Where was he again?