fic: Remains (7/7)
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: Finally I can get rid of this. Sigh. …Mm. Here’s the last part for you of my 2010 NaNoWriMo oddball. It actually contains one of the scenes I actually like in the entire story, one that wrote itself and… yeah, I like that. In case you wonder what scene… stay alerted for the sunset by the river. You should know when you get there.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,400
Chapter 7
“I don’t want you to go,” Jin gritted his teeth and clasped Kame’s hand at the dawn. Ueda and Nakamaru merely observed them from afar, whispering to themselves. Maybe they guessed, maybe they knew for sure - Jin didn’t know.
One at a time Kame had brought them back in time to several weeks before the day that set off the chase. Earlier, because Kame didn’t want to risk leaving him in the changing future. Apparently, it was a safer place to reside in than the future.
“It’s alright,” Kame smiled at him, his expression and tone nervous but excited. Jin tried to convey his message through the begging gaze but Kame merely sighed and looked down, breaking the contact of their hands.
“Jin, you know I have to do this,” he pressed. “…This is my revenge. This is about me. Everything I’ve done and gone through for years… this is the end. Today I’ll finally reach my goals. It’ll be over in no time for you. From twenty minutes to half an hour and it’ll be over. Nakamaru will be here for you. It’s going to be alright.”
“You can’t know that. Not to mention, why are you going with Ueda?! You can’t know if he’s on your side,” Jin gritted his teeth furiously. “Kame-”
“I can’t live if I can’t do it,” Kame stopped him, ignoring half of his speech once again. “Not with myself and not in safety.”
“Kame-”
“I have all of the advantages and upper hands,” Kame assured him and smiled at him longingly. “And I have a pressing reason to succeed and return. This won’t be the end.”
“Kame!” Ueda called out for him, stopping the conversation that obviously wasn’t going anywhere and hadn’t for a quarter of an hour at least. Kame smirked at Ueda and waved at him to wait just for a while more. Jin leaned against the rocky foundations of another one of Ueda’s safety houses, one by a joyfully running and splashing river.
“…Here,” Kame sighed and offered him a pack of cigarettes from his backpack. After a while of thinking he dropped the entire bag on the ground by his feet. “You… take care of that.”
“Mm,” Jin complied. “Just… hurry back, will you? This won’t turn out to be a several hour wait will it like the last time?”
“It wasn’t several hours,” Kame snorted and shoved him as an attempt to raise the atmosphere. “Did you lose your sense of time that badly?”
“No, I meant that as in how many times the original amount of time you said. It multiplied pretty nicely,” he mocked Kame, trying his hardest to crack a smile.
“…Bye then,” Kame said and pulled him in a brief and casual hug, licking his lips nervously. “…Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” Jin croaked. “Take care.”
Kame waved at Ueda and they started walking away. Nakamaru walked slowly over to him and they both stood side by side, watching the pair’s disappearing backs as they headed for Kame’s old apartment.
Jin pulled out a cigarette and lit it with his own lighter from his pocket, enjoying the first inhale of smoke in what felt like months but couldn’t be more than two weeks.
“They should be alright,” Nakamaru assured him with a nervous nod but didn’t seem convinced enough himself, although Jin wasn’t sure if that was only due to his nervous personality. It could’ve been.
He shrugged his shoulders, chest feeling tight. But it was normal like that, wasn’t it? Kame was walking to an enemy’s ambush in order to take someone’s life. Resistance was easily predictable.
Not to mention that if he would succeed, his own universe would be done for.
He exhaled a long spiral of smoke, fighting the nausea at the pit of his stomach.
“…Tell me about Kame. Do you know him?” Jin asked, tearing his gaze away from Kame’s back to Nakamaru’s eyes. The man started heading towards the river with a sigh and Jin caught up with him. He didn’t really want to be alone.
“I’ve known him for years. These last ones worse than the first ones,” Nakamaru confessed with some nervous nodding. “Learned to know him through Koki when we were younger. No idea where those two met - maybe it was simply on the streets. Whatever happened between them, they grew to be close friends.”
“That Koki?” Jin huffed in disbelief. “Are you serious? The one who’s jumping at his throat every opportunity he gets?”
“The very same one,” Nakamaru confirmed, took off his shoes and walked into the river so that the water reached his ankles. “It might sound unbelievable now but they were really close friends. I think Koki might’ve been Kame’s first friend since he came to live with Tackey. I don’t think he even missed having friends before he stepped in his life.”
There was so much he didn’t know about Kame after all, wasn’t there? Now that he thought about it, they hardly knew anything about each other. …What had Kame’s life really been like? What had he thought and felt, what had happened to him? What was the history behind his current mess of a being?
“Kame’s still wary with friends, though. I’m surprised he made one during his travels,” Nakamaru noted, turning his gaze at him calculatingly. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been so, but… considering how things turned out…”
“What?” Jin pressed, gulping as he grew nervous. Was it alright to listen to these stories from someone else’s mouth than Kame’s for the first time? He didn’t know. But he wanted to know. He really did.
“How Tackey died,” Nakamaru grimaced. “It was all a fiasco out of hands. He probably still blames himself for it.”
“How so?” Jin grew more anxious each passing second without proper information. “I knew something happened but…”
“Tackey used to always warn him about strangers and friends. I can’t say he was exactly pleased about us - they often had small arguments about it but he still let us stay, understanding Kame’s need for ordinary friends too,” Nakamaru sighed and walked back to the sandy ground from the water. “They did research a lot of things the outside world was better off not knowing about. Every now and then we came to know about some little things but nothing too big. Before… well, Kame really opened up to that day, showing the ring Tackey had given him. He was so proud for their work and excited about seeing universes since Tackey had promised to take him along after he had tested everything out. That night we were approached by Yokoyama’s units and interrogated, Lies were fed to us,” Nakamaru pursed his lips bitterly. “Never about Kame - I don’t think he was that aware of him, really, only about his existence. But Tackey. We learned to think of him as someone dangerous.”
“And you betrayed them?” Jin narrowed his eyes. Nakamaru sighed deep.
“It isn’t something I’m proud about. We were young and stupid and they seemed… well, they appeared to be some serious group of underground police. Somehow we were lured to join and investigate and finally participate in the attack. We were only told to take everyone into custody. We didn’t know they’d kill Tackey.”
“Kame escaped that night,” Jin tried to remember what he had learned from earlier conversations with the young man. “How did that Yokoyama person take it?”
“Badly. Well, at first he didn’t care,” Nakamaru shrugged. “He only started caring when he noticed to his dismay that Tackey didn’t carry anything vital with him but had passed everything he knew down to Kame and he had slipped right though his fingers. Then we learned to think of Kame as his successor, someone who ought to finish the job. Force universes under his utmost power.”
“That’s not what he’s doing,” Jin objected. “He isn’t-”
“I know,” Nakamaru answered. “Still, if you show any sign of thinking otherwise you’ll be dealt with behind closed doors. Traitors will be punished. I’ve helped the best I can. It took me a few years to succeed in hinting at Kame without anyone else noticing that I’m on his side but once he finally managed to put some trust in me again and gave this,” Nakamaru explained and tapped his earring, identical to Kame’s. “I’m just… trying to mend what we broke. And stop Yokoyama from succeeding in what he’s trying to do.”
Jin understood, as much as he wouldn’t have liked to. Still, even without Nakamaru and Koki in the picture things probably wouldn’t have turned out well and happy. If Yokoyama had had a hunch he would’ve acted on it, inside men or not.
Self-centredness was so fucking goddamn ugly. He hated humans for it, even though he knew that as a human being too he was one to carry the weight of such a trait as well.
Nakamaru pulled his shoes back on and straightened up, rubbing his palms nervously together. Jin found himself at a loss of things to say.
Why did Kame have to dump him all alone with almost a complete stranger?
“So you and Kame?” Nakamaru coughed nervously, his voice rising a little. “How come?”
“Huh?” he felt his cheeks flushing but refused to back away. Nakamaru gave him an awkwardly crooked and knowing smile, almost apologetic. He gritted his teeth together.
“Ah. You know,” he chuckled, scratching his neck. “I don’t know. Just sort of happened somewhere along the way.”
“I guess it does,” Nakamaru agreed with a nod and smiled at him. “He’s a good guy. Self-centred, bitchy, nosy and stuck up, yes, but good nonetheless. So good luck for you two from my behalf.”
“Thanks?” Jin grinned, trying to keep back a smile. “He’s annoying, though. Sometimes I want to punch him in the face.”
“Don’t,” Nakamaru laughed. “You might not know this, but he’s got quite a punch and a vindictive nature.”
“I’ve figured,” Jin smirked, crossing his arms but feeling a bit lighter. It was easier to talk about something he knew as well. It made him feel less like an idiot and outsider.
He was an insider. Just on his own way.
They raised their gazes when they saw two men stumbling their way. Jin felt a cold hand grip his stomach as he stared at Kame’s bent form, stubbornly making his way ahead even though Ueda seemed to argue with him. The cigarette dropped from his hand and landed in the river, the swirl of it quickly carrying it away.
“Kame,” he mumbled numbly and broke into a run. Nakamaru stood still, stunned.
The world was coming apart as he reached Kame’s side. His plain dark shirt glistened damply in the revealing sunlight and Kame’s blood-red hands reached for him, a relieved but tired smile rising on his lips.
“Jin,” he mumbled back, knees giving in as his arms wrapped around Jin. Jin cried out in fear and helped Kame lie down on the grass, hovering above him fearfully.
There were tiny holes on Kame’s shirt around his chest and shoulders. His hands trembled violently as he tried to pull the fabric off to see better but as the wounds were revealed they only seemed to bleed more.
He broke into tears as Kame’s bloody hand rose to his cheek soothingly.
“Hey. Hey,” the young man insisted, cackling helplessly with red-stained teeth. “Jin.”
It was really all he was able to say. What else could he have said? “Don’t cry, everything’s going to be alright”, perhaps? No. Kame might’ve been a liar but that was a lie no one would’ve bought, not even someone as gullible and stupid as Jin.
“I’m back,” Kame tried again and pulled him closer, burying his head clumsily in his neck. Jin could feel a small kiss by his wet lips. Ueda stood still, grave serious, and he could hear Nakamaru stumbling closer quietly from the distance.
It felt too intimate of a moment to share with the two of them. He didn’t know how to be and everything was going wrong. He’d never get a second chance.
“Kame,” he croaked, pulling the young man’s limp form on his lap and hugging him tightly, drawing him near to his own pounding heart. Kame looked so disgusting when he was so sickly pale, pale as if not enough blood would’ve run through his veins under his clammy skin anymore. “No. No. Don’t.”
It wouldn’t be by Kame’s choice - the choices he had made had been made and there were no choices left for him to do anymore. Fixing his wounds was useless - it was probably a miracle he was still struggling to bury himself in his shoulder. Such a weak attempt. His breathing was laboured and ragged.
“Take it off,” Kame whispered, words falling hardly falling from his lips. Jin struggled to understand. “Time.”
Jin’s eyes widened as Kame forced his own ones as open as he could even though they threatened to fall closed again. He closed his sticky hand on the pendant around Kame’s neck and removed it gently. Kame’s form relaxed.
He slipped away. It was slow but certain, certain from the moment he had seen him stumbling to his direction. Tears ran down his cheeks and it was hard to regain breath or let go but he knew what he had to do.
He stood up, outraged and lost. Ueda and Nakamaru stared at him with wide and bloodshot eyes. No one said a word. When he started stumbling to the direction where Kame had appeared Ueda grabbed his sleeve strongly, turning him around. He yanked his arm away furiously and backed away, teeth exposed.
“…You can let him rest,” Ueda said quietly. “…We didn’t succeed. Your place… it still exists. You can let him rest. …It must be easier on him now.”
He shook his head in disgust, eyes finding their way back at Kame’s form on the ever-green grass. Vomit crept up his throat and he wiped his face, feeling the dampness smearing. The smell was disgusting.
“No,” he shook his head, hardly able to talk. “…I can’t live like this. I can do something. I can save him.”
“Do you even know how?” Ueda asked gently, Nakamaru standing quietly still by his side, still in grave shock and disbelieving grief. Jin shook his head. How and where, he didn’t know. But he’d find a way. There were no other choices.
“I’ll find out how,” he stated and turned around, continuing his way.
When he entered the streets people looked at him and whispered. Mothers and fathers demanded their children to go home and everyone made way for him in fear, no one saying a thing as he walked.
Kame’s blood was staining the way he had come in tiny droplets. He would find his way.
It didn’t take long for Ueda to reach his side again, jogging to catch up.
“Go away,” he growled threateningly, feeling darker than ever. He wasn’t going to be stopped.
“No,” Ueda objected and stopped him from his shoulders. He pulled a gun from his belt and put it in his hand, making eye contact with his confused ones. “I’ll guide you there. It’s going to be on you but if I were you, I wouldn’t be as stupid as him and take unnecessary chances. Don’t stop too late, get back to the time where you can still take action. Since time is frozen I don’t know how you’ll succeed but you won’t get many chances. No matter what you do, be there early enough. You have two bullets.”
Jin nodded in understanding of even things Ueda left unsaid. He understood the warnings he was given, the examples of failures done too rashly that he himself had been suffering from.
Maybe Ueda saw through his overwhelmingly feeling self. It sounded understandable.
He was led to a house with a plain yard where nothing grew except wild and uneven grass. The windows were covered with curtains and Ueda raised a finger on his lips as they stepped in to its unknown pits.
The lights were unlit and Jin felt like a nervous burglar, thinking about a young Kame and his mentor sleeping upstairs. He could see frames of photographs neatly set on counters and tables all around the house. Only silhouettes were visible of a young boy and a well-figured man who shared a passion for things beyond a normal person’s understanding.
Ueda stopped at the middle of the staircase and Jin bumped into him. Their eyes met and Jin slid the chain around his bloodied neck, heart beating painfully.
“Will you come with me?” he asked with a whisper, hands still trembling. Ueda shook his head and leaned to the rail, pointing at a direction not far from the middle of the hall.
“You will want to aim the person standing there,” he offered his help and turned his gaze back to Jin, crossing his arms and tilting his head. “But from what I’ve heard, you should be able to recognize him anyway. Don’t hesitate. Get all of us away as fast as you can. I won’t be coming - too many people to drag out of there. We’ll already get a duplicate,” he cursed and scoffed. “Just get us out alive.”
Jin nodded and snapped the oval shaped onyx pendant open with his shaking hands. He looked at Ueda pleadingly, pressing his lips tightly together.
“Never asked him how it works?” Ueda grimaced in understanding. “Me either.”
“I never thought I’d have to…” he grunted and drew in a deep breath. The bloodied wheels were slowly rolling inside the device and several glowing drops illuminated light on his hand and face, blinding his vision.
Why had it never come in his mind to ask?
He examined the necklace carefully, afraid of breaking it. It was Kame’s creation - the chances of anyone being able to fix it were close to zero.
He carefully slipped his nail in one of the raggedly edged wheel’s groove and started rolling it to another direction and, so very fast, Ueda disappeared from his side.
It was maddeningly slow and he had to take pauses where time slipped forward with normal speed as he repositioned his nail carefully, hoping to god no one in the house saw him. He must’ve been doing it wrong because Kame had done it with such easy and speed but it was working nonetheless - time was going forward. He felt hot iron hands gripping his insides.
A happy and younger Kame pranced down the stairs behind him excitedly in order to get downstairs to converse with a taller man who was preparing something shining with a familiar-looking mould. He slammed papers and papers on the table and talked, his speech going by so fast it slurred in Jin’s ears. Something perhaps already forgotten by the Kame he knew.
He didn’t even know for how long he’d have to be turning time - it was beyond him. Still he continued, stubbornly as day after day passed by slowly in the household. He just hoped he’d see the situation he had imagined so many times without any truthful image in his mind but he knew it could still be days away.
He didn’t dare trying to figure out a better and faster way in fear of breaking Kame’s cherished device. It was his last hope, his very last hope of saving Kame, knowing anyone, surviving. He was lost in an unfamiliar universe in a time where no one knew him, going slowly forwards, day passing after day.
He hated it. Even more than when it had just quickly slurred by with a nauseating speed. At least then he hadn’t been able to see the life that was about to come to an abrupt stop clearly before his eyes.
Now every time someone walked around in the house and talked he could hear their speech with a speed faster than the normal - it sounded scary and maleficent. The movements were almost psychotic with their twists and if Jin accidentally rolled the wheels the wrong way, they went backwards like little puppets under his control.
He had always been a bit (or a whole lot more) on the scaredy-cat side. Manipulating disgusted him.
The blood would rust the wheels and Kame would kill him, he knew as he sat down on the stairs as he kept rolling the wheels, hour after hour. He was tired, worn and emotionally drained, lost in times he didn’t want to see.
He reached a time where people forced their way through the door, guns in their hands. Kame stood up in the staircase with a look of shock on his face, paled in fear. Tackey appeared to bellow something at him and painfully slowly Kame turned around and dashed fully upstairs and out of sight. Yokoyama, walking behind the whole bunch, waved his hand at him and a couple of men ran up the stairs.
It was sickening to watch. Sickening how they approached Kame’s mentor violently, how the struggle escalated and belongings flew from their normal places. The glasses of the frames that covered the photographs broke as they hit the floor when someone collided with a shelf.
It was all a big and painful disaster. He wondered if the younger Kame was gone already or if he struggled too, if he heard the sounds that strained his eardrums with a quickened speed.
Tackey was held on his knees on the floor by two of Yokoyama’s people, neither of them familiar to him. Koki and Nakamaru seemed pale and sickened, showing their resistance and disbelief. An uncaring and smug smirk spread over Yokoyama’s lips, one that told very well how much better he saw himself as than the man under his power.
What he said, Jin couldn’t make it out. The shot he did though, and the fast-speed jerk of Kame’s mentor’s body made as he hit the floor was sickening. He knew he’d never outlive it from his head.
Kame and Ueda appeared in the middle of the room out of nowhere. Ueda shot upwards as a distraction as Kame removed the necklace from around the smaller man’s neck and kicked the gun away from Yokoyama’s hand, forcing him down on the floor with a furious jump.
He hadn’t ever seen Kame quite as sickeningly crazed and thunderous before.
The pair landed on Tackey but rolled away quickly. There was a struggle between the two of them as Ueda attacked a dumbfounded stranger. Or maybe it wasn’t a stranger? Jin squinted his eyes to see the face better but couldn’t quite recall where he had seen him before. Could’ve been anywhere.
There was a slur of colours and undetectable shapes around them. …It had to be Kame’s stopped time. Had to.
He changed the direction of the time flow, just a small click of one of the edges and there Kame was again, on the floor on top of Yokoyama, forcing the necklace over the man’s head. His heart skipped a beat.
Could Kame seriously be so stupid?
“I’m going to kill him,” Jin muttered furiously, outraged by Kame’s selfish and stupid actions. He made his way through the aimed arms closer and pondered for a while.
If he let go of time Kame would stop it and, most likely, he’d be left out from the frozen moment. Could he get around it? He couldn’t fit his head under the chain of Kame’s necklace - there wasn’t enough space. He had already learned that.
Fuck Kame’s plans.
He removed the necklace from around Yokoyama’s (god, the man was hideous) neck and slipped it on himself.
Even in a stopped time frame he could smell Kame’s natural odour from the air. He was clean, maybe a bit ruffled up but he was alright - Kame was alright right before his eyes.
Kame would be furious to him. Unless he backed away from his plans anyway.
He could try a trick, though.
He slipped the chain of the necklace from around his neck around Yokoyama’s, and fumbled for a while to press the gun against the man’s soft chest.
It felt sickening and wrong. He closed his eyes and took in a few deep breaths. …He had to just get on with it.
He wouldn’t let Kame die on his arms all over again.
He removed his finger from within the necklace, let it drop and suddenly everything around them froze again in a mere fragment of a second. He could sense Kame shifting, though, jerking away in surprise and shock, almost breaking the chain from around his neck.
Yokoyama was moving too, his eyes changing to him quickly. He had appeared out of nowhere after all.
Jin pulled the trigger. Once, twice.
The power of the gun made him jerk strongly backwards. Kame caught him with his widened eyes, still in shock and disbelief and his arms shot around him to catch him before the strain put on the chains broke them.
Yokoyama was touching his chest in fear, his eyes shooting at him furiously.
Jin sensed danger.
“Fuck dammit,” he cursed numbly, feeling the familiar need of blabbering rising. “Kame, is this such a great idea after all?”
Kame’s eyes shot back at the shot man and he forced his way to sit upon him, locking the man’s arms to the ground, unavailable for his use. Kame was alive and panting, strength in his limbs and…
Jin couldn’t hold himself back anymore but hugged him and broke into tears again. Kame was startled and removed his hands from the man’s shoulders.
“Jin, are you alright?” he asked, voice a few octaves too high compared to the normal. “You’re bloody. A-are you alr-”
“DON’T LET GO OF HIM,” Jin warned Kame and took a strong hold of the panting man’s hair. Blood was quickly staining his shirt and he kept gasping for air breathlessly, trying to struggle free from under them but flinching in pain.
“K-nashi,” he managed to snarl before his body jerked scarily and became stiff and still.
He’d never know the person he had killed, but his last words would never stop ringing in his ears, he swore as vomit tried to creep up his throat once again.
Jin realised he was on his knees on a pool of blood and cried out, the smell shooting up his nostrils.
He really had just murdered a person.
“Jin,” Kame turned to him, his voice strained and angry but flooded with worry as he wrapped his arms around him, removing the necklace from around Yokoyama’s neck and pulling Jin away from the body. “What did you do?”
Jin merely gripped a strong hold of Kame and hang to him strongly, refusing to let go as he shook violently. An anguished wail left his lips as he refused to move anymore.
Kame was safe now. Kame was alright.
He had shot down his entire universe for him.
He broke into tears.
“What did you do, Jin…” Kame spoke quietly, still sounding disbelieving as he held him, burying Jin’s face in his shoulder gently. “...Don’t cry. It’s alright.”
Pi’s smile was forever gone now, and so was his mother’s. His brother would never move alone into his new apartment, his father would never be back from his small business trip to Korea, or maybe he had been. He would never know. His book was never going to be published. Everyone would be gone the moment time would roll again. Or maybe they were gone already?
“…Let’s get out of here, alright?” Kame tried to tempt him gently, less bloodied hands going through his already previously stained hair, getting stuck on the clogs.
They still sat still on the ground for a while, Kame’s attention diverted elsewhere. Jin managed to follow his gaze in between his crazed breakdown and saw the still corpse of Kame’s mentor only a few metres away, looking everything but peaceful.
They’d both be forever haunted by the moment, he knew as he hung on to Kame’s shoulders, a helpless and panicky noise constantly rising from his throat. It would follow them to their graves.
Kame helped him on his feet and walked them over to the frozen Ueda, fist buried deep in the familiar-looking man’s gut, making him bend over in pain.
…Was it the man chuckling at Pi in the odd universe?
Kame slipped the chain from around his neck around Ueda’s and Ueda’s form came into life in mid-yell that blasted loudly in Jin’s ear before it died.
“You did it?” Ueda asked before his eyes turned into the mass in Kame’s arms, namely Jin. His eyebrows knitted together as he opened his mouth but Kame let time loose and before much happened, everything ran almost as fast as light before them. No one dared to speak.
Within the first seconds, after a long and painful wait, the young Kame exited the universe and left for a quest he was to disappear on.
--
They sat quietly by the riverside as Kame carefully washed the clogged blood from his skin with a soft, dark towel. Jin stared at the distance, somewhere far ahead. Nights fell over the land faster in here than what he was used to and the colours were more breathtaking than he ever could’ve imagined.
Kame wet the towel quietly again in the river and rubbed his arm gently, smearing the redness again before slowly getting it away. Jin didn’t react - he had the horizon to cleanse his mind with. He sat in his boxers and let the soft but warm evening breeze dance on his skin.
It was almost as if everything would’ve stood still but it didn’t. It was once again one of those rare oddly peaceful moments between them, the ones that couldn’t really be described with any other words than shared distance - they were far away from everything and everyone and unreachable but together.
Kame’s lips comfortingly grazed on his shoulder and pressed a kiss as he cleansed his thighs. There wasn’t anything too sexual about it. They simply were and it was more than enough.
Their shared existence was more than enough in a world where everything else had disappeared. Their rightful places were gone and unreachable to them - soon they would both be foreigners and lost in yet another world, perhaps entirely different than their original ones.
It was a miracle they had come together after all, through all the possibilities around them. At some moments on that riverside with the swirls of gold and almost red orange playing on the river’s surface, on the grass and Kame’s toned arms, Jin wondered if they ever met elsewhere or if, perhaps, Kame met someone else on his journey. If he would’ve asked Kame, the man would’ve truthfully answered what he himself already knew was right - that it was entirely possible and, more likely than not, it had happened and was perhaps still happening.
He moved to bury his face in the crook of Kame’s neck and the younger man pulled him in a gentle hug, a pair of plump-ish lips setting on his temple, eyes fluttering half-closed. Kame’s heavy breath grazed his ear and he closed his own eyes.
The damp towel massaged his stomach gently, rubbing him clean.
Nakamaru and the two Uedas were inside, probably staying out of the way. He himself hadn’t really talked much since they had returned. After their arrival to the time the two Ueda’s (one confused and still grumpy one) had helped Kame and him return to where Nakamaru had been cleaning Kame’s dead body by the riverside. Kame hadn’t tried to force anything out of him and had refused to hear Nakamaru’s or Ueda’s side of the story before his, but Jin was sure what he had seen already told him quite enough. Still, he was patiently waiting.
Jin appreciated it, knowing that in reality Kame wasn’t quite as patient on the same way. He was patient with waiting for the outcome of the work he devoted himself fully for, but he didn’t just sit and wait for things to happen. But now he did.
He still only sat by the riverside with him during the dusk and cleansed his body slowly with his gentle touches. The blood was gone already, but he didn’t feel clean. The smell was still finding its way up his nostrils.
He wondered what the triplet had done with Kame’s body.
Kame rose to his feet and offered him a pair of soft hands. Jin looked at him tiredly but took a hold of them and let Kame get him on his feet and walk him to the river, deep enough for the water to rise to their knees.
It was runny and warm like during the hottest summer days. Kame bended his naked back and cupped his hands to get water on them before raising them up and letting the water run down Jin’s hair and shoulders. He shivered.
Kame sat him down in the river and crouched over with him, washing his hair gently. Jin enjoyed the touches, laying his own hand on Kame’s knee, steadying him as the river ran.
The darkness was quickly falling over them and the stars were lighting up far, far above them. He had often imagined starlit skies in some faraway countryside, the kind that was filled with stars and stardust, where one could see an entire space flooded with the sea of them but never had he actually seen one like this.
Maybe Kame was the unfortunate one for having to leave this place behind all over again. Its warmth and light.
Jin closed the distance between their lips and wrapped his arms around Kame’s shoulders, pulling him on his lap. Kame followed his guidance obediently, letting him be in control of the situation.
“Don’t be so wary,” Jin croaked a soft complaint, bumping their noses gently together again. Kame hummed something in absent agreement, pressing a bit firmer peck on his lips.
“I just want to make sure you’re alright,” Kame spoke quietly, his voice barely detectable over the sound of the lively running water. “You’ll come around eventually. I don’t want to see a day where you don’t constantly annoy me by speaking nonstop.”
“Shut up,” Jin whined a bit, the corner of his lips awkwardly twisting. He rested his hands on Kame’s hips and shuffled their bodies closer, burying his face in the younger man’s shoulder.
“Don’t ever die on me again,” he ordered with a silent and voice. Kame’s fingers ran through his dampened hair and his arms wrapped around his head, keeping him close and wrapped in an awkward embrace.
“I promise. It’s more likely you die of old age faster than me anyway,” Kame tried to chuckle, his voice still sounding slightly strained. Jin proceeded to ignore it and merely kept inhaling Kame’s musky scent, thumbs rubbing circles in his hips.
“I’d like to keep existing,” Jin sighed. Kame intertwined their ringed pinkies together in a promise and met him for a reassuring kiss.
It was odd how the weight was off their shoulders but still there - it was odd that they were free of their bonds, promises and needs but still carrying the lost souls of the unbelievably many universes the two shots he had let loose had taken.
Somewhere in the world Pi smiled, jumping in the back of his very own and annoyed but pleased Jin. That Jin never quite knew how much he had in the world that seemed and felt empty and useless, going the same way day after day around him.
Somewhere in the world, maybe within a few years from now, his mother would delightedly meet him with a proud smile as he’d lead a fiancé inside the household for Sunday dinner. Their family would sit down, converse and laugh. He would bully Reio and his father would scold him, during which his mother would make a polite but oddly delighted apology for his partner.
Not in his nonexistent universe anymore, though.
Everywhere where a potential him existed, all the families and friends were already occupied with one replica of a him, someone who looked, sounded and thought about things just the same way as he once had, who was so familiar to him that it was almost hard to put his finger to it. There were no Pis or mums left for him anymore.
“I’m here,” Kame whispered quietly, rubbing his lip with his thumb. Jin flinched at the contact and grimaced, making Kame chuckle gently and remove his finger. “Ah. Is the bruise that painful?”
“What do you think, they’re from Ueda,” Jin muttered in answer, his tone not quite falling to the range of annoyance that his choice of words tried to display. “…You were so late then.”
“Early,” Kame corrected him and pulled him closer, breath labouring slowly but still strangely peacefully. “…I was early. Couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Asshole,” Jin snorted, raising his arms to pull Kame’s torso better close. “You could’ve gotten me out of there unhurt had you not been so selfish.”
“I like you too much,” Kame objected.
Jin accepted the apology and pulled them down, lying on the shore of the riverside in the darkness and wondered if Maru and the Uedas worried about them. Kame climbed over him and pressed a kiss on his neck before slipping his arms under his.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Kame thanked with a strained and shaky voice. Jin could feel a weak smile rising on his lips.
Kame knew the price of his life.
“You’re welcome,” he replied and studied the blinking stars.
Kame’s body radiated heat to him within the running water.
--
Jin hugged Nakamaru and the Uedas as tightly as Kame when the time of separation came. He thought about the times of waiting, the help he’d gotten from the three, the help Kame had gotten from the three and couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratefulness he wasn’t sure he’d ever quite be able to show or put into words justifiably enough. They probably didn’t understand why he held them so tight and felt so sorrowful about the separation, but it was alright. He was grateful nonetheless.
“Thank you. For everything,” Kame nodded at the three of them by his side. He had spent the latest hour or so explaining the Uedas and Nakamaru quite how their identical pendant necklaces functioned and now everything was finally set.
“Thank you for these,” Nakamaru nodded and pointed at the necklace hanging loosely around his neck. He was sweating nervously again and really seemed reluctant to leave them. “And saving me. I’m sorry I can’t repay you.”
“I repaid you,” Kame objected and Jin took his hand in his own, giving him strength for the separation as well. “You owe me nothing, Maru. Just take care of yourself. Stay away from the big bad boys and try not to get in trouble.”
Jin didn’t quite understand why Kame had decided to give both of the necklaces that originated from his earlier life in his mentor’s guidance away, but he had accepted his decision without further questioning. Maybe Kame’s gotten tired of messing with the natural laws of life - after all of the tiring years he had gone through in his quest, he wouldn’t be surprised, not to mention it was easier with the three to go as a bunch if they had at least a pair of them. Still, there was also the small chance of Kame showing respect and consolations for his lost loved ones Kame’s plans had taken away from him, and the kind person Kame was in the end, it didn’t sound like an impossible option. He figured he’d never know, because he didn’t feel like ever asking him.
They would both carry the weights of being the bad guys in the war with them to their graves in some still faraway universe, perhaps waiting to meet them.
“…You two too. Take care,” Kame nodded at the Uedas. “And… thank you. For being there and saving my life. I’m really sorry about…”
“No problem,” one of the Uedas shrugged, glancing briefly at the other. Jin had already lost track of which one was which. “Your boyfriend saved a ton of universes so I assume it was worth the trouble.”
Jin’s face flushed red and Kame chuckled in awkward amusement. He wrapped an arm around Jin’s broad shoulders and sighed. “I hope that can make him sleep at night. I have a feeling we’ll be having a lot of sleepless ones coming now.”
Jin couldn’t find it in himself to do more than silently agree.
“We’ll go to sneak a peak at the future now,” the other Ueda smirked at them. “Maybe in a few hundred years our crimes will be forgotten.”
“At least abroad,” Nakamaru nodded, seemingly concerned and palms sweating. “How does London sound?”
The Uedas grimaced at Kame who merely laughed and patted their shoulders for support. Jin found it in him to smile as well.
It was alright. What had happened had happened - there was no changing it now. No matter what he did, his own place within the layered universes would never appear again. He only had Kame now.
“We’ll go now,” one Ueda patted Nakamaru’s shoulder and wrapped the chain of his necklace around the other man’s neck. The other Ueda wrapped the one around his neck around the other Ueda’s, joining them in their quest.
“I’ll do it. Thank you for everything. I wish we’d see each other again,” he said with a warm nod.
“If you ever miss us…” Kame let his voice fade and patted his dimly shining earring, making an encouraging eye contact with Nakamaru who nodded.
“I know. If anything happens, I’ll keep you updated, Phantom,” he smirked. “Too bad my updates might be a couple of hundred years late.”
Kame laughed a genuine laugh that danced more lightly and beautifully than anything Jin had heard coming from his lips so far. He wrapped his arms around the younger man from behind and laid his chin on his shoulder as he watched the three men wave at them awkwardly.
Then they were gone.
“I guess we’ll be going now too,” Jin prodded, rocking their forms gently. Kame tilted his head back in order to kiss his cheek and laid his hands on his, enjoying the shared closeness.
“I guess we will,” he agreed. “Hopefully somewhere nice.”
“Let’s not stop before nice,” Jin snorted. “I want to go somewhere where we can live.”
“I’ll take you there,” Kame promised, grabbed his bag and turned around, wrapping his arms around him as well and meeting him for a kiss.
As Jin proceeded to eat up his lover’s lips, he felt the familiar pressure.
Kame was close.
--
Winter, 2009
They walked amidst hundreds of locals in their right place of the world, chattering loudly in almost familiar but still unfathomed fuzz. Cars drove by on the busy roads and they found themselves looking up at the pollution-filled sky, shivering in the cold together under the lights of the hundreds of billboards and screens blasting commercials with a loud voice that exceeded the crowd’s.
Jin felt his eyes widening and mouth dropping as a bus drove by them. Kame stood next to him, stunned at where he stood, uncaring about the grunts and complaints of the people who were bumping into them on their way and dodging to get by.
Kame regained his senses first and started messing up his hair worriedly before pulling him across the road when the lights turned green. Jin stumbled after him, still in shock.
“Was that just..?”
“I guess we’re big names here,” Kame muttered back but sounded amused nonetheless. Jin felt a happy laughter rising from his throat as he found more pictures of both of them in posters plastered on the walls.
“I always wondered what I’d be like if I made it big,” he clicked his tongue smugly.
He figured they’d need fake names in addition to fake identities and maybe proper, differing haircuts than their replicas. Just in case.
Not to mention a new penname if he ever decided to write down the story of the man walking in dusted ash carried away by the wind.
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: Finally I can get rid of this. Sigh. …Mm. Here’s the last part for you of my 2010 NaNoWriMo oddball. It actually contains one of the scenes I actually like in the entire story, one that wrote itself and… yeah, I like that. In case you wonder what scene… stay alerted for the sunset by the river. You should know when you get there.
Total wordcount: 53,900
Chapter wordcount: 7,400
Chapter 7
“I don’t want you to go,” Jin gritted his teeth and clasped Kame’s hand at the dawn. Ueda and Nakamaru merely observed them from afar, whispering to themselves. Maybe they guessed, maybe they knew for sure - Jin didn’t know.
One at a time Kame had brought them back in time to several weeks before the day that set off the chase. Earlier, because Kame didn’t want to risk leaving him in the changing future. Apparently, it was a safer place to reside in than the future.
“It’s alright,” Kame smiled at him, his expression and tone nervous but excited. Jin tried to convey his message through the begging gaze but Kame merely sighed and looked down, breaking the contact of their hands.
“Jin, you know I have to do this,” he pressed. “…This is my revenge. This is about me. Everything I’ve done and gone through for years… this is the end. Today I’ll finally reach my goals. It’ll be over in no time for you. From twenty minutes to half an hour and it’ll be over. Nakamaru will be here for you. It’s going to be alright.”
“You can’t know that. Not to mention, why are you going with Ueda?! You can’t know if he’s on your side,” Jin gritted his teeth furiously. “Kame-”
“I can’t live if I can’t do it,” Kame stopped him, ignoring half of his speech once again. “Not with myself and not in safety.”
“Kame-”
“I have all of the advantages and upper hands,” Kame assured him and smiled at him longingly. “And I have a pressing reason to succeed and return. This won’t be the end.”
“Kame!” Ueda called out for him, stopping the conversation that obviously wasn’t going anywhere and hadn’t for a quarter of an hour at least. Kame smirked at Ueda and waved at him to wait just for a while more. Jin leaned against the rocky foundations of another one of Ueda’s safety houses, one by a joyfully running and splashing river.
“…Here,” Kame sighed and offered him a pack of cigarettes from his backpack. After a while of thinking he dropped the entire bag on the ground by his feet. “You… take care of that.”
“Mm,” Jin complied. “Just… hurry back, will you? This won’t turn out to be a several hour wait will it like the last time?”
“It wasn’t several hours,” Kame snorted and shoved him as an attempt to raise the atmosphere. “Did you lose your sense of time that badly?”
“No, I meant that as in how many times the original amount of time you said. It multiplied pretty nicely,” he mocked Kame, trying his hardest to crack a smile.
“…Bye then,” Kame said and pulled him in a brief and casual hug, licking his lips nervously. “…Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” Jin croaked. “Take care.”
Kame waved at Ueda and they started walking away. Nakamaru walked slowly over to him and they both stood side by side, watching the pair’s disappearing backs as they headed for Kame’s old apartment.
Jin pulled out a cigarette and lit it with his own lighter from his pocket, enjoying the first inhale of smoke in what felt like months but couldn’t be more than two weeks.
“They should be alright,” Nakamaru assured him with a nervous nod but didn’t seem convinced enough himself, although Jin wasn’t sure if that was only due to his nervous personality. It could’ve been.
He shrugged his shoulders, chest feeling tight. But it was normal like that, wasn’t it? Kame was walking to an enemy’s ambush in order to take someone’s life. Resistance was easily predictable.
Not to mention that if he would succeed, his own universe would be done for.
He exhaled a long spiral of smoke, fighting the nausea at the pit of his stomach.
“…Tell me about Kame. Do you know him?” Jin asked, tearing his gaze away from Kame’s back to Nakamaru’s eyes. The man started heading towards the river with a sigh and Jin caught up with him. He didn’t really want to be alone.
“I’ve known him for years. These last ones worse than the first ones,” Nakamaru confessed with some nervous nodding. “Learned to know him through Koki when we were younger. No idea where those two met - maybe it was simply on the streets. Whatever happened between them, they grew to be close friends.”
“That Koki?” Jin huffed in disbelief. “Are you serious? The one who’s jumping at his throat every opportunity he gets?”
“The very same one,” Nakamaru confirmed, took off his shoes and walked into the river so that the water reached his ankles. “It might sound unbelievable now but they were really close friends. I think Koki might’ve been Kame’s first friend since he came to live with Tackey. I don’t think he even missed having friends before he stepped in his life.”
There was so much he didn’t know about Kame after all, wasn’t there? Now that he thought about it, they hardly knew anything about each other. …What had Kame’s life really been like? What had he thought and felt, what had happened to him? What was the history behind his current mess of a being?
“Kame’s still wary with friends, though. I’m surprised he made one during his travels,” Nakamaru noted, turning his gaze at him calculatingly. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been so, but… considering how things turned out…”
“What?” Jin pressed, gulping as he grew nervous. Was it alright to listen to these stories from someone else’s mouth than Kame’s for the first time? He didn’t know. But he wanted to know. He really did.
“How Tackey died,” Nakamaru grimaced. “It was all a fiasco out of hands. He probably still blames himself for it.”
“How so?” Jin grew more anxious each passing second without proper information. “I knew something happened but…”
“Tackey used to always warn him about strangers and friends. I can’t say he was exactly pleased about us - they often had small arguments about it but he still let us stay, understanding Kame’s need for ordinary friends too,” Nakamaru sighed and walked back to the sandy ground from the water. “They did research a lot of things the outside world was better off not knowing about. Every now and then we came to know about some little things but nothing too big. Before… well, Kame really opened up to that day, showing the ring Tackey had given him. He was so proud for their work and excited about seeing universes since Tackey had promised to take him along after he had tested everything out. That night we were approached by Yokoyama’s units and interrogated, Lies were fed to us,” Nakamaru pursed his lips bitterly. “Never about Kame - I don’t think he was that aware of him, really, only about his existence. But Tackey. We learned to think of him as someone dangerous.”
“And you betrayed them?” Jin narrowed his eyes. Nakamaru sighed deep.
“It isn’t something I’m proud about. We were young and stupid and they seemed… well, they appeared to be some serious group of underground police. Somehow we were lured to join and investigate and finally participate in the attack. We were only told to take everyone into custody. We didn’t know they’d kill Tackey.”
“Kame escaped that night,” Jin tried to remember what he had learned from earlier conversations with the young man. “How did that Yokoyama person take it?”
“Badly. Well, at first he didn’t care,” Nakamaru shrugged. “He only started caring when he noticed to his dismay that Tackey didn’t carry anything vital with him but had passed everything he knew down to Kame and he had slipped right though his fingers. Then we learned to think of Kame as his successor, someone who ought to finish the job. Force universes under his utmost power.”
“That’s not what he’s doing,” Jin objected. “He isn’t-”
“I know,” Nakamaru answered. “Still, if you show any sign of thinking otherwise you’ll be dealt with behind closed doors. Traitors will be punished. I’ve helped the best I can. It took me a few years to succeed in hinting at Kame without anyone else noticing that I’m on his side but once he finally managed to put some trust in me again and gave this,” Nakamaru explained and tapped his earring, identical to Kame’s. “I’m just… trying to mend what we broke. And stop Yokoyama from succeeding in what he’s trying to do.”
Jin understood, as much as he wouldn’t have liked to. Still, even without Nakamaru and Koki in the picture things probably wouldn’t have turned out well and happy. If Yokoyama had had a hunch he would’ve acted on it, inside men or not.
Self-centredness was so fucking goddamn ugly. He hated humans for it, even though he knew that as a human being too he was one to carry the weight of such a trait as well.
Nakamaru pulled his shoes back on and straightened up, rubbing his palms nervously together. Jin found himself at a loss of things to say.
Why did Kame have to dump him all alone with almost a complete stranger?
“So you and Kame?” Nakamaru coughed nervously, his voice rising a little. “How come?”
“Huh?” he felt his cheeks flushing but refused to back away. Nakamaru gave him an awkwardly crooked and knowing smile, almost apologetic. He gritted his teeth together.
“Ah. You know,” he chuckled, scratching his neck. “I don’t know. Just sort of happened somewhere along the way.”
“I guess it does,” Nakamaru agreed with a nod and smiled at him. “He’s a good guy. Self-centred, bitchy, nosy and stuck up, yes, but good nonetheless. So good luck for you two from my behalf.”
“Thanks?” Jin grinned, trying to keep back a smile. “He’s annoying, though. Sometimes I want to punch him in the face.”
“Don’t,” Nakamaru laughed. “You might not know this, but he’s got quite a punch and a vindictive nature.”
“I’ve figured,” Jin smirked, crossing his arms but feeling a bit lighter. It was easier to talk about something he knew as well. It made him feel less like an idiot and outsider.
He was an insider. Just on his own way.
They raised their gazes when they saw two men stumbling their way. Jin felt a cold hand grip his stomach as he stared at Kame’s bent form, stubbornly making his way ahead even though Ueda seemed to argue with him. The cigarette dropped from his hand and landed in the river, the swirl of it quickly carrying it away.
“Kame,” he mumbled numbly and broke into a run. Nakamaru stood still, stunned.
The world was coming apart as he reached Kame’s side. His plain dark shirt glistened damply in the revealing sunlight and Kame’s blood-red hands reached for him, a relieved but tired smile rising on his lips.
“Jin,” he mumbled back, knees giving in as his arms wrapped around Jin. Jin cried out in fear and helped Kame lie down on the grass, hovering above him fearfully.
There were tiny holes on Kame’s shirt around his chest and shoulders. His hands trembled violently as he tried to pull the fabric off to see better but as the wounds were revealed they only seemed to bleed more.
He broke into tears as Kame’s bloody hand rose to his cheek soothingly.
“Hey. Hey,” the young man insisted, cackling helplessly with red-stained teeth. “Jin.”
It was really all he was able to say. What else could he have said? “Don’t cry, everything’s going to be alright”, perhaps? No. Kame might’ve been a liar but that was a lie no one would’ve bought, not even someone as gullible and stupid as Jin.
“I’m back,” Kame tried again and pulled him closer, burying his head clumsily in his neck. Jin could feel a small kiss by his wet lips. Ueda stood still, grave serious, and he could hear Nakamaru stumbling closer quietly from the distance.
It felt too intimate of a moment to share with the two of them. He didn’t know how to be and everything was going wrong. He’d never get a second chance.
“Kame,” he croaked, pulling the young man’s limp form on his lap and hugging him tightly, drawing him near to his own pounding heart. Kame looked so disgusting when he was so sickly pale, pale as if not enough blood would’ve run through his veins under his clammy skin anymore. “No. No. Don’t.”
It wouldn’t be by Kame’s choice - the choices he had made had been made and there were no choices left for him to do anymore. Fixing his wounds was useless - it was probably a miracle he was still struggling to bury himself in his shoulder. Such a weak attempt. His breathing was laboured and ragged.
“Take it off,” Kame whispered, words falling hardly falling from his lips. Jin struggled to understand. “Time.”
Jin’s eyes widened as Kame forced his own ones as open as he could even though they threatened to fall closed again. He closed his sticky hand on the pendant around Kame’s neck and removed it gently. Kame’s form relaxed.
He slipped away. It was slow but certain, certain from the moment he had seen him stumbling to his direction. Tears ran down his cheeks and it was hard to regain breath or let go but he knew what he had to do.
He stood up, outraged and lost. Ueda and Nakamaru stared at him with wide and bloodshot eyes. No one said a word. When he started stumbling to the direction where Kame had appeared Ueda grabbed his sleeve strongly, turning him around. He yanked his arm away furiously and backed away, teeth exposed.
“…You can let him rest,” Ueda said quietly. “…We didn’t succeed. Your place… it still exists. You can let him rest. …It must be easier on him now.”
He shook his head in disgust, eyes finding their way back at Kame’s form on the ever-green grass. Vomit crept up his throat and he wiped his face, feeling the dampness smearing. The smell was disgusting.
“No,” he shook his head, hardly able to talk. “…I can’t live like this. I can do something. I can save him.”
“Do you even know how?” Ueda asked gently, Nakamaru standing quietly still by his side, still in grave shock and disbelieving grief. Jin shook his head. How and where, he didn’t know. But he’d find a way. There were no other choices.
“I’ll find out how,” he stated and turned around, continuing his way.
When he entered the streets people looked at him and whispered. Mothers and fathers demanded their children to go home and everyone made way for him in fear, no one saying a thing as he walked.
Kame’s blood was staining the way he had come in tiny droplets. He would find his way.
It didn’t take long for Ueda to reach his side again, jogging to catch up.
“Go away,” he growled threateningly, feeling darker than ever. He wasn’t going to be stopped.
“No,” Ueda objected and stopped him from his shoulders. He pulled a gun from his belt and put it in his hand, making eye contact with his confused ones. “I’ll guide you there. It’s going to be on you but if I were you, I wouldn’t be as stupid as him and take unnecessary chances. Don’t stop too late, get back to the time where you can still take action. Since time is frozen I don’t know how you’ll succeed but you won’t get many chances. No matter what you do, be there early enough. You have two bullets.”
Jin nodded in understanding of even things Ueda left unsaid. He understood the warnings he was given, the examples of failures done too rashly that he himself had been suffering from.
Maybe Ueda saw through his overwhelmingly feeling self. It sounded understandable.
He was led to a house with a plain yard where nothing grew except wild and uneven grass. The windows were covered with curtains and Ueda raised a finger on his lips as they stepped in to its unknown pits.
The lights were unlit and Jin felt like a nervous burglar, thinking about a young Kame and his mentor sleeping upstairs. He could see frames of photographs neatly set on counters and tables all around the house. Only silhouettes were visible of a young boy and a well-figured man who shared a passion for things beyond a normal person’s understanding.
Ueda stopped at the middle of the staircase and Jin bumped into him. Their eyes met and Jin slid the chain around his bloodied neck, heart beating painfully.
“Will you come with me?” he asked with a whisper, hands still trembling. Ueda shook his head and leaned to the rail, pointing at a direction not far from the middle of the hall.
“You will want to aim the person standing there,” he offered his help and turned his gaze back to Jin, crossing his arms and tilting his head. “But from what I’ve heard, you should be able to recognize him anyway. Don’t hesitate. Get all of us away as fast as you can. I won’t be coming - too many people to drag out of there. We’ll already get a duplicate,” he cursed and scoffed. “Just get us out alive.”
Jin nodded and snapped the oval shaped onyx pendant open with his shaking hands. He looked at Ueda pleadingly, pressing his lips tightly together.
“Never asked him how it works?” Ueda grimaced in understanding. “Me either.”
“I never thought I’d have to…” he grunted and drew in a deep breath. The bloodied wheels were slowly rolling inside the device and several glowing drops illuminated light on his hand and face, blinding his vision.
Why had it never come in his mind to ask?
He examined the necklace carefully, afraid of breaking it. It was Kame’s creation - the chances of anyone being able to fix it were close to zero.
He carefully slipped his nail in one of the raggedly edged wheel’s groove and started rolling it to another direction and, so very fast, Ueda disappeared from his side.
It was maddeningly slow and he had to take pauses where time slipped forward with normal speed as he repositioned his nail carefully, hoping to god no one in the house saw him. He must’ve been doing it wrong because Kame had done it with such easy and speed but it was working nonetheless - time was going forward. He felt hot iron hands gripping his insides.
A happy and younger Kame pranced down the stairs behind him excitedly in order to get downstairs to converse with a taller man who was preparing something shining with a familiar-looking mould. He slammed papers and papers on the table and talked, his speech going by so fast it slurred in Jin’s ears. Something perhaps already forgotten by the Kame he knew.
He didn’t even know for how long he’d have to be turning time - it was beyond him. Still he continued, stubbornly as day after day passed by slowly in the household. He just hoped he’d see the situation he had imagined so many times without any truthful image in his mind but he knew it could still be days away.
He didn’t dare trying to figure out a better and faster way in fear of breaking Kame’s cherished device. It was his last hope, his very last hope of saving Kame, knowing anyone, surviving. He was lost in an unfamiliar universe in a time where no one knew him, going slowly forwards, day passing after day.
He hated it. Even more than when it had just quickly slurred by with a nauseating speed. At least then he hadn’t been able to see the life that was about to come to an abrupt stop clearly before his eyes.
Now every time someone walked around in the house and talked he could hear their speech with a speed faster than the normal - it sounded scary and maleficent. The movements were almost psychotic with their twists and if Jin accidentally rolled the wheels the wrong way, they went backwards like little puppets under his control.
He had always been a bit (or a whole lot more) on the scaredy-cat side. Manipulating disgusted him.
The blood would rust the wheels and Kame would kill him, he knew as he sat down on the stairs as he kept rolling the wheels, hour after hour. He was tired, worn and emotionally drained, lost in times he didn’t want to see.
He reached a time where people forced their way through the door, guns in their hands. Kame stood up in the staircase with a look of shock on his face, paled in fear. Tackey appeared to bellow something at him and painfully slowly Kame turned around and dashed fully upstairs and out of sight. Yokoyama, walking behind the whole bunch, waved his hand at him and a couple of men ran up the stairs.
It was sickening to watch. Sickening how they approached Kame’s mentor violently, how the struggle escalated and belongings flew from their normal places. The glasses of the frames that covered the photographs broke as they hit the floor when someone collided with a shelf.
It was all a big and painful disaster. He wondered if the younger Kame was gone already or if he struggled too, if he heard the sounds that strained his eardrums with a quickened speed.
Tackey was held on his knees on the floor by two of Yokoyama’s people, neither of them familiar to him. Koki and Nakamaru seemed pale and sickened, showing their resistance and disbelief. An uncaring and smug smirk spread over Yokoyama’s lips, one that told very well how much better he saw himself as than the man under his power.
What he said, Jin couldn’t make it out. The shot he did though, and the fast-speed jerk of Kame’s mentor’s body made as he hit the floor was sickening. He knew he’d never outlive it from his head.
Kame and Ueda appeared in the middle of the room out of nowhere. Ueda shot upwards as a distraction as Kame removed the necklace from around the smaller man’s neck and kicked the gun away from Yokoyama’s hand, forcing him down on the floor with a furious jump.
He hadn’t ever seen Kame quite as sickeningly crazed and thunderous before.
The pair landed on Tackey but rolled away quickly. There was a struggle between the two of them as Ueda attacked a dumbfounded stranger. Or maybe it wasn’t a stranger? Jin squinted his eyes to see the face better but couldn’t quite recall where he had seen him before. Could’ve been anywhere.
There was a slur of colours and undetectable shapes around them. …It had to be Kame’s stopped time. Had to.
He changed the direction of the time flow, just a small click of one of the edges and there Kame was again, on the floor on top of Yokoyama, forcing the necklace over the man’s head. His heart skipped a beat.
Could Kame seriously be so stupid?
“I’m going to kill him,” Jin muttered furiously, outraged by Kame’s selfish and stupid actions. He made his way through the aimed arms closer and pondered for a while.
If he let go of time Kame would stop it and, most likely, he’d be left out from the frozen moment. Could he get around it? He couldn’t fit his head under the chain of Kame’s necklace - there wasn’t enough space. He had already learned that.
Fuck Kame’s plans.
He removed the necklace from around Yokoyama’s (god, the man was hideous) neck and slipped it on himself.
Even in a stopped time frame he could smell Kame’s natural odour from the air. He was clean, maybe a bit ruffled up but he was alright - Kame was alright right before his eyes.
Kame would be furious to him. Unless he backed away from his plans anyway.
He could try a trick, though.
He slipped the chain of the necklace from around his neck around Yokoyama’s, and fumbled for a while to press the gun against the man’s soft chest.
It felt sickening and wrong. He closed his eyes and took in a few deep breaths. …He had to just get on with it.
He wouldn’t let Kame die on his arms all over again.
He removed his finger from within the necklace, let it drop and suddenly everything around them froze again in a mere fragment of a second. He could sense Kame shifting, though, jerking away in surprise and shock, almost breaking the chain from around his neck.
Yokoyama was moving too, his eyes changing to him quickly. He had appeared out of nowhere after all.
Jin pulled the trigger. Once, twice.
The power of the gun made him jerk strongly backwards. Kame caught him with his widened eyes, still in shock and disbelief and his arms shot around him to catch him before the strain put on the chains broke them.
Yokoyama was touching his chest in fear, his eyes shooting at him furiously.
Jin sensed danger.
“Fuck dammit,” he cursed numbly, feeling the familiar need of blabbering rising. “Kame, is this such a great idea after all?”
Kame’s eyes shot back at the shot man and he forced his way to sit upon him, locking the man’s arms to the ground, unavailable for his use. Kame was alive and panting, strength in his limbs and…
Jin couldn’t hold himself back anymore but hugged him and broke into tears again. Kame was startled and removed his hands from the man’s shoulders.
“Jin, are you alright?” he asked, voice a few octaves too high compared to the normal. “You’re bloody. A-are you alr-”
“DON’T LET GO OF HIM,” Jin warned Kame and took a strong hold of the panting man’s hair. Blood was quickly staining his shirt and he kept gasping for air breathlessly, trying to struggle free from under them but flinching in pain.
“K-nashi,” he managed to snarl before his body jerked scarily and became stiff and still.
He’d never know the person he had killed, but his last words would never stop ringing in his ears, he swore as vomit tried to creep up his throat once again.
Jin realised he was on his knees on a pool of blood and cried out, the smell shooting up his nostrils.
He really had just murdered a person.
“Jin,” Kame turned to him, his voice strained and angry but flooded with worry as he wrapped his arms around him, removing the necklace from around Yokoyama’s neck and pulling Jin away from the body. “What did you do?”
Jin merely gripped a strong hold of Kame and hang to him strongly, refusing to let go as he shook violently. An anguished wail left his lips as he refused to move anymore.
Kame was safe now. Kame was alright.
He had shot down his entire universe for him.
He broke into tears.
“What did you do, Jin…” Kame spoke quietly, still sounding disbelieving as he held him, burying Jin’s face in his shoulder gently. “...Don’t cry. It’s alright.”
Pi’s smile was forever gone now, and so was his mother’s. His brother would never move alone into his new apartment, his father would never be back from his small business trip to Korea, or maybe he had been. He would never know. His book was never going to be published. Everyone would be gone the moment time would roll again. Or maybe they were gone already?
“…Let’s get out of here, alright?” Kame tried to tempt him gently, less bloodied hands going through his already previously stained hair, getting stuck on the clogs.
They still sat still on the ground for a while, Kame’s attention diverted elsewhere. Jin managed to follow his gaze in between his crazed breakdown and saw the still corpse of Kame’s mentor only a few metres away, looking everything but peaceful.
They’d both be forever haunted by the moment, he knew as he hung on to Kame’s shoulders, a helpless and panicky noise constantly rising from his throat. It would follow them to their graves.
Kame helped him on his feet and walked them over to the frozen Ueda, fist buried deep in the familiar-looking man’s gut, making him bend over in pain.
…Was it the man chuckling at Pi in the odd universe?
Kame slipped the chain from around his neck around Ueda’s and Ueda’s form came into life in mid-yell that blasted loudly in Jin’s ear before it died.
“You did it?” Ueda asked before his eyes turned into the mass in Kame’s arms, namely Jin. His eyebrows knitted together as he opened his mouth but Kame let time loose and before much happened, everything ran almost as fast as light before them. No one dared to speak.
Within the first seconds, after a long and painful wait, the young Kame exited the universe and left for a quest he was to disappear on.
--
They sat quietly by the riverside as Kame carefully washed the clogged blood from his skin with a soft, dark towel. Jin stared at the distance, somewhere far ahead. Nights fell over the land faster in here than what he was used to and the colours were more breathtaking than he ever could’ve imagined.
Kame wet the towel quietly again in the river and rubbed his arm gently, smearing the redness again before slowly getting it away. Jin didn’t react - he had the horizon to cleanse his mind with. He sat in his boxers and let the soft but warm evening breeze dance on his skin.
It was almost as if everything would’ve stood still but it didn’t. It was once again one of those rare oddly peaceful moments between them, the ones that couldn’t really be described with any other words than shared distance - they were far away from everything and everyone and unreachable but together.
Kame’s lips comfortingly grazed on his shoulder and pressed a kiss as he cleansed his thighs. There wasn’t anything too sexual about it. They simply were and it was more than enough.
Their shared existence was more than enough in a world where everything else had disappeared. Their rightful places were gone and unreachable to them - soon they would both be foreigners and lost in yet another world, perhaps entirely different than their original ones.
It was a miracle they had come together after all, through all the possibilities around them. At some moments on that riverside with the swirls of gold and almost red orange playing on the river’s surface, on the grass and Kame’s toned arms, Jin wondered if they ever met elsewhere or if, perhaps, Kame met someone else on his journey. If he would’ve asked Kame, the man would’ve truthfully answered what he himself already knew was right - that it was entirely possible and, more likely than not, it had happened and was perhaps still happening.
He moved to bury his face in the crook of Kame’s neck and the younger man pulled him in a gentle hug, a pair of plump-ish lips setting on his temple, eyes fluttering half-closed. Kame’s heavy breath grazed his ear and he closed his own eyes.
The damp towel massaged his stomach gently, rubbing him clean.
Nakamaru and the two Uedas were inside, probably staying out of the way. He himself hadn’t really talked much since they had returned. After their arrival to the time the two Ueda’s (one confused and still grumpy one) had helped Kame and him return to where Nakamaru had been cleaning Kame’s dead body by the riverside. Kame hadn’t tried to force anything out of him and had refused to hear Nakamaru’s or Ueda’s side of the story before his, but Jin was sure what he had seen already told him quite enough. Still, he was patiently waiting.
Jin appreciated it, knowing that in reality Kame wasn’t quite as patient on the same way. He was patient with waiting for the outcome of the work he devoted himself fully for, but he didn’t just sit and wait for things to happen. But now he did.
He still only sat by the riverside with him during the dusk and cleansed his body slowly with his gentle touches. The blood was gone already, but he didn’t feel clean. The smell was still finding its way up his nostrils.
He wondered what the triplet had done with Kame’s body.
Kame rose to his feet and offered him a pair of soft hands. Jin looked at him tiredly but took a hold of them and let Kame get him on his feet and walk him to the river, deep enough for the water to rise to their knees.
It was runny and warm like during the hottest summer days. Kame bended his naked back and cupped his hands to get water on them before raising them up and letting the water run down Jin’s hair and shoulders. He shivered.
Kame sat him down in the river and crouched over with him, washing his hair gently. Jin enjoyed the touches, laying his own hand on Kame’s knee, steadying him as the river ran.
The darkness was quickly falling over them and the stars were lighting up far, far above them. He had often imagined starlit skies in some faraway countryside, the kind that was filled with stars and stardust, where one could see an entire space flooded with the sea of them but never had he actually seen one like this.
Maybe Kame was the unfortunate one for having to leave this place behind all over again. Its warmth and light.
Jin closed the distance between their lips and wrapped his arms around Kame’s shoulders, pulling him on his lap. Kame followed his guidance obediently, letting him be in control of the situation.
“Don’t be so wary,” Jin croaked a soft complaint, bumping their noses gently together again. Kame hummed something in absent agreement, pressing a bit firmer peck on his lips.
“I just want to make sure you’re alright,” Kame spoke quietly, his voice barely detectable over the sound of the lively running water. “You’ll come around eventually. I don’t want to see a day where you don’t constantly annoy me by speaking nonstop.”
“Shut up,” Jin whined a bit, the corner of his lips awkwardly twisting. He rested his hands on Kame’s hips and shuffled their bodies closer, burying his face in the younger man’s shoulder.
“Don’t ever die on me again,” he ordered with a silent and voice. Kame’s fingers ran through his dampened hair and his arms wrapped around his head, keeping him close and wrapped in an awkward embrace.
“I promise. It’s more likely you die of old age faster than me anyway,” Kame tried to chuckle, his voice still sounding slightly strained. Jin proceeded to ignore it and merely kept inhaling Kame’s musky scent, thumbs rubbing circles in his hips.
“I’d like to keep existing,” Jin sighed. Kame intertwined their ringed pinkies together in a promise and met him for a reassuring kiss.
It was odd how the weight was off their shoulders but still there - it was odd that they were free of their bonds, promises and needs but still carrying the lost souls of the unbelievably many universes the two shots he had let loose had taken.
Somewhere in the world Pi smiled, jumping in the back of his very own and annoyed but pleased Jin. That Jin never quite knew how much he had in the world that seemed and felt empty and useless, going the same way day after day around him.
Somewhere in the world, maybe within a few years from now, his mother would delightedly meet him with a proud smile as he’d lead a fiancé inside the household for Sunday dinner. Their family would sit down, converse and laugh. He would bully Reio and his father would scold him, during which his mother would make a polite but oddly delighted apology for his partner.
Not in his nonexistent universe anymore, though.
Everywhere where a potential him existed, all the families and friends were already occupied with one replica of a him, someone who looked, sounded and thought about things just the same way as he once had, who was so familiar to him that it was almost hard to put his finger to it. There were no Pis or mums left for him anymore.
“I’m here,” Kame whispered quietly, rubbing his lip with his thumb. Jin flinched at the contact and grimaced, making Kame chuckle gently and remove his finger. “Ah. Is the bruise that painful?”
“What do you think, they’re from Ueda,” Jin muttered in answer, his tone not quite falling to the range of annoyance that his choice of words tried to display. “…You were so late then.”
“Early,” Kame corrected him and pulled him closer, breath labouring slowly but still strangely peacefully. “…I was early. Couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Asshole,” Jin snorted, raising his arms to pull Kame’s torso better close. “You could’ve gotten me out of there unhurt had you not been so selfish.”
“I like you too much,” Kame objected.
Jin accepted the apology and pulled them down, lying on the shore of the riverside in the darkness and wondered if Maru and the Uedas worried about them. Kame climbed over him and pressed a kiss on his neck before slipping his arms under his.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Kame thanked with a strained and shaky voice. Jin could feel a weak smile rising on his lips.
Kame knew the price of his life.
“You’re welcome,” he replied and studied the blinking stars.
Kame’s body radiated heat to him within the running water.
--
Jin hugged Nakamaru and the Uedas as tightly as Kame when the time of separation came. He thought about the times of waiting, the help he’d gotten from the three, the help Kame had gotten from the three and couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratefulness he wasn’t sure he’d ever quite be able to show or put into words justifiably enough. They probably didn’t understand why he held them so tight and felt so sorrowful about the separation, but it was alright. He was grateful nonetheless.
“Thank you. For everything,” Kame nodded at the three of them by his side. He had spent the latest hour or so explaining the Uedas and Nakamaru quite how their identical pendant necklaces functioned and now everything was finally set.
“Thank you for these,” Nakamaru nodded and pointed at the necklace hanging loosely around his neck. He was sweating nervously again and really seemed reluctant to leave them. “And saving me. I’m sorry I can’t repay you.”
“I repaid you,” Kame objected and Jin took his hand in his own, giving him strength for the separation as well. “You owe me nothing, Maru. Just take care of yourself. Stay away from the big bad boys and try not to get in trouble.”
Jin didn’t quite understand why Kame had decided to give both of the necklaces that originated from his earlier life in his mentor’s guidance away, but he had accepted his decision without further questioning. Maybe Kame’s gotten tired of messing with the natural laws of life - after all of the tiring years he had gone through in his quest, he wouldn’t be surprised, not to mention it was easier with the three to go as a bunch if they had at least a pair of them. Still, there was also the small chance of Kame showing respect and consolations for his lost loved ones Kame’s plans had taken away from him, and the kind person Kame was in the end, it didn’t sound like an impossible option. He figured he’d never know, because he didn’t feel like ever asking him.
They would both carry the weights of being the bad guys in the war with them to their graves in some still faraway universe, perhaps waiting to meet them.
“…You two too. Take care,” Kame nodded at the Uedas. “And… thank you. For being there and saving my life. I’m really sorry about…”
“No problem,” one of the Uedas shrugged, glancing briefly at the other. Jin had already lost track of which one was which. “Your boyfriend saved a ton of universes so I assume it was worth the trouble.”
Jin’s face flushed red and Kame chuckled in awkward amusement. He wrapped an arm around Jin’s broad shoulders and sighed. “I hope that can make him sleep at night. I have a feeling we’ll be having a lot of sleepless ones coming now.”
Jin couldn’t find it in himself to do more than silently agree.
“We’ll go to sneak a peak at the future now,” the other Ueda smirked at them. “Maybe in a few hundred years our crimes will be forgotten.”
“At least abroad,” Nakamaru nodded, seemingly concerned and palms sweating. “How does London sound?”
The Uedas grimaced at Kame who merely laughed and patted their shoulders for support. Jin found it in him to smile as well.
It was alright. What had happened had happened - there was no changing it now. No matter what he did, his own place within the layered universes would never appear again. He only had Kame now.
“We’ll go now,” one Ueda patted Nakamaru’s shoulder and wrapped the chain of his necklace around the other man’s neck. The other Ueda wrapped the one around his neck around the other Ueda’s, joining them in their quest.
“I’ll do it. Thank you for everything. I wish we’d see each other again,” he said with a warm nod.
“If you ever miss us…” Kame let his voice fade and patted his dimly shining earring, making an encouraging eye contact with Nakamaru who nodded.
“I know. If anything happens, I’ll keep you updated, Phantom,” he smirked. “Too bad my updates might be a couple of hundred years late.”
Kame laughed a genuine laugh that danced more lightly and beautifully than anything Jin had heard coming from his lips so far. He wrapped his arms around the younger man from behind and laid his chin on his shoulder as he watched the three men wave at them awkwardly.
Then they were gone.
“I guess we’ll be going now too,” Jin prodded, rocking their forms gently. Kame tilted his head back in order to kiss his cheek and laid his hands on his, enjoying the shared closeness.
“I guess we will,” he agreed. “Hopefully somewhere nice.”
“Let’s not stop before nice,” Jin snorted. “I want to go somewhere where we can live.”
“I’ll take you there,” Kame promised, grabbed his bag and turned around, wrapping his arms around him as well and meeting him for a kiss.
As Jin proceeded to eat up his lover’s lips, he felt the familiar pressure.
Kame was close.
--
Winter, 2009
They walked amidst hundreds of locals in their right place of the world, chattering loudly in almost familiar but still unfathomed fuzz. Cars drove by on the busy roads and they found themselves looking up at the pollution-filled sky, shivering in the cold together under the lights of the hundreds of billboards and screens blasting commercials with a loud voice that exceeded the crowd’s.
Jin felt his eyes widening and mouth dropping as a bus drove by them. Kame stood next to him, stunned at where he stood, uncaring about the grunts and complaints of the people who were bumping into them on their way and dodging to get by.
Kame regained his senses first and started messing up his hair worriedly before pulling him across the road when the lights turned green. Jin stumbled after him, still in shock.
“Was that just..?”
“I guess we’re big names here,” Kame muttered back but sounded amused nonetheless. Jin felt a happy laughter rising from his throat as he found more pictures of both of them in posters plastered on the walls.
“I always wondered what I’d be like if I made it big,” he clicked his tongue smugly.
He figured they’d need fake names in addition to fake identities and maybe proper, differing haircuts than their replicas. Just in case.
Not to mention a new penname if he ever decided to write down the story of the man walking in dusted ash carried away by the wind.