fic: The Cerulean Hours (and what it takes to paint them cyan) (1/5)
Title: The Cerulean Hours (and what it takes to paint them cyan)
Author: prologuesized
Beta: pinkeuphoria1
Pairing: Akame, Kame/OC, mild Kamepi
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, Angst, Romance
Disclaimer: If a character has a name you can’t quickly recognize, it’s probably one of my minor character OCs. Other than that, well, you know how it goes. No way they’re mine.
Summary: Kame needs more colours in his life, not only cerulean. It's a good thing he comes to know a painter to show him how it's done.
Author Note: This… got out of hands. Honestly. I thought that “hey, I’ll write another one of those 12,000 word fics yay” but, yeah, um, didn’t happen quite like that. This is the result of days of work (good for my stress, actually) and… yeah. I really tried with this one on some lazy sense. I hope you can appreciate it? …This is over half a nanowrimo, for god’s sake. Ugh.
And I’ve got to say I’ve got the best beta ever. Seriously. You wouldn’t have wanted to see this before all of her tweaking XDDD
Wordcount: 33,500
The Cerulean Hours
(and what it takes to paint them cyan)
He likes his walls cerulean as they stand tall around him, lulling him in with whispers of the sea, vowing protection with the voices of lost spirits. The shades of blue colour his vision as he caresses the cheap and rough material of the wall with the tender skin of his palms, bare feet dragging across the rugged carpet as he follows the calls penetrating his ears. Against the simple blue he sees a hue of vibrant orange, bonfires, that flame and swallow the emptiness with their lazy swirls, emitting sparkles all around.
“I know you,” he whispers and allows himself to smile a little as he presses his forehead against the chilly material, slowly sliding down against the wall. There’s a silent and hollow thump as his knobbly knees hit the floor. Amidst the voices whispering, lulling, singing, telling, he can hear the sound of his own breathing, heavy and raspy but certain.
He lies down on the carpet. Once it was fluffy, but that isn’t the case anymore. Now it feels rough under him and the material prickles at the exposed skin of his lower back and neck. He ignores the unpleasant sensation though, and lets his eyelids slide shut - the floor is moving under him in waves and cold sweat forms on his skin. The shivers racking his body are intense, but somehow it’s all good.
It’s pure creation.
And, because of that, he lets it come to him. Fingers hesitantly join his, a mere weakened breeze as they slip through the hollows in-between Kame’s own. They curl and grip his hands firmly, asking.
“ Yes,” he nods and whispers, jaw moving ever so slightly and his voice a slurred mumble. His tongue is swelling inside his mouth, and his entire body feels used and worn. However, something seems to regenerate - a familiar wave of energy about to push him on his feet, give him strength for yet another day. It tingles under his skin in an arousing way, setting his body on fire despite the coldness.
An hour or so later his eyes crack open. The room is still free of other human beings apart from himself, and as he sits up the cerulean walls still surround him, locking him inside his apartment like a lone white seabird convicted to live artificial freedom.
He hops on his feet and wipes his damp forehead with the grey hem of his t-shirt. He slouches to the small fridge he has in the kitchen area of his one-room apartment, pulls the door open and picks up a bottle of fresh water. Without bothering with a glass, he uncaps the bottle and sits on the counter while sipping the cool liquid and trying to calm his body down.
The rest of the unholy hours he should be reserving for something significantly important like sleep, he spends sitting beside the window with piles of empty sheets and ballpoint pens. The morning slowly but surely starts creeping in through the blinds, but as the golden rays shower his form, Kame still remains seated, inking the words refusing to be left unwritten on the papers, one after another.
The only times he leaves his spot for the following three days is when he fetches himself another water bottle or goes to relieve himself. No sleep, no food, no rest to his bloodshot eyes. His vision eventually blurs and a headache throbs at the back of his skull, strong and insistent.
Nothing makes him stop before the story is finished, though.
Only then does he collect the papers in order and file them neatly. He slouches to his thin futon and crashes down, passing out before his head even hits the pillow.
After 20 hours he wakes up to the loud protest coming from his stomach and the nauseating sensation of dehydration. He eats an entire loaf of bread and empties a bottle of green tea that had been sitting in his fridge before he gives his manager a call.
Then it’s done, aside from a doctor’s appointment for a stress injury in his wrist.
--
“Piña Colada, please,” Kame politely orders his drink from the barista. She gives him an acknowledging smile and Kame turns around, leaning against the counter as he takes in the sight of people enjoying an abnormally hot summer day on the beach. The sand clings to his skin from where it had stuck after a lazy walk in the salty water.
A man hops on a bar stool next to him. For a moment Kame feels drawn back, but then he realises that the bar is actually quite busy (probably because of the heat - must be good for business) and there aren’t really many stools to choose from. Besides, the man isn’t even looking at him. He waves his hand to the blonde barista with a silly smile and the woman walks over with a delightfully surprised smile.
Kame steals a glance, unable to resist his curious nature. The man has broad shoulders and a good, natural tan on his skin. His longish wet hair is a mess and clings to his skin, curling slightly. There’s a camera hanging on a leash around his neck - not just some silly tourist purchase either, but an actual proper camera with a long objective and an add-on flash system. Kame’s eyes linger on the small heart-shaped birthmark on the man’s shoulder and he can barely hold back an amused chuckle. And that’s it.
The barista barely gives Kame a look longer than a second as she puts his drink down in front of him, greeting the man on the stool with a chirpy voice. Kame pays for his order and thanks her politely anyway, taking a sip and feeling the taste of rum and pine apple spreading on his tongue. It’s a good drink.
He slouches away without looking back, leaving the barista and the man chatting away in the shade of the bar. Koki calls him over with a jump and a big wave of his muscled arm and Kame grins, making his way through the sunbathers and running children. Koki throws a stick to his dog, Sakura, and watches it run into the sea to fetch it. Kame knows his car will smell like wet dog fur for weeks after this trip.
When Sakura runs back and bounces at him, Kame squeals and does his best to protect his drink. Still, the impact of the collision sends some of the cocktail splashing over his chest. Koki wails as he runs over, trying to grab his dog to calm her down. Kame just laughs and ruffles his hair.
“Well damn!” he laughs and takes a long gulp from his drink before extending his hand towards his friend. “Hold this for me, will you?”
“You do know I’ll drink it, right?” Koki questions him with a sheepish smile. Kame purses his lips but gives the drink to his friend anyway, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.
“If you drink it, you’ll be taking the glass back to the bar!”
He beckons Sakura to join him as he makes a run to the water past the crowd. The dog barks before it jumps into the water behind him, splashing water around before it starts swimming. Kame finally takes a dive too, figuring it’s better to be soaked with sea water than a sticky Piña Colada. After his dive, he returns to the shore where the water isn’t as deep so that the small dog can play around him more freely.
Kame considers returning to where he and Koki have made a temporary camp, but dismisses the idea as soon as he sees Koki chatting up some unnaturally busty girl on their towels. Sakura barks at his feet and he throws a stick with his better and un-bandaged hand for her, racing the small dog towards it.
That is, before he collides with someone who pretty much appears out of nowhere on his track. There’s a short moment during which Kame feels hopeful and relieved - they’re not going to fall, not really. But then he feels his balance failing him and they both crash down in the chilly water. The man’s arms flail helplessly mid-fall and he makes a sound, “ unf”, as the air leaves his lungs.
A wave runs over Kame’s body as he tries to figure out which way is up and which down. Eventually he figures that he’s somehow awkwardly sprawled on top of a man who’s ogling at him with wide eyes. There’s something familiar about him, but Kame isn’t quite able to put his finger on it.
“Oh damn damn damn my camera!” the man suddenly wails and Kame jumps up. The man manages to stumble on his feet as well. Sakura returns with the stick in her mouth and distracts Kame by jumping at his feet happily. Kame picks her up in his arms and makes his way closer to the man hesitantly. He seems to be in agony.
It’s then that he identifies him. The man from the bar.
“Oh thank god,” the man finally lets out an exhale he had been keeping. He looks up and his cheeks burn as he tries to crack Kame a smile. “Still works, can you believe it? I’ll just have to clean up the lens and it should be fine. No worries!”
“Um. …Good,” Kame gulps awkwardly. Sakura drops the stick and swags her tail, eager to return back to the ground. The man takes a few steps closer and ruffles the dog behind her ear. He feels a bit intimidating at the close proximity.
“Oh. Um,” the man coughs and takes a few steps back again. He seems a bit out of place standing there. His looks are definitely Japanese and his accent is well in place too, but there’s something odd about his mannerism - there’s a certain kind of openness in him that most people in the country don’t really have.
Kame lets Sakura back on the ground and throws the stick for her, not running after it this time. He still keeps an eye on the dog as it sprints through the crowd of playing children and a yelling mother making her way to the water.
“Are you sure the camera is okay? I can pay for any damage,” Kame offers, still feeling a bit hesitant - it had been quite a hit, and cameras weren’t often build to deal with water. “This was my fault.”
“No no no! It’s fine, really!” the man insists. He opens his mouth to say more but a loud yell of “Jin!” coming from the background distracts him. He turns around and waves his hand at a group of people, making their way closer to the beach line from the bar with beer bottles clinging in their hands.
Sakura comes back too, her tail whisking water around. Kame smiles at the sight and lowers himself to his knees. The man turns his gaze back to him and Kame looks up, ruffling Sakura for a good fetch.
“Go,” Kame encourages him and stands up back on his feet again, smiling at the stranger. The man bites his lip and nods after a moment of hesitation. Then life goes on and he turns around to jog towards his friends, some looking foreign.
It’s a strange feeling he has as he stares at the man’s back on his way back towards Koki’s and his spot on the beach. He assumes it’s a bit of a casual crush, but doesn’t feel too bothered about it. The chances of the man returning any sort of sexual feelings towards him are low, and the issue isn’t pressing anyway. He’s just another eye candy on the beach.
--
He thanks god the slim suit he had chosen for the occasion is black as the heavy February rain outside violates the fabric. He figures the most important thing is to keep his hair intact - there’s only so much you can do to fix a ruined hairstyle in public restrooms in the middle of an art exhibition. Besides, he’s pretty sure Ueda isn’t going to let him disappear halfway through. As a friend, he’s entitled to stand around with a glass of champagne in his hand, smile and make small talk with other artists and whatnots.
He hands over his clear and wet umbrella to the awfully polite receptionist before making his way up the stairs to the gallery. The double doors are drawn open invitingly and he shakes a few hands with people whose faces look familiar as he makes his way towards his friend.
“Kame,” the man greets with a cheerful smile and pulls him in a hug. Some people stare - Ueda doesn’t really give off the aura of a man you’d like to hug unless you want your teeth punched in. They grin at each other and Kame glances around, familiar with his friend’s cartoonish style.
“More mice?” he jokes as he makes his way towards a rather large canvas with thick and strong colours. A lot of blood and teeth and a slightly psychotic touch - Ueda’s always been best at relieving himself from strong emotions through arts. “Owww, cute.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Ueda laughs as he stands beside him and crosses his arms. “Not really what I usually appreciate to hear when it comes to my art, but you’re not into the business anyway. So from a friend, I guess that’s a compliment.”
“Ueda-san,” a grey-haired man interrupts them - the gallery’s owner, Kame recalls and greets him with a wide smile and a handshake. “Ah, Kamenashi-san, I’m glad to see you again. So, Ueda, could I steal you for a moment? I’ve got some French art collectors who seem to be quite fond of your… extravagant style.”
Kame laughs and pats his friends back, encouraging him to go and socialize like a good artist should. He feels a bit out of place among the elites and stumbles in conversations related to art. He’s used to all of it already though, so he does what he knows works the best - he hops from one chattering group to another, admits that he honestly doesn’t know a damn thing about art but still does his best to participate in the conversation.
Eventually, he gets a bit tired of it. Unable to locate his friend in the quite large gallery packed with probably a few hundred people at least, he resorts to sipping at his quickly draining drink and wandering around the gallery, looking at the works. He does appreciate the beauty of art, and even the seemingly ugly works fascinate him to an extent - it’s just that it’s really not his thing.
He enters an exhibition consisting of paintings and smiles fondly as he examines the works with occasionally bright and lively colours, occasionally dark and dull to the point of depressing. The contrast they make with the simple creamy white wall behind them really seems to bring out their atmosphere, he thinks to himself, and afterward curses himself in his head for starting to think like some boring art critic himself. He hears some artists criticising the works behind his back but tunes them out. He’s here for pleasure, not business.
He freezes in front of one painting though. People walk past him as he dumbly examines a painting of himself and Sakura playing in the water. The people around them blur into faceless silhouettes and the water that splashes around almost at the height of his knees is cyan to the point where it makes Kame’s eyes hurt a bit.
He feels a bit taken aback by the sudden intrusion to his life and looks around frantically to see if anyone has recognized him but no - the art elites seem to be too interested in the paintings to pay attention to the other guests at the opening party, never mind actually recognizing someone who had been just a painted form barely fifteen centimetres long on a canvas of never-ending blue.
He turns back to the painting and examines the golden nameplate underneath with a lump in his throat. Who the fuck.
“Untitled”
Akanishi Jin
2009.8.10
Kame scratches his neck, unable to recall ever hearing about anyone named Akanishi. He’s been around in quite a few opening parties through the years, yet the name means absolutely nothing to him. Must be some rising artist then.
He wonders if the painting will one day hang on some rich person’s living room wall. If someone will peer at his face and children will coo over Sakura. Stupid things like that. He decides he doesn’t quite like being the subject of someone’s paintings.
“Ah, it’s you,” a surprised voice chokes behind him and Kame turns around, eyebrows disappearing behind the cover of his fringe. A sort of familiar-looking man with his crisp white shirt unbuttoned halfway to his chest stares at him stupidly with a drink in one hand and soon offers his other hand at him. Kame shakes it a bit hesitantly, bowing his head.
“You were..?”
“Akanishi Jin. You know. I mean, you don’t know,” the man shakes his head to clear his thoughts and smiles at him widely. “The man you ran into at the beach?”
“You,” Kame finally remembers and ogles at him for a second before chuckling nervously. “I mean, I’m glad to meet you, Akanishi-san” he corrects himself and bows politely a bit deeper. “I didn’t know you’re an artist.”
“Do you like it?” Akanishi asks him and smiles widely as he steps before the painting as well, looking at it with a proud look in his eyes. Kame licks his lips nervously and tilts his head slightly, as if examining it.
“I… don’t really know,” he admits. “I guess it’s beautiful. Perhaps a little too bright for my eyes.”
“People tend to say that,” Akanishi nods understandingly and turns his head to him again, still smiling widely. “I like it, though. Don’t you feel happy when you see bright colours?”
“I guess,” Kame agrees with him and empties his glass of champagne. “But that’s bright enough to give me a headache.”
“Ouch,” Akanishi grimaces and takes his glass from him. “I’ll take this away for you. But please, enjoy. If the headache gets too bad, go and enjoy some dark and sully works then. I’m sure I saw a vampire mouse somewhere.”
“That’d be my friend’s probably,” Kame laughs. Akanishi waves his hand at him as he starts walking away. Kame looks after him before turning his eyes back to the painting.
“Hey, you,” the voice suddenly calls out to him again, reappearing from behind the corner, two empty glasses still in his hands. “Could I get your name? For the title. I almost named it ‘ Dog’ just to piss people off for being un-artistic, but it sounds a little too lame.”
The man doesn’t even ask him if he wants to have his name displayed for the world to see. Kame grimaces a bit and bites his lip. It’s a bit difficult to say no way when you aren’t given an option.
“Is it something embarrassing?” Akanishi prompts him, humour lacing his voice. The problem is that he’s standing pretty much on the opposite side of the wide room, and people are starting to stare at them and whisper. The man really has no manners. “It’s not like I’m actually going to use your name, you won’t get any stalkers. Just for inspiration, you know.”
Kame sighs out of relief and walks over with his cheeks burning out of sheer embarrassment. He takes the glasses from Akanishi’s hands and smiles at him a bit stiffly.
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” he says quietly, feeling uneasy about the people still watching them. He does like being the centre of attention in a good way - bad way, not so much. “I’ll take care of these. Have a good evening, and congratulations for the exhibition.”
“Thanks,” the man croaks after him, and Kame looks back enough to give him an apologetic smile. He delivers the glasses to a wandering waiter and decides to escape to the other end of the exhibition to keep from getting associated to Akanishi through his painting or anything really.
He regrets his decision when facing modern and contemporary art he can make absolutely no sense out of. He isn’t really good at enjoying something he doesn’t understand, especially if it doesn’t fascinate him. After gazing at a ball made of fake nails for five minutes without getting its point he feels more uneasy and disgusted than appreciative.
It’s already past midnight and Kame’s feeling more than a bit tipsy as he walks into the men’s restroom. He relieves himself before washing his hands and trying to fix his hair. He hears the door open but doesn’t remove his eyes from his reflection.
“Chyeaaaa,” someone greets him and Kame glances at the direction of the voice. Akanishi nods at him slightly awkwardly. Soon enough he’s smiling again though. The expression seems a bit tense and makes Kame lick his lips as the man makes his way over, leaning against the sink. Kame assumes he just genuinely isn’t aware of the awkwardness his behaviour arises.
“I think I’ll name it ‘Kame’. Is that okay for you?” the man teases him with a goofy smirk. Kame gulps.
“Actually, that’s my nickname.”
“And I might’ve been talking to that friend of yours. The one with all the mice,” Akanishi waves his hand and giggles. He actually giggles and blushes bright red on the spot. The awkwardness intensifies and Kame gulps again, hoping for someone to walk in but, against all the odds, the restroom seems to be abandoned.
Akanishi steals a look at Kame’s lips. The sound of their breaths echoes a bit, making the slight change to heavier easily detectable. Kame licks his lips and dares to look at Akanishi’s as well - he has to admit that he really is a bit more than tipsy and Akanishi isn’t really bad at all when it comes to looks.
More than looks? Oh well. He also has to admit that the man isn’t exactly his type with all the weird and pushy greetings, nervousness and just… yeah, whatever. He’s a bit too much on the weird side, and they don’t seem to have that much in common.
Akanishi just starts leaning in when Kame backs away from the sink and leaves him stumbling to regain his posture and dignity. His face is dumbfounded and red, as he struggles to digest what had just happened. Kame grimaces at the man apologetically and waves his hand.
“Kame’s fine. For the painting. I might see you around.”
“Yeah, see you -”
He doesn’t hear the rest of Akanishi’s sentence as the door closes behind him.
They don’t really talk to each other after that in the party. A few times before Kame leaves he catches him staring sadly in his direction, but when Kame raises his look the man’s always quick to turn away and pretend like he hadn’t been dozing off and stalking him like some rejected teenager.
He’s a bit taken aback by the sudden admiration, but doesn’t feel like pursuing a one-time thing at the moment. Because of that, he lets it be. When he returns to his one-room apartment, he’s still lonely and alone in his solitary environment, surrounded by simple cerulean walls, barely any furniture and boxes stacked with folders containing the raw versions of his books.
No need for regrets at all. The walls are pulsing around him and Kame feels his own fingers faintly caressing his non-drumming chest as he strips himself of his suit jacket and lets it slide into a pile on the floor. He gulps and feels his fingers shaking.
“God no, not now,” he whimpers weakly, wishing to just go to bed and get a rest after a long day. “Don’t talk to me now. I’m not lonely.”
The cerulean stares at him and Kame admits defeat by slowly approaching it, letting himself be pulled in. He slowly unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall off his shoulders, pooling around his feet like the foam of the waves. He looks up and presses his palm against the blue, sinks it inside the arms frantically grasping for it and feels his ears exploding with the sudden voices coming forth from the wall.
--
Two days later he wakes up from a hospital bed. There’s an IV attached to his arm and someone sleeping on the bed beside his, but other than that the room is empty. Just white and curtains and a window where he can see the night-sky in its duke blue glory. He doesn’t see any stars.
His writing wrist is tightly cradled and he remembers the unfinished story. It makes him shake and panic but he knows that he won’t be able to write it anymore - it’s over for it now. He’s let the voices down and now the whispers will remain as an incomplete stack of papers in its folder. It’s a story that’ll never be told, a story that’ll never get a chance.
He starts crying, exhaustion creeping in again. He examines the bandage with his shaky fingers and tries to keep his tired sobs quiet to allow his unfortunate roommate to sleep. The more he awakens the more he realises that fuck he’s in pain and his stupid profession is one day going to rob him of his life.
The next morning the doctor insists he stay in the hospital for a few more days. They also set up a psychological evaluation of his poor state and Kame curses as he truthfully tells the psychiatrist that no, he isn’t suicidal or anything stupid like that and no, nothing significantly stressing or unfortunate has happened in his life recently because the problem really is that when he gets a story in his head he has to write it and things like sleep, food and water feel somehow really insignificant in comparison to the book and, well, sometimes it just happens to take days. That’s it. Nothing more.
He’d rather have it some other way too. There’s only a sickening feeling of morbid pleasure as he feels his thoughts clouding hour after hour of obsessive writing.
They let him off the hook, but insist he gets a computer for the writer. Kame promises that he will.
He won’t. Writing doesn’t work like that.
--
The guy he’s forced to share a room with is actually a pretty refreshing company. Kame’s the kind of person who gets bored easily, and it isn’t like his friends have free schedules over the clock to visit him, so he finds himself making friends with the man relatively easy. His name is Yamashita Tomohisa, although he lets Kame call him Yamapi for some strange reason concerning pink costumes. Kame doesn’t really manage to make out a clear and coherent story because Yamapi is wheezing and laughing madly when he tries to tell it. He’s hospitalized for a hip surgery. Kame thinks he said something about hip rolling when he tried to tell that story, but unlike in the case of his name, his words slurred together in embarrassment and his voice was too muffled to reach his bed.
The second night they spend feeling rebellious and adventurous. Kame’s off the IV now so he crawls to Yamapi’s bed. They cuddle and laugh quietly and Kame even blows him in the darkness, just because he can and Yamapi is like molten wax underneath him. It’s a good brief hospital romance. Sparks up his interest a little bit, and he hasn’t really gotten laid in a while. Being gay has its downsides, especially if your publishing agent is out to get you if you get in too big trouble with some gay scandal.
Things get a bit awkward when Yamapi’s friend visits him the next day, just because he just miraculously happens to be Akanishi Jin who keeps looking from Yamapi to him with a confused and betrayed expression on his face. They haven’t really told him about the exact nature of their companionship but somehow Kame feels pretty certain that Akanishi figures it out on his own because he’s really snappy and bratty towards his friend and ignores Kame completely. Eventually the two friends’ conversation turns into a literary fight fest where they scribble on endless sheets of paper and shove them angrily at each other’s faces before Akanishi eventually storms off, cheeks blotchy and lips tightly pressed together.
“I guess you two know each other,” Yamapi mumbles with a strained voice after his friend is gone. He isn’t looking at Kame - instead, he’s staring at the open door to the corridor where nurses and doctors walk and talk about things Kame doesn’t understand or care about.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“So. Um,” Yamapi finally tries to gather himself as he turns around to face him again, grinning a bit sheepishly. It looks kind of stupid on his face. Maybe it’s the eyes. “Why me but… not him?”
“I think it’s your man boobs,” Kame says with a serious voice. He doesn’t break eye contact. “He just doesn’t have them.”
For a moment Yamapi looks horrified but then they both break into howling laughter. The atmosphere becomes a bit lighter again.
“No, but really,” Kame says seriously again when they stop laughing. Yamapi frowns.
They don’t really fool around intimately after that. Friendship, though… that kind of lasts.
--
Yamapi asks him out for karaoke with some friends a few weeks after their release from the hospital. Kame decides that he should do something besides moaning after the dead story still scattered all around his desk and get some fresh air so he promises to come, planning to drag Koki with him. Koki’s brilliant with karaoke - once someone actually manages to get him to sing from all the rapping and roaring he does, he’s really got a voice of gold.
Koki strands him an hour before he’s supposed to leave. He calls him to wail something about women, women and women and his relationship issues and poor broken heart and says he’ll try to talk it out with Yukari-chan. Kame doesn’t really want to be a burden or anything so he promises they’ll go some other time.
After a while of thinking and staring at the gloomy cerulean walls, he grabs his jacket and his wallet and decides to go anyway. Yamapi will be there and he isn’t that bad with new people. It can be potentially refreshing.
He arrives to the dim karaoke bar with neon lighting. Yamapi is waiting for him at the counter and Kame walks over to him as he beckons him with a wave of his hand. They greet with an awkward hug before Yamapi flashes him a toothy smile and drags him into the elevator.
“We’ve got a private booth,” he explains enthusiastically as he beams at Kame. “I already got you a beer. Had to pay for the first round and you’re kind of late!”
Just by ten minutes, Kame insists embarrassedly. He shouldn’t have underestimated the traffic.
The elevator doors open and Yamapi pulls him into the noisy booth by his wrist. There are more people stuffed in than Kame had originally expected - he had been expecting maybe three to five people or so, but a good ten people are sitting on each other’s laps, swaying to the music and cheering a nervous big-nosed man on with his heartfelt ballad. Kame immediately takes a liking to his voice.
“Everyone, meet Kame! Kame, meet everyone!” Yamapi announces loudly. There’s an ear-wrecking applause and some whistling and Kame feels too awkward to open his mouth and mumble about feeling more at ease with his family name. He assumes the group’s ties are intimate, and some do look foreign so perhaps nicknames are a norm for them.
Someone shoves a tall glass of beer in his hand and a dark-skinned guy who’s apparently named Dominic taps his lap to invite him over. Kame assumes he isn’t Japanese as he hesitantly makes his way over and takes the invitation just because there really are no other seats left - his only other alternative would be on a redheaded girl’s lap, and there’s something awkward about sitting on a girl or mumbling with broken English to get her to move and let him sit under.
Dominic asks him about his singing preferences (“ballads mostly, or anything that has a catchy atmosphere in it”) and sings a few lines from the recently released new Arashi song with his heavy accent. Kame laughs at him, finding himself enjoying the company even with the language barrier.
When the noisy brat from his right makes a dash for the microphone Kame chugs at his beer and - notices the man awkwardly pressed tight against the cushions, looking as if he’d be wishing to just fall through the solid material and disappear somewhere else. He blinks.
“…Hi,” Akanishi greets him and offers his hand for a handshake. “Jin. In case you don’t remember.”
Of course. Kame throws a glance across the room at Yamapi who claps his hands together and bows his neck in apology. Ah. This had so been a set up.
“I’m here because of you, am I not?” Kame asks, switching from his nasal English to snappy Japanese. “You made him invite me.”
“I did ask him to make you bring a friend…” Akanishi mumbles and scratches his nose awkwardly. Dominic looks confused - Kame assumes he understands only fractions of the language, and their muffled tones aren’t really helping him.
He apologizes and rises to his feet. Akanishi jumps up immediately as well and takes his wrist. Kame yanks it away and the guy singing who sounds already a bit tipsy laughs to the mic something about bickering lovebirds and points at them. Kame licks his lips nervously as people’s eyes turn to them.
“Restroom,” he mumbles with his broken English and bows slightly before he turns his eyes back to Jin and walks away slowly. To his dismay, though, Jin follows him with a few second delay.
“Kame -”
“Don’t control me,” Kame snaps at him immediately and turns around on his heels. Akanishi freezes to the spot, looking like Kame would’ve just slapped him across his face. “You’re trying to make me do whatever you want me to. I don’t like that.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way?” Jin answers, his eyes thoughtfully narrowing. “I didn’t force you to come, you know.”
“No. It’s just everything you do,” Kame grumbles in frustration, trying to come up with the right words to explain his point. “You act like a jealous and possessive boyfriend even though we don’t even know each other. You’re like a stalker. It’s creepy and I don’t like that.”
It seems to take Jin aback. “I’m not like that!”
“Yes you are,” Kame sighs, feeling awfully tired all of sudden. “Look. Just… don’t do it, okay? I really hate it.”
Jin nods ashamedly and looks down at his feet. He sniffles a bit childishly and bites his lip. It almost makes Kame feel bad for his harsh words, but he knows they’re necessary unless he wants to get in deep trouble later on.
The man opens his mouth to say something, but no sound comes out. He isn’t looking Kame in the eyes anymore. Kame bites his lip and walks over to him, taps him comfortingly on his shoulder and carries on, leaving him standing in the corridor as he slips back in the booth.
Whatever feelings the man has, he doesn’t return them. Sometimes, sadly, it really is as simple as that.
--
PART 2
Author: prologuesized
Beta: pinkeuphoria1
Pairing: Akame, Kame/OC, mild Kamepi
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, Angst, Romance
Disclaimer: If a character has a name you can’t quickly recognize, it’s probably one of my minor character OCs. Other than that, well, you know how it goes. No way they’re mine.
Summary: Kame needs more colours in his life, not only cerulean. It's a good thing he comes to know a painter to show him how it's done.
Author Note: This… got out of hands. Honestly. I thought that “hey, I’ll write another one of those 12,000 word fics yay” but, yeah, um, didn’t happen quite like that. This is the result of days of work (good for my stress, actually) and… yeah. I really tried with this one on some lazy sense. I hope you can appreciate it? …This is over half a nanowrimo, for god’s sake. Ugh.
And I’ve got to say I’ve got the best beta ever. Seriously. You wouldn’t have wanted to see this before all of her tweaking XDDD
Wordcount: 33,500
The Cerulean Hours
(and what it takes to paint them cyan)
He likes his walls cerulean as they stand tall around him, lulling him in with whispers of the sea, vowing protection with the voices of lost spirits. The shades of blue colour his vision as he caresses the cheap and rough material of the wall with the tender skin of his palms, bare feet dragging across the rugged carpet as he follows the calls penetrating his ears. Against the simple blue he sees a hue of vibrant orange, bonfires, that flame and swallow the emptiness with their lazy swirls, emitting sparkles all around.
“I know you,” he whispers and allows himself to smile a little as he presses his forehead against the chilly material, slowly sliding down against the wall. There’s a silent and hollow thump as his knobbly knees hit the floor. Amidst the voices whispering, lulling, singing, telling, he can hear the sound of his own breathing, heavy and raspy but certain.
He lies down on the carpet. Once it was fluffy, but that isn’t the case anymore. Now it feels rough under him and the material prickles at the exposed skin of his lower back and neck. He ignores the unpleasant sensation though, and lets his eyelids slide shut - the floor is moving under him in waves and cold sweat forms on his skin. The shivers racking his body are intense, but somehow it’s all good.
It’s pure creation.
And, because of that, he lets it come to him. Fingers hesitantly join his, a mere weakened breeze as they slip through the hollows in-between Kame’s own. They curl and grip his hands firmly, asking.
“ Yes,” he nods and whispers, jaw moving ever so slightly and his voice a slurred mumble. His tongue is swelling inside his mouth, and his entire body feels used and worn. However, something seems to regenerate - a familiar wave of energy about to push him on his feet, give him strength for yet another day. It tingles under his skin in an arousing way, setting his body on fire despite the coldness.
An hour or so later his eyes crack open. The room is still free of other human beings apart from himself, and as he sits up the cerulean walls still surround him, locking him inside his apartment like a lone white seabird convicted to live artificial freedom.
He hops on his feet and wipes his damp forehead with the grey hem of his t-shirt. He slouches to the small fridge he has in the kitchen area of his one-room apartment, pulls the door open and picks up a bottle of fresh water. Without bothering with a glass, he uncaps the bottle and sits on the counter while sipping the cool liquid and trying to calm his body down.
The rest of the unholy hours he should be reserving for something significantly important like sleep, he spends sitting beside the window with piles of empty sheets and ballpoint pens. The morning slowly but surely starts creeping in through the blinds, but as the golden rays shower his form, Kame still remains seated, inking the words refusing to be left unwritten on the papers, one after another.
The only times he leaves his spot for the following three days is when he fetches himself another water bottle or goes to relieve himself. No sleep, no food, no rest to his bloodshot eyes. His vision eventually blurs and a headache throbs at the back of his skull, strong and insistent.
Nothing makes him stop before the story is finished, though.
Only then does he collect the papers in order and file them neatly. He slouches to his thin futon and crashes down, passing out before his head even hits the pillow.
After 20 hours he wakes up to the loud protest coming from his stomach and the nauseating sensation of dehydration. He eats an entire loaf of bread and empties a bottle of green tea that had been sitting in his fridge before he gives his manager a call.
Then it’s done, aside from a doctor’s appointment for a stress injury in his wrist.
--
“Piña Colada, please,” Kame politely orders his drink from the barista. She gives him an acknowledging smile and Kame turns around, leaning against the counter as he takes in the sight of people enjoying an abnormally hot summer day on the beach. The sand clings to his skin from where it had stuck after a lazy walk in the salty water.
A man hops on a bar stool next to him. For a moment Kame feels drawn back, but then he realises that the bar is actually quite busy (probably because of the heat - must be good for business) and there aren’t really many stools to choose from. Besides, the man isn’t even looking at him. He waves his hand to the blonde barista with a silly smile and the woman walks over with a delightfully surprised smile.
Kame steals a glance, unable to resist his curious nature. The man has broad shoulders and a good, natural tan on his skin. His longish wet hair is a mess and clings to his skin, curling slightly. There’s a camera hanging on a leash around his neck - not just some silly tourist purchase either, but an actual proper camera with a long objective and an add-on flash system. Kame’s eyes linger on the small heart-shaped birthmark on the man’s shoulder and he can barely hold back an amused chuckle. And that’s it.
The barista barely gives Kame a look longer than a second as she puts his drink down in front of him, greeting the man on the stool with a chirpy voice. Kame pays for his order and thanks her politely anyway, taking a sip and feeling the taste of rum and pine apple spreading on his tongue. It’s a good drink.
He slouches away without looking back, leaving the barista and the man chatting away in the shade of the bar. Koki calls him over with a jump and a big wave of his muscled arm and Kame grins, making his way through the sunbathers and running children. Koki throws a stick to his dog, Sakura, and watches it run into the sea to fetch it. Kame knows his car will smell like wet dog fur for weeks after this trip.
When Sakura runs back and bounces at him, Kame squeals and does his best to protect his drink. Still, the impact of the collision sends some of the cocktail splashing over his chest. Koki wails as he runs over, trying to grab his dog to calm her down. Kame just laughs and ruffles his hair.
“Well damn!” he laughs and takes a long gulp from his drink before extending his hand towards his friend. “Hold this for me, will you?”
“You do know I’ll drink it, right?” Koki questions him with a sheepish smile. Kame purses his lips but gives the drink to his friend anyway, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.
“If you drink it, you’ll be taking the glass back to the bar!”
He beckons Sakura to join him as he makes a run to the water past the crowd. The dog barks before it jumps into the water behind him, splashing water around before it starts swimming. Kame finally takes a dive too, figuring it’s better to be soaked with sea water than a sticky Piña Colada. After his dive, he returns to the shore where the water isn’t as deep so that the small dog can play around him more freely.
Kame considers returning to where he and Koki have made a temporary camp, but dismisses the idea as soon as he sees Koki chatting up some unnaturally busty girl on their towels. Sakura barks at his feet and he throws a stick with his better and un-bandaged hand for her, racing the small dog towards it.
That is, before he collides with someone who pretty much appears out of nowhere on his track. There’s a short moment during which Kame feels hopeful and relieved - they’re not going to fall, not really. But then he feels his balance failing him and they both crash down in the chilly water. The man’s arms flail helplessly mid-fall and he makes a sound, “ unf”, as the air leaves his lungs.
A wave runs over Kame’s body as he tries to figure out which way is up and which down. Eventually he figures that he’s somehow awkwardly sprawled on top of a man who’s ogling at him with wide eyes. There’s something familiar about him, but Kame isn’t quite able to put his finger on it.
“Oh damn damn damn my camera!” the man suddenly wails and Kame jumps up. The man manages to stumble on his feet as well. Sakura returns with the stick in her mouth and distracts Kame by jumping at his feet happily. Kame picks her up in his arms and makes his way closer to the man hesitantly. He seems to be in agony.
It’s then that he identifies him. The man from the bar.
“Oh thank god,” the man finally lets out an exhale he had been keeping. He looks up and his cheeks burn as he tries to crack Kame a smile. “Still works, can you believe it? I’ll just have to clean up the lens and it should be fine. No worries!”
“Um. …Good,” Kame gulps awkwardly. Sakura drops the stick and swags her tail, eager to return back to the ground. The man takes a few steps closer and ruffles the dog behind her ear. He feels a bit intimidating at the close proximity.
“Oh. Um,” the man coughs and takes a few steps back again. He seems a bit out of place standing there. His looks are definitely Japanese and his accent is well in place too, but there’s something odd about his mannerism - there’s a certain kind of openness in him that most people in the country don’t really have.
Kame lets Sakura back on the ground and throws the stick for her, not running after it this time. He still keeps an eye on the dog as it sprints through the crowd of playing children and a yelling mother making her way to the water.
“Are you sure the camera is okay? I can pay for any damage,” Kame offers, still feeling a bit hesitant - it had been quite a hit, and cameras weren’t often build to deal with water. “This was my fault.”
“No no no! It’s fine, really!” the man insists. He opens his mouth to say more but a loud yell of “Jin!” coming from the background distracts him. He turns around and waves his hand at a group of people, making their way closer to the beach line from the bar with beer bottles clinging in their hands.
Sakura comes back too, her tail whisking water around. Kame smiles at the sight and lowers himself to his knees. The man turns his gaze back to him and Kame looks up, ruffling Sakura for a good fetch.
“Go,” Kame encourages him and stands up back on his feet again, smiling at the stranger. The man bites his lip and nods after a moment of hesitation. Then life goes on and he turns around to jog towards his friends, some looking foreign.
It’s a strange feeling he has as he stares at the man’s back on his way back towards Koki’s and his spot on the beach. He assumes it’s a bit of a casual crush, but doesn’t feel too bothered about it. The chances of the man returning any sort of sexual feelings towards him are low, and the issue isn’t pressing anyway. He’s just another eye candy on the beach.
--
He thanks god the slim suit he had chosen for the occasion is black as the heavy February rain outside violates the fabric. He figures the most important thing is to keep his hair intact - there’s only so much you can do to fix a ruined hairstyle in public restrooms in the middle of an art exhibition. Besides, he’s pretty sure Ueda isn’t going to let him disappear halfway through. As a friend, he’s entitled to stand around with a glass of champagne in his hand, smile and make small talk with other artists and whatnots.
He hands over his clear and wet umbrella to the awfully polite receptionist before making his way up the stairs to the gallery. The double doors are drawn open invitingly and he shakes a few hands with people whose faces look familiar as he makes his way towards his friend.
“Kame,” the man greets with a cheerful smile and pulls him in a hug. Some people stare - Ueda doesn’t really give off the aura of a man you’d like to hug unless you want your teeth punched in. They grin at each other and Kame glances around, familiar with his friend’s cartoonish style.
“More mice?” he jokes as he makes his way towards a rather large canvas with thick and strong colours. A lot of blood and teeth and a slightly psychotic touch - Ueda’s always been best at relieving himself from strong emotions through arts. “Owww, cute.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Ueda laughs as he stands beside him and crosses his arms. “Not really what I usually appreciate to hear when it comes to my art, but you’re not into the business anyway. So from a friend, I guess that’s a compliment.”
“Ueda-san,” a grey-haired man interrupts them - the gallery’s owner, Kame recalls and greets him with a wide smile and a handshake. “Ah, Kamenashi-san, I’m glad to see you again. So, Ueda, could I steal you for a moment? I’ve got some French art collectors who seem to be quite fond of your… extravagant style.”
Kame laughs and pats his friends back, encouraging him to go and socialize like a good artist should. He feels a bit out of place among the elites and stumbles in conversations related to art. He’s used to all of it already though, so he does what he knows works the best - he hops from one chattering group to another, admits that he honestly doesn’t know a damn thing about art but still does his best to participate in the conversation.
Eventually, he gets a bit tired of it. Unable to locate his friend in the quite large gallery packed with probably a few hundred people at least, he resorts to sipping at his quickly draining drink and wandering around the gallery, looking at the works. He does appreciate the beauty of art, and even the seemingly ugly works fascinate him to an extent - it’s just that it’s really not his thing.
He enters an exhibition consisting of paintings and smiles fondly as he examines the works with occasionally bright and lively colours, occasionally dark and dull to the point of depressing. The contrast they make with the simple creamy white wall behind them really seems to bring out their atmosphere, he thinks to himself, and afterward curses himself in his head for starting to think like some boring art critic himself. He hears some artists criticising the works behind his back but tunes them out. He’s here for pleasure, not business.
He freezes in front of one painting though. People walk past him as he dumbly examines a painting of himself and Sakura playing in the water. The people around them blur into faceless silhouettes and the water that splashes around almost at the height of his knees is cyan to the point where it makes Kame’s eyes hurt a bit.
He feels a bit taken aback by the sudden intrusion to his life and looks around frantically to see if anyone has recognized him but no - the art elites seem to be too interested in the paintings to pay attention to the other guests at the opening party, never mind actually recognizing someone who had been just a painted form barely fifteen centimetres long on a canvas of never-ending blue.
He turns back to the painting and examines the golden nameplate underneath with a lump in his throat. Who the fuck.
“Untitled”
Akanishi Jin
2009.8.10
Kame scratches his neck, unable to recall ever hearing about anyone named Akanishi. He’s been around in quite a few opening parties through the years, yet the name means absolutely nothing to him. Must be some rising artist then.
He wonders if the painting will one day hang on some rich person’s living room wall. If someone will peer at his face and children will coo over Sakura. Stupid things like that. He decides he doesn’t quite like being the subject of someone’s paintings.
“Ah, it’s you,” a surprised voice chokes behind him and Kame turns around, eyebrows disappearing behind the cover of his fringe. A sort of familiar-looking man with his crisp white shirt unbuttoned halfway to his chest stares at him stupidly with a drink in one hand and soon offers his other hand at him. Kame shakes it a bit hesitantly, bowing his head.
“You were..?”
“Akanishi Jin. You know. I mean, you don’t know,” the man shakes his head to clear his thoughts and smiles at him widely. “The man you ran into at the beach?”
“You,” Kame finally remembers and ogles at him for a second before chuckling nervously. “I mean, I’m glad to meet you, Akanishi-san” he corrects himself and bows politely a bit deeper. “I didn’t know you’re an artist.”
“Do you like it?” Akanishi asks him and smiles widely as he steps before the painting as well, looking at it with a proud look in his eyes. Kame licks his lips nervously and tilts his head slightly, as if examining it.
“I… don’t really know,” he admits. “I guess it’s beautiful. Perhaps a little too bright for my eyes.”
“People tend to say that,” Akanishi nods understandingly and turns his head to him again, still smiling widely. “I like it, though. Don’t you feel happy when you see bright colours?”
“I guess,” Kame agrees with him and empties his glass of champagne. “But that’s bright enough to give me a headache.”
“Ouch,” Akanishi grimaces and takes his glass from him. “I’ll take this away for you. But please, enjoy. If the headache gets too bad, go and enjoy some dark and sully works then. I’m sure I saw a vampire mouse somewhere.”
“That’d be my friend’s probably,” Kame laughs. Akanishi waves his hand at him as he starts walking away. Kame looks after him before turning his eyes back to the painting.
“Hey, you,” the voice suddenly calls out to him again, reappearing from behind the corner, two empty glasses still in his hands. “Could I get your name? For the title. I almost named it ‘ Dog’ just to piss people off for being un-artistic, but it sounds a little too lame.”
The man doesn’t even ask him if he wants to have his name displayed for the world to see. Kame grimaces a bit and bites his lip. It’s a bit difficult to say no way when you aren’t given an option.
“Is it something embarrassing?” Akanishi prompts him, humour lacing his voice. The problem is that he’s standing pretty much on the opposite side of the wide room, and people are starting to stare at them and whisper. The man really has no manners. “It’s not like I’m actually going to use your name, you won’t get any stalkers. Just for inspiration, you know.”
Kame sighs out of relief and walks over with his cheeks burning out of sheer embarrassment. He takes the glasses from Akanishi’s hands and smiles at him a bit stiffly.
“Kamenashi Kazuya,” he says quietly, feeling uneasy about the people still watching them. He does like being the centre of attention in a good way - bad way, not so much. “I’ll take care of these. Have a good evening, and congratulations for the exhibition.”
“Thanks,” the man croaks after him, and Kame looks back enough to give him an apologetic smile. He delivers the glasses to a wandering waiter and decides to escape to the other end of the exhibition to keep from getting associated to Akanishi through his painting or anything really.
He regrets his decision when facing modern and contemporary art he can make absolutely no sense out of. He isn’t really good at enjoying something he doesn’t understand, especially if it doesn’t fascinate him. After gazing at a ball made of fake nails for five minutes without getting its point he feels more uneasy and disgusted than appreciative.
It’s already past midnight and Kame’s feeling more than a bit tipsy as he walks into the men’s restroom. He relieves himself before washing his hands and trying to fix his hair. He hears the door open but doesn’t remove his eyes from his reflection.
“Chyeaaaa,” someone greets him and Kame glances at the direction of the voice. Akanishi nods at him slightly awkwardly. Soon enough he’s smiling again though. The expression seems a bit tense and makes Kame lick his lips as the man makes his way over, leaning against the sink. Kame assumes he just genuinely isn’t aware of the awkwardness his behaviour arises.
“I think I’ll name it ‘Kame’. Is that okay for you?” the man teases him with a goofy smirk. Kame gulps.
“Actually, that’s my nickname.”
“And I might’ve been talking to that friend of yours. The one with all the mice,” Akanishi waves his hand and giggles. He actually giggles and blushes bright red on the spot. The awkwardness intensifies and Kame gulps again, hoping for someone to walk in but, against all the odds, the restroom seems to be abandoned.
Akanishi steals a look at Kame’s lips. The sound of their breaths echoes a bit, making the slight change to heavier easily detectable. Kame licks his lips and dares to look at Akanishi’s as well - he has to admit that he really is a bit more than tipsy and Akanishi isn’t really bad at all when it comes to looks.
More than looks? Oh well. He also has to admit that the man isn’t exactly his type with all the weird and pushy greetings, nervousness and just… yeah, whatever. He’s a bit too much on the weird side, and they don’t seem to have that much in common.
Akanishi just starts leaning in when Kame backs away from the sink and leaves him stumbling to regain his posture and dignity. His face is dumbfounded and red, as he struggles to digest what had just happened. Kame grimaces at the man apologetically and waves his hand.
“Kame’s fine. For the painting. I might see you around.”
“Yeah, see you -”
He doesn’t hear the rest of Akanishi’s sentence as the door closes behind him.
They don’t really talk to each other after that in the party. A few times before Kame leaves he catches him staring sadly in his direction, but when Kame raises his look the man’s always quick to turn away and pretend like he hadn’t been dozing off and stalking him like some rejected teenager.
He’s a bit taken aback by the sudden admiration, but doesn’t feel like pursuing a one-time thing at the moment. Because of that, he lets it be. When he returns to his one-room apartment, he’s still lonely and alone in his solitary environment, surrounded by simple cerulean walls, barely any furniture and boxes stacked with folders containing the raw versions of his books.
No need for regrets at all. The walls are pulsing around him and Kame feels his own fingers faintly caressing his non-drumming chest as he strips himself of his suit jacket and lets it slide into a pile on the floor. He gulps and feels his fingers shaking.
“God no, not now,” he whimpers weakly, wishing to just go to bed and get a rest after a long day. “Don’t talk to me now. I’m not lonely.”
The cerulean stares at him and Kame admits defeat by slowly approaching it, letting himself be pulled in. He slowly unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall off his shoulders, pooling around his feet like the foam of the waves. He looks up and presses his palm against the blue, sinks it inside the arms frantically grasping for it and feels his ears exploding with the sudden voices coming forth from the wall.
--
Two days later he wakes up from a hospital bed. There’s an IV attached to his arm and someone sleeping on the bed beside his, but other than that the room is empty. Just white and curtains and a window where he can see the night-sky in its duke blue glory. He doesn’t see any stars.
His writing wrist is tightly cradled and he remembers the unfinished story. It makes him shake and panic but he knows that he won’t be able to write it anymore - it’s over for it now. He’s let the voices down and now the whispers will remain as an incomplete stack of papers in its folder. It’s a story that’ll never be told, a story that’ll never get a chance.
He starts crying, exhaustion creeping in again. He examines the bandage with his shaky fingers and tries to keep his tired sobs quiet to allow his unfortunate roommate to sleep. The more he awakens the more he realises that fuck he’s in pain and his stupid profession is one day going to rob him of his life.
The next morning the doctor insists he stay in the hospital for a few more days. They also set up a psychological evaluation of his poor state and Kame curses as he truthfully tells the psychiatrist that no, he isn’t suicidal or anything stupid like that and no, nothing significantly stressing or unfortunate has happened in his life recently because the problem really is that when he gets a story in his head he has to write it and things like sleep, food and water feel somehow really insignificant in comparison to the book and, well, sometimes it just happens to take days. That’s it. Nothing more.
He’d rather have it some other way too. There’s only a sickening feeling of morbid pleasure as he feels his thoughts clouding hour after hour of obsessive writing.
They let him off the hook, but insist he gets a computer for the writer. Kame promises that he will.
He won’t. Writing doesn’t work like that.
--
The guy he’s forced to share a room with is actually a pretty refreshing company. Kame’s the kind of person who gets bored easily, and it isn’t like his friends have free schedules over the clock to visit him, so he finds himself making friends with the man relatively easy. His name is Yamashita Tomohisa, although he lets Kame call him Yamapi for some strange reason concerning pink costumes. Kame doesn’t really manage to make out a clear and coherent story because Yamapi is wheezing and laughing madly when he tries to tell it. He’s hospitalized for a hip surgery. Kame thinks he said something about hip rolling when he tried to tell that story, but unlike in the case of his name, his words slurred together in embarrassment and his voice was too muffled to reach his bed.
The second night they spend feeling rebellious and adventurous. Kame’s off the IV now so he crawls to Yamapi’s bed. They cuddle and laugh quietly and Kame even blows him in the darkness, just because he can and Yamapi is like molten wax underneath him. It’s a good brief hospital romance. Sparks up his interest a little bit, and he hasn’t really gotten laid in a while. Being gay has its downsides, especially if your publishing agent is out to get you if you get in too big trouble with some gay scandal.
Things get a bit awkward when Yamapi’s friend visits him the next day, just because he just miraculously happens to be Akanishi Jin who keeps looking from Yamapi to him with a confused and betrayed expression on his face. They haven’t really told him about the exact nature of their companionship but somehow Kame feels pretty certain that Akanishi figures it out on his own because he’s really snappy and bratty towards his friend and ignores Kame completely. Eventually the two friends’ conversation turns into a literary fight fest where they scribble on endless sheets of paper and shove them angrily at each other’s faces before Akanishi eventually storms off, cheeks blotchy and lips tightly pressed together.
“I guess you two know each other,” Yamapi mumbles with a strained voice after his friend is gone. He isn’t looking at Kame - instead, he’s staring at the open door to the corridor where nurses and doctors walk and talk about things Kame doesn’t understand or care about.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“So. Um,” Yamapi finally tries to gather himself as he turns around to face him again, grinning a bit sheepishly. It looks kind of stupid on his face. Maybe it’s the eyes. “Why me but… not him?”
“I think it’s your man boobs,” Kame says with a serious voice. He doesn’t break eye contact. “He just doesn’t have them.”
For a moment Yamapi looks horrified but then they both break into howling laughter. The atmosphere becomes a bit lighter again.
“No, but really,” Kame says seriously again when they stop laughing. Yamapi frowns.
They don’t really fool around intimately after that. Friendship, though… that kind of lasts.
--
Yamapi asks him out for karaoke with some friends a few weeks after their release from the hospital. Kame decides that he should do something besides moaning after the dead story still scattered all around his desk and get some fresh air so he promises to come, planning to drag Koki with him. Koki’s brilliant with karaoke - once someone actually manages to get him to sing from all the rapping and roaring he does, he’s really got a voice of gold.
Koki strands him an hour before he’s supposed to leave. He calls him to wail something about women, women and women and his relationship issues and poor broken heart and says he’ll try to talk it out with Yukari-chan. Kame doesn’t really want to be a burden or anything so he promises they’ll go some other time.
After a while of thinking and staring at the gloomy cerulean walls, he grabs his jacket and his wallet and decides to go anyway. Yamapi will be there and he isn’t that bad with new people. It can be potentially refreshing.
He arrives to the dim karaoke bar with neon lighting. Yamapi is waiting for him at the counter and Kame walks over to him as he beckons him with a wave of his hand. They greet with an awkward hug before Yamapi flashes him a toothy smile and drags him into the elevator.
“We’ve got a private booth,” he explains enthusiastically as he beams at Kame. “I already got you a beer. Had to pay for the first round and you’re kind of late!”
Just by ten minutes, Kame insists embarrassedly. He shouldn’t have underestimated the traffic.
The elevator doors open and Yamapi pulls him into the noisy booth by his wrist. There are more people stuffed in than Kame had originally expected - he had been expecting maybe three to five people or so, but a good ten people are sitting on each other’s laps, swaying to the music and cheering a nervous big-nosed man on with his heartfelt ballad. Kame immediately takes a liking to his voice.
“Everyone, meet Kame! Kame, meet everyone!” Yamapi announces loudly. There’s an ear-wrecking applause and some whistling and Kame feels too awkward to open his mouth and mumble about feeling more at ease with his family name. He assumes the group’s ties are intimate, and some do look foreign so perhaps nicknames are a norm for them.
Someone shoves a tall glass of beer in his hand and a dark-skinned guy who’s apparently named Dominic taps his lap to invite him over. Kame assumes he isn’t Japanese as he hesitantly makes his way over and takes the invitation just because there really are no other seats left - his only other alternative would be on a redheaded girl’s lap, and there’s something awkward about sitting on a girl or mumbling with broken English to get her to move and let him sit under.
Dominic asks him about his singing preferences (“ballads mostly, or anything that has a catchy atmosphere in it”) and sings a few lines from the recently released new Arashi song with his heavy accent. Kame laughs at him, finding himself enjoying the company even with the language barrier.
When the noisy brat from his right makes a dash for the microphone Kame chugs at his beer and - notices the man awkwardly pressed tight against the cushions, looking as if he’d be wishing to just fall through the solid material and disappear somewhere else. He blinks.
“…Hi,” Akanishi greets him and offers his hand for a handshake. “Jin. In case you don’t remember.”
Of course. Kame throws a glance across the room at Yamapi who claps his hands together and bows his neck in apology. Ah. This had so been a set up.
“I’m here because of you, am I not?” Kame asks, switching from his nasal English to snappy Japanese. “You made him invite me.”
“I did ask him to make you bring a friend…” Akanishi mumbles and scratches his nose awkwardly. Dominic looks confused - Kame assumes he understands only fractions of the language, and their muffled tones aren’t really helping him.
He apologizes and rises to his feet. Akanishi jumps up immediately as well and takes his wrist. Kame yanks it away and the guy singing who sounds already a bit tipsy laughs to the mic something about bickering lovebirds and points at them. Kame licks his lips nervously as people’s eyes turn to them.
“Restroom,” he mumbles with his broken English and bows slightly before he turns his eyes back to Jin and walks away slowly. To his dismay, though, Jin follows him with a few second delay.
“Kame -”
“Don’t control me,” Kame snaps at him immediately and turns around on his heels. Akanishi freezes to the spot, looking like Kame would’ve just slapped him across his face. “You’re trying to make me do whatever you want me to. I don’t like that.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way?” Jin answers, his eyes thoughtfully narrowing. “I didn’t force you to come, you know.”
“No. It’s just everything you do,” Kame grumbles in frustration, trying to come up with the right words to explain his point. “You act like a jealous and possessive boyfriend even though we don’t even know each other. You’re like a stalker. It’s creepy and I don’t like that.”
It seems to take Jin aback. “I’m not like that!”
“Yes you are,” Kame sighs, feeling awfully tired all of sudden. “Look. Just… don’t do it, okay? I really hate it.”
Jin nods ashamedly and looks down at his feet. He sniffles a bit childishly and bites his lip. It almost makes Kame feel bad for his harsh words, but he knows they’re necessary unless he wants to get in deep trouble later on.
The man opens his mouth to say something, but no sound comes out. He isn’t looking Kame in the eyes anymore. Kame bites his lip and walks over to him, taps him comfortingly on his shoulder and carries on, leaving him standing in the corridor as he slips back in the booth.
Whatever feelings the man has, he doesn’t return them. Sometimes, sadly, it really is as simple as that.
--
PART 2