KAT-TUN - Rescue
Pairing: Kamenashi Kazuya/Akanishi Jin, Kamenashi Kazuya/OC(s), Akanishi Jin/Sasha Fierce
Word Count: 13000+
Rating: R
Warnings:(CONSENT ISSUES, MASTER/SLAVE AU, MIND CONTROL)
Summary: Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.
A/N: Written with thanks to my tlist, and above all, to my beta. I couldn't have finished this without your support. I am also very grateful to the mod(s) for their gracious extensions.
-2009-
It's a simple routine, thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame watches once to count, twice to be sure, and then he turns and lines his spine up with the wall just beside the open door. Jin's too caught up in the steps, keeping track of three mens' bodies, arms, legs, and hips, to spot Kame watching from the doorway; but why risk it?
There's no one else here to catch Kame. The practice corridors empty out when Jin's practicing with his boys. Jin's talent is strong. He's got less precision control than Nakamaru, or Kame himself, but in terms of sheer power, unconscious will spilling out, Jin gives MatsuJun a run for his money. Jin's also got a reputation for pranking anyone stupid enough to not to be actively blocking him whenever he's feeling bored.
Thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame can feel the echoes of the impulses Jin is sending his boys, distant urges to snap his wrists, to bend his elbows, to lift his leg to kick. It's all Kame needs to know to be able to imagine Jin, just on the other side of the wall, making those movements, following them through the merest fraction of a second before his boys mimic them exactly.
These particular men with Jin are new to Kame, but clearly not to Jin, not if he can sync with them like that. It's half practice and half a game he's playing with them. Kame caught their grins in the mirrors tiling the back wall before he turned away, Jin's smile mirrored across three faces. Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.
Kame can tell Jin's improvising, changes that probably feels random to Jin, but human beings are rarely truly random. Jin's changing the steps on the count of three or of seven, or not at all, and variations only, no substitutions of entirely different steps. That only makes it easier for Kame to follow along.
How to recognise and remember patterns is one of the first things that they are taught. It helps with their control. Kame's never killed someone by accident. Whatever else he's done, he's proud of that.
After ten complete cycles, it's starting to be impossible for Kame not to know how fast Jin's heart is beating, and soon, he knows his breathing will follow. He needs to walk away.
He needs to stop doing this.
---
On the twenty-third beat, Jin's hand jerks right instead of left: not a movement from him, and certainly not from Ben or Jerry. And Jin always shuts the door when he's training.
Even though it takes him only five strides to reach the corridor, by the time Jin gets his head through the doorway, there's no one in sight. Again.
In his hoodie pocket, Jin's phone vibrates once. The message is short: 28:00, an address in Koto-ku, and the words LEATHER LATEX RUBBER written in English.
"Hey, guys! We're going out tonight!"
---
-1998-
The testing is boring.
One of the few things they know about how the talent works is that people who don't have it, don't have any resistance against people who do. So what happens first, right after they all get given their numbers is that they're told to line up in rows, 1-100 (Jin is first!), in the middle of the room. A stern-looking woman, old, way older than Jin's mom, anyway, walks along between their rows.
Then the fire alarm goes off.
Everyone who doesn't immediately start for the door, who is left standing where he was, eyes gone like a dead fish, gets to go home right away.
But after that, the testing is boring.
Jin goes first. The testing guys don't like him. He doesn't like them, either, even if their clothes look cool. There's a different woman in the room, who does look sort like she's Jin's mom's age, with long, dark hair and a smile that makes Jin flush and not want her to do any of the stupid, embarrassing things that the guy who isn't behind the camera is telling Jin to make the woman do.
"Anything?" he asks the woman, after Jin's had ten minutes, and three different orders.
"No," she says. "I didn't feel a thing." The guy behind the camera also shakes his head.
The guy giving all the orders tells Jin to wait outside, to send in number two, and Jin trips on nothing as he's walking back out into the hall. When you've got the talent, you've got some resistance to the others, but how much depends on strength, training and whether you're expecting some guy to be a jerk.
Jin is bored. His mom won't be back to pick him up until five. It's 10:30.
Sitting against one of the walls, there's a boy with a baseball. He's throwing it in the air and catching it in a glove. Maybe it's the baseball that catches Jin's eye, maybe it's that the boy is maybe the only kid in the room, besides Jin, who isn't watching the door to the testing room.
There's a boy with a big nose sitting next to the boy with the baseball. They came in together, almost too late, but they only met today. While baseball boy is off being tested, big nose introduces himself as Nakamaru Yuichi. He's friendlier than the baseball boy, who comes back and says nothing about how it was ("They said not to tell people who hadn't done it yet."), who only grudgingly admits that his name is Kamenashi.
"Kamenashi is too long," Jin says. He's already told both of them to call him Jin. "What can I call you?"
All Jin gets is the baseball thrown up in the air, caught like perfect clockwork.
"Ka-kun? Kame-chan? I bet turtles are slow to answer when people ask them questions, too."
Kame doesn't answer Jin. He's watching the door to the testing room now.
Jin leans sideways, the back of his head sliding on the wall behind them. "So, how was it, really?" he whispers.
"I didn't make her move," Kame says, just as quiet.
"Me, either."
That makes Kame glance across at Jin.
"I want to play baseball," he says, even quieter, like it's a secret. Which makes no sense, because everyone in the room has watched him throw his ball in the air and catch it maybe three hundred times.
"Why can't you play--?"
Kame elbows Jin in the side, and Jin never gets to ask his question.
Nakamaru has walked out of the testing room. He tries to look cool, but only gets halfway across the room before a grin breaks out across his face and he throws Jin and Kame a victory sign. He whispers that he made the woman stand on her head against the wall. Her tailored skirt had slipped down, just a little, but she'd been back on her feet before Nakamaru could see her panties. This makes him giggle in the retelling. It makes Jin frown. Kame keeps his eyes on the testing room door, only glancing away to check the path of his baseball, falling back into his glove.
Jin is bored, so Jin grabs Kame's baseball out of the air mid-flight.
"Give it back," Kame says, but Jin's already on his feet and on the other side of the room before Kame even stands up.
Everyone else in the room is watching them. They've all been sitting here for hours, doing nothing, too.
"My father gave me that," Kame says. He looks mad. Jin doesn't get why he isn't chasing Jin yet.
"You want it?" Jin says. "Come make me!"
"Give it--" Kame snaps, and just like that, Jin's arm is throwing the baseball, which lands smack dead centre in Kame's mitt. "Back."
Jin sits back down by the wall, face still red long after the old lady takes Kame back into the testing room. When Kame comes back out, he doesn't speak. He sits down in the gap between Jin and Maru, and looks at his baseball in his glove, just holds it. There's only an hour of waiting after that. It takes a long, long time.
When they read out the numbers at the end, Maru's get called out, and Kame's, and some other boys. But Jin's doesn't. The boys whose numbers get called out hug their mothers and then go stand with the mean old lady, waiting. Jin's mom hugs him, too, even though she gets to take him home. Jin spots Kame hugging his baseball mitt against his chest.
An old guy by the door tells Jin to give his number back. Jin makes him dance the Macarena. It turns out he's the big boss, and that Jin's lucky he has a sense of humour. Jin hugs his mom good-bye.
Then that's it, for all three of them. They're Johnny's.
---
-1999-
Life in a Johnny's dormitory is like moving into a high school. They have classes together. They eat together. All the juniors under the age of twenty (which is most of them) spend what little scheduled down time they get inside the one building, over three floors. Kame has three brothers, but this is walking into an ongoing prank war on a scale that even he is unprepared for.
Things that aren't considered dangerous enough for their graduated sempai to stop (not an exhaustive list):
* tripping over nothing
* not being able to talk when called upon in class
* messing up the moves during dance class
* dancing when it's not dance class (especially uncool, out-dated dance moves)
* making obscene gestures in front of teachers
* uncontrollable and/or noisy gas
* wetting oneself in public
Kame tries to stay out of it. The pranks are just stupid. What Kame hates is the horrible shivering extended moment when their sempai holds them still, when Kame's fingers and toes goes numb, and he knows that his heart is only still beating because his sempai is making it move.
One night in March, Kame gets Jin thumping on Kame's bedroom door.
"Show me how to do that thing you do," Jin says, and then, he must realise how that sounds, because he then bows his head and the demand comes out again, but a little more polite. "Nino's a jerk," Jin says. "Please teach me your trick!"
Jin can't mean how to throw a baseball. It made Kame novel at the audition, but Jin made Johnny Kitigawa dance. Jin's the legend that came out of their audition, instantly "elite", like Matsumoto Jun or Yamashita Tomohisa. Some of the boys have been here for years and the ongoing prank war proves their skill better than the twice-yearly exams. No, all Kame has a reputation for is being hard to catch off guard. He really tries to stay out of it. It's easier for Kame to keep his temper if he can avoid being got; if not, well, there are always sempai supervising the common areas. That's plenty of incentive.
Ninomiya-sempai is one of the few boys that Kame can talk baseball with, but he managed to make Kame throw a cup of soy milk at Takizawa-sempai at breakfast two days before and Kame did not enjoy being the recipient of Takizawa-sempai's disappointment.
The room's tiny, and Kame has only one chair. Jin perches on the edge of Kame's desk, kicking his feet. It turns out to be harder to describe than Kame expects, with a frown of confusion growing on Jin's face.
"Just-- argh-- just show me, ok?"
"We're not supposed to do it without supervision," Kame says.
Jin gives him a look. "I won't tell if you don't."
Jin's reputation in the juniors dormitory is for smiling his way around the rules, for pulling heroically stupid stunts, and for loyalty to his friends. Above Jin's head, on the bookshelf, there are two battered, secondhand One Piece tankubon, both borrowed from Jin, who has already figured out that Kame won't accept presents.
"Ok, fine," Kame says. "Don't make me do anything stupid."
Jin's control is like ocean waves, surging up over Kame, pressure on his chest, on his skin, and breaking against the barrier Kame imagines is there. With his eyes shut to concentrate, Kame tries to describe how it feels and what he's doing to stop it, right up until Kame can no longer talk. Until he's drowning. The tips of his fingers tingle, but it's not as bad as Kame was bracing for; the water's warm. Jin lets go almost as soon as Kame's voice stops.
"Hey, you ok?"
Kame nods in answer, because that's easier, gesturing with a hand that's somehow holding Jin's. He doesn't remember Jin doing that. Kame honestly doesn't know which of them did that.
"I thought, I mean, you don't talk a lot, anyway, so it seemed..." Jin shrugs, and just squeezes Kame's hand.
Kame's voice croaks on the first try, manages a word or two on the second. That's normal. He didn't know that last October.
"Helpful?" Kame finally manages, coughing twice, but that seems to be it. "Did that make sense?"
"Yeah, I think so. " Jin says. "Now let me try blocking you."
"What?"
Somehow, the idea of trying to control Jin, that's worse. Kame doesn't like the talent. He can understand why Jin would want to learn how to block it, to resist the other boys (their teachers). Kame pulled Jin with the talent the first day they met. By accident, and Kame didn't know what it could feel like then.
"I want to know if I've got it," Jin says, grinning and unafraid. "Don't make me do anything too stupid."
It takes Kame longer to wrest Jin's control from him-- he's tentative, at least until Jin asks Kame if that's all he's got -- and it takes Jin a few tries before Kame can feel him pushing back. But weirdly, every time, the first muscles that Jin pulls back to his own control are the ones that let him smile.
Kame doesn't ask Jin what his control feels like. He's not sure he wants to know. When they stop, it's already after curfew. That's the first night that Jin stays over in Kame's room.
Kame was used to sharing with his younger brother Yuya, so sharing with Jin isn't that strange. The bed in his dormitory room is slightly less unfamiliar with somebody else in it, and it's just warmer with Jin here. Maybe Kame will kick him out in April, or in May, depending on the weather. The problem he has most often is that he doesn't think that Jin is used to sharing a bed, since his favourite sleeping position is sprawled out on his front.
Sometimes Kame wakes up in the middle of the night, with Jin practically flattening him, touching chest-to-chest so that Kame doesn't know who started breathing in time with who. Kame bites his lip, the pain making him less muzzy with sleep. He wriggles a hand up to poke Jin's collarbones, and the other boy shrieks awake, arms waving as Jin tumbles off the side of the bed onto the floor.
---
-2005-
Answering Nakama-sensei's summons, Kame and Jin kneel correctly on the tatami, and wait. She looks them over, an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. She says that she's noticed that they tend to pair off for the group exercises, supporting each other against other students-- she asks which of them is the leader, who has the overriding talent.
They both answer at the same time: "Jin."
Kame keeps his face blank; he can feel Jin looking at him.
Nakama-sensei tilts her head, her nose wrinkling for just a moment, before a blinding grin takes over. They both get dragged into a suffocating hug.
"Most boys fight when I ask them a question like that," she wails. "Never forget this precious friendship of your youth!"
Nakama-sensei is a woman, and therefore not a talent, but she's the grand-daughter of the head of one of the Tokyo families that Johnny often contracts for. When the family wants something, she takes on those Johnny selects for three months, to teach them about team work, loyalty and the importance of friendship. And street-fighting, which is in some ways just another way of moving, another set of steps with a strong emphasis on improvisation. But mostly pain.
For the first few weeks, they learnt how to throw punches, how to kick, squaring off against each other as often as they went against Nakama's grandfather's subordinates. They had bruises, then, too, but they have more bruises now that they're moving into the second stage.
Pain is a response from the nervous system, which is something like electrical wires travelling through the body. Kame's not sure he would have paid so much attention in biology and anatomy classes if the knowledge hadn't been obviously useful. Who wants to take someone over and make them do things the human body isn't designed to do?
To make someone feel pain by syncing with their electrical system, your own body needed to know what the pain felt like. The sharp stabbing pain of being punched in the kidneys, or kicked in the groin, that would be more useful than being able to induce the dull ache of muscle strain. Not that Kame couldn't do both.
Nakama-sensei is the first woman that Kame's met who made him wonder why women didn't manifest the talent. Sometimes he felt himself moving and he wasn't sure if he just wanted to do what she wanted so badly, or whether his limbs were being guided through the steps.
Kame's face flushes when she praises him. Jin has been teasing Kame about having a thing for older women, but Kame knows he doesn't really mean it. If Jin did, he wouldn't do tease Kame in bed, where it's too easy for Kame's fingers to reach Jin's collarbones.
Jin stops staying over whenever he "falls in love", because that would just get weird and awkward. Even though they stopped dating six months ago, Yamashita-sempai still holds a grudge against Kame for stealing Jin away from him (which is stupid). At least Jin's between crushes at the moment. Kame can make sure that Jin gets to Nakama's school on time.
"Ok, ten minutes are up," Jin says, poking Kame's left shoulder where it floats exposed above the waterline. Kame has bruises down his right side, and a bump on that side of his head that's barely noticeable. The doctors said he's lucky not to have a concussion, considering the fall he took. They do get good doctors, being Johnnies.
"I haven't passed out again."
Everything's warm and fuzzy and Kame's head feels just a little too big for his skull. They get good painkillers, too.
"Get out of the bath, Kame."
---
Kame meets the woman he will later call Ran on his first night at Ex.
Ex, short for the English "exchange", is a club with no fixed address. If you know the right people, you get a message on your handphone hours before an event: opening time, place, theme. Ex happens in abandoned warehouses, the bar run out of the back of three vans, the floor slick with water from being hosed down. It didn't look like much to Kame walking in, but Jin had thrown his arm across Kame's shoulders, Jin's weight walking them both forward. He had told Kame that you didn't come to Ex for the furniture. You came for the people.
Half the patrons in Ex are dressed in tight leather, or cosplay, or both. Koki swears that you can actually find women here who "get wet at the thought of syncing with hot guys like us". Kame wasn't sure whether to believe him, but in the hour since he's been here, Kame has seen five different girls being led around by a leash attached to a collar at their throats and, more to the point, at least two groups of Koreans (one all male, one all female) dancing in preternaturally perfect coordination. Maybe if a talent syncs someone here, it's just a quickly personal interest.
That's why Johnnies come here. Ex is also one of the few clubs in Tokyo that doesn't ask talents to sign a no-sync waiver at the door. (Talents don't get a choice about paying three times the already steep cover charge, but where else would they rather be than the VIP section?)
There are men who like talents here, too, or at least Jin is happily holding court back at their tables just beyond the ropes that mark off the VIP section. Jin is older than Kame. Tonight is far from Jin's first night at Ex, and the people he seems to know here aren't just Johnny's. From what Kame's seen, Jin's not had any trouble finding people to buy him drinks.
Kame's stalking the edges of the dance floor, waiting for his one beer to make him brave. Kame likes dancing. He likes feeling the music through his body. Kame knows how well he can move, but at work, that's about proficiency, not sexy. He's not used to feeling pretty like Jin does. The last time Kame confessed to someone, he was still in elementary school. When Kame gets second (and third...) glances, he has to remind himself that they're not staring in confusion, wondering how someone like him got into a club like Ex.
The girl is wearing a hat, that's what catches Kame's eye. She's all in black, black slacks, black short-sleeved blouse, black bob under her hat. Kame's wearing boot-cut jeans, a tight T-shirt with a skull screen-printed in three colours and more than six bracelets, strings of beads and charms on each wrist: an outfit with Jin-approval, even if Kame's moved beyond Jin picking half his clothes. Tonight, Jin's eyelids are outlined with metallic turquoise and he has a knotted shawl accentuating his hips. Jin's top has a cowl neck, dipping and draping over the cleavage Jin doesn't pretend to have. At least next to this girl, Kame doesn't feel ridiculously plain.
"Haven't seen you here before. Are you with them?" she asks. She means the other Johnny's.
Kame nods, his tongue feeling thick in this mouth. He thinks about the way Koki, Junno and Maru talk about girls(!), or about the crushes he's been hearing about from Jin since nearly forever. The girl looks friendly, and Kame likes that, but it's more like a feeling of relief that girls aren't actually an alien species than anything he's been expecting. He envies her the way she seems to know what she wants, nodding with a smile as she stands at the edge of the dance floor with him, still swaying with the beat. Friendly's not bad for a start.
"You move pretty well," Kame says. "Can I-- would you-- dance with me?"
The girl turns around, like she's done this before, her head tilted back over her shoulder, eyes on Kame and her arms out, palms up. Kame's been watching the dance floor. He knows what she's doing, what's being offered. Kame takes her wrists, gingerly; he's never synced someone willingly before. His thumbs find the veins on the inside of her wrists, touching pulse to pulse, until there is no difference between his and hers. Then Kame lets go, of her hands; he doesn't need to be touching her now.
Kame can feel her hands through his, the tensing muscles of her thighs and calves as she walks, but there's no resistance where he's holding onto her. The girl's body feels like welcome, step by step out onto the dance floor in time with Kame's feet, the smile on her face identical to his own.
Whenever Kame's synced with someone, whether it was another junior talent or someone they were hired to sync with, it's always been a fight. He's always been aware of a clear cut division between them, the place where the force of his will and their resistance met. Kame had thought that being welcomed in would feel like losing himself, but he's never felt more in control, never felt more certain of himself, of what he wants.
Kame wants this with her, feeling the flow of his control in the roll of her hips, her willingness in the snap of her arms, the beat thudding in time with the surge of blood in his chest. When he turns, she turns, double-sensory-vision, Kame feeling his centre of gravity in two places at once.
Kame's hard, and she's wet, and he knows, because her body is his. Kame's hard, and he's in a warehouse, rubbing against the body of a woman he's just met. He asked her to dance.
Kame pulls his control back, steps back to put space between them, so that when he breathes, Kame only fills his own lungs.
The girl turns herself to face him. Her cheeks are glowing, her skin is warm and shimmering lightly with sweat. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice gives out on a whisper. The girl shrugs her shoulders, used to it, what can you do?
Kame wonders if he should offer to buy her a drink, if she'd want to use the opportunity to disappear back into the crowd, if he shouldn't leave her alone yet. He wants to hold her wrists, take her back. The desire is disorienting.
"You dance pretty well yourself," she says, finally, smiling up at him from beneath the brim of her hat. Kame grins back.
He introduces himself, asks the girl her name. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she asks, and it just about stops Kame's breath.
Talents, if they're strong enough, need to sync regularly to keep their control. Go too long without, and the talent starts reaching out in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Most talents contract people who theoretically know what they're getting into, and most talents give nicknames to those they do contract. Accepting the nickname is part of what makes it easier for their talent to control them, or at least that's how Takizawa-sensei explained it in class. Now that Kame's seen girls with collars around their necks, like housepets, he's less sure that's all it is.
The girl's still looking up at Kame, still smiling. She looks like a "Ran". Kame wants to call her Ran. He licks his lips.
"I-- I can't contract yet."
He can't afford to, not until he graduates. Contracts are legally binding, involving maintenance stipends as well as compulsory insurance. The more often and prolonged you sync with someone, the easier it becomes.
Kame has never thought he would ever feel like that, but he can feel himself holding back now, a rush with every pulse of his heartbeat, her heartbeat, echoing just out of time with each other, through their linked hands. Right now, that sort of easy, welcome control sounds fantastic to Kame, but he's the talent. He's the one she needs protecting from.
"That's a pity," she says.
"Soon, though. I hope."
"Maybe I'll see you around when you can." Something she sees behind Kame startles her; Kame lets go of her hands. It's only then that she takes a small step back, pivoting to turn. "I think your friend is looking for you."
It's Jin.
And he has his hands out to catch Kame when Kame stumbles forward.
Five minutes ago, Kame moved four feet like he owned them. He hasn't been this wrung out from syncing in years, and, at the end, Kame doesn't know what happened there. He thinks it'll be easier to calm down next to Jin, whose heart isn't thudding like a rabbit's in his chest. Jin's arms are strong, wrapped around Kame's back. His hair smells like Kame's shampoo.
" 'm not drunk."
"No," Jin says, and he sounds like he's trying not to snicker. "But you must have gone pretty deep with her."
Kame finds himself staring at the dark, crooked bow of Jin's lips, stopping himself just in time from asking Jin to dance. They're both talents; it couldn't work the same way. But there's still something fierce and consuming in Kame that wants to be back on the dance floor right now, moving someone's body in time with the beat. To find out if he could move Jin, if he just pushed hard enough.
Jin's heartbeat is familiar. Too familiar.
Kame pulls away, puts one foot in front of the other. The girl wanted to contract; Kame hopes she isn't watching him.
Kame has waited years to like girls with the sort of confident enthusiasm that Jin brings to liking guys, but he's still confused. Kame thinks that the girl's eyes were brown, maybe, and that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone what her cup size was. He thinks about the joyful flexibility in the girl's legs and the fine points of articulation in Jin's hands, and realises that he's getting hard again, just staring at the pulse point in Jin's wrists.
"Kame?"
Kame takes Jin's outstretched hand, linking their fingers, and pulling Jin away from the dance floor. Jin likes guys, but he deserves better than confused.
"Let me buy you a drink."
---
Kame tries beer, and wine, and vodka and tequila with salt and lime. He downs any brightly coloured shot placed in front of them, sliding further and further against Jin. He smiles when Jin wraps an arm around Kame's shoulders, and says yes to whiskey for the next round and drinks most of the glass of orange juice Jin orders to share.
Kame balances with a hand on Jin's thigh, leaning in to say: "when can we go home?", but not in the whisper Kame probably thought he'd used.
Ryo and Pi both elbow Yuu, who has some talent but never got into Johnny's, and who has only heard about Jin and Kame second-hand. Some days, Jin thinks that the only two people in the world who don't think he and Kame have some on-again-off-again tumultuous passion are him and Kame.
"I'm not sure we should be letting Jinnifer take Kamenashi home," Ryo says. "What do you think, Pi?"
"We do have to look out for our kouhai's virtue."
"Fuck you both," Jin says, with feeling.
"I don't think the tables are sturdy enough here," Yuu says, and he, Pi and Ryo all clink shots and down them.
Jin flips Pi the bird, and reaches out to knock Yuu sideways with his hip, a hint to get up so that Jin can walk Kame around the tables. He's glad Kame's so wasted that Jin doesn't have to explain that this is just how his friends are, that this means they like Kame.
Jin's always stayed friends with all his exes, even Ryo, who Jin had broken up with because Ryo started telling people he was only making out with Jin because Jin was the girliest boy in the dormitory. Not that Ryo and Pi still lived in the dormitory. They were younger than Jin, but they'd both graduated last year.
The taxi-driver thinks Jin is Kame's girlfriend, which makes everything easier, because Kame's not a handsy drunk, but he does want to cuddle up to Jin in the back seat. They're allowed out to hit the clubs, though they're not supposed to cause incidents.
Kame makes it all the way home, all the way up in the elevator, and Jin thinks he may just sleep it off until they get to Kame's dormitory corridor. They end up spending almost an hour, sitting on the floor in the communal bathroom, just managing to fit together sitting on the floor in a toilet cubicle. Jin rubs Kame's back through the shakes and heaves, keeps Kame's hair out of his eyes and out of his mouth.
"I'm never drinking again."
Jin laughs.
"And I hate you," Kame says, giggling into Jin's chest. "You are terrible, letting me drink that much."
"It's a rite of passage."
"I'm sorry. For ruining your evening."
"Don't worry about it," Jin says. Kame's hair is oily to the touch, sweat from dancing. He'll want to shower, but in the morning will be safer.
Jin gets Kame a glass of water, standing by the sink while Kame brushes his teeth -- twice-- and then he helps Kame back down the corridor to his room. Kame whispers his door code to Jin, lips brushing Jin's ear, still so out of it that he forgets that he told Jin years ago.
Jin deposits Kame on his bed, finding the trash bin and moving it near the head of the bed. Jin throws Kame a set of pyjamas, turning and knocking the drawer he'd got them from shut with his hip. Kame gets his T-shirt and jeans off by himself, but Jin has to sit on the side of the bed and help with Kame's accessories, untangling their clasps.
"Jin...?"
"Yeah?"
"When you sync with the guys you date, how does it--?"
"I don't," Jin says, so abruptly that Kame pulls back into his quilt.
Jin feels like an idiot. Kame's still drunk, over-tired and confused. He's asking because he's never danced with a girl like that, not because he's somehow figured out something about Jin that Jin hasn't told anybody. It's not Kame's fault that he thinks he and Jin have more in common than they do.
"It's not my thing. I mean, I flirt a lot, but most of the guys I really like, they're talents like us, so..." Jin trails off.
Kame nods, and holds out his other wrist, for Jin to start on those bracelets.
"Other people do. I think Uchi has, if you wanted to talk to someone."
Jin thinks Ueda does, too, or at least, Ueda disappears fast whenever they hit Ex. But Ueda doesn't talk to anyone, and the last time Kame tried to prank him, Ueda punched Kame in the face. Not that Jin really wants to send Kame to talk to Uchi, because he would just try to sidle into Kame's pants.
Kame is frowning in concentration. "But if you don't-- why do you like going to Ex so much?" He asks.
"I like going somewhere I can dress up, and have pretty men call me honey."
"Pretty Honey Jin." Kame giggles.
"You are so drunk."
"Yep!"
Jin pushes on Kame's shoulder to get him to lie down. Kame flops down on his back, and then rolls onto his side, bony knee colliding with Jin's ass. He looks adorable, so Jin forgives him, reaching down to brush Kame's bangs out of his eyes.
"Jin, I hope we graduate soon."
"So you can buy a bigger bed?"
"Ran wanted to contract."
Kame's closed his eyes. That's good. Jin's not sure what his expression looks like right now.
"Ran?"
"I want to call her Ran."
Ok. The girl. Fuck, Jin, who else would Kame be talking about but the girl?
"She seemed... nice." Not Jin's type, not what he would have expected for Kame, but if Kame already has a name picked out for her, well. "Sweet dreams. Remember to puke in the bin, ok, Kame?"
"Yes, Mama. Good night!"
Jin flicks the light-switch off and shuts Kame's door behind him. He pushes on the door, just to make sure it's locked.
Jin wanted Kame to come out to Ex. He told Kame that he would be knocking them away with a stick. First night out. Go Kame.
Down the hall, Jin gets the door code to his own bedroom wrong three times, and has to wake up the duty sempai to get Koyama to let him in.
Word Count: 13000+
Rating: R
Warnings:(CONSENT ISSUES, MASTER/SLAVE AU, MIND CONTROL)
Summary: Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.
A/N: Written with thanks to my tlist, and above all, to my beta. I couldn't have finished this without your support. I am also very grateful to the mod(s) for their gracious extensions.
-2009-
It's a simple routine, thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame watches once to count, twice to be sure, and then he turns and lines his spine up with the wall just beside the open door. Jin's too caught up in the steps, keeping track of three mens' bodies, arms, legs, and hips, to spot Kame watching from the doorway; but why risk it?
There's no one else here to catch Kame. The practice corridors empty out when Jin's practicing with his boys. Jin's talent is strong. He's got less precision control than Nakamaru, or Kame himself, but in terms of sheer power, unconscious will spilling out, Jin gives MatsuJun a run for his money. Jin's also got a reputation for pranking anyone stupid enough to not to be actively blocking him whenever he's feeling bored.
Thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame can feel the echoes of the impulses Jin is sending his boys, distant urges to snap his wrists, to bend his elbows, to lift his leg to kick. It's all Kame needs to know to be able to imagine Jin, just on the other side of the wall, making those movements, following them through the merest fraction of a second before his boys mimic them exactly.
These particular men with Jin are new to Kame, but clearly not to Jin, not if he can sync with them like that. It's half practice and half a game he's playing with them. Kame caught their grins in the mirrors tiling the back wall before he turned away, Jin's smile mirrored across three faces. Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.
Kame can tell Jin's improvising, changes that probably feels random to Jin, but human beings are rarely truly random. Jin's changing the steps on the count of three or of seven, or not at all, and variations only, no substitutions of entirely different steps. That only makes it easier for Kame to follow along.
How to recognise and remember patterns is one of the first things that they are taught. It helps with their control. Kame's never killed someone by accident. Whatever else he's done, he's proud of that.
After ten complete cycles, it's starting to be impossible for Kame not to know how fast Jin's heart is beating, and soon, he knows his breathing will follow. He needs to walk away.
He needs to stop doing this.
---
On the twenty-third beat, Jin's hand jerks right instead of left: not a movement from him, and certainly not from Ben or Jerry. And Jin always shuts the door when he's training.
Even though it takes him only five strides to reach the corridor, by the time Jin gets his head through the doorway, there's no one in sight. Again.
In his hoodie pocket, Jin's phone vibrates once. The message is short: 28:00, an address in Koto-ku, and the words LEATHER LATEX RUBBER written in English.
"Hey, guys! We're going out tonight!"
---
-1998-
The testing is boring.
One of the few things they know about how the talent works is that people who don't have it, don't have any resistance against people who do. So what happens first, right after they all get given their numbers is that they're told to line up in rows, 1-100 (Jin is first!), in the middle of the room. A stern-looking woman, old, way older than Jin's mom, anyway, walks along between their rows.
Then the fire alarm goes off.
Everyone who doesn't immediately start for the door, who is left standing where he was, eyes gone like a dead fish, gets to go home right away.
But after that, the testing is boring.
Jin goes first. The testing guys don't like him. He doesn't like them, either, even if their clothes look cool. There's a different woman in the room, who does look sort like she's Jin's mom's age, with long, dark hair and a smile that makes Jin flush and not want her to do any of the stupid, embarrassing things that the guy who isn't behind the camera is telling Jin to make the woman do.
"Anything?" he asks the woman, after Jin's had ten minutes, and three different orders.
"No," she says. "I didn't feel a thing." The guy behind the camera also shakes his head.
The guy giving all the orders tells Jin to wait outside, to send in number two, and Jin trips on nothing as he's walking back out into the hall. When you've got the talent, you've got some resistance to the others, but how much depends on strength, training and whether you're expecting some guy to be a jerk.
Jin is bored. His mom won't be back to pick him up until five. It's 10:30.
Sitting against one of the walls, there's a boy with a baseball. He's throwing it in the air and catching it in a glove. Maybe it's the baseball that catches Jin's eye, maybe it's that the boy is maybe the only kid in the room, besides Jin, who isn't watching the door to the testing room.
There's a boy with a big nose sitting next to the boy with the baseball. They came in together, almost too late, but they only met today. While baseball boy is off being tested, big nose introduces himself as Nakamaru Yuichi. He's friendlier than the baseball boy, who comes back and says nothing about how it was ("They said not to tell people who hadn't done it yet."), who only grudgingly admits that his name is Kamenashi.
"Kamenashi is too long," Jin says. He's already told both of them to call him Jin. "What can I call you?"
All Jin gets is the baseball thrown up in the air, caught like perfect clockwork.
"Ka-kun? Kame-chan? I bet turtles are slow to answer when people ask them questions, too."
Kame doesn't answer Jin. He's watching the door to the testing room now.
Jin leans sideways, the back of his head sliding on the wall behind them. "So, how was it, really?" he whispers.
"I didn't make her move," Kame says, just as quiet.
"Me, either."
That makes Kame glance across at Jin.
"I want to play baseball," he says, even quieter, like it's a secret. Which makes no sense, because everyone in the room has watched him throw his ball in the air and catch it maybe three hundred times.
"Why can't you play--?"
Kame elbows Jin in the side, and Jin never gets to ask his question.
Nakamaru has walked out of the testing room. He tries to look cool, but only gets halfway across the room before a grin breaks out across his face and he throws Jin and Kame a victory sign. He whispers that he made the woman stand on her head against the wall. Her tailored skirt had slipped down, just a little, but she'd been back on her feet before Nakamaru could see her panties. This makes him giggle in the retelling. It makes Jin frown. Kame keeps his eyes on the testing room door, only glancing away to check the path of his baseball, falling back into his glove.
Jin is bored, so Jin grabs Kame's baseball out of the air mid-flight.
"Give it back," Kame says, but Jin's already on his feet and on the other side of the room before Kame even stands up.
Everyone else in the room is watching them. They've all been sitting here for hours, doing nothing, too.
"My father gave me that," Kame says. He looks mad. Jin doesn't get why he isn't chasing Jin yet.
"You want it?" Jin says. "Come make me!"
"Give it--" Kame snaps, and just like that, Jin's arm is throwing the baseball, which lands smack dead centre in Kame's mitt. "Back."
Jin sits back down by the wall, face still red long after the old lady takes Kame back into the testing room. When Kame comes back out, he doesn't speak. He sits down in the gap between Jin and Maru, and looks at his baseball in his glove, just holds it. There's only an hour of waiting after that. It takes a long, long time.
When they read out the numbers at the end, Maru's get called out, and Kame's, and some other boys. But Jin's doesn't. The boys whose numbers get called out hug their mothers and then go stand with the mean old lady, waiting. Jin's mom hugs him, too, even though she gets to take him home. Jin spots Kame hugging his baseball mitt against his chest.
An old guy by the door tells Jin to give his number back. Jin makes him dance the Macarena. It turns out he's the big boss, and that Jin's lucky he has a sense of humour. Jin hugs his mom good-bye.
Then that's it, for all three of them. They're Johnny's.
---
-1999-
Life in a Johnny's dormitory is like moving into a high school. They have classes together. They eat together. All the juniors under the age of twenty (which is most of them) spend what little scheduled down time they get inside the one building, over three floors. Kame has three brothers, but this is walking into an ongoing prank war on a scale that even he is unprepared for.
Things that aren't considered dangerous enough for their graduated sempai to stop (not an exhaustive list):
* tripping over nothing
* not being able to talk when called upon in class
* messing up the moves during dance class
* dancing when it's not dance class (especially uncool, out-dated dance moves)
* making obscene gestures in front of teachers
* uncontrollable and/or noisy gas
* wetting oneself in public
Kame tries to stay out of it. The pranks are just stupid. What Kame hates is the horrible shivering extended moment when their sempai holds them still, when Kame's fingers and toes goes numb, and he knows that his heart is only still beating because his sempai is making it move.
One night in March, Kame gets Jin thumping on Kame's bedroom door.
"Show me how to do that thing you do," Jin says, and then, he must realise how that sounds, because he then bows his head and the demand comes out again, but a little more polite. "Nino's a jerk," Jin says. "Please teach me your trick!"
Jin can't mean how to throw a baseball. It made Kame novel at the audition, but Jin made Johnny Kitigawa dance. Jin's the legend that came out of their audition, instantly "elite", like Matsumoto Jun or Yamashita Tomohisa. Some of the boys have been here for years and the ongoing prank war proves their skill better than the twice-yearly exams. No, all Kame has a reputation for is being hard to catch off guard. He really tries to stay out of it. It's easier for Kame to keep his temper if he can avoid being got; if not, well, there are always sempai supervising the common areas. That's plenty of incentive.
Ninomiya-sempai is one of the few boys that Kame can talk baseball with, but he managed to make Kame throw a cup of soy milk at Takizawa-sempai at breakfast two days before and Kame did not enjoy being the recipient of Takizawa-sempai's disappointment.
The room's tiny, and Kame has only one chair. Jin perches on the edge of Kame's desk, kicking his feet. It turns out to be harder to describe than Kame expects, with a frown of confusion growing on Jin's face.
"Just-- argh-- just show me, ok?"
"We're not supposed to do it without supervision," Kame says.
Jin gives him a look. "I won't tell if you don't."
Jin's reputation in the juniors dormitory is for smiling his way around the rules, for pulling heroically stupid stunts, and for loyalty to his friends. Above Jin's head, on the bookshelf, there are two battered, secondhand One Piece tankubon, both borrowed from Jin, who has already figured out that Kame won't accept presents.
"Ok, fine," Kame says. "Don't make me do anything stupid."
Jin's control is like ocean waves, surging up over Kame, pressure on his chest, on his skin, and breaking against the barrier Kame imagines is there. With his eyes shut to concentrate, Kame tries to describe how it feels and what he's doing to stop it, right up until Kame can no longer talk. Until he's drowning. The tips of his fingers tingle, but it's not as bad as Kame was bracing for; the water's warm. Jin lets go almost as soon as Kame's voice stops.
"Hey, you ok?"
Kame nods in answer, because that's easier, gesturing with a hand that's somehow holding Jin's. He doesn't remember Jin doing that. Kame honestly doesn't know which of them did that.
"I thought, I mean, you don't talk a lot, anyway, so it seemed..." Jin shrugs, and just squeezes Kame's hand.
Kame's voice croaks on the first try, manages a word or two on the second. That's normal. He didn't know that last October.
"Helpful?" Kame finally manages, coughing twice, but that seems to be it. "Did that make sense?"
"Yeah, I think so. " Jin says. "Now let me try blocking you."
"What?"
Somehow, the idea of trying to control Jin, that's worse. Kame doesn't like the talent. He can understand why Jin would want to learn how to block it, to resist the other boys (their teachers). Kame pulled Jin with the talent the first day they met. By accident, and Kame didn't know what it could feel like then.
"I want to know if I've got it," Jin says, grinning and unafraid. "Don't make me do anything too stupid."
It takes Kame longer to wrest Jin's control from him-- he's tentative, at least until Jin asks Kame if that's all he's got -- and it takes Jin a few tries before Kame can feel him pushing back. But weirdly, every time, the first muscles that Jin pulls back to his own control are the ones that let him smile.
Kame doesn't ask Jin what his control feels like. He's not sure he wants to know. When they stop, it's already after curfew. That's the first night that Jin stays over in Kame's room.
Kame was used to sharing with his younger brother Yuya, so sharing with Jin isn't that strange. The bed in his dormitory room is slightly less unfamiliar with somebody else in it, and it's just warmer with Jin here. Maybe Kame will kick him out in April, or in May, depending on the weather. The problem he has most often is that he doesn't think that Jin is used to sharing a bed, since his favourite sleeping position is sprawled out on his front.
Sometimes Kame wakes up in the middle of the night, with Jin practically flattening him, touching chest-to-chest so that Kame doesn't know who started breathing in time with who. Kame bites his lip, the pain making him less muzzy with sleep. He wriggles a hand up to poke Jin's collarbones, and the other boy shrieks awake, arms waving as Jin tumbles off the side of the bed onto the floor.
---
-2005-
Answering Nakama-sensei's summons, Kame and Jin kneel correctly on the tatami, and wait. She looks them over, an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. She says that she's noticed that they tend to pair off for the group exercises, supporting each other against other students-- she asks which of them is the leader, who has the overriding talent.
They both answer at the same time: "Jin."
Kame keeps his face blank; he can feel Jin looking at him.
Nakama-sensei tilts her head, her nose wrinkling for just a moment, before a blinding grin takes over. They both get dragged into a suffocating hug.
"Most boys fight when I ask them a question like that," she wails. "Never forget this precious friendship of your youth!"
Nakama-sensei is a woman, and therefore not a talent, but she's the grand-daughter of the head of one of the Tokyo families that Johnny often contracts for. When the family wants something, she takes on those Johnny selects for three months, to teach them about team work, loyalty and the importance of friendship. And street-fighting, which is in some ways just another way of moving, another set of steps with a strong emphasis on improvisation. But mostly pain.
For the first few weeks, they learnt how to throw punches, how to kick, squaring off against each other as often as they went against Nakama's grandfather's subordinates. They had bruises, then, too, but they have more bruises now that they're moving into the second stage.
Pain is a response from the nervous system, which is something like electrical wires travelling through the body. Kame's not sure he would have paid so much attention in biology and anatomy classes if the knowledge hadn't been obviously useful. Who wants to take someone over and make them do things the human body isn't designed to do?
To make someone feel pain by syncing with their electrical system, your own body needed to know what the pain felt like. The sharp stabbing pain of being punched in the kidneys, or kicked in the groin, that would be more useful than being able to induce the dull ache of muscle strain. Not that Kame couldn't do both.
Nakama-sensei is the first woman that Kame's met who made him wonder why women didn't manifest the talent. Sometimes he felt himself moving and he wasn't sure if he just wanted to do what she wanted so badly, or whether his limbs were being guided through the steps.
Kame's face flushes when she praises him. Jin has been teasing Kame about having a thing for older women, but Kame knows he doesn't really mean it. If Jin did, he wouldn't do tease Kame in bed, where it's too easy for Kame's fingers to reach Jin's collarbones.
Jin stops staying over whenever he "falls in love", because that would just get weird and awkward. Even though they stopped dating six months ago, Yamashita-sempai still holds a grudge against Kame for stealing Jin away from him (which is stupid). At least Jin's between crushes at the moment. Kame can make sure that Jin gets to Nakama's school on time.
"Ok, ten minutes are up," Jin says, poking Kame's left shoulder where it floats exposed above the waterline. Kame has bruises down his right side, and a bump on that side of his head that's barely noticeable. The doctors said he's lucky not to have a concussion, considering the fall he took. They do get good doctors, being Johnnies.
"I haven't passed out again."
Everything's warm and fuzzy and Kame's head feels just a little too big for his skull. They get good painkillers, too.
"Get out of the bath, Kame."
---
Kame meets the woman he will later call Ran on his first night at Ex.
Ex, short for the English "exchange", is a club with no fixed address. If you know the right people, you get a message on your handphone hours before an event: opening time, place, theme. Ex happens in abandoned warehouses, the bar run out of the back of three vans, the floor slick with water from being hosed down. It didn't look like much to Kame walking in, but Jin had thrown his arm across Kame's shoulders, Jin's weight walking them both forward. He had told Kame that you didn't come to Ex for the furniture. You came for the people.
Half the patrons in Ex are dressed in tight leather, or cosplay, or both. Koki swears that you can actually find women here who "get wet at the thought of syncing with hot guys like us". Kame wasn't sure whether to believe him, but in the hour since he's been here, Kame has seen five different girls being led around by a leash attached to a collar at their throats and, more to the point, at least two groups of Koreans (one all male, one all female) dancing in preternaturally perfect coordination. Maybe if a talent syncs someone here, it's just a quickly personal interest.
That's why Johnnies come here. Ex is also one of the few clubs in Tokyo that doesn't ask talents to sign a no-sync waiver at the door. (Talents don't get a choice about paying three times the already steep cover charge, but where else would they rather be than the VIP section?)
There are men who like talents here, too, or at least Jin is happily holding court back at their tables just beyond the ropes that mark off the VIP section. Jin is older than Kame. Tonight is far from Jin's first night at Ex, and the people he seems to know here aren't just Johnny's. From what Kame's seen, Jin's not had any trouble finding people to buy him drinks.
Kame's stalking the edges of the dance floor, waiting for his one beer to make him brave. Kame likes dancing. He likes feeling the music through his body. Kame knows how well he can move, but at work, that's about proficiency, not sexy. He's not used to feeling pretty like Jin does. The last time Kame confessed to someone, he was still in elementary school. When Kame gets second (and third...) glances, he has to remind himself that they're not staring in confusion, wondering how someone like him got into a club like Ex.
The girl is wearing a hat, that's what catches Kame's eye. She's all in black, black slacks, black short-sleeved blouse, black bob under her hat. Kame's wearing boot-cut jeans, a tight T-shirt with a skull screen-printed in three colours and more than six bracelets, strings of beads and charms on each wrist: an outfit with Jin-approval, even if Kame's moved beyond Jin picking half his clothes. Tonight, Jin's eyelids are outlined with metallic turquoise and he has a knotted shawl accentuating his hips. Jin's top has a cowl neck, dipping and draping over the cleavage Jin doesn't pretend to have. At least next to this girl, Kame doesn't feel ridiculously plain.
"Haven't seen you here before. Are you with them?" she asks. She means the other Johnny's.
Kame nods, his tongue feeling thick in this mouth. He thinks about the way Koki, Junno and Maru talk about girls(!), or about the crushes he's been hearing about from Jin since nearly forever. The girl looks friendly, and Kame likes that, but it's more like a feeling of relief that girls aren't actually an alien species than anything he's been expecting. He envies her the way she seems to know what she wants, nodding with a smile as she stands at the edge of the dance floor with him, still swaying with the beat. Friendly's not bad for a start.
"You move pretty well," Kame says. "Can I-- would you-- dance with me?"
The girl turns around, like she's done this before, her head tilted back over her shoulder, eyes on Kame and her arms out, palms up. Kame's been watching the dance floor. He knows what she's doing, what's being offered. Kame takes her wrists, gingerly; he's never synced someone willingly before. His thumbs find the veins on the inside of her wrists, touching pulse to pulse, until there is no difference between his and hers. Then Kame lets go, of her hands; he doesn't need to be touching her now.
Kame can feel her hands through his, the tensing muscles of her thighs and calves as she walks, but there's no resistance where he's holding onto her. The girl's body feels like welcome, step by step out onto the dance floor in time with Kame's feet, the smile on her face identical to his own.
Whenever Kame's synced with someone, whether it was another junior talent or someone they were hired to sync with, it's always been a fight. He's always been aware of a clear cut division between them, the place where the force of his will and their resistance met. Kame had thought that being welcomed in would feel like losing himself, but he's never felt more in control, never felt more certain of himself, of what he wants.
Kame wants this with her, feeling the flow of his control in the roll of her hips, her willingness in the snap of her arms, the beat thudding in time with the surge of blood in his chest. When he turns, she turns, double-sensory-vision, Kame feeling his centre of gravity in two places at once.
Kame's hard, and she's wet, and he knows, because her body is his. Kame's hard, and he's in a warehouse, rubbing against the body of a woman he's just met. He asked her to dance.
Kame pulls his control back, steps back to put space between them, so that when he breathes, Kame only fills his own lungs.
The girl turns herself to face him. Her cheeks are glowing, her skin is warm and shimmering lightly with sweat. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice gives out on a whisper. The girl shrugs her shoulders, used to it, what can you do?
Kame wonders if he should offer to buy her a drink, if she'd want to use the opportunity to disappear back into the crowd, if he shouldn't leave her alone yet. He wants to hold her wrists, take her back. The desire is disorienting.
"You dance pretty well yourself," she says, finally, smiling up at him from beneath the brim of her hat. Kame grins back.
He introduces himself, asks the girl her name. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she asks, and it just about stops Kame's breath.
Talents, if they're strong enough, need to sync regularly to keep their control. Go too long without, and the talent starts reaching out in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Most talents contract people who theoretically know what they're getting into, and most talents give nicknames to those they do contract. Accepting the nickname is part of what makes it easier for their talent to control them, or at least that's how Takizawa-sensei explained it in class. Now that Kame's seen girls with collars around their necks, like housepets, he's less sure that's all it is.
The girl's still looking up at Kame, still smiling. She looks like a "Ran". Kame wants to call her Ran. He licks his lips.
"I-- I can't contract yet."
He can't afford to, not until he graduates. Contracts are legally binding, involving maintenance stipends as well as compulsory insurance. The more often and prolonged you sync with someone, the easier it becomes.
Kame has never thought he would ever feel like that, but he can feel himself holding back now, a rush with every pulse of his heartbeat, her heartbeat, echoing just out of time with each other, through their linked hands. Right now, that sort of easy, welcome control sounds fantastic to Kame, but he's the talent. He's the one she needs protecting from.
"That's a pity," she says.
"Soon, though. I hope."
"Maybe I'll see you around when you can." Something she sees behind Kame startles her; Kame lets go of her hands. It's only then that she takes a small step back, pivoting to turn. "I think your friend is looking for you."
It's Jin.
And he has his hands out to catch Kame when Kame stumbles forward.
Five minutes ago, Kame moved four feet like he owned them. He hasn't been this wrung out from syncing in years, and, at the end, Kame doesn't know what happened there. He thinks it'll be easier to calm down next to Jin, whose heart isn't thudding like a rabbit's in his chest. Jin's arms are strong, wrapped around Kame's back. His hair smells like Kame's shampoo.
" 'm not drunk."
"No," Jin says, and he sounds like he's trying not to snicker. "But you must have gone pretty deep with her."
Kame finds himself staring at the dark, crooked bow of Jin's lips, stopping himself just in time from asking Jin to dance. They're both talents; it couldn't work the same way. But there's still something fierce and consuming in Kame that wants to be back on the dance floor right now, moving someone's body in time with the beat. To find out if he could move Jin, if he just pushed hard enough.
Jin's heartbeat is familiar. Too familiar.
Kame pulls away, puts one foot in front of the other. The girl wanted to contract; Kame hopes she isn't watching him.
Kame has waited years to like girls with the sort of confident enthusiasm that Jin brings to liking guys, but he's still confused. Kame thinks that the girl's eyes were brown, maybe, and that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone what her cup size was. He thinks about the joyful flexibility in the girl's legs and the fine points of articulation in Jin's hands, and realises that he's getting hard again, just staring at the pulse point in Jin's wrists.
"Kame?"
Kame takes Jin's outstretched hand, linking their fingers, and pulling Jin away from the dance floor. Jin likes guys, but he deserves better than confused.
"Let me buy you a drink."
---
Kame tries beer, and wine, and vodka and tequila with salt and lime. He downs any brightly coloured shot placed in front of them, sliding further and further against Jin. He smiles when Jin wraps an arm around Kame's shoulders, and says yes to whiskey for the next round and drinks most of the glass of orange juice Jin orders to share.
Kame balances with a hand on Jin's thigh, leaning in to say: "when can we go home?", but not in the whisper Kame probably thought he'd used.
Ryo and Pi both elbow Yuu, who has some talent but never got into Johnny's, and who has only heard about Jin and Kame second-hand. Some days, Jin thinks that the only two people in the world who don't think he and Kame have some on-again-off-again tumultuous passion are him and Kame.
"I'm not sure we should be letting Jinnifer take Kamenashi home," Ryo says. "What do you think, Pi?"
"We do have to look out for our kouhai's virtue."
"Fuck you both," Jin says, with feeling.
"I don't think the tables are sturdy enough here," Yuu says, and he, Pi and Ryo all clink shots and down them.
Jin flips Pi the bird, and reaches out to knock Yuu sideways with his hip, a hint to get up so that Jin can walk Kame around the tables. He's glad Kame's so wasted that Jin doesn't have to explain that this is just how his friends are, that this means they like Kame.
Jin's always stayed friends with all his exes, even Ryo, who Jin had broken up with because Ryo started telling people he was only making out with Jin because Jin was the girliest boy in the dormitory. Not that Ryo and Pi still lived in the dormitory. They were younger than Jin, but they'd both graduated last year.
The taxi-driver thinks Jin is Kame's girlfriend, which makes everything easier, because Kame's not a handsy drunk, but he does want to cuddle up to Jin in the back seat. They're allowed out to hit the clubs, though they're not supposed to cause incidents.
Kame makes it all the way home, all the way up in the elevator, and Jin thinks he may just sleep it off until they get to Kame's dormitory corridor. They end up spending almost an hour, sitting on the floor in the communal bathroom, just managing to fit together sitting on the floor in a toilet cubicle. Jin rubs Kame's back through the shakes and heaves, keeps Kame's hair out of his eyes and out of his mouth.
"I'm never drinking again."
Jin laughs.
"And I hate you," Kame says, giggling into Jin's chest. "You are terrible, letting me drink that much."
"It's a rite of passage."
"I'm sorry. For ruining your evening."
"Don't worry about it," Jin says. Kame's hair is oily to the touch, sweat from dancing. He'll want to shower, but in the morning will be safer.
Jin gets Kame a glass of water, standing by the sink while Kame brushes his teeth -- twice-- and then he helps Kame back down the corridor to his room. Kame whispers his door code to Jin, lips brushing Jin's ear, still so out of it that he forgets that he told Jin years ago.
Jin deposits Kame on his bed, finding the trash bin and moving it near the head of the bed. Jin throws Kame a set of pyjamas, turning and knocking the drawer he'd got them from shut with his hip. Kame gets his T-shirt and jeans off by himself, but Jin has to sit on the side of the bed and help with Kame's accessories, untangling their clasps.
"Jin...?"
"Yeah?"
"When you sync with the guys you date, how does it--?"
"I don't," Jin says, so abruptly that Kame pulls back into his quilt.
Jin feels like an idiot. Kame's still drunk, over-tired and confused. He's asking because he's never danced with a girl like that, not because he's somehow figured out something about Jin that Jin hasn't told anybody. It's not Kame's fault that he thinks he and Jin have more in common than they do.
"It's not my thing. I mean, I flirt a lot, but most of the guys I really like, they're talents like us, so..." Jin trails off.
Kame nods, and holds out his other wrist, for Jin to start on those bracelets.
"Other people do. I think Uchi has, if you wanted to talk to someone."
Jin thinks Ueda does, too, or at least, Ueda disappears fast whenever they hit Ex. But Ueda doesn't talk to anyone, and the last time Kame tried to prank him, Ueda punched Kame in the face. Not that Jin really wants to send Kame to talk to Uchi, because he would just try to sidle into Kame's pants.
Kame is frowning in concentration. "But if you don't-- why do you like going to Ex so much?" He asks.
"I like going somewhere I can dress up, and have pretty men call me honey."
"Pretty Honey Jin." Kame giggles.
"You are so drunk."
"Yep!"
Jin pushes on Kame's shoulder to get him to lie down. Kame flops down on his back, and then rolls onto his side, bony knee colliding with Jin's ass. He looks adorable, so Jin forgives him, reaching down to brush Kame's bangs out of his eyes.
"Jin, I hope we graduate soon."
"So you can buy a bigger bed?"
"Ran wanted to contract."
Kame's closed his eyes. That's good. Jin's not sure what his expression looks like right now.
"Ran?"
"I want to call her Ran."
Ok. The girl. Fuck, Jin, who else would Kame be talking about but the girl?
"She seemed... nice." Not Jin's type, not what he would have expected for Kame, but if Kame already has a name picked out for her, well. "Sweet dreams. Remember to puke in the bin, ok, Kame?"
"Yes, Mama. Good night!"
Jin flicks the light-switch off and shuts Kame's door behind him. He pushes on the door, just to make sure it's locked.
Jin wanted Kame to come out to Ex. He told Kame that he would be knocking them away with a stick. First night out. Go Kame.
Down the hall, Jin gets the door code to his own bedroom wrong three times, and has to wake up the duty sempai to get Koyama to let him in.