Adam Lambert - Whataya Want From Me
Title: Patience
Pairing: Takki/Tsubasa
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tsubasa asks a question he didn't want the answer to.
Adam Lambert's "Whataya Want From Me"
Hideaki nods once. He’s staring at the door.
Tsubasa imagines pulling on his sleeve or tugging the fringe of the burgundy scarf around his neck. Just to try to get him to smile. He imagines standing up. Straightening his back, pulling his shoulders back. Making eye contact. Speaking.
Hideaki says, “Well.” Sweat’s drenched the front of his shirt, flattened his hair to his forehead and temples, made his throat gleam. When he swallows, Tsubasa looks at the floor.
Last week he wrapped his arm around Hideaki’s waist on the stage of a packed arena and Hideaki gave him a smile with the corners turned down like he was trying to suppress it, and at the time Tsubasa thought, Ah, he’s embarrassed.
Now he’s not sure if that was embarrassment. Or if it was, maybe it wasn’t the shy kind Tsubasa thought it was.
Hideaki shifts his weight toward the door. The urge to grab him rises in Tsubasa’s throat.
Please, he thinks, be patient.
Hideaki picks up his phone off the floor near Tsubasa’s foot and leaves.
-
11:00-6:00 edit footage
6:05-6:20 brew coffee/shower/dress
6:30-7:10 drive to studio
7:20-8:00 prep for coordination meeting
8:00-9:30 meeting
9:30-9:40 break/call Nakamura
9:40-10:30 meeting
10:30-11:10 late to recording studio
11:15-12:25 record
12:25-12:30 break/push back 13:45 interview
12:30-13:00 re-record/discard tracks
13:00-13:05 reschedule interview for 18:30
13:05-13:25 record
13:25-13:29 voicemail
“Takizawa, this is Hashimoto. Tsubasa-kun can’t make the interview. If you’d get back to me with your schedule for the next few days, I’ll call the magazine to reschedule. I’m very sorry to-”
13:40-13:45 email Hashimoto
13:45-14:00 …
14:00-14:01 delete voicemail
14:05-14:55 drive to Saitama
15:00-19:30 filming
19:35-19:50 dinner/review footage
20:01-22:00 reshoot/reshoot/reshoot/…
__
Tsubasa goes to Spain without his laptop or his Japanese phone and only gives the number of his rental phone to his manager. Otherwise, he’s off the grid.
He spends most of his trip in the countryside following one of his mentors around small community studios where he’s shown up by women and men three times his age. His mentor is Japanese with a Spanish wife and a son, Stefano, who’s around Tsubasa’s age. They’ve hung out in Barcelona multiple times, and by now have established a kind of friendship.
On Tsubasa’s last day in Spain, Stefano invites him out for drinks with a few of his friends and Tsubasa accepts, relieved to have a day to himself so his body can recover from the strain he’s put it under. He’s introduced to Julián, who studied abroad in Japan for a year, and to Michel and Raul, who speak only Spanish but enjoy Tsubasa’s mangled accent and think his sense of humor is funny.
The bar they visit is cramped and there’s a cluster of old men taking up the bar’s only three tables, so they order beer and stand until the old men leave. Once they’re sitting, Julián and Stefano tell a story about an izakaya they found in Tokyo that they swear had a tentacle rape theme. Michel says he wouldn’t be surprised to find out it exists, but Tsubasa denies it, even though he has no idea if it’s true and is actually pretty sure he’s heard about that same izakaya from Nino. Still, Stefano raises his hands in defeat and Julián claps Tsubasa on the back and declares him the table’s authority on Japanese kink. Then Raul grins and asks Tsubasa conversationally if he’s ever taken anything kinkier than a dick up the ass.
Tsubasa says, “Eh?” and smiles as cluelessly as he can manage.
Raul laughs, high-pitched and harmless, until Michel punches him in the ribs, slurring something incomprehensible.
Tsubasa just grins into his glass and pretends he didn’t understand.
Raul doesn’t seem like he’s being hostile-it looks like he thought the language barrier was higher than it is-but Stefano’s friendly smile changes into one of embarrassment and he’s reluctant to translate anything else Raul says. Tsubasa winds up trying to follow Julián’s less-enunciated Japanese, which gets harder for Tsubasa to understand the drunker Julián gets.
At some point, Julián stands up to use the bathroom and Raul slides in to take his place. He kisses Tsubasa on the forehead and grins when Michel cackles and slams the table with an open hand.
Raul lights a cigarette and asks Tsubasa in slow, careful Spanish, if he has a boyfriend.
Tsubasa considers feigning ignorance again, but Raul’s eyes are sharp and there’s something so open about him that Tsubasa finds himself saying, “No. Not anymore.”
Raul’s smile takes a new curve. One more drink later, his chair is pressed against Tsubasa’s and he’s massaging the back of Tsubasa’s neck while Julián tells them all about the guy he found peeing on the wall in the bathroom.
Twenty minutes after that, Michel calls for another round, but Stefano bows out and reminds Tsubasa about his early flight. Raul looks disappointed, but he palms Tsubasa’s shoulder and promises they’ll get together the next time he’s in town. Tsubasa doesn’t realize until he’s standing that he’s somehow way past drunk and heading into blitzed.
Stefano puts him into a cab and says something about someone’s boyfriend and seconds later, Tsubasa’s in front of his hotel room door struggling with the key.
He plugs in his phone and showers and drinks the two waters in his mini-fridge and then his manager’s voice is in his ear.
“I don’t think you should call him right now, Tsubasa-kun,” she says.
He hears himself say, “I don’t know anyone’s number,” and thinks he might be talking about speed-dial.
“It’s all right. You’ll have your real phone back soon. Did you drink some water?”
He promises to do that and hangs up and hates Hideaki like he hasn’t since he was seventeen.
__
17:00-18:39 film TAKIChanel interview
18:45-19:30 production meeting
19:35-20:00 phone meeting
20:30-6:34 …
Someone grabs the bottle and pries it out of his hand.
__
Tsubasa puts Hideaki into bed-with a little shove, when Hideaki resists-and calls Hideaki’s manager. He doesn’t say mindlessly drunk, but Hideaki’s manager is familiar with Hideaki’s least polished moments and tells him she’ll handle rescheduling.
The living room is in chaos, but Tsubasa decides to leave that for Hideaki to clean. It’s his mess, after all.
Tsubasa doesn’t feel tired or jetlagged, but he lies down next to Hideaki anyway and naps. His neck hurts and he could probably use the rest before Hideaki has a meltdown at him about losing an entire day of work.
When he opens his eyes next, Hideaki is across the room at his laptop, eyes fixed on the screen.
Tsubasa shifts, feels a pang in his back, and winces.
“Sorry,” Hideaki mutters. Tsubasa doesn’t know which thing he’s apologizing for, but it sounds bigger than just getting hammered and snapping at Tsubasa not to touch him.
He doesn’t say anything back.
For fifteen minutes, they’re quiet. Hideaki types and Tsubasa breathes.
“I could have cheated,” Tsubasa says to the ceiling.
Hideaki’s typing stops cold.
“He was Stefano’s friend-”
“Who’s Stefano?”
Tsubasa grins bitterly and closes his eyes. “Forget it.”
Hideaki’s chair squeaks and then the bed dips. “Tell me.” His voice is a mixture of tones, none of which Tsubasa wants to hear.
“I said I was single.”
“Are you?”
Tsubasa thinks about how to respond to that, then pushes himself up and towards the edge of the bed. Hideaki seizes his arm.
He had to stretch across the queen-sized bed to reach him, and he looks hurt.
Tsubasa shakes off Hideaki’s hand but crawls closer like the budding masochist he is.
Hideaki seems to take that as permission of sorts and curves one hand around Tsubasa’s hip. He kneels in front of Tsubasa’s crossed legs and stays still until Tsubasa makes eye contact with him.
Hideaki asks, “Why?” but anxiously, half of it swallowed.
They don’t fight, but what they do is worse. They grow apart, and they let it happen.
They don’t fight, but when Tsubasa says things like, “Of course I’ll get married, won’t you?” just to get a reaction, and gets one he doesn’t like, walls go up between them and trust breaks down on both sides.
Without letting himself think about it, Tsubasa says, “I wanted someone who isn’t you.” Hideaki doesn’t react, but Tsubasa knows him better than that. He sighs and cranes his neck until it pops and catches Hideaki glancing at his computer. Just a flick of the eyes, something he probably doesn’t think Tsubasa will notice.
“Oi,” Tsubasa says, annoyed. “Look at me.”
Hideaki already is, a fraction less guilty than Tsubasa thinks he should look.
Tsubasa says, “He was a friend of a friend. I’ll never see him again.” Not a promise, just a prediction.
Hideaki seems to hear the distinction and it shows on his face.
Something about the silence, about the tension between them that feels somehow final, makes Tsubasa give Hideaki a more truthful answer. “I don’t know what this is,” he says quietly. And I miss you. All the time.
He remembers their concert two weeks ago when he had his arm around Hideaki and believed, in that one moment, that he had Hideaki’s full focus. He thinks about how rarely he has it, how much he always wants it, but how he’ll probably never have it and some stranger will, instead.
He swallows and starts to get up, get away, but Hideaki stops him with a soft, “Wait.”
They sit awkwardly until Tsubasa’s neck starts to ache again and he stretches it, but it just hurts and won’t pop and-
Hideaki’s thumb presses gently into a tendon that feels bruised. Tsubasa frowns, but allows it, and Hideaki shifts closer to get a better angle. Hideaki tries to meet his eyes, but Tsubasa closes them and puts his forehead on Hideaki’s shoulder. Hideaki’s other arm circles him and pulls him tighter against Hideaki’s chest. The massage goes deeper and Tsubasa makes small noises of pain whenever Hideaki rubs too hard. It feels better than Raul’s.
As Tsubasa’s wondering if Hideaki’s staring at his laptop, Hideaki rests his head on top of his.
“Keep going,” Tsubasa murmurs.
Hideaki squeezes his neck.
Tsubasa closes his eyes. Be patient.
“Okay.”
Pairing: Takki/Tsubasa
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tsubasa asks a question he didn't want the answer to.
Adam Lambert's "Whataya Want From Me"
Hideaki nods once. He’s staring at the door.
Tsubasa imagines pulling on his sleeve or tugging the fringe of the burgundy scarf around his neck. Just to try to get him to smile. He imagines standing up. Straightening his back, pulling his shoulders back. Making eye contact. Speaking.
Hideaki says, “Well.” Sweat’s drenched the front of his shirt, flattened his hair to his forehead and temples, made his throat gleam. When he swallows, Tsubasa looks at the floor.
Last week he wrapped his arm around Hideaki’s waist on the stage of a packed arena and Hideaki gave him a smile with the corners turned down like he was trying to suppress it, and at the time Tsubasa thought, Ah, he’s embarrassed.
Now he’s not sure if that was embarrassment. Or if it was, maybe it wasn’t the shy kind Tsubasa thought it was.
Hideaki shifts his weight toward the door. The urge to grab him rises in Tsubasa’s throat.
Please, he thinks, be patient.
Hideaki picks up his phone off the floor near Tsubasa’s foot and leaves.
-
11:00-6:00 edit footage
6:05-6:20 brew coffee/shower/dress
6:30-7:10 drive to studio
7:20-8:00 prep for coordination meeting
8:00-9:30 meeting
9:30-9:40 break/call Nakamura
9:40-10:30 meeting
10:30-11:10 late to recording studio
11:15-12:25 record
12:25-12:30 break/push back 13:45 interview
12:30-13:00 re-record/discard tracks
13:00-13:05 reschedule interview for 18:30
13:05-13:25 record
13:25-13:29 voicemail
“Takizawa, this is Hashimoto. Tsubasa-kun can’t make the interview. If you’d get back to me with your schedule for the next few days, I’ll call the magazine to reschedule. I’m very sorry to-”
13:40-13:45 email Hashimoto
13:45-14:00 …
14:00-14:01 delete voicemail
14:05-14:55 drive to Saitama
15:00-19:30 filming
19:35-19:50 dinner/review footage
20:01-22:00 reshoot/reshoot/reshoot/…
__
Tsubasa goes to Spain without his laptop or his Japanese phone and only gives the number of his rental phone to his manager. Otherwise, he’s off the grid.
He spends most of his trip in the countryside following one of his mentors around small community studios where he’s shown up by women and men three times his age. His mentor is Japanese with a Spanish wife and a son, Stefano, who’s around Tsubasa’s age. They’ve hung out in Barcelona multiple times, and by now have established a kind of friendship.
On Tsubasa’s last day in Spain, Stefano invites him out for drinks with a few of his friends and Tsubasa accepts, relieved to have a day to himself so his body can recover from the strain he’s put it under. He’s introduced to Julián, who studied abroad in Japan for a year, and to Michel and Raul, who speak only Spanish but enjoy Tsubasa’s mangled accent and think his sense of humor is funny.
The bar they visit is cramped and there’s a cluster of old men taking up the bar’s only three tables, so they order beer and stand until the old men leave. Once they’re sitting, Julián and Stefano tell a story about an izakaya they found in Tokyo that they swear had a tentacle rape theme. Michel says he wouldn’t be surprised to find out it exists, but Tsubasa denies it, even though he has no idea if it’s true and is actually pretty sure he’s heard about that same izakaya from Nino. Still, Stefano raises his hands in defeat and Julián claps Tsubasa on the back and declares him the table’s authority on Japanese kink. Then Raul grins and asks Tsubasa conversationally if he’s ever taken anything kinkier than a dick up the ass.
Tsubasa says, “Eh?” and smiles as cluelessly as he can manage.
Raul laughs, high-pitched and harmless, until Michel punches him in the ribs, slurring something incomprehensible.
Tsubasa just grins into his glass and pretends he didn’t understand.
Raul doesn’t seem like he’s being hostile-it looks like he thought the language barrier was higher than it is-but Stefano’s friendly smile changes into one of embarrassment and he’s reluctant to translate anything else Raul says. Tsubasa winds up trying to follow Julián’s less-enunciated Japanese, which gets harder for Tsubasa to understand the drunker Julián gets.
At some point, Julián stands up to use the bathroom and Raul slides in to take his place. He kisses Tsubasa on the forehead and grins when Michel cackles and slams the table with an open hand.
Raul lights a cigarette and asks Tsubasa in slow, careful Spanish, if he has a boyfriend.
Tsubasa considers feigning ignorance again, but Raul’s eyes are sharp and there’s something so open about him that Tsubasa finds himself saying, “No. Not anymore.”
Raul’s smile takes a new curve. One more drink later, his chair is pressed against Tsubasa’s and he’s massaging the back of Tsubasa’s neck while Julián tells them all about the guy he found peeing on the wall in the bathroom.
Twenty minutes after that, Michel calls for another round, but Stefano bows out and reminds Tsubasa about his early flight. Raul looks disappointed, but he palms Tsubasa’s shoulder and promises they’ll get together the next time he’s in town. Tsubasa doesn’t realize until he’s standing that he’s somehow way past drunk and heading into blitzed.
Stefano puts him into a cab and says something about someone’s boyfriend and seconds later, Tsubasa’s in front of his hotel room door struggling with the key.
He plugs in his phone and showers and drinks the two waters in his mini-fridge and then his manager’s voice is in his ear.
“I don’t think you should call him right now, Tsubasa-kun,” she says.
He hears himself say, “I don’t know anyone’s number,” and thinks he might be talking about speed-dial.
“It’s all right. You’ll have your real phone back soon. Did you drink some water?”
He promises to do that and hangs up and hates Hideaki like he hasn’t since he was seventeen.
__
17:00-18:39 film TAKIChanel interview
18:45-19:30 production meeting
19:35-20:00 phone meeting
20:30-6:34 …
Someone grabs the bottle and pries it out of his hand.
__
Tsubasa puts Hideaki into bed-with a little shove, when Hideaki resists-and calls Hideaki’s manager. He doesn’t say mindlessly drunk, but Hideaki’s manager is familiar with Hideaki’s least polished moments and tells him she’ll handle rescheduling.
The living room is in chaos, but Tsubasa decides to leave that for Hideaki to clean. It’s his mess, after all.
Tsubasa doesn’t feel tired or jetlagged, but he lies down next to Hideaki anyway and naps. His neck hurts and he could probably use the rest before Hideaki has a meltdown at him about losing an entire day of work.
When he opens his eyes next, Hideaki is across the room at his laptop, eyes fixed on the screen.
Tsubasa shifts, feels a pang in his back, and winces.
“Sorry,” Hideaki mutters. Tsubasa doesn’t know which thing he’s apologizing for, but it sounds bigger than just getting hammered and snapping at Tsubasa not to touch him.
He doesn’t say anything back.
For fifteen minutes, they’re quiet. Hideaki types and Tsubasa breathes.
“I could have cheated,” Tsubasa says to the ceiling.
Hideaki’s typing stops cold.
“He was Stefano’s friend-”
“Who’s Stefano?”
Tsubasa grins bitterly and closes his eyes. “Forget it.”
Hideaki’s chair squeaks and then the bed dips. “Tell me.” His voice is a mixture of tones, none of which Tsubasa wants to hear.
“I said I was single.”
“Are you?”
Tsubasa thinks about how to respond to that, then pushes himself up and towards the edge of the bed. Hideaki seizes his arm.
He had to stretch across the queen-sized bed to reach him, and he looks hurt.
Tsubasa shakes off Hideaki’s hand but crawls closer like the budding masochist he is.
Hideaki seems to take that as permission of sorts and curves one hand around Tsubasa’s hip. He kneels in front of Tsubasa’s crossed legs and stays still until Tsubasa makes eye contact with him.
Hideaki asks, “Why?” but anxiously, half of it swallowed.
They don’t fight, but what they do is worse. They grow apart, and they let it happen.
They don’t fight, but when Tsubasa says things like, “Of course I’ll get married, won’t you?” just to get a reaction, and gets one he doesn’t like, walls go up between them and trust breaks down on both sides.
Without letting himself think about it, Tsubasa says, “I wanted someone who isn’t you.” Hideaki doesn’t react, but Tsubasa knows him better than that. He sighs and cranes his neck until it pops and catches Hideaki glancing at his computer. Just a flick of the eyes, something he probably doesn’t think Tsubasa will notice.
“Oi,” Tsubasa says, annoyed. “Look at me.”
Hideaki already is, a fraction less guilty than Tsubasa thinks he should look.
Tsubasa says, “He was a friend of a friend. I’ll never see him again.” Not a promise, just a prediction.
Hideaki seems to hear the distinction and it shows on his face.
Something about the silence, about the tension between them that feels somehow final, makes Tsubasa give Hideaki a more truthful answer. “I don’t know what this is,” he says quietly. And I miss you. All the time.
He remembers their concert two weeks ago when he had his arm around Hideaki and believed, in that one moment, that he had Hideaki’s full focus. He thinks about how rarely he has it, how much he always wants it, but how he’ll probably never have it and some stranger will, instead.
He swallows and starts to get up, get away, but Hideaki stops him with a soft, “Wait.”
They sit awkwardly until Tsubasa’s neck starts to ache again and he stretches it, but it just hurts and won’t pop and-
Hideaki’s thumb presses gently into a tendon that feels bruised. Tsubasa frowns, but allows it, and Hideaki shifts closer to get a better angle. Hideaki tries to meet his eyes, but Tsubasa closes them and puts his forehead on Hideaki’s shoulder. Hideaki’s other arm circles him and pulls him tighter against Hideaki’s chest. The massage goes deeper and Tsubasa makes small noises of pain whenever Hideaki rubs too hard. It feels better than Raul’s.
As Tsubasa’s wondering if Hideaki’s staring at his laptop, Hideaki rests his head on top of his.
“Keep going,” Tsubasa murmurs.
Hideaki squeezes his neck.
Tsubasa closes his eyes. Be patient.
“Okay.”