[FIC] honey-flavoured sweet jelly red bean paste. pg-13. akame crack. 6249 words.
Title: honey-flavoured sweet jelly red bean paste
Group: KAT-TUN
Pairing/Genre: Akame, crack
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6249
Disclaimer: So very very fake.
Summary: Let me tell you about my dad...
Author's Notes: 1) Don't ask about the title, I have no freaking clue. 2) This is for pithetaphish, because she asked for "Ab-Fab Akame style". I'm not entirely sure that this bears any resemblance to either AbFab OR any version of Akame you could ever imagine, but I think I took the themes I was given and spun them nicely. 3) Thanks to spacetiger for her continued hand-holding even when she doesn't even know KAT-TUN.
Let me tell you about my dad.
My dad is a single father and, if you can believe it, that's about the only thing he shares in common with the general population. You see, he used to be a pop star. A Johnny's boy, of all things to be. He wasn't an also-ran, one of those juniors that just happened to never debut, either; he was the real deal. You'll know his name, but I'm not going to tell you. Not yet.
Anyway, the reason he used to be a pop star and isn't living like the rest of his senpais with chat shows where they're the seasoned professionals is, basically, me. Well, that's what he tells me anyway. Oh, it's not like he's abusive or anything, just when he's angry he tends to blame me for - well, everything. Basically, he met my mother in his mid-twenties, and as much as I really don't want to believe him, I'm pretty sure this is how the story goes:
It was late at night, after two in the morning in some dingy nightclub where nobody would expect him to be, and they'd been dancing all night. They were drunk, both of them, completely off their faces drunk, so of course something happened. Who knows how his sperm even remembered how to swim, but that's how I was conceived. He didn't think about it, because he was a stupid pop star, but lo and behold, eight months later, he started getting threatening mails on his phone. "I'm having your baby and I've shamed my family. What are you going to do about it before the press finds out?" That sort of thing. He ignored it, and a month later there was a knock on the door and he answered it half naked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The poor girl was standing there with her mother and a crying baby. The details from there are lost (I'm pretty sure he was drunk at the time), but he says there was a lot of yelling and then he was left with a baby.
The girl and her mother still sold the story to the press, but the power of Johnny's was such that they managed to spin it into some bullshit story about my dad taking pity on the poor girl and letting her go off to university while he took care of the baby. Of course, Johnny's power was all-mighty, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to my dad. He never exactly liked to play by the rules, so the agency dumped him, the band took a long, slow decline from there without him, and now the only one he talks to from the band anymore is basically his boyfriend.
That was eighteen years ago now, but there are still people who remember. Though Johnny's boys ever after were taught not to mention it, every now and then you'll catch a reference to his band or the "unfortunate situation", and the whole story will ripple down through the masses from mother to daughter. Which is why, as much as my dad can blame me for his shitty life, I blame him just as much for the shitty high school years that are almost past me.
Anyway, my father is Akanishi Jin. You may remember him from such exploits as: skipping the country six months after hitting the charts so hard they almost shattered, writing disgustingly lewd songs in English, and having no respect for common manners or other people's feelings. If you're here for a story painting a pretty picture of him, you're going to be sorely disappointed. The fact is, I don't like my father very much.
Which would be manageable if I didn't have to live in the same house as him.
---
"Dad!" I yell at the top of my voice, standing in the doorway of his room. He's always late for work, and from a young age I became his alarm clock. "Dad, it's time to wake up!"
I can tell he's awake, even though there's an eye mask over his eyes. He's waiting for me to say the words he taught me when I was seven years old, even though they definitely belong in the past. Occasionally I've rebelled and pulled the blankets off of him instead, but I stopped doing that since the time I caught him sleeping naked.
"Wake up, dad. The world is waiting for Akanishi Jin."
It never matters how bored I sound, he always tears off his eye mask in the most fashionable way, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and gives me a bright smile that indicates he wasn't even asleep when I called him the first time.
"Good morning, my precious daughter." My dad also never uses my name. In fact, I didn't know I had a name until he had to write it on the forms to enter me into kindergarten. Even then, he fucked up the kanji. "What are we doing today? Going shopping? Taking a tandem bike ride through the park under blossoming sakuras? Maybe we can finally get you that makeover you always wanted."
It doesn't matter what day it is, what season, or how many times I tell him I don't want a makeover, these are always the options. Most daughters would be happy, light-headed with the possibility of skipping school to shop and get a makeover, but after the first dozen times and getting kicked out of the third grade, all you end up with is a headache.
"Dad, it's Monday. I have school and you have work." You wouldn't really think it to look at him, sliding out from between satin sheets like the porn star he probably thinks he is, but he actually has a day job. He squandered most of the money he made being a pop star, but the 'idol' thing parlayed itself into a highly-paid job as a magazine editor.
Which basically means he throws parties, talks to famous people, and drinks a lot. Not so different from being an idol.
"Work? Oh, work, right. Yes. At the big building." I don't know how he manages to have conversations with actual business people, as his vocabulary hasn't passed that of an eight year old's, but I guess he relies on his natural charm and good looks. "Well, then, my dearest, sweetest daughter, since you're just standing around with time to kill, why don't you help me pick out an outfit?"
My mouth is open to say something, but there is one person that manages to interrupt me without fail every single morning - even though I never hear him enter the house. "You had better not be asking your frumpy little girl to help you dress yourself, Jin, or I'm going to have to give you an extra-hard spanking today." Kame's voice is high-pitched and grating at the best of times, but at seven in the morning, the sound just makes my ears bleed.
"Ka-me," my father sings, flouncing across the room to embrace the little thing standing next to me in the least manly way possible. "Would you believe she told me I had to go to work today?" The sing-song voice would be bearable if dad wasn't half-naked and shaking Kame's hands to punctuate his rhetorical question.
Kame looks over his sunglasses at me as though he's surprised to notice my presence at all, and then recoils and takes a step closer to Jin. My father just grins at me and I fold my arms over my chest because I know what's coming next. "Jin, darling, didn't you have a little girl? Not some... pre-pubescent boy who's taken a liking to girl's school uniforms?"
If this was the beginning of my high school career, I would have run out of the room crying. That's what happened on my first day of high school, but that's not important. I've changed, and so has the way I react to anything Kame says.
"Look who's talking. You're only a pair of breasts short of being a woman, Kame," I snap, and Jin laughs for a second before Kame jabs him in the ribs with his bony elbow.
"Are you actually speaking?" Kame replies, waving his hand in my face as though it's going to make me disappear, and my father giggles but swats at Kame's hand. Sometimes, I wonder whether these two ever actually matured past the age of twenty-five.
"Come on, Kame. Leave her alone. She'll grow up, and soon she'll have boys fighting over her like that time Maru and Koki got into a fist fight over that bizarrely attractive Korean girl." I've never been told this story, but the way they both seem to slip into a reverie and break out of it a moment later with horrified expressions suggests that maybe it's not the nicest comparison to be making.
I put my hands on my hips instead and glare at Kame briefly before looking at my father. "I'm going to make breakfast." Which means that I will make breakfast for myself and my father, but that my share will inevitably be eaten by Kame, who despite being nearly forty still manages to eat five times his weight and remain stick-thin. Personally, I blame his nasty 'on-again/off-again' coke habit, but I wouldn't say that in front of my father.
"Can you make up some Bloody Marys for us too, sweetness? I'm getting a terrible headache." I have a feeling it's just the fact that his body hasn't processed any alcohol in a few hours, but I gave up long ago trying to regulate my father's various substance intake. He would just complain, and if you'd seen a thirty-seven year old fall to the ground and throw a tantrum, you'd understand why that became unbearable.
Besides, if it's not my dad complaining, there's always Kame to preempt him.
"And make sure there's more than a thimble full of vodka in them this time, I don't want to show up to work sober."
---
Breakfast time at the Akanishi household is a bit like a dinner party. I'm the one doing the cooking, while my father and Kame swill cocktails and play footsie like nobody else can see under the table. They gossip loudly, giggling to themselves about people I only know from reputation, rarely ever talking about anything interesting or useful like the news or their work.
This morning, I've left the vodka and tomato juice on the table, just as a social experiment of sorts, though I can't be surprised that by the time I've made my lunch to take to school, both bottles are nearly empty. Watching them smoke and drink their way through breakfast, I sometimes consider how much it would take for either of them to be hospitalized for a ruptured liver. Usually I stop considering quickly, though, because as much as I think they're juvenile idiots, I don't really want them to die from their own stupidity.
Most of the time.
"Hello?" My father sings over the phone, snapping me from my reverie. I didn't hear the phone ring, but that's for the best, as the tinny version of this week's number one song makes me want to throw his mobile into a lake. "Yes, what do you want? I'm not even at work yet, why are you calling me?"
The sound that escapes Kame is some bizarre cross between a giggle, scoff, and snort. It's completely inelegant and I often wonder how anyone can ever stand to be around him. Dad insists he's a different person when they're together, but personally I'd prefer the one everyone else gets to see, without the strange noises and whiny voice and constant need for physical contact.
"She what?" My father's tone changes in an instant and he stands up from the table abruptly, knocking his chair back onto the floor. "What? No, you're joking! You must be joking. Tell me you're joking. This is awful! Everything's ruined now! It's all your fault! What are we going to do? I'm going to be in such big trouble! You'd better think of something!" The syllables tumble from my father's mouth in quick succession and it's clear that the person on the other line isn't getting a word in as he continues on his tirade in this vein. Added to the cacophony is Kame's grating voice asking every two seconds what the problem is.
By the time he hangs up a few minutes later, I have both a splitting headache and no clue what catastrophe has befallen the magazine. Luckily, Kame is there to ask the question for me, and he does so, his hands threateningly close to my father's collarbones (no, I don't understand it either) as he pouts up at him.
"What's the matter, Jin? What happened?" Kame simpers, his little girl voice like nails on a chalkboard.
"You know how I told you about the photoshoot we were doing today? The rags-to-riches makeovers? One of the girls hasn't shown up, and they can't find her anywhere. They called her house, they called her mobile, they even called her parents and they have no idea where she is." The panic in his voice rises with each sentence of and I wonder how, with all his melodrama, he ever manages to put out an issue every month.
"What am I going to do, Kame? I don't know anyone else who would do the job! She was perfect - this kinda dumpy-looking girl with a sweet face but absolutely no fashion sense. She was just out of high school and looked like she would grow into a gorgeous woman if she only learned how to make herself more presentable." It's about at this point that he starts to tear up, and it's really no wonder I decided to stop crying years ago. I'd rather be repressed than an over-emotional drama queen like my father.
For once, though, Kame isn't following suit. He's looking straight at me, his sunglasses resting on his forehead and it's a little unsettling because Kame never looks at me. He looks like a predator, one of those dangerous feline types, and the similarities only increase as he slinks across the kitchen towards me, a wicked smile spreading slowly across his face.
"What are you looking at?" I ask, tightening my grip on the lunchbox still in my hands. I'm not scared, but I'm pretty sure I know what's coming and I can't help but brace myself.
"I'm looking at a dumpy-looking girl with a sweet face but absolutely no fashion sense."
"Oh no, no you're not. No, I have school today, you can't just -" My protests are, of course, cut off by a loud yelp from my father.
"Kame, you're brilliant!" Jin positively squeals and rushes to my side, which is at least comforting in that he comes between me and Kame, who is still staring at me. "Sweetie, darling, my honey-flavoured sweet jelly red bean paste, could you do this one favor for your dear father?"
"Dad, I have to go to school. You can't just call me out because you need me for some photo shoot. Find someone off the street," I suggest, trying to move out of his grasp but he gets a hold of my arm and tugs me back.
"Oh, but little one, you photograph so well! I know I can trust you, and anyway it'll be what you've always wanted. I'll call the school and tell them you're sick today, it'll be fine! Come on, just this once? Take your daughter to work day, right?" He's playing with my hair, braiding it loosely and giving me these huge puppy-dog eyes and a shy, hopeful smile like he's just asked me out and it's weird, but somehow it works.
"Okay, fine. As long as I don't end up looking like one of those prostitutes you brought home the other week -" I continue, but mostly to drown out his 'they were exotic dancers!' argument, "- and that I get final editorial rights as to what's said about me."
"But sugar plum, I'd never let them say anything mean about you." Dad looks genuinely upset, which is annoying because I don't think he'd ever do anything like that deliberately. Most of the time, he just hurts me out of negligence, by accident, and never seems to figure it out. Kame's the one I have to watch out for sticking 'kick me' signs on my back.
"I know you wouldn't, daddy," I say calmly, disentangling his fingers from my hair and taking a step back. "But I still get to read the final copy before you put it to print, okay?"
"Fine," he huffs, though I can see a smile at the corner of his mouth as he turns to Kame for a high-five. "Everyone, it's time for work!"
---
I have to admit, spending a day getting your hair done and playing dress up isn't the worst thing that could happen to me. I might be more mature than my father, but I am just as girly, and I'm not immune to shiny objects - my father did raise me, after all. He is, of course, inherently more excitable than I am, and he flutters around me while I'm in the makeup chair getting "before" photos taken.
"Oh, sweet pea, you're going to look so gorgeous after this!" he says, hands on his hips as he looks at me. It's a little bit unnerving, but I focus on the camera pointed at me instead and give my best smile. I would say that it's a figure of speech, but there was a period of time when I was eleven when my father made me practice my smile in front of the mirror for an hour a day, and even though I'd prefer not to remember it, having a fake smile come easily has come in handy now and then.
"They've got their work cut out for them," Kame drawls, sitting at another makeup table, poking and playing with the acoutrements scattered across the counter, looking a little wistful and more than a little bitter.
"Don't you two have... you know, work to do?" I prompt, looking over at them as the photographer checks the last few shots on his digital camera. My father just laughs as though I've said something funny but doesn't actually answer me, instead moving over to the photographer to take a look at the photos as well.
Kame's running his fingers through a makeup brush and while I should really know better than to disturb an emotional Kamenashi, I call out to him. "Kame, aren't you late for work? I mean, you don't even work here."
"Come now," Kame says, looking over at me for a moment before standing and taking a few steps closer. He's trying to be menacing, but it's difficult when he can't even walk in a straight line because of all the whiskey-laced coffee he's been drinking. "Important people like me don't need to actually show up. I go in for a meeting every now and then, make the occasional phone call, and people think I'm brilliant."
"But what do you actually do? I mean, what's your title? I don't even know what industry you're in." It's a little perplexing to realize that after an entire lifetime of seeing Kame almost every day - certainly never less than three times a week - I don't even know what he does for a living.
"Please," he says, and yawns as though he's bored with the conversation.
I have my mouth open to press my point, but my father claps his hands and pulls me to my feet, grinning as wide as his face will allow his mouth to stretch. "Come on," he says in a stage whisper, excitement palpable in his voice. "First, we're going to take you to wardrobe, then makeup, and then there'll be a real photo shoot with big cameras and a set and - oh, you're going to be so pretty!"
---
"Dad," I venture, pulling on a dress behind a curtain in the expansive wardrobe. We're the only ones in there, now that the other girls chose their outfits and Kame fell asleep on the couch waiting for us. "I know that you actually do some work around here, but what does Kame do? Where does he work?"
"Work?" my father repeats like he's never heard the word before. "What do you mean, work?" I hear him take a few steps closer and the next moment he's looking over the curtain at me. It startles me, of course, but by the time I was fifteen and he was still walking into the bathroom while I was taking a shower, I learned there would never be any room for privacy in the Akanishi house. "Kame doesn't have a job, darling. Hasn't for a long time."
The news doesn't surprise me, but it's a little confusing, and I frown, not entirely from my current struggle with the zip of my dress. "Well, if he doesn't have a job, how does he have any money? You told me years ago the money from Johnny's had run out."
"Oh, I give him money. You know, for rent and food and necessities like that." This news doesn't really surprise me, either, but I can tell it's not the full story. One of the wonderful things about my father, though, is that he almost never lies. When you ask him a direct question that he doesn't want to answer, he might try to avoid it, but he'll never lie.
So I can't help my curiosity and ask for the full story. "Well, necessities are one thing, but what about the rest of it? He can't afford to dress so stylishly and drink so much and go to fancy restaurants when he doesn't have any money. You can't pay for all of that, can you?"
"Oh, of course I don't," he says, but then seems to realize that he's said too much. He's a terrible backpeddler, but I can see the cogs of his mind whirring as he tries to work out how to change the subject or make it sound better. "But you know, Kame has a lot of friends." The statement digs him deeper, which he only realizes after the fact, and he lets out a sigh.
"It's nothing, really. He just... he's like a socialite, you know? He might not have the same draw cards as he used to, but he's managed to keep himself in the papers. People give him things, to keep him around. He goes to all the parties and meets all the people and he's charming so they give him things. Clothes and sunglasses and cases of vodka and dinner parties..."
I would have laughed if it didn't sound so tragic. "Dad, you're making him sound like a male escort or something. Like he's so desperate for money and clothes that he sells his time and company so that people will buy him things. To be honest, it sounds a bit lonely."
"It's not lonely," he says in a rush, almost tripping over his words to get them out. "I mean, that's what I'm here for, isn't it?" And with a brief, incongruously bright smile, he disappears from over the curtain and calls back to me as he walks away. "That dress is gorgeous, sugar blossom, we're going with it. I want you in makeup in two minutes!"
---
The photo shoot goes off without a hitch, which I'm pretty sure is due to the fact that my father actually leaves me alone, but it's after the photo shoot when things start to get interesting. I make my way back to the dressing room to change back into my school uniform to find my father and Kame on either side of a rack of clothes, flicking idly through the garments and speaking in low voices. Of course, the moment my father catches sight of me, he smacks Kame on the shoulder and grins brightly over at me.
"There's my little fashion model daughter," he says with a flourish, rushing through the rows of clothes towards me, clasping my hands and giving me air-kisses excitedly.
"What?" Kame says, making his way through the room slowly, a confused look on his face. "That can't be her, Jin. That's not your daughter. She's far too pretty to be your daughter."
I give Kame a withering look and he just beams at me. It feels a little strange, to be complimented by Kame, even such a back-handed compliment, and I squirm a little on the spot, glaring at him before my father tuts loudly in my ear. "Kame, be nice," he scolds, frowning dramatically. "She's always been this pretty, she's just been hiding it. Now it's like she's blossomed into a full-grown, beautiful woman."
"Oh, that's for sure." The tone in Kame's voice borders on leering, and the smirk across his face is a very different sort of predatory that makes me a little queasy to look at. I wonder how my father could ever describe him as charming, but I suppose it must make some people weak at the knees instead of the stomach. "She looks a little like you do in a dress."
"Oh, hush!" Jin laughs, swatting at Kame playfully. "Though I do look pretty good in a dress..." I close my eyes and wish I had never seen the photos. "Anyway, she looks nothing like me. Look at these breasts!"
"Hey!" I have to hit my father's hands before he actually grabs my breasts and then proceed to cross my arms. "Stop objectifying me, I'm your daughter!"
"You're not my daughter, though," Kame says in a low voice, and I punch him in the shoulder before he even gets to move closer.
"That's disgusting! You're an old man!" Predictably, Kame looks irreparably wounded, and my father tisks at me as he moves to slide his arm around Kame's shoulder.
"It's okay, Kame. She didn't mean it," he says calmly, patting Kame's hand. "But please, don't hit on my daughter. That is pretty disgusting." Kame smacks him, which starts a bitch slapping fight, at which point I take my leave.
"I'm going to change back into my regular clothes now," I say over the din. I start to move towards my school bag and clothes, but I'm stopped by dad's hands on my shoulders.
"You're doing no such thing, missy!" He says in a surprisingly stern tone of voice. "You're coming out drinking with us!"
"What? I can't- I mean, I'm not old enough, dad!"
"In that outfit, you look old enough for anything," Kame supplies helpfully, and I glare at him.
"That, and also it's okay to drink if you're out with your father, isn't it?"
"Not when I have a father who drinks as irresponsibly as you," I counter, and they both shrug like they can see my point but don't see how it has anything to do with the situation at hand. "I don't even like to drink, you two. Remember when you tried to give me scotch when I was twelve? I spat it back out again! And the time you slipped vodka in my orange juice at breakfast? I fell asleep at my desk before classes even started! I don't want to drink, least of all with you two."
"Oh come on, don't be such a spoil sport," Jin chides, shaking my shoulders a little. "You look so beautiful today, it's a good chance to go out and see how the real world operates."
"Don't I have to give back the dress, though?"
"I'll give it back tomorrow. They won't miss it." The look on my father's face is pretty pathetic, a mixture between an excitable puppy dog and someone hoping for a present, and while this is usually the moment I tell him 'no' calmly and go to my room and lock the door behind me, there is no such possibility in a building I'm completely unfamiliar with.
Also, I'm pretty sure the two of them would tie my hands together and drag me out if I say 'no' one more time.
"Okay, fine. But I'm not drinking anything alocholic! If you spike my drinks, you're dead men."
---
I really should have known better than to trust them. Of course they spike my drinks, and of course they know the best way to do so without raising any suspicions. I figure it out after the third drink, but that's only because I'm starting to feel a strange mix between light-headed and the beginning of a headache and I blink over at the two of them, who promptly giggle into their own drinks.
"Why?" I ask, and there was going to be more to the sentence, but I can't wrap my mind around anything to say except for the simple question. Kame's bouncing in his seat and clapping his hands so wildly I fear he's going to knock over his own drink, and my father just smiles indulgently at me, reaching over to press his hand to my cheek.
"Because, my pretty little princess, you need to learn how to drink." He says it so seriously I wonder if there isn't something wrong with him, so I swat his hand away from my face and tilt my head in question. "You're growing up, petal! Soon you're going to have boys all over you, and you'll go out and have drinking parties and the least pretty thing of all is to have a girl passed out after three drinks at a club."
"He knows this from experience. He would always pick the worst drinkers in the club," Kame adds with a nod, which earns him a prod in the side.
"Anyway, you wouldn't want your potential husband sneaking off to a hostess club just because he couldn't go out drinking with you, would you?" The prospect of having a husband in my life frightens me more than a little bit so I silently shake my head. "Besides, a girl who can hold her liquor is really sexy."
"After all, why do you think he was attracted to your mother?"
"Hey!" My father yells a little too loudly, and I duck my head in apology to the couple sitting across from us who give us a surprised look. "You shouldn't say such things about her mother. She doesn't even know the woman."
"Neither did you," I point out, picking up my drink and taking another sip. At this point, I figure there's no turning back so I may as well finish the drink I already have.
My father gives me a wounded look and Kame laughs and claps his hands again, stamping his feet beneath the table. "I like your daughter like this, Jin," he gasps between laughs. "She's much better company."
"You know what, Kame?" I say quickly, before my father gets in first. "Most of the time, I hate you. A lot." This, of course, silences the laughter, and both of them are so surprised that they have no time to react before I continue. "But I have to say. I think we could be friends. You've hurt me in the past, but I think that if you just accept who I am and stop trying to change me, we could get along. I think that would be better for the both of us, then, wouldn't it? And most importantly, it would be better for Jin. What do you say?"
The stunned silence stretches between us for a few moments and I survey their faces for a sign of any sort of reaction. They both just look a little confused, and I raise my eyebrows to prompt them. Kame sort of shifts in his seat and lifts his drink to his mouth to avoid having to say anything, while my father clears his throat and tries to think of something to say.
"Darling, really. You shouldn't say such embarrassing things, even if you are a little tipsy," my father chides, trying on his best calming smile as though I'm behaving hysterically or something.
"And whose fault is that?" I ask, tilting my head to punctuate my point. Then I look at Kame again, who's finished his drink and is crunching on his ice cubes for something to do. "Come on, Kame. What do you say? Friends?"
"Friends?" Kame repeats, mouth full of ice for a moment before he swallows it back with a pained expression. "I don't know about friends, sweet cheeks."
"Well, what would you call us? We can't really be acquaintances, seeing as I see you almost every day. Besides, you practically live with us. You should move in, it would be more convenient." The word 'surprised' doesn't really touch on their expressions as my words begin to sink in, and the silence just crystallizes their shock. I grin brightly over at them and take another sip of my drink, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug. "Come on, you two. Do you think I'm stupid? It stops being fan service when you don't have any fans. You're not tricking anyone, if you ever did."
That triggers a reaction, at least, and Kame slams his glass down on the table. It's not really an angry action, just a passionate one, and he flicks his hair to look away, leaving Jin to respond with actual words.
My father looks at me with a steely expression I'm not certain I've ever actually seen before. I've seen my father calm and collected before, and that always surprises me, but this time he looks serious, and a little pissed off, and those things have never happened all at once before. Suddenly, I feel very much younger than I am, and wait silently for him to say something, straw still in my mouth.
"First of all, you shouldn't talk about things you don't know anything about. I don't care what stories you've heard, but they will never be the truth. Secondly, we have our reasons for doing things the way we do. I know you're not stupid, but you're naive. I appreciate the suggestion, but these sort of things are between the two of us."
The mere fact that my father can string together such a well-structured argument is enough to shock me into silence, but the truth to his words stings a little. I've always seen my father and Kame - both together and individually - as ridiculous caricatures, melodramatic and over-the-top, frivolous and shallow with no substance to their one-dimensional personalities. I could be forgiven for thinking that, of course, but to hear my father say that there are things I don't know about them makes me realize that I should have known better. There are two sides to every coin, and just because I couldn't see one didn't mean it wasn't there.
"I'm sorry," I say, my voice trembling slightly, and it's jarring to realize how emotional I've become. I put my drink back on the table and look at the both of them. Kame's still not looking at me, avoiding my eyes by playing with his glass, and my father holds my gaze steadily, though his eyes are a little less intense now. "I don't mean to meddle in something that isn't my business. I just want you to be happy."
Immediately, the mood is broken, and my father laughs loudly, throwing his head back. Kame sits up, looking at me with a grin on his face before pointing right at me. "You're an idiot, you know that?" he says, giggle in the back of his throat and I can't help but be a little perplexed. "Of course we're fucking happy. If we weren't, why do you think we'd arrange things the way they are?" The giggles descend into laughter a moment later and Kame turns to Jin, reaching out to press his hand to my father's chest. "Did you hear her?"
"I know!" Dad squeaks past the laughter, trying to contain himself but not doing a terribly good job of it. "Honey, sweetie, darling," he says, sitting up straight and composing himself enough to speak, "you're very sweet to think of us, but really, we can take care of ourselves. We're not selfish for nothing, you know."
I get the feeling, watching the two of them laugh at me from across the table, that things are right back where they started. They'll never be the same, though, and even as I slip back into my usual defensive stance, everything feels a little different. I don't really know anything more than I did before, but it's all the things I don't know that will keep me from ever taking them at face value again.
Of course, there's not much I can do about something I have no knowledge of, so I just shake my head and pick up my drink again. I might not be able to change the way they behave, but I make a promise to myself to give them the benefit of the doubt from now on.
Unfortunately, that doesn't stop them from laughing and dragging me onto the dance floor with them. I guess I'll just have to grin and bear it.
---
THE END.
Group: KAT-TUN
Pairing/Genre: Akame, crack
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6249
Disclaimer: So very very fake.
Summary: Let me tell you about my dad...
Author's Notes: 1) Don't ask about the title, I have no freaking clue. 2) This is for pithetaphish, because she asked for "Ab-Fab Akame style". I'm not entirely sure that this bears any resemblance to either AbFab OR any version of Akame you could ever imagine, but I think I took the themes I was given and spun them nicely. 3) Thanks to spacetiger for her continued hand-holding even when she doesn't even know KAT-TUN.
Let me tell you about my dad.
My dad is a single father and, if you can believe it, that's about the only thing he shares in common with the general population. You see, he used to be a pop star. A Johnny's boy, of all things to be. He wasn't an also-ran, one of those juniors that just happened to never debut, either; he was the real deal. You'll know his name, but I'm not going to tell you. Not yet.
Anyway, the reason he used to be a pop star and isn't living like the rest of his senpais with chat shows where they're the seasoned professionals is, basically, me. Well, that's what he tells me anyway. Oh, it's not like he's abusive or anything, just when he's angry he tends to blame me for - well, everything. Basically, he met my mother in his mid-twenties, and as much as I really don't want to believe him, I'm pretty sure this is how the story goes:
It was late at night, after two in the morning in some dingy nightclub where nobody would expect him to be, and they'd been dancing all night. They were drunk, both of them, completely off their faces drunk, so of course something happened. Who knows how his sperm even remembered how to swim, but that's how I was conceived. He didn't think about it, because he was a stupid pop star, but lo and behold, eight months later, he started getting threatening mails on his phone. "I'm having your baby and I've shamed my family. What are you going to do about it before the press finds out?" That sort of thing. He ignored it, and a month later there was a knock on the door and he answered it half naked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The poor girl was standing there with her mother and a crying baby. The details from there are lost (I'm pretty sure he was drunk at the time), but he says there was a lot of yelling and then he was left with a baby.
The girl and her mother still sold the story to the press, but the power of Johnny's was such that they managed to spin it into some bullshit story about my dad taking pity on the poor girl and letting her go off to university while he took care of the baby. Of course, Johnny's power was all-mighty, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to my dad. He never exactly liked to play by the rules, so the agency dumped him, the band took a long, slow decline from there without him, and now the only one he talks to from the band anymore is basically his boyfriend.
That was eighteen years ago now, but there are still people who remember. Though Johnny's boys ever after were taught not to mention it, every now and then you'll catch a reference to his band or the "unfortunate situation", and the whole story will ripple down through the masses from mother to daughter. Which is why, as much as my dad can blame me for his shitty life, I blame him just as much for the shitty high school years that are almost past me.
Anyway, my father is Akanishi Jin. You may remember him from such exploits as: skipping the country six months after hitting the charts so hard they almost shattered, writing disgustingly lewd songs in English, and having no respect for common manners or other people's feelings. If you're here for a story painting a pretty picture of him, you're going to be sorely disappointed. The fact is, I don't like my father very much.
Which would be manageable if I didn't have to live in the same house as him.
---
"Dad!" I yell at the top of my voice, standing in the doorway of his room. He's always late for work, and from a young age I became his alarm clock. "Dad, it's time to wake up!"
I can tell he's awake, even though there's an eye mask over his eyes. He's waiting for me to say the words he taught me when I was seven years old, even though they definitely belong in the past. Occasionally I've rebelled and pulled the blankets off of him instead, but I stopped doing that since the time I caught him sleeping naked.
"Wake up, dad. The world is waiting for Akanishi Jin."
It never matters how bored I sound, he always tears off his eye mask in the most fashionable way, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and gives me a bright smile that indicates he wasn't even asleep when I called him the first time.
"Good morning, my precious daughter." My dad also never uses my name. In fact, I didn't know I had a name until he had to write it on the forms to enter me into kindergarten. Even then, he fucked up the kanji. "What are we doing today? Going shopping? Taking a tandem bike ride through the park under blossoming sakuras? Maybe we can finally get you that makeover you always wanted."
It doesn't matter what day it is, what season, or how many times I tell him I don't want a makeover, these are always the options. Most daughters would be happy, light-headed with the possibility of skipping school to shop and get a makeover, but after the first dozen times and getting kicked out of the third grade, all you end up with is a headache.
"Dad, it's Monday. I have school and you have work." You wouldn't really think it to look at him, sliding out from between satin sheets like the porn star he probably thinks he is, but he actually has a day job. He squandered most of the money he made being a pop star, but the 'idol' thing parlayed itself into a highly-paid job as a magazine editor.
Which basically means he throws parties, talks to famous people, and drinks a lot. Not so different from being an idol.
"Work? Oh, work, right. Yes. At the big building." I don't know how he manages to have conversations with actual business people, as his vocabulary hasn't passed that of an eight year old's, but I guess he relies on his natural charm and good looks. "Well, then, my dearest, sweetest daughter, since you're just standing around with time to kill, why don't you help me pick out an outfit?"
My mouth is open to say something, but there is one person that manages to interrupt me without fail every single morning - even though I never hear him enter the house. "You had better not be asking your frumpy little girl to help you dress yourself, Jin, or I'm going to have to give you an extra-hard spanking today." Kame's voice is high-pitched and grating at the best of times, but at seven in the morning, the sound just makes my ears bleed.
"Ka-me," my father sings, flouncing across the room to embrace the little thing standing next to me in the least manly way possible. "Would you believe she told me I had to go to work today?" The sing-song voice would be bearable if dad wasn't half-naked and shaking Kame's hands to punctuate his rhetorical question.
Kame looks over his sunglasses at me as though he's surprised to notice my presence at all, and then recoils and takes a step closer to Jin. My father just grins at me and I fold my arms over my chest because I know what's coming next. "Jin, darling, didn't you have a little girl? Not some... pre-pubescent boy who's taken a liking to girl's school uniforms?"
If this was the beginning of my high school career, I would have run out of the room crying. That's what happened on my first day of high school, but that's not important. I've changed, and so has the way I react to anything Kame says.
"Look who's talking. You're only a pair of breasts short of being a woman, Kame," I snap, and Jin laughs for a second before Kame jabs him in the ribs with his bony elbow.
"Are you actually speaking?" Kame replies, waving his hand in my face as though it's going to make me disappear, and my father giggles but swats at Kame's hand. Sometimes, I wonder whether these two ever actually matured past the age of twenty-five.
"Come on, Kame. Leave her alone. She'll grow up, and soon she'll have boys fighting over her like that time Maru and Koki got into a fist fight over that bizarrely attractive Korean girl." I've never been told this story, but the way they both seem to slip into a reverie and break out of it a moment later with horrified expressions suggests that maybe it's not the nicest comparison to be making.
I put my hands on my hips instead and glare at Kame briefly before looking at my father. "I'm going to make breakfast." Which means that I will make breakfast for myself and my father, but that my share will inevitably be eaten by Kame, who despite being nearly forty still manages to eat five times his weight and remain stick-thin. Personally, I blame his nasty 'on-again/off-again' coke habit, but I wouldn't say that in front of my father.
"Can you make up some Bloody Marys for us too, sweetness? I'm getting a terrible headache." I have a feeling it's just the fact that his body hasn't processed any alcohol in a few hours, but I gave up long ago trying to regulate my father's various substance intake. He would just complain, and if you'd seen a thirty-seven year old fall to the ground and throw a tantrum, you'd understand why that became unbearable.
Besides, if it's not my dad complaining, there's always Kame to preempt him.
"And make sure there's more than a thimble full of vodka in them this time, I don't want to show up to work sober."
---
Breakfast time at the Akanishi household is a bit like a dinner party. I'm the one doing the cooking, while my father and Kame swill cocktails and play footsie like nobody else can see under the table. They gossip loudly, giggling to themselves about people I only know from reputation, rarely ever talking about anything interesting or useful like the news or their work.
This morning, I've left the vodka and tomato juice on the table, just as a social experiment of sorts, though I can't be surprised that by the time I've made my lunch to take to school, both bottles are nearly empty. Watching them smoke and drink their way through breakfast, I sometimes consider how much it would take for either of them to be hospitalized for a ruptured liver. Usually I stop considering quickly, though, because as much as I think they're juvenile idiots, I don't really want them to die from their own stupidity.
Most of the time.
"Hello?" My father sings over the phone, snapping me from my reverie. I didn't hear the phone ring, but that's for the best, as the tinny version of this week's number one song makes me want to throw his mobile into a lake. "Yes, what do you want? I'm not even at work yet, why are you calling me?"
The sound that escapes Kame is some bizarre cross between a giggle, scoff, and snort. It's completely inelegant and I often wonder how anyone can ever stand to be around him. Dad insists he's a different person when they're together, but personally I'd prefer the one everyone else gets to see, without the strange noises and whiny voice and constant need for physical contact.
"She what?" My father's tone changes in an instant and he stands up from the table abruptly, knocking his chair back onto the floor. "What? No, you're joking! You must be joking. Tell me you're joking. This is awful! Everything's ruined now! It's all your fault! What are we going to do? I'm going to be in such big trouble! You'd better think of something!" The syllables tumble from my father's mouth in quick succession and it's clear that the person on the other line isn't getting a word in as he continues on his tirade in this vein. Added to the cacophony is Kame's grating voice asking every two seconds what the problem is.
By the time he hangs up a few minutes later, I have both a splitting headache and no clue what catastrophe has befallen the magazine. Luckily, Kame is there to ask the question for me, and he does so, his hands threateningly close to my father's collarbones (no, I don't understand it either) as he pouts up at him.
"What's the matter, Jin? What happened?" Kame simpers, his little girl voice like nails on a chalkboard.
"You know how I told you about the photoshoot we were doing today? The rags-to-riches makeovers? One of the girls hasn't shown up, and they can't find her anywhere. They called her house, they called her mobile, they even called her parents and they have no idea where she is." The panic in his voice rises with each sentence of and I wonder how, with all his melodrama, he ever manages to put out an issue every month.
"What am I going to do, Kame? I don't know anyone else who would do the job! She was perfect - this kinda dumpy-looking girl with a sweet face but absolutely no fashion sense. She was just out of high school and looked like she would grow into a gorgeous woman if she only learned how to make herself more presentable." It's about at this point that he starts to tear up, and it's really no wonder I decided to stop crying years ago. I'd rather be repressed than an over-emotional drama queen like my father.
For once, though, Kame isn't following suit. He's looking straight at me, his sunglasses resting on his forehead and it's a little unsettling because Kame never looks at me. He looks like a predator, one of those dangerous feline types, and the similarities only increase as he slinks across the kitchen towards me, a wicked smile spreading slowly across his face.
"What are you looking at?" I ask, tightening my grip on the lunchbox still in my hands. I'm not scared, but I'm pretty sure I know what's coming and I can't help but brace myself.
"I'm looking at a dumpy-looking girl with a sweet face but absolutely no fashion sense."
"Oh no, no you're not. No, I have school today, you can't just -" My protests are, of course, cut off by a loud yelp from my father.
"Kame, you're brilliant!" Jin positively squeals and rushes to my side, which is at least comforting in that he comes between me and Kame, who is still staring at me. "Sweetie, darling, my honey-flavoured sweet jelly red bean paste, could you do this one favor for your dear father?"
"Dad, I have to go to school. You can't just call me out because you need me for some photo shoot. Find someone off the street," I suggest, trying to move out of his grasp but he gets a hold of my arm and tugs me back.
"Oh, but little one, you photograph so well! I know I can trust you, and anyway it'll be what you've always wanted. I'll call the school and tell them you're sick today, it'll be fine! Come on, just this once? Take your daughter to work day, right?" He's playing with my hair, braiding it loosely and giving me these huge puppy-dog eyes and a shy, hopeful smile like he's just asked me out and it's weird, but somehow it works.
"Okay, fine. As long as I don't end up looking like one of those prostitutes you brought home the other week -" I continue, but mostly to drown out his 'they were exotic dancers!' argument, "- and that I get final editorial rights as to what's said about me."
"But sugar plum, I'd never let them say anything mean about you." Dad looks genuinely upset, which is annoying because I don't think he'd ever do anything like that deliberately. Most of the time, he just hurts me out of negligence, by accident, and never seems to figure it out. Kame's the one I have to watch out for sticking 'kick me' signs on my back.
"I know you wouldn't, daddy," I say calmly, disentangling his fingers from my hair and taking a step back. "But I still get to read the final copy before you put it to print, okay?"
"Fine," he huffs, though I can see a smile at the corner of his mouth as he turns to Kame for a high-five. "Everyone, it's time for work!"
---
I have to admit, spending a day getting your hair done and playing dress up isn't the worst thing that could happen to me. I might be more mature than my father, but I am just as girly, and I'm not immune to shiny objects - my father did raise me, after all. He is, of course, inherently more excitable than I am, and he flutters around me while I'm in the makeup chair getting "before" photos taken.
"Oh, sweet pea, you're going to look so gorgeous after this!" he says, hands on his hips as he looks at me. It's a little bit unnerving, but I focus on the camera pointed at me instead and give my best smile. I would say that it's a figure of speech, but there was a period of time when I was eleven when my father made me practice my smile in front of the mirror for an hour a day, and even though I'd prefer not to remember it, having a fake smile come easily has come in handy now and then.
"They've got their work cut out for them," Kame drawls, sitting at another makeup table, poking and playing with the acoutrements scattered across the counter, looking a little wistful and more than a little bitter.
"Don't you two have... you know, work to do?" I prompt, looking over at them as the photographer checks the last few shots on his digital camera. My father just laughs as though I've said something funny but doesn't actually answer me, instead moving over to the photographer to take a look at the photos as well.
Kame's running his fingers through a makeup brush and while I should really know better than to disturb an emotional Kamenashi, I call out to him. "Kame, aren't you late for work? I mean, you don't even work here."
"Come now," Kame says, looking over at me for a moment before standing and taking a few steps closer. He's trying to be menacing, but it's difficult when he can't even walk in a straight line because of all the whiskey-laced coffee he's been drinking. "Important people like me don't need to actually show up. I go in for a meeting every now and then, make the occasional phone call, and people think I'm brilliant."
"But what do you actually do? I mean, what's your title? I don't even know what industry you're in." It's a little perplexing to realize that after an entire lifetime of seeing Kame almost every day - certainly never less than three times a week - I don't even know what he does for a living.
"Please," he says, and yawns as though he's bored with the conversation.
I have my mouth open to press my point, but my father claps his hands and pulls me to my feet, grinning as wide as his face will allow his mouth to stretch. "Come on," he says in a stage whisper, excitement palpable in his voice. "First, we're going to take you to wardrobe, then makeup, and then there'll be a real photo shoot with big cameras and a set and - oh, you're going to be so pretty!"
---
"Dad," I venture, pulling on a dress behind a curtain in the expansive wardrobe. We're the only ones in there, now that the other girls chose their outfits and Kame fell asleep on the couch waiting for us. "I know that you actually do some work around here, but what does Kame do? Where does he work?"
"Work?" my father repeats like he's never heard the word before. "What do you mean, work?" I hear him take a few steps closer and the next moment he's looking over the curtain at me. It startles me, of course, but by the time I was fifteen and he was still walking into the bathroom while I was taking a shower, I learned there would never be any room for privacy in the Akanishi house. "Kame doesn't have a job, darling. Hasn't for a long time."
The news doesn't surprise me, but it's a little confusing, and I frown, not entirely from my current struggle with the zip of my dress. "Well, if he doesn't have a job, how does he have any money? You told me years ago the money from Johnny's had run out."
"Oh, I give him money. You know, for rent and food and necessities like that." This news doesn't really surprise me, either, but I can tell it's not the full story. One of the wonderful things about my father, though, is that he almost never lies. When you ask him a direct question that he doesn't want to answer, he might try to avoid it, but he'll never lie.
So I can't help my curiosity and ask for the full story. "Well, necessities are one thing, but what about the rest of it? He can't afford to dress so stylishly and drink so much and go to fancy restaurants when he doesn't have any money. You can't pay for all of that, can you?"
"Oh, of course I don't," he says, but then seems to realize that he's said too much. He's a terrible backpeddler, but I can see the cogs of his mind whirring as he tries to work out how to change the subject or make it sound better. "But you know, Kame has a lot of friends." The statement digs him deeper, which he only realizes after the fact, and he lets out a sigh.
"It's nothing, really. He just... he's like a socialite, you know? He might not have the same draw cards as he used to, but he's managed to keep himself in the papers. People give him things, to keep him around. He goes to all the parties and meets all the people and he's charming so they give him things. Clothes and sunglasses and cases of vodka and dinner parties..."
I would have laughed if it didn't sound so tragic. "Dad, you're making him sound like a male escort or something. Like he's so desperate for money and clothes that he sells his time and company so that people will buy him things. To be honest, it sounds a bit lonely."
"It's not lonely," he says in a rush, almost tripping over his words to get them out. "I mean, that's what I'm here for, isn't it?" And with a brief, incongruously bright smile, he disappears from over the curtain and calls back to me as he walks away. "That dress is gorgeous, sugar blossom, we're going with it. I want you in makeup in two minutes!"
---
The photo shoot goes off without a hitch, which I'm pretty sure is due to the fact that my father actually leaves me alone, but it's after the photo shoot when things start to get interesting. I make my way back to the dressing room to change back into my school uniform to find my father and Kame on either side of a rack of clothes, flicking idly through the garments and speaking in low voices. Of course, the moment my father catches sight of me, he smacks Kame on the shoulder and grins brightly over at me.
"There's my little fashion model daughter," he says with a flourish, rushing through the rows of clothes towards me, clasping my hands and giving me air-kisses excitedly.
"What?" Kame says, making his way through the room slowly, a confused look on his face. "That can't be her, Jin. That's not your daughter. She's far too pretty to be your daughter."
I give Kame a withering look and he just beams at me. It feels a little strange, to be complimented by Kame, even such a back-handed compliment, and I squirm a little on the spot, glaring at him before my father tuts loudly in my ear. "Kame, be nice," he scolds, frowning dramatically. "She's always been this pretty, she's just been hiding it. Now it's like she's blossomed into a full-grown, beautiful woman."
"Oh, that's for sure." The tone in Kame's voice borders on leering, and the smirk across his face is a very different sort of predatory that makes me a little queasy to look at. I wonder how my father could ever describe him as charming, but I suppose it must make some people weak at the knees instead of the stomach. "She looks a little like you do in a dress."
"Oh, hush!" Jin laughs, swatting at Kame playfully. "Though I do look pretty good in a dress..." I close my eyes and wish I had never seen the photos. "Anyway, she looks nothing like me. Look at these breasts!"
"Hey!" I have to hit my father's hands before he actually grabs my breasts and then proceed to cross my arms. "Stop objectifying me, I'm your daughter!"
"You're not my daughter, though," Kame says in a low voice, and I punch him in the shoulder before he even gets to move closer.
"That's disgusting! You're an old man!" Predictably, Kame looks irreparably wounded, and my father tisks at me as he moves to slide his arm around Kame's shoulder.
"It's okay, Kame. She didn't mean it," he says calmly, patting Kame's hand. "But please, don't hit on my daughter. That is pretty disgusting." Kame smacks him, which starts a bitch slapping fight, at which point I take my leave.
"I'm going to change back into my regular clothes now," I say over the din. I start to move towards my school bag and clothes, but I'm stopped by dad's hands on my shoulders.
"You're doing no such thing, missy!" He says in a surprisingly stern tone of voice. "You're coming out drinking with us!"
"What? I can't- I mean, I'm not old enough, dad!"
"In that outfit, you look old enough for anything," Kame supplies helpfully, and I glare at him.
"That, and also it's okay to drink if you're out with your father, isn't it?"
"Not when I have a father who drinks as irresponsibly as you," I counter, and they both shrug like they can see my point but don't see how it has anything to do with the situation at hand. "I don't even like to drink, you two. Remember when you tried to give me scotch when I was twelve? I spat it back out again! And the time you slipped vodka in my orange juice at breakfast? I fell asleep at my desk before classes even started! I don't want to drink, least of all with you two."
"Oh come on, don't be such a spoil sport," Jin chides, shaking my shoulders a little. "You look so beautiful today, it's a good chance to go out and see how the real world operates."
"Don't I have to give back the dress, though?"
"I'll give it back tomorrow. They won't miss it." The look on my father's face is pretty pathetic, a mixture between an excitable puppy dog and someone hoping for a present, and while this is usually the moment I tell him 'no' calmly and go to my room and lock the door behind me, there is no such possibility in a building I'm completely unfamiliar with.
Also, I'm pretty sure the two of them would tie my hands together and drag me out if I say 'no' one more time.
"Okay, fine. But I'm not drinking anything alocholic! If you spike my drinks, you're dead men."
---
I really should have known better than to trust them. Of course they spike my drinks, and of course they know the best way to do so without raising any suspicions. I figure it out after the third drink, but that's only because I'm starting to feel a strange mix between light-headed and the beginning of a headache and I blink over at the two of them, who promptly giggle into their own drinks.
"Why?" I ask, and there was going to be more to the sentence, but I can't wrap my mind around anything to say except for the simple question. Kame's bouncing in his seat and clapping his hands so wildly I fear he's going to knock over his own drink, and my father just smiles indulgently at me, reaching over to press his hand to my cheek.
"Because, my pretty little princess, you need to learn how to drink." He says it so seriously I wonder if there isn't something wrong with him, so I swat his hand away from my face and tilt my head in question. "You're growing up, petal! Soon you're going to have boys all over you, and you'll go out and have drinking parties and the least pretty thing of all is to have a girl passed out after three drinks at a club."
"He knows this from experience. He would always pick the worst drinkers in the club," Kame adds with a nod, which earns him a prod in the side.
"Anyway, you wouldn't want your potential husband sneaking off to a hostess club just because he couldn't go out drinking with you, would you?" The prospect of having a husband in my life frightens me more than a little bit so I silently shake my head. "Besides, a girl who can hold her liquor is really sexy."
"After all, why do you think he was attracted to your mother?"
"Hey!" My father yells a little too loudly, and I duck my head in apology to the couple sitting across from us who give us a surprised look. "You shouldn't say such things about her mother. She doesn't even know the woman."
"Neither did you," I point out, picking up my drink and taking another sip. At this point, I figure there's no turning back so I may as well finish the drink I already have.
My father gives me a wounded look and Kame laughs and claps his hands again, stamping his feet beneath the table. "I like your daughter like this, Jin," he gasps between laughs. "She's much better company."
"You know what, Kame?" I say quickly, before my father gets in first. "Most of the time, I hate you. A lot." This, of course, silences the laughter, and both of them are so surprised that they have no time to react before I continue. "But I have to say. I think we could be friends. You've hurt me in the past, but I think that if you just accept who I am and stop trying to change me, we could get along. I think that would be better for the both of us, then, wouldn't it? And most importantly, it would be better for Jin. What do you say?"
The stunned silence stretches between us for a few moments and I survey their faces for a sign of any sort of reaction. They both just look a little confused, and I raise my eyebrows to prompt them. Kame sort of shifts in his seat and lifts his drink to his mouth to avoid having to say anything, while my father clears his throat and tries to think of something to say.
"Darling, really. You shouldn't say such embarrassing things, even if you are a little tipsy," my father chides, trying on his best calming smile as though I'm behaving hysterically or something.
"And whose fault is that?" I ask, tilting my head to punctuate my point. Then I look at Kame again, who's finished his drink and is crunching on his ice cubes for something to do. "Come on, Kame. What do you say? Friends?"
"Friends?" Kame repeats, mouth full of ice for a moment before he swallows it back with a pained expression. "I don't know about friends, sweet cheeks."
"Well, what would you call us? We can't really be acquaintances, seeing as I see you almost every day. Besides, you practically live with us. You should move in, it would be more convenient." The word 'surprised' doesn't really touch on their expressions as my words begin to sink in, and the silence just crystallizes their shock. I grin brightly over at them and take another sip of my drink, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug. "Come on, you two. Do you think I'm stupid? It stops being fan service when you don't have any fans. You're not tricking anyone, if you ever did."
That triggers a reaction, at least, and Kame slams his glass down on the table. It's not really an angry action, just a passionate one, and he flicks his hair to look away, leaving Jin to respond with actual words.
My father looks at me with a steely expression I'm not certain I've ever actually seen before. I've seen my father calm and collected before, and that always surprises me, but this time he looks serious, and a little pissed off, and those things have never happened all at once before. Suddenly, I feel very much younger than I am, and wait silently for him to say something, straw still in my mouth.
"First of all, you shouldn't talk about things you don't know anything about. I don't care what stories you've heard, but they will never be the truth. Secondly, we have our reasons for doing things the way we do. I know you're not stupid, but you're naive. I appreciate the suggestion, but these sort of things are between the two of us."
The mere fact that my father can string together such a well-structured argument is enough to shock me into silence, but the truth to his words stings a little. I've always seen my father and Kame - both together and individually - as ridiculous caricatures, melodramatic and over-the-top, frivolous and shallow with no substance to their one-dimensional personalities. I could be forgiven for thinking that, of course, but to hear my father say that there are things I don't know about them makes me realize that I should have known better. There are two sides to every coin, and just because I couldn't see one didn't mean it wasn't there.
"I'm sorry," I say, my voice trembling slightly, and it's jarring to realize how emotional I've become. I put my drink back on the table and look at the both of them. Kame's still not looking at me, avoiding my eyes by playing with his glass, and my father holds my gaze steadily, though his eyes are a little less intense now. "I don't mean to meddle in something that isn't my business. I just want you to be happy."
Immediately, the mood is broken, and my father laughs loudly, throwing his head back. Kame sits up, looking at me with a grin on his face before pointing right at me. "You're an idiot, you know that?" he says, giggle in the back of his throat and I can't help but be a little perplexed. "Of course we're fucking happy. If we weren't, why do you think we'd arrange things the way they are?" The giggles descend into laughter a moment later and Kame turns to Jin, reaching out to press his hand to my father's chest. "Did you hear her?"
"I know!" Dad squeaks past the laughter, trying to contain himself but not doing a terribly good job of it. "Honey, sweetie, darling," he says, sitting up straight and composing himself enough to speak, "you're very sweet to think of us, but really, we can take care of ourselves. We're not selfish for nothing, you know."
I get the feeling, watching the two of them laugh at me from across the table, that things are right back where they started. They'll never be the same, though, and even as I slip back into my usual defensive stance, everything feels a little different. I don't really know anything more than I did before, but it's all the things I don't know that will keep me from ever taking them at face value again.
Of course, there's not much I can do about something I have no knowledge of, so I just shake my head and pick up my drink again. I might not be able to change the way they behave, but I make a promise to myself to give them the benefit of the doubt from now on.
Unfortunately, that doesn't stop them from laughing and dragging me onto the dance floor with them. I guess I'll just have to grin and bear it.
---
THE END.