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haikusocietyWe currently have two longer stories in the works. One grew out of us wondering about 'what if the whores had happened with reversed roles?' and whether that was even possible (short answer: no), and then us wondering what would happen if we swapped their backgrounds, and then things spun off from there, and we ended up with something that's both a riff on Same Deep Water and something completely different, and we've been slowly scribbling away on it since summer last year.
The other one grew out of a prompt![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nightinbird gave jo_lasalle ("Jin doesn't know where Kamenashi heard about his money problems, but here he is in his one-million-yen suit, offering.") for a drabble and is, um, decidedly not going to be a drabble.
We really aim to write both of these stories, but at the moment, we're very torn on which to write first -- we certainly won't want to juggle two long stories in parallel. They're very, very different in mood, and we love them both, and we just can't make up our minds what we should focus on.
So we thought we'd let them fight it out. Or, well, ask for a vote by acclamation. *g* HELP US DECIDE. Below you can find first drafts of the first parts of both stories.Vote early and vote often.
~
1st Contender: ...oh god not more whores...
Working document title: Cupcakes (don't ask)
Estimated length: 50k (don't say it)
It's an hour's ride, even at night, even with the commuters fizzling out left and right. Jin can never decide what he hates more, the hours or the excel sheets.
The Jin in the window looks kind of scrunchy and old. Even more pathetic than he feels, and Jin pulls in his head and decides to ignore it. There's a bit where the tracks go all thumpy rhythmic that distracts him, but the last three stops are always endless. School didn't suck so much.
At least this time he didn't fall asleep, not like at the karaoke. He always worries about forgetting his briefcase when he goes home this zonky. That would suck majorly, now that he has an office laptop and everything.
He's the only one to get off at his stop. The underpass sounds hollow and dark, even with the bright lights, and the train is still rattling away so Jin couldn't hear anything anyway, so he stuffs his hands in his pockets and counts in his head until he's out.
It's still pretty dark. Cold day, lots of clouds.
Jin doesn't like to come home so late. It's gloomy and nobody's around, or just grumpy people anyway. Stupid Taguchi-san with his stupid billiard. It must be the most boring thing of all the stupid bar things, and now it's the middle of the night and Jin still has to get up at seven and it's so unfair.
It was just the guys, too. The secretaries are probably warned about the billiard.
If he walks really fast he can be in his bed in fifteen minutes. If he doesn't get lost again, he's still so new. Down the little lane past the butcher's shop, dark of course, and Jin's not trying to look in the window either. Stays away from those dumpsters and close to the wall, but he remembered the shortcut, he's on the right track, and he hears the ghost moan. Jin screams.
Okay, shit, he doesn't want the ghost to hear it oh god there, it moved…
It's coughing.
Ghosts don't do that. Ghosts don't have throats.
Jin doesn't really want to think about ghost throats too much, but he edges away from the old wall he stumbled into, and tries to hear… Or maybe not, who knows what there might be…
Someone's whimpering.
"Hi," Jin wants to say, but it sounds more like hhh.
There is somebody. All bundled up. Jin sees knees; jeans. Shifting.
Jin's never seen homeless guys around here. Some… some old guys who don't look too well off, but it's not the area for it. Jin thinks. He doesn't think much about homeless guys.
"Hey," he tries again, suddenly wobbly. He doesn't know what you say to homeless guys either. Moaning homeless guys. "Do you need help… or anything?"
The lump is moving, but not… outwards. Jin squints between the dumpsters before he actually gets a useful thought into his head and fumbles out his cell phone, flips it open for the light.
The guy has light hair. Jeans, yes. He's young. Small. Still mostly knees but he's squinting at Jin in the fuzzy light... it's a mean shadowy stare, for someone in a lump between two dumpsters, and Jin swallows.
"You shouldn't hang around here drunk," he says, thinking of those youths in movies. With knives. "The cops will find you."
"Fuck off," the guy mumbles, and drops his head with a sharp little breath. Jin blinks, and only then notices the darker shadow on the guy's face, some line...
"Hey, are you okay?"
There's a pause. Then the guy says slowly, "Fine. I am fine. Now fuck off." Patiently, like Jin's an idiot.
But he doesn't look up again and Jin just knows.
"The hell you are. I can get you a... a doctor, I have a phone." He waves his phone. The guy snorts.
Then he winces.
"I'm calling a doctor," Jin decides, only to realise he doesn't know any doctors around here yet. "I'm calling an ambulance."
"Don't," the guy says. "Don't call anybody."
And he's getting up.
Jin just gets queasier as he watches. The movement all stiff. The long pauses. Jin's never been beaten up in his life but he's not stupid.
Jin steps between the dumpsters, and the guy freezes. "Come on," Jin says, proud when the hand he holds out doesn't shake. The guy inches along the dumpster in little jerks, ignoring Jin.
He doesn't smell, not like... well, homeless guys probably smell. Jin blushes a bit, that was a mean thought.
"Can I help you get somewhere?" he tries.
The guy sighs, and leans back against the dumpster. Gives him a level look. The shadows are bruises, those smears and dirt and god knows what, and blood from where the skin split over a cheekbone. "Which part of fuck off do you need help with?" he says. "Is it the fuck, or the off?"
Rude, irritating, foulmouthed little twerp.
"Look, you can't even walk," Jin says, and when the guy stirs again, he hurries, "and I live just a block from here and you should have a bath and..." And, really, a doctor. "And some plasters. So. Don't be an ass."
Twerp-guy giggles at that before he stills again and makes that face that says something's hurting, a lot.
"I'm not going to call anybody."
When Jin reaches out, slowly this time, the guy doesn't flinch away, lets Jin grasp a piece of the denim jacket he's clutching against him, and allows himself to be dragged in the right direction.
Also slowly.
And stumbly, and kind of precarious, and after about five paces Jin has pulled up and wrapped his arm around him, and apart from a first tiny flinch, there's not even been resistance.
By the time they're at the first street crossing, he's got an uncoordinated armful of twerp-guy smushed up against him, and okay, he still doesn't smell homeless but he smells... of something. Blood, maybe. Maybe it's blood.
"We're almost there," Jin says, not that his passenger seems to be listening. "See, that's my house over there. Here we are. It's okay, I have an elevator. We just need to get up to the sixth floor..."
The guy flinches again when the elevator jumps into motion. His eyes are closed. Turns out the hair is red. Dirty copper. He's breathing in short tight huffs. Jin kind of hopes not to run into anybody, when he'd have no clue how to explain.
"Here," Jin says, to himself probably. "That's my apartment." And isn't it good he always leaves a little light on. He gets them inside and makes an emergency grab when the guy starts to sway, idiot is trying to toe his sneakers off. But okay, twerp with class. They step up carefully, and when he deposits the guy on one of the two chairs he's a little hesitant to let go.
He pulls the other chair right up.
"Do you want something? Like, water? Tea?"
"Beer's good," the guy says. "Or vodka."
"I'm nineteen," Jin says.
It gets him a long look, but Jin refuses to blush because some twerp thinks... whatever he's thinking. That one is even younger, Jin's sure of that.
But all the guy then says is, "Tea's okay."
Well, that's progress.
Jin makes some, and nobody says anything, and by the time he turns around with two cups, the guy is still just sitting there, staring at his hands in his lap, zoned out.
"What happened to you?" Jin says as he puts the tea down. "Was this some school thing?"
The guy looks at the tea; at Jin. "School?"
"Yeah, you know. Class fight."
Suddenly the guy giggles again, and winces, and doesn't stop. "Yeah. Class for forty-year-olds. In suits." He drops his head and his shoulders stand out all sharp and edgy. His breath is wheezing. "Nice car..."
Jin's not sure that still makes sense, cars. He pushes the tea at the guy and wishes he knew what to do.
The guy falls quiet. If not for the tense rise in his shoulders, he might be asleep.
His t-shirt is thin, messed up around the collar, and there's more dirt and stains. The jeans too, but Jin doesn't know, stuff doesn't get cleaner when you hide between dumpsters. But those are expensive sneakers. NIKEs, but not your run of the mill kind, Jin's pretty sure. Jin would never spend that kind of money.
"Could I have that bath, please?"
"Oh," Jin starts. "Sure. Wait. I'll start it."
He hurries, something whispering in him that the guy might run away in his state. Fall down the stairs and lie there in the cold, and he's relieved when he comes back out and the guy is exactly where Jin left him, a lifeless heap at Jin's kitchen table.
But he's drinking the tea.
"It should run quick," Jin says. "Just a few minutes."
The guy nods. Jin thinks it's a nod. Everything is slow and stiff, even the way he has another sip of the tea.
"If some... some thugs did that to you, shouldn't you call the police?"
The guy looks at Jin, a slow frown distorting the bruises, and god, he looks terrible.
Jin shakes his head quickly. "Don't worry, I won't. I told you. I was just, I just wondered."
"No police," the guy says.
No doctors, no police, and for a moment Jin's heart skips. "If you're... you know, if you have, um, brothers who would want to see you..."
"What? Oh. No, shit, chill, I'm not yakuza. Just ran into some guys."
Forty-year-olds. In suits. Right.
"Right," Jin says. "What did they want from you?"
The guy giggles again. Jin hates when he does that. "A discount, I guess."
"What?"
"Is your bath ready, do you think?"
The plumbing has stopped gurgling, so Jin figures it is. He gets out his biggest bath towel, points out shampoo. Then he stands there, and...
The guy waits. He really looks kind of tiny, and... those clothes are disgusting. "I can wash and dry those for you," Jin says. "It'll take a couple of hours, you can have some of mine meantime, okay?"
"Yeah," the guys says, and he actually sounds relieved. "Okay."
He grabs jeans and a t-shirt, belatedly remembers a belt. Probably useful. Sneaks back into the bathroom with his little stack and there the guy is still waiting. He hasn't removed a stitch of his clothes, not even his socks.
"Um, here," Jin says. "I'll be outside. Just call if you need anything else."
"Sure." And keeps standing there and... okay, Jin's getting the message. He puts the stack on the toilet lid and leaves, closing the door behind him.
It seems to take forever before he hears soft water noises. Jin steps away from the door, anything else would be... well, probably rude.
All right, okay. That's that. He stares at the guy's tea mug and tries to think. Think what to do with a black and purple guy who runs into forty-year-old guys with nice cars and doesn't like doctors. Who hides between dumpsters.
Jin shivers just imagining it; and then he thinks food. His mom would make food.
So he puts on some rice.
His neighbours must wonder what he's doing up this late, doing kitchen stuff. Maybe they'll think he has a girlfriend over. They're okay folk, don't complain when he comes home at tragic hours and is so tired he knocks stuff over. Not that he's had a girl in here since Akiko-chan dumped him and met some older bank guy.
Then he remembers the clothes on that guy, and also remembers his washer is still full of the stuff he meant to do over the weekend. He fishes that out, wincing at the slightly ripe smell. He should make a note somewhere; he'll need some of those shirts soon. For now he hides it all under the bed with the less smelly towels on the outside; and right, now he can wash some non-yakuza guy's bloody clothes.
Then he waits. The rice maker plays its little tune, and Jin drums his fingers, and he still waits. Silent pissy gang victims don't drown themselves in bathtubs, right?
At some point Jin sneaks over to the door, but he has a gut feeling that the guy would not react well to find Jin lurking right outside.
He'll give it ten minutes more.
After half of that, he hears the key turn in the lock again.
For a moment nothing happens, then the guy shuffles out there with his feet vanishing under the folds from Jin's jeans, Jin's old soccer t-shirt hanging on his weedy shoulders like on a malnourished scarecrow.
"Thanks," the guy says. "I drained it."
Uh, yeah.
He's holding the rolled-up bundle of his clothes like it's roadkill he picked up. "So where do I put this?"
Jin opens the washer for him and stays clear. Now that the guy is clean, the cut on his cheek is practically shining. The same colour as his wet red hair.
"Is there anyone you want to call?" Jin tries. "Like... your parents?"
"No." He walks to the table, still all stiff, cautious. Like his legs are hurt too. It takes him a moment to get down on the chair. "Do you have a cigarette?"
"Sorry, no."
"Right." There's a bruised smile that surprises Jin. "Nineteen."
Jin doesn't quite know what to make of the look that sweeps over him, calculating... This guy is young, but in some ways not. "So how old are you?"
Vodka-kun pauses; thinks. "Seventeen," he says, like it's no big deal. If that's even the truth.
"You should eat something," Jin says, and for some reason the guy laughs, and next Jin can practically see the colour fade from his face. Heaven knows what's all wrong with him.
Oh. He could have thought of that sooner. "I have some... do you want some painkillers?"
The guy nods without raising his head. Yeah, soon would be good.
In the bathroom, in the rose-patterned box with the plasters Jin finds the ibuprofen his mom packed for him for when he gets sick and has a fever. He doesn't know what dosage the guy should take, or if that will even help but…
He takes it outside and puts it on the table.
The guy's fingers shake on the blister pack, but he squeezes out three and tosses them back.
"I made rice," Jin says. Better for his stomach, too, if it's not just drugs swimming around there.
"Thanks."
That's all. Jin takes it as affirmative.
When he opens the rice maker, the warm familiar scent is sneakily alluring, and his stomach gives a little growl. Not much to eat during billiard and, well, he'd be in bed by now.
So he gets the guy some, and then some for himself, and when he's back at the table the guy... is staring at his rice like it's some foreign thing, or like the rice is hatching a plan or something, and suddenly his face goes kind of crumply, before his wet hair falls forward and block Jin's view.
Ri-ight.
"Not good?" Jin asks after a moment.
"Do you have something else?" It sounds so miserable that Jin doesn't even point out he's not a catering service.
"I must have some instant ramen," he says, and it gets him a short nod.
This is getting really weird, Jin finds, but he takes all the rice away, and maybe the guy needed a breather or maybe those forty-year-olds beat him with rice sacks or whatever, but after the time it takes Jin to boil the water and get the ramen going, dumpster-kun looks a little more alive.
"Thanks," he says again, and it sounds more real too. Maybe that's the painkillers kicking in.
"What's your name?" Jin asks, because he figures that would be useful information.
The guy stops slurping long enough to give him an answer. "Ran," he says. "I'm called Ran."
"That's a girl's name."
The guy shrugs. "It's short for Ranmaru."
Right. Ran.
"I'm Jin," Jin says, and Ran nods.
"Hi, Jin."
~
2nd Contender: Nine and a Half Weeks
Working document title: RedK
Estimated length: 60k (no, really, don't say it)
He's in bed. It's raining, it's been raining all day, and he'd have to turn the light on to do anything. So he doesn't do anything. He can doze forever, though sometimes his back hurts, sometimes he feels he's been breathing the same air for weeks.
It wakes him up when the phone rings but it's the fifth of the month, so he ignores it. Meisa keeps her cool the first few days when he's late, he knows she tries, but this month it's a school trip, too. He pulls the pillow over his head, over this fog of hangover. He used to at least get the drunken high before them, but he hardly drinks these days.
There's a knock on the door. A loud one.
Fuck. Not now. He's left the lights off, he's not even here, and he can't deal with this now. He huddles deeper under the blankets. His foot hits something which falls over with a thud. A bottle, damn.
The knocking starts over and doesn't stop.
So he shouts, "I'm coming!" and pulls on jeans and sweater because you don't talk to your landlord half-naked about your arrears, and he pastes on a smile before he opens the door.
The smile drops to somewhere around his bare toes as he stares at the figure outside. "Kamenashi?"
*~*~*
"So this is how you live."
Kamenashi turns on his well-groomed heel, on the small space that isn't cluttered with, well, clutter. Why Jin even let him in is a mystery to Jin, but has a lot to do with not wanting to make scenes where it might attract attention. "Well, it's just me," he says.
Kamenashi nods like this is neither news nor surprising.
"What are you doing here, anyway?"
Kamenashi's eyes come to rest on the rolled out futon, but he doesn't comment. No need. "I heard rumours," he says.
"About me?"
"Well... not fan rumours." He raises an eyebrow. He's a patronizing shit. And Jin's never learned it; the way you're just supposed to take the condescension and smile and keep your place, even if your place is in a little rathole. But he can't say anything. Not when it's the fifth of the month, not when he's dodging his wife and hiding from his landlord.
"Well, I hope they were interesting," he says instead.
Kamenashi actually gives that some thought. "I think you used to do better, actually. But, yes. Reasonably interesting." He seems to get distracted by the dust on Jin's ancient speakers, sitting together in one corner because Jin is not allowed to drill into the walls.
He's used to it, how small everything is. Small and messy and used up. But with Kamenashi standing in the middle of it like a monument to perfection, it's like a crumpled page of grey.
The years look good on him. Or maybe he just made himself boss of them, the way he did everything else.
"It's pretty far out," Kamenashi says.
Jin shrugs. "Well, you know." They both know. You get what you can pay for.
"And still I hear you're finding the price of this cozy little castle somewhat beyond your means."
Jin wishes he could get angry, or throw the pompous jerk out altogether. But this, as a rumour, makes him queasy. "Who'd you hear it from?"
"I ran into your mom the other day," Kamenashi says.
Jin didn't tell her. She can't know. God please she can't know. "She didn't... "
"She didn't gush at all about you. Actually seemed kind of embarrassed when I asked what you were up to. So that made me suspicious. Everyone knows Meisa has to hound you for the child support anyway."
Jin hates it, so much. He hates himself and he hates the world, and his own stupid choices that left him with just enough of a name that people don't even want him conducting their elevators.
"Do your kids come here?" Kamenashi asks, that fucking asshole.
"My kids aren't your business," Jin says, dead as stone. But Kamenashi's got steel in his eyes and in a flash Jin remembers those half-hearted tales he didn't care about, about Kamenashi becoming some kind of bigshot and taking on Mary on the inside and the Koreans on the outside, and just now he could believe it.
"I try to see them elsewhere," he says, turning away. "They don't stay over, it's too small. It's still not your fucking business."
"No," Kamenashi says. "It's not." His suit's immaculate. So are his fingernails. So's the fucking stupid foundation on his fucking stupid nose. What is he even doing here in cockroach city. Why is he haunting Jin like some technicolor ghost.
"How far are you behind?"
"What?" Jin says.
"Rent, Akanishi."
"I'm hiding from the guy. Do the math. Oh wait, you dropped out of school." And probably has no idea when one starts hiding, is it at a week, or four, or twelve.
"Ouch." Kamenashi hits his chest with one hand. "I can see I won't sleep tonight with how inferior I feel. Oh. Wait."
"What the fuck do you want? Do you find this entertaining? What sort of sick—" He bites it back. Something here holds him back, something about Kamenashi's place in the world and the fact that Jin's not quite at nothing yet, he's still got things to lose.
Kamenashi's fascinated by the decor again; by Jin's old acoustic guitar in the corner, as dusty as the speakers. He's sold the electric one, and gave the keyboard to Akira, for his eighth birthday.
"You don't perform anymore at all?"
Right. "Where would I? Who'd want to listen?" And not laugh, or gloat.
Kamenashi's face changes, polished ice showing cracks. "You want pity, Jin? After you went and threw it all away?"
"I don't want your pity, I never asked you for a fucking thing."
There's a silence where it feels like Jin's words would echo if his tiny apartment wasn't so full of dust and ten-year-old clothes. Where you could hear a pin drop if the floor was clean.
Kame licks his lips. Slowly; thoughtfully. "No," he agrees. "You didn't."
Okay. Okay, so they're clear here. Good. Ready for the next step.
"You know, I'd offer you tea, but I don't have any around. Or coffee. Very sorry. You could have some hot water... well, cold water, but it doesn't taste so good in this area. Probably got bugs. So now you got your kicks, I think it's best if you—"
"You can play for me."
He what? Kamenashi, standing in his apartment like there should be a camera filming 'interaction with adoring audience', talking... what is he talking about? Is he having a breakdown? Kamenashi, in Jin's apartment?
"What?"
"Play. Music. I would listen." Kamenashi scans the guitar again; the room. Jin. Like he's seeing too much, but liking something anyway. "Tell you what. I'll give you a week's rent, if you play for me."
"Play— here?"
Kamenashi taps his shoe, looking every bit like he's modelling it. "I wouldn't exactly want to take you out in public."
Jin ignores the dig, finally following. Kamenashi is offering him money. "Why?"
"Do you need a reason?" He looks Jin up and down, most casual thing in the world. "I was under the impression you needed other things more."
Ignore. Irrelevant. Embarrassing.
"You came here to get me to sing for you?"
"Not really, but right now it would please me. Well?"
"I don't know," Jin says. He means no, no fucking way, because this is weird and he's not here for show, for Kamenashi with his thick wallet and his slick shoes and his one-million-yen suit, and he doesn't even know how this happened but here they are, and Kamenashi is offering him money.
Kamenashi just stays silent. The moment stretches, a week's worth of rent, air to breathe and Kamenashi's talking about singing, singing that shouldn't be a cold knot of confusion in his stomach.
"All right," Kamenashi says, checking his watch. He's got a big one, elegant gold, nothing whimsical. "I don't really have time to watch you meditate, so I guess I'll—"
"Okay," Jin says. It's just singing. Five minutes.
Kamenashi looks at him. Cocks his head in an infuriating way. Like he's not used to getting his way, and there's a joke.
Then he nods.
Jin grabs the guitar, ignores the flurry of dust that rises. Something ancient, stupid and easy. Five minutes, no problem.
He clears the old bento boxes and older job magazines off the chair – a few more seconds to get his head together. Then he acts like he knows what he's doing and hits the strings.
His fingers are stiff, like the chords are strangers.
It's an X Japan song, slow, and Kamenashi always liked those so Jin used to know it well. Should fit the bill.
But he barely gets to stumble his way past the first two bars when there's a, "No."
Kamenashi has his impatient look on.
"What," Jin says. He was told to sing; he's singing.
"One of yours."
Oh, that bastard.
But fine, Jin can play this game. He can be cordial and disinterested and he can say, "Was there something in particular you'd like?" and Kamenashi can admit this shit still matters to him. If he wants to.
There's that telltale moment of stillness. "Any of them will do," Kamenashi says. Coward.
Jin doesn't smirk, but it makes him feel better.
He picks one that was never about anything much, a filler from his last album before it all went down the drain. Oh, baby, that time in the coffee shop, I thought my heart would drop... and the chords are easy even for his stupid, forgetful fingers.
His voice sounds awful. That hurts, even if he won't let Kamenashi see.
He doesn't remember half the lyrics in the second verse, but hey, it's English, what's Kamenashi even going to know. Apart from that, he gets through it okay, and then he's done and for a moment he's waiting to wake up and it was all some bizarre dream.
But Kamenashi's still there and now he moves, takes his hands out of his trouser pockets where he'd stashed them.
"You've sounded better."
Wow, voice of discernment.
"Yeah," Jin says. And now he wants his money. "That'll be—"
But Kamenashi is already holding the bundle of notes out to him. Well, okay then.
"I'll be back," Kamenashi says, and suddenly Jin wants to laugh, ask him if he's the Terminator or maybe he thinks he's god, that he can just come and go as he likes.
But he doesn't laugh and he doesn't say anything.
"Next week," Kamenashi says. "I'll call. Try to find yourself a clean t-shirt."
Then he's gone, no waiting for yes or no or fuck you, and Jin is standing there, like the guy wasn't even here if not for the guitar and the moving dust, and the bundle of cash in his hand.
Jin flips through it. Closer to two weeks' rent than one. Figures. Kamenashi probably pays this much for his parking.
Okay. Fine. Whatever. Jin can wash a t-shirt.
~
Tell us what you think!
The other one grew out of a prompt
nightinbird gave jo_lasalle ("Jin doesn't know where Kamenashi heard about his money problems, but here he is in his one-million-yen suit, offering.") for a drabble and is, um, decidedly not going to be a drabble.We really aim to write both of these stories, but at the moment, we're very torn on which to write first -- we certainly won't want to juggle two long stories in parallel. They're very, very different in mood, and we love them both, and we just can't make up our minds what we should focus on.
So we thought we'd let them fight it out. Or, well, ask for a vote by acclamation. *g* HELP US DECIDE. Below you can find first drafts of the first parts of both stories.
~
1st Contender: ...oh god not more whores...
Working document title: Cupcakes (don't ask)
Estimated length: 50k (don't say it)
It's an hour's ride, even at night, even with the commuters fizzling out left and right. Jin can never decide what he hates more, the hours or the excel sheets.
The Jin in the window looks kind of scrunchy and old. Even more pathetic than he feels, and Jin pulls in his head and decides to ignore it. There's a bit where the tracks go all thumpy rhythmic that distracts him, but the last three stops are always endless. School didn't suck so much.
At least this time he didn't fall asleep, not like at the karaoke. He always worries about forgetting his briefcase when he goes home this zonky. That would suck majorly, now that he has an office laptop and everything.
He's the only one to get off at his stop. The underpass sounds hollow and dark, even with the bright lights, and the train is still rattling away so Jin couldn't hear anything anyway, so he stuffs his hands in his pockets and counts in his head until he's out.
It's still pretty dark. Cold day, lots of clouds.
Jin doesn't like to come home so late. It's gloomy and nobody's around, or just grumpy people anyway. Stupid Taguchi-san with his stupid billiard. It must be the most boring thing of all the stupid bar things, and now it's the middle of the night and Jin still has to get up at seven and it's so unfair.
It was just the guys, too. The secretaries are probably warned about the billiard.
If he walks really fast he can be in his bed in fifteen minutes. If he doesn't get lost again, he's still so new. Down the little lane past the butcher's shop, dark of course, and Jin's not trying to look in the window either. Stays away from those dumpsters and close to the wall, but he remembered the shortcut, he's on the right track, and he hears the ghost moan. Jin screams.
Okay, shit, he doesn't want the ghost to hear it oh god there, it moved…
It's coughing.
Ghosts don't do that. Ghosts don't have throats.
Jin doesn't really want to think about ghost throats too much, but he edges away from the old wall he stumbled into, and tries to hear… Or maybe not, who knows what there might be…
Someone's whimpering.
"Hi," Jin wants to say, but it sounds more like hhh.
There is somebody. All bundled up. Jin sees knees; jeans. Shifting.
Jin's never seen homeless guys around here. Some… some old guys who don't look too well off, but it's not the area for it. Jin thinks. He doesn't think much about homeless guys.
"Hey," he tries again, suddenly wobbly. He doesn't know what you say to homeless guys either. Moaning homeless guys. "Do you need help… or anything?"
The lump is moving, but not… outwards. Jin squints between the dumpsters before he actually gets a useful thought into his head and fumbles out his cell phone, flips it open for the light.
The guy has light hair. Jeans, yes. He's young. Small. Still mostly knees but he's squinting at Jin in the fuzzy light... it's a mean shadowy stare, for someone in a lump between two dumpsters, and Jin swallows.
"You shouldn't hang around here drunk," he says, thinking of those youths in movies. With knives. "The cops will find you."
"Fuck off," the guy mumbles, and drops his head with a sharp little breath. Jin blinks, and only then notices the darker shadow on the guy's face, some line...
"Hey, are you okay?"
There's a pause. Then the guy says slowly, "Fine. I am fine. Now fuck off." Patiently, like Jin's an idiot.
But he doesn't look up again and Jin just knows.
"The hell you are. I can get you a... a doctor, I have a phone." He waves his phone. The guy snorts.
Then he winces.
"I'm calling a doctor," Jin decides, only to realise he doesn't know any doctors around here yet. "I'm calling an ambulance."
"Don't," the guy says. "Don't call anybody."
And he's getting up.
Jin just gets queasier as he watches. The movement all stiff. The long pauses. Jin's never been beaten up in his life but he's not stupid.
Jin steps between the dumpsters, and the guy freezes. "Come on," Jin says, proud when the hand he holds out doesn't shake. The guy inches along the dumpster in little jerks, ignoring Jin.
He doesn't smell, not like... well, homeless guys probably smell. Jin blushes a bit, that was a mean thought.
"Can I help you get somewhere?" he tries.
The guy sighs, and leans back against the dumpster. Gives him a level look. The shadows are bruises, those smears and dirt and god knows what, and blood from where the skin split over a cheekbone. "Which part of fuck off do you need help with?" he says. "Is it the fuck, or the off?"
Rude, irritating, foulmouthed little twerp.
"Look, you can't even walk," Jin says, and when the guy stirs again, he hurries, "and I live just a block from here and you should have a bath and..." And, really, a doctor. "And some plasters. So. Don't be an ass."
Twerp-guy giggles at that before he stills again and makes that face that says something's hurting, a lot.
"I'm not going to call anybody."
When Jin reaches out, slowly this time, the guy doesn't flinch away, lets Jin grasp a piece of the denim jacket he's clutching against him, and allows himself to be dragged in the right direction.
Also slowly.
And stumbly, and kind of precarious, and after about five paces Jin has pulled up and wrapped his arm around him, and apart from a first tiny flinch, there's not even been resistance.
By the time they're at the first street crossing, he's got an uncoordinated armful of twerp-guy smushed up against him, and okay, he still doesn't smell homeless but he smells... of something. Blood, maybe. Maybe it's blood.
"We're almost there," Jin says, not that his passenger seems to be listening. "See, that's my house over there. Here we are. It's okay, I have an elevator. We just need to get up to the sixth floor..."
The guy flinches again when the elevator jumps into motion. His eyes are closed. Turns out the hair is red. Dirty copper. He's breathing in short tight huffs. Jin kind of hopes not to run into anybody, when he'd have no clue how to explain.
"Here," Jin says, to himself probably. "That's my apartment." And isn't it good he always leaves a little light on. He gets them inside and makes an emergency grab when the guy starts to sway, idiot is trying to toe his sneakers off. But okay, twerp with class. They step up carefully, and when he deposits the guy on one of the two chairs he's a little hesitant to let go.
He pulls the other chair right up.
"Do you want something? Like, water? Tea?"
"Beer's good," the guy says. "Or vodka."
"I'm nineteen," Jin says.
It gets him a long look, but Jin refuses to blush because some twerp thinks... whatever he's thinking. That one is even younger, Jin's sure of that.
But all the guy then says is, "Tea's okay."
Well, that's progress.
Jin makes some, and nobody says anything, and by the time he turns around with two cups, the guy is still just sitting there, staring at his hands in his lap, zoned out.
"What happened to you?" Jin says as he puts the tea down. "Was this some school thing?"
The guy looks at the tea; at Jin. "School?"
"Yeah, you know. Class fight."
Suddenly the guy giggles again, and winces, and doesn't stop. "Yeah. Class for forty-year-olds. In suits." He drops his head and his shoulders stand out all sharp and edgy. His breath is wheezing. "Nice car..."
Jin's not sure that still makes sense, cars. He pushes the tea at the guy and wishes he knew what to do.
The guy falls quiet. If not for the tense rise in his shoulders, he might be asleep.
His t-shirt is thin, messed up around the collar, and there's more dirt and stains. The jeans too, but Jin doesn't know, stuff doesn't get cleaner when you hide between dumpsters. But those are expensive sneakers. NIKEs, but not your run of the mill kind, Jin's pretty sure. Jin would never spend that kind of money.
"Could I have that bath, please?"
"Oh," Jin starts. "Sure. Wait. I'll start it."
He hurries, something whispering in him that the guy might run away in his state. Fall down the stairs and lie there in the cold, and he's relieved when he comes back out and the guy is exactly where Jin left him, a lifeless heap at Jin's kitchen table.
But he's drinking the tea.
"It should run quick," Jin says. "Just a few minutes."
The guy nods. Jin thinks it's a nod. Everything is slow and stiff, even the way he has another sip of the tea.
"If some... some thugs did that to you, shouldn't you call the police?"
The guy looks at Jin, a slow frown distorting the bruises, and god, he looks terrible.
Jin shakes his head quickly. "Don't worry, I won't. I told you. I was just, I just wondered."
"No police," the guy says.
No doctors, no police, and for a moment Jin's heart skips. "If you're... you know, if you have, um, brothers who would want to see you..."
"What? Oh. No, shit, chill, I'm not yakuza. Just ran into some guys."
Forty-year-olds. In suits. Right.
"Right," Jin says. "What did they want from you?"
The guy giggles again. Jin hates when he does that. "A discount, I guess."
"What?"
"Is your bath ready, do you think?"
The plumbing has stopped gurgling, so Jin figures it is. He gets out his biggest bath towel, points out shampoo. Then he stands there, and...
The guy waits. He really looks kind of tiny, and... those clothes are disgusting. "I can wash and dry those for you," Jin says. "It'll take a couple of hours, you can have some of mine meantime, okay?"
"Yeah," the guys says, and he actually sounds relieved. "Okay."
He grabs jeans and a t-shirt, belatedly remembers a belt. Probably useful. Sneaks back into the bathroom with his little stack and there the guy is still waiting. He hasn't removed a stitch of his clothes, not even his socks.
"Um, here," Jin says. "I'll be outside. Just call if you need anything else."
"Sure." And keeps standing there and... okay, Jin's getting the message. He puts the stack on the toilet lid and leaves, closing the door behind him.
It seems to take forever before he hears soft water noises. Jin steps away from the door, anything else would be... well, probably rude.
All right, okay. That's that. He stares at the guy's tea mug and tries to think. Think what to do with a black and purple guy who runs into forty-year-old guys with nice cars and doesn't like doctors. Who hides between dumpsters.
Jin shivers just imagining it; and then he thinks food. His mom would make food.
So he puts on some rice.
His neighbours must wonder what he's doing up this late, doing kitchen stuff. Maybe they'll think he has a girlfriend over. They're okay folk, don't complain when he comes home at tragic hours and is so tired he knocks stuff over. Not that he's had a girl in here since Akiko-chan dumped him and met some older bank guy.
Then he remembers the clothes on that guy, and also remembers his washer is still full of the stuff he meant to do over the weekend. He fishes that out, wincing at the slightly ripe smell. He should make a note somewhere; he'll need some of those shirts soon. For now he hides it all under the bed with the less smelly towels on the outside; and right, now he can wash some non-yakuza guy's bloody clothes.
Then he waits. The rice maker plays its little tune, and Jin drums his fingers, and he still waits. Silent pissy gang victims don't drown themselves in bathtubs, right?
At some point Jin sneaks over to the door, but he has a gut feeling that the guy would not react well to find Jin lurking right outside.
He'll give it ten minutes more.
After half of that, he hears the key turn in the lock again.
For a moment nothing happens, then the guy shuffles out there with his feet vanishing under the folds from Jin's jeans, Jin's old soccer t-shirt hanging on his weedy shoulders like on a malnourished scarecrow.
"Thanks," the guy says. "I drained it."
Uh, yeah.
He's holding the rolled-up bundle of his clothes like it's roadkill he picked up. "So where do I put this?"
Jin opens the washer for him and stays clear. Now that the guy is clean, the cut on his cheek is practically shining. The same colour as his wet red hair.
"Is there anyone you want to call?" Jin tries. "Like... your parents?"
"No." He walks to the table, still all stiff, cautious. Like his legs are hurt too. It takes him a moment to get down on the chair. "Do you have a cigarette?"
"Sorry, no."
"Right." There's a bruised smile that surprises Jin. "Nineteen."
Jin doesn't quite know what to make of the look that sweeps over him, calculating... This guy is young, but in some ways not. "So how old are you?"
Vodka-kun pauses; thinks. "Seventeen," he says, like it's no big deal. If that's even the truth.
"You should eat something," Jin says, and for some reason the guy laughs, and next Jin can practically see the colour fade from his face. Heaven knows what's all wrong with him.
Oh. He could have thought of that sooner. "I have some... do you want some painkillers?"
The guy nods without raising his head. Yeah, soon would be good.
In the bathroom, in the rose-patterned box with the plasters Jin finds the ibuprofen his mom packed for him for when he gets sick and has a fever. He doesn't know what dosage the guy should take, or if that will even help but…
He takes it outside and puts it on the table.
The guy's fingers shake on the blister pack, but he squeezes out three and tosses them back.
"I made rice," Jin says. Better for his stomach, too, if it's not just drugs swimming around there.
"Thanks."
That's all. Jin takes it as affirmative.
When he opens the rice maker, the warm familiar scent is sneakily alluring, and his stomach gives a little growl. Not much to eat during billiard and, well, he'd be in bed by now.
So he gets the guy some, and then some for himself, and when he's back at the table the guy... is staring at his rice like it's some foreign thing, or like the rice is hatching a plan or something, and suddenly his face goes kind of crumply, before his wet hair falls forward and block Jin's view.
Ri-ight.
"Not good?" Jin asks after a moment.
"Do you have something else?" It sounds so miserable that Jin doesn't even point out he's not a catering service.
"I must have some instant ramen," he says, and it gets him a short nod.
This is getting really weird, Jin finds, but he takes all the rice away, and maybe the guy needed a breather or maybe those forty-year-olds beat him with rice sacks or whatever, but after the time it takes Jin to boil the water and get the ramen going, dumpster-kun looks a little more alive.
"Thanks," he says again, and it sounds more real too. Maybe that's the painkillers kicking in.
"What's your name?" Jin asks, because he figures that would be useful information.
The guy stops slurping long enough to give him an answer. "Ran," he says. "I'm called Ran."
"That's a girl's name."
The guy shrugs. "It's short for Ranmaru."
Right. Ran.
"I'm Jin," Jin says, and Ran nods.
"Hi, Jin."
~
2nd Contender: Nine and a Half Weeks
Working document title: RedK
Estimated length: 60k (no, really, don't say it)
He's in bed. It's raining, it's been raining all day, and he'd have to turn the light on to do anything. So he doesn't do anything. He can doze forever, though sometimes his back hurts, sometimes he feels he's been breathing the same air for weeks.
It wakes him up when the phone rings but it's the fifth of the month, so he ignores it. Meisa keeps her cool the first few days when he's late, he knows she tries, but this month it's a school trip, too. He pulls the pillow over his head, over this fog of hangover. He used to at least get the drunken high before them, but he hardly drinks these days.
There's a knock on the door. A loud one.
Fuck. Not now. He's left the lights off, he's not even here, and he can't deal with this now. He huddles deeper under the blankets. His foot hits something which falls over with a thud. A bottle, damn.
The knocking starts over and doesn't stop.
So he shouts, "I'm coming!" and pulls on jeans and sweater because you don't talk to your landlord half-naked about your arrears, and he pastes on a smile before he opens the door.
The smile drops to somewhere around his bare toes as he stares at the figure outside. "Kamenashi?"
*~*~*
"So this is how you live."
Kamenashi turns on his well-groomed heel, on the small space that isn't cluttered with, well, clutter. Why Jin even let him in is a mystery to Jin, but has a lot to do with not wanting to make scenes where it might attract attention. "Well, it's just me," he says.
Kamenashi nods like this is neither news nor surprising.
"What are you doing here, anyway?"
Kamenashi's eyes come to rest on the rolled out futon, but he doesn't comment. No need. "I heard rumours," he says.
"About me?"
"Well... not fan rumours." He raises an eyebrow. He's a patronizing shit. And Jin's never learned it; the way you're just supposed to take the condescension and smile and keep your place, even if your place is in a little rathole. But he can't say anything. Not when it's the fifth of the month, not when he's dodging his wife and hiding from his landlord.
"Well, I hope they were interesting," he says instead.
Kamenashi actually gives that some thought. "I think you used to do better, actually. But, yes. Reasonably interesting." He seems to get distracted by the dust on Jin's ancient speakers, sitting together in one corner because Jin is not allowed to drill into the walls.
He's used to it, how small everything is. Small and messy and used up. But with Kamenashi standing in the middle of it like a monument to perfection, it's like a crumpled page of grey.
The years look good on him. Or maybe he just made himself boss of them, the way he did everything else.
"It's pretty far out," Kamenashi says.
Jin shrugs. "Well, you know." They both know. You get what you can pay for.
"And still I hear you're finding the price of this cozy little castle somewhat beyond your means."
Jin wishes he could get angry, or throw the pompous jerk out altogether. But this, as a rumour, makes him queasy. "Who'd you hear it from?"
"I ran into your mom the other day," Kamenashi says.
Jin didn't tell her. She can't know. God please she can't know. "She didn't... "
"She didn't gush at all about you. Actually seemed kind of embarrassed when I asked what you were up to. So that made me suspicious. Everyone knows Meisa has to hound you for the child support anyway."
Jin hates it, so much. He hates himself and he hates the world, and his own stupid choices that left him with just enough of a name that people don't even want him conducting their elevators.
"Do your kids come here?" Kamenashi asks, that fucking asshole.
"My kids aren't your business," Jin says, dead as stone. But Kamenashi's got steel in his eyes and in a flash Jin remembers those half-hearted tales he didn't care about, about Kamenashi becoming some kind of bigshot and taking on Mary on the inside and the Koreans on the outside, and just now he could believe it.
"I try to see them elsewhere," he says, turning away. "They don't stay over, it's too small. It's still not your fucking business."
"No," Kamenashi says. "It's not." His suit's immaculate. So are his fingernails. So's the fucking stupid foundation on his fucking stupid nose. What is he even doing here in cockroach city. Why is he haunting Jin like some technicolor ghost.
"How far are you behind?"
"What?" Jin says.
"Rent, Akanishi."
"I'm hiding from the guy. Do the math. Oh wait, you dropped out of school." And probably has no idea when one starts hiding, is it at a week, or four, or twelve.
"Ouch." Kamenashi hits his chest with one hand. "I can see I won't sleep tonight with how inferior I feel. Oh. Wait."
"What the fuck do you want? Do you find this entertaining? What sort of sick—" He bites it back. Something here holds him back, something about Kamenashi's place in the world and the fact that Jin's not quite at nothing yet, he's still got things to lose.
Kamenashi's fascinated by the decor again; by Jin's old acoustic guitar in the corner, as dusty as the speakers. He's sold the electric one, and gave the keyboard to Akira, for his eighth birthday.
"You don't perform anymore at all?"
Right. "Where would I? Who'd want to listen?" And not laugh, or gloat.
Kamenashi's face changes, polished ice showing cracks. "You want pity, Jin? After you went and threw it all away?"
"I don't want your pity, I never asked you for a fucking thing."
There's a silence where it feels like Jin's words would echo if his tiny apartment wasn't so full of dust and ten-year-old clothes. Where you could hear a pin drop if the floor was clean.
Kame licks his lips. Slowly; thoughtfully. "No," he agrees. "You didn't."
Okay. Okay, so they're clear here. Good. Ready for the next step.
"You know, I'd offer you tea, but I don't have any around. Or coffee. Very sorry. You could have some hot water... well, cold water, but it doesn't taste so good in this area. Probably got bugs. So now you got your kicks, I think it's best if you—"
"You can play for me."
He what? Kamenashi, standing in his apartment like there should be a camera filming 'interaction with adoring audience', talking... what is he talking about? Is he having a breakdown? Kamenashi, in Jin's apartment?
"What?"
"Play. Music. I would listen." Kamenashi scans the guitar again; the room. Jin. Like he's seeing too much, but liking something anyway. "Tell you what. I'll give you a week's rent, if you play for me."
"Play— here?"
Kamenashi taps his shoe, looking every bit like he's modelling it. "I wouldn't exactly want to take you out in public."
Jin ignores the dig, finally following. Kamenashi is offering him money. "Why?"
"Do you need a reason?" He looks Jin up and down, most casual thing in the world. "I was under the impression you needed other things more."
Ignore. Irrelevant. Embarrassing.
"You came here to get me to sing for you?"
"Not really, but right now it would please me. Well?"
"I don't know," Jin says. He means no, no fucking way, because this is weird and he's not here for show, for Kamenashi with his thick wallet and his slick shoes and his one-million-yen suit, and he doesn't even know how this happened but here they are, and Kamenashi is offering him money.
Kamenashi just stays silent. The moment stretches, a week's worth of rent, air to breathe and Kamenashi's talking about singing, singing that shouldn't be a cold knot of confusion in his stomach.
"All right," Kamenashi says, checking his watch. He's got a big one, elegant gold, nothing whimsical. "I don't really have time to watch you meditate, so I guess I'll—"
"Okay," Jin says. It's just singing. Five minutes.
Kamenashi looks at him. Cocks his head in an infuriating way. Like he's not used to getting his way, and there's a joke.
Then he nods.
Jin grabs the guitar, ignores the flurry of dust that rises. Something ancient, stupid and easy. Five minutes, no problem.
He clears the old bento boxes and older job magazines off the chair – a few more seconds to get his head together. Then he acts like he knows what he's doing and hits the strings.
His fingers are stiff, like the chords are strangers.
It's an X Japan song, slow, and Kamenashi always liked those so Jin used to know it well. Should fit the bill.
But he barely gets to stumble his way past the first two bars when there's a, "No."
Kamenashi has his impatient look on.
"What," Jin says. He was told to sing; he's singing.
"One of yours."
Oh, that bastard.
But fine, Jin can play this game. He can be cordial and disinterested and he can say, "Was there something in particular you'd like?" and Kamenashi can admit this shit still matters to him. If he wants to.
There's that telltale moment of stillness. "Any of them will do," Kamenashi says. Coward.
Jin doesn't smirk, but it makes him feel better.
He picks one that was never about anything much, a filler from his last album before it all went down the drain. Oh, baby, that time in the coffee shop, I thought my heart would drop... and the chords are easy even for his stupid, forgetful fingers.
His voice sounds awful. That hurts, even if he won't let Kamenashi see.
He doesn't remember half the lyrics in the second verse, but hey, it's English, what's Kamenashi even going to know. Apart from that, he gets through it okay, and then he's done and for a moment he's waiting to wake up and it was all some bizarre dream.
But Kamenashi's still there and now he moves, takes his hands out of his trouser pockets where he'd stashed them.
"You've sounded better."
Wow, voice of discernment.
"Yeah," Jin says. And now he wants his money. "That'll be—"
But Kamenashi is already holding the bundle of notes out to him. Well, okay then.
"I'll be back," Kamenashi says, and suddenly Jin wants to laugh, ask him if he's the Terminator or maybe he thinks he's god, that he can just come and go as he likes.
But he doesn't laugh and he doesn't say anything.
"Next week," Kamenashi says. "I'll call. Try to find yourself a clean t-shirt."
Then he's gone, no waiting for yes or no or fuck you, and Jin is standing there, like the guy wasn't even here if not for the guitar and the moving dust, and the bundle of cash in his hand.
Jin flips through it. Closer to two weeks' rent than one. Figures. Kamenashi probably pays this much for his parking.
Okay. Fine. Whatever. Jin can wash a t-shirt.
~
Tell us what you think!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 07:27 pm (UTC)The captcha is $4,000 - I'm wondering if ReCAPTCHA thinks that's how much Kame paid Jin for a song...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 04:31 pm (UTC)The currency in this story has not been adjusted for inflation. :p
Thank you for voting!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 08:18 pm (UTC)I loved Deep Water so so much and am really dying for a next great whore fic now. And how Gokusen time-ish this one seems with the both of them so young and Kame's red here that I love so much just make it all even better! Just need to read this one! Oh stupid, good hearted Jin, picking up strangers from between dumpsters in the middle of the night, only worrying what neighbours would think and that maybe the stranger will run off, not that it might just be this tiny bit dangerous.
But at the same time the other one also seems to be way too interesting. Can't wait to know how Jin went to such a state from apparently being really damn successful. And they have all this background here which is always interesting to guess and see how much you got right while reading along.
And well, since there just was an awesome whore fic and the RedK one will probably be longer :3 I'll have to go with this one. But whatever you choose to write first, i just can't be disappointed.
And does a new long fic by any chance mean that you'll get to posting a chapter a week sometime again or is this way too much to ask? :D
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 08:36 pm (UTC)/more later when both parties are awake
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 04:31 pm (UTC)LOL decision by our projected, hopelessly incompetent word counts! <3 Thank you for the support, and your vote has been counted. ;-)
As for a posting schedule: we just don't know yet. It was hard to sit on the whores for so long without any outside input or encouragement, and though these ones will be shorter, the idea of finding some middle ground between random posting of chapters and waiting until it's all done has its appeal. But we've also got slightly different philosophies within haikuesque and we haven't really had time to hash this out properly between ourselves... so no promises either way just now! We just don't know yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 09:33 pm (UTC)Buuuu~t I'm even more excited about the second one, very unexpectedly, of course. (Modelling the shoes! In Jin's crabby, dusty mini apartment! Hiding from landlords and overdue child support demands! KAMENASHI! WITH SUIT AND SHOES AND DID HE REALLY TAKE OVER JOHNNY'S? And singing, and hints of chibi (X-Japan!) and money like parking fees and what is Kame thinking and agdsaf yeah, I'm excited. xD) But maybe I shouldn't count, bias and all. *g*
The other one really got to me too, though. I can see how you think it's both a riff on and entirely different from SDW, I mean, it reads entirely different, the premises are different, but there's this... idk, edge? And in the beginning, Jin, I was thinking, this is Jin from SDW. Only different. But him, definitely. It gave me a weird two moments of confused blinking, but then I was all WHOA GO!
Haha no clue if this helps any. ;p Will haunt this post tomorrow once I've slept the cold into submission.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 09:38 pm (UTC)also, rereading your post: vote often? how often? every... thirty seconds? :D(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 10:30 pm (UTC)They both sound wonderful honestly. I guess I'd suggest getting whichever one will most likely go longer out of the way first, as long as they will both eventually get written, so Redk.
^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 10:58 pm (UTC)The second one!!! I LOVE THE IDEA AND I CAN FEEL PORN (in the first one too, but here I just FEEL IT) !!! This is just very very WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW!!!!
I will vote for the second. but with hope, that after you will write the first one too :DDDD
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 05:38 pm (UTC)Belle! BELLE! Your instincts, they scare us! They amaze us! >_> how did you know... do you want to be our beta for this? really! let us know!
The cupcakes are very fluffy and cute, and we will write them but for the porn... uh, yes. You picked the right one. Um. #ohdear
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 01:04 am (UTC)I'm voting for option 2, RedK.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)fucked-upcomplicated scenarios over the fluff so much. :)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 01:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 03:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 10:34 am (UTC)Why must you make my choices so hard?They're both fantastic *_____* like, really fantastic, like I want them both YESTERDAY kind of fantastic... but I'm going to be the voice of unpopularity here and vote for number one - because I have a miles-wide soft spot for whores, you know this ^^ But also because it hurts less. And it'll be Summer soon <333(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:13 pm (UTC)But there seems to be a consensus forming towards the RedK anyway... at the moment...
Thank you for the vote, and the devoury support! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 11:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 11:22 pm (UTC)But should the whore fic happen right after the first whore fic? :B
I'm in doubt.
But the canon fic makes me want to bawl.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:13 pm (UTC)But we notice you didn't decide on anything. :p
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 06:57 pm (UTC)I like the first one. So many possibilies where this fic can go.
But I like the second one also :D It's promising! I guess it won't stay with only singing for Jin.
Actually I want to say that I like it that Jin is in the second one the one who suffers. I'm fed up with fic where always Kame is the one who is fragile and such. Kame is not out of glass (even when Jin said it once.)!
I'll wait happily for your fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-01 07:04 pm (UTC)I vote for cupcake! :)
And now I will happily eat my cookie monster cupcake! :D
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-02 09:13 pm (UTC)You are giving me headache and heartache in the same time. It´s so hard to decide! Well.. it was kind of decides as I´ve read the comments of others. :)
I will love both.. I´m sure. But can´t decide which one I would like to read first.
In "Cupcakes" there are sooo many posibilities, how the story would evolve and the: "like the rice is hatching a plan or something" cracked me up :D And there is Akame pictured in their Gokusen era (such a temptation!) and the "whores"... ummm I´m such a junkie for whores!!! * cough..cough*
The RedK´s plot is "almost" clear. And interesting, cause I´m wondering how will that Meisanishi epic fic ends in real life. And tbh I don´t think it will ends good ´couse like I though they got married because of baby on the way and that´s not the best start of relationship and also with Jin´s carier.. pissed fans(but more disturbing for me are the ones, who think that everything´s gonna be ok.. they both will be amazing parents, partners and still finds a time for them to go on tours= that´s a one hell of fan fiction :D ).. well well.
Ok.. time to decide. And it will be.... * drums drums* The RedK!!!
Why? I have re-read both samples and this one sucked me up just after few sentences. It made me more curious. * sorry cupcakes* not about just Jin. But more about Kame. Well .. it just striked. So I´m voting like others..
The RedK it is... pleaaaaaaase give us the chapter as fast as possible! :D Or I will have to slow down with re-reading Same deep water as you! * grins*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-04 06:43 pm (UTC)Yes, we had Gokusen images in our heads while writing the cupcakes. :) Not really that much 'whore' stuff in the cupcakes, we have to admit, it was more a kind of the starting point, the thought experiment which then turned into this.
Anyway, eventually you'll see!
We really hope that things will work out for Jin and Meisa and that they'll be happy. We can't know what's really behind it, but we do think Jin will be an amazing dad, and hopefully his career will pick up again too. Surely Johnny can't want to run a loss on him forever.
Intrigued about RedK Kame? Ha ha! You are right to be!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-20 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-25 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-22 10:59 pm (UTC)I wanted to re-start reading SDW, but I found this wonderful post with these 2 wonderful stories. ^___^
First of all, thank you for writing again so soon, I was afraid you would have gone on hiatus for a while, I cannot tell you how happy I am you are already working on new projects.
For the choice.. I'm intrigued by RedK, because for me Kame is the best when is a bastard.. at least on the surface, and it's clear he has his reasons. And Jin learned the X Japan song because Kame loved these kind of songs and.. there a story here. I'd really love to read it.
I'm also fascinated by Cupcakes, a lot, sadly, but if you put me in front of a choice.. RedK.
<3<3<3
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-25 01:04 pm (UTC)No worries about hiatuses... hiati? We had to take a little break because Jo was super-busy after Japan, but we're usually always scribbling away at stuff. One reason we looked forward to finally finishing editing and tweaking Same Deep Water was that we were looking forward to getting around to some other stuff!
For the choice.. I'm intrigued by RedK, because for me Kame is the best when is a bastard.. at least on the surface, and it's clear he has his reasons.
LOL okay, then we think your vote is well-cast. *g*
Thanks very much for the support! ♥ Hope you'll like what we come up with, and have fun with the re-read!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-26 06:20 am (UTC)porn, which on second thought...*_*NO!!! I WILL STAND BY MY FLUFF CONVICTIONS!!!!!!! Because the cupcake-fic was adorable, and that line about Jin thinking that 40 year olds hit Kame with rice sacks made me snort really unattractively alkjf;aldjaalso. why is there captcha in lj. O_O I left a comment on something only a few days ago and there was no captcha!!! what!
I apologized for the eventual comment spam on twitter, okay. Just put it in here in case you guys hadn't seen it.... or something.....
also oh my god you guys have finished the whore fic. oh my god i have to steel my heart and read it now. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR IT TO BE FINISHED AND THEN I COULD READ IT LIKE A NOVEL AND BECOME A HERMIT FOR A FEW DAYS i just have to summon up the courage alkjfa;lsjfa
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-29 06:18 am (UTC)This is a very interesting question. We have asked ourselves the same thing. *g*
The second one seems like it's gonna be a bhurty thing of huty porn, which on second thought...
But Matchy, would we EVER? #affronted #ourreputation #ruined
We will write the Cupcakes eventually, just because WE LIKE THE FLUFF TOO
and the mystery of the rice sack gangbut the votes are clearly skewing towards bhurty.Thank you for putting your comments here on LJ, it would have been such a shame to miss them on Twitter where it's REALLY EASY to miss stuff (especially when people have locked accounts *cough* and stuff /Jo).
Happy (ha hahahha) hermiting ONLY NOT FOREVER MMKAY with whores! (man that sounds dirty)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-29 03:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-30 04:38 pm (UTC)Thank you for your enthusiasm! :)