9 1/2 Weeks - 22 - (Week 6: Sunday)
Jan. 27th, 2013 01:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Week 6: Sunday
On Sunday the phone beeps him out of leaden sleep. Jin gropes for it, sees Kame's number, and has a freight train of adrenaline slam into him.
Then he realizes it's an e-mail. Fucking nightshift.
Jin rolls on his back, blinks. Sorry, it reads. Yesterday was busy. Then there's an American number and two email addresses, TomoTorrent@facebook.com and yt.04.2015@gmail.com. Jin can guess which is the personal one.
So now he has those. He's also slept for three fucking hours, and it's fucking Sunday. He rolls over, sticks his head under the covers for the darkness. But it's too hot even for him, and his head is dumb and full of Pi.
He gives up after half an hour or so. There goes his beauty sleep, but it's Kame's own fault.
Did he just think that? Oh, fuck it, who cares. He staggers to the bathroom.
When he comes out again he feels cleaner but no more awake. Before he can even think about how this might go down, he'll need another two hours and at least two coffees.
What time is is there anyway? It's funny, used to be he knew PDT like a second internal clock, and Texas was a bit East. It'll be eight or so.
Coffee. He makes it; drinks it; sits down with his phone. God he's nervous.
He could write an e-mail, of course. That doesn't depend on timezones. His head is blank, but he could explain, he'd have room to think this through.
Who is he kidding, he can't even think now. And he'd wait for an answer and if there's no answer...
He checks to make sure of the time, and why does staring at fucking Google Maps make him depressed?
Eight was right. That means calling's okay for another three hours, for normal people in this job. Unless he waits till tomorrow. Tonight he's in his box.
Eight years, give or take. What's another day?
He drinks his coffee. His stomach hates it.
He needs to think. A walk through the June heat makes him sweaty, endless pavement and pounding beats, and he thought he'd have better ideas without his four walls closing in on him but his brain isn't playing. Broken record, stuck on 'Hi…'.
Three hours of sleep, and a Bakanishi brain.
When he gets home he has another coffee, and his stomach really hates it and his hands hate it, but all the waiting in the world's not going to change that.
The American dial tone makes him feel old, so many years since he heard it all the time, years since he heard it at all. He almost hangs up because that, on top of how he doesn't even know if Pi—
"Hello?" a voice says in English on the other end, and it's all just gone, his head stuttering on empty.
"Hi. It's Akanishi. Jin. Hi."
There's silence, stretching. But that, he had expected. "Jin. Hi. Are you—"
At least Pi knew where to place this Akanishi guy calling him after eight years of nothing. He waits, but next Pi says distantly, "Guys, can you finish with unloading? I'll be outside, I need a moment."
His English is so good.
He hears shuffling and noise and his own hammering heart. Then Pi, in Japanese again, "I have a gig in one hour."
A gay gig in Texas. Jin wishes he was there. "Yeah," he says.
It sounds better than I have five minutes or What do you want? or Fuck off and die.
"How are you?" he tries.
"I'm good," Pi says. "Working, keeping busy. You?"
"I'm good too." If the line was any better, Pi would know he's a liar. "Doing stuff, you know."
"How are your kids?"
His kids. Pi's never even met Sara. "They're fine. They're great."
Silence during which Jin wonders what on earth he could ask about, or say. The weather in Texas?
"And how's Meisa?" Pi says.
"Well, it's... she's fine too."
More silence. You could write a song about that silence.
"I'm sorry I— this feels so weird," Jin says. "I should have called sooner."
"Really," Pi says. "How about you should have not stopped in the first place, you asshole? What the fuck was that about, why'd you stop answering my messages?" It sounds pissed off and hurt and for the first time Jin wants to laugh.
"I..."
"You haven't paid your phone bill in eight years? What the fuck, Jin?"
"I'm sorry, it just…" Okay, to hell with pride. "I was afraid, okay?"
"A… what? When? Before you started ignoring me?"
"Not of you, I was afraid I'd ruin things for you."
"By talking to me." Pi sounds like this is the greatest load of bullshit anybody's ever tried to sell him and he's not pleased.
"By... if you were associated with me," Jin says. "Everyone was hating me and I knew people were getting shit just for talking to me, and then you went to America and it was bad enough that I'd gone there first and I didn't want to create any more problems for you. And also I'm a loser." There it is, in a nutshell. He's breathing hard. "I missed you. But you didn't need to go around with losers."
"I can hang around losers if I want to," Pi says furiously. "Or dumbfucks."
Jin's bones feel suddenly wobbly, but he can breathe again. And smile. "Yeah," he says, "you can, but you've got to allow the dumbfuck to feel kind of responsible."
"Huh," Pi says. And then, "Dumbfuck."
"I'm really sorry."
"You could at least have told me why." Petulant Pi tone, taking him back fifteen years and more.
He rolls his eyes towards the cracked plaster on his ceiling. "And watch you make statements about how dumbfucks are friends too on national TV."
"I—"
"Yes, you would've." Listening to him now, Jin's just as sure of it as he was then.
There's a pause at the other end, Pi giving in without admitting it. Just like he always did. His voice when he talks again doesn't sound quarrelsome at all. "But god, Jin… eight fucking years…"
"Yeah, I… that wasn't the plan. I thought until things had settled, you'd got established, just… time just went by and nothing ever got better and suddenly it was all so far away."
The silence doesn't scare him now. That's just them sorting their brains. Which is always good, when they usually manage about one and a half between them.
"So how are you, really?" Pi asks.
Jin draws a breath and suddenly his filters are off, the sun shining in on him with a sting. "I haven't been doing so well," he says. "Better right now, actually. But it's been…" Lonely. He can't even say how much. "I'm not really seeing many people. Most of the old troop is gone, I got nothing to do with the company anymore..." He takes a breath. "I see my kids when I can."
"When you—"
"Meisa and I split," he says. "Five years ago."
"I read about that," Pi admits, and sure, yeah, Jin's last great tour through the gossip columns, his victory lap. "But Meisa, she's not... I mean, you two don't—"
"No! We're still friendly, she's great, just..." And then it all tumbles out, the hunt for jobs, the lack of money, the stress, his kids and his shitty apartment and the death of his marriage. "Loser," he says, and figures Pi can hear the shrug through the line.
"You should come out here," Pi says, so forceful that it doesn't even hurt that it's impossible.
"I can't," Jin says.
"No, I meant— Oh, of course. Your kids. I'm sorry. I just meant..." He hears an annoyed, familiar sigh. "I'm so glad you called."
Jin nods at the phone and has a lump in his throat, and Pi is silent too. They're a pair of mope-heads.
"How did you get this number, though?" Pi says at last.
"I asked Kame. Keeper of all useful information."
Pi whistles softly through his teeth. "I didn't think he still had time for dumbfucks."
Jin can't help a little laugh. "It's not like that, it's…" How is it? Complicated. Unexpected. "I don't think he's got time for anybody who isn't a problem or the solution to one."
Pi laughs, too. It's got a sharpness to it. "That sounds about right."
"You see him much?" Jin asks. He's got no idea. Doesn't know what he would prefer, for these two to be friends without him or just colleagues, and if it's different from what he'd have preferred an hour ago.
"Not really," Pi says. "He's trying to keep me out of Japan, I've only been back for the mini-tours in the last two years."
"Oh," Jin says. He's safe over there. "I didn't know it was that bad."
There's a pause. Jin can hear cars in the background. "It's not bad. I mean, not like with you. I'm okay. But there's a lot of weird shit going down at the company and we figured it was best for me to stay out of it if I can. Kame's been helpful. He's just..."
It hangs there. Jin doesn't even try to finish it.
"Cold," Pi says. "He's changed. I barely see him when I'm there and then he's got managers on me every minute, like I'm some Junior who can't manage to pee by himself. Like I'll go on stage naked or get some chick pregnant..."
It still makes his heart skip a beat, even as a figure of speech. Jin stares and thinks it fits, Kame being determined that nobody's going to pull an Akanishi on his watch.
"God, sorry," Pi says. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know," Jin says. "But he should trust you."
"He trusts nobody." It's sobering when Pi sounds cold, too.
"But your stuff is going well," Jin says, "right? Having fun with cowboys?"
"You know about the cowboys?" Pi asks, sounding nervous and much warmer.
"I heard," Jin grins back.
"They're... mostly gay," Pi says, and Jin thinks he can hear him blushing and he's snickering like he's twelve.
"Heard that, too."
"Ha ha ha ha." Pi is rolling his eyes, Jin just knows it.
"I think you were smart," Jin says. "I'm happy it worked out for you."
A door slams, and Pi calls, "Yes, guys, in a minute!" To Jin he says, "Well, it's not baseball stadiums, but yeah. I like it. They don't even mind when I'm dating. It's kind of relaxing."
Jin laughs again. And he wants to hear everything, every little thing.
"Do you need to go back?" he asks.
"I should," Pi says slowly. "Yeah."
"That's fine," Jin says, though the lump in his throat hasn't got that message and probably makes him sound weird.
"Listen, man. You call me again. You hear that? You fucking call me. If you don't, I'll run away from Kamenashi's watchdogs and kill you and stab you. And send me a damn picture of your kids. My e-mail is y-t-0-4—"
"I've got your e-mail," Jin says. "I'll call." And he's got a hundred things going through his head at once, Pi being busy and weird time zones and not wanting to be a pest, but he'll sort it, somehow. "I promise. And I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Pi huffs. "You take care of yourself. Dumbfuck. Send me e-mail."
"I will," Jin says, and knows they could go around for another ten minutes, so he decides to be a grown-up. "Now go be gay and badass. I have to go to work."
Five more minutes after all, because now Pi wants to know about the work. It's just so hard to let go.
But eventually Jin manages to hang up. A click, and it's quiet. He stares at his hand which is tight around his phone, and it takes him a moment to remember that he's not a convict who's allowed one call a month.
He can even e-mail straight away. He sorts through his phone until he finds the picture he took of Sara and Akira outside the haunted house and attaches it to a quick mail, subject line: My kids, braver than me.
Inside, he writes, "Jin's kids, post 00001 of 75000, please stay tuned," and when he hits send, he's already grinning when he thinks of the reply.
Week 6: Sunday
On Sunday the phone beeps him out of leaden sleep. Jin gropes for it, sees Kame's number, and has a freight train of adrenaline slam into him.
Then he realizes it's an e-mail. Fucking nightshift.
Jin rolls on his back, blinks. Sorry, it reads. Yesterday was busy. Then there's an American number and two email addresses, TomoTorrent@facebook.com and yt.04.2015@gmail.com. Jin can guess which is the personal one.
So now he has those. He's also slept for three fucking hours, and it's fucking Sunday. He rolls over, sticks his head under the covers for the darkness. But it's too hot even for him, and his head is dumb and full of Pi.
He gives up after half an hour or so. There goes his beauty sleep, but it's Kame's own fault.
Did he just think that? Oh, fuck it, who cares. He staggers to the bathroom.
When he comes out again he feels cleaner but no more awake. Before he can even think about how this might go down, he'll need another two hours and at least two coffees.
What time is is there anyway? It's funny, used to be he knew PDT like a second internal clock, and Texas was a bit East. It'll be eight or so.
Coffee. He makes it; drinks it; sits down with his phone. God he's nervous.
He could write an e-mail, of course. That doesn't depend on timezones. His head is blank, but he could explain, he'd have room to think this through.
Who is he kidding, he can't even think now. And he'd wait for an answer and if there's no answer...
He checks to make sure of the time, and why does staring at fucking Google Maps make him depressed?
Eight was right. That means calling's okay for another three hours, for normal people in this job. Unless he waits till tomorrow. Tonight he's in his box.
Eight years, give or take. What's another day?
He drinks his coffee. His stomach hates it.
He needs to think. A walk through the June heat makes him sweaty, endless pavement and pounding beats, and he thought he'd have better ideas without his four walls closing in on him but his brain isn't playing. Broken record, stuck on 'Hi…'.
Three hours of sleep, and a Bakanishi brain.
When he gets home he has another coffee, and his stomach really hates it and his hands hate it, but all the waiting in the world's not going to change that.
The American dial tone makes him feel old, so many years since he heard it all the time, years since he heard it at all. He almost hangs up because that, on top of how he doesn't even know if Pi—
"Hello?" a voice says in English on the other end, and it's all just gone, his head stuttering on empty.
"Hi. It's Akanishi. Jin. Hi."
There's silence, stretching. But that, he had expected. "Jin. Hi. Are you—"
At least Pi knew where to place this Akanishi guy calling him after eight years of nothing. He waits, but next Pi says distantly, "Guys, can you finish with unloading? I'll be outside, I need a moment."
His English is so good.
He hears shuffling and noise and his own hammering heart. Then Pi, in Japanese again, "I have a gig in one hour."
A gay gig in Texas. Jin wishes he was there. "Yeah," he says.
It sounds better than I have five minutes or What do you want? or Fuck off and die.
"How are you?" he tries.
"I'm good," Pi says. "Working, keeping busy. You?"
"I'm good too." If the line was any better, Pi would know he's a liar. "Doing stuff, you know."
"How are your kids?"
His kids. Pi's never even met Sara. "They're fine. They're great."
Silence during which Jin wonders what on earth he could ask about, or say. The weather in Texas?
"And how's Meisa?" Pi says.
"Well, it's... she's fine too."
More silence. You could write a song about that silence.
"I'm sorry I— this feels so weird," Jin says. "I should have called sooner."
"Really," Pi says. "How about you should have not stopped in the first place, you asshole? What the fuck was that about, why'd you stop answering my messages?" It sounds pissed off and hurt and for the first time Jin wants to laugh.
"I..."
"You haven't paid your phone bill in eight years? What the fuck, Jin?"
"I'm sorry, it just…" Okay, to hell with pride. "I was afraid, okay?"
"A… what? When? Before you started ignoring me?"
"Not of you, I was afraid I'd ruin things for you."
"By talking to me." Pi sounds like this is the greatest load of bullshit anybody's ever tried to sell him and he's not pleased.
"By... if you were associated with me," Jin says. "Everyone was hating me and I knew people were getting shit just for talking to me, and then you went to America and it was bad enough that I'd gone there first and I didn't want to create any more problems for you. And also I'm a loser." There it is, in a nutshell. He's breathing hard. "I missed you. But you didn't need to go around with losers."
"I can hang around losers if I want to," Pi says furiously. "Or dumbfucks."
Jin's bones feel suddenly wobbly, but he can breathe again. And smile. "Yeah," he says, "you can, but you've got to allow the dumbfuck to feel kind of responsible."
"Huh," Pi says. And then, "Dumbfuck."
"I'm really sorry."
"You could at least have told me why." Petulant Pi tone, taking him back fifteen years and more.
He rolls his eyes towards the cracked plaster on his ceiling. "And watch you make statements about how dumbfucks are friends too on national TV."
"I—"
"Yes, you would've." Listening to him now, Jin's just as sure of it as he was then.
There's a pause at the other end, Pi giving in without admitting it. Just like he always did. His voice when he talks again doesn't sound quarrelsome at all. "But god, Jin… eight fucking years…"
"Yeah, I… that wasn't the plan. I thought until things had settled, you'd got established, just… time just went by and nothing ever got better and suddenly it was all so far away."
The silence doesn't scare him now. That's just them sorting their brains. Which is always good, when they usually manage about one and a half between them.
"So how are you, really?" Pi asks.
Jin draws a breath and suddenly his filters are off, the sun shining in on him with a sting. "I haven't been doing so well," he says. "Better right now, actually. But it's been…" Lonely. He can't even say how much. "I'm not really seeing many people. Most of the old troop is gone, I got nothing to do with the company anymore..." He takes a breath. "I see my kids when I can."
"When you—"
"Meisa and I split," he says. "Five years ago."
"I read about that," Pi admits, and sure, yeah, Jin's last great tour through the gossip columns, his victory lap. "But Meisa, she's not... I mean, you two don't—"
"No! We're still friendly, she's great, just..." And then it all tumbles out, the hunt for jobs, the lack of money, the stress, his kids and his shitty apartment and the death of his marriage. "Loser," he says, and figures Pi can hear the shrug through the line.
"You should come out here," Pi says, so forceful that it doesn't even hurt that it's impossible.
"I can't," Jin says.
"No, I meant— Oh, of course. Your kids. I'm sorry. I just meant..." He hears an annoyed, familiar sigh. "I'm so glad you called."
Jin nods at the phone and has a lump in his throat, and Pi is silent too. They're a pair of mope-heads.
"How did you get this number, though?" Pi says at last.
"I asked Kame. Keeper of all useful information."
Pi whistles softly through his teeth. "I didn't think he still had time for dumbfucks."
Jin can't help a little laugh. "It's not like that, it's…" How is it? Complicated. Unexpected. "I don't think he's got time for anybody who isn't a problem or the solution to one."
Pi laughs, too. It's got a sharpness to it. "That sounds about right."
"You see him much?" Jin asks. He's got no idea. Doesn't know what he would prefer, for these two to be friends without him or just colleagues, and if it's different from what he'd have preferred an hour ago.
"Not really," Pi says. "He's trying to keep me out of Japan, I've only been back for the mini-tours in the last two years."
"Oh," Jin says. He's safe over there. "I didn't know it was that bad."
There's a pause. Jin can hear cars in the background. "It's not bad. I mean, not like with you. I'm okay. But there's a lot of weird shit going down at the company and we figured it was best for me to stay out of it if I can. Kame's been helpful. He's just..."
It hangs there. Jin doesn't even try to finish it.
"Cold," Pi says. "He's changed. I barely see him when I'm there and then he's got managers on me every minute, like I'm some Junior who can't manage to pee by himself. Like I'll go on stage naked or get some chick pregnant..."
It still makes his heart skip a beat, even as a figure of speech. Jin stares and thinks it fits, Kame being determined that nobody's going to pull an Akanishi on his watch.
"God, sorry," Pi says. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know," Jin says. "But he should trust you."
"He trusts nobody." It's sobering when Pi sounds cold, too.
"But your stuff is going well," Jin says, "right? Having fun with cowboys?"
"You know about the cowboys?" Pi asks, sounding nervous and much warmer.
"I heard," Jin grins back.
"They're... mostly gay," Pi says, and Jin thinks he can hear him blushing and he's snickering like he's twelve.
"Heard that, too."
"Ha ha ha ha." Pi is rolling his eyes, Jin just knows it.
"I think you were smart," Jin says. "I'm happy it worked out for you."
A door slams, and Pi calls, "Yes, guys, in a minute!" To Jin he says, "Well, it's not baseball stadiums, but yeah. I like it. They don't even mind when I'm dating. It's kind of relaxing."
Jin laughs again. And he wants to hear everything, every little thing.
"Do you need to go back?" he asks.
"I should," Pi says slowly. "Yeah."
"That's fine," Jin says, though the lump in his throat hasn't got that message and probably makes him sound weird.
"Listen, man. You call me again. You hear that? You fucking call me. If you don't, I'll run away from Kamenashi's watchdogs and kill you and stab you. And send me a damn picture of your kids. My e-mail is y-t-0-4—"
"I've got your e-mail," Jin says. "I'll call." And he's got a hundred things going through his head at once, Pi being busy and weird time zones and not wanting to be a pest, but he'll sort it, somehow. "I promise. And I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Pi huffs. "You take care of yourself. Dumbfuck. Send me e-mail."
"I will," Jin says, and knows they could go around for another ten minutes, so he decides to be a grown-up. "Now go be gay and badass. I have to go to work."
Five more minutes after all, because now Pi wants to know about the work. It's just so hard to let go.
But eventually Jin manages to hang up. A click, and it's quiet. He stares at his hand which is tight around his phone, and it takes him a moment to remember that he's not a convict who's allowed one call a month.
He can even e-mail straight away. He sorts through his phone until he finds the picture he took of Sara and Akira outside the haunted house and attaches it to a quick mail, subject line: My kids, braver than me.
Inside, he writes, "Jin's kids, post 00001 of 75000, please stay tuned," and when he hits send, he's already grinning when he thinks of the reply.
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Date: 2013-01-29 10:12 am (UTC)