![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
JE fic: Assassins! (Yamapi/Jin)
Title: Assassins!
Fandom: JE
Pairing: Yamapi/Jin
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imwahyou for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
jexchange. Um, I should say that this fic was prompted by this Summary backstage clip. What happens in it is that Tego starts to wind Jin up, and a playfight ensues in the NEWS dressing room. Jin playfights everyone in order to defeat Tego, who oh god looks so terribly, terribly young, doesn't he. :| HUGE thanks for peacock for beta-ing and coming up with the brilliant last line. ;D
NEWS versus KAT-TUN
Summary, the rematch
Pussies need not attend.
JE, Ryo Nishikido needs needs YOU.
Having lost (disappointed, guys, disappointed) to KAT-TUN's Fat Jin at the Summary concert, NEWS proposes a rematch. No more will you squash our Tego, Fat Jin. No more will you beat up our Pi, Fat Jin. For at the following game, NEWS will crush you (muahahaha).
NEWS proposes a game of Assassins. Duration: one weekend. Location to be decided.
For all of you too lazy to wiki Assassins, the object of the game is to stealthily eliminate other players. The winning group will have the most successful assassinations. Each person is assigned a target as well as being a target himself. The individual winner(s) overall will be those who assassinate without being assassinated himself. This means that you should be very afraid.
Those participating are: Yamashita-san, Keiichiro-san, Takahisa-san, Shigeaki-san, Yuya-san and Nikishido-sama. Hironori-san regrets that he cannot be with us since he is a big pussy and nobody is to invite Hiroki-san, because, well. Yeah.
Sign up below. Sign up, you KAT-TUN bastards.
Love and kisses,
Nishikido-sama.
Shige inspects the sign-up sheet. The magic marker in his hand is trembling, just slightly. The most worrying thing about the notice is that you can hear Ryo talk as you read it. It's almost as though he really is talking. That isn't right, Shige thinks. It really isn't right. Also distinctly in the category of 'not right' is that he appears to have already signed up for this. He doesn't remember being asked. He's sure that he hasn't been drunk in a while, not drunk enough to volunteer for this sort of madness. Silently, he puts the marker back onto its little hook and contemplates just how he's going to avoid letting his band down. Shige has always been crummy at things that involve stealth and manipulation. Including getting out of things he really doesn't want to do. At the same time, he supposes that Ryo will be open to his concerns.
“Huh?” Ryo is, on the contrary, looking at him as though he's talking backwards. Shige blinks.
“I'm not sure that I'm cut out to be an assassin,” Shige repeats in a weak voice.
“'Course you are,” Ryo says cheerfully. “I'll give you someone easy.”
“I really. I really think that Kusano would be better.”
“Kusano's spending time with his family,” Ryo's voice is somewhat disapproving, as if visiting one's family should come second to a game of masochistic mayhem with one's co-workers. “I tried to invite him but he wouldn't bite. He's all bark, that one. Barking.”
Shige ignores him. “Even Uchi would be better,” he pleads.
Ryo looks aghast. “Don't even suggest it. All he's done all morning is whine about being excluded. He just isn't cut out for assassination. Dead fish make him cry, Shige. Don't do this to me. Where's your sense of honour?”
“I don't want to let the band down!”
“Then don't,” Ryo intones. He's smiling. Shige is afraid.
“Er.”
“I'll give you Ueda,” Ryo goes on. “See, dead easy. Never say I don't love you, Shiggy.”
“You love me,”
“I love you.”
“But Ueda's kind of dark and twisted. Perhaps he's good at assassination. He could be a vampire.”
Ryo sighs. “Would you rather have Junno?”
“He's an athlete.”
“Oh, there's just no pleasing you, is there. Who do you want, then?”
Shige thinks. It takes him a fraction of a second to hit the jackpot. “Jin! There's no way I'm worse than Jin! He's like the arch nemesis of Stealth. He'd be...Noise.”
Ryo taps his fingers on the desk. His smile is triangular. “I already have someone for Jin.”
Shige stares at him. “You planned this out already? Who?”
Ryo scoffs. “Pi. Who'd you think?”
“...But Pi will lose.”
“Every war has its casualties.”
“Hang on! What about band honour? Pi's eccentric enough to win and stealthy enough to keep it secret. What giv-”
Ryo is whistling at the ceiling.
“Ryo,” Shige says. “So much for band honour!”
“What?” Ryo flutters his eyelashes. “As long as the band wins, right?”
“Pi's the only other person who has a chance at avoiding being assassinated, so he's a threat-”
“I wasn't there when you were all defeated by Jin,” Ryo sniffs. “You guys all sucked at Summary. Seriously sucked. It's my turn now.”
“Ryo. I really think that you have issues.”
“Oddly, a few people have told me that.”
“Would it not help to, I dunno, listen to them?”
“If I did, I wouldn't be the Ryo that everyone knows and loves, would I?”
“I-”
“Anyway, I'll pit you against Junno. You're right: Ueda probably has secret wiles. I'll go up against him. It'll take a brave man. Junno's got a duff leg, anyway. You'll be able to outrun him.”
Shige just looks at him. Ryo continues to smile. Like a stone lion outside a temple. Ryo smiles like he has matches in his mouth and he's afraid to close his teeth together.
“If I suck, I'm blaming you,” he says.
“If you suck,” Ryo says. “There will be consequences.” His eyebrows waggle along the word. Like crazy, crazy caterpillars. He continues to scribble away as the crazy, crazy caterpillars do their thing.
Shige takes the crazy, crazy caterpillars as his cue to leave.
Nishikido's Full List of Complete Evil
NEWS:
Yamapi's target is: Jin Akanishi
Koyama's target is: Kazuya Kamenashi
Massu's target is: Yuichi Nakamaru
Shige's target is: Junnosuke Taguchi
Tego's target is: Koki Tanaka
Ryo's target is: Tatsuya Ueda
KAT-TUN:
Jin's target is: Yamashita Tomohisa
Kame's target is: Takahisa Masuda
Nakamaru's target is: Yuya Tegoshi
Junno's target is: Ryo Nikishido
Koki's target is: Shigeaki Kato
Ueda's target is: Keiichiro Koyama
When Ryo reveals his wicked plot to him, Uchi whines, pointing out that Ryo can't organise and participate. One person knowing the identity of his assassin, he says, would ruin the game. Give Ueda to me, he says. I'm great at assassins. Also, I'll tell everyone who's got who if you don't.
Uchi certainly has persuasive wiles, Ryo thinks, scribbling out his own name on the list.
When Yamapi finds out about the game, he doesn't sleep for two nights because he's so excited. He can't stop thinking about how much fun it's going to be: honing techniques, creating scenarios in his head. He even makes a list of his ten favourite strategies and keeps it in his shoe. His suspicious behaviour makes Ryo smile because, to Ryo, this is just another indication that Pi is going to fail. Most of KAT-TUN sign up. Kame is the only one who wavers and Pi helps to convince him. He talks about bonding and learning to trust as if he's selling a mortgage and even Ryo is impressed at how quickly he wins Kame over.
Impressed, but he makes a note of it, all the same. Yamapi also has persuasive wiles. It only makes him more sure. Jin has to be his target. It's the only way to eliminate Yamapi from the game and take the full glory for himself, or Uchi, whichever. He writes out notes to each of the players and brushes up on a book he bought on Amazon. Your Guide to Vanquishing Vampires. Perhaps he can help Uchi. Nothing matters except standing in Yamapi's way.
Yamapi's ten favourite strategies!! ☆
1. Water pistol. Subtlety rating: 1/10. Awesomeness rating: 10/10.
2. Toothpick with flag attached reading 'Poison'. Placed in food. Subtlety rating: 3/10. Awesomeness rating: 25/10.
3. Poison applied to door-handle, perhaps via magic marker. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 7/10.
4. Tabasco sauce or similar in food. Subtlety rating: 100/10. Awesomeness rating: 2/10.
5. 'Battle' scenario. Challenging target to game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 1/10.
6. 'Car bomb'. Tape to play in tape deck of target's car, a recording which reads, 'I killed you muahahaha'. Subtlety rating: 600/10. Awesomeness rating: 600,000/10.
7. Package in the mail. Note which reads, 'I killed you muahahaha'. Subtlety rating: 600/10. Awesomeness rating: 1000/10.
8. Sticker to be placed on target. Subtlety rating: 9/10. Awesomeness rating: -600/10.
9. Capture elimination. All targets to wear an item of clothing which assassin must retrieve. Subtlety rating: 5/10. Awesomeness rating: 4/10.
10. Pen mark to be placed on target. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 6/10.
Short list!!:
Water pistol, poison flags, tabasco sauce, car bombing, mail package. I am so prepared.
Yamashita Tomohisa,
Your assigned target is:
Akanishi Jin.
You will have from 00:00 Friday 27th July to 00:00 Monday 31st July 2005 to complete the assassination. Location: Ueda's house.
You may eliminate him in any way that you wish and the elimination may occur in the presence of witnesses. The 'safe zones' are as follows: toilets, Gackt shrine. 'Safeties' may be employed.
Eliminated players may act as informers, bodyguards or spies. They may be employed by yourself if necessary. You must not reveal yourself to be Jin's assassin. Even if he threatens to feed your dog Smarties.
Lastly, it is imperative that NEWS win this one. You must assassinate, and not be assassinated. Therefore do your best. Or I'll kill you. ^_^
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
That's when Yamapi starts to get afraid. He had been sure he'd get somebody difficult, but not Jin. Ryo knows that he and Jin are unable to play any game involving both of them being quiet at any one time. If Ryo wants NEWS to win so much then placing Yamapi opposite his best friend is a weird way to go about it. Glancing at his short-list, he feels confident that he can pull every one of the tricks on Jin. Still. It'd be much easier if he didn't know Jin, wasn't so sure that Jin will be able to apprehend everything he's already thought of.
Yamapi thinks that Ryo is a crummy game organiser.
Akanishi Jin,
Your assigned target is:
Yamashita Tomohisa.
You will have from 00:00 Friday 27th July to 00:00 Monday 31st July 2005 to complete the assassination. Location: Ueda's house.
You may eliminate him in any way that you wish and the elimination may occur in the presence of witnesses (this means you can target him when people are watching). The 'safe zones' (zones that are safe from targeting) are as follows: toilets, Gackt shrine. 'Safeties' (items of clothing etc. that show a person cannot be targeted at that particular time) may be employed (used).
Eliminated players (players who have been killed) may act as informers, bodyguards or spies. They may be employed by yourself if necessary (you may use them). You must not reveal yourself to be Yamapi's assassin (don't tell him, stupid). Even if he threatens to feed your dog Smarties.
Remember, in order to be the individual winner, you must assassinate but not be assassinated. Lastly, I won't wish you luck. You'll need so much more than that. ^_^
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
Jin spends a while pouring over his assignment. In a way, he kind of expected it. He and Yamapi always make games like this fun because they're prepared to go one step further to succeed. Neither of them have a working sense of embarrassment and both of them enjoy making complete fools of themselves. If he's been given Yamapi then Ryo probably wants the game to be interesting.
Chances are, equally, that Yamapi has him. That's okay. He knows Yamapi pretty well, knows his tactics. Jin grins to himself. He's glad that he's got Yamapi. This is going to be fun.
Ueda wrinkles his nose as they all pour in, crumpled and hot from travelling. They arrive separately, as per Ryo's request, and only the NEWS boys stop to stare. Ueda's house is quite a revelation, Ueda being sure that most of his sempai live in boxes under bridges, and he is proud until he notices the crinkled door-mat, the bags thrown everyone, the noise. He's only hosting this insane event because nobody in KAT-TUN would forgive him if he didn't, but it doesn't stop him feeling hissy at the mess everyone is making. Only Ryo trudges straight through the hall and up the stairs towards the bedrooms. He isn't in the least bit surprised at the opulence – and he has bigger fish to fry.
Yamapi turns around in four complete circles, gawking at the light fixture above his head. His house is tiny in comparison. For a horrible, fleeting second he wonders whether Ueda is living with Johnny himself, as some sort of gothic lolita loveslave. Images, images, bad images run rampant in his brain until he makes a squawking sort of noise that startles everyone around him. Massu pats him, awkwardly. Ueda's face is impassive. Yamapi decides that it's time to go up. Ryo has made it to the KAT-TUN quarters and is blocking the members in their bedroom. As Yamapi climbs the stairs, he sees tufts of Jin's hair poking through the door, underneath Ryo's armpit. He's about to go over and greet him, when it hits him. Stealth, Pi. Stealth.
When he turns back, goes into the NEWS quarters, Ryo has stuck a sign to the wall with blue sellotape. It says, “DO NOT LET ME DOWN.” Yamapi doesn't think that it's very motivational, but Ryo moves in mysterious ways.
With characteristic ruthlessness, Kame offs Massu at dinner. He cooks dinner for them all, brings it out. Under Massu's noodles is a little red sticker. On it, the word 'poison' appears. Massu takes it in his stride, laughing with the rest of them. He looks pretty relieved.
Mentally, Yamapi crosses off one of his favourite strategies and feels cross. He noticed that Jin was watching intently. He'll be prepared for the poison tactic. Yamapi scowls playfully at Kame, who shrugs good-naturedly in response.
That night, Koki goes out for a six-pack after Jin spends the evening whining at him to do it. Tego waits until Jin goes back upstairs and hides in the coat cupboard. When Koki returns, his hands are full and he's grumbling about how Budweisers are getting heavier but also smaller. It makes it easy for Tego to strangle him.
The six-pack hits the floor, making such a noise that Jin shrieks on the floor above them.
“Yeah, you scream,” Koki scoffs, lying on the floor, holding his throat.
Tego smiles, swipes a can and walks off, whistling.
Yamapi sets his alarm for 4am, gets up and writes a letter to Jin. He is impressed with it when it's done.
Bakanishi,
I knew that you were stupid enough to fall for this.
Bang bang, you're dead.
Yamapi.
He seals it, creeps into the KAT-TUN dormitory and leaves it beside Jin's pillow. Jin, with characteristic lack of consideration for all those around him, is sleeping nakedly content. And smiling. Yamapi goes back to bed with a bit of a hard on, but a smug smile on his face. It lasts until morning, when Yamapi peeks around the dormitory door and sees the letter left, untouched.
Jin is singing in the shower. Yamapi thinks for a second, grabs the letter and moves it into the bathroom, behind the taps on the sink, resting against the mug with all the toothbrushes in it. He waits for an hour, doesn't hear anything, frowns. He's in the middle of writing a song, which he's going to call Assassinated! The Story of The Lesser-Spotted Bakanishi, and the silence is distracting.
He pads down the corridor, finds the bathroom empty. The letter is still there. Soggy with condensation. The toothbrushes have all fallen into the sink where Jin has grabbed his and knocked the mug over. Yamapi sighs, pockets the letter and makes off to find Jin.
He spends the rest of the day trying to leave the envelope where he thinks Jin will set it, only to be thwarted at every turn. He leaves it under Jin's plate, in the Playstation Jin intends to play with that night (where he simply takes it out of the drive and throws it aside, as if random things turn up in his Playstation all the time), wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle he's drinking from, on the cushion he's sitting on. Jin's life is evidently so randomly assorted that Jin barely notices the persistent piece of paper following him around, and Yamapi is so frustrated that he considers gluing it to Jin's forehead.
Instead, he waits until Jin comes to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway, nonchalantly, pretending to hide the piece of paper in his pocket. Naturally, Jin notices that, looks directly at it, curious. Yamapi shrugs, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. Jin pleads. Jin wrings his hands together. Yamapi studies him, a little smug. Then, he retrieves the envelope, peels it out of his pocket, and shoves it into the waistband of Jin's jeans. Ryo comes down to get some mochi, then, giving them both weird looks as he squeezes past. It forces their hips together. Jin looks down at the paper, then up at Yamapi. The moment's pause has given him time to reconsider.
He pulls out the envelope, and puts it back where it belongs. His fingertips brush Yamapi's hipbone. “I don't think I want it anymore,” he says. He's grinning. “Ryo, pass me a beer.”
Yamapi narrows his eyes at Ryo, suspicious of his timing. Then, he smacks Jin on the thigh and walks off. Maybe he can make Koki his accomplice.
Koki looks at him, a bit puzzled. “You should have just glued it to his forehead.”
“Yes, I know that now,” Yamapi says, waving his hands in the air. “But he would have just ignored it completely! He's totally stupid!”
“In an intelligent sort of way.”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
Yamapi considers this. “No. Akanishi rarely does make any sense.”
Koki shrugs. “Why not just put tabasco sauce in his food?”
Yamapi thinks. “It's not very interesting.”
“Whereas shoving it down his pants is an awesome victory?”
“Yeah, but. No. Aaaaaaaaaah.”
“You gotta think like Jin,” Koki says, confidently. “Think: if I were Jin, what would I pay attention to?”
Yamapi considers that. He might well have a point.
Yamapi's iPod goes missing. It isn't a problem at first, he just steals Ryo's. Ryo's has all sorts of crap music on it, though, so that doesn't last long. Maybe he feels some sort of weird loyalty to former bandmates, but ONE OK ROCK stink. When he rifles through the dormitories in turn, the only other person with an iPod is Jin. Normally, he'd stay well clear of anything of Jin's, just lying around like that, but he really wants to listen to music and set some lyrics down and besides, their music taste is almost identical.
He takes it back to his room and for the first few tracks of their favourite album, one by Koda Kumi, everything is peaceful. Everyone is outside enjoying the sunshine and Yamapi works on The Lesser-Spotted Assassinated One (Bakanishi, yo) with the iPod on quietly in the background. It's only when the music suddenly cuts out and Jin's voice says, clearly,
“Hello, P-”
that Yamapi throws the thing on the floor, yanking the headphones from his ears with a yelp. That Akanishi Jin, he's cleverer than he looks.
He steals Ueda's, instead. Ueda doesn't have an iPod, it's some sort of odd contraption that's impossible to use and far too loud, but it has some passable tracks on it so it'll do. He listens to Gackt's Vanilla, sending idle glances at the apple green iPod, sitting in Tego's shoe. It has an engraving on the back that reads, 'This is my iPod!!! AKANISHI JIN' which is so, so painfully Jin it makes him smile.
Ryo's iPod is black and its engraving reads, 'Der der, der der. Der der.'
That makes no sense whatsoever.
“It's the Jaws theme, idiot.” Ryo says, later.
“That's stupid.” Yamapi scoffs.
Yamapi's iPod is blue. It turns up later that evening. Yamapi checks it over for new tracks but can't find anything. He breathes easy, for one evening.
NEWS:
Yamapi's target is: Jin Akanishi
Koyama's target is: Kazuya Kamenashi
Massu's target is: Yuichi Nakamaru (Tabasco sauce in yoghurt.)
Shige's target is: Junnosuke Taguchi (Out-ran him, stuck a sticker onto his back.)
Tego's target is: Koki Tanaka (Strangled, hall.)
Uchi's target is: Tatsuya Ueda
KAT-TUN:
Jin's target is: Yamashita Tomohisa
Kame's target is: Takahisa Masuda (Poison.)
Nakamaru's target is: Yuya Tegoshi (Won rock, paper, scissors. Pussy.)
Ueda's target is: Uchi Hinori
Koki's target is: Shigeaki Kato (Poison. God, Shige must be stupid.)
Junno's target is: Keiichiro Koyama (Banana gun. HAHAHAHA.)
Potential winners, 1 day remaining:
Kame (alive/has killed his target)
Ueda (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Yamapi (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Jin (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Ryo studies the sheet with steepled hands. It won't do, at all. He supposes that KAT-TUN have the advantage of knowing Ueda's house. Then again, the more NEWS members that are killed, the more NEWS accomplices are available. Either way, Yamapi isn't out of the equation and Ryo is all the more determined to wipe him out.
He calls Tego to the cloakroom. It's the only place where they can talk without fear of being interrupted. Tego happily saunters in, doesn't seem to mind being cramped up in a small space with Ryo, flutters his little innocent eyes until Ryo wonders whether he can trust him, at all. Then again, Tego strangled Koki. A crime of passion, or total psychopathy.
“I want you to be Jin's accomplice,” he says, getting straight to the point. Tego studies him. A little more. Ryo sees, at last, that Tego is far scarier than he is. His height makes him look twee. His stare makes him look terrifying.
“Why?”
“Well, because,” he falters, a bit. He doesn't trust Tego with the truth. For all that he wants to be a lawyer, Shige doesn't have a clue what to do with the truth. Tego would tear it to pieces and then sell it, broken up, to the highest bidders. “I want to make the game interesting.”
“They're pretty equal, right?”
“Equally stupid, you mean.”
“Yeah. So...how does giving one an advantage make the game more interesting?”
Damn. “Jin won't trust you, you're from the opposite side. Making him trust you, that'll be interesting, right?”
“Time-consuming, more like.”
“Alright, alright. Out with it. What's it going to cost me, then?”
Tego smacks his lips with thought. “Pizza. I want a pizza tonight. A big one. With lots of cheese.”
That seems simple enough. “Okay. No worries. You're an easy one to bribe.”
Tego shrugs. “I'd have done it for free. I'm kind of bored.”
“But-”
“No taking it back. You promised. Or I'll tell Pi what you're up to.”
“Tego!”
“What?”
“You're...like. Mini Me. You know, from the Austin Powers films? You're evil.”
Tego smiles. “'Least I'm gonna be taller than you someday.”
“I-”
“So what do you want me to do? Help Jin out? Figure out when Pi will least expect the unexpected?”
“Something like that. You'll figure it out.”
“And keep-”
“It quiet. Or I'll eat the damn pizza myself.”
Yamapi showers at 2 in the morning. He can't sleep for thinking about the game: about Jin, about how this is all so much more difficult than it looks, and how he has only two days to complete the impossible. At this point, he'd resort to a car bombing but Jin doesn't have his car here and besides, they've no reason for leaving the house. Yamapi's convinced that he'll have to just draw on his head, but that feels so terribly unsatisfying.
Everything is quiet in the house. Everyone in his dormitory is snoring. Ryo snoring is one of the more frightening images he's ever seen. As if the sound comes out triangular, all warped and strange. He smiles in his sleep. He looks in on the KAT-TUN dormitory as he passes. Jin is buried under a blanket. His hair is sticking out. It makes Yamapi smile to see it.
It's not good to think about Jin in the shower, though. That way danger lies. Even though there's nobody about, nobody who could possibly hear him, not through the walls and the sleeping and the long corridors of silence. He closes his eyes and remembers Jin's fingertips on his hipbone. An aloof and accidental touch made meaningful by eye contact, a jerk of a gaze, a flicker of something else in the pupils. He thinks about Jin's hip, pushing against his as Ryo shuffled past. The feel of warm skin, of an edge, a serration of contact. Not curvaceous, like a woman. An angle. Resistance. Heat.
He slides his hand down his stomach, wet and soapy, breath a little fast, a little hoarse. He wraps it around himself, hardening, everything slick and warm and comfortable. He continues thinking about Jin. About the way he moves. About his eyes, dark and mischievous. About his lips, big, wet, soft. About the way he pokes his tongue-tip into his cheek when he's bored. About the way he bites his lip when he's excited. About the way he buries down, nose-deep, mouth-full, lips-tight. Eyes-black. About the way he sucks, like it's the task he's been set on Earth to do, but with that edge of clumsiness because he's Jin and Jin is never perfect, ever, just enthusiastic and a little bit out of control.
He makes one sound when he comes, fast, a little sharp and bitter. Unexpectedly quick. When he opens his eyes, there's a hand moving around the door. He didn't lock it. It's 2 in the morning. Who'd be. In his fuzzy state, he manages to yank the curtain around him. Then, he feels like a woman, so he grabs the shower head and aims it at the door.
“Oi!” Tego squeaks. Yamapi relaxes. Not Jin. “I was trying to get my toothbrush!”
“Why do you need your toothbrush at 2 in the morning?!” Yamapi splutters.
“I've been eating pizza with Ryo.”
“Oh,” Yamapi says. “Well, come and get it and scram.”
Tego does so, but not without a quick wiggle of his eyebrows. Yamapi sulkily refuses to drop the curtain, not until he leaves. Then, he rests his head against the cool of the tile, and tries to force the images out of his head.
“He's always on edge,” Tego says. He and Jin lie under the covers, hiding. Jin is considering.
“He's always on edge.”
“Yes. Always prepared.”
“I don't get why you want to help me.” Jin says. Clearly, there are more pressing issues.
“Call it revenge. Pi and I, well. We have a vendetta going.”
“He never mentioned it.”
Tego fixes him with a look. “Why would he. You'd be the last person anyone would share a secret with!”
Jin pushes him out of bed, laughing. “I don't want your help anyway.”
Tego frowns. “Suit yourself. You know where to find me.”
Jin is determined to do it by himself.
The following morning, Koyama gets Kame with a water pistol.
Yamapi offers him 2,000Yen for it, but he isn't buying.
In the afternoon, he spots Tego walking around with it.
He sets his mouth in a line.
That evening, the groups get together in their dormitories to discuss their progress. There's only one day left, some short twenty-four hours, and Ryo is keen to get everyone focused. The only ones in NEWS not to have assassinated their targets are Uchi, Massu and Yamapi. Ryo looks at each of them, slowly, in turn.
“Uchi, it's Ueda. What are you doing, you fool?”
Uchi shrugs, sullenly. “He's never here. Maybe the house has secret corridors or something.”
Ryo scribbles this down. “You'll have to throw a bucket of water on him when he's asleep.”
Uchi doesn't seem all that impressed. “This game is stup-”
“Massu.”
“Working on it.”
“Fine.”
“Hey-” Uchi begins. Ryo just holds up his hand.
“You've had your turn, you big wimp. Yamapi-”
Yamapi crosses his arms, and refuses to speak. In the background, Uchi continues talking, ignoring the fact that nobody is listening to him. Ryo just grins at Yamapi. Yamapi thinks that he's working this all out at last. Why Ryo gave him Jin, why he seems so pleased when his attempts are thwarted. Why he isn't available, ever, for support.
Doesn't explain why Tego has the water pistol, though.
“Jin can't be that difficult.”
“You'd be surprised,” Yamapi scoffs. “All of his brain cells are geared towards saving him from
extinction, which could happen at any moment, so of course he's going to be good at this.”
“This isn't real, Pi. You do get that?”
“Yesss,” Yamapi hisses. “It's just a principle. I'd like to see you off him.”
Ryo considers this. “I think I'd have done it by now.”
“Hah! Yeah, right. I'll do it. I've got a day. It'll be fine.”
He wishes he were as confident as his mouth is.
“You gave Tego the water pistol,” Yamapi says, afterwards.
Koyama looks up from his magazine, nonplussed. “He offered me 2,500Yen for it.”
“He doesn't have any money with him. Tego never has any money.”
Koyama shrugs, as if the insane ramblings of an old fool are keeping him from his path to enlightenment. Yamapi would feel bad, but he's looking at a porno. “Ryo gave him some,” he says. “He did that freaky big-eyes thing.”
Yamapi doesn't think that makes sense. He narrows his eyes and goes away to stew on it.
As they're going to bed, he asks Ryo about it. Ryo denies it, but then, he would. It's Uchi who eventually spills. He was sworn to secrecy, but that was before Ryo decided to ream him over his inability to kill 'that vampire', so in his eyes any promises made no longer count.
Yamapi doesn't get why Ryo's recruited Tego onto Jin's side, nor why Jin doesn't seem to have made any use of the water pistol. All he can think is that someone doesn't want Yamashita Tomohisa to win the game.
Which is unlucky, he says to himself as he falls asleep. Because Yamashita Tomohisa doesn't like it when he doesn't win the game. Alarm set for two hours earlier that he'd normally get up, Yamapi is going to hatch a plan.
He eats breakfast with a satisfied smile, grabbing hold of Uchi as he goes. “Get the keys to Ryo's car,” he says, under his breath. “Tell Jin you want to go get supplies. Sweets. Anything. Put this CD in the player, and I'll do the rest.”
Uchi frowns, nodding, but a little displeased. “What do I get in return?”
Yamapi smiles. “I'll find out where Ueda sleeps.”
Uchi's sullen face brightens considerably.
When Uchi mentions the word 'cake' to Jin, it's not a decision he has to pore over for long. He nods, enthusiastically, wondering whether he can put poison in the cake and get Yamapi that way. Yamapi seems to have given up, which makes Jin wonder whether it wouldn't just be better for both of them to wave white flags. Mutual surrender. Jin likes that idea. He isn't really cut out for assassins, anyway. Cake is something he's cut out for.
Uchi tosses the keys to Jin and says he'll be out in a second, he's just clearing it with Ryo. Jin doesn't think he could get any luckier. Ryo's car is sleek, and gorgeous, much nicer than Yamapi's, but Ryo won't ever let him drive it. He sits in the driver's seat, making Uchi look disgruntled, and grins at him. Uchi's just going to have to deal. Running his hands over the steering wheel, Jin bounces in the seat, laughs to himself with malicious glee, and then inserts the key.
The CD comes on, it's loud, but Jin's too busy pressing buttons to notice Yamapi's voice, not until it's too late. The windscreen wipers won't stop wiping, and he's in the middle of reaching around to hold them down when he hears the voice, loud and clear, damn, damn, damn!
'Bakanishi,' the voice says. 'Put down what you're playing with. This is serious. Bang bang, you're dead. Properly dead. That means no touching the steering wheel. HAHAHAHAHAHA. YAMAPI IS THE KING OF THE WORLD. Um, bye.'
Jin stares at the deck. That was the worst assassination speech ever. Not to be a sore loser, though, he slumps down in the seat. Jin doesn't mind losing, if he's fairly beaten. Bad speech aside, he admires Yamapi's plan. It's more than he's been able to think of.
Yamapi creeps over to the car, window down, windscreen wipers going as if washing a typhoon off the glass. A smile is on his face. He leans down, through the window, and moves his mouth close to Jin's ear. Jin hasn't heard him.
“Bang bang,” he says. Jin bristled, a bit ticklish, a bit aroused. He cracks open an eye.
“That was the worst assassination speech ever,” he says.
“I know,” Yamapi concedes. “I didn't have much time this morning. I didn't really know what to say. I mean. It's an assassination speech. What do you say?”
Jin is amused, eyes open, now. “Well. You got me.”
Yamapi grins. “I got you.”
“Are we still getting cake?”
Yamapi doesn't need too long to pore over that decision. “Are you kidding? I'm going to have five. It's a celebration now.”
Tego pulls Uchi aside, indoors, his face all screwed up because Yamapi's doing something weird to Jin's ears.
“Ueda sleeps in the guest room,” he says.
“What guest room?”
“This guest room.” Tego has a map and everything. Uchi blinks down at it.
“I thought you were helping Jin,” Uchi says, pocketing the map, grateful.
Tego shrugs. “Pi offered to buy me a really big cream cake. What can I say, I'm young, easily led. Impressionable. Fickle. Must be the hormones. Can't help it.”
“How do you know where Ueda's guest-”
“Aha,” Tego grins, swanning off. “As if I would tell.”
It's a struggle to get Jin, Yamapi and the bags into Ryo's car. Yamapi has bought enough cake for a week, because the store they visit all the time is always coming up with new recipes and combinations, and they're both suckers for things they haven't tried yet.
“We could eat some of them,” Jin suggests. “To make room.”
They sit in the car, in the car park, happily munching away. It's nice to be away from things for a while, Yamapi thinks. Not that he doesn't love the band. Not that he regrets all the dreams, the childhood fantasies that led him here. It's just that being with Jin reminds him of being young and carefree, a happy time in his life. It makes him feel good to spend time with him.
That and, well, the newest developments, they make him happy too. He watches Jin eat one of the buns, long and gooey with cream in the centre. It's almost too obvious to be happening, but Yamapi knows from the look on Jin's face that it isn't deliberate, isn't a show. Jin only has eyes for his cake right now. Only, he eats the cake in the sort of way he gave Yamapi a blow job, three weeks ago, and that alone makes Yamapi stop eating.
He isn't sure, exactly, what they're doing. It started out as something they just fell into. It's not dating, or anything. Just a sort of mutual getting-off. Only Yamapi likes Jin, really likes him, doesn't want to ruin the friendship with him. Doesn't want to push things too far, either, in case Jin isn't taking this as seriously as-
Jin holds out his hand. It has cream on it, the best cream, sprinkled with strawberry sauce and chocolate flakes. Yamapi forgets what he was thinking, he can smell the sugar and the strawberries and Jin is smiling at him, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed and content. That's all he needs to feel happy, really. So he takes Jin's hand and licks the cream from his fingertips, tasty and pleasing because it's the best and Jin wouldn't offer it to anyone else.
Things are as simple as they were when they were kids. Food is friendship is love. Smiles are friendship are love. Cream on fingertips is friendship is love. The problem is that cream on fingertips is also arousing. Arousing friendship is sex, not love. Yamapi thinks that he wants both, but he doesn't have enough cakes, even in the car they're sitting in, to bribe Jin with to get it.
Only Jin's looking at him, as he's licking cream off his fingers, with an expression on his face. Curious. Kind of smitten. Yamapi thinks, hopes, that Jin might want something more than fumbling hands and bitten lips and furtive, quick blowjobs.
“Your house is closer,” Yamapi says, through cream.
“If we take all this back to Ueda's, they'll steal it,” Jin agrees. But then he catches the look on Yamapi's face and realises that he's not talking about the cakes.
Yamapi is nervous when they walk through the door. To calm himself, he and Jin eat cake in bed, decadent because Jin doesn't mind the crumbs. It's one of the things he likes about Jin. They eat until they're stuffed and then Yamapi wryly asks, his hand moving underneath the duvet to stroke Jin's leg, “How hard was it to keep away from me this weekend?”
Jin grins, sucking cinnamon off one finger. “Nightmare. I kept sleeping naked, thinking you might crumble. Mm, crumble. We should have got apple crumble, Pi.”
“I don't think I could eat crumble right now,”
“Me neither. I meant after the...afterwards.”
Yamapi ignores the blip, doesn't think about what he wants it to mean. He swats him with the hand that isn't groping him, but continues groping him with the hand that is. They lie in peaceful silence, just enjoying it. The quiet that never comes, not nowadays.
“You were really hard to kill,” Yamapi notes. His hand is moving higher. Jin shifts down the bed, nudging into it.
“I never killed you,” Jin says, mournfully. “I really tried.”
“You can kill me now, if it makes you feel better.”
Jin scowls. “That's a rubbish way to do it. I'd only be killing you because you let me.”
Yamapi considers this. “You could overpower me, and then kill me.”
They sit quietly, Jin's eyes lidding. Yamapi can feel his thigh muscles tensing. Jin's breathing is slightly hard. His eyes, slits, are dark and his expression inscrutable. He isn't saying anything, but that's no surprise. Yamapi knows that Jin can't work his dick and his mouth at the same time: he found that out the hard way, they thought it was a good idea to suck each other off at once. It wasn't.
Then, suddenly, Jin's hand clamps over Yamapi's. His eyes are totally closed. Yamapi hasn't seen Jin quite this forceful. He finds himself at a loss for words as Jin works Yamapi's hand into his own boxers, his breath all ragged. Yamapi lets him go at it, doesn't attempt to take over – oddly, he finds the idea of Jin being in control here kind of hot. This isn't something he's done before. He curls his fingers, idly, but lets Jin's hand curl around his, place his fingers where Jin wants them. Jin slides down on the sheets and moans, beginning to smile. He likes it hard, even at first, it always surprises Yamapi. A lot surprises Yamapi, about Jin. They never seem to have the time to take it slow. To learn anything about each other.
Groaning in his throat, Yamapi can't take it any more. He tries to pull back, to kiss, to grapple, to move across Jin and rub against his leg. Anything. Jin growls, loud, and holds on tight. As greedy with hands as with cakes, Jin wants Yamapi's hand where it is and he's not about to relinquish it. Yamapi snorts through his nostrils, finding this almost hotter than what Jin's doing with his hand, and tries again to yank away. This time, Jin opens his eyes, and they are black. Black, furious and needy. Jin is a bit like the Lamborghini of the sex world: 0-desperate in 3.6 seconds. Yamapi moans, then, and covers Jin's mouth with a kiss. He lets his hand go limp, where Jin tugs it down harder, faster, and so the kiss goes ragged and Jin lets some of it escape, lips slack and wet. His throat rings with sound. Yamapi moves, then, unable to help himself. He climbs into Jin's lap, sending empty cake wrappers flying, and Jin sits up, wraps his arms around his back, pulls him tighter in. The kisses are hard, rough, unthinking. Jin lies Yamapi down on his back and then half-falls on top of him.
“This is you killing me, huh,” Yamapi says, grinning lopsidedly.
Jin nods, seriously. “Killing you with sex,” he says, voice sharp, tripping over the word as though it's easy. Then he realises. Yamapi looks at him. Jin looks back. Neither of them can acknowledge the elephant in the room. Maybe Jin just wants another blowjob, Yamapi thinks. Maybe Pi just wants some frottage, Jin muses. But he's said 'sex', and that's more and more what he wants, only he's not sure if Yamapi wants that, too, or whether he's just enjoying all of the other stuff without thinking about-
“Sex sex?” Yamapi says.
“Sex sex sex?” Jin echoes, as if it's a tongue-twister or a rhyming game. Yamapi pummels his thigh.
“Do you feel like having sex,” Yamapi says. He's quieter, biting his lip. “Or, er, we could-”
Jin's eyes are dark, huge. “Yes,” he says. “Sex cubed. Yes cubed.”
Yamapi is stunned. “Where did you learn that? Last time you were all, x times y equals-”
Jin just gives him a look. “You seriously want to talk about maths right now?”
Yamapi just tugs his shirt off, it's the only response he can come up with. He lets Jin take care of his boxers: he does it so nicely, almost a swipe. Like he just wants him naked, like he wants nothing else more in the world. Yamapi likes that. He waits until Jin is naked, trailing his foot down Jin's chest until Jin smacks it away, he's too ticklish for that, then thinks better of it, grabs his heel and tickles his foot for all its worth. It makes Yamapi scream, nearly kicking him in the chin, before Jin lets go and smacks him on the thigh, I told you not to tickle me. Yamapi only responds by lifting his ass, provocative, amused. Jin regards that, a little wry, rummaging about for the lube he's got somewhere in his bedside drawer. It feels right, that it should be Jin. Jin's braver than Yamapi, who can't bear not to know what he's doing. With Jin, he wants it to be kind of perfect.
As Jin is prepping him, a little unsteady, a little unsure, Yamapi reaches over the bed and swipes some cream off one of the leftover buns, sucking it into his mouth on one finger. Jin growls at that, presses inwards by accident, makes him start and forget about everything but that pulse of pleasure. Jin doesn't like distracted attention, but he does like accidentally getting things right. Yamapi offers him the rest, reaching out his hand. Jin sucks it, leaning over so that Yamapi can feel he's hard and ready for it, then goes back to prepping. Yamapi plays coquette, likes to distract, and Jin punishes him by taking ages, until Yamapi's pushing his hips down greedily and keening in his throat. Still Jin continues, because he just has the edge on Yamapi for patience, just. Continues until Yamapi snarls in his throat, and then Jin knows that's as far as he can push it. Leans down until his toes curl in the duvet and his nose is buried in Yamapi's hair, nibbles on his earlobe, licking the joint of jaw. He gently presses inside until Yamapi digs his nails into Jin's shoulders and hisses, “Okay, okay, just. Just, a second.”
What he means, really, is, 'stay like that for two hours and don't move until that's up because fuckdamnit, nothing has ever hurt this much in my entire life, not even wearing blue PVC, and if you weren't my best friend in the whole world I'd punch you in the face for doing this to me.'
But what he says, voice all fractured, is, “Just give me a moment.”
For Jin, stopping is torture, but it allows him a moment to count to ten, a blissful ten he really, really needs, because it's tight, impossibly so, and he can't think of anything but thrusting. He bites Yamapi's shoulder, too hard, and Yamapi swats him. “You're like an animal,” he says, choked. “Think about something that doesn't turn you on. Does anything not turn you on?”
Jin considers that. “Sprouts,” he stutters. “Sprouts don't turn me on.”
“Think about sprouts, then,” Yamapi says, slowly flexing his hips, gasping. Jin grunts. “Sprouty, sprouty. All green and round. And nasty-tasting.”
“I want to fuck you,” Jin says. “You feel so good.”
“That isn't very sprouty,” Yamapi says, but he's pleased, all the same. His grip relaxes and Jin's eyes meet his. They're both apprehensive, a little unsure, horny and curious all at once. Yamapi nods, once, full of trust. Jin moves forward, cries out, the sensation almost too much to bear. He considers leaving Johnny's Entertainment and just having sex with Yamapi all day.
Slowly, they find a rhythm that stops them bumping foreheads and chins, casualties of the pair of them being clumsy horny. A rhythm that makes Yamapi's breath all soft and almost high-pitched, his eyes closed, his face a little crumpled. Jin watches that, loves to watch that. Particularly loves to watch that and to shatter it with his own impatience. He begins to thrust harder, watching that expression change from contented to surprised to urgent. It doesn't take long for Yamapi to catch him up: from a smile to turn to a snarl, his eyes to darken to Jin's shade, his fingertips to become nails in Jin's shoulders, scratching with need. Jin's hand has moved from the pillow to grasp his cock, between their stomaches. That's the final straw, as far as Yamapi is concerned. Then, and only then, does he concede in a growl: “Harder.”
“Sure?” Jin teases, his own voice starting to puncture. “You looked pretty happy with what I was doing, I can slow down and-”
Yamapi grabs the back of his head, hair tangled up in his fingers. Jin's breath rumbles. “Jin,” he says, hard, firm, indecent. “Harder.”
Jin's not in much of a mood to argue with that, so he begins to fuck him, really fuck him, so that both of them are crying out together, so that he has to lean down and take Yamapi's collarbone in his teeth again. So that Yamapi is pushing up against him, against his cock and against his hand. So that the sheets are loosening their hold on the mattress beneath them. So that sweat pours down Jin's back and onto his thighs. So that sweat drips from his hair onto Yamapi's cheek, where he doesn't notice it, his own hair plastered to his forehead. His eyes are closed when Jin looks at him, they open only when he perceives Jin's gaze. They hold each other in a look as Jin starts to veer out of control, a look that's firm, doesn't blink. Four black eyes, desperate and solid and true. Jin leans down and kisses him, almost a smash, almost crushing with his mouth. Yamapi answers, wrapping his hands around Jin's shoulders and holding him there as Jin lowers his mouth, kisses ear, jawline, sucks chin into a point. Yamapi grabs his hair, tilts his head back, whispers, more, more, more.
Jin is only really loud when he wants to come, Yamapi knows, so he starts to push back hard when he hears Jin cry out. He's crying out Yamapi's name, which is doubly dangerous. Yamapi holds his face still, keeps their gaze intact, scratches his shoulder with the other hand. His own voice is shrill, almost, with need. Jin has altered the angle, somewhere, found the one Yamapi seems to like the best. He hadn't noticed the change, only the way his entire body is buzzing. Only the way every nerve is pointed, alert, tingling. Only the way he can think of nothing, nothing in the entire living universe but Jin, but his need to come, but his need to never, ever be anywhere else but here. He's first, in the end: can't believe that Jin held off, but can't think of anything but how good it feels, as his head goes back his chin clips Jin's and he's saying sorry as he's yelling Jin's name. It comes out as nonsense but Jin can't reciprocate, anyway, just tightens his hold on him until Yamapi grunts back, then that's all Jin's got and he yells out, too. Their faces are together, hard, sharing sweaty, stuttered, hot breath. All Yamapi can see is Jin. All Yamapi can smell is Jin. All Yamapi can hear is Jin.
That's all he wants, really, he's realising. “Jin,” he sighs, lowering his head to the pillow beneath him. Jin is collapsing on top of him, as if all his bones are dropping out of his arms, one by one. He lies awkwardly on top of him, his face in his shoulder. Still struggling for breath, his ribs fight Yamapi's for air. He hasn't realised that Yamapi is trying to get his attention.
“Jin,” Yamapi pokes him in the hip. Jin makes a sound a little like a car engine, only less elegant.
“Jin,” Yamapi says again.
“Wha,” Jin says, again, a bit clearer. He pokes Yamapi back, for good measure.
“I think you definitely killed me,” Yamapi says.
Jin looks at him, eyes huge and sleepy. “No,” he says, reasonably. “You killed me again. You're a big bastard and I don't like you anymore.”
“Okay,” Yamapi says, cheerfully.
Jin smiles. “Okay,” he says back.
It's 23:59, Sunday evening. Everyone is in bed. Ryo is awake, under the covers, looking at his notes. He has it on Uchi's authority that Jin killed Yamapi earlier in the afternoon and that Jin then killed him back en route to the city. It makes up for them both stealing his car. Gleeful, Ryo amends his list of potential winners, crosses off Jin and Yamapi. It only leaves Ueda, who Uchi is sure to be able to kill. Uchi being the winner, well, it might not be Ryo himself, but at least it isn't Yamapi.
A scuffle in the doorway makes him sit up. Ueda is standing there in black silk pyjamas, looking both rudely awakened and disgruntled. Uchi is standing with him, pulling a rather impressive deathly expression. Ryo stares at them both. Ueda has his hand in the scruff of Uchi's neck. Uchi looks like he's been...killed.
Upon closer inspection, Uchi has a small wooden stake in the neckline of his vest.
“I think,” Ueda says, impassively. “That this is yours.”
NEWS:
Yamapi's target is: Jin Akanishi (Car-bomb.)
Koyama's target is: Kazuya Kamenashi (Water pistol.)
Massu's target is: Yuichi Nakamaru (Tabasco sauce in yoghurt.)
Shige's target is: Junnosuke Taguchi (Out-ran him, stuck a sticker onto his back.)
Tego's target is: Koki Tanaka (Strangled, hall.)
Uchi's target is: Tatsuya Ueda (Unsuccessful.)
KAT-TUN:
Jin's target is: Yamashita Tomohisa (SEXED TO DEATH – Pi.)
Kame's target is: Takahisa Masuda (Poison.)
Nakamaru's target is: Yuya Tegoshi (Won rock, paper, scissors. Pussy.)
Ueda's target is: Uchi Hinori (Stake in the heart.)
Koki's target is: Shigeaki Kato (Poison. God, Shige must be stupid.)
Junno's target is: Koyama Keiichiro (Banana gun. HAHAHAHA.)
Final standing:
Individual winner: Ueda (alive/has killed his target)
From: Nishikido Ryo
To: Akanishi Jin, Kamenashi Kazuya, Taguchi Junnosuke, Tanaka Koki, Nakamaru Yuichi, Ueda Tatsuya.
CC: Yamashita Tomohisa, Keiichiro Koyama, Takahisa Masuda, Shigeaki Kato, Yuya Tegoshi, Hironori Kusano, Hinori Uchi.
KAT-TUN.
Alright, you won.
But NEWS will get you back next time, you bastards.
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
From: Ueda Tatsuya
To: Nishikido Ryo
Who are you?
Ueda Tatsuya.
Fandom: JE
Pairing: Yamapi/Jin
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Written for
imwahyou for jexchange. Um, I should say that this fic was prompted by this Summary backstage clip. What happens in it is that Tego starts to wind Jin up, and a playfight ensues in the NEWS dressing room. Jin playfights everyone in order to defeat Tego, who oh god looks so terribly, terribly young, doesn't he. :| HUGE thanks for peacock for beta-ing and coming up with the brilliant last line. ;DNEWS versus KAT-TUN
Summary, the rematch
Pussies need not attend.
JE, Ryo Nishikido needs needs YOU.
Having lost (disappointed, guys, disappointed) to KAT-TUN's Fat Jin at the Summary concert, NEWS proposes a rematch. No more will you squash our Tego, Fat Jin. No more will you beat up our Pi, Fat Jin. For at the following game, NEWS will crush you (muahahaha).
NEWS proposes a game of Assassins. Duration: one weekend. Location to be decided.
For all of you too lazy to wiki Assassins, the object of the game is to stealthily eliminate other players. The winning group will have the most successful assassinations. Each person is assigned a target as well as being a target himself. The individual winner(s) overall will be those who assassinate without being assassinated himself. This means that you should be very afraid.
Those participating are: Yamashita-san, Keiichiro-san, Takahisa-san, Shigeaki-san, Yuya-san and Nikishido-sama. Hironori-san regrets that he cannot be with us since he is a big pussy and nobody is to invite Hiroki-san, because, well. Yeah.
Sign up below. Sign up, you KAT-TUN bastards.
Love and kisses,
Nishikido-sama.
Shige inspects the sign-up sheet. The magic marker in his hand is trembling, just slightly. The most worrying thing about the notice is that you can hear Ryo talk as you read it. It's almost as though he really is talking. That isn't right, Shige thinks. It really isn't right. Also distinctly in the category of 'not right' is that he appears to have already signed up for this. He doesn't remember being asked. He's sure that he hasn't been drunk in a while, not drunk enough to volunteer for this sort of madness. Silently, he puts the marker back onto its little hook and contemplates just how he's going to avoid letting his band down. Shige has always been crummy at things that involve stealth and manipulation. Including getting out of things he really doesn't want to do. At the same time, he supposes that Ryo will be open to his concerns.
“Huh?” Ryo is, on the contrary, looking at him as though he's talking backwards. Shige blinks.
“I'm not sure that I'm cut out to be an assassin,” Shige repeats in a weak voice.
“'Course you are,” Ryo says cheerfully. “I'll give you someone easy.”
“I really. I really think that Kusano would be better.”
“Kusano's spending time with his family,” Ryo's voice is somewhat disapproving, as if visiting one's family should come second to a game of masochistic mayhem with one's co-workers. “I tried to invite him but he wouldn't bite. He's all bark, that one. Barking.”
Shige ignores him. “Even Uchi would be better,” he pleads.
Ryo looks aghast. “Don't even suggest it. All he's done all morning is whine about being excluded. He just isn't cut out for assassination. Dead fish make him cry, Shige. Don't do this to me. Where's your sense of honour?”
“I don't want to let the band down!”
“Then don't,” Ryo intones. He's smiling. Shige is afraid.
“Er.”
“I'll give you Ueda,” Ryo goes on. “See, dead easy. Never say I don't love you, Shiggy.”
“You love me,”
“I love you.”
“But Ueda's kind of dark and twisted. Perhaps he's good at assassination. He could be a vampire.”
Ryo sighs. “Would you rather have Junno?”
“He's an athlete.”
“Oh, there's just no pleasing you, is there. Who do you want, then?”
Shige thinks. It takes him a fraction of a second to hit the jackpot. “Jin! There's no way I'm worse than Jin! He's like the arch nemesis of Stealth. He'd be...Noise.”
Ryo taps his fingers on the desk. His smile is triangular. “I already have someone for Jin.”
Shige stares at him. “You planned this out already? Who?”
Ryo scoffs. “Pi. Who'd you think?”
“...But Pi will lose.”
“Every war has its casualties.”
“Hang on! What about band honour? Pi's eccentric enough to win and stealthy enough to keep it secret. What giv-”
Ryo is whistling at the ceiling.
“Ryo,” Shige says. “So much for band honour!”
“What?” Ryo flutters his eyelashes. “As long as the band wins, right?”
“Pi's the only other person who has a chance at avoiding being assassinated, so he's a threat-”
“I wasn't there when you were all defeated by Jin,” Ryo sniffs. “You guys all sucked at Summary. Seriously sucked. It's my turn now.”
“Ryo. I really think that you have issues.”
“Oddly, a few people have told me that.”
“Would it not help to, I dunno, listen to them?”
“If I did, I wouldn't be the Ryo that everyone knows and loves, would I?”
“I-”
“Anyway, I'll pit you against Junno. You're right: Ueda probably has secret wiles. I'll go up against him. It'll take a brave man. Junno's got a duff leg, anyway. You'll be able to outrun him.”
Shige just looks at him. Ryo continues to smile. Like a stone lion outside a temple. Ryo smiles like he has matches in his mouth and he's afraid to close his teeth together.
“If I suck, I'm blaming you,” he says.
“If you suck,” Ryo says. “There will be consequences.” His eyebrows waggle along the word. Like crazy, crazy caterpillars. He continues to scribble away as the crazy, crazy caterpillars do their thing.
Shige takes the crazy, crazy caterpillars as his cue to leave.
Nishikido's Full List of Complete Evil
NEWS:
Yamapi's target is: Jin Akanishi
Koyama's target is: Kazuya Kamenashi
Massu's target is: Yuichi Nakamaru
Shige's target is: Junnosuke Taguchi
Tego's target is: Koki Tanaka
Ryo's target is: Tatsuya Ueda
KAT-TUN:
Jin's target is: Yamashita Tomohisa
Kame's target is: Takahisa Masuda
Nakamaru's target is: Yuya Tegoshi
Junno's target is: Ryo Nikishido
Koki's target is: Shigeaki Kato
Ueda's target is: Keiichiro Koyama
When Ryo reveals his wicked plot to him, Uchi whines, pointing out that Ryo can't organise and participate. One person knowing the identity of his assassin, he says, would ruin the game. Give Ueda to me, he says. I'm great at assassins. Also, I'll tell everyone who's got who if you don't.
Uchi certainly has persuasive wiles, Ryo thinks, scribbling out his own name on the list.
When Yamapi finds out about the game, he doesn't sleep for two nights because he's so excited. He can't stop thinking about how much fun it's going to be: honing techniques, creating scenarios in his head. He even makes a list of his ten favourite strategies and keeps it in his shoe. His suspicious behaviour makes Ryo smile because, to Ryo, this is just another indication that Pi is going to fail. Most of KAT-TUN sign up. Kame is the only one who wavers and Pi helps to convince him. He talks about bonding and learning to trust as if he's selling a mortgage and even Ryo is impressed at how quickly he wins Kame over.
Impressed, but he makes a note of it, all the same. Yamapi also has persuasive wiles. It only makes him more sure. Jin has to be his target. It's the only way to eliminate Yamapi from the game and take the full glory for himself, or Uchi, whichever. He writes out notes to each of the players and brushes up on a book he bought on Amazon. Your Guide to Vanquishing Vampires. Perhaps he can help Uchi. Nothing matters except standing in Yamapi's way.
Yamapi's ten favourite strategies!! ☆
1. Water pistol. Subtlety rating: 1/10. Awesomeness rating: 10/10.
2. Toothpick with flag attached reading 'Poison'. Placed in food. Subtlety rating: 3/10. Awesomeness rating: 25/10.
3. Poison applied to door-handle, perhaps via magic marker. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 7/10.
4. Tabasco sauce or similar in food. Subtlety rating: 100/10. Awesomeness rating: 2/10.
5. 'Battle' scenario. Challenging target to game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 1/10.
6. 'Car bomb'. Tape to play in tape deck of target's car, a recording which reads, 'I killed you muahahaha'. Subtlety rating: 600/10. Awesomeness rating: 600,000/10.
7. Package in the mail. Note which reads, 'I killed you muahahaha'. Subtlety rating: 600/10. Awesomeness rating: 1000/10.
8. Sticker to be placed on target. Subtlety rating: 9/10. Awesomeness rating: -600/10.
9. Capture elimination. All targets to wear an item of clothing which assassin must retrieve. Subtlety rating: 5/10. Awesomeness rating: 4/10.
10. Pen mark to be placed on target. Subtlety rating: 8/10. Awesomeness rating: 6/10.
Short list!!:
Water pistol, poison flags, tabasco sauce, car bombing, mail package. I am so prepared.
Yamashita Tomohisa,
Your assigned target is:
Akanishi Jin.
You will have from 00:00 Friday 27th July to 00:00 Monday 31st July 2005 to complete the assassination. Location: Ueda's house.
You may eliminate him in any way that you wish and the elimination may occur in the presence of witnesses. The 'safe zones' are as follows: toilets, Gackt shrine. 'Safeties' may be employed.
Eliminated players may act as informers, bodyguards or spies. They may be employed by yourself if necessary. You must not reveal yourself to be Jin's assassin. Even if he threatens to feed your dog Smarties.
Lastly, it is imperative that NEWS win this one. You must assassinate, and not be assassinated. Therefore do your best. Or I'll kill you. ^_^
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
That's when Yamapi starts to get afraid. He had been sure he'd get somebody difficult, but not Jin. Ryo knows that he and Jin are unable to play any game involving both of them being quiet at any one time. If Ryo wants NEWS to win so much then placing Yamapi opposite his best friend is a weird way to go about it. Glancing at his short-list, he feels confident that he can pull every one of the tricks on Jin. Still. It'd be much easier if he didn't know Jin, wasn't so sure that Jin will be able to apprehend everything he's already thought of.
Yamapi thinks that Ryo is a crummy game organiser.
Akanishi Jin,
Your assigned target is:
Yamashita Tomohisa.
You will have from 00:00 Friday 27th July to 00:00 Monday 31st July 2005 to complete the assassination. Location: Ueda's house.
You may eliminate him in any way that you wish and the elimination may occur in the presence of witnesses (this means you can target him when people are watching). The 'safe zones' (zones that are safe from targeting) are as follows: toilets, Gackt shrine. 'Safeties' (items of clothing etc. that show a person cannot be targeted at that particular time) may be employed (used).
Eliminated players (players who have been killed) may act as informers, bodyguards or spies. They may be employed by yourself if necessary (you may use them). You must not reveal yourself to be Yamapi's assassin (don't tell him, stupid). Even if he threatens to feed your dog Smarties.
Remember, in order to be the individual winner, you must assassinate but not be assassinated. Lastly, I won't wish you luck. You'll need so much more than that. ^_^
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
Jin spends a while pouring over his assignment. In a way, he kind of expected it. He and Yamapi always make games like this fun because they're prepared to go one step further to succeed. Neither of them have a working sense of embarrassment and both of them enjoy making complete fools of themselves. If he's been given Yamapi then Ryo probably wants the game to be interesting.
Chances are, equally, that Yamapi has him. That's okay. He knows Yamapi pretty well, knows his tactics. Jin grins to himself. He's glad that he's got Yamapi. This is going to be fun.
Ueda wrinkles his nose as they all pour in, crumpled and hot from travelling. They arrive separately, as per Ryo's request, and only the NEWS boys stop to stare. Ueda's house is quite a revelation, Ueda being sure that most of his sempai live in boxes under bridges, and he is proud until he notices the crinkled door-mat, the bags thrown everyone, the noise. He's only hosting this insane event because nobody in KAT-TUN would forgive him if he didn't, but it doesn't stop him feeling hissy at the mess everyone is making. Only Ryo trudges straight through the hall and up the stairs towards the bedrooms. He isn't in the least bit surprised at the opulence – and he has bigger fish to fry.
Yamapi turns around in four complete circles, gawking at the light fixture above his head. His house is tiny in comparison. For a horrible, fleeting second he wonders whether Ueda is living with Johnny himself, as some sort of gothic lolita loveslave. Images, images, bad images run rampant in his brain until he makes a squawking sort of noise that startles everyone around him. Massu pats him, awkwardly. Ueda's face is impassive. Yamapi decides that it's time to go up. Ryo has made it to the KAT-TUN quarters and is blocking the members in their bedroom. As Yamapi climbs the stairs, he sees tufts of Jin's hair poking through the door, underneath Ryo's armpit. He's about to go over and greet him, when it hits him. Stealth, Pi. Stealth.
When he turns back, goes into the NEWS quarters, Ryo has stuck a sign to the wall with blue sellotape. It says, “DO NOT LET ME DOWN.” Yamapi doesn't think that it's very motivational, but Ryo moves in mysterious ways.
With characteristic ruthlessness, Kame offs Massu at dinner. He cooks dinner for them all, brings it out. Under Massu's noodles is a little red sticker. On it, the word 'poison' appears. Massu takes it in his stride, laughing with the rest of them. He looks pretty relieved.
Mentally, Yamapi crosses off one of his favourite strategies and feels cross. He noticed that Jin was watching intently. He'll be prepared for the poison tactic. Yamapi scowls playfully at Kame, who shrugs good-naturedly in response.
That night, Koki goes out for a six-pack after Jin spends the evening whining at him to do it. Tego waits until Jin goes back upstairs and hides in the coat cupboard. When Koki returns, his hands are full and he's grumbling about how Budweisers are getting heavier but also smaller. It makes it easy for Tego to strangle him.
The six-pack hits the floor, making such a noise that Jin shrieks on the floor above them.
“Yeah, you scream,” Koki scoffs, lying on the floor, holding his throat.
Tego smiles, swipes a can and walks off, whistling.
Yamapi sets his alarm for 4am, gets up and writes a letter to Jin. He is impressed with it when it's done.
Bakanishi,
I knew that you were stupid enough to fall for this.
Bang bang, you're dead.
Yamapi.
He seals it, creeps into the KAT-TUN dormitory and leaves it beside Jin's pillow. Jin, with characteristic lack of consideration for all those around him, is sleeping nakedly content. And smiling. Yamapi goes back to bed with a bit of a hard on, but a smug smile on his face. It lasts until morning, when Yamapi peeks around the dormitory door and sees the letter left, untouched.
Jin is singing in the shower. Yamapi thinks for a second, grabs the letter and moves it into the bathroom, behind the taps on the sink, resting against the mug with all the toothbrushes in it. He waits for an hour, doesn't hear anything, frowns. He's in the middle of writing a song, which he's going to call Assassinated! The Story of The Lesser-Spotted Bakanishi, and the silence is distracting.
He pads down the corridor, finds the bathroom empty. The letter is still there. Soggy with condensation. The toothbrushes have all fallen into the sink where Jin has grabbed his and knocked the mug over. Yamapi sighs, pockets the letter and makes off to find Jin.
He spends the rest of the day trying to leave the envelope where he thinks Jin will set it, only to be thwarted at every turn. He leaves it under Jin's plate, in the Playstation Jin intends to play with that night (where he simply takes it out of the drive and throws it aside, as if random things turn up in his Playstation all the time), wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle he's drinking from, on the cushion he's sitting on. Jin's life is evidently so randomly assorted that Jin barely notices the persistent piece of paper following him around, and Yamapi is so frustrated that he considers gluing it to Jin's forehead.
Instead, he waits until Jin comes to the kitchen. He stands in the doorway, nonchalantly, pretending to hide the piece of paper in his pocket. Naturally, Jin notices that, looks directly at it, curious. Yamapi shrugs, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. Jin pleads. Jin wrings his hands together. Yamapi studies him, a little smug. Then, he retrieves the envelope, peels it out of his pocket, and shoves it into the waistband of Jin's jeans. Ryo comes down to get some mochi, then, giving them both weird looks as he squeezes past. It forces their hips together. Jin looks down at the paper, then up at Yamapi. The moment's pause has given him time to reconsider.
He pulls out the envelope, and puts it back where it belongs. His fingertips brush Yamapi's hipbone. “I don't think I want it anymore,” he says. He's grinning. “Ryo, pass me a beer.”
Yamapi narrows his eyes at Ryo, suspicious of his timing. Then, he smacks Jin on the thigh and walks off. Maybe he can make Koki his accomplice.
Koki looks at him, a bit puzzled. “You should have just glued it to his forehead.”
“Yes, I know that now,” Yamapi says, waving his hands in the air. “But he would have just ignored it completely! He's totally stupid!”
“In an intelligent sort of way.”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
Yamapi considers this. “No. Akanishi rarely does make any sense.”
Koki shrugs. “Why not just put tabasco sauce in his food?”
Yamapi thinks. “It's not very interesting.”
“Whereas shoving it down his pants is an awesome victory?”
“Yeah, but. No. Aaaaaaaaaah.”
“You gotta think like Jin,” Koki says, confidently. “Think: if I were Jin, what would I pay attention to?”
Yamapi considers that. He might well have a point.
Yamapi's iPod goes missing. It isn't a problem at first, he just steals Ryo's. Ryo's has all sorts of crap music on it, though, so that doesn't last long. Maybe he feels some sort of weird loyalty to former bandmates, but ONE OK ROCK stink. When he rifles through the dormitories in turn, the only other person with an iPod is Jin. Normally, he'd stay well clear of anything of Jin's, just lying around like that, but he really wants to listen to music and set some lyrics down and besides, their music taste is almost identical.
He takes it back to his room and for the first few tracks of their favourite album, one by Koda Kumi, everything is peaceful. Everyone is outside enjoying the sunshine and Yamapi works on The Lesser-Spotted Assassinated One (Bakanishi, yo) with the iPod on quietly in the background. It's only when the music suddenly cuts out and Jin's voice says, clearly,
“Hello, P-”
that Yamapi throws the thing on the floor, yanking the headphones from his ears with a yelp. That Akanishi Jin, he's cleverer than he looks.
He steals Ueda's, instead. Ueda doesn't have an iPod, it's some sort of odd contraption that's impossible to use and far too loud, but it has some passable tracks on it so it'll do. He listens to Gackt's Vanilla, sending idle glances at the apple green iPod, sitting in Tego's shoe. It has an engraving on the back that reads, 'This is my iPod!!! AKANISHI JIN' which is so, so painfully Jin it makes him smile.
Ryo's iPod is black and its engraving reads, 'Der der, der der. Der der.'
That makes no sense whatsoever.
“It's the Jaws theme, idiot.” Ryo says, later.
“That's stupid.” Yamapi scoffs.
Yamapi's iPod is blue. It turns up later that evening. Yamapi checks it over for new tracks but can't find anything. He breathes easy, for one evening.
NEWS:
Yamapi's target is: Jin Akanishi
Koyama's target is: Kazuya Kamenashi
Uchi's target is: Tatsuya Ueda
KAT-TUN:
Jin's target is: Yamashita Tomohisa
Ueda's target is: Uchi Hinori
Potential winners, 1 day remaining:
Kame (alive/has killed his target)
Ueda (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Yamapi (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Jin (alive/hasn't killed his target)
Ryo studies the sheet with steepled hands. It won't do, at all. He supposes that KAT-TUN have the advantage of knowing Ueda's house. Then again, the more NEWS members that are killed, the more NEWS accomplices are available. Either way, Yamapi isn't out of the equation and Ryo is all the more determined to wipe him out.
He calls Tego to the cloakroom. It's the only place where they can talk without fear of being interrupted. Tego happily saunters in, doesn't seem to mind being cramped up in a small space with Ryo, flutters his little innocent eyes until Ryo wonders whether he can trust him, at all. Then again, Tego strangled Koki. A crime of passion, or total psychopathy.
“I want you to be Jin's accomplice,” he says, getting straight to the point. Tego studies him. A little more. Ryo sees, at last, that Tego is far scarier than he is. His height makes him look twee. His stare makes him look terrifying.
“Why?”
“Well, because,” he falters, a bit. He doesn't trust Tego with the truth. For all that he wants to be a lawyer, Shige doesn't have a clue what to do with the truth. Tego would tear it to pieces and then sell it, broken up, to the highest bidders. “I want to make the game interesting.”
“They're pretty equal, right?”
“Equally stupid, you mean.”
“Yeah. So...how does giving one an advantage make the game more interesting?”
Damn. “Jin won't trust you, you're from the opposite side. Making him trust you, that'll be interesting, right?”
“Time-consuming, more like.”
“Alright, alright. Out with it. What's it going to cost me, then?”
Tego smacks his lips with thought. “Pizza. I want a pizza tonight. A big one. With lots of cheese.”
That seems simple enough. “Okay. No worries. You're an easy one to bribe.”
Tego shrugs. “I'd have done it for free. I'm kind of bored.”
“But-”
“No taking it back. You promised. Or I'll tell Pi what you're up to.”
“Tego!”
“What?”
“You're...like. Mini Me. You know, from the Austin Powers films? You're evil.”
Tego smiles. “'Least I'm gonna be taller than you someday.”
“I-”
“So what do you want me to do? Help Jin out? Figure out when Pi will least expect the unexpected?”
“Something like that. You'll figure it out.”
“And keep-”
“It quiet. Or I'll eat the damn pizza myself.”
Yamapi showers at 2 in the morning. He can't sleep for thinking about the game: about Jin, about how this is all so much more difficult than it looks, and how he has only two days to complete the impossible. At this point, he'd resort to a car bombing but Jin doesn't have his car here and besides, they've no reason for leaving the house. Yamapi's convinced that he'll have to just draw on his head, but that feels so terribly unsatisfying.
Everything is quiet in the house. Everyone in his dormitory is snoring. Ryo snoring is one of the more frightening images he's ever seen. As if the sound comes out triangular, all warped and strange. He smiles in his sleep. He looks in on the KAT-TUN dormitory as he passes. Jin is buried under a blanket. His hair is sticking out. It makes Yamapi smile to see it.
It's not good to think about Jin in the shower, though. That way danger lies. Even though there's nobody about, nobody who could possibly hear him, not through the walls and the sleeping and the long corridors of silence. He closes his eyes and remembers Jin's fingertips on his hipbone. An aloof and accidental touch made meaningful by eye contact, a jerk of a gaze, a flicker of something else in the pupils. He thinks about Jin's hip, pushing against his as Ryo shuffled past. The feel of warm skin, of an edge, a serration of contact. Not curvaceous, like a woman. An angle. Resistance. Heat.
He slides his hand down his stomach, wet and soapy, breath a little fast, a little hoarse. He wraps it around himself, hardening, everything slick and warm and comfortable. He continues thinking about Jin. About the way he moves. About his eyes, dark and mischievous. About his lips, big, wet, soft. About the way he pokes his tongue-tip into his cheek when he's bored. About the way he bites his lip when he's excited. About the way he buries down, nose-deep, mouth-full, lips-tight. Eyes-black. About the way he sucks, like it's the task he's been set on Earth to do, but with that edge of clumsiness because he's Jin and Jin is never perfect, ever, just enthusiastic and a little bit out of control.
He makes one sound when he comes, fast, a little sharp and bitter. Unexpectedly quick. When he opens his eyes, there's a hand moving around the door. He didn't lock it. It's 2 in the morning. Who'd be. In his fuzzy state, he manages to yank the curtain around him. Then, he feels like a woman, so he grabs the shower head and aims it at the door.
“Oi!” Tego squeaks. Yamapi relaxes. Not Jin. “I was trying to get my toothbrush!”
“Why do you need your toothbrush at 2 in the morning?!” Yamapi splutters.
“I've been eating pizza with Ryo.”
“Oh,” Yamapi says. “Well, come and get it and scram.”
Tego does so, but not without a quick wiggle of his eyebrows. Yamapi sulkily refuses to drop the curtain, not until he leaves. Then, he rests his head against the cool of the tile, and tries to force the images out of his head.
“He's always on edge,” Tego says. He and Jin lie under the covers, hiding. Jin is considering.
“He's always on edge.”
“Yes. Always prepared.”
“I don't get why you want to help me.” Jin says. Clearly, there are more pressing issues.
“Call it revenge. Pi and I, well. We have a vendetta going.”
“He never mentioned it.”
Tego fixes him with a look. “Why would he. You'd be the last person anyone would share a secret with!”
Jin pushes him out of bed, laughing. “I don't want your help anyway.”
Tego frowns. “Suit yourself. You know where to find me.”
Jin is determined to do it by himself.
The following morning, Koyama gets Kame with a water pistol.
Yamapi offers him 2,000Yen for it, but he isn't buying.
In the afternoon, he spots Tego walking around with it.
He sets his mouth in a line.
That evening, the groups get together in their dormitories to discuss their progress. There's only one day left, some short twenty-four hours, and Ryo is keen to get everyone focused. The only ones in NEWS not to have assassinated their targets are Uchi, Massu and Yamapi. Ryo looks at each of them, slowly, in turn.
“Uchi, it's Ueda. What are you doing, you fool?”
Uchi shrugs, sullenly. “He's never here. Maybe the house has secret corridors or something.”
Ryo scribbles this down. “You'll have to throw a bucket of water on him when he's asleep.”
Uchi doesn't seem all that impressed. “This game is stup-”
“Massu.”
“Working on it.”
“Fine.”
“Hey-” Uchi begins. Ryo just holds up his hand.
“You've had your turn, you big wimp. Yamapi-”
Yamapi crosses his arms, and refuses to speak. In the background, Uchi continues talking, ignoring the fact that nobody is listening to him. Ryo just grins at Yamapi. Yamapi thinks that he's working this all out at last. Why Ryo gave him Jin, why he seems so pleased when his attempts are thwarted. Why he isn't available, ever, for support.
Doesn't explain why Tego has the water pistol, though.
“Jin can't be that difficult.”
“You'd be surprised,” Yamapi scoffs. “All of his brain cells are geared towards saving him from
extinction, which could happen at any moment, so of course he's going to be good at this.”
“This isn't real, Pi. You do get that?”
“Yesss,” Yamapi hisses. “It's just a principle. I'd like to see you off him.”
Ryo considers this. “I think I'd have done it by now.”
“Hah! Yeah, right. I'll do it. I've got a day. It'll be fine.”
He wishes he were as confident as his mouth is.
“You gave Tego the water pistol,” Yamapi says, afterwards.
Koyama looks up from his magazine, nonplussed. “He offered me 2,500Yen for it.”
“He doesn't have any money with him. Tego never has any money.”
Koyama shrugs, as if the insane ramblings of an old fool are keeping him from his path to enlightenment. Yamapi would feel bad, but he's looking at a porno. “Ryo gave him some,” he says. “He did that freaky big-eyes thing.”
Yamapi doesn't think that makes sense. He narrows his eyes and goes away to stew on it.
As they're going to bed, he asks Ryo about it. Ryo denies it, but then, he would. It's Uchi who eventually spills. He was sworn to secrecy, but that was before Ryo decided to ream him over his inability to kill 'that vampire', so in his eyes any promises made no longer count.
Yamapi doesn't get why Ryo's recruited Tego onto Jin's side, nor why Jin doesn't seem to have made any use of the water pistol. All he can think is that someone doesn't want Yamashita Tomohisa to win the game.
Which is unlucky, he says to himself as he falls asleep. Because Yamashita Tomohisa doesn't like it when he doesn't win the game. Alarm set for two hours earlier that he'd normally get up, Yamapi is going to hatch a plan.
He eats breakfast with a satisfied smile, grabbing hold of Uchi as he goes. “Get the keys to Ryo's car,” he says, under his breath. “Tell Jin you want to go get supplies. Sweets. Anything. Put this CD in the player, and I'll do the rest.”
Uchi frowns, nodding, but a little displeased. “What do I get in return?”
Yamapi smiles. “I'll find out where Ueda sleeps.”
Uchi's sullen face brightens considerably.
When Uchi mentions the word 'cake' to Jin, it's not a decision he has to pore over for long. He nods, enthusiastically, wondering whether he can put poison in the cake and get Yamapi that way. Yamapi seems to have given up, which makes Jin wonder whether it wouldn't just be better for both of them to wave white flags. Mutual surrender. Jin likes that idea. He isn't really cut out for assassins, anyway. Cake is something he's cut out for.
Uchi tosses the keys to Jin and says he'll be out in a second, he's just clearing it with Ryo. Jin doesn't think he could get any luckier. Ryo's car is sleek, and gorgeous, much nicer than Yamapi's, but Ryo won't ever let him drive it. He sits in the driver's seat, making Uchi look disgruntled, and grins at him. Uchi's just going to have to deal. Running his hands over the steering wheel, Jin bounces in the seat, laughs to himself with malicious glee, and then inserts the key.
The CD comes on, it's loud, but Jin's too busy pressing buttons to notice Yamapi's voice, not until it's too late. The windscreen wipers won't stop wiping, and he's in the middle of reaching around to hold them down when he hears the voice, loud and clear, damn, damn, damn!
'Bakanishi,' the voice says. 'Put down what you're playing with. This is serious. Bang bang, you're dead. Properly dead. That means no touching the steering wheel. HAHAHAHAHAHA. YAMAPI IS THE KING OF THE WORLD. Um, bye.'
Jin stares at the deck. That was the worst assassination speech ever. Not to be a sore loser, though, he slumps down in the seat. Jin doesn't mind losing, if he's fairly beaten. Bad speech aside, he admires Yamapi's plan. It's more than he's been able to think of.
Yamapi creeps over to the car, window down, windscreen wipers going as if washing a typhoon off the glass. A smile is on his face. He leans down, through the window, and moves his mouth close to Jin's ear. Jin hasn't heard him.
“Bang bang,” he says. Jin bristled, a bit ticklish, a bit aroused. He cracks open an eye.
“That was the worst assassination speech ever,” he says.
“I know,” Yamapi concedes. “I didn't have much time this morning. I didn't really know what to say. I mean. It's an assassination speech. What do you say?”
Jin is amused, eyes open, now. “Well. You got me.”
Yamapi grins. “I got you.”
“Are we still getting cake?”
Yamapi doesn't need too long to pore over that decision. “Are you kidding? I'm going to have five. It's a celebration now.”
Tego pulls Uchi aside, indoors, his face all screwed up because Yamapi's doing something weird to Jin's ears.
“Ueda sleeps in the guest room,” he says.
“What guest room?”
“This guest room.” Tego has a map and everything. Uchi blinks down at it.
“I thought you were helping Jin,” Uchi says, pocketing the map, grateful.
Tego shrugs. “Pi offered to buy me a really big cream cake. What can I say, I'm young, easily led. Impressionable. Fickle. Must be the hormones. Can't help it.”
“How do you know where Ueda's guest-”
“Aha,” Tego grins, swanning off. “As if I would tell.”
It's a struggle to get Jin, Yamapi and the bags into Ryo's car. Yamapi has bought enough cake for a week, because the store they visit all the time is always coming up with new recipes and combinations, and they're both suckers for things they haven't tried yet.
“We could eat some of them,” Jin suggests. “To make room.”
They sit in the car, in the car park, happily munching away. It's nice to be away from things for a while, Yamapi thinks. Not that he doesn't love the band. Not that he regrets all the dreams, the childhood fantasies that led him here. It's just that being with Jin reminds him of being young and carefree, a happy time in his life. It makes him feel good to spend time with him.
That and, well, the newest developments, they make him happy too. He watches Jin eat one of the buns, long and gooey with cream in the centre. It's almost too obvious to be happening, but Yamapi knows from the look on Jin's face that it isn't deliberate, isn't a show. Jin only has eyes for his cake right now. Only, he eats the cake in the sort of way he gave Yamapi a blow job, three weeks ago, and that alone makes Yamapi stop eating.
He isn't sure, exactly, what they're doing. It started out as something they just fell into. It's not dating, or anything. Just a sort of mutual getting-off. Only Yamapi likes Jin, really likes him, doesn't want to ruin the friendship with him. Doesn't want to push things too far, either, in case Jin isn't taking this as seriously as-
Jin holds out his hand. It has cream on it, the best cream, sprinkled with strawberry sauce and chocolate flakes. Yamapi forgets what he was thinking, he can smell the sugar and the strawberries and Jin is smiling at him, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed and content. That's all he needs to feel happy, really. So he takes Jin's hand and licks the cream from his fingertips, tasty and pleasing because it's the best and Jin wouldn't offer it to anyone else.
Things are as simple as they were when they were kids. Food is friendship is love. Smiles are friendship are love. Cream on fingertips is friendship is love. The problem is that cream on fingertips is also arousing. Arousing friendship is sex, not love. Yamapi thinks that he wants both, but he doesn't have enough cakes, even in the car they're sitting in, to bribe Jin with to get it.
Only Jin's looking at him, as he's licking cream off his fingers, with an expression on his face. Curious. Kind of smitten. Yamapi thinks, hopes, that Jin might want something more than fumbling hands and bitten lips and furtive, quick blowjobs.
“Your house is closer,” Yamapi says, through cream.
“If we take all this back to Ueda's, they'll steal it,” Jin agrees. But then he catches the look on Yamapi's face and realises that he's not talking about the cakes.
Yamapi is nervous when they walk through the door. To calm himself, he and Jin eat cake in bed, decadent because Jin doesn't mind the crumbs. It's one of the things he likes about Jin. They eat until they're stuffed and then Yamapi wryly asks, his hand moving underneath the duvet to stroke Jin's leg, “How hard was it to keep away from me this weekend?”
Jin grins, sucking cinnamon off one finger. “Nightmare. I kept sleeping naked, thinking you might crumble. Mm, crumble. We should have got apple crumble, Pi.”
“I don't think I could eat crumble right now,”
“Me neither. I meant after the...afterwards.”
Yamapi ignores the blip, doesn't think about what he wants it to mean. He swats him with the hand that isn't groping him, but continues groping him with the hand that is. They lie in peaceful silence, just enjoying it. The quiet that never comes, not nowadays.
“You were really hard to kill,” Yamapi notes. His hand is moving higher. Jin shifts down the bed, nudging into it.
“I never killed you,” Jin says, mournfully. “I really tried.”
“You can kill me now, if it makes you feel better.”
Jin scowls. “That's a rubbish way to do it. I'd only be killing you because you let me.”
Yamapi considers this. “You could overpower me, and then kill me.”
They sit quietly, Jin's eyes lidding. Yamapi can feel his thigh muscles tensing. Jin's breathing is slightly hard. His eyes, slits, are dark and his expression inscrutable. He isn't saying anything, but that's no surprise. Yamapi knows that Jin can't work his dick and his mouth at the same time: he found that out the hard way, they thought it was a good idea to suck each other off at once. It wasn't.
Then, suddenly, Jin's hand clamps over Yamapi's. His eyes are totally closed. Yamapi hasn't seen Jin quite this forceful. He finds himself at a loss for words as Jin works Yamapi's hand into his own boxers, his breath all ragged. Yamapi lets him go at it, doesn't attempt to take over – oddly, he finds the idea of Jin being in control here kind of hot. This isn't something he's done before. He curls his fingers, idly, but lets Jin's hand curl around his, place his fingers where Jin wants them. Jin slides down on the sheets and moans, beginning to smile. He likes it hard, even at first, it always surprises Yamapi. A lot surprises Yamapi, about Jin. They never seem to have the time to take it slow. To learn anything about each other.
Groaning in his throat, Yamapi can't take it any more. He tries to pull back, to kiss, to grapple, to move across Jin and rub against his leg. Anything. Jin growls, loud, and holds on tight. As greedy with hands as with cakes, Jin wants Yamapi's hand where it is and he's not about to relinquish it. Yamapi snorts through his nostrils, finding this almost hotter than what Jin's doing with his hand, and tries again to yank away. This time, Jin opens his eyes, and they are black. Black, furious and needy. Jin is a bit like the Lamborghini of the sex world: 0-desperate in 3.6 seconds. Yamapi moans, then, and covers Jin's mouth with a kiss. He lets his hand go limp, where Jin tugs it down harder, faster, and so the kiss goes ragged and Jin lets some of it escape, lips slack and wet. His throat rings with sound. Yamapi moves, then, unable to help himself. He climbs into Jin's lap, sending empty cake wrappers flying, and Jin sits up, wraps his arms around his back, pulls him tighter in. The kisses are hard, rough, unthinking. Jin lies Yamapi down on his back and then half-falls on top of him.
“This is you killing me, huh,” Yamapi says, grinning lopsidedly.
Jin nods, seriously. “Killing you with sex,” he says, voice sharp, tripping over the word as though it's easy. Then he realises. Yamapi looks at him. Jin looks back. Neither of them can acknowledge the elephant in the room. Maybe Jin just wants another blowjob, Yamapi thinks. Maybe Pi just wants some frottage, Jin muses. But he's said 'sex', and that's more and more what he wants, only he's not sure if Yamapi wants that, too, or whether he's just enjoying all of the other stuff without thinking about-
“Sex sex?” Yamapi says.
“Sex sex sex?” Jin echoes, as if it's a tongue-twister or a rhyming game. Yamapi pummels his thigh.
“Do you feel like having sex,” Yamapi says. He's quieter, biting his lip. “Or, er, we could-”
Jin's eyes are dark, huge. “Yes,” he says. “Sex cubed. Yes cubed.”
Yamapi is stunned. “Where did you learn that? Last time you were all, x times y equals-”
Jin just gives him a look. “You seriously want to talk about maths right now?”
Yamapi just tugs his shirt off, it's the only response he can come up with. He lets Jin take care of his boxers: he does it so nicely, almost a swipe. Like he just wants him naked, like he wants nothing else more in the world. Yamapi likes that. He waits until Jin is naked, trailing his foot down Jin's chest until Jin smacks it away, he's too ticklish for that, then thinks better of it, grabs his heel and tickles his foot for all its worth. It makes Yamapi scream, nearly kicking him in the chin, before Jin lets go and smacks him on the thigh, I told you not to tickle me. Yamapi only responds by lifting his ass, provocative, amused. Jin regards that, a little wry, rummaging about for the lube he's got somewhere in his bedside drawer. It feels right, that it should be Jin. Jin's braver than Yamapi, who can't bear not to know what he's doing. With Jin, he wants it to be kind of perfect.
As Jin is prepping him, a little unsteady, a little unsure, Yamapi reaches over the bed and swipes some cream off one of the leftover buns, sucking it into his mouth on one finger. Jin growls at that, presses inwards by accident, makes him start and forget about everything but that pulse of pleasure. Jin doesn't like distracted attention, but he does like accidentally getting things right. Yamapi offers him the rest, reaching out his hand. Jin sucks it, leaning over so that Yamapi can feel he's hard and ready for it, then goes back to prepping. Yamapi plays coquette, likes to distract, and Jin punishes him by taking ages, until Yamapi's pushing his hips down greedily and keening in his throat. Still Jin continues, because he just has the edge on Yamapi for patience, just. Continues until Yamapi snarls in his throat, and then Jin knows that's as far as he can push it. Leans down until his toes curl in the duvet and his nose is buried in Yamapi's hair, nibbles on his earlobe, licking the joint of jaw. He gently presses inside until Yamapi digs his nails into Jin's shoulders and hisses, “Okay, okay, just. Just, a second.”
What he means, really, is, 'stay like that for two hours and don't move until that's up because fuckdamnit, nothing has ever hurt this much in my entire life, not even wearing blue PVC, and if you weren't my best friend in the whole world I'd punch you in the face for doing this to me.'
But what he says, voice all fractured, is, “Just give me a moment.”
For Jin, stopping is torture, but it allows him a moment to count to ten, a blissful ten he really, really needs, because it's tight, impossibly so, and he can't think of anything but thrusting. He bites Yamapi's shoulder, too hard, and Yamapi swats him. “You're like an animal,” he says, choked. “Think about something that doesn't turn you on. Does anything not turn you on?”
Jin considers that. “Sprouts,” he stutters. “Sprouts don't turn me on.”
“Think about sprouts, then,” Yamapi says, slowly flexing his hips, gasping. Jin grunts. “Sprouty, sprouty. All green and round. And nasty-tasting.”
“I want to fuck you,” Jin says. “You feel so good.”
“That isn't very sprouty,” Yamapi says, but he's pleased, all the same. His grip relaxes and Jin's eyes meet his. They're both apprehensive, a little unsure, horny and curious all at once. Yamapi nods, once, full of trust. Jin moves forward, cries out, the sensation almost too much to bear. He considers leaving Johnny's Entertainment and just having sex with Yamapi all day.
Slowly, they find a rhythm that stops them bumping foreheads and chins, casualties of the pair of them being clumsy horny. A rhythm that makes Yamapi's breath all soft and almost high-pitched, his eyes closed, his face a little crumpled. Jin watches that, loves to watch that. Particularly loves to watch that and to shatter it with his own impatience. He begins to thrust harder, watching that expression change from contented to surprised to urgent. It doesn't take long for Yamapi to catch him up: from a smile to turn to a snarl, his eyes to darken to Jin's shade, his fingertips to become nails in Jin's shoulders, scratching with need. Jin's hand has moved from the pillow to grasp his cock, between their stomaches. That's the final straw, as far as Yamapi is concerned. Then, and only then, does he concede in a growl: “Harder.”
“Sure?” Jin teases, his own voice starting to puncture. “You looked pretty happy with what I was doing, I can slow down and-”
Yamapi grabs the back of his head, hair tangled up in his fingers. Jin's breath rumbles. “Jin,” he says, hard, firm, indecent. “Harder.”
Jin's not in much of a mood to argue with that, so he begins to fuck him, really fuck him, so that both of them are crying out together, so that he has to lean down and take Yamapi's collarbone in his teeth again. So that Yamapi is pushing up against him, against his cock and against his hand. So that the sheets are loosening their hold on the mattress beneath them. So that sweat pours down Jin's back and onto his thighs. So that sweat drips from his hair onto Yamapi's cheek, where he doesn't notice it, his own hair plastered to his forehead. His eyes are closed when Jin looks at him, they open only when he perceives Jin's gaze. They hold each other in a look as Jin starts to veer out of control, a look that's firm, doesn't blink. Four black eyes, desperate and solid and true. Jin leans down and kisses him, almost a smash, almost crushing with his mouth. Yamapi answers, wrapping his hands around Jin's shoulders and holding him there as Jin lowers his mouth, kisses ear, jawline, sucks chin into a point. Yamapi grabs his hair, tilts his head back, whispers, more, more, more.
Jin is only really loud when he wants to come, Yamapi knows, so he starts to push back hard when he hears Jin cry out. He's crying out Yamapi's name, which is doubly dangerous. Yamapi holds his face still, keeps their gaze intact, scratches his shoulder with the other hand. His own voice is shrill, almost, with need. Jin has altered the angle, somewhere, found the one Yamapi seems to like the best. He hadn't noticed the change, only the way his entire body is buzzing. Only the way every nerve is pointed, alert, tingling. Only the way he can think of nothing, nothing in the entire living universe but Jin, but his need to come, but his need to never, ever be anywhere else but here. He's first, in the end: can't believe that Jin held off, but can't think of anything but how good it feels, as his head goes back his chin clips Jin's and he's saying sorry as he's yelling Jin's name. It comes out as nonsense but Jin can't reciprocate, anyway, just tightens his hold on him until Yamapi grunts back, then that's all Jin's got and he yells out, too. Their faces are together, hard, sharing sweaty, stuttered, hot breath. All Yamapi can see is Jin. All Yamapi can smell is Jin. All Yamapi can hear is Jin.
That's all he wants, really, he's realising. “Jin,” he sighs, lowering his head to the pillow beneath him. Jin is collapsing on top of him, as if all his bones are dropping out of his arms, one by one. He lies awkwardly on top of him, his face in his shoulder. Still struggling for breath, his ribs fight Yamapi's for air. He hasn't realised that Yamapi is trying to get his attention.
“Jin,” Yamapi pokes him in the hip. Jin makes a sound a little like a car engine, only less elegant.
“Jin,” Yamapi says again.
“Wha,” Jin says, again, a bit clearer. He pokes Yamapi back, for good measure.
“I think you definitely killed me,” Yamapi says.
Jin looks at him, eyes huge and sleepy. “No,” he says, reasonably. “You killed me again. You're a big bastard and I don't like you anymore.”
“Okay,” Yamapi says, cheerfully.
Jin smiles. “Okay,” he says back.
It's 23:59, Sunday evening. Everyone is in bed. Ryo is awake, under the covers, looking at his notes. He has it on Uchi's authority that Jin killed Yamapi earlier in the afternoon and that Jin then killed him back en route to the city. It makes up for them both stealing his car. Gleeful, Ryo amends his list of potential winners, crosses off Jin and Yamapi. It only leaves Ueda, who Uchi is sure to be able to kill. Uchi being the winner, well, it might not be Ryo himself, but at least it isn't Yamapi.
A scuffle in the doorway makes him sit up. Ueda is standing there in black silk pyjamas, looking both rudely awakened and disgruntled. Uchi is standing with him, pulling a rather impressive deathly expression. Ryo stares at them both. Ueda has his hand in the scruff of Uchi's neck. Uchi looks like he's been...killed.
Upon closer inspection, Uchi has a small wooden stake in the neckline of his vest.
“I think,” Ueda says, impassively. “That this is yours.”
NEWS:
Uchi's target is: Tatsuya Ueda (Unsuccessful.)
KAT-TUN:
Final standing:
Individual winner: Ueda (alive/has killed his target)
From: Nishikido Ryo
To: Akanishi Jin, Kamenashi Kazuya, Taguchi Junnosuke, Tanaka Koki, Nakamaru Yuichi, Ueda Tatsuya.
CC: Yamashita Tomohisa, Keiichiro Koyama, Takahisa Masuda, Shigeaki Kato, Yuya Tegoshi, Hironori Kusano, Hinori Uchi.
KAT-TUN.
Alright, you won.
But NEWS will get you back next time, you bastards.
Kisses,
Game Organiser Nishikido-sama.
From: Ueda Tatsuya
To: Nishikido Ryo
Who are you?
Ueda Tatsuya.