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It was ten-thirty in the morning when Jin opened his hotel room door to see four out of the five remaining members of KAT-TUN standing there. He blinked a few times and then slammed the door shut. It wasn’t nice of his mind to not only hallucinate, but to get him out of bed this early in order to show him that hallucination. That was bordering on rude.
An immediate cacophony of knocks and yells started up on the other side of the door as soon as he shut it. Sighing, wondering if it was possible to be annoyed with one’s subconscious, Jin opened up the door again.
“What the hell was that for?”
“Yeah! Don’t slam the door in our faces!”
“Hello, Jin.”
Jin decided he liked his hallucination of Junno best. It didn’t yell at him. It just smiled at him as sweetly as the real Junno did. Smiling back at it, he blinked when the other three members immediately shut up.
“He smiled—“
“—at ten in the morning…”
Scowling in response, Jin moved to shut the door again. Kame’s foot in the way made him – and the door – pause. Generally hallucinations weren’t all that good at stopping people from shutting doors. Which meant—“Wait, you guys are really here?”
Ueda rolled his eyes, and Maru just snorted with laughter.
“Of course we’re here, you numbskull,” Kame said. He’d just spent what felt like a million hours on planes and he wasn’t in the best of moods. The fact that they’d managed to lose Koki before they’d even left the airport had just pushed that mood into the black territory. “And we lost Koki already.”
Jin continued to stand there for long enough that Junno finally spoke, reminding him that maybe they should step his inside his room, rather than have this discussion in the middle of the hallway, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t occurring in English.
Doing as he was told – for once – Jin stepped back and allowed them inside, struggling to restrain a muffled laugh when he saw the amount of luggage that Kame and Ueda were carrying. “How long are you guys staying for? My whole concert tour?” It was unlikely, but it was the only reason that they’d brought so much stuff.
“Just three days. Well, we planned on leaving in three days, but we have to get Koki back first,” Maru said, setting down his own neatly packed and compact suitcase.
“Would you like us to stay that long?” Junno asked, his mouth stretched in a wide grin that had Jin grumbling under his breath about impudent ex-bandmates.
“Anyway, what the fuck do you mean you lost Koki? How long have you been here, an hour? How did you lose someone going from the airport to here?”
“It’s not our fault,” Maru said sadly, dejected at the thought of having his best friend snatched out from under his nose. “And technically… we lost him at the airport.”
“How is losing someone before you’ve even left the airport not your fault,” Jin asked in a stunning display of logic considering it was so early – for him.
Kame snorted. “We managed to leave the actual airport building with him,” he said. “… we lost him while we were waiting for a cab. And Nakamaru’s right, it wasn’t our fault! We just turned around and he was gone! He’s an adult, we shouldn’t have to be watching him every second of the day.”
Rolling his eyes, Jin moved to the small hotel coffee maker and fumbled with it for a moment before it started cheerily percolating something that might have resembled coffee. “This is Koki, he probably saw a short skirt and followed it. Did you ask them to page overhead?”
A long silence followed his words and he looked up from where he was poking through packets of sugar to see all four of them looking perplexed.
“… you did go back inside and ask security to page him, right? You didn’t just leave.”
Four sets of feet shuffled a bit nervously, and Jin dropped his face into the palm of his hands. “Oh my god… and I have the reputation as the dumb one... Alright, first we’ll call the airport and have them page him. He might still be there, waiting for you morons.”
Moving to pick up the phone, Jin fumbled through drawers for a moment before he found the hotel’s copy of the local phone book. It took him a minute or two of flipping through the confusing mass of pages before he managed to find the right number, but the other four men just crowded around nervously and waited for him to call.
Waiting on hold while the airport paged Koki overhead, Jin sighed when he finally hung up. “Nothing. Great.”
“I think he had the name of your hotel… so maybe he’ll end up here?” Junno asked hopefully, gracefully dodging a pinch from Kame for thinking of something logical before the rest of them.
“We can hope,” Jin said softly, sighing as he slapped the phone book closed and shoved it back in the drawer.
“We can keep the faith,” Junno said with a grin before being subjected to three simultaneous light punches and Jin’s snort of laughter.
-+-+-
It was only two hours before a knock on Jin’s hotel room door had all five of them scrambling and tripping over each other to get to the door first, arms and hands – and the occasional foot – used as weapons to inhibit each other’s progress.
Maru unsurprisingly made it to the door first with a triumphant noise, flinging it open and throwing himself at his best friend, squeezing him tight before pulling back to smack him upside the head. “Idiot!”
“It’s not my fault!” Koki insisted even as he stepped inside the room, pulling Maru with him and shutting the door closed behind them. “I was kidnapped!”
“Oh please, who would kidnap you?” Kame asked, torn between rolling his eyes and snorting out a laugh. It made his expression interesting to look at until he got himself under control.
“Okay, fine, maybe kidnap was a bit of a harsh way to put it,” Koki admitted. “It was more a case of mistaken nationality.”
All five of them blinked and stared at Koki in confusion.
“Jin!”
“Yes?!” Jin replied, slightly startled by Koki’s effusive shouting of his name out of the blue like that.
“Hi.”
“…”
“How’s it going? Are you drinking enough? Banging enough chicks?”
Jin stared at Koki like he’d grown a third head before shaking his own to clear it of any lingering stupidity that he often found himself suffering from when he was around the other letters of his former band. “… how about we focus on the fact that you were missing for three hours in a foreign country?”
Koki sighed, sounding almost put out, but herded everyone over to Jin’s small cramped hotel living room – which was more just a couch and a conveniently placed coffee table. Once everyone was seated comfortable, Junno spread out on the floor by Jin’s feet after losing his space on the couch in a round of jankenpon, Koki explained what had happened.
“… you expect us to believe that a group of Latino thugs thought you were one of them and took you out to lunch?” Jin asked, fiddling absently with Junno’s over-bleached and slightly straw-like hair.
“It’s the truth!” Koki exclaimed with a slight pout audible in his voice. Maru pat his knee and he calmed down a little bit before speaking again. “They were really nice… you know, minus the whole language barrier thing and miscommunication.”
“Is it a miscommunication if someone kidnaps you?” Ueda asked consideringly, genuinely curious.
“I suppose so,” Junno answered, leaning into Jin’s light touch. “I mean, they wouldn’t have kidnapped him if they’d known he was really Japanese, right? But they also might have still taken him to lunch had he really been a Latino gangster… so, who knows.”
“Thank you, Taguchi… I think,” Koki said, a little bit bewildered, unsure whether Junno had helped prove or disprove his point. Or in true Junno fashion, done both at once.
“Anytime,” Junno replied.
“Anyway, now that Koki’s here and relatively safe and sound, or as mentally sound as he ever is,” Kame interrupted, “Can we focus on the purpose of our visit?”
Jin preened a bit. “Me?”
“… well, yes, in a roundabout way,” Kame agreed, struggling not to laugh when Jin so cutely almost visibly deflated. “But we’re also here to site see.”
“Pfft.”
Junno hid a snicker behind his hand at Jin’s less than eloquent thoughts behind their decision to come to LA to visit Jin as well as the city that they hadn’t been in in years.
“You of course, can come with if you’d like.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jin said. “Don’t sound like you’re not putting yourself out or anything.”
“I won’t,” Kame replied, and Junno had to fight to hide another laugh. A sharp tug to his hair told him he was doing a piss poor job of it.
“Ow… Jin-chaaaan,” he said poutingly, reaching up to rub at the injured area of his scalp only to find Jin’s fingers already there and soothing the light sting he’d imparted. Feelings assuaged, Junno relaxed back into the couch he was leaning against and spoke to the rest of his band mates. “Did we want to see anything in particular or just wander?”
The other four looked at each other before looking away sheepishly.
“None of you made any plans at all? I’m actually surprised that you managed to get to the right country with the stunning lack of intelligence that you’ve been showing,” Jin said a bit disbelievingly.
“We were just going to wing it,” Ueda said a bit haughtily. “… besides, we didn’t want to make anything concrete in case you couldn’t join us,” he added, the tips of his ears turning pink in a light blush.
Now Jin grinned, the real truth behind their lack of plans coming to light and much more pleasing to his feelings and his ego. They hadn’t wanted to disclude him by making plans in case he had work to do or something. It was kind of sweet.
“So?”
“So what?” Kame asked, bewildered, even as Maru and Koki glanced at each other like they’d missed something. Only Ueda appeared unconcerned with Jin’s randomness, and he couldn’t see Junno’s face to know how he was feeling.
“So, what are we doing sitting here? We only have three days, right? And there’s tons of stuff to see, so let’s get going,” Jin exclaimed, jumping to his feet and glancing down in apology when Junno’s head thunked back against the couch.
Waving away the older man’s concern, Junno got to his feet as well and turned to grin at the others. “Yeah, let’s go!”
It had been so long since they’d seen Jin so childishly and effusively enthusiastic, so it was almost impossible for the rest of them to not get to their feet as well, varying degrees of grins on their faces as they stood in a loose know in Jin’s pseudo hotel living room.
Almost all of them started talking at once, names of all of the places they’d researched and wanted to see flying through the air in a cacophony of rapid fire and mispronounced English.
Jin, just happy to see all of them, couldn’t care less where they went, even if it was just to the corner 7-11 to get slurpees (which in his mind was as good an idea as any). This caused much eyerolling when they all turned to him in order to tie break their decision on where to go first.
“I don’t care,” he exclaimed, pulling on sneakers and a light jacket. He’d learned the hard way that Los Angeles was definitely not always the sunny utopia it was portrayed as in the movies, especially in the fall. His first few days here he’d had to go shopping – not that he minded that at all – and buy practically a whole new wardrobe’s worth of sweaters and warmer shirts, as well as a heavier jacket. “Really. I haven’t had much time to see more than some restaurants and shops, so I’m okay with any of the tourist attractions.”
This proclamation was met with shock and dismay – mostly from Koki who couldn’t believe he’d been here for almost a month and hadn’t gone to all of the clubs within a ten mile radius.
“I’m here to work,” Jin said with a snort. “Half the time by the end of rehearsals I don’t even want to think about dancing, even at a club.”
Kame raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t say anything out loud. He knew more than anyone how much of a workaholic Jin could be when he was really into something, even if he often had come across as a lazy spoiled brat.
“Maybe we should go alphabetically,” Junno recommended, pulling a small booklet of attractions – that included a convenient map – out of a pocket somewhere. “That way we won’t miss anything?”
This started a whole new conversation, complete with counter arguments that had Jin’s head spinning again even as he ushered them all out of the room and down the hall into the elevator. At this rate they’d be more likely to see anything if they were standing right next to it, otherwise they’d be spending all three days in his hotel room arguing about what to see and never actually go see anything.
--)(--)(--
In the end they’d decided on lunch first – the airplane food had been edible but minimalistic – and they’d crowded themselves into a small diner near Jin’s hotel, poring over English menus like if they stared hard enough the words were turn Japanese and it’d be easier to read.
Jin took his time trying to decipher everything for everyone else, but his spoken English was better than his reading comprehension and even that was spotty at times. Deciding it’d be easier for them all just to get burgers, he waved their waitress and ordered, speaking as slowly and clearly as he could even as he tried to fight back the blush that wanted to rise up as usual when he was uncomfortable or embarrassed.
Thankfully the waitress – a petite redhead named Joelle – was understanding and waited patiently as he ordered for everyone at the table.
Koki let out a soft whistle as she walked away to put in their order, doing his best to lean out of the booth in order to watch her walk away and earning a smack on the back of his head from both Maru and Ueda who were sitting on either side of him.
“What! She’s hot,” he said, pouting slightly into his glass of water.
“Try and be a little… not like an animal,” Ueda said. “You are in a foreign country, Koki. Even playing ignorant will only get you so far if she gets upset.”
Digging hungrily into their food when it was delivered halted the conversation that once more had turned to what to do next after Ueda’s soft admonishment to Koki. It was the first real food that the five of them had had in almost a day and they ate eagerly.
“We should go to Legoland,” Junno said once he’d finished eating. He took a sip of his coke and didn’t look up from the tour book that he’d pulled out once more. “It looks like a lot of fun.”
Kame started to object that it was a kid’s place, but then he saw the look of genuine excitement that graced everyone else’s faces and bit his tongue. Sometimes he forgot that they’d all been working so long that a chance to enjoy childish things had often passed them by and there was no reason for them not to partake of them while they were on vacation. It was almost… nice… to see them excited over something so small when they spend so many hours of their day going over and over the same songs, the same dances just to make things perfect.
While they all loved their jobs – loved the accolades as well as the reward that came from hard work – sometimes it was good to just relax.
Legoland turned out to be even more fun than they had anticipated, and they spent almost the rest of the day there, leaving only when their hunger became too great to ignore and they were all about to start killing each other if they didn’t get something to eat soon.
A mini war broke out as they tried to decide what to have for dinner. Jin, Koki, and Maru wanted to go back to the diner they’d had lunch at, but Junno, Ueda, and Kame wanted to try something different.
In the end Junno switched sides in order to keep the peace and democracy had taken hold, leading them back to the diner. Their waitress from earlier had gone home, but an older woman with a kind smile named Nancy was patient as they all struggled to order for themselves this time.
They ended up having dessert this time, gorging themselves on massive sundaes until they were all pretty sure that they wouldn’t be able to get out of the booth, let alone make the short walk back to Jin’s hotel.
“I think I’m dead,” Junno whimpered softly from where he was leaning against Jin’s shoulder, the older man stealthily trying to sneak the once-again-blond’s dessert bowl closer so that he could finish the ice cream that still remained.
“You’re not dead,” Maru replied. “If you were dead, rigor mortis would be setting in,” he added logically even as he shoved his own also almost empty bowl over to Koki who was eyeing the remains eagerly like he hadn’t just wolfed down a massive cheeseburger, fries, and his own sundae. “You also wouldn’t be talking.”
Pouting just a little bit, Junno sat up reluctantly and allowed Jin to think that he’d been completely super stealthy in his theft.
“Can we not say things like ‘rigor mortis’ while we’re eating?” Ueda asked, spoon paused halfway to his mouth as he made a bit of a disgusted face for Maru’s choice of words.
“What about death spasms?” Kame asked, fighting to keep a straight face.
“Death rattle?” Koki added, amusement in his voice.
“Decomposition?”
“Decapitation?”
“Disgusting…” Ueda said, though his lips twisted just a little bit, belying his amusement at their childishness.
All six of them laughed at that.
--)(--)(--
It was strange – to Jin at least – when he went to see them off at the airport three days later and he felt almost sadder now than he had when he’d left to come to LA a few months earlier. As if sensing his rapidly declining mood, Kame gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“Idiot. It’s not like you’re falling off the face of the earth.”
“Yeah really,” Koki chimed in, looking up from where he was shuffling things back and forth between his carry-on and his checked luggage in a vain attempt at staying under the specified weight limit. “You’ll be back in Tokyo before you know it, hogging in on our concert venue time and stealing all the chicks.”
Junno scoffed at that, but his mouth was curved into a wide happy grin. “Like our fans would leave us for Jin. Statistically, there are more of us to ogle.”
All of them laughed at that, even Jin, who just reached out to smack Junno upside the head and mess up his artfully disarrayed blond hair. “Please. I’m five times hotter, so it works out in my favour, they only have to look at one place on the stage.”
They all laughed again before falling quiet, the noises of the airport passing around them as if they were encased in their own little bubble.
“Stay safe,” Maru finally said softly, leaning in and giving Jin a tight hug before stepping back.
“Yeah. Stay away from Latino gangsters,” Koki added, zipping up his suitcase and getting to his feet to grab Jin’s hand and tug him close to squeeze him tight until Jin started to protest. “Sissy,” Koki said with a grin when he let the older man go.
“Ass,” Jin replied, wondering if he should feel all his ribs to make sure they were all still in place. A surprisingly energetic pounce from Ueda almost knocked him off his feet and stole his thoughts though, and he hugged the slender man back. “Keep the rest of them in line, Uepi. They’re bound to be even more trouble now without me to blame things on.”
Ueda just grinned at that. “Nah, we still have Taguchi.”
“Hey!” Junno objected, pouting dramatically.
Jin laughed at that.
Another quick flurry of hugs were engaged in before the other five hurried to check in and get through security. Jin watched them go until he couldn’t see them anymore, and even then he didn’t move for a full five minutes.
He was happy to be living his dream, but sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t already had it and just hadn’t known.
Eventually turning away to leave, calling a cab and heading back to his hotel, he pulled the strip of photobooth images that the rest of them had insisted on taking even though they were plain in looks compared to the purikura back home.
A small smile curved his lips as he looked down at each image, the ridiculous faces his friends were making in contrast to his own somber expression.
“I’ll keep going, you guys. I won’t let you down,” he said softly touching the images once more before tucking them safely away. “Just keep the faith.”
He had a new dream now, but he would never forget the old one that had already come true.